chief executive rejected calls in 2013 to scale back business at the bank's Estonian branch, the Financial Times reported on Thursday.
The bank will on Sept. 19 publish the findings of an investigation into past activities in Estonia that could be one of the biggest money-laundering scandals in Europe.
At a meeting in October 2013, CEO Thomas Borgen was told by the head of business banking that the level of business at the bank's non-resident portfolio in Estonia was higher than rivals' and "needed to be reviewed and potentially reduced," according to minutes of the meeting seen by the newspaper.
In response, the minutes said that Borgen "emphasised the need for a middle ground, and wanted to discuss this further outside of this forum," the FT reported.
"This was the point at which a decision was made not to stop this business," the FT quoted a person involved in Danske Bank's investigation of suspicious transactions at its Estonian branch between 2007 and 2015 next as saying.
A Danske Bank spokesman said in an e-mail to Reuters that they would not be commenting until the conclusions of the investigation had been shared.
(Reporting by Teis Jensen; Editing by Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen)
By Ssebuliba Samuel.
The ministry of finance has projected a 6.2 % economic growth rate in the next financial year 2019-2020 down from the current 5.8% in 2018-2019.
This prediction comes at a time when Ugandas economic growth is atthe recovery level.
Speaking during the ongoing National budget conference, the minister for finance Matia Kasaijja said that this hope of growth is premised on improved infrastructure, attained ease of doing business, improved agriculture and others.
He said that with the current trend, the project growth rate may even increase.
By Lesley Wroughton
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The top U.S. diplomat for Africa welcomed a rapprochement between Ethiopia and Eritrea ending two decades of hostility but said concerns over Eritrea's human rights record hindered cooperation with Washington.
The leaders of Ethiopia and Eritrea re-opened crossing points on their shared border for the first time in 20 years on Tuesday, raising hopes of reduced tensions in the region.
Tibor Nagy, the U.S. State Department's assistant secretary for Africa, told a congressional hearing on Wednesday that the United States had "deliberately engaged" with Eritrea in recent months but it was too soon to talk about lifting United Nations sanctions imposed in 2009, which accused it of supporting Islamist militants in Somalia. Eritrea denied the charge.
Among concerns that the United States had raised with Eritrea was the detention of U.S. embassy local staff and several Americans for what Nagy called politically-motivated reasons.
The United States also wanted a full explanation from Eritrea over past weapons purchases from North Korea highlighted in a U.N. report, said Nagy, without elaborating.
He said the jailing of religious and political prisoners and indefinite, obligatory national service, as well as a tightly-controlled system of government were also a worry.
"Eritrea cannot assume that by saying wonderful things and opening good relations with the neighbors that will automatically lead to sanctions relief," said Nagy, a former U.S. ambassador to Ethiopia.
"There have to be concrete actions taken and we will remain very engaged and say things that may not always be popular but have to be said," he added.
Eritrea has long dismissed accusations of human rights abuses by the U.N., including alleged extrajudicial killings and torture, as "totally unfounded and without merit."
The U.N. imposed sanctions on Eritrea in 2009, backed by 13 of the 15 members of the U.N. Security Council. The sanctions included an arms embargo, travel restrictions and asset freezes for some of the country's top officials.
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But warming ties between Eritrea and Ethiopia this year and sweeping reforms by Ethiopia's new Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed have reshaped the political landscape in the Horn of Africa.
Abiy's ruling coalition has ended a state of emergency and released political prisoners, while also announcing plans to partially open up the economy to foreign investors.
In his boldest move, Abiy offered last month to make peace with Eritrea, 20 years after the neighbors started a border war that killed an estimated 80,000 people. Full-blown fighting ended by 2000, but their troops have faced off across their disputed frontier ever since.
"Up to now for the last 20-plus years Eritrea has used Ethiopia as an excuse to maintain what I would almost call a 'fortress state'," Nagy said. "With the opening of peace they really will no longer have a reason to do that."
(Reporting by Lesley Wroughton, Editing by Rosalba O'Brien)
See Also:
Britain's Secretary of State for Exiting the EU, Raab, EU's chief Brexit negotiator, Barnier and staff members attend a meeting in Brussels Britain's Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union, Dominic Raab, European Union's chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier and staff members attend a meeting at the EU Commission headquarters in Brussels, Belgium September 6, 2018. Virginia Mayo/Pool via REUTERS
By Andy Bruce
LONDON (Reuters) - Britain will publish a second batch of papers on Thursday giving the public and businesses advice on coping with disruption in case the country leaves the European Union next year with no deal on future relations with the bloc.
Mobile phone roaming charges, environmental and vehicle standards will be among the topics covered by the technical notices, the government's Brexit department said in a statement.
Recent signals from Brussels have pointed to renewed confidence that Britain and the EU can agree a deal to govern trading relations after Brexit, sending the pound up sharply against other currencies over the last couple of weeks.
Still, with the March 29 exit date nearing, the divorce agreement has yet to be finalised and the possibility of a "no deal Brexit" -- which most economists think would hurt the British economy -- remains.
The new technical notices would be published on Thursday afternoon, the Department for Exiting the European Union said.
"With six months to go until the UK leaves the European Union, we are stepping up our 'no deal' preparations so that Britain can continue to flourish, regardless of the outcome of negotiations," Brexit minister Dominic Raab said. "These technical notices are part and parcel of our sensible, pragmatic approach to preparing for all outcomes."
Last month the government published 25 of these papers out of a total of more than 80, which detailed how tariffs, financial services, state aid and pharmaceuticals would operate if Britain departs without a divorce deal.
At the start of this month, a Reuters poll of economists pointed to a one-in-four chance of a "no deal" Brexit. [ECILT/GB]
Brexit-supporting lawmakers in Prime Minister Theresa May's Conservative Party publicly pledged support for her on Wednesday after media reports of a plot to oust her by rebels unhappy with her proposals for exiting the EU.
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May's "Chequers" proposals call for free trade in goods with the EU, with Britain accepting a "common rulebook" that would apply to those goods.
"Getting a deal with the European Union is still by far and away the most likely outcome," Raab said, adding that he would continue to champion the Chequers proposals with EU Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier "as the best way of securing the deep and special partnership we want with the EU".
(editing by David Stamp)
The daughter of a British couple who died in Egypt has said she does not believe E.coli caused their deaths.
Kelly Ormerod has spoken out after Egypt's chief prosecutor said John Cooper, 69, suffered acute intestinal dysentery caused by E.coli, and his wife Susan Cooper, 63, suffered a complication linked to infection, likely to have been caused by E.coli.
The couple, from Burnley, Lancashire, died on 21 August while on holiday at the Steigenberger Aqua Magic Hotel in Hurghada with Mrs Ormerod and her child.
Mrs Ormerod told Sky News she does not believe her parents died from the bug.
She added: "The Egyptians are looking for someone to blame and I don't believe for one minute that caused their deaths.
"It is unheard of that someone dies of E.coli in such a short space of time."
Prosecutor Nabil Sadek said earlier on Wednesday that an inspection of the couple's hotel room found no toxic or harmful gas emissions or leaks.
There was also no evidence of criminal involvement in their deaths and tests on air and water at the hotel found nothing unusual, Mr Sadek said.
Travel company Thomas Cook commissioned specialists to examine the hotel following the deaths, with tests showing normal carbon monoxide levels near the couple's room and normal levels of chlorine in the swimming pool.
However, tests on the food and hygiene standards "identified a high level of E.coli and staphylococcus bacteria", the firm said.
Thomas Cook said in a statement that it noted the chief prosecutor's announcement following post-mortems.
"We have not yet seen the full report and we will need time for our own experts to review it," the travel firm said.
"We are deeply saddened by the tragic deaths of John and Susan Cooper.
"We will continue to offer every support to their daughter Kelly and the rest of their family."
Thomas Cook evacuated 300 guests from the hotel as a precaution after the deaths.
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Mrs Ormerod has previously said she found her parents seriously ill in their room.
She said: "As I opened the door, I could see that my dad was extremely ill and he was staggering back to the bed."
Her father said he felt "really, really poorly" while her mother was lying on the bed, she said.
Doctors were called and attended to Mr Cooper first as his condition was worse.
Mrs Ormerod said: "They tried basically to save his life and they couldn't - they did CPR on him but nothing could help him, nothing could save him.
"Mum had no idea what was going on - she was oblivious to what was actually happening because she was so poorly."
Mrs Cooper was taken to hospital, where she later died.
Harley needed a break from her life as a viral internet sensation and so headed to Germany on vacation.
The adventurous bird explored the cafes and views that Kronenburg had to offer and owner Anja documented their trip to keep Harleys fans up to date on her adventures. Credit: Harley the cockatoo via Storyful
Protesters stormed a meeting at Dallas City Hall on Wednesday, September 12, to demonstrate over the fatal shooting of Botham Jean in his own home by a police officer.
This video shows the protesters shouting No Justice, No Peace during the session.
Mayor Mike Rawlings called a recess after the activists began chanting, Dallas News reported. Councillors then allowed the protesters to speak after a short break, the report said.
Campaigners were calling for justice after off duty police officer Amber Guyger fatally shot the 26-year-old black man after mistakenly entering his apartment on September 6. Guyger told officers she believed Jean was a intruder into her own apartment which was located in the same building. Officers charged Guyger with manslaughter on September 9, according to the AP. Credit: Mundo Hispanico via Storyful
Sky News
Samples from spotted hyenas 22-year-old Ngozi and 23-year-old Kibo were tested at a Colorado State University laboratory. "We now know that many other species may be susceptible to COVID based on multiple reports, and we continue to use the highest level of care and precaution when working with all of our 3,000 animals and 450 different species." The United States Department of Agriculture said animals are most likely to become ill after being in close contact with a human who has COVID-19.
Thousands of governors, mayors, CEOs and experts gathered Wednesday at a problem-solving summit to tackle global warming as a monster hurricane bearing the fingerprint of climate change threatens the US eastern seaboard.
While deadlocked UN-led talks sputter towards a December summit of national leaders, the three day conference spread across San Francisco will unveil scores of initiatives supporting the transition to a global economy fueled by clean energy rather than planet-warming fossil fuels.
Dozens of cities, provinces, states and multinational companies, for example, will pledge to run on clean energy -- mostly solar or wind -- within a few decades.
Leading the way, outgoing California governor Jerry Brown signed legislation Monday committing the state to purging greenhouse gases from its electricity grid by 2045.
"We all have the opportunity and the obligation to do our part to combat climate change," he told AFP after signing the bill into law.
Megacities will report greenhouse gas emissions trending downward, and nearly 1,000 institutional investors overseeing trillions in assets have, at least in part, turned their backs on planet-warming fossil fuels.
Pension funds in Europe, the United States and Japan announced shifts in their portfolios from brown to green energy.
Thirty-four governors from nine mostly tropical nations, meanwhile, unveiled partnerships supporting indigenous efforts to sustainably manage tropical, carbon-rich forests.
A consortium of nine philanthropies, including the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations, ponied up nearly half-a-billion dollars towards the same goal.
"This summit is going to be a showcase for the whole world in terms of climate action," said Ethan Elkind, head of the climate program at the Center for Law, Energy & the Environment at the University of California, Berkeley.
'Dark and dangerous future'
Such efforts, however, have not been enough to salvage US commitments under the Paris climate treaty to reduce greenhouse gases, undermined by President Donald Trump's decision to scrap his predecessor's climate policies and promote the use of fossil fuels.
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"Current federal and real economy commitments, combined with market forces, will drive US emissions to 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2025 -- roughly two-thirds of the way to the original US target," according to a report released Wednesday.
Under the Paris deal, the United States committed to cutting its carbon pollution 26-28 percent by 2025.
"The Obama target was always going to be a stretch," co-author Paul Bodnar, managing director of the Rocky Mountain Institute, told journalists.
"This work shows definitively that states, cities and businesses have the power to bring the nation to the brink of that ambitious target through their own authorities."
But the groundswell of climate action cannot obscure the fact that global warming continues to outpace efforts to tame it, in the US and across the globe.
After remaining stable for three years, raising hopes that they had peaked, carbon dioxide emissions from human sources rose in 2017 to historic levels.
"If we do not change course by 2020, we risk missing the point where we can avoid runaway climate change," UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said earlier this week, warning of a "dark and dangerous future."
The 196-nation Paris Agreement calls for capping global warming at "well below" two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), and vows to strive for a 1.5 C limit if possible.
'We Are Still In'
But even if all nations honor voluntary carbon-cutting vows submitted in an annex, we are trending toward a world at least 3 C warmer than the preindustrial era, a scenario scientists say would tug at the fabric of civilization.
"Earth hasn't seen 3 C in three million years," said Lord Nicholas Stern, the first economist to seriously calculate the costs and benefits of taking action to halt climate change.
"With only one degree Celsius of warming so far, we are experiencing very severe effects," including deadly heatwaves, flooding, and storm surges engorged by rising seas, he told AFP.
Taking bold action now, he added, could deliver trillions of dollars in benefits, ranging from avoided costs to millions of jobs in low-carbon economies.
Trump opted out of the Paris Agreement shortly after gaining office, and has hammered away at the domestic and international climate policies of his predecessor, Barack Obama.
His administration has sought to relax pollution rules for coal-fired power plants and roll back car-mileage standards, the twin pillars of Obama's Clean Energy Plan.
US mayors, governors and business leaders -- under the banner "We Are Still In" -- have pushed back by adopting more ambitious targets at the local level.
Taken together, these jurisdictions represent about half of the US economy, the equivalent of the third-largest country in the world, according to the report.
(AFP)
ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - South Sudan's President Salva Kiir and rebel leader Riek Machar signed a peace agreement on Wednesday in the margins of a regional summit in Ethiopia.
South Sudan plunged into warfare two years after gaining independence from Sudan in 2011 when a political dispute between Kiir and Machar exploded into military confrontation.
A previous peace deal signed in 2015 fell apart a year later after clashes broke out between government forces and rebels, forcing Machar to leave Juba.
The new agreement, mediated by Sudan, reinstates Machar, a former vice-president, to his former role.
The United States, Britain and Norway, known as the Troika which oversees peace efforts, welcomed the signature of the deal by Kiir, Machar and other groups.
"We hope discussions will remain open to those who are not yet convinced of the sustainability of this agreement," they said in a statement. "We must seize this broader regional momentum to secure peace for the people of South Sudan."
(Reporting by Aaron Maasho in Addis Ababa and Denis Dumo in Juba, Writing by Ingrid Melander, Editing by Angus MacSwan)
The focus at the weekend - barring surprises around international trade or Brexit - will be on a barrage of economic data scheduled for release in the States.
Chief in importance among those will be monthly retail sales figures for August, alongside readings on import prices, industrial production and consumer confidence, starting from 1330 BST.
No major economic releases are due for release in the UK or in the Eurozone.
On the corporate side of tings, the impact from the depreciation in the rand and the recession in the country are likely to pervade South African broker Investec's trading statement, although Numis believes most of the real impact in fact still lies ahead.
Nevertheless, although analyst James Hamilton expected funds under management to be "good" in both the Asset and Wealth Management businesses, with both up by 3.0%, he said it was likely that FuM still took a hit from negative moves in exchange rates.
For iconic pub operator JD Wetherspoon meanwhile, consensus was expecting the company to report profits before tax of 105.9m and announce a dividend payout of 12.0p.
Numis on the other hand was forecasting profits of 99.9m.
"Our caution on the business reflects the fact that we do not expect lfl sales growth to be sustainable at >5% and expect a normalisation to c.3% in due course, some way below the margin-neutral level of sales growth," analyst Tim Barrett said.
"Furthermore the company has not been buying back stock at the current level (net debt/EBITDAR 4x) removing an historic source of EPS growth."
Friday September 14
INTERIMS
RM2 International S.A. (DI), Triple Point Social Housing Reit
INTERIM DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE
Apax Global Alpha Limited , Chemring Group, Domino's Pizza Group, IMI, Informa, LSL Property Services, Mondi, Moneysupermarket.com Group, North Midland Construction, Pearson, Quartix Holdings , Quiz, Synectics, Transgloble Energy Corporation NPV (DI)
INTERIM EX-DIVIDEND DATE
Zotefoams
QUARTERLY PAYMENT DATE
Carnival, Chenavari Toro Income Fund Limited NPV, Real Estate Credit Investments Ltd, RM Secured Direct Lending
INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTS
Balance of Trade (EU) (10:00)
Business Inventories (US) (15:00)
Capacity Utilisation (US) (14:15)
Import and Export Price Indices (US) (13:30)
Industrial Production (US) (14:15)
Retail Sales (US) (13:30)
U. of Michigan Confidence (Prelim) (US) (15:00)
FINALS
Wetherspoon (J.D.)
SPECIAL DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE
London & Associated Properties, Severfield
EGMS
Metminco Ltd.
AGMS
Atlantis Japan Growth Fund Ltd., Henderson Smaller Companies Inv Trust, Invesco Income Growth Trust, SVM UK Emerging Fund
FINAL DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE
Aberdeen New Dawn Investment Trust, Ashtead Group, D4T4 Solutions, Gordon Dadds Group , Greene King, London & Associated Properties, Motorpoint Group, Severfield, Triad Group, Walker Crips Group
Biopharmaceutical company Oxford Biomedica saw its shares rise on Thursday after its first half gross income more than doubled due to two huge contracts.
For the six months ended 30 June, the firm recorded gross income of 36m, up 118% from the same period last year, after receiving just shy of 20m in upfront payments from those two major deals.
Oxford signed an exclusive licensing deal worth up to $842.5m with Axovant Sciences for its OXB-102 Parkinsons disease treatment and a $105m collaboration and licence deal with Bioverativ, giving the company access to its LentiVector platform.
John Dawson, Oxford BioMedica's chief executive, said that the former deal was a successful execution of the firm's strategy to externalise product development beyond the end of the pre-clinic phase.
The deals also saw the company swing to an operational profit of 9.4m, compared with a loss of 2.2m over the period last year, and record cash of 44m, up from 14.3m at 31 December.
"Oxford BioMedica has had a transformative year so far. The company's significant progress is highlighted by the ongoing success of our collaboration with Novartis for Kymriah, as well as a number of new partnership agreements," Dawson continued.
Last summer, Oxford signed a major contract with Novartis that could be worth around $100m over three years to supply antiviral lectors used in the latters cell therapy treatment for leukaemia.
"Following these developments, we are greatly encouraged by the outlook for the full year and with the finances now in place, we are able to accelerate our capacity expansion plans to meet future demand," said Dawson.
Oxford Biomedicas shares were up 5.30% at 856.40p at 1547 BST.
The European Parliament has voted to rebuke Hungary over alleged breaches of the European Unions core values by the government of Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
Orban has been accused of attacks on the media, migrants and the rule of law, and could see his country stripped of voting rights at EU level and facing other measures if the vote is approved by national leaders.
In the initial vote there were 448 in favour of punitive action, 197 against and 48 abstentions.
The countrys ruling Fidesz party, which has taken a hard line on immigration, is said to have placed pressure on Hungarys electoral and courts systems in a report by Dutch Green MEP Judith Sargentini.
Orbans government notably refused to take in asylum seekers since the migrant crisis began in 2015, deploying soldiers to its borders and making it a criminal offence for lawyers and activists to help asylum seekers in June this year.
Hungarys parliament also passed a constitutional amendment which stated that no "alien population" can be settled in the nation.
Sargentini said that Orban "violates the values on which this union was built" and added that the vote was a "positive sign".
Ahead of the vote, Orban had furiously defended his government on Tuesday, calling the report an abuse of power and referring to the threat of punitive measures as blackmail.
The results were met with similar outrage from the government, who characterised it as a revenge by pro-immigration politicians.
Hungarian foreign minister Peter Szijjarto said: "This decision condemning Hungary and the Hungarian people was made because we Hungarians have demonstrated that migration in not a necessary process and that migration can be stopped."
The vote is unprecedented and leaves the next course of action unclear, with suspension of Hungary's voting rights is the most serious possible consequence but considered unlikely.
Engineer Ricardo on Thursday reported an increase in annual revenue driven by success in the Asian market and a record order intake.
Turnover of 380m in the year to 30 June was up 8% on the prior year as the order book ended the year at a record level of 288m, up 16% from the year before thanks to record order intake up 13% to 413m.
Underlying profit before tax was up 2% at the reported level to 39.0m, but down 1% on an organic basis. Reported PBT decreased 11% to 28.5m primarily as a result of 4.8m of costs from restructuring of the automotive businesses in the US and Germany, partially offset by 1.4m from the government's research & development claims scheme.
The fully listed firm, which develops engines, transmissions, vehicle systems and hybrid and electric systems for the automotive and defence sectors, experienced some "mixed" performance across the group, with good results within Performance Products arm and strong performance from the acquisition of Control Point Corporation but the UK Automotive business saw some order flow disruption in the second half and closed out some challenging projects, but this was partly offset by growth in other Technical Consulting businesses.
The company disposed of test facilities in Chicago and Southern Germany during the year in order to continue its move towards electrification while some changes were made and "swiftly addressed" to shore up the UK Automotive business.
CPC was integrated into Ricardos defence division, which won a number of new contracts across the globe in land defence and in the marine sector, both surface and sub-surface.
Chief executive Dave Shemmans hailed the record order book and successful acquisition and integration CPC. "Our global presence and strategy of sector diversification helped the business to mitigate the continued impact of uncertainty in the UK market."
Group net debt was cut by 31% to 26.1m and increased its total dividend 6% to 20.46p as cash and cash equivalents increased by 19% over the year to 33.1m at 30 June.
"We enter the new financial year with a more agile business and a confident and positive outlook. Ricardo's global capabilities and presence in a number of growing markets, together with its strong order book, all provide a solid foundation for continued growth," said Shemmans.
Broker Liberum was impressed that the company has addressed internal issues and achieved record order intake levels despite difficulties with the UK Automotive business, and gave a rating of buy and a target price of 1,130p for shares in the company.
Ricardos shares were down 2.88% at 808.00p at 0840 BST.
The UK government's system of electronic surveillance of its citizens has violated privacy and freedom of speech, the European Court of Human Rights ruled on Thursday.
The court ruled that the program could find out far too much about peoples habits and contacts through their online activities, it also said the system lacked oversight and safeguards which undermined privacy and free expression rights.
Judges said that the mass surveillance scheme was not exactly illegal, but its design broke two crucial elements of the European Convention on Human Rights.
The case was brought forward by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism and over a dozen human rights group after revelations from NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, who claimed that the system collected, stored and analysed private communications of millions of UK citizens as well as sharing data with American agencies among other things. These revelations were not enough to reign in the UKs intelligence system.
This landmark judgment confirming that the U.K.s mass spying breached fundamental rights vindicates Mr. Snowdens courageous whistleblowing and the tireless work of Big Brother Watch and others in our pursuit for justice, Silkie Carlo, director of Big Brother Watch, according to Fortune.
The court raised concerns about the potential deliberate targeting of journalists work by security agencies without the measures to protect their confidentiality.
The Bureaus managing editor Rachel Oldroyd welcomed the courts judgment said: The Bureau believes the freedom of the press is a vital cornerstone of democracy and that journalists must be able to protect their sources. We are particularly concerned about the chilling effect that the threat of state surveillance has on whistleblowers who want to expose wrongdoing, and this ruling will force our government to put safeguards in place. It is an extremely good day for journalism."
The Utah Board of Pardons has just announced that the woman who aided in the kidnapping of Elizabeth Smart in 2002, will be released from prison next Tuesday. Rolling Stone said that Smart said the decision to release Wanda Barzee was disappointing.
Smart is now a 30-year-old mother of two and has been working as a child safety advocate. She can't understand how someone who skipped her own parole hearing and has not cooperated could be released back into the community. One of the issues that has been brought up about release inmates, is the severity of their crimes.
For example, some believe that the Menendez brothers should be released from prison because their sentence was too severe.
Barzee aided in the kidnapping of Elizabeth Smart
CNN confirms that Barzee was sentenced to two 15-year federal and state prison terms for her participation in the kidnapping of Elizabeth Smart in 2002, as well as the attempted kidnapping of Smart's cousin. Barzee admitted to helping kidnap Smart from her home in Salt Lake City.
Elizabeth Smart has said she was raped every day during her nine months in captivity. Smart also said she was forced to drink alcohol and smoke cigarettes. Smart was eventually rescued by police in 2003 after locals recognized Mitchell and Barzee.
Parole board originally refused to count her federal sentence as time served
Smart later said in a book that she was so terrified of Mitchell and Barzee, that she was reluctant to confirm who she was to police. Wanda Barzee was sent to a federal prison in Texas and later transferred to a prison in Utah, to serve out her state sentence.
Discuss this news on Eunomia
In June, the parole board originally denied the request to count her eight years in federal prison toward her state sentence as time served. The decision was suddenly reversed this week.
According to CNN, the board released a statement saying that after receiving advice from legal counsel, they must count time served in federal custody toward Barzee's state sentence.
Elizabeth Smart released a lengthy statement to the public saying she is trying to understand how and why this happened. David Mitchell is currently serving two life sentences in federal prison for kidnapping and sexual assault.
Elizabeth Smart calls her kidnapper's early release from prison "incomprehensible." https://t.co/LzQqdEiuJS pic.twitter.com/QeEXlyfn2u Inside Edition (@InsideEdition) September 12, 2018
Elizabeth Smart has said she will speak publicly as soon as she better understands the reasoning for the early release. Smart expressed her gratitude for the support and concern she has received after the shocking news broke. Barzee was originally scheduled for release in 2024. Many legal experts are in shock and have aired their views on national news on the sudden release of Barzee. Some have called this a huge mistake. Barzee's own sister has said that she should not be getting out of prison. Kidnappings have become a serious issue in America.
The storms of rivalry and feud currently blowing through Americas internet portals rise to the wind-scale force of Wagnerian opera, but its hard to know whether the sound and fury is personal, political, or pathological. The stagings of vengeful lies to destroy a graven Facebook image, or the voicing of competitive truth that is the vitality of a democratic republic? The problem doesnt yield to zero-sum solution. Hesiods twin Strifes are permanent members of the human condition; neither of them can be impeached. The pagan Greek poet was clear on the point. During his own lifetime, he was familiar with the news and fake news of the Trojan War wandering around on the eastern Mediterranean lecture circuit, and he would have known that cursed Strife brings forth discord, nurtures evil war, killed Hector, Agamemnon, and Achilles, bears great honors togift-guzzling kings; known also that blessed Strife launched a thousand ships, spurs a man who otherwise would shirk to surpass his neighbor in racing to reach prosperity. The difficulty is the knowing which one is which, with which one a man is better advised to keep companywith mischief making, eavesdropping in the marketplace, and the spying on quarrels, or trying to do his best with the Strife that is nearer to hand.
Machiavelli during his lifetime was personally acquainted with the cursed Strife inflicted on Florence by gift-guzzling Medici princes, also with the bonfiring of the citys beloved vanities at the behest of Friar Girolamo Savonarola, a vengeful Dominican monk preaching the word of God as a howl of rage against the world, the flesh, and the devil. The history books tend to portray Machiavelli as a cynical Italian courtier supplying despots with murderous raisons detat. The spin is travesty. Machiavelli was an idealistic civil servant who was also a poet and playwright seeking to provide early sixteenth-century Florence with a republican form of government. He rated the task as the most worthy of human endeavors when supported by a citizenry animated with the will to act instead of the wish to be cared for. To promote his effort to equip Florence with a civilian militia, and acting on his authority as second chancellor of the Florentine republic, Machiavelli in 15034 encouraged both Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci to burnish the walls of the Great Council Hall with the scene of a famous battle in which the free city of Florence defeated a rival city dependent for its freedoms on hired mercenaries.
More here.
House and Senate conference committee members Sept. 5 met to discuss a three-bill minibus consisting of the fiscal year (FY) 2019 Energy and Water, Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies (MilCon-VA), and Legislative Branch appropriations bills (H.R. 5895).
This was the committees first public meeting since both chambers passed their own versions of these bills in June [see Washington Highlights, June 8 and July 20], and marked the first meeting of any conference committee to work on FY 2019 spending bills. Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) opened the meeting by noting that the committee has been able to make meaningful progress on this package, and I am optimistic that we can complete our work in short order. He concluded that success here would generate momentum for the critical work that lies ahead in passing all 12 appropriations bills.
House Ranking Member Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.) shared her concern in the failure of either chamber to adequately address the transition of the VA Choice program from mandatory to discretionary spending, to account for changes attributable to the VA MISSION Act of 2018 [see Washington Highlights, May 4]. She warned that whether we fix this issue in conference or not, at some point Congress will be forced to address this shortfall and avoid cuts to vital domestic programs, including veterans services.
The conference committee intends to finalize a compromise package as soon as Sept. 7, and then hopes to proceed to final votes in both chambers the week of September 10. Both House and Senate Appropriations Committees continue to work towards a goal of passing all 12 appropriations bills by the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30 (see related story).
When two jazz superstars team up on a selection of Gershwin tunes, the result is bound to be S Wonderful. And 11 other classy interpretations.
Veteran crooner Tony Bennett and contemporary chanteuse Diana Krall, friends for 20 years, have cherry-picked the George and Ira Gershwin catalog for Love Is Here to Stay, out Sept. 14 on Verve. The set arrives just ahead of the 120th anniversary of George Gershwins birth on Sept. 26.
The two toured together in 2000 and linked voices on a pair of Bennett's earlier releases, but this is their first full-length album collaboration.
The first time I met Diana was at the Montreal Jazz Festival, Bennett recalls in an email conversation. She was just starting to get noticed, and I was so impressed that I asked her to play piano on a song during my set, which happened to be Gershwins classic, They Cant Take That Away From Me. So its pretty remarkable that over 20 years have passed and all the while we remained good friends and she has just perfected her talents. And now on this new album we are singing that very same song together.
Paying homage to the Gershwins, a staple in his hefty catalog, was an easy call. The music of the Gershwins is all-American, he says. They captured the spirit of this country, its vitality and flair and uniqueness, and that still shows through in their lyrics and music decades later.
The Gershwin theme was Bennetts idea, and Krall was all in.
I followed his lead of choosing material, Krall says, also in an email interview. Because it was Gershwin, it was harder to narrow choices down to just one album as there are so many great songs to choose from. I think what we have is wonderful.
Tony and I have such musical ease together. Being with him is always fun. I listen so closely to what he is doing so it becomes natural, like a conversation. And of course he makes my life so glamorous you cannot blame me for being amorous!
"My One and Only and Ive Got a Crush on You are the only tracks that were never recorded previously by either artist.
Bennett and Krall submit a lively, sophisticated update of Fascinating Rhythm, a Bennett favorite. It was his first physical record, released in 1949 on Leslie Records under his stage name Joe Bari.
Bennett recalls, A wonderful jazz historian, George Simon, who at the time was editor of Metronome magazine, had started a record label and offered me the opportunity to make my first actual recording. The records A side was a song called Vieni Qui that didnt go too far, but on the B side I chose Fascinating Rhythm, since I knew you cant go wrong with Gershwin.
So it was a lucky charm that has followed me through my career. It was thought that all the copies of the record were destroyed. During my 90th birthday year, a copy of it was found, so my sons framed it and gave it to me. Its by the piano in my apartment.
He recorded title track Love Is Here to Stay for three earlier albums and didnt hesitate to revive it again.
Its truly a perfect pairing of melody and lyrics, and you can feel it when you communicate the song to an audience, Bennett says. The Gershwins crafted that song so well that it is effortless to sing. And that is the sign of true genius when you do something very difficult and make it look easy.
Bennett, who turned 92 on Aug. 3, became the oldest living artist to top the Billboard chart with the release of Duets II in 2011. He was 85. At age 88, he extended that record with No. 1 album Cheek to Cheek, his collaboration with Lady Gaga. He could hit a triple.
Krall is the only jazz artist to rack up eight No. 1 debuts on Billboards jazz album chart. She has two Grammys to Bennetts 20, but at 53, shes got decades to catch up. When her first album was released, Bennett had been singing professionally for nearly 50 years.
Im still learning from him, says Krall, whose latest album, standards collection Turn Up the Quiet, reflects her devotion to jazz roots and pioneers.
When you get the chance to work with people like Tony Bennett, who were and continue to be part of creating a unique style and art form, you thrill at the chance, she says. You carefully listen, watch, learn and experience how it feels to be so close to that person singing next to you. That voice you have known since you were born. You get all overwhelmed, excited and dizzy like your springs are all going to pop, and then you take a deep breath, step back and just sing and love every minute of it.
I felt the same way playing piano for Paul McCartney, she says. He, like Tony, makes everyone just feel so comfortable and relaxed. You find yourself having as much fun as you ever dreamed you would.
The years have affected Bennett's voice, which has deepened from tenor to baritone in recent years.
Singing is a physical activity so over time you need to make adjustments, he says. But the reason you sing a song differently has more to do with maturing as an artist communicating better with an audience, understanding the meaning of a song more deeply. I have lived longer so I have learned more, experienced more, and that impacts everything, especially on the creative side with performing.
Bennett hasnt mapped out his next recording project, but he plans to stick around. How does he want to celebrate his 100th birthday?
I would love to be on stage, singing the songs that I love from the Great American Songbook and making people feel good, he says. Thats really what its all about for me entertaining an audience so when they walk out of the theater that night, they say, I really enjoyed myself. That makes me feel good.
En espanol | 1. This is a pivotal election. All 435 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, 35 U.S. Senate seats, 36 governorships, about 80 percent of state legislative posts, and scores of mayors and judgeships are on the ballot this fall.
2. You must be a citizen to vote. American citizens whether born here or naturalized who will be at least 18 years old on Election Day are eligible to vote.
3. You must be registered in all but one state North Dakota in order to vote. Not sure if you are registered? You can check your status through your state board of elections or at vote.org. You can register in person at your local elections office, and online voter registration is available in 37 states and the District of Columbia. In some states you also can sign up at the department of motor vehicles or at armed services recruitment centers. You can find links to state voter registration websites at usa.gov.
4. There are several ways to cast your ballot:
In person. You can go to your polling place on Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 6, or take advantage of early voting in 37 states and the District of Columbia as much as 45 days before the election. Most election boards will notify you by mail of your polling place and voting times for both early voting and voting on Election Day, or you can find that information on their websites.
You can go to your polling place on Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 6, or take advantage of early voting in 37 states and the District of Columbia as much as 45 days before the election. Most election boards will notify you by mail of your polling place and voting times for both early voting and voting on Election Day, or you can find that information on their websites. Via an absentee ballot: Every state will mail you an absentee ballot upon request. The applications are often available online. Some states require you to provide a reason you cant vote in person in order to qualify for an absentee ballot, while others offer a no excuse absentee ballot. Eligible excuses include having a disability or being out of town on Election Day.
Every state will mail you an absentee ballot upon request. The applications are often available online. Some states require you to provide a reason you cant vote in person in order to qualify for an absentee ballot, while others offer a no excuse absentee ballot. Eligible excuses include having a disability or being out of town on Election Day. By mail: Oregon, Washington and Colorado have all-mail elections. Ballots are mailed to all registered voters, who can return them by mail or in person at a voting center. In 2016, California passed the Voters Choice Act, allowing its counties to conduct all-mail elections. This year, five California counties have chosen to move to this system.
5. You may need an ID to vote. In 34 states, voters must show some form of identification at the polls, such as a drivers license or passport. Some states accept non-photo IDs, like a bank statement or utility bill. In 16 states, a voters identity is verified by, for example, asking the voter to sign a card and then checking the signature with the voter registration application.
Most states have a procedure for people without acceptable identification to vote. Some ask them to sign an affidavit affirming their identity. Others let a voter cast a provisional ballot, but the voter then must bring an acceptable ID to the elections office within a specified period of time to have the vote counted.
The National Conference of State Legislatures provides more information about voter ID laws.
6. There are many ways to learn about a candidate. Many states provide sample ballots to voters before the election, and some publish voter pamphlets that include profiles and backgrounds of the candidates. AARPs Know Your Candidates guide has links to websites for all federal and statewide candidates. In addition, there are several organizations that provide election information: Votesmart.org; RealClearPolitics.com; Ballotpedia.org; and PolitiFact.org.
7. There are more than 150 measures on state ballots across the county. To learn about initiatives in your area, visit your secretary of states website. Many states ask nonpartisan groups, including AARP, to write objective descriptions of ballot initiatives, as well as give supporters and opponents the opportunity to write pro and con statements.
8. You can research how incumbents voted. If you are interested in a particular bill or topic, you can look up roll call votes for the Senate or House of Representatives on the Congress.gov page of the Library of Congress website. In addition, AARP has compiled a list of how lawmakers voted on two key health care measures that would have scuttled the Affordable Care Act.
9. Federal laws are in place to help people with disabilities vote. The Americans With Disabilities Act requires that voting be accessible to people with disabilities. Whats more, the Help America Vote Act mandates that every polling place have at least one accessible voting station and that poll workers be available to help people who need assistance. Each polling place must have equipment that can mark the ballot for someone who cannot do so and feature large type for voters with visual difficulties. Your local election officials can provide more details on the accessibility of your polling place.
10. AARP and TurboVote team up to make voting easy. You can be the difference and vote to hold the politicians accountable on issues such as Medicare, Social Security, prescription drugs, caregiving and financial security. Sign up to receive election reminders, update your registration, apply for an absentee ballot and more! Youll always know when an election is coming up in your state and have the information you need to vote with confidence.
Pierre shuts down Central in second half to rally for semifinal win
Aberdeen Central led 21-7 in the first half and 21-14 at halftime, but couldn't find the end zone after the break. Pierre picked up a 28-21 victory.
The truth is out there but nobody will go on the record about it.
Rumors are swirling and authorities are tight-lipped following the evacuation of an observatory in southwest New Mexico last week.
The National Solar Observatory in Sunspot, near Alamogordo, was evacuated last Thursday, along with a nearby post office, and has remained closed since without explanation.
According to the facilitys website, the observatory and surrounding area are closed until further notice due to unforeseen circumstances.
The Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy is addressing a security issue and has decided to temporarily vacate the facility as a precautionary measure, AURA spokeswoman Shari Lifson said in a statement. We have no further comment at this time.
In the Lincoln National Forest, the observatory has been involved in solar research since 1947. Since the closure, the news has spread nationwide with headlines like Im Definitely Not Saying Its Aliens, and lighting up internet message boards with fervor and speculation.
Lifson said AURA is working with the proper authorities, but would not name them.
The closure even caught Otero County Sheriff Benny House by surprise.
Some folks that work at the laboratory called us, asked us if we could send a deputy to stand by while they were evacuating, House said during a phone interview Wednesday. All the employees were packing up and leaving.
House said they didnt get any more answers at the observatory, but staff members told deputies the FBI had been there.
Nobody would give us any information on what was going on, House said, before the phone call cut out and repeated attempts to reach him again were unsuccessful.
FBI spokesman Frank Fisher would not confirm or deny the agencys involvement but referred all questions to AURA.
U.S. Postal Service spokesman Rod Spurgeon called the situation strange after authorities walked into the nearby post office without warning and told the clerk to evacuate.
I wasnt present so Im not sure which law enforcement agency told us to evacuate, Spurgeon said.
He said no timeline was given on when the office would be able to reopen.
Spurgeon said he is waiting on a call, but doesnt know from whom as he has not heard from any authorities or agency.
Its shrouded in mystery, he said.
An employee at the nearby Apache Point Observatory said they are also in the dark.
We know about as little as anybody, the employee said.
The employee said people in the area have seen unknown authorities hovering in helicopters and driving up in vehicles.
Nobody would know who they are you stop them and they wont tell you anyway, he said.
The employee said there is not enough information to worry about it, but the mystery continues to deepen among locals.
Thats what happens when you do something and dont tell anybody why, he said.
Copyright 2018 Albuquerque Journal
A federal magistrate judge in Albuquerque on Wednesday ordered that all five adults arrested after an Aug. 3 raid at a compound in Taos County with 11 malnourished children be detained while awaiting trial on firearms-related charges.
A government prosecutor said that at least one of the children volunteered to an FBI agent that they were being trained for jihad.
Jany Leveille, 35, a Haitian national, is charged with unlawfully possessing firearms and ammunition as an alien living illegally in the United States.
The other four Siraj Ibn Wahhaj, 40, Hujrah Wahhaj, 37, Subhanah Wahhaj, 35, and Lucas Morton, 40 are charged with conspiring to provide the weaponry to Leveille.
According to court testimony, the group believed that Leveille was an end-of-times prophet, or Maryam, who was communicating directly with God. Leveille was said to have typed a 100-page book about the groups journey across the country to New Mexico, which was referred to in testimony.
A second, hand-written book that officials say they found at the compound was titled the phases of a terrorist attack. The author wrote about how to do reconnaissance on a target and recommended doing a dry run before carrying out an attack.
Days after the compound was raided by Taos County sheriffs deputies, the body of 3-year-old Abdul-Ghani Wahhaj was found in a tunnel on the compound. The boy was Siraj Ibn Wahhajs son and had been reported by his biological mother in Georgia as being kidnapped.
Amy Sirignano, Mortons attorney, said that she and other defense attorneys plan to try to find third parties who could house the defendants when the case is litigated and then ask the district judge assigned to the case to reconsider the detention order.
Defense attorneys had asked that their clients be released to La Pasada halfway house in Albuquerque, but officials there had told the court they werent comfortable taking any members of the group because of the publicity the case has received.
This is just the first step in the case, Sirignano said. Were going to keep trying to get our clients out.
Federal Magistrate Kirtan Khalsa told attorneys for at least some of the defendants that she may consider releasing them to a third party if one comes forward and is willing to board them while the case is litigated.
The group was arrested last month on suspicion of child abuse after the raid on the compound in Amalia, near the Colorado border.
The group was found with 11 children authorities said appeared malnourished. They were placed in the custody of the state Children, Youth and Families Department, where they remain.
Abdul-Ghani suffered from a seizure disorder, and his father and Levielle were charged with child abuse resulting in death for allegedly withholding medication from the boy. Instead, Siraj Ibn Wahhaj and possibly others in the group prayed and performed ruqyahs on the child every day for six to 12 hours. A ruqyah is the term used in the Islamic faith for an exorcism.
State charges were dismissed after the Taos District Attorneys Office missed court deadlines, and the FBI then arrested the group on the federal firearms charges.
Taos prosecutors say they plan to present the case to a grand jury later this month.
Zach Ives, Siraj Ibn Wahhajs attorney, said his client hasnt received notice that he is the target of a grand jury.
Over the course of a federal detention hearing in Albuquerque on Wednesday that lasted more than five hours, FBI Special Agent Travis Taylor outlined the case against the group.
Much of his testimony was based on his reading of Leveilles book and interviews with her two teenage sons.
Taylor said after Abdul-Ghani Wahhaj was kidnapped from his mother in Georgia, he was taken to Alabama and the large group was loaded into a box trailer similar to a U-Haul trailer, which was driven to northern New Mexico.
In Amalia, they dug a large hole and drove a camper trailer into it. Lucas Morton and Subhanah Wahhaj, his wife, lived in the trailer with their children. The others stayed in the camper.
A 100-foot tunnel was dug at the site so the group could escape from law enforcement, and tires were stacked to surround and protect the compound, Taylor said.
The group also built a firing range to train in military-style tactics, he said.
Taylor said the group believed Leveille was receiving messages from God and translating them to the group. They believed Leveille was Mary, the mother of Jesus, and she would have been the dead childs mother, but his biological mother stole him from Leveilles womb using black magic, Taylor said.
Taylor said Leveille had told the group before Abdul-Ghani died that he was already dead and that they should exorcise the demons, or ginns, from his body. Then the child would be resurrected four months later as Jesus Christ. He would give them instructions on what institutions they should attack, Taylor said.
Taylor also said Siraj Ibn Wahhaj wanted to recruit an army to the compound and train them in jihad.
Assistant U.S. Attorney George Kraehe said at least one of the children found at the compound brought up on his own that they were being trained for jihad.
Defense attorneys had suggested that the testimony given by the children was unreliable since they were interviewed by FBI agents without a parent or guardian present.
Witnesses described this as jihad completely on their own, Kraehe said. Mr. Wahhaj trained his children to kill people.
Taylor said the children described being trained to fire weapons, reload while on the move, clear rooms and other military-style tactics. The children were only identified by initials, but they were all children of the five adults who are now in custody.
The bulk of the testimony had very little to do with the indictment, Ives said during the hearing, asking that his client be released.
None of the members of the group is currently facing charges related to the childs alleged kidnapping or his death.
Taylor said Abdul-Ghani died during a ruqyah, which was performed on the 3-year-old every day for six to 12 hours. He said that, based on eyewitness interviews, authorities believe that Abdul-Ghani would cry and scream, foam at the mouth and his eyes would roll into the back of his head during the rituals.
It was unclear when the boy died, but Taylor said that, after his death, the group kept the body under a bed in the trailer.
When the corpse started to decay, Taylor said, some of the children washed the body every other day to try to prevent it from smelling.
Eventually, the body was moved into a tunnel.
Its unclear when the group arrived at the compound and when Abdul-Ghani died.
The three suspects named Wahhaj are siblings. Siraj Ibn Wahhaj and Leveille are a couple, and Morton is married to Subhanah Wahhaj, who is eight months pregnant.
Copyright 2018 Albuquerque Journal
SPACEPORT AMERICA It took two maybe three heartbeats for the roar of the blastoff to race over the half mile of rugged desert terrain between the launch pad and the 60-plus spectators gathered at launch control.
By that time the 800-pound rocket was just a bright wink in the pale, early morning sky, a hurtling glimmer of fire dragging a twisting vapor trail through the glare of the rising sun.
Theyd said it would be fast.
They are using a solid fuel, so its going to jump off that pad with great exuberance, said Chris Lopez, vice president for site operations at the New Mexico-owned Spaceport America near Truth or Consequences and the White Sands Missile Range.
Launched at 7:33 a.m. Wednesday, the SpaceLoft suborbital rocket, developed by UP Aerospace, a space launch services company, tested three NASA technologies that may one day play a role in the exploration of Mars and other planets.
The origin of this is Mars, said Ethiraj Venkatapathy, senior technologist for entry systems at NASAs Ames Research Center in California. He was talking about ADEPT, one of the NASA technologies tested during Wednesdays 14-minute suborbital flight.
ADEPT stands for Adaptable Deployable Entry and Placement Technology and is an umbrella-like heat shield that ejects from a rocket and is designed to safely deploy scientific payloads, cargo, perhaps even human crews on the surface of other planets.
This is what is flying up there now, Venkatapathy said as he pointed to a model of ADEPT just minutes after the launch. We need to show that it can come down very stable and not tumble.
Made out of thickly woven and highly heat-resistant carbon fibers, supported by semi-rigid ribs, the ADEPT system fits into existing vehicle launch systems, but expands when separated from the rocket into a configuration that allows it to perform its mission.
The ADEPT model tested Wednesday spread to 30 inches in diameter after separation. Venkatapathy said a diameter of 75 to 80 feet would be required to deliver a crew of seven or so human explorers safely onto the surface of Mars, which has a lower gravity pull than Earth.
He said a thicker carbon weave and different dimensions would be needed to deliver scientific equipment to the surface of Venus, a planet with a gravity pull nearly as great as Earths, making approaches hotter and faster.
Wednesdays launch marked the first time ADEPT had been tested in flight.
The other NASA systems tested Wednesday were the Autonomous Flight Termination System, which would allow the automatic termination of flights that go astray, and a system that measures the internal environment temperature, pressure of suborbital vehicles carrying experiments.
How the three technologies fared in the testing will not be known until the payloads have been analyzed, following their recovery from their reentry site on neighboring White Sands Missile Range.
But even a test that fails is successful, because it tells you whether or not your concept is good, said Karen Barker, strategic solutions director for Spaceport America.
What is known and was celebrated Wednesday is that the launch, flight and deployment went as planned.
It appears to be successful, Bill Gutman, vice president of aerospace operations for Spaceport America, said. It reached the intended altitude, 70.9 miles, and everything is back on the ground.
He said the rocket, which is 20 feet long and 10 1/2 inches in diameter, traveled at a speed of more than 3,500 mph and came down at White Sands about 30 miles from the launch site.
We know from radar tracking that the vehicle was very close to its predicted trajectory, Gutman said. Thats always a good day.
It was very disappointing to see President Obama break with the tradition of former presidents and become so political, Vice President Mike Pence told Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace. He was complaining about Obamas broadside against President Trump.
Pence has a point. Although its not unprecedented, it is disappointing to see a former president attack a sitting president.
But for Trumps most reliable defender to invoke tradition never mind a tradition of presidential decorum as his lodestar is a very strange thing.
Pence went on to defend Trumps criticism of Attorney General Jeff Sessions for indicting two very popular Republicans, Rep. Duncan Hunter of California and Rep. Chris Collins of New York, on the grounds the Justice Department violated tradition by bringing charges so close to Election Day. They didnt.
Pences shtick, so common among defend-Trump-at-all-costs partisans, is that tradition, custom and norms should be observed by everyone but the president himself. Trump ran as a disrupter, the logic goes, so he has a mandate to disrupt as he pleases. Everyone else should adhere to the playbook.
Thats not how this works. Thats not how any of this works.
Obama was correct when he said this ugly chapter in our politics did not start with Donald Trump. He is a symptom, not the cause. Ive said the same thing for years now. For Obama, and for millions of liberals, Trump is the fruition of years of right-wing perfidy. Obama has more of a point than many of my colleagues on the right care to admit.
For instance, I never subscribed to the birther conspiracy theory that Trump exploited to such effect, but I failed to appreciate the damage being done by letting it fester. But Obama also has a massive blind spot that many on the left share. The tit-for-tat dynamic of norm-breaking goes back decades, and Obama has played his part.
When running for president in 2008 and 2012, Obama let his lieutenants demonize John McCain and Mitt Romney as racists.
In office, Obama violated not just democratic norms but also his constitutional oath by effectively granting amnesty to millions of immigrants living in the country illegally despite having insisted he did not have the power to do so. And although Obama was passionate in criticizing Trumps attacks on the news media, his administration was far from pure in this regard.
On both sides, our democratic norms arent being destroyed so much as turned into cudgels. Its as if a rage virus from a sci-fi movie has broken out and people are grabbing anything staplers, coffee mugs, chairs that can be used as a weapon.
Whats being weaponized in the current crisis are the tools that leaders are normally entrusted to protect: the rules, informal and formal, that should bind everyone. Partisans are breaking them over their knees like pool cues, ever confident that someone else started it.
Last week, the New York Times violated norms when it published an anonymous op-ed. The author of that op-ed shattered an even stronger norm by announcing that he works for the president yet struggles heroically in his or her mind to thwart the presidents anti-democratic impulses.
To some extent, White House administrations have always sought to limit a presidents worst instincts though this one is surely at the extreme but nobody has ever confessed to it, in print, while still serving. Unsurprisingly, the essay condemning the presidents erratic, norm-smashing behavior had the effect of intensifying it.
Trump demanded the Times turn the author over to the government immediately. He insists the author committed treason, and he and his cheerleaders clamor for a criminal investigation where there was no crime. When asked by Wallace about the internal hunt for the writer, the stalwart Pence dodged the question of criminality, once again falling back on norms. Every senior official in any administration takes an oath to the Constitution.
To have an individual who took that oath literally say that they work every day to frustrate the president, Pence went on, is undemocratic. Its not just deceitful, but its really an assault on our democracy. Again, Pence has a point. But he has little standing to make it.
The author of the op-ed may have taken an oath, but the president took an oath, too. Falsely accusing critics of treason, castigating law-enforcement agencies for prosecuting allies, and telling police they should rough up suspects is inconsistent with Trumps oath and Pences.
But these days, oaths, like norms, are for everybody else.
WASHINGTON Only a man who is deeply worried about his own strength would talk as much as Donald Trump does about the danger of appearing weak. Thats my biggest takeaway from reading Fear, Bob Woodwards new book about the Trump presidency. The scoops were mostly revealed last week. Whats fresh is Trumps repeated, obsessive talk about weakness.
Woodwards recounting of Trumps conversations is a study in character, or lack of it. The presidents vanity, pettiness and meanness of spirit were evident already in tweets and public statements. But here is the annotated version, as told to Woodward by Trumps aides, replete with enough F-bombs to stock an arsenal of profanity.
When Trump is on the verge of doing something conciliatory apologizing for a racist or sexist comment, for example he stops himself for fear it will show weakness. Trump prodded by his Iago-like deputy macho-man, Steve Bannon keeps insisting he must stay strong, regardless of how unprincipled it may seem.
Woodwards narrative of the weakness phobia begins at the low point of the campaign, with the revelation of the Access Hollywood tape in which Trump boasts about grabbing womens genitals. His aides have written a statement in which Trump would concede, My language was inappropriate, not acceptable for a president. Trump protests: I cant do this. This is bull-. This is weak. You guys are weak.
Trump often expresses a peculiar concern about looking like a baby. He blasts campaign manager Paul Manafort after a critical New York Times story, saying, Paul, am I a baby? Is that what youre saying, Im a baby?
Later in the campaign, after Rudy Giuliani defends Trump from the Access flap on the Sunday talk shows, Trump still isnt satisfied: Rudy, youre a baby. They took your diaper off right there. Youre like a little baby that needed to be changed. When are you going to be a man?
Anxiety about weakness mounts in the White House. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has many faults in Trumps eyes.: too friendly to Europe, too willing to accommodate Iran, too independent in his views. Trump sums up the problem at a July 2017 meeting: Rex, youre weak.
The most appalling instance of placing image above principle comes after Trumps waffling comments about the August 2017 clash between white nationalists and counter-protesters in Charlottesville, Va. Rob Porter, Trumps staff secretary, encourages the president to give a conciliatory statement. Despite fears that it looked weak, Trump follows Porters advice and, using a teleprompter, tells the nation: We must love each other, show affection for each other and unite together in condemnation of hatred, bigotry and violence.
When Fox News reports a course correction on Charlottesville, the president panics. That was the biggest fing mistake Ive made, he tells Porter. You never make those concessions. You never apologize. I didnt do anything wrong in the first place. Why look weak?
Its a Darwinian worldview. Never retreat; eat or be eaten. Woodward quotes former chief of staff Reince Priebus explaining Trump didnt assemble a team of political rivals, he put natural predators at the table. Priebus notes the inevitable result: When you put a snake and a rat and a falcon and a rabbit and a shark and a seal in a zoo without walls, things start getting nasty and bloody.
Bannon shamelessly feeds Trumps weakness fixation. Woodwards book gives Bannon a podium to explain how right he was about nearly everything involving Trump. Bannon comes across in these doubtless tape-recorded soliloquies as Trumps match as a self-promoting egomaniac. Im the director, hes the actor, Bannon says of the president. And in the end, after he had been fired, says Woodward, Bannon believed Trump had largely failed as a change agent. Not tough enough for Steve, evidently.
In my own conversations with top White House aides, Ive seen a similar obsession with shows of strength. Reversing long-standing positions on the Israeli-Palestinian dispute is a strong position. Preserving the Iran nuclear agreement is a weak position. Perception is policy.
And what about Trumps ruinous legal problems with special counsel Robert Mueller? Theyre the fault of Trumps chicken-hearted lawyers, of course. Woodward quotes the tough-guy-in-chief. I dont have any good lawyers. Ive got a bunch of lawyers who are not aggressive, who are weak, who dont have my best interests in mind, who arent loyal. Its just a disaster.
What a baby.
The ballot language for the constitutional amendment proposed to voters in 2016 was unambiguous.
Right there in black and white were the words to protect community safety by granting courts new authority to deny release on bail pending trial for dangerous defendants in felony cases while retaining the right to pretrial release for non-dangerous defendants who do not pose a flight risk.
Over and over again, the amendment was sold to voters as something that would give judges the tools needed to hold dangerous defendants in jail until their trials. Thats likely why it garnered support from 87 percent of voters casting ballots in that election.
And, yet, here we are 22 months later, scratching our heads as dangerous defendant after dangerous defendant is ordered released, with judges saying their hands are tied, given the rules theyre required to follow. The outrageous list of defendants ordered released pending their trials includes:
A man accused of beating a teen into a coma nine years earlier, leaving her blind in one eye and deaf in one ear.
A woman accused of beating and kicking her 1-year-old son so viciously doctors had to put the baby in a medical coma.
Five adults found living in a makeshift compound in Taos with 11 malnourished children, despite assertions by prosecutors that at least one of the defendants was training the children to attack various institutions with guns. Federal authorities have stepped in, and all five of these defendants are now in federal custody.
These high-profile cases fly in the face of what voters were told in 2016, so its not surprising some state lawmakers, district attorneys and others are arguing for changes to the constitutional amendment to make it easier to keep people in jail when theyre charged with certain crimes. Among the ideas floated last week was another amendment to the state Constitution to shift the burden of evidence to the defense, not prosecutors, during court hearings held to determine whether a defendant should be held before trial.
But public defenders and Supreme Court Justice Charles Daniels one of the leading proponents of the original constitutional amendment say give the new bail system time to work, arguing the amendment as written strikes the right balance between allowing detention for dangerous suspects while also protecting peoples rights to be free if they havent been convicted. That argument certainly has merit.
The questionable releases all appear to fall under judicial discretion. Its up to voters to hold judges accountable. And theres certainly going to be a period of adjustment any time you change the way youve been doing business for decades.
To its credit, the state Supreme Court has issued a series of opinions, saying judges can take into account the seriousness of the charges and accusations. Judges had been insisting their hands were tied and they were forced to release some defendants especially those without a long, violent history or other charges pending regardless of the new charges.
And just last week, the high court allowed to stand a Court of Appeals decision affirming a woman charged in connection with the alleged abuse and prostitution of her 7-year old daughter over the course of several years should remain behind bars until her trial. The district judge who issued the initial ruling to detain her, the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court all made the right call in that case, which is being prosecuted by the Attorney Generals Office. But its worth noting that the pretrial detention hearing lasted several hours, over the course of three days.
Some prosecutors complain the new system creates an extra burden on their already stretched offices, arguing the detention hearings are similar to minitrials. Its clear the courts need time to iron out the kinks in this new system and make it as efficient as possible. But the bottom line pre- and post-amendment has always been to deliver on the 2016 promise to keep the right people in jail, releasing those in nonviolent crimes who might not be able to afford to post bail while dangerous defendants in felony cases remain behind bars pending trial.
And most New Mexicans would likely agree that includes a man who nearly beat a woman to death with a shovel, a woman accused of nearly kicking her child to death, and anyone accused of starving children and training them to shoot up a school and other community institutions.
This editorial first appeared in the Albuquerque Journal. It was written by members of the editorial board and is unsigned as it represents the opinion of the newspaper rather than the writers.
Copyright 2018 Albuquerque Journal
LAS CRUCES A year after his death, Sen. Pete Domenicis legacy loomed large at his namesake public policy conference.
There was no better senator. No better man. And no better friend, said former Georgia Sen. Sam Nunn during opening remarks Wednesday in a crowded hall at the Las Cruces Convention Center.
The men served in Congress together for 24 years, arriving in Washington in the early 1970s during the Watergate era. He noted that from 1973 to 1976 there were three presidents: Richard Nixon, who resigned; Gerald Ford, who replaced him; and Jimmy Carter, who beat Ford in the November 1976 election.
This is not the first time weve gone through a little turmoil in Washington, Nunn said. The Republic will survive.
Nunn, a Democrat, said Domenicis pragmatic bipartisan approach led to significant achievements, including reducing fiscal time bombs, such as the ballooning national deficit, as well as disposing of nuclear weapons before they could get into terrorist hands as the former Soviet Union crumbled.
You never get credit for what doesnt happen or what you prevented, he said.
National security, midterm elections and immigration are the topics for this years two-day conference, which is organized by The Domenici Institute at New Mexico State University.
Regarding national security, Gen. Stephen Wilson, vice chief of staff for the U.S. Air Force, told the audience the accelerated pace of technology development is leading to disruption that requires all of us to think differently.
Wilson said changing threats also have forced America to adapt.
I contend as Americans we thought completely different on Sept. 12, 2001, he said.
Wilson and other speakers took questions from a panel of students from New Mexico universities.
Bowen Perry, a senior at Alamogordo High School in the NMSU early college program, asked about the shortage of fighter pilots.
Were working really hard on our pilot production business. Holloman Air Force Base is a key part of that, Wilson said, referring to an expansion of F-16 fighter pilot training at the base near Alamogordo.
Wilson said the Air Force also has to do a better job of retaining experienced pilots who leave the military when their service abroad takes a toll on family life at home.
On Wednesday afternoon, the discussion shifted to immigration, another important issue for Domenici, who worked for common sense immigration policies, Nunn said.
Several speakers mentioned that a 9-year-old Domenici was separated from his mother, an undocumented immigrant, who was taken away by FBI agents investigating suspected Italian sympathizers during World War II. She was released and later became a U.S. citizen.
Domenici told members of Congress about his experience after a failed effort at immigration reform.
I wasnt trying to impress anybody, Domenici said at the time. I think it just puts a little heart, a little soul into the discussion.
Alan Kraut, a professor of history at American University, recounted the moment during his talk and said Congress and the president might remember to interject a little heart and a little soul into the debate about immigration.
Kraut said fear of foreign-born people is part of Americas history. He said it has, at times, led to the rise of nativist, xenophobic and racist groups.
All of this is a kind of echo of things past that is coming around again, Kraut said of the current backlash by some groups.
Theresa Cardinal Brown, director of immigration and cross-border policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington, D.C., said extreme either/or positions prevent lawmakers from reaching a compromise.
Its not mass deportation or abolish ICE, Brown said.
We need to support the middle those members willing to work across the aisle like Senator Pete and build from there, Brown said.
Any lasting solution must come from Congress rather than court battles or depend on which president is in office, according to Brown.
The alternative is we continue to limp along with a broken, outdated, antiquated immigration system that nobody likes, she said.
A group of about two dozen demonstrators stood outside the convention center on the first day of the conference holding signs, including one that read: Immigrants make America Great.
Organizers with Justice for All said the goal was to send a message to conference participants about the plight of Dreamers and separated families.
Remember that the Dreamers are in limbo, said Cristen Biad Ismond of Justice For All. Theyre tired. Theyre starting to lose hope.
Jon Barela, CEO of the Borderplex Alliance, in his talk inside the convention center agreed Congress needs to act quickly to protect Dreamers for both humanitarian and economic reasons.
The Domenici Public Policy Conference wraps up today with a focus on the midterm elections and the changing political landscape.
The UFC can do and say what it wants, as MMAs most powerful organization virtually always does. But in Tom Vaughns mind, Nicco Montano remains the UFC womens flyweight champion until/unless she loses the title in the Octagon.
For now, though, the question is: Whats next for Montano, having been stripped of her title Friday?
Vaughn told the Journal on Wednesday he had discussed with UFC matchmaker Mick Maynard his hopes to get Montano back in the cage before the year is out, positioning her for a chance to regain the title as soon as possible.
I think one solid win puts her into a title shot, Vaughn said via email. That is not something Mick mentioned, but I believe its only right.
Montano, who trains in Albuquerque at Vaughns FIT-NHB gym, was stripped of her title hours after being taken to a Dallas hospital Friday.
Complications from her weight cut for her scheduled Saturday title defense against Valentina Shevchenko raised concerns about Montanos kidney function, prompting the trip to the hospital.
UFC President Dana White said in an interview that afternoon that Shevchenko would fight an opponent yet to be named for the vacant title on a date yet to be determined. There has been no official explanation for Montano being stripped, but the presumption is that White felt the Albuquerque fighter had held the title too long since Dec. 1 without defending it.
Her failure on Friday to safely make the 125-pound flyweight limit, presumably, was the last straw.
Since defeating Roxanne Modafferi for the inaugural UFC flyweight title belt, Montano has been plagued by injury a broken foot suffered during the filming of the Ultimate Fighter 26 and illness. She underwent a tonsillectomy and adenoid-removal surgery in late April.
Monday, in an interview on mmafighting.coms The MMA Hour, Montano said she felt pressured into accepting the fight against Shevchenko last Saturday. An October date, she said, would have allowed her body to fully recover from the surgery.
Though this was never stated, Montano said she believed the UFC might have moved to strip her of the title had she not accepted the September date.
Montano arrived in Dallas, the site of UFC 228, weighing 144 pounds 19 over the flyweight limit. But, she said, shed weighed 141 when she arrived in Las Vegas, Nev., for the Modafferi fight and made 125 without problems.
This time, she said on the MMA Hour, her body didnt respond as it has in the past.
Its all just kind of my biology at this point, she said. Its kind of hard guaranteeing anything until I know my bodys cooperating, not rebelling.
Vaughn told the Journal he tried to dissuade Maynard of any thoughts that Montano can no longer make 125 and needs to fight at the 135-pound bantamweight limit.
No question in my mind once Nicco has recovered 100 percent that she can make 125 in the future, Vaughn wrote. She has NEVER missed weight before. There have been no weight-cutting issues.
Montano said she understood the UFCs action from a business standpoint. But she wonders why as has been done in the past Shevchenkos upcoming fight is not for an interim belt with the winner then directed to fight Montano for the title.
Theres just no consistency, she said.
Vaughn said that as far as hes concerned, Shevchenko or the unnamed fighter shell be matched against cant be the true champion until that person faces Montano.
Nicco Montano is still the UFC champion in my mind, he said. UFC created the division and Nicco won the belt defeating the top-ranked women in the world (at 125 pounds).
Any belt Valentina Shevchenko fights for is an interim belt. Shes not really the champion until she can beat Nicco, which she wont do.
WASHINGTON As Hurricane Florence bore down on the U.S. on Thursday, President Donald Trump angrily churned up the devastating storm of a year earlier, disputing the official death count from Hurricane Maria and falsely accusing Democrats of inflating the Puerto Rican toll to make him look as bad as possible.
Public health experts have estimated that nearly 3,000 perished because of the effects of Maria. But Trump, whose efforts to help the island territory recover have been persistently criticized, was having none of that. He said just six to 18 people had been reported dead when he visited two weeks after the storm and suggested that many had been added later if a person died for any reason, like old age.
Trumps jarring comments, coming as the East Coast braced for a massive storm, offered fresh evidence of his resistance to criticism and his insistence on viewing large and small events through the prism of his own success or failure.
Offering up a fresh conspiracy theory, he said of the Puerto Rico count, This was done by the Democrats in order to make me look as bad as possible when I was successfully raising Billions of Dollars to help rebuild Puerto Rico.
Even some Republicans suggested the president had gone too far.
Casualties dont make a person look bad, House Speaker Paul Ryan said, breaking with the president. So I have no reason to dispute those numbers.
Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who talks to Trump often, said, I dont think its bad to say we could have done better in Puerto Rico. He also said he thought Trump sees every attack on him as sort of undercutting his legitimacy.
Especially upset were GOP politicians in Florida, a state with a substantial Puerto Rican population.
Gov. Rick Scott, who is running for the U.S. Senate, tweeted: Ive been to Puerto Rico 7 times & saw devastation firsthand. The loss of any life is tragic. A spokesman for former U.S. Rep. Ron DeSantis, who won the Florida GOP primary for governor with Trumps support, said he did not agree with Trumps tweets.
The White House defended the president.
As the President said, every death from Hurricane Maria is a horror. Before, during, and after the two massive hurricanes, the President directed the entire Administration to provide unprecedented support to Puerto Rico, said White House spokesman Hogan Gidley. President Trump was responding to the liberal media and the San Juan Mayor who sadly, have tried to exploit the devastation by pushing out a constant stream of misinformation and false accusations.
Gidley cited studies that attributed fewer than 3,000 deaths on the island to Maria.
Throughout his presidency, Trump has struggled to publicly express empathy at times of national crises, sparking outrage during his post-Maria visit when he feuded with San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz and tossed out paper towels to victims like he was shooting baskets. In recent days, Trump publicly lauded his own administrations response to Maria and privately groused over storm-related news coverage that he saw as overly focused on Puerto Rico, according to two Republican advisers close to the White House who werent authorized to speak publicly.
Puerto Ricos governor last month raised Marias official death toll from 64 to 2,975 after an independent study found that the number of people who succumbed in the sweltering aftermath had been severely undercounted. Trump dismissed the findings Thursday, tweeting: If a person died for any reason, like old age, just add them onto the list.
In fact, there are two categories of disaster deaths. Direct deaths include such fatalities as drownings in a storm surge or being crushed in a wind-toppled building. Indirect deaths are harder to count because they can include such things as heart attacks, electrocutions from downed power lines and failure to receive dialysis because the power is out and those kinds of fatalities can happen after a storm has ended but while an area is struggling to restore electricity, clean water and other health and safety services.
When Trump visited in October 2017, two weeks after the storm hit, the death toll at the time was indeed 16 people. The number was later raised to 64, but the government then commissioned an independent study to determine how many died because of post-storm conditions. That study conducted by the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University estimated 2,975 deaths.
Dr. Carlos Santos-Burgoa the lead researcher on the study and a well-known expert in global health, particularly Latin America told The Associated Press that the initial figure of 64 deaths reflected only people whose death certificates cited the storm. He said the latest figure was more accurate and stressed that every death in the six months following the storm was not attributed to the hurricane.
We are scientists. We are public health people. We are committed to the health of the population. We try to reach the truth, and we try to understand what is damaging the people in order to prevent disease, he said.
Puerto Ricos government is run by the New Progressive party, a pro-statehood, Puerto Rico-only party. Gov. Ricardo Rossello told CBS New York on Thursday that he was a Democrat but stressed that the government sought the study and said it tried to make this process a completely independent process.
State and local officials are responsible for establishing death tolls, not the federal government. After the total was revised Aug. 28, White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders issued a statement in which she did not actively dispute the revised figure.
Trumps fresh anger drew swift rebukes from elected officials and residents of the island, where blackouts remain common, 60,000 homes still have makeshift roofs and 13 percent of municipalities lack stable phone or internet service. A U.S. territory since 1898, Puerto Ricos inhabitants are citizens, though they cannot vote in presidential elections and have only one congressional representative with limited voting powers.
Cruz, the Democratic San Juan mayor who has sparred with the president, tweeted: Trump is so vain he thinks this is about him. NO IT IS NOT. Rep. Luis Gutierrez, an Illinois Democrat who spent part of his youth in Puerto Rico, spoke on the House floor in front of a printout of the Puerto Rican flag, saying Trump is delusional and incapable of empathy or basic human decency.
Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, sent a letter to the GOP majority Thursday calling for the panel to request documents from the White House relating to the Puerto Rico response.
Trump maintained as recently as Tuesday that his response to the storm was an incredible unsung success.
___
Associated Press reporters Colleen Long, Lauran Neergaard and Alan Fram in Washington, Danica Coto in San Juan, Puerto Rico, Michael Weissenstein in Havana, Cuba, and Jennifer Peltz in New York contributed to this report.
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. A panel of New Mexico judges has rejected a mans appeal of his 2013 conviction in a sex trafficking case.
The New Mexico Court of Appeals ruled Thursday that Sharoski Jackson knowingly recruited, solicited, enticed, transported or obtained a minor for commercial sexual activity.
In a statement, Attorney General Hector Balderas praised the decision, saying people who prey on vulnerable children belong behind bars.
Jacksons charges include human, promoting prostitution and contributing to the delinquency of a minor all felonies.
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A dry and warm pattern that began mid-week in central and northern New Mexico will persist next week as strong high pressure continues to build over the state, meteorologists from the National Weather Service said.
Thunderstorm chances will remain low through the weekend with storms generally favoring the higher terrain. Showers and storms will attempt to develop over the higher terrain of the Continental Divide and the central mountain chain Friday, but slow steering flow should allow most cells to rain themselves out quickly with very isolated and localized impacts.
Were not going to have very much moisture in the atmosphere to work with, so its going to be a very dry and very warm pattern across New Mexico, said Daniel Porter, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Albuquerque.
High temperatures across the state will reach several degrees above normal.
Highs in Albuquerque will warm to around 90 degrees Friday and the upper 80s Saturday and Sunday under sunny skies. Low temperatures are expected in the lower 60s each evening through Tuesday.
Meteorologists said they are keeping an eye out for the remnants of a tropical disturbance in the Gulf of Mexico that is forecast to move over the Big Bend area of Texas by Saturday.
Forecasters expect remnant tropical moisture to spread south and southwest of the Big Bend into Sunday while high pressure keeps hold over New Mexico.
Into next week, however, the forecast will likely focus on this remnant of tropical moisture over Mexico that could stage itself for a northward move into New Mexico.
Its something to monitor this week and as we go into next week, Porter said.
OLATHE, Colo. John Harold charges his Chevy through chest-high stalks of sweet corn.
Hes talking on his phone, scribbling notes. Hes got corn-harvesting crews spread across the Uncompahgre Valley, picking more than 100,000 ears a day of his trademarked Olathe Sweet.
The fields of onions need weeding. His beans, too. More than 100 fields of corn need picking. An 80-man crew is stuck on the Mexican border of Texas, waiting for temporary H2A work visas from an inexplicably closed embassy, costing him $2,500 a day as they linger. Hes got a contract with Kroger to deliver more than 30 million ears of his succulent corn to grocery stores across the country.
Harold has a lot going on.
Up on the Uncompahgre Plateau, the snow is long gone and a hot wind rattles brittle stalks. Its too early for the snow to be gone, he said on July 11, the second day of his month-long corn harvest.
Hes running low on water. But after 32 years as Colorados king of corn, he knows not to worry too hard about things beyond his control.
This here is a tough racket, and this year is a tough one, for sure, says the spry, multi-tasking 77-year-old. We knew going into this season that we had enough water storage for the crop this year. What we dont know is if well have that next year. If we dont have water, it would devastate this valley. Ill just turn in my keys to the man at the bank and let him give it a go.
Thats the mantra reverberating across agricultural communities right now as they negotiate the fourth-driest water year and the third-hottest summer in more than a century of record keeping in Colorado. If the upcoming winter isnt huge, this drought will ravage the states $40 billion agricultural industry, sending shockwaves that will be felt for years to come.
Ranchers and farmers are suffering this summer. Ditches are dry. Reservoirs are emptying earlier than ever. Springs and seeps that once sustained pastures are drying up. Cattle are heading to market months early as hay prices skyrocket and pastures wither in the rainless heat. Fruit growers are scrambling to water precious orchards that cant simply lie fallow in the way some of Harolds corn fields can.
Municipalities are amplifying long-standing efforts to increase storage after a dry season that has served as yet another exclamation point on a drought that has lingered for nearly two decades.
The City of Aspen has backed off long-held hopes to build dams and reservoirs up both Maroon Creek and Castle Creek drainages while spending almost $3 million on 61 acres near Woody Creek for a potential reservoir.
After 15-years of work, the $1.1 billion Northern Integrated Supply Project is in the final stages of federal permitting, with plans to develop the 170,000 acre-foot Glade Reservoir to capture Poudre River water and the 46,600 acre-foot Galeton Reservoir collecting off the South Platte River. Those new reservoirs and a network of pipelines would serve 11 northern Colorado communities that are expected to see their total population more than double to 500,000 by 2050.
Increasingly thirsty communities worry Colorados farmers and ranchers, who account for about 89 percent of the water used in Colorado.
But most of the water 60 percent actually, around 8.4 million acre-feet that originates in Colorado rolls out of state.
Colorado really its farmers and ranchers are stewards for increasingly bibulous downstream states. Just about all the water that feeds Arizona, Nevada and southern California originates in Colorado and the Centennial States largest users of that water toil harder with every passing season to eke savings from the gushing supply.
But even with aggressive conservation, that historic torrent of Colorado water has become a trickle in this 19th year of relentless drought, with water levels in the two major reservoirs on the over-allocated Colorado River Lake Powell and Lake Mead nearing crisis. (Upstream, reservoirs in Colorado are faring no better, with the states largest, Blue Mesa near Gunnison, at only 39 percent full, its lowest level since 1987.)
Powell is currently less than half full, down 94 feet from 2000. Lake Mead is only 38 percent full.
The Colorado River Research Group, an assembly of university professors who specialize in water management, law and science in the West, have suggested its time to rethink how those two reservoirs work together. Specifically, maybe its time to drain Powell.
If storage in Lake Powell cannot rebound in an era where the Upper Basin consumes less than two-thirds of its legal apportionment, then the crisis is already real, reads an explosive report from the research group, which projected Lake Powell would end 2018 at such a low level less than 3,600 feet, down almost 100 feet from 2000 that the Glen Canyon Dams hydropower facilities could be hindered. The impacts of that include losing funding for environmental programs supported by the dams electricity and, ultimately ending any releases heading downstream into Mead.
Our hydrology is changing; so must our water-use practices, reads the research groups report, which called the present situation at Powell untenable and revived a once radical idea of draining Powell, leaving Mead as the sole storage facility for Arizona, Nevada and California, part of a growing chorus of scientists supporting the Fill Mead First notion.
On the ground in Colorado, farmers are feeling the early signs of a looming water crisis triggered by warming temperatures that scientists say marks one of the driest 20-year periods in the past 1,200 years.
We have no water after the fifth of August. No water and no ability to get augmented water, says Ed Tuft, who planted about 4,500 new apple trees in the past two years, giving him almost 400,000 fruit trees spread across 400 acres along the trickling North Fork of the Gunnison River.
The Paonia Reservoir emptied on Aug. 5, one of the earliest dates since the 18,150-acre-foot irrigation water storage facility was built in 1962. And they started filling the reservoir in December, one of the earliest starts ever for the reservoir that waters more than 15,000 acres of farm and ranchland.
The North Fork of the Gunnison River Basin which stretches more than 33 miles from Paonia Dam to the Gunnison River below the Black Canyon and irrigates more than 15,000 acres of farm and ranchland saw snowpack fall to 52 percent of average last winter, marking one of the basins worst winters on record.
That compares to 63 percent in 2002 and 74 percent in 2012, the previous benchmarks in a prolonged drought that has lingered for 19 years.
But this season, this season is worse and our records show that, says Dixie Luke, president of the Fire Mountain Canal and Reservoir Company that distributes Paonia Reservoir water to 488 shareholders along 35 miles of ditches. We probably would not have filled that reservoir if we had started after December. We usually start mid-April but we saw this coming. No fall moisture. No snowpack. The fruit growers are struggling. Many of us are concerned about our hay crop. Things could get ugly without heavy snow this winter.
The fruit growers the minority of shareholders in the Fire Mountain network begged Luke to limit the flow through the ditch, which they hoped would prolong their irrigation season. Luke said transit loss through the earthen ditch seeping into weeds or evaporating is the same at 75 percent flow as it at 100 percent flow.
So it doesnt make sense to run less. We didnt think wed gain anything, she said.
Hogwash, says Tuft. A bit of water loss in the ditch would be worth a longer season for his fragile young trees.
When you have fruit trees and the water turns off, you are in trouble, says Tuft, who spent $250,000 renting water, building reservoirs and revamping his irrigation systems from sprinklers to drips, all of which allowed him to keep his trees wet through the first week of September.
We have managed to beg, borrow and rent water. We are old timers here so we know how to do that, says Tuft, whose family founded Leroux Creek Foods in Hotchkiss in the 1980s producing Honeycrisp apples in the North Fork Basin. But I do know quite a number of others who have not had water on their trees since Aug. 5 and I just dont see how those trees are going to survive. All the old timers I talk to around here, every one of them tells me this is the worst drought in history.
MACHO one of the leading brands in mens innerwear category in the Indian market launched its Sub-Brand MACHO HINT. To mark the launch of MACHO HINT the company has come up with a new interesting TVC featuring Tiger Shroff with a new tagline Fashion Bade Aram Se. Continuing its association with Bollywood actor Tiger Shroff, the dancing star and heartthrob of Young India is now also the Brand Ambassador for MACHO HINT. The brands message is to create a perfect mix of style and comfort and is aimed at the youthful and fashionable consumer.
The brand has an exciting new range of innerwear backed by new colors, cuts and designs. One of the main features of the new range is that, none of the prints will be repeated in the next range of products. Made from 100% premium combed cotton, the lowers and uppers guarantee to maintain shape and appearance, wash after wash. The lowers have double layer contoured pouch design for maximum support, tailored cuts for perfect fit. The trendy and the high-tech waistband help for a smooth comfortable grip. The fabric of uppers is processed for better sweat absorption, tailored cuts for perfect fit, broad folding for trendy look. The contoured armhole makes sure the free movement of hands.
The products are available in a price range from INR 150/- to INR 250/-. The products range of MACHO HINT will be available in all modern trade stores India through our strong network of dealers.
Speaking on the occasion, Mr. Sandeep Seksaria, Director, MACHO HINT said, MACHO was launched in 2005 and has become one of the highest selling & fastest growing innerwear brands in the country. Today, Macho is the leader in the mid-segment innerwear market because of its quality, innovation & path breaking communication. The company also has other popular brands such as Amul & Sporto in the innerwear & casualwear space. As part of our business strategy the brand is repositioning itself as a fashion led brand thus we are launchingMACHO HINT, a new range of mens innerwear with a touch of fashion targeting the age group of 15 to 45 years. The product range stands for flexibility, colors, comfort, quality along with a feel of luxury.
On the signing of Tiger Shroff as brand ambassador for MACHO HINT, Mr. Sandeep Seksaria further elaborated, Tiger is known for his style and fashion sense, which makes him endear to all sections of the audience across age groups, especially the youth. We are happy to continue the association with him for MACHO HINT and believe that it will resonate with the youth.
We are also launching a new TVC featuring Tiger Shroff. In this interesting and entertaining TVC Tiger transits from one frame to another displaying the new range of MACHO HINT. We are confident that the new range of products in different colors and designs will help us in reaching the masses, specially the customers who are looking for comfort and fashion. He added further.
The new TVC created by Sidewalks is enthralling, with Tiger transiting from one frame to another highlighting color, flexibility, style, etc. by way of fun activities. The TVC also captures different moods and occasions that the inner wear can be worn directly linking to comfort and elegance. The electronic campaign featuring Tiger Shroff will be aired across GECs, News Channels, Movie Channels and Music Channels. The creatives for the ad campaign have been prepared by Mr. Dharam Valia and team.
While talking about this association Tiger Shroff said, I am happy to be associated with MACHO HINT. The product range of this new brand is all about comfort and flexibility. The best part is, it looks cool and adds a style statement to an individual and can also be worn as an outerwear. As the brands punch line goes Fashion bade araam se, I personally believe that this is my actual way living. My association with this new Sub-Brand has further strengthened my relationship with the company and I am look forward for a longer association.
Agency Credits for the TVC
Client: J. G. HOSIERY PVT. LTD. (MACHO)
Creative agency: SIDEWAYS CONSULTING LLP
Creative team: ABHIJIT AWASTHI, SAMEER SOJWAL, KUSHAGRA TULI, PURVA BAKALKAR
Account Management Team: SONALI SEHGAL, ANUSHKA BRAGANZA, ANAMTA SHAIKH
Production House: HUNGRY FLIMS
Director: VIJAY SAWANT
Producer: DHARAM VALIA
Music Director: SUBHAJIT MUKHERJEE
Since 1991 the Federal Aviation Administration has granted the Tripoli Rocketry Association permission to shoot rockets up to 492,000 feet (93 miles) in the air as part of an annual event in the Black Rock Desert of Nevada. As photographer Robert Ormerod shows in the September issue of National Geographic, the amateur Wernher von Brauns have a real blast. The Tripoli Association calls the event a venue for projects that should NOT be flown publicly due to safety and legal restrictions.
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Fleeing the destructive forces of Hurricane Florences heavy rains, high winds and storm surge, the McKeithan family of Oak Island, North Carolina, and their animals arrived in Aiken late Tuesday night.
Christy and Cliff, their 13-year-old daughter, Savannah, and Cliffs parents, Jack and Sylvia, are staying in a house at Aiken Equine Rescues farm on Glenwood Drive
With them are Scooby, a beagle, and Oreo, a rabbit.
In a pasture nearby, Blu, a quarter horse, and two mustangs named Winchester and Puddin, have plenty of room to roam and graze.
Oak Island Evacuees The McKeithan family evacuated with their 3 horses from Oak Island, North Carolina from Hurricane Florence and located to the Aiken Equine Rescue.
Were very glad to be here, where we dont have to worry about getting flooded out or blown away, said Christy on Thursday morning. Right now, were just keeping an eye on the news. Weve got some friends who stayed back in the area, so were going to pray that theyre still there when we get back. Im worried more about the water than the wind.
Oak Island is on the southern coast of the Tar Heel State, about 35 miles from Wilmington.
The McKeithans have remained there during other hurricanes, but Christy said a mandatory evacuation order and Florences former Category 4 status were among the factors that convinced them to leave.
They discovered that accommodations were available at Aiken Equine Rescue through social media.
Then they hit the road in a truck pulling a horse trailer and a rental car.
Its four-hour drive, but it took us eight hours because of the traffic, Christy said. It was pretty much stop-and-go all the way. There was a lot of construction on I-20, so some of the lanes were closed.
During their time so far in Aiken, the McKeithans have been to grocery store and eaten at Chick-fil-A.
Theyve also talked about going shopping at Walmart and exploring Aiken further.
We dont know at this point when were going back, Christy said. Theyre calling for 20-plus inches of rain, so it depends on how bad the roads are flooded and when we are able to make it through. The horses are happy and couldnt care less about how long it is because theyve got food and water and they can run around.
+16 Horse family shelters in Aiken The McKeithan family evacuated with their 3 horses from Oak Island, North Carolina from Hurricane Florence and located to the Aiken Equine Rescue.
Instead of charging the McKeithans a set fee, Aiken Equine Rescue President and Operating Director Jim Rhodes is asking them to make a donation to the organization when they leave.
They are being so kind to us, said Christy, who is a director of project management for Pharmaceutical Product Development. Jim has told us that we have a home here as long as we need it. Were going to sign up to be volunteers so we can help them out as much as we can because were so grateful. A house like were staying in would normally cost $250 or $350 a night, and the cost of boarding horses can be ridiculous, depending on where you go.
Aiken Equine Rescue is at 532 Glenwood Drive. For more information, call 803-643-1850.
Power and utility companies are steadily preparing for Hurricane Florence's landfall, which is expected near the end of this week.
The Aiken Electric Cooperative is getting ready for the hurricane while keeping the 2014 ice storm in mind, the cooperative's CEO, Gary Stooksbury, said Wednesday.
"All of our personnel inside and outside the office have assigned tasks and things to do," Stooksbury said, later adding: "We are as prepared, I think, as we could be at this stage. It is very fluid."
Hurricane Florence is surging toward the Carolinas as a Category 3 storm. Florence was for several days a Category 4 storm.
During a Wednesday briefing, S.C. Gov. Henry McMaster warned of inland dangers localized flooding and maybe more rain than what Hurricane Hugo brought. Experts anticipate Florence will take a southern dive and stall over the state.
Stooksbury said the Aiken Electric Co-op's storm restoration plan is in full effect.
Every time that hurricane moves," he said, "we have to react to what's happening.
The cooperative which serves a western chunk of South Carolina, including Aiken and Edgefield counties has been working with other cooperatives across the state and has ordered additional materials ahead of the storm.
Mutual aid agreements with "a lot" of southern states also exist, Stooksbury said, and the exact logistics are being finalized.
"We are anticipating what we think we will need," the CEO said.
At least 500 lineworkers have either arrived in or are on their way to South Carolina to assist the cooperatives, according to a Wednesday press release. Another 250 out-of-state lineworkers are on standby.
South Carolina Electric & Gas, meanwhile, has nearly 2,900 personnel ready to respond to outages, according to a company statement issued Wednesday.
That count includes lineworkers and damage assessors.
Having the additional resources on standby and ready to go is essential to restoring power to our customers," SCE&G Vice President of Operations Bill Turner said in a prepared statement. "Were going to work as safely and as quickly as possible.
SCE&G maintains more than 18,000 miles of distribution lines, both above and below ground.
SRS, DOE preparing for Hurricane Florence "Federal regulations require these facilities be able to withstand extreme natural events including hurricanes and floods," the spokesperson said.
Both SCE&G and the Aiken Electric Co-op are urging customers to be prepared: stock up on water, non-perishable food, batteries and flashlights, for example.
"I just hope people take heed," Stooksbury said. "If you don't really need to be out and about, you need to stay in and be prepared."
Power outages can be reported by phone or online at 888-333-4465 or sceg.com/outages-emergencies for SCE&G; and 877-264-5368 or aikenco-op.org/report-outage for the cooperative.
Outages for both companies can be checked online.
Stooksbury did not have a predicted outage figure on Wednesday, but he did say power restoration might take a day or two.
"We certainly understand our customers' frustration," he said.
Germanys air cargo industry has been asked to transport a Grand Piano from Munich to Chile as part of charity donation to a music school on Easter Island.
Composer and film producer Roberto Fischer, based in Munich, has offered his refurbished 1903 vintage Ibach Grand Piano to the Toki Rapa Nui, School for Music and Arts, located in the Pacific on the most isolated island in the world.
Easter Island is some 2,300 miles west of South America and 1,100 miles from the nearest neighbouring island.
The transportation of the piano from Chile to the remote island is already taken care of, but Fischer is seeking help in sending the 180 cm long, 153 cm wide and 147 cm high instrument which weighs in at an estimated 500 to 1000 lbs.
Said Fischer: I watched a documentary on the Toki Rapa Nui, School for Music and Arts, which was founded as a charity music school on the most isolated island in the world.
The action the Rapa Nui took to found this music school touched me so much, that I felt I had to contribute. So I decided to donate my very own Grand Piano.
The piano means a lot to me and I strongly believe that it will be of help to the music school. Music is a strong piece of my very own life and we need musicians to carry on our culture and customs.
He added: Music connects and musicians need to stick together. Besides donating a Grand Piano, my film production company also supports a charity organization, helping educate destitute children in India.
To me sharing the luck that I had in my life is the beat that comes through musicand music doesnt differ between cast, creed or race.
Claudia Gonzalez, general coordinator for the music school, said of the piano donation: This is wonderful news. We are already praying for everything to be positive and from now on, we reiterate our gratitude for your effort and great heart.
Having that wonderful piano in our School of Music will be a great contribution for the students in Rapa Nui. Thank you.
Air cargo industry companies willing to help out should contact: Roberto Fischer, email: [email protected], Tel. +49-171-3584505, www.hippotv.de
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Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, who was once accused of being part of a deviant current in the Mahmoud Ahmadinejad administration, has been sentenced to six years and six months for acting against national security. He joins Ali Akbar Javanfekr, a former media adviser who was just sentenced to four years in prison, and a handful of other Ahmadinejad-era Cabinet members who received prison sentences.
According to Gholamhossein Ismaeli, chief prosecutor for Tehran province, Mashaei received five years for actions against national security, one year for propaganda against the government and six months for insulting judiciary officials. Ismaeli, who is also head of the appellate court for Tehran province, said the judiciary is still reviewing other charges against Mashaei.
Mashaei did not hire an attorney or defend himself in court, claiming that he did not recognize its authority. Mashaei claims his verdict was predetermined. Video of the court case, which was released Aug. 25 to a number of media outlets and state TV by the judiciary, at one point shows an angry Mashaei throwing his shirt at an individual in the courtroom.
Mashaei served in Ahmadinejads first term as head of the Cultural Heritage, Handcrafts and Tourism Organization, a relatively minor role that masks his profound influence on the former hard-line president and their long history. Mashaei was a former intelligence officer in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in the province of Kurdistan in the 1980s when he met Ahmadinejad, who was then a local governor. The two have been close since and became related when their children married each other.
The controversy over Mashaei did not erupt until Ahmadinejads second term, when Ahmadinejad appointed Mashaei as vice president. Conservative clerics accused Mashaei of promoting a nationalistic Iranian ideology rather than a religious Shiite ideology. Mashaei at one point caused a stir when he claimed that Iranians and Israelis could be friends. He was also accused of promoting a millenarianism that would supplant the clergy.
It is not unclear if Mashaei truly believed in such theories or was seeking broader popularity in a country where religious ideology is the only officially sanctioned ideology that is promoted. Regardless, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei eventually ordered Mashaei to be removed from the vice presidency. Although Ahmadinejad ultimately obeyed, he immediately appointed Mashaei as his chief of staff and kept the controversial figure within his inner circle.
Accusations that Mashaei had future plans were not unfounded. Accompanied by Ahmadinejad, he registered to run in the 2013 presidential election but was disqualified from running by the Guardian Council. He continued to pop up in online videos alongside the former president and former Vice President Hamid Baghaei. One of Mashaeis final acts before his arrest was to burn Baghaeis prison sentence verdict in front of the UK Embassy in Iran. Baghaei was sentenced to prison for 15 years over corruption charges.
Reformist Ghanoon Daily noted that the administration, which called itself the most pure in the history of Iran, continues to have its former Cabinet members sentenced to prison. Despite the jubilation in some corners of the Reformist movement, prison sentences for the closest members of former presidents and officials in Iran are not new. Nearly all administrations have suffered similar fates for various reasons.
Today President Donald Trump cut American support for the Augusta Victoria and Muqasad hospitals, about $20 million in total, and thats after he cut $368 million from [the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees] and $200 million from the Palestinian Authority and I tell you that in the end, it will be Israel to pay the price. You will be the ones to pay the salaries of the Palestinian Authoritys clerks, you will underwrite the schools and roads and health clinics and hospitals and pay wages of the doctors and nurses. Your children will go back to chasing our children in refugee camps. That is what senior Palestinian official Saeb Erekat told Al-Monitor on Sept. 8 in his office in Ramallah.
Erekat, in a mood more combative and apocalyptic than ever before, forgot his diplomatic language and spoke from the heart. President Mahmoud Abbas has two choices: He can either fight for his honor and his legacy, or he will be thrown by the Palestinian people from his office. Are you keeping track of what Trump is doing to us? You know that the only cancer treatment center [for Palestinian patients] is at the Augusta Victoria, and now, because of pressure by [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu, they have cut off $5 million that kept this center alive. You can take it out on Abbas, you can take it out on me, but why harm simple citizens, their hospitals, clinics, welfare centers? That is simply unprecedented. And whats going on in Israel? Nothing. You are deaf, dumb and blind, completely disinterested.
It took Erekat, the Palestinians chief negotiator vis-a-vis Israel and the United States, quite some time to express his deep frustrations over the situation. He hinted more than once that Abbas is ready to declare the dismantling of the Palestinian Authority or, put more simply, to give the keys back to Israel.
Abbas is slated to deliver a speech on Sept. 27 to the PLOs Executive Committee. I am certain that what he will say will interest you, Erekat said. Although Erekat refused to say so explicitly, he hinted that Abbas will return the Palestinian Authority keys back to Israel.
According to Erekat, Abbas will have to come up with the merchandise. I am secretary-general of the PLO and I tell you that if he doesnt deliver by the end of the committees session, I myself will submit my resignation. I intend to fight for my honor and my dignity. I am a man of peace, I am familiar with Israel, I have always opposed terror and violence and will keep opposing. But that doesnt mean that Im willing to become Israels collaborator or Trumps collaborator. You need a wake-up call. Perhaps if you go back to paying our services, caring for our welfare, our health and our sanitation, you will finally realize that.
I sat with Trumps team 35 times. I have documentation for each meeting. I demonstrated unprecedented patience. I have never in my life endured an experience like this. From the very beginning I asked [US envoys] Jared Kushner and Jason Greenblatt to set up a meeting for me with my Israeli counterparts. They refused. I asked them to let us conduct direct negotiations. They refused. On May 3, 2017, I received a personal promise from President Trump in the White House. He told me that he would allot one year to the peace process, and afterward, any of the parties that torpedoes the peace process would pay the price. There will be severe repercussions for that, he said, and I smiled. When he asked me why I was smiling, I told him that its the first time an American president threatens that Israel will be held responsible and subject to severe consequences. From our point of view, thats a good thing. But I asked him to promise me one thing: According to Article 7 of the interim agreement, neither side can carry out unilateral actions that can adversely affect a permanent agreement. I asked the president if he can promise us that he wont carry out such steps. I told him, Im listening to you, Im listening to [Netanyahus associate, American billionaire] Sheldon Adelson, to Ambassador Nikki Haley and Im asking you to promise not to touch the explosive issues, mainly Jerusalem, before we enter negotiations. And he promised.
On Nov. 30, I was in the White House again. I sat with the presidents team. The next day the president was supposed to sign the waiver, the presidential directive that delays relocation of the US Embassy to Jerusalem by six months. I told them that the president was scheduled to see Abbas on Nov. 5, they are already working on the meeting now. Then, Kushner said that evidently the president would not sign the waiver. I asked him if they planned on recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, he answered that they make their decisions based on American interests and policies. I made it clear to them that if such a thing will take place, they can no longer serve as honest broker. Kushner said to me, Dont threaten us. I said to him, Mr. Kushner, do you think I can possibly threaten you? Were not even a state, youre a super-power. Bilateral trade between us stands at $5 million [annually]. Were trying to bring about peace and you accuse us of threats.
Erekat reconstructed this harsh conversation as if it took place yesterday. If you cut off our funds, Israel will pay the price. Its a rich country; it can take it. For the past 24 years Israel has been using us. We are paying for all the services offered to the Palestinians. We maintain full security cooperation, while they [Israel] expand the settlements, increase land expropriation and ruin our hope. If you [the United States] dont want to continue participating in [Palestinian] expenditures at the expense of the tax-paying Americans, you are entitled to do so. That is your decision. But at the same time, you cannot continue to disinherit us, to banish our hopes, our dreams. By doing so, you ruin the moderate camp within the Palestinian people.
According to Erekat, the Americans told him in conversation: You dont understand the change that has taken place in the region.
I told them, teach me, Im a good pupil. They told me not to be sarcastic. I told them, I dont have a clue what you are referring to. Im in Washington for three months already [for medical treatment]. Everyone has visited me. Along came [Saudi Foreign Minister] Adel al-Jubeir and [he] told me that [Saudi Crown Prince] Mohammed bin Salman told him that we can talk about everything except for one thing, which we should not even mention: and that is Jerusalem. That is the red line. Afterward along came Ayman Safadi [Jordanian foreign minister] with King Abdullah and told me the exact same things. Afterward came the Qatari and Egyptian foreign ministers. Have you any idea what would happen if Abbas would accept Israeli sovereignty over Al-Aqsa in front of the Arab world? That would be like saying that [Prophet] Muhammad never existed. We Palestinians do not try to subvert the connection of the Jews to the Western Wall, to their beliefs, their religion. So why try to subvert our connection?
The American administrations offensive against the Palestinian Authority is at its height. Israel enthusiastically backs up the American political maneuvers. The strategy is to pin the Palestinians to the wall to extract the best possible deal for the Israeli side.
The problem is that this strategy could boomerang. The Palestinians have already threatened to return the keys many times. An Israeli source with expertise on the current goings-on told Al-Monitor this week on condition of anonymity: They will return the keys on the day that the Israeli right will annex the West Bank. In other words never. Nevertheless, in light of the rapidly deteriorating situation, the advanced age of Abbas and the T-junction toward which everyone is being pushed it is recommended to address the Palestinian threats seriously, this time around.
RAMALLAH, West Bank The Tale of the Secret of Oil, a new book for young readers, was launched this September at the Mahmoud Darwish museum in Ramallah, but unlike most book launches, the author, Walid Daqqa, was conspicuously absent. He wrote the book in prison, where he has been since 1986.
"The Tale of the Secret of Oil is Daqqa's first novel for children and adolescents, though he has written others in the genre known as prison literature. Published by the Tamer Institute for Community Education, it narrates the story of 12-year-old Jude, who was conceived with his fathers sperm smuggled out of prison.
The story begins as Jude prepares to see his father for the first time but receives news that his visit has been canceled due to security concerns. Heartbroken, the boy goes for a walk in the countryside, where he talks with different animals and plants: a rabbit called Samour, a bird named Abu Risha, Khanfour the cat, Abu Na the dog and finally a 1,500-year-old olive tree called Um Rumi. They all listen to his pain over the canceled visit and, in turn, tell him of their suffering under the occupation and their longing for freedom.
Um Rumi tells Jude that the Israeli authorities threatened to uproot and move her from her home in the West Bank to the city of Afula, in northern Israel. She then tells Jude a secret in the form of her sacred oil. When rubbed on his skin, the oil makes Jude invisible, helping him access his father in his cell. His father fears he is losing his mind on hearing a childs voice utter the words, I am your son, Jude."
The Sept. 3 launch, which Al-Monitor attended, was hosted by writer and youth literature specialist Ahlam Basharat, with comments from poet and head of the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Studies at Birzeit University Abdul Rahim al-Sheikh.
Basharat said that the novel explains the suffering of the children of Palestinian prisoners, who were often deprived of visiting their loved ones and grow up without seeing their father or mother. Other children detained in prisons have their childhoods ripped away from them, he said, adding that at the end of the story, Daqqa ties the idea of a literal prison to a larger one where Palestinians in the territories live under siege.
Basharat added, Daqqa has succeeded in creating a story of freedom and hope within prison through the search of his main character, Jude, who seeks freedom. This reflects the attitude of the writer, who has spent 32 years in prison but believes in hope, not in despair and frustration. This is shown in the dialogue of the imprisoned father, as he urges his son to be committed to ethics, education and freedom.
Daqqa, who is from the town of Baqa al-Gharbiyye inside the Green Line, is planning a sequel, The Tale of the Secret of the Sword, which will address the subject of refugees and return. His other books, all penned while in prison, include Fusion of Consciousness and A Parallel Time." The latter, which addresses the psychology of prisoners, was adapted into a play and staged at Haifas al-Midan Theatre.
At the age of 57, Daqqa is one of the oldest prisoners in the Israeli jails. He was arrested at the age of 25 in 1986. He was sentenced to life for setting up a military cell that kidnapped and killed an Israeli soldier in 1984. In 1999, he married journalist Sanaa Salameh while in prison. In rare permission, the Israeli authorities allowed the wedding to take place and for photos and videos during the small ceremony. After the wedding, however, he was not allowed to spend time with his wife. In an open letter from prison, published by the local media in 2011, he expressed his longing for a child yet to be born, saying hed name him Milad.
The writer has also devoted his time to education. He completed bachelor's and master's degrees in political science and is currently working on his doctorate.
The book is aimed at youth, but its connotations are large. At its core, it speaks about the essential experience of men in prison, and of children born in prison or to detained parents who are denied visits to their families, said Sheikh at the book launch. The novel exemplifies steadfastness and determination, underlining that a Palestinian heros work is not done as long as the Israeli occupation continues. Embodying this is Jude, who is born from sperm smuggled out of prison.
The symbolism in the 95-page novel refers to Jesus, the son of Mary, and the myth that he was able to heal people's wounds with oil.
The imprisoned author could not be reached for comment, but the book's prelude explains his goal in writing it: I write until I am freed from prison, with the hope of freeing the prison from me. This is followed with a dedication: To Jude, that he may live his childhood, to all the children who have become adults before their time and to all the adults who have been deprived of a taste of childhood by prison.
Saudi Arabia has hired a star Republican lawyer to stop a proposed bill that would allow the major oil-producing nation to be sued in the United States for manipulating the market.
Ted Olson, a US solicitor general during the George W. Bush administration, and who successfully argued to stop the 2000 Florida recount and legalize gay marriage, has signed a $250,000 contract with Saudi Arabia, according to newly published lobbying records.
Olson and his team at Gibson, Dunn, and Crutcher, a Washington-based law firm, will provide legal advice, publish analysis and push lawmakers to halt a proposal to make members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) vulnerable to US antitrust law if theyre seen to control prices by colluding to manipulate oil supply. Olson is eligible for another $100,000 per month if Riyadh expands the contract to include meetings with lawmakers.
The prospect of Saudi nationals facing civil and criminal liability for oil deals has Riyadh worried about the negative impact on relations with the United States. If Congress sends the bill to President Donald Trump, that could prove awkward for his administration as it tries to firm up ties with Riyadh to ward off Irans growing use of proxy militias and revive the flagging Gulf Cooperation Council, which has been thrown off balance by the Saudi-led blockade of Qatar.
The No Oil Producing and Exporting Cartels Act, or NOPEC, has bipartisan support in both chambers of Congress, with House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., calling it long overdue in a statement and the panels ranking member, Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., saying it will allow aggressive enforcement of possible scofflaws.
"The threat of scrutiny in a litigation process in US courts, with the ability to seize assets of individuals and governments, is a very serious lever of American power, said Karen Young, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute who studies the political economy of the Middle East. To use it frequently and hold it over the heads of security partners like Saudi Arabia could affect other areas of cooperation besides energy security.
According to Goodlatte, the bill would subject OPEC to US anti-trust laws, removing a state immunity shield created by legal precedent. In a 1979 decision, a US District Court in California ruled that unionized machinists lacked the authority to file a suit protesting OPECs alleged price-setting.
This isnt the first time in recent years that Saudi Arabia has fought back against the threat of litigation in US courts. In 2016, Riyadh spent millions of dollars lobbying unsuccessfully against legislation allowing families of victims to sue Riyadh for its alleged role in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in civil court.
OPEC is responsible for about 60% of the worlds oil trade, according to the US Energy Information Administration. Saudi Arabias indications of changes in production, in particular, can have a strong impact in setting prices at the pump.
Advocates for the NOPEC proposal say it will give US negotiators more leverage to get OPEC countries to increase oil production amid forthcoming US sanctions on Irans petroleum industry following Trumps withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal earlier this year.
The Saudi track record is to step in and take the market share of whoevers production has collapsed, said Ariel Cohen, a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Councils Global Energy Program, who testified before the House Judiciary Committee to support the NOPEC bill in May. This law is more of a deterrent and a tool for negotiation to make sure that they dont collude and try to cut as they did in the past.
Congress could be facing a short window to move the proposal forward: The Iran sanctions take effect in November, just as the opposition Democrats are expected to make gains in both houses.
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip The Israeli Security Agency says it has dismantled a Hamas cell, made up mostly of women, in Hebron in the southern West Bank.
The agency said Aug. 28 that over the previous few weeks it had arrested seven women it claims were recruiting members and coordinating events in mosques, working to expand Hamas' popular base and spreading incitement on social media websites. The cell, the agency said, also had been helping prisoners' families, trying to influence municipal affairs in Hebron, running charitable institutions and reaching out to foreign institutions for funding and aid to Gaza and to finance military activities. The cell included a number of men who were also arrested the week before.
Some of the cell's members were taken before the Yehuda military court and charged with being active members of an illegal organization.
Hamas administers the Gaza Strip. Some observers rule out the idea that Hamas would involve women in its political and military activities in the West Bank, which is controlled by its rival, Fatah.
Al-Monitor met with Rajaa al-Halabi, who oversees Hamas womens work in Gaza. That work includes educating young girls at the intellectual, political, humanitarian, social, media and charitable levels. She stressed that the movement believes in complementary roles for men and women.
Halabi denied the existence of any women's movement affiliated with Hamas in Hebron, due to the tension caused by the presence of Israeli soldiers and settlers there, and movement restrictions imposed by the Israeli army and the Palestinian Authority (PA). Hamas' work in the West Bank is outside Hebron and is limited to social and advocacy activities, she said, and some women members there might sometimes work on electronic campaigns.
She denied the existence of a female leadership in the West Bank, and said it wouldn't make much sense to have a womens cell in the West Bank that's run from the Gaza Strip.
Halabi said women are part of almost all of the movements departments in the Gaza Strip, and have their own structure. Their plans are approved by the movements senior leadership, she noted. Halabi explained that women are not part of a military structure within the movement, for technical reasons that she didn't elaborate on. She did say there are efforts to set up military summer camps for young women.
Halabi also denied claims that women aren't allowed in Hamas' political bureau in the Gaza Strip. Their lack of a presence so far has to do with security and technical reasons, but again, she didn't elaborate. Women are submitting applications to join the political bureau, and their requests are currently under consideration. If the Hamas leadership finds qualified candidates, it won't hesitate to take them in, she added.
The situation is different in the West Bank, however.
[Hamas] is a semi-secret organization in the West Bank. Hamas wouldn't risk any of its women members there, Halabi said.
Political analyst Assaad al-Aweiwi told Al-Monitor many Palestinians believe Hamas is no longer active in the West Bank, since many of its members have been captured by Israel or prosecuted by the PA. Israel, by claiming the existence of such a cell, is trying to convince people that Hamas is still working in full swing in the West Bank governorates, notably in Hebron, and is now turning to its female members to carry out advocacy and political activities there.
Aweiwi said it's normal for political movements such as Hamas to have a presence in Palestinian activities and among activists, especially when such activities are limited to social, advocacy, media and union events.
But, he said, It's not possible for Hamas to rely on women in military action. And it's only normal for the Israeli narrative not to be neutral, [and rather to be] filled with false claims for political purposes and strategies.
Nidal Abu Ayash, another political analyst, told Al-Monitor Israel is putting women on notice that they're now under the same scrutiny as male Palestinians.
He said Israel has been accelerating the Judaization process of the West Bank through arrests, seizure of houses, harassment and checkpoints. This is especially true in Hebron, which is one of the largest and most populated Palestinian cities, he noted.
Abu Ayash denied any connection between a women's cell in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Perhaps these women in the West Bank have indeed raised funds but have spent them in charitable work and on needy families in Hebron. I don't believe they were sent from Gaza.
Political analyst Ibrahim Habib told Al-Monitor Israel is attempting to target women activists of Hamas in the West Bank, trying to eradicate the movement by using the same old charges of terrorism or disrupting the public system. He said he expects Israel to increase its attacks and arrests of both men and women supporters of Hamas.
The PA is [also] trying to eliminate Hamas leaders and male activists in the West Bank, but it's unlikely it would assault women, [owing to] societal and cultural considerations which is not the case with Israel, Habib said.
He said it's far-fetched to think Hamas women in the West Bank and Gaza coordinate with each other. "Everyone knows that funds enter the Gaza Strip under tight and close control, so the story of female cells sending money from the West Bank doesn't add up, he added.
Hamas holds the women among its ranks in high esteem. The movements women in the West Bank are merely active in advocacy and mobilization work and are not engaged in any political or military actions, Habib concluded.
TUNISIA In an Aug. 29 joint press conference with the Association of Ivorian Students and Interns in Tunisia, Yemina Thabet, the head of the Tunisian Association for the Support of Minorities, called on the Tunisian parliament to speed up the ratification of the draft law criminalizing racism. Eight Ivorians were physically and verbally abused by Tunisians in late August.
The Tunisian Forum on Economic and Social Rights, the Euro-Mediterranean Network and the Committee for the Respect of Freedoms and Human Rights first proposed a bill to criminalize racial discrimination in Tunisia at a press conference in March 2016. In June 2016, the bill was submitted to the various parliamentary blocs.
In an Aug. 29 statement to Mosaique FM, Thabet condemned the recurrent racially motivated acts of verbal and physical abuse committed against black people in Tunisia and bemoaned the absence of a strict deterrent law to protect those who fall prey to such crimes.
Tunisia is home to 60,000 African immigrants and more than 4,000 African students. The attack on the eight Ivorians sparked renewed debate on the phenomenon of racial discrimination in the country and led human rights groups to voice concerns over the increasing rate of abuse that people from sub-Saharan Africa are facing.
On Dec. 25, 2016, a young Tunisian man that has not been publicly identified attempted to stab three Congolese students, causing them serious injuries and sparking widespread protests.
Thabet told Al-Monitor that parliaments committee on rights, freedoms and foreign relations ratified the draft law on the elimination of racial discrimination on Jan. 17, but the bill has yet to be discussed in a full parliament session. She stressed that its ratification has become urgent
Current Tunisian laws do not specifically protect immigrants from attacks or acts of racism. The bill, if enacted, will make Tunisia the second country in Africa to create a law against racial discrimination after South Africa.
Article 2 of the draft law defines racial discrimination as any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, color, descent or other forms of racial discrimination as defined in the ratified international treaties. Under the bill, Tunisia will be committed to developing national policies and plans, combating all forms of racial discrimination in all sectors, offering awareness and training programs and guaranteeing psychological and social protection to victims.
According to Article 7, the perpetrator of the offense shall be sentenced to imprisonment for a term of one to three years and a fine that ranges from 500 dinars ($185) to 3,000 dinars ($1,110). Institutions and associations that commit such crimes could face fines that range from 5,000 dinars ($1,850) to 15,000 dinars ($3,330).
Article 21 of the Tunisian Constitution already provides for the elimination of all forms of discrimination on the basis of the color of the skin. It reads, All citizens, male and female, have equal rights and duties and are equal before the law without any discrimination. But rights groups say it lacks bite. Several non-governmental associations that have been established in the wake of the January 14, 2011, revolution in Tunisia, most notably the Mnemty Association, the Adam Association for Equality and Development and the Tunisian Association for the Support of Minorities, are pushing the parliament to pass a bill to criminalize racial discrimination in Tunisia.
These associations are ramping up meetings and consultations with parties that support the draft law while organizing protest marches and awareness campaigns in cooperation with various civil society organizations. They remind listeners that Tunisia passed a law abolishing slavery in 1846, before France, which abolished it in 1848, and the United States, where the abolition of slavery engulfed the country in a civil war.
Ziad Rouwin, the general coordinator of the Mnemty Association, told Al-Monitor, The phenomenon of racial discrimination is widespread among Tunisians. Black African students are the most targeted groups in Tunisia as they face several kinds of harassment. The human rights activist added that the hate speech and racist words used against black people are no longer acceptable.
Mohamed Ali al-Khalidi, the director general of the Ministry of Relations, Constitutional Bodies, Civil Society and Human Rights, told Al-Monitor it is a shame for any discriminatory incidents to take place in Tunisia on the basis of color, race or religion. Tunisias constitution, he said, enshrines rights, freedoms and equality for all. Khalidi said that racial discrimination should be discouraged by parents and through awareness campaigns in schools.
Despite the theoretical equality that Tunisian citizens, black and white, enjoy before the law and in terms of economic and social opportunities, people still view black individuals as second-class citizens, Khalidi said.
Sociologist Abdul Sattar al-Sahbani told Al-Monitor that black people account for 15% of the Tunisian population. He explained that one of the most prominent aspects of racial discrimination is that black individuals do not hold any positions in Tunisian institutions. There is only one black member of parliament Monjia Kaskasi who represents the Ennahda movement but there is not a single black individual in any ministry.
Tunisian lawyers hope that the parliament will ratify the bill by March 21, 2019, which marks the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.
After ordering a quail appetizer at Highlands Bar and Grill, I'm torn between two wines the waiter has recommended.
"How about a half-glass of each so you can compare?" says Patrick Noling, a longtime server at the Birmingham restaurant that is considered one of the nation's best. "I mean, why not?"
Why not, indeed? Highlands is totally devoted to the guest experience.
Booking a table is difficult these days, since the James Beard Foundation bestowed one of its most prestigious annual culinary awards on Highlands (Outstanding Restaurant in America), and named Highland's head pastry chef Dolester Miles this year's national Outstanding Pastry Chef.
Winning the nation's top restaurant award in its 10th consecutive year as a finalist validates the hard work and constant search for excellence by everyone at Highlands, says Frank Stitt, a multiple Beard Award-winner himself since opening the restaurant in 1982.
Stitt says he kept thinking being a finalist was just as good as winning. "But that is not the case," he says. "Some pay attention to the nominees. But people really pay attention to the Outstanding Restaurant winner."
Birmingham suddenly is a dining destination for gastronomes across the country. The week after the awards, a couple drove from Minneapolis to experience Highlands. Desserts, led by Miles' signature Coconut Pecan Cake, have nearly doubled in sales.
With Highlands, Stitt revived Birmingham's once-moribund dining scene. The restaurant was instrumental in building today's tight relationships between local farmers and eaters. And Stitt helped make Southern cuisine a national obsession. Pardis Stitt, the chef's wife and partner whose oversight includes the front of the house, exemplifies the grace and attention to detail that makes an evening at Highlands such a special experience.
On a visit to Highlands, let servers guide you when ordering. They have an encyclopedic knowledge of the constantly-changing menu, how each element on the plate is cooked, and what libations pair best.
Highlands' menu reflects what's fresh, mainly sourced from a network of farmers, fishers, and foragers from Alabama and nearby. When asparagus grows, thick stalks are paired with crawfish tails, which reach peak flavor about the same time. The plate cradles shockingly sweet baby beets.
With the grilled quail appetizer, the Beaujolais wine that Noling recommends stands up to the lemony, salty, smoky dark meat. Fried chicken livers on the plate coax soft fruitiness from the red wine. Mint in the accompanying peach salad makes tart-citrus flavors explode in Noling's other recommended wine, Gruner Veltliner.
The expansive wine list reflects Stitt's deep expertise and his passion for sharing lesser-known bottlings and vintners. "I love introducing people to the Austrian Riesling that will change your life," he says.
Vegetables on the menu, some harvested from the Stitts' own Paradise Farm, are as carefully conceived as the meats with which they are paired.
Curried roasted cauliflower compliments the earthy, almost livery flavors of pasture-raised venison in sorghum sauce sourced from Tennessee's Muddy Pond Mill. Even a simple carrot puree grabs your attention and holds it to the end.
Miles and her pastry crew make desserts for all Stitt's restaurants, including Chez Fonfon and Bottega. Winning the Outstanding Pastry Chef award is a team effort, she says.
"Miss Dol," an employee since Highlands opened, became pastry chef in 1988. She is the creative mind behind several desserts, including the much-celebrated, four-layer Coconut Pecan Cake. Moist and rich, it is so popular a customer recently ordered a baker's dozen for a wedding.
It began as an occasional special, but quickly achieved permanence. "Customers started saying how good it was," Miles says, as she gently pats toasted coconut on one of the Chantilly cream-laced cakes. "People kept asking for it."
The food and feel at Highlands Bar and Grill is the synthesis of Stitt's culinary experiences as a child and his explorations as a young adult.
Growing up in Cullman, he ate food fresh from the dirt of his mother's family farm. He milked cows, watched his grandmother churn butter, and fondly recalls picking strawberries and asparagus with her.
His mom had a worldly palate and generous spirit. "My mother brought love and care to the table," he says. "Many say she was best cook in Cullman. She always had an extra place set in case a friend stopped by."
His parents also loved dining out. Stitt recalls going as a nine-year-old to the Four Seasons in New York, where well-dressed waiters finished dishes and flambeed desserts tableside.
"It was like Oz," Stitt recalls, staring off as if reliving the memory. "It was a magical land of excitement, formality, and fun with such exotic food."
While studying philosophy in college in California, Stitt wound up at the groundbreaking haute-Bohemian restaurant in Berkeley, Chez Panisse, working for legends Alice Waters and Jeremiah Tower.
Among the first modern restaurants to regularly promote locally produced food, Chez Panisse's greatest influence on Stitt was its chefs' cooking philosophy. "They introduced people to these provincial- and country-French dishes that were well-researched and had cultural and historical origins."
Later, Stitt worked for and soaked up knowledge in France from Richard Olney, one of the world's best food writers and experts in French ingredients, gastronomy, and wine.
Stitt layers those influences at Highlands. But he rejects the label fine dining, which suggests fanciness for fanciness' sake. Highlands has, he says, "a real lightheartedness of spirit." The atmosphere in the main dining room is akin to a dinner party with friends; in the bar it's a cocktail party with the best food and service.
"Eating at Highlands is like wearing your favorite shirt and jacket," Stitt says. "It's good quality and it's sharp. But it makes you feel comfortable."
Details
Highland Bar and Grill | 2011 11th Ave. S. (Five Points South) | 205.939.1400 | Hours: Tues.-Fri. 5:30 p.m.-10 p.m.; Sat. 5:30 p.m.-10:30 p.m. | Reservations open one month in advance | highlandsbarandgrill.com
This story appears in Birmingham magazine's September 2018 issue. Subscribe today!
Cooking Light, a food magazine that's based in Birmingham, will end its regular print run at the end of this year, merging with another publication, EatingWell.
Meredith Corp., the Iowa-based company that owns both magazines, announced the change this week. Cooking Light, a subscription magazine, has been around since 1987 and currently publishes 11 times per year. It has a loyal fan base, and has been popular with readers who want healthy recipes and nutrition tips.
An expanded version of EatingWell will debut in 2019 with the January/February issue, Meredith Corp. said. The company anticipates a blended circulation of nearly 1.8 million. The editorial team for EatingWell is based in Vermont, and will remain there, led by editor-in-chief Jessie Price, the company said.
Cooking Light isn't going away entirely; it will become a "special interest" title that publishes six times per year and is available only at newsstands. Cooking Light and EatingWell will continue to have separate online presences, as well.
"We felt there was a greater opportunity in combining forces, and we had to make a bet on one brand in that healthy lifestyle space, and we picked 'EatingWell,'" Carey Witmer, executive vice president and group publisher of Meredith Food Group, said in an interview with Forbes. "That might seem strange because it's the smaller of the two, but we love the name -- it reflects how consumers are eating food and living today."
About 200 jobs have been cut throughout the company as a result of the merger, according to reports in The Wall Street Journal and Eater. Most of the layoffs were in the New York area, Meredith spokesman Art Slusark told the Des Moines Register. Fifteen jobs were eliminated in Des Moines and 25 in Birmingham, according to the Register.
In a related move, Meredith Corp. is scaling back on Coastal Living, also based in Birmingham. The magazine will become a special interest title that's available only at newsstands.
Meredith Corp, a publishing giant that has more than a dozen food-related brands, will continue to have a presence in Birmingham.
"The Birmingham, Alabama, facility will continue to serve as a Meredith hub for food-related content creation and distribution across platforms," Meredith Corp. said via a press release. "The editorial teams of Food & Wine and Southern Living will remain based there under the purview of editors-in-chief Hunter Lewis and Sid Evans, respectively."
Meredith Corp. is streamlining operations after acquiring Time Inc. in January for $2.8 billion. Meredith cut 200 jobs in March, according to The Wall Street Journal, and said it planned to eliminate another 1,000 jobs this year.
One hundred years after he fell on another continent, members of a Talladega County man's family gathered at his grave Wednesday evening to celebrate the memory of a man they never knew.
In fact, only fragments remain of his story, pieced together like the quilt that four women of the family this month finished to commemorate his sacrifice.
He wasn't a general, and didn't leave any words written down for a memorial. We don't know what his favorite meal was, or his favorite song. All the family has are some photographs and the records of his service.
"He's our people," said Kelly Love, who is his great-grand-niece. "This man died for all of us."
His name was James Leroy Disspain, known to his family as Roy, one of more than 116,000 Americans killed in the First World War. When he died in action on Friday, Sept. 13, 1918, he was 25 years old.
Standing in Lincoln Cemetery Wednesday were about 30 family members of all ages, but they were the descendants of Disspain's siblings. The family doesn't know what became of his wife or child.
"I wish I'd paid more attention to some of those stories they told about him," Mildred Trammell, his grandniece and Kelly's mother, said.
Mike Varnes, who is his great-grand nephew, brought a family memento to the graveside - a print given to the families of those killed in action depicting "Columbia," the female representation of America popular at the time. It passed from Disspain's mother to Varnes' mother, who was eight years old when her brother died.
Varnes read the words in a quivering voice to the crowd at the grave: "Columbia gives to her son the accolade of the new chivalry of humanity."
There was an American and Alabama flag at the grave. Boy Scouts stood at attention, and a trumpet played "Taps" and "Amazing Grace." In the distance, thunder boomed even as the sun shone on the group.
What little is known about Disspain is enough to catalog the sacrifice of one man, and a family.
Before the war, he was a section foreman with Southern Railway Company's Birmingham Division, assigned to Lincoln. The family's firstborn son, he worked alongside his father.
Upon America's entry into what was then called the Great War, Disspain volunteered and served in the U.S. Army as a private in the 168th Infantry, 42nd Division. His absence put more than an economic hardship on his family. When he left Lincoln, he did not know that his wife was carrying a baby.
"We can't even begin to understand the kind of sacrifice he was making," said Fran Bowman, Trammell's sister.
He died in the Battle of Saint-Mihiel, in northeastern France, less than two months before the armistice. The battle did much to bolster the image of the American solider in the eyes of their British and French allies. More than 4,000 Americans died there. Disspain's body didn't return to Lincoln for burial until almost three years later.
Love said it took her, her mother, her aunt Fran Bowman and Pam Ayres, Love's first cousin, about two years to finish a quilt in Disspain's honor. It combines classic quilting techniques and modern touches, but also honors other members of their family for their service. The quilt is its own history lesson of how one family served its country.
In separate blocks on the quilt are stitched the names and service dates of men who served in World War II, Korea, Vietnam and peacetime. Some have the men's decorations, such as an image of the Purple Heart. The material of one square is used with the inner lining of Dave Disspain Jr.'s coat, preserving the tag that warns the wearer not to remove it.
The quilt took some research, Love said. "Some men don't like to talk about their accomplishments in the military," she explained.
In the center is a digitized rendering of Disspain's service photo, with him in his doughboy uniform.
Other squares commemorate Roy Disspain's time with Southern Railway. Still others incorporate the kind of traditional designs that one sees in quilts of the period. Trammell said women a century ago sold quilts to raise money for the war effort.
On the back of the quilt, the four women stitched their names onto a tiny flag that flew over Afghanistan in 2002.
But why would a group of women, or a family, go to such lengths to honor a man whose name and final act seems to be the only thing to outlive him?
"It's just the right thing to do," Love said. "He died for people's rights to stand, kneel, salute the flag or burn it. I don't agree with anyone that would want to kneel or burn the flag, but he died for the right to do that.
"One reason we did it was that there doesn't seem to be enough patriotism these days. This is a great country, with great people, and we need to remember that."
Friends and family of a Birmingham woman killed in a predawn shooting one week ago gathered Wednesday night to remember their loved one.
They brought blue balloons and lighted candles in memory of 26-year-old Briana Young, who they said will be remember for her smile, her jokes and her love for children. "That was my baby,'' said sister Shamika Johnson. "I wish it was me."
Young was one of two people shot inside a vehicle in Pratt City Sept. 5. Birmingham police said officers received a call about 2:30 a.m. that Wednesday after the two victims showed up at the emergency room at Princeton Baptist Medical Center. Young was pronounced dead at the hospital and a male, who is in his 40s, was seriously injured but expected to survive.
Police said investigators were able to determine the shooting happened at 10th Place and Avenue U in Pratt City. Both of the victims were in a vehicle when they were shot.
No arrests have been made. Authorities said the investigation is ongoing.
Johnson said she doesn't have many details about what led to her sister's death. She said she was told Young was with two male friends and the trio was going to Pratt City to pick up something from someone there.
When they arrived at the location, she said, a gunman came up to the vehicle and opened fire. Young was believed to have been in the passenger's seat and the male shooting victim was in the back seat.
The driver was not injured and rushed his wounded friends to the hospital. Family members believe Young was killed in some sort of setup.
Johnson hung up and called Princeton, where workers told her to call the Jefferson County Coroner's Office. "I'm hurt,'' she said. "My little sister is gone."
Young was the third-born of five sisters, with Johnson being the oldest. She previously lived in Florida but spent most of her life in Birmingham. "She was a sweet person,'' Johnson said.
Young styled hair and also was a babysitter. She also was a beloved aunt to four nephews and two nieces, with another on the way. "She couldn't have any kids of her own,'' Johnson said, "but she loved children.''
Another sister, Tiffany Johnson, said the entire family is hurting. She said her sister loved to dance "We all kind of feel alone,'' she said. "She broke our heart."
And yet another sister, LaBrittany Rutledge, said they vow to get justice for Young. "To the person who did this, turn yourself in so our family can get closure,'' Rutledge said. "As long as we know her killer is out there, we can't sleep."
Anyone with information is asked to call Birmingham homicide detectives at 205-254-1764 or Crime Stoppers at 205-254-7777.
A 35-year-old Shannon man has been charged with murder and attempted murder in a shooting outside his home earlier this week.
Jason Kevin Henderson is charged in the Monday shooting death of 62-year-old Jack Eugene Blanks and the wounding of another man whose name has not been released.
The shooting happened about 2:20 p.m. on Doss Drive off Shannon-Wenonah Road. Blanks was pronounced dead in the driveway of a home there. The second victim was taken to UAB Hospital.
Chief Deputy Randy Christian said the preliminary information from the scene was that two men came to the home with an adult female and confronted the homeowner. An argument ensued, and the homeowner fired shots striking both men.
The female fled the scene before deputies arrived. Sheriff's investigators later located and interviewed her.
The homeowner's mother, Diane Henderson, said she received a call from her son while she was at work. She and her ex-husband rushed to the scene to find it roped off with crime scene tape and surrounded by lawmen. According to her, her son sold someone a gun recently and he was supposed to supply them with a clip at a later time. He couldn't find the clip, however.
On Monday, she said, the woman and the two men came looking for the clip and some kind of argument ensued. Neighbors reported hearing multiple shots fired.
Henderson was taken to the Jefferson County Jail to await formal charges. On Wednesday, detectives presented the case to the Jefferson County District Attorney's Office and formal warrants were obtained.
Christian said neither of the victims were armed and there was no evidence to suggest Henderson shot them in self-defense. Henderson is being held in the Jefferson County jail with bond set at $750,000.
A man was injured in a hail of gunfire Thursday afternoon in Ensley.
The shooting happened just after 1 p.m. in the 4700 block of Avenue T. Birmingham police said at least one young black male was in a sedan when someone opened fire.
The car, which had more than a half dozen bullet holes in the front window, stopped in the middle of the street. The victim was taken to the hospital with injuries not believed to be life-threatening.
West Precinct Sgt. Tim McCord said the investigation is in its early stages. He said police don't yet know if anyone else was in the vehicle with the victim, or if anyone else was injured and perhaps left the scene.
Evidence technicians are scouring the street and nearby yards for shell casings and other potential evidence. McCord said it wasn't clear whether the shooter or shooters fired from another vehicle.
One resident said he was inside his home when he multiple rounds fired. McCord said the broad-daylight shooting is concerning.
"You have someone out here just opening up with gunfire,'' he said. "As far as I know, this is a quiet neighborhood. It's very surprising."
This story will be updated if more information becomes available.
The murder conviction of a woman who fatally stabbed a man at a Shelby County two years ago will stand.
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall on Thursday said the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals has upheld 35-year-old Latasha Nicole Smith's conviction. The Columbiana woman was convicted in Shelby County in April 2018 of the death of 40-year-old Keith Fulgham.
Fulgham was found dead the morning of June 6, 2016 inside a mobile home near Montevallo. He had been stabbed 15 times and was pronounced dead on the scene. Evidence at the trial showed that on the night of Fulgham's death, Smith was at a party with a number of acquaintances, including the victim.
Smith became agitated with Fulgham because he had allegedly remarked to others that he was going to do something about her owing him $15. A woman at the party tried to diffuse the situation by driving Smith home, but Smith later returned to the party armed with a knife and stabbed Fulgham multiple times.
In May, Shelby County Circuit Judge William Bostick III sentenced Smith to life in prison with the possibility of parole.
One of Smith's attorneys, Audrey Channell, immediately filed a motion for a new trial. In the motion, Channell stated that the court erred when not instructing the jury on the Stand Your Ground law. The judge denied giving the instruction because he said Smith was "engaged in the unlawful activity of public intoxication," the motion states.
"[Smith] had never been charged with public intoxication nor did the testimony support such a finding," the motion continues.
The motion also said Smith wasn't able to present evidence about Fulgham's blood alcohol levels when he died. According to the filing, a toxicology report showed Fulgham had a blood alcohol level of .180 grams, and .195 grams in his urine.
In a handwritten motion, Smith herself said she was going to appeal. "I have a mental health condition and a history of severe alcoholism. I believe that those facts as with the fact of illiteracy and incompetence I could have had or received a different outcome--where with the possibility of defense- not guilty by reason of mental defect, I would have received a fair and impartial judgment," she wrote.
"I seek relief from judgement and assistance from a local mental health center to help with literacy issues," she wrote.
The Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals issued its ruling on Friday, Sept. 7. Smith remains incarcerated at Julia Tutwiler Prison for Women.
A convicted robber who wore a Spider-Man mask in two armed holdups in Selma has been sentenced to prison.
The 32-year-old Montgomery man - Eric Bernard Robinson - pleaded guilty in May to two counts of first-degree robbery for crimes committed in 2013 at a Selma ABC Store and a Save-A-Lot grocery store. On Wednesday, said Dallas County District Attorney Michael Jackson, a judge sentenced Robinson - who earned the nickname "Spider-Man'' from lawmen - to 20 years in prison with five years to serve.
The first robbery happened June 3, 2013 at the ABC Store on Marie Foster Street. Workers told Selma police a man wearing all black with a red shirt underneath entered the store brandishing a handgun.
He demanded the clerk give him the contents of the register and when the clerk removed the till, the suspect - later identified as Robinson - grabbed and fled the scene. Employees told investigators the robber was wearing a Spider-Man mask and that he had a tattoo on the right side of his neck.
Four days later - on June 7, 2013 - Selma police responded to the holdup at Save-A-Lot. A witness told officers he was sitting in his vehicle in the parking lot when he looked in his rearview mirror and saw a man dressed in brown sweat pants and a black shirt. As the man approached the store, the witness saw him don a Spider-Man mask and then go inside carrying a gun in his right hand. He pointed a gun at the cashier on register No. 4, and then fled after taking cash.
Selma police and the U.S. Marshals Gulf Coast Regional Fugitive Task Force were working a detail nearby and set up a perimeter in search for the robbery. They spotted someone fitting the description walking in the 1800 block of Martin Luther King Jr. Street. He was taken into custody.
A search of the area turned up clothing matching the initial description provided by witnesses. A Spider-Man mask was among the found items. Robinson was in possession of $523 in cash.
In addition to five years in prison, Dallas County Circuit Judge Collins Pettaway sentenced Robinson to serve five years' probation once his sentence is complete. "It looks,'' Jackson said, "like only prison can hold a spider."
Heroin, marijuana, cocaine and guns were seized when lawmen arrested four people during a drug-trafficking investigation in the Huntsville area this week, authorities said.
Federal, state and local law enforcement in Decatur and Huntsville served eight search warrants on Tuesday, said Lt. Michael Johnson, a spokesman for the local drug task force.
The arrests and seizures stem from an investigation into Thomas Michael Watson and his involvement with a heroin-trafficking organization, authorities said. Watson is charged with eight counts of heroin trafficking, records show. He's held in the Madison County jail with bail set at $2.6 million.
The other people arrested are:
Bria Sidae Bradford, 24, who is charged with heroin trafficking. She's been released on $25,000 bail.
Alphonso High, 25, who is charged with possession of heroin. He's been released on $2,500 bail.
Randall Darneil Fletcher, 32, who is charged with cocaine trafficking and misdemeanor marijuana possession. He's been released on $5,500 bail.
Police said more arrests are expected.
The Drug Enforcement Agency, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Alabama Law Enforcement Agency, Madison-Morgan County STAC Team, Huntsville police and Decatur police were involved in the searches.
A Huntsville man, who paid more than $20,000 to cover up evidence of child sex crimes, has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for molesting a smuggled Honduran teen, authorities said.
Billy Edwards, 64, was sentenced today in federal court on charges of commercial sex trafficking, coercion and enticement of a minor to engage in prostitution and being a convicted felon in possession of firearms. He pleaded guilty earlier this year.
The victim was a teen, who was smuggled into the U.S. by his father, authorities said. The father, Darwin Moises Amador-Zepeda, a Honduran national, today pleaded guilty to coercion and enticement of a minor to engage in prostitution, the Department of Justice said. His sentencing hasn't yet been scheduled.
U.S. Attorney Jay Town called the crimes "disgusting" and "unconscionable."
"Billy Edwards and this child's father entered an unholy alliance to take advantage of a vulnerable teenage boy," Jay Town said in a news release. "Edwards gave no sanctuary to this young victim and he will have the next 15 years in a federal prison without the sanctuary of parole."
In 2014, Edwards began paying to molest the child, federal prosecutors said. During the ongoing sexual trafficking of the child, Edwards often paid the boy's father by check, and the two men used cell phones to induce or coerce the child to engage in sexually explicit conduct, according to court records.
After several months, Edwards stopped paying, and the boy's father began blackmailing Edwards, according to the DOJ. After the father threatened to show law enforcement incriminating evidence on a cell phone, the men agreed Edwards would pay $20,000, according to court records.
The case was investigated by the Madison County sheriff's office, Madison County prosecutors and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Xavier Carter and Carla Ward are prosecuting.
In 2017, Amador-Zepeda pleaded guilty to a separate charge of illegally re-entering the United States after previous deportation. He served about five months in prison in the illegal re-entry case, the DOJ said.
Though the 2019 fiscal year doesn't start till Oct. 1, Alabama State Superintendent Eric Mackey proposed a budget for 2020 that would increase spending on K-12 education by more than $158 million.
The bulk of that increase is for school nurses, lowering class sizes in fourth through sixth grades, and funding school security and the cost to operate schools.
Gov. Kay Ivey attended the state board of education work session where the proposal was discussed and said Mackey's proposal lines up with priorities in her education initiatives.
While the $20 million he proposes to add for school security measures won't cover the full cost of the recommendations of her safety task force, she said, "It will sure help."
"You let the local folks make the decision of where to spend the money," Ivey said, adding it could be spent on anything related to school safety, including the cost of funding a school resource officer or on something like surveillance.
Mackey said that amount equals about $20 per student statewide that schools can spend on security measures, but none of that state funding could be spent on guns to arm administrators under Ivey's Sentry Program. Mackey said the regulations for the Sentry Program call for local tax dollars to be used to pay for the firearm and safe in which the gun must be stored.
Mackey, who was appointed in April, said he talked with state board members and superintendents in local school districts across the state about their priorities before crafting this proposal.
State lawmakers passed a $6.6 billion education budget for 2019, the largest in nearly a decade, which included a 2.5 percent raise for teachers. Lawmakers will convene in March to consider the 2020 budget.
The biggest single area of increase was the proposal to spend $30 million more for school nurses, nearly doubling the current $31 million allocation.
"There is no area that is growing faster than health needs," Mackey said, and school districts are spending $35 million in local tax dollars to fund that cost. So that $30 million increase won't even fully cover the current cost, he said, but it will free up funding that school officials can then use to improve and expand academic programs like computer science and Advanced Placement offerings.
A $5 million increase, from $44 million to $49 million, in literacy and reading would be used to expand dyslexia support and the Alabama Reading Initiative, Mackey said.
A $2 million increase in math spending would be used to support the rollout of a new math curriculum, the first since 2010, he said.
Mackey said the additional $21.9 million needed to add 243 more classroom teachers in fourth through sixth grades is something state board members and superintendents said is a high priority.
Transportation is always an issue, particularly for large counties and rural areas, he said, and the $11 million increase for transportation would be divided between operations ($6 million) and for the purchase of new buses ($5 million).
Mackey proposed an increase of $19.8 million for school officials to pay utility and other operations costs to keep schools up and running.
An increase of $16.8 million that schools could use to pay for special education for preschool students would free up local money schools could then use for special education in upper grades, he said.
Mackey said increasing the amount of money given to classroom teachers for student materials from $536 to $600 will cost an additional $3 million but allows teachers to determine what materials students in their classrooms need.
"There's nothing more important than giving schools money that they can spend," Mackey said.
Other increases include upping funding for classroom technology by $2.3 million, from $300 to $350 per teacher unit and increasing funding for professional development, which typically pays the cost of teacher training or the cost of substitute teacher while a teacher is undergoing training, from $90 to $100 per unit at a cost around a half a million dollars.
Increasing funding for school libraries by $5 million statewide, raising the allocation from $96 to $200 for each teacher unit, is a "big jump," Mackey said, "But we've got to invest in books."
"Having great reading teachers is important," Mackey said, "but you've got to have books in the library for them to read."
The board is expected to vote on the budget proposal during the Oct. 11 meeting. The budget must be received by the Governor before Nov. 1.
FY20 Alabama Department of Education budget proposal by Trisha Powell Crain on Scribd
Albertville police are searching for a missing 71-year-old man, the police department said in a Facebook post.
David Cornelius was last seen in the area of the Rock Store near Edmondson Street and Sectionline Road. Police said the man is a Dementia patient.
He was last seen wearing navy pants, a navy shirt and a camouflage Alabama cap. Cornelius is a 6-foot-tall white male with a gray hair and gray beard. He weighs about 190 pounds.
If you make contact with him, call Albertville police at 256-878-1212.
UPDATE, 8:50 a.m.: At one point on Thursday night, Florence knocked the camera on the "Frying Pan Tower" off-line.
You can check out the latest on Florence by clicking here.
The camera is on an old Coast Guard light tower, located 32 miles off the coast of southeastern North Carolina. Current conditions show the American flag at the site taking a beating as the winds pickup ahead of the hurricane's projected landfall sometime late tonight or tomorrow.
The camera view comes from the tower's helipad, located about 100 feet above the water.
The Frying Pan Tower is a lighthouse established in 1964 by the U.S. Coast Guard. It was originally built to warn ships of the shallow waters, called the Frying Pan Shoals, nearby. The lighthouse is only accessible by boat or helicopter.
The tower was auctioned off by the Coast Guard in 2010 and currently functions as a bed and breakfast.
It is now operated by Richard Neal, a software sales engineer, who purchased the tower at a government auction for $85,000. Neal said he plans to ride out the storm at his nearby home in Charlotte, North Carolina but spent hurricanes Arthur, Matthew and Sandy on the tower.
The NAACP has suspended the membership and leadership of beleaguered Birmingham chapter president Hezekiah Jackson, pending results of the organization's investigation into allegations he conspired to convince African-American residents in north Birmingham to not get their soil tested for toxins from nearby manufacturing plants, the long-time civil right organization confirmed to AL.com on Wednesday.
"On September 7, 2018, NAACP President and CEO Derrick Johnson issued a letter to Mr. Hezekiah Jackson, President of the Metro Birmingham Branch, notifying Mr. Jackson that his membership in the NAACP and his leadership of the Branch were being immediately suspended pending a hearing into allegations (1) that he advised homeowners not to have their soil tested by the EPA for potentially deadly toxins, and (2) that he accepted cash payments for engaging in this activity," the organization said in a statement. "Mr. Jackson was directed to immediately cease holding himself out as a member of the Association and as President of the Branch."
Jackson was informed of his ouster on Wednesday in a letter from the national office in Baltimore.
On Thursday, Jackson sent an email to AL.com hat had been sent to other media outlets the day before. In it, he said, in part: I welcome the opportunity for a full hearing on this matter for which I expect to be fully exonerated.
"No one has produced any proof of my emphatically saying to anyone 'DO NOT HAVE YOUR SOIL TESTED' or me being compensated in cash or otherwise to which I testified under oath before the Grand Jury in July, 2017."
Last week Alabama NAACP Conference president Benard Simleton said the state organization had been in "discussions" with the national organization regarding Jackson, but that the power to remove Jackson resided with the Board of Directors and President of the long-time civil rights group.
Testimony and evidence implicating Jackson was revealed during the recent trial of Balch & Bingham attorney Joel Gilbert and Drummond Company VP Dave Roberson, both of whom were convicted on six criminal charges: bribery, conspiracy, money laundering and three counts of honest services wire fraud.
In sworn testimony, former State Representative Oliver Robinson, who plead guilty to charges related to accepting bribes to prevent citizens from getting their soil tested, and his daughter, Amanda Robinson, said they paid Jackson in cash to help them fulfill their task.
Invoices also surfaced during the trial showing Jackson was paid $2,000 for "community engagement" in November 2015.
Last month, AL.com's John Archibald published an email from Jackson to Inglenook neighborhood officers, sent on on Nov. 16, 2015 asking for a meeting. It read: "It is our position that the (EPA) activity has not been to the benefit of the affected citizens and property owners."
Also published were excerpts from minutes of a January 2016 meeting from neighborhood president Carolyn Cauthen:
"Hezekiah Jackson, NAACP President contact (sic) us about EPA wanting to come into the Inglenook community to discuss pollution in our area. If this happen this will make your property value decrease. We do not want this to happen in Inglenook."
Nonetheless, local activists called for Jackson's ouster, as have others.
This story was updated on Thursday, Sept 13, with Jackson's response to the suspension
Rain bands and hurricane-force winds continued to spread into the Carolinas on Thursday night as Hurricane Florence moved ever closer to making landfall.
Hurricane conditions were being reported on the North Carolina coast, with deadly storm surge and catastrophic inland flooding still very real possibilities.
And Florence has slowed down as predicted, giving the storm more time to pound coastal areas with large waves and storm surge.
Landfall is expected on Friday, according to the National Hurricane Center
As of 10 p.m. CDT Thursday Hurricane Florence was located about 60 miles east-southeast of Wilmington, N.C., and was moving northwest at 6 mph.
Florence's winds decreased to 90 mph, making it a Category 1 hurricane.
The hurricane center said little change in strength is expected before Florence moves inland on Friday.
Hurricane-force winds have been reported along the North Carolina coast, as well as storm surge and flooding.
A Weatherflow station at Fort Macon, N.C., recently reported a sustained wind of 77 mph with a gust to 100 mph, according to the hurricane center.
A storm surge of 10 feet above normal levels was reported by the National Weather Service office in Morehead City, N.C., at the Cherry Branch Ferry Terminal on the Neuse River, courtesy of the North Carolina Department of Transportation.
Water levels also continued to rise quickly on the western side of Pamlico Sound. A gauge at Oriental, N.C., on the Neuse River is recording a water height of about 5.5 feet above normal levels, according to the hurricane center.
Hurricane conditions are expected to spread elsewhere within the hurricane warning area overnight and into Friday, the hurricane center said.
Storm surge has already become an issue along the North Carolina coast:
When and where could Florence make landfall?
Florence is a huge hurricane that will spread wind and rain over a large area, so forecasters continued to urge hurricane watchers not to focus only on the point of landfall. Some of the worst weather will be to the north and east of the center.
Florence is expected to continue to track toward the west-northwest and west at a slower pace through Friday, then turn more to the west-southwest on Friday night and Saturday.
On the forecast track, the center of Florence is expected to move inland across extreme southeastern North Carolina and extreme eastern South Carolina Friday and Saturday, the hurricane center said.
The hurricane center was particularly worried about storm surge, which could reach seven to 11 feet in the warning area from Cape Fear, N.C. to Cape Lookout, N.C.
And then there's the other huge concern -- the potential for inland flooding.
The hurricane center hasn't changed its rainfall projections and said 20-30 inches of rain will be possible in coastal North Carolina and northeastern South Carolina. Some spots could get up to 40 inches.
That could cause "catastrophic flash flooding" and prolonged river flooding, the hurricane center said.
Hurricane #Florence is producing a life-threatening storm surge and hurricane conditions over portions of eastern North Carolina. The threat of freshwater flooding will increase and spread inland over the next several days. https://t.co/tW4KeGdBFb pic.twitter.com/3OokbkFeb7 National Hurricane Center (@NHC_Atlantic) September 14, 2018
Here's a look at the watches and warnings:
A storm surge warning is in effect from the South Santee River in South Carolina to Duck, N.C., as well as Albemarle and Pamlico Sounds and including the Neuse and Pamlico Rivers.
A storm surge watch is in effect from Edisto Beach, S.C., to the South Santee River, S.C.
A hurricane warning is in effect from the South Santee River to Duck as well as the Albemarle and Pamlico Sounds.
A hurricane watch is in effect from Edisto Beach to the South Santee River.
A tropical storm warning is in effect from north of Duck to Cape Charles Light, Va., as well as the Chesapeake Bay south of New Point Comfort. A new warning was issued from south of the South Santee River to Edisto Beach, S.C., on Thursday afternoon.
Officials in Georgia said they are closely monitoring Hurricane Florence as the massive storm takes aim at the Carolinas and Virginia.
Gov. Nathan Deal declared a state of emergency for every Georgia county after forecasts showed the storm could take a southwest turn into the state over the weekend. No evacuations have been ordered in Georgia as of Wednesday night.
According to the National Hurricane Center, Florence has weakened slightly to a Category 3 storm but remains "life-threatening" even as winds dropped to 120 mph from a high of 140 mph. Florence is forecast to bring life-threatening storm surge and heavy rains. Hurricane watches and warnings and storm surge watches and warnings stretch from South Carolina through North Carolina and Virginia.
Florence is expected to make landfall Thursday and Friday before stalling out near the coastline through Saturday.
VP cancels trip
Vice President Mike Pence has postponed plans to visit Georgia.
Pence was scheduled to make two Florence-related stops in the state - the first to a Delta facility and the second to a Red Cross supplier - before hosting a fundraiser to benefit Republican Brian Kem's campaign for governor.
Pence's office said he will remain in Washington, D.C., as will President Trump, to monitor Florence conditions.
Hurricane Florence may now be dipping a bit south and hitting a portion of the Great State of Georgia. Be ready, be prepared! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 12, 2018
Bracing for evacuees
Thursday's forecast shows Florence could bring tropical storm force winds and potentially heavy rains to eastern Georgia. The state is also bracing for an influx of evacuees fleeing the storm.
Georgia State Parks have opened for evacuees, as has the Atlanta Motor Speedway.
The state's Department of Agriculture has temporarily suspended interstate movement requirements for animals evacuating from Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina to make it easier to transport livestock away from the storm.
Traffic from South Carolina to Georgia was heavy Wednesday, extending more than 30 miles north of the two state's borders, according to the South Carolina Department of Transportation.
Airbnb has activated its Open House program to help evacuees. The program allows hosts in Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia to open their homes to evacuees and emergency relief workers. You can see more information here.
Update:
Her'e's the latest on Carnival Ecstasy, which is trying to get back to its port in Charleston, South Carolina.
From Carnival: "The Port of Charleston is now closed to inbound traffic. The Port continues to plan for possible Sunday operations. We are monitoring Hurricane Florence's path and working closely with the Port. As of now, our plan is to operate the sailing on Sunday, assuming the post storm assessments have been completed by the local authorities and the port has re-opened to inbound traffic. We strongly encourage our guests to focus on their safety and security."
Earlier story:
Hurricane Florence and Tropical Storm Isaac are forcing changes to cruise ship itineraries.
Hurricane Florence, now a Category 2 storm, is set to make landfall along the coast of North and South Carolina early Friday. The cruise ship changes, first reported by Cruise Critic, include:
Norwegian Escape, which departed from New York City on Sept. 9, skipped a stop in Bermuda in lieu of visits to Port Canaveral in Orlando and Great Stirrup Cay, the line's private island. Norwegian Dawn, which left from Boston Sept. 7, also skipped Bermuda and replaced it with a Canadian and New England itinerary.
Royal Caribbean's Grandeur of the Seas departed from Baltimore on Sept. 8. Its route was changed from Bermuda to the Bahamas. The ship was set to return to Baltimore on Thursday but is instead being held at Port Canaveral and is expected to be back no later than Sunday.
Carnival Pride, which left Baltimore on Sept. 9, swapped its Bermuda itinerary for a Bahamas and Caribbean one. The Carnival Horizon was set to visit Bermuda this Saturday but has been rerouted. It plans to arrive in New York as scheduled on Sept. 13. Carnival Ecstasy is scheduled to return to Charleston, South Carolina, Sunday though arrival is subject to delay. The Ecstasy is set to leave against Sunday afternoon, depending on conditions and if the Port of Charleston, which has been closed since Thursday, reopens.
Tropical Storm Isaac
Tropical Storm Isaac is currently located about 50 miles southwest of Dominica with winds of 45 mph. The storm is expected to weaken as it moves into the Caribbean, though forecasters said it's possible Isaac will strengthen some as it continues its track.
Carnival Cruise Line officials said they are "actively" monitoring the storm
"The safety of our guests and crew is our number one priority and our ships will remain a safe distance from the storms at all times. In the event any changes are necessary to these upcoming departures, we will update our guests accordingly," the company said.
The Carnival Valor, Carnival Freedom and Carnival Breeze, all homeported in Galveston, Texas, plan to depart and operate as scheduled, the company said.
Carnival's Vista and Princess Cruise's Caribbean Princess both altered recent itineraries due to Isaac, which briefly reached hurricane level last week.
President Donald Trump took issue Thursday with the number of deaths attributable to Hurricane Maria, falsely saying a higher count had been generated by Democrats to "make me look as bad as possible."
A sweeping report from George Washington University released last month estimated there were 2,975 "excess deaths" in the six months after the storm made landfall in Puerto Rico in September 2017.
Trump said on Twitter that "they had anywhere from 6 to 18 deaths" at the time he visited the island after the storm.
"As time went by it did not go up by much," Trump wrote. "Then, a long time later, they started to report really large numbers, like 3000 . . . This was done by the Democrats in order to make me look as bad as possible when I was successfully raising Billions of Dollars to help rebuild Puerto Rico. If a person died for any reason, like old age, just add them onto the list. Bad politics. I love Puerto Rico!"
Trump's tweets - which came as a highly dangerous Hurricane Florence churned toward the Carolinas - brought an immediate rebuke from Democrats in Congress, as well as some Republicans.
Rep. Ileana Ros Lehtinen, R-Fla., said she believes the figure of nearly 3,000 is sound.
"What kind of mind twists that statistic into 'Oh, fake news is trying to hurt my image,'" she said. "How can you be so self-centered and try to distort the truth so much? It's mind boggling."
In a tweet, Sen. Edward J. Markey, D-Mass., said only Trump "could see the tragedy in Puerto Rico and conclude that he is the victim. May God bless the souls of the nearly 3,000 Americans that died in Puerto Rico and may he take pity on your soul, Mr. President."
San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz, who publicly pleaded with Trump for a stronger response to the storm, also blasted the president on Thursday in a series of tweets.
"This is what denial following neglect looks like: Mr Pres in the real world people died on your watch. YOUR LACK OF RESPECT IS APPALLING!" she wrote.
The George Washington University study, requested by the governor of Puerto Rico, examined an unusually long period of time following the storm in an attempt to detect the hurricane's lingering, indirect effects on mortality.
The investigation looked at the total number of deaths from September 2017 through February 2018 and compared it with typical death rates, adjusting for many variables, including the hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans who evacuated the territory after the storm struck on Sept. 20.
The findings were embraced by the government of Puerto Rico as the study was released.
For much of the past year, the government had formally acknowledged just 64 deaths from the hurricane, which ravaged much of the territory and destroyed critical infrastructure. The spike in mortality came as the territory dealt with widespread and lengthy power outages, a lack of access to adequate health care, water insecurity and diseases related to the crisis.
Contrary to Trump's characterization in his tweets, the study did not attempt to catalog particular individuals who died because of Maria. Instead, the study made a comparison of mortality rates with what would have been expected without a natural disaster. Given the methodology, there was not an opportunity to misclassify someone who died from old age, as Trump suggested.
The president's tweets come on the heels of a new Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation poll in which Puerto Ricans gave low marks to Trump, along with the federal and local governments, for last year's response to Maria. Eighty percent said Trump had done either a poor or fair job responding.
Earlier this week, Trump hailed his administration's response to Maria as "an incredible, unsung success."
It was "one of the best jobs that's ever been done with respect to what this is all about," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office as he was receiving a briefing on Hurricane Florence.
That assessment brought sharp rebukes from officials in Puerto Rico and congressional Democrats.
Among those criticizing Trump was Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rossello, who previously had sought to avoid confrontations with Trump.
He called Maria "the worst natural disaster in our modern history" and said many people are still struggling.
"Now is not the time to pass judgment; it is time to channel every effort to improve the lives of over 3 million Americans in Puerto Rico," said Rossello, who belongs to Puerto Rico's New Progressive Party and has been a delegate at Democratic conventions.
This is an opinion column.
Don't play dumb in Alabama politics. There's too much competition.
On Tuesday, AL.com's Greg Garrison asked Gov. Kay Ivey whether she would accept an invitation from the League of Women Voters to sit for a "forum" with her opponent, Tuscaloosa Mayor Walt Maddox.
Ivey said she hadn't seen the invitation and wasn't aware of it.
That's a bit odd. The invitations went out more than three weeks ago, and the forum has been general knowledge in political circles since then.
On Wednesday, AL.com's Mike Cason asked Ivey the same question.
Again, Ivey said she hadn't seen the invitation.
To quote Ivey's campaign ad from the GOP primary, don't give me a mountain oyster and tell me it's seafood.
Ivey and her handlers want to avoid a debate with Maddox or anything else -- call it a "forum," if you must -- that might even look like a debate.
Her apologists call it smart politics. Conventional wisdom says, if you have a comfortable lead, you don't risk it by standing on a stage with your opponent.
But really it's this simple: Ivey and her campaign are afraid -- afraid that if you see her next to Maddox, that will only make you less likely to vote for Ivey.
This strategy didn't begin with the general election. Ivey refused to debate her GOP primary opponents, and she has declined interviews for candidate profiles.
And since June, Ivey has been ducking Maddox's challenges with the same canned line.
"The only two people who ever bring that up is y'all in the media and my opponent," she said.
Again. And again. And again.
But with the League of Women Voters' invitation, Ivey can't use that line anymore.
The League has a history of promoting good government by helping voters make informed decisions. While its membership is stacked with do-gooder types, it doesn't play favorites when it comes to political party.
And they care.
The only excuse Ivey has left is to say her invitation must have gotten lost in the mail.
At this point, one of only two things can be possible.
One is that Ivey is lying -- which is bad.
The other is that Ivey is telling the truth -- which might be worse.
If Ivey is lying, it wouldn't be the first time. When Reckon by AL.com hosted a GOP primary debate, Ivey insisted she wasn't letting anyone dictate her schedule -- not her opponents and not the media.
The truth was, we gave Ivey the opportunity to pick the date herself -- a privilege, perhaps unfairly, we didn't give to her GOP challengers. We even offered to let her suggest other conditions. Her opponents came as they were. Ivey never showed up.
She was scared then, just as she's scared now. So she lied.
That's one possibility.
The other is that Ivey is telling the truth -- in which case, someone on her campaign or in her office is keeping the invitation from her.
Perhaps she genuinely believes what's coming out of her mouth.
We've seen this sort of thing before, too.
When Gov. Robert Bentley held that office, his staff prepared for him a daily package of news articles about his administration. While Bentley was under siege from all fronts, he seems to have genuinely believed everyone loved him.
Because that's all anyone around ever let him believe.
Is the same thing happening again?
The less you know about Ivey, it seems, the better it is for Ivey, but what if someone has decided that the less Ivey knows, the better it is for them?
But as the Washington Post's Bob Woodward likes to say, the truth emerges.
And sometimes, the truth submerges, too.
The question of this election isn't whether Ivey should be governor for the next four years.
The question of this election is whether Ivey is governor right now.
If the League's invitation never made it to Ivey's desk, whose desk is it on?
Kyle Whitmire is the state political columnist for the Alabama Media Group.
Want access to the best analysis and in-depth reporting about Alabama each week? Sign up for the weekly Reckon Report newsletter and follow Reckon on Facebook and Twitter.
Thursday, September 13, 2018
Flying into California for Labor Day weekend was a vivid reminder for me as an East Coast resident of the devastation being wrought by wildfires on the West Coast.
News articles also call attention to the need for careful advance planning and training by senior care communities -- however labeled or regulated, and wherever located -- for emergencies such as fires. Reading recent articles also demonstrates that just because you are in a "high-end" facility, administrators may not have a functional plan.
As detailed in a written complaint filed the first week of September 2018, California regulators are seeking to revoke the licenses of two Santa Rosa facilities operated under the umbrella of Oakmont Senior Living endangered by wildfires on October 8-9, 2017. The complaint also seeks lifetime bans for individual administrators. While there were no deaths of residents or staff at either location, one location, Villa Capri, was completely destroyed in the fire.
The state's complaint alleges inadequate staffing to handle nighttime evacuations, plus failure to comply with emergency and evacuation procedures, either because of inadequate knowledge or training on the plans for the administrators and staff that were present. The complaint describes a bus that could have been used to facilitate evacuation, but the on-duty staff did not have keys. It is alleged that because of these failures, "no staff were at Villa Capri to assist with the evacuation of more than 20 remaining elderly and infirm facility residents." Family members of the residents and emergency responders conducted the remaining evacuations at both locations.
The facilities, described in news articles by various labels ranging from "nursing homes" (the label used in the first line of a New York Times article) to "luxury retirement communities" (as described in the Mercury News), were licensed under California law as "residential care facilities for the elderly." As such, they were subject to regulations requiring appropriate emergency plans, including evacuation plans. It appears that Villa Capri had 62 units devoted to "memory (dementia) care" and assisted living. The second community, Varenna at Fountaingrove, is reported to have had 228 residents, including many who lived in individual "casitas," and 14 residents who needed "care and supervision" or "hospice."
The state's suit comes a few days after news of a reported settlement of a civil suit for undisclosed terms, filed on behalf of 17 residents of Villa Capri.
https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/elder_law/2018/09/state-regulators-seek-to-revoke-licenses-of-california-facilities-for-failures-during-fire-emergency.html
Mobile's most wanted suspect, 21-year-old Emanuel Devon Mcalpine, was taken into police custody in Dixon Mills Wednesday, Mobile police said.
Mcalpine was wanted for shooting three people during a robbery at the Chevron gas station at 139 S. Sage Avenue during the late hours of July 31, police said.
He is charged with three counts of attempted murder and one count of first-degree robbery. He was on bond for a second-degree assault charge at the time of the robbery at shooting at the gas station. He has also been previously charged with domestic violence and third-degree attempt to elude police, police said.
A K-9 with the Mobile County Sheriff's Office found him inside a concealed compartment inside a closet at 115 Bluebird Lane in Dixon Hills.
Police said he complied with officials after the K-9 found him.
He sustained minor puncture wounds to his head and arms consistent with K-9 apprehension. The Marengo County Fire-Rescue treated him on the scene. He will be treated at a local hospital before his is booked into the Mobile County Metro Jail.
Mobile Police Chief Lawrence Battiste previously described the shooting and robbery it as "one of the most cold crimes in this community in the last 5-10 years."
Mobile police offered a $5,000 reward for information leading to Mcalpine's arrest.
The suspect entered the gas station, located at on Sage and Emogene in midtown, at approximately 11:30 p.m. A video released by the Mobile Police Department shows a masked black man utter a few words to an older man sitting on a chair before shooting him near to his head. Blood is then seen dripping from the man's face as he rushes away.
By Edward R. Hamberger and Kurt J. Nagle
Hamberger is president and CEO of the Association of American Railroads. Nagle is president and CEO of the American Association of Port Authorities.
News in 2018 surrounding the Port of Mobile, which annually contributes an estimated $25.1 billion in economic activity to the state, continues to be positive. That's good news for Alabama's economy and more than 153,000 port-related jobs in the Yellowhammer State.
In mid-May, Wal-Mart opened a 2.6 million-square foot, $135 million distribution center just 15 miles from Mobile in Irvington, increasing the port's cargo volumes and generating an estimated 750 new jobs.
The port recently stated that it will start a more than $60 million project next year to support Alabama's burgeoning automobile manufacturing sector, which is now home to Hyundai, Honda, Toyota and Mercedes-Benz and soon to be home to the newly announced joint venture between Toyota and Mazda. As announced in April, that facility will be served by a new rail connection that will provide access to five major private freight railroad carriers.
Kurt Nagle
Across the state, Alabama's port and railroad infrastructure is helping manufacturers, farmers, retailers, mining and energy producers compete globally. Businesses and their workers win in this scenario.
Yet policy emanating from Washington - regardless of recent progress with Mexico - threatens Alabama's trade-dependent economy. Indeed, the macro-economic principle of free trade - defined most by the free flow of goods without imposing burdensome import tariffs - remains under attack by select policymakers.
The result thus far has been retaliatory tariffs on American exports, including those made in Alabama, and will only worsen if our elected leaders don't try and forge solutions that remove, rather than create, trade barriers. A multibillion dollar recent aid package to U.S. farmers could have been mitigated, if not avoided, if these farmers didn't face new hurdles in selling their goods abroad.
Per the Alabama Department of Commerce's 2017 Year in Trade, China is the state's largest trading partner in Asia, representing $5.2 billion in two-way trade. Compared with other countries consuming Alabama raw materials and goods, China represents Alabama's largest consumer of forest products and chemicals, and is the state's third largest purchaser of Alabama-made transportation equipment.
Meanwhile, Canada is the state's largest global consumer of Alabama-made transportation equipment and machinery, topping $3 billion. And members of the EU buy more than $5.1 billion in Alabama products and collectively represent a staggering $10.8 billion in annual total trade.
Put simply, a trade war that expands government intrusion into the private market reduces our international competitiveness, costs American jobs, and creates higher prices and fewer choices for consumers. Policy initiatives that seek to expand the use of tariffs - which are in fact taxes paid by businesses and consumers - directly threatens jobs and pivotal industries in Alabama and across the U.S. To the economy's detriment, a trade war undermines hard-earned economic gains realized through tax reform and deregulation.
Our industries - privately-owned freight railroads and U.S. seaports - typify the benefits of trade. We touch nearly every sector of the economy, and we bridge U.S. companies and their workers to greater opportunities.
The cargo activity through U.S. ports supports a staggering 23 million American jobs, and every $1 billion worth of export goods shipped through U.S. seaports create 15,000 jobs. In total, U.S. seaports handle over 2 billion tons of cargo annually, including food, clothing, medicine, fuel, raw materials, components, building materials, electronics and toys. These materials flow out as well as in for domestic companies to use and consumers to enjoy.
Freight railroads, essential to the flow of goods, conservatively estimate that international trade accounts for more than 40 percent of rail traffic. The sustained movement of goods via rail reduces highway congestion, provides environmental benefits and supports some 1.5 million jobs.
Some continue to paint free trade as a detriment to U.S. prosperity, yet nothing could be further from the truth. The existence of automakers in Alabama is proof that trade between nations yields immense gains. Efficiency-aiding technologies -- not free trade agreements -- have contributed most significantly to today's modernized U.S. economy. Even still, U.S. manufacturing output is higher today than before many trade agreements were signed.
Escalating trade disputes cause real pain to workers, consumers and critical U.S. industries. Leaders in Washington, D.C., should forge paths to expand U.S. exports, rather than create new import restrictions.
There are many things about this moment in American political history which seem crystal clear to me. But one is not.
What in the world are we to think of Jeff Sessions?
Throughout the course of his senate career, I have generally been pleased with the way Sessions represented the state of Alabama. As a conservative, his voting record has aligned with my own inclinations the majority of the time. Immigration is one area where we differ considerably, but more on that later.
I respect that he has always, as a US Attorney, Alabama Attorney General, and in his role in the senate, displayed a high regard for the rule of law.
So it's entirely true to form that Sessions is striving to maintain the rule of law in his role as US Attorney General, even when politically inconvenient.
The problem is that he cast his lot with a man who doesn't share his respect for the law, and has a distorted sense of what the Department of Justice is supposed to do. A recent tweet of the President's clearly spells out that he believes the job of the Attorney General to be protecting the political interests of their party.
Two long running, Obama era, investigations of two very popular Republican Congressmen were brought to a well publicized charge, just ahead of the Mid-Terms, by the Jeff Sessions Justice Department. Two easy wins now in doubt because there is not enough time. Good job Jeff...... Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 3, 2018
I love it when the chief executive of our nation just says, right out in the open, that law enforcement should be deferred or denied for the sake of politics?
The honeymoon between Trump and Sessions ended abruptly when Sessions recused himself--correctly, by any known standard of legal ethics--from the investigation into Russian meddling and possible collusion in the 2016 campaigns. Since that time, Sessions has been publicly maligned on a level never before seen between a sitting president and a member of his own cabinet. Early on in the meltdown, Sessions offered to tender his resignation, but Trump declined to accept it. Yet the mean girl tweets keep coming. And Jeff just keeps taking it.
Should I feel sorry for Jeff Sessions?
He is, by all appearances, running the Department of Justice with the same commitment to the law he's always exhibited. And history may well reveal that his refusal to quit--thus allowing Trump to appoint a puppet AG who would fire Rod Rosenstein and shut down Bob Mueller's investigation--has been an act of self-sacrifice to protect the integrity of our nation.
But then again, what exactly did Sessions expect when he climbed upon that rally stage in Mobile and endorsed a person like Donald Trump? If Sessions is the man of character and integrity that many in our state have always believed him to be, didn't he know that lying down with dogs can give you an epic case of fleas?
We may never know, but there's a part of me that suspects that he saw in Trump a political novice with deep pockets and reality-TV fueled populist appeal, and believed that he could break that rough horse to achieve key policy goals--namely with respect to immigration.
Trump's willingness to harness the ugly power of identity politics and apply all the fear and anger that accompanies such to presidential politics may have looked to Sessions like an effective--if unsavory--pathway to drastically reducing both illegal and legal immigration to the US. Both have been longtime goals of his.
While I share the opinion of many conservatives that we are in need of major immigration reform, and that we must find solutions for curbing illegal immigration once and for all, the idea of drastically reducing legal immigration strikes me as both un-American and un-Christian. It is here where the Attorney General and I differ sharply.
So is Sessions a hero who's taking one for the team to keep a crazy man from wrecking our nation? Or did he let the promise of victory convince him to compromise his principles and back a horse he though could win--a horse that kicks him every chance it gets now.
How will history remember Jeff Sessions? Only time will tell.
Thursday, September 13, 2018
The Indiana Supreme Court has allowed suit against cities of sexual assault by its police officers
Two on-duty police officersone in Fort Wayne and one in Evansvillesexually assaulted women, who then brought civil actions against the officers city employers. We address two theories of employer liability: (1) the scope-of-employment rule, traditionally called respondeat superior, and (2) the rules common-carrier exception, which imposes a more stringent standard of care on certain enterprises. We hold that the cities may be liable under the scope-of-employment rule and that the exception does not apply.
Resounding in our decision today is the maxim that great power comes with great responsibility. Cities are endowed with the coercive power of the state, and they confer that power on their police officers. Those officers, in turn, wield it to carry out employment dutiesduties that may include physically controlling and forcibly touching others without consent. For this reason, when an officer carrying out employment duties physically controls someone and then abuses employer-conferred power to sexually assault that person, the city does not, under respondeat superior, escape liability as a matter of law for the sexual assault.
We thus affirm the denial of summary judgment to the City of Fort Wayne on the respondeat superior issue. In doing so, we clarify when an officers tortious acts will fall within the scope of employment, making the city liable.
(Mike Frisch)
https://lawprofessors.typepad.com/legal_profession/2018/09/the-indiana-supreme-court-two-on-duty-police-officersone-in-fort-wayne-and-one-in-evansvillesexually-assaulted-women.html
The government favours technological solutions, but workers say collective action is essential to stopping abuse.
Samut Sakhon, Thailand In 2013, Chairat Ratchapaksi found a job in commercial fishing to support his family.
The 40-year-old from Thailands central Phetchaburi province went to see a boat owner in Samut Song Kram Province, which straddles the Gulf of Thailand, and was hired quickly as a fisherman.
From then on, he was at sea more or less continuously for two years, until 2015.
He says he was forced to work 24-hour shifts, was not paid and, when he complained, was beaten by his skipper and threatened with being thrown overboard.
At the end of his stint, he said he was dumped on an island and put in jail.
Chairat festered for months in one of the grim holding pens on Benjina, a remote Indonesian fishing island companies reserve for labourers they no longer need.
I didnt know how to escape, says Chairat, who now runs the Thai and Migrant Fishers Union Group (TMFG). We sent a letter to the Thai ambassador in Indonesia from prison but we got no response. Nothing happened. I thought, Who is going to rescue me? I felt hopeless.
While its not known if this ship is used for slave labour, ships like this carry forcibly employed fishermen across the waters of Southeast Asia. A crew of around 30 would work on a trawler of this size. Sleeping quarters are tiny, windowless berths in the hull [JJ Rose/Al Jazeera]
Thailand is the worlds third-largest seafood exporter and biggest producer of tinned tuna.
Half of the estimated 600,000 men working in the industry are from countries such as Myanmar and Cambodia, according to the United Nations.
Along with Thais, they are trafficked and forcibly set to work on commercial fishing boats throughout the region, supplying seafood products to global consumers.
The Thai fishing sector returned export earnings of $5.5bn in 2017. It is a major foreign currency earner for the country, where food accounts for 10 percent of total exports.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) in August called on Thailand to ratify and implement the International Labour Organizations Work in Fishing Convention.
According to local NGO, the Labour Rights Protection Network, (LPN) as many as one in 10 commercial fishermen in the region are slave labourers.
Testimonies gathered by LPN confirm that Chairats experience is not unusual.
Like Chairat, fishermen are forced to work for several years at sea, cut off from family and from the rest of the on-land world.
Lek, from Kanchanaburi in Thailands west, was rescued two years ago from another favourite Indonesian island which serves as a dumping ground, Ambon.
He has a photograph of himself on his phone when he was stuck at sea. He hardly set foot on land for a decade as he was enslaved by his bosses.
In the image, he looks young and has long hair. Now, his hairline has fallen back, he has an awkward stance and his eyes are deep-set.
Now I want to help my fellow fishermen, he says.
Lek, a former fisherman from Kanchanaburi, Thailand, was enslaved for 10 years until he was rescued by the Thai and Migrant Fishers Union Group [JJ Rose/Al Jazeera]
Benjina, a dot in the Indonesian archipelago about 644 kilometres north of Australia, has become a notorious dumping ground for slave fishermen. Ex-fishermen told Radio Free Asia in 2014 that some workers were murdered there and buried in unmarked mass graves.
The Thai government, concerned about international trade agreements in markets such as the EU and the US, which have raised human rights concerns, has worked to end the trafficking and enslavement of local and migrant fishermen in Thailand.
Since 2017, trawler owners have had to ensure, by law, that there is adequate communication technology on every ship and to allow all workers to freely contact their families while on board.
As part of its anti-slavery efforts, the government also banned fishermen under the age of 18 from working and sought an electronic bank transfer system for wages, to verify payment is taking place.
As a reward for its push to stamp out trafficking in the fishing sector, Thailand in June stepped up a notch of the US State Departments Trafficking in Persons Report it had previously been Tier 3, the lowest possible level.
Set up in 2015 as an initiative of the LPN, the TMFG monitors satellites to track ships that remain at sea for long periods, which is often a sign that they are using slave labour. Ships can stay at sea for years as they transfer their haul to larger boats, which take the produce back to shore.
The monitoring system relies on regular inspections and policing, which are expensive and difficult to maintain.
The Thai government has not taken the steps necessary to end forced labour and other serious abuses on fishing boats, HRW said in January.
The Thai government responded directly to the report and offered a long list of measures it says it had taken.
The Royal Thai Government reaffirms our commitment to combat the migrant workers exploitation in a holistic manner and stands ready to work with all stakeholders in order to enhance our labour practices in alignment with the international labour standards, said the statement.
The Thai government did not respond to Al Jazeeras request for comment.
Patima Tungpuchayakul, director of the Labour Rights Protection Network, also runs the Fisherman Centre in Samut Sakhon, Thailand. The organisation is increasing its operations to identify and liberate slave fishermen from around Asia [JJ Rose/Al Jazeera]
According to Patima Tungpuchayakul, LPN director, one of the major logistical obstacles for regulators is the vast and complex supply chain in this sector.
There are so many participants in this industry, she says. Many operators across the catching, processing and exporting links in the chain can mean the sector is very difficult to follow.
The Thai Department of Fisheries lists 82 seafood processors approved for export alone.
The LPN estimates that there are between 10,000 and 20,000 fishing boats supplying these processors.
Chairats escape came three years ago.
He was spotted by a delegation including Patima and TMFG members who were visiting the island in order to repatriate enslaved fisheries workers.
We thought there were around 100 ex-slave fishermen there, Patima says. We found about 1,000.
For his part, Chairat says he was lucky to be found at all.
Some local villagers told the delegation about those of us in jail.
Now as chairman of the TMFG, he works to find, register and eventually release and repatriate slave fishermen.
The organisation estimates it has found and organised the release of around 4,000 slave fishermen since 2014.
While they work through official channels, the work can be dangerous.
Its not uncommon, for instance, for fishing companies to bribe local authorities, leaving the slave rescuers with no effective protection in isolated locations.
Chairat fears he could be killed.
Chairat, Patima and the TMFG team have developed a system whereby slave workers can make calls for help on their mobiles while at sea without being detected.
The details of this scheme, Chairat said, must be kept secret.
He now sees the release of slave fishermen as his central aim and is committed to freeing the workers and raising awareness of their plight.
A consumer war on the industry, he says, is not the answer.
We dont want to pressure consumers to stop buying seafood, he says.
A boycott affects the fishermen too. The solution is that the workers have to have power. There has to be collective action.
After India, Nepal and Thailand banned surrogacy, Ukraine soaks up demand. But women on both sides report exploitation.
Kiev, Ukraine Throughout Ukraine, advertisements about becoming a surrogate mother are plastered on buses and throughout the metro.
They ask: re you aged between 18 and 35? Do you have healthy children? Are you physically and psychologically fit? Are you law-abiding?
Alina decided to become a surrogate mother in 2016 because she was struggling to make enough money as a hairdresser in her hometown of Donets, in Kharkiv.
Its hard to find a well-paid job in Ukraine, she said. I wanted to renovate the house and set aside money for my sons university fees theyre very expensive. My mother never had the means to support me in that way, but I want my son to get a good education.
BioTexCom, Ukraines most popular surrogacy company, offered her $11,000 for one pregnancy and a $250 monthly stipend a sum more than three times the average yearly salary in Ukraine of approximately $3,000.
The company promised they would take really good care of me. It was an easy decision and my husband agreed immediately, she said.
By March 2017, Alina became a surrogate mother for Anca, a 38-year-old from Romania, who is unable to carry a child due to multiple fibroids in her uterine wall.
I had four failed IVF attempts. Surrogacy was my final option, she told Al Jazeera.
Ukraine has become an increasingly popular destination for foreign couples seeking affordable surrogacy services since they became legal in 2002. The average package costs around $30,000, compared with prices between $80,00 and $120,000 in the United States.
Demand has surged since 2015 when Thailand, India and Nepal outlawed commercial surrogacy following reports of widespread exploitation of women.
The Ministry of Health was unable to provide data on the number of surrogate mothers in Ukraine.
According to Sergii Antonov, a Kiev-based lawyer specialising in the medical and reproductive field, between 2,000 and 2,500 children are born through surrogacy in Ukraine every year, with almost half through BioTexCom.
But as demand grows, Antonov says there are increasing reports of alleged exploitation of both surrogate mothers and intended parents.
Commercial surrogacy Ukraine is unregulated and two-thirds of the industry operates illegally, he said.
We were treated like cattle and mocked by doctors. Alina, surrogate mother
Alina said the conditions for surrogate mothers are terrible.
She said BioTexCom put her up in a small apartment 32 weeks into her pregnancy with four other women, where she was forced to share a bed with another surrogate mother.
We were all very stressed. Most of the women come from small villages and are in hopeless situations, she said. We spent the first week just lying around, crying. We couldnt eat. This is a typical situation for surrogates.
Alina said the supervisor visited the apartment most days to check on the womens lifestyle.
If we werent home after 4pm, we could be fined 100 euros. We were also threatened with a fine if any of us openly criticised the company, or directly communicated with the biological parents.
Comments in online forums for surrogate mothers also document problems with BioTexCom.
Alina and Anca frequently messaged each other using Google translate.
According to Alina and BioTexCom clients, surrogates were sent to give birth in a state hospital in Kiev where the level of care is reported to be poor.
We were treated like cattle and mocked by doctors, Alina said. There was no hot water, we washed with plastic bottles over the toilet with water that was preheated in a kettle. I wanted to be transferred to a different hospital, but the staff threatened to not pay me at all if I complained to Anca.
Contracts between surrogacy companies and intended parents basically state, 'You're on your own after the birth.' Sam Everingham, a director of the Australia-based Families through Surrogacy
Three days after giving birth Alina said she started bleeding heavily and was rushed to the intensive care unit, where doctors shouted at her: Were fed up with all your problems.
A piece of her placenta had remained in her womb after childbirth.
A retained placenta placenta that remains in a woman more than an hour after birth can be life-threatening as it can cause haemorrhaging and infection. Doctors removed the piece five days after the baby was born.
I only found out Alina had given birth and was in intensive care because she texted me. BioTexCom didnt tell us anything, said Anca. I was so afraid throughout the pregnancy it would go wrong.
In 2016, Ancas first surrogate mother at BioTexCom miscarried her twins four months into the pregnancy. According to Anca, BioTexCom told her that the surrogate caught a fever and didnt go to the doctor in time.
Hopeful parents often complain that Ukrainian clinics fail to properly monitor the health of surrogate mothers, said Anca.
A year prior to her pregnancy, Alina said she had undergone open heart surgery and that BioTexCom did not ask for her medical history.
Were so lucky everything turned out well. But Alina should not have been a candidate for surrogacy. There were too many risks, said Anca.
A couple from Argentina said that BioTexCom allowed their surrogate mother to travel while six months pregnant with twins and unwell.
The surrogate went into labour during the trip and had no choice but to give birth in a small hospital which was ill-equipped to deal with the complexities of her labour. The premature babies were born in septic fluid.
At the time of writing, the babies are in intensive care at a hospital in the city of Dnipro. The couple said the company stopped responding to them after the birth.
BioTexCom responds
In an email seen by Al Jazeera from BioTexCom to an intended parent, it was clear that the company had not provided an explanation for a failed implementation.
Al Jazeera asked BioTexCom whether they conducted health checks on women applying to be surrogate mothers, if women were fined for being in contact with biological mothers, whether surrogates were forced to give birth in the low quality Kiev hospital and if the company provided reports to intended parents about failed implantations.
A spokesperson said the surrogate submits a variety of tests and meets with a psychologist and lawyer, but did not specify whether medical history was required.
Fines did not apply to surrogates for being in communication with mothers, but are issued for receiving money from the biological parents outside of the BioTexCom contract, the spokesperson said.
All women give birth in state hospitals such as the one in Kiev, the spokesperson said, adding that if surrogates want to give birth in private hospitals, they could.
But the cost of a private hospital birth in Ukraine is several thousand dollars, which would leave the surrogate with little or no money left from the process.
I'm so happy that I helped to give a couple a beautiful baby boy, who's loved very much. But I would never be a surrogate mother again. It was a terrible experience. Alina, surrogate mother
Sam Everingham, a director of the Australia-based Families through Surrogacy, told Al Jazeera that some clinics in Ukraine are like baby factories.
Contracts between surrogacy companies and intended parents basically state, Youre on your own after the birth. There are some excellent clinics in Ukraine, but because they have smaller marketing departments to BioTexCom, its harder for foreign couples to learn about them.
Everingham said couples often complain that clinics have lost their embryos or fail to explain the reasons behind a failed embryo implantation, forcing some to take legal action.
In other cases, he added, surrogates who miscarried or had a stillborn birth did not receive any payment.
Some companies have it set up so that they cant be held responsible for negative outcomes. Its so important that people educate themselves about the risks.
Ukraines Ministry of Health and Ministry of Justice declined to comment.
Alina is now living in her newly renovated house with her husband and son. Next year, her son will go to university.
Im so happy that I helped to give a couple a beautiful baby boy, whos loved very much, she said. But I would never be a surrogate mother again. It was a terrible experience.
President Vladimir Putin promised to strengthen Russias army and supply it with new generation weapons, as he travelled to watch the countrys biggest war games since the fall of the Soviet Union.
The Vostok-2018 drills taking place in eastern Siberia close to the border with China, involve 300,000 Russian troops as well as joint exercises with the Chinese army.
Addressing a gathering of the soldiers on Thursday, Putin said Russia was a peaceful country ready for cooperation with any state interested in partnership, but that it was a soldiers duty to be ready to defend his country and its allies.
Therefore we are going to further strengthen our armed forces, supply them with the latest generations of weapons and equipment, develop international military partnership, Putin said.
The exercises, which involve more than 1,000 military aircrafts as well as up to 36,000 tanks, come amid tense relations between Russia and the West.
China sent about 3,200 troops, 900 combat vehicles, and 30 aircrafts to join the drills at a Siberian firing range a deployment that reflects its shift towards a full-fledged military alliance with Russia.
The worlds next major human disaster is in the making in China. This time, we should act before its too late.
Rwanda. East Timor. Myanmar. The world has a cruel habit of ignoring humanitarian disasters until its too late. Old habits die hard, and the people targeted by state-led ethnic cleansing programs even harder. But the reports of mass concentration camps and the criminalisation of Islam inflicted upon Chinas Uighur Muslims should alarm anyone and everyone. Right now.
In August, a United Nations human rights panel reported that up to one million Uighur Muslims were forced into grounds that resemble massive internment camps in Xinjiang the autonomous region in western China home to approximately 10 million Uighur Muslims. Gay McDougall, who sits on the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, claimed that up to two million Uighurs and other Muslim minorities were forced into political camps for indoctrination.
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The scale of Chinas internment is staggering, with at least one in every 10 Uighur Muslim living in Xinjiang disappearing into internment camps. The figure is even more staggering for those that have family or friends locked away for no other crime but practising a faith Islam in a region where this religion is categorically associated with subversion, separatism and terrorism.
But the internment of one million people in Xinjiang is only the tip of the ominous state architecture of ethnic cleansing against Uighur Muslims. The very phrases internment and concentration camps instantly conjure up images of the Holocaust or the rounding up of Japanese Americans during World War II. Potent analogies that spurred the New York Times, the Atlantic, and the Intercept to publish recent pieces documenting Chinas designation of Islam as a mental illness, and its merciless objective to annihilate it by way of a sweeping system of ethnic cleansing, of which mass internment is only one part.
Yet, much of the world remains unaware of the horrors unfolding in Xinjiang. And even more, entirely unacquainted with a people trapped within the belly of a superpower bent on destroying them.
Who Are the Uighurs?
A portrait of Uighur Muslim history and identity highlights why China, a communist nation that enshrines atheism and privileges its majority-Han ethnic population, is committed to eliminating these people. The Uighurs are a stigmatised minority on two fronts: ethnicity and religion, and trapped within the precarious crosshairs of an Orwellian police state that views Islam as an affront to state-sponsored atheism and Uighur identity an obstacle to Han ethnic supremacy.
Uighur Muslims are indigenous to Xinjiang, an autonomous region in northwest China that borders Mongolia to the northeast, and a myriad of Muslim-majority nations to its left. After briefly declaring independence in the early 20th century, Xinjiang and a sizable population of Uighur Muslims was annexed by communist China in 1949, and remains under its authoritarian control until this day.
In addition to religious affinity, Uighur ethnicity resembles and overlaps with that of its Central Asian neighbours, such as Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and other countries populated with predominantly Turkic peoples. The region is still called East Turkistan by Uighur Muslims. In line with this nationalist imagining, Uighur Muslims also have their own language, Uighur, formerly known as Eastern Turki, which is only spoken by the Uighur inhabitants of Xinjiang and populations in the diaspora.
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Elements within the Uighur population in China have sought to reclaim their independence, claiming indigenousness and persecution as bases for secession from China. In response, China promoted the mass movement of Han Chinese into the countrys hinterland, including Xinjiang, which has effectively reduced Uighur Muslims into a minority on their native land, strategically preempting the possibility of independence.
The 9/11 terror attacks in the United States created new possibilities for China to suppress its Uighur Muslim population beyond demographic engineering. Lockstep, Beijing adopted the American Islamophobia enshrined by the Bush administration, and seized upon a War on Terror that conflated Islam with terrorism. With much of the world suspicious of Islam and the Global War on Terror fully deployed, China seized upon a ripe geopolitical landscape that enabled a relentless and robust crackdown on Uighur Muslims honing in on Islam as the pathway to destroy a people refusing to trade in their faith, language and customs for the alternatives forced upon them by Beijing.
Criminalising Islam
Islam is central to Uighur identity, and religious expression intimately tied to language and culture. But the War on Terror enabled Beijing to target the religious identity of Uighur Muslims to not only stifle aspirations for independence, but push towards full-scale ethnic cleaning. The universal policing of Muslim expression, in Western and Eastern nations, allowed China to first throw the Uighurs under the geopolitical bus. And in recent years, completely run them over with an interconnected set of policies that make American or French Islamophobia look pedestrian.
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Yet, understanding the broad scale and depth of Chinas persecution of Uighur Muslims is fully revealed by its genuine objective: which is transformation and annihilation, not ferreting out terrorists. Criminalising and closely policing Islam, the most conspicuous and sacred identifier of Uighur identity, is how Beijing seeks to bring about that goal. In 2015, China restricted Uighur Muslim students, teachers and other civil servants in Xinjiang from observing the fast during the month of Ramadan, which extended beyond the public sphere by way of police intimidation and surveillance within households during the holy month. This ban was accompanied, according to Human Rights Watch, by routine state vetting of Uighur imams, close surveillance of mosques, the removal of religious teachers and students from schools, restrictions placed on Uighur Muslims to communicate with family or friends living overseas, and the screening of literature assigned to students in schools in Xinjiang.
While Xinjiang has rapidly devolved into an open-air prison for Uighur Muslims in recent years, the open observance of Islam would lead one directly to the most vile type of Chinese prison: an internment camp designed to cure one from Islam and crush the Uighur people.
Internment and the architecture of ethnic cleansing
Suppressing the observance of Ramadan sent a clear message to Uighurs during the most emblematic period of Muslim life: that expression of Islam will be punished with impunity. In turn, the state ban on Ramadan bludgeoned a cornerstone of Uighur culture and life, and beyond the holy month, pushed forward the state view that Islam is an ideological illness that must be more than just criminally prosecuted, but pathologically cured.
Internment camps, called re-education centres by the state, grew in size and number beginning in 2013. Within these overpopulated camps, state agents are commissioned to heal the illness (Islam) through a litany of horrors, including forcing Uighur Muslims to eat pork and drink alcohol (both of which are restricted by Islam), memorise and recite Communist Party songs, forced into gruelling work, enroll in Mandarin language courses and comprehensive trainings devised to extract their religion and culture from out of them.
Locked up, uprooted far from home and family, 10-20 percent of the Uighur Muslim population in Xinjiang are currently experiencing or have endured the horrors of the largest network of internment camps since World War II. Those who resist while inside are tortured, and reports of deaths from family members and outright disappearances are widely documented. The majority of those interned have been men, and the Chinese authorities have supplemented the disproportionate incarceration of men with a policy forcing Uighur Muslim women to marry (non-Muslim) Han men. Further diluting the Uighur Muslim population and entrenching Han hegemony.
The threat of internment is a fear that hovers over Xinjiang like a black cloud and looms heavy in the mind of every Uighur Muslim. Indeed, the detentions and the fear of detention have become an unavoidable fact of daily life. This fear is a weapon that the Chinese government has wielded to deter and intimidate Uighurs from exercising their faith, enforced by way of ubiquitous police in Uighur Muslim communities, tapping the neighbours, classmates and colleagues of Uighurs to serve as data gatherers and spies, and perhaps most nefariously, deputising Uighur children to monitor and implicate their own parents. Big Brother would be a severe understatement, as Chinese authorities in Xinjiang have enlisted virtually anybody and everybody inside of Uighur Muslim communities to partake in the project of uprooting Islam.
The crux of ethnic cleaning: Brainwashing children
Last week in The Atlantic, Sigal Samuel wrote, Chinas crackdown has some Uighurs in Xinjiang worried that their own children will incriminate them, whether accidentally or because teachers urge kids to spy on their parents. Samuels work helped spur discussion about the horrors taking place in Xinjiang beyond the internment camps, which created an entryway to learn about the other tentacles of Chinas ethnic cleansing programme; particularly those targeting Uighur children.
Chinas project of breaking up the family unit, the building block of Uighur Muslim society in Xinjiang, is achieved through the routine programme of marshalling children to report on the religious activities of their parents to (state-controlled) teachers. But also the formal institution of state-run orphanages, where the sons and daughters of interned Uighurs undergo a programme of cultural brainwashing and assimilation tailored for children.
Within the walls of these orphanages, where [children] between the ages of six months and 12 years are locked up like farm animals, Chinese authorities carry out what is perhaps the crux of their ethnic cleansing program: engineering an entire generation of Uighur Muslims to turn their back on their parents, religion and culture, in favour of the atheism, Mandarin language and Han customs privileged by Beijing. In turn, stripping the Uighur people from its very lifeline, its children, and paving a pathway towards the utter decimation of 10 million Uighur Muslims, and a nation that existed before the creation of the modern Chinese state.
Waiting for the world
On Tuesday, September 4, I released a tweet about the internment of one million Uighur Muslims that went viral, but more importantly, caught the attention of Uighur Muslims in the diaspora. A Uighur graduate student (whose name I will not share for fear of China seeking retribution against him or his family) in England contacted me, sharing intimate stories about the trials his family members and friends endured in the internment camps. Like so many, I took to the crisis because of the string of headlines documenting the internment of one million Uighur Muslims, alarmed by how scant coverage of it was in the mainstream media and how the world was not only idle to respond, but largely unaware.
We are waiting for the world, the student told me on Twitter, prefacing a statement that would reveal the gravity of the state violence unleashed on his people: We are waiting for the world to know who we are, he finished. A basic plea that China efficiently seeks to keep concealed while systematically policing and punishing every trace of Uighur Muslim life. In order to comprehend the design of extermination China has placed upon Uighur Muslims, we must first know who they are as a people. They are a proud people, whose only crimes are living on a land that has always been their own and expressing a faith and culture rooted deep in that soil.
Acknowledging their existence, as a global community, thwarts the very essence of Chinas ethnic cleansing program: to reject Uighur Muslim identity, and remove them from memory. It is still not too late for us, all of us, to know who the Uighur are, and next, help to prevent the worlds next human disaster.
The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial stance.
Last week, the respected and well-known American artist Hank Willis Thomas work was exhibited by the prestigious South African gallery, the Goodman, at the Johannesburg Art Fair. One of Thomas works, prominently displayed at Goodman Gallerys booth, was an image based on an altered version of an iconic photograph taken by South African photographer Graeme Williams. The price set by the gallery was $36,000.
Williams, whose own work was being shown at the fair by London-based Artfirst Gallery, happened to spot the image as he walked through the art fairs booths. He was shocked at seeing his own photograph with minor modifications displayed as work by another artist, at that astonising price. There was no acknowledgement of him as the photographer, nor the source of other South African photographs used in similar artworks displayed adjacently.
Williams said he immediately contacted the Goodman Gallery and Thomas studio to ask for an explanation but received no statement from either camp. Although the Goodman Gallery later claimed the artwork was removed as soon as their team was made aware of Graemes concern, Williams is clear that it remained on display until the end of opening days celebrations and the opening reception for VIPs, who make most of the purchases at any art fair.
Having received no response, Williams took to his photography practices social media page on Facebook. He posted the following statement:
Last night at the opening of the Johannesburg Art Fair, I was disturbed to find a displayed image of mine credited to another photographer. By slightly whitening part of the imageAfrican American artist, Hank Willis Thomas, has attempted to make this image his own. My unaltered image has been published and exhibited many times. In 2008, as Barack Obama sought the Presidency and raced for the position against John McCain, Newsweek magazine ran a story asking each candidate to discuss what best personified their world view. This image that I took in Thokoza (1991) during a Nelson Mandela rally was used to illustrate Obamas world view. Thomas is quoted as saying: I do think appropriation is akin to stealing, even though I think the ownership of advertising images is questionable. But for me it would feel more like stealing if I thought I really wish Id taken that image myself so Im just going to use it.' Well Hank, I am glad that we agree on that point.
Williams post received an outpouring of support and, as of my writing, has been shared over a hundred times.
On September 10, a full four days after Williams first contacted Goodman, and only after his own gallerist contacted Goodman Gallery, he finally received a carefully worded response. It was one of those cookie-cutter sorry for causing any upset or offence apologies that we are now used to hearing from celebrities. There is no acknowledgement of responsibility for actions or behaviour; rather, the focus is on the upset the reaction of the complainant.
When I reached out to Thomas, his response was that, these are questions central not only to this specific situation, but also to our respective practices and the field of photography at large Questions of presentation, representation, ethics, appropriation, commodity, ownership, authorship, exploitation, and subjectivity have been raised within the field since its beginnings and will be into the future.
In a subsequent response, Thomas wrote that his works are retro-reflective and viewing in person and under the specified lighting conditions is critical. He added that he never had any intention of claiming attribution of Mr Williams photograph; I was 15 years old when it was taken and living in another country. My work is intended as a commentary on the original image and the nature of photography itself.
It is important to correct here, that questions about representation and appropriation have not, in fact, been raised within the field since its beginnings. Rather, as a friend reminded me, they are recent, and directly related to [the efforts of] critical race theorists, critical feminist, and critical queer theorists including black, feminist and queer scholars in the US who worked hard to make these questions relevant. Further, productive conversations may need to focus on what makes an artwork an innovative comment on another artists or photographers intellectual and creative property through incorporating the original work in some way and what makes an artwork a more simple appropriation of an arresting image or object that has a clear ownership or lineage. In places like South Africa, such issues are deeply felt, and it is necessary to maintain respectful boundaries and acknowledge peoples intellectual and cultural contributions. Those debates helped me develop my own critical acumen and ethical stances, and I am grateful for the sharp direction I received.
Whitewashing a powerful photograph
Graeme Williams took the original photograph in 1991, at a rally where children at the impoverished Thokoza township, located to the east of Johannesburg, were marching in support of Nelson Mandela, who was visiting the township that day. The backdrop shows South African security forces on top of a Casspir (an armoured vehicle), watching the procession. The uniformed men lounge about on top of the vehicle, which towers above the children. In some ways, they look like relaxed parade-watchers who have a prime viewing spot. But these men, who still carry more than enough firepower to end the parading childrens lives, have devolved into a soporific stupor. They the feared and reviled front line actors who maintained the violent practices and policies of the apartheid regime through the use of banal, everyday forms of violence and deadly force seem unable to act. Instead, they seem to be resigned to what seems inevitable at this point, given the fantastical popularity of Mandela and the promise of the freedom and dignity that his mythical figure promised at the time.
Williams remembers how remarkable it was to be a photographer during this time. Mandela had only just been released from prison, and Williams watched how he transitioned straight into being a statesman. As a photographer working for Reuters, Williams was among a small group of journalists and photographers who met at Mandelas Johannesburg office each morning.
When he came out, wed ask, Where are you going today?! And that day, he said, Thokoza! [Williams playfully imitates Mandelas famous tone and accent]. So we jumped in our vehicles and went there.
It was immediately obvious, Williams says, that Mandela was able to sway the direction of the country.
The power dynamics of the country shifted dramatically from the Nats [the National Party, which formalised the policies of segregation into apartheid] to the ANC overnight. And it was that remarkable shift in power that was evident in that photograph, in that simple juxtaposition. Those kids felt free to go out like that to parade for Mandela, in front of a Casspir and policemen. That was powerful.
The power of Williams photograph is in its ability to encapsulate a moment of transformation and awakening into power. The layers of juxtapositions in this photograph, which seem simple at first, conveys an almost magical narrative of contrasts: first, there is the marked disparity between the experiences of the two sets of bodies the lethargy and resignation of formerly powerful warriors who now find themselves on the wrong side of history, and the energy and delight evident in the childrens high-stepping glory, conveying what even the promise of a magical journey from being an invisible, objectified other to full dignity can give a human being.
There is the corrugated metal wall, topped with rolls of barbed wire, literally separating these two sets of people there are the warriors, in full battle armour, seemingly directionless and without the will to step into action, lounging about on a war machine stalled behind the wall; and there are the children, in their ill-fitting hand-me-down clothes and dusty shoes in the foreground, directing themselves towards an unforeseen future.
Up till that moment, the young childrens only value, for the South African state, lay in their docility and acceptance of having to live behind geographical, physical, and logistical barriers intended to make them invisible. In a not-too-distant future, they were to be ready to be instrumentalised into labouring bodies, useful for the enhancement and profit of South Africas whites. But in a moment, they transform themselves from being invisible, objectified bodies to delightfully energetic persons, cognisant of the promise of becoming. We know that Mandela, though absent in the photograph, is the conduit to this remarkable transformation.
Hank Willis Thomas appropriated image of Williams photograph uses an effect that looks like white-washing: the wall, armoured vehicle, and the uniformed men on top of the vehicle, are all covered in a veneer of chalky white paint. They appear only as shadowy presences, with no discernible identity. More importantly, the power, ruthlessness, and violence that anyone who remembers the apartheid police and army would associate with these uniformed men on an armoured vehicle are all whitewashed out.
Appropriating photographs to make artworks
As an American artist with long-standing socio-political interests in South Africa, Thomas built ties there through his relationship with the Goodman Gallery, the longest operating and one of the most financially successful commercial galleries in the country, well-known for providing spaces for the growth of artists. Thomas notes that he has, in recent years, approached his practice as an artist interested in the ways that popular imagery informs how people perceive themselves and others around the world, he assumes the role of a visual culture archaeologist.
His work is known for its powerful ability to highlight or reveal, with humour at times, problematic politics of gender, race, and class embedded within images, which previously may have gone unnoticed by most audiences. Thomas photo-derived sculptures are cast in aluminium, silicone and bronze; they tread the line between advertising, archival photography and sculpture, often offering a powerful commentary about the original images.
However, there is a significant difference between Thomas early works of bricolage, in which he incorporated other photographers works in order to make a commentary of his own, and his more recent works. In the past, he had acknowledged where he sourced the components of his work, including the titles.
For instance, in If I Could Tell the Story in Words (2013), he notes that the title itself is a quote from Lewis Hine, whose original photograph Thomas used in his own work. Hine photographed child labourers mostly those of European descent; he is known as the photographer who initiated the discourse on childrens rights, and possibly even began the genre of human rights photography. Hines said, famously, If I could tell the story in words, I wouldnt need to lug around a camera.
But in the series of sculptures he produced for his first major exhibition of works at the Cape Town branch of the Goodman Gallery in 2014, History Doesnt Laugh, he often openly appropriated advertisements from the classified section of newspapers, logos, magazine graphics, and South African photographs made before 1994 with the intention of proposing and unveiling new social and cultural meanings. Thomas used iconic photographs by Ernest Cole, Eli Weinberg, and Catherine Ross, and rendered sections of the bodies of subjects in metals.
The appropriation or to be more blunt the taking ownership of less culturally powerful persons works, with no acknowledgement of the origins of the concepts within the original photograph, artwork, or the creator behind the work, is a pervasive practice. It happens within South African artists and photographers ecosystems too.
South African photographer Roger Bosch also pointed out that his work had been appropriated in an alarmingly similar manner. One of Boschs iconic photographs depicting police violence towards protestors in 2014 shows police using high-pressure hoses to blow back a group of black protesters. The water appears to be dyed blue so that authorities might identify, later, who was present at the protest. The South African artist Haroon Gunn Salie used this photograph, changing only one major aspect of it, in his 2015 exhibition History After Apartheid at the National Gallery in Cape Town: he made the colour photograph into a black and white image but highlighted the bright blue spray, perhaps to signify apartheid-era polices use of dyes in water cannons to later identify those at protests. Gunn Salie has also created a number of other similarly doctored photographs. Although Bosch made a complaint to Agence France Presse, he said that nothing came of his complaint.
There is another way
It would not have been difficult for the artists to contact the photographers, and ask them to do a truly collaborative project. It is my opinion that the artists works, had they been collaborative and the original work attributed appropriately, and profits shared, would have been far richer and layered conversations on the nature of photography and audience interpretation of images. For instance, Thomas work would have been a powerful statement about how the spontaneous, joyful, and hopeful rallies, which erupted in support of what seemed like the fruition of a dream have become, 20-plus years later, rallies raging against the devastating political realities that resulted; it could have been about how the march for freedom and dignity will never truly be over.
However, Williams insists that his photograph has historical value and has a life of its own. I do not feel that I need an American artist to give it legitimacy or status. For those reasons, he would never have given [Thomas] or anyone else permission to use it for some secondary gain. In that case, the artist, no matter how genuinely they believed in the merit of rephrasing the narrative in a powerful photograph and no matter how self-important should have acquiesced, and understood that there are limits to their power to take, own, and instrumentalise others work in order to profit from their labour.
The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial stance.
Ricardo Martinelli detained on extradition warrant from Panama, where he is accused of political espionage and graft.
Former Panamanian president Ricardo Martinelli has been arrested in Florida on an extradition warrant from his country, where he is accused of political espionage and corruption, the US Marshal Services said.
Martinelli, 65, was taken into custody near his home in Coral Gables, Florida, according to Manny Puri, a spokesman for the agency.
The former president was transported to a federal detention centre in Miami and was expected to appear before a judge for an extradition hearing on Tuesday.
Panamas government had requested Martinellis extradition last September to face accusations that he spied illegally on his political rivals and intercepted the telephone calls of more than 100 people, including politicians, business and labour leaders, and critical journalists, during his 2009-14 term as president.
Interpol also issued a notice for Martinellis arrest last month.
READ MORE: Manuel Noriega, ex-military ruler of Panama, dies at 83
In Panama, lawyers on Martinellis defence team said the extradition process would proceed normally.
The defence for ex-president Martinelli is going to exercise all the rights and guarantees offered under the rule of law, said lawyer Carlos Carrillo. It is totally false that a request for political asylum was denied.
Martinelli has denied wrongdoing and contends that the case is political persecution by his successor, Juan Carlos Varela.
Varela served as Martinellis vice president but they have sparred bitterly since the transfer of power.
Martinelli, a supermarket tycoon, presided over an infrastructure boom and Latin Americas fastest economic growth in recent years, but his administration was tainted by allegations of corruption.
Graft charges have been brought against the former president in Panama, but the cases have stalled in the courts.
In February, prosecutors in Panama said they were seeking international help in detaining two of Martinellis sons in relation to an alleged scheme to launder bribes from the Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht.
Nearly 13,000 families were apprehended while crossing the border in August, up from about 9,000 in July.
The number of immigrant family units apprehended while attempting to enter the US through its southern border soared to 12,774 in August, up from roughly 9,247 in July, according to statistics released by the Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) agency.
Another 3,181 family units who arrived at official ports of entry were deemed inadmissible in August, a slight increase from the previous month.
CBP Commissioner Kevin McAleenan said on Wednesday that legal loopholes allowed for the increase, adding that were not surprised by it, but its been a very stark trend.
Families accounted for almost a third of apprehensions on the southern border in August.
The numbers shine a light on the effect of the Trump administrations zero tolerance immigration policy introduced in April, which resulted in the separation of more than 2,500 children from their parents.
President Donald Trump effectively ended his administrations own practise of separating families in June with an executive order amid heavy criticism, though hundreds of children remain separated from their parents and guardians.
Number of beds at a tent camp for immigrant children to triple
Last week, the Trump administration moved to abandon a court settlement that limits how long immigrant children can be kept locked up.
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The administration proposed new regulations that would allow the government to detain families until their immigration cases are decided.
The settlement, commonly called the Flores agreement of 1997, limits the amount of time minors can be held to 20 days and lays out the conditions they must be afforded.
The administration claims sidestepping the Flores agreement will speed up the handling of asylum requests while also deterring people from crossing the border between official ports of entry.
The administration also announced on Tuesday that it will expand its tent camp for immigrant minors apprehended at the border in Tornillo, Texas from 1,200 beds to 3,800.
Parents will take risk to keep families safe
Augusts statistics come as the US midterm elections are approaching and immigration remains a key issue in campaigns across the country.
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Overall, people arrested or stopped at the border totaled 46,560, up from 39,953 in July and 30,567 in August 2017. Arrests have risen from July to August in four of the previous five years, indicating seasonal factors may be an influence.
Immigrant advocates claim that people will continue to come to the US due to difficult situations at home.
Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum, an immigrant advocacy group, told USA Today that most of the people arriving at the border are fleeing gang violence and instability in Central America.
Even with all of the news about family separation, zero-tolerance policies, and detention, parents will take the risk and come to the [US] to try to keep their families safe, Noorani was quoted as saying.
Imprisonment not linked to freedom of press as reporters broke Official Secrets Act, says Nobel Peace Prize winner.
Myanmars leader Aung San Suu Kyi defended on Thursday the jailing of two Reuters news agency journalists convicted of collecting state secrets.
Wa Lone, 32, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 28, were imprisoned last week after being found guilty of breaching the countrys hardline Official Secrets Act while reporting on atrocities committed against Rohingya Muslims during a military crackdown in Rakhine state.
They were not jailed because they were journalists, they were jailed because the court has decided that they have broken the Official Secrets Act, Suu Kyi said at the World Economic Forum on ASEAN in Vietnam.
The journalists were investigating the killing of Rohingya villagers by security forces at the time of their arrest last December and had pleaded not guilty.
Their imprisonment prompted an international outpouring of support.
I wonder whether many people have actually read the summary of the judgement, which had nothing to do with freedom of expression at all, it had to do with an Official Secrets Act, said Suu Kyi.
If we believe in the rule of law, they have every right to appeal the judgment and to point out why the judgement was wrong.
Should be ashamed
Suu Kyis comments drew an indignant response from rights groups who have urged the Nobel laureate to press for a presidential pardon for the reporters.
This is a disgraceful attempt by Aung San Suu Kyi to defend the indefensible, said Amnesty Internationals Minar Pimple, describing the leaders comments as a deluded misrepresentation of the facts.
The international condemnation heading Aung San Suu Kyis way is fully deserved, she should be ashamed.
Sean Bain, of the International Commission of Jurists, said: Open courts are designed to shed light on the justice process. Sadly in this case weve seen both institutional and individual failings to hold up the principles of rule of law and human rights.
Genocidal intent
On Wednesday, Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo were honoured by a foundation set up by the late Win Tin, one of the countrys most prominent political prisoners and a close ally of Suu Kyi.
In granting the prestigious award, the foundation said it would oppose their convictions and demand their release.
Earlier on Thursday, Suu Kyi said her government could have handled the situation in Rakhine state better.
There are of course ways in which we, with hindsight, might think that the situation could have been handled better. But we believe that for the sake of long-term stability and security we have to be fair to all sides we cannot pick and choose who should be protected by the rule of law.
About 700,000 Rohingya fled Rakhine after government troops led a brutal crackdown in the state in response to deadly attacks by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army on Myanmar police posts and a military base in August 2017.
Last month, UN investigators said Myanmars military carried out mass killings and gang rapes of Rohingya with genocidal intent, and the commander-in-chief and five generals should be prosecuted for the gravest crimes under international law.
Myanmar has denied allegations of atrocities, saying its military carried out justifiable operations against fighters.
Kofi Annan has been laid to rest in his native Ghana as world leaders paid tributes to the former UN secretary-general with calls to keep alive the legacy of a stubborn optimist to create a better, more peaceful world.
At the funeral on Thursday, Annans widow, Nane Maria, led hundreds of mourners, including world leaders past and present, traditional rulers and global royalty and called her husband an extraordinary person who had a joy of life.
My love, you are now back home where you started your long journey. But may your wisdom and compassion continue to guide us, wherever we are, she said at the state funeral in the capital, Accra.
Annan led the UN from 1997 to 2006, becoming the first person from sub-Saharan Africa to do so. He died on August 18 aged 80 at his home in Switzerland after a short illness.
Thousands of people have filed past his coffin this week during three days of national mourning for Annan who was called one of the truly iconic figures of modern times by Ghanas President Nana Akufo-Addo.
Many ordinary Ghanaians described him as a father figure and a source of national pride, while his brother, Kobina, told the congregation that he was more than a leader and statesman.
We lost a brother, a husband, a father, a grandfather and an uncle, a man of deep conviction who was as committed to instilling the values of fairness, integrity, kindness and service in each of us as he was to advocating for peace and human rights around the world, said Kobina.
The current UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, praised his close friend as an exceptional global leader who was dignified, courageous and a man of integrity, dynamism and dedication.
Kofi Annan was the United Nations and the United Nations was him, he added.
Annan, who was originally from Kumasi, the capital of the Ashanti region in southern Ghana, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2001.
Europes human rights court rules UK intelligence programme that obtained data was not in accordance with the law.
Britains mass surveillance programme has violated peoples right to privacy, Europes human rights court ruled on Thursday.
Judges voted six to one the effort by its intelligence agency GCHQ for obtaining data from communications providers was not in accordance with the law, and there were insufficient safeguards in respect of confidential journalistic material.
They also voted by five to two the mass trawling for information violated Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights guaranteeing the right to privacy.
The GCHQ programme was revealed by American whistle-blower Edward Snowden, a former National Security Agency (NSA) operative, as part of his sensational leaks on US spying.
The UK case, brought by civil liberties, human rights and journalism groups and campaigners, challenged British surveillance and intelligence-sharing practices revealed by Snowden.
The judges ruled against the 16 complainants on the question of whether Britain further violated their privacy by sharing intelligence with foreign governments, saying that did not constitute a breach of their rights.
The verdict is not final and can be appealed.
Major victory
Corey Stoughton of human rights group Liberty described the ruling as a major victory for those of us who think there ought to be balance in the governments ability to engage in surveillance.
Britain has changed its surveillance laws since the legal challenge began, passing new legislation the government says has more privacy safeguards.
A UK government spokesperson said the government would give careful consideration to the courts findings while noting a new double lock oversight mechanism on spying had been enacted in 2016 three years after the revelations first emerged.
Snowden leaked thousands of classified documents to the media in 2013 that revealed the vast scope of surveillance of private data that was put in place after the September 11, 2001, attacks.
The documents showed Britain spied on foreign politicians at G20 summit meetings in London in 2009, and collected huge quantities of global email messages, Facebook posts, and internet histories and calls, which it shared with the NSA.
Michael Kent Curtis (Wake Forest University - School of Law) has posted North Carolina's Sick Democracy: Racial Gerrymanders, Political Gerrymanders, and Voting Rules as Tools for Partisan Entrenchment on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
Representative democracy in North Carolina has been under assault in myriad ways. These include the legislatures on-going attempts to restrict access to the ballot and to rig elections by racial and political gerrymanders among others. Gerrymandering, drawing electoral districts entrench the party in power (Republican, in this case) left North Carolina with one of the most gerrymandered legislatures in the nation. The effect has been to undermine popular sovereignty and competitive elections. This article attempts to survey judicial responses to some of the most recent attacks on democratic government in North Carolina. The assault has multiple prongs, but the objective of partisan entrenchment unites them. So this article looks at a some of these assaults as a way of thinking about how they work synergistically. This survey is useful in evaluating recent iterations of the assaults including ones not covered here.
European Parliament votes to launch disciplinary action against Hungary for flouting its core values. Whats next?
The European Parliament on Wednesday voted to launch punitive action against Hungary for breaching the blocs core values in a move that might bring unprecedented political sanctions against the Budapest government.
It is the first time ever the EU legislature triggered the disciplinary Article 7 procedure against an EU member state that has the potential to strip Hungarian government, led by controversial Prime Minister Viktor Orban, of its EU voting rights.
The motion, written by Dutch Greens Member of European Parliament (MEP) Judith Sargentini, was passed with over two-thirds of the ballots in the 751-member institution.
Here is what Article 7 is about, how significant this decision is and what might happen next.
What is Article 7?
The Article 7 of the Treaty of the European Union, or TEU which established the bloc in 1992 seeks to protect the EU values defined in Article 2.
Article 2 lists the founding values of the EU as human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities.
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Under Article 7.1, if it is found that there is a clear risk of a breach of EU values by a member state, the Council of Ministers may address recommendations to it.
The Council, in line with Article 7.2, could also find that a member state has committed a serious and persistent breach of core values, in which case, it is allowed to suspend certain of the rights [of the member state in question], including the voting rights.
The Council of Ministers made up of member state ministers is the second legislative organ of the EU, in addition to the European Parliament.
According to Nicoletta Pirozzi, a researcher with the Institute for International Affairs in Rome, triggering Article 7.1 is a strong political message and represents an alarm bell for the targeted government.
It is just a warning, but very relevant at the political level, before a serious breach has actually materialised, she told Al Jazeera.
What is next?
The issue will come before the Council in line with the Article 7 procedure. It is unclear when the Council will add this issue to its agenda, but it is not expected anytime soon.
Poland, which is facing a similar process, has already said that it would veto a decision against Hungary. Hungary also backs Poland over Warsaws clash with the EU.
The Council can decide that there is a clear risk of a serious breach if four-fifths of its member states vote in favour after hearing Hungary.
Alternatively, it may determine the existence of a serious and persistent breach if all member states other than Hungary vote for it. In case this happens, the Council can, in a separate vote, block Hungarys voting rights with a qualified majority.
However, it is not likely with Polands stance against the move.
Can Baydarol, an EU expert and vice-chair of European Union and Global Research Association, said it was not easy to give a timeline for the rest of the process as it will depend on Hungarys actions.
How and when the rest of the process will unfold is up to what Hungary will do in the coming days. We will see if they will take it seriously and address it, he told Al Jazeera from Istanbul.
Hungary will now seek diplomatic support and try to lobby right-wing European governments and parties, in addition to the Polish government, to raise their voices against the European Parliament move.
Pirozzi said: Orban will manage to turn this vote in its favour at the internal level, presenting it as a vote against Hungarian people and capitalise it politically also at the European level in view of the next European Parliament elections (May 2019).
Did anything similar happen before?
It is unprecedented for the European Parliament to initiate the Article 7 procedure. However, the European Commission, the executive organ of the EU, started the process against Poland in December 2017 with concerns over rule of law and independent judiciary amid rapid judicial changes in that country.
Both the governments in Poland and Hungary are posing significant threats to the fundamental values of the EU, from democracy to rule of law to human rights, in particular, in sectors such as media freedom, migration and judicial independence, Nicoletta Pirozzi told Al Jazeera.
She added that the move against Hungary was politically more significant as it was carried out by elected European representatives.
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A similar de facto move was carried out against Austria in 2000, when far-right Freedom Party led by Jorg Haider became coalition partner following the October 1999 elections. He was the first far-right leader that came to power since World War II.
The member states diplomatically isolated Austria, with some members threatening the country with cutting bilateral relations. Furthermore, the European Parliament called for the suspension of Austrias membership. As a result of the pressure, Haider could not become chancellor.
In those days, the Article 7 was not triggered, but the 14 other member states of the time used the threat of it against Austria as a unified bloc. Haider left the chancellor chair to its coalition partner of the time as a result of the pressure, Baydarol said.
The EU Parliament motion was passed with over two-thirds of the ballots in the 751-member institution [Reuters]
What is the significance of the vote?
The vote highlights Hungarys alleged breaches such as control over the courts, the curbing of freedom of expression, government intervention into media, the threat to academic freedom and the curtailed rights of migrants.
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Actions against both Poland and Hungary were taken amid a rise of far-right parties within the EU, the recent being the electoral success of an anti-immigrant party in Sweden.
According to Baydarol, the European Parliament decision aims to show that the EU has the necessary tools to act if its core values are threatened by a member state.
You cannot be in a bloc and act against its criteria without any consequences. Such decisions act as a deterrent to prevent similar actions, Baydarol said, referring to changing political scene within the EU.
Pirozzi said that the move is also good to demonstrate that the EU does not apply a double standard between its members and its external partners, reacting in a strong political way also against the governments of EU countries.
It will be important to keep up with the high expectations raised, she told Al Jazeera.
Follow Umut Uras on Twitter: @Um_Uras
More than 1.5 million Algerians died during the 1954-62 war of independence against colonial-ruler France.
France acknowledged for the first time it was responsible for systematic torture during the Algerian war of independence in the mid-1950s.
President Emmanuel Macron said on Thursday that Maurice Audin, a communist pro-independence activist who disappeared in 1957, died under torture stemming from the system instigated while Algeria was part of France.
Macron, who paid a visit to Audins widow on Thursday, was also set to announce the opening of archives on the subject of disappeared civilians and soldiers, both French and Algerian.
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During the 1954-62 war, which claimed some 1.5 million Algerian lives, French forces cracked down on independence fighters in the colony ruled by Paris for 130 years.
Macron told Audins widow: The only thing I am doing is to acknowledge the truth.
Josette Audin told reporters at her apartment in the east Paris suburb of Bagnolet: I never thought this day would come.
Disappearances
Starting with former President Jacques Chirac in 2003, French leaders have at various points denounced the suffering that the occupation of Algeria caused the indigenous population, before walking back or tempering their statements.
But none until Macron, however, acknowledged Frances responsibility in the torture of Algerian detainees.
During the war, the French government censored newspapers, books, and films that claimed it had used torture. After the war, atrocities committed by its troops remained a taboo subject in French society.
Rim-Sarah Alouane, an international human rights jurist and a PhD candidate in public law at Toulouse University, told Al Jazeera that justice was finally being served.
I think this very welcoming decision by President Macron was the natural next step to take in this very heavy history. It had to be done for the sake of both countries, Alouane said.
A lot of mysteries around the disappearances of people who fought during the Algerian war of independence remain, mysteries that have affected thousands and thousands of families.
Alouane said while the declaration does not amount to an apology, its an important step given that colonisation is still a taboo subject in France.
Historian Sylvie Thenault said the French states acknowledgement that Audins death resulted from a system pointed to a broader recognition of wrongdoing.
Through recognition of the states responsibilities in the disappearance of Maurice Audin, have the states responsibilities in all disappearances in Algiers in 1957 not been recognised? she wrote in The Conversation, a news website.
Facing the past
Macron, the first president born after the conflict, sparked controversy on the campaign trail last year by declaring that Frances colonisation of Algeria was a crime against humanity.
He later walked back the comments calling for neither denial nor repentance over Frances colonial history.
Reporting from Paris, Al Jazeeras Natacha Butler said Thursdays announcement had deep symbolic meaning and would bring closure for Audins widow 60 years later and may help others with the opening of the archives.
Its a very significant statement indeed. It closes a chapter for her, and it perhaps opens one for others because relatives of people who died at the time will be able to find out what happened to their loved ones, she said.
An assistant professor at the University of Algiers, Audin was 25 when he was arrested at his home likely by French soldiers accused of harbouring communist independence fighters.
The father-of-three was tortured repeatedly in a villa in the Algiers neighbourhood of El Biar. Josette Audin was told 10 days later her husband had escaped while being transferred between jails.
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This remained the official version of events until 2014, when Macrons predecessor, Francois Hollande, acknowledged Audin died in detention.
A 2014 book by journalist Jean-Charles Deniau claimed the mathematician was killed by a French army officer on the orders of General Jacques Massu.
That order was confirmed by another general, Paul Aussaresses, who died in 2013 after admitting he tortured and killed dozens of prisoners.
Guatemalans protest against Morales annulment of CICIG
Thousands take to the streets against presidents decision to not renew anti-corruption body mandate.
Even as the European Parliament moves to punish Hungary for its violation of the EUs core values, a defiant Hungarian government has said its stand on George Soros-funded Central European University (CEU) has not changed.
When asked in a television show on Wednesday evening how Hungary would respond to concerns raised by the Members of European Parliament over CEU, Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said the university still expects privileges, which would be hard for the countrys legislators to accept.
The agreement of CEU with another US university does not mean that there is a school there, Szijjarto said, referring to a controversial amendment made in the education law last year, which required the university to also offer courses in the United States.
Responding to the ministers remarks, the CEU issued a statement on Thursday reiterating that it has always conformed to the Hungarian laws, and currently fulfils the requirements of the Hungarian legislation on higher education passed in March 2017.
The universitys statement added that a delegation of Hungarian officials, led by former Secretary for Education Laszlo Palkovics, visited CEUs New York facilities in April 2018.
When asked for comment by Al Jazeera, a Hungarian government representative cited Palkovics interview from June in which he had said they are currently examining whether actual training is being performed by the CEU in the United States with the involvement of education experts.
CEU, founded 25 years ago by Hungarian-American billionaire Soros known for his support of refugees and the Roma minority, is originally accredited in the New York State.
Following the passage of the law, which many in Hungary saw as part of the governments wider crackdown on dissent, the Budapest-based university began holding classes in the US in partnership with New Yorks Bard College earlier this year.
EU takes note
On Wednesday, the European Parliament voted to initiate Article 7 procedures against Hungary with 448 votes in favour and 197 against.
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It was the first time the EU legislature had triggered disciplinary action against a member state, which could strip the Hungarian government, led by Prime Minister Viktor Orban, of its EU voting rights.
The punitive move was motivated in part by perceived violations of democratic principles committed by the ruling Fidesz party, known for its far-right, anti-immigration policies.
Among the concerns raised at the European Parliament was the Hungarian governments actions against CEU.
Dutch MEP Judith Sargentini, who spearheaded the vote to enact Article 7 procedures, decried the CEUs legal limbo in a report (PDF) that detailed alleged violations of the EUs democratic principles.
While Article 7 procedures may deny Hungary its EU voting rights, it is now unlikely to happen with Poland saying it will not support such moves.
We will veto the decision if it comes to sanctions, Polish Foreign Minister Jacek Czaputowicz told reporters in Lithuania on Thursday.
Outer edges of Florence, now Category 1 storm, reach North Carolina with centre of hurricane expected to hit on Friday.
The outer reaches of Hurricane Florence began lashing coastal North Carolina with heavy winds and flooded roads on Thursday ahead of an expected landfall that will bring walls of water and lingering downpours to parts of the US East Coast.
The centre of Florence, which has been downgraded to a Category 1 storm, is expected to hit North Carolinas southern coast on Friday, then drift southwest before moving inland on Saturday, enough time to drop as much as one metre of rain in some places, according to the National Hurricane Center.
An estimated 10 million people live in the storms path, according to the US Weather Prediction Center, and coastal businesses and homes were boarded up in anticipation. More than one million people had been ordered to evacuate the coasts of North and South Carolina and Virginia and thousands moved to emergency shelters, officials said.
Al Jazeeras Jay Gray, reporting from Carolina Beach in North Carolina, said the situation is going to intensify as the storm moves closer to the shore line.
Hurricane #Florence is producing a life-threatening storm surge and hurricane conditions over portions of eastern North Carolina. The threat of freshwater flooding will increase and spread inland over the next several days. https://t.co/tW4KeGdBFb pic.twitter.com/3OokbkFeb7 National Hurricane Center (@NHC_Atlantic) September 14, 2018
In some areas, these conditions are going to continue for two days or more, he said. This is setting up to be a historic flooding in some of the low areas across the strike zone.
Florences maximum sustained winds were clocked on Thursday at 165 kilometres per hour after it was downgraded to a Category 2 on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale, according to the NHC. The winds had been as high as 140 miles per hour (roughly 225kph) earlier in the week.
But North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper warned: Dont relax, dont get complacent. Stay on guard. This is a powerful storm that can kill. Today the threat becomes a reality.
https://twitter.com/SEREF737/status/1040497957957775360?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Some people who had rejected calls to evacuate the area in danger area took walks along the water as they tried to enjoy a few final hours of normalcy before Florences fury arrived.
In Sea Breeze, Roslyn Fleming, 56, made a video of the inlet where her granddaughter was baptised because I just dont think a lot of this is going to be here after the storm, she told Reuters news agency.
Sixteen kilometres away in the city of Wilmington, wind gusts were stirring up frothy white caps into the Cape Fear River.
A man walks past a boarded-up business before Hurricane Florence comes ashore in Wilmington, North Carolina [Carlo Allegri/Reuters]
Were a little worried about the storm surge so we came down to see what the river is doing now, said Linda Smith, 67, a retired nonprofit director. I am frightened about whats coming. We just want prayers from everyone.
Flooding, power outages begin
The storms centre was about 180km east of Wilmington, North Carolina, at 2pm local time (18:00 GMT) but tropical storm-strength winds and heavy rains already were hitting North Carolinas Outer Banks barrier islands. The main highway in the Outer Banks was closed in parts as seawater pushed in. Flooding from rain and rising rivers also was reported in New Bern.
Some 11,000 power outages have been reported in North Carolina.
The hurricane centre also said the threat of tornadoes was increasing as the storm neared the shore.
The Union Point Park Complex is seen flooded as the Hurricane Florence comes ashore in New Bern, North Carolina [Eduardo Munoz/Reuters]
Florence could bring wind-driven storm surges of seawater as high as four metres and NHC Director Ken Graham said on Facebook they could push in as far as three kilometres. Heavy rains were forecast to extend into the Appalachian mountains, affecting parts of Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, and West Virginia.
The storm will be a test of President Donald Trumps administration less than two months before elections to determine control of the United States Congress. After criticism for its response to last years Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, which officials there said was responsible for 3,000 deaths, Trump has vowed a vigorous response to Florence and defended his handling of Maria.
3000 people did not die in the two hurricanes that hit Puerto Rico, Trump said on Twitter. When I left the Island, AFTER the storm had hit, they had anywhere from 6 to 18 deaths Then, a long time later, they started to report really large numbers, like 3000.
Trump provided no evidence to support his challenge on Maria.
Emergency declarations were in force in Georgia, South and North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia. Millions of people are expected to lose power and it could take weeks to resolve the outages.
Huts set up by Palestinians protesting against the planned demolition of Bedouin village dismantled in morning raid.
Israeli forces have dismantled several shacks near Khan al-Ahmar set up by Palestinian activists to protest against the planned demolition of the Bedouin village in the occupied West Bank.
Israeli border police arrived before dawn on Thursday and dismantled the protest camp, according to witnesses.
Israels plan to demolish the village, home to nearly 200 people, and relocate its residents has been criticised by Palestinians and drawn international condemnation.
We hope that it will satisfy them that they succeeded in destroying the five houses. It was not our battle to fight, defending the empty houses. Our battle is to defend the houses of Khan al-Ahmar, Walid Assaf, head of the commission against the wall and settlements, told Al Jazeera.
The predawn operation raised fears among residents that the demolition would occur soon, but the Israeli forces left the area after they removed the shacks.
Israeli forces removed shacks close to Khan al-Ahmar village [Mussa Qawasma/Reuters]
At 5am (local time, 02:00 GMT) this morning Israeli forces moved in. They stayed on the outskirts of the village, an area where there were a few temporary structures that had been put up by activists in solidarity, Al Jazeeras Harry Fawcett, reporting from Khan al-Ahmar, said.
They prevented access to anyone else as they demolished those structures and took them away, he said.
That is racism, that is apartheid
The Bedouin village is located in a strategic spot near Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and along a road leading to the Dead Sea.
It was not our battle to fight, defending the empty houses. Our battle is to defend the houses of Khan al-Ahmar Walid Assaf, head of the commission against the wall and settlements
The Israeli defence ministry body, which oversees civilian activities in the occupied Palestinian territories, said the five caravans had been pitched illegally over the past few days.
The erection of these structures was advanced by representatives of the Palestinian Authority in protest and defiance of the decision of the (Israeli) High Court of Justice, and in opposition to the enforcement of Israeli law in Area C, the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories said.
It was referring to the 61 percent of the occupied West Bank where Israel exercises full civil as well as military authority.
Last week, Israels top court rejected petitions to prevent the demolition of Khan al-Ahmar, agreeing with Israeli authorities who said it was built without proper permits.
Palestinians say that the required building permits are impossible to obtain.
Over there, there are a number of settlements allowed to grow naturally the number of residents naturally but here we are banned from doing a single thing, Abu Khamis, a village spokesman, said.
That is racism, that is apartheid.
Activists say that continued settlement building in the area would eventually divide the occupied West Bank in two, dealing a death blow to any remaining hopes of a two-state solution.
On Monday, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Spain issued a renewed call for Israel not to demolish the village, warning of the consequences for residents as well as the prospects of the two-state solution.
Japan proposes legalising commercial whaling
Tokyo considers ending the 33-year-old ban, saying most species have rebounded, but its facing opposition from the IWC.
Muhammad Shafee Abdullah was arrested and brought to court as police widen investigation into corruption scandal.
A lawyer for former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak was charged with receiving US$2.3m in ill-gotten wealth, as police announced the investigation of more than 50 individuals suspected of links to the multi-billion dollar looting of the 1MDB state investment fund.
Muhammad Shafee Abdullah was arrested on Thursday and brought to court, where he pleaded not guilty to two counts of money-laundering and two counts of evading taxes by making false declarations on his income tax.
Shafee reportedly received the $2.3m from a client, who is himself accused of money-laundering and corruption.
According to the charge sheets, he received proceeds from illegal activities of $1.04m from Najibs personal bank account in September 2013 and another $1.26m in February 2014.
Shafee is the main defence lawyer for Najib, who months after his electoral defeat faces charges of money-laundering, criminal breach of trust, and corruption linked to the 1MDB scandal.
Najib criticised the court action as politically motivated to intimidate Shafee and another step to deny me a fair trial.
In a statement on Facebook, he said the investigation was clearly not complete because he has not been summoned by anti-graft officials to explain the payment to Shafee.
This is victimisation, Shafee told reporters, vowing to continue to defend Najib.
Shafee admitted he received the money, but denied it was a reward for prosecuting then opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim in his sodomy trial.
He said it was a back payment for legal services for Najibs Malay party and then-ruling coalition, and he had no knowledge of the source of the money.
Payment from Saudi prince
Najib also said the payment was for Shafees legal services, and it came not from 1MDB, but from a political donation from Saudi Arabias finance ministry and a Saudi prince who acted for the late King Abdullah.
Public anger over the 1MDB scandal led to the stunning removal of Najibs long-ruling coalition on May 9 national polls and ushered in the first change of power since independence from Britain in 1957.
Najib set up 1MDB when he took power in 2009 to promote economic development, but the fund amassed billions in debts and is being investigated in the United States and several other countries for alleged cross-border embezzlement and money-laundering.
According to the US Department of Justice, as much as $4.5bn was misappropriated by top officials of the government fund and their associates.
The new government reopened investigations stifled under Najibs rule and barred him and his wife from leaving the country.
Police also seized jewelry and hundreds of handbags and other valuables estimated at more than $273m from properties linked to Najib.
Bulging bank account
Deputy national police chief Noor Rashid Ibrahim said on Thursday investigations so far showed that $972m had been transferred to Najibs bank account from three companies linked to 1MDB.
He said police identified 132 transactions involving the illegal money, mostly conducted abroad, and investigated more than 50 people, including local politicians, who may have received ill-gotten wealth.
He declined to say if lawyer Shafee was one of the 50 people.
Malaysia has made requests to authorities in countries including Singapore, US, Switzerland and Saudi Arabia for help in its investigation, he added.
Najib, 65, has accused Malaysias new government under Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad of seeking political vengeance and vowed to clear his name at his trial.
Speeding across the Pacific, Typhoon Mangkhuts 255km/h wind gusts are set to lash the northern Philippines.
A super typhoon roared towards the Philippines on Thursday prompting thousands to evacuate in advance of its heavy rains and fierce winds set to strike at the weekend before moving on to China.
Typhoon Mangkhut, which has already blasted through the Northern Mariana Islands and Guam, is speeding across the Pacific Ocean with winds that can gust as high as 255 kilometres per hour.
Authorities said some 10 million people in the Philippines are in the storms path, not including millions more in heavily populated coastal China.
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The Philippine weather bureau warned the storm surge brought about by strong winds could be as high as six metres the equivalent to a two-storey building endangering many coastal towns and lives.
It said Mangkhut, also known in the Philippines as Typhoon Ompong, will be the strongest typhoon so far this year.
Thousands began evacuating seaside areas of the northern tip of the main Philippine island of Luzon, where the storm is expected to make landfall early Saturday.
Fleeing for safety
In some areas, local authorities will carry out forced evacuations.
We are really frightened. They say it is so strong, said Delaila Pasion who had fled her home. We were too scared to remain.
Flooding, landslides, and wind damage from the super typhoon were top concerns as authorities prepared equipment and personnel for rescue and relief operations.
During the previous monsoon rains, half of our house was destroyed so I wanted to take my grandchildren to safety, Pasion told journalists.
Schools were shuttered and some farmers took to their fields to start the early harvest of corn and rice that could be ruined by flooding.
Mangkhut, a Thai word for the mangosteen fruit, is the 15th storm this year to batter the Philippines, which is hit by about 20 a year and is considered one of the worlds most disaster-prone countries.
Rescuers in Manila ready their gear before Super Typhoon Mangkhut makes landfall [Reuters]
The countrys deadliest on record was Super Typhoon Haiyan, which killed more than 7,350 people across the central Philippines in November 2013.
Considerable threat
The typhoon is expected to boost the intensity of seasonal monsoon rains that have already caused widespread flooding in central Luzon, a mainly farming region north of the capital Manila.
Poor communities reliant on fishing are some of the most vulnerable to fierce typhoon winds and the storm surge that pounds the coast.
It will bring destruction. They are the ones greatly affected. Even moderate winds can topple their houses, regional civil defence official Dante Balao told the AFP news agency.
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said it expects substantial damage in the Philippines.
Heavy rains could trigger landslides and flash floods, it said.
Authorities readied bulldozers for landslides and placed rescuers and soldiers on full alert in the countrys north.
Heading for China
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte on Thursday said hell consider seeking assistance from the international community over Typhoon Mangkhut if it flattens everything.
Speaking at a news conference, Duterte said there is no need yet to seek foreign aid, and it would depend on the severity of the crisis.
Hong Kong is also in Mangkhuts sights and preparations there were already under way Thursday, though the storm was not expected to hit until Sunday.
Social media users and radio commentators in Hong Kong said they were stocking up on food and supplies.
The Hong Kong Observatory warned residents to prepare for the typhoon saying it posed a considerable threat.
Nearly 1,000 Saudi women apply for co-pilot jobs with Flynas in 24 hours as the landmark recruitment drive begins.
Riyadh-based carrier Flynas has announced plans to recruit Saudi women to work as co-pilots and flight attendants for the first time.
Women are not legally barred from working in the aviation sector, but jobs as flight attendants with Saudi carriers have largely been held by female foreign workers from countries such as the Philippines.
A spokesman for Flynas told AFP news agency on Thursday that nearly 1,000 Saudi women applied for co-pilot positions with the airline in the past 24 hours.
In its call for applications, the low-cost carrier said it was keen to empower Saudi women to play an important role in the kingdoms transformation.
Women are an essential part of the airlines success, it said.
The announcement on Wednesday came just months after the kingdom lifted a long-standing ban on female motorists as part of a bid to increase womens participation in the workforce.
The recruitment drive comes just days after Flyadeal, another low-cost Saudi carrier, began posting jobs for Saudi women to work as flight attendants.
The ban on women driving was lifted in June as part of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salmans plans to transform the economy of the worlds top oil exporter.
But the lifting of the ban was accompanied by fresh arrests of some of the very female activists who campaigned against it for years, including Loujain al-Hathloul, Aziza al-Yousef, and Eman al-Nafjan.
Saudi authorities have accused them of suspicious contacts with foreign entities, while the local media labelled them traitors.
At least nine people remain in detention, according to Human Rights Watch.
The New York-based group launched the #StandwithSaudiFeminists campaign earlier this week, urging major car companies to call on Saudi Arabia to release the women activists.
Two Russian men accused of trying to kill a former Russian spy in Salisbury deny being military intelligence officers.
Two Russian men accused by the United Kingdom of attempting to murder a former Russian double agent and his daughter have claimed they were in the country as tourists.
The men, who identified themselves as Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, told Russian state television RT that they visited Salisbury in early March because they wanted to see the southern English towns famous cathedral.
Britains government has accused Petrov and Boshirov of trying to kill the Russian ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Julia. The officials also allege that the pair are military intelligence agents who were sent to the UK to poison the Skripals with the nerve agent Novichok.
The men denied the allegations and said they visited Salisbury on March 3 for tourism but stayed for 30 minutes only.
We went there to see Stonehenge, Old Sarum. But we couldnt do it because there was muddy slush everywhere. We got wet, took the train and came back [to London], the pair told RT before adding that they returned to Salisbury the following day to see the Old Sarum and the cathedral.
On Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin described the two men as civilians.
We, of course, checked who these people are, said Putin. There is nothing special there, nothing criminal, I assure you. Well see in the near future.
A spokesperson for the UK government said the two men who appeared on RT were the same men suspected of poisoning the Skripals.
The government is clear these men are officers of the Russian military intelligence service the GRU who used a devastatingly toxic, illegal chemical weapon on the streets of our country.
We have repeatedly asked Russia to account for what happened in Salisbury in March. Today just as we have seen throughout they have responded with obfuscation and lies.
A British government minister, who represents Salisbury, said on Twitter that the statements were not credible.
Delighted that Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Borishov were able to see the world-class attractions that #Salisbury has to offer. But very strange to come all this way for just two days while carrying Novichok in their luggage, Tweeted John Glen, the Member of Parliament for Salisbury.
Salisbury welcomes tourists from around the world and is very much open for business. But the Petrov/Borishov statements are not credible and dont match the widely accepted intelligence we have on these individuals.
On March 4, Skripal and his daughter were found slumped unconscious on a bench in the town of Salisbury after being exposed to the nerve agent Novichok. They spent weeks in hospital before being discharged.
The failed attack triggered a major diplomatic crisis between the UK and Russia, with the British government alleging Moscow was responsible for the attempted murder. Russia has repeatedly denied those claims.
UK prosecutors have said they have sufficient evidence to charge the pair but did not formally demand their extradition, as Russia does not extradite its citizens.
Troops and tanks amassing along the border with Syria in anticipation of a major offensive and ensuing refugee crisis.
Antakya, Turkey Turkey continued to deploy troops and heavy weaponry to its southwestern border with Syria in anticipation of a major offensive by the Syrian government and its allies on opposition-held territory.
A Turkish military convoy arrived at a Turkish outpost near the town of Morek, in Syrias northern Hama province, early on Thursday.
Al Jazeera also observed the arrival of a military plane that unloaded dozens of Turkish soldiers at the civilian airport in Hatay province, about 50km from the Turkish-Syrian border. It was not immediately clear whether the troops were heading across the border.
Turkey already hosts 3.5 million Syrian refugees and is fearful of another major influx if Syrian forces backed by Russian airpower and allied militias attack the last remaining stronghold of opposition fighters in Idlib province.
According to Metin Gurcan, a Turkish security expert, the border reinforcement was a defensive measure.
If you look at the types of those weapons systems, I would say they are all for defensive purposes. So I dont think Turkey has offensive intention and capability to militarily intervene in the Idlib conundrum, he told Al Jazeera.
This is sort of the preventive, defensive military buildup to manage the anticipated refugee flow because of this push of Russia-backed Syrian forces from the south.
Nearly 40,000 people have already fled Idlib after Syrian-Russian air attacks intensified over the last two weeks. The UN estimates, in a worst-case scenario, about 900,000 civilians could flee Idlib if a full-scale ground offensive begins.
This big bird just landed in Hatay and unloaded a few dozen soldiers. #Idlib pic.twitter.com/2PxQmWyXmL Mariya Petkova (@mkpetkova) September 13, 2018
Turkish officials have repeatedly warned Russia and the Syrian government against attacking Idlib, saying it would lead to another massive wave of refugees heading towards Turkey.
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Over the past week, Turkey has deployed reinforcements and expanded defensive structures at about a dozen observation points across opposition-held territories in Idlib, western Aleppo, and northern Hama provinces.
The outposts were established after a de-escalation agreement was reached between Turkey, Russia, and Iran in July 2017.
Areas in Deraa and Homs provinces and the suburb of Eastern Ghouta were also part of the de-escalation deal, but over the past few months, they have been captured by Syrian government forces backed by the Russian air force and pro-Iranian militias.
On September 7, a ceasefire proposed by Turkey was rejected by Russia and Iran during a summit among the three countries in Tehran.
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Siege warfare
A confrontation between Turkish forces and those backing the Syrian government are highly unlikely if the offensive on Idlib goes forward, said Gurkan.
Russia continues to control Syrias airspace, he noted, and Turkey is unlikely to initiate any military action there without Russian approval.
I dont expect a large-scale ground offensive [by Syrian forces]. It is going to a gradual, incremental siege warfare that could last maybe nine to 10 months, said Gurkan.
He added Turkey was unlikely to withdraw its observation points manned by its troops if heavy fighting begins.
These are Russia-endorsed observation posts, the prime objective of which is to prevent the expansion of pro-Iranian Shia militias from Aleppo to Idlib, he said.
According to Gurkan, Russia also wants to limit Iranian influence in Syria and prevent it from spreading into Idlib province.
Follow Mariya Petkova on Twitter: @mkpetkova
Hundreds of thousands of lives hang in the balance as fighting in port city threatens food supply, says UN official.
The humanitarian crisis in Yemen has worsened dramatically in the last week since UN-sponsored peace talks collapsed and fighting resumed in the port city of Hodeidah.
Lise Grande, UN humanitarian coordinator, said on Thursday that hundreds of thousands of lives hang in the balance in rebel-held Hodeidah, where families are absolutely terrified by the bombardment, shelling and air strikes.
The three-year war has unleashed the worlds most urgent humanitarian crisis in the nation of 28 million people with 22 million dependent on aid.
The UN warned ongoing fighting in Hodeidah, the entry point for the bulk of Yemens commercial imports and aid supplies, could trigger famine in the impoverished nation where an estimated 8.4 million people are facing starvation.
Were particularly worried about the Red Sea mill, which currently has 45,000 metric tonnes of food inside, enough to feed 3.5 million people for a month. If the mills are damaged or disrupted, the human cost will be incalculable, Grande said in a statement.
Battles rage
Yemeni forces, backed by a Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates-led coalition, seized the main road linking Hodeidah to the capital Sanaa, blocking a key supply route for the Houthi rebels in control of the countrys north.
The main entrance in Hodeidah leading to Sanaa has been closed after forces backed by the UAE took control of the road, a pro-coalition military source told the Reuters news agency.
Residents said the citys main eastern gate had been damaged in air raids and fighting was continuing on secondary streets off the main road.
There was no immediate word from either side of the conflict on their casualties.
Doctors and medics in two hospitals in Hodeidah province told the Associated Press news agency that 50 people have been killed in the past 24 hours.
Hundreds of civilians have fled their homes in Hodeidah to escape the fighting and heavy smoke was rising above parts of the city, AP quoted officials as saying.
The fighting in Hodeidah intensified following the collapse of UN-sponsored talks in Geneva last week after the Houthi delegation failed to show up.
Living hell
Coalition forces which aim to restore the internationally recognised government of Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who fled Yemen after the Houthi takeover believe their control over Hodeidah by cutting off supply lines would force the rebels to join the negotiating table.
However, Al Jazeeras Andrew Simmons, reporting from neighbouring Djibouti, said there were warnings from all quarters that this offensive is the last thing needed in the run-up to an attempt to get some sort of dialogue going.
Martin Griffiths, the UN special envoy on Yemen, is expected to meet Houthi representatives as well as Yemeni government officials living in exile in Saudi Arabia this week in a bid to revive talks.
Meanwhile, Meritxell Relano, UNICEFs representative in Yemen, said more than 11 million children faced food shortages, disease, displacement, and lack of access to basic services.
The conflict has made Yemen a living hell for its children, she said. An estimated 1.8 million children are malnourished in the country. Nearly 400,000 of them are severely acute malnourished, and they are fighting for their lives every day.
According to the UN, at least 10,000 people have been killed since the Saudi-Emirati-led coalition intervened in Yemen in 2015. The death toll, however, has not been updated in years and is likely to be much higher.
Thousands convene in Netherlands for annual Palestinians in Europe conference, under slogans of hope and determination.
As we continue to deal with COVID-19, business as usual in the aid sector can no longer be an option
David French Contradicts Himself
National Reviews David French penned an article in which he calls on the New York Times op-ed author, Anonymous, to reveal himself and present evidence that the nations security is at stake, the president is unhinged, and the minions in his administration are concerned. [I]f you truly believe the president is unfit, basic patriotism demands nothing less than Anonymous show the courage to come forward and present his case, under oath with evidence before the American people, who have a right to know. I used to admire David French -- ex-military, an accomplished attorney, a prolific contributor to National Review, a pundit extraordinaire. But his article starts out with the admonition For the good of the nation, you must identify yourself and back up your claims about the president with hard evidence. Throughout the article, French repeatedly demands that Anonymous present the evidence for his or her claims. Evidence, evidence, evidence! I couldnt agree more.
For such a diehard #NeverTrumper as Mr. French, I cannot help but wonder if deep down he actually hopes Anonymous complies. It certainly would vindicate the #NeverTrumpers and their compatriots on the left. And, I say this, fully acknowledging that he does include in his article room for doubt, questioning whether there is real fire behind all this smoke and covering his behind with the acknowledgement that Anonymouss claims just might not be truthful. But here is where David French contradicts himself and loses the reader as well as credibility as the brilliant legal mind he is supposed to be. There is a lot of talk about the kind of behavior thats priced in with Trump. Aside from the cultists, millions of voters cast their ballots knowing that he was a flawed man. They knew, and still know, that hes cheated on his wife. They wished, and still wish, that he wouldnt rage on Twitter, that he showed more self-discipline, and that he had more integrity. But they preferred him to Hillary Clinton, another corrupt candidate. [Emphasis added.] For someone repeatedly calling for the outing of those subverting the Trump Agenda as well as evidence of Trumps insanity and the chaos in the White House -- all in the name of patriotism -- he puts in this gem that we all know Trump cheated on his wife. Curious. Maybe he believes if he says it enough, his readers will accept its veracity. Its a classic litigators technique -- you state things you intend to prove in a case as facts in your opening and closing statements, in your briefs to the court -- counsel will refer to his client as John, the kind-hearted family man who is devoted to his wife and attends church religiously, whereas opposing counsel will refer to him as the accused, a cold-blooded sociopath who murdered his family. Attorneys will consistently refer to the evidence they introduce as actual, indisputable facts that corroborate their version of the case, knowing that the evidence will, in the end, be judged by the triers-of-fact whether jury or judge. I cannot help but wonder if thats what French is doing here. Or did I miss something in the news? I know the left and other Trump haters are convinced of Trumps infidelities based on accusations by the porn star and the playboy bunny (you see? I intentionally did not humanize them with names). His payoffs to them further corroborate in their minds, his guilt. But like all the other male victims of #metoo who have been forced out of positions of power, have lost their livelihoods and reputations simply based on the unsubstantiated accusations of myriad women (who, by the way, do a disservice to women who have actually and provably been sexually harassed, recipients of unwanted sexual advancements, lewd behavior in the office, sexual assault or rape), wheres the evidence that Trump actually cheated on his wife? You know, David, all I have to do is place myself in a room with you at some time, engage you in conversation, maybe even have a drink with you outside of whatever event it is we attend together, maybe even cultivate a business friendship with you, and then hurl an accusation that you made advances on me or slept with me in my apartment, late one night without any more specificity, without any witnesses or cameras. And then someone supposedly objective and legally consistent could pen an article about you and conclude -- in the absence of concrete evidence whether beyond all reasonable doubt in a criminal matter or by a preponderance of evidence in a civil matter -- that we all know you cheated on your wife. If you are unpleasant enough in personality or disliked enough in your profession, it could make for an easy fall from grace, regardless of your guilt or innocence. Thus, you too could lose your job, reputation, and maybe even your marriage if you have one. Right now, women hold incredible power without having to meet the legal standards for proof. The He Said/She Said stalemate of yesterday, has become the She Said checkmate today. The requirements for proof have to be applied consistently whether the accused is Charlie Rose, Leslie Moonves, Ryan Seacrest, or, Im sorry to say, David, yes, Donald Trump, too. You ask Anonymous to Name yourself. Let America test your claims. Well, let us test your claims: please enlighten us with the proof we all apparently have that President Trump cheated on his wife, because I, for one, am clueless. If the proof is there, that will be priced in when he next runs for office -- by cultists and supporters alike. Or, maybe theyll be swayed by the lessons from the Clinton years that what a President does in the bedroom has no bearing on his performance in the Oval Office. Regardless, French should take a hard look in the mirror because, when it comes to evidentiary proof regarding President Trumps behavior, he appears to have more in common with Anonymous than he might like to admit.
GOP finally going for the jugular in key congressional race to pick up a Dem-held seat
Is it possible that the "stupid party" has wised up? There is at least one good sign that the old-fashioned country club approach to politics, where being a good loser is more important than being a nasty winner, is history. At least that's the case in one key congressional district that offers an opportunity for the Republicans to pick up a seat currently held by Democrats. The specific race is Minnesota the land of "Minnesota nice." The 8th Congressional District, which includes Duluth and the Iron Range, is in an area that is a Rust Belt annex an economically depressed exception to generally prosperous and tech-oriented Minnesota. Like other parts of the Rust Belt, the 8th went heavily for Trump, 54% to 39% for Hillary, but narrowly re-elected a Democrat, Rick Nolan, in 2016, by a one-percent margin. Nolan abandoned running for re-election in favor of running for lieutenant governor but was defeated in the primary, leaving the House seat an open contest with no incumbent.
The 8th was a Democrat lock for decades, with unions pushing the Democrats. But the hollowing out of the steel industry hit it hard. Now the area's vast copper and other mineral resources could be developed and provide thousands of jobs, except that Democrats think mining is icky and don't want to permit new mines. I am not sure that "Minnesota nice" is as predominant a feature of life in Duluth, Hibbing, Eveleth, and the other hard hit areas of the area as in the more prosperous parts of the state. Republicans nominated Pete Stauber, a Trumpian county commissioner who promises to "fight against the liberal elites" and got 90% of the votes in his primary, while the Democrats chose Joe Radinovich, a former member of the state House of Representatives, with a plurality of 44.1% of the primary votes. President Trump already made one visit to the district for a rally in Duluth and may come back. In the meantime, the Republicans did a little opposition research on Radinovich, and boy, are they exploiting it! The Congressional Leadership Fund (CLF), backed by Speaker Ryan, has put together an ad that goes for the jugular. Breitbart explains: A brutal new ad will hit Democrat Joe Radinovich in Minnesota over his history with criminal convictions, license suspensions, and having been charged with possession of drug paraphernalia, Breitbart News has learned. The ad, from the House GOP leadership-backed Congressional Leadership Fund (CLF), is perhaps one of the most brutal this cycle. It literally shows an illegal aluminum foil drug-smoking device to illustrate how Radinovich was charged by police back on Feb. 4, 2005, with possession of drug paraphernalia. But that's not all: The ad counts off Radinovich's 18 various criminal charges, dozens of traffic violations, multiple driver's license suspensions, and argues that this Democrat is not fit to serve in Congress due to his record. The ad, titled "Fast Times" and provided exclusively to Breitbart News ahead of its public release, is available to view here: My bet is that Stauber will win.
MOSS POINT, Miss. -- Police have arrested a minor in the shooting of an A & A Food Mart store clerk in Moss Point, according to Chief Brandon Ashley.
On Wednesday just after 11 p.m., police arrested 16-year-old Darius Melun Bland, of Moss Point where he is charged with armed robbery and aggravated assault.
Bland entered the convenience store just after 1 a.m. on Sept. 12 where he and the clerk were involved in a shootout. According to the clerk, Bland brandished a firearm and demanded money from the cash register.
The victim brandished his firearm and shots were exchanged between the two. Bland allegedly shot the man in his abdomen and fled the scene.
According to Ashley, Bland is currently on bond for a 2017 armed robbery attempt in the City of D'Iberville.
Investigators received numerous tips through Mississippi Coast Crime Stoppers and the department phone lines after releasing photos of the suspect to local media, per Ashley.
The victim remains in critical, but stable condition as of 9:30 a.m. Thursday morning.
Bland is currently housed at the Jackson County Adult Detention Center on bond of $150,000. He is being charged as an adult.
Anyone with additional information about this crime is asked to contact Detective Kimberlee Snowden or the Moss Point Police Department at 228-475-1711.
You may also contact Crime Stoppers at 800-787-5898 or visit the Mississippi Coast Crime Stoppers website at
.
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Page: 1 2 Anyone have travel tips for going to Venezuela? LoP Guest
lop guest
User ID: 460687
09-13-2018 04:05 AM
Post: #1 Anyone have travel tips for going to Venezuela?
Advertisement
I will vlog the trip and post it so stay tuned.
Namaste. Yes that's right, Venezuela. As an honest socialist, I intend to go firsthand to visit the fruits of the finest ideology to ever grace paper. I will even bicycle through the beautiful countyside to prove the inherent goodness of mankind.I will vlog the trip and post it so stay tuned.Namaste. LoP Guest
lop guest
User ID: 460687
09-13-2018 04:19 AM
Post: #2 RE: Anyone have travel tips for going to Venezuela?
Nobody knows? LoP Guest
lop guest
User ID: 441651
09-13-2018 04:24 AM
Post: #3 RE: Anyone have travel tips for going to Venezuela?
Bring a wheelbarrow. You'll need it to carry the cash for breakfast. LoP Guest
lop guest
User ID: 460687
09-13-2018 04:25 AM
Post: #4 RE: Anyone have travel tips for going to Venezuela?
LoP Guest Wrote: (09-13-2018 04:24 AM) Bring a wheelbarrow. You'll need it to carry the cash for breakfast.
Wait, won't their whole Foods take the Amazon card like ours? Wait, won't their whole Foods take the Amazon card like ours? LoP Guest
lop guest
User ID: 441651
09-13-2018 04:27 AM
Post: #5 RE: Anyone have travel tips for going to Venezuela?
LoP Guest Wrote: (09-13-2018 04:25 AM) LoP Guest Wrote: (09-13-2018 04:24 AM) Bring a wheelbarrow. You'll need it to carry the cash for breakfast.
Wait, won't their whole Foods take the Amazon card like ours?
Oh right. You better hurry down there. Should be a great time. Oh right. You better hurry down there. Should be a great time. udis
Philosopher
User ID: 459984
09-13-2018 04:28 AM
Posts: 32,351
Post: #6 RE: Anyone have travel tips for going to Venezuela?
You Is A FOOL for even thinking about going to SHITHOLE Country!
If You actually Go, Then its Confirmed, You A FOOL!
Travel Tip of the DAY!You Is A FOOL for even thinking about going to SHITHOLE Country!If You actually Go, Then its Confirmed, You A FOOL! Bao2
Banned
User ID: 422170
09-13-2018 04:29 AM
Posts: 12,562
Post: #7 RE: Anyone have travel tips for going to Venezuela?
USA is trying to put there a government that works for USA.
Venezuela people are being kept without resources so they then fight their government,
and then USA will take their oil for almost nothing, making rich a few they put in the government and giving nothing to the rest of the citizens.
USA did this in all countries where they go to "free" the people.
Syria is different, there they are "freeing" it to give it to Israel so Israel can built the
pipeline of oil and profit once the boats avoid going around the huge arabian peninsula,
instead the boats would load the oil in Haifa. The pipeline needs go through current Syrian land that Israel wants to be a "islamic republic" so no legal problems of "israel did a war to grab that land". Then later of course the "islamic republic" would be in a war with israel and they would then "occupy" the land and later keep for Israel as they did with all the palestinian land.
USA helps on making the world more and more ugly. LoP Guest
lop guest
User ID: 460687
09-13-2018 04:30 AM
Post: #8 RE: Anyone have travel tips for going to Venezuela?
LoP Guest Wrote: (09-13-2018 04:27 AM) LoP Guest Wrote: (09-13-2018 04:25 AM) Wait, won't their whole Foods take the Amazon card like ours?
Oh right. You better hurry down there. Should be a great time.
Yes. I will prove to the privileged cisgender Trump supporters that people actuality thrive under socialism and should adopt it everywhere.
I just need to make sure the logistics are in order. Like bringing my own kombucha. I'm never ill prepared. Yes. I will prove to the privileged cisgender Trump supporters that people actuality thrive under socialism and should adopt it everywhere.I just need to make sure the logistics are in order. Like bringing my own kombucha. I'm never ill prepared. LoP Guest
lop guest
User ID: 460687
09-13-2018 04:31 AM
Post: #9 RE: Anyone have travel tips for going to Venezuela?
udis Wrote: (09-13-2018 04:28 AM) Travel Tip of the DAY!
You Is A FOOL for even thinking about going to SHITHOLE Country!
If You actually Go, Then its Confirmed, You A FOOL!
No sir. I'm a socialist with integrity and one of few acknowledging their good policy. No sir. I'm a socialist with integrity and one of few acknowledging their good policy. LoP Guest
lop guest
User ID: 441651
09-13-2018 04:32 AM
Post: #10 RE: Anyone have travel tips for going to Venezuela?
LoP Guest Wrote: (09-13-2018 04:30 AM) LoP Guest Wrote: (09-13-2018 04:27 AM) Oh right. You better hurry down there. Should be a great time.
Yes. I will prove to the privileged cisgender Trump supporters that people actuality thrive under socialism and should adopt it everywhere.
I just need to make sure the logistics are in order. Like bringing my own kombucha. I'm never ill prepared.
Classy Classy UnAcceptance
Registered User
User ID: 461742
09-13-2018 04:45 AM
Posts: 3,163
Post: #11 RE: Anyone have travel tips for going to Venezuela?
Where do you think you are going to get a bicycle?
How much money you going there with???
Yeah, send lotsa pics. When you are through with the higher form of life, I will personally send you a plane ticket to Havana, Cuba.
Once there, get another bike, send more pics.
Be real, or GTFO. LoP Guest
lop guest
User ID: 460687
09-13-2018 05:01 AM
Post: #12 RE: Anyone have travel tips for going to Venezuela?
UnAcceptance Wrote: (09-13-2018 04:45 AM) Where do you think you are going to get a bicycle?
How much money you going there with???
Yeah, send lotsa pics. When you are through with the higher form of life, I will personally send you a plane ticket to Havana, Cuba.
Once there, get another bike, send more pics.
Be real, or GTFO.
Be as judgemental as you want. But I will definitively prove that socialism works. What then? Be as judgemental as you want. But I will definitively prove that socialism works. What then? udis
Philosopher
User ID: 459984
09-13-2018 05:05 AM
Posts: 32,351
Post: #13 RE: Anyone have travel tips for going to Venezuela?
LoP Guest Wrote: (09-13-2018 04:31 AM) udis Wrote: (09-13-2018 04:28 AM) Travel Tip of the DAY!
You Is A FOOL for even thinking about going to SHITHOLE Country!
If You actually Go, Then its Confirmed, You A FOOL!
No sir. I'm a socialist with integrity and
one of few acknowledging their good policy. Better Take Your Own FOOD,
Or Your Going to be on a Starvation Diet!
Is this actually about weight loss?
You need to go to a SHITHOLE Country to Diet for weight loss?
-----------------------------------------------
I thought Self Respecting socialist with integrity moved to California? Better Take Your Own FOOD,Or Your Going to be on a Starvation Diet!Is this actually about weight loss?You need to go to a SHITHOLE Country to Diet for weight loss?-----------------------------------------------I thought Self Respecting socialist with integrity moved to California? (This post was last modified: 09-13-2018 05:07 AM by udis .) UnAcceptance
Registered User
User ID: 461742
09-13-2018 05:10 AM
Posts: 3,163
Post: #14 RE: Anyone have travel tips for going to Venezuela?
LoP Guest Wrote: (09-13-2018 05:01 AM) UnAcceptance Wrote: (09-13-2018 04:45 AM) Where do you think you are going to get a bicycle?
How much money you going there with???
Yeah, send lotsa pics. When you are through with the higher form of life, I will personally send you a plane ticket to Havana, Cuba.
Once there, get another bike, send more pics.
Be real, or GTFO.
Be as judgemental as you want. But I will definitively prove that socialism works. What then?
op, that was not judgemental
I stand by my word. Send your good life happy time pics from Venezuela and I will send you an airline ticket to Havana and expect more good life and happy pics. What say you? op, that was not judgementalI stand by my word. Send your good life happy time pics from Venezuela and I will send you an airline ticket to Havana and expect more good life and happy pics. What say you? LoP Guest
lop guest
User ID: 460687
09-13-2018 05:15 AM
Post: #15 RE: Anyone have travel tips for going to Venezuela?
udis Wrote: (09-13-2018 05:05 AM) LoP Guest Wrote: (09-13-2018 04:31 AM) No sir. I'm a socialist with integrity and
one of few acknowledging their good policy. Better Take Your Own FOOD,
Or Your Going to be on a Starvation Diet!
Is this actually about weight loss?
You need to go to a SHITHOLE Country to Diet for weight loss?
-----------------------------------------------
I thought Self Respecting socialist with integrity moved to California?
Dude, Whole Foods, Starbucks, maybe a local spot serving up 'Zuelan fare. I hear churasco is excellent. Dude, Whole Foods, Starbucks, maybe a local spot serving up 'Zuelan fare. I hear churasco is excellent. Advertisement
In May, Kerry met with a high-level Palestinian official, telling him he would promote the Palestinian "peace plan" and that P.A. leader Mahmoud Abbas should simply ignore the president of the United States. The meeting took place shortly after Trump announced moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem.
Since Donald Trump became president, former secretary of state John Kerry has taken it upon himself to undermine the administration's foreign policy by attempting to negotiate with foreign powers on his own.
Now it's been revealed that Kerry met with Iranian officials to "salvage" the nuclear deal.
At what point does the government arrest Kerry and charge him with violations of the Logan Act the law that prevents private individuals from negotiating with foreign powers?
Washington Free Beacon:
Former Secretary of State John Kerry disclosed that he has been conducting rogue diplomacy with top Iranian officials to salvage the landmark nuclear deal and push the Islamic Republic to negotiate its contested missile program, according to recent remarks. Kerry, in an interview with radio host Hugh Hewitt to promote his new book, said that he has met with Iranian Former Minister Javad Zarif the former secretary's onetime negotiating partner three or four times in recent months behind the Trump administration's back. "I think I've seen him three or four times," Kerry said, adding that he has been conducting sensitive diplomacy without the current administration's authorization. Kerry said he has criticized the current administration in these discussions, chiding it for not pursuing negotiations from Iran, despite the country's fevered rhetoric about the U.S. president. Kerry's comments are in line with previous reporting on his behind-the-scenes attempts to save the nuclear deal and ensure that Iran continues receiving billions in cash windfalls. These payments were brought to a halt by the Trump administration when it abandoned the nuclear agreement and reimposed harsh sanctions on Iran that have nearly toppled its economy and sparked a popular revolution.
Kerry is not so much a naive fool as he is a traitorous SOB.
"What I have done is try to elicit from him [Zarif] what Iran might be willing to do to change the dynamic of the Middle East for the better," Kerry said. "How does one resolve Yemen, what do you do to try and get peace in Syria? Those are the things that really are preoccupying him because those are the impediments to Iran's ability to convince people its [sic] ready to embrace something different." Kerry said he has offered blunt talk to Zarif in order to push the regime to accept restrictions on its foreign interventionism. "I've been very blunt to Foreign Minister Zarif. I told him, 'Look, you guys need to recognize the world does not appreciate what's happening with missiles, what's happening with Hezbollah, what's happening with Yemen,'" Kerry recounted. "You're supporting an ongoing struggle there."
The level of ignorance here is shocking. One can imagine Zarif looking at Kerry as if he were from another planet. Iran is not trying to convince anyone of anything, much less that the mullahs are "ready to embrace something different." They are ready to advance their own interests, which include continuing the civil war in Yemen and helping Bashar Assad win the war in Syria.
I wonder if Zarif kept a straight face when Kerry was telling him this nonsense.
This is the exact reason the Logan Act was created in the first place: to keep idiots like Kerry from undermining the foreign policy of the elected leader of the United States.
Admittedly, the act is vague in some ways. Special Counsel Robert Mueller threatened to charge former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn with Logan Act violations for his calls to foreign officials including the Russian ambassador in December 2016. But Flynn was serving an elected president who would take office shortly afterward.
Kerry's rogue diplomacy is specifically meant to undermine and undercut official US policy. That policy was created by leaders the American people elected for that task. Kerry's deliberate efforts to make it harder for the U.S. to carry out that policy a policy directed at an enemy of the U.S. borders on treason.
That's not a word I throw around lightly. But a government that supports the destruction of America and the annihilation of the state of Israel should not be assisted in carrying out that goal by any American, much less a former secretary of state.
So, as sweatshirt weather returns and political campaign propaganda spreads faster than the common cold, what is the state of the American political mindset? Fortunately, Gallup pollsters keep track of this by asking Americans each month, "What do you think is the most important problem facing the country today?"
Labor Day, the sunset of summer, marks a turning point in the American mindset. Kids go back to school, parents return to work, and Americans turn their attention (reluctantly) to politics. This fall, Americans will vote in the first midterm election under President Donald Trump, with the balance of power in both houses of Congress at stake.
In August, 21 percent of Americans cited "Dissatisfaction with government/Poor leadership" as the most pressing problem. Close behind, 17 percent stated "Economic Problems."
The good news is that the midterm election will be a wonderful opportunity for Americans to address these problems head on. However, they must choose between two radically different sets of policy solutions. Where do candidates stand on the top two problems Americans believe that the country is facing?
"Dissatisfaction with government/Poor leadership" is broad, but at its core, it reveals that Americans remain cynical of the government's ability to solve problems. Trump remains committed to "draining the swamp," and he has endorsed Republican candidates who are on board with his agenda to reduce the size and scope of government.
On the other hand, congressional Democrats are running on a platform to increase government more than your waistline after Thanksgiving. Several left-wing candidates are pushing for universal health care, free college, and a massive government jobs program.
This fall, Americans who rank "Dissatisfaction with government/Poor leadership" as the most pressing problem ought to ponder one simple question: which party would increase the size and scope of government more?
President Ronald Reagan once said, "The most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help." If you are one of the many Americans who distrust politicians and have reservations about increasing government power, keep Reagan's wise words in mind before you decide whether or not to give the government even more power.
Aside from Americans' disgust with government and politicians, many Americans are concerned about the economy. In less than two years, Trump and congressional Republicans have made great strides to increase American prosperity, although there is still room for improvement. Tax cuts, a huge regulatory rollback, the unleashing of American energy production (including fossil fuels), and several other pro-growth policies have had a profoundly positive effect. From record-low unemployment to sustained GDP growth not experienced in decades, Americans are better off than they've been in years.
But despite the unequivocal economic progress that has occurred over the past two years, congressional Democrats are espousing policies that would shrink Americans' paychecks. If elected, Democratic candidates plan to raise taxes; increase regulations; and impose a $15 minimum wage on businesses, many of which are just starting to fully recover from the 2008 economic crash.
As a plethora of pesky political ads dominates the airwaves this fall, Americans will be inundated with a wide range of policy solutions. Some candidates will insist that the only way to solve the nation's problems is by increasing the power of government. However, other candidates will emphasize that the government has a tendency to perpetuate problems, not solve them. Thus, they will campaign to decrease the power of government.
According to Reagan, "you can't be for big government, big taxes, and big bureaucracy and still be for the little guy."
Chris Talgo (ctalgo@heartland.org) is an editor at The Heartland Institute.
According to the Alameda County Sheriff's Office , 35-year old Castro Valley resident Farzad Fazeli walked past Peters info booth making disparaging and profanity laden political remarks about Donald Trump. Fazeli then became aggressive and reached for a concealed switchblade to stab Peters while making threats.
Trump Derangement Syndrome is now a public health issue, with sufferers of this new form of mass hysteria manifesting a danger to society with violent aggression and extreme self-destructive behavior. Yesterday, we noted the alleged attempted assassination of GOP congressional candidate Rudy Peters by a man named Farzad Fazeli, who behaved in a deranged manner with an inept and disorganized assassination attempt:
Now, details are emerging about sociology professor emeritus Mark J. Bird, who shot himself on August 28 in a bathroom at the College of Southern Nevada, on the first day of class at that community college. Rio Lacanlale of the Las Vegas Review-Journal revealed that Professor Bird:
... was charged last month with discharging a gun within a prohibited structure, carrying a concealed weapon without a permit and possessing a dangerous weapon on school property, court records show. He was found bleeding from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to his arm about 8:15 a.m. on Aug. 28 outside a bathroom in the Charleston campus K building.
Charleston Campus of the College of Southern Nevada (photo credit:Wikimedia Commons).
Inside the bathroom, campus police found a $100 bill taped to a mirror along with a note that said, "For the janitor," according to Bird's arrest report. On the floor of the restroom was a black-and-white, .22-caliber pistol and one spent shell casing. ... A 911 call was made after several CSN employees and at least one student saw Bird stumble out of the bathroom, bleeding, before he collapsed, the report said. None of the witnesses who later told police they only recalled hearing "a loud noise" initially knew Bird was armed and had shot himself, according to the report. One college employee told police that he held Bird's hand to calm him down as others tried to stop the bleeding. While waiting for authorities to arrive, Bird said he had shot himself in protest of President Donald Trump, police noted in their report. The report did not elaborate.
The hundred-dollar bill, apparently some sort of solatium for the poor janitor who would be forced to clean up the mess, is an interesting touch. It suggests that Bird may have intended suicide, because if he intended to merely shoot himself in the arm, he would survive and be able to pass the money along to the working-class victim himself.
Protest suicides have a long history, but they usually require that the suicide take place in public. The Buddhist monks who doused themselves in gasoline and burned themselves alive to protest the Diem regime in South Vietnam during the 1960s received worldwide attention because they did so with advance notice to the media.
Thich Quang uc burned himself to death at a busy Saigon intersection, June 11, 1963 and made a global sensation (photo credit: Malcolm Brown via Wikipedia).
So far as we know, Professor Bird did not leave a note explaining his self-destructive act, which implies that he did not intend to kill himself, since he would have to explain himself afterward in order to make any sort of point. We can conjecture that the act was not a sudden impulse that overtook him because, unless he customarily violated campus policy and the law by carrying a concealed weapon, he planned the act in advance and armed himself.
But that makes no sense at all. If not a public act of protest, what was the point?
It certainly looks like the actions of a deranged man, not thinking clearly, which makes a tentative diagnosis of TDS all the more supportable.
Professor Bird, it should be noted, was an emeritus professor at the age of 69. This usually means that he has been removed from teaching duties but retains access to the library system and other support activities. It is normally a sign that a professor has been put out to pasture and is being treated with courtesy and honor now that his services are no longer needed. Was Professor Bird already in despair at the end of his academic career and blaming Trump for all his troubles?
It should also be noted that sociology has been in a decline in enrollments since the 1980s, with some sociology departments closing on campuses. I don't have any data about the College of Southern Nevada, but I wonder if the future of his discipline there might have been another stress factor for Professor Bird.
Professor Bird will appear in court for a preliminary hearing next Monday. We may learn more then, especially if he pleads temporary insanity for the felony charges he will face.
Psychiatry and psychology, like sociology, have become hopelessly politicized and are unlikely to ever place TDS in the category of a recognized psychological ailment. So we can expect the problem to grow. Let's hope self-destruction, not aggression toward others, predominates, so at least the harm can be contained and not endanger innocents.
The one entity that can destroy Mark Zuckerberg
There's a fake Voltaire quote that floats around the internet: "To learn who rules over you, simply find out whom you are not allowed to criticize." The quote is usually accompanied by a meme showing a gigantic hand crushing a scrum of hoi polloi, suggesting that society is dominated by an unquestionable oppressor. Though the message resonates with rebellious hearts, its meaning is spurious. In America, the most powerful institutions are subject to plenty of criticism, some of it overly harsh. Just think of the obloquy casually thrown at President Trump, arguably the most powerful man on the planet.
The same goes for Facebook. The social media giant has been fighting a public image battle over the last two years. A recent profile of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in the New Yorker brings further into light the fascinating power dynamic between the digital imperium and a press that is, at once, antagonistic and beholden to it. The article is not flattering; few write-ups of Zuckerberg are. Most portray him as a neurotic whiz kid with antiquarian delusions of grandeur except the grandeur happens to be real. Zuckerberg lords it over a digital realm of nearly 2 billion souls. No emperor in history can claim as many serfs. The scope of Zuckerberg's influence makes the fictional Charles Foster Kane look like a street-corner newsie.
Yet he's powerless to shake off the impression that his platform his precious money-making creation cost Hillary Clinton the presidency. That impression fuels media guttersnipes, who take shot after shot at his domain. It has also enabled congressional Democrats to bully Zuckerberg and his lieutenants into purging their own platform of foreign influence. Any digital marketer will tell you that Facebook's "reach" is an overrated metric. Even so, the platform still has an outsized effect on political opinion, and even action, in some cases. Armed insurgents use Facebook to trade weapons in Libya. Users helped spread rumors in Sri Lanka that caused anti-Muslim violence. In Burma (also widely called Myanmar), a genocide is being waged against a Muslim minority with the help of Facebook's interconnectivity. Other than the internet itself, Facebook is the most powerful, wide-reaching communication-facilitator in history. Zuckerberg, as its creator and controller, wields more power than the Roman statesmen he admires. So why is he always playing defense? Why does he deign to sit down with journalists who have every intention of smearing him, accusing him of being a socially maladjusted child in possession of an adult's toy? The power dynamics surrounding Facebook which are just another application of Lenin's immortal question, "who, whom?" is such a fascinating issue because it's hard to tell who really has his hand on the lever of power. Zuckerberg could easily brush off the endless journalist requests to better police his platform. But he doesn't; usually, he'll give in with vague promises and a smidgen of action. Does that mean he still holds the power? Or is it the media, delicately exercising their own authority, with the subtle insinuation that they could make Facebook into the dialectical devil by publishing screed after negative screed about its inherent evil? Then there's the government. The entity with the ability to actually curtail Facebook's might is run by men too intellectually flaccid even to understand the concept of social media. During his congressional testimony in April, Zuckerberg ran mental circles around lawmakers who demonstrated no actual understanding of the process of buying and selling information on the internet. It was like watching a child explain his handheld Nintendo game to a great-grandparent. This isn't an argument for the septuagenarians of the Senate to brush up on how FarmVille feeds user data to third-party corporations, then regulate Facebook into nonexistence. For now, Zuckerberg is keeping one step ahead of the governmental threat. But his engine is starting to sputter as he tries to outrace a media pressure campaign. Beneath the guise of strengthening the commonweal, Facebook and the media battle over the power to mold opinion. Is it enough to wish for both sides to lose this war?
President Trump's antics in his "Crazytown" White House inevitably dominate the headlines. Meanwhile, however, his wrongheaded policies are damaging far more than the nation's dignity and honor.
Eugene Robinson had a piece in the Washington Post arguing that President Trump's agenda and policies are radical and un-American. The best way to respond to this drivel (which amounts to Democrat talking points) is to point out the actual radical agenda that most of the media have either supported or implicitly supported based on the politicians they support, who push the radical un-American policies. Because Robinson is writing nonsense like this :
Hampered by inexperience and incompetence, the administration is pursuing a radically un-American agenda that should alarm progressives and conservatives alike[.]
Robinson, to paraphrase a famous phrase by Abraham Lincoln, seems to have his headquarters where his hindquarters should be. The socialism that Robinson favors is what's radical and un-American. Capitalism, which President Trump champions, has made America the greatest economic powerhouse in history. It's the best system to lift up the poor and give people the chance to move up the economic ladder.
Big-government policies are truly un-American and continually put the boot on individuals and businesses, making the government, politicians, and bureaucrats more powerful. For those of us on the ground here in the America Robinson speaks of, Trump's lifting of the boot has lifted up consumer, business, and small business confidence to high levels. The number of people saying the country is moving in the right direction is much higher than at any time when Obama was president.
Big-government policies have made the area around Washington, D.C. extremely rich while stagnating the economies of most of the rest of the country. Washington, D.C. produces nothing but bureaucracy, rules, and taxes, yet its denizens are the richest. That is radical and terrible for the long-term health of America. Trump's policies have given much greater opportunities to people of all races and all education levels, no matter where they live.
Even the Washington Post has to admit that blue-collar jobs are growing faster than at any time in thirty years. This is after Obama and others said it would take magic to bring manufacturing jobs back. That shows a true lack of intelligence on economics. But here we have the wisdom of the Post questioning the reality every which way it knows how:
Under Trump, the jobs boom has finally reached blue-collar workers. Will it last? Blue-collar jobs are growing at their fastest rate in more than 30 years, helping fuel a hiring boom in many small towns and rural areas that are strong supporters of President Trump ahead of November's midterm elections. Jobs in goods-producing industries mining, construction and manufacturing grew 3.3 percent in the year preceding July, the best rate since 1984, according to a Washington Post analysis.
Making more people dependent on government is truly a radical un-American policy. Giving the people the chance to move up is truly American and is not radical.
If you really want to see a radical, ignorant, un-American policy, it is in actually believing and promoting the idea that unemployment benefits are one of the best ways to grow the economy. Trump's policies that lead to creation of jobs are certainly not stupid, radical, or un-American. But among Democrats, the consensus is here:
"Economists agree that unemployment benefits remain one of the best ways to grow the economy in a very immediate way," House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (R-Calif.) said at a news conference on Thursday.
Taking away freedom of choice on health care and seeking to destroy the private health care industry are radical and un-American. Reducing competition is radical and un-American. Trump is bringing back freedom of choice and competition on health care, and that is truly American. It also appears to be leading to the stabilization of prices in 2019.
Having the Justice Department sue the Little Sisters of the Poor for daring to think they had freedom of religion was what was un-American. Ending the Obamacare tax on the poor is.
Having a president continually say he didn't have the power to unilaterally change immigration laws and then dictatorially implementing DACA anyway is truly radical, unconstitutional, and un-American. Having a president who enforces the laws Congress passed as a requirement of his oath of his office, which would describe President Trump, is what's truly American.
Seeking to destroy industries like the coal industry with regulations not passed by Congress is truly un-American. Having policies based on inaccurate, manipulated computer models is radical. Threatening legal action against those who disagree with government policy is radical and un-American. Not caring about the wildlife killed by solar panels and windmills is disgusting. Getting rid of that nonsense is what's truly American.
Shipping over $1 billion of unmarked bills in the middle of the night as bribery to get a deal (that was never signed) with a country that pledges death to America is one of the most radical and un-American things I have seen. Can anyone imagine the outrage and continuous reporting if Trump gave Putin over $1 billion in unmarked bills? Just not doing that puts President Trump in the pro-American camp right there.
Dictatorially stopping the Justice Department investigation of a drug-running operation by a terrorist organization to appease Iran and to supposedly enhance one's legacy is radical and un-American. Holding the tyrants to account by Trump is truly American.
Having the IRS intentionally stifle political opponents' free speech and freedom of association rights guaranteed by the constitution is radical and un-American. Holding bureaucrats accountable to their own laws is.
Not lifting a finger to save Americans under attack by terrorists, but instead concocting a lie about a video to protect your political power, is un-American. Sending Susan Rice out to lie to major networks about the video is un-American. Lying to the families of those who died is un-American and shows a complete lack of empathy. Obama is out today saying the story about Benghazi is a Republican conspiracy. Debunking the whole slew of lies, as President Trump does, is speaking truth to power and very American.
How radical and un-American is it for a president to issue a stand-down order on Russian hacking to his cyber-security chief if he actually thinks there is a danger? Obama did it with ease. President Trump wouldn't think of it.
I will gladly support Trump, who is pushing a truly American agenda to lift everyone up by giving the power, purse, and freedom to the people as fast as he can versus people who claim to be progressive, but whose policies oppress and make people dependent on an ever expanding greedy government.
What is truly radical and un-American is when almost all of the media seek to destroy one party while supporting the party with the actual radical un-American agenda, no matter what it does.
Image credit: Tomas via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.
In short: Samsung is working on a green variant of at least one Galaxy S10 model, known industry insider from China known only by their social media handle Ice Universe said earlier today. At least one older report suggested the flagship lineup code-named Beyond will be available in as many as five color options. As the series is still in a pre-production phase of development, Samsung may opt to ditch one of its current color picks or decide to commercialize new ones in the coming months.
Background: The original report about Samsung planning five Galaxy S10 colors came from the same source, suggesting the green variant of the product family will be accompanied by black, white, silver, and pink models. The black version of the device series is likely to once again be Midnight Black, whereas the nature of the other four is less clear. The handful of colors in question were originally described as candidates, though green is now understood to have been approved for commercialization. Samsungs established product practices suggest that not all colors will be available globally and some may be reserved for select device models or memory configurations. Samsung is expected to break with the Galaxy S tradition next year by dividing the line into three Android handsets instead of two, adopting a flagship launch strategy more akin to that of Apple. The top Galaxy S10 model is said to feature five cameras in total a triple-camera setup on the back and a dual-lens system on the front.
Impact: The last green Android flagship from Samsung launched over three years ago in the form of the Emerald Green Galaxy S6 Edge model (pictured above). The company now appears to be on a quest of reviving some of its more unconventional smartphone variants, having most recently done so with the brownish Galaxy Note 9 whose finish is officially called Metallic Copper.
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Hurricane Florence Is Headed Straight for North Carolina's Nuclear Reactors The Ghost Of LOP
Registered User
User ID: 406971
09-13-2018 02:57 PM
Posts: 42,300
Post: #1 Hurricane Florence Is Headed Straight for North Carolina's Nuclear Reactors
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Brunswicks two reactors, located near the town of Southport, were built to withstand Category 5 winds exceeding 156 miles (251 kilometers) per hour, according to Karen Williams, a Duke spokeswoman. They sit 20 feet above sea level and four miles inland, she said, suggesting theyre resistant to even the 13-foot ocean surge forecast for Florence.
The plan, she said, is to shut the 1,870-megawatt plant two hours before tropical storm-force winds reach the facility, which could happen as early as Thursday morning, according to the National Hurricane Center. Meanwhile, the company is providing extra personnel to monitor the plant.
more:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/hurricane-flo...32338.html I am so confused !!! (Bloomberg) Hurricane Florence is now headed straight for Duke Energy Corp.s Brunswick nuclear plant on North Carolinas southern coast. Company officials say theyre ready; industry foes arent so sure.Brunswicks two reactors, located near the town of Southport, were built to withstand Category 5 winds exceeding 156 miles (251 kilometers) per hour, according to Karen Williams, a Duke spokeswoman. They sit 20 feet above sea level and four miles inland, she said, suggesting theyre resistant to even the 13-foot ocean surge forecast for Florence.The plan, she said, is to shut the 1,870-megawatt plant two hours before tropical storm-force winds reach the facility, which could happen as early as Thursday morning, according to the National Hurricane Center. Meanwhile, the company is providing extra personnel to monitor the plant.more:I am so confused !!! PioneerSpirit
Registered User
User ID: 441578
09-13-2018 02:58 PM
Posts: 15,196
Post: #2 RE: Hurricane Florence Is Headed Straight for North Carolina's Nuclear Reactors
It's only a two. And it'll be just a cat one shortly.
Nuke plants are designed to be able to handle that.
There will be no cat 4 or cat 5 storm surge .. nothing like that. "They notice that you notice" - Mothman Prophecies
A tradition cannot make an historical claim and then refuse to have it evaluated by history The Ghost Of LOP
Registered User
User ID: 406971
09-13-2018 02:59 PM
Posts: 42,300
Post: #3 RE: Hurricane Florence Is Headed Straight for North Carolina's Nuclear Reactors
PioneerSpirit Wrote: (09-13-2018 02:58 PM) It's only a two. And it'll be just a cat one shortly.
Nuke plants are designed to be able to handle that.
There will be no cat 4 or cat 5 storm surge .. nothing like that.
I am so confused !!! Lobster Boy
Registered User
User ID: 176474
09-13-2018 03:04 PM
Posts: 1,148
Post: #4 RE: Hurricane Florence Is Headed Straight for North Carolina's Nuclear Reactors
Noting any person can do, so whatever happens is Gods will.
Don't worry about it as worry is a wasted emotion. PioneerSpirit
Registered User
User ID: 441578
09-13-2018 03:04 PM
Posts: 15,196
Post: #5 RE: Hurricane Florence Is Headed Straight for North Carolina's Nuclear Reactors
The Ghost Of LOP Wrote: (09-13-2018 02:59 PM) PioneerSpirit Wrote: (09-13-2018 02:58 PM) It's only a two. And it'll be just a cat one shortly.
Nuke plants are designed to be able to handle that.
There will be no cat 4 or cat 5 storm surge .. nothing like that.
We should have a hurricane party to get your mind off it.
Here .. I found you a virtual hurricane party cake. Enjoy!
We should have a hurricane party to get your mind off it.Here .. I found you a virtual hurricane party cake. Enjoy! "They notice that you notice" - Mothman Prophecies
A tradition cannot make an historical claim and then refuse to have it evaluated by history PioneerSpirit
Registered User
User ID: 441578
09-13-2018 03:07 PM
Posts: 15,196
Post: #6 RE: Hurricane Florence Is Headed Straight for North Carolina's Nuclear Reactors
"They notice that you notice" - Mothman Prophecies
A tradition cannot make an historical claim and then refuse to have it evaluated by history LoP Guest
lop guest
User ID: 461961
09-18-2018 08:49 AM
Post: #7 RE: Hurricane Florence Is Headed Straight for North Carolina's Nuclear Reactors
Didn't hear that anything happened to the reactors.
Some of the reactors were put in safe mode because the flood waters made the plants inaccessible. LoP Guest
lop guest
User ID: 462801
09-18-2018 09:20 AM
Post: #8 RE: Hurricane Florence Is Headed Straight for North Carolina's Nuclear Reactors
Flood waters leave workers stranded at North Carolina nuclear plan
https://www.rt.com/usa/438671-brunswick-...-carolina/
"Brunswick nuclear plant in North Carolina declared a state of emergency after flood waters isolated the facility and left 300 workers cut off from the outside world...."
"...Amid fears of a Fukushima-type disaster, Charlotte-based Duke Energy, the company that runs the plant, shut down the Brunswick facility two weeks ago, as the storm bore down on the east coast. The plant dates from the 1970s and was designed at a time when engineers underestimated the vulnerability of nuclear plants to natural disasters..." "Brunswick nuclear plant in North Carolina declared a state of emergency after flood waters isolated the facility and left 300 workers cut off from the outside world....""...Amid fears of a Fukushima-type disaster, Charlotte-based Duke Energy, the company that runs the plant, shut down the Brunswick facility two weeks ago, as the storm bore down on the east coast. The plant dates from the 1970s and was designed at a time when engineers underestimated the vulnerability of nuclear plants to natural disasters..."
In short: Lenovo is set to release two new Moto G-series smartphones next year, in the Moto G7 and Moto G7 Plus, at least according to the branding that was uncovered by MySmartPrice. The publication found the branding (which you can see below), that points to these two devices, but the it did not find any branding for a Moto G7 Play. While the publication is saying that there wont be a Moto G7 Play, because it didnt find any branding for it, that doesnt mean that there wont be one. So take that with a grain of salt.
Background: The Moto G-series of smartphones have been Motorolas most popular line of smartphones ever. It outsold the Motorola RAZR from back in the flip-phone days, just three years into this line of smartphones. It is a mid-range device that comes at a really competitive price. In recent years, the Moto G-series has fluctuated between $200 and around $500 depending on the year and the model, but they are still very affordable. Especially when you compare it to the $999 smartphones coming out these days. That right there is why the Moto G-series has been so popular for Motorola and now Lenovo.
The impact: Lenovo isnt expected to release the Moto G7 and G7 Plus until next year likely around April or May, or possibly as early as March at Mobile World Congress. Which makes sense seeing as the Moto G6 was released earlier this year. So plenty could change between now and then, including the fact that Lenovo could decide to can these smartphones, or go with a new name entirely. Its still pretty early in the manufacturing cycle, so its important to keep that in mind. But the Moto G7 should be a pretty impressive smartphone, especially with more and more smartphones coming with four-figure price tags these days.
Samsung seems to want and push the Galaxy A7 series forward, as a new 2018 model has been approved by the Bluetooth SIG agency earlier today. The documents reveal two model numbers for the same device, including SM-A750FN and SM-A750N. At the end of July, the SM-A750FN was spotted running the online benchmark Geekbench but at that time there was no guarantee of whether this will be a new Galaxy A7 model, even though the model number strongly supported this possibility. Now, the recent Bluetooth document directly links these model numbers with the Samsung Galaxy A7 (2018) moniker, so at this point, theres no doubt of what they represent.
As usual, hardware specifications are scarce in the Bluetooth application but nevertheless, the document confirms that the Samsung Galaxy A7 (2018) will take advantage of Bluetooth 5.0 connectivity. Otherwise, according to the previous appearance in Geekbench, the smartphone should be powered by the Exynos 7885 chipset featuring eight CPU cores clocked at a frequency of up to 1.59GHz, coupled with 4GB of RAM. The benchmark also revealed that the test unit, at least, ran Android 8.0 Oreo out of the box, but this bit of detail remains subject to change until the device hits the shelves, especially now that Android 9 Pie is official. As to when the device might be released, Samsung has yet to reveal any official details surrounding the device, and a yearly launch schedule is already out of the question given that the last Galaxy A7 model was released in January of 2017. But seeing how the SM-A750FN/SM-A750N is labeled as a 2018 model, it could reach the market in the coming months before the end of 2018. As a point of reference, the Galaxy A7 (2017) was launched in January the same year, while the Samsung Galaxy A7 (2016) was introduced in December 2015.
Last years iteration took advantage of Bluetooth 4.2 LE connectivity and it looks like Samsung wants to one-up the device by introducing Bluetooth 5.0 support to the sequel, among other improvements such as the aforementioned newer chipset and more RAM. Whether the OEM will retain the old 16:9 image format is yet unknown, but given the current trend, its likely that the upcoming model will feature a taller display along with a refreshed exterior design.
Spotselfie is a new social media application that targets college students. In its press release, the company says that college students are looking for a more traditional social media experience than other companies on the market are offering (apps like Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat). The company says that students want live, in-person interaction with new friends and classmates, and that its application can deliver just that.
Flying Eye Reality, a company behind Spotselfie, says that its app is targeted for each campus, and that it addresses specific college student bodies for each university, specifically. Interestingly enough, Spotselfie actually comes with patent-pending augmented reality (AR) technology for social interactions. In case youre wondering how AR works in a social media app like this, well, students are able to share GPS-located pictures and videos, and other students can view that content in AR as they walk through the campus. Another feature of this app is called My Color Code, now, thanks to this feature, students will be asked to answer 16 questions based on their personality, social and physical traits, and activities. After they do that, theyll be able to be matched with students who have similar results.
You will be required to set a profile picture on Spotselfie, and that picture will follow you around all the time, you will be visible to your colleagues on Spotselfie, and they will be able to click on your profile picture for more info this feature is called Billboard. With Spotselfie, you can create public or private groups which you can be an admin of, just in case youd like to stay in contact with some people and have an online plate to hang out. Spotselfies Buzz Feed will allow you to check out a scrollable list of campus-life postings, while this app has a number of additional features / options that you can check out. Spotselfie is a brand new application, and if youd like to check it out, follow the link down below.
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https://youtu.be/IslakIhjiag
In short: Synaptics has announced a new ready to deploy Android TV solution for Pay-TV providers, which will look to offer those interested in providing an Android TV option to their customers a way to do so that is inexpensive, easy to rollout, and end-to-end supported. The announcement was made as part of the ongoing IBC 2018 Conference in Amsterdam.
Background: Android TV has a shortage of box-based hardware solutions which is somewhat concerning considering this is one of the easier ways in which any entity can offer Android TV to its customers. Google, as well as the wider Android TV industry has recently looked to offset this issue through a greater set-top box (STB) push where Pay-TV companies are encouraged to adopt, and provided with easier means to deploy an Android TV-based STB to customers. With todays announcement from Synaptics proving to be the latest example, as here the company has partnered with industry-leaders to ensure this is can literally be sold to companies as a turnkey solution. As part of the end-to-end design, Synaptics has turned to iWedia for the software stack and Tonly for the hardware.
Impact: There are two sides to the Android TV equation, the consumer side and the provider side. Android TV, has in the past looked to serve both markets although more recently there has been a much clearer push towards the provider side of things. While this is likely to result in an increased ability for Pay-TV operators to offer an Android TV-based solution to its customers, which in turn is expected to increase the level of Android TV adoption at the end user stage, its not something that is necessarily going to be felt by the average consumer in the short-term. Not to mention, it will only be of value to those consumers who have services provided by a Pay-TV operator, and through an operator who is more inclined to opt for a turnkey solution instead of a custom-built option designed to cater to their specific needs and customers. There will also likely be a regional aspect in play here where this particular solution is available in some regions and not others.
In short: Sixteen members of the U.S. House of Representatives penned a letter to Google demanding a straight answer on whether the company has any plans to return to China, i.e. its Internet search market. The bipartisan group also asked whether Google is considering cooperating with the Far Eastern countrys censorship authorities should its widely reported plans to relaunch its search engine in China eventually materialize. The lawmakers said they were concerned about the alleged plan and are still waiting for a response from the Mountain View, California-based technology giant.
Background: The development comes following several reports about the company planning a return to the country that its Search team unit left in 2010 in order to protest Beijings censorship practices. The existence of the secretive project was only disclosed to a small number of the firms employees, with many others protesting the initiative following media reports about the thereof. Last month, Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai told Googlers the company isnt planning to re-enter the Chinese Internet search market anytime soon but didnt entirely dismiss the idea of doing so, prompting additional criticism, both internal and external. The timing of the report coincided with Googles decision to discontinue Project Maven, an initiative to weaponize artificial intelligence that it pursued alongside Pentagon but ended up dropping due to employee activism which didnt sit well with U.S. legislators.
Impact: Regardless of Googles response to the matter, the companys officials are likely to be grilled on the matter two weeks from now when theyre set to appear in front of a Senate committee as part of a hearing on digital privacy in the U.S. The gathering is likely to be extra tense for Google in light of the fact that the company was heavily criticized for missing a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on election security earlier this month, with all of its top officials declining to attend the event despite their colleagues from Facebook and Twitter complying with the request.
In short: A new Android TV device called Jetstream has now shown up at Walmart priced at $69. In spite of the low price, the device seems to pack in a number of noteworthy features including 4K Ultra HD support, a Bluetooth and voice-enabled remote control with a dedicated Google Assistant button, and more.
Background: This is largely an unknown device although the listing makes it clear the device is manufactured by Ematic a company that has already brought to market affordable devices such as its line of FunTab Android tablets. As a result it seems the company has now moved into the Android TV game. The companys background alone helps to explain the low-cost of the product which based on the information provided in the listing should not be confused with Android boxes for the TV. As this seems to be a legit Android TV device which comes with the full and proper Android TV interface. Along with the initial spotting of the Walmart listing, this is a product that has also now been spotted as being advertised on Walmart store shelves, suggesting this might become a fully available product both online and in store. At present, however, the listing shows as out of stock which might mean it has yet to fully launch. As for some of the core specs, the Jetstream comes loaded with 8GB storage, is powered by an Amlogic quad-core ARM Cortex A53 CPU, with the Android TV version in use being Android 8.1 (Oreo).
Impact: Android TV at the box level has become a scarce landscape due to a lack of new options arriving coupled with existing options having been phased out. Of the options that remain available, the NVIDIA SHIELD has become the go-to solution for many, while the Mi Box from Xiaomi remains more of an affordable option in instances where it can still be found available. However the Mi Box has been plagued with issues over the last year or two including criticisms of being a poorly-supported device at the software level. Up until now, Walmart has remained the primary place to buy a Mi Box and the arrival of this new unit, and at the same price, could result in the Jetstream adopting the position of a direct replacement as the main and affordable gateway Android TV device.
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Initiatives like the New Distribution Capability are enabling airlines to become true internet retailers and to control the offer in every sales channel. Concurrently, digital transformation and big data are creating huge opportunities for personalisation and customisation, said said Aleks Popovich, IATAs Senior Vice President, Financial and Distribution Services.
The result is a new era in which travelers will have more transparency and greater options to tailor their journey when they shop for travel, while airlines will be able to offer a richer, more customized retail experience, and own their content, regardless of shopping channel. The Airline Industry Retailing Symposium provides a forum to examine challenges to achieving this vision for a new era of airline retailing.
AIRS will take place in Rome, 23-25 October. Session tracks will cover:
Should airlines be retailers?
Whos best at retailing?
Creating relevant offers
Getting the offer to market
Ordering, delivering and servicing
Payment: Back-office matter or commercial advantage?
Innovating with speed
AIRS will also feature presentations from recent winners of AIR Hackathons as well as the AIR Competition finalists and the AIR Think Tank, reviewing the leading ideas for future innovation from industry thought leaders.
Al Baker was joined by fellow IATA Board of Governors members, as well as several other key industry representatives at the meeting, which was held at the Four Seasons Hotel, Doha, on Wednesday 12 September 2018.
Al Baker said: This weeks meeting was an invaluable opportunity for IATA members to come together to discuss a number of key issues of importance currently facing the global airline industry. It is an incredible privilege to be in a position to work alongside such a respected and influential group of individuals, as well as help to lead discussion around the existing challenges and future direction of the industry I love.
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How Israel Stole Nuclear Material From The US and Left $350 Million Cleanup Bill Natura Naturans
Registered User
User ID: 441875
09-13-2018 06:05 PM
Posts: 13,155
Post: #1 How Israel Stole Nuclear Material From The US and Left $350 Million Cleanup Bill
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Zalman Shapiro investigated by the FBI for potential Foreign Agents Registration Act after 61 kilograms of U-235 are discovered missing from the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation. FBI establishes surveillance of Shapiro in 1968. Nature of David Lowenthal's relationship and financing of NUMEC discovered. David Lowenthal observed in photos "shaking hands with Ben-Gurion and Moshe Dayan" and "reportedly fought for Israel as a freedom fighter in 1956 and travels to Israel on the average of approximately once per month." NUMEC's founders, security clearances, shipment of 320 grams of plutonium to Israel in 1963, censored files.
https://israellobby.org/numec/
https://fas.org/blogs/secrecy/2010/05/gao_numec/
To add insult to injury, Numec left a huge radioative mess in Pensylvania that has NOT been cleaned up to this day.
By Associated Press
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers plans to spend at least $350 million more over 10 years to dig up and haul away nuclear waste from a dump site about 35 miles northeast of Pittsburgh.
The Army Corps halted the cleanup originally estimated to cost $44.5 million after crews discovered unanticipated amounts of "complex" materials, like uranium and plutonium, at the Parks Township site in 2011.
The site was once owned by Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corp., which operated fuel plants for nuclear submarines in Parks and nearby Apollo. NUMEC owned the dump site from 1957 until the 1980s, but Babcock & Wilcox Co. most recently owned the land.
The Army Corps already spent $62 million on the cleanup, meaning the final cost will be $412 million nearly 10 times the original
https://www.lehighvalleylive.com/breakin..._clea.html The highest activity a human being can attain is learning for understanding, because to understand is to be free. --Baruch Spinoza Numec was a company owned by Israel that handled nuclear material. In 1965, over 200 pounds of weapons-grade highly enriched uranium went missing from the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation (NUMEC) plant in Apollo, Pennsylvania. Circumstantial evidence and popular lore suggested that the material had been clandestinely diverted to Israel for use in its nuclear weapons program, either with or without the acquiescence of the U.S. Government. Extensive material now available show among other things that:Zalman Shapiro investigated by the FBI for potential Foreign Agents Registration Act after 61 kilograms of U-235 are discovered missing from the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation. FBI establishes surveillance of Shapiro in 1968. Nature of David Lowenthal's relationship and financing of NUMEC discovered. David Lowenthal observed in photos "shaking hands with Ben-Gurion and Moshe Dayan" and "reportedly fought for Israel as a freedom fighter in 1956 and travels to Israel on the average of approximately once per month." NUMEC's founders, security clearances, shipment of 320 grams of plutonium to Israel in 1963, censored files.To add insult to injury, Numec left a huge radioative mess in Pensylvania that has NOT been cleaned up to this day.By Associated PressThe U.S. Army Corps of Engineers plans to spend at least $350 million more over 10 years to dig up and haul away nuclear waste from a dump site about 35 miles northeast of Pittsburgh.The Army Corps halted the cleanup originally estimated to cost $44.5 million after crews discovered unanticipated amounts of "complex" materials, like uranium and plutonium, at the Parks Township site in 2011.The site was once owned by Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corp., which operated fuel plants for nuclear submarines in Parks and nearby Apollo. NUMEC owned the dump site from 1957 until the 1980s, but Babcock & Wilcox Co. most recently owned the land.The Army Corps already spent $62 million on the cleanup, meaning the final cost will be $412 million nearly 10 times the originalThe highest activity a human being can attain is learning for understanding, because to understand is to be free. --Baruch Spinoza (This post was last modified: 09-13-2018 06:27 PM by Natura Naturans .) LoP Guest
lop guest
User ID: 461958
09-13-2018 06:07 PM
Post: #2 RE: How Israel Stole Nuclear Material From The US and Left $350 Cleanup Bill
also
$350, the bastardsalso LoP Guest
lop guest
User ID: 450531
09-13-2018 06:12 PM
Post: #3 RE: How Israel Stole Nuclear Material From The US and Left $350 Cleanup Bill
Natura Naturans Wrote: (09-13-2018 06:05 PM) Numec was a company owned by Israel that handled nuclear material. In 1965, over 200 pounds of weapons-grade highly enriched uranium went missing from the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation (NUMEC) plant in Apollo, Pennsylvania. Circumstantial evidence and popular lore suggested that the material had been clandestinely diverted to Israel for use in its nuclear weapons program, either with or without the acquiescence of the U.S. Government. Extensive material now available show among other things that:
Zalman Shapiro investigated by the FBI for potential Foreign Agents Registration Act after 61 kilograms of U-235 are discovered missing from the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation. FBI establishes surveillance of Shapiro in 1968. Nature of David Lowenthal's relationship and financing of NUMEC discovered. David Lowenthal observed in photos "shaking hands with Ben-Gurion and Moshe Dayan" and "reportedly fought for Israel as a freedom fighter in 1956 and travels to Israel on the average of approximately once per month." NUMEC's founders, security clearances, shipment of 320 grams of plutonium to Israel in 1963, censored files.
https://israellobby.org/numec/
https://fas.org/blogs/secrecy/2010/05/gao_numec/
To add insult to injury, Numec left a huge radioative mess in Pensylvania that has NOT been cleaned up to this day.
By Associated Press
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers plans to spend at least $350 million more over 10 years to dig up and haul away nuclear waste from a dump site about 35 miles northeast of Pittsburgh.
The Army Corps halted the cleanup originally estimated to cost $44.5 million after crews discovered unanticipated amounts of "complex" materials, like uranium and plutonium, at the Parks Township site in 2011.
The site was once owned by Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corp., which operated fuel plants for nuclear submarines in Parks and nearby Apollo. NUMEC owned the dump site from 1957 until the 1980s, but Babcock & Wilcox Co. most recently owned the land.
The Army Corps already spent $62 million on the cleanup, meaning the final cost will be $412 million nearly 10 times the original
https://www.lehighvalleylive.com/breakin..._clea.html
Theft from others and sticking someone else with the tab is a well venerated and celebrated tradition.
Let the sheep pay the tab.
They wrote a whole book about it and called it their bible.
That means they intended to make it a pattern. Theft from others and sticking someone else with the tab is a well venerated and celebrated tradition.Let the sheep pay the tab.They wrote a whole book about it and called it their bible.That means they intended to make it a pattern. LoP Guest
lop guest
User ID: 450531
09-13-2018 06:16 PM
Post: #4 RE: How Israel Stole Nuclear Material From The US and Left $350M Cleanup Bill
LoP Guest Wrote: (09-13-2018 06:12 PM) Natura Naturans Wrote: (09-13-2018 06:05 PM) Numec was a company owned by Israel that handled nuclear material. In 1965, over 200 pounds of weapons-grade highly enriched uranium went missing from the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation (NUMEC) plant in Apollo, Pennsylvania. Circumstantial evidence and popular lore suggested that the material had been clandestinely diverted to Israel for use in its nuclear weapons program, either with or without the acquiescence of the U.S. Government. Extensive material now available show among other things that:
Zalman Shapiro investigated by the FBI for potential Foreign Agents Registration Act after 61 kilograms of U-235 are discovered missing from the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation. FBI establishes surveillance of Shapiro in 1968. Nature of David Lowenthal's relationship and financing of NUMEC discovered. David Lowenthal observed in photos "shaking hands with Ben-Gurion and Moshe Dayan" and "reportedly fought for Israel as a freedom fighter in 1956 and travels to Israel on the average of approximately once per month." NUMEC's founders, security clearances, shipment of 320 grams of plutonium to Israel in 1963, censored files.
https://israellobby.org/numec/
https://fas.org/blogs/secrecy/2010/05/gao_numec/
To add insult to injury, Numec left a huge radioative mess in Pensylvania that has NOT been cleaned up to this day.
By Associated Press
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers plans to spend at least $350 million more over 10 years to dig up and haul away nuclear waste from a dump site about 35 miles northeast of Pittsburgh.
The Army Corps halted the cleanup originally estimated to cost $44.5 million after crews discovered unanticipated amounts of "complex" materials, like uranium and plutonium, at the Parks Township site in 2011.
The site was once owned by Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corp., which operated fuel plants for nuclear submarines in Parks and nearby Apollo. NUMEC owned the dump site from 1957 until the 1980s, but Babcock & Wilcox Co. most recently owned the land.
The Army Corps already spent $62 million on the cleanup, meaning the final cost will be $412 million nearly 10 times the original
https://www.lehighvalleylive.com/breakin..._clea.html
Theft from others and sticking someone else with the tab is a well venerated and celebrated tradition.
Let the sheep pay the tab.
They wrote a whole book about it and called it their bible.
That means they intended to make it a pattern.
One imagines that Lucky Larry didnt contribute a penny to cleanup of his asbestos filled tower mess despite the billions of dollars he won before even his first insurance payment was due. One imagines that Lucky Larry didnt contribute a penny to cleanup of his asbestos filled tower mess despite the billions of dollars he won before even his first insurance payment was due. Natura Naturans
Registered User
User ID: 441875
09-13-2018 06:26 PM
Posts: 13,155
Post: #5 RE: How Israel Stole Nuclear Material From The US and Left $350M Cleanup Bill
http://www.5tjt.com/our-first-jewish-pre...an-update/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con...edirect=on
http://judymorrisreport.blogspot.com/201...-told.html This incident could not have happened without the complicity of Lyndon Johnson's administration. Johnson was always known for his great friendship with Israel and philanthropy for Jewish causes. Some have suggested he was of Jewish heritage on his mother's side, but since being Jewish was very unpopular in Texas this was not well known. There is evidence that Johnson planned the attack on the US Liberty with Israel to bring the US into a major war in the Middle East: The highest activity a human being can attain is learning for understanding, because to understand is to be free. --Baruch Spinoza Fu King
Registered User
User ID: 430765
09-13-2018 06:48 PM
Posts: 3,345
Post: #6 RE: How Israel Stole Nuclear Material From The US and Left $350 Million Cleanup Bill
That has always been their MO. No Brains, just Steal.
Albert Einstein worked in the U.S. Patent Office. Natura Naturans
Registered User
User ID: 441875
09-13-2018 07:30 PM
Posts: 13,155
Post: #7 RE: How Israel Stole Nuclear Material From The US and Left $350 Million Cleanup Bill
Fu King Wrote: (09-13-2018 06:48 PM) That has always been their MO. No Brains, just Steal.
Albert Einstein worked in the U.S. Patent Office.
Actually he worked at the Swiss patent office in Bern Switzerland. Actually he worked at the Swiss patent office in Bern Switzerland. The highest activity a human being can attain is learning for understanding, because to understand is to be free. --Baruch Spinoza LoP Guest
lop guest
User ID: 450531
09-13-2018 07:36 PM
Post: #8 RE: How Israel Stole Nuclear Material From The US and Left $350 Million Cleanup Bill
Natura Naturans Wrote: (09-13-2018 06:26 PM) This incident could not have happened without the complicity of Lyndon Johnson's administration. Johnson was always known for his great friendship with Israel and philanthropy for Jewish causes. Some have suggested he was of Jewish heritage on his mother's side, but since being Jewish was very unpopular in Texas this was not well known. There is evidence that Johnson planned the attack on the US Liberty with Israel to bring the US into a major war in the Middle East:
http://www.5tjt.com/our-first-jewish-pre...an-update/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con...edirect=on
http://judymorrisreport.blogspot.com/201...-told.html
Lady Bird makes all his children (official ones anyway), eligible for ISISraeli citizenship.
Did you know that? Lady Bird makes all his children (official ones anyway), eligible for ISISraeli citizenship.Did you know that? Natura Naturans
Registered User
User ID: 441875
09-13-2018 07:52 PM
Posts: 13,155
Post: #9 RE: How Israel Stole Nuclear Material From The US and Left $350 Million Cleanup Bill
LoP Guest Wrote: (09-13-2018 07:36 PM) Natura Naturans Wrote: (09-13-2018 06:26 PM) This incident could not have happened without the complicity of Lyndon Johnson's administration. Johnson was always known for his great friendship with Israel and philanthropy for Jewish causes. Some have suggested he was of Jewish heritage on his mother's side, but since being Jewish was very unpopular in Texas this was not well known. There is evidence that Johnson planned the attack on the US Liberty with Israel to bring the US into a major war in the Middle East:
http://www.5tjt.com/our-first-jewish-pre...an-update/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con...edirect=on
http://judymorrisreport.blogspot.com/201...-told.html
Lady Bird makes all his children (official ones anyway), eligible for ISISraeli citizenship.
Did you know that?
I didn't find any info on that but I know that the daughters aren't Jewish. I didn't find any info on that but I know that the daughters aren't Jewish. The highest activity a human being can attain is learning for understanding, because to understand is to be free. --Baruch Spinoza
The meeting, held at Intercontinental Hotel, was headed by Saleh Bin Nasser Al Jasser, Director General of Saudi Arabian Airlines and Chairman of AACO Executive Committee. Participating were RJ President/CEO Stefan Pichler, AACOs Secretary General Abdul Wahab Teffaha, the CEOs of eight Arab airlines that are members of the Executive Committee.
The attendees tackled several strategic issues and the development of some joint projects among AACO members. The committee also discussed internal issues in preparation of AACOs 51st Annual General Meeting that will be held between Nov. 5 and 7, 2018.
Pichler said RJ is pleased to host the chief executives of the Arab carriers, and underlined the significance of these meetings that gather the Arab airlines under one umbrella to find the best solutions that face the air transport industry in the region.
Royal Jordanian has been an AACO member since 1965, just two years after the airline was established.
Teffaha thanked RJ for hosting the event. He said that one of the tasks of the Executive Committee is to supervise the work of the organization and discuss the main issues that concern the Arab carriers in various fields. Such issues include the joint projects among members, being managed by AACO, aeropolitical matters in the world and the region and AACOs priorities in the coming period.
The executive committee is the second highest AACO authority after the AGM; it consists of nine members from among boards of directors or chief executives of Arab airlines.
AACO is made up of 33 Arab airlines that operate over 1,400 aircraft of an average age of 7 years, half of the age of other global fleets.
Copyright Shutterstock / By Raimonds Romans
United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo signed national security waivers allowing the money known as foreign military financing to be spent, reported the Associated Press (AP) news agency. It added: Congress has 15 days to weigh in on the waivers, which were signed on 21 August but not previously made public.
It also stated: The money includes $1 billion for the current 2018 budget year and $195 million appropriated for 2017 that would have had to have been returned to the treasury had it not been spent by 30 September.
Last July, US President Donald Trumps administration decided to unfreeze $195 million in military aid to Egypt, which it previously halted last year over human rights and democratic norms violations.
The announcement was followed by the returning of the biggest drills, Bright Star, between the two countries armed forces and other countries. The Bright Star was first launched in 1980 following the signing of the Camp David Accords in September 1978.
Do it yourself if you can We accept in principle that private equity can deliver (somewhat) excess returns over most other asset classes. But there are a lot of qualifications attached to that, and most of them are very relevant to whether and how pension funds should invest in private equity.
DJ Lo_g performs at Grotto in a contributed photo from this summer. The nightclub that opened in June is abruptly closing its doors in the fallout of negotiations between an upstairs restaurant and the buildings owner.
Image: NASA
NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine and Roscosmos General Director Dmitry Rogozin met on Wednesday to discuss the status of International Space Station (ISS) operations after speculation that a leak detected onboard the station two weeks ago was possibly the result of sabotage. During the discussion, NASA says Rogozin informed Bridenstine that Roscosmos was establishing a commission to investigate the incident. The meeting took place via teleconference and was held at the request of Roscosmos.
In a joint statement, NASA and Roscosmos affirmed the necessity of further close interaction between NASA and Roscosmos technical teams in identifying and eliminating the cause of the leak, as well as continuation of normal ISS operations and NASAs ongoing support of the Roscosmos-led Soyuz investigation. The statement also made it clear that no preliminary results would be released prior to the conclusion of the investigation.
On Aug. 29, a pressure drop detected on the ISS led to the discovery of a small hole in one of the two Russian Soyuz capsules docked at the station. The leak was patched by the next day, but unconfirmed theories about its cause quickly emerged, pointing to everything from deliberate sabotage to a fabrication error on the ground. Bridenstine and Rogozin are scheduled to meet for the first time in person in early October when Bridenstine visits Russia and Kazakhstan for the upcoming launch of a Soyuz spacecraft with American astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Alexy Ovchinin onboard.
Florida lawmakers are publicly disagreeing with President Trump's claim that the death toll in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria is not accurate.
Why it matters: With just 2 months before the election and with an estimated 50,00075,000 Puerto Ricans who may have permanently settled in Florida since the hurricane they know they can't stay silent on an issue that affects a significant portion of Florida's electorate.
The big picture: Republicans Rick Scott and Ron DeSantis have never openly disagreed with Trump before. In fact, they've benefitted from his endorsements, and DeSantis even released an entire ad mirroring himself after Trump.
That doesn't mean they don't genuinely disagree with him now, but they're both in tough races and will rely on a new electorate, shaped by Hurricane Maria, to get elected not on President Trump.
Battle lines: Gov. Rick Scott, who's running for Senate, tweeted: "I disagree with @POTUS an independent study said thousands were lost and Gov. Rossello agreed. I've been to Puerto Rico 7 times & saw devastation firsthand. The loss of any life is tragic."
A spokesperson for Rep. Ron DeSantis, who's running for governor, told NBC's Ali Vitali that DeSantis "doesnt believe any loss of life has been inflated," as POTUS claimed.
Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson, who's facing a tough re-election race against Scott, tweeted: "The presidents comments on the nearly 3,000 American lives lost in Puerto Rico are shameful. We deserve and expect more from someone who holds the highest office in our country."
Go deeper: Politicians trash Trump's Hurricane Maria tweet
The European Parliament passed a rare motion Wednesday condemning Hungary for violating the European Union's founding values, which center on democracy and respect for the rule of law.
The backdrop: Since 2010, Prime Minister Viktor Orban has sought to transform Hungary into what he calls an "illiberal state," melding crony capitalism with a crackdown on the independent judiciary and media, a restructuring of the electoral system, and a string of other assaults on civil institutions.
The big picture: The motion could trigger a vote to strip Hungary of its EU voting rights, but it would require unanimous approval and several of Orban's allies have already said they would vote no. But even a symbolic move to censure Hungary is significant given that members of Orban's own coalition in the European Parliament, the European People's Party, have finally a stand against his autocratic rule.
Political scientist Cas Mudde notes that leaders of the EPP, the largest voting bloc in the Parliament that includes center-right leaders from around the continent, have for years enabled Orban's attacks on social democracy, believing they could control his worst tendencies. But with populist parties surging throughout Europe and moderates being pushed to the right on immigration, it's become clear that Orban has changed the EPP far more than it has changed him.
"This is a battle for the soul of the EPP. Does it want to remain a party of values, of democracy, and human rights? It cant do that and keep Orban in its one or another."
Political scientist R. Daniel Kelemen to the New York Times
The bottom line: The European Parliament's elections are next year, and the EPP must decide whether to engage Orban in dialogue or eject him from its ranks and risk facing off against a potential far-right alliance he could form with other populists.
Go deeper: Border fences and refugee bans: Hungary did it fast.
The spread of anti-establishment movements in the U.S. and Europe fed by a gnawing sense of Western failure suggests a restoration of "the jungle," the more dangerous, strongman-led politics that preceded World War II, according to a leading historian.
Why it matters: Over the last week, politicians and voters in Italy, Hungary and Sweden have reinforced Europe's move away from the U.S.-led order. But historian Robert Kagan of the Brookings Institution says many forget that, prior to the war, normal European politics gave birth to fascism, Nazism, genocide and some of history's most predatory dictators.
In a vote today, the European Parliament censured Hungary as a "systematic threat to the rule of law" because of Prime Minister Viktor Orban's increasing concentration of power in his own hands, report the WSJ's Valentina Pop and Drew Hinshaw.
the European Parliament censured Hungary as a "systematic threat to the rule of law" because of Prime Minister Viktor Orban's increasing concentration of power in his own hands, report the WSJ's Valentina Pop and Drew Hinshaw. On Sunday, Swedish voters gave their biggest support ever to the right-wing Democratic Party, which has neo-Nazi roots. The Democrats finished with almost 20% of the votes, giving them 42 of the 349 seats in parliament, the third-largest share of nine parties or coalitions.
Swedish voters gave their biggest support ever to the right-wing Democratic Party, which has neo-Nazi roots. The Democrats finished with almost 20% of the votes, giving them 42 of the 349 seats in parliament, the third-largest share of nine parties or coalitions. And last Friday, Matteo Salvini, Italy's powerful deputy prime minister, joined The Movement, a group founded by Steve Bannon to spread populist politics throughout Europe, reports the NYT's Jason Horowitz.
Ahead of the publication of his slender new book, "The Jungle Grows Back" (out next week), Kagan tells Axios that the string of events in Europe are examples of the world returning to its natural, tough guy-led state.
"Democracy and liberalism aren't our fate. It's always a battle of the human soul, of the competing forces of human nature. We now have tribalism and nationalism in search of strong authority."
Kagan, speaking to Axios
Kagan's thesis has gained traction in Germany. In a speech on Aug. 27 in Berlin, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said, "We Germans in particular can have no interest in a 'jungle growing back in the world order.' We must resist this to the best of our ability. And we must lay our hands on the right tools when the jungle beckons."
In the book, Kagan argues that the last three decades of geopolitics the failure of the Arab Spring, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention the financial crash and more have naturally led people to lose faith in the basic system of governance.
Americans in particular wonder why the U.S. ought to pay an outsized portion of the cost of the system. But Kagan says the governing system amounts to a bargain the U.S. gets strategic hegemony and the same resulting peace and prosperity enjoyed by everyone, as long as it does not constrain anyone else's economic growth.
The impact: Absent the U.S., the whole house falls apart, Kagan says. "[T]here is no guarantee that democracy comes out on top," he says. "If you look at history, you have to say that that has been rarer."
President Trump on Wednesday signed an executive order mandating automatic sanctions against countries that interfere in U.S. elections.
The big picture: The order covers fewer scenarios than youd think, guarantees less in sanctions than a pending bipartisan Senate bill and has left critics wondering exactly how seriously the president can be taken on the issue, when he has repeatedly claimed that the jury is out on well-documented foreign interference.
Laura Galante, who heads a geopolitical cybersecurity strategy firm, weighed in at an Atlantic Council panel discussion Wednesday evening: "His words in Helsinki are louder than the executive action."
What the executive order covers:
Tampering with voting infrastructure.
Hacking political parties or candidates.
What it doesn't cover:
Social media campaigns and other illicit propaganda campaigns, which are increasingly what people think of when they hear "election interference."
Tertiary attacks that impact elections like, for instance, a coordinated traffic jam near a polling station that could reduce the number of voters.
The automatic penalties are limited to freezing financial accounts that travel through the U.S. banking system. Thats significant, and the president would receive a report of other sanctions to consider.
"I applaud the attempt to not let [election interference] fall away," said Michele Markoff, deputy coordinator for cyber issues at the State Department, at the same Atlantic Council panel.
But the president retains much more leeway than he would have had if Senate stakeholders had their way.
The Defending Elections from Threats by Establishing Redlines (DETER) Act, spearheaded by Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), is muscular in ways that the executive order is not.
Details: Here is what would happen under that bill within 10 days if the director of national intelligence reported election interference of any kind including social media campaigns from Russia:
The U.S. would freeze the accounts of 6 major Russian banks; 3 major energy companies; entities involved in the defense and intelligence sector; state-backed aerospace, rail and mining concerns; any company at least half owned by Russia; and high-ranking Russian politicians and oligarchs.
American entities would be prohibited from purchasing Russian bonds.
The executive order has fewer automatic sanctions, but they apply to any actor from Russia to, say, Luxembourg, on the off chance it is feeling feisty.
Rubio and Van Hollen released a joint statement excoriating the executive order as a half-measure: "The United States can and must do more."
In a call with reporters, national security adviser John Bolton said the administration was not opposed to hearing lawmakers' ideas on how to improve the executive order. "We're happy to discuss ... with the members of the House and the Senate ideas and thoughts that they have."
The bottom line: The move is certainly a step up from doing nothing, but it's hard particularly for his critics not to interpret the executive order in terms of the measures it's missing and the record of his past struggles with the issue of election security.
Members of the Armenian parliament representing the former ruling party on Thursday initiated a probe into possible obstruction of justice following a wiretapping scandal involving two top security officials that broke out earlier this week.
Parliament Speaker Ara Babloyan said that as required by the Constitution a quarter of lawmakers asked him to set up an ad hoc committee to investigate the wiretapped telephone conversations between National Security Service (NSS) Director Artur Vanetsian and Special Investigation Service (SIS) head Sasun Khachatrian concerning the ongoing investigation into the 2008 postelection violence in which 10 people were killed.
According to some lawmakers, the conversations reveal that the two officials may have obstructed justice. The matter concerns the mention of a terrified judge who allegedly contacted the NSS chief over the case of former Armenian President Robert Kocharian.
Kocharian, who faces charges of breaching the constitution in connection with the March 1-2, 2008 case, on Wednesday publicly accused the current administration, and Vanetsian and Khachatrian in particular, of pursuing a politically motivated case against him. Citing the telephone conversations between the two officials, he claimed that the goal of the investigation was to lock him up and said that the NSS and SIS heads should resign.
At their joint press conference on September 11 both Vanetsian and Khachatrian insisted that their conversations did not reveal anything that could be used to accuse them or Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian of guiding the judiciary.
Members of the pro-Pashinian Yelk faction in the National Assembly, which is still dominated by members of the former ruling Republican Party of Armenia (HHK), argued today that the launching of a probe was superfluous since along with the case on the fact of the wiretapping of telephone conversations of senior officials the Prosecutor-Generals Office on Wednesday also launched another criminal probe, instructing the Investigation Committee to investigate possible exceeding of official authorities by Vanetsian and Khachatrian.
Under Armenias constitution and parliament regulations, a parliamentary probe cannot be conducted on cases that are being investigated by investigation bodies or are at the stage of judicial examination.
This probe will exert pressure on and will influence the criminal case, said Yelk lawmaker Alen Simonian, stressing that the law prohibits the establishment of a parliamentary investigation committee if there is a criminal case pursued by a relevant body.
HHK faction members, meanwhile, disagreed with this argument, insisting that the committee will probe circumstances that are not part of the criminal case pursued by the investigation committee, in particular, it will try to establish whether there was any pressure on the judge mentioned in one of the telephone conversations of the two officials.
HHK faction member Armen Ashotian further claimed that the Prosecutor-Generals Office initiated a criminal case on the possible official misconduct by the top NSS and SIS officials only to preclude a parliamentary probe.
What are you afraid of? Ashotian asked rhetorically. Stop feeding us with lies. The parliament has powers. One should not be afraid of the activities of the parliament. The work of this committee should not be political.
Ashotian also suggested that all sittings of the committee be broadcast live to ensure maximum transparency of the probe.
Other HHK lawmakers argued that a parliamentary probe is essential also in the general context of human rights in Armenia.
Remarkably, deputy speaker of parliament and HHK faction member Arpine Hovhannisian also raised the Armenian wiretapping scandal at the Committee on Political Affairs and Democracy of the Council of Europes Parliamentary Assembly in Strasbourg on September 11.
The current authorities pursue the goal of locking up everyone who committed a crime during the deadly postelection unrest in 2008, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian said on Thursday, reacting to the remarks of former President Robert Kocharian, a key suspect in the case.
Kocharian, who faces charges of breaching the constitution in connection with the events which happened a decade ago and in which 10 people were killed, yesterday commented on the wiretapped telephone conversations between National Security Service (NSS) Director Artur Vanetsian and Special Investigation Service head Sasun Khachatrian that were leaked to the media earlier this week in an apparent attempt to compromise the Pashinian government by showing that despite its pledges not to influence the judiciary it exerted pressure and guided at least one judge who approved the arrest of the ex-president on July 28.
Kocharian, who was released from pretrial detention on August 13 following a decision by an appeals court that found that the Armenian constitution gives him immunity from prosecution, accused the current administration of carrying out a political persecution against him.
All our predictions, all our statements that the case is politically motivated, that this is a case of political persecution are proved by these telephone conversations. [They prove that] this has nothing to do with the investigation of the March 1, 2008 events and has one goal, as they say themselves, to lock me up, the ex-president said in an interview with the Yerevan. Today website.
Speaking in parliament on Wednesday Pashinian, however, insisted that there was nothing about the conversations that could be used to compromise him or Armenias security services. He stressed that it was the judge who called the NSS chief and not vice versa. Pashinian said that after becoming prime minister he never made a secret of the fact that judges, who are not used to working independently, continue to call and ask for guidance. He gave assurances, however, that he remained committed to his earlier pledge not to interfere in the work of Armenian judges and courts.
Earlier Pashinian strongly condemned the wiretapping of the countrys officials, describing it as a conspiracy and a crime against Armenian statehood. He ordered a probe to identify the conspirators as soon as possible and hold them accountable in the strictest terms.
By Trend
Over the past 24 hours, Armenian armed forces have 87 times violated the ceasefire along the line of contact between Azerbaijani and Armenian troops, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry said Sept. 13.
Armenian armed forces were using heavy machine guns.
The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.
The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.
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By Rashid Shirinov
The ban on the transportation of wheat to Armenia by land through the territory of Georgia will come into force on September 15, and this can seriously stir up the masses in Armenia.
Presently, the only way connecting Armenian importers with Russia, from where wheat is purchased, is the Upper Lars checkpoint on the Russian-Georgian border. The overload of the checkpoint created big problems for the tourism sector of Georgia this summer.
There were very long queues at customs checkpoints. Tourists could not enter Georgia, and hundreds of cars were going back. This problem was particularly evident at the Upper Lars checkpoint, Georgian Finance Minister Ivane Matchavariani has previously noted.
Being unable to somehow influence the decision of the Georgian government, the Armenian authorities tried to cover up the issue as if nothing serious had happened for Armenia.
However, the problem has not gone away and it continues to seriously disturb the Armenian carriers. The countrys public, in turn, will be disturbed in a couple of days, when, because of the rise in the price of transit, the price of bread will go up in Armenia.
Representative of one of the carriers has told Armenian media that the problem of the ban on wheat import remains unresolved.
Truckers have received regular notifications from the Georgian side that on the night of September 15, trucks loaded with wheat will no longer be able to cross the border. No one has solved anything, he said.
The interlocutor added that even if the Armenian government ensures that the railway tariffs for transportation are reduced, 1 ton of wheat will rise in price by $46-52, which, of course, will affect the price of bread in Armenia.
He reminded that after the velvet revolution this spring, when the new government announced the elimination of monopolies, many Armenians bought trucks to import wheat into the country. Now they do not know how to repay loans taken to buy the trucks.
If this issue is not resolved, they will organize a protest on September 15, trucks will block the roads, the interlocutor stressed.
Thus, the Armenian government would better solve the problem as soon as possible, because the public sentiment in the country is largely against what the new authorities currently do. Another problem for the population of Armenia can ultimately exhaust their patience.
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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov
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By Trend
The scenario of Armenia's declaration of war against Azerbaijan is yet another confirmation that Armenia is an occupant state, spokesman of the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry Hikmat Hajiyev told Trend on Sept. 13.
He mentioned that the war, started by Armenia against Azerbaijan, has been going on for more than 27 years.
"The scenario of declaring war on Azerbaijan as part of its military command and staff exercises "Shant-2018" by Armenia is another confirmation and recognition of the obvious fact that Armenia is an invader state and an aggressor. It also demonstrates the archaic and feudal mentality of new military and political leadership of Armenia," Hajiyev said.
Hajiyev stressed that Azerbaijan is taking constructive steps towards resolving the conflict through substantive negotiations mediated by the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs and acting jointly with other neighboring states as an author of comprehensive regional cooperation projects serving common prosperity.
Meanwhile, on the other hand the new Armenian government continues the military dictatorship policy of the Sargsyan regime, putting the region face to face with new military adventures and threats, he said.
"Thus, the international community is witnessing a gap that separates Armenia an the civilized world. Failure to provide effective international political and diplomatic pressure on Armenia leads to an increase in its claims with impunity. We reiterate that the Armenian leadership is to blame for the disruption of the negotiation process, the escalation of tension and the militaristic "war game" adventures," Hajiyev said.
The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.
The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.
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By Trend
Some 100 cotton harvesters have been imported to Azerbaijan, Azerbaijani Minister of Agriculture Inam Karimov told journalists on Sept. 12.
According to Karimov, approximately 400 harvesters will be used to harvest cotton this season.
"All machine operators have received training and certificates. Machine operators who are not certified will not be allowed to harvest cotton," Karimov said.
In 2018, some 260,000 tons of cotton is expected to be harvested in 22 districts of Azerbaijan.
In 2016, the figure was 90,000 and in 2017 it was 207,000.
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By Sara Israfilbayova
A non-residential area located in the Nizami district of the capital was privatized at auction held by the State Committee on Property Issues of Azerbaijan on September 11.
The Committee will hold next auction on privatization of state property on September 18, where 172 state objects will be put up for sale.
The auction will offer 23 joint-stock companies, 88 small state enterprises, 52 non-residential areas and nine vehicles.
As a whole, more than 150 auctions have been held since the beginning of the year.
The portal for privatization privatization.az, launched in July 2016, reflects all necessary information about the facilities, their addresses, location, and even initial cost and aims at facilitation of the process. The website is available in two languages - Azerbaijani and English. Why Azerbaijan is special section available on the website explains the reasons and advantages of investing in the country.
The privatization process is designed to attract both foreign and local investors, as well as develop the business environment of Azerbaijan.
Moreover, the State Committee on Property Issues held the first electronic auction on July 4.
The electronic auction service, which is available on the website privatization.az, combines the privatization procedure of vehicles and equipment. In the future, it will be possible to privatize small state enterprises and facilities, joint-stock companies through electronic auction. Now, the corresponding work in programming is being implemented.
The State Committee on Property Issues was established on May 19, 2009 on the basis of the relevant presidential decree.
The main activities of the State Committee are the management of state property, attraction of investments, maintenance of a single cadastre of immovable property, maintenance of a land cadastre, organization of a land market, protection and improvement of land quality.
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Sara Israfilbayova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Sara_999Is
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Climate change is seriously affecting agriculture, creating a number of problems, former Minister of Agriculture and Land Reclamation of Egypt Adel El-Beltagy said during panel discussions on "Promoting Food and Nutrition Security" within the VIII Global Baku Forum - "The World after COVID-19", Trend reports.
By Laman Ismayilova
An exhibition "Full Emptiness: Virtual Reality Art " will open at ARTIM Project Space on September 20 as part of ARTIM Project.
Virtual Reality is considered to be one of the most popular and rapidly developing art medias of the XXI Century, it offers a journey inside the mysterious world created by artists using the latest technical equipment. ARTIM Project Space features newly commissioned works in the show Full Emptiness: Virtual Reality Art by local artists as Shahnaz Aghayeva, Sarkhan Rajabov and Orkhan Garayev, who explored the medium of the VR experience.
The VR performances emphasize blurred borders between the real and the virtual world. The exhibitions name stems from the idea of seeing virtual projects through special VR glasses, which were previously developed inside the empty ARTIM space.
The space-specific Van Gogh project by Shahnaz Aghayeva explores alternative reality and space affiliation concept. Her second project presents subjective visualization of Unnecessary person poem written by conceptual poetess Leyli Salayeva.
Clash of the Worlds by Orkhan Garayev hypnotizes the viewer with its geometrical and psychedelic ribbons, while playing with the idea of feeble nature of human beings in the Universe. Second VR project of Orkhan is called Inevitability and emphasizes the idea that everything in life has no special meaning.
The Virtual Museum project by Sarkhan Rajabov presents virtual art objects that are not related to one another. Most of the objects have been taken from antique and classic prototypes that are showing various formations. Winged Deer and 3D Baku projects reveal the idea of understanding familiar objects from different angles.
For creation of their works, the artists have used 3D modelling tools such as Oculus Rift, Tilt Brush, Masterpiece and Gravity Sketch.
"The Full Emptiness: Virtual Reality Art" exhibition is organized by Phobia VR, the largest Virtual Reality Centre in Azerbaijan, which promotes acquaintance with high technologies. One of the main objectives of Phobia VR is to apply innovations of gaming industry to art, architecture and education. Phobia VR was founded in 2017.
The exhibition will last until September 23.
The event partner is PHOBIA Virtual Reality.
The exhibition will open at 17:00.
Address: ARTIM Project Space Old City (Icherisheher) Boyuk Gala Street 30, 001A
Working hours: Tuesday Sunday, 12 pm 8pm
Entry is free (one-by-one basis)
For more information, please contact: 0125051414
YARAT: www.yarat.az
YARAT is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to nurturing an understanding of contemporary art in Azerbaijan and to creating a platform for Azerbaijani art, both nationally and internationally. Based in Baku, YARAT (meaning CREATE in Azerbaijani) was founded by Aida Mahmudova in 2011.
It realizes its mission through an on-going program of exhibitions, education events and festivals. YARAT facilitates exchange between local and international artistic networks including foundations, galleries and museums.
YARAT comprises YARAT Art Centre, ARTIM Project Space, YARAT Studios, YAY Gallery and an extended educational and public programme.
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Laman Ismayilova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Lam_Ismayilova
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By Trend
Peace with Azerbaijan is a precondition for democratization in Armenia, Stephen Blank, a senior fellow at the American Foreign Policy Council, said in his article published in Washington Times.
The author points out that Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has made numerous statements and gestures indicating an unwillingness to negotiate on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict with Azerbaijan.
However, in so doing Pashinyan, possibly unwittingly, but nevertheless clearly, has placed his own democracy campaign at risk. As long as Armenia holds onto Azerbaijani territories it will not have peace. Simply, peace with Azerbaijan is a precondition for democratization in Armenia, said the article.
Peace, however, is the sole guarantee that Armenia can both democratize and move forward provided it receives strong Western backing. This affects the United States because Pashinyan allegedly wants a meeting with President Trump in New York. Before this meeting possibly occurs, Pashinyan should give the United States reasons to support him, said Blank.
However, the author says that Armenias retention of the occupied territories of Azerbaijan are incompatible with US support or democracy.
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By Trend
OSCE Parliamentary Assembly President George Tsereteli has reiterated OSCE PAs support for the work of the OSCE Minsk Group and its Co-Chairs on the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, said a message on the organizations website.
He reiterated the OSCE PAs support for the work of the OSCE Minsk Group and its Co-Chairs on Nagorno-Karabakh, but stressed that the ultimate responsibility on delivery of concrete results and progress lies with the political leaderships of the parties involved, said the message.
To contribute to Assembly activities in the region, the President is expected to appoint a new Special Representative of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly on the South Caucasus region.
The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.
The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts
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By Trend
Armenia has been unwilling to agree to return to Azerbaijan the occupied territories, Matthew Bryza, former US ambassador to Azerbaijan and former co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group, told Trend Sept.13.
The National Assembly of Armenia has adopted a decision to declare conditional war against Azerbaijan in the sidelines of Shant-2018 drills scenario.
The war, started by Armenia against Azerbaijan, has been going on for more than 27 years.
Spokesman of the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry Hikmat Hajiyev told Trend on Sept. 13 that the scenario of declaring war on Azerbaijan as part of its military command and staff exercises Shant-2018 by Armenia is another confirmation and recognition of the obvious fact that Armenia is an invader state and an aggressor.
I also believe that the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) to not want to see a settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, which would reduce the organizations ability to raise money from donors, said Bryza.
He noted that the United Nations Security Council should, of course, enforce its four resolutions pertaining to Nagorno-Karabakh.
The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.
The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.
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By Laman Ismayilova
Ancient historical monument - Qipchagtepe has been discovered by archaeologists in country's Gakh region, near the Ayrichay bridge.
The head of the Oguz-Gakh Archaeological Expedition, who works in Qipchagtepe, Ph.D. in History Taleh Aliyev told Sputnik Azerbaijan that the total area of the monument is four hectares.
According to him, the upper layers of Qipchagtepe belong to the early Middle Ages and Middle Ages.
The researches have revealed that people inhabited a site located near the highway in the direction of Uzumlu-Agyang in ancient times, the early Middle Ages and Middle Ages. Then, closer to late medieval times, people's settlements began to expand in a western direction, he said.
In addition, the research was also conducted on the territory of Sari Pir cemetery.
The study revealed that people lived here in the 18th and 19th centuries. However, in the 20th century, they settled in the present territory of Qipchagtepe village. The inscriptions on the tombstones show that they belonged to the 19th century.
The next year the scientists are planning to continue more extensive archaeological work in Qipchagtepe.
Gakh is another picturesque region in the north-west of Azerbaijan.
A small, stone-built village of Ilisu, located at the northwest tip of Azerbaijan in the Gakh region, is a great place to visit at any time of year, especially in summer.
Ilisu, located along the banks of the Kurmuk and Hamamchay rivers 12 km from the administrative centre of the region and 1,400 m above the sea level, is one of the most ancient settlements in Azerbaijan.
The beauty of the location and the spirit of the people is a real attraction. Walking opportunities abound. The area has numerous historical monuments and is known for thermal waters and wonderful waterfalls.
Gakh region has a long history dating back to ancient times.The area around the village has many historic monuments, including ancient Albanian Christian churches of the 4th-5th centuries. Professional climbers can risk and mount Jinligala's top on the edge of an abyss, which has access only from one side.
The emblem of the village, Sumug fortress, is a four-storey defense tower commanding a great view of the surrounding areas.
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Laman Ismayilova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Lam_Ismayilova
By Trend
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has signed an order to provide funds for the construction of Bujag-Mukhas-Bash Dashagil road in Oghuz region.
Under the presidential order, the Azerbaijan Highway State Agency is allocated 9.4 million manats for the construction of the road connecting four residential areas with a total population of 4,000 people.
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By Kamila Aliyeva
September 15 marks the 100th anniversary of the liberation of Baku from the Armenian-Bolshevik invaders - one of the most valiant pages in the history of Azerbaijan of the twentieth century.
On September 15, 1918, Baku was liberated by the Caucasian Islamic Army, comprised of Azerbaijani and Turkish soldiers, led by Turkish General Nuri Pasha. Thus, the independence of Azerbaijan was preserved and the domination of Armenians and Bolsheviks in Baku and surrounding areas came to an end.
A symposium dedicated to 100th anniversary of the liberation of Baku from the Armenian-Bolshevik occupation was held in Baku on September 13.
The Institute of History of the National Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan (ANAS) has done a great work to study the history of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic (ADR), and has revealed new facts related to this period, the ANAS president, academician Akif Alizade said while addressing the event.
Alizade noted that the Democratic Republic plays an exceptional role in the history of Azerbaijan.
Its creation informed the world about the appearance of the Azerbaijani state, which entered its name into history, he said.
The President of ANAS underlined the great role of ADR in the liberation of Baku from the Armenian-Bolshevik occupation. He added that the liberation of Baku allowed the transfer of the ADR capital from Ganja to Baku.
The liberation of Baku on September 15, 1918 from the Armenian-Bolshevik occupation is one of the brightest events in Azerbaijan's history. With the liberation of Baku, the city turned into the capital of Azerbaijan, acts of genocide against the Azerbaijani people committed by the Armenian-Bolshevik detachments were stopped, Alizade said.
Speaking at the event, Director of the Institute of History of the ANAS, academician Yagub Mahmudov said that the liberation of Baku from the Armenian-Bolshevik occupation, along with the role of the Caucasian Islamic Army, headed by Nuri Pasha, is an indicator of the great heroism of the Azerbaijani people themselves
The liberation of Baku is a very important event in the history of Azerbaijani statehood, according to Mahmudov.
Baku, which for a long time was the center of the state of the Shirvanshahs, in 1918 again received the status of the capital, he added.
Mahmudov noted that the military forces led by Nuri Pasha could not fully fulfill this historic task in isolation from the Azerbaijani people and the national military forces of Azerbaijan.
The Azerbaijani people played a huge role in the liberation of Baku. Then, the Ottoman state helped us, but the Azerbaijani people also rose, and our generals and people's volunteers played a very big role in these events. Nuri Pasha treated with great respect the experience and training level of Ali-Agha Shikhlinski, which passed a great military way. Habib bey Salimov was the chief of staff of the Azerbaijan Corps, and at the same time he headed the South Group of the Caucasian Islamic Army, Mahmudov added.
Azerbaijan and Turkey should be together and, marking the 100th anniversary of the liberation of Baku from the occupation, celebrate the anniversary of their unity, Turkish Deputy Minister of Culture and Tourism Ahmet Haluk Dursun said at the symposium.
The most important mission is to correctly convey the realities to future generations, he believes. We must learn from the past, this is a very important task, the deputy minister said.
The symposium was organized by the Institute of History of ANAS and the Turkish Ataturk Research Center. The reports of scientists from Azerbaijan, Turkey and other countries were heard at the international scientific conference.
Despite Azerbaijan's declaration of independence in May 1918, part of the country's territory, Baku and surrounding areas remained under the Armenian-Bolshevik occupation. Recently gained independence and yet unknown in the world, Azerbaijan did not have sufficient opportunity to ensure its territorial integrity.
Despite the difficult situation, the Ottoman Empire sent military force to Azerbaijan under the command of Nuri Pasha in order to ensure the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan.
Although the European states opposed the arrival of Turkish troops in Azerbaijan, in August-September 1918 the Ottoman Empire fulfilled its historic mission with dignity.
On September 15, the Caucasian Islamic Army and the Azerbaijani Corps liberated Baku from occupation. After this historic date, the capital was transferred from Ganja to Baku.
The Azerbaijani people will always remember the fraternal assistance of the Turkish army, and honor the memory of the Turkish soldiers who gave their lives for the freedom of the country.
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Kamila Aliyeva is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Kami_Aliyeva
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By Trend
Head of the Department for International Military Cooperation of the Azerbaijani Ministry of Defense, Major General Huseyn Mahmudov met with the Bulgarian delegation in Azerbaijan led by the head of the Department for Bilateral Cooperation and Regional Initiatives of the Bulgarian Ministry of Defense Daniela Grigorova, Azerbaijani Defense Ministry said in a message on Sept. 13.
During the meeting, the sides discussed issues of regional security, current state and prospects of developing bilateral military cooperation, as well as joint events.
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By Trend
On September 15, the 100th anniversary of the liberation of Baku from occupation, grandiose events will take place in the capital of Azerbaijan with the participation of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan as well, Turkish Ambassador to Azerbaijan Erkan Ozoral said.
He was speaking Sept. 13 at a conference titled 100th anniversary of the liberation of Baku from the Armenian-Bolshevik occupation.
Thus, Azerbaijan and Turkey jointly celebrate this anniversary, he noted.
The ambassador added that the main goal of the celebrations on the occasion of the 100th anniversary for both Turkey and Azerbaijan is to explain this event to the people, especially to tell the future generation the cause of the Azerbaijani-Turkish brotherhood, as well as the events of the Turkic history.
The diplomat reminded that this year marks the 100th anniversary of the declaration of independence of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic.
Of course, there is also Turkeys merit in this - the liberation of Baku from occupation as a result of the operation conducted by the Islamic Army of the Caucasus in the Azerbaijani lands on September 15, 1918, the ambassador said. This takes a very important place in our fraternal relations. Despite that this important event occurred 100 years ago, it paved the way for Azerbaijans current independence. This support is a source of pride for Turkey. We were preparing for the celebration of this glorious date for a long time. Since the beginning of this year, Turkeys Embassy in Azerbaijan has held a number of events on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the Islamic Army of the Caucasus.
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By Rashid Shirinov
The International Energy Agency (IEA) predicts that annual natural gas production in Azerbaijan will grow to 55 billion cubic meters over the next 20 years, IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol told reporters in Baku on September 12.
We predict that over the next 20 years, the annual gas production in Azerbaijan will grow from the present 18 billion to 55 billion cubic meters. This is very important both for the Azerbaijani economy and for the status of the country as an exporter of natural gas, he said.
Birol mentioned that Azerbaijan has established itself as a reliable partner separating political issues from energy industry.
The data by Azerbaijan State Statistics Committee say that production of commercial gas in the country amounted to 10.5 billion cubic meters in January-July 2018, which is 3.6 percent less than in the same period of 2017.
Birol also told reporters that the IEA does not rule out further growth in oil prices until the end of the year. He said the growth of global oil demand, the decline in the Venezuelan oil industry and the situation in the Middle East will remain the main factors.
If other producers do not decide to increase production, we can predict the continuation of the growth trend until the end of the year, he said.
Birol mentioned that today oil prices reach $80 per barrel, and there are three key factors. First, there is a strong growth in oil demand about 1.4 million barrels per day. Secondly, Venezuela, one of the main oil producers, has reduced production from 2.5 million to 1.2 million barrels of oil. Thirdly, there is uncertainty in the Middle East, Irans decline in exports, as well as the unstable situation in Libya and Nigeria.
He further noted that the implementation of the Southern Gas Corridor (SGC) project is important both for Azerbaijan and for Turkey and Europe.
For the European Union diversification of energy sources is a strategic task. The SGC is one of the most important projects in this direction. I am sure that the project will be completed on time and its capacity will grow over the years, he said.
The Southern Gas Corridor is one of the priority energy projects for the European Union, which aims to diversify routes and sources of energy supplies and thereby improve the energy security of the EU.
The opening ceremony of the SGC was held in Sangachal terminal in Baku on May 29. The cost of the project is over $40 billion.
Gas as part of the Shah Deniz 2 field development is exported to Turkey through the TANAP gas pipeline and will be exported to the European markets through the expansion of the South Caucasus gas pipeline and construction of the TAP pipeline.
The International Energy Agency is an autonomous intergovernmental organization established in the framework of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in 1974. The IEA was initially dedicated to responding to physical disruptions in the supply of oil, as well as serving as an information source on statistics about the international oil market and other energy sectors.
Presently, the IEA acts as a policy adviser to its member states, but also works with non-member countries. The IEA has a broad role in promoting alternate energy sources, rational energy policies and multinational energy technology co-operation.
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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov
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By Sara Israfilbayova
There is no Plan B for the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP) project that envisages transportation of Azerbaijani gas to Europe.
Deputy Vice-President of Azerbaijans state oil company SOCAR for investments and marketing Vitaliy Baylarbayov made the remarks during the Atlantic Council webcast briefing from Washington.
Baylarbayov and Emily Olson, BP vice president responsible for external affairs for the Southern Gas Corridor, expressed confidence that Italy will see TAP to be completed on time, S&P Global Platts reported.
Italy needs this gas. Gas demand in Italy is growing and volumes of imports are growing, noted Baylarbayov asked whether there is a back-up plan if Rome vetoes TAPs landfall in Italy.
The Southern Gas Corridor is one of the priority energy projects for the European Union, which aims to diversify routes and sources of energy supplies and thereby improve the energy security of the EU.
The Southern Gas Corridor is intended to deliver gas from the Azerbaijani gas condensate field Shah Deniz to Europe.
Gas as part of the second stage of the field development will be exported to Turkey and the European markets through the expansion of the South Caucasus gas pipeline and the construction of the TANAP and TAP gas pipelines.
The first gas within the Shah Deniz-2 project will be delivered to Turkey in 2018, and to Europe in 2019.
The cost of the Southern Gas Corridor project is estimated at $41.5 billion.
TAP project, worth 4.5 billion euros, has already attracted 1.5 billion euros from the European Investment Bank (EIB), which approved the loan in early February 2018.
Connecting with the Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP) at the Greek-Turkish border, TAP will cross Northern Greece, Albania and the Adriatic Sea before coming ashore in Southern Italy to connect to the Italian natural gas network.
Once built, TAP will offer a direct and cost-effective transportation route opening up the vital Southern Gas Corridor, a 3,500-kilometer long gas value chain stretching from the Caspian Sea to Europe.
TAP shareholders include BP (20 percent), SOCAR (20 percent), Snam S.p.A. (20 percent), Fluxys (19 percent), Enagas (16 percent) and Axpo (5 percent).
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Sara Israfilbayova is AzerNews staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @Sara_999Is
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By Trend
Belarus and Uzbekistan plan to establish joint ventures on pharmaceuticals, in engineering sector and agro-industrial complex, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Belarus to Uzbekistan Leonid Marinich announced Sept. 12, BelTA reported.
"We are negotiating by the initiative of the Uzbek side for establishment of enterprises in the field of mechanical engineering. There is an interest in the vehicles manufactured in Gomel city, the interest in the vehicles manufactured by "Bobruiskagromash" OJSC is increasing, Leonid Marinich said.
Also, to date, we have not had any projects in the field of agro-industrial production, so during the visit of the President of Belarus to Uzbekistan we will consider the establishment of joint ventures in the field of agro-industrial complex," the ambassador added.
This refers to cooperation in the field of dairy cattle breeding, poultry farming and processing of agricultural products.
"We also propose to adopt our experience in the storage of agricultural products," the ambassador said.
In addition, the parties plan to establish two pharmaceutical enterprises. One of them will specialize in the production of cancer drugs, the other - in the production of drugs developed on the basis of medicinal herbs growing in Uzbekistan.
The diplomat noted that the first official visit of Alexander Lukashenko to Uzbekistan in more than 20 recent years will be a breakthrough moment in bilateral relations not only in the political but also in the economic sphere.
"The entire package of documents that has been prepared for signing, economic contracts that will be signed during the business forum, and the meeting of the heads of state confirm that the visit will be explosive in our relations," he said.
Leonid Marinich stressed that Belarus is not positioning itself as a country that comes only to sell its products. It is important for Belarus to establish joint production enterprises, thereby contributing to the development of both national economy of Belarus and the economy of its partners.
"Today we openly say that the economy of Belarus and the economy of Uzbekistan do not compete, but complement each other," the ambassador said. "We have come here to create jobs, to participate in development of the economy of Uzbekistan and thereby to achieve economic revival in our economy."
In January-July, the trade turnover between the countries amounted to $99.5 million (a 165.2 percent increase as compared to the same period in 2017). Belarus supplies tractors, semi-trailer truck, spare parts for automotive and agricultural vehicles, chassis with engines and bodywork for vehicles, sugar to Uzbekistan. The cotton yarn, grapes, fruits, nuts, juices, knitted fabrics are imported from Uzbekistan to Belarus.
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By Trend
A pilot project between Kazakhstan and Russia on joint monitoring of transit traffic is scheduled to start on September 20, said the message of the Russian Embassy in Kazakhstan, referring to the General Director of RT-Invest Transport systems LLC Anton Zamkov.
The director general noted that the adoption of the law "On control of transit traffic in Russia" in the first reading was a very important event.
"I think that it will be adopted by the end of the year. For its practical implementation in Russia, the infrastructure of the GLONASS system was chosen. A pilot project between Russia and Kazakhstan on joint tracking of transit traffic will start on September 20, according to the decision of the EAEU. The three checkpoints will be deployed on each side. Moreover, these will be the checkpoints on the external borders of EAEU. These will be the borders with Latvia in Russia, and the borders with China in Kazakhstan. Some 100 devices will be involved on each side", said Zamkov.
The technological principle of application of those devices will be proved or disproved according to the results of the experiment.
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By Trend
The members of the lower chamber of the Parliament of Kazakhstan have approved the ratification of the Agreement between Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan on the area of the point of junction of the state borders of the three states, the Kazakh Parliament said in a statement.
This Agreement is a document that completes the delimitation of the border in the south direction, the message says. The Parliament of Turkmenistan ratified this document in November 2017.
The Agreement itself was signed on November 10, 2017 in Samarkand at the level of the foreign ministers of the three states. This creates a solid foundation for strengthening mutual respect, sovereign equality and territorial integrity of the three bordering states, the Kazakh Foreign Ministry said earlier in a press release.
Previous agreements were concluded at the bilateral level.
The agreement between Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan on the delimitation and demarcation of the common state border was signed on July 5, 2001, the agreement between Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan on the demarcation of the common state border was signed on April 18, 2017, the Agreement between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan on the state border was signed on November 16, 2001, and the Agreement on certain sections of the Kazakh-Uzbek state border was signed on September 9, 2002.
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As a kid growing up in Lamont in the 1970s, almost all the adult Latinos I knew were farm wo
John Davenport, STAFF / San Antonio Express-News
The Texas solar industry is on a roll, installing nearly as much solar capability during the first three months of the year as it did during all of 2017. Only California is installing solar capacity faster, according to a report by Wood Mackenzie and the Solar Energy Industries Association.
The expansion is a welcome development for the industry that has been weathering a slowdown after the U.S. imposed a 30 percent tariff on imported solar panels and cells earlier this year. As a result, some projects were delayed or canceled.
U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh said in a written response to a senators followup question that he assumed the father of a student killed in the Parkland, Fla., shooting who had approached him on the chaotic first day of his confirmation hearing was a protestor.
If he had realized the identity of Fred Guttenberg, whose 14-year-old daughter Jaime was among the 17 students and adults killed during the Feb. 14 shootings at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, Kavanaugh said, I would have shaken his hand, talked to him, and expressed my sympathy. And I would have listened to him.
Kavanaugh responded Wednesday to a question from from Sen. Charles E. Grassley, R-Iowa, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, one of 1,287 he received from the panels members. The nominee was asked about a number of legal issues in education, such as affirmative action in college admissions, special education, charter schools, and vouchers, but he mostly gave cautious answers. [UPDATED Thursday 11:12 a.m.] The Judiciary Committee on Thursday delayed a vote on Kavanaughs nomination until Sept. 20.
Grassley was one of only two Republicans on the committee to submit written questions to Kavanaugh, compared with all of the panels Democrats. He asked the nominee to explain his reaction to Guttenberg.
On Sept. 4, the Parkland father was a guest of Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., at the hearing. He approached Kavanaugh at the lunch break, extended his hand, and sought to have a conversation about assault weapons in light of the nominees views that possession of semi-automatic weapons is protected under Supreme Court precedent. (The suspect in the Parkland shooting used an AR-15 style semi-automatic rifle.)
Guttenberg believes Kavanaugh rebuffed him. He told Education Week he was interviewed by the U.S. Capitol Police after the incident before being allowed to remain at the hearing.
The incident went viral during the confirmation hearing, with various photos and video clips prompting differing perceptions of the incident.
Kavanaugh did not directly seize on a chance to give his views on the incident the next day, when Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., asked what he might wish to say to Guttenberg.
But in response to Grassleys written question, Kavanaugh said, As I was leaving the hearing room for a recess last Tuesday, a man behind me yelled my name, approached me from behind, and touched my arm. It had been a chaotic morning with a large number of protestors in the hearing room. As the break began, the room remained noisy and crowded. When I turned and did not recognize the man, I assumed he was a protestor. In a split second, my security detail intervened and ushered me out of the hearing room.
In that split second, I unfortunately did not realize that the man was the father of a shooting victim from Parkland, Florida, Kavanaugh added. Mr. Guttenberg has suffered an incalculable loss. Kavanaugh concluded his answer with his statement that had he realized who Guttenberg was, he would have shaken the fathers hand and spoken to him.
In response to a question from Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., Kavanaugh said he did not ask the U.S. Capitol Police to remove Guttenberg from the hearing room.
No one acted at my request, Kavanaugh said in response to Blumenthal. If someone purported to act on my behalf, they did so without my knowledge and contrary to my wishes.
Guttenberg tweeted about Kavanaughs written response late Wednesday.
This is interesting, the Parkland father said. As for details on what happened, I am confident in my description. I wish he would have said this last week when Senator Lindsey Graham asked about it. I was still there and would have been happy to have spoken with him.
Inappropriate for Me to Answer
Grassley said in a statement that of the 1,287 followup questions posed to Kavanaugh, all but nine were posed by Democrats. Submitting this many written questions appears to be just one more effort to gum up the process, Grassley said.
One new question on an education issue came from Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., who noted that Kavanaugh became a board member of the Washington Jesuit Academy in 2017, a Roman Catholic school that participates in the District of Columbias federally funded private school voucher program.
Due to your involvement as a board member of this school, will you recuse yourself from cases regarding the legality of school vouchers since the decision will have a direct impact on how the Washington Jesuit Academy functions as a school? Leahy asked.
Kavanaugh responded, I will consider that question as appropriate. He added that he would step down from the schools board if confirmed to the Supreme Court.
But asked by Leahy whether he believes that taxpayer dollars should be given to private parochial schools, whereby such funds could be used to promote religious messages, Kavanaugh said, This question calls upon me to offer my views as to a matter of public policy. As a sitting judge and nominee, it would be inappropriate for me to provide an answer.
The nominee gave a similar response to written questions about the Supreme Courts ruling last year in Endrew F. v. Douglas County School District , in which the high court held that under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, a school must offer an individualized education program (IEP)] reasonably calculated to enable a child to make progress appropriate in light of the childs circumstances.
Endrew F. is a precedent of the Supreme Court entitled to respect under the law of precedent, Kavanaugh said in response to several questions posed about the ruling by Sen. Kamala D. Harris, D-Calif. Because the scope of that precedent is the subject of pending litigation that could come before me, I cannot provide a view on the additional questions asked above.
And he gave some variation of that answer to questions about whether charter schools are public schools that must abide by civil rights laws, and whether being transgender was an immutable characteristic.
I would want to study that question in more depth before giving a definitive answer, Kavanaugh responded to Harriss transgender question.
Leahy said it was commendable that Kavanaugh has made it a point to hire women and minority law clerks, as was discussed several times during the hearing. Why do you believe it is appropriate for you to have an interest in your law clerks race or sex when placing them on the government payroll, but a university cannot do the same for its admissions? Leahy asked.
I am proud of my record of hiring the best to serve as my law clerksincluding women and minoritiesand of my efforts to promote diversity, Kavanaugh replied. The extent to which public universities may consider certain factors as admissions criteria is the subject of precedent and ongoing litigation.
Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., who had asked Kavanaugh about his views on racial diversity in education during the hearing, followed up with several related questions. One involved a comment the nominee had made when he was an associate White House counsel under President George W. Bush. Kavanaugh had written to a colleague that while it was permissible to track the ethnicity of those in a database of potential appointees to federal boards and commissions, in a perfect world, no one would keep track.
Asked by Booker to explain the comment, Kavanaugh wrote, In a perfect world, the legacies of racial discrimination would be fully behind us and no one would be judged or tracked by the color of their skin.
We are not in that perfect world, Kavanaugh continued, and as I have explained repeatedly in my cases and at the hearing, the long march for equality for African-Americans is not over.
PHOTO: Fred Guttenberg, left, the father of Jamie Guttenberg, who was killed in the Feb. 14 shooting at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., attempts to shake hands with U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh, right, during the lunch break of his confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Sept. 4. Kavanaughs refusal to shake Guttenbergs hand caused a flap, and Kavanaugh wrote in a response to senators followup question on Sept. 12 that he assumed the man had been a protester and would have greeted him if he had realized who Guttenberg was. --AP Photo/Andrew Harnik, File
Two more Texas death row inmates - a North Texas man who murdered a newlywed couple and a convicted child killer from East Texas - now have execution dates on the calendar.
The first of those is Alvin Braziel, a Dallas County man now scheduled for execution on Dec. 11, according to Texas Department of Criminal Justice spokesman Jeremy Desel.
The now-43-year-old was sent to death row for the deadly 1993 attack of Doug and Lora White, who Braziel approached on a Mesquite jogging trail. After demanding money and finding the couple had none, Braziel shot the man and raped the woman at gunpoint before killing her, too, a jury found.
He wasn't linked to the crime until 2001, when a DNA match led police to him as the primary suspect. At that point, he was already in prison for another sex crime.
On appeal, his attorneys raised claims of sub-par representation earlier in the case, after trial lawyers failed to bring up his abusive upbringing, family history of mental illness and childhood head injury as possible reasons to consider a life sentence instead of death.
READ MORE: E. Texas mom gets life term in baby's sex assault, death
But the courts turned him down and on Wednesday his attorneys declined to comment.
The second of the newly scheduled execution dates is for Blaine Milam, who is slated to die on Jan. 15.
Milam was sentenced to die for the 2008 slaying of his girlfriend's toddler during a alleged botched exorcism the couple attempted in his trailer in Rusk County.
The child, 13-month-old Amora, was beaten with a hammer and covered head-to-toe in bite marks, with injuries so extensive a medical examiner testified that it wasn't possible to tell how the little girl died.
The case was tried in Montgomery County after extensive pre-trial publicity forced a change of venue. Milam's then-girlfriend, Jessica Carson, was sentenced to life in prison without parole, while Milam was sent to death row in 2010.
On appeal, his attorneys raised claims of prosecutorial misconduct, earlier bad lawyering when his trial attorneys failed to present evidence about his "drug induced psychosis" at the time of the slaying.
His lawyer declined to comment.
The state of Texas has executed eight men this year, including two Houston-area serial killers. Including Milam and Braziel, there are another 10 men scheduled for execution in the coming months.
Hurricane Florence could be a boon for companies that specialize in disaster-related services, but the storm could temporarily hurt for-profit hospital operators' stock prices, according to Bloomberg.
Hospitals and health systems in the hurricane's projected path are prepping for what could be catastrophic damage. However, barring unusual circumstances, Jefferies analyst Brian Tanquilut expects the storm to only temporarily affect healthcare organizations and their stock prices.
"Healthcare facilities in the projected path of Hurricane Florence will likely see a short-term dip in volumes as patients and physicians reschedule elective procedures, office visits and lab tests," he told Bloomberg.
Stocks in Mr. Tanquilut's coverage with exposure to the hurricane include Nashville, Tenn.-based HCA Healthcare, Dallas-based Tenet Healthcare, Franklin, Tenn.-based Community Health Systems and Brentwood, Tenn.-based LifePoint Health.
Analysts say LifePoint has the largest exposure to the storm, with 30 percent of its beds in North Carolina and South Carolina in the projected path of Florence, according to CNBC.
"We have several hospitals in North Carolina, South Carolina and surrounding states that may potentially be impacted by the storm," a LifePoint spokesperson told CNBC. "Each of these hospitals is operating under its disaster protocol and is in close contact with its Emergency Management Association and other state and local authorities. LifePoint Health's priority in preparing for Hurricane Florence's landfall is ensuring the safety of our patients, employees and communities."
Nineteen percent of CHS' acute care beds are in the storm's potential path, followed by HCA with 9 percent, according to CNBC, which cited a research report from Evercore ISI care analyst Michael Newshel.
Of the major for-profit hospital operators, Tenet has the lowest overall exposure to the hurricane. However, a large storm surge along the coastline would negatively affect the system, as it has four hospitals within 25 miles of the coastline, according to CNBC.
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Here are nine recent news updates on health IT companies:
1. Apple Watch Series 4 will include an electrocardiogram sensor to alert users to whether their heart rhythm is irregular, Apple COO Jeff Williams said during the company's Apple Event Sept. 12.
2. Mercy Technology Services, the IT arm of Aurora, Mo.-based Mercy health system, launched a cloud-hosted imaging software solution.
3. Andrew Moore, PhD, dean of the school of computer science at Pittsburgh-based Carnegie Mellon University, will leave his role at the university at the end of 2018 to head up Google Cloud's artificial intelligence efforts full-time.
4. 23andMe posted 80 job openings on its website, offering insight into the direct-to-consumer DNA testing company's focus and areas for growth.
5. Cerner President Zane Burke will step down from his post at the company Nov. 2.
6. Hu-manity.co rolled out an Android app to help consumers manage property rights for their personal data starting with their healthcare information. .
7. At Epic's 2018 annual meeting in August, Nuance and Epic demonstrated how conversational artificial intelligence-powered virtual assistant capabilities can support ambient clinical documentation within Epic apps.
8. Four more hospitals have signed on to Apple's health records project.
9. Bain Capital and Elliott Management have teamed up as the frontrunner to acquire athenahealth.
Netflix co-founder Marc Randolph and former Cleveland Clinic CEO Toby Cosgrove, MD, shared advice with 1,500 medical professionals and executives Sept. 12 at the Healthcare Analytics Summit in Salt Lake City, according to Desert News.
During the summit, Mr. Randolph shared a story about how he and Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings met with Blockbuster executives several years ago to see if Blockbuster was interested in buying their company. Netflix was a little more than two years old at the time and struggling financially.
Mr. Randolph and Mr. Hastings offered to sell Netflix to Blockbuster for $50 million. "The meeting went downhill very quickly after that," Mr. Randolph said.
The deal didn't happen, but Mr. Randolph and Mr. Hastings were determined to help their company succeed. Today, Netflix has more than 130 million paying customers, and Blockbuster has one remaining store in the U.S.
Mr. Randolph used the story to illustrate the importance for innovators in all industries, including healthcare, to develop a "tolerance for risk" and to have confidence and optimism.
"It was not about having good ideas," Mr. Randolph told attendees. "It was about a system and a culture of trying lots of bad ones. What we realized is that the key to this is not the good idea. It was how quickly and easily and cheaply you could try as many ideas as you could think of."
During the summit, Dr. Cosgrove, who is currently an adviser for Google Healthcare & Life Sciences, discussed how Netflix's approach differs from the path taken by most healthcare organizations.
He said the lack of innovation at some hospitals and health systems stems from the way physicians are trained. "You're not selected or trained to be innovative. You're trained to be repetitive and maintain the status quo," he said.
Dr. Cosgrove also shared some advice for health system leaders looking for ways to attract innovative physicians and how big-data collection and the real-world application of data will play a key role.
"I don't think great physicians, or innovative physicians, are going to go to places that don't have data capability," Dr. Cosgrove told attendees. "That's going to become an increasing coin of the realm. I mean, it's a must-have."
Access the full Desert News article here.
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Tru-D device to help keep patients and staff safe and germ-free.
McKenzie County Healthcare Systems, Inc. is the first hospital in the region to invest in Tru-D SmartUVC to help keep patients and staff safe from germs and hospital-acquired infections (HAIs). The grand opening of McKenzie County Healthcare Systems, Inc.s new medical facility took place June 22, 2018. This state-of-the-art, $76.3 million facility features a brand-new hospital and clinic as well as updates to the connected Good Shepherd Home (long-term care facility) and nearby Horizon Assisted Living. The facility is comprised of 24 inpatient rooms, nine emergency room bays and two operating rooms.
We are excited to have this innovative technology in our hospital, which will help maintain the cleanest, safest environment possible for our patients and staff, said Dan Kelly, CEO of McKenzie County Healthcare Systems, Inc. As a new facility in the region, we hope to offer best-in-class care and service for residents in the area, and Tru-D will help elevate the level of care that we provide.
Tru-D is a UVC disinfection robot that is deployed after the environmental services staff cleans a room using traditional protocols. Operated from a remote control outside the room, Tru-D administers a single, lethal dose of UVC energy from one, central placement in the room, killing up to 99.9% of germs and pathogens that can be left behind. Once the cycle is complete, the operator is notified via audio and/or text message that Tru-D can be moved to the next room.
Tru-D is deployed in hundreds of hospitals throughout the U.S., and we are thrilled to expand our footprint into North Dakota, said Chuck Dunn CEO of Tru-D SmartUVC. McKenzie Countys investment in Tru-D demonstrates its commitment to innovative strategies to help reduce hospital-acquired infections.
Tru-Ds technology has been validated by more than 15 independent, third-party studies including the first and only randomized clinical trial on UVC disinfection. The Benefits of Enhanced Total Room-Disinfection (BETR-D) study proved that Tru-D can reduce the risk of acquisition and infection of four major superbugs not only from patient to patient, but throughout an entire hospital, facility-wide. Conducted throughout nine hospitals in the Duke Infection Control Outreach Network, the CDC-funded BETR-D study is the most comprehensive study on UVC disinfection to date.
For more information on Tru-Ds technology and/or to watch a video on the power of one placement and one cycle, visit tru-dpowerofone.com.
About Tru-D SmartUVC
Only Tru-D delivers one automated, measured dose of UVC light to consistently disinfect an entire room during one cycle. Operating from one placement in the room, Tru-D ensures significant pathogen reduction in direct and shadowed areas. Validated by more 15 independent studies, Tru-Ds automated, measured dosing capabilities and real-time usage-tracking features make it one of the most advanced UVC disinfection systems available. To learn more, visit tru-d.com.
About McKenzie County Healthcare Systems, Inc.
McKenzie County Healthcare Systems, Inc. is located in Watford City - in the heart of western North Dakota's Bakken formation. The healthcare system serves the residents of western North Dakota and Montana. McKenzie County Healthcare Systems Board of Trustees includes: Board President, Patsy Levang Volunteer; Vice President, Kelly Peterson -First International Bank & Trust; Secretary, Michon Sax Volunteer; Treasurer, Scott Swenson - Cornerstone Bank; and Trustees--Myron Hovet, Tammy James, Larry Larsen, Neal Shipman, Nancy Jellesed, and Daniel Kelly, Ex-Officio. Board President of the Benefit Fund of McKenzie County Healthcare Systems, Inc. is Myra Anderson, Volunteer, and Vice-President is Gretchen Stenehjem, First International Bank & Trust. Dan Kelly serves as the Benefit Funds Executive Director.
Becker's Hospital Review reported the following hospital-union events including protests and legal issues after Aug. 20.
1. Michigan Medicine nurses file federal lawsuit as potential strike looms
Nurses at Ann Arbor-based Michigan Medicine filed a federal lawsuit over First Amendment rights in the same week they are voting on a possible strike.
2. Nurses claim staffing crisis at 2 California hospitals
Unionized healthcare workers and nurses from Redwood Memorial Hospital in Fortuna, Calif., and St. Joseph Hospital, Eureka (Calif.), protested over what they deem a staffing crisis at the facilities.
3. Ohio nurses, Steward Health Care reach tentative deal
Nurses at the soon-to-close Youngstown, Ohio-based Northside Regional Medical Center reached a tentative contract agreement with Dallas-based Steward Health Care.
4. Pennsylvania health network Miners Campus workers vote to leave union
Workers at Bethlehem, Pa.-based St. Luke's University Health Network's Miners Campus in Coaldale, Pa., decided against continuing union representation.
5. Northwell Health nurses rally in NYC over staffing, wages, paid leave
Nurses and nurse practitioners from New Hyde Park, N.Y.-based Northwell Health rallied Sept. 5 as contract negotiations began.
6. 7K nurses at 15 HCA hospitals vote to authorize strike
Registered nurses at 15 hospitals affiliated with Nashville, Tenn.-based HCA Healthcare authorized their nurse negotiators to call a strike if issues in contract negotiations are not resolved.
7. Kaiser Permanente workers protest planned job cuts; 13 union activists arrested
Unionized healthcare workers and their supporters protested against Oakland, Calif.-based Kaiser Permanente on Labor Day over planned job cuts.
8. Michigan nurses union accuses Munson Medical Center of bargaining in bad faith
The Michigan Nurses Association filed an unfair labor practice complaint against Traverse City, Mich.-based Munson Medical Center.
9. Nurses pressure Vermont medical center amid budget process
University of Vermont Medical Center in Burlington proposed a fiscal year 2019 budget to state regulators amid protesting by the union representing about 1,800 of its nurses.
10. Pennsylvania hospital workers picket, say Tower Health wants to slash their benefits
Workers at Pottstown (Pa.) Hospital picketed Aug. 22 against the hospital's new owner, West Reading, Pa.-based Tower Health.
11. Rhode Island nurses OK 5-year labor deal
The union representing 2,400 nurses and allied health professionals at Rhode Island Hospital in Providence approved a new five-year contract.
Disastrous flooding from Hurricane Irma forced the Charleston-based Medical University of South Carolina to float surgeons across campus in johnboats. Now, as Hurricane Florence quickly approaches the southeastern coastline, MUSC has turned to the military for help, The Post and Courier reports.
After Hurricane Irma battered the Charleston area roughly one year ago, the city faced significant flooding. Bryan Wood, emergency manager for MUSC, told the publication the National Guard arrived in a military truck to help hospital staff move around the flooded campus.
Mr. Wood said he started looking into whether MUSC could acquire a similar vehicle to help the hospital remain self-sufficient in case of another storm. He applied for a vehicle through a military surplus program typically used by law enforcement agencies and was approved. The effort did not use public dollars, he said.
Once the truck was acquired, hospital officials painted it a baby-blue color to match MUSC's logo and signage.
As Hurricane Florence approaches the coast, Mr. Wood said MUSC will keep the vehicle on campus and use it to shuttle staff, not patients, if necessary. He said he hopes the hospital will never have to use the truck, but recent weather patterns indicate MUSC could end up in the hurricane's path, the report states.
To access the full report, click here.
The New York City Council and Board of Health voted Sept. 12 to include a third gender category on birth certificates for individuals who do not identify as male or female, NBC News reports.
The third gender category, "X," will become an available option Jan. 1, 2019, and a physician's note or healthcare provider's affidavit will no longer be required to change gender categories. Legislation to include the change was first introduced in June. City officials told NBC News New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio is expected to sign the legislation soon.
With the change, New York City will join California, Oregon, Washington and New Jersey in allowing people to select nonbinary gender options on their birth certificates.
To access the full report, click here.
Physicians at Kansas City-based University of Kansas Health System operated on a 10-year-old boy after a foot-long meat skewer impaled his head in a Sept. 8 accident, according to The Kansas City Star.
Xavier Cunningham fell from a tree house after being stung by yellow jackets. He landed on a metal skewer, which pierced his face and penetrated the back of his skull.
Xavier initially arrived at Children's Mercy Kansas City (Mo.) and was transferred to The University of Kansas Hospital in Kansas City, where he was treated by Koji Ebersole, MD, director of endovascular neurosurgery at The University of Kansas Health.
"This thing had spared the eye, spared the brain, spared the spinal cord," Dr. Ebersole told The Kansas City Star. "You couldn't draw it up any better. It was one in a million for it to pass 5 or 6 inches through the front of the face to the back and not have hit these things."
The skewer also missed major blood vessels in Xavier's neck. After scans showed no active bleeding, physicians decided to wait to remove the skewer until the next morning, on Sept. 9, so necessary personnel could participate in the procedure.
The meat skewer had square edges, which added to the hazards of the surgical team removing it from Xavier's skull. If the team twisted the skewer, it could cause severe damage. Ultimately, the surgical team successfully pulled out the skewer. They said Xavier could make a complete recovery.
Dr. Ebersole called Xavier's case "miraculous."
"I have not seen anything passed to that depth in a situation that was survivable, let alone one where we think the recovery will be near complete, if not complete," he told The Kansas City Star.
More articles on clinical leadership and infection control:
Wildlife and conservation groups have warned that Northern Ireland runs the risk of missing the boat in getting its fisheries law ready for life after Brexit.
The Northern Ireland Marine Task Force and Nature Matters NI, which represent more than 100,000 members, have responded to the consultation for the UK's fisheries white paper. But while they welcomed the policy, which they said will "restate the UK's commitment to sustainable fisheries", they said similar policy must be enacted in Northern Ireland.
Unlike the future policy for farming in Northern Ireland after March 29, 2019, which has gone out to the public for their views, there is currently no such consultation here for fisheries and our seas.
With Brexit just over six months away, Ellen MacMahon of the Northern Ireland Marine Task Force said a common framework for sustainable fisheries is urgently needed across the UK.
"We need everyone, including Northern Ireland, to play by the same rules and work together in designing a course for future fisheries management.
"The white paper must not lead to a pick-and-mix style framework, where there are disproportionate environmental standards across the UK."
The groups include the RSPB, Ulster Wildlife, Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust, National Trust, Friends of the Earth and the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group.
They have called on the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) in London to work closely with all devolved administrations and fisheries stakeholders to deliver "a co-designed and co-managed fisheries framework".
Ms MacMahon said the contested nature of bodies such as Lough Foyle and Carlingford Lough makes the issue all the more urgent.
"Northern Ireland shares a land and sea border with the EU through the Republic of Ireland and via two cross border loughs, for which there is no agreed maritime border. While complete alignment with the Republic of Ireland fisheries management may not be possible, future co-operation and engagement between the Republic and Northern Ireland is essential."
The groups have called for an "ecosystem based approach" to fisheries consistent with national and international obligations.
"This means that future fishing quotas must be set in line with the best available scientific advice to ensure that both fish stocks and the habitats they live in are restored and in a healthy state for future generations," they said.
The owner of high street fashion giant Zara has rung up record sales and profits but uncertainty still surrounds the operations of its Belfast branch, which has been closed since a fire at the neighbouring Primark store.
Spanish retailer Inditex reported a 3% rise in net income to 1.4bn (10.7bn) for the six months to July 1 - its highest ever half-year results.
Like-for-like sales rose by 4% and were higher across all regions including Europe and the UK, although this marks a slowdown on the 6% growth seen a year earlier.
Zara, which is the world's largest clothing retailer, has one store in Northern Ireland on Donegall Place in Belfast. Inditex also operates two other stores in Belfast under its Stradivarius and Pull & Bear brands.
Two weeks ago the three-storey Zara unit was forced to close after a fire that destroyed Primark's Banks Building.
And the store could be closed for up to four months as work is undertaken to ensure the structural integrity of Bank Buildings. Fashion retailer DV8 was also forced to closed but has since relocated to CastleCourt. Zara would not comment on whether it had similar plans.
A spokeswoman said: "I'm afraid we don't have any official comments on the Belfast store at this time. However, I can say that we continue to pay the staff at the store. It is also worth knowing that online continues with home and drop point delivery."
It is believed that clothing in the store will have incurred smoke damage but Inditex said that existing lines in the unit would not be destroyed.
A fashion and retail expert here believes the stock could be rotated to other stores. Maureen Collins, course director MSc Fashion and Textile Retail Management at Ulster University, said it was not clear whether staff were being allowed into the store to move stock to other Zara stores in the UK or the Republic.
"I would suspect that would be the preferred option as stock rotation in groups like Zara is high, responding quickly to fashion trends and micro-trends.
"In my opinion, if the stock is not allowed to be moved to other stores, due to health and safety concerns, then it is more likely that this stock will be discounted during the normal Christmas sales and perhaps even redistributed to other stores."
One Northern Ireland commercial property professional believes there are no units suitable to re-home a store of Zara's size in Belfast.
He said: "The problem is, we have one Zara in Northern Ireland and that's a loss. People travelled from all over for the store. Primark, McDonald's and Tesco can be found in other parts of the city."
The UK will not pay its 39 billion divorce bill to Brussels if it is refused a Brexit deal, Dominic Raab has insisted.
The tough talking from the Brexit Secretary came after Prime Minister Theresa May made it clear Britain would rethink its agreement to pay the exit settlement in full if it did not achieve an arrangement on future trading relations.
Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Mr Raab stated that if there was no deal the Government would not pay the terms of the financial settlement.
Theres no deal without the whole deal, he added.
The remarks came as the Government was releasing a new raft of technical papers on Thursday expected to focus on how a no-deal Brexit would impact on things such as mobile phone roaming charges.
Theres no deal without the whole dealDominic Raab
Mr Raab said the Government wanted a good agreement, but added: It will require our EU friends to match the ambition and pragmatism we have demonstrated.
If that doesnt happen, the UK will manage the challenges of no-deal, so we make a success of Brexit.
The Brexit Secretary also accused people who warned about shortages of food and medicines after a no-deal withdrawal of scaremongering, saying it was nonsense to claim UK supermarkets would run out of food.
Contingency planning for short-term disruption was nothing new, he added.
The stronger Government stance followed open talk at a meeting of Tory backbenchers in the hardline Brexit European Research Group (ERG) of a bid to topple Mrs May as PM unless she abandoned the Chequers strategy on EU withdrawal.
ERG chairman Jacob Rees-Mogg told Channel 4 News: Chequers is a dying duck in a thunder storm, if it is not quite a dead duck.
The move to release a fresh raft of technical Brexit papers comes amid speculation that leaving the EU without a solid agreement could see the return of levies for using mobile devices on the continent.
The pro-Europe Best for Britain campaign said the re-imposition of roaming charges could cost business people visiting the EU up to 778 a month.
In his column for the Telegraph, Mr Raab said the technical papers would include plans for protecting consumers from mobile phone roaming charges.
Other areas covered by the documents will include the impact of a no-deal scenario on standards relating to the environment and vehicles.
The papers will be published after a special meeting of the Cabinet focused on how a no-deal outcome could be handled.
Expand Close Mr Raab is due to meet with the EUs chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier on Friday (Niall Carson/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook
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Whatsapp Mr Raab is due to meet with the EUs chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier on Friday (Niall Carson/PA)
Mr Raab, who will hold talks with EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier in Brussels on Friday, said: With six months to go until the UK leaves the European Union, we are stepping up our no-deal preparations so that Britain can continue to flourish, regardless of the outcome of negotiations.
These technical notices are part and parcel of our sensible, pragmatic approach to preparing for all outcomes.
Getting a deal with the European Union is still by far and away the most likely outcome, and I will continue to champion our Chequers proposals with Michel Barnier as the best way of securing the deep and special partnership we want with the EU.
Meanwhile, the first meeting of the Joint Ministerial Committee on European Negotiations since Parliaments summer recess will also be held on Thursday.
It will bring together senior ministers, members of the Scottish and Welsh administrations, and representatives from the Northern Ireland civil service where powersharing is currently suspended.
The unveiling last year of the memorial for victims of the Enniskillen bomb
A son of one of those killed in the Enniskillen Remembrance Day bomb has said the confirmation over where to site a memorial to the victims is "a huge step forward".
Stephen Gault, whose father Samuel was among the victims of the 1987 atrocity, was speaking following news that a monument will finally be erected in the Co Fermanagh town.
The memorial bearing the names of the 12 victims was controversially removed within hours of being unveiled last November 8 to mark the 30th anniversary of the IRA bombing. It has since been housed in "a temporary secure location" until its permanent home was determined.
The proposal had been to place it at the Clinton Centre on land held by the Catholic Church, St Michael's Diocesan Trust.
The Trust said at the time it had not been consulted by Fermanagh and Omagh District Council on the decision to erect the monument.
In May, the Trust said it had removed the memorial based on considerations around public access, maintenance of the monument, and ongoing public works in Enniskillen town centre.
But an agreement has now been reached to place the memorial within the gable wall of the Clinton Centre following a meeting on Tuesday between all parties concerned.
Family members of those killed previously said they felt let down by both Catholic and Protestant church leaders in Enniskillen after their proposed memorial was rejected.
Mr Gault (48) said: "While I acknowledge that this is a huge step forward for us, I am cautious that we still have a few hurdles to go before the fitting tribute to our loved ones murdered by terrorists is placed at the Clinton Centre. This has been a very stressful time and hopefully this unjust wrong will finally be righted."
The Dean of Enniskillen Cathedral, the Very Rev Kenneth Hall, said: "Good progress has been made and a solution has been reached by all parties involved to site the memorial within the gable wall of the Clinton Centre, subject to necessary approvals.
"However, we envisage that this work will take time but all parties are committed to work together to complete this matter within a reasonable time scale."
A spokesman for St Michael's Trust added that it had not been in a position to sanction locating the memorial in the original location proposed due to its "scale and footprint".
He added: "We welcome the good progress that has been made and the solution that has been reached by all parties with regard to the siting of the memorial. The events in Enniskillen on Remembrance Sunday in 1987 must be suitably remembered. We look forward to the parties concluding the work regarding outstanding technical matters as soon as possible."
DUP leader Arlene Foster said the agreement "marks a positive step forward".
She added: "I know there has been a great deal of work ongoing in the background to achieve this outcome and I pay tribute to everyone involved for their efforts, especially the leadership of Dean Kenneth Hall."
Ulster Unionist MLA Rosemary Barton said it would have been preferable to have this matter resolved for last year's 30th anniversary.
"I trust now that agreement has been reached, there will be no further impediments or unnecessary difficulties put in the way of this development. After so much turmoil the families deserve the opportunity to have this memorial to the victims in place and give them this location that is permanent, and of their choice to remember their loved ones," she said.
It is not yet known if the memorial will be in place before this year's Remembrance Sunday commemorations on November 11.
Police said a woman and two young children where in a house at the time of a paramilitary attack in Northern Ireland
Three men forced their way into a home in the Oakland Park area of the Creggan estate in Londonderry on Wednesday at around 9.30pm.
They shot a 20-year-old man three times in the legs who was left seriously injured.
Detective Superintendent Bobby Singleton, Criminal Investigation Branch said: This was a sickening and brutal attack and yet another example of how criminal groups seek to control communities through fear and violence. This man's injuries may well be life-changing.
"These attacks are barbaric and are about people cementing their own status and control over communities. Nothing gives these people the right to violate the human rights of others. They have no place in our society and their actions should be condemned by all.
I am appealing for anyone who witnessed the incident or anyone with information about this attack to contact detectives in Strand Road on 101, quoting reference 1272 12/09/18. Alternatively, information can also be provided to the independent charity Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111 which is 100% anonymous and gives people the power to speak up and stop crime.
Killicomaine Junior High School said it was working with the family. Pic Google Maps
A pupil at a Northern Ireland school has been left asking 'what about the girls' after he was told to cut his long hair,
The BBC Stephen Nolan show reported on the case of Dylan Clenaghan (11). He was told he had to cut his long locks before starting at Killicomaine Junior High School in Portadown this month.
His mother Marcia said her son had long hair for most of his life and it was part of his identity.
"He is proud to be the way he is," she said.
"How you wish to keep [your hair] should be your own personal choice."
The school has said it is working with the family to come to a resolution and was handling the matter with "care and sensitivity".
"This is who he is - a part of his identity" - mother challenges school over discipline threat on 11yo son because of his long hair
Full discussion https://t.co/T0Eh4cD5QH pic.twitter.com/0HMAv0LGAv The Nolan Show, BBC (@BBCNolan) September 13, 2018
Marcia said the school had told her the policy was stated in its rules that boys' hair has to be short.
The mother said the school told her "rules are rules" and although they may be traditional, they stood by them and if he wanted to stay it had to be cut.
The family agreed in the summer Dylan would cut his hair bit-by-bit in order for him to get used to the loss. But she said he had become upset and couldn't understand why he had to cut his hair when girls did not.
She her son had experienced "emotional distress" over the matter and she was considering taking him out of the school.
She said he was currently still in school as the school had accepted he could take a portion off at a time in order to allow him to accept the change.
"But I do reckon at the end of this he will be in another school because they won't budge," she said.
"This feels very discriminatory" - @ShriekingGreek from @nichildcom reacts to school discipline threat on 11yo boy because of his long hair
Full discussion https://t.co/T0Eh4cD5QH pic.twitter.com/olPDMoe0Oq The Nolan Show, BBC (@BBCNolan) September 13, 2018
The school said it was having ongoing discussions with the parent and wished to reach a satisfactory outcome as soon as possible.
In a statement to the Belfast Telegraph, Killicomaine Junior High School said: "The school is having on-going discussions with the parent and we wish to reach a satisfactory outcome as soon as possible.
"We are approaching this issue with care and sensitivity with a view to resolving any concerns and we hope to meet the parent again over the next number of days.
The Children's Commissioner Koulla Yiasouma said schools were entitled to have policies on school uniform and on appearance, including on hair styles and length and which had been endorsed by the High Court in Belfast.
"If they feel the policies are in the best interests of the school," she said.
She said she saw no reason why a child could have their hair the way they wanted it and said the boy could tie it back.
"This is devastating for the boy given it is his first experience of a new school.
"[Their hair] is about their identity.... It should not interfere with their education."
The Drumclay Care Home in Enniskillen is set to close its doors before Christmas, with uncertainty about what will happen to its residents.
The facility is run by Ebbay Ltd and is part of the Saville group of nursing homes, which includes the County Care home, also in Enniskillen, as well as care homes in Co Armagh and Co Tyrone.
The privately-run facility offers care to elderly people and individuals with learning difficulties, and has room for around 30 residents.
In a statement, a spokesperson for Drumclay Care Home said it was with a "heavy heart" they were announcing the closure of the home.
"Despite major investment in the home, the sole reason for this closure is due to our ongoing inability to recruit the quality and quantity of skilled and experienced nursing staff required for us to deliver safe, effective and compassionate care to our residents," it said.
The care home has said it is working with the Western Trust, the home's residents, family representatives and employees to ensure that "this transition is carried out with the highest concern for patient care in order to find suitable alternative accommodation that meets each residents individual needs".
Drumclay Care Home said it could confirm that it had found an alternative employment for a significant number of its staff.
A spokesperson for the Western Trust said: "Ebbay Ltd has informed the Western Trust of its decision to close Drumclay Care Home in Enniskillen. There are presently 34 clients in the facility.
This is a difficult time for the residents and their families. The Trust will be working with residents, their families and Drumclay Care Home to manage the transition and find suitable alternative accommodation that meets each residents individual needs.
The Trust will remain in regular contact with the families throughout this transition period.
Ulster Unionist MLA for Fermanagh and South Tyrone Rosemary Barton said the closure of the care home presented a challenge for how to rehouse the residents in the run-up to Christmas.
"At a time when options for living in the community are reducing for the elderly it is sad that we learn Drumclay Care Home in Enniskillen is to close before the end of the year," she said.
Drumclay Care Home has provided a good caring home for many residents during the past decades.
There will be an immediate challenge for families and the Western Trust to have the current residents of Drumclay relocated as the number of places currently available in local care homes is unlikely to meet demand in the short-term. I will be seeking a meeting with the management of the Care Home and the Western Trust to address these issues."
Mrs Barton added it was her view that a review of domiciliary and care home requirements in the area should be carried out.
The Impartial Reporter has reported families of residents met with senior management at the home on Wednesday and were informed the home would close before the end of the year.
On Thursday morning a staff member from Drumclay Care Home told the Belfast Telegraph its main concern at this time was the wellbeing of its residents and staff.
The search is on for the people and businesses who contribute most to the life of east Belfast.
Community representatives and sponsors gathered on Thursday on the SS Nomadic to launch this years Eastside Awards, which are run in association with George Best Belfast City Airport.
Entries are now open for the categories which include Tourism Experience, Individual Contribution to Sport, Contribution to the Arts, Educator of the Year, Best Community Project, Employer of the Year, Innovation, Business Start-Up, Business Growth, Volunteer of the Year and Young Person of the Year.
New categories have also been added this year and the public will be asked to vote online for their Favourite Hair Salon, Beauty Salon, Takeaway Outlet and Eatery.
Chair of the awards organising committee Jonathan McAlpin of East Belfast Enterprise said: From celebrating the achievements of our young people to those who are contributing to the economic impact of the area, to inspirational residents who volunteer their time to help others and those who entertain or who are committed to our next generation.
Michelle Hatfield, Director of Corporate Services at George Best Belfast City Airport said: East Belfast is a hotbed of cultural, sporting and economic success made possible by the amazing people that call this great place home or come to work or play in its surrounds.
For that reason we are once again privileged to be the principal partner of the Eastside Awards.
BBC presenter Tara Mills will host the awards dinner on Friday January 25 2019 in Hastings Stormont Hotel.
The free to enter awards are being supported by George Best Belfast City Airport,
Belfast City Council, East Belfast Enterprise, Fleet Financial, Millar McCall Wylie, Phoenix Natural Gas, Solv, Titanic Belfast, Titanic Foundation, Titanic Quarter, Ulster Bank, Urban Villages, Were Sure and Wolseley.
Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Previous Next Close 26/1/17: Lord Mayor of Belfast Cllr Brian Kingston joins Michelle Hatfield of sponsor George Best Belfast City Airport, host BBC television presenter Tara Mills and Jonathan McAlpin of East Belfast Enterprise at the inaugural Eastside Awards. Picture: Michael Cooper Michael Cooper 26/1/17: NiStars shone at the inaugural Eastside Awards, entertaining more than 200 guests attending a ceremony in Stormont Hotel recognising all that's good about East Belfast. Picture: Michael Cooper Michael Cooper 26/1/17: James Brown MBE (left) has been honoured for the outstanding contribution he has made to East Belfast throughout his life at the inaugural Eastside Awards. Congratulating James on his Outstanding Contribution award were host BBC television presenter Tara Mills and Jonathan McAlpin of East Belfast Enterprise. Picture: Michael Cooper Michael Cooper 26/1/17: Darwin Templeton and Mark Reilly of media partner Belfast Telegraph and Jobfinder NI are joined by Fiona Flynn of sponsors Millar McCall Wylie and Jonathan McAlpin of East Belfast Enterprise at the inaugural Eastside Awards. Picture: Michael Cooper Michael Cooper 26/1/17: Eastside Awards sponsors Geri Wright of Phoenix Natural Gas and Stephen Kane of Solv Group at the inaugural Eastside Awards. Picture: Michael Cooper Michael Cooper Guests at inaugural Eastside Awards in Hastings Stormont Hotel - Mervyn Hempton and Clare Templeton board members of East Belfast Enterprise, Mags McAlpin of Creating Retail Magic and Garry Hanna of James Brown & Sons. www.eastsideawards.org Michael Cooper Special performance by NiStars got the inaugural Eastside Awards underway at Hastings Stormont Hotel. www.eastsideawards.org Michael Cooper Lord Mayor of Belfast Alderman Brian Kingston attends the inaugual Eastside Awards. Pictured with Michelle Hatfield of George Best Belfast City Airport, awards host BBC presenter Tara Mills and Chair of the awards committee Jonathan McAlpin of East Belfast Enterprise. www.eastsideawards.org Michael Cooper Pupils from Grosvenor Grammar School performing at inaugural Eastside Awards in Hastings Stormont Hotel. www.eastsideawards.org Michael Cooper Eastside Awards sponsors Steven McGuinness of McGuinness Fleck and Stephen Kane of Solv Group with finalists Mel and Niamh Boyle from OMMActive. www.eastsideawards.org Michael Cooper Eastside Awards sponsors Mark Reilly from NIJobfinder, Fiona Flynn from Millar McCall Wylie, Jonathan McAlpin from East Belfast Enterprise and Darwin Templeton, Belfast Telegraph. www.eastsideawards.org Michael Cooper Katie Pedlow of Rebound Physio receives Eastside Award for Business Contribution from Simon Seaton of sponsor Ulster Bank and awards host BBC presenter Tara Mills. www.eastsideawards.org Michael Cooper Glentoran Director Bill Manson receives Eastside Award for Contribution to Sport on behalf of Glentoran Academy from Philp Miley of sponsor Charles Hurst and Fleet Financial and awards host BBC presenter Tara Mills. www.eastsideawards.org Michael Cooper Lorraine Bell from GPS Colour Graphics receives Eastside Award for Business Growth from Mark Reilly of sponsor NIJobfinder and awards host BBC presenter Tara Mills. www.eastsideawards.org Michael Cooper Michael Walker of Orchardville Society receives Eastside Award for Contribution from the Community Sector from Stephen Kane of sponsor Solv Group and awards host BBC presenter Tara Mills. www.eastsideawards.org Michael Cooper Christopher McGuicken of Big Pixel Creative receives Eastside Award for Digital Innovation from Robin Brown of sponsor Connect Telecom and awards host BBC presenter Tara Mills. www.eastsideawards.org Michael Cooper Mimi Turtle of Strand Arts Centre receives Eastside Award for Contribution to the Arts from Fiona Flynn of sponsor Millar McCall Wylie and awards host BBC presenter Tara Mills. www.eastsideawards.org Michael Cooper Sarah Patterson of Little Pink Kitchen receives Eastside Award for Food Product or Services from Steven McGuinness of sponsor McGuinness Fleck and awards host BBC presenter Tara Mills. www.eastsideawards.org Michael Cooper Dawn Simons of Go-Berserk receives Eastside Award for Education from Geri Wright of sponsor Phoenix Natural Gas and awards host BBC presenter Tara Mills. www.eastsideawards.org Michael Cooper Lord Mayor of Belfast Alderman Brian Kingston joins the winners of the inaugural Eastside Awards at Hastings Stormont Hotel. www.eastsideawards.org Michael Cooper James Brown MBE receives Eastside Award for Outstanding Contribution to East Belfast from Chair of the awards committee and Chief Executive of East Belfast Enterprise Jonathan McAlpin, and awards host BBC presenter Tara Mills. www.eastsideawards.org Michael Cooper Clare Caughey of SENsations Learning Support CIC receives Eastside Award for Business Start Up from Chair of the awards committee and Chief Executive of East Belfast Enterprise, Jonathan McAlpin, and awards host BBC presenter Tara Mills. www.eastsideawards.org Michael Cooper Michele Bryans of Eastside Partnership collects Eastside Award for Volunteer of the Year on behalf of winner Sean Brannigan from sponsor Avec Solutions representative James Brown MBE and awards host BBC presenter Tara Mills. www.eastsideawards.org Michael Cooper George Grimley and Paul Cunningham of Belfast City Sightseeing receive Eastside Award for Tourism from Patrick McAnea of sponsor East Belfast Enterprise and The Foundry and awards host BBC presenter Tara Mills. www.eastsideawards.org Michael Cooper / Facebook
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Whatsapp 26/1/17: Lord Mayor of Belfast Cllr Brian Kingston joins Michelle Hatfield of sponsor George Best Belfast City Airport, host BBC television presenter Tara Mills and Jonathan McAlpin of East Belfast Enterprise at the inaugural Eastside Awards. Picture: Michael Cooper
Entries for the awards are open until October 19 and they can also be processed online at www.eastsideawards.org.
SDLP leader Colum Eastwood has issued a direct appeal to the republican movement to let the public know if any other child abusers or rapists are freely living and working in Northern Ireland.
Mr Eastwood was speaking after a Police Ombudsman Report revealed that IRA abuse victim Mairia Cahill had been let down by the justice system.
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In 2010, Ms Cahill, originally from west Belfast, told police she had been sexually abused from 1997 to 1998, when she was aged 16, and was later subjected to an IRA investigation. Two other women said they had been abused as children by the same man.
Ombudsman Dr Michael Maguire found that the RUC had information about the alleged abuse 10 years before Ms Cahills report but did not act.
Sinn Fein President Mary Lou McDonald has apologised to Ms Cahill following the report but Ms Cahill dismissed the apology as "woefully inadequate".
She called on Sinn Fein to admit that she had been telling the truth about her case from the beginning.
Speaking following the revelations Mr Eastwood said that other cases of abuse may have been covered up by the IRA.
When we look at the Mairia Cahill case, the Liam Adams case and the Paudie McGahon case, it is clear that the IRA had a policy of protecting abusers and relocating them to different areas across Ireland," the Foyle MLA said.
"It is now time for Sinn Fein to tell the public and the police if they are aware of any other abusers living in our communities."
November 2012: An initiative to reduce Northern Ireland's carbon emissions called the Renewable Heating Incentive is announced by then Enterprise Minister Arlene Foster. It financially supports businesses, public sector and other non-domestic organisations to meet the cost of more environmentally-friendly technologies. Eligible applicants will be entitled to help for 20 years.
Autumn 2013: A whistleblower contacts Mrs Foster and asks for a meeting to raise concerns.
January 2015: A formal re-approval of the scheme due from the Department of Finance is overlooked as a result of a "combination of staff changes and an administrative oversight". Meanwhile, RHI applications rise.
february: It is claimed RHI will overspend by at least 460m over a 20-year period. Mrs Foster's successor as Enterprise Minister, Jonathan Bell, announces his intention to close RHI to new applications. Internal investigation into scheme gets under way.
july: In a damning report the Audit Office says "serious systemic failings" in the scheme will cost the NI budget hundreds of millions. It reveals a farmer will make 1m for heating an empty shed.
october: Stormont's Public Accounts Committee (PAC) call the mishandling of the RHI scheme "one of the biggest scandals" since devolution.
november: With the realisation the funding available for applicants is uncapped, Stormont tightens the rules. But a massive late surge of 900 applications is received before changes can be made. The PAC is told that a 405m hole will have to be plugged over the 20-year lifetime of the RHI.
december 15: In an extraordinary TV interview, Mr Bell claims advisers attempted to remove Arlene Foster's name from documents linked to RHI while two senior special advisers "were not allowing this scheme to be closed" as costs began to spiral out of control.
Mrs Foster responds by saying that if papers were altered "it wasn't on my say-so" and DUP special advisers Timothy Johnston and Andrew Crawford say they never sought to keep the RHI scheme open against the wishes of the minister.
december 16: Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness calls for the DUP leader to stand aside from her role as First Minister.
Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Previous Next Close RHI inquiry ARLENE FOSTER DUP leader and former First Minister. Minister at Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment (Deti) when the RHI scheme began in 2012. Subsidy tariffs were set too high without a cap, leading to costs spiralling out of control. She described it as her "deepest political regret", but denies claims by Jonathan Bell, her former party colleague and successor as Enterprise Minister, that she ordered him to keep the scheme open. Timothy Johnston After being a special adviser to Ian Paisley and Peter Robinson, Mr Johnston became a Spad to Arlene Foster when she took on the role of First Minister in January 2016. He was accused by Mr Bell of not allowing the RHI scheme to close in early autumn 2015, but he has rejected that allegation. Following the collapse of the Stormont Executive over the RHI scandal in early 2017, he became chief executive of the DUP. JONATHAN BELL Succeeded Arlene Foster as Deti minister in May 2015, until May 2016, when RHI costs became a problem. The former DUP Strangford MLA alleged two DUP special advisers (Spads) - Timothy Johnston and Andrew Crawford - intervened to delay the start of cost controls in autumn 2015 - a period when there was a spike in applications to the scheme. He claimed Mrs Foster "overruled" his bid to close the botched scheme in early 2016. TIMOTHY CAIRNS A former barrister, he was Mr Bell's special adviser at Deti. Mr Bell alleged that Mr Cairns told him that other DUP Spads were not allowing the RHI scheme to be closed in September 2015. Mr Bell said that he believed Mr Cairns saw himself as working for the other Spads and not for him as minister. But Mr Cairns has accused Mr Bell of bullying, swinging a punch at him and trying to break his finger - claims Mr Bell denies. ANDREW CRAWFORD Spad to Mrs Foster in Deti when RHI was introduced. Quit role in January 2017 after Mr McCormick told a Stormont committee he understood Mr Crawford was exerting influence to keep the scheme's high tariff level. He denied the claim and any wrongdoing. At the RHI Inquiry, he accepted it was "inappropriate" to have shared RHI cost-control plans with family before they were introduced. Now a part-time DUP adviser. ANDREW MCCORMICK Became permanent secretary at Deti in 2014 and was in post when the RHI scheme's massive overspend became clear. Mr McCormick told the RHI Inquiry that Mr Cairns told him Timothy Johnston, another DUP Spad, was involved in the decision to delay cost controls. In January, it was announced Mr McCormick was being appointed as director-general of international relations for Brexit in the absence of the Northern Ireland Executive. DAVID STERLING As interim head of the Northern Ireland Civil Service, he is effectively the man in charge of running Stormont departments in the absence of devolved government. He was the lead civil servant in Deti when it introduced the flawed RHI scheme in 2012. Mr Bell alleged to the RHI Inquiry that Mr Sterling feared the energy scheme controversy would cost him his chance to become the head of the Civil Service. PA Wire/PA Images CHRIS STEWART Jonathan Bell claimed Chris Stewart, Deti deputy permanent secretary, sought a meeting to blow the whistle on a bid by DUP advisers to remove Mrs Foster's name from RHI documents. Mr Bell said Stewart would back this at an inquiry, but Stewart said he "did not seek a meeting as a whistleblower". He acknowledged a DUP adviser changed the wording of a Deti document, but that Mr Bell later "advised that he had dealt with the matter". STUART WIGHTMAN A former official at Deti who was responsible for running the RHI scheme in its final weeks. Mr Wightman told the inquiry he directed a colleague to inform poultry producer Moy Park and other interested parties of changes to cost controls as a "courtesy". He also alerted boiler firms and the Ulster Farmers' Union to the delay in cost controls before DUP minister Jonathan Bell had even been asked to approve the proposal. JANETTE OHAGAN Ms O'Hagan was selling a heat efficiency product in 2013, but found potential clients were not interested, especially when they had signed up to the RHI scheme. She raised concerns about the scheme with the then-Enterprise Minister, Arlene Foster. She told the inquiry she would do the same thing if the RHI debacle happened again, despite unwillingly becoming the centre of a political and media storm. Dame Una O'Brien. RHI inquiry panel member / Facebook
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january 4, 2017: Arlene Foster again insists she will not stand down over the RHI scandal and says some calls for her to do so are "misogynistic".
january 9: Martin McGuinness announces his resignation as deputy First Minister in protest at Mrs Foster's refusal to step aside during an investigation into the RHI.
april 2018: Mrs Foster admits to the RHI Inquiry that she didn't read the legislation which set up RHI. She feels she doesn't bear personal responsibility for the scheme, even though it was set up on her watch as a minister.
September 7: Mr Bell claims that he was bullied into keeping RHI open by Mrs Foster and says he was the victim of a DUP smear campaign.
september 10: Mr Bell's former special adviser claims the minister got so drunk in a New York pub he was asked to leave. He says that it was DUP policy to introduce RHI cost controls as late as possible. He claims that senior DUP spad Timothy Johnston wielded power over elected politicians.
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A former DUP special adviser has claimed he changed an RHI document to win "brownie points" from Arlene Foster.
Timothy Cairns told the RHI Inquiry that his party attempted to defend its leader as much as possible and that led him to alter the submission.
Former Department of Trade, Enterprise and Investment (Deti) minister Jonathan Bell has claimed that DUP advisers removed references to Mrs Foster in an attempt to "cleanse the record".
Mr Cairns said he changed the document of his own volition and denied that his action was part of a strategy to form a narrative that lay the entire blame for the cash-for-ash scandal on Mr Bell.
The former Deti 'Spad' said his position wasn't secure at the time. The document at the centre of the controversy was a submission about the decision to close RHI in February 2015. Mr Cairns said he told other DUP spads of his action and nobody raised any objections.
Mr Cairns yesterday admitted that cost controls being added to RHI later than civil servants wanted was due to the involvement of DUP special advisers. But he insisted that no pressure was put on the Stormont officials and they easily could have said no.
Mr Cairns was questioned by the inquiry about who exactly he believed he was working for when he was a Deti Spad. Panellist Dame Una O'Brien suggested advisers would usually show loyalty to their minister and work for their department as a whole.
However, he appeared to be effectively working for "a fourth group ... the party". Mr Cairns said that the manner in which the DUP appointed its Spads gave them a strong sense of party affinity.
The former Deti Spad admitted that it was "DUP policy" to delay RHI cost controls to the latest possible date.
The inquiry heard how Mr Cairns' account of this delay was at odds with that of another DUP spad, Dr Andrew Crawford, who is due to give evidence today.
Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Previous Next Close RHI inquiry ARLENE FOSTER DUP leader and former First Minister. Minister at Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment (Deti) when the RHI scheme began in 2012. Subsidy tariffs were set too high without a cap, leading to costs spiralling out of control. She described it as her "deepest political regret", but denies claims by Jonathan Bell, her former party colleague and successor as Enterprise Minister, that she ordered him to keep the scheme open. Timothy Johnston After being a special adviser to Ian Paisley and Peter Robinson, Mr Johnston became a Spad to Arlene Foster when she took on the role of First Minister in January 2016. He was accused by Mr Bell of not allowing the RHI scheme to close in early autumn 2015, but he has rejected that allegation. Following the collapse of the Stormont Executive over the RHI scandal in early 2017, he became chief executive of the DUP. JONATHAN BELL Succeeded Arlene Foster as Deti minister in May 2015, until May 2016, when RHI costs became a problem. The former DUP Strangford MLA alleged two DUP special advisers (Spads) - Timothy Johnston and Andrew Crawford - intervened to delay the start of cost controls in autumn 2015 - a period when there was a spike in applications to the scheme. He claimed Mrs Foster "overruled" his bid to close the botched scheme in early 2016. TIMOTHY CAIRNS A former barrister, he was Mr Bell's special adviser at Deti. Mr Bell alleged that Mr Cairns told him that other DUP Spads were not allowing the RHI scheme to be closed in September 2015. Mr Bell said that he believed Mr Cairns saw himself as working for the other Spads and not for him as minister. But Mr Cairns has accused Mr Bell of bullying, swinging a punch at him and trying to break his finger - claims Mr Bell denies. ANDREW CRAWFORD Spad to Mrs Foster in Deti when RHI was introduced. Quit role in January 2017 after Mr McCormick told a Stormont committee he understood Mr Crawford was exerting influence to keep the scheme's high tariff level. He denied the claim and any wrongdoing. At the RHI Inquiry, he accepted it was "inappropriate" to have shared RHI cost-control plans with family before they were introduced. Now a part-time DUP adviser. ANDREW MCCORMICK Became permanent secretary at Deti in 2014 and was in post when the RHI scheme's massive overspend became clear. Mr McCormick told the RHI Inquiry that Mr Cairns told him Timothy Johnston, another DUP Spad, was involved in the decision to delay cost controls. In January, it was announced Mr McCormick was being appointed as director-general of international relations for Brexit in the absence of the Northern Ireland Executive. DAVID STERLING As interim head of the Northern Ireland Civil Service, he is effectively the man in charge of running Stormont departments in the absence of devolved government. He was the lead civil servant in Deti when it introduced the flawed RHI scheme in 2012. Mr Bell alleged to the RHI Inquiry that Mr Sterling feared the energy scheme controversy would cost him his chance to become the head of the Civil Service. PA Wire/PA Images CHRIS STEWART Jonathan Bell claimed Chris Stewart, Deti deputy permanent secretary, sought a meeting to blow the whistle on a bid by DUP advisers to remove Mrs Foster's name from RHI documents. Mr Bell said Stewart would back this at an inquiry, but Stewart said he "did not seek a meeting as a whistleblower". He acknowledged a DUP adviser changed the wording of a Deti document, but that Mr Bell later "advised that he had dealt with the matter". STUART WIGHTMAN A former official at Deti who was responsible for running the RHI scheme in its final weeks. Mr Wightman told the inquiry he directed a colleague to inform poultry producer Moy Park and other interested parties of changes to cost controls as a "courtesy". He also alerted boiler firms and the Ulster Farmers' Union to the delay in cost controls before DUP minister Jonathan Bell had even been asked to approve the proposal. JANETTE OHAGAN Ms O'Hagan was selling a heat efficiency product in 2013, but found potential clients were not interested, especially when they had signed up to the RHI scheme. She raised concerns about the scheme with the then-Enterprise Minister, Arlene Foster. She told the inquiry she would do the same thing if the RHI debacle happened again, despite unwillingly becoming the centre of a political and media storm. Dame Una O'Brien. RHI inquiry panel member / Facebook
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Mr Cairns alleged that Dr Crawford told him to seek the latest possible date for the introduction of cost controls.
But Dr Crawford had claimed that it was Mr Cairns alone who made that decision.
Inquiry chair, Sir Patrick Coghlin, pointed to the "irreconcilable difference" in their evidence. He said: "One of you is accurate or telling the truth about that - not both."
Sir Patrick said he was trying to assess the credibility of their statements, adding: "Both of those cannot be true."
Mr Cairns acknowledged their accounts differed, but stated: "I suppose our memories are different."
Those involved in designing RHI made the fatal mistake of believing that the Treasury would pick up the bill for any overspend.
Mr Cairns said he believed the RHI bill was being covered by London and it was a "valid" step to delay change beyond the October 1 date favoured by civil servants.
"It's better to be spent in Belfast than Bristol," he said.
Concerns centred on how long it took to close RHI after civil servants became aware of the flaws. Mr Cairns disclosed details of exchanges between party advisers around the closure of the scheme.
On July 20, 2015, he received an email from Dr Crawford, who warned him that cuts to subsidies were expected to come in October and "you are going to get a massive spike of applications before this date".
Mr Cairns said he passed the information on to a civil servant.
Sir Patrick said Dr Crawford instructed Mr Cairns to call him to discuss the RHI scheme. Mr Cairns expressed regret that there was no written record.
"With hindsight it is abundantly clear to me that we really should have just sat round the table, got everybody interested around the table, and got this thrashed out," he said.
"I was relying on phone calls and this shuttle diplomacy that really was deficient. You have to be able to say that you did your best or, electorally, that is going to be a problem."
The inquiry heard that Dr Crawford wanted a change to the RHI scheme. Deti officials wanted to introduce a threshold of 1,314 hours of heating, but he hoped to more than double that to 3,000 hours.
Officials rejected the proposal because it didn't represent value for money, but Mr Cairns denied it was an attempt by Dr Crawford to "run the clock down".
In further questioning by the inquiry, Mr Cairns was asked if there were cynical motives for seeking a later date on introducing cost controls.
"There is no evidence those were my motives," he said. "They may be other people's motives but they certainly weren't mine.
"I don't have any other reason or any other experience. I don't have any connection within the industry or within the farming community to have those other reasons or potential reasons."
Mr Cairns was questioned about a conference telephone call he had with DUP Spads Richard Bullick and Timothy Johnston and Mrs Foster on the day after Mr Bell's explosive interview with the BBC's Stephen Nolan.
He claimed that Mr Johnston "shut the conversation down" when he spoke of his involvement in RHI.
Later that evening, he spoke to Mr Bullick on the phone and they discussed the "awkward" moment. It had been the first time "Timothy's name had been raised" in connection with RHI.
Mr Johnston had been "fairly adamant he'd had absolutely nothing to do with the scheme".
Mr Cairns admitted he had been reluctant to speak about Mr Johnston's role after that.
In his evidence to the inquiry, Deti permanent secretary, Dr Andrew McCormick, had said he believed the DUP was intent on protecting Mr Johnston and deflecting any reference to him.
Czech authorities have announced the construction of a Czech House in the disputed city of Jerusalem as a step toward the transfer of the European countrys embassy, following similar move by the United States in May.
The Czech government, according to President Milos Zemans spokesperson Jiri Ovcacek, will build a Czech House in the city.
The compound, the official told AFP, would house government institutions including the foreign ministrys Czech Centre, the trade agency CzechTrade and tourism agency CzechTourism.
The Czech House in Jerusalem will be ceremonially opened by Mr President during his visit to Israel in November, he said.
President Zeman, ally of Israel, had promised Tel Aviv to push for the transfer of the Czech embassy in the old City.
If the project goes according to plan, the European country will be the second western country to ignore the international consensus that the fate of the city should be determined through talks between Palestinians and Israelis.
The U.S. in May officially moved its embassy after President Donald Trump in December had recognized the city as Israels capital noting that it is the right way towards peace between the two sides.
Palestinians hope to make the eastern part of the city, the capital of their future state.
The Czech Embassy has been in Tel Aviv since 1949 except for when diplomatic relations with the former communist regime in Prague were interrupted between 1967 and 1990, AFP notes.
The EU member in May reopened an honorary consulate following its closure in 2016.
A former special adviser to Arlene Foster believes the DUP allowed him to be falsely named as the instigator of RHI cost control delays to protect the party's current Chief Executive.
Dr Andrew Crawford, who has been recalled before the RHI Inquiry panel to clarify a number of matters, has stated in written evidence that he believes the party acquiesced to the naming of him by Dr Andrew McCormick during a Public Accounts Committee meeting in January 2017.
"At the very least I do not see any attempt to tell Dr McCormick that I had denied the allegation on numerous occasions, or that I had provided contemporaneous emails that supported my position," he said.
Dr Crawford quit his role at Stormont following the senior civil servant's claims that he exerted influence to keep the RHI scheme running at a high tariff level.
Prior to his resignation he had been openly critical of Mrs Foster's Assembly address on December 19, 2016 which she used to dismiss allegations that someone in the party had sought to delay cost controls and insisted that any attempt to postpone changes lacked proper authority.
In correspondence issued to colleagues, Dr Crawford said they "are already aware of my views about the statement from Arlene".
In his evidence he claims he felt the speech "was constructed in such a way that it allowed the interpretation" that he was involved "rather than conveying my strong denial of any involvement".
Dr Crawford, who was working for the former enterprise minister at the time the RHI scheme was devised, also states that no one from the party approached him for an in-depth discussion or to ask for his version of events.
"I found this particularly upsetting," he said.
Dr Crawford said he had raised concerns to all the "key players" including former Finance Minister Simon Hamilton and Mrs Foster herself following the statement she made as First Minister.
Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Expand Previous Next Close RHI inquiry ARLENE FOSTER DUP leader and former First Minister. Minister at Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment (Deti) when the RHI scheme began in 2012. Subsidy tariffs were set too high without a cap, leading to costs spiralling out of control. She described it as her "deepest political regret", but denies claims by Jonathan Bell, her former party colleague and successor as Enterprise Minister, that she ordered him to keep the scheme open. Timothy Johnston After being a special adviser to Ian Paisley and Peter Robinson, Mr Johnston became a Spad to Arlene Foster when she took on the role of First Minister in January 2016. He was accused by Mr Bell of not allowing the RHI scheme to close in early autumn 2015, but he has rejected that allegation. Following the collapse of the Stormont Executive over the RHI scandal in early 2017, he became chief executive of the DUP. JONATHAN BELL Succeeded Arlene Foster as Deti minister in May 2015, until May 2016, when RHI costs became a problem. The former DUP Strangford MLA alleged two DUP special advisers (Spads) - Timothy Johnston and Andrew Crawford - intervened to delay the start of cost controls in autumn 2015 - a period when there was a spike in applications to the scheme. He claimed Mrs Foster "overruled" his bid to close the botched scheme in early 2016. TIMOTHY CAIRNS A former barrister, he was Mr Bell's special adviser at Deti. Mr Bell alleged that Mr Cairns told him that other DUP Spads were not allowing the RHI scheme to be closed in September 2015. Mr Bell said that he believed Mr Cairns saw himself as working for the other Spads and not for him as minister. But Mr Cairns has accused Mr Bell of bullying, swinging a punch at him and trying to break his finger - claims Mr Bell denies. ANDREW CRAWFORD Spad to Mrs Foster in Deti when RHI was introduced. Quit role in January 2017 after Mr McCormick told a Stormont committee he understood Mr Crawford was exerting influence to keep the scheme's high tariff level. He denied the claim and any wrongdoing. At the RHI Inquiry, he accepted it was "inappropriate" to have shared RHI cost-control plans with family before they were introduced. Now a part-time DUP adviser. ANDREW MCCORMICK Became permanent secretary at Deti in 2014 and was in post when the RHI scheme's massive overspend became clear. Mr McCormick told the RHI Inquiry that Mr Cairns told him Timothy Johnston, another DUP Spad, was involved in the decision to delay cost controls. In January, it was announced Mr McCormick was being appointed as director-general of international relations for Brexit in the absence of the Northern Ireland Executive. DAVID STERLING As interim head of the Northern Ireland Civil Service, he is effectively the man in charge of running Stormont departments in the absence of devolved government. He was the lead civil servant in Deti when it introduced the flawed RHI scheme in 2012. Mr Bell alleged to the RHI Inquiry that Mr Sterling feared the energy scheme controversy would cost him his chance to become the head of the Civil Service. PA Wire/PA Images CHRIS STEWART Jonathan Bell claimed Chris Stewart, Deti deputy permanent secretary, sought a meeting to blow the whistle on a bid by DUP advisers to remove Mrs Foster's name from RHI documents. Mr Bell said Stewart would back this at an inquiry, but Stewart said he "did not seek a meeting as a whistleblower". He acknowledged a DUP adviser changed the wording of a Deti document, but that Mr Bell later "advised that he had dealt with the matter". STUART WIGHTMAN A former official at Deti who was responsible for running the RHI scheme in its final weeks. Mr Wightman told the inquiry he directed a colleague to inform poultry producer Moy Park and other interested parties of changes to cost controls as a "courtesy". He also alerted boiler firms and the Ulster Farmers' Union to the delay in cost controls before DUP minister Jonathan Bell had even been asked to approve the proposal. JANETTE OHAGAN Ms O'Hagan was selling a heat efficiency product in 2013, but found potential clients were not interested, especially when they had signed up to the RHI scheme. She raised concerns about the scheme with the then-Enterprise Minister, Arlene Foster. She told the inquiry she would do the same thing if the RHI debacle happened again, despite unwillingly becoming the centre of a political and media storm. Dame Una O'Brien. RHI inquiry panel member / Facebook
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Dr McCormick previously provided evidence to the inquiry in which he claimed the DUP was "very concerned to deflect or discredit any possible reference to Timothy Johnston" and did not object to the naming of Dr Crawford as the instigator of delays to introducing tiered tariffs.
Dr Crawford said Dr McCormick named him based solely on "inaccurate" information obtained from Jonathan Bell's special adviser, Timothy Cairns, which he said is not supported by objective evidence. "I did not seek the introduction of cost controls to be delayed," he maintains.
He also claimed that all the evidence suggests that those within the DUP who were dealing with RHI in December 2015 were "not taking steps to contradict or dispel the narrative" and were "quick to defend" Mr Johnston, the current chief executive and former special adviser to three consecutive First Ministers.
"It may have been the case that I was viewed as expendable whereas Timothy Johnston was not," he said.
Dr Crawford was also critical of Mr Cairns' preoccupation with the risk of negative publicity to the department following criticism of a wind energy scheme (NIRO) in the context of his "poor relationship" with Mr Bell. "He was concerned that he could lose his position as special adviser if he wasn't careful in how he handled these changes," Dr Crawford stated.
However, he also stressed that he does not believe Mr Johnston sought to delay cost controls.
Dr Crawford had also been asked to clarify a text message exchange with his former colleague John Robinson which includes the sentence: "Assume you were told the same news tonight" to which the following reply was sent: "Yes. I'm sick of it. I'd be happy to go but I just look completely guilty."
He said the message was sent after he resigned as special adviser to Michelle McIlveen during a meeting at Arlene Foster's home on January 17, 2017.
Mr Crawford said "the same news" referred to Mr Robinson's decision to quit as special adviser to then Economy Minister Simon Hamilton.
A 25-year-old man was arrested at Belfast International Airport on Thursday morning after being extradited from Tenerife.
The man was wanted on warrant for offences of burglary and theft and was also sought for recall to prison.
He appeared before Belfast Magistrates Court on Thursday afternoon and was remanded in custody.
This arrest brings to 9 the total number of people extradited to Northern Ireland by European Arrest Warrant this year.
The shooting took place in the Oakland Park area. Credit: Google.
A man was shot multiple times in the legs in Londonderry on Wednesday evening.
Police responded to reports of shots being fired in the Creggan area of Derry around 9:30pm.
The man, who is aged in his 20s, was taken to hospital by the Ambulance Service for treatment.
Foyle SDLP MLA Mark H Durkan said that guns had no place on the streets.
"All violence does is create more violence and more victims," Mr Durkan said.
Local Sinn Fein councillor Kevin Campbell said that the incident had taken place in Oakland Park.
I utterly condemn this attack," he said.
These actions should stop immediately and those responsible should pack up and get off the backs of the community.
Anyone with information on this shooting should bring it forward to the police immediately.
A violent delusional paranoid schizophrenic who was high on a cocktail of cheap wine and medication and who "just couldn't stop" stabbing his friend as he "begged for his life" was handed a minimum eight-year sentence.
Branding the death of James Hughes as "brutal and unnecessary," Mr Justice Colton told James Brendan Patrick Devine that the violent death of his "well read and thoughtful" victim was all the more poignant as he was a convert to Buddism - the philosopy of peace.
The Judge also spoke of the impact Mr Hughes death has had on his family and friends - especially his sisters and niece.
The mentally ill 44-year-old, from Belfast's Divis Tower, admitted the manslaughter of his 62-year old friend and 'Good Samaritan' Mr Hughes by way of diminished responsibility, and the plea was accepted at Belfast Crown Court last June when the murder charge against him was withdrawn.
It emerged Devine had a catalogue of convictions for alcohol-fuelled violence, including stabbing two fellow residents at a hostel.
Prosecuting QC David McDowell also spoken of "delusional beliefs" Devine held about his friend and next door neighbour when he broke into his flat on November 6, 2016, and stabbed him over 30 times.
Defence QC Greg Berry said Devine's continuing mental illness was at the "very core of this terrible and dreadful crime," and although remanded into prison, he was moved to the secure facility at Knockbracken Health Care Centre.
After being handed a indeterminate custodial sentence, Devine was told he will serve his sentence in prison. He was also told he will serve a minimum term of eight years before he is considered eligible for release by the Paroles Commission.
The PSNI welcomed the sentencing, though they acknowledged it would be of little comfort to Mr Hughes family.
"James was known as a kind and caring person and for him to suffer such a brutal and cruel death will have been torturous for all those who knew and loved him," Detective Inspector Joanne Harris said.
"I can only hope today's sentence will provide some level of justice for James Hughes and his family."
Northern Ireland's new Citizens' Assembly will meet for the first time at the end of October.
Modelled on a similar system operating in the Republic of Ireland, it's hoped the forum will put the public at the heart of decision-making and provide guidance on key issues.
Rebekah McCabe is senior projects officer with national advisory group Involve which will be running the Assembly.
"This is more than simply getting opinions from the public. Assembly members will hear presentations from experts and advocates," she said.
"There will be active discussion, not passive listening. In the end it's all about decision making."
The Citizens' Assembly will meet over two weekends in October and November at a Belfast hotel with the focus on the social care system.
"Come the final weekend decisions and recommendations will be made," said Ms McCabe.
"These will then be presented to the public and will certainly be of interest to the various government departments.
"The recommendations will give a clear picture of how the public wants its future to be shaped by government.
"I'm sure the Citizens' Assembly can have a great impact. Similar concepts have been effective all over the world and they can really help deal with contentious issues.
"In recent years, the citizens' assembly in the Republic, the Constitutional Convention, has made recommendations which led to referendums on changing the Irish Constitution's stance on abortion and same-sex marriage.
"The forum can be influential. Over these first two weekends it will be interesting to see how the Assembly develops and we would hope to persuade the NI Office and the NI Assembly, when it gets back up and running, that this is something they should be getting behind."
The Citizens' Assembly will bring together 50 to 100 broadly representative citizens.
"We have engaged with a polling company to recruit a group of people to become involved from a large sample," Ms McCabe explained.
"People will be randomly selected and we're hoping there will be at least 50, though that could be more depending on what funding streams become available."
Although it is hoped the Assembly will be a fresh democratic instrument, any recommendations it makes will be advisory and it will not have legislative or statutory decision-making powers.
Green Party leader Steven Agnew has said the new Assembly is "a ray of light as darkness creeps across local decision making processes."
The North Down MLA said: "I believe people are more capable than many of our politicians in finding consensus and having rationale policy discussion and debate.
"It's important to remember that the advice of the Citizens' Assembly is non-binding and I'd agree that citizens' assemblies are no substitute for democratically elected bodies.
"However, in the context of the breakdown of devolution and with the Secretary of State set to hand over the reins power to unaccountable civil servants, the Citizens' Assembly is a ray of light as darkness creeps across local decision making processes."
The head of the Northern Ireland health service has denied breaching a code of practice for appointing board members to the Fire Service.
Commissioner for Public Appointments Judena Leslie said the permanent secretary for the Department of Health Richard Pengelly made "substantive breaches" of the code and had a "lack of rationale" for the appointments, the BBC reports.
The Department of Health, however, said it acted fairly, reasonably and impartially in the competition process.
"The department is clear no form of bias motivated the process," the department told the broadcaster.
It said it acknowledged there were "flaws in the process" and "areas of learning" to consider.
The Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service falls under the remit of the Department of Health. In the absence of an Executive the department had to for the first time appoint to non-executive lay members to the Fire Service board.
Commissioner for Public Appointments, Judena Leslie, in her report, stressed her findings do "not reflect negatively in any way on those individuals appointed".
Nor, she added, could the findings constitute if there has been discrimination at any stage of the process.
She said it was important, during the political uncertainty, the public were reassured public bodies continued to be scrutinised and organisations adhered to codes of practice.
For the Fire Service board appointments, the commissioner said Mr Pengelly "introduced new criteria unrelated to the published criteria" in order to make his selection for appointment.
She also found the department was "unhelpful" when it was asked for further information from one of the complainants when she asked for feedback on why she did not get the position.
"When the Permanent Secretary adopted this approach the departmental Public Appointments Unit failed to advise him of the potential adverse consequences. These actions are a clear breach of the Code," the report stated.
The commissioner said that it was the responsibility of the Department of Health and Mr Pengelly "to ensure that these appointments are made fully in accordance with the code in the most transparent and justifiable manner".
"This is particularly so in the current political circumstances. There were substantive breaches of the code in this appointment process accompanied by a lack of proper rationale and justifiable grounds for the appointments.
"This leaves the way open for the fair minded and informed observer to form a perception that some form of bias may have the motivated the decision making."
The man and woman who made the separate complaints are taking legal action, the BBC reported.
The Department of Health, in a statement said: "The department has responded to the reports from Commissioner for Public Appointments. The Department acknowledges that there are areas of learning which will be taken into consideration in a review of this competition and accepts that there were flaws in the process.
The Department is clear that no form of bias motivated the decision making process. The Department also reaffirms that it acted fairly, reasonably and impartially in conducting this competition with a view to ensuring that the NIFRS Board is able to meet its governance and accountability responsibilities.
"Given that there is ongoing legal action, further comment would not be appropriate.
One person was taken to hospital following an accident on the Ballybogey Road. Picture: Kevin McAuley/McAuley Multimedia.
One person has been taken to hospital after a crash between a lorry and a car in Co Antrim.
The crash took place on the Ballybogey Road, Ballymoney shortly before 9pm.
Police and the Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service (NIFRS) attended the scene.
A NIFRS spokesperson confirmed that one person was taken to hospital.
The Ballybogey Road remains closed and diversions are in place.
Motorists are encouraged to seek an alternative route.
A Londonderry GP feared her 14-year-old patient was so gravely unwell he was going to die in front of her before he could be transferred to Altnagelvin Hospital, an inquest has heard.
Dr Karen Connolly was giving evidence at the inquest into the death of Orin McBride, from Strabane Old Road in the Waterside area of Derry.
Orin, who had a complex medical history of hydrocephalus, epilepsy and global developmental delay, died at the Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children (RBHSC) on June 28, 2015, from pancreatitis.
Dr Connolly told the inquest sitting in Strabane that she was contacted on June 16 by Orin's mother, Majella McBride, who told her Orin was unwell and was having difficulty breathing.
Dr Connolly advised Ms McBride to call an ambulance and get her son transported to Altnagelvin.
However, Ms McBride said she wanted her son taken to Belfast where the medical team who had been providing long-term care for Orin was based.
Dr Connolly said Ms McBride ended the phone call rather abruptly, which left her feeling uneasy, so she decided to visit the family home and see Orin, and was "very alarmed at his appearance".
Dr Connolly was asked by counsel for the Coroner, Patrick McGurgan, if she thought Orin could have survived the journey to Belfast, which was in line with his mother's wishes and in accordance with a care plan put in place when the boy had been discharged from RBHSC a month earlier.
Dr Connolly said "definitely not" and added: "He (Orin) needed urgent medical care. I took a medical decision based on his best interest and went against her (Ms McBride) wishes.
"I felt I needed to get him to the nearest hospital for stabilisation. I didn't think he would survive a journey to Belfast.
"I feared he may not make it to Altnagelvin because he was so gravely unwell. I thought he mightn't survive while I was in the house."
Orin remained in Altnagelvin hospital for three days until a bed in a medical ward at RBHSC became available.
Orin's condition continued to deteriorate after he was admitted to the paediatric Intensive Care Unit at RBHSC until June 28, when a decision was made to withdraw life support.
Earlier in the inquest, Ms McBride gave evidence that she did not consent to this decision and denied saying that Orin had "fought long enough, just make him comfortable".
Dr Sharon Christie, who was one of two doctors in the room with Ms McBride when the 'end of life' discussion took place, told the inquest it had been made clear throughout the day to Ms McBride how unwell her son was.
Dr Christie said she felt it had been communicated to his mother "that there was nothing else we could do and that on this occasion we were at the point of no return".
She said the decision was made to "not actively intervene" and "not actively resuscitate" Orin and that Ms McBride understood and consented to this.
She told the court she was a fairly direct person, and had said: "Your son isn't going to pull through."
Mr McGurgan asked Dr Christie if she was sure Ms McBride knew it was end of life and she was seeking her consent, as that issue was being disputed by Ms McBride.
Dr Christie there was another doctor and two nurses present at the time and she had asked Ms McBride if she understood, if she had any questions, and then arranged for a priest to come.
Dr Christie told the court she wrote her notes on the meeting as soon as Ms McBride left the room to go and be with her son, so she was clear in what had been said by Ms McBride.
Dr Christie also said the ventilator would not have been removed from Orin, as Ms McBride had said in her evidence, because that wasn't part of the process of withdrawing life support.
The inquest continues.
TUV leader Jim Allister has accused the DUP and Sinn Fein of shamefully joining together to vote down his legislation to make special advisers accountable.
Mr Allister yesterday recalled how the two parties opposed his bill in 2015 at a time when some DUP 'spads' were delaying Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) cost controls, according to evidence heard at the inquiry into the botched energy scheme.
Mr Allister said: "Back in 2015 I brought legislation before the Assembly which would have done three things.
"It would have reduced the number of special advisers at Stormont, restricted the amount they could be paid by tying spad salaries to Northern Ireland Civil Service rates and brought them under Civil Service disciplinary procedures.
"At the time the DUP were engaged in a token boycott of Assembly business following an IRA murder, missing business such as a debate on cancer, but broke that boycott to join Sinn Fein to vote down the bill - at the very time we now know DUP spads were delaying cost controls in RHI."
Mr Allister said that during the debate on the second stage of the bill in October 2015, he pointed out that the Red Sky scandal had highlighted how spads were not subject to the normal Civil Service disciplinary process.
"When an independent, fact-finding investigation by the Department of Finance and Personnel into a Department of Social Development special adviser Stephen Brimstone recommended that there should be a disciplinary process in respect of him, the minister, who appointed him, quashed it," he said.
The TUV leader recalled how he had argued that special advisers couldn't expect to gain from all the benefits flowing from being a civil servant, including the pension scheme, but "dodge and evade the disciplinary possibilities that come as to their conduct".
He said: "The bill would make it abundantly clear that the normal disciplinary processes of the Civil Service would also apply to these civil servants who are special advisers and would expressly prohibit any ministerial meddling in that."
"The bill would also have reduced the amount paid to special advisers. I observed that while in Wales the average cost of a special adviser was 58,500 in 2013-14 - well shy of the 100,000 plus cost in Northern Ireland."
Mr Allister said that as well as bringing this legislation, he repeatedly questioned ministers on the appointment processes for spads.
"It seemed obvious to me that the process which should have been followed was not. It wasn't just the DUP which disregarded the legal process on appointment of spads but their partners Sinn Fein."
In 2015, Northern Ireland was spending over 2m per year on spads, which was double the cost of Scotland and three times that of Wales.
The DUP and Sinn Fein voted down Jim Allister's bill by 52-33 votes.
The SDLP, Alliance and the Ulster Unionists supported the bill.
South Sudan warring factions on Wednesday inked a revitalized peace deal in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa under the auspices of the regional political the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, IGAD.
The move comes a month after the president of South Sudan and head of the countrys main rebel group signed a final ceasefire and power-sharing agreement to hail a new longed-for era of peace in the country.
The Wednesday deal was signed by leaders of the different factions and by representatives of the IGAD region and the bodys secretariat.
IGAD is currently led by Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who delivered a stern warning to the parties to ensure that the current deal does not fail.
The deal will see the government and rebels withdraw troops from urban areas, a Sudanese official said. The security deal aims to end a four-and-a-half year civil war.
South Sudan became independent from Sudan in 2011, but civil war broke out two years later between the government led by Kiir and a rebel movement led by Machar. Kiir accused Machar, who was his vice president, of plotting a coup against him.
Fueled by personal and ethnic rivalries, the conflict has killed tens of thousands, displaced an estimated quarter of South Sudans population of 12 million. Prolonged fighting has also plagued the country with food insecurity. Famine was declared in several regions in 2017.
A former health Minister has welcomed increased access to life-prolonging cancer drugs in Northern Ireland.
DUP MLA Edwin Poots said he was "pleasantly surprised" by the U-turn of the Department of Health's permanent secretary Richard Pengelly.
"No-one in their right mind would be against it, as it gives people with cancer an opportunity for a longer life," he said.
"One of the issues has always been that these are life-prolonging rather than life-saving drugs. That made it a little more difficult to justify, because they are hugely expensive.
"But when you've got the life sentence of terminal cancer, six months or a year can be a massive difference. People would cherish that opportunity to see that family member married or get their child's GCSE results."
Dr Andrew Murrison MP is chair of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee; he welcomed the news but said Northern Ireland still needed an overall cancer strategy which could not be signed off without a Health Minister.
"He's 100% right," said Mr Poots.
"We've made remarkable progress on cancer and we shouldn't write that off. We have very good records on a number of cancers and actually have a very good research base.
"You can't do too much against cancer, so yes we do need a cancer strategy and we need Ministers back in place to initiate that process so we can raise the bar further. In the meantime we are failing in our duty by not taking those vital decisions."
PSNI Chief Constable George Hamilton has confirmed that he met with IRA abuse victim Mairia Cahill on Thursday.
Mr Hamilton confirmed that he had personally apologised to Ms Cahill for police failures.
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The meeting comes after a Police Ombudsman report revealed that Ms Cahill had been let down by the justice system.
In 2010, Ms Cahill, originally from west Belfast, told police she had been sexually abused from 1997 to 1998, when she was aged 16, and was later subjected to an IRA investigation.
Two other women said they had been abused as children by the same man.
Ombudsman Dr Michael Maguire found that the RUC had information about the alleged abuse 10 years before Ms Cahills report but did not act.
Ms Cahill now serves as an SDLP councillor on Lisburn and Castlereagh City Council.
Mr Hamilton said that he discussed the RUC's failure to act with Ms Cahill and accepted that this "had a massive negative impact on Mairia and the other victims".
"I was struck by Mairia's courage and resilience. I was also struck by the fact that she shouldn't have had to display that much resilience, had Maria and the other victims been better supported by the Police Service and by the wider criminal justice system," Chief Constable Hamilton said.
"We have all failed them and for that I once more apologise. The responsibility for the failing of these cases rest with the Criminal Justice system and not with Maira or any other victim.
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"I fully accept the Ombudsman Report and we discussed how the organisation, and the criminal justice system, today is very different as a result of Mairia 's courage and strength in speaking out."
Chief Constable Hamilton said that he would continue to liaise with Ms Cahill on the issues raised.
"We discussed how the Ombudsman noted that the previous intelligence failures would not occur today. We also discussed the improvements driven by reforms in the PPS and PSNI, with investigators and prosecutors working more closely together to better support victims. This has been enabled by the formation of PSNI's Public Protection Branch and the PPS's Serious Crime Unit," he said.
"Mairia and I agreed that this was the first of many conversations between her and the Police Service, as we seek to learn from our mistakes. I am keen to meet Mairia again to ensure that we improve these critical services to benefit all victims."
An MLA has warned problems will become worse in the health service if action is not taken.
Northern Ireland health care reform, action on ensuring the NHS lives within its budget and a pay award for staff are among the 19 items requiring a health minister, it has been revealed.
Ulster Unionist MLA Roy Beggs revealed the scale of the logjam within the Department of Health due to the lack of a functioning Executive after a Freedom of Information request.
However he said it would just be the tip of the iceberg given the mounting problems in the health service.
It is scandalous that within the Department of Health alone there are so many pieces of legislation and key strategies stalled due to there not being a minister in place to sign them off," he said.
Northern Ireland has been without a government after Sinn Fein pulled down the institutions in January 2017. There has been confusion as to what power civil servants have.
Earlier this year a judge ruled the Department of Infrastructure had no power to approve a multi-million pound incinerator project as the decision should be taken by a minister.
Secretary of State Karen Bradley has said she will bring forward legislation in Westminster to clarify the extent of powers those in the civil service have in a bid to allow government to continue to function without political leadership.
Mr Beggs found 13 strategies required ministerial imput. They include an evaluation of the Bamford review into mental health services, policy on GP services, agreement on minimum pricing of alcohol and a suicide prevention strategy.
There were six pieces of legislation awaiting Assembly approval. They included laws on supporting breastfeeding in public, e-cigarettes restrictions and a response to a ban on people smoking in cars with children.
Mr Beggs stressed those issues were just those that had been though the necessary planning and development. He said in the 600 days since the Executive's collapse the crisis in the health service had "deepened to the extent patients are coming to harm, thousands of positions across the health service are vacant and the gap between demand and capacity of the local system has widened even further".
He added: "Even the 2018/19 pay award for our doctors and nurses remains up in the air, despite being already finalised in England, Scotland and Wales. We are now half way through the financial year without a local decision.
Another key decision outstanding are what actions are required to live within Budget for 2019/20. The last time the Health Department used language like that was in summer 2017 when each of Northern Irelands five health trusts announced sweeping cuts in a desperate attempt to make 70m of emergency savings.
"The later changes are left in the health service the higher the impact it has on frontline patient services.
Most of the issues in the list however are non-contentious and have cross-party support yet they cant be advanced simply because there is no mechanism in place in the absence of an Executive.
The Secretary of State has allowed the stalemate to run on for far too long. Most, if not all, of these delays could have been avoided had she acted much quicker to put some form of decision making in place before now.
Without a Minister in place to take and implement health decisions, our waiting lists will continue to get even longer and the community will suffer.
"The Prime Minister has a responsibility to everyone in the UK. A meeting of the Assembly should be called and if local politicians fail to appoint a functioning Executive, the Prime Minster needs to step in and appoint a direct rule Health Minister to end the drift in healthcare.
Same-sex couples denied the opportunity to marry in Northern Ireland are being subjected to "unlawful discrimination".
Maintaining the ban on same-sex marriage in Northern Ireland should not be used as a "veil for homophobia", the Court of Appeal was told.
Judges were told gays and lesbians have been wrongly excluded from legislation which allows those in the rest of the UK to wed.
Counsel for two couples challenging the prohibition made the claims after reasons for the current position were set out.
The legitimate aim, according to the relevant Stormont department, is to preserve and promote the institution of marriage between a man and a woman.
Unlike England, Scotland, Wales and the Republic of Ireland, Northern Ireland has still not legalised same-sex weddings.
But Grainne Close and her partner Shannon Sickles, along with Chris and Henry Flanagan-Kane, are seeking to overturn a ruling that the prohibition does not breach their human rights under European law.
In 2005 they became the first couples in the UK to enter civil partnerships, cementing their relationships in ceremonies at Belfast City Hall.
Last year a judge dismissed the case after finding that it was a matter for legislators rather than the courts.
Ms Close, Ms Sickles and the Flanagan Kanes claim they are being subjected to discrimination on the basis of their sexuality.
The state's failure to include the people of Northern Ireland in same-sex marriage legislation breaches their human rights, according to their case.
Prior to the collapse of devolution MLAs held five votes on the issue - with a narrow majority in favour of the move back on the last occasion in November 2015.
However, the Democratic Unionist Party deployed a petition of concern mechanism to block the motion.
Responding on day two of the case, counsel representing the Department of Finance detailed the position taken by former DUP ministers in statements to the Assembly.
Tony McGleenan QC told the court: "Based on those circumstances and statutory provisions, the legitimate aim can be characterised as the preservation and promotion of the institution of marriage in the form of a union between a man and a woman."
Pressed by Lord Chief Justice Sir Declan Morgan, no evidence was produced of any adverse impact on so-called traditional marriage since the 2013 Same Sex Couples Act was introduced in England and Wales.
Although the appeal judges cannot compel a change in the law, they could make a declaration sought by the two couples.
During exchanges Sir Declan indicated that if a functioning Executive was in place to re-examine the issue it would be "a very powerful argument for the court to stand back".
He stressed how the Secretary of State has the power to take action, but has chosen not to.
"These are relevant factors in seeing if this is an area where the court should express a view," the Chief Justice pointed out.
In closing submissions Ronan Lavery QC, for the couples, argued: "The 2013 Act is a game-changer, we now have a different definition of marriage in the UK."
Excluding Northern Ireland from that cannot be justified, the barrister insisted.
"The context of all this should not be forgotten - a history of discrimination against gays and lesbians.
"They were described pejoratively as dykes and fruits, that continues to this day and its something we need to address.
"One needs to be very conscious of that history... and that the maintenance of this provision and resistance to its removal is not simply a veil (for) homophobia and hiding behind a traditional concept of marriage."
Proceedings were adjourned until later this month, for further arguments on Attorney General John Larkin QC's claim the applicants lack legal standing to bring the action.
Two cars have been torched in overnight arson attacks in Bushmills.
At around 11.15pm on Wednesday night it was reported to police a car in the Haw Road area of Bushmills had been set on fire.
A short time later just after 11.40pm it was reported a car in the Carnbore Road area of the town had been set on fire.
The Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue Service attended the scene of both attacks and extinguished the fires, with both cars badly damaged in the incidents.
Inspector Watt said: Enquiries are continuing but police are investigating a possible link between both attacks.
We are appealing to anyone with any information to contact police in Coleraine on 101 quoting reference number 1421 12/9/18."
Alternatively the public can contact independent charity Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.
It may not be possible to drive across the border into the Republic without a permit in the event of a no-deal Brexit, it has been warned.
Drivers could need International Driving Permits (IDP) if the EU does not agree to recognise UK licences, according to new guidance.
They may be turned away at the border or face enforcement action if they have not obtained the correct documents.
There are two types of IDP required by EU countries, depending on whether they have ratified the 1949 or 1968 conventions on road traffic.
This means some itineraries will require both permits, such as when people drive into France and then Spain.
The documents cost 5.50. The 1949 type is available over the counter at around 90 Post Office branches or by mail order from two private companies. The mail order service will cease on January 31, and the Government will begin providing IDPs the following day.
Sinn Fein MEP Martina Anderson said the latest warning could have a disastrous impact highlighting how it could impact those living in Londonderry who may have to cross the border to commute to work.
She said: "It also begs the question of how this will be enforced and raises legitimate concerns over lengthy border delays if permits are to be checked.
"Such a development would be disastrous for businesses, particularly small businesses in border areas, and could have huge implications for the tourism and service industries north and south."
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Motorists will be able to apply for both types of permits at 2,500 Post Office branches across the UK.
The UK Department for Transport believes up to seven million permits could be requested in the first 12 months after Brexit.
AA president Edmund King said: This will be an extra burden for UK drivers wanting to take a holiday abroad. We envisage quite a rush on post offices next year for the 5.50 IDPs if no deal is reached.
Hopefully an agreement can be reached to prevent further red tape and expense for drivers.
A damning report by the Police Ombudsman into how Mairia Cahills alleged child abuse case was handled has found that the PSNI failed her.
In 2010, Ms Cahill, originally from west Belfast, told police she had been sexually abused by Martin Morris from 1997 to 1998, when she was aged 16, and was later subjected to an IRA investigation. Two other women said they had been abused as children by the same man.
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Ombudsman Dr Michael Maguire found that the RUC had information about the alleged abuse 10 years before Ms Cahills report but did not act.
When the RUC received this intelligence it was not disseminated and there is no evidence of any police investigation or enquiries as a result of it. The material was sufficiently specific that had police undertaken even cursory inquiries they would have identified potential victims of abuse, said Dr Maguire.
When the PSNI initiated investigations into both these matters it resulted in several prosecutions. However, in 2014 the trials of the man accused of the rape, and of those accused of involvement in the IRA investigation, collapsed when Ms Cahill and the two other women withdrew their evidence, citing a loss of confidence in how the matter had been dealt with.
Ms Cahill complained to the Police Ombudsmans Office about the handling of her report.
Writing in todays Belfast Telegraph, Ms Cahill stated: Specific officers were made aware of intelligence. The Police Ombudsman concluded that no action was taken. Had it been it would have saved me further trauma of some of that IRA investigation.
To say that I was shocked and stunned is an understatement. I threw up in the toilet once the conclusions started to sink in.
Im angry that I have been let down by almost everybody in relation to my case.
Dr Maguire concluded that Ms Cahill, now an SDLP councillor, had been failed by police in key areas. He was critical of a decision not to hold a serious case review and the circumstances of the police decision to split its probe across two units: one which specialised in dealing with victims of sexual assault and one with experience in dealing with terrorism.
I accept that police wanted to move quickly on the sexual allegations and to use their different expertise to maximum effect, he said. While I do not agree that this led to evidence being diluted, it did bring about a disjointed approach. There is no evidence they considered any other approach.
He also found the PSNI was inconsistent in its investigation of some of the people suspected of IRA membership, which in one case led to an individual not being arrested and questioned.
He found no evidence, however, that anyone had been protected from prosecution. It was recommended that four police officers be disciplined. Three have now been disciplined. The fourth had retired.
PSNI Chief Constable George Hamilton last night apologised as he accepted the report and its recommendations.
At the heart of this report are three victims abused as children, who were then failed by their police service, he said.
I apologise unequivocally for the hurt and distress caused to them and for the failures in the police investigation.
An 18-year-old woman has been killed in a crash in Derry.
It happened on the Letterkenny Road at around 11.30pm on Wednesday. The woman was a passenger in a Vauxhall Corsa that crashed close to Nixons Corner.
Two other women were taken to hospital for treatment for their injuries. No other vehicles were involved in the incident.
Sinn Fein MP Elisha McCallion said: "This death is a terrible tragedy and will be devastating for the young womans family. Any death on our roads is one too many.
"I want to express my sympathy to the friends and family of the young woman who lost her life at this sad and difficult time.
I would also offer my support to the two women injured and wish them a full and speedy recovery.
Police are appealing for anyone who was travelling on the Letterkenny Road last night and who witnessed the collision to contact local officers in Strand Road or the Collision Investigation Unit on 101 quoting reference 1436 12/09/18.
The Letterkenny Road was closed at this time but has since been reopened.
Dublin City had been considering selling the property on a two-acre site to a Japanese Hotel chain (Brian Lawless/PA)
Dublin City Council has voted to retain ownership of the last remaining former Magdalene Laundry in state ownership.
Thousands of women from troubled backgrounds were effectively incarcerated and forced to work under harsh conditions in the notorious laundry institutions run by Catholic religious orders.
The last laundry to close was the institution at Sean McDermott Street in Dublin in 1996.
The building was then transferred to the ownership of Dublin City Council.
The council had been considering selling the property on a two-acre site to a Japanese hotel chain.
At a special meeting on Thursday evening, 37 councillors voted to retain ownership, with just eight voting against and two abstaining.
Tonight the elected members of DCC voted overwhelmingly to halt the sale of the former Magdalene Laundry on Sean McDermott St.
Im proud of my city & looking forward to ensuring an appropriate memorial is placed there to honour the victims & survivors of institutional abuse. Gary Gannon TD (@GaryGannonTD) September 13, 2018
Survivors of the Magdalene Laundries applauded from the public gallery as the result of the vote was read out.
A number of protesters had gathered outside Dublin Castle ahead of the debate.
Some held signs saying no sale, others held aloft posters which read our land is not yours to sell.
Dublin Social Democrat Gary Gannon proposed the motion to block the sale.
It is the only laundry of its type in the possession of the State, which is why it is so important, he told the council.
We acquired that building in 1996 during a transfer sale with a religious order who previously owned it.
In doing so we became custodians not only of its bricks and mortar but its terrible legacy of torture, incarceration and abuse.
That building and the memorial that is scheduled to be placed there was going to be transferred, outsourced to a private hotel firm.
What I am proposing tonight is that we say absolutely no to that. It simply cannot be done, we will not be outsourcing our memorials.
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When I think of conversations I have had with survivors, every single one had a simple request, to be remembered.
These are people who had their names removed, we still dont have burial records where some were placed.
There is a simple request and responsibility on us as a council custodians of that building, to provide a place where people can be remembered in an honourable way.
The council will now consider the future of the site.
Survivors have called for a museum and interpretive centre on the site.
The plight of the women who served in Magdalene laundries was documented in the 2002 film The Magdalene Sisters.
Zimbabwes police on Wednesday banned all public gatherings to control the spread of cholera in the Southern African nation.
In a statement, the national police spokeswoman Charity Charamba urged members of the public to take heed of the ban as it would assist in alleviating the spread of cholera.
The move came after the Government declared a state of emergency following 20 deaths and more than 2,000 cases related to waterborne diseases such as salmonella, typhoid and cholera.
The outbreak comes as most local authorities are struggling to provide clean water and collect garbage citing financial challenges, raising fears of a repeat of the 2008 outbreak where the waterborne disease claimed over 4,500 lives countrywide.
Most towns and cities are facing massive water shortages, often caused by breakdown in pumps, power cuts and sometimes water purification chemical shortages, according to local media.
The Health Minister, Obadiah Moyo, on Tuesday acknowledged that poor water supply, blocked sewers, and a failure to collect waste were making a cholera outbreak in the capital worse.
He said the government is following up on all people who were in contact with the victims to stop the disease from spreading.
The main opposition leader Nelson Chamisa who visited clinics where cholera patients were being treated earlier on Wednesday, planned to hold a rally on Saturday where he may take a mock presidential oath.
Chief Justice Frank Clarke warns of the impact of Brexit on Ireland and the EU.
Irelands top judge said the country could become a safe haven for international disputes after Brexit.
The Chief Justice of Ireland, Justice Frank Clarke, said that Ireland will become the only full common law country in the European Union after Brexit, which could be a significant advantage.
Mr Justice Clarke however warned that the problems arising from Brexit span many areas.
He described the re-emergence of a hard border between the Republic and Northern Ireland as potentially a critical issue.
Speaking at a seminar in Fordham University in New York on Thursday, the top judge addressed the effects of Brexit on the law and Irelands future role.
He said that a no-deal Brexit would give rise to very great difficulties in relation to legal issues involving the UK and other EU member states as well as issues involving third parties such as US corporations.
He said that the Irish legal system is very well placed as Ireland will remain a common law country.
He said: The ordinary language of the Irish courts will continue to be English.
But importantly Ireland will remain a member of the European Union and the decisions of Irish courts will continue to be easily enforceable throughout the European Union.
Those are advantages which we have and which are not shared by any other jurisdiction.
Ireland can provide, not least for those outside the EU in the common law world, a safe haven.
In a time of great uncertainty I would like to think that safe haven may prove to be a significant advantage.
He also said that the UK cannot cherry-pick aspects of the EU and warned of the dangers if the UK is allowed to do this.
He added: There are potential difficulties with at least most of the potential solutions and there remains the undoubted political difficulty which stems from the understandable desire of the European Union to ensure that the UK cannot just cherry-pick those aspects of its relations with the EU which it wishes to retain and extract itself from those obligations with which it is not happy.
If it were to be seen to be the case that a member state could leave the European Union and keep the bits that suited it and discard the bits that did not then that driver of cohesion would be lost.
There remains very significant doubt about the precise nature of the arrangements which are likely to be entered into not least because of the political red line identified by the UK Government which suggests that the UK is unwilling to accept the jurisdiction of the Court of Justice in any future arrangements.
While it is not impossible to envisage arrangements which get around that difficulty it does remain a significant barrier.
Northern Irelands police chief George Hamilton has commended an alleged sex abuse victim and vowed to learn from mistakes made in her case.
Mairia Cahill, a grand-niece of prominent Belfast republican Joe Cahill, claimed she was sexually abused as a 16-year-old by alleged IRA member Martin Morris.
Mr Morris, who denied all wrongdoing, was later acquitted of rape when the case against him collapsed.
On Friday Police Ombudsman Dr Michael Maguire delivered a scathing critique into police failings in the case, and also noted that Sinn Fein did not act when Ms Cahill originally made her allegations to senior party figures in 1997, instead waiting for three years to suspend her alleged attacker.
Mairia and I agreed that this was the first of many conversations between her and the Police Service, as we seek to learn from our mistakesGeorge Hamilton
Mr Hamilton personally apologised to Ms Cahill on Thursday, and paid tribute to her resilience.
I was struck by Mairias courage and resilience.
I was also struck by the fact that she shouldnt have had to display that much resilience, had Mairia and the other victims been better supported by the Police Service and by the wider criminal justice system, Mr Hamilton commented following a meeting with Ms Cahill.
We have all failed them and for that I once more apologise. The responsibility for the failing of these cases rest with the Criminal Justice system and not with Mairia or any other victim.
Mairia and I agreed that this was the first of many conversations between her and the Police Service, as we seek to learn from our mistakes.
I am keen to meet Mairia again to ensure that we improve these critical services to benefit all victims.
The Scally Review into the cervical smear controversy in the Republic found there were "serious gaps" in governance and expertise and failure across the whole system of the CervicalCheck programme.
The scandal saw 221 women with cervical cancer not informed that smear test results showing them to be clear were inaccurate and that revised test results were kept from them.
The controversy emerged after Vicky Phelan (43) settled a court action against a US lab in April for 2.5m after her cancer was missed in a smear test taken by CervicalCheck programme.
Dr Gabriel Scally said there was a "demonstrable deficit of clear governance" and reporting lines within the National Screening Service and the higher management of the Republic's Health and Safety Executive.
In his 170-page report, Dr Scally said that there were problems in every area he examined but added that there was "no evidence" of a cover-up or conspiracy.
Dr Scally said that he believes there is not a need for a commission of investigation, adding that he has outlined what his priorities are.
He has made 50 recommendations, which the Irish government has accepted in full.
Speaking about his report, Dr Scally said that the issue of non-disclosure was felt "very intensely" by the women and their families who expressed anger at not being told about the test results when it became available.
"In my view the matter in which they were eventually told about their situation, in many cases varied from unsatisfactory and inappropriate to damaging hurt and offensive," he said.
Dr Scally also said that the relationship between the women involved and the clinicians were "doomed to be bad", criticising the manner in which they were told about their incorrect results.
He said that women involved described how they were "shut down" by clinicians over simple questions and were ushered out the door.
When some of the women asked clinicians why they were not told, some consultants said they "didn't know the protocol" while others claimed it was lost in files, while another said it was "caveated" not to disclose.
The report described how some women were brought into disclosure meetings in the same room as they were diagnosed and, in the case of one woman, the same room her mother died in.
Irish health minister Simon Harris said that he would bring a plan forward for implementing the Scally recommendations before the end of the year.
He added: "The voice of the patient needs to be embedded in our health care system."
Sinn Fein has proposed lowering the voting age in Ireland to 16 in a bid to reform the electoral system.
The party launched its document on electoral reform on Thursday, and said lowering the voting age is the pathway to participation for young and first-time voters.
The document also proposes extending voting rights to those who have been resident in the state for more than five years.
Party spokesman for youth affairs, Senator Fintan Warfield, said the government should not gate-keep voting registers and should allow as many people as possible to vote, opening Seanad elections to all.
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This document really follows the Repeal the Eighth movement and identifies how Sinn Fein believe the state should engage young and first-time voters, and radical proposals to reform the electoral system, he said.
We think that begins with a permanent electoral commission.
The government has previously responded to electoral issues with commitment to create a permanent electoral commission yet we have not seen any development on that front.
We believe an electoral commission should oversee registration processes, registration processes should be national, should promote registration and collect data on the basis of age.
Were also looking at electoral reform and lowering the voting age to 16 and 17 in all elections and extend voting rights to people have been resident in the state for over five years.
Its not good enough that we gate-keep the system, and Sinn Fein believe as many people as possible should be able to vote, that includes emigrants abroad, people in the north in presidential elections, people who have never voted in Seanad elections, who may not be citizens; theyre entitled to vote.
A number of Government reports have recommended the establishment of a permanent electoral commission to aid the democratic process.
The Programme for Government committed to establishing such a commission during its term of office but initially said it would not be ready for the 2016 election.
Critics say the government has provided no firm details or timeline for establishing a commission.
The Citizens Assembly approved a number of proposals in January including 94% in favour of a permanent Electoral Commission.
In May, Fianna Fail and the Green Party called on the government to establish a permanent electoral commission, saying it was urgently needed.
The Prince of Wales enjoyed a small martini shortly after 11am during a visit to a moorland gin distillery.
Charles was first served a neat gin to give him a clear taste of the award-winning spirit, and was then handed the cocktail by business co-founder Sir Walter Riddell at his estate in Hepple, Coquetdale, Northumberland.
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The prince had ventured out in early autumn showers and on to the moor to plant a tiny juniper bush before tasting the product at the small distillery close to Sir Walters house.
The native conifers, grown a few minutes walk away from the distillery, provide the gin with its distinctive taste, as well as locally grown botanicals.
Charles drank the martini stirred, not shaken made for him by Sir Walter, who also handed one to the Duchess of Northumberland, who was accompanying the prince in her role as Lieutenant of Northumberland.
The Moorland Spirit Companys Hepple Gin retails for 38 a bottle and won a gold medal at the San Francisco Spirits Awards.
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Later, Charles paid tribute to volunteers and carers at a garden party hosted by the Duchess of Northumberland at Alnwick Gardens.
He spent two hours at the event, the first of which was held seven years ago when the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh attended.
Charles made a speech, saying: It has been such a joy to discover the enormous range of different organisations and charities and all the different things so many of you are doing in your wonderful way, in all your communities, things that are often unseen and unheard.
Coming here to Northumberland, all I can say is it makes me unbelievably proud just to see what you are all doing, the contribution you all make and the way in which you help to keep this county so very special.
Chief vet Sheila Voas has insisted high animal welfare standards are in place when calves are transported from Scotland (Animal Equality/PA)
Scotlands chief vet has insisted high welfare standards are in place when animals are transported overseas, branding a recent TV programme about the practice alarmist.
Sheila Voas, who is Scotlands chief veterinary officer, said she wanted to reassure the public on the issue.
Ms Voas spoke out after ferry company P&O announced it was halting the transportation of live calves from Scotland after the screening of a BBC documentary.
Rural Affairs Minister Mairi Gougeon however said she was concerned by that decision.
Ms Gougeon said while she was shocked by some of the scenes of young animals being transported in the programme, she stressed there was nothing in it that suggested any harm had been done or there was any breach of any welfare standards by anyone transporting the calves from Scotland to Northern Ireland, Ireland or continental Europe.
Heading home after informative couple days northern Spain talking to researchers about results of long distance calf transport project + seeing for myself. Evidence based policy making at work. pic.twitter.com/gzGGl5IRWd Sheila Voas (@CVOScotland) August 9, 2018
Writing in The Times, Ms Voas said much of the commentary around the practice could be politely referred to as alarmist.
The Scottish Government is currently undertaking a years worth of research to determine the effects on the calves of these journeys.
Ms Voas stated: As Scotlands chief veterinary officer I want to reassure the public that Scotland has a responsible dairy industry that cares about the welfare of these animals and is subject to the highest standards of welfare as regulated by European law.
She added: There are a small numbers of calves being transported to Spain for fattening and production. These are male dairy calves which otherwise would have no productive purpose in Scotland.
Some reports have distorted the reality of these journeys.
Ms Voas said she had recently travelled to Catalonia to see a consignment of calves arrive, saying the animals were bright and alert when they were unloaded.
She added that while typically the overall journey to Spain takes about 100 hours the calves spend more than half of this time resting or being fed, unloaded off their transport, at control posts.
Quite clear @scotgov have been supporting live exports of dairy calves for years so not surprised @NicolaSturgeon wont welcome @POferries ban. There is an ethical alternative to shipping or shooting dairy calves, farmers need support for more ethical rose beef production. Mark Ruskell (@markruskell) September 13, 2018
The chief vet said: For the majority of Scots who enjoy milk and meat but want this to be produced as humanely as possible, I hope I have reassured people that we are committed to ensuring that livestock being transported are supported by high welfare standards.
Green MSP Mark Ruskell raised the issue at First Ministers Questions.
He asked Nicola Sturgeon whether the chief vets views represent the official position of the Scottish Government and urged her to congratulate P&O Ferries decision.
The First Minister said the issue was more complex than the impression given in some of the coverage and praised the chief vets clarity on the issue.
She said there is no hard evidence that the strict EU regulations on animal welfare are being breached.
Mr Ruskell later called for Scottish farmers to be given more support for ethical rose veal production.
The boys family fear they will be subjected to death threats owing to their Christian faith (Church of Scotland/PA)
Nicola Sturgeon has backed a campaign to stop the deportation of two teenage asylum seekers, describing the brothers as a credit to Scotland.
Somer, 15, and Areeb Umeed Bakhsh, 13, face being returned from Glasgow to Pakistan, where they fear for their safety.
They fled the country along with their parents in 2012 after their father was said to have received death threats from Islamic extremists due to his Christian faith.
Fantastic that Scotlands First Minister @NicolaSturgeon recognises that Somer and Areeb are a credit to Scotland and should not be deported. @BobDorisSNP raised the case at #FMQs today https://t.co/iUBspcPLMs Church of Scotland (@churchscotland) September 13, 2018
A petition calling on the Home Office not to deport the boys started by Rev Linda Pollock of Possilpark Parish Church has been signed by more than 85,000 people to date.
Speaking at Holyrood, Ms Sturgeon said the Scottish Government would look at what could be done to ensure the boys can remain.
Maryhill and Springburn MSP Bob Doris raised the case during First Ministers Questions.
The First Minister said: I am very heartened to hear how the local community has rallied round the Bakhsh family and about the response to the Rev Pollocks petition.
I would also like to congratulate Somer and Areeb on what they have achieved in very, very difficult circumstances.
They are an absolute credit to their parents, their school, their community and, indeed, they are a credit to Scotland.
The Scottish Government will continue to look at what appropriate representations we can make.
The petition was handed over to the UK Governments Immigration Enforcement Reporting Centre in Glasgow two weeks ago.
More than 85k people have urged the UK Government to allow teenage brothers, Somer and Areeb, to stay in #Glasgow. Have you signed? #PMQs https://t.co/fwKdeWxpqz #TheresaMay Church of Scotland (@churchscotland) September 12, 2018
The family moved to Scotland from Faisalabad after two men friends of Mr Bakhsh were gunned down outside a court while in police custody.
They were accused of writing a pamphlet critical of the Prophet Muhammad that flouted Pakistans controversial blasphemy law.
It is understood the UK Government has rejected the familys plea for asylum largely because officials do not believe they would be at risk in Pakistan.
After the petition was handed over, a Home Office spokesman said the UK has a proud history of granting asylum to those who need our protection and every case is assessed on its individual merits.
Right Rev Susan Brown, Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, said: The story of this family has touched the hearts of tens of thousands of people who want those in authority to know how upset they are that they are being treated so dispassionately.
If more than 85,000 people are willing to welcome them, why on earth cant the authorities?
A fundraiser who pocketed cash collected for the young son of murdered soldier Lee Rigby has been found guilty of two counts of fraud.
Jurors unanimously convicted Gary Gardner who had spent profits on producing a music single he knew would be a flop.
Leicester Crown Court heard how the fraudster spent up to 5,000 donated by the public for Jack Rigby on producing a charity music single which only raised 200.
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Gardner, 56, denied fraud, claiming his charity single was a flop because of atrocious weather at the launch event in Londons Trafalgar Square in February 2014.
But the jury panel found him guilty after accepting that he used trust funds to prop up his overdrawn bank account a verdict which provoked no emotion from the defendant.
Lee Rigbys widow Rebecca was in court to hear the two guilty verdicts on Thursday.
Opening the crowns case at the start of the one-week trial, prosecutor Samuel Skinner said Gardner also used profits for travel expenses in London as he transferred funds from the charity bank account to his own personal account.
Mr Skinner told jurors: The defendant appears to have an enthusiasm for promoting emerging music artists and it is the showcasing of these acts that has swallowed up most of the verifiable donations.
In any event, the defendant used some of the money for a purpose that the original donors never intended and would not have approved if they had known.
It appears that the defendant has spent all the money he received.
The court was told the lorry driver put on truck-pull events in 2013, 2014 and 2015 in the Leicestershire villages of Medbourne and Market Harborough, and Stroud, Gloucestershire fundraisers which were attended by thousands of people, including Fusilier Rigbys widow and his son Jack.
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In May 2013, Private Lee Rigby of the Royal Fusiliers was murdered on the streets of London and shortly after the soldiers death, Gardner said he wanted to raise money for Jack Rigby and local Medbourne village causes.
Giving evidence in the trial, Mrs Rigby said: There were talks of climbing Kilimanjaro, there were a number of things he wanted to do to raise funds for Jack.
He spoke about large money thousands and it was as if it would set Jack up for life.
Mrs Rigby was asked: Have you ever received any money from this defendant? to which she replied: Jack and myself have never received a penny from him.
Gardner had denied three counts of fraud but was found not guilty of one count which alleged he failed to keep a record of the amounts raised from fundraisers.
After verdicts were reached, Steven Kennell from the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said: Gary Gardners beneficiary, the trust set up for Fusilier Rigbys son, never received a penny from him.
The CPS has presented clear-cut evidence to the court that Gardner did not pass any of the money he raised to the trust fund, and only made the local donations he did make when confronted about his activities.
Whatever his intentions in starting his fundraising, the jury has agreed his activities constituted fraud, in failing to transfer the funds to the beneficiary and spending funds on the charity single.
Mr Kennell added: It was the prosecutions case that he has behaved dishonestly throughout, even inviting the Rigby family to attend his events and posing publicly with a presentation cheque to imply he had donated the money.
Recorder Helen Malcolm QC granted Gardner conditional bail until sentencing at the same court on Friday.
Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari has submitted his nomination form to the All Progressives Congress (APC) to seek re-election in the 2019 general elections.
Buhari submitted the form at the ruling APC National Secretariat in Abuja on Wednesday, local media reported.
The party now has strong and patriotic individuals who are ready, willing and able to continue the journey of building a strong, secure, self-sufficient and corruption-free Nigeria, he said.
The president appealed to party members to continue to work towards the success of the party in the general election and not allow those who brought the country to its knee to get back there.
Nigerias main opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has formed an alliance with dozens of other parties in a bid to defeat President Muhammadu Buhari in next years election.
The coalition, including a faction of the governing party, plans to field a single candidate.
Many serving senators, members of the lower house of parliament and some state governors are believed to be behind the new movement.
The 39-party alliance, called the Coalition of United Political Party, says it wants to form a government of national unity.
The embattled Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, has also picked up a nomination form to return to the House of Representatives on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party.
The speaker was first elected to the parliament in 2007 as a member of the PDP, Nigerias ruling party from 1999 to 2015.
He defected to the APC in 2014 as part of the new-PDP bloc that revolted ahead of the 2015 elections.
The loss of the new-PDP bloc to the APC was considered a major factor responsible for the defeat of President Goodluck Jonathan and the emergence of Muhammadu Buhari.
British holidaymakers have described scenes like Dunkirk after tons of rock fell from a cliff face onto a packed tourist beach on the Greek island of Zante.
Lynette Bridges, 58, from Horndon-on-the Hill in Essex, said her tour boat had just pulled up to the popular Shipwreck Beach when an enormous sheet of stone crashed into the sea, capsizing boats and flooding the crowded beach.
We started to hear this almighty cracking sound and the first lot came down quickly followed by the second lot, she said.
The noise and the sound and the amount of rock that came down was unbelievable, she added.
It was like Dunkirk, all these people coming to the edge of the water, all these boats of people coming to get them and all this panic.
Video footage of the moment showed the rock split and drop onto the shore, sending up a cloud of dust and speeding waves inland over the assorted tourists.
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Sharon Robinson Palmer, also 58 and from Essex, said there were people snorkelling and sunbathing near the limestone cliffs when the landslide struck.
Rescue services with sniffer dogs are searching the beach for possible victims. Greek authorities said one foreign woman had been injured and taken to hospital.
Josh OConnell, from Kilkenny in Ireland, estimated there were more than a dozen tourist boats in the bay, and between four and five hundred people in the area.
The 21-year-old, who works for a tour company on the island, said: The rock that fell, oh gosh, it would be like a four storey building falling onto the beach.
The weight of the rock sent a small tsunami onto the crowded sands, he said, as families scrambled to get to safety.
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He continued: I thought more was coming and with the size of the waves coming towards me I just started running.
The water hit my feet with such force that it knocked me onto my back and covered over half of the beach.
He described the aftermath as chaos, with families and children running to get to safety on the boats.
The coastguard later said everyone who had visited the beach on tourist boats had been accounted for.
A man has been jailed for at least 17 years for the murder of a restaurant manager almost a quarter of a century ago.
Jagtar Singh, 51, stabbed Ansar Shah to death outside a restaurant in Ayr, South Ayrshire, in the early hours of October 4 1993.
The fight nearly 25 years ago was the culmination of a dispute between staff of two restaurants, prosecutors said.
Mr Shah died at the scene after being knifed a number of times by the attacker.
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Singh fled to England the following morning and later set up a new life in France before being arrested in Frankfurt, Germany, on a European Arrest Warrant last year and brought back to Scotland to face justice.
He was jailed on Thursday after being convicted of murder following a trial at the High Court in Glasgow.
Judge Lord Beckett handed Singh a mandatory life sentence and ordered him to spend at least 17 years behind bars before he can be considered for release.
Passing sentence, he said Singh had arrived at the scene with a large knife, ready for violence.
He said: You stabbed Mr Shah three times on the left side of his chest. You inflicted wounds which he could not have survived. Two of the wounds, which required the application of considerable force, extended into the heart
You fled the scene and fled the country, managing to avoid justice for almost a quarter of a century.
He continued: As a result of your vicious and gratuitous assault, Mr Shah lost his life at the age of 38 and his family, whom he was supporting, lost him forever.
It is plain from the evidence in the trial that Mr Shah was a responsible man who was well liked and respected by his colleagues and those he employed.
Mr Shahs two daughters and their mother who was married to him at the time of his death have written of the terrible loss they suffered and the appalling consequences for their family.
I have read heart-breaking descriptions of the scene when his wife and two young children learned of his sudden death. One daughter was born two months after he died and so she never met her father. His son never got over the loss of his father.
The work of these specialists ensured that even 25 years on and despite Jagtar Singh having fled abroad in an attempt to evade justice, the killer of Ansar Shah is now behind barsProcurator fiscal Nicola Patrick
The judges comments were released by the Judicial Office for Scotland following the hearing.
Detective Inspector Mark Henderson, the senior investigating officer, described Singh as a coward who did everything he could to try to escape the consequences of his actions.
The police operation to snare him involved working with law enforcement officers across Europe.
Mr Henderson added: We hope that after almost 25 years of anguish and suffering, the Shah family, who have always acted with dignity, are able to try to take some comfort from the fact that the man responsible is now behind bars and they have the answers they have been looking for, for all those years.
Nicola Patrick, procurator fiscal for homicide and major crime, said it was a challenging investigation.
She said: The work of these specialists ensured that even 25 years on and despite Jagtar Singh having fled abroad in an attempt to evade justice, the killer of Ansar Shah is now behind bars.
Theresa May has faced demands to assure MPs about her personal efforts to end the "completely abhorrent" investigations of Northern Ireland military veterans.
Johnny Mercer, a former Army officer and now a Conservative MP, warned the "vast majority" of the country is against seeing former soldiers being "dragged through the courts" over events linked to the Troubles.
He later said Mrs May's response was "not good enough" after she acknowledged the concerns and labelled the investigation process in Northern Ireland as "flawed" due to its "disproportionate focus" on former members of the armed forces and police.
The Prime Minister also acknowledged terrorist murders from the Troubles era are being investigated, having claimed earlier this year in the Commons that "terrorists are not being investigated".
In July, more than 30 Tory MPs supported a backbench proposal for a 20-year time limit on reopening cases involving former members of the armed forces who served in Northern Ireland.
Plymouth Moor View MP Mercer said: "The Prime Minister will be aware not only of my feelings but of pretty much everyone in this House and the vast majority of this country when it comes to seeing our veterans being dragged through the courts in Northern Ireland to appease political differences.
"As Prime Minister can I ask what she is personally doing, how she is personally investing of herself in this process to bring to an end something the vast majority of her country finds completely abhorrent?"
Mrs May replied that she was "well aware of the degree of concern there is about this issue" and had "held a number of discussions" with Secretary of State Karen Bradley on the matter.
She said: "We owe a vast debt of gratitude to the heroism and bravery of the soldiers and police officers who upheld the rule of law, and themselves were accountable to it - and that is always something that has set them apart from the terrorists, who during the Troubles were responsible for the deaths of hundreds of security force members.
"But as I've made clear, the current system in Northern Ireland is flawed. It isn't working for soldiers, for police officers or for victims - a group, in fact, which includes many soldiers and police officers as well.
"Though while a number of terrorist murders from the Troubles are actively under investigation by PSNI and other police forces, under the current mechanism for investigating the past there's a disproportionate focus on former members of the armed forces and the police.
"We want to ensure all outstanding deaths in Northern Ireland are investigated in fair, balanced and proportionate ways."
Writing on Twitter after PMQs, Mr Mercer said Mrs May's answer was "not good enough".
Sinn Fein MLA Linda Dillon said it was a "myth" that the legacy process is skewed against former British soldiers.
She added: "It is all very well speaking to the green benches of Westminster, but Theresa May would be better served speaking to families here who were directly affected by state killings and tell them why she believes state forces are above the law."
Anti-terror police have arrested more white suspects than people of Asian appearance in a year for the first time in more than a decade, figures reveal.
Home Office statistics show a total of 351 arrests where there was a suspicion of terrorism-related activity in the 12 months to the end of June.
Of those, 133 were white and 129 were recorded as Asian ethnic appearance.
120 resulted in a charge
92 were terrorism-related
184 released without charge
29 released on bail pending investigation
18 faced 'alternative action'
Arrests of white suspects accounted for 38% of terrorist-related arrests in the latest period an increase of four percentage points on the previous year.The proportion who were of Asian appearance fell by seven points to 37%.
The Home Office report said: This was the first time, since the year ending June 2005, that the proportion of white people arrested has exceeded the proportion of Asian people arrested.
The figures, which cover the use of anti-terrorism powers in Britain, showed that 234 arrests were registered in the international category.
This covers suspected activity linked to or motivated by terrorist groups based outside the UK, such as Islamic State.
Seventy-five were logged in the domestic bracket, which relates to cases where there is no connection to either Northern Ireland or international terrorism.
46 convicted
2 found not guilty
Further breakdowns are not given but this section would include arrests relating to suspected far-right activity.
The total number of arrests fell by more than a fifth (22%) year-on-year, but police stressed this did not mean the threat has reduced.
Officers said the fall was mainly due to a spike in arrests following terrorist incidents in the previous reporting year.
There were five attacks in the UK in 2017, but only one, the attempted Parsons Green bombing, in the period covered by the latest statistics.
The step-change in terrorist activity is matched only by an increased effort from police and security servicesDean Haydon
In total, security agencies say they are carrying out an unprecedented 650-plus active terrorism investigations.
Counter-terror police senior national co-ordinator, Deputy Assistant Commissioner Dean Haydon, said: We may have seen a reduction in the number of arrests in the last 12 months, but we should put that in context by saying that we prevented 13 Islamist-related and four extreme right-wing plots since March 2017, so it certainly doesnt indicate a reduction in the threat we all face from terrorism.
The step-change in terrorist activity is matched only by an increased effort from police and security services, and our officers are working incredibly hard to protect the public and to bring people to justice, which is evidenced by the impressive conviction rate achieved in the last year.
Of the 351 arrests, 120 (34%) resulted in a charge, of which 92 (77%) were terrorism-related, 184 (52%) were released without charge, 29 (8%) were released on bail pending further investigation, and 18 (5%) faced alternative action.
Of the 92 individuals charged with a terrorism-related offence, 48 had been prosecuted, of which 46 were convicted and two were found not guilty.
Forty-one people were awaiting prosecution, two were subject to other outcomes and one was not proceeded against.
Tory Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg has brushed off a protest by anarchist demonstrators who harangued him and his young children outside his London home.
Video footage posted online by Class War shows veteran protester Ian Bone telling one of the MP's sons: "Your daddy's a totally horrible person, lots of people don't like your daddy, do you know that?"
Downing Street condemned the protesters' actions, describing them as "completely unacceptable".
"No elected member or their family should be subjected to intimidation or abuse in that way," the Prime Minister's official spokesman said.
However, the MP sought to play down the incident, insisting his children were "absolutely fine", despite the barracking.
"I wouldn't get too excited about it. It was a few anarchists who turned up and it wasn't very well organised. It wasn't terribly serious," he told LBC radio.
The online footage shows a small group of protesters confronting Mr Rees-Mogg and his wife and four of their six children on the pavement outside their London home, while a policeman looks on.
Mr Bone is seen taunting them, accusing them of failing to pay the family's nanny, Veronica Crook, properly.
Sir Vince Cable has said a second referendum should be mandatory if Scotland ever voted to leave the UK, so that any terms of Scottish independence agreed could be confirmed by the voting public as acceptable.
The Liberal Democrat leader pointed to confirmatory votes in countries like Switzerland, where such ballots are common.
He also urged the SNP to come off the fence on a second EU referendum.
Expand Close The Scottish Government published detailed proposals on its vision for independence before the poll in 2014 (Danny Lawson/PA) PA Archive/PA Images / Facebook
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Speaking to BBC Scotland, he said: If there ever were in future a referendum on Scottish independence and people voted for it, I think they would themselves have to accept that there should then be a confirmatory vote at the end.
That would be the way referendums are conducted in places like Switzerland, which use these things commonly.
So I dont think theres any inconsistency with (the SNP) supporting us on the principle of having a peoples vote on Europe.
Both the Lib Dems and SNP want to keep the UK in the single market and customs union, but Nicola Sturgeon has not endorsed holding a second vote on any Brexit deal.
A view of the bow of Honeybourne 3, a Scottish scallop dredger, in dock at Shoreham, West Sussex, following clashes with French fishermen in the early hours of Tuesday morning in the English Channel during a long-running dispute over the scallop-rich area that the French are prevented from harvesting.
Royal Navy warships should intervene to help British fishermen in the scallop wars, a Tory MP has said.
The call came after talks between the UK and France to end a dispute over scallop fishing in the English Channel ended without agreement.
Crews clashed last month over laws that allow British boats to gather scallops year-round, but place restrictions on French vessels.
Some 35 French boats confronted five British craft off the coast of northern France, with reports of rocks and smoke bombs being hurled at UK vessels.
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Tory MP Philip Hollobone, speaking in the Commons, said that British fishermen had the moral right to fish in the region and called for the Royal Navy to assist.
He said: If this fishing is taking place outside of French territorial waters why cant the Royal Navy accompany our ships back into those fishing grounds?
If weve got fishery protection vessels and type 23 frigates permanently positioned in the Channel, surely the Royal Navy should be at sea with our fishermen to protect their livelihoods?
Environment minister George Eustice responded by saying it was the responsibility of the French authorities to police and enforce fishing activity in the area.
He told MPs that he had written to his French counterpart to express his disappointment at an agreement not being reached to end the scallop wars in the English Channel.
The industry is looking to Government for some backbone and for the minister to fight for themSue Hayman
He told the Commons: The UK Government has offered to assist French enforcement authorities with MMO (Marine Management Organisation) personnel should they want to consider joint operations given the risk of further altercations.
I have also asked the French government to consider the alternative options available to them.
Firstly, it seems to me that putting back in place the agreement for the over 15-metre fleet, which has stood the test of time over the last five years, would be preferable to no agreement at all and I hope the French industry will reconsider their position in this regard.
Secondly, it is open to the French government to lift the domestic restrictions they have in place earlier than they normally would in order to address concerns that their industry has expressed about the lack of a level playing field.
The UK industry is legally allowed to fish in the Bay of Seine. They have shown considerable restraint during the negotiations and I welcome their cooperation and understanding.
Mr Eustice said he has emphasised the absolute need for safety to remain paramount and he hoped a mutually beneficial outcome might still be agreed.
Shadow environment secretary Sue Hayman said livelihoods of communities are being hurt by not being allowed to fish in the area.
She said the French navy should have stopped the appalling violence and sought assurances over the measures in place to stop it happening again.
Ms Hayman added: As we await the publication of the Fisheries Bill, the industry is looking to Government for some backbone and for the minister to fight for them, their livelihoods and their communities.
She said ministers who failed to find their voice over the scallops wars would be responsible for sealing a deal with the EU on quotas and access to waters.
The two men caught on CCTV in Salisbury (Metropolitan Police/PA)
Britain has accused Russia of responding with obfuscation and lies after the prime suspects in the Salisbury nerve agent attack claimed they visited the UK as tourists.
Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov told Russian state-funded news channel RT they travelled to the wonderful city in Wiltshire after recommendations from friends.
The pair claimed they have been left fearing for their lives after Britain pointed to their involvement and said they were officers in Russian military intelligence service the GRU.
In the interview, with RT editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan, they said they worked in the fitness industry.
In a translation from Russian, the broadcaster quoted Petrov as saying they arrived in London on March 2 and attempted to visit Salisbury on March 3 but were thwarted by snow.
They returned the following day when it was warmer to see the cathedral.
He said: Of course, we went there to see Stonehenge, Old Sarum, but we couldnt do it because there was muddy slush everywhere. The town was covered by this slush. We got wet, took the nearest train and came back (to London).
In the mens first interview since they were named publicly they denied carrying womens perfume, after police discovered a counterfeit bottle that contained a significant amount of Novichok.
Boshirov acknowledged they may have been near Mr Skripals house but they did not know where it was.
They also asked for an apology from the UK authorities, adding: We just want this to be over.
UK authorities believe the pair smeared the highly toxic chemical Novichok on a door handle at the Wiltshire home of former GRU officer Sergei Skripal, leaving Mr Skripal and his daughter Yulia critically ill.
Tests on the east London hotel room where the suspects had stayed showed contamination of Novichok.
A Government spokesman said: The Government is clear these men are officers of the Russian military intelligence service the GRU who used a devastatingly toxic, illegal chemical weapon on the streets of our country.
We have repeatedly asked Russia to account for what happened in Salisbury in March.
Today just as we have seen throughout they have responded with obfuscation and lies.
Q: Did you approach Skripal residence in #Salisbury?
A: We dont even know its location; we could pass it without even knowing whose house it actually is#SkripalCase https://t.co/18EqeN4zGX pic.twitter.com/pxRGbTp1Zx RT (@RT_com) September 13, 2018
John Glen, the Conservative MP for Salisbury and South Wiltshire, also dismissed the statements from Petrov and Boshirov as not credible.
President Vladimir Putin said the men had been discounted as members of his security network.
In an address to the Easter Economic Forum in Vladivostok, he said: Of course, we looked who these people are. We know who they are, we have found them already.
There is nothing special and nothing criminal about it, Im telling you.
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Questioned on whether the pair were civilians, Mr Putin replied: Of course they are civilians.
Boshirov said his life had been turned upside down, according to RT.
He said: Were afraid of going out, we fear for ourselves, our lives and lives of our loved ones.
Detectives believe it is likely the two suspects, thought to be aged around 40, travelled under aliases and that Petrov and Boshirov are not their real names.
Officers formally linked the attack on the Skripals to events in nearby Amesbury where Dawn Sturgess, 44, and her partner Charlie Rowley, 45, were exposed to the same nerve agent.
Ms Sturgess died in hospital in July, just over a week after the pair fell ill.
A police officer who visited the home of the Skripals shortly after the attack, Nick Bailey, was also left critically ill from exposure to the substance.
Mark Serwotka is the general secretary of the Public and Commercial Services union which represents around 200,000 members (Gareth Fuller/PA)
The leader of one of the countrys foremost trade unions has risked igniting further accusations of anti-Semitism within the Labour party by reportedly hinting Israel created the issue to mask its own atrocities.
Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the Public and Commercial Services union (PCS) which represents around 200,000 members, is said to have made the comments during a fringe meeting at the Trades Union Congress conference in Manchester this week.
Audio footage broadcast on The Independent website, attributed to Mr Serwotka, cited Donald Trumps decision to shift the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem a deeply divisive move that broke with a decades-old international position and triggered furious protests as well as the bloody deaths of unarmed Palestinians at the hands of the Israeli military as among the real issues being distracted from by accusations of anti-Semitism.
We should not allow the issue of anti-Semitism to be used by people who are attempting to silence Palestinian voices as they legitimately struggle for their rights and a sovereign statePCS spokesman
He is alleged to have said: Im not a conspiracy theorist, but Ill tell you what one of the best forms of trying to hide from the atrocities that you are committing is to go on the offensive and actually create a story that does not exist for people on this platform, the trade union movement or, I have to say, for the leader of the Labour Party.
A PCS spokesman said: Mark spoke at a Palestine Solidarity Campaign fringe event at the TUC an organisation PCS is affiliated to.
He made the point at the start of the meeting that we need to oppose anti-Semitism in society and within the labour movement.
But we should not allow the issue of anti-Semitism to be used by people who are attempting to silence Palestinian voices as they legitimately struggle for their rights and a sovereign state.
The comments come at the end of a summer dominated by accusations of anti-Semitism within Labour, with former prominent frontbencher Chuka Umunna branding the party institutionally racist at the weekend over its handling of the anti-Semitism row.
Georgian and Armenian PMs say Trade Turnover Should Increase
By Gvantsa Gabekhadze
Georgian and Armenian prime ministers stated in Yerevan on Monday that the Georgian-Armenian trade turnover should increase to 1 billion USD.During his first official visit as prime minister in Armenia Mamuka Bakhtadze mainly focused on trade-economic issues when he met with Nikol Pashinyan.The Georgian PM also spoke about Georgias Euro-Atlantic choice.Pashinyan congratulated Bakhtadze on his appointment and expressed hope that his official visit to Armenia will promote further development of relations between the two countries.Bakhtadze thanked the Prime Minister of Armenia for his hospitality and highlighted the important reforms implemented in Georgia.Bakhtadze said that a number of important steps would be taken towards the transformation of the country and the rapid development of the Georgian economy.We are ready to share our experience with friends, Bakhtadze said.Pashinyan arrived in Georgia in May 2018, shortly after his election as PM.Our people are deeply connected, and the connection is inseparable. It is not a coincidence that my first official visit took place in Georgia. This reveals not only my peoples attitude toward Georgia but also my attitude to the Georgian people and the country, Pashinyan told then PM Giorgi Kvirikishvili.Pashinyan stated that he and his administration would spare no efforts to enhance bilateral relations with Georgia.
Hurricane Florence has been downgraded to a Category 2 storm but is still considered an extremely dangerous and life-threatening storm, US officials said.
Faced with new forecasts that showed a more southerly threat, Georgias governor joined his counterparts in Virginia and North and South Carolina in declaring a state of emergency, and some residents who had thought they were safely out of range boarded up their homes.
The National Hurricane Centres best guess was that Florence would blow ashore as early as Friday afternoon around the North Carolina-South Carolina border, then push its rainy way westward with a potential for catastrophic inland flooding.
Night-time winds were down to 110mph from a high of 140mph, and the Category 3 storm fell to a Category 2, with a further slow weakening expected as the storm nears the coast.
But authorities warned it will still be an extremely dangerous hurricane.
Maximum winds from #Florence have decreased, but don't let that fool you. This "weakening" only refers to maximum winds. The wind field has expanded and rainfall/storm surge potential are still at catastrophic levels.https://t.co/meemB5uHAR pic.twitter.com/IRiuxeVeUf National Weather Service (@NWS) September 13, 2018
Do you want to get hit with a train or do you want to get hit with a cement truck? said Jeff Byard, an administrator with the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Tropical storm-force winds extended 195 miles from Florences centre, and hurricane-force winds reached out 70 miles.
The National Weather Service said 5.25 million people live in areas under hurricane warnings or watches, and 4.9 million in places covered by tropical storm warnings or watches.
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President Donald Trump touted the governments readiness and urged people to get out of the way of Florence.
Dont play games with it. Its a big one, he said.
Early on Thursday, the storm was centred 235 miles east-south-east of Wilmington, North Carolina, moving north-west at 17mph.
The hurricane centre said Florence will approach the coast on Friday and linger for a while before rolling ashore.
As of Tuesday, more than 1.7 million people in the Carolinas and Virginia were warned to clear out.
Airlines had cancelled nearly 1,000 flights and counting.
Here are the 11 PM EDT Key Messages for Hurricane #Florence. Latest information available at https://t.co/tW4KeFW0gB pic.twitter.com/Qckto38JyW National Hurricane Center (@NHC_Atlantic) September 13, 2018
Home Depot and Lowes activated emergency response centres to get generators, rubbish bags and bottled water to stores before and after the storm.
The two hardware chains said they sent a total of around 1,100 trucks.
Power company Duke Energy said Florence could knock out electricity to three-quarters of its four million customers in the Carolinas, and outages could last for weeks.
Workers are being brought in from the Midwest and Florida to help in the storms aftermath, it said.
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Boarding up his home in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, Chris Pennington watched the forecasts and tried to decide when to leave.
In 12 or 18 hours, they may be saying different things all over again, he said.
Computer models of exactly what the storm might do varied, adding to the uncertainty.
In contrast to the hurricane centres official projection, a highly regarded European model had the storm turning southward off the North Carolina coast and coming ashore near the Georgia-South Carolina line.
Based on the latest 11 a.m. forecast for the southward track of Hurricane Florence after making landfall and acting on a recommendation from @GeorgiaEMA officials, I have issued an emergency declaration for all 159 counties in Georgia. Read more here: https://t.co/FmO4iELdYq Former Gov. Nathan Deal (@GovernorDeal) September 12, 2018
Reacting to the possibility of a more southerly track, Georgia governor Nathan Deal declared an emergency but did not immediately order any evacuations.
I ask all Georgians to join me in praying for the safety of our people and all those in the path of Hurricane Florence, Mr Deal said.
The shift in the projected track spread concern to areas that once thought they were relatively safe.
In South Carolina, close to the Georgia line, Beaufort County emergency chief Neil Baxley told residents they need to prepare again for the worst just in case.
Weve had our lessons. Now it might be time for the exam, he said.
In Virginia, where about 245,000 residents were ordered to evacuate low-lying areas, officials urged people to remain away from home despite forecast changes showing Florences path largely missing the state.
Their entire neighborhood evacuated in Wilmington, North Carolina, David and Janelle Garrigus planned to ride out Florence at their daughters one-bedroom apartment in Charlotte.
Unsure of what they might find when they return home, the couple went shopping for a recreational vehicle.
Were just trying to plan for the future here, not having a house for an extended period of time, David Garrigus said.
Melody Rawson evacuated her first-floor apartment in Myrtle Beach and arrived at Atlanta Motor Speedway in Hampton, Georgia, to camp for free with three other adults, her disabled son, two dogs and a pet bird.
We hope to have something left when we get home, she said.
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Forecasters worried the storms damage will be all the worse if it lingers on the coast.
The trend is exceptionally bad news, said University of Miami hurricane researcher Brian McNoldy, since it smears a landfall out over hundreds of miles of coastline, most notably the storm surge.
With South Carolinas beach towns more in the bulls-eye because of the shifting forecast, Ohio tourists Chris and Nicole Roland put off their departure from North Myrtle Beach to get the maximum amount of time on the sand.
Most other beachgoers were long gone.
Its been really nice, Nicole Roland said. Also, a little creepy. You feel like you should have already left.
Hurricane Florence has more than 10 million people in its crosshairs as the monster storm closes in on the US East Coast with uncertainty over its projected path spreading worry across a widening swathe of the country.
Faced with new forecasts that showed a more southerly threat, Georgias governor joined his counterparts in Virginia and North and South Carolina in declaring a state of emergency, and some residents who had thought they were safely out of range boarded up their homes.
The National Hurricane Centres best guess was that Florence would blow ashore as early as Friday afternoon around the North Carolina-South Carolina line, then push its rainy way westward with a potential for catastrophic inland flooding.
Florences winds in the afternoon were down to 120mph from a high of 140mph, and the Category 4 storm fell to a Category 3, with a further slow weakening expected as the storm nears the coast.
Based on the latest 11 a.m. forecast for the southward track of Hurricane Florence after making landfall and acting on a recommendation from @GeorgiaEMA officials, I have issued an emergency declaration for all 159 counties in Georgia. Read more here: https://t.co/FmO4iELdYq Former Gov. Nathan Deal (@GovernorDeal) September 12, 2018
But authorities warned it will still be an extremely dangerous hurricane.
Do you want to get hit with a train or do you want to get hit with a cement truck? said Jeff Byard, an administrator with the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Tropical storm-force winds extended 195 miles from Florences centre, and hurricane-force winds reached out 70 miles.
The National Weather Service said 5.25 million people live in areas under hurricane warnings or watches, and 4.9 million live in places covered by tropical storm warnings or watches.
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At the White House, President Donald Trump both touted the governments readiness and urged people to get out of the way of Florence.
Dont play games with it. Its a big one, he said.
As of 5pm, the storm was centred 385 miles southeast of Wilmington, North Carolina, moving northwest at 16mph.
The hurricane centre said Florence will approach the coast on Friday and linger for a while before rolling ashore.
As of Tuesday, more than 1.7 million people in the Carolinas and Virginia were warned to clear out.
Airlines had cancelled nearly 1,000 flights and counting.
Home Depot and Lowes activated emergency response centres to get generators, rubbish bags and bottled water to stores before and after the storm.
The two hardware chains said they sent in a total of around 1,100 vehicles.
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Duke Energy said Florence could knock out electricity to three-quarters of its four million customers in the Carolinas, and outages could last for weeks.
Workers are being brought in from the Midwest and Florida to help in the storms aftermath, it said.
Boarding up his home in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, Chris Pennington watched the forecasts and tried to decide when to leave.
In 12 or 18 hours, they may be saying different things all over again, he said.
Computer models of exactly what the storm might do varied, adding to the uncertainty.
Expand Close A sign posts a mandatory evacuation prior to Hurricane Florence in Emerald Isle, North Carolina (Tom Copeland/AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook
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In contrast to the hurricane centres official projection, a highly regarded European model had the storm turning southward off the North Carolina coast and coming ashore near the Georgia-South Carolina line.
Reacting to the possibility of a more southerly track, Georgia governor Nathan Deal declared an emergency but did not immediately order any evacuations.
I ask all Georgians to join me in praying for the safety of our people and all those in the path of Hurricane Florence, Mr Deal said.
The shift in the projected track spread concern to areas that once thought they were relatively safe.
In South Carolina, close to the Georgia line, Beaufort County emergency chief Neil Baxley told residents they need to prepare again for the worst just in case.
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Weve had our lessons. Now it might be time for the exam, he said.
Their entire neighbourhood evacuated in Wilmington, North Carolina, David and Janelle Garrigus planned to ride out Florence at their daughters one-bedroom apartment in Charlotte.
Unsure of what they might find when they return home, the couple went shopping for a recreational vehicle.
Were just trying to plan for the future here, not having a house for an extended period of time, David Garrigus said.
Expand Close A paddle boarder gets in some exercise ahead of the arrival of Hurricane Florence (Mic Smith/AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook
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Melody Rawson evacuated her first-floor apartment in Myrtle Beach and arrived at Atlanta Motor Speedway in Hampton, Georgia, to camp for free with three other adults, her disabled son, two dogs and a pet bird.
We hope to have something left when we get home, she said.
Forecasters worried the storms damage will be all the worse if it lingers on the coast.
The trend is exceptionally bad news, said University of Miami hurricane researcher Brian McNoldy, since it smears a landfall out over hundreds of miles of coastline, most notably the storm surge.
With South Carolinas beach towns more in the bulls-eye because of the shifting forecast, Ohio vacationers Chris and Nicole Roland put off their departure from North Myrtle Beach to get the maximum amount of time on the sand. Most other beachgoers were long gone.
Its been really nice, Nicole Roland said. Also, a little creepy. You feel like you should have already left.
Vladimir Putin has insisted Russia is a peaceful nation after inspecting war games in Siberia which have been billed as the biggest in the countrys history.
The week-long Vostok (East) 2018 manoeuvres span vast expanses of Siberia and the Far East, the Arctic and the Pacific Oceans.
They involve nearly 300,000 Russian troops along with 1,000 Russian aircraft and 36,000 tanks and other combat vehicles.
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Speaking at a firing range in the Chita region on Thursday, the Russian president lauded the troops for their high-level performance and insisted the drills are not targeted at any other country.
Russia is a peaceful nation, Mr Putin said. We do not and cannot have any aggressive plans.
More than 3,000 Chinese troops have joined the Russian military in the manoeuvres aimed to showcase burgeoning military ties between Moscow and Beijing amid their tensions with the US.
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The Chinese media described the Peoples Liberation Army involvement in the drills as the countrys largest ever dispatch of forces abroad for war games.
Burmas handling of its Rohingya Muslims could have been better, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and leader Aung San Suu Kyi has said.
Burma is facing international pressure over atrocities allegedly committed by its military in the crackdown that followed August 2017 attacks by Rohingya militants on security forces.
The army is accused of committing mass rape, killings and setting fire to thousands of homes.
A report issued two weeks ago by a specially appointed UN human rights team recommended prosecuting senior Burma commanders for genocide and other crimes.
There are of course ways in which with hindsight I think the situation could have been handled better, Ms Suu Kyi said, responding to questions during a one-on-one discussion at the World Economic Forums regional meeting in Hanoi.
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She still defended Burma security forces, saying that all groups in Rakhine state had to be protected.
We have to be fair to all sides, Ms Suu Kyi said. The rule of law must apply to everyone. We cannot choose and pick.
Ms Suu Kyi said the situation was complicated by the myriad ethnic minorities in the area, some of which are at risk of disappearing entirely and which include not just the Muslims and Rakhine Buddhists.
Although the violence in Rakhine state has eased, Burma has to deal with its aftermath, especially the repatriation of the Muslim Rohingya who fled and the underlying causes of tension that makes them targets of discrimination and repression in overwhelmingly Buddhist Burma.
Ms Suu Kyi said that Burma is prepared to take those who fled back, but their return has been complicated by the fact that two governments are involved.
Aid workers say conditions for a safe and orderly return of the refugees have not been met.
Ms Suu Kyi also rejected criticism over the show-trial conviction last week of two Reuters news agency reporters who helped expose extrajudicial killings of 10 Rohingya men and boys.
The reporters were both sentenced to seven years imprisonment on charges of possessing state secrets.
US vice president Mike Pence is among those who have condemned the verdicts and called for the journalists release.
The case has been held in open court, Ms Suu Kyi said. If anyone feels there has been a miscarriage of justice, I would like them to point it out.
They were not jailed because they were journalists. They were jailed because the court has decided they have broken the Official Secrets Act, she said.
Ms Suu Kyi noted that the two can appeal their sentences.
Netta Barzilai, pictured with the Duke of Cambridge, won the 2018 Eurovision Song Contest (Ian Vogler/Daily Mirror/PA)
The Eurovision Song Contest will be held in Tel Aviv next year, organisers have announced.
The Israeli government initially insisted on holding the competition in Jerusalem but following a backlash over the US recognition of Jerusalem as its capital and a fear of boycotts, it dropped the demand.
A Eurovision spokesman said they chose Tel Aviv, Israels cultural and commercial capital, because of its creative and compelling bid.
The Host City for the Eurovision Song Contest 2019 is...
Tel Aviv, Israel
Semi-final 1 - 14 May
Semi-final 2 - 16 May
Grand Final - 18 May
Tweet using #Eurovision #ESC2019
Learn more about the host city on our website: https://t.co/Wz3aOCXrX9 pic.twitter.com/zTEtlgUx8G Eurovision Song Contest (@Eurovision) September 13, 2018
Israel won the Eurovision this year with a flashy pop tune called Toy by Netta Barzilai, who dazzled viewers with her feminist lyrics, unconventional appearance and signature chicken dance.
Her victory earned Israel the right to host next years contest.
Eurovision is a perfect fit for our city, which has been internationally acclaimed for its vibrant energy, creative spirit, its lively cultural scene and its celebration of freedom, said Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai. We are looking forward to host a joyful and nonstop event in the spirit of Tel Aviv.
In Europe, capital cities have usually played host to the competition but the city Israel considers its capital is not recognised as such by most of the international community.
Hosting the competition in Jerusalem could have presented a predicament for the public broadcasters that make up the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), sparking criticism that they would be taking sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The so-called BDS group for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions has called on the EBU, the contests sponsor, to boycott the Eurovision contest in Israel altogether.
Israel captured east Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war and annexed the area in a move that is not internationally recognised. Israel considers the entire city to be its capital while the Palestinians seek east Jerusalem as the capital of a future state.
Tel Aviv, which is hosting the event for the first time, says it expects around 20,000 tourists to visit the city.
The Eurovision semi-finals will be held in Tel Aviv on May 14 and 16 followed by the grand final on May 18.
Donald Trump has rejected the widely accepted death toll in Puerto Rico from Hurricane Maria and claimed without citing evidence that 3,000 people did not die.
Mr Trump called the death toll a move by Democrats to make him look bad.
The US president tweeted on Thursday as Hurricane Florence bears down on the Carolinas.
He said: When I left the Island, AFTER the storm had hit, they had anywhere from 6 to 18 deaths. As time went by it did not go up by much. Then, a long time later, they started to report really large numbers, like 3000
Puerto Ricos governor raised the US territorys official death toll from Hurricane Maria from 64 to 2,975 after an independent study found the number of people who died in the aftermath had been severely under-counted.
Maria devastated the island in September 2017 and knocked out the entire electricity grid.
Researchers from the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University said the original estimates were so low because doctors on the island had not been trained to properly classify deaths after a natural disaster.
The elderly and impoverished were hardest hit by the hurricane.
The mayor of Puerto Ricos capital accused Mr Trump of being delusional.
San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz tweeted: Simply put: delusional, paranoid, and unhinged from any sense of reality. Trump is so vain he thinks this is about him. NO IT IS NOT.
Simply put: delusional, paranoid, and unhinged from any sense of reality. Trump is so vain he thinks this is about him. NO IT IS NOT. pic.twitter.com/K96H5O3NKM Carmen Yulin Cruz (@CarmenYulinCruz) September 13, 2018
She also tweeted: Damn it: this is NOT about politics this was always about SAVING LIVES.
Damn it: this is NOT about politics this was always about SAVING LIVES. pic.twitter.com/SjwywKN3Jh Carmen Yulin Cruz (@CarmenYulinCruz) September 13, 2018
Ms Cruz maintains the federal governments response to the hurricane was slow and inadequate while Mr Trump said it was a success.
The RHI inquiry is ongoing and the headlines are often devoted to what is seen as sensational, or unsavoury, especially if it can be attached to a politician. There is still much that is disputed and that is why I have refrained from commenting. I believe we are best to await the final report before coming to conclusions.
However, there are a few things that have not been disputed. One in particular caught my attention. When he was giving evidence, Dr Andrew McCormick, a senior civil servant, said that, as regards the Civil Service: Our balance has been too much in favour of generalism and not enough in terms of depth of expertise. He identified that as one of the factors as to why things went wrong.
This was the view of a senior civil servant and, therefore, especially noteworthy. However, while it was reported in the media, it did not receive the attention it deserved. Too many people prefer the sensational and the unsavoury to the insightful, yet the insightful may well be the most important.
Down through the years, working in the cultural sector and then later as an MLA and minister, I have met and worked with many civil servants and I hold most of them in high regard.
However, on the basis of that experience, I believe that Dr McCormick was absolutely right and we should be grateful to him for saying it, even if it did not receive the recognition it merited.
Earlier this year, I met a civil servant whom I knew and congratulated her on her new appointment.
I already knew her, because I had met her when she was working in another department with an entirely different remit and, in fact, I had met her before that, when she was working in another post on another subject.
Now, what struck me about this was that the subject areas on which she was working were so entirely different. A civil servant could be working today in the Department for Infrastructure on a roads project and then be moved from there to the Department for Communities to deal with welfare reform and then on to the Department of Health.
There is no way in which a person could have a depth of expertise, or even be expected to have a depth of expertise, in all of these areas. Civil servants may well have a breadth of expertise, but for most of them their knowledge will be broad and generalist, rather than detailed and in-depth.
There is an emphasis on skills, such as problem-solving and project management, which are, by their nature, generalist, and not enough emphasis on having in-house and in-depth expertise.
Shortly after devolution in 1999, I was working in the Ulster-Scots Heritage Council and went to meet a civil servant. He had been in post for some months and I was struck by his extremely tidy desk and set of carefully sharpened pencils, but I was shocked to find that he had almost no in-depth knowledge of his new area of responsibility.
Without that depth of in-house expertise in the Civil Service there is, then, an over-reliance on external consultants.
It may be good for the consultancy sector, but does it produce good outcomes? We need civil servants who can spot when the consultants get it wrong.
Civil servants are often moved around to enable them to increase their experience of skills, such as project management or managing a team. It is part of their professional development and that generalist experience and expertise helps them on their career path within the Civil Service. That is understandable in the current system, but is that system fit-for-purpose?
The movement of staff from department to department also means that there is often a lack of corporate memory and so work is sometimes undertaken unnecessarily, or unwisely, because there is no corporate memory of what happened previously. I dont know if the same issues prevail in Great Britain and, indeed, outside the United Kingdom and it could be that the issue is more acute in Northern Ireland because we are a small country.
However, I do hope that Dr McCormicks insight is not forgotten and that it is followed through.
In the meantime, we should all be grateful to him for his candour.
The Police Ombudsman has delivered a damning verdict on how the PSNI handled reports of alleged child abuse.
It was a high profile case involving Mairia Cahill, who was a member of a high profile republican family who told police she had been sexually abused by a member of the IRA in 1997-98. Two other women said they were sexually abused by this man when they were children. Mairia further told police that she had been subjected to an IRA investigation into her claims.
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Her report to police in 2010 led to several people being prosecuted but the case against the man accused of rape and those involved in the IRA investigation collapsed in 2014 when she and the other two women withdrew their evidence citing a lack of confidence in the way their complaints had been handled.
The Police Ombudsman Dr Michael Maguire has found that police failed the women. A 2015 review of the case by Sir Keir Starmer concluded that the Public Prosecution Service had also failed them.
It is known that the RUC had information in 2000 that linked a man to child sex abuse and also received intelligence that the IRA was investigating the matter.
But the RUC did not carry out even cursory investigations although it did pass on information to the PSNI in 2014. With the RUCs own pending demise and its heavy workload of recent terrorist offences may have been some excuse for not acting on the information it had, it is scandalous that it took until 2010 when Mairia made her complaint to the PSNI before anything was done and then she continued to be let down.
It is obvious from the article she has written for this newspaper today that she found the whole experience of dealing with the police and legal system traumatic. That was on top of the suffering she had already endured at the hands of her abuser and also from the whispers within the republican community doubting her complaints.
It took real courage for someone of her background to level serious accusations against another republican and she believes Sinn Fein deliberately tried to muddy the waters. It has never admitted the alleged abuser was a member not only of the IRA but also Sinn Fein.
Chief Constable George Hamilton last night apologised unequivocally for the hurt and distress caused and for police failings in the investigation.
Dr Maguire says he is confident current police practices would not allow the information which the RUC had 18 years ago to go un-investigated. Mairia and others may need convincing of that.
A 1984 protest outside the courthouse by loyalists about the supergrass system
So two decades after shutting its doors in June 1998, Belfast's Crumlin Road Courthouse is to get a new lease of life as a top-class hotel, where guests pay for the privilege of staying - although unlike the previous 148 years, not at Her Majesty's pleasure.
I look forward to returning to the building, whose doors I first darkened in late 1978, and which was to play such a central role in my life, working and brushing shoulders with some of the top names in journalism and the law.
Oh, and allowing me to pay the bills.
I've covered some of Northern Ireland's biggest cases - from the Shankill Butchers, the Sean Kelly bombing, and Michael Stone's cemetery attack to the killing of two army corporals in west Belfast.
There were also supergrasses and self-confessed paedophiles and rapists.
At times I have witnessed instances of pure human dignity and unbelievable forgiveness, often in the face of some of the worst excesses of hate and anger.
It also provided me with my first - and some say my only - 'scoop', and my only appearance on national television.
And on another occasion, I almost ended up in the dock threatened with criminal contempt and jail.
On each occasion the 'story' happened somewhere else but as always, the court provided the backdrop. One day I happened to be chatting with some officials in the large open hall of the 'Crumblin Road', as it was affectionately known, when over a 'security radio' came news that the then Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams had been shot while being driven through the city centre.
I immediately ran to the 'press room' for the landline on my desk - no mobiles in those days.
I phoned and inquired of the news desk if they knew of the downtown shooting.
On being told that apparently an off-duty soldier had foiled a bank robbery, I blurted out my 'scoop'. In a high-pitched voice I informed 'the desk' that the off-duty officer foiled not a bank-raid, but the assassination of Gerry Adams.
I can't repeat what my colleague said to the news, but it ended "... Scoop".
And so began my 'leg-end', as they say.
My appearance on BBC 2's Newsnight came about in a totally different way.
I took an early day and was awaiting the return of my then wife, who complained about her bus having to be re-routed as "something was going on outside the court".
Fearful of having missed some huge court case, I drove to the court, only to discover the story wasn't there, but the jail opposite.
There, several prisoners had decided not to await sentence the following day for their 'alleged' involvement in the 'M60 machine gun' shooting of an SAS captain.
My subsequent TV appearance proved one thing. I'm no TV personality. I found the whole experience nerve-racking, and that I have a face best suited for radio reporting, which I continued to do for some time.
As a footnote, in those days I was known for my long unkempt dark-haired ginger beard. To cut a long story short, a secretary from one radio station, who saw my TV performance but did not hear it, later praised the 'BBC scoop' in getting an interview with one of the escaped prisoners!
How disappointed she was on hearing the truth. I never learned.
They say the last thing a journalist should become 'is the story itself'.
This almost happened to journalist Chris Moore and myself in a follow-up on the Kincora Boys' Home court case.
Due to a mixed-up telephone message I went looking for the court papers on file, claiming, as I mistakenly believed, that the then Lord Chief Justice Sir Robert Lowry, had given his permission.
Hand-delivered letters went whizzing between the Beeb's Ormeau Avenue headquarters and the Royal Courts of Justice before the criminal contempt of court charges were eventually dropped and Chris and I 'slipped the noose' and an appearance in the dock to be reported upon.
Since then I've managed to keep my nose clean, and avoided such mistakes by following that ole journalistic adage... check and check again before saying or doing anything!
Treat others the way youd want to be treated yourself is what my father drummed into me. It is about tolerating different views, honesty, decency, lawfulness and resisting bullies. In the context of the legacy of our past, when I look back on the headlines and films in August, I see little of this.
Let me start with a documentary on the civil rights movement. Here, Eamonn McCann blamed the creation of the Provisionals and the armed struggle on the RUC and unionist government at Stormont.
I agree with lots of what Mr McCann has said over the years, probably because my father was also a staunch socialist, a trade union leader, who detested discrimination against the working class and believed that his Catholic friends got a particularly raw deal. He also understood that bigots on both sides were the biggest barriers.
Yes, a unionist elite lorded it over a Catholic minority and the RUC overreacted to civil rights protests. But nationalist leaders embellished genuine grievances and got working-class Catholics to confront the police in generally sectarianising civil rights.
The net effect let the green genie out of the bottle with a deadly wish: destroy the state, rid it of the Brits and unify the island. No actor is fault-free.
If my father were still alive, he would put an arm around Eamonn and tell him. There is more to it than Mr McCann makes out. Even then, the Troubles would not have happened. Grievances do not bomb and shoot. People do. And fundamentalist ideology not causes radicalise. Unfortunately, we had both.
Jude Collins, a commentator regularly on the BBC, showed this on the 20th anniversary of the Omagh bombing. He believes the 29 people and unborn twins were not murdered, rationalising that the terrorists did not mean to kill. A blame undertone in his article whispers, The cops should have evacuated everyone, anyway. Missing in the analysis is 30 years of car-bomb carnage before Omagh by a sectarian and unpopular Provisional IRA ran by a few angry northerners with impeccable Brit-hating ancestry dating back to Cromwell.
Weeks later, a film opened in cinemas about a woman with such a pedigree. I, Dolours by Ed Moloney is a mini-biography, undeservedly flattering of IRA activist Dolours Price. As a portrait piece, understandably, there are no opposed views.
The movie is rooted in the Boston tapes, where Ed Moloney interviewed former terrorists. A journalist and a Special Branch handler are remarkably similar: they trade in truth-telling, protect sources and are always after the next big story.
There followed a PSNI investigation, resulting in a prominent republican being prosecuted and the arrest of Gerry Adams. Both in connection with the murder of widow and mother-of-10, Jean McConville, disappeared by the IRA in 1972. Mr Adams denied the allegations and was released without charge. In the film, Dolours Price implicated herself in the incident.
The widescreen prefers corrupt cop and savage squaddie stories, mirroring common themes in books and newspapers. Going against it attracts flak. Of comments aimed at me, not my arguments, outside of fanatical social media trolls, a couple come to mind.
Jude Collins took exception to my account of an IRA unit in Loughgall in 1987, shot dead by the SAS. He questioned if I had a moral compass and wondered if I was feeling all right. Of a presentation I gave, Mr Moloney blogged: I dont know how the audience felt at the end of his contribution, but if it was anything like myself, most of them probably wished they had stayed at home. In concluding, he pitied the people that invited me to speak.
It was my dear and sadly missed friend, Sean OCallaghan, who drew my attention to Mr Moloneys comment. I will save his insight on this for another book, but he had a chuckle when I told him what my wife said: The audience only had to suffer for 90 minutes. I get it all day, every day.
Nuala OLoan also used the 20th anniversary of the Omagh bombing to blame the RUC for not preventing it a controversial change on what her investigation (as Police Ombudsman) had determined.
Hotly disputing this were first-hand witness accounts by two Special Branch detectives, who dealt with the anonymous call central to most blame. Both turned up for interview only to be turned away.
Given that they were the focus of the severest criticism, the omission is incredible. Only last month did their testimony eventually come out, showing the information in the call referred to an attack three miles outside Omagh and not Omagh, as the Ombudsman stated. Not only does this refute much of the criticism in the original report, in itself it shatters Baroness OLoans latest preventable claim.
Another film to open in August was The Ballymurphy Precedent, about soldiers slaughtering 10 innocent people in 1971: absent, it seems, current claims of UVF actions, earlier accounts and the inhospitable atmosphere days after internment.
The month ended with the police arresting journalists Barry McCaffrey and Trevor Birney. This was over sensitive Police Ombudsman documents used in the film, No Stone Unturned, a consequence of the Police Ombudsman, Dr Michael Maguire, reporting the alleged theft to the PSNI, who got Durham Constabulary to investigate.
In June 2016, Dr Maguires public statement blamed RUC officers for six men murdered by loyalist terrorists in Loughinisland in 1994. His finding used the word collusion that heavily implied the officers committed serious crimes.
A judicial review, still ongoing and soon to deliver final judgment, shows the public statement was based on a far larger investigation report, of which Dr Maguire wrote: I forwarded a copy of the report to the Public Prosecution Service in September 2015 ... I did not believe any identifiable officer may have committed a criminal offence, but I wanted to satisfy myself that the PPS were afforded an opportunity to read the investigation report. The Director of Public Prosecutions wrote back, confirming there was no evidence to prosecute.
This is a monumental fact completely lost in Dr Maguires public statement. Neither did the PPS inform the public. The investigation document is, effectively, the films script. Dr Maguire is in it. So is one of his investigators. They get crucial lines.
Had Dr Maguire kept this information private as well as he made his message public, stretched police resources would have stayed on the street at a significant saving for taxpayers.
Mr McCaffrey and Mr Birney are in a fix that pits a journalist entitled to privileges to protect sources against a police officer lawfully obliged to investigate crime.
To them, I say this: be thankful the police use precise definitions of crime, fixed in law, and not woolly words like collusion; be thankful the police use evidence to prosecute, not supposition; be thankful that you cannot be condemned other than by a properly constituted court and your words will not be distorted.
Dr Maguire left the retired officers utterly defenceless, according to Mr Justice McCloskey in the judicial review.
A close look at August shows what stories from here make it to the big screen, how and why. Partial accounts dominate. By the time missing facts surface to the contrary, it is too late. Articles have been read. Movies seen. Peoples minds made up. There are no apologies. No sense of wrong and no sign of it ending.
I am confident Mr McCaffrey and Mr Birney expected rightly to be treated with a normal investigative approach. Why, then, were they content when those accused in their film were not?
William Matchett is the author of Secret Victory: The Intelligence War that Beat the IRA. He is a senior researcher at the Edward M Kennedy Institute for Conflict Prevention at Maynooth University
Indonesian Air Force commandoes drive past members of the Army Special Forces as they prepare to breach a mock hijacked airliner during a joint anti-terror drill at Sukarno-Hatta International Airport in Jakarta, March 13, 2010.
Indonesias military is seeking government money to form a special forces unit to combat terrorism, but expanding the armed forces role in this way could lead to human rights abuses, activists and observers warn.
The military (TNI) is planning to revive a special unit deployed three years ago to fight Islamic militants in the jungles of Central Sulawesi province, but is waiting for the Ministry of Defense to draft a presidential decree needed for its authorization, officials said.
Observers including Muhammad Choirul Anam, a member of the National Human Rights Commission (Komnas HAM), say there needs to be a public debate before the president issues a decree on the militarys role in combating terrorism.
What is the scale of the involvement? For what kind of threats? And what is the time-frame? Choirul told BenarNews. Those are things that should be clarified so that the fight against terrorism is in line with respect for human rights principles.
The unit, comprising members of elite units from branches of the armed forces, would be given a new name the Special Operations Command, or Koopsus and its mission would be to go after terrorists.
Air Chief Marshal Hadi Tjahjanto, who commands the TNI, said it was asking for 1.5 trillion rupiah (U.S. $101.6 million) in government funding to set up the unit.
The money, part of the 2019 budget proposed by the defense ministry, is needed to build infrastructure, procure weapons and other equipment for Koopsus, Hadi said.
Special forces are different from other forces. They need special equipment, Hadi told reporters in Jakarta last week.
Toughened laws
The ministry is drafting the so-called presidential regulation (Perpres) that would clarify the militarys expanded role in counter-terrorism, an Indonesian defense official who declined to be identified said without going into details.
The re-emergence of the special forces unit came about through Indonesias recent move to toughen its anti-terrorist laws, including by formalizing a role for the military in counter-terror operations on home soil.
Until now, the Indonesian national polices elite wing, Detachment 88 (Densus 88), has been the countrys lead security unit in pursing terrorists.
On May 25, the Indonesian parliament (DPR) voted to pass the amended laws following a spate of deadly terrorist-related incidents earlier in the month. These included a prison riot in Depok, West Java, and a series of suicide bombings at churches and a police headquarters in Surabaya.
Authorities blamed the attacks on Jamaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD), a local network of Indonesian militants affiliated with the extremist group known as Islamic State (IS).
On Thursday, a court in West Jakarta convicted and sentenced Wawan Kurniawan (alias Abu Afif), a 43-year-old JAD leader, to 11 years in prison for conducting exercises to train militants for a plot to attack police stations in Riau province, on Sumatra island, officials said.
He has not been charged but authorities believe that, while an inmate incarcerated at the facility in Depok, he instigated the riot at the Mobile Brigade lock-up that led to the deaths of five policemen and a prisoner on May 9.
Decree will regulate it
When the laws were amended in late May, President Joko Jokowi Widodo said there should be no doubt about giving the military a role in fighting terrorists.
Furthermore, the presidential decree will regulate it, Jokowi said then.
As he responded to concerns raised by rights activists about potential abuses at the time of the bills passage, Law and Human Rights Minister Yasonna Laoly said the militarys counter-terror role would be regulated through the presidential decree.
Starting in early 2015, TNI commandos were involved in efforts to help hunt down IS-linked members of the Eastern Indonesia Mujahideen (MIT) group and its leader Santoso who was Indonesias most-wanted militant until he was killed in a firefight with security forces in July 2016.
Gen. Gatot Nurmantyo Hadis predecessor as the TNI chief - deactivated the special unit after he took over as commander of the armed forces in July 2015, amid criticism about the lack of a legal basis for the militarys involvement in counter-terrorism.
During the run-up to the amendments passage, activists expressed fears that a renewed domestic role for the military could bring back the prominent and, at times, repressive internal security role that it played during the 32-year dictatorship of President Suharto.
TNIs involvement in counter-terrorism falls under the category of military operations other than war, details of which are to be spelled out in the presidential decree.
Pushback
Rights activists are warning against giving the armed forces law enforcement powers.
Any presidential regulation on the role of the TNI in counter-terrorism should explicitly state that any military involvement should be auxiliary to the police, said Al Araf, the director of Impartial, a local human rights group.
Terrorism is a law enforcement issue, not a military matter. In developed countries where terrorist attacks have occurred recently, this remains the case, he told BenarNews.
Since Jokowi came to power in October 2014, the military has been given a greater role in civilian matters, including involvement in the war on drugs and the deployment of non-commissioned soldiers at the village level, Araf noted.
Soldiers have been deployed to support a government program to create more rice fields as part of a food self-sufficiency drive, a move that harkens back to the Suharto era.
Connie Rahakundini, a military analyst at the University of Indonesia, said the armed forces should instead focus on terrorism threats coming from outside the country.
Coordinated sea and air patrols involving Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines to fight Islamic extremists should be expanded to include all the member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, she suggested.
The TNI should be more outward looking in line with Indonesias ambitions in becoming a global maritime fulcrum, she told BenarNews.
It is better to concentrate its resources on threats from outside the country, as the region is facing the threat of terrorism and extremism.
Arie Firdaus in Jakarta contributed to this report.
A Thai man casts his vote on a referendum for a new constitution at a polling station in Bangkok, Aug. 7, 2016.
New laws published by Thailands government on Wednesday sealed a May 2019 deadline for the first elections since the military seized power four years ago, although the junta chief again assured the public that the vote would occur in February.
The publication in the Royal Gazette of laws on electing members of parliament and selecting senators ended many months of speculation and set a timeframe for when the government would stage national polls, after the junta had postponed them at least one-half dozen times since overthrowing a civilian-led government in a May 2014 coup.
The laws will take effect in December, 90 days after publication. The constitution requires the election commission to organize the general election within 150 days of the laws taking effect, setting a deadline by next May.
The tentative date proposed by the election commission is Sunday, Feb. 24, Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha, the retired army general who led the 2014 coup, told reporters Wednesday as he reiterated a statement he made in late August. The timeframe doesnt change.
The new laws stipulate that the parliament will have 500 members, including 350 elected from specific districts along with 150 representatives selected from party lists and allocated on the basis of proportional representation.
The senator selection law requires the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) the juntas official name to pick 244 people from a list prepared by the election commission and the nomination committee, and add six spots reserved for military leaders to total 250 members.
Prayuth also said he would exercise his power to relax some laws regulating political activities in order to pave the way for a fair election.
Meanwhile, Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwan, who is in charge of security, told reporters last month that the junta would continue to enforce a law that bans political gatherings of five or more people in the name of national security. He said it would be lifted in mid-December or later to allow for campaigning.
Prayuths announced date for elections should work for political parties, an official with one party told BenarNews.
We dont want to see a delay of the election, said Nipit Indarasombat, deputy leader of the Democrat Party.
I think two months for the election campaign is enough. It shouldnt be a problem, he said. But, first of all, the junta needs to allow political parties time to hold some activities.
For Immediate Release, September 12, 2018 Contacts: Abigail Johnson, Great Basin Water Network, (775) 885-0612, saged183@gmail.com
Patrick Donnelly, Center for Biological Diversity, (702) 483-0449, pdonnelly@biologicaldiversity.org Las Vegas Water Grab Pipeline Up for Crucial Thursday Vote Southern Nevada Officials Could Permanently End Harmful Proposal LAS VEGAS The Southern Nevada Water Authority will decide Thursday whether to appeal a recent ruling denying water rights for its massive groundwater pipeline development project. Last month the Nevada state engineer denied water rights for the project, and a decision not to appeal could end the 29-year conflict and prevent significant losses to wetlands and wildlife habitat. Five conservation groups today submitted a letter to the water authoritys board members encouraging them to give up their longstanding pursuit of the controversial $15 billion pipeline. The pipeline has lost a series of legal challenges in state and federal court and is at a standstill pending this decision on whether to appeal. The Las Vegas water grab pipeline would decimate the environment and steal water from communities in eastern Nevada, said Abigail Johnson, president of the Great Basin Water Network. Its time for SNWA to abandon this environmentally and economically disastrous proposal. The pipeline suffered another setback this week when water-authority board member and Clark County Commission Chairman Steve Sisolak stated his opposition to the proposal, calling it ill-conceived in a Nevada Independent article. After three decades and millions of dollars, the water authority has nothing to show for its pursuit of this boondoggle, said Patrick Donnelly, Nevada state director at the Center for Biological Diversity. The answer to Las Vegas long-term water needs isnt to suck eastern desert valleys dry and drive wildlife to extinction. Were hopeful that the board will make the right decision and put an end to this destructive pipeline once and for all. The project would siphon more than 7.8 billion gallons of precious groundwater each year from public lands in the eastern Nevada desert, pumping it more than 250 miles south to metropolitan Las Vegas.
On Wednesday, a Washington state superior court judge ordered striking teachers back to the classroom, saying their strike could be causing substantial harm to students.
But the teachers in the Tumwater school district, who have been fighting for pay raises along with educators across the state , arent planning to go back just yet.
After two-and-a-half hours of intense, thoughtful, and deliberate discussion on Wednesday afternoon, teachers overwhelmingly voted to continue to strike, said Linda Wood, of the Washington Education Association, in an email.
Tumwater Teachers preparing to vote on defying the court injunction. The motion to continue the strike passed with a strong majority. Hopefully, well reach a tentative agreement so we can get back to what we love. We are having a community forum tomorrow at 7pm #tumwaterstrong pic.twitter.com/FfzQZKgGUd -- Justin Mckaughan (@justinmckaughan) September 13, 2018
After the court ruling to legally end the strike, the district had announced that Thursday would be a teacher work day, and classes would begin on Friday, the news station KIRO 7 reported .
If the teachers do not report to work, the district will be forced to take the necessary steps the judge outlined in court to seek relief, the districts statement read. This is not an approach the district takes lightly, but is a part of the process to help get our students and staff back to school.
Thurston County Superior Court Judge Chris Lanese did not set a return-to-work date in his ruling, the Olympian reported . He also did not set any penalties, saying that those are up to the district. The district could pursue legal action to hold the teachers in contempt of the judges ruling if they do not return to work. Teacher strikes are illegal in Washington state.
See also: Teacher Strikes: 4 Common Questions
The 340 teachers in the Tumwater district have been on strike since Sept. 1meaning that 6,450 students havent yet started school. Lanese said that a strike could particularly harm the districts disadvantaged and disabled students, according to the Olympian.
But teachers have disputed claims that the strike is harming students. Sending them back to the same learning conditions and crowded classrooms, [teachers] feel that is harming students more than being off for a few extra days, said Tim Voie, the president of the Tumwater Education Association, according to KIRO 7.
Tumwater is one of three districts still currently on strike in Washington state, but teachers in 14 districts took to the picket lines this fall. Educators across the state have been seeking sizeable pay raises after a 2012 state supreme court ruling forced the state to give districts an additional $2 billion to go toward teacher salaries. In many districts, teachers unions have negotiated double-digit pay raises.
See also: Teacher Strikes Are Heating Up in More States
Teachers in the Tacoma and Battle Ground districts are also on strike. Both districts have sought a non-binding opinion from the states Public Employment Relations Commission. But the battles are escalatingon Wednesday, a spokesman for the Tacoma district, which is the fourth largest in the state, said officials are considering pursuing legal action against the striking teachers.
And in Battle Ground, the school board has voted unanimously to withhold pay if teachers dont return to the classroom by Monday, according to the news site KATU 2. (The local teachers union has called the threat a scare tactic.)
Image: Kat Appleby, right, a teacher at Stewart Middle School, carries a sign with a quote from Seattle Seahawks football player Earl Thomas that reads The disrespect has been well noted and will not be forgotten, as she walks a picket line on Sept. 12 with math teacher Hillary Bridge, left, and other striking teachers in Tacoma, Wash. Ted S. Warren/AP
Baptist Memorial Hospital Golden Triangle welcomes new pulmonologist/intensivist Dr. Ana Bonetti to its medical staff. She will be in practice at Golden Triangle Pulmonology and Sleep at 255 Baptist Blvd., Suite 402. The phone number is 662-244-2550.
Bonetti received her doctor of medicine, magna cum laude, from Universidad Iberoamericana, in Santa Domingo, Dominican Republic in 2008 and a certificate in Medical Humanities from Drew University in Madison, New Jersey in 2015. Bonetti completed a residency in internal medicine at Morristown Medical Center in Morristown, New Jersey and a three-year fellowship in pulmonary disease and critical care medicine at the University of Nevada School Of Medicine in Las Vegas in 2018.
She is board certified in internal medicine and pulmonary disease by the American Board of Internal Medicine.
Bonetti has presented at several medical conferences across the United States including the Mount Sinai School of Medicine Research Day and the American Thoracic Society Annual meeting in San Francisco, Cal.
Update: DeSantis' campaign says the invitation obtained Thursday by the Miami Herald was a draft sent only to the chairs of the fundraiser. After vetting, Arza was not included on the list of co-chairs, according to the campaign.
Ron DeSantis, the GOP nominee for Florida governor, will be in Coral Gables next week raising money among Miamis political class at the Biltmore Hotel.
The fundraiser is chaired ($50K donation) and co-chaired ($25K donation) by former Gov. Jeb Bush, lobbyist Rodney Barreto, University of Miami trustee Manny Kadre, and former state Rep. Ralph Arza, among others. The evening begins with a $10,000-a-head VIP reception at 5:30, and includes a $1,000-a-head general reception at 6 p.m.
"Hes an American pie kind of guy," said Leonicio de la Pena, one of the chairs of the event and the husband of DeSantis' Miami-Dade campaign chairwoman. "Hes a smart guy, motivated for the right ideas and right reasons. He wants to serve. How can you not be excited about someone like that?"
Jeanette Nunez, a Kendall-area state Representative running as DeSantis' lieutenant governor, will also be at the event, which should raise some badly-needed dollars for DeSantis.
Democratic nominee Andrew Gillum outpaced DeSantis in fundraising during the first days of the general election campaign thanks in part to tens of thousands of small-dollar donations. The Tallahassee mayor reported raising eight times what DeSantis, a now-former congressman, raised over the three days in August following the primary election.
But the Republican Governor's Association has said it plans to spend $10 million backing DeSantis, and Republican boosters have typically had open wallets when it comes to supporting top-of-ticket candidates like DeSantis.
The event is also part of a trend in which DeSantis is spending plenty of time in the county during the general election. Since winning the primary, he's visited the Manuel Artime Theater and Bay of Pigs Museum.
A Spider Was Found Living In A Pensioners Ear! Pulse oi-Syeda Farah Noor
Watching spiders around can scare many of us, but what would happen if they seem to get real close to you? Sounds weird, right?
This is a case of a man who had a spider in his ear, and the strangest fact was that it even had built its cobweb!
Check out this bizarre case of the spider being found in the ear of the man!
It Crawled Inside His Ear! It is reported that the unnamed man had a strange feeling as a spider was found living in his ear. It was revealed that the spider had crawled inside and made its web. Bizarre Animals Eaten In Some Countries The Incident Happened In China The pensioner who lives in China was apparently complaining to doctors about a discomfort that he started experiencing in his ear. He felt a strange feeling where it sounded like "something was beating a drum". He Ignored The Pain Initially Even though he felt discomfort in his ear, especially during his sleep time, he ignored it. He further added that there were noises like something was beating a drum. The Spider Was Discovered The medics from Dalian Central Hospital in northeastern China apparently performed an endoscopy and found the culprit spider. The doctors were shocked to see a horrifying bean-sized spider that was about two-inches deep. The spider is said to have had spun webs around it to make itself at home. The Doctors Were Successful In Removing It The ENT specialist managed to flush out the spider by spraying his ear canal with just water. The man is said to have recovered from this agony. Trivia The medics revealed that they had seen numerous cases of flying insects like a ladybird or even cockroaches getting stuck in a human ear as a common thing. What is your take on this? Share your thoughts in the comment section below.
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The Service Employees International Union announced Thursday that it plans to spend $5 million through November getting out the vote and backing candidates like Democratic gubernatorial nominee Andrew Gillum.
The union, which says it represents more than 55,000 active and retired employees, endorsed Gillum Thursday, which was expected given its staunch support of Democratic candidates and efforts to raise Florida's minimum wage to $15 an hour. SEIU Florida says it has spent $2.7 million annually over the last three years building a campaign machine, and now plans to double that amount through November on advertising and other forms of communication.
The union is kicking off Super Saturday volunteer activities this weekend, during which hundreds of union members will be knocking on doors and making phone calls to voters each Saturday through the campaign.
"We're going to make sure there's an army out there," SEIU Florida President Monica Russo told the Miami Herald recently.
@alexdaugherty @davidjneal
President Donald Trump argued Thursday, without evidence, that the deaths of thousands of Puerto Ricans due to Hurricane Maria was a political stunt by Democrats to make me look as bad as possible and that government officials and university researchers just added people who died from natural causes to the official list.
The accusation comes a week ahead of the one year anniversary of Hurricane Marias landfall in Puerto Rico, which set off a logistical and humanitarian crisis for the U.S. territorys 3.3 million U.S. citizens.
3000 people did not die in the two hurricanes that hit Puerto Rico, Trump tweeted, referring to Hurricanes Maria and Irma, which skirted the island two weeks before Maria hit. When I left the island, AFTER the storm had hit, they had anywhere from 6 to 18 deaths. As time went by it did not go up by much. Then, a long time later, they started to report really large numbers like 3000...This was done by Democrats in order to make me look as bad as possible when I was successfully raising Billions of Dollars to help rebuild Puerto Rico. If a person died for any reason, like old age, just add them onto the list. Bad politics. I love Puerto Rico!
The official death toll from last years storm stood at 64 until late August, although doubts had been cast on that estimate. Harvard University researchers door-to-door check produced an estimate of over 4,000, though there was a significant variation on the actual death total.
On Aug. 27, the Puerto Rican government put the number of dead at 2,975, a total that includes deaths caused or not prevented because the islands infrastructure was blasted. The study was conducted by George Washington University researchers on behalf of the Puerto Rican government. On Tuesday, President Trump called the U.S. governments response an incredible unsung success.
Earlier this week, Puerto Rican governor Ricardo Rossello, who had avoided criticizing President Trumps handling of the disaster for months, said that thousands of people died in Puerto Rico and that the relationship between San Juan and Washington is not successful.
No relationship between a colony and the federal government can ever be called successful because Puerto Ricans lack certain inalienable rights enjoyed by our fellow Americans in the states, Rossello said in a statement. The historical relationship between Puerto Rico and Washington is unfair and unAmerican. It is certainly not a successful relationship. This was the worst natural disaster in our modern history. Our basic infrastructure was devastated, thousands of our people lost their lives and many others still struggle.
State Rep. Bob Cortes, a Puerto Rican Republican who serves as Florida gubernatorial candidate Ron DeSantis director of Puerto Rican outreach, told WFTV that he does not dispute the governments estimated death toll.
Every morning there is something new that the president tweets, Cortes said. I have no reason to doubt the number of 2,975 deaths in Puerto Rico.
Other Republican officials, including Miami Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Carlos Curbelo, criticized the presidents remarks.
Read more here.
Rebuilding Massey Manor will cost approximately $7 million, according to a staff member working on the renovations, with residents unlikely to move back into the building for at least another year or longer.
Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 12/9/2018 (1151 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
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Rebuilding Massey Manor will cost approximately $7 million, according to a staff member working on the renovations, with residents unlikely to move back into the building for at least another year or longer.
"Its a massive amount of work that needs to happen," said Glen Kruck, regional manager of the formerly named Canadian Mental Health Association.
The bulk of the damage was caused not by the fire, which was largely contained to the buildings rooftop, but by the amount of water poured over top, along with the residual mould that was left behind.
Kruck said the insurance policy between the buildings three co-owners the CMHA, Brandon Friendship Centre and Manitoba Housing will provide up to $11.5 million to repair the building.
The first step will be to fix the roof in order to stop more water from getting inside, he said. Once that is finished, crews can begin renovating the buildings interior.
But even once they have acquired a building permit from the City of Brandon, Kruck said the repairs themselves are expected to take 11 months to complete. The hope is to have a contractor in place within the next week or two.
The news comes four months after a fire nearly destroyed Massey Manor and razed three other buildings during the May long weekend, including Christies Office Plus, a business plaza next door and a former night club and beer vendor.
Nearly 200 residents lived in Massey Manor, most of whom on low incomes, and were later housed at the Victoria Inn and Clarion Hotel until alternative housing could be found.
Many residents were able to salvage a few belongings from Massey Manor, and the Building Re-Fit Store was able to provide donated furniture to those who needed it, but the sense of loss was felt by many.
While all of the tenants connected to the Brandon Friendship Centre were insured, along with two or three others, Kruck said the vast majority did not.
"We were able to save very few items out of that building, so people lost a lot," Kruck said. "A huge amount, and especially personal possessions, which were just absolutely irreplaceable."
As the on-site building manager, Kruck also lived in Massey Manor and lost one item of particular significance: his late wifes wedding ring.
"But thats just one experience," he said.
Monique Ward stayed at Victoria Inn with her daughter and their cat Squid before finding a place in the city.
Looking back, she said the whole ordeal was an unusual one for her and her family.
"Im sure every single person has a different story," she said. "In a way, its a good thing, not how it happened, but it was like a cleanse for some of us that needed to get out of there."
As evacuees, Ward and others banded together in the immediate aftermath of the fire, as they tried to get through their common ordeal.
"Not all of us got along, but it was a different thing when the fire happened," Ward said. "We all came together ... and then we moved and all of a sudden thats gone again."
But even after four months living in her current place, she said it still doesnt feel like home.
"I cant tell you whats next. Its day by day, as life is," she said. "Ive gotten over that sense of loss."
mlee@brandonsun.com
Twitter: @mtaylorlee
Police have arrested one man and are searching for another after two people were assaulted with weapons Tuesday in a pair of separate incidents.
Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 12/9/2018 (1150 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
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Police have arrested one man and are searching for another after two people were assaulted with weapons Tuesday in a pair of separate incidents.
At approximately 7:17 p.m., police say an employee at a business in the 100 block of Rosser Avenue saw a male assault a female with a steering wheel locking device, while she was in a vehicle in a parking lot.
The male fled the area, but was located by police and arrested.
The man, a 49-year-old from Brandon, was set to be released Wednesday morning for a court appearance on Oct. 11.
Earlier in the day, at approximately 9:30 a.m., police say a male victim reported being assaulted while walking in the 800 block of Ninth Street.
Police say the male suspect proceeded to threaten the victim and produced a black handgun.
He then struck the victim two to three times in the arm and forehead with the gun, cutting the victim above his eye. He would later require medical assistance.
The suspect is described as native, five feet nine-10 inches tall, in his mid-20s to 30s, with a thin build, short buzzed hair and a tattoo over his right eye.
He was seen wearing a grey t-shirt and sand-blue jeans.
The Brandon Sun
Ryanair says it'll cancel a small number of flights if cabin crew go ahead with strikes later this month.
Unions from Italy, Portugal, Belgium, Spain and the Netherlands are meeting to discuss walking out on September 28 over working conditions.
150 German flights, of its daily schedule of 400, were cancelled yesterday due to industrial action. Ryanair say "the small group of affected passengers were re-accommodated and/or refunded".
Repeated false claims made by these unions about travel chaos have proven to be unfounded, said Ryanairs Kenny Jacobs.
While we regret the limited strike actions that have taken place this summer, in all cases we have judiciously pre-cancelled a small number of our 2,500 daily flights in order to minimise customer disruption and inconvenience.
We object to these lurid and inaccurate press headlines which wrongly to refer to travel chaos, despite the fact that during the seven days of partial strikes by a small minority of our pilots and cabin crew this summer, there has been very little disruption and absolutely no chaos.
If there is a further unsuccessful cabin crew strike on the 28th Sept next then, as we demonstrated in Germany yesterday, Ryanair will pre-advise customers of a small number of flight cancellations, and the overwhelming majority of Ryanairs flights and services that day will operate as normal, and we will carry the overwhelming majority of the 400,000 passengers who will be scheduled to fly with us that day.
Digital Desk
Sky Ireland has been fined 117,000 by the country's telecommunications watchdog.
The broadcasting company was forced to pay the fee after it was found they failed to give around 79,000 customers a contract on a durable medium.
ComReg also discovered that around 41,000 of those were not afforded their right to a cooling off period.
Sky Ireland has paid the fine in full.
They also have been ordered to contact the affected customers.
Digital Desk
By Padraig Hoare
Tifco, the second-largest hotel chain in the country after Dalata, is set to change hands after US investment fund Apollo Global Management agreed to buy it for between 500m and 600m.
The Goldman Sachs-owned Tifco owns and operates more than 20 hotels around the country.
However, one of Corks most iconic hotels is not part of the deal.
The Metropole was previously under the management of Tifco but the firm has not been directly involved with the management of the MacCurtain St hotel for some time, save for minor accounting links.
The Metropole is owned by Cork-founded Trigon Group, which also owns Cork International Hotel and Cork Airport Hotel. It is understood not to be affected by the Apollo Global purchase.
Tifco owns the Crowne Plaza hotels at Dublin Airport, Dublin-Blanchardstown, and Dundalk, the Hilton Hotel in Dublin Kilmainham, Holiday Inn Express Dublin Airport, as well as non-branded hotels.
Tifco, which owns and manages some 26 five-star, four-star, and three-star hotels and resorts, also operates the Travelodge brand in Ireland, which it took over in 2016 for a reported 46m.
The terms of the Apollo Global deal have not been disclosed but the business was put up for sale earlier this year for between 500m and 600m.
Tifco was co-founded by businessmen Gerry Houlihan and Aidan Crowe, and received investment from Goldman Sachs in 2014.
Apollo Global, founded by Leon Black in 1990, manages capital for hundreds of fund investors in dozens of countries, including pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, university endowments, charitable foundations, and financial institutions.
Mr Black is well known in the art world for paying almost $120m (103m) for one of the worlds most iconic paintings, Edvard Munchs 1895 pastel The Scream, while his extensive collection is said to include works by Vincent van Gogh and Pablo Picasso.
Apollo had assets under management of approximately $270bn (232bn) as of June this year.
Notice of the deal was filed with the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, which will have to approve the deal.
Royal Bank of Scotland sold a number of buy-to-let and commercial property-related loans to Apollo Global and Deutsche Bank in 2015 for 400m (448m) as part of Project Finn, the last of that banks major selloff of Irish loans.
An 18-year-old woman has been killed in a single vehicle collision in Derry.
The incident occurred close to Nixon's Corner on the Letterkenny/Derry Road at around 11.30pm last night.
Two other women were taken to hospital for treatment.
The road has since opened.
Police are appealing for anyone who was travelling on the Letterkenny Road last night or who witnessed the collision to contact them.
- Digital Desk
Celebrations are underway in a community-based store on the North Circular Road in Dublin 7 this morning after the National Lottery confirmed the winning location of last nights Daily Million top prize of 1m.
The winning Quick Pick ticket was sold yesterday at the Costcutter Express Store on North Circular Road in Phibsboro in Dublin 7.
Colm Allen, owner of the lucky Costcutter Express store said:
We are a community-based store in the heart of a very large residential area in Dublin City so we are absolutely delighted for one of our local customers this morning.
"Since the doors opened early this morning, we have been telling our customers the good news and there is a genuine outpouring of goodwill for the lucky winner.
"We have eight staff in the store so we are looking forward to the celebrations today as we toast the good fortune of one of our locals with a couple of sips of champagne.
This is the second big National Lottery win for the Costcutter Express in Dublin 7 since Colm Allen opened the business nearly 12 years ago.
He appealed to all of his customers to check their lottery tickets for the 1m prize after a 350,000 Lotto prize went unclaimed in 2010.
He said: In 2010, we sold a winning Lotto Plus 1 top prize ticket which was worth 350,000 at the time.
"Unfortunately, that went unclaimed so were going to make sure that each and every one of our customers checks and double checks their tickets so that they can claim their incredible 1m prize.
So far this year, there have been four top prize winners in the Daily Million and Plus games.
The last top prize winner of the 1 million was also sold on the North Circular Road in Dublin 7, in the neighbouring A&J Ormsby Store last February.
The winning Daily Million numbers from last nights 9pm draw were:
05, 07, 23, 24, 33, 35 and the Bonus 22
- Digital Desk
By Gordon Deegan
The lack of guidelines to assist medical and nursing staff with the safe use of potentially psychogenic substances, like cannabis oil, has been highlighted by the authors of a new paper.
A paper in the September issue of the Irish Medical Journal (IMJ) reveals how the parents of a five-year-old girl suffering from seizures administered their daughter with cannabis oil every night in order to deal with the condition.
The girl, 5, who was admitted post-operatively to the Paediatric Critical Care Unit (PCCU) at Our Ladys Childrens Hospital in Crumlin.
Our Ladys Childrens Hospital in Crumlin where the girl was admitted.
The three authors of the paper report that the girl had a history of refractory seizures and the girls parents had obtained the cannabis oil from the US and were administering it to her at night, in addition to her regular anticonvulsant medication.
The girls parents reported decreased seizure frequency since they started administering the cannabis oil.
The child was in hospital to have her tonsils removed for the management of significant obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA) which the medics in the IMJ paper state was possibly exacerbated by the sedative properties of cannabis.
The medics report that the admitting surgical and critical care teams were unaware that the child was regularly receiving cannabis until 14 hours after admission to hospital.
The medics state that although there have been many anecdotal reports on the effectiveness of cannabis for medicinal use, there is a paucity of robust scientific data demonstrating the efficacy of cannabis products as a therapy.
They state that the PCCU and the hospital do not currently have any guidelines to assist medical and nursing staff with the safe use of this potentially psychogenic substances.
The medics state that after discussion with the childs parents, they agreed an administration regimen for the cannabis oil and the timing of which was separate to regular sedative medication in view of the childs history of OSA.
The medics state that the case raises ethical and legal issues but that they must also consider parental autonomy and their role as advocate for their child during admission to critical care.
The medics report that the childs postoperative course and stay in PCCU was uncomplicated.
The medics report that in this case, the child was receiving Charlottes Web hemp oil that includes low concentration of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) which is subject to the Misuse of Drugs legislation.
The medics state:
In a case such as this, clinicians should consider contacting the Health Products Regulatory Authority (HPRA), and seek legal and pharmacist advice within their hospital.
The medics state that the use of Complementary and Alternative Medicines (CAM) have grown in popularity over the last two decades and point out that as clinicians we need to be aware that parents may be using (CAM) therapies to treat their children and be prepared to discuss these options openly with parents in the PCCU.
Two anglers have been rescued off the West Cork coast.
The Courtmacsherry RNLI Lifeboat was called to the scene at 2pm, two miles south of the Old Head of Kinsale.
According to the RNLI, the sea was getting rough and the wind was picking up this afternoon.
The Belgian fishermen got lost as they headed out to sea and they had become extremely worried, as they had no idea as to where they were.
When asking for help the only bearing that they could give was that they could see a lighthouse in the distance.
The lifeboat found the vessel at 2.30pm and escorted the 18-foot fishing boat back to the village of Courtmacsherry shortly after 4pm.
Update - 12.50pm: Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has confirmed that US President Donald Trump has postponed his visit to Ireland.
There was uncertainty over his visit to Dublin after a Washington official said they was still finalising whether Ireland would be a stop on the Presidents itinerary in Europe, where he is due to mark the centenary of the end of the First World War.
The White House announced on August 31 that he will travel to Paris for a commemoration of the centenary of the Armistice.
Mr Trump was due to make a two-day visit to the Irish Republic during which he was expected to visit his golf course in Doonbeg, Co Clare, on the west coast and Dublin around the weekend of November 10 and 11.
The president had been expected to visit his Doonbeg golf course (Niall Carson/PA)
Ties that of course are cultural, economic and are in our families as well.
So many of us, including me, having US relations.
We can all agree the future US-Ireland economic relationship is of profound importance to all of us here.
The Fine Gael leader was addressing an audience of Irish and American business leaders and White House representatives, including Kevin Hassett, chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisors.
Ireland is not a tax haven, we do not wish to be a haven, nor we wish to be seen as one
It comes after a spokesman for the Irish Government said Mr Trumps visit was postponed over scheduling reasons by the US.
Speaking at the US-Irish economic conference, Mr Varadkar said that as the UK prepares to leave the European Union in a few months, the Irish-US relationship is going to become all the more important with Ireland acting as a bridge to the EU for the US.
After recent reports described Ireland as a tax haven, Mr Varadkar said the country is fully compliant with international best practice standards.
He added: Ireland is not a tax haven, we do not wish to be a haven, nor we wish to be seen as one.
We are only one of 23 countries in the world that is fully compliant with the new international best practice as judged by the Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information. And well continue to crack down on avoidance on the years ahead.
He added: At a time when others in Europe are looking to close their doors, Ireland is a country that is open and tolerant and diverse.
He said one in six Irish residents were born abroad, including his father who was born in India.
He added: (This) makes us one of the most international countries in Europe.
I believe the relationship that exists between our two countries goes both ways.
He added that Irish businesses in America employ more than 100,000 Americans in a wide range of industries.
Earlier: Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has confirmed that US President Donald Trump has postponed his visit to Ireland.
There was uncertainty over his planned visit to Ireland after a White House press secretary earlier this week said Washington was still finalising the visit.
However, speaking at an economic conference at the American Embassy in Dublin today, Mr Varadkar said:
As you know this week US President Donald Trump has to postpone his proposed trip to Ireland, however whenever it takes place we look forward to the opportunity to renew the deep, historic ties that exist between our two countries.
"We can all agree the future US-Ireland economic relationship is of profound importance to all of us here."
- PA
Dublin City Council has chosen not to nominate any candidates for next month's Presidential election.
Six candidates sought nominations at a special council meeting this afternoon.
James P. Smyth, Sarah Louise Mulligan, Peter Casey, Norma Burke, Gemma O'Doherty and Kevin Sharkey each made presentations to councillors at the meeting.
However, none of the prospective candidates received the endorsement of the council.
The motion to not endorse any candidate was put forward by Councillors Ray McAdam and Kieran Binchy, with their fellow Councillors voting 29-9 to approve the motion.
Cllr McAdam claimed today's meeting reiterated why President Michael D Higgins, who is seeking re-election, "has been an outstanding President for our country & should remain in the job for another 7 years".
What I have seen today during @DubCityCouncil #PE18 nominating meeting reiterates why @PresidentIRL #MichaelDHiggins has been an outstanding #President for our country & should remain in the job for another 7 years. Cllr. Ray McAdam (@RayMcAdam) September 13, 2018
Businessman Sean Gallagher and Senator Joan Freeman have the backing of the required four local authorities so far, meaning they will be on the Presidential ballot alongside President Higgins.
Only one other presidential hopeful, Dragons' Den star Gavin Duffy, only needs the support of one more council to secure his place on the final ballot.
Sinn Fein is also due to put forward a candidate on Sunday.
Councillors have voted to stop the sale of the last Magdalene Laundry site in Dublin city centre.
The decision has been taken at tonight's meeting of Dublin City Council.
By Elaine Loughlin, Daniel McConnell, Fiachra O Cionnaith, and Noel Baker
A stark culture of misogyny and paternalism left 221 women in the dark on their smear test audits, Dr Gabriel Scally has found.
Dr Scally has uncovered a widespread disregard for patients which was damaging, hurtful, and offensive, with no compelling requirement on doctors to provide information to women.
The 170-page document reveals a total systems failure with no one person in charge of the cervical screening service.
Health Minister Simon Harris has given Dr Scally additional time to examine the revelation that a US lab outsourced smear sample testing to four other facilities without informing CervicalCheck.
Victims Vicky Phelan, Stephen Teap, and Lorraine Walsh, have called for the complete implementation of all 50 recommendations contained in the Scally review, which they said also raises more questions about how their own cases were handled.
Among the key recommendations in the report are:
The urgent revision of the HSEs disclosure policy to reflect primary right of patients to have full knowledge of their healthcare;
A requirement that medical staff, as a condition of employment, complete training in open disclosure;
That the health minister gives consideration to how womens issues can be given more consistent, expert, and committed attention within the health system;
The appointment of two patient advocates to the new board of the HSE;
A single agreed terminology for reporting of results, and specific criteria for defining the different grades of abnormality;
A statutory duty of candor on individual healthcare professionals and the groups where they work.
Nearly 13,000 documents were viewed, all of the key people in CervicalCheck interviewed, and all of the labs used both here and in the US were visited as part of the inquiry.
After publishing his report, Dr Scally called on the treating doctors who failed to disclose smear check audits to personally apologise to each woman as a letter from the HSE is nowhere near adequate.
He recounted the experience of the family of a deceased woman who were recently told of the smear test audit.
They said they went into their disclosure meeting and the consultant said several times about the late womans smoking habit and also told them that nuns dont get cervical cancer. Now if that isnt paternalism, what is? Its verging on misogyny.
Dr Scally added: This whole episode of poorly handled open disclosure created enormous psychological difficulties and, in some cases, mental illness amongst women.
Mr Teap, whose wife Irene died last year, said: Going through this inquiry, it is horrific for us to read, particularly for myself when I see exactly how the ending of Irenes life now can be summed up in this.
She did everything right. She got her smear test done. She put her 100% trust and faith in the system. She worked for the HSE for 15 years, everything, everything let her down.
He vowed to ensure that the recommendations are now implemented so that no other family goes through a similar situation to the 221 impacted by this scandal.
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said all of the pain endured by those impacted by the scandal should now lead to a new culture in our health service of open disclosure, of grace, of candour, and compassion.
Mr Harris said: Extra harm, extra pain, extra suffering was added to women who already had cervical cancer and, in many cases, a devastating diagnosis through the non-disclosures of smear test audits.
Cabinet approved all of the recommendations in the report yesterday Mr Harris will return to Government in December with a full implementation plan.
Opposition parties insisted the families of women who have died or been damaged by the scandal should make the ultimate decision on whether a commission of investigation is still needed.
Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin said there is a clear need to talk to the families and the victims. Labour health spokesman Alan Kelly agreed that affected women need to advise on holding a full-scale commission of investigation.
The comments came as it emerged Mr Varadkar is considering setting up a leak inquiry to uncover which high-level official told media the Scally report had advised against a commission of investigation before victims were informed.
What Scally said
On open disclosure:
The current policy and practice in relation to open disclosure is deeply contradictory and unsatisfactory. In essence, there is no compelling requirement on clinicians to disclose.
It wasnt just the nondisclosure, but the rushed nature of the disclosure that did take place after the publicity surrounding Vicky Phelans court case that affected them [the women] adversely.
On governance:
There are serious gaps in the governance structures of the screening services.
In the specific case of CervicalCheck, there was a demonstrable deficit of clear governance and reporting lines between it, the National Screening Service, and the higher management structures of the HSE.
This confusion complicated the reporting of issues and multiplied the risks.
On the labs:
I am satisfied with the quality management processes in the current laboratory sites. All of the laboratories visited by the Scoping Inquiry team are meeting the regulatory requirements current in their own country.
On side effects, other than physical, of cervical cancer:
Some women mentioned that their relationship had broken down as a result of the treatment process. It has also left some women and families in financial difficulty.
On access to medical records:
There can be no good reason for the delays in giving women access to their clinical notes. It should not be necessary for women to feel that they have to engage solicitors in order to be provided with a full copy of their medical records.
On paternalism in the health service:
The point was made that many of the major controversies about maltreatment of patients or denial of reproductive rights in the Irish healthcare system have involved women being damaged.
On the need for public health input:
The time has surely come where public health physicians are accorded the same recognition as clinical colleagues and their skills deployed at the core of all public health programmes.
The comments of some of the women affected by the cervical cancer scandal and interviewed by Dr Scally
Why does it always happen to women?
Women and womens rights are not taken seriously.
He said he didnt know the protocol.
He said it had got lost in the file.
He said it was caveated not to disclose.
He basically lied to me.
He had seen I had had a hysterectomy and decided I didnt need to know.
To think I have gone to him over the years and he has said nothing.
Tell us the truth.
So am I just a number?
This story first appeared in the Irish Examiner.
Latest: The Government has launched its new 1.25bn Land Development Agency in a bid to tackle the housing shortage.
The LDA, which promises to build 150,000 new homes over the next 20 years, has a focus on managing state land to develop new homes and regenerate under-utilised sites.
The Government said strategic land banks from a mix of public and private land will bring essential long-term stability to the housing market.
The LDAs main focus will be on buying existing land owned by state departments and selling it to developers to ensure new homes are built quickly.
The body must deliver at least 40% of housing potential on the land, with 10% social and 30% affordable.
Today, we are announcing details of the Land Development Agency, which will build 150,000 homes over the next 20 years. This new agency is going to hit the ground running, from today. Its one of the most significant ever State interventions in the housing market. pic.twitter.com/GD3diPaKA5 Leo Varadkar (@LeoVaradkar) September 13, 2018
To ensure space and funding is available, the agency will be given sweeping compulsory purchase order powers and the right to use and sell state-owned land.
One of the sites understood to be targeted by the agency is the HSE-owned former St Kevins Hospital site in Cork City, which was the target of an arson attack in 2017.
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said the Government is playing catch-up.
This is not about setting up an agency for the sake of it, this is solving a real problem, he said.
The Land Development Agency, with capital of 1.25bn behind it, is a step-change in the Governments involvement in the housing market.
We know we are playing catch-up after our housing sector was destroyed.
The Land Development Agency is a Government intervention that is 50 years overdue and which, in time, I believe, will be seen to be as significant as the decision to establish the ESB, Aer Lingus or the IDA.
Minister for Housing Planning and Local Government Eoghan Murphy said the agency would help tackle the boom-and-bust cycle.
The LDA will enable Government to address traditional volatility in land prices as a result of land speculation as well as delays in delivering housing.
Establishing the LDA creates a powerful new driver of urban regeneration with the lands, skill sets and capital needed that will assure housing delivery, including the social, affordable and market housing so badly needed for our citizens.
Critics of the new agency say the Government has badly executed what could have been a good idea.
Government's land development agency will not deliver the radical reforms needed to properly tackle the housing crisis says @amomcnally #HousingCrisis #raisetheroof https://t.co/XhDxmAezWW Social Democrats (@SocDems) September 13, 2018
Sinn Fein housing spokesman Eoin O Broin, who tabled a motion of no confidence in Mr Murphy on Tuesday, said this was not the best use of public land.
The details of the proposed Land Development Agency emerging from Cabinet yesterday are very worrying.
It seems the Government is going to use the new agency to bypass local authorities and to replicate the controversial Joint Venture/Land Initiative funding model.
This model sees public land being sold to private developers and between 50% and 70% of the houses delivered on the site then sold at market prices.
The Joint Venture/Land Initiative model is also incredibly slow, because each project is subject to a negotiation between the private developer and the agency before a bidder is approved.
People Before Profit TD Richard Boyd Barrett said the LDA is a mechanism to sell public land to private developers.
The new proposal put forward by the Government is just another vehicle for the privatisation of public lands.
Dressed up as a new plan to deliver homes, in effect it will only serve to line the pockets of the private developers and will mean council housing is relegated to the crumbs from the rich mans table.
- Press Association
Earlier: Land for 3,000 units already secured as government announce new Land Development Agency
The Irish government has announced a new Land Development Agency (LDA) with 1.25bn of capital to utilise state lands more effectively.
This will involve a range of joint ventures with the private sector and the sale of state lands, with an additional 30% affordable housing requirement.
Land for 3,000 units has already been secured from state bodies.
LDA to use state land
The LDA is intended to open up appropriate state lands for housing development.
The government will inject 1.25bn of capital into the new agency, allowing it to transact with semi-state bodies and local authorities, and the private sector.
Land with potential for 3,000 units secutred
The announcement shows that lands with the potential for 3,000 units have already been secured from the Health Service Executive, Housing Agency and other state bodies.
These include land in Dundrum (1,500 units), Balbriggan (600) and Skerries (200).
LDA to create opportunities for builders
For the land agency, building out sites will require partners with experience.
The listed homebuilders are therefore likely to see opportunities to partner with the agency.
Glenveagh Living was established in order to take advantage of such opportunities and is likely to benefit from an increase in partnership and joint venture activity from semi-state and government sources.
Today's announcement demonstrates that partnership deals could add meaningfully to Glenveagh's activity and returns in the medium to long-term.
- Digital Desk
By Louise Walsh
The Irish Farmers Association (IFA) has asked farmers to be vigilant in Meath after the theft of the 15th Land Cruiser in three months has left gardai baffled
Some farmers in the county are reportedly padlocking their gates after 15 such vehicles were taken in robberies since June 1.
Most of the robberies were at farmhouses when car keys were accessed during break-ins to houses within an eight-mile radius in north-west Meath.
After a lull in thefts, three more Landcruisers were targeted across the county in the last few weeks.
The latest, which took place on Tuesday night at a farm at Coolronan, Ballivor has left the owners and gardai 'baffled', according to Meath Crime Prevention Officer Sgt Dean Kerins.
"The theft of the 09 LH registered Silver Toyota Land Cruiser was taken at about 10.45pm on Tuesday night.
"However, there doesn't appear to be any signs of an attempted break-in and the owner still had the only set of car keys when he discovered the theft," said Sgt Kerins.
"The owners didn't hear a thing so we are looking into the possibility that it was either hot-wired or loaded onto a truck to be driven away."
Last weekend, neighbours reportedly helped to foil the theft of a Landcruiser, when it was taken from Navan while the owner temporarily left it to check his land last Saturday morning.
The neighbours jumped into their cars to scout for the missing vehicle and spotted it hidden in a field, not far from where it was stolen.
Gardai are investigating the possibility that vehicles taken after break-ins at farmhouses during the night may be linked to a criminal gang who are targeting Land Cruisers in particular, due to demand.
Sgt Kerins is again urging owners of jeeps and Landcruisers to be vigilant at all times and consider installing a tracking device.
"The criminals seem to be particularly interested in Landcruisers and although investigations are continuing, it is likely to be an organised gang taking the jeeps in most cases.
"There seems to be a pattern emerging as in all the robberies, entry was gained through breaking the back door lock or cutting a hole in the window to get to the car keys - which are mainly always kept by householders in the kitchen area."
"Also if you notice any increased suspicious activity at a garage anywhere, where these vehicles could be getting stripped for parts, please contact your local garda station.
"A security review should be carried out checking all aspects of home security to offer the best protection," he further advised.
Meanwhile, the IFA has also rowed in to ask farmers to be alert of any suspicious behaviour.
"I'd ask farmers to be diligent with their vehicles and make sure they are locked at all times," said IFA's Regional Development Officer for Meath, Anthony Clinton
"Keep car keys in a safe place out of sight and close all farm gates. Use security cameras and anything else that may be a deterrent.
"Sometimes stolen vehicles are hidden away for a few days before being moved on in case they have tracker devices.
"Many farmers are part of community alerts but gardai should also be notified in the event of anything suspicious," he concluded.
The College of Anaesthetists of Ireland has announced that the terms anaesthesia and anaesthetist will be replaced with anaesthesiology and anaesthesiologist.
Minister for Health Simon Harris is set to unveil a plaque at the college in Merrion Square today, officially renaming the College as College of Anaesthesiologists of Ireland.
Speaking ahead of the official launch, Minister Harris said:
The role of the anaesthesiologist in our hospitals can sometimes be an invisible one people are usually aware of who their surgeon is, but they might not be aware of a key player in their hospital journey the anaesthesiologist, a highly qualified, specialist doctor playing a hugely valued medical role of critical importance.
"Patient safety is a top priority for me and it is also the guiding principle and constant commitment of anaesthesiologists.
This terminology change is in line with global best practice and acknowledges the wider role of the anaesthesiologist.
The World Federation of Societies of Anaesthesia (WFSA) defines anaesthesiology as the medical science and practice of anaesthesia.
It includes subspecialty areas of practice, such as perioperative medicine, pain medicine, resuscitation, trauma management and intensive care medicine.
The WFSA views the delivery of anaesthesia as a medical practice and an anaesthesiologist as a qualified physician who has completed a nationally-recognised medical training programme in anaesthesiology.
President of the College of Anaesthesiologists of Ireland, Professor Kevin Carson, said:
"This rebranding provides us with an opportunity to better inform the general public of the pivotal perioperative role anaesthesiologists play.
Many people are unaware that we are highly qualified, specialist medical doctors involved in the management of patients during their full surgical journey, from the time of consideration of surgery, surgery itself, and after their discharge home.
- Digital Desk
Thousands of Irish people living in Britain will have their rights protected even if there is a doomsday no-deal Brexit scenario and will not face the prospect of being thrown out of their adopted country.
British prime minister Theresa May's government has confirmed the common travel area rules will still exist regardless of any worst-case Brexit outcome and that her cabinet will update laws to make sure this remains the case if necessary.
In one of 28 technical notices on Brexit published by Downing Street today as Britain separately warned the EU it will refuse to pay its 44bn divorce bill if no Brexit deal is reached, officials moved to assure Irish citizens their rights will be protected.
The technical notice from the Department for Exiting the European Union read: If you are an Irish citizen you would continue to have the right to enter and remain in the UK, as now. You are not required to do anything to protect your status.
"In addition, you would continue to enjoy the reciprocal rights associated with the common travel area in the same way that British citizens in Ireland would if there is no deal.
"These rights include the right to work, study and vote, access to social welfare benefits and health services."
The confirmation is likely to be broadly welcomed by thousands of Irish people who have moved to Britain and established new lives and homes in Ireland's nearest neighbour.
Until now, there have been repeated concerns that the common travel area would not fully protect them from the damage a no deal Brexit scenario could reap, and that they may be forced to leave their adopted country.
Meanwhile, the British Brexit secretary Dominic Raab has warned the EU that London will not pay its 44bn divorce bill if there is no Brexit deal.
Writing in the Daily Telegraph yesterday, Mr Raab - who replaced David Davis this summer - said "the government would not pay the terms of the financial settlement" if there fails to be a Brexit deal, saying "there's no deal without the whole deal".
The comments came as ratings agency Moody's warned Ireland could be just as badly damaged by a no-deal Brexit as Britain, saying we could "bear a loss in output commensurate with that of the UK".
By Patrick Flynn
A US military plane has made an emergency landing at Shannon Airport this evening.
The Lockheed C-130 Hercules transport plane suffered an issue with one of its engines forcing the crew to shut it down.
The plane was travelling with two other aircraft, all of which were due to make a technical stop in Shannon.
It is understood there were 30 crew and passengers on board the plane.
The pilot declared an emergency shortly before the plane was due in Shannon and requested fire crews to be standing by for their arrival.
Units of the local authority fire service from Shannon Town and Ennis were dispatched to Shannon Airport to support the airports own fire and rescue service.
A number of ambulances and several Garda units were also sent to the airport.
The flight landed safely just before 7pm and taxied to a remote parking stand accompanied by fire crews.
Engineers are expected to inspect the engine to assess the cause of the problem before it continues its journey.
The aircraft is attached to the 139th Airlift Wing, a unit of the Missouri Air National Guard stationed in St. Joseph, Missouri.
Saying the comedian was getting paid peanuts would be an understatement.
Timothy Kimani, alias Njugush, had it rough when he started out his acting career in television, with his first salary barely keeping up with the minimum wage. It must be why the talented comedian and actor abruptly pulled out of the television scene and refocussed his talents on the internet, where his fortunes have significantly ameliorated.
Njugush made the startling revelation of his first salary on Twitter as he responded to a tweep who had asked netizens to share details of their first salary and which job it was.
The comedian answered by saying that his first salary was a measly Sh2800 on a show on TV. Not per episode nor per week, but after a month of hard work.
Njugush also insinuated that the Sh2800 was a bonus, as his main payment was supposed to be a platform and exposure.
While Njugush did not disclose the television show, one of his first prominent jobs on TV was the comedy show, Hapa Kule News. He also starred in The Real Househelps of Kawangware, which he is said to have quit after a disagreement with producers over low pay.
The shows former writer, Abel Mutua, and director, Phil Karanja, also followed Njugush out of the door over similar concerns.
The setting of a national energy policy is not rocket science and the federal failure is forcing states to go it alone, causing headaches for business, says a leading energy chief executive.
The head of gas and electricity company Jemena, Paul Adams, said states are setting their own emissions and renewable energy targets but this could create more problems.
For national businesses, these states creating different policies is making it difficult to run companies as you have to change for each state," Mr Adams said.
Paul Adams said individual state energy policies would make national business more difficult. Credit:Ben Rushton
Everyone would like a national policy but were getting more fragmented as states put through their own policy, and well get another rail gauge issue where the states dont align, Mr Adams said.
Kenyas moral cop has been dragged into the corridors of justice for banning the Kenyan feature film Rafiki.
The films director, Wanuri Kahiu, with backing from her co-petitioners, Creative Economy Working Group, is suing the Kenya Film Classification Board (KFCB) and its boss Ezekiel Mutua for proscribing the controversial film.
The moral cop was in inspired form as he sunk his teeth into banishing the film in Kenya on April 26 this year for allegedly promoting homosexuality/lesbianism.
In doing so, Mutua and his backward thinking effectively denied Rafiki a shot at the 2019 Oscars Awards as Kenyas entry in the Best Foreign language film category (A movie must be shown in the country submitting it for it to be eligible for the Academy Award). Mr Mutua also denied the film a probable chance to make history again, by becoming the first Kenyan film to earn an Oscar nod, after it became the nations first film to be shown at the Cannes Film Festival in April.
Entries for the Oscar award close by September 30 and time is running out. Kanuri and Creative Economy Working Group now want the High Court to temporarily lift the ban and allow for the film to be submitted.
If this matter is not certified urgent and heard on a priority basis, it would be rendered nugatory because Ms Kahius film would be left out of the competition, Wanuris lawyers Waikwa Wanyoike and Sofia Rajab-Leteipan were quoted saying.
They also want a change in a KFCB law that has been used in recent years to ban several controversial films from being showcased in the country like Fifty Shades of Grey, and The Wolf of Wallstreet.
Through her advocates, Kanuri also argues that the films agency violated several provisions of the Constitution that protect her right to free speech and freedom of creative expression.
According to Ms Kahiu and the lobby, they are bound to suffer losses from the ban though they had obtained the necessary licenses from KFCB.
The complainants are therefore seeking Sh8.5 million in compensation for the loss in sponsorship and projected sales from the distribution of the film.
Speaking on Sunday at the Toronto International Film Festival, following Rafiki premiere in North America on Thursday, Wanuri said: I dont necessarily consider myself an activist; I truly consider myself a storyteller. But when somebody starts to infringe on your rights to be creative and exercise your work, it becomes a problem. Thats when we decided to push back and take the Classification Board to court.
Rafiki has since been screened in Ghana, South Africa, and most recently to a sold-out crowd at the Toronto International Film Festival in Canada.
Students at St Paul's College ate sheep's hearts during initiations, celebrated sporting wins by taking girls to a "Bone Room" lined with mattresses, and humiliated freshmen by auctioning them off, a damning investigation into the college's culture has revealed.
The in-house bar was known for groping, rugby players chanted sexist slogans over a fire pit on valedictory night, and Anzac Day was celebrated by sending "platoons" on a pub crawl that became so drunken floors had to be covered in tarpaulins and buckets.
As he released the report by former sex discrimination commissioner Elizabeth Broderick, the new head of the Sydney University-based college, Don Markwell, apologised for poor past behaviour and said St Paul's would act on all recommendations.
A damning investigation has revealed the full extent of the culture issues at St Paul's College. Credit:Dominic Lorrimer
"We apologise unreservedly for any harm done to anyone by unacceptable behaviour by any members of the college, past or present, and where we have failed to take the strongest stance we could against such behaviour," he said.
Its effect was strong: the movie describes behaviour so devious, so wicked, that it spawned a new word. "Gaslighting" has come to mean any behaviour that seeks to falsely manipulate another person's fears, in order to undermine their sanity.
Arriving late in the World War II, Gaslight was superbly timed to jangle the nerves of American audiences already feeling a deep sense of unease about the world.
In fact, the original source was an English play by Patrick Hamilton, from 1938. The first version, made in 1940 in Britain by Thorold Dickinson, sticks closer to the play, but it's less known.
The 1944 American version had star power: George Cukor directing Ingrid Bergman, Charles Boyer and Joseph Cotten, and introducing a startling 18-year-old talent named Angela Lansbury.
Boyer marries Bergman in a whirlwind romance in Italy, then persuades her to return to the house in London where her aunt was murdered.
He then subjects her to a series of tricks, which are aimed at driving her insane. The title comes from the fact that the gas lights in the house go dim each night, for no reason that she can define.
It's a superbly creepy thriller, with universal themes. Most of us have met someone like the manipulative Boyer, if not in the same degree.
The ACT government has become the first jurisdiction in Australia to join the United Nations-backed Powering Past Coal Alliance aimed at rapidly phasing out the fossil fuel considered a major contributor to climate change.
The move, announced at the Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco overnight, came as almost 400 investors with $US32 trillion ($45 trillion) unveiled accelerated efforts to meet the Paris Climate Agreement goals to keep global temperatures from rising less than 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels.
Thai protesters gather near the government house to protest the construction of a coal-fired power plant in Bangkok earlier this year. Credit:AP
Shane Rattenbury, the ACT's Climate Change Minister, said the territory would join other alliance members such as France and Mexico, that had agreed to reduce coal's role in electricity generation. It also opposed construction of any plants that don't capture and store carbon dioxide produced.
Mr Rattenbury said his government had joined to cement its leadership, which includes achieving 100 per cent renewable electricity and reaching net-zero emissions by 2045. "[That's] two of the most ambitious climate targets in the world," he said.
Whales finally got some good news on Wednesday after the International Whaling Commission adopted a number of measures at its annual meeting in Florianopolis, Brazil, including a resolution recognising the cetaceans' crucial role in ecosystems.
While, in the past, the IWC has looked at whales simply as resources, the mammals are now seen as "ecosystem engineers", moving deep sea nutrients into the sunlight where their faecal plumes fertilise the water and help the productivity of ecosystems.
The resolution was voted on and got through in spite of opposition from Japan.
A humpback whale found stuck in ropes off Bondi Beach in May. Key resolutions protecting whales, such as mitigating the threat of getting entangled in fishing nets, were adopted at a meeting of the IWC on Wednesday. Credit:Whalewatchingsydney.com.au
The day before, a proposal to create a whale sanctuary in the South Atlantic - backed among others by Australia, New Zealand and the hosts - did not receive enough support to pass.
As a type of immune cell, it has always been considered one of the good guys. But in a stunning breakthrough in schizophrenia research, scientists say the "macrophage" immune cell can go rogue, causing havoc in the brain.
"Macrophage" means "big eaters" in Greek and is a fitting name for the cell because - when behaving - it digests cellular debris and foreign substances.
Australian researchers have, for the first time, identified the presence of macrophage cells in the brain tissue of a subgroup of people with schizophrenia.
"It's like a murder mystery, one thats remained unsolved for a hundred years," Professor Cyndi Shannon Weickert from Neuroscience Research Australia (NeuRA) said.
Canberra Hospital continues to struggle with a severe shortage of radiologists with all inpatient CT scans to be examined interstate for the rest of the month.
Inpatient scans from September 9 to 14 will be sent offsite to an external provider who will then make reports, according to an internal email.
Canberra Hospital's radiology department continues to suffer from staff shortages. Credit:JESSICA SHAPIRO
But the ACT government has confirmed the outsourcing will extend at least until the end of September.
Three of the past four weeks have already seen all inpatient scans being sent off site to be processed by external provider Everlight due to "unplanned leave".
Adani has ditched plans to build a new standard gauge rail line to get coal out of Queensland's Galilee Basin, opting for a cut-price solution using existing lines.
The Indian miner had planned to build a new 388 kilometre line from its controversial Carmichael mine to Abbot Point for export.
The Abbot Point port in action. Credit:Glenn Hunt
But on Thursday the company said it would "instead leverage existing rail infrastructure", along with a 200 kilometre narrow gauge rail line, to connect the mine to Abbot Point port.
The company said the new rail plan would be cheaper, in a move that followed the Queensland government's decision to veto any federal loan to support that aspect of the project.
A bushfire that closed the Warrego Highway west of Brisbane and prompted a warning for residents to be ready to leave their homes is under control and no longer threatening homes.
The highway reopened just after 6pm and an update from the Queensland Fire and Emergency Service on Thursday night said crews were watching the bushfire as it burned within containment lines near Philps Road in Grantham, about 100 kilometres west of Brisbane.
The bushfire forced the closure of the Warrego Highway in Grantham. Credit:Nine News Queensland - Twitter
A water-bombing helicopter had been called in to help firefighters as QFES issued a 'watch and act' alert on Thursday and warned it might not be possible to protect every property.
"A large fire is travelling from Philps Road, Grantham towards the Warrego Highway and Bowtells Road, Grantham," the QFES warning issued at 5.15pm said.
The Queensland government is appealing the nine-year jail sentence handed down to the man who killed Caboolture toddler Mason Jet Lee in 2016.
Attorney-General Yvette D'Ath says she has lodged an appeal against the manslaughter sentence given to William Andrew O'Sullivan on August 30.
Mason Lee was found dead at a Caboolture home.
"After receiving legal advice from the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, the appeal has been lodged today," Ms D'Ath tweeted on Thursday.
"As the appeal is now before the courts, I will do nothing that might prejudice these court proceedings and will be making no further comment."
Health officials have issued a new safety warning to fruit lovers across three states and one territory after a fourth contamination incident and a copycat saboteur were reported to police.
Queenslands chief health officer Dr Jeannette Young said strawberry eaters in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and the Australian Capital Territory should cut the fruit in half before eating, no matter the brand.
A thin metal object, possibly another needle, has been discovered in a punnet at Coles in Gatton, west of Brisbane. Credit:Queensland Police Service
Police are investigating a copycat saboteur after a Coles employee at a Gatton store, about 90 kilometres west of Brisbane, found a "small silver rod" on top of strawberries in a punnet.
The incident was reported to authorities on Thursday, but the strawberry punnet targeted was not a Berry Licious or Berry Obsession brand, leading to Dr Young expanding the health warning.
Mwai Kibaki appeared jovial as he returned home after a routine medical checkup in Britain.
According to reliable sources, Kibaki jetted back into the country on Tuesday evening as quietly as he had left over two weeks ago. He was accompanied by a renowned Gastroenterologist based at a Nairobi hospital, with whom Kibaki had traveled to London in August.
The former President left the country on the last Saturday of August for treatment abroad. It was for a checkup, having gone through surgery before, and the family felt there was no need to make it public because there was no cause for alarm, the source was quoted by the Standard newspaper.
As a standard procedure, a local doctor had to accompany him on the flight to monitor him, but it was nothing very serious.
The source added that Kibaki was upbeat as he chatted with family before he was driven to his Muthaiga home.
He was very upbeat when he arrived and in his usual self-exchanged pleasantries with those at hand to receive him. It was mostly his close family members.
Kibaki has been out of the public glare for some time and has rarely attended public functions over the last two months. He has been seen attending church services at the Consolata Cathedral in Nyeri, a few kilometres from his Mweiga residence.
He has been going for regular checkups in Nairobi since he underwent a successful minor surgery two years ago at Netcare Sunninghill Hospital in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Family members disclosed that he had undergone a brief procedure to remove a blood clot in one of his veins.
Meanwhile, Kibakis grandson, Mwai Kibaki jnr, in early August shared a close-up selfie with Kibaki, with netizens observing that he is doing okay.
A missing 14 year old girl who was last spotted at a shopping centre in Waikiki on September 9 has been found safe and well.
Police called for information about Halle Williams' whereabouts on September 7.
Police found Halle on Thursday. Credit:File Image
She was seen the morning of September 5 when she was dropped off on Malibu Road, Safety Bay to go to school and last seen at the Waikiki Village Shopping Centre in Waikiki on September 9.
On September 11 police released a statement saying they had renewed welfare concerns for the Halle but on Thursday afternoon they said she had been found safe.
The two men who appeared on Russia's state-funded RT television station had some physical similarities to the men shown in British police images.
British prosecutors last week identified two Russians they said were operating under aliases - Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov - whom they accused of trying to poison Sergei and Yulia Skripal with a military-grade nerve agent in England.
Moscow: Two Russians have appeared on state television, saying they had been wrongly accused by Britain of trying to murder a former Russian spy and his daughter in England and they had visited Salisbury in March for tourism.
"Our friends had been suggesting for a long time that we visit this wonderful town," one of the men said of the English town of Salisbury in a short clip of the interview played by RT.
They said they may have approached Sergei Skripal's house by chance but did not know where it was located. They had stayed less than hour in Salisbury, they said, because of bad weather.
"Well, we came there on March 2, then went to a railway station to see the timetable. We arrived in Salisbury on March 3 and tried to walk through the town, but we lasted for only half an hour because it was covered in snow.
"Of course, we went there to see Stonehenge, Old Sarum, but we couldn't do it because there was muddy slush everywhere. The town was covered by this slush. We got wet, took the nearest train and came back (to London)."
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An increase in broker lending has helped Australias largest credit union achieve a strong full-year lending result.
During FY18 CUA issued a total of $3.10billion in new home loans. The broker channel accounted for 52% of new mortgage lending, with $1.62billion during the 12 months to 30 June 2018.
The share of mortgage lending through the broker channel had increased from 41% and the volume of broker-originated loans increased by $580million since FY17.
The latest figures bring the credit union closer to the broker market share across the whole industry.
CUA chief sales officer Paul Lewis said this reflected its focus on strengthening broker relationships.
He added, Given the strong consumer preference for mortgage brokers, accounting for more than half of all mortgages at an industry level, it is important for CUA to be available to consumers in the channel of their choice.
Brokers will remain an important lending channel for CUA in the coming year and wed hope to maintain a similar share of broker-originated lending and organic lending through CUAs own channels again this year.
Over the past year, CUA has continued to focus on ensuring we get positive outcomes for members, whether they join CUA via the third party channel or through our organic channels.
Our Business Development Managers have done an outstanding job in each state to support brokers and educate them on CUAs offering, including both our products and the other services we provide to members. This has been the real key for CUA.
Other improvements during the year included the introduction of a dedicated broker member specialist to onboard broker-introduced members and educate them on the full-range of other CUA products and services.
Lewis also noted CUAs significant investment in member initiatives during the past year, saying these initiatives would provide a better member experience, return more value to members and increase choice in how members interact with CUA and manage their money.
Weve updated our mobile banking app and also now offer members a full suite of digital wallets across Apple, Android and Samsung devices, Lewis said.
Members are also benefitting from faster payments, after CUA was among the early adopters of the New Payments Platform (NPP) when it launched to the market in February 2018.
We are confident these initiatives will help us to attract new members to CUA through both organic and third-party channels. This focus on innovation combined with the personalised service that members know and trust, are where CUA has an opportunity to differentiate ourselves in the market.
In the year ahead, Lewis said CUA will be focused on streamlining its end-to-end processes to further improve member experience, starting with its deposit and account opening process, and then moving on to its home loan process.
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Shes playing all the kings men.
An award-winning actress will portray nearly a dozen different men in The Emperor, a play opening at the Polonsky Shakespeare Center in Fort Greene on Sept. 16. Kathryn Hunter said that she learned to juggle between the 11 male servants she plays by studying the book the play is based on, and extrapolating from there.
These characters, you have to imagine their lives fully you have to discover their backstory and what their attitude was about the emperor, and then when it comes to the moment, you just click in very quickly, said Hunter, who is living in Fort Greene during her month-long sojourn from London. Im doing this production and it feels like I have to go and look after the guys every morning I feel like a mom with 11 kids.
The show traces the downfall of the last Ethiopian emperor, Haile Selassie, who was overthrown in 1974. Its writer, Polish journalist Ryszard Kapuscinsk, traveled to Ethiopia the same year and interviewed the former emperors 33 servants for his book, which he later adapted into a play. In this production, Hunter plays one third of the servants, and in one segment shifts rapidly between them for a series of one-minute interviews. Since she cannot change her physical appearance for each character, she instead focuses on her mannerisms.
Theres no time for big changes of costume just adding little elements, like glasses or a hat, she said. Its mainly in the body or the voice or the attitude that the servants are differentiated.
Only one other person shares the stage with Hunter: Ethiopian musician Temesgen Zeleke, who plays the krar a bowl-shaped lyre and a pedal drum on stage. Zeleke said that he enjoys working with Hunter even though the pair only interact on stage in two scenes, when he plays the son of one of the servants.
Im really happy to be part of the play, he said. [Kathryn] is a really lovely person.
Zelekes involvement helped to bring Ethiopian culture to the stage, said Hunter.
Once Temesgen came on board we really felt he was breathing Ethiopia into the theater, she said. Its wonderful to be told a story about another culture.
But the play also speaks to contemporary United States culture, said Hunter, because of its commentary on politics, power, and corruption.
[Kapuscinski] says that he wants to interview these people in order to understand the old arc of governing. Whether you apply it to the U.S. or Europe or Korea, I think the whole world now is questioning itself about what it means, the art of governing what is good leadership? she said. We are in a crisis of leadership, and thats where I think the play is fantastically relevant and actual and will engage people in a hugely exciting way.
The Emperor at the Polonsky Shakespeare Center (262 Ashland Pl. between Fulton Street and Lafayette Avenue, www.tfana.org). Sept. 16 at 7:30 pm, then Sept. 1830; TueFri at 7:30 pm; Sat, Sun at 2 pm. $90$125 ($20 students).
Reach reporter Julianne McShane at (718) 2602523 or by e-mail at jmcsh ane@c ngloc al.com . Follow her on Twitter @juliannemcshane.
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Some fashionable fiend snatched a womans wallet aboard a subway inside Borough Hall station on Sept. 1 and used the victims credit card on a pricey shopping spree later that day, cops said.
The thief plucked the victims billfold out of her purse while on a moving Brooklyn-bound 2 train around 6:30 pm, before exiting the subway and fleeing to the distant isle of Manhattan, where she charged the womans plastic at no less than three stores, according to authorities.
The scammer first hit up an expensive French brands boutique, where she bought a $2,340 handbag at 7:11 pm, before using the card to purchase a second bag for $2,710 at a nearby department store eight minutes later, police said.
And less than an hour later, she tried to buy $400 worth of gift cards at a third retailer at 8:15 pm, but the card was declined, according to officers, who said the crook was last seen wearing a pink denim jacket with two Kiss patches on its front and the rock bands logo on the back, and a gray fanny pack.
Anyone with information regarding the incident is asked to call Crime Stoppers at (800) 5778477. The public can also submit tips by logging onto the Crime Stoppers website at www.nypdcrimestoppers.com or by texting tips to 274637 (CRIMES) then entering TIP577. All tips are strictly confidential.
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I never taught my kids not to talk to strangers.
Am I a bad mom? Isnt the golden rule of parenting to warn your children against the evil that awaits them? To alert them to the lurkers among us who want to
Disgusting. I dont want to think about such things, and I certainly dont want to talk about them to my children.
Statistically speaking, children getting abducted by strangers is, according to the Washington Post, one-hundredth of one percent of all missing children. Sure, a missing child is a terrible thing, but using my few small moments of teaching time on encouraging fear of strangers when its so unlikely anything would ever happen does not seem wise. It actually seems kind of dumb.
I have other things to talk to them about, like how amazing people are. I have other things to show them, like how kind it is to meet the gaze of people wherever they are. And they see what kinds of friends I make of strangers wherever I go, with whomever I encounter.
Dont talk to strangers. What terrible advice.
We are a global world now. The long-distance phone call is dead. We are just a click away from people all over the globe. Of course there are random Facebook people I dont feel the need to FaceTime with, and every once in a while there is a wild card who spoils the fun with some strange missive driven I imagine out of loneliness, but on the regular I find people to be pretty amazing.
I am glad in so many ways that I have raised my children in New York City. There are so many kinds of people here, all bunched up in this space, packed side by side like sardines. Now, to some, that doesnt sound great, but I get giddy at the thought of all the different languages my kids hear and all the foreign countries their friends have been from. Wed almost never have to leave Brooklyn to meet people from every spot on Earth. Almost.
No. I think that advice, whoever came up with it, was wrong. William Butler Yeats said it much better: There are no strangers here; Only friends you havent yet met. Yep. He had it right. In fact, the better advice to our kids, the advice Ive begun to make my mantra is, Talk to someone! Ask someone!
This fear kids have of using their voice to speak to someone they dont know in part due to our paranoid parenting and in part due to technology seems to be holding them back from opportunities.
Pick up the phone! my exuberant mother-in-law used to say to her kids. But shed be hard-pressed to give that same advice now.
My 17-year-old son, on calling: You dont just pick up the phone and call someone without asking first. Geez. [Head shake to signify Im an idiot.] Thats rude!
Rude. To call someone. Someone you know, let alone a stranger.
I would have been sunk as a reporter back in the day. Now, its true, you are often forced to resort to e-mail as many companies dont even have phone numbers. But still. The way you got something from someone was by using your voice! You coaxed, and cajoled. You were kind and friendly to strangers, and they gave you what you wanted.
I cant imagine human nature has changed, despite the gajillion forms of technology we now employ to connect. I do believe we will always find what we want by talking to strangers, especially because we dont know what we want all the time, do we?
Thats the magic. Those people you dont know, those weird and wonderful people (especially the weird ones!) have the answers. You just have to say Hi!
Okoth Obados romantic affair with slain student Sharon Otieno was not a secret, the governors lawyer, Cliff Ombeta, has said, adding that it was out in the public long before the recent turn of tragic events.
When the photos were circulating in social media long before this, It was not a secret even the people in the county knew about itthere was a relationship, Ombeta was quoted.
Speaking to KTN news on Wednesday, the learned friend said they cannot refute the affair and attributed it to a moment of weakness.
It is a normal thing for people to have a moment of weakness but speaking of murder no, he said.
The lawyer also called out politicians for publicly calling for Obados prosecution saying politics has taken a center stage in the investigations.
We mourn and we are sorry that this happened but let us not think with the heart, lets think with the head. Why are politicians commentinglook at Sonko, Kilonzo, Kaluma.. all this are politicians, he said.
Ombeta further said the protesters calling for the governor to be arrested should stop adding that they are not the police.
If the detectives were to follow such pressure from the public then it is not right. The presumption of innocence must also be there, he said.
What do they know about the case? They sit together and decide that somebody must be guilty and arrested. This is mere speculation.
The police can only arrest when there is evidence and facts are laid bare not because of the public pressure. If that is the position then the sky will be the limit, Ombeta added.
Ombeta further noted that the governor is not excepted to return to the police station for questioning.
He is not expected in court. He is not a suspect but just a person of interest.. the police are trying to piece together the kind of information he gave them.
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Chinese Consul General in Kolkata, Ma Zhanwu, on Wednesday suggested a service between Kunming and through Myanmar and Bangladesh.
"If the project becomes a reality, it will take only two hours to complete 2,000-km journey, compared with flights that take almost two hours and 30 minutes," Ma said at a conference here.
"Most talked about is the from Kunming to and from to Kunming. Maybe in the coming decade, it will just take two hours from Kolkata via Dhaka and Myanmar to Kunming," he said.
He said the service will give a thrust to trade and commerce in the Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar (BCIM) corridor.
ALSO READ: NDA govt to buy 18 Shinkansen bullet trains from Japan for Rs 70 bn: Report
Ma said the project figured in the Greater Mekong Subregion meet in Kunming in 2015.
The envoy said that Chinese policies like the Belt and Road Initiative is mainly designed for extensive discussion and shared benefits with neighbouring countries like India and "not to conquer them".
was on Thursday appointed as the 46th Chief Justice of India, according to the Law Ministry.
He would assume office on October 3 after present incumbent retires a day before.
Justice Gogoi will have a tenure of a little over 13 months and would retire on November 17, 2019.
President Ramnath Kovind signed warrants of appointment of Justice Gogoi following which a notification announcing his appointment was issued.
Born on November 18, 1954, Justice Gogoi was enrolled as an advocate in 1978. He practised in the Gauhati High Court on constitutional, taxation and company matters.
He was appointed as a permanent judge of the Gauhati High Court on February 28, 2001.
On September 9, 2010, he was transferred to the Punjab and Haryana High Court. He was appointed as Chief Justice of Punjab and Haryana High Court on February 12, 2011 and then a judge of the on April 23, 2012.
Justice Misra had earlier this month recommended Justice Gogoi as his successor as per established practice of naming the senior-most judge after the CJI for the post.
Speculation over Justice Gogoi's appointment as the next CJI arose after the court's four most senior judges, including Justice Gogoi, called a press conference in January and criticised Justice Misra on various issues, especially the manner of allocation of cases to certain benches.
Justices J Chelameswar (since retired), Madan B Lokur and Kurian Joseph were the others who addressed the press conference, perhaps a first in the history of the Indian judiciary.
According to the Memorandum of Procedure, which governs the appointment of members of the higher judiciary, "appointment to the office of the should be of the senior-most judge of the considered fit to hold the office".
It stipulates that the law minister will, at an appropriate time, seek the recommendation of the outgoing for the appointment of a successor.
Under this process, after receiving the CJI's recommendation, the law minister puts it before the prime minister who advises the president on the matter.
Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad had recently said the government's intention on the appointment of the next should not be questioned. He had also said the executive will take a call when the incumbent names the senior-most judge of the as his successor as per convention.
Prasad was responding to a question at the Law Ministry's annual press conference on whether the government would follow laid-down conventions and procedures to appoint Justice Gogoi as Justice Misra's successor.
"The question is imaginary...as far as the appointment of the Chief Justice of India is concerned, the convention is clear...the sitting chief justice names the senior-most judge (of the top court) as his successor. When the name comes to us, we will discuss it," he had said.
Okoth Obado Wednesday portrayed the image of quite the family man as he finally made his first public statement over the tragic murder of Sharon Otieno.
In what was evidently a PR move aimed at salvaging his dwindling public image, the embattled Migori governor stepped out with his nuclear family in the glare of cameras and categorically distanced himself from the murder of his former lover.
Governor Obado, in the televised presser at the Serena Hotel in Nairobi, was accompanied by his wife Hellen Okoth, his son Jerry Okoth, and daughter Evalyne Okoth.
I want to state here clearly that I have absolutely nothing to do with the cruel death of Sharon, declared Obado.
He said the public condemnation has given his family sleepless nights adding they are equally shocked by the murder.
Obado sent a condolence message to the family of Sharon and called upon politicians and the media to avoid speculations over the incident. He added that their comments amount to medieval punishments and proclamations.
I want to say that Im ready and willing whenever I will be called upon to give further statements. I want to send my heartfelt condolences to the family and friends of Sharon.
He also asked police and all agencies involved to speed up investigations and bring the guilty culprits to book.
I want to urge all the agencies that are mandated with investigations to speed up their work so that the real killers can be brought to book, Obado said.
Here are photos of his family:
Power Finance Corporation (PFC) is looking at resolution of almost half of its total exposure to the power assets (10 out of a total of 23 projects), hopefully before November. Along with this, nine projects have already been submitted to the insolvency courts.
The key sector lender, however, would be cautious of lending to private companies from now on, according to the management. With an exposure of Rs 255 billion across 23 power projects, the lender is preparing for a haircut of 54 per cent. There will be no further provisioning towards ...
Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and her ministry have been under attack from the opposition parties, led by the Congress party, over the Rafale deal. The BJP government has been questioned on why it reduced the number of Rafale jets to be procured from the earlier 126, which was negotiated by the UPA government, to now 36.
The price of the deal has also become a subject of much debate after the Centre refused to divulge the full-fledged details. In an interview with national daily 'The Indian Express', Sitharaman faced questions on the controversial deal, India's ...
Washington has invited Beijing to hold new talks on their escalating tariff dispute, the Chinese foreign ministry said Thursday, ahead of a decision by President Donald Trump on whether to raise duties on $200 billion of Chinese imports.
The announcement followed reports by American and European chambers of commerce that foreign companies in China have been hurt by earlier tariff hikes by both sides in the fight over Beijing's technology policy.
"We have indeed received an invitation from the side. We welcome it," said a ministry spokesman, Geng Shuang. "Now the two sides are in communication on relevant details." Envoys from the two countries last met August 22 in Washington but reported no progress.
Beijing has rejected pressure from the to roll back plans for state-led development of Chinese global champions in robotics, artificial intelligence and other fields.
Washington, Europe and other trading partners say those plans violate China's market-opening commitments. American officials also worry they might erode industrial leadership.
The two governments have imposed 25 per cent tariffs on $50 billion of each other's goods.
Two-thirds of American companies that responded to a survey said they have suffered lost sales or lower profits due to that increase, two chambers of commerce reported Thursday.
More companies say they will suffer if Trump goes ahead with his planned tariff hike and Beijing retaliates, according to the American Chambers of Commerce in China and in Shanghai.
In addition to retaliatory tariffs, companies report China is slowing down customs clearances and stepping up inspections and other bureaucratic processes, the chambers said.
Forecasters have warned that the worsening conflict between the world's two biggest traders could cut up to 0.5 percentage point off global economic growth through 2020 if all threatened tariff hikes go ahead.
"American companies are suffering both from China's retaliatory tariffs, and ironically from tariffs designed to harm the Chinese economy," the two chambers said in a statement. "AmCham China and AmCham Shanghai urge both governments to return to the negotiating table."
Beijing has issued a list of USD 60 billion of American products for retaliation if Trump's next tariff hike goes ahead.
The chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce in China warned the Trump administration might be underestimating China's resolve to fight back.
"The US administration runs the risk of a downward spiral of attack and counterattack, benefiting no one," William Zarit said in the statement. To avoid the tariffs, 30 per cent of US companies are looking at moving assembly out of the or China or finding new suppliers, the chambers said. They said nearly one-third are thinking about cancelling or postponing investment decisions.
Also Thursday, the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China said one in six of its members that responded to a survey are delaying investment or expansion. It said the conflict is "causing significant disruptions to global supply chains."
China is running out of American imports for retaliation due to their lopsided trade balance, but threatened unspecified "comprehensive measures" in June. That prompted worries it would use regulatory controls to disrupt US business operations in China.
Another business group, the US-China Business Council, said this week Chinese officials told it they were postponing accepting license applications from American companies in financial services and other fields until relations improve.
Some 63.6 per cent of more than 430 companies that responded to the American chambers' survey said profits and customer demand have fallen due to the US tariffs and 62.5 per cent aid the same about retaliatory Chinese tariffs.
About 74.3 per cent said they would be affected if Washington's tariff increase on $200 billion of Chinese goods goes ahead. Some 67.6 per cent said the same of China's planned retaliatory tariffs on $60 of American goods. The survey was conducted between August 29 and September 5.
Some 52.1 per cent of companies said Chinese authorities are slowing customs clearances, increasing inspections or imposing other "qualitative measures." The European chamber said about 5 per cent of companies reported shifting production out of the and about 7 per cent were moving out of China.
Global oil output hit a record of 100 million barrels per day in August, but the market may tighten and prices rise as exports from Iran and Venezuela decline, the International Energy Agency said Thursday. We are entering a very crucial period for the oil market, the IEA said in its latest monthly report. Things are tightening up. The global record came as output from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries rose to a nine-month high of over 32 million barrels per day (mb/d).
Dear Reader,
Business Standard has always strived hard to provide up-to-date information and commentary on developments that are of interest to you and have wider political and economic implications for the country and the world. Your encouragement and constant feedback on how to improve our offering have only made our resolve and commitment to these ideals stronger. Even during these difficult times arising out of Covid-19, we continue to remain committed to keeping you informed and updated with credible news, authoritative views and incisive commentary on topical issues of relevance.
We, however, have a request.
As we battle the economic impact of the pandemic, we need your support even more, so that we can continue to offer you more quality content. Our subscription model has seen an encouraging response from many of you, who have subscribed to our online content. More subscription to our online content can only help us achieve the goals of offering you even better and more relevant content. We believe in free, fair and credible journalism. Your support through more subscriptions can help us practise the journalism to which we are committed.
Support quality journalism and subscribe to Business Standard.
Digital Editor
The Indian Mission in Nepal has rescued a total of 72 pilgrims stranded en route back from the Muktinath temple in Northern Nepal.
The group of pilgrims from Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Maharastra and some NRI's were returning from pilgrimage to Muktinath temple.
"Mission successfully evacuated 72 pilgrims stranded in Dana village, Myagdi district while returning from their pilgrimage to Muktinath. Those stranded included pilgrims from Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Maharashtra and some overseas Indians as well, comprising children and many elderly people over 70 years of age. They were stranded due to flash floods, incessant rains, landslides," Pranav Ganesh, First Secretary at the Indian Mission to Nepal informed ANI.
As per Ganesh, all the evacuations were made on Thursday morning only through the help of the small helicopters.
A heavy rainfall was witnessed in the Northern Himalayas of Nepal with frequent caving in and the landslides in various sections of the road on the way to Muktinath.
"The news of stranding reached us late yesterday. We took help of local administration to get food and shelter for them yesterday late night. In the morning, 18 sorties were conducted to evacuate them by identifying a helipad near the point of stranding," First Secretary Pranav Ganesh said.
The rescued pilgrims were first taken to Pokhara and then to capital Kathmandu. "The pilgrims were given initial medical attention upon arrival in Pokhara, and now the pilgrims have left for Kathmandu. The mission kept state governments in loop during the operation," Ganesh added.
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Ariana Grande's Brother Frankie J. Grande has broken his silence on the sudden demise of her ex-boyfriend Mac Miller.
The 35-years-old took to his Instagram account to mourn the death of the American rapper. He began with writing "I am beyond heartbroken over Malcolm's death. He was a good friend and was wonderful to my sister."
Revealing that Miller helped him with his drug addiction Frankie wrote, "He was the reason I went to the rehabilitation center where I was detoxed safely from all of the drugs alcohol and medications I was taking when I couldn't imagine living without them."
"I remember when I would get 30, 60, 90 days clean and Malcom would be there with a gift and a card and words of encouragement... telling me that he knew how hard getting sober is and how impressed he was that I was succeeding," he added.
Addressing the issue of addiction Frankie wrote, "Addiction is a TERRIBLE disease. many people are suffering from addiction like I am and many many of them are losing. Those of us who are struggling with addiction must stay strong. We must continue to work HARD on ourselves every single day and help each other."
" To anyone who needs help, help is there. you just need to have the courage to ask, which I know can be EXTREMELY difficult... but when you do I GUARANTEE support will be there. do not be ashamed if you are losing the battle against addiction, shame feeds the disease, humility defeats it. please ask for help! you are NOT ALONE! I am here... and I will continue to be here... for you," he told his followers.
Frankie concluded the caption with "Malcom my friend, you will be dearly missed. and I know you will be looking down on me from heaven, proudAF for every day I live my life clean and sober... 453 days and counting... Thank you from the bottom of my heart."
At the end of the caption, he mentioned some helpline numbers including the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.
Ariana and Miller dated for two-and-a-half years before ending their relationship in the spring of 2018. Following the demise of rapper, netizens blamed Ariana Grande for ex-boyfriend Mac Miller's death, the American rapper finally broke her silence with a simple tribute in the form of a photo on Instagram.
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
As the BPO (Business Processing Outsourcing) industry is making giant strides in Northeast India; a new unit under the 'Northeast BPO promotion scheme' has opened in Guwahati.
BPO, being the fastest growing segments of the Information Enabled Services industry (ITES), is one of the major sources of livelihood for many in the region.
Operations manager Uday Kiran, said, "We have established a BPO unit with the help of the government of India as well as the state government of Assam. We would like to thank STBI who supported us to establish this BPO unit here. We now provide employment for 70 people."
To bring in more development, the Centre has rolled out the Northeast BPO promotion scheme envisaged under the Digital India Programme that seeks to incentivise establishment of 5000 seats in respect to BPO/ITES operations in North Eastern Region.
Other than Guwahati, many BPO centers under the scheme have been inaugurated in different parts of Imphal.
An employee, Kabita Singh said, "I have been working here more than a year now. We have four branches in total. Different kinds of services are provided here, like form processing, BPO, payroll services, and software."
The budget outlay for the North East BPO Promotion scheme is around Rs. 50 crore. The scheme has the potential to create 15,000 direct jobs.
Another employee said, "It will be much beneficial for the youth, as most of the young generation are going to Kolkata, Delhi, outside for BPOs. BPOs, if it will be open in our state it will be much and much better for all the youth who are searching for jobs.
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Governor Okoth Obados personal assistant Michael Oyamo will stay behind bars for the next 14 days at Muthaiga Police Station in Nairobi.
The High Court on Wednesday allowed police to detain him after the prosecution sought for more time to conclude investigations into the murder of Sharon Otieno.
State Counsel Tom Mbali had asked the court for extra time saying that the case is very complex. He also said the investigators are still pursuing other suspects.
Mbali also argued that the suspects cellular devices have to undergo forensic examinations and that they are also waiting for DNA results which have been extracted from the suspects.
Oyamo through his lawyers strongly opposed the application and asked the court to release him pending investigations.
If they dont have evidence against him why are they holding him? the defence team posed.
The murder charge has also been red out to Oyamo but he did not take a plea.
Justice Luka Kimaru said that its not a formal charge but its to inform him what he might be charged with.
The case is expected to be mentioned on September 26.
As the nation celebrates Ganesh Chaturthi, B-Town gears up to mark the festival with fervour.
The stars are taking to their social media handles to share their share of joy and celebration.
Veteran actor Anupam Kher took to social media to unveil a video from 'MAGICAL' Shree Ganesh Temple in Entebbe, Uganda. In the video, the devotees can be seen celebrating the sacred festival with playing drums and chanting 'Ganpati Bappa Morya.'
"This is MAGICAL. Shree Ganesh Temple in Entebbe, Uganda celebrates #GaneshUtsav with the chants of #GanpatiBappaMorya. Listen to the sound of drums and the expressions on the faces of the people who are playing them. #GanpatiBappaMorya #VibesAndEnergy," he wrote.
Diva Madhuri Dixit too took to Twitter to wish her fans, writing, "Modaks, family gatherings, dance, music... Everything about #GaneshChaturthi makes me happy. I wish this festive season brings you all countless blessings!
#GanpatiBappaMorya."
Varun Dhawan and Anushka Sharma, who are on a promotional spree for their upcoming movie 'Sui Dhaaga- Made in India', also celebrated the festival with an eco-friendly idol of Ganapati.
The 'Jab Tak Hai Jaan' star also unveiled the making video of the idol and wrote, "Celebrating this auspicious occasion with a beautiful eco-friendly Bappa made with Dhaaga #GaneshChaturthi @varundvn."
Salman Khan's sister Arpita Khan Sharma also shared some 'behind the scenes' videos of the Ganpati decor on Instagram.
Sonam Kapoor Ahuja also celebrated 'one of her favourite times of the year. Taking to Twitter, the actor posted a picture with Ganesh idol, writing, "Ganesh Chaturthi is one of my favourite times of the year. I love the week-long festivities and coming together of friends and families! Wishing all of you a wonderful Ganesh Chaturthi."
Sushmita Sen took to Twitter to wish her fans on auspicious occasion, writing, "Happpyyyyy Birthday Lord Ganesha!!! A blessed & fortunate #ganeshchaturthi to everyone I love you guys & wish you every happiness always!! #duggadugga."
The Hindu festival is dedicated to the Lord of new beginnings, Ganesha. The celebration is marked with the installation of the deity's idol at home and at elaborate pandals. The 10-day festival ends with the final immersion - also called the Visarjan - of an idol of Lord Ganesha.
Celebrated with great fame in India, especially in Maharashtra, unique efforts have been made in different cities.
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Highlighting the human rights violations by the Pakistan security forces, Baloch activists have demanded the suspension of Islamabad's membership from the United Nation Human Rights Council (UNHRC).
Addressing a conference in Geneva on Wednesday, the activists said that unless the Pakistan government takes steps to recover the missing people, who have been abducted by the security forces, the council should suspend the country's membership, Bolan Times reported.
Prominent Baloch activists like Naela Qadri Baloch, Mama Qadeer Baloch and Shaukat Ali Kashmiri also highlighted the enforced disappearances, arbitrary detentions and mass killing of political and human rights activist by Pakistan.
The Voice for Missing Baloch Persons (VBMP) vice president, Mama Qadeer Baloch, said that the Pakistan Army and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) have slaughtered 10,000 Baloch people since 1948. He vowed that the organisation would continue to hold protests and rallies till they got information on the victims of enforced disappearances.
Recalling an incident, Qadeer informed that when he was leading a long march, the Pakistani forces had threatened to kill him and his supporters participating in the agitation.
He further said that on a single day, nearly 50 people are being killed in Balochistan by the security forces.
Norwegian Human Rights lawyer, Randi Hagen Spydevold, expressed grave concerns on the worsening human rights violations in Pakistan and said that if urgent steps were not taken, then the country would become like North Korea.
She said that the ISI and Pakistan Army do not want to let the human rights to function smoothly in Pakistan.
United Kashmir People's National Party chairman, Shaukat Ali Kashmiri, also echoed similar sentiments saying that the Pakistani government, military and ISI acted like mafia under the law. He also questioned the silence of Pakistan's judiciary and said that it did not take cognisance of the worsening human rights violations in the country.
He chided the ISI for harbouring terrorists and extremists inside Pakistan and said that it would further aggravate the already worsening grim situation in the country.
The President of the Baloch Women's Forum, Naela Quadri Baloch, said that Pakistani forces forcefully occupied Balochistan, as it is rich in minerals and also because of its proximity to the sea. She expressed concerns that since the signing of USD 63 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) deal between Islamabad and Beijing, atrocities against the Baloch people have increased at an alarming rate.
The conference was organised by the 'Baloch Voice Association' and was moderated by its head and Baloch activist, Munir Mengal.
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The human rights situation in Balochistan is witnessing an unprecedented decline as the state agencies of Pakistan are on a rampage, alleged the Baloch political activists and human rights activists while interacting with media at Geneva Press Club.
The conference organized by 'Baloch Voice Association' was addressed by Professor Naela Qadri Baloch, Mama Qadeer Baloch and other human rights activists who highlighted the issue of arbitrary detentions, enforced disappearances and killings of political and human rights activists in Pakistan.
Naela Qadri Baloch, who is heading the Baloch Womens' Forum, said that Pakistan has been exploiting all the resources of Balochistan and later using it as dump yard, not caring for the lives of its citizens.
She said "Many times Pakistan has proved that they just need the land of Balochistan. They need our gold. They need our oil, they need our minerals, they need our deep sea ports to sell them to China, and they need our land for their proxy nuclear tests. They did Chinese nuclear tests on the soil of Balochistan; they exploded five nuclear bombs on the soil of Balochistan. There was no rain, there was drought and 90 per cent of wildlife died in Balochistan."
Ever Since Pakistan has signed the multi-billion dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) deal with China, the number of atrocities has grown rapidly.
Naela added, "Who has given them the right to sell Balochistan to China. If we stood up against them and said that Balochistan was an occupied territory and Pakistan doesn't have any right to sell Gwadar port or any port of Balochistan for any mega project or any CPEC kind of destructive projects. What happened? I myself am a testimony. I got beaten up. A university professor got beaten up by the idiots of Pakistan army. I was jailed too. I was detained in the middle of the night at 1'o clock without any warrants, without any paperwork and was taken to cantonment police station."
Her husband was abducted by state agencies for a mere dare of trying to make a film on the prevailing human rights situation.
The 'Voice for Missing Baloch Persons' (VBMP) says that Pakistan has killed more than a 100,000 innocent Balochs ever since it forcefully occupied the territory.
VBMP vice president Mama Qadeer Baloch, who has come to Geneva to attend the 39th Session of UN Human Rights Council said, "Since 1948, when Pakistan occupied Balochistan, Pakistan has been killing people and throwing dead bodies. They used to bury dead bodies in mountains, desserts and sometimes they would throw the bodies on the streets as well. If we collect all the data then more than 100,000 Baloch people have been killed since then and their bodies have been thrown."
Qadeer told media that he has a documented data of more than 45,000 people who have been abducted or killed by the Army and other security forces of Pakistan.
Baseer Naveed, a human rights activist based in Hong Kong said, "In Pakistan, one can say very easily that there is no rule of law. Of course, there is a parliament system existing, there is an independent judiciary and other institutions are also claiming that they are independent and are working democratically but the military is the supreme body and has all the power. It is controlling the whole country. How can a man disappear in the presence of a parliament system and judiciary? This is a complete failure of law. There is no rule of law. The country has proved itself that it has no criminal justice system. Even judges are saying that the system has failed because military doesn't want any institution's inference."
The conference was moderated by Munir Mengal, the head of Baloch Voice Association and attended by Sardar Shaukat Ali Kashmiri, Fazal Rehaman Afridi and Randi Hagen Spydevold, a Norwegian lawyer and legal representative of Ehsan Arjemandi, a Baloch activist missing in Pakistan.
Earlier, the European Organisation for Pakistani Minorities, which has been working extensively for rights of the oppressed, highlighted the issue of enforced disappearances in Balochistan during the ongoing 39th Session of the UN Human Rights Council.
They also put banners in front of the United Nations office in Geneva with pictures of some of the missing political activists on them, which are reflective of an increasingly grim human right situation in Pakistan.
The organisation has sought UN support into the issue and asked for a fact-finding team to visit Pakistan and help the victims, who are allegedly lodged in secret detention centers.
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On the auspicious occasion of Ganesh Chaturthi, Bollywood celebrities vouched for eco-friendly celebration and urged everyone do the same.
Bollywood veteran Nana Patekar, hailed the eco-friendly celebration and said, "It is good that it has started now. It is better late than never."
"By taking eco-friendly steps, we are not doing any favour to anyone, but in turn, we are taking care of ourselves. This is really important," he added.
He along with his mother paid obeisance to Lord Ganesha while bringing in the deity's idol inside their home.
Actor Sonu Sood who has been celebrating the festival for the last 18 years, encouraged everyone to go green on this occasion. While speaking to ANI he said that after the celebrations, the idols should be "immersed in an eco-friendly pond, in order to keep the environment safe."
Govinda, who was also seen celebrating the festival, said that he is praying to Lord Ganesha in order to not let any obstruction come in the way of him and his upcoming movie 'Fryday's success.
Meanwhile, actor Vivek Oberoi' wife Priyanka Alva along with their family also paid their obeisance to Lord Ganesha, while singing spiritual ballads.
Superstar Salman Khan's sisters Arpita and Alvira Khan also welcomed a Ganesha idol at their home.
The Hindu festival, which is dedicated to the Lord of new beginnings, Ganesha marked with the installation of the deity's idol at home and at elaborate pandals. The 10-day festival ends with the final immersion - also called the Visarjan - of Lord Ganesha's idol.
Earlier in the day, actors like Anupam Kher, Madhuri Dixit, Anushka Sharma, and Sonam Kapoor shared their celebratory pictures of the occasion on social media.
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According to a recent study, fewer and fewer women die from breast cancer in recent years, but surprisingly, the decline has been just as large in the age groups that are not screened. The decline is, therefore, due to better treatment and not screening for breast cancer.
As part of the study, the researchers followed all Norwegian women aged 30-89 and identified those who developed breast cancer in the period 1987-2010, before subsequently comparing the number of deaths before and after the screening programme was introduced.
According to Henrik Stovring, one of the researchers, the result didn't favour the breast cancer screening programme. The Danish screening programme was progressively introduced from the early 1990s and was offered nationally to everyone from 2007, three years after the Norwegians, who supplied data for the Danish-Norwegian research project.
"The important result is that we do not find a beneficial effect of breast cancer screening any longer. The original randomised trials examining breast cancer screening were conducted way back in the 1980s, and they showed an effect, but the fact is that the better the treatment methods become, the less benefit screening has," said Henrik Stovring.
Here, he pointed towards one of the paradoxes of screening, the popular but erroneous belief that if breast cancer patients who have been screened to 'live longer' than other breast cancer patients, then screening works. The problem was that with screening, medical doctors detected cancerous tumours earlier than they would otherwise have done. But even if someone who has been screened lives longer as a patient, it is not certain that their life as a whole will be longer. It was important to account for this fact, and the new study showed that screening does not lead to women living longer overall - and this is the study's most important finding.
"The women who were invited to screening live longer because all breast cancer patients live longer, and they do so because we now have better drugs and more effective chemotherapy, and because we have cancer care pathways, which means the healthcare system reacts faster than it did a decade ago. But it does not appear that fewer women die of breast cancer as a result of mammography screening," said Henrik Stovring.
He also pointed out that it is not always beneficial for a woman to be diagnosed with a tiny cancerous growth of e.g. a millimeter in diameter at a mammography. Some of these small nodules are so slow-growing that the woman would have died a so-called natural death with undiagnosed cancer if she had not been screened.
"Now what happens is these women are instead given a diagnosis which isn't going to make anyone happier. Such a breast cancer diagnosis both makes life more difficult and costs a lot of money, but does not ultimately make a difference. The problem is that we were not able to tell the difference between the small cancer tumours that will kill you and those that will not," said Henrik Stovring.
Here he addressed the issue of overdiagnosis which is a growing problem in all Western countries where the approach to medicine and examinations is extensive and where national screening programmes are prevalent.
"It's certainly not my task to decide how the research results should be used, but my suggestion would nonetheless be that we should get together and begin to investigate whether it would beneficial to do something other than screening and whether this could have a better effect. If a doctor could instead examine women's breasts with his or her hands, what is known as palpation, at regular intervals, then we would avoid much of the overdiagnosis," says Henrik Stvring.
The findings are present in the Journal International Journal of Cancer.
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After fugitive liquor Baron Vijay Mallya claimed that he met Finance Minister Arun Jaitley to "settle matters" before he left India, Communist Party of India (Marxist) general secretary Sitaram Yechury asked the Centre to own up to the fact that it allowed the 'loot' to take place.
Yechury told ANI, "They (Government) have to own up to the fact that they allowed this loot to happen and the fact that they are allowing this loot to happen, more people are looting."
The CPI (M) leader underscored that if the government had correct intentions, it could have unearthed the scam earlier.
He asserted that the government can deny the facts, but all those who looted public money by taking loans from banks and absconded, "not one of them happened to leave the country without the knowledge of the government."
Congress leader Anand Sharma said that the finance minister should have revealed about his meeting with the liquor baron in the Parliament and added that, "Only the Finance Minister can tell why he didn't tell about it?"
Another Congress leader Salman Khurshid said that "Mallya was an MP and Jaitley played a major role in his becoming an MP. The fact is if such an offer was made, then the finance minister should've told him (Mallya) lets us fix how you'll take this forward. Fact remains a person who owes it to the country isn't available in the country."
Earlier on Wednesday, Mallya confirmed that he met and informed Finance Minister Arun Jaitley before "leaving for London" in 2016.
"I happened to meet Jaitley in Parliament and told him that I am leaving for London... I did not have any formal meetings scheduled with him," Mallya said.
He also said that he had met Jaitley several times and expressed his willingness to settle the bank loans.
However, the Finance Minister rebuffed the claims by fugitive liquor baron Vijay Mallya.
Speaking to ANI on Mallya's claim, Jaitley said, "I have seen the statement of Vijay Mallya where he claims to have met me with an offer of settlement. Nothing could be further from the truth. I never gave him (Mallya) an appointment, never at my office, never at my residence. Nor I was ever offered to meet him.
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Escalating the ongoing Mallya-Jaitley controversy, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Thursday attacked the Congress by making claims of close ties between Congress leaders and fugitive liquor baron Vijay Mallya.
Addressing the media, BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra said that previous government offered sweet deals to Mallya's Kingfisher Airline to keep it afloat despite piling losses. He further said that sometimes it seems the airlines was not owned by Mallya but by Gandhi family in proxy.
Patra also accused Congress president Rahul Gandhi of accepting favours from Mallya's airline and said, "Rahul Gandhi has gone on back-foot over Kingfisher Airlines. Benefits that Gandhi family got out of Kingfisher Airlines via business class up-gradation, free tickets, etc is in public domain. There are series of letters which show that sweet notes have been sent by Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh for the restructuring of Kingfisher airlines and to save it. Some relaxations were offered exclusively to Kingfisher and we want to know what is the relation between Rahul Gandhi and Vijay Mallya."
He also questioned former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's comment made in reference to the now-defunct airline and said, "On November 14, 2011, then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had said during an in-flight media interaction that 'we have to find ways to get Kingfisher out of trouble'. In October same year, Mallya also wrote a letter to Manmohan Singh for sparing time to meet him. Despite all this, Congress is now questioning as to how a Rajya Sabha Member of Parliament is meeting someone in the corridors of Parliament."
Patra also alleged that on March 22, 2013, Mallya wrote a letter to State Bank of India (SBI) and requested for a loan of Rs. 500 crore and when the bank rejected his request, former Union Minister P Chidambaram intervened in the matter and wrote a letter to the SBI.
Continuing his tirade against Congress, Patra said that people out on bail must not cast aspersions on others. He also accused Congress president of having ties with Hawala companies and said, "Rahul Gandhi has ties with Hawala companies and we want a clarification on the same. We have got the related document with us. Rahul Gandhi's Young India Company had taken a loan of Rs 1 crore from Dotex Merchandise Pvt Ltd, which dealt in unaccounted money and bogus share capitals," he added.
On Wednesday, Mallya, who left India in March 2016, claimed that he had met the Finance Minister before leaving for London. Jaitley, however, rebuffed Mallya's claim and said that he never gave Mallya an appointment.
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Myanmar State Counsellor, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi on Thursday said that her government could have handled the situation in her country's Rakhine state better.
"There are of course ways in which we, with hindsight, might think the situation might have been handled better. We believe that for the sake of long-term stability and security we have to be fair to all sides, that rule of law must apply to everybody," Suu Kyi said while interacting with the President of the Economic, Forum Brge Brende.
More than 650,000 Rohingya Muslims fled Rakhine in August 2017 after Myanmar's army launched a massive crackdown in its northern state, retaliating the attacks by insurgents, Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army on the country's police posts and a military base.
Suu Kyi also revealed that before the violence in the state escalated, she had tried to set up a body to address the deep-rooted tensions in the province and promote peace.
"We organised a central committee for rule of law in the Rakhine... But after the first terrorist attacks on October 2016 some of our plans had to be postponed because we had to deal with the immediate problems," she said.
Talking about Rakhine's ethnic composition and her duty, the State Counsellor asserted that there are several ethnic groups in the region and the government needs to be fair to them even if they do not matter to the rest of the
"In the Rakhine there are many small ethnic and religious groups, not just Muslims and Rakhines. There are very small ethnic groups who are fast disappearing and could disappear altogether. We have to be fair to all of them even if the rest of the is not interested in the smaller groups," said Suu Kyi.
The South-East Asian country signed an agreement with Bangladesh in November to resettle around one million citizens of Rakhine State currently living as refugees in Bangladesh.
Last month, the United Nations, in an independent investigation, called for probe and prosecution of Myanmar military leaders for "genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes" against Rohingya Muslims.
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The Delhi High Court on Thursday dismissed a petition seeking an interim stay on the move of the Delhi government to install CCTV cameras in classrooms of government schools. The matter will be next heard on December 13.
The plea was filed against proposed supply, installation, test, and commission of the CCTV cameras in the government schools by the Delhi government.
Refusing to grant interim stay on the installation of CCTV cameras, the high court observed that it is for the safety and security of the children studying in schools.
During the course of hearing, Delhi Government counsel assured the court that the footage of the CCTV cameras would be password protected and the access will be given only to the parents.
In order to back its decision of installing cameras in school, the Delhi Government had earlier filed a report stating that sexual abuse and bullying incidents are rampant in the school and that it is not limited to the girl students. It further said that similar problems are being faced, almost on daily basis, by lady teachers also.
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Delhi University Student Union (DUSU) elections results were announced on late Thursday evening in which Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) won three posts including that of President whereas Students' Union of India (NSUI) managed to get one post.
DUSU President, Vice-President and Joint Secretary Posts have been bagged by ABVP whereas post of DUSU secretary has gone to NSUI candidate.
After the final round of counting, Ankiv Basoya was declared as the President of Delhi University Students Union. ABVP candidate Shakti Singh has won the Vice-President seat whereas NSUI candidate Akash Choudhary got the post of secretary of the students union. Vidhyarthi Parishad's Jyoti Choudhary has registered a win on the post of Joint Secretary.
After the announcement of the election result, DUSU President-elect Ankiv Basoya told ANI, "I want to thank the workers of ABVP who have worked on the ground throughout the year. More than half of DUSU budget will be spent on Women and SC/ST students. Our priorities also include 24x7 libraries, metro concession passes among others."
Earlier in the day, the counting of election results was suspended mid-way after six Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) allegedly stopped working.
While commenting on the EVM issue, Fairoz Khan, President, NSUI had told ANI, "There are only eight candidates, so how is it possible that votes were cast to a 10th candidate? All the machines were fine yesterday. Police and administration are involved in this."
Later clarifying on the issues, Election Officer (EVM) Manoj Kumar informed that EVMs in question is not of Election Commission.
In his statement, he said, "EVMs haven't been issued/allotted to Delhi University by this office. It was also confirmed from State Election Commission that no such machines have been given by them too. It seems that Delhi University has procured these machines privately.
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A Nakuru woman who was arrested whilst trying to sell her three weeks old baby for Sh1,200 was Wednesday arraigned in court.
Ann Wangui, a 35-year-old mother of seven, appeared before Nakuru courts where she was charged with child trafficking. She pleaded guilty and admitted to planning to sell the baby girl to Dorcas Nanjala who hails from Rongai immediately after she was discharged from the facility.
The two had met at the maternity ward, and prior to Wangui approaching her four days ago, Dorcas was recuperating from the loss of her child who succumbed to underweight complications a few days after delivery.
I was admitted at the hospital in July but delivered an underweight girl on August 29. My child died after two days and was buried at Nakuru South Cemetery while I was still admitted, Dorcas told reporters.
At first, the suspect alleged that the baby belonged to another girl who delivered at the hospital but didnt want the keep the child, she added.
Wangui is said to have asked Nanjala for Sh1,200 in exchange for the baby and further directed her to come with clothes for the infant. The deal was to be sealed at the Nakuru Level Five Hospital gate at exactly 11 am but Nanjala reported the proposed deal to Nakuru Central police station leading to the suspects arrest.
Wangui told the Court that the amount was to cater for the diapers she had bought for three weeks.
I wanted to sell the girl to recover the money I had used to buy diapers used when she was in the incubator for three weeks, she said.
Wangui is expected to be sentenced to today.
Hurricane Florence is weakening as it closes in on North Carolina but it could still have devastating effects.
The hurricane which is now Category 2 is expected to unleash storm surge and there is a possibility of flooding rains beginning Thursday, reported CNN.
The storm is forecast to move inland slowly, wreaking havoc on the coast for days.
While the storm has weakened and is no longer considered a major hurricane, its reach has expanded and it might be threatening to the residents of Georgia and Virginia.
The mayor of Washington DC Muriel Bowser, on Tuesday, had declared a state of emergency as Hurricane Florence prepared to make landfall in the southeastern coast of the United States. Earlier this week, the residents of South Carolina were ordered to evacuate from the coast as then-category-4 Hurricane Florence approached.
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Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan visited the headquarters of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) on Wednesday and received a detailed briefing on "various strategic, intelligence and national security matters".
Khan was received by the chiefs of the Army and ISI, General Qamar Javed Bajwa and Lt Gen Naveed Mukhtar respectively, reported the Dawn, citing an Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) handout.
The Pakistani government, through federal Minister for Information Fawad Chaudhry, issued a statement about the visit, stating that Bajwa and Mukhtar had given an eight-hour-long briefing to Imran Khan and the cabinet members who accompanied him.
The Prime Minister was briefed about the "internal and external challenges" being faced by the country during his visit, Chaudhry said.
During his visit, Khan, who has been the Prime Minister for less than a month now, offered prayers and laid a wreath at Yadgar-i-Shuhada, a monument dedicated to the soldiers killed in 1965 and 1971 wars with India.
According to the handout, Khan lauded the spy agency, saying that "ISI is our first line of defence and stands out as best intelligence agency of the "
Khan, who catapulted to power amidst claims of being propped up by the country's influential military, said that the government and people firmly stood behind the army and the ISI.
Accompanying Imran Khan at the ISI headquarters were Chaudhry, Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Defence Minister Pervez Khattak and Minister of State for Interior Shehryar Afridi - almost the same team which had visited the army's General Headquarters (GHQ) in Rawalpindi days after the formation of the new government.
According to sources, Imran Khan was also briefed on the security environment, threat spectrum and response, counter-terrorism operations, and the situation in Sindh during his visit.
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Three Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorists were gunned down by the security forces in an encounter in Kakriyal area of Jammu district on Thursday. 12 security personnel were also injured in the exchange of firing.
Inspector General of Police, Jammu, SD Singh Jamwal said, "3 terrorists have been killed and 12 security personnel have been injured. These terrorists were from Pakistan's Jaish-e-Mohammed."
During the encounter, a large number of locals and journalists also gathered at the spot who had to take cover behind bushes and plants to save themselves from crossfire between terrorists and security forces.
Deputy General of Police (DGP) of Jammu and Kashmir, Dilbagh Singh also shared detailed information of the encounter and complimented people of the area, Police, Army and Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) for successful operation.
One AK-56, loaded magazines, one Chinese Pistol, and other incriminating material have also been recovered from the site.
Meanwhile, speaking to media persons in Jammu's Kathua, Union Minister Jitendra Singh said, "We are rapidly working towards controlling militancy. The kind of pressure that has been put upon the terrorists is resulting in such desperate incidents. Very soon we will bring this under control as well".
In another incident, an infiltration bid was foiled in Keran area of Jammu and Kashmir.
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At least nine security personnel, including Deputy Superintendent of Police, were injured in an ongoing encounter with terrorists in Jammu's Kakriyal village.
Speaking to media, IGP (Jammu) SD Singh Jamwal informed, "Nobody is seriously injured. However, we have given them medical aid."
Amongst those injured were Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) jawans also.
More details are awaited.
Earlier in the day, an encounter broke out between terrorists and security forces in Baramulla district's Sopore area.
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The Delhi High Court on Thursday granted bail to Kashmiri businessman Zahoor Watali, who was arrested for his alleged role in a terror-funding case involving Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) chief and 26/11 Mumbai attack mastermind Hafiz Saeed.
Watali has been asked to furnish a personal bail bond of Rs 2 lakh with two surety of the same amount and submit his passport. He has been lodged in Delhi's Tihar jail ever since his arrest in August last year.
Investigation Agency (NIA) Special Court had earlier rejected his bail plea, which was challenged by him in the Delhi High Court later.
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North and South Korea will officially inaugurate their joint liaison office on Friday with an aim to bolster inter-Korean cooperation and improve cross-border exchange and contacts.
The office will be officially launched in the North Korean border town of Kaesong. The inauguration is a follow-up of the agreement made by the leaders of North and South Korea, Kim Jong-un and Moon Jae-in, during the first inter-Korean summit between them at the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) in April, Yonhap News Agency reported.
"The liaison office will become a round-the-clock consultation and communication channel for advancing inter-Korean relations, easing military tensions and establishing peace on the Korean Peninsula," the South Korean unification ministry said in a press release.
"We expect that South-North Korean relations will be managed in a stable manner through 24-hour communication, 365 days of the year, which is also expected to be conducive to advancing relations between North Korea and the United States," it added.
From South Korea, Vice Unification Minister Chun Hae-sung will lead a delegation while from the North Korean side, a vice chairman of the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Country, that is responsible for maintaining inter-Korean exchange, will be attending the ceremony.
Also, South Korea's Unification Minister Cho Myoung-gyon and top North Korean official, Ri Son-kwon, who were involved in previous high-level talks will be participating in the event.
After the liaison office becomes operational, both North and South Korea will have 20 officials each to discuss various issues to strengthen inter-Korean cooperation. The two sides will also ink a pact on how to operate the office.
The office, which is the first-of-its-kind, was supposed to be opened last month but got delayed. The opening comes ahead of Moon's scheduled visit to Pyongyang next week to meet Kim for the third time.
The two leaders are expected to hold deliberations on further ways to enhance inter-Korean cooperation and denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula.
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The funeral prayers for Kulsoom Nawaz, the wife of jailed former Pakistan prime minister Nawaz Sharif was held at the Islamic Cultural Centre here on Thursday.
The former first lady of Pakistan passed away in London on Tuesday after battling cancer for a long time, at the age of 68.
Hundreds of people attended the ceremony, including Kulsoom's sons - Hassan and Hussain, daughter Asma, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) president Shehbaz Sharif among others, Geo News reported.
Kulsoom's mortal remains is scheduled to be flown back to Lahore at 10 pm (local time) today from Heathrow Airport in London. Shehbaz Sharif, Asma and other family members will bring her body back to Pakistan.
A funeral prayer will also be held at the Sharif Medical City in Jati Umra tomorrow at 5 pm (local time), after which she would be laid to rest. Legal formalities on shifting her mortal remains are completed and a death certificate has been issued by the Harley Street Clinic.
The Punjab provincial government on Wednesday extended the paroles of Nawaz Sharif, his daughter Maryam Nawaz and son-in-law Captain (retd.) Muhammad Safdar by three more days to attend Kulsoom's funeral.
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A day after claimed that he met Union Finance Minister before leaving for London, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader said that a lookout notice against the fugitive liquor baron was diluted from "Block" to "Report" which helped in his departure.
Swamy tweeted: "We have now two undeniable facts on the Mallya escape issue: 1. Look Out Notice was diluted on Oct 24, 2015 from "Block" to "Report" departure enabling Mallya to depart with 54 checked luggage items. 2. Mallya told FM in Central Hall of Parliament that he was leaving for "
Swamy also claimed that the dilution had been done at a very high level.
The BJP leader requested Prime Minister to enquire about the matter.
" could not have left the country if the lookout notice had not been watered down. Originally, the lookout notice for him was to stop him and hand him over to the police. The immigration authorities were directed to do that. But suddenly it was diluted to report Mallya's departure," Swamy said while speaking to ANI.
"This dilution must have been done at a very high level. It needs to be investigated. Prime Minister should personally look into the inquiry otherwise this will taint the reputation of the party," he added.
On Wednesday, Mallya, who left in March 2016, claimed that he had met the Finance Minister before leaving for "I met the Finance Minister before I left," Mallya claimed outside Westminster Magistrates' Court where his extradition case is being heard. Mallya is wanted in for allegedly defaulting on to the tune of Rs 9,000 crore.
Rebutting Mallya's claims, Jaitley told ANI on Wednesday: "I have seen the statement of where he claims to have met me with an offer of settlement. Nothing could be further from truth. I never gave him (Mallya) an appointment, never at my office, never at my residence. Nor I was ever offered to meet him."
Recalling an instance Jaitley said: "I do remember on one occasion, he misused his privileges of Member of and while I was walking from the to my room and (he) suggested that he was going to make some offer of settlement. I did not even bother to get details from him.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Thursday launched an all-out attack on the Congress party, alleging that they gave loans to fugitive liquor baron Vijay Mallya and his now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines by violating the norms during their tenure.
Addressing a presser here, Union Railways Minister Piyush Goyal said, "The Gandhi family gave special privileges to Vijay Mallya. Since 2010, the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) has violated all norms for Vijay Mallya and Kingfisher Airlines. The UPA government treated Kingfisher Airlines with leniency. Kingfisher was also given various loans."
He recalled former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's remarks where he allegedly said that a private airline like Kingfisher had to be saved from a debt crisis.
"Every help was extended to Kingfisher by UPA government to overcome its debt. Kingfisher was given loans many times during their rule. Why did RBI relax all norms for Vijay Mallya? Rahul Gandhi needs to answer this. The family and party which looted the nation is creating a defence, based on lies to cover up their sins. This shows the propensity to which the Congress can lie to cover up their sins," Goyal added.
Demanding resignation of Congress president Rahul Gandhi for allegedly helping Mallya, Goyal said, "Rahul Gandhi should explain that what links his family and party had with Vijay Mallya that he was given loans by violating the norms. Rahul Gandhi must clarify why loans were given to Kingfisher Airlines and he should resign because of all the financial frauds he is involved in."
Alleging that there was a special "jugalbandi" (bond) between Rahul and Mallya, Goyal said, "Has this government ever done any favours for Vijay Mallya? The Congress is just resorting to lies."
Earlier in the day, Rahul Gandhi accused Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley of providing Mallya a "free passage" to "run away" from India.
"The government is lying on Vijay Mallya. He was given a free passage out of the country by the Finance Minister," Gandhi said while addressing media here, adding, "the Finance Minister has colluded in a criminal running away from the country."
His remarks came a day after Mallya claimed that he met Jaitley before leaving the country in March 2016. "I met the Finance Minister before I left," the liquor baron said on Wednesday outside Westminster Magistrates' Court in London, where his extradition case is being heard.
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Union Minister of Law and Justice Ravi Shankar Prasad on Thursday suggested that Congress president Rahul Gandhi could be hands-in-glove with Vijay Mallya, who in turn alleged to have met Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley before fleeing the country in March 2016.
"These statements have been made just a few days after Rahul Gandhi returned from London. Is there any 'saanjhedaari' (collaboration) between the two (Rahul Gandhi and Vijay Mallya)," he questioned.
Speaking further about the ongoing controversy, Prasad said that Mallya's claim of meeting Jaitley before moving to London are all false and baseless. "The reality is, Mallya once while in Rajya Sabha tried to meet Jaitley in the corridors of the Parliament. Jaitley ji immediately rebuffed him to talk to banks for repayment of loans," Shankar added.
Prasad's remarks come close on the heels of fugitive Vijay Mallya's claims where he said, "I met the finance minister before I left, repeated my offer to settle with the banks... that's the truth," while speaking to reporters outside the London's Westminster Magistrates' Court. Mallya is sought by India for allegedly defrauding on bank loans to the tune of Rs 9,000 crore.
Mallya's claim has whipped up a political storm in India, with the Congress party accusing Jaitley of providing a safe passage to Mallya. "The Finance Minister has colluded in a criminal running away from the country," said the Congress president on Thursday.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) retaliated and said that Rahul, who himself is out on bail (in the Herald case) should not question innocent people and that the party has enough evidence to prove senior Congress leaders' relations with Vijay Mallya.
"Rahul Gandhi travelled free in Kingfisher Airlines, which was once owned by Mallya," BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra said.
"There is a series of letters between the RBI (Reserve Bank of India) and the SBI (State Bank of India). These letters show us how the previous dispensation under Sonia Gandhi was biased, partial and kept all norms and regulations at bay to give a sweet deal to Kingfisher Airlines," Patra alleged.
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External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Thursday met with her Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Moscow and held talks on bilateral and regional issues.
The Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson, Raveesh Kumar, tweeted, "Always a pleasure to meet a good friend of India! EAM @SushmaSwaraj with Foreign Minister of #Russia Sergey Lavrov in her 1st engagement since arriving in Moscow. Both leaders had a good exchange of views on bilateral & regional issues. FM Lavrov hosted a dinner in honour of EAM."
Calling Lavrov as her good friend, Swaraj said, "I have come here for a bilateral meeting. I had no idea that he would be coming to meet me. I am obliged and thank him for finding time to meet me. India-Russia relations are warm and cordial. President (Vladimir) Putin and Prime Minister Narendra Modi's meetings have further strengthened our ties."
She added that she is looking forward to Putin's visit to India on October 4, which would further elevate India-Russia relations to the highest level.
Swaraj, who arrived in Moscow earlier today on a two-day visit, will attend the 23rd India-Russia Inter-Governmental Commission on Technical and Economic Cooperation (IRIGC-TEC).
IRIGC-TEC is a standing body which annually meets and reviews ongoing activities of bilateral cooperation in the fields of trade and investment, science and technology, culture and other issues of mutual interest.
The commission, after taking the stock of bilateral cooperation in various fields, will provide policy recommendations and directions in the concerned fields. The last meeting of the commission was held in New Delhi in December 2017.
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The Myanmar Government granted permission to the United Nations inspection teams to assess dozens villages and townships in the country's Rakhine State, that were home to hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslims last year.
A total of four teams from the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and UN Development Program (UNDP) will spend two weeks in the northern state where the Rohingya Muslims were allegedly murdered and subjected to imprisonment and sexual violence at the hands of the Myanmar military, CNN reported.
However, the country's military, who is known as the Tatmadaw, has repeatedly denied the mounting allegations.
According to UN spokesman Aoife McDonnell, the Myanmar government has given the UN teams to assess 23 individual villages and three other village wards at the weekend, while, the Inspectors began their initial work on Wednesday.
In June, the UN signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Myanmar in which the government agreed "to create the conditions for safe, voluntary and sustainable return while fostering social cohesion," Al Jazeera quoted McDonnell as saying.
Around 70,000 Rohingya fled the country and settled into Bangladesh, where they have sought refuge. Many of those who crossed the border have recounted horrific stories of being evicted from their homes by the Myanmar army.
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Pakistan High Commissioner to the United Kingdom Sahibzada Ahmed Khan landed in hot water over his "irresponsible activities" at an event and was summoned back to Pakistan by the Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi.
Qureshi took to Twitter to express his distress about the situation and further asked him to provide the explanation for his conduct. "I am dismayed by the actions of our High Commissioner to the UK and have asked him to return to Pakistan and provide an explanation for his behaviour at the IPPA awards held in London," he tweeted.
This came into light after the video of the event went viral on the social media in which the Pakistan envoy can be seen.
The incident allegedly took place during an event in London held at O2 Arena on September 9, wherein the envoy was called onstage to declare the winner of an award category.
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The Supreme Court of Pakistan has allowed Mumbai 26/11 attacks mastermind Hafiz Saeed's Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) and its humanitarian arm Falahi Insaniyat Foundation (FIF) to continue their relief and charity operations in the country.
The verdict was issued by a two-member SC bench including Justice Manzoor Ahmed and Justice Sardar Tariq Masood as they rejected the federal government's appeal against the Lahore High Court's verdict, Geo News reported.
Reportedly, the JuD's network includes 300 seminaries and schools, hospitals, a publishing house, and ambulance services. The JuD and FIF alone have about 50,000 volunteers and hundreds of other paid workers, according to two counter-terrorism officials, cited Geo News.
Earlier, the Pakistan government had banned companies and individuals from making donations to JuD, FIF, and other organizations on the UN Security Council sanctions list.
The UNSC sanctions list includes the names of terror organizations such as al-Qaeda, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, JuD, FiF, Lashkar-e-Taiba and other organizations and individuals.
"We are grateful to Almighty Allah that it gave victory to the Jamatud Dawa, which is serving humanity," Geo News quoted Hafiz Saeed as he reacted following the verdict of the Supreme Court.
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South Korean President Moon Jae-in on Thursday said that resuming the process of denuclearisation with North Korea at his forthcoming meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un next week is the key priority.
Speaking to a special group of advisers, Moon was unperturbed by the stalled denuclearisation talks between North Korea and the United States, saying that he remained optimistic.
"I do not hold a pessimistic view on the current situation. Though working-level negotiations may be sluggish, the leaders of North Korea and the United States are repeatedly reaffirming their faith in each other," he was quoted by Yonhap News Agency as saying.
Speaking on his upcoming trip to Pyongyang for the third inter-Korean summit, slated to be held from September 18 to 20, Moon underlined that he would discuss on enhancing inter-Korean ties and ways of reducing tensions on the Korean Peninsula.
"As you may know, one (of the objectives of the North Korea trip) is to continue developing the inter-Korean relations, and the other is to promote North Korea-US dialogue aimed at denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula," he added.
The South Korean president said that North Korea took "practical steps" to not conduct any nuclear tests and has refrained from any sort of provocations since November last year, according to the report.
Moon continued, "North Korea has promised complete denuclearisation and has taken various practical measures toward that end. It promised not to stage any additional nuclear or missile tests, and has, in fact, refrained from any provocations since November last year."
He reiterated that Washington should continue to engage with Pyongyang in the process of denuclearisation and implement the agreements made during the meeting between Kim and US President Donald Trump in Singapore earlier in June.
Moon's comments come as North and South Korea are preparing to launch their joint liaison office on Friday with an aim to bolster inter-Korean cooperation and improve cross-border exchange and contacts.
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Days after the Maldives Broadcasting Commission slapped a hefty fine on a TV channel for allegedly defaming the President and threatening national security, the Press watchdog, Reporters Without Borders (RSF or Reporters Sans Frontieres) sought a firm undertaking from the two Maldives' Presidential candidates affirming respect to freedom of press in the country.
The Maldives Broadcasting Commission imposed a fine of 2 million rufiyaa (USD 129,807) on Maldives' Broadcaster Raajje TV, for comments made by an opposition lawmaker during live coverage of a demonstration in March. The Broadcaster till now has paid nearly four million rufiyaa as fine on four separate occasions.
The fine was imposed on the privately-run Raajje TV under Maldives' Anti-Defamation Act of 2016, as per which the media outlets are coerced to pay their pay fines within 30 days, regardless of whether there has been time to hear any appeal.
RSF in a statement termed the fine imposed on the broadcaster as "financial harassment", while adding that the move is clearly a form of "intimidation and is a threat to pluralism".
It further asserted that the incident just days ahead of the presidential election scheduled for September 23 is "disturbing."
Highlighting few incidents from the past, the RSF said that the journalists in Maldives are "often become the victims of both physical attacks and arbitrary detention, as was the case during the state of emergency at the start of the year."
It further evoked the case of Ahmed Rilwan Abdulla, a reporter in Maldives Independent, who disappeared on August 8, 2014. The international press watchdog said that neither the body nor those responsible for the abduction of the reporter have ever been found and the "investigation has been marked by a complete lack of transparency."
In a similar case, Yameen Rasheed, a blogger who had been investigating Abdulla's disappearance was stabbed to death inside his residence on April 23, 2017. RSF said that the preliminary hearings in the trial of the presumed killers of the bloggers were held behind closed doors and later ended up being suspended on administrative grounds.
The statement further read that the procedure followed in the case casts a "serious doubts on the judicial system's desire to shed light on his murder."
Daniel Bastard, the head of RSF's Asia-Pacific desk asserted that "The Maldivian authorities must stop this kind of pressure and allow journalists to cover the election campaign and the polling with complete freedom, or else this election will lack all legitimacy."
"We also urge the two presidential candidates to put press freedom at the centre of the democratic debate by giving three key undertakings - to repeal the draconian anti-defamation law, to prosecute those responsible for violence against journalists, and to revive the investigations into Ahmed Rilwan Abdulla's disappearance and Yameen Rasheed's murder," he added.
The country has been facing a political turmoil ever since Maldivian President Yameen declared emergency earlier on February 5. The 45-day emergency was imposed after country's Supreme Court reversed criminal convictions against Yameen's opponents, including former Maldivian President Mohamed Nasheed, and former Vice President Ahmed Adeeb.
Even the international community has been pressing the country and are raising concern on state of democracy under Maldivian President Abdulla Yameen and has been urging the country to conduct free and fair presidential elections.
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Hailing as India's largest investment destination in the and sector, Union Minister on Thursday said that Moscow will always be a priority in New Delhi's foreign and energy policy.
Speaking at a conference titled 'India- in the 21st Century: Enhancing the Special Privileged Strategic Partnership' here, Pradhan said: "I believe that our time-tested relationship has no expiry date. will always be a priority in India's foreign and energy policy and both our countries will remain as a role model for global communities."
He told ANI on the sidelines of the conference that Prime Minister and Russian President share a "deep friendship" and that the two countries have built an 'energy bridge' between themselves. "Prime Minister Modi and Russian President share a deep friendship and respect for each other which is beyond the business and diplomatic relations. Today Russia is the closest friend," he noted.
Pradhan also opined that the signing of the declaration on the India-Russia Strategic partnership between former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and President Putin was a "watershed moment in our relations".
"Vajpayee ji's efforts infused warmth and transformed our co-operation into Special and Privileged Strategic Partnership. Last year, we celebrated 70 years of diplomatic ties between India and Russia. The seventy plus years of our bilateral relations has been further strengthened by Prime Minister Modi and President Putin in the last couple of years by adopting the historic St. Petersburg declaration," he said.
Our energy relations were never as strong as they have become in the last couple of years. Our engagement in the hydrocarbon sector, including some major investments, has become one of the key pillars of our bilateral relations. India and Russia have deeply strengthened their hydrocarbon engagement and we have also built an 'Energy Bridge' between our two countries. Soviet technology helped us in and since 1960s. Striking at Bombay High, India's biggest oil and field, was also due to soviet experts," the minister added.
Pradhan stated that Prime Minister Modi and President Putin have placed "special emphasis on the energy sector as a priority area in our bilateral cooperation".
"Russia is one of the largest producers of oil and natural gas in the world and it can become an important source to fulfill India's requirements. India has embarked on the path of becoming a gas-based economy. Russian supplies will help us in meeting the objectives of price stability and energy security. Our oil and gas PSUs are continuing to explore their participation in more oil and gas projects in Russia," he underscored.
Russia has suggested that Moscow and Tokoyo should sign a peace treaty to end second war hostilities "without any preconditions."
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday observed that the territorial dispute has led to decades of deadlock.
The treaty between the two countries, if signed, would become a basis for resolving a dispute on Kuril islands located between Russia and Japan, Al Jazeera reported.
Incidentally, Japan and Russia failed to go ahead and sign a treaty after the end of the War II.
"An idea has just come into my head. Let's conclude a peace treaty before the end of this year, without any pre-conditions," Al Jazeera quoted the Russian President as saying during the economic forum in the eastern Russian city of Vladivostok.
According to Al Jazeera, while Abe did not respond to Putin's proposal, but the former's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said that the territorial claim needs to be resolved before agreeing to sign a treaty.
Both Putin and Abe have held several meetings in the past to solve the dispute over the islands, but failed to reach a consensus.
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Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) President Shehbaz Sharif reached London late Wednesday to bring back Begum Kulsoom Nawaz's mortal remains back to Pakistan, Geo News reported.
Kulsoom Nawaz, the wife of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, passed away in London after a period of prolonged illness, at the age of 68.
According to the party sources, the funeral prayers of the former first lady will be offered at the Regent Park mosque on Thursday in London and her body will be flown to Lahore after the completion of legal formalities.
Upon reaching Pakistan, the funeral prayers of Kulsoom Nawaz will be offered on Friday at Sharif Medical City in Jati Umra at 5 pm on Friday, Geo News quoted a party spokesperson Marriyum Aurangzeb as saying.
On Tuesday, former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and his daughter Maryam Nawaz were released from the Adiala Jail on parole to attend Kulsoom Nawaz's funeral. The Punjab government is also likely to extend their parole as the Sharif family has requested that a five-day release given to them.
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Bollywood actor Sonali Bendre who is currently undergoing treatment for high-grade cancer in New York is missing the Ganesh Chaturthi celebrations back home in Mumbai.
'Sarfarosh' actor Bendre took to Twitter to post pictures of her husband Goldie Behl and son Ranveer Behl offering prayers to Lord Ganesha.
She tweeted, "#GaneshChaturthi has always been very very close to my heart. Missing the celebrations back home, but still feeling blessed. Have a happy one, filled with blessings, love and joy!"
On July 4, the actress took to social media to open up about her disease.
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Taking his criticism for Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a step further, All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) president Asaduddin Owaisi on Thursday slammed former President Pranab Mukherjee for attending an RSS event in the past.
On being asked about RSS's reported invitation to Congress president Rahul Gandhi to attend its event, Owaisi criticised Mukherjee and said, "After understanding RSS ideology we have been fighting against it. If anyone else wants to repeat the stupidity and immaturity that Pranab Mukherjee has done by going there, they will bring ruin on themselves. RSS believes in Hindu nationalism and the majority of this country has faith in Indian nationalism. If anyone wants to understand RSS they must read books by their prominent leaders. As much as I am concerned, no such question arises. I have always been against RSS and its ideology and will always be."
The former President in June this year attended the Third Year Sangha Shiksha Varga (SSV) event organised at RSS headquarters in Nagpur and addressed the RSS workers.
He also said that RSS follows an ideology which has created hatred since the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi. "RSS has ensured that minorities are not treated as equal citizens by believing only in Hindu nationalism," he added.
Owaisi also reacted sharply to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's statement to his party workers in which he had said that "We are the light and opposition is the darkness and it is for you to choose in the upcoming elections."
"Prime Minister has created enough darkness by ensuring that the prices of petrol and diesel go beyond common people's means. This is having a cascading effect on the poor people and on every item of food. The Prime Minister has created darkness in the future of the youth by not living up to the promise that he had made to the youth of country that he will provide them jobs. He has created darkness in the name of cow wherein people are being lynched in the name of a cow protection, whether Dalits or Muslims. The light will only come when BJP is removed from power. As of now, there is only darkness of hatred and darkness of anger in the minds of youth because this government has failed to deliver."
When asked about fugitive liquor baron Vijay Mallya and his latest antics, Owaisi referenced Bharatiya Janata Party MP Subramanian Swamy's assertions and said, "If a BJP Member of Parliament Subramanian Swamy is using innuendos to attack an important minister of his own party.
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External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Thursday reached Moscow for the 23rd Inter-Governmental Commission.
Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Raveesh Kumar took to Twitter and said, "3rd visit to Russia in 11 months! Maintaining the momentum of high-level exchanges, EAM @SushmaSwaraj arrives in Moscow for the 23rd Inter-Governmental Commission."
During her two-day visit, Swaraj will attend the 23rd India-Russia Inter-Governmental Commission on Technical and Economic Cooperation (IRIGC-TEC). It will be co-chaired by Swaraj and Yuri Borisov, Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation.
IRIGC-TEC is a standing body which annually meets and reviews ongoing activities of bilateral cooperation in the fields of trade and investment, science and technology, culture and other issues of mutual interest.
The Commission, after taking the stock of bilateral cooperation in various fields, will provide policy recommendations and directions in the concerned fields. The last meeting of the Commission was held in New Delhi in December 2017.
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US President Donald Trump reportedly referred his Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah-al Sisi as a "killer", according to investigative Journalist Bob Woodward.
Woodward who recently released a book called, "Fear: Trump in the White House" claimed that Trump made the remarks after securing the release of an American-Egyptian national by the name Aya Hijazi, who was detained by Cairo for three years, Al Jazeera reported.
"Remember who I'm talking to. The guy's a f***ing killer. This guy's a f***ing killer! I'm getting it done. He'll make you sweat on the phone," Al Jazeera quoted an excerpt from Woodward's newly launched book.
In addition, Trump allegedly mocked the voice of the Egyptian President, saying, "Donald, I'm worried about this investigation. Are you going to be around? Suppose I need a favour, Donald?".
Woodward's book was released on Tuesday with published excerpts, leaks, and interviews from first-hand sources that describe Trump as dangerously erratic and uninformed.
However, on the eve of its release, Trump took to Twitter to call it a scam and stated that he was misquoted by the author.
"The Woodward book is a scam. I don't talk the way I am quoted. If I did I would not have been elected President. These quotes were made up. The author uses every trick in the book to demean and belittle. I wish the people could see the real facts - and our country is doing GREAT!", Trump wrote on Twitter.
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Uttar Pradesh Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) and Kanpur police jointly arrested a Hizbul Mujahideen terrorist from Chakeri area of Kanpur on Thursday. The arrested militant was reportedly planning an attack during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival.
The arrested terrorist has been identified as Qamar-uz-Zama who is a 37-year-old resident of Assam.
Briefing about the arrest, Uttar Pradesh's Director General of Police (DGP) said, "ATS has arrested a Hizbul Mujahideen terrorist from Kanpur. He apparently had plans to attack on the occasion of Ganesh Chaturthi. During questioning, he told us that he had gone for training to Kashmir in April 2017. He is of Indian nationality and is a literate person."
"The arrested terrorist was being tracked by ATS from last 8-10 days with the help of NIA. Since April 2018, he was very active on social media. He had uploaded a photo in which he was seen carrying an AK-47," the DGP further added.
As per Uttar Pradesh police, he was in the city to identify targets for a terrorist incident. Police have also recovered a video from his mobile featuring images of a Kanpur temple.
In the initial interrogation by UP police, the arrested terrorist also confessed to being an active member of Hizbul Mujahideen and accepted that he was in Kanpur for preparations of a terrorist incident.
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In an exclusive interview with Margarita Simonyan, the editor-in-chief of the RT broadcaster and Sputnik news agency, the two accused in the former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter's poisoning in Salisbury, Russian citizens Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov said that they are mid-level entrepreneurs, not military agents.
"We are not (working in the GRU, the Russian military intelligence service) . We are mid-level entrepreneurs. If we tell more about our business, people we work with will suffer, we do not want this," the two said.
Petrov and Boshirov confirmed their identities and said that their pictures were published by the United Kingdom authorities referring to them as suspects in Salisbury ex-spy poisoning. Both revealed that these accusations have their lives turned upside down following the accusation.
While talking about their trip to UK, Petrov and Boshirov said that they were travelling to Europe on a business trip as tourists. They denied carrying any poisonous substance while they were travelling to Salisbury and London.
"No, it is nonsense," the two said, when asked whether they had any poisonous substance during their trip to the United Kingdom. When asked whether they had a Nina Ricci perfume bottle, as claimed by the UK authorities, Petrov and Boshirov noted that it would be strange for two males to carry it around.
"Is it silly for decent lads to have women's perfume? The customs are checking everything; they would have questions as to why men have women's perfume in their luggage. We didn't have it," the two explained, confirming that they had no female perfume with them during the trip.
Commenting on the photo of them going through border security, the two accused denied using separate corridors at the Gatwick airport. "We always go together through the same corridor and the same custom service officer or a policeman. One goes the other waits. We went through the corridor together, we always (do it) together. How did it happen? It's better to ask them (UK police)," they said in the interview to RT and Sputnik when asked to explain the photo from the Gatwick airport, showing them leaving through a gate almost simultaneously.
Talking about their visit to Salisbury, Petrov and Boshirov said that they went to the city on March 4 for sightseeing on a friend's advice. "We returned because snow melted in London, it was warm, the sun shone. We wanted to visit the Old Sarum and the Salisbury Cathedral," the two explained.
They further said that they were scared for themselves and their family. "We came here for protection, but it resembles interrogation . After our lives have turned into a nightmare, we had no idea what we should do - should we go to the police, to the Investigative Committee, to the UK Embassy, to the FSB? We were totally lost . We cannot go out, we are scared . We are concerned about own lives and those next of kin, those who know us," the two said.
Referring to the situation as a "fantastic and fatal coincidence", the two said that they have no idea what to do next and just want to be left alone. Petrov and Boshirov also revealed that they were going to post a video to ask for help but decided to address media because Russian President Vladimir Putin urged them to do so.
While commenting on the risk to be arrested abroad, Petrov and Boshirov said that they are hoping for the best. They asserted that they would like an apology from the UK authorities if and when the real perpetrators were caught.
"If they (the United Kingdom) actually find the poisoners, we would like them to apologize to us. We hope that this situation will be resolved, that the UK side will apologize to us, that they will find those involved in this situation with Skripal," the two said.
Meanwhile, the UK Foreign Office said on Thursday that it considered the interview of Russian citizens Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, suspected by London of poisoning Russian ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury, to the RT broadcaster and the Sputnik news agency "obfuscation and lies."
"The Police and Crown Prosecution Service have identified these men as the prime suspects in relation to the attack in Salisbury. The Government is clear these men are officers of the Russian military intelligence service - the GRU - who used a devastatingly toxic, illegal chemical weapon on the streets of our country. We have repeatedly asked Russia to account for what happened in Salisbury in March. Today - just as we have seen throughout - they have responded with obfuscation and lies," the statement, circulated in media, read.
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Defending his 'unpadh-gawaar' (illiterate) remark against Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Congress leader Sanjay Nirupam on Thursday said that his words were not 'undignified'.
"It is a democracy and the Prime Minister is not God in a democracy. People speak of him while maintaining decorum. The words I used are not undignified," Nirupam told ANI.
He added, "If the children will ask about educational qualification of the Prime Minister, what will you tell them? People don't know his qualification. What are the forces which pressurise Delhi University not to release his degree, even when it is claimed that he studied there?"
On Wednesday, Nirupam got embroiled into controversy after he said, "Jo bachhe school, college mein padh rahe hain woh Modi jaise unpadh-gawaar ke baare mein jaan kar unko kya milne wala hai? Yeh bahut sharmnaak baat hai ki aaj tak humare desh ke nagrik aur bacchhon ko pata hi nahi hai ki Prime Minister ki degree kitni hai. (What will the children studying in schools, colleges get by learning about an illiterate like Modi? It is a very shameful thing that citizens and children of India are not aware of the degrees that our Prime Minister holds)."
Nirupam's remark reportedly came in response to the screening of 'Chalo Jeete Hain' - a short film inspired by Prime Minister Modi's life - in schools across Mumbai.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin and his United States counterpart Donald Trump should discuss the issue of extraditing Russian pilot Konstantin Yaroshenko, who is serving a 20-year prison term in the US, at their possible talks in the future, the pilot's wife Viktoria said on Thursday.
In August, Viktoria and her daughter arrived in the United States to visit the jailed pilot for the first time in seven years. During their stay, the family met 12 times over the course of three weeks.
"I think that the heads of states can solve this problem. I just want to appeal to the presidents of the two countries, directly to Trump and Putin, as I know there will be a meeting in the near future, in November, I suppose. I beg you to raise this issue of Konstantin's return to his homeland," Viktoria Yaroshenko said at a press conference.
The pilot's wife underlined that all efforts to extradite Yaroshenko had been exhausted as the case has become political.
At the same time, Viktoria expressed her gratitude to the Russian Foreign Ministry, particularly to Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov.
"The (Russian) Foreign Ministry has been very helpful to us after we sought its help. They immediately got in touch with the US Embassy and asked for a visa for us. Literally a month after we had asked the Foreign Ministry, we were summoned for an interview (at the US Embassy), and everything went well with the visas," she noted.
The Russian pilot was captured in Liberia in 2010, and was jailed a year later in the US on charges of conspiring to import drugs into the country. In 2016, the New York Court of Appeals refused to revise the pilot's sentence. Yaroshenko has repeatedly said he was suffering from the lack of medical care, poor detention conditions and abuses by staff in his prison.
Meanwhile, Russian Human Rights Commissioner Tatyana Moskalkova said on Thursday that she had appealed to US President Donald Trump asking to release Russian national Maria Butina, arrested on suspicion of being a spy.
She added that she had also appealed to the US attorney general and the US ambassador. "There are other penalties - travel restrictions, bail, anything else. Has she really committed a terrible crime by sending text messages to apply such measures against her?" Moskalkova said.
The ombudswoman noted that she had not received a reply yet, but had managed to talk to the US ambassador. "He said that they had very strict legislation on political crimes ... He did not promise (to release Butina), and this is, of course, depressing," Moskalkova said.
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Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Thursday accused the Bharatiya Janata Party-led Central Government of providing Vijay Mallya a "free passage" to "run away" from India.
"The government is lying on Vijay Mallya. He was given a free passage out of the country by the Finance Minister," he said while addressing media here, adding, "The Finance Minister has colluded in a criminal running away from the country."
This comes a day after fugitive liquor baron Mallya claimed that he met Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley before leaving the country in March 2016.
"I met the Finance Minister before I left," Mallya said on Wednesday outside Westminster Magistrates' Court where his extradition case is being heard.
Alleging that Mallya was allowed to escape by changing the 'arrest notice' to 'inform notice', the Congress president hinted that the Central Bureau of Investigation could have been involved in the matter.
"Finance Minister talks to an absconder, absconder tells him that he going to London. Finance Minister does not tell this to the CBI, ED or police. Why? The arrest notice was changed to inform notice. This can be done only by the one who controls CBI," he said.
Rebutting Mallya's claims, Jaitley had told ANI, "I have seen the statement of Vijay Mallya where he claims to have met me with an offer of settlement. Nothing could be further from truth. I never gave him (Mallya) an appointment, never at my office, never at my residence. Nor I was ever offered to meet him."
Recalling an instance Jaitley said, "I do remember on one occasion, he misused his privileges of Member of Rajya Sabha and while I was walking from the Rajya Sabha to my room and (he) suggested that he was going to make some offer of settlement. I did not even bother to get details from him."
However, Rahul mounted an attack on Jaitley and demanded his resignation.
"Even if he (Mallya) caught up with you in the corridor why did you not tell the CBI, ED that he's going to flee, catch him? This is clearly collusion, there is definitely a deal. Finance Minister should clearly say what transpired and he should resign," he said.
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The two Koreas held working-level military talks on Thursday to discuss details of a comprehensive agreement to flesh out the military part of their April summit accord aimed at reducing border tensions and building mutual trust.
The meeting began at 10 a.m. at Tongilgak, a North Korea-controlled building in the truce village of Panmunjom within the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) separating the two Koreas, reports Yonhap News Agency.
Pyongyang recently made the proposal for the talks, which Seoul accepted later.
Army Col. Cho Yong-geun is leading South Korea's three-member delegation, while the North's side is led by Col. Om Chang-nam.
"We will have discussions related to the agreement on the military part (of the summit accord)," Cho told Yonhap before the talks.
The two sides are expected to discuss a series of issues, such as withdrawing DMZ guard posts on a trial basis, carrying out a joint project to excavate Korean War remains in the buffer zone and disarming the Joint Security Area in Panmunjom.
The results of the talks are likely to be included in the envisioned military agreement, which is expected to be officially adopted by President Moon Jae-in and his North Korean counterpart Kim Jong-un during their third summit slated to take place in Pyongyang from September 18 to 20.
During the July 31 general-grade talks, Seoul and Pyongyang shared the understanding in "broad terms" over the issues of fostering peace in the DMZ in line with the April summit agreement to transform the border area into a "peace zone".
Also during the working-level meeting, Seoul is likely to push for the establishment of a joint military committee and a direct communication line between the military leaders of the two Koreas, which is likely to be included in the military agreement.
Some observers say that the two sides could also discuss the inclusion of measures to prevent any naval clashes near the Northern Limit Line (NLL), a de facto maritime boundary.
During the April summit, Moon and Kim agreed to devise a practical scheme to turn the areas around the NLL into a "maritime peace zone" in order to prevent accidental military clashes and guarantee safe fishing activities.
--IANS
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The Investor Agenda launched here on Wednesday will support investors in accelerating and scaling-up the actions that are critical to tackling climate change and achieving the goals of the 2015 Paris Climate Change Agreement.
Its launch also demonstrates the significant momentum already evident, with 392 investors with $32 trillion in assets collectively under management, using The Investor Agenda to highlight climate action they are already taking and making new commitments.
Announced as part of PRI in Person and the Global Climate Action Summit, The Investor Agenda provides a way for investors to directly report actions they are taking, and scale-up their commitment to act, across four key focus areas: Investment, corporate engagement, investor disclosure, and policy advocacy.
Capturing new data, the Investor Agenda seeks over time to reflect the full breadth and scale of global investor-led action on climate change.
Bringing together and helping drive participation in a broad range of global investor initiatives, it also supports investors in taking greater action. This offers benefit to investors, in being able to better manage climate risks and capture low carbon opportunities as a result, while also scaling-up the investor-led contribution to achieving the goals of the Paris agreement.
Showcasing investor leadership on climate change will also be used as a way to inspire bolder commitment from investors and their peers, raising the bar and building on existing momentum.
"Investors are showing great leadership to promote climate action in multiple fronts. Their efforts to meet the shortfall in the financial resources required to deliver the Paris Agreement goals, and further building on engagement with high-emitting sectors are a valuable contribution," said Patricia Espinosa, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in welcoming the launch.
The Investor Agenda has already received strong support from influential investors and climate figures alike.
"Progress is on the agenda of the investment community, and today's announcement is hugely important, but this is just the beginning of an extraordinary, economy-wide transformation to low-carbon that we must achieve within a generation," said Christiana Figueres, convener of Mission 2020.
The Investor Agenda calls on global investors to accelerate and scale up the actions that are critical to tackling climate change and achieving the goals of the Paris agreement.
(Vishal Gulati is in San Francisco at the invitation of the Climate Trends to cover the Global Climate Action Summit (GCAS). He can be contacted at vishal.g@ians.in)
--IANS
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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Amid reports that the RSS is planning to invite Congress President Rahul Gandhi and other opposition leaders to its meeting, MIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi on Thursday said those accepting the invite will be inviting destruction.
The Hyderabad MP ruled out accepting the RSS invitation, saying he would never do the "stupidity" displayed by former President Pranab Mukherjee who attended an RSS event
"This is the time to show the difference. Just because BJP is in power, one should not succumb or prostrate before such an ideology," he told reporters.
Owaisi was reacting to media reports that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) is planning to invite Rahul Gandhi, other opposition leaders and even some Muslim leaders to its three-day lecture series 'Future of Bharat: An RSS perspective' in New Delhi from September 17.
The Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM) President said he always rejected the RSS ideology as they believe in Hindu nationalism while he, like most Indians, believed in Indian nationalism.
On BJP leader Subramanian Swamy's tweet that businessman Vijay Mallya escaped from India because the lookout notice against him was downgraded after he met someone powerful in the Finance Ministry, the MIM chief said if Swamy had the courage of conviction, he should move the court of law and take this matter to a logical conclusion.
--IANS
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Chinese e-tailer giant Alibaba on Thursday flagged off its Taobao Maker Festival in China's scenic city Hangzhou, about 180 km southwest of Shanghai, drawing hundreds of young entrepreneurs.
"The four-day festival from September 13 showcases and celebrates the originality and creativity of several young Chinese merchants selling innovative products on Taobao platform," Alibaba Group's Chief Marketing Officer Chris Tung told the media while flagging off the fest here.
Taobao, meaning "search for treasure" in Mandarin, is Alibaba Group's digital portal, opened in 2003 for consumers to buy and sell a variety of goods, ranging from electronics, home appliances, furniture and clothing.
The third edition of the fest, being held by the iconic West Lake in the provincial capital of Zhejiang and where $40-billion Alibaba is headquartered, has over 200 Taobao merchants displaying their products and technologies.
Among the products and technologies on display include giant robots, electronic gadgets, Internet of Things (IoT) devices for businesses, inventive takes on traditional Chinese clothing, calligraphy and mythology, virtual reality shopping experiences, anime-inspired products and a vintage market.
The innovations will have a great influence not just on China but the whole world, Tung said.
With over 10 million active sellers on Taobao, the company has used data analytics to identify the most popular merchants on the digital platform to take part in this offline fest.
"We will be presenting innovation prizes as part of the festival to recognise the achievements of young entrepreneurs on Taobao," the e-tail portal's President Fan Jiang added.
Several hundreds of consumers are expected to attend the four-day annual fest from across China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan.
For the first time, the festival will also host a 'night market' to feature indie designer fashion shows, live concerts and gourmet food.
While the past two editions of the fest were held indoors, this edition is taking place outdoors, by the picturesque West Lake in the city's downtown and is open to public.
The fest is aimed at sparking creativity among the youth of China and the world at large, an Alibaba spokesperson told IANS earlier.
The fest also provides a common platform for the sellers to share the stories behind their innovations with the buyers.
Beijing-based data analysis firm Analysys ranks Taobao as China's top mobile commerce platform in terms of sales.
According to data from the company in June, Taobao had a total of 634 million monthly active users, a majority of who are young Chinese aged between 19-38.
Many consumers who attended the previous two editions of the fest have turned merchants, inspired by others.
"The grand event has become not only an annual gathering of entrepreneurs to demonstrate their creativity, but also a window for the world to understand China's aspirational young consumers," added the official.
The 19-year-old Chinese conglomerate has been hosting the fest since 2016, as an offline technology and product expo, offering a forum for hundreds of merchants and consumers to interact with one another.
Around 80 per cent of the Group's e-tail sales are generated from mobile terminals of its portals, including Alibaba.com, Tmall and AliExpress. Taobao is a major contributor to these sales.
Co-founded in 1999 by Chinese teacher-turned-entrepreneur Jack Ma with 17 other partners (investors) as a platform to connect Chinese manufacturers with the world, Alibaba is one of the largest global firms, with 86,833 employees and millions of e-sellers.
The group's businesses and affiliates include its e-tail portals Alibaba.com, Taobao, Tmall and AliExpress, film-making firm Alibaba Pictures, cloud computing platform Alibaba Cloud, financial services company Ant Financial and new retail grocery stores Hema.
The fest is being held days after the company's co-founder and Executive Chairman Ma announced a succession plan, appointing the Chief Executive Daniel Zhang as the group's next Chairman from September 2019.
(Bhavana Akella is in Hangzhou at the invitation of Alibaba. She can be contacted at bhavana.a@ians.in)
--IANS
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The Uttar Pradesh unit of the Congress on Thursday accused BJP supporters of vandalising statues of former Prime Ministers from the Congress across the state.
Congress state unit Spokesman Onkarnath Singh said that Bharatiya Janata Party workers had tried to deface a statue of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi at Maidagin square in Varanasi, the parliamentary constituency of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, but were prevented by Congressmen.
"Frustrated over the expose of their dealings with bank frauds and absconders, the Bharatiya Janata Party is now targeting the statues of late Congress leaders," Singh alleged.
He claimed that district authorities were hand in glove with ruling party workers and tried to conceal the vandalism by BJP cadres by maintaining that the statue was being removed for beautification of the square.
The BJP workers are still pressurising the District Magistrate of Varanasi on the issue but Congressmen will not allow this to happen, the Congress leader said.
Singh said that a statue of late Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri at Mughalsarai in Chandauli district was smeared with cow dung on Wednesday night. "We strongly condemn it and demand that the state government crack down on unscrupulous elements involved in the incident," he added.
--IANS
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A popular restaurant in China has been shut down after a pregnant woman found a dead rat in her soup and claimed that restaurant staff offered her money to get an abortion if the meal affected her unborn child's health.
The woman and her husband were eating at the popular chain Xiabu Xiabu on September 6 when she discovered the dead rat in the hotpot, South China Morning Post reported.
The outlet in Shandong province has now been temporarily suspended, a BBC report said on Thursday.
The woman's husband, Ma, said he alerted restaurant staff to the situation and was offered cash for abortion if they were worried about the health of the baby.
"If you are worried about the baby, then we'll give you 20,000 yuan ($3,000) to abort it," Ma says the staff told him.
Ma said he and his wife went to the hospital where she had a checkup to ensure the baby was healthy.
The restaurant allegedly later offered the couple 5,000 yuan ($728) in compensation for the incident - a price he was willing to negotiate after the hospital visit, he told the newspaper.
Health officials investigated the restaurant, but found no traces of rats. However, the eatery was shut down temporarily for other violations, including pooled water in the food processing areas and using produce suppliers without full qualifications.
In a statement released to the South China Morning Post, Xiabu Xiabu said it had always placed great emphasis on food security and would make any necessary improvements.
Xiabu Xiabu has 759 restaurants in China.
Photos of the boiled rat quickly spread on Chinese social media site Weibo, where users reacted with anger and disgust. "I feel like vomiting. I'm never going to eat hotpot outside again," said one user.
"Xiabu Xiabu has always been one of my favourite restaurants, I thought they were quite clean as well... I can't believe this," another commented.
"If something happens to her baby how are they going to compensate her? Is a life worth only 20,000 yuan?" one asked.
--IANS
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Firing a fresh salvo against the Modi government over the Rafale deal, the Congress on Thursday accused Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman of "lying" again" about the number of the France-built jets and demanded her and Prime Minister Narendra Modi to submit to a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) probe.
"Defence Minister is caught lying again on the number of fighter aircraft required by Indian Air Force (IAF)," Congress spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala told the media. "Her claim that IAF does not have the infrastructure like parking place, maintenance facility to fly 126 Fighter aircraft is preposterous and goes against the grain of national security requirements," he said.
He said Modi's decision to "arbitrarily" reduce requirement of 126 fighter aircraft to 36 was "unexplainable".
His remarks were in reference to Sitharaman's interview to a national daily wherein she has said that the "government chose to procure only 36 Rafale fighter aircraft from France in 2015, instead of the 126 being negotiated by the previous government, as infrastructure and other technical requirements of the IAF do not allow greater induction".
Dismissing Sitharaman's argument as "obnoxious" the Congress leader asked: "Can the government and IAF not create parking space/maintenance facility in 6-8 years period during which the aircraft will be delivered?
"Can creation of parking space/maintenance facility be a ground for compromising air superiority and national security?"
Surjewala also held Sitharaman "guilty" of not disclosing the fact that mandatory 'Fast Track Procedure' for affecting 'emergency purchase' was never followed by Modi at the time of announcement of purchase of 36 Rafale on 10th April, 2015".
"She has also failed to point out that no such 'emergency purchase' was approved either by the then Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar or Cabinet Committee on Security. How does she now explain the fact that despite the 'emergency purchase' in April 2015, aircraft will not be delivered up to the year 2022 and that also without 'India specific enhancements'," said the Congress leader.
He also indicted Sitharaman of "lying on the non-disclosure of price of Rafale" which she had agreed to publicly disclose in a press conference on Nov 17 2017.
"Let the Prime Minister and Defence Minister own accountability and submit to a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) probe instead of lying to the nation," added Surjewala.
--IANS
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A fresh war of words broke out between the BJP and Congress over Vijay Mallya on Thursday with Congress President Rahul Gandhi seeking Finance Minister Arun Jaitleys resignation over "free passage" given to the fugitive businessman and the BJP hitting out by alleging that UPA government gave "sweet deals" to him and that Gandhi family "partially owned the now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines through proxy".
The ruling party rejected the demand for Jailtley's resignation and instead sought to turn the tables on Congress by asking Rahul Gandhi to quit in view of his involvement in National Herald case.
The day saw two press conferences each by the Congress and BJP with Gandhi coming to party's central office to attack Jaitley.
It came a day after Mallya said he had met Jaitley and the Union minister rubbished the claim of any formal meeting.
Gandhi accused Jaitely of "colluding" with Mallya who is facing charges of fraud and money laundering amounting to around Rs 9,000 crore.
He asked why Jaitley did not inform the investigating agencies about Mallya's plans to leave India.
"There is a clear-cut collusion. He (Jaitley) should have confessed (about the meeting) and he should resign. The Finance Minister talks to an absconder (Mallya) and the absconder tells the Finance Minister that I am going to London. The Finance Minister neither told the CBI, the ED or the police, why?
"He was given a free passage to leave the country by the Finance Minister. There was a lookout notice against Mallya which was diluted to an inform notice. Who changed it? This can be done only by one who controls the CBI," he alleged.
Gandhi also demanded to know if the decision was taken by Jaitley himself or the "order came from the top".
"The Finance Minister has colluded with a criminal running away from the country. He was told by the criminal that he is going to run away but the Finance Minister did nothing. The government is lying on Rafale, they are lying on Mallya".
At the media conference, Congress MP P.L. Punia claimed to give an eyewitness account of the meeting between Jaitley and Mallya in the Central Hall of Parliament before the businessman fled the country on March 2, 2016.
Punia claimed the meeting between Jaitley and Mallya lasted 15-20 minutes and asked if Mallya had taken permission from Jaitley about his planned flight abroad.
Hitting out at the Congress, BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra alleged that there were documents that show how RBI and UPA under Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh had given sweet deals to Kingfisher Airlines.
"And it appears through these chain of documents that Kingfisher Airlines was owned not by Mallya but by the Gandhi family through proxy," he alleged showing the letters written by RBI to SBI requesting for the restructuring of the loans of Kingfisher Airline
The accuracy of the documents could not be ascertained. There was no immediate response from Rahul Gandhi's office.
Patra also alleged that the party has enough evidence which shows that Rahul Gandhi was "using black money" and the Gandhi family was helping Mallya with sweet deals.
He claimed that Rahul Gandhi travelled free in Kingfisher Airlines, which was once owned by Mallya.
"Rahul Gandhi took one crore loan from a shell company, we have the confession of the company director," Patra alleged.
At another press conference, Congress Communications In-charge Randeep Singh Surjewala posed specific questions to the Modi government.
"Why was no action taken against Vijay Mallya for bank fraud despite registration of an FIR by CBI on July 29, 2015? Who asked CBI to change its look-out notice of October 16, 2015 into a mere 'inform notice' on November 23, 2015? Who directed the banks to delay filing of the case in the Supreme Court," he asked.
Earlier in the day, Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad told reporters that all the allegations against Jaitley were "false".
"All these remarks are being made after Rahul Gandhi's London visit. Is there anything common between them (Mallya and Rahul Gandhi)?" he asked.
Railways Minister Piyush Goyal, who addressed a press conference at the BJP headquarters, said Rahul Gandhi was "facing serious criminal charges" and that he "should first resign."
"Those who took loans from hawala companies and accumulated wealth by taking government land free of cost or at lower rate from National Herald and whose case was rejected by Delhi High Court, should resign first," he said.
He also dismissed the claims of Punia about Mallya meeting Jaitley in the Central Hall of Parliament.
--IANS
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Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday hit out at opposition parties, saying the Congress, which has been trying to forge a "mahagathbandhan" for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, was in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and those part of the grand alliance form its "support system".
Modi's attack came during a video interaction with booth level workers of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) from Jaipur (Rural), Nawada, Ghaziabad, Hazaribagh and Arunachal West parliamentary constituencies.
Responding to a query of a BJP worker from Arunachal Pradesh about the opposition's efforts to forge a grand alliance, Modi said it was not a matter of opposition unity but an attempt was being made to do branding for some political parties in the name of "mahagathbandhan".
"This 'mahagathbandhan' is not a bond of knot but is an alliance of some opportunistic political parties to hide their weaknesses," he said.
"They are trying to stitch an alliance of parties while we are stitching people's hearts. This is their compulsion. Our work is to stitch relations which is our national duty," he said.
The Prime Minister said there was confusion in the "mahagathbandhan" over leadership and policy. Their intention was corrupt.
"Their only motto is 'Modi hatao', 'Modi hatao' and 'Modi hatao' (Remove Modi) while our determination is to accelerate the path of development."
Dubbing the idea of "mahagathbandhan" as an example of the BJP's rising power, he sought to know why the Congress, which had once passed a resolution against alliances, was now backtracking.
"Some years back, the Congress passed a resolution in Madhya Pradesh saying it will never go for any alliance. What is the reason today they are ready to have alliance with any political party? Today they are saying ...save me," he said.
"When a patient remains in the ICU, he is given a different kind of support system so that he can survive. The Congress is installing a support system of political parties to save itself. For the Congress, all those part of 'mahagathbandhan' are only a support system so that they rescue it from ICU."
The Prime Minister asserted that Congress efforts to form a grand coalition were not going to make any difference to the BJP in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
"If the BJP government had made some mistakes or its popularity graph had gone down or the Prime Minister had made some mistakes, would they have gone for an alliance?" Modi asked.
The opposition parties were so scared of the BJP that they felt they can never defeat it alone.
"They can't stand before the BJP. This is the reason they are doing this to get together ('mel milap')," he said.
"They are 'naamdar' and we are 'kaamdar'. Their purpose is welfare of a family and ours is country's welfare. The country is going to judge them on these issues... Being a BJP worker it does not make any difference to us what our opponents are doing."
--IANS
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Egyptian and Pakistani naval forces conducted drills in the Mediterranean Sea on Thursday.
"The drills meant to exchange expertise in order to promote maritime security and stability in the region," Egyptian armed forces said in a statement cited by Xinhua news agency.
The giant Pakistani military ship "SAIF PNS" along with the Egyptian naval ships conducted exercises including inspection of ships and exchange of helicopter takeoff and landing, it added.
Egypt also started joint military exercise with the US known as "the Bright Star" last week at a military base in its Alexandria province.
The military manoeuvres that started from September 8 and will go on till September 20, include land, naval and air forces from Egypt, the US, Britain, France, Italy, Greece, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Jordan, in addition to other 16 states that participate as observers.
--IANS
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Eight militants, three of them Pakistanis, were killed on Thursday in three separate gun battles in Jammu and Kashmir, one of which also injured 12 police and paramilitary personnel and soldiers.
While three were killed near the Line of control (LoC) in Keran sector in Kupwara district that borders Pakistan, two Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM) militants were shot dead in Sopore town and the three Pakistanis died in a 33-hour fighting in Reasi district.
Soldiers noticed suspicious movements along the LoC in Dat Gali area of Kupwara and challenged a small group of men trying to sneak into India, triggering a gun battle.
"Three terrorists were killed. Their bodies are lying close to the border fence and have not been recovered yet," a Defence Ministry source said.
Two JeM militants were killed in Arampora locality of Sopore town.
Police said the security forces, including Rashtriya Rifles, the Special Operations Group and the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), cordoned off Arampora in the morning after being tipped off about the gunmen.
"As the cordon was tightened, the militants opened fire," a police officer said.
Three Pakistani terrorists, also belonging to JeM, were killed in Reasi district after a joint operation by the security forces, General Officer Commanding (GOC) Major General Arvind Bhatia said.
He said they had recently infiltrated into Jammu and Kashmir from Pakistan in Samba sector of the international border.
The Pakistanis were killed in a 33-hour encounter in Kakriyal village near the Mata Vaishno Devi University.
Twelve security personnel, including a Deputy Superintendent of Police, were injured in the fighting.
The others injured included a Major and two para-commandos of the Army, five CRPF troopers and three policemen.
"The injured were shifted to the Narayana hospital in Katra town where doctors said all of them are out of danger," a police officer said.
The Army, police and CRPF had tracked down the militants using drones, helicopters and other surveillance gadgets in the forests of Jhajar and adjoining areas.
Once the militants were discovered, the villagers were evacuated before the final assault on them was mounted.
A villager earlier told the security forces that on Wednesday night the three armed militants entered his home, changed their clothes, took away biscuits and water and left.
Traffic on the national highway between Nagrota and Jhajar Kotli was suspended on Thursday. Schools in the area were closed.
The police on Wednesday detained the driver and helper of the truck. An AK-47 rifle and three magazines were recovered.
--IANS
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An elderly woman was thrashed here by people who suspected that she had snatched someone's gold chain, police said on Thursday.
Joint Commissioner of Police Sagarpreet Hooda said the incident occurred on Wednesday evening in northwest Delhi's Swaroop Nagar.
"During the weekly Budh Bazaar, a lady alleged that the victim had taken away her chain," the officer said.
"People who gathered there started beating her. The clothes on the upper part of her body got torn. Later, she was being taken to be handed over to the police, she passed out," he said. He denied that she was paraded naked on the streets.
The chain was not recovered from her. The matter is being investigated.
--IANS
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Actress Sonal Chauhan, who has returned to Bollywood after a long gap with J.P. Dutta's film "Paltan", believes family members are the real heroes behind army men.
"We often praise and honour our brave soldiers but we should not forget the important role their families play. Families of soldiers should also be remembered and honoured.
"It takes immense courage to let someone whom you love to go to border and risk life for the nation. Despite knowing anything can happen, spouses of military men strongly face all the problems and support them. In reality, families and loved ones of our army men are the real unsung heroes," Sonal told IANS over the phone from Mumbai.
Released on September 7, "Paltan" is based on the Nathu La and Cho La military clashes of 1967 which took place along the Sikkim border.
Asked about her experience working with J.P. Dutta, who is known for making war films like "Border" and "LOC Kargil", Sonal said that he is an 'encyclopaedia' when it comes to projects on war dramas.
"I feel nobody makes a war film better than him. He knows everything about wars. He made me learn about people who risk their life for the nation. While working with him, I learnt a lot of discipline from him. He is one man army," added the 31-year-old.
Sonal will next be seen in Mahesh Manjrekar's untitled drama alongside actor Vidyut Jammwal.
--IANS
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Ensembles designed and manufactured by the differently-abled at Tamana's Skill Development Centre will debut on the catwalk.
Tamana, a non-profit organisation which is working for the holistic rehabilitation of the differently-abled, along with the Fashion Design Council of India (FDCI), will host its annual fashion show on Saturday titled "Unity in Diversity".
The show is being held and co-hosted by the Hyatt Regency Delhi, which is Tamana's CSR partner.
The show draws inspiration from Japan and will see the differently-abled walk the ramp with dignitaries, designers, models, school principals and students.
Some of the participating designers are Alpana Neeraj, Amit Aggarwal, Kiran Uttam Ghosh, Nitin Bal Chauhan, Payal Pratap Singh, Rajesh Pratap Singh and Rimzim Dadu.
For over a decade, Tamana NGO has been advocating the cause of the disabled and spreading awareness about the 'Inclusion and Integration' of the differently-abled through its annual fashion show.
"Tamana, FDCI and Hyatt have together put up this fascinating fashion show promoting 'We are One' irrespective of intellectual and physical differences. According to me, these kids are born with a mission to remind us that we may have everything, but they are much greater in their purity of heart," Shayama Chona, founder and President, Tamana, said in a statement.
FDCI's President Sunil Sethi said the objective of the FDCI by being a supporter of this event continuously is to ensure that the "social barriers are broken through the medium of fashion".
--IANS
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A leading lawyer for former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak was charged with money laundering at a court here on Thursday as part of the investigation into state investment company 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) scandal.
Lawyer Muhammad Shafee Abdullah, 66, was charged under the anti-money laundering law for receiving money from illegal activities amounting to 9.5 million ringgit ($2.29 million), which were paid by Najib in two transactions in 2013 and 2014 respectively, Xinhua news agency reported.
Abdullah was also charged with filing income tax incorrectly related to the two payments. He has pleaded not guilty to all charges. The charges were brought by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission, which has been investigating the 1MDB case.
Abdullah told reporters that the payments were for his legal services to the then ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition and its leading party, the United Malays National Organization over the years.
He also insisted that he had no knowledge of that the money could be possibly from illegal activities like the misappropriation of 1MDB funds.
Najib was arrested in July and faces several charges related to the 1MDB scandal, in which he allegedly channelled almost $700 million from the 1MDB state development firm into his personal bank accounts.
His BN coalition had ruled Malaysia for decades until this year's election which it lost and former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad's Pakatan Harapan coalition won.
--IANS
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Former Meghalaya Chief Minister Donwa Dethwelson Lapang on Thursday resigned from the Congress, with which he was associated for four decades.
Lapang's resignation is a major blow to the opposition Congress in the northeasten region as it has come ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, and the upcoming Mizoram assembly elections.
In his resignation letter to Congress President Rahul Gandhi, Lapang, 84, noted that he is quitting the party as it has embarked upon a policy of phasing out senior and elderly people.
"In my opinion, it means that services and contributions of senior and elderly people are not useful to the party. Since the spirit and enthusiasm to work for the people is still burning inside me, this restriction made me frustrated and compelled me to be no longer comfortable in the party," Lapang said.
"With my present age and health condition, I have decided to serve the country, my state and its people in the same manner wherever I am," he noted.
The veteran political leader stated that he worked devotedly, leaving no stone un-turned while performing his service for the party, as a "true and disciplined Congress man and always cooperated with the AICC (All India Congress Committee) even to the extent of accepting sacrifices for the sake of unity and strength of the party. ..."
The five-time Chief Minister of Meghalaya did not contest the February 2018 assembly elections but campaigned for the Congress.
--IANS
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Four militants were killed and eight security personnel injured in two separate gun battles in Jammu and Kashmir on Thursday.
Two of them were killed in Arampore area in Sopore town, Defence Ministry said.
Police said the security forces, including Rashtriya Rifles, the Special Operations Group and the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), cordoned off the area in the morning after being tipped off about the gunmen.
"As the cordon was tightened, the militants opened fire triggering a gunfight," a police officer said.
Two more militants were killed in Reasi district after an Army operation that began early in the day, General Officer Commanding (GOC) Major General Arvind Bhatia said.
He said the militants had recently sneaked into the state from Pakistan.
Eight security personnel, including a Deputy Superintendent of Police, were injured in the fighting in Kakriyal village near the Mata Vaishno Devi University.
The dead were among the three militants who had opened fire on the Jammu-Srinagar highway in Udhampur district from a truck before escaping on Wednesday.
The Army, police and CRPF tracked down the militants using drones, helicopters and other surveillance gadgets in the forests of Jhajar and adjoining areas.
Those injured in the Wednesday militant attack included a CRPF trooper.
Once the militants were discovered, the villagers were evacuated before the final assault on the militants was mounted.
A villager earlier told the security forces that on Wednesday night the three armed militants entered his home, changed their clothes, took away biscuits and water and left.
Traffic on the national highway between Nagrota and Jhajar Kotli was suspended on Thursday. Schools in the area were also closed.
The police on Wednesday detained the driver and helper of the truck. An AK-47 rifle and three magazines were recovered.
--IANS
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Ganesh Chaturthi began with pomp and gaiety in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh on Thursday as devotees installed the idols across the two states.
Thousands of idols of different shapes and sizes were installed at specially decorated "pandals" or makeshift platforms erected by various neighbourhood and traders' associations.
The 11-day-long festivities began amid tight security in Hyderabad and other parts of Telangana and neighbouring Andhra Pradesh.
Devotees also performed puja to the elephant-headed Hindu god in their houses. The markets were abuzz with activity as men and women bought flowers, leaves, fruits and other puja items.
Several trucks were seen carrying giant idols from Dhoolpet -- a market famous for idol-making in the old city of Hyderabad.
Like every year, the tallest Ganesh idol was installed at Khairatabad in the heart of Hyderabad. The idol this time is 57 feet high and 24 feet wide, weighing more than 45 tonne.
Telangana ministers N. Narasimha Reddy and T. Srinivas Yadav, local MLA and BJP leader Chintala Ramachandra Reddy and others offered first puja. Hundreds of devotees thronged the place to catch a glimpse of the idol and make their offerings.
A sweet firm from Andhra Pradesh is offering 580 kg laddu as "Maha Prasadam" to Khairatabad Ganesh. According to organisers, the laddu has been made with 220 kg sugar, 145 kg cow ghee, 175 kg Bengal gram, 25 kg cashew nut and 13 kg almond.
Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrashekhar Rao, along with his family members, performed Ganesh puja at Pragati Bhavan, his official residence, to mark the occasion.
Rao, his Andhra Pradesh counterpart N. Chandrababu Naidu and the Governor of both states, E.S.L. Narasimhan, have greeted people on the occasion of Ganesh Chaturthi.
Special puja programmes were also organised in the offices of political parties in Hyderabad.
According to the police, 30,000 idols will be immersed in Hussainsagar, the lake in the heart of the city, during the 11-day fete. Nearly half of them will be immersed on the final day -- September 23.
Over 20,000 policemen and personnel from paramilitary forces will be deployed in the twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad to maintain law and order during the festival.
The police said tight security arrangements were made in the communally-sensitive old city of Hyderabad.
--IANS
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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Lt. General Cherish Mathson, Army Commander, South-Western Command, on Thursday pitched for 'battlefield tourism', saying the government should allow tourists access to such areas in Rajasthan to spur tourism.
"As a travel body, the Indian Heritage Hotels Association (IHHA) should discuss the issue with the government to ensure that tourists have easier access to borders," said the General while addressing the IHHA's 7th annual convention in Bharatpur.
He said heroic tales of victorious battles fought in Rajasthan should be shared with tourists.
"Rajasthan's history is replete with battles which form an integral part of the state heritage and culture. Historical battles attract the interest of the general public owing to their tremendous emotional appeal of valour," he said.
The General said 'battlefield tourism' needs to be recognised as a sub-genre of tourism. "Battlefield areas need to be made accessible to people and infrastructure such as hotels and transportation needs to be established. This form of tourism can be started as a pilot project in Rajasthan," he said.
He also suggested that a body of educated and well-informed tourist guides needs to be created.
The General pointed out the war museum of Jaisalmer attracts more tourists on particular days than the Fort of Jaisalmer. He also touched upon the importance of historical places such as Haldighati, Chittorgarh and Jodhpur where several medieval battles were fought.
An exhibition featuring various hospitality and industry related products was inaugurated by Rajasthan Tourism Minister Krishnendra Kaur.
(Archana Sharma can be contacted at arachana.g@gmail.com)
--IANS
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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Actor Mel Gibson's attorneys have accused the producer of American-Irish drama film "The Professor and the Madman" of seeking to swindle Irelands tax authorities.
Gibson is engaged in a legal battle with producer Voltage Pictures over the film, which tells the dark origin story of the Oxford English Dictionary, reports variety.com.
The director, Farhad Safinia, first accused Voltage in July of trying to inflate expenses on the film, which would result in a larger tax rebate from the Irish government.
Gibson, who co-produced and starred in the film as lexicographer James Murray, filed an answer to a cross-complaint on Wednesday, in which he joined in the accusation.
Gibson's attorneys have alleged that producer Zev Foreman offered a $1.3 million fee to Safinia, on the condition that Safinia then rebate $1 million to Voltage under the guise of buying a literary property.
"Mr. Foreman also indicated he had perpetrated similar fraudulent transactions in connection with Voltage's production of films in the State of Louisiana to obtain tax credits there," Gibson's attorneys stated.
The filing states that Warren Dern, Safinia's lawyer, asked Foreman for a letter from a recognised law firm stating that such an arrangement would be legal. No such letter was provided.
Safinia previously said that he rejected the deal. The new filing also asserts that Voltage made a similar offer to Vicki Christianson, the Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer of Gibson's company, Icon Productions. She also rejected it, the attorneys state.
Voltage's attorney, Jeremiah Reynolds, previously said that the tax scam allegation was fabricated. Voltage declined to comment on the latest claims.
--IANS
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Panaji, Sep 13 (IANS/Mongabay) Goa's much-highlighted opencast iron-ore mining has resulted in significant destruction of tree cover in the iron ore belts, where all vegetation is shaved off to scoop out top soil from hills and access the ore. The destruction left in its wake is well documented.
A report by The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) in 1997 estimated that 2,500 hectares of forests were lost due to mining between 1988 and 1997. The India State of Forest Report 2017, said "forest cover within the recorded forest area has decreased by nine square km (900 ha) due to mining and other developmental activities" within two years from its 2015 assessment.
"Mining companies wanted to mine even the Western Ghat foothills. I refused permission. Seven of Goa's rivers originate in the Ghats. Where will the water come from if you mine the hills," former Goa principal chief conservator of forests Richard D'Souza told Mongabay-India. D'Souza, along with the late Governor of Goa, Lt. Gen. J.F.R. Jacob, notified two additional Western Ghat wildlife sanctuaries, Mhadei and Netravali, during a brief spell of President's rule in 1999.
"That has saved Goa's soil and water," D'Souza claimed. Local legislators and the Goa government attempted to undo the notification, but never succeeded. Thanks to that move, the state now has one national park and six wildlife sanctuaries, covering over 755 square km (20.4 percent of its geographical area). Together with Dodamarg in Maharashtra and Anshi in Karnataka, they create a contiguous protected green corridor along the entire eastern section of Goa.
The process of carving out a core tiger reserve from four Goa sanctuaries is currently underway. This is expected to be further bad news for iron ore miners. A tiger reserve will increase the ecologically sensitive buffer zone to 10 kilometres from the reserve edge and put a question mark over 18 more leases. For similar reasons, mining lobbies stalled notification of an ESZ for years. A one-kilometre eco-sensitive zone (ESZ) was finally notified in 2015. Seventeen mines have to be phased out over a 10-year period due to this.
Goa's export-based iron ore mining has been temporarily contained, largely due to the projected requirements of the domestic steel industry and the backing of the central government and administration towards the latter. The leases held by Goa-based exporters stand cancelled since February 2018. The exporters, who have the backing of the Goa government, have thus far been unable to get the Centre to intervene in their favour to restart mining and permit extensions of the current leases.
But while the spotlight has been on Goa's miners, Goa's eastern forests and state-wide green cover, in its coastal and middle regions, the state faces new and bigger threats. Big infrastructure under the central government's Bharatmala and Sagarmala projects are speedily taking their toll on Goa's green areas. Centrally-funded big infrastructure projects like eight-lane highways, a new airport, coal rail lines and a resultant real estate and construction boom, has seen large-scale tree-felling.
Road and rail projects are set to divert nearly 218 ha of protected and reserve forests in the Western Ghats, including in national park and wildlife sanctuary areas of the forests. The proposed forest diversion has remained under the media and NGO radar. The detailed project reports for the NH66, NH4A, NH17B and NH 17 six/eight laning projects are not accessible. Work execution has been split and sub-contracted to several construction engineering firms to ensure simultaneous and speedy completion with the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI), Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) and Goa Public Works Department (PWD) overseeing projects.
"Some infrastructure development may be necessary. But when governments are in a tearing hurry, they don't want to wait and search for less damaging alternatives that would save forests and tree cover. These are five-year governments and they want to sign the contracts and tenders in a hurry before their own term ends. That's the problem," said Claude Alvares, director of the environmental action group Goa Foundation.
Infrastructure under the Sagarmala projects to move coal and other products through Goa, also connects the upcoming controversial Mopa greenfield airport and links Mormugao harbour to the steel mills of Karnataka for their coal import supply. As part of this infrastructure, the South Western Railway is laying a second track from Madgaon to Kulem and Kulem to Castlerock. It has sought permissions for forest clearance in this thickly-forested protected area, where an existing track was built in colonial times.
In 15 months from April 2017 to June 2018, the Forests Department granted permission to fell 28,910 trees for government projects, including 21,703 trees at the Mopa airport site. One of Goa's busiest corporations, the Goa State Infrastructure Development Corporation, plans to cut 250 trees for beautification of a Freedom Fighters Memorial.
After the recent Kerala flood devastation, environmentalist Madhav Gadgil, author of the 2011 Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel (WGEEP) report, argued for caution in the Western Ghats regions of Goa and Maharashtra, warning of flood risks if indiscriminate development continued to disturb natural flows in the region. Forest conservationists point out that development over the years in the Western Ghats have brought down the area under indigenous original evergreen forests canopy. The percentage of evergreen forest canopy indicates the real health of any forest.
"I hope there will be some caution. In Kerala, we have seen that a week of intense rain in fragile environments can undo all the development and investment and highways that governments have built over two decades," commented Alvares.
(In arrangement with Mongabay.com, a source for environmental news reporting and analysis. The views expressed in the article are those of Mongabay.com. Feedback: gopi@mongabay.com)
--IANS
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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
At least nine people are dead and dozens injured after a car crashed into a busy square in China.
A red SUV ploughed into people gathered in Binjiang square in Hengdong city, Hunan Province at 7.40pm local time (11.40 GMT), the city government said.
Police arrested the suspected driver, a 54-year-old Chinese man named Yang Zanyun. He had previously served several prison sentences for crimes including arson and assault, the Beijing Youth Daily said.
Video footage from the scene shows people running away from the scene, with emergency vehicles parked in the street.
The newspaper, a publication of the ruling Communist Party's youth league, said on its official microblog account that police were investigating the crash. There was no mention of terrorism or any other motive.
Around 46 people were injured, the Hengyang city government office in charge of online information and propaganda said.
China has experienced violent attacks in public places in recent years, including bombings and arson of buses and buildings, sometimes by people trying to settle personal scores or grievances against society.
Occasionally, the attacks are attributed to militant separatists, though such attacks have become less common in recent years.
In 2013, an SUV plowed through a crowd in front of Beijing's Forbidden City before crashing and catching fire, killing five, including the vehicle's three occupants.
Police blamed the attack on Muslim separatists from the Uighur ethnic minority group.
METRO UK
The Punjab and Haryana High court on Thursday stayed the proceedings against three Punjab Police officers booked in connection with the Behbal Kalan police firing in Faridkot in 2015, in which two persons were killed.
Justice R.K. Jain issued notice to Punjab for September 20 and stayed the investigation against former Moga Senior Superintendent of Police Charanjit Singh, ASP Bikramjit Singh and SHO Amarjit Singh.
Police had booked four of its officers on charges of murder and attempt to murder in connection with the police firing at Behbal Kalan village on people protesting against sacrilege incidents involving Guru Granth Sahib in October 2015. The fourth booked officer is Inspector Pardeep Singh.
The Justice Ranjit Singh (retd) Commission, set up by the Congress government led by Chief Minister Amarinder Singh to look into the sacrilege incidents, had recommended action against the police officers.
The counsel for the three officers -- since retired -- had pleaded before the High Court that the commission had exceeded its brief on findings on the sacrilege incidents and had gone on to recommend/suggest action against the police officers.
The three officers have challenged the report and recommendations of the commission on "technical grounds".
"Among the grounds, the commission did not issue any notice to the affected party for giving an opportunity to cross-examine the witnesses. No notification was issued to de-notify the earlier commission (Justice Zora Singh (retd) Commission set up by the then Shiromani Akali Dal-BJP government in Punjab) before setting up the Ranjit Singh Commission," the counsel pointed out.
"Acting on the recommendations of the Justice Ranjit Singh (retd) Commission report, the Punjab Police included the names of four police personnel in the FIR registered in 2015 in the Behbal Kalan firing incident," a Punjab government spokesman had said here on Saturday.
Their names were included in the first information report on Chief Minister Amarinder Singh's directives.
The Commission, in its first report submitted to the Chief Minister last month, had categorically named these four police officers and recommended that they be named as accused in the FIR and proceeded against as per law.
Two persons were killed in the police firing and several others injured in violent clashes during protests against incidents of sacrilege. The protests brought Punjab to a standstill in October 2015 as radical Sikhs and others blocked highways and other roads for days together.
--IANS
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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Anti Terrorist Squad (ATS) of the Uttar Pradesh Police on Thursday arrested a Hizbul Mujahideen terrorist from Kanpur, police officials said.
The terrorist, Huraira aka Qamruddin, who hails from Hozai in Assam, was arrested by an ATS team led by ASP Dinesh Yadav and Deputy SP Dinesh Puri.
ATS Inspector General (IG) Aseem Arun said the arrested terrorist first came into limelight after he posted his picture with an AK-47 in the social media in April this year.
Intelligence agencies had been working on him for some time now, and based on leads collected over a period of time, he was arrested on Thursday from Shiv Nagar under Choker Police Station in Kanpur.
Officials told IANS that the terrorist had plans to attack public places during the ongoing Ganesh Chaturthi festival. Video grabs of a prominent city temple were found from his mobile phone.
He was sent by the Hizbul commanders to do a recce of the area and then carry out an attack, a police official privy to the development said.
During the initial interrogation, he has accepted that he is a member of Hizbul Mujahideen and that he was in Kanpur to carry out a major terror activity.
He also informed the police and ATS officials that he was trained by handlers in Kashmir in April 2017 in the thickets and mountainous region of Kishtwar. He is a graduate dropout from a college in Assam and has a diploma in computer course and typing, Director General of Police (DGP) O.P. Singh said.
Investigations have also revealed that during 2008-2012, he was in Republic of Palau, an island country near Philippines.
The ATS is now trying to know from him about the duration of his stay in Uttar Pradesh, if he has more accomplices, what were his other targets and where did he get funds from, the DGP added.
--IANS
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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Union Minister Suresh Prabhu has concluded the meeting held with various ministers from Russia, on enhancing bilateral trade and investment between both countries, the Ministry of Commerce and Industry said on Thursday.
The minister's three-day tour began with the visit of the KGK group of India in Vladivostok, which has a manufacturing capacity of 150,000 carats of diamond per year, the Ministry said in a statement.
Prabhu held discussions with the KGK group to explore the potential, sourcing and also value addition opportunities in the diamond trade for India.
The Minister held a bilateral meeting with Yury Trutnev, Deputy Prime Minister of Russia, and also interacted with Governors, Vice-Governors and representatives of the Russian Far East regions.
Discussions were held on possibilities of mutual cooperation in sectors like mining, agriculture, tourism, saving the tiger and elephant population and water.
According to the Ministry, India, one of the world's largest importers of timber, has imported bulk quantities from countries like Malaysia, Myanmar, Ghana and Ecuador. However, it was now facing difficulties with these countries.
"This opens up opportunities for suppliers in the Far East Region of Russia which enjoys an abundance of timber resources," it said.
The Minister ended his tour with a visit to radio Sputnik where he spoke about India's investment potential opportunities for Russian businesses and future avenues for economic cooperation between India and Russia.
--IANS
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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
An Indonesian court on Thursday sentenced the provincial chief of a radical Islamist group that pledged allegiance to the Islamic State terror organization to 11 years in prison.
A court in Jakarta sentenced Wawan Kurniawan, alias Abu Afif, head of Jamaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD) in Pekanbaru, capital of Riau province, for setting up a training centre for militants and instigating an attack on a provincial police station in May, Efe news reported.
A three-judge bench said that Abu Afif had prepared explosives and was arrested in possession of firearms.
The public prosecutor's office had sought 13 years for Abu Afif, who was arrested by the anti-terror unit Densus 88 in October 2017.
Abu Afif was in prison during the JAD attack on the police station in Pekanbaru, on Sumatra island, in which four assailants and one police officer died.
JAD was founded in 2015 and the US State Department classified it as a global terrorist organization in January 2017.
Indonesia, where Muslims account for 88 per cent of the 260-million strong population, has seen several Islamist terror attacks, including one on the popular tourist resort island of Bali in 2002 that claimed 202 lives.
--IANS
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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
After more than three years of investigation against senior Indian Police Service (IPS) officer Amitabh Thakur, the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) has found him "not guilty" in a disproportionate assets (DA) case, an official said on Thursday.
Investigating Officer, Superintendent of Police (EOW) D.P.N. Pandey, found in his investigation that total earnings of Amitabh between 1992 and 2015 was Rs 1.30 crore, while the value of his total assets and expenditure was Rs 90 lakh -- much lower than his earnings.
The EOW also found that Amitabh's wife and activist Nutan Thakur had been financially independent and her earnings during this period was Rs 92 lakh, while her total assets and expenditure was valued at Rs 90 lakh.
So, the EOW recommended closure of the DA case against Amitabh.
The then Samajwadi Party (SP) government had filed a slew of cases against the IPS officer, two days after he filed a complaint on July 11, 2015 against Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav's father Mulayam Singh.
The state government initiated a vigilance inquiry against Amitabh, which concluded its probe in less than two months on September 4, 2015, declaring Thakur guilty of owning disproportionate assets.
On September 16, 2015, an FIR (No 746/2015) under Section 13(1)(e) of the Prevention of Corruption Act was registered, which was transferred to the EOW on the orders of Allahabad High Court.
Following delay in investigation, Amitabh had approached the high court which directed completion of investigation in 10 weeks.
Later, he again knocked at the doors of high court over non-compliance of its orders, to which the court issued a contempt notice against the Investigation Officer.
--IANS
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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Thursday said the All-Party Meeting that was held in Srinagar demanded that Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Tushar Mehta be kept away from the Article 35-A proceedings in the Supreme Court.
Omar Abdullah said the parties at the meeting made the demand because Mehta "has been going beyond his brief". At the last hearing of the case in the apex court, the ASG had said that "it cannot be denied that there is an aspect of gender discrimination in Article 35-A".
"Even the state government has accepted this. So we don't trust him. We have all decided that Mehta should be taken off the case when this comes up for hearing in January," Omar Abdullha said.
The former Chief Minister said Mehta was sent to defend the state and Article 35-A and he was representing the government. However, "we don't trust him anymore. We demand that the lawyers who were defending it earlier must be brought back".
The meeting took place at the residence of Member Parliament and former Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah on Gupkar Road in Srinagar. The parties also demanded that the case should not be taken up for hearing till Jammu and Kashmir has an elected government.
--IANS
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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Thursday demanded Finance Minister Arun Jaitely's resignation after accusing him of colluding with fugitive businessman Vijay Mallya "and giving him a free passage" to flee the country.
Addressing the media at the Congress headquarters here, Gandhi asked why the Minister did not inform the investigating agencies about Mallya's plans to leave India.
"There is a clear-cut collusion. He (Jaitley) should have confessed (about the meeting) and he should resign," said Gandhi.
At the media conference, party MP P.L. Punia claimed to give an eyewitness account of the meeting between Jaitley and Mallya in the Central Hall of Parliament before the businessman fled the country on March 2, 2016.
"The Finance Minister talks to an absconder (Mallya) and the absconder tells the Finance Minister that I am going to London. The Finance Minister neither told the CBI, the ED or the police, why?
"He was given a free passage to leave the country by the Finance Minister," said Gandhi and alleged that the logistics of Mallya going out of the country were discussed at the meeting.
"The Finance Minister has colluded with a criminal."
Punia claimed the meeting between Jaitley and Mallya lasted 15-20 minutes and alleged that Mallya took Jaitley's permission after holding consultations with him about his planned flight abroad.
"The meeting happened on March 1, 2016, a day after the Union budget was presented. In the Central Hall, initially Mallya and Jaitley were standing and were talking intently. Then they moved to the benches in the Central Hall and were seated and talking," said Punia.
"Later, on March 3 morning, news appeared that Mallya left the country on March 2. My first reaction was that I had seen them together in Central Hall a day earlier," said Punia.
The MP said he had referred about the meeting in his interactions with the media.
"I am surprised that for last two and a half years, the Finance Minister never referred to this meeting. It was not a short meeting but a formal meeting. There is CCTV facility in Parliament and their meeting can be verified from the footages.
"It is very clear that Mallya took his (Jaitley's) permission after holding consultations. It is our charge and inference that he (Mallya) went with his (Jaitley's) concurrence.
"It is a serious issue. Either he (Jaitley) quits or I will quit," said Punia.
Ridiculing Jaitley, Gandhi said: "Yesterday Jaitley said Mallya had approached him informally. He writes long blogs, but forgot to write about this in any of his blogs."
He also questioned why Jaitley did not inform the CBI, ED or the police that Mallya had told him about his plans to go to London.
"Our first question is an absconder tells the Finance Minister that I am going to London and the Finance Minister doesn't refer it to CBI, ED or the police.
"Our second question is there was a lookout notice against Mallya which was diluted to an inform notice. Who changed it? This can be done only by one who controls the CBI," he alleged.
He also demanded to know if the decision was taken by Jaitley himself or the "order came from the top".
Referring to Jaitley claiming that his meeting with Mallya was in the corridor of the Central Hall of Parliament, Gandhi demanded to know why Jaitley did not tell the CBI about this.
"The Prime Minister takes the decisions and Jaitley listens to him. Did he (Jaitley) allow him to flee or the order was from the top?"
On a question if the meeting was a coincidence, Gandhi replied: "How can it be a coincidence? The Finance Minister is responsible for taking action against economic offenders.
"It is clear-cut collusion, the Finance Minister has colluded with a criminal running away from the country. He was told by the criminal that he is going to run away but the Finance Minister did nothing. He has colluded with the criminal. whatever we can do we will do," said Gandhi, adding that the "government is lying on Rafale, they are lying on Mallya".
--IANS
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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A court in Maharashtra on Thursday issued warrant against Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister and TDP chief N. Chandrababu Naidu in an eight-year-old case relating to his protest over Babli Project.
The Dharmabad Magistrate's Court also issued warrants to Andhra Pradesh Cabinet Minister D. Umamaheshwar Rao and 14 others. They were all directed to appear before the court on September 21, according to sources in the Telugu Desam Party (TDP)
In 2010, the TDP had organised a huge protest over what it called illegal construction of Babli Project across Godavari river by the Maharashtra government.
Naidu, who was then the Leader of Opposition in undivided Andhra Pradesh, along with 40 MLAs of his party and many, had entered Maharashtra and was heading towards Babli Project in violation of the ban orders imposed by the neighbouring state.
The police had arrested Naidu and others and registered a non-bailable case against them.
Recently a petitioner approached the Dharmabad court, seeking direction to reopen the case.
The TDP Thursday night reacted sharply to the warrant against Naidu and alleged that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is behind the conspiracy. TDP leader Buddha Venkanna told reporters in Vijayawada that the BJP is resorting to witch-hunting.
--IANS
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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A Maoist guerrilla carrying a bounty of Rs 25 lakh surrendered in Jharkhand's Palamau district on Thursday. He was active in three states -- Jharkhand, Bihar and Chhattisgarh.
A police statement said that Kamlesh Ganjhu alias Birsai surrendered before Palamau Range Commissioner Manoj Kumar and Deputy Inspector General of Police Vipul Shukla.
Birsai's wife Raj Kumari was also present during the surrender. He was a military commission secretary and second-in-command of the banned Communist Party of India-Maoist (CPI-Maoist) group.
Birsai joined the group in 1993 at age nine. He was the mastermind behind the killing of 17 security personnel in 2013 in Jharkhand's Latehar district. He is facing 44 cases in Latehar and 33 cases in Garwah district.
More than 60 Maoist guerrillas have surrendered in Jharkhand in the last three years.
Maoist guerrillas are active in 18 of the state's 24 districts.
IANS
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Three militants who fired at two persons on the Jammu-Srinagar highway in Udhampur district before escaping were tracked down to a house in Reasi district on Thursday, police said.
A gunfight has erupted between the holed up militants and security forces following evacuation in the area.
The militants on board a truck attacked a checkpost in Jhajar Kotli area of Udhampur injuring a CRPF trooper and a forest guard on Wednesday. They then abandoned the vehicle and vanished in the bushes. A search operation has been on ever since.
The army, police and the Central Reserve Police Force tracked militant movement using drones, helicopters and other surveillance gadgets in the bushy forests of Jhajar and adjoining areas.
"They were finally tracked down to a house in Kakriyal area near Mata Vaishno Devi University," the officer said.
The villagers were promptly evacuated from the area as the final assault on the militants was launched.
A villager earlier told the security forces that around 10 p.m. the three armed militants carrying haversacks entered his home, changed their clothes, took biscuits and water and left.
Traffic on the national highway between Nagrota-Jhajar Kotli was suspended on Thursday. Schools in the area were also closed for the day.
The police on Wednesday detained the driver and helper of the truck. One AK-47 rifle and three magazines were also recovered.
A police statement later said the three militants were carrying two AK-47 rifles, a pistol and haversacks.
--IANS
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The majority of US voters said they would not like to see Congress begin impeachment proceedings against US President Donald Trump, according to a poll released on Wednesday.
The American voters, by a 56 to 36 per cent margin, said they didn't want Congress to take action against the president, a Quinnipiac University National Poll found.
"American voters don't want Congress to tell President Donald Trump, 'You're fired!' by serving him with articles of impeachment," Xinhua quoted Tim Malloy, Assistant Director of the poll, as saying.
However, Congress should be more of a check on Trump, most US voters agree, by 58 to 27 per cent.
In races for the US House of Representatives nationwide, American voters back Democratic candidates over Republicans by 52 to 38 per cent, the poll showed.
The survey also found that US voters, 54 to 30 per cent, trusted the news media more than Trump to tell the truth about important issues. Republicans were the only group that trusted Trump more than the media, by 72 to 12 per cent.
Quinnipiac University surveyed 1,038 voters nationwide from September 6 to 9, with a margin of error of 3.7 percentage points.
--IANS
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The Pakistan Prime Minister's House will be turned into a campus of a postgraduate institute, said a minister on Thursday while divulging governments plans to utilize official buildings for public use.
Education Minister Shafqat Mehmood told the media that the public was fed up of the previous governments' "royal" ways of living, Geo news said.
The minister said it was important that government officials live in a way that does not waste public money, which is why Prime Minister Imran Khan has decided that he would not stay in the PM House and governors will not stay in Governor Houses to cut down on costs, he added.
According to the minister, the annual expenditure of PM House was Rs 470 million.
Therefore, it has been decided that the PM House will be turned into a top-level educational instate, Mehmood said.
Speaking about reconstruction of other official buildings, Mehmood said the Governor House in Lahore will be used as a museum and art gallery, while the park on the premises will be opened for public.
The Punjab House in Murree will be turned into a tourist complex, while the Governor House in Karachi and the one in Balochistan will be used as museums.
--IANS
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Pakistan on Thursday took "strong exception to the unwarranted reference" against it in the joint statement issued following the 2+2 India-US dialogue in New Delhi last week.
The statement issued after the US Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defence met their Indian counterparts called upon Pakistan to ensure that its territory was not used to launch terror attacks on other countries.
At the weekly news briefing here on Thursday, Foreign Office spokesperson Muhammad Faisal said: "Pakistan rejects the baseless allegations. We have also conveyed our position to the US side.
"Mentioning a 'third country' with unsubstantiated accusations in a formal outcome document is inconsistent with established diplomatic norms.
"What is more ironic is that many other thorny issues involving the 'third country' were avoided in the joint statement by the Indian side," the spokesperson said.
He added that the trial of the Pakistanis said to be involved in the 2008 Mumbai terror attack was ongoing in an anti-terrorism court in Pakistan and "the judicial process shall take its course".
Faisal asked the US to also focus similarly on what he said was "Indian state terrorism" in Jammu and Kashmir.
Responding to a question, Faisal said: "Pakistan is always ready for talks with India for resolution of all outstanding disputes and both the countries are in contact with each other through Track II diplomacy."
--IANS
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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Ailing Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar, who is being treated for advanced pancreatic cancer, was on Thursday admitted to a private clinic in the beach village of Candolim in North Goa, after he developed fever.
Deputy Speaker of Goa legislative assembly, Michael Lobo told reporters that Parrikar had been admitted to the clinic, but refused to divulge details about his health.
"He has been admitted to the clinic for treatment," said Lobo, who is a legislator from the Calangute assembly constituency, where the village of Candolim is located.
Sources said that Parrikar, who has been resting at his private residence near Panaji, ever since his return from the US on September 6, had been admitted to the same clinic in Candolim once before earlier this week.
Parrikar also did not attend the traditional Ganesh Chaturthi puja at his ancestral home in the village of Parra in North Goa, a ritual he has been observing for decades.
The Chief Minister earlier this month, returned from the US -- for the third time in six months -- where he was undergoing treatment for this ailment.
He has not attended office since his return.
--IANS
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The Philippines on Thursday mobilized $30 million for emergency response and humanitarian assistance in areas that are likely to be affected by the passage of Category-5 Typhoon Mangkhut, locally known as Ompong, officials said.
President Rodrigo Duterte held a command conference at the headquarters of the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council to "make sure that our state of readiness for 'Ompong' will be at its highest level", presidential spokesperson Harry Roque was cited as saying by Efe news.
Quick response teams had been deployed and all air and land assets were ready for rescue efforts and to dispense humanitarian aid in areas directly in the path of the typhoon, Duterte said.
Mangkhut entered the Philippines Area of Responsibility on Wednesday and was expected to make landfall on Saturday in Cagayan province in the northern part of Luzon Island in the northernmost tip of the country.
According to forecasts, Mangkhut was expected to gather strength before making landfall on Saturday and, if the sustained winds exceeded 220 kph, it will be classified as a super typhoon.
Philippines authorities warned that the impact of Mangkhut could be as devastating as that of Haiyan, the last super typhoon to hit the archipelago in 2013, which caused 6,300 deaths and affected 16 million.
National meteorological agency PAGASA has already issued the first level of cyclone alert in all provinces of Luzon and Samar, located in the central Visayas region, over the impending arrival of Mangkhut.
Local and regional authorities already began evacuating families from some of the most vulnerable zones.
Between 15 and 20 typhoons pass through the Philippines every year during the rainy season, which began this year on June 8.
--IANS
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The Tamil Nadu police on Thursday arrested S. Selvakumar, a DMK party functionary in Perambulur district, for kicking a woman running a beauty parlour, said police.
The attack that happened about a month ago was captured in the CCTV camera installed in the beauty parlour and went viral on the social media following which the police took action.
The DMK in a statement said it has temporarily suspended Selvakumar from the party.
Last month two DMK activists were temporarily suspended from the party for assaulting the officials of a restaurant.
--IANS
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Former President Pranab Mukherjee will release a commemorative volume on legendary freedom fighter and Congress leader, the late Barrister Rajni Patel, here on Friday.
Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) President Sharad Pawar will preside over the function in the presence of former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah, retired Chief Justice of Bombay High Court and Kerala High Court Justice Sujata Manohar, industrialists Mukesh Ambani and Anil Ambani, former union minister Ram Jethmalani, former Mumbai Sheriff Nana Chudasama and legal luminary Iqbal Chagla.
Rajni Patel's widow and former Sheriff of Mumbai, Bakul Patel, will pay a tribute to her husband through the lens of his comdrades and associates as well as personal accounts of a host of public luminaries who knew him over the decades till his death in May 1982.
The book, entitled "Remembering Rajni", comprises essays spearheaded by Bakul Patel from political personalities, jurists, intellectuals, scientists, artists, medicos and journalists, with illustrations by the late R.K. Laxman and the late M.F. Hussain.
Reminiscing the life and chronicling the journey of Patel, the book carries a foreword by former President Mukherjee.
"The book is full of insights, personal moments and life experiences of a man who selflessly served the nation and an understanding on his journey of success and sacrifices," said Bakul Patel.
Born in Sarsa, near Anand in south Gujarat, the late Rajni is considered among the youngest freedom fighters of India who was jailed in his early teens for picketing outside liquor shops during the Swadeshi Movement launched by Mahatma Gandhi.
An exceptionally brilliant student, he went for higher studies in the UK in the early 1930s and qualified as a Barrister in 1939, was President of the World Students Conference in Paris with membership of over 50 countries and later came in contact with another stalwart, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru in London.
Returning to Mumbai after many years, he plunged headlong into social service, was a legal luminary, became a confidant of the Nehru-Gandhi family and was appointed President of the powerful Mumbai (Bombay) Regional Congress Committee.
Armed with his patriotism and secular credentials, he built the Mumbai Congress into a formidable party working for the welfare of masses in the 1960s-70s when regional forces were on the upswing, and strengthened the party in Maharashtra.
Among his major contributions to Mumbai were the creation of the famed Nehru Centre as a tribute to his mentor and guide, the late Prime Minister Nehru.
--IANS
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The BJP on Thursday alleged that the UPA government gave "sweet deals" to fugitive businessman Vijay Mallya, while claiming that Congress President Rahul Gandhi's family "partially owned the now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines through proxy".
"There are documents that show how the RBI and UPA under Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh had given sweet deals to Kingfisher Airlines," Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Sambit Patra told the media.
"And it appears through these chain of documents that Kingfisher Airlines was owned not by Mallya but by the Gandhi family through proxy," he alleged showing the letters written by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to the State Bank of India (SBI) requesting for the restructuring of the loans of Kingfisher Airline
The accuracy of the documents could not be ascertained. There was no immediate response from Rahul Gandhi's office.
The BJP leader's remarks came a day after Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday demanded the resignation of Finance Minister Arun Jaitley while referring to the statement of Mallya alleging that he met the BJP leader before leaving the country.
Patra also alleged that the party has enough evidence which shows that Rahul Gandhi was "using black money" and the Gandhi family was helping Mallya with sweet deals.
He said that Rahul Gandhi travelled free in Kingfisher Airlines, which was once owned by Mallya.
"Rahul Gandhi took one crore loan from a shell company, we have the confession of the company director Umashankar Gupta," Patra said.
The BJP leader also demanded that the Congress President "clear the air over his family's relations" with Mallya.
Mallya, who left India on March 2, 2016, and is facing charges of fraud and money laundering amounting to around Rs 9,000 crore and fighting an extradition case, had told reporters in London that he met the finance minister before leaving India and offered to settle with the banks.
However, Jaitley rejected Mallya's claim as factually false.
"My attention has been drawn to a statement made to the media by Vijay Mallya on having met me with an offer of settlement. The statement is factually false in as much as it does not reflect truth," Jaitley had said in a Facebook post.
Earlier in the day, Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad told reporters that all the allegations against Jaitley were "false".
"All these allegations are false. I want to question one thing, all these remarks are being made after Rahul Gandhi's London visit," Prasad said.
"Is there anything common between them (Mallya and Rahul Gandhi)?" the Law Minister asked.
He also said that since 1947 till 2008 the banks in the country gave loans to the tune of Rs 18 lakh crore.
"And from 2008 to 2014 it increased to 52 lakh crore. So when Mallya got the maximum loan under which government you all know," Prasad added.
--IANS
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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The BJP on Thursday alleged that the UPA government gave "sweet deals" to fugitive businessman Vijay Mallya, while claiming that Congress President Rahul Gandhi's family "partially owned the now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines through proxy".
Rejecting BJP's allegations, the Congress said "malicious knowledge was very dangerous" and asked Modi government whether extending a loan was a crime or running away after defaulting the money was a crime.
Congress also asked why Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley didn't arrest Vijay Mallya when there was a default in loans.
"There are documents that show how the RBI and UPA under Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh had given sweet deals to Kingfisher Airlines," BJP leader Sambit Patra told the media.
"And it appears through these chain of documents that Kingfisher Airlines was owned not by Mallya but by the Gandhi family through proxy," he alleged showing the letters written by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to the State Bank of India (SBI) requesting restructuring of the loans of Kingfisher Airline
The accuracy of the documents could not be ascertained. There was no immediate response from Rahul Gandhi's office.
The BJP leader's remarks came in the wake of Rahul Gandhi demanding resignation of Finance Minister Arun Jaitley while referring to the statement of Mallya alleging that he met the BJP leader before leaving the country.
Patra also alleged that the party has enough evidence which shows that Rahul Gandhi was "using black money" and the Gandhi family was helping Mallya with sweet deals.
He said that Rahul Gandhi travelled free in Kingfisher Airlines, which was once owned by Mallya.
"Rahul Gandhi took one crore loan from a shell company, we have the confession of the company director Umashankar Gupta," Patra said.
The BJP leader also demanded that the Congress President "clear the air over his family's relations" with Mallya.
Congress spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala, meanwhile, said: "If extending loan is a crime then everybody who has taken loan in this country should be put behind bars. Extending of loan was not a crime last when I checked. "
"Only when you default on that loan, refuse to pay it and then run away from India and that also with active protection of the government and support of the government that is a crime," he added.
Surjewala also said: "That's why Modiji and Finance Minister (Arun Jaitley) need to answer when there was a default in the loan, when an FIR had been lodged in July 2015, when 17 banks were asked to move against Mallya for confiscation of passport on February 28, 2016 why was he not arrested."
--IANS
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Religion holds centre-stage in Punjab's murky politics, especially in the run-up to important elections, be it assembly or parliamentary polls.
With the general election, scheduled in April-May next year, just months away, the religious issue of sacrilege cases of the Sikh holy Guru Granth Sahib is again at the forefront of Punjab political discourse.
In 2015, less than 18 months before assembly polls in the state, the sacrilege cases mysteriously increased. The incidents led to protests and the government of the day -- of the Shiromani Akali Dal-Bharatiya Janata Party (SAD-BJP) alliance, which had been in power since 2007 -- reacted to these. The result was violence and police action which left two persons dead and many others injured.
The opposition Congress took full advantage of the simmering situation to nail the Akali Dal. Sikh religious organisations, except for the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) and some other bodies which derive patronage from the SAD, too, were upset with the handling of the situation by the government led by Akali Dal stalwart and five-time Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal.
The Congress romped home in the assembly polls with 77 seats in the 117-member assembly (the Congress strength now is 78 seats after winning another by-election). Of course, the party also used issues like rampant drug abuse and corruption to nail the SAD-BJP government.
With the general elections just months away, the present Congress government in the state led by Chief Minister Amarinder Singh has timed the inquiry commission reports on the sacrilege cases and the police firing related to it in a way that has forced the SAD to go on the defensive.
The Akali Dal, which has always depended heavily on its "Panthic" (Sikh religious) agenda over the past few decades, has been defending itself following accusations that its government did little to stop the sacrilege of the Sikh holy book and the violent incidents in the aftermath of all this.
Badal, who is over 90 years old, has been forced to defend the action (or inaction) of his then government in the sacrilege incidents.
It is not for the first time that religious matters are dictating electoral in the state.
The Akalis are themselves master players in this as their control of Sikh organisations, particularly the cash-rich SGPC, that have control over Sikh religious affairs.
The SAD, in the past, has never lost an opportunity to highlight the "Panth nu khatraa" (threat to the Sikh religion) from the Congress party and others. The SAD has also used the 1984 Operation Bluestar attack of the Army on the Golden Temple complex and the 1984 anti-Sikh riots against the Congress party to serve its political interests.
The Congress has tried several times in the past to break the stranglehold of the Akalis on the SGPC and other organisations but has largely remained unsuccessful.
Even now, the Congress has been accused of covertly playing games against the SAD and SGPC through Sikh religious preachers, who have their own limited following in the state.
With the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which is now the main opposition in the Punjab assembly (relegating the SAD to the third slot), also being in the fray in Punjab's electoral politics, things have changed a lot for the traditional Congress and SAD opponents.
The AAP too has tried its hand at mixing religion with in Punjab by aligning itself before the February 2017 assembly polls with radical elements. Of course, the move backfired and the AAP, which at one stage was expecting to win the assembly elections and form the government, had to contend with being in the opposition.
The numerous "deras" (sects) and preachers who have cropped up in Punjab in the last two or three decades have given a new dimension to the mix of religion and in the state.
Amidst all this politics of religion, the real issues of lack of development, drug abuse, industry running away, no fresh investments, unemployment and agriculture taking a hit in the agrarian state have been relegated to the background.
(Jaideep Sarin can be contacted at jaideep.s@ians.in)
--IANS
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Russia's armed forces began the second day of its massive military exercises in the country's far east on Wednesday with a show of strength involving anti-aircraft and missile maneuvers.
The Vostok-2018 war games, the largest staged by Russia since the Cold War, were partly held at the Soviet-built training ground in Telemba, some 200 km to the east of Lake Baikal in the heart of Siberia, Efe reported.
As heavy rain fell, the overcast Siberian sky filled with missiles, guided rockets and thunderous explosions in a show of strength that observers in the West will be watching eagerly.
Colonel Alexander Agafanov of the Russia Air Force described the exercises as a success.
The military arranged several artillery batteries stocked with mid to long-range S-300, S-400, Tor and Buk missiles, the likes of which Moscow has recently sold to Syria and Iran despite protests from the US and Israel.
More than a thousand soldiers took part in a hyper-realistic recreation of a theater of war and explosions interrupted the normally tranquil region, one of the few in Russia where the population is predominantly Buddhist.
Although the war games serve Moscow's propaganda machine, officials declined to name the imagined enemy of the Russian, Chinese and Mongolian forces taking part in Vostok-2018.
Nor would they enlighten reporters as to why there was no sign of the more than 3,000 Chinese soldiers sent to the maneuvers by Beijing.
The participation of the People's Liberation Army surprised many experts.
The display of strength from Russia comes at a time when relations between Moscow and the West are at a considerable low.
According to the Russian defense ministry, 300,000 troops, more than 1,000 aircraft and some 36,000 tanks and vehicles are involved in the maneuvers.
The Kremlin said the war games were routine and did not pose a threat to other countries.
--IANS
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Union Science and Technology Minister Harsh Vardhan on Thursday called upon scientists to focus their research on finding solutions to people's problems.
"One should work with enthusiasm and every scientist should pursue his dream. I think science research should address the problems and hardships that people are facing in their daily life. I want to emphasise that researchers and scientists have scientific social responsibility," the Minister said here.
He also said there is a need for application-based research in science and technology in India.
"One must think out of the box and try to diagnose the problems of people. We should focus on research related to people-centric issues and try to bring the outcome in a time bound manner. Scientists need to be socially committed," he said.
Harsh Vardhan laid the foundation stone for Syama Prasad Mookherjee Advanced Research and Training (SMART) at the Centre of Indian Association for Cultivation of Science, the oldest research institute of its kind in India.
The SMART campus would host an international Centre for Fundamental Research and Technology, which will be a multi-disciplinary initiative to promote cutting edge research in various fundamental, engineering and medical sciences.
The first phase of the campus construction was estimated to cost Rs 350 crore and is expected to be completed by March, 2020.
Hailing the progress in scientific fields across India, the Minister said the country is among top 10 scientific nations and it aspired to be among the top three scientific nations by 2030.
According to him, India ranked third in the field of nanotechnology, with scientific publications in India growing at 14 per cent as against the global average of around four per cent.
In terms of research on oceanographic studies, alert on weather, cyclone, tsunami, the country ranked fourth globally, after the US, the UK and Japan, the Minister said.
During the past four years, a synergy has been brought among scientific institutions for collaborative efforts, instead of remaining isolated, Harsh Vardhan said, adding science can find solutions to several fundamental problems.
--IANS
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Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju on Thursday urged the security forces in northeastern states to have a seamless coordination and intelligence sharing to ensure security of the region.
The Minister was addressing the delegates at the 25th Conference of DGPs, IGPs and heads of the Central Police Organisations (CPO) of the northeastern region which got underway in Arunachal Pradesh capital town Itanagar on Thursday.
Complimenting the forces for successfully handling the complex issues over the years leading to improved security scenario in the region, Rijiju said security issues and policing in the northeast are little unique and challenging, considering the fact that the states in the region share borders with countries like China, Myanmar, Bangladesh and Bhutan.
"Due to its geographical situation and exposure to international border, the region has to deal with not only internal but also external problems," Rijju said.
The Minister said coordination, cooperation and flawless intelligence sharing are crucial aspects for security.
He said the security situation in the northeastern states has improved significantly in the last four-and-half years. He said the level of violence and casualty figures in the region have come down by more than 50 per cent.
Mentioning the importance of coordination and cooperation among northeastern states, the Union Minister said though there are eight political units in northeast, they can work as one as far as security is concerned.
Further, he said the Assam Rifles Academy at Diphu in Assam's Karbi Anglong has been identified for specialized training of the Northeast police in counter insurgency operations and NIA has been conducting training modules for North east police for investigations of terror related cases.
Speaking on the occasion, Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister, Pema Khandu urged the police chiefs to take steps to ensure regular informal talks among senior police officers of inter-state border districts to deal with the concerns of people of border areas.
Arunachal Pradesh Director General of Police (DGP), S.B.K Singh and Additional Director, Intelligence Bureau, A.K. Mishra also spoke on the occasion.
The two-day conference of police and intelligence officers is being attended by the DG, police and senior police officers from the northeastern states, senior officers from Central Police Organisation and Intelligence Bureau.
The West Bengal police department is also taking part in the conference.
--IANS
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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Former Fortis Healthcare promoter Shivinder Mohan Singh has urged the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) to allow withdrawal of his case filed against older brother Malvinder Mohan Singh as per the wishes of their mother.
"... the mother of Petitioner No. 2 (Shivinder) and Respondent No. 2 (Malvinder) has requested both her sons to engage in mediation led by family elders... to settle inter se the issues between them," the withdrawal petition filed on Wednesday said.
Shivinder Singh had this month filed a suit in NCLT, a quasi-judicial body for corporate governance, alleging "oppression and mismanagement" in their joint businesses against Malvinder and former Religare Group CEO Sunil Godhwani.
"... out of respect for their mother, the parties have already started mediation and as per the request of the mediators to constructively progress the mediation, the petitioners wish to withdraw the captioned petition," read the NCLT filing.
On September 4, Shivinder, his wife Aditi and their company Shivi Holdings filed a case in the NCLT against Malvinder and Godhwani, alleging mismanagement of RHC Holdings, including embezzlement of funds and forgery, which led the group into a debt trap.
Shivinder had claimed that the collective, ongoing actions of Malvinder and Godhwani had led to a systematic undermining of the interests of the companies and their shareholders as also the committed and loyal employees of the group.
The Singh brothers, who have equal stakes in RHC Holdings, have lost their control of Fortis Healthcare and Religare Enterprises after lenders converted pledged shares.
--IANS
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Spain's Parliament voted on Thursday in favour of exhuming the body of former military dictator General Francisco Franco from a vast mausoleum complex in north of Madrid.
Deputy Prime Minister Carmen Calvo said the new measure was adopted due to the votes of all parliamentary groups with the exception of the conservative opposition Popular Party (PP) and Ciudadanos, who both abstained, Efe news reported.
Calvo added that peace was not possible without justice and that it was "an atrocious aberration" that a dictator who seized power in a military uprising should be buried in a monument alongside the bodies of those who opposed him and were his victims.
Calvo was critical of the PP and Ciudadanos for turning a blind eye to Franco's brutal and internecine dictatorship.
For its part, Ciudadanos said that the exhumation should be ordered by parliamentary decree and that there was no need of such urgency given that Franco had been dead and buried for 43 years.
The business-friendly centre-right party added that Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez was using the exhumation debate as a smokescreen to conceal his government's weakness and incompetence.
--IANS
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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Budget airline Spicejet on Thursday tied up with Afghanistan Chamber of Commerce and Industries (ACCI) to run cargo operations between Delhi and Kabul from October 15.
SpiceJet plans to transport 1,500 tons of cargo every month on its freighter aircraft under the partnership, the airline said in a statement.
"In collaboration with ACCI and with the support of government of Afghanistan, SpiceJet will transport fresh fruits and dry fruits, carpets and other commodities from Kabul to different states of India at competitive prices, which will be subsidised by the Afghan Government," the statement said.
SpiceJet has recently announced the launch of a dedicated air cargo services under the brand name SpiceXpress. The airline signed the Memorandum of Understanding right after the induction of its first freighter aircraft, a Boeing 737-700.
"SpiceXpress which starts operation from September 18, 2018, will function as a separate business unit under SpiceJet Limited. SpiceXpress has laid down a detailed plan covering both domestic and international routes. To begin with the air cargo operations will cover Delhi, Bengaluru, Guwahati, Hong Kong, Kabul and Amritsar," the statement said.
--IANS
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Thousands of activists, mainly environmentalists, on Thursday staged a protest here, calling on Governor Brown to end oil drilling and gas production in California.
San Franciso is the venue for the Global Climate Action Summit that saw a gathering of over 4,000 delegates from across the globe, mulling ways to step up actions to reduce carbon emissions.
The protesters were demanding more ambitious regulations. Security has been stepped up after the protests.
This climate action summit, an initiative by California Governor Jerry Brown, is crucial as it is happening midway between Paris 2015 and 2020, the UNFCCC's timeframe for dealing with mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions, adaptation and finance.
The climate action summit's two-day high-level plenary session, with its focus on the launch of the Exponential Climate Action Roadmap, to move from incremental to exponential action, began on Thursday.
(Vishal Gulati is in San Francisco at the invitation of the Climate Trends to cover the Global Climate Action Summit (GCAS). He can be contacted at vishal.g@ians.in)
--IANS
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The Odisha government is likely to send back the Royal Bengal tigress 'Sundari' to the Bandhavgarh National Park in Madhya Pradesh after it mauled a woman to death in Satakosia wildlife sanctuary in Angul.
The decision was taken after local residents resorted to a violent protest following the death of the woman after being allegedly attacked by the tigress on Wednesday.
"To tranquilise the royal cat, two teams of forest officials from Dehradun in Uttarakhand and Bandhavgarh National Park are on the way to Satkosia," said Angul Superintendent of Police Mitrabhanu Mohapatra on Thursday.
He said the Forest Department has decided to send the Bengal tigress back to her original habitat in Madhya Pradesh tentatively by September 15.
S.M.T Rahman, Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) of Satkosia Wildlife Division, said the tigress will be captured by the expert teams by September 15.
However, sources in the wildlife department said no decision has been taken yet on the return of the tigress to Bandhavgarh National Park.
"Sundari will be relocated away from human habitations. But, no decision has been taken so far on the return of the tigress to Bandhavgarh sanctuary. We will take a final decision after receiving a report from the local forest officials," sources added.
Notably, tension ran high after the woman, identified as Kailashi Soya, was allegedly killed by the tigress at Hatibari under Tikarapada range in Satkosia forest.
Angry over the death, the local residents set fire to the forest beat house at Hatibari and forest department's range office at Tikarpada. They also torched five boats of the forest department on Wednesday night.
The 27-month-old Royal Bengal tigress was released into the Satkosia Tiger Reserve on August 17 to increase the population of the big cat in the sanctuary.
--IANS
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The death toll in Tuesday's bus tragedy in Telangana rose to 61 with three passengers succumbing to their injuries on Wednesday.
As many as 58 people were killed when an overcrowded bus of state-owned Telangana State Road Transport Corporation (TSRTC) plunged into a gorge near Kondagattu in Jagtial district, about 190 km from Hyderabad, on Tuesday.
Two injured succumbed at a hospital in Karimnagar on Wednesday night. One person succumbed earlier in the day.
According to officials, 40 injured were still undergoing treatment at various hospitals in Jagtial, Karimnagar and Hyderabad.
The bus, carrying 101 passengers, fell into the gorge when the driver lost control at a speed breaker. Brake failure is suspected to be the cause of what is believed to be the worst-ever bus accident in the country.
The state government has suspended depot manager of TSRTC's Jagtial depot for alleged negligence and ordered a thorough probe.
Meanwhile, a lawyer on Wednesday approached State Human Rights Commission, seeking direction to police to book cases of culpable homicide against the officials whose negligence led to the accident.
Arun Kumar, a High Court lawyer, also sought Rs 25 lakh ex-gratia each for the families of the dead.
--IANS
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The EU Council on Thursday extended the sanctions imposed on 155 Russian citizens and 44 entities in the country for undermining or threatening the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine.
The Council prolonged the restrictive measures by a further six months until March 15, 2019, Efe news reported.
"An assessment of the situation did not justify a change in the sanctions regime," according to a statement released by the Council, an institution representing the executive governments of the EU's member states.
The sanctions included the freezing of assets and a ban on travel to the European bloc's territory.
They came in addition to the previous measures taken by the EU in response to the Ukraine crisis, such as economic sanctions targeting certain sectors of the Russian economy and restrictions that only apply to the territories of Crimea and Sevastopol, which were illegally annexed by Russia in 2014, according to international law.
The conflict in eastern Ukraine has been raging on for four years, after separatist rebels took control of the provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk, located in the coal-rich Donbass region, in April 2014.
--IANS
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The Uttar Pradesh government on Thursday cleared the premature release of Bhim Sena chief Chandra Shekhar aka Ravana from the prison, an official said.
The official release of the Bhim Sena chief, arrested under the National Security Act (NSA) for his role in 2017 caste conflict in Saharanpur, was due on November 1 this year.
Two of his accomplices have already been released before their jail term was to end in November.
With this, all accused held under the NSA in the May 2017 caste conflict have been set free.
The state government has directed the Saharanpur district magistrate for the release of the Bhim Sena chief and two of his aides, principal secretary Arvind Kumar said.
The decision for the premature release of the Bhim Sena chief is based on a request made through a representation by his mother, Kumar said.
The BJP government has also decided to set free, also before time, two accomplices of the Bhim Sena chief - Sonu and Shiv Kumar. They were to be released on November 14 this year.
Three other associates of Ravana were released on September 7 this year.
In the May 5, 2017 caste clash involving Rajputs and Dalits, a police station was set afire and 20 vehicles were burnt down. The violence had continued for many days.
The Bhim Sena chief is an advocate by profession. He formed the pro-Dalit Bhim Army Bharat Ekta Mission in July 2015. Hundreds of Dalit youths were attracted to his outfit.
--IANS
md/prs
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US-based Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) President Rhea Suh has announced a partnership with the Gujarat-based Self-Employed Women's Association (SEWA) to improve the lives of women and their families.
The NRDC and SEWA have supported thousands of women salt farmers in getting solar-powered pumps to replace diesel pumps in Gujarat.
This source of clean, cheap energy does three things, Suh told IANS.
"No diesel means there's a major drop in air pollution, and we have better health. With far less emissions, it helps address climate change. So it helps families move out of poverty," she said.
Her announcement came at a side event a day ahead of the Global Climate Action Summitas two-day opening plenary session that began in this California city on Thursday.
"We went from a pilot of a dozen solar pumps, to 200, to 400, to 700 and now we are expanding to 15,000," she said.
"We've helped thousands of families improve their lives."
"When we interviewed some of the members and asked, 'What are you doing with the money?' They said the're using it for the education for their children," an energetic Suh said.
"Like myself, they have young daughters, and now a new generation has access to a better, brighter future.
"This is a prime example on how we can all come together and help lift women and girls out of poverty while we take on climate change," she said.
The NRDC and SEWA are launching a new project on "Village Level Clean Energy Access" to increase access to clean energy for everything from solar-powered lights to cleaner cook stoves to more efficient appliances.
"We're starting with two pilot villages and plan to scale to 10 villages across India."
On the occasion, a new case study titled "Worth Their Salt" was also released.
"These families don't just benefit from clean energy in the salt fields. They will benefit from clean energy in all aspects of their lives, and that's what this new initiative is, true sustainable development," Suh, while poiting towards two community leaders from Gujarat who were invited at the project launch ceremony.
(Vishal Gulati is in San Francisco at the invitation of the Climate Trends to cover the Global Climate Action Summit (GCAS). He can be contacted at vishal.g@ians.in)
--IANS
vg/vm
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Vice President M. Venkaiah Naidu will go on a week-long tour of Serbia, Malta and Romania from September 14, an official announced on Thursday.
He will be accompanied by Union Minister of State for Finance Shiv Pratap Shukla, Rajya Sabha Members Prasanna Acharya, Vijila Satyanand and Saroj Pandey, Lok Sabha Member Raghav Lakhanpal and a business delegation spearheaded by industry body CII.
Briefing the media here, Anju Kumar, Joint Secretary (Central Europe) in the External Affairs Ministry, said that the visit is being undertaken given the importance of the geo-strategic location of all the three countries.
Malta and Romania are members of the European Union (EU) and facilitate India's access to the European market.
While Serbia's annual growth rate is over 3 per cent, the growth rates of both Malta and Romania are over 5 per cent.
"India has strong traditional and historical linkages with all the three countries," Kumar said.
Giving details, Kumar said that the Vice President will reach Serbia on September 14 afternoon and address members of the Indian community there, numbering less than 100.
The next day, he will hold meetings with the Serbian President, Prime Minister and the Speaker of the National Assembly and address a Parliament session.
This will be the first high-level visit from India to Serbia since that country became an independent republic in 2006 following the breakup of Yugoslavia.
Serbia gives visa-free access to Indians and India-Serbia bilateral trade stands at around $200 million.
After Serbia, Naidu will visit Malta from September 16 to 18.
He will hold meetings with the Maltese President, Prime Minister and Speaker of the House of Representatives, besides addressing members of the Indian community there that is only 700-strong.
The Vice President will also attend a business event.
The Mediterranean Sea archipelago nation is considered a transhipment hub as it is at the crossroads of North Africa and Europe.
Though India established diplomatic ties with Malta in 1965, it established a permanent High Commission only last year.
Malta extended cooperation to India's evacuation operation from war-torn Libya in 2011 and again in 2014.
India-Malta bilateral trade stands at around $210 million and Indian IT companies have good opportunities there, according to Kumar.
An Indian pharmaceutical company has also established a large presence in that country.
From Malta, Naidu will visit Romania from September 18 to 20 on the the third and last leg of his tour, coinciding with the 70th anniversary of diplomatic ties between the two and the centenary year of that country's formation.
The Vice President will hold meetings with the Romanian President, Prime Minister and President of the Senate and address the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of Parliament.
He will also participate in a business event and address members of the small Indian community there that numbers around 200.
India has bilateral trade worth around $810 million with Romania, which is rich in natural resources like bauxite, aluminum, oil and gas.
"Several Indian companies have invested in Romania and vice versa," Kumar said.
She added that there will be deliverables in areas like agriculture and tourism among others in all the three countries.
--IANS
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Two men accused of a nerve agent attack on former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in the UK claimed on Thursday that they visited the city where the assault took place as tourists and not to poison the pair.
The men, named Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, told the Kremlin-backed RT network that they made a brief trip to Salisbury because "our friends had been suggesting for a long time that we visit this wonderful town" and mentioned the city's historic cathedral.
They said they returned to London from the city within an hour and had nothing to do with the attack on Skripals, who were poisoned when the men were in Salisbury on March 4.
British prosecutors said last week they had "sufficient evidence" to charge the two Russian nationals in connection with the incident. Prosecutors say the Skripals came into contact with Novichok, a military-grade nerve agent.
The UK has described them as agents of Russia's military intelligence service, the GRU.
The two men said they had visited England purely to see tourist sites such as Stonehenge. "We came there on March 2, then went to a railway station to see the timetable," Petrov said, according to RT. "We arrived in Salisbury on March 3 and tried to walk through the town, but we lasted for only half an hour because it was covered in snow."
The two men denied having Novichok or any poison with them. They said they were not GRU agents, instead they were in the fitness industry.
On Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said "there was nothing criminal about them and that they were civilians".
Skripal and his daughter fell critically ill but recovered after weeks of intensive care in hospital. Their current whereabouts were being kept secret, the BBC reported.
The UK police linked the attack to a separate Novichok poisoning on June 30, when a couple, Dawn Sturgess and Charlie Rowley, fell ill at a house in Amesbury.
Asked about nerve agent Novichok, the men denied having it with them and also denied carrying the modified Nina Ricci perfume bottle which, UK investigators say, contained the substance.
"Is it silly for decent lads to have women's perfume? The customs are checking everything, they would have questions as to why men have women's perfume in their luggage. We didn't have it," Boshirov said.
--IANS
soni/sed
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World leaders bid farewell to former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan at his funeral in his home country of Ghana on Thursday.
On Monday, Annan's body was transferred to the West African nation from Switzerland, where he died on August 18 at the age of 80. However, it wasn't immediately clear why the process took so long.
Among those who attended the state funeral of the Nobel Peace Prize laureate at the International Conference Centre in the Ghanaian capital were UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, Ghana's President Nana Akufo-Addo, senior government and military officials as well as dignitaries from across the world, Efe news reported.
"Kofi Annan brought considerable renown to Ghana as UN Secretary-General and by his conduct and comportment in the global arena," Akufo-Addo posted to Twitter.
"He gave his life to making peace where there was conflict, to defending the voiceless who were powerless, to promoting virtue where there was evil."
Speaking at the funeral, Guterres said Annan was an exceptional leader who saw the UN as a force for good. "As we face the headwinds of our troubled and turbulent times, let us always be inspired by the legacy of Kofi Annan," he said.
"Our world needs it now more than ever."
There were hymns and a performance by soprano and human rights campaigner Barbara Hendricks, the BBC reported. Annan's nephew Kojo Amoo-Gottfried read a eulogy, describing how he had led a hunger strike in his secondary school to protest against the quality of food in the dining hall.
There were also a moving tribute by his wife, Swedish lawyer and artist Nane Maria Annan. She thanked Ghana for giving the world such an extraordinary man and said her husband had an irresistible aura of radiant warmth.
"His legacy would live on through his foundation and through all of us," she said.
The former queen of the Netherlands, Princess Beatrix, and her daughter-in-law Princess Mabel, who were close friends of Annan, were among the mourners.
Annan started his career at the UN in 1962 and 35 years later became the first person from sub-Saharan Africa to be appointed Secretary General.
His 1997-2006 term at the helm of the UN was marked by his programme to reform the institution and his efforts to draw support from the international community in Africa as well as leading the fight against AIDS.
In 2001, Annan and the UN were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for "their work for a better organised and more peaceful world".
--IANS
soni/vm
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When investing in a portfolio management service (PMS), dont just look at the returns and performance of its schemes. Make sure that the PMS provider also gives out quarterly audited (or even unaudited/provisional) statements of the transactions in your account, to help you pay the right amount of tax and on time.
Helping a client prepare her income tax return turned out to be more time-consuming than Kolkata-based investment advisor Malhar Majumder had expected it to be. Majumder had to go back and forth with his clients PMS provider to get details of transactions ...
A Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) terrorist was killed and eight security personnel, including a DSP, were injured Thursday in an encounter in Jammu and Kashmir's Reasi district, police said.
Security forces during a cordon and search operation, zeroed in on a location near a house in the district's Kakriyal area, and trapped the terrorists, officials said.
The encounter broke out as the security forces, comprising CRPF, police and Army personnel, closed in on the terrorists, they said.
Security forces used drones and choppers in the operation, which was launched Wednesday to track three JeM militants, the officials said.
One of the terrorists was killed and eight security personnel, including Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Mohan Lal, were injured. They were hospitalised, police said.
Five CRPF personnel and three policemen were injured during the operation, they said.
They were admitted to the Narayana hospital in Katra.
The cordon and search operation to track down the JeM terrorists was launched in the Jhajjar Kotli forest belts in Jammu and Reasi district Wednesday, the officials said.
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A driver of a SUV vehicle deliberately crashed into crowds at a busy public square in central China's Hunan province, killing 11 people and injuring 44 others, state-media reported Thursday.
The attack took place on Wednesday night and injured mostly elderly people who had gathered in the square by the river in Hengdong county.
The driver, Yang Zanyun, 54, first ploughed through the people with his vehicle and later got out of it and went on a rampage attacking people with a knife.
Local police detained Yang and is investigating the case, the report said. The office released no other details about the suspect.
Yang was reportedly sentenced several times for robbery and drug abuse, state-run Global Times quoted local media reports as saying.
Yang was diagnosed with gastric cancer and coronary heart disease, another report said.
A court verdict earlier said Yang has been involved in drug dealing, setting fires, racketeering and robbery in the past 26 years. He has been jailed for over 10 years.
Several bystanders posted graphic video footage shortly after the incident.
Videos and photos circulated on social media purportedly show large crowds of up to several hundred people running frantically from the square in different directions, amid bodies scattered on the ground.
Local media reports quoted a manager of a restaurant in the vicinity of the attack spot as saying that he saw a red Land Rover suddenly ploughing through a crowd at a high speed.
A large number of people mostly elderly were dancing or walking in the square after dinner, at that time. Many fell to the ground after they were hit by the speeding SUV, the reports said.
Knife attacks by disgruntled people in public places and schools to highlight their grievances periodically occur in in China. Uygur militants from Xinjiang from the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) also in the past attacked crowds with speeding cars.
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As many as 18,000 policemen were deployed for Ganesh Chaturthi and subsequent immersion after ten days, police said Thursday.
According to city police commissioner Anjani Kumar, the police have received about 12,500 requests from various organisations and individuals for erecting Ganesh idols across the city.
"We have deployed 15,000 policemen for the security supervision during Ganesh Chaviti. Our officers will ensure that every pandal has security personnel. We seek cooperation from the Ganesh pandal organisers also," Kumar told PTI.
"We asked for two companies of central forces (RAF and CRPF) for the purpose. We have drawn about 3,000 policemen from other districts as well," he said.
Bhagyanagar Ganesh Utsav Samithi chief Bhagwantha Rao said this year the Ganesh idol set up at Khairatabad is 57 ft tall and it is the tallest of all in the state.
Rao said the 11-day festivities will end on September 23 and all the idols will proceed for immersion.
Meanwhile, political parties performed Ganesh puja at their respective offices.
Governor of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh ESL Narasimhan and Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao greeted people on the eve of the festival.
"The Lord Ganesh may lead all the people of Telangana on the path of progress, happiness, peace and prosperity," KCR said in a statement.
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Two persons were injured when gunmen fired at a political party worker who was inside a tea stall along with the victims in Malda district Thursday, police said.
The incident occurred at Talsura village under Harishchandrapur police station when the two persons were coming out of the tea stall.
Police said the gunmen fled while the two injured were hospitalised in a serious condition.
Political clashes have been taking place in the district since the panchayat election in May.
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Two people, including a 32-year old woman, were killed when lightning struck them in separate incidents in Krishna district of Andhra Pradesh Thursday, police said.
P Basavaiah (55), a farmer, was fatally struck by lightning in his farm land in Nandigama village in Pedana mandal.
In the other incident, a farmer couple were engaged in farm operations in Krishnapuram village when the woman died of lightning, police said.
Heavy rains lashed the two villages in Pedana mandal when the mishaps occurred in the evening, Pedana Sub-Inspector B Abhimanyu said.
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At least 20 people have been killed in Sudan's war-torn Darfur region after a hill collapsed onto their village following heavy rain, a rebel group said Wednesday.
Several people are still feared to be buried after rocks crashed down onto their houses in the mountainous Jebel Marra region of Darfur on September 7, the group said.
The remote area is under the control of the rebel Sudan Liberation Army-Abdul Wahid (SLA-AW) group, and getting independent information is difficult.
"On September 7 a part of a hill collapsed on a village in eastern Jebel Marra killing at least 20 people," said Mohamed El-Naier, spokesman of SLA-AW.
"Dozens more are still buried under the debris. The entire village has been destroyed," he said, adding that those who survived were now living in the open without any shelter.
The death toll was confirmed by the shura council of the Fur tribe, the biggest in Darfur.
"We urge the United Nations, NGOs and the government to help us find those still missing and to provide shelter to people living in the open," said Amin Mahmud Osman, general secretary of the council, in a statement.
The region of Jebel Marra, a vast terrain of rocky mountains, has witnessed fresh fighting in recent months between the SLA-AW and government forces, although overall levels of violence remain low across Darfur.
Khartoum restricts international media access to Darfur, an area about the size of France, so it is not possible to independently verify details of fighting or disasters there.
An insurgency began in Darfur in 2003, as ethnic rebels rose up against Sudan's government, accusing it of marginalisation.
The United Nations says that over the years the conflict has killed about 300,000 people and displaced more than 2.5 million, with many having set up home over the last decade and a half in sprawling semi-permanent camps.
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Three terrorists of pro-Pakistan Jeish-e-Mohmmad were killed and 12 security personnel, including three officers, injured Thursday in an encounter in Jammu and Kashmir's Reasi district, a day after they fired on a police party here and escaped, officials said.
Police said the militants of Pakistani origin had crossed the International Border (IB) in Tarnah nallah and reached Kashmir from the Dayalachak area of Kathua district in a truck.
The encounter broke out after security forces, comprising CRPF, police and Army personnel, during a cordon and search operation, zeroed in on a location near a house in the district's Kakriyal area, and surrounded the terrorists Thursday afternoon, they said.
Drones and choppers were used in the operation launched on Wednesday to track the militants, all of whom were aged between 18 and 22, they said.
Twelve security personnel were injured in the operation, police said.
Six CRPF personnel, including the deputy commandant and the assistant commandant, five cops, including Deputy Superintendent of Police Mohan Lal, and an Armyman were injured, they said, adding that they were admitted to the Narayana hospital in Katra.
"On 12.09.2018 at about 0805 hours, during checking by flying squad of police at Domail on highway, police party signalled a truck bearing No. JK03-1476, which was on its way from Jammu to Srinagar to stop. In the meantime, three terrorists who were on board the said truck opened fire (sic)," a police statement issued Thursday said.
Earlier, SSP (Jammu) Vivek Gupta said the cordon and search operation to track down the terrorists was launched in the Jhajjar-Kotli forest belt in Jammu and Reasi district after the militants fired on the security personnel on the Jammu-Srinagar National Highway Wednesday.
The militants had fled into the forest belt of which Kakrayal is a part.
One person was injured in the firing. The truck was seized, and its driver and helper were arrested, police said, adding that one AK-56 rifle, loaded magazines, one Chinese pistol and other incriminating material were recovered from the site.
The operation was launched in the villages near Katra, they said, adding that the security components of the Vaishnodevi shrine were also alerted.
A lookout notice was issued through social and mass media, they said.
Three senior superintendents of police (SSPs) of Reasi, Udhampur, Jammu, additional SP of Katra and the SDPO of Nagrota rushed to the spot after receiving information about the presence of terrorists in Jhajjar-Kotli, police said.
The vast area was kept under tight cordon during the night and with day break, contact was established after the terrorists were tracked at Kakrayal, they said.
"The exchange of fire continued till 5 pm this evening. In this encounter, all the three terrorists were neutralised. SDPO Nagrota, two officers of CRPF and some police and security force men were injured," a police spokesperson said.
"It seems to be a case of fresh infiltration of yesterday morning from Pakistan most likely from Hiranagar belt of International Border. These terrorists had come from Pakistan," he said.
Preliminary investigation suggests that the terrorists belonged to the JeM. Bodies of all three have been found, he said, adding that arms and ammunition were recovered from them.
Speaking to reporters, IGP (Jammu) S D Singh Jamwal said two people transported the militants from Dayalachak in a truck.
The duo had been engaged in carrying out such acts in the past, and police were investigating their contacts in Jammu, the IG said.
During the operation, security agencies were informed by a villager that the militants had taken food and clothes and left his house on Wednesday night, a senior police official said.
Speaking to reporters, the villager said, "They came to my house at 8 pm and demanded clothes to change from their(combat) dress. They demanded food. They ate biscuits and drank water and left around 9.10 pm."
The terrorists also demanded a vehicle, but "we told them, we do not have one," the villager said, adding that they were asked to switch-off their mobile phones.
The official said the family immediately informed police after the terrorists left.
The CRPF, the police and the army along with personnel from other security agencies are combing the area, he said.
The official said areas and check posts along the Jammu-Srinagar national highway are on alert. More checkpoints have been created and vehicles are being searched and passengers frisked, he said.
"The Jhajjar-Kotli forest belt and adjoining areas have been put under a massive cordon," the official said.
Traffic movement on the highway, between Nagrota and Jhajjar-Kotli, has been suspended and schools in the area have been closed for the day.
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BJP president Amit Shah termed Thursday the ABVP's win in the Delhi University Students Union elections as a victory of youths' faith in the ideology of nationalism and a mandate against divisive and opportunist
The ABVP, the students wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS), bagged three posts, including that of the president.
"Hearty congratulations to all workers of the ABVP on its grand win in the DUSU polls. It is not only a victory of youths' faith in nationalist ideology but also their mandate against divisive and opportunist politics," Shah tweeted soon after the results were announced.
The NSUI, the students wing of the Congress, won only one seat in the elections.
ABVP's Ankiv Basoya won the presidential post with a margin of 1,744 votes while party's candidate Shakti Singh was declared as the vice president after he won with a margin of 7,673 votes. NSUI's Akash Choudhary won the secretary's post while ABVP's Jyoti emerged victorious on the joint secretary post.
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The ABVP, the student wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh, Thursday bagged three posts, including that of the president, in the Students Union (DUSU) elections.
The NSUI, the student wing of the Congress, won only one seat.
ABVP's Ankiv Basoya won the presidential post with a margin of 1744 votes while party's candidate Shakti Singh was declared as the vice president after he won with a margin of 7673 votes. NSUI's Akash Choudhary won the secretary's post while ABVP's Jyoti emerged victorious on the joint secretary post.
Basoya got 20467 votes while his rival NSUI's Sunny Chhillar got 18723 votes. Singh received 23046 votes against NSUI rival Leena's 15373 votes.
Choudhary, the lone winning candiadte of the NSUI, alleged that fair elections were not conducted and data of seven EVMs were missing.
The Chief Electoral Officer in Delhi Thursday clarified that the EVMs used in have not been issued by the Election Commission and it seems to have been procured privately.
The counting had to be suspended for few hours following glitch in the EVMs but was resumed in the evening amid heavy police deployment.
The NSUI demanded fresh polling, while the demanded resumption of counting.
"There are only 8 candidates so how is it possible that votes were cast to a 10th candidate? All machines were fine yesterday. Police and administration are involved in this," Fairoz Khan, NSUI president, alleged.
Later, all candidates came to an agreement on resumption of counting.
Celebrations broke out with bursting of crackers and loud cheering at the Kingsway camp counting venue as the results were announced. The supporters lifted the victorious candidates on their shoulders and posed for photos flashing the 'victory' sign.
While the battle for DUSU has mainly been the contest between the NSUI and the for years, the Left-affiliated AISA and Aam Aadmi Party's CYSS entered into an alliance and also vied for the central panel posts this time.
Amid heavy police presence and some last-minute wooing of voters, were held yesterday with a voter turnout of 44.46 per cent.
Polling took place at 52 centres in the colleges. There were as many as 23 candidates in the fray.
DUSU is the representative body of the students from most colleges and faculties. Apart from DUSU, which is an umbrella council, each college also has its own students union for which they hold separate elections.
Though officially does not recognise any political outfit, students who contest the polls are backed by different parties.
The polls have been keenly contested over decades and are seen as a stepping stone to mainstream politics.
Union minister Arun Jaitley, Congress leader Ajay Maken, former Delhi BJP chief Satish Upadhyay, Union minister and BJP leader Vijay Goel are some of the prominent politicians whose journey into mainstream politics began from DUSU.
Activist Shehzad Poonawalla claimed Thursday Congress chief Rahul Gandhi met PNB fraud accused Nirav Modi at a plush hotel here in 2013.
Poonawalla's charge was however denied by the Congress.
His allegation came hours after Gandhi asserted his party MP P L Punia saw Finance Minister Arun Jaitley sitting with embattled businessman Vijay Mallya in Parliament before he fled the country.
The former Kingfisher Airlines boss had claimed Wednesday in London that he met Jaitley before leaving India and offered to settle his dues, a charge the finance minister denied and dubbed "false".
Poonawalla claimed the meeting took place during the same time when loans were given to fugitive diamantaire Mehul Choksi and his nephew Modi and asserted the SPG will have records to prove it.
"Open challenge to Rahul Gandhi to deny he met Nirav Modi in Sep 2013 cocktail party -11th Sep if my memory serves me right! Imperial Hotel- Rahul spent a long time! Same period when loans given to Mehul Choksi and Nirav Modi!! SPG may have records or let's undergo lie detector test?," he tweeted.
Poonawalla said he could swear on Quran and take a lie detector test to prove that he was speaking the truth.
"If PL Punia is proof of @arunjaitley meeting Vijay Mallya (and accosting = meeting) I can swear on Quran and undertake lie detector @RahulGandhi attended Nirav Modi cocktail party and bridal wear programme at Imperial Hotel Delhi in Sep 2013 while loans were wrongly given to mama-bhanja," he claimed.
Earlier in the day, while stepping up the attack on Jaitley, Gandhi had claimed Punia saw him sitting with Mallya in the Central Hall of Parliament on March 1, 2016 and held an elaborate meeting of 15-20 minutes with him.
"There is a reason why Rahul Gandhi has formed a MahaGathBandhan with Vijay Mallya and relies on such fugitives' statements - ever since the @narendramodi govt brought in the Fugitive Economic Offender's Law - Bhagodas and potential bhagodas are feeling anxious," Poonawalla alleged.
Later talking to PTI, he said Gandhi and Nirav Modi met during a "special meeting". He said the Congress president "consciously" attended the cocktail and bridal wear party and spent "quite sometime" at the hotel.
"I'm ready to quit if proved wrong," he added.
Nirav Modi is at the centre of a money laundering case linked to the over Rs 13,000 crore Punjab National Bank (PNB) fraud.
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Agitating students gheraoed the vice-chancellor of Bidhan Chandra Krishi Viswavidyalaya (BCKV) in West Bengal's Nadia district Thursday evening, for the second time in a week.
Demanding the resignation of VC Dharani Dhar Patra, the students were on dharna outside his chamber.
"We will continue our agitation till the VC resigns," said a leader of the students who formed an organisation named 'Chalo Paltai' (Let's make a change).
The students earlier gheraoed him for 24 hours in his office on September 7. They also blocked a road Wednesday alleging that they were attacked by outsiders inside the campus the previous night.
The agitating students were demonstrating inside the campus since September 7 demanding the removal of Dean (Agriculture) Srikanth Das and Dean Students Welfare (DSW) Goutam Chakraborty for some alleged irregularities.
Earlier in the day, the students burnt the effigies of the VC and the two Deans in the campus and a section of the teachers also held a meeting supporting them.
The VC then held a meeting with the students, teachers and other officials of the university.
BCKV officials said it was decided in the meeting that the two teachers would be removed as Deans as demanded by the students.
It was also decided that a high-level committee would be formed to probe the alleged irregularities and the attack on students inside the campus.
Besides, the officials said, the meeting took the decision to remove the private security in-charge of the university campus.
The students then demanded that the VC said would have to be on leave till the committee submits its report, claiming that the incidents could not have happened without his knowledge, the officials said.
As Patra turned down the demand, they gheraoed him.
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Expelled DMK leader M K Alagiri called on Tamil Nadu Minister 'Sellur' K Raju here Thursday and offered condolences over the recent demise of his mother.
The Madurai-based former union minister paid floral tributes to a photograph of the AIADMK leader's mother at his residence and spent some time with him.
The meeting between the two political rivals came in the backdrop of the minister showering praise on Alagiri recently.
However, Alagiri, seeking to re-join the DMK of which he was once the strongman in Madurai and other southern districts, asked media not to read too much into the meeting.
"I just came here to express my condolences since he lost his mother. It is not what you all expect," he told reporters.
DMK and AIADMK are arch-rivals in the sate and till late chief minister Jayalalithaa was alive social contact between the leaders of the two parties was unthinkable.
Recently, Raju had reportedly said the peace rally organised by Alagiri in Chennai to pay tribute to his father and late DMK patriarch M Karunanidhi showed his continued clout among the grassroot workers.
"Even as we thought that Alagiri did not have any support, thousands of party supporters participated in the peace rally without any fear, in spite of DMK's restrictions", Raju had said then.
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Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, the richest person on the planet, said Thursday he was creating a philanthropic fund to help homeless families and launch preschools in low-income communities, committing an initial USD 2 billion to the cause.
Bezos made the announcement on Twitter a year after asking for ideas on how he could use his personal fortune -- now estimated at more than USD 160 billion -- for charitable efforts.
The "Bezos Day One Fund" created by Bezos and his wife MacKenzie will focus on two areas: helping "existing nonprofits that help homeless families" and funding "a network of new, nonprofit, tier-one preschools in low-income communities," he wrote.
For the homeless, grants will be given to organizations "doing compassionate, needle-moving work to provide shelter and hunger support to address the needs of young families," Bezos said.
The fund will also seek to launch and operate "a network of high-quality, full-scholarship, Montessori-inspired preschools in underserved communities," he wrote.
"We will build an organization to directly operate these schools." Bezos said the schools would "use the same set of principles that have driven Amazon" and that "the child will be the customer."
The USD 2 billion initiative, while significant, is far less than the philanthropic efforts of other billionaires including Microsoft's Bill Gates, who has donated tens of billions to his foundation, and Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, who has pledged to donate 99 per cent of his shares in the social media giant to an organization focused on public good.
It also falls short of the "giving pledge" initiative launched by Gates and billionaire investor Warren Buffett, who have encouraged wealthy individuals to pledge half their fortunes for philanthropy.
Bezos's fortune comes mainly from his stake in Amazon, the diversified online firm which briefly hit USD 1 trillion in market value this month and is the second most valuable company after Apple.
He also operates the private space exploration firm Blue Origin and owns The Washington Post newspaper.
Despite his fortune, Bezos has not been a major philanthropic donor and Amazon has been criticised in its home of Seattle, Washington, for doing little to address problems of the growing homeless population.
Last year, he donated USD 33 million to fund scholarship for "dreamers," the name given to undocumented children of immigrants who face legal obstacles in attending college or university.
He has also made donations for cancer research and to Princeton University, his alma mater.
Bezos's personal wealth has soared with the value of Amazon, whose stock price has doubled over the past year with its expansion into new sectors and geographies.
Launched in 1994 as an online bookseller, Amazon has become a retail powerhouse operating globally, and has expanded into streaming video, music, cloud computing and other segments, and last year acquired the Whole Foods grocery chain. Amazon's digital assistant Alexa has helped drive its hardware sales and is used on smart devices ranging from cars to refrigerators.
According to the research firm eMarketer, Amazon's e-commerce revenue will grow more than 28 per cent this year to reach USD 394 billion, and will account for 49 percent of US online retail sales and nearly five percent of all retail spending.
Some analysts have suggested Amazon could face antitrust scrutiny over its growing power in the economy, and President Donald Trump has accused the company of taking advantage of the Postal Service, despite studies suggesting the internet giant's deal has been beneficial to the US government postal operator.
Amazon has faced criticism for paying little in taxes, which stems in part from its historically low profits. It has also won tax breaks in many areas for its warehouses and distribution centers, and has been running a highly publicized effort for a second North American headquarters, prompting proposals for tax reductions and incentives.
Amazon has selected 20 cities as "finalists" for the headquarters and has indicated it would make a decision by year-end.
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Amid bickering in the Congress in Karnataka casting a cloud on its coalition government with the JDS, BJP chief Amit Shah has asked the saffron party state unit "not to create any confusion" and instead stick to playing the role of the opposition sincerely.
Rejecting charges by Congress leaders that the BJP was trying to topple the coalition government, the party's Karnataka unit chief B S Yeddyurappa said "there is no need to doubt our motives."
BJP MLAs have been instructed not to give statements on the current political developments pertaining to turmoil in the Congress, he said.
"BJP national president Amit Shah, with whom I spoke today, has instructed us not to create any confusion. We should not give any statements about the political developments taking place in the state.
Instead, we should stick to playing the role of opposition sincerely," Yeddyurappa added.
Shah's advice to the party unit comes amid allegations that BJP was trying to take advantage of the internal tussle in the Congress and poach on its MLAs to unseat the government.
Some senior congress leaders have blamed the BJP for the recent discontent in their party.
The Jarkiholi brothers--municipal administration minister Ramesh and his MLA brother Satish--are locked in a turf war with another minister D K Shivakumar, casting a shadow over the coalition government.
The siblings are upset over Shivakumar allegedly trying to challenge their supremacy in Belagavi district through MLA Laxmi Hebbalkar.
The tussle has spilled into the open with the brothers assertion about the support of eight MLAs and that they were in touch with the BJP fuelling speculation about the stability of the H D Kumaraswamy government.
The brothers, whose dissident activities have caused trouble to the three-month old Congress-JDS coalition, have camped in Bengaluru meeting senior party leaders.
Asked about the flurry of activities at his residence since this morning with BJP MLAs making a beeline, Yeddyurappa clarified that the legislators came only to greet him on the occasion of Lord Ganesha festival.
Some senior congress leaders have accused the BJP of trying to poach on their MLAs to come to power.
They have reportedly warned BJP that they would not keep quiet if BJP tried to destabilise the government.
When asked about a Congress leader claiming that at least 10 BJP MLAs were in touch with them, Yeddyurappa said, "Why just 10 MLAs? Let them be in touch with all the 104 MLAs.
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
RJD supremo Lalu Prasad's son Tej Pratap Yadav Thursday dismissed speculations that he has distanced himself from the party due to "family strife" and because he was "overshadowed" by younger brother Tejashwi, alleging attempts were being made to drive a wage between "Krishna and Balram".
The mercurial RJD leader, who had been away from the public eye for some time and whose absence at a meeting of top party leaders here earlier this week triggered fresh speculations of trouble within the Yadav family, was speaking to a regional channel outside his residence in the state capital.
"I had gone to Mathura on a pilgrimage and fallen ill. Upon return, I spent my time recuperating and that is the only reason why I was not present at the meeting. Otherwise all people know that I do attend all RJD functions," the state's former health minister said.
Tej Pratap's comments came after remarks by some ruling JD(U) leaders that his absence at the party meet on Tuesday at the residence of his mother and former chief minister Rabri Devi indicated a family strife.
Moreover, the BJP, another constituent of the ruling NDA in Bihar, has been repeatedly alleging that the RJD supremo betrayed Hindu traditions by declaring his younger son as his political heir instead of the elder one.
He dubbed these speculations and remarks as his rival parties' attempts to manufacture a division in his family. "Attempts are being made to drive a wedge between Krishna and Balram," said the former minister, who appeared before the camera with his forehead typically smeared with ash.
The mischief-mongers need to remember that Krishna was armed with the Sudarshan Chakra which they all will be slain with, he added.
About reports that he was trying to chart a separate political course, he asserted, "I only believe in following the path of my father and party supremo Lalu Prasad."
Likening his father to socialist leader Jayaprakash Narayan, Tej Pratap said Bihar had witnessed a JP movement in the 1970s and now, it is going to witness an LP (abbreviation for Lalu Prasad) movement.
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Congress and the BJP on Thursday were locked in a fierce war of words over the Vijay Mallya case with Rahul Gandhi openly accusing the finance minister of lying and allowing the billionaire tycoon to flee the country. The BJP threw a counter punch, claiming that the Gandhi family tried to help Mallya's floundering Kingfisher Airlines in 2011-12.
A day after the former Kingfisher Airlines boss said in London that he met Arun Jaitley before leaving India and offered to settle his dues -- a charge the finance minister denied as "false" -- the battle-lines were firmly drawn. Seeking to back his accusation, Congress president Rahul Gandhi said party MP P L Punia saw Jaitley sitting with Mallya in Parliament's Central Hall on March 1, 2016 and held an elaborate 15-20 minute meeting with him.
Punia added that he had seen Jaitley and Mallya talking discreetly when he was in the Central Hall of Parliament.
"On March 3, we heard from the media that he (Mallya) fled the country on March 2. I have clearly stated about this in each of my interview with the media. There are CCTV cameras, we can all see that for proof. If I am wrong, I will resign from politics," Punia said at a press conference. Stepping up his attack,Gandhi asked Jaitley to resign and challenged Jaitley to get CCTV footage of the day.
"Mr Jaitley is lying, the government is lying on Rafale and the government is lying on Vijay Mallya. A meeting was held with Mr Arun Jaitley and Vijay Mallya. The logistics of Mr Mallya leaving the country were discussed in that meeting," Gandhi alleged, bringing in the Rafale fighter jet deal.
He went on to say that Mallya was given free passage out of the country by the finance minister.
Describing it as an "open and shut case of collusion", he alleged there was some deal between Jaitley and Mallya.
"The criminal had told him, 'I am going to run away to London'. The finance minister has accepted publicly that he has been told by a criminal that he is going to run away and the finance minister has not done anything, has not informed the CBI, and has not informed the ED," Gandhi said.
The BJP hit back with equal ferocity, blaming the UPA government of giving a "sweet deal" to Kingfisher Airlines to keep it afloat and suggesting the airlines was perhaps owned by the Gandhi family.
"There is a series of letters between the RBI (Reserve Bank of India) and the SBI (State Bank of India). These letters show us how the previous dispensation under Sonia Gandhi was biased, partial and kept all norms and regulations at bay to give a sweet deal to Kingfisher Airlines," party spokesperson Sambit Patra told reporters, showing a bunch of documents.
"Sometimes it seems the airline was not owned by Mallya, but by the Gandhi family in proxy," Patra added.
Union minister Piyush Goyal joined the chorus of protest from the ruling party and said Rahul Gandhi should explain the relations between his family and Mallya.
The now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines was given loans bypassing all norms, laws and regulations, Goyal said. Countering Rahul Gandhi's demand for Jaitley's resignation, he said the Congress president should instead quit all the posts he holds.
Mallya, he asserted, had no credibility as he was under the "glare of law" and was a criminal. He could not be taken seriously, Goyal added.
His party colleague Subramanian Swamy also spoke on the issue.
"We have now two undeniable facts on the Mallya escape issue: 1. Look Out Notice was diluted on Oct 24, 2015 from 'Block' to 'Report' departure enabling Mallya to depart with 54 checked luggage items. 2. Mallya told FM in Central Hall of Parliament that he was leaving for London," he said on Twitter.
Immediately after Jaitley's sharp rebuttal Wednesday, Mallya had appeared to tone down the seriousness of his comments, saying it was "not fair" to create a controversy over this issue as it was not a "formal meeting" and he only "happened to meet" the finance minister.
The 62-year-old former liquor and aviation baron, who had appeared before a London court in the case regarding his extradition to India to face the trial on fraud and money laundering charges, was asked by reporters if he was "tipped off" to leave the country.
"I left because I had a scheduled meeting in Geneva. I met the finance minister before I left, repeated my offer to settle with the banks. That is the truth," he responded.
Jaitley, who was finance minister in 2016 when Mallya left India, said in a Facebook post that he had not given Mallya an appointment to meet him since 2014.
Jaitley said Mallya had "misused" the privilege of being a Rajya Sabha MP to catch him in corridors of Parliament on one occasion while he was walking out of the House to go to his room.
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Veteran actor Biswajit Chatterjee has said the Bengali cinema is passing through a sad phase as the makers of mainstream movies are shifting from works based and inspired by literature.
Films inspired or adapted from works of Rabindranath Tagore, Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay, Saratchandra Chattopadhyay and Bibhutibhusan Bandyopadhyay should be made, he said.
"The present slide in Bengali cinema is due to the fact that what we are witnessing now are not true Bengali films... films that used to be made in the '60s and '70s," Chatterjee said Wednesday.
Major Bengali films in his career included 'Chowringhee', 'Kuheli', 'Srimaan Prithviraj' and 'Jai Baba Taraknat'.
"We need films like 'Belaseshe' made by the director duo of Shiboprosad Mukhopadhyay and Nandita Roy which retained the rich legacy of Bengali cinema of our times having literary influences. But such films are few and far between," he said.
Double version films like 'Amanush' by Shakti Samanta, which was a typical Bengali entertainer, are no more being made, said Chatterjee, father of Bengali superstar Prosenjit.
A live show would be held on September 16 focusing on his career spanning over five decades.
On this show, he said, "I am a performer and I will love to be called a performer."
Chatterjee also acted in a number of Bollywood movies such as 'Kohraa', 'Bin Badal Barsat', 'Majboor'.
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Bihar government on Thursday approved a scheme for providing interim relief of Rs one lakh to those affected by mob violence besides speedy trial of such cases.
The scheme was approved at a meeting of the state cabinet here, chaired by Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, Principal Secretary, Cabinet Secretarriat Department, Sanjay Kumar told reporters.
The scheme provides for an interim relief of Rs one lakh which would be made available to victims of mob violence within a month of the incident.
Besides, all such cases will be heard at fast track courts which would ensure completion of trial within six months and a final compensation amount, inclusive of the interim relief, would be paid thereupon, the Principal Secretary said.
The decision has been taken in keeping with recent guidelines issued by the Supreme Court with regard to mob violence, he added.
Notably, in the last one week, the state has witnessed mob violence in as many as three districts where crowds have taken the law in their own hands and beaten to death men or women allegedly involved in some sort of crime.
Another important decision taken at the cabinet meeting is the approval of recommendations of a high-level committee whereby contractual employees in various government departments would get benefits at par with the regular staff, the Principal Secretary said.
Nod was also given for entering a loan agreement, for the purpose of building village roads, with the BRICS New Development Bank from which USD 350 million are to be borrowed, he said.
As per the loan agreement, the money would be borrowed under a Multi-Tranche Financial Facility and a loan of USD 45 million would be taken for Tranche, he added.
A sum of Rs 122.71 crore was also approved for construction of a building which would house the Aryabhatt Knowledge University based in Patna, he said.
Green signal was also given for releasing a total sum of Rs 241.42 crore towards payment of salaries, arrears and post-retirement benefits to teaching and non-teaching staff of 28 colleges.
Approval was also accorded for payment of Rs 14.98 crore -of which the state has contributed 40 per cent - to UNICEF for its Social Mobilization Network scheme which involves campaign to achieve cent per cent vaccination of children, he added.
Another Rs 4.54 crore would be paid to UNDP for Electronic Vaccine Intelligence Network which would ensure proper storage and distribution of vaccines, he said.
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad Thursday accused the BJP of not allowing the Rafale "scam" to be discussed in the media and claimed that this kind of "censorship" was never seen before.
There was neither much discussion nor protest on the Rafale deal and the biggest reason for that is the ruling BJP did not allow it to get published in newspapers or aired on TV, Azad said at a press conference here.
"During the Congress rule, TV and newspapers were never controlled by the government. But under the NDA government, the BJP is deciding what is to be published in newspapers and what would be shown on TV," he alleged.
"We are living in a political environment where Emergency has not been declared but its provisions have been illegally implemented in the last four years," Azad said.
"Why the Congress had to convene 100 press conferences (all over the country)? It is because nothing is being allowed to get published in the media in Delhi," he alleged.
The Congress leader added that he does not blame the media, as it is being "strangulated" by the government using probe agencies such as the CBI, Income Tax department and Enforcement Directorate.
Terming the Rafale deal the country's "biggest defence scam", Azad accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of avoiding inquiry into the issue.
Modi scrapped the contract inked by the UPA government with France for Rafale jets and signed a new deal without discussing it with his cabinet colleagues or officials, the Congress leader claimed.
The price of each plane according to the earlier contract was Rs 526 crore but it increased to Rs 1,670 crore in the new deal, Azad alleged.
The deal was struck without prior clearance from the Cabinet Committee on Security, he alleged.
During the UPA rule, when the BJP levelled allegations of corruption in the 2G spectrum and coal block allocation, the Congress-led government ordered Joint Parliamentary Committee and CBI inquiries, Azad said.
The Congress has been alleging massive irregularities in the Rafale deal and attacking the BJP-led NDA government for procuring just 36 jets when the Air Force required 126 jets.
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Signalling growing strain between
the coalition partners, Janajati Morcha, the ruling BJP's tribal wing in Tripura, Thursday demanded immediate severing of ties with the Indigenous Peoples Front of Tripura (IPFT).
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) state Janajati Morcha president Sanjoy Debbarma said IPFT was creating "chaos" across the state over different issues.
Development works of the state government have been hit due to their activities. We have demanded Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb to remove them from the ministry and severe all ties with them, Debbarma told PTI.
He said the chief minister gave them a patient hearing and said the agreement with IPFT was finalised by BJP's central leadership and they would be consulted regarding the demand.
BJP and IPFT jointly secured 44 seats in the 60-member state assembly in the February 18 elections and formed government, ending 25 years of CPI(M)-led Left Front rule in the north eastern state. BJP secured 36 seats i.e. more than the majority mark.
IPFT, which emerged victorious in 8 seats, was later allotted two berths in the state cabinet.
Differences between the BJP and its regional partner IPFT surfaced in the run up to panchayat by-polls, with a series of clashes reported between the workers of the ruling allies over submission of nominations. The by-polls are slated for September 30.
When contacted, BJP state vice president and Janajati Morcha leader Rampada Jamatia accused IPFT supporters of attacking his house at Killa in Gomati district Wednesday. He also alleged that the house of MLA of Golaghati constituency in Sipahijala district, Birchandra Debbarma was also attacked by IPFT supporters.
Debbarma had filed a complaint and an FIR was lodged. IPFT supporters held attacks on his family to force him to withdraw the FIR. They are also involved in criminal offenses in different parts of the state. We have demanded that legal action be taken against them and the alliance with IPFT be severed immediately, Jamatia said.
Reacting to the issue, IPFT spokesperson and assistant general secretary Mangal Debbarma said, "If they want to severe ties with us, it is their prerogative and we would not object. The BJP supporters started the clashes and later blamed the IPFT".
He alleged that a section of tribal leaders of the BJP had hatched a conspiracy against IPFT to oust them from the government to grab the cabinet berths.
IPFT supremo N C Debbarma is the Tripura Revenue Minister and party general secretary Mevar Kumar Debbarma is the state Tribal Welfare Department Minister.
If we leave the alliance, two posts in the cabinet will become vacant and indigenous leaders in BJP can grab those seats. They are plotting to disturb the alliance for this reason, Mangal Debbarma said.
The indigenous leader also claimed that IPFT joined hands with BJP in the state government to strengthen their movement for separate Tipraland.
Tipraland is a proposed separate state for indigenous communities of Tripura. IPFT was floated in 1997 with the demand.
We want Tipraland and shall continue to struggle for that. We do not care how many seats we get in the government. If the BJP thinks they can run the government without us, so be it. They have single majority. But the indigenous people are with us, Mangal said.
BJP and IPFT will contest against each other in the bye-elections of three-tier panchayat bodies on September 30.
The alliance partners had earlier also announced to contest the polls separately, which effectively means against each other in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. Tripura has two Lok Sabha seats.
At least 19 persons, including BJP and IPFT supporters, and policemen were injured in a series of clash between the two parties in different districts in last three days. The clashes erupted during submission of nomination papers for the upcoming panchayat by-polls. Nominations ended on Tuesday last.
Both IPFT and BJP have blamed each other for the clashes.
IPFT has written to the state election commission seeking to countermand the polls in at least three block areas where they could not submit the nomination papers due to violence.
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Hindus and Muslims in Jalaun district of Uttar Pradesh have transcended communal barriers to help the local administration in relocating some religious structures which had held up building of a flyover for 14 long years.
In all, two temples, seven mazaars (tombs) and a mosque have been relocated, while a portion of a boundary wall of a dargah (the grave of a revered religious figure) was removed to facilitate construction of the flyover.
Superintendent of Police, Jalaun, Dr Aravind Chaturvedi, told PTI Thursday, "On the Kanpur-Jhansi National Highway, the stretch between 242-km landmark and 244-km landmark is called Kalpi Khand. The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) had to construct a 1.5 km long flyover for smooth movement of traffic".
"But the NHAI faced a grave problem when it had to lay a service road (almost 5.5 metres wide on either side of the flyover) before they commenced the main construction in Jalaun, 220 kms from the state capital Lucknow" he said.
"It was on one of these stretches of service road (from Kanpur to Jalaun) that there were two temples, seven mazaars and one mosque, leading to the problem which existed for almost 14 years," the SP said.
The current district administration and police machinery held a number of rounds of meetings with the stakeholders --both Hindus and Muslims.
"It was then agreed by all that for development, these religious structures have to be relocated. The task was undertaken on September 8," he said.
"A Shiva temple has been relocated, while the sanctum sanctorum of a Durga temple will be shifted along with the idol as soon as the new temple is ready. The area where the new temple will come up has also been identified," he said.
Chaturvedi said that in the past 5-6 years, more than 100 persons, mostly school-going children, have lost their lives in accidents, which had occurred on this patch.
"Apart from this, seven mazaars have been relocated. One mosque was also relocated," the SP said, adding the entire work was done under "Operation Sahyog".
It was also agreed upon that a very old mazaar, which falls outside the ambit of the service road, should remain intact.
Currently, the NHAI is doing some beautification work of the Durga temple and the centuries-old mazaar, the SP said.
When contacted, District Magistrate of Jalaun, Mannan Akhtar, told PTI, "The shifting of the religious structures located on the Kanpur-Jhansi National Highway was undertaken on September 8 and completed that day itself. There was cooperation by majority of the people."
"Till now the Kanpur-Jhansi National highway was virtually single-lane for the past 14 years," the district magistrate said.
Akhtar said the dialogue process with all stakeholders took almost 5-6 months and a number of meetings and back channel talks were held with them to resolve the matter amicably.
"We made everyone agree on this," he said.
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A team of Central government officials was here on Wednesday to assess the damage caused by the recent heavy rains and floods, sources said.
Also, the officials visited Karkala and Kaup in Udupi district, the sources said.
The team held talks with officials at the Dakshina Kannada deputy commissioners office and collected information on the devastation, they said.
On September 14, the officials would visit different areas hit by floods in Dakshina Kannada district, including Mularpatna in Bantwal, Vittal, Subramanya and Gundya, they added.
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Congress in Chhattisgarh may field local candidates to contest the crucial seats being held by the ruling BJP in the naxal-affected Bastar region, a party leader said Thursday.
The party's victory in all the 12 seats of Bastar, one of the worst Maoist-affected areas of India, will be important to ensure a Congress government in the BJP-ruled state, he said.
Elections for the 90 assembly constituencies in Chhattisgarh are scheduled to be held this year-end.
The Congress is weighing all probable candidature for the 12 seats of Bastar, of which 11 (Bijapur, Dantewara, Konta, Chitrakot, Bastar, Narainpur, Kondagaon, Keshkal, Kanker, Bhanupratappur, Antagarh) are reserved for scheduled tribes and one (Jagdalpur constituency) is unreserved, the party leader said.
The Congress has eight MLAs from the region in the Chhattisgarh Assembly whereas the ruling BJP has four.
"The Congress is not leaving any stone unturned to ensure its victory in Chhattisgarh. Winning all the 12 seats in Bastar will be advantageous for us.
"We are in the process of scanning its candidates for the poll and those with high chances of winning and those with good local connect may be given preference while finalising the names," another senior party leader from the state said.
In an interview to PTI last month, senior Congress leader T S Singh Deo had said that not all sitting legislators may get tickets to contest the upcoming assembly polls in Chhattisgarh.
The Congress is out of power since 2003 and its chief Rahul Gandhi is keen on revival of the party in the state.
Chief Minister Raman Singh has already started a mass-contact program to ensure his victory for the fourth time.
The Congress lost to the BJP in the 2013 elections as it could secure only 39 assembly seats out of the 90.
The ruling BJP got 49 seats and one each was won by the Bahujan Samaj Party and by an Independent candidate.
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
China welcomed on Thursday a US offer to hold fresh trade talks, adding that the two are discussing the details and providing some hope the world's top economies could step back from the brink of an all-out trade war.
The sides have been engaged in an escalating tit-for-tat trade fight for months but on Wednesday it emerged that US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin had invited top Chinese officials to discuss the issue.
"The Chinese side believes that the escalation of the trade conflict is not in the interest of either party," commerce ministry spokesman Gao Feng told reporters at a regular briefing.
Beijing "has indeed received an invitation from the US and holds a welcoming attitude to it", said Gao, noting the "two sides are still communicating on the specific details".
of the invite comes as it emerged Thursday that US firms in China are beginning to feel the pinch of tariffs already imposed on the Asian giant.
Mnuchin's offer comes just under a week after US President Donald Trump threatened to impose tariffs on all USD 500 billion worth of imports from China.
The possible resumption of negotiations sent Asian markets rallying with Hong Kong surging 2.5 per cent -- having fallen for six straight days and into a bear market -- and Shanghai more than one per cent higher.
Trump imposed his first phase of tariffs this summer on USD 50 billion of Chinese goods, including high-end technology parts and manufactured goods, while Beijing fired back dollar-for-dollar at US soybeans, autos and other farm goods.
Top White House economic advisor Larry Kudlow told Fox Business Network on Wednesday: "Secretary Mnuchin, who is the team leader with China, has apparently issued an invitation. Talking is better than not talking, so I regard this as a plus."
The next wave of 25 per cent tariffs on a further USD 200 billion in imports will loom over any talks -- after a public consultation period for affected businesses came to an end last Thursday.
Beijing has pledged to hit back with five to 25 per cent tariffs on USD 60 billion in US imports in retaliation for any measures from the US.
The majority of American companies in China say they are hurting from the escalating trade spat, reporting increased costs, lower profits and stepped-up scrutiny, according to an American Chamber of Commerce in China survey released Thursday.
The business lobby urged Washington to reconsider its approach.
More than half of US firms are already feeling Beijing's wrath from non-tariff measures like heightened regulatory scrutiny, more inspections and slower customs clearance, according to the survey.
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
on Thursday met Prime Minister Modi during his three-day visit to and also signed agreements with state-run telecom firm and
"Had a wonderful meeting with Mr Chuck Robbins, Chairman and of We discussed various aspects relating to technology as well as innovation," Modi said in a tweet.
The US-based firm signed two agreements with and under the aegis of the (DoT) in the presence of Telecom Secretary
"A glimpse of signing of the MoU for 5G domain between and cisco_in. Secretary_DoT and Mr H C Pant, company secretary, BSNL were present on this occasion," BSNL said in its tweet, sharing a picture of the signing ceremony.
According to sources, the agreements with BSNL and DoT will involve showcasing and demonstrating possibilities of 5G -- especially use cases to solve citizens' problems and deliver services in areas such as agriculture and education.
also signed an agreement with to connect all 100 Atal Incubation Centres in the country by equipping them with its conferencing platforms like Webex Teams and Cisco Webex Board.
"Great discussion with @RajivKumar1 and @Secretary_DoT about our commitment to help grow its ecosystem of talent, entrepreneurship, and innovation, as well as driving economic growth. We are excited to collaborate with NITI Aayog and BSNL," Robbins tweeted.
(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Colombia's ELN rebels Wednesday freed six people they kidnapped in August, a government precondition for returning to peace talks, the International Committee of the Red Cross said.
"Today in Choco, we were with the humanitarian commission that facilitated the release of the six people who had been held by the ELN since August. We are pleased that they will be able to meet with their families soon," the group said on Twitter.
The group -- three policemen, a soldier and two civilian contractors abducted by the guerrillas August 3 -- were handed over to a humanitarian commission made up of the Ombudsman, the ICRC and the Roman Catholic Church.
President Ivan Duque over the weekend demanded the release of "all" hostages held by the rebels to resume the talks started under the previous government of Juan Manuel Santos, in Cuba.
The government says the ELN kidnapped 18 people between 2012 and September 2018 -- minus these six freed and three more released last week. At least nine remain.
Duque, which took office on August 7 with the promise of toughening conditions on the negotiations, also wants the ELN to stop criminal actions to resume peace talks. They could end a half a century of armed conflict.
The ELN is Colombia's last guerrilla force. The larger FARC -- Revolutionary Armed forces of Colombia -- has disarmed and become a political party.
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Congress Thursday accused Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman of "lying" about the number of fighter aircraft required by the Indian Air Force, and termed as "preposterous" her claim that the IAF does not have parking and maintenance facility to fly 126 fighter jets.
Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said Prime Minister Narendra Modi's decision to "arbitrarily" reduce requirement of 126 fighter aircraft to 36 is "unexplainable". Surjewala reiterated his party's demand for a joint parliamentary committee report in the Rafale deal.
"Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is caught lying again on the number of fighter aircraft required by Indian Air Force...PM Modi's decision to arbitrarily reduce requirement of 126 fighter aircraft to 36 is unexplainable," he told reporters.
In a newspaper report Thursday, Sitharaman was quoted as saying the government decided to purchase only 36 Rafale fighter jet from France instead of the 126 being negotiated by the UPA government as infrastructure and other technical requirements of the Indian Air Force do not allow for greater procurement.
"The claim of the defence minister that IAF does not have parking and maintenance facility to fly 126 fighter jets is preposterous and goes against the grain of national security requirements," Surjewala said.
He said the defence minister's argument is "obnoxious" and asked if the government and the Air Force cannot create parking space/maintenance facility in 6-8 years period, during which the aircraft will be delivered.
"Can creation of parking space/maintenance facility be a ground for compromising air superiority and national security?" he asked.
Alleging a scam in the Rafale deal, the Congress leader asked how can the defence minister shed her responsibility by saying that it is a decision taken by 'commercial enterprise' in selecting a private player for offset contracts worth Rs 30,000 crore when it is a 'government-to-government contract'.
"Does she forget her own claim that it is a 'government-to-government contract' backed by 'Inter Governmental Agreement' (IGA) and the amount of Rs 61,000 crore is being paid by Government of India to Dassault? Does it not prove malice and mala fides of the Modi Government?
"Let the prime minister and defence minister own accountability and submit to a JPC probe instead of lying to the nation about the deal," he said.
Surjewala alleged, "Lie, belie and fly in face of stark truth is the chameleon-like character of Modi Government."
He asked whether the defence minister knows there is a sanctioned strength of 42 air squadrons for the IAF.
Noting that the current number of air squadrons is 33, he said they are likely to fall to 31 by 2021. And considering that Rafale aircraft will not be delivered till 2022, there will be available existing space for seven more squadrons that means 126 aircraft, he said.
The Congress leader alleged the defence minister is also guilty of not disclosing the fact that the mandatory 'fast track procedure' for 'emergency purchase' was not followed by PM Modi at the time of announcement of purchase of 36 Rafale aircraft on April 10, 2015.
"She has also failed to point out that no such 'emergency purchase' was approved either by the then Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar or Cabinet Committee on Security. How does she now explain the fact that despite the 'emergency purchase' in April 2015, aircraft will not be delivered upto the year 2022 and that too without 'India Specific Enhancements?" he asked.
Surjewala said the defence minister was also "lying" on the non-disclosure of prices of Rafale aircraft, which she agreed to publicly disclose in a press conference on November 17, 2017 at the Raksha Bhawan.
He also claimed the Congress-UPA tender envisaged 'full weaponry and transfer of technology' and said it was established by the joint statement of April 10, 2015 by French President Francois Hollande and Prime Minister Modi, which stated that the aircraft and associated systems and weapons would be delivered "on the same configuration as has been tested and approved by Indian Air Force".
"Why has the Modi Government then made an extra payment of Rs 41,000 crore from public exchequer i.e from Rs 526 Cr per aircraft to Rs 1670 Cr per aircraft if the India specific enhancements are the same as decided by the IAF (which include weaponry/avionics/ radar enhancements etc)?" he asked.
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Allegations flew thick and fast Thursday between the Congress and the BJP over the Vijay Mallya affair -- Rahul Gandhi accused the finance minister of lying to hide the "free passage" he allegedly gave to the defaulter aviation tycoon to flee to London, while the ruling party counter-claimed the Gandhi family tried to salvage the sinking Kingfisher Airlines with a "sweet deal".
At a hurriedly-called press conference, Gandhi presented what he called "proof" in the form of party leader P L Punia, who claimed to have seen Arun Jaitley having "an elaborate 15-20 minute meeting" with Mallya on March 1, 2016, a day before the businessman left India.
For its part, the BJP lined up party big guns with counter-allegations about how Mallya was helped by the UPA regime to keep his debt-ridden aviation venture afloat.
"Mr Vijay Mallya was given free passage out of the country by the finance minister and the finance minister has clearly said the criminal told him that he is going to run away. Well, why did you let him run away? Why did you not stop him because you were colluding with him?" Gandhi alleged and challenged Jaitley to get CCTV footage of March 1.
While the opposition party demanded immediate resignation of Jaitley and an independent probe into the whole affair, the BJP alleged it was the previous UPA government that gave a "sweet deal" to Mallya as if it was the Gandhi family that proxy-owned the airline.
Kingfisher ultimately had to be grounded in October 2012 under a burden of over Rs 9,000 crore of unpaid loans and several other liabilities including defaults on employee salaries and other payments.
In the political war of words, maverick BJP leader Subramanian Swamy also got into fray. He raised questions on how the lookout notice against the absconding businessman got diluted that eventually allowed him to flee the country.
Adding further fodder to the opposition's charges, former Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi told NDTV it was a "big coincidence" that Mallya left India on the same day a consortium of banks moved to recover their unpaid debt and it was possible that someone could have "tipped him off".
The 62-year-old Mallya, who was once listed on Forbes' list of billionaires and was famously known as 'King of Good Times' owing to his flashy lifestyle, said in London Wednesday he was not "tipped off" by anyone and he had "happened to meet" Jaitley in Parliament -- a statement seen as a dilution from his earlier "innocent statement" that he had met the finance minister before leaving India and had told him about his settlement offer for banks.
Seeking to shift the blame, the BJP leaders including top union ministers alleged many Congress leaders had tried to save Mallya and his sinking business empire.
Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman told PTI the Congress was raking up the issue to deflect attention from the UPA government's "cronyism and favouritism" and the demand for Jaitley's resignation over a "brief conversation" with Mallya was motivated.
Jaitley has rebutted Mallya's claim as "factually false" saying he never had any structured meeting with him and it was a brief conversation which Mallya forced on him by misusing his privileges as a Rajya Sabha member at that time.
Joining BJP's counter-offensive, Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad asked whether Gandhi and Mallya were "working in tandem" and claimed the liquor baron had allegedly benefitted from bank facilities during the UPA government.
Railway Minister Piyush Goyal said Mallya was a criminal and his words could not be taken seriously and it was Gandhi who should resign from all posts. He alleged banks were pressured by the UPA regime to sanction loans to Mallya due to the Gandhi family's "relations" with him.
Joining the chorus, activist Shehzad Poonawalla, who often supports the ruling party in thrashing the Congress, claimed Gandhi had met PNB fraud accused Nirav Modi at a plush hotel in the national capital in 2013, a charge denied by the opposition party.
Gandhi, who had last night also sought Jaitley's resignation after Mallya dropped his bombshell of the sensational claim, alleged the finance minister had "colluded with the criminal" and allowed him to escape from the country.
"Mr Jaitley is lying, the government is lying on Rafale and the government is lying on Vijay Mallya. A meeting was held with Mr Arun Jaitley and Vijay Mallya. The logistics of Mr Mallya leaving the country were discussed in that meeting," Gandhi told reporters.
"The criminal had told him, 'I am going to run away to London'. The finance minister has accepted publicly that he has been told by a criminal that he is going to run away and the finance minister has not done anything, has not informed the CBI, and has not informed the ED. What does that mean? It means, he is colluding with the criminal. Straightforward," Gandhi said.
The BJP hit back with equal ferocity, with its spokesperson Sambit Patra, flashing a bunch of documents at a press conference and telling reporters there is a series of letters between the RBI and main lender SBI that show "how the previous dispensation under Sonia Gandhi was biased, partial and kept all norms and regulations at bay to give a sweet deal to Kingfisher."
"Sometimes it seems the airline was not owned by Mallya, but by the Gandhi family in proxy," Patra said.
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Senior Haryana Congress leader Karan Singh Dalal wrote to BSP supremo Mayawati on Thursday, urging her to review her party's alliance with the INLD, pointing out that Abhay Singh Chautala was in "cahoots" with the ruling BJP.
In his letter to Mayawati, the five-time MLA wrote that Chautala had colluded with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and proposed to its members in the Assembly to move a resolution to suspend him so as to prevent him from speaking on issues concerning the poor.
Dalal was suspended from the Haryana Assembly on Tuesday for a year for alleged misconduct and use of derogatory language.
The Congress leader, has, however claimed that he had, through a calling attention motion, raised a matter of alleged deletion of certain ration cards belonging to the poor.
In his letter to Mayawati, he mentioned that he had raised an issue of "snatching the rights of the poor".
"Being the Leader of Opposition, Abhay Singh Chautala should have supported me on the issue concerning the poor. However, he was in cahoots with the ruling party and proposed that a resolution be brought in the House to suspend me...as the ruling benches later moved this resolution, he and his party MLAs supported it, which has exposed their anti-poor face...
"You (Mayawati) have a huge experience as a parliamentarian, but in your entire political career, you must never have seen a Leader of Opposition colluding with the ruling party to get an opposition member suspended from the House," Dalal wrote in his letter.
"You are fighting for the rights of the poor in this country, whereas the party with which you have aligned in Haryana is standing shoulder-to-shoulder with those who are snatching the rights of the poor.
"I have the least hesitation in saying that the INLD has entered into an alliance with your party only to garner the votes of the poor...," he alleged.
Urging Mayawati to review the alliance, Dalal wrote, "My request to you is that keeping in view the interests of the Dalits and poor, you must review the alliance with the INLD."
The Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) had entered into an alliance nearly six months ago and said both parties would jointly contest next year's Lok Sabha and Haryana Assembly polls.
On Tuesday, Dalal had lodged a police complaint here, accusing Chautala of threatening him in the Assembly.
Reacting to it, Chautala had said Dalal was in the habit of lodging such complaints as he had done so in the past as well.
Both Chautala and Dalal were involved in sharp exchanges in the Assembly on Tuesday, during which they had allegedly hurled abuses and charged at each other with shoes in their hand.
"Abhay Singh Chautala proposed my suspension from the Assembly, upon which heated exchanges took place between him and me in the House and as a result, he lost his mental balance and started abusing and threatening me," Dalal had alleged in his police complaint.
On Thursday, Dalal said he would write to the director generals of police of Chandigarh and Haryana, alleging threat to him and his family.
"Chautala has threatened me and my family. I will write to the DGPs of Chandigarh and Haryana, apprising them of the developments," he told reporters.
Asked if he would demand more security, Dalal said, "Let them take a call on it.
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
BJP leader Nirmala Sitharaman Thursday termed as "motivated" the Congress's demand of Finance Minister Arun Jaitley's resignation over his meeting with Vijay Mallya, saying it is a strategy to deflect attention from the UPA government's "cronyism and favouritism".
The defence minister told PTI that a brief conversation which Mallya had with Jaitley in a corridor of Parliament is being "played up" and asserted that responses to the issue have "reinforced" the fact it was not a conversation of any merit.
Jaitley, she noted, had already explained as to how Mallya misused his privilege as a member of Parliament to speak to him.
To a question about Congress MP P L Punia's claim that he had seen Jaitley sitting with Mallya in Parliament's Central Hall and there would be CCTV footage to corroborate it, Sitharaman shot back, asking if the footage would also have audio recording.
"It already seems a very motivated allegation," she said of the Congress' charge against Jaitley.
Hitting out at the Congress, she said letters were written to the Reserve Bank of India and State Bank of India during the UPA's rule to help Mallya.
"They are in tour face. How favouritism naming that one company has been made... Whose period made it sick? Whose period had favouritism and cronyism entering in to suggest to the central bank and written instructions given to banks to lend to this defaulter," she asked.
Look at the strategy with which Congress would want to deflect it, she asked wryly if that "minutes' conversation" helped him to go away or all the lending happened (during the UPA rule) because of it.
Multiple loans were given to bogus accounts which did not have credit worthiness, she said.
The BJP leader said the Modi government had brought in a law through which defaulters' property can be confiscated.
The UPA government passed some laws but never made rules, she said.
Mallya had Wednesday claimed in London that he had met the finance minister before leaving for the UK, drawing a rebuttal from Jaitley who said he never gave him any appointment but the businessman used his privilege as an MP to accost him in Parliament.
Immediately after Jaitley's sharp rebuttal Wednesday, Mallya appeared to tone down the seriousness of his comments, saying it was "not fair" to create a controversy over this issue as it was not a "formal meeting" and he only "happened to meet" the finance minister.
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Bihar Congress leaders here Thursday burnt an effigy of Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, following the claim of Vijay Mallya that he had met the senior BJP leader before leaving the country.
BPCC leaders, including its working president Kaukab Qadri, party MLC Prem Chandra Mishra, MLA and Mahila Congress state president Amita Bhushan and former state president Anil Sharma took part in the demonstration held at Boring Road crossing in the city, a party release said.
The release quoted the leaders as having said "the Congress has always been maintaining that Mallya has close links with Jaitley ...".
Mallya claimed in London on Wednesday that he met the Finance minister before leaving India and offered to settle his dues, a charge denied by Jaitley as "false".
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Welcoming the appointment of Justice Ranjan Gogoi as the 46th Chief Justice of India, the Congress on Thursday said people are looking forward to a resilient court under his leadership, which will dispense justice in a fearless manner.
Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said the impeccable credentials and uprightness of Justice Gogoi are known to all.
"The entire legal fraternity and common people are looking forward to a resilient court under his leadership, dispensing justice in a fearless manner to uphold the essential foundational values of our Constitutional democracy," he said.
"We welcome the appointment of Justice Ranjan Gogoi as the Chief Justice of India. We hope that during his tenure he will continue to push the cause of justice as he has done previously in his career," the Congress said on its Twitter handle.
President Ramnath Kovind signed warrants of appointment of Justice Gogoi following which a notification announcing his appointment was issued by the Law Ministry earlier on Thursday.
Justice Gogoi will assume office on October 3 after incumbent Dipak Misra retires a day before.
He will have a tenure of a little over 13 months and would retire on November 17, 2019.
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The counting for Delhi University Students Union (DUSU) elections was suspended midway Thursday due to "faulty EVMs and the students' uproar over it", an university official said.
The counting was initially stopped for an hour when there were allegations of faulty EVMs, however, following objections by students the election officials decided to suspend the counting.
"We had proposed rectification of the faulty EVMs and resumption of the counting but the students were not ready for it. It was decided to suspend counting. A fresh date for the counting will be announced soon," an election officer for DUSU polls said.
In the initial trends, Congress-backed NSUI was leading for the president post, while BJP-affiliated ABVP was leading for the vice president's post.
Amid heavy police presence and some last-minute wooing of voters, DUSU polls were held yesterday with a voter turnout of 44.46 per cent.
Polling took place at 52 centres in the colleges. There are as many as 23 candidates in the fray.
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Seventeen Congress leaders, including party's Cuttack City president Muhammad Moqim were arrested early on Thursday for their alleged involvement in ransacking a police station two days ago.
The Congress leaders were arrested by police in a swoop at different places in the wee hours for their alleged involvement in ransacking a city police station on Tuesday.
Alleging vendetta politics, the Congress workers had stormed into Purighat police station in protest against the arrest of a Congress worker, who had actively participated in the Mondays Bharat Bandh, called by the party.
However, the sub-divisional judicial magistrate (SDJM) of Cuttack Sadar granted them bail when they were produced in the court.
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The death toll has risen to 11 with another 44 people hospitalized after a man allegedly drove an SUV deliberately into a crowd in central China before jumping out and attacking victims with a dagger and shovel, local authorities said Thursday.
The Hengyang city government said the suspect in the case had previous convictions for crimes including drug trafficking, theft and assault and, acting alone, had sought to "get revenge on society."
That appeared to rule out terrorism, although vehicles have previously been used in attacks blamed on militant Muslim separatists from the Uighur ethnic minority group.
Police identified the suspect as 54-year-old Yang Zanyun from Hengyang's Hengdong county in the largely agricultural province of Hunan.
Tuesday night's attack happened in a public square where Chinese typically gather to dance in groups or enjoy the cool evening breezes. The SUV apparently appeared without warning, jumping the curb before plowing into the crowd. China has experienced violent attacks in public places in recent years, including bombings and arson of buses and buildings.
Occasionally, the attacks are attributed to militant separatists, though such incidents have become less common in recent years amid a stifling security crackdown.
In 2013, an SUV plowed through a crowd in front of Beijing's Forbidden City before crashing and catching fire, killing five, including the vehicle's three occupants. Police blamed the attack on Uighur extremists inspired by jihadi ideology.
More commonly though, the motivation is identified as mental illness, alienation from society or a desire to settle scores.
Chinese law restricts the sale and possession of firearms, and mass attacks are generally carried out with knives or homemade explosives. Many of those incidents have occurred at schools, including several in 2010 in which nearly 20 children were killed, prompting a response from top government officials and leading many schools to beef up security.
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Delhi congress leaders Thursday met Lt Governor Anil Baijal seeking his intervention to end sealing of non-polluting household industries in the city, and said a failure would "force people" to come out on the streets in large numbers.
Leading the delegation, Delhi Congress chief Ajay Maken asserted that the party was ready to go to "any extent" to get relief for affected workers and small businesses.
"People are angry with the sealing action and forced collection of conversion charge by municipal corporations and if it is not stopped, over 50 lakh people will come out on the streets and the condition in Delhi will get vitiated," Maken said in a statement.
In the meeting with Baijal, Maken said the civic bodies come directly under the Lt Governor and the Union Home Minister, and demanded that orders be issued to the three municipal corporations of Delhi to stop collecting conversion charges.
The Congress is running 'Nyay Yudh' campaign against "illegal" sealing of non-polluting household industries in the city.
The delegation also included AICC incharge of Delhi affairs PC Chacko, former ministers Arvinder Singh Lovely, Haroon Yusuf, and convenor of 'Nyay Yudh' campaign Mukesh Sharma.
A large number of protesters including labourers and household industry owners will attend the 'Nyay Yudh' rally at Karol Bagh Friday (September 14), Sharma said.
More than 40 big and small traders' and shopkeepers' associations have pledged their support to Delhi Congress' 'Vyapar BachaoMazdoor Bachao' rally at Karol Bagh, he added.
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Delhi High Court Thursday granted bail to Kashmiri businessman Zahoor Watali, arrested by the NIA for his alleged role in a terror-funding case involving Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) chief Hafiz Muhammad Saeed.
The court said there was no prima facie material to show that 70-year-old Zahoor Ahmad Shah Watali was involved in the conspiracy.
"The court is not satisfied at this stage that there is prima facie material to show the involvement of Watali in any criminal conspiracy with the other accused, justifying the accusations for the offences under section 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC or sections 121 (waging or attempting to wage war against India), 121-A (conspiracy to wage war), or 124-A (sedition) of the IPC," a bench of Justices S Muralidhar and Vinod Goel said.
The bench set aside the trial court's June 8 order by which the businessman was denied bail and directed that Watali be released from jail after furnishing a personal bond of Rs two lakh and two sureties of the same amount.
Watali was arrested on August 17 last year by the National Investigation Agency (NIA).
Watali, Hafiz Saeed, Hizbul Mujahideen chief Syed Salahudeen and nine others have been accused by the NIA of "conspiring to wage war against the government" and fomenting trouble in the Kashmir valley.
In its 40-page bail order, the bench directed Watali not to influence or intimidate prospective prosecution witnesses or tamper with the evidence in the case.
It has directed Watali to surrender his passport before the trial court and said he will not travel abroad without prior permission of the court.
Further, the bench asked the businessman to report to the investigating officer of the case as and when required and that he shall provide his contact number and current address to the officer.
"If there is any breach of these conditions, it will be open to the NIA to apply to the trial court for cancellation of bail," the high court said.
In its charge sheet, the NIA has alleged that Watali received money from accused Syed, ISI of Pakistan, the Pakistan High Commission here and from a source in Dubai.
The money was then remitted to the leaders of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference, a conglomerate of 26 political/social/religious organisations whose agenda is to create an atmosphere conducive to the attainment of their goal in Jammu and Kashmir of secession from the Union of India and to separatists and stone-pelters, the NIA alleged. Further, the separatist leaders have been accused of taking a cut of the money.
The high court said the documents on record do not prima facie conclude that Watali had received money from Syed or Pakistan High Commission or that he was passing on the funds to the Hurriyat leaders for funding terrorist activities and stone pelting.
Opposing the bail plea, the NIA had contended that the sources from which the accused had received funds could not be satisfactorily explained by Watali.
If released on bail, he might hamper the probe and flee from justice, NIA contended.
Watali had sought bail claiming that no offence under the stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) was made out against him in the charge sheet.
His counsel said the probe in the case was already concluded and the charge sheet was filed.
The bench said in the order neither any previous criminal involvement of Watali has been shown nor the possibility of him fleeing from justice if released on bail.
"The record shows that Watali is a septuagenarian and is suffering from various medical ailments. He has been in judicial custody for more than a year. It has been more than six months since the charge sheet has been filed. He is not shown to have tampered with the evidence or interfered with any of the prospective/protected witnesses," it said.
Syed has been accused of using Watali's services for passing on money to the separatists and some individuals, who were actively indulging in stone-pelting in the valley.
The NIA has chargesheeted Pakistan-based terrorists Syed and Salahuddin, besides 10 others, with criminal conspiracy, sedition and provisions of the UAPA.
Besides Syed, Salahuddin and Watali, the agency has named hardline separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani's son-in-law Altaf Shah alias Altaf Fantoosh and Bashir Ahmad Bhat in the charge sheet.
Hurriyat Conference leaders Nayeem Ahmad Khan, Farooq Ahmad Dar alias Bitta Karate, Mohammad Akbar Khanday and Raja Mehrajuddin Kalwal have also been chargesheeted by the agency in the terror-funding case.
Barring, Syed and Salahuddin, the rest of the accused are currently in judicial custody.
Two of the accused -- freelance photojournalist Kamran Yusuf and Javed Ahmad Bhat -- both accused of stone-pelting, were earlier granted bail by the court.
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A Delhi court Thursday reserved for tomorrow its order on the bail application of a man arrested in a bank loan fraud case of over Rs 5,000 crore involving a Gujarat-based pharma firm.
During the hearing before Additional Sessions Judge Satish Kumar Arora, the Enforcement Directorate opposed the plea moved by Ranjit Malik alias Johny, currently in judicial custody.
ED told the court that if the accused is granted the relief, he may destroy the evidence which is yet to be collected in the case.
ED's special prosecutor Nitesh Rana said that a charge sheet was likely to be filed soon and the accused may destroy various documents available on internet as well as other electronic evidence.
In its reply to the application, filed through advocate A R Aditya, ED said that Malik may flee from justice if granted bail.
In his plea, the accused had told the court that he was not required for further investigation and no purpose will be served by keeping him in the custody.
ED had recently filed a charge sheet against the director of a pharma firm in the case in which the agency has accused the company of taking loans of over Rs 5,000 crore from a consortium led by Andhra Bank which turned into non-performing asset (NPA) or bad loan.
The agency also arrested a former director of Andhra Bank, Anup Prakash Garg in February and a Delhi-based businessman, Gagan Dhawan, last November in connection with the case. Malik was a middleman for Dhawan.
They were named as accused in the case by the ED and the CBI.
ED registered a money laundering case in this instance after taking cognisance of an FIR filed earlier by the CBI.
CBI had booked Vadodara-based Sterling Biotech, its directors Chetan Jayantilal Sandesara, Dipti Chetan Sandesara, Rajbhushan Omprakash Dixit, Nitin Jayantilal Sandesara and Vilas Joshi, chartered accountant Hemant Hathi, Garg and some unidentified persons in connection with the alleged bank fraud case.
According to the FIR, the total pending dues of the group of companies were Rs 5,383 crore as on December 31, 2016.
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Living Gospel Equality Now: Loving in the Heart of God: Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests
An Egyptian court has suspended a ruling that allowed the return to work of policemen with beards which are usually reserved for pious Muslims, a judicial source said Thursday.
Wednesday's decision came after a lawyer appealed against a ruling to allow them to return to work and demanded the interior ministry apply regulations that prevent bearded officers from serving.
"The beard in Arab countries is considered religious, it isn't just something normal," lawyer Mohammed Hamed Salem told AFP.
"How do you feel when you cross a checkpoint run by bearded officers," he asked.
The case dates back to 2012 when bearded police demonstrated under Islamist president Mohamed Morsi, demanding the officers be allowed to serve.
After Morsi's ouster in 2014, the interior ministry dismissed 10 policemen because of their beards.
In July, police regulations were again called into question and bearded officers were officially allowed to return to their beats.
Salem, the lawyer, said he immediately filed an appeal over "fears these police officers are Islamists".
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
State-owned engineering consultancy firm EIL said Thursday it will bid to acquire government's 100 per cent stake in Projects and Development India Ltd (PDIL).
It, however, did not give details saying they were confidential.
In a regulatory filing, Engineers India Ltd (EIL) said its board of directors in a meeting Thursday "considered the proposal for acquisition of 100 per cent paid-up share capital of PDIL from President of India."
The Board gave "the approval of bidding for the same by way of Share Acquisition Route," it said. "Other details cannot be disclosed due to confidentiality of the matter."
The government in October last year invited bids from EIL or other similarly placed PSUs to buy out its 100 per cent shareholding in consultancy firm PDIL.
Miniratna PSU Projects & Development India Ltd (PDIL) is under the administrative control of Chemical and Fertilizers Ministry.
"The Government of India has 'in-principle' decided to disinvest 100 percent of its shareholding in PDIL through strategic disinvestment with the transfer of management control to Engineers India Ltd (EIL) or other similar Central Public Sector Enterprises (CPSEs)," said the Preliminary Information Memorandum inviting Expression of Interest floated in October last year.
Earlier this year, Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) acquired government's 51.11 per cent stake in Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd (HPCL) for Rs 36,915 crore. This had helped the government meet its sell-off (disinvestment) target for 2017-18 fiscal.
Founded in 1978, PDIL provides design engineering and consultancy services. It serves fertilizer and allied chemical industries, oil and gas sector, power and infrastructure sectors in India and internationally.
EIL too is the similar business. It however is under the administrative control of the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas. Founded in 1965, it provides design, engineering, procurement, construction, and integrated project management services primarily for oil and gas and petrochemical industries.
In order to bring in efficiency in functioning of public sector undertakings, the government is pushing for merger of similarly placed firms. The Cabinet has approved the merger of SBI with its five associates.
There are six consultancy firms, which may merger into EIL to create a mega-consultancy firm. The firms are MECON, Telecommunications Consultants India (Ltd), Engineering Projects (India), WAPCOS and PDIL.
Rationale behind the move is that merger would help create a big company that can compete globally and put India on the global map of doing turnkey projects.
EIL is the biggest state-owned consultancy firm in the country which provides turnkey engineering solutions to projects in India and abroad.
As of March 2017, the paid up capital of PDIL is Rs 17 crore. As of September 2017, PDIL has 363 permanent and 116 contractual employees.
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Europe's top rights court ruled Thursday that Britain's programme of mass surveillance, revealed by whistleblower Edward Snowden as part of his sensational leaks on US spying, violated people's right to privacy.
Ruling in the case of Big Brother Watch and Others versus the United Kingdom, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France, said the interception of journalistic material also violated the right to freedom of information.
The case was brought by a group of journalists and rights activists who believe that their data may have been targeted.
The court ruled that the existence of the surveillance programme "did not in and of itself violate the convention" but noted "that such a regime had to respect criteria set down in its case-law".
They concluded that the mass trawling for information by Britain's GCHQ spy agency violated Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights regarding the right to privacy because there was "insufficient oversight" of the programme.
The court found the oversight to be doubly deficient, in the way in which the GCHQ selected internet providers for intercepting data and then filtered the messages, and the way in which intelligence agents selected which data to examine.
It determined that the regime covering how the spy agency obtained data from internet and phone companies was "not in accordance with the law".
In a further victory for the 16 complainants the court ruled that the programme also provided "insufficient safeguards in respect of confidential journalistic material", violating Article 10 of the European convention, which protects freedom of expression and information.
But it dismissed claims that Britain further violated the privacy of those on whom it snooped by sharing intelligence with foreign governments.
"The regime for sharing intelligence with foreign governments did not violate either Article 8 or Article 10," it said.
Snowden, a former contractor with the National Security Agency of the United States, leaked thousands of classified documents to the press in 2013 which revealed the vast scope of surveillance of private data that was put in place after the 9/11 attacks.
The documents showed, among other things, that Britain spied on foreign politicians at G20 summit meetings in London in 2009 and that its spy agency collected huge quantities of global email messages, Facebook posts, internet histories and calls, and shared them with the NSA.
Snowden, who fled to Russia, is wanted in the US for espionage.
The ECHR noted that national governments enjoy "wide discretion" in deciding what type of surveillance is necessary to protect national security.
But it said such programmes require sufficient oversight to keep the surveillance to what is "necessary in a democratic society".
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A counterfeit currency racket was busted in West Champaran district on Thursday with the arrest of three persons - a woman and two Nepalese nationals, police said.
Superintendent of Police, West Champaran, Jayant Kant said the arrested persons include Shamshuddin and Shiv Shankar Chaurasia from Parsa in the neighbouring country and local resident Noorjanati Khatoon.
The counterfeit currency seized from them had a face value of Rs 14,700 and the fake notes were in denominations of Rs 2000, Rs 500 and Rs 100, the SP said.
He said the arrested accused have, during interrogation, identified their suppliers in Nepal and a report about the same would be sent to the Indian embassy in Kathmandu.
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Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar Thursday said Faridabad Metropolitan Development Authority (FMDA) would be constituted to provide all infrastructure facilities to people residing there.
He said since Faridabad is the second largest city of Haryana after Gurugram, it has been decided to constitute FMDA on the lines of Gurugram Metro Development Authority (GMDA).
The chief minister made the announcement at a press conference and listed several achievements of the Town and Country Planning Department, the portfolio he holds, in the last four years.
He said the government has allowed construction of four-storey residential buildings in the state, the registration of which will be opened from Thursday.
People can now construct a stilt and four floors on their plots. Earlier rules limited construction to a stilt and three floors within a prescribed height of 15 metres.
The new provision has been made in the revised Haryana building code 2017.
Khattar said the Haryana Building Code - 2017 has been framed in order to remove the variations and bring uniformity in building bye-laws adopted by different development agencies.
The chief minister said to address the problem of parking of vehicles in residential areas, a provision of stilt has been made.
Apart from this, it has made mandatory to provide car bay in every residential plot, he said, adding that use of basement for residential purpose has also been allowed provided fire safety, lighting and ventilation provisions are fulfilled.
He said a provision of green building has been made under which a building owner is provided the benefit of additional Floor Area Ratio (FAR) of three to 15 per cent.
If the building owner sets up solar photovoltaic plant and solid waste management plant for management of water, electricity and waste, he would be provided additional FAR.
Khattar said the state government has decided to constitute an Appellate Tribunal to hear the complaints of allottees against the decision of Haryana Real Estate Regulatory Authority (HRERA) set up to redress the grievances of allottees.
The office of the Appellate Tribunal would be set up at Karnal.
The Chief Minister said HRERA has so far received 842 complaints out of which 209 complaints have already been disposed of and the rest would be redressed soon.
To ensure transparency in the allotment of sites for petrol pumps and CNG filling stations, the Haryana Government has decided to allot such sites through auction, he said.
The Chief Minister said petrol pumps and CNG filling stations sites would be allotted only to the oil companies on lease. The allotment of the sites would start from next month and the oil company with the highest bidding would be allotted the sites, Khattra said.
He also said the Haryana Shehari Vikas Pradhikaran, the state's urban development authority, plans to float nine sectors including a defence sector exclusively for defence personnel in the state during the current financial year.
These included three sectors in Mahendergarh, and one each in Bhiwani, Yamuna Nagar, Dabwali, Taoru and Pinjore. Apart from this, a defence sector exclusively for defence personnel is likely to be floated at Jhajjar, the chief minister said.
Khattar said the HSVP has a plan to float 30,470 plots in 47 residential sectors across the State and a schedule in this regard will be issued soon.
He also said the metro stations in Haryana segment on Bahadurgarh to Mundka line and the stations on the Mujesar (YMCA Chowk) to Ballabhgarh Metro Corridor has been renamed.
Khattar said on Bahadurgarh to Mundka Metro line, the MIE Metro Station has been renamed Pandit Shree Ram Sharma Metro Station, Bus Stand Metro Station as Bahadurgarh City Metro Station and City Park Metro Station as Brig. Hoshiar Singh Metro Station.
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The Congress-affiliated NSUI on Thursday demanded that fresh polling be held for the Delhi University Students' Union (DUSU) election, while the RSS's student wing, the ABVP, wanted the counting of votes, which has been suspended, to be resumed.
The counting of votes for the DUSU polls was suspended midway on Thursday due to "faulty EVMs and the students' uproar over it".
The counting was initially stopped for an hour after the allegations of faulty EVMs surfaced. However, following objections by the students, the election officials decided to suspend the process.
"The polls are being held at the behest of the central government. The EVMs were tampered with. We want fresh elections," Rocky Tuseed of the National Students' Union of India (NSUI) said.
Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad's (ABVP) Shakti Singh said, "Only one EVM was faulty and it can be repaired. We want the counting to be resumed. Since we were leading on all the seats, the other parties are demanding fresh elections."
The supporters of both the groups shouted slogans against the Delhi University (DU) administration and created a ruckus inside the counting centre.
"A fresh date for the counting will be announced soon," an election officer for the DUSU polls said.
Two resident doctors and a nursing officer suffered burn injuries after a fire broke out Thursday in the new OPD building of Delhi's Safdarjung Hospital.
The hospital administration has constituted an inquiry committee to probe the incident.
According to a preliminary report submitted to the medical superintendent of the hospital, Dr Rajendra Sharma, the fire broke out in the eye operation theatre on the fourth floor of the new OPD building during a routine surgery.
"During a routine eye surgery at around 12 noon, a fire incident occurred due to the spirit swab getting afire accidentally. While the patient suffered no harm and his operative procedure could be completed satisfactorily, the injured staff were immediately shifted to the burns casualty," the report read.
Three persons, a PG resident doctor (26), a senior resident doctor (30) and a nursing officer (33), "received thermal injuries".
The woman PG resident doctor has suffered five per cent thermal burns and was discharged after first aid, Dr Sharma said.
The senior resident doctor with 10 per cent burns on the arms and the nursing officer with 30 per cent burns were admitted to the Burn ICU for observation and required treatment, he said.
The burns specialist said they have received second-degree burns and were not in danger. The full recovery might take about a month, the report said.
"No maintenance-related issue or lapse on the part of staff, treating doctors or maintenance agency has come to the fore. The fire department was also informed in time," it said.
According to a Delhi Fire Service official, seven fire tenders were rushed to the spot and the flames were doused within half an hour.
The official suspected overheating of spirit (chemical) could be the cause of the fire.
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A man was killed and another injured after a fire broke out at a godown in north Delhi's Mori Gate, police said Thursday.
The deceased was identified as Rajender (40) and the injured was identified as Yogesh (24), they said.
Police said the incident took place on Wednesday night.
A call about the fire was received at 8:50 pm. Immediately, four fire tenders were rushed to the spot. The fire was brought under control by 10 pm, said a Delhi Fire Service official.
A fire broke out on the ground floor of the godown where the victims were engaged in welding work, said Nupur Prasad, Deputy Commissioner of Police (north).
The godown houses automobile spare parts.
Both the victims where rushed to a nearby hospital where Rajendra succumbed to injuries while Yogesh is being treated for burn injuries and is currently under observation, she said.
The owner of godown, Yogesh, has been arrested in connection with the incident and a case has been lodged. Further investigation is underway.
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Union minister K J Alphons will Friday inaugurate the the country's first tribal circuit project connecting 13 tourism sites in Chhattisgarh.
The project is being implemented under the Tourism Ministry's Swadesh Darshan scheme launched in 2014-15 for development of thematic circuits in the country in a planned and prioritised manner.
Alphons, the Minister of State for Tourism, will inaugurate the first tribal circuit project in Gangrel, Chhattisgarh, Friday, an official statement said.
The circuit connects Jashpur, Kunkuri, Mainpat, Kamleshpur, Maheshpur, Kurdar, Sarodadadar, Gangrel, Kondagaon, Nathiya Nawagaon, Jagdalpur, Chitrakoot, and Tirthgarh in Chhattisgarh.
The Tourism Ministry had sanctioned Rs. 99.21 crore for the project in February 2016.
The government had decided to include Chhattisgarh in the scheme under tribal circuit theme "with an objective to acknowledge the sovereignty of tribes and to promote the rich and diverse primitive assets in the state", the statement said.
Chhattisgarh is known for its exceptional scenic beauty and rich cultural heritage. Tribes make up over one-third of the state population. The tribes in the state have retained their culture and traditions for centuries.
"Major components sanctioned under the project include eco log huts, craft haats, souvenir shops, open amphitheatre, tribal interpretation centres, workshop centres, tourist amenities centres, viewpoints, nature trails, solar illuminations etc," the statement said.
These components will improve the existing tourist facilities, enhance the overall tourist experience and help in getting more visitors which in return will increase job opportunities in the area, it said.
"Development of tribes and tribal culture is one of the prime area of focus for the Tourism Ministry. It is carrying out an array of activities for development and promotion of tourism in the tribal region," the statement read.
Under the tribal circuit theme of the scheme, the ministry has sanctioned four projects to Nagaland, Telangana and Chhattisgarh for Rs. 381.37 crore.
So far, the Tourism Ministry has sanctioned 74 projects worth Rs. 5997.47 crore to 31 states and Union Territories under the Swadesh Darshan scheme, the statement said.
Thirty projects/major components of these projects are expected to be completed this year, it said.
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Hurricane Florence put a corridor of more than 10 million people in the crosshairs Wednesday as the monster storm closed in on the Carolinas, uncertainty over its projected path spreading worry across a widening swath of the Southeast.
Faced with new forecasts that showed a more southerly threat, Georgia's governor joined his counterparts in Virginia and North and South Carolina in declaring a state of emergency, and some residents who had thought they were safely out of range boarded up their homes.
The National Hurricane Center's best guess was that Florence would blow ashore as early as Friday afternoon around the North Carolina-South Carolina line, then push its rainy way westward with a potential for catastrophic inland flooding. Florence's nighttime winds were down to 175 kph from a high of 225 kph, and the Category 3 storm fell to a Category 2, with a further slow weakening expected as the storm nears the coast. But authorities warned it will still be an extremely dangerous hurricane.
"Do you want to get hit with a train or do you want to get hit with a cement truck?" said Jeff Byard, an administrator with the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Tropical storm-force winds extended 315 kilometers from Florence's center, and hurricane-force winds reached out 110 kilometers.
The National Weather Service said 5.25 million people live in areas under hurricane warnings or watches, and 4.9 million live in places covered by tropical storm warnings or watches.
At the White House, President Donald Trump both touted the government's readiness and urged people to get out of the way of Florence.
"Don't play games with it. It's a big one," he said.
As of Tuesday, more than 1.7 million people in the Carolinas and Virginia were warned to clear out. Airlines had cancelled nearly 1,000 flights and counting. Home Depot and Lowe's activated emergency response centers to get generators, trash bags and bottled water to stores before and after the storm. The two hardware chains said they sent in a total of around 1,100 trucks.
Duke Energy, the nation's No. 2 power company, said Florence could knock out electricity to three-quarters of its 4 million customers in the Carolinas, and outages could last for weeks. Workers are being brought in from the Midwest and Florida to help in the storm's aftermath, it said. Boarding up his home in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, Chris Pennington watched the forecasts and tried to decide when to leave.
"In 12 or 18 hours, they may be saying different things all over again," he said.
Computer models of exactly what the storm might do varied, adding to the uncertainty. In contrast to the hurricane center's official projection, a highly regarded European model had the storm turning southward off the North Carolina coast and coming ashore near the Georgia-South Carolina line.
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The Thursday directed all states to frame rules to allow selling of uninsured involved in accidents to pay compensation to the victims.
The prevalent rules do not allow selling of the uninsured making it difficult to pay the compensation for the victims.
The top court directed that the rules should be framed within 12 weeks by all the states in accordance with those currently in force in
If the rules currently existing in are enforced across the country, then it would make driving of uninsured vehicle difficult as owners would run the risk of seizure of vehicle in case of and being sold to pay the compensation for the victim.
Seven states -- Jammu and Kashmir, Chattisgarh, Bihar, Punjab, Jharkhand, Puducherry and Lakshdeep -- told the apex court that they have initiated the process of incorporating such rules.
said it has a similar rule, while has raised certain objections to the rules for compensation. informed that it already has such rules in place.
A bench of and Justice D Y Chandrachud said that the magistrate having jurisdiction over the area in which takes place will not release the uninsured vehicle to the owner, and instead auction it and deposit the money with the Motor Vehicle Claims Tribunal (MACT) within 15 days.
It said that the amount realised after sale of vehicle shall be released by MACT to the victim while awarding the compensation.
During the hearing, advocate Radhika Gautam appearing for the petitioner Usha Devi -- who had challenged the order of the and High Court refusing to implead as party in an claim case -- said that 10 states have filed their response.
She said that nine states have framed the rules but rest of the states have not filed their responses.
The bench said that all states should comply with the earlier direction and incorporate rules like the one currently in force in Delhi, within 12 weeks.
Section 6 of the Delhi Motor Accidents Claim Tribunal Rules, 2008 deals with prohibition against release of motor vehicle involved in accident.
Section 6 (1) says that no court shall release an uninsured vehicle involved in an accident resulting in death or bodily injury or damage to property unless and until the registered owner furnishes sufficient security to the satisfaction of the court to pay compensation that may be awarded in a claim case arising out of such accident.
Section 6 (2) says that when the motor vehicle is not insured against third party risks, it shall be sold off in public auction by the magistrate having jurisdiction over the area where accident occurred on expiry of three months of the vehicle being taken in possession by the police officer, and proceeds shall be deposited with the Claims Tribunal, within fifteen days for purpose of the compensation to be paid in a claim case arising out of such accident.
Gautam said states have obligation to see that no uninsured motor vehicle is driven on road by virtue of the provisions of Section 196 of the Motor Act and they ought to pay the amount and recover it from the owner.
She referred to an eight-year-old verdict of the apex court in which various aspects including compensation were dealt with. She suggested that a comprehensive and unified statute was needed to deal with the accidents so that the families of the helpless victims do not suffer on account of the fact that the vehicle is not insured.
Referring to the 2010 verdict, she said the top court had stated that where there is no cover for a vehicle, the owner should be directed to pay security or deposit an amount, payable as compensation to the victim, as a condition precedent for release of the seized vehicle.
Attorney General K K Venugopal, appearing for Centre had earlier said that in the absence of any law, the State cannot be held liable under the Motor Vehicle Act.
He had said that there can be no doubt that the State cannot be held liable because of non-compliance by the owner of vehicle, who has failed to insure the vehicle and he is liable to face a criminal action.
Venugopal had said that the 2010 verdict of the apex court is a some kind of solace to the victims but for the said purpose, proper rules are required to be framed.
The apex court had on March 26, said that in 2010 though directions were issued to all state governments to incorporate such a rule but it appears that no steps have been taken so far.
The court had then directed the copy of the order to be sent to Chief Secretaries, Director Generals of Police of all he states and Registrar Generals of all the High Courts to see that such a rule is introduced if already not done, so that the victims of an accident get some compensation.
Petitioner Usha Devi, a resident of Barnala in has challenged the high court order by which it had refused to implead state as party for payment of compensation and later recovering by selling the vehicle.
Devi's husband while travelling on January 21, 2015 had died in a road accident at Barnala district with an uninsured vehicle and she was grievously injured.
The ten-day long Ganesh festival kicked off with zeal and fervour across Maharashtra Thursday.
The festival began with devotees, mostly attired in traditional clothes, bringing colourfully-crafted idols of the elephant-headed God in their homes and pandals and installing them amid chants of 'Ganapati bappa moraya', beating of drums and and sprinkling of 'gulal' (red coloured powder).
Several beautifully decked up pandals have been erected in all major cities and towns in the state, including Mumbai, Pune, Nashik and Nagpur, where huge idols of Lord Ganesha have been placed on raised platforms for people to worship.
These makeshift tents also serve as a venue for promoting social causes such as free medical checkup, blood donation camps, charity for poor during the festival days.
Maharashtra Governor C Vidyasagar Rao and Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis extended greetings to the people of the state on the festive occasion.
Ganesh Chaturthi, also known as Vinayak Chaturthi, is celebrated across the country as birthday of Lord Ganesha which comes to an end after 10 days when people come out in large numbers for immersing the idols in the sea or in different water bodies.
The festival sees devotees offering to the deity various sweets as prasad, of which 'modak' (sweet rice flour dumplings filled with coconut and jaggery) is an integral part.
According to the Hindu mythology, modak is believed to be Lord Ganesha's favourite sweet. As per the rituals, 21 modaks are offered to the God and eventually served to devotees.
In view of the festival, police across the state have beefed up security.
In the state capital, at least 15,000 security personnel will keep a vigil during the festival.
Along with the personnel of local police stations, the Local Armed Police, State Reserve Police Force (SRPF), Riot Control Police, Quick Response Team (QRT), Bomb Detection and Disposal Squad (BDDS) and the Civil Defence force will be deployed across the city, Mumbai police spokesperson, DCP, Manjunath Shingte, told reporters Wednesday.
Altogether 500 CCTV cameras have been installed at various locations in the metropolis for security, he said.
The festival will conclude on September 23.
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A German teenager has been arrested on suspicion he was planning an Islamic extremist bombing attack in the Frankfurt area, prosecutors said Thursday.
Frankfurt prosecutors' spokesman Sinan Akdogan told The Associated Press the 17-year-old was arrested by Hesse state police September 1 and ordered held by a judge on suspicion of preparing a serious act of violence.
The information leading to the arrest, provided by the United States, indicated the suspect was planning to attack a gay nightclub in Frankfurt and a Catholic church in the city, according to an official with access to intelligence information, who discussed it on condition of anonymity.
Akdogan would not comment on the target or the source of the information, citing the ongoing investigation, but said state police had been acting on information received through Germany's domestic intelligence agency.
At the time of his arrest, the suspect had instructions on how to make explosives known as TATP and was trying to procure chemicals online, Akdogan said.
It was not clear how advanced the preparations were but Akdogan said small amounts of chemicals were found during a search of the suspect's home in Florstadt, northeast of Frankfurt.
The suspect's name was withheld for privacy reasons and Akdogan said he could not give further details on the planned attack.
Germany has previously had success with American intelligence information helping thwart plots, most notably in 2007 in stopping a plan to bomb the US Air Force's Ramstein Air Base in southern Germany.
In that case, following a tip from the US, German officials put under surveillance four members of the radical Islamic Jihad Union and covertly replaced the hydrogen peroxide they had collected to use for their bombs with a diluted substitute that could not have been used to produce an explosive.
That allowed them to build a case over time and four men were eventually arrested and convicted of terrorism-related charges.
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A man went on a shooting rampage California on Wednesday, killing five people including his wife, before taking his own life, a police spokesman told AFP.
"We have six deceased, one is the suspect and five are victims," said Lieutenant Mark King of the Kern County sheriff's office after the shooting in the city of Bakersfield. "We believe it's possibly a domestic violence incident." Police received their first call at 5:19 pm before responding to the first location, a trucking company.
"When the deputies responded they located three victims of the shooting and the suspect had fled," said King, adding that the man is believed to have shot two more victims at another location.
"At 5:54 pm the vehicle was located at a local business. The suspect noticed the deputy pulled into the business, and then shot himself," said King.
"Our detectives have five separate scenes. We are interviewing over 30 witnesses," continued King, adding that the man had used a large caliber handgun.
It was the latest chapter of America's epidemic of gun violence.
Americans make up only four percent of the global population but they own 40 percent of the world's firearms, according to a recent study published by the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva.
Of the 857 million guns owned by civilians, 393 million are in the United States -- more than all of the firearms held by ordinary citizens in the other top 25 countries combined, according to the Small Arms Survey.
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A handbook on the rights of transgender and gender non-conforming people was launched here Thursday.
The Centre for Health, Law, Ethics and Technology (CHLET) of the Jindal Global Law School (JGLS) launched the handbook "Rights of Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming People in India" in the presence of representatives of the community.
Speaking on the occasion, founding Vice-Chancellor of the O P Jindal Global University and Dean of the Jindal Global Law School, Professor C Raj Kumar said "academicians must come out of their comfort zone" and work with transgender communities.
"There are very few educational spaces that provide opportunities to move beyond the classroom and engage with social movements that have the potential for fundamental social transformation," he said.
He said the academic world does not give opportunities for such engagement but "we want such work to be taken forward for core research, community activism and advocacy".
The handbook narrates the 2014 Supreme Court decision in the case of National Legal Services Authority (NALSA) vs Union of India that had granted legal recognition to the rights of transgender and gender non-conforming people in India, a release said.
The handbook is divided into four chapters -- constitutional law, criminal law, getting government identification, and the Right to Information. It will be available online in seven regional languages, it added.
Policy analyst of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Zainab Patel, also spoke on the occasion and applauded the handbook.
Transgender activists, present at the event, welcomed the move saying "no empowerment is complete without legal empowerment".
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An Hizbul Mujahideen terrorist who was planning an attack on Ganesh Chaturthi was arrested in Kanpur on Thursday, police said.
The arrest was made by the state's Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS).
"The terrorist has been identified as Qamar-uz-Zama (37), a resident of Assam, and is an active member of Hizbul Mujahideen," Director General of Police
OP Singh said.
He was arrested in Kanpur's Chakeri area, Singh said at a hurriedly convened press conference here.
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Humans arrived on the tropical island of Madagascar more than 6,000 years earlier than previously thought, according to a study.
Scientists led by Zoological Society of London (ZSL) in the UK analysed bones from what was once the world's largest bird.
The study, published in the journal Science Advances, found that ancient bones from the extinct Madagascan elephant birds (Aepyornis and Mullerornis) show cut marks and depression fractures consistent with hunting and butchery by prehistoric humans.
Using radiocarbon dating techniques, the team was able to determine when these giant birds had been killed, reassessing when humans first reached Madagascar.
Previous research on lemur bones and archaeological artifacts suggested that humans first arrived in Madagascar 2,400-4,000 years ago, researchers said.
However, the new study provides evidence of human presence on Madagascar as far back as 10,500 years ago -- making these modified elephant bird bones the earliest known evidence of humans on the island.
"We already know that Madagascar's megafauna -- elephant birds, hippos, giant tortoises and giant lemurs -- became extinct less than 1,000 years ago," said James Hansford from ZSL's Institute of Zoology.
There are a number of theories about why this occurred, but the extent of human involvement has not been clear.
The research provides evidence of human activity in Madagascar more than 6,000 years earlier than previously suspected, researchers said.
This demonstrates that a radically different extinction theory is required to understand the huge biodiversity loss that has occurred on the island, they said.
"Humans seem to have coexisted with elephant birds and other now-extinct species for over 9,000 years, apparently with limited negative impact on biodiversity for most of this period, which offers new insights for conservation today," Hansford added.
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The Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta (IIM-C) has been roped in to boost the start-up environment in Assam where the state government has recently launched a start-up policy, officials said.
The state industry department signed a MoU with IIM-Calcutta here on Thursday, they said.
A discussion on the start-up policy and the role of educational institutions was held under the aegis of the industries and commerce department, aiming to strengthen the start-up environment in Assam.
Addressing the meeting, Ravi Capoor, additional chief secretary to the industries and commerce department, said that the Assam government has recently launched the start-up policy and will soon inaugurate the start-up incubation centre at 'Assam Hub' here.
"Assam Hub will provide office space, support services and other amenities for start-ups," said Ravi Capoor.
The department aims to tie-up with educational institutions to form a pool, which will become a reference point for the upcoming start-ups, he said adding the institutions will also scrutinize the proposals as per the parameters laid by Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP), and give feedback to it.
The government will provide a grant up to Rs 50 lakh per start-up, which will include Rs 5 lakh for idea to proof of concept, and the rest of the grant will be utilized towards purchase of raw materials, marketing and cost of commercialization of products and services of start-ups, Capoor said.
He also said that the industries and commerce department will soon launch a 'Start-up Yatra' a campaign in colleges across various districts to create a start-up ecosystem in the state and generate entrepreneurial mindset among the students.
"The start-ups of Assam should be inclusive where the youths can leverage the strengths of the state and provide solutions within society," added Capoor.
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India is a vibrant democracy which has constitutionally enshrined rights for minorities for freedom of religion, a senior Trump Administration official said Wednesday.
The United States has conversations about human rights with all countries including India, Alice Wells, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia, told Washington audience.
"India is a vibrant democracy which has constitutionally enshrined rights for minorities, for freedom of religion," she said.
In response to a question if human rights issue came up during the recently held 2+2 Dialogue between India and the US on September 6 in New Delhi, she said, "We respect democracies. We respect democracies because we believed democracies are self correcting because there are institutions at play."
"I think the spirit of the dialogue takes place within that framework of respect for one another and the fact that we stand for and have fought for and have been trained in institutions, these principles, and recognizing that we too are not immune from criticism, Wells said.
Asking the question, Alan Kronstadt from Congressional Research Service pointed to the increasing concern at the Hill about the religious freedom in India.
"I wanted to ask specifically about human rights. As you know, your own department puts out reports that discuss extensive human rights violations. Some of them seem to be perpetrated by the State in India, he alleged.
And one item that's attracted a lot of attention on the Hill recently is the religious freedom issue under this BJP led government," he said.
In lead up to the 2+2 Dialogue, some members of Congress wrote a letter to the Secretary of State Mike Pompeo asking him to bring up some of these issues with his interlocutors and counterparts.
Can you say if that took place during the two plus two. And how much you respond to folks who are concerned that human rights issues have fallen away when it comes to US India engagement, Kronstadt said.
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Indian pilgrims, stranded at Dana Village in Nepal's mountainous Myagdi district while returning after offering prayers at the iconic Muktinath temple, were evacuated safely Thursday, an Indian Embassy official said.
The 72 pilgrims comprising children and many elderly people over 70 years of age were stranded at Dana Village due to flash floods, incessant rains and landslides, the official said.
Most of the pilgrims were from Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Maharashtra. Some overseas Indians were also among them.
"In the morning, 18 sorties were conducted to evacuate them by identifying a helipad near the point of stranding," the official told PTI.
The pilgrims were given initial medical attention upon their arrival in Pokhara. Later, they left for Kathmandu for their return journey back home.
Muktinath Temple is regarded as sacred place for both Hindus and Buddhists located in Muktinath Valley. The temple at an altitude of 3,710 metres at the foot of the Thorong La pass in mountainous Mustang district.
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The torch of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics will be lit on March 12, 2020, with the Olympic flame arriving in Japan on March 20, the Tokyo organizing committee said Wednesday.
Following the lighting ceremony at the ruins of the Temple of Hera in Olympia, the torch will travel across Greece for eight days. On March 19, a ceremony to hand it over to Japan will take place at the Panathenaic Stadium in Athens.
The schedule was agreed on among the Tokyo organizing committee, the International Olympic Committee and the Hellenic Olympic Committee.
As a key theme of the Tokyo Games is to support reconstruction following the massive earthquake and tsunami in Japan on March 11, 2011, the Olympic flame will arrive at the Air Self-Defense Force's Matsushima base in Miyagi Prefecture, one of the three hardest-hit northeastern prefectures.
Before a nationwide torch relay starts in Fukushima, another of the three, on March 26, the Olympic flame will be exhibited in the three prefectures, also including Iwate, for two days each.
Oil PSUs are scouting for discovered oil and gas fields in Russia as India looks to bolster energy ties with the resource-rich nation, Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said Thursday.
Indian PSUs have already invested USD 15 billion in picking up stakes in Russian oil and gas projects like Sakhalin-1, he said at a conference on 'India-Russia in 21st Century'.
"Our oil and gas PSUs are continuing to explore their participation in more oil and gas projects in Russia. We are working with Russian oil and gas companies for acquisition of quality producing blocks," he said.
ONGC Videsh Ltd in 2001 bought a 20 per cent stake in the Sakhalin-1 project in Far East Russia. It further bought Imperial Energy a few years later and has recently invested in Vankorneft and TasYuryah along with Indian Oil Corp (IOC), Oil India Ltd and Bharat PetroResources Ltd (BPRL).
In return, Russian firm Rosneft has bought a majority stake in Essar Oil for USD 12.9 billion.
"Today, Russia is our largest investment destination in the oil and gas sector. I believe that our time-tested relationship has no expiry date. Russia will always be a priority in India's foreign and energy policy and both our countries will remain as a role model for global communities," he said.
Also, gas utility GAIL has contracted 2.5 million tonnes per annum of LNG from Russia's Gazprom for 20 years, he said. "India has embarked on the path of becoming a gas-based economy. Russian supplies will help us in meeting the objectives of price stability and energy security," he said.
Stating that Soviet oil and gas experts had helped ONGC strike Bombay High in the Arabian Sea in the 1960s, he said Soviet technology had also helped in the refining sector in 1960s and 1970s.
India and Russia have deeply strengthened their hydrocarbon engagement and have built an 'Energy Bridge' between the two nations, he said. "I see huge opportunities for cooperation in various verticals of oil and gas sector."
"Our energy relations were never as strong as they have become in the last couple of years. Our engagement in the hydrocarbon sector, including some major investments, has become one of the key pillars of our bilateral relations," he said.
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
In a major shot in the arm for paramilitary and police forces, scientists at a central research institute claim to have developed India's first indigenous medical kit that may ensure protection from serious injuries and faster healing of wounds resulting from nuclear warfare or radioactive leakage.
The kit, developed after two decades of work by the Institute of Nuclear Medicine and Allied Sciences (INMAS) here, has over 25 items, including radio-protectors that provide 80-90 per cent protection against radiation and nerve gas agents, bandages that absorb radiation as well as tablets and ointments.
Developed in India for the first time, it's a potent alternative to similar kits that were till now being procured from strategically advanced nations such as the US and Russia at much higher prices, INMAS Director A K Singh told PTI.
The contents include an advanced form of Prussian blue tablets, highly effective in incorporating Radio Cesium (Cs-137) and Radio Thallium, among the most feared radioisotopes in nuclear bombs that destroy human body cells.
The tablet provides 100 per cent absorption from the gut and other portals of entry to the human body, according to documents inside the medical kit accessed by PTI.
According to INMAS, the kit has been developed for the armed, paramilitary and police forces only as they are the first ones likely to get exposed to radiation -- be it during nuclear, chemical and biomedical (NCB) warfare or a rescue operation after a nuclear accident.
The kit also has an Ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) injection that traps uranium in the guts and blood of victims during a nuclear accident or warfare.
The kit also has Ca-EDTA Respiratory Fluid, which is the inhalation formula for chelation, or grabbing, of heavy metals and radioactive elements deposited in lungs through inhalation at nuclear accident sites.
When EDTA is injected into the veins, it "grabs" heavy metals and minerals and removes them from the body.
The medicine reduces the body burden of radioactivity by 30-40 per cent in controlled conditions and is highly useful for the rescue teams and victims after a nuclear accident.
According to INMAS, different paramilitary forces are processing Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) with the Institute for seamless procurement of the product.
In some ways, medical and health issues faced by the military and the paramilitary are quite different to that of the general public. The three areas of particular concern to the defence sector are high altitudes, war injuries and NBC warfare," Singh told PTI.
Stating that the pharmaceutical industry is a mere spectator due to the limited commercial scope in such products, Singh said, Government sponsored research is the only way forward in this area with practically no import potential."
"INMAS, the medical face of DRDO (Defence Research and Development Organisation) doubles up for the paramilitary also because there is no medical research in Bureau of Police R&D, he added.
He said the drugs in the medical kit are Made in India', without any foreign counterpart and come with the tag of cost-effective and industrial networking.
Aseem Bhatnagar, additional director at INMAS, noted that the kit has Radioactive Blood Mopping Dressing -- a special kind of bandage that absorbs radiation.
During radioactive accidents, he explained, thousands of patients may be rushed to hospitals. In several cases, if not most, they will also have traumatic, orthopaedic, surgical injuries or burns.
The blood of such patients will have radioactive elements and will require wound dressing with significantly higher absorption capacity so that nothing leaks and infects others.
Such highly absorptive dressings and gauze also make it safer for the medical staff to handle radioactive patients as the chance of their own contamination is reduced, Bhatnagar told PTI.
The kit also has a radioactive urine/biofluid collector which is cost-effective, easy to store and can safely dispose of the urine of a person affected by radiation.
Bhatnagar explained that the collector has silk at its base, more than enough to jellify 500 millilitre of urine, which could be disposed of safely.
The kit has anti-gamma ray skin ointment that protects and heals the radiation damage on the skin.
Also part of the kit is the amifostine injection, a US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved conventional radiopharmaceutical that limits damage from gamma radiation.
However, due to a very small market, availability is a major issue.
Another medicine in the form of a tablet is Indranil 150 mg. It is being introduced as a reserve emergency drug for services, rescue workers and places where high acute exposures are expected and lives will be at stake.
Preliminary tests have shown the efficacy of the therapeutic dose and the result shows 80-85 per cent animals may survive at 100 per cent lethal gamma radiation if given as a prophylactic, said Bhatnagar.
While INSAS gets set to ramp up production of the kits for the security forces, doctors at AIIMS feel the kits can be made available to civilians at a later stage.
"Such medicines will help everyone and not just soldiers. This will also help the victims affected in terrorist attacks, Rajesh Malhotra, head of Trauma Centre at All India Institute of Medical Sciences, said, adding that the kits will benefit civilians in case of a nuclear accident.
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Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan has described the ISI as "our first line of defence" as he visited for the first time the headquarters of the powerful spy agency.
Khan, along with senior Cabinet ministers, were briefed on Wednesday in detail on the various strategic intelligence and national security matters by the senior officials of the Inter-Services Intelligence, an official statement said.
"The Prime Minister lauded contributions of the ISI towards national security especially in the ongoing counter terrorism effort. The Prime Minister said that the ISI is our first line of defence and stands out as best intelligence agency of the world," the statement issued by the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the media wing of the military said.
Khan, who was sworn-in as the 22nd Prime Minister on August 18, has already visited the General Headquarters of Pakistan Army twice first to get an in-depth briefing on the internal security and geo-strategic situation and then to attend the Defence and Martyrs Day ceremony on September 6.
Khan has been accused by his critics of being the security establishment's man.
The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party has accused him of reaching the Prime Minister House through the support of the powerful security establishment.
Khan told ISI officials that his government and the people of Pakistan firmly stood behind the armed forces and intelligence agencies and acknowledged the "unprecedented achievements" of these institutions, the statement said.
Earlier, Army chief Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa and ISI Director General Lt Gen. Naveed Mukhtar received Khan on his arrival.
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Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal Thursday exuded confidence that his government will succeed in cleaning the Yamuna river though it will take time.
Kejriwal, who is currently on a visit to South Korea, made the assertion in reply to a tweet that questioned the failures of urban rejuvenation projects in India and stalled plans for Yamuna river front development.
Kejriwal also held previous governments responsible for not cleaning the Yamuna river and their failure in implementing the river front development projects.
"Becoz then, AAP govt wasn't there. Now, it will happen. As there have been concrete improvements in other spheres during AAP govt, we will work hard on cleaning drains and Yamuna. It will take time. Koreans did it in 27 months. But I am confident that we will succeed," he tweeted.
During his trip to South Korean capital Seoul, Kejriwal visited Cheonggyecheon stream that was transformed from a polluted water body to a popular tourist spot.
Kejriwal is accompanied by Delhi's Urban Development Minister Satyendar Jain on his first visit to a foreign country after becoming chief minister.
Cheonggyecheon is an over 8 km-long stream flowing west to east through downtown Seoul, and then meeting Jungnangcheon, which connects to the Han River and empties into the Yellow Sea.
Several decades ago, Cheonggyecheon was an eyesore and the stream was covered with concrete for roads and even public transportation system was later built over it.
The Seoul Metropolitan Government undertook a restoration of the stream in 2005 and renewed it.
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Travel marketplace ixigo Thursday announced a partnership with Treebo Hotels for sales and distribution of the latter's inventory.
This partnership will bring on board an additional list of over 400 budget hotels across 80 cities in India, a release said here.
Treebo is a player in the domestic hospitality industry and budget hotel category.
Now, ixigo users on its apps and website will be able to search, view and book a Treebo accommodation.
The ixigo-Treebo partnership will enable business travellers and train AC-class passengers to find the best accommodations, not only in metropolitans but also tier II and III cities.
"We are pleased to partner with Treebo Hotels. Going forward, this will extensively benefit ixigo users by offering hotels in a wide variety of locations, within various categories and price ranges. ixigo helps plan and manage nearly 4 million trips every month, and a significant percentage of those travellers are looking for affordable and reliable accommodation," ixigo CEO and co-founder Aloke Bajpai said.
Treebo Hotels co-founder Rahul Chaudhary said this integration of Treebo's hotel inventory on ixigo will help both the brands grow significantly by providing customers access to top quality accommodation across the country, based on their budget.
"We will be able to tap into the dominant mindshare ixigo has built among flight and train travellers, and the 20 million monthly active users on their platform," he added.
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The Jaish-e-Mohammed suffered a jolt Thursday when security forces killed two of its members, including one of its oldest militants nicknamed 'Ali', at Sopore in north Kashmir.
Located 60 kilometers from here, Sopore, the apple town of the Valley, witnessed a heavy exchange of fire early Thursday after police and other security forces cordoned off a house in the Chinkipora area.
There was credible intelligence about the presence of Jaish militants and forces were deployed. The terrorists opened indiscriminate fire, resulting in an encounter.
In the gunfight, the security personnel killed Ali alias Athar and Zia-ur-Rehman. They belonged to Pakistan, police said.
Ali, who had infiltrated into the Valley in 2014, was one of the oldest militants of the Jaish-e-Mohammed and was involved in the killing of civilians, attacks on security forces and detonating Improvised Explosive Devices in north Kashmir.
Ali was the mastermind of the IED explosion in January this year in which four policemen were killed, they said.
Thirty-seven militants of the Jaish-e-Mohammed have been killed this year. They included Mufti Waqas, the terror group's chief operation commander, and Mehmood, its north Kashmir commander.
During Thursday's gunfight, police evacuated civilians from the encounter site to safer areas before engaging the terrorists, they said.
Some arms, ammunition and incriminating material were recovered from the the encounter site, a police spokesman said.
Police also recovered fake Aadhaar cards from the killed terrorists which might have been used by the duo to conceal their identity.
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The Jharkhand High Court granted bail to Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) MLA Shashi Bhushan Samad on Thursday.
The bench of Justice Anand Sen, while hearing the bail petition filed by Samad, directed that the MLA be released only after he deposited Rs one lakh to the Kerala Flood Relief Fund.
The police had arrested the MLA after he allegedly beat up a teacher at Chakradharpur in West Singhbhum district while enforcing closure of a school during the JMM-sponsored bandh on August 5 this year.
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Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) students will vote on Friday in the students' union polls, which will test the electoral fortunes of eight candidates eyeing the top post in the politically active campus.
All arrangements have been made by the election authorities for the Jawaharlal Nehru Students' Union (JNUSU) polls, which are being closely watched in the aftermath of various controversies which rocked varsities across the country in the recent past.
The Left-backed All India Students' Association (AISA), Students Federation of India (SFI), Democratic Students Federation (DSF) and All India Students Federation (AISF) have come together to form the United-Left alliance.
The alliance has fielded N Sai Balaji of the School of International Studies as its presidential candidate.
DSF's Sarika Chaudhary will be contesting for the post of vice president, SFI's Aejaz Ahmad Rather will be contesting for the post of general secretary and ASIF's Amutha Jayadeep will be contesting for the joint secretary's position.
All three of them are from the School of Social Sciences.
The Congress-affiliated National Students' Union of India (NSUI) has fielded Vikas Yadav of the School of International Studies for the president's post. Lijy K Babu of the School of Life Sciences will be contesting for the post of vice president.
Md Mofizul Alam will be contesting for the post of secretary, while Ngurang Reena of the School of International Studies will be contesting for the post of joint secretary.
The RSS-affiliated Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) has fielded Lalit Pandey for the president's post, Geetashri Boruah for the vice-president's post, Ganesh Gurjar for the post of general secretary and Venkat Choubey for joint secretary's post.
Besides the routine campaigning, the candidates in JNU are also supposed to participate in the presidential debate and answer questions that follow.
The event, a sought after affair, was held on Wednesday night on the lines of the US Presidential debate and will be a deciding factor for the union elections.
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A direct bus service was launched between Kathmandu and Buddhist pilgrimage town of Bodh Gaya in Bihar on Thursday with a view to promoting religious tourism between India and Nepal.
Nepal's Transport Minister Raghubir Mahaseth and Indian Ambassador to Nepal Manjeev Singh Puri jointly flagged off the bus service launched in collaboration with the Bihar transport department from Swoyambhu, a famous Buddhist stupa in Kathmandu.
This is the fifth direct bus service launched between Nepal and India since the signing of the Motor Vehicles Agreement between the two countries in 2014 during the first official visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Nepal.
The first bus carried 10 passengers to Bodh Gaya via Patna. Tickets for the service can also be booked online and the bus service also has Wi-Fi facilities.
The sixth Nepal-India direct bus service will be launched between Janakpur and Patna on Sunday.
Four direct bus services between, Nepal and India have been in operation, on the KathmanduDelhi, Kathmandu-Benaras, Pokhara-Delhi and Mahendranagar-Delhi routes.
The operation of these services will not only promote tourism in the two countries but also contribute towards strengthening people-to-people relations, Mahaseth and Puri said on the occasion.
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Actor Keira Knightley believes that people do not take period dramas seriously as they tend to focus more on women characters.
The 33-year-old actor, who has featured in period films such as "Atonement", "Pride and Prejudice", "Anna Karenina" and "The Imitation Game", said she does not like "negativity" around such movies.
"There's a negativity around [period dramas] because predominantly, they're female," the actor said at the Toronto International Film Festival.
According to BBC, the "Pirates of the Caribbean" star also said she is lured back to the genre because of its strong characters.
"The strongest characters I've found have been in period roles. I also like the idea of breathing life back into what is gone. In a funny way, it's resurrecting the dead," Knightley said.
The actor is once again starring in a period drama, "Colette", based on the life of the French novelist Colette.
Knightley said she "instantly felt connected" to the author's story and that is why she said yes to the film.
"It's the story of a woman who's finding her voice and her true self and allowing herself to live courageously. I stood very tall when I played Colette. She was a maverick," the actor said.
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Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has visited Seoul's Cheonggyecheon stream that has been transformed from a polluted water body to a popular tourist spot, which his Aam Aadmi Party said can be an example for reviving the Yamuna River.
Kejriwal, accompanied by Urban Development Minister Satyendar Jain is currently visiting South Korea, his first bilateral visit to a foreign country after becoming chief minister.
Kejriwal also attended a leg of the ongoing India Festival in South Korea 'Sarang 2018' at Yonsei University, and praised the Indian Embassy in Seoul for showcasing India's heritage to Koreans.
"I am extremely pleased to participate in this festival and happy that the embassy has taken initiatives to showcase India's culture to Korea... And, this music fest is being launched today. I am very pleased, and I am here to attend a conference, to sign an agreement between Seoul city and Delhi city," he said in his address.
Cheonggyecheon is an over 8 km-long stream flowing west to east through downtown Seoul, and then meeting Jungnangcheon, which connects to the Han River and empties into the Yellow Sea.
Several decades ago, Cheonggyecheon was an eyesore and the stream was covered with concrete for roads and even public transportation system was later built over it.
The Seoul Metropolitan Government undertook a restoration of the stream in 2005 and renewed it.
The Cheonggyecheon restoration project had the purpose of preserving the unique identity of the natural environment and the historic resources in the central business district of Seoul, and to reinforce the surrounding business area with information technology, international affairs and digital industries.
Kejriwal's Aam Aadmi Party also posted pictures of his Wednesday's visit on Twitter.
"Delhi CM @ArvindKejriwal & Urban Development Minister @SatyendarJain visit the Cheonggyecheon stream in downtown Seoul. Cheonggyecheon stream was a dirty polluted stream stretched around 11 km, said to be urban regeneration marvel as it is now a tourist hotspot," AAP tweeted.
"CM @ArvindKejriwal is in Seoul for Twin City Agreement b/w Delhi & Seoul on Pollution, Water, Public Transport, Education & Urban Devp. If Cheonggyecheon stream in downtown Seoul can be regenerated to a tourist hotspot, why can't river Yamuna & drains in Delhi be revived ?" the party said.
A Carnatic music concert was also held at the Yonsei University on its 100th anniversary on Wednesday.
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The Kerala High Court Thursday
expressed satisfaction over the police investigation in the case of alleged rape of a nun by a Roman Catholic bishop.
A division bench comprising Chief Justice Hrishikesh Roy and A K Jayasankaran Nambiar was considering three separate petitions alleging that the police investigation in the case against Jalandhar diocese Bishop Franco Mulakkal was "ineffective".
One petitioner has sought a CBI probe into the case.
Asking the petitioners to have some patience as shown by the nun in the case, the bench said the petitions would be considered after interrogation of the bishop by the Investigation Team on September 19.
It then posted the case for September 24.
On September 10, the court had sought to know the steps taken by the state government to ensure the safety and security of the nun.
During the hearing Thursday, the bench observed that if a hasty investigation was conducted, the accused would be allowed to go scot-free.
Noting that the issue should not be precipitated, it pointed out that there was nothing alarming in the investigation by the state police.
The alleged incident took place some years back and it was quite natural that the probe was taking time, it said.
Earlier, Director General of Prosecution handed over the report of investigation to the court in a sealed cover.
The police informed the high court that sufficient protection would be provided to the nun.
The arrest of the bishop can be made only after his interrogation, they said.
The police further submitted that there were contradictions in the statements of the victim, witnesses and the bishop, and therefore, the priest needed to interrogated further.
The Kerala Police had Wednesday summoned the bishop to appear before it on September 19 in connection with the probe amid mounting pressure for action against him and continuing protests.
Inspector General of police Vijay Sakhare, who reviewed the investigation into the case, had said the delay in completing the investigation was due to "contradictions" in the statements given by the victim, witnesses and the accused.
The Kerala government has made it clear that it stood with the protesting nuns and there was no need for them to be anxious, reiterating that the investigation was going on in the "right direction".
The nun had accused the clergyman of sexually assaulting her repeatedly between 2014 and 2016.
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The Kerala government Thursday sought Rs 4,700 crore as compensation from the central government for the damage caused by the recent floods, termed as the worst in a century, officials said.
At least 488 people have died in Kerala due to the rains and floods this monsoon, which hit 14 districts of the state.
The Kerala government has sent a memorandum to the Home Ministry giving details about the loss of human life, properties, infrastructure and crops and sought about Rs 4,700 crore as compensation, a senior government official said.
In case of any natural calamity beyond the coping capacity of a state, the state government submits a detailed memorandum indicating sector-wise details of damage and requirement of funds for relief operations of immediate nature.
Accordingly, the Kerala government sent the memorandum, the official said.
As per the existing guidelines, the central government will soon send an Inter-Ministerial Central Team (IMCT) for on-the-spot assessment of damage and additional requirement of funds.
The IMCT report will be considered by the Sub-Committee of National Executive Committee (SC-NEC) headed by the Union home secretary in conformity with the norms and then by a high-level committee, chaired by the home minister for approving the quantum of additional assistance from the NDRF.
The financial mechanism to meet the rescue and relief expenditure during any notified disaster event is governed by guidelines on State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF) and National Disaster Response Fund (NDRF), another official said.
State Disaster Response Fund has been constituted in each state in which the Centre contributes 75 per cent for general category states and 90 per cent for special category states of hilly regions every year according to the award of the successive Finance Commissions.
According to the guidelines, the Centre provides its allocation to SDRF of each state in advance in two installments. In case of any natural calamity, the state meets the expenditure of relief and rescue from the State Disaster Response Fund already available at its disposal.
On August 21, the central government had released Rs 600 crore to flood-hit Kerala as promised by Prime Minister Narendra Modi (Rs 500 crore) and Home Minister Rajnath Singh (Rs 100 crore) during their visits to the state.
This was in addition to Rs 562.45 crore already made available in State Disaster Relief Fund of the state.
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A hardcore naxal, carrying a reward of Rs 8 lakh on his head, Thursday surrendered in Chhattisgarhs Sukma district, police said.
Vetti Rama turned himself in before senior officials at the Sukma police headquarters and also deposited an INSAS rifle, Deputy Inspector General (anti-naxal operations) Sundarraj P told PTI.
He said that Rama was involved in the incident on March 13 this year in Sukma's Kistaram area in which naxals blew up a mine protected vehicle of the CRPF, killing nine troopers.
Sundarraj said that Rama, with a reward of Rs 8 lakh on his head, had joined the proscribed Communist Party of India (Maoist) in 1995 and had taken part in several major naxal attacks.
The official said that Rama has told police that the increasing pressure of security forces in Sukma, and the state government's surrender policy, had compelled several members to quit the banned outfit.
Rama revealed that sustained operations by security forces in Chintagufa, Kistaram and Bhejji- considered as core areas of Maoists in Sukma, coupled with development works, resulted in the naxals' hold weakening in the area, the DIG said.
His interrogation has also revealed crucial details about the Maoist urban network and sympathisers, the DIG said.
Rama's is the second such surrender of a key naxal operative in the last one month.
On August 23, Pahad Singh, a senior member of the newly formed Maoist "special zonal Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh (SZMMC) committee", had laid down arms in the state's Durg district.
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Aarti Kalpekar was only one-and-a-half-month-old when her family house in Killari village in Latur district of Maharashtra collapsed when a devastating earthquake ravaged the region in the wee hours of September 30, 1993, just after the Ganesh festival.
Aarti was sleeping with her parents and was stuck in the debris of their house following the devastating temblor. Though she and her mother survived, the quake claimed her father's life.
For her mother, Sunita, who was abandoned by her in-laws following her husband's death, Aarti was the only reason to forget her trauma. With the baby in tow, she moved to her maternal house in Ambulga village in the district and tried to stitch together torn pieces of her life.
"My mother lived to ensure my well-being and my growth as a good and responsible human being. I was very good at studies and despite my aim to be an engineer, I could not get admission since the fees were not affordable. After doing MA, I completed DEd and now I work as a teacher," Aarti said.
Although she is not aware of the hardships her mother went through and the trauma faced by the people in the last 25 years, Aarti said women in rural areas are empowered after the crisis strikes them.
Her mother Sunita said she was married for less than two years when the disaster struck them in the form of the quake.
"My nails came off when I was being pulled out of the debris. The earthquake struck at around 3.45 am and I was taken out around 9.30 am. After the quake, the tremors were felt till about 11 am. I was thrown out of the house, with the family asking why I survived while my husband could not," Sunita said.
Around 52 villages in Latur-Osmanabad region were destroyed by the earthquake, which measured 6.4 on the Richter scale. Approximately 10,000 people died, while thousands of others were injured in the disaster. Killari was the epicentre of that earthquake.
Sunita said over the years, she has overcome the trauma and set up a laundry and tailoring unit with the help of loan obtained from the self help groups (SHGs).
"I earn enough to sustain myself and my daughter. I married her off to my relative and they stay close to me. I had got Rs 25,000 compensation for being a quake survivor. I put that money in fixed deposit. Now, my husband's family have cordial relations with me," she said.
Another survivor, 84-year-old Shankar Padsalgi, the then sarpanch of Killari village said, "You can't move ahead in life without defeating all the obstacles. You have no other option."
"About eight families (in the village) were completely wiped out. The crisis was unprecedented. Heavy rains affected the relief and rehabilitation work. For six months, families lived under a single tent.
"When the reconstruction of houses started, there were lots of complaints about shoddy construction. Local authorities did not bother. The then Chief Minister Sharad Pawar intervened and then those structures were pulled down and fresh construction started," he recalled.
Dr Ashok Potdar (69), current deputy sarpanch of Killari who has been practising medicine there since 1976 said, "I had read in literature about darkness being the symbol of fear, mystery or evil. I got to experience this when disaster struck around 3.45 am on September 30, 1993."
"I had just retired to bed some hours ago after attending to my patients in the hospital. As the earth around me shook, I woke up. It was so dark that I couldn't see my hand. Heard cries, but after some time when I came out, everything fell silent," he said.
"There was death and destruction around. My hospital buildng was made of bricks, hence did not suffer much damage except that there were several cracks. Even though I was fortunate to be alive, I lost 14 members of my extended family," he recalled with tears in eyes.
The rural primary health care centre at Killari was functional at that time, Potdar said adding that he came out to direct the survivors to the centre as his hospital was already full of patients.
Subhash Lohar, another resident of Killari recounted how his family suffered in the last 25 years.
He said his family owned a huge mansion with nine acres of agriculture land. The mansion, which was in the name of his parents, suffered huge damages in the quake. He and his brothers lived separately nearby with their respective families and all had come together in their parents' home for the Ganesh festival.
He said he got a two-room house after living for five years in a transit camp, while his mother and father got four room tenements each. But, ten years ago, the tenement in his mother's name was taken back by the local authorities and sealed.
"Now the house is illegally occupied by some other people. We cannot do anything. My parents passed away after a long battle to reclaim the house," he said.
Lohar said not all the survivors have got the ownership of reconstructed houses and certificates of being earthquake-affected.
However, despite battling hardships, none of the survivors have lost hope.
As Aarti puts it, "Rural people know that they have the grit and determination to succeed.
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The UNP - the main party in Sri Lanka's ruling coalition - today charged former president Mahinda Rajapaksa with "duplicity" over a contentious airport deal.
"This is their duplicity. They tell locals something and tell India something else completely," United National Party legislator Thushara Indunil Amarasena said, referring to Rajapaksa's party.
Amarasena was reacting to Rajapaksa's meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi yesterday.
"He (Rajapaksa) has said that he was not opposed to Mattala (the airport deal in southern Sri Lanka where India's airport authority is to enter a joint venture)," Amarasena said.
Rajapaksa in an interview in New Delhi had said that he was not opposed to the airport deal but was only opposed to the privatisation programme of his successor Maithripala Sirisena's government.
However, Rajapaksa's joint opposition has earlier led public agitations against the proposed deal to operate the Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport. They dubbed it a sell-out of a national asset to India.
In 2017, a public demonstration by the opposition saw Rajapaksa's son Namal, who is also currently in New Delhi with his father, being arrested when they demonstrated near the Indian consulate at Hambantota near the Mattala airport.
The Mattala airport has been dubbed "the world's emptiest international airport" due to its low number of flights despite its large size.
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Fifteen Sri Lankan police officers are currently training in India under a programme fully-funded by the Indian government, the Indian High Commission here said on Thursday.
The Sri Lankan police officers are participating in a comprehensive training programme on road safety and traffic management at the Institute of Road Traffic Education (IRTE) in Faridabad, Haryana.
The 15 officers, ranging from ranks of chief inspector of police, inspector of police, sub-inspector of police, and police sergeant, are participating in the programme.
"The government of India provided complimentary travel and accommodation, as a gesture of strengthening people-to-people contact between India and Sri Lanka," a release by the mission said.
Several other training programmes such as crime scene management and CCTV analysis, expert testimony on criminal trial, forensic science, cyber forensics, and a seminar on financial crime, have been organised by India for Sri Lanka's police personnel this year.
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A local court in Maharashtra has issued an arrest warrant against Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu and 15 others in a 2010 case related to an agitation by them over the Babli project across river Godavari.
The judicial first class magistrate of Dharmabad in Nanded district, N R Gajbhiye, issued the order, directing police to arrest all the accused and produce them in the court by September 21.
Naidu and others, then in the opposition in the united Andhra Pradesh, had been arrested and lodged in a jail in Pune in connection with the agitation staged by them near the Babli project site in Maharashtra, opposing it on ground that it would affect the people downstream.
All were released later though they did not seek bail.
The court order, dated July 5 and supposed to be executed by August 16 but corrected to September 21, was issued on a petition filed by a Maharashtra resident.
Besides Naidu, state Water Resources Minister Devineni Umamaheswara Rao and Social Welfare Minister N Anand Babu, former MLA G Kamalakar (who subsequently joined the TRS) were among the Telugu Desam Party workers booked in the case.
They have been charged with the Indian Penal Code offences, including assault or criminal force, to deter public servant from discharge of duty, voluntarily causing hurt by dangerous weapons or means, act endangering life or personal safety of others, criminal intimidation among others.
Naidu was the leader of opposition in the united Andhra Pradesh then and the case has been pending trial all these years.
Reacting to the about the court order, Naidu's son and state Information Technology Minister N Lokesh said his father and other TDP leaders would attend the court.
"He fought to protect the interests of Telangana. He even refused to seek bail when he was arrested," Lokesh said.
The chief minister is currently camping in Tirumala near Tirupati, attending the annual brahmotsavam of Lord Venkateswara temple there.
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DMK Thursday said Prime Minister Narendra Modi should explain on what transpired between Finance Minister Arun Jaitely and Vijay Mallya during their 'meeting' before the fugitive liquor baron left India or else sack him from the cabinet.
In a tweet, DMK President M K Stalin alleged that the claim by Mallya about meeting Jaitely 'proved' that the BJP was "a puppet" in the hands of corporate leaders.
"The Prime Minister should reveal what the secret discussions were, else he should dismiss him (Jaitley)", Stalin said.
Mallya, facing charges of fraud and money laundering amounting to Rs 9,000 crore, had Wednesday claimed in London that he had met the finance minister before leaving for the United Kingdom.
However, Jaitely rejected the claim, saying he never gave him any appointment after becoming a minister in 2014 but the businessman misused his privilege as an MP to accost him once in Parliament.
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A 35-year-old man, who was evading arrest for the last two years, has been held for allegedly cheating people on the pretext of giving them high returns on investing in insurance policies, police said Thursday.
Two years back, a complaint was filed by one Kishan Lal Taneja (70) that on the advice of some people, he had transferred Rs 12 lakh in bank accounts opened by them, a senior police official said.
The complainant said that he was assured returns on the amount invested in insurance policies. Based on his complaint, a case was registered and one accused, Manoj Bhatt, was arrested, the official said.
Bhatt had told police that he along with his accomplices, Deepak Sharma and Jitender Singh, used to run a call centre. They had details of insurance policy holders and used to lure people to deposit money in fake accounts, Deputy Commissioner of Police (west) Monika Bharadwaj said.
Deepak Sharma, a resident of Ballabhgarh, who was declared proclaimed offender, was arrested from Ballabhgarh on Wednesday, she said.
During interrogation, Sharma told police that he used to change his address frequently and opened many bank accounts in different names, the DCP said, adding the accused also revealed his involvement in many cases of Delhi and Haryana.
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A maximum of 1,000 people will be allowed to protest at the Jantar Mantar, 2,000 at Parliament Street and 100 at Boat Club, according to the draft guidelines prepared by the Delhi Police on the direction of the Supreme Court.
The guidelines propose a ban on carrying lathis, firearms, spears, swords and other such weapons at these protest venues as also on burning effigies or documents, cooking and littering.
According to the draft prepared by the police, only two protests a day will be allowed at Jantar Mantar and the total number of protesters will be limited to 1,000.
A maximum of 2,000 protesters will be allowed to assemble on Parliament Street, the draft states, adding that if the agitators obtain permission from the competent authority, they will be allowed to use loudspeakers between 11 am and 4 pm.
No vehicle with a public address system will be allowed at the protest site and only one protest will be permitted a day, states the draft.
A maximum of 100 people will be allowed to stage protest at Boat Club, where agitations were stopped after a farmers' rally in 1993. The police have suggested that only programmes related to social and educational awareness should be allowed at Boat Club.
According to the draft guidelines, no demonstration prompted by tragic incidents will be allowed as it generates massive emotional outbursts, resulting in huge spontaneous, leaderless and directionless crowds, with a possibility of damage to public or private institutions.
If the number of protesters crosses the maximum limit, the venue of the agitation may be the Ramlila ground, which can accommodate up to 50,000 people.
The guidelines have to be submitted to the Supreme Court within this month.
However, a meeting was held on Wednesday to finalise the recommendations, a senior official said, adding that the deliberations were still going on.
On July 23, the Supreme Court had lifted a blanket ban on rallies, dharnas and sit-ins at Jantar Mantar and Boat Club.
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A suspected militant and an over-ground worker (OGW) have been detained in Ganderbal district of Jammu and Kashmir, police said Thursday.
"A terrorist and a main handler were detained today with the help of community," a police spokesman said.
"An active terrorist alias Talha Umair alias Abu Hamza, affiliated with a proscribed terror outfit from Sehpora village in Ganderbal, who had joined the militancy earlier this year, has been detained with persistent efforts of District Police Ganderbal and his family," he said.
While the spokesman did not identify the militant with his real name or disclose which outfit he belonged to, police sources said he was affiliated to the Zakir Musa-led Ansar-Gazwat-ul-Hind (AGUH) an affiliate of al-Qaeda in the Valley.
"The main handler namely Ishfaq Ahmad Dar, also a resident of Sehpora, who has been instrumental in persuading him to join terrorist ranks, has also been detained by the police for questioning," the spokesman said.
He said few more arrests were expected in the coming days.
The spokesman said the detained militant was involved in a weapon snatching case near the Kashmir University at Hazratbal here earlier this year.
Investigation pertaining to the said case is also in progress, he said.
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Syed Haider Raza's 1957 painting "Village en Provence" offering a magnificent six-foot-long panoramic view of the south of France, will go under the hammer at Saffronart's annual Evening Sale on September 20.
The auction will feature 69 works of historical significance by India's foremost modernists including Raza, Akbar Padamsee, V S Gaitonde and Tyeb Mehta.
"Village en Provence", estimated at Rs 2.75 3.75 crores, was painted a year after Raza won the prestigious Prix de la Critique award and a decade after the Progressive Artists' Group was formed.
This work is a unique and rare format for the artist and demonstrates the significant shift in his style, which led him to redefine the course of Indian Modernism, becoming one of the most influential artists of the post-Independence era.
From the same decade is Akbar Padamsee's Untitled (Head of a Woman) work, estimated at Rs 1 1.5 crores.
Painted in 1952, the same year he won the third prize in the Journal D'Arte competition for a similar work, it is an example of Padamsee's early explorations with the figure.
"These works offer collectors a chance to acquire not just a painting, but really a piece of Indian art history. With a strong Indian art market and rising interest from younger collectors, we look forward to offering some of the best of Indian art in New Delhi," Dinesh Vazirani, CEO, Saffronart, said.
Leading the sale will be a 1975 Untitled work by V S Gaitonde. Estimated at Rs 15 20 crores, the work in deep crimson merges Gaitonde's interest in Zen Buddhism with the principles of calligraphy.
"One of the few works he painted that year, it is a classic example of his later work, which is a period highly coveted among collectors," the auction house said.
Tyeb Mehta's seated female figure, painted in 1961 during his stay in England, will also be part of the auction.
A significant early painting in the artist's career, it is estimated at Rs 3.75 4.75 crores
Saffronart's collection of rare masterpieces will also feature an early oil and tempera work by Nicholas Roerich, painted in the early 20th century.
Created as part of a stage design for the Russian opera Snegurochka (The Snow Maiden), it represents Roerich's early success as an auteur of theatre design in Russia and Europe.
The Snow Maiden is estimated at Rs 2.2 2.8 crores.
The auction, to be held at The Oberoi here, will be preceded by viewings at Saffronart in Mumbai and New Delhi.
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The wind is blowing in the BJP's favour and opposition parties are clutching at each to withstand its force, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Thursday while exhorting party workers to follow the mantra of 'Mera Booth Sabse Mazboot' to ensure victory in the next general elections.
Addressing party workers of five Lok Sabha constituencies via the NaMo app, Modi said the BJP's biggest strength is its workers. Their hard work has ensured the party's historic success and progress in a short span of four years, he added.
He attributed the party's success to its workers and their grip over their respective polling booths.
" 'Mera Booth Sabse Mazboot' (my polling booth, the strongest)...this is the only mantra and this is our strength," he said in a video interaction.
Replying to a question on opposition parties stitching an alliance for the 2019 polls, Modi assured the party workers that the BJP will win again.
"... the wind is blowing in favour of BJP, even stronger than 2014. That's why opposition parties are clutching each other's hands to save themselves from being blown away."
The prime minister also urged party workers to continuously interact with voters of their respective constituencies and ensure that at least 20 families and youth are working with the party in every polling booth.
He was addressing workers from five constituencies -- Jaipur (Rural), Nawada, Ghaziabad, Hazaribagh, Arunachal West -- in Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand and Arunachal Pradesh.
Modi, who was nominated the BJP's prime ministerial candidate this day in 2013, said only in the BJP can an ordinary party worker can become its leader. He also asserted that someone else can also take his place tomorrow.
Lashing out at the Congress, the prime minister said it is, unlike the BJP, a one family party. He said he felt pity for dedicated workers of the opposition party.
"Many capable and committed workers of the Congress were sacrificed for interests of the family," he said.
The opposition is resorting to lies in its campaign but today people in the country are awake while opposition is not ready to come out of its slumber, the prime minister said.
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Prime Minister Narendra Modi will meet the religious head of Dawoodi Bohra community, Syedna Mufaddal Saifuddin, at a mosque here on Friday and address the community members, officials said.
The prime minister will meet Syedna Saifuddin at the Saifi Nagar mosque here, where the head of Dawoodi Bohra community is holding a nine-day religious discourse since Wednesday, they said.
Dawoodi Bohras are a sub sect within the Ismaili branch of Shia Islam. Thousands of community members have arrived here from various parts of the world to hear their religious head's sermons.
Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan, Madhya Pradesh Governor Anandiben Patel and Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan will also be present during Modi's visit.
The prime minister's visit here also assumes significance as Assembly polls are due in the BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh by year-end.
Around 2.5 lakh Dawoodi Bohras are estimated to live in the state, mainly in Indore, Ujjain and Burhanpur districts.
In view of the prime minister's visit, security has been ramped up, Indore range Deputy Inspector General of Police H C Mishra said.
Police would employ drone cameras to keep an eye over the city along with 150 CCTV cameras, he said.
About 3,500 policemen have been deployed in the city, Mishra added.
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North Korea is "willing to denuclearise" and the US is prepared to end hostile relations, President Moon Jae-in said Thursday as he struck an upbeat tone ahead of his third meeting with Kim Jong Un next week.
The summit will be the third between the leaders of North and South Korea this year and comes as talks between Washington and Pyongyang over dismantling the North's nuclear arsenal have stalled.
Moon conceded there was a "blockage" and both sides needed to compromise to make progress on the controversial subject.
"North Korea is willing to denuclearise and therefore willing to discard existing nuclear weapons... and the US is willing to end hostile relations with the North and provide security guarantees," Moon said.
"But there is a blockage as both sides are demanding each other to act first and I think they will be able to find a point of compromise."
Moon, who helped broker the June summit between Kim and US President Donald Trump and has called for a follow-up meeting between the two sides, added South Korea would help mediate contacts between Washington and Pyongyang to "speed up the denuclearisation process".
Trump and Kim Jong Un pledged to denuclearise the Korean peninsula at their historic Singapore meeting.
However, no details were agreed, and Washington and Pyongyang have sparred since over what that means and how it will be achieved. Last month, Trump abruptly cancelled a planned visit by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to Pyongyang.
The new US envoy for the North, Stephen Biegun, said in August Kim had promised "final, fully verified denuclearisation" at the Singapore summit. But Pyongyang has slammed Washington for its "gangster-like" demands for complete, verifiable and irreversible disarmament.
South Korea's Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha said Thursday that making progress on denuclearisation talks with North Korea is a "daily concern".
"Getting traction on the denuclearisation and peace process that is very much now in motion -- it's a daily concern to get movement on this," she told a regional economic forum in the Vietnamese capital Hanoi.
Speaking on the sidelines of the forum, Kang called for "openness" from the North about their weapons programme and added a second Trump-Kim summit should deliver "concrete" results.
"A second summit has to be something that really significantly moves the agenda forward," she added.
The White House said earlier this week Trump had received a "very positive" letter from Kim seeking a follow-up meeting, since adding it is in the process of coordinating a possible second meeting between the two leaders.
South Korean national security advisor Chung Eui-yong said Thursday Moon and Kim will discuss "more in-depth and detailed ways to achieve denuclearisation".
The two Koreas will be holding a closed working-level meeting on Friday to discuss the logistics of next week's summit, an official at the South's presidential office said.
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NASA said Thursday it has successfully completed the final test to qualify Orion spacecraft's parachute system for flights with astronauts, in an important milestone on the path to send humans on missions to the Moon and beyond.
Over the course of eight tests in Arizona, engineers evaluated the performance of Orion's parachute system during normal landing sequences as well as several failure scenarios, NASA said in a statement.
They also tested a variety of potential aerodynamic conditions to ensure astronauts can return safely from deep space missions.
"We're working incredibly hard not only to make sure Orion's ready to take our astronauts farther than we've been before, but to make sure they come home safely," said Orion Program Manager Mark Kirasich.
"The parachute system is complex, and evaluating the parachutes repeatedly through our test series gives us confidence that we'll be ready for any kind of landing day situation," Kirasich said.
The system has 11 parachutes, a series of cannon-like mortars, pyrotechnic bolt cutters, and more than 30 miles of Kevlar lines attaching the top of the spacecraft to the 36,000 square feet of parachute canopy material.
In about 10 minutes of descent through Earth's atmosphere, everything must deploy in precise sequence to slow Orion and its crew from about 300 miles per hour (mph) to a relatively gentle 20 mph for splashdown in the Pacific Ocean, NASA said.
The parachute system is the only system that must assemble itself mid-air and must be able to keep the crew safe in several failure scenarios, such as mortar failures that prevent a single parachute type to deploy, or conditions that cause some of the parachute textile components to fail, it said.
During the final test, which took place on September 12, a mock Orion was pulled out from the cargo bay of a C-17 aircraft flying higher than 6.5 miles.
The protective ring around the top of Orion that covers the parachute system was jettisoned and pulled away by the first set of Orion's parachutes, then the remaining parachutes were deployed in precise sequence, according to NASA.
Additionally, Orion parachute engineers have also provided considerable insight and data to NASA's Commercial Crew Program partners.
The knowledge gained through the Orion program has enabled NASA to mature computer modelling of how the system works in various scenarios and help partner companies understand certain elements of parachute systems.
Orion will first fly with astronauts aboard during Exploration Mission-2, a mission that will venture near the Moon and farther from Earth than ever before, launching atop NASA's Space Launch System rocket -- which will be the world's most powerful rocket.
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The Congress accused Thursday the Narendra Modi-led NDA government of taking no action against fugitive liquor baron Vijay Mallya, accused of Rs 9,000-crore bank fraud, despite registration of an FIR by the CBI in July 2015.
Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala asked who got the CBI "lookout notice" of October 16, 2015 changed for detaining Mallya to merely an "inform notice" on November 23, 2015.
He alleged a consortium of 17 banks led by the SBI moved the debt recovery tribunal for action against Mallya on February 28, 2016 but it was advised to move the Supreme Court. By the time court was moved he had already escaped, the Congress leader said.
"Who directed the banks to not to act and delay filing of the case in the Supreme Court, until March 5, 2016, so that Mallya can escape on March 2, 2016," he asked.
"Why did Finance Minister Arun Jaitley meet and discuss the loan default of Rs 9,000 crore with Vijay Mallya in Parliament? Is it legally, ethically and morally correct on part of Jaitley to hold such discussions with an economic offender against whom banks have filed a case," Surjewala asked.
The Congress leader said Mallya admitted to informing Jaitley that he was leaving for London but despite knowing about Mallya's intention of escaping "why did Jaitley not tell CBI/ED/SFIO/External Affairs Ministry to detain and arrest Mallya? Was he being tipped to escape?"
Surjewala also asked why the Narendra Modi-led government had permitted Mallya to receive millions of dollars in India and abroad from Diageo.
He alleged that a sum of USD 300 million was paid to him by Diageo which bought many of his companies.
"How did the Modi government permit Vijay Mallya to receive millions of dollars in India and abroad from Diageo? Is it not correct that Diageo paid a sum of USD 40 million to Mallya as part of agreement dated February 25, 2016 and USD 58 million to him in two tranches of South African Breweries," Surjewala questioned.
"Is it also not correct that Diageo paid USD 141 million to Standard Chartered Bank on a loan taken by Mallya's UB Group Company and USD 42 million on a loan taken by his United Breweries Overseas Ltd? Why couldn't the Rs 9,000 crore owed to Indian banks then be recovered," he asked.
He posed a set of six questions to the government asking why was no action taken against Mallya for the bank fraud, despite registration of an FIR by the CBI.
Refuting Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad's claim that party chief Rahul Gandhi had met Mallya, Surjewala said, "Unfortunately, an arrogant law minister spends more time in the BJP office than in the Law ministry."
"The prime minister went to London multiple times, does it mean that he was going there to support Mallya? Ravi Shankar Prasad Ji and his family have gone there multiple times. Were they being hosted by Mallya," he asked.
He claimed almost all Union ministers had gone there multiple times and asked if it meant that all of them had gone there to meet Vijay Mallya.
The Congress leader alleged, "Till date, the Modi government has not moved for the extradition of Lalit Modi. Is he not an Indian fugitive? Does it not mean that the prime minister is protecting him? For three years, neither have you sought deportation nor sought his extradition.
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With the arrest of six persons in separate incidents, the Noida police on Thursday claimed to have busted two gangs involved in chain snatchings and thefts in the city.
Four persons were arrested in Sector 58 of the city early in the morning, the police said.
They were identified as Arbaaz, Rahees, Shafeeq and Pramod -- all residents of the adjoining Ghaziabad district, Superintendent of Police (City) Arun Kumar Singh said.
Two gold chains that they had snatched recently have been recovered, he said.
Singh added that two country-made pistols and bullets were also seized from their possession, while the motorcycle used by them has been impounded.
"During the probe, it emerged that the motorcycle was also stolen and a case regarding it is registered in Delhi," he said.
The four accused are history-sheeters, with cases registered against them at different police stations in Gautam Buddh Nagar, the SP said.
In the second incident, the police arrested two men from Sector 62 late on Wednesday night.
The accused were identified as Amit and Gurfaan, both from Hapur district, Singh said.
"The two were notorious for using an autorickshaw to target victims, mostly at night. They would get people to sit in their auto and then rob them of their valuables. On September 6, they had robbed a man in Model Town area," he said.
Cases have been registered against all the six arrested persons at the Sector 58 police station under various sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Arms Act, the police said.
The accused have been remanded in judicial custody, they said.
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The Delhi High Court Thursday said there was nothing wrong with having CCTV cameras inside classrooms and rubbished the claims that children's right to privacy would be affected.
A bench of Chief Justice Rajendra Menon and Justice V K Rao said there was "no privacy issue" with regard to having closed circuit television (CCTV) cameras in classrooms as nothing private was being done there.
The concerns of privacy have to be balanced with safety of the children, it said, adding that often parents accuse teachers of not teaching and therefore, the cameras in the classrooms will show the correct picture.
The observations were made by the bench while hearing a PIL against the Delhi government's proposal to install over 1.4 lakh CCTV cameras inside classrooms of its schools.
Advocate Jai Dehadrai, appearing for petitioner Daniel George, urged the bench to issue an interim direction putting on hold the procurement of the cameras.
He argued that it was not healthy to have cameras inside classrooms where children, including girls, often discuss personal things amongst themselves.
The bench rejected the plea for interim relief, saying there was nothing private happening in classrooms and even the Supreme Court was proposing to have CCTV cameras to record court proceedings.
"Every good thing that happens has to be challenged by someone," it added.
The Delhi government, represented by additional standing counsel Sanjoy Ghose, told the bench that feed from the cameras would be password protected and accessible to parents and not any strangers.
It also said that a standard operating procedure (SOP) for using the cameras will be formulated and the petitioner can give his suggestions as well.
The submission was made as the petition has contended that installing cameras without there being any regulatory mechanism on access to its footage could lead to incidents of stalking and molestation.
The petitioner, who claims to be involved in the field of education awareness, has also sought that a feasibility test be held amongst the target population of students and teachers to understand the issues they face when it comes to surveillance.
The plea further states that even the South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) proposes to install 4,348 CCTV cameras in 344 schools run by it.
It has sought quashing of the proposals of both the Delhi government and SDMC as well as framing of guidelines for effective regulation on access to the CCTV footage.
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The group of nuns seeking action against a Bishop accused of rape by one of their fellow sisters said Thursday that they would continue their six day old protest till justice was done.
They said their agitation was not against the Church or its rules, but a cry, seeking justice for their victimised fellow nun.
The nuns said they would not have come out in the open had the Church authorities delivered justice.
Meanwhile, the Kerala High Court Thursday expressed satisfaction over the police investigation in the case.
The court stated this while considering three separate petitions, alleging that the police probe against Bishop Franco Mulakkal of the Jalandhar diocese was 'ineffective'.
It asked them to have some patience as shown by the nun and said the petitions would be considered after the Bishop was interrogated by the Special Investigation Team probing the case on September 19.
The Kerala Catholic Bishop Council (KCBC) had Wednesday slammed the nuns' protest, saying that it has "crossed all limits".
"We are not against the Church. We are not against the Church rules. We still accept the sacraments and we are not against it. We will continue our protest till we get justice," a nun told reporters in Kochi.
The KCBC had in a statement on Wednesday slammed the nuns' protest, saying that it has "crossed all limits".
It also noted that both the complainant nun and accused Bishop were members of Catholic family and the church shared their "wounds and agony".
The nun recently sought urgent intervention of the Vatican for justice and demanded the Bishop's removal as the head of the Jalandhar diocese, questioning why the church was "closing its eyes to the truth" when she mustered courage to make public her sufferings.
In a scathing letter to the Vatican that was made available to the media Tuesday, the nun also asked will the Church be able to give back what she has lost. She alleged that Bishop Franco Mulakkal was using "political and money power" to bury the case against him.
She had accused the clergyman of sexually assaulting her repeatedly between 2014 and 2016.
The Bishop had, however, dismissed the allegations as "baseless and concocted", insisting she levelled those as the Catholic order had rejected her demand for favours.
The KCBC had said the allegations levelled against the Bishop was 'serious', adding that whoever the accused may be, they should be punished if the charges were proved.
"This is the firm stand of the Church," it said.
KCBC had also alleged attempts by vested interests and a section of the media to tarnish the church and the bishop community as a whole under the cover of the protesting nuns and said this was not "acceptable".
Police should not succumb to any kind of pressure and complete the probe impartially at the earliest, Varghese Vallikkat, deputy secretary general and official spokesperson of KCBC, had said in a press release.
In Kottayam, district police chief Hari Sankar saidon Wednesday there were contradictions in the statements given by the victim, witnesses and the accused and the investigation team probing the case would reach a conclusion before accused Bishop appear before it on September 19.
The protest of various Catholic reformist organisations in Kochi, seeking justice to the victim, entered the sixth day Thursday.
Many women leaders, including eminent writer Sara Joseph and social activist K Ajitha visited the agitators,who include five fellow nuns of the victim.
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Cab hailing service Ola Thursday launched its fleet service here in which vehicles would be given on lease to driver-partners.
West Bengal Transport Minister Suvendu Adhikari said that at the Bengal Global Business Summit held in the city in January, the government had signed an MoU with Ola to create 5,000 jobs in the city. The launch of fleet services on Thursday is a step in that direction.
"The launch of Ola Fleet is a result of the MoU with 50 cars being given initially to the driver-partners. The company will invest Rs 350 crore and the number will be scaled up in future," he said.
Transport secretary B P Gopalika said that the cab aggregators, both Uber and Ola, should ensure that prices do not surge more than what had been allowed by the government.
The government has allowed a maximum surge of 45 per cent over base fare for app-cab operators in the city.
Any complaint about abnormal surge would be dealt with strongly, he said.
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Archeologists Thursday said they have discovered the earliest known human drawing in a cave in South Africa, created with an ochre crayon 73,000 years ago.
The abstract drawing is made on a silcrete stone flake displaying a red cross-hatched line pattern, according to the study published the journal Nature.
"The drawing adds a completely new dimension to our ability to understand when early humans became like us," said Christopher Henshilwood, a professor at the University of Bergen (UiB) in Norway.
"The drawing demonstrates that early Homo sapiens in southern Africa had the skills to make graphic designs in various media using different techniques at least 30,000 years earlier than first anticipated," Henshilwood said in a statement.
The drawing was excavated from Blombos Cave, when principal investigators Henshilwood and Karen van Niekerk were excavating the 73,000 year old layer in the cave.
"The discovery was obviously very exciting for all of us! You can say -- it was one of those unexpected days, which any archaeologist lives for," researchers said.
They carefully examined and photographed the piece under a microscope to establish whether the lines were already part of the stone, or if it had been applied to the stone intentionally.
The team also used sophisticated instruments to establish that the lines are ochre.
Years of inquiries led to the conclusion that the cross-hatched drawing had been made with a pointed ochre crayon with a tip around 13 millimetres in width, researchers said.
The abrupt termination of the lines at the edge of the flake also suggests that the pattern originally extended over a larger surface, and may have been more complex in its entirety.
The analysis also confirms that the lines were indeed applied to the flake, and consisted of a haematite rich powder, commonly referred to as ochre, 73,000 years ago, researchers said.
It makes the drawing on the Blombos silcrete flake the oldest drawing know drawing made by Homo sapiens, they said.
Before this discovery, archaeologists had for a long time been convinced that unambiguous symbols first appeared when Homo sapiens entered Europe, 40,000 years ago, and replaced local Neanderthals.
Recent discoveries in Africa, Europe and Asia support a much earlier emergence for the production and use of symbols, researchers said.
According to Henshilwood, the abstract drawing, found in Blombos Cave, is yet more proof that symbolic behaviour started in Africa and not in Europe as first anticipated.
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Union minister Jitendra Singh on Thursday alleged that the opposition parties in Jammu and Kashmir are looking for excuses to not participate in the upcoming panchayat and urban local body (ULB) elections in the state.
He was speaking at the foundation stone laying ceremony of a seed processing plant here. One of the three national-level projects in Kathua, the plant will benefit farmers in the district and the neighbouring states of Punjab and Himachal Pradesh when its operations start in April-May next year.
"Opposition parties are looking for excuses to escape from the proposed local body elections in the state," Singh said.
His comments come days after the National Conference (NC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) announced their decisions to boycott the polls.
The NC wants the Centre to clarify its position on Article 35A of the Constitution, which is facing legal challenge in the Supreme Court, while the PDP said that the prevailing situation in the state is not favourable for polls.
Singh said these parties, particularly the NC and the Congress, want "autonomy" for their families but not for the panchayats.
He said the decision by the Kashmir-based leadership of the NC and the PDP had left the workers of these parties in Jammu frustrated as they had nurtured the dreams of becoming corporators and councillors for years now.
The minister appealed to Jammu workers of the two parties to join the BJP without loosing any time and support the ULB elections.
The BJP shall find a suitable role for them, he said.
Singh also accused the NC and the PDP of indulging in opportunistic
He alleged that NC president Farooq Abdullah did not find anything wrong in contesting the Lok Sabha by-elections as he could secure the perks a member of parliament is entitled to.
PDP president Mehbooba Mufti did not find anything wrong in getting her brother a backdoor entry into the legislative council, he said.
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Pakistan was ready for talks with India and it was awaiting an official response from New Delhi on how to move forward on the issue, the Foreign Office said Thursday.
"We are ready for talks with India. We have also conveyed our position to the international community. It remains for India to respond," Foreign Office spokesman Dr Mohammad Faisal said here during the weekly media briefing.
Recalling the recent statement of Indian High Commissioner to Pakistan Ajay Bisaria that Prime Minister Imran Khan's government has opened a political window and India is "filled with cautious hope", Faisal said, "We want to utilise the same window and see how we can move forward."
"We are also saying since long that dialogue is the only way forward to settle all outstanding issues between Pakistan and India. We are officially waiting for a response from India on how they want to move forward. We have a consistent position on this," he said.
Talking about the recent overtures, he said Prime Minister Narendra Modi called Prime Minister Khan and Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi also received a letter from his Indian counterpart.
The ties between the two countries had strained after the terror attacks in India by Pakistan-based groups in 2016. The India-Pakistan ties nose-dived in recent years with no bilateral talks taking place.
Faisal said that there were few Track-II initiatives with India which were not official but added that he had no information about any official back channel currently being operational.
When asked about any formal response from India on the offer to open the Kartarpur Corridor for the Sikh pilgrims, he said, "I do not have any information on this."
He also said Pakistan took "strong exception to the unwarranted references" against it in the joint statement issued after Indo-US 2+2 Dialogue in India.
Faisal said that Pakistan has conveyed its position to the US on the issue.
"Pakistan rejects these baseless allegations (in the joint statement). Accordingly, we have conveyed our position to the US side," he said.
In the joint statement, India and the US called on Pakistan to ensure that the territory under its control is not used to launch terrorist attacks on other countries.
"On the eve of the 10-year anniversary of the 26/11 Mumbai attack, they called on Pakistan to bring to justice expeditiously the perpetrators of the Mumbai, Pathankot, Uri, and other cross-border terrorist attacks," the statement said.
Faisal said that the foreign ministry is of the view that mentioning of a third country with unsubstantiated accusations in a formal outcome document is inconsistent with the established diplomatic norms.
He said ironically "many other thorny issues with involving the third countries were avoided in the Joint Statement by the Indian side on the pretext of the same diplomatic practice."
Commenting on the slow pace of the 26/11 trial, Faisal said the Mumbai trial has been ongoing in the Anti-Terrorism Court in Pakistan and the judicial process shall take its course.
He also rejected media reports about any change in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). "I completely reject any insinuations against CPEC."
To a question, he said Prime Minister Khan will visit Saudi Arabia, which will probably be his first foreign trip, without giving further details.
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A Pakistani national was apprehended along the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir's Poonch district after he crossed into India, a defence spokesman said Thursday.
"The Army observed some movement in the Ranghar Nallah along the LoC and apprehended the Pakistani national in the Poonch Sector," he said.
He was identified as Umeer Yousaf (23), son of Mohd Yousaf Narwal and a resident of Hajira tehsil in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, the spokesman said.
He was roaming along the Ranghar Nala area and crossed the LoC on Wednesday night, he said.
The man has been handed over to police. TwoID cards, a packet of tobacco and Rs 50 in Pakistani currency were seized from him, the spokesman said.
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The West Bengal government has formed a committee comprising group of ministers and senior administrative officials to deal with emergencies when Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is away temporarily, an order issued by the government said.
Banerjee is likely to visit Frankfurt and Milan from September 16 to 28, the order, issued Wednesday evening, said.
The group of ministers, under the chairmanship of Education Minister Partha Chatterjee, would include Panchayat Minister Subrata Mukherjee, Urban Development Minister Firhad Hakim, Transport Minister Suvendhu Adhikary, PWD Minister Aroop Biswas besides six other ministers, the order said.
The group of officers in the committee would be headed by additional chief secretary of the irrigation, waterways and agriculture department Naveen Prakash, it said.
The officers in the committee also include Home Secretary Atri Bhattacharyaa, state security advisor Surajit Kar Purakayasta, state DG Virendra, ADG (law and order) Anuj Sharma and city police commissioner Rajeev Kumar.
The order said that during temporary absence of the chief minister, the group of ministers and the committee of officers would deal with any emergency in the state.
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Baba Ramdev's Patanjali Ayurved Thursday announced its entry into the cow milk segment by launching cow milk and milk-based dairy products, targeting sales of around Rs 1,000 crore by FY2020.
The Haridwar-based firm has also ventured into packaged drinking water, frozen vegetables, cattle feed without any urea, and solar panels in a major product offensive.
Patanjali would supply cow milk in the markets of Delhi NCR, Rajasthan, Mumbai and Pune areas of Maharashtra with a network of around 56,000 retailers, dispensing around four lakh litres milk on daily basis.
"We are aiming to have a business of Rs 1,000 crore by next fiscal. This fiscal, we would have a business of Rs 500 crore," Baba Ramdev told reporters at the launch here.
The company has a target to touch daily sales of around 10 lakh litres of cow milk by FY2019-20, he added.
"We have set up a chain of our own collection centres and chilling centres in the last two years," Ramdev added.
The company would directly procure milk from around one lakh farmers through its network and would encourage them to rear indigenous cow breeds.
Patanjali is transferring money directly in the bank accounts of farmers.
"Our milk would be cheaper than other established brands by Rs 2 at Rs 40 per litre," Ramdev added.
Besides regular milk, Patanjali would also introduce milk and herbal flavoured milk and other value-added products in tetra packs, to target the niche segment and area beyond their coverage area.
While commenting on Patanjali's entry into the cow milk segment, its rival Mother Dairy which has a large presence in the Delhi NCR, welcomed the move and said it would help farmers.
"As a category creator and frontrunner, we welcome competition, including Patanjali, as we believe their foray will further help in increasing awareness on the great values of Cow Milk and its impact on the rural economy and farmers," a Mother Dairy Fruits and Vegetables Pvt Ltd spokesperson said.
Besides, Patanjali also launched its packaged drinking water brand 'Divya Jal' in the Northern and Western market. It has also plans to introduce natural mineral water and herb-infused water.
Moreover, it has also forayed into the frozen vegetable segment and has introduced green pea, mix vegetables, sweet corn and potato finger variant.
"Our products would be around 50 per cent cheaper than our rivals," said Ramdev.
While, in the cattle feed without any urea segment, it has launched 'Patanjali Dugdhamrit' brand.
In the solar panel segment, Patanjali has started a plant producing panels worth 60 MW.
Patanjali, which has recorded multi-fold growth in recent years, had witnessed a marginal growth only last fiscal hit hard by the implementation of the GST regime.
In the 2016-17 financial year, Patanjali had clocked a turnover of Rs 10,561 crore, registering a 111 per cent growth.
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Petronet LNG, India's biggest liquefied natural gas importer, has paid a 12.5 per cent higher commission-on-profit to its chief executive Prabhat Singh and company directors in the fiscal year ended March 31, 2018.
According to the company's Annual Report for 2017-18, Singh was paid a commission of Rs 22.50 lakh over and above his remuneration. This compared with Rs 20 lakh commission he got in the 2016-17 fiscal year.
Petronet Director (Technical) Rajender Singh earned a similar commission in both the years.
The commission to Prabhat Singh took his total remuneration to Rs Rs 1.16 crore in 2017-18 as compared to Rs 1.08 crore in the previous fiscal.
Petronet, which is registered as a private limited company but is headed by the Oil Secretary, also paid its three independent directors -- A K Misra, Sushil Kumar Gupta and Jyoti Kiran Sukla, a commission ranging from Rs 3.14 lakh to Rs 8.5 lakh over and above their sitting fee.
Prabhat Singh took over as the Managing Director and CEO of Petronet LNG on September 14, 2015. That year he was paid a commission of Rs 8.21 lakh. The commission to other full-time directors including Rajender Singh and the then Director (Finance) R K Garg was Rs 15 lakh.
According to the 2017-18 annual report, the ratio of the remuneration paid to the chief executive to the median remuneration of the employees of the company was 9.4:1.
Petronet earned a net profit of Rs 2,078 crore on a turnover of Rs 30,599 crore in 2017-18 fiscal. This compared with Rs 1,706 crore net profit on a turnover of Rs 24,616 crore in the previous year.
In the annual report, Petronet said it has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Andaman and Nicobar Administration for the establishment of a small-scale floating LNG receiving, storage and regasification terminal and gas-based power plant at South Andaman.
Pre-project studies like environment impact assessment, geotechnical investigations and marine studies including navigational studies have been completed which would be used to prepare a detailed feasibility report.
Petronet has also signed an MoU with Petrobangla of Bangladesh for setting up a land-based 7.5 million tonnes a year LNG receiving, storage and regasification terminal at Kutubdia Island. It has also inked a pact with Sri Lankan authorities for developing LNG infrastructure in the island nation.
Petronet, which is 50 per cent owned by state-owned oil firms, operates two terminals for import of natural gas in its liquid form (LNG) in India - 15 million tonnes facility at Dahej in Gujarat and a 5 million tonnes a year unit at Kochi in Kerala.
Indian Oil Corp (IOC), Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd (BPCL), GAIL India Ltd and Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) each hold 12.5 per cent stake in Petronet. Its chairman, however, is the Secretary, Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas.
Petronet said it is working on the use of LNG as a transportation fuel in place of diesel and CNG.
The "company has prepared a business plan based on traffic study on Indian roads and decided to develop an LNG corridor covering 4000 kms of National highways," the annual report said, adding it has shortlisted 20 locations to develop LNG dispensing stations as a pilot project.
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Jaipur-based poet and writer Sawai Singh Shekhawat will be honoured with Meera Puruskar by Rajasthan Sahitya Academy for his contribution to Hindi literature.
President of the academy Indushekhar Tatpurush informed that Shekhawat was selected for the Meera award, which is the highest award of the academy.
He also announced other awards to be given for the year 2018-19 at a function here in October.
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The negotiations for procurement of 126 Rafale jets under the UPA government fell through as state-run HAL did not have the required capability to produce the jets in India in collaboration with French company Dassault Aviation, Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said Thursday.
Sitharaman also said that an unprecedented intervention in 2013 by then Defence Minister A K Antony when the cost negotiation committee was giving final touches to the deal put the final nail in the coffin.
After rounds of negotiations with Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL), Dassault Aviation felt that the cost of the Rafale jets will escalate significantly if they were to be produced in India, she said during an interaction with PTI editors and reporters at the agency's headquarters here.
"Dassault could not progress in the negotiations with HAL because if the aircraft were to be produced in India, a guarantee for the product to be produced was to be given. It is a big ticket item and the IAF would want the guarantee for the jets. HAL was in no position to give the guarantee," she said.
Sitharaman said the weapon systems, avionics and other key add-ons to the Rafale aircraft, expected to be delivered beginning September 2019, will be "much superior" than that negotiated by the UPA, and her government is getting the planes for 9 per cent cheaper than what was earlier agreed upon.
The previous UPA government started negotiating in 2012 with French Dassault Aviation to buy 126 Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA).
The plan was for Dassault Aviation to supply 18 Rafale jets in fly-away condition while 108 aircraft were to be manufactured in India by the company along with HAL. However the deal could not be sealed.
The Congress has demanded answers from the government on why HAL was not involved in the new deal.
Sitharaman said the UPA deal collapsed as HAL did not have the capability to produce 108 aircraft in India.
"Even during negotiation with HAL, Dassault felt that the cost with which the HAL will produce will be far higher than the aircraft produced in France. That was the reality," she said.
The defence minister said the then government could have come forward and pumped in resources into HAL, but they did not.
She said she has no intention of undermining HAL, but "why could not the then defence minister say that we will pump in all the required resources into the HAL. He could have done it. That was not done," Sitharaman said, adding that the current government was initiating steps to strengthen the state-run aerospace company.
In 2016, the Modi government signed a government-to-government deal with France for purchase of 36 Rafale jets at a cost of Rs 58,000 crore. The Congress has been alleging irregularities in the deal.
Rebutting charges of corruption in the deal, the defence minister also asserted that people of the country have put a closure on the issue as they have trust in Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
"There is a trust in the prime minister. He is not going to be corrupt. So with all this, I think mentally, people of India have reached a closure on it, saying there is no corruption here," she said.
Sitharaman ruled out calling the opposition parties for a meeting to allay their concerns over the Rafale deal, saying they are "throwing an allegation" without any basis as well as showing no concern for operational preparedness of the air force.
In a hard-hitting attack on Congress, she said the party was running short of issues and corruption was a plank on which it utterly failed.
"It is one of the cleanest governments India has ever seen. On corruption, the Congress is very frustrated. The party will have to learn from this government.
"I am saying this with a certain sense of confidence and not arrogance. The defence ministry is being run without any middleman and in a transparent way. We have proved that defence procurement can happen without middlemen," she said.
On Antony's intervention, she said he held back the file at a stage where he did not have any role to play. However, she did not elaborate on reasons for Antony's action.
The Congress has repeatedly criticised the deal for the 36 Rafale jets, alleging that the government was procuring each aircraft at a cost of over Rs 1,670 crore as against Rs 526 crore finalised by the UPA government.
Sitharaman said the Rs. 526 crore figure refers to the bare aircraft, capable of just flying and landing, and does not take into account the avionics, arsenal and other associated technologies that make it a complete fighting machine.
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India has invited Russian companies to explore business opportunities in the country and strengthen bilateral economic ties, the commerce ministry said Thursday.
Commerce and Industry Minister Suresh Prabhu recently concluded his visit to Vladivostok in Russia. He was there for the Eastern Economic Forum meeting.
"He invited the Governors of the Far East Regions to lead business delegations to India and explore partnerships with Indian businesses," the ministry said in a statement.
Prabhu held discussions on enhancing bilateral trade and investment between the countries with Denis Manturov, Russian Minister of Industry and Trade and Aysen Nikolayev, Governor of the Sakha Republic.
He also held bilateral meeting with Yury Trutnev, Deputy Prime Minister of Russia.
"Discussions took place on areas of cooperation between India and Russia to strengthen bilateral ties for economic growth," it added.
He interacted with the Governors, Vice-Governors and Representatives of the Russian Far East Regions of Primorye, Yakutia, Sakhalin, Amur, Magadan, Kamchatka, and Khabarovsk.
"Discussions were held on possibilities of mutual cooperation in sectors like mining, agriculture and tourism," it said.
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Issues including increasing protectionism, challenges to promote global commerce and new industrial revolution would figure in the meeting of G-20 trade and investment ministerial meeting in Argentina tomorrow, an official said.
Commerce and Industry Minister Suresh Prabhu will participate in this meeting at Mar del Plata in Argentina.
"We want to ensure that we reform WTO but keep it as an engine for global trade. Looking to work with all important countries for a most agreeable, forward looking reform agenda. Will use G20 forum for taking this idea forward. All efforts now on achieving these goals in mission mode," Prabhu said in a tweet.
"Some of the key issues that would be discussed in the meeting include global value chains in agriculture, new industrial revolution, challenges to the global multinational trading system in the wake of protectionist measures by some countries," the official said.
The meeting assumes as countries including the US has significantly raised customs duties on products including steel and aluminium. It has triggered a trade war kind of situation, which is impacting the global trade.
The G20 members include India, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, China, EU, France, Gemaany, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, UK and the US.
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President Vladimir Putin on Thursday visited Russia's largest-ever military drills in eastern Siberia, where he said Moscow planned to strengthen the country's armed forces.
Russia has said the Vostok-2018 exercises involve nearly 300,000 troops and all types of military equipment, as well as the participation of the Chinese and Mongolian armies.
Putin praised the "mastery" of the Russian army and its "capacity to face down potential threats" after watching the drills at the Tsugol military training ground near the borders with Mongolia and China.
Some 25,000 soldiers, 7,000 vehicles as well as 250 helicopters and planes took part in the simulated aerial and ground attack from an "undefined" enemy.
"Out duty to our country is to be ready to defend our sovereignty, our security and our national interests and, if we must, to support our allies," the president said following a huge military parade after the manoeuvres.
"This is why we will continue to strengthen our armed forces, to provide them with cutting edge arms and equipment and develop our international military partnerships," he said.
"Russia is a peaceful country. We do not have and we cannot have any plans for aggression".
The exercises in the far east continue until September 17.
Russia has said the drills are purely defensive in nature but NATO has condemned them as a rehearsal for "large-scale conflict."
According to the Russian army, 87 observers from 59 countries were present for the Russian-Chinese exercises.
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The BJP sought Thursday the resignation of Congress chief Rahul Gandhi over his family's alleged links with fugitive liquor baron Vijay Mallya and claimed the UPA government had helped the ailing Kingfisher Airlines.
The BJP Thursday came out strongly in defense of its leader Arun Jaitley, a day after Mallya claimed he met the finance minister before leaving India, in 2016. The charge was dismissed as "factually false" by the Jaitley.
Addressing a press conference at the party office here, Railways Minister Piyush Goyal said since 2010, all laws were broken and the RBI was roped in to help Mallya and Kingfisher Airlines by the UPA government which was led by Sonia Gandhi.
"Now, we are being blamed. The prime minister, finance minister of the former UPA government helped Kingfisher in so many ways," Goyal alleged and asserted Mallya had no credibility as he was under the "glare of law" and was a criminal.
Goyal demanded Gandhi's resignation, claiming that due to his family's "relations" with Mallya, banks were pressured by the previous United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government to sanction loans to the fugitive businessman, violating all norms.
"Rahul Gandhi should answer what were the relations between his family and Mallya. He should resign from all posts and people of the country will ensure he should resign," Goyal said.
He claimed the Congress-led UPA went out of the way to help Kingfisher Airlines.
"All norms, laws and regulations were passed to help the Kingfisher Airlines and specific instructions were given by the Congress-led UPA government to banks for restructuring of loans for the company," Goyal alleged.
The party also played a video showing then civil aviation minister Vayalar Ravi saying that the government needs to help Kingfisher.
Goyal said both Rahul Gandhi and Mallya were "playing duet of lies" and questioned the relation between the Gandhi family and Kingfisher. He asked why banks and the RBI were allegedly pressurised to help Kingfisher airlines.
"We have been chasing bank defaulters in the best possible manner. We passed the Fugitive Offenders Bill," he said.
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South Western Army commander Lieutenant General Cherish Mathson Thursday said Rajasthan has the potential of developing "battlefield tourism" as the state's history is replete with historic battles which form an integral part of its heritage and culture.
He said there were many people ready for this kind of tourism if the right infrastructure was developed to facilitate the same.
The Army commander was addressing a session on 'Battlefield Tourism' at the 7thannual convention of the Indian Heritage Hotels Association (IHHA) in Rajasthan's Bharatpur city.
He said in order to promote battlefield tourism, firstly, it
should be recognised as a sub-genre or sub-category of tourism, a release by the Association said.
Mathson said battlefield areas need to be made accessible to people by building infrastructure like hotels, transportation and other facilities.
He also suggested that this unique form of tourism be started as a pilot project in the desert state.
The South Western Army commander also touched upon the importance of Haldighati and Chittorgarh which have witnessed historic battles, the release added.
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Myanmar's de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi said Thursday that two Reuters journalists jailed for investigating a massacre in Rakhine state were not convicted because they were journalists but because they broke the law.
Wa Lone, 32, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 28, were each imprisoned for seven years last week for breaching the country's hardline Official Secrets Act while reporting atrocities committed during the military crackdown in Rakhine.
The sentence prompted a storm of global outcry as an assault on freedom of speech, while erstwhile rights champion Suu Kyi came under intense pressure for failing to speak up for the pair.
She broke her silence on the issue on Thursday during a discussion at the World Economic Forum, robustly defending the court's decision to jail the duo.
"They were not jailed because they were journalists" but because "the court has decided that they had broken the Official Secrets Act", she said in her first direct comments on the issue.
Challenging critics of the verdict -- including the United Nations, rights groups who once lionised her and the US Vice President -- to "point out" where there has been a miscarriage of justice, Suu Kyi said the case upheld the rule of law.
"The case was held in open court... I don't think anybody has bothered to read the summary of the judge," she added.
Army-led "clearance operations" last August drove 700,000 Rohingya into Bangladesh, carrying with them widespread accounts of atrocities -- rape, murder and arson -- by Myanmar police and troops.
The Reuters reporters had denied the charges, insisting they were set up while exposing the extrajudicial killing of 10 Rohingya Muslims in the village of Inn Din in September last year.
This week, the UN rights office accused Myanmar of "waging a campaign against journalists".
It decried "the instrumentalisation of the law and of the courts by the government and military in what constitutes a political campaign against independent journalism".
Suu Kyi, who has so far bristled at foreign criticism of her country and defended the crackdown against "terrorists" from the Muslim minority, also addressed the army's handling of the crisis.
"There are of course ways (in) which, in hindsight, the situation could have been handled better," she said in rare comments on the crackdown.
Myanmar has come under intense diplomatic pressure in recent weeks, with the UN rights office singling out its powerful military chief for his role forcing the Rohingya from the country.
The stateless Rohingya are denied citizenship in Myanmar and widely reviled in the Buddhist-majority country.
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Rhea Chakraborty has opted out of "Satellite Shankar", starring Sooraj Pancholi, owing to date issues.
She was rumoured to play a journalist in the film, according to a press release.
"Rhea and I were in talks regarding the film but due to her date issues, she couldn't be part of the film. She is a talented actor and I look forward to working with her in future," co-producer Murad Khetani said in a statement.
Rhea has seen success with "Mere Dad Ki Maruti". She also featured "Bank Chor" and "Dobaraa". Her next release is Mahesh Bhatt-produced "Jalebi".
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MIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi Thursday claimed that the RSS represents Hindu nationalism and said he would never accept any invitation from it to participate in any event held by the organisation.
The Hyderabad Lok Sabha MP was reacting the invitation being extended by RSS to various leaders for a three-day lecture series of RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat, scheduled to be held in New Delhi next week.
The RSS has indicated that it would invite Congress president Rahul Gandhi, CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury and the leaders of all the political outfits of different ideologies besides religious leaders, sportspersons, media personalities and ambassadors of more than 60 countries.
Owaisi said RSS stood for Hindu nationalism. "It is an organisation which believe in Indian nationalism. I will never do this stupidity and mistake of what Pranab Mukherjee did...," he told reporters here.
He was referring to the participation of the former president in an RSS event at Nagpur in June last, which had then triggered a controversy with senior Congress leaders opposing it.
"I cannot speak for Congress president and I can speak only for myself.I would never even in my thought process think for a second about such an invitation," he said when asked about his reaction to Gandhi being invited.
Owaisi attacked the Centre over rising fuel prices, saying Prime Minister Narendra Modi has created enough darkness by ensuring that the price price of petrol and diesel go beyond common mans means.
Targeting the prime minister over the issues of Jammu and Kashmir, demonetisation and employment generation, he said Modi might have "created light" for his party.
"People are lynching Dalits and Muslims in the name of cow. Everywhere there is darkness. Light will come only when BJP is removed from power," he claimed.
On BJP leader Subramanian Swamy's remarks that the lookout notice against businessman Vijay Mallya got diluted, eventually allowing him to flee the country, Owaisi said he should approach a court seeking justice.
"If Subramanian Swamy is real patriot, what is stopping him from taking it to a logical conclusion by going to the court of law," he said.
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The Supreme Court Thursday dismissed a petition seeking a direction to the Centre not to proceed with the recommendation of the apex court Collegium on the appointment of a lawyer as a judge of the Allahabad High Court.
A bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justice D Y Chandrachud said there was "no merit" in the plea which was also "not justiciable".
"The Collegium has submitted its recommendation. It is a constitutional process. In the midst of a constitutional process, this petition is not maintainable," the bench told advocate Asok Pande, who has filed the plea.
When Pande claimed that there were allegations against the lawyer whose name has been recommended by the Collegium and an FIR was also lodged against him and some others, the bench said "you have said in your petition that the FIR has been quashed".
"There is no merit in the petition. It is not justiciable," the bench said while dismissing the plea.
The petitioner had sought a direction to the Union Ministry of Law not to proceed to appoint the lawyer as a judge of the Allahabad High Court in compliance of the Collegium's recommendation last month.
He had also sought quashing of the recommendation besides a probe by either the CBI or a special investigation team (SIT) into the FIR lodged at Allahabad under various sections of the Indian Penal Code, including cheating and forgery.
He alleged in the plea that between 2002 to 2007, an agricultural institute had filed 24 writ petitions before the Allahabad High Court and five pleas before the apex court in the name of dead and non-existent persons.
The plea claimed that the high court had ordered its registrar to lodge an FIR in the case in which the lawyer, whose name has been recommended by the Collegium, was also named. It alleged that before the FIR was lodged, the lawyer's name was recommended for appointment as judge in the high court but it was not processed later.
The petition said that the lawyer had filed a plea in the high court seeking quashing of the FIR against him, which was allowed by the court.
After quashing of the FIR against him, the apex court Collegium recommended his name for appointment as a judge in the high court on the ground that the state of Uttar Pradesh has not challenged the order quashing lodging of the case, the plea has claimed.
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This season's first chartered flight from Australia will arrive here Saturday with the Tourism department all set to accord a rousing welcome to the visitors, a month after unprecedented rains swamped Kerala.
The flight, with 60 tourists on board, will land at Nedumbassery International Airport at 6 pm, according to a department release here.
The tourists will be welcomed through a reception that would include 'Panchavadyam' (orchestra of five percussion instruments).
Tourism department director P Bala Kiran said the flight's arrival would send out a definitive message that the tourism sector in Kerala is all geared up to welcome visitors.
"It will also help remove the perception that the influx of tourists is dwindling in the state," he said.
The passengers belong to a tourist group in Australia named 'Captain Group'.
Kerala Tourism has been working towards promoting the state as an overall tourism destination, Tourism department secretary Rani George said.
"At this point, Kerala Tourism needs a lot of backing to tell the world that the tourism industry is still going strong. And the arrival of this season's first chartered flight will certainly send out that message," she said.
On Sunday, the tourists will visit Fort Kochi and Mattanchery, the two prominent tourist destinations here.
After that, 20 tourists will head to a private farm near Angamali for a cooking demo class displaying Kerala cuisine.
On Monday, the tourists will make a trip to Alappuzha on a houseboat to get a feel of cruising in the backwaters.
They will leave Tuesday for Goa.
The group would also visit Udaipur, Jodhpur, Varanasi and Kolkata before returning.
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
With an aim to deepen the commodity derivatives market, regulator Sebi is likely to consider a proposal to allow trading in this segment by foreign entities with exposure to the Indian physical commodity market.
Besides, the regulator may deliberate on the issue of introducing a common application form for foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) to enter into the domestic capital market as part of the exercise to improve ease of doing business.
Further, it is likely to discuss on the procedure of transmission of securities in physical mode, officials said.
The board of Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) may discuss these issues in its meeting scheduled next week, they added.
With regard to the commodity derivatives markets, foreign entities may be allowed to hedge their exposures with derivatives trading in all commodities traded on Indian exchanges, barring the sensitive commodities
Under the proposal, the foreign entities, having actual exposure to Indian physical commodity markets, may be termed Eligible Foreign Entities (EFEs).
A detailed set of norms for eligibility criteria, disclosure and KYC requirements, code of conduct and safeguards against any unwanted price fluctuations has also been proposed.
The direct participation of foreign entities having actual exposure to commodities is expected to make Indian commodity derivatives market more broadbased, vibrant, deep and efficient.
Further, it will also add to the depth and liquidity in the far-month contracts.
The regulator, in May, came out out with consultation paper for allowing trading in the commodity derivatives market by EFEs and had sought comments from all the stakeholders in this regard.
The proposal followed recommendation from the regulator's Commodity Derivatives Advisory Committee (CDAC) for allowing in this market the hedge funds (category III alternative investment funds), portfolio management service (PMS) firms, mutual funds and direct participation of foreign participants having exposure to commodities in the first phase.
In the second phase, CDAC proposed to allow banks, insurers, foreign portfolio investors and pension funds in the commodity derivatives market.
Last year, Sebi had issued consultation papers for allowing mutual funds, portfolio managers and hedge funds, among others.
According to the proposal, such EFE should not be an Indian resident but may be a Non-Resident Indian (NRI), provided that such NRI is engaged in physical commodity trading businesses with India.
The minimum networth requirement for such EFE should be USD 500,000 and this limit may be gradually reviewed based on experience of EFE participation in the market.
With regard to registration, as per the proposal, EFEs desirous of taking hedge positions in Indian commodity derivatives market should approach Authorised Stock Brokers (ASBs), from amongst the brokers which are registered under Sebi.
The exchanges should jointly frame guidelines regarding the eligibility criteria for ASBs approved by their risk management committees. Besides, an EFE needs to meet the Know Your Client (KYC) requirements.
The commodity derivatives exchanges need to put in place appropriate risk management systems for allowing EFE to take positions in eligible commodities as well as a mechanism to monitor the limits and physical exposure of an EFE, which may include seeking periodical reports.
The position limits should be governed by the hedge policy of the commodity derivatives exchanges and no separate client trading limits should be allowed for EFEs.
Such exchanges should issue a separate hedge code for easy identification of EFEs. However, Sebi can place restrictions based on the need to maintain market integrity.
Hedge limits for a commodity will be determined on a case to case basis, depending on the applicant's hedging requirement and other factors which the commodity derivatives exchange deems appropriate in the interest of the market.
Regarding disclosure, commodity derivatives exchanges on daily basis need to disclose on their website the positions as well as hedge limit allocated to EFEs, indicating the period for which approval is valid, in an anonymous manner.
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Issues related to the definition of e-commerce trade and payment mechanisms figured in the meeting of a group of secretaries here Thursday, sources said.
The panel of secretaries has been constituted by the government to look into all issues related to the e-commerce trade.
An initial draft on national e-commerce policy has suggested the adoption of a common definition of e-commerce for the purpose of the domestic policy.
At present, commerce and industry ministry, consumer affairs, department of IT, WTO, OECD and UNCTAD have separate definitions.
The other issues which figured in the meeting included ways to control sale of counterfeit products through an online platform, and facilitating logistics for the sector, sources said.
An official in the commerce and industry ministry said that group would meet again after one month to discuss some more matters related to the e-commerce sector.
The concerned departments including consumer affairs, economic affairs, logistics, and the RBI would work on their respective areas to promote the growth of the sector.
The meeting was chaired by the secretary in the department of industrial policy and promotion (DIPP) Ramesh Abhishek.
The other members of the group include secretaries of the ministry of electronics and information technology and department of commerce.
Representatives of Niti Aayog, department of economic affairs, MSME ministry, Reserve Bank, Department of Post and consumer affairs participated in the meeting.
The panel will meet regularly to discuss sectoral issues. The group will work as a standing panel on e-commerce.
The meeting assumes significance as a section of the industry has raised concerns regarding the draft e-commerce policy.
The draft had suggested several steps to promote the growth of the fast-growing sector.
It had stated that online retail firms may have to store user data exclusively in India in view of security and privacy concerns.
It had said that any group company of an online retailer or marketplace may not be allowed to directly or indirectly influence the price or sale of products and services on its platform, a move that could completely restrict e-tailers from giving deep discounts.
Besides, it had suggested the introduction of a pre-set timeframe for offering differential pricing or deep discounts by e-commerce players to customers.
Further, the draft recommended permitting 49 per cent foreign direct investment (FDI) in inventory-based business-to-customer e-commerce model. Currently, FDI in such businesses is prohibited and it is allowed only in the marketplace model.
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Pema Khandu on Thursday said the security situation in the North East has improved considerably due to development initiatives by the Centre.
Khandu, who was addressing the 25th annual conference of DGP, IGP and heads of central police organizations of North East region here, applauded the role of the Centre in increasing the number of people from the region in the central paramilitary forces and in Delhi police.
He encouraged youths of the region to join the central paramilitary forces and urged the police organisations to carry out awareness programme in this regard.
Development packages for the region, including police modernisation, have improved the security situation in the area, he said adding the North East must be looked on as one entity when dealing with the security aspect, Khandu said.
"Though Arunachal has no home grown insurgency but the three eastern districts of the state are affected by it," he said and expressed confidence that the police, para military forces and the Army would efficiently tackle the situation.
Khandu said that the Assam Police have a pivotal role to play in the security of the state since it shares borders with almost all the states in the North East.
Peace and order are the 'prerequisite' for development and economic growth of the state and security and development have to go together. Without the state police being efficient such goals cannot be achieved, he said.
Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju said police officers must be calm and conduct themselves in a decent way.
People expect a lot from the police and so tend to be demanding and even abusive at times towards the force, he said.
"Police can play a positive role in promoting tourism by conducting themselves in decent and helpful way," Rijiju added.
The two-day convention would deliberate on improving law and order situation in the region and formulating strategies to deal with new challenges.
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High-level defence officials and military experts from over 50 countries have gathered here as part of a multilateral forum to discuss and deliberate on ideas for achieving denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula, defence cooperation for prevention of violent extremism and maritime security.
The seventh edition of Seoul Defence Dialogue (SDD), an annual multilateral security meeting at the vice minister level, got underway on Tuesday with the theme of 'Sustainable Peace: From Conflict to Cooperation'.
According to officials of the South Korean Ministry of National Defence, relevant government officials and experts have come together to share opinions and come up with ideas for peace and security of the Korean Peninsula and the globe at large.
The first SDD was held in 2012 and with time it has grown both qualitatively and quantitatively, they said.
The dialogue, attended by high-level defence officials and security experts from various countries and international organisations, has developed into an "effective venue for building measures for defence cooperation".
"This year, including Central Asian countries, seven new countries have been invited to the SDD (Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Brazil, Sweden, Spain and Egypt)," according to the information shared by the Ministry of National Defence.
High-level defence officials from over fifty countries, including the US, France and a few international organisations are participating in it, organisers said.
Several sessions have been lined up for the three-day event that ends on Friday.
Denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula and establishment of peace regime is the main theme of the first plenary session slated to be held on Wednesday morning
"Distinguished global security experts will discuss and deliberate on that issue. Besides, sustainable peace: from conflict to cooperation is the main theme... Establishment of peace regime and denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula requires international community's cooperation in various fields," a senior official said.
Delineating the factors for holding the dialogue, the SDD website says, Northeast Asia is at the heart of the world economy, and the region's security issues are "greatly impacting" the global security.
"In addition, the necessity of confidence building in the area of security among nations is increasing, and new conflicts including military build-ups, nuclear threats and extreme terror threats are constantly changing," it said.
Among other issues which would be discussed during the event include, strategic balance in Northeast Asia: cooperation and confidence building; maritime security cooperation: challenges and tasks; and cyber security: strengthening mutual cooperation.
South Korean Minister of National Defense Song Young-moo is scheduled to address the forum on Thursday during the formal opening ceremony.
In the special sessions, discussions regarding defence cooperation for energy security, international peacekeeping activities, and humanitarian assistance and disaster relief will be held.
"The Seoul Defense Dialogue 2018 will contribute to the sustainable global peace by promoting peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and improving a security environment in the Asia Pacific region, and will be a venue of dialogue for practical defence cooperation among participating countries," it said.
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LIC, SBI and other key shareholders of debt-ridden IL&FS have asked it to raise funds by selling its assets or non-core businesses as a pre-condition for putting in additional money in the firm, sources said.
The shareholders held a meeting Wednesday and it was decided that additional money would be given when Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services (IL&FS) generates cash on its own by selling some of its assets, the sources said.
IL&FS is seeking an immediate loan of around Rs 3,000 crore from key shareholders to help it tide over a cash crunch.
State-run LIC is the largest shareholder owning a fourth of the firm's equity, while Orix Corporation of Japan owns 23.5 per cent. Other shareholders include Abu Dhabi Investment Authority with 12.5 per cent stake, Central Bank of India with 7.67 per cent and SBI with 6.42 per cent.
According to sources, the company will sell its corporate headquarters in Mumbai as part of its plan to raise funds to meet the payment obligation.
Earlier this month, IL&FS defaulted on inter-corporate deposits and commercial papers.
On September 4, it came to light that IL&FS had defaulted on a short-term loan of Rs 1,000 crore from Sidbi, while a subsidiary has also defaulted on Rs 500 crore dues to the development financial institution, which reportedly forced Sidbi to ask its chief general manager in charge of the risk management department to resign.
In a letter to its employees, IL&FS claimed that if funds worth Rs 16,000 crore stuck with concession authorities were released on time, it would not have landed in this mess.
"Our monies were used to fund the cost and time overruns caused by concession authority delays in handing over right of way.
"It is our case that if concession authorities released our monies, which is around Rs 16,000 crore of IL&FS group liquidity and stuck in claims and termination payments, we would not be in the situation that we are in," IL&FS said in its letter.
The management also claimed that sufficient clarity will emerge after the September 15 board meeting.
IL&FS, which is credited for building the longest tunnel in the country (the Chenani-Nashri tunnel), is sitting on a debt pile of around Rs 91,000 crore and had been downgraded to junk status by rating agencies following the default. Of this, Rs 57,000 crore are bank loans alone, most of which are from state-run lenders.
While IL&FS Transport Network, the holding firm of the group's road assets, has nearly Rs 35,000 crore consolidated debt, IL&FS Financial Services has Rs 17,000 crore of debt, which sits as standard asset for most banks, according to a Nomura India report.
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Two men accused by London of poisoning former Moscow spy Sergei Skripal denied involvement in the murder attempt in a bizarre Russian media interview Thursday that Britain dismissed as "an insult to the public's intelligence".
Speaking with the head of the Kremlin-backed RT network, the pair confirmed they were the men whose pictures British authorities released this month, but insisted they were visiting the English city of Salisbury as tourists.
British security services had named the men as Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, but said these were likely to be aliases.
In a 25-minute interview, the men said these were their real names but insisted they did not work for Russia's GRU military intelligence agency, as Britain claims.
RT said the men sounded distressed and were sweating as they spoke.
Both appeared to be about 40 years old, and they wore almost identical dark blue jumpers. The men looked well-built and Boshirov wore what looked like a red Kabbalah bracelet.
The TV station recorded the interview on Wednesday evening, just hours after President Vladimir Putin said Russia had identified the men sought by Britain and urged the pair to address the media.
"They are civilians," Putin said, adding there was nothing criminal about them.
London believes Putin personally sanctioned the attack.
The United States is planning a new set of "very severe" sanctions on Russia over its alleged use of the Novichok nerve agent in the March 4 poisoning of Skripal and his daughter Yulia, assistant Secretary of State Manisha Singh told a congressional hearing Thursday.
She said Russia had until November to allow on-site inspections of facilities linked to the potent poison, and to provide "verifiable" assurances that Novichok will not be used again.
The Skripal assassination attempt has drawn comparisons with the poisoning of Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko with highly radioactive polonium in London in 2006.
Moscow has refused to extradite the two men Britain suspects of killing Litvinenko. One of them, Andrei Lugovoi, went on to become a Russian lawmaker.
Downing Street on Thursday called the RT interview "an insult to the public's intelligence".
"More importantly they are deeply offensive to the victims and loved ones of this horrific attack. Sadly, it's what we've come to expect," Prime Minister Theresa May's spokesman said.
Skripal and his daughter survived, but a British couple, Dawn Sturgess and Charlie Rowley, came into contact with the same nerve agent in a town near Salisbury months later. Sturgess died.
Petrov and Boshirov said they arrived in Britain on March 2 and travelled to Salisbury the next day to see the sights.
They left after no more than an hour because of poor weather and heavy snow, but returned to the city the next day -- March 4, the day of the attack.
British authorities said the suspects travelled to Salisbury twice to prepare for the attack and then carry it out.
"Friends have been telling us for a long time we should visit this beautiful city," said the broad-shouldered Petrov.
"We went there to see Stonehenge, Old Sarum, but we couldn't do it because there was muddy slush everywhere," he added, referring to famous local landmarks.
Boshirov, sporting a goatee, denied the pair knew anything about Skripal or the location of his house.
"We walked around and enjoyed this English Gothic architecture," he said.
British investigators say the poison was transported in a fake Nina Ricci perfume bottle and sprayed onto the handle of Skripal's front door.
"Is it not silly for decent lads to have women's perfume?" Boshirov asked. "The customs are checking everything. We didn't have it." The pair said they had previously travelled to Europe for business and pleasure.
The men complained their lives had become a "nightmare" and urged journalists to leave them alone.
"We're afraid of going out, we fear for ourselves, our lives and lives of our loved ones," Boshirov said. "We are tired."
When RT editor Margarita Simonyan asked them why they travelled together, implying they might be a gay couple, the men said their private lives were off limits.
"This is not an interrogation," Boshirov said.
Simonyan said the men had contacted her on her cellphone.
Boshirov and Petrov said they called her because they needed protection and would like an apology from Britain.
British Foreign Office Minister Alan Duncan said their account was "so unconvincing" it brought "Russia into ridicule".
"If these two suspects are prepared to answer questions on Russian television, let them come here and answer some more searching questions about what we know they did," he told AFP.
Social networks ran amok, with many deriding what the duo said as a flimsy attempt to cover their tracks.
"The Spy Who Went Home Because It Was Cold," quipped Twitter user Ben Stanley.
Others suggested that Moscow had essentially thrown its intelligence agents under the bus.
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
North Korea and South Korea will open a joint liaison office in Kaesong city on Friday, as part of an understanding reached in April this year, South Korean envoy here Shin Bongkil said Thursday.
Ahead of the inter-Korean summit next week from September 18 to 20, the envoy said leaders of both countries will discuss range of issues including development of inter-Korean relations and 'denuclearisation'.
He said South Korean National Security Director Chung Eui-yong had visited Pyongyang earlier this month during which both countries had agreed to hold an inter-Korean summit.
"South and North Korea will open a joint liaison office tomorrow," he told reporters, adding that it is aimed at continuing necessary cooperation between the two countries.
The office will be located at Kaesong city in North Korea. The opening of the office is being seen as a significant move in thawing relations between the two countries.
He said North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has confirmed his determination towards complete denuclearisation.
Stating that North Korea needs development, Shin said the country cannot sustain on nuclear weapons alone. He added that the North Korean leadership was well aware of this.
After his meeting with Trump in Singapore in June this year, Kim Jong-un had agreed to work towards "complete denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula" in return of security guarantee from the United States of America.
President Moon Jae-in of the Republic of Korea and Kim Jong Un Chairman of the State Affairs Commission of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea had held an intern-Korean Summit meeting at the 'Peace House' at Panmunjeom on April 27 this year.
The two leaders had solemnly declared that there would be no war on the Korean Peninsula and thus a new era of peace had begun.
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A Spanish actor accused of blasphemy was released without bail after being questioned in court on Thursday, in the latest high profile case to raise free speech fears in the country.
Willy Toledo, a cinema and television actor, is facing a complaint over a social media post last year. He was arrested in Madrid on Wednesday after he had twice failed to show up for questioning.
The case stems from a July 2017 Facebook message in which Toledo, 48, defended three women charged with blasphemy for staging a mock-religious procession wielding a giant vagina.
In profane language, Toledo expressed contempt in his post for God and the Virgin Mary.
He was denounced by the Spanish Association of Christian Lawyers for "covering God and the Virgin Mary with ridicule".
Oscar-winning Spanish actor Javier Bardem has spoken out in support of Toledo. He said the country risked a return to the repressive era of dictator Francisco Franco.
The judge hearing the case must now decide if he sends Toledo to trial. Those found guilty of blasphemy can only be fined as the offence does not carry a prison sentence.
Toledo, who frequently defends Cuba and Venezuela's communist regimes, told reporters he had asked the judge to shelve the case during the hearing.
"It is worthy of a third world country that there are still five articles of the criminal code relating to insulting religious sentiments," he told reporters as he left the court.
The affair is one of a string of cases of artists being probed or jailed in Spain which have raised concerns about freedom of expression.
The cases date back to the time of Spain's former conservative government, before the new Socialist leadership took office this year.
Several Twitter users and rappers have been tried for glorifying terrorism or insulting the king for comments or lyrics.
Amnesty International said the legal actions amount to "repression" of freedom of expression.
Tapper Valtonyc this year fled to Belgium to avoid a three-and-a-half-year jail sentence for glorifying terrorism, insulting the king and issuing threats in his lyrics.
A Belgian court is due to decide on September 17 whether or not to extradite the 24-year-old.
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The two Russian men charged in Britain with poisoning a former Russian spy with a deadly nerve agent appeared on Russian television on Thursday, saying they visited the suspected crime scene as tourists.
Ruslan Boshirov and Alexander Petrov made their first public appearance in an interview with the Kremlin-funded RT channel.
The men said they visited the southern English city of Salisbury in March, calling it a "wonderful town" and saying they wanted to see the famous Salisbury Cathedral.
"Our friends have been suggesting for a long time that we visit this wonderful town," Petrov said while Boshirov added that they wanted to see the Cathedral's famous spire and clock.
British officials say Boshirov and Petrov are military intelligence agents who were dispatched to Salisbury to poison former Russian agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia with the nerve agent Novichok.
Britain released CCTV footage and photographs showing the two men walking in Skripal's neighbourhood on March 4, the day of the attack.
The men's surprise public appearance came a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Russian authorities know the identities of the two men, but insisted that they are civilians and there is "nothing criminal" about them. He called on them to contact the media.
Replying to the interviewer's question why they went to Salisbury for two days in a row, Boshirov said that when they first got to the town it was snowy and they got wet so they decided to take the train back.
They said they may have passed by Skripal's house but they did not know him.
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The US' decision to suspend military aid to nuclear-armed Pakistan was not taken lightly as the Trump administration was concerned that the country's atomic weapons could fall into the hands of terrorists, National Security Adviser John Bolton has said.
Bolton said the war against terrorism was a matter of extraordinary importance to America.
In his address to a Washington think-tank on Monday the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies Bolton also said that the US wanted Pakistan to cooperate fully in the war against terrorism.
"It was before my time, but the Trump administration did not take the decision to cancel a substantial part of the military aid package to Pakistan lightly," he said.
"It was done knowing full well that Pakistan is a nuclear weapons state, and the risk that the government could fall into the hands of terrorists that would get control of those nuclear weapons was particularly serious."
In January, US President Donald Trump suspended most of military aid to Pakistan, accusing Islamabad of allowing the Taliban to use its territory for attacks in Afghanistan.
Last week, the Pentagon asked Congress to allow it to use for other purpose the funds that had been set aside for Pakistan.
The re-allocation ended the possibility that the funds earmarked for Pakistan could be released if Islamabad agreed to take the required action against various terrorist groups.
During his visit to Islamabad last week, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had pressed the new Pakistani government to rein in the groups reportedly operating from its soil.
Bolton said Secretary Pompeo wanted to convey the message that "we hoped and expected that Pakistan would cooperate fully in the war against terrorism, which they had committed to do.
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Myanmar's Aung San Suu Kyi on Thursday robustly defended the jailing of two Reuters journalists who were reporting on the Rohingya crisis, as she hit back at global criticism of a trial widely seen as an attempt to muzzle the free press.
The country's de facto leader acknowledged that the brutal crackdown on the Muslim minority -- which the United Nations has cast as "genocide" -- could have been "handled better", but insisted the two reporters had been treated fairly.
"They were not jailed because they were journalists" but because "the court has decided that they had broken the Official Secrets Act", she said.
Wa Lone, 32, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 28, were each imprisoned for seven years last week for breaching the country's hardline Official Secrets Act while reporting on atrocities committed during the military crackdown in Rakhine state.
Suu Kyi, once garlanded as a global rights champion, has come under intense pressure to use her moral authority inside Myanmar to defend the pair.
Challenging critics of the verdict -- including the UN, rights groups who once lionised her, and the US Vice President -- to "point out" where there has been a miscarriage of justice, Suu Kyi said the case upheld the rule of law.
"The case was held in open court... I don't think anybody has bothered to read the summary of the judge," she said during a discussion at the World Economic Forum, adding the pair still had the right to appeal.
Her comments drew an indignant response from rights groups who have urged the Nobel Laureate to press for a presidential pardon for the reporters.
"Open courts are designed to shed light on the justice process," said Sean Bain of the International Commission of Jurists.
"Sadly in this case we've seen both institutional and individual failings to hold up the principles of rule of law and human rights."
Army-led "clearance operations" that started last August drove 700,000 Rohingya into Bangladesh, carrying with them widespread accounts of atrocities -- rape, murder and arson -- by Myanmar police and troops.
The ferocity of that crackdown has thrust Myanmar into a firestorm of criticism as Western goodwill evaporates towards a country ruled by a ruthless junta until 2015.
A UN fact-finding panel has called for Myanmar army chief Min Aung Hlaing and several other top generals to be prosecuted for genocide.
The International Criminal Court has said it has jurisdiction to open an investigation, even though Myanmar is not a member of the tribunal.
Suu Kyi, who has bristled at foreign criticism of her country, on Thursday softened her defence of the crackdown against "terrorists" from the Muslim minority.
"There are of course ways (in) which, in hindsight, the situation could have been handled better," she said.
But she also appeared to turn responsibility onto neighbouring Bangladesh for failing to start the repatriation of the nearly one million-strong Rohingya refugee community to Myanmar.
Bangladesh "was not ready" to start repatriation of the Rohingya in January as agreed under a deal between the two countries, she said.
Yet Myanmar does not want its Rohingya, denying them citizenship while the Buddhist-majority public falsely label them "Bengali" interlopers.
Rohingya refugees refuse to return to Myanmar without guarantees of safety, restitution for lost lands and citizenship.
The jailing of the Reuters reporters has sent a chill through Myanmar's nascent media scene.
The pair denied the charges, insisting they were set up while exposing the extrajudicial killing of 10 Rohingya Muslims in the village of Inn Din in September last year.
This week, the UN rights office accused Myanmar of "waging a campaign against journalists".
It decried the use of the courts and the law by the "government and military in what constitutes a political campaign against independent journalism".
A UN panel is set to release the second part of its report into the atrocities over the coming days.
Myanmar will come under international spotlight again on September 25 when the UN General Assembly convenes in New York.
Local media have reported that Suu Kyi will not be attending the New York meeting.
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External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Thursday met her Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov in Moscow where she is on a two-day visit to co-chair a key bilateral meeting and to hold talks with the Russian leadership to boost the strategic partnership.
"Always a pleasure to meet a good friend of India! EAM @SushmaSwaraj with Foreign Minister of Russia Sergey Lavrov in her 1st engagement since arriving in Moscow. Both leaders had a good exchange of views on bilateral & regional issues. FM Lavrov hosted a dinner in honour of EAM," External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar tweeted.
Swaraj, who is visiting Russia for the third time in 11 months, had a brief stopover in Ashgabat en route to Moscow during which she held discussions with her Turkmenistan counterpart Rashid Meredov on issues of bilateral interest.
The minister will attend the 23rd India-Russia Inter-Governmental Commission on Technical and Economic Cooperation (IRIGC-TEC) which is co-chaired by her and the Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Yuri Borisov.
The IRIGC-TEC is a standing body which annually meets and reviews ongoing activities of bilateral cooperation in the fields of bilateral trade and investment, science and technology, culture and other issues of mutual interest.
The commission, after taking stock of bilateral cooperation in various fields, will provide policy recommendations and directions in the concerned fields, the Ministry of External Affairs said in a statement.
"Maintaining the momentum of high-level exchanges," Kumar tweeted ahead of the minister's visit.
The last meeting of the commission was held in New Delhi in December, 2017.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin met for an informal summit in the Black Sea coastal city of Sochi in May during which the two leaders upgraded the traditionally close India-Russia relationship to a "special privileged strategic partnership."
The two leaders also met on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit in Johannesburg in June.
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The government has notified October 1 as the date for implementing the tax deducted at source (TDS) and tax collected at source (TCS) provisions under law.
As per the Central (CGST) Act, the notified entities are required to collect at 1 per cent on payments to goods or services suppliers in excess of Rs 250 thousand. Also, states will levy 1 per cent under state laws.
E-commerce companies will now be required to collect up to 1 per cent while making any payment to suppliers under the (GST). States too can levy up to 1 per cent under State (SGST) law.
ALSO READ: Ailing Indian exports made only worse by confusing GST notifications
EY Tax Partner Abhishek Jain said, "The e-commerce companies for and various PSUs/ Government Companies for would need to quickly gear up their ERP systems to comply with these provisions from 1st October. With audit report as well being notified, the industry would now really need to buckle up, especially given the short time frame."
ALSO READ: Govt gets Delhi High Court notice on GST tweaks in import licence
AMRG & Associates Partner Rajat Mohan said the government has notified operation of TDS provisions on payments made by government agencies and TCS provisions for specified e-commerce operators effective October 1, 2018.
"These twin provisions are expected to further deepen the penetration of tax authorities in the economy, and it is likely to carve out widespread tax evasion of not only indirect taxes but also direct taxes," Mohan said.
The GST, which subsumed over a dozen local taxes, was rolled out from July 1, 2017. However, to make it simpler for businesses in the initial months of rollout, TDS/TCS provisions of GST laws were kept in abeyance till June 30. Later on, it was deferred till September 30, 2018.
The Delhi High Court Thursday granted bail to Kashmiri businessman Zahoor Watali, who was arrested by the NIA for his alleged role in a terror-funding case involving Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) chief and 26/11 Mumbai attack mastermind Hafiz Saeed.
A bench of justices S Muralidhar and Vinod Goel set aside the trial court's June 8 order by which Watali was denied bail.
The bench directed that the businessman is released on bail after furnishing a personal bond of Rs 2 lakh and two sureties of the same amount.
Watali was directed not to influence or intimidate the prosecution's witnesses or tamper with the evidence in the case.
He was arrested on August 17 last year by the National Investigation Agency (NIA).
Watali, Saeed, Hizbul Mujahideen chief Syed Salahuddin and others have been accused by the NIA of "conspiring to wage war against the government" and fomenting trouble in the Kashmir valley.
The bench Thursday directed Watali to surrender his passport before the trial court and said he will not travel abroad without prior permission of the court.
"If there is any breach of these conditions, it will be open to the NIA to apply to the trial court for cancellation of bail," the high court said.
In its charge sheet, the NIA has alleged that officials of the Pakistan High Commission here were passing on money to separatists in Jammu and Kashmir through Watali.
Separatist leaders have been accused of taking a cut of the money.
Opposing the bail plea, the NIA contended that the sources from which the accused had received the funds could not be satisfactorily explained by him.
If released on bail, he might hamper the probe and flee from justice, it said.
In his application, Watali said no offence under the stringent Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) was made out against him in the charge sheet.
His counsel said the probe in the case was already concluded and the charge sheet was filed.
Saeed has been accused of using Watali's services for passing on the money to the separatists and some individuals, who were actively indulging in stone-pelting in the Valley.
The NIA has charged Pakistan-based terrorists Saeed and Salahuddin, besides 10 others, with criminal conspiracy, sedition and provisions of the UAPA.
Besides Saeed, Salahuddin and Watali, the agency has named hardline separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani's son-in-law Altaf Shah alias Altaf Fantoosh and Bashir Ahmad Bhat in the charge sheet.
Hurriyat Conference leaders Nayeem Ahmad Khan, Farooq Ahmad Dar alias Bitta Karate, Mohammad Akbar Khanday and Raja Mehrajuddin Kalwal have also been charged by the agency in the terror-funding case.
All the accused are currently in judicial custody.
Two of the accused -- freelance photo-journalist Kamran Yusuf and Javed Ahmad Bhat -- both accused of stone-pelting, were earlier granted bail by the court.
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Three local youth Congress leaders were killed and two others injured when their car fell into a gorge in Mandi district of Himachal Pradesh on Thursday, police said.
The deceased were identified as Dalip Kumar Mehta (39), Khem Singh Verma (43) and Dola Ram (34) of Karsog, Superintendent of Police Gurdev Sharma said.
The accident occurred at the Batharnala area near Sorta village in the district, he said.
Sharma told PTI that a police team reached the spot after getting information of the accident and rescued the two injured.
One of them was Tilak Raj (27) of Karsog, while the second injured has yet not been identified, he added.
They have been admitted to Karsog Civil Hospital, the SP said.
Meanwhile, Himachal Congress president Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu expressed grief over the death of the youth leaders.
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Three suspected narcotic smugglers have been arrested at the Charbagh railway station here by the Special Task Force of the Uttar Pradesh Police, officials said Thursday.
The arrests were made Wednesday, and 300 gm morphine, worth about Rs 30 lakh, was recovered from their possession, UP DGP OP Singh told reporters.
The arrested were identified as Mohd Usman, alias Maamu, Mohd Junaid, alias Tailor, and Fakhrul Hasan, he said.
The gang used to bring morphine from West Bengal, prepare smack and sell it in different districts of UP, the DGP added.
A detailed probe is underway, he said.
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New York and Mumbai-based Indian producer Shrihari Sathe has a pair of films "The Sweet Requiem", set in India's Tibetan community, and "Screwdriver", about a Palestinian man released after more than a decade in an Israeli jail in the official programme of the 43rd Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF).
Sathe, director of the multiple award-winning Marathi film "Ek Hazaarachi Note" (1000-Rupee Note, 2014), points out that his two new productions "have a thematic commonality because both films deal with displacement and a people in crisis."
He says: "I feel some of these stories do not come to the forefront. I therefore want t0 back themes that we do not usually see on the big screen. Even though The Sweet Requiem and Screwdriver deal with specific issues, the emotions in them are universal."
"The Sweet Requiem", directed by Dharamshala-based Ritu Sarin and Tenzing Sonam, is part of TIFF's Contemporary World Cinema section.
The film tells the story of a 26-year-old Tibetan woman whose flight to India as a little girl 18 years ago had ended in tragedy. Her search for closure is triggered by a chance encounter with the guide who she believes was responsible for the personal loss that she suffered.
"Screwdriver", the first narrative feature by Ramallah-based Bassam Jarbawi, Sathe's film studies batch-mate at Columbia University, plays in the festival's Discovery section.
"I've been with this film since 2010," says Sathe, who was present all through the shoot on the West Bank and acknowledges that it was no mean challenge filming in Palestine, which does not have a moviemaking infrastruture.
As for "The Sweet Requiem", says Sathe, his association began in 2013, when he met Sarin and Tenzing in Goa and decided to come on board as one of the producers.
"Coincidentally, both films were shot last year and were completed at the same time," he says. "It is great to have two films premiering in TIFF," he adds.
Sathe, who has co-produced Partho Sengupta's Marathi film "Arunoday" and Afia Nathaniel's "Dukhtar", is currently prepping for his next directorial venture.
"It is a psychological drama titled 'Goodbye, Mr. Kane'. It will be for global distribution," he says.
The upcoming film, he adds, will have two versions Hindi and English.
"The Hindi version will be told from the protagonist's point of view while the English one will unfold from the standpoint of the antagonist," he says.
Sathe is scripting the film with "Ek Hazaarachi Note" writer Shrikant Bojewar and an American screenwriter.
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Targeting the BJP-RSS, the Trinamool Congress (TMC) on Thursday alleged that "pressure was mounted" on the organisers to cancel a programme in Chicago in the US on the occasion of 125 years of the historic address by Swami Vivekananda, where West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee was invited.
The TMC alleged that the BJP-RSS wanted only one major programme to be held in Chicago on that occasion.
"Vivekananda Vedanta Society of Chicago, on the occasion of 125 years of the historic address by Swami Vivekananda, had invited Mamata Banerjee to attend a programme in Chicago. The Chief Minister of West Bengal confirmed her participation to them," TMC's chief national spokesperson Derek O'Brien said in a statement.
"Subsequently, it is learnt, that under 'tremendous pressure', the organisers were prevailed upon to cancel the programme. It is common knowledge that the BJP-RSS wanted only one major programme to be held in Chicago and that would be under the banner of the Global Hindu Congress (World Hindu Foundation) and this programme would be attended by Mohan Bhagwat," the statement added.
It further stated: "To ensure this happened, intense pressure was mounted on Vivekananda Vedanta Mission in Chicago to cancel the programme."
O'Brien also termed the External Affairs Ministry's statement on the issue as "low-on-fact argument".
Banerjee had on Tuesday said, "I wanted to go to Chicago.... I could not go there because of an unholy conspiracy hatched by certain people. This incident has given me a lot of pain."
The External Affairs Ministry on Wednesday dismissed the reports that Banerjee was denied permission to visit Chicago to attend the World Hindu Conference.
Ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said the government did not receive any request for clearance for her visit.
"We did not receive any request for clearance regarding the visit of Mamata Banerjee to Chicago for the event. The reports about the denial of permission are, therefore, not true," he said in response to a question.
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The West Bengal government Thursday decided to waive the toll tax two-wheelers are required to pay at Vidyasagar Setu, an entrance to the city across Hoogly river, from October 1, Chief Minister Mamata Banarjee said.
The move will help in keeping a check on the pollution-level and traffic snarls on the bridge as two-wheelers will no longer be required to stand in long queues to pay the tax.
The bridge, also known as the second Hoogly bridge, connects the city with Howrah district across the Ganga and serves as a gateway to the city.
We have decided to waive the Rs five toll tax two-wheelers need to pay at the toll plaza while crossing the Vidyasagar Setu. This will be applicable from October 1, Banerjee told reporters at the state secretariat.
The state government will face an annual loss of Rs five crore to Rs six crore on account of it, she said.
Out of the 3.11 crores of vehicles which ply both ways using the Vidyasagar Setu, around 90 crores were two-wheelers, she said.
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US President Donald Trump on Thursday rejected the official death toll from last year's Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, saying it had been inflated to almost 3,000 as part of a ploy to make him look bad.
Trump's controversial remarks sparked a rare bipartisan backlash, with even some members of his own party echoing the condemnation from Democratic opposition leaders.
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a veteran Republican congresswoman from Florida, said Trump "has a warped mind that would turn this statistic into fake " "It might be a new low," she said. "How could you be so self-centered and try to distort the truth so much?"
The true human cost of Maria, and the chaotic federal response to the storm on the US island territory, triggered a year-long controversy, which Trump revived this week even as another powerful hurricane, Florence, bore down on the East Coast.
"3000 people did not die in the two hurricanes that hit Puerto Rico," Trump tweeted early Thursday. "When I left the Island, AFTER the storm had hit, they had anywhere from 6 to 18 deaths."
"Then, a long time later, they started to report really large numbers, like 3000..." he said, going on to claim: "This was done by the Democrats in order to make me look as bad as possible when I was successfully raising Billions of Dollars to help rebuild Puerto Rico." "If a person died for any reason, like old age, just add them onto the list."Hurricane Maria killed 2,975 people in Puerto Rico, a long-awaited independent investigation by George Washington University into the 2017 storm concluded last month. It was initially said to have killed just 64 people.
After nearly a year of controversy over the figures, the island's governor said the new estimate would now be considered the official death toll.
George Washington University stood by the science behind its findings, calling the figure of 2,975 deaths "the most accurate and unbiased estimate of excess mortality to date."
Another study carried out by Harvard University and published in May estimated the death toll from the hurricane and its aftermath could have been higher than 4,600.
Hurricane Florence is the first major test of the Federal Emergency Management Agency since its much-criticized response to Maria, which caused devastation when it struck Puerto Rico as a Category 4 storm a year ago.
A US government report published this month concluded that the federal response in Puerto Rico was hampered by a lack of trained staff as well as by major logistical challenges.
But Trump has continued to boast about the handling of Maria, calling it "an incredible unsung success" as he warned residents of the Carolinas not to take chances with Florence.
Chuck Schumer, the Senate Minority leader, said Trump owed an apology to the 3,000 families for "the shameful attack on deceased fellow Americans." San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz called the president's comments "delusional, paranoid and unhinged from any sense of reality." "Trump is so vain he thinks this is about him. It is not," she said on her official Twitter account.
"Damn it, this is not about politics, this was always about saving lives," she told NBC television. Cruz had earlier described the federal disaster response in the US territory a "despicable act of neglect." "If (Trump) doesn't learn from his mistakes, he's going to make them again and people are going to continue to die," she told CNN television.
In Florida, which was badly hit by Hurricane Irma last year and which received thousands of Puerto Ricans fleeing the devastation of their homes, Republican gubernatorial candidate Ron DeSantis -- who has built his campaign around his adherence to Trump's -- tried to distance himself from the president's words.
DeSantis "doesn't believe any loss of life has been inflated," his campaign said in a statement.
Puerto Rico Governor Ricardo Rossello also has criticized Trump for not providing additional federal funds still needed for emergency housing and debris removal.
Rossello is a leader of the island's pro-statehood New Progressive Party, which aligns with Republicans, while Cruz is from the Popular Democratic Party, whose members affiliate with the Democratic Party.
Maria destroyed Puerto Rico's electricity grid, leaving the island largely without power for weeks and crippling its health care system.
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Two man said to be Bangaldesh nationals illegally staying in India were arrested Thursday for allegedly kidnapping a 17-year-old girl in Gautam Buddh Nagar here, police said.
The duo, identified as Babu (25) and Raju (22), have been staying in India for the last eight-nine years during which they have stayed in the national capital as well, they said.
A case was recently registered at the Dadri police station about a missing girl. During a search operation, the police zeroed in on these two men after which their illegal stay came to the fore, a senior official said.
"The two were living in Chithaira village of Dadri area in Gautam Buddh Nagar and originally belonged to Khulna district of Bangladesh," he said.
"We are yet to verify their identity but they have that said they are from Bangladesh. They said they have been living in Dadri for the last six years and were working at a car washing workshop. It was from the workshop that they came in contact of the girl and then eloped with her," Circle Officer (Dadri) Satish Kumar Sharma told reporters.
The accused have been booked under Indian Penal Code sections 363 (kidnapping), 366 (inducing a woman to compel her marriage), 376 (rape), among others. They have also been booked under section 14 of the Foreigners Act for illegally staying in India.
They have been charged with rape and kidnapping as the girl is a minor.
Her statement was being recorded by the police, Sharma said.
"The accused have been living in hiding for eight to nine years without visa and passport. On a tip-off, the two were held by the police near an under-construction flyover close to the railway road in Dadri," he said.
Sharma said evidence found during the probe suggested that the duo were living here under the "patronage" of some people. "Police are trying to find them and will take appropriate action against them," the CO said.
A probe is underway to find other foreigners staying illegally in the district, the officer said.
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Two more persons have been arrested in connection with the Rs 94-crore cyber fraud at the city-headquartered Cosmos Bank, police said Thursday.
With this, the number of arrested persons in the case has reached four.
"Shaikh Mohammad Abdul Jabbar (28), resident of Sillod in Aurangabad district,and Mahesh Sahebrao Rathod (22) from Bhokar tehsil of Nanded district were arrested in connection with fraudulent withdrawal of cash from ATMs," said a police officer here.
Both were into catering and online marketing businesses, he said, adding that probe is on to find their links with the other accused.
Jabbar and Rathod were produced before a Pune court which remanded them in police custody for seven days, the official said.
On August 11 and 13, unidentified hackers stole information of the bank's VISA and Rupay card customers, attacked SWIFT system and syphoned off a total of Rs 94 crore.
Police believe that after stealing the information, money was withdrawn from ATMs in as many as 28 countries.
On Tuesday, police had arrested Faheem Shaikh from Bhiwandi and Faheem Khan from Aurangabad in the case.
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Two Pakistani militants, including the mastermind of an IED blast in which four policemen lost their lives earlier this year, were killed in an encounter with security forces in Sopore area of Baramulla district of Jammu and Kashmir, police said.
The militants belonged to Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) outfit.
Security forces launched a cordon and search operation in Chinkipora near Arampora area of Sopore township in the north Kashmir district this morning after receiving intelligence input about the presence of militants in the area.
The search operation turned into an encounter after the hiding militants fired upon the forces.
Initially, civilians were evacuated from the encounter site to safer areas before engaging the terrorists in the encounter, a police spokesman said.
He said in the ensuing gunfight, two militants were killed.
Some arms, ammunition and incriminating material were recovered from the site of the encounter, the spokesman said.
From the incriminating material recovered from the encounter site, the killed terrorists have been identified as foreigners from Pakistan namely Ali alias Athar and Zia-ur-Rehman. They were affiliated with proscribed terror outfit JeM, he said.
The spokesman said Ali was one of the important commanders of JeM and was active since 2014.
He was the mastermind of the January 6 Sopore IED blast in which four policemen attained martyrdom. Besides, both of them were involved in attacks on security force establishments and civilian atrocities, he said.
Police have registered a case in this regard and the investigation has been initiated, the spokesman said.
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UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin has denied reports in Spain of ongoing talks to play the 2021 Champions League final in New York.
Ceferin says in a statement: "This idea is currently not being discussed at all." UEFA is set to decide next year where to stage its marquee club game in 2021.
This week, the chief executive of Spanish Champions League rights holder Mediapro told a radio station that UEFA is "investigating the feasibility" of a Champions League final in New York. Mediapro holds the rights through 2021.
However, Ceferin says: "UEFA has no plans to stage the Champions League final outside Europe." In a 2016 interview with The Associated Press, Ceferin said it "might be an idea in future." The Spanish league wants to start playing one game a year in the United States.
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The UK government Thursday dismissed as "obfuscation and lies" the claim of the two Russians accused of carrying out a deadly nerve agent attack in the country on a former Russian spy and his daughter that they were merely civilian tourists.
The men, named as Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, told Russian government backed RT channel that they travelled to the English town of Salisbury purely to see tourist sites such as Stonehenge, which is about 16 kilometres from Salisbury.
On Wednesday Russian President Vladimir Putin said "there is nothing criminal about them", calling the two men caught on security cameras in the UK "civilians".
The duo are accused by the UK of trying to kill Russian ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in March. The two fell critically ill but recovered after weeks of intensive care in hospital. Their current whereabouts are being kept secret.
Reacting to the statements of the two Russians, a government spokesperson reiterated that the duo were officers of Russian military intelligence.
"The government is clear these men are officers of the Russian military intelligence service -- the GRU -- who used a devastatingly toxic, illegal chemical weapon on the streets of our country," the spokesperson said in a statement.
"We have repeatedly asked Russia to account for what happened in Salisbury in March. Today -- just as we have seen throughout -- they have responded with obfuscation and lies."
During the TV interview, two men displayed a detailed knowledge of Salisbury cathedral, noting its 123-metre spire and clock, the "first of its kind anywhere in the world."
They claimed to have had nothing to do with the attack on Skripal and his daughter. They might have been spotted in the same street as the Skripals' house, they said, but they had no idea the Skripals lived there.
British prosecutors said last week they had "sufficient evidence" to charge the two Russians with attempted murder and conspiracy to murder in connection with the attack on March 4.
Prosecutors say the Skripals came into contact with Novichok, a military-grade nerve agent.
UK police are linking the attack to a separate Novichok poisoning on June 30, when Dawn Sturgess and Charlie Rowley fell ill at a house in Amesbury, about 13 kilometres away. While Dawn died later, her partner Charlie survived.
Britain is not applying to Russia for the extradition of the two men as Russian does not extradite its own nationals. However, prosecutors have obtained a European Arrest Warrant and police have asked Interpol to issue arrest warrants too.
Russia has repeatedly denied any involvement in the Salisbury attack.
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The UK government Thursday dismissed as "lies and blatant fabrications" the claim of the two Russians accused of carrying out a deadly nerve agent attack in the country on a former Russian spy and his daughter that they were innocent civilian tourists.
The men, named as Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, told Russian government backed RT channel that they travelled to the English town of Salisbury purely to see tourist sites such as Stonehenge, which is about 16 kilometres from Salisbury.
On Wednesday Russian President Vladimir Putin said "there is nothing criminal about them", calling the two men caught on security cameras in the UK "civilians".
The duo are accused by the UK of trying to kill Russian ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in March. The two fell critically ill but recovered after weeks of intensive care in hospital. Their current whereabouts are being kept secret.
Reacting to the statements of the two Russians, Prime Minister Theresa May's spokesman said, "The lies and blatant fabrications in this interview given to a Russian state-sponsored TV station are an insult to the public's intelligence and more importantly they are deeply offensive to the victims and loved ones of this horrific attack."
"Sadly it's what we've come to expect," May's spokesperson said.
Earlier, a government spokesperson reiterated that the duo were officers of Russian military intelligence.
"The government is clear these men are officers of the Russian military intelligence service -- the GRU -- who used a devastatingly toxic, illegal chemical weapon on the streets of our country," the BBC quoted the spokesperson as saying.
"We have repeatedly asked Russia to account for what happened in Salisbury in March. Today -- just as we have seen throughout -- they have responded with obfuscation and lies," the spokesperson said.
During the TV interview, two men displayed a detailed knowledge of Salisbury cathedral, noting its 123-metre spire and clock, the "first of its kind anywhere in the world."
They claimed to have had nothing to do with the attack on Skripal and his daughter. They might have been spotted in the same street as the Skripals' house, they said, but they had no idea the Skripals lived there.
British prosecutors said last week they had "sufficient evidence" to charge the two Russians with attempted murder and conspiracy to murder in connection with the attack on March 4.
Prosecutors say the Skripals came into contact with Novichok, a military-grade nerve agent.
UK police are linking the attack to a separate Novichok poisoning on June 30, when Dawn Sturgess and Charlie Rowley fell ill at a house in Amesbury, about 13 kilometres away. While Dawn died later, her partner Charlie survived.
Britain is not applying to Russia for the extradition of the two men as Russian does not extradite its own nationals. However, prosecutors have obtained a European Arrest Warrant and police have asked Interpol to issue arrest warrants too.
Russia has repeatedly denied any involvement in the Salisbury attack.
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A Hizbul Mujahideen terrorist who was planning an attack on Ganesh Chaturthi was arrested in Kanpur on Thursday, police said.
"The terrorist has been identified as Qamar-uz-Zama (37), a resident of Assam, and is an active member of Hizbul Mujahideen," Director General of Police OP Singh said.
He was arrested in Kanpur's Chakeri area, Singh said at a hurriedly convened press conference here.
The DGP said the arrested terrorist was planning an attack on Ganesh Chaturthi but did not elaborate, saying a probe is on.
Replying to a question, Singh said, "Whether he is here to vitiate the religious atmosphere or for any other purpose is part of the probe," he said.
The state's Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS), which made the arrest, was tracking him for the past 8-10 days. It appeared from his mobile phone that he was carrying out a recce, police said,
"He was active on social media and had posted a picture of himself in April 2018 with an AK-47 weapon, after which he was under our radar," the DGP said.
That photo went viral on social media, police said.
The arrest was made by the ATS with the help of the National Investigation Agency and the Kanpur police.
"The terrorist had undergone training in Pakistan in 2017 and had joined the Hizbul there. He also stayed abroad between 2008 and 2012," Singh said.
Qamar-uz-Zama is educated with a sound knowledge of computers, but failed his BA third- year exam, Singh said.
He said the police are trying to trace his links and source of funding. They are also probing why he was staying in Kanpur.
"Whether he is here to vitiate the religious atmosphere or for any other purpose is part of the probe," he said.
The 10-day Ganesh Chaturthi festival began Thursday morning.
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The Uttar Pradesh government has decided to release Bhim Army chief Chandrashekhar who is detained under the National Security Act (NSA) in connection with the 2017 Saharanpur violence.
Chandrashekhar also known as Ravan, 30, was arrested in June 2017 in connection with the May 5 clashes in which one person was killed and 16 others were injured at Shabbirpur village in Saharanpur.
On November 2, 2017, the Allahabad High Court had granted bail to Chandrashekhar. However, a day before his release, he was booked under the NSA, thus preventing his release.
Under the NSA, he was to be detained till November 1.
"After going through the representation of Chandrashekhar's mother, it has been decided to release him early. He had to be in jail till November 1," a spokesperson of the Home Department said here Thursday.
The NSA was invoked against Chandrashekhar and five others in the case. While three people were released earlier, Chandrashekhar, Sonu and Shiv Kumar are still in jail.
Sonu and Shiv Kumar will also be released early, the spokesman said, adding that the district magistrate of Saharanpur has been directed "to release them".
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A delegation of US Catholic cardinals and bishops is to meet Thursday with Pope Francis amid a crisis of confidence in church leadership following new sex abuse and cover-up revelations that have also implicated Francis himself.
Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, head of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, requested the audience last month following revelations that a now-disgraced ex-cardinal, Theodore McCarrick, had risen through church ranks despite allegations of sexual misconduct that were known in US and Vatican circles.
As well as requesting a full-fledged Vatican investigation into the McCarrick affair, DiNardo wants answers to allegations that a string of Vatican officials including Francis have known of McCarrick's misdeeds since 2000, but turned a blind eye.
DiNardo is heading the US delegation and is accompanied by Boston Cardinal Sean O'Malley, Francis' top sex abuse adviser, and other officials from the US conference.
The Vatican hasn't responded to allegations by its former ambassador to the US, Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, that Francis rehabilitated McCarrick from sanctions imposed by Pope Benedict XVI over allegations McCarrick would routinely invite seminarians to his beach house and into his bed.
Francis removed McCarrick as a cardinal in July after a US church investigation said an allegation that he groped a teenage altar boy in the 1970s was credible.
After broke of the sanction, several former seminarians and priests came forward to report that they too had been abused or harassed by McCarrick as adults.
The McCarrick affair coupled with revelations in the Pennsylvania grand jury report detailing decades of abuse and cover-up in six dioceses has fuelled outrage among the rank-and-file faithful who had trusted church leaders to reform themselves after the abuse scandal first erupted in Boston in 2002.
The outrage has also been directed at Francis and the Vatican and has fuelled conservative criticism of Francis' mercy-over-morals priorities.
Francis has responded with a series of initiatives aimed at trying to convince the faithful that he "gets it" and is prepared to take measures to put an end to what he has called the "culture of cover-up" in the church.
On the eve of the US audience, Francis announced he was summoning the presidents of bishops conferences around the world to a February summit to discuss prevention measures and protection of minors and vulnerable adults.
However, Francis is still dealing with the fallout from his botched response to the abuse scandal in Chile.
Francis had repeatedly discredited victims of the country's most notorious predator, the Rev Fernando Karadima, and defended a bishop accused of covering for his crimes.
Francis eventually admitted to "grave errors in judgment" and took steps to make amends, including securing offers of resignation from every active member of Chile's bishops' conference.
Even DiNardo's own record on protecting children has now come into question. On the eve of his audience with Francis, The Associated Press reported that two victims in Houston had accused him of not doing enough to stop a priest who was arrested this week on sexual abuse charges.
The archdiocese issued a statement Wednesday confirming that both people had come forward to report abuse by the priest, the Rev Manuel LaRosa-Lopez, one of them in 2001.
The priest is now the pastor at St John Fisher Catholic Church in Richmond while also serving as the archdiocese's episcopal vicar for Hispanics.
In his capacity as president of the US conference, DiNardo has been outspoken in calling for greater protections for children and accountability.
He announced in August that he wanted a Vatican investigation known as an apostolic visitation into the McCarrick affair, working in concert with a group of predominantly lay experts.
"We are faced with a spiritual crisis that requires not only spiritual conversion, but practical changes to avoid repeating the sins and failures of the past," DiNardo said in an August 16 statement.
"I have no illusions about the degree to which trust in the bishops has been damaged by these past sins and failures."
Any in-depth investigation of the McCarrick case is likely to shed light on the timetable for when senior Catholic officials in the US and the Vatican know about the multiple allegations against McCarrick.
A priest, the Rev Boniface Ramsay and a group of concerned Catholics sought to warn Vatican officials about McCarrick in 2000, but he was still appointed Washington archbishop and made a cardinal in 2001.
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National security agencies and members of Congress are frustrated by the lack of answers about what the United States describes as "health attacks" that have injured American diplomats in Cuba.
A meeting Thursday between US and Cuban officials was intended to try to help determine the method and motive behind those mysterious incidents that began nearly two years ago and have affected about two dozen people, including some diagnosed with brain damage.
A flurry of reports has suggesting investigators have narrowed their suspicions as to the cause and culprit.
The planned meeting is "part of our ongoing effort to investigate and better understand the health conditions of our diplomats," the State Department said.
It said the Cuban delegation would "receive a general medical briefing about the injuries experienced by US personnel who served in Havana."
The department has played down or denied reports that investigators have focused on a microwave device as the source of the attacks and that Russia is the leading suspect.
The reports have raised protests from Cuba, which does not dispute the symptoms but insists there is no evidence to support any assertion that they were caused by premeditated attacks on its soil.
Twenty-five US Embassy workers in Cuba, as well as one at the US consulate in Guangzhou, China, have been affected by mysterious health incidents that began in the fall of 2016.
The range of symptoms and diagnoses includes mild traumatic brain injury, also known as concussion.
The last case from Havana was confirmed in June. The US said two embassy staffers were affected in a single occurrence in late May in a diplomatic residence at which both officers were present.
Those were the first confirmed cases in Havana since August 2017.
One US official said Thursday's meeting was organised after Cuba complained that Washington has withheld important details about the affected Americans' medical conditions.
The official was not authorised to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
In congressional testimony last week, State Department medical personnel suggested they had shared more information with China about the incident in Guangzhou than they had with the Cubans about what has happened in Havana.
Officials at the Cuban Embassy in Washington had no immediate comment.
They have repeatedly denounced the US accusations as politically motivated and unproven.
Several officials from the State Department and other agencies involved in the US investigation testified last week before a House Foreign Affairs Committee panel but were unable to provide any new information about the investigation and its potential findings.
In two private classified briefings with congressional aides and lawmakers, the officials repeated that they had not come to any conclusions about what caused the injuries or who might be responsible for them.
Initial speculation had centered on some type of sonic attack, owing to strange sounds heard by those affected, but an interim FBI report in January found no evidence that sound waves could have caused the damage.
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The US House of Representatives on Wednesday passed a legislation prohibiting slaughter of cats and dogs for human consumption.
The Dog and Cat Meat Trade Prohibition Act, 2018, imposes a fine of USD 5,000 (over Rs 3,50,000) for each violation.
In another resolution, the House has urged all countries including China, South Korea and India to end the dog and cat meat trade.
"Dogs and cats are meant for companionship and recreation. Tragically, more than 10 million dogs are killed for human consumption every year in China," said Congresswoman Claudia Tenney.
There is no place in our compassionate society for these practices. This bill is a reflection of America's values, and sends a strong message to all nations that we will not stand for this inhumane and cruel treatment," she said.
The resolution urges the governments of China, South Korea, Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos, India, and all other nations to adopt and enforce laws banning the dog and cat meat trade.
It also urges these countries to increase their efforts to prevent any leather or fur byproducts of such trade from entering international markets and use their food safety laws to crack down on the sale of dog and cat's meat.
The bill amends the Animal Welfare Act. It affirms the US commitment to the protection of animals and to advancing the progress of animal protection around the world, she said.
In addition, the bill prohibits people from knowingly transporting, possessing, buying, selling, or donating: a dog or cat to be slaughtered for human consumption, or dog or cat parts for human consumption, setting a maximum fine of USD 5,000 for violations.
"More than half the households in America have a dog or cat as part of their family. We should send a clear message that slaughtering these beloved animals for food is unacceptable and will be punished," Congressman Vern Buchanan said.
The animal welfare organisation, the Animal Wellness Action (AWC) also welcomed the passage of the two legislations.
"The dog meat trade claiming 30 million lives a year is the world's largest form of dog exploitation, said Marty Irby, AWC executive director at Animal Wellness Action.
The dog meat trade is widespread in South Korea, where meat traders slaughter and kill millions of dogs for the table after they are raised on thousands of farms. In China, dog meat butchers gather up street dogs and and kill them.
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Trump administration, which is determined to impose fresh set of sanctions on Iran and countries and entities engaged in business with Tehran, is currently reviewing India's development of the strategically important Chabahar port in the Islamic Republic, a senior government official has said.
The Chabahar port is being considered a gateway to golden opportunities for trade by India, Iran and Afghanistan with central Asian countries besides ramping up trade among the three countries in the wake of Pakistan denying transit access to New Delhi.
"We are reviewing (Chabahar project) in the context, in particular of Afghanistan, and in the spirit that the idea of our sanctions are not to punish partners or to imperil partners, but to bring a price tag for Iran's malign behaviour," Alice Wells, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia, told a Washington audience.
"As we review the issue of Chabahar, it'll be in the context of what it provides for the stabilisation of Afghanistan or for the kind of regional connectivity that serves other interests as well. But it's an ongoing process of review," Wells said in response to a question at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a top American think-tank.
Last month, President Donald Trump issued a strong warning to anyone trading with Iran, following his re-imposition of sanctions on the country.
During the recently held 2+2 Dialogue, Wells said the US emphasised the administration's resolve to impose sanctions on Iran and voiced its expectation that its partners will work to reduce oil imports from the oil-rich Islamic Republic to zero.
Wells said the Trump administration is very focused on bringing Iranian oil exports down to zero by November. As such, the US officials have had a detailed conversation both with the Indian private sector and the Indian counterparts to discuss what this means and what steps the US is taking to ensure the adequate supply.
"Obviously, India is quite sensitive to price fluctuations," she said, acknowledging that particularly in an election year, this is a very important issue.
"We've already seen a reduction underway over the last month. There's been a substantial reduction (in India's purchase of oil from Iran). I think the private sector responds to a risk and concern over consequences. So I think that's going to be there. You're going to see a clear response from the private sector in that regard and will continue our conversations with the government of India," she said.
David F Helvey, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defence for Asian and Pacific Security Affairs, said that the Trump administration is committed to implementing all provisions of Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA), which imposes sanctions on countries and entities making major arms deal with Russia. A recent amendment has the provision of a presidential waiver in some cases.
"We are working with our partners, including India, and talking to them about ways to encourage them to avoid potentially, sanctionable acquisitions or activities. So those conversations are ongoing," he said, noting that he can't really get into details or the specifics of what those conversations are.
"With respect to the waiver provision in National Defence Authorisation Act (NDAA)fundamentally though this is a provision that allows the president to make these determinations. I'm not going to get ahead of the president how he may or may not exercise that authority," he said.
"But I do think it's just important to know that the purpose of the sanctions is not to punish our allies or our partners or damage their military capabilities. (The purpose) is to impose costs and consequences on Russia for its behaviour. This is a complicated issue. We are having the conversation with India and all our partners. But I'm not gonna speculate on how, when, or where, or if, that waiver provision would be employed," Helvey said.
Responding to a question, Helvey said the Trump administration recognises that there's a considerable amount of India's legacy force structures of Russian origin or other defense partners of India.
"I'm part of the process of working with the Indians to make sure that we've got the right assurance and mechanisms in place to ensure that our defence technology, which is hard to come by and based on investment of considerable resources to develop the type of technology that we have, that we want to put in the field with our forces, our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines, to make sure that they have the best equipment," he said.
"We're willing to share that with our partners and we just have to make sure that we have the right types of assurances with that. So when you have agreements, whether it's COMCASA (Communications Compatibility and Security Agreement) or others, that allow us to have that confidence that gives us the space to be able to move forward and look at where we can do," he said.
The two countries are looking at co-development and co-production in the defence technology and trade initiative or even just looking at ways to have the right type of interoperability and that's what the COMCASA agreement allows.
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The US shares a concern with India over the continued ability of terrorist proxies to operate on Pakistani soil, a senior Trump administration official has said, stressing that tackling this core issue by Islamabad is critical to the prospects of its better relations with New Delhi.
Alice Wells, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia, said conversations on counterterrorism had always been always a very important part of the US-India relationship and the two countries have been coordinating on terrorist designations.
"We have a thriving counterterrorism dialogue. We have ongoing efforts by the US administration to sanction a range of global terrorists, including nearly a dozen Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) targets and aliases over the last year," she said at an event at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a top American think-tank.
The LeT militant group carried out the 2008 Mumbai attack, killing 166 people, including American nationals.
"And certainly, with the 10th anniversary of the Mumbai attack approaching, we share a concern over the continued ability of terrorists proxies to operate on Pakistani soil," Wells said.
Referring to a recent remark by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Wells said the US was "looking for actions, not words" from the government of Pakistan. And obviously this is a shared concern, she said.
Pompeo, who recently visited Islamabad before he travelled to New Delhi, had a good constructive consultations with the new Pakistani leadership, she said.
"It was his first opportunity to meet with Prime Minister Imran Khan and it was an opportunity for the Secretary to lay out aspirations for the relationship," she said, adding that she sees Pakistan as a sovereign country that has a choice to make.
"I would hope that the choice is what was attributed to a Chief of Army Staff, General (Qamar Javed) Bajwa who said as long as there are extremists non-state forces operating in Pakistan; Pakistan can't be a normal state," Wells said.
"It is tackling that core issue that's going to be so critical both to the quality of our bilateral relationship but also to the prospects for better relations between India and Pakistan," she said.
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The United States on Wednesday condemned the announcement of a plan to conduct elections in the Russia-backed part of eastern Ukraine.
"Given the continued control of these territories by the Russian Federation, genuine elections are inconceivable, and grossly contravene Russia's commitments under the Minsk agreements," the State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert said.
By "engineering phony procedures", Russia is once more demonstrating its disregard for international norms and is undermining efforts to achieve peace in eastern Ukraine, she alleged.
"The so-called 'Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics' that Russia created have no place within the Ukrainian constitutional order," she said.
The US remains fully committed to diplomatic efforts to resolve the Russia-instigated conflict in eastern Ukraine. The support for Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity remains unwavering, Nauert said.
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Union Minister Harsh Vardhan Thursday said Prime Minister Narendra Modi has set the vision to put India in the bracket of three top scientifically advanced nations by 2030.
To realise the dreams of the Prime Minister, our scientific community should think a little out of box, keep doing research targeted for the benefit of people, the Union Minister for Science and Technology said.
Vardhan said this after laying the foundation of Shyama Prasad Mookherjee Advanced Research & Training (SMART) centre of Indian Association for Cultivation of Science (IACS) here.
Vardhan, also the minister of Earth Sciences and Environment, Forest and Climate Change, said, "For the past four years under Modi's leadership our scientific community have been working to solve the common day problems of people with their works," and this is the area we should keep our focus on.
"We need to popularise science among the students and young generation," he said and called upon everyone to realise the goal to put India among the bracket of three top scientifically advanced nations by 2030.
Vardhan said after Jai Jawan Jai Kishan, the present government has coined the 'Jai Vigyan' slogan to give due emphasis on science education and scientific research.
Referring to India's progress in space research, he said, "We have made great strides in space research putting up 104 satellites in the orbit in 2017. We are launching Chandrayaan 2 mission to moon in 2019."
The Union Minister said, India now occupied the third spot in nanotechnology in the world, while the country had witnessed 14 per cent growth rate in science publications against the global average of four per cent.
The tsunami in 2004 had caused havoc in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, but the country has now developed a robust tsunami warning system which put us among the top league among countries having advanced tsunami warning in the world, he said.
In oceanography research India was after US, UK and Japan, he said.
Vardhan said the present day scientists were availing the most modern instruments, equipment and laboratory unlike their illustrious predecessors "who had at times worked without amenities like ceiling fans."
"Today's young generations should know the situations the previous great scientists had worked under without much facilities," he said.
Referring to the 143-year old IACS, Vardhan said, "Many illustrious names from C V Raman, Meghnad Saha, J C Bose had been associated with this premier institution.
He said the SMART campus, foundation stone of which was laid on Thursday, will be completed and dedicated to the service of nation by March 31, 2020.
"This new building will be the foundation of the new emerging India," he said.
Director of IACS Santanu Bhattacharya said in his address, "apart from fundamental researches in the various frontier areas of physics and chemistry, the 143-year old institution has ventured into the emerging multidisciplinary areas such as non-conventional energy sources, advanced and novel nano-materials and interdisciplinary biological sciences.
He said from this year IACS has been conferred a deemed university status under de novo category.
De novo institution means an institution involved in innovations in teaching and research in unique and emerging areas of knowledge.
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Vice President Venkaiah Naidu will embark on a three-nation tour to Serbia, Malta and Romania from September 14 to 20 to boost ties with the Central European countries, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said Thursday.
In the first leg of his visit, Naidu will be visiting Serbia from September 14 to September 16, Anju Kumar, Joint Secretary (Central Europe) in the Ministry of External Affairs, told a media briefing.
The visit is at the invitation of Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, she said.
"And it is coming after a long gap. In fact, after the break-up of Yugoslavia, it is the first time that a dignitary (from India) is visiting the country," the official said.
Serbia has an unconditional and open visa policy for India, Kumar said.
During his visit, Naidu will hold talks with Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, speaker of the national assembly and the prime minister of that country.
Naidu will also address a special session of the National Assembly, Kumar said, adding the venue of the session will be the place where the first announcement of the historic Non-Alignment Movement (NAM) was made.
Vucic had visited India to attend the Vibrant Gujarat Summit last year in the capacity of a prime minister.
The MEA joint secretary said the focus of the visit will be on trade.
Bilateral trade between India and Serbia stands at around USD 200 million with a focus on areas like agriculture and agricultural technologies, science and technology, education, tourism and pharmaceutical.
In the second leg of the tour, Naidu will visit Malta from September 16 to September 18.
Malta, a country in the Mediterranean, lies on the crossroads of North Africa and Europe and is also a
trans-shipment hub.
During the visit, Naidu will visit Maltese President
Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca, the speaker of the House of the Representatives and the acting prime minister of that country, the MEA said.
The vice president will also have an interaction with the Indian diaspora and attend a business event where 180-200 companies are likely to participate.
Last year, India had opened a permanent high commission in Malta. The country also actively cooperated in evacuation of Indians form Libya in 2011 and 2014.
In the last leg, Naidu will visit Romania from September 18 to September 20, the ministry said.
The visit coincides with 70th year of Indo-Romanian ties and the centenary year of Romania.
During the visit, Naidu will meet Romanian President Klaus Iohannis, the president of Romanian Senate and the prime minister. He will also address a session of Chamber of Deputies in the Romanian Parliament.
Naidu will also have a business meet and interact with the Indian diaspora, Kumar said.
Several crucial pacts are expected to be signed during the visit to the three countries, the MEA official said.
The vice president will be accompanied by Shiv Pratap Shukla, Minister of State in the finance ministry; Rajya Sabha MPs-- Prasanna Acharya (Biju Janata Dal-BJD), Vijila Sathyananth (All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam-AIADMK) and Saroj Pandey (Bharatiya Janata Party-BJP); and Lok Sabha MP Raghav Lakhanpal (BJP).
Earlier this month, President Ram Nath Kovind visited Cyprus, Bulgaria and Czech Republic.
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Boosting bilateral trade and increasing exports from Gujarat instead of just attracting Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) will be the focus of the upcoming Vibrant Gujarat Global Summit-2019, an official said Thursday.
In the run up to the summit to be held between January 18 and 20, various delegations comprising bureaucrats, industrialists, experts and ministers in Gujarat government, are visiting different countries to explore opportunities and to invite them for the mega biennial event.
Additional Chief Secretary of Agriculture and Co-operation Department, Sanjay Prasad, is heading to Russia and France next week with his delegation.
He said the focus this time will be on bilateral trade and technical collaborations to help Gujarat-based firms increase exports after doing value addition to raw material imported from different countries.
"Attracting FDI in Gujarat has been the main focus of the earlier summits. But this time, we are focusing not only on FDI, but also on ensuring a quantum increase in all kinds of economic activities here," Prasad told PTI.
The official will visit Russia and France between September 17 and 25 with a delegation to explore trade and investment opportunities with these countries as well as to invite delegates of these countries to participate in the upcoming Vibrant Summit.
During the visit, the delegation would also enter into technological collaborations with various entities, including research institutes and universities.
Prasad's delegation is one of the 24 such delegations from Gujarat, which had either already visited some countries or embark on the tour in the coming weeks to seek partnerships from foreign nations as part of the Vibrant Summit.
He said since Gujarat handles almost 50 per cent of India's overseas sea trade through its ports, the focus of the upcoming event will be to increase the exports as well.
According to Prasad, many firms in Gujarat are engaged in importing raw materials, such as rough diamonds, specialty textiles and crude oil, from countries like Russia, process them here and export them back after adding value to it.
"This time, we are focusing on bilateral trade, especially exports between Gujarat and other countries. Our focus this time is to augment this economic activity wherein we import raw material, process it here and export it back. In a way, this Summit is more comprehensive," he said.
During his visit to Russia and France, Prasad and his delegation would engage in deliberations with the industry leaders of chemicals and petrochemicals, aerospace and defence, pharmaceuticals, oil and gas, education and automobile sector.
He added that during his visit, efforts will be made to woo Russian and French companies to set up their operations at Dholera Special Investment Region (SIR) near Ahmedabad.
The Vibrant Gujarat Summit was conceptualised in 2003 by Narendra Modi when he was the chief minister of Gujarat. The last Vibrant Summit held in 2017 had witnessed participation of over 100 countries.
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Tata group firm Voltas and its Turkish JV partner Arcelik would invest Rs 1,000 crore in the next four-five years to set up a home appliances plant in Gujarat, and in marketing activities, a top company official said.
The company is looking to corner around 10 per cent of the market share and to generate a revenue of Rs 10,000 crore in the next seven-eight years in the home appliances segment, which is quite competitive now.
Voltas, which has formed a 50:50 JV -- Voltbek Home Appliances Pvt Ltd (Voltbek) -- with the Turkish firm, Thursday launched their home appliances brand 'Voltas Beko'.
Voltas Beko has a range of home appliances, which include refrigerators, washing machines, microwaves, and dishwashers. Besides, the company plans to add over 100 SKUs over the next three months.
"Over all we are investing more than Rs 1,000 crore in the next 4 to 5 years on manufacturing, sales and marketing of the products," Voltas Managing Director & CEO Pradeep Bakshi told PTI.
"We have already bought a land parcel of 60 acre in Sanand near Ahmedabad, where we are going to manufacture. We have already started civil works at factory and the products would be coming out by the second quarter of the next year," Bakshi further added.
Initially, Arcelik would supply major components to the JV for manufacturing but, gradually it would increase the localisation ratio.
"Some components would be imported but, the idea is over time to localise as much as possible," said Arcelik CEO Hakan Bulgurlu.
The company would also expand its dealership network and have a 360 degree approach, which include modern trade outlets, multi brand outlets, e-commerce and many more, Bakshi added.
"To begin with, in the next two years, we would add 10,000 additional outlets," he said adding Voltas would also "add 500 more exclusive brand outlets in the next two years and taking it to over 1,000 in next three-four years".
Presently, Voltas has around 100 exclusive brand outlets and around 70 per cent of its dealers selling its range of cooling products also deal in other product categories and this network would be utilised by the Tata Enterprise.
According to Bakshi, its range of home appliances would be "Value for money" and would cater all kind of segments in metro and tier II & III cities.
On being asked about the sales projections, Bakshi said, "We are looking at a revenue of Rs 10,000 crore by 2025 and have around 10 per cent market share in the segment."
Besides India, the JV has plans to scout for other geographies as it is also looking to tap the export opportunities.
"Our initial focus would be India," said Bulgurlu adding that in the later stage, they would also explore neighbouring Asian and African markets.
Presently, the JV would import the entire line up from Arcelik's global manufacturing units from Turkey and Thailand.
As per the industry reports, the consumer durables market in India is slated to grow at 1012 per cent per annum.
Currently, the white goods market is valued at Rs 43,000-crore (excluding AC).
In the last 10 years, the Indian major domestic appliances market grew by a CAGR of 9 percent.
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat said Thursday the Uttarakhand government will not tolerate "infiltrators" in the state.
"Bangladeshis or Rohingyas, we will not tolerate infiltrators in Uttarakhand. The state is strategically sensitive and important," Rawat told reporters here.
He also appealed to people to inform the authorities immediately using the chief minister app and other such apps if they spot suspicious people.
"Infiltrators will certainly be chased out of the limits of Uttarakhand," he said.
Former chief minister and BJP MP from Haridwar Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank had recently expressed concern over alleged infiltration of Bangladeshis into the state.
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Police Thursday said that the ganja seized from the house of a woman Wednesday weighed 357.5 kilograms, making it the biggest seizure of the contraband in Rajkot.
Madina Juneja (45) was arrested Wednesday, and a huge quantity of ganja seized, after the the city's Special Operations Group (SOG) and Bhaktinagar police station personnel raided her house in Jungleshwar area here, an official said.
A senior official Thursday said that three persons from Juneja's family have also been arrested in connection with the raid and seizure.
"The police has seized 357.5 kg ganja having a market value of about Rs 21,45,582. We have also arrested Madina's husband Usman Juneja (49), their daughter Afsana (25) and a minor boy," Rajkot Police Commissioner Manoj Agrawal said Thursday.
He added that a revolver and two live cartridges have been recovered from Juneja's house.
Agrawal said that the quantity of ganja seized in this case, at 357.5 kgs, is the bigger haul of the contraband in the city.
He claimed that several members of the family had cases of drug peddling registered against them previously.
"Madina's mother Amina was arrested on August 20 with over 1 kg ganja. Madina's son Nawaz is serving jail in Jamnagar," the commissioner said.
He said that the police would soon obtain custody of Nawaz to interrogate him.
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Drug firm Zydus Cadila has received final nod from the US health regulator for Risedronate Sodium delayed-release tablets, used for treatment of osteoporosis in postmenopausal women.
The company has received final approval from the USFDA to market the tablets in the strength of 35 mg, in America, Zydus Cadila said in a statement Thursday.
The product will be manufactured at the group's formulations manufacturing facility at Moraiya, Ahmedabad, it added.
Risedronate alters bone formation and breakdown in the body. This can slow bone loss and may help prevent bone fractures. This medicine is used to treat osteoporosis in women, caused by menopause, Zydus Cadila said.
The group now has 218 approvals and has so far filed over 330 abbreviated new drug applications (ANDAs) since the commencement of its filing process, it added.
(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
By Patturaja Murugaboopathy and Gaurav Dogra(Reuters) - Asian companies posted their lowest profit growth in nearly two years in the June quarter and earnings are likely to come under further pressure, weighed down by the escalating U.S.-China trade war and high currency volatility, Reuters analyses showed.An analysis of about 4,000 Asian companies excluding Japan showed their combined net profit rose 12.98 percent in the June quarter, easing for the third straight quarter and the slowest pace of expansion the September quarter of 2016.More pressure is building, with analysts slashing their ...
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(Reuters) - Goldman Sachs Group Inc on Thursday announced its biggest management shakeup since naming David Solomon as Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein's successor.Long-term insider John Waldron will take over as president and chief operating officer. Waldron, who currently runs investing banking, will become Solomon's No.2 when he takes the CEO role in October.Stephen Scherr will replace Martin Chavez as chief financial officer. Scherr, who has been with the bank for more than two decades, will take over on Nov. 5. (https://bit.ly/2MrpEda)Chavez will become vice chairman and co-head ...
By Florence TanSINGAPORE (Reuters) - Two tankers carrying Iranian condensate, a type of ultra-light oil, have been floating off the United Arab Emirates for about a month as demand for the oil fell ahead of U.S. sanctions.The tankers, carrying about 2.4 million barrels of South Pars condensate combined, have been floating off the UAE since August after South Korea halted imports from Iran while China's demand dropped during summer, according to several industry sources and shipping data. The build-up in Iranian oil supplies underscores the pressure that Iran is facing as Washington aims to ...
By Ju-min Park and Heekyong YangSEOUL (Reuters) - The chief executive of South Korea's LG Display, Han Sang-beom, was determined to deliver a strong message when he appeared before 1,000 employees at the firm's main manufacturing plant last spring.So he donned a pair of goggles, picked up a hammer, and smashed a liquid-crystal display screen to bits.The symbolism was impossible to miss: LCD panels, the company's mainstay for years, were being relegated to the industrial dustbin. The company's future would depend on a newer technology, organic light-emitting diode, or OLED."I've never seen him ...
WARSAW (Reuters) - The chief executive at Poland's coking coal miner JSW will keep his job for now, as the supervisory board meeting that was expected to result in his dismissal on Thursday was cancelled, two company sources said. On Monday a source said that the energy ministry, which supervises JSW, might fire CEO Daniel Ozon on Thursday following disagreements over strategy. Ozon was quoted by the Rzeczpospolita daily on Monday as saying that he was pressed many times to use JSW money to finance investment that is not related with the miner's operations. Shares in JSW fell by around 8 ...
By Robin Emmott and Padraic HalpinBRUSSELS/DUBLIN (Reuters) - Ryanair faces a one-day walkout by cabin crew across five countries on Sept. 28 as unions step up pressure on Europe's biggest budget airline to accept local contracts.The threatened strike in Belgium, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain is aimed at pressuring shareholders set to meet on Sept. 20 to address Ryanair's labour agreements, union officials said on Thursday.They said unions would strike once a month until their demands are met."It is time the company accepted to employ us with local contracts under local ...
By Steve Holland and Michael MartinaWASHINGTON/BEIJING (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday that the United States was under no pressure to make a trade deal with China, even as Chinese officials welcomed an invitation from Washington for a new round of talks with more U.S. tariffs looming.He said on Twitter that a Wall Street Journal story on Wednesday about the talks invitation from Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin amid rising U.S. political pressure on Trump to ease up on trade fights "has it wrong.""We are under no pressure to make a deal with China, they are under ...
SHANGHAI (Reuters) - American companies in China are being hurt by tariffs in the growing trade war between Washington and Beijing, according to a survey of hundreds of firms, prompting the U.S. business lobbies behind the poll to urge the Trump administration to reconsider its approach.The United States and China have imposed tariffs on $50 billion of each other's goods since July as trade frictions between the world's two biggest economies worsened, despite several rounds of negotiations.President Donald Trump has criticised China's record trade surplus with the United States, and has ...
By Yann Le GuernigouPARIS (Reuters) - The EU's top economic official said on Thursday he feared "little Mussolinis" might be emerging in Europe, drawing a furious response from Italy's far-right interior minister who accused him of insulting his country and Italians.Frenchman Pierre Moscovici, who is the European Union's economics affairs commissioner, said the current political situation, with populist, far-right forces on the rise in many nations, resembled the 1930s when Germany's Adolf Hitler and Italian fascist chief Benito Mussolini were in power."Fortunately there is no sound of ...
India, Iran and Afghanistan held their first tripartite meeting on Tuesday in Kabul during which implementation of the Chabahar port project and a host of other issues including ways to deepen counter-terror cooperation were discussed, officials said.
The phase 1 of the Chabahar International port was inaugurated on December 3, 2017 by the Iranian president Hasan Rouhani Indian external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj was the guest of honor at that function. India is developing this strategic port at a cost of Rs 40 illion. This will give India land access to Afghanistan as well as central Asia.
The most important purpose that Chabahar port will serve is that it will offers strategic land access to India into Afghanistan via Iran.
Since independence, Pakistan has refused to give transit rights to Indian companies to transport their goods to Afghanistan . With the construction of Chabahar port India will have an alternative route via Iran into Afghanistan. This will give Indian companies access to Afghanistan where we have landed quite a few lucrative deals in the recent past.
China too, is developing a deep water port in Gwadar in the Baluchistan region of Pakistan.
Interestingly the distance between Chabahar and Gwadar is barely 70 km . But there is however, a strategic difference behind the objective of construction of these ports
China for example through Gwadar is hoping to use it as a gateway into the Arabian sea as a part of what China calls it's "maritime silk route "
With Chabahar, India will certainly increase it's footprint both diplomatically as well as economically. But there are certain problems as well . The Taliban has completely opposed this route and frequently attacked the construction workers involved in the construction of this port.
With Unite States imposing sanctions on Iran, both India and Afghanistan are hoping that the U.S would offer them waiver in this regard.
For more listen to this podcast.
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The threat of natural disasters to small businesses
Natural disasters occur in many different forms in all geographies. Hurricane, tornado, earthquake or fire no small business is immune to the fury of Mother Nature when it strikes. Unfortunately, many small businesses don't think about the possibility of natural disasters or establish a business continuity plan, even though 40% of small businesses never recover once a natural disaster strikes.
From Hurricane Florence and Texas flooding in 2018 to California's fires and earthquakes this year, natural disasters are prominent occurrences that can severely disrupt business. Unfortunately, scientists believe the rate and severity of natural disasters are increasing due to climate change. On tap for the future are likely more droughts, hurricanes, floods, earthquakes and fires throughout the U.S.
"We see disasters across all geographic areas, and the vulnerability [to small businesses] is always on keeping support services up, telephone services especially," said Kathy Gray, business development director for Xact Telesolutions. "Every area has vulnerabilities, but if you're wise, you're preparing for it."
Preparedness for a natural disaster is critical, and that includes ensuring your call center or answering service stands ready to field any incoming calls. Call center services often handle after-hours and weekend calls for small businesses, as well as any overflow when call volumes spike during business hours. However, even if your small business doesn't use a call center, you can contract with one to manage your phone lines if a natural disaster occurs.
"We have a client in Fayetteville, North Carolina, whom we support, but we don't usually handle their main line," Gray said. "They routed their main line to us to direct calls to other call centers in the country in preparation for [Hurricane Florence]."
While a lot more goes into disaster planning than simply making sure the phones keep ringing, it's an important aspect all the same. Customers outside the affected area (or, depending on the nature of your business, within the affected area) will continue trying to reach your business while you have your hands full protecting your assets and yourself. While business might be the last thing on your mind as nature wreaks havoc all around you, many customers won't consider that when they are unable to reach you. Having a call center service at the ready to keep your phones running and a friendly receptionist on the other side is key to retaining their business and keeping them satisfied.
Call centers and disaster recovery services
It's not just during a natural disaster that a call center service comes in handy. Following any kind of natural disaster, small businesses will have to contend with a lengthy and arduous recovery process, just like the residents of the affected area. Call centers are useful partners when you're busy picking up the pieces and returning to normalcy.
"Should [a small business] be away longer than they imagine, they need to have a plan in place with a call center to be supported by that partner while they're away," Gray said.
You can retain a call center to act as short-term customer service staff if you or your employees are unable to work, or if you're preoccupied with the recovery efforts underway in your area. For particularly large disasters where an area is thrown into disarray for a long time, small businesses can rest assured that their call center partners are continuously delivering customer service to anyone who calls in.
"After Hurricane Katrina, for example, people were out of work for months at a time," said John Coulter, director of business development for Five Star Call Centers. "We staffed up so that we could handle our clients' customer service while their employees got back on their feet and returned to work."
There's a lot to do in the wake of a natural disaster, such as filing insurance claims, cleaning up physical locations and getting any disrupted systems back online. Many small businesses also pitch in to community recovery efforts, adding to the workload of bouncing back after a devastating natural disaster. While all these recovery efforts are going on, customers will still need to get in touch with your business, making a fully operational call center a must. Call center services can provide this necessity for your business while you're preoccupied with any and all recovery efforts.
How do call centers stay operational when disaster strikes?
Outsourcing operations to call centers when a disaster occurs is one thing, but how can call centers avoid disruption to their own service if they find themselves in the heart of a disaster? Every company is different, but the best call centers have redundancies in place to ensure they can reroute calls and manage the volume at other locations throughout the country.
"The way a call center should be placing that volume is redundant across multiple locations so they never find themselves in a position where they cannot answer for a client," Gray said. "We have placed agents in 20 states. We have data centers bunkered down in three places in the states, so if one center is impaired, the call routing just switches out."
At the core of it, call centers simply have a larger and more redundant infrastructure that ensures there is always an available location to handle your small business's calls, even if one location finds itself in the midst of a natural disaster or other service disruption.
"Small businesses often don't have the technology and the redundancy that we have in place today," Coulter said. "It's not cost-effective for them to have multiple phone switches, generators on site and multiple locations. Call centers, in general, have multiple phone providers, multiple internet providers and multiple locations. If there's a flood in South Carolina and it hurts a small business, I've got four locations to transfer calls to and keep supporting customers." [Interested in call centers and answering services for business? Check out our best picks.]
Outsourcing the management of your phone lines to a call center or answering service can help you focus on emergency management and an after-the-fact disaster recovery plan. Whether it's a natural or man-made disaster, such as electrical grid failures, answering services give your customers a person to reach who represents your brand through it all.
A natural disaster plan in place
In disaster planning, emergency preparedness is key. It's best to have a plan and not need it than need one and not have it. Having a preliminary discussion and establishing a relationship with a call center service is one step in forming a comprehensive disaster plan to keeps things running even if you can't physically get to your business. While maintaining the phone lines is only one part of a holistic business continuity plan, it's an important piece of the puzzle.
"For anybody, it's about having trusted partners," Coulter said. "Preparation is always key. Many people don't think about business continuity until disaster strikes, and then it's too late. Make sure you have internal policies and procedures documented to get another team up and running."
"My advice is to plan ahead don't wait for the event to come your way," Gray said. "Protect your business, make a plan with a call center partner, and engage with someone who has the infrastructure where calls aren't leaning into one area of the country."
Whether you operate in a disaster-prone area or a freak occurrence catches you off guard, call center services give you one less thing to worry about. When you're trying to mitigate the fallout of a massive storm, earthquake, fire or any other kind of disaster, you can at least be assured that customers calling your business will be greeted by a professional call center agent representing your brand in a friendly and helpful manner.
Some source interviews were conducted for a previous version of this article.
The Union Ministry of Health has banned the manufacture, sale or distribution of as many as 328 varieties of combination drugs in its efforts to keep a check on the irrational use of fixed dose combination (FDC) medicines. The move will likely affect over 6,000 medicine brands worth about Rs 25,000 crore across the country. The FDC medicines are two or more drugs contained in a single dosage form. They are manufactured to evade price control measures, and are low-cost drugs that can treat multiple diseases. The move was taken considering the larger public interest, says a government statement, adding that it will help curb the wrong use of 'unsafe' FDC medicines. Reports suggest the health ministry took the decision to ban these drugs after the Drugs Technical Advisor Board suggested these drugs might pose health risks.
With the ban, popular drugs like Saridon (painkiller), Gluconorm PG (used for diabetes), Lupidiclox (antibiotic), etc, will be no more in sale.
Experts believe combination drugs to be unsafe because unaware physicians can prescribe wrong dosage that can in turn make human body resistant to treatment. India's overall Rs 1.10-lakh crore drug market is saturated with over 25,000 brands. The government had initially brought in a notification to ban 345 combination drugs deemed 'unsafe' in 2010. Pharma companies and the government battled it out in various courts and eventually the Supreme Court directed the government to set up another committee to take a fresh look. Thereafter, the issue was examined by the Drugs Technical Adviser to study its overall impacts.
"It is a good move by the government to ban combination drugs. It has been seen that there was no rational use of FDC medicines. Previously, in March 2010, government had brought the notification to restrict about 344 categories of FDCs. However, it was challenged by various manufacturers in the court. In compliance with the directions given by the Supreme Court of India in its judgment dated December 15, 2017, the matter was examined by the Drugs Technical Advisory Board constituted under Section 5 of the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940 and which furnished its report on these drugs to the central government," Delhi's Drug Controller Dr Atul Nasa told Mail Today.
Furnishing the report, the advisory board told the Ministry of Health there is "no therapeutic justification" for ingredients contained in these 328 FDC drugs. It has also pointed out about risks involved with these drugs with regards to human health. After considering the recommendations of the advisory panel, the government decided to ban these 328 FDC drugs in the larger public interest.
In a surprise development, Shivinder Singh, the younger of the two Singh siblings has withdrawn the suit filed before NCLT alleging oppression and mismanagement against elder brother Malvinder Singh and former Religare Group CEO Sunil Godhwani. The development came after intervention by their mother Nimmi Singh, says the withdrawal application. She "has requested both her sons to engage in mediation led by family elders respected by both her sons with a view to them settling inter se issues between them," it says. The withdrawal application comes up for hearing on September 13.
"That out of the respect for their mother, the parties have already started mediation and as per the request of the mediators to constructively progress the mediation, the petitioners wish to withdraw the captioned petition, without prejudice to their rights and contentions," the withdrawal petition filed on 12 September said.
Earlier, on 4 September, Shivinder, his wife Aditi and his holding company Shivi Holdings had approached NCLT Delhi for relief against Malvinder Singh and group holding firm RHC Holding alleging oppression and mismanagement against Malvinder and former Religare CEO Sunil Godhwani.
Former Fortis Healthcare promoter Shivinder Mohan Singh had alleged that his elder brother Malvinder forged his wife's signature, perpetrated illegal financial transactions and led the company into an unsustainable debt trap.
The petition also leveled another major charge against Godhwani that he was in de facto control of the group holding company RHC Holding even though he was not an office-bearer there. And that Godhwani and Malvinder allegedly collaborated in managing the transactions. Even though he did not hold any office in RHC Holding Company, it is evident from a perusal of email conversations that he was actually involved in issuing mandatory instructions to the employees and was in fact managing the day-to-day affairs of the RHC Holding in connivance with Malvinder.
The case appeared to be heading into a prolonged legal battle over how the Singh brothers blew Rs 22,500 crore ($3.2 billion) and lost control of prized possessions such as Fortis Healthcare and Religare Enterprises all in less than a decade. From holding cash of Rs 9,576 crore in 2008 to the sale of Ranbaxy Laboratories in 2008, the brothers were in debt of Rs 13,000 crore just eight years later in 2016.
British medical journal Lancet has praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi for prioritising universal healthcare with his Ayushman Bharat initiative. An article by the journal's editor-in-chief Richard Horton appreciated the Modi government for recognising the 'perils of public discontent about health' after years of neglect. The piece also talked about the role healthcare issues will play in deciding the next Lok Sabha polls.
Modi is the first Indian Prime Minister to prioritise universal health coverage as part of his political platform, Horton wrote in his article.
Under the Ayushman Bharat programme, popularly called Modicare, Narendra Modi has launched two flagship schemes. First of them is establishing 1.5 lakh health centres across the country to deliver universal health coverage. The second half of the Modicare provides health insurance to 50 crore people under the Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana. The latter scheme provides medical insurance worth Rs 5 lakh to poor individuals for secondary and tertiary healthcare. The amount is given for one financial year.
Together, these twin programmes should improve access to quality health services and reduce out-of-pocket health expenditures, the Lancet article said.
The article also took potshots at Rahul Gandhi for his inability to match Modicare despite his promises to help the vulnerable classes, while mentioning the electoral defeats of the Indian National Congress president. "Rahul Gandhi, despite his promises to help lower castes, tribal communities, and the rural poor, has yet to match Modicare," the article said.
The article also underlined the importance of healthcare facilities in light of the upcoming General Elections in 2019. "Modi has grasped the importance of health not only as a natural right for India's citizens, but also as a political instrument to meet the growing expectations of India's emerging middle class," the Lancet article read.
There is now every prospect that as the BJP and Congress set out competing and contrasting visions for India's future, health will rightly become a decisive issue in next year's general election, Horton further wrote.
Edited by Vivek Punj
In one of the most ambitious public private partnership (PPP) plans in Indian healthcare sector, the state government of Odisha will rope in private hospital operators to develop secondary and tertiary healthcare facilities in 25 locations across the state.
The Odisha Affordable Healthcare Project (AHP) is expected to extend healthcare facilities to 16 million people and cover 72 per cent of the population. Over 85 per cent of the target population will come under the economically weaker sections of the society. The government has estimated Rs 1300 crore as initial project cost and expects it to generate 10,000 employment opportunities in the nursing and para-medical areas.
According to Pratap Jena, minister of health and family welfare, Odisha, the state government programme is superior to what is being worked out by the Central government under the Ayushman Bharat Mission. Jena said free treatment will be offered to deserving patients through the government's health insurance scheme Biju Swasthya Kalyan Yojana (BSKY).
"Our scheme is superior to the central government scheme. While the centre offers coverage of Rs 5 lakh per family, we offer Rs 7 lakh. While 60 lakh families will be covered under their criteria, we cover 70 lakh. While the Central Government scheme is available only for in-patient, our scheme covers OPD expenses as well," Jena said.
The PPP is meant to create the healthcare infrastructure that can deliver the services offered under BSKY. According to state government officials, AHP is a mix of 3 cluster projects and 19 individual hospital projects. The bed size will be 100 in some locations while the bigger hospitals that can act as hubs will have 200 beds each.
"The uniqueness of the project is that the government will provide a viability gap funding to the hospital developer for the first seven years. Separate budgetary provisions will be made for AHP for timely payments," an official said. The private players will be allowed to build and operate hospitals in the already identified land parcels under a 30 year renewable license.
Jena said the feedback from the private healthcare sector is good. "Hyderabad based Care Hospitals has already set up a cardiac speciality hospital in Jharsuguda. We are now looking for a partner to set up a cancer care adjacent to this facility on similar lines," he said.
Odisha has around 36,000 hospital beds, indicating a gap of 120,000 (77%) hospital beds in the state. At present there is only 0.8 bed available per 1000 population against WHO average of 3.5 beds per 1000 population for low-mid income countries. Private healthcare facilities comprise of only 27.59 per cent of the total healthcare facilities in the state. The new hospitals are expected to provide secondary and basic tertiary care services and be organically integrated into Odisha's Public Health System.
While work on India's ambitious bullet train project from Ahmedabad to Mumbai is in progress, Kolkata might also be connected with our neighbouring country China through a bullet train. As per Chinese Consul General in Kolkata Ma Zhanwu, his country is planning a bullet train service between Kunming and Kolkata, which will pass through other neighbouring countries like Myanmar and Bangladesh. "With joint efforts of India and China, a high-speed rail link could be established between the two cities," Zhanwu said at a conference here.
"It will only take a few hours to reach Kolkata from Kunming if the rail link becomes a reality," he asserted. The envoy also said that Myanmar and Bangladesh would benefit from the project. "We may have a cluster of industries along the route. That increases the possibility of economic development of countries involved in the 2,800 km-long project," he maintained. The project had also found mention at the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) meet in Kunming in 2015, he said. The rail route was aimed at boosting trade flow in the Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar (BCIM) corridor, Zhanwu said, adding that his country has been striving for the revival of Silk Route to increase connectivity from Kunming to Kolkata.
The 508-km high speed train corridor between Mumbai and Ahmedabad is expected to be operational by 2022. The bullet trains are expected to run at a speed of 350 km per hour covering the stretch in about two hours. In comparison, trains plying on the route take over 7 hours to travel the distance whereas flights take an hour. The Mumbai-Ahmedabad route is expected to be used by 18,000 passengers daily, with fares between the two cities likely to be around Rs 3,000 in economy class.
According to a study conducted by IIM Ahmedabad, Ahmedabad-Mumbai bullet train will need to make 100 trips daily and carry 88,000-118,000 passengers per day to be financially viable. Under the plan, India will also buy 18 bullet train sets worth Rs 7,000 crore from Japan. The deal will include a pledge to transfer technology for local production.
With PTI inputs
The crippled Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services (IL&FS), which made headlines earlier this month for defaulting on a Rs 1,000-crore loan from Small Industries Development Bank of India (Sidbi), is now looking to sell off assets to honour its debt commitments and switch to an asset-light strategy.
"We have put the corporate office on the block," a source in the know told The Economic Times, referring to the company's headquarters in Mumbai's Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC). "Our effort is to monetise all our resources to repay debt and clean up the balance sheet."
Office space is in heavy demand in BKC, which has emerged as the city's financial centre in the past few years, taking over from Nariman Point. So, the sale of the corporate headquarters is expected to fetch Rs 1,300-1,500 crore.
"There is a very good demand for commercial units at BKC and in fact it is one of the hottest locations across India," Anuj Puri, managing director, Anarock Property Consultants, told the daily. "The ongoing rate is anywhere between Rs 32,000 a square foot to Rs 40,000, depending on the building and location." The IL&FS property boasts an area of about 37,000 square metres (4,00,000 sq ft).
Recently, in a letter to its employees, the company claimed that around Rs 16,000 crore of group liquidity is stuck in claims and termination payments. "Our monies were used to fund the cost and time overruns caused by concession authority delays in handing over right of way," read the letter, adding that had the "concession authorities released our monies", IL&FS would not be in the current situation.
On Sunday, rating agency ICRA had downgraded IL&FS, as well as IL&FS Financial Services, citing factors like liquidity pressure and high debt levels - IL&FS is burdened with a consolidated debt of around Rs 88,000 crore, of which Rs 55,000 crore is housed in the special purpose vehicles created to build infrastructure ranging from roads to power companies. The rating company downgraded the company's bonds and long-term loans to BB from AA+.
To manage its debt, IL&FS is also planning to raise funds by selling some of its road and power projects. It has reportedly identified 25 projects to sell, which the firm claims will reduce its debt by Rs 30,000 crore.
Furthermore, it is seeking to raise about Rs 3,000 crore as working capital from its institutional shareholders - Rs 2,000 crore from Life Insurance Corp of India (LIC) and the rest from State Bank of India (SBI). In addition, shareholders including Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA), Japanese conglomerate OrixCorp, LIC, HDFC and SBI have agreed to subscribe to a Rs 4,500 crore rights issue - to be completed by October - to provide liquidity support to avoid any more defaults and downgrades. More clarity will emerge after the board meeting scheduled for September 15 to take stock of funding requirements.
The infrastructure financier, promoted by state-owned and private lenders, is not the only company in the sector that's in a jam. Its woes are shared by other infrastructure funding institutions in India that have been unable to cope with unviable projects.
"We have been saddled with heavy debt due to heavy cost of land acquisitions for our road projects and time overruns," a person with direct knowledge of the matter, told the daily. "Further, lenders have been unable to refinance or restructure debt of projects which typically have a life of 30 years."
With PTI inputs
A day after fugitive businessman Vijay Mallya threw a bombshell saying he met Finance Minister Arun Jaitley before leaving the country and offered to settle his dues with the Indian banks, Congress President Rahul Gandhi asked for Jaitley's resignation, saying "Mr Jaitley is lying; the government is lying". Before his hearing at the London's Westminster Magistrates' Court on Wednesday, Mallya had said that he "left (India) because I had a scheduled meeting in Geneva. I met the Finance Minister before I left, repeated my offer to settle (the dues) with the banks."
The Congress party has already launched a full-frontal attack against Jaitley and the Modi government, saying they helped him escape from India. The Finance Minister, however, was quick to respond saying his statement was "factually false". "The statement of Vijay Mallya that he met me & offered settlement is factually false in as much as it does not reflect the truth. Since 2014, I have never given him an appointment to meet me and the question of his having met me does not arise," he tweeted.
I did not even receive the papers that he was holding in his hand. Besides this one sentence exchange where he misused his privilege as a RS Member to further his commercial interest as a bank debtor, there is no question of my having ever given him an appointment to meet me. - Arun Jaitley (@arunjaitley) September 12, 2018
The FM said since he was a Member of Rajya Sabha and he occasionally attended the House. "He misused that privilege on one occasion, having been fully briefed about his earlier "bluff offers", I curtly told him "there was no point talking to me and he must make offers to his bankers." However, the Congress President called it is a clear-cut case of collusion.
Other Congress leaders also called for Jaitley's resignation. "On 1st March 2016, when I was in Central Hall of Parliament House, I witnessed Arun Jaitley and Vijay Mallya talking discretely. On 3rd March, we heard from media that he fled the country on 2nd March 2016," said senior Congress leader PL Punia, adding he clearly talked about this in each of his interviews with media. "There are CCTV cameras, and we can all see that for proof. If I'm wrong I'll resign from politics," he said.
"Arun Jaitley is lying. I saw him having a prolonged meeting in Central Hall of Parliament about two days before he was allowed to escape from India. Choukidar is not only Bhagidar but also Gunahagar," he said.
Congress leader Sanjay Jha also said: "The question that no one is asking: there was a diluted but still a look-out CBI circular for Vijay Mallya at international airports. The CBI was to be informed. Why wasn't it? Under whose orders was Mallya allowed to escape? No way can the PMO escape this."
Rahul Gandhi has also accused the Modi government of changing the look-out notice issued for Mallya. "No one can do this other than CBI. They should clarify if they did this on their own or were orders given to CBI," asked Rahul. "This is a clear-cut case of collusion. There is some deal between them. FM Arun Jaitley must resign and this should be investigated," asked Rahul Gandhi.
Earlier, senior Rajya Sabha MP Subramanian Swamy tweeted that Mallya's look-out notice was diluted on October 24, 2015, from "Block" to "Report" departure, which helped him depart with 54 checked luggage items. However, Jaitley tweeted that he did not even receive the papers that he (Mallya) was holding in his hand. "Besides this one sentence exchange where he misused his privilege as an RS Member to further his commercial interest as a bank debtor, there is no question of my having ever given him an appointment to meet me," explained Jaitley.
(Edited by Manoj Sharma)
26 Oct 2018, 1:53 PM
RBI pulls back rupee from the brink by selling dollars
The rupee slumped to a historic low of 72.91 in morning trade on Wednesday forcing the RBI to sell US dollars in the market through public sector banks to bring the Indian currency back from the brink. The government also issued a statement that the rupee would not be allowed to crash to an unreasonable level which further bolstered sentiments and enabled the rupee to climb back to 72.18 vis-a-vis the US dollar at the end of the day to settle at 51 paise higher than the previous day's close.
Govt approves procurement policy worth Rs 15,000 crore to ensure remunerative prices to farmers
Ahead of the 2019 polls, the government Wednesday announced a Rs 15,053-crore procurement policy allowing states to choose a compensation scheme and rope in private agencies for procurement to ensure a profitable price to farmers. The new umbrella policy 'Pradhan Mantri Annadata Aay SanraksHan Abhiyan' (PM-AASHA) was approved in the Cabinet meeting, headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, held here.
Apple iphones get larger and pricier, watch technology turns health conscious
Apple has launched three new Apple iPhones for the year 2018. All three iPhones come with the same notched display as iPhone X. This year, Apple opted for a cheaper iPhone XR which starts at $749. The Apple iPhone XS is the same size as last year's iPhone X and starts at $999. The biggest iPhone XS Max comes with a massive 6.5-inch OLED display and starts at $1099. In India, the devices will be sold in the second phase of the launch. iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max will start selling in India from September 28. iPhone XR will come to India on October 26 along with its global launch.
Walmart and Flipkart employees can switch between companies
Global retail giant Walmart has informed its employees through an internal communication that they have an option to work on various projects at online marketplace Flipkart. A similar communication has been sent at Flipkart, seeking employees' interest in working at Walmart to learn more about how the retail giant functions, as reported by the Business Standard. The move might help both companies and their employees. While Flipkart management hopes its employees would learn to handle grocery segment, Walmart can more about the logistics, delivery side of business as well as about the technology behind running an e-commerce marketplace.
Vijay Mallya extradition hearing: London court reserves decision for December 10
The Westminster Magistrates' Court has reserved its decision over extradition of Vijay Mallya to India for December 10. The bench heard the closing arguments in the extradition proceedings as well as reviewed the prison cell which has been prepared for the embattled business tycoon in Mumbai's Arthur Road jail. Defending his case, Mallya's lawyer argued that the Indian government has failed to provide any substantial evidence to form a 'prima facie' case of fraud against him, justifying his extradition, said a Reuters report.
Maruti to move factory out of Gurgaon, says R C Bhargava
The relocation of Maruti Suzuki's plant in Gurgaon to a less inhabited area is inevitable, company chairman R C Bhargava has said. The thirty-five-year-old plant was the company's first manufacturing facility and has a capacity to make about 700,000 cars every year. The move is being made due to the congestion issue faced by the residents on a daily basis. More than 4,000 trucks enter and leave the company's two plants in Haryana every day, leading to traffic hassles for residents as reported by the Business Standard
Industrial output grows at 6.6% in July as manufacturing, capital goods shine
India industrial production grew at 6.6 per cent in July on the back of good performance by the manufacturing sector and higher offtake of capital goods and consumer durables. Factory output measured in terms of the Index of Industrial Production had expanded by just 1 per cent in July last year, according to the data released by Central Statistics Office
Apple Watch Series 4 launched at $399 with ECG, healthcare features
Apple has announced the new Apple Watch Series 4, the first to feature a built-in ECG scanner. Apple has always envisioned the Apple Watch 4 as a health device, and along with tracking electrocardiogram, it can also detect a fall, and even detect the heart rate when it is too low.
A consumer court has fined Indian airline, Jet Airways, for serving a meat dish to a vegetarian passenger. The court asked the airline to pay up Rs 65,000 to the passenger who was given a non-vegetarian dish even though he ordered for a vegetarian one. The passenger, Banuprasad Jani of Rajkot, dragged Jet Airways to the court for making him, a 'pure janeu-dhari Brahmin', eat non-vegetarian food.
Jani said that he had ever even eaten eggs. The court accepted Jani's contention that serving non-vegetarian to him was 'unfair trade practice'. The Rajkot District Consumer Dispute Redressal Forum asked the airline to pay the compensation for mental agony, harassment and legal expenditure.
As mentioned in a report in Times of India, Jani was travelling from Chennai to Mumbai on his way home to Rajkot on August 20, 2016. He had ordered Asian vegetarian meal but was served a non-vegetarian meal. He ate some of if, fell sick and threw up. He then took photographs and videos of the dish and what transpired onboard after the discovery.
Jani sued Jet Airways for Rs 7.25 lakh. He told the daily, "Since I have never eaten non-vegetarian food, I cannot say whether they had served me chicken or mutton."
The airline said that Jani initially ordered the vegetarian dish but later changed his order. They said that the photographs clicked by Jani showed that he not eaten anything from his food packet.
The court rejected the airline's defence and asked them to pay Rs 50,000 for unfair trade practice, Rs 10,000 for mental harassment and Rs 5,000 for legal expenditure.
(Edited by Anwesha Madhukalya)
Fixed-dose combination (FDC) medicines, which are a cocktail of two or more active drugs packed in a single dose, are in the spotlight currently due to government's ban on them. The domestic pharmaceutical market size is pegged at around Rs 1.18-1.2 lakh crore, and FDCs reportedly make up nearly 50% of the sales. Here's what you need to know about them:
What is the logic behind FDCs?
The raison d'etre behind FDCs is to improve adherence, simplify therapy and/or to maximise benefit for the patient courtesy the added effects of the multiple medicinal products given together. Popular FDCs, now banned, include the painkiller Saridon, the skin cream Panderm, antibiotic Lupidiclox and combination diabetes drug Gluconorm PG.
A government document titled 'Policy Guidelines for Approval of Fixed Dose Combinations in India', released in June 2013 had claimed that "FDCs have shown to be particularly useful in the treatment of infectious diseases like HIV, malaria and tuberculosis where giving multiple antimicrobial agents is the norm. FDCs are also of use in chronic conditions especially when multiple disorders often co-exist."
For instance, several FDCs pack a combination of nimesulide and paracetamol and are sold under different brand names as an anti-pyretic, or medications to control fever.
India reportedly boasts around 2,000 FDCs, four times more that what's available in the US.
What makes them so popular?
The one-word answer is cost. Instead of buying two, or more, separate medicines, a patient can buy just one FDC medicine to treat multiple illness symptoms, which typically works out easier on the wallet. Pharma companies, meanwhile, love them because it is far cheaper and quicker to combine existing active ingredients to make new products than to discover new medicines and manufacture them separately.
Amit Sengupta, national convener of Jan Swasthya Abhiyan, previously told The Hindu Business Line that another reason the Indian market was flooded with FDCs was because pharma companies preferred them to circumvent price control. "They [the companies] prefer to market FDCs that are not under price control rather than single-ingredient drugs under price control," he said, adding that 'me too' marketing was also to blame.
"Companies vie with one another for a share of the market for the same class of drugs. In order to provide something 'new' to prescribers, they develop and market FDCs (often irrational, but promoted as a unique and innovative product by each company) purely for commercial reasons, and support its sales through sophisticated (and often unethical) marketing strategies," he had added.
Why has the government banned them?
The health ministry took this decision after the Drugs Technical Advisory Board recommended that "there is no therapeutic justification" for the ingredients contained in the banned FDC drugs and that these medicines "may involve risk to human beings".
Health experts have long maintained that many FDC combinations in the market neither boast any advantage over individual drugs nor are safe. Simple logic dictates that chances of adverse drug effects and drug interactions can go up if medicines are combined instead of being taken separately. Apart from the fact that some of the drugs reportedly boast dangerous side-effects, unnecessary use of combination drugs makes the human body resistant to treatment.
Worryingly, published studies have long claimed that FDCs are often prescribed to cover up for diagnostic imprecision-likely making them extremely popular with quack doctors.
Hence, in a bid to stop the irrational use of FDCs, the Union Health Ministry on Wednesday banned the manufacture, sale or distribution of 328 varieties of FDC drugs for human consumption. The move will likely affect over 6,000 medicine brands.
"The banned FDCs account for about Rs 2,500 crore and represent only the tip of the iceberg. In our estimate, the market for unsafe, problematic FDCs in India is at least one-fourth of the total pharma market which is valued at Rs 1.3 trillion," the All India Drug Action Network, a civil society group working on safety and access to medicines and one of the petitioners in the Supreme Court case, said in a statement.
Why didn't the government crackdown on FDCs earlier?
Actually the health ministry has been gunning for "irrational" and "unsafe" FDCs for over two years now. In March 2016, the government had banned 344 FDCs, adding five more to the list subsequently, following a report submitted by the Prof CK Kokate committee.
But drug makers, including Pfizer, Procter & Gamble, Abbott, Glenmark, Sanofi, Wockhardt, Cipla, Lupin and Dr Reddy's, had immediately moved various courts against the decision. The Delhi High Court alone had received over 450 petitions seeking a stay on the ban.
In December 2016, the Delhi High Court squashed the Centre's decision, noting that it had acted on the advice of a 'technical committee', instead of consulting the Drugs Technical Advisory Board (DTAB) or the Drugs Consultative Committee. According to the bench, this violated the provisions of the Drugs and Cosmetics Act.
The health ministry had challenged this ruling in Supreme Court and, in December 2017, the latter directed DTAB to decide the fate of these FDCs.
Incidentally, the DTAB has recommended restricted manufacture and sale of six other FDCs, subject to certain conditions based on their therapeutic justification. The SC also ruled that the government could not use the DTAB report to prohibit 15 of the 344 drugs in the original list as these have been manufactured in India since before 1988.
According to The Times of India, this exception covers several popular cough syrups, painkillers and cold medication with sales amounting to over Rs 740 crore annually. However, the apex court told the ministry that it is free to initiate a fresh investigation into the safety of these 15 drugs if it wants them banned.
How will the pharma sector get affected by this ban?
Large pharma companies have reportedly said that the impact is expected to be negligible since the FDCs in question are less than 2% of the pie. They added that over the last couple of years, they have either phased out such drugs or changed the combination.
Edited by Sushmita Choudhury Agarwal
The Government has today launched the Land Development Agency to build 150,000 new homes over the next 20 years, the next step of Project Ireland 2040.
The new Agency has an immediate focus on managing the States own lands to develop new homes, and regenerate under-utilised sites. In the longer-term it will assemble strategic landbanks from a mix of public and private lands, making these available for housing in a controlled manner which brings essential long-term stability to the Irish housing market.
The LDA is modelled on best European practice as already demonstrated in Germany and the Netherlands. The Goverment believes that by assembling land packages ahead of the planning and infrastructure stages, the Agency can lower development land costs and tackle upward pressure on house prices.
The Agency will be a commercial State-sponsored body, acting within a clear Government policy framework: that all public land disposals must deliver at least 40% of any housing potential on such lands in the form of social (10%) and affordable (30%) housing.
It will establish a national centre of expertise for State bodies and local authorities, using experienced staff with expertise in project management finance, planning, development and procurement. It will be further underpinned by dedicated legislation, overseen by an independent board and provided with both the initial and long-term capital to function on a commercial basis.
Speaking today, An Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar said, "The Land Development Agency, with capital of 1.25 billion behind it, is a step change in the Governments involvement in the housing market. We are going to build new homes and lots of them. That includes social housing, affordable housing, private housing and cost rental housing on both publicly and privately owned land. He added, "While the indicators show that the numbers of new houses being built is up by more than a third compared to this time last year and is increasing month on month, we are still facing a huge challenge in meeting demand. We know we are playing catch up after our housing sector was destroyed."
He added, "The Land Development Agency is a Government intervention that is 50 years overdue and which, in time, I believe will be seen to be as significant as the decision to establish the ESB, Aer Lingus or the IDA."
Source: www.businessworld.ie
Conversation Piece, a provider of on-site and cloud phone systems to businesses throughout Ireland, has signed a deal worth 1.5 million with Irish wholesale telecoms company, Agility Communications.
The new agreement is expected to generate up to 10 new jobs across both companies and runs over the next three years.
The deal will allow Conversation Piece to deliver enterprise-level voice, telephony and cloud products to its customers over Agility Communications network. As a nationwide Tier 1 network, Conversation Pieces customers can also avail of Agilitys dedicated gigabyte fibre broadband anywhere in Ireland.
Conversation Piece celebrates 40 years in business this year and currently employs 15 people in its Dublin and Cork offices. As business telecommunications specialists, it provides both cloud-based and traditional PBX phone systems as well as VOIP, with local technical support throughout Ireland. Customers include SMEs and multinationals across a wide range of industries nationwide.
Speaking of the deal, Sales Manager for Conversation Piece, Seamus Dunne said, "Our customers have come to rely on us to deliver reliable, affordable and easily scalable voice and data services for decades. Weve worked with Agility since 2015 and find the quality of service it delivers to be unparalleled. It has been a key part of our growth over the past few years and this new deal will help accelerate this growth further."
Source: www.businessworld.ie
Hong Kong's Blue is Tencent's latest move to grab a bigger share of the internet insurance market, hoping to tap the more than 1 billion users of its WeChat platform. Photo: VCG
An online-only life insurance company backed by Tencent Holdings Ltd. said it has started selling products in Hong Kong, marking another step in the social media and gaming giant's strategy to expand in the financial services industry.
Blue, 20% owned by Tencent, started offering a life insurance product and a critical illness policy to permanent residents of Hong Kong on Wednesday, it said in a statement. The internet group bought its stake in the company in 2017 from London-based insurer Aviva PLC, which also sold a 40% stake to Chinese private equity firm Hillhouse Capital. The deal was approved by Hong Kong regulators in February this year.
Blue claims to be the first digital life insurer in the city and will offer customers a choice of buying policies on its website or through WeChat, the social media app operated by Tencent. Its products will be commission-free because the company doesn't use intermediaries. Customers will also be able to change their protection plans such as the amount and payment period without incurring penalties.
Blue CEO Charles Hung told reporters that the potential for growth is vast given that the penetration rate of digital insurance in the city is less than 1%.
He said the company offered consumers anytime-anywhere accessibility in Hong Kong to purchase insurance online, giving them simple, flexible, and affordable protection.
Widen access
Hong Kong introduced a strategy to promote the use of information technology to widen access to financial services in 2016 and has ambitions to turn itself into a financial technology center for the Asia-Pacific region.
As part of the city's drive to encourage new platforms and apps for insurance sales, the industry regulator opened a Fast Track program in September 2017 to speed up the licensing of new insurers with purely digital distribution channels. John Leung, the chief executive of the Insurance Authority of Hong Kong at the time, said that technology companies wanting to apply for a license must tie up with experienced insurers and hold at least 15% of the joint venture.
Aviva announced in January 2017 that Tencent and Hillhouse had agreed to acquire a combined 60% of Aviva Life Insurance Company Limited, the British firms subsidiary in Hong Kong, to develop a joint venture focusing on digital insurance. It did not provide a value for the transaction.
The Hong Kong venture is Tencent's latest move to grab a bigger share of the internet insurance market, hoping to tap the more than 1 billion users of its WeChat platform, which also has payment capabilities.
The internet giant set up ZhongAn Online Casualty and Property Insurance, China's first internet-only insurer, in 2013 with Ant Financial, an affiliate of e-commerce group Alibaba Group Holding, and Ping An Insurance. The insurer listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange in September 2017.
Tencent launched online life insurer Hetai Life Insurance in 2016 with a consortium that included Chinese conglomerate Citic Guoan and Beijing Easyhome Investment Holding. It unveiled WeSure Internet Insurance Ltd., a digital insurance provider, in November 2017, in which it holds a 57.8% controlling stake. WeSure works with domestic insurance companies to provide users of its social media platforms with high-quality insurance services.
Contact reporter Fran Wang (fangwang@caixin.com)
The Russian TU-95 bombers, which were accompanied by two Russian fighter jet escorts, turned away before entering US airspace, according to the statement, which was obtained by CNN.
Two Russian bombers were intercepted by Alaska-based fighter jets in global airspace west of the state on Tuesday, according to the North American Aerospace Defense Command.
The Russian formation never entered US or Canadian airspace, according to the statement.
This marks the second time this month a pair of Russian bombers have flown close to Alaska.
The latest incursion and aerial intercept followed another Russian bomber flights on September 1 and comes as Moscow is engaged in the largest war games in more than 37 years in Central Asia and the Russian Far East.
The bombers are capable of carrying nuclear-tipped KH-55 long-range cruise missiles that have a maximum range of up to 1,841 miles - enough to hit targets in Alaska and the US west coast.
Two U.S. F-22 Raptor fighters met them in worldwide airspace west of Alaska around 10 p.m. Tuesday, NORAD said.
They did not fly into US or Canadian airspace.
Terrance O'Shaughnessy says radar, satellites and fighter jets are used to identify aircraft and determine appropriate responses.
The maneuvers come as Russian forces participate in what The Associated Press reported is the nation's largest-ever military exercise.
Earlier on Wednesday, the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation released video of two Tu-95 "Bear" bombers and a pair of fighter jets taking off from an airbase in eastern Russia.
news, latest-news
Health officials have issued a new safety warning to fruit lovers across three states and one territory after a fourth contamination incident and a copycat saboteur were reported to police. Queenslands chief health officer Dr Jeannette Young said strawberry eaters in Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and the Australian Capital Territory should cut the fruit in half before eating, no matter the brand. Police are investigating a copycat saboteur after a Coles employee at a Gatton store, about 90 kilometres west of Brisbane, found a "small silver rod" on top of strawberries in a punnet. The incident was reported to authorities on Thursday, but the strawberry punnet targeted was not a Berry Licious or Berry Obsession brand, leading to Dr Young expanding the health warning. Acting Detective Chief Superintendent Terry Lawrence re-emphasised his warning to anyone who found a metal object in their strawberries to report to it police so it could be collected as evidence. "This morning an employee of that particular [Coles] store bought a punnet of strawberries and located within that packet a small silver rod. It was lying on top of the strawberries, not inserted per se," he said. "They brought that to the attention of the shop manager who, in turn, immediately brought it to the attention of the Queensland Police Service." The Berry Licious and Berry Obsession brands have been removed from shelves across Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and the Australian Capital Territory. "We're comfortable that all the products related to Berry Licious and Berry Obsession from those particular dates, that's been resolved in the sense that those products are no longer being sold and they've been taken off the markets," Acting Detective Chief Superintendent Lawrence said. "However, with the copycat occurring at Gatton, it's very important for us to put out that message that we want everybody to check their strawberries before consuming them." Dr Young said her advice remained that anyone with Berry Licious or Berry Obsession strawberries should throw them away or at the very least cut them in half to check for any dangerous objects. "Given this new information from police, I have had to modify my advice to people," she said. "So, yesterday I said anyone who had bought those products since the start of last week needed to dispose of them. "I now say, given there has been these additional incidents unrelated to that particular product, my advice is just to be ultra-cautious and simply cut up those strawberries before consuming them." On Wednesday, a woman in Gladstone, on the central Queensland coast, narrowly avoided feeding contaminated strawberries to her son, posting photos of the fruit online. Angela Stevenson warned friends that she had cut open a punnet of Berry Obsession strawberries when she found two needles embedded in the fruit. "I can confirm a fourth incident, that incident took place at Gladstone, within the last few days," acting Detective Chief Superintendent Lawrence said. "A young 10-year-old child was at school, consumed or began to consume a strawberry and found a needle within and reported that to the school. "The school spoke to the child's mother who did an examination of the punnet of strawberries she had at home and found another needle within a strawberry in that lot there." It was the fourth contamination incident to be reported across Victoria and Queensland. The separate copycat incident takes the number of strawberry punnets in Queensland and Victoria found to contain dangerous metal objects inside, to five. Queensland man Joshua Gane reported the first contamination on Sunday when his friend swallowed "half a sewing needle" after biting into a strawberry. Two more cases were reported in Victoria on Tuesday night and confirmed the following morning, after contaminated punnets were found in Woolworths stores in Yarram and Ballarat. The Gladstone case and copycat saboteur were revealed on Thursday after the two contaminated brands were removed from shelves on Wednesday, following the initial health warning. Queensland Strawberry Growers Association industry development officer Jennifer Rowling claimed on Wednesday night that a "disgruntled ex-employee" could be responsible for the contamination. However, Chief Superintendent Lawrence said the police investigation was ongoing and detectives were examining every part of the supply chain to find the contamination source. "The idea of an ex-employee was put forward by the Strawberry Growers Association. We're not agreeing with that at all at this particular point in time; our investigation is still open," he said. "We're not going to go into speculation. We're keeping a very open mind as to where this may have occurred." Chief Superintendent Lawrence said those responsible for contaminating the fruit could be charged with maliciously causing grievous bodily harm, an offence which carries up to 10 years' imprisonment if convicted. On Thursday, officers returned to the two contaminated farms, situated next to each other in south-east Queensland, belonging to the supplier behind the Berry Licious and Berry Obsession brands. Police were gathering a full list of current and former farm employees and speaking to them all.
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An SUV crashed into a crowd at a public square, killing several people and injuring more than dozens, the city government said.
The incident on Wednesday evening injured another 44 people, according to officials from Hengdong city in central Hunan province.
Videos carried on Chinese media, such as Btime, showed several bodies on the ground as bystanders tended to some of them.
Three people have been so far been declared dead and 43 injured but the death toll is expected to grow, with some local newspapers already speaking of nine victims.
An investigation has begun, the statement said, but there was no mention of terrorism as a possible motive.
The driver, Yang Zanyun, 54, first ploughed through the people with his vehicle and later got out of it and went on a rampage attacking people with a knife.
"[The suspect] has been sentenced many times for drug trafficking, theft, and other crimes, creating a desire for revenge on society", the Hengyang government statement said.
Knife attacks by disgruntled people in public places and schools to highlight their grievances periodically occur in China.
The government is generally nervous about such incidents after a auto ploughed through pedestrians in the northern part of Beijing's Tiananmen Square in 2013, killing the three people in the vehicle and two bystanders.
Three attackers also died in the incident, which Beijing blamed on separatists from the restive western region of Xinjiang. Witnesses told news website Thepaper.cn that a red SUV suddenly drove into crowds of people who had been dancing and walking around in the square, causing mass panic.
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The Vatican and U.S. Church officials announced the investigation on Thursday as the pope was meeting U.S. Catholic Church leaders to discuss a scandal that has shaken his papacy.
Michael Bransfield submitted his resignation as bishop of Wheeling-Charleston Diocese upon turning 75 last week - and 75 is the age at which bishops are required to offer to step down.
The archdiocese did not immediately offer details about the allegations.
In the United States alone, the Church spent about $4 billion in compensation and other costs related to the priest sex abuse crisis between 1950 and 2015, according to the National Catholic Reporter.
In the United States, a Grand Jury has found that 301 priests in the state of Pennsylvania sexually abused minors over a similar period.
McCarrick resigned in July over separate allegations - which U.S. Church officials said were "credible and substantiated" - that he had abused a 16-year-old boy nearly 50 years ago.
"My primary concern is for the care and support of the priests and people of the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston at this hard time".
The announcement came at the end of a three-day meeting of the "C-9", a group of nine cardinals from around the world who members meet about four times a year to advise the pope.
An open letter published on Catholic Women's Forum, which calls on the Pope to respond to allegations by Vigano surrounding the sexual abuse scandal, has gained more than 44,000 signatures in just under two weeks. He called the meeting "a lengthy, fruitful, and good exchange".
The Vatican is preparing to issue a response to an explosive dossier of allegations that Pope Francis covered up Archbishop Theodore McCarrick's sexual abuse of priests and seminarians.
Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, president of the USA bishops' conference, asked for the meeting after Vigano last month accused the pope of knowing for years about sexual misconduct by former US cardinal Theodore McCarrick and doing nothing about it.
Francis removed him as cardinal following accusations he groped a teenager. Archbishop Vigano writes that the Vatican was aware of McCarrick allegations in 2000, but despite that was named Archbishop of Washington and made a cardinal in 2001. DiNardo has said lay people should be involved in the investigation as well.
A regional weather forecaster has predicted the arrival of Hurricane Helene over Ireland in the early days of next week.
Cathal Nolan from the Midland Weather Channel, said, "over the past number of days I have been monitoring the projected path of Hurricane Helene, with the latest guidance from the available weather models indicating that the remnants of hurricane Helene will impact Ireland sometime between next Monday and Tuesday."
"Its important to stress that by then Helene will have been downgraded to a post-tropical depression, having lost its hurricane status crossing much cooler waters in the Mid-Atlantic," Cathal added, "however, projected wind speeds across southern and eastern areas of country could still hit 110-130 kph."
"Heavy rain may be an additional threat depending upon the location, track and intensity of Helene," Cathal stated.
He concluded by saying, "this is a developing situation, and one which requires careful monitoring over the coming days. At present it doesnt look as though Helene will be as powerful as Hurricane Ophelia, however, all precautions will be taken when monitoring this storm."
According to local officials and the press, at least eight people were killed and dozens injured in a riot at...
Press Release For Immediate Release: Wednesday, September 5, 2018
Contact: Media Relations
(404) 639-3286
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced today new state grants for the National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS). A total of $3.2 million in FY 2018 funds will go to the 10 new states to become part of NVDRS: Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Wyoming. NVDRS will now receive data on violent deaths from all 50 states; Washington, DC; and Puerto Rico.
Americans are dying daily due to violent deaths, but we know these deaths can be prevented, said Debra Houry, MD, MPH, director of CDCs National Center for Injury Prevention and Control. The expansion of NVDRS to all states will enhance CDCs ability to monitor and track trends nationally, as well as inform prevention efforts to reduce violence across America. We all need to be committed to stopping violence before it begins.
Suicide is among the top 10 leading causes of death in the United States and one of only three that are increasing. Homicide is the third leading cause of death among young people ages 15-34. From infants to the elderly, violence affects people in all stages of life. NVDRS is the only state-based system to combine data from law enforcement, coroners and medical examiners (including toxicology), and vital statistics to obtain the most comprehensive data available on homicides and suicides. NVDRS provides information about who dies violently, where victims are killed, when they are killed, and the circumstances of the death. States can use this data to develop and inform tailored prevention and intervention efforts to reduce violent deaths.
NVDRS Facts:
Frontline investigators, including homicide detectives, coroners, crime lab investigators and medical examiners, collect valuable information about violent deaths. But these data are often not combined in a systematic manner to provide a complete picture.
NVDRS combines these data sources to provide details on demographics, method of injury, the relationship between the victim and the suspect, and information about circumstances such as depression, financial stressors, intimate partner violence, or relationship problems.
NVDRS links multiple deaths that are related to one another to provide more complete information about multiple homicides, suicide clusters, and cases of homicide followed by the suicide of the suspect.
CDCs Injury Center works to protect the safety of everyone, every day; this includes preventing homicide and suicide and their adverse health consequences to families and communities.
For additional information about NVDRS, please see http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/nvdrs/index.html
###
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES
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CDC works 24/7 protecting Americas health, safety and security. Whether disease start at home or abroad, are curable or preventable, chronic or acute, or from human activity or deliberate attack, CDC responds to Americas most pressing health threats. CDC is headquartered in Atlanta and has experts located throughout the United States and the world.
Pakistan exports hit Punjab and Himachal plants
13 September 2018
Cement plants in Himachal Pradesh and Punjab, India, have called for 11 per cent duty on imports from Pakistan as they see capacity utilisation levels fall to 75 per cent. They have also suggested capping of entry points and ports for cement imports into India as additional safeguards against cement dumping from Pakistan.
Of a total cement demand of 8Mta in Punjab, imports are now as high as 1.5Mta, rising by 24 per cent YoY in the quarter ended March 2018. The majority of imports are from Pakistan's cement producers.
"The (Indian) industry had built capacity in anticipation of increased demand due to the impetus given to housing and infrastructure sectors. The demand scenario, however, remains subdued," said an executive of a Himachal Pradesh-based cement plant, talking to the Tribune paper.
Pakistan exporters are resorting to predatory pricing, executives said. While cement is sold in Pakistan at US$100/t, it is dumped in India at US$63-65/t, they added.
India is Pakistan's second-largest export market for cement after Afghanistan, which allows imports without basic customs duty since 2007. However, Pakistan imposes 11 per cent duty on imports from India, the industry experts said. Pakistan's exports to Afghanistan have fallen due to competition from Iranian exporters.
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Traders said this pulled wide open the discount of U.S. WTI crude versus Brent to around $10 per barrel, the biggest since June.
The upturn in oil prices come as the United States' sanctions squeezed Iranian crude exports and after the U.S. crude oil production in 2019 was forecast to grow at a slower rate than previously expected, prompting supply concerns.
Outside the United States, traders have been focusing on the impact of USA sanctions against Iran that will target oil exports from November.
In New York last night Brent crude, the global benchmark, was trading nearly 1 per cent higher at $79.75 a barrel, a rise of 3 per cent since the start of the month. This comes amid the Iranian oil sanctions which are set to be imposed on November 4th, while the USA have also demanded nations to drop Iranian imports to zero.
The Wall Street Journal said OPEC's total oil production climbed last month, in a sign the oil cartel is sticking with a decision to begin pumping out more barrels of crude this summer after more than a year of holding back output.
South Korea has chose to comply with USA demands to cut oil imports from Iran to zero, becoming the first to do so out of the top three buyers.
US crude oil production fell by 100,000 bpd to 10.9 million bpd as the industry faces pipeline capacity constraints.
S&P global Platts said OPEC, in a report, indicated demand for the organization's own crude oil in September will be nearly 1 million bpd more than the level produced in August.
"The path of least resistance for oil prices, given the supply fundamentals, remains up", Harry Tchilinguirian, oil strategist at BNP Paribas, told Reuters Global Oil Forum.
US Energy Secretary, Rick Perry, met Saudi Energy Minister, Khalid al-Falih, on Monday in Washington, as the Trump administration encourages big oil-producing countries to keep output high.
"Crude oil output increased mostly in Libya, Iraq, Nigeria and Saudi Arabia, while production declined in Iran, Venezuela and Algeria", the 15-member oil cartel said. Perry will meet with Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak on Thursday in Moscow.
Russia, the United States and Saudi Arabia are the world's three biggest oil producers by far, meeting around a third of the world's nearly 100 million barrels per day of daily crude consumption.
Russian energy minister Alexander Novak on Wednesday warned of the impact of US sanctions against Iran.
US crude inventories fell by 5.3 million barrels in the last week, the US Energy Information Administration said on Wednesday.
This belief that "united we stand taller" is the very essence of what it means to be part of the European Union.
"I have been working towards this proposal for the best part of a decade as Ireland's member of the European Parliament's Working Group on the Clock Change, and I am delighted that there is now light at the end of the tunnel".
Juncker also said the European Union will always show "loyalty and solidarity" with Ireland on the issue of its border with Northern Ireland.
Without naming Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, Juncker blasted European Union leaders who sought to undermine democracy and the rule of law and rejected complaints from lawmakers that the Commission has been lenient toward Hungary, Poland and other eastern states.
Juncker on Wednesday also called for placing the fight against terror within the jurisdiction of the future European Public Prosecutor's Office. "I want the European Union to become a major player in the global scene", he said. We need more solidarity, and solidarity must be lasting and organized'.
Juncker noted that one of the jewels in Europe's crown - the passport-free Schengen travel area - is under threat due to barriers and tougher border ID checks being imposed by some countries.
Juncker expressed his disapproval of those who pursued unilateral actions, waging trade and currency wars.
"In 1913, Europeans expected to live a lasting peace", Juncker said. I speak of these times not because I believe we are on the brink of another catastrophe, but because Europe is the guardian of peace.
Mrs May responded in the Commons by saying: "I believe a deal that is right for the United Kingdom will be a deal that is right for the European Union". Let us defend our way of life, our way of being.
"We must do more to allow our single currency to play its full role on the global scene", Juncker told the European Parliament in Strasbourg as he presented his annual programme.
"By 2050 Africa's population will number 2.5 billion", Juncker said. We need to invest more in our relationship with the nations of this great and noble continent.
He said that the EU's relations with Africa must no longer be seen "from the sole perspective of development aid". "And Europe needs this partnership just as much", he said.
The European Union already has a series of deals with individual African countries, largely in North Africa, as well as additional economic partnerships with African blocs, such as the Southern African Development Community.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban's government has been accused of breaching the EU's core values in areas of migration, rule of law, and the media - which he denies.
The report was approved with 448 votes in favour, 197 against and 48 abstentions.
"Viktor Orban's government has been leading the charge against European values by silencing independent media, replacing critical judges, and putting academia on a leash", Sargentini said.
Mr Orban has for years deflected much of the global condemnation of Hungary's electoral system, media freedoms, independence of the judiciary, mistreatment of asylum seekers and refugees and limits on the functioning of non-governmental organisations.
It was the first move of its kind in the European Union against a member state, garnering two-thirds of the votes.
The vote takes the first steps under Article Seven of the EU Treaty, known by some in Brussels as the "nuclear option", which could ultimately strip Hungary of its EU voting rights.
Mitsotakis's party, New Democracy, is in the same conservative bloc in the European Parliament as Orban's, the European People's Party (EPP).
"This decision condemning Hungary and the Hungarian people was made because we Hungarians have demonstrated that migration in not a necessary process and that migration can be stopped", Szijjarto added in comments to reporters in Budapest. "They made it clear that human rights, the rule of law and democratic values are not up for negotiation", she said.
Before the vote, EPP leader Manfred Weber, who has announced his candidacy for the Commission's top job and has been a staunch defender of Orban until now, indicated that his patience for his Hungarian party colleagues was coming to an end.
"I have always been in favour of building bridges and I want to continue to do so, but yesterday [Tuesday] I didn't see any readiness from the Hungarian PM to make a move towards his European Union partners and address our concerns", Weber tweeted. "Hungary has been condemned because they know that it would never accept pro-migrant policies".
He has also led opposition to German Chancellor Angela Merkel and others who want Europe to take in more Muslim refugees.
The Commission has preferred to pressure Budapest through standard legal powers, but the head of the European Union executive, Jean-Claude Juncker, also an EPP member, said he would have voted for the move if he were a lawmaker.
The same procedure is already underway against Poland, this time triggered by the European Commission.
Geert Wilders, the leader of the Dutch anti-immigration Freedom Party, called the vote - which also weighed on Hungarian assets - "a bloody shame".
Italy's anti-immigration Interior Minister Matteo Salvini, whose League party has six lawmakers in the European body, said separately: "We will vote in defense of Orban". "He protects his citizens against terror and defends the identity of his country", he said.
Here are the winners in the 2021 election in Pueblo
He denied he was trying to turn the European Union into "a superpower".
The President of the European Union says Brexit is threatening a hard border with the North, and not the EU.
The proposal, which still needs approval from European Union lawmakers and member states, would be a departure for the European Union, which until now has allowed online companies to a take a voluntary approach to battling extremist content.
EU President Jean-Claude Juncker has called for a 10,000-strong EU border and coastguard force to tackle the migrant crisis engulfing the continent.
MEPs voted en masse to trigger Article 7 proceedings against Hungary on Wednesday (12 September), although Jean-Claude Juncker's early morning Strasbourg speech failed to send much of a clear signal against Budapest's alleged rule of law violations.
Against the backdrop of an ever more uncertain world, he stressed the need for Europe to become more sovereign so as to be able to play a role in shaping global affairs.
"The geopolitical situation makes this Europe's hour: the time for European sovereignty has come", he said.
Juncker renewed calls for states to push ahead in developing an European Union defense capability independent of the US -led North Atlantic Treaty Organisation alliance and to embrace Africa through investment and a sweeping new free trade area - part of a strategy to curb the flow of poor African migrants which has set European Union governments at each other's throats and fueled a sharp rise in anti-EU nationalism.
"I am not suggesting that we are on the verge of a similar catastrophe in Europe", he said. Composed of experts from the European Border and Coast Guard, the EU Agency for Asylum and Europol, the teams will be coordinated by the Commission.
If authorities flag content that incites and advocates extremism, the content must be removed from the web within an hour, the proposal from the EU's lead civil servant state. "I want the European Union to become a major player in the global scene", he said. "It is absurd that European companies buy European planes in dollars instead of euro".
The latest tensions flared over decisions by Italy, which has a new populist anti-migration government, to turn away rescue ships carrying African migrants. Juncker proposed to move to qualified majority voting in specific areas of the EU's external relations: human rights issues and civilian missions, as well as taxation. He didn't mention Russian Federation a single time. But he asked: is the Commission policy adequate to the challenges?
Africa does not need charity, it needs true and fair partnership.
Genuine Christianity and Seeking Godly Counsel Christian Examiner Contributor | 13 September, 2018 by Mark Klages
I write a blog.
I am not a preacher, a worship leader, or even a church leader, currently. I work a job that requires more than 40 hours every week, with some weeks over 100 hours. I make it to church almost as often as I can. And as far as being a good Christian, well, have you seen the beach when the tides shift? Still, I have a passion for Christ. The son of a pastor, I always thought my ministry would be in the pulpit. But then I was given an opportunity to be more active in God's kingdom and... I hesitated.
Don't get me wrong. My heart jumped and my first response was, "Yes! Absolutely. Yes." But then I was reminded of how disconcerting my last attempt had been when I jumped on emotion, not on wise counsel. Sure, God blessed me in my attempt, but He also made it clear that I was working on my own schedule, not necessarily on His. So I decided that being a genuine Christian, following God's precepts required me to practice what I preach.
"The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man is he who listens to counsel." (Prov. 12:15)
"Plans fail for lack of counsel, but with many advisers they succeed." (Prov. 15:22, NIV)
But before we dive too deeply into gaining Godly counsel and why divine conformation is important to the success of any ministry effort, let us explore what can and does happen when we try to "help" God move His plan along. You know what I mean. God says "I will provide for you a building," and our mind says, "Go buy a building." Nothat is not what God said. So now you are stuck with a building that is not the building God was going to provide. How does God handle this in scripture?
In our first example, David was early in his kingship over Israel and directing the transfer of the ark of God back to Jerusalem. As the story goes in 2 Samuel 6, Israel carried the ark on a "new cart" (v.3) but the oxen stumbled at the threshing floor of Nakon. So Uzzah "reached out and took hold of the ark of God" (v.6) in direct disobedience to God's command. God killed Uzzah on the spot. We know from Numbers 4 and from 1 Chronicles 15:2 that "No one but the Levites may carry the ark of God," and even being Levites, only Kohathites were permitted to carry the ark, by staves, without touching any holy article, lest they die. As a result of Uzzah's good intentioned but ill-thought act, he died and the ark remained with Obed-Edom for three months.
In our second example, Abram (Abraham) was nearly 100 years old and Sarai (Sarah) was 90, well past childbearing age, when God promised to make Abraham the father of Israel. According to Genesis 15, the angel of the Lord promised Abram that his children would outnumber the stars (v.5). But by chapter 16, Sarai had grown impatient and given her Egyptian slave, Hagar, to Abram in hopes a union would bring about the children God promised. Hagar became pregnant and bore Abram's firstborn son. What is so wrong with one birth, you may ask? Sarah became the matriarch of God's chosen Israelites and Hagar is the mother of Islamand never shall the two religions be truly at peace. (Gen. 16:12)
And finally, for this discussion, King Saul was victorious against armies larger, stronger, and better equipped than his own. But that was when God was with Saul. Still, in 1 Samuel 13, we find Saul waiting on the prophet Samuel in Gilgal against a numerically superior Philistine army. Samuel ordered Saul to wait for his arrival because only Samuel, the priest, could perform holy sacraments. This order to wait led Israel's army into hiding in caves and thickets in some pretty nasty surroundings. After seven days, when Samuel did not arrive exactly when he promised he would, Israel's army began to flee. To stem the fleeing tide, Saul took it upon himself to sacrifice the burnt offering. "So, what?" you might ask. "God was with Saul. He could make the offering." Not so. And to prove the point, Samuel arrived just as Saul finished the offering made in hubris. As a result, God appointed David successor and king of Israel, ending the reign of Saul's house. Sure, Saul remained king for several years until God had prepared David, but God's hand on Saul's reign ended in that moment. As David himself often said, Saul was God's anointedbut Saul no longer walked on the path God had chosen.
So, suffice it to say we humans do not fare well when we insert ourselves into God's plan. When we interrupt His perfect plan we get confusion, strife, delay and in some cases (Uzzah), death.
But this post is not about how angry God becomes when we get in the way of His plans; rather, it is about how confidently and effectively we can follow God's will if we are wise enough to wait on His leading and timing.
First, a baseline. Not everything we do requires us to step back and seek God's direction. For some things, God expects us to use the intelligence and common sense He has given us. For example (not a comprehensive list), a few things come immediately to mind: obeying the speed limit, attending church, donating to charity, not cursing, not drinking (eating, working out, or doing anything) excessively, not murdering (to include unborn children) and not cheating on one's spouse. This very short list exemplifies some of the things that we probably should not need to seek God's face for or receive good Godly counsel on, regarding our actions. Of course there are more, but by now you should get my point.
Things that do require Godly counsel: starting a ministry, changing churches, changing jobs, major decisions that impact loved ones (moving, buying a house, becoming a nun), major decisions that impact the church family, and anything that places you in the position to preach, teach, admonish or educate in God's name. In the Marines, if I gave an order, I had better be absolutely certain that order was in line with the Commander's intent because I was, in essence, speaking with his authority and in pursuit of his goals. How much more important is the potential spiritual life and death that comes from hearing God's word? How much more critical is God's authority and intent in the feeding of His flock?
Ok, now that I have set the baseline, what is Godly counsel? Put simply, Godly counsel is counsel from wise men or women who know and follow the tenets of Christ. Wise counsel comes from good Christian men and women who are clearly in step with Christ's teachings. Good Godly counsel does not come from asking only your friends and closest companions whom you know share your similar likings and desires. Read 1 Kings 12 and see how that worked for Rehoboam.
Wise, Godly men and women, when asked for their good counsel, will pray, apply God's principles to your request, and bounce your request off their knowledge of the Bible, God's will, and practical matters such as money and skill. Sure, God can overcome any obstacle, but Godly men and women from whom we seek counsel should be in line with God's will themselves and should therefore agree on God's will. Simply put, if he wants, God can provide you with the right building on His time; but if God is not in it, you are not going to successfully start a church with no money, no land, and no workers, no matter how much you pray.
However, if your "council" returns in agreement after you choose to follow Godly counsel, you now have both the confidence and the assurance that God will move mountains. He will open (and close) doors to prosper His plan. God will bring the resources. He will bring the opportunity. He will open the hearts of those so vehemently fighting against you, whether they are unbelieving strangers or close family members.
"What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?" (Rom 8:31, NIV)
If God's will is in it, then your Godly "council" should mostly agree in their responses. If responses are all across the board, consider whether you were clear in your request. If your request was clear, waita don't jump. Go back to God and rework your request with your council to avoid any misunderstanding. If your "council" generally disagrees with your desires or cannot agree on God's will, be wise enough to listen.
"But since you refuse to listen when I call and no one pays attention when I stretch out my hand, since you disregard all my advice and do not accept my rebuke, I in turn will laugh when disaster strikes you; I will mock when calamity overtakes youwhen calamity overtakes you like a storm, when disaster sweeps over you like a whirlwind, when distress and trouble overwhelm you." (Prov. 1:24-27, NIV)
Mark Klages is an influential contributor, a former US Marine and a lifelong teacher who focuses on applying a Christian worldview to everyday events. Mark blogs at https://maklagesl3.wixsite.com/website under the title "God Provides where Hate Divides," with a heart to heal social, political, relational, and intellectual wounds through God's divine love and grace. Mark can also be found on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-klages-04b42511/.
At the Museum of the Bible in Washington, DC, they have a display of many burned Bibles. This is the book that, down through the centuries, has been burned more than any other. Ironically, that even happened sometimes at the hand of church officials.
Now there are reports out of China of Bibles being burned.
Writing for the AP (9/10/18), Christopher Bodeen notes, Chinas government is ratcheting up a crackdown on Christian congregations in Beijing and several provinces, destroying crosses, burning bibles, shutting churches and ordering followers to sign papers renouncing their faith, according to pastors and a group that monitors religion in China.
Bob Fu of China Aid, a group in the U.S. that works to help the church in China, said, The international community should be alarmed and outraged for this blatant violation of freedom of religion and belief.
Bodeen writes that the Chinese government is reportedly demanding loyalty to the officially atheist Communist Party and eliminating any challenge to its power over peoples lives.
And he adds that the President Xi Jinping is like a new Mao Zedong: Xi is waging the most severe systematic suppression of Christianity in the country since religious freedom was written into the Chinese constitution in 1982.
The unregulated house churches are particular targets of Chinese Communist persecution. The ultimate issue is one of control.
Despite the crackdown by the Communist government in China, the church appears to be growing. If the present trends continue, China is projected to be the country with the greatest number of Christians worldwide.
How ironic. The elites in China are pulling out all the stops to strangle the baby while it is still in the manger, to quote a Chinese Communist official from the 1990s. But despite all attempts to eradicate the church, including burning copies of the Bible, they find the church growing.
D. James Kennedy Ministries once interviewed Bob Fu on Christian evangelism efforts in Chinaand the risk such efforts entail. He told us, China has [1.4] billion people, and they were thirsty for the Gospel while they were suppressed by the Chinese Communist party.And sharing the Gospel actually is a joyful thing. And althoughthis is going to take a lot of risk including even being martyredhow can [we] keep this good news from [our] native Chinese people who are yearning and hungry and thirsty for it?
China is so big and varied, observes Todd Nettleton of The Voice of the Martyrs, that many different things happen there simultaneously. Persecution and the thriving of the church can happen simultaneously. He once told me in a television interview: Whatever youve heard about China, its true, somewhere. China is a huge country and there are places where the church is functioning with very minimal interference and functioning very well. There are also places where Christians are in prison because of their Christian ministry.
But despite the scenario where some Christians work unimpeded, there is always the threat of persecution hanging over them, notes Nettleton: One of my coworkers who is very familiar with China says, You may have a Sunday where no pastors are arrested. But every one of those pastors knows they could have been arrested. So that pressure is there.
Wendy Wright, president of Christian Freedom International, notes that in addition to Bible-burning in China, there is suppression through internet censorship. In a recent interview, she told our viewers at D. James Kennedy Ministries, Bibles online [are] being censored. Now if youre in China, youre not able to access a Bible online.
There is an irony to China burning the Bible these days. In 2011 an article appeared in the Iona Institute for Religion and Society by Tom OGorman. He wrote: In the West we are doing our best to destroy our Christian heritage; but in China, Chinese intellectuals are coming around to the view that it is precisely this heritage that has made the West so successful.
Noted author and speaker Bill Federer put it this way, Did equality come from atheistic Communist China, where theyre still arresting illegal house church leaders? No, of course not, equality ultimately came from the book that some Chinese officials are burning. The book that teaches the golden rule and that we are to love our neighbor as ourselves and that God made us in His image and that He will hold us all accountable one day.
I hope the day will come that neither China nor the West will continue to burn or to ban the Bible, but instead, to open it up and to learn of its rich legacy available to all.
As President Ronald Reagan once declared, Inside the Bibles pages lie all of the answers to all of the problems man has ever known.
###
Jerry Newcombe, D.Min., is an on-air host/senior producer for D. James Kennedy Ministries. He has written/co-written 29 books, e.g., The Unstoppable Jesus Christ, Doubting Thomas (w/ Mark Beliles, on Jefferson), and What If Jesus Had Never Been Born? (w/ D. James Kennedy) & the bestseller, George Washington's Sacred Fire (w/ Peter Lillback) djkm.org @newcombejerry www.jerrynewcombe.com
Article used with permission.
Photo courtesy: Unsplash/Chuttersnap
The Israeli government denied reports that they sold missile defense technology to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Saudi-based Al-Khaleej Online reported that a diplomatic source in Saudi Arabia claimed that Israel sold the Iron Dome technology to them.
In an emailed statement to The Times of Israel, the defense ministry said, We deny the existence of a deal to sell Iron Dome to Saudi Arabia.
A spokesperson for Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, a state-owned defense contractor who manufactures the Iron Dome in conjunction with Israel Aerospace Industries denied the report as well. He told The Times of Israel, The report is not true.
Saudi Arabia reportedly pursued the technology to protect themselves from missile attacks by Houthi rebels in Yemen. Yemens president is in exile in Riyadh after the Iranian-backed rebels took over the capital city of Sanaa.
The conflict in Yemen became a proxy war for control in the region. Iran supports the Houthi rebels and the Saudis back the democratically elected government. A coalition led by Saudi Arabia controls the airspace over the war-torn nation.
Israel implemented the Iron Dome in 2011 to protect themselves against rocket and missile attacks coming from Palestinian territory. The technology detects when a rocket has been fired, can sense what type of projectile it is, where it is going, and intercept it using surface to air missiles. Israel claims they have intercepted over 1,000 rockets with a 90% success rate.
The Al-Khaleej Online report said the Israelis initially refused to sell the technology to the Saudis. Then, they claimed the United States acted as a mediator and received assurances from Saudi Arabia that they would not use it as an offensive weapon against Israel.
While the Israelis and the Saudis have no diplomatic relationship, they have signaled a willingness to work together as a buffer against the influence of Iran in the Middle East. The IDF chief of staff insinuated that he might be willing to share intelligence with Saudi Arabia. Saudi Crown Prince Muhammed bin Salman made statements in a recent interview that appeared to acknowledge Israels right to exist.
Photo courtesy: Getty Images/Handout
I find myself scratching my head as to why so many evangelical Christians committed to social justice are reacting so strongly to the recent statement on social justice.
In part it may be due to matters of style and tone; the statement, for example, is a list of bold affirmations and denials. This is not in tune with our times. While we are wont to make definitive and sweeping pronouncements on social or political matters, were hesitant to talk like this with when it comes to things transcendent (more on this below).
As in any statement, there is much I would want to change or tweak, but statements like this do raise fundamental concerns that deserve careful thought.
The Temptations of Social Justice
For example, I think this statement grasps some of the principal temptations of those who are called into the social justice arena. Every ministry of emphasis has its peculiar temptations (e.g., journalists are subject to cynicism among other sins), and we are wise to be aware of themif for no other reason than to ensure that our social justice ministries remain vibrant.
One social justice temptation, for example, is to let the world determine our social justice agenda and rationale. This is how the statement, now signed by almost 7,000 people, puts it:
WE AFFIRM that Gods law, as summarized in the ten commandments, more succinctly summarized in the two great commandments, and manifested in Jesus Christ, is the only standard of unchanging righteousness. Violation of that law is what constitutes sin. WE DENY that any obligation that does not arise from Gods commandments can be legitimately imposed on Christians as a prescription for righteous living. We further deny the legitimacy of any charge of sin or call to repentance that does not arise from a violation of Gods commandments.
Of course, evangelicals have different interpretations about how far to extend those Ten Commandments, but I would think wed all agree that the Jim Crow era violated both the commandments against bearing false witness as well as murder.
But sometimes enthusiasts for social justice push too far. The statement puts it like this:
WE DENY that true justice can be culturally defined or that standards of justice that are merely socially constructed can be imposed with the same authority as those that are derived from Scripture. We further deny that Christians can live justly in the world under any principles other than the biblical standard of righteousness. Relativism, socially-constructed standards of truth or morality, and notions of virtue and vice that are constantly in flux cannot result in authentic justice.
On a more mundane level, this temptation looks like this: You dont have to go to many social justice gatherings to conclude that if you are not actively involved in this justice issue or that, you are contributing to the injustice: He who is not fighting racism is implicitly supporting racist policies and so forth. Its dramatic rhetoric, to be sure, but in fact, there is no way any of us can be deeply involved in every social justice effort; we are finite beings, and it is not a sin to be finite. We have to pick our causes, and follow the calling of God on our lives.
The devils final temptation of Christ was to offer him political power.
The temptations abound, like they do in every ministry: There are some Christians (white, black, Asian, and Hispanic) who are more anxious about their racial or ethnic identity than they are their identity in Christ. There are some Christians who have let feminism or Marxism or deconstructionism or race theory shape their ideas more than the Bible. There are some Christians whose anger at injustice has little righteousness in it, instead driven by hate of a political leader or group. There are some Christians (left and right) who are so anxious about gaining political power to enact their social agenda that they compromise some important Christian values.
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Any devout Christian who is deeply committed to social justice knows these temptations firsthand, and the honest among them acknowledge that they have not always resisted these temptations, especially the last. They never forget that the devils final temptation of Christ was to offer him political power.
Learning from History
Another critic, pastor John MacArthur, has expressed similar concerns, especially about evangelical engagement in justice issues. I often disagree with MacArthur, but I think his pastoral instincts should be taken into account when he said (in a blog from August):
Evangelicalisms newfound obsession with the notion of social justice is a significant shiftand Im convinced its a shift that is moving many people (including some key evangelical leaders) off message, and onto a trajectory that many other movements and denominations have taken before, always with spiritually disastrous results.
Hes not the first to note this trajectory. We witnessed this in the last century in mainline Protestant Christianity, whose social justice concern in the 1950s and 1960s was admirable in so many ways. But slowly the mainline become nothing more than the Democratic Party at prayer. Typical were the millennium goals established by the Episcopal Church in 2007. The goals were:
Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger Achieve universal primary education Promote gender equality and empower women Reduce child mortality Improve maternal health Combat HIV and AIDS, malaria and other diseases Ensure environmental sustainability, and Create global partnership for development with a focus on debt, aid, and trade.
Nothing wrong with the goals as such, but they were the exact same Millennium Development Goals established by the United Nations in 2000. It speaks volumes that a Christian church could not imagine how to talk or prioritize its social justice agenda without simply copying those of a secular institution. One would have thought Matthew 28taking the gospel to the four corners of the worldmight have played some part in its goals for the millennium.
In this regard, evangelicals have a long history of following the culture. When hunger became an international issue in the late 20th century, thats when evangelicals began talking about it. We didnt focus much on race until after Ferguson and the rise of Black Lives Matter. We didnt spend much energy on sexual abuse in church until the #metoo movement. To be clear, these are all worthy causes. But it does give one pause to realize that our gospel doesnt seem to help us fashion a social justice agenda that is unique to our faith.
We evangelical Christians would be naive to deny that we are not subject to the same forces that have so compromised the Christian integrity of the mainline. This does not mean that evangelical social justice will inevitably abandon the gospel. Hardly. There are many examples of social justice advocates who remain deeply committed to Christ and the gospelI think of many leaders in the black church in particular. But social activists more than most are wise to note how the transcendent dimension of social justice can get marginalized.
The Immanent Frame
Anyone involved in social justice ministries is subject to the loss of the transcendent. As Charles Taylor so effectively argued in A Secular Age, we live today in a time that is defined by what he calls the immanent frame. At the risk of oversimplifying, this means living as if this world is all there is. This world is reality; the world beyond it is a matter of personal opinion or speculation. In other ages, the world beyond thisthe supernatural, the spiritual, the transcendentwas simply assumed and was clearly believed to be the most real.
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This is one reason many Christians are more confident making definitive pronouncements about social concerns (the immanent") and hesitate to speak boldly about theological concerns (the transcendent). We live in an era dominated by the immanent framing of things, and it takes concerted effort to remember that, as important and vital as our world is, it is but a shadow of the reality beyond us and the reality we will enjoy in the kingdom of heaven.
Evangelism is the greatest work of social justice.
Social justice activism by its very nature lives day to day within the immanent frame. It is concerned about the horizontal: how states and institutions treat people and how people treat one another. The Christian might be initially motivated by uniquely Christian ideals to engage in social justice efforts, as well she should, but as history shows, it doesnt take much before the immanent frame starts to frame everything.
So what exactly is the transcendent dimension of social justice for the evangelical Christian? This is something weve been arguing about as a movement for some decades. But I would put it this way: The ultimate goal of social justice is the same as the ultimate goal of all our activity for Jesuswhether that be encouraging Bible reading and prayer, loving our next door neighbor, practicing business as mission, or a hundred other thingsthat all might come to know and love God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength. If our social justice doesnt have this end in view, I believe we will soon become nothing but the Democratic or Republican parties at prayer.
It is right and good, for example, that we seek to alleviate extreme poverty. As an act of neighbor love, we want to do what we canfrom simple charity to social reformto help the poor. If we help the poor rise out of poverty and into the middle class, we have done a wonderful thing. But if thats all we do, we will be guilty of committing the greatest injustice of all.
For reasons we cannot fathom, God has shown us the mystery of faith: that Christ had died for the forgiveness of sins, that we might become reconciled to God and enjoy him forever with others in a kingdom of love and joy. There is no greater blessing than to know and love God, who is the Desire of all desires, who is the Ultimate Fulfillment of all we long for. We have heard that message and have believed.
Now we constitute, if you will, a privileged spiritual class. Its not something we take credit for. In being born again, we have been born into a special, elect peoplea spiritual aristocracy, who enjoy unimaginable spiritual riches.
Like the materially wealthy, we are called to help those who are spiritually impoverished so they might believe and then enjoy these spiritual riches. And the way we do that is not complicated:
How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news! (Rom. 10:1415).
To put it starkly: If we fail to share the greatest riches we enjoy, if we keep this great news to ourselves, we are no better than the materially privileged who refuse to share their goods and work to alleviate poverty. We are, in short, practicing a type of injustice.
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To not put too fine a point on it: Evangelism is our greatest work of social justice.
Be Quick to Listen
As noted above, weve been debating the exact relationship between the gospel and politics, between evangelism and social efforts, for many decades now. The fact that we continue to debate suggests that there are no easy solutions for how to integrate them. Every solution is fraught with temptation, to be sure.
But precisely because this issue is complex, we are wise to listen to brothers and sisters who come at things differently, even when their criticisms are pointedespecially if they ground their arguments in Scripture and the evangelical tradition of interpreting Scripture. If we want evangelical social justice ministries to remain effective and vibrant for decades to come, we are wise to be alert to issues that can inadvertently undermine our love for others in the public square.
Mark Galli is editor in chief of Christianity Today.
In 2020, we were the church on our heels. A global pandemic shut down much of our world. But the church has been on the move since it was birthed; it will continue to be on the move until God makes all things new.
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At the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C., they have a display of many burned Bibles. This is the book that, down through the centuries, has been burned more than any other. Ironically, that even happened sometimes at the hand of church officials.
Now there are reports out of China of Bibles being burned.
Writing for the AP (9/10/18), Christopher Bodeen notes, "China's government is ratcheting up a crackdown on Christian congregations in Beijing and several provinces, destroying crosses, burning bibles, shutting churches and ordering followers to sign papers renouncing their faith, according to pastors and a group that monitors religion in China."
Bob Fu of China Aid, a group in the U.S. that works to help the church in China, said, "The international community should be alarmed and outraged for this blatant violation of freedom of religion and belief."
Bodeen writes that the Chinese government is reportedly "demanding loyalty to the officially atheist Communist Party and eliminating any challenge to its power over people's lives."
And he adds that the President Xi Jinping is like a new Mao Zedong: "Xi is waging the most severe systematic suppression of Christianity in the country since religious freedom was written into the Chinese constitution in 1982."
The unregulated "house churches" are particular targets of Chinese Communist persecution. The ultimate issue is one of control.
Despite the crackdown by the Communist government in China, the church appears to be growing. If the present trends continue, China is projected to be the country with the greatest number of Christians worldwide.
How ironic. The elites in China are pulling out all the stops to "strangle the baby while it is still in the manger," to quote a Chinese Communist official from the 1990s. But despite all attempts to eradicate the church, including burning copies of the Bible, they find the church growing.
D. James Kennedy Ministries once interviewed Bob Fu on Christian evangelism efforts in Chinaand the risk such efforts entail. He told us, "China has [1.4] billion people, and they were thirsty for the Gospel while they were suppressed by the Chinese Communist party....And sharing the Gospel actually is a joyful thing. And although...this is going to take a lot of risk including even being martyred...how can [we] keep this good news from [our] native Chinese people who are yearning and hungry and thirsty for it?"
China is so big and varied, observes Todd Nettleton of The Voice of the Martyrs, that many different things happen there simultaneously. Persecution and the thriving of the church can happen simultaneously. He once told me in a television interview: "Whatever you've heard about China, it's true, somewhere. China is a huge country and there are places where the church is functioning with very minimal interference and functioning very well. There are also places where Christians are in prison because of their Christian ministry."
But despite the scenario where some Christians work unimpeded, there is always the threat of persecution hanging over them, notes Nettleton: "One of my coworkers who is very familiar with China says, 'You may have a Sunday where no pastors are arrested. But every one of those pastors knows they could have been arrested.' So that pressure is there."
Wendy Wright, president of Christian Freedom International, notes that in addition to Bible-burning in China, there is suppression through internet censorship. In a recent interview, she told our viewers at D. James Kennedy Ministries, "Bibles online [are] being censored. Now if you're in China, you're not able to access a Bible online."
There is an irony to China burning the Bible these days. In 2011 an article appeared in the Iona Institute for Religion and Society by Tom O'Gorman. He wrote: "In the West we are doing our best to destroy our Christian heritage; but in China, Chinese intellectuals are coming around to the view that it is precisely this heritage that has made the West so successful."
Noted author and speaker Bill Federer put it this way, "Did equality come from atheistic Communist China, where they're still arresting illegal house church leaders?" No, of course not, equality ultimately came from the book that some Chinese officials are burning. The book that teaches the golden rule and that we are to love our neighbor as ourselves and that God made us in His image and that He will hold us all accountable one day.
I hope the day will come that neither China nor the West will continue to burn or to ban the Bible, but instead, to open it up and to learn of its rich legacy available to all.
As President Ronald Reagan once declared, "Inside the Bible's pages lie all of the answers to all of the problems man has ever known."
Jerry Newcombe, D.Min., is an on-air host/senior producer for D. James Kennedy Ministries. He has written/co-written 28 books, e.g., The Unstoppable Jesus Christ, Doubting Thomas (w/ Mark Beliles, on Jefferson), and What If Jesus Had Never Been Born? (w/ D. James Kennedy) & the bestseller, George Washington's Sacred Fire (w/ Peter Lillback) djkm.org @newcombejerry www.jerrynewcombe.com
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It's time for followers of Jesus to be the best of Christians, and the best of Americans, all at the same time.
Just last week, America's "paper of record," the New York Times, published an anonymous op-ed by a supposed "senior" Trump administration official, who humbly claimed to be saving America from behind enemy lines. The Times doesn't typically publish anything from anonymous sources, but this time it took what it called a "rare step" because "it was so important."
No, they crossed the line of journalistic ethics because it allowed them to skewer the President.
And how about those confirmation hearings for Brett Kavanaugh? The behavior of the protesters is crazy. Not to mention the very un-Senate like grandstanding by certain opposition lawmakers.
What's going on?
Many have warned us since the beginning of our republic that our system of government depends on things like freedom of speech, civil dialogue, rule of law, virtue, and ethical behavior. Without these, we're told, America as we know it can't survive.
Scanning the current political and cultural landscape, you might be wondering what's going to push our nation over the edge.
Or, to put it another way (borrowing an anecdote from a book called "The Content Trap") it's never only the dropped cigarette that starts the forest fire. It's also the state of the environment: hot and dry weather, overgrown underbrush, gusty windsin other words, in the wrong context, things can explode.
Our national cultural context isn't looking good. So the question is, who has the capacity to change this environment, and reduce the risk of explosion? Who can bring good to a culture like ours?
That's the question Bruce Ashford answers in his new book "Letters to an American Christian."
This book is so timely. At a moment when so many believers, who are called to be salt and light in the world, are tempted to be either American and not Christian, or Christian and not American, Ashford reminds us that we're called to be both. Christians first, but also called to this time and this place.
Toeing a political party line no matter the issue, joining the hysteria, or remaining silent out of fear are not options for followers of Christ. None of these fulfills our God-given task of engaging the culture, and being salt and light.
As we've said before on BreakPoint, in this cultural moment, that means we're going to walk and chew gum at the same time. We've got to be willing to say what's right even if it goes against our political party. And we've got to speak out on political issues, even if they aren't the culturally popular ones. Our ultimate loyalties lie not with any nominee but with Jesus Christ.
And it's precisely our loyalty to Jesus Christ that allows us to engage the culture in a way that will bring light, life, and hope. What our country needs is not more virtue-signaling; but more virtue. What our culture needs is not to look good; we need to be good.
Bruce Ashford's new book "Letters to an American Christian" features 26 brief letters to a hypothetical American college student who's wrestling with what it means to be a good American by first being a good Christian.
Think about it, the younger generation has never known a different political context. They may even think the current chaos is normal. Ashford's book provides a razor-sharp analysis of why it's not. And how as Christians we can lead by being the best of citizens.
If you want to understand, and especially if you want to help the younger generation understand, a genuinely Christian approach to American politics and public life, "Letters to an American Christian" is a great start. It has chapters on all the hot-button issues, from economic freedom to gender identity, to college campus protests, the balance of power, rights of conscience, and so much more. We have it for you at BreakPoint.org.
And this Thursday, September 13, at 2pmET, you can join Bruce Ashford on a free webinar as he talks about the themes in his book. To sign up come to BreakPoint.org.
Originally posted at Breakpoint.
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Have you seen any of Judge Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation hearings on TV?
If you have, you've witnessed the hostility from the liberal left towards the sanctity of life and religious liberty, principles that Kavanaugh's record has proven to uphold.
Shouts from protesters yelling in defense of Roe v. Wade have frequently filled the hearing room and interrupted the committee proceedings. This is no coincidence. The highly organized Women's March took credit on Twitter for the dozens of women arrested for disrupting the hearings.
The liberal left is feeling the weight of Barack Obama's famous 2008 saying, "elections have consequences." They recognize they may lose leverage on issues that are interwoven with our faith, namely the sanctity of life and religious liberty.
Regardless, the hearings will go on and Judge Kavanaugh will likely be confirmed as the next Supreme Court Justice. But in just two months voters will head to the polls for midterm elections, and that outcome is not as certain.
Democrats only need 23 seats to flip the House and 2 seats to gain majority control of the Senate. Don't be under any illusions, pro-abortion advocates such as the Women's March are organizing in unbelievable numbers to mobilize voters.
Both the right and the left are desperately trying to mobilize their bases and appeal to key swing voting blocks. But there's a reality few in politics have fully recognized and accepted: Independents aren't the swing voters in this election.
Christians are.
It's estimated that 35 million of America's 90 million evangelical Christians did not vote in the 2016 election. Since voter turnout always drops off for midterm elections, it's very possible that even more than 35 million Christians will choose to stay home unless they are motivated and equipped to use their voice through their vote. Do you think that candidates who advocate for abortion, the aggressive LGBTQ agenda or think people of faith should keep their beliefs out of the public square would be elected if 35 million more Christians voted? I doubt it.
My Faith Votes is a non-profit organization with a proven strategy to mobilize and inform Christians in churches, on campuses and in their places of work to vote in every election by leveraging cutting-edge technology to reach and equip faith voters.
And let me tell you, it's working. 85% of people who used this incredible tool during the 2016 presidential election actually voted! That's 44% higher than the national turnout average. My Faith Votes' electronic Personal Voting Assistant a nonpartisan tool makes it easy to register to vote, request absentee ballots, locate polling places and receive election reminders.
Every American should cherish the right to vote. The best way to do this is to practice that right! If Christians are to protect the principles we hold most dear, we must faithfully vote. Otherwise, those who believe differently very differently win by default.
RNC Minerals adds that last week in the mine near Kalgoorlie produced gold to the amount of 15 million canadian dollars (11 million USA dollars).
Given the significance of this discovery to the exploration potential and value of Beta Hunt for RNC shareholders, as a result of the discovery and related developments, RNC is no longer in exclusive discussions with a preferred bidder for Beta Hunt. The largest is 95 kilograms and contains approximately 2,440 ounces of gold. "These discoveries highlight the high-grade gold potential of Beta Hunt", he added.
"This is a spectacular discovery - possibly the find of the century in the Australian gold fields", said Ross Large, professor of geology at University of Tasmania.
That is what Candian miner RNC Minerals did at the Beta Hunt mine it owns near Kambalda.
Henry Dole, the miner credited with finding the gold, said "Never in my life have I seen anything like this".
The company said it had extracted gold worth about 9m from a mine near the town of Kalgoorlie last week. "This sort of bonanza zone is incredibly unique".
RNC Minerals
The discovery by RNC nearly 150 years after that discovery comes amid a resurgence in Australia's gold industry, with companies ploughing a record A$223m ($158m) into exploration in the June quarter - up 16% on the same period a year earlier. "I almost fell over looking at it ... we were picking it up for hours", he said.
Mark Selby, President and CEO of RNC, says recovering 9250 ounces of high grade coarse gold from a single cut, including specimens which could rank among the largest ever discovered, underlines the importance of the discovery.
Security has been reinforced at the mine with armed guards on site transporting any and all new discoveries to a secure vault before being shipped to the Perth mint.
The largest rocks will go to auction as collector items, Mr Selby said.
An underground mine in WA's Goldfields has produced what is believed to be two of the biggest gold specimens in recorded history.
"We're going to look at all the alternatives in terms of whether we look to raise capital at the mine level, whether we look at spinning it out publicly, whether we look at joint venturing with another mining company, this allows all options to be on the table for us", he said.
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We know why President Trump is so hated. We've heard it time and again. The man is out of control. He's a threat to national security. He has damaged our international standing. He's unstable. He's volatile. He's in totally over his head. No one can work for him.
Just read the latest books about Trump. Listen to his former employees. Look at his tweets. Donald Trump must go!
In the words of Rep. Maxine Waters, "I say 'impeachment, impeachment, impeachment, impeachment, impeachment, impeachment, impeachment.'"
Is there any validity to the charges against Trump? Is there any truth to these concerns?
Perhaps there is some truth to some of them. Perhaps he has been autocratic. Perhaps he has created a White House environment that can be chaotic. He has certainly spoken out of turn at times and given his opponents plenty of fuel for their fire.
But I don't believe for a minute that these are the real reasons the left wants to get rid of President Trump.
I say that because many on the left fear Vice President Pence even more, pledging to get rid of him once they get rid of Trump.
Yet Mike Pence is an experienced politician, having served in the House of Representatives from 2001-2013 and as governor of Indiana from 2013-2017.
And Mike Pence is not unstable or volatile, nor does he have a history of alienating those who work for him, nor has he been accused of being an autocratic narcissist.
He is clearly in control of his words and actions, he has not insulted or maligned his opponents, and he has done nothing to disgrace the office of the Vice President. Yet he too must go. He too is a threat. He too must be removed.
To quote Maxine Waters once again: After getting rid of Trump, "You knock one down, and then we'll be ready for Pence. We'll get him, too."
Yes, Mike Pence must also go. Away with this man too!
Waters' words drew a sharp rebuke from Trump supporter Philip Schuyler, who tweeted, "When Maxine Waters says, 'We'll impeach Trump,' she's fantasizing, since he didn't do anything wrong. But when she says re Pence, 'We'll get him too,' isn't she admitting that her party is closer to a vengeful mob than to a lawful org?"
But it's not just Maxine Waters saying this. The anti-Pence rhetoric has been building for months. Most recently, it was Omarosa Manigault Newman who echoed these sentiments.
As reported on Yahoo News, "Ms Manigault Newman, who is busy promoting her book, Unhinged: An Insider's Account of the Trump White House, was asked by TMZ which of the top White House executives was worse - the president or the vice president? 'Pence,' she shouted, before being driven away in a black SUV."
Yes, Pence is worse than Trump!
Back in July, New York Times op-ed writer Frank Bruni penned a piece titled, "Mike Pence, Holy Terror. Are you sure you want to get rid of Donald Trump?"
His article opens with these chilling words: "There are problems with impeaching Donald Trump. A big one is the holy terror waiting in the wings.
"That would be Mike Pence, who mirrors the boss more than you realize. He's also self-infatuated. Also a bigot. Also a liar. Also cruel."
Mike Pence is a monster! The man would bring a reign of terror!
But there's something even worse, and it lies at the heart of Bruni's concerns: Pence "adds two ingredients that Trump doesn't genuinely possess: the conviction that he's on a mission from God and a determination to mold the entire nation in the shape of his own faith, a regressive, repressive version of Christianity. Trade Trump for Pence and you go from kleptocracy to theocracy."
Yes, Mike Pence wants to turn America into a Christian theocracy, with himself the earthly tyrant ruling in God's stead. Oh, the horror!
The Tylt website conducted a poll (apparently late in 2017), asking the question: "Who should liberals fear more: President Trump or a potential President Pence?"
By a vote of 51.9 to 48.1 percent, the answer was that a Pence presidency would be more dangerous.
In support of this claim, Tylt cited a New Yorker article by Jane Mayer dated October 23, 2017. According to Mayer, "Pence has the political experience, the connections, the discipline, and the ideological mooring that Trump lacks. He also has a close relationship with the conservative billionaire donors who have captured the Republican Party's agenda in recent years."
But that is not the worrying part. Rather, "Even as [Governor] Pence argued for less government interference in business, he pushed for policies that intruded on people's private lives. In the early nineties, he joined the board of the Indiana Family Institute, a far-right group that supported the criminalization of abortion and campaigned against equal rights for homosexuals. . . ."
In short, Pence is an evangelical Christian, a biblically-based conservative. As such, he could be a worse threat to the left than Donald Trump. (Really now, if the left could make President George Bush into a religious fanatic who allegedly waged war based on Bible prophecies, what will it do to Mike Pence?)
So, to repeat, I do believe there is some validity to some of the charges raised against President Trump. And at times, he is own worst enemy, spreading disunity and dissent rather than rallying the nation around his very real successes.
But, the truth be told, the vast majority of concerns raised by the left are merely a convenient ruse for the real issue, which is this: They hate the fact that their radical agenda is being thwarted. They despise the fact that some of their strongholds are being demolished. And they will do anything in their power to remove anyone who dares to get in their way, be it Donald Trump or Mike Pence.
The more conservative, the worse. The more Christian, much, much worse.
Let's not take our eyes off the real stakes involved.
GAFCON chair urges peaceful separation between conservative and liberal Anglicans
The conservative Anglican GAFCON grouping has called for a 'structural separation' between churches that hold traditional beliefs on sexuality and those that accept same-sex marriage, with a view to avoiding costly litigation over assets.
Writing in his monthly newsletter, GAFCON chair Archbishop Nicholas Okoh hits out at The Episcopal Church in the US, which he says has spent more than $60 million in lawsuits against conservatives since 2000. He says conservative Anglicans in Brazil who have formed a breakaway province are also 'persecuted'.
After the decision in May by the Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia (ACANZP) to allow for the blessing of same sex relationships, several New Zealand parishes have said they can no longer remain part of the Province. However, Okoh said, GAFCON is 'proposing a fresh approach in order to minimise conflict'.
He says GAFCON deputy general secretary Secretary for Asia and Oceania , the Archbishop of Sydney, Dr Glenn Davies, has met ACANZP bishops and and suggested 'distinctive co-existence', described as 'a proposal for structural separation which acknowledges the reality of irreconcilable differences about the nature of the bible and the gospel, but calls for it to be done peacefully'.
'Those whose first resort is to litigation betray a love of power and money,' Okoh says.
He continues: 'It is for ACANZP as an autonomous province to decide if it will accept this proposal, but in practice much will depend on the attitude of the Archbishop of Canterbury.'
Okoh says so far 'good disagreement' has been 'a way of accommodating false teaching by treating primary issues as if they were secondary and presenting those who hold to a good conscience as schismatics'.
'Now GAFCON is proposing a way of handling disagreement which has theological integrity but minimises the hurt and distress that has been all too evident in the Americas,' he says.
At issue for parishes that vote to leave their denomination is the ownership of their buildings and other assets. TEC and other Anglican Churches argue they do not have the right to take them with them when they leave as they belong to the wider denomination and were often paid for by central funds.
Industry celebrates awards for Christian retailers
The 2018 Christian Resources Together (CRT) Retailers and Suppliers Retreat triggered a Twitter storm as delegates, award winners and more than 80 exhibitors gathered for their annual meeting at the Hayes Conference Centre, Swanwick.
Melanie Carroll, of the independent bookshop Unicorn Tree Books, based in Lincoln, UK, tweeted: 'Beautiful to be in a room filled with praise and worship that goes across the boundaries of ages, worship styles, accents, and job titles...that's one of the beauties of the CRT Retreat.' She enthused: 'We should be encouraged that what we are doing, our calling, our vocation as booksellers and authors and publishers is a holy and important work!'
David C Cook, a Christian Ministry and publishing house based in Eastbourne, UK tweeted: 'Wonderful to see Andy Croft talk at the CRT Retreat, about engaging young people with the Bible, and Lifelines, his new book with Mike Pilavachi.'
Speaking Volumes, a grant provider for quality Christian books for libraries and schools, sponsor an award. They tweeted: 'Congratulations to Paul Taylor of Triangle book shop for winning our Community Impact Award.'
J John bagged the award for the CRT Children's and Youth Book of the Year, Knowing God. J John tweeted: 'Thank you to all my colleagues at Philo, to Jeni Child and Morena Forza for the creative illustrations. What a joy to introduce children to Jesus.'
Winner of the CRT Evangelistic Book of the Year Award is The Pilgrim Way, A Guide to the Christian Faith which is written by Stephen Cottrell, Steven Croft, Paula Gooder and Robert Atwell. The Pilgrim Way is published by Church House Publishing.
Between Heaven and the Real World written by Steven Curtis Chapman and published by Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group, Michigan, USA won the CRT Biography Book of the Year.
SPCK Publishing, founded in 1698, is the largest Christian publisher in the UK and the third oldest British publishing house still operating today. Throughout its long history SPCK has aimed to make Christian ideas and values relevant and accessible to people of all faiths and none. Itwon CRT Large Publisher of the Year Award. Paul, A Biography, written by Tom Wright and published by SPCK, won two further awards; CRT Biblical Studies Book of the Year and CRT Book of the Year. SPCK tweeted: 'What a night! We're going to need a new shelf in the office. Thanks Christian Resources Together.'
Comedian and author Paul Kerensa tweeted: 'I'm at #CRT2018 talking about these books via newly-crowned Big Publisher of the Year SPCK Publishing, to a fair few book trade folks.'
Launched just six years ago, Instant Apostle was named as Small Publisher of the Year, an award sponsored by Lightning Source/Ingram Content Group. It tweeted: 'A great encouragement to all the team and huge thanks to all our authors for making it possible.'
An independently set up and family owned Christian bookshop based in East Belfast, The Book Well, tweeted: 'So honoured to be named runner up in the category of Independent Small Retail Store of the Year at #CRT2018 awards. Thanks for journeying with us, whether sales rep, publisher, supplier, customer, crafter, follower, supporter, pray-er, staff member or friend.'
The winners of the Independent Small Retail Store of the Year Award were Ali Ceaser and Tony Bronnimann, Quench Christian Bookshop, Wokingham. CRT Bookshop Manager of the Year Award went to Dave Lock.
CLC Wholesale (UK) won the CRT Distributor of the year Award. CLC commented: 'It's a real privilege to serve the Christian trade and share this important ministry.'
Details of the Christian Resources Together Retreat 2019 are available here.
Val Fraser is an author and journalist. Follow her on Twitter @ValFraserAuthor.
Pat Robertson tells Hurricane Florence to stop in the name of Jesus
Pat Robertson has commanded the incoming Hurricane Florence to stay away from the east coast region.
Robertson, who founded Regent University in Virginia who and is also the chairman of the Christian Broadcasting Network and host of "The 700 Club," spoke on Monday at CBN's special Week of Prayer service, where he reminded the audience that Jesus commanded the sea and the waves at the sea of Galilee to be still.
Speaking of Florence, the category 4 hurricane that is expected to make landfall and cause devastating damage in the Carolinas and Virginia starting Thursday, the evangelist asked the faithful to believe in God.
"I don't want that thing to come in," the preacher said of the storm.
"I don't want it to hurt Regent, I don't wait it to hurt CBN, I don't want it to tear up the beautiful campus, I don't want it to tear these trees down, I don't want to see any damage, I don't want a bunch of glass flowing," or damage to the area, he added.
He asked people at the service to raise their hands toward the Atlantic.
"We declare in the name of the Lord that you shall go no farther, you shall do no damage in this area," Robertson said.
"In the name of Jesus Hurricane Florence, we speak to you and we command the storm to cease its forward motion and go harmlessly into the Atlantic. Go up north away from land and veer off, in the name of Jesus. We declare a shield of protection all over Tidewater and we declare a shield of protection over those innocent people in the path of this hurricane. In Jesus' holy name, be out to sea!" he called.
Robertson said that hurricanes of past years have been diverted from Virginia thanks to prayers, and said that the same can be done with Florence as well.
"I believe it in all my heart, that if we don't doubt, this hurricane will be dispelled," he proclaimed.
Operation Blessing International, a humanitarian organization founded by Robertson, has meanwhile shared its readiness to respond to the storm.
"As #HurricaneFlorence approaches the East Coast, Operation Blessing teams are preparing to respond. Please pray for everyone in the path of this powerful storm," the group posted on Twitter on Tuesday.
Some analysts, such as real estate data provider CoreLogic, have warned that close to 759,000 homes are in the path of the hurricane, with Florence estimated to inflict more than $170 billion in damage.
Other Christian relief groups, such as North Carolina Baptists on Mission, which handles disaster relief for the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina, have also spoken of their readiness to act.
"We haven't had a Category 4 hit North Carolina since Hurricane Hazel, 50 years ago," said Richard Brunson, executive director of NAMB.
"It just depends where it comes in, but it's a very powerful hurricane that could be devastating, catastrophic. Those are the words they're using to describe Hurricane Florence."
Brunson added: "God has given us some quality resources with our volunteers and our equipment. We want to glorify God with all that we have. We also have great partners in other states and if the storm comes in as big as they say it will, those partners through the nationwide Southern Baptist network will come to help. That's a real assurance."
This article was published in The Christian Post and is re-published here with permission
Pope orders inquiry into bishop as US Catholic leaders discuss abuse crisis
Pope Francis has ordered an investigation of an American bishop accused of sexual misconduct with adults and accepted his resignation, deepening a worldwide clerical abuse scandal.
The Vatican and US Church officials announced the investigation on Thursday as the pope was meeting US Catholic Church leaders to discuss a scandal that has shaken his papacy.
The Vatican said the pope had appointed Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore to run the Wheeling-Charleston diocese, West Virginia, until Bishop Michael J Bransfield is replaced.
There were no details on the specific allegations against Bransfield and neither he nor his legal representatives could immediately be reached for comment.
The Catholic Church worldwide is reeling from crises involving sexual abuse of minors, deeply damaging confidence in the Church in the United States, Chile, Australia, and Ireland where the scandal has hit hardest, and elsewhere.
In the United States alone, the Church spent about $4 billion in compensation and other costs related to the priest sex abuse crisis between 1950 and 2015, according to the National Catholic Reporter.
The advocacy group BishopAccountability.org says Church data shows that 6,721 clerics have been 'not implausibly' or 'credibly' accused of sexually abusing minors in the United States between 1950 and 2016 and that there were about 18,500 victims.
In Germany, a Church study published in a magazine on Wednesday showed 1,670 clerics and priests had sexually abused 3,677 minors, mostly males, in the country between 1946 and 2014.
Papal order
On Thursday, the archdiocese of Baltimore's website said the pope had ordered the archbishop to investigate allegations of sexual harassment of adults by Bransfield.
'My primary concern is for the care and support of the priests and people of the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston at this difficult time,' Lori said in a statement.
'I further pledge to conduct a thorough investigation in search of the truth into the troubling allegations against Bishop Bransfield and to work closely with the clergy, religious and lay leaders of the diocese until the appointment of a new bishop,' he said.
The announcement of Bransfield's resignation came while the pope was meeting Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), Cardinal Sean O'Malley of Boston, and Archbishop Jose Horacio Gomez of Los Angeles.
In a statement afterwards, DiNardo said they told the pope of 'our situation in the United States how the Body of Christ is lacerated by the evil of sexual abuse'. He called the meeting 'a lengthy, fruitful, and good exchange'.
DiNardo had asked for the meeting after Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano last month accused the pope of knowing for years about sexual misconduct by former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick and of doing nothing about it.
In July, McCarrick became the first cardinal to resign in nearly 100 years after American Church officials said allegations that he had sexually abused a 16-year-old boy almost 50 years ago were credible and substantiated.
Demanding answers
McCarrick has said that he had 'absolutely no recollection' of the alleged abuse of the teenager but has not commented on the other allegations against him.
DiNardo has called for the Vatican to launch an investigation, known as an 'apostolic visitation', into how McCarrick could have risen steadily through the ranks of the US Church although many people knew that he had engaged for years in sexual misconduct with adult male seminarians.
In the 11-page statement published on August 26, Vigano, the former Vatican ambassador to Washington, launched an unprecedented broadside by a Church insider against the pope and a long list of Vatican and US Church officials.
DiNardo has said Vigano's accusations 'deserve answers that are conclusive and based on evidence'.
Salvation Army teams deployed as Hurricane Florence hits the Carolinas
Salvation Army teams have been deployed in eastern US to provide immediate relief for people affected by Hurricane Florence.
A 17-strong team and five mobile feeding units have been sent to the region from The Salvation Army Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi Division in anticipation of Florence.
The storm has prompted evacuation orders across North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia, affecting up to 1.7 million people.
The Salvation Army USA said two additional mobile feeding units were being prepared for deployment to assist post-landfall over the weekend.
Terry Lightheart, Director of Emergency Disaster Services said, 'The ALM Division of The Salvation Army continues to participate in daily coordination calls with its counterparts in the North & South Carolina Division (NSC) to determine gaps and unmet needs for the area.
'This storm is slated to be a catastrophic event which will likely overwhelm local resources and require several months of service.
'We are all partners in the effort to provide disaster relief to those in need and will continue to provide personnel and equipment, such as mobile feeding units to NSC, for as long as needed.'
Salvation Army response units are staged in Roanoke, Virginia and Charlotte, North Carolina. In addition to food and shelter, the units will also provide spiritual support to people affected by the storm.
Major Jim Arrowood, Divisional Commander for The Salvation Army in Kentucky and Tennessee, said, 'This holistic approach is part of what makes The Salvation Army unique and meaningful in everyday lives, but particularly in times of disaster.'
Storm surges have already started along the coast of North Carolina, and the eye of the storm is predicted to make landfall on Friday morning.
Christians are praying that the storm will not reach catastrophic levels as predicted.
Dr. Ronnie Floyd, pastor of Cross Church and president of the National Day of Prayer Task Force, said, 'As many of our fellow Americans brace themselves for the coming of Hurricane Florence, I want to urge Christians and churches to pray for the protection of life in the next several days.
'If there's even the remotest possibility, let us ask God for a miracle for this storm to pass without causing the catastrophic damage that's been forecasted.'
He asked Christians to pray 'whatever the outcome' for families seeking shelter during the storm, as well as first responders who will be away from their own families.
'To all who have evacuated and find themselves in the projected path of this storm: know that you're in our prayers, but even more important, know that God is with all who call and rely on him,' he said.
Lucian Freuds first drawings of Francis Bacon
For a quarter of a century Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud saw each other almost every day. Ahead of the sale of two 1951 drawings, we examine the story of their relationship, and how the Late Hon. Garech Domnagh Browne first met Freud and was introduced to Bacon and 1950s Soho
Perhaps more than those of any other figures in 20th-century British art, the careers of Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud are inextricably linked; their intimate friendship and infamous falling out resulting in an extraordinary and unique body of work. The importance of Bacon and Freuds joint legacy to the market was established beyond question in 2013 when Christies sold Bacons 1969 painting, Three Studies of Lucian Freud, for $142.2 million in New York then the most expensive work of art ever auctioned. This October, Christies is offering two drawings from 1951, this time by Freud of Bacon, which instead chart the beginning of the duos fascination with depicting one another. Bacon and Freud were introduced in 1945 by the painter Graham Sutherland, when he invited them both to stay at his country home. The two travelled together on the train from Londons Victoria station, quickly striking up a rapport centred on a shared love of bohemian Soho, at the time a square mile in the city centre dedicated to drinking, gambling and sex.
Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud, 1974. Photo: Harry Diamond. National Portrait Gallery, London
Born in Dublin in 1909, Bacon didnt take up painting professionally until he was in his late twenties. Freud, who was 13 years younger than his companion, had arrived in London as a child in 1933, fleeing from Nazi Berlin. By the time the pair became acquainted, both were beginning to forge their careers with solo exhibitions in Londons Mayfair and St. Jamess galleries. Artistically, Bacon and Freud were equally committed to the human figure. But while Bacon had a reputation for working quickly, often using photographs as a pictorial springboard, Freud worked slowly notoriously demanding months of his sitters time and painted exclusively from life. Freud was nevertheless inspired by Bacons impulsive painterly language, once saying, He talked about packing a lot of things into a single brushstroke, which amused and excited me, and I realised that it was a million miles away from anything I could ever do. Bacon, on the other hand, appreciated his companions disarming charm.
From left: Timothy Behrens, Lucian Freud, Francis Bacon, Frank Auerbach and Michael Andrews, having lunch at Wheeler's Restaurant in Soho, London, 1963. Photo: Getty Images
Between daily lunches at Wheelers oyster bar, drinks at the Gargoyle Club and the Colony Room Club, and frequent bouts of gambling, the two quickly became inseparable. As Freuds wife at the time, Lady Caroline Blackwood, would later recall, I had dinner with [Bacon] nearly every night for more or less the whole of my marriage to Lucian. We also had lunch. The pair saw each other nearly every day for 25 years and, naturally for two painters with a preference for representing people they knew, Freud and Bacon eventually became each other's artistic subjects. Bacon first painted Freud in 1951 in a work now hanging in Manchesters Whitworth Gallery of Art. Freud returned the favour just months later at his home in St. Johns Wood, north London. The result was a series of three affectionate pencil sketches, two of which are those being offered at Christies.
The art critic William Feaver, a longtime friend of Freuds who curated a number of exhibitions of his work, recorded an account of the evening: Freud drew [Bacon] three times in [a] catwalk pose: three sketches latching on to the quips of body language that Bacon was so brilliant at swiping from newspaper photos and the like. Bared hips, the deferential nape of a neck, flinching eye contact, the inertia of despair or deep sleep were Bacon's forte; for Freud such inroads of vision and expression were enticing potential. These drawings, unseen in public until 2011, marked the beginning of the reciprocal portrait practice that has come to define Bacon and Freuds relationship. They bear witness to Freuds skill as a draughtsman, his calligraphic lines and analytical detail here reaching the peak of their development.
(From left) Stan Gebler Davies, Gloria MacGowran, Francis Bacon and Garech Browne at the French House, Soho, London. Photographer Unknown
The drawings were acquired directly from Freud in the 1950s by the Irish collector the Late Hon. Garech Domnagh Browne (1939-2018), the younger cousin of Lady Caroline Blackwood, in whose collection they have remained ever since. Browne, who would later become a great patron of Celtic music and poetry, was a member of the extended Guinness family who became custodian of the historic Luggala estate in the Wicklow mountains in 1970. Through his familys eclectic artists salon, he met Freud while still a young boy. It was via Freud that Browne was then introduced to Bacon, and by extension, the thrills of 1950s Soho. We had lunch with Francis, Caroline Blackwood and Lucian in Wheelers restaurant with my mother, Browne would recall. We would then proceed to the Colony Club, where the proprietress Muriel Belcher, one of the three known women Bacon ever painted, told me I was the only member ever allowed in under the age of 12. Later, Lucian would take me to the Gargoyle Club... I would not be allowed in by the bouncers, so Lucian would put me under his long overcoat and I walked on his feet to gain entry. Many of the inmates were to be painted by both Francis and Lucian.
The following year Freud would paint Bacon for the first time in a work originally intended for the wall at Wheelers. The painting was instead acquired soon after it was completed by the Tate collection, and subsequently stolen from the walls of Freuds 1988 retrospective in Berlin. The closely cropped, sullen portrait the only complete oil painting of Bacon that Freud ever made hasnt been seen since. Freud would later recount how he and Bacon sat knee to knee for almost three months until the painting was finished. Everyone thought of him as a blur; but he had a very specific face. I remember wanting to bring Bacon out from behind the blur. I wanted to know him not just as an art-world person, but... as a friend I suppose. I have often painted people because I want to know them. The art critic Robert Hughes compared Bacon's face in that painting to a grenade just before it explodes. Freud, less extravagantly, said that I was pleased with it, and he seemed to like it as well. The pair often scrutinised each others work. As Bacon put it, Who can I tear to pieces, if not my friends? If they were not my friends, I could not do such violence to them.
What Bacon saw when he looked at the famously beautiful Freud was his own loathsomeness reflected Charles Darwent
Paper on the ground. Paper scattered on desks. Paper with coffee stains and paper with inscrutable scribbles. At your local elected official's office, chances are, there's going to be paper everywhere.
The job consumes a lot of paper. There are agendas running hundreds of pages, countless subcommittees producing reports, bureaucratic agencies analyzing the legal viability of a four-unit housing project. In city halls all over California, the office printer gets a good workout.
One must look no further than our own backyard of San Francisco, where the Board of Supervisors printed north of 350,000 pages in the 2018 fiscal year, stretching from July 1, 2017, to June 30, 2018. That's right 350,000 pages in one year, costing a little over $30,000 in taxpayer money.
SFGATE filed a public records request last month and unearthed the aforementioned numbers. A little background: the supervisors split the cost of leasing a Ricoh printer, which runs each supervisor $1837.52 each, per year. On top of that, each supervisor pays $0.0065 a page for black-and-white printing and $0.055 a page for color copies.
Take Supervisor Sandra Lee Fewer, who represents the Richmond District. Fewer's office led all offices in both total pages and total cost incurred. In the 2018 fiscal year, Fewer's office printed nearly 48,000 pages at a cost of $3016.42 to the city, including her split of the lease. (Only $12 more than District 2, Fewer is quick to point out.)
The supervisor spoke with SFGATE this week to explain her high printing costs. She said that her office hosts frequent community meetings on tsunami safety or Outside Lands or the Autumn Moon festival with attendance running into the hundreds. Many of her constituents also speak Russian and Chinese, requiring printing in a number of different languages. Ninety-five percent of her printing costs, she estimates, come from materials for these community meetings.
"I'd say we don't abuse our printing costs; I think our printing is instrumental to getting information out to our constituents," Fewer told SFGATE. "I think if you called other offices, they probably don't go out as much as we do and translate things into multiple languages and hold as many community meetings."
Fewer thinks the unique geographical design of her district the Richmond is naturally bordered by Golden Gate Park, the ocean and the Presidio means a community more engaged on the same issues than the average supervisorial district.
Supervisor Norman Yee, on the other hand, can point to his health for the 44,475 pages printed last fiscal year.
"Our office prints Board and Committee agendas, briefing packets and reports, flyers for community events our office is hosting, and emails for constituent issues with a longer history for reference," Jarlene Chow, an aide to Yee, wrote in an email to SFGATE. "Given [Supervisor] Yee's eyesight, it is easier for him to read it on paper, than on the computer."
Let's return to District 2, which, as promised to Supervisor Fewer, SFGATE would investigate. Yes, the legislators representing the Marina finished just $12 behind Supervisor Fewer last year, but that belies the truth of affairs.
Mark Farrell, who served for the first seven months of the fiscal year, left to serve as interim mayor in February. (You may remember this controversy.) Catherine Stefani took his place for the final five months and proceeded to blow every other supervisor out of the water on a rate basis. Stefani racked up $1458.50 in just five months; extrapolated to a full year, that means over $3,500 in printer costs, far outpacing Fewer's $3016.24.
(For a comprehensive list of each supervisor's printing records, check out the slideshow above.)
SFGATE spoke with Stefani's aide, Wyatt Donnelly-Landolt, about Stefani's outsized printing costs. Donnelly-Landolt explained that the Stefani office is particularly research-heavy; on any given day, he might be printing an MTA 10-year-plan, or a Public Works report running hundreds of pages, or a dispatch from a civil grand jury. Lots of policy writing means lots of printing.
He also chalks up the high costs, partially, to the transition from Farrell to Stefani.
"When Supervisor Stefani took office, she wanted to get caught up on all the issues," Donnelly-Landolt said. "We were printing a lot of reports, trying to get all our records set, transferring things from Supervisor Farrell to her."
SFGATE asked Donnelly-Landolt whether he saw a way to reduce printing costs, or whether the hundreds of thousands of pages produced by the Board every year was simply part of the job.
"I think there's definitely a lot of printing that does need to be done," Donnelly-Landolt says. "You need documents in front of you at board meetings, and these documents can be hundreds of pages, and going through them electronically can be challenging."
Hundreds of demonstrators crowded the streets of downtown San Francisco on Thursday morning, banging drums and chanting as they called on local and world leaders at the Global Climate Action Summit to do more to address climate change and pollution.
Were fighting for future generations, said Dorthea Enrique, who traveled from Detroit to take part in the protest. We want them to listen to our voices and protect us from corporate greed.
It was the third day of demonstrations this week. On Saturday, thousands had marched through the city for climate, jobs and justice, and Monday saw about 200 people, mainly indigenous groups, protesting Gov. Jerry Browns Climate and Forest Task Force.
Thursday mornings demonstration came on day two of the summit, which has drawn more than 4,000 elected officials, business executives and environmentalists from six continents to San Francisco for a three-day conference aimed at addressing carbon emissions and climate change.
Demonstrators outside the conferences main venue at the Moscone Center said they were frustrated that they could not participate in the discussions inside and wanted to make sure their voices were heard.
In a call-and-response outside, they yelled: What do we want? Climate justice!
Protesters crowded the intersection of Howard and Third streets outside the Moscone Center throughout the morning, forcing summit delegates to climb over barriers or go around the gathering.
As the delegates walked past, one protester yelled out, Theres more than just market-based solutions, folks! The market sucks, suit! Another encouraged delegates to participate in the protest: Join us! Join the community, not corporations! They pointed out the irony in the plastic shrubbery that lined the sidewalks leading into a summit focused on the environment.
Shortly after noon, a small group of delegates inside the summit stood up, chanted Mother Earth is not for sale, and unfurled a 16-foot banner while former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg gave a speech. Dawn Phillips, a representative of Right to the City Alliance and one of the protesters inside, said the group felt its message was received.
The point of entering the summit as a delegate was twofold, Phillips said: The ability to listen to what theyre saying, to arm ourselves. It was clearly also an opportunity to lift up our messaging.
Police and security removed the group from the summit and revoked its members badges.
Officers also arrested two men during the protest outside. They were released after being cited for violations including trespassing and resisting a police officer.
Many at the demonstration were indigenous people who traveled from around the country to the summit. They highlighted environmental issues beyond carbon emissions alone. Many said they want to protect the lands they live on from being destroyed by pollution.
Jihan Gearon, a member of the Navajo Nation in Arizona, came with the Mesa Water Coalition to demand action.
Were not OK with them trading and selling in pollution, and impacts to our communities, she said.
Brown organized this weeks summit to push back against the policies of President Trump, who last year pulled the United States out of the Paris climate agreement, a landmark deal ratified by 170 nations during President Barack Obamas administration.
Earlier this week, Brown signed into law a bill that sets a goal of 100 percent clean electricity for California by 2045. Many in Thursdays group, though, were critical of Browns efforts, calling them false solutions and climate capitalism.
As they marched Thursday, many protesters drummed on plastic buckets covered with pictures of Trumps face. They were peaceful as they blocked off Mission Street near Third Street, flanked by dozens of police officers keeping an eye on the event.
San Francisco Chronicle staff writer Sarah Ravani contributed to this report.
Ashley McBride and Evan Sernoffsky are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: Ashley.McBride@sfchronicle.com, esernoffsky@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @ashleynmcb @EvanSernoffsky
Annan is survived by his wife Nane Maria, his children and grandchildren.
Some of the heads of state attending the funeral are President Emmerson Mnangagwa of Zimbabwe, George Weah of Liberia, Alassane Ouattara of Cote d'Ivoire, Hage Geingob of Namibia and Mahamadou Issoufou of Niger.
She said her husband had an irresistible aura of radiant warmth.
The members of the patrilineal family also paid glowing tribute to their son amid tears.
Jennifer Asuako, a programme analyst with the United Nations in Ghana, said Annan was widely respected, humble and an inspiration to his colleagues.
Born in Kamasi, Ghana, on April 8, 1938, Annan was the seventh Secretary-General of the United Nations, after Egyptian diplomat, Boutrous Boutrous-Ghali exit in December 1996, and served as for two consecutive five-year terms, from January 1997 to December 2006.
Traditional funeral rites were also performed by his matrilineal family from Akwamu led by Nana Ansah III, as well as the patrilineal family from Konongo, led by Otumfuo Tudwene Nana Brewua III.
As someone who worked with Kofi Annan, Guterres said he would continually be inspired by the integrity, dynamism and dedication exhibited by Annan, especially so when he now occupies the post Annan once held.
The first daughter of the late Kofi Annan has said their father was a good man and always welcoming to everyone he met.
According to him, he was openly opposed to the Convention Peoples" Party (CPP) administration led by Dr Kwame Nkrumah, adding that he was known in school as "Dombo" which meant "opposition'.
He explained that the title Busumuru, which is the name of the Golden Sword used by Asante kings to swear the oath of allegiance to the Asante kingdom at their coronation, was conferred on Mr Annan in recognition of his incredible work towards world peace.
He urged Ghanaian politicians to emulate the example of the late Kofi Annan by humbly serving the interest of the people.
Ahead of the burial, President Akufo-Addo, yesterday, directed that flags should fly at half-mast today across the country.
This will be preceded by filing past and paying of last respect by VVIPs only from 0730 to 0830 hours.
Annan's last journey was a climax of three days of mourning which saw thousands of Ghanaians file past his coffin as it lay in state in the capital, Accra.
After that, the body would be conveyed to the Burma Camp Military Cemetery for final interment.
President Akufo-Addo led a delegation of government officials to welcome the convoy at the Kotoka International Airport. One of our illustrious sons is lying here.
On this date in ...
1918: Bert Cohen of San Jose Valley in California, the first American who escaped from a German military prison, made a stop at the Red Cross Canteen in Albany's Union Station on his way home after being declared unfit for further military service. He was wounded four times over the course of his 11 months of service, with one injury causing him to lose part of his back. The reconstruction hospitals in France, though, fixed him up so well that his request to return to the front was granted. A later bullet to the abdomen required such a long incision he was sent home.
1968: Three children of a former South Colonie couple now living near Binghamton were denied admittance to school because the parents refused to have the children immunized against polio on moral grounds. Another South Colonie couple had been forced by the court in March to have their two sons immunized when they announced their opposition to the shots on legal rather than moral or religious grounds. There had been no new cases in either South or North Colonie school districts.
1993: A new committee, whose 30 members were appointed by the state's chief judge, met for the first time to study ways to reform the state's jury system. A main focus of the reform project was to devise ways to assure that jury pools were more representative of the community. To accomplish this, the committee would look for additional sources from which to select people and study whether to eliminate exemptions for some occupations. The committee also was charged with two other objectives: to assure that the system operated effectively and to improve the conditions under which jurors served.
Want to read more about the Capital Region's past? Have any memories or thoughts about how our history relates to today's events? See http://blog.timesunion.com/history/.
HAMDEN Police Officer Edward Stoor, who was found to have failed to obey lawful orders and neglected his duty, was recently disciplined with 40 days of unpaid suspension through a settlement agreement reached with the Police Commission, union UPSSEU/COPS, Local 062, and Police Chief Thomas Wydra.
According to records of two internal investigations obtained through a Freedom of Information request, Stoor failed to perform hourly deterrent patrols on multiple occasions in December 2017, despite specific orders to do so.
He also committed a series of departmental violations regarding body camera use and filling out reports, according to the records.
These include: not activating his camera on 49 occasions, but falsely stating in three accompanying reports that he had; failing to submit a request to preserve body camera footage for six arrests; failing to fill out incident reports for 13 calls to which he was dispatched; and failing to dock his body camera and label footage.
Stoor told investigating officers that he didnt know what he was doing but was probably taking a break or lost track of time when he failed to perform deterrent patrols on Dec. 15 and Dec. 22, 2017, two of the dates in question, according to the records.
When asked whether five to six instances when he did not perform his patrol and/or activate or dock his camera rose to the level of insubordination, Stoor said that he believed the claim was a crock of (expletive), according to the records.
Stoor told investigating officers that he had difficulty using the body camera, had filled out the preservation requests, had not been informed about the 13 missing reports, and was failing to dock his camera out of laziness, according to the records.
According to the settlement agreement, which was approved by the Police Commission Aug. 8, Stoor was charged with dozens of violations of department rules and procedures after the internal investigation.
Most of the violations were classified as neglect of duty, described as intentional and willful failure to comply with any lawful orders, General Orders, directives, regulations, oral or written, or insubordination, termed as refusal to obey proper orders from a supervisor.
Through the settlement agreement, Stoor will be able to keep his job, but will be suspended for 20 days without pay in both the current and next fiscal year. The days will be dispensed at a rate of no more than one a week and scheduled at Wydras discretion.
He will be terminated from his position if he fails to comply with any department rule, policy or procedure over a two-year period, according to the settlement agreement.
Stoor did not respond to multiple messages seeking comment.
I believe that the settlement represents a fair resolution to the departmental charges involved, Wydra said in a statement Wednesday.
Police Commission Chairman Michael R. Iezzi said the agreement had been reached between Wydra and Stoor, and thus the commission was charged mainly with reviewing it.
If the police chief and the officer in discussion agree, then it is the responsibility of the commission to review and confirm the action, assuming it is just and fair, Iezzi said.
william.lambert@hearstmediact.com
Oil retreated from the highest close in almost two months on signs global markets remain comfortably supplied despite deepening losses in Venezuela and Iran.
West Texas Intermediate futures fell as much as 1.9 percent amid speculation the 4.2 percent surge in the past two sessions wasnt justified. While government data showed U.S. crude stockpiles tumbled last week, inventories of fuels like gasoline and distillates jumped. Thats overshadowing a warning from the International Energy Agency that prices may climb as American sanctions hit Iranian exports and Venezuelas economy unravels.
Prices were higher yesterday, but the Energy Department weekly in my opinion had some very concerning bearish elements to it, said Olivier Jakob, managing director at consultant Petromatrix GmbH in Zug, Switzerland.
Oil has climbed over the past month, with Brent in London briefly breaking past $80 a barrel on Wednesday, as the impending sanctions on Iran start removing barrels from markets, and shrinking U.S. inventories combined with slowing production growth raise fears over a global supply crunch. Still, OPEC warned this week that escalating trade tensions and a crisis in emerging markets could hurt oil demand, keeping investors guessing what path the group will take.
WTI for October delivery traded at $69.44 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, down 93 cents, at 11:33 a.m. in London. The contract climbed $1.12 to $70.37 on Wednesday, the highest close since July 20. Total volume traded was about 36 percent above the 100-day average.
Brent for November settlement lost 59 cents to $79.15 a barrel on the ICE Futures Europe exchange. The global benchmark traded at a $9.87 premium to WTI for the same month.
OPEC and its allies will meet in Algiers this month to assess global oil markets after having agreed to increase output at their last meeting in June. Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak said the nation has the capacity to set a new oil-production record, but it will discuss supplies with the group because its in everyones interest to keep the market balanced.
In the U.S., crude inventories dropped by 5.3 million barrels to 396.2 million last week, the lowest since February 2015, according to Energy Information Administration data. Stockpiles in Cushing, Oklahoma, declined for the first time in five weeks.
Yet inventories of gasoline jumped by 1.25 million barrels, and those of distillates by 6.16 million barrels, the EIA data showed.
Oil prices should not have rallied on the back of the data and maybe this overreaction is being corrected, said Tamas Varga, an analyst at PVM Oil Associates Ltd. in London.
Meanwhile, Hurricane Florence is set to park above the Carolinas coastline, threatening fuel markets along the U.S. East Coast. Duke Energy Corp. warned of power loss in North and South Carolina, with the hurricane posing a threat to some pipelines running through the region.
Some other key oil-market figures, news and events:
The Cboe/Nymex Oil Volatility Index rose for a third day to the highest level since July 19 on Wednesday.
The U.S. likely overtook Russia and Saudi Arabia in terms of oil output to become the worlds biggest producer earlier this year, according to the EIA.
Venezuelas oil production could tumble to just 1 million barrels a day by the end of the year, the IEA said in its monthly oil market report.
--With assistance from Tsuyoshi Inajima and Sharon Cho.
2018 Bloomberg L.P.
Burly Q Lounge
Show features local and touring burlesque performers, stand-up comics, musicians, showgirls, games and circus tricks.
When: 7 p.m. Friday
Where: Warehouse Live, 813 St. Emanuel
Details: $25; kikimaroon.com
DeRay Mckesson
Internationally recognized civil rights leader and host of the podcast Pod Save the People will discuss and sign his new book On the Other Side of Freedom.
When: 7:30 p.m. Friday
Where: The Ballroom at Bayou Place, 500 Texas
Details: $25, includes a copy of the book; brazosbookstore.com
Elemental
Jazz artists Raquel Cepeda and Thomas Helton present an intimate concert.
When: 8 p.m. Friday
Where: MATCH, 3400 Main
Details: $17-$60; matchouston.org
Messengers Divinos
Houston Fringe Festival presents a Butoh dance performance directed and choreographed by Ivan Espinosa.
When: 9:30 p.m. Friday
Where: MATCH, 3400 Main
Details: $20, matchouston.org
Screwed Up Sunday
Event pays homage to the creator of the iconic art and sound of chopped and screwed. Tickets include admission to the brewery for music, an interactive live art show and limited-edition souvenirs.
When: 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Sunday
Where: 8th Wonder Brewery, 2202 Dallas
Details: $30; 8thwonder.com
Slip N Slide Party!
An adult Slip N Slide event, benefiting Houston Needs a Swimming Hole. Sponsored by Buffalo Bayou Brewery and Axelrad.
When: Noon-5 p.m. Sunday
Where: 1517 Alabama
Details: facebook.com/events/469854743516594
Unplugged
Concert series challenges local artists to rearrange their songs using only acoustic instruments, resulting in a unique and intimate performance.
When: 5-9 p.m. Sunday
Where: Discovery Green, 1500 McKinney
Details: discoverygreen.com
Game of Thrones Live Concert Experience
Composer Ramin Djawadi leads an orchestra and choir through music from all seven seasons of the hit television show.
When: 8 p.m. Monday
Where: Toyota Center, 1510 Polk
Details: $39.50-$99.50; houstontoyotacenter.com
Banh Mi Cook-off
Local chefs battle for Peoples Choice and Judges Choice at the 5th annual Banh Mi Cook-off. Tickets include unlimited Banh Mi and dessert samples.
When: 6:30-9:30 p.m. Tuesday
Where: Chapman & Kirby, 2118 Lamar
Details: $30; facebook.com/events/1916521571693395
Zumba
Outdoor Zumba class led by certified personal trainer Oscar Sajche.
When: 6:30-7:30 p.m. Wednesday
Where: Discovery Green, 1500 McKinney
Details: discoverygreen.com
The recent rains that have pelted the Houston area, coupled with high summer temperatures, provide the ideal environment for mosquitoes to breed in, according to Harris County health department officials. Because of this, more mosquitoes have plagued the Houston area this past week.
"People complain about mosquitoes all the time, [but] we live in Houston, mosquitoes are part of our habitat," Harris County Public Health Department spokesperson Martha Marquez said. "As long as there is water and there is [high] temperatures than that is the perfect recipe for mosquito breeding."
Houston's mosquito season runs from as early as April through October, so some residents will have to continue to deal with the pesky nuisances depending on what county they live in.
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Counties like Harris and Fort Bend take a public health approach to handling mosquitoes and typically do not respond to nuisance calls, so residents are on their own. Residents in other counties like Brazoria, Chambers and Montgomery have a little more help from the health departments there in terms of addressing the increase in mosquitoes.
Harris County
Harris County officials said the county takes a public health approach to handling mosquitoes and does not respond to nuisance calls. Additional spraying is only done if inspectors identify standing water housing mosquito larvae that constitutes as a breeding site.
"We spray for disease, we are not a pest control company," Marquez said.
Officials said the department's main priority is to identify areas with prominent disease-carrying mosquitoes and then spray those areas. The department sets traps throughout Harris County in 268 sites both above and underground in storm sewers.
Harris County residents who think they may be living near a breeding site for mosquitoes can contact the county's Public Health's Mosquito Control Division to talk with an official about scheduling property inspections. If a site is identified, officials will recommend ways to reduce the source breeding site.
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Officials ask the public to do their part to reduce mosquitoes by removing standing water inside and outside of homes, wearing long sleeve shirts and pants and using EPA registered bug spray.
Those with more questions about identifying breeding sites in their homes and neighborhood or to see confirmed mosquito-borne disease activity by ZIP code visit the county's mosquito control division website.
Brazoria County
Brazoria County residents can request mosquito control spray services through the county's website. Residents submitting a request are asked to identify the time of day mosquitoes are most active. The county's mosquito control division has new spray truck hours of operations and operates 8 p.m.-4:30 a.m. Monday-Friday.
According the control division website, aerial spraying is done when there is a widespread outbreak of mosquitoes. Those interesting in speaking with an official from the division can call 979-864-1532.
Galveston County
Residents living in Galveston County can call the county's mosquito control department to request for an area to be sprayed. Residents can also see what areas the county has sprayed each day and the time the areas were sprayed by visiting the department's spray schedule and maps.
Chambers County
Chambers County residents can request for their neighborhood to be sprayed by filling out a service request form online. According to the county website, the mosquito control department uses an average of 10,000 gallons of spray each year to cover 625,000 acres through aircraft services. Find more information on Chambers County mosquitoes here.
WEST NILE: Virus found in Stafford mosquito trap
Montgomery County
Montgomery County residents experiencing a mosquito problem can fill out a complaint form to the county's environmental health services department.
Fort Bend County
Fort Bend County's Road and Bridge and Health and Human Services Departments allow residents to track the locations and logs of vehicles that spray for mosquitoes throughout the county. The county lists specific instructions to log into the system and determine if an area has been sprayed.
Officials from the county's HHSD said like Harris County, it takes a public service approach to mosquito maintenance and does not respond to nuisance calls. Officials said residents can call the county's Road and Bridge department, which coordinates mosquito spraying services, to issue a complaint but cannot guarantee that more spraying services will be completed.
Rebecca Hennes covers community news. Read her on the breaking news site chron.com and the subscriber site, HoustonChronicle.com. | Follow her on Twitter: @beccaghennes.
At only 23, the Heights engineer is an up-and-coming leader in sustainable energy.
Dakota Stormer is a health, safety, security and environmental advisor at Shell. Earlier this summer, he traveled to Singapore for an innovation lab focused on sustainability. This month, he plans to attend a climate leadership training with experts like former U.S. Vice President and environmentalist Al Gore.
Stormer said the UNLEASH event held May 30-June 6 in Singapore brought together talented people from all over the world.
UNLEASH looks for talents that are entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs, subject matter experts, activists and overall leaders in the field of sustainability, he said. UNLEASH was unique because of its ability to bring together 1,000 people from over 100 different countries and foster an unparalleled sense of unity.
UNLEASH participants addressed problems in global energy to produce applicable solutions.
Participants were split into teams based on the different United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. We then went through a rigorous problem framing phase to ensure we are focusing on real world issues, Stormer said. Once each team found the problem they wanted to solve, we unleashed our creativity.
Stormer said he and his team worked eight days to come up with the Power Tower, which is a mobile cart that uses solar panels to charge batteries and can be used for selling electricity to run fans and lights.
He said he is passionate about sustainability because it can make a difference in combatting climate change and its effects.
I believe that tackling the sustainable energy transition is vital for making an impact on climate change. As a child, I experienced many extreme weather events in Houston. After the 2005 hurricane season, I began writing a weather blog and studying meteorology and climatology, Stormer said. I realized the necessity of sustainability for our society to thrive in the future.
From Aug. 28-30, Stormer plans to attend the Climate Reality Leadership Corps in Los Angeles, where he will meet with world-renowned scientists and communicators to discuss to address the climate crisis.
Climate Reality Leaders arent just raising awareness of climate change. Theyre working for solutions in over 100 countries worldwide, Stormer said. By connecting with leaders from around the globe, we can share our solutions and work toward implementing and advocating for them on a global scale.
Stormer is a native Houstonian and a graduate of the University of Texas chemical engineering program. He joined Shell about 11 months ago.
Johnna Van Keuren, vice president of Shell operations and HSSE for new energies, said he has been a great asset to the company.
Every time I meet with him, he overwhelms me with the progress he is making on the campaigns and initiatives he leads within and external to Shell, she said. He has brought in his passion for change and his innovative spirit, which inspires me, our coworkers and our community to power progress together.
Stormer said he would love to use clean energy technology and innovative methods to solve some of the worlds issues.
I aspire to be a leader of the sustainable energy transition. This could involve serving as an executive within Shell or even as a representative of the United States in the United Nations, but no single role holds the magic potion, he said. I hope to work with policymakers, energy companies and communities from across the world to build a network that can power progress together toward a sustainable future.
To learn more about Dakota Stormer and his work, visit www.dakotastormer.com.
tracy.maness@hcnonline.com
In light of recent arrests for sexual crimes against children, the Montgomery County District Attorneys Office continues their work to prosecute these suspects in coordination with Internet Crimes Against Children task forces in the county.
This past week, the Conroe Police Department arrested two men a former priest at Sacred Heart Catholic Church and a former Texas Childrens Hospital employee on charges related to sexual crimes against children.
On Thursday, the former Texas Childrens Hospital employee Carlo Carreon, 49, was arrested on five charges of possession of child pornography. He remains in the Montgomery County jail on a $1.12 million bond.
According to information provided by the Conroe Police Department, possible child pornography was found on an electronic device allegedly belonging to Carreon.
UNUSUAL INVESTIGATION: Smithsonian Museum expert helps investigators catch Kingwood child predator
A few days later, on Tuesday, the former Sacred Heart Catholic Church priest Manuel La Rosa-Lopez, 60, turned himself into the Montgomery County Jail. He is charged with four counts of indecency with a child. The alleged incidents span several years in the late 1990s and early 2000s. He has since bonded out on a $375,000 bond.
During the month of August, there were eight arrests for various sexual crimes against children five arrests were for online solicitation of a minor, two for possession of child pornography and one arrest for promotion of child pornography, the DAs Office reported.
In regards to these arrests, there may be more than one charge assessed on a suspect.
The Montgomery County District Attorneys Internet Crimes Against Children and Human Trafficking Division works closely with law enforcement agencies throughout Montgomery County and the Houston Metro ICAC task force to investigate crimes such as online solicitation of a minor, promotion and possession of child pornography, sexual performance of a child, human trafficking and other similar crimes.
The DAs Office ICAC Division also houses a forensic lab for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to assist in the forensic examination of electronic devices.
We have all gone through training for undercover operations where investigators use social media to act on tips we receive and research a database for potential predators, said Laura Bond, a Montgomery County DAs Office prosecutor who specializes in these types of cases.
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The DAs Office works closely with the aforementioned agencies as well as the Conroe Police Department and the Montgomery County Precinct 1, Precinct 2 and Precinct 3 Constables Offices.
We all work together as a team to ensure we catch these offenders and then prosecute them, said Bond. Once they are arrested, we work to offer an appropriate resolution to the case before it reaches trial. Most of the time, the defendant will accept a plea agreement before it reaches trial; only a very small percentage of these cases will go to trial.
Bond added they average 10 arrests per month, give or take, involving suspects accused of sexual crimes against children.
As these cases continue to occur, the Montgomery County DAs Office has issued a stern warning to others committing or thinking about engaging in these types of crimes.
Leave our kids alone, said Bond We will work to prosecute you to the fullest should you commit these crimes and there will be consequences.
jennifer.summer@hcnonline.com
A sign honoring the only Sugar Land police officer killed in the line of duty was recently installed at a park named after him, according to a news release issued Wednesday by the city of Sugar Land.
Sgt. Ron Slockett died on July 4, 1987 during a traffic stop. He was shot at least five times.
The 31-year-old left behind a wife, two children and four siblings, according to the news release.
"Slockett was a devoted officer known for loving people, loving his job and his great sense of humor," said Police Chief Eric Robins in the news release. "He was a 10-year veteran who left a mark on almost every person he met."
The park on Nantucket Drive already has a plaque that serves as a reminder of Slockett.
The new sign installed on Sept. 7 will provide more details about Slockett's life for intrigued residents, the release said.
Slockett worked for the Sugar Land police department for ten years before he died. Before joining the force, he served in the United States Marine Corps and worked as a dispatcher for the Fort Bend County Sheriff's Office, according to the release.
A resident recalled how Slockett would check on him during his overnight shift at a gas station. He would also sometimes take coffee breaks with another officer during his long shifts noting he was "just a shout away," according to the release.
"The Slockett recognition sign also reminds us of the commitment law enforcement officers like Slockett make to protect our communities and is one of the many recognition signs in Sugar Land parks to remember the culture, history and people of the community," said Robins.
The Spring ISD board of trustees approved $6.7 million toward the construction of a new middle school on Tuesday and will negotiate with a firm for the construction of a new ninth grade center.
Middle school #8, which is currently unnamed, has a $33.5 million budget and had $6.9 million approved in June.
Were making a lot of good progress there, chief operations office Mark Miranda told the board during the workshop meeting on Thursday.
The school will be built near Northgate Crossing Elementary, which is near the North Freeway and the Grand Parkway.
According to the Spring ISD website, the school is expected to house 725 students and will be 149,207 square feet.
The board also approved Superintendent Rodney Watson to enter into negotiations with a firm to be the construction manager at-risk to be in charge of building of the Spring High School Ninth Grade Center.
The center will help alleviate Spring High School by housing up to 900 students.
The projects are part of the $330 million bond that voters approved in 2016, which will focus on new facilities such as schools, a new stadium and maintenance projects.
In August, the board approved more than $16 million in maintenance on four campuses, which include Dueitt Middle School, Twin Creeks Middle School, Link Elementary School and Wells Middle School.
The district is almost done completing the remodeling the new Spring ISD police station, which is scheduled to be completed this month.
The building, located at 420 Lockhaven Drive in north Houston, will also house the districts tax office and technology department.
The district also broke ground for the new Roberson Middle School over the summer and recently broke ground on its new stadium.
mayra.cruz@chron.com
Parents working in Hughes Landing will now have another option for early childhood education.
The Nationally-franchised private education center Primrose Schools announced a new 10,000 square foot facility on Hughes Landing Boulevard. Construction is scheduled to begin by the end of September. The new school is set to open in early 2019, said Rip Reynolds, Howard Hughes vice president of leasing and commercial land.
That workforce thats coming into the town center or Hughes Landing for the parents its a little bit more piece of mind, Reynolds said. They can just walk over.
Founded in 1982, Primrose Schools has grown in the years since to include franchisees Don and Arlena McLaughlin, who purchased their first school in 1998 and own the other seven schools in the north Houston area.
Arlena McLaughlin said in an email interview that the Hughes Landing campus will be the fourth location in The Woodlands, and seventh in the area. The other three are located in Sterling Ridge, College Park and Creekside Park. There are three campuses in Spring.
(We) moved to the Woodlands in 1996 because of the quality of public and availability of private schools, Arlena McLaughlin said.
The new campus will have a capacity of 178 students age six weeks to five years old and is targeted at parents working at the nearby mixed-use development of Hughes Landing, which is home to numerous restaurants, boutique stores and office buildings housing large companies.
With close to 1,100 students including the McLaughlins own grandson in their six schools, Reynolds said the current locations serve their environments well, but something different was needed for the area.
Its just another amenity for the workforce individual that works in the town center, Reynolds said.
Arlena McLaughlin the couple moved to the Woodlands in 1996 because of the quality of public and availability of private schools.
We take great care to develop trusted relationships with parents and give back to The Woodlands community, she said.
Reservations for the new locations will begin on Oct. 1, and although tuition rates vary by program and classroom, each Primrose parent can expect the same high-quality care for their child as they grow in the school, Arlena said.
We deliver more than a curriculum, she said. Its a life changing early learning experience for children and their families. We believe that who children become is as important as what they know.
mrincon@chron.com
An average of 20 typhoons and storms lash the Philippines each year, killing hundreds of people and leaving millions in near-perpetual poverty.
However, Wu said that the presence of a high pressure system over the Pacific around Taiwan and the slightly southward tilt of Mangkhut's path, the odds of the typhoon making landfall on Taiwan have been reduced.
Mangkhut has already swept past the USA territory of Guam, in the western Pacific, where it caused flooding and power outages.
An advisory from the JTWC on Tuesday said Mangkhut was packing winds of up to 250 kilometers per hour (kph) near the center and gustiness of up to 306 kph.
However, since the diameter of the typhoon measures at 900km wide, it is expected to affect and bring torrential rains and strong winds to the northern and most parts of Central Luzon.
Super Typhoon Mangkhut, known as Super Typhoon Ompong in the Philippines, is now equivalent to a category 5 Atlantic hurricane, with winds of at least 252 kilometers per hour (157 mph), stronger than Florence, which is expected to cause massive flooding and devastation in the Carolinas.
The Philippines is anticipating that Mangkhut will be as strong as Typhoon Haiyan, prompting the preparation of food, supplies and rescue efforts as well as 1.7 billion pesos (S$43.4 million) in stand-by funds, according to the disaster agency.
Classes have also been cancelled in some areas of Luzon in the path of the typhoon.
It is due to hit Hong Kong - a densely packed skyscraper city with more than seven million residents.
Mangkhut, classified by the Hong Kong Observatory as a super typhoon, is forecast to pack maximum winds of 230 kilometers per hour by Friday before gradually weakening.
Forecaster Meno Mendoza said Mangkhut's strong winds could whip up storm surges while heavy rain could trigger landslides and floods.
Guangdong is next on Mangkhut's track.
It's expected to be 179 nautical miles (331.5 kilometers) off Kaohsiung in southern Taiwan on September 15 before heading to Hong Kong, according to the US agency. With more than 111 million residents, the most populous province of China will embrace the super typhoon on Sunday before it is expected to downgrade to a severe tropical storm next Monday.
Dallas
Protesters condemning the shooting death of a black man in his Dallas apartment by a white off-duty police officer disrupted a City Council meeting Wednesday.
Mayor Mike Rawlings temporarily halted the proceedings as dozens of demonstrators chanted "No justice, no peace" and people in the crowd repeatedly interrupted council discussions by angrily denouncing city and police officials.
Protest leaders said they want the city to establish a civilian board to review police conduct and that it be given the power to subpoena.
"It must have teeth. ... It must be able to hold these police officers accountable for what they do," said demonstrator Olinka Green. "Because if we were to do the same thing, you guarantee we'd be locked up tight."
Demonstrators expressed their anger over the death Thursday of 26-year-old Botham Jean, who was shot after the officer says she mistook Jean's apartment for her own.
Police used "pepper balls" on some of about 200 protesters at a demonstration on Monday. The next day, Police Chief U. Renee Hall criticized the use of the projectiles and ordered police investigators to conduct a review of the matter.
Monday's demonstration, which began outside Dallas police headquarters, came a day after officer Amber Guyger was arrested on a manslaughter charge in the death of Jean. She was released on bond.
The latest protest followed some initial praise from community leaders about how Dallas officials handled the aftermath of the shooting. Police acknowledged within hours that the officer made a mistake, turned over the investigation to independent state authorities and reached out to the Jean's family.
Guyger, a four-year veteran of the police force, told investigators that she had just ended a 15-hour shift Thursday when she returned in uniform to the South Side Flats apartment complex. She parked on the fourth floor, instead of the third, where she lived, according to the affidavit, possibly suggesting that she was confused or disoriented.
When she put her key in the apartment door, which was unlocked and slightly ajar, it opened. Inside, the lights were off, and she saw a figure in the darkness that cast a large silhouette across the room, according to the officer's account.
The officer told police that she concluded her apartment was being burglarized and gave verbal commands to the person, who ignored them. She then drew her weapon and fired twice.
Guyger's blood was drawn at the scene to be tested for alcohol and drugs.
Myrtle Beach, S.C.
Hurricane Florence put a corridor of more than 10 million people in the crosshairs Wednesday as the monster storm closed in on the Carolinas, uncertainty over its projected path spreading worry across a widening swath of the Southeast.
Faced with new forecasts that showed a more southerly threat, Georgia's governor joined his counterparts in Virginia and North and South Carolina in declaring a state of emergency, and some residents who had thought they were safely out of range boarded up their homes.
The National Hurricane Center's best guess was that Florence would blow ashore as early as Friday afternoon around the North Carolina-South Carolina line, then push its rainy way westward with a potential for catastrophic inland flooding.
Florence's nighttime winds were down to 115 mph (185 kph) from a high of 140 mph (225 kph), and the Category 4 storm fell to a Category 3, with a further slow weakening expected as the storm nears the coast. But authorities warned it will still be an extremely dangerous hurricane.
"Do you want to get hit with a train or do you want to get hit with a cement truck?" said Jeff Byard, an administrator with the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Tropical storm-force winds extended 195 miles (315 kilometers) from Florence's center, and hurricane-force winds reached out 70 miles (110 kilometers).
The National Weather Service said 5.25 million people live in areas under hurricane warnings or watches, and 4.9 million live in places covered by tropical storm warnings or watches.
At the White House, President Donald Trump both touted the government's readiness and urged people to get out of the way of Florence.
"Don't play games with it. It's a big one," he said.
As of 8 p.m., the storm was centered 335 miles (540 kilometers) southeast of Wilmington, N.C., moving northwest at 16 mph (26 kph). The hurricane center said Florence will approach the coast Friday and linger for a while before rolling ashore.
As of Tuesday, more than 1.7 million people in the Carolinas and Virginia were warned to clear out. Airlines had canceled nearly 1,000 flights and counting. Home Depot and Lowe's activated emergency response centers to get generators, trash bags and bottled water to stores before and after the storm. The two hardware chains said they sent in a total of around 1,100 trucks.
Duke Energy, the nation's No. 2 power company, said Florence could knock out electricity to three-quarters of its 4 million customers in the Carolinas, and outages could last for weeks. Workers are being brought in from the Midwest and Florida to help in the storm's aftermath, it said.
Boarding up his home in Myrtle Beach, S.C., Chris Pennington watched the forecasts and tried to decide when to leave.
"In 12 or 18 hours, they may be saying different things all over again," he said.
Computer models of exactly what the storm might do varied, adding to the uncertainty. In contrast to the hurricane center's official projection, a highly regarded European model had the storm turning southward off the North Carolina coast and coming ashore near the Georgia-South Carolina line.
Reacting to the possibility of a more southerly track, Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal declared an emergency but did not immediately order any evacuations.
"I ask all Georgians to join me in praying for the safety of our people and all those in the path of Hurricane Florence," Deal said.
The shift in the projected track spread concern to areas that once thought they were relatively safe. In South Carolina, close to the Georgia line, Beaufort County emergency chief Neil Baxley told residents they need to prepare again for the worst just in case.
"We've had our lessons. Now it might be time for the exam," he said.
In Virginia, where about 245,000 residents were ordered to evacuate low-lying areas, officials urged people to remain away from home despite forecast changes showing Florence's path largely missing the state.
Their entire neighborhood evacuated in Wilmington, N.C., David and Janelle Garrigus planned to ride out Florence at their daughter's one-bedroom apartment in Charlotte. Unsure of what they might find when they return home, the couple went shopping for a recreational vehicle.
"We're just trying to plan for the future here, not having a house for an extended period of time," David Garrigus said.
Melody Rawson evacuated her first-floor apartment in Myrtle Beach and arrived at Atlanta Motor Speedway in Hampton, Ga., to camp for free with three other adults, her disabled son, two dogs and a pet bird.
"We hope to have something left when we get home," she said.
Forecasters worried the storm's damage will be all the worse if it lingers on the coast.
Putin said at the plenary meeting earlier in the day that Moscow and Tokyo should make a peace treaty without any preconditions before the end of the year.
"It is not a joke", Putin added, suggesting the two countries commit to solving the territorial dispute in the text of the peace deal.
"After that, I very much wish to invite President Xi to Japan", said Abe, speaking after meeting China's leader Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the forum.
But a Japanese government spokesman said Japan's position had not changed and that the issue of sovereignty over the islands needed to be resolved before signing any treaties with Russian Federation.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (C, rear) attends an award ceremony for the first race of the SCF Far East Tall Ships Regatta 2018 with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Mongolian President Khaltmaa Battulga, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and South Korean Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon after the plenary session of the fourth Eastern Economic Forum (EEF) held in Vladivostok in Russia's Far East, on September 12, 2018.
"I don't want to comment on what President Putin said", Suga said at a regular briefing in Tokyo.
The islands of Etorofu, Kunashiri, Shikotan and the Habomai islet group, called the Northern Territories in Japan and the Southern Kurils in Russian Federation, were seized by the Soviet Union after Japan surrendered in World War II in August 1945.
Fresh from his pancake diplomacy date with China's President Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin served up the main dish on Wednesday - a possible breakthrough in Russian-Japanese relations. He said his idea was that the two sides sign a treaty first, and then work through the issues on which they are in dispute afterwards.
Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jingping displayed their cooking skills on the sidelines of an global economic forum.
For his part, Abe said that the two countries "have a duty to future generations".
Both Moscow and Tokyo claim sovereignty over the islands, known in Russian Federation as the Kurile islands and in Japan as the Northern Territories.
Russian commentator Georgy Kunadze, a former deputy foreign minister, told Ekho Moskvy radio that he believes Putin was "trolling" Abe and "does not expect anything" to result from the proposal. "This stance hasn't changed". Moscow has stated many times that Russia's sovereignty over the islands could not be questioned.
"We have been trying to solve the territorial dispute for 70 years".
The Soviet Union seized the four islands north of Hokkaido and east of Sakhalin in the closing days of World War II.
Putin said the conclusion of such a deal would create a better atmosphere and allow Russian Federation and Japan to "continue to solve all outstanding issues like friends".
The number of families arrested for crossing the southern border illegally jumped 38 percent to nearly 12,800 last month, the most since President Donald Trump took office, and the administration sought to cast it as reason to undo a federal settlement preventing the prolonged detention of children.
Though migrant flows usually increase in August, the number of family arrivals is a record for that month, according to the federal statistics Wednesday, which have come to be viewed as an indicator of Trumps success at securing the border.
The overall number of apprehensions rose 16 percent from July to more than 46,500 in August, which is in line with seasonal trends.
The administration in part blamed the increase in families on the 1997 Flores Settlement Agreement, which in practice has meant the government cannot detain most families until they are deported or gain asylum.
The White House last week published a proposed federal regulation that would allow it to upend that settlement, a move that would likely expand the number of immigrant detention facilities and advocates say it would slash legal protections for children.
Tyler Q. Houlton, a Department of Homeland Security spokesman, said in a statement that Augusts family apprehensions are a clear indicator that the migration flows are responding to gaps in our nations legal framework.
Smugglers and traffickers understand our broken immigration laws better than most and know that if a family unit illegally enters the U.S. they are likely to be released into the interior, he said, blaming the federal settlement for that requirement.
Under that settlement, U.S. District Judge Dolly M. Gee in Los Angeles has ruled that immigrant children cannot be jailed in secure facilities for longer than 20 days and should ideally be kept with their parents.
As a result, the administration has had to free many migrant families to pursue their cases in the backlogged civil immigration courts a process that can take months. Critics say immigrants do not always show up at their hearings and that the practice of so-called catch and release, which Trump has vowed to end, encourages migrant families to come here illegally.
The Rio Grande Valley is ground zero for what Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan has called a crisis of significant proportions. Agents at the nations busiest illegal crossing point said they are on track to detain more immigrant families than in 2014 when the number of Central American parents and children crossing the southern border overwhelmed the government.
Were going to hit close to 60,000 by the end of the fiscal year, and that will be way more than in 2014, the crisis year, said Manuel Padilla Jr., the sectors Border Patrol chief. When you catch and release any category of people, that category keeps growing exponentially. And that is what we are seeing with family units.
The uptick last month is, however, on par or below the number of arrivals during several months of President Barack Obamas administration, according to federal data. At the height of the 2014 surge, more than 16,300 family units were detained that June. In December 2016, as Trump was set to take office with promises of slashing illegal immigration, more than 16,100 were apprehended.
The number of families coming here dropped to record lows after Trumps inauguration when his administration threatened to separate parents and children at the southern border. Though the White House publicly backed off amid outrage, it quietly began doing so in a Texas pilot program last fall before expanding the policy across the border this spring.
The sharp rise of families in August comes just two months after Trump abruptly ended that controversial separation policy, widely regarded as one of his administrations biggest debacles and one that spurred bipartisan furor.
More than 2,500 children were removed from their parents and the government has struggled to reunite them. Two months after a federal judges deadline to do so, more than 300 children remain in federal custody after their parents were deported alone. Many of the adults have yet to be found.
White House officials have characterized that zero tolerance practice, in which parents were briefly imprisoned and their children placed in federal foster care, as a consequence of the Flores Settlement, because the government could not detain families together for more than several weeks.
Padilla, the Rio Grande Valley chief, blamed the end of that policy for spurring the increase of families last month.
Its absolutely the end of the zero tolerance policy that is causing it, he said.
Federal statistics show the number of families coming here stayed relatively steady during the height of the policy in May and June with just more than 9,400 apprehensions each month, before dipping 2 percent in July and rising dramatically in August.
At the peak of the separations this summer, the administration struggled to accommodate the influx of children taken from their parents in addition to those who come here alone, and established a tent camp for immigrant children in El Paso.
On Tuesday, the Department of Health and Human Services said that it would more than triple that camp at the Tornillo-Guadalupe Land Port of Entry from 1,200 beds to as many as 3,800.
Though Trump ended the separation policy in June, a record more than 12,800 children currently remain in more than 100 federal foster shelters across the country, said Kenneth Wolfe, a spokesman for the Office of Refugee Resettlement, an agency of Health and Human Services in charge of unaccompanied minors.
Unlike family arrivals, however, the number of unaccompanied children coming here has stayed relatively flat, increasing 12 percent from July to about 4,400 in August.
Government data released to the New York Times Wednesday suggested the facilities are nearing capacity because the number of unaccompanied children released from federal shelters each month have plummeted by about two-thirds since last year.
Most children are usually released to relatives after about a month in government care, but their stay in federal shelters has increased.
Advocates have blamed in part a new information-sharing agreement between Health and Human Services and the Department of Homeland Security that they say could frighten potential relatives from claiming children because they worry their information will be used to deport them.
The Trump administration has also asked the Pentagon to host immigrant children on military bases, including two in Texas, but the government has not yet begun construction on any of the facilities.
On Tuesday, the office of Senator Jeff Merkley, an Oregon Democrat, released a budget document showing that the Department of Homeland Security this summer transferred almost $10 million from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to Immigration and Customs Enforcement for detention and removal purposes.
Merkley, appearing on MSNBCs The Rachel Maddow Show as Hurricane Florence barreled toward the East Coast, said the administration was taking money from FEMAS response and recovery and working hard to find funds for additional detention camps.
Houlton, the Department of Homeland Security spokesman, said on Twitter that money was not from funds appropriated for disaster relief, calling it a sorry attempt to push a false agenda.
lomi.kriel@chron.com
@lomikriel
Thanks to a newly spotted render, it looks like Galaxy Note 9 will be getting this new color hype treatment as well, with a Silver model scheduled to make a debut exclusively in the US.
With the unveiling of the foldable phone, developers will likely be able to get an idea of what Samsung's first foldable smartphone is likely to be like before rolling out tailored services. In addition, Samsung is hosting daily gaming competitions, while S-Pen calligraphers will highlight the possibilities of the Note 9. How do you like Samsung's newest flagship? The first batch of as yet unnamed smartphone will be no more than 120 thousand pieces. While they don't generally tell us a whole lot about the phone, The Bell speculates that by naming the device after a famous painter, Samsung could be hinting at plans to improve the phone's S Pen. Samsung Galaxy Note 9 silver color is leaked online which would be available in the USA.
Samsung mobile division CEO Koh Dong-jin said at a press conference in August that the tech giant does not want to lose the world's first tittle. We could be looking at a device customized for designers or other creative professionals. If the phone does indeed have a codename already, it indicates that the project has started and Samsung's design team might be drawing up prototypes of the Galaxy Note 10. Needless to say, that could mean a number of things - and Twitter is speculating.
Add Chinese sources in the social network Weibo reported that the price of the foldable device Samsung is about $1460.
What is 5G, and what can we expect from it?
It will empower customers with even faster data connections, ...
Two people who say they were sexually abused by a former Conroe priest nearly two decades ago say the Houston regions highest-ranking Catholic official failed to properly investigate their reports.
The accusations against Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, who has led the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston since 2006, come just weeks after DiNardo called for more transparency in the churchs handling of sexual abuse allegations. He is scheduled to meet with Pope Francis and two other prelates on Thursday to discuss the controversy.
But a man and a woman who say they were abused by Father Manuel La Rosa-Lopez said in interviews that DiNardo did not take their reports seriously.
La Rosa-Lopez, 60, who recently served as the pastor at St. John Fisher Catholic Church in Richmond and the episcopal vicar for Hispanics, was arrested by Conroe police Tuesday and charged with four counts of indecency with a child. His arrest comes after the male accuser filed a police report on Aug. 27.
La Rosa-Lopez has denied the allegations, church officials said in a written statement.
The archdiocese flew the male accuser to Houston to speak with DiNardo on Aug. 10, where he recounted the sexual abuse that he said he suffered at the hands of La Rosa-Lopez when he was a high school student and the priest was based at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Conroe.
The male accuser told the Houston Chronicle last month that DiNardo was dismissive of his story and told him, Well, you shouldve told us earlier.
An arrest warrant filed by Conroe police on Monday said the female accuser decided to make a police report because of the perceived duplicity of Cardinal DiNardo given his recent public statements about recent priest sex scandals and because of the churchs failure to adequately protect children from La Rosa-Lopez.
The man and woman also discussed their concerns about DiNardos response with the Associated Press. The Chronicle does not typically name people who say they have suffered sexual abuse.
The archdiocese defended its handling of the matters in a statement Wednesday.
Church officials said that after they learned in 2001 that La Rosa-Lopez had kissed and touched (the female accuser) inappropriately, they referred the matter to Texas Child Protective Services, or CPS. The statement said the priest denied touching the then-teenage girl inappropriately, and that the girls family decided not pursue the matter, relocating out of the country that same year. After the allegations were presented to the Archdiocesan Review Board in 2003, the statement said, La Rosa-Lopez was permitted to return to parish ministry in 2004.
For the last 17 years, no other allegations of inappropriate conduct involving minors were presented against Father La Rosa-Lopez until 2018, the statement continued.
The archdiocese said that when the male accuser formally reported on Aug. 10 that hed been sexually abused for several years starting in 1998, those allegations were immediately reported to CPS, as well.
We take these matters very seriously, which is why we reported the information we received from both individuals to CPS and removed Father La Rosa-Lopez from ministry, archdiocese officials said. Church officials said they are cooperating with the official investigation.
In the early 2000s, amid a wave of scandals involving child abuse, Catholic leaders established guidelines that, among other things, called for notifying law enforcement of any such allegations made against clergy.
Spotlight on abuse
The renewed focus on clergy sex abuse in the Catholic Church follows the release this past summer of a Pennsylvania grand jury report that detailed allegations against more than 300 predator priests and said there were at least 1,000 child victims, and likely far more, in that state alone.
Pope Francis found his trip to Ireland overshadowed by a former Vatican officials accusation that the pontiff knew about past sexual misconduct by ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick since 2013 and rehabilitated him despite sanctions imposed on McCarrick several years prior. Francis dismissed the claims by Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, who the New York Times reports was aligned with conservatives unhappy with Francis inclusive vision of the church and found himself iced out after Francis election as pope.
DiNardo climbed through the Catholic ranks after being ordained in Pittsburgh. He later moved to Houston and in 2007 became the first cardinal from a southern U.S. diocese, the Chronicle reported at the time. In addition to leading the areas 1.7 million Catholics, he serves as head of the U.S. Conference of Bishops.
He said recently that the handling of the McCarrick case represented a grievous moral failure within the church and called for conclusive answers in the matter, as well as a plan of action for dealing with such allegations in the future.
But the male accuser, now 34, said he was not satisfied with DiNardos response to his accusations.
He told Conroe police that he reached out a year ago to his local parish in Portland, Ore., which put him in touch with the Galveston-Houston archdioceses victims assistance coordinator. The arrest warrant says he was interviewed by the coordinator and DiNardo, then offered counseling services.
It was a dismissive tone, the man told the Associated Press. In the back of my head, I was thinking about his comment. I was so mad afterward.
He said he was told that the allegations had been referred to Conroe police and CPS, but that hed been unable to locate any such reporting, according to the arrest warrant. So he went to the police himself. I filed it myself. I had to, he said.
He told Conroe police the names of other potential victims.
It was not just me, it was me and a few other guys, said the man, who grew up in Conroe. Now I still have certain trust and self-esteem issues, especially with intimacy. And on the spiritual side, its gone for me. I dont believe in any of that crap.
The man said the abuse started when he was 14 and continued until he was 16.
I went to seminary when I was 12, 13, 14, and (La Rosa-Lopez) kind of took me under his wing because my parents worked all the time, he said. The affection towards me started getting weird, and started going from affection to touching, from touching to making out, from making out to making out with no clothes on.
Grooming behavior
The female accuser reported that La Rosa-Lopez was serving as her confessor when he abused her. She told Conroe police that the priest engaged in grooming behavior that consisted of kissing and heavy petting. She said the behavior culminated on April 4, 2000, after a confession in his office. She said La Rosa-Lopez removed his white collar and began kissing her and pressing himself against her. Two days later, she told police, she was alone with the priest in the church kitchen following a practice for the Passion of the Christ play when she says he began fondling her, and reached underneath her shirt and bra to touch her breasts with his hands.
According to the arrest warrant, the woman believed she was in a romantic relationship with La Rosa-Lopez and recorded incidents in a diary. Her father found the diary and determined that it was about La Rosa-Lopez, confronted the priest and reported the issue to church officials. The result, the warrant states, was that La Rosa-Lopez was transferred from the church and the girls family moved away from Conroe.
But upon returning to Conroe in 2010, she read in a Catholic newspaper that La Rosa-Lopez had been promoted and assigned his own church in Richmond. She told police that she followed up with church officials and was told that the priest had been placed in an administrative position from which he had no contact with children or teenagers. She told the AP that officials had her meet with La Rosa-Lopez and he apologized.
Michael Norris, leader of the Houston chapter of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, urged victims and witnesses of abuse within the church to contact police.
An incendiary charge has been leveled against the highest ranking U.S. Catholic official: that he promised to keep an accused predator priest away from kids but for years did not, he wrote to the Chronicle. Houston Catholic officials, including (DiNardo), must address this promptly and honestly.
In a Wednesday news release, the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston confirmed that they had received the allegations of sexual abuse from both accusers. However, they said that they had immediately reported the allegations to CPS.
We take these matters very seriously, which is why we reported the information we received from both individuals to CPS and removed (La Rosa-Lopez) from ministry, the statement read. To anyone affected by any form of abuse by anyone who represents the Church, the Archdiocese deeply regrets such a fundamental violation of trust, and commits itself to eliminating such unacceptable actions.
Staff writer Catherine Dominguez and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
massarah.mikati@chron.com
The Houston housing department is set to ask the state for $23.5 million in federal disaster recovery funding to buy out properties that repeatedly flooded in 2016, allowing for more green space in the floodplain.
City Council on Wednesday approved a grant submission that will allow Housing Director Tom McCasland to request funds from the Texas General Land Office, which administers funds allocated to Texas through a U.S. Housing and Urban Development block grant program.
The money will go toward properties affected by the 2016 Tax Day Flood and flooding that occurred in May and June that year.
The city is likely to begin receiving funds in early 2019, after negotiating a contract with the Land Office later this year.
The money would cover the purchase of single or multi-family properties, resident relocation and demolition of the properties, which would then be used for green space to absorb water in future floods. Some attributed the scale of Harveys damage to overdevelopment in the floodplain.
It is unclear which areas the city would target, a decision requiring future council approval, or whether the bulk of funding would go to home or apartment owners. McCasland has said the single-family home buyouts likely will be sent to the Harris County Flood Control District.
The councils approval comes amid a slow rollout of federal funds for victims of Hurricane Harvey, which drew the attention of council members Wednesday as Hurricane Florence barreled toward the East Coast.
Councilmembers Dwight Boykins and Amanda Edwards expressed dismay over the pace of federal disbursement to the city.
Turner told reporters the federal government has to do a much better job of streamlining their operations. He pointed to the fact that City Council had just approved a grant application for floods that occurred more than two years ago.
There are people who are still out of their homes or they're still repairing their homes, and people literally have run out of money. Or they didn't have the money in the first place, Turner said in reference to Harvey. But for the nonprofits, the business community, local relief funds, they would still be in horrible shape.
The mayor said the city expects to receive HUDs $1.1 billion allocation for Hurricane Harvey housing relief by the end of November. Additional funds for mitigation will arrive next year, Turner said.
jasper.scherer@chron.com
Twitter: @jaspscherer
Federal cybercrime agents dont often call on botanical experts at the Smithsonian Museum to help track down a predator, but horticultural sleuthing was a key part of the legwork that ended this week with a Kingwood man being sent to prison for 35 years.
Stephen P. Lynch, 43, pleaded guilty to charges in June and on Wednesday a judge sentenced him to more than three decades in federal custody for exploiting a child and possessing dozens of pornographic images of a girl over time, from the ages of 3 to 5. The girl had been found in at least 222 collections of child pornography.
U.S. District Judge Nancy F. Atlas also ordered Lynch to serve five years of supervised release and register as a sex offender.
The victims mother and a sibling spoke at the sentencing hearing about how Lynchs actions scarred their family for life, changed how they viewed the world and stole their sense of security, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorneys Office.
A defense lawyer for Lynch declined to comment on the case.
RELATED: Montgomery County man gets below-range prison term for pornographic chat with child overseas
The unusual investigation began with a tip from National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which notified Homeland Security investigators of nearly 100 lewd images of a prepubescent minor, many with her genitalia lasciviously displayed, according to court documents. Federal agents shared the images with a horticulture expert at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, who conducted a meticulous review of plants visible in the background of the photos. The expert narrowed the search to 10 states with similar plant life. And Homeland Security analysts zeroed in the Kingwood area based on other items depicted in the photographs. Agents began searching parks, dance studios, gyms and other facilities, before locating Lynch and the child victim. He was arrested after fleeing to Georgetown.
RELATED: Ex-Harris County deputy sentenced for "horrific" child pornography
During a search of his home, Lynch attempted to destroy thumb drives by placing them in a microwave oven. They discovered violent pornographic images of children on several electronic devices in his home, including some children who had been identified by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. The images of the child Lynch had exploited also turned up on the dark web and in 222 child pornography investigations, according to court documents.
The girl told law enforcement that Lynch said if she pulled her underwear down for the photographs, Lynch would reward her with chocolate. She said she complied because she wanted the chocolate.
Gabrielle Banks covers federal court for the Houston Chronicle. Follow her on Twitter and send her tips at gabrielle.banks@chron.com.
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A car fire on northbound Southwest Freeway continues to block the ramp onto the southbound Gulf Freeway, creating a major traffic back-up, according to Houston TranStar.
The fire was reported around 6:40 a.m. Its unknown whether anyone was injured.
The Russians will wait to release any details about the origin of the air leak-causing hole on the International Space Station until their investigation is complete, they now say, because of "speculations circulating in the media" that it was drilled in space -- speculation they started last week.
Russian officials initially thought the air leak-causing hole, discovered Aug. 30 in their Soyuz spacecraft attached to the station, was the result of space debris. But they later said it likely was the result of sloppy drill work, either here or in space.
"It is a matter of honor," Roscosmos state space corporation head Dmitry Rogozin said last week, "...to find the one responsible for that, to find out whether it was an accidental defect or a deliberate spoilage and where it was done either on Earth or in space."
The comments drew backlash from NASA astronaut Drew Feustel, who currently is living on the station. On Monday, he told ABC News that it was "a shame and somewhat embarrassing that anybody is wasting any time talking about something that the crew was involved in."
CONFIDENCE: NASA astronaut headed to International Space Station confident Russia will figure out source of hole
"I can unequivocally say that the crew had nothing to do with this," Feustel continued.
After a Wednesday teleconference with Rogozin, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine agreed with the Russian's decision to hold back information until the investigation is complete, a Thursday news release stated. The Russian investigation, expected to be done by mid-September, will look at how the hole occurred, whether it was intentional and if other Soyuz modules currently in development also have defects.
Bridenstine and Rogozin "affirmed the necessity of further close interaction between NASA and Roscosmos technical teams in identifying and eliminating cause of the leak, as well as continuation of normal ISS operations and NASA's ongoing support of the Roscosmos-led Soyuz investigation," the news release stated. "They acknowledged the entire crew is dedicated to the safe operation of the station and all docked spacecraft to ensure mission success."
DEFIANCE: NASA astronaut says hole in the International Space Station did not happen on orbit
Russia's Soyuz spacecraft has been the only way to ferry astronauts to and from the station since 2011, when the space shuttle program was shuttered. The compromised part of the Soyuz does not return to Earth and the patch astronauts put in last month is holding.
It's not yet clear how the hole discovery will impact the next Soyuz flight, scheduled for Oct. 11, which will be carrying NASA astronaut Nick Hague.
Bridenstine and Rogozin plan to meet face-to-face Oct. 10 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan -- where the Soyuz is launched -- ahead of Hague's flight.
Alex Stuckey covers NASA and the environment for the Houston Chronicle. You can reach her at alex.stuckey@chron.com or Twitter.com/alexdstuckey.
Country music legend Willie Nelson will headline a concert in Austin for U.S. Senate candidate Beto ORourke in late September, the latest celebrity endorsement for the Democratic El Paso congressman running against Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz.
Though Nelson has played for pols before, the September 29 concert at Auditorium Shores marks the first time Nelson has performed a free, public concert on behalf of a political candidate, according to Rolling Stone magazine.
"The point that has prompted the most anger is at the end of the 30-second video", when the woman, wearing a full face veil, appears to feed the man, the newspaper adds.
Under his helm, Saudi Arabia in June ended a long-standing ban on women driving and launched a number of projects aimed at attracting tourists.
Unrelated men and women are increasingly allowed to enter family sections of restaurants together, and public events have generally done away with such divisions.
"The Ministry of labor arrested Expat in Jeddah after he appeared in the infamous video", said the Ministry.
The Saudi authorities have arrested an Egyptian migrant worker, for "indecent" behavior contrary to Muslim morality: the man is in the police's sights, for having lunch in a hotel in the governorate of Jeddah (in photo) in a company of a woman colleague.
For most activities, women are required to be accompanied by a male guardian, typically a close male relative. The video has been shared widely on social media where it has caused outrage. Local media identified the man as Egyptian, saying that the video was shot in the lobby of the hotel where both the man and woman work. What seems to have enraged people more is the fact that the woman can be seen feeding the man.
The ministry said the hotel owner had also been summoned for failing to adhere to government regulations that stipulate a gender-segregated workplace.
Some even said the woman should have been arrested too. "I am a Saudi [woman] and I swear I want them to punish her with him".
Although the video had initially sparked a wave of criticism among conservatives within Saudi Arabia; thousands of social media users took to the twitter to defend the Egyptian National much later; the issue became a trending topic on Arabic Twitter.
Recently, Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was hailed for trying to bring in reform movement in the country.
Applications are the lifeblood of your business and keeping them alive and well on modern infrastructure is essential to maintaining operational excellence. With Microsoft no longer supporting Windows Server (WS) 2003 and support for WS 2008 officially being discontinued in January of 2020, the reasons to modernize your legacy applications are only growing. Cost of maintenance will skyrocket, while security and compliance risks will increase without regular patches. So, the inevitable challenge your organization will need to address in the short term is how to best get these applications onto current Windows Server releases (such as WS 2016 or later) and/or into the cloud.
The thought of updating these applications is a daunting task that requires intensive planning, significant cost and execution that often includes completely rewriting applications to modern infrastructure. But containerization - specifically container platforms - tackles these concerns by providing a fast and simple way to transform expensive and difficult-to-maintain applications into efficient, secure and portable applications ready for the hybrid cloud and further modernization.
Here are five reasons why leading enterprises across the globe are turning to a container management platform to breathe new life into legacy Windows Server applications.
1. Legacy Windows Server applications are nearing end of life
Its now been over three years since Microsoft ended support for the Windows Server 2003 operating system. Since then, the product no longer receives security patches or assisted technical support from Microsoft. This can increase the threat of harmful viruses and other malicious software affecting your business. And as you are aware, delaying upgrades puts your organization at compliance risk. Organizations face a similar situation with WS 2008 applications as Microsoft will be officially ending support for Windows Server 2008 R2 editions on January 14, 2020. Many enterprises are future-proofing their applications with container platforms designed to refresh Windows Server 2003/2008 applications on modern infrastructure. This approach saves money and bolsters security and performance across the application lifecycle.
2. Its easier to modernize your applications than you think
Getting applications to run on Windows 2016 and in the cloud doesnt have to require the effort and cost typically associated with the term modernization. First, containerizing most applications on a container platform will require no code changes. You can containerize a 15-year old Windows Server application and using a container platform, like Docker Enterprise, the containerized application can run on Windows Server 2016 or in the cloud. Take Jabil as an example - the company turned to the Docker container platform to modernize .NET applications and migrate them to the cloud. The types of applications can also vary, including a mixture of older web technologies - static HTML, ASP and ASP.NET WebForms for instance. As your business needs evolve, you can start to create microservices around these legacy applications to give them the functionality that organizations look for from newer, greenfield applications.
3. Improve security and mitigate compliance risk simultaneously
Not only will you gain the comfort knowing youre running the latest version of Windows by containerizing your legacy applications, but you also open the door to unique security advantages that containers have to offer. With a container platform, applications benefit from integrated security across the application lifecycle with an auditable chain of custody - including image signing to maintain integrity in your software development process and security scanning to ensure verified and clean applications. Secrets management and role-based access control can further enhance your overall security posture even for legacy applications.
Once you have containerized Windows 2003 applications, you can increase your frequency of patching and address security vulnerabilities and outdated components more quickly. In a container environment, standardization on compliance controls can be implemented quickly as part of an application deployment. Compliance auditors will be ready when 2020 rolls around - you dont want to risk compliance violations and the legal ramifications that come from it.
4. The return on investment is immediate
Typical application modernization techniques will either force a complete application re-write or will just move the problem from on-premises to the cloud. In either case, the return on investment will take years to materialize. The traditional lift and shift approach doesnt enable you to take advantage of the benefits that comes with containers whether on-premises or in the cloud - from improved security and governance to cost-efficiencies.
With a container strategy, you will also realize the benefits of reducing the number of VMs and operating systems needed for your applications. Its very common for companies to put multiple applications in one VM using containers, which can result in a 50% reduction in VM usage. In turn, this also brings down operations expenditure for patching and maintenance. And your freed-up budget can then be used to spur other strategic IT initiatives, such as application modernization, cloud migration and DevOps.
5. Your applications will be portable and cloud-ready
Containerizing Windows Server legacy applications brings portability across environments and infrastructure, thereby accelerating migration to the cloud. While it sounds as though refactoring would be in the cards, theres no need to change a single line of code to take advantage of the portability benefits that go hand-in-hand with containers. With a container platform, like Docker Enterprise, organizations can containerize legacy applications and make them portable both on-premises and in hybrid/multi-cloud environments. Legacy Windows Server applications can easily become cloud-ready and continue to play an important role in driving business success.
"So, we all need to just be cautious in what we do and what we say, and support Theresa May (and) invite her to change the policy".
The plan for a special Brexit deal summit is likely to be unveiled during the course of the Salzburg gathering, two people said, with one suggesting the announcement could come even sooner.
If 80 of May's 315 lawmakers voted against a Brexit deal based on her proposals, the fate of the government and exit process would depend on the opposition Labour Party because she would not command the 320 votes needed to dominate parliament. Eurosceptics in her party say that would leave Britain subject to decisions in Brussels without any input.
Former Brexit Secretary David Davis, who quit the cabinet in July over May's European Union withdrawal plan, said: "I disagree with her on one issue - and it's this issue - and she should stay in place because we need stability and we need decent government". "We are not far from agreement".
"My view is they'll end up in a different place, a reset, after Salzburg", Davis added.
Hopes of a deal breakthrough have helped sterling to rally almost 2.5 percent from Wednesday's lows below $1.28 and tighten five-year credit default swaps by more than a basis point from a near 1-1/2 year high hit this month. If leaders agree at the September 20 meeting, diplomats expect a final set of guidelines to be formally adopted at the October summit of European Union leaders, setting the stage for a special Brexit summit in November, where the two sides would aim to conclude talks.
European Commission head Jean-Claude Juncker on Wednesday renewed a pledge of close trade and security ties with Britain after Brexit, but said the EU would not compromise on key withdrawal terms.
Being "realistic", Barnier said a Brexit deal can be reached within six or eight weeks and by early November.
The comments came amid open warfare in the Tory ranks following former foreign secretary Boris Johnson's comparison of the Government's Brexit strategy to placing the United Kingdom in a "suicide vest" and handing Brussels the detonator.
Environment Secretary Michael Gove - one of the leaders of the official Leave campaign who ran unsuccessfully against Mrs May - also rallied behind the Prime Minister. We have wrapped a suicide vest around the British constitution - and handed the detonator to Michel Barnier. Under Conservative rules, a leadership election is triggered if 15 percent of Conservative lawmakers, now 48 out of its 315 members of parliament (MPs), demand a vote of no confidence.
In a sign the Government remained committed to its plan, he told BBC's Andrew Marr Show: "I think the only deal that we've got on the table, that's the Chequers deal". "It'll be in November, when parliament votes on the deal", she said.
Jacob Rees-Mogg, the ERG leader, said on Tuesday his group would unveil its proposal on Wednesday for how Britain could leave the European Union without constructing a hard border between Northern Ireland and Ireland, one of the main sticking points in securing a Brexit deal. The British government has rejected similar proposals in the past.
Under James Patchetts leadership, the New York City Economic Development Corp. is hoping to revive New York Citys maritime shipping and distribution system as part Freight NYC a $100 million plan announced by Mayor Bill de Blasio earlier this summer intended to help ease congestion and pollution caused by the citys aging freight infrastructure. The ultimate goal is to create 5,000 jobs for New Yorkers and a more sustainable and resilient supply chain network.
In a City & State op-ed written by Jonathan English, Why returning NYCs freight transportation to the waterways wont work, English argued that the plan fails to consider New York Citys current infrastructure. The plans three key strategies call for the investment in multimodal infrastructure, the modernization and development of new freight distribution hubs, and the use of emission-free trucks.
In an interview with City & State, Patchett rebuts the notion that Freight NYC wasnt created with todays New York City in mind, and argues that antiquated highways and truck traffic are reason enough to return to our maritime ways.
What do you say to those who argue that theres no room for waterfront warehouse distribution facilities in New York City, where residential and commercial developments are now prioritized?
New York City is far larger than our core business districts. From Hunts Point to Sunset Park, there are plenty of areas that both have the space capacity and the need for distribution facilities to keep their competitive advantage. We are also exploring creating multistory or vertical distribution centers, for which there is growing demand regionally, to maximize the use of available land. We dont see these investments as experimental. They are absolutely critical to the citys economic health.
The EDC released RFPs for two separate distribution facilities in July. Have you narrowed down the list of contenders for either of those?
We have received incredible interest in both RFPs one of which was for a private partner to build an urban distribution center at the Brooklyn Army Terminal, and the other was to develop an air cargo and distribution facility on an approximately four-acre site near JFK Airport. Both of these are still open. Once all submission deadlines close, submissions will be reviewed and we will move forward in selecting the best fit for each site. We look forward to making our selection announcements in the coming months.
[[{"fid":"5888","view_mode":"default","fields":{"format":"default","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"James Patchett","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":"James Patchett"},"type":"media","field_deltas":{"2":{"format":"default","field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]":"James Patchett","field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]":"James Patchett"}},"attributes":{"alt":"James Patchett","title":"James Patchett","style":"float: left;","class":"media-element file-default","data-delta":"2"}}]]Are there phases of the Freight NYC program so that its set to be completed in time?
Freight NYC has four key components: increasing maritime capacity, expanding rail freight, developing freight hubs and utilizing clean trucks that will help reduce pollution all while creating nearly 5,000 jobs in the process. We are well on our way to accomplishing all four of these objectives. Some facilities, such as the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal, will be functioning at its new, full capacity as soon as 2020. And while we have moved quickly on Freight NYC, it is still our top priority to keep local communities informed of our updates. This is especially important with two released RFPs and site feasibility studies underway for other projects, including rail transload facilities in Brooklyn and Queens and the South Bronx marine highway barge landing.
This program would require the coordination of multiple agencies. What are some of the challenges the EDC faces in working with multiple agencies small and large in order to ensure that no one party is falling behind?
As the citys Economic Development Corp,, we have a long, proud history of working with other city agencies. In fact, I would be hard-pressed to think of one of our projects that didnt involve the coordination of multiple agencies, or the state and federal governments. For example, through Freight NYC we are working with NYC DOT to help strengthen the NYC Smart Truck Management Plan. Some of these other projects include launching NYC Ferry, the new citywide ferry system, developing New York Works, the initiative to create 100,000 good-paying jobs, and planning Sunnyside Yard, the Queens railyard with incredible growth potential. In short, we have no concerns about this.
Are there any challenges that present enough of a risk to threaten your 2027 deadline or put you over the $100 million budget?
(The) EDC intends to use both budgeted funds and public-private partnerships to accomplish all of our goals, and we dont foresee any obstacles at this time. This plan was carefully constructed to meet all of our objectives on an aggressive timeline.
Is there hope for the Cross Harbor Freight Program plan to build a tunnel connecting New Jersey and Brooklyn?
There is! Although this endeavor is being spearheaded by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, we absolutely support it.
How does the Freight NYC program compare to the Cross Harbor Freight Program, both in terms of execution and results?
They are great complements of each other, working in tandem to ensure our freight distribution system meets 21st-century demands. And Freight NYC focuses on rail improvements, maritime barging, urban distribution hubs and transload facilities, and clean trucking. It's important to note that no mayoral administration in recent memory has planned so comprehensively for the citys long-term supply chain needs.
Are there any other points that youd like to make in response to the op-ed published in City & State, Why returning NYCs freight transportation to the waterways wont work?
I think that the op-ed mischaracterizes our outlined goals. Freight NYC is designed to manage the expected growth of future freight volumes in environmentally sustainable ways, while tackling both highway congestion and air pollution. While Freight NYC proposes a variety of solutions, there is no alternative that does not consider utilizing our waterways as a true and meaningful alternative to our already congested roadway network. At a time when our antiquated highways are increasingly congested with truck traffic, now is the time to return to our roots as a port city and take advantage of our marine highways.
With e-commerce booming, projected population growth and food needs growing, investments in freight are needed today. The immediate and targeted investments outlined in Freight NYC will make a difference in relieving congestion and optimizing efficiency in the short term. And we are standing at the ready to work with our partners at the local, state, and federal levels to bring our freight distribution system into the 21st century.
Election night parties can do a lot for a candidate. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio used his 2013 election night event at the Park Slope Armory to highlight his Brooklyn ties and show off his dance moves. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortezs reaction at a Bronx bar to winning her congressional race helped propel her as a national political celebrity and her vanquished opponent Rep. Joseph Crowley showed off his musical talent by dedicating a cover of Born to Run to her.
The four candidates in the Democratic race for attorney general are all hoping to capture some of that election night magic themselves at their events Thursday night.
New York City Public Advocate Letitia James is hosting her election night event at Milk River Lounge, a restaurant and dance club on the border of Crown Heights and Clinton Hill in Brooklyn. The Atlantic Avenue venue makes things easy for her team its right across the street from her campaign office. Its also less than a mile from James home, and squarely within the New York City Council district she represented for a decade. The lounge, with a 300-person capacity, is apparently named after a mineral spring on the island of Jamaica. It is described as a high-energy oasis on its website.
James is notably going solo on election night and not attending a party with Gov. Andrew Cuomo or Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul. She has run on an informal ticket with the pair, but has been knocked by opponents for her ties to the governor. Avoiding him on election night could be a way to dodge further criticism. But with Cuomo and Hochul both way ahead in the latest poll and James running a close race, it could also be a way to avoid an awkward event with only part of the ticket victorious.
James spokesman Jack Sterne said James made the decision herself. She wanted to celebrate a historic night in the community where she got her start, and where shes lived her entire life, he said.
Cuomo, for his part, is expected to be at the state Democratic Committee's primary night party at the Ainsworth, a restaurant and venue on 33rd Street in Midtown Manhattan. Its about a half mile from the governors Manhattan office. If Cuomo attends, itll be a break from his primary night plans in 2014. Cuomo didnt hold an event that year, instead telling reporters hed be working in his office when the polls closed.
Unlike James and Cuomo, attorney general candidate Zephyr Teachout and gubernatorial candidate Cynthia Nixon are tying their fortunes together. They both plan to attend an election night party along with lieutenant governor candidate Jumaane Williams at Cafe Omar, a lounge in East Flatbush, Brooklyn. Williams has represented the area in the New York City Council since 2010.
The trio originally planned to host their event at Brooklyn Bazaar, a venue in Greenpoint, before shifting plans Wednesday morning. The move from the predominantly white, gentrified neighborhood of Greenpoint to the lower-income, overwhelmingly black East Flatbush could be seen as a purposeful shift by a gubernatorial campaign that has been specifically trying to win over black voters. But Nixon spokeswoman Lauren Hitt said they just wanted a bigger venue. At the end of campaigns, youre just trying to get through the end, she said. I dont think there was as much thought put into it.
Another attorney general candidate, Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, will be hosting his election night watch party at La Nacional, the restaurant at the Spanish Benevolent Society in Chelsea. The restaurant reopened this summer after a two-year renovation, and is close to Maloneys campaign office in Manhattan. Maloney represents the Hudson Valley in Congress, and his campaign said hell be starting the day voting in Cold Spring.
The fourth attorney general candidate, Leecia Eve, will be spending election night in her hometown of Buffalo. Her campaign did not immediately respond to a request to elaborate on whether she will be hosting an event.
Fifty years ago, in the waning days of August 1968, thousands of protesters descended on Chicago, where delegates were assembling for the Democratic National Convention. Some of the arriving activists hoped to steer the Democratic Party toward a firm anti-war policy; others to mock the two-party system itself and advocate for revolutionary social change. As police pushed protestors out of Lincoln Park, on Chicagos North Side, chants of The whole world is watching made their way into the convention halls and onto the televisions of millions of Americans. Against the backdrop of Lyndon B. Johnsons concluding presidencyhed announced he wouldnt seek reelectionand increasing disaffection with the Vietnam War, the protests brought to a boil a long-simmering acrimony between the growing counterculture and the political establishment.
The 68 Democratic National Convention and its aftermath also had lasting impacts on journalism. As reporters found themselves bloodied and beaten while attempting to document the unrest, challenging questions emerged about the nature of objectivity and reporters relationships both to their bosses and to the public at large. How could journalists be unbiased observers of a situation in which they werewhether willing or notparticipants? Did the journalists of 1968 deserve the stereotypes made of them as liberal do-gooders using their public positions to shame average people into moral action? Or had they in fact become so firmly embedded in the prevailing two-party order that they were unable to recognize the overflowing dissent roiling the population until it consumed them too?
These questions grew to existential proportions, spurring changes that continue to reverberate. The news media became more suspicious of official declarations, establishing a critical distance that would become particularly consequential in the era of the next president, Richard Nixon. And reporters increasingly turned a focus onto the experiences and actions of regular people.
While these developments have been important to elevate the quality and accuracy of journalism, some of the biggest quandaries facing journalists who covered the 1968 convention remain with us today. Namely: What drives people to hold the press in contempt? And how does a critical news media cover opinions from people outside its cultural milieuthe voices of mythical Middle Americawithout resorting to patronizing exoticism or bend-over-backward appeasement?
As we contemplate similar questions facing journalism today, CJR takes a look at the impact of the DNC protests of 1968 on the journalism of its timeand ours. Below is an oral history of the convention and its journalistic fallout, assembled from interviews with people who were there, as well as from transcripts from a series of events examining the convention a half century later, hosted by Northwestern Universitys Medill School of Journalism.
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Participants: Donna Leff is an award-winning investigative journalist and professor at Northwestern Universitys Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing, and Communications. David Farber is a history professor at the University of Kansas and the author of Chicago 68. Hank De Zutter is a former education reporter at the Chicago Daily News and a cofounder of the Chicago Journalism Review. Don Rose is a political consultant who served as the press secretary for the National Mobilization to End the War during the 1968 Democratic Convention. Rick Perlstein is a historian and author of several books on American conservatism, including Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America. Robert Scheer is a communications professor at the University of Southern California; in August 1968, he was the editor in chief of Ramparts, a now-defunct magazine prominent during the 1960s.
Donna Leff: [A reporter friend of mine] said that covering the convention was actually the seminal point in his career in journalism. I asked him why, and he said because for the first time he and a lot of his colleagues realized that officialdom was feeding you crap, and everything you heard from officials wasnt true. I know that seems hard to believe now, but in 1968 that was a new thing. Usually people date that back to Watergate, but really you should roll it all the way back to 1968, because thats really when we first kind of thought that.
David Farber: Who is telling the truth? What is the media supposed to do? In 1968, you start to see those two big paradigms. . . start to become issues that the news media have to constantly think about. Now most newspapers, most producers, most editors are still operating in a very narrow political parameter, but the questions are now there, and political authorities are aware that the media is no longer simply mouthing established linesmostly it is, but not completely anymore.
Hank De Zutter: Before the convention started, this was not considered that big a story. I was the only reporter at the Daily News [who], when asked what part of the convention I wanted to cover. . . said I wanted to be on the streets. Everyone else wanted to be with this delegation, that delegation. We were kind of conditioned to think that politics happened at meetings, and politics happened in the suitesnot on the streets.
Because I was an education reporter, covering a lot of campus dissent, I began to see a national movement emerging, and I wanted to be there for that. I heard Bob Dylan go after reporters, saying, Something is happening here, but you dont know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones? Well, I didnt want to be Mr. Jones; I wanted to be out there covering this in a serious way.
DF: By 1968, if you were a professional journalist, you had already faced some real sea changes in your business. The racial-justice movement had already been around for a long time. In 1963, another seminal period, journalists had to rethink who is newsworthy: Is it simply the president and authorities that have high-ranking positions? Or is it young civil rights activists, the people in the streets? Are they newsworthy? How so?. . . The social-change movements understand they have to grab the attention of the American people and the networks. Big-time journalists have to decide: Is it headline news? Back pages? Or is it in the news hole at all?
Don Rose: One of the interesting things for white reporters (which is almost redundant at the time), was that there wasnt really such a thing as police brutality. In the newsrooms of the day, police brutality was the complaint of those people out there, and whenever it was brought up, it was, Oh, check with the mayor, is there police brutality? No. Thats something that only happened to those people, if it really happened. Finally we saw a bunch of white people getting beat up, and slowly it seeped in that there was such a thing as police brutality. It was some years before they started really writing about it, but that was a sea change.
Rick Perlstein: Lew Koch was an NBC News producer in 1968, with a specialty in stories about the civil rights movement and anti-war movement. He was also a sympathizer for those movements, and he was given the task of producing the street footage at the convention. He was inordinately proud of what he was able to produce in the streets of Chicago. What he thought he had produced was the 1968 version of what people in his job had done in 1963 in Birmingham, in 1965 in Selma: produced a crystalline theater of moral witnessevil being visited upon innocents.
He went back to NBCs [Chicago] headquarters at the Merchandise Mart, and things were pretty busy. His boss asked him to help man the switchboard, andhe began receiving calls, and what he was hearing from people calling in, making the effort to call in, was absolutely shocking to him. They did see this as a theater of good versus evil, only the terms were precisely reversed [from] what he thought he was presenting: The cops were the innocents, the protesters were the aggressors. And not only that, but the real villains in the story were the news cameramen, who in some cases were accused of staging the violence in order to make for a good show.
HD: I must confess. . . I didnt know how the hell to cover the stuff that came down that Sunday in Lincoln Park. It was crazy. My own reportage, the reportage coming in the newspapers, was pretty bad. It was difficult to figure out what was going on. The cops came into the park, pushed everyone into the streets, and all of a sudden we have 150 different police actions on different corners. One person would see this, another person would see that. How are we reporting this?
How would I write it now? Scores of Chicago police freely using clubs and spraying tear gas drove hundreds of anti-war and anti-convention youth out of Lincoln Park and into nearby streets Sunday. . . Thats what happened! One hundred and twenty-five were arrested, hundreds injured, including 20 police and 21 news reporters and cameramen, who were covering the action.
I must confess. . . I didnt know how the hell to cover the stuff that came down that Sunday in Lincoln Park. It was crazy.
But we didnt write it that way. We were afraid to say it. Heres the way we wrote it, heres the Sun-Times: Hippies and the police clash. Thousands of shouting, chanting hippie-clad youths. . . clashed with police on Sunday night in a series of incidents [that] began in Lincoln Park, spilled over to Michigan Avenue, and halted traffic for blocks in Old Town area.
We could not report what we were later talking about in the bars, like, Boy, those cops were like straight out of hell! We couldnt give any of that kind of flavor or spirit to the writing. As reporters on the streets, we were these strange characters that floated above it all. There was one important difference, and it was a harbinger of things to come: The Sun-Times reported that one of their own photographers was attacked and hurt by police who had removed their name tags and badges.
DF: By 1968, there is a war between the political establishment and broadcast journalists, and to a lesser extent [newspaper] reporters, about what something like a convention is supposed to be. How do you cover this event at this time in American history? Theres a negotiation. In 1964, there are 54 floor passes for journalists. In 1968, there are seven floor passes[and that was] on purpose, to try and narrow who was controlling the agenda. So youve got an organized effort by Mayor [Richard J.] Daley and other Democratic Party officials to reduce the parameters of what Americans will hopefully see about the convention. Youve got everything from Yippies to [Students for a Democratic Society] to the National Mobilization Against the War trying to get their perspective somehow across to the American people.
Robert Scheer: A lot of people, both in the hall and outside, trusted us [at Ramparts]. By then, they were very distrustful of the establishment, whether it was the political establishment or the media. They felt that protests in general were distorted in the coverage, both by established authority and the conventional leadership of both parties. There wouldnt have been a Ramparts if The New York Times had been doing its job.
[Mainstream journalists had] a cozy relationship with the people putting on the convention. You want their confidence and trust, and theres this rabble outside, and youre less inclined to care about what theyre saying. Its not convenient to your working conditions. Youve already got your cameras set up in the hall, youve got your interviews spaced, youve got your deadlines scheduled, youve got your exclusives. Thats not conducive to an open mind. In the main, your working journalists, basically, want to advance their careers, they want please their bosses.When the story shifts out to the street, you see it as theater. Let me get Abbie Hoffman, let me get Jerry Rubin, the crazier the better, and then Ill make that the story. The pressures of the job, even at [the] best of times, were horrendous.
RP: The media was a lot more confident in itself, and that confidence was what allowed Spiro Agnew to speak so eloquently and effectively. He literally talked about them like they were an unelected aristocracy, and they could come off that way. If you watch old newscasts from the sixties, there were these old white men who just kind of had the voice of God. Walter Cronkite going on TV and confidently saying that the Vietnam War is going wrong, we have to make a peace deal. These guys were princelings, certainly the network news anchors, certainly the big columnists. They were intimates to the president.
They were not used to being criticized, or they were not used to the criticism mattering. National Review might criticize them. People who didnt matter might criticize them. But presidents wouldnt criticize them. Its just such a big thing about Nixon: He turned the press into an enemy, and the Chicago convention was a very big part of how he was able to do it.
HD: The mayor and the police spokesman defended the police action, blamed the reporters for being attacked, for being there, for making these stories happen, for exaggerating what the police were doing, and even staging riot scenes, so we could have more interesting coverage. This official criticism of the media intensified as the national media pulled out, and so here we were, local reporters, being submitted to an almost daily revisionist version of what really happened on the streets, telling us what we saw didnt really happen. We even printed at the Daily News Mayor Daleys own report on what happened, in which he criticized the media. We didnt contend with it. We just let it run as it was, you know. We were really frustrated, those of us who had been there, so what do you do when youre frustrated and your needs arent being met? As Alexis de Tocqueville said, first you form an organization. So we founded the Association of Working Press, and we put out the Chicago Journalism Review.
DF: For the media, this was a moment of truth, and I think out of this moment comes a more conscious understanding that the news can be more than simple reportage of elite figures. You start to see for the first time a greater hold in newspapers for analytic pieces, a new kind of genre in the newspaper business. Opinion pieces are more widely used. Is this a popular move? Does this change the way people regard journalism, in newspapers especially? Were still living with that legacy.
RELATED: (MORE) guided journalists during the 1970s media crisis of confidence
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Annie Howard is a freelance journalist based in Chicago. Her work can be found on Twitter @t_annie_howard and on her website at annie-howard.com.
It began, as so many similar stories do, with a series of tweets. On September 4th, a writer at The Outline, a news startup founded in 2016 by Joshua Topolsky, posted that she and several of her colleagues had suddenly been laid off, leaving the site with no staff writers whatsoever. This was met by expressions of sympathy from others in the media, but also an element of disbelief. After all, hadnt The Outline just announced a $5 million round of funding in May? Where had all the money gone? Some writers, angry at what appeared to be another VC-backed startup taking advantage of freelancers, published an open letter saying they planned to boycott the site.
The Outline may have been well-funded at one point, with a reported valuation of more than $20 million, but by last month it was anything but, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the companys financial situation. Much of the money announced in May was gone before the news about the round was released, and the site was trying desperately to engineer some kind of alternative financingincluding, at one point, reportedly entering into talks with owners of the New York Observer about injecting some capital into the company, in return for The Outline taking over management of the paper formerly owned by Jared Kushner (the talks never went anywhere and Observer officials didnt respond to a request for comment).
ICYMI: Journalists discuss the pain and joy of the side hustle
So how did this alternative media venture become just as broken as the outlets it hoped to displace, laying off dozens of staff in round after round of downsizing? The answer is partly editorial ambition (or hubris) and partly poor timing, and provides yet another example of how venture capital funding and building a digital media business rarely go well together.
When The Outline launched two years ago, it seemed full of promise. Topolsky was a former digital editor at Bloomberg and one of the co-founders of tech news site The Verge, part of Vox Media. He raised $5 million from a series of venture capital funds, several of which had also invested in BuzzFeed and Business Insider, in order to start what he described as an alternative to media as usual, a way to fix a broken industry. Instead of focusing on raw traffic, he said, The Outline would be more authoritative about fewer key topics, and its advertising would be higher quality and therefore more effective.
When The Outline launched, it had about 10 full-time staff, including veteran writers and editors like Aaron Edwards from BuzzFeed, Adrianne Jeffries from Vice Medias Motherboard site, and Amanda Hale from Talking Points Memo. The site soon had a four-person video team, and added a number of high-profile writers who worked out of its office on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Its website, which often looked and functioned more like a mobile app, got largely positive reviews, and there were high hopes for its customized approach to advertising.
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A source close to the company say the board encouraged Topolsky to spend more and expand quickly, assuring him there would be no problem in finding more financing. By late last year, however, the media environment had soured. Vice Media and BuzzFeed were said to have missed their revenue targets for the year by as much as 20 percent, and Mashablea former digital media superstarwas forced to sell itself for a fraction of its previous valuation, to Ziff Davis, which immediately laid off 50 people. A tight advertising market and the increasing dominance of Facebook, as well as the lackluster performance of video, meant sharply lower traffic and revenue numbers for just about everyone in the business.
At first, The Outline seemed to have figured out a way to make it work. In April, Topolsky said his ad strategy was working so well that clickthrough rates were 25 times the industry average. Then he announced a new round of funding in May, another $5 million from existing investors and several new funds. In a Wall Street Journal interview, Topolsky said the site (which then had more than 30 staff and 3 million unique visitors a month, according to internal analytics), had kept its funding round small because it didnt want to suffer from inflated expectations.
According to several sources, however, this wasnt entirely true. The site very badly wanted to raise more than $5 millionand in fact needed to do so to keep up with its burn ratebut had failed to find enough investors willing to sign up. Also, the announcement didnt mention that most of the funding had come in months earlier, and had already been spent. So even as it appeared to be flush with cash, the company was actually getting close to running out of money, based on the amount it was spending.
In June, two writers were laid off, although Topolsky initially made it sound as though they had been let go primarily because of performance issues. He later apologized for expressing himself badly (his tweets have since been deleted) but maintained the site was healthy and expanding. In fact, former staffers say revenues were growing increasingly strained, as deals that were said to be in the pipeline never materialized.
Even those who express admiration for Topolsky and his vision say The Outlines launch was too ambitious by far, and that the company raised too much money too early in its life cycle, and made promises it couldnt keep. Instead of trying to build an audience and a business slowly and then look for funding to expand, the site came out of the gate with dozens of staff and lofty (and correspondingly expensive) ambitions. It was a mistake borne of the expectations of outside money.
The video team, for example, was described by a number of sources as an expensive mistake, one that did very little for several months other than cost the company a lot of cash (most of the team were hired before The Outline launched), and was too advanced for a small startup. The group was laid off in December, followed by two writers in June, then two more writers, several developers and support staff two weeks ago. One source says the managing editor is now doing at least one other job, and editors have been told that they also have to write.
Meanwhile, the decision to carry only customized advertising might have ultimately been the right one, but media industry insiders say it also locked The Outline into a very expensive model, since customized ads are time-consuming and labor-intensive. And while its clickthrough rate may have been higher than the industry average, it didnt have enough clicks to justify the kinds of ad campaigns it wanted to attract.
Topolsky, meantime, maintains that the site is not running out of money, and that the recent cuts were a prudent move designed to get The Outline closer to profitability, which he says is doable. We have to think about the future of the business, he said in an interview, and proving profitability sends a really strong signal to the market about potential for future growth. He says the original plan, which was to launch The Outline and then expand by launching a series of other media brands, is still very much alive, and that he is cautiously optimistic.
We are not a monolithic corporation, Topolsky told the Observer. We are not executives in corner offices hoarding money. Were journalists trying to make something good, and making hard choices to keep a business alive so we can fight another day.
Correction: A previous version of this story said Vox Media acquired The Verge, but the tech news site has always been part of Vox Media, formerly known as SB Nation.
ICYMI: The devils bargain in Bob Woodwards Fear
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Mathew Ingram is CJRs chief digital writer. Previously, he was a senior writer with Fortune magazine. He has written about the intersection between media and technology since the earliest days of the commercial internet. His writing has been published in the Washington Post and the Financial Times as well as by Reuters and Bloomberg.
An unprecedented legal move by MGM Resorts International to sue surviving victims of the Las Vegas mass shooting took another unusual turn Tuesday when the casino-operator offered to make $500 charitable donations in the name of each person who waives or has their lawyer accept legal notice of the lawsuits.
The move is part of MGMs attempt to have a federal judge hear the cases and declare that the casino-operator has no liability for the mass shooting at one of its properties under a law enacted after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
The law limits damages against entities that implement security measures approved by federal officials.
MGM has insisted its lawsuits, which dont demand money, are meant to avoid years of costly litigation.
The mass shooting occurred Oct. 1 at an outdoor music festival when a high-stakes gambler opened fire from the Mandalay Bay casino-resort, killing 58 people and injuring more than 800 others attending the show.
The company sued more than 1,900 people in July and has been working to notify the defendants.
MGM says it would rather make the donations to charities supporting survivors or families of slain victims than spend the money to pay people to serve the legal notices.
The money spent on personal service of process up to $250 per person could be better directed to do some affirmative good, MGMs attorneys wrote in the letter shared with The Associated Press.
If the offers are not accepted, we will personally serve the complaints courteously and respectfully, MGM spokeswoman Debra DeShong said.
Attorneys representing some of the victims did not immediately return messages seeking comment. They have until Friday to notify MGM of a decision.
The defendants in the lawsuits are people who previously sued the company and voluntarily dismissed their claims and those who have threatened to sue.
MGM has cited a 2002 federal law that limits liability when a company or group uses services certified by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
The company argues that the security vendor for the outdoor venue in Las Vegas was federally certified at the time of the attack.
Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Cleveland, Ohio - Viva Brazil. September 7 marked Brazilian Independence Day, which celebrates Pedro I and the founding of Brazil free from Portuguese rule.
On Sunday, Batuqui will celebrate the holiday the Brazilian way. The Brazilian bistro-bar -- 12706 Larchmere Blvd, Cleveland -- and TropicalCleveland are joining together to throw Brazilian Independence Day 2018.
The bash will roll out live music by the Forro na Gringa Band and Brazilian martial arts dance troupe Capoeira Circle. It also features Brazilian dance lessons, street foods, party favors, drinks and games for kids.
Brazilians aren't necessarily known for their independence day parties - even though they are among the most party-hearty people in the world. It's more of a sentimental celebration of Brazil, according to Adriana Matos, co-founder of TropicalCleveland.
The party runs from 3-10 p.m.
There isn't a place more fitting than Batuqui for such a bash. It boasts a stellar menu of Brazilian dishes, from a delicious fish stew called moqueca to the traditional pork-and-black-been-and-rice stew feijoada to the salgadinhos appetizers. It rolls out a a number of Brazilian drinks - like the Caiporoska, a vodka-based form of the Brazilian Caipirinha.
There's also the down-home hospitality of the quaint, cozy spot, located in a renovated house in Cleveland's Larchmere neighborhood. Expect a full house come Sunday, along with a buzzing patio - one of the area's finest - and a side lot that will be open for the party.
Tickets, $15, are available at Batuqui or by calling 216-801-0227. For more info, go to facebook.com/Tropical.Cleveland or call or 216-280-0407.
LAKEWOOD, Ohio -- With momentum building behind the proposed $72 million mixed-use One Lakewood Place development, the city and developer Carnegie Management & Development Corp. are seeking community input regarding the future of the former Lakewood Hospital site.
Following last week's Planning Commission meeting focused on land use, the Architectural Board of Review, at its 5:30 p.m. meeting tonight at the City Hall Auditorium, will be discussing the site and property design in regard to massing, building materials, landscaping and architecture.
"It's really the start of the community planning process," Lakewood Director of Planning and Development Bryce Sylvester said.
"That will involve meeting with the Planning Commission, the Architectural Board of Review, but also outside of City Hall with broader community meetings with LakewoodAlive and the business owners in the downtown district over the next couple of months," Sylvester said.
The idea is for the city and the developer to incorporate feedback into design decisions, which currently are limited to a site plan without renderings. Sylvester said that's on purpose, in order for the community's feedback to influence the architecture and design of the 5.7-acre property located at Detroit and Belle avenues.
Expected to be present at all of the meetings are Carnegie Management & Development Corp., as well as RDL Architects, which will lead most of the design and planning process.
"We're excited about working through the plan approval process for One Lakewood Place in a collaborative manner with the city, its advisory boards, residents, institutions and business community," Carnegie Management and Development Corp. Executive Vice President George Papandreas said.
"Integral to this process will be community meetings where it is important to hear comments and suggestions about our vision for the project so we can endeavor to incorporate them into a design that can be a beacon of pride for the community, while being sensitive and reflective of the past, present and future heritage of the city," he said.
Sylvester said the process is already working, with Marlowe Avenue residents at the Planning Commission meeting suggesting that the residential edge fits in with the residential neighborhood.
"We spent a lot of time talking about the scale of the buildings on the Marlowe Avenue side and making sure the project steps down as it moves into the neighborhoods, so the buildings aren't as tall," Sylvester said.
Another area of feedback is related to the proposed half-acre of public space around the corner of Belle and Detroit avenues being accessible for year-round use. Also, residents are suggesting that the historically designed Curtis Block building have a strong presence in the area.
Sylvester said the next step is for the old Lakewood Hospital building to be demolished.
"There's an abatement survey that's being conducted, and the work that needs to be done is remediating," Sylvester said. "So it will be four to five months, then demolition would start. The goal is for Carnegie to begin construction in summer or fall of 2019."
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Ohio regulators made several data entry errors, failed to redact identifying information from applications and applied inconsistent standards while scoring 185 applications to grow medical marijuana, according to a blistering report from the state auditor's office released Thursday.
The audit also challenges the state's authority to issue two additional cultivator licenses earlier this year.
"The department didn't do a very good job launching this program," Auditor Dave Yost said in a news release. "It did not exercise due diligence to make sure Ohioans could have complete confidence in the process. The department's work was sloppy. Ohioans deserved better."
Yost's office began examining the scoring process after reports late last year that the department unknowingly hired a scoring consultant with a felony marijuana conviction. During the course of the review, auditors identified a security weakness that could have allowed scores or application materials to be changed by a department employee.
The report released Thursday identified several other issues including:
Yost's office found several instances where names and other personally identifying information were not redacted from the second part of the application.
Applicants were required to show local zoning approval, and this was reviewed inconsistently by scorers.
The agency did not keep a log of when and why it contacted applicants for additional information after applications were initially submitted.
Auditors also concluded reviewers failed to verify whether proposed grow sites were more than 500 feet from a school, church or other prohibited facility, which cleveland.com reported in February.
Ohio awarded 24 provisional cultivation licenses in November 2017. Several lawsuits and dozens of administrative appeals were filed challenging the process.
The agency has since issued a provisional license to an applicant affected by a data entry error and another to an applicant that appealed its rejection. Program rules bar additional licenses from being issued before Sept. 9.
"In an attempt to make up for the initial errors, the department compounded the problem by awarding additional licenses outside the bounds of its authority," Yost said.
What did the commerce department say?
In a written response included in the audit report, Commerce Director Jacqueline Williams disagreed with Yost's assertion that the agency does not have the authority to issue additional grow licenses to remedy mistakes.
Williams cited a Franklin County court decisions and a program rule that gives the agency the ability to "exercise any other power or duty" authorized by Ohio's medical marijuana law.
Yost says the law doesn't specifically grant the power to award additional licenses, and the audit advises the department to seek legal advice from the state attorney general. Yost, a Republican, is running for attorney general in November's general election.
"While I appreciate your recommendation... I can assure you that our legal strategy in addressing this litigation was certainly developed in consultation with the attorney general's office and our appointed special counsel," Williams wrote.
Williams also said the agency has acknowledged there was room for improvement in the scoring process and has taken steps to ensure mistakes aren't made in later rounds of application scoring. In February, the Department of Commerce put administrative hearings for appeals on hold and commissioned a third-party analysis of the cultivator scoring process by Ernst & Young. The Ernst & Young report, issued for large-scale cultivators in June, identified scoring mistakes but overall affirmed the agency's scoring process and results.
State auditors were promised a similar analysis for small-scale cultivators but never received one from the Commerce Department, according to the report. None of the small-scale cultivators filed lawsuits over the scoring process.
The program missed its self-imposed Sept. 8 deadline to be "fully operational." Six cultivators have passed final inspections and been given approval to begin growing plants. Growers expect initial harvests in the coming months, with dispensaries opening as early as the end of the year.
Mobile readers, click here to open the audit in a new window.
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Cuyahoga County Council on Wednesday approved up to $1 million for a sweeping worker-training initiative proposed by County Executive Armond Budish that is aimed at training under-skilled workers for jobs in the manufacturing, health care and information technology industries.
The money is part of a $2.5-million Workforce Connect initiative that will use tax dollars and private-sector contributions to fund up to three organizations that would coordinate the training of workers in those three fields.
The county will fund the effort over a three-year period. If the public and private partners fail to raise the expected $1.5 million on their end or do not fund organizations in all three of the targeted industries, the county's $1 million contribution will be proportionately reduced.
Budish has said that Workforce Connect is meant to build bridges between people looking for jobs or looking to improve their skills and employers who are searching for skilled workers. The health care, manufacturing and technology sectors were chosen because that is where qualified workers are needed today and over the next few years, Budish has said.
The first organization to be established will focus on manufacturing, and work could begin on it in January 2019. The health care organization would come next, followed by the IT organization. Those could be created later next year.
"The idea of the county pulling together all the disparate parts of the workforce community to better match employer needs with the people who can fill the jobs is one of the most important acts that the county can be taking to get our economy growing," said Brad Whitehead, president of Fund for Our Economic Future, which is serving as the initiative's fiscal agent that will distribute the money to the three organizations.
The legislation also includes a special provision for the IT organization that encourages -- but doesn't require -- it to focus on blockchain technology and its commercial applications.
When the Economic Development and Planning Committee was tweaking the initiative last month, committee chair Jack Schron drew attention to ongoing discussions in the community around making Cleveland a hub for blockchain development. In simple terms, it is a digital ledger that records transactions publicly, chronologically, and securely. It is the underpinning for cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, but has many other uses.
Under Budish's initial proposal, the county's $1 million contribution would have been funded from the Health and Human Services levy. Council members questioned that decision, and instead opted to fund it through the county's Economic Development Fund.
The private-public partnership covering the rest of the funds includes the City of Cleveland, Cleveland Foundation, Deaconess Foundation, Fund for Our Economic Future, Greater Cleveland Partnership, The George Gund Foundation, Cleveland/Cuyahoga County Workforce Development Board, TeamNEO and United Way of Greater Cleveland.
WASHINGTON, D.C. - The Democratic party's top U.S. House of Representatives campaigner predicted Thursday that the House will flip to Democratic control after November's elections and said as many as seven GOP-held Ohio congressional districts might be in play.
"We have momentum and history on our side," said Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chairman Ben Ray Lujan, a New Mexico congressman. "Our candidates are polling ahead of Republicans. Our candidates are out-fundraising Republicans. This will come down to turnout and the urgency the electorate feels. Each and every measure is on our side."
Lujan said voters are disillusioned by Republican efforts to undermine the Affordable Care Act, which he said has resulted in higher health insurance premiums and deductibles for consumers, as well as concern that preexisting conditions will block them from getting coverage. He also said voters believe last year's GOP tax bill was a "scam" that Republicans will have to cut Medicare and Social Security to pay for.
He said Democrats around the country will campaign on those issues, rather than controversial statements and actions taken by President Donald Trump.
"We will not talk about President Trump much, if at all," said Lujan. "He will do it for us. Because the president pays so much attention to himself, it allows our candidates to have conversations with the American people about kitchen table and pocketbook issues."
Lujan said that Franklin County Recorder Danny O'Connor's narrow defeat by Republican Troy Balderson in last month's Columbus-area special election to replace longtime Republican Rep. Pat Tiberi in a seat that Democrats haven't held for decades demonstrates the tide is flowing in Democrats' direction.
He said the race will "continue to be a pickup opportunity" for Democrats in November, as a more favorable electorate for Democrats heads to the polls.
"When more people vote, Democratic candidates win," said Lujan.
Lujan said he believes that Democratic candidates Betsy Rader and Ken Harbaugh have a good chance to unseat incumbent Republicans Dave Joyce and Bob Gibbs in Northeast Ohio, Democrats Aftab Pureval and Jill Schiller might be able to defeat incumbent Republicans Steve Chabot and Brad Wenstrup in the Cincinnati area, and that Democrats Theresa Gasper and Rick Neal could defeat incumbent central Ohio Republicans Mike Turner and Steve Stivers.
"We're doing whatever we can to put as many races in play as we can across America," said Lujan.
A representative of the National Republican Congressional Committee said he beleived Lujan is "trying to set a new record for moral victories this cycle."
"After going all in for Danny O'Connor and still coming up empty-handed, Democrats have proven they're much better at targeting races than actually winning them," said a statement from NRCC spokesman Chris Martin.
In a meeting with reporters earlier this year, Stivers, who heads the NRCC, said it's likely that Democrats will gain a few seats during this year's election as often happens during off-year elections to the party whose president controls the White House. But he insisted that none of those seats will come in Ohio because the state's GOP incumbents represent their constituents well.
WASHINGTON, D.C. - The U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday finally found a principle its members could unite behind: People should not eat dogs and cats.
In a non-controversial voice vote, it passed the bill to ban people from knowingly slaughtering a dog or cat for human consumption.The maximum fine for violations would be $5,000.
While people in the United States don't often eat cats and dogs, backers of the bill noted reports of their consumption in Hawaii and Pennsylvania. Advocates of the bill noted it's technically legal to eat dogs and cats in 44 states.
They argued passage of a nationwide ban is needed to discourage the practice in other countries where cat and dog eating is more widespread, such as China, South Korea, Vietnam and Thailand.
"As the House of Representatives also calls for the end of the dog and cat meat trade globally, it is important that we hold ourselves to the same standards we wish to see in others," said a statement from Florida Democratic Rep. Alcee Hastings, who urged the U.S. Senate to "take up this important bill without delay."
All Ohio's Democratic U.S. House of Representatives members cosponsored the bill, as did Republicans Jim Renacci of Wadsworth, Dave Joyce of Bainbridge Township, Bill Johnson of Marietta, Steve Stivers of the Columbus area and Steve Chabot of the Cincinnati area.
WASHINGTON, D.C. - The opioid crisis poses major challenges to small businesses in Ohio as employers in rural and urban areas alike have trouble finding workers who can pass drug tests, the director of Cleveland State University's Ohio Small Business Development center on Thursday told a congressional committee.
"From small businesses struggling to fill needed positions to Ohioans unable to fulfill their working potential, opioids are a plague on Ohio's economy," development center director Katie Van Dyke told the U.S. House of Representatives' Small Business Committee. "We used to hear about issues pertaining to access to capital and cash flow. Now, what we hear about far too much from our clients is: 'I need help finding employees - I can't find anyone who can pass a drug test.'"
Van Dyke noted that opioid overdose deaths increased 39 percent in Ohio from 2016 to 2017, and many of the deaths were not stereotypical "junkies." She said unintentional drug overdoses that may have started as a prescription for a surgery or injury cost an average of $5.4 million each day in medical and work loss costs in Ohio alone.
She said small business development centers in Ohio are conducting workshops to help employers take a pro-active role toward the opioid crisis, the Ohio Bureau of Workers' Compensation offers drug free workplace training sessions, and the Ohio Chamber of Commerce has partnered with Working Partners and Anthem to offer further workplace resources.
House Small Business Committee Chairman Steve Chabot, right, welcomes newly elected Columbus-area GOP Rep. Troy Balderson to his first committee hearing.
"The most important thing we as a community can do is to get everyone to talk about the facts, the staggering statistics, and break down the stigma that this is someone else's problem - it affects us all, whether directly or indirectly," Van Dyke told the subcommittee. "If we can face this problem with as much knowledge as possible, we will be better armed for changing the statistics and creating a healthier workforce."
The committee's chairman, Cincinnati-area GOP Rep. Steve Chabot, said many young working age Americans aren't looking for jobs because of opioid addiction, making it harder for businesses to fill important openings. A recent report by the National Safety Council estimated that more than 70 percent of U.S. employers have been affected by prescription drug use, said Chabot.
Chabot said his committee will use the material it collected at the hearing to examine ways the federal government can help small businesses find ways to help their workers.
"Employers want employees to be successful," agreed newly elected GOP Rep. Troy Balderson, of Zanesville, who was attending his first hearing as a Small Business Committee member. " If they are successful, businesses are successful also. Getting employees the help they need is vital."
Tyrone Kenneth Woods
MAYFIELD HEIGHTS, Ohio -- Pennsylvania man charged in a Monday morning bank robbery in Mayfield Heights could face additional charges in connection with a second robbery in another city, Mayfield Heights police said.
Tyrone Kenneth Woods, 57, of Lancaster, is charged with aggravated robbery.
Police said he entered the Citizens Bank in the 6000 block of Mayfield Road shortly after 9 a.m. armed with a handgun and demanded money.
Woods was later seen speeding away in a dark colored older-model Jeep Cherokee with an undisclosed amount of cash, according to police.
A Wickliffe police officer spotted the SUV at a hotel in the city, police said. Officers with Wickliffe and Mayfield Heights police departments and FBI agents set up surveillance on the hotel. Woods was arrested a few hours later without incident.
Mayfield Heights police Lt. Steven Brown said Woods stayed at the hotel since Aug. 30.
Woods is wanted on a wanted in connection with a bank robbery in Macedonia last week, police said.
To comment on this story, visit Thursday's crime and courts comments page.
AKRON, Ohio -- A 19-year-old male was hospitalized after he was shot near the South Akron neighborhood.
Police say the male was walking on the 300 block of East Crosier Street at about 3 p.m. Tuesday when an unknown male fired several shots at him.
The victim was shot in the left hip and his buttocks, according to police. He was taken to Cleveland Clinic Akron General Hospital.
No motive for the shooting was given and police say the victim was unable to give a description of the suspect.
Anyone with information can call detectives at 330-375-2490 or 330-375-2TIP; the U.S. Marshals Service at 1-866-4-WANTED; or the Summit County Crimestoppers Inc. at 330-434-COPS.
To comment on this story, please visit Wednesday's crime and courts comments page.
AKRON, Ohio -- The University of Akron's enrollment dropped 7 percent this year, according to university numbers.
In a press release Wednesday, UA officials said they anticipated the drop and accounted for it in the year'sbudget.
Enrollment is recorded this fall at 20,554. Last year, total enrollment was at 22,104.
The decrease was attributed to three factors: new admissions standards, continued fallout from a significant drop in freshman in 2016 and a decrease in out-of-state and international students, particularly international grad students.
In 2016, enrollment dropped by about 8 percent after turmoil at the university. Faculty took a vote of no confidence in President Scott Scarborough that year after extensive cuts that led to layoffs.
Scarborough stepped down in May 2016.
In June, UA announced officials expect a $16 million deficit for next year, budgeting in the 7 percent decline in enrollment. The university also will undergo a 5 percent operating fund decrease across departments, though it's not clear how that will be accomplished.
UA is phasing out about 20 percent of its degrees and degree tracks over the next few years. Trustees approved the cuts, the result of an extensive review that officials say was not a result of the university's fiscal issues.
Facing the decrease in enrollment and projected deficit is interim president John Green, selected in April.
Read more about those cuts here.
At nearby Kent State University, enrollment numbers are also down. Kent State's main campus enrollment is down 3.2 percent. Freshman enrollment, however, increased slightly, setting a new record.
Kent State's incoming class will have 4,363 students.
MYRTLE BEACH, S.C. (AP) -- The outer bands of wind and rain from a weakened but still deadly Hurricane Florence began lashing North Carolina on Thursday as the monster storm moved in for an extended stay along the Southeastern coast, promising to drench the homes of as many as 10 million people with immense amounts of rain.
Florence's top sustained wind speeds dropped from a high of 140 mph (225 kph) to 110 mph (175 kph) early Thursday . That reduced Florence from a Category 4 to a Category 2 hurricane, but forecasters warned that the widening storm -- and its likelihood of lingering around the coast day after day after day -- will bring surging ocean water and torrential rain.
"It truly is really about the whole size of this storm," National Hurricane Center Director Ken Graham said. "The larger and the slower the storm is, the greater the threat and the impact -- and we have that."
As of 8 a.m. EDT it was centered about 170 miles (275 kilometers) east-southeast of Wilmington, North Carolina and about 220 miles (355 kilometers) east-southeast of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, moving northwest at 12 mph (20 kph). Hurricane-force winds were blowing 80 miles (130 kilometers) from its center, and tropical-storm-force winds reached up to 195 miles (315 kilometers) from the eye.
The hurricane center's best estimate was that Florence's eye would blow ashore as early as early Friday around the North Carolina-South Carolina line. Then, it will likely hover along the coast Saturday, pushing up to 13 feet (nearly 4 meters) of storm surge and dumping water on both states. The forecast calls for as much as 40 inches (102 centimeters) of rain over seven days along the coast, with the deluge continuing even as the center of the storm slogs away over the Appalachian Mountains.
The result: catastrophic inland flooding that could swamp homes, businesses, farm fields and industrial sites.
About 5.25 million people live in areas under hurricane warnings or watches, and 4.9 million more live in places covered by tropical storm warnings or watches, the National Weather Service said.
Weather Underground meteorology director Jeff Masters said Florence eventually could strike as a Category 1 with winds less than 100 mph (160 kph), but that's still enough to cause at least $1 billion in damage. Water kills more people in hurricanes than wind, and the rain and storm surge will make Florence extremely dangerous.
President Donald Trump both touted the government's readiness and urged people to get out of the way. "Don't play games with it. It's a big one," he said at the White House.
It's unclear exactly how many people fled, but more than 1.7 million people in the Carolinas and Virginia were warned to clear out. Airlines canceled nearly 1,000 flights and counting. Home Depot and Lowe's activated emergency response centers to get generators, trash bags and bottled water to stores before and after the storm. The two hardware chains said they sent in a total of around 1,100 trucks.
Duke Energy, the nation's No. 2 power company, said Florence could knock out electricity to three-quarters of its 4 million customers in the Carolinas, and outages could last for weeks. Workers are being brought in from the Midwest and Florida to help in the storm's aftermath, it said.
Boarding up his home in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, Chris Pennington watched the forecasts and tried to decide when to leave.
"In 12 or 18 hours, they may be saying different things all over again," he said.
Computer models of exactly what the storm might do varied, adding to the uncertainty. Reacting to the possibility of a more southerly track, Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal declared an emergency but did not immediately order any evacuations.
"I ask all Georgians to join me in praying for the safety of our people and all those in the path of Hurricane Florence," Deal said.
In Virginia, where about 245,000 residents were ordered to evacuate low-lying areas, officials urged them to stay in safer locations despite forecast changes showing Florence's path largely missing the state.
With their entire neighborhood evacuated in Wilmington, North Carolina, David and Janelle Garrigus planned to ride out Florence at their daughter's one-bedroom apartment in Charlotte. Unsure of what they might find when they return home, the couple went shopping for a recreational vehicle.
"We're just trying to plan for the future here, not having a house for an extended period of time," David Garrigus said.
Melody Rawson evacuated her first-floor apartment in Myrtle Beach and arrived at Atlanta Motor Speedway in Hampton, Georgia, to camp for free with three other adults, her disabled son, two dogs and a pet bird.
"We hope to have something left when we get home," she said. Three other Southern raceways also opened campgrounds to evacuees.
Forecasters worried the storm's damage will be all the worse if it lingers on the coast. The trend is "exceptionally bad news," said University of Miami hurricane researcher Brian McNoldy, since it "smears a landfall out over hundreds of miles of coastline, most notably the storm surge."
With South Carolina's beach towns now more in the bull's-eye because of the shifting forecast, Ohio vacationers Chris and Nicole Roland put off their departure from North Myrtle Beach to get the maximum amount of time on the sand. Most other beachgoers were long gone.
"It's been really nice," Nicole Roland said. "Also, a little creepy. You feel like you should have already left."
Local airline delays?
See how the weather is affecting arrivals and departures locally from Cleveland Hopkins Airport and Akron-Canton Airport.
WTAM reports fliers can expect to start seeing more delays soon.
How can you help?
Fox 8 reports an Ohio task force is on its way to North Carolina; Cleveland 19 notes that the Cleveland APL is ready to take in pets displaced by the storm; channel 5 reports Red Cross volunteers are already on their way to the coast.
You can also donate to The Red Cross Disaster Relief program.
Interested in helping out locally or in the affected region? Learn how you can volunteer.
Prior hurricane coverage
"Monster" Hurricane Florence aims to drench Carolinas: See photos and latest storm track
Millions prepare for potentially catastrophic Hurricane Florence both nationally and locally
Hurricane Florence could hit with punch not seen in more than 60 years
Florence now a major hurricane, aims for US Southeast
See Lake Erie rocking with remnants of Tropical Storm Gordon
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Associated Press writers Seth Borenstein in Washington; Jonathan Drew in Wilmington, North Carolina; Jennifer Kay in Miami; Gary Robertson in Raleigh, North Carolina; Sarah Rankin and Denise Lavoie in Richmond, Virginia; Meg Kinnard in Columbia, South Carolina; Skip Foreman in Charlotte, North Carolina; Jeff Martin in Hampton, Georgia; David Koeing in Dallas; and Jay Reeves in Atlanta contributed to this report.
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- An advertising and media firm to which Ohio gubernatorial candidate Richard Cordray's agency gave government work while he was a federal official now is doing political work for him.
Records reviewed by The Associated Press show Washington-based GMMB recently has been making Ohio ad buys for Democrat Cordray's gubernatorial campaign against Republican Attorney General Mike DeWine. The two are locked in a high-profile fight for the office Republican Gov. John Kasich vacates in January due to term limits.
GMMB's political work for Cordray, a Democrat who is a former director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, follows Republican criticism that the bureau's decision to hire the firm under Cordray's watch was politically motivated.
GMMB was the lead advertising agency for the successful presidential bids of Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012. The Democratic former president is scheduled to campaign for Cordray in Cleveland on Thursday.
"The whole thing is peculiar," said Matthew Henderson, a spokesman for U.S. Rep. Warren Davidson, an Ohio Republican who questioned the contract during a hearing in April. "Why was former director Cordray spending so much on a PR firm he would eventually hire to run his campaign for governor? And why was a government agency that was created to protect consumers and prosecute fraud spending a higher percentage on PR than a car brand like Chevy?"
Cordray's campaign said there's nothing improper about the firm's work for the government or the campaign. At the time it was hired by the federal consumer bureau, the agency was working to raise its pro-consumer profile among average Americans.
"Rich Cordray is proud of the work he did at the CFPB to take on predatory lenders and put $12 billion back into the pockets of 30 million Americans who had been cheated or mistreated," said spokesman Mike Gwin. "It's unsurprising that those same powerful interests are now using bogus and debunked smears to try to misrepresent Rich's record of standing up for middle class families."
The federal Office of Inspector General reported in June that costs tied to GMMB's contract with the consumer bureau grew from the original estimated value of $11.5 million to $43.8 million from August 2013 to February 2018. Inspectors said the bureau could have better managed the contract and they urged stronger controls be put in place.
Mick Mulvaney, appointed by Republican President Donald Trump to succeed Cordray as bureau director, said during the April hearing that he planned to cancel the contract.
Besides Obama's campaigns, GMMB has served Democrat-aligned clients including Emily's List, the Democratic Governors Association, the League of Conservation Voters and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, according to its website. It also did government work pitching the benefits of the federal health care law, commonly known as Obamacare.
"This is particularly aimed at my colleagues across the aisle: That $242 million that I spent on the building, I could take that and hire Breitbart," Mulvaney said. "I could take that and hire the Drudge Report to do marketing that I like for the bureau. Not going to do it, because it's the wrong thing to do, but I have that kind of flexibility."
GMMB has worked for both Democratic and Republican administrations, including Trump's. The government watchdog said the firm was selected by the consumer bureau through an open competitive process.
Catherine Turcer, executive director of Common Cause Ohio, a nonpartisan watchdog group, said the Cordray campaign may have looked at GMMB's work for Obama and felt it was a good fit -- but such relationships should still be approached with caution.
"The problem is, of course, that elections now are so closely tied to governing that it makes voters concerned because everything's so embedded and intertwined," she said. "It at least deserves a conversation."
A spokeswoman for GMMB could not immediately comment.
DeWine's campaign spokeswoman, Brittany Warner, said the relationship "presents a major trust issue with voters."
"Not only was Director Cordray's $43 million advertising budget a total waste of public funds, but it's deeply concerning that these public funds were directed to a political firm that is helping to run his campaign," she said.
CLEVELAND, Ohio - A new company plans to open a manufacturing facility next June that would make hemp products - building materials, carpet and insulation, disposable straws and utensils, clothing and even CBD oil.
North Coast Natural Solutions will open the project in three phases, with the first one at 12735 Kirby Ave. -- across the street from the former industrial site of National Acme -- offering around 650 jobs, said Ty Williams, CEO of Level 5 Global Corp., a consulting and financial firm in Washington.
Williams said wages will start at $17 an hour - with benefits such as health insurance, on-site child care for all three shifts and paid training.
The project will initially use hemp plants grown in Kentucky and upstate New York. It will arrive in Cleveland in bundles or balls, looking similar to bales of hay.
Williams grew up in the Cleveland area and is excited about revitalization in the Glenville neighborhood, which suffers from low wages, and high unemployment and incarceration rates, he said Thursday afternoon during a meeting with the cleveland.com/Plain Dealer editorial board.
"If we're going to build it in their neighborhood, we have to make sure these people have an opportunity to get a job there," he said.
Industrial hemp and marijuana are different varieties of the cannabis plant. The federal Farm Act of 2014 defines industrial hemp as containing 0.3 percent or less THC, a psychoactive component of the plant. People who grow industrial hemp use a cannabis plant that doesn't have the buds or flowers present in marijuana.
Williams is confident that the plant's activities will be legal in Ohio, citing recent actions and legislation at the federal level and dismissing recent state guidance that CBD is still illegal in Ohio. He said the plant wouldn't initially manufacture CBD oil. That will come in a later phase, he said.
Williams said the reauthorized farm bill under consideration in Congress would remove current provisions on hemp -- states must apply to the federal government to grow it for research purposes -- which would allow Ohio to grow and cultivate it. Williams said a hemp farm could eventually be part of the Glenville project.
Support
The Revs. E. Theophilus Caviness of Greater Abyssinia Baptist Church in Glenville and the Rev. Aaron Phillips of the Cleveland Clergy Coalition both described the project as a gift from God.
"This is almost unbelievable for us to have this opportunity for this to impact the community," Caviness said.
Phillips said he's prepared to travel to Columbus to defend the project if the state objects to the products being manufactured.
Cleveland City Councilman Mike Polensek is also on board. His ward includes part of Glenville.
He described the area as "totally devastated. It's over 200 acres of industrial land that for the most part has been abandoned. For the last 5 years I have been lobbying with the state, the county, the city for revitalization of this area."
He hopes the project will spur development of other buildings in the area.
The economics
The company expects to make a net operating profit of $43.5 million in the first fiscal year. Total revenue will be $67.8 million, according to financial documents Williams provided.
North Coast executives have signed a letter of intent with Dairy Queen restaurants in California to supply hemp straws and utensils. The public wants to move away from plastic and hemp is biodegradable, Williams said.
Hemp is a $2.2 billion industry and it's poised to grow, Williams said.
A partner, which Williams said was "a major publicly traded company in the hemp space," will be announced Friday.
As soon as a law criminalizing violence against women has entered into force this week, already three complaints were filed by women claiming to have been harassed.
The law, passed last February, includes a ban on forced marriage, sexual harassment in public places, and tougher penalties for certain forms of violence.
Although it has been criticized for major gaps and flaws that leave women at risk of domestic violence, including a lack of provisions to finance the reforms, the new law is a leap forward for womens rights in Morocco.
It enters into force at a context where voices are rising to denounce multiple rape cases, notably after the outbreak in the media of the case of young Khadija who claims to have been gang raped for two months, tortured and tattooed against her will.
The law imposes tougher penalties on perpetrators of various types of violence committed both in the private and public spheres, including rape, sexual harassment and domestic abuse.
Along with harassment, there are also measures stipulating punishment for people who try to force someone into a marriage using violence or the threat of violence.
In 2009, a national survey reported that 62.8 percent of women had experienced physical, psychological, sexual or economic abuse.
According to the General Prosecutors office, 1,600 cases of rape were heard by Moroccan courts last year, twice as many as previous years.
A militia leader aligned with the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) Wednesday was targeted by UN and US sanctions for attacking oil facilities in Eastern Libya, in June.
Ibrahim Jadhrans forces attacked Ras Lanuf and al-Sidra oil export terminals last June. The terminals were under the control of eastern Libya strongman Khalifa Haftars forces.
Jadhrans forces lost sway over the terminal in 2016 after Haftar overran Libyas oil crescent.
The June attacks according to the State Department created an economic and political crisis that cost Libya more than $1.4 billion in revenue and set back efforts to promote political progress and stability in Libya.
Libyas oil facilities, production and revenues belong to the Libyan people.
The sanctions entail that Jadhrans assets under US jurisdictions will be frozen. Americans are prohibited from dealing with the militia leader who is also banned from traveling to the United States.
The State Department indicated that the UN also imposed similar sanctions on the militia leader who has been connected to the GNA.
In 2016, the International Criminal Court (ICC) received complaint by Libyan American Public Affairs Council (LAPAC) against Jadhran for closing the petroleum fields and ports in central Libya and weakened the Libyan economy.
Urban sprawl fills the foreground leading back to the skyscrapers of Los Angeles. Ron_Thomas | Getty Images
California mortgage manager Brandon Moss remembers the "scary time" when the industry fell to its knees during the 2008 financial crisis. Even so, Moss said he always knew the residential real estate and mortgage sector would bounce back from the colossal bust, so he stayed in the business and has no regrets. These days the home values in many Southern California markets have increased above the precrisis peak, and lending activity remains vibrant. "Once you get through these cycles, you know what it's like the next time around if something happens," Moss said. The 39-year-old Moss joined Fairway Independent Mortgage last year as greater LA area manager and a loan officer based in Calabasas. Fairway funded more than $21 billion in U.S. mortgages in 2017. Moss started in the mortgage business out of college in 2003, following in the footsteps of his father. He quickly rose through the ranks and would go on to hold senior positions at several independent mortgage companies and two banks. In 2003, the real estate business was red hot in Southern California and jobs in the industry were considered well-paying. From the mid-1990s until the downturn hit in 2007, home values in key California markets had more than tripled. "My dad said it's a great business so you should get involved," recalled Moss. "I went into the mortgage business and started as an assistant and quickly became an originator and built my business up very quickly at that time."
Brandon Moss, greater LA area manager and loan officer for Fairway Independent Mortgage Source: Brandon Moss
Moss began working for a privately owned mortgage banker in his first industry job. That company would later get acquired as part of a wave of industrywide consolidation as the refinancing business tapered off.
Subprime mortgage rage
It also was a period characterized by loosening of subprime residential lending standards as well as exotic mortgage products such as loans that let borrowers pay interest only or skip monthly payments. Subprime mortgages were a popular way for people with weak credit histories to buy homes with little to no money down. "You didn't need to have income documentation and didn't even need to have down payment," said Moss. "It was pretty wild back then." Big banks such as Citigroup, Wells Fargo and Bank of America dominated lending in 2003. There was also a giant pure play mortgage company, Countrywide Financial, then based near Los Angeles and one of the largest local employers in the mortgage industry. Yet UCLA economists were warning as far back as late 2003 that a new bubble might be forming and estimated homes in Southern California were overvalued by 10 to 15 percent. It was a sobering thought, especially since it was made by a group of economists credited as being the first major U.S. forecasting group to call the recession of 2001. "Right now the warning flags are starting to fly," wrote the UCLA Anderson Forecast in December 2003.
Super-heated market cools
By 2007, Countrywide and other major residential lenders were in trouble with massive losses due to problems in the risky subprime mortgage market. Subprime loans bundled into securities became toxic assets for financial institutions as delinquencies and foreclosures grew in California and other super-heated markets. "During the past two years the growth in home price appreciation has stopped dead in its tracks and in many areas of the country it has turned in the wrong direction," Countrywide's then-CEO, Angelo Mozilo, told employees in a letter in September 2007. Countrywide also announced then it would need to slash its payroll by up to 12,000 employees, or about 20 percent of its workforce.
The Countrywide Financial headquarters is seen on July 18, 2008 in Calabasas, California. David McNew | Getty Images
In the mortgage sector alone, about 125,000 jobs were lost in 2007 and 2008, according to Mortgage Daily, a trade publication. The mortgage industry, which employed roughly 535,000 in 2005, saw headcount plummet to around 246,000 by late 2010 but as of June 30, 2018, was just over 707,000. At the same time, major lenders began tightening home loan requirements in spring of 2007 as well as scaling back subprime loans. There also were more financial institutions exiting the business after they were unable to raise capital.
Mortgage meltdown spreads
"Right up to the crash, there were very few lenders still open and wanting to do loans because they lost their shirts in the securitization market," recalled Moss. "It was a scary time for everyone in the business." However, it wasn't long until the mortgage meltdown began spreading to the broader economy and would lead to the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were placed in government conservatorship in the fall of 2008, and AIG a seller of insurance on debt securities backed by the subprime mortgage was rescued by a government bailout. Lehman Brothers, an investment bank that had a role in the subprime debacle, didn't get a rescue and went bankrupt Sept. 15, 2008. "It was really with AIG that large numbers of people began to wrap their head around what was happening," said Aaron Terrazas, Zillow senior economist and a former economist in the Treasury Department's Office of Economic Policy. The financial crisis that morphed into the Great Recession would result in new regulations that would reshape how banks do business and alter the landscape of key players in the mortgage industry. The mortgage servicing side of the industry became "less concentrated" by 2012 as the share of loans serviced by nonbank players rose, a government report concluded in 2016.
Regulatory reforms
Regulatory change came with the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, including tighter standards for residential mortgage loans. The 2010 legislation also gave the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau broad regulatory responsibilities for home loans providers, although the Trump administration wants to scale back some of the watchdog agency's powers. Meantime, Countrywide ended up getting sold to Bank of America for approximately $4 billion in July 2008 but the deal would prove to cost tens of billions more when factoring in the bad loans, accounting write-downs, settlements and litigation costs. Between BofA and Countrywide, more than $600 billion in mortgage-backed securities were issued in the run-up to the 2008 financial crisis, according to The New York Times. Moss, who is married and has a young daughter, never worked for Countrywide and was lucky to never get laid off. He takes pride in the fact that he helped families stay in their homes during the tough times by getting them lower interest rates on loans and cutting monthly payments.
California market recovery
Moss said the rapid increase in home prices in recent years and "bidding wars" for properties in Southern California is somewhat reminiscent of what happened leading up to the housing bubble a decade ago.
Tesla and Space X CEO Elon Musk should be allowed to just be himself, noted astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson told CNBC on Wednesday.
Musk has come under scrutiny for his recent behavior, which includes his controversial tweet about taking Tesla private and appearing to smoke weed during a Sept. 6 podcast.
"I went to a highly, really selective college where people were really smart and really weird," said Tyson, who attended Harvard University.
"The weirdness became an element of their behavior that I just came to expect with people who had sort of singular abilities to think or to innovate or to project what a future would be," he told "Closing Bell."
Musk's idea to take Tesla private has since been abandoned. Meanwhile, the Air Force is looking into Musk's apparent use of pot, telling CNBC earlier this month it will need time to determine the facts and the appropriate process to handle the situation. SpaceX holds multiple military contracts.
The embattled CEO also had a bizarre interview in August with The New York Times where he talked about the "excruciating" past year.
SpaceX President and COO Gwynne Shotwell recently defended Musk, saying he is "as lucid and capable as he has ever been," Bloomberg reported.
"[He] is a brilliant man," Shotwell said, according to the report. "I wish people would not focus on triviality."
Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium at the Museum of Natural History in New York, said Musk needs to comply with the Securities and Exchange Commission since Tesla is a publicly traded company.
"He's got to obey. Otherwise there's consequences. Beyond that, let the man be an individual."
CNBC's Michael Sheetz contributed to this report.
Migrant children, many of whom have been separated from their parents under the "zero tolerance" policy by the Trump administration, are being housed in tents next to the Mexican border in Tornillo, Texas, U.S. June 18, 2018.
The number of migrant children being held in federally contracted shelters has risen to 12,800 this month, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services said Wednesday evening.
That number represents a more than fivefold increase since last May, setting a record, according to a report in The New York Times, which first reported the data.
In May 2017, the number was 2,400, the Times said. The increase in the number of children held in government shelters has strained the facilities, which are now near 90 percent capacity, versus 30 percent a year ago. The government operates about 100 such facilities.
The dramatic rise was caused by a reduction in the number of children being released to live with family members or other sponsors, according to the data reviewed by the Times, and not by an influx of children migrating into the country.
The Trump administration's immigration policies came under scrutiny earlier this year following the implementation of the so-called "zero tolerance" policy, which involved the forced separation of thousands of migrant families at the border. The administration has since struggled to reunite hundreds of those families in compliance with a court order.
"The Trump Administration continues to enforce current laws to address our Nation's crisis at the border," HHS spokesperson Evelyn Stauffer said in a statement Wednesday. "The number of families and unaccompanied alien children apprehended are a symptom of the larger problem, namely a broken immigration system."
Read the full report from The New York Times.
Skyline of London Justin Solomon | CNBC
Much better, but far from being problem-free most analysts describe the European banking system as "deleveraged and in a safer position" 10 years after the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the subsequent start of the global financial crisis. The failure of Lehman Brothers in 2008 roiled global markets. It was the fourth-largest U.S. investment bank and when it filed for bankruptcy on September 15, 2008, it led to an erosion of nearly $10 trillion in market capitalization in global equities in the following month. The collapse of Lehman unveiled that the bank had a huge problem with mortgage-backed securities a kind of asset, that were in fact worth very little compared to their price. But, more broadly, Lehman's problems were almost every bank's problems. In Europe, banks that had also taken elevated risks struggled to get funding and many had to be rescued by huge bailouts from their respective governments. "European banks deleveraged and increased their capital ratios after Lehman, so they are in theory in a safer position than 10 years ago," Carsten Hesse, European economist at Berenberg told CNBC via email on Tuesday. "But in some euro zone countries such as Greece or Italy, non-performing loans are still very high, causing headaches and the profitability of some banks, including in Germany, is still very low," he added.
Non-performing loans are one of the biggest drags to bank profitability in Europe. A high-level of bad loans increases the liabilities pile on a bank's balance sheet. As a result, the lender will have to generate higher profits to offset those liabilities. In recent times, European bank's profitability have also come under pressure due to a lower interest rate environment, uncertainties surrounding U.K's exit from the European Union. A report from the European Parliament from last March showed the level of bad loans has somewhat decreased over recent years, from 6.4 percent in December of 2014 to 4.2 percent at the end of September 2017. "However, the current NPL level in the EU is still higher than in other major developed countries," the report from European institutions said. Daniel Lacalle, chief economist and investment officer at Tressis Gestion, told CNBC via email that there is plenty of work to do when it comes to non-performing loans. "European banks have been building core capital and strengthening their balance sheets. However, it has not been fast enough and challenges remain. Non-performing loans in Europe are more than double relative to all loans than in the U.S., exposure to sovereign debt and risky emerging economies remain too high and net income margins are very weak," he said. Apart from reducing bad loans, there has also been a big push for stronger regulation. Banks have been forced to increase their capital ratios, the European Banking Authority was established to oversee lenders and it conducts regular stress tests to ensure the banks are strong enough to sustain a crisis. George Magnus, former chief economist at UBS, told "CNBC's Street Signs" Wednesday that regulation is more "intrusive" now, which has made some parts of the financial system safer compared to 10 years ago. "Having said, whilst personally I think regulatory authorities around the world may be in a much stronger position to spot and save individual institutions the clue to solve a systemic financial crisis is in the name systemic. Have we resolved the problems in the financial system and in the economic system that actually gave rise to this and previous crises? I don't think we have really done that," he said.
The problems that arose in the U.S., in particular at the Lehman Brothers, were not individual issues. The entire financial system took too much risk. "The challenges were extreme," Russell Downs, Partner at PwC and who was part of the team trying to clean up Lehman after the collapse, told CNBC. "We have had an awful lot to do, we have had hundreds of millions of assets to deal with," he said, adding that the former Lehman has managed to return over 44 billion pounds ($57.42 billion) worth of securities and assets to Lehman creditors. He, however, added that the environment is much calmer now. "The banks are smaller, they have got more capital so hopefully they will be better prepared to weather any financial storm that come," he said.
Where's the next crisis?
Ten years on, everyone is trying to understand where risks are mounting and forming the next crisis. "I don't think the next crisis is going to look like the last one, in the sense that the world isn't as leveraged as it was back 10 years ago," Jay Bryson, global Economist at Wells Fargo Securities told CNBC's "Squawk Box Europe" on Tuesday. While some number of analysts have pointed to China and its indebted system as the next crisis point, others have suggested that high-levels of global debt that currently stand at a record $247 trillion will be the kicking point; unrealistic stock prices as well as emerging economies have also been cited as potential starting points for the next crisis.
Bill Quinn surveys the damage caused to his trailer home from Hurricane Irma at the Seabreeze Trailer Park in Islamorada, in the Florida Keys, September 12, 2017. Saul Loeb | AFP | Getty Images
With Hurricane Florence set to deliver a devastating blow to the Carolinas beginning late Thursday morning through the weekend, residents there are bracing for the worst. But while many homeowners are boarding up windows and stocking up on food and water, thousands of workers across a number of industries are in overdrive, helping to serve, protect, save, restore and relieve the communities that will be affected by the storm. According to the National Hurricane Center, the Category 2 hurricane one of the strongest storms on the Eastern Seaboard in decades is expected to produce winds topping 80 mph, and "life-threatening storm surge and rainfall" could push water inland at heights of up to 20 feet along the coast, from Virginia Beach, Virginia, to Charleston, South Carolina. Rather than pushing up toward western Virginia, as initially thought, the storm's center is now predicted to pivot southward and move across the middle of South Carolina, making landfall on Saturday. Because of Florence's predicted path which is perpendicular to the coast rather than at an oblique angle the strong winds from the east and southeast will cause extensive storm surge flooding. According to data analytics firm CoreLogic, more than 750,000 homes in North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia are at potential risk of storm surge damage. The firm estimates threats to real estate will total about $170 billion. That would make Florence the costliest storm ever to hit the United States in terms of property loss. What's disturbing, however, is the fact that two-thirds of American homeowners have no idea what to do in the event of a disaster, according to a new survey by Belfor Property Restoration. What's more, only 7 percent of respondents listed hurricanes as their top concern when it comes to natural disasters; most cited tornadoes (25 percent) and fires (20 percent). And even though floods are the most common and costly natural disaster, only 8 percent of respondents listed flooding as a top concern. "It was shocking to find the results of Belfor's disaster preparedness survey showed U.S. homeowners are lacking the resources and awareness to prepare their homes, businesses and families for devastating situations," said the company's CEO, Sheldon Yellen. He says that most often, residents fail to clear storm drains of debris; turn off electricity, gas and water before evacuating; gather important paperwork and documents and move them to higher ground; and secure outdoor furniture and other lawn items that could become flying objects in strong winds. Fortunately, with about five hurricanes striking the United States coastline every three years, there are people ready to spring into action when storm surges, flooding and high winds threaten.
Hospitality workers
Alistair Berg | Getty Images
As soon as news spread that Hurricane Florence was bearing down for a direct hit on the coast of the Carolinas, business travelers began canceling hotel reservations in droves and relief workers began piling in. When Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina began issuing evacuation orders Monday, the reservations began to far outnumber the cancellations. But many wait it out and book just 24 hours ahead of time, waiting to see exactly where the storm is will hit. This may not be the smartest move, however: With nearly 900 flight cancellations and about 13,500 delays already reported at press time, thousands of people are stranded, and as a result, hotels are almost already booked solid.
Airline personnel
Izabela Habur | E+ | Getty Images
Flight disruptions are anticipated at more than a dozen airports nationwide, and major and smaller airports from Georgia to Virginia are already seeing flight disruptions because of Florence. To accommodate, many airlines are waving their flight-change fees ahead of the storm to enable people to leave the area quickly and to assist those who wish to fly in to the region. Mother Nature is unpredictable, though, and while current forecasts call for Florence to stall out over the mid-Atlantic after it approaches the coast, it could take a turn and airlines and air-traffic control will need to react to the reduced airspace capacity. This could lead to delays and cancellations in New York, Philadelphia, Washington and Atlanta.
Emergency responders
Thinkstock Images | Getty Images
First responders from across the United States including California, Indiana, Texas, Vermont and Colorado have been rushing to North Carolina all week to work evacuation routes, prep shelters and plan for the significant flooding. All in all, officials are expecting 1,000 rescue personnel to arrive in Raleigh. Their work starts long before a known disaster strikes and will continue for weeks afterward. They come with rescue boats, generators and medical supplies to aid in search-and-rescue operations and will be on hand to help the many residents opting to defy the odds and stay in their home.
Restoration specialists
Water main breaks, fire and harsh rainstorms keep disaster cleanup services busy day to day, but when a natural disaster strikes, these companies are called on to help out anywhere in the country for weeks on end, tending to flooded basements and cleaning up debris. "While water damage is challenging because it infiltrates and flows through everything, no damage is better or worse ... it's all catastrophic," said Yellen of Belfor Property Restoration. "We expect that the damage from this storm will be devastating." The revenue of a disaster restoration business is driven by natural disasters one major storm can garner a couple million dollars' worth of business.
Disaster relief workers
Red Cross volunteers assist in managing Hurricane Harvey evacuees at the Delco Center in East Austin on August 29, 2017. Suzanne Cordeiro | AFP | Getty Images
More than 700 disaster-relief workers are planning accommodations for those affected by Florence, according to Jeff Hall, spokesman for the Massachusetts chapter of the Red Cross. While many disaster-relief workers are volunteers 95 percent at Red Cross they respond to a startling number of disasters every year, providing comfort and shelter in a long-term recovery effort. The Red Cross claims they respond to 64,000 disasters yearly, or one every eight minutes, mostly home fires.
Forensic weather experts
If your property is damaged due to a natural disaster, you will most likely need to gather information for litigation or mediation purposes. This includes verifying wind speeds and/or the height of a storm surge at a specific time and location. A forensic meteorology and weather expert can provide comprehensive and site-specific analysis of past weather events affecting your specific case.
Self-storage unit owners
As homeowners prepare for reconstruction, the demand for self-storage units rises considerably. And small businesses damaged in the storm often vie for the extra space as well as they scramble to save their inventory. Yet it's hard to say if they will be lucky enough to find a unit to store their wares: The self-storage industry is one of the fastest-growing sectors of the U.S. commercial real estate industry, with total rentable storage space in the United States covering more than three times the size of Manhattan.
Tree-removal experts
High winds, especially those from a Category 2 hurricane, can gust 80 miles per hour or more and leave unprecedented destruction in its wake. Weather forecasters are saying that just because Florence has weakened slightly to a Category 2 hurricane, it is still extremely dangerous, as the storm surges will still be those of a Category 4. Even the healthiest trees are vulnerable, often wiping out power lines, crushing houses and cars and blocking roads. The damage can happen in an instant, yet the cleanup can take months, costing anywhere from $200 to $1,500 depending on the size of the fallen tree.
Auto mechanics
Flooding, accidents and tree damage wreak havoc on automobiles. In 2013 the damage after Hurricane Sandy resulted in 54,642 auto claims in New Jersey, with insurance companies paying out more than $530 million to auto-repair shops. In New York claims nearly reached 110,000, with auto-repair shops hauling in $1.5 billion.
Hardware-store employees
With batteries, flashlights, bags of sand, portable generators and plywood at the top of every hurricane survival-kit checklist, people are flocking to box stores such as BJs and Home Depot, as well as every mom-and-pop hardware store, to stock up. Many stores are opening hours earlier than usual to accommodate the rush. Sales will continue in the aftermath, as people try to repair the damage. Home Depot said it expects to see a rise in the purchase of tarps, cleaning supplies, chain saws and fuel.
Grocers
An employee stocks shelves at a Kosher grocery store. Fabrizio Bensch | Reuters
A Food and Drug Administration crackdown on e-cigarettes could be a boost for big tobacco, Piper Jaffray's Michael Lavery told CNBC on Thursday.
There is "directionally, no question" these companies would benefit, Lavery said in a "Closing Bell" interview.
"If a crackdown reduces the number of smokers switching to e-cigs, it would likely be bad for public health but financially a benefit for public tobacco companies," he later wrote in an email.
The FDA on Wednesday ordered five brands Juul, British American Tobacco's Vuse, Altria's MarkTen, Imperial Brands' Blu E-cigs and Japan Tobacco's Logic to submit plans, within 60 days, to discourage teen use of their products. It is considering restricting e-cigarette manufacturers from selling flavored nicotine liquid or making the products undergo an agency review.
"E-cigarette use among youth has hit epidemic proportions," the FDA said in a press release that also detailed "a large-scale, undercover nationwide blitz to crack down on the sale of e-cigarettes to minors at both brick-and-mortar and online retailers."
The coming crackdown could spell trouble for companies such as Juul. Their products, available in sweet flavors, are popular with young people, who can hide the sleek devices from parents and teachers.
Big tobacco, on the other hand, could benefit in a couple of ways.
There is no industry-wide data to show how many customers vaping companies steal from tobacco, but a survey of 19,000 Juul users, conducted by the company and detailed in a Piper Jaffray note, said that about 62 percent were smokers when starting to use Juul. About two-thirds of them quit after beginning to use Juul.
In the context of huge tobacco companies, that impact is rather modest, Lavery said, but any move to slow or stop the migration of smokers to vaping products would benefit big tobacco.
Beyond that, vaping research and development is actually costing tobacco companies as they attempt to gain market share in the burgeoning industry, Lavery said. A crackdown could mean less emphasis on those investments.
"The cigarette companies make all their money in cigarettes that's the high-margin business where they have scale. And they all have smaller vape or e-cigarette businesses, but they are still in investment mode. They make little or no money there and, in some cases, lose money," Lavery said.
Following Wednesday's announcement, tobacco stocks surged then pared some of those gains on Thursday.
CNBC's Angelica LaVito contributed to this report.
Akhtar has been responsible for running operations for Fairview Health Services in Minneapolis since July of 2017. Before that, he worked for almost 8 years at Sutter Health, a hospital system in the Bay Area. he started his career in health administration at Stanford University, where Apple has made many of its prominent health hires including Desai.
Akhtar will be reporting to Sumbul Desai, a senior employee on the health team who's been staffing up Apple's employee health clinics, called AC Wellness. Akhtar will work with Desai on the medical clinics, according to people familiar with the hire, although he may also be involved in other projects.
Akhtar has not updated his LinkedIn page to reflect his new role. Apple declined to comment on the hire.
Apple has added more than 40 people to its health clinics in the past three months to help it serve employees at the company's headquarters. These include nurses, doctors and care navigators. Akhtar is the most senior new employee to join the team.
Apple's health team has ballooned in recent years as it has brought on doctors, technologists and regulatory experts to help it bolster its medical features on the Apple Watch. On Wednesday, the company announced a new EKG sensor for the next generation of its Apple Watch, will be be released later in the year. For that, it received clearance from federal regulators to help alert people with a condition called Atrial Fibrillation, which is the leading cause of stroke.
Apple's Jeff Williams has described the company's mission in health care as about giving patients direct access to their health information. "Hopefully save a lot of lives," he told CNBC in an interview in 2017, adding that the company is serious about the sector at the highest levels. "The executive team has embraced this," he said. "It's hard not to get excited."
Spanish Association La Libertad es su derecho has denounced the abduction and confinement of dozens of Sahrawis women in Tindouf camps, Southern Algeria, by the Polisario separatist front.
Members of this Association were received lately in Madrid by Spanish Secretary of State to Foreign Affairs Fernando Martin Valenzuela who was briefed on the plight and lamentable situation suffered by these Sahrawis women, some of whom have Spanish nationality.
During the meeting, spokesperson of La Libertad es su derecho Elisa Pavon made a presentation focusing on the complaint filed at UN Human Rights Council and the call launched by the European Parliaments petitions committee, urging European institutions to act against the atrocities and the human rights violations committed by the polisario militiamen who are armed, funded and sheltered by Algerian authorities.
Mrs. Pavon underlined the responsibility of the Algerian government to ensure the respect of the rights of the Sahrawi women sequestered in the Tindouf camps and called on the Spanish government to take urgent actions to end the sufferings endured by these women, who are Spanish citizens.
The Spanish Secretary of State to Foreign Affairs pledged to maintain contact with the Spanish adoptive families of these Sahrawi women held against their will in the Tindouf camps by the Polisario separatists.
Human Rights Watch has expressed serious concerns over the restrictions imposed on Sahrawi women in the Tindouf camps, saying holding an adult woman against her will is illegal confinement.
HRW affirmed that these women should exercise their freedom of movement, noting that past and future acts of illegal confinement are punished as crimes.
As adults, these Sahrawi women have the right to decide freely whether they wish to remain with their family members in the Tindouf camps or leave. Their right to freedom of movement does not depend on their nationality, but is a right enjoyed by everyone, underlined the human rights organization.
Job seekers browse job notices at a jobs and skills expo run by the Australian government in Melbourne, Australia.
Australian employment blew past all expectations in August while the jobless rate held steady as more people joined the labor force, a mix that works against wage growth even as it supports consumer spending power.
Figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) released on Thursday showed 44,000 net new jobs were added in August when analysts had looked for an increase of 15,000. Of those 33,700 were in full-time position.
Annual jobs growth of 2.5 percent was well ahead of the U.S. pace of job creation of 1.6 percent.
The larger-than-expected jump will be a relief to policymakers who are counting on the ongoing labor market tightness to ultimately lift wage growth which is crawling near record lows.
The August unemployment rate held steady at a six-year trough of 5.3 percent while the underemployment rate - those in jobs but wanting more hours - declined to 8.1 percent from 8.5 percent in May.
That drop sent the underutilization rate to the lowest in over five years at 13.4 percent.
"The best news was the decline in the underutilization rate," said Callam Pickering, APAC Economist for global job site Indeed.
"The underutilization measure is more highly correlated to wage growth than the traditional unemployment rate. So this development is a welcome one for future wage growth," Pickering said.
"Although we still have a long way to go."
The data provided only a brief fillip to the as an increase in the official cash rate to 1.75 percent is still seen as a distant prospect.
The ABS figures showed the participation rate rose to 65.7 percent, matching a record high hit earlier this year.
July employment growth was also revised downwards to show a drop of 4,300 from the previously reported 3,900 fall.
Australia's labor market has remained strong since early 2017 but that has yet to translate into bigger pay awards for workers.
Even so, the weak wage growth has so far not been a deterrent to economy-wide spending as the unemployment rate has steadily fallen.
Data out earlier this month showed the A$1.8 trillion economy accelerated at a brisk 3.4 percent pace last quarter with household consumption contributing handily, yet there was little sign of wage or price pressures.
As a result, the Reserve Bank of Australia has held rates at a record low 1.5 percent for more than two years now as it awaits a revival in consumer prices and further falls in unemployment.
Markets imply scant chance of a move until 2020, with interbank futures only showing a 50-50 chance of a hike by Christmas next year.
Chef Jose Andres has some choice words for President Donald Trump.
The president on Thursday rejected the official death toll from hurricanes that slammed Puerto Rico last fall. Without evidence, he blamed Democrats for grossly inflating the tally.
Andres, who traveled to Puerto Rico to help those on the island shortly after Hurricane Maria hit, told CNBC on Thursday, "This is insane."
"Nobody should be proud," he said on "Power Lunch."
"We should be honoring those people, those men and women, that died. What is astonishing to me is that a year later we are still talking about this," he added.
Trump made his comments Thursday morning on Twitter, saying "3000 people did not die in the two hurricanes that hit Puerto Rico."
Trump tweet 1
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In August, the Puerto Rican government raised the official death count dramatically to 2,975, after maintaining for months that only 64 people had died as a result of Hurricanes Maria and Irma.
Andres said this should have been known a long time ago.
"If we knew officially that there were so many deaths, the full weight of the federal government will be there in Puerto Rico making sure that we will help those American people in the Caribbean," he said.
The chef, who has 31 restaurants in North America and the Caribbean, arrived on Puerto Rico five days after Hurricane Maria hit and quickly set up shop to get food to those affected. He worked with World Central Kitchen and 20,000 volunteers, staying roughly three months and serving about 3 million meals.
"If I was able to know how many meals I was serving every day, if I knew how many volunteers I had, if I knew how many kitchens I had, if a little NGO [non-governmental organization] that was not supposed to be there was able to know all of that, how is it possible the federal government and the government of Puerto Rico were clueless on the real number of deaths? Those questions need to be answered."
Earlier in the day, he slammed Trump on Twitter.
Andres tweet 1
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Andres has now written a memoir about his time in Puerto Rico, called "We Fed an Island." He received the James Beard Humanitarian of the Year award for his work in Puerto Rico and has been twice named in Time Magazine's "100 Most Influential People."
CNBC's Kevin Breuninger and AJ Vielma contributed to this report.
Chinese millennials have a unique identity that's different from their western counterparts, said one China expert.
Foreign firms hoping to tap into the market of young Chinese adults need to understand what shapes their decisions, Zakary Dychtwald, the founder and CEO of think tank Young China Group told CNBC at the CLSA Investors' Forum on Tuesday.
There are currently about 400 million millennials in China, he said, adding that the figure is well above the number of millennials in the U.S. and Canada combined.
Just the sheer number of those belonging to this group, also known as Generation Y, warrants notice as they hold "enormous economic and political consequence," noted Dychtwald, who authored a book called "Young China."
A lot of Chinese millennials are well traveled, exposed to international culture and may not agree that western nations represent the idyllic "city on the hill" that they were once told, Dychtwald said.
They want to be recognized for being culturally different from their western peers, and they may not even desire westernization, he added.
The top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Dianne Feinstein of California, said Thursday that she has referred a letter concerning Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh to federal authorities.
"I have received information from an individual concerning the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court," Feinstein said. "That individual strongly requested confidentiality, declined to come forward or press the matter further, and I have honored that decision. I have, however, referred the matter to federal investigative authorities."
Feinstein's announcement came shortly after the committee set a date to vote on Kavanaugh's nomination over the objections of Democrats.
Later Thursday, The Washington Post, citing a person familiar with the matter, reported that the FBI did not plan to open an investigation. The law enforcement agency included the letter as an update to Kavanaugh's background check provided to the White House, a spokesperson for the bureau told CNBC.
Feinstein's disclosure came during the last weeks of Kavanaugh's confirmation process, and followed a report Wednesday night in the investigative news outlet The Intercept that first disclosed the existence of the letter. According to the outlet, the letter is rumored to include details about an incident involving Kavanaugh that took place during his time at Georgetown Preparatory School in Maryland.
The incident involved possible sexual misconduct between Kavanaugh and a woman who was also in high school at the time, two officials familiar with the matter told The New York Times. CNBC has not independently confirmed the contents of the letter.
Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., told Buzzfeed News earlier in the day that the letter had been referred to the FBI. A source familiar with the matter confirmed Durbin's comments to CNBC Thursday.
The letter was reportedly written by someone affiliated with Stanford University. It was sent to Rep. Anna Eshoo, who represents California's 14th District, before being passed along to Feinstein.
A spokesperson for Eshoo's office declined to comment on the matter.
"Our office has a confidentiality policy regarding constituent casework," the spokesperson told NBC News.
Feinstein has not shared details about the letter beyond her statement Thursday, and no other senators on the Judiciary Committee have been permitted to see it, according to reports.
The woman who is the subject of the letter is reportedly represented by Debra Katz, a whistleblower attorney who has been described as "Washington's top attorney for women who want to fight back" in a profile in the magazine The Washingtonian.
Former Treasury Secretary Jack Lew is making the move to mortgages.
Lew announced Thursday he will chair the advisory board of consumer-lending tech company Blend. The San Francisco-based start-up handles online mortgage applications for incumbents like Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, U.S. Bank and Wells Fargo.
The company has attracted $160 million of private funding from Andreessen Horowitz, Greylock Partners, Peter Thiel's Founders Fund and other venture investors, according to Crunchbase.
"Blend is transforming home finance, which is critical to our nation's economy," said Lew, who also was director of the Office of Management and Budget in the Clinton and Obama administrations. "The company is uniquely positioned to simplify more areas of consumer lending in partnership with banks, lenders, and other technology providers."
Fintech newcomers like Blend have made serious inroads in the mortgage business, which plagued banks during the financial crisis a decade ago.
In 2008, lenders got caught up in offering easy access to money and high-risk loans, with little to no documentation. The DoddFrank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, or Dodd-Frank, banned risky loan products and now requires way more documentation. Lenders also need to disclose all the costs involved in each loan and verify someone's ability to repay.
What would have been added paperwork required by Dodd-Frank has largely gone online and replaced with data.
Companies like Blend still need to collect private information like a W-2 and payslips. But having it stored online means verification in fewer steps, and "less friction," when assessing someone's creditworthiness, according to CEO Nima Ghamsari.
"This data is being verified in real time, it's harder to make the wrong decision," Ghamsari told CNBC. "That's not to say the financial crisis was caused by the lack of data but symmetry around data can mitigate that kind of risk."
Tech companies like Lenda, SoFi, Lending Tree, Quicken Loans and RocketMortgage are among those using machine learning to issue loans in "one click."
Blend, which partners with some of those start-ups and said it processes more than $1 billion in applications per day, is opting for the partnership approach.
"Financial institutions know they can't build everything themselves," Ghamsari said. "There's been more of an equilibrium where the banks and fintechs are working together, and will accelerate the pace of innovation."
The company also said Marc Greenberg, who spent 15 years leading finance operations at Pixar Animation Studios, will join the company as head of finance.
Google's email security lead Mark Risher talks about how people can update their thinking about email scams.
Google's head fraud-fighter wants you to know you might be a much more valuable target than you think. Scammers target people regardless of how prominent they are, said Mark Risher, who oversees the company's initiatives to protect Gmail and other Google properties against cyberattacks. "It could just be a case of mistaken identity or guilt by association. They could be using someone who seems to be low value to pivot toward somebody considered a higher value target, like somebody political in nature," he told CNBC. "Or maybe they saw that you were discussing Bitcoin on a public message board." In any of these scenarios, attackers can use your social profile or email account to fish out valuable information, or break into your email account to do a password reset on your valuable financial accounts or cryptocurrency wallets. Here's some of what Risher warned us about.
The risks of bragging about your bitcoin
Risher said there has been uptick in attacks against people who hold cryptocurrencies in digital wallets. These attacks can often be traced back to a post by the victim on a public message board, which is then quickly followed by criminal attempts on their email accounts. The reason is simple: Some cryptocurrency wallet providers allow users to reset their access to the wallet through email. Attackers can then use the email reset to open the wallet and steal cryptocurrency.
Scam messages have gotten personal
It's a mistake to associate decades-old email scams like the once-prolific "Nigerian Prince" scam with today's criminals, he said. The newer crop of email attacks often come across as indistinguishable from personal messages you could receive from friends or family. "You might think of this generic 'Dear Sir or Madam, I am contacting you to ask you for a favor,' but the truth is many of these attackers have done some serious research on their victims," he said. "So you might get what we call 'social truth' in your message." Finding this "social truth" personal details about your life that make a scam message seem authentic is getting easier as the amount of data we share grows. People tend to contribute to this growth by creating then forgetting about email addresses, message board posts and social media accounts. Information seldom disappears from the internet, even if we forget about it. "Our data is all over the place," he said.
One degree of separation
Criminals are also becoming much better at gaining access to "high-value targets," like executives at prominent businesses or political figures, by taking a circuitous route through people who work with them or are loosely connected to them. If you've ever volunteered for a political campaign, gone to a dinner party hosted by a CEO or worked for a well-known technology company, that person could be you. Criminals have also shown they can wend their way into anyone's email account by going through a chain of password resets through a long-forgotten account. For email threats like these, which are often more persistent and backed by nation-states, Google sends an alert to customers that government-based hackers may be trying to steal their password. Risher said it matters because people who are aware that they may be on the wrong end of a particularly effective and powerful type of attack may take additional security steps if they have that information.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell speaks with reporters following the weekly policy luncheons at the U.S. Capitol June 26, 2018 in Washington, DC.
Investors may be too comfortable in their view that Senate Republicans will hold on to their majority in the upcoming election or even add to it, according to Strategas.
If the election were held today, Strategas said, it's likely the GOP would hold on to its 51 percent majority. But Strategas added that the current probabilities of the GOP keeping that Senate majority, near 75 percent, are too high given the tightening in some polls.
In other words, the outcome everyone expects and that is reflected in the current market may be less of a slam dunk than people think.
Dan Clifton, Strategas head of policy research, said, in a note, that the odds of a repeat Republican-majority Senate could start to fall with new polls. He pointed to recent polls showing Democrats gaining ground in five key states. This runs contrary to the thinking of some strategists that the Republican majority could actually increase after the Nov. 6 election.
In the glittering Mediterranean Sea sits a diamond-shaped island shrouded in secrecy: Montecristo. It opens twice a year to the public...but only for a lucky few. The beautiful island of Montecristo is the fourth largest island of the Tuscan Archipelago (a chain of islands west of Tuscany, Italy including Elba and Capraia) and is about four square miles in size. It has a colorful history full of monks, pirates and saints. The island also serves as the supposed site of a buried treasure in the classic novel, "The Count of Monte Cristo" by Alexandre Dumas. But what makes it so amazing is that the 5 million-year-old island is virtually untouched, preserving its rich biodiversity; it's home to flora, fauna (like wild goats) and marine life.
Wild goats (Capra aegagrus hircus), Montecristo island, Tuscan Archipelago National Park, Tuscany, Italy. DEA | S. VANNINI | Getty Images
It's also extremely exclusive: Only four people live on the island two groundskeepers and two rotating members of its military police force, according to Lonely Planet. And the island only began granting access to visitors for the first time in 2008. Now outsiders are only allowed just five months a year, and even then, space is extremely limited. Visitors are welcomed on day passes (which reportedly cost around $60) from Aug. 31 to Oct. 31 and from April 1 to July 5. In an effort to protect Montecristo's environment, a maximum of 1,000 visitors are allowed to visit the island a year (roughly 50 visitors are permitted a day) with 600 spots reserved for students and 400 for adults. Preference reportedly goes to scientific teams and educational trips. This type of adventure isn't for procrastinators or solo travelers, either: You'll need to plan ahead and get a big group together in order to make this a successful getaway.
Cala Maestra, Montecristo island, Tuscan Archipelago National Park, Tuscany, Italy. DEA | S. VANNINI | Getty Images
"The island is not served by scheduled ferries and therefore those who get authorization to visit must independently find a boat suitable to cover the approximately 40 nautical miles from the mainland," Aurora Ciardelli, a spokeswoman for the Tuscan Archipelago's National Park, told The Local.
Airlines have canceled more than 1,100 flights scheduled for Thursday and Friday in the Carolinas and Virginia as Hurricane Florence bears down on the East Coast with 100 mph winds.
The Category 2 hurricane could bring more than 2 feet of rainfall along the North Carolina coast and in northeastern South Carolina that would produce "catastrophic flash flooding," the National Hurricane Center warned.
Charleston International Airport closed Wednesday night and will remain shut until at least Friday, a spokeswoman said. Operations were also suspended at a dozen other airports in the region. Southwest Airlines will stop flying out of Charlotte Douglas International Airport on Thursday through at least Friday night. American Airlines canceled more than 800 flights in and out of the region through Sunday, but said it did not expect the storm to cause it to cancel flights in its Charlotte hub.
American, Delta Air Lines, JetBlue Airways and United Airlines said they capped some airfares at levels below what last-minute tickets would cost. Airlines were criticized on social media last year when fares soared ahead of storms. Last-minute fares generally spike during periods of high demand and airlines have to change prices manually for events like a large storm.
Carriers are also waiving fees for changing flights, baggage and for in-cabin pets for travelers who could be affected by the storm. Delta said it added about 1,000 seats to its service to the Carolinas ahead of Florence
Time is running short to get out of the way of Hurricane Florence, a monster of a storm that has a region of more than 10 million people in its potentially devastating sights as it zeroes in on the Southeastern coast.
"Damaging hurricane-force winds are likely along portions of the coasts of South Carolina and North Carolina as soon as this evening," the National Hurricane Center (NHC) said on Thursday.
The hurricane weakened to a Category 2 storm with winds of 105 mph about 145 miles southeast of Wilmington, North Carolina as of 11 a.m. ET Thursday. But authorities at the NHC warned Florence has an enormous wind field that has been growing larger, raising the risk of the ocean surging on to land and making Florence extremely dangerous. The storm is still expected to hit portions of the Carolinas with life-threatening storm surge and rainfall, according to the NHC.
"Do not focus on the wind speed category ... life-threatening storm surge flooding, catastrophic flash flooding and prolonged significant river flooding are still expected," NHC said in a tweet.
A live stream of the storm is being broadcast from Frying Pan Tower, 34 miles off the coast of Cape Fear, North Carolina.
The Government of Romania has praised the serious and sustained efforts made by Morocco in a bid to reach a definitive and lasting solution to the Sahara issue, saying it fully supports a political solution to this regional conflict.
Bucharest voiced this stand in a press release issued after talks between Minister of Foreign Affairs Teodor Melescanu and his visiting Moroccan peer Nasser Bourita.
Talks between the two sides focused on Romanias upcoming Presidency of the Council of the European Union (EU), bilateral cooperation, the return of Morocco to the African Union and latest developments on the regional and international scene.
At a joint press conference held after their meeting, Bourita hailed the role played by Bucharest on the regional and international scene, underlining Moroccos support to Romanias candidacy to the UN Security Council.
We reckon that the presence of Romania at the UN Security Council will bring in an added value, he said, noting that Romania will make a very useful contribution for the preservation of peace and stability, particularly in Africa and the Middle East.
During his trip to Bucharest, Bourita also conferred with Romanian Prime Minister Viorica Dancila and several influential MPs on ways to foster partnership in the political, economic and cultural fields.
Bouritas visit to Romania is part of a tour to the Balkan region aimed at expanding and diversifying the Kingdoms partners in Europe.
After his visits to Serbia and Romania, the Moroccan official will travel to Bulgaria.
Malaysia should take "take advantage" of the opportunities arising from escalating trade tensions between the U.S. and China, Malaysian Finance Minister Lim Guan Eng told CNBC on Thursday.
The Malaysian economy has been "influenced" by the ongoing trade war between Washington and Beijing, he said, but that could actually be "positive" for the country in the short run despite the outlook appearing "a bit uncertain," Lim said.
There have been many inquiries from those "who wish to be in the right position" if the trade war escalates, he said.
"Our problem at the moment, with our manufacturing industries, is a problem of capacity whether we can ramp up capacity in the shortest possible time," Lim said. "There's a lot of inquiries, not only from China but also from United States."
"We should try to take advantage (of the situation) whilst we can," he added.
But he acknowledged that "in the long term, we hope the trade war would fizzle out because it's not good for the global economy and what's not good for the global economy is not good for Malaysia in the long term."
Lim said he supported global trade, "especially if it is fair."
Hans Vestberg, newly installed CEO of Verizon, told CNBC on Thursday that the company will push on with its plans for Oath, despite the impending departure of the digital media unit's chief executive, Tim Armstrong.
"Our ambition is, of course, that we both can leverage the strength of the Verizon side, the network and the distribution, and bringing the Oath assets in there," Vestberg said in a "Squawk Alley" interview.
Verizon announced Wednesday that Armstrong, head of media and advertising and a holdover from the 2015 AOL acquisition, will leave at the end of the year. CNBC reported Armstrong was in talks to depart as of Sept. 7.
Armstrong spearheaded Verizon's efforts to combine AOL and Yahoo into a digital advertising and content giant, called Oath. Those efforts have yet to produce significant growth, and with Armstrong's departure, remain unfinished.
Oath's president and chief operating officer, K. Guru Gowrappan, will assume the role of chief executive effective Oct. 1, Verizon said in a release Wednesday.
But that doesn't mean Verizon is done with Oath yet.
Vestberg praised Armstrong and his team for doing the work of combining "a lot of different assets," including media channels, advertising and cutting-edge technology, to make up Oath. Now is the time "to execute on that," Vestberg said.
"We are in that moment right now to have this conversation, and seeing that we bring the best benefits out of the total Verizon for our customers, for our distribution," Vestberg said.
Among Vestberg's goals are gaining a wider market share for Oath's advertising technology platform and media channels.
"That's how we measure the success of it," he added.
The move could signal a shift in Verizon's media and advertising strategy, which has increasingly diverged in recent months from that of its closest competitor, AT&T. In June, AT&T completed its purchase of Time Warner, launching an advertising-focused strategy that included several smaller acquisitions. Verizon had hoped to compete with Google and Facebook in the digital advertising marketplace through Oath. Instead, the unit is expected to lose a share of the market, which continues to be dominated by the two technology giants, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Vestberg, promoted from chief technology officer, succeeded Lowell McAdam as CEO of the No. 1 U.S. wireless carrier earlier this month. McAdam, who had been chief executive since August 2011, continues as chairman of the board. Before joining Verizon last year, Vestberg spent six years as CEO of Swedish telecom powerhouse Ericsson.
CNBC's David Faber and Michael Sheetz contributed to this report.
Iraqi protesters gather outside the burning headquarters of the Iranian consulate in the southern city of Basra on September 7, 2018 during demonstrations over poor public services. Haidar MOHAMMED ALI | AFP | Getty Images
Iraq's oil-rich Basra province is being rocked by renewed violence as summer protests regain momentum, threatening oil facilities and the country's leadership.
Thousands of Iraqis have been taking to the streets daily over the last week, torching government buildings and political party offices in a show of anger against abject living conditions, government corruption and foreign influence.
The past week saw rockets fired at the U.S. consulate and Basra airport. The Iranian consulate and offices of powerful Iranian-backed Shia paramilitary groups were also set alight.
So far, at least 12 protesters have been killed and more than 200 injured by security forces, deployed against the demonstrators for the first time this year in a sign of mounting panic from the government.
As home to most of the oil production facilities for OPEC's second-largest producer, Basra in crisis could have a material impact on oil output and prices, analysts say.
It may also see Iraq's Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi pushed from power, creating even more uncertainty for the war-scarred nation and its 15-year old democracy.
"We've seen protests around facilities and threats being made against oil companies. Some companies have taken their foreign workers out," Helima Croft, global head of commodity strategy at RBC Capital Markets, told CNBC.
"Production hasn't been hit yet, but if you were to have one facility go down, you could lose upwards of 700,000 to 800,000 barrels of production, so it's a big story to watch."
Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal, delivers a speech during the evening session on the fourth day of the Republican National Convention on July 21, 2016 at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio.
Peter Thiel, the PayPal co-founder, venture capitalist and Facebook board member who gained national attention for his support of Donald Trump's presidential campaign, is blaming Silicon Valley's liberalism on higher education.
"It's probably the most educated part of the country in terms of how much time people spent in college," Thiel said on Wednesday's episode of "The Rubin Report" podcast, hosted by Dave Rubin. "I think one of the downsides of too much education is that you get the most brainwashed."
Thiel, who calls himself a libertarian, told Rubin that many people were using the liberal tag as a "fashion statement," especially since their training and education didn't require them to delve into politics. He said that a Silicon Valley friend of his admitted at a dinner party before the 2016 election that he was going to vote for Trump but wasn't telling his colleagues to avoid facing the backlash.
"Even if you took a survey of Silicon Valley it comes out as quite far to the left, weirdly uniform, weird sort of groupthink," Thiel said. "It's super hard to know whether people really believe this, whether they're just going along. I think it's pretty liberal, but not as liberal as it looks, which is in a way worse. It means people are too scared to articulate things."
He said that people protesting Trump in liberal cities like New York and San Francisco aren't really contrary thinkers. Earlier this year, Thiel said he was moving from Silicon Valley to Los Angeles because of the Bay Area's attitude toward conservatives.
"Is this what people really think or are they under incredible peer pressure to fit in?" he said on the podcast.
This mindset has forced people to "overreach" on topics like diversity, Thiel said. Political correctness has become so extreme that instead of just giving privileges to disadvantaged groups, people are attacking "real or imagined" oppressors, he continued. Thiel said that during his time at Stanford University in the 1980s and early 1990s, there were "draconian speech codes on campus" rather than a true focus on the humanities.
"Diversity of ideas is to be valued, but you don't have real diversity when you have people who look different and think alike," Thiel said. "The diversity myth is that it's not about diversity at all. It's about conformity."
These aren't new ideas for Thiel. In 2011, he started the Thiel Fellowship program, paying $100,000 to entrepreneurs under age 20 who were willing to leave college for two years and develop business plans instead.
In this Monday, Sept. 10, 2018, photo, Idalis Fernandez walks to her hotel room provided by FEMA with her son Adrian, 2, at the Baymont Inn in Kissimmee, Fla. Vouchers that paid for hotel rooms for Puerto Rican evacuees end Friday, leaving many to find roofs over their heads.
Like many Puerto Ricans who fled to the mainland after Hurricane Maria, Jose Santiago has been scrambling to find a place to live. The federal vouchers that pay for his hotel room near the Orlando airport expire at checkout time Friday.
He has visited apartment complexes, but his name gets put on waiting lists. He has applied for assistance for apartment housing from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, but it won't give him any money unless he has a lease. And he can't sign a lease without money for a deposit and first and last months' rent.
Santiago, 40, can afford to pay only $500 to $800 a month with his job driving cars for an auction house. At this point, he's ready to just rent a room to put a roof over his head.
"At that amount, it's difficult," Santiago, whose tidy hotel room has a cooking range and refrigerator, said in Spanish. "It's not impossible, but it's very difficult."
The clock began ticking late last month for hundreds of Puerto Rican evacuees who rely on federal assistance to pay for hotel rooms. A federal judge in Massachusetts set Friday as the deadline for the vouchers to end after denying an effort to force FEMA to continue the program. The ruling by U.S. District Judge Timothy Hillman, who expressed anguish over his decision, ended almost three months of legal challenges and extensions.
As of Tuesday, there were more than 600 families using the vouchers on the mainland, with more than half of those families in Florida. Almost 400 families were using the vouchers on the island.
The judge's decision is forcing Idalis Fernandez to split up her family. Her husband and 2-year-old son, Adrian, are heading back to Puerto Rico where family members can watch the boy and her husband has a job lined up. She is staying in Florida, where she has work as a line cook at Walt Disney World, and where the couple's oldest son, 11-year-old Alexander, is doing well in school.
Finding an apartment has been difficult, she said, since many rental companies require that she earn three times her monthly rent.
"I have nothing in Puerto Rico. At least I can stay here and work," Fernandez, 28, said in Spanish as she held Adrian outside a motel in Orlando's tourist district.
FEMA hasn't done enough for the evacuees, forcing local governments and organizations to step up, advocates say.
"Now the location (the families) chose in a moment of deep urgency and disaster is affecting their ability to find housing. This is exactly what we were trying to avoid," said Natasha Lycia Ora Bannan, a lawyer with Latino Justice PRLDEF, which brought the lawsuit against FEMA.
FEMA, amid preparations for Hurricane Florence to hit the mid-Atlantic, didn't respond to an email this week seeking comment. But the agency has said it has provided a variety of housing options for people left homeless by Hurricane Maria, which hit Puerto Rico head-on nearly a year ago. It has also dismissed suggestions that the evacuees were being treated differently from those displaced by hurricanes in Texas and Florida last year.
FEMA said in a court filing last month that Puerto Rico has received $3.9 billion in assistance for Hurricane Maria, compared with $2.4 billion for Texas for Hurricane Harvey and $1.1 billion for Florida for Hurricane Irma.
In central Florida, the local United Way is offering up to $5,000 toward security deposits for some families. In New York City, more than 540 Puerto Rican evacuees are already in the city shelter system, and 30 other families may end up there after their hotel vouchers end.
Massachusetts, the state with the second largest number of evacuee families after Florida, will allow families with children and people with medical conditions to remain in hotels temporarily on the state's dime, said Gina Plata-Nino, an attorney with the Central West Justice Center. The state will also provide some housing assistance for certain families to help them move into more permanent homes, she said.
But more than two dozen households in Massachusetts who don't qualify for the state program will become homeless Friday, Plata-Nino said.
U.S. Rep. Darren Soto, whose staffers held office hours at three central Florida hotels this week to assist evacuees, put the blame on President Donald Trump and a Republican-dominated Congress that did not pass supplemental disaster relief assistance.
"President Trump, to this day, has not acknowledged, not only the lack of resources and slow response time, but the continued issues in Puerto Rico," said Soto, a Democrat whose district covers a part of metro Orlando. "It didn't have to be this way."
Trump this week called the response to Hurricane Maria "an incredible, unsung success" and said his administration did an "underappreciated great job."
Puerto Rico's governor last month raised the U.S. territory's official death toll from Hurricane Maria from 64 to 2,975.
On Thursday, Trump, without citing evidence, said that number was wrong and called it a plot by Democrats to make him look bad.
Two Russians appeared on state television on Thursday, saying they had been wrongly accused by Britain of trying to murder a former Russian spy and his daughter in England and that they had visited Salisbury in March for tourism.
British prosecutors last week identified two Russians they said were operating under aliases - Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov - whom they accused of trying to poison Sergei and Yulia Skripal with a military-grade nerve agent in England.
The two men who appeared on Russia's state-funded RT television station had some physical similarities to the men shown in British police images.
"Our friends had been suggesting for a long time that we visit this wonderful town," one of the men said of the English town of Salisbury in a short clip of the interview played by RT.
Sales at Sears and Kmart stores open for at least 12 months were down 3.9 percent during the second quarter, compared with a decline of 11.9 percent in the prior period. The 3.9 percent drop included a same-store sales decline of 3.7 percent at Kmart stores and a 4 percent decline at Sears stores. The company also said it saw positive comparable sales growth of 3 percent in July and 2.5 percent in August.
Sears, faced with mounting liabilities, continues to be in a race to sell off assets, cut costs and reduce debt, in a fight to keep the business afloat. Although same-store sales declines slowed during the latest period, they remain steep, illustrating the iconic retailer hasn't won shoppers back. Heading into the holiday season, Sears' options remain limited.
Sears Holdings on Thursday reported the smallest decline in quarterly same-store sales in more than three years, but its losses widened, as the embattled department store chain continues to trim its fleet of stores and aims to get back to profitability.
Its shares, which are heavily shorted, were up as much as 27 percent in after-hours trading on the news.
In a blog post, CEO Eddie Lampert reiterated Thursday he still believes Sears can accomplish its restructuring outside of bankruptcy, saying the alternative "could result in significant reductions in value." It's been more than a year since Sears warned it might not be able to continue "as a going concern."
"We have worked hard to make the best possible decisions for the Company given the options available to it and the variety of constraints it has faced," Lampert said. "We continue to believe that Sears can successfully evolve into a smaller but profitable company. ... This can only happen with the cooperation of our various stakeholders and with the monetization of further assets that can be reinvigorated independently and without the financial constraints of Sears Holdings."
Though total revenue still fell during the quarter by a double-digit percentage, Lampert continues to tout the retailer's progress as it makes moves such as opening small-format stores and selling some of its brands on Amazon. But key to the CEO's vision for Sears is getting a deal done with his hedge fund, ESL Investments.
The company has been evaluating a bid from ESL to buy parts of Sears Holdings. ESL most recently offered to buy the troubled retailer's Kenmore appliance division for $400 million. There's also an offer on the table for the fund to buy Sears' Home Improvement business for as much as $80 million in cash. A special committee has been reviewing the deal, and Sears said Thursday that it continues to do so. The retailer wouldn't comment further about any progress that's been made.
Lampert had said in May about getting this deal done that "speed and certainty here are critical" to meet Sears' "liquidity needs."
Sears has meanwhile been working with the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, a federal government oversight organization that guarantees individuals' pensions, acting as a parachute if a company ever goes bankrupt. The retailer was forced to pay $407 million toward its pension plan earlier this year, which in turn allowed for the sale of about 140 Sears and Kmart stores.
Sears said Thursday it struck another deal with the group to release liens on certain real estate properties, which were previously serving as collateral. In return, Sears said it paid the PBGC $32 million. The retailer additionally said it's borrowed another $75 million and pledged some of those released properties, along with other stores, as collateral. Sears has a major debt payment coming next month.
Sears' pension liabilities have been reported to be a sticking point in its attempt to sell Kenmore. The PBGC is walking a delicate line, as it needs to get as much cash as it can from Sears without pushing the department store into bankruptcy.
Washington will regret its trade dispute with Beijing when U.S. tariffs end up slowing down China's economy significantly, said former U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez.
Gutierrez, who served under former President George W. Bush, said he worries that the U.S. will push China "over the cliff" and eventually drag down the global economy.
"What I worry about is what if China, instead of growing 6 percent, grows 3 (percent); That we actually have such an impact on the Chinese economy that their growth rate is (stifled) that will impact everyone and you have to wonder if it's worth it," Gutierrez told CNBC's Oriel Morrison on Thursday.
"That's not good for the world. We may think that China's rise may be bad for the U.S., that China is a strategic competitor ... but the moment China's growth rate declines, we will regret it," he said at the Milken Institute's annual Asia Summit in Singapore.
China is an engine of growth for much of the world. The world's second-largest economy has been the largest contributor to global growth since the global financial crisis in 2008, according to the World Bank.
The extent of China's slowdown depends on "how much damage we do with these tariffs," added Gutierrez, who's now the chair of consultancy Albright Stonebridge Group. He said if the administration of President Donald Trump imposes tariffs on every Chinese product that enters the U.S., the impact on China would be big.
The U.S. has implemented tariffs on $50 billion of Chinese imports to which Beijing retaliated. Washington has also ended a public comment period for another $200 billion of tariffs worth of goods from China and before that's imposed, Trump said he's "ready to go" with levies on an additional $267 billion worth of Chinese products.
Trump on Twitter: If the U.S. sells a car into China, there is a tax of 25%. If China sells a car into the U.S., there is a tax of 2%. Does anybody think that is FAIR? The days of the U.S. being ripped-off by other nations is OVER!
Trump has frequently taken to airing his criticisms of China in public, including on Twitter. One of his complaints centers on China's trade practices, which he has said hurt American businesses and workers. While some issues that have been raised are worth looking into, calling out China in public can't resolve them, said Gutierrez.
"I would take a private approach. The problem with doing it in public is that it can humiliate a country. We're talking about sovereign countries, not businesses, and to put China in a position of publicly being called out and potentially publicly humiliated, publicly losing face, that can't succeed," he said.
But it's a sign of progress that the U.S. appears to be willing to talk with China, noted Gutierrez, adding that both sides could reach a deal in the end.
"It could resolve in a deal, I just don't know how much it will achieve the president's goals," he said. "We need to understand that trade is part of what drives growth and I think that it's a very dangerous assumption that if our trade deficit is high, we're losing."
The U.S. trade deficit with China was $375.6 billion in 2017, according to data by the Census Bureau. For the first seven months of this year, the U.S. recorded a trade deficit of $222.6 billion with China.
Mexico and the United States will reach an agreement that "will be fair to both parties," Michael Milken, chairman of think tank the Milken Institute, said on Thursday.
Milken, who was speaking to CNBC's Oriel Morrison at the 2018 Milken Institute Asia Summit in Singapore, said: "Mexico is extremely important to the United States, the United States to Mexico. And therefore, all the words, all the rhetoric for the last year and a half, will be put to bed."
The U.S. and Mexico struck a trade deal last month that paved the way to replace North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the current agreement between the two nations and Canada.
However, the White House would need to ask Congress separately to approve a bilateral track, and once an agreement is reached, it would need to notify Congress again of its intention to send the deal to Capitol Hill for a vote. That process would take 180 days at a minimum.
Negotiations on a deal between the U.S and Canada are still ongoing, and Mexico has said it is keen on Canada joining the agreement to make it trilateral. But it would be ready to pursue a bilateral agreement with the U.S. if talks between Ottawa and Washington do not work out, Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo said on Wednesday.
Russian hit men or tourists? Photo: RT via YouTube
Last week, British police identified Russian nationals Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov as the two prime suspects in the March poisoning of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia. This week, the two men appeared on RT to assert their innocence and claimed they were visiting the small town of Salisbury not to expose Skripal to the nerve agent Novichok, but to check out a cathedral.
Theres the famous Salisbury cathedral, famous not just in Europe, but in the whole world. Its famous for its 123-metre spire, its famous for its clock, the first one ever created in the world, which is still working, said Boshirov.
Our friends had been suggesting for a long time that we visit this wonderful town, Petrov added. British police have said they believe both men are using aliases.
Britains Crown Prosecution Service has charged the two men, who are alleged to be members of the Russian intelligence agency, with conspiracy to murder, among other charges. But Vladimir Putin has denied that these men had anything to do with the poisoning and that theyre in any way attached to the Kremlin. These are civilians, he said this week. Theres nothing especially criminal there, I assure you.
In the RT interview, the two men said theyre not Russian agents, describing themselves as second-tier businessmen in the fitness industry. They admitted to visiting Salisbury twice, once on March 3 and again on the fourth. Police say the first visit was to stake out the town and the second to poison the Skripals. But the Russians say they were simply trying to drink in all that the city had to offer. Their first day in Salisbury was cut short, they said because of bad weather. So they returned the next day. We were just taking in the English gothic, Boshirov said.
A person holds an American flag as they participate in a ceremony to become an American citizen during a U.S. Citizenship & Immigration Services naturalization ceremony at the Miami Field Office on August 17, 2018 in Miami, Florida.
As President Donald Trump wages a vocal battle against illegal immigration, his administration has been working more quietly to cut down on legal pathways to immigrate to the U.S.
On Tuesday, a new policy kicks in, allowing officers with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to outright deny any visa or green card application that is missing evidence or contains an error. Around 7 million people apply every year.
Previously, officers were required by an Obama-era policy to send notices, giving applicants a chance to correct such problems instead of closing the process. Officers can still choose to do so, but they can also opt to skip that step if the application is deemed frivolous.
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Without the notices, applicants won't have the opportunity to intervene before a decision is made, potentially adding months or years of extra paperwork and thousands of dollars in fees to the already lengthy process. In the case of those trying to renew their visas while they're still in the U.S., they could be placed in deportation proceedings the moment their visas expire.
USCIS spokesman Michael Bars said the policy was changed to cut down on frivolous applications. The agency has said applicants sometimes file substantially incomplete placeholder applications, knowing the back-and-forth with the USCIS will buy them time. "Under the law, the burden of proof is on the applicant," Bars said, "not the other way around."
But immigration lawyers worry that there is not enough oversight or clear standards to ensure fair handling. USCIS officers will now have near-complete discretion to make complex judgments behind closed doors.
"They can deny you on the fact that, subjectively, they feel in their mind [the application] is not approvable," Pierre Bonnefil, an immigration attorney in New York, said.
One reason the lawyers are worried is that they've seen a barrage of scrutiny directed at once-standard immigration applications since Trump took office. ProPublica spoke with a dozen lawyers and reviewed documentation for several of these cases.
Many responses cited technicalities: One application was not accepted because the seventh page, usually left blank, was not attached. Another was rejected because it did not have a table of contents and exhibit numbers, even though it had other forms of organization.
"It seems like they are just making every single submission difficult," Bonnefil said. "Even the most standard, run-of-the-mill" application.
The lawyers call this minefield of onerous paperwork an "invisible wall," designed to make legal immigration as difficult as possible.
"People who are here legally, doing everything through proper channels, now feel as unsettled and unwelcome and uncertain about the future as people who don't have documents," Sandra Feist, an immigration attorney in Minnesota, said.
Under Trump, this has meant that cases drag on for weeks or months as lawyers scramble to address notices. Some lawyers have noticed an uptick in denials recently, but most say that strong cases still eventually make it through.
It remains to be seen how broadly the new policy will be used to outright deny even strong applications. The memo said the new policy is "not intended to penalize filers for innocent mistakes or misunderstandings of evidentiary requirements."
Apart from technicalities, lawyers have noted an increase in detailed requests for evidence. Some of the new questions fit with Trump's 2017 Executive Order called "Buy American and Hire American," which directed the Department of Homeland Security to find ways to make sure specialty work visas are awarded only to the most highly skilled and highest-paid foreign workers, to fill jobs that couldn't be filled by an American.
To some, the increased scrutiny of work visas is welcome.
In particular, the H-1B visa category has often been the subject of controversy. Intended for high-level workers with specialized skills, it has been used to outsource ordinary jobs. In 2014, for example, Disney laid off about 250 long-time workers in computer jobs so that they could replace them with workers flown in from India. The Americans were required to train their replacements before they left. A federal court found that Disney did not violate any laws and the case was eventually dropped, but Republicans have often pointed to similar cases to call for tougher oversight of foreign worker programs.
"It's almost like it's a subclass of employee that they can take advantage of and can work them extra hard for smaller pay," said Rennie Sawade, the communications chair of the Washington Alliance of Technology Workers. He has experienced increased competition in his own search for jobs in the tech industry and in that of his son, who is 24 and has an associate degree in robotics and computer networking but is still struggling to find work. "These visas should be used for what they are intended for, so you definitely need more scrutiny in how they are being used."
But lawyers argue the stepped-up examinations go beyond what's required to assess an immigrant's eligibility and seem intended to simply make the process more burdensome for all immigrants. Under Trump, the extra layer of questions has not been limited to H-1B cases, but applied to all types of work visas, family-based green cards and humanitarian cases. The extra questions are also directed toward people who have lived and worked in the U.S. for more than a decade and are applying to extend their visas.
Foreign workers once considered to have slam-dunk immigration cases an internationally recognized physicist, an Alzheimer's disease researcher, a biologist doing "cutting edge" work on vaccine development are now finding themselves tied up in extra requests for evidence to prove their skills are truly specialized.
One Iranian professor, in the process of launching a graduate degree program at an American university, included 10 letters of recommendation from experts in his field and evidence of his awards and publications. Feist, his lawyer, said she felt certain his petition for a green card under the "outstanding professor" category would sail through.
Instead, she received a notice of intent to deny, reviewed by ProPublica, pointing out a slew of quibbles: The professor had published frequently in his field, but was he cited often enough? He had won awards, but the reviewing officer didn't think they were truly prestigious. The professor had served on panels and presented at conferences, but those were not really sufficient to prove influence, the officer wrote.
"This is just one example of pretty typical aggressive requests for additional evidence that I'm seeing that are far outside of the norm that I've seen in the past 17 years," Feist said.
Michael Cataliotti, an immigration lawyer in New York, recalled a case in which he printed and attached emails between a physicist and the editors of peer-reviewed journals, to demonstrate the physicist had served as a reviewer for each of them. Because the email was printed from his work computer, Cataliotti's name appeared at the top of the paper.
This seemed to confuse the USCIS official handling the case. "The document has been altered, and as such, is inadmissible," the official wrote.
Other examples show an overly strict reading of the rules, sometimes applied incorrectly. Courtney Morgan-Greene, an immigration attorney in California, said the USCIS tried to deny a religious worker's request for a visa extension because she had taken some time off from her job in order to give birth, and then to mourn the death of her child after 11 months.
The response from the agency began, "While USCIS sympathizes with the death of the beneficiary's baby," and went on to deny the case based on the time she took off. Morgan-Greene emailed the quote to ProPublica.
USCIS policy allows breaks in employment "such as sick leave, pregnancy leave, spousal care and vacation as long as they do not exceed two years." Morgan-Greene said her client's two periods of leave combined did not add up to two years. "Not only is the decision incorrect as a matter of law, it shocks the conscience," she said.
Employers are just as frustrated as immigrants trying to obtain green cards and visas. On Aug. 22, a group of CEOs representing major U.S. companies, including JPMorgan Chase, Cisco Systems, American Airlines, Apple, Coca-Cola and Texas Instruments, sent a letter to DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen with their concerns with recent USCIS policy changes.
"Inconsistent government action and uncertainty undermines economic growth and American competitiveness and creates anxiety for employees who follow the law," they wrote.
They added: "USCIS actions significantly increase the likelihood that a long-term employee who has followed the rules and who has been authorized by the U.S. government multiple times to work in the United States will lose his or her status. All of this despite the Department of Labor having, in many cases, certified that no qualified U.S. workers are available to do that person's job."
Sarah Pierce, a policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, said examples of H-1B misuse are "highly concerning," but she said that there's no clear data to prove how widespread it is. "We know there are a lot of legitimate employers that use this program as well," she said.
Pierce said targeted approaches such as limiting contractors from hiring H-1B workers or going after companies that mainly depend on H-1B workers would be better solutions than a blanket approach making it difficult for all companies to hire foreign workers.
But Trump has made it clear that he would like to see a reduction in all immigration. "One thing really unique about President Trump is he views not just illegal immigration, but legal immigration through the context of it being a security threat and an economic threat to the United States," Pierce said.
Even when cases are ultimately approved, Feist says employers have told her they will reconsider going through the process again. Workers stuck in limbo have told her they're considering other options, too.
Cataliotti agreed the strategy seems designed to frustrate, "so either one or both parties says: Forget it, I can't do this anymore, the position is gone, or I might as well go to Canada."
144.6 WageWorks administers tax-advantaged programs for employee benefits such as health and dependent care flexible spending accounts (FSAs), health savings accounts (HSAs), and commuter benefits, such as transit and parking programs.
WageWorks shares fell 17 percent Thursday after the company disclosed that it it would reopen an investigation into whether it withheld information from its auditor.
In a regulatory filing Wednesday, WageWorks said a special panel of its board would take another look at an earlier probe by its audit committee.
Already the company, which handles employee benefit programs like health savings plans and commuter programs for other companies, had been under scrutiny for financial irregularities. Its top management was replaced this year after the company discovered issues and its preliminary review indicated it will have to adjust its financial results for 2016 and possibly 2017.
The filing also said the San Mateo, California-based firm is cooperating with an investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission after WageWorks voluntarily notified the agency.
KPMG, its outside auditor, had raised the issues with John Larson, WageWorks' lead outside director, about information being withheld in 2016 and 2017, the filing said.
A special committee made up of directors Thomas Bevilacqua and Jerome Gramaglia and recently named Executive Chairman Stuart Harvey will "review the procedures scope and findings of the audit committee's investigation," the filing said.
The audit committee had previously looked into the company's accounting practices, financial control and financial statements for 2016 and 2017, including the review of the accounting for a government contract. This review looked at whether there was an open flow of information and "appropriate tone at the top," the filing said. The investigation concluded in May with the finding that "no illegal acts occurred."
But KMPG raised issues about lack of communication relating to allegations made by "former management's counsel" after the audit committee's review concluded that information was withheld from auditors, the filing said.
The filing doesn't identify the former manager.
WageWorks has seen a management overhaul in the last few months, however. Former CEO Joseph Jackson left that post in April and resigned as executive chairman last week. Harvey was named on Wednesday to succeed him as executive chairman.
Edgar Montes was named CEO in April to succeed Jackson. At the same time, Colm Callan resigned as chief financial officer and Kimberly Wilford resigned as general counsel.
A WageWorks spokeswoman didn't immediately respond to a CNBC request for comment.
LinkedIn co-founder and venture capitalist Reid Hoffman became a billionaire by making smart bets, and he's always on the lookout for a new worthy investment.
Hoffman, who co-founded the career-focused social network LinkedIn in 2002, made billions when the company sold to Microsoft for $26.2 billion in 2016. But, he's also one of Silicon Valley's most prolific and successful startup investors, including in his current role as a partner at venture capital firm Greylock Partners. He was among the earliest investors in Facebook and he's held stakes in companies like Airbnb, news aggregator Digg and Groupon.
As a sought-after investor in the tech world, Hoffman's in-box is regularly flooded with pitches from start-ups and hopeful entrepreneurs looking to become the next Mark Zuckerberg. In fact, Hoffman receives anywhere from 100 to 200 "cold pitches" from entrepreneurs every week, the LinkedIn co-founder told The Wall Street Journal in a recent interview.
Hoffman tells the Journal that he only looks "seriously" at between six to eight of the ideas he receives each week, and he says there is a tried-and-true formula for successfully pitching your start-up idea.
"In good pitches, [Hoffman] says, entrepreneurs don't just boast of their credentials and competitive edge; they clearly articulate the risks and challenges and how they will overcome them," The Journal's Chris Kornelis writes.
In other words, don't just highlight your strengths and the reasons why you believe your idea will be successful it's just as important to be up front about potential obstacles and solutions to them.
The mailer moves a bit closer to Cuomo, who still says he knew nothing about it. Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images
When controversy erupted over a mailer sent by the New York Democratic Party on the eve of Rosh Hashanah that misrepresented Cynthia Nixons views on Israel and accused her of ignoring anti-Semitism, Governor Andrew Cuomo denied knowing anything about the false attack on his primary opponent, calling it inappropriate and a mistake.
I didnt know about the mailer; I heard about the mailer, I havent seen the mailer, Cuomo said at a press conference on Sunday.
On Tuesday the New York Post cast doubt on Cuomos claimed ignorance, revealing that one of his top campaign aides was shopping a story about Nixons Nixons alleged support for the pro-Palestinian Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement just a day before the mailer went out to 7,000 households.
Now the New York Times reports that the flier was drafted and approved by two men with close ties to Cuomo. David Lobl, a former special assistant to Cuomo who is now a campaign volunteer, sent the language to two campaign aides, who created the mailer. The paper obtained an email from Lobl dated September 1 that had wording which appeared almost verbatim in the finished product. Per the Times:
It reads:
CN doesnt want to fund yeshivas
CN is pro-BDS
CN has been silent on anti-Semetisim
Mr. Lobl, who acted as a liaison to the Jewish community when he worked for Mr. Cuomo, declined to comment.
It is common for such liaisons to draft talking points and other material for campaigns. In the emails, Mr. Lobl went on to suggest that the flier include a photograph of the governor with President Reuven Rivlin of Israel, which appeared on the front side of the flier. The email also includes mentions of the governors accomplishments on Jewish causes, which were also detailed on the flier.
Why is the New York State Democratic Party paying for a mailer that falsely accuses Cynthia Nixon of supporting BDS? This is a shameful smear, @nydems. pic.twitter.com/mvOpIg4cNI Abe Silberstein (@abesilbe) September 8, 2018
The flier was then approved by Larry Schwartz, another campaign volunteer who was formerly Cuomos top lieutenant.
Cuomo campaign spokeswoman Lis Smith confirmed Lobl and Schwartzs involvement in the creation of the mailer, but said Schwartz only noticed the remarks about Cuomos record on Jewish issues, not the false Nixon attacks on the other side.
Larry Schwartz, who serves on our campaign in a volunteer capacity, was reviewing mail pieces in an ad hoc fashion, but he only saw the positive section of the mailer and never saw the negative section, Smith said. Had he seen it, it would have never gone out. We have said all along that the mailer was inappropriate and a mistake and have worked with the state party to change the approval process going forward to ensure this never happens again.
Schwartz, who is Jewish, told the paper that he was very upset by the flier.
I would have never approved that mailer to go out had I seen it in its totality, he said. It was totally inappropriate.
While a state Democratic Party official said earlier in the week that it would let Nixon send out a mailer of her choosing to the same population, her campaign manager, Rebecca Katz, told Gothamist, theres been no formal offer, and they received no response to their request for a robocall denouncing the fliers incorrect claims.
On Wednesday, the eve of New Yorks primary, Cuomo seemed to be avoiding the media, failing to alert the press to rallies in Westchester, the Bronx and Manhattan (they finally got a heads up about an evening rally in Brooklyn). Nixon mocked Cuomos attempt to maintain a low profile as she campaigned with progressive star Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
The fact that he seems to be in hiding the day before the election yeah, I think hes running scared, Nixon said in the Bronx. Hes made some really bad mistakes in the last few days.
While it certainly seems that Nixon has Cuomo rattled, it appears he has little to worry about in Thursdays vote. The latest poll has him beating Nixon by 41 points.
Hi! I'm an education beat reporter for Fall 2018, and I'm a senior studying print and digital news. Please provide me with any feedback, questions or tips you have my email is kyle.lahucik@mail.missouri.edu and my phone number is 708.359.9917.
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Republicans are favored to hang onto the Senate, but its a near thing. Photo: John Lund/Corbis via Getty Images
There hasnt been remotely as much discussion of the Senate as the House in speculation about the 2018 midterms. Part of that disparity is simply because the Senate landscape is so wildly skewed toward Republicans (with ten Democrats running in states carried by Donald Trump last year, as opposed to just ten Republican incumbents most in safe seats altogether) that it often did not look like control of the chamber was in question. But another reason is that there are fewer objective tools with which to analyze the Senate picture. Because Senate races are only happening, by definition, in a third of the country, theres no national generic vote, and in fact, national polling in general (say, of the presidents approval ratings) is of limited utility.
So highly quantitative assessments of Senate races have been few and far between. Thats why the release of FiveThirtyEights Senate Forecast is of considerable interest. As Nate Silver explains it, his model relies on various sources of data:
[We] take lots of polls, perform various types of adjustments to them, and then blend them with other kinds of empirically useful indicators (what we sometimes call the fundamentals) to forecast each race. Then they account for the uncertainty in the forecast and simulate the election thousands of times. Our models are probabilistic in nature; we do a lot of thinking about these probabilities, and the goal is to develop probabilistic estimates that hold up well under real-world conditions.
So his forecasts have probabilities of victory in both individual races, and for the overall outcome nationally. The latter is whats going to get the most attention: FiveThirtyEight currently forecasts that Republicans have a two-in-three (or 66.1 percent) chance of hanging onto the Senate, meaning Democrats have a one-in-three (or 33.9 percent) chance of flipping the chamber. Thats all from Silvers classic forecasting methodology, which includes polls and fundamentals such as past voting results, historical trends and fundraising; there are more and less complicated versions that add or subtract certain kinds of data and produce marginally different probabilities.
When you get to specific races, FiveThirtyEight is more precise than other rating services that make largely subjective calls on whos ahead and by how much. Each Senate race, like the national contest, is assessed in terms of the probability of victory. Races where no one has more than 60 percent odds of winning are toss-ups; those with 60 to 75 percent probable winners lean one way or the other; and those with 75 to 95 percent probable winners are likely to go to the favored party.
Right now this system projects two toss-up races, in Republican-held Nevada and in Democratic-held Florida. Aside from Florida, incumbent Democrats, remarkably, lead in all of the states carried by Trump in 2016. They are likely winners, in fact, in Indiana (Joe Donnelly), Montana (Jon Tester), and West Virginia (Joe Manchin), and solid favorites in Michigan (Debbie Stabenow), Ohio (Sherrod Brown), Pennsylvania (Bob Casey), and Wisconsin (Tammy Baldwin). That leaves just two lean-D states, Missouri (Claire McCaskill) and North Dakota (Heidi Heitkamp). Democrats also have a narrow advantage in Republican-held Arizona.
If the Senate elections all break the way the probabilities suggest, and the parties split the two toss-ups, Republicans would hang onto the Senate by the narrowest possible margin, holding 50 seats plus Mike Pences tiebreaking vote. But the range of probabilities makes other possibilities entirely feasible. Altogether FiveThirtyEight suggests seven competitive races, three in which Democrats are narrowly favored (Arizona, Missouri, and North Dakota), two in which Republicans have a narrow advantage (Tennessee and Texas), and then two toss-ups in Florida and Nevada. A very slight shift in probabilities in a state or two could change the forecast considerably.
Considering the heavily skewed landscape, the notion that Democrats are this close to winning back the Senate is astounding. If it happens, the consequences would be even greater than a flip in control of the House. Republicans would lose the control over judicial confirmation, which Mitch McConnell has used to give Trump exceptional power over the future shape of the courts. Republicans would also no longer be able to pass legislation on strict party-line votes using the budget reconciliation process. And senators have at least as much investigatory power as members of the House, with which to hold the administration accountable.
There are enough close races, however, to make the outcome quite uncertain, and as we learned in 2016, probabilities have two sides, particularly if they are not particularly lopsided. In 2012, Democrats seemed to win all the close Senate races, and Republicans pulled off the same trick in 2014. It could easily all come down to late returns from somewhere in the West on the evening of November 6 or later than that.
You've probably heard the news by now: Google is killing off Inbox, its experimental email app that's lived alongside Gmail for the past four years. The service is set to shut down for good this coming March.
When Inbox was announced in October of 2014, Google described it as something "years in the making" a "completely different type of inbox, designed to focus on what really matters." The engineers behind it said it was "designed for the problems we're going to see in the next 10 years."
Still, despite Google's artfully worded pseudo-assurance about Inbox's important role in the organization just months ago, it should probably come as no surprise that the company is sending the app away to its increasingly crowded virtual graveyard. Google is infamous for its wishy-washiness when it comes to its own products, after all and with Gmail recently inheriting some of Inbox's higher-profile features, the writing was apparently on the wall.
[Get fresh tips and insight in your inbox every Friday with JR's new Android Intelligence insider's newsletter. Exclusive extras await!]
While the new Gmail is indeed now home to several significant Inbox-inspired additions, however, it lacks some of its sibling's most innovative elements elements that truly had the potential to transform the way we thought about our inboxes, and elements that'll be sorely missed by those of us who had been won over by Inbox's approach. And that's the real shame of this decision: It marks the end not only of some spectacularly clever ideas but also of Google's ambitious effort to reinvent email at a foundational level.
There's no shortage of examples of innovative Inbox concepts being left behind, but one particular element stands out above the rest for me and as I think about saying so long to Inbox and moving back into Gmail as a full-time resident, it's the feature I'm most disappointed to lose.
I'm talking about Inbox's seamless integration with Google's universal reminder system the way the app allows you to view all of your pending reminders in a single place and treat them like a centralized to-do list. Whether you set a reminder on your phone, via a Google Home, or in the Chrome address bar on your computer, it shows up in Inbox so you can be sure to check it off and confirm you've completed it, even if you missed it or inadvertently dismissed it wherever else it might have appeared.
You can use that same system to set reminders that appear only within Inbox, too, instead of clunkily sending yourself emails or using a separate and detached tasks app with the same basic aim. You can even make such reminders recurring, if you're so inclined. It's a simpler, more streamlined, and more sensible solution to a common organizational problem.
And it doesn't stop there: Perhaps most useful of all, in addition to serving as a hub for regular reminders, Inbox allows you to attach reminders onto individual emails. That way, when you have a task related to a specific message, you can put a memo about it on top of that very email where it belongs and then snooze the whole thing away to an appropriate day and time.
When that time arrives, the email pops back into your inbox with the reminder attached and prominently displayed right above the message, both when viewing it in full and when looking at the main inbox view. It's an invaluable productivity tool, and its implementation just makes sense.
Unless Google eventually decides to bring a similar feature into Gmail, unfortunately, it's something that'll be difficult to replicate in any comparable way. Sure, Gmail has that new Tasks app in its sidebar, but it's awkwardly isolated from the main Google reminders system, only minimally integrated with Gmail (especially on mobile), and capable only of a fraction of the things Inbox's built-in equivalent was able to accomplish. And while there are third-party browser extensions that attach notes onto emails within Gmail, most aren't easily accessible via mobile nor are they connected and synced with Google's universal reminders system. Make no mistake about it: This is a regression in functionality, and it's an opportunity lost.
I'd like to think Inbox's absence will open the door for some third-party company to come in and create a truly awesome cross-platform Gmail client, complete with productivity-enhancing features like this reminders system and the variety of other admirable Inbox-born ideas that are now as good as dead but as we've seen, finding success with that sort of business model is easier said than done.
If there's one thing we can say in closing, it's that by now we should all be used to the idea of Google giving us great things only to then take them away a short while later. Google has plenty of strengths as a company. As we're reminded this week, though, commitment is not one of them.
Encouraging users to think twice about embracing any less-established Google service, on the other hand, is something the company is getting eerily good at accomplishing.
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[Android Intelligence videos at Computerworld]
Slack has unveiled new features aimed at attracting a wider audience of enterprise customers, including enhanced security, compliance and admin controls.
The company has made a concerted effort to court large businesses since the launch of its Enterprise Grid product last year. And during its second annual Frontiers event in San Francisco last week, Slack - which recently raised $427 million in new funding - highlighted several enterprise-focused announcements, including the acquisition of Missions.ai, its new partnership with Atlassian, and a glimpse of its feature roadmap.
[ Further reading: 10 tips for preventing Slack burnout ]
Among the features set to arrive is enterprise key management (EKM). This hands Enterprise Grid customers ownership of keys used to encrypt and decrypt sensitive data stored in Slack, including messages, files and comments, Ilan Frank, head of enterprise product at Slack, said in a phone interview with Computerworld.
In essence, EKM provides the security of an on-premise solution with the benefits of a cloud tool, the company said.
Slack has yet to confirm a launch date, but Enterprise Grid customers should expect to access the EKM feature later this year.
EKM should appeal to a good number of organizations that have not yet embraced cloud collaboration due to security and privacy constraints, saidRaul Castanon-Martinez, a senior analyst at 451 Research.
The feature should help expand Slacks appeal in regulated vertical markets and regions, he added areas the company has not typically had a strong presence in.
It could also attract firms that have been wary about adopting cloud chat tools. This should appeal to prospects that may have in the past hesitated to adopt cloud-based collaboration tools, including, for example, some of the Hipchat Data Center and Hipchat Server customers that will be looking for an alternative solution, said Castanon-Martinez.
Alan Lepofksy, vice president and principle analyst at Constellation Research, called the EKM capabilities very important in a highly competitive market.
As Slack continues to battle against Microsoft, Google and Cisco, they will need to remain vigilant in adding Enterprise features around security, scalability, data retention, governance and compliance, he said. Slack is very well aware of this, and their roadmap includes many of these features.
The company also touted updates to other features, including improved app management controls, announcement-only channels and message formatting.
Enterprise Grid offers centralized management of the team chat application on a company-wide basis and supports up to 500,000 users.
More than a year after its launch, Enterprise Grid had been deployed by 150 businesses worldwide. The largest deployment is IBM, which has more than 110,000 daily active users, though several other Enterprise Grid customers have between 50,000 and 100,000 daily users. Slack counts Capital One, Target and Conde Nast among its biggest clients.
As of May, Slack had 8 million daily active users.
Slack will see its user numbers continue to grow as customers of Atlassians HipChat and Stride team collaboration tools begin to migrate. That follows a strategic partnership between the two companies that has resulted in the two Atlassian products being discontinued, with migration to Slack encouraged by the Australian software vendor.
As part of the partnership, announced in late July, there will be greater integration between the two firms products; Atlassian unveiled a new Confluence Cloud app for Slack earlier this week.
This is something that is very exciting to us, our new partnership with Atlassian, said Frank. What is going to continue to happen beyond that migration is that now both companies are free to really invest in their area of focus and also to invest in much deeper integrations together.
So Atlassian just announced Confluence integration into Slack and there is going to be more of those coming not only new integrations but also deeper and richer integrations with existing tools like Jira Cloud and Jira on-premise, Frank said.
Lord Lexden is the Conservative Partys official historian. His website can be found here.
No one ever loved Lord Liverpool, Britains third-longest-serving prime minister, apart from his ambitious, self-made politician father and his two wives (he married the second immediately after the death of the first to escape otherwise inevitable loneliness).
One of his colleagues wrote that he had fewer personal friends and less quality for conciliating mens affections than perhaps any minister that ever lived. When a crippling stroke forced him to resign in 1827, it was widely noted how little anyone seemed to care about the man himself amidst intense speculation about the political consequences of his enforced retirement.
Born in 1790 and an instinctive Tory of the deepest hue, Liverpool was a professional politician to his fingertips with few outside interests. A rotten borough was provided for him (as for many others favoured by party leaders) when he was twenty, a year before he was legally entitled to enter the Commons. A minister three years later, he was only out of office for a few months during the rest of his life.
The one senior cabinet post that eluded him was the Chancellorship, a surprising omission since he relished finance and took personal control of economic policy as premier, assisted by docile Treasury ministers who did what they were told.
Though outwardly calm, he was in fact a bag of nerves. Cabinet reshuffles brought him close to collapse. A quarrel with the Duke of Wellington over a bishopric, which the latter wanted for a brother with an adulterous wife, made him physically ill as he insisted on the moral probity of the episcopal bench. It was said that he could not open a letter without trembling in anticipation of the bad news he expected it to contain.
But he enjoyed standing up to the monarch, from whom he would take no nonsense. Turning down George IVs requests for favours to his cronies, he wrote that the K. will find himself very much mistaken if he supposes that if he dismissed me any one of my colleagues would remain behind to support him in the stormy and miserable state into which he would be plunged.
He was offered the premiership twice before he finally accepted it in 1812. Only two of his predecessors, Robert Walpole and the Younger Pitt, exceeded his fifteen years at Number 10; it is virtually inconceivable that anyone in the future will ever overtake him.
His cabinets contained great talent: of the next ten prime ministers, six had served under him. It is to his most able colleagues -Lord Castlereagh, George Canning, and Robert Peel that the successes of his Government have generally been attributed. Disraeli conferred on Liverpool the epithet by which he is chiefly remembered: the arch mediocrity. He came to be regarded as good at just one thing: calming the tensions that were rife among his ministers. A respected late nineteenth-century biographical dictionary asserted that he was not an able or eloquent man, but under his mild supremacy politicians of opposite views were content to live on decent terms.
For years, professional historians shrank from the task of scouring the archives of the period to produce a full biography of this unadmired man. It was not until 1984 that the work was first taken in hand by Norman Gash, a firm adherent of the Conservative Party and justly praised biographer of Peel, who created the modern Party out of Liverpools faithful, but poorly organised, Tories.
Gashs researches were somewhat constrained by age. Now, nearly 200 years after his death, Liverpools career has finally been scrutinised in great detail in Lord Liverpool: A Political Life.
The scrutineer is a young American historian, William Hay of Mississippi State University. At the outset he is at pains to point out that he has overlooked nothing relevant to his subject. After visits to the Royal Archives, county record offices and other institutions, the British Librarys manuscript room became a home away from home. The book has been illustrated very satisfactorily with the help of a George Humphrey shop album of print satires from 1820 which he stumbled across in Connecticut. Hays enthusiasm does him great credit.
Liverpool emerges from his intensive researches as a man of uncomplicated, strongly-held views. He was in every way a model Tory. Neither reactionary nor repressive, Liverpool sought to defend Britains social and political order along with institutions he believed gave them expression. Yet many accusations of reaction and repression were laid against Liverpools government at the time by opponents of his social and political order, some of whom were happy to use violence.
Liverpools firm response to radical agitation after 1815, much of which had revolutionary aims, has been widely regarded by left-wing historians and others as confirming the accusations. In Britain, the counter-measures taken by those in authority are almost always judged more harshly than the disaffected elements who provoke them (a habit from which the IRA has profited in our own day).
One criticism of Liverpool above all frequently recurs. His government has been blamed for the Peterloo massacre of August 1819, when troops were used to disperse a demonstration outside Manchester; eleven were killed and hundreds injured.
The long-established habit of condemning Liverpools ministers will be powerfully reinforced by a widely-publicised new film. Its garrulous left-wing director, Mike Leigh, has already begun to promote it months before its release. He regards Peterloo as a peaceful pro-democracy demonstration which should have been allowed to proceed.
Sympathy for Leighs point of view, if not the manner of its expression, is not confined to the Left. Daniel Finkelstein, Social Democrat turned Conservative, recently told readers of The Times that Peterloo was an emblem of the repressive conservative obstinacy of a privileged elite, a wholly mistaken view of an era in which everyone except a small radical minority believed that the demanding tasks of government should be in the hands of an elite which had the experience to carry them out in the overall national interest.
Professor Hay is nearer the mark in commending the elite for adapting institutions to draw new, rising interests to its side, thereby denying their support to advocates of sweeping change. Liverpool told the House of Lords in 1815 of how he had come to value the commercial interest alongside the traditional landed classes. His economic policy, with free trade at its heart, reflected that conviction.
Hays account of Peterloo, based on the historical records, differs sharply from Leighs and Lord Finkelsteins. A crowd of between 20,000 and 60,000 men, women, and children arrived at St Peters Fields in formations that resembled troops on parade. Postponed twice, the meeting had been declared illegal. Liverpools ministers advised local magistrates, on whom responsibility for law and order rested, to act only if violence threatened.
They believed that it did; a later inquiry found that the area had been in a state little short of actual rebellion. Privately, the government felt that the Manchester magistrates had acted imprudently, but, as the Duke of Wellington pointed out, if ministers had not backed them others in future would not act at all when disorder threatened.
Those who follow a policy of deliberate repression never express concern about human casualties. Liverpool, the least callous of men, always regretted the loss of life in times of peace, but the resources and institutions at his disposal made it impossible to avoid death on a small scale very occasionally. His contemporaries contrasted this record with the persistent harshness of continental regimes. His overriding aims were to isolate the agitators and protect the law-abiding, in accordance with unchanging Tory precepts.
Liverpool does not emerge from his 200 years of obscurity as a delightful and captivating human being. Childless, almost friendless, with little interest in the arts and much given to crying, he immersed himself completely in the business of government and the work of Parliament, making only one speech outside it. He excelled in both spheres.
Probably his greatest service was the unstinting support he gave Wellington during the Peninsular War, providing unprecedented financial backing and allowing the widest latitude of action. In peace his principal preoccupation was economic recovery, based on the general principle of free trade as the great foundation of national prosperity. As so many said uncharitably during his life, he presided gently over unruly colleagues; Professor Hay notes his willingness to subordinate personal interest to their collective service .
Hay records every twist and turn of his activities in high politics over a period of nearly forty years (in rather heavy prose) in this work of impeccable scholarship. His curious habit of calling the working classes plebeians, however, may curtail his readership among those on the Left.
Charles Lawley is a Conservative member from the High Peak. He works for an NGO that works with Rohingya refugees and Internally Displace Persons (IDPs).
Today, we are reminded that Aung San Suu Kyi, the woman the world once saw as the Robin Hood of Myanmar, is in fact really their Sheriff of Nottingham.
She has defended imprisoning two Reuters journalists for breaking the Official Secrets Act. In reality, their crime was exposing the genocide of the Rohingya.
A UN report, released two weeks ago, confirmed that the actions in Rakhine State in 2017 were indeed genocide, and the death toll was well above the 10,000 initially thought. After recently spending considerable time working within Rohingya in Bangladeshi refugee camps and IDP camps within Myanmar, I too believe that a genocide took place.
One of my first conversations with a survivor was with Masuma. The 30-year-old mother-of-three told me the Tatmadaw (Myanmars military) had rounded up her villages Rohingya and separated them. They sent the women and children home, where soldiers were waiting to rape them. Meanwhile, the men were executed. Including my husband, she added solemnly.
Then there was Tomina. She and her family walked for 14 days to reach relative safety in Bangladesh. They took it in turns to carry her disabled son. The journey was an ordeal, but staying would have been worse. We did not want to leave, we knew it would be difficult. But the military came and burned our homes as we were escaping we saw people being burned alive in their own homes and women and girls getting raped. We saw men having their throats slit with knives. We saw more than 100 people get murdered that night.
I was told of babies and the elderly thrown into the flames of their burning homes, people being buried alive in the mass graves they were forced to dig, women being forced to witness over 100 women and girls being raped at gunpoint in a school countless accounts of systematic brutality.
The Rohingya are a Muslim ethnic group in predominantly Buddhist Myanmar (formerly Burma). They are not legally recognised and have faced decades of state dehumanisation, which constitutes the pre-conditions of genocide. They are denied citizenship and restrictions on basic rights such as voting, getting married, how many children they can have, and permission to leave their villages.
The majority of the country distrusts the Rohingya as they do not fit in to the Buddhist national identity that was championed by the military during their disastrous Burmese Road to Socialism in the 1960s, which mixed nationalism with nationalisation.
Socialism transformed Myanmar from one of the most prosperous countries in Asia to one of the most impoverished. The regime attempted to distract from the economic ruin they had caused by scapegoating non-Buddhist groups like the Rohingya. The nation had not forgotten that, during the Japanese occupation, whilst most of the country sided with the Japanese, the Rohingya fought for the British.
Jeremy Hunts support for justice has been encouraging. Unfortunately, it is likely China and Russia will veto any International Criminal Court referral. And, even if they did not, those thought to be responsible (i.e. senior generals) would probably be tried in absentia, as the military are a law unto themselves and will not handover one of their own.
We must seek methods of pressurising Myanmar into cooperating with the international community. Firstly, we need to start calling it what it is, a genocide, to increase the impetus for international action. Ethnic cleansing is just a euphemism for the reality of Rakhine State, whereas genocide fittingly invokes memories of Bosnia and Rwanda and the human cost of the international communitys inaction there.
Even threatening to re-impose sanctions could force cooperation. After it began its transition towards democracy and the initial sanctions were lifted, capital inflow into Myanmar jumped from $320 million to $5 billion in just five years. The militarys many commercial enterprises, such as the Myanmar Economic Corporation, exploited new and lucrative opportunities after sanctions were lifted. There are few clearer cases of a direct economic hit.
Combining economic sanctions with diplomatic sanctions, such as travel bans and shunning from the world stage, could also hurt leaders who do not enjoy being the targets of international condemnation.
Internal pressure also forced the military regime to begin democratisation process. The people were tired of military rule. However, in this case, internal pressure is non-existent. The public largely supports tough action against the Rohingya, due to generations and the institutionalisation of anti-Rohingya sentiments.
Buddhist extremist civil society groups like MaBaTha (who produced textbooks for Myanmars schoolchildren) and 969, led by the man dubbed The Buddhist Bin Laden, have spread hatred, fuelled civilian attacks, and created a political environment where no politician wants to be seen to be soft on Rohingya. They too should be hit with sanctions. Movements like Panzagar, which combats hatred spread by Myanmars extremists, should receive Western Support.
As the West becomes increasingly more inward-looking, and China intensifies their One Belt, One Road initiative of investing more into the next generation of trouble spots, Beijing looks set to adopt the role of the worlds policeman. When insurgency, extremism, and civil conflict will threaten Chinese interests in Africa, Asia and the Middle East, they will feel the need to intervene and protect their investments.
Will a nation with a litany of human rights abuses within its own borders really take action to prevent and punish genocides? If Britain and the West do not want to relinquish our moral leadership to those who will happily turn a blind eye to atrocities, then it is imperative we act decisively and pursue justice tirelessly in the face of this inhumanity.
Theresa Villiers is a former Northern Ireland Secretary, and is MP for Chipping Barnet.
The paper launched by the ERG yesterday sets out a workable solution to the Irish border question, one which does not require new physical checks or infrastructure at the border, and which does not damage the EU single market or bypass its rules.
It is in the interests of both sides of the Brexit negotiations to reach an agreement which maximises the opportunities for trade between us and facilitates continuing cooperation on a range of different areas. Nowhere does this matter more than in the Republic of Ireland. The Irish Governments own forecasts suggest significant negative consequences for their economy if the EU insists on putting up new barriers to trade after we leave. The EUs 95 billion trade surplus in goods with the UK means that many other Member States also have jobs and businesses that depend on maintaining a flourishing trading relationship with us.
Failing to secure an agreement would also see the EU lose their hoped for 38 billion divorce payment, leaving them with a big gap to fill in their finances. Any reduction in cooperation on crime or security would damage all sides, but it is the EU which benefits most from this cooperation. The UKs commitment and capacity on security and intelligence gathering is unparalleled in Europe, as is our participation in the far-reaching Five Eyes intelligence network.
Achieving an agreement with the EU will inevitably involve compromise, but I am concerned that the Prime Ministers Chequers proposals would not implement the referendum decision. Whilst aspects of the Chequers plan could potentially work well, for example on services, the commitment to a European rulebook for goods and food would leave us subject to many single market rules without having any say over them.
Our negotiating goal should instead be the kind of wide-ranging free trade agreement floated by Donald Tusk back in March. This would enable tariff-free trade to continue, but also ensure the vote to leave is respected.
So what is standing in the way of an agreement based on the approach Tusk set out? In short the Irish border. The European Commission is asserting that the only way to maintain a free-flowing border between north and south is if Northern Ireland remains subject to the requirements of the Single Market and Customs Union. But they are wrong.
Take firstly the Common Travel Area between Ireland and the UK, which for nearly a hundred years has enabled citizens of our two countries to travel freely anywhere across these islands of which we are both part. Many scare stories circulated about this during the referendum, but now all sides agree that this arrangement can continue as it does now. Enforcement of new immigration rules needs to focus not on physical checks at the Irish border, but on ensuring those who do not have a right to live or work in the UK are unable to access benefits, housing, bank accounts or the labour market.
The key blockage in the Brexit negotiations comes down to this: the EUs anxiety about goods or food getting into the single market area through the Irish border without being subject to EU rules or tariffs. If we left the EU tomorrow, the people worrying about whether to try to introduce new border checks would be the European Commission, not the UK Government. The question for the decision-makers in Brussels and capital cities across Europe is whether this supposed risk to the integrity of the Single Market is so serious that it should continue to jeopardise a free trade agreement with one of the EUs biggest markets and closest partners.
Any new customs and compliance checks that might be necessary could be carried out away from the border. It is already a routine part of international practice around the world for many such checks to take place at the premises of the exporter, not at the border. Larger firms can use the trusted trader regime which operates to streamline customs formalities and enable electronic submission of paperwork. The VAT system could also be adapted to enable firms to submit customs and compliance declarations in parallel with VAT returns.
For the smallest businesses who are under the VAT threshold, the most sensible outcome would be to exempt them from new customs formalities (in the same way the EU currently exempts them from VAT). If the EU refuses to allow this, those small businesses operating in border areas who want to export to the Republic of Ireland could register for VAT voluntarily (many already do in order to claim back VAT) or seek help from customs specialists with completion of customs declarations.
Admittedly, arrangements of this kind would not wholly eliminate the risk of some goods being smuggled into the Single Market in breach of EU rules. But the way to deal with that is to ensure effective cooperation between authorities on the different sides of the border, founded on shared efforts to collect intelligence on smuggling and bring to justice the criminals responsible for it. Indeed this cooperation is already underway because of the smuggling which occurs in border counties in relation to cigarettes, fuel and other commodities.
So there are sensible solutions which would enable us to keep the Irish border flowing, but which dont lock any part of our country into the rules and obligations of an organisation which we voted to leave. If the EU continue to reject those proposals, it looks more and more as if they are using the border question in a calculated, even cynical, way to try assert negotiating leverage. Our negotiators should stand firm in pursuit of a comprehensive free trade agreement which facilitates the trade and cooperation which both sides say that they want, but also leaves us with the freedom to take our own decisions on our laws, our borders, our money and our trade.
Bradley retains Mays confidence as DUP oppose Chequers
When Theresa May insisted on promoting another of her small band of ex-Home Office loyalists to the Northern Irish post in Cabinet, it looked at first glance as if it might be a token of how seriously she was taking the position.
But now that Karen Bradley has, like James Brokenshire before her, likely demolished her credibility after some frank admissions about her knowledge of Ulster, that idea seems harder to sustain.
Nonetheless, the Northern Irish Secretary apparently retains the confidence of the Prime Minister and will continue in post, sending a strong signal that the Government wont be changing its wait-and-pray approach to resolving the collapse of devolved government in the Province.
Its not all bad news, however: Bradley has finally done what Brokenshire should have done months ago and cut MLAs pay. Until now, they have continued to draw full salary even whilst the Northern Ireland Assembly isnt sitting.
The Democratic Unionists have been quick to respond, and the Belfast Telegraph reports that they have called for Sinn Feins absentee MPs to have their pay slashed on the same basis. To date the Government has shown no appetite for putting any pressure on the republican partys finances, however, even though questions have been raised over several of its income sources.
Bradley has been separately criticised for saying that an amnesty for British soldiers who served in Northern Ireland during the Troubles would be a bad idea, according to the News Letter, on the grounds that it would require similar treatment for IRA terrorists (although many of these received de facto amnesties already, as the comfort letter scandal illustrated). Johnny Mercer also pressed the Prime Minister to take action to prevent ex-servicemen being dragged through the courts.
Davies wins Welsh Conservative leadership contest
Paul Davies has won the contest to succeed Andrew RT Davies as leader of the Tory group in the Welsh Assembly. The Preseli Pembrokeshire AM beat challenger Suzy Davies by a two-to-one margin on a 52 per cent turnout.
Speaking after the results were declared, Davies said that: We have a duty at the next assembly elections to offer the people of Wales a progressive, innovative and, yes, radical alternative to more of the same, and Wales Online reports his saying that the party has a mountain to climb.
Davies, who was widely considered the front-runner and a safe pair of hands, has pledged to run a diverse field of candidates for the next Assembly elections in 2021, in a bit to reverse setbacks for the Tories in 2017 and 2016. He also reiterated his determination to give Welsh Conservative members a say on any coalition agreement the party might strike in future.
Prospects of an anti-Labour coalition between the Tories and Plaid Cymru may be boosted by the latters own leadership race: Leanne Wood, the stridently left-wing nationalist leader who absolutely rules out cooperation between the two parties, looks like shes on the way out.
He also wants to push for greater autonomy for the Welsh party, although as the BBC points out the Prime Ministers congratulatory message doesnt hold out much hope of that.
amidst allegations of a stitch-up in the Labour one
Wales Online reports that a fierce, behind-the-scenes battle is raging within Welsh Labour over fears that the contest to succeed Carwyn Jones as First Minister could be tainted by a stitch-up.
Members of the Welsh Executive Committee (WEC) are preparing for a special conference intended to resolve a bitter dispute over what voting system should be used.
Advocates of One Member One Vote (OMOV), who want to follow the UK and Scottish parties in abolishing the electoral college, fear that delegates may be blocked from voting for the measure, despite it commanding the support of at least three quarters of Wales 40 Constituency Labour Parties.
Lord Murphy, a Labour peer, has prepared a report outlining two possible replacements: either a reformed electoral college or OMOV+, wherein members of affiliated trades unions and socialist societies also get one vote. However, he has advised against both proposals being put to conference, leaving it to the WEC to decide which is put to the ballot.
In other Welsh Labour news, Jones himself has penned an op-ed in the Times calling for the UK to pursue an EU-style structure with its own council of ministers. The First Minister is one of the most strenuous and least plausible peddlers of the fragile Union myth, and remains determined to use Brexit to extort more powers from Westminster.
Meanwhile the inquiry into the death of Carl Sargeant, the Welsh Government minister who took his own life after being sacked by Jones, has been suspended whilst his widow mounts a bid for a judicial review. She is angry that at present Sargeants family will have no legal representation and wont be able to cross-examine witnesses.
SNP to hold day of action over independence
The Scottish Nationalists are planning to hold a national day of action on independence later this month, according to todays Scotsman, in a bid to take the temperature of the nation on the question.
Apparently MPs, MSPs, and activists will be tasked with speaking to 50,000 voters on September 29th. It certainly has the troops: apparently the SNP recently overtook the Conservatives to become the UKs second-largest political party, with 125,000 members to the Tories 124,000.
Nationalist activists will also be encouraged to find out peoples views of the Growth Commission report, the partys bid to build a new economic case for independence which was rubbished by experts. Elsewhere this week the CBI warned the SNP that business is opposed to calls for the devolution of immigration powers to Scotland.
Isabel Hardman has just brought out an acclaimed book called Why We Get the Wrong Politicians. Paul Goodman, editor of ConservativeHome, liked the title so much that he has commissioned me to write a piece entitled Why we get the wrong journalists.
Being a journalist, I have not yet had time to read Hardmans book. I note, however, that in her introduction, she says that while there are some venal politicians, there are many more who are decent human beings. The same astonishing claim can, in my experience, be made of journalists.
But in the eyes of the public, journalists are down there with estate agents, bankers and politicians as one of the least trustworthy groups in our society.
And it appears to me that there are better reasons for this low esteem than serious-minded journalists are willing to admit.
Journalism is intrusive. In Scoop, the journalists Shumble, Whelper, Pigge and Corker know each other well, for they had loitered together of old on many a doorstep and forced an entry into many a stricken home.
On the comment side of journalism, the ability to take ones opinions more seriously than they deserve to be taken is almost indispensable if one is to keep going for column after column, year after year. Great pundits are often self-important, and either remarkably repetitive, or remarkably inconsistent.
On the news side, the ability to be over-excited by whatever story one is covering is a valuable quality. Great reporters are often naive. The news editor, and indeed the readers, would far rather hear that the Government was last night plunged into the worst crisis since the Second World War, or at least since Suez, than that this is the 56th worst crisis since the war, or to be strictly accurate, not a crisis at all, but a bit of nonsense which will be forgotten by lunchtime.
We are all of us, readers and journalists, to some extent subject to the tyranny of the story. Just now the story which dominates us, and drives out other stories which may prove more important, is Brexit. We are always in danger of barking up the wrong tree.
And journalists, like politicians, often find themselves obliged to present partial knowledge as if it were the whole picture.
Behind the idea that we get the wrong politicians lies the unfounded assumption that if only we got the right ones, we could have a perfect politics.
And behind the idea that we get the wrong journalists lies the unfounded assumption that if only we got the right ones, we could have a perfect media.
There is a kind of high-minded journalist who longs to believe that this is true. Let the facts be checked. Let the correspondents all be experts in their fields. Let no dubious or disreputable source ever be used.
But the best sources are often dubious and disreputable. That is why, after a few drinks, or in order to do down a rival, or perhaps for sordid commercial motives, they are prepared to divulge secrets which they are under a professional obligation not to divulge. Could one cover the Trump White House without using such sources?
High-mindedness and high education are not always accompanied by good judgment. They can just as well lead to the unselfconsciously conceited assumption that one knows better than less moral and educated people, so is better able to judge what is going on and what to do about it.
Geoffrey Dawson, Editor of The Times in the late 1930s, who had edited that mighty organ of opinion for most of the period since 1912, was a Fellow of All Souls, and liked to employ other Fellows of All Souls.
The atmosphere was high-minded and the noble aim, shared by the British Government and public, was to avoid war with Germany. As Dawson explained to his friend Lord Lothian on 23 May 1937:
I should like to get going with the Germans. I simply cannot understand why they should apparently be so much annoyed with The Times at this moment. I spend my nights in taking out anything which I think will hurt their susceptibilities and in dropping little things which are intended to soothe them.
In other words, Dawson doctored the dispatches of his correspondent in Berlin, Norman Ebbutt, who warned that the Nazis were intent on war.
It may be retorted that if only Dawson had been a more scrupulous journalist, this would not have occurred. But the idea of a totally objective journalism is as absurd as the idea of a totally objective history. Editors know what they want. That is what they are there for.
We all have preconceptions prejudices, if you prefer which help us to decide what is interesting and what is dull, what matters and what doesnt. Claud Cockburn, who in his newspaper The Week took aim in the late 1930s at the policy of appeasement has a wonderful passage in his memoirs about the factual heresy, drawn to his attention by one of his early mentors, Wilmott Lewis, correspondent of The Times in Washington:
To hear people talking about the facts you would think that they lay about like pieces of gold ore in the Yukon days waiting to be picked up arduously, it is true, but still definitely and visibly by strenuous prospectors whose subsequent problem was only to get them to market. Such a view is evidently and dangerously naive. There are no such facts. Or if there are, they are meaningless and entirely ineffective; they might, indeed, just as well not be lying about at all until the prospector the journalist puts them into relation with other facts: presents them, in other words. Then they become as much part of a pattern created by him as if he were writing a novel. In that sense all stories are written backwards they are supposed to begin with the facts and develop from there, but in reality they begin with a journalists point of view from which the facts are subsequently organised. Journalistically speaking, in the beginning is the word. All this is difficult and even rather unwholesome to explain to the layman, because he gets the impression that you are saying that the truth does not matter and that you are publicly admitting what he long ago suspected, that journalism is a way of cooking the facts. Really cunning journalists, realising this, and anxious to raise the status of journalism in the esteem of the general public, positively encourage the layman in his mistaken views. They like him to have the picture of these nuggety facts lying about on maybe frozen ground, and a lot of noble and utterly unprejudiced journalists with no idea whatever of what they are looking for scrabbling in the iron-bound earth and presently bringing home the pure gold of Truth.
Lewis also warned Cockburn that good journalism needs in some way to grasp the attention of the reader:
I think it well to remember that, when writing for the newspapers, we are writing for an elderly lady in Hastings who has two cats of which she is passionately fond. Unless our stuff can successfully compete for her interest with those cats, it is no good.
That is a high standard which has nothing to do with morality, and everything to do with life. A few months later, Cockburn submitted a piece on which he had worked hard, and of which he was extremely proud, for Lewiss approval before it was dispatched to London. Lewis read it twice with close attention, nodding appreciatively, and then said, holding the piece between his finger and thumb:
Old boy, this piece is not only informed but erudite. Its material is solid and accurately observed; its style polished and in my estimation, witty. In fact it is everything which one imagines to oneself an article in The Times should be. Yet Im afraid my instinct tells me that, he opened his finger and thumb and the pages dropped into the wastepaper basket, the cats will have it.
Cockburn, it may be retorted (an American in Berlin once said this in a fury to me), was a Communist. And so he was. But he was a brilliant journalist, who perceived, as did Tories such as Colin Welch, Michael Wharton and T.E.Utley, the limitations of the liberal point of view.
We get the wrong journalists because in order to report on this fallen world one needs a fairly comprehensive collection of defects oneself.
The company says each tile can generate over 20% more power
Tesla is proving that theres money in solar, not just in cars. After doubling its solar roof deployments over the last year, the company has good news for eco-conscious consumers. It says its looking to lower costs and improve its solar tiles by making them more efficient and powerful.
Getting to this point hasnt been easy for Tesla. While its received hurrahs for the design of its solar tiles, its been hard to convert that support to something marketable on a large...
Florida GOP gubernatorial candidate Ron DeSantis not so avid to embrace Trump after the presidents latest tweets. Photo: Octavio Jones/The Tampa Bay Times via AP
Republicans everywhere are running for the hills in the wake of the presidents bizarre, reprehensible tweets this morning describing generally accepted estimates of the death toll in Puerto Rico attributable to last years Hurricane Maria as a conspiracy hatched by Democrats. House Speaker Paul Ryans reaction was pretty typical:
Ryan didnt answer a question about whether Trumps claim disturbed him or whether Trump should apologize to the victims families. He reiterated that theres no reason to dispute the numbers.
Its a function of, this was a devastating storm that hit an isolated island, he said. And thats really no ones fault. That is just what happened.
In other words, the president is lying again, but the real issue is that the Sun King should not fear that those 3,000 deaths dim the dazzling brilliance of his reign.
But while Republicans everywhere are probably rolling their eyes and wondering why on earth Trump would bring up his weird claims about Maria with both the midterms and another potential hurricane approaching, Trumps tweets hit Florida politics like a stink bomb. The states large (an estimated 1.1 million) and politically pivotal Puerto Rican community enhanced by post-Maria refugees, aside from the many Florida residents with family and friends on the island is going to be enraged by Trumps dismissive claims about the disaster and the suffering it caused. And already Florida Republicans are distancing themselves from their Maximum Leader with varying degrees of intensity, as Politico reports:
Mr. President. SHUT UP, Alan Levine, a Republican appointed by Gov. Rick Scott a top Trump ally to Floridas university governing board, replied on Twitter.
Any death, whether one or 3,000 is a tragedy. That doesnt mean you caused it, and its not about you. Show compassion for the families, Levine wrote. Learn what we can so future response can improve. Honestly.
Florida governor and Senate candidate Rick Scott took a few beats to react, and did so firmly if calmly:
I disagree with @POTUS an independent study said thousands were lost and Gov. Rossello agreed. I've been to Puerto Rico 7 times & saw devastation firsthand. The loss of any life is tragic; the extent of lives lost as a result of Maria is heart wrenching. I'll continue to help PR Rick Scott (@ScottforFlorida) September 13, 2018
Scott has invested heavily in outreach to the normally Democratic-leaning Puerto Rican community. So he can be expected to defend that investment against offensive comments from Trump. A more interesting case is that of the Republican nominee to succeed him as governor, U.S. Representative Ron DeSantis:
Ron DeSantis is committed to standing with the Puerto Rican community, especially after such a tragic loss of life, his spokesman Stephen Lawson said in an email. He doesnt believe any loss of life has been inflated. Ron is focused on continuing to help our Puerto Rican neighbors recover and create opportunities for those who have moved to Florida succeed.
There is no way Ron DeSantis would be the GOP nominee for governor without the early and avid support he received from Trump. Yet hes basically calling his supreme benefactor a liar here. Thats how explosive this issue could be in Florida.
Heres the closest any prominent Florida Republican has come to offering an defense of Trump among early reactions:
These days even tragedy becomes political. 3k more Americans died in #PuertoRico after Hurricane than during comparable periods before. Both Fed & local gov made mistakes. We all need to stop the blame game & focus on recovery, helping those still hurting & fixing the mistakes. https://t.co/NQRKWbWEdh Marco Rubio (@marcorubio) September 13, 2018
So the president abruptly denies 3,000 deaths, but everybody makes mistakes, and we all need to stop the blame game. As Trump himself might put it, thats sad.
Republicans in Florida and elsewhere can only hope this particular storm blows over quickly.
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Vinegar has long been used to treat hair, from unruliness to product buildup. Lipoid Kosmetik utilized this age-old ingredient for the launch of its Vngr+ Extracts, meant to reduce damage to leave smooth, shiny hair.
The ingredients marry botanical extracts with a vinegar and glycerin extraction system. The resulting tinctures are virtually alcohol-free, according to the company; this widens the ingredients scope to include consumers who prefer alcohol-free personal care.
Apple Vngr+ (INCI: Glycerin (and) Vinegar (and) Water (aqua) (and) Urtica Dioica (Nettle) Extract (and) Malva Sylvestris (Mallow) Flower Extract (and) Sodium Benzoate (and) Potassium Sorbate) combines nettle herbswhich are suggested to help prevent hair lossand antioxidant-rich mallow flowers with apple cider vinegar.
Meanwhile, Rice Vngr+ (INCI: Glycerin (and) Acetum (Vinegar) (and) Water (aqua) (and) Polygonum Multiflorum Root Extract (and) Chrysanthemum Morifolium Flower Extract (and) Sodium Benzoate (and) Potassium Sorbate) is derived from chrysanthemum flowers and polygonum roots, which are intended to prevent hair graying and promote hair growth, respectively. These components are joined by rice vinegar, which is popular in Asia.
Both Apple Vngr+ and Rice Vngr+ are Cosmos-approved with 99.55% natural origin. The company recommends use at 0.5-3%.
The ingredients will be on display at Lipoid Kosmetiks booth (J78) during in-cosmetics Asia, held in Bangkok from Oct. 30-Nov. 1, 2018, or at the Sepawa Congress (stand A170/A171), from Oct. 10-12, 2018, in Berlin.
Governor Gina Raimondo was considered vulnerable to Matt Browns left-bent challenge. But she won easily. Photo: Elise Amendola/AP/REX/Shutterstock
In the penultimate primary elections of 2018, in Rhode Island, another Struggle for the Soul of the Democratic Party transpired. But this time there was no victory for progressive insurgents. Incumbent governor Gina Raimondo easily dispatched former secretary of State Matt Brown, and will move on to a general election rematch with Cranston Mayor Lee Fung.
The Harvard-educated former Rhodes Scholar and venture capitalist also seemed to epitomize the sort of technocratic Clinton-era centrist that many of todays progressives blame for ruining the Democratic Party. Raimondo earned the ire of public-sector unions and many progressive activists by advocating (as state treasurer and then as governor) state pension reforms that included a shift from defined benefits to defined contributions, the prevailing private-sector trend.
Brown, backed by Justice Democrats and promising to reverse many of Raimondos policies, called her probably the most extreme corporatist Democrat in the country. In a state with a tradition of strong grassroots progressive activism, and with no public polling to indicate otherwise, an upset seemed entirely possible. But Raimondo, who vastly outspent Brown, won by a 57/34 margin.
The incumbent is not home free, though. In 2014 she won by a plurality over Fung with a quirky third-party candidate winning 22 percent. This time the most prominent independent candidate is a Trump supporter. But one of the few public polls shows her with a narrow lead over Fung, who won a primary over a rival criticizing his insufficient conservatism.
By winning her primary, Raimondo became the 13th woman and the 11th Democratic woman to win a gubernatorial nomination this year. That will likely be the final number unless Cynthia Nixon pulls off a miracle in New York tonight.
The Malta Tourism Authority (MTA) has released statistics for inbound tourism for the first half of 2018 that suggest that Malta may be a new hotspot for North Americans in the Mediterranean. The archipelago recorded 20,956 tourists, a 28.2% increase from the U.S. market over the same January-June period last year, and 7,488 tourists, a 23.5% increase over the same period from Canada.
Why is Malta trending up in the North American Market? Michelle Buttigieg, MTA representative for North America, said in a prepared statement that it can be attributed to several factors. An important part of Maltas appeal to the North American traveler is that English is an official language. It is a safe, peaceful and stable EU democracy, with better vacation value than in other more expensive European countries.
Another compelling factor for the increase this year is due to the heavy promotion of the year-round calendar of festivals and cultural events celebrating the fact that Maltas Capital, Valletta, was named a European Capital of Culture 2018.
The Valletta 2018 festivities encompass a yearlong celebration of the culture and history of the island nation, from the Malta International Food Festival to the Isle of MTV Malta to the Valletta Film Festival and more.
Buttigieg further stated: The increase is also due to the MTAs continued promotional campaigns targeting niche markets that reflect the diversity of Malta and Gozos tourism product.
Maltas cruise tourism is also experiencing growth from the North American market, with a total of 93,482 passengers in 2017, according to the MTA. This was an increase over the previous year of 24 percent for the American market and a 30 percent increase for the Canadian market. The North American market represented almost 14 percent of the total cruise passengers to Malta, which in 2017 was 670,000 (an increase of 7 percent).
Holland America Line has announced that the Amsterdam and Noordam recently earned a perfect score of 100 on United States Public Health (USPH) inspections conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The Amsterdams and Noordams scores are said to follow the sister ship Zuiderdams perfect 100 earlier this year, adding to the Eurodams record-making six-year run of perfect scores.
According to Holland America, the Amsterdams unannounced USPH inspection was held Aug. 9, 2018, during a call at Sitka, in the middle of a seven-day Alaska cruise. The Noordams inspection was held Aug. 29 at Juneau, also in the middle of a seven-day cruise. Over the past five years, several Holland America Line ships have achieved a perfect score of 100 nearly 30 times, the cruise line stated.
CDC inspections are part of the Vessel Sanitation Program, which was introduced in the early 1970s and is required for all passenger ships that call at a U.S. port. The inspections are unannounced and are carried out by officials from the United States Public Health Service twice a year for every cruise ship.
The score, on a scale from one to 100, is assigned on the basis of a checklist involving dozens of areas of assessment encompassing hygiene and sanitation of food (from storage to preparation), overall galley cleanliness, water, shipboard personnel and the ship as a whole.
Photo: Pool/Pool
President Trump issued an executive order Wednesday that will allow him to impose new sanctions on foreign countries or entities that interfere in Novembers midterm elections by compromising Americas electoral infrastructure, or disseminating covert propaganda.
But, unlike a bipartisan bill currently making its way through Congress, the order does not require Trump to issue stiff sanctions on such meddlers. And thats led some to suspect that the order is motivated less by the presidents earnest opposition to foreign interference in American elections, than his desire to head off legislation that would have restricted his discretion on how such interference should be punished.
An executive order that inevitably leaves the president broad discretion to decide whether to impose tough sanctions against those who attack our democracy is insufficient, Democratic senator Mark Warner said Wednesday.
In a joint statement, senators Chris Van Hollen and Marco Rubio who co-sponsored legislation that would mandate heavy sanctions for election meddling seconded Warners assessment.
Todays announcement by the Administration recognizes the threat, but does not go far enough to address it, they argued. We must make sure Vladimir Putins Russia, or any other foreign actor, understands that we will respond decisively and impose punishing consequences against those who interfere in our democracy.
Congresss push to mandate new election security measures gained steam in July, when Trump said he didnt see any reason to believe Russia had interfered in the 2016 election, during a press conference with Vladimir Putin. Trump subsequently walked back those remarks, insisting that he does, in fact, take the word of Americas intelligence agencies over that of the Russian president. But he has said that several times before, only to revert back to an agnostic view of the matter.
Meanwhile, the White House derailed a bipartisan election security bill last month, by encouraging congressional Republicans to abandon the measure. Now, it appears that the administration might have drained political momentum from a separate, bipartisan effort to strengthen penalties on foreign entities who attempt to compromise American election security.
Feeling reckless and looking for something new to do with your Raspberry Pi? Using a Raspberry Pi 3 Model B+, Proxmark3, Yard Stick One, and a USB battery pack, Belgium researchers needed less than two seconds to clone the key fob of a Tesla Model S.
The reckless part comes into play if you were to actually steal the Tesla. But if you turn to a life of crime, then the researchers believe McLaren, Karma and Triumph are vulnerable to the attack, as well, because like Tesla, the keyless entry solutions for those vehicles are designed by Pektron.
In case its not clear that stealing a Model S was a joke, then dont try it because Tesla would be able to track down the vehicle even if you disabled GPS.
Relay attacks on Passive Keyless Entry and Start (PKES) systems are apparently so yesterday that Computer Security and Industrial Cryptography (COSIC) researchers from KU Leuven University in Belgium hunted for a new attack. They honed in on Tesla, as the Pektron-designed PKES system used a weakly encrypted DST40 cipher.
Tesla, at least, had a way for the researchers to report the vulnerability. McLaren, Karma, and Triumph, however, reportedly ignored the problem even though the FCC database show that all these systems use the same Texas Instruments TMS37F128 chip.
Just one more thing. Everybody is making fun of Tesla for using a 40-bit key (and rightly so). But Tesla at least had a mechanism we could report to and fixed the problem once informed. @McLarenAuto, @KarmaAutomotive, and @UKTriumph use the same system and ignored us. Cryptomer (@TomerAshur) September 10, 2018
Pwning the PKES system means the car could be unlocked and started if the key fob is in proximity. By deciding to use a weak 40-bit cipher encryption in the key fob system, KU Leuven researcher Tomer Ashur told Wired that someone at Pektron screwed up. Epically.
Wired added that with roughly $600 in radio and computing equipment, the researchers were able to wirelessly read signals from a nearby Tesla owner's fob. Less than two seconds of computation yields the fobs cryptographic key, allowing them to steal the associated car without a trace.
KU Leuven researcher Lennert Wouters confirmed, Today its very easy for us to clone these key fobs in a matter of seconds. We can completely impersonate the key fob and open and drive the vehicle.
As you can see in the proof-of-concept attack video below, the researcher walked over to the Tesla and retrieved the car identifier in 1.079 seconds and then walked within three feet of the owners key fob and cloned it in 1.6 seconds.
Tesla paid the researchers $10,000 for reporting the vulnerability back in August 2017. A year passed before the company started rolling out new security features to make Teslas more difficult to steal. If you bought a Model S since June 2018, then the key fob has more robust crypto. For older key fob's, an over-the-air software update added an optional PIN that can be entered before the car can be driven. But if you want a new, more secure key fob, then it costs $150.
Tesla has been issuing the following statement to the press:
A former Webster Bank branch manager admitted to skimming nearly $900,000 from 20 certificate of deposit accounts over 14 years.
Stephen Carbonella, a 59-year-old resident of Hamden, pleaded guilty to embezzlement during his tenure as a branch manager in Orange, according to the office of John Durham, U.S. Attorney for the District of Connecticut.
For the first time last year, two of every five households in Fairfield County had earnings of $200,000, according to new estimates by the U.S. Census Bureau, representing a nearly one-third increase from 2006 at the height of the previous economic peak.
Fairfield County had triple the preponderance of earners in the topmost echelon delineated in the Census Bureau study compared to the United States as a whole, despite the countys largest city in Bridgeport having just 3.3 percent of its households making $200,000 or more, versus 20.4 percent in Fairfield County as a whole.
The southwestern Connecticut county lost ground in the Census study to its economic rival Westchester County, N.Y., which saw its own share of the wealthiest households rise to 21.6 percent, after trailing Fairfield County between 2012 and 2014, and pulling even in 2015. Last year, New Haven County had 8 percent of its households making $200,000 or more, with Hartford County at 9 percent.
Stamford led southwestern Connecticut cities with 18.6 percent of households making at least $200,000 annually, with Norwalk at 12.8 percent and Danbury at slightly below half that rate. Affluent towns along Connecticuts Gold Coast were not included in the Thursday data set, but collectively lifted Fairfield Countys overall figure.
The median household in Fairfield County had an extra $1,000 in income last year compared to the equivalent family in 2016, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates, for a 1.2 percent differential. The median local household had combined earnings of about $91,200, with average income rising 3.7 percent to $149,000 due to bigger gains among the regions wealthier professionals and investors.
With sequential years of income tax collection shortfalls compared to amounts forecast, Connecticut policymakers have examined whether the state has experienced a defection among its top earners to other states like Florida that do not levy income tax. But Connecticuts top marginal income tax rate of just under 7 percent remains below that of New York and New Jersey at about 8.8 percent and 9 percent respectively.
Bob Stefanowski, the Republican nominee for governor, has made the elimination of Connecticuts income tax a central plank of his campaign, arguing it would spur moves into the state by wealthy executives and businesses. Pressed by his Democratic opponent Ned Lamont in a Wednesday debate in New London broadcast on WTNH on how the state would balance the budget without those income taxes, Stefanowski provided no details beyond broad promises to cut costs, with Lamont deriding the idea as creating fiscal mayhem in his words.
We will get the tax rates down, we will eliminate the state income tax over eight years, and we will get this economy moving again, Stefanowski said.
Includes prior reporting by Kaitlyn Krasselt.
Alex.Soule@scni.com; 203-842-2545; @casoulman
A Florida woman has sued Frontier Communications, claiming the company harmed retirees by doubling down on stock of Verizon Communications, with the issue lagging mutual funds featuring more evenly distributed portfolios of stock.
Mary Reidt filed her lawsuit Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut, asking for a jury trial with no immediate demand of damages, but claiming Frontiers failure to divest Verizon stock cost some 17,000 retirees more than $100 million in the aggregate, working out to more than $5,800 each on average.
Reidt cites multiple violations of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act in her lawsuit, filed with representation from the West Hartford law office of Izard, Kindall & Raabe and a firm in Washington, D.C.
Frontier did not file a court response immediately, with a spokesperson telling Hearst Connecticut Media the company plans to do so and that the lawsuits claims are unfounded.
As alleged by Reidt, Frontiers retirement plan inherited $150 million in Verizon stock in a 2010 acquisition of Verizon systems nationally, picking up another $200 million in shares after acquiring additional Verizon territories in Florida, Texas and California.
Reidts lawsuit describes Frontiers decision to continue investing retirement plan assets in a single companys stock as a breach of their duties of loyalty, prudence, and diversification under ERISA.
For the retirement plan in which Reidt participated, Frontier kept a full 15 percent of plan assets invested in Verizon stock, according to her claims. By contrast, a T.Rowe Price mutual fund focused exclusively on the telecommunication sector had about 2.5 percent of its assets in Verizon stock.
In her lawsuit, Reidt also highlights $114 million in AT&T stock absorbed by Frontiers retirement plan after the companys October 2014 buy of AT&Ts Southern New England Telephone operations in Connecticut, with the stake amounting to less than 5 percent of plan assets today.
Frontier made contributions totaling $75 million last year to its pension plan, according to the companys annual report, and paid out $544 million to retirees while recording $378 million in investment gains, leaving it with $2.7 billion in pension assets at the close of the year. The company reported an unfunded pension obligation of $1.7 billion.
Frontiers retirement plan committee is chaired today by Leroy Barnes, a Frontier board member and experienced pension manager overseeing PG&Es retirement plans as the former treasurer of the California utility, with other committee members including former Verizon executive Virginia Ruesterholz, former Ernst & Young partner Ed Fraioli and Mark Shapiro, former CEO of Dick Clark Productions.
Alex.Soule@scni.com; 203-842-2545; @casoulman
BRIDGEPORT - A Stratford man was ordered held in lieu of $25,000 bond after police said he held them at bay for several hours outside his home.
Frank David, 39, of Quail Street, was arraigned Thursday before Superior Court Judge Tracy Lee Dayton on charges of breach of peace and interfering with police.
David, whose belt and shoe laces had been taken, stood calmly before the judge.
That was in sharp contrast to Aug. 31, when police said he was seeking suicide by cop.
Police said Davids girlfriend had called police complaining that David was armed and talking about dying. She said he told her he was very depressed and was loading a shotgun as he spoke to her, police said.
Police surrounded the house, evacuating the neighbors and closing Quail Street.
During the next few hours police said they could see David pacing around the inside of his house with a pistol. They said he continuously refused their commands to out the gun down and surrender.
But after a few hours police said David did come out and was arrested. He was taken to St. Vincents Medical Center for evaluation.
Police said they seized a semi-automatic rifle, a 12-guage shotgun and a pistol from Davids home.
A view of the U.S.-Mexican border fence at Playas de Tijuana on January 27, 2017 in Tijuana, Mexico. Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
It seems the common Donald Trump campaign chant, Whos gonna pay for the wall? Mexico! might be even more misleading than previously thought.
In recent weeks President Trump has been threatening to shut down the government if Congress doesnt give him more U.S. taxpayer money to build his border wall. In the meantime, his administration plans to take $20 million that Congress allocated for foreign assistance, and use it to pay Mexico for plane and bus fare to deport as many as 17,000 people in the country illegally.
The administration said it plans to divert the money in a notice recently sent to Congress, according to the New York Times. The idea is to have Mexico deal with the influx of Central American migrants before they reach the border and get involved in U.S. immigration proceedings, which Trump considers far too cumbersome.
We are working closely with our Mexican counterparts to confront rising border apprehension numbers specifically, a 38 percent increase in families this month alone directly and to ensure that those with legitimate claims have access to appropriate protections, said Katie Waldman, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security.
The Times reports this is part of a larger effort to thwart Congresss decisions on how money should be spent abroad:
The plan, which has been debated internally for months, is part of a broader push by the Trump administration to redirect billions in foreign assistance to other priorities. The administration has yet to spend nearly $3 billion in foreign aid, money allocated last year by Congress with broad bipartisan support. Hundreds of millions of dollars meant to help stabilize Syria and support Palestinian schools and hospitals has already been redirected.
Many Americans were surprised to learn during the transition period that Trumps plan to build the wall entailed U.S. taxpayers fronting the money, then Mexico reimbursing us. (Trump actually mentioned this at one point on the campaign trail, but some missed the nuance behind his catchphrase.)
Eighteen months later, Trumps big, beautiful wall is merely 14 miles of a wall in San Diego and 20 miles in Santa Teresa, New Mexico (these projects involve replacing old barriers with what Customs and Border Protection used to call fencing, and are not based on the flawed wall prototypes). With no massive structure to brag about, Trump has taken to boasting about the amount of U.S. money thats gone into the project and hes even inflated the number. During rallies in June and July, Trump touted the $1.6 billion Congress allocated in the spring, but the Washington Post reported that the figure recently shot up.
Weve started the wall, Trump said at a rally in Montana earlier this month. Weve spent $3.2 billion on the wall. Weve got to get the rest of the funding. He later repeated the figure, adding, Weve done a lot of work on the wall. A lot of people dont understand that.
Trump may be adding in the several billion he hopes to secure from Congress in negotiations this fall.
With no physical wall to solve all the nations immigration troubles, the Trump administration turned to a zero tolerance policy that led to the separation of about 2,600 children from their parents before the national uproar prompted the president to discontinue the practice in June. While Attorney General Jeff Sessions and White House Chief of Staff John Kelly both said the policy was meant to deter migrant families from entering the U.S., statistics released Wednesday by DHS show that wasnt the effect. In August arrests of migrant families crossing the border rose 38 percent from the month before. About 12,800 family members crossed into the U.S. in August, up from 9,247 in July.
Jennifer Podkul, the policy director for the legal nonprofit Kids in Need of Defense, told Dallas News, This jump is consistent with deteriorating conditions in Central America as well as annual migratory patterns. It also shows deterrence methods like family separation do not work in a real refugee crisis.
But Kevin McAleenan, the head of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, had a different explanation. He said there is still a gap in the legal framework of the U.S. immigration system, and frankly the highlighting of that loophole thats occurred all summer has produced a very stark trend.
Now for families and kids there are no consequences for being apprehended, McAleenan said. In fact, they are seeking to be apprehended [in order] to start their process to being allowed into the United States to await a court proceeding thats going to take years.
Traumatizing children just to send a message didnt work this time, but that doesnt prove the plan was ineffective. The take away is that the public needs to have more faith in Trumps immigration policies, whether that means shrugging off separated families suffering, letting the administration reallocate foreign aid as it pleases, or shelling out billions for a wall, even as Mexico insists theyll never pay us back.
People are being put behind bars for voting! Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images
New York likes to pride itself on being exceptional and in the area of election administration, it is exceptionally behind, Susan Lerner, the executive director of Common Cause NY, told New York this week. Lerner was talking about New Yorks raft of retrograde voting policies, including the odd hours polls are open, a lack of early voting, and the difficulty of registering to vote in New York. The state also severely limits a voters ability to cast an absentee ballot.
All of these problems keep many people from even trying to vote, but even for those who managed to make it to the polls today to vote in primary races for state and local races, casting a ballot wasnt as easy as it should be. Voters have shared stories of arriving at the polls and finding theyre not on voter rolls:
Guess who wasnt on the rolls this morning at the polling place Ive voted for four years? Rebecca Traister (@rtraister) September 13, 2018
Had to assert my rights for the 1st time at a polling place today!Reminder: if youre in the right place and not on the rolls, sign an affidavit and cast a provisional ballot. (For @CynthiaNixon and @ZephyrTeachout.) jess mcintosh (@jess_mc) September 13, 2018
This happened to me too and I forced them to look at every book for every district and - surprise - they found me took a half hour. Caroline Moss (@socarolinesays) September 13, 2018
Peeved that my wife and I were nowhere to be found on the voting roll this AM in Wash Heights, despite not changing our registrations and voting recently as last year. Someone really didnt want my vote for @CynthiaNixon and @ZephyrTeachout James Ryan (@jdryan08) September 13, 2018
Same thing happened to me! I also live in Washington Heights. They couldn't find my name, and I had to fill out the affidavit. I checked online last night, and I was registered. I even recieved a letter in the mail recently confirming my registration. WTF? HEIGHTSENBERG (@Diego_San_Pedro) September 13, 2018
BdB says his son Dante went to vote, had his voter card from the BOE, but was not in the book and was not allowed to cast a normal ballot, had to fill in affidavit ballot. BdB is railing against the BOE, calling for change, professionalization, reforms passed in Albany in 2019. Ben Max (@TweetBenMax) September 13, 2018
Others complained about learning, as they attempted to vote, that theyre not registered in the party they thought they were.
So after years of being registered as a dirty dem, I get to the voting place today and am informed I am now registered as a member of the Reform Party. And that I cant vote. WEIRD. Michael Ballaban (@Ballaban) September 13, 2018
Hey hey, who has two thumbs, tried to vote, and got told they were now registered as Reform Party? Bo Bolander (@BBolander) September 13, 2018
reminder to pay attention when you get your ballot today
i was in the books as reform party only (unaffiliated with party) and had to ask for an affidavit ballot to vote democratic larry fox (@_larryfox) September 13, 2018
I wasnt able to vote today because my party had been mysteriously changed without my permission. I filled out an affidavit and hope my vote eventually counts but this is just a reminder that our voting systems are messed up no matter where you go. Kea Krause (@KeaMKrause) September 13, 2018
The problem for the voters who were handed a Reform Party ballot above may have been that they were registered independents. The Reform Party allows all unaffiliated voters to participate in its primaries. If youre registered to vote, but not in a party, youll be given a Reform ballot, Staten Island Reform Party chairman Frank Morano has tweeted many times this morning. I think many people may mistakenly believe theyre registered Dem.
Other voters appeared to be tripped up not by New Yorks byzantine rules, but incompetent or deceitful poll workers.
It just happened to my wife in Northport. Had to vote by affidavit. Im preparing for the same argument later. She registered as a democrat in May. They told her today that the change isnt effective till nov 13th. Newman (@mobilenewman) September 13, 2018
If youre voting in Port Washington, beware. They told me I wasnt on the rolls and to do an affidavit. I called the board of elections and found out that, in fact, Id been sent to the wrong table. The poll workers said theyd given out tons of affidavits. Someone fucked up. Stagger Lee Shot First (@elongreen) September 13, 2018
Yupppp. Sent me twice to an incorrect table. I finally pushed them aside, looked through their little name books myself, and checked for my name at literally all the tables until I found it. If it had been crowded I wouldnt have been able to. Kbear Harris (@KbearHarris) September 13, 2018
These are but a few of the reasons voter turnout in New York is always among the worst in the nation.
In the third quarter of 2015, the loan-to-share ratio at Day Air Credit Union($391.3M, Kettering, OH) reached 104%. The credit unions fast-growing indirect loan operation had helped position the Ohio cooperative at No. 133 out of more than 5,600 institutions in the nation.
Nearly three years later, Day Airs ratio has moved closer to national average 92.3% for Day Air versus 82.9% for the nation primarily due to slowing indirect loan growth and higher than average share growth.
Still, the credit unions appetite for deposits remains. Thats partly why Day Air introduced a high-rate, high-balance CD on Aug. 1 of this year. Its Best in the Miami Valley Certificatepays 2.75% APY on a three-year certificate and 3.05% on a five-year with a minimum deposit of $10,000.
Here, Joe Eckley, Day Airs director of marketing, discusses the promotion, how the credit union markets rates, the stickiness of the product, and more.
NAFCU Senior Regulatory Affairs Counsel Ann Kossachev today will attend a meeting at the White House to discuss housing finance reform priorities. NAFCU has shared its core principles for housing financial reform that should be included in any final reform measures with lawmakers and officials in the Trump administration.
Other industry trade groups are also slated to attend todays meeting.
NAFCU has engaged with key lawmakers and agency officials including Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Counselor Craig Phillips, Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Mel Watt, and Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson throughout its efforts to achieve credit unions housing finance priorities.
In June, NAFCU President and CEO Dan Berger sent a letter to Mnuchin in response to President Donald Trumps recent proposal, Reform the Federal Role in Mortgage Financing, which was outlined in the administrations broader agency reorganization plan. Berger urged the administration to work with Congress on housing finance reform and reiterated credit unions need for unfettered access to the secondary mortgage market.
NCUA headquarters
NCUA is closely monitoring Hurricane Florence, it said Wednesday, and has a hurricane information webpage with materials on preparedness and recovery for credit unions and members affected by the storm.
The NCUA will be ready to assist credit unions with maintaining or restoring operations, if necessary. The NCUAs Office of Credit Union Resources and Expansion can provide urgent needs grants up to $7,500 to low-income credit unions that experience sudden costs to restore operations interrupted by the storm.
Credit union members are encouraged to check their credit unions websites and social media sites for real-time information updates, including operating hours.
Members may also contact the NCUAs Consumer Assistance Center at 800-755-1030 Monday through Friday between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. Eastern.
Britain Plots Cyber Revenge On Russia For Novichok Poisonings
The head of the UKs intelligence agency has warned that Britain and its allies will take revenge on Vladimir Putins regime for the Novichok attack in Salisbury in May, after Theresa May announced on Wednesday that Russian spies were believed to be behind the attack.
Speaking on September 7th, GCHQ director Jeremy Fleming (pictured) described the threat from Russia as real and active, vowing to deploy the full range of tools against the Kremlin.
Mr Fleming said: "We have ascertained exactly who was responsible and the methods they used.
"As you would expect, teams from across GCHQ have worked tirelessly with partners at home and abroad to ensure that our world-class intelligence has informed that investigation.
"Yesterday two GRU operatives were named and arrest warrants issued.
"The threat from Russia is real. It's active. "And it will be countered by a strong international partnership of allies. Able to deploy the full range of tools from across our national security apparatus. And ready to reject the Kremlin's brazen determination to undermine the international rules-based order."
It comes after Mrs May received the backing of US president Donald Trump, German chancellor Angela Merkel, French president Emmanuel Macron and Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau. The leaders issued a joint statement with Mrs May, agreeing with the UKs position.
The statement said: "We have full confidence in the British assessment that the two suspects were officers from the Russian military intelligence service, also known as the GRU, and that this operation was almost certainly approved at a senior government level.
Prime Minisyer Threresa Mrs May has revealed that the UK suspects Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, members of Russias GRU military intelligence service, to be responsible for the attack on Sergei and Julia Skripal. The pair became critically unwell in Salisbury city centre on March 4.
The poison was smeared on Mr Skripals front door that day by the two Russian spies who travelled to the UK to carry out the deadly mission, according to detectives.
Four months later in July Dawn Sturgess and Charlie Rowley fell ill after coming into contact with the same nerve agent at Mr Rowleys home in Amesbury. Ms Sturgess later died in hospital. But Russia has strongly denied any involvement in the deeply shocking incident. The countrys UN representative accused the UK of stoking disgusting anti-Russian hysteria.
He said to the UN security council: "I'm not going to go through the list of this whole unfounded and mendacious cocktail of facts.
"London needs this story for just one purpose - to unleash a disgusting anti-Russian hysteria and to involve other countries in this hysteria."
Express: GCHQ: Image: GCHQ
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Windber moved on to the District 5-8 Class AA title game with a shutout of Berlin Brothersvalley on Friday.
Like most people in our fractious country, I am spending a lot of time wondering what sort of state well be in this time next year.
Will we have left the European Union on satisfactory terms? Or have tumbled out without a deal, causing an economic shock, the severity of which it is impossible to predict?
Will Jeremy Corbyn be in Number 10 following the collapse of a weak and divided Conservative government? And will John McDonnell be putting the final touches to his first wealth-destroying Budget?
Will Jeremy Corbyn be in Number 10 following the collapse of a weak and divided Conservative government?
If I knew the answers, Id be making a bee-line to the nearest bookies. I obviously dont. It seems almost anything can happen. I cant recall so great a sense of political disorientation in all my adult lifetime.
What I do know is that the behaviour of about 45 backbench Tory MPs on Tuesday evening with a handful calling for the imminent defenestration of Theresa May makes me more gloomy about the future.
Granted, there are quite a lot of things to be said against the Prime Minister, as well as her so-called Chequers plan, which she insists is the only game in town. Ill come to them in a moment.
But its surely clear that by shrieking openly for her head (I say openly because their discussions were bound to come out), the wilder members of the hardline pro-Brexit European Research Group risk undermining Mrs May and hastening the coronation of Jeremy Corbyn.
The behaviour of about 45 backbench Tory MPs on Tuesday evening with a handful calling for the imminent defenestration of Theresa May makes Stephen Glover 'more gloomy about the future'
True, mere talk of insurrection could strengthen the Prime Ministers hand in her negotiations.
Conceivably, Brussels negotiators will make more concessions than they might otherwise have done for fear that she could be replaced by an uncompromising Brexiteer such as Boris Johnson, who might scupper any agreement.
But if the Tory rebels force a leadership contest over the coming weeks, they will plunge this country into a political crisis that in all likelihood will lead to a hard-Left Labour government.
Lets examine what would happen and this is not crystal ball gazing. If 48 backbench Tory MPs sign a letter of no confidence, Mrs May will have to submit herself to a vote among the parliamentary party.
If she won, there could be no second vote of confidence for at least a year. In that case, EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier and President of the Commission Jean-Claude Juncker would know she was an enfeebled Prime Minister who couldnt be removed. That would give them an advantage in talks.
Former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson is displaying characteristic recklessness and egotism
If she lost a vote of no confidence, there would be a leadership contest which could last up to three months.
During this period which might occupy roughly half the time that remained until we leave the EU Theresa May would be a lame-duck, neutered Prime Minister.
Can there be anyone alive who is so bone-headed and blinkered and generally half-witted as to think this would be an acceptable state of affairs? Yes, there are some of them in the European Research Group, though big beasts such as Iain Duncan Smith and Jacob Rees-Mogg were absent.
Absolutely the last thing that should be contemplated when negotiations are at such a delicate stage, and time is running out, is the removal of our national leader.
And I am afraid that former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson is displaying characteristic recklessness and egotism in threatening the survival of the Government, and stoking the hopes of deluded rebels.
'EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier and President of the Commission Jean-Claude Juncker (above) would know she was an enfeebled Prime Minister who couldnt be removed. That would give them an advantage in talks,' says Stephen Glover
In a way, youve got to hand it to him. Days after his affair with a woman not much more than half his age was revealed, and his long-suffering wife of 25 years had finally legged it, he found the chutzpah to launch another fusillade against the Prime Minister with an ill-chosen image involving a suicide vest.
What does Boris want? To be Prime Minister. I dont blame him for that. But this is the most dangerous moment imaginable for him to set in train his all-consuming ambitions.
It would be possible, if he so chose, to criticise the Chequers plan (as former Brexit Secretary David Davis does) without destabilising an already weakened Theresa May, and filling the minds of disgruntled Brexiteers with dreams of regicide.
Naturally shes far from perfect. She seems unduly rigid in some ways, while in others she has too easily accommodated herself to Brussels for example, in agreeing to a virtually unconditional exit payment of 39 billion, and accepting the contention that the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic is sacrosanct.
Looking back, its clear she was wrong to trigger Article 50 (which fired the starting gun) before a detailed plan of action for our withdrawal from the EU had been worked out.
Equally, Chequers leaves much to be desired since it would keep us with at least half a foot within the EU, and potentially under the sway of its institutions such as the European Court of Justice.
Even more to the point, it seems unlikely to be accepted in anything like its existing form Juncker had another swing at it yesterday while it is hard to see how it can ever pass through the House of Commons as long as so many Tory MPs are opposed to it.
Of course, I realise that unless the Government convinces EU negotiators that Chequers is the only plan on the table, it wont be taken seriously.
But we must all hope that in practice there is a sensible Plan B which can be brought forward if or when Chequers is rejected.
The danger is that if that happens too late, there may not be enough time to negotiate viable alternative arrangements such as a free trade deal along the lines which Canada not long ago concluded with the EU, and we shall be turfed out unceremoniously into the unknown.
All this seems to me to strengthen the case for clinging on to Theresa May for dear life as the only person in a position to navigate these devilishly difficult waters in the small amount of time that remains to us.
Will the Brexit ultras allow her what I believe is virtually the only chance we have of an orderly exit? I fear they wont.
The chances of Mr Corbyn ending up in Number 10 'would soar' if Brexit ultras don't allow Mrs May to have an orderly exit
In that case, if they insist on igniting the touch paper, the likelihood of a carefully negotiated settlement leading to such a departure would be dramatically reduced.
And the chances of Corbyn ending up in Number 10 would soar. When will these foolhardy rebels remember the basic law of politics which is that voters abhor divided parties?
I am not suggesting members of the European Research Group should jettison their principles.
But I do submit that if they persist in plotting against Theresa May, and refuse to countenance the slightest compromise, they will tear their party apart, and likely end up with a bad deal.
Maybe they think Jeremy Corbyn combines the defects of stupidity and extremity so effectively that he is unelectable. Dont you believe it. The electorate would turn against a fractured party that had failed to deliver a successful Brexit.
The Tories were once known for their pragmatism. Now they are an ideological party devoted to in-fighting.
If they dont recover some good sense, this time next year well be in an even bigger mess.
Choudary is expected to walk free within weeks, having served just half of a 66-month sentence for encouraging Muslims to join Islamic State
Notorious Islamist hate preacher Ram Jam Choudary will be released from jail early despite warnings that he is still genuinely dangerous.
Choudary is expected to walk free within weeks, having served just half of a 66-month sentence for encouraging Muslims to join Islamic State. Prisons minister Rory Stewart insists that Ram Jam remains a deeply pernicious, destabilising influence but says the authorities are powerless to prevent him being let out on licence.
Why? Surely if he poses a clear and present danger to national security he belongs behind bars. Why should he be entitled automatically to early release? Stewart promises Choudary will be subject to round-the-clock surveillance and restrictions on his movements and use of the internet.
But the already overstretched security services shouldnt have to spend their time monitoring a convicted terrorist Svengali who should still be in prison.
Its not as if theyve nothing else to do, what with trying to keep tabs on hundreds of British jihadis who have returned to this country after fighting in Syria, and attempting to thwart any number of active terror plots.
Freeing Choudary makes a mockery of ministers hollow words about being tough on terrorism.
It was Stewart himself who last year garnered widespread praise including in this column when he declared that so-called British jihadis who had joined Izal should be killed before they had the chance to come back to this country.
How refreshing to hear a politician say out loud what most people in Britain actually think, instead of feeling it necessary to pay obeisance to the obligatory yuman rites orthodoxy.
But now that Stewart is in charge of prisons, he has been confronted with the limits of our ability to mete out the kind of punishment Islamist terrorists and their cheerleaders so richly deserve.
Freeing Choudary makes a mockery of ministers hollow words about being tough on terrorism
Choudarys early release yet again illustrates what weve known for years: the British justice system is founded upon a lie, a deliberate deception, a pretence that criminals will serve the full sentence handed down by the courts.
Most prisoners become eligible for parole after just half their sentence. So it was inevitable that Ram Jam would be back on the streets in double-quick time. And despite evading justice for two decades, Choudary didnt even get the maximum prison term available when he was convicted in 2016.
The judge could have given him ten years, but decided there was no precedent for such a long sentence. In which case, he should have created a precedent. Choudary is an exceptionally evil man, who has helped radicalise hundreds, possibly thousands, of young Muslims.
As one of the detectives who investigated the London Transport attacks in 2005 said: Every plot I ever researched, someone in it was linked to Choudary.
His disciples include the two men who killed Fusilier Lee Rigby outside Woolwich barracks in South-East London, and one of the terrorists who murdered eight people in the London Bridge attacks.
Ram Jam has been named by the U.S. authorities on a list of specially designated global terrorists because of his role in recruiting young Muslims to fight in Syria and Iraq and his links to international extremist networks.
His disciples include the two men who killed Fusilier Lee Rigby outside Woolwich barracks in South-East London
In America, hed either be serving 999 years in a federal supermax prison, like his oppo Captain Hook, the Mad Mullah of Finsbury Park, or rotting in Guantanamo Bay.
Here in Britain, though, 51-year-old Choudary has led a charmed life, indulged for the best part of a quarter of a century. Id always speculated that he only got away with it because, like Captain Hook, he was an MI5 informant.
Some said it was his legal training which allowed him to skate around the fringes of the law for years, without getting his collar felt. But since there was no evidence hed ever done so much as a little light conveyancing and at the time of his arrest, was living on 25,000-a-year benefits it wasnt legal expertise that kept him out of jail.
For a long time, under Labour, there was a reluctance to arrest any Islamist rabble-rouser on the grounds that it would upset the community.
At one stage, Captain Hook was even given a police escort to preach his bloodthirsty sermons of hate in the street. Ram Jam was never far away from the action.
The idea that these maniacs were in any way representative of the wider Muslim community was always nonsense. When Choudary was given a lenient five-and-a-half year sentence and it became clear that he would be out in half that time moderate Muslim leaders were outraged.
Haras Rafiq, from the Quilliam organisation, said: This is a sad indictment of the current state of our legislation.
Precisely. Last year, a sentencing review recommended tougher penalties for a range of terrorism offences. At the upper end, those convicted of committing a terrorist act could face a life sentence, with a minimum of 40 years.
Thats actually been available to the courts for some time. But between 2006 and 2016, the average jail term handed down was just eight years and five months.
At the lower end of the scale, the punishment ranges from three to six years which means offenders can be out in as little as 18 months. Yet while liberal judges continue to extend leniency, it wouldnt matter if the maximum sentence was hanging, drawing and quartering.
Meanwhile, Parliament is currently fussing over whether to make misogyny a hate crime, with suitably severe punishments. Some police forces are already cracking down on heinous crimes such as wolf-whistling.
Given radical Islams medieval attitude towards womens rights, Ram Jam may soon find himself facing a stiffer sentence for misogyny than for recruiting terrorist murderers.
Pro-Remain Bank of England governor Mark Carney has just extended his term in office for another two years, much to the dismay of Brexiteers. Now Carney, who was once said to fancy becoming Prime Minister of his native Canada, is about to become a British citizen, just as were supposed to be leaving the EU. Hed previously come here on an Irish passport. If Carney now thinks its safe to become British, what does he know about Brexit that hes not telling us?
The Zigzag Sawfly is unmasked as Zorro!
This column specialises in bizarre creepy-crawly stories. Over the years, Ive brought you tales of species as varied as the Oak Processionary Moth and the Horrid Ground-Weaver Spider.
Not so long ago, it was the turn of toxic caterpillars from Holland chewing their way across the countryside, stripping the bark off trees and triggering asthma attacks in domestic animals.
They were followed by the Fall Armyworm, a crop-destroying caterpillar from Nigeria, and a bunch of bisexual Red Flour Beetles. Scientists concluded that, given the choice, the male beetles preferred mating with other males, rather than females, threatening the species with extinction.
Now comes news of another foreign invader posing a fresh menace. This time its the Elm Zigzag Sawfly, aka the Zorro bug, which has colonised 7,000 square miles of England and is currently ravaging trees already at risk from Dutch Elm Disease.
The sawflies leave a Z-shaped mark of Zorro on the leaves and also pose a threat to one of our most endangered indigenous species, the White-Letter Hairstreak Butterfly, which relies on elms as a food source.
The bad news, if youre an elm tree, is that the Elm Zigzag Sawfly is asexual and females can reproduce without any male involvement. Which also means theres no danger the Zorro bug will go the same way as the Red Flour Beetle.
Brandon Maxwell's spring 2018 line was inspired by Texas.
The 33-year-old American designer and his team moved to the Lone Star State to craft the opulent collection in the town of Marfa.
Fashion royalty including Law Roach, Joseph Cassell and celebrity stylist-turned-designer Rachel Zoe sat front row.
A nod to his roots: Brandon Maxwell's spring 2018 collection was inspired by Texas
The top tier: Fashion icons including Law Roach, Joseph Cassell and celebrity stylist-turned-designer Rachel Zoe sat front row
A quick rise to the top: With a desire to make women feel beautiful, sophisticated and powerful, Brandon's line of impeccably tailored offerings quickly garnered the affection of the fashion elite (hello Lady Gaga) since it's launch in 2015
Sweet home: Pickup trucks filled with flowers lined the room, while spirited white holiday lights hung from the ceiling, all setting the scene of down-home opulence
The Classic Car Club at Pier 76 was transformed into a Texan tailgate with portable folding chairs and pink beer coolers functioning as front row seats.
Invited guests snacked on cheeseburgers (topped with sausage optional) and drank specialty cocktails served in red sippy cups.
Pickup trucks filled with flowers and bales of hay lined the room, while spirited white holiday lights hung from the ceiling, all setting the scene of down-home opulence.
Setting the tone: Invited guests snacked on cheeseburgers (some topped with sausage) and drank specialty cocktails served in red sippy cups
High-end tailgating: Clear hatboxes, with pieces from Maxwell's collaboration with Gigi Burris, and PVC alcohol containers accessorized with colorful scarves took the place of handbags
Having fun: Models (including Gigi and Bella Hadid) strutted down the pink catwalk to the beat of country music, with full-on Texan attitude waving and engaging with the A-list crowd
With full-on Texan attitude, models (including Gigi and Bella Hadid) strutted down the pink catwalk to the beat of country music, waving and engaging with the crowd.
The 33-year-old designer skipped the cowboy hats and over-the-top stereotypes that are often associated with the locale.
Instead, he offered lively ladylike garments in a vivid palette of mostly pinks, fuchsias and red, with some mint green, yellow and gold sprinkled in.
Skirtsuits featuring jackets with plunging necklines, over-the-knee A-line dresses and structured shorts were all executed with his unique polish.
Clear hatboxes, which contained pieces from Brandon Maxwell's collaboration with milliner Gigi Burris, and PVC alcohol containers accessorized by colorful silk scarves took the place of traditional handbags.
Feel good fashions: He offered lively ladylike garments in a vivid palette of mostly pinks, fuchsias and red, with some mint green sprinkled in
It's a party: The Classic Car Club at Pier 76 was transformed into a Texan tailgate with portable folding chairs and pink beer coolers functioning as front row seats
With a desire to make women feel beautiful, sophisticated and powerful, Brandon's line of impeccably tailored offerings quickly garnered the affection of the fashion elite (hello Lady Gaga) since it's launch in 2015.
Through his spring collection the designer set out to empower on another level.
'I designed this collection with my team in Marfa, Texas-a place I chose for its seemingly limitless space, said Brandon. 'In seeking space, I found expansion.'
During his residency, the visionary met with other artists, gallerists and the like to understand how the town has influenced their own creative practice.
Class act: The 33-year-old designer skipped the cowboy hats and over-the-top stereotypes that are often associated with the locale
After many people spoke about the socioeconomic disparity of the town's residents and school systems, Brandon wanted to help.
He partnered with Kia Motors who made a substantial donation and will continue to provide significant funding for technological advancements and educational programming to the Marfa schools, and gifted their new Telluride SUV to the teachers.
'I would never be where I am without the support of others and my education. Together with Kia, we hope to afford others the opportunity to realize their full potential and chase their dreams,' said the designer.
Fashion feels good.
Fashion feels: Brandon partnered with Kia Motors who made a substantial donation (and will continue to provide significant funding for technological advancements and educational programming) to the Marfa schools and gifted their new Telluride SUV to the teachers
Zimmermann presented their spring 2019 collection yesterday in front of a star-studded crowd that included Katie Holmes and Sophia Richie.
For this collection Creative Director Nicky Zimmermann was inspired by a television soap opera called Number 96 that left quite an impression on her as a girl.
'It was naughty and irreverent and hilarious,' she said. It was even more appealing to me because as a really young kid I definitely wasn't allowed to watch it!'
NYFW: Zimmermann presented their spring 2019 collection yesterday at Spring Studios
Drama: For this collection Creative Director Nicky Zimmermann was inspired by a television soap opera called Number 96 that left quite an impression on her as a girl
All in the details: The looks were accessorized with palm cuffs, chandelier earrings and colored beaded necklaces as a touch of unexpected nostalgia
A-listers: The star-studded front row included Katie Holmes, Sophia Richie and Olivia Palermo
According to Zimmermann's show notes, the Australia exclusive sitcom was ahead of it's time, exploring taboo story lines like sex, drugs and homosexuality.
Nicky brought the provocative feel of the 70s show to her collection in the form of billowy silhouettes, patchwork fabrications, and intricate applique all wrapped up in a hippie bohemian package.
Standout pieces were garments in paisley prints with cutouts in mustard and tan.
Palm cuffs, chandelier earrings and colored beaded necklaces accessorized the looks as a touch of unexpected nostalgia.
Trailblazer: According to Zimmermann's show notes, the Australia exclusive sitcom was ahead of it's time, exploring taboo story lines like sex, drugs and homosexuality
Update: Nicky brought the provocative feel of the 70s show to the modern girl
Sexy: Plunging tops with billowy sleeves, low-slung patchwork pants and flirty swing skirts all wrapped up in a hippie bohemian package came down the runway
Libertine
The audience at Libertine is always a colorful bunch and this season was no exception.
The sparkly crowd consisted of a few unexpected notables including Brandon and Dylan Lee (Pamela and Tommy's sons) and Anthony Kiedes of The Red Hot Chili Peppers.
At each seat was a sheet of 'Libertine' custom stickers which Anthony used backstage to decorate his Adidas jacket and face.
Front man: The audience at Libertine is always a colorful bunch and this season was no exception
We see you: The sparkly crowd consisted of a few unexpected notables including Brandon and Dylan Lee (Pamela and Tommy's sons) and Anthony Kiedes of The Red Hot Chili Peppers
And while the people watching was superb, what designer Johnson Hartig sent down the runway was even better.
The first three looks involved no pants, with stickers covering the models' bodies like tattoos.
Almost all of garments were overtly decorated and embellished in true Hartig fashion.
A series of standout pieces were those embroidered with sardines and raspberries dripping from the bodices.
Lobster heels completed the feel good looks, of course!
The little things: A series of standout pieces were embroidered sardines dripping raspberries
Head turning: And while the people watching was superb, what designer Johnson Hartig sent down the runway was even better
Skin is in: The first three looks involved no pants, with stickers covering the models' bodies like tattoos
Feel good fashions: The collection (per usual) was chock full of overtly decorated and embellished pieces that are sure to brighten any spring wardrobe
Apple CEO Tim Cook at the unveiling of the newest generation of iPhones and an updated Apple Watch. Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
I was not all that jazzed about this years iPhones after Apples presentation on Wednesday, but I was somewhat at a loss as to why. Most years, even if some of Apples glossy smarm can be grating, my rat brain still usually wants that shiny new phone its showing off. This year, not so much. Was it just that most of the improvements were incremental at best? Am I just getting old and tired? Was it an off year for Apple?
But Wall Street Journal reporter Christopher Mims explained it pretty well, I think:
the great thing about phones is that now they are exactly like cars, there is absolutely no reason to upgrade unless your old one no longer does what you need, the end Christopher Mims (@mims) September 12, 2018
Or as Popular Mechanics editor Andrew Moseman put it: The iPhone swallowed all the gadgets and then it became an appliance.
For years, editors and writers at every media outlet have oriented themselves around the rollout of new iPhones. News and rumors about the iPhone bring in traffic and eyeballs unlike any other gadget it is, after all, the most commonly owned phone in the United States. Both tech and non-tech outlets across the spectrum planned out coverage, trying to really squeeze as much juice as possible out of Apples latest flagship phone.
But most media outlets dont plan out coverage about the newest model of Honda Civic or Audi A6. There arent liveblogs dedicated to announcements about the new side-loader washing machines from Whirlpool this year. Nobody breathlessly reports rumors about the latest LG TV sets.
Its not that cars and washing machines and TVs arent important they represent trillions of dollars of consumer spending. But for the average consumer, you only care about cars or washing machines or TVs when it is time to get a new one. As the smartphone upgrade cycles elongate and everything seems to indicate that it will only continue to slow down I think the days of Apples fall iPhone event being a gravity well all news organizations orbit around are likely over.
Even Apple seems to recognize this. Its event on Wednesday was well under two hours no musical performances by U2 or One Republic to be found. I have no idea what to expect from Apple in 2019, but wouldnt be surprised if next falls event is similarly short and sweet. There are still major innovations down the line for smartphones: time-of-flight rear cameras show promise for augmented reality, phone carriers are beginning to roll out much faster 5G networks, and Apple is uniquely well-positioned to create that constellation of smart wearables that futurists have been predicting for over a decade now. But a newer, slightly faster smartphone? That really isnt news anymore.
It's not unusual for a new husband to spend some time in the dog house, but one Married at First Sight star is stuck cleaning it.
In a preview clip for Tuesday night's episode of the Lifetime reality series, Bobby Dodd, 27, reveals that his wife Danielle Bergman's love of fostering dogs has taken a toll on him because he is constantly picking up puppy poop.
'He's really picked up the slack. He is cleaning up all the puppy poo. I feel really bad,' Danielle, 30, admits during their meeting with the shows relationship expert Dr. Pepper Schwartz.
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Hard to handle: Bobby Dodd, 27, reveals in a preview clip from Tuesday's episode of Married at First Sight that his wife Danielle Bergman's love of fostering dogs has taken a toll on him
A lot of work: Bobby has been constantly cleaning up dog poop and pee since saying 'I do'
In addition to Bobby and Danielle's two dogs, the couple have been fostering two strays, one of which has been struggling with diarrhea.
Although fostering is Danielle's passion, he has been doing most of the work since she moved from her apartment in Dallas to his home in Fort Worth.
'You know, fostering is huge in my life. However, I live a little over 50 miles away from work, so I am spending three hours a day in the car,' Danielle explains in her testimonial.
'Because of that, unfortunately, Bobby is spending that time shouldering that responsibility for the fostering.'
Issue: Now that she is living with Bobby in Fort Worth, Danielle, 30, spends three hours a day in her car, leaving her husband to shoulder the responsibility of fostering
Late nights: Cameras reveal that Bobby had to get up at 12:30 a.m. after their new foster dog made a mess in her crate
The clip features a montage of footage of poor Bobby scrubbing the floor at all hours of the night after one of the dogs made a mess.
After getting up at 12:30 a.m. to remove poop from one of the dog's crates, he tells the camera: 'I'm the poop man again.'
Bobby was up again at 6 a.m. to pick up even more poop, which threw off his morning routine.
'We were definitely running a little bit behind this morning because we had a couple of accidents with the foster,' he explains, and Danielle has made it clear that her husband is thorough when it comes to his cleaning.
Nightmare: 'I'm the poop man again,' Bobby tells the camera before getting to work
Not again... On the same night, Bobby had to get up at 6 a.m. because the foster had diarrhea
Telling the truth? Although he insists there isn't any tension, he admits that it is a 'beat down' every time he has to get up and clean up dog poop
'He's been hands on,' she says. 'He's on the floor cleaning up dog poop and pee. He's a hero for sure.'
Dr. Pepper can't help but ask if Bobby is feeling any tension or resentment towards his wife because of his newfound responsibilities.
Although he insists he doesn't, Bobby admits he has bee struggling with the late nights while on doggy duty.
'I mean, don't get me wrong, it was a beat down last night when I got up at 12:30 to clean up diarrhea,' he says. 'It was beat down at 6 a.m. when I got up to clean up diarrhea.
'It was a beat down at noon, and it was a beat down when I came home to get ready for tonight but instead cleaned up diarrhea.'
Two Instagram stars have revealed a simple lighting trick that is used to create seemingly perfect social media snaps.
Identical twins Gilian and Eileen Reichert, 26, have built up a 66,000-strong Instagram following with photos of their sun-soaked, glamorous lives as fitness instructors in the Mexican coastal town of Playa Del Carmen.
But the sisters wanted to lift the lid on the careful thought and planning that goes into creating many of their posts.
They used simple side-by-side photos to show how light and shadow can instantly 'erase' so-called imperfections without editing.
Identical twins Gilian and Eileen Reichert, 26, known as the Om Twiins on Instagram, shared side-by-side photos to illustrate how lighting can transform an image. The above shows Gilian wearing the same bikini in almost the same pose but in two very different lighting set-ups
The sisters explained in the caption that they wanted to lift the lid on the careful thought and planning that goes into creating many of their posts. They also revealed how they used to avoid taking photos in sunlight because it made them feel more self-conscious of their bodies
The first image, posted on their Om_Twiins Instagram account on Tuesday, shows a swimsuit-clad Gilian standing with her back to the camera on a shaded balcony, her arms stretched out in a 'V' shape.
The second image shows Gilian in almost exactly the same pose but this time outside in what appears to be an outdoor shower.
The caption explains that the photos were taken on the same day in the same bikini and that the only difference is the lighting.
The sisters, pictured, have built up a 66,000-strong Instagram following with photos of their sun-soaked, glamorous lives as fitness instructors in the Mexican town of Playa Del Carmen
Followers thanked the twins for speaking honestly on what goes into creating a post, saying it was 'an important message' to share on social media
It continues: 'Before we used to avoid the sun when taking photos cause it tends to accentuate cellulite and stretch marks.
'But now we embrace our bodies in every light!! No more hiding and avoiding something that is natural AF and chances are we all share.'
Followers thanked the twins for speaking honestly on what goes into creating a post.
One wrote: 'It is such an inspiration to see such beautiful, real ladies showing that anything is possible. Thank you.'
Gilian and Eileen, pictured, told how they are learning to embrace so-called imperfections and to take more photos that celebrate their natural beatuy
A second posted: 'Love this. Something I struggle with... so thanks for being brave, bold, fearless, & truly loving who you are. its inspiring.'
A third added: 'You are awesome. The best. Thank you for being so real. You are two of the most beautiful ladies ever.'
Gilian and Eileen both work as personal trainers in the same gym.
The sisters are vegan and emphasise the importance of a 'cruelty-free lifestyle'.
Getting a good night's sleep is the holy grail for those of us who struggle to nod off and then slog their way through the next day exhausted.
And if you are wondering why night-time meditations, pillow sprays and warm baths aren't helping, the key may be to may more attention to your daytime routine rather than your bedtime one.
In a new book, The Little Book of Sleep, London-based sleep and stress management expert Dr Nerina Ramlakhan reveals how the foundations of a good night's sleep are laid throughout the day.
The first step towards sleeping well that evening should take place in the first 30 minutes after getting up, in the form of eating health and nourishing breakfast.
And techniques such as taking regular breaks from technology and moving around more during the day can all help to set you up for a restful night ahead.
Read on to discover Dr Nerina Ramlakhan's tips for helping to banish insomnia for good.
If you struggle with insomnia or poor quality sleep, there are simple changes that you can make to your daily routine to promote a more restful night (stock image)
EAT WITHIN 30 MINUTES OF RISING
Breakfast is particularly important if you wake up and your nervous system is in survival mode. Even a modest breakfast, such as eight almonds and two dates, can be enough to kick-start your metabolism and stabilise your blood sugar levels.
Eating within 30 minutes of rising stops your body moving into survival mode and switches it into 'safety' mode.
Over time your metabolism will respond and you will start to wake up feeling hungrier.
Many people who are stuck in survival mode find it hard to eat and need to drink caffeine to get going.
You can break this fatigue cycle by eating a small breakfast and avoiding any caffeine until you've eaten.
AVOID CAFFEINE AFTER 3PM
Caffeine mimics the effect of adrenaline. It keeps you wired and stuck in survival mode, which switches off the peripheral nervous system and sleep system.
The half-life of caffeine (the time taken for the level of caffeine in your blood to drop by 50 percent) is 5 hours.
This means if you have a cup of coffee or tea at 5pm, you'll still have half the amount of caffeine in your system at 10pm, so it's best to avoid it after 3pm.
Aim to consume less than 300mg of caffeine per day or none at all if you're really struggling to sleep. As a guide, one cup of instant coffee contains around 80mg of caffeine.
TAKE TECH BREAKS EVERY 90 MINUTES
Taking breaks from technology during the day ideally a few minutes every 90 minutes or so is important.
It allows your nervous system moments to settle and be still and enables the brain to engage in vital mental processing, which will help you to sleep more deeply at night because there's less filing work for the brain to do.
If you spend a lot of time in front of a screen, taking a break every 90 minutes allows for vital mental processing that will help you sleep more deeply later on (stock image)
GET OUT OF YOUR SEAT EVERY HOUR
Physical movement can help us produce the chemical adenosine, which promotes sleepiness and enables melatonin to work more effectively.
You don't have to do huge amounts of intense activity just getting up and moving every hour or so throughout the day is beneficial.
Here are some small ways to incorporate regular movement into your day:
Stand with your feet hip-width apart. Engage your stomach muscles, stand tall, roll your shoulders down and back and breathe deeply.
Stretch your arms wide and up to the sky.
Sit and lean forward over your knees to stretch out your lower back and shoulders, allowing your arms and hands to dangle like a rag doll.
To really get things moving, get some juggling balls or a hula hoop.
The more times you inhabit your body during the day, the easier it will be for you to feel your way into deep sleep at night.
Incorporating regular movement into your day, even if it's just stretching rather than a gym workout, can help us produce the chemical adenosine, which promotes sleepiness and enables melatonin to work more effectively (stock image)
LET GO OF WORK BEFORE YOU LEAVE
Sleep will come more effortlessly if you can let go of the day before you get into bed.
There will always be some unfinished business, but when you put your head on the pillow you need to be able to let go of it all for now and accept restoration.
Write a list before you leave work or, at least, before you get into bed. Don't carry it in your head all night because this is what will awaken you in a state of panic and worry at 2am.
Leave a notebook on your bedside table in case you wake up during the night and remember something that has to be done.
In her new book, Dr Nerina recommends no caffeine after 3pm and listing any unresolved issues or tasks before you leave the office
Write about the problem in a journal to release it from your mind.
REMOVE YOUR CLOCK
It's not helpful to obsess about the time you wake up or calculate how much sleep you may or may not get.
To help you do this, turn your clock to face away from the bed and try not to check the time when you wake during the night.
If you are using a device or app to monitor your sleep, bear in mind that this may make you feel more anxious and worried and such tools are not entirely accurate.
CREATE A SAFETY ZONE
Remember, according to Traditional Chinese Medicine (see page 22), the few hours before midnight is the best time to erase the stress of the day, reduce adrenaline levels, rebalance the immune system and prepare the body for sattvic sleep.
Start preparing to rest and wind down between 9pm and 9.30pm. You don't have to be in bed and fast asleep, but avoid technology, over-stimulation and watching the news.
Instead, read something relaxing and uplifting. If possible, avoid stressful conversations.
The aim is to enter a 'safety zone', to feel peaceful, calm and in a receptive state to receive deep sleep.
If you can do this four nights per week you will really start to notice a difference in your health and energy levels.
The Little Book of Sleep by Dr Nerina Ramlakhan, published by Gaia 6.99, is available from octopusbooks.co.uk
With the Duke and Duchess of Sussex's trip Down Under just over a month away, certain venues are hotly tipped to be top of the agenda.
And now, Sportsbet have revealed the top places that could receive a royal visit.
From Dubbo Zoo to Sydney Harbour Bridge Climb and Bondi Beach, FEMAIL takes a look at the runners and riders that could be visited by Prince Harry and Meghan Markle in October.
They also reveal the animals most likely to be photographed with the royal couple, and the types of clothing the Duchess might wear.
With the Duke and Duchess of Sussex's (pictured) trip Down Under just over a month away, certain venues are hotly tipped to be top of the agenda
When it comes to the places likely to be visited on the royal tour, the most tipped is Dubbo Zoo (pictured) at $1.75
Which tourist attractions will they visit? $1.75 Dubbo Zoo $2.50 Coffee on Degraves Street $3.00 Sydney Harbour Bridge Climb $3.50 SS Maheno Shipwreck $5.00 Sailing on Sydney Harbour Bridge $7.00 Climb the MCG $8.00 See a performance at the Sydney Opera House $10 Camp overnight on a Fraser Island Beach $12 Eureka Skydeck $21 Swimming at Bondi Beach $51 Ride on the Melbourne Observation Wheel Advertisement
TOURIST ATTRACTIONS
When it comes to the places likely to be visited on the royal tour, the most tipped is Dubbo Zoo at $1.75.
Following Dubbo, which will be visited by the couple on 17 October, a coffee on Degraves Street is likely, at $2.50, and Sydney Harbour Bridge Climb has odds of $3.
Climbing the MCG and seeing a performance at the Sydney Opera House also got a look in, with $7 and $8 odds respectively.
The online bookmaker has priced Meghan and Harry $10 to camp overnight on Fraser Island.
However, the places that are least likely to be visited include a swim at Bondi Beach for $21 - a surprise given that Prince Charles enjoyed a surf at the world-famous beach in 1977.
A ride on Melbourne's Observation Wheel, at $51, is also unlikely.
Sydney Harbour Bridge (pictured) Climb - an activity enjoyed by many in the coastal city - has odds of $3
The places that are least likely to be visited include a swim at Bondi Beach (stock image) for $21
ince Charles enjoyed a surf at the world-famous beach in 1977 (pictured)
ANIMALS SET TO BE PHOTOGRAPHED WITH
Thousands of people visiting Australia enjoy getting a selfie with one of the many animals.
And HRH Prince Harry and Meghan Markle could be set to be no exception, with bets currently open for the first animal to be photographed with them.
Top of the odds is a koala, with $2.50 odds, followed by a kangaroo at $3.50 and a wallaby at $4.
At the tail end is a cane toad for $91, a red back spider at $126 and a great white shark at a whopping $476.
A snap with a dingo is also an outside chance, at $61.
'Celebrities love cuddling Koalas and we expect Meghan to be no different,' Sportsbet's Ella Zampatti explained.
'We don't expect Harry to go for a dip at Bondi, but if he does Meghan will probably be close by in case she has to coat-hanger any bikini clad females.'
When it comes to animals the royals (pictured) might be photographed with, a koala is the most likely
Climbing the MCG (pictured) has strong odds for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex
OUTFITS MEGHAN IS LIKELY TO WEAR
When the Duchess arrives Down Under, all eyes will be on her outfits and the fashion choices she makes.
And if Meghan makes any Australian-inspired sartorial choices, the most likely is an Akubra, at $2 odds.
Iconic accessories label RM Williams, has odds of $3, while a flano shirt is $5 and Ugg boots are $21.
Least likely is a safari suit, at $91.
Andrew Brady has been mocked for arguing there is no excuse for lateness - after turning up late to a debate on Good Morning Britain.
The Apprentice star, 27, who is a a project engineer in the aerospace industry, said people should set their alarm clocks earlier if they want to be on time.
But his argument came after he delayed the GMB interview by 10 minutes, claiming that he'd thought it was starting later.
He was mocked by Ben Shephard and Susanna Reid, who wouldn't accept his excuses.
GMB was hosting the debate after Richard Branson tweeted that 'very little' annoys him more than people who are running late, calling it 'disrespectful' to others - prompting a slew of replies from rail passengers remarking on delays to his Virgin train services.
Andrew Brady, 27, was left red faced after he turned up 10 minutes late to Good Morning Britain when he said there was 'no excuse' for lateness. Pictured: Andrew on the ITV chat show
The debate was due to start at 6:40, but instead aired at 6.50 because Andrew hadn't arrived on time.
When Ben and Susanna announced this Andrew jumped to defend himself, saying: 'I was not late right, I was here on time!'
But Ben wasn't listening, firing back: 'No, no, no, you were late, we were supposed to start at twenty to seven.'
The Apprentice star was mocked by presenters Ben Shephard and Susanna Reid (left and right) after he tried to make excuses for being late
Journalist Lowri Turner (pictured) said she felt 'smug' by Andrew's lateness to the interview because she thought there was nothing wrong with being late
Andrew then blamed his Addison Lee driver for making him late, but then admitted it was another excuse.
He said: 'I thought it was twenty past eight but I'm here, I look crap and I've got no socks on.'
Andrew went on to argue that there was 'no excuse' for being late because it disrupts the working day.
He continued: 'If you're always late just set your alarm earlier. If you're always 20 minutes late set your alarm 20 minutes earlier and you won't be late. There's no excuse for it.'
Viewers took to Twitter to slam Lowri's argument (pictured), with many saying it is rude to be late. One said: 'It's just disrespectful and stupid'
He was faced by journalist Lowri Turner, who said lateness isn't as rude as people complain it is, after mocking Andrew for proving her point.
She said: 'Do you sense the aura of smugness around me? There's a great halo because I'm going to make the case for being late but I was on time.
'The problem for people who are obsessed by lateness is it's very rigid. In any organisation you have to have a variety of people, and creative people often are very much in the moment and then it's ''Oh my goodness I'm late.'' If everybody has to be the same it's a very boring place to work.'
Viewers took to Twitter to criticise Lowri's agrument, with many saying it's 'rude' to be late.
Lowri said employees should be judged on the quality of work they do rather than their lateness. Pictured left to right: Ben Shephard, Susanna Reid, Andrew Brady and Lowri Turner
One tweeted: 'I would rather be 1 hour early than 1 minute late. I have also instilled this in my children. My son arrives at college 45 minutes early to make sure hes not late.'
Another posted: 'Absolutely. If you agree a time to be somewhere etc then you should stick to it. Yes thing happen behind our control but it still inconveniences people.'
'Lateness is disrespectful it's saying your time is more valuable than someone else's,' a third said.
Prince William made a comment worthy of his gaffe-prone grandfather as he visited Japan House in London on Thursday.
The Duke of Cambridge, 34, asked a group of schoolchildren whether they had tried 'much Chinese food' as they practised picking up edamame with chopsticks at the new centre celebrating Japanese culture.
He quickly corrected himself, adding: 'Um, Japanese food. Have you had much Japanese food? No? Not too much. Do you like sushi? It's delicious, it really is yummy.'
The Duke of Cambridge, 34, made a rare slip-up when he asked a group of schoolchildren whether they had tried 'much Chinese food' as they practised picking up edamame with chopsticks at the new Japan House, which celebrates Japanese culture, on Thursday
The royal was utterly charming as he met one schoolgirl taking part in a workshop on the ancient Japanese art of copper beating, pictured, during the visit on Thursday
The Duke of Cambridge was presented a signature bento box by Executive Chef Akira Shimizu at the Akira restaurant at Japanese House, which is a short stroll from Kensington Palace
The London site is the newest opening for Japan House, with outposts already in Los Angeles and Sao Paulo.
The centre, which houses a restaurant, shop and library as well as exhibition and workshop spaces, aims to create a greater understanding of Japan among the British public and to deepen cultural, social and economic bonds between the two nations.
William, who visited Japan in 2015, was joined at the opening by Japan's Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso.
Brief and uncharacteristic slip-up aside, William was the perfect royal ambassador throughout the visit - even gamely sipping a celebratory cup of sake at 11am.
Prince William, Duke of Cambridge greets Japan's Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso as he arrives to open Japan House. The centre encourages people to learn more about Japan
Prince William looked enthralled with the conversation as he spoke to one schoolgirl learning how to use chopsticks. Staff at the in-house Akira restaurant looked on
William, a father of three, beamed as he spoke to the girl, a pupil of St Cuthbert with St Matthias CE Primary School, at Japan House on Thursday
The second in line to the throne arrived by car from Kensington Palace, just 200 yards away.
Asked why he hadn't walked, an official said it was for 'security reasons' and his presence certainly drew a large crowd with camera phones around the store.
The prince viewed some of the exquisite goods on sale and walked around an exhibition of metal craftsmanship, watching the ancient craft of copper-beating in action.
Along the way he met Haruna Yamada and Hirokazu Kobayashi, the exhibition designers, who told him they had met at university. 'Like myself and my wife!' he exclaimed. 'My wife is the artistic one of the couple, not me, unfortunately.'
The royal appeared in good spirits as he shared a joke with schoolchildren learning the ancient Japanese art of copper beating. Japan House has exhibition and workshop spaces
The prince appeared confused about how best to use the small hammer used to beat copper
William was ready to join in on the fun as he spoke to the schoolchildren at the event today
Upstairs he met leading Japanese chef Akira, who has set up an eponymous restaurant in the store, and showed him a beautifully presented Bento Box containing everything from tuna and sea urchin in a truffle cream sauce to shitake mushroom tempura.
'Very impressive,' William told him, as he helped himself to a salmon sashimi. 'Thank you very much. My wife and I love sushi. We might have to come down here for lunch when no-one else is in.
'You must get a lot of Japanese visitors here. So do lots of people come in and ask for a burger? That's what usually happens, doesn't it?'
He then sat with a group of local primary school children who were learning to use chopsticks and origami skills.
As the prince sat down at the table one of the children told him flatly that he was tired. Laughingly he replied: 'You're tired are you?'
'Are you tired?' asked the boy. 'Yes, I am quite tired too. Has it been a long day for you too? Have you been enjoying your chopsticks?' 'No,' answered the boy. 'They are quite tricky I know,' William grinned.
The prince looked on with great respect as he was given the signature bento box by Executive Chef Akira Shimizu at Japan House
He told another little girl that she was very good at using her chopsticks. 'Thank you Your Royal Highness,' she said. 'You've been briefed very well,' William chucked. 'The beans are quite tricky, they're quite slippery.'
Downstairs the royal unveiled a plaque to mark the opening and gave a short speech in which he greeted the guests in Japanese, saying: 'Minna sama. Konichi-wa.'
He added: 'This amazing building - Japan House London is intended to be the bridge across which the best in ideas and creativity between the U.K. and Japan will flow. Here, we can build new and lasting relationships in culture, education and business and forge a better understanding of your wonderful country. '
The prince then joined in a kampai toast - the Japanese equivalent of 'cheers' and drank from a small serving of Fukugao sake from Sanjo City served in a masu, a square, wooden sake cup used on celebratory occasions.
He was also presented with a silver hand-worked tea pot as a gift. Similar items sell in the shop for up to 8,000.
Danish Crown Princess Mary received an adorable welcome from flag-waving school children after touching down in Finland on Thursday.
The royal arrived wearing a chic pastel pink trouser suit at the start of a two-day official visit aimed at strengthening trade links between the Nordic countries.
She was greeted at a welcoming ceremony by the Mayor of Helsinki, Jan Vapaavuori, and Deputy Mayor Anni Sinnemaki, at the city hall in the Finnish capital.
Princess Mary was all smiles as she crouched down to chat to the youngsters, who were all decked out in their own handmade paper crowns, and clutching Danish flags in honour of the special visitor.
Crown Princess Mary of Denmark made a chic visit to Finland wearing a tonal pastel pink trouser suit as part of a two-day trip to the Nordic country
The royal was greeted with an adorable welcome committee of local flag-waving schoolchildren who were all decked out in handmade red paper crowns in honour of the Danish princess
The Australian-born royal is known for her sartorial choices and didn't fail to impress with her tonal look.
Opting for a single colour, the ever-stylish Mary matched her tailored trouser suit to her stiletto heels and bag, along with a slightly lighter shirt.
The mother-of-four left her freshly blow-dried brunette locks loose.
Her Royal Highness went on to sign the guest book after crouching down to acknowledge her adorable pint-sized welcoming committee.
Local tipple: The royal was presented with different types of food and drink during the afternoon after she had earlier spent time meeting with schoolchildren and the mayor
Tasty cuisine: Danish cuisine has had something of a revamp in recent years and the Princess was on hand to sample the local delicacies during her whirlwind trip
Flying solo: The Crown Princess was without her husband Prince Frederik, as she touched down in the Finnish capital as part of a trade-related visit to celebrate the 100th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries
Thirsty work: Princess Mary had a busy agenda for her first day of her trip to Finland, but she was able to sample a local tipple during the New Nordic Food event at The Danish Residence
Greetings: She signed the city hall guest book in front of Mayor of Helsinki Jan Vapaavuori (centre), and Deputy Mayor Anni Sinnemaki (right), during a welcoming ceremony
Walk the catwalk: She left her freshly blow-dried brunette locks to flow freely making a smart entrance to the Helsinki city hall and was given flowers on her arrival which she carried
Stylish pursuit: The Australian-born royal is known for her sartorial choices and didn't fail to impress with the impressive tonal look. Opting for one colour, the ever-stylish Mary matched her tailored trouser suit to her stiletto heels and bag, along with a lighter colour shirt
Pleased to meet you: Princess Mary was all smiles as she crouched down to chat to the youngsters who were all decked out in their own handmade paper crowns and waving flags.
Hej! The children clasped their specially made flags as they waved them at the royal on her arrival, she was clearly impressed with their efforts smiling back
All smiles: Princess Mary, who is married to Frederik, Crown Prince of Denmark, the heir apparent to the Danish throne, and was on a solo trip to the country
Coiffed: Princess Mary was seen tucking her hair behind her ear as she sat down to sign the guest book in the ceremony
Smooth exit: The royal made a practised exit from her car as she climbed out of the sleek black vehicle giving a glimpse of her matching pink stilettos
Princess Mary, who is married to Frederik, Crown Prince of Denmark, the heir apparent to the Danish throne, is visiting as part of the 100th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries.
She will lead a business and cultural promotional campaign together with a large Danish business delegation, focused on the maritime industry, urban solutions and Nordic cuisine.
The objective of the visit is to strengthen the commercial cooperation between the two Nordic countries.
Travelling solo Princess Mary's duties over the two-day trip include a visit to the capital Helsinki to discuss city development and cooperation between Danish and Finnish companies on green, innovative urban solutions.
The second part of the visit takes place in the city Turku on the Finnish west coast, which is a stronghold for the maritime industry.
Happy: The mother-of-four delighted the children as she crouched to their level to engage in a conversation as their accompanying adults watched on with smiles on their faces
Lisa Maxwell has opened up about her battle with bulimia - and how she saw food as 'the enemy' during the eighties and nineties.
Speaking on ITV's Lorraine, the 54-year-old revealed how living in Hollywood as an aspiring actress made her feel 'very lonely' and how she tried to take control of her life with the eating disorder.
Known for her roles on The Bill and EastEnders, Lisa went on to recover from the illness as she was determined to get better for the sake of her daughter Beau, now 18.
She now has gained a love of food and cooking, which she attributes in part to her recent stint on Celebrity MasterChef.
Lisa Maxwell, 55, has opened up about her battle with bulimia, revealing that she saw food as an 'enemy'. She blames her 'loneliness' as a young actress in Hollywood for the condition. Pictured: Lisa on ITV's Lorraine on Thursday
At her lowest point she weighed just 6st 13lbs and wore a size 4-6. She moved home to Britain and had a daughter called Beau, 18 and started to recover. Pictured: Lisa in 1998
After she made her name on British soaps, Lisa signed a two-year contract with movie giants Paramount, who set her up with her own luxury home in Los Angeles.
But she narrowly missed out on the role of Daphne in Frasier and found herself feeling defeated.
Lisa explained: 'I was very lonely and I wanted to take some control of my life, but I wasn't interested in food because I saw food as a bit of an enemy.
'I was a lot younger and I didn't see the benefits of nutrition, you think you're going to live forever. I didn't put any importance on food. I had no interest and a weird kind of ignorance, I pushed it away.'
Lisa starred in the current series of Celebrity Masterchef, and says it has given her a love of food and cooking. Pictured: Lisa in a promotional picture for the BBC show
What is bulimia? Bulimia Nervosa usually arises in late adolescence and it usually affects young women. Only one in five bulimics are men. It's estimated that around four of every 100 women suffers from bulimia at some time in their lives The disorder is characterised by recurrent episodes of binge eating, followed by vomiting or taking laxatives to prevent weight gain. Side effects include the erosion of teeth enamel from bringing up stomach acid, heart palpitations and weight fluctuations. Vomiting can cause the salivary glands in the cheeks to swell, leaving the face puffy. Damage to the kidneys, fertility problems and epileptic fits are also associated side effects. Advertisement
At her lowest point she weighed just 6 stone 13 lbs and wore a size 4-6.
She decided to move back home to Britain and had success in the West End before returning to TV.
Lisa says she recovered from the condition without medical intervention.
She is best known for as D.I. Samantha Nixon in The Bill, who she played from 2002 to 2009.
Lisa then joined the panel of Loose Women in 2009.
Lisa also had a successful soap career; starring in EastEnders as Naomi and in Hollyoaks as Tracey Donavan.
She married her long term partner Paul Jessup in 2014 and they had daughter Beau in 1998.
Lisa is currently starring in Celebrity Masterchef and says she finally has an appreciation for food.
She is best known for as D.I. Samantha Nixon in The Bill, who she played from 2002 to 2009, and has also starred on Loose Women. Pictured: Lisa in the ITV studios in London on Thursday
She said: 'I love food now and because of Masterchef as well I've got these new joys that I didn't experience before.
'The psychological side of sharing something you've prepared for somebody and sitting around a table.
'Watching people eat something and hoping they're still alive after they've got to dessert.'
Princess Charlene of Monaco has shared adorable snaps of twins Gabriella and Jacques on their first day of school.
The mother-of-two, 40, posted a series of pictures of the young royals, three, dressed in matching white polo tops and jeans, ahead of their first classes on Wednesday.
One sweet snap shows Gabriella affectionately reaching up to hug her brother as they prepared to meet their new schoolmates.
Another photo shows her confidently leading Jacques into the school, while both showing off their colourful backpacks.
Princess Charlene of Monaco has shared adorable snaps of twins Gabriella and Jacques on their first day of school. Pictured is Gabriella reaching up to hug brother Jacques (right)
Gabriella and Jacques, both three, were pictured sticking close together as they walked into the school together. It is not known which school the pair are attending
Sharing the pictures on Instagram, Charlene simply captioned the images: 'First day of school.' It is not known which school the pair are attending.
The proud mother regularly shares photographs of her twins on her account, which has over 78,000 followers.
Earlier this month, she posted a picture of the pair kissing a penguin at a mini zoo, which she captioned 'Happy feet'.
In fact, both Gabriella and Jacques appear to have enjoyed their summer holddays, with the twins joining parents Charlene and Prince Albert at a day of fun at the Prince's Palace in June.
Gabriella and Jacques appeared to have enjoyed their summer, attending the traditional Monaco picnic with parents Prince Albert and Charlene (pictured together above) in August
Another photograph shared by Charlene shows Gabriella and Jacques walking into school, while showing off their colourful backpacks
The youngsters also attended the traditional Monaco picnic in August, wearing traditional dress.
Meanwhile, Jacques joined his parents for a day of watersports at the Riviera Water Bike Challenge.
The twins were also clearly enjoyed the Monaco Grand Prix in May, with Charlene sharing a cute picture of the pair driving a model race car ahead of the race.
Gabriella and Jacques were born two minutes apart on 10 December, 2015.
While Gabriella is actually older than her brother, he is heir to the throne due to succession laws in Monaco that give precedence to the first born son.
Charlene regularly shares snaps of her two children on Instagram, including this picture of Gabriella and Jacques kissing a penguin during a trip to a mini-zoo
A bride who was left with burns all over her face and body three months in an accident before her big day has insisted that her scars made her wedding even more special.
Marga Abejo-Momper, 30, who lives in Luxembourg but is originally from Manila, the Philippines, decided to take a shortcut to light an outdoor brick oven with methylated spirit and was holding a three litre can when it caught fire and exploded.
She suffered burns to a third of her body and was temporarily unable to walk, eat or take care of herself.
As she recovered in hospital, friends asked if she wanted to postpone the wedding but Marga was determined to go ahead and said her scars made her big day with Thibault, now 36, even more meaningful.
'On the wedding day, my battle scars made our story together even richer,' she told The Mirror.
'The scars gave the wedding more of a story and more sentimental value.'
Marga Abejo-Momper, 30, from Manila, the Philippines, suffered horrific burns in an accident three months before her wedding but was determined to go through with her big day despite her injuries
Marja and her husband Thibault on their wedding day in France. She says that her scars made the big day even more meaningful and sentimental
Marja suffered severe burns to her left leg and to her arms after she was set alight when a canister of methylated spirits she was using to light a fire exploded in June 2016
Marja's accident occurred at her parents house in the Philippines in June 2016, as she tried to light an outdoor oven to make pizza.
She was using newspaper to light the fire and a scrap fell off and ignited the can of alcohol she was holding.
Flames engulfed Marja's body, but she didn't dare open her eyes fully for fear of them being burned as she felt the fire on her face.
Luckily there was an outdoor bathroom nearby and she was able to put out the flames with a bucket of water before jumping under the shower.
Marga and Thibault ontheir wedding day in France in June 2016. Marga credits her partner with helping her recover so quickly as he 'forced' her to start walking again and carried her to the bathroom when she needed help
Marja recovering in hospital in June 2016. She had to be put under general anaesthetic to change her bandages because she was in so much pain
At first, Marga didn't think her injuries were not too serious but after a few days the burns started to turn black. She didn't look at herself in the mirror but was shocked when her mother showed her a photo
Her parents rushed out on hearing the explosion and were shocked when they saw their daughter, but Marja initially thought her injuries weren't too severe.
She thought she'd been a 'but burned', but that she would heal up within a week.
But as the family's driver rushed her to hospital the adrenaline wore off and intense 'lightning-fast sharp pain' started to kick in.
At hospital she was told that more than a third of her body, including her chest, face and torso, arms and half of her left leg had been affected, with some areas sustaining second degree burns.
Classical guitarist Marga and her husband Thibault performing on their wedding day in France in June 2016
Marja suffered convulsions as her wounds were dressed and then passed out until the next morning.
Bedbound, she didn't have access to a mirror but she recalled how all her visitors cried when they saw her.
A few days later, she asked her mother to take a picture and when she saw it her reaction was 'Oh my God', but there was worse to come.
At first her skin was red and raw, but as the days passed the burns turned black and 'creepy' to look at.
Marga Abejo-Momper during her recovery. She suffered a horrific accident as she was lighting an outdoor brick oven which saw her suddenly engulfed in flames
Over the next two months, Marja underwent skin grafts and had to have her bandages changed under general anaesthetic every 10 days as it was too painful for her to be conscious.
The classical guitarist was supposed to go on tour three weeks after the accident, but at this point she couldn't even walk.
She went through surgery to change her bandages procedure 13 times, but her surgeon reassured her she would be able to walk down the aisle on her big day
Three weeks after the accident, Thibault arrived in Manilla after being detained by work commitments.
Marga's legs after the accident. Doctors took skin from her right leg and grafted it on to help repair damage to her left leg
Marja had only sent him a picture of her body and not her face, fearing his reaction.
But he quickly swung into action to help Marja regain her independence.
Prior to his arrival she couldn't walk or stand by herself but Thibault 'forced' her to take her first steps.
He carried her to the bathroom and helped her do everything as she gradually became stronger.
Their wedding day arrived in August 2016, three months after the accident and the pair exchanged vows at a church ceremony in Nancy, France.
She wore compression garments under her dress to flatten her scars and her make-up artist airbrushed her chest and arms which were exposed in her strapless gown.
Despite being in discomfort, she said she was happy and that it was a wonderful day with laughing and dancing.
She admits that sometime she's frustrated as her wedding photos aren't perfect, but added: 'Now when I look at them, everything is as it should be.'
Photo: Alec Fischer Inside an impeccably organized bullet journal.
When youre just starting to use a bullet journal, its easy to get caught up in finding the perfect pen or notebook, says Ryder Carroll, the Brooklyn-based designer who originally developed the Bullet Journal system for himself as a way to keep organized. But according to the creator of this now-Instagram-famous style of planner, its less important to find beautiful accessories than to find supplies you trust since the whole point of bullet journaling is to gradually eliminate distractions.
The importance of tools that are so good they almost disappear is why you should look for things that will work smoothly every single time you pick them up, rather than splurge on fancy fountain pens or leather-bound notebooks just because they photograph well. I strongly believe in everyone experimenting with what works for them, not because they saw it on a popular Instagram page, says Jessica Chung, a bullet journaler behind the blog Pretty Prints and Paper.
If youre feeling overwhelmed and want straightforward advice about the best bullet journal notebooks, pens for bullet journaling, and other bullet journal supplies, I asked five hard-core bullet journalers to share the tools that they like and use every single day.
Best bullet journal notebooks
The Bullet Journal $25 The standard notebook for the bullet journal community is a Leuchtturm1917 specifically a medium A5 dotted journal. Thats in large part because Bullet Journal creator Carroll collaborated with the German brand to create the official Bullet Journal back in 2014, through a Kickstarter campaign. I partnered with them because I appreciated the care they put into their products long before we worked together, he explained in an email, adding, I could go on about the quality and attention to detail, but in truth, the reason I loved their notebooks is because they put up with me. I never had to worry about these, they just did their job better than any other I had used. $25 at Leuchtturm1917 Buy
Leuchtturm1917 Medium Hardcover Notebook, Gold $26 You dont need to get the official Bullet Journal to enjoy Leuchtturm quality, which Shelby Abrahamsen, whos behind the productivity blog Little Coffee Fox, describes as the right amount of luxury for the right price, and the utility of it is outstanding. The Leuchtturm1917 medium A5 dotted journal is functionally the same as the Bullet Journalbranded version, including an index page though without the eight-page guide to bullet journaling or fancy embossed logo. But its a few dollars cheaper and comes in a wider selection of colors that the official option. For instance, Chung of Pretty Prints and Paper uses a gold Leuchtturm dot-grid notebook. The light-colored dots allow for enough structure but encourage enough freedom, as well, she says. And the pages allow for me to paint a little bit without ghosting or bleeding on one side to the other. $26 at Amazon Buy $26 at Amazon Buy
Scribbles That Matter (Iconic version) Dotted Journal Notebook Diary A5 $30 Though three of the five bullet journalists I spoke with loved their Leuchtturm, the other two swore by Scribbles That Matter, also in A5 paper size with dotted-grid pages. The paper quality is thick without being too heavy, and the pages interact smoothly against the pens and art supplies I use when I journal, says Alec Fischer, a film director whos working on a short documentary with Carroll about the origin story of the Bullet Journal who also runs the Instagram account Fischr Journals. Nancy Elizabeth, founder of New Zealandbased stationery company Journal Junkies, agrees that the thick, smooth paper of the Scribbles That Matter notebook prevents bleeding and ghosting from pens and paint. The covers are also gorgeous to look at and touch, in an even more vibrant rainbow with embossed cartoons. $30 at Amazon Buy $30 at Amazon Buy
Best pens for bullet journaling
Bic Cristal Xtra Bold Ballpoint Pen, Bold Point (1.6mm), Black, 24-Count $7 Though there was a clear consensus on the type of notebook that was best, every single one of the bullet journalers I spoke with preferred a different type of pen but according to Carroll, thats perfectly fine. Its important to me that people figure out what works best for them, he said, admitting that for years, he used a simple Bic Cristal pen because he didnt have to worry about losing them. $7 at Amazon Buy $7 at Amazon Buy
Chung, on the other hand, cant stand writing with ballpoints. They skip too much with shoddy ink, and felt tips are crushed by my natural handwriting. Thats why she likes black gel pens with a 0.5 mm width, which are thin enough for my sloppy handwriting to be legible but wide enough for me to do some hand-lettering. Some of her current favorites include Pilot G2s and InkJoy Gels from Paper Mate.
Abrahamsen calls herself a pen nomad: Ill use one brand for a week or two, then move on to another, then another until eventually the cycle repeats, and Im using the first pen again. Some of her favorites include Tombow Mono Pens, Pilot Precise V5 Pens, and Paper Mate Flair Felt-Tip Pens.
These last felt-tip pens are also a favorite of Fischers. Ill do my planning outlines using a ruler and the Paper Mate pens, he says. Though for actually writing notes, he likes Pigma Micron pens from the Japanese company Sakura, because theyre slightly less thick. The combination of the two pen widths, however, is part of the appeal. I usually draw complex cityscape doodles in my pages when Im feeling anxious, and I love how the duality of the thickness makes the final image look.
Other recommended bullet journal supplies
Stabilo Point 88 Fineliner Pens, 0.4 mm 30-Color Wallet Set $14 for 30 Part of the beauty of the bullet journal is the simplicity of the system. All you really need is a notebook and a pen. But even the most minimalist bullet journal enthusiast could do with some other supplies, and this is also where things can get complicated. Remember that your personal preferences are what matters here. So if you dont know how to use watercolors, for instance, dont get the same watercolor pens you see on Instagram. However, nearly everyone I spoke with recommended getting some set of colored pens or markers in addition to a plain black pen, so that you can add pops of color to your journal. Fischer likes the Stabilo Point 88 Fineliner pens for that purpose. Since theyre just colored pens, theyre easy for beginners to manipulate. $14 for 30 at Amazon Buy $14 for 30 at Amazon Buy
Helix Ruler $5 Three of the bullet journalists, including Carroll, recommend keeping a ruler on hand for creating borders or grids to track behavior. Carroll uses a triangular ruler when designing things, small enough to fit into the back pocket of my notebook. And though this ruler isnt the same one Carroll has, its small enough to fit in an A5-sized notebook. $5 at Amazon Buy $5 at Amazon Buy
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We're used to seeing royals dressed to the nines for official engagements, often complete with tiaras and military medals, but Luxembourg's first family has taken a more relaxed approach for their latest official portrait.
Grand Duke Henri and Grand Duchess Maria Teresa delighted fans this week by releasing a new portrait with their five children and two daughters-in-law in the grounds of Berg Castle.
The snap features Crown Prince Guillaume, 36, and his wife Princess Stephanie, 34; Prince Felix, 34, and his wife Princess Claire, 33; Prince Louis, 32, Princess Alexandra, 27, and Prince Sebastien, 26.
All family members went for the relaxed approach with the men of the party wearing shirts with open collars, while Princess Stephanie donned a pink jumper and Princess Claire and Princess Alexandra opted for floaty white tops.
Relaxed royals: (left to right) Prince Louis, 32, Princess Stephanie, 34, Crown Prince Guillaume, 36, Princess Alexandra, 27, Grand Duchess Maria Teresa, 62, Grand Duke Henri, 63, Prince Felix, 34, and his wife Princess Claire, 33, and Prince Sebastien, 26, pose in jeans at Berg Castle
Grand Duke Henri, 63, and 62-year-old Grand Duchess Maria Teresa's grandchildren were not part of the family photo.
Prince Guillaume, the heir to the throne, and Belgian Countess Stephanie de Lannoy took place at the Cathedral of our Lady of Luxembourg.
Guillaume is a lieutenant colonel in the Luxembourg army, and has been engaged in humanitarian work in other countries, including Nepal.
This month, he and his wife are moving to London where he will undertake post-graduate training at the Royal College of Defence Studies, while Princess Stephanie studies art history at the Sotheby's Institute.
Princess Claire of Luxembourg and Prince Felix on National Day in June 2018. The couple are moving to London this month where they will both take up post-graduate studies
Prince Louis was flying solo for the family snap after divorcing from his wife Princess Tessy in February 2017.
The undefended 'quickie divorce' obtained by Princess Tessy on the grounds of 'unreasonable behaviour' was formalised at the Central Family Court in London where the pair lived.
The paperwork stated that a judge found that Princess Tessy was 'entitled to a decree of divorce, the marriage having irretrievably broken down, the facts found proved being the respondent's unreasonable behaviour'.
The couple share two sons, Prince Gabriel, 11, and Prince Noah, 10.
Princess Tessy of Luxembourg at an awards ceremony in Utah in January 2017, a month before divorcing Prince Louis
Italian journalists broke into Princess Margaret's hotel room to find out what nail varnish she was wearing, a documentary has revealed.
Royal expert Beatrice Behlen said the Queen's younger sister was 'absolutely hounded' during a trip to Italy in May 1949.
The fashion curator explained how Margaret, who was just 18 at the time, had quickly become an 'icon' around the world, and was photographed everywhere she went.
Journalists broke into Princess Margaret's hotel room during her trip to Italy in May 1949. Margaret, who was 18 at the time, is pictured here in Stresa, northern Italy
Speaking on the BBC documentary Princess Margaret: The Rebel Royal, Beatrice said: 'She went to Italy, and people are just totally hounding her.
'They actually broke into her hotel room to find out what nail varnish she was wearing, and that was reported in the press.'
An issue of LIFE from 1949 recounts how 'an Italian newspaper woman had managed to slip into the Princess' hotel suite', Hello! reports.
It goes on to explain that 'she discovered that she was reading a book called Busman's Honeymoon, using Tweed perfume and Peggy Sage nail polish. '
Royal expert Beatrice Behlen explained how Margaret (pictured on the Italian island of Capri in 1949) had quickly become an 'icon' all over the world
Peggy Sage is a cosmetics brand set up by its eponymous US founder in 1925, and still sells a large range of nail varnishes today.
Journalists reported that Margaret was using a nail polish by Peggy Sage. Pictured is one of the brand's nail varnishes still on sale today
But while the brand of nail polish worn by Margaret was reported by the press, the exact shade was not mention.
The Tweed perfume that Margaret was said to have worn was created by Lentheric in 1924 and is described as a 'sensuous woody floral fragrance.'
Behlen suggested that the amount of attention that the Queen's younger sister received during her trip to Italy came as a surprise to her.
'[It] wasn't expected. In England, the press was actually a lot more reverent.
'I think it was a bit of a shock,' she explained.
Margaret visited Rome, Venice, Florence and the island of Capri during her trip to Italy in 1949, as well as Stresa, in the north of the country.
Later that year, she also enjoyed a five-day visit to Paris, where she met fashion designer Christian Dior.
A new wave of influencers are taking over social media, but instead of plugging their favourite lipsticks they're sharing their tips for squeaky-clean surfaces.
Cleaning and de-cluttering gurus are eclipsing beauty bloggers as savvy homeowners show off their gleaming homes - offering tips and advice along the way.
Leading the way is the original 'Queen of Clean' Lynsey Crombie, who at 39 has racked up an impressive 68,000 followers with her household hacks.
While Sophie 'Mrs Hinch' Hinchcliffe has a mob of devoted fans - 'dubbed the 'Hinch Army' - who pore over pictures of her immaculate home.
And Nicola Lewis - aka This Girl Can Organise- has also found fame sharing her genius tips for de-cluttering messy homes.
At 39, ' Queen of clean ' Lynsey Crombie has racked up an impressive 68,000 followers with her household hacks. She is one of the original cleaning gurus as the trend takes off on social media, with hundreds of thousands of homeowners looking for helpful household hacks
Nicola Lewis - aka This Girl Can Organise - has found fame sharing her genius tips for decluttering messy homes (left); while Sophie 'Mrs Hinch' Hinchcliffe has an army of devoted fans ' dubbed the 'Hinch Army' - who pore over pictures of her immaculate home (right)
Meanwhile, high street store Savers reports that sales of its household products have risen by 11 per cent so far this year.
Doug Winchester, managing director at Savers, told MailOnline: 'There is something meditative about watching someone else clean their home on a screen.
'It's similar to watching gourmet cooking programmes while eating a sandwich, but unlike MasterChef we've found that it really spurs us, and our customers, on to take pride in our cleaning.
'We've definitely seen more and more customers coming into our stores and showing colleagues their phone to find the exact products shown in these social media videos.'
He added: 'In the last thirty years technology has changed the way we work, relax and socialise but in that time technology has not changed the way the majority of us clean our homes so this new 'cult of cleaning' is perfect for those going back to basics in areas of their lives.'
The purist
Lynsey Crombie has racked up an impressive 68,000 followers with her household hacks, like using lemon juice for everything from water marks to limescale, microwave cleaning and grease stains. She has shared some of her top cleaning tips exclusively with MailOnline
'Queen of clean' Lynsey (pictured) champions the important of 'safe cleaning' and encourages her fans to avoid mixing chemical products and read instructions carefully
Lynsey shares regular tips and techniques as well as recommended products (pictured) earning her almost 70,000 followers. She has appeared on Obsessive Compulsive Cleaners
A regular face on daytime TV, cleaning expert Lynsey Crombie has racked up an impressive 68,000 followers with her household hacks.
One of the original cleaning gurus, the Peterborough dweller prefers the natural method when it comes to dirt-busting and has been known to use everything from potato skins to banana peel to keep her home in mint condition.
Lynsey's top tips . Use lemon juice for sweat stains . Use tennis balls for marks on walls . Copper cloths to remove limescle . Bicarbonate of soda and white wine vinegar are best for cleaning drains . Safety first: Never mix products and always read instructions carefully Advertisement
She stresses the importance of 'safe cleaning' and encourages her fans to avoid mixing chemical products and read instructions carefully, while championing the benefits of cleaning for mental health.
The mother-of-three has appeared on Channel 4's Obsessive Compulsive Cleaners and has previously admitted to spending up to 80 on her weekly budget on household products.
Sparked by a traumatic family incident, Lynsey says she has used cleaning as a way to stay focused and motivated.
Speaking exclusively to MailOnline, she explained: 'I now use my social media pages to encourage others to clean to help with mental health issues and keep them clean and organised using the #queenofcleaneffect.
'I love making my own cleaning products and often use the old fashioned methods of cleaning. I would love to go back in time and spend the day as a Victorian maid experiencing real hard work.'
The viral sensation
Mrs Hinch, from Essex, went viral this week thanks to her hugely successful Instagram account where some 279,000 devoted fans pore over pictures of her immaculate home (pictured)
Sophie Hinchcliffe's immaculate living room, cleaned with a mix of bicarbonate of soda, white vinegar and Mountain Air Zoflora. The hairdresser said: 'I created my home page instead of bombarding my friends and family with pictures of my home on my personal account'
Sophie 'Mrs Hinch' Hinchcliffe from Maldon, Essex, hit headlines this week when her Instagram account - set up to share pictures of her home - went stratospheric.
The hashtag #MrsHinchMadeMeDoIt currently has over 3,000 posts of people sharing their own cleaning routine and must-haves, while Sophie is close to hitting 280,000 followers.
The newly-married hairdresser, 28, told Essex Live: 'I created my home page instead of bombarding my friends and family with pictures of my home on my personal account. Then it just spiralled and I couldn't be more grateful.'
She added: ''It started off as around 200 or 500 [followers] a month and now it's as many as 35,000 a day. It's in the last four to six weeks that it has gone viral. I've got followers from Ireland, the US and Australia and they are all amazing.'
The professional organiser
A snap from Nicola Lewis' Instagram page where she shares snaps of her immaculately arranged household objects. She is known to her 33k followers as This Girl Can Organise
A pantry makeover courtesy of Nicola Lewis, aka This Girl Can Organise, who offers personal decluttering services to get messy homes in order as well as bespoke PA services
As well as snaps of enviably tidy homes, Nicola offers her decluttering tips. For cupboards, she advises emptying the contents completely before executing a 'sort and purge' strategy
Nicola Lewis, 43, from Essex, is a bonafide de-cluttering guru who spent 20 years in investment banking before launching her business in April 2017.
The mother-of-two offers personal decluttering services to get messy homes in order as well as bespoke PA services.
Nicola has racked up more than 33,000 Instagram followers with her snaps of painstakingly organised pantries, drawers and wardrobes.
She told MailOnline: 'I have been blown away with the growth this year, in January I started off with 1,500 followers and now its at 33,300, all real people.
'I like to help everyone from busy working families, entertainment artists, single families, the lot... and I have found a huge link between mental health and de-cluttering. This is my full time job and I absolutely love it!'
Princess Eugenie has reportedly opted for a more formal dress code for her wedding than the Duke and Duchess of Sussex chose for their big day.
The bride-to-be and fiance Jack Brooksbank, 31, are said to have requested men wear morning coats to the nuptials at St George's Chapel, Windsor, on 12 October.
In contrast Harry and Meghan gave men the option of wearing a morning coat, military uniform or a more casual lounge suit to their wedding at the same venue in May. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge offered guests the same choice in 2011.
The details are included on a purported copy of Eugenie and Jack's wedding invitation which has been published by Vanity Fair.
Princess Eugenie and fiance Jack Brooksbank, 31, have reportedly requested men wear morning coats to the nuptials at St George's Chapel, Windsor, on 12 October. The dress code is included on a purported version of their invitation published online today. Pictured, Princess Eugenie and Mr Brooksbank in a morning coat at a friend's wedding last month
Harry and Meghan gave men the option of wearing a morning coat, military uniform or a more casual lounge suit to their wedding at the same venue in May. Indeed the Duke of Sussex donned military dress, pictured, while the Duchess of Sussex wore a gown by Givenchy
The purported invitation is written in a similar printed font to the Sussexes' and features almost identical wording.
It reads: 'His Royal Highness The Duke of York K.G. and Sarah, Duchess of York request the pleasure of the company of [guest's name] at the marriage of their daughter Her Royal Highness Princess Eugenie of York with Mr Jack Brooksbank at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle on Friday 12th October, 2018 at 11am followed by a reception at Windsor Castle.'
In the bottom left-hand corner is the address of the member of staff who will receive the RSVPs at Buckingham Palace.
In the bottom right-hand corner is the dress code: 'Morning Coat/Day Dress with Hat'. The name of the invitation's recipient has been blanked out by Vanity Fair.
Buckingham Palace declined to comment on whether the invitation is genuine.
George Clooney, pictured with his wife Amal, was among the male guests who opted to wear a lounge suit to the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex in May. The Clooneys are among the rumoured invitees to Eugenie's wedding, but George will have to wear a morning coat
Prince Harry, 33, wore his military uniform for his wedding to Meghan, 37, and several of his guests, including Prince William, 36, followed suit.
However the brothers will don a morning coat, worn with a waistcoat and formal trousers, as they watch their cousin, 28, tie the knot to her long-term boyfriend.
A morning suit is made up of a coat, waistcoat and trousers in the same colour and material. Men in morning dress also wear a shirt with a regular tie.
Princess Eugenie and Jack Brooksbank's invitation is written in a similar printed font to the Sussexes', pictured above, and features almost identical wording. The dress code for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex's wedding can be seen in the bottom right-hand corner above
Jack and Eugenie are expected to be surrounded by a star-studded confirmation as they exchange vows before heading to Windsor Castle for the reception.
There's expected to be some crossover with Harry and Meghan's guest list, with Amal and George Clooney, James Blunt, Cressida Bonas, Elton John and the Beckhams predicted to attend their second royal nuptials of the year.
But Eugenie's guest list is set to have an extra sprinkling of edginess in the form of a younger, cool crowd including Ellie Goulding, Cara Delevingne and Suki Waterhouse and modelling royalty Kate Moss and Cindy Crawford.
The late Princess Diana was known for her mischievous sense of humour, and now her former butler has revealed how even her sons fell victim to her impish pranks.
Paul Burrell, 60, has claimed that she once put a fake dog poo in Prince Harry's Christmas stocking when he was a child.
Speaking to the Mirror, Mr Burrell recalled how the now Duke of Sussex, now 33, was thrilled with the gift - and even planned to use it to play a prank on his grandmother the Queen.
Mr Burrell served as a footman to the monarch before working for Diana, and has often told stories of his time in royal circles.
Princess Diana once put fake dog poo in Prince Harry's Christmas stocking, according to her former butler Paul Burrell. Pictured: Diana at the American Red Cross Charity Ball in Washington DC in June 1997
Mr Burrell said Diana loved Christmas and wanted to make it special for Harry and his brother Prince William. Pictured: Diana and Harry at the 50th Anniversary of VE Day celebrations in London's Hyde Park in 1995
According to him, Diana loved Christmas and was always looking for ways to make it special for Harry and his brother Prince William, now the Duke of Cambridge.
Mr Burrell claimed she would spend hours searching for the perfect stocking fillers before she found the naughty gift for Harry.
He said: 'She'd spend hours looking for jokey things for their stockings. One year, Harry got fake dog poo.'
In the same interview Mr Burrell claimed that Diana and her boys had a very specific - and very 90s - Saturday night routine.
They would eat McDonald's that they'd collected from the restaurant themselves and then settled down to watch Blind Date in Diana's sitting room.
Mr Burrell served as a footman to the Queen before working for Diana and has often told stories of her life with her children. Pictured: Paul Burrell and Diana together
In the interview Mr Burrell claimed that Harry was thrilled with the gift, and even planned to use it in a prank on his grandmother the Queen. Pictured: Diana and Harry at Highgrove
Mr Burrell recently said that Harry's of almost five months Meghan Markle, 37, should 'get on with' having a baby, and predicted they would have a child within the first year of their marriage. Pictured: Harry and Meghan at a reception at Glencairn in Dublin in July
Mr Burrell said: 'They loved Blind Date and I'd hear them all screaming things like ''Oh don't pick him!'' and ''Lorra, lorra fun''.'
Last month Mr Burrell spoke about Harry's relationship with his new wife Meghan Markle, 37.
In the interview he urged Meghan to 'get on with' having a baby as 'time is marching on' and claimed Harry is ready to start a family.
He said: 'I predict that Meghan will very soon have a baby... They will have a baby within the first year of their marriage. Well, she will be pregnant within the first year of their marriage.
'Time is marching on and Harry does want a family. I think there's not much time left for Meghan. She's got to get on with it. Two [children] would be enough for Harry.'
A fascinating new book offers a rare glimpse into how the royals have celebrated Christmas over the past centuries.
A Royal Christmas, published by the Royal Collection, details the changing festive traditions of the royal family over the generations, from favourite festive cuisine to touching personal gifts.
Intimate images in the book, due to be released in October, include a Christmas card of young Princess Elizabeth, now Queen, and her sister Princess Margaret.
Another snapshot shows Queen Victoria's Christmas menu 1899, written in French and offering an influx of lavish courses including boar's head.
A Royal Christmas, published by the Royal Collection, details the changing festive traditions of the royal family over the generations, and include a Christmas card of young Princess Elizabeth, now Queen, and her sister Princess Margaret
The work also examines the royal family's influence on Christmas customs, such as the trees first brought by Queen Charlotte- seen above at Osborne House in c 1873
As well as Christmas dinner menus, more than 150 objects, photographs and documents from the Royal Collection and the Royal Archives will feature in the illustrated book, many published for the first time.
Queen Victoria's Christmas fare in 1899 was printed on an elaborately decorated menu, written in French and headed 'Her Majesty's Dinner'.
It included numerous courses including roast beef, mince pies and plum pudding, as well as an indulgent buffet of Baron of Beef, Game Pie, Woodcock Pie, Brawn, Roast Fowl and Tongue.
23rd December 1944: A beach scene with actors and actresses in 'Old Mother Red Riding Boots', a pantomime that is playing at Windsor Castle
Queen Victoria's Christmas fare in 1899 was printed on an elaborately decorated menu, written in French and headed 'Her Majesty's Dinner'. It included numerous courses including roast beef, mince pies and plum pudding, as well as an indulgent buffet of Baron of Beef, Game Pie, Woodcock Pie, Brawn, Roast Fowl and Tongue
On 26 December 1833, Princess Victoria went to Drury Lane Theatre to see a grand Christmas Spectacle called St.George and the Dragon/The Seven Champions of Christendom. In her journal entry of that day, Princess Victoria describes how "Mr. Ducrow's fight with the dragon, on horseback, was quite beautiful- shown in this watercolour from 1834
King George IV was partial to a plum broth on Christmas Day, made using large quantities of port, brandy, madeira, sherry and claret, while medieval monarchs dined on roast swan and gilded peacocks.
Henry II ate boar's head, pickled in brine and stuffed, braised and roasted, at his Christmas banquets.
The work also examines the royal family's influence on Christmas customs, such as the trees first brought by Queen Charlotte from her native Germany and the roast turkey popularised by King Edward VII.
This watercolour by James Roberts, commissioned by Queen Victoria, shows the Queens Christmas tree in the State Apartments at Windsor Castle in 1850
Royal gifts detailed in the book include a jewelled brooch, given to Queen Victoria by husband Prince Albert in 1841, which featured an enamel miniature portrait of their first child, Victoria, Princess Royal, in the guise of a cherub
Royal gifts detailed in the book include a jewelled brooch, given to Queen Victoria by husband Prince Albert in 1841, which featured an enamel miniature portrait of their first child, Victoria, Princess Royal, in the guise of a cherub.
Christmas cards were first produced in the UK in the 1840s, and the royal family's love of the festive season meant they were quick to adopt the new trend.
As well as handmade cards by Queen Victoria's children, the book includes Christmas cards by the Windsor generation of royals featuring photographs of a young Princess Elizabeth, now Queen, and her sister Princess Margaret.
A volume of Prince Alberts songs, composed between 1847 and 1853, consisting of settings of verses by his brother Ernest II, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, and the German lyric poet Ludwig Uhland (17871862) is seen bound in green velvet
A Christmas hymn composed by Prince Albert: Music composition had formed an important part of Prince Albert's early musical education, and he developed a talent for composing small scale pieces, such as those featured in this volume.
A Royal Christmas is available from October 18 from royalcollection.org.uk/shop and Royal Collection shops for 9.95, and at various bookshops for 12.95
In the wartime years, Elizabeth and Margaret took part in a series of Christmas pantomimes at Windsor Castle.
They are pictured performing in Sleeping Beauty, Aladdin and Old Mother Red Riding Boots, an original combination of the best parts of different pantomimes.
The book also charts the history of the monarch's Christmas Broadcast, watched each year by millions of people around the world.
A Royal Christmas is available from October 18 from royalcollection.org.uk/shop and Royal Collection shops for 9.95, and at various bookshops for 12.95.
While life may seem glamorous now for Alek Wek it hasn't always been that way, as the supermodel revealed in a candid interview this week.
The supermodel, who began her fashion career at the age of 18 after being scouted in south London, spoke about her life before being a world-famous model, growing up in war-torn Wau, now known as South Sudan.
Alek, 41, who now lives in Brooklyn and has walked for the likes of Chanel and Moschino, told the Evening Standard magazine that 'no words' could describe the horrors that she witnessed.
And once her family had relocated to England, Alek had to navigate the foreign world of modelling, admitting she was at first uncomfortable with having to do naked photo shoots.
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Model Alek Wek has spoken up about the horrors of growing up in war-torn South Sudan before having to navigate the foreign world of modelling once she had relocated to the UK
Recounting on her modelling memories Alek spoke about her shoot in 1999 for the Perelli calendar which was showing Women Through the Decades, admitting she was hesitant to shoot it at first.
She said: 'I was still a virgin and didn't want to be naked in front of a man. But my agents said to me, "You're good, you're safe, and they're going to celebrate you".'
Born in 1977, Alek is the seventh of nine children and grew up during the eighties when the civil war devastated the country.
Despite having an idyllic start to life in the mountains of Wau, once the civil war started she recalled gunshots, bombings, people barricading her family in their home, and smelling the rotten flesh of people.
The model even told of how she once went out to fetch water and found her neighbours dead.
The model opened up about her life before being a high fashion model, when she lived in war-torn Wau, now known as South Sudan (seen on the catwalk in June)
Around two million people died in Alek's home country during the war, with Alek telling the publication: 'Everybody lost a family member.' (Seen in Paris Fashion Week in February)
Around 2 million people died in Alek's home country during the war, with Alek telling the magazine: 'Everybody lost a family member.'
In 1985, she was forced to leave the country on foot as a refugee, and witnessed the death of her father who tragically died on their travels due to an infected hip injury.
Her family moved to England under a refugee status but her life changed dramatically in 1995, when she was approached by a model scout in Crystal Palace.
Alek's mother banned her from starting modelling until she had finished school, but let her go to New York during the summer holidays.
That same year she was signed to New York-based Ford Models and landed her first job appearing in Tina Turner's Goldeneye video.
In 1985, she was forced to leave the country on foot as a refugee, and witnessed the death of her father who tragically died on their travels due to an infected hip injury (Seen in Venice last week)
Alek spoke about her shoot in 1999 for the Perelli calendar which was showing Women Through the Decades, admitting she was hesitant to shoot it at first as she was required to be naked and was a virgin at the time (Seen walking during Paris Fashion Week in March this year)
And not long afterwards she was catapulted into the limelight when she appeared in Italian Vogue, taking the fashion world by storm.
In 1997, she was the first African model to appear on the cover of Elle, in a pivotal photoshoot which was rare at the time.
Speaking about the shoot, she said: 'What has been realised is black [culture] makes a lot of money - our music, our style - and it's a big freaking market.
'Because of social media if you don't put black people in your magazines, you're going to be exposed. You don't find black people beautiful, you're going to be exposed.'
Alek also works with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees and with Unicef to bring light to the ongoing civil unrest in her home country.
Speaking of the future the model, who admits to being surprised her career has 'lasted this long' said she would love to have children.
Currently 'single and ready to mingle', Alek revealed that she hopes to find a man who is 'kind', adding that she was 'surprised' her career had 'lasted this long'.
Meghan Markle's makeup artist has revealed how her style has changed since becoming a royal - and the one look she's unlikely to revisit.
Daniel Martin, who did the Duchess of Sussex's makeup for her wedding, said she has opted for a more refined look since going from TV star to working royal.
The Dior ambassador also noted that she appears to favour 'stronger' eye makeup and defined brows to get a more toned down look.
Speaking to People, Martin claimed that Meghan, 37, said she doesn't 'feel comfortable' with a red lip and will rarely be seen with one these days.
Daniel Martin, who did the Duchess of Sussex's makeup for her wedding, has revealed how her makeup look has changed. She doesn't like to wear a red lip because she worries it will smudge. Pictured: ttends ELLE's 6th Annual Women In Television Dinner in Hollywood in 2016
Martin said Meghan now prefers to go for stronger eye makeup and defined brows for her polished look. Pictured: Meghan at a gala in Westminster, London earlier this month
He also explained that Meghan will often experiment with different tones but won't stray too far from what works for her.
He said: 'She likes a stronger eye, her brow is a lot more defined now vut it's still her. If anything, she's going to experiment with different tones, and now that she's more tan she'll use warmer colors.
'But she doesn't stray too far from her technique, she's very formulaic with her routine.'
Martin revealed that Meghan doesn't like a red lip because she doesn't want to worry about it smuding.
Martin (pictured in a recent snap posted to Instagram) said that Meghan will experiment with different tones but won't stray too far from what works for her
Since her wedding to Prince Harry in May this year, fans have noticed that Meghan has adopted a more conservative and chic style. Pictured: Meghan at Wimbledon in July
He continued: 'The one time she did a red lip, she just didn't feel comfortable in it. She likes to talk and she's not a fussy person, so she doesn't want to have to worry about anything.'
Martin recently revealed his secret technique to ensuring the Duchess's freckles stand out - as it's her 'favourite feature.'
He he uses a 'selective placement of foundation', applying the base like a spot treatment, and then uses a blending brush to even it out.
Martin recently revealed that Meghan's freckles are her 'favourite feature' and likes them to stand out. Pictured: Harry and Meghan at a reception at Glencairn in Dublin
He previously revealed how he likes to use water-based foundations, along with Tatcha's The Silk Canvas primer, priced at $52 (40), in order for the make-up to stay on for longer.
Speaking to E! News, Daniel explained: 'People with freckles tend to have a really balanced palette.
'If they have any redness, it's in the T-zone, around the nose, maybe some discoloration the eyes.
'It's about evening out those specific areas to blend in with the rest of the face. I tend to use a blending brush and I'll go in and buff out the undertone that I don't want.'
Not content with taking on high street fashion, Aldi is now hoping to win over shoppers with the launch of a stylish new kitchenware range.
The German discount chain has unveiled a trendy ironware collection that looks remarkably similar to signature designs by French brand Le Creuset.
Shoppers can pick from a selection of non-stick skillets, grill trays, frying pans, tagines, roasters, and a casserole dish starting from just 12.99.
The cast iron cookware range could offer shoppers hundreds of pounds on savings, especially when compared it to similar, premium sets from Le Creuset.
Aldi has entered the world of ironware with a new collection. An Aldi Casserole Dish which costs 24.99 (pictured) bears a striking resemblance to a pricey offering from Le Creuset
Le Creuset's iconic casserole dish, pictured, is a coveted kitchen accessory but will set shoppers back an eye-watering 235
The most expensive item in the collection costs less than 25 with Aldi claiming to offer a total saving of 644 for the casserole dish, shallow casserole dish and tagine when compared against Le Creuset products.
Aldis new range, crafted from cast iron, will be available in cream, grey and red and chefs can use the new cooking tools at temperatures of up to 200 C.
Cast Iron cookware is well known for its durability and how well it retains heat, making it a favourite among professional chefs.
However, this can make a full set very expensive for the average household.
As part of it's brand new ironware range, Aldi is selling this Shallow Casserole Dish for just 24.99 (left). In comparison, Le Creuset's premium alternative will set you back an eye-watering 199 (right)
Another great saving you can make with Aldi's brand new cookware collection, is this Cast Iron tagine. You can purchase the tagine from Aldi for 19.99 (left) while the one from Le Creuset costs 190 (right)
How much will Aldi's ironware range cost? Cast Iron casserole dish 24.99 Cast Iron shallow casserole dish 24.99 Cast Iron roaster 19.99 Large Cast Iron tagine 19.99 Cast Iron frying pan 14.99 Cast Iron skillet 14.99 Cast Iron grill tray 12.99 Silicone double oven glove 6.99 Stoneware mixed assortment 3.49 Advertisement
Aldi claims its latest range aims to offer budding chefs the chance to cook with cast iron at home for a very reduced rate.
The kitchenware launch will be available to pre-order from September 16 and will be in store and online from September 20.
The move follows its unveiling of a new Autumn fashion collection where everything is priced at under 20.
The range, available online from September 23 and in store from September 27, includes chunky knits and chic office wear to rival its high-end counterparts.
Their grey gingham dress is priced at a reasonable 10.99, while a similar frock by Mango costs an eye-watering 49.99.
Canadian stylist Jessica Mulroney celebrated her daughter Ivy's return to school by sharing a sweet video of the five-year-old boasting about her new boyfriends but not everyone thought the playful conversation was cute.
The 38-year-old mom, who is best friends with Meghan Markle, took to Instagram on Wednesday to post the clip, which shows a smiling Ivy talking about having three boyfriends.
While many fans thought the video was 'adorable,' a few critics found the conversation to be inappropriate and slammed Jessica for asking her young daughter if she has a new boyfriend.
Chatting away: Canadian stylist Jessica Mulroney took to Instagram on Wednesday to post a short clip of her daughter Ivy talking about having three new boyfriends at school
Too cute: In the video, five-year-old Ivy admits that she doesn't remember all the boys' names, prompting her mom to joke: 'Well, that's the way to do it girl'
Critics: One commenter slammed Jessica for asking her young daughter if she has boyfriend. 'Leave the parenting to the parents and lighten up,' the stylist hit back
'Um, so you just started school, so do you have a new boyfriend?' Jessica asks Ivy at the start of the clip, prompting her daughter to say: 'Um, I think there is one.'
After her mom confirms that she has one boyfriend, Ivy thinks it over and says: 'Um, no there's two.'
'There's two?' Jessica asks, and Ivy changes her mind for a second time.
'I think there's three,' she explains.
When the stylist asks what the boys' names are, Ivy admits that she doesn't know.
Seriously: Jessica asked why the woman would assume that was the only conversation she has ever had with her daughter
Not alone: Many commenters sided with Jessica and revealed similar conversations that they have had with their own children
Having fun: When sharing the post, Ivy tagged her husband, Ben Mulroney, and joked in the caption that Ivy is 'playin' the field'
'Hmm, I don't remember,' she says honestly, and the clip ends with the mom encouraging her daughter.
'Well, that's the way to do it girl,' she says, giving Ivy a high-five. 'Keep 'em coming.'
Weighing in: Jessica is best friends with Meghan Markle (pictured in 2016), and one fan jokingly asked what 'aunt Meghan thinks about all this'
When sharing the post, Ivy tagged her husband and wrote: 'Playin the field. Sorry @benmulroney #sochill.'
In less than 24 hours, the video has been viewed more than 85,000 times, and while many of the comments have been positive, one mother criticized Jessica's parenting skills.
'As a mother of three grown kids and a teacher of over 30 years, I think we should never ask a question such as this to our young children,' the woman commented. 'How about talking about being friends with everyone, especially the kids who are alone.
'How about teaching our girls and boys that they can wait to have "boyfriends" and "girlfriends"?' she added. 'I think, even if you think it was just for fun, it's really not teaching girls to be independent.'
Instead of ignoring the comment, Jessica hit back at the woman for shaming her while sharing unsolicited parenting advice.
'Do you think this [is] the only conversation I've ever had with my daughter? Why do you assume those other conversations haven't been had,' she wrote.
Party of five: Jessica and Ben also have eight-year-old twin sons, John and Brian
Honor: Little Ivy (right) was a bridesmaid at Meghan's royal wedding to Prince Harry. She and her mom were photographed with Kate Middleton and Princess Charlotte (left) on the big day
'Leave parenting up to the parents and lighten up [smiley face emoji].'
Many commenters sided with Jessica and revealed similar conversations that they have had with their own children.
'Our five year old just told us she is "back together" with her boyfriend and that "life is so complicated,"' one mom explained, while another added: 'This is a typical conversation I have with my six-year-old too!'
And one fan joked: 'What does aunt Meghan thinks about this?'
Little Ivy was a bridesmaid at Meghan's royal wedding to Prince Harry, while Jessica and Ben's eight-year-old twin sons John and Brian served as pageboys on the big day.
The OECD Observer online archive takes you on a journey through half a century of public policy and world progress.
Since November 1962, the OECDs experts and leading guests offer insights on the questions facing our member countries with concise and authoritative analysis, and provide our audiences with an excellent opportunity to understand policy debates and consider solutions.
Each edition of the OECD Observer reports on a core theme of the OECDs on-going work, from economics and society through governance, finance, and the environment, and articles are bolstered by tables and graphs.
The first time I did it, I was sitting in a bath. There was a sharp sting as a red plume of blood curled into the water. It didnt hurt as much as Id imagined. In fact, I felt suddenly better and strangely in control.
Aged 16, I had just calmly slashed a razor across my thigh. It hadnt been planned: Id done it almost without thinking. What struck me was how the physical pain instantly cloaked my internal misery.
What had started with pinching the flesh on my left arm, legs and stomach or pulling my hair had escalated within a few months to cutting myself. The more intense the pain, the more effectively it assuaged my tortured mind. Or so it felt.
Kitty Dimbleby (pictured, left, aged 17, and, right, with her mother Bel Mooney) gives devastating impact into self harm
Climbing out of my bath, I found some plasters and dressed the wound (soon the familiarity of that act would comfort me as much as the cutting itself). I could feel the wound throbbing under my clothes for days afterward. This was my secret, strangely consoling. This moment marked the start of around two years of regular self-harming. At certain points I would hurt myself every single day.
Now a woman of 38, I have not thought about my self-harming for years although the faint scars on my arms and legs are a constant, quiet reminder. I certainly never intended to write publicly about my experience.
But the recent Childrens Society report suggesting that up to one in four 14-year-old girls in the UK have self-harmed compelled me to share my experiences in the hope it might help both parents and those feeling the lonely pain and self-disgust that accompanies it.
The survey of 11,000 children found 22 per cent of the girls, and 9 per cent of the boys, said they had hurt themselves on purpose in the year prior to the questionnaire.
These terrifying statistics are included in the charitys annual Good Childhood Report, which examines the state of childrens well-being in the UK. Teenagers interviewed by the charity said they did not think they were pretty enough or good enough and that hurting themselves made them feel better.
In many ways, my reasons for hurting myself were the same, although my circumstances were very different. On the surface, I had everything any 16-year-old could hope for.
I had loving, supportive parents. My father is broadcaster Jonathan Dimbleby and my mother is Bel Mooney, this newspapers advice columnist. My family had a beautiful home and I had wonderful friends and a kind, handsome boyfriend. Many of those who self-harm are similarly blessed, but that doesnt stop you berating yourself.
For some, it is anxiety about their looks. For others, it is the stress of school life or exams.
Kitty Dimbleby (pictured with her mother, Bel Mooney) said that self-harm made her feel more in control
My complication was that I was born with Hirschsprungs disease, a disorder of the abdomen that occurs when part or all of the large intestine has no nerves and so cannot function.
When I was three days old, they operated to remove the segment of my bowel that didnt work, creating a colostomy that was reversed nine months later.
I was supposed to be cured, but sadly I wasnt, and major surgery was needed again when I was 12, 16, 17, 19 and, finally, 22. I was at my worst during those tricky teenage years. While my peers were learning to become young adults I was regressing, infantilised because I needed so much looking after.
I was in and out of Bristol Childrens Hospital after doctors realised a segment of my bowel had stopped working.
I became adept at coping with medical procedures and pain; insisting on putting in my own nasal gastric tube (a tube that runs from your nose to your stomach to administer medicine/food or drain the stomach) and learning how to carry out procedures when the toxins in my body were building up, making me bloated, sluggish and grey.
'I earning how to carry out procedures when the toxins in my body were building up, making me bloated, sluggish and grey,' writes Kitty Dimbleby
Physical pain became a norm and dealing with the stress and anxiety of it all begin to take its toll. I missed school, parties, my friends, and fell behind in my studies and my life. Looking back, I can see I became very depressed.
I held it together on the outside, but inside I felt like a boiling pan of water. Self-harming became a way to lift the lid and allow the water to simmer down. Being overwhelmed by emotions you cant cope with is a common experience in puberty, whatever your circumstances.
I cant recall how I first came up with the idea of inflicting pain on myself. I can only think that physical discomfort, which I had become so good at managing, was easier to cope with than internal agony. By hurting myself when it all became too much, I was externalising the internal.
The relief was immediate, but always short-lived. I remember sitting in lessons, picking my black tights away from the scabs to make them bleed again, the blood hidden by the opaque wool.
I didnt think anyone would understand, so I was careful to hide it from my friends and parents. Yes, I felt guilty about lying, but it was to protect them as much as myself.
Bel Mooney is pictured with her daughter Kitty Dimbleby at home in Upper Swainswick, Bath
I cut mostly on my legs where it was easier to cover. If I ever did cut my arms, it was always on the inside. I wore long-sleeve tops just in case.
Soon cutting in the bath was not enough. I felt the need to do it during the day, too while at school or at friends houses. I made a kit, disguised in a pencil case with a small Stanley knife (the tiny ones designed for cutting paper), disinfectant wipes and plasters, and when I got overwhelmed at school I would go to the toilets and slash my own thighs.
Its hard to write this as it seems alien to the confident, happy woman I have become today. But, at the time, it was my reality and felt as though it would always be so.
Things got worse before they got better. Just after my GCSE exams, my paediatric surgeon decided to operate and remove the segment of bowel that wasnt working.
I was told I would need an ileostomy bag, where the small bowel is diverted through an opening in the abdomen to create a stoma through which bodily waste passes into a bag, while the bowel healed, before they would (hopefully) operate to rejoin the healthy bowel that remained. I was horrified.
That summer, the wait for the operation was awful. There was a genuine risk I could die during surgery, so I was afraid and angry. I started punishing my poor little body whenever I got the opportunity.
Ive since discovered that it was at this point that friends started to notice something was wrong. I would go off on my own more, became increasingly subdued and, of course, constantly covered my arms and legs no matter the weather.
My friends didnt confront me, but took steps to protect me from myself refusing to allow me to be on my own too much, making excuses to accompany me to the toilet or bathroom. In their own, innocent way they made a huge difference without words or judgment showing me how much they loved me.
I hid it from my parents for much longer. A year after the big operation having continued to yo-yo in and out of hospital my consultant grew very worried about how low I had become, and referred me to a child psychotherapist.
Finally, I was able to tell someone what I was doing. Then, encouraged by him, I told my parents, who were devastated but amazing. Mum tells me now that she felt incredibly guilty that, despite our closeness, she hadnt realised what I was doing.
But they understood that I couldnt deal with the emotional pain of being in hospital and thats why I turned it into something physical, tangible, which I could put a plaster over to heal. They knew I hated my body of course I did, because it caused me almost constant pain and looked so different; all those scars from surgery, when all I wanted was to be normal.
Looking back, I realise that it helped (me and my parents) that my terrible health problems gave me as good a reason as there can be to self-harm.
And yet, if Im honest, that was only part of the story. I can see now that a sense of isolation, the fear of being thought ugly, the cumulative stress of exams and friendships were also a large factor.
And they are all as much a part of teenage life today.
In the late Nineties, self-harming was quite rare. Today, it is terrifyingly commonplace: NHS data published a year ago showed a 68 per cent rise in hospital admissions because of self-harm among girls under 17 in the past decade in England.
Dr Bernadka Dubicka, the chair of the child and adolescent faculty at the Royal College of Psychiatrists, said: There is a growing crisis in children and young peoples mental health, and, in particular, a gathering crisis in mental distress and depression among girls and young women. Emotional problems in young girls have been significantly, and very worryingly, on the rise over the past few years.
It is no surprise that these mental health problems have soared in the same period in which young peoples use of social media has exploded.
I dont know any woman who doesnt feel at least a glimmer of disapproval of her own body after time spent looking at the honed, toned (surgically enhanced) beauties who grace our TV and smartphone screens. If grown women feel this way, what hope do vulnerable teens have?
Young women today need the reassurance of likes and shares online, and are faced with images of perfect bodies.
I raged against my imperfect, sick body like todays teens are raging against theirs as social media convinces them they are in some way imperfect. Not only that, but a quick search of the self-harm hashtag on Instagram reveals square after square of pain.
Teens can now get advice on how to cut deeper or abuse a peer for being weak enough to harm themselves in the first place. Such photos show me that my harming was lightweight compared with others, and the faint scars I now bare relatively minor.
But to be honest, I couldnt bear to delve too deeply online. It brings back too many bad memories. Im just grateful I didnt have access to anything like that when I was unwell. So not only is social media helping to create these issues, but also giving sufferers a platform to share images which will only exacerbate their problems. Its out of control and makes me fear for my children having to grow up in a world were online image is paramount.
And I want to weep for a generation of young women who cant see how beautiful they are and how wonderful life really is.
Thanks to the support of my parents, friends and skilled doctors I got better, gradually, both mentally and physically.
I got rid of all sharp objects and, when I felt the urge to harm myself, I would either call a friend or squeeze my fists tightly shut, which is uncomfortable enough without causing any real damage. Over time the urge dissipated.
I stopped physically harming myself before I turned 18, I dont remember exactly why, but I think, thanks to the help and support I received from my loved ones, I just outgrew it. Because I no longer hurt as much inside, I didnt need to externalise my pain. Then, like so many of my peers, I drank and smoked too much during my university years. But that, at least, was normal.
Now I am healthy and the happily married mother of two beautiful children. That desperately ill, sad teenage girl is a distant memory.
I wish I could reassure her that one day it would all be OK, that she was loved then and would be loved in the future. I wish I could tell her what all of us must tell ourselves in our darkest moments: This too shall pass.
Dozens of experts have written to Public Health England to express anger about its decision to work with a charity funded by the alcohol industry.
The letter is the latest in an outcry over the government health body's decision to team up with Drinkaware.
Drinkaware gives advice on cutting down unhealthy drinking, but is funded by donations from alcohol producers, pub companies and supermarkets.
Public Health England will work with the charity on a new Drink Free Days campaign urging middle-aged people to have set days when they avoid alcohol.
But experts warn partnering the two organisations will 'significantly damage the credibility of Public Health England'.
The letter comes just days after Professor Sir Ian Gilmore, a senior PHE adviser, quit his job and blasted the government for being 'mates' with big business.
Alcohol and drug experts say Public Health England's decision to work with Drinkaware, a charity funded by donations from alcohol producers, pub companies and supermarkets, 'significantly damages the credibility' of the government organisation
Some 46 experts in fields ranging from illegal drugs to alcohol have signed a letter to PHE over its decision to work with Drinkaware, the BBC said.
The letter said there should be a clear line between public health campaigns and industry-funded messages or marketing.
The Drink Free Days campaign will urge people to have two days off drinking every week, in a bid to cut down Brits' unhealthy alcohol consumption.
But concerns have been raised about where the message is seen to be coming from.
OFFICIALS RECOMMEND TWO DRINK-FREE DAYS A WEEK Drinkers should have at least two alcohol-free days a week, health chiefs said last week. Public Health England's Drink Free Days campaign is urging regular drinkers to set a weekly target of non-drinking days to improve health and avoid dependency. One in five people drink above the recommended limit of 14 units a week, equivalent to a small 150ml glass of wine every day, a survey found. Duncan Selbie, chief executive of Public Health England, said: 'Many of us enjoy a drink, but it's all too easy to let our drinking creep up on us. 'While the link with liver disease is well known, many people are not aware that alcohol can cause numerous other serious health problems, such as high blood pressure, heart disease, as well as several cancers. 'Setting yourself a target of having more drink-free days every week is an easy way to drink less and reduce the risks to your health.' Advertisement
Drug experts wrote in their letter: 'industry-funded messages and social marketing campaigns should not be a substitute for publicly funded campaigns providing independent and evidence-based information'.
And their comments add to former adviser Sir Ian's criticism after his resignation last week.
At the time he said his role had been undermined and that closer links between the alcohol industry and the government could 'water down' any new booze laws.
His colleague Professor John Britton, also a senior PHE health adviser, indicated he might also resign if the body did not rethink its plan, The Times reported.
But PHE says the Drink Free Days campaign is 'a fresh and bold step' in its work to reduce alcohol harm.
PHE said it was 'steadfast in its ambition to reduce the harms that drinking too much alcohol can cause' and that it would 'work together with any partner that speaks to the evidence and shares the same commitment'.
Sir Leigh Lewis, chairman of the Drinkaware Trust, insisted the charity does not speak on behalf of the alcohol industry.
The charity says on its website it is 'funded largely by voluntary and unrestricted donations from UK alcohol producers, retailers and supermarkets', but insists it is independent.
Sir Leigh added: 'It is saddening to see that false allegations about our independence are being used to undermine serious and genuine attempts to help people moderate their drinking.'
A holidaymaker claims she needed all five toes on her right foot amputated after catching a bone-eating infection from a fish spa on holiday in Thailand.
Victoria Curthoys, of Perth, Australia, already had half of one toe chopped off after catching an infection more than a decade ago.
And surgeons amputated her other digits after she unknowingly caught shewanella from the spa in 2010, where freshwater fish feed on any dead skin.
Doctors in Australia took two years to diagnose her with the water-borne bug, which had left her battling recurring fevers and sickness.
It rotted away the rest of her big toe after seeping through her prior surgery wounds, forcing medics to amputate it in 2012.
The pressure of walking on her smaller toes left Miss Curthoys with ulcers hiding further infections. All her toes were amputated over the next five years.
Victoria Curthoys, of Perth, Australia, already had half of one toe chopped off after catching an infection more than a decade ago
Speaking about her ordeal, the 29-year-old said: 'When I was in Thailand I decided to use a fish spa.
'I thought nothing of it as I'd watched the owner set up the system and it looked very clean, but how wrong I was.'
Miss Curthoys revealed she had half of her big toe amputated when she was just 17, after she caught it on some glass.
It didn't cause her any pain so she didn't notice it was there for a while - but by then it was too late as an infection had spread to her bone.
Doctors were forced to amputate half of the property manager's big toe. The rest of it was removed in 2012 - two years after her trip to Thailand.
She said: 'I ended up getting another bone infection in my big toe and it took doctors over a year to figure out what type of bug I had.
'By the time they'd realised what it was, my entire toe bone had been eaten away and I'd been suffering from sickness the whole time.
'They eventually decided to take the big toe off completely. I felt relieved I could go back to my life without being sick all the time.
And surgeons amputated her other digits after she unknowingly caught shewanella from the spa in 2010, where freshwater fish feed on any dead skin (pictured, her right foot now)
Miss Curthoys added: 'A year of walking without a big toe caused ulcers on the second toe from the pressure placed on it.
'It had a rough callus over the top, but I was unaware that underneath that there was another raging infection. This time, the doctors took the second toe and left me with three toes.
'I was healthy for another two years, I thought I was very lucky to still have my foot and carried on with my life. But then I started to get sick again.'
She said she would vomit every morning and constantly have a fever - but medics could not find any signs of an infection.
Miss Curthoys added: 'So the doctors fobbed it off for a long time and they told me it was all in my head.
Doctors were forced to amputate half of the property manager's big toe when she was 17. The rest of it was removed in 2012 - two years after her trip to a fish spa in Thailand (stock)
WHAT IS SHEWANELLA INFECTION? Shewanella are a type of bacteria which are found everywhere in the environment but rarely cause infection in humans. They are most often found in water both fresh and salt water and in foods and sewage. Although usually harmless, if they get into the body they can cause ear infections, cellulitis, abscesses, or infect existing wounds. A 2013 review of 16 known cases of shewanella infection in humans found 13 per cent of people infected with the bacteria died. There are at least 30 species of the bacteria, which were originally found in butter in 1931, and they may live in water, dairy products, oil and animal carcasses. The bacteria usually enter the body through broken skin or the digestive tract. Most cases occur in warm climates, but they can appear anywhere the 2013 research found multiple infections in Denmark, South Korea, South Africa, the US, Taiwan, Belgium and India. The infections can usually be treated with common antibiotics but may be resistant to penicillin in some cases. Source: The American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene Advertisement
'It wasn't until my podiatrist ordered blood samples they realised I did in fact have another bone infection and I had a very high white blood cell count. This was why I was feeling so terrible.'
Surgeons amputated her third and fourth toes in November 2016 but left the small toe.
She said: 'Because the little toe was the only one left, I kept knocking it and when I walked, and all the pressure would go onto the little toe.
'Last year I noticed my small toe wasn't looking very happy and there was some liquid on my sock, but I couldn't see any cuts.
'After a few blood samples and more X-rays, they discovered another bone infection, so they finally took the last toe in November 2017.'
Miss Curthoys claimed that one day she may lose her entire right leg if she fails to spot an infection, so he has to check her feet everyday for pressure spots.
Miss Curthoys admitted she was afraid of showing her toeless right foot for a while, until she came to terms with it.
She is now warning against using the fish spas - already considered controversial - which caused her so much devastation.
Speaking about her feet now, she said: 'I can honestly say that my foot has never been as healthy as it is now. Now I can put pressure on my foot.
'Now and again I tend to trip because of the lack of feeling and having to get used to not having any toes, but I've been very lucky to be able to just get back up and walk.
'My parents are proud of me and my friends think I'm awesome because I've been through a lot.
'But at the end of the day I've seen people with far worse injuries and life-altering illnesses, so I consider myself lucky.'
Miss Curthoys added: 'I used to be a bit worried when I was at the beach or pools in case someone would see my foot and think "yuck".
She now takes regular photos of her feet and posts them on her Instagram account, @terrifically-toeless, to build her own confidence and help others.
A father-of-two was forced to have his penis amputated after a 'harmless rash' turned out to be a rare form of cancer.
Neil Walker, 54, from Bristol, realised something was wrong when discolouration on his genitals was not fading. After being told it was nothing to worry about and prescribed a steroid cream by his GP, Mr Walker insisted on further tests.
He was finally diagnosed with penile cancer in September 2014 and underwent an operation to amputate the tip of his genitals. Yet, when the cancer returned just a few years later, he had to have the entire organ removed.
Due to the cancer spreading, lymph nodes in his groin also had to taken out. This left Mr Walker with a severely weak immune system that saw him on 'death's door' while he battled sepsis four times in just one year.
Now recovered, Mr Walker, who urinates out of a 'make-shift hole' behind his testicles, said: 'I have been left feeling completely de-masculinized and I know that if I had caught the cancer sooner, I'd still have my manhood.'
Father-of-two Neil Walker, 54, was forced to have his penis amputated after a 'harmless rash' turned out to be a rare form of cancer. He first realised something was wrong when discolouration on his genitals was not fading. Also pictured is his wife Amanda, 48
Speaking of his early symptoms, Mr Walker said: 'I noticed a rash on the head of my penis and I was given steroid cream by doctors at first as no one thought it was anything too serious.
'It wasn't until I returned again a month later that I was referred to the hospital and was told it was penile cancer.
'As soon as they told me I was shocked, because I thought it was just a rash but suddenly I was entering a battle with cancer.
'It didn't even click in my head that I'd need amputations and would eventually lose my penis.'
He was diagnosed with penile cancer in September 2014 and had an operation to amputate the tip of his genitals. Yet, when the cancer returned, he had to have the entire organ removed
Mr Walker (pictured when he was younger and a firefighter) claims if he had been diagnosed sooner he may still have his 'manhood'. Instead, doctors dismissed his rash and prescribed him a steroid cream. He is speaking out to raise awareness of the symptoms of penile cancer
Just three months after being diagnosed, Mr Walker underwent his first surgery to remove the tip of his penis. Doctors managed to re-create the head of his genitals by taking a skin graft from his leg.
Mr Walker said: 'When I had the first amputation I wasn't as sad because they managed to recreate the head of my penis with skin from my leg.'
Despite his optimism, tests revealed the cancer had entered the lymph nodes in his groin, forcing him to go under the knife again to have them removed.
Mr Walker, who is married to his wife Amanda, 48, said: 'This left me with nothing to fight off infection from the waist down, so I began contracting sepsis four times a year and constantly being on death's door.
'Then, after thinking I was doing okay and completely on the mend, I noticed another rash on my penis in August 2017 and I knew the cancer had returned.
'In this time, I also lost my eyesight in both eyes because of thrombolysis, which has caused complications with my further cancer treatment.
'In March this year, after more biopsies, I had to have my entire penis amputated and I now urinate out of a make-shift hole behind my testicles.'
WHAT IS PENILE CANCER? Penile cancer can develop anywhere on the penis but is most common on the tip or under the foreskin in uncircumcised men. The condition is rare and makes up less than one per cent of all new forms of the disease diagnosed every year in men in the UK and US. More than 90 per cent of men whose penile cancer has not spread to their lymph nodes are still alive five years after their diagnosis. Who gets it? Any man is at risk, however, those infected with the sexually-transmitted infection HPV are more susceptible. Research suggests half of men with penile cancer have HPV. One study found men who have sex without condoms are twice as likely to develop the disease. Penile cancer typically affects men over 50 and is rare in the under 40s. Smoking raises the risk due to chemicals in cigarettes damaging the DNA of cells in the penis. Immune cells are particularly affected by these chemicals, which may make them less able to fight off HPV. Circumcised men may be less likely to develop penile cancer if they have the operation as babies, however, the operation does not reduce an adult's risk of the disease. What are the symptoms? Symptoms often include: A growth or sore on the penis that does not heal within a month. This may look like a wart or ulcer and might be painless
Bleeding from the penis
Foul smelling discharge
Rash
Difficulty drawing back the foreskin
Discolouration Signs unrelated to the penis can include fatigue, abdominal or bone pain and weight loss. How is it treated? Treatment depends on how advanced the cancer is, as well as if it has spread and the patient's overall health. Surgery to remove part or all of the penis is the most common treatment. This may include laser surgery where a powerful beam of light acts like a knife and cuts away cancerous cells without going deep into the tissue. Circumcision may also be carried out if the cancer only affects the foreskin. If the tip of the penis is affected, the top layer may be removed, with the area being covered with a skin graft. In cases where the head of the penis is cancerous, this may need to amputated. In severe cases where the cancer is large, part of all or the penis may need to be removed. Total penis removal only occurs if cancer cells go deep into the penis to its base. After removing the genitals, surgeons form a hole between the anus and scrotum for men to urinate through. This urination can be controlled. A penis can be reconstructed by taking skin and muscle from a man's arm. Alternatively, a flap of skin can be formed from the scrotal sac and then attached to the stump of the penis. Nerves can also be reconnected so the man has some feeling in his genitals. Some men have been able to have sex after this surgery. Alongside surgery, radiotherapy may be used to shrink tumours and ease symptoms. Chemotherapy may be needed if the cancer has spread. Source: Cancer Research UK Advertisement
Due to his cancer spreading, Mr Walker also had to have the lymph nodes in his groin removed. This left him with a severely weak immune system and on 'death's door' while be battled sepsis four times in just one year. He now urinates out of a 'make-shift hole' behind his testicles
Now he has overcome the ordeal, Mr Walker is speaking out to raise awareness of penile cancer symptoms.
Mr Walker, an ex-firefighter, said: 'With something like this, it's better to be safe than sorry and always get checked out.
'I know it can be embarrassing to go to the doctor's clinic and show them something so intimate, but it could be the difference between saving or losing your genitals.
'If I had seen a specialist faster, there could have been a chance that I wouldn't have lost my penis.
'And although it makes me feel very embarrassed and less of a man, I hope that my story can stop someone else from going through what I have.'
A jockey who was paralysed in a car accident has defied the odds to horse ride again due to a revolutionary bionic exoskeleton.
Jemima Green, 27, from Beaminster, Dorset, was sat in the back seat of a car when the vehicle was hit head on three years ago, instantly killing her friend and fellow passenger.
After suffering a spinal cord injury that left her paralysed from the waist down, doctors told Ms Green she would never ride again.
Refusing to give up on the sport she loves, Ms Green started building up her strength by walking with an exoskeleton, called EksoGT, which left her strong enough to ride horses despite her disability.
Now riding twice a week, she won a race against other disabled jockeys in May last year and came third in a competition against six able-bodied riders a month later.
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Former jockey Jemima Green, who was paralysed in a car accident, has defied the odds to horse ride again due to a revolutionary bionic exoskeleton. Ms Green is pictured using the exoskeleton to help rebuild her muscle and core strength, and relearn to stand and walk
After being told she would never ride again, Ms Green has built up her core strength enough to be able to ride a horse. Ms Green is pictured competing after the car accident
Ms Green suffered a spinal cord injury after a van hit a car she was a passenger in head on three years ago. She claims she watched her friend and fellow passenger 'die instantly'
WHAT IS THE EKSOGT EXOSKELETON? EksoGT is the first wearable exoskeleton that is approved for stroke and spinal cord injury rehabilitation in the US. It is also available in the UK. It is designed to help patients re-learn step patterns and weight shifting when trying to get back on their feet. EksoGT stimulates nerves via an electrical current to cause muscular contractions. This can allow muscles to be trained even if some or all of the voluntary control is list. Nerve stimulation can be controlled by a medic to ensure the patient is in the correct posture and walking at the right speed. According to its manufacturer, EksoGT 'offers the hope of greater mobility and independence' in patients who thought they would never stand or walk again. Source: Ekso Bionics Advertisement
Speaking of the accident, Ms Green said: 'I was in the back seat of a car with my friends one night, when a van instantly hit us head on.
'I watched my friend sitting next to me die instantly and I suffered a spinal cord injury.
'I remember sitting in the hospital saying that I wanted to ride again and the doctors told me I never could. I said, "that's not an option".'
Medics offered Ms Green the exoskeleton, made by Ekso Bionics, to help her relearn to stand and walk.
Ms Green said: 'I felt like I was exercising, which was very exciting, and it made it possible for me to strengthen my core so that I could control the horse again. It's been a massive part of my rehabilitation.
'My fitness and stamina have increased and my feet don't swell up like they used to.
'When I first started walking, I would get very hot and sweaty.
'That doesn't happen anymore.'
Ms Green was offered the exoskeleton due to it being the only way she could exercise
She won a race against other disabled jockeys in May last year (pictured after the car crash)
Ms Green loves horses and was devastated when medics said riding was 'not an option'
Pictured before the accident, Ms Green used to compete as a successful jockey
Now paralysed from the waist down and confined to a wheelchair, she still visits the animals
As well as improving her fitness, the exoskeleton allowed Ms Green to take part in the sport she loves.
She said: 'It made it possible for me to compete twice and even do a race against able-bodied riders.
'I have had to take some time off for health reasons, but I hope to compete again by the end of the year.
'I'm trying to work on my balance on the horse and preventing myself from leaning back when I'm not supposed to.
'It's quite difficult without the lower back muscles, but hopefully I get there soon.'
Training with the exoskeletion has boosted Ms Green's stamina. Initially, her feet would swell up and she would become sweaty when using it, however, her fitness has since improved
Although riding again, Ms Green still struggles with poor lower back strength
A 64-year-old grandfather who had half his face blown off in a hunting accident is the world's oldest person to ever have a full face transplant.
Maurice Desjardins, from Gatineau, Quebec, needed his jaws, teeth, lips, nose and face muscles and nerves replaced in the extraordinary 30-hour operation.
A team of 100 medical staff carried out the huge surgery last May and Mr Desjardins can now eat, speak, breathe and even smell with his new face.
Doctors said the operation was the last chance of restoring a normal life for Mr Desjardins, who lived in constant pain for the seven years after his accident.
The surgeon who carried out the transplant became the first in the Commonwealth to do the extremely rare op only 40 face transplants have been done in the world since 2005.
Health officials said they were 'very pleased' with the transformation and the surgeon, Dr Daniel Borsuk, said it offered 'immense hope' to his patient.
Maurice Desjardins was hit in the face by a bullet from a hunting rifle in 2011, destroying his jaws, lips, teeth and nose (left), but surgeons have successfully used a donor's face to rebuild his and give him a new lease on life (right)
Mr Desjardins had to breathe through a hole in his neck because his face was so disfigured, and lived in constant pain before his life-changing operation last May
Mr Desjardins's life-changing operation was carried out at Hopital Maisonneuve-Rosemont in Montreal last year.
He became the world's oldest person to ever receive a face transplant, thanks to Dr Borsuk and TransplantQuebec.
Mr Desjardins had to go through years of testing to check he was suitable for the transplant and mentally strong enough to cope with the change.
The procedure has given him a new lease on life after he spent years breathing through a hole in his neck, and found it difficult to speak, sleep or eat properly because of his devastating injury.
Social interactions and going out in public became difficult for him because he was so disfigured, leading him to spend a lot of time at home on his own.
Doctors said Mr Desjardins is a 'natural extrovert' and had been living in hope of returning to a normal life.
And now, thanks to the day-and-a-half's work for nine surgeons, Mr Desjardins has regained the ability to breathe, eat, speak and smell with his new face.
Mr Desjardins (pictured before his accident) was described by surgeons as a 'natural extrovert' who lived in hope of one day regaining a normal life
Lead surgeon Dr Borsuk said: 'As a plastic surgeon, I know that, no matter large or small, injuries to the face have a particularly symbolic aspect and are closely linked to our identity.
'Facial disfigurement can have a detrimental effect on self-confidence and productivity, and therefore, this transplant offered immense hope and possibility to our patient.'
Dr Borsuk has experience of repairing huge face injuries, working on another man with a gunshot wound in 2012 and recently reconstructing someone's face with part of their pelvis.
And despite the complexity of transplanting a face onto another person, the operation is cheaper than doing numerous operations to repair the injuries.
Dr Borsuk told CTV News Mr Desjardins wanted to be able to go out with his granddaughter without being stared at.
The surgeon told the news station: 'Imagine when you're suffering in silence at home for years and you don't leave your house as much as you'd like to.
'You're living this very difficult existence. Then, overnight essentially, you get a second lease on life.
'He's so mentally tough that even with everything that was done, he's already begun [accepting] the new face. That's something we were counting on.'
A team of nine surgeons and 91 other medical staff took part in the huge 30 hour operation to transplant a donor's face onto Mr Desjardins (pictured on the operating table)
Mr Desjardins lived for seven years with his injuries and had to undergo rigorous testing to make sure he was physically and mentally capable of dealing with the effects of such a major operation
Dr Daniel Borsuk said the successful transplant offered 'immense hope' to Mr Desjardins, whom he called 'mentally tough' (pictured, Dr Borsuk shows Mr Desjardins his new face in the mirror for the first time)
Transplant Quebec provided Mr Desjardins's new face after securing permission the donor's family.
Managing director Louis Beaulieu said: 'Transplant Quebec is very pleased with the success of this, the first face transplant in Quebec and Canada, made possible through organ donation
'We would like to acknowledge the donor family, who showed great empathy and generosity in accepting that their loved one donate his face and his organs.
'The tremendous collaboration between Dr Borsuks team and Transplant Quebecs is one of the keys to the success of this first, which was so beneficial for the receiver.'
When mother-of-two Kristin Fast ruptured the ACL in her left leg in February 2018, she was told she would need surgery to repair it.
Doctors told the 42-year-old from Phoenix, Arizona, that it would be a simple procedure and to take it easy for the 10 days that followed.
But in the days and weeks after the operation, Fast's leg stayed purple and swollen, and the slightest touch left her in severe pain.
That's when she was diagnosed with a rare nerve condition called Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS).
The condition allegedly causes the most pain a human can endure and has come to be known as 'suicide disease' because of how many people take their own lives following a diagnosis.
Mother-of-two Kristin Fast, 42 (left and right), from Phoenix, Arizona, ruptured her ACL in February 2018 and was told she needed surgery. But in the days and weeks that followed, Fast's leg stayed purple and swollen, and the slightest touch left her in severe pain
In April 2018, she was diagnosed with Complex Regional Pain Syndrome, which allegedly causes the most pain a human can endure, and usually develops after an injury or a surgery. Pictured: Fast
According to the National Organization for Rare Disorders, CRPS usually develops in an arm or a leg and after an injury, a surgery, a heart attack or a stroke.
Symptoms include a burning sensation in the affected extremity; sensitivity to touch or cold; swelling; and changes in skin temperature, skin color and skin texture.
The cause of CRPS is not well-understood but is believed to be due to the peripheral and central nervous systems being injured.
Currently there is no known cure although there are a number of therapies used to manage symptoms including oral and topical pain relievers, nerve-blocking medications and behavioral management therapy.
There are fewer than 200,000 CRPS patients in the US with the disease affecting two to five percent of people with peripheral nerve injuries.
Fast says that before her diagnosis in April 2018, she was outgoing and active and she expected to be up within two weeks of her surgery.
LIVING IN PAIN: WHAT IS CRPS? Complex Regional Pain Syndrome usually develops after an injury, often a minor injury. The pain is often unconnected to the seriousness of the injury and can be out of all proportion from what the sufferer would expect. The condition is little-understood, but some medical experts think it is caused by damage to the nervous system, which causes nerves to misfire in some way, triggering pain. If left untreated the pain can spread to other parts of the body too. Some sufferers have repeated episodes of pain followed by stretches of pain-free remission. It can be treated by physiotherapy, to prevent muscle wasting, certain types of painkillers and counselling to help people cope with the chronic pain. Advertisement
'Within six days of the surgery, my leg was way worse than expected, not better,' she said.
'By that time, my leg had turned purple and became very sensitive to touch. I began sleeping with a "tent" over it because I had become so sensitive to anything touching my leg.'
Fast likens her constant pain to a burning hot ice-cold sensation that feels like leaving a hand in freezing cold water for five minutes.
She says that even splashes from a shower feels like someone has taken a razor to her leg and 'sliced it right open'.
If she doesn't elevate her leg, it can turn almost black because blood is not properly circulating. This forces her to be confined to a wheelchair.
Fast also suffers with a bone-crushing ache, muscle ache, cramps and atrophy in her quadriceps, hamstring and calf.
'CRPS is the most painful condition known to human existence because there is no escape from the pain. It can happen to anyone, at any time, after any injury,' she said.
'Imagine cutting off your finger. Imagine the pain. Now imagine that happening to you every second, every minute, of every day.'
Fast has had four spinal blocks, which involves narcotics or an anesthetic being injected with a needle, in an attempt to block the pain - but it has been unsuccessful.
In May, she flew to Italy for a trial drug called neridronic acid. It is part of a class of medicines called bisphosphonates, which bind to the bone's surface and stop bone breakdown.
Fast likens her constant pain to a burning hot ice-cold sensation that feels like leaving a hand in freezing cold water for five minutes. She's been forced to be confined to a wheelchair. Pictured: Fast's legs in February, left, and Fast's legs in April, right
In May, Fast (pictured) flew to Italy for a trial drug called neridronic acid, which binds to the bone's surface and stops bone breakdown. She says it's helped with her symptoms
Fast (pictured, in the wheelchair) has started a non-profit called ComplexTruths, Inc, the goal of which is to raise awareness and money for a cure of the condition
The drug can take up to a year to work but Fast says she has seen some improvement in her condition already.
Fast has started a non-profit called ComplexTruths, Inc, the goal of which is to raise awareness for a cure of the condition, as well as a GoFundMe to raise money for research.
So far, more than $21,400 has been raised out of a $1million goal.
'Ultimately, we want to fund research and help others get the treatment they may not be able to pay for themselves,' she said.
'This GoFundMe account is going to help me get better and it's going to help others get better.
'By starting up this website and foundation, I not only hold myself accountable every day to thousands of people but to myself.'
With her foundation, Fast hopes to be an inspiration for others and her own two daughters.
'They help manage the pain so that I can function. They bring my everyday pain levels down from a twelve to a seven to eight where I can compartmentalize the pain as long as I stay busy,' she said.
'I am looking for a cure, I am making a difference and teaching my daughters that one person can make a huge impact in the world if they try.'
More than one third of college freshmen have at least one mental health disorder, a new report reveals.
Stress levels are sky-rocketing among every age group, and students adjusting to their first year of college may be particularly vulnerable.
Schools have taken steps to meet the psychological needs of their student body, but a far smaller fraction of the students utilize on-campus counseling services.
But that hasn't curbed rising rates of mental health disorders among students around the world, according to the new Columbia University study.
The rates of mental health disorders among this class of freshmen were 72 percent higher than the one-fifth of college students of all ages who filled out the survey two years ago.
All around the world, young adults making their first foray into college and the real world are struggling with depression, anxiety and other mental health disorders, researchers found
Certain life events and stages are inevitably accompanied by higher stress levels, and in 1967, two psychiatrists even created a scale assigning a stress score to a number of common major occurrences.
A spouse's death scores 100 'life change units.'
Beginning or ending school causes only a fraction of that stress, with a score of 26, but it still makes the list of major events.
Starting college may not be as inherently stressful, but the Columbia University study authors point out that this change also comes at a point of much greater instability.
Fully-fledged adults tend to have long-standing jobs and relationships, while incoming students are in a stage of self-focus, exploration and general uncertainty.
These are all 'normative' for what the study authors call 'emerging adults,' but instability also poses a particular threat to the needs and care of those with mental health issues.
And there are many students that wind up in these precarious positions.
Now, 35 percent of college freshmen have at least one mental health disorder, and a primary concern for the study authors is that these young adults might stop seeking or following through on treatment plans.
In fact, other studies have found that just 15 to 20 percent of college students seek out campus counseling services, the authors point out - though, other recent research of American college students has put that number closer to 30 percent.
This study assessed the mental health of 14,000 students at 19 colleges in Australia, Belgium, Germany, Mexico, Northern Ireland, South Africa, Spain and the US through surveys.
Of the 35 percent with one or more mental health disorder, depression was the most common condition, followed by anxiety.
'The finding that one-third of students from multiple countries screened positive for at least one of six mental health disorders represents a key global mental health issue,' said lead study author Dr Randy Auerbach.
Earlier this week, another US study found that more college students (of all ages) have suicidal thoughts than ever, a worrying trend that suggests many students are in pain, and falling through the cracks of schools' care.
'While effective care is important, the number of students who need treatment for these disorders far exceeds the resources of most counseling centers, resulting in a substantial unmet need for mental health treatment among college students,' Dr Auerbach said.
'University systems are currently working at capacity and counseling centers tend to be cyclical, with students ramping up service use toward the middle of the semester, which often creates a bottleneck.'
He posits that 'internet-based tools' may offer some help to the overflow of students in need, or those still dissuaded from help by stigma and fear of judgement.
'It is incumbent on us to think of innovative ways to reduce stigma and increase access to tools that may help students better manage stress,' both to ensure their individual health and to ensure that Dr Auerbach said.
A mother-of-one died after developing sepsis from an operation to remove a bunion.
Pamela Simmons underwent a minor operation to have the bony lump removed at Holme Valley Memorial Hospital, West Yorkshire, and was discharged the same day.
Days later, Ms Simmons collapsed at home after complaining of feeling unwell and was blue-lighted to Huddersfield Royal Infirmary.
Ms Simmons was then sent home from hospital despite her medical notes stating she may be suffering from sepsis.
By the time she was eventually diagnosed four days later, it was too late and the ex-policewoman tragically died on December 27 2015 aged 47. Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust has admitted it provided 'below standard' care.
Mother-of-one Pamela Simmons died after developing sepsis from an operation to remove a bunion. After having the operation at Holme Valley Memorial Hospital, the ex-policewoman was discharged the same day but started feeling unwell and collapsed a few days later
After losing consciousness at home, Ms Simmons was blue-lighted to Huddersfield Royal Infirmary. She was sent home despite her medical notes mentioning she may have sepsis
Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust admitted it provided 'below standard' care. A spokesperson said it has learned from this and will ensure it does not happen again
Ms Simmons began to feel unwell 11 days after her bunion operation. After being rushed to Huddersfield Royal Infirmary, medics noted she had been suffering from a urinary tract infection for the past three days, which was to be 'treated as sepsis.'
Despite this warning, Ms Simmons was sent home, only to be re-admitted four days later when her GP became suspicious she may have sepsis.
On Christmas Day, a chest X-ray showed shadowing on both of her lungs, confirming her diagnosis.
Despite doctors fighting to keep the ex-policewoman alive, she passed away two days later.
Ms Simmons' cause of death was noted as pneumonia on her death certificate. Yet, after an intervention from the doctor who cared for her in the ICU, her husband Barrie was told his wife died as a result of multi-organ failure from sepsis.
Barrie, who was married to Ms Simmons for eight years, said: 'Pamela's death devastated the whole family and community. As a policewoman, she was well-known in the community and was much loved and respected.
'Nearly three years on from Pamela's death, it is still hard to believe that she is no longer with us.
'She was always kind and polite to everyone and was happy to help whoever, however she could. She didn't deserve what happened.
'It's so important that its symptoms and signs are spotted quickly, to ensure those suffering are given the correct care as soon as is possible.'
WHAT IS SEPSIS? Sepsis occurs when the body reacts to an infection by attacking its own organs and tissues. Some 44,000 people die from sepsis every year in the UK. Worldwide, someone dies from the condition every 3.5 seconds. Sepsis has similar symptoms to flu, gastroenteritis and a chest infection. These include: S lurred speech or confusion
lurred speech or confusion E xtreme shivering or muscle pain
xtreme shivering or muscle pain P assing no urine in a day
assing no urine in a day S evere breathlessness
evere breathlessness I t feels like you are dying
t feels like you are dying S kin mottled or discoloured Symptoms in children are: Fast breathing
Fits or convulsions
Mottled, bluish or pale skin
Rashes that do not fade when pressed
Lethargy
Feeling abnormally cold Under fives may be vomiting repeatedly, not feeding or not urinating for 12 hours. Anyone can develop sepsis but it is most common in people who have recently had surgery, have a urinary catheter or have stayed in hospital for a long time. Other at-risk people include those with weak immune systems, chemotherapy patients, pregnant women, the elderly and the very young. Treatment varies depending on the site of the infection but involves antibiotics, IV fluids and oxygen, if necessary. Source: UK Sepsis Trust and NHS Choices Advertisement
Following intervention from the clinical negligence lawyers Irwin Mitchell, Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust has admitted a breach of duty.
An independent expert claims Ms Simmons would likely have survived if she had not been sent home from hospital.
Tracy Tai, the medical negligence specialist representing Barrie, said: 'The level of care that Pamela received fell way below what patients should expect to receive with devastating consequences.
'Pamela's case is a tragic example of what can happen when undiagnosed infections are left untreated.
'Highlighting the importance and need for a prompt diagnosis of sepsis so appropriate care and treatment can be administered as soon as possible.
'We work closely with UK Sepsis Trust to raise awareness of the condition and more must be done to educate our doctors so that the signs of sepsis are recognised earlier when the chances of survival are significantly greater.'
An independent expert said Ms Simmons would likely have survived if she had not been sent home from hospital. Ms Simmons' cause of death was noted as pneumonia on her death certificate, however, a doctor stated it was multiple organ failure as a result of sepsis
Calderdale and Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust's medical director, David Birkenhead, said: 'We are very sorry that the care our Trust provided for Mrs Simmons fell below the high standard we strive to meet and we would again extend our apologies and condolences to her family.
'As a Trust, we take this very seriously and have shared learning to ensure that this does not happen in the future.'
Dr Ron Daniels, chief executive of the UK Sepsis Trust, added: 'Experiences like Pamela's remind us of the devastating effects of sepsis.
'Every year in the UK 250,000 people are affected by sepsis, 44,000 of whom lose their lives to the condition.
'If diagnosed quickly, however, sepsis is easily treatable and we believe that earlier diagnosis and treatment across the UK would save at least 14,000 lives a year.'
Trimaan 'Harry' Dhillon (pictured) was jailed for life after killing his ex-girlfriend
Two police officers will be given further training following an investigation into how they handled complaints from a woman who was subsequently murdered by her jealous ex-boyfriend.
Alice Ruggles, 24, had told Northumbria Police about unwanted contact from Trimaan 'Harry' Dhillon, a Scotland-based soldier who made repeated, disturbing visits to her flat in Gateshead after they split.
He was jailed for life at Newcastle Crown Court in April 2017 after being convicted of stalking his former partner, breaking into her home and cutting her neck open from ear to ear.
After the trial, Northumbria Police conducted an internal review and identified potential misconduct by officers which was referred to the Independent Office of Police Conduct.
The watchdog found that a sergeant and a constable had a case to answer for misconduct and there was evidence of unsatisfactory performance by another constable.
Ms Ruggles had called police and asked for advice from a call handler at 12.40am on October 1 2016, when she reported seeing Dhillon outside her home and was told she could report this as harassment the next day.
Alice Ruggles (pictured) was killed in her own home when the stalker slit her neck open from ear to ear
The IOPC found details Ms Ruggles gave about her stalker knocking at her door and a text message confirming he had been outside her home were not recorded by the call-handler, who has since left the force.
A Pc visited her on October 2 for two hours and took a statement in which Ms Ruggles said Dhillon left her chocolates and flowers on her bedroom window ledge in the middle of the night and had left a voicemail saying he did not want to kill her.
Trimaan Dhillon at a petrol station during his journey from Edinburgh to Tyneside where he killed his ex-girlfriend
Dhillon was issued with a police information notice (PIN) for harassment to warn him that he could be arrested if he contacted Ms Ruggles again.
It was arranged for his major at the Edinburgh barracks to issue the PIN, although national guidance was that this should be done by a police officer in person unless in exceptional circumstances.
Ms Ruggles contacted police again on October 7 after he sent her a letter and photos, and it was recorded as a non-emergency breach of a PIN.
She was asked if she wanted him arrested but she said she did not.
The IOPC said guidance states that the decision to arrest a suspect lies with the officer, and they should not ask victims this question.
She was murdered five days later and her body was found by her flatmate.
A sergeant and constable were dealt with via management action in the form of words of advice, and further training to develop their awareness when dealing with stalking and harassment.
IOPC regional director Miranda Biddle said: 'Our thoughts have remained with Alices family during our investigation.
'Their ongoing efforts to highlight the dangers of stalking, via the Alice Ruggles Trust, is testament to their strength and positivity in the face of such a tragic and needless loss.'
Assistant Chief Constable Rachel Bacon said: 'Since Alices death it has been recognised nationally that changes need to be made in how police respond to reports of stalking and harassment to ensure officers understand the heightened risks associated with stalking behaviour.
'With the help of Alices family, who I have to commend for their continuing dignity and determination, significant improvements have been made in the way we deal with these types of offences.
'Their support and input has been vital in developing training that is now being used by other police forces and partners and for that I cant thank them enough.'
Her parents Clive Ruggles and Sue Hills said: 'We have never wanted this to be turned into a blame game.
'What has to come out of this is that lessons are learned, procedures improved, and training implemented.'
The coarse high-grade gold included around 190kg of specimen stone, including a 95kg specimen stone containing an estimated 2440oz and a 63kg stone containing roughly 1620oz.
Over the past week about 9250 ounces of high grade gold have been produced from a 44cu.m cut on 15 level at Beta Hunt.
The largest gold nugget was discovered 500 meters below the surface in an area just three meters wide and three meters high. This interpretation is based on geological mapping and interpretation of structures on 14 and 15 Levels, where 1500 oz of specimen gold was discovered and mined in the second and third quarter.
"As I was drilling it, you could see the gold shavings coming out of all the holes and I thought "there's something here"".
Henry, who has been in the profession for more than 16 years, says he has never seen anything like it.
To put the latest find into perspective, the Beta Hunt mine normally produces ore that contains around two to four grams of gold per ton, considered a standard amount.
Despite the discoveries, however, RNC Minerals still intends to sell the mine, which is typically used to generate nickel for the steel industry.
Rick Scott to deploy emergency teams, resources ahead of Hurricane Florence
David Cascaddea said he has lived in Wilmington for 35 years and the storm clouds rolling in won't chase him away. Florence is being trailed in the Atlantic by two other storms - Hurricane Helene and Tropical Storm Isaac .
WA's Goldfields has been home to major nuggets, including the famous Golden Eagle, which weighed 1186oz and was found in 1931 at Larkinville, just 40km southwest of Beta Hunt.
There are stories among the workforce dating back to the early days of the mine which suggest similar bonanza finds may have been made in the past but were not considered significant at the time because of low gold prices.
"I truly believe there's something bigger and better down there", he said.
As a result of the find, security has been enhanced at the mine, with armed guards transporting the gold to a secure vault. The area of the major discoveries has been sealed off and the entire mine is under constant video surveillance.
The mine's Canadian owners, RNC Minerals, are planning an auction for the large specimens.
The Beta Hunt Mine, located 600 km from Kambalda, is a deposit with a very rare feature of hosting both nickel and gold resources in adjacent discreet mineralized zones. "Obviously with this find going forward we won't have any shortage of capital to make that happen and we think we'll have a very long bright future to build a very big mine at Beta Hunt going forward".
The Dalai Lama, told an audience that 'Europe belongs to the Europeans' and that refugees should return to their native countries to rebuild them.
Speaking at a conference in Sweden's third-largest city of Malmo on Wednesday, home to a large immigrant population, the Tibetan spiritual leader, said Europe was 'morally responsible' for helping 'a refugee really facing danger against their life'.
The 83-year-old Tibetan, who fled the capital Lhasa in fear of his life after China poured troops into the region to crush an uprising said: 'Receive them, help them, educate them but ultimately they should develop their own country.
The Dalai Lama was speaking at a conference called 'The Art of Happiness and Peace' in Sweden's third-largest city of Malmo on September 12 when he told the audience 'Europe belongs to Europeans' and that refugees should eventually return back to their native countries to rebuild them
'I think Europe belongs to the Europeans,' he said, adding they should make clear to refugees that 'they ultimately should rebuild their own country'.
Revered by millions of Buddhists around the world, and regarded by his many supporters as a visionary in the vein of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, the Dalai Lama was speaking three days after the far-right populist party Sweden Democrats made gains in the country's general election on Sunday.
The anti-immigration party came in third, behind Prime Minister Stefan Lofven's Social Democrats and the opposition conservative Moderates in the Nordic nation which in 2015 took in the highest number of asylum seekers per capita in Europe.
The Tibetan spiritual leader, said Europe was 'morally responsible' for helping 'a refugee really facing danger against their life'
With 17.6 per cent of votes, up 4.7 points from the 2014 election, the rise is not as dramatic as the increase the party saw between 2010 and 2014, which saw a 7.2 point increase for the party.
It also falls short of the expectation '20 to 30 per cent' leader Jimmie Akesson had for his party.
However head of the party's parliamentary group, Mattias Karlsson, said polling institutes had simply overcompensated the Sweden Democrats after largely underestimated them in previous elections.
The exiled spiritual leader was speaking three days after the far-right populist party Sweden Democrats made gains in the country's general election on Sunday. The anti-immigration party came in third, behind Prime Minister Stefan Lofven's Social Democrats. Pictured: Dalai Lama and development NGO IM's Secretary General Ann Svensn
He told AFP: 'All parties want to be as big as possible but we are the big winners of the election.
The exiled spiritual leader, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989, has also made similar comments concerning refugees in Germany in 2016.
Speaking to German reporters in 2016 he said: 'Europe, for example Germany, cannot become an Arab country.
'Germany is Germany. There are so many that in practice it becomes difficult.
'From a moral point of view, too, I think that the refugees should only be admitted temporarily.'
He later clarified his compassion for those fleeing war and refugees but said they should be helped in order to return to their homes.
The Dalai Lama has remained in exile since 1959, when he fled the national uprising in Tibet and crossed the border into India, where he was granted political asylum.
An ex-convict pleaded guilty Wednesday to killing a University of Utah student from China using a gun stolen after another slaying.
Austin Boutain, 24, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in the plea agreement that allowed him to avoid the death penalty. He pleaded guilty to murder and kidnapping charges.
He and his wife were charged with hatching a carjacking plot that led to the October 2017 death of Chenwei Guo, whose parents live in Beijing and were devastated over the death of their only son at age 23.
He 'was a perfect son to them,' said prosecutor Chou Chou Collins.
Boutain stood in the courtroom shackled, surrounded by guards. He also pleaded guilty to attacking another inmate and damaging a sprinkler in jail.
Austin Boutain is lead in to the courtroom during a hearing Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2018, in Salt Lake City. Boutain, an ex-convict charged with gunning down a University of Utah student from China using a stolen gun from a previous killing
Boutain looks on during a court hearing Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2018, in Salt Lake City
Boutain pleaded guilty to murder and kidnapping charges. Boutain entered the pleas in an agreement with prosecutors that allows him to avoid a possible death penalty. He was sentenced to life without parole
'I know sorry doesn't mean much, but I am truly sorry,' he said.
His wife Kathleen Boutain, 24, has been charged with criminal solicitation, theft and other counts. She has yet to enter a plea.
They were drifters who fled to Utah after cutting the throat of Mitchell Ingle, 63, in Golden, Colorado, in a plan to steal his trailer home, authorities said.
After Ingle's death, they drove his truck to Salt Lake City, ditched it and set up camp in a canyon near the university campus, police said.
There, they decided to find a car, force the driver to drive to Tennessee, using the driver's money to fund the trip before killing the person, according to charging documents.
After hours of looking for potential victims, Kathleen Boutain got frustrated and left, prosecutors said.
This undated photo provided by the University of Utah shows ChenWei Guo, who was shot and killed in Salt Lake City during a carjacking plot in October 2017
Austin Boutain walked up to Guo's car and knocked on the window to ask if he had seen her.
When Gou, who was with a female friend, didn't answer, Boutain 'became enraged' and fired at the car until the gun was empty, documents state. Guo was fatally struck in the neck.
The woman escaped and Boutain ran away, setting off a manhunt in the foothills near Salt Lake City.
He eluded police for hours by crawling on his belly through thick underbrush and circling back to the city, authorities said.
Kathleen Boutain, (right) Austin's wife, has been charged with criminal solicitation, theft and other counts. Kathleen has yet to enter a plea. Austin Boutain is pictured left
He was caught when an alert librarian spotted him at the downtown library.
The couple has also been charged with murder and other counts in Colorado, though it's not clear when they'll face those charges.
The two states are still negotiating whether Austin Boutain would be brought to Colorado following his Utah sentencing or would have to first complete his sentence there, said Pam Russell, a spokeswoman for Utah prosecutor Peter Weir.
Austin Boutain's criminal history includes drug, car theft and weapons charges dating to when he was a juvenile. He was released from an Alabama prison in spring 2017.
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Hurricane Florence's leading edge started lashing the Carolina coast on Thursday with huge waves crashing in and at least 16,000 people already without power.
The monster Category 2 storm closed in with 105mph winds as forecasters warned that the widening storm - and its likelihood of lingering around the coast for days - would bring life-threatening storm surge and torrential rains.
Forecasters said conditions will only get more lethal as the storm pushes ashore early Friday near the North Carolina-South Carolina line and makes its way slowly inland.
Georgia joined North and South Carolina, Virginia and Maryland in issuing an emergency declaration as forecasts showed Florence dumping historic amounts of rain - potentially 10 trillion gallons - on the southern states.
Florence, which was initially predicted to be a Category 4 storm, is forecast to dump up to 40 inches of rain in some areas after it makes landfall in North and South Carolina Thursday night or Friday.
Life-threatening storm surges of up to 13 feet were also forecast in some areas along with the possibility of tornadoes in North Carolina.
Businesses and homes in the storm's path were boarded up and thousands of people had moved to emergency shelters by Thursday.
Power outages were already creeping up along the North Carolina coast as tropical storm-force winds started sweeping over land. About 16,000 outages were reported statewide as of early Thursday afternoon, with nearly all of them at the coast.
A private weather-forecasting firm is estimating that Hurricane Florence will cause $50 billion to $60 billion in economic damages.
North Carolina felt the first bite of monster Hurricane Florence on Thursday morning as the outer bands of wind and rain from the life-threatening storm bore down on the US east coast
Forecasters at the National Hurricane Center warned that Florence remained deadly because of its size and slow forward speed, even if its top sustained winds have dropped it to Category 2 status as a hurricane.
North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper warned: 'Don't relax, don't get complacent. Stay on guard. This is a powerful storm that can kill. Today the threat becomes a reality'.
Meanwhile South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster said residents were running out of time to safely evacuate.
'If you're going to leave, and you should leave. If you haven't left yet, you should leave now,' he said. 'Time is running out,' he said.
Forecasters said that given the storm's size and sluggish track, it could cause epic damage akin to what the Houston area saw during Hurricane Harvey just over a year ago, with floodwaters swamping homes and businesses and washing over industrial waste sites and hog-manure ponds.
'It truly is really about the whole size of this storm,' National Hurricane Center Director Ken Graham said. 'The larger and the slower the storm is, the greater the threat and the impact - and we have that.'
Florence was already generating 83-foot waves at sea on Wednesday.
Schools and businesses closed as far south as Georgia, airlines canceled about 1,200 flights and counting, and coastal towns in the Carolinas were largely emptied out.
'This is going to be a Mike Tyson punch to the Carolina coast,' said Jeff Byard from Federal Emergency Management Agency. 'This is not going to be a glancing blow,' he added, warning of power outages, road closures, infrastructure damage and potential loss of life.
Waves crash around the Oceana Pier in Atlantic Beach, North Carolina as the outer edges of Hurricane Florence being to affect the coast on Thursday
Florence is forecast to dump up to 40 inches of rain in some areas after it makes landfall in North and South Carolina Thursday night or Friday
Huge waves lashed the beaches of North Carolina as the hurricane rolling in bringing heavy rain
A street seen as the outer bands of Hurricane Florence hits in New Bern, North Carolina on Thursday
Ocean water breeches to the dunes in Avon, N.C., as the first effects of Hurricane Florence reach Hatteras Island on Thursday
Coby Christenson of Surfside Beach, walks over a temporary storm surge barrier to gain access to the beach ahead of Hurricane Florence in Garden City Beach, South Carolina on Thursday
Ralph Boney walks down the street with his dog in downtown Wilmington, North Carolina on Thursday ahead of Hurricane Florence
More than 1.7 million people in the Carolinas and Virginia were warned to evacuate over the past few days, and the homes of about 10 million were under watches or warnings for the hurricane or tropical storm conditions.
HURRICANE FLORENCE IN NUMBERS The outer bands of wind and rain from a weakened but still deadly Hurricane Florence began lashing North Carolina on Thursday. As the monster storm moves in for an extended stay, here is a breakdown by numbers: Florence clocked 90 mph winds on Thursday after it was downgraded to a Category 1
on Thursday after it was downgraded to a Category 1 The storm was already generating 83-foot waves at sea on Wednesday
waves at sea on Wednesday Life-threatening storm surges of up to 13 feet were also forecast in some areas
were also forecast in some areas Florence is forecast to dump up to 40 inches of rain in some areas after it makes landfall in North and South Carolina
in some areas after it makes landfall in North and South Carolina Potentially 10 trillion gallons of rain is expected in southern states in the next week
of rain is expected in southern states in the next week An estimated 10 million people live in areas expected to be placed under a hurricane or storm advisory
live in areas expected to be placed under a hurricane or storm advisory Up to 1.7 million people were ordered to evacuated ahead of the hurricane Advertisement
'Do you want to get hit with a train or do you want to get hit with a cement truck?' Byard, of FEMA, said about the strength of the storm.
South Carolina ordered the mandatory evacuation of one million coastal residents while North Carolina ordered an evacuation of the Outer Banks, barrier islands that are a popular tourist destination.
In Virginia, 245,000 coastal residents were ordered to evacuate.
Coastal residents fleeing a potentially devastating blow from Hurricane Florence encountered empty gasoline pumps and depleted store shelves as the monster storm neared the Carolina coast.
About 1,200 U.S. airline flights scheduled for Thursday or Friday were canceled, with some airports in the Carolinas essentially shut down. Amtrak has also cut service to the region with no trains running to Virginia and stops south of D.C. until Monday.
Home Depot and Lowe's activated emergency response centers to get generators, trash bags and bottled water to stores before and after the storm. The two hardware chains said they sent in a total of around 1,100 trucks.
Emergency preparations included activating more than 2,700 National Guard troops, stockpiling food, setting up shelters, switching traffic patterns so major roads led away from shore, and securing 16 nuclear power reactors in the Carolinas and Virginia.
Duke Energy, a power company in the Carolinas, estimated that one million to three million customers could lose electricity because of the storm and that it could take weeks to restore. Workers were being brought in from the Midwest and Florida to help in the storm's aftermath.
The hurricane is expected to pass over six nuclear power plants in North Carolina and South Carolina. Duke Energy operates 11 reactors at six sites in the Carolinas, including the Brunswick Nuclear Plant. The electricity provider said it began powering down one reactor early Thursday and would start shutting the second reactor later in the day.
The Brunswick plant's two reactors are of the same design as those in Fukushima, Japan, that exploded and leaked radiation following a 2011 earthquake and tsunami.
People fleeing coastal North and South Carolina clogged highways as Florence bore down for a direct hit in the low-lying region dense with beachfront vacation homes.
The eastbound lanes of several major highways have been shut to allow traffic to flow inland, but the exodus was slow along roads jammed with outward-bound vehicles.
An Atlantic City casino owner said he would take in people fleeing the powerful hurricane. Bruce Deifik said he would let anyone fleeing the storm stay for free at his Ocean Resort Casino until it has passed.
People must show identification proving that they live in an area endangered by the storm.
'It's the right thing to do,' he said. 'We've got plenty of rooms and we'll let people stay until the storm has passed.'
In Wilmington, Solange Iliou Thompson closed down her restaurant, Indochine, because all of her employees had left the city.
'All my staff are gone. There's nobody left to work. But I'm staying. The building's solid and Buddha will protect us,' she said. 'What can you do? You can't stop Mother Nature.'
In a trailer park outside Wilmington, Alondra Espinoza was preparing to leave with her two young children.
'Everything is packed,' Espinoza said. 'I want to get them as far away as possible. I've been through hurricanes before but never with kids. If it wasn't for them, I wouldn't have minded staying here.'
Boarding up his home in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, Chris Pennington watched the forecasts and tried to decide when to leave.
'In 12 or 18 hours, they may be saying different things all over again,' he said.
Hurricane Florence put a corridor of more than 10 million people in the crosshairs Wednesday as the monster storm closed in on the Carolinas (Sand bags surround homes on North Topsail Beach, N.C., Wednesday)
Patio furniture is seen in the pool in an effort to keep it from flying away as people prepare ahead of the arrival of Hurricane Florence on September 12
Doug Lewis (L) and Chris Williams use plywood with the words 'Looters will be shot' to cover the windows of Knuckleheads bar as they try to protect the business ahead of the arrival of Hurricane Florence on September 12
Bob Cavanagh and Linda Moore wait in an evacuation shelter setup at the Conway High School in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina on Thursday
People and pets evacuate ahead of the forecasted landfall of Hurricane Florence and seek shelter at Burgaw Middle School in Burgaw, North Carolina, USA, 12 September
Gasoline pumps are wrapped in plastic to prevent people from using them at a closed station before the arrival of Hurricane Florence, September 12
Sarah Dankanich, right, removes an 'out of service' wrapper from a gas pump as her husband, Bryan Dankanich, left, prepares to pump gas in cans in advance of Hurricane Florence in Wilmington, N.C., Wednesday
The bread aisle at Walmart is empty two days before Hurricane Florence is expected to strike in Wilmington, North Carolina
People line up outside a Home Depot for a new supply of generators and plywood in advance of Hurricane Florence in Wilmington, N.C., Wednesday
Terrifying simulation video shows what Hurricane Florence storm surge will look like if A simulation weather video is showing what the life-threatening Hurricane Florence storm surge might look like if it reaches a frightening nine feet. Life-threatening storm surges of up to 13 feet have been forecast in some areas when the monster storm eventually makes landfall in North and South Carolina. The Weather Channel's forecast video shows the potential damage such surges could inflict on the southern states. Dr Greg Postel, the network's hurricane specialist, said three feet of water was enough to knock people off their feet, potentially carry cars away and flood lower levels of buildings. Six feet of storm surge could carry large objects like cars underwater and leave lower levels structures submerged in water, according to Dr Postel. The video also gives a frightening indication of what nine feet of water looks like - completely submerging lower buildings. Advertisement
Computer models of exactly what the storm might do varied, adding to the uncertainty. In contrast to the hurricane center's official projection, a highly regarded European model had the storm turning southward off the North Carolina coast and coming ashore near the Georgia-South Carolina line.
Reacting to the possibility of a more southerly track, Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal declared an emergency but did not immediately order any evacuations.
'I ask all Georgians to join me in praying for the safety of our people and all those in the path of Hurricane Florence,' Deal said.
In Virginia, where about 245,000 residents were ordered to evacuate low-lying areas, officials urged people to remain away from home despite forecast changes showing Florence's path largely missing the state.
Their entire neighborhood evacuated in Wilmington, North Carolina, David and Janelle Garrigus planned to ride out Florence at their daughter's one-bedroom apartment in Charlotte. Unsure of what they might find when they return home, the couple went shopping for a recreational vehicle.
'We're just trying to plan for the future here, not having a house for an extended period of time,' David Garrigus said.
Melody Rawson evacuated her first-floor apartment in Myrtle Beach and arrived at Atlanta Motor Speedway in Hampton, Georgia, to camp for free with three other adults, her disabled son, two dogs and a pet bird.
'We hope to have something left when we get home,' she said.
Forecasters worried the storm's damage will be all the worse if it lingers on the coast. The trend is 'exceptionally bad news,' said University of Miami hurricane researcher Brian McNoldy, since it 'smears a landfall out over hundreds of miles of coastline, most notably the storm surge.'
With South Carolina's beach towns more in the bull's-eye because of the shifting forecast, Ohio vacationers Chris and Nicole Roland put off their departure from North Myrtle Beach to get the maximum amount of time on the sand. Most other beachgoers were long gone.
'It's been really nice,' Nicole Roland said. 'Also, a little creepy. You feel like you should have already left.
Tim Avery pulls boards to the third story of a home as he prepares for Hurricane Florence at a home in Emerald Isle N.C., Wednesday
Jason Moore, of Raleigh, N.C., packs to evacuate from Wrightsville Beach, N.C., Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2018 as Hurricane Florence threatens the coast
Phoebe Tesh takes a break from packing to evacuate from Wrightsville Beach, N.C., Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2018 as Hurricane Florence threatens the coast
Marge Brown, 65, says goodbye to her father, George Brown, 90, before he is evacuated from a healthcare home in Morehead City, N.C., Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2018, as Hurricane Florence approaches the east coast. 'I'd like to stay and see what happens. I'm 90 plus,' said Brown, a WWII veteran who says he's survived a plane crash and severe burns from a laboratory fire where he once worked
'We cannot stress the importance to our citizens that are in evacuations to heed the local and state warnings,' Jeffrey Byard of FEMA had warned at a news conference on Tuesday.
'Hurricane Florence is the strongest storm to target the Carolinas and this part of our country in decades.'
Byard said that they are bracing for 'massive damage,' power outages and even fatalities.
'This storm will and has the potential to cause loss of life, and we cannot emphasize the importance to take action now,' Byard said.
Hog farmers along the East Coast were scrambling earlier this week to drain their waste pools ahead of the storm. Hog farms each have open-air 'lagoons' filled with manure - which turn bright pink due to the bacteria festering in the lagoons.
If the rivers break their banks, or lagoons overflow, affecting local waterways, which could damage to local environment and put drinking water sources and public health at risk.
Flooding could also lead to the deaths of thousands of animals if they cannot be evacuated in time.
Marlowe Vaughan of Ivy Spring Creek Farm in Goldsboro, spent most of Tuesday pumping liquid waste from her lagoons to make more room for incoming rainfall.
'We try to pump down as much as we can, but after that, it's kind of in God's hands. We're kind of at the mercy of the storm.'
A young American travel blogger who stayed in India for three weeks over the summer released a harrowing video detailing her alleged experiences with stalking, sexual harassment and assault by male employees in two different hotels.
Jordan Taylor, who goes by Travellight on her YouTube channel, nervously spoke in a Saturday vlog about her hellish encounters in the nation's capital of New Delhi.
'This is not going to be an easy video to make today... I don't really know how to introduce this, so I'm just going to try to jump right into it,' she first said in the video.
'About two months ago, I got to India and I spent over three weeks [there]. Overall, my trip to India was great. I really loved it, saw some amazing things, had some great adventures.
'I don't want to be super negative, but at the same time, I am always honest with you guys and this is something that continues to deeply affect me.'
American travel blogger Jordan Taylor detailed her nightmare trip to India's capital of New Delhi
Jordan claims she was groped, stalked and trapped inside rooms during the stay
Her new vlog received more than 226,000 views as of Wednesday afternoon
Jordan was with her boyfriend, Livio, for most of the getaway that went from fun to scary.
Her first creepy encounters allegedly occurred at a five-star hotel she and her boyfriend had been staying in.
The blogger claimed men inside the hotel groped her and whispered sexually explicit things in her ear while the couple were together in a lobby.
'Men just randomly passing by reached out and grabbed me, were touching me, were groping me.
'This one guy walking by, leaned his face right here [motions toward her neck] and he just said to me, 'I want to f*** you, right into my face, with Livio right next to me.'
Jordan added: 'I was kind of already overwhelmed by that - then, I had [the] five-star hotel give out my personal information, my full name, my room number, to a stalker.'
The couple had enough by this point - and decided to check into another place, named the OYO Hotel on Main Bazaar Road in Paharganj.
Jordan had been staying with her boyfriend, Livio, for most of the getaway. The couple are pictured above
Jordan and her man were staying in India for three weeks. Jordan was by herself toward the end of the trip
She wrote in this August 2017 post on Twitter: 'be confident'
Livio needed to return home shortly after the pair booked the new hotel. His flight was four days before Jordan's.
Jordan and Livio thought it would be safer if he left the hotel early in the morning so no one there saw that he had gone away.
'They were downstairs in the lobby... they definitely knew that he left... they knew that I was now in this hotel alone.
'From that very morning, they started acting completely different to me,' Jordan said.
She claimed when she was finally alone, one man followed her upstairs and one phoned her room, and said 'heyyyy babyyyy!' before she hung up.
Taylor said: 'They called the room again and they were just silent and not saying anything.
'The next day, they call the room, I pick up and they were just making sexual noises breathing. There is no way that this was normal breathing into the phone.'
Then, things got even weirder, two days before her flight. A man allegedly came to her door and asked to come inside the room with her.
When she refused to open the door, he left briefly and returned an hour later - when he began banging at the door again to get inside.
When she failed to let him in, Jordan said she 'heard him flip [the main switch] off.'
Jordan shared a clip in her vlog from the nightmare hotel visit, when a male hotel worker allegedly turned her AC off as well as her Wifi when refused to let him in her room
The man asked her several times to open the door - which he claimed was 'broken'
The second hotel wrote on Twitter: 'Guest safety is our top priority and will take the strictest of action against the partner hotel involved in this incident. Appreciate your concern'
She went on: 'It was a very distinct sound... immediately he knocks on my door and says, "Hello! The AC is broken. We need to come in and fix it. Open the door and well come and fix the AC."
'He was right outside my door... there were more people who came, I dont know who. They would knock and say open the door. Then they shut off the WiFi and said the same story - that they need to come in and fix the WiFi.'
Jordan even shared a clip in the vlog which showed someone's shadow outside her door. After Jordan opened up about the alleged incidents on her channel, she broke down in tears.
'The best I can describe it is like I was in a horror movie.
'This video is something traumatizing that happened to me... I felt that it was right to share this, or rather, that is would be wrong to just sweep it under the rug and silence myself on the matter.'
Her vlog received more than 226,000 views as of Wednesday afternoon.
Indian website, Firstpost, later confirmed the OYO Hotel on Main Bazaar Road had been shut down until further notice.
@OYO4U wrote on Twitter: 'Guest safety is our top priority and will take the strictest of action against the partner hotel involved in this incident. Appreciate your concern.'
When the temperature falls to nearly 50 degrees below zero, it becomes almost impossible for the body to function. To do so, it needs to be wrapped in the latest extreme cold weather clothing, which can cost thousands of pounds. And even that may not prove adequate.
Think, then, of what it would have been like to endure such temperatures in Russia in the 1930s, without the benefit of modern technology.
Worse still, imagine you were in one of Stalin's hellish forced labour camps the notorious gulags called Vorkuta, where only 30 per cent of the prisoners had underclothes and just half owned anything resembling a decent pair of boots.
Gulag inmates were forced to construct the White Sea-Baltic Canal (Belomorkanal) between 1931 and 1933. According to official records and accounts in the works of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, between 12,000 and 240,000 laborers died during the construction of the canal
A young boy in a Soviet camp poses showing his starving boy with a large cross draped around his neck
'It was dangerous to stop moving,' one prisoner recalled. 'During head count, we jumped, ran in place and slapped our bodies to keep warm.
'Touching a metal tool with a bare hand could tear off the skin, and going to the bathroom was extremely dangerous. A bout of diarrhoea could land you in the snow for ever.'
To avoid exposing themselves to the cold, prisoners would often soil themselves, which would cause an unbearable stink.
And if the cold didn't kill you, there was a strong chance that a fearsome Arctic storm would do Stalin's dirty work. They struck with little warning, and with 'a wild and terrifying howl' would quickly shroud work parties in a freezing white fog.
Prisoners would hold a rope to navigate their way to safety indoors. But for any who lost their grip, death was all but certain and their bodies were not found until the next spring.
The brutality of the Soviet Union's gulag system is, of course, well known. Indeed, the word is sometimes bandied about with black humour, used as jocular shorthand to describe anything from a particularly shoddy hotel to a tough boarding school.
Prisoners pictured trying to keep warm in a gulag camp hospital. To avoid exposing themselves to the cold, prisoners would often soil themselves
But even those who use the word 'gulag' in this way surely know something of the true horror of what the word represents.
After all, this was a system, instigated by Lenin himself, that was designed to remove 'counter-revolutionaries' and other 'undesirables' from society by placing them in brutal camps in savagely inhospitable environments, and working them to death.
It was Stalin who perfected the system, and even after it was wound down and then formally abandoned in 1960, the gulags continued in all but name until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
No wonder, then, that this week there was a furore on social media when 'trans rights' activists at Goldsmiths, University of London, stated that Claire Graham, a special education needs teacher, should be sent to a gulag.
The activists, who call themselves 'LGBTQ+ Goldsmiths', objected to the fact that Ms Graham had written to them expressing her opposition to their targeting of feminist academics, who they claimed were prejudiced against transgender individuals.
'I said that I thought their choice of language, in talking about lists and purging people, was intended to shut down debate about trans people and the law,' said Ms Graham. 'I then received unpleasant and dehumanising threats about being sent to the gulag.'
It gets worse.
Barracks of a corrective gulag labor camp for builders of the panyshevsky electric station
Incredibly, the group proceeded to issue a whole thread of tweets in which it claimed that 'sending a bigot to one [a gulag] is actually a compassionate, non-violent course of action'.
To the ridicule of hundreds of thousands of Twitter users, the group then sought to justify this position by stating that gulag prisoners never served longer than ten years; that they were not worked until they died; that capital punishment was reserved for the worst criminals; that the system was 'rehabilitatory'; that the prisoners earned wages 'proportionate' to those of free citizens; and finally, that they could indulge in regular educational activities, and could read books and put on plays.
They almost made a gulag sound like a holiday camp.
The tweets met with incredulity, not least from the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Anne Applebaum, whose masterpiece, Gulag: A History Of The Soviet Camps, is considered the definitive account of this brutal network of prisons in which millions of Soviet citizens lost their lives.
'Is it a parody?' Ms Applebaum asked on Twitter. 'This is . . . not accurate. Not even close.'
Anybody who has read her book will know that every preposterous claim made by the Stalin apologists of LGBTQ+ Goldsmiths is deeply offensive. But there is no doubt that such claims are gathering more currency, as the resurgent hard-Left in the Labour Party seeks to gloss over the murderous nature of communism.
Take the notion that the prisoners never served longer than ten years. Technically, this is correct on paper, that was indeed the maximum sentence.
But what the students are ignoring if they ever knew anything of what happened in the gulags is that by the mid 1940s, the Soviet Union's interior ministry, the NKVD, decreed that all prisoners would be exiled 'in perpetuity' after they had served their sentences.
In essence, prisoners were simply re-arrested after ten years and often never regained their freedom.
Ms Applebaum recounts how one man tried to complain that his wife had been arrested again after serving her sentence.
'She has already served her time,' he said to the legal official. 'Does the law really permit you to punish a person twice for the same offence?'
'Of course not,' the official replied in amazement. 'But what's the law got to do with it?'
Then there is the bizarre assertion by LGBTQ+ Goldsmiths that it is 'myth' that gulag prisoners worked until they died.
Even the Soviets' own statistics reveal this to be a lie. In 1942 alone, no fewer than 352,560 prisoners died in the gulags a quarter of all prisoners. Things got marginally 'better' the following year when only a fifth were to perish 267,826 prisoners.
Many gulag prisoners would have died from illness, exposure and overwork, but some were simply shot, giving the lie to the falsehood propagated by LGBTQ+ Goldsmiths that 'capital punishment was reserved for the most heinous, serious crimes'.
This overlooks the awkward fact that on August 25, 1937, Nikolai Yezhov, the head of the NKVD, signed an order stipulating 'execution quotas' for the gulags, to rid the system of 'kulaks [formerly well-off peasants], thieves and other anti-Soviet elements'.
In one camp alone, Solovetsky, the quota was 1,200. Ms Applebaum recounts how the NKVD officer in charge of the mass murder was rewarded with a 'valuable present' for his 'valour'. He would receive a different kind of reward a few months later for he, too, was shot.
Another canard endorsed by the students is the idea that the gulag system was 'rehabilitatory'. This is complete nonsense and flies in the face of all evidence. Stalin's ambition for the gulags was not to reform those whom he saw as criminals, but to provide a giant pool of slave labour to realise his enormous construction projects.
The gulag system wound down and was then formally abandoned in 1960. However, they continued in all but name until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991
Working people to death and exiling them in perpetuity is hardly the basis of a rehabilitatory prison system. In fact, the idea of rehabilitating prisoners emerged only when Nikita Khrushchev came to power in 1953 and even then, there was concern that the process might overwhelm the authorities.
'We were scared, really scared,' the Soviet premier wrote. 'We were afraid the thaw might unleash a flood that we wouldn't be able to control, and which could drown us.'
Besides, the vast majority of gulag prisoners hadn't committed any real crimes, so the idea of rehabilitation was a nonsense anyway.
In fact, the whole system did the opposite of 'rehabilitating' prisoners it criminalised them. Starvation and deprivation tend to bring out the very worst in human nature, and the gulags were no exception.
That process would start even on the transports to the camps, some of which were on ships.
Jadwiga Malevic (right) with her husband (left) and son. Jadwiga Malevic's husband was a gulag camp guard in Norilisk
On one such transport in 1942, a Polish teenager recalled how the male prisoners smashed their way into the female compartment and started to rape women.
'Several men attacked each woman at once,' wrote Janusz Bardach. 'I could see the victims' white bodies twisting, their legs kicking forcefully, their hands clawing the men's faces. The women hit, cried and wailed. When the rapists ran out of women, some of the bulkier men . . . hunted for young men. These adolescents were added to the carnage . . .'
The rest is too vile to relate here.
Some transports were by train, and the testimonies are reminiscent of those familiar to readers of Holocaust memoirs. Wagons intended for 18 people would have 48 crammed into them, and the occupants were given pitiful amounts of food and water.
On one transport during the bitter cold of December 1944, it was recorded how 'the prisoners were given frozen bread, and for ten days got none at all'.
By the time the prisoners wearing summer uniforms arrived at the camp, many had frostbite and were covered in lice. They were the lucky ones.
Fifty-three prisoners had died on that transport of 1,402 people, and 400 more ended up in hospital.
Two more of the students' notions also need debunking. The idea that the prisoners earned 'proportionate wages' is farcical, as any payments they did receive were almost immediately confiscated.
Then there is fanciful idea of 'regular classes' and 'book clubs'. The few that existed were there to do only one thing glorify Stalin. If that is what Goldsmiths students consider educative, then don't let your son or daughter go anywhere near the place.
What's more, there is one huge and appalling irony that has been overlooked by the LGBT+ activists the fact that many gays and lesbians were sent to the gulags simply because their sexuality made them guilty of a crime under the notorious Article 121.
It is estimated that between 800 and 1,000 gay men were imprisoned each year under the brutal Soviet system, many of whom were to die. They would go on doing so for decades.
It is worth quoting at length the words of one gay man who was imprisoned for his 'crime'.
'I have experienced every possible nightmare and horror,' wrote the Leningrad poet Gennady Trifonov in December 1977. 'It is is impossible to get used to it. Over a period of 18 months I have seen daily what it is to be a convicted homosexual in a Soviet camp.
'The position of gays in the death camps of the Third Reich was nothing compared to this.
'They had a clear prospect for the future the gas chamber. We lead a half-animal existence, condemned to die of hunger, nursing secret dreams of contracting some deadly disease for a few days' peace in a bunk in the sick bay.
'I know people who have either forgotten the end of their prison term or who have not managed physically to survive that long. Their bodies were taken off the electric wire; they were found hanging in prison cells, tortured to death by prisoners in bestial mood or beaten by guards, mad.'
If the members of LGBTQ+ Goldsmiths had looked the likes of Gennady Trifonov in the eye and told him that the gulags were 'compassionate', he might have been forgiven for responding with a criminal action.
If anybody needs re-educating, it is these woefully ignorant students at Goldsmiths.
A tax-free $75,000 pay cheque will be given to residents in western Sydney to take in some of Australia's most troubled and vulnerable children.
But those who open their homes will be expected to give up their full-time job and devote all of their time to the child's care under the new incentive program.
The Treatment Foster Care Oregon program has been successfully run overseas in countries including the UK and New Zealand for more than 30 years.
The NSW Government hopes the program will help recruit new foster carers in Sydney's west where 18,000 children are in care and many more are needing homes.
A new foster carer initiative will see specialised carers paired with Sydney's most vulnerable children (stock image)
Carers will be given up to $75,000 per year to look after children as young as seven who have had trouble 'managing their feelings, thoughts and behaviour' due to years of neglect and abuse.
Children will be referred to the program and may come from across the city but will have to move in with a family in the west.
Carers will be limited to one child at a time and will have a team of psychologists, social workers and family therapists on call at all hours of the day for support.
NSW Family and Community Services Minister Pru Goward said the government was committed to improving the lives of Australia's most vulnerable children.
'Unfortunately there are some children in out-of-home care with incredibly complicated behaviours,' Ms Goward told the Daily Telegraph.
'These children often need intensive support so they can thrive through childhood and adolescence.'
Children involved are those who have bounced around the regular foster carer system due to poor behaviour (stock image)
The $75,000 payment is designed to entice well-trained parents to the program, which needs 20 carers within the next two years.
It's a significant step-up from the regular foster carer allowance of between $494 and $748 a fortnight.
Family and Community Sevices Minister Pru Goward (pictured) says the program demonstrates the government's dedication to improving the lives of Australia's children
The program will be run by OzChild which is being paid $4.87million to trial the program in NSW for the next two years.
There are currently about 18,000 children in foster care in NSW.
Two men have taken revenge on a magpie by shooting it dead after it swooped an elderly woman outside a shopping centre.
The men, dressed in T-shirts and shorts, arrived at the Esmonde St entrance to the Wyrallah Rd Shopping Centre in East Lismore in north-eastern New South Wales at about 12.30pm on Tuesday and allegedly shot the bird in its tree.
The shooting took place an hour after an elderly woman was struck by a magpie and fell over, injuring her knee, The Northern Star reported.
A magpie was shot dead by two gunmen wearing T-shirts and shorts at the East Lismore shopping centre (pictured) at about 12.30pm on Tuesday
Russell Brown, who witnessed the ordeal, said the two men claimed to be police officers before shooting the bird but didn't provide any formal identification.
Mr Brown said the bird had been swooping people 'for years' but he questioned the actions of the two gunmen.
'Something should have been done to warn the people what was about to happen,' he said.
Mr Brown described how everyone who witnessed the confronting incident appeared to look shocked and 'rattled'.
Another witness named Heather, who asked for her surname to be withheld, told the publication that as a result of the terrifying ordeal she was unable to sleep that night.
The Lismore Magpie Attack Facebook page (pictured) revealed there had been multiple magpie attacks at East Lismore recently
The Lismore Magpie Attack Facebook page (pictured) said the bird was 'quiet and lovely for most of the year' but had been selectively swooping recently
'I saw these blokes with guns and I didn't know what the hell was happening because there was no uniforms, there was no cop car, there was nothing,' she said.
The NSW Office of Environment and Heritage states on its website: 'It is against the law to kill the birds, collect their eggs, or harm their young'
She also questioned whether the men were in fact police officers, saying they should have sectioned off the area and warned people beforehand.
Richmond Police District Inspector Bill McKenna said he couldn't confirm if the men were police, but he added it's 'not uncommon' for uniformed or plain-clothed police officers to shoot problem magpies.
He said it's also essential for all officers to wear 'visible police identification' and birds should always be destroyed with minimal to no risk to the public.
'Our specialised police, highly trained tactical police, are called regularly at this time of year to destroy magpies that are putting members of the public at risk,' he said.
According to the Lismore Magpie Attack Facebook page, the bird was 'quiet and lovely for most of the year' but had been selectively swooping recently.
The Facebook post continued to say magpies are 'legally protected'.
The NSW Office of Environment and Heritage states on its website: 'It is against the law to kill the birds, collect their eggs, or harm their young.'
Jeff Fager sent a text message to CBS reporter Jericka Duncan, warning her about the coverage of the sexual misconduct allegations against him, just three days before he was terminated.
Duncan contacted the longtime 60 Minutes producer asking for a comment on the new allegations of sexual harassment made about him in a New Yorker story as the scandal involving CEO Les Moonves unfolded.
In the texts, which were sent after Duncan went for comment, Fager wrote: 'If you repeat these false accusations without any of your own reporting to back them up, you will be held responsible for harming me.'
That was followed up with a text that stated: 'Be careful. There are people who lost their jobs trying to harm me, and if you pass on these damaging claims without your own reporting to back them up, that will become a serious problem.'
Just hours after Fager was fired on Wednesday, a composed Jericka Duncan spoke on CBS Evening News about the text messages and then announced: 'I am that reporter.'
Duncan, who has been tasked with reporting on both Fager and Moonves for CBS News these past few days, then went one step further and revealed the exchange that led to Fager's exit.
.@jeffglor to @Jerickaduncan: "...You have been on this since the beginning. You have done great work. It's difficult enough without dealing with this. That message was unacceptable. I think it's important for you to know...that the entire team at Evening News supports you 100%." pic.twitter.com/E43JYHad9t CBS Evening News (@CBSEveningNews) September 12, 2018
Jeff Fager sent a text message to CBS reporter Jericka Duncan warning her about the coverage of the sexual misconduct allegations against him, just three days before he was terminated. She is seen reporting on the messages on Wednesday night
Duncan teased her appearance on Wednesday just before she appeared on air to report the story.
'Many people have asked if the text Jeff Fager referenced was to me. It was. Ill have more reporting on this tonight,' she wrote on Twitter.
Once on-air, she said that she felt the need to speak in light of recent developments.
'Since Jeff Fager publicly referred to our exchange today, I want to be transparent about it,' she told viewers.
It was shortly after outlets began to pick up the news of Fager's exit that he released a statement of his own, in light of CBS News' refusing to comment on his specific violation.
'The companys decision had nothing to do with the false allegations printed in The New Yorker,' said Fager.
'Instead, they terminated my contract early because I sent a text message to one of our own CBS reporters demanding that she be fair in covering the story. My language was harsh and, despite the fact that journalists receive harsh demands for fairness all the time, CBS did not like it.'
Threats by text: 'If you repeat these false accusations without any of your own reporting to back them up, you will be held responsible for harming me,' wrote Jeff Fager in a text
Fager sent these two text messages to Duncan after she asked him for comment about sexual misconduct allegations against him in a New Yorker article
He added: 'One such note should not result in termination after 36 years, but it did.'
CBS News president David Rhodes confirmed part of this as well in his memo, writing: 'This action today is not directly related to the allegations surfaced in press reports, which continue to be investigated independently.'
It was then noted: 'However, he violated company policy and it is our commitment to uphold those policies at every level.'
Nineteen women have come forward to detail what they claim was a hostile environment at 60 Minutes where harassment was condoned, with some detailing specific incidents involving Fager.
Duncan teased her segment on Wednesday's CBS Evening News just hours before
Sarah Johansen said that when she was an intern Fager allegedly groped her buttocks at a party, and she was later told this move was referred to as the 'Fager arm.'
'Jeff Fager is leaving the company effective immediately,' read a memo sent to CBS staff on Wednesday afternoon.
'Bill Owens will manage the 60 Minutes team as Ingrid Ciprian-Matthews and I begin the search for a new executive producer of the program.'
That memo went on to state: '60 Minutes is the most significant news broadcast on television. We are fortunate to have incredibly talented journalists in place whom we know will continue to deliver our defining investigative work.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has hit back at his bitter predecessor Malcolm Turnbull after he pressured him on Twitter to refer their mutual leadership rival Peter Dutton to the High Court.
As Mr Morrison was dressed in a tuxedo at Canberra's Midwinter Ball, Mr Turnbull interrupted his New York holiday to demand the Home Affairs Minister's constitutional eligibility to remain in Parliament be tested by Australia's top judges.
The former PM compared Mr Dutton's stake in a family-owned childcare centre company, which receives taxpayer subsidies, with former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce's previous status as a dual New Zealand citizen, which last year forced him to quit Parliament.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has hit back at his bitter predecessor Malcolm Turnbull after he pressured him on Twitter to refer their mutual leadership rival Peter Dutton to the High Court
Mr Turnbull interrupted his New York holiday to demand the Home Affairs Minister's constitutional eligibility to remain in Parliament be tested by Australia's top judges
'The point I have made to Scott Morrison and other colleagues is that given the uncertainty around Peter Dutton's eligibility, acknowledged by the Solicitor-General, he should be referred to the High Court, as Barnaby was, to clarify the matter,' Mr Turnbull tweeted on Wednesday night.
Mr Morrison, who dressed in black for his first and possibly last Midwinter Ball appearance as Prime Minister, expressed his displeasure on Thursday morning, as federal MPs and their advisers nursed hangovers.
'Someone once told me in this job, all contributions should be gratefully received. They are,' he told reporters at Queanbeyan, just outside Canberra.
'But as the prime minister, I'll obviously make the decisions in relation to our government on what I believe is in the national interest and based on the most recent and most timely information that I have available to me.
Scott Morrison (pictured right with his wife Jenny and Opposition Leader Bill Shorten with his wife Chloe) has declared he is in charge as Prime Minister now
Malcolm Turnbull tweeted his successor Scott Morrison telling him to refer Peter Dutton to the High Court as the Prime Minister was at Canberra's Midwinter Ball at Parliament House
Peter Dutton's eligibility was under fire when he challenged Malcolm Turnbull to become PM and is continuing to be a bitter political sore for
'Obviously I have a lot of respect for the former prime minister but as the prime minister now, I'll make the decisions that I believe are in the best interests of the nation.'
Mr Turnbull, who is holidaying in New York ahead of an October 20 by-election in his Sydney eastern suburbs seat of Wentworth, is apparently still angry at Mr Dutton for launching a leadership challenge last month.
So angry, in fact, he has been calling and texting Liberal MPs in a bid to get them to refer Mr Dutton's constitutional eligibility to remain in Parliament to the High Court.
While Mr Morrison prevailed in a Liberal leadership ballot on August 24 to become Australia's 30th prime minister, it was Mr Dutton who politically wounded Mr Turnbull by narrowly losing a leadership challenge three days earlier, 48 votes to 35.
As Mr Dutton prepared for a second leadership challenge, Attorney-General Christian Porter referred Mr Dutton's constitutional eligibility to the Solicitor-General, who cleared him.
Scott Morrison told reporters just outside Canberra he would be making the decisions now he was prime minister
The Home Affair Minister's eligibility issues surrounded two Brisbane childcare centres run by Mr Dutton's wife Kirilly with section 44 of the Constitution banning federal politicians from holding office if they profit from the commonwealth.
Fairfax Media revealed, ahead of Mr Turnbull's tweet, that a childcare company operated by Mr Dutton's family trust had received more than $5.6 million in taxpayer subsidies since 2014.
Mr Dutton's eligibility was exploited by Labor when they questioned the Home Affairs Minister's decision to overturn visa decisions by immigration officials three years ago.
A motion to refer Mr Dutton's eligibility to the High Court was voted down 68-69 in the House of Representatives on August 23, a day before he narrowly lost to Mr Morrison 40 votes to 45 in the Liberal leadership ballot which Mr Turnbull did not contest.
The Morrison Government, which has a bare one-seat majority, could lose power if Mr Dutton's eligibility was referred to the High Court and an adverse legal finding sparked a by-election in his marginal outer northern Brisbane seat of Dickson, which he holds by just 1.6 per cent.
The new Prime Minister is already under pressure, with opinion polls showing the Liberal Party could lose Wentworth, with a big swing against it, despite Mr Turnbull winning it in 2016 with a 17.7 per cent margin.
Wind turbines ground to a halt during the summer heatwave, said SSE
More than 1 billion was wiped off the value of one of Britains largest energy suppliers after it admitted its wind turbines ground to a halt during the summer heatwave.
SSE, which supplies electricity to 3.8 million households, said profits would be far lower than expected after the warm, still weather dented output from its wind farms.
It warned investors that profits for the half-year would be 50 per cent lower than the 586 million reported last year.
Higher wholesale gas prices and customers not switching on the heating also contributed to the slide.
Shares in SSE fell 8.2 per cent, cutting the companys stock market value by 1.05 billion to 11.6 billion.
Chief executive Alistair Phillips-Davies said: Lower-than-expected output of renewable energy and higher-than-expected gas prices mean that SSEs financial performance in the first five months has been disappointing and regrettable.
He also warned that the price cap on energy bills due to be introduced by regulator Ofgem would dent full-year profits.
About 17 per cent of the electricity SSE generated last year came from wind, with the rest from coal, gas, oil and biomass.
The company has two wind farms off the coast of the UK and several on-shore farms in Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are going on tour!
Next, they'll head to Fiji, where they'll visit Suva and Nadi over two full days.
Just a few months after Kensington Palace announced the couple would be traveling to Australia, Fiji, the Kingdom of Tonga and New Zealand as part of their first official tour, the Palace has revealed their itinerary.
"[Meghan and Harry] wanted to hit the ground running after their marriage to focus on their charitable interests and Meghan is really looking forward to representing Her Majesty on her first major Commonwealth tour to Australia, Fiji, Tonga and New Zealand", the source said.
As previously reported, despite the fact that the focus associated with the Royal family, this year was focused on Meghan Markle and Prince Harry, the most stylish representative of the British monarchy is still recognized Kate Middleton.
Surge, wind, rain, floods: Hurricane Florence could hit hard
Ralph Northam's evacuation order applies to about 245,000 people, including parts of the Hampton Roads area and Eastern Shore. While this may lessen wind speeds by landfall , it could increase rainfall totals to as much as 40 inches in North Carolina .
Such projects they will focus on while overseas are most likely the Queen's Commonwealth Canopy projects, and the Invictus Games - set to happen in Sydney later this year.
The new royal couple is going on tour later this fall.
"Their visit will be an opportunity to promote the incredible achievements of Invictus athletes from around the world, and showcase Australian programmes promoting youth leadership, environmental and conservation efforts", he said in a statement on Monday. "Should I campervan? Am I a campervanning girl?", the South Island and Waiheke won her over, inspiring her to write a "love letter to all things Kiwi".
More information about their trip will be released closer to their arrival.
The duke and duchess, who made a brief visit to Dublin during the summer, will spend much of their time in Australia visiting Melbourne, Sydney, the popular holiday town of Dubbo in New South Wales and the country's Fraser Island, a destination for eco-tourists.
The no-nonsense police officer who calls himself 'Raptor 13' has built a cult following of fans and critics, thanks to his uncompromising policing style.
From challenging bikies to issuing defect notices and confrontational traffic stops, the constable has earned a reputation as one of New South Wales' toughest officers.
Raptor 13, whose real name is Andrew Murphy, is part of an anti-gang police enforcement squad called Strike Force Raptor, established in 2009.
The strike force is an elite, militarised police unit understood to be made up of 55 top cops with the primary goal of dismantling violent bikie gangs.
The NSW police officer who calls himself Raptor 13 - named after his officer number - has hit headlines yet again this week for his no-nonsense policing style
Officers accepted into Raptor's tactical unit have to prove their worth in the ring with their command leader, according to a Daily Telegraph report last year.
The 'fight club' is ruthless, and officers rarely come out on top against Detective Chief Inspector Darren Beeche, a fierce boxer with a background in Jiu Jitsu.
Raptor has since branched off into extra units - Raptor South in the Illawarra region and Raptor North in the Hunter region - in a bid to "regain control" in areas marred by violent turf wars.
The strike force is made up of some of the state's most talented officers; a diverse group of accountants, indigenous people and fearless men and women willing to put their bodies on the front line.
Over the past two years, officer Raptor 13 has caught attention for a series of incidents caught on camera by members of the public.
Included among them was a confrontation with a group of men travelling in limousines to slain Comanchero president Mick Hawi's funeral.
Mr Murphy was seen drawing his taser and shouting 'You're going to get searched' as tensions flared between the group of burly men.
He was praised on 2GB broadcaster Ray Hadley's program for doing an 'incredible job.'
Senior Constable Andrew Murphy is part of an police enforcement squad called Strike Force Raptor, established in 2009 to tackle Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs (OMCGs)
His latest run-in was with Sydney truck driver Ramzy Ali, who recorded the officer slapping him with two tickets - one for defect passenger seat and one for an expired registration label
But others claim Raptor 13 has gone too far.
Mr Murphy has previously been seen on camera refusing to show a driver his speed radar, and holding a metal pole to a man's head.
In another incident he was filmed pushing away a motorcyclist wearing a Veterans Motorcycle Club vest during a tense roadside confrontation.
In the video, Raptor 13 can be heard telling the grey-bearded man to 'move it,' before adding: 'I'm not asking, I'm telling ya. Move it.'
Last week, Mr Murphy pulled over Sydney truck driver Ramzy Ali, slapping him with two tickets for a defect passenger seat and an expired registration label.
After an inspection of the vehicle by the Roads and Maritime Services (RMS) and a thorough check of their website, it soon emerged that neither case was valid.
'RMS inspectors said the seat meets manufacturer guidelines, as well as Australian compliance standards,' Ali told Daily Mail Australia.
WHAT IS NEW SOUTH WALES POLICE STRIKE FORCE RAPTOR? In 2016, the cop was filmed holding a metal pole to a young drivers head, in an alleged demonstration of how it could be used as a weapon When bikies bludgeoned a man to death with a metal bollard at Sydney Airport in front of petrified plane passengers nearly a decade ago, worried NSW police officials made a resolution. The outlaw motorcycle gangs running amok throughout the state could never be allowed to do something so brazen again. Such was the genesis of Strike Force Raptor. Founded in 2009, the unit has become known for using every available legal means to punish bikies and their associates, from arcane 1800s laws to road violations. It sounds familiar when you consider the case of 'Raptor 13,' Senior Constable Andrew Murphy - regularly filmed defecting motorbikes and getting in peoples' faces. '(Strike Force Raptor's) entire motivation is to be as prominent as the bikies are, and rattle their cages,' said former police officer and crime author Duncan McNab. 'What they've achieved is to destabilise the facade of the bikies and piss some of the serious players off.' But it's clear they've managed to irritate some punters outside the motorcycle gangs as well. Advertisement
Further footage of the police officer shows him throwing a motorcyclist's licence to the ground
The Raptor 13 officer has also been filmed meticulously measuring a motorcyclist's bike
Controversial incidents posted on social media were found to have been within protocol, and police said there were 'no issues' with his behaviour.
Strike Force Raptor has shut down at least 40 OMCG clubhouses since 2012, forcing many clubs - including Hells Angels, Rebels, Bandidos and Commanchero - to relocate to parts of South East Asia.
According to a recent investigation by News Corp, there is now evidence of 36 Australian-affiliated clubs in Thailand alone.
Daily Mail Australia contacted NSW Police for comment on the altercation between Senior Constable Andrew Murphy and truck driver Ramzy Ali earlier this week to no avail.
The mother-of-three (pictured) says she doesn't care about people who doubt her
Grandmother Tracey Britten would be forgiven for settling down and embracing the quiet life now that her children are grown up.
But mother-of-three Mrs Britten, 50, has chosen to yet again take up the parenting reins as she will soon become the oldest mother of quadruplets in the UK.
The former drugs counsellor is expecting three girls, including identical twins, and a boy with her roofer husband, Stephen, after the pair opted to pay for IVF.
Mrs Britten spent 7,000 of her mothers inheritance on the miracle fertility treatment in Cyprus to ensure that she conceived given her age.
The grandmother, who has eight grandchildren, last night told of her elation at being pregnant later in life.
Mrs Britten told The Sun: Every year I still wanted another child. I got to 50 and thought: Im just going to do it.
To those who might doubt her ability to be a parent at 50 years old, she said she doesnt care.
Mrs Britten went to the private Kolan British IVF Centre in Cyprus (pictured) where her eggs were extracted
She said: People have said, Youre a gran having kids. Well, so what? I wont be the first and I wont be the last.
I dont look 50 and I dont feel 50. People can say what they want. They dont know my story. When they see four beautiful babies theyll change their mind.
Mrs Britten is 25 weeks pregnant just seven weeks off her planned caesarean birth.
Last night medical professionals raised concerns about the cost of caring for the premature babies.
Professor Geeta Nargund, medical director of CREATE Fertility, told the Sun: The cost to the NHS of looking after these premature babies is likely to be hundreds of thousands of pounds.
But she added: I wish her and her babies every luck.
Mrs Britten already has three children aged 22, 31 and 32 with her first husband, who she divorced in 2003.
Within a year of meeting Stephen in 2005 she fell pregnant although the pair decided to terminate the pregnancy as the time was not right for them.
Mrs Britten said of the difficult decision to abort the baby: It was incredibly traumatic. Its a big part of what led me to wanting another child.
IVF treatment is notoriously expensive, but the soon-to-be mother-of-seven has used the money left to her by her late mother, Pauline Smith, to have the treatment.
The process began in April, when she received hormone injections at home before flying to Cyprus.
Although Mrs Britten told friends that she was going on holiday, she actually went to the private Kolan British IVF Center where her eggs were extracted, fertilised by Mr Brittens sperm and then implanted back into the 50-year-olds womb. A total of four embryos were implanted.
Mrs Britten, whose grandchildren range from seven months to 11-years-old, will bring up the four children in her three-bedroom home alone and her husband, who does not live with her, will visit.
The Archbishop of Canterbury launched an extraordinary attack on modern working conditions describing them as the 'reincarnation of ancient evil' in a strident speech to trade unionists.
Justin Welby hit out at the 'gig economy', under which workers are denied benefits and are paid per job, and at zero-hours contracts which offer employees no guarantees of work.
He also also attacked tax-avoiding online giants, accusing Amazon of 'leeching off the taxpayer'.
Justin Welby speaking at the TUC's 150th anniversary conference in Manchester. He hit out at the 'gig economy' and at zero-hours contracts during his speech
Insisting that Jesus himself had been a 'highly political' figure, he demanded an end to the Government's flagship Universal Credit benefit reforms, saying the changes had heightened the risk of people going hungry.
The Archbishop's speech at the TUC's 150th anniversary conference received a standing ovation.
But the astonishing intervention last night drew criticism from Tory MPs including former leader Iain Duncan Smith, the architect of Universal Credit.
Welby attacked tax-avoiding online giants, accusing Amazon (pictured is an Amazon warehouse) of 'leeching off the taxpayer'
More than one accused Archbishop Welby of expounding the views of hard left Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell a man who was named in his speech along with Tony Benn.
Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby
Charles Walker, MP for Broxbourne, said the archbishop was backing 'John McDonnell's point of view'.
Tory MP Ben Bradley tweeted: 'Not clear to me when or how it can possibly be appropriate for the Archbishop of Canterbury to be appearing at TUC conference or parroting Labour policy.'
He added: 'There are a diversity of views as to what is best for the economy, but [he] only seems interested in presenting John McDonnell's point of view.'
McDonnell said the Bishop was not backing any one party but simply 'telling it like it is.'
In his address the Archbishop took aim at Amazon, which has been accused of not paying its fair share of corporation tax.
'Not paying taxes speaks of the absence of commitment to our shared humanity, to solidarity and justice,' he said. 'If you earn money from a community, you should pay your share of tax.
Welby said of the gig economy 'It is the reincarnation of ancient evil,' he said. 'Today there are some who view that kind of oppression of the employed as a virtue.'
'They don't pay a real living wage, so the taxpayer must support their workers with benefits; and having leeched off the taxpayer once they don't pay for our defence, for security, for stability, for justice, for health, for equality, for education.'
A spokesman for Amazon said: 'We pay all taxes required in the UK and every country where we operate. Amazon has created more than 25,000 good jobs with good pay and benefits across Britain and we are proud of the work they do on behalf of customers every day.'
Condemning the so-called gig economy and zero-hours contracts the Archbishop said they were 'nothing new'.
The astonishing intervention last night drew criticism from Tory MPs including former leader Iain Duncan Smith (pictured), the architect of Universal Credit
He also spoke of how he had seen a speech against austerity by Tony Benn, and mentioned John McDonnell's docker father who, he said, had experienced the gig economy.
'It is the reincarnation of ancient evil,' he said. 'Today there are some who view that kind of oppression of the employed as a virtue.'
In his speech, he said he did not apologise for straying into politics. 'The Bible is political from one end to the other,' he said.
A Rastafarian schoolboy will be allowed to wear his hair in dreadlocks at school after winning a landmark legal battle.
Chikayzea Flanders, 12, from West London, was forced into isolation last year when he arrived at Fulham Boys School with his hair in dreadlocks.
He was told the hairstyle went against the schools uniform policy and was asked to shave off his hair if he wanted to attend lessons.
Chikayzea Flanders, right, pictured with his mother Tuesday, left, won case against Fulham Boys School which was found to have discriminated against the 12-year-old by insisting he should cut of his deadlocks
Lawyers from the Equality and Human Rights Commission took the case arguing the school's uniform rules were discriminatory
The lawyers argued the dreadlocks were a fundamental part of the youngster's belief system
But his lawyers, funded by the Equality and Human Rights Commission, criticised the stringent uniform rules and argued dreadlocks represented a fundamental part of the youngsters Rastafarian beliefs.
Now, in a move that may force other schools to lift their ban on dreadlocks, the Church of England free school, in West London, has backed down and admitted to indirect discrimination.
By County Court order, the school will have to pay for the Flanders familys litigation costs and reach a settlement with Chikayzea and his mother, Tuesday Flanders.
It has also been ordered by its Governors Complaints Resolution Committee to review its uniform policy and ensure that more equality and diversity training is given to staff.
Although Chikayzea left the school after a month to go to a local academy, Fulham Boys School has said he is welcome to return, should he wish to, provided that his dreadlocks are tied up so that they do not touch the top of his collar.
His hair may also be covered with a cloth if necessary, of colour to be agreed by the school.
Fulham Boys School had wanted the 12-year-old pupil to shave off his dreadlocks or remain in isolation although now following the successful case he can keep his hairstyle
Last night Chikayzeas mother, Tuesday Flanders, welcomed the verdict, which has ensured her son can continue to express his religious beliefs.
She said: As parents we place our trust in schools and teachers to help mould our childrens lives through education, but that should never place restrictions on their identity or their ability to express their religious beliefs.
We are grateful to the Equality and Human Rights Commission and Steel & Shamash Solicitors for their support and would like to make sure that communities know that their identity and religious beliefs matter and they cannot be forced to change these to access education.
Although the case will not set a legal precedent it may encourage schools to revise their uniform policies in future.
David Isaac, Chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, said: At the heart of this issue is a young boy who is entitled to express his religious beliefs and access an education.
We are pleased that the school has acknowledged their failings in this instance and has agreed to revise its policies.
We funded this case because no child should be prevented from attending their chosen school because of inflexible uniform policies that discriminate against children on the basis of their race or religious beliefs.
Alun Ebenezer, headmaster Fulham Boys School, told the Daily Telegraph: We received a complaint last year concerning a boy who is no longer on roll at our school. The complaint has be dealt with. We continue to rigorously enforce our uniform policy which is on our website.
The funding for the case by the Equality and Human Rights Commission was drawn from their legal support project which works to ensure children are not discriminated against in education.
A nine-year-old boy nearly swallowed a needle planted in strawberries, it has been revealed, as the hunt continues for a disgruntled worker accused of spiking the fruit.
The boy's Queensland mother said she found a needle while cutting up the fruit for his younger sibling.
Angela Stevenson told the ABC she was preparing the fruit for her 12-month-old when she discovered the needle and remembered she had given strawberries to her older child to take to school.
The mother frantically rang the school and told them to stop her son from eating the fruit but was too late.
Haoni van Dorp was driving to the Sunshine Coast with his friend when they stopped at the Strathpine Woolworths north Brisbane and bought a punnet of strawberries
The two brands affected, Berry Obsession and Berrylicious, had come from the same farm in southeast Queensland
'It wasn't five minutes later they rang back and said it was too late, he'd actually bitten into it,' she said.
'Luckily he'd pulled it back out of his mouth and told the teacher there was a needle in his strawberry.'
She is the fourth person to come forward saying they found needles in strawberries bought from Woolworths.
Sewing needles have been found hidden inside strawberries sold at Woolworths, sparking a recall of two brands that had been sold in Queensland, NSW and Victoria.
The Queensland Strawberry Growers Association has said early reports indicate a disgruntled farm worker may be responsible for the alarming act.
It says the two brands affected, Berry Obsession and Berrylicious, had come from the same farm in southeast Queensland.
A Queensland mother has said she found a needle when cutting up the fruit for her 12 month old child
Haoni van Dorp was driving to the Sunshine Coast with his friend when they stopped at the Strathpine Woolworths north Brisbane and bought a punnet of strawberries.
'We were driving up the coast, heading to the beach and decided to get tucked into some strawberries and ended up finding a needle in there,' he told The Today Show.
'Bit straight in and knee-jerk reaction was to swallow and yeah wasn't a pleasant surprise,' he said.
'We rushed straight to the University of Sunshine Coast hospital, straight to the ER room.'
Police won't say if they have any leads, and will talk to the association about it's suspicions a worker could be to blame.
'That is a comment by the Queensland Strawberry Growers and we will talk with them to see if they have any information to assist us,' Queensland Acting Chief Superintendent Terry Lawrence has told the Nine Network.
He repeated health department advice for people to ditch any affected berries they have bought between September 5 and 8, or cut them open to make sure they are safe to eat.
A Queensland man and two people from Victoria have reported finding needles in berries purchased from Woolworths.
A man has posted a picture of a sewing needle sticking out of a strawberry, claiming his friend had to be taken to the emergency room after swallowing another on Sunday afternoon
Police are checking every step of the production chain.
Jennifer Rowling, from Queensland Strawberry Growers Association, says growers are devastated by the incident, but customers can be sure that berries purchased from Thursday are safe.
'We just really want to reinforce that it was one farm that's been affected - the two labels within the one farm, and all those strawberries have been pulled off the shelves,' she has told ABC radio.
'We're hoping people can see this for what it is, and that is an isolated incident. Initial reports that we were receiving was ... that it did look like it was suspected that someone like a disgruntled employee may have done something.'
Woolworths has encouraged its customers to return suspect products for a full refund.
Consumers are being urged to throw out strawberries purchased over the past week in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria after needles were found inside the fruit.
Industry Development Officer Jennifer Rowling of Queensland Strawberry Growers Association released a statement on Wednesday of the company's suspicions.
'At this time, the Queensland Strawberry Growers Association have reason to suspect that a disgruntled ex-employee may have orchestrated the occurrence, wherein sewing needles were found in a number of strawberries, in Queensland and Victoria,' the statement read.
'To our current knowledge, two labels, Berry Licious and Berry Obsession are the only affected lines.
'We will update the Australian public as news becomes available to us.'
Health officials and police on Wednesday said needles were hidden in at least three punnets of strawberries supplied to Woolworths from a southeast Queensland farm.
Haoni van Dorp (pictured) bit into one of the strawberries and swallowed half of a sewing needle
Authorities are investigating the contamination after a man reported swallowing a strawberry with a needle on Sunday.
Needles have been found in packets in two Woolworths stores in Victoria and another in Queensland with an urgent recall underway.
The farm where the strawberries were sourced sells to stores in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria.
Joshua Gane was driving with his friend, Haoni van Dorp on Sunday afternoon, when they went into the Strathpine Centre Woolworths, about 20km north of Brisbane.
Buying a punnet of strawberries, the two men left the supermarket and kept driving.
Soon after, van Dorp says he bit into one and swallowed half of a sewing needle, before the pair found another.
Police believe the needles may have been deliberately planted with the perpetrator wanting to cause harm.
Gane posted the ordeal to Facebook, along with a picture that shows a metal pin poking out of a strawberry.
He said they took apart the rest of the strawberries, finding another pin.
He said his friend had to be taken to the emergency room with 'severe abdomen pain'.
The pictures on Facebook show a metal pin sticking out of the strawberry, but the men aren't sure how it came to be there.
Gane said the store manager contacted him following the incident, and told him they suspected foul play.
He wrote it was unclear who planted the needle, but said police and health and safety officials were called.
Queensland Police have now commenced an investigation into the contamination of the affected strawberry brands - Berry Obsession and Berry Licious.
Authorities are liasing with retailes to ensure all stock is removed from sale to prevent any further incidents.
He says after swallowing the needle, they took apart the rest of the berries and found another
Queensland's Chief Health Officer Dr Jeannette Young said anyone else who had bought the brands of strawberries without signs of tampering should return them to the store or throw them away.
'While it is expected that berries picked early last week would now not be useable, many people freeze the fruit for later use,' she said.
'If you are in doubt, just throw them out.
She said that any strawberries bought from September 13 are safe and said this incident does not mean you stop eating strawberries.
'Any strawberries that you are certain are not the brands Berry Licious and Berry Obsession, are safe.
'If you believe you have eaten a needle, we would recommend you speak to your doctor or call 13 HEALTH.
'There is no reason to stop eating strawberries, we just need to be aware of this incident.'
A spokesperson for Woolworths said the brand of berries have been 'temporarily withdrawn' from shelves, after the two men bought their punnet from the Strathpine Centre Woolworths
A Woolworths spokesperson said the 'Berry Obsessions' brand has been 'temporarily withdrawn' from shelves wherever they are supplied.
'Woolworths takes food safety very seriously and we are looking into these claims with our supplier,' they said in a statement.
'We are working closely with authorities as they investigate this matter.
'We have withdrawn Berry Obsession and Berrylicious branded strawberries from sale while this incident is being investigated.'
The family of an Instagram model have asked funeral mourners to 'unite as one across the world' after her death on board a superyacht in Greece last month.
Sinead McNamara, 20, died after becoming 'tangled in a rope' on the billionaire-owned Mayan Queen IV in a suspected suicide - following four months employed on the ship.
Now, ahead of her funeral on Saturday, the young woman's family has requested mourners pay a fashionable tribute, by wearing 'what Sinead would want (them to)'.
In a moving Facebook post, her brother Jake shared details of the service, to be held at Port Macquarie on the NSW mid north coast, and how it is tailored to the vibrant life his sister led.
The family of Instagram model Sinead McNamara has asked her funeral mourners to 'unite as one across the world' after she was found dead on board a super yacht in Greece last month
'For those coming on Saturday the dress code is wear what Sinead would want you to wear,' he wrote.
'We all knew and loved her in different aspects of life... so whatever it is that brought you and her together that is what we would like you to wear.'
According to the notice, appropriate clothing includes 'road trip attire, formal, surfy, boat attire' - all components which helped build Ms McNamara's colourful life.
Due to be held at a local memorial park before guests are requested to 'share memories' beach-side at the nearby Bonnie Hills Surf Lifesaving Club.
Those who unable to attend the gathering are encouraged to 'take a moment at the ocean nearest (them)'.
The post writes: 'join us while we do the same, uniting as one across the world to remember and cherish special moments we shared with Sinead'.
The 20-year-old died after becoming 'tangled in a rope' on the billionaire-owned Mayan Queen IV in a suspected suicide - after spending four months employed on the ship
The service follows Ms McNamara's tragic death after becoming tangled on the back of the ship, which was docked in Argostoli on the Greek island of Kefalonia.
It is believed Ms McNamara had called her family in tears just hours before she died.
She also spoke to her brother Jake during her last anguished phone call in the early hours of the Friday, shortly before her body was discovered, her family's lawyer Charalampos Triantafyllopoulos revealed.
Prior to that, the family claim Sinead had been happy and enjoying her work as a stewardess on the six-storey yacht, which is owned by Mexican billionaire Alberto Bailleres.
The service follows Ms McNamara's tragic death after becoming tangled on the back of the ship, which was docked in Argostoli on the Greek island of Kefalonia
Her mother Kylie and sister, Lauren Carr, were on route to Kefalonia from their home in Australia when she died.
They had been due to meet the following day and are believed to have been informed of the news of her death while in transit.
The family are now demanding answers as to why there was an apparent delay in airlifting her to a hospital in Athens.
A doctor on board the yacht is understood to have tried to resuscitate her before she was taken to a hospital in Argostoli.
Ms McNamara's mother Kylie and sister, Lauren Carr, were on route to Kefalonia from their home in Australia when she died
A doctor on board the yacht is understood to have tried to resuscitate her before she was taken to a hospital in Argostoli and later flown to Athens
After being there for several hours, Mr Triantafyllopoulos told Greek media, medics waited until a helicopter could transfer her to a private clinic in Athens.
In a statement, he said: 'The family expects the Greek authorities to respond to the causes and circumstances of her death and incidents that occurred just prior.
'The deceased had telephoned her mother and brother shortly before the unfortunate incident under investigation.'
A coroner later confirmed her cause of death was hanging, but said results of additional toxicology tests could take months to come back.
Argostoli's Harbour Master, Mrs Panagota Kolovou, said: 'An investigation is under way but I'm afraid we cannot release any details.'
A coroner later confirmed her cause of death was hanging, but said results of additional toxicology tests could take months to come back
However, a source at the Coastguard told MailOnline: 'She was found at the back of the yacht attached to one of the mooring ropes.
'The yacht had been docked immediately outside the Coastguard offices, which are manned 24 hours a day, so we were able to react to the situation quickly.'
The coroner revealed he had advised Ms McNamara's mother and sister against going to the morgue, saying they should not 'see her (body) in such a bad state'.
Her body has since been flown home to Australia in preparation of this weekend's service.
A disabled man has been escorted from a Bali-bound flight after crew told him he could not bring his foldable wheelchair on board.
Shane Hryhorec, a businessman in Melbourne, attempted to travel to the Indonesian island on a Qantas flight on Wednesday afternoon.
Mr Hryhorec is a regular domestic and international flyer who claims his $10,000 wheelchair is designed to fit in the overhead locker.
Shane Hryhorec, a Melbourne based businessman, was escorted from a Bali bound flight after crew told him he could not bring his foldable wheelchair on board
Mr Hryhorec is a regular domestic and international flyer who claims his $10,000 wheelchair is designed to fit in the overhead locker
Mr Hryhorec said the Qantas crew members 'didn't want to have a bar of it' and told him he would have to fly with the wheelchair in the hold.
'If my chair can't come on board then I won't fly,' Mr Hryhorec said when explaining his ordeal to Daily Mail Australia.
Mr Hryhorec was escorted from the plane with a companion and met by two Australian Federal Police (AFP) members.
He claims the AFP officers were 'confused' why they were called for a 'customer service issue.'
Mr Hryhorec, owner of disability equipment provider Push Mobility, said his wheelchair had been approved when he checked in.
'Everything I do for my work is to help people with disabilities. Helping people to have better access and ways to get around through the use of our equipment' said Mr Hryhorec.
Shane shared his ordeal on Twitter (pictured). The picture is from a previous Virgin flight
'If my chair can't come on board then I won't fly,' Mr Hryhorec said when explaining his ordeal to Daily Mail Australia
'Today I had to ask myself why am I working so hard to improve access for other people, when I personally can't even go on a holiday.'
Mr Hryhorec typically flies with Virgin - where he has had good experiences - but was recommended to try his luck with Qantas.
'It's just disgusting to be treated like that from Australia's most prestigious airline,' he said.
'Most people are brilliant but others don't understand what it's like to have broken wheelchairs.'
Mr Hryhorec chooses to travel with his foldable wheelchair to avoid the hassle of his chair getting lost or broken in transit. He claims it's better for everyone, crew included.
'It's just disgusting to be treated like that from Australia's most prestigious airline,' Mr Hryhorec said.
A few years ago on Christmas Day, Mr Hryhorec was stuck on a plane for hours without his chair and the horrific incident stuck with him for a significant amount of time.
'Crying your eyes out on Christmas Day wondering how you're going to get around,' Mr Hryhorec relayed.
Mr Hryhorec said Qantas failed in Wednesdays attempt but hopes the airline will be held accountable and better in the future.
'I don't want other people with disabilities to go through what I went through,' he said.
'So many people don't have a voice, a platform to speak to you.'
'I want to fly with a progessive and inclusive airline that cares about their passengers.'
Mr Hryhorec shared the incident to Facebook page Push Mobility where other travellers shared their experiences
One traveller said they flew from Thailand to Adelaide but their chair was left in Singapore
Mr Hryhorec hoped to fulfill his original plans and fly to Bali with the airline on Thursday. He has holiday accommodation organised in Bali for six or seven nights before flying to Singapore and then onto Europe for work.
He is reconsidering his holiday after a call with the airline on Friday where he was told the wheelchair would need to be put in the hold. He is concerned about what would happen when would arrive in Bali.
Mr Hryhorec shared the incident to Facebook page Push Mobility where other travellers shared their experiences.
One traveller said they flew from Thailand to Adelaide but their chair was left in Singapore.
In August, paraplegic gold medalist Dylan Alcott was stuck on an empty plane after his wheelchair got 'lost.'
'Left on ANOTHER PLANE without my wheelchair being brought to the gate. No idea where it is. Waiting for TOO LONG!' he wrote on Twitter.
'Australian airlines need to sort their s*** out. It is inhumane and unfair taking peoples independence away and not caring about it.'
In August, paraplegic gold medalist Dylan Alcott was stuck on an empty plane after his wheelchair got 'lost' (pictured)
Qantas policy indicates that wheelchairs can be taken as carry-on baggage on larger aircraft's including the A380 and Boeing 787.
On smaller aircraft's where there is less room in the overhead lockers, mobility aids and wheelchairs are stored in the hold.
A Qantas spokeswoman told Daily Mail Australia the airline was apologetic about the miscommunication.
'We apologise that due to a miscommunication, one of our customers boarded our Boeing 737 aircraft intending to store their wheelchair in the overhead compartment when they are not able to be stored in the cabin,' the spokeswoman said.
'On smaller aircraft, wheelchairs are carried in the hold and returned back to their owner on arrival.'
'It is never our intention to inconvenience our customers but safety for all customers is our number one priority.'
The spokeswoman said Mr Hryhorec has been rebooked to travel with Qantas on Friday with the wheelchair in the hold.
'Our crew are trained to ensure customers who require specific assistance travel comfortably, while maintaining the safety of other passengers and crew,' the spokeswoman said.
Australian politician Peter Phelps responded to Dr Siobhan O'Dwyer (pictured) with his own in-flight experience
A politician has shared an airline experience of his own in response to an academic who complained about being called 'miss' by a flight attendant.
Peter Phelps, a Liberal Party member of the New South Wales Legislative Council since 2011, targeted Philosophy PhD Siobhan O'Dwyer in a Wednesday Twitter post.
'Oh my God, Qantas I just got "Welcome abroad, Mister Phelps" despite my boarding ticket clearly stating that it is "Doctor Phelps",' Dr Phelps, who has a PhD in Australian History, wrote.
'So I just said "Thank you" .. because I'm not a massive academic feminist prat whose time is spent looking for patriarchal insults where there are none.'
Dr Phelps followed up the post with an additional comment that the experience 'destroys her ex post facto justification that "it would never happen to a man".'
Dr O'Dwyer sparked controversy with a viral tweet last week in which she slammed Qantas for not calling her 'doctor' during her flight.
'So I just said "Thank you" .. because I'm not a massive academic feminist prat whose time is spent looking for patriarchal insults where there are none,' Dr Phelps wrote
Peter Phelps (pictured), a Liberal Party member of the New South Wales Legislative Council since 2011, targeted Philosophy PhD Siobhan O'Dwyer in a Wednesday Twitter post
The lecturer then accused the airline of 'everyday sexism' and complained she was deluged with hate mail for her Twitter post about the incident.
'This was not about my ego. It was about highlighting one of a thousand instances of sexism that women encounter every day,' she wrote to her 3,300 followers.
'It's not about the title, it's about the fact that this wouldn't have happened if I was a man.
'The vitriol in my feed at the moment is staggering.'
Dr O'Dwyer sparked controversy with a viral tweet last week in which she slammed Qantas for not calling her 'doctor' during her flight
Dr O'Dwyer defended her post, saying it was not about ego, but rather 'highlighting one of a thousand instances of sexism that women encounter every day'.
Her original tweet accused a Qantas flight attendant of deliberately calling her 'Miss' after assuming the 'Doctor' on her boarding pass was a typo.
'Hey Qantas, my name is Dr O'Dwyer. My ticket says Dr O'Dwyer. Do not look at my ticket, look at me, look back at my ticket, decide it's a typo and call me Miss O'Dwyer,' she wrote.
'I did not spend 8 years at university to be called Miss.'
Her post sparked debate about whether Dr O'Dwyer - who works as a lecturer on Ageing and Family Care in the UK - or the flight attendant was in the wrong.
'I did not spend 8 years at university to be called Miss,' Dr O'Dwyer (left) reasoned. In July, she shared a boarding pass labelled Mr (right), claiming she had been mistaken as a man because of her title
In July she shared a photo of a boarding pass reading 'Mr Siobhan O'Dwyer', claiming she had been mistaken for a man because of her 'doctor' title.
After Dr O'Dwyer's tweet Qantas said they stood by the professionalism of their cabin crew.
'We are extremely proud of our cabin crew who respectfully serve our customers day in and day out and play a vital safety role,' a Qantas spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia.
Dr O'Dwyer told Daily Mail Australia she did not wish to speak out about the incident and the reaction to it.
'I am turning down all media requests because the online response has already been so vitriolic and further coverage will only incite more hatred,' she said.
All patients should be able to Skype their GP on a smartphone, the new Health Secretary (pictured) has said
All patients should be able to Skype their GP on a smartphone, the new Health Secretary has said.
Matt Hancock accused the NHS of blocking a healthcare revolution by refusing to roll out virtual GP services across the country.
The minister, who became health secretary in July, personally uses the 'GP at Hand' app, which is available on the NHS in some parts of London.
The service offers video consultations with a doctor and assesses symptoms via a chatbot. It can also provide face-to-face GP appointments at one of five central hubs.
It is run by private firm Babylon and is now attempting to expand across the country.
But NHS England has now blocked the company's plans to provide services in Birmingham, arguing that it cannot guarantee that its users will still receive invitations for national screening programmes.
Mr Hancock told The Daily Telegraph that he would offer his full backing to the service.
He said: 'GP at Hand is revolutionary - it works brilliantly for so many patients and goes with the grain of how people access modern services.
'I want to see GP at Hand available to all, not based on their postcode. Where a new service challenges the system, the right response isn't to reject the new service but to change the system. The current postcode lottery cannot continue.'
In a speech today, at Babylon's London headquarters, Mr Hancock will urge health officials to 'harness technology' for the benefit of patients.
'If we need to we will change the rules so we can harness new technology in a way that works for patients and practitioners,' he is expected to say.
'Global innovators like Babylon play a vital role in driving change in healthcare and we're determined to work with them to develop healthcare solutions for our future.'
GP leaders are concerned about virtual consultations and fear they will miss serious, less obvious symptoms that doctors pick up when they see patients face to face.
The Babylon app gives quick healthcare advice using a so-called 'chatbot' programme.
Matt Hancock accused the NHS of blocking a healthcare revolution by refusing to roll out virtual GP services across the country
Patients type in their symptoms and after each message, the app responds with further questions to get more details, each time consulting a database of symptom and illnesses.
The programme uses an algorithm to judge the urgency of each situation before advising the patient what to do next.
The app is available privately - offering patients a video consultation with a GP for a 25 fee.
But last November, Babylon Health took over an NHS GP practice in Fulham, West London, and offered patients free virtual consultations on their smartphones as well as face-to-face appointments.
The firm has encouraged patients in the area to de-register with their own surgery and join the new practice and 20,000 patients signed up in the first six months.
But doctors are worried the app undermines the doctor-patient relationship because patients are consulted by strangers they have never met who do not have access to their notes.
Earlier this year The Daily Mail revealed that Mr Hancock had downloaded the Babylon app two months before he became Health Secretary.
The number of paedophiles accused of accessing online child abuse images has rocketed with a new case now recorded every 23 minutes.
Social media giants are to blame, the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) has claimed, warning that sites are not doing enough to ensure their platforms are safe.
In the past year the number of child abuse image offences recorded by police has soared to 22,724 up almost 25 per cent on the previous year, figures released by the charity today reveal.
The number of paedophiles accused of accessing online child abuse images has rocketed with a new case now recorded every 23 minutes (stock image)
Social media giants are to blame, the NSPCC has claimed, warning that sites are not doing enough to ensure their platforms are safe (stock image)
And, as pressure grows on sites to take action against predators, the NSPCC has shared details of calls made to its sister service Childline from terrified young people coerced into sending explicit pictures of themselves to adults.
One 14-year-old girl told the charity: 'I was talking to a guy online who is much older than me. We sent each other nude pictures and now he wants to meet up to have sex with me. I am worried he could find me.
'I am embarrassed and I'm worried about getting into trouble.'
Figures obtained by the NSPCC under the Freedom of Information Act reveal that, on average, an offence was recorded by a police force in Britain every 23 minutes between 2017 and 2018.
Home Secretary Sajid Javid (above) spoke earlier this month at the Home Office in London where he described his shock at discovering the scale of the danger posed by paedophiles on the internet and outlined his 'personal mission' to tackle child abuse in all its forms
Minister tells them: Take responsibility By Eleanor Harding Technology companies must show a 'duty of care' to their users and take more 'responsibility' for cyberbullying, extremism and web addiction, a minister has said. Science minister Sam Gyimah said that while he 'welcomes innovation' from social media giants, this must come hand-in-hand with a social conscience. His words come amid increasing concerns about young children accessing inappropriate material online and being relentlessly pursued by bullies. Web giants have also come under fire for failing to take down videos which glorify terrorism. Mr Gyimah said tech companies needed to take on the same corporate responsibilities as more traditional firms. Speaking at the University of Buckingham Festival of Higher Education, he said: 'When you look at oil companies, gas companies, over time we have recognised that these big companies have big responsibilities. 'Social media companies have now come of age and while we want technology to flourish ... we want to see them exercising that kind of responsibility.' Advertisement
And the number of pictures accessed or created could be hundreds of times higher than the figures suggest, with offenders often accessing scores of images at once but only being found guilty of a single charge.
Tony Stower, NSPCC's head of child safety online, said: 'Every one of these images represents a real child who has been groomed and abused.
'The lack of adequate protections on social networks has given offenders easy access to children.
'This is the last chance saloon for social networks on whose platforms this abuse is often taking place.' The NSPCC is demanding the Government clamps down on social media giants and gives them a rule book they must follow to keep children safe. It says the web is like the 'Wild West', with each company playing by its own rules.
The NSPCC's Andy Burrows said: 'Let's be really clear, the industry has not done enough to try and tackle child abuse on social network sites and that is where we need to see the Government step in and force the big platforms to take the steps they won't take themselves,'
The NSPCC's figures come after the Home Office revealed that the number of child abuse images referred to the National Crime Agency had risen by 700 per cent in the past five years.
"We've been holding talks for 70 years", Putin said at the Eastern Economic Forum in the Russian city of Vladivostok.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Japanese officials had not communicated any response in private immediately after the session, Russia's TASS news agency reported.
Russian President Vladimir Putin offered Japanese leader Shinzo Abe a peace treaty without preconditions by the end of the year.
Analysts say that presence of the two leaders who have arrived from Tokyo and Seoul demonstrates the interest of key countries of the Asia-Pacific in realising Mr. Putin's ambitious regional plan, which has China and other countries, including India, as possible partners.
The islands of Etorofu, Kunashiri, Shikotan and the Habomai islet group, called the Northern Territories in Japan and the Southern Kurils in Russian Federation, were seized by the Soviet Union after Japan surrendered in World War II in August 1945.
But the two leaders found time to flip blini on "Far East Street", an exhibition of the region's cultural and economic achievements.Photos showed Putin and Xi, wearing blue aprons, pouring out batter and turning the pancakes over before eating them with caviar and a shot of vodka.
China's Global Times newspaper said China and Russian Federation could "create a vital influence" when the two countries worked together.
Upon returning to power in 2012, Abe took a firm position on Japan's claims to the disputed island chain, aggravating tensions with Beijing.
Rams top Raiders 33-13 in season opener
Matt Patricia of the Detroit Lions and Jon Gruden of the Oakland Raiders had a chance to reverse that trend ... but they didn't. He was under contract, Lisa, you know he was under contract. "I think that tempo kind of caught us off guard", Peters said.
"The government will continue its negotiations on the basic principle that we will sign a peace treaty after resolving the issue of the attribution of the Four Northern Islands", Japan's Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told reporters.
"This stance hasn't changed", he added.
The strategic guidance by and close contact between the heads of state of China and Russian Federation serve as powerful engines for the development of bilateral relations, Wang said.
FILE PHOTO: Japan Coast Guard vessel PS08 Kariba sails off Cape Nosappu, easternmost point in Japan, in Nemuro on Hokkaido island, as part of a group of islands known as the Northern Territories in Japan and the Southern Kuriles in Russian Federation can be seen in the background April 14, 2017.
The Japanese prime minister said the two countries "have a duty to future generations".
"It seems that this would facilitate the solution of all problems which we have not been able to solve during the past 70 years", Putin added.
Lying near the Japanese island of Hokkaido, the territory was taken over by Red Army troops in the final days of World War II.
British, French and German fighter jets simulated flight interceptions over Western Europe on Wednesday as part of NATO drills to deter Russian planes from entering allied airspace and to showcase European efforts to integrate their air defences.
Fighter pilots carrying air-to-air missiles from 10 NATO nations took turns to simulate the interception of a Belgian air force transport plane en route to Spain, performing visual inspections of the aircraft's status by hovering off the wings at speeds of 560 mph.
Some 60 NATO jets, mainly from European allies, are on alert to defend alliance airspace, as NATO deals with a dramatic increase in Russian air activity on its borders since Moscow's annexation of Crimea in 2014, with a record 870 interceptions in the Baltics alone in 2016.
These two Italian Typhoon jets were part of an exercise involving 60 NATO planes to practice interception drills to dissuade the Russian military from approaching allied airspace
This Belgian military pilot talks with a fellow aviator during the exercise in Italy
Czech Gripen fighters, pictured, were among the various combat jets in the exercise
This month, Moscow is holding its largest war games since the fall of the Soviet Union, with some 1,000 aircraft.
'NATO is relevant. This is not theoretical,' said Spanish Air Force Lieutenant General Ruben Garcia Servert on board the Belgian military transport plane, as Italian Eurofighters flew close to the cockpit to simulate interceptions. They later included British Typhoons and French Mirages.
'We have not always been successful in showing the taxpayer that we have the means and the capabilities to protect the population,' he told Reuters during a rare mid-air public display of flight interceptions.
European allies hope such displays highlight how their air forces are defending Europe in the face of sharp criticism from U.S. President Donald Trump, who at a summit in July railed against Europeans for not spending enough on defence and ports.
Able to divert, force to land or potentially even shoot down combat aircraft, NATO says its so-called air policing is not directed at Russia. But showdowns between rival warplanes in the Baltic and Black Sea are intensifying.
Two U.S. jets escorted two Russian bombers over the Arctic Ocean on Sept. 7 in the latest incident, while Russia has scrambled fighter jets to intercept nuclear-capable U.S. bombers in interceptions that have echoes of the Cold War.
Personnel at the Combined Air Operations Centre at Torrejon, Spain monitored the exercise
The Belgian F-16 has intercepted an airforce transport aircraft as part of the drill
Analysts warn that any collisions in the air over the Mediterranean, Baltic or Black Sea could risk the start of a wider conflict with Russia.
Both sides accuse the other of dangerous pilot behaviour, but NATO says Russian warplanes regularly fly without respecting international safety norms, such as responding to air traffic control and requests to identify themselves. Russia says all its flights are conducted in accordance with international law.
'We have seen aircraft coming to our borders without flight plans, without any kind of controls ... safety regulations, entering into our area,' Garcia Severt said.
'We have seen frequent activities in the Black Sea, but not only, sometimes we have seen aircraft flying around Europe,' he said, referring to Russian bombers off Portugal's coast.
These German Eurofighters also intercepted a Belgian transport aircraft as part of the drill
The transport aircraft was later intercepted by a pair of Hungarian Gripens over Hungary
NATO will hold its biggest exercise since 2002 in October and November in Norway, called Trident Juncture, and involving non-NATO Finland and Sweden, with more than 40,000 troops.
While tensions with Russia have already prompted NATO to deploy multinational land battalions in Poland and the Baltics, NATO is also pushing to integrate its air forces, despite political resistance over issues of sovereignty.
Under an agreement being negotiated, individual NATO countries' air forces would defend each other's airspaces, regardless of the country they are in, under a 'single sky' concept that could see Portuguese planes defending Spanish airspace, for example.
Today, each nation defends its own airspace, unless, as in the case of the Baltics, it does not have fighter planes. (Reporting by Robin Emmott; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
This RAF Typhoon intercepted the Belgian transport aircraft over Britain
Jeremy Corbyn was allegedly snubbed by Nelson Mandela because he was considered a hindrance to the anti-apartheid movement, it was reported last night.
The Labour MP was arrested in 1984 for picketing outside the South African embassy to protest the ANC leaders imprisonment.
But attempts to gain Mr Mandelas approval for the campaign were repeatedly refused because it was run by an hard-Left splinter group, The Daily Telegraph claimed.
Mr Corbyn was part of a four-year protest organised by the City of London Anti-Apartheid Group (CLAAG), which demanded Mr Mandelas release from prison during the 1980s.
Nelson Mandela (left) allegedly snubbed a request from Jeremy Corbyn (right) to meet during a visit to London
When it was announced that the freedom fighter was to visit London in 1990, CLAAG asked if he would meet those involved in the campaign, according to a book on the subject.
Youth Activism and Solidarity: The Non-Stop Picket Against Apartheid, written by academics Gavin Brown and Helen Yaffe and published in February, said the meeting never happened and many letters received no acknowledgement or reply.
These letters were part of a political campaign to gain Mandelas (retrospective) approval for the non-stop picket in the face of long-standing opposition from sections of the London ANC, it said.
Last month The Guardian claimed that Mr Corbyn served on the national executive of the AAM.
But a senior figure in the anti-apartheid movement, who served on the AAM national executive, said: Jeremy Corbyn was never on the national executive.
The figure, who wished not to be named, told The Daily Telegraph: His followers try to project him as the saviour of the cause but he was actually very disruptive in the AAM.
The London ANC reportedly opposed a non-stop picket (pictured, demonstrators in Trafalgar Square in 1985)
'The dedicated people who took part in the 24/7 picket outside the South African embassy were mostly ultra-Left Trotskyists who caused constant aggravation and segregation within the movement.
'Corbyn and John McDonnell went on these events not the mainstream marches and demonstrations the AAM organised.
His supporters and Momentum tweet that he was this major figure in the AAM and that he practically released Mandela single-handedly.
'The reality is that he was aligned to ultra-Leftists who were seeking to do their own thing and didnt mind if it set back the anti-apartheid cause. They were more of a hindrance than a help.
Mr Corbyn was instead a member of CLAAG, which was under observation inside the House of Commons during an AAM meeting because they were a front for a violence-prone Trotskyist group known as the Revolutionary Communist Group (RCG), according to declassified Special Branch files.
A slate of 13 CLAAG members, including Mr Corbyn, stood for the AAM national executive in 1984 but were all defeated.
A spokesman for Mr Corbyn said: While members of the Conservative Party were calling for Nelson Mandela to be hanged, Jeremy was campaigning against the racist apartheid regime.
Two young girls have died in a horrific house fire.
The girls, aged two and three, were killed when the blaze broke out at a home in Geelong East, south-west of Melbourne, just before 8am on Thursday.
Their sister, a six-month-old baby girl, remains in hospital suffering smoke inhalation.
The exact cause of the fire is still to be determined but it is believed a children's toy had fallen on a heater in a front bedroom of the Loch Street home and started melting.
Emergency services were called to Loch Street, Geelong East just before 8am on Thursday
The parents of the little girls had rushed into the room the toddlers were sleeping in after noticing the smoke, with a neighbour telling AAP she believed the father had gone to the home of a neighbour, a doctor, for assistance.
The couple then drove to hospital where the two girls were pronounced dead.
The baby girl had been sleeping in another room with her parents.
The Arson Squad is investigating and the fire at this stage is not being treated as suspicious.
The blaze was contained in about 20 minutes.
Geelong CIU Detective Senior Sergeant Mark Guthrie told 3AW that while 'it's very early in the investigation' it is 'just a real tragic set of circumstances'.
'There was a small heater that's fallen in the room where the two children were asleep,' he said.
'The six-month-old and parents were in another part of the house and are all OK. There's no medical issues with all three of them.'
Police said investigations were still ongoing but at this stage it is 'just a real tragic set of circumstances'
He said smoke inhalation most likely caused the deaths.
The parents remain at hospital after being 'traumatised' by the tragic incident.
The neighbour said she knew the family to say hello to and the sweet girls would stop on their way past to pat her dog.
'They were smitten,' she said of the parents, who have lived in the street for three or four years.
'You could see in their eyes they really loved their children.'
Another neighbour told The Age: 'The family are lovely people, the nicest people, really friendly and their daughters were stunningly beautiful'.
They added the childrens' father runs a local fast food shop in the area.
A report will be prepared for the coroner.
Police have released extended body camera footage of their response to the Cincinnati bank where a gunman killed three people and shot others last week.
Officers rushed to scene at the Fifth Third Bank near Fountain Square on September 6 to respond to reports of a gunman in footage released by the Cincinnati Police Department.
Video shows the officer shooting into the bank as they confront 29-year-old Omar Santa Perez.
Officers rushed to scene at the Fifth Third Bank near Fountain Square on September 6 to respond to reports of a gunman
Video shows the officer shooting into the bank as they confront 29-year-old Omar Santa Perez
They rush to a side of the building and in the next moment, many are firing their weapons as they respond to gunfire from inside the bank.
In the footage, visuals of victims and medical procedures had been redacted.
County Coroner Dr. Lakshmi Sammarco reported Tuesday on autopsy findings from the Fifth Third Bank building shootings Thursday.
She added the gunman who used a 9 mm handgun fired both standard bullets and hollow-point bullets, which often inflict more damage to bodies.
In the footage, visuals of victims and medical procedures had been redacted
Police stated that he had some 250 rounds of ammunition for his legally purchased 9 mm handgun
A Fifth Third Bancorp employee and two contractors were killed before police killed the 29-year-old gunman.
A fourth victim succumbed to injuries while in the hospital.
The coroner says the shooter died from a shotgun blast to his head
At age 25, programmer Pruthvi Kandepi (left) was the youngest of the three victims shot dead at Fifth Third Bank in downtown Cincinnati on Thursday. The two other deceased were identified as Luis Calderon, 48 (center), and Richard Newcomer, 64 (right)
The coroner says the shooter died from a shotgun blast to his head. Police are still investigating why he attacked in the building that headquarters Fifth Third.
Whitney Austin, a 37-year-old Fifth Third Bancorp vice president, is one of only two who survived their injuries.
Waller Austin said in a statement Monday that his wife 'still has a long road ahead in her recovery both physically and mentally.'
A British Airways jet between London and Calgary was forced to make an emergency landing in northern Canada after pilots reported smoke in the cockpit.
The Boeing 787 Dreamliner landed in Iqaluit Airport on Baffin Island, Nunavut, and at least one passenger has been treated by medics.
Photographs from the scene showed the aircraft, flight BA103, landed safely on the runway and passengers were able to make their way down the stairs to the terminal building.
The BA flight was pictured on the tarmac at Iqaluit airport in the Canadian territory of Nunavut
The Boeing 787 Dreamliner pictured on the Iqaluit Airpor runway after pilots successfully landed the plane despite reporting fumes in the cockpit
Members of the local fire service were seen entering the aircraft after the passengers had been taken off to search for any possible fire.
The plane was six hours into its nine-hour flight when the drama unfolded. Polots had to don oxygen masks to complete the landing, it was reported.
The British Airways flight from London to Calgary landed at Iqaluit Airport nearly six hours into its nine-hour flight. The map (right) shoes the plane's diversion before it landed safely at Iqaluit AIrport (right)
One passenger was reportedly treated for arm and chest pains at the scene.
It was claimed that the fumes were an "electrical burning/fire smell in nature"
The jet can seat up to 216 passengers, according to the British Airways website.
The Queensland government is appealing the nine-year jail sentence handed down to a stepfather who bashed a toddler who eventually died from his severe injuries.
William Andrew O'Sullivan was sentenced to nine years in jail for the death of 22-month-old Mason Jet Lee but will be eligible for parole in less than four years.
Attorney General Yvette D'Ath says she has lodged an appeal against the manslaughter sentence given to the man who killed the toddler in Caboolture, north of Brisbane, in June 2016.
William Andrew O'Sullivan (pictured) was sentenced to nine-years imprisonment for the death of 22-month-old Mason Jet Lee and will be eligible for parole in less than four years, but the sentence is now being appealed
The toddler (pictured) was found with extensive injuries at O'Sullivan's home in Caboolture, north of Brisbane, in June 2016
'After receiving legal advice from the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, the appeal has been lodged today,' Ms D'Ath tweeted on Thursday.
'As the appeal is now before the courts, I will do nothing that might prejudice these court proceedings and will be making no further comment.'
O'Sullivan, 37, was also convicted of child cruelty after failing to seek medical care when the boy suffered a broken leg and severe anal injuries six months before he died.
The sentence handed down by Chief Justice Catherine Holmes means he could walk free in four years with time already served.
Outraged child protection advocates criticised the sentence given to O'Sullivan.
The young boy was so severely beaten he suffered anal injuries, a broken leg and a ruptured intestine, spending the last of his days vomiting, feverish and dehydrated.
Mason's final hours were spent wrapped in a towel, lips blue, making grunting noises.
'How can you kill a child and walk away after four years? It just defies any kind of logic, it doesn't set any example,' founder of Bravehearts Hetty Johnston said
O'Sullivan (pictured) failed to assist the toddler in his last days, instead yelling at him to 'shut up' when he cried as well as hitting and kicking him
The inadequate sentenced has been criticised by outraged child protection advocates (pictured: Mason Lee)
Traces of methamphetamine were found in his blood after he died.
O'Sullivan, who had long battled an addiction to drugs, particularly ice, tried to cover up his involvement in the little boy's death by blaming paramedics for taking too long to respond.
But they had taken only six minutes to arrive after being called by a friend.
He also lied to police by saying he found Mason with his lips blue and mouth clamped on a bottle before calling an ambulance and later claimed his 12-year-old 'serial killer' daughter may have beaten him.
Mason was so severely beaten he suffered anal injuries, a broken leg and a ruptured intestine, spending the last of his days vomiting, feverish and dehydrated
Founder of Bravehearts, a leading child protection organisation in Australia, Hetty Johnson said the inadequate sentence proves the system is failing children.
'How can you kill a child and walk away after four years? It just defies any kind of logic, it doesn't set any example,' Ms Johnston said.
'I think they need to throw the whole sentencing regime out the window and start again.'
The Queensland Opposition's child safety spokeswoman Ros Bates said the system needs an overhaul.
'I'm sure that the public don't think that a sentence that lenient is sufficient for what that little boy went through,' she said.
One of Sydney's newest suburbs is set to become the most technologically advanced communities with internet speeds of up to 20 times faster than NBN.
Marsden Central is a forward-thinking community at Marsden Park in Sydney's north-west, which is designed to be 'future proof' with cutting-edge technology.
As part of the suburb's high-end home technology features, developers are investing $5.3million into building and running a superfast fibre cabling network.
One of Sydney's newest suburbs (pictured) is set to become the most technologically advanced communities with internet speeds of up to 20 times faster than NBN
The network will enable multiple internet-based technologies in the home, including voice, data, Foxtel, free to air, CCTV, video intercom, smart home automation, public WiFi and access control
The network is a first for any Australian development, which will provide residents with standard internet speeds of up to 2GB/s - 20 times faster than NBN's fastest plan.
FiberCorp - the superfast carrier currently installing the network across Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane - uses a US broadband provider called Calix.
CEO of FiberCorp Australia Sam Scoutas told Daily Mail Australia that fibre-optic cabling is necessary to be able to adapt to technological changes in the future.
'By 2020 the average home in Australia will have four or five devices between a family, including 4K video, which will require about 172MB/s of bandwidth transfer.'
Mr Scoutas said the current maximum bandwidth rates in Australia aren't capable keeping up with technology, with 36 per cent of NBN users experiencing 12MB/s.
Along with developer Kanebridge, FiberCorp is working towards improving the network's capabilities, which will see it deliver speeds of up to 10GB/s in the future.
One key advantage of fibre cabling is that it enables multiple internet-based technologies in the home to be accessed on the one network.
As part of the suburb's high-end home technology features, developers are investing $5.3million into building and running a superfast fibre cabling network
Mr Scoutas said the internet provider is improving its technology so that Marsden Central can handle upgraded speeds
'Over the fibre we will complete voice, data, Foxtel, free to air, CCTV, video intercom, smart home automation, public WiFi and access control,' Mr Scoutas said.
He added, without fibre-optics, several networks would be needed for each internet-based technology in the home, and this number increases every year.
'At Marsden park we're going to move to a technology that can handle upgraded speeds and that will enable residents to access 2GB/s speeds - and eventually 10GB/s'.
Marsden Central apartments (artist impression pictured) are for sale at $504,000 for a two-bedroom apartment
Kanebridge CEO Marwan Rahme said in a statement that the addition of the internet network will ensure residents aren't disadvantaged by their geographical location.
'We are developing as much capability as possible into the network at Marsden Central, so that residents can access new technologies when they become available.
'Ten years ago, no one knew that streaming services would overtake pay TV. The internet speeds alone will be the first for an Australian residential development,' he said.
Marsden Central apartments are for sale at $504,000 for a two-bedroom apartment.
French fishermen have broken off talks with British rivals on a new deal to access scallop-rich waters in the English Channel.
Representatives have been meeting in London over the last week to reach an accord that would stop smaller British boats from taking the scallops outside official fishing season.
But Hubert Carre, head of Frances national fishing committee, said it was game over after the British had not responded to their offer.
British and French fishermen are at loggerheads over scallops and have clashed off the coast of Normandy and Jersey over tuna
The current deal allows British boats smaller than 50ft to fish the area before French scallop season from October to May.
It had been proposed that the British would no longer have access to waters off the Baie de Seine in Normandy, north-west France, outside this period.
But British fishermen said the compensation offered by the French 50 tonnes of cod and 25 tonnes of sole in place of the scallops was not adequate.
French sea fisheries national committee general director Hubert Carre (pictured outside a meeting with his British counterparts in Paris last week) insisted it was 'game over' for talks
Jim Portus, the chief executive of Britain's South Western Fish Producers Organisation, previously said the deal 'satisfies the honour of fishermen on both sides'
Mr Carre said: We wont be going back to the negotiating table. He added that he thought the UK had not agreed as they thought we were bluffing.
The long-simmering conflict flared into a high-seas confrontation last month as vessels from both sides rammed into each other and the French threw stones and smoke bombs.
Asia Argento accuser Jimmy Bennett once had a restraining order filed against him by his underage ex-girlfriend because she believed he was 'stalking' and 'threatening' her.
The unnamed girl was 17 when she claimed in 2015 that Bennett, then 18, had talked her into having sex, according to court documents obtained by the Daily Beast.
She then said she feared he would come after her mother and a former boyfriend she had reunited with after they split.
The woman also claimed that Bennett 'manipulated' her into sending him naked photos via Snapchat.
Bennett accused Argento, one of the first women to publicly accuse Harvey Weinstein of sexual assault, that she sexually assaulted him in a California hotel room in 2014 when he was just 17.
The tables have turned on Asia Argento (left) accuser Jimmy Bennett (right) after it was revealed on Wednesday that his ex-girlfriend filed a restraining order against him
Argento, who was one of the first women to publicly accuse Harvey Weinstein of sexual assault, initially lied about her encounter with Bennett (pictured together) following a report that revealed Bennett had received a $380,000 payment from her partner Anthony Bourdain
A New York Times report that revealed the young man had received a $380,000 payment from her late partner Anthony Bourdain to keep quiet about the alleged liaison when he threatened to file a $7.5million lawsuit.
Just hours after she denied ever having sex with Bennett, TMZ published a text exchange between model Rain Dove and with Argento, confirming most of the Times report.
But as the story continues to unfold, all eyes are on Bennett after the 2015 restraining order from his ex-girlfriend emerged.
According to The Daily Beast, Bennett's ex-girlfriend accused him of stalking and threatening her three years ago.
But a month later, the case was dismissed after she failed to appear in court for a hearing on her allegations, court records show.
The woman also claimed in the filing that she was the victim of sexual offenses.
According to the records, the woman pressed charges against Bennett for unlawful sex with a minor, stalking, and child pornography on July 17, 2015.
According to the court filing, she was worried that Bennett might come after her mother or another former boyfriend, with whom she had recently reunited.
'When I was 17 and Jimmy was 18, he talked me into having sex with him. I had never had sex before,' she wrote in the complaint.
It was model Rain Dove's (left and right) texts with Argento that confirmed the actress had sexual relations with Bennett in a California hotel room back in 2014
Bennett's ex-girlfriend said that she would frequently tell him to leave her alone and that she 'didn't want to see him'.
According to the Daily Beast, the ex-girlfriend said she thought Bennett was 'potentially violent'.
'Both my mother and I felt in danger of our safety. Jimmy has lied, manipulated, and stole from me because my family is in a very poor financial condition, having recently gone through 2 foreclosures and bankruptcy,' the complaint read.
Bennett made headlines last month after he claimed Argento, then 37, sexually assaulted him when he was 17 in 2013.
Argento, a prominent #MeToo activist, denied ever having a sexual relationship with Bennett, whom she agreed to pay $380,000 in a settlement.
The actress and her lawyer have claimed that she was the victim, and Bennett sexually assaulted her that day in the hotel.
Former foreign minister Julie Bishop has flagged backing a motion against her right-wing Liberal enemy Peter Dutton as she spoke out against bullying in Parliament.
Australia's highest-profile backbencher three weeks ago lost a Liberal leadership ballot to become Prime Minister and has since embarked on a quest to highlight her party's lack of female representation.
The former Liberal deputy leader, who last month faced off against Mr Dutton in a party room vote, said she would make a decision 'at that time' when asked about another possible parliamentary motion against the Home Affairs Minister.
Former foreign minister Julie Bishop flagged the possibility of supporting a motion in Parliament to refer Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton's eligibility to the High Court
The 62-year-old former law firm partner was a no-show at last night's Mid Winter Ball in Canberra, as former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull tweeted a challenge to his successor Scott Morrison to take action against Mr Dutton.
Ms Bishop told reporters she was open to supporting a parliamentary motion to have Mr Dutton referred to the High Court, with constitutional questions remaining about his financial stake in two Brisbane childcare centres that received taxpayer subsidies.
'We all have personal responsibility to ensure we are eligible to sit in the Parliament,' she told reporters on Thursday morning.
'We've seen in recent times steps taken by members of Parliament to clarify their status. But it's a matter for each politician to make that determination.'
Ms Bishop, who herself engaged in robust parliamentary antics during her 15 years on the front bench, castigated the adversarial nature of Question Time in the House of Representatives.
'You all attend Question Time. Would that be tolerated in any workplace?,' she asked reporters during an impromptu press conference in a Parliament House corridor.
'And despite the best efforts of the Speaker and the rules, the standing orders, we still see the name calling and the shouting.
'Tell me another workplace where you could do that.'
The Liberal Party's former deputy leader asked reporters if the behaviour of politicians during Question Time would be tolerated in any other workplace
Liberal MP Julia Banks (left) who sits next to Julie Bishop on the back bench, told Parliament there was a 'culture of bullying' in the Liberal Party
Liberal MP Julia Banks, who sits next to Ms Bishop on the back bench, last night slammed her party for the way it treated women, after previously accusing Mr Dutton's right-faction supporters of intimidating behaviour during a leadership ballot.
'In my political journey, a culture of appalling behaviour has been widespread, pervasive and undermining, like white ants,' she told the chamber shortly before the start of the Midwinter Ball in the Great Hall downstairs.
The first-term backbencher, who won the marginal inner-Melbourne seat of Chisholm off Labor in 2016, also explained why she had chosen not to be a candidate at next year's federal election.
'Sometimes the most effective and palatable action is to walk away,' she said.
'That's not the same as saying you are walking past the behaviour.
'Walking away is very powerful and there are many men, but particularly many women, in the workplace who've done this.
The first-term backbencher, who won the marginal seat of Chisholm off Labor in 2016, also explained why she had chosen not to be a candidate at next year's federal election
'Similarly, there are thousands who'd love to but can't afford to for a raft of reasons, including fear of reprisals or possible financial and career detriment.'
The former lawyer said action needed to be taken against 'appalling behaviour' in business and politics.
'Appalling behaviour is an umbrella descriptor for bullying, intimidation, harassment - sexual or otherwise - or a lack of integrity,' she said.
'These are usually the same reasons that prevent women from calling out or from filing official reports of the behaviour.
'To all those women, this speech is for you.'
The Liberal Party's female representation in federal Parliament stands at 22 per cent, compared with Labor's 45 per cent, with a gender quota.
Ms Bishop garnered just 11 votes during a Liberal leadership ballot on August 24 despite being the party's deputy leader since December 2007 to three leaders and four changes of leadership.
Mr Dutton was then narrowly defeated in the second round of voting as the right's candidate to become PM, losing to Scott Morrison 40 votes to 45.
"We know who these people are, we have found them", Putin said in response to question at panel for an economic conference in Vladivostok in Russia's Far East.
But Mr Putin said they were civilians and would tell their story soon.
Russian state TV channel Rossiya-24 said the suspect named as Alexander Petrov would maybe speak next week.
"I hope they will turn up themselves and tell everything. There's nothing especially criminal there, I assure you". We'll see in the near future, ' he added.
Former Russian military intelligence colonel Sergei Skripal attends a hearing at the Moscow District Military Court in Moscow on August 9, 2006.
Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov (who have to be the two Russians with the most Russian names ever) were accused of the Sergei Skripal assassination attempt.
The British government has said Mr. Putin is ultimately responsible for the attack, a claim the Kremlin has furiously denied.
Prince Charles Is More Obsessed With Meghan Markle Than We Are
Meaning if you randomly sent Meghan Markle a locket that says " Suits 4EVA", chances are she didn't get it. Grant's Twitter is set to private, so only those she allows to follow her are able to see her posts.
Meanwhile, the Russian Federation 24 state television channel played what it said was a call with suspect Mr. Petrov, who said he had "so far no comment, maybe later, next week, I think".
The British government also released detailed surveillance footage tracking the pair's apparent movements and an image of the perfume bottle purportedly used to administer the nerve agent on the Skripals' front door. Mr. Rowley gave it to his girlfriend, Dawn Sturgess, who later died.
Britain's allies have backed it over the case, with the United States and other European countries expelling hundreds of Russian diplomats suspected of being spies.
It has further damaged already severely strained relations between Russian Federation and the West and has been a cause for solidarity at a time when Western officials accuse Moscow of seeking to cause rifts in relations between Western countries.
Citing the GRU's reputation for strict discipline and hierarchy, May said of the attack on the Skripals, "It was nearly certainly also approved outside the GRU, at a senior level of the Russian state".
British Prime Minister Theresa May said the attack was carried out by officers of the GRU and nearly certainly approved "at a senior level of the Russian state".
Prime Minister Theresa May said intelligence showed the poisonings were state-sponsored by Russian Federation.
Bob Katter has brandished a shovel during a bizarre television interview, calling it a 'weapon'.
The Queensland politician appeared on Sky News on Thursday, telling host Tom Connell a shovel was 'the great weapon to fight drought'.
Mr Katter's appearance on the network comes after a tense interview between the politician and Connell in which Mr Katter threatened to give the host a 'hiding' for asking a 'racist' question about his grandfather's heritage.
Bob Katter has brandished a shovel during a bizarre television interview, calling it a 'weapon'
Mr Katter said Prime Minister Scott Morrison needed to wear a hard hat and sit on a bulldozer during the building of the Hughenden Irrigation scheme
Mr Katter said Prime Minister Scott Morrison needed to wear a hard hat and sit on a bulldozer during the building of the Hughenden Irrigation scheme, which he believes will provide relief to people suffering from the effects of drought.
'It's shovel ready, ready to go. This is the great weapon to fight drought,' he said while pointing at the tool.
'Our rivers run every year, put a shovel-load of dirt, hold a little bit of water back, and you've got it for the rest of the year.'
Mr Katter's appearance on Sky News came after he said Connell needed a 'hiding' for asking if his grandfather - who was born in Bcharre, Lebanon in 1882 - would be welcome in Australia following Katter's Australian Party member Fraser Anning's controversial speech on immigration.
In the speech, Mr Anning called Muslims in Australia a 'problem' and said a 'final solution' was needed in the form of a public vote on immigration.
'I think that asking people about where their forebears come from, or commenting upon it, is the height of bad manners,' Mr Katter replied.
'If my mother had ever heard me talking about money, or about someone's racial origins, I would've got a big hiding, and Tom, you need a big hiding.
It comes after a tense interview between Mr Katter and Tom Connell where the Queensland representative threatened to give the host a 'hiding'
'You need a big hiding for ever mentioning anything of that nature.
'It's a racist remark by you and you stand condemned for a racist remark.'
Connell said the question was not racist, and that he was simply asking about 'birthplace'.
Mr Katter disagreed with Connell's line of questioning.
'I'm an Australian, my grandfather was an Australian on my father's side, and his father was an Australian,' he said.
'They're Australians mate, don't worry about where they come from, and they're bloody good Australians.'
An anti-Trump sociology professor at the College of Southern Nevada shot himself on campus last month as way to protest the president, police said.
Mark J. Bird, 69, was found bloodied outside a bathroom in the Charleston campus K building with a self-inflicted gunshot wound the morning of the second day of classes August 28.
Inside the bathroom, was the .22-caliber handgun he used as well as a spent shell casing.
Bird also left a $100 bill taped to the bathroom mirror with a note that read: 'For the janitor,' according to the Review Journal.
One college employee, who was holding Bird's hand while trying to calm him in the moments after the shooting, told investigators that Bird said he wanted to protest Trump.
However, the police report did not elaborate about any specifics.
Mark J. Bird, a sociology professor at the College of Southern Nevada, shot himself in the Charleston campus K building (pictured) last month
Bird was found with a self-inflicted wound to the arm. He said he shot himself to protest the president
He was treated for his wound and later charged with possessing a dangerous weapon on school property, discharging a gun within a prohibited structure and carrying a concealed weapon without a permit.
An alert about the incident was sent to all students and faculty around 9am that morning.
CSN President Federico Zaragoza wrote in a newsletter: 'I appreciate all of the expressions of concern and interest, and I pledge to keep everyone updated should the situation change.'
Bird, for whatever reason, was not identified in the newsletter.
CSN faculty union president Robert Manis told the Review Journal: 'They never really told the students much about it except that it was resolved on the actual day of the shooting.
'When you dont give the full details, then rumors go crazy. Its unfortunate because it made the students and faculty very afraid and allowed rumors to proliferate.'
Bird is scheduled to appear for his initial court hearing September 17.
He is currently employed as an emeritus faculty member at the community college.
Posters from a Holocaust denial group are being displayed at San Francisco BART stations.
Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) officials have defended their decision to allow ads for the Institute for Historical Review (IHR), which the Southern Poverty Law Center has branded a hate group.
The billboards, which are in at least two BART stations, feature a globe with the words 'History Matters' and the name of the agency.
BART says they forced IHR to remove their website address from the adverts, but had no choice but to allow the ads.
Posters from a Holocaust denial group are being displayed at San Francisco BART stations
Video courtesy KRON 4
'We have no choice but to abide by the law as it pertains to First Amendment rights,' the agency tweeted.
'We don't endorse these ads. Free speech court rulings against transit agencies that have denied ads have made it clear that we must post these ads and allow advertisers to express a point of view without regard to the viewpoint.'
Mark Weber, IHR's director, told the Guardian, they paid $6,400 for the ads which will run throughout September.
Weber acknowledged the website has 'published articles and items that reasonably could be called Holocaust denial, but it doesn't necessarily represent my view or the views of the IHR,' he told The Guardian.
The ads have already sparked a backlash online.
Attorney Mark S. Zaid tweeted: 'IHR is a horrible group. I dealt with helping expose them in 1990s. No excuse from California transit agency in accepting the ads.'
Nick Giles also demanded to know if 'there anything we can do about the IHR ads at Powell & Montgomery bart stations?'
'Institute for Historical Review is classified by SPLC as a hate group that aims to 'defend Nazism' & spread Holocaust denial propaganda.'
'Hate has no place on public transit,' added Elizabeth Moore. 'BART should reconsider their ad policies ASAP. Hate has no place on public transit.'
Hatewatch also tweeted their view of the IHR, saying it's 'a pseudo-academic organization that claims to seek 'truth and accuracy in history,' but whose real purpose is to promote Holocaust denial & defend Nazism.'
Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) officials have defended their decision to allow ads for the Institute for Historical Review
Mark Weber, IHR's director, told the Guardian, they paid $6,400 for the ads which will run throughout September
The ads come at a time when neo-Nazi, white supremacist and antisemitic groups have become increasingly emboldened.
The IHR was founded in 1978 by Willis Carto, a far-right Holocaust denier, and have sponsored a number of Holocaust denial conferences and published an antisemitic journal, according to the SPLC.
They have run articles which include lines such as there is 'no evidence for Nazi gas chambers'.
Other transit agencies have faced dilemmas over racist, misogynist or prejudiced ads.
New York City transit leaders ended up banning all political ads after a legal battle to reject proposals for Islamophobic ads.
Washington DC metro system also faced a lawsuit after it rejected an ad from alt-right speaker Milo Yiannopoulos.
Two police officers have miraculously survived being shot at twice following the pursuit of a stolen vehicle.
The officers were chasing a stolen car in Auckland on Wednesday night, when the alleged offender fled the vehicle and ran towards the police car and tried to fire a gun into it.
The officers were saved by the rifle's safety mechanism, which caught both times when the trigger was pulled.
A later inspection of the weapon showed it was cocked and loaded, police say.
The incident took place on Auckland's busy Atkinson Ave, Otahuhu on Wednesday night
Police will allege the driver of a stolen car attempted to fire a rifle into a police car twice, but the safety caught (stock image)
One of the quick-thinking officers managed to shoot a Taser at the alleged offender, causing him to drop the weapon.
The offender then allegedly tried to get into the police car, but was tased again.
Police say the man was resisting arrest, and, after allegedly punching one officer in the face twice, he tried to flee the scene.
The other officer unloaded his Taser at the man, which subdued him and led to his arrest.
A quick-thinking officer fired a taser at the alleged offender, causing him to drop his weapon
A 36-year-old man will subsequently face Manukau District Court on Thursday afternoon.
He is charged with unlawfully taking a motor vehicle, unlawful possession of a pistol, two charges of use of a firearm against a law enforcement officer, injuring with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, and unlawful possession of ammunition.
It's also expected further charges could follow.
A 36-year-old man will face Manukau District Court (pictured) charged with a number of motor vehicle and weapon offences
One of the officers suffered cuts and bruises to their face, but both were fortunately unharmed otherwise.
Commander Inspector Naila Hassan told the New Zealand Herald it was an extremely stressful incident for those involved.
'Our community will be horrified by this alarming incident, which could have easily had a tragic outcome for our police officers,' she said.
'Our brave staff come to work every day to keep the public safe and the absolute last thing they deserve is to be threatened with a firearm.'
An alert has been issued for three children who are believed to have been abducted by their father over a year ago.
Jessica, Levi and Blake were last seen with their 40-year-old father, Tobias Moore, near Proserpine in North Queensland.
Their mother is desperate for information as she hasn't seen her children since September last year.
A desperate search is underway for three children who are believed to have been abducted by their father over a year ago (pictured: Jessica Moore)
Mr Moore and the children haven't been sighted at their North Queensland address in four months.
The family has previously lived in Logan and Redland Bay, located in south-east Queensland.
The Australian Federal Police are now appealing for public assistance to help them located the Moore children.
Tobias Moore (pictured) and the children haven't been sighted at their North Queensland address in four months
Mr Moore, who also goes by the name Toby, is described as having black hair, brown eyes, a fair complexion and is approximately 173cm.
The children's ages are unknown, but Jessica is described as having long blonde/brown hair, hazel eyes and fair skin.
Levi has brown hair, brown eyes and fair skin whereas Blake has short blonde hair, blue/green eyes and fair skin.
The AFP urges anyone with any information on the location of her children to contact Crime Stoppers.
An allowance by the court has been made to allow photographs and details of the children and their father to be published, in hopes that a member of the public may come forward with information on their whereabouts.
Anyone with information is urged to call Crime Stoppers.
Australians have had a glimpse of whats to come after Wednesdays scorcher, with temperatures for the remainder of the year set to be significantly hotter than average.
According to the latest climate outlook from the Bureau of Meteorology, the above-average temperatures Australia has seen for much of 2018 are set to continue for the remainder of the year.
From October to December, people across the country can not only expect their days to be uncomfortably hot, but temperatures overnight are also expected to soar.
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Australians have had a glimpse of whats to come after Wednesdays scorcher, with temperatures for the remainder of the year set to be significantly hotter than average
This map depicts the chance of above median maximum temperature for October to December: showing that much of Australia has an 80% chance of exceeding this
October to December days are very likely to be warmer than average for most of Australia,' the report states.
'Chances are greater than 80 per cent over most of the western half of the country, the tropical north, and an area along the NSW-Victorian border.
'Nights are also likely to be warmer than average across Australia.'
The sweltering heat won't come before the nation endures one last deep freeze.
This spring will see drier and warmer conditions than last year, in preparation for the extra-hot temperatures heading into summer.
According to the latest climate outlook from the Bureau of Meterology, the above-average temperatures Australia has seen for much of 2018 are only set to continue for the year end
Recent bursts of rain delivered a slight reprieve for farmers struggling in brutal drought conditions, but predictions indicate the worst may be yet to come
Steamy conditions and a lack of rainfall (illustrated) will also double the normal likelihood of an El Nino forming at the end of spring, making for extra-hot temperatures heading into summer
Recent bursts of rain delivered a slight reprieve for farmers struggling in brutal drought conditions, but predictions indicate the worst may be yet to come.
The maximum temperature will soar to above average, which is usually low to mid 20s for most of the country, from September to November, especially in the north, Weatherzone senior meteorologist Jacob Cronje told Daily Mail Australia.
'The minimum temperature will be above average, except for parts of South Australia and most of Victoria which will likely have below-average minimum temperatures, along with some parts of New South Wales,' Mr Cronje said.
'This is usually consistent with a high pressure system which brings lighter winds and fine and settled conditions.'
For southern coastal locations such as Adelaide and Melbourne, it is likely to be much hotter if an El Nino event occurs, which Mr Cronje says is due for November.
Further north in Queensland, the weather phenomenon will likely cause more individual extremely hot days and several warm spells.
Nights will be warmer throughout the country, excluding northern Australia and the southeast of the nation.
The maximum temperature will soar to above average across the country consistently from September to November - but not before more frosty conditions occur (icicle pictured)
The increase will wreak havoc on farmers and intensify drought conditions across parts of eastern Australia (stock photo)
Many will welcome warmer days following record-breaking freezing temperatures on the east coast, but the increase will wreak havoc on farmers and intensify drought conditions across parts of eastern Australia.
Mr Cronje said while warm days and nights were predicted for most of spring, he wouldn't rule out the possibility of another cold snap at some point.
The Bureau of Meteorology said clear skies were likely, and there was a risk of frost and cold nights continuing in the south for the duration of spring.
El Nino during spring typically means below-average rainfall in eastern and northern Australia while daytime temperatures are typically above average over the southern two-thirds of Australia.
Mr Cronje said while warm days and nights were predicted for most of spring, he wouldn't rule out the possibility of another cold snap at some point (dead kangaroo pictured)
THE WEEK AHEAD IN YOUR CITY SYDNEY FRIDAY: Min 13, Max 24, becoming sunny SATURDAY: Min 13, Max 29, mostly sunny, late change SUNDAY: Min 9, Max 17, sunny MONDAY: Min 8, Max 19, mostly sunny TUESDAY: Min 9, Max 24, mostly sunny WEDNESDAY: Min 13, Max 23, cloudy CANBERRA FRIDAY: Min 2, Max 21, sunny SATURDAY: Min 6, Max 19, windy, partly cloudy SUNDAY: Min -1, Max 14, mostly sunny MONDAY: Min -2, Max 16, mostly sunny TUESDAY: Min 2, Max 18, partly cloudy WEDNESDAY: Min 4, Max 19, cloudy PERTH FRIDAY: Min 9, Max 18, partly cloudy SATURDAY: Min 5, Max 21, sunny SUNDAY: Min 7, Max 20, partly cloudy MONDAY: Min 7, Max 19, partly cloudy TUESDAY: Min 7, Max 20, partly cloudy WEDNESDAY: Min 8, Max 21, mostly sunny BRISBANE FRIDAY: Min 13, Max 27, mostly sunny SATURDAY: Min 14, Max 28, sunny SUNDAY: Min 15, Max 27, possible shower MONDAY: Min 13, Max 23, partly cloudy TUESDAY: Min 12, Max 24, mostly sunny WEDNESDAY: Min 12, Max 26, partly cloudy MELBOURNE FRIDAY: Min 10, Max 22, sunny SATURDAY: Min 10, Max 16, showers SUNDAY: Min 5, Max 14, possible shower MONDAY: Min 7, Max 18, partly cloudy TUESDAY: Min 8, Max 18, possible shower WEDNESDAY: Min 8, Max 17, possible shower ADELAIDE FRIDAY: Min 11, Max 25, late evening shower SATURDAY: Min 9, Max 14, shower or two SUNDAY: Min 7, Max 16, partly cloudy MONDAY: Min 7, Max 20, partly cloudy TUESDAY: Min 8, Max 17, partly cloudy WEDNESDAY: Min 9, Max 19, shower or two clearing HOBART FRIDAY: Min 12, Max 20, partly cloudy SATURDAY: Min 9, Max 14, showers SUNDAY: Min 4, Max 12, morning shower or two MONDAY: Min 6, Max 16, shower or two TUESDAY: Min 6, Max 15, shower or two WEDNESDAY: Min 7, Max 14, partly cloudy DARWIN FRIDAY: Min 22, Max 35, sunny SATURDAY: Min 23, Max 34, sunny SUNDAY: Min 23, Max 34, sunny MONDAY: Min 23, Max 35, sunny TUESDAY: Min 22, Max 35, sunny WEDNESDAY: Min 22, Max 34, sunny Source: Bureau of Meteorology Advertisement
The weather events often result in severe droughts, bringing higher temperatures, lower than average rainfall and increased risk of bushfires, lasting between six months and two years.
This could prove catastrophic for parched Australian farmers who have been crippled by a years-long nationwide dry spell which has been described the worst drought in 100 years.
Australia will likely experience reduced rainfall, warmer temperatures, increased frost risk, and increased fire danger in the south-east.
There will also be a strong chance of record low rainfall, with El Ninos usually leading to record-breaking dry conditions.
Severe droughts of 1982, 1994, 2002 and 2006 were all associated with El Nino.
The Bureau of Meteorology has warned the chances of an El Nino event are twice as high as usual, with it expected to start developing at the end of spring
A helicopter company's attorney is claiming a victim in the fatal East River crash that left five passengers dead, knew what he was getting into.
Airbus Helicopters' lawyer Thomas M. Mealiffe wrote in court papers that Trevor Norris Cadigan 'voluntarily undertook and assumed the known risk of being a passenger in a 'doors off' flight while knowingly being restrained by a harness from which he could not easily release himself.'
The family of 26-year-old Cadigan, of Dallas, had sued the helicopter firm and pilot, Richard Vance, the only one to survive the crash into the river on March 11.
A helicopter company's attorney is blaming a victim in the fatal East River crash that left five passengers dead - Trevor Norris Cadigan
According the NTSB's preliminary report that was released Monday, Vance told investigators that he believed the fuel was shut off when a passenger's restraint tether tangled with an emergency fuel cutoff switch on the aircraft (pictured)
Cardigan and his four fellow passengers; Daniel Thompson, 34, 29-year-old Tristan Hill, Carla Vallejos Blanco, 29, and Brian McDaniel, all became trapped underwater by their safety harnesses.
Vance, who was not wearing a harness, escaped with minor injuries.
'We can only imagine what the final moments of his life were like as he was struggling for breath because he couldn't extricate himself,' the Cadigan family's lawyer Gary Robb told The Post.
The family's Manhattan Supreme Court suit blames the chopper company for failure to provide 'proper and safe aircraft and aircraft services.'
Brian McDaniel (left) and Daniel Thompson (right), 34, both died in the crash
Carla Vallejos Blanco, 29, (left) and , 29-year-old Tristan Hill (right) were also victims
But Mealiffe insists that Cadigan's family did not have a case because he'd agreed to the risk.
'Plaintiffs' recovery should be barred and/or reduced to the extent that plaintiffs have failed to mitigate their alleged damages, and any recovery shall not include alleged damages that could have been avoided by reasonable care and diligence,' Mealiffe wrote.
Robb, however, dismissed Airbus' response saying that no one who boarded the helicopter thought they were going to drown.
The Federal Aviation Administration have not yet released their formal report but ordered operators to suspend 'doors off' flights in March and give 'urgent attention to harness use.'
Richard Vance (pictured), 33, the pilot in the NYC helicopter crash tried to turn the fuel supply back on after it was reportedly switched off by a passenger's restraint
Robb now hopes the Cadigan suit will put an end to open-door flights.
'The family is simply shocked and outraged that their son drowned to death in this manner in what was supposed to be a pleasurable sightseeing helicopter tour,' Robb said.
Earlier this year, investigators heard how the pilot in the New York City helicopter crash tried desperately to turn the fuel supply back on after it was reportedly switched off mid-flight by a passenger's restraint.
Vance, 33, told investigators of the National Transportation and Safety Board (NTSB) that he went to flip off the switch because the craft was going down, but discovered that it was already off and that part of the harness was underneath it.
According the NTSB's preliminary report, he believed the fuel was shut off when a passenger's restraint tether tangled with an emergency fuel cutoff switch.
Five passengers who couldn't free themselves from their harnesses drowned in the East River when the helicopter rolled over into the water.
Vance is seen walking on the banks just moments after he was pulled from the East River following the crash
In his interview, Vance said the helicopter, on an open-door flight, had been traveling over Central Park when the front-seat passenger turned sideways and extended his feet outside the aircraft to take a photo.
It was at that point that the pilot began experiencing problems.
The front passenger's restraint harness had already come off once before that during the flight, said the pilot, who recalled passengers on earlier flights also accidentally releasing their seatbelts.
Vance said he briefly considered landing in Central Park, 'but thought there were 'too many people'.
Liberty Helicopters said in a statement that it was 'focused on supporting the families affected by this tragic accident,' adding that it was cooperating with investigators.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on March 16 ordered an end to so-called 'doors off' helicopter rides unless passengers are equipped with quick-release restraints.
The NTSB has previously raised safety concerns about the safety of the fuel controls on the helicopter model involved in the crash, the Eurocopter AS350.
The NTSB has not issued any findings on the cause of the crash (left and right), and the report did not offer an opinion as to whether the pilot's observations were correct
In his interview, Vance said the helicopter, on an open-door flight, had been traveling over Central Park when the front-seat passenger turned sideways and extended his feet outside the aircraft to take a photo. It was at that point that the pilot began experiencing problems
The front passenger's restraint harness had already come off once before that during the flight, said the pilot. Pictured are first responders during search and rescue operations on March 12
After one of the helicopters crashed in Alaska in 2008, killing four people, investigators determined that a passenger had likely bumped the aircraft's fuel flow control lever with either his foot or backpack.
It noted that Canadian officials had blamed a non-fatal accident in 1994 on a similar accidental movement of the fuel control lever by a passenger.
'The NTSB is concerned that the FFCLs on Eurocopter AS350-series helicopters can be easily and inadvertently moved out of their detents by objects or persons, including the pilot and passengers, in flight or on the ground,' the NTSB wrote in its report on the 2008 crash.
It recommended that the Federal Aviation Administration require modifications of the control system to protect the lever from being deployed accidentally.
The fuel flow control lever implicated in those crashes is a different lever than the emergency fuel shut-off switch, but they are next to each other on the console.
A millionaire racehorse owner has promised to dedicate his life to stopping high-speed chases after his wife was seriously injured in a crash with a police car.
Bert Vieira's wife Gai, 58, is in a coma after her black Mercedes-Benz was hit by a highway patrol car during a chase in Cronulla, south of Sydney on September 5.
Mr Vieira said she had suffered extensive injuries as a result.
'My wife of 43 years is still in a coma. She has three busted ribs, a punctured lung, a damaged knee, ankle, elbows and shoulder and brain trauma,' he told reporters while fighting back tears.
Bert Vieira's wife Gai is in a coma after her black Mercedes-Benz was hit by a highway patrol car during a chase in Cronulla, south of Sydney last Wednesday
Mrs Vieira took the impact of the crash while her three-year-old grandson who was sitting in the backseat escaped uninjured
'She never stood a chance. This should never have happened.
'How would it be if it was your wife, your daughter, your son, your husband, and this happens because police think they're above the law?'
Mrs Vieira took the impact of the crash while her three-year-old grandson who was sitting in the backseat escaped uninjured.
The male senior constable driving the patrol car suffered facial injuries as a result of the collision.
Mr Vieira said Sydney police should stop chasing drivers for minor crimes, and reserve pursuits for serious matters.
He claimed eyewitnesses told him the patrol car had no flashing lights or blaring sirens as it performed a U-turn to chase another driver using their mobile phone.
Mr Vieira said his wife had suffered extensive injuries as a result of the crash
'I'm asking the Premier of NSW, I want the (police) minister, someone to take responsibility, to own up for what they have done, to authorise this kind of chase,' Mr Vieira said.
'Other states have banned all this chasing because it has cost lives.'
Mr Vieira called on Prime Minister Scott Morrison - a Cronulla resident and the local MP for the Cook electorate - to take action.
'Morrison, when he was in charge of Cook, now he's the PM, for God's sake wake up,' he said.
Attorney-General Mark Speakman said the government has to get the balance right.
'Anyone who is injured or who loses someone, it is always an incredibly distressing situation, police though have to do their job,' he told reporters on Thursday.
'We've got to get the balance right between, on the one hand, keeping the safety of the community, avoiding injuries and deaths on occasion to people but making sure that criminals don't think they can get away as soon as a police car siren goes off.'
Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young has been identified as the woman who heckled Prime Minister Scott Morrison at the Mid Winter Ball in Canberra on Wednesday night.
Australia's newest leader was nearing the end of his speech when Ms Hanson-Young yelled out ''Bring back Malcolm!', a reference to former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.
The crowd at Parliament House were stunned following Hanson-Young's heckling, only to then see the 36-year-old repeat her actions.
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Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young left a big impression at the Mid Winter Ball
Prime Minister Scott Morrison with his wife Jenny arriving at the Mid Winter Ball in Canberra
The federal upper house member, a guest of departing SBS boss Michael Ebeid on the evening, left the gala event early following her bizarre behaviour.
Ms Hanson-Young's antics shocked many, with Morrison pausing for a moment on stage to gather his thoughts.
Daily Mail Australia understands the heckling was meant to be lighthearted, and Hanson-Young has since apologised.
Mr Turnbull was absent from the event, deciding instead to spend the night sending a snide tweet about Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton, while former foreign affairs minister Julie Bishop was also not present.
Claudia Perkins, wife of Greens deputy leader Adam Bandt, showing her anti coal views
Opposition leader Bill Shorten and his wife Chloe joined by PM Scott Morrison and wife Jenny
Greens deputy leader Adam Bandt's wife Claudia Perkins made a statement with her appearance.
Ms Perkins shaved an anti-coal message reading 'COAL KILLS' into the side of her head, as well as wearing a necklace with the same words.
Other guests who dusted off their tuxedos and cocktail dresses included actor Sam Neill, Deputy Prime Minister Michael McCormack, Labor Senator Kristina Keneally, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure Anthony Albanese and Sky News presenter Peta Credlin.
Australian music darling Jessica Mauboy was the star performer, with the healthy crowd also entertained by veteran comedian Bob Downe.
National Rifle Association spokeswoman Dana Loesch decided to take children's show 'Thomas & Friends' to task for plans to introduce more 'diverse' trains, by depicting the talking locomotives in KKK hoods.
During a Friday episode of NRA TV's online show 'Relentless', Loesch voiced her disdain after the popular show that airs in 160 countries around the world announced that it planned on featuring more female and international trains in a partnership with the United Nations.
'They've decided that the next stop is Virtue Town,' the disgruntled conservative said during the segment.
During a Friday episode of NRA TV's online show 'Relentless', Dana Loesch shared a photo of three trains in KKK hoodies on an ablaze train tracks
A majority of Loesch's fury was directed towards the introduction of Nia - a steam engine from Kenya.
'That's where it get really strange to me,' Loesch said.
'Am I to understand this entire time that Thomas and his trains where white? Because they all have gray faces. How do you bring ethnic diversity? I mean they had to paint what I guess they thought was some sort of African pattern on the side of Nia's engine.'
A majority of Loesch's fury was directed towards the introduction of Nia - a steam engine from Kenya
She said: 'Am I to understand this entire time that Thomas and his trains where white? Because they all have gray faces. How do you bring ethnic diversity? I mean they had to paint what I guess they thought was some sort of African pattern on the side of Nia's engine'
Images soon pop up on the screen of three trains wearing hoods while the tracks are on fire.
Loesch then added sarcastically: 'Thomas the Tank Engine has been a blight on race relations for far too long. Clearly this is overdue.'
On Friday, Mattel announced that 'Thomas & Friends' would incorporate more diverse characters from around the world in a partnership with the UN and its Sustainable Development Goals.
Thomas will visit the likes of China, India, Australia and more, USA Today reports.
On Friday, Mattel announced that 'Thomas & Friends' would incorporate more diverse characters from around the world in a partnership with the UN and its Sustainable Development Goals
It will be the first time that the famous locomotive will leave its fictional home - Sodor - for the first time.
'This change will deepen the brand's engagement with girls who represent over 40% of the show's viewership and provide a strong message of gender equality to the young audience,' Mattel said in a statement.
Many on social media, took issue with the depiction of the images. Others shared articles from the New Yorker and the Guardian that give more in-depth looks into some of the more questionable themes in the show.
Several critiques asked why the National Rifle Association was even commenting on a kids television show that wasn't about guns.
Many on social media, took issue with the depiction of the images
Taking part in the drills are around 300,000 soldiers, 36,000 military vehicles, 80 ships and 1,000 aircraft, helicopters and drones.
The ministry of defence said that nearly a third of its active military personnel was taking part in the week-long exercises in Siberia and the Russian far east, although independent analysts suggested that the numbers may have been overstated.
Mr Shoigu has said they are the biggest since a Soviet military exercise, Zapad-81 (West-81) in 1981. Mongolia also sent a small contingent.
Putin praised Russia's increasingly close ties with China as he met Xi in Vladivostok on Tuesday.
At a news conference after their talks, Xi also touted the relationship between Russian Federation and China, which has a far larger population and an economy several times the size of Russia's.
Amid growing recent tensions between Moscow and the West, NATO has said it will monitor the drills closely.
Collin Koh, a research fellow at the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, said the shift away from anti-terrorism drills to more conventional war games could pave the way for greater cooperation between China and Russian Federation.
Chinese President Xi Jinping will be in Russian Federation this week to meet with President Vladimir Putin at an economic forum in Russia's far eastern city of Vladivostok.
UEFA to introduce third European club cup competition
Marseille appealed the decision and UEFA's appeal committee handed down a new ruling on Monday which made no reference to any ban. As it stands, 32 teams compete in the Champions League and 48 teams compete in the Europa League.
The Russian 9K720 Iskander missile system carrier.
China's participation will enhance its counterattack abilities and reinforce ties with Russia, Chinese government officials said Tuesday.
From China's perspective, the emerging military alliance with Russian Federation sends a strong signal to the USA and its ally Japan as Beijing moves to defend its interests in the South China Sea, which China claims virtually in its entirety, as well as Taiwan and the Senkaku and Diaoyu islands controlled by Japan but claimed by Beijing.
For Russia, the increasingly robust alliance with China is particularly important amid the growing tensions with the USA and its allies and a looming threat of more biting US sanctions.
Russian officials have said that the war games are not meant as a threat to any particular country but are justified by what Putin's spokesman described on August 28 as a hostile worldwide environment.
"We have a trusting relationship [with China] in the spheres of politics, security, and defense", Putin said at the start of his meeting with Xi. "They demonstrate the seriousness of our intentions". "We're aware of Russia's right to sovereignty and to exercise in order to ensure their readiness".
North Atlantic Treaty Organisation spokesman Dylan White said the war games revealed "a more assertive Russia" which is "significantly increasing its defence budget and military presence".
An American tattooist and body modifier has been arrested over alleged female genital mutilation.
Police took the 40-year-old into custody after he got off a flight from San Francisco at Melbourne's Tullamarine Airport early on Thursday morning.
The man was wanted over the alleged genital mutilation of a 33-year-old woman at a Newcastle West tattoo parlour on January 5, 2016.
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An American tattooist and body modifier has been arrested over alleged female genital mutilation (pictured is Brendan Russell, left, who was charged over the incident in May)
A snowflake implant similar to the one pictured above Brendan Russell put in a 30-year-old mother's hand allegedly caused a fatal infection
Detectives from the New South Wales Central Coast are seeking to extradite the American man, who was apprehended on an interstate warrant.
Strike Force Nellievale was formed to investigate a series of alleged illegal body modification procedures in Newcastle and the Central Coast.
In May a second body modifier, 37-year-old Brendan Russell, was arrested and charged by officers with Strike Force Nellievale over the incident.
Mr Russell is accused of burning off part of the woman's labia major with a branding iron, and has already appeared in court on genital mutilation charges.
The former owner of Erina tattoo parlour Transition Studio has also been charged with manslaughter over a different procedure in 2017.
A snowflake implant he put in a 30-year-old mother's hand allegedly caused a fatal infection.
Body modification is not legislated in New South Wales, but members of the 'skin penetration' industry are required to follow public health regulations.
The US Air Force said on Wednesday that two of their fighter jets intercepted two Russian bombers near Alaska.
According to the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), the Russian Tu-95 'bear' bombers were spotted shortly before 10pm Tuesday night.
The bombers were intercepted west of mainland Alaska and were accompanied by two Russian Su-35 'flanker' fighter jets.
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An Air Force F-22 fighter jet intercepts one of the Russian Tu-95 bombers (top right) near Alaska on Tuesday
Officials said the 'at no time did the aircraft enter the United States or Canadian sovereign airspace'.
'The homeland is no longer a sanctuary and the ability to deter and defeat threats to our citizens, vital infrastructure and national institutions starts with successfully detecting, tracking and positively identifying aircraft of interest approaching US and Canadian airspace,' NORAD Commander General Terrence J. O'Shaughnessy said.
Tuesday's incident is the second one to occur withing the month of September.
According to the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), the Russian Tu-95 'bear' bombers were spotted shortly before 10pm Tuesday night. The Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation released video of two Tu-95 'Bear' bombers taking off from an airbase
Tuesday's incident is the second one to occur withing the month of September. Pictured is a Russian fighter jet
The first interception took place on September 1 when another pair of Russian bombers flew near Alaska.
Those planes were also intercepted by F-22 fighters after they crossed into the Alaskan Air Defense Identification Zone south of the Aleutian Islands.
Earlier on Wednesday, the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation released video of two Tu-95 'Bear' bombers and a pair of fighter jets taking off from an airbase in eastern Russia.
The woman cyclist who raised her middle finger at President Donald Trumps passing motorcade and then lost her government job as a result is running for office.
Juli Briskman, the 51-year-old marketing executive, announced that she plans to challenge a Republican for a seat on the Algonkian District Board of Supervisors in Loudoun County, Virginia.
She intends to run as a Democrat.
While the county normally votes for Democrats at the state and federal level, Republicans have held a 6-3 majority on the board.
Juli Briskman, the 51-year-old marketing executive, announced that she plans to challenge a Republican for a seat on the Algonkian District Board of Supervisors in Loudoun County, Virginia. She intends to run as a Democrat
County elections are scheduled to be held in 2019, according to The Washington Post.
The district is represented in Congress by House Rep. Barbara Comstock, who is up for re-election this November.
Briskman, a single mother of two teenagers, said she was motivated to run for office after she was fired as a government contractor last October.
She said her dismissal was a violation of her First Amendment rights to free speech.
Briskman became a viral sensation after she was snapped giving the finger to the president's passing motorcade while she was riding her bike near her home in Sterling, Virginia last October
We have a right to peacefully protest and criticize and express dissent toward our government, Briskman told the Post.
Ive gotten some feedback that folks say you should respect the president.
Even if you dont like what theyre doing, you shouldnt show this sort of disdain.
And I simply disagree, and I think the Constitution grants me that privilege.
When asked if she would do it again if she had the chance, Briskman said: Probably.
Briskman, a single mother of two teenagers, said she was motivated to run for office after she was fired as a government contractor last October
Loudoun County voted for Hillary Clinton, who got 55 per cent of the vote in 2016.
Ralph Northam, the Democrat who won last years election for governor, received 59 per cent of the vote.
But it is not clear if elections at the local level will reflect statewide and federal voting patterns.
Briskman, who hopes to unseat Suzanne M. Volpe, the Republican, said her aim is to ensure that local schools are funded and local government be more transparent.
Last year, Volpe supported tax cuts that eventually passed. The move was opposed by Briskman, who said the tax cuts left the district $14million short.
I felt it was important because not only do we have working families who are struggling, Volpe said of the tax cuts.
But Briskman's newfound fame came at a price when her employer, Akima, forced her to resign just days later. She is seen above appearing on a talk show hosted by NBC's Megyn Kelly on November 9, 2017
But we also have a senior population living on a fixed income and its important to try to find that balance.
Briskman became a viral sensation after she was snapped giving the finger to the president's passing motorcade while she was riding her bike near her home in Sterling, Virginia last October.
But Briskman's newfound fame came at a price when her employer, Akima, forced her to resign just days later.
She was able to obtain severance, however her wrongful termination lawsuit was dismissed.
Instead of appeal, she decided to enter politics.
A 'mini gold rush' could be imminent for an outback mining town down on its luck.
In the days since enormous nuggets of gold worth $15million were found in the nickel mining town of Kambalda, about 630km east of Perth, locals have begun speculating the discovery could reinvigorate the town.
Exploration companies with land near the mine where the gold was found say they have already been overwhelmed with calls from potential prospectors.
The gold was found during a 'business as usual' day at work by miner Henry Dole over the weekend.
A small mining town on the brink of collapse could be on the mend after $15million worth of gold nuggets (pictured) were discovered in a local mine
The Beta Hunt mine in Kimbalda, WA (pictured) could be the site of a 'mini gold rush'
The $15million discovery at the Beta Hunt mine was exactly what the tight-knit community at Kambalda needed.
Hundreds of job losses over the past four years had seen residents view the future of the town with 'doom and gloom', a local real estate agent told ABC.
Cheryl Davis, who has lived in Kambalda for more than 25 years, said the discovery had lifted the town's morale.
'Everyone's talking about how good this is for our town and that our town isn't going to die. We're looking on the up.'
Kalgoorlie-based gold buyer Angus Line said the global publicity generated could spark a 'mini gold rush' throughout the area.
'It creates a lot of excitement for the new-age prospector,' he said.
'Finding something like this does create a lot of optimism; people have the belief they can go out and make a small fortune.'
One local exploration company say they have been inundated with calls after the discovery
Lefroy Exploration say they have found hundreds of gold nuggets over the past five years in their land package only 10km away from the Beta Hunt mine.
'It's the amount and the size of the find down at Beta Hunt which has got everyone excited and now the question is, how do we find another one?' Wade Johnson, managing director of Lefroy Exploration said.
The discovery has also stalled the Canadian owners of the Beta Hunt mine to reconsider an original plan to sell it.
Kimbalda was shrouded in 'doom and gloom' following the closure of three mines in four years
The future of the town had looked to be in doubt, with four major nickel mines closing within three years.
Jobs were decimated, to the point where the town's only medical clinic and bank branch had to close.
But the gold discovery hoped to breathe new life into the community, according to Mr Line.
A farm that shares its name with one of the brands that had sewing needles planted inside strawberries is concerned that their business will be damaged.
Berrylicious Strawberries, based in Thirlmere, 90km southwest of Sydney, shares its name with one of two brands produced by a farm in southeast Queensland that had needles found in the fruit.
'It's a crazy person doing this, somebody trying to be malicious, I don't think it will be an ongoing issue,' the farm owner Asaf bar Shalom told Daily Mail Australia.
Angela Stevenson (pictured with partner) frantically rang the school and was told that her son had already bit into the fruit and found a needle
A farm that shares its name with one of the brands that had sewing needles planted inside strawberries is concerned (pictured the two brands at the centre of the scandal)
Four punnets of strawberries have now been found containing needles prompting a recall
Mr Shalom said that his farm, which he has run for six years, consists of a few greenhouses and they sell their fruit to local farmer's markets, fairs, and small stores in the area, as well as having 'pick your own' days.
He stressed that they do not sell their produce to Coles or Woolworths and that he has no affiliation with the Queensland farm at the centre of the scandal.
'Of course its concerning, we've been getting many media calls in the last few days about this. It makes you wonder what does the general public think,' Mr Shalom said.
'I'm hoping we wont be too affected, I think it will maybe affect sales for a week or two weeks,' he said.
Four punnets of strawberries have now been found containing needles prompting a recall of the two affected brands Berry Obsession and Berrylicious.
Another Queensland resident Haoni van Dorp was driving to the Sunshine Coast with his friend when they stopped at the Strathpine Woolworths north of Brisbane
The strawberry industry's peak body has said that the farmer whose produce was contaminated was devastated.
'It's going to be a tough time for him financially with his business, but what effect that is long-term hopefully that won't be too bad,' industry development officer Jennifer Rowling said.
A Queensland mother said she found a needle while cutting up fruit for her 12-month-old child and realised she had also given the fruit to her 9-year-old to take to school.
Angela Stevenson frantically rang the school and was told that her son had already bit into the fruit and found a needle.
Another Queensland resident Haoni van Dorp was driving to the Sunshine Coast with his friend when they stopped at the Strathpine Woolworths north of Brisbane and bought a punnet of strawberries.
He was rushed to the emergency room after swallowing half a needle but has recovered.
Two more affected punnets were found by people in Victoria and there has been what police suspect is a copycat incident on Thursday where a small steel rod was found in a punnet in Queensland.
There has been what police suspect is a copycat incident on Thursday where a small steel rod was found in a punnet in Queensland
Police have confirmed that they were responsible for shooting a magpie after it swooped an elderly woman outside a shopping centre.
While it was suggested the men may have been civilians taking revenge on the bird, it has now been revealed the men were actually police officers on duty.
Richmond Police District Inspector David Vandergriend told The Northern Star the officers were sent there to shoot the bird by the National Parks and Wildlife Service.
A magpie was shot dead by two gunmen wearing T-shirts and shorts at the East Lismore shopping centre (pictured) at about 12.30pm on Tuesday
Inspector Vandergriend explained how the service often 'request in writing' for officers to euthanise birds that are causing risk or injury to members of the public.
He added, the plain-clothed policemen also identified themselves to one of the witnesses and showed him identification, which he 'chose to ignore'.
The shooting took at the Esmonde St entrance to the Wyrallah Rd Shopping Centre in East Lismore in north-eastern New South Wales at about 12.30pm on Tuesday.
Russell Brown, who witnessed the incident, said while the two men claimed to be police officers before shooting the bird, they didn't provide any formal identification.
Mr Brown said the bird had also been swooping people 'for years', which is why he questioned the actions of the two gunmen.
'Something should have been done to warn the people what was about to happen,' he said.
He described how everyone who witnessed the confronting incident appeared to look shocked and 'rattled'.
Another witness named Heather, who asked for her surname to be withheld, told the publication that as a result of the terrifying ordeal she was unable to sleep that night.
The Lismore Magpie Attack Facebook page (pictured) revealed there had been multiple magpie attacks at East Lismore recently
The Lismore Magpie Attack Facebook page (pictured) said the bird was 'quiet and lovely for most of the year' but had been selectively swooping recently
'I saw these blokes with guns and I didn't know what the hell was happening because there was no uniforms, there was no cop car, there was nothing,' she said.
She also questioned whether the men were in fact police officers, saying they should have sectioned off the area and warned people beforehand.
The NSW Office of Environment and Heritage states on its website: 'It is against the law to kill the birds, collect their eggs, or harm their young'
Richmond Police District Inspector Bill McKenna said he couldn't confirm if the men were police, but he added it's 'not uncommon' for uniformed or plain-clothed police officers to shoot problem magpies.
He said it's also essential for all officers to wear 'visible police identification' and birds should always be destroyed with minimal to no risk to the public.
'Our specialised police, highly trained tactical police, are called regularly at this time of year to destroy magpies that are putting members of the public at risk,' he said.
According to the Lismore Magpie Attack Facebook page, the bird was 'quiet and lovely for most of the year' but had been selectively swooping recently.
The Facebook post continued to say magpies are 'legally protected'.
The NSW Office of Environment and Heritage states on its website: 'It is against the law to kill the birds, collect their eggs, or harm their young.'
Inspector Vandergriend said while it's common for officers to shoot magpies in this manner, they don't just 'rock up' and think 'there's a swooping bird, we'll shoot it.'
A group of backpackers have been ridiculed after becoming stranded while trying to island hop on a blow-up mattress.
The four British travellers made a Facebook post asking for help after they got stuck on Gloucester Island, near Airlie Beach on Queensland's Whitsunday Coast.
A woman who saw the post rescued the desperate tourists after seeing the post, but not before they had been mercilessly mocked online.
A group of backpackers have been ridiculed after becoming stranded while trying to island hop on a blow-up mattress (pictured)
'This is going to sound silly but me and three friends are stranded,' Max wrote.
'Because the blow up mattress we used to get over with all our camping stuff etc has a hole in it and sank.
'So, anyone nearby have a boat or something to come get us? We can pay you! Kind regards in advance.'
A photo of the makeshift vessel shows a large air mattress loaded up with bags and camping equipment.
Another Mancunian member of the group, Dale, said the four friends were relieved to be back on the mainland after being trapped for a couple of days.
'We could see Gloucester island from the beach and only seemed like 1km swim max so we figured we could easy swim it,' he explained.
'We tested the air mattress on a lake night before and it held the weight of all four of us so it would definitely hold the weight of our camping gear food and water.
The paddle over to the island was difficult and took two hours, Dale said, but then the mattress popped on a sharp shell on the beach.
The four British travellers made a Facebook post (pictured) asking for help after they got stuck on Gloucester Island, near Airlie Beach on Queensland's Whitsunday Coast
'We were looking over where we swam as sun was going down and seen like three sharks so didnt really want to swim back.'
Dale said he and his friends attempted to repair the puncture by melting the hole closed using plastic and a hot ember.
But instead Dale laughed at a fart and melted another hole in the mattress, dashing the group's hopes of making it seaworthy again.
Things then got worse when one of the group left the lid of their food box open and when they came back from exploring, it had been ransacked by wildlife.
Facebook users responded to the situation with a series of scathing comments and images comparing the group to the main character in the movie Cast Away.
'Call Tom Hanks. He'll know what to do,' wrote one person.
'This is either going to end in tragedy or a hilarious news story. Honestly mate, good luck, all I can offer,' said someone else.
Police have launched an investigation after a gang of youths attacked a father with a baby and even spat in the mother's face - all because of a row over a pram.
The youths, who had been travelling on the same train as the family, also threw bottles at the father and kicked him on his side after he fell to the floor.
They had all be travelling on a Northern Rail line between Appley Bridge and Wigan Wallgate on Tuesday 29 May.
Police would like to speak to the five youths pictured in these CCTV images as they believe they may be able to help with the investigation
One of the youths pictured in the CCTV is carrying a backpack, while others are wearing hoodies and another is even pictured topless
The fracas began at around 5.45pm after the father of the baby asked the youths to be careful as they had previously knocked the pram.
This led to a verbal argument with the youths making threats towards the family.
Soon after this, the argument erupted into something more physical.
Police have now released CCTV images of people they would like to speak to in relation to the investigation.
A spokesman for British Transport Police said: 'Officers would like to speak to the boys in these CCTV images as they believe they may have information which could help the investigation.'
Anyone with information is asked to contact BTP by calling 0800 40 50 40 or texting 61016, with reference 523 of 29 May.
Or you can call Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.
An MP who has proven he is not opposed to crossing the floor in parliament has revealed he crossed the ocean to find his future wife.
The Member for Dawson in northern Queensland, George Christensen, has opened up about his intention to marry his Filipino fiancee, April Asuncion, three weeks after he unceremoniously popped the question.
Mr Christensen, 40, said he called his partner of 18 months over the phone, and asked her if she'd be interested in marrying him, the Courier-Mail reported.
George Christensen, spoke of his intention to marry his Filipino fiance, April Asuncion three weeks after he unceremoniously popped the question
Ms Asuncion still lives in the Philippines, after the pair met while Mr Christensen was travelling the region in 2017.
'I don't want to get too mushy but she's the one for me,' Mr Christensen said.
The outspoken Liberal National party backbencher's interest in the region was piqued after it was discovered a large proportion of the population in his jurisdiction in Mackay is from the nation.
The outspoken MP's interest in the region was piqued after it was discovered a large proportion of the population in his jurisdiction in Mackay is from the nation
He was later appointed Chair of the Parliamentary Friends of the Philippines, and embarked on a self-funded holiday, when he met his wife-to-be.
He has travelled to the islands eight times, and pays homage to the deep family values and traditions the general population holds, as well as their lack of concern regarding material items.
'I thought to myself, unbelievable... we place so much emphasis on material culture and here are children living in situations that we wouldn't even have nightmares about,' he said.
While the loved-up pair don't have a date set for the occasion, Mr Christensen said his current priority is getting re-elected for his seat in the coming months.
If successful, it will be his fourth consecutive win against the Labor party's candidate.
Mr Christensen has broken ranks and crossed the floor to vote on a number of sensitive issues, having departed from the position as chief National Party whip in February last year.
A former New Zealand prime minister who was friends with Malcolm Turnbull has mocked Australia for having a revolving door of national leaders.
John Key weighed into his mate being replaced three weeks ago by Scott Morrison as he visited Australia for a property conference.
With Australia now on its fifth prime minister in five years, the former New Zealand PM offered a strategy for remembering who the leader was.
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Former New Zealand prime minister John Key (left), who was friends with Malcolm Turnbull (right), has mocked Australia for having a revolving door of national leaders
Malcolm Turnbull (pictured with wife Lucy holidaying in New York) was deposed three weeks ago, prompting John Key to joke a name badge was needed to remember Australian PMs
'I used to say, "Mate, I don't really mind who turns up, just wear a name badge so I know who it is",' he told The Property Congress conference in Darwin today which the ABC attended.
Mr Key left politics early last year, a few months after choosing his retirement date as New Zealand's prime minister, something an Australian PM hasn't done since January 1966.
Mr Key, who was from the centre-right National Party, compared Australia to Italy when it came to coups.
'I was the 38th prime minister of New Zealand and John Howard was 24 you're now up to 30,' he said, forgetting that Mr Howard was Australia's 25th PM.
Scott Morrison (pictured with wife Jenny at the Midwinter Ball in Canberra) last month became Australia's fifth prime minister in five years, during a period when New Zealand had three PMs
The former Kiwi PM, who won three elections, also recalled how Mr Turnbull texted him after he announced his retirement in December 2016 with the message 'say it ain't so, bro'.
'I'm good friends with Malcolm, so you always feel when a political leader loses their job, that personal element, if you like,' he said.
'But also, in the time that he was PM, I thought he did a good job for Australia.'
New Zealand has had three prime ministers during the past five years, compared with five in Australia, after Kevin Rudd knifed his bitter Labor rival Julia Gillard in June 2013.
The Labor and Liberal parties tore down prime ministers on their own side in 2010, 2013, 2015 and 2018 while a sitting New Zealand PM hasn't been deposed in a party room coup since 1997.
The bitter rivalry between Julia Gillard (left) and Kevin Rudd (right in August 2010 two months after she knifed him) wasn't confined to the Labor Party
Fierce winds and massive waves are expected to lash the coasts of North and SC and Virginia even before Florence makes landfall by early Friday, bringing a storm surge as much as 13 feet (4 meters).
Most of those cancellations are tied to the approaching hurricane, now a Category 2 storm with winds expected onshore late Thursday at more than 80 miles per hour.
As much as 40 inches of rain could fall in some areas, officials have warned.
"This is going to be a Mike Tyson punch to the Carolina coast", said Jeff Byard, associate administrator for response and recovery at the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
The outer rain bands from Hurricane Florence have begun to come ashore in North Carolina.
A state of emergency has also been declared in Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia and Washington.
Cooper and his SC counterpart, Henry McMaster, told the more than 1 million people who have been told to leave that if they don't, they are on their own.
A power outage model run at the University of MI projects that 3.2 million customers will be without electricity because of the storm, mostly in the eastern half of North Carolina. Spokesman Howard Fowler said restoration could take "weeks instead of days", even though 20,000 workers, including crews from outside the area, were standing by.
Preceded first by the storm surge and the winds, heavy rains were picking up as of late Thursday afternoon, the beginning of an onslaught that for some areas may not relent for days.
Serena Williams & Billie-Jean King's tennis sexism claims dismissed by Jamie Murray
I just never knew when". "But I'm going to continue to fight for women and to fight for us to have equal [treatment]". An anonymous source told The Times of London that umpires are considering a boycott of matches involving Williams .
Tropical Storm Isaac was east of the Lesser Antilles and expected to pass south of Puerto Rico, Hispaniola and Cuba, while Hurricane Helene was moving northward away from land.
In North and SC, more than $87 billion in private property is covered by federal flood insurance.
Forecast maps show Florence stalling out just off the coast of the Carolinas for at least 24 hours, starting Friday morning. Between both Carolinas, there is a total of 6,400 guardsmen on duty ahead of the storm.
The simplest, most common metric for the measurement of a storm's intensity is maximum wind speed, and certainly this matters in terms of pure destructive potential when it comes to, say, losing a roof or propelling debris through the air. "It's going to happen".
"We're just trying to plan for the future here, not having a house for an extended period of time", David Garrigus said. "I should stay in my house, where I have water and food". Shelters in the city were filling and some people were being bused inland to Raleigh, even though some residents there were told they might have to evacuate because of flooding.
"Once those high winds get here.it will be very hard, if not impossible, for anybody to come rescue you if you are in harm's way in one of those zones", McMaster said at a news conference Wednesday.
Hurricane season is upon us again, as the sobering flurry of news about Hurricane Florence and the ensuing evacuations in the Carolinas reminds us. The ISS is now orbiting at an altitude of about 400 km above the surface of the Earth meaning it has an incredible view of Hurricane Florence as it rages.
In Carolina Beach, authorities have stopped allowing traffic to the island via the only bridge between the island and the mainland.
Ferry service from North Carolina's Bald Head Island already has stopped. We've had a number of time where we wouldn't have the full complement of folks out on the highways helping people get in, but our fanbase has been fantastic.
The mother of a five-year-old boy has reinforced the need for parents to teach their kids about stranger danger after her son was approached by an unknown woman at a skate park and offered ice-cream.
In a Facebook post, the mother said that she was at Alexandra Headland skate park in Queensland on Wednesday afternoon when she spotted an unknown woman with a striped shirt talking to her son.
She had been watching her son do laps of the skate park and added that he was only 200 metres away when she saw the woman approach her little boy.
A mother said that she was at Alexandra Headland skate park in Queensland on Wednesday afternoon when she spotted an unknown woman with a striped shirt talking to her son
I immediately got up and went towards them. She took off, the woman wrote.
I asked my son what she was saying. He said she was asking about the skate then asked if he wanted an ice cream.
The womans son said that he didnt talk to the lady that approached him, and instead lowered his head and waited for his mother.
This was the code between the mother and her son for when he is feeling uncomfortable.
The mother, originally from Brazil, told Daily Mail Australia that she reported the incident to police on Thursday morning.
I believe I did the right thing. I tried not to make a big deal of it for my son, she said.
I have been here for nearly 10 years. I always feel safe in Australia. But I did struggle today.
The main message the mother wanted to share was that 'it is never too early to teach kids about safety'
She added that the main message she wanted to share with people was that it is never too early to teach kids about being wary with strangers.
Please reinforce to your kids not to talk to strangers, her Facebook post concluded.
Daily Mail Australia also spoke to Queensland Police who said that it was a mental health incident that is no longer being investigated.
A South Sudanese child soldier turned Australian of the Year finalist has taken out an apprehended violence order against his lawyer ex-fiance.
Lawyers for Deng Adut and Tamryn Lee Beveridge appeared in Waverley Local Court on Thursday, after Mr Adut sought police help following an alleged incident between the pair.
Neither Mr Adut or Ms Beveridge - who are both defense lawyers in Sydney - fronted up for the brief mention, and their case was adjourned until next Thursday.
Police took out the order to protect Mr Adut, with its standard conditions preventing Ms Beveridge from 'assaulting, threatening, stalking, harassing or intimidating' him.
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Former child soldier turned Australian of the Year finalist Deng Adut (right) had an AVO taken out on his behalf by NSW Police against his lawyer ex-fiance Tamryn Lee Beveridge (left)
Neither Mr Adut (left) or Ms Beveridge appeared in Waverley Local Court on Thursday for the brief mention. The AVO comes only months after the couple welcomed their first child
The AVO comes only months after the couple welcomed their first child.
It is understood Ms Beveridge and Mr Adut ended their relationship in recent times.
Ms Beveridge told Daily Mail Australia she hoped the AVO would be withdrawn at the next court hearing, while Mr Adut did not respond to requests for comment.
Mr Adut's inspirational journey from immigrant to qualified defence lawyer saw him named 2017 NSW Australian of the Year.
Mr Adut (pictured) was named 2017 NSW Australian of the Year for the work he does as a pro bono lawyer for South Sudanese migrants in western Sydney
At the height of the civil conflict in South Sudan in the late-1980s, Mr Adut was taken from his mother and handed an AK-47.
Along with thousands of other young boys he became a child soldier, until he finally managed to flee his home country hidden under sacks of corn on the back of a truck in 1995.
After moving through camps across Africa he arrived in Australia in 1998, aged 14.
Unable to mumble a word of English he has previously spoken of watching children's band The Wiggles to teach himself the new language.
He became an Australian citizen in 2001, at which time he'd been sleeping in his car and working part-time jobs to survive.
From a young boy wielding an AK-47 in the Sudanese civil war to shaking hands with then Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull (pictured), Mr Adut's life story was turned into a bestselling biography in 2016
That same year Mr Adut accepted a scholarship at the Western Sydney University and began a TAFE course, going on to complete a degree in law.
Since becoming a qualified lawyer, Mr Adut has dedicated his life to doing much of his work pro bono for Sydney's Sudanese community.
He is a poster boy for his former university while his bestselling biography 'Songs of a War Boy' was released in 2016.
**Update: The AVO against Ms Beveridge has since been withdrawn and dismissed.
Mr Adut told Daily Mail Australia the AVO was applied for 'at a time of high emotion' and he 'deeply regretted doing it'.
Barnaby Joyce has accused former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull of deliberately attempting to undermine the government.
The allegations from the former deputy prime minister came after Mr Turnbull urged his successor, Scott Morrison, to refer Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton to the High Court.
The tweet was made in the early hours of Thursday over Mr Dutton's constitutional eligibility to remain in federal parliament, after it was revealed he had personal interests in two government subsidised childcare facilities in Brisbane.
The allegations come after Mr Turnbull again urged his successor, Scott Morrison, to refer Home Affairs minister Peter Dutton to the High Court
Barnaby Joyce accused former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull of deliberately attempting to undermine the current government
'It seems like he has an active campaign to try and remove us as the government. Boy, that is bitterly disappointing,' he told reporters in Canberra on Thursday.
Mr Joyce fell out with Mr Turnbull early this year after the former PM chastised the former Nationals leader over his affair with his media adviser Vikki Campion.
With a by-election being held on October 20 in Mr Turnbull's Sydney eastern suburbs seat of Wentworth, Mr Joyce has accused him of trying to sabotage the government's one-seat majority.
'What we now have is a majority of one, he has now resigned and it seems like he has an active campaign to try and remove us as the Government,' Mr Joyce said.
He argued coalition MPs gave the former prime minister loyalty and expected it in return, warning Mr Turnbull risked impugning his legacy.
Mr Joyce had previously discussed his dissatisfaction with his former partner after he resigned from parliament, creating a by-election in his long-held seat of Wentworth
'It's not so much how you rode the horse, it's how you get off it that counts,' Mr Joyce later told Sky News.
'Some people get off sweetly out of the saddle and walk to the rails. Some people just want to keep one foot in the stirrup and get dragged around for a bit, and it doesn't look good.'
When asked whether the Home Affairs minister should be referred to the High Court, Mr Joyce said Mr Dutton was an honourable person.
'I'm not going to start being someone else's judge and jury.'
Mr Joyce served as deputy prime minister to Mr Turnbull before being forced to resign after he became embroiled in a scandalous affair with a staffer.
He also referred himself to the High Court earlier in 2018 after discovering he was a dual citizen, putting him in breach of the constitution.
Mr Dutton denies any wrongdoing in his position and argues that Mr Turnbull was aware of his interests in the childcare facilities, but claims it was never posed as an issue until the week of the leadership challenge in August.
The Home Affairs Minister narrowly lost to Mr Turnbull 35 votes to 48, with the close result causing Mr Turnbull to quit as PM three days later so Scott Morrison could strategically deny Mr Dutton the chance to succeed him.
Free data roaming across the EU will continue even if Britain crashes out of the bloc without a deal, the government announced today.
Ministers have struck a deal with Europe's four largest mobile operators - including Vodaphone and EE - to ensure there is no return to the rip-off fees of the past.
The news came in a series of technical notices published on Thursday by Brexit secretary Dominic Raab, following on from a first series published in August.
Britons will be free to use their mobile phones anywhere in the EU without incurring extra charges even after Brexit, the government has said
Other areas covered by the documents include the impact of a no-deal scenario on standards relating to the environment and vehicles.
The papers were published after a special meeting of the Cabinet focused on how a no-deal outcome could be handled.
Mr Raab, who will hold talks with EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier in Brussels on Friday, revealed the news on roaming charges in a column for the Telegraph.
He added: 'With six months to go until the UK leaves the European Union, we are stepping up our "no-deal" preparations so that Britain can continue to flourish, regardless of the outcome of negotiations.
'These technical notices are part and parcel of our sensible, pragmatic approach to preparing for all outcomes.
Brexit secretary Dominic Raab made the announcement in a new series of technical papers outlining what will happen to Britain even in the event of a 'no deal' exit
'Getting a deal with the European Union is still by far and away the most likely outcome, and I will continue to champion our Chequers proposals with Michel Barnier as the best way of securing the deep and special partnership we want.'
The EU put pressure on mobile phone companies to reduce fees over the last decade before abolishing them altogether in June 2017.
Earlier this year, the anti-Brexit Best for Britain group calculated that the average business customer could expect to pay 778 more per month if the charges were reinstated after Brexit.
The group argued that this would put British businesses at a competitive disadvantage over our neighbours, whose workers would pay nothing.
Previously, the only countries to enjoy free data roaming without being part of the EU were those who were part of the single market - such as Norway.
The left-wing activist who gleefully abused the children of Jacob Rees-Mogg has refused to discuss his own offspring telling MailOnline: 'I ain't going there'.
Ian Bone, 71, launched the sickening tirade outside the Tory MP's London home yelling: 'Your daddys a totally horrible person - a lot of people hate him', leaving them visibly distressed and shocked.
The youngsters, some in school uniforms, looked stunned and clung to their father as Bone and fellow members of anarchist group Class War abused them.
Butler's son Bone, whose abuse has caused outrage across the political spectrum, considers himself a class warrior who admits he loves to 'bash to rich'.
But despite his apparent willingness to bring Mr Rees-Mogg's children into political debate, father-of-five Mr Bone refused to discuss his own.
When asked about his children and grandchildren he told MailOnline: 'I ain't going there' and 'I'm not telling you.'
Today Bone said the fury about his protest was 'completely ridiculous' and said his victims had not seemed angry.
He told LBC: 'The confected anger about me telling them their daddy is horrible is ridiculous. If Rees Mogg can take it how come no-one else can.
'He brought them out. It was his decision to bring them into the public domain. His children will know that not all people will have the same views as him'.
Activist Ian Bone (right, in the flat cap) abused Jacob Rees-Mogg and targeted his children in an abusive rant outside their London home
Mr Rees-Mogg, pictured leaving his London home today, has been praised for the way he handled the protest and abuse of his children
Ian Bone, pictured outside the High Court in February, has refused to discuss his own children despite think the MP's offspring are a justified target
Class activists launched an extraordinary tirade at Jacob Rees-Mogg's children including his six-year-old son telling them their daddy is a 'totally horrible person'
Bone and his fellow class warriors also turned on Rees-Moggs long-serving nanny Veronica Crook, suggesting she was his slave working for less than the minimum wage.
He yelled at her: 'Daddy doesn't pay her very much! Daddy says the minimum wage doesn't count for anything! Poor Nanny Crook who looks after you and wipes your bottom, she doesn't get enough money every week - daddy doesn't care!'.
Veronica Crook, who has worked for the family for 50-plus years, responds politely saying: 'I'm very happy' and said Mr Rees Mogg is 'wonderful' to work for.
Theresa May called it completely unacceptable, while Labour MP Wes Streeting branded the episode cruel and shameful.
But unrepentant Bone was revelling in the backlash, saying: This has just been perfect little effort and maximum publicity'.
He added: 'Jacob Rees Mogg brought his family outside and into our demonstration. I stand by everything that I said.
'I think that my comments to his children are nothing in comparison to the policies that Rees Mogg believes in.
'His children are going to Eton, like their father, where they'll get mercilessly bullied anyway.'
He is a close friend of Jeremy Corbyn's brother Piers, a fellow activist and controversial weather man who claims global warming is a ' hoax that must be destroyed'.
Mr Corbyn said last month that rising temperatures across the globe are 'deliberate lies intended to brainwash the public' and that the UN, EU and BBC are behind the conspiracy.
Bone's sickening tirade at Jacob Rees-Mogg's children including his six-year-old son shocked Britain.
The activist, wearing a flat cap and leaning on a stick, was filmed shouting: 'Your daddy won't answer the question.
'Your daddy is a totally horrible person. A lot of people don't like your daddy, you know that. No he's probably not told you about that.'
The grandfather and father-of-five added: 'A lot of people hate him'.
The three clearly stunned youngsters stood while their parents tried to usher them inside, but they still heard the full bullying rant demanding that the protesters know how much their nanny Veronica Crook (above in black) is paid
The encounter last night between Mr Bone and the Rees-Mogg family was filmed by activist group Class War and posted on their Facebook page
Bone with Jeremy Corbyn's brother Piers after a council protest in 2015 - Mr Corbyn is a controversial weather man who claims global warming is a ' hoax that must be destroyed'
But even Class War's own supporters online found the attack on the children too much. Steve Cason wrote on Facebook: 'Sorry but I don't agree that children should be brought into the argument in this way. The bit about not being liked etc crossed the boundary'
Mr Bone told the children: 'Daddy doesn't pay nanny much, so poor nanny Crook who looks after you and wipes your bottom, she doesn't get enough money every week'. Ms Crook (holding the baby) regularly appears in family pictures
The encounter last night involving the Rees-Mogg's nanny Veronica Crook - who has been with the family for decades and cared for the MP when he was a boy - lasted several minutes.
It was filmed by left wing activist group Class War and posted on their Facebook page.
The Prime Minister's official spokesman condemned the confrontation of Mr Rees-Mogg as 'completely unacceptable'.
He said: 'No elected member or their family should be subject to intimidation or abuse in that way.'
Others, including Tory MP Ben Gummer, whose father John was Environment Secretary in the early 90s, were equally horrified by the encounter.
Today, Mr Bone, who has Parkinson's Disease, walks with a stick and whose father was a butler, was unrepentant about speaking directly to the children
He tweeted: 'I had my share of this stuff. All I can say is that seeing it done to @Jacob_Rees_Mogg's children still brings an oh so angry lump to my throat. It is a cruel thing to do to a child, and it will mark them forever.'
Even Class War's own supporters online found Mr Bone's direct attack on the children too much.
Steve Cason wrote on Facebook: 'I think taking the Tories on is fair game and in fact must be done - I do it all the time.
'Sorry but I don't agree that children should be brought into the argument in this way. The bit about not being liked etc crossed the boundary.'
Malcolm Brooks added: 'Well I don't have any time for the tory git but not good in front of anyone's kids.'
And Wayne England said: 'In front of children. NOT COOL.'
However, Mr Rees-Mogg appeared unconcerned about the attack and told Mail Online: 'It was a small protest by anarchists which not surprisingly was disorganised, unpunctual and short lived.'
He later sought to play down the incident, insisting his children were 'absolutely fine', despite the barracking.
'I wouldn't get too excited about it. It was a few anarchists who turned up and it wasn't very well organised. It wasn't terribly serious,' he told LBC radio.
'We are a free country. They weren't violent. They aren't admirers of mine. I am in public life and not everybody is going to like me. That is a reality of public life.
'I'd have preferred it if it hadn't happened but I don't want to get it out of perspective. I think much worse things happen to many other people.'
Ian Bone (right) repeatedly asked again how much Ms Crook was paid, before she appeared (in black) on the street to cries of 'Oh my God, she's here!'
Ms Crook, who regularly appears in family pictures, not only looks after all six of the MP's children but cared for him when he was a boy. Four of Mr Rees-Mogg's children came out to witness the confrontation
Mr Rees-Mogg told Mail Online: 'It was a small protest by anarchists which not surprisingly was disorganised, unpunctual and short lived'
During the confrontation Mr Bone, 71, told the children: 'Daddy won't say how much he pays your nanny, his nanny who looks after you. Daddy doesn't pay her very much.
'Daddy says the minimum wage doesn't count for anything, or the London minimum wage.
'Daddy doesn't pay nanny much, so poor nanny Crook who looks after you and wipes your bottom, she doesn't get enough money every week.
'But daddy, he doesn't care because he's too busy posing as a Latin eating, gut-orientated toff which he does pretty well.'
He then repeatedly asked again how much Ms Crook was paid, before she appeared on the street to cries of 'Oh my God, she's here!'
She emerged and said that she wasn't paid by the hour and that she didn't need to tell him how much she was paid as she hugged Mr Rees-Mogg's son.
Mr Bone was not put off and went on to accuse Ms Crook of having 'Stockholm syndrome' because she wouldn't reveal her salary.
She asked Mr Rees-Mogg, standing just behind her and cuddling his smaller child, 'Do I?'
He replied: 'No!'
When someone questioned another protester's actions, he was told: 'Well too bad. If you don't like it, f*** off!'
Ms Crook, who regularly appears in family pictures, looks after all six of the MP's childrenand has been connected to the family for half a century.
Pope Francis on Thursday accepted the resignation of West Virginia Bishop Michael Bransfield and gave the green light to launch an investigation into allegations that Bransfield sexually harassed adults.
The news came just as a highly anticipated emergency meeting between Francis and US cardinals and bishops was getting under way in the Vatican to address another scandal involving a disgraced former American cardinal.
Bransfield had been implicated in 2012 in an infamous Philadelphia priestly sex abuse case, but he denied ever abusing anyone and claimed vindication years ago. He continued with his ministry until he offered to retire, as required, when he turned 75 last week.
Pope Francis poses with Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, Archbishop of Galveston-Houston, Archbishop of Los Angeles Jose Horacio Gomez, Cardinal Sean Patrick O'Malley, Archbishop of Boston, and Monsignor Brian Bransfield, General Secretary of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, during a private audience at the Vatican Thursday
Thursday's emergency meeting was called to address a sexual abuse scandal involving a disgraced former American cardinal
The Vatican said Francis accepted his resignation this morning, announcing the decision at the exact moment that the US delegation was arriving at the Apostolic Palace for the meeting with the pope.
Francis appointed Baltimore Bishop William Lori to take over Bransfield's Wheeling-Charleston diocese temporarily. Lori said in a statement that Francis had also instructed him to 'conduct an investigation into allegations of sexual harassment of adults against Bishop Bransfield.'
Lori set up a hotline for potential victims to call, and vowed to conduct a thorough investigation into what he said were 'troubling' claims against Bransfield.
The revelation was the latest development in a stunning turn of events in the US that began with the June 20 announcement that one of the most prestigious US cardinals, Theodore McCarrick, had been accused of groping a teenage altar boy in the 1970s.
Francis removed McCarrick as a cardinal in July after a US church investigation found the allegation credible. After news broke of the investigation, several former seminarians and priests came forward to report that they too had been abused or harassed by McCarrick as adults.
Pope Francis on Thursday accepted the resignation of West Virginia Bishop Michael Bransfield, pictured on the left speaking to then-Pope Benedict XVI on his 83rd birthday in 2010
Francis has authorized an investigation into allegations that Bishop Bransfield (pictured in 2005) sexually harassed adults
The McCarrick affair - coupled with revelations in the Pennsylvania grand jury report detailing decades of abuse and cover-up in six dioceses - has fueled outrage among the rank-and-file faithful who had trusted church leaders to reform themselves after the abuse scandal first erupted in Boston in 2002.
On Tuesday, Archbishop Georg Gaenswein, private secretary to Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, described sexual abuse against minors by clergy as the church's 'own 9/11'.
The outrage has also been directed at Francis and the Vatican, and has fueled conservative criticism of Francis' pontificate.
According to the results of a new poll published by CNN on Wednesday, Pope Francis's popularity has nosedived in the US recently.
The poll showed that only 48 per cent of Americans in general supported the Argentinian pontiff and his popularity has also plummeted among US catholics to 63 per cent from 83 per cent 18 months ago.
A former ambassador to the Holy See, Monsignor Carlo Vigano, has even called on the pontiff himself to resign, accusing him of covering up for McCarrick.
Pope Francis shakes hands on Thursday with Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, who had requested the papal audience last month
The Vatican hasn't responded to allegations by Archbishop Vigano that Francis effectively rehabilitated McCarrick from sanctions imposed by Pope Benedict XVI over allegations McCarrick would routinely invite seminarians to his beach house and into his bed.
Francis has, however, responded to the overall scandal with a series of initiatives aimed at trying to convince the faithful that he 'gets it' and is prepared to take measures to put an end to what he has called the 'culture of cover-up' in the church.
The head of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, Houston Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, had requested the papal audience last month following revelations that McCarrick had risen through church ranks even though the allegations of sexual misconduct were known in US and Vatican circles.
DiNardo requested a full-fledged Vatican investigation into the McCarrick affair, and said he also wanted answers to allegations that a string of Vatican officials knew of McCarrick's misdeeds since 2000, but turned a blind eye.
DiNardo said he wanted to present a 'plan of action' to the pope to make reporting of abuse and misconduct by bishops easier.
Referring to the McCarrick case, DiNardo called for a 'prompt and thorough examination... into how the grave moral failings of a brother bishop could have been tolerated for so long and proven no impediment to his advancement.'
DiNardo requested a Vatican investigation into allegations that Vatican officials knew that Cardinal Theodore McCarrick (pictured in 2015) had been accused of groping a teenage altar boy in the 1970s but chose to turn a blind eye
In the US, a group of 5,000 Catholic chief executives have frozen $820,000 in funds paid annually to the Holy See pending clarification of the sex abuse cases.
On the eve of the US audience, Francis announced he was summoning the presidents of bishops conferences around the world to a February summit to discuss prevention measures and protection of minors and vulnerable adults.
The surprise announcement was largely dismissed as a belated damage control effort by victims' advocates.
Church historians questioned why such an urgent problem was being scheduled for discussion six months from now with the very bishops who are blamed for much of the scandal.
'Where are the laity and others who might provide both new and uncomplicit voices and insights into the process?' asked Margaret Susan Thompson, associate professor of history at Syracuse University.
Monsignor Carlo Vigano, former ambassador to the Holy See, has even called on the pontiff to resign, accusing him of covering up for McCarrick
Even DiNardo's own record on protecting children has now come into question. On the eve of his audience with Francis, The Associated Press reported that two victims in Houston had accused him of not doing enough to stop a priest who was arrested this week on sexual abuse charges.
The archdiocese issued a statement Wednesday confirming that both people had come forward to report abuse by the priest, the Rev. Manuel LaRosa-Lopez, one of them in 2001.
The priest is now the pastor at St. John Fisher Catholic Church in Richmond while also serving as the archdiocese's episcopal vicar for Hispanics.
The delegation of US bishops announced no plans to speak to the media after their audience.
The youngest EuroMillions winner in Great Britain has celebrated the anniversary of her boob job by paying tribute to her 4,500 fun bags.
Jane Park, 23, underwent cosmetic surgery four years ago, spending 50,000 on breast enhancement, new teeth and even the controversial Brazilian bum lift procedure.
Miss Park, of Edinburgh, became the youngest EuroMillions winner aged 17 in 2013 when she scooped a 1million prize.
She previously revealed her family had to step in after she blew her fortune on the cosmetic surgeries and shopping.
Jane Park, pictured, who won 1million on the EuroMillions in 2013, has paid tribute to her 'fun bags' after marking the fourth anniversary of her boob job
Miss Park, pictured left and right, celebrated the anniversary with a series of risque pictures on Instagram
The 23-year-old, who was 17 when she netted the windfall, said her enhanced breasts 'bring me so much joy'
But speaking about her breasts in an Instagram post, she wrote: To my fun bags. You bring me so much joy and weve had a blast. Heres to the next four.
Last month Miss Park said she 'nearly died' after undergoing the 'bum lift' procedure following the death of Leah Cambridge during a similar surgery in Turkey.
Ms Cambridge, 29, suffered three heart attacks at the Elite Aftercare clinic in Ismir, Turkey, where several reality stars have also undergone the surgery.
Speaking on This Morning, Ms Park revealed that she underwent a bum lift in June 2017, but was left 'swollen from head to toe' and in 'constant pain'.
Miss Park is pictured left in 2013 with her winning cheque, and right after her cosmetic surgeries
'It was horrible,' she said. 'I couldnt even open my eyes. It makes me sick thinking about it.
'When I woke up I was very cold and sore and I was told "youll come round a bit" and when I did I got up to go to the toilet and I was truly swollen from head to toe.
'I thought I was going to die. I didnt know what was wrong with me and they said Id had a reaction to the local anaesthetic.
'The aftercare wasnt good at all. I was crying and in pain. I was just told "youve paid for having this done".'
A Brazilian bum lift uses fat transferred from other areas of the body, such as the love handles, hips or stomach, to provide patients with a fuller derriere.
Clinics report the procedure, which costs between 6,500 and 10,000, has seen more than a 50 per cent increase compared to five years ago.
Meanwhile she warned of the dangers of winning huge amounts of cash on the lottery and getting in over her head.
She said: 'It is very easy to spend the money and once you become aware that it is yours and how much you have got it becomes even easier.
'You think 'Oh well I've got the money so I can spend it'. It just becomes easier to buy more stuff that you don't necessarily need.
Miss Park previously revealed she underwent the controversial Brazilian bum lift last year after 29-year-old Leah Cambridge died during the procedure in Turkey last month
The 23-year-old, left and right, also revealed her family had to step in and calm her down after she 'blew' her winnings on surgeries and shopping
'I have had a couple of cosmetic surgeries. I went shopping and bought handbags and shoes and stuff like that.
'My family said to me 'You have spent a bit of it now, you need to think about investing it'. So then I got some property and put some away in the bank.
'At some point I had to take their advice or it could have went a completely different way.
'It was very overwhelming. I thought I was this massive celebrity. I thought I was Simon Cowell famous with my 1 million when I wasn't.'
A British man has been rushed to hospital in the Costa del Sol after being tortured in a suspected gang attack.
The man, who has not been named, was brutally beaten after being tricked into meeting with his attackers in Marbella.
He was shot, stabbed, had his kneecaps broken and was given a 'Glasgow smile'.
The Briton arrived in Marbella (file image) on Saturday night before being lured into a meeting with his attackers, where he was brutally tortured
The wound is inflicted by cutting the victim at the corners of the mouth then putting them further pain, causing them to scream.
The motion of screaming causes the cuts split and widen, often going up to the ears. It is also known as a Chelsea smile or Chelsea grin.
Spanish police have yet to make any arrests and local reports say the victim is showing little cooperation with their investigation.
Sources close to the investigation said he had suffered multiple injuries including broken bones in his lower body.
He remains in a serious condition at Marbella's Costa del Sol Hospital, where he was admitted in the early hours of Sunday morning.
He has not been named and it is not known where in Britain he is from.
He is now in the Costa del Sol hospital (pictured) after being shot, stabbed, having his kneecaps broken and his cheeks slit open
Investigators are working on the theory he was tortured as part of a 'warning' by members of a crime gang.
He is thought to have been targeted after arriving in Marbella the night of the attack.
Police have not released details of how they were alerted about the incident.
News of the horrifying attack comes just three days after Brit Sean Hercules, 39, was shot dead by police at an apart-hotel in nearby Cancelada close to Estepona.
Officers killed him in a shootout after he fired on them as they went to arrest him.
Earlier in the day he had been spotted leaving the scene of a car accident in the holiday resort of Puerto Banus with a gun in his hand.
The 39-year, from Leeds, had served prison time in the UK for offences including armed robbery. He is not being linked to the torture case.
One of the most glittering events in the social calendar of affluent young Russians has been cancelled in the wake of the Salisbury poisonings.
The annual Russian Debutante Ball sees mega-rich elite daughters of some of the country's most influential power players gather in the opulent surroundings of Grosvenor House Hotel in Mayfair.
But in a devastating blow to the well-heeled young guests, the event has been cancelled for the next two years amid increasing tensions between the UK and Russia, which has led to visitors struggling to get visas.
Russian elite descended on London for annual debutante ball in 2017 - but have been dealt a devastating blow this year
The event has been cancelled for the next two years amid increasing tensions between the UK and Russia. Pictured, two young guests at last year's ball
Young women don custom made white gowns and glittering tiaras as they are paraded around the dance floor by their handsome escorts before enjoying champagne and caviar
Gilded young women from the upper echelons of society aged between 16 and 25 come together for the event.
They don custom made white gowns and glittering tiaras as they are paraded around the dance floor by their handsome escorts before quaffing champagne and caviar.
Patron Princess Olga Andreevna Romanoff is a descendant of the last Tsar of Russia, Nicholas II, and with tables starting at 2,500, attendance is strictly for the well-to-do.
But the aftermath of the Salisbury poisoning in March has led to stringent visa restrictions making it impossible for some Russians to attend.
Organiser of the event Elisabeth Smagin-Melloni, said 'present political tensions between the UK and Russia have made it more difficult for the Russian guests to get visas' and many were forced to hand back tickets and ask for refunds.
Gilded young women from the upper echelons of society aged between 16 and 25 come together for the event
Dr Smagin-Melloni said: 'Regrettably the very popular Russian Debutante Ball in London will not be taking place in 2018 to the disappointment of many.
'The EU based event management company had been experiencing problems doing business with the UK when it came to setting up bank accounts and registering for VAT - thereby incurring extra costs and making the event less cost effective.
'Therefore, ESM Event Management have taken the decision to wait and see how Brexit will affect business between the EU countries and the UK, and how the situation between Russia and the UK develops, before the next event takes place in London.'
Dr Smagin-Melloni said said organisers will instead will be focusing on their other well established debutante balls around the world including Vienna, Carlsbad, Moscow and Shenzhen.
Lord Alan West appeared at the 2017 event surrounded by a gaggle of female guests all dressed in their best evening wear
Left, Actress Lana Holloway was a guest at the ball which was held a London's Grosvenor House Hotel in Mayfair. Right, another of the debutantes
Organiser of the event Elisabeth Smagin-Melloni said Russian guests, businessmen and VIPs had found it 'increasingly hard to obtain visas to the UK' and were forced to hand back tickets and ask for refunds
This would have been the sixth year of the ball.
In Russia, debutante balls stopped abruptly after the 1917 revolution, during which Tsar Nicholas was executed with his family.
But interest in the tradition picked up again in the post-Communist 1990s.
The UK's first debutante's Ball was held in 1780 by King George III to celebrate the birthday of his wife Queen Charlotte and raised money for a maternity hospital.
Society girls were presented to the monarch and it became an annual event and important as a marriage market for the upper echelons of society.
British business will be hit by a 'sledgehammer' of red tape and higher costs if the UK crashes out of Europe without a deal, it was claimed tonight.
The CBI said a slew of new Government papers on how Britain would tackle a collapse in talks proved the dangers of failure in Brussels.
The warnings came after Theresa May secured the agreement of her Cabinet to step up preparations for no deal.
A tranche of papers on the impact of crashing out of the EU says motorists would need new 5.50 international permits to use their cars on the continent.
They also warn that if negotiations with Brussels fail ex-pats might be forced to retake driving tests after March next year, as their UK ones will no longer be valid.
Britons with less than six months to run on their passports would also have to renew before travelling to the EU - while traditional-style British blue passports will not start being issued again until late in 2019.
The government played down fears that holidaymakers would be hit with swingeing roaming charges for using mobile phones in the EU - saying the biggest telecoms companies have agreed not to impose extra fees.
But in one of the most striking warnings, the documents predicted that the EU will refuse to share information with the UK about asteroids that could wipe out humanity.
The latest slew of 'technical' notices were published after Mrs May put ministers on notice at a special Cabinet meeting that large-scale 'no deal' Brexit plans will have to be activated if agreement has not been reached by mid-November.
Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab (pictured arriving for the Cabinet meeting today ) has said he is still focused on getting a deal with the EU
The Prime Minister's (pictured yesterday in Downing Street) Brexit blueprint imagines Britain following EU rules on goods to maintain existing trade, while striking out in other areas such as services
Home Secretary Sajid Javid (left) and Trade Secretary Liam Fox (right) were at Downing Street for the Cabinet meeting today
Bank of England governor Mark Carney (pictured arriving for the Cabinet meeting) briefed ministers on preparations in the financial sector
The key revelations in the notices - designed to dispel EU doubts that the UK is really prepared to leave without a deal - included:
International Driving Permits, costing 5.50 each, would be required for the EU after March. The government will not start providing the permits until February next year - raising fears of chaos with huge numbers of people applying weeks before the deadline.
Ex-pats will need to get driving licences for the countries where they reside and could be required to take tests again.
UK passports will not refer to the EU from March - but the traditional blue versions will not start being issued until the end of next year.
Britain will be reliant on the United States for surveillance and tracking data on asteroids, dead satellites or other debris falling to earth after a no deal Brexit.
The Common Travel Area will be honoured whether there is a Brexit deal or not - meaning Irish citizens will be able to travel to and remain in the UK.
Reaction to today's no deal notices was dominated by business warnings of the additional red tape likely to be imposed on firms.
CBI director general said no deal would be devastating for firms.
She warned: 'These notices make clear firms would be hit with a sledgehammer in the event of 'no deal'.
'They also illustrate the extent of the disruption consumers can expect if ideology wins over evidence.'
EU could refuse to share information on asteroids after Brexit Britain could be left reliant on the United States for data on asteroids crashing to earth after a no deal Brexit, Government papers suggested today (artist's impression) Britain could be left reliant on the United States for data on asteroids crashing to earth after a no deal Brexit, Government papers suggested today. Theresa May has repeatedly insisted that a no deal Brexit would 'not be the end of the world'. But the EU is currently building a system designed to protect satellites from crashing into other equipment or debris. It also tracks material crashing back to earth on a 'scheduled or unscheduled basis'. Without a deal, the UK will no longer take part in the EU Space Surveillance and Tracking programme, the notice reveals. It says: 'If the UK leaves the EU in March 2019 with no agreement in place, the UK will not be eligible to participate in the EU Space Surveillance and Tracking programme. 'UK organisations will not therefore be able to contribute to providing services to the EU Space Surveillance and Tracking, to participate in the scientific and technical groups to develop the programme further or be able to receive grant funding to pay for UK involvement. 'The UK will continue to receive space, surveillance and tracking data from the United States of America.' Advertisement
Adam Marshall, director general of the British Chambers of Commerce said: 'Firms still need greater precision from the government in order to be able to plan ahead with confidence.
'Many companies tell us they are deeply concerned by the impression that key information they need in order to prepare for change is being held back due to political sensitivities as the party conference season commences.
'Speed, precision and clarity are of the essence so that businesses can prepare for change.'
Mike Cherry, chairman of the Federation of Small Businesses, said: 'With each release of the Government's technical notes, we get a clearer picture of how dangerous and damaging a sudden no-deal Brexit will be for our small businesses.'
Shadow Brexit Secretary Sir Keir Starmer said: 'We are less than 200 days until we leave the European Union and the Government still has no credible plan for Brexit. The Cabinet should be planning to negotiate a good deal for Britain, not planning for failure or blaming businesses for the Government's chaos.
'The only reason the Government is talking about no deal is because the Tory civil war on Europe prevents the Prime Minister from negotiating a good deal.
'With the clock ticking, Ministers should drop the irresponsible rhetoric and start putting jobs and the economy first.'
One of the papers confirms that 'International Driving Permits' would be needed across much of the EU if there is no deal.
'You may be turned away at the border or face other enforcement action, for example fines, if you don't have the correct IDP,' the document states.
The document says the government will only start providing IDPs at most Post Offices after February 1 next year - which could fuel concerns about an administrative log-jam for people wishing to travel to the continent.
Currently they can only be obtained from around 90 Post Offices nationwide or by mail order from two private companies.
There are two types of IDP required by EU countries, depending on whether they have ratified the 1949 or 1968 conventions on road traffic - meaning some travellers will need both permits.
Shadow Brexit Secretary Sir Keir Starmer warned 'we are less than 200 days until we leave the European Union and the Government still has no credible plan for Brexit'
Adam Marshall, director general of the British Chambers of Commerce said a no deal Brexit would ensnare business in red tape
Motorists could be away at borders or face enforcement action if they have not obtained the correct documents.
Driving licences may no longer be valid in the EU after no deal UK driving licences may no longer be valid on their own to drive in the European Union if there is a no-deal Brexit, the Government has warned. Drivers could need International Driving Permits (IDP) if the EU does not agree to recognise UK licences, according to new guidance. They may be turned away at borders or face enforcement action if they have not obtained the correct documents. There are two types of IDP required by EU countries, depending on whether they have ratified the 1949 or 1968 conventions on road traffic. This means some itineraries will require both permits, such as when people drive into France and then Spain. The documents cost 5.50. The 1949 type is available over the counter at around 90 Post Office branches or by mail order from two private companies. The mail order service will cease on January 31, and the Government will begin providing IDPs the following day. Motorists will be able to apply for both types at 2,500 Post Office branches across the UK. Advertisement
The Department for Transport believes up to seven million permits could be requested in the first 12 months after Brexit.
The notice urges ex-pats to trade in their existing licences for one valid in the country where they live.
'If, after exit day, you become resident in an EU country you would not have the automatic right under EU law to exchange your UK licence for a driving licence from the EU country you're living in,' the paper says.
'Depending on the laws of the EU country you move to, you may need to take a new driving test in that country.'
Edmund King, president of motoring association AA, said: 'This will be an extra burden for UK drivers wanting to take a holiday abroad.
'We are also disappointed that from the end of January next year the AA will no longer be permitted to issue IDPs as we have done for decades. We had campaigned to maintain the right to issue these permits, but the Transport Secretary has decided that IDPs will only be issued at post offices.'
The assessment on passports says that if the UK has 'third party' status, EU countries could demand at least six months is left before their expiry date.
'To avoid any possibility of your adult British passport not complying with the Schengen Border Code we suggest that you check the issue date and make sure your passport is no older than nine years and six months on the day of travel,' it says.
Business minister Claire Perry (pictured) was also at the no-deal planning meeting in Downing Street today
Irish citizens will keep the right to enter and remain in the UK regardless of the Brexit outcome, the document says.
Blue passports will be issued from late 2019 Blue passports will be issued for the first time decades from late 2019, the no deal papers revealed. But the change may come as little comfort to travellers in a no deal scenario. The technical notices warn some UK citizens could be blocked from entering EU countries despite having a valid passport. Currently, there is no requirement for Britons travelling to the bloc to have a minimum or maximum amount of time left on their passports before they expire. But this could change if the UK departs on March 29 next year without a deal, according to a Government paper. Most EU countries are signed up to the Schengen Agreement, which allows passport-free travel. Although the UK is not a member, British citizens are currently able to enter the Schengen area if they have a valid passport, and there is no requirement to have a certain amount of time left before expiry, the Home Office guidance says. Advertisement
The paper also reveals that from next March the UK will start producing passports without a reference to the EU - and blue passports will be issued from the end of 2019.
Britain will be reliant on the United States for surveillance and tracking data on asteroids, dead satellites or other debris falling to earth after a no deal Brexit.
The EU is currently building a system designed to protect satellites from crashing into other equipment or debris.
It also tracks material crashing back to earth on a 'scheduled or unscheduled basis'.
Without a deal, the UK will no longer take part in the EU Space Surveillance and Tracking programme, the notice reveals.
Labour MP Jo Stevens said: 'It is deeply worrying that the UK will be shut out of some of the most cutting edge research in the world. This research provides thousands of high-tech jobs and provides the economy billions every year.
'Theresa May used to say wouldn't be the end of the world - but actually it could be!'
Britain's car manufacturers face new barriers to selling their vehicles into Europe if the UK crashes out without a deal.
They will have to get new EU safety certificates before they will be allowed to sell their cars into the lucrative market, as their car models would no longer be automatically recognised.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock (left) and Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt (right) were all smiles as the arrived for the no-deal discussions today
The Government paper says the firms will need to get the relevant documents from each EU country potentially creating a major bureaucratic nightmare for the sector.
French minister warns Eurostar would stop running after 'no deal' British planes and Eurostar trains could be turned away at the French border after a no deal Brexit, France's Europe Minster warned today. Nathalie Loiseau told a Chatham House event that the claims were 'correct' amid fears of travel chaos if no agreement is in place on Brexit day next year. Her warning comes days after Transport Secretary Chris Grayling irritated Brussels by asking all 27 EU countries to strike a backup side deal with Britain if there is no main Brexit deal. Pro-EU campaigners said it was 'shocking' that Britain faced travel 'gridlock' because of Brexit. Asked about the claims of chaos today, Ms Loisea said: 'If we reach no agreement this is what will happen, among other things.' Advertisement
The paper states: 'In a no deal scenario, type-approvals issued in the UK would no longer be valid for sales or registrations on the EU market.
'EC type-approvals issued outside of the UK, would no longer be automatically accepted on the UK market.
'This means that affected manufacturers would need to ensure that they have the correct type-approval for each market ...
'Manufacturers currently holding a VCA-issued [Vehicle Certification Agency-issued] EC type-approval, who intend to continue placing their products on the EU market, must obtain a new EC type-approval from a type-approval authority in an EU country.'
Manufacturers who produce goods that are not currently governed by EU-wide rules would face major new hurdles to export into Europe after a no deal.
Currently, anything that meets UK regulations but which is not subjected to harmonised EU rules can be sold anywhere in the single market. This is known as 'mutual recognition'.
The products involved include significant sectors for UK industry, including the historic textile trade and products such as bicycles an area which includes high profile British brands such as Brompton.
After a no deal Brexit, mutual recognition would no longer apply meaning goods would have to meet regulations in the country in which they are sold.
Mrs May has been under pressure over her Brexit plan with Boris Johnson (pictured running near his Oxfordshire home today) thought to be plotting a leadership challenge
Dominic Raab, UK exiting the European Union secretary, left and Michel Barnier, chief negotiator for the European Union, shake hands following a news conference in Brussels, Belgium, on 31 August
Because the products concerned are not subject to EU-wide rules, this could mean manufacturers having to meet 27 sets of regulation.
Exporters of bicycles and textiles could face hurdles after Brexit Manufacturers who produce goods that are not currently governed by EU-wide rules would face major new hurdles to export into Europe after a no deal. Currently, anything that meets UK regulations but which is not subjected to harmonised EU rules can be sold anywhere in the single market. This is known as 'mutual recognition'. The products involved include significant sectors for UK industry, including the historic textile trade and products such as bicycles an area which includes high profile British brands such as Brompton. After a no deal Brexit, mutual recognition would no longer apply meaning goods would have to meet regulations in the country in which they are sold. Because the products concerned are not subject to EU-wide rules, this could mean manufacturers having to meet 27 sets of regulation. Importers would also have to ensure non-harmonised good brought into Britain meet UK rules. Advertisement
Importers would also have to ensure non-harmonised good brought into Britain meet UK rules.
The notice on satellites and space programmes confirms the UK and British firms will be blocked taking on future work on Galilo, the EU's equivalent to GPS.
Devices that use the satellite network will continue to work as normal meaning consumers should see no impact.
But the UK will be excluded from encrypted parts of the system due to come online by the mid 2020s, despite British investment in the network.
Business, academics and researchers could also lose out and those with existing contracts are at risk of penalties.
The report confirms 92million has been set aside to explore the possibilities of a UK Global Navigation Satellite System but not to actually develop one.
The Home Office has published assurances that a no-deal Brexit will not alter the terms of the Common Travel Area which allows British and Irish citizens to live, work and receive welfare benefits in one another's countries.
In one of a set of no-deal preparation papers issued by the Government, the Home Office confirmed that the CTA, which dates back to the 1920s, would remain in place in the case of the UK leaving the EU without a deal.
'If you are an Irish citizen you would continue to have the right to enter and remain in the UK, as now,' said the paper.
'You are not required to do anything to protect your status.'
The reference to 'European Union' will be removed from UK passports (pictured right) from March - but traditional-style blue versions (pictured left) will not start being issued until the end of 2019
Where required, domestic legislation would be updated in the event of no deal, to guarantee reciprocal rights including the right to work, study and vote, access to social welfare benefits and health services.
Irish citizens will keep rights to live in UK even if Brexit talks fail Ministers said they are absolutely committed to maintaining the Common Travel Area between the UK and the Republic of Ireland (pictured, the Irish border) Irish citizens will still be allowed to live and work in Britain under the same rules as exist today if there is a no deal Brexit, the Government has promised. Ministers said they are absolutely committed to maintaining the Common Travel Area between the UK and the Republic of Ireland. And they sought to reassure anxious citizens that nothing would change even if the UK crashes out of the Brussels bloc. The pledge comes in a Government paper - one of 28 released today - detailing what is being done to prepare for a no deal Brexit. The paper states: 'If you are an Irish citizen you would continue to have the right to enter and remain in the UK, as now. You are not required to do anything to protect your status.' Advertisement
There would be 'no practical changes to the UK's approach to immigration on journeys within the CTA' and 'no routine immigration controls on journeys from within the CTA to the UK'.
Britons getting a divorce from an EU national or in a child custody battle face being stuck in limbo if Britain crashes out without a deal, the technical papers also war,
Currently, EU legislation covers civil courts meaning that judgements passed down by British courts are automatically recognised across the other 27 member states.
But a no deal Brexit would pull the plug on these agreements meaning 'there would be no agreed EU framework for ongoing civil judicial cooperation between the UK and EU countries'.
Ministers said they would scramble to put in place other laws, but warned Britons affected that they should seek legal advice.
It adds: 'We will seek to provide legal certainty for businesses, families and individuals who are involved in ongoing cases on exit day.
'Broadly speaking, cases ongoing on exit day will continue to proceed under the current rules.
'However, we cannot guarantee that EU courts will follow the same principle, nor that EU courts will accept or recognise any judgments stemming from these cases. Individuals with cases in progress on 29 March are encouraged to seek legal advice on how this may affect them.'
Meanwhile, Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab has opened another flank in the Brexit battle by threatening to slash the 39billion 'divorce bill' if Brussels refuses to compromise.
French minister for Europe Nathalie Loiseau (pictured) ramped up the rhetoric on a visit to London today, claiming that planes would be grounded and Eurostar trains would not run
The EU Commission President (pictured making his State of the Union address) said the EU would work 'day and night' for a close relationship after the UK quits the bloc
Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Mr Raab said one of the consequences of a no-deal Brexit 'is that obviously we wouldn't pay out the money that has been agreed as part of the withdrawal agreement'.
Cross-border divorces could be stuck in limbo by no deal Britons getting a divorce from an EU national or in a child custody battle face being stuck in limbo if Britain crashes out without a deal. Currently, EU legislation covers civil courts meaning that judgements passed down by British courts are automatically recognised across the other 27 member states. But a no deal Brexit would pull the plug on these agreements meaning 'there would be no agreed EU framework for ongoing civil judicial cooperation between the UK and EU countries'. Ministers said they would scramble to put in place other laws, but warned Britons affected that they should seek legal advice. It adds: 'We will seek to provide legal certainty for businesses, families and individuals who are involved in ongoing cases on exit day. 'Broadly speaking, cases ongoing on exit day will continue to proceed under the current rules. 'However, we cannot guarantee that EU courts will follow the same principle, nor that EU courts will accept or recognise any judgments stemming from these cases. Individuals with cases in progress on 29 March are encouraged to seek legal advice on how this may affect them.' Advertisement
The said the UK would 'recognise our strict legal obligations' but that the amount paid would be 'significantly, substantially lower' than the 39billion.
There are claims the figure could be more than halved if the EU blocks an agreement and the UK could slow down the timetable for paying the balance.
Mr Raab issued a stark warning to Tory Brexiteers - and some Remainers - who have criticised Mrs May's Chequers plan, saying they will merely increase the chances of a no-deal outcome.
'I do appreciate the concerns on all sides,' he said.
'But when push comes to shove, there will be the choice between the deal that I'm confident we can strike with the EU and the no deal scenario.
'We are making sure we are ready for the latter. But I think it would be by far the optimum outcome to have a negotiated deal, and I think that will focus everyone's minds.'
Mr Raab's comments echo Mrs May's statement yesterday that Britain's 39billion divorce offer to Brussels will be slashed if the EU fails to grant a comprehensive trade deal.
The Prime Minister insisted it was a 'specific offer' made on the expectation of an acceptable agreement.
She warned the bloc that without a deal 'the position changes'. Mrs May stressed that the UK was 'a country that honours our obligations'. But sources suggested the divorce payment could be slashed by more than half if there is no deal.
Mrs May said: 'The specific offer was made in the spirit of our desire to reach a deal with the European Union and on the basis, as the EU itself has said, that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. Without a deal, the position changes.'
Vodafone, Three, EE and O2, which account for 85 per cent of the market, have agreed the deal following months of talks with ministers.
The 45-a-month cap on mobile data in the EU will also remain, even if talks collapse.
What no deal Brexit papers have been published today? Here is a full list of the no deal Brexit preparation papers being released by the Government today: Connecting Europe Facility energy funding if theres no Brexit deal European Regional Development Funding if theres no Brexit deal European Social Fund (ESF) grants if theres no Brexit deal Funding for UK LIFE projects if theres no Brexit deal Driving in the EU if theres no Brexit deal Handling civil legal cases that involve EU countries if theres no Brexit deal Appointing nominated persons to your business if theres no Brexit deal Travelling with a European Firearms Pass if theres no Brexit deal Trading under the mutual recognition principle if theres no Brexit dea Trading goods regulated under the New Approach if theres no Brexit deal Vehicle type approval if theres no Brexit deal Accessing public sector contracts if theres no Brexit deal Broadcasting and video on demand if theres no Brexit deal Merger review and anti-competitive activity if theres no Brexit deal What telecoms businesses should do if theres no Brexit deal Data protection if theres no Brexit deal Industrial emissions standards (best available techniques) if theres no Brexit deal Reporting CO2 emissions for new cars and vans if theres no Brexit deal Upholding environmental standards if theres no Brexit deal Using and trading in fluorinated gases and ozone depleting substances if theres no Brexit deal Running an oil or gas business if theres no Brexit deal Trading in drug precursors if theres no Brexit deal Satellites and space programmes if theres no Brexit deal Getting an exemption from maritime security notifications if theres no Brexit deal Recognition of seafarer certificates of competency if theres no Brexit deal Mobile roaming if theres no Brexit deal Travelling in the Common Travel Area if theres no Brexit deal Travelling to the EU with a UK passport if theres no Brexit deal Advertisement
On driving licences, motorists will need a new international licence to use their cars in the EU in the event of no deal. The EU is likely to refuse to recognise UK driving licences if Brexit talks collapse, a Department for Transport document will state.
An international driving licence will be needed for anyone driving in the EU after March 29, for hiring or obtaining insurance, unless Brussels or individual member states waive the rules. To complicate matters, there are two types of permit and different versions could be needed for different countries.
Ministers say the UK will continue to recognise EU licences.
The Cabinet 'no deal' meeting today the first of its kind was told contingency plans will have to be activated in November in order to have them up and running in time for the UK's departure from the EU in March next year.
The timescale will intensify the pressure on both sides to strike a deal at a special EU Brexit summit now being pencilled in for the middle of November.
Ministers met for three and a half hours to discuss preparations for a no deal Brexit.
The PM's official spokesman said: 'Cabinet agreed that securing a deal with the EU based upon the Chequers white paper is the Government's firm aim and we are confident of success.
'However, as a responsible Government we need to plan for every eventuality.
'Cabinet agreed that no deal remains an unlikely but possible scenario for six months time.
'Departments have significantly increased no deal preparations in recent months. Cabinet agreed to further ramp up no deal preparations in the weeks and months to come to ensure the country is ready for all possible scenarios.'
Brussels is sceptical about Mrs May's willingness to leave without a deal. The new technical notices are designed to demonstrate to both Brussels and the public that the Government will be ready to leave at the end of March.
Bank of England government Mark Carney attended Cabinet today to give a briefing on preparations in the financial sector.
Mr Raab said: 'We are stepping up our no-deal preparations so that Britain can continue to flourish, regardless of the outcome of negotiations.'
Questioned in the House by Tory Chris Philp on whether the 39billion divorce bill would be withheld if there was no deal with the EU, Mrs May said Britain was a 'country that honours our obligations'.
But she insisted it was 'very clear that we need to have a link between the future relationship and the withdrawal agreement'.
'The specific offer was made in our desire to reach a deal with the European Union,' she said.
'And on the basis, as the EU themselves have said, that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed, without a deal the position changes.'
Roam free! Britons will NOT pay EU roaming charges even in the event of 'no deal', Brexit secretary says Free data roaming across the EU will continue even if Britain crashes out of the bloc without a deal, the government announced today. Ministers have struck a deal with Europe's four largest mobile operators - including Vodaphone and EE - to ensure there is no return to the rip-off fees of the past. The news came in a series of technical notices published on Thursday by Brexit secretary Dominic Raab, following on from a first series published in August. Britons will be free to use their mobile phones anywhere in the EU without incurring extra charges even after Brexit, the government has said Other areas covered by the documents include the impact of a no-deal scenario on standards relating to the environment and vehicles. The papers were published after a special meeting of the Cabinet focused on how a no-deal outcome could be handled. Advertisement
Welcome to 'OZ' - The 'Other' Side of the Rainbow!! Some posts may be seen as offensive. Posting is at 10AM, Noon and 2PM CST daily. Up to 12 days of posts on the main page. The archives have more. You can forward posts by clicking on the envelope at the bottom of the post. Enjoy your stay! *** If you need to contact me, or have a copyright issue, please use the "Contact The Wizard" form on the left side of 'OZ'. Original source and author is cited and credited in each post where possible. ***
While waiting at Daliao MTR Station in Kaohsiung City, Taiwan, this dad came up with a great idea to pass the time.
His little girl sat was safely strapped to one of his suitcases and he sat on the other motorized one wheeling her around.
The child looked on in wonder as her dad happily towed her around using the 'Bagrider' by Mountain Buggy, specialised luggage made to be ride on.
Waiting at Daliao MTR Station in Taiwan, this dad came up with a great time-passing idea
Posting to Instagram originally, the father used laughing emojis in the latest of a string of posts featuring his daughter and the ride-on bag.
People commenting said, 'so cute' and 'special'.
Posting on YouTube, David Kuehne said: 'Mom was probably not amused.'
In the video, the father is using the Modobag, described as a 'revolutionary piece of motorized carry-on luggage'.
The bags are motorised ride-on suitcases made to beat the traffic in airports and stations
The ride-on bag works on a battery and users can be seen whizzing through airports and avoiding stress like this father.
This innovative product was invented by Chicago entrepreneur and avid traveler Kevin ODonnell.
The idea struck him when he was pulling the kids on his suitcase at the airport and he thought the task could be made easier.
He worked together with his motorcyclist friend, Boyd Bruner, to bring to life the vision of 'making traveling more functional and fun.'
Departed former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull has been accused of trying to tear apart his party for sacking him.
Conservative commentator Andrew Bolt attacked the former Liberal Party leader after he urged his successor Scott Morrison on Twitter to refer Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton to the High Court over his parliamentary eligibility.
'He is desperately trying to burn the party to the ground,' Bolt told Sky News on Thursday night.
Former Australian Ambassador to Israel Dave Sharma (pictured) is Malcolm Turnbull's preferred candidate to run for the Liberals in next month's Wentworth by-election
Turnbull stirred more tension with the new PM by tweeting his support for David Sharma, as Liberal Party preselectors voted on a candidate for his former seat of Wentworth in Sydney's eastern suburbs.
This put him at odds with Mr Morrison, who had endorsed former ministerial chief-of-staff Katherine O'Regan so a female candidate would be chosen.
It's understood Mr Turnbull took time out from his New York vacation to call Mr Sharma, pleading with him to remain in the race for the October 20 by-election, 9 News reported.
Mr Sharma, a former Australian Ambassador to Israel, also had the backing of former Prime Minister John Howard.
Mr Turnbull's brother-in-law Michael Hughes was also believed to be working behind the scenes for.
Prime minister Scott Morrison's preferred candidate Katherine O'Regan is the frontrunner to win party preselection to run as the Liberal candidate in Malcolm Tunrbull's former seat
The Liberal preselection for Wentworth is underway at Woollahra's Easts Rugby Club, with the winner cleared to run in the seat Mr Turnbull first won in 2004, after he challenged sitting Liberal MP Peter King within the party.
An insider source told 9 News the race would be 'tight'.
But Ms O'Reagan's backers told The Australian she could get as many as 75 per cent of the votes in the 120-vote local component of the 206-vote ballot.
New prime minister Scott Morrison (pictured) let his predecessor know who's now in charge on Thursday morning
It's the second fight Mr Turnbull has picked with Mr Morrison within 24 hours after he publicly pressured his successor to refer their mutual leadership rival Peter Dutton to the High Court.
'The point I have made to Scott Morrison and other colleagues is that given the uncertainty around Peter Dutton's eligibility, acknowledged by the Solicitor-General, he should be referred to the High Court, as Barnaby was, to clarify the matter,' Mr Turnbull tweeted on Wednesday night.
Mr Morrison hit back at his bitter predecessor on Thursday morning.
It was the second battle Malcolm Turnbull (pictured with granddaughter Alice) has picked with Scott Morrison in the last 24 hours
'Someone once told me in this job, all contributions should be gratefully received. They are,' he told reporters at Queanbeyan, just outside Canberra.
'But as the Prime Minister, I'll obviously make the decisions in relation to our government on what I believe is in the national interest and based on the most recent and most timely information that I have available to me.
'Obviously I have a lot of respect for the former prime minister but as the prime minister now, I'll make the decisions that I believe are in the best interests of the nation.'
A man is fighting for his life after suffering a cardiac arrest when his car was rammed by robbers in a targeted attack 'like something out of a movie.'
The victim, aged in his 60s, and his son, who work for a cash and carry, were in their Mini Cooper stopped at traffic lights when it was rammed from behind by a black Audi in Croydon.
As they got out to investigate the robbers grabbed a cash bag from inside their car and the father tried to stop them only to fall ill.
The robbery was over in seconds but the man remains in hospital in critical condition.
Police are hunting for robbers who targeted a father/son cash and carry worker team and stole a bag of money from their car after ramming them. The father, aged in his 60s, is currently fighting for his life after suffering a cardiac arrest during the raid
A resident, who lives by the junction, said he spoke to a woman who witnessed the whole incident.
The 25-year-old said: 'She said it was like something out of a movie. A car rammed into the back of them.
'It was so quick and they knew exactly what they were doing. They were experienced and could have been planning this for months.
'The older man was the passenger in the car and I believe his son was driving.
'They were waiting at the traffic lights when a black Audi rammed into the back of them.
'The two of them got out of the car and that's when the guys struck, while the doors were open.
'Two men stormed into the car and robbed a bag full of money.
'I've heard the guy and his son work for a cash and carry - they must have known that.
'The older man grabbed the bag and started pulling it off him. He obviously didn't want to lose all that money.
'But that's when he had the cardiac arrest and let go of the bag. Then they drove off.
'They knew exactly what to take. The woman said it all happened so quickly that she couldn't even take a photo of what was happened. They drove off within seconds.
'The men didn't even have masks on. That's very brave. They also must have known there's no CCTV in that spot.
'If it happened in London Road they would be caught straight away. They really knew what they were doing.
'It's like something out of Netflix.'
He added the victim had 'died for a minute' before paramedics resuscitated him.
The man remains in critical condition in hospital.
Resident Raymond Holcombe said he came out of his house when he heard the horns and sirens.
Police have been at the scene again today, pictured, and are searching for robbers described as 'Eastern European' and aged between 30 and 40
The 70-year-old said: 'I heard sirens and horns beeping so I went outside to take a look.
'Then I saw a man on the ground being pumped by paramedics. He wasn't moving.
'There were a lot of people there so they cordoned the whole area off.'
The robbers, described as 'Eastern European and between 30 and 40', are still on the loose.
A Met Police spokesman said: 'Officers attended along with the LAS and found a man, in his 60s in cardiac arrest.
'He has been taken to a south London hospital and we await an update on his condition.
'The other vehicle made off prior to police arrival.
'From initial enquiries it is believed that an occupant from the suspect vehicle approached the victim and removed cash from his car before making off.
'The incident is being treated as a robbery.'
No arrests have been made.
Two moped muggers were caught on CCTV moments before they pried a 10,000 engagement ring from a woman's finger.
The robbers followed their victim, 27, along Moscow Road, Westminster at around 7.35pm on June 19 before one of them dismounted their vehicle and pursued the woman down St Petersburg Place.
He then grabbed her by the neck and demanded she hand over her three stone 'Blue Nile' diamond ring before pulling it from her finger himself.
Pictured: The two men said to be responsible for the Westminster robberies on June 19
The mugger, who wore a black crash helmet and dark clothing, then got back on the moped and made off towards Bayswater Road with the vehicle's driver, who was wearing a white t-shirt, blue jeans and green trainers.
Just 25 minutes later the pair robbed another woman on Melbury Road in Kensington and Chelsea.
The two men approached their 45-year-old victim before the man in black hopped off the motorbike, grabbed the woman from behind and stole her silver-faced 200 watch.
He returned to the vehicle and the pair drove off north along Melbury Road towards Holland Park.
The stolen ring (pictured) is described as a three stone Blue Nile diamond, platinum ring
Police are appealing for witnesses and information relating to the incident and have released an image of the two men thought to be responsible, as well as pictures of the stolen ring.
Detective Constable Dan Jones, from the Met's Westminster Serious Crime Unit, said: 'These men targeted and attacked two women in an attempt to snatch their belongings, which both had sentimental value.
'The attack has left these two women extremely shaken. If you saw anything or know who these two males are, please get in touch.'
If you can identify the suspects or offer any information to assist the investigation, please contact police on 101 or tweet @MetCC.
Alternatively, to give information anonymously call Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111 or visit crimestoppers-uk.org.
Dr Sam Jones, 24, was arrested and held in a cell for ten hours after he assaulted the doorman when he was thrown out of a club in Chester for drunken behaviour
A newly qualified doctor who faces being struck off after he punched a nightclub bouncer in a booze-fueled brawl has pleaded for forgiveness at a tribunal.
Dr Sam Jones, 24, was arrested and held in a cell for ten hours after he assaulted the doorman when he was thrown out of a club in Chester for drunken behaviour.
At a tribunal held in Manchester yesterday, Dr Jones apologised for being a 'complete idiot' and admitted to being 'completely intoxicated' at the time.
At the hearing the shamed medic confessed: 'I was extremely intoxicated and I had had lots of alcohol.
'I had been taken down the stairs and from I remember, I thought I just lost it and sort of pushed him.
'But once I was shown the footage, I burst into tears. I was terrified to see myself behave the way as this is not a way that I would usually behave.'
He later accepted a police caution after being shown CCTV of the attack and was also told to pay the unnamed doorman 50 compensation - but he was then reported to the General Medical Council for disciplinary proceedings.
At a tribunal held in Manchester yesterday, Dr Jones apologised for being a 'complete idiot' and admitted to being 'completely intoxicated' at the time
This week, just six weeks after he got his first job working in the A&E department at Sunderland Hospital, Jones faced a fitness to practise medicine panel which could end his career in the UK - barely before it even started.
The incident occurred at Cruise club in Chester on October 1 last year after Jones, from Oswestry, Shropshire had been on an alcohol fuelled day out at Chester Races.
The celebration was held to mark a friend's birthday but Jones was also toasting his graduation in medicine from Newcastle University.
'It was my friend's birthday and we had a really good day,' Jones told the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service.
'I was so excited to be a practising doctor, it was Chester Races and it was an early start at about 12 o'clock - everyone was drinking beer all day.
At the hearing the shamed medic confessed: 'I was extremely intoxicated and I had had lots of alcohol. 'I had been taken down the stairs and from I remember, I thought I just lost it and sort of pushed him'
This week, just six weeks after he got his first job working in the A&E department at Sunderland Hospital, Jones faced a fitness to practise medicine panel which could end his career in the UK - barely before it even started
'I think without noticing I was just becoming very very drunk. It is so frustrating that it ended this way and I believe I was more susceptible to reckless behaviour at that time of my life.
'In the club my friend got onto my shoulders and two members of door staff just grabbed us each whilst he was on my shoulders.
'There was no discussion, we were on the third floor so we were pulled down two flights of stairs and across a dancefloor.
He later accepted a police caution after being shown CCTV of the attack and was also told to pay the unnamed doorman 50 compensation - but he was then reported to the General Medical Council for disciplinary proceedings
'I had some superficial grazing to my neck where I was grabbed. I had consumed a lot of alcohol and I am now obviously far more careful.'
Explaining that he felt he had been unfairly treated by bouncers, he accepted that his response was out of order.
'Despite being unfairly taken down the stairs, what I thought, I still should not have retaliated the way that I did. To level up in that style was completely unacceptable.
'I told the police initially that I did not punch the doorman, because I thought that I just sort of pushed him. I had been at the police station for about 9 to 10 hours before being interviewed.
'I was terrified and I was really upset and really shaken up to have been arrested, it was really unfamiliar territory for me - I felt like a complete idiot.'
Explaining that he felt he had been unfairly treated by bouncers, he accepted that his response was out of order
The hearing was told one of the conditions of the police caution was that he not be found intoxicated in any public place for three months.
Jones told the panel: 'It is very difficult to explain how much this has been a part of my life for the last year. it has been extremely difficult.
'I would feel sick to my stomach every time I got an email notification from the GMC.
'I have reflected on it in so much detail and I am extremely ashamed of my behaviour that day. I think these feelings will be with me forever, I am certain that I will never be in this position again. I am ambitious and really do want to be a good doctor.'
Explaining his thoughts of the incident after the assault, he admitted realising he was on CCTV and wanted to own up to the situation.
The hearing was told one of the conditions of the police caution was that he not be found intoxicated in any public place for three months. Jones said: 'It is very difficult to explain how much this has been a part of my life for the last year. it has been extremely difficult'
'I knew I had been on CCTV so I was not trying to falsify what I had done - I gave my impression of what had happened.
'Whilst our behaviour in the club was not safe, we were not causing trouble or being aggressive to anyone although obviously we were more drunk than we should have been.
'I was gripped around the neck, taken down two flights of stairs - I have never been taken out of a night club before. I was just a bit shocked by how aggressive they were considering I had not been aggressive myself.
'I do not blame them but it definitely contributed to the way that I acted. I can definitely say that I would not have behaved in that way if I had not been provoked.
'I accept that my actions fall below those expected of me as a doctor. I would not have behaved that way if I had not been forcibly removed from the club. It does not excuse my actions.
'My decision making was severely impaired by the quantity of alcohol that I had drank. This incident has made me far more aware of it. Sometimes you need to sort of stop and take yourself to one side and think 'right, I've had a bit too much now'.
Earlier counsel for the GMC Mr Gerard Doran said: 'Police reported that during the hours of darkness, he was removed by door staff and he punched one in the face'
'I am already so cautious now when I drink alcohol. Regardless of how intoxicated I am, which I do not plan to be, I know that I would just walk away from any kind of incident.
'This event haunts me, I was absolutely terrifying. Having to discuss it with my peers, it was embarrassing and I was humiliated. I do drink socially, I have one or two drinks with my friends, occasionally more, but I am so much more careful because of this.
'In the police station it was a completely unknown territory for me and I was scared, I was there for such a long time on my own and I was desperate to get out of there and get home.'
Earlier counsel for the GMC Mr Gerard Doran said: 'Police reported that during the hours of darkness, he was removed by door staff and he punched one in the face.
Jones' lawyer Mr Marios Lambis said: 'He has never sought to deflect what he did. He was drunk but whether justified or not he was treated very roughly by the staff'
'He had his friend on his shoulders in the club, he was drunk, so was escorted out of the premises.
'Once outside he pushed the doorman away with two hands, in his initial interview with police he stated that he did not punch the doorman. But he was shown CCTV footage which shows a punch and subsequently he admitted that he punched the doorman.
'His behaviour has clearly fallen below the standard of behaviour expected by a doctor - it involved violent behaviour.'
Jones' lawyer Mr Marios Lambis said: 'He has never sought to deflect what he did. He was drunk but whether justified or not he was treated very roughly by the staff in the night club and forcibly removed - leading to him suffering from abrasions.
'You have no evidence before you that the victim suffered any injuries. We can only speculate that if that bouncer had been a little more cautious in the way that he removed Dr Jones from this club, this incident would not have happened.
'We can speculate if Dr Jones had an expert or solicitor with him at the police station and hearing that he effectively been assaulted we may not have been here.
'But this young man, in a police station for the first time in his life, did not seek legal assistance and accepted what was offered to him by the police. This is a young decent law-abiding man who got that night very wrong but that should not define him. It is clear that this was a completely out of character episode.
'His brother states that for a family where violence is never tolerated, they are all deeply saddened that Sam is under the investigation of the GMC. As an individual who is so passionate about his job, Sam will never put himself in this situation in the future.'
Testimonials from a senior colleague said Jones was a 'professional and hard-working junior doctor with very good clinical skills' who went 'above and beyond during his work.'
A supervisor added that he believed Jones was 'truly remorseful and keen to put this behind him and progress in his career.'
The hearing was told after leaving sixth form college he devoted hours of free time to working at a children's hospice.
The GMC approached the victim of the assault to see if he wanted to provide a statement but he declined. The hearing continues.
A grieving daughter whose parents died in an Egyptian hotel has dismissed the authorities' claim that E.coli killed them and demanded to know the truth.
John Cooper, 69, and his wife Susan, 64, died after being taken ill during a Thomas Cook holiday at the Steigenberger Aqua Magic Hotel in the Red Sea resort of Hurghada.
Initially, officials said their deaths on 21 August were not caused by bacteria, but now the country's general prosecutor has said E.coli was a factor.
Their daughter Kelly Ormerod, from Burnley, Lancashire, has said she has 'no faith' in the Egyptian authorities demanded further answers.
Mrs Ormerod, who was staying at the same hotel with her children, said: 'I have not seen evidence or facts of any E.coli.
John, 69, and Susan Cooper, 64, died on August 21 after being taken ill during a Thomas Cook holiday in the Red Sea resort of Hurghada before their mysterious death
Susan and John were staying at the Steigenberger Aqua Magic hotel (pictured) when they fell ill
'Thomas Cook put a report out that there were high levels of E.coli at the hotel. Whether the Egyptians have honed in on that, I have no idea.
'But anybody can Google what E.coli symptoms are and the progression of E.coli and it does not kill you within a matter of hours.
'They are either stuck for answers or don't want to tell the truth. They are obviously aware this is having a very negative effect on tourism.'
Ms Ormerod has always been adamant that she believes something in the room killed her parents, despite Egyptian officials insisting their deaths were 'normal for an old English man and his wife' and the result of respiratory and heart failure.
Prosecutor Nabil Sadek said forensic tests showed that John Cooper suffered acute intestinal dysentery caused by E.coli, and Susan Cooper suffered Hemolytic-uremic syndrome (HUS), likely because of E.coli.
He says the couple's bodies showed 'no criminal violence' and other tests on air and water at the hotel found nothing unusual.
Ms Ormerod also said she had not received anything official from the Foreign Office or the British Embassy in Egypt with details about her parent's death and had only seen what was in the media.
She added: 'I don't know what tests they have done. The report I have seen, from the media, not sent to me, was very, very brief. I don't know of any tests they have done.
Their daughter Kelly Ormerod (right) has dismissed authorities' claim that her parents were killed by E.coli. She said: 'They are either stuck for answers or don't want to tell the truth'
'Have toxicology reports been done? They do take quite a long time to come back. Have they got them?
'Exactly what have they tested for? They have not actually sent a report that I know of to say, "We have tested this and ruled it out, we have tested for that and ruled it out".
'This is why I have no faith whatsoever in the Egyptian authorities, especially knowing the way I was treated out there.
'There's definitely going to be Home Office post-mortems over here. That's scheduled for tomorrow, but they can't say a hundred per cent it will be tomorrow.'
The report revealed Mr Cooper died in the hotel room after clinical staff from the hotel were called to see him at around 11am.
Later that day his wife reported feeling unwell and was taken to hospital where she was 'unresponsive' to CPR carried out for '30 minutes'. She died at 17:12pm.
Thomas Cook evacuated 300 guests from the hotel as a precaution after the Coopers died - despite saying they did not think E. coli killed the Coopers.
The travel company commissioned an independent hygiene specialist and air quality specialist to conduct a series of tests at the hotel.
Last week high levels of E.coli were found at the Steigenberger Aqua Magic hotel, and tests on the food and hygiene standards identified a high level of E.coli and staphylococcus bacteria.
Due to the tragic incident operator Thomas Cook has slapped a ban on its holidaymakers using the hotel.
The tour operator is demanding all clients who have booked the five-star Steigenberger Aqua Magic hotel in the popular Red Sea resort of Hurghada in the run up to Christmas and over the New Year to move to alternative accommodation, or cancel their trips without penalty.
Trip of a lifetime: Susan and John Cooper were staying at the Steigenberger Aqua Magic hotel (pictured in the resort)
A spokesperson for Thomas Cook said: 'The hotel which we sell but is not our own branded is currently unavailable for new bookings until at least January 15 next year and any customers who had a booking there before the tragedy are being told to change accommodation.
'We are offering alternative hotels in the resort, which is a popular destination with all inclusive packages, plenty of sunshine and lovely beaches.'
The spokesman added: 'The hotel has always been a favourite for families over Christmas but we are not taking any bookings there and are relocating previously booked clients. Most customers are happy to change accommodation, but if not they are being offered a full refund on their holiday.
Theories about what happened to John and Susan Cooper 1. Broken-heart syndrome Susan Cooper was taken ill just hours after her husband died. It was suggested she could have suffered from Broken Heart Syndrome. The rare medical disorder can be brought on by moments of extreme stress, such as the death of a loved one. Part of your heart enlarges and doesn't pump blood well, which can lead to severe short term heart failure. 2. Fumigation poisoning It was also revealed the room next door to where the couple died last month had been fumigated with farm-strength-insecticide. Just days prior Namaa Agricultural and Engineering Services sprayed an adjacent with lambda-cyhalothrin 5 per cent. The door of the room, which was sealed with tape, was at the end of the corridor next to where the Coopers were due to stay. It is feared the fumes may have entered their room through the ceiling space. According to the University of Hertfordshire, the spray is highly toxic to mammals and is a known irritant. 3. Air conditioning There was a suggestion the symptoms were consistent with people who had contracted Legionnaire's disease. A lung condition that could be carried by contaminated water through an air conditioning unit. There had also been suggestions carbon monoxide poisoning could be to blame. But Egyptian authorities were quick to deny these causes. 4. Swimming Pool There were also fears it could be linked to bacteria in the pool after some guests said they suffered with diarrhea after going in the pool on different occasions. 5. Food poisoning Food poisoning can cover a wide variety of afflictions such as Botulism, Salmonella and E.coli. Some guests at the hotel had complained about feeling unwell during their stay. 6. E.coli Today, Egypt's general prosecutor said E.coli was a factor in the deaths of Susan and John Cooper. You may be exposed to it from contaminated food or water. Last week at the Steigenberger Aqua Magic hotel, high levels of E. coli were found. Advertisement
'We don't know what will be happening with this hotel for the forseeable future but we're putting it on hold until mid January when we will then review the situation and make a decision.
'We cannot say at this stage if we will be removing it from our brochure permanently.'
Earlier this week it was also revealed the room next door to where a British couple died had been fumigated with 'farm-strength' insecticide just hours earlier.
Around 200 people have lodged sickness complaints against the resort.
According to The Times, the day before the couple died, August 20, Namaa Agricultural and Engineering Services sprayed an adjacent with lambda-cyhalothrin 5 per cent.
The door of the room, which was sealed with tape, was at the end of the corridor next to where the Coopers were due to stay.
It is feared the fumes may have entered their room through the ceiling space.
Egyptian authorities said this was not the case.
John and Susan's bodies were released by authorities after tests, last week.
Following the autopsy reports Egypt's Minister of Tourism, Dr Rania Al-Mashat, said:
'The autopsy reports published today by Egypt's Attorney General Nabil Sadek are one more step forward towards helping the grieving Cooper family come to terms with the tragic loss of John and Susan.
'The causes of death, e-coli bacteria, were medically determined by a team of internationally accredited pathologists, which I hope for the family's sake will put an end to previous speculative suggestions of what might have happened.
'The health and safety of all tourists to Egypt are absolutely paramount and I am determined, together with the Prime Minister Dr Mostafa Madbouly and our fellow Ministers to ensure the highest standards of well-being for all visitors to our country.
'We will review the Attorney General's autopsy reports in fine detail to determine our next course of action to look after the welfare of our visitors.'
A statement from Thomas Cook said: 'Thomas Cook notes the announcement today by the Egyptian prosecutor on the results of the autopsies of John and Susan Cooper following their deaths at the Steigenberger Aqua Magic in Hurghada on 21 August 2018.
'We have not yet seen the full report and we will need time for our own experts to review it.
'We are deeply saddened by the tragic deaths of John and Susan Cooper. We will continue to offer every support to their daughter Kelly and the rest of their family.'
Shocking images show a gang member pointing a gun in a police officer's face before twice shooting at him during a routine daytime stop in Omaha, Nebraska.
Bodycam stills show John Ezell Jr, 36, pointing the gun at the officers, then jumping out from the passenger seat of the car and shooting at the police on Tuesday September 11.
Police returned fire, shooting seven times at suspect, who is now recovering in hospital.
Bodycam stills show John Ezell Jr, 36, pointing the gun at the officers, then jumping out from the passenger seat of the car and shooting at the police on Tuesday September 11
Omaha Police Chief Todd Schmaderer said the officers were 'justified in using deadly force'.
Officer Ken Fortune, 42, was injured in the shootings. The bullet passed through his the microphone on his tactical vest and hit him in the shoulder.
Despite falling after being shot. Officer Fortune was able to handcuff a second suspect.
The officer, who was worked for the force for 11 years, is now recovering in hospital with non-life threatening injuries.
Ezell was also hospitalised in the shootings, once he is released he will be arrested for two counts of attempted murder, possession of a firearm by a prohibited person, and two counts of use of a weapon to commit a felony.
The known gang member was out on federal probation for 'unlawful transport of a firearm'.
The driver of the car, Brandon Richey, 28, will be charged with accessory to a felony and felony flight to avoid arrest, police say.
Shocking images show a gang member pointing a gun in a police officer's face before twice shooting at him during a routine daytime stop in Omaha, Nebraska
Richey accelerated away when officers attempted to stop them, despite firing the police siren four different times.
It adds: 'Richey stopped for the red light on Laurel Street at 30th Street.
'Officer Ken Fortune, the front passenger officer, got out of the police car and attempted to place Stop Sticks underneath the rear tire in an attempt to prevent the vehicle from driving away again.
'This attempt missed, and the vehicle turned north on to 30th Street, stopping approximately two car lengths from the corner of 30th & Laurel Streets.
Both Officer Ken Fortune (left) and gang member John Ezell Jr (right) are recovering in hospital from their injuries
'Officer Fortune picked up the Stop Stick and ran to the stopped vehicle and placed it underneath the front passenger tire.
'Just as Officer Fortune turned to address the passenger, later identified as John Ezell Jr, the passenger door opened and Ezell pointed a handgun at Officer Fortune as Ezell said "What's going on?"'
'Ezell immediately fired at Officer Fortune, striking him in his radio microphone, with the round traveling through the microphone and into his shoulder.'
'Officer Fortune fell to the ground.'
Another officer fired a .45-caliber Glock, five times at the suspect, and a third officer fired his duty weapon, a 9mm Glock, two times.
The three officers are now on administrative leave.
Omaha Police Officer Todd Schmaderer said: 'Body worn camera footage clearly shows the officers' use of deadly force to be justified.
'September 11 is a trying day for Law Enforcement and the Omaha Police Department in particular.
'On September 11, 2003, Sergeant Jason Pratt was shot (and died days later) in the line of duty; on September 11, 2018 Officer Ken Fortune was shot in the line of duty, we are fortunate he appears to be recovering from his wound as it could have been much worse.'
A leap-year baby who committed an offence exactly 18 years after she was born has puzzled an Australian Capital Territory court.
The girl, who remains anonymous due to legal reasons, was born February 29, 2000. There was however no February 29 in 2018, in accordance with the Gregorian calendar.
ACT courts are now struggling to determine if the girl should be officially tried as an adult in the eyes of the law.
The girl was born on the leap year of February 29, 2000 and committed an offense 18 years after she was born
The ACT Children's Court originally ruled that the girl should be considered an 18-year-old and dealt with through the adult court system
The ACT Children's Court originally decided that the girl should be considered an 18-year-old and dealt with through the adult court system.
Adult or Child? Leapling is born Feb. 29, 2000 She committed the offence on Feb. 28, 2018 There was no Feb. 29 in 2000 calendar year Did she commit crime as adult or child? Advertisement
The plot thickened as the girl's lawyers appealed this decision, pointing out that a person born on February 2, 2000 would not be 18 on February 1, 2018.
They instead argued that the girl did not properly turn 18 until March 1, one day after she committed the offence.
Honourable Associate Justice of the ACT Supreme Court Verity McWilliam agreed that the child should be seen as a child in this particular instance.
'It follows that on the proper construction of [the law in question], on 28 February 2018, the plaintiff was not yet an adult, being someone who was 'at least 18 years old', because she had not yet reached the beginning of the anniversary of her birth.
'It was only on 1 March 2018 that she became someone who was 'at least' 18 years old,' she told ABC News.
Daily Mail Australia has reached out to the ACT Magistrates Court for comment.
Astronomically, a year is currently 365.25 days, minus a little. To keep it at this number, every year that is exactly divisible by four is a leap year with the extra day becoming February 29.
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King of the jungle or not, one sheepish lion got more than he bargained for after a proud lioness gave him a good telling off following a mating session.
Photographs show the lioness roaring at her male counterpart who looks shocked by her displeasure.
The dramatic images, captured by Shayne McGuire during a visit to the Massai Mara in Kenya, show the lion cowering in fear of the lioness.
Caught off guard, he stares at her sheepishly before returning back to his usual self and yelling back.
The dramatic photographs show the lioness roaring at the king of the jungle who looks shocked at her obvious displeasure
The lion and lioness were captured having a sexual encounter in the Massai Mara before the lion receives a telling off
Following their mating session the lioness roars in fury at her male counterpart in a state of frustration and rage
Clearly caught off guard the lion stares at her with a sheepish look and cowers in fear in a state of shock
The lion still looks in shock after the animals have stopped roaring at one another
This is not the first time a lion has been on the receiving end of a furious lioness.
In January, George Hart captured an angry lioness roaring into the face of the lion in the Central Serengeti, Tanzania during his first ever African safari.
The lion was spotted cowering away in fear and covering his face with his paw during the fierce lovers' tiff.
In July, game reserve manager, Giuseppe D'amico, spotted an enraged lioness slapping her partner across the face on the green plains of Tanzania in the Ndutu area.
The fighting pair were also seen baring their teeth at each other during the domestic dispute.
Donald Trump has bragged his handling of the preparations for Hurricane Florence is getting 'tremendous accolades' - even though the storm has not hit yet.
Residents along the south-eastern coast of the US have been boarding up their properties, stockpiling supplies and some have left their homes as the Category 2 storm heads toward land.
Many residents in the Carolina states have said they have little trust in the authorities and fear they would not get much support from central government should the area be devastated by the hurricane, given the response to the devastation caused by Maria to Puerto Rico last year.
A camera on the International Space Station captures the eye of Hurricane Florence as it tracks across the sea and towards the south-east coast of America
Donald Trump bragged his handling of preparations for Hurricane Florence is getting 'tremendous accolades'
But yesterday President Trump claimed politicians and people on the ground were praising the preparations made by his administration.
He said during a reception for Congressional Medal of Honor recipients at the White House: 'We're getting tremendous accolades from politicians and the people but we are ready.'
The president added the hurricane is going to be 'one of the biggest ever to hit our country' but said his staff are closely coordinating with state and local officials in the Carolinas Georgia and Virginia.
Up to 1.7m residents on the eastern seaboard have been scrambling to evacuate their homes as government officials warned the hurricane would deliver a 'Mike Tyson punch' to South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia.
Sand bags surround homes on North Topsail Beach, North Carolina, as mandatory evacuations orders were issued for the area
Chris Williams boarded up his Knuckleheads bar with the sign 'looters will be shot' in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina
As many as 3 million people could lose electricity as a result of the storm.
Trump urged people to take seriously the threat of what may be the biggest storm to hit the East Coast in decades.
He added: 'Get out of its way. Don't play games with it. It's a big one.'
Trump is keen to show his team are better prepared than during Hurricane Maria, which killed nearly 3,000 people last September.
He has been defending his handling of the devastating storm.
Trump tweeted yesterday: 'We got A Pluses for our recent hurricane work in Texas and Florida, and did an unappreciated great job in Puerto Rico, even though an inaccessible island with very poor electricity and a totally incompetent Mayor of San Juan. We are ready for the big one that is coming!'
People and pets evacuated ahead of the forecast of Hurricane Florence sought shelter at Burgaw Middle School in Burgaw, North Carolina yesterday
But Puerto Rican Democratic Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who is running for a House of Representatives seat from New York, criticized Trumps response to the disaster.
She tweeted: 'The 1 year anniversary of Hurricane Maria is next week. Some of my PR family JUST got power a few weeks ago. People are developing respiratory issues partly due to airborne fungal spores from lack of proper cleanup. The admins response to Puerto Rico has been a disaster.'
Yesterday it emerged an estimated 20,000 pallets of water bottles were left sitting on tarmac at Puerto Rico's Jose Aponte de la Torre Airport airport for nearly a year.
Decision to suspend military aid to Pakistan was not taken lightly: US NSA
WASHINGTON: US National Security Adviser John Bolton said that the decision to suspend military aid to Pakistan was not taken lightly as the Trump administration was fully aware of the consequences of taking such an action against a nuclear weapons state.
In his address to a Washington think-tank the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies earlier this week, Mr Bolton also said that the US wanted Pakistan to cooperate fully in war against terrorism as its a matter of extraordinary importance to America.
It was before my time, but the Trump administration did not take the decision to cancel a substantial part of the military aid package to Pakistan lightly, he said.
It was done knowing full well that Pakistan is a nuclear weapons state, and the risk that the government could fall into the hands of terrorists that would get control of those nuclear weapons was particularly serious.
In January, President Donald Trump suspended most of military aid to Pakistan, accusing Islamabad of allowing the Taliban to use its territory for attacks in Afghanistan. Last week, the Pentagon urged Congress to allow it to use for other purpose the funds that had been set aside for Pakistan.
The re-allocation ended the possibility that the funds earmarked for Pakistan could be released if Islamabad agreed to take the required action against various terrorist groups.
But during his visit to Islamabad last week, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had pressed the new Pakistani government that it was still possible to reset the US-Pakistan relationship if Pakistan agreed to rein in the groups reportedly operating from its soil.
Mr Bolton said Secretary Pompeo wanted to convey the message that we hoped and expected that Pakistan would cooperate fully in the war against terrorism, which they had committed to do.
He said terrorism was a serious threat to the entire subcontinent but Pakistan needed to act against terrorists because its also a threat to its own existence.
He said terrorism was also a matter of extraordinary importance for the United States and thats why it wanted the new Pakistani government to address it.
Mr Bolton said during his visit to Islamabad, Secretary Pompeo wanted to meet Prime Minister Imran Khan but could not.
Although a journalist reminded him that Mr Khan chaired the meeting between the US and Pakistani delegations, Mr Bolton did not correct himself.
Theresa May is preparing to unveil a tough new immigration system to bolster her support among Tory activists, it was claimed today.
The Prime Minister is said to want to launch a new policy in her keynote speech to party conference next month.
The proposals are expected to involve ending preferential treatment for EU nationals - an idea backed by Home Secretary Sajid Javid.
The move looks designed to quell unrest among the Conservative grassroots about her 'soft' Brexit plans.
The Prime Minister is said to want to launch a new immigration policy in her keynote speech to party conference later this month
The proposals are expected to involve ending preferential treatment for EU nationals - an idea backed by Home Secretary Sajid Javid (pictured left in Downing Street today). But they could be resisted by Chancellor Philip Hammond (pictured right in the Commons yesterday)
The post-Brexit immigration blueprint is likely to be discussed at a Cabinet meeting on September 24, according to The Times.
However, some Whitehall figures predict that a standoff between ministers could prevent it being announced, with Chancellor Philip Hammond and Business Secretary Greg Clark set to resist tight restrictions.
Ministers have been encouraged by signs that EU counterparts are starting to accept that curbs to free movement could be needed.
One Cabinet minister told MailOnline they had detected a 'softening' of the position from politicians on the continent, who were concerned about gains by the far-right in elections in Germany and Sweden.
They suggested that the shift could help the UK when it came to bartering with the EU about future immigration arrangements.
Mrs May has previously dismissed the idea of an Australian-style point-based immigration system, which was pushed by many Leave campaigners during the EU referendum.
She has also vowed to stick to her target of slashing net migration below 100,000 a year.
Currently numbers are running at around 270,000 annually, with inflows from outside the EU significantly outstripping those from within the bloc, despite the government having more scope to impose controls.
A former Home Office mandarin today urged Mrs May to abandon the immigration goal - which was first put in place by David Cameron.
Mrs May has been under pressure with Boris Johnson (pictured running near his Oxfordshire home today) thought to be plotting a leadership challenge
Cabinet ministers hope that a shift in the mood from EU politicians on free movement rules could help the UK in negotiations. Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab is pictured left with Michel Barnier in Brussels last month
Sir David Normington suggested Brexit was unlikely to lead to a reduction in the number of migrants moving to the UK.
And he said it would would be 'very difficult' to keep track of who comes into and leaves the country without introducing identity cards.
He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: 'I think it is fine for the Government to signal that it wants to reduce immigration over a period if that's what it decides to do.
'Targets get discredited if they are never met. I'd say to the Government, if you are going to have a target it would be better that you set one that is achievable to begin with, and that what we don't have is one that is out of reach.
'I really do think that for the moment a target which is below 100,000, which is what they have always said, is out of reach.'
Battle of Britain Day is celebrated every year to commemorate the aerial clash that took place from July 10 to October 31 in 1940, thought to be the first major military campaign fought entirely by the air forces.
In defense of the United Kingdom, the Royal Air Force fought against attacks from Nazi Germanys Luftwaffe in a battle in which Canada, Australia, Poland and New Zealand also took part.
Heres everything you need to know about Battle of Britain Day, the history of the Battle of Britain and when Battle of Britain Day 2018 is.
Battle of Britain Day is marked to commemorate the aerial clash that took place in 1940
What is Battle of Britain Day?
As reported by the BBC, Battle of Britain Day is considered to be when the most decisive confrontation of the Battle of Britain took place above London in September 1940.
The clash came after the Luftwaffe launched two bombing raids on London after believing the RAF was close to breaking point and followed an earlier attack that had happened eight days before.
Despite also planning to attack Portland and Southampton, the Luftwaffe changed tactics on September 7 to focus on bombing London.
However, this gave the British time to get into better shape and with the pilots having been rested, squadrons being replenished and infrastructure having been repaired, the battle could begin.
This picture shows Messerschmitt 109 being shot down during a bombing raid on Britain 1940
On September 15, then-Prime Minister Winston Churchill visited RAF Uxbridge and advised the No.11 Group of the Fighter Command, led by Air Vice-Marshal Keith Park.
250 bombers flew over the Channel on the same day at 11am and while many of the Luftwaffe were intercepted by the RAF, half managed to get to London and drop bombs.
Another 250 planes returned at 2pm, thought to be aiming for South London and the railways that travelled to Kent, with the raids continuing into the night.
Following the clash, Churchill revealed what he had seen: Presently the red bulbs showed that the majority of our squadrons were engaged. In a little while, all our squadrons were fighting and some had already begun to return for fuel.
All were in the air. The lower line of bulbs was out. There was not one squadron left in reserve. During both raids, the RAF managed to scatter the bomber formations which meant that if the bombers dropped bombs, they were dropped over a wide area.
While the battle in the air continued for many more weeks, September 15 marked a clear win against the Luftwaffe.
A picture of a bombing raid on an R.A.F. fighter airfield during the Battle of Britain 1940
According to The Sun, the Battle of Britain is the first major military campaign to be fought entirely by air forces and the British were joined by allies from many nations including Canada, Australia, Poland and New Zealand.
The RAF tackled the 176 enemy aircraft destroyed during the raid and British casualties were much fewer with only 13 pilots declared dead or missing and only 25 aircraft lost in the fight. Alongside this, many of the Germans reportedly turned around without deploying any bombs.
Buckingham Palace was hit by two bombs during the raid but neither exploded meaning the damage to the iconic building was minimal. Railway bridges between Victoria and Clapham Junction were hit, along with gas and water mains, causing great disruption to South London hospitals.
Battle of Britain Day 2018
To honour the event, Battle of Britain Day is celebrated on September 15 every year and in Canada, the clash is honoured on the third Sunday of September.
The Sun also revealed that in the past, artists have created artwork that depicts the battle to mark the day and a Battle of Britain Air Show is usually held on September 22 and 23.
In addition to this, a service of commemoration and Spitfire flypast is planned at the Battle of Britain Memorial at Capel le Ferne between Dover and Folkestone.
Residents in a Chinese city were stunned to see more than a dozen waterspouts swirling over the sea on Tuesday.
At one point, nine of them spun above the water simultaneously.
The extremely rare natural phenomenon lasted for about 20 minutes off the coast of east China's Shandong Province.
At least four waterspouts are seen in this picture taken on September 11 in Weihai, China
Residents in a Chinese city were stunned to see the extremely rare natural phenomenon
Nine water columns spun above the city at the same time while more a dozen appeared in total
The extraordinary scenes were captured by a TV crew from Shandong TV station which happened to be shooting a programme on the coast, reported its affiliated Qilu Net.
The footage showed at least three giant water columns on the Yellow Sea near Weihai city at the same time, according to footage released by Qilu Net.
The waterspouts appeared in Weihai's Chengshantou area at about 10:30am, said Qilu Net in a social media post.
The meteorological phenomenon is known as 'dragon sucking water' in Chinese.
Qilu Net went on gushing that it seemed like multiple dragons had descended upon the city to drink water.
Staff at the Chengtoushan Tourist Area told MailOnline that they saw more than a dozen waterspouts on the sea on that morning, and nine twirling at the same time.
Qilu Evening Newspaper also reported the incident, calling the phenomenon 'unprecedented'.
The extremely rare natural phenomenon lasted more than 20 minutes of the coast of Weihai
Stunned by the extraordinary scenes, media have called the phenomenon 'unprecedented'
Waterspouts as such typically occur when the air temperature in the sky suddenly drops to a much lower point than the air temperature near the water surface.
According to the National Ocean Service of the United States of America, waterspouts fall into two categories: the tornadic ones and the fair-weather ones.
Tornadic waterspouts are usually accompanied by high winds and seas, large hail, and frequent dangerous lightning. They develop downwards from thunderstorms.
On the other hand, fair-weather waterspouts form along the dark flat base of a line of developing cumulus clouds. They develop on the surface of waters and work their way upwards.
A young schoolboy has died after falling off his chair and suffering from a medical incident in the middle of class.
The 15-year-old boy from Ormeau Woods State High School, in Ormeau, Queensland, fell off his chair during class and lost all consciousness on Thursday morning.
It is believed he suffered a serious medical incident.
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The 15-year-old boy, from Ormeau Woods State High School in Queensland, fell off his chair during class and lost all consciousness on Thursday morning
The teacher immediately performed CPR on the boy but was unable to revive him.
Acting Principal Dan Finn issued a statement on the school's Facebook page asking the family's privacy to be respected during this devastating moment.
'As some of you may be aware, a student suffered a serious medical incident at school this morning,' Mr Finn wrote.
'Please understand that we must respect the privacy of the family at this time and so we cannot provide further details.'
The teacher immediately performed CPR on the boy but was unable to revive him
He has ensured that counselling and support is being offered to all students and teachers who are affected by the incident, and is willing to meet any parent who may have any concerns.
'I am only too happy to meet with any parent who has a concern,' Mr Finn offered.
'Guidance or counselling services are being made available for anyone who may require support.
'Students can access counselling services in the Resource Centre tomorrow (Friday) by asking for an out-of-class pass from their class teacher.'
He is unable to provide anymore information about the incident and has again requested the respect and privacy for the family affected, and has thanked parents for their support.
Police have been informed of the incident.
'Guidance or counselling services are being made available for anyone who may require support'
Members of the public have offered their condolences to the boy's family.
'Thoughts and prayers go out to the family and his friends,' one wrote.
'A very sad day. My condolences to the family involved,' another wrote.
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The Duke of Sussex today told young Royal Marines recruits they face 'blood, sweat and tears' in the months ahead as he carried out his first role as their Captain General.
Making a dramatic entrance by helicopter, Prince Harry joked the young men were 'like rabbits in the headlights' as he visited the Marines' main training base in Lympstone, Devon for the first time as the outfit's Captain General.
Harry arrived in a Royal Navy Wildcat Maritime Attack Helicopter drawn from the Commando Helicopter Force, who provide crucial aerial support to the Royal Marines.
The former Apache helicopter commander jumped from the Wildcat, flown by 847 Naval Air Squadron to meet the marines.
Speaking to one group who are a fortnight into 32 weeks of training to earn the coveted green beret, the duke quipped: 'You're going to need each other, that's for sure.'
Harry assumed the role in December last year, succeeding his grandfather The Duke of Edinburgh who was Captain General for some 64 years.
The Duke of Sussex is presented with the Sword of honour by Major General Charlie Stickland OBE
Harry larked about with the Invictus Games Racing team's fleet of cars, including this miniature model
The Duke of Sussex became Captain General Royal Marines in December 2017 and assumed the role in succession to his grandfather The Duke of Edinburgh, who was Captain General for some 64 years
Harry met with William Prosser and his father, Afghan veteran and Royal Marine Kieran Prosser - who was this year part of a 'handpicked' team to take the England football squad through a tough training weekend to instil 'Commando Spirit'
Prince Harry got into the spirit of things in the training centre and helped put young new recruits through their paces
The Duke watched recruits being put through their paces on a rope course above a freezing tank of water, and saw a number haul themselves out dripping after falling in.
Harry, a former Army captain who served in the forces for 10 years, added: 'It's going to be blood, sweat and tears.
'Every single time you end up going to bed where you're crying, or got a sore leg, or an emotional issue to have to deal with - but it is without doubt probably one of the best professions you can ever be involved with.
'You guys are in one of the top jobs, you get to be a marine and get to do everything that comes along with it.'
The Duke chatted with Marines and and their families including William Prosser and his father, Afghan veteran and Royal Marine Kieran Prosser.
Sgt Prosser was this year part of a 'handpicked' team to take the England football squad through a tough training weekend in a bid to instil 'Commando Spirit'.
The Duke of Sussex told young Royal Marines recruits they face 'blood, sweat and tears' in the months ahead but are in one of the world's best jobs
The Duke of Sussex poses with The Invictus Games Foundation GT Championship team
Formed in 2017, Invictus Games Racing is a collaborative project with the Invictus Games Foundation
The former Apache helicopter commander jumped from the Wildcat, flown by 847 Naval Air Squadron from Commando Helicopter Force based at Royal Naval Air Station Yeovilton, to meet senior marines
The Duke of Sussex sits in a car that has been commissioned by Jaguar and Landrover and specially adapted to race in the GT Championships
The Duke concluded the day at Lympstone with a ceremonial sword presentation on the steps of the centre
The Duke of Sussex is today meeting Royal Marines recruits for the first time as their Captain General
The Duke of Sussex shared a joke with Royal Marines as he made his way from the officers' mess
Harry met with Royal Marine Phil Eaglesham and his dog Cooper. Cpl Eaglesham contracted an illness known as Q Fever (Helmand Fever) while on tour in Afghanistan, falling ill as he prepared to leave Camp Bastian. Although the infection has now been treated, the after affects had a huge effect on Phillip's daily and family life
Harry could be seen looking relaxed as he came in to land on the barracks in Lympstone
The Duke with Corporal Matt Drake, who suffered injury in the Middle East and is now supported by The Royal Marines Charity. In December 2016, Cpl Drake was left paralysed from chest level after an accident while deployed with 42 Commando Royal Marines
It was announced in May 2017 that The Duke of Edinburgh would be stepping back from Royal Engagements, with his final official engagement coming at the finale of the Royal Marines 1664 Global Challenge at Buckingham Palace. Harry took on his role last December
The Duke arrived at the Centre in a Royal Navy Wildcat Maritime Attack Helicopter drawn from the Commando Helicopter Force, who provide crucial aerial support to the Royal Marines
The Royal Family has a long association with the Royal Navy, with Harry's grandfather having been affiliated with the Royal Marines for some 64 years
In 2008, Prince Harry was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant with The Household Cavalry (Blues and Royals)
The Duke of Sussex talks with Commandant General of Lympstone, Major General Charlie Stickland OBE. Major General Stickland joined the Royal Marines in 1987, serving in Northern Ireland, anti smuggling operations in Hong Kong and numerous amphibious deployments to Norway, the Mediterranean rim and the Far East
Prince Harry inspected the Marines - and appeared to make one young recruit chuckle
Known as Captain Harry Wales in the Army, the Duke served two tours of Afghanistan from 2007 to 2008 and 2012 to 2013 before leaving in 2015
Prince Harry served in the Army for ten years, rising to the rank of Captain and undertaking two tours of Afghanistan
Harry also met Phil Eaglesham and his dog Cooper. Cpl Eaglesham contracted an illness known as Q Fever, or Helmand Fever, while on tour in Afghanistan, falling ill as he prepared to leave Camp Bastian.
Although the infection has now been treated, the after affects had a huge effect on Phillip's daily and family life.
Corporal Matt Drake, who was paralysed from chest level after an accident while deployed with 42 Commando Royal Marines in 2016, also spoke with Harry about how he is supported by The Royal Marines Charity.
Harry takes over from the Duke of Edinburgh, whose association with the Royal Marines dates back 64 years to 2nd June 1953, when he was appointed Captain General in succession to the late King George VI.
The royal made his way out of the Royal Navy Wildcat Maritime Attack Helicopter before he received a ceremonial welcome
Having spent a decade serving in the Army, Harry is no stranger to military training centres and looked at ease as he jumped out of the helicopter
Harry has used his role as a member of the royal family to bring wider public attention to the support that wounded, injured and sick servicemen and women need through their entire rehabilitation process
He chatted to officers as he made his way to meet the new recruits, who are about to undergo their intense training
Harry spent ten years working in the Armed Forces, ending operational duties in 2015. During his service, he conducted two tours of duty to Afghanistan with the British Army
Having served in the British Army for ten years, The Duke of Sussex says he is 'passionate about promoting the welfare of those who are serving or who have served their country in the Armed Forces'
Harry has volunteered with the Army's Personnel Recovery Unit in London, trekked with wounded servicemen and women to the South Pole and in the Arctic, and supported a number of adventure challenges through his Endeavour Fund, and organising the Invictus Games
The Duke looked smart in brown suede desert boots, beige chinos and a suit jacket as he was shown around the barracks
After making a grand entrance by helicopter, the Duke of Sussex strolled around the officers' mess and barracks
Having assumed his new role last December, Harry is now meeting the new recruits and learning about their training
The Duke of Sussex waits to inspect the troops at the Royal Marines Commando Training Centre
Prince Harry is set to explore the centre and meet new recruits undergoing training in order to learn more about the process of becoming a Royal Marine
Harry explored the barracks and met new recruits undergoing training in order to learn more about the process of becoming a Royal Marine, before meeting the Invictus Games Racing Team who will be using Lympstone on the day for a team bonding exercise.
He received a ceremonial welcome before meeting recruits training in the gym and commando assault course.
The Duke also learnt about the support services on offer to Royal Marines, such as the onsite rehabilitation centre, the Royal Marines charity and a regular family group called 'Who Let The Dads Out' at which Marines families take time to chat, play and have a cup of tea once a week.
Harry then met the Invictus Games Racing Team which includes former Royal Marine Commandos Steve McCulley and Paul Vice MC.
In 2000, aged just 16, Paul Vice MC joined the Royal Marines. In 2011 while on foot patrol in Helmand Province, he stepped on a command wire Improvised Explosive Device (IED), which detonated underneath his Section.
He suffered a traumatic brain injury resulting in paralysis of his right arm, and more than 400 pieces of shrapnel were removed from his body by surgeons. He was, as a subsequent documentary called him, 'The Commando Who Refused To Die'.
He was one of six casualties from the explosion which, as he describes, 'took from me the one thing I felt I was born to do be a soldier'. In 2014, he competed in the first Invictus Games, winning a gold medal in cycling. After the Games he had to have his left leg amputated below the knee. He was medically discharged in August 2015.
His seven-medal haul at the 2016 Invictus Games meant he returned home as the competition's most successful male athlete.
In 2011, fourteen years after first joining the Royal Marines, Major Steve McCulley was nearly killed by an IED while leading 175 Royal Marines in Helmand Province, Afghanistan and he lay in a coma for three weeks.
He had served in Commando Units during operational tours to Northern Ireland, the Balkans, Sierra Leone, Iraq and Afghanistan
As part of the new Invictus Games Racing team, Steve raced in the first half of the season alongside professional driver Matthew George.
The team comprises four ex-service personnel from the Royal Marines, the RAF and the Parachute Regiment, in addition to two professional drivers.
The Duke will also learn about the support services on offer to Royal Marines, such as the onsite rehabilitation centre, the Royal Marines charity and a regular family group called 'Who Let The Dads Out'. Pictured, Harry arriving by helicopter
The Duke of Edinburgh's association with the Royal Marines dates back 64 years to 2nd June 1953, when he was appointed Captain General in succession to the late King George VI
The Queen last year have her formal approval to the appointment of Prince Henry as Captain General Royal Marines, succeeding the role from The Duke of Edinburgh
Harry received a ceremonial welcome before meeting recruits training in the gym and commando assault course
The Commando Training Centre at Lympstone selects and trains all Royal Marines Officers, recruits and reserves. On average, 1,300 recruits, 2,000 potential recruits and 400 potential officers attend training courses and acquaint courses there every year
The Duke will also meet the Invictus Games Racing Team, which includes former Royal Marine Commandos Steve McCulley and Paul Vice MC, who will be using Lympstone on the day for a team bonding exercise
Today Harry will also meet the Invictus Games Racing Team and see their specially adapted racing cars
The Duke will also meet a family group called 'Who Let The Dads Out' at which Marines families take time to chat, play and have a cup of tea once a week
A salute was made after the Duke of Sussex had inspected the troops
The Duke of Sussex is seen here meeting and chatting to commandos at the barracks in Lympstone
Marine Commandos demonstrated their physical prowess as they climbed ropes, watched by Prince Harry
The Royal Marines, which can trace its origin back to 1664, is the UK's elite amphibious fighting force. Each recruit has to complete the Commando course, including the 'rope regain' assault course
The Commando training centre in Lympstone trains all Royal Marines Officers, Recruits & Reserves, as well as providing an onsite rehabilitation centre
The Commando Training Centre at Lympstone selects and trains all Royal Marines Officers, recruits and reserves.
On average, 1,300 recruits, 2,000 potential recruits and 400 potential officers attend training courses and acquaint courses there every year.
The Royal Marines, which can trace its origin back to 1664, is the UK's elite amphibious fighting force. Each recruit has to complete the Commando course, including the 'rope regain' assault course.
The training ground in Lympstone trains all Officers, recruits and reserves, as well as providing an onsite rehabilitation centre.
It is also the home of the Royal Marines charity a number of welfare groups.
Harry will conclude the day at Lympstone with a ceremonial sword presentation on the steps of the centre.
The father of a teenage boy who died in hospital after an incident in which he tried to take his own life has paid tribute to his 'wonderful' son.
Bradley John, was found dying at St John Lloyd Catholic Comprehensive School in Llanelli, west Wales, yesterday.
Farmer Byron John, 53, said: 'We as a family are devastated to lose Bradley. He was such a charismatic, wonderful and dearly loved individual.'
Mr Byron praised his son in a statement, adding: 'He was an accomplished horse rider and founding member of the Three Counties Bloodhounds, who hunt the scent of a human runner.
Concerns were raised for the well being of the schoolboy, named locally as Bradley John (pictured), at St John Lloyd Catholic Comprehensive School in Llanelli, west Wales, yesterday
'Bradley was the absolute centre of our world. We would like to thank everyone for their support at this horrific time. It has meant so much to the whole family.'
The 14-year-old is said to have killed himself amid claims on social media by friends and relatives that he was being bullied.
One family friend wrote on Facebook: 'Bradley had diagnosed ADHD and was terribly bullied as a direct result of the presentation of his neurodevelopmental condition.'
Teachers became 'concerned for the wellbeing of a pupil' at midday on Wednesday after other children raised the alarm.
They gave first aid until and ambulance, three rapid response vehicles and six police cars arrived at the scene.
Bradley's younger sister attends the school, which has 500 pupils aged between 11 and 16.
A family friend wrote on social media: 'Bradley had diagnosed ADHD and was terribly bullied as a direct result of the presentation of his condition'
One father who lives close to the school said: 'Children and parents were in tears when they were collected.
'It must have been a shock for the pupils there at the time.'
A woman at a nearby doctor's surgery said: 'I've been told it was a dreadful incident but no one seems to know exactly what happened.
'Everyone is just thinking about the boy's poor parents and sister at the moment.'
A heartbroken relative posted on Facebook: 'My little Brad, a little boy with an absolute heart of gold who we all loved unconditionally.
'I hope you're at peace now away from those horrible bullies. We love you endlessly and always will my little angel
Another Facebook tribute from a family friend said: 'There is absolutely no excuse for bullying. Bradley was such a sweet, kind hearted boy with a huge love for horses. Life and people can so so cruel sometimes.'
A pupil at St John Lloyd Roman Catholic Comprehensive school in Llanelli, Carmarthenshire, posted a photograph of Bradley alongside a 'Stop Bullying' slogan.
Bradley's father Byron John has a small farm and was Master of the Carmarthenshire Hunt until fox hunting was banned in the UK.
He now runs a legal 'Clean Boot Hunt' in West Wales which is recreational and cruelty free.
Father Byron John (left) and son Bradley John (right) - both members of keen hunting family
Mr Byron praised his son in a statement, adding: 'He was an accomplished horse rider and founding member of the Three Counties Bloodhounds, who hunt the scent of a human runner
The 14-year-old is said to have killed himself amid claims on social media by friends and relatives that he was being bullied
Inspector Chris Neve said: 'Bradley's death has shaken the local community and on behalf of Dyfed-Powys Police I offer my deepest sympathy to his family.
'We are following-up all possible lines of enquiry to establish a picture of what happened in the lead-up to Bradley's death.
'Specially trained officers are supporting the family at this tragic time and working with the school to support his peers.'
The school issued this statement on their Facebook page following the tragic incident
St John Lloyd Catholic Comprehensive School has confirmed that the school is open as normal today, adding that pupils and staff will receive specialist support.
The school is a mixed 11 16 school serving the communities of Llanelli, Carmarthen, Ammanford and surrounding areas.
For confidential support call the Samaritans on 116123 or visit a local Samaritans branch, see Samaritans.org for details
Jeremy Corbyn's aide who worked for months in Parliament without security clearance called for Nato be 'defeated' and has been linked to a terror group, MailOnline can reveal.
Andrew Murray, chief of staff of the Unite union and one of the Mr Corbyn's closest allies, came out openly in support of terrorists at a rally at which the Labour leader also spoke.
He took the stage to read out a message sent to him by Ali Fayyad, a Hezbollah terror chief.
The letter began, 'Greetings to you from the freedom fighters of Hezbollah,' and included an extended anti-British, anti-American and anti-Israeli rant that justified kidnap and violence.
Jeremy Corbyn's aide Andrew Murray (pictured with the Labour leader) spent seven months working in Parliament without a security pass to do so, having applied for one 12 months ago
Footage has emerged of Mr Murray, 60, who is chief of staff for trade union Unite, speaking on stage at a rally in 2009 (pictured) where he called for Nato to be defeated
'Hezbollah's only fault is that it is a Lebanese resistance movement,' it said, calling British policy on the Middle East a 'shameful position'.
People at the rally carried banners saying 'victory to the intifada' and 'we are all Hezbollah' and waved the communist flag. Mr Corbyn himself also spoke, railing against Israeli 'state terrorism'.
Mr Murray, who joined the Labour leader at the head of the anti-West Stop The War Coalition, also said he supported militants attacking Western troops.
At a Europeans Against Nato rally in 2009, he ranted: 'Our desire to defeat Nato demands that we extend the hand of solidarity to those who are exercising their right to resist.'
He added: 'Only in unity, north and south, east and west, European and Middle Eastern, will we defeat the Nato leaders. That is what we must do.'
At a rally in 2006, Mr Murray read out a message sent to him by Ali Fayad, a Ukrainian arms dealer and senior Hezbollah terror chief, who was jailed in 2014 in the US for funding terror
People at the rally (pictured, which before Mr Fayad was convicted, carried banners saying 'victory to the intifada' and 'we are all Hezbollah' and waved the communist flag
Mr Corbyn has come under intense pressure since it was revealed that two of his closest aides have been working in Parliament for months without security clearance and faces a probe
In a report on the 2006 march, where 20,000 people are said to have attended, the Socialist party newspaper wrote: 'Left-wing leading members of the Stop the War Coalition, including George Galloway and Andrew Murray, not only failed to raise socialist ideas but also expressed uncritical support for the Islamist Hamas and Hezbollah.'
A speech was also made by activist and long-term Corbyn ally Azzam Tamimi, who said he wanted to blow himself up in a suicide attack.
'Sacrificing myself for Palestine is a noble cause,' he told the BBC. 'It is the straight way to pleasing my God and I would do it if I had the opportunity.'
Hezbollah is an Iran-backed Shia militia in Lebanon that was set up in the early 1980s.
Its followers use the Hitler salute and has carried out terror attacks against Jews both in Israel and worldwide. Britain views its military wing as a terrorist entity.
Colonel Richard Kemp, former commander of British forces in Afghanistan, told MailOnline: 'Make no mistake, Hezbollah is actively planning attacks around the world, including in Europe and in the UK.
'It is no surprising that a Corbyn ally has these sympathies. After all, Corbyn himself called Hezbollah his friends a few years ago.
'To have supporters in the heart of our democracy will give the terrorists great encouragement. It is deeply worrying and it must be stopped.'
Mr Corbyn is facing a probe over claims that a second aide has also been working in Parliament without security clearance.
His Private Secretary, Iram Awan, a British-born pro-Palestinian activist was not granted full security passes but continued to work for the Labour leader in Parliament for nine months using a visitor's pass.
Mr Corbyn is under intense pressure because every staffer in Parliament requires a Commons pass and is required to undergo a counter-terrorist check (CTC) into their background and associates.
Mr Murray is the grandson of a Tory MP and was educated at a 32,000-a-year public school. He appears in Debrett's Peerage, the guide to Britain's aristocracy. His full moniker is Andrew Drummond-Murray of Mastrick.
His father, Peter Drummond-Murray of Mastrick, was a banker and stockbroker from an old Scottish family.
His mother, Barbara, was the daughter of Lord Rankeillour, a Conservative MP who later became Governor of Madras in India.
Corbyn's Private Secretary Iram Awan (pictured with Corbyn), a British-born national, has also been working, this time for nine months, in Parliament using a visitor's pass, which is against the rules
Mr Murray was a member of Britain's communist party until 2016 and has praised Stalin and North Korea. On one occasion, he reportedly said: 'Against imperialists, we are all Stalinists'.
On another, he pledged 'solidarity' with the North Korean regime. It normally takes a matter of weeks for Parliamentary passes to be processed.
However, Mr Murray and Miss Awan have not yet had their application approved despite taking up the role with the Labour leader many months ago. Commons authorities are now investigating whether Parliamentary rules have been broken by Mr Corbyn's office in allowing them to work in Parliament.
Tory MPs have also written to the Serjeant-at-Arms, who is responsible for order and security in the Commons, to demand he also investigates the affair.
Tory Party chairman Brandon Lewis said last night: 'This clear breach of security not only puts Parliament at risk, it also raises serious questions about Jeremy Corbyn's judgment and integrity.'
Tory MP Leo Docherty added: 'We all know how the security of Parliament is a matter of the utmost importance and Jeremy Corbyn has put this at risk.'
Commons authorities were facing questions last night about the apparent breach of basic security rules.
A Labour spokesman said: 'We do not comment on staffing matters.'
A brewery has copped a barrage of outrage online following a vulgar poem used to promoted it's new beer.
Beer Hops at Burleigh Heads, on the Gold Coast, was blasted on social media for the name of their new beer name - Pussy Juice.
The brewery was forced to dump the name just hours of releasing their new beer on Thursday along with a a vulgar, sexually suggestive poem on their Facebook page.
Beer Hops at Burleigh Heads, on the Gold Coast, was blasted on social media for the name of their new beer - Pussy Juice
The brewery was forced to dump the name just hours of releasing their new beer on Thursday along with a a vulgar, sexually suggestive poem on their Facebook page
The poem read: 'Wet and ready right in front of you, a ripe and juicy peach.
'And you know you could taste it all if you had the balls to reach.
'Take it roughly in your hand and tear away the seal.
'Lap the liquid lustily while devouring your last meal.
'Press the face towards the opening as you drink the goodness in.
'Tilt your head back just a little now its dripping down your chin.
'So good it must be heaven as you shed one single tear.
'Get your mind out of the gutter boys its just a can of beer.'
There were some comments supportive of the name of the beer, whereas others had slammed the name
Later on Thursday, they issued an apology acknowledging their stuff up
There were some comments supporting the name of the 6.4 per cent Peach NEIPA (New England-style India Pale Ale), while others slammed the brewery for their lewd promotion.
Later on Thursday, they issued an apology acknowledging their stuff up.
'Today we stuffed up and we apologise,' they wrote.
'As a new business we have an amazing dedicated team who work around the clock to help us make and promote our beer.
'After 1 year of service we give each staff member their own custom beer. Normally we try to be a bit cheeky and creative with the beer names, styles and design.'
They explained that they had produced a beer for their 'epic team leader' who's nicknamed AliCat.
'Playing on her nickname AliCat as well as the words of a well known drink in the industry, and the Juice referencing the beer style,' they explained.
'She expected it to be seen as a pro-women celebration and something fun to mark her 1 year of service.'
'As a new business, its been a lesson for us. We certainly werent trying to create anything viral or any kind of deliberate negative press'
The team said they had already received some positive responses to the name of the drink as well as negative reactions, but only understood that 'people who know us, would get the references in the beer name, others who dont, have got reason to be upset.'
'No one is more upset than our beloved AliCat. The beer was designed as a celebration her service and we certainly arent doing that.
'As a new business, its been a lesson for us. We certainly werent trying to create anything viral or any kind of deliberate negative press.
'Anyone who knows us knows that we are all genuine supporters of the industry, women in the industry, diversity in the industry and also having a bit of fun in the industry.
'Today we got the balance wrong, and for that we apologise. Weve taken the post down and also taken the decision to not sell the beer under this name.'
'Today we got the balance wrong, and for that we apologise. Weve taken the post down and also taken the decision to not sell the beer under this name'
Residents were warned to get ready to evacuate as firefighters battled an out of control bushfire that caused traffic chaos on a busy highway.
A large grass fire in Grantham in Queensland's Lockyer Valley, 100 kilometres west of Brisbane travelled from Philps Road towards the Warrego Highway and forced it to close in both directions.
Westbound lanes of the highway remain closed while eastbound lanes have since reopened.
The blaze is still burning out of control on Thursday night as crews continue to backburn along the Warrego Highway.
A large grass fire in Grantham in Queensland's Lockyer Valley crossed a busy highway
Around 124 hectares of land have been burnt but no homes have been lost, 7 News reported.
'The fire is burning within containment lines and there is no threat to property at this time,' Queensland Fire and Emergency Services' latest warning at 9pm states.
'Smoke may affect the area and affected residents are asked to close windows and doors. Those suffering from a respiratory condition should keep their medications close by. Motorists are advised to drive with caution and to conditions.'
Earlier in the afternoon, Grantham residents were urged to prepare to flee their home as conditions could get worse.
You need to be ready to follow your bushfire survival plan. If you do not have a plan, or intend to leave, you should be ready to leave the area because the situation could get worse quickly,' the warning stated.
'Fire crews are still working to contain the fire but firefighters may not be able to protect every property. You should not expect a firefighter at your door.'
Grantham residents were urged to prepare to flee their homes on Thursday afternoon
That warning has since been downgraded to an advice level.
A waterbombing helicopter was brought in to assist with firefighting efforts, amid fears properties were be under threat.
Fire authorities also warned that people in the area will be affected by smoke, which will reduce visibility and air quality.
The blaze near Granthan (pictured) continues to burn out of control on Thursday night
Earlier this week, largest aerial firefighting fleet ever assembled in the Queensland was unveiled with eight waterbombing planes and helicopters to be based in Queensland on an 84-day contract.
The aircraft will be based in Toowoomba and Bundaberg so they can be quickly deployed to trouble spots.
Around 124 hectares of land were burnt 100 kilometres west of Brisbane on Thursday
'Positioning the fleet at these locations will ensure an aerial observation and waterbombing service is available to communities and personnel across the state,' Fire and Emergency Services Minister Craig Crawford said.
More than 1400 bushfires have burned since Queensland's bushfire season began on August 1.
Earlier in the afternoon, resident were urged to get ready to flee their homes
Fraudsters posing as government workers on Tuesday forced people to leave their homes and businesses in Virginia as Hurricane Florence inched closer to the US east coast.
Officials in Norfolk City sent warnings to the public about 'individuals dressed in fluorescent vests' going door-to-door.
While Zone A is a mandatory evacuation zone, a city spokesperson said they would never force anyone to leave.
Sand bags surround homes on North Topsail Beach, North Carolina, as mandatory evacuations orders were issued for the area
People pick up sandbags in Newport News as Hurricane Florence approaches
Traffic backs up along Oyster Point Road as people attempt to pickup sandbags Wednesday morning in Newport News
It is an 'absolutely a personal decision' to stay or go, Lori Crouch, a spokesperson for the city said.
Officials do not know why the people are trying to force others to leave, but they are looking into it.
On Wednesday, Hurricane Florence was downgraded to a Category 2 storm, but is still considered extremely dangerous.
Winds have slowed down from around 140mph to 110mph.
Those living on the US east coast have been boarding up their properties, stockpiling supplies and some have left their homes as the Category 2 storm heads toward land.
Locals in the Carolina states have said they have little trust in the authorities and fear they would not get much support from central government should the area be devastated by the hurricane, given the response to the devastation caused by Maria to Puerto Rico last year.
Chris Williams boarded up his Knuckleheads bar with the sign 'looters will be shot' in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina
Yesterday, President Trump claimed politicians and people on the ground were praising the preparations made by his administration.
He said during a reception for Congressional Medal of Honor recipients at the White House: 'We're getting tremendous accolades from politicians and the people but we are ready.'
The president added the hurricane is going to be 'one of the biggest ever to hit our country' but said his staff are closely coordinating with state and local officials in the Carolinas Georgia and Virginia.
Up to 1.7million residents on the eastern seaboard have been scrambling to evacuate their homes as government officials warned the hurricane would deliver a 'Mike Tyson punch' to South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia.
As many as 3 million people could lose electricity as a result of the storm.
Trump urged people to take seriously the threat of what may be the biggest storm to hit the East Coast in decades.
He added: 'Get out of its way. Don't play games with it. It's a big one.'
I have received seven threat warnings in last few days: Mian Iftikhar Hussain
Awami National Party (ANP) leader and former provincial minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain, who has been receiving threat alerts from the security agencies for the past few weeks, has urged the federal government to act against militants. Talking to reporters, he said he was informed by the provincial Home Department as well as representatives of the security agencies that two suicide bombers had entered Pakistan to target him.
I have been told that the level of threat is so high that I should minimise my movement and choose alternate routes while travelling, he said, adding that it is odd that he is on the hit list of militants when he holds no position in the government and has little involvement in policymaking in the country.
Further, Iftikhar said that the notice about the threat alert he received from the National Counter Terrorism Authority (Nacta) was also sent to all high officials, including Prime Minister Imran Khan and Inter-Services Intelligence director general Naveed Mukhtar, but there has been no response from the government over the threats.
The ANP leader said he has received seven threat warnings in the last few days. I was also informed that an attacker who was involved in Haroon Bilours killing has been given the task to target me. The authorities have almost all the details about the identity of the potential attackers, but they have failed to make any arrests, he said.
He reiterated that it is the states responsibility to provide security and protection. Further, he vowed not to bow down to terrorists come what may. I did not stop [speaking out against terrorism] even when my son was killed. I offered to forgive my sons killers if the militants quit violence and surrender before the state.
In response to a question, he said that Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has not been very vocal against terrorism in the country as PM Imran Khan had been demanding offices for Taliban. This government lacks the will to stop the sources of terrorism.
Awami Workers Party (AWP) activist Ismat Shahjehan says government and law enforcement agencies are supposed to act in case of threat to a public figure instead of issuing alerts to the target. The way Mian Iftikhar is being sent messages by high officials about possibility of attempt on his life is tantamount to harassment, she told Daily Times.
Ismat maintianed that threat alerts to Mian Iftikhar were part of efforts by the powers-that-be to destablise the ANP in the wake of the recent Pashtun uprising. Mian Iftikhar had always been with the victims of terrorism in KP and continued his politics against terrorism despite his sons killing. The state should honour his resilience instead of intimidating him, she said, adding that the government should immediately arrest the terrorists planning to attack him.
Faith Minister Lord Bourne has called for Imams and Rabbis to get automatic places in the House of Lords alongside Church of England bishops
The Tory minister for faith has called for Imams and Rabbis to get automatic places in the House of Lords alongside Church of England bishops.
Lord Bourne, a junior Wales Office Minister, said he was in favour of adding 'other faiths' to the Lords.
Introducing other religions to the House of Lords would break centuries of tradition and require a change to the constitutional fabric of the UK.
There are currently 26 Lords Spiritual, all of whom are Church of England bishops and including the Archbishops of Canterbury and York.
The bishops have their seats because Church of England is the 'established' church with a privileged place in the monarchy and parliament.
Lord Bourne told The Times: 'I'd be more [for] adding other faiths.'
He said that there was a 'great value' in having bishops in the Lords but that 'broader representation' would be beneficial.
But he was slapped down by Theresa May's official spokesman, who said he was speaking in a personal capacity.
And former minister Sir Desmond Swayne dismissed the idea - questioning whether there was even a real call for the change in the country at large.
He said the established Church of England was an 'umbrella' under which all faiths take part in the public debate.
He told MailOnline: 'You can go to any Church of England church and they are so different from one another.
There are currently 26 Lords Spiritual, all of whom are Church of England bishops and including the Archbishops of Canterbury and York (pictured is Justin Welby during a Lords debate in July)
The bishops have their seats because Church of England is the 'established' church with a privileged place in the monarchy and parliament (pictured at the Archbishop of Canterbury with the Bishops of Gloucester and Crediton)
'It is an essentially English, tolerant institution. Therefore it lends itself to being an umbrella that all sorts of other religions can shelter under.
Former minister Sir Desmond Swayne (file) dismissed the idea - questioning whether there was even a real call for the change in the country at large.
'I would be reluctant to trade that. If it's not broken why fix it?'
Sir Desmond said the second biggest faith in the UK was the Catholic church, which bans its clerics from serving in legislature.
The PM's official spokesman said: 'The minister was expressing his personal view.
'The Prime Minister has been clear that there should be restraint on new appointments.'
Britain is one of only two nations, with Iran, to reserve places in its parliament for unelected religious leaders.
Clergymen used to outnumber secular lords in parliament. They were kicked out altogether in 1642 during the Civil War but were reinstated in 1661; their number was fixed at 26 in 1847.
The Lords Spiritual survived Labour attempts to reform the House of Lords in 1997 and would have been left in place even under coalition plans for Lords elections.
The Archbishop of Canterbury courted controversy yesterday, telling the TUC conference the universal credit welfare reform should be halted and criticising the 'gig economy' as a modern evil.
New footage has emerged showing ageing 'anarchist' Ian Bone hissing insults at children this time Eton schoolboys.
In the video, the Class War protester follows pupils wearing the public schools distinctive black tail coat uniforms and brands them inbred w******.
Bone, 71, sparked outrage yesterday when he confronted MP Jacob Rees-Mogg outside his Westminster home and told four of his six children: Your daddy is a horrible person.
But as the film unearthed by MailOnline shows, it is not the first time his acid-tongue has been aimed at youngsters.
He led a protest outside the world famous, 32,000-a-year Eton College in Berkshire in October 2011.
Ageing 'class warrior' Ian Bone is seen hissing insults at Eton schoolboys as young as 13 as he follows pupils dressed in the public schools distinctive black tail coat and brands them inbred w******
He led a protest outside the world famous, 32,000-a-year Eton College in Berkshire in October 2011
Bone, 71, sparked outrage yesterday when he confronted MP Jacob Rees-Mogg outside his Westminster home and told four of his six children: Your daddy is a horrible person
Bones contempt for the upper class stems from his childhood. His father was butler to Sir Gerald Coke, and as a child, he hated the rich children from the big house for calling his father Bone
In a Class War video set to the theme tune of comedy Jeeves and Wooster, he sneers: All youve got is a life of privilege, wealth, women and luxury, how can you take it?
Theres only so many quadrangles you can flee down. No good running away to your housemaster, hes a pervert. Hes a twice convicted sex offender.
Later, surrounded by fawning fellow protesters, he approaches a group of young Eton boys and taunts: Cower in your doorways, look at you. Wheres your Rifle Corp now? Privileged toffs, your day is coming!
And in a reference to the age-old Fagging tradition of younger public schoolboys being made to serve older pupils, he adds: Scurry back, have a good beating you Fags, You inbred w******!
A passing woman makes her anger clear and fumes at Bone and his cohorts: I find this absolutely disgusting.
Bones contempt for the upper class stems from his childhood.
His father was butler to Sir Gerald Coke, grandson of the Earl of Leicester, and the family lived in a bonded cottage on a family estate in Hampshire.
As a child, he hated the rich children from the big house for calling his father Bone.
After finishing a degree in politics from Swansea University, he announced to his parents that his choice of career was to be an anarchist, and that he would fund it by claiming the dole.
In a Class War video set to the theme tune of comedy Jeeves and Wooster, he sneers: All youve got is a life of privilege, wealth, women and luxury, how can you take it?'
Later, surrounded by fawning fellow protesters, he approaches a group of young Eton boys and taunts: Cower in your doorways, look at you. Wheres your Rifle Corp now? Privileged toffs, your day is coming!
And in a reference to the age-old Fagging tradition of younger public schoolboys being made to serve older pupils, he adds: Scurry back, have a good beating you Fags, You inbred w******!
He lived in Bristol, playing in a band, drinking heavily and staying in rented flats. It was in the city that he helped set up Class War, a group dedicated to the violent overthrow of the state.
He divided his time between Bristol and London, still claiming benefits, and now lives in the capital in a 330,000 home with the mortgage paid off, which belongs to his partner Jane Nicholl, 66.
She, too, is an anarchist and was arrested last year for setting fire to an effigy of Boris Johnson on Guy Fawkes night in 2014. The charge was subsequently dropped.
Bone is also known for his links to Jeremy Corbyn's brother Piers, whom the Class War founder counts as a good friend.
Yesterday, Class War activists launched a sickening tirade at former Eton pupil Jacob Rees-Mogg and his children including his six-year-old son Anselm.
The youngsters stood stunned while their parents tried to usher them inside, but they still heard the full bullying rant demanding to be told how much the family's long serving nanny is paid.
Bone, wearing a flat cap and leaning on a stick, was filmed shouting: 'Your daddy won't answer the question.
After finishing a degree in politics from Swansea University, he told his parents his choice of career was to be an anarchist, and that he would fund it by claiming the dole. Pictured: Leaving the High Court with partner Jane Nicholl, claiming victory over the right to protest
He divided his time between Bristol and London, still claiming benefits, and now lives in the capital in a 330,000 home with the mortgage paid off, which belongs to his partner Jane Nicholl, 66 (above)
'Your daddy is a totally horrible person.
'A lot of people don't like your daddy, you know that. No he's probably not told you about that.'
The grandfather and father-of-five added: 'A lot of people hate him.'
The encounter involving the Rees-Mogg's nanny Veronica Crook - who has been with the family for decades and cared for the MP when he was a boy - lasted several minutes.
It was filmed by Class War and posted on their Facebook page.
When questioned by MailOnline, despite his apparent willingness to bring Mr Rees-Mogg's children into debate, Mr Bone refused to discuss his family or say how many grandchildren he has or how old they are.
He said: 'I ain't going there, no.'
The Prime Minister's official spokesman condemned the confrontation of Mr Rees-Mogg as 'completely unacceptable'.
On Wednesday, Bone was filmed delivering a bullying rant to Rees-Mogg's children and demanding to be told how much the family's long serving nanny is paid. 'Your daddy is a totally horrible person,' he said. 'A lot of people hate him'
Tuesday's encounter involving the Rees-Mogg's nanny Veronica Crook - who has been with the family for decades and cared for the MP when he was a boy - lasted several minutes
He said: 'No elected member or their family should be subject to intimidation or abuse in that way.'
Others, including Tory MP Ben Gummer, whose father John was Environment Secretary in the early 90s, were equally horrified by the encounter.
He Tweeted: 'I had my share of this stuff. All I can say is that seeing it done to @Jacob_Rees_Mogg's children still brings an oh so angry lump to my throat. It is a cruel thing to do to a child, and it will mark them forever.'
However, Mr Rees-Mogg appeared unconcerned about the attack and told Mail Online: 'It was a small protest by anarchists which not surprisingly was disorganised, unpunctual and short lived.'
He later sought to play down the incident, insisting his children were 'absolutely fine', despite the barracking.
Bone, who is also known for his links to Jeremy Corbyn's brother Piers, (above) whom the Class War founder counts as a good friend, was unrepentant about his attack on the Rees-Mogg children
But despite his apparent willingness to bring Mr Rees-Mogg's children into debate, Mr Bone refused to divulge details about his own family or say how many grandchildren he has or how old they are. He said: 'I ain't going there, no'
'I wouldn't get too excited about it. It was a few anarchists who turned up and it wasn't very well organised. It wasn't terribly serious,' he told LBC radio.
Class War hit the headlines in 2015 when hundreds of supporters ran amok in the East End protesting against gentrification and smashing up the Cereal Killer Cafe.
Yet far from being a hardened army of working class warriors, the group has been accused in more recent times of drawing support from the middle class.
Some of Class Wars main agitators now include a university academic and a former professor of art history.
The mother of a 14-year-old boy charged with the murder of his two siblings has come to her son's defense saying he is 'not a monster'.
The Indiana teen, who was 13 at the time of the deaths, told investigators that he used a towel to suffocate his half sister and a blanket to kill his stepbrother.
He was arrested last week on juvenile charges of murder in the May 2017 killing of his 23-month-old half sister, Desiree McCartney, and the killing two months later of his 11-month-old stepbrother, Nathaniel Ritz, at their home in Osgood, a rural community about 60 miles southeast of Indianapolis.
The boy allegedly killed his 23-month-old half sister, Desiree McCartney (left) and his 11-month-old stepbrother, Nathaniel Ritz (right) two months later
Christina McCartney, the mother of the teen boy who has admitted killing his siblings, says her son is 'not a monster'
'He's not the monster that people are trying to portray him as,' his mother, Christina McCartney, told Fox 19.
'It's a mother's worst nightmare to have such a precious family and then to wake up to the worst possible outcomes.'
He told investigators that he killed them so that they wouldn't 'have to live in the hell that he did,'.
The teen added he had a conversation with God about his siblings, but he could not talk about it because he had promised God he wouldn't tell anyone.
He was 'talking about saving Desiree and Nathaniel from hell and the chains of fire' and 'he didn't want them to have to live in the hell that he did,' before going on to describe how he suffocated the children, the court affidavit states.
When asked what that 'hell' was, the boy replied 'chores,' before asking investigators if they'd seen the list of daily chores he had to complete.
The teen's grandmother told investigators that when she asked him why he killed his siblings, he replied that 'he didn't want them to be treated the way he had been.'
Three-month-old Desiree McCartney was suffocated by the teen who used a blanket or a towel
'It's a mother's worst nightmare to have such a precious family and then to wake up to the worst possible outcomes' Christina told Fox
She said he also described how he'd firmly held the towel and blanket over their heads to suffocate them.
An uncle told investigators that the day before Nathaniel Ritz's death, the teen told him that Ritz's father had bloodied the teen's nose.
Hertel said the teen's motivations remain unclear, but that doctors who will examine him may be able to shed light on them.
Ripley County Prosecutor Richard Hertel said Wednesday that the teen was arrested last week on juvenile charges
'In my time here, which has been 19 years, I'm not sure that I've seen anything quite as disturbing and as final as something like this,' he said during a news conference.
The prosecutor said that shortly before the teen's half-sister's death, the boy squeezed a kitten so hard its insides came out, telling relatives it had scratched him.
Hertel said the suspect's father is currently in prison and that he believes the boy's mother is cooperating with the investigation.
Neighbor Becky Horn told WLWT-TV that the children's deaths stunned the small community.
'Our whole street, we were in tears for weeks over this,' Horn said.
Ripley County Prosecutor Richard Hertel said the teen was advised of the charges he faces at a Monday court hearing, after which the judge said he'd rule on whether the teen is competent to stand trial before deciding whether to grant prosecutors' request that he be tried as an adult.
The family of the late Senator John McCain have criticized the Republican Party's use of his image in new propaganda ads attacking Democrat rivals.
The political attack adverts, paid for by the National Republican Congressional Committee, were released yesterday.
Around 12 videos were released as part of the push to help Republicans running for US House seats.
McCain is featured in two clips, in one he is seen criticizing Democrat Ann Kirkpatrick, who is running for a House seat in Arizona, directly to the camera when she ran against him in 2016.
John McCain concedes defeat in the 2008 presidential election to Barack Obama. Clips of him criticizing rival Democrats have been used by the Republican Party in propaganda videos
In the ad McCain says: 'Ann Kirkpatrick won't oppose higher taxes, she won't oppose more federal spending and she won't oppose increased debts that slow economic growth.'
The narrator then adds: 'In 2016, Senator McCain warned us. ... Arizona rejected Kirkpatrick before. It is time to do it again.'
In another ad attacking Elissa Slotkin, a former Obama administration official who is running for a seat in Michigan, McCain is seen laying into her as she testified before a Senate committee in 2014.
The NRCC did not ask the family or friends of the veteran politician for approval to use his words and likeness, according to Politico.
McCain died last month at the age of 81 after battling aggressive brain cancer and was buried at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, earlier this month.
Rick Davis, a friend of the McCain family and a former adviser to the senator, told Politico the ads should not have been used so soon after the senator's death.
He said: 'The family is disappointed that John's image is being weaponized this election cycle so soon after his passing, and they had hoped there would be a more appropriate amount of time for people to think about his final message before they began to politicize him.'
John McCain's body being taken to the United States Naval Academy Chapel in Annapolis after he died from brain cancer last month
A spokesman for the NRCC defended the placement of the adverts, saying the Kirkpatrick ad 'speaks for itself', in a statement to CNN.
But Julie Tarallo, a spokeswoman for the family told the TV network: 'The McCain family believes it is unfortunate that the Senator's image is being weaponized this election season. And they would hope there would be more respect, especially so soon after his passing.'
The Vietnam War veteran, who was tortured in a POW camp for five years, served six terms as a senator in his home state of Arizona.
man taken into custody and is assisting police with their in
The body of a woman reported missing in Perth last week has been found by police investigators.
Julie Anne Cooper, 55, was last seen on August 17, and after failing to contact her family, a missing persons report was filed.
Detectives spent the morning searching bushland in Ashendon before discovering human remains they believed were Ms Cooper's.
Perth woman Julie Anne Cooper, 55, was reported missing by her family last week
Police on the scene at Ashendon, where it is believed Ms Cooper's remains were found
Forensic experts were also at the crime scene.
As part of the ongoing investigation, Detective Senior Sergeant Manus Walsh said authorities were on the lookout for Ms Cooper's silver 2006 Toyota Camry, carrying the registration number 1CGT526.
Mr Walsh believes those plates have since been illegally changed.
'(It) has been possibly involved in what may have been a lawful transaction and we are seeking to find out where that vehicle is,' he said.
'There has been an exchange which has led to that vehicle going to someone else, the exact details of which we are still investigating.'
Daily Mail Australia also understands Ms Cooper's bank cards have been used fraudulently.
Ms Cooper owned the 2006 silver Toyota Camry, registration 1CGT 526 (above)
Police took a 31-year-old man into custody on Wednesday who is continuing to assist with inquiries.
Mr Walsh urged anyone with information about Ms Cooper or her vehicle to call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
Admiral Lord Nelson (pictured) revealed his physical pain and blindness in a letter written in 1795 to the British minister of Genoa, Italy
The physical pain Admiral Lord Nelson endured from battle wounds can be revealed in a 223-year-old letter that has surfaced.
The naval hero described the agony he was in a year after he lost sight in his right eye during the Battle of Corsica in 1794.
Even the simple task of letter writing proved arduous for him, judging by the note he wrote to the British minister of Genoa, Italy in August 1795.
He wrote: 'I am almost blind and it is with very great pain I write this letter.'
At the time of writing Nelson was also troubled by the French ships in the Italian port of Genoa that his fleet was blockading.
Although the city was neutral in the Napoleonic Wars, the British were concerned by the French increasing their presence there.
During 1795, the British navy blocked the French vessels from leaving and restricted the arrival of trade ships the enemy might benefit from.
At the same time Nelson's fleet also had to make sure goods meant for the people of Genoa could get through.
The letter, now on sale for 8000, reveals a more personal side to the naval officer. Before signing off his note Nelson wrote 'I am almost blind and it is with very great pain I write this letter' (seen in second block of text) giving a rare insight to his suffering
Despite numerous battle injuries, Nelson went on to become Britain's greatest sailor, culminating in his famous victory at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 where he was fatally shot. Pictured right is Nelson after the Battle of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, where he lost his right arm
In the letter that has now emerged for sale for 8,000, Nelson tries to reassure the British minister that his fleet's actions were not to the detriment of the locals.
He wrote: 'The disposition and acts of my Cruizers (sic) will soon prove incontestibly that Genoa is not blockaded, as all vessels will arrive in perfect security, which are not French or loaded with French property.
'Cruizers off Cape Corse will not stop the trade so well as where I have placed them...I have been very careful to give no offence to the Genoese territority or flag.'
Nelson's fleet was blocking French ships from leaving the Italian port of Genoa at the time the letter was written. Pictured is Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square, London
The letter was written two years before Nelson lost his right arm after it was hit by a musket ball in the Battle of Santa Cruz de Tenerife.
Despite the injuries, Nelson went on to become Britain's greatest sailor, culminating in his famous victory at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 during which he was fatally shot.
The four page letter penned 10 years earlier is being sold by a private collector at London-based Forum Auctions.
Auctioneer Max Hasler said: 'Nelson wrote a lot of letters to a lot of people but it is very unusual to come across one in which he opens up and gives an insight into his suffering.
'The personal statement is in many ways the most interesting aspect of this letter.
'His eyesight degenerated and clearly he was in pain. There was no time or chance for him to rest of recover from the injury and allow his body and eyes to adjust.
'Perhaps the pain was caused by the strain in his eyes which made writing a letter a clearly very painful endeavour for him.
The letter is being sold on September 27.
Diane Abbott walked away when a Tube passenger grilled the Labour MP over her comment that Orthodox Jews were targets of hate crime because of the 'costumes' they wear.
The Shadow Home Secretary appeared on BBC Question Time earlier this year and commented that her constituency has a community of charedi Jews that are 'actually subject to hate crime more than other Jews, because they wear that costume'.
Ms Abbott was grilled last week over her remark by 18-year-old London Tube passenger Alex Rose, but the Hackney North and Stoke Newington MP ignored the question and walked away.
Diane Abbott was asked 'why did you tell us that we wear costumes?' by Alex Rose on the Tube
Teenager Alex Rose spoke to Ms Abbott on the tube about her comments on Question Time
Mr Rose, from Cockfosters, north London, asked Ms Abbott: 'The Jewish people - why did you tell us that we wear costumes?
'You said the costumes they wear in Stamford Hill because I watched Question Time that day when you said about the costumes you wear.'
'In my constituency, I have a community of charedi Jews that are actually subject to hate crime more than other Jews, because they wear that costume, they walk to synagogue Abbott's comments on Question Time
The Labour MP looked up from her phone, glanced at the teenager for a moment and walked away to find another seat.
As she left Mr Rose said: 'Because it's not called a costume, love. It's called a religious piece of clothing.'
During her Question Time appearance Ms Abbott, 64, was answering an audience question about why her party has 'such a problem with antisemitism'.
She said: 'In my constituency, I have a community of charedi Jews that are actually subject to hate crime more than other Jews, because they wear that costume, they walk to synagogue.
The Labour MP did not respond to Mr Rose, from Cockfosters, north London when questioned
'But because I take it seriously I'm not going to make it some sort of party political gain.'
After the Tube incident Mr Rose told the Jewish Chronicle: 'I looked up from my seat and I saw it was Diane Abbott sitting in front of me on the Tube.
'Whilst I recognise that Diane was basically trying to speak out on Question Time about the problem of hate crime against Jews, I found her description of the charedi dress as being something akin to wearing a 'costume' a bit troubling.
Mr Rose asked Ms Abbott: 'The Jewish people - why did you tell us that we wear costumes?
'I've heard a lot of talk amongst left-wing figures about the need for politicians to be more accountable to voters, and not just allowing themselves to be stuck in the Westminster bubble.
'But it was clear that Diane Abbott didn't want to speak to me which is a shame.'
Rabbi Avraham Pinter, a leading charedi Rabbi and former Labour councillor, defended Ms Abbott, saying: 'The trouble is most people don't know what is going on in our community.'
The incident occurred the same week the Labour Party adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's definition of antisemitism in full.
Labour's national executive committee (NEC) agreed to all 11 examples accompanying the IHRA definition of antisemitism on September 4, but added a clarifying statement adding that the right to criticise the Israeli government should be protected.
Meanwhile, Jewish peer Lord Sugar today said Jews mean nothing to Jeremy Corbyn and if he became prime minister it 'would be the day Britain died'.
The Apprentice star was joined in his scathing criticism by one the Labour leader's own peers who accused Mr Corbyn of being 'a perpetrator of anti-Semitism'.
They made their hard-hitting remarks during a debate on anti-Semitism in the House of Lords.
Diane Abbott's constituency has a 30,000-strong community of Charedi Jews, the largest in Europe Stamford Hill, in the London Borough of Hackney in north-east London, England, is known for its Jewish Chasidic community, the largest concentration of Charedi Chasidic Jews in Europe. It is referred to as a 'square mile of piety', reflecting the many Jewish men seen walking in their distinctive clothes on their way to and from worship. Stamford Hill, in the London Borough of Hackney in north-east London, England, is known for its Jewish Chasidic community, the largest concentration of Charedi Chasidic Jews in Europe The congregations often represent historical links with particular areas of Eastern Europe in their dress and their worship. The standard mode of dress for males is a black suit and a white shirt. Headgear includes black fedora or Homburg hats, with black skull caps under their hats. The congregations often represent historical links with particular areas of Eastern Europe in their dress and their worship Advertisement
Lord Sugar, a former Labour peer who now sits as an independent crossbencher, said: 'The Labour leader allowed the issue of alleged anti-Semitism in the Labour Party to ramble on for months.
'What kind of leader is he not to take his party by the scruff of the neck and make them see sense and kill the matter off once and for all.
'Terminate the obsession of the hard left with Israel and Palestine and focus on far more pressing matters like Brexit and jobs.'
While Labour had eventually accepted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism, he highlighted Mr Corbyn's unsuccessful bid to secure a clarification that said it should not be considered anti-Semitic to describe Israel as racist.
His questions were in reference to a Question Time appearance in which Ms Abbott said charedi Jews were subject to hate crime 'because they wear that costume'
Ms Abbott was today laying out Labour's immigration policy at the House Of Commons
Lord Sugar also branded as an 'utter clown' the Labour activist Peter Willsman, recently re-elected to the party's ruling body, who suggested Jewish 'Trump fanatics' were behind accusations of anti-Semitism in Labour ranks.
'Anyone would know no Jew in the UK in their right mind would be a Trump fanatic,' he said.
We Jews mean nothing to him. The day he becomes PM is the day Britain dies Lord Sugar on Corbyn
Lord Sugar added: 'I think Mr Corbyn allowed matters to ramble on because he frankly does not give two hoots about what Jews in the UK think. He simply does not care. We mean nothing to him.
'Perhaps Mr Corbyn is taking a leaf out of Mr Trump's book in alluding to supporting issues which he believes a lot of the voting population are also thinking.'
Urging efforts to ensure Mr Corbyn did not become the next prime minister, he said: 'That would be the day Britain died.'
Labour former frontbencher Lord Mendelsohn accused Mr Corbyn of failing to get a grip on the party's anti-Semitism crisis.
Timeline of anti-Semitic scandals which have erupted under Jeremy Corbyn's leadership The anti-Semitism scandal has dogged Labour since Jeremy Corbyn was elected leader in 2015. Here is a timeline of the controversies: April 2016: Labour MP Naz Shah is suspended for anti-Semitic posts - including one in which she appeared to endorse calls for Israelis to be deported to the US. She apologised and was given a formal warning. Ken Livingstone goes on the radio to defend Ms Shah - but sparks fresh controversy by claiming that Hitler supported Zionism. He is suspended by Labour but refuses to apologise and has repeated the claim many times. He eventually quits Labour two years later, saying his suspension has become a distraction. June 2016: A two-month inquiry by civil liberties campaigner Shami Chakrabarti finds that Labour is not overrun by anti-Semitism. But the launch is overshadowed when Jewish Labour MP Ruth Smeeth flees it in tears after being accused by Corbyn supporter Marc Wadsworth of colluding with the press. Critics accuse the report of being a whitewash and Ms Chakrabarti is widely criticised for accepting a peerage from Jeremy Corbyn shortly afterwards. October 2016: The Home Affairs Select Committee says Labour is guilty of incompetence over its handling of anti-Semitism and of creating a safe space for people with 'vile attitudes towards Jewish people'. March 2018: It is revealed that Jeremy Corbyn defended an artist who painted an anti-Semitic mural and said the offensive art should be removed. He apologises saying he did not properly look at the picture before he made the post. Jewish leaders take the unprecedented step of holding a demonstration outside Parliament protesting Mr Corbyn's failure to tackle anti-Semitism. Several Labour MPs address the crowds. April 2018: Marc Wadsworth is expelled from Labour after being accused of anti-Semitism. Meanwhile, Labour Jewish MPs tell of the anti-Semitic abuse they have suffered in a powerful parliamentary debate - and round on their leader for failing to tackle it. July 2018: The Labour leadership sparks fresh anger by failing to fully adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's definition of anti-Semitism Peter Willsman, a strong ally of Jeremy Corbyn, is secretly taped ranting that Jewish 'Trump fanatics' invented the anti-Semitism storm engulfing Labour. In an angry diatribe at a meeting of Labour's ruling executive committee, he said he was 'amazed' there was evidence party members hated Jews. He claimed 'some of these people in the Jewish community support Trump they are Trump fanatics' before shouting: 'So I am not going to be lectured to by Trump fanatics making up duff information without any evidence at all.' August 2018: Jeremy Corbyn issues a video insisting he is committed to tackling the racism - but it is panned by Jewish leaders. Corbynistas mount a social media campaign to get deputy Labour leader Tom Watson to quit after he criticises the party's handling of anti-Semitism. The Daily Mail exclusively publishes photos of Jeremy Corbyn holding a wreath at a ceremony where a terrorist linked to the Munich massacre was honoured. The Labour leader insists he was there to honour others killed - but faces fresh calls to quit over the scandal. Advertisement
He said: 'It is a revelation, no longer worthy of questioning, that I too believe that the leader of my party Jeremy Corbyn has been a perpetrator of anti-Semitism.'
Former chief rabbi and independent crossbencher Lord Sacks, who had been strongly critical of Mr Corbyn, argued that anti-Semitism was 'the hardest of all hatreds to defeat because like a virus it mutates'.
He told peers: 'One of the enduring facts of history is that most anti-Semities is that they do not think of themselves as anti-Semites.
'We don't hate Jews, they said in the middle ages, just their religion. We don't hate Jews they said in the 19th Century, just their race. We don't hate Jews, they say now, just their nation state.'
In a clear reference to the Labour anti-Semitism controversy, Lord Sacks added: 'Anti-Semitism or any hate becomes dangerous when three things happen.
'First, when it moves from the fringes of politics to a main stream party and its leadership.
'Second, when the party sees its popularity with the general public is not harmed thereby, and three when those who stand up and protest are vilified and abused for doing so.
'All three factors exist in Britain now. I never thought I would see this in my lifetime.'
Tory former Cabinet minister Lord Pickles said anti-Semitism had been 'repackaged and reworked for a modern audience'.
'It's all designed to make Jewish citizens feel uncomfortable,' he said.
In an apparent reference to recently-emerged 2013 footage of Mr Corbyn criticising some British Zionists, Lord Pickles said: 'It might be we suggest they lack irony, they are not capable of understanding the culture of their own country.
'It might be that we suggest the Jews somehow have an alliance to another country outside the United Kingdom.'
Tory former minister Baroness Altmann said she had blindly believed the Holocaust could not happen again, until the last couple of years and she had never felt any threat to her 'chosen religious beliefs' until now.
Lady Altmann said the Government had done much to support the Jewish community and warned: 'The hatred that seems to have spread through political discourse much more recently is truly frightening.'
Labour's Lord Parekh condemned the polarisation of views between the Jewish community and the Labour party, insisting it was time for both sides to come together in a 'spirit of mutual understanding' and seek reconciliation.
Leading lawyer and independent crossbencher Lord Pannick said it was alarming that 'in this great country... the leadership of one of our major political parties is incubating anti-Semitism'.
Lord Pannick said Jeremy Corbyn's 'shameful conduct encourages the release into the political atmosphere of a poison that is polluting our civil society', adding: 'No politician who tolerates, far less encourages, such a virus is fit for public office.'
For the Opposition, Lord Beecham said: 'It's especially troubling that there are people who are in denial about the problem, with some people in the party I joined 58 years ago refusing to accept it exists even when Jeremy Corbyn has, belatedly, recognised it and pledged to eliminate it.'
Lord Beecham said it wasn't just a matter for Labour as all three major parties had encountered the problem to some degree.
There had been a rise in anti-Semitic incidents and 'latterly a tidal wave of vile abuse and threats through social media,' to which Jewish MPs had been subjected.
Communities and local government minister Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth paid tribute to Labour peers for showing 'considerable courage' in 'rightly' criticising the party's leadership.
Lord Bourne said it was impossible to think the Labour party of Harold Wilson, Neil Kinnock and Tony Blair 'would be where the Labour party is today'.
He said his criticism was not of the party itself but of the leadership, adding: 'It is a problem that needs addressing quickly.'
Winding-up the time limited debate, the minister promised another debate on the issue in government time before Christmas.
Stars turned out for the opening of a new Playboy club in New York - despite some critics labelling the venue 'tone deaf' to the concerns of the #MeToo era.
The club, whose original incarnation closed its doors 32 years ago, provoked an outpouring of abuse from campaigners in the run up to its official launch on Wednesday night.
Pictures from the event showed flamboyantly dressed bunnies and entertainers like pop star Robin Thicke flocking to the venue.
A group of Playboy Bunnies pose for a photograph at the club's grand opening on Wednesday night
Robin Thicke, whose song 'Blurred Lines' was slammed for sexism, was present at the opening of the club
Clark Wolf, a restaurant and food business consultant, called the opening 'ridiculous' and argued that it 'tone deaf' to what people want - according to the Guardian.
'It's kind of ridiculous actually,' Wolf said. 'People are demanding better conditions and a bunny suit and ears doesn't seem to be on par with what people are wanting.
'There is a bitter fight going on right now for middle-aged douchey white men to regain power and control and that is going on at all levels of society.'
According to the New York Post, $2.2million worth of memberships have already been sold to eager customers.
Annual membership is set at $100,000, which includes access to Playboys sleek private jet and 15-nights accomodation at the club.
Playboy Playmate of the year Nina Daniele (left) and former Playmate Brande Roderick (right) were also present at the launch
Tiffany Fallon, Playmate of the Year in 2005, attended the launch of the controversial New York club
A source also claimed that 45 per cent of memberships sold so far have been to women.
The clubs are the brainchild of Playboy founder Hugh Hefner's son Cooper, 26, who has ambitious plans to reinvent the brand to appeal to millennials.
The original clubs were founded by his father in Chicago in 1960, with the New York City edition following in 1962.
Playboy claimed that it once had 750,000 members across its 30 clubs, but business and interest dried up in the mid-1970s, and by 1986 every club had shut down.
Hefner himself said in 1986 that he believed the Playboy bunny had become a 'symbol of the past'.
Kelly Bensimmon, who appeared in Playboy Magazine in 2010, and now works as a reality TV star was also there for the opening
Get your old copies of 'Matilda' and 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' out to celebrate Roald Dahl Day 2018.
The annual celebration, which takes place on the beloved author's birthday, sees school children around the world dress up as their favourite Dahl characters and even has institutions like the Natural History Museum taking part.
Here is all you need to know about Roald Dahl Day 2018 including what it is and how is it celebrated.
The beloved children's author published his first novel, 'James and the Giant Peach', in 1961
What is Roald Dahl Day?
Roald Dahl Day is the annual celebration of the author who wrote hugely popular and influential childrens stories like 'Matilda', 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory', The BFG, The Twits and 'James and the Giant Peach'.
The very first Roald Dahl Day took place in 2006, on what would have been the authors 90th birthday. The celebrations take place all over the world including in the UK and the US.
When is Roald Dahl Day?
Roald Dahl Day is celebrated around the world on 13 September, the date on which the author was born.
How is it celebrated?
Many celebrations take place around Roald Dahl Day. This year, The Natural History Museum hosted a James and the Giant Weekend, paying tribute to Dahls 'James and the Giant Peach' story.
On the actual day, the Natural History Museum is hosting another tribute to 'James and the Giant Peach', Jamess Minibeasts: Science and Fiction, which introduces children to some of the real characters from Dahls story.
The Penguin childrens books imprint Puffin hosts an annual Roald Dahl Day Show on 13 September.
School children around the world tune in to Puffins web show, which features stories about Dahls writing secrets and celebrities such as Adrian Edmondson telling kids how they were inspired by Roald Dahls stories.
It wouldnt be a celebration without fancy dress, and school children around the world will dress up as their favourite characters like Willy Wonka and Matilda on Roald Dahl Day.
It's #RoaldDahlDay!
Wishing one and all a simply splendiferous day! pic.twitter.com/f8P2quwcLT Roald Dahl HQ (@roald_dahl) September 13, 2018
Simple Roald Dahl Day costume ideas
Dressing up as Roald Dahl characters shouldnt be difficult at all. Here are some easy and simple costume ideas:
Matilda - All you need is a light blue dress, a hair-ribbon and several old-looking books
- All you need is a light blue dress, a hair-ribbon and several old-looking books Willy Wonka - Colourful trousers, a purple coat, gold bow-tie and a top-hat
- Colourful trousers, a purple coat, gold bow-tie and a top-hat James and the Giant Peach - Can be as easy as a large picture of a peach on your chest
- Can be as easy as a large picture of a peach on your chest An Oompa Loompa - Youre good to go if youre ok with orange facepaint and green hairspray
- Youre good to go if youre ok with orange facepaint and green hairspray Charlie Bucket - Another straightforward costume, all you need is some old clothes and a golden envelope
Who was Roald Dahl?
Roald Dahl was a British novelist and short story writer most famous for his childrens stories such as 'Matilda', 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' and The Twits.
He was born on 13 September, 1916 in Llandaff, Wales, to Norwegian parents, Harald Dahl and Sofie Magdalene Hesselberg Dahl. The name Roald was in honour of Roald Amundsen, the Norwegian who became the first man to reach the South Pole, in 1912.
For #RoaldDahlDay2018, a word list of Dahl's which is filed at the @roalddahlmuseum along with the first draft of 'The BFG'. Dahl truly was a whizz at dreaming up swizzfigglingly flushbunkingly gloriumptious words for his stories. pic.twitter.com/C2Xl0fiQ4f Oxford Languages (@OxLanguages) September 13, 2018
Dahl lost his sister and father when he was still a child, before his mother sent him to several boarding schools, with the experiences which he had there inspiring works like 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory'.
After school Dahl worked for an oil company before enlisting at the age of 23 when World War II broke out. He took part in the Battle of Athens. Dahl later worked in Washington and provided intelligence for MI6.
Dahl only published his first novel, 'James and the Giant Peach', in 1961, which was followed by 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' three years later. He then went on to write the scripts for the James Bond film, You Only Live twice and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
Miss Honeys and Mr Snoddys of the world let us know how you're celebrating #RoaldDahlDay in your classrooms!
(Any Miss Trunchbulls however please feel free to keep your Roald Dahl Day activity to yourselves...) pic.twitter.com/AWhx5Sl9kP Roald Dahl HQ (@roald_dahl) September 13, 2018
In the 1970s, Dahl published classics such as Danny the Champion of the World, The Enormous Crocodile and My Uncle Oswald.
During the 1980s, Dahl wrote The Twits, Revolting Rhymes, The BFG and The Witches. Towards the end of the decade, Dahl published Matilda and released Esio Trot in 1990.
He died on 23 November, 1990.
The Eurovision Song Contest will be held in Tel Aviv next year, organisers have announced.
The Israeli government initially insisted on holding the competition in Jerusalem but it dropped its demand following a backlash over the US recognition of Jerusalem as its capital and a fear of boycotts.
A Eurovision spokesman said they chose Tel Aviv, Israel's cultural and commercial capital, because of its 'creative and compelling bid'.
The Eurovision Song Contest will be held in Tel Aviv next year, organisers have announced. Israel won Eurovision this year with a flashy pop tune by Netta Barzilai (pictured)
The Host City for the Eurovision Song Contest 2019 is...
Tel Aviv, Israel
Semi-final 1 - 14 May
Semi-final 2 - 16 May
Grand Final - 18 May
Tweet using #Eurovision #ESC2019
Learn more about the host city on our website: https://t.co/Wz3aOCXrX9 pic.twitter.com/zTEtlgUx8G Eurovision Song Contest (@Eurovision) September 13, 2018
Israel won Eurovision this year with a flashy pop tune called Toy by Netta Barzilai, who dazzled viewers with her feminist lyrics, unconventional appearance and signature chicken dance.
Her victory earned Israel the right to host next year's contest.
'Eurovision is a perfect fit for our city, which has been internationally acclaimed for its vibrant energy, creative spirit, its lively cultural scene and its celebration of freedom,' said Tel Aviv Mayor Ron Huldai.
'We are looking forward to host a joyful and nonstop event in the spirit of Tel Aviv.'
In Europe, capital cities have usually played host to the competition but the city Israel considers its capital is not recognised as such by most of the international community.
Netta Barzilai, pictured with the Duke of Cambridge, won the 2018 Eurovision Song Contest
Hosting the competition in Jerusalem could have presented a predicament for the public broadcasters that make up the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), sparking criticism that they would be taking sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The so-called BDS group for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions has called on the EBU, the contest's sponsor, to boycott the Eurovision contest in Israel altogether.
Israel captured east Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war and annexed the area in a move that is not internationally recognised.
Israel considers the entire city to be its capital while the Palestinians seek east Jerusalem as the capital of a future state.
Tel Aviv, which is hosting the event for the first time, says it expects around 20,000 tourists to visit the city.
The Eurovision semi-finals will be held in Tel Aviv on May 14 and 16 followed by the grand final on May 18.
ISI stands out as the best intelligence agency in the world: Imran Khan
Prime Minister Imran Khan Wednesday lauded the contribution of the Inter-Services Intelligence(ISI) towards national security, especially in the ongoing war against terrorism.
ISI is our first line of defence, and stands out as the best intelligence agency in the world, he said during a visit to the ISI Headquarters. Chief of Army Staff General Qamar Javed Bajwa and DG ISI Lt Gen Naveed Mukhtar received Imran Khan on arrival at the headquarters.
The prime minister said that government and people of Pakistan firmly stand behind their armed forces and the intelligence agencies and greatly acknowledge the unprecedented achievements of these institutions. The prime minister was briefed in detail on various strategic intelligence and national security matters. Later, he laid a floral wreath at the Yadgare Shuhada and offered fateha. Lead cabinet ministers also accompanied the prime minister during the visit.
Britain's programme of mass surveillance, revealed by whistleblower Edward Snowden as part of his sensational leaks on US spying, violated people's right to privacy, Europe's top rights court ruled Thursday.
Ruling in the case of Big Brother Watch and Others versus the United Kingdom, the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France, said the interception of journalistic material also violated the right to freedom of information.
The case was brought by a group of journalists and rights activists who believe that their data may have been targeted.
Britain's programme of mass surveillance, revealed by whistleblower Edward Snowden (pictured on a video feed in 2015), violated people's right to privacy, Europe's top rights court ruled Thursday
The court ruled that the existence of the surveillance programme 'did not in and of itself violate the convention' but noted 'that such a regime had to respect criteria set down in its case-law'.
They concluded that the mass trawling for information by Britain's GCHQ spy agency violated Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights regarding the right to privacy because there was 'insufficient oversight' of the programme.
The court found the oversight to be doubly deficient, in the way in which the GCHQ selected internet providers for intercepting data and then filtered the messages, and the way in which intelligence agents selected which data to examine.
It determined that the regime covering how the spy agency obtained data from internet and phone companies was 'not in accordance with the law'.
'While the Court was satisfied that the intelligence services of the United Kingdom take their (European human rights) Convention obligations seriously and are not abusing their powers, it found that there was inadequate independent oversight of the selection and search processes involved in the operation,' the court said in a statement.
The court said the existence of the programme run by GCHQ, a vast intelligence gathering centre in Cheltenham (pictured, file photo), was not illegal
'Furthermore, there were no real safeguards applicable to the selection of related communications data for examination, even though this data could reveal a great deal about a person's habits and contacts,' the court statement said.
In a further victory for the 16 complainants the court ruled that the programme also provided 'insufficient safeguards in respect of confidential journalistic material', violating Article 10 of the European convention, which protects freedom of expression and information.
But it dismissed claims that Britain further violated the privacy of those on whom it snooped by sharing intelligence with foreign governments.
'The regime for sharing intelligence with foreign governments did not violate either Article 8 or Article 10,' it said.
The cases are the latest legal challenge to the UK in a long-running spy scandal following revelations by Snowden, a former US National Security Agency (NSA) contractor whose revelations in 2013 renewed debate over privacy versus security.
Snowden leaked thousands of classified documents to the press in 2013 which revealed the vast scope of surveillance of private data that was put in place after the 9/11 attacks.
The documents showed, among other things, that Britain spied on foreign politicians at G20 summit meetings in London in 2009 and that its spy agency collected huge quantities of global email messages, Facebook posts, internet histories and calls, and shared them with the NSA.
Snowden, who fled to Russia, is wanted in the US for espionage.
Among the more than one dozen groups that took the case to Strasbourg were the London-based Big Brother Watch organisation, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism and former Guardian reporter Alice Ross.
They said Britain's activities - many of them run from GCHQ, a vast intelligence gathering centre in Cheltenham - could threaten the privacy of journalists, who may fear their contact lists or the websites they visit are being scrutinised by the government.
'Such data enables intrusion into the most intimate aspects of a person's daily life,' Dinah Rose, one of the applicants' lawyers, told the court in hearings last year.
The British government's counsel, James Eadie, said at that time the programmes were necessary in the fight against terrorism.
The ECHR noted that national governments enjoy 'wide discretion' in deciding what type of surveillance is necessary to protect national security.
But it said such programmes require sufficient oversight to keep the surveillance to what is 'necessary in a democratic society'.
It noted that some of the data scooped up by the GCHQ 'could reveal a great deal about a person's habits and contacts'.
The judgement is not final, as it can be appealed to the grand chamber of the Strasbourg court.
The court gave Britain, which is in the process of altering legislation on the issue, three months to decide whether to request an appeal hearing.
Nobel Peace Laureate Aung San Suu Kyi has defended the imprisonment of two Reuters journalists.
Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Hanoi today Ms Suu Kyi said the convictions of Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo, who had been investigating the killings of ten Rohingya men and boys, had 'nothing to do with freedom of expression at all'.
The case has been been widely condemned by international governments including Prime Minister Theresa May and US vice president Mike Pence.
During the conference Ms Suu Kyi said: 'The case has been held in open court and all the hearings have been open to everybody who may wish to go and attend them.
Aung San Suu Kyi, was speaking at the World Economic Forum in Hanoi, Vietnam, when she said the convictions of the two Reuters journalists had 'nothing to do with freedom of expression at all'
'If anybody feels that there has been a miscarriage of justice I would like them to point it out.
'I wonder whether very many people have read the summary of the judgement which had nothing to do with freedom of expression at all.
'I would like them to read the judgement and point out where they think there has been a miscarriage of justice.'
The Myanmar leader added that due process would allow the two journalists to appeal the sentence and enable them to point out why the judgement was wrong.
She added: 'They were not jailed because they were journalists.
'Sentence has been passed on them because the court has decided they had broken the Official Secrets Act.'
Wa Lone (left) and Kyaw Soe Oo (right) were sentenced to seven years in prison on September 3 for violating the state secrets act
The two news agency journalists were arrested while carrying official documents given to them by police officers while investigating a massacre of ten Rohingya men by the military at Inn Din in the Rakhine state.
They were sentenced to seven years in prison on September 3 for violating the state secrets act.
Following the atrocities in the Rakhine state, the Burmese authorities, acknowledged the killings and jailed seven soldiers but the military exonerated itself of blame for the violence.
In response to Ms Suu Kyis comments, news agency Reuters said: 'We continue to believe that Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo did not violate Myanmars espionage law, and at no point in time were they engaged in activity to hurt their country.'
Ms Suu Kyi's comments follow the increasing pressure she has been under to comment on both the Reuters journalists and the Rohingya crisis.
Tom Tugendhat (file)today insisted the party had to stop 'banging on about Europe' and look to a future led by politicians like himself and Ruth Davidson.
Tory infighting reached a new low today as the 'new generation' of MPs demanded a clear out of the Eurosceptic hardliners.
Politicians elected since 2010 believe veterans who forced through Brexit after decades of fighting the EU are out of line with the country.
Dozens of moderates on the Tory Reform Group (TRG) met in the Commons last night to strike a contrast with Brexiteers who called for Theresa May to be ousted at a meeting on Tuesday night.
And Tom Tugendhat, the high-flying chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, today insisted the party had to stop 'banging on about Europe' and look to a future led by politicians like himself and Ruth Davidson.
He told the Specator: 'I didn't get into politics to talk about Boris, there are many more interesting things to talk about.'
'The vast majority of my generation wants to stop banging on about Europe. We want to talk about the optimism we feel in this country.'
Mr Tugendhat praised David Cameron for 'transforming' the Tory party during his decade in charge.
He said the former PM 'brought in a lot of people like me who have a very strong idea of the United Kingdom, the ''one nation'' that Disraeli described, but also as a country at ease with itself'.
The Tonbridge and Malling MP even recalled one of Mr Cameron's most controversial - and arguably least successful - policy initiatives to involve volunteering and community work as part of a 'big society' alongside Government services.
He said: '(Cameron's Big Society) brought in that new strain of Conservatism, so yes, I'm part of that generation.
'I suppose people like Ruth Davidson are part of that as well.'
Former education secretary Nicky Morgan last night convened dozens on MPs the TRG group in the Commons' Churchill room (pictured)
Mr Tugendhat said former PM David Cameron 'brought in a lot of people like me who have a very strong idea of the United Kingdom, the ''one nation'' that Disraeli described, but also as a country at ease with itself'
Former education secretary Nicky Morgan last night convened dozens on MPs the TRG group in the Commons' Churchill room.
She said: 'Those in this room need to help heal division and we have to stand up against the louder voices,.
'It is the ''One Nation'' Tories, the broad church, that wins marginal seats, and when you are too shrill, too ideologically driven, then you lose those voters.'
The tone was a stark contrast to hardliners on the European Research Group (ERG) who met the night before.
A handful of members publicly discussed ousting the Prime Minister amid frustration over the Brexit negotiation.
But the scheme backfired immediately as ERG leader Jacob Rees-Mogg and former Brexit Secretary David Davis had to swear allegiance to Mrs May.
The woman who lost her mother, sister and three nieces in the Bedford massacre has broken her silence for the first time in an emotional interview, four days after the murders came to light.
Mrs Tottman revealed to 9News that she first realised that her close family members had been murdered when she switched on the TV and saw her sister Mara's house on the news.
'The first way I found out was the television, and it was my sister's friend who rang me and said she'd seen it on TV,' she explained.
Police allege Charlotte (left), 3, and Beatrix and Alice (second left, right), 2, their mother Mara, 41, and grandmother, Beverley Quinn (centre), 74, were murdered by Anthony Harvey
The Tottmans expressed their gratitude at the amount of support they had received from their local community
Perth local Taryn Tottman and her husband Alan said that the murders had come as a complete surprise to them and the situation was impossible to come to terms with. 'You never recover from something like this,' Mrs Tottman said.
Mrs Tottman last saw her mother and sister at a funeral two weeks ago, just before they were brutally murdered by Mara's husband.
Taryn and Alan Tottman said there was no indication that anything was amiss before the killings.
Mr Tottman also denied that they thought Mara could be in danger at all.
Taryn and Alan Tottman revealed that it was difficult to tell their three children that they would have no more play-dates with their cousins and that they wouldn't see their cousins, aunt or grandmother again.
The Tottmans expressed their gratitude at the amount of support they had received from their local community, and said that mother Beverly would have been humbled.
Taryn Tottman broke into a smile as she described her family and spoke of the happy times they had shared together before the mass murder.
Three-year-old Charlotte Harvey (pictured in red) was allegedly murdered by her father alongside her two younger siblings
'They were nice people. My mum, she just loved to help. She was such a good person,' she said.
On September 3, Mara Harvey and her three young daughters, three-year-old Charlotte and two-year-old twins Alice and Beatrix, were allegedly murdered by husband and father Anthony Robert Harvey at their home in Bedford.
WA Police Commissioner Chris Dawson said the murder weapons include a blunt instrument and knives.
Police allege that Mrs Harvey was killed after she arrived back from a late shift stacking shelves at Coles supermarket, at around 11pm.
Anthony Robert Harvey, who was 18 years her junior, then allegedly killed Mara's mother, 73-year-old Beverly Quinn, when she turned up at the house the next day.
Mara Harvey (left) was allegedly murdered by husband Anthony (right) after arriving home from a night shift at Coles supermarket
Police claim Anthony Harvey had lived with the bodies for several days following the murders
The five bodies were discovered six days later. Police claim Anthony Harvey had lived with the bodies for several days following the murders before driving 1,500km up north to Pannawonica, where he went to the police and was arrested.
Neighbour Richard Fairbrother said Mr Harvey sometimes complained about money problems and the struggles of owning his own business.
24-year-old Anthony Harvey has today been charged with five counts of murder. He did not enter a plea and will reappear in court next week.
Depraved sex-for-rent landlords offering female students housing in return for sexual favours have been exposed in an undercover sting.
More than 10 landlords in Canterbury, Kent, have admitted taking on female student tenants offering free rooms in exchange for sexual services.
The sordid arrangements could see financially vulnerable students unable to afford rising accommodation fees fall prey to predatory older men.
More than 10 landlords in Canterbury, Kent, have admitted taking on female student tenants offering free rooms in exchange for sexual services. Student journalist Claisse Opulencia (pictured) listed an advert and was soon offered rooms in exchange for sexual favours by multiple landlords
But the deals are illegal according to former Justice Secretary David Lidington who said in April last year: 'Such acts/arrangements are already a criminal offence in England and Wales by virtue of the Sexual Offences Act 2003'.
A student journalist at Canterbury Christ Church University went undercover to snare the manipulative landlords on the online advert site Craigslist.
Claisse Opulencia, 20, listed an advert on the site asking for rooms in the area and was soon offered rooms in exchange for sexual favours by multiple landlords.
One landlord listed various requirements that his 'tenants' would need to provide him including full sex once a week.
He added: 'A ****job a day, an hour each day you wear what I want around the house (could be underwear, naked or whatever I want).'
Going undercover as 'Isabelle', Claisse, editor-in-chief of her university paper, discovered shocking offers from landlords as to their 'sex-for-rent' deals.
The journalist at Canterbury Christ Church University went undercover to snare the manipulative landlords on the online advert site Craigslist
One landlord admitted to having properties close to the Canterbury university campuses, University of Kent and Christ Church University - and that his tenants are mostly students.
He said: 'I have some near Asda, I usually charge 380 per month. But if you're serious then I'll let you stay rent free.'
August is the time where 'sex for rent' landlords tend to search for new tenants, as students are leaving the city after graduation.
Another Canterbury landlord offered a room to stay as long as she was 'willing to give herself' to him.
He previously had a 'sex-for-rent' arrangement with a student who recently finished university.
Going undercover as 'Isabelle', Claisse, editor-in-chief of her university paper, discovered shocking offers from landlords as to their 'sex-for-rent' deals
One landlord admitted to having properties close to the Canterbury university campuses, University of Kent and Christ Church University - and that his tenants are mostly students
A Canterbury man responded to say that 'Isabelle' could live in his room if she could afford the rent. If not, she had to pay through massages and 'intimate services'.
He said: 'Two to three times a week and full service (massage). You could tell me what you're happy to do.
'So two to three times a week, massage and sex.'
Canterbury homeowner Owen called, as he wasn't keen discussing the 'deal' via text messaging.
Owen is in his late twenties who has had female students as his previous 'tenants'.
The young landlord said: 'I've had one before who was an international student, she stayed with me for eight months.
A Canterbury man responded to say that 'Isabelle' could live in his room if she could afford the rent. If not, she had to pay through massages and 'intimate services'
'She's graduated now. She got what she wanted and so did I.'
He claims that he was intimate with her about four to five times a week - and encourages me to 'behave the same way' when I move in with him.
'As long as you kept the place tidy, don't mind showering with the door open, wearing your underwear around the house, then you get the idea'
Most of these landlords believe that what they're doing is completely fine. However, sex-for-rent could be illegal.
There is no specific law stating that a tenant offering sex as payment for rent is illegal. But, it can be classified as incitement into prostitution.
If convicted, a person can face seven years in prison in England and Wales.
As long as you kept the place tidy, don't mind showering with the door open, wearing your underwear around the house, you get the idea
The third year multimedia journalism student then got in contact with every single landlord that offered her a 'sex for rent' deal, this time as a journalist.
Out of the 18, only one person responded. Others had blocked her number completely.
When asked, Gary* from Canterbury said he believed he wasn't doing any harm to anybody and simply helping out people in need.
He added: 'I would never force anyone to do anything they didn't want to.
'It's a win-win situation. I'll help the person out and she can help me out. I have needs too and I don't see anything wrong with that.'
Kent Police urges people to report any cases of sex for rent landlords. They promise that landlords who participate in this exchange will be investigated and even prosecuted if a criminal act has been committed.
Ex Justice secretary's verdict on sex-for-rent landlords, April 2017 Such acts/arrangements are already a criminal offence in England and Wales by virtue of the Sexual Offences Act 2003. Taken together, these [provisions] essentially mean that an offence is committed when a person offers accommodation in return for sex, as they are inciting/causing another person to have sex with them in return for 'payment. Advertisement
Detective Chief Inspector Lee Whitehead of Kent Police said: 'Landlords who advertise rooms in exchange for sexual favours are actively targeting vulnerable people, and I would urge anyone who is being exploited in this way to please report it to us.
'Organisations including Shelter and Citizens Advice provide support for those struggling to find affordable accommodation, including students living away from home who need not put themselves at risk by responding to such adverts.
'Any incidents reported to Kent Police will be fully investigated to establish if any crimes have been committed, and officers will work with the Crown Prosecution Service to charge offenders and bring them before the courts.'
A teenager has described how she was struck down with a bacterial infection after returning from a holiday at the same Egyptian resort where a British couple died.
Anna Doherty, 19, says she spent 11 days in intensive care after succumbing to an infection during her stay at the Jasmine Palace Hotel in the resort of Hurghada.
John Cooper, 69, and his wife Susan, 64, died after being taken ill during a Thomas Cook holiday at the Steigenberger Aqua Magic Hotel in the same Red Sea resort on August 21.
Miss Doherty, an admin assistant from Walkden, travelled to Egypt with her dad and sister in March 2018 and said she started to feel sick half way through their ten-day stay at an all-inclusive hotel.
Anna Doherty, 19, spent 11 days in intensive care when back in the UK after succumbing to an infection during her stay at the Jasmine Palace Hotel in the resort of Hurghada
Anna said she began to feel extremely unwell, suffering symptoms of vomiting and diarrhoea.
After visiting the on-site doctors' clinic, Anna says she was told she had a water infection and was given an injection and a course of antibiotics.
She began to feel better, but when she returned home to the UK, her condition rapidly deteriorated.
Anna says her family rushed to the Royal Oldham Hospital and she was quickly transferred to The Royal Liverpool Hospital with suspected jaundice.
Doctors in Liverpool originally suspected Anna was suffering from 'Haemolytic uraemic syndrome,' which is commonly caused by a complication from an infection with E coli 0157.
Anna's doctors were unable to give a final diagnosis, but believe the previously healthy teenager was struck by a bacterial infection.
Egyptian prosecutor Nabil Sadek, who is investigating the deaths of Mr and Mrs Cooper, has said that Mrs Cooper suffered from the same illness that was suspected in Anna, likely because of E Coli.
Once back in the UK Anna was transferred to The Royal Liverpool Hospital. Doctors in Liverpool originally suspected Anna was suffering from 'Haemolytic uraemic syndrome,' which is commonly caused by a complication from an infection with E coli 0157
Anna said: 'It was really scary. I never expected to go away and get this ill. I lost so much weight from being in hospital - my body just completely shut down'
He also said that forensic tests showed that Mr Cooper suffered acute intestinal dysentery caused by E.coli.
Anna believes if it wasn't for the treatment she received at Royal Liverpool Hospital, she wouldn't be here today.
Anna said: 'It was really scary. I never expected to go away and get this ill.
'I lost so much weight from being in hospital - my body just completely shut down.
'It's thanks to the amazing staff at Liverpool hospital that I am here today. I honestly believe if I hadn't gone to hospital when I did, it would be a whole different story.'
Anna says she wants her story to act as a warning to other holidaymakers.
Miss Doherty's family booked the package holiday with booking website OnTheBeach.
A company spokesperson said: 'We pride ourselves on delivering the highest standards of service and care to ensure our customers have the best possible holiday experience, and provide emergency contact details for them to use during their holiday should any issues arise.
Anna (left) spoke out as tests revealed that British holidaymakers John and Susan Cooper had suffered illnesses caused by a suspected e.coli outbreak at another hotel in Hurghada
Both tourists were staying in the popular Hurghada resort in Egypt but were at different hotels
'On this occasion, whilst we were not made aware of the customer feeling unwell either whilst on holiday or upon their return home, we are now in touch with them and assisting in any way that we can.'
Jasmine Palace Hotel has been contacted repeatedly for comment, but has not responded.
E.coli is a bacteria which lives in the intestines of humans and animals and can cause diarrhoea and stomach cramps.
Initially, officials said the Coopers' deaths on 21 August were not caused by bacteria, but now the country's general prosecutor has claimed E.coli was a factor.
Their daughter Kelly Ormerod, from Burnley, Lancashire, has said she has 'no faith' in the Egyptian authorities and has demanded further answers.
John Cooper, 69, and his wife Susan, 64, died after being taken ill at the Steigenberger Aqua Magic Hotel in Hurghada
Their daughter Kelly Ormerod has said she has 'no faith' in the Egyptian authorities and that she saw no 'evidence or facts of any E Coli' at the hotel before her parents deaths
Mrs Ormerod, who was staying at the same hotel with her children, said: 'I have not seen evidence or facts of any E.coli.
'Thomas Cook put a report out that there were high levels of E.coli at the hotel. Whether the Egyptians have honed in on that, I have no idea.
'But anybody can Google what E.coli symptoms are and the progression of E.coli and it does not kill you within a matter of hours.
'They are either stuck for answers or don't want to tell the truth. They are obviously aware this is having a very negative effect on tourism.'
Prosecutor Nabil Sadek said forensic tests showed that Mr Cooper suffered acute intestinal dysentery caused by E.coli, and Susan Cooper suffered Hemolytic-uremic syndrome (HUS), likely because of E.coli.
He says the couple's bodies showed 'no criminal violence' and other tests on air and water at the hotel found nothing unusual.
Sarah Bramley, 29, (pictured outside Teesside Crown Court in June) today pleaded guilty to inciting an assault
A mother-of-two has admitted inciting her jealous ex-boyfriend to murder her new partner after she sent him an explicit picture of them together.
Sarah Bramley, 29, sent a photograph of herself performing a sex act on Michael Lawson, 34, to her former partner David Saunders, 34.
Along with goading Bramley with the explicit image, she even told Saunders that Lawson was outside her house, urging him to 'smack the c***'.
The image 'tipped Saunders over the edge' and he crossed town to lie in wait for Mr Lawson before stabbing him in the heart in Darlington, County Durham.
Saunders was jailed for life with a minimum terms of 22 and a half years.
Bramley fled the UK soon after the murder last July but was arrested in April after re-entering the UK earlier this year.
In May she was charged with inciting an assault but denied the offence at magistrates' court that month, and again at Teesside Crown Court in June.
But appearing at the same court today she changed her plea to guilty, on the basis that she did not intend for Saunders to commit murder and only anticipated 'a minor assault'.
Bramley sent a photograph of herself performing a sex act on Michael Lawson, 34, (pictured together) to her former partner David Saunders, 34
David Saunders was jailed for life with a minimum terms of 22 and a half years
When he sentenced Saunders in December, Judge Stephen Ashurst said Bramley's picture 'tipped [Saunders] over the edge' and had 'a very important bearing' on his actions.
The court heard Bramley 'knew Saunders had made repeated threats of violence against [Mr Lawson] and told him he could 'feel free to assault him'.
Bramley's defence lawyer Robert Newcombe told the hearing today: 'My client has indicated that she pleads guilty on the basis of incitement to cause common assault.'
Judge Ashurst asked prosecutor Nick Dry: 'This is notwithstanding the fact she knew Saunders had a reputation for violence and that he carried weapons?'
Mr Dry answered: 'We have come to conclusion that she did not intend to happen what in fact did happen.'
Bramley, who will be sentenced in October, faces up to six months in prison.
In May Bramley (pictured outside court in June) was charged with inciting an assault but denied the offence at magistrates' court that month, and again at Teesside Crown Court in June
Father-of-one Michael Lawson (pictured with Bramley) was stabbed through the heart
The image 'tipped Saunders over the edge' and he crossed town to lie in wait for Mr Lawson (pictured) before stabbing him in the heart in Darlington, County Durham
During the hearing last year the court heard that after performing the sex act on father-of-one Mr Lawson and sending the photograph of it to Saunders, Sarah then slapped her lover and ordered him to leave the house.
She is alleged to have texted Saunders saying: 'I have just smashed the lad clean in the face because he wouldn't go home. What have I got myself involved with?
'He is outside the house, feel free to smack the c***.'
Bramley, who will be sentenced in October, faces up to six months in prison
Pictured: Sarah Bramley on holiday near the beach with an erotic statue
Saunders admitted murder but sought to lower the minimum term he must serve by claiming he did not carry the knife to the scene and did not intend to kill Michael.
But following a two day trial of issue without a jury, Judge Ashurst found him guilty.
Judge Ashurst told Saunders in December: 'I am absolutely certain that photographic image was sent by her to wind you up and there is clearly no doubt she succeeded because within a few moments you arranged for a taxi to drive you to the other side of Darlington to Sarah Bramley's house.
'She by turns was less than complimentary taunting you that you were inferior to her new partner but she was absolutely clear she did not want you in her life.
'The posting by her of her giving oral sex to another man tipped you over the edge. The content of the messages had a very important bearing on your state of mind and the way you subsequently acted.'
Calls for buffer zones to be introduced outside abortion clinics across England and Wales were rejected by Home Secretary Sajid Javid today.
In defiance of pro-choice campaigners, Mr Javid said creating protest-free areas outside clinics to prevent harassment of patients 'would not be a proportionate response'.
While a Home Office review found examples of harassment and damaging behaviour, such as the handing out of model foetuses, displaying graphic images and blocking patients' paths, these activities were not the norm, he added.
Calls for buffer zones to be introduced outside abortion clinics (file image of the Marie Stopes clinic in Ealing) across England and Wales were rejected by Home Secretary Sajid Javid today
In defiance of pro-choice campaigners, Mr Javid (pictured in Downing Street today) said creating protest-free areas outside clinics to prevent harassment of patients 'would not be a proportionate response'
He said: 'Having considered the evidence of the review, I have therefore reached the conclusion that introducing national buffer zones would not be a proportionate response, considering the experiences of the majority of hospitals and clinics, and considering that the majority of activities are more passive in nature.'
The Home Secretary acknowledged all anti-abortion activities, passive or otherwise, can have an adverse effect and he expressed his sympathies to women impacted.
The review received more than 2,500 responses from abortion service providers, abortion service clients, anti-abortion demonstrators, police forces and local authorities.
Some 36 hospitals and clinics in England and Wales reported demonstrations outside their facilities. Of these, a small number reported aggressive activity, the Home Office said.
The main activities reported as having taken place during protests included praying, displaying banners and handing out leaflets.
About one in 10 abortion clinics have reported harassment of women, Home Office Minister Victoria Atkins told the Commons, as she defended a decision to reject a national buffer zones scheme.
Demonstrations were reported outside 36 clinics of the 363 in the UK, Mrs Atkins said, justifying continued granting of buffer zones on a case-by-case basis.
Labour MP and abortion buffer zone campaigner Rupa Huq (file image) said she was 'disappointed' in the Government's rejection of a national buffer zone plan
She said: 'In those circumstances, at the moment, the conclusion of the evidence is we continue with the current scheme of allowing councils to apply for public space protection orders, which are targeted orders.
'But of course we keep this matter very much under review because we want to ensure that people who need to access these services can do so in a safe way.'
Labour MP and abortion buffer zone campaigner Rupa Huq was 'disappointed' by the Government's rejection of a national buffer zone plan.
The Ealing Central and Acton MP told the Commons: 'The conclusions are a bit disappointing... It seems to be saying there has to be a disproportionate number of women affected before any action takes place.'
But Antonia Tully, director of campaigns at the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC), the world's oldest abortion opposition group, said they were 'delighted' by the decision.
She said: 'This is a massive victory for common sense, democracy and above all for the hundreds of vulnerable women who are saved from the horror of abortion at the very gates of the abortion clinic.'
An Illinois judge who was convicted of fraud is stepping down from the bench.
The attorney for Cook County Circuit Judge Jessica O'Brien said Wednesday she had signed the necessary paperwork to end her judicial career.
O'Brien was convicted of fraudulently obtaining mortgages for Chicago investment properties and illegally pocketing more than $300,000.
The court heard between 2004 and 2007, before she became a judge, O'Brien had lied to lenders in order to be approved for $1.4million in loans.
Of this, she kept $325,000 for herself, Patch reported.
Jessica O'Brien (pictured) was found guilty of fraud and has resigned as a circuit judge in Cook County
The property was finally purchased through a straw buyer, who flipped and testified against her.
While O'Brien was in the midst of the scheme, she was employed at the Illinois Department of Revenue, as a loan officer for a mortgage company, and owned her own real estate company, the court heard.
US District Judge Thomas M Durkin last week denied several motions made by her lawyers seeking an acquittal or a new trial.
Steve Greenberg said his client had always said she would resign if her post-trial motions were denied.
O'Brien fraudulently obtained a $1.4million mortgage, of which she kept $325,000 for herself
After Durkin's decision, O'Brien filed notice to end her retention bid with the Illinois Secretary of State's Office.
She said she was bowing out of the race 'in light of the federal court's ruling in my case.'
O'Brien had been on the bench since 2012, and was the first Filipina judge to be elected in the county.
She is married to fellow Cook County judge Alan O'Brien, who is not accused of any wrongdoing.
Donald Trump blasted JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon in a tweet on Thursday, saying he's not cut out for the White House.
'The problem with banker Jamie Dimon running for President is that he doesnt have the aptitude or smarts & is a poor public speaker & nervous mess otherwise he is wonderful,' Trump said.
'Ive made a lot of bankers, and others, look much smarter than they are with my great economic policy!'
Dimon mocked the president on Wednesday, saying he could beat him in the 2020 election because he's 'smarter.' He later walked it back and said he wasn't planning to run.
Dimon hit Trump where it would hurt: The president is said to be sensitive about his standing in New York City society, how he earned his money, and his intelligence.
Donald Trump took a swipe at banking titan Jamie Dimon on Thursday, mocking the financial leader for claiming he could beat the president in 2020
'I think I could beat Trump,' JPMorgan Chase CEO Dimon said Wednesday
Trump fired back on Twitter: 'He doesnt have the aptitude or smarts & is a poor public speaker & nervous mess otherwise he is wonderful'
'I think I could beat Trump,' Dimon said Wednesday morning at an event held at his bank's Park Avenue headquarters, according to CNBC. 'Because I'm as tough as he is, I'm smarter than he is. I would be fine. He could punch me all he wants, it wouldn't work with me. I'd fight right back.'
Dimon said that winning the Democratic nomination would be the truly hard part: 'I can't beat the liberal side of the Democratic Party.'
He also addressed Trump's social standing in New York.
'I grew up in a poorer part of Queens than he did, but I am a banker. I am part of the elite,' Dimon said. 'I don't think the American public looks at Trump as part of the elite. They look at him as the upstart who punched the elite in the nose every day.'
In one last dig, he noted that he earned his money unlike Trump, whose father gave him $1 million in startup capital.
'And by the way this wealthy New Yorker actually earned his money,' Dimon said. 'It wasn't a gift from Daddy.'
But by Wednesday afternoon he was clarifying his comments, sending out a statement saying he wouldn't run for president.
'I should not have said it. I'm not running for president. Proves I wouldn't make a good politician. I get frustrated because I want all sides to come together to help solve big problems,' Dimon said, according to Bloomberg.
At the event, he also noted his wife Judith but that he thinks it would 'be a really interesting White House if she were first lady.'
'It would be a little bit..remember that show 'The Nanny' with Fran Drescher? She says that, not me,' he said.
Dimon, who has become a billionaire thanks to his stake in JPMorgan Chase, is a longtime donor to Democrats. There was speculation, after President Barack Obama's election, that he would be named Treasury secretary, but the job ultimately went to Timothy Geithner.
President Donald Trump with JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon as he greets attendees during a Strategic and Policy Forum meeting at the White House in February 2017
He served on Trump's Strategic and Policy Forum, where he came under fire for not stepping down as fellow executives did in the wake of Trump controversies. For example, Disney's Bob Iger resigned from it after the president withdrew the U.S. from the Paris Accords.
Trump disbanded the board after he was criticized for failing to sufficiently condemn white supremacists in the aftermath of Charlottesville's rally last August.
Dimon has said while he disagreed with Trump politically he felt it was his patriotic duty to serve on the council.
During the 2008 financial crisis, Dimon steered his company through the rough waters with JPMorgan Chase the only bank to show a profit during that time. The New York Times, in a profile of Dimon, called him 'America's Least Hated Banker.'
Actor Bill Pullman portrayed Dimon in HBO's movie on the crisis 'Too Big To Fail.'
Joint session of parliament postponed for two days
The joint session of the parliament summoned by President Dr Arif Alvi for Thursday (today) has been postponed for two days until Monday, a private TV channel reported.
The president had on Wednesday summoned a joint session of both the houses of the parliament for Thursday. According to the constitutional provisions, the president has to address a joint session of parliament at the beginning of the first session of the National Assembly after a general election as well as the first sitting of the assembly in every parliamentary year. The joint session scheduled for Monday will be the first formal session of parliament after general election and swearing-in of the new prime minister, speaker and the deputy speaker.
Fishermen caught a monstrous 9ft bluefin tuna that 'could have fed a whole town' - but strict quota rules meant it couldn't be eaten.
The giant fish - weighing around 350kg (771lb) - was mistakenly netted by fishermen who were looking for sprats off the coast of Devon.
UK crews do not have a quota to catch tuna so it remained untouched and had to be sent away for scientific research.
The fishermen's catch comes just days after amateur angler Chris Chatfield, 35, hauled in a monster bluefin tuna weighing 102kg (225lbs) off the same coastline, near Jersey.
Reel-y big fish: Chris Shears, captain of the Constant Friend (centre) and Craig Wright (right) with the 350kg bluefin tuna, which can't be eaten due to fishing quotas
Chris Chatfield, Joe McKenna and Tariq Osman with the 225kg bluefin tuna they caught off the Minquiers. The men got to keep their catch as they were classed as amateur recreational fisherman
Mr Chatfield got to keep his catch - and decided to share the feast with family and friends - because he is a recreational fisherman.
A spokesman for Jersey's States Fisheries and Marine Resources explained last week how there are strict quotas on catching bluefin tuna in the UK but recreational fishermen can sometimes keep their catch.
He said the UK quota 'is zero, which means BFT cannot be caught in UK waters by British commercial or recreational vessels.'
However, the spokesman added that the fish could legally be caught by recreational fishermen in Jersey waters, although they are requested not to 'target bluefin tuna' as they are 'an endangered species.'
A statement released by Brixham Seafish, who snapped a picture of the 350kg fish off the coast of Devon, said: 'What you see before you is a nine foot bluefin tuna.
'Estimated at 350kg they are becoming a common sight in our waters due to rising water temperatures and an abundance of bait fish.
'It's probably worth in excess of 10,000 and would have fed our whole town.
'The French do have quota on the species and do land a fair amount in season.'
The tuna was caught by Chris Shears, 33, skipper of the day boat Constant Friend, which leaves the port in Brixham, Devon, each morning at 5am.
Chris Chatfield and Joe McKenna (left) show off their incredible catch from the same area where two French vessels caused uproar by landing 44 of the species recently
There is currently no quota in England for catching bluefin tuna. Joshua, co-owner of Brixham Seafish, said: 'It seems a shame that we can't do anything about it. We want the quota to change.' Pictured is the catch from Jersey
What is the bluefin tuna fishing quota? The UK currently has no specific quota to catch bluefin tuna. Within EU waters, it is prohibited for commercial or recreational vessels to catch or target bluefin tuna unless authorised to do so by an EU state. Bluefin tuna is a prohibited species for UK registered commercial fishing vessels. Recreational fishermen can sometimes keep their bluefin tuna catch. Bluefin tuna is recognised as an endangered species by the WWF. If the fish is caught it must be returned to the water with as little harm as possible. In 2006 the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas adopted a 15-year recovery plan for bluefin tuna. The EU quota was shared by the eight Member States actively involved in catching bluefin tuna - Spain, France, Italy, Croatia, Greece, Portugal, Malta and Cyprus. A quota is a limit that is set on the amount of fish that fishermen can land. There are around 6,000 UK fishing boats. Sources: gov.uk and europa.eu Advertisement
Its crew, including two teenagers and a deckhand, caught the fish on Wednesday while trawling for sprats.
The fish has now been donated to the University of Exeter where researchers will test it to establish it's age.
The tuna sadly died in the net before it could be released back into the wild.
Joshua, 31, co-owner of Brixham Seafish, said: 'It's a waste. We're not out to try and catch them - they're caught by accident.
'The bait that he has been eating were caught and he was caught with it and ended up drowning.
'Unfortunately there's no quota in England. It seems a shame that we can't do anything about it. We want the quota to change.'
Recently the British fishing industry was outraged after French fishermen landed 44 bluefin tuna off the coast of Jersey.
The catch was potentially worth tens of thousands of pounds, but the British were unable to land the fish.
The situation added to rising tensions between UK fishermen and their French counterparts who were already engaged in the so-called Scallop Wars.
Bluefin tuna is a prohibited species for UK-registered fishing vessels and if caught as bycatch must be returned to the sea alive if possible.
If dead, the catch must be reported to the Marine Management Organisation (MMO), and must not be sold or given away unless it is for scientific research.
The French were able to take their tuna back to the fish market to sell.
Recently the British fishing industry was outraged after French fishermen landed 44 bluefin tuna off the coast of Jersey, in the same area as the huge bluefin tuna (pictured) The catch was potentially worth tens of thousands of pounds, but the British are unable to land the fish
Bluefin tuna is a prohibited species for UK-registered fishing vessels and if caught as bycatch must be returned to the sea alive if possible. If dead, the catch must be reported to the Marine Management Organisation
Bluefin are an endangered species and are one of the largest species of tuna and can live up to 40 years.
The World Wildlife Fund says that if tuna were a car they would be the Ferrari of the ocean because they are sleek, powerful, and made for speed.
There are several species but the Atlantic bluefin can reach 10ft in length and weigh as much as 1,500 lbs, more than a horse, and can swim up to 43 miles per hour across long distances.
They can be worth hundreds of thousands of pounds on the black market and one sold for a record 1.09 million at a Tokyo auction in 2013.
A coal train driver has given green activists protesting on top his train in a hilarious Facebook live video.
The driver lost his temper after catching one of the anti-coal mining activists giving a speech on the health dangers of the coal mining industry to a Facebook audience.
'Get down off my f***ing loco,' the angry driver yelled.
Activist Micah Weekes went on to finish his speech whilst locked on top of the coal train in Newcastle
A coal train driver swore blindly at green activists who were staging a protest atop his locomotive
'You're on a livestream mate,' activist Micah Weekes replied.
The driver was unphased. 'I don't give a f*** where I am,' he shouted.
The train driver then turned his attention to an activist out of shot who had earlier stood in the path of one of his moving trains.
'I should have run [him] over. Where's his f***ing brains?' he said, pointing at the activist.
Activist Micah Weekes went on to finish his speech whilst locked on top of the coal train in Newcastle.
A former coal miner of over 10 years, Mr Weekes was talking about the negative impact the coal mining industry can have on people's health.
'It's my turn to make a stand. It's my turn as one of the coal workers to get up here and stop these trains,' he said in the live video.
'You don't have to work in the industry to get sick form this. My kids are gonna get sick. Its already happening. People in my community have reoccurring illnesses, respiratory issues, cancer, tumours.'
Mr Micah Weekes (pictured) was protesting against the negative impact the coal mining industry can have on people's health
Mr Weekes climbed on top of a train at 6am Thursday morning to stop all trains heading towards the worlds largest coal port in Newcastle.
The activist was later arrested and taken into police custody. He was released four hours later.
The occupation of the coal trains is part of the wider anti-coal mining protest 'Act Up: Newcastle' running from September 12-16 and organised by Frontline Action on Coal.
A chemical weapons expert who appears on the Russia Today TV news channel has been arrested after officers discovered potentially hazardous materials at his home in Devon.
Former research scientist Dr Chris Busby - an outspoken critic of the British Government's handlings of the Salisbury poisoning - was held after officers reported feeling unwell during a raid on his property yesterday morning.
Police had initially targeted the address in the sleepy seaside town of Bideford over concerns for a woman's welfare.
However officers complained of feeling unwell and were immediately checked over by an ambulance Hazardous Area Response Team and fire crews.
A search of the property found items required analysis from specialist officers and a bomb disposal team.
Nuclear chemicals expert Dr Chris Busby who appears on Russian Today news, was arrested yesterday after his home in the sleepy seaside town of Bideford was raided
Police attended the address initially over concerns about a woman's welfare
But officers complained of feeling ill and were checked by an ambulance Hazardous Area Response Team
Devon and Cornwall Police said there is not believed to be any risk to the public, and the officers treated are unharmed and have returned to duty.
They are not linking the incident to the attempted murder of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury in March.
Dr Busby, 73, is said to have his own laboratory at home and supposedly keeps, among other items, samples of radioactive mud taken near the Sellafield nuclear plant in Cumbria.
Neighbours of Dr Busby today told how police arrived at the address when he was having a row with his partner before officers searched the address.
One said: 'He comes over as quite an eccentric guy. All we know is that he's a retired scientist who keeps himself quite private. There's a woman living in there with him.
'I saw them both arguing with a police officer outside their front door when it all kicked off.'
Devon and Cornwall Police said there is not believed to be any risk to the public, and the officers treated are unharmed and have returned to duty
Dr Busby, 73, whose home was searched, is said to have his own lab at home and supposedly keeps samples of radioactive mud taken near the Sellafield nuclear plant in Cumbria
Another said: 'It was pretty disconcerting to have the army bomb squad, along with dozens of police and firemen, turn up. It's usually so quiet along here.
'On the other hand if any house in Bideford was going to be the subject of an explosives scare you'd have put money on it being this one.'
A nearby shopkeeper said Dr Busby was often seen strolling around the narrow town centre lanes wearing his distinctive black beret.
'Bideford being the place it is there are already rumours about a Novichok incident,' she added.
'But it can't be that serious because he was back at the house with a police officer today.'
A statement from Devon and Cornwall Police said: 'Whilst at the address, some of our officer complained of feeling unwell and were immediately removed from the scene and a cordon put in place.
'The ambulance Hazardous Area Response Team (HART) attended and treated these officers, all of whom are unharmed and have since returned to duty.
'Following searches within the property, a number of items were found which require expert analysis from specialist officers and an Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) team.
The property was evacuated and a search found items required analysis from specialist officers and a bomb disposal team
'The house has been evacuated and enquiries are ongoing at the property.
'Officers have sought specialist advice and it has not been deemed necessary to evacuate any other properties; there is not believed to be any wider public risk at this time.'
Police have said that a 73-year-old man has been detained under the explosives act but will not confirm or deny that he is Dr Busby.
Dr Busby is one of the experts used by the Kremlin-backed Russia Today news channel, which today broadcast an interview with the two suspected novichok hitmen Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov
Dr Busby has previously accused the U.S of using depleted uranium weapons in Iraq causing cancer and birth defects.
He has also appeared in YouTube videos blaming the assassination plot to poison former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia with the nerve agent Novichok as a 'false flag' operation.
He believes the pair were really targeted by Britain or the U.S, who he has accused of trying to frame Russia because they fear President Vladimir Putin is beginning to break up the American monopoly on oil.
In one video he says: 'Just to make it perfectly clear, there's no way that there's any proof that the material that poisoned the Skripals came from Russia.'
John McDonnell has praised the Archbishop of Canterbury for laying out a 'bold vision for a different society'.
Justin Welby tore into the the 'gig economy' and accused Amazon of 'leeching off the taxpayer' in an extraordinarily speech at the TUC conference yesterday.
And he also lashed ministers - demanding an end to the Government's controversial universal credit welfare programme which has been dogged by delays and blunders.
The Archbishop's outspoken attack sparked a storm of criticism among Tory MPs who accused him of parroting Labour policy.
But he has been defended by Labour's shadow chancellor, who said the speech spelled out the failures of austerity.
Tory MP Sir Desmond Swayne warned the Archbishop to seer clear from acting as a politician.
John McDonnell (pictured addressing the TUC conference in Manchester earlier this week) has praised the Archbishop of Canterbury for laying out a 'bold vision for a different society'
Justin Welby (pictured speaking at the TUC's 150th anniversary conference in Manchester yesterday) hit out at the 'gig economy' and at zero-hours contracts during his speech
Mr McDonnell said: 'The Archbishop of Canterbury has set out a bold vision for a different society, one without the evils of the gig economy, the exploitation of workers and tax dodging of the multinationals.
'I welcome his speech, and the growing movement against the failures of austerity and neoliberalism
He added: 'Labour will end zero hours contracts, clamp down on the tax avoiders, and ensure everyone has access to sick pay, parental leave and protections at work.'
The Archbishop launched an extraordinary attack on modern working conditions while addressing the 150th TUC Congress in Manchester yesterday.
He described modern insecurity at work as the 'reincarnation of ancient evil' in a strident speech to trade unionists.
He also hit out at the 'gig economy', under which workers are denied benefits and are paid per job, and at zero-hours contracts which offer employees no guarantees of work.
And he attacked tax-avoiding online giants, accusing Amazon of 'leeching off the taxpayer'.
Insisting that Jesus himself had been a 'highly political' figure, he demanded an end to the Government's flagship Universal Credit benefit reforms, saying the changes had heightened the risk of people going hungry.
Welby attacked tax-avoiding online giants, accusing Amazon (pictured is an Amazon warehouse) of 'leeching off the taxpayer'
But the astonishing intervention last night drew criticism from Tory MPs including former leader Iain Duncan Smith, the architect of Universal Credit.
More than one accused Archbishop Welby of expounding the views of hard left Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell a man who was named in his speech along with Tony Benn.
Charles Walker, MP for Broxbourne, said the archbishop was backing 'John McDonnell's point of view'.
Tory MP Ben Bradley tweeted: 'Not clear to me when or how it can possibly be appropriate for the Archbishop of Canterbury to be appearing at TUC conference or parroting Labour policy.'
He added: 'There are a diversity of views as to what is best for the economy, but [he] only seems interested in presenting John McDonnell's point of view.'
In his address the Archbishop took aim at Amazon, which has been accused of not paying its fair share of corporation tax.
'Not paying taxes speaks of the absence of commitment to our shared humanity, to solidarity and justice,' he said. 'If you earn money from a community, you should pay your share of tax.
Welby said of the gig economy 'It is the reincarnation of ancient evil,' he said. 'Today there are some who view that kind of oppression of the employed as a virtue.'
The astonishing intervention last night drew criticism from Tory MPs including former leader Iain Duncan Smith (pictured), the architect of Universal Credit
'They don't pay a real living wage, so the taxpayer must support their workers with benefits; and having leeched off the taxpayer once they don't pay for our defence, for security, for stability, for justice, for health, for equality, for education.'
A spokesman for Amazon said: 'We pay all taxes required in the UK and every country where we operate.
'Amazon has created more than 25,000 good jobs with good pay and benefits across Britain and we are proud of the work they do on behalf of customers every day.'
Tory MP Desmond Swayne said: 'He criticises Amazon but that is the responsibility of the government not Amazon it pays what it is told by the government to pay.
'If there is a problem about our struggling high streets, the government should change the tax system.
'Tax is not something about which the church has expertise. They can use the pulpit to ask their congregations to give more to charitable causes. Tax affairs are a matter for elected politicians not clergymen.
'Bishops are entitled to their own opinions but they should be kept from the pulpit.'
Condemning the so-called gig economy and zero-hours contracts the Archbishop said they were 'nothing new'.
He also spoke of how he had seen a speech against austerity by Tony Benn, and mentioned John McDonnell's docker father who, he said, had experienced the gig economy.
'It is the reincarnation of ancient evil,' he said. 'Today there are some who view that kind of oppression of the employed as a virtue.'
In his speech, he said he did not apologise for straying into politics. 'The Bible is political from one end to the other,' he said.
Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh claims he had no idea the man who approached him in his confirmation last Tuesday was the father of a student who was killed in the Parkland, Fla., shootings.
He explained if he had realized the identity of Fred Guttenberg, whose daughter Jaime Guttenberg was one of the 17 high school students killed in the Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in February, he would have spoken to him.
Kavanaugh, President Donald Trump's nominee to the high court, said he assumed the man who touched his arm was a protestor.
Fred Guttenberg (L), father of Parkland, Florida, shooting victim Jaime Guttenberg, tries to speak with Judge Brett Kavanaugh as he leaves for a break during his confirmation hearing
Judge Brett Kavanaugh listens to Fred Guttenberg, a parent of a student who was a victim at the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland,Florida
Brett Kavanaugh turns away from Fred Guttenberg, whose daughter was killed in the Parkland shooting
Fred Guttenberg's 14-year-old daughter Jaime Guttenberg was one of the 17 high school students killed at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School
'As I was leaving the hearing room for a recess last Tuesday, a man behind me yelled my name, approached me from behind, and touched my arm. It had been a chaotic morning with a large number of protestors in the hearing room. As the break began, the room remained noisy and crowded,' Kavanaugh wrote in response to written 'questions for the record' from members of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
'When I turned and did not recognize the man, I assumed he was a protestor. In a split second, my security detail intervened and ushered me out of the hearing room. In that split second, I unfortunately did not realize that the man was the father of a shooting victim from Parkland, Florida. Mr. Guttenberg has suffered an incalculable loss. If I had known who he was, I would have shaken his hand, talked to him, and expressed my sympathy. And I would have listened to him,' he concluded.
Asked by Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal if he had asked police to intervene, Kavanaugh wrote, 'No.'
He added: 'No one acted at my request. If someone purported to act on my behalf, they did so without my knowledge and contrary to my wishes.'
Kavanaugh was responding to 1,287 submitted questions from senators on the committee, almost all from Democrats.
Republican Senator Chuck Grassley, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, blasted the Democrats' excessive questioning as a way to 'gum up the process.'
'Submitting this many written questions appears to be just one more effort to gum up the process. It's unnecessary and dilatory, especially when many have already decided to vote against Judge Kavanaugh. What more do they need to know to vote 'no'?' Grassley said in a statement.
He also noted this is the most amount of written questions posed to a nominee.
The Senate Judiciary Committee has delayed a vote on Kavanaugh by a week until next Thursday, September 20. A full Senate vote on his confirmation is expected for the last week in September.
White House spokesman Raj Shah said Kavanaugh has 'completed the most comprehensive, thorough and transparent review of any nomination for the Supreme Court in U.S. history.'
'Between four days of hearings and written responses, Judge Kavanaugh has responded to over 2,000 questions publicly, in addition to questions from Senators in a confidential session. This comes after Chairman Grassley granted each Senator access to over 450,000 pages of records from the Judge's executive branch service, more than the previous five Supreme Court nominees combined. In addition, Judge Kavanaugh met personally with 65 different Senators and submitted 17,000 pages of answers, writings, and speeches in response to the Committee's bipartisan questionnaire, on top of the over 300 opinions he's written as a sitting Judge that are available for public review,' Shah said in a statement.
'Despite the endless complaints from critics, the Committee has received more material regarding Judge Kavanaugh's nomination than any nominee in history by a wide margin. Its members have more than enough information to consider his nomination, and we look forward to them advancing it to the full Senate,' he said.
Guttenberg, who was invited to Kavanaugh's confirmation hearing by ranking Democratic member of the judiciary committee Sen. Dianne Feinstein, approached the judge during a break in opening statements.
Photos of Kavanaugh turning away from Guttenberg went viral and led to an outcry against the judge.
Guttenberg tweeted about the incident, writing: 'Just walked up to Judge Kavanaugh as morning session ended. Put out my hand to introduce myself as Jaime Guttenberg's dad. He pulled his hand back, turned his back to me and walked away. I guess he did not want to deal with the reality of gun violence.'
At the time, the White House pushed back, saying security had stopped Guttenberg from speaking to Kavanaugh.
'As Judge Kavanaugh left for his lunch break, an unidentified individual approached him. Before the Judge was able to shake his hand, security had intervened,' White House deputy press secretary Raj Shah, who's handling Kavanaugh's confirmation, tweeted.
Then Guttenberg snapped back at Shah, saying Feinstein introduced him.
'Incorrect. I was here all day and introduced by Senator Feinstein. No security involved. He turned and walked away,' he tweeted in reply.
Guttenberg has become a gun control advocate and fierce critic of the National Rifle Association since his 14-year-old daughter was one of the 17 students who on died on Valentine's Day in the mass shooting.
Fred Guttenberg tweeted Kavanaugh turned away from him when he introduced himself
Jamie Guttenberg was killed in the Parkland, Fla., massacre
He became a national figure in February when he challenged Florida Sen. Marco Rubio about his gun rights position in a CNN town hall following the shooting.
Guttenberg told The Washington Post he is certain Kavanaugh heard him and disputed that the presence of security had any role in the lack of interaction.
'There was no security intervention,' Guttenberg said. 'When he turned that way and started moving, they started following him. But he had every ability to engage me.'
Kavanaugh's confirmation hearing on Tuesday was interrupted multiple times by protesters, who were expressing concern about President Donald Trump's nominee's record on abortion rights.
By the end of that first day, 71 protestors had been arrested.
It was so chaotic Kavanaugh's young daughters were escorted from the room.
Protesters dressed in The Handmaid's Tale costume, protest outside the hearing room where Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh will testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee
U.S. Capitol Police removed multiple protestors throughout Kavanaugh's confirmation hearing
Kavanaugh addressed other sensitive topics in his answers' to the senators questions, which are known as 'questions for the record.'
The inquiries follow two days of hearings in the judiciary committee last week where Kavanaugh answered over 20 hours of questions from members of both political parties.
Under committee rules, senators from both sides of the aisle are allowed to follow up their verbal questions in a hearing with written questions.
Their inquiries ranged from inquires about legal theory to how he purchased his home to his season tickets for the Washington Nationals baseball team to whether he was on a 'sexually explicit email list.'
Democratic Senator inquired about Kavanaugh's relationship with Judge Alex Kozinski, who retired in December 2017 after a growing number of allegations of improper sexual conduct.
Kozinski served on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit for over 30 years and Kavanaugh clerked for Kozinski in 1991.
More than fifteen women came forward with allegations against Kozinski, including that he showed them pornography, inappropriate touching and kissing, and inappropriate sexual contact.
In his resignation statement, Kozinski said the women must have misunderstood his 'broad sense of humor.'
Coons asked Kavanaugh to respond to 11 questions relating to the retiring judge including whether Kavanaugh was a member of Kozinski's 'sexually explicit email list' known as 'the Easy Rider Gag List.'
Judge Brett Kavanaugh with his daughters Margaret and Liza at Game 5 of the 2017 National League Division Series between the Chicago Cubs and Washington Nationals
Brett Kavanaugh is sworn in before the Senate Judiciary Committee
Women's reproductive rights activists that oppose Kavanaugh's nomination protest wearing black veils and tape over their mouths outside his hearing room
Kavanaugh offered a stark, one-sentence denial: 'I do not remember receiving inappropriate emails of a sexual nature from Judge Kozinski.'
Kavanaugh, in response to other questions, said he didn't see Judge Kozinski engage in sexually inappropriate behavior or harass anyone.
'I was unaware of any allegation that Judge Kozinski shared pornography with law clerks until I read the story in the news in late 2017,' he wrote. The Los Angeles Times broke the news on Kozinki's alleged behavior in 2008.
But, Kavanaugh noted, he has no reason to doubt the women's claims.
He also pointed out the many other people who worked around Kozinski did not report anything.
'Judge Kozinski worked in a small courthouse in Pasadena with ten other judges, numerous law clerks, and court employees. Apparently, none of them knew of any misconduct, or they presumably would have reported it,' Kavanaugh wrote.
Trump's nominee to the Supreme Court also received numerous questions about his financial disclosures, including questions on how he bought his home, his purchase of season tickets to the Washington Nationals' baseball team, his poker playing and his membership in the tony-D.C. area Chevy Chase Club.
Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse inquired whether Kavanaugh has a gambling problem.
The judge answered with a firm 'no.'
The assertion that Kavanaugh might have a gambling problem comes from a disclosed 2001 email, where he is apparently apologizing to his friends for losing his cool after losing a 'game of dice.'
'The game of dice referred to in that email was not a game with monetary stakes,' Kavanaugh wrote.
He also noted he does occasionally gamble and, in a response to a specific question about whether he's ever visited any casinos in New Jersey, he said yes.
'Like many Americans, I have occasionally played poker or other games with friends and colleagues,' Kavanaugh wrote.
'I recall occasionally visiting casinos in New Jersey when I was in school or in my 20s. I recall I played low-stakes blackjack. I have not accrued gambling debt,' he noted.
He also wrote that 'I have not had gambling debts or participated in 'fantasy' leagues.'
Brett Kavanaugh sits with his wife, Ashley, daughter Liza, and daughter Margaret as he is introduced to senators on the Senate Judiciary Committee
Brett Kavanaugh greets girls who he has coached in basketball, including his daughter Liza, bottom left, during a break in the third day of his Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing
Brett Kavanaugh, center, poses for a photograph with his current and former basketball team members he coaches
Family members of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, including his wife, Ashley, and two daughters, Liza and Margaret, on his first day of confirmation hearings
Brett Kavanaugh, with daughter Liza, departs his Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing last Tuesday
In 2016, Kavanaugh reported debts of $60,000 to $200,000. The White House said that was the result of baseball tickets he bought for friends who then eventually paid him back and also from home improvement measures.
The debts were not on his 2017 financial disclosures because he had repaid them.
Kavanaugh detailed his financial information, noting the only debt he and his wife held was their home mortgage and they borrowed from their 401K for the down payment, an option available to first time home owners. That money has been repaid, Kavanaugh noted.
He also said their income increased in the last few years because of a ' significant annual salary increase for federal judges; a substantial back pay award in the wake of class litigation over pay for the Federal Judiciary; and my wife's return to the paid workforce following the many years that she took off from paid work in order to stay with and care for our daughters.'
He pointed out that he and his wife Ashley, like many homeowners, have 'sunk a decent amount of money into our home for sometimes unanticipated repairs and improvements. As many homeowners probably appreciate, the list sometimes seems to never end.'
He then goes on to offer a laundry list of typical homeowner problems: 'replacing the heating and air conditioning system and air conditioning units, replacing the water heater, painting and repairing the full exterior of the house, painting the interior of the house, replacing the porch flooring on the front and side porches with composite wood, gutter repairs, roof repairs, new refrigerator, new oven, ceiling leaks, ongoing flooding in the basement, waterproofing the basement, mold removal in the basement, drainage work because of excess water outside the house that was running into the neighbor's property, fence repair, and so on.'
'Maintaining a house, especially an old house like ours, can be expensive' he noted.
The Kavanaughs own a $1,225,000 home in Chevy Chase, Md.
Kavanaugh, who has spoken about coaching his daughter's basketball team, noted he is a 'huge sports fan.'
He wrote that when the Nationals came to Washington D.C. in 2005, 'I purchased four season tickets in my name every season from 2005 through 2017. I also purchased playoff packages for the four years that the Nationals made the playoffs (2012, 2014, 2016 and 2017.)'
The first day of Kavanaugh's confirmation hearing was chaotic
One by one protestors disrupted Kavanaugh's hearing
He also pointed out he is a regular attendee at games: 'I have attended all 11 Nationals' home playoff games in their history. (We are 3-8 in those games.) I have attended a couple of hundred regular season games.'
He said he and his friends split the game tickets.
'As is typical with baseball season tickets, I had a group of old friends who would split games with me. We would usually divide the tickets in a 'ticket draft' at my house. Everyone in the group paid me for their tickets based on the cost of the tickets, to the dollar. No one overpaid or underpaid me for tickets. No loans were given in either direction.'
He also said he and his wife paid the 'full price' for their membership at the Chevy Chase Club and they pay regular dues. ' We did not and do not receive any discounts.'
He did not disclose how much they paid but the initiation fee is said to be $92,000 and the annual dues total more than $9,000.
Kavanaugh said his family uses the club's hockey ring and gym.
'The club is a minute's drive from our house, and there is an outdoor ice hockey rink and a very good youth ice hockey program. We joined primarily because of he ice hockey program that my younger daughter participates in, as well as because of the gym,' he wrote.
Les Moonves was in the process of finding one of his accusers a job at CBS prior to his termination.
The New York Times reports that Moonves admitted this while being interviewed by company lawyers as part of the investigation into his alleged sexual misconduct just last month.
The CBS board realized after learning this that they needed to remove Moonves from his position according to emails that were seen by the Times, but were still prepared to let him leave with half of his $180 million severance package.
A deal was put in place that would pay Moonves out the rest of the money if an investigation cleared him, and a new release announcing the decision was being drafted when The New Yorker called to fact check a story that contained on-the-record allegations from six new women.
The board realized at that time there was no way to let Moonves leave with any money until the investigation was complete, and voted to terminate his employment on Sunday, just hours after The New Yorker published its story.
Some had hoped that vote could have come before the release of the story, but there was not enough time.
Pay to play: The New York Times reports that Les Moonves told the lawyers investigating allegations of sexual misconduct that he tried to get accuser a job at CBS (Moonves above in 2010)
Accusers: The company learned that a story might be in the works back in January, when Shari Redstone relayed information she had heard to the board (Phyllis Golden-Gottlieb on left, Illeana Douglas on right)
The Times also reports that no matter what the investigation finds, board members have said it is 'all but certain' that Moonves will receive no money from the company.
The board was upset not only about The New Yorker story, but 'new incriminating details from their lawyers.'
Many on the board had been ready to oust Moonves long before that, most notably Shari Redstone.
But Moonves had managed to win a number of board members over by dismissing the claims made in the first New Yorker story and claims that he sexually assaulted a women in the 1980s, who was later revealed to be Phyllis Golden-Gottlieb.
Redstone was actually the first to reveal that a story might be underway, sharing this news with the company in January.
When a February story focused on President Trump and not Moonves, some on the company board believed that they were off the hook.
That was not the case.
A filing submitted by CBS to the United States Securities and Exchange Committee obtained by DailyMail.com on Monday revealed that Moonves would be staying on for two years to help advise the company in order to ensure a smooth transition.
That filing also revealed that in his position Moonves would be given his own office and a security detail, paid for by CBS.
CBS will also place $120 million into a grantor trust that will be given to Moonves pending the outcome of two investigations into these allegations.
And the $20 million that Moonves was said to be donating to various #MeToo charities is actually coming out of the pocket of CBS Corporation.
'Mr. Moonves has agreed to perform transition advisory services for the Company for one year following his resignation (or, if earlier, until the date the Board determines the Company is entitled to terminate his employment for cause) in order to provide for a smooth transition of his duties,' reads the filing.
'In order to facilitate such transition services, the Company will provide Mr. Moonves with office services and security services for up to two years following his resignation.'
The filing also goes over Moonves' compensation package, though does not get into great detail regarding how it might be impacted by the investigations other than to note if he is cleared he will receive the full amount due to him under his contract.
'Within thirty (30) days following the Termination Date, the Company will also contribute $120,000,000 to a grantor trust,' it reads.
'In the event the Board determines that the Company is entitled to terminate Mr. Moonvess employment for cause under his employment agreement and Mr. Moonves does not demand arbitration with respect to such determination, the assets of the grantor trust will be distributed to the Company and the Company will have no further obligations to Mr. Moonves.'
Just before that the company reveals that they will cover the charitable donation.
'Within thirty (30) days following the Termination Date, the Company will make contributions in the aggregate amount of $20,000,000 to one or more charitable organizations that support the #MeToo movement and equality for women in the workplace, which organizations have been designated by Mr. Moonves in consultation with the Company,' states the filing.
That line seems to contradict the statement made just one day prior by the company in a press release.
'Moonves and CBS will donate $20 million to one or more organizations that support the #MeToo movement and equality for women in the workplace,' read the release.
'The donation, which will be made immediately, has been deducted from any severance benefits that may be due Moonves following the Boards ongoing independent investigation led by Covington & Burling and Debevoise & Plimpton.'
Family: Board members have said it is 'all but certain' that Moonves will receive no money from the company no matter what the investigation finds (Moonves with daughter Sara, son Charlie and second wife Julie Chen in New York City in 2017)
Moonves' exit as CEO did manage to solve at least one legal headache for the corporation in its ongoing battle with National Amusements, its largest shareholder.
The embattled CBS chief had been trying to halt Redstone's push to merge CBS with another company that National Amusements is the controlling shareholder in, Viacom.
A rep for National Amusements has long disputed the notion that Redstone would ever try to push through an unwelcome merger, a claim that was confirmed on Monday with the SEC filing.
'As part of the settlement agreement, NAI confirmed it has withdrawn its proposal for a merger of CBS and Viacom and that it has no current plans to propose such a transaction,' read the papers submitted by CBS
Those talks could be reopened however in two years by National Amusements, or sooner by either Viacom or the CBS board should they believe it to be in the company's best interest.
'CBS is an organization of talented and dedicated people who have created one of the most successful media companies in the world,' said Redstone on Sunday.
'Todays resolution will benefit all shareholders, allowing us to focus on the business of running CBS and transforming it for the future. We are confident in Joes ability to serve as acting CEO and delighted to welcome our new directors, who bring valuable and diverse expertise and a strong commitment to corporate governance.'
This is the hilarious moment scheming siblings play a prank on their younger brother by convincing him he turned invisible.
Osiel Garza, from Houston, Texas, played a trick on seven-year old cousin Jose Angel, which appeared fun until they said there was not enough time to bring him back to normal.
For the trick, Jose was sat on the bed and Osiel covered him with a blanket while family members filmed the scene.
His older cousin chants 'magic' words and whips off the blanket- revealing the Jose sitting underneath.
Osiel Garza (pictured left) from Houston Texas, plays a trick on younger cousin Jose Angel, seven (pictured right) to make him believe as though he was invisible
But family members gasp and exclaim 'oh my god' as they try to pretend as though they can no longer see him.
Jose giggles and seems amused at first, as the room look around to try and find him.
The scheming family continue to ploy their younger cousin- by posing with him and pretending to snap a picture.
Except they already had a picture on their phone earlier of Osiel posing in the same spot, but gesturing at an empty space.
The scheming family continue to ploy Jose (pictured right) by posing with him and pretending to snap a picture which they had taken earlier
Jose giggles at the sight of this photo as his family shout 'no way!'
His family members then say in Spanish to their younger cousin to write something and to pick things up- which they all gasp at as they pretend to see floating objects.
But the family tell Jose that there is not enough time to bring him back - and appears to jump up and down in panic.
Jose found it funny at first but is told by his family that there is not enough time to bring him back and he appears to jump up and down in panic
Eventually his family put the blanket over his head to 'reverse the spell' and take it off- and they scream and hug with delight as they pretend to see him again.
Osiel said: 'I just wanted to try it out and get a funny reaction from my cousin.
'I actually told him it was a joke afterwards, he was a little bummed out we played a trick.
Eventually his family put the blanket over his head to 'reverse the spell' and take it off- and they scream and hug with delight as they pretend to see him again
'At that moment I think he thought it was going to be permanent right after we stopped recording he ran to his mom in excitement telling her he was actually invisible.'
This comes after a number people have posted their version of the pranks online with the the hashtag #InvisibleChallenge.
The viral trend first started with a clip posted by magician Justin Willman where he convinced a man in front of a crowd that he had turned invisible.
Donald Trump's claim that there was a low death toll from Hurricane Maria is the most high-profile intervention in a long-running controversy.
The hurricane hit on September 20, 2017. On October 4, Trump went to the island and said there were six certified deaths related to the hurricane, then said '16 people' had died, citing that as evidence that it was not a catastrophe on the scale of Katrina.
Later that same day, after he left the government of Puerto Rico revised the figure of deaths to 34 - and for the first time specified how they had died.
Governor Ricardo Rosello said 20 deaths resulted directly from the storm, including drownings and those killed in mudslides.
The total of 34 also includes sick and elderly who died in the aftermath of the hurricane, including some who died because oxygen could not be delivered amid power outages. There were also two suicides. That is the only breakdown ever given which showed how the island's government was working out a death toll. None of the dead were named.
In charge: Trump visited the island in October and said either six or 16 people had died; later that day governor Ricardo Rossello said it was 34. Now it is officially 2,975
But the idea of including the sick and elderly and suicides is in line with the Centers for Disease Control guidelines on how to count deaths after a natural disaster.
They tell authorities to record deaths in two forms: directly related disaster death; and indirectly related disaster death.
The CDC say: 'A directly related death is defined as a death directly attributable to the forces of the disaster or by the direct consequences of these forces, such as structural collapse, flying debris, or radiation exposure (
'An indirectly related disaster death occurs when the unsafe or unhealthy conditions present during any phase of the disaster (i.e., pre-event or preparations, during the actual occurrence, or post-event during cleanup after a disaster) contribute to a death.'
That means that if someone is on life support and dies when it switches off because of a power cut, they are to be recorded as a disaster death. But someone who dies while on life support because of heart failure would not be.
Equally someone who dies in a car crash on a mud-covered road would be a disaster death. But someone who dies on the same road in a car crash after it is cleaned up would not be.
In November CNN reporters asked 112 funeral homes for an estimate of deaths related to the hurricane - and came up with 499. They only reached half the island's funeral homes.
By December, the official death toll was stated as just 64, with no breakdown of how that total was reached, but with names made public.
That total remained unchanged for months, with the governor saying it was calculated using the Centers for Disease Controls protocols for recording deaths.
Disaster: Maria Martinez stands next to her house in Yabucoa in eastern Puerto Rico. How many of her fellow islanders died is now a political row
But in February this year CNN and Puerto Rico's Center for Investigative Journalism filed lawsuits demanding the island government release death certificates and related data - a demand the government fought for months, at taxpayer expense.
Among their claims was that the dead should have privacy.
In June the government lost and released data which showed that between September and December, compared to the previous four years, there were 1,427 deaths above the average - a huge increase in the death toll.
The government said it would wait for a study it had commissioned by George Washington University to decide on an official death toll revision.
But it did use the figure of 1,427 in a draft funding request to Congress in August.
At the end of August George Washington University published its report which put the number of deaths at 2,975 - not on the basis of counting bodies, or death certificates, but a statistical model of how many people would normally be expected to die versus how many people actually died.
The model had to also take into account how many people fled the island, for which there were no official figures, to come to the 'excess death' total.
That means that its scientists did not definitively link 2,975 people's deaths to the hurricane by examining their death certificates and looking for a cause of death like 'drowning', 'impact of falling trees', or 'life support switched off during power failure'.
But the study did look at what happened with death certificates and was scathing.
Doctors and forensic physicians, who sign death certificates, said they did not receive official guidance from the Puerto Rico Vital Statistics Register (PSVSR) on how to record deaths 'during, or in conditions created by, a disaster'.
'According to PSVSR personnel, a very small number of those completing death certificates did relate the deaths to the hurricane,' the study warned.
'Most other certificates lacked such information. This reduced the number of death certificates that indicated a relationship with the hurricane.'
Put simply, that means it was impossible for the academics to know how many people the hurricane really did kill - which is why the Georgetown academics turned to their statistical model.
That model is accepted by FEMA and Trump's own government agency accepted the estimate.
And there is another way of calculating the death toll: how many dead people's families have asked FEMA for assistance with funeral and burial expenses.
An official revealed to CNN earlier this month that it has paid families of 247 people so far, has 2,350 cases 'in various phases of review and processing' and has rejected 420 applications.
But just 11 rejections were because they were not related to the hurricane - 369 were because they had been unable to contact the person who filed the application.
And that FEMA figure does not include people who have not asked it for assistance.
FEMA does not simply go by death certificates, but asks for further evidence to make sure that the deaths meet the CDC definition of being disaster related, either directly or indirectly.
That means that far from being a Democratic plot, his own government agency, run by a Republican appointee, has already concluded that the death toll is 247 - not the six to 18 he suggested - and could go up by another 2,350.
This video captures human traffickers filming the 'safe delivery' of illegal immigrants in Spain to ensure payment from their relatives.
The smugglers are heard asking each arriving migrant, reportedly from north Africa, to look into the camera before jumping off a boat and swimming to the Playa de Los Lances beach in the Cadiz province.
A Spanish voice is heard giving the migrants instructions to 'wait' and 'look at the camera' as the young men jump into the water one at a time.
Some of them are heard saying 'gracias' 'thanks' before leaping into the sea.
This video captures people smugglers filming the 'safe delivery' of illegal immigrants in Spain to ensure payment from their relatives
The footage is believed to be used by the smugglers as proof that the migrants have reached Spain.
After showing it to relatives of the migrants, they are believed to receive the final instalment of a sum that is reportedly around 2,000 (1,784) per person.
Six illegal immigrants were arrests in the incident seen in the footage. Three Civil Guard officers were injured in the process, a spokesman said.
Spain has become the main entry point for migrants arriving in Europe after Italy began closing its ports to rescue vessels.
Over 33,000 migrants have arrived in Spain by sea and land so far this year, according to the International Organization for Migration.
A further 313 have perished attempting to make the crossing.
The area around the Straits of Gibraltar has long been a route for smuggling drugs and contraband tobacco.
But recently, the Spanish Civil Guard have observed how the same criminal gangs have moved into people smuggling.
A Civil Guard spokesperson said: 'There is a dangerous synergy of criminal activities, drug trafficking and mafias that are getting rich through the desperation of people illegally trying to reach Spanish territory.'
The migrants are seen jumping off a boat and swimming to the Playa de Los Lances beach
The smugglers are heard asking each arriving migrant, reportedly from north Africa, to look into the camera before jumping in the water
'They have acquired a tone closer to that of the drug cartels with large bands equipped with the means and the infrastructure, and which are becoming more and more difficult to tackle.'
Drug gangs have increasingly used specially adapted high speed launches and inflatable craft known as 'narco-lanzas' to evade Civil Guards in the waters off Spain's southern coast.
Migrants are seen on the Playa de Los Lances beach in the Cadiz province of southern Spain
Faced with the same gangs now moving into the trafficking of illegal immigrants, the Civil Guard have complained they are overwhelmed and have appealed for more resources, and a co-ordinated plan of action.
The President of the new centre-leftist government, Pedro Sanchez, announced measures to prohibit the private use of high powered launches in a bid to combat smuggling.
The Spanish Ministry of Interior has also declared the injection of 6million (5.35million) to fund more Civil Guards in the area and to finance better technology in the fight against the smugglers.
Police have made their first arrests and have warned more will be made in relation an alleged hit and run during a violent brawl involving up to 200 youths earlier this month.
One of the two teens arrested on Thursday is now behind bars in relation to an alleged incident in the inner Melbourne suburb of Collingwood on September 2 following a record launch party.
A Cranbourne man, 18, was arrested by detectives at a Dandenong construction site in the city's south-east and charged with ten offences, including intentionally cause serious injury, conduct endangering life and assault and traffic related offences.
Police vowed to make more arrest in relation to the alleged melee outside a Collingwood hotel on September 2. Pictured is CCTV footage of the alleged incident
Dieu Atem appeared at Melbourne Magistrates' Court on Thursday, where he didn't apply for bail and was remanded in custody until January 7.
A second man, 18 from Narre Warren was arrested at a school on Thursday after police seized a number of items at his home linked to the alleged hit and run.
He was questioned by police and was released pending further inquiries.
A melee involving mostly African and Pacific Islander youths allegedly broke out at the Gasometer Hotel in the city's north-east and spilled out into the street in the early hours of September 2.
Police allege Atem was unlicenced when he got behind the wheel of a vehicle which was driven erratically through Mater Street and struck David Bilal, who suffered serious leg injuries and remains in hospital.
Six other people were also injured in the brawl while three cars were damaged.
Dieu Atem will remain behind bars until his next court appearance until January 7
Atem was charged with ten offences in relation to the alleged hit and run, including intentionally cause serious injury, conduct endangering life and assault and traffic related offences
Police investigations continue with statements obtained from 40 witnesses and more than 70 exhibits seized.
North West Metro Region Commander Tim Hansen said they won't rest until they find everyone involved and hold them to account.
'Our work is not done,' he told reporters on Thursday.
'It is clear the community was fearful of the behaviour we saw in Collingwood earlier this month. From Victoria Police's perspective, it was dangerous and completely unacceptable, which is why we have committed significant time and resources into our investigation.'
Two men were arrested in relation to an alleged hit and run in Collingwood on September 2
Police have refused to ruled out the alleged fatal stabbing of Sudanese woman Laa Chol, 19, in July as a possible factor.
'We are considering that as a causal factor,' Commander Hansen said.
'We're keeping an open mind to everything.'
David Bilal (pictured) remains in hospital after he was seriously injured in the alleged hit and run
It understood Bilal was with the teenager accused of fatally stabbing Ms Chol on the night of her death.
Daily Mail Australia does not suggest the injured man had any involvement in any capacity with Ms Chol's death, or any wrongdoing on the night of her death.
His father has urged for the violence to stop.
'It's a parent's worst nightmare, you know what I mean. It was Father's Day and the last thing you want is to go and check out if your son is alive or not,' he told the Herald Sun last week.
'This madness has to stop.'
Event organiser J-Nelly told revellers to be on their best behaviour in a Facebook post a day prior to the event, saying 'violence will not be tolerated'.
'A moment of anger isn't worth a lifetime of bad labeling (sic),' he wrote.
Police have refused to ruled out the alleged fatal stabbing of Sudanese woman Laa Chol, 19,(pictured) in July as a possible factor
Blood is seen on a car at the scene of an alleged hit and run in Collingwood earlier this month
Prime Minister Scott Morrison gave a scathing assessment of Melbourne's gang crisis following the alleged September 2 incident.
'We have the highest proportion of Sudanese population in New South Wales. [But] we don't have these problems. Why is it happening in Melbourne?' he told on 3AW Radio last week.
'There is a law and order problem, clearly, in Victoria, even though we have the same challenges in other cities in the country.'
Dieu Atem, 18, was charged with ten offences in relation to the alleged hit and run. Pictured is the carnage afterwards
Mr Morrison said it was up to Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews to ensure 'there is a police force that is a force'.
'When you don't have that control and rule of law being imposed and forced in your community, people take advantage of it,' he said.
Ppl opposing construction of dams are working on someone elses agenda: CJP
ISLAMABAD: Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar Wednesday remarked that people opposing the construction of dams are working on someone elses agenda.
We will not allow such elements to prevail their agenda of non-construction of dams as it is the matter of future of our next generations, the top judge remarked while hearing a case pertaining to the construction of Dadhocha dam in Rawalpindi.
The chief justice remarked that a politician has said that Supreme Court should form its own political party. Nobody has right to utter such things, such people cannot shake our commitment towards construction of dams in country, he said, adding that dams would be constructed at any cost. We are issuing a final warning to anti-dam elements as these matters relate not with politics but with the basic rights of the people, he remarked.
The SC also asked the Punjab government to examine the Irrigation Departments recommendations and present its own recommendations if not satisfied with those. The Punjab government was asked to inform the court of when the dam would be completed by and how much expense would be incurred during its construction.
The Punjab Irrigation Department secretary told the court that the provincial government had allocated funds for the acquisition of land for the dam. The chief justice asked what obstacles the Punjab government was facing in the construction of the dam, and added, I know that commission mafias commission will be cut and this is the obstacle. I wont let anyone take any cuts, nor will I let them appropriate commission.
The top judge said that the commission mafia should fear God, and that the dam project was under strain because of this commission mafia. He asked them, without naming anyone, to think about themselves, the country and the future of its citizens. The CJP suggested the secretary to call the Punjab chief minister and his cabinet regarding the matter, to which the secretary responded that there was no need for it since he was looking after it.
A father allegedly shot his six-month-old baby son dead because his wife refused to have sex with him.
Maycon Salustiano Silva, 25, is charged with killing his child in the early hours of Wednesday morning after arguing with his 20-year-old wife Jeniffer at their home in Luziania, Brazil.
The baby, named Michel, was pronounced dead in hospital two hours after the incident.
A father allegedly shot his six-month-old baby (pictured) dead because his wife refused to have sex with him
Maycon Salustiano Silva is charged with killing his child in the early hours of Wednesday morning after arguing with his 20-year-old wife Jeniffer (pictured with Silva)
A 22. gauge pistol was found tucked down the back of a sofa in the family's living room, along with several rounds of ammunition.
The accused allegedly claimed he had been drinking and smoking marijuana and 'didn't remember what happened.'
Detective Daniel Martins Ferreira, investigating the case, said police believe Silva shot the infant at point blank range 'in a moment of rage.'
'We believe the suspect, in a moment of rage when he didn't get what he wanted, shot the child at point blank range by resting the gun on the baby's chest as he lay in the cot in his parent's bedroom,' he told local media.
'The mother reported that her husband woke her up and wanted to have sex with her. She said she was tired and 'did not want to'.
Police believe Silva (pictured with his wife) shot the infant at point blank range 'in a moment of rage' after his wife denied him sex
Silva (pictured with wife Jeniffer), who has no criminal record, was arrested and charged with manslaughter and the illegal possession of a weapon
'He apparently became irritated and physically assaulted her in the argument that followed.'
In the midst of the quarrel, it is claimed Silva went to get some water but returned with a gun which he pointed at his wife.
'At first he allegedly threatened to kill Jeniffer. She begged her husband to stay calm, but he only became angrier,' Ferreira said.
'She claims he turned the gun on their son and pointed the gun at his chest while demanding if she believed he had the courage to shoot their child. Then he allegedly shot the baby.'
Neighbours who heard the woman's screams called the police around 1.30am but officers claimed they were unable to identify the house where the shouts came from and called off their search.
A neighbour, who did not want to be named, said: 'She (the mother) was desperate, she could be heard screaming and shouting for help, then she suddenly stopped, and everything went quiet.'
The baby, named Michel, was pronounced dead in hospital two hours after the incident
Approximately two hours after police were called, an ambulance arrived at the family's home. The infant was rushed to an emergency unit, but pronounced dead on arrival.
'We don't know why it took so long for an ambulance to be called out for the child, but the mother claims that after the shooting she blacked out and doesn't know how long this was for,' Ferreira added.
'Jeniffer said she doesn't remember screaming and we believe she must have been in a state of shock.
'When she came around she realised what had happened and called emergency services, but her child was already dead,' he reported.
The young couple (pictured), who have been together for four years, were described as 'lovely' in social media posts by friends
The young couple, who have been together for four years, were described as 'lovely' and the 'ideal couple' in social media messages posted previously by friends.
Michel was their first child together.
Silva, who has no criminal record, was arrested and charged with manslaughter and the illegal possession of a weapon. He is also accused of domestic violence.
The mother was questioned by police and freed on the grounds she was not involved in the crime.
Britain could be left reliant on the United States for data on space debris crashing to earth after a no deal Brexit, Government papers suggested today.
Theresa May has repeatedly insisted that a no deal Brexit would 'not be the end of the world'.
But the EU is currently building a system designed to protect satellites from crashing into other equipment or debris.
It also tracks material crashing back to earth on a 'scheduled or unscheduled basis' but Britain could be left out of warnings in a no deal.
Theresa May (pictured in Downing Street yesterday) has repeatedly insisted that a no deal Brexit would 'not be the end of the world'.
Without a deal, the UK will no longer take part in the EU Space Surveillance and Tracking programme, the notice reveals.
It says: 'If the UK leaves the EU in March 2019 with no agreement in place, the UK will not be eligible to participate in the EU Space Surveillance and Tracking programme.
'UK organisations will not therefore be able to contribute to providing services to the EU Space Surveillance and Tracking, to participate in the scientific and technical groups to develop the programme further or be able to receive grant funding to pay for UK involvement.
'The UK will continue to receive space, surveillance and tracking data from the United States of America.'
Labour MP and Best for Britain champion Jo Stevens said: 'It is deeply worrying that the UK will be shut out of some of the most cutting edge research in the world. This research provides thousands of high-tech jobs and provides the economy billions every year.
'Theresa May used to say Brexit wouldn't be the end of the world - but actually it could be.
'By walking away from these collaborative projects, we will be isolating ourselves and having to start from scratch, spending a fortune when our European counterparts have already finished the job.'
The notice on satellites and space programmes also confirms the UK and British firms will be blocked taking on future work on Galilo, the EU's equivalent to GPS
The system is designed to ensure satellites avoid colliding with each other.
It also analyses fragments after in-orbit collisions, to keep an eye on where pieces are flying.
Re-entry warnings are designed to help the civil contingency services where anything might land if it crashes through the atmosphere.
The notice on satellites and space programmes also confirms the UK and British firms will be blocked taking on future work on Galilo, the EU's equivalent to GPS.
Devices that use the satellite network will continue to work as normal meaning consumers should see no impact.
But the UK will be excluded from encrypted parts of the system due to come online by the mid 2020s, despite British investment in the network.
Business, academics and researchers could also lose out and those with existing contracts are at risk of penalties.
The report confirms 92million has been set aside to explore the possibilities of a UK Global Navigation Satellite System but not to actually develop one.
The American woman and her three-year-old son who were both attacked by giraffe at a wildlife reserve had 'nowhere to run', her father has revealed.
Dr Katy Williams and her son Finn were nearly killed when they surprised a giraffe, who was with her two-month-old calf, on the South African reserve where they live.
Her father, Jack Standish said they accidentally spooked the female giraffe, who lashed out to protect her calf.
'They went into a wooded section, went into a clearing, and instantly a giraffe came at them,' Standish told Good Morning America.
'She had nowhere to run and nothing to do.'
Standish said his daughter and grandson are in 'guarded and improving condition' a week after the incident.
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Jack Standish has revealed his daughter, Dr Katy Williams, and her three-year-old son Finn are doing remarkably well a week after they were attacked by a giraffe
Dr Katy Williams and her son Finn (pictured together) were nearly killed when they surprised a giraffe, who was with her two-month-old calf, on the South African reserve where they live
Katy has awoken from her coma and is communicating with her family through sign language. She can't speak at the moment due to healing jaw injuries.
While Finn is still being sedated, he was taken off his ventilator on Thursday which means his condition is improving.
The boy's miraculous recovery is one that has shocked even his own doctors.
'I'm pleasantly surprised on how well they have both done considering their injuries,' said Dr Coceka Mfundisi, the neurosurgeon treating the family.
'This is very good news considering how severe these injuries were,' added Dr Steve Ponde, who is Finn's pediatric pulmonologist.
Mfundisi said Finn suffered significant skull injuries and will need to undergo cosmetic surgeries later in his life to repair the damage done to his head.
Standish said his daughter and grandson are in 'guarded and improving condition' in hospital
Finn (pictured) is said to still be in a coma following the attack, from which he suffered horrific injuries
Standish had high praise for his daughter's husband, Dr Sam Williams (pictured together), who he called 'one of the most courageous and brave men I know'
Although Finn did suffer a brain injury during the attack, Mfundisi said it will not impact him in the long term.
Standish, who passed out when he heard the news about his family and immediately flew to South Africa, credits the doctors for saving their lives.
He also had high praise for his daughter's husband, Dr Sam Williams, who he called 'one of the most courageous and brave men I know'.
Sam, a conservation biologist, had been out for an evening run at the reserve when his wife took their son out to see him return.
But before they could wave hello to him, the giraffe spotted them first - and instantly charged.
Sam, a conservation biologist, had been out for an evening run at the reserve before the attack. He stumbled upon it on the way home and managed to scare the giraffe off
The attack happened near their home on the Blyde Wildlife Estate near Hoedspruit (pictured)
Katy and Finn would almost certainly have been killed if Sam had not stumbled onto the scene as he returned from his trail run.
As the giraffe stamped on his wife and son with its 5ft long legs, Sam ran at it screaming and shouting and waving his arms and it became scared and ran off.
Sam tended to his stricken family as a medical team rushed to the Blyde Wildlife Estate in Hoedspruit and called in two air ambulance choppers.
He then sat by their bedsides, talking to them for hours and reading their favorite books while they were under sedation.
Sam has been by their bedsides ever since, talking to them for hours and reading their favorite books while they were under sedation
'Since family and friends arrived we have been taking turns to be at their bedsides,' Sam told ABC News.
'I was so happy when Katy regained consciousness and I could tell her how well she and Finn were doing under the circumstances.'
'I realize that we have many challenges ahead of us,' he added.
'But I remain positive that we will return to being a happy family who enjoy the outdoors and sharing lots of laughs together.'
Why would a giraffe attack a human? Animals in the wild including giraffes attack when they feel threatened or unsafe. If they are with their young the animal may be more on edge. Giraffes like all animals can get spooked and be startled. If frightened they may feel the need to defend themselves. Animals may also attack for food if they think the risk is worth the reward. Giraffes could attack if they feel their young are threatened (stock image) A wild animal could attack to protect their territory. Male giraffes (called bulls) fight by butting their long necks and heads. This is called necking and the fights arent usually dangerous. They end when one bull admits defeat and walks away. The males are known to be more violent during mating season. Giraffes, which are the tallest mammals in the world, are not usually aggressive but have been known to go on the attack if they feel threatened. Their main weapon is their head, which they swing at enemies like a wrecking ball. Their legs can also be dangerous, with a kick from a giraffe quite capable of killing someone. Advertisement
Both Sam and Standish have spoken out in defense of the giraffe and said they do not want anything to happen to her.
'We hold no malice against the giraffe and we would prefer nothing is done to harm the giraffe whatsoever,' Sam said in a statement.
'Katy and I are are both very aware of how wild animals behave and how we should behave around them.
'We also realize with all the knowledge that anyone can have, that wild animals remain unpredictable - as this tragic event has once again shown.'
'I am thankful that the giraffe will be moved with her calf as we have been informed and that she is not being destroyed as a result of the incident,' he added.
'I have no doubt that this is what Katy would want.'
Sam, who is from the UK, and Katy, who hails from Baltimore, fell in love while they were both doing research work in Indonesia.
The scientists did their PhD in Biological Anthropology together at Durham University, specializing in carnivore conservation and studying together in Honduras, Zimbabwe and South Africa.
Sam is currently a post-doctoral research fellow at the University of Limpopo and Katy has a post-doctorate position at the University of Mpumulanga.
Their son was born in the UK but has spent his whole life in South Africa, currently living on the Blyde Wildlife Estate - a secure gated nature reserve - with his family.
'Finn has been raised in an environment where his adventurous parents are teaching him to respect, enjoy and to love nature as much as they do,' a family lawyer said in a statement after the attack.
Standish has defended his daughter amid speculation after the incident, saying Katy is 'very well-trained in all aspects of wildlife'.
'Katy and I have talked about the danger of giraffes on the reserve where they live. They know they had to be cautious around them,' he said.
'This was an unfortunate incident but I can inform you that Katy would not deliberately put herself and Finn in danger.'
Two GoFundMe campaigns have since been launched to help pay for the family's medical expenses.
Police are hunting for three-month-old Arieanna Day, who disappeared from her bed in Roanoke, Virginia, at around 11pm Tuesday
Virginia police have launched a hunt for a three-month-old girl whose family says she was abducted from her bed in the middle of the night.
Arieanna Day's mother told police she put her baby to bed around 10pm Tuesday, and that when she returned an hour later the infant was gone.
Roanoke police who responded to reports of the alleged abduction said there were no signs of forced entry or that the child was taken by force. The residence was not locked at the time.
At a police conference Wednesday, Chief Tim Jones said: 'This circumstance is unusual.
'Someone out there knows what happened to this child. I am very concerned about the childs life.'
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The baby's grandmother Sophia Bryant told a local news outlet: 'We suspect who may have took the baby, but we really dont know.' She added: 'I want justice. I want the baby found'
Arieanna's mother says she put her baby to bed around 10pm, and that when she returned an hour later the infant was gone. There were no signs of forced entry at the home (above)
Jones said Arieanna's father arrived at the home shortly after the abduction was reported and said he did not have her.
Five other children were in the house at the time of Arieanna's disappearance, but the infant was the only one taken.
Neighbors told police they saw a suspicious black vehicle at the home around the same time as the alleged abduction.
The baby's grandmother Sophia Bryant told local news outlet WFXR: 'I want justice. I want the baby found.'
She added: 'This is very painful for me, because I dont know if shes living. I dont know where shes at.
'We suspect who may have took the baby, but we really dont know.'
Arieanna was last seen wearing a pink onesie and pink socks, according to police spokeswoman Caitlyn Cline.
The family has been cooperating with authorities in the search.
An Amber Alert has not been issued following Arieanna's disappearance because police do not have a description of a suspect or suspect vehicle.
Police have urged anyone with information to call 911 or 853-5959.
Tipsters can also contact the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children at 800-THE-LOST (800-843-5678), referencing case number 1338465.
Arieanna was last seen wearing a pink onesie and pink socks. The family has been cooperating with police in the search
Irish citizens will still be allowed to live and work in Britain under the same rules as exist today if there is a no deal Brexit, the Government has promised.
Ministers said they are absolutely committed to maintaining the Common Travel Area between the UK and the Republic of Ireland.
And they sought to reassure anxious citizens that nothing would change even if the UK crashes out of the Brussels bloc.
The pledge comes in a Government paper - one of 28 released today - detailing what is being done to prepare for a no deal Brexit.
The paper states: 'If you are an Irish citizen you would continue to have the right to enter and remain in the UK, as now. You are not required to do anything to protect your status.'
Ministers said they are absolutely committed to maintaining the Common Travel Area between the UK and the Republic of Ireland (pictured, the Irish border)
It adds: 'In addition, you would continue to enjoy the reciprocal rights associated with the CTA [Common Travel Area] in the same way that British citizens in Ireland would if there is no deal.
'These rights include the right to work, study and vote, access to social welfare benefits and health services.'
Ministers promised that they would update UK laws wherever needed to ensure that the rights of Irish citizens do not accidentally get chipped away in the change.
And they promised that no new immigration checks will be imposed under any circumstances.
The thorny issue of the Irish border has threatened to derail the Brexit negotiations as Britain and the Brussels bloc are at loggerheads over what to do over it.
Theresa May has repeatedly promised not to impose a hard Irish border after Brexit amid fears a return to any checks or border patrols could reignite the bloody sectarian violence of the Troubles.
But she has yet to come up with a proposal to avoid border checks while satisfying the EU's demands.
The thorny issue is the main outstanding point of contention which could stop Britain getting a deal in time for Brexit day at the end of March next year.
Today's paper states: 'The CTA holds special importance to people in their daily lives: it goes to the heart of the relationship between these islands.
'The UK government is firmly committed to maintaining the CTA arrangements after the UK leaves the EU, an objective shared by the Crown Dependencies.
Theresa May (pictured outside No10 yesterday) has repeatedly promised there will not be a return to a hard Irish border, and today's paper sought to reassure anxious citizens that nothing would change even if the UK crashes out of the Brussels bloc
'The Irish Government has been clear also in its commitment to the continuation of the CTA. The CTA has proven to be resilient over the years and would continue to endure if there is no deal.
'If you are a British or Irish citizen in another part of the CTA you are not required to take any action to protect your status or rights associated with the CTA.
'When travelling to the UK from within the CTA you should continue with your journey as you do today, meeting any travel requirements set by your carrier.
'Irish citizens in the UK and British citizens in Ireland will continue to enjoy the same associated rights and entitlements to public services, including access to employment, healthcare, education, social welfare and benefits, as well as the right to vote in certain elections.'
The number of terrorists being brought to trial has reached a 10 year high as police announced they have 650 live investigations into 'dangerous individuals'.
A total of 100 suspects were brought before the courts on terror charges between the end of June 2017 and June 2018, up nearly 40% on the previous year.
Scotland Yard chiefs say the 650 ongoing terror probes is the highest ever - with 13 plots foiled in the past year.
Anti-terror police after the Parsons Green tube bombing last year. The number of terror suspects brought before the courts has risen to a 10-year high, statistics show
The number of arrests for terrorism-related activity was more than 350, although that was down by a fifth on the previous year, Met Police statistics reveal.
The drop in arrest stats is partly explained by the fact that four of the five large terror attacks which hit Britain in 2017 - Westminster, Manchester, London Bridge and Finsbury Park - happened before the end of June and resulted in a wave of arrests.
Counter-terror police senior national co-ordinator, Deputy Assistant Commissioner Dean Haydon, said: 'We may have seen a reduction in the number of arrests in the last 12 months, but we should put that in context by saying that we prevented 13 Islamist-related and four extreme right-wing plots since March 2017, so it certainly doesn't indicate a reduction in the threat we all face from terrorism.
'The step-change in terrorist activity is matched only by an increased effort from police and security services, and our officers are working incredibly hard to protect the public and to bring people to justice, which is evidenced by the impressive conviction rate achieved in the last year.'
Parsons Green bomber Ahmed Hassan (left) and Theresa May assassination plotter Naa'imur Rahman (right) were among those jailed by courts this year
White suspects accounted for 38 per cent of terror related arrests, followed by those of Asian appearance on 37 per cent and black suspects on 9 per cent.
A number of chilling terror plots have come before the courts in the last year, including Naa'imur Rahman's plans to bomb the gates of Downing Street and assassinate Theresa May in the ensuing chaos.
Parsons Green bomber Ahmed Hassan handed him a life sentence with a minimum term of 34 years.
Earlier this year, self-styled teacher Umar Haque was jailed for attempting to radicalise children and train them to carry out terrorist attacks.
And in July, a court heard how National Action, a far-right group, planned to murder a Labour MP.
A white American smiled as she racially abused a Philippines-born woman in a row over a parking space.
Selina Cairel and her friends were described as 'illegals crossing the border' and told their parents 'probably had to work for f****** dirt just to get here'.
The 22-year-old, whose father is English, filmed the incident on Tuesday after a minor parking row in Portland, Oregon, quickly escalated.
The casino worker, who has lived in the US since she was 11 and is now a citizen of the country, was backing out of a space when her parking sensors went off as she was close to another vehicle.
The woman in the other car rolled down her window and reportedly said, 'she's Asian, she can't see. That's why she can't drive'.
Selina says calmly just before the clip ends that 'this is the kind of s*** I have to deal with'.
She and pals had driven for about 15 minutes from her home in Vancouver, Washington State, to Portland to play arcades and get doughnuts.
While reversing out of a car park, Selina, whose father is from County Durham and mother from the Philippines, came close to another vehicle.
Selina Cairel (left) and her friends are described as 'illegals crossing the border' and told 'she's Asian, she can't see. That's why she can't drive' by the racist woman in the white car (right)
The clip, which has been almost 400,000 times in 12 hours, shows two women in the front of a white car.
The driver talks across her friend, through the rolled down window and says: 'Before you say anything you might want to make sure you're actual legals.'
Selina and her friends were shocked and confused, someone said off camera said: 'What the?...'
The female passenger continues: 'That you're illegals crossing the border.'
She leans over the steering wheel, addressing Selina with a smile, and says: 'And your parents, probably had to work for f****** dirt just to get here.'
As the car with the two women then reverses back out, one of Selina's friends can be heard saying: 'Is this real life, like?
Selina can be heard saying: 'This is so much fun. So this is the kind of s*** I have to deal with in Portland.'
Speaking today Selina said: 'My friends and I were walking to my car after getting some doughnuts.
'I got in my car and was about to back out when my sensors started ringing signaling somebody was behind me.
The woman smiles at Selina and added: 'And your parents, probably had to work for f****** dirt just to get here', before driving off
'They were there suddenly and I rolled my window down and apologized. Mind you I didn't even come close to hitting them.'
The video has garnered a strong reaction on Facebook since Selina posted it on her personal page.
She added: 'Next thing I know I heard her say in the most annoying stereotypical Asian accent, 'she's Asian, she can't see. That's why she can't drive.'
'She started laughing. By that time I was fuming, shocked that somebody could say that to me.
'I pulled my window down and asked her what her problem was.
'She rolled her window down and pulled out her phone and started recording me.
Selina (far right) and her friends had driven from her home in Vancouver, Washington State, to play arcades games and get doughnuts in Portland
The woman leaned across her friend in the passenger seat to launch the tirade after a minor parking row in Portland, Oregon
'She as laughing and just started saying all these nasty things about Asian people.
'Honestly, I started crying the whole way home. I called my parents at two thirty-ish and also called my dad in England the next day.'
Heather Richardson Payne wrote: 'Ignorance is not pretty for this uneducated woman. Very sad.'
Michael Pigg said: 'So sorry you went through this. Not all people are like her.'
Gabriel Rosas commented: 'Don't listen to that racist. She's a piece of s***.'
Rhianna Goetz wrote: 'Ew. What a gross b****. I hate this. I'm sorry that you ever had to encounter such a horrible human.'
Kalisi Sweetie Toki added: 'What a disgrace.'
Bonnie Ginter (pictured), 51, was helped by three chivalrous sailors from HMS Queen Elizabeth in Jacksonville, Florida
Three chivalrous sailors from HMS Queen Elizabeth stunned an American Uber driver by insisting they fix her headlight on the same night two of their colleagues were Tasered and another four arrested after a drunken night out.
Bonnie Ginter, 51, had been called to take the young seamen back to their 3bn ship at 8.45pm on Monday night when she realised the bulb in her red Honda Fit hatchback had blown.
Mrs Ginter feared this meant she would have to finish her shift early but was amazed when the three shipmates told her they were mechanics and insisted on fixing the light for her.
The three men, aged in their 20s, arrived on the new aircraft carrier at Naval Station Mayport in Jacksonville, Florida with 1,500 other sailors, aircrew and Royal Marines on September 5.
After Mrs Ginter picked the three chivalrous sailors up from a restaurant area of Neptune Beach, Florida, they insisted they stop at a motoring shop on their five-mile route so they could borrow tools and change her bulb.
That same day, September 10, six of their fellow sailors were arrested by US police after the crew descended on Jacksonville beach for a night of drinking.
They were released the following morning having 'learned their lesson', Jacksonville Beach Police Department Sergeant Larry Smith said.
Pictured: Aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth at its home base of Portsmouth
Mrs Ginter, whose husband Pete serves in the US Navy, said: 'I was amazed that they would consider taking the time to fix something for someone they didn't know at all.
'I was very surprised, they were just so sweet to help me.
'I was told by another driver that my passenger side headlight was out right before I picked them up.
'We only drove a few blocks when they offered to fix it.
British sailors Thomas Reffold (left) and Ieuen Edwards (right) were Tasered by police in Florida after a night of drunkenness - the same night their three colleagues offered to help Mrs Ginter
'We didn't need to buy any parts, but we borrowed tools from an Auto Zone car parts store.
'I already had a bulb in my car because my husband had bought a double pack of bulbs a while ago when my driver's side headlight had gone out. So it was pretty handy that I already had a bulb that night!
Pictured: Mrs Gintrt's Uber trip showing part of the journey with the sailors from HMS Queen Elizabeth as they stopped to fix her car
'In the dense humidity and heat, being pretty uncomfortable and sweating, yet without one complaint, they gave their time to help out a stranger. I will never forget their kindness.
'I wanted to cancel the fare but it seems you can't cancel it once the trip has been started.
'It's funny because I never carry cash on me but the passengers I had just before them - more British sailors - gave me a cash tip that was almost the same amount as their fare.
'The fare for these three was about $7.00, and the ride before tipped me $6.00.
'So I tried to give that cash to the three that helped me and they wouldn't take it.
'I wouldn't give up and finally made one of them take it. They saw I wasn't going to quit so I think he took it just to shut me up.
'These guys really went above and beyond to help me and I just want everyone to know what they did.
'It may not have been a big deal like saving a life or any type of emergency situation, but it was a big deal to me.'
Steven Gorley (left) and Matthew Cotham (right) were arrested along with Reffold and Edwards
Mrs Ginter wants to find a way of thanking the three sailors, who she only knows as 'David and his friends'.
Previously a taxi driver on Mayport base for about 13 years, she said she had met plenty of British sailors and normally they were very well behaved.
The mother-of-one from Jacksonville, Florida, wrote a letter to the Royal Navy, thanking the sailors for their help.
She said: 'The main reason I wrote the letter to the command was because very few ever follow up with good reports of what people have done, but they sure will jump at the chance to complain and point out the negative.
Jamie Lutas (left) and Dominic Gregory (right) were arrested along with the other four. All six were taken to Duval County Jail and released the following day having 'learned their lesson'
'It was all over the news about six sailors that got in trouble. That's six, out of what, a couple thousand?
'That irritated me because all of the ones that I met were funny, kind, and just plain good guys.
'When David and his friends changed my headlight, I just wanted them to be the ones that got noticed, not the ones who got in trouble.
'In my opinion, David and his friends fully represent the Queen Elizabeth and I honestly believe that if everyone wrote a letter to their command of all the positive interactions they've had with those sailors aboard that ship that it would far outweigh the arrests of six sailors.'
The six sailors who were fighting among themselves spent the night in custody before being returned to the 65,000 tonne ship the following morning.
HMS Queen Elizabeth is visiting the US to trial its new F35 fighter jets, made at a base in Maryland, US.
The new Federal Minister for Education has thrown his support behind schools that wish to ban mobile phones from the classroom.
Education Minister Dan Tehan agreed that mobile phones presented a distraction for students in the classroom and said practical solutions had to be found, such as collecting the phones at the beginning of the school day.
'What we need is for teachers to understand whether mobile phones are preventing people from learning or not and if it is the idea that they all be put in a basket at the start of class and picked up at the end of class,' he told The Daily Telegraph.
Education Minister Dan Tehan agreed that mobile phones presented a distraction for students in the classroom and said practical solutions had to be found
He said if educators felt it was a practical approach he would be 'happy to back teachers on that'.
Meanwhile NSW Minister for Education Rob Stokes launched a government review into the impacts of social media on students.
He said the results would dictate if phones would be banned in NSW schools during class time, ABC News reported.
'Smart phones and their use in school has been an issue that has been raised with me in terms of concern by parents, by school communities, by teachers and now increasingly by the academic community,' he said.
'There are concerns around the way the use of this technology might interfere with cognitive development, there are concerns about its misuse in terms of cyber bullying and theres also concerns about it being a major distraction.'
Australia is ranked 39th out of 41 countries for achieving quality education, ahead of only Romania and Turkey.
Australia is ranked 39th out of 41 countries for its education results, ahead of only Romania and Turkey
The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) report card found that 71.7 per cent of Australian student's aged 15 years were achieving 'baseline results'.
UNICEF Australia's director of policy and advocacy Amy Lamoin said the results showed the declining results of education in the country.
'There's certainly a decline in real terms in the education space in Australia, partly because we have yet to see education reform that goes beyond funding-model debates,' she told The Sydney Morning Herald.
Mr Stokes said these were key reasons NSW was the first state or territory to initiate a review into the use of smart phones 'within school premises'.
The educational experts imploring the government to review the use of mobile phones in school's are also calling for a blanket ban rather than a school by school ban.
Extend After School Care chief executive Darren Stevenson told news.com.au that France had already instituted a mobile phone ban in schools and that Australia had to follow their lead.
The French government banned all students under 15 years of age from using a mobile phone during schooling hours and education experts want Australia to do the same
The French government banned all students under 15 years of age from using a mobile phone during schooling hours.
'By and large, mobile phones should be banned from primary schools. Really, they should only be used as a telephone device, when necessary, so a young person can contact a parent or a caregiver,' he said.
'The mobile phone is a device that can significantly influence the behaviour of a young person, so when they have opportunities to build relationships or work in a team, it takes that opportunity away from them.'
Mr Stevenson went so far as to say educators and parents who allowed students and children to use smart phones constantly were breaching their duty of care.
There was also a study from Bond University Assistant Professor Elizabeth Sander which supports the idea that mobile phone use impacts cognitive functions, The Daily Telegraph reported.
Extend After School Care chief executive Darren Stevenson said teachers and parents were breaching their duty of care by letting students and children use mobile phones constantly
'Studies suggest that we are so attached to our smartphones that we are constantly anticipating the arrival of a new message, social media alert or call,' she said.
'In doing so, our attention is divided and draining our brains of energy to do the work we need to focus on.'
She said research had proven it takes the human brain up to 20 minutes to regain focus on a task once concentration is broken, and phones can break concentration 'up to 80 times a day'.
'Neuroscience researchers at MIT found that we arent actually paying attention to multiple things at the same time but are just switching between them,' she said.
In 2017 a Gold Coast school banned the use of mobile phones in school hours in an attempt to stamp out online bullying, the Gold Coast Bulletin reported.
In 2017 a Gold Coast school banned the use of mobile phones in school hours in an attempt to stamp out online bullying
Students at Pimpama State Secondary College now have their mobile phones confiscated at the beginning of a school day and face detention if found with a phone during school hours.
Principal John Thornberry said seeing dozens of students sitting at a bus stop all 'with their heads down' was a sad sight.
'Social media is having a massive impact on schools. There is a lack of empathy and students are unable to speak face-to-face, read body language and facial expressions,' he said.
'We want to address the welfare of kids, to give them a space to learn without being bombarded by whats happening online.'
The wife of San Francisco Giants shortstop Brandon Crawford and her twin sister had doctors at an Arizona hospital seeing double when they both delivered sons on the same day in June.
Jalynne Crawford and Janelle Leopoldo each had a C-section performed by the same doctor just two hours apart.
Bryson Ryder Crawford is Jalynne and Brandon's fourth child: they also have daughters Jayden and Braylyn, and son Braxton.
Double the fun: Twin sisters Jalynne Crawford (left) and Janelle Leopoldo (right) in June delivered sons on the same day at the same Arizona hospital
Twa-sins! Jalynne (left) is pictured with her fourth child, Bryson, beside her sister and her second child, Jace (right)
San Francisco Giants shortstop Brandon Crawford celebrated his son's birth on Twitter
Jace Alan Leopoldo is Janelle and Jason Leopoldo's second son, who was conceived with the aid of in vitro fertilization.
Both Crawford and Leopoldo had struggled with fertility issues, with the former suffering two miscarriages and the latter losing one baby.
The back-to-back deliveries on June 18 came after an especially tough year for the family: Crawford and Leopoldo's sister Jennifer Dantzscher Pippin died of an asthma attack in April 2017, aged 38, leaving behind a husband and two daughters.
We said Jennifer was in heaven and would pick our two babies for us, Crawford told Good Morning America.
Around the same time, their other sister Jamie Dantzscher, a former artistic gymnast who was on the bronze-medal-winning team at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, testified before the US Congress about the sexual abuse committed by USA Gymnastics' national team doctor Larry Nassar, who was later convicted and sentenced to up to 175 years in prison.
Doing everything together: Jalynne also has two older daughters and a son, and Janelle has one older son
Tough year: In 2017, Jalynne and Janelle lost their sister Jennifer (left) to an asthma attack. Their other sister Jamie Dantzscher (right) in March testified about being sexually abused by USA Gymnastics' national team doctor Larry Nassar
Both Janelle and Jalynne also competed on the UCLA gymnastics team while attending college on gymnastics scholarships. Like most twins, they have always shared a special bond that lasted into adulthood.
Our family is extremely close and spend a lot of time together, but there is a difference with Jalynne and me, Leopoldo said. Our husbands joke, If you marry one, you marry the other in the sense that we love being together so much and talking so much.
'We feel when we are apart, there is a piece of us missing. Our kids already feel this bond as well.
Even though Janelle lives and works as a first-grade teacher in California, and Jalynne lives in Scottsdale, Arizona, the sisters fly back and forth to see each other every three weeks.
During the sisters third trimester, the Leopoldos moved in with the Crawfords and lived together in Scottsdale for three weeks leading up to the due date.
Party of five: The Crawfords welcomed their youngest son after suffering two miscarriages
Happy together: Janelle was able to conceive Jace through in vitro fertilization after suffering a miscarriage of her own
The twins and their rambunctious brood attended a Giants game just two weeks after Bryson and Jace's birth
When we approached the doctor about having the babies on the same day, he said it was fine, they were the same gestational age and due within a week of one another, Crawford told GMA.
Crawford, who is two minutes older than Leopoldo and found out she was pregnant four days before her sister, got to 'go first, giving her husband the chance to spend a few extra hours with her and their newborn son during his brief paternity leave from the San Francisco Giants.
After undergoing their scheduled C-sections, the sisters were given rooms next door at the hospital and spent the next two days visiting each other.
Brandon Crawford later wrote in an entry on San Francisco Giants' blog, Splash Hits, that Jalynnes doctor told them it was a first for him: delivering babies of twin sisters on the same day, back to back.
The Giants shortstop also revealed that his sister Jenna has already coined a term for Bryson and Jace: twa-sins, which stands for twin cousins.
On her Instagram page, Jalynne wrote gushingly about sharing her sons birth with her sister.
This was one of the best experiences of my life! she said in a caption accompanying a photo from the hospital showing her beside her sister with their babies and husbands. Bryson and Jace will have a special bond and always share their birthday!
Punjab govt extended parole of Nawaz Sharif,Maryam Nawaz,(r) Safdar
ISLAMABAD: The Punjab government on Wednesday decided to extend the parole of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, his daughter Maryam Nawaz and son-in-law Captain (r) Safdar by four days.
The three were released from Adiala Jail on parole hours after Nawaz Sharifs ailing wife Kulsoom Nawaz passed away at a hospital in London on Tuesday. They were initially released on a 12-hour parole to attend Kulsooms funeral, against a request by the Sharif family for a five-day parole.
According to Punjab Home Department spokesperson, it has been decided that Nawaz, Maryam and Capt (r) Safdars parole be extended by four days. A summary in this regard has been forwarded to the Punjab chief minister for approval. The extension will be in effect from midnight, he said. In case of a delay in funeral, the parole will be further extended, he added, while denying reports that Jati Umra had been declared a sub-jail.
The funeral prayers of former first lady will be offered at the Regent Park mosque in London on Thursday (today) after Zuhr prayers and later her body will be flown to Lahore after completion of legal formalities. She will be laid to rest in Jati Umra on Friday, according to the Sharif family.
Talking to a private news channel in London, where former first lady breathed her last, Hussain Nawaz, the son of Nawaz Sharif, said that her mothers body will reach Pakistan on Friday. He confirmed that he and his brother Hassan, who have been declared absconder in corruption cases, will not come to Pakistan to attend the burial of their mother due to legal issues.
Kulsoom Nawaz was diagnosed with lymphoma last year, barely a month after Nawaz Sharif was removed from office by the Supreme Court. She was briefly a member of parliament from September 2017 to July 2018 when she won her husbands former seat in a by-election after the Supreme Court disqualified him.
FEMA chief Brock Long botched the name of the hurricane threatening the East Coast Thursday while denying allegations of his own misuse of government cars saying he was '100 per cent' focused on the storm.
'Regardless of an article, right now I'm 100% focused on Floyd, and that's exactly where our attention needs to be with the life-safety mission,' said Long at an emergency briefing to update Americans on Hurricane Florence.
'Florence, excuse me,' he added later.
Long may have been referencing a 1999 hurricane that slammed the East Coast and inundated parts of North Carolina.
FEMA head Brock Long began a briefing about the threats posed by Hurricane Florence fielding questions about an inspector general's probe of his use of government vehicles
He denied distraction at the top of a briefing where officials schooled Americans on what bare necessities they should bring to shelters, where and how to evacuate, and what disabled citizens should do to prepare.
He said as FEMA administrator he followed policies 'according to regulation and bottom line is we'll continue to fully cooperate with any investigation that goes on and own up to any mistakes and push forward and keep going, keeping moving on.'
'Regardless of an article, right now I'm 100 per cent focused on Floyd and that's exactly where our attention needs to be with the life safety mission. We'll invite in our federal partners Florence, excuse me,' said, possibly after being corrected.
Asked if he was confident he followed the law, Long shifted the subject back to the storm and repeated the error. 'We're going to get to Floyd we're going to get to Florence, excuse me, and we're going to concentrate on the life safety issues,'he said.
'I'm 100% focused on Floyd,' FEMA head Brock Long said, botching the name of Hurricane Florence, as he fielded questions on his own alleged misuse of government vehicles
Long spoke just as the outer bands of the storm were reaching the coast of North Carolina, a state where he has a home
President Donald Trump listens as FEMA Administrator Brock Long speaks during a meeting with Long and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen in the Oval Office September 11, 2018 in Washington, DC
A report said FEMA Administrator Brock Long clashed with Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen over the auto use
The embarrassing gaffe came as Long fended off a new Politico report that he was under investigation for the use of government cars.
The report said he clashed with Homeland Security chief Kirstjen Nielsen over the issue. An Inspector General is probing his use of a government Chevy Suburban and other vehicles during repeat six-hour drives to Hickory, N.C.
His use of a staff driver began last year, and aides would stay at hotels at government expense, an official told the publication.
DEVASTATION: Marine One carrying US President Bill Clinton along with North Carolina Governor James Hunt 20 September, 1999, survey the flood damage over Tarboro, North Carolina, which was damaged by high winds and rain from Hurricane Floyd. Clinton also visited an emergency shelters
FIRST YOU TAKE ROUTE 66 WEST TOWARDS 81 SOUTH: Long, seen here discussing Hurricane Florence, is under fire for using government vehicles on the six-hour drive from Washington to Hickory, North Carolina
News of Long's use of government vehicles for long-range commutes follows reports that $10 million was transferred from FEMA funds to pay for immigration detention centers. The transfer, revealed in documents released by Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon, showed funds came out of the operations and support budget before the start of hurricane season.
TAL hired a private investigator to stalk an ill woman to avoid her monthly claim
CommInsure denied claim for surgery of a woman suffering from breast cancer
The Royal Commission into banking has heard the insurance arm of Commonwealth Bank refused to pay for a woman's treatment because her breast cancer 'wasn't radical enough'.
Despite providing medical certificates and doctor's recommendations the woman was denied payment by CommInsure who have admitted to using an outdated definition of breast cancer to avoid having to pay out the patient's life insurance.
Despite doctors pleading for the woman's surgery, CommInsure relied on a medical definition two decades old and refused to backdate.
CommInsure is under fire after denying life insurance claim for surgery of a woman who had breast cancer.
The company insisted the claim would only pay for a full mastectomy, even though the policy document did not say this.
CommInsure failed to update its policy to reflect contemporary medical practice, which included procedures that were less invasive until 2017 and therefore did not apply to the woman's claim.
The woman's breast cancer claim triggered more investigation as CommInsure Managing Director Helen Troup admitted for the first time the company had misled customers over advertisements for trauma cover, leading people to think any heart attack could be insured.
However, the disclosure statement mentioned only severe heart attacks could be covered.
CommInsure failed to update its policy to reflect contemporary medical practice, which included procedures that were less invasive until 2017.
In light of this deception, the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) failed to address breaches resulting in an $8 million maximum penalty.
Instead, CommInsure did not acknowledge any wrongdoing and paid $300,000 to a community benefit program.
Mr Troup said the $300,000 figure was significantly below the maximum penalty for carrying out offences of misleading conduct, which should have been almost $2 million.
Australian life insurance specialist TAL paid a private investigator $20,000 to stalk a customer to avoid having to pay out her $2,750 claim.
TAL spent years fighting against the customer's claim under her income protection policy after depression and anxiety meant she could no longer continue working as a nurse.
Australian life insurance specialist TAL paid a private investigator $20,000 to stalk a customer to avoid having to pay out her $2,750 claim.
Senior TAL executive Loraine van Eeden agreed the surveillance of the woman was deeply inappropriate.
TAL spent years fighting against the customer's claim under her income protection policy after depression and anxiety meant she could no longer continue working as a nurse.
A TAL staffer, who was one of the multiple case managers did a Google search to find out she had written a book, which triggered the private investigation.
Four months was spent following the woman by secretly recording her every move, without her knowing. The investigator's report included details and footage of the woman having her breakfast, kissing her partner and her seen in bathers at a swimming pool.
The detailed surveillance also included extensive searches of the woman's social media sites such as Facebook.
Australian life insurance specialist TAL paid a private investigator $20,000 to stalk a customer to avoid having to pay out her $2,750 claim.
One of the company's case managers suggested the investigator complete a pretext at a hospital. However, the inquiry heard it was not clear if that meant posing as a family member or a friend.
It took the nurse nearly three years to start receiving her $2,750 monthly benefit.
TAL's bullying of the mentally ill nurse told the woman her cover was cancelled in 2014 and included a demand that she repay $69,000, causing the woman significant distress.
The insurance company also forced the woman to extensively fill out a diary everyday detailing all her activities so she could continue to receive benefits, which exacerbated her mental health condition.
Senior TAL executive Loraine van Eeden agreed the surveillance of the woman was deeply inappropriate.
Senior counsel assisting the commission Rowena Orr QC said this wasn't the right way an insurance company should treat a customer eligible for benefits under an income protection policy on the basis of her mental health condition.
The royal commission will proceed to deal with the woman's case on Friday.
With its quaint streets, sandy beaches and picturesque surroundings, the French fishing village of Ouistreham is a perfect location for holidaymakers.
But a large ferry port in the centre of town also makes it a destination for a traveller of an entirely different sort - migrants attempting to make their way to Britain.
Each day hundreds of mostly young men from sub-Saharan Africa spend their time chasing lorries heading for the port in an attempt to get to the UK.
Around 200 migrants, mostly young men from sub-Saharan Africa, are thought to be camped out in the French town of Ouistreham, where they try to break into lorries bound for the UK
As lorries head for the port, where ferries travel to Portsmouth, the men attempt to break into the back in the hopes of starting a new life in Britain
Police in the town say the number of migrants loitering in parks waiting for a truck to come through has increased since the 'Jungle' camp in Calais was shut down
Many of the men are from Sudan, which has been in a state of near-constant war since independence in 1956, and have fled war for a safer life in Europe
Having come thousands of miles across some of the most hostile terrain on earth, the dangers of breaking into a moving lorry prove no deterrent
Each man may make several attempts every day to get into one of the lorries in scenes that repeat themselves week after week
Locals say their businesses have suffered after the migrants arrived, and that they are considering moving away if the problem cannot be fixed
Their goal is to make it on to a ferry which will ultimately end up in Portsmouth after making a 100-mile journey across the English channel.
For most, that trip is nothing - having already come almost 3,000 miles from Sudan, where they have fled conflict and poverty in the hopes of finding safety and a job.
According to The Sun, there are between 200 and 300 mostly young men in the town, a number which increased significantly after the closure of the Calais 'Jungle' camp in 2016.
Forced out of that makeshift shelter, but still determined to get to England, they made their way 150 miles down the coast to this fishing village - not far from where British troops once landed during the D-Day invasion.
Pictures show lone men and groups of men chasing lorries down the streets, hands outstretched towards the rear doors in the hopes of climbing aboard.
Cafe's in Ouistreham used to do a roaring trade with passing lorry drivers, but most are now too afraid to stop in case their vehicles are broken into
A man attempts to hide on the undercarriage of a transit van headed for the UK
While the hope of successfully sneaking on to a truck is slim, the men are determined to keep trying in the hope of a better life
Transport bosses have called for greater security and even suggested the army should be brought in to provide a permanent deterrent
Ouistreham has been a target for migrants for years, but the problem became more acute after the closure of the 'Jungle' camp in Calais
A group of men chase after a truck heading for the port in Ouistreham in the hopes of sneaking aboard and getting a ferry to the UK
Police lights flash against the back of a truck as migrant men try to break into it
For most, the effort will be worthless. They will be hauled off the lorry a short distance up the road by gendarmes, only to return and try again.
This process can repeat itself several times each with single individuals. The routine then continues, day after day, and week after week.
Speaking to The Sun, one said: 'I have two children, six and seven. I want to get to England to get a job, or study, I want a new life.'
Another, who refused to give his name but said he was 22-year-old, added: 'I've heard some have got into trucks. I think there is a chance.'
Frederic Aubanel, a police general, said up to 200 migrants a day would attempt to breach lorries.
Mr Aubanel said: 'There are 150 to 200 migrants or between 100 and 150 it depends on the time of year who try, no matter what the cost, to get into the port, to get to the UK.
The men are not allowed to set up a permanent camp, so many sleep rough in parks or on the pavement during the day, waiting for a truck to come
Others loiter in public spaces, talking on their phones or chatting to each other until a lorry rolls past and they can try to get inside
While the local mayor has acknowledged the problem, he has refused to speak much about it, calling it 'too hot'
Two migrants loiter beside a road in Ouistreham, waiting for a lorry to come past
A group of migrants sleeps in a park near the port in Ouistreham, hoping to cross to the UK
The goal is to make it on to one of these ferries, which will carry the men to Portsmouth
'It's every day it's every day we have people who get into the lorries.'
He added that it was creating a sense of 'panic' among lorry drivers who use the port.
Residents in Ouistreham said they were considering leaving their homes because they felt so unsafe.
The men are not allowed to set up camps, and so spend their spare time laying in parks or lounging on benches, waiting for the next lorry to come.
Transport bosses have called for security to be improved and suggested the French military should be drafted in to provide a permanent deterrent at ports along France's northern coast.
Christophe Blanchet, the MP for Ouistreham, recently warned that the situation was 'at the edge of a precipice'.
Last year fewer than 17 per cent of asylum applications in the region were successful.
Dr Tony Boret has been cleared of all wrongdoing by a medical standards tribunal after a patient invented claims against him
A 'fantasist' financier's wife tried to destroy a gynaecologist's career with claims of sexual impropriety after he rebuffed her advances.
The mother of three had claimed married consultant obstetrician Dr Tony Boret had kissed her and then put his hand up her top during a meeting at his surgery. She also alleged he suggested they book into a hotel for sex.
But the doctor was cleared of any wrongdoing after a Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service heard the woman was the one doing the pursuing.
In one email she sent to Dr Boret, the woman said: 'I only ever wanted some excitement and a bit of passion. Would not have grown attached or fallen for you.
'It would have been a bit of fun for both of us. Your career and family life is safe and always will be.'
A second message, sent seven days later, read: 'I don't want to hurt you or start making a complaint - I am not a silly little girl that just because nothing can happen with us that I would seek to gain some revenge all it would do is destroy you and me and our families.'
The woman then wrote to him saying: 'I want to apologise to you, I am terribly embarrassed for coming onto you. I made it all up I realise it was a very serious allegation to make and I am so so sorry. I hope that in time you will forgive me.'
Inquiries revealed the woman also referred to Dr Boret as a 'my husband in another life' on Facebook whilst her husband - a financial director for a London-based FTSE company - had asked that the doctor not be reported to the General Medical Council.
She, like all patients involved in medical tribunals, was not named at the hearing.
Dr Boret's wife Martha has stood by him during his ordeal. He told the hearing he would never have been unfaithful to her
Dr Boret is a 53-year-old consultant obstetrician from Edgware, North London who has been practising medicine for 31 years.
He said the woman had either 'fantasised' her claims or lied, adding: 'Why she said those things I do not know.'
He told the Manchester hearing: 'I have never been unfaithful to my wife... [the patient] would frequently suggest that we went for coffee, but I would always decline.
'I recall bumping into her twice at a cafe and she asked me to sit and have coffee with her - but I stopped going there as I did not want to socialise with a patient but equally did not want to offend her by continually refusing.'
He said that on one occasion, the woman, described by his lawyer as 'highly strung', had 'French kissed' him 'completely by surprise', before he pushed her away.
Panel chairman Laura Paul said the woman was 'evasive, irrational, unhelpful' when giving evidence and 'repeated phrases like a mantra'.
She said: 'The Tribunal did not find the patient convincing - it did not find her to be a credible witness. There was a kiss however it was the patient who leant in and kissed Dr Boret who was taken by surprise and pushed her away.'
Nathan Watts, 29, said he bought the sex toy because of its 'Japanese features' and told the jury he was surprised at how small it was. Pictured: Watts outside Reading Crown Court
A warehouse manager who bought a 1,000 sex doll from China was cleared in court after accusations the doll he purchased resembled a child.
Nathan Watts, 29, said he bought the sex toy because of its 'Japanese features' and told the jury he was surprised at how small it was.
He wiped a tear from behind his glasses today as the jury unanimously found him innocent today.
Despite a leading investigator on the case saying their was no evidence that Watts was sexually interested in children, the CPS argued Watts must have checked what he was buying due to the large amount of money he spent on the doll.
A CPS spokesperson said: 'A charge is authorised by the CPS if a prosecutor is satisfied that both stages of the Full Code test are met. The CPS does not decide whether or not a person is guilty of the offence. That is a matter for a jury and we respect their decision in this case.'
During his interrogation, Watts said he had ordered the doll late one night because he was 'lonely' and hoped that 'in the long run it would make me happier'.
Watts was charged after border force intercepted his package at East Midlands Airport last year.
Officials became suspicious after realising the doll was just 4ft tall, complete with pink lingerie and breasts, and called police.
The defendant was questioned over the package, although Watts denied knowing the doll was so short, adding he thought he ordered a life sized doll with Japanese features.
Investigating officer Nigel Woodall told Reading Crown Court that his investigation found no evidence that Watts, who is 5ft 9ins, was interested in children.
Watts told the court he found the doll after searching 'sex doll' on Google during a late night trawl on April 3, 2017.
He clicked on the first link and paid 945.20, and claims to have seen no information about the dimensions of the doll.
Michael Attenborough, prosecuting, told the jury: 'The Crown says that it was, in almost all respects, a child in terms of the height, parts and facial features. The only exception to that was that it had fully formed breasts.
'The importation of an obscene or indecent article is prohibited by law. The doll was seized by the Border Force officers and the defendant was asked to attend a voluntary interview which he did.
'He was asked a series of questions and on that occasion, his response was to say 'no comment.''
Nathan Watts denies intentionally buying the 4ft sex doll, claiming he thought it would be bigger
The prosecutions said Watts attended a secondary voluntary interview on December 4, 2017 where he then admitted to ordering the sex doll - but said he did not realise it was so short.
Mr Attenborough added: 'The defendant spent the best part of 1,000 on it. It is inconceivable that the defendant spent that amount of money without knowing what he was going to get.'
Watts, who the court heard was a big fan of Japanese culture including manga which are comics, said: 'I was lonely, I work a lot and don't get out much.
'I expected it to look like an adult sex doll with Japanese features, I thought the eyes would be more Japanese than they are.'
When asked if the doll he saw online was what he bought, Watts replied: 'It is smaller than I thought it would be.'
Watts added the pictures of the doll on the website showed it set against a background and there were 'no other objects to compare its height with'.
He added he chose that particular doll because 'it was on sale and reasonably cheap compared with others'.
Ayelen Tunon, defending, asked her client: 'If you thought it would be childlike, would you have bought it?'
Watts replied: 'Absolutely not, I have no interest in children. I thought in the long run it would make me happier.'
Tunon added: 'Mr Watts has told you by his own admission that he is a bit of a loner.
'This is something that for him is embarrassing, it is not something that he would want to spend a lot of time on.
'What evidence do you have in this case that Mr Watts is interested in children? Absolutely nothing and that is what the officer in this case said.
'If he does not have any interest in children, why would he suddenly one night buy a child sex doll?
'There is not a single suggestion on that website that it sells child like sex dolls, he told you he saw them and it was the cheapest on the site.
'He is not responsible for what he is being accused of.'
Watts, from Reading, was cleared of one charge of attempted fraudulent evasion of a prohibition.
The director of The Predator made a grovelling apology for hiring a convicted sex offender to work on the film at its Hollywood premiere on Wednesday.
Shane Black told the Associated Press his decision to hire Steven Wilder Striegel was 'irresponsible' and had come about because of a failure to vet the actor, who is also Black's friend, properly.
'I made an error in judgement that is irresponsible,' he told AP. 'I'm not just a kid who can say "we're making movies in college, put your buddy in the movie".'
Striegel, 48, pleaded guilty in 2010 to attempting to form an online sexual relationship with a 14-year-old female relative.
Striegel (right) is a longtime friend of Predator director Shane Black (left). Black said he was mislead by his long-term friend about the details of his conviction
He had sent flirtatious messages and emails to the minor, but details of case from an affidavit seen by the LA Times suggest he also 'kissed' the 14-year-old.
Actress Olivia Munn, who had blown the lid on the actor's criminal conviction, said she had only discovered his sex-offender status after filming a scene with him, and had lobbied the studio to delete it.
Striegel, 48, pleaded guilty in 2010 to attempting to form an online sexual relationship with a 14-year-old female relative
After it was deleted, Munn told cast-mates, thinking they would want a heads up before Striegel's past became public knowledge, but said she was 'iced out' instead.
'I got chastised the next day by people at the studio for telling them, and why am I not just keeping it quiet? It's gonna be okay, it got deleted, what's the big deal?' she explained during an appearance on The Ellen Show.
'Nobody talked to me. Nobody reached out that whole day,' the actress, who plays Casey Bracket in the sequel to the classic 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger movie out Friday, told Ellen.
'At first I thought maybe it was just because they don't know what to say, they wanted to say it out of the way, but privately I did feel iced out.'
Black appeared torn up as he apologized for his hiring error, and, though he did not name Munn, made a point of acknowledging people in his cast had been hurt as a result.
It wasn't until after Munn filmed the scene with Steven Wilder Striegel she learned he had served six months in prison for luring a 14-year-old girl into an online sexual relationship
'This is an adult decision with real responsibilities and I didn't vet somebody,' he said.
'It doesn't mater that I was shocked at these emails or that he misrepresented my friends and I... doesn't matter.
'I was the captain of that ship, it's my job to make sure those things don't happen, and I failed. And I caused pain to people in the cast.
'That's unacceptable, I take full responsibility. I am very, deeply sorry. I think about this a lot, I hope I learn from this.
'This movie, which could have been these beautiful people on a beautiful night, with only this, has been overshadowed in some ways by a stupid decision that I made.'
Pope Francis has met with the head of the U.S. delegation over the growing sex abuse and cover-up scandal.
During the meeting, he accepted the resignation and also authorised the investigation of West Virginia bishop, Michael Bransfield, who has been implicated in the Philadelphia priestly sex abuse case since 2012.
In a statement from the head of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Cardinal Daniel DiNardo said the group told Francis the U.S. church was 'lacerated by the evil of sexual abuse.'
Pope Francis (left) met with the head of the U.S. delegation over the growing sex abuse and cover-up scandal. Pictured: The pope shakes hands with Cardinal Daniel DiNardo (right), Archbishop of Galveston-Houston, as he arrives with other U.S. Catholic Church leaders at the Vatican, September 13
However he made no mention of his earlier plans to ask Francis to authorise a Vatican investigation into the case of now-disgraced a ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, accused of sexual misconduct with minors and adults.
In his statement DiNardo, who headed a four-member delegation that met with the pope, said: 'We look forward to actively continuing our discernment together identifying the most effective next steps.'
The Vatican investigation into a U.S. bishop accused of sexual harassment of adults comes amid a crisis of confidence in church leadership.
During the meeting, he authorised the investigation of West Virginia bishop, Michael Bransfield, who has been implicated in the Philadelphia priestly sex abuse case since 2012
It also comes on the same day a U.S. delegation met with the pope over the latest chapter in the Catholic Church's long-running sex abuse and cover-up scandal.
The Vatican announced that Pope Francis had accepted the resignation of West Virginia Bishop Michael Bransfield, and had named a temporary administrator for his Wheeling-Charleston diocese.
The administrator, Baltimore Bishop William Lori, said in a statement that Francis had instructed him to 'conduct an investigation into allegations of sexual harassment of adults against Bishop Bransfield.'
Two men brought allegations against Bishop Michael Bransfield (above) in their testimony during the April 2012 trial in Philadelphia of Monsignor William Lynn. Bransfield denied the allegations
Lori vowed to conduct 'a thorough investigation in search of the truth into the troubling allegations against Bishop Bransfield.'
The West Virginia diocese had issued a statement months after accusations against Bishop Michael Bransfield were raised during a priest abuse trial, saying it had found the alleged victim and he denied he was abused.
Two men mentioned allegations against Bransfield in their testimony during the April 2012 trial in Philadelphia of Monsignor William Lynn.
One man testified he had been raped by priest Stanley Gana at a home owned by Bransfield.
He also said Gana told him Bransfield was having sex with a boy they saw him driving with.
Bransfield denied the allegations, and the Wheeling-Charleston diocese issued a statement in July 2012 saying they had identified the boy in the car and he had denied any abuse.
Gary Gardner (pictured today) was accused of putting money raised for the son of Lee Rigby into his own account at Leicester Crown Court
A conman who pocketed money given to a fund meant for the young son of murdered soldier Lee Rigby faces jail after he was found guilty of fraud.
Fundraiser Gary Gardner, 56, told charity donors money raised at a truck pulling event would go to the family of the Fusilier killed in the 2013 terror attack.
A jury at Leicester Crown Court was told Gardner, of Medbourne, Leicestershire, spent profits on producing a music single he knew would be a 'flop'.
He was desperate to become a promoter in the music industry and deal with 'emerging music artists', the court heard.
The 56-year-old was cleared of one count of fraud, which alleged he failed to keep a record of the amounts raised from fundraisers, but found guilty of two other counts.
Gardner denied taking money meant for Lee Rigby's son and putting it into his own bank account, telling police in 2016 the 431 transfer from a Nationwide treasures account was made to cover an expense.
The fraudster admitted he spent up to 5,000 donated by the public for Jack Rigby on producing a charity music single, which only made 200.
Lee Rigby's widow Rebecca was in court to hear the two guilty verdicts on Thursday.
Opening the crown's case at the start of the one-week trial, prosecutor Samuel Skinner said Gardner also used profits for travel expenses in London as he transferred funds from the charity bank account to his own personal account.
Mr Skinner told jurors: 'The defendant appears to have an enthusiasm for promoting emerging music artists and it is the showcasing of these acts that has swallowed up most of the verifiable donations.
'In any event, the defendant used some of the money for a purpose that the original donors never intended and would not have approved if they had known.
'It appears that the defendant has spent all the money he received.'
Gardner claimed the single was not a success due to politicians. Pictured: Gardner outside Leicester Crown Court today
The court was told the lorry driver put on truck-pull events in 2013, 2014 and 2015 - fundraisers which were attended by thousands of people, including Fusilier Rigby's widow and his son Jack.
Giving evidence in the trial, Mrs Rigby said: 'There were talks of climbing Kilimanjaro, there were a number of things he wanted to do to raise funds for Jack.
'He spoke about large money - thousands - and it was as if it would set Jack up for life.'
Mrs Rigby was asked: 'Have you ever received any money from this defendant?' to which she replied: 'Jack and myself have never received a penny from him.'
Rebecca Rigby with son Jack at the Vigil of Fusilier Lee Rigby held at Bury Parish Church, Lancashire in July 11, 2013
Members of Lee Rigby's Regiment pull a six-ton lorry at event in Leicestershire organised by Gardiner on August 26, 2013 to raise funds for his son Jack
Gardner had denied three counts of fraud but was found not guilty of one count which alleged he failed to keep a record of the amounts raised from fundraisers.
After verdicts were reached, Steven Kennell from the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said: 'Gary Gardner's beneficiary, the trust set up for Fusilier Rigby's son, never received a penny from him.
'The CPS has presented clear-cut evidence to the court that Gardner did not pass any of the money he raised to the trust fund, and only made the local donations he did make when confronted about his activities.
'Whatever his intentions in starting his fundraising, the jury has agreed his activities constituted fraud, in failing to transfer the funds to the beneficiary and spending funds on the charity single.'
Mr Kennell added: 'It was the prosecution's case that he has behaved dishonestly throughout, even inviting the Rigby family to attend his events and posing publicly with a presentation cheque to imply he had donated the money.'
In his police statement read to the jury last week, Gardner said: 'The single wasn't a success because of the bureaucracy of Boris Johnson and the Prime Minister and the press.
'They were making out they didn't want to upset any Muslims.'
Lee Rigby was brutally murdered in Woolwich in May 22
Jurors heard claims 56-year-old Gardner raised at least 24,000 from various events but only 4,000 made its way to any charity because of his 'enthusiasm for promoting emerging music artists'.
Jack was just two-years-old when Lee was murdered in May 2013 by Islamic extremists in London.
Fusiler Lee Rigby was killed on May 22, 2013, by Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale. They ran him over, used knives and a cleaver to stab and hack him to death.
The men dragged Rigby's body into the road in Woolwich, London, and remained at the scene until police arrived.
Gardner was granted conditional bail until sentencing at the same court on Friday.
Former LNP opposition leader John-Paul Langbroek and brother of popular radio host Kate Langbroek has caused a stir after posting a suggestive comment about government adviser Brooke Leembruggen's cleavage in an Instagram post.
The photo included Ms Leembruggen, adviser to Social Services Minister Paul Fletcher, and other parliamentary staff at Canberra's Midwinter Ball, the highlight of the parliamentary social calendar.
She stood next to husband Julian Leembruggen, who works as Prime Minister Scott Morrison's media adviser.
Mr Langbroek posted a comment with the symbols; '(.)(.)'.
Former LNP opposition leader John-Paul Langbroek has caused a stir after commenting about government adviser Brooke Leembruggen's breasts (second from right). She is pictured with her husband, Julian, who is Scott Morrison's media adviser and Alistair Mitchell, chief of staff for Defence Minister Steve Ciobo (centre) at the Midwinter Ball
Brooke Leembruggen and her husband Julian
Mr Langbroek admitted to The Australian that his comment was 'inappropriate'.
'I removed it this morning without being prompted, and I apologise for any offense caused,' he said.
The photo was uploaded to the private Instagram account of Alistair Mitchell, the chief of staff to Defence Minister Steven Ciobo.
The Midwinter Ball took place at Parliament House and was attended by senators, MPs, husbands, wives and figures from business and show business.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison, Opposition Leader Bill Shorten and actor Sam Neill were among the invited guests.
A small Missouri town is getting a new paper with a not-so-subtle name: The Uranus Examiner.
The wacky title was met with a range of reactions from giggles to groans when it was announced Wednesday in the tourist town of Uranus - pronounced like the planet.
Many have said the name befits the namesake town on Route 66, which consists of just 25 people and a handful of kitschy businesses all owned by the self-proclaimed Mayor of Uranus, Louie Keen, who founded it in 2002.
Managing editor Natalie Sanders said the Examiner is meant to be a 'fun' paper focused on local news and promoting the town of just 25 people.
A small tourist town in Missouri announced its new newspaper on Wednesday, with the proposed name The Uranus Examiner eliciting a range of reactions from giggles to groan
Many have said the name befits the namesake town on Route 66, which consists of just 25 people and a handful of kitschy businesses
Keen is said to be providing financial backing for the paper, which is being established just after Pulaski County's previous local paper the Daily Guide was shuttered last week.
Wednesday's announcement was made by Managing Editor Natalie Sanders, who had been at the helm of the Guide until June, when she left to team up with Keen in creating the new outlet.
The Uranus Examiner is expected to be published on a weekly basis and distributed for free to 15,000 local residents beginning in October.
providing traditional local news coverage along with some marketing content for the tourist attraction which boasts the world's largest belt buckle and a massive candy shop, among other quirky fixtures.
Addressing the controversial name, Sanders said: 'We had thought about Constitution, but most of our, the people who love us, and who were part of coming up with the name, liked the "examiner" better.'
The Examiner's managing editor Natalie Sanders revealed the new paper at a town meeting
Several officials including the mayor of nearby Waynesville, Luge Hardman, above, were not amused by the innuendo
The mayor of nearby Waynesville, Luge Hardman, was not among those in favor of the name.
After Sanders' announcement, Hardman took the microphone and said: 'No. I'm sorry. But, the innuendo of that title puts my city up for public ridicule, and I will not be a part of it.'
She went on: 'I think that the Pulaski County Examiner would have been a real hit, and I don't believe it would've been a problem for the cities. But if you're going to place this innuendo on your name, it's not going to fly, at least for the city of Waynesville and the City of St Robert.'
Hardman said that while she supports and respects Sanders as a journalist, she refuses to run any of the legal notices Waynesville is required to publish in The Uranus Examiner, opting instead to publish them in the Dixon Pilot or the Laclede Record.
The name also received pushback from Darrell Todd Maurina, owner of the 'Pulaski County Daily News' site.
'If Louie Keen wants to pick up the slack and provide a media product to people in this community who want print media, I want to see that happen,' Maurina said of his new competitor.
'I want to see it succeed. That name does not indicate a serious newspaper.'
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Asi mira el perrito a su amo
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LOS REVOLUCIONARIOS NO TOMAN CACA-COLA No se trata solamente de un capricho, sino de una sana actitud en todos los sentidos. Desde la solidaridad con el pueblo colombiano donde la empresa Caca-Cola ha cometido los mas grandes abusos contra sus trabajadores incluyendo el presunto secuestro y asesinato de los dirigentes del sindicato, hasta la proteccion de la salud de nuestros hijos, enviciados por ese jarabe de cola y azucar, que les produce obesidad prematura. Pensemos tambien los revolucionarios, que ese dinero que gastamos en los refrescos es utilizado por esas empresas para financiar el terrorismo en nuestro pais. Es cierto, no se trata solo de la Caca-Cola, sino tambien de la cerveza, de los cigarrillos y todos esos articulos innecesarios y mas que eso, daninos para nuestra salud. Podriamos incluso pensar en un dia de parada para cada uno de ellos. Es cuestion de irnos organizando. Pero para empezar, que tal si dejamos de comprar Caca-Cola y sus similares?
Cuando lo extraordinario se vuelve cotidiano...
Discurso del Acto de Grado en Barinas en 12 de Febrero del 2005 Queridos Graduandos:
Mas que un discurso, quiero dirigirles algunas palabras que escribi anoche, despues de visitar en las clinicas, a los estudiantes heridos, a consecuencia de los enfrentamientos con la policia de hace apenas dos dias.
Me ha tocado por razones del destino, ser la persona que les otorgue el titulo que bien merecieron con sus estudios. Y me siento sumamente orgulloso de serlo. Me consta que la Universidad de Los Llanos Occidentales Ezequiel Zamora, a pesar de lo dicho por los enemigos de esta universidad, es una universidad de primera.
No tendremos la mejor planta fisica, en los salones hace calor. En el comedor hace calor. Pero no es en lo material que las cosas deben valorarse. El mayor capital es el ser humano. Y en eso, nuestra UNELLEZ, lo digo con conocimiento de causa, esta sobrada. Los llaneros venezolanos son nobles, valientes, de coraje.
En la UNELLEZ hacen vida, en este momento, aproximadamente 67000 personas. El 97% de ellas son estudiantes. Jovenes que, como Ustedes hasta el dia de hoy, buscan ese titulo, que constata los anos de dedicacion y de estudio.
Los jovenes son el rio de la vida, ustedes graduados deben ser los capitanes de esos barcos que naveguen por el rio de la vida.
Nuestra Patria atraviesa momentos muy dificiles porque decidio dejar de ser esa matrona de edad vetusta y complaciente, para ser joven, rebelde y altanera. Nuestra imagen ya no es la de una acaudalada ricachona mayamera. En nuestro rostro brilla ahora la sonrisa del Che Guevara, con su diente delantero torcido, su pelo largo y su boina con la estrella.
Entender esto, a mi me ha tomado practicamente toda la vida. Tengo 53 anos, y ya perdi mi oportunidad de derramar sangre joven a causa de un ideal.
Ustedes son jovenes, estan en la flor de la vida. No cometan por favor el error de renunciar a su instinto de rebelion. El Che Guevara fue Ministro de a Economia en Cuba. Los billetes y las monedas se adornaban con su rostro. Nada de eso le importo. Primero fue a Angola donde paso un penoso ano de combate. Despues se fue a Bolivia, donde encontro la muerte. El Che era el ultimo que comia, el que cargaba la mochila mas pesada. Siempre se sacrificaba por los demas en un estoicismo que mas parecia fervor religioso que ideologia marxista.
Si quieren un modelo de vida. Ahi lo tienen.
Dije hace unos momentos que el 97% de la poblacion de la UNELLEZ es estudiante. Se imaginan Ustedes la Universidad que podriamos tener si todos los estudiantes tuvieran la abnegacion, la combatividad del Che?
Los momentos que se avecinan van a requerir de una gran unidad del pueblo venezolano. La alternativa de continuar siendo libres o regresar a la pobreza se nos planteara en los proximos dias de forma enmascarada, o quizas peor, desenmascarada, vestida con uniforme de soldado del Imperio.
Por nuestra parte podemos esperar lo mejor. La macroeconomia no podria ir mejor, la justicia social ha mejorado notablemente. Las misiones ocupan un papel muy importante en el pago de dicha justicia social. Aqui en Barinas ya hemos cumplido con dos de las misiones, la mision Robinson y la mision Sucre. No hay analfabetismo y no hay exclusion en la educacion superior, en estas tierras de Zamora.
Pero ay malhaya! Son precisamente estos exitos los que nos hacen mas antipaticos al Imperio. Para ellos, somos inclusive un mal ejemplo que se esta contagiando al resto del continente y cuidado sino al resto del mundo.
Nunca venceremos al Imperio. Estara siempre ahi, acechando. Por lo menos hasta que el mismo no se autodestruya. Porque, sepanlo senores, el neoliberalismo es canibal. Cuando le ataque el hambre, se devorara a si mismo.
Ustedes, queridos graduandos, a partir de hoy pasan a conformar la elite profesional que debe sostener este pais en los proximos cuarenta o cincuenta anos. Anos decisivos para el logro de nuestra libertad y del rescate de nuestra Soberania.
No se dejen comprar. No se dejen corromper. No se dejen gritar. No se dejen pisar. Que nadie les diga que comer, o que vestirse, o que leer. Sean siempre autenticos, rebeldes, contestatarios. Pero eso si, profundamente patriotas, dignos de ser hijos de Bolivar.
Muchas gracias y que Dios los bendiga.
Alguna duda?
Medio siglo de Holocausto Palestino
Oscar Zanartu Nacio en Caracas en 1960. Ha realizado exposiciones individuales en las galerias Minotauro, Clave y San Francisco, y en salas de Coro, estado Falcon, y Puerto Ordaz, estado Bolivar. En Paris su obra ha sido exhibida en el Centro Cultural Tanagra, en la Exposicion Cite Internationale des Arts, en las galerias De Mars y Arver Space, al igual que en la Galeria Municipal Levallois, en Levallois Perret (Francia). En muestras colectivas, su obra se ha expuesto en Belgica, Francia, Estados Unidos y Venezuela; en Caracas intervino en la exposicion "Del genesis a la memoria", 1995, organizada por la Fundacion La Previsora. En 1982 obtuvo el Premio Nacional Critven y en 1990 la Mencion de Honor Jose Antonio Paez, en la Embajada de Venezuela en Paris. En 1991 se le concedio el primer premio de Pintura Itinerante, en Levallois Perret, Francia.
OZ1
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Homenaje a Jason Galarraga
La Victoria de Samotracia
Odalisca
Mas fotos de la nevada del pasado agosto 2008
La Sierra Nevada de Merida
Nuestro precioso Churum Meru
Homenaje a Picasso
Autoretrato
Sabes lo que bebes en una Coca-Cola?
La formula de la Pepsi tiene una diferencia basica con la de la Coca-Cola y es intencional, para evitar el proceso judicial. La diferencia es a proposito, pero suficientemente parecida como para atraer a los consumidores de Coca-Cola que prefieren un gusto diferente con menos sal y azucar.
Mi profesion?
Tuve que aprender quimica, entender todo sobre componentes de gaseosas, conservantes, sales, acidos, cafeina, enlatado, produccion, permisos, aprobaciones y muchas otras cosas. Monte mi propio mini-laboratorio de analisis de productos.
Sal en la Coca Cola?
A patadas. El Cloruro de Sodio no solo refresca sino da mas sed, como para pedir otra gaseosa. Y no resulta desagradable porque la sal mata literalmente la sensibilidad al dulce... del que por cierto tambien tiene mucho: 39 gramos de azucar.
De los 350 gramos de producto liquido, mas del 10% es azucar, o sea que en una lata de Coca-Cola mas de un centimetro y medio es puro azucar en polvo. Aproximadamente tres cucharadas soperas llenas de azucar por lata!!La formula de la Coca Cola es muy sencilla:
Concentrado de azucar quemado caramelo- para dar color oscuro y gusto
Acido fosforito (para darle el sabor acido)
azucar (HFCS-jarabe de maiz de alta fructosa)
Extracto de hojas de la planta de Coca (Africa e India) y otros pocos aromatizantes naturales de otras plantas
Mucha Cafeina
Conservante que puede ser Benzoato de Sodio o Potasio
Dioxido de Carbono en cantidad para sentir freir la lengua cuando se bebe
Sal para dar la sensacion de refrigeracion
El uso del acido fosforito y no del acido citrico como en todas las demas gaseosas, es para dar la sensacion de dientes y boca limpia al beber. El acido fosforito literalmente frie todo y dana el esmalte de los dientes, cosa que el acido citrico lo hace en menor grado.Trate de comprar acido fosforito para ver las mil recomendaciones de seguridad que te dan para su manipulacion (quema el cristalino del ojo, quema la piel, etc...). Esta prohibido usar el acido fosforito en cualquier otra gaseosa; solo la Coca Cola tiene permiso. Porque claro, sin el acido fosforico, la Coca Cola sabria a jabon.El extracto de coca y otras hojas casi no cambia en nada el sabor. Es mas bien un efecto cosmetico. El extracto forma parte de la Coca-Cola porque legalmente tiene que ser asi. Pero sin el, no se nota ninguna diferencia en el gusto, que esta dado basicamente por las cantidades diferentes de azucar, azucar quemada, sales, acidos y conservantes.Sabor a que...? ja, ja, ja.
Aqui en Bartow, sur de Orlando, hay una empresa quimica que produce aromatizantes y esencias para zumos. Envian diariamente camionadas de sales concentradas y esencias para las fabricas de helados, gaseosas, jugos, enlatados y comida colorida y aromatizada.Cuando visite por primera vez la fabrica, pedi ver el deposito de concentrados de frutas, que deberia ser inmenso, especialmente los de naranja, pina, fresa y tantos otros. El encargado me miro, se rio y me llevo a visitar los depositos inmensos... pero de colorantes y componentes quimicos.
Las gaseosa de naranja no contiene naranja.
En los zumos dizque de fresa, hasta los puntitos que quedan en suspension estan hechos de goma (una liga quimica que envuelve un semi-polimero).
Pina, es un popurri de acidos y goma.
La esencia para helado de aguacate usa peroxido de hidrogeno (agua oxigenada) para dar la sensacion espumosa tipica del aguacate.
Bebidas Light?
Quieres saber la cantidad de basura que tiene un refresco 'light'? Yo ni siquiera los uso para destapar mi lavaplatos pues temo que danen los tubos de PVC. Los productos endulzantes 'ligth' tienen una vida media muy corta. Por ejemplo el
Despues de toda mi experiencia con la produccion de bebidas embasadas, puedo afirmar sin dudar un segundo: la mejor bebida es el agua, como tambien los jugos exprimidos de naranja o limon. Nada mas, cero azucar y cero sal.
Publicado por loretahur
En realidad, la formula secreta de la Coca-Cola se puede detallar en 18 segundos en cualquier espectrometro optico, y basicamente la conocen hasta los perros. Lo que ocurre es que no se puede fabricar igual, a no ser que uno disponga de unos cuantos millones de dolares para ganarle la demanda que te metera la Coca-Cola ante la justicia (ellos no perderian).La formula de la Pepsi tiene una diferencia basica con la de la Coca-Cola y es intencional, para evitar el proceso judicial. La diferencia es a proposito, pero suficientemente parecida como para atraer a los consumidores de Coca-Cola que prefieren un gusto diferente con menos sal y azucar.Tuve que aprender quimica, entender todo sobre componentes de gaseosas, conservantes, sales, acidos, cafeina, enlatado, produccion, permisos, aprobaciones y muchas otras cosas. Monte mi propio mini-laboratorio de analisis de productos.A patadas. El Cloruro de Sodio no solo refresca sino da mas sed, como para pedir otra gaseosa. Y no resulta desagradable porque la sal mata literalmente la sensibilidad al dulce... del que por cierto tambien tiene mucho: 39 gramos de azucar.De los 350 gramos de producto liquido, mas del 10% es azucar, o sea que en una lata de Coca-Cola mas de un centimetro y medio es puro azucar en polvo. Aproximadamente tres cucharadas soperas llenas de azucar por lata!!La formula de la Coca Cola es muy sencilla:Concentrado de azucar quemado caramelo- para dar color oscuro y gustoAcido fosforito (para darle el sabor acido)azucar (HFCS-jarabe de maiz de alta fructosa)Extracto de hojas de la planta de Coca (Africa e India) y otros pocos aromatizantes naturales de otras plantasMucha CafeinaConservante que puede ser Benzoato de Sodio o PotasioDioxido de Carbono en cantidad para sentir freir la lengua cuando se bebeSal para dar la sensacion de refrigeracionEl uso del acido fosforito y no del acido citrico como en todas las demas gaseosas, es para dar la sensacion de dientes y boca limpia al beber. El acido fosforito literalmente frie todo y dana el esmalte de los dientes, cosa que el acido citrico lo hace en menor grado.Trate de comprar acido fosforito para ver las mil recomendaciones de seguridad que te dan para su manipulacion (quema el cristalino del ojo, quema la piel, etc...). Esta prohibido usar el acido fosforito en cualquier otra gaseosa; solo la Coca Cola tiene permiso. Porque claro, sin el acido fosforico, la Coca Cola sabria a jabon.El extracto de coca y otras hojas casi no cambia en nada el sabor. Es mas bien un efecto cosmetico. El extracto forma parte de la Coca-Cola porque legalmente tiene que ser asi. Pero sin el, no se nota ninguna diferencia en el gusto, que esta dado basicamente por las cantidades diferentes de azucar, azucar quemada, sales, acidos y conservantes.Sabor a que...? ja, ja, ja.Aqui en Bartow, sur de Orlando, hay una empresa quimica que produce aromatizantes y esencias para zumos. Envian diariamente camionadas de sales concentradas y esencias para las fabricas de helados, gaseosas, jugos, enlatados y comida colorida y aromatizada.Cuando visite por primera vez la fabrica, pedi ver el deposito de concentrados de frutas, que deberia ser inmenso, especialmente los de naranja, pina, fresa y tantos otros. El encargado me miro, se rio y me llevo a visitar los depositos inmensos... pero de colorantes y componentes quimicos.Las gaseosa de naranja no contiene naranja.En los zumos dizque de fresa, hasta los puntitos que quedan en suspension estan hechos de goma (una liga quimica que envuelve un semi-polimero).Pina, es un popurri de acidos y goma.La esencia para helado de aguacate usa peroxido de hidrogeno (agua oxigenada) para dar la sensacion espumosa tipica del aguacate.Quieres saber la cantidad de basura que tiene un refresco 'light'? Yo ni siquiera los uso para destapar mi lavaplatos pues temo que danen los tubos de PVC. Los productos endulzantes 'ligth' tienen una vida media muy corta. Por ejemplo el aspartamo , despues de tres semanas mojado, pasa a tener gusto de trapo viejo sucio.Para evitar eso, se agregan una infinidad de otros productos quimicos, uno para alargar la vida del aspartamo, otro para neutralizar el color, otro para mantener el tercer quimico en suspension porque sino el fondo de la gaseosa quedaria oscuro, otro para evitar la cristalizacion del aspartamo, otro para realzar el sabor, dar mas intensidad al acido citrico o fosforito que perderia su sabor por el efecto de los cuatro productos quimicos iniciales... y asi sucesivamente.Un consejo final !!Despues de toda mi experiencia con la produccion de bebidas embasadas, puedo afirmar sin dudar un segundo: la mejor bebida es el agua, como tambien los jugos exprimidos de naranja o limon. Nada mas, cero azucar y cero sal.Publicado por loretahur
MARGARINA o MANTEQUILLA La margarina fue producida originalmente para engordar a los pavos; cuandolo que hizo en realidad fue matarlos.Las personas que habian puesto el dinero para la investigacion quisieronrecobrarlo asi que empezaron a pensar en una forma de hacerlo.Tenian una sustancia blanca, que no tenia ningun atractivo como comestible,asi que le anadieron el color amarillo, para venderselo a lagente en lugar de la mantequilla.Que tal esa?... Ahora han sacado algunos nuevos sabores para vender mas alos incautos como usted y yo.CONOCE USTED la diferencia entre la margarina y la mantequilla?Siga leyendo hasta el final... porque se pone bastante interesante!Comparacion entre mantequilla y margarina:
1.- Ambas tienen la misma cantidad de calorias.
2.- La mantequilla es ligeramente mas alta en grasas saturadas: 8 gramos,comparada con los 5 gramos que tiene la margarina.
3.- Comer margarina en vez de mantequilla puede aumentar en 53% el riesgo deenfermedades coronarias en las mujeres, de acuerdo con un estudiomedico reciente de la Universidad de Harvard.
4.- Comer mantequilla aumenta la absorcion de gran cantidad de nutrientesque se encuentran en otros alimentos.
5.- La mantequilla provee beneficios nutricionales propios mientras lamargarina tiene solo los que le hayan sido anadidos al fabricarla.
6.- La mantequilla sabe mucho mejor que la margarina y mejora el sabor deotros alimentos.7.- La mantequilla ha existido durante siglos mientras que la margarinatiene menos de 100 anos.
Ahora... sobre la margarina:
1.- Es muy alta en acidos grasos trans. (Si, esos que recien ahora loscientificos descubrieron que son malisimos y los gobiernoscomenzaron a prohibirlos) .
2.- Triple riesgo de enfermedades coronarias.
3.- Aumenta el colesterol total y el LDL (el colesterol malo) y disminuye elHDL (el colesterol bueno).
4.- Aumenta en cinco veces el riesgo de cancer.
5.- Disminuye la calidad de la leche materna.
6.- Disminuye la reaccion inmunologica del organismo.
7.- Disminuye la reaccion a la insulina.
Y he aqui el factor mas inquietante (AQUI ESTA LA PARTE MAS INTERESANTE! ):A la margarina le falta UNA MOLECULA para ser PLASTICO...!!Solo este hecho es suficiente para evitar el uso de la margarina de porvida, y de cualquier otra cosa que sea hidrogenada (esto significaque se le anade hidrogeno, lo cual cambia la estructura molecular de lassubstancias).Usted puede ensayar lo siguiente:Compre un poco de margarina y dejela en el garaje o en un sitio sombreado.Dentro de unos dias notara dos cosas:
* No habra moscas; ni siquiera esos molestos bichos se le acercaran (esto yale debe decir a usted algo).
* No se pudre ni huele mal o diferente porque no tiene valor nutritivo; nadacrece en ella. Ni siquiera los diminutos microorganismos puedencrecer en ella.Por que? Porque es casi plastico!!
No a la guerra, Si a la Paz
Misterios de la ciencia...
Los costos de la guerra
medicos y capitalismo...
Capitalismo...
medicos (2)
Quien educa a nuestros hijos?
Los Medios...
Sin Palabras...
Chistes feministas
- Cual es el problema, Eva?
- Se que me has creado, que me has dado este hermoso jardin, todos estos maravillosos animales y esa serpiente con la que me muero de risa... pero no soy del todo feliz...
- Como es eso, Eva? - replico Dios desde las alturas.
- Me encuentro sola, y ademas estoy harta de comer manzanas...
- Bueno Eva, en tal caso, tengo una solucion... creare un hombre para ti.
- Que es un hombre?
- Un hombre sera una criatura imperfecta, con muchas artimanas. Mentira, hara trampas, sera engreido... vamos, que te va a dar problemas... Pero, va a ser mas fuerte y rapido que tu y le gustara cazar y matar cosas... Tendra un aspecto simple, pero como te estas quejando, le creare de tal forma que satisfaga tus... eh... necesidades fisicas... Y tampoco sera muy listo, y destacara en cosas infantiles como pegarse o dar patadas a un balon... Necesitara tu consejo siempre para actuar cuerdamente.
- Suena bien - dijo Eva, mientras levantaba la ceja ironicamente.
- Cual es el truco?.
- Pues... que lo tendras con una condicion.
- Cual?
- Como te decia, sera chulo, arrogante y muy narcisista... asi que le tendras que hacer creer que le hice a el primero... recuerda... es nuestro secreto... de mujer a mujer.
Por que a los hombres no les puede dar la enfermedad de las vacas locas? Porque todos son unos cerdos
Un dia, en el Paraiso, Eva llamo a Dios: Tengo un problema.- Cual es el problema, Eva?- Se que me has creado, que me has dado este hermoso jardin, todos estos maravillosos animales y esa serpiente con la que me muero de risa... pero no soy del todo feliz... - Como es eso, Eva? - replico Dios desde las alturas.- Me encuentro sola, y ademas estoy harta de comer manzanas...- Bueno Eva, en tal caso, tengo una solucion... creare un hombre para ti.- Que es un hombre?- Un hombre sera una criatura imperfecta, con muchas artimanas. Mentira, hara trampas, sera engreido... vamos, que te va a dar problemas... Pero, va a ser mas fuerte y rapido que tu y le gustara cazar y matar cosas... Tendra un aspecto simple, pero como te estas quejando, le creare de tal forma que satisfaga tus... eh... necesidades fisicas... Y tampoco sera muy listo, y destacara en cosas infantiles como pegarse o dar patadas a un balon... Necesitara tu consejo siempre para actuar cuerdamente.- Suena bien - dijo Eva, mientras levantaba la ceja ironicamente.- Cual es el truco?.- Pues... que lo tendras con una condicion.- Cual?- Como te decia, sera chulo, arrogante y muy narcisista... asi que le tendras que hacer creer que le hice a el primero... recuerda... es nuestro secreto... de mujer a mujer.Por que a los hombres no les puede dar la enfermedad de las vacas locas? Porque todos son unos cerdos
Ellas...
Ellas (2)...
Tres venganzas femeninas VENGANZA NUMERO 1
Hoy mi hija cumple 21 anos y estoy muy contento porque es el ultimo pago de pension alimenticia que le doy, asi que llame a mi hijita para que viniera a mi casa y cuando llego le dije:
-Hijita, quiero que lleves este cheque a casa de tu mama y que le digas que: Este es el ultimo maldito cheque que va recibir de mi en todo lo que le queda de su puta vida!!! Quiero que me digas la expresion que pone en su rostro.
Asi que mi hija fue a entregar el cheque. Yo estaba ansioso por saber lo que la bruja tenia que decir y que cara pondria.
Cuando mi hijita entro, le pregunte inmediatamente: -Que fue lo que te dijo tu madre?
-Me dijo que justamente estaba esperando este dia para decirte que no eres mi papa!
VENGANZA NUMERO 2
Un hombre que siempre molestaba a su mujer, paso un dia por la casa de unos amigos para que lo acompanaran al aeropuerto a dejar a su esposa que viajaba a Paris.
A la salida de inmigracion, frente a todo el mundo, el le desea buen viaje y en tono burlon le grita:
- Amor, no te olvides de traerme una hermosa francesita Ja ja ja!!
Ella bajo la cabeza y se embarco muy molesta.
La mujer paso quince dias en Francia.
El marido otra vez pidio a sus amigos que lo acompanasen al aeropuerto a recibirla.
Al verla llegar, lo primero que le grita a toda voz es:
- Y amor me trajiste mi francesita??
- Hice todo lo posible, - contesta ella - ahora solo tenemos que rezar para que nazca nina.
VENGANZA NUMERO 3
El marido, en su lecho de muerte, llama a su mujer. Con voz ronca y ya debil, le dice: - Muy bien, llego mi hora, pero antes quiero hacerte una confesion.
- No, no, tranquilo, tu no debes hacer ningun esfuerzo.
- Pero, mujer, es preciso - insiste el marido - Es preciso morir en paz.
Te quiero confesar algo.
- Esta bien, esta bien. Habla!
- He tenido relaciones con tu hermana, tu mama y tu mejor amiga.
- Lo se, lo se Por eso te envenene, hijo de puta!!!
machismo y cibernetica
Chiste machista La NASA ha enviado al espacio una mision experimental tripulada por dos monos y una mujer.Apenas abandona la atmosfera, se establece comunicacion con Houston.
-Atencion, simio 1, verifique sistemas hidraulicos, controle adecuada presion de los propulsores de arranque. A 60.000 pies disminuya un 25% la velocidad.
El simio hace la sena de OK.
-Atencion, simio 2, nivele al cruzar la estratosfera y active sistemas anticongelantes. No olvide monitorear sistemas de comunicacion e indicadores de presion. Comprendido?.
El simio hace la sena de OK.
-Atencion, Houston llamando a mujer: no se olvide.
-Mujer: Si, si, ya se! -interrumpe enojada- que no me olvide darles de comer a estos monos de mierda y que no se me vaya a ocurrir tocar nada!.
.Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti.
Un abogado mantiene un romance con su secretaria.Al poco tiempo, esta queda embarazada y el abogado, que no quiere que su esposa se entere, le da a la secretaria una buena suma de dinero y le pide que se vaya a parir a Italia.Esta pregunta: Y como voy a hacerte saber cuando nazca el bebe ? El abogado responde: Para que mi mujer no se entere, tan solo enviame una postal y escribe por detras: Spaghetti. Y no te preocupes mas, que yo me encargare de todos los gastos.
Pasan los meses y una manana la esposa del abogado lo llama al bufete, algo exaltada: Querido, acabo de recibir el correo y hay una postal muy extrana viene desde Italia. La verdad, no entiendo que significa.El abogado, tratando de ocultar sus nervios, contesta:Espera a que llegue a casa, a ver si yo entiendoCuando el hombre llega a casa y lee la postal, cae al suelo fulminado por un infarto.Llega una ambulancia y se lo lleva. Ya en el hospital, el jefe de cardiologia se queda consolando a la esposa y le pregunta cual ha sido el evento que precipito tan masivo ataque cardiaco.
Entonces la esposa saca la postal y se la muestra diciendole: No me explico, doctor; el solamente leyo esta postal. Vea usted mismo lo que trae escrito.Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti, Spaghetti."Tres con salchicha y albondigas y dos con almejas
Gol !!!!
Chistes de Borrachos Entra un borracho a su casa todo manchado con lapiz labial por todos lados hecho un desastre, y la mujer le pregunta:-Hombre que te paso?Y el borracho le responde:-No me vas a creer, me pelee con un payaso!
Este es un borracho que entra en un bar y le dice al camarero:-Me da cinco copas de whisky?Al rato:-Me da cuatro?Al rato:-Me da tres copas?Despues:-Me da dos copas?Luego le dice:-Me da una copa?Y le dice al camarero:-Ves? Cuanto menos bebo, mas borracho estoy!
British planes and Eurostar trains could be turned away at the French border after a no deal Brexit, France's Europe Minster warned today.
Nathalie Loiseau told a Chatham House event that the claims were 'correct' amid fears of travel chaos if no agreement is in place on Brexit day next year.
A total collapse of negotiations would mean no replacement for the current single market rules allowing people and vehicles to freely cross the UK-France border. Without new checks in place, the transport system could grind to a halt.
Her warning comes days after Transport Secretary Chris Grayling irritated Brussels by asking all 27 EU countries to strike a backup side deal with Britain if there is no main Brexit deal.
Pro-EU campaigners said it was 'shocking' that Britain faced travel 'gridlock' because of Brexit.
British planes and Eurostar trains could be turned away at the French border after a no deal Brexit, France's Europe Minster Nathalie Loiseau warned today
Asked about the claims of chaos today, Ms Loiseau said: 'If we reach no agreement this is what will happen, among other things.'
Labour MP and Best for Britain champion Daniel Zeichner said: 'This is shocking and shows that Britain faces transport gridlock due to Brexit. Trains and planes could be ground to a halt and thousands of people could be left stranded.
'The minister's response is a hammerblow to the government.
'Civil servants will be uttering sacre bleu this afternoon over the implications of this shock speech.'
The European Union is responsible for aviation laws across the continent, but has resisted efforts by the UK to draw up contingency plans if there is no agreement.
Mr Grayling last week urged European transport ministers to be practical and prepare for the talks collapsing.
Transport Secretary Chris Grayling (pictured today in Downing Street) is preparing the UK's aviation plans over a no-deal Brexit which are to be released next week
The papers will accept there is a theoretical possibility UK planes will not be able to take off and land on the continent after March 29 next year.
Flights from Europe would also be blocked from landing in the UK unless a new agreement is made to replace the single market for aviation.
But ministers have dismissed the idea that European air traffic will stop if there is no deal. They have already negotiated a raft of deals with non-EU countries to ensure flights can continue to those countries after Brexit.
A UK agreement with the US and Canada, to replace the EU-US Open Skies agreement, is expected to be reached imminently.
The new papers will accept there is a theoretical possibility UK planes will not be able to take off and land on the continent after March 29 next year/ Pictured: Heathrow AIrport
A Department for Transport spokesman said: 'Aviation is absolutely crucial to the UK's economy and we are committed to getting the best deal possible for the UK. We will work closely with the international aviation community to ensure that this global industry continues to be a major success story for the UK economy.'
Matthew Crane, 28, was found dead floating in a creek Saturday
The key witness in a massive Mohegan Sun casino fraud case was found dead in a creek in Pennsylvania.
Matthew Crane, 28, was found dead floating in Mill Creek, just two miles from the Mohegan Sun Pocono Casino in Plains Township where he had worked as a table dealer before he went to the authorities about his colleagues credit card scam in 2015, according to the Citizens Voice.
Crane was in a relationship with a fellow casino worker who was a beverage server named Rochelle Poszeluznyj.
According to prosecutors Poszeluznyj, along with Robert Pellegrini and Mark Heltzel, who also worked at the Mohegan Sun, used patrons' credit card information to create duplicates.
The raked in more than $420,000 between May 2014 and April 2015.
Passers-by found Crane's body at around 4:30pm Saturday and noticed a wound on his head
Crane exposed a credit card scam by three employees at Mohegan Sun in Pennsylvania (pictured)
Pellegrini, Heltzel, and Poszeluznyj were charged with theft and related charges with each pleading guilty to federal money-laundering conspiracy charges.
All three were ordered to split up and pay restitution.
Pellegrini was sentenced to 32 months in prison, Heltzel was given an 18-month term and Poszeluznyj was sentenced to two-years' probation.
When a passers-by found Crane's body floating in the water on Saturday at around 4:30pm, they noted he had signs of a wound on his head.
However after an autopsy was conducted by the Luzerne County Coroner's office they concluded Crane had fallen from high railroad tracks during a walk and drowned.
'All we can say is that for some unknown reason he began walking from point A to his destination at point B,' Wilkes-Barre Cmdr. Joe Coffay told the Citizen's Voice.
'He chose to take the tracks and in the process fell into the water, causing him to drown.'
A 'brazen' moped gang armed with acid and knives blocked off a busy road before stealing 100,000 worth of precious gems from a jewellers.
The four-strong gang targeted Michael Platt jewellers in the affluent Wimbledon Village at midday yesterday, threatening to stab witnesses as they looted the store.
Terrified staff members locked themselves in a safe room as the robbers ploughed their bikes through the front of the store before smashing display cases and snatching rare, bespoke items worth tens of thousands of pounds.
The four-strong gang targeted Michael Platt jewellers in the affluent Wimbledon Village
The robbers ploughed their bikes through the front of the store before smashing display cases and snatching rare, bespoke items
Two robbers carried out the raid while one remained on a moped outside and another threatened passers-by
Owner of the store Wayne Myers defiantly reopened today, vowing he will 'not be defeated'.
The businessman, who has been running the shop for some 17 years, told MailOnline two robbers carried out the raid while one remained on a moped outside and another threatened passers-by.
Mr Myers told MailOnline the gang used a road closed sign outside to block the street off before carrying out their attack.
He said: 'They were brazen as hell. They came crashing into the store and completely terrified my staff.
'One of the bikes ploughed into the front door of the shop, completely destroying the frame.
'Two larger guys came running in wearing helmets and started sledge hammering their way into the front show cabinets. They got in and out in literally two minutes.'
The thieves were caught on CCTV footage taking the door off its hinges
The gang used a road closed sign left outside to block the road off before carrying out their attack
The gang targeted the front display cabinets, emptying them in minutes
Staff fled to a room at the back of the store as the armed gang carried out the raid
He added: 'These guys were highly pumped up - all they were interested in were the front windows, they didnt even look in the back into the shop.
'One of them was marching around the street threatening anyone trying to take pictures or film with a very large knife and acid.
'I had an awful day yesterday full stop - I had a flood at home too so it was beyond belief that in the middle of dealing with insurance and trying to dry out our house, this happened.
'Staff were incredible shaken and initially thought someone had lost control of motorbike.'
The smash and grab was carried out in the affluent and busy road in mere minutes
The robbers made off with extremely rare gems and bespoke items of jewellery
Mr Myers vowed to carry on but said the incident was 'frustrating'.
'We were attacked several years ago by gang from Peckham who were caught - it was all to do with drugs.
'The upsetting thing is theyre not going to appreciate what they have taken and will sell the items for so much less than what theyre worth. These are not the average gems you can buy, theyre semi precious.
'We are back open for business and will not be defeated. It's frustrating - the police tell you that when chasing guys on motorbikes, their hands are tied.
'The gang were all wearing identical dark green clothing - like a squad in uniform.'
A spokesman for the Met Police said the mopeds were found abandoned nearby and enquiries continue to trace the suspects.
A German teenager has been arrested on suspicion he was planning an Islamic extremist bombing attack in the Frankfurt area, prosecutors said Thursday.
The 17-year-old was arrested by Hesse state police September 1 and ordered held by a judge on suspicion of preparing a serious act of violence, Frankfurt prosecutors' spokesman Sinan Akdogan said.
The information leading to the arrest, provided by the United States, indicated the suspect was planning to attack a gay nightclub in Frankfurt and a Catholic church in the city, according to an official with access to intelligence information, who discussed it on condition of anonymity.
A German teenager has been arrested on suspicion he was planning an Islamic extremist bombing attack in the Frankfurt area, prosecutors said. Pictured, Frankfurt
Akdogan would not comment on the target or the source of the information, citing the ongoing investigation.
But he said state police had been acting on information received through Germany's domestic intelligence agency.
At the time of his arrest, the suspect had instructions on how to make explosives known as TATP and was trying to procure chemicals online, Akdogan said.
It was not clear how advanced the preparations were but Akdogan said small amounts of chemicals were found during a search of the suspect's home in Florstadt, northeast of Frankfurt.
The information leading to the arrest indicated the suspect was planning to attack a gay nightclub and a Catholic church in Frankfurt (pictured)
The suspect's name was withheld for privacy reasons and Akdogan said he could not give further details on the planned attack.
Germany has previously had success with American intelligence information helping thwart plots, most notably in 2007 in stopping a plan to bomb the U.S. Air Force's Ramstein Air Base in southern Germany.
In that case, following a tip from the U.S., German officials put under surveillance four members of the radical Islamic Jihad Union and covertly replaced the hydrogen peroxide they had collected to use for their bombs with a diluted substitute that could not have been used to produce an explosive.
That allowed them to build a case over time and four men were eventually arrested and convicted of terrorism-related charges.
Jacob Rees-Mogg's nanny today shrugged an attack by jobless anarchist Ian Bone in typically British fashion - by inviting him in for a cup of tea.
Veronica Crook, 75, told Mr Bone he should be doing something more useful than shouting at her and four of the MP's six young children.
Speaking exclusively to MailOnline after the foul-mouthed tirade by the left-wing activist on the steps of Mr Rees-Mogg's London home, Ms Crook said: 'I don't really know what to say to him. Just get lost really.
'He could be making himself useful instead. He could be doing something more with his life.'
The nanny, who has worked for Mr Rees Mogg's family for 52 years and brought the Tory MP up as a little boy, spoke a day after protesters spat abuse at her.
In his shocking attack shared online, unemployed grandfather-of-eight Mr Bone told Rees-Mogg's children that their father was 'hated' and a 'totally horrible person'.
Jacob Rees-Mogg's nanny Veronica Crook today shrugged an attack by jobless anarchist Ian Bone in typically British fashion - by inviting him in for a cup of tea
Jobless anarchist Ian Bone (pictured) hurled abuse at Mr Rees-Mogg's nanny and four of his six young children in a foul-mouthed rant outside the MP's Westminster home
Ms Crook told MailOnline today that she thought it was 'unfair' of Mr Bone to target the MP's children, adding: 'I don't really know what to say to him. 'Just get lost' really!
Wearing a flat cap and leaning on a stick, he was filmed shouting: 'Your daddy won't answer the question. Your daddy is a totally horrible person.
'A lot of people don't like your daddy, you know that. No he's probably not told you about that.'
The father-of-five added: 'A lot of people hate him.'
Mrs Crook spoke as she left the house today with Rees-Mogg's wife Helena and two of the couple's children.
Offering an olive branch to Mr Bone in what she called 'tea diplomacy', the nanny said next week she would invite them in for a brew.
But she insisted that targeting the Tory's children was 'unfair', particularly when Mr Bone refused to reveal details of his own family when asked by MailOnline.
She said her salary was 'personal' - adding that he had gone 'too far' in ranting at the children: 'When there are children involved it's not on, is it? There's public life and there's public life, isn't there?
'They (the children) got quite excited about it actually. They were looking because they didn't really understand it.
'People were asking how much I get (paid) but I don't know. I can't compare it to other people.'
Mr Rees-Mogg's wife Helena (with Ms Crook) said police had warned the family that protesters would be coming to their home after after they bragged about their plans on Twitter
Ms Crook, who has worked with Rees-Mogg's family for 52 years said of Mr Bone's attack: 'He could be making himself useful instead. He could be doing something more with his life'
Ms Crook brought Rees-Mogg up as a little boy and now she is doing the same with his six young children. The pair are so close that she even went out canvassing with the Tory MP
Ms Crook continued: 'It passed over quietly, unfortunately I didn't really hear it.
'One lady apparently said, 'don't swear, there are children', which I thought was thoughtful of her.
'Somebody found a 20p piece and said, 'give this to your nanny, she's poorly paid'. I didn't even see it (that 20p piece).'
Mother-of-six Mrs Rees-Mogg said police had warned the family that protesters would be coming to their home after after they bragged about their plans on Twitter.
'We chose to take the children outside,' she told MailOnline. 'Jacob and I came out to see them and three of the boys chose to come out. Our daughter wanted to stay indoors. The baby was upstairs.
'He (Ian Bone) said he was coming back next week. We might all have to stay inside for that one.'
She went on: 'Typical anarchists, they were 15 minutes late for their own protest. And, in fact, it was just a 71-year-old with a stick and three in fancy dress.'
Mr Bone repeatedly asked Ms Crook how much she was paid, a subject she described as 'very personal' to MailOnline
Mrs Rees-Mogg said of the confrontation: 'Typical anarchists, they were 15 minutes late for their own protest. And, in fact, it was just a 71-year-old with a stick and three in fancy dress'
Mr Bone - pictured coming out of the High Court earlier this year- was unrepentant about his attack on the Rees-Mogg children, but would reveal nothing about his own family background
Even the Prime Minister's official spokesman condemned the confrontation of Mr Rees-Mogg's family after it sparked uproar yesterday, calling it 'completely unacceptable'.
Even Class War's own supporters online found Mr Bone's direct attack on the children too much.
However, Mr Rees-Mogg himself appeared unconcerned about the attack and told Mail Online: 'It was a small protest by anarchists which not surprisingly was disorganised, unpunctual and short lived.'
Ms Crook, who regularly appears in family pictures, looks after all six of the MP's children and has been connected to the family for over half a century.
Mr Bone, who has Parkinson's Disease, walks with a stick and whose father was a butler, was unrepentant about speaking directly to the children, telling MailOnline that 'Jacob Rees Mogg brought his family into our demonstration' and that he stood by 'everything that I said'.
The rumors President Donald Trump is expected to push out Defense Secretary Jim Mattis are getting stronger with talk the Pentagon chief will be gone after the midterm election.
And, in what is seen as a sign of Trump's diminished affection, the president is said to now call the man he once referred to as 'Mad Dog' his 'Moderate Dog.'
Mattis has been in the spotlight of late for having to deny allegations in Bob Woodward's book 'Fear' that he referred to the president as a 'fifth grader' and that he's the author of an anonymous New York Times op-ed that revealed aides have discussed invoking the 25th amendment against Trump.
President Trump is said to now call Defense Secretary James Mattis, the man he once referred to as 'Mad Dog,' his 'Moderate Dog'
Defense Secretary James Mattis said he sees 'no problem' in his relationship with Trump
The president has been mulling for months replacing Mattis but now the Pentagon chief's days are considered numbered, Politico reported.
Trump was once enamored of Mattis, appointing the retired Marine general his Pentagon chief despite concerns of having an ex-military official in charge of the armed forces.
But now Trump, who used to call Mattis his 'Mad Dog,' thinks his defense secretary is too moderate in his views and refers to him as 'Moderate Dog.'
Possible replacements include Republican senators Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina - both of whom have signaled they have no interest in the job.
Republican Sen. Jim Inhofe, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told Politico he's advocating for Mattis to stay and that whether he stays may 'depend on whether I have anything or not to say about it.'
Many lawmakers on Capitol Hill see Mattis as a calming presence in a chaotic administration.
Earlier this week, when asked about his relationship with Trump, Mattis said he sees 'no problem' and 'it's been the same all along.'
But when pressed if he expects to remain in Trump's cabinet throughout the president's first term in office, Mattis would only say that 'this is not a day I'm going to go further into politics.'
Earlier this month Trump said Mattis will 'stay' in his role as Pentagon chief, dispelling rumors that his defense secretary will be the next member of his Cabinet to be ousted.
'I think he's a terrific person. He's doing a fantastic job as secretary,' Trump said after The Washington Post reported on rumblings of a shake-up.
It was Mattis' forceful denouncement of Woodward' book that helped his cause.
Trump praised his defense secretary for a 'beautiful rebuttal.
'He just made the nicest quote about me I think I've ever had,' the president said.
Trump said that he confronted Mattis about the book's claims, and the retired general denied having made them.
'I asked whether or not this was true. He said, 'Not only is it not true, I'd like to write a statement.' And I said, 'Thank you very much, that's very kind.' ' Trump revealed. 'He wrote the most beautiful statement.'
He added: 'I think he's a terrific person. He's doing a fantastic job as secretary.'
Asked directly if Mattis will stay in the job, Trump replied: 'Yeah. He'll stay.'
President Trump said earlier this month Mattis will stay on the job
Mattis was in India when the anonymous New York Times op-ed was published and denied being is author from there
'We're very happy with him, we're having a lot of victories, we're having victories that people don't even know about, and he's highly respected all over the world. And I did appreciate his statement. He didn't have to write that statement,' Trump said. 'But I did appreciate it, and I appreciated the statement of John Kelly, and I appreciated the statement of many others.'
Mattis that refuted parts of Woodward's book, which alleges that the top general compared Trump to a 'fifth grader.' Other bits of the book, though, he left unchallenged.
Mattis did not address all of Woodward's claims, including that Trump directed Mattis to 'f***ing kill' Bashar al-Assad.
After Assad launched a chemical weapons attack on civilians in April 2017, Trump told Mattis he wanted the Syrian leader taken out, saying: 'Let's f***ing kill him! Let's go in. Let's kill the f***ing lot of them.'
JAMES MATTIS ON WOODWARD BOOK The contemptuous words about the President attributed to me in Woodward's book were never uttered by me or in my presence. While I generally enjoy reading fiction, this is a uniquely Washington brand of literature, and his anonymous sources do not lend credibility. While responsible policy making in the real world is inherently messy, it is also essential that we challenge every assumption to find the best option. I embrace such debate and the open competition of ideas. In just over a year, these robust discussions and deliberations have yielded significant results, including the near annihilation of the ISIS caliphate, unprecedented burden sharing by our NATO allies, the repatriation of U.S. service member remains from North Korea, and the improved readiness of our armed forces. Our defense policies have also enjoyed overwhelming bipartisan support in Congress. In serving in this administration, the idea that I would show contempt for the elected Commander-in-Chief, President Trump, or tolerate disrespect to the office of the President from within our Department of Defense, is a product of someone's rich imagination. Advertisement
Mattis assured Trump he would work on it, but then told a senior aide they'd do nothing of the kind, Woodward writes. National security advisers to Trump instead developed options for a more modest airstrike that the president ultimately ordered.
Trump said Wednesday that he 'never even discussed' a plot to assassinate Assad.
He told reporters Wednesday in the Oval Office that Woodward's expose on his presidency, 'Fear,' is a 'work of fiction' and an assassination attempt on Assad was 'never even contemplated, nor would it be contemplated, and it should not have been written about in the book.'
'The book means nothing. It's a work of fiction. Already General Mattis has come out very, very strongly. And I think you know General Mattis, he does what he wants to do, he's a very independent guy. He was insulted by the remarks that were attributed to him and he came out with a very strong statement,' Trump protested. 'General John Kelly, the same exact thing. He said he was insulted by what it said.'
In another episode described in 'Fear,' Trump questioned the utility of U.S. early warning systems in Alaska to identify a nuclear attack from North Korea.
When Trump asked about it, Mattis is said to have told him: 'We're doing this in order to prevent World War III.'
Mattis later told colleagues Trump had the mental ability of 'a fifth- or sixth-grader,' according to Woodward's sources.
On Tuesday Mattis denied the account, saying in a statement of his own: 'The contemptuous words about the President attributed to me in Woodward's book were never uttered by me or in my presence.
'While I generally enjoy reading fiction, this is a uniquely Washington brand of literature, and his anonymous sources do not lend credibility.'
A Pentagon spokesman, Col. Rob Manning, said Mattis was never interviewed by Woodward.
'Mr. Woodward never discussed or verified the alleged quotes included in his book with Secretary Mattis' or anyone within the Defense Department,' Manning said.
Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis speaks during a ceremony at the National 9/11 Pentagon Memorial to mark the 17th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks
Mattis, with White House chief of staff John Kelly, escorted Cindy McCain, the widow of former Sen. John McCain, when she laid a wreath at the Vietnam Veterans' memorial as part of th senator's funeral proceedings
The Pentagon also denied Mattis was the author of a New York Times op-ed, written by 'a senior official in the Trump administration,' who described a 'resistance' movement in the White House.
'It was not his op-ed,' spokesperson Dana White said of Mattis.
The New York Times opinion piece describes the president as 'impetuous, adversarial, petty and ineffective' and says the author is part of an organized 'resistance' whose goal is 'to preserve our democratic institutions while thwarting [President] Trump's more misguided impulses until he is out of office.'
Mike Paul (pictured) was arrested after stealing an ambulance. He says he took it because he needed a ride home
A man in Florida needed a ride home from the hospital so he decided to steal an ambulance.
Unfortunately for 25-year-old Michael Paul, he was likely unaware that the medical unit had a GPS tracking device in it in the event it needed to be located.
Paul exited the emergency room at Broward Health North in Deerfield Beach on Sunday.
He noticed the red ambulance was unoccupied as paramedics were checking another individual into the emergency room.
According to the Broward Sheriff's spokeswoman Joy Oglesby Paul told the arresting officers he needed a car to get home, so he took the unoccupied ambulance.
It is unknown what he sought treatment for in the emergency room.
Deputies tracked the medical unit down within 30 minutes of it being taken and found it about nine miles from the hospital in Deerfield beach.
Paul was charged with grand theft and driving without a valid license.
He was being held Monday on a $1,000 bond.
A Jewish Labour MP has been threatened with deselection by a local activist after she spoke out on anti-Semitism, it was today reported.
Dame Louise Ellman, who has been an MP since 1997, has been criticised by left-wing activists for speaking out on the scandal.
And the chairman of her local Constituency Labour Party (CLP) called for her to be ousted by activists, the Jewish Chronicle reports.
Tim Hayden reportedly called for her to go at a meeting of Liverpool Momentum group on July 31.
He said: 'It's time for a change. MPs shouldn't have a job for life because there are MPs in this city campaigning to undermine Jeremy Corbyn.
'These MPs think they can ignore the membership. In Riverside we've seen that happen time and time again.'
Jewish Labour MP Louise Ellman (pictured) has been threatened with deselection by local activists after she spoke out on anti-Semitism, it was today reported
A source told the newspaper: 'There is a group of perhaps a dozen people desperately out to get Louise.
'Never mind fighting the Tories getting Dame Louise out has become their number one priority, especially after what has gone on with Joan Ryan.'
Meanwhile, a string of other Jewish MPs and critics of the anti-Semitism crisis have also come under attack by activists.
Ms Ryan and fellow Labour moderate Gavin Shuker both lost confidence votes - blaming entryism by the hard left.
Ms Ryan, the chair of Labour Friends of Israel, called in the police after a menacing card was left outside her office. Labour MP Gavin Shuker was also targeted.
Officers from the Parliamentary Liaison Unit are investigating how an intruder was able to enter Ms Ryan's office to leave the card there.
Joan Ryan, the chairwoman of the Labour Friends of Israel group, and Gavin Shuker have both been targeted by the stunt (pictured)
Corbyn-supporting activists have taunted moderate Labour MPs by leaving 'abusive' goodbye cards (pictured) and models of Thomas the Tank Engine outside their Commons offices
Following a no confidence vote last week, Enfield North MP Joan Ryan (pictured), the chair of Labour Friends of Israel, blamed the bid to deselect her on 'Trots, Stalinists, Communists and assorted hard left'
Ms Ryan lost the confidence motion by just two votes at a party meeting in Enfield, north London.
The private meeting was bizarrely filmed live by the Iranian state funded Press TV - sparking a storm of criticism from other Labour figures.
Quizzed about the votes while on a visit to a museum in Leicestershire last week, Mr Corbyn defended them - saying local parties have a right to challenge their MPs.
Jewish leaders and Labour MPs immediately rallied to their colleagues' defence - and slammed moves to oust them.
Following the defeat last week, Ms Ryan, the chair of Labour Friends of Israel, blamed the bid to deselect her on 'Trots, Stalinists, Communists and assorted hard left'.
But she vowed to stay on as the local MP, telling her Twitter followers 'I am Labour through and through' and she will not be quitting.
MailOnline has contacted Same Louise for comment.
Murder detectives are forced to wait up to 18 months for social media companies to hand over potentially key information, the Met Police has revealed.
Officers around the country are seeing increasing numbers of cases which centre on social media, with attacks often sparked by abusive comments or arguments online.
But getting hold of key evidence - which is often stored on servers in foreign countries - can take police more than a year as they are forced to go through a number of agencies at home and abroad before viewing messages.
Police investigating the killing of eight-year-old Ayesha Ali had to wait 18 months to get hold of evidence held by social media companies, it emerged today
Polly Chowdhury (left) killed her daughter with her lesbian lover Kiki Muddar (right) after being inspired by invented characters on social media to inspire the killing
Police investigating the killing of eight-year-old Ayesha Ali had to wait 18 months to get hold of evidence which helped jail her mother and her lesbian lover.
Kiki Muddar made Polly Chowdhury believe her daughter was 'evil' by creating a fantasy world full of characters on social media, who told her Ayesha needed to be punished.
The pair were eventually brought to justice and jailed for a total of 31 years, but police investigating the unusual case faced long delays in getting hold of social media messages which eventually went before the jury.
That included 40,000 messages which Muddar sent to Chowdhury that were central to the case.
Ayesha was found dead in her bedroom on August 29, 2013 but the pair were not jailed until March 2015.
Assistant Commissioner Martin Hewett said today: 'We would want greater access and quicker access to all potential social media evidence.
'There is a whole load of work going on with social media platforms to get them to be as helpful as possible. The frustration comes when we can't access them as quickly as we want.'
Last week, Met Police Commissioner Cressida Dick spoke out after Facebook refused to hand over a password which could aid the investigation into the killing of 13-year-old Lucy McHugh.
Detectives investigating the murder of 13-year-old Lucy McHugh (left) are desperate to access Facebook accounts belonging to tattoo artist Stephen Nicholson (right)
Hampshire Police has been forced to initiate a lengthy legal procedure in the US in a bid to get hold of messages sent and received by suspect Stephen Nicholson before Lucy's death.
Ms Dick told LBC: 'I absolutely think in certain instances - and it sounds like this is one - law enforcement in the UK ought to be able to have vital evidence which might bring someone to justice.'
She said social media giants are getting better at working with police, but added: 'It's not the first time that a police force in the UK or overseas has approached a social media company looking for evidence and had to go through a very protracted procedure or has found that it actually impossible to do so.'
Police have to go to the Crown Prosecution Service to draft a request from social media companies, which then goes to the Home Office, to government agencies in the country where the information is held, then on to the tech firms.
London recorded its 100 murder this month, with police shocked by the volume of violent crime and ferocity of some attacks in the capital this year.
Detectives say increasing number of cases centre on taunts and messages from social media
A breakdown of the killings released today shows 55 happened in public places and 22 are believed to be gang-related. Forty of those killed were aged under 25.
Of the grim total, 64 of the deaths were caused by stabbings, 10 were shootings and 18 were violent assaults. A breakdown of the victims shows 43 were described as Afro Carribean, while 36 were white.
Despite reaching 100 murders so early in the year, police in London say comparisons with the murder rate in New York, where the number of murders is now nearly 200, are unfair.
Australia's former ambassador to Israel Dave Sharma has been preselected by the Liberal Party to contest the Wentworth by-election in Malcolm Turnbull's old seat, defying calls for a woman to be chosen.
Mr Sharma on Thursday night beat seven other candidates, vying to run in the blue ribbon electorate in Sydney's eastern suburbs, including former Woollahra deputy mayor Katherine O'Regan, who was backed by Prime Minister Scott Morrison.
Former PM Mr Turnbull tweeted his support for Mr Sharma, as well as reportedly calling him from New York as leaders from his moderate faction urged him to pull out in favour of a woman.
Sharma will now face a tough by-election battle on October 20, with early polling indicating a big swing against the Liberals, who have never lost Wentworth, which includes Australia's most expensive suburbs of Point Piper and Vaucluse.
Former Australian Ambassador to Israel Dave Sharma (pictured) is Malcolm Turnbull's preferred candidate to run for the Liberals in next month's Wentworth by-election
Scores of party faithful filed into the Eastern Suburbs Rugby Union Club in Rose Bay to decide who would contest the seat, only emerging seven hours later.
Ms O'Regan was originally tipped to get the Liberal Party nod after frontrunner Andrew Bragg pulled out of the contest under mounting pressure from Canberra for a woman to be preselected.
Mr Bragg quit the race on Monday, after polling suggested a woman had a better chance of winning the by-election, and also indicated the seat could be lost to a strong independent.
The Liberal preselection for Wentworth started at 5pm at Woollahra's Easts Rugby Club with Sharma's candidacy being announced after 1:30am.
New Prime Minister Scott Morrison (pictured) let his predecessor know who's now in charge on Thursday morning
The preselection announcement added to an already embarrassing night for the new Prime Minister after a bid for the youth vote left him red faced earlier in the evening.
The 30th Prime Minister of Australia posted a video of question time edited together with the song 'Be Faithful' by American rapper Fatman Scoop captioned: 'QT was on fire today. Good work, team.'
The tweet was savaged online for the song's inappropriate lyrics ('who f***ing tonight?'), the allusion to Liberal party member's wealth (if you've got a hundred dollar bill put your hands up) and the possible illegality of using parliamentary footage as promotional content.
After less than three hours online across Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, Mr Morrison removed the post and apologised for using a song that's lyrical content was 'not okay'.
It was the second battle Malcolm Turnbull (pictured with granddaughter Alice) has picked with Scott Morrison in the last 24 hours
Before the pre-selection decision, Malcolm Turnbull had been accused of trying to tear apart the party that sacked him as leader.
Conservative commentator Andrew Bolt attacked the former Liberal Party leader after he urged his successor Scott Morrison on Twitter to refer Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton to the High Court over his parliamentary eligibility.
'He is desperately trying to burn the party to the ground,' Bolt told viewers of his Sky News program on Thursday evening.
'The point I have made to Scott Morrison and other colleagues is that given the uncertainty around Peter Dutton's eligibility, acknowledged by the Solicitor-General, he should be referred to the High Court, as Barnaby was, to clarify the matter,' Mr Turnbull tweeted on Wednesday night.
Mr Morrison hit back at his bitter predecessor on Thursday morning.
'Someone once told me in this job, all contributions should be gratefully received. They are,' he told reporters at Queanbeyan, just outside Canberra.
'But as the prime minister, I'll obviously make the decisions in relation to our government on what I believe is in the national interest and based on the most recent and most timely information that I have available to me.
'Obviously I have a lot of respect for the former prime minister but as the prime minister now, I'll make the decisions that I believe are in the best interests of the nation.'
The five victims and gunman involved in a horrifying mass shooting in Bakersfield, California, on Wednesday have been identified.
The shooter was Javier Casarez, 54, who first shot his wife, Petra, 45, and 50-year-old Manuel Contreras at T&T Trucking at 5.17pm using a Smith & Wesson 500.
Antonio Valadez, 50 years old, saw the shooting unfold and was killed by Casarez as he fled.
Next, the gunman went to the home of Laura Garcia, 32, and her father, Eliseo Cazares, 57, where he shot them both.
He then hijacked a car from a woman and her baby, drove around a mile and killed himself as cops approached him.
Harrowing bodycam footage shows him aiming his handgun at his own chest then firing as a cop yells at him to put his weapon down.
It remains unclear what motivated the killings and who the other victims are. Police say that none of the shootings were random.
WARNING GRAPHIC CONTENT
This is the gunman after shooting himself as cops approached him at the end of his spree. He is Javier Casarez, 54,
Casarez is seen aiming his gun at himself while a cop yells at him to drop it. He fired a single shot to his chest seconds later
Laura Garcia, 32, and her father Eliseo Cazares, 57, were shot dead in their home on Wednesday by gunman Javier Casarez
Antonio Valadez, 50, was the third man killed. He was chased out of T&T trucking by Casarez and gunned down nearby
Garcia had several young children. Her family paid tribute to her on social media on Thursday.
'If everyone can keep my cousins kids in their prayers Id really appreciate it!
'People are so cruel and you didnt deserve this!' her cousin Alondra Ortega said.
Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood said the mass shooting had become 'the new normal' around the country.
'Six people lost their lives in a very short amount of time. This is the new normal.'
The body of Antonio Valadez, 50 years old, lies beneath a sheet outside Bear Mountain Sports, where he was shot
The spree began at 5.17pm at the trucking company (1) where the gunman opened fire, killing his wife.
Witnesses have told how after the first shots rang out, someone yelled in Spanish: 'Police! Police! Theres a crazy man with a gun!'
Sheriff's deputies are interviewing some 30 people who witnessed the shootings.
Investigators believe that the gunman acted alone. People were seen late Wednesday night crying in front of Bear Mountain Sports.
This was the scene outside the trucking company where the first shooting took place on Wednesday night
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The uncle of the black man who was killed by a white female cop in his own apartment, blasted the trigger-happy officer as he heartbreakingly told mourners at the funeral for the 26-year-old that a 'nuke had been unleashed on his family'.
While Botham Jean's life of service to his church and the deep admiration he had from his friends was front and center, how he was killed was largely left out of the funeral mass - until his uncle Ignatius Jean spoke.
'The sound of the gunshots did not have the resonance to be heard on our small island... but a nuke had been unleashed on our family by someone supposed to serve and protect,' Ignatius Jean, who lives in St Lucia, said of discovering his nephew's death.
'It was unleashed on a prince of the people, the prince of love. Our prince was snatched from us, he was snatched by the quick to trigger finger of one who was trained to protect and serve.'
Dallas officer Amber Guyger shot Botham Jean, 26, dead in his own apartment after she claims she mistook it for her own.
Many of his family members traveled from his homeland of St Lucia to Texas for the funeral.
His father, Bertrum Jean, spoke fondly of how his son was a man of God and gave heartfelt thank yous to the many people who had loved and cared for him like their own family since he first came to America to study in 2011.
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Heartbreaking: Brandt Jean, Botham Jean's brother cries as he arrives for his sibling's funeral with his mother, Allison Jean and his father Bertrum Jean (left)
Botham's uncle Ignatius gave a stirring speech, unlike the other tributes, he spoke on his nephew's untimely and violent death. In his powerful speech, he struck out saying: 'A nuke had been unleashed on our family of someone supposed to serve and protect. It was unleashed on a prince of the people, the prince of love'
Support: Botham's sister, Allisa Charles-Findley, is seen left as she arrives at the funeral for her brother
Botham Jean's family say he had never met cop Amber Guyger before she shot him dead on Thursday in his apartment
Botham's father, Bertrum, thanked the people who have looked after his son and taken him in as their own family in America
People attending dressed in traditional black funeral attire, as well as anti-violence t-shirts. Mourners are seen surrounding his open casket
'He was truly a gift from God and he meant the world to me, his spiritual bond with Christ was always at the forefront of his mind'- college friend of Jean, Alexis Stossel
His mother Allison was seen arriving with her husband Bertrum and Botham's siblings Brandt and Allisa an hour before the ceremony was due to start.
Mourners filed past Botham's casket, which was kept open, at the Greenville Avenue Church of Christ in Richardson, while a slide show of his life was played. The words 'going home' were embroidered into the lining of his coffin.
The service was opened by pastor Michael Griffin who told the congregation: Bo made us all better. He didnt see color, he saw love.
Tommy Bush, a business mentor and friend gave a stirring speech about how the young man reached high and was a believer in Christ. Bush continually cried while talking about his friend, concluding 'Don't tell me not to grieve. I'm not there yet.'
'He was truly a gift from God and he meant the world to me, his spiritual bond with Christ was always at the forefront of his mind,' said his college, Alexis Stossel.
Tommy Bush, a business mentor and friend gave a heartfelt, emotional speech about how the young man reached high and was a believer in Christ. Bush could not hold back tears speaking about the loss of his dear friend
Visitation began at 10am local time with funeral services to begin around noon. The words 'going home' were embroidered into the lining of Jean's coffin. Family and friends are pictured above arriving
Family and friends gathered outside Greenville Avenue Church of Christ Thursday to pay their respects to Botham
Jean's funeral was held at the Greenville Avenue Church of Christ in Richardson, to accommodate the large number of mourners
During the services, Jean's service to his church, his community and the many missions he has done through his church in Texas for the people in his homeland of St. Lucia were emphasized.
The young man was also a member of a chorus called 'The Good News Singers' through Harding University which traveled the country to spread the word of Jesus Christ.
Jean was dressed in a suit and tie that was the same suit he wore in his bright, smiling Facebook photo.
His younger brother wore a matching outfit. He stood over his brother and patted Jean's chest while family comforted him and rubbed his shoulders.
People attending dressed in traditional black funeral attire, as well as anti-violence t-shirts.
A bus was provided from Harding University, about five hours away in Arkansas, where Jean attended school.
Students and alumni packed the bus to honor their friend who was a native of Saint Lucia.
Jean's final resting place will be in his homeland of St. Lucia at a later date.
Before the funeral services began at noon mourners filed past Jean's coffin, while a slide show of his life was played in the background
Hamilton Landrum, gospel singer, gave a stirring performance for the packed church
Botham was a member of 'The Good News Singers' chorus (pictured) through Harding University which traveled the country to spread the word of Jesus Christ. They performed Thursday in his honor
Guests, who included Dallas Police Chief U. Renee Hall and Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings, were encouraged to applaud each other and the family by Griffin who paid tribute to them by telling mourners: The apple dont fall far from the tree.
Botham's casket arrived at the Greenville Avenue Church of Christ Thursday morning. He will be laid to rest in his homeland of St. Lucia at a later date
Hundreds of mourners were at the packed church. They heard powerful testimony to the wonderful, loving person Botham was
Guests, who included Dallas Police Chief U. Renee Hall and Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings, were encouraged to applaud each other and the family by Griffin who paid tribute to them by telling mourners: The apple dont fall far from the tree.
In a statement released before the service, Allisa, Botham's sister, called for peaceful protests and said she still wants clear, concise answers about the events that led to his death.
She added: 'Botham was a man of peace, love and justice. Botham would approve of the marches and protests, however, he would not approve of any violence in the streets nor loss of any additional life in his name nor his memory, as a result of this tragedy.
'Botham Shem Jean loved both America and his homeland of St Lucia. But above all, he loved serving God and knew his calling as a child of God.
An obituary included in the program obtained by DailyMail.com remembers Jean as having 'an enthusiasm for life that was contagious'.
It adds: 'He was passionate about people and - because of his faith - shared his love and joy with everyone he came in contact with during his short life.'
An obituary included in the program obtained by DailyMail.com remembers Jean as having 'an enthusiasm for life that was contagious'
Well rounded man of faith: Botham's obituary is a testimony to his dedication to his fellow human and his church
The family are requesting donations in lieu of flowers to be paid to Harding University's St. Lucia Global Missions Fund.
Jean was just 26-years-old when he was fatally shot by Dallas cop Amber Guyger on September 6.
Guyger, 30, lived a floor beneath Jean and claims that she mistakenly went to his apartment thinking it was hers. She told police that when she arrived at the front door, it was ajar and the lights inside were off. She says that she went inside , saw a 'dark silhouette', gave verbal commands then shot the man, thinking he was an intruder.
But Jean's family say her story is full of holes.
They say that the banking associate was afraid of the dark and would never have had all his lights off inside.
They also say he would not have kept his door ajar because it was unsafe, and point out that he had a red doormat at the front of his apartment which would have been impossible for the cop not to spot and realize she was in the wrong place.
'He made sure to let everyone know this is mine it's my red carpet,' his mother said.
They also revealed on Wednesday that Jean, who moved to the US from his native St Lucia in 2011 to attend college, was terrified of being racially profiled as a black man living in Texas.
'He said to me as a black man in Dallas, you don't walk with your hands in your pockets.
'Just so you don't get any profiling,' his teenager brother Brandt told CBS this week.
Jean's mother, Allison, said he would never have sat at home in the dark.
'To hear that his door was open, he would never -- and have the lights off -- he would never do that.
'He was like me. He does not like the dark.'
Witnesses have told the family's lawyer that seconds before they heard Guyger firing her weapon, they heard a woman in the hallway pounding on his door and yelling: 'Let me in, let me in!'
After the shots, another person said they heard a man cry out: 'Oh my God, why did you do this?'
The witness believes those may have been Jean's last words.
Guyger called 911 immediately and was seen pacing up and down the hallway in her cop uniform while making the call.
Jean was taken to hospital but was pronounce dead afterwards.
It took three days for police to arrest Guyger. She was booked into jail on Sunday on a manslaughter charge and was bailed out by an attorney on a $300,000 bond.
Since then, she has said nothing. The District Attorney is weighing up whether to increase the charge to murder.
In the meantime, her family have been forced to deny accusations that they are racist.
The claims emerged when a photograph of Guyger with a relative surfaced in which the man is making a hand gesture.
Some said he was spelling out the letters 'W' and 'P' - for white power. In another image, the cop is pictured with a woman wearing an 'All Lives Matter' shirt.
Police are investigating after a man (pictured) allegedly urinated on flags at a veteran's cemetery in Boston on Monday
Police are investigating after a man allegedly urinated on American flags at a veteran's cemetery in Boston on Monday.
Somerville man George Gatteny said a man, believed to be in his early to mid-20s, entered the cemetery, leaving a woman at the gate to stand guard, pulled four flags from a statue and threw them on the ground.
'What I saw him do next pushed me to a point where I said to myself "enough",' Gatteny said in a Facebook post.
'The guy started urinating on the flags.'
Gatteny, who said until this point he'd been sitting in traffic just outside the cemetery, pulled over and approached them, yelling for the man to stop.
He says the unidentified man did stop urinating, but did not acknowledge him. 'He pulled up his pants and started walking out of the memorial,' Gatteny explained.
The real estate agent said he followed the pair, determined to see them face some kind of consequence.
'Both of them walked up Broadway laughing. I walked behind them for a while telling everyone I passed what they did,' he said.
Gatteny returned to the statue soon after to take stock of what had happened, and assess any damage done.
The man was spotted pulling four flags from a memorial, throwing them on the ground and dropping his pants by George Gatteny, who was sitting in traffic close by at the time (pictured: the flags after the alleged offender had left)
The man had taken the flags from a memorial (right) at the Somerville Veterans Memorial Cemetery (left)
On the ground, next to the statue, were four flags, surrounded by a liquid.
At this point, Gatteny said he was thanked for putting a stop to the younger man's desecration of the memorial.
'An older gentleman came over and thanked me for taking a stand. He told me he has two friends buried there,' he wrote.
Gatteny has since reported the young man to police, who say they are investigating, and pictures of him have been shared across the world.
'What possible reason could they have for desecrating a WW2 Memorial,' Gatteny asked.
'There are consequences for our actions. They probably thought no [one] would do anything. They were WRONG!'
A veteran's Facebook group also released a statement, with the page's moderator saying the vandalism: 'broke my heart', and they were 'sickened that someone would desecrate and defile such a hallowed and sacred place.
'This cemetery contains the remains of heroes killed in action from World War II, Korea, Vietnam and one hero who died in the Beirut bombing in 1982.'
A young family's holiday video reveals how their break in the sun turned into a nightmares due to ear-splitting, dawn-to-dusk nearby building work.
The sound of roaring power tools is about the only thing that can be heard in Faye Gent's footage from her 1,300 break in Gran Canaria.
Faye and Marcus Gent, both 33, had been hoping to get some well-deserved peace with their six-month-old son Thomas.
Faye, Marcus and baby Thomas were hoping for a relaxing sun-filled family holiday but their break in the sun was ruined by ear-splitting, dawn-to-dusk building work
The family, from Tilbury, Essex, travelled with Tui for a week earlier this month to the resort of Maspalomas, described as 'your house in paradise' (pictured)
The family were not warned there would be a construction work taking place. In the footage drilling can be heard in the background
Faye Gent posted a complaint directed at the TUI Facebook page claiming they would never book again with family-of-three were glad to leave the 'construction site'
Instead, they ended up having to shut all the windows to keep out the racket while Thomas slept - despite the heat.
The family, from Tilbury, Essex, travelled with Tui for a week earlier this month to the resort of Maspalomas, described as 'your house in paradise'.
They insist there was no warning from Tui, or anyone, that any construction work would be taking place.
In the footage wheelbarrows, brooms, and other materials used for construction work are dotted around an area of the resort in Gran Canaria
Despite the idyllic looking pool and bungalows the family, from Tilbury, in Essex, did not have a good time
The video shows Faye filming the bathroom as the drilling can be heard through the wall from the neighbouring bungalow.
The video pans to see the baby Thomas lying in his cot with his ears perked back listening to the head pounding noise.
The drilling then stops for a brief moment, before screeching once more behind the tiled bathroom wall.
The clip later shows Faye walking back to her bungalow along a stoned path with the deafening drilling still ever present.
Wheelbarrows topped with debris and a trolley full of construction and cleaning materials line the outside of the bungalow opposite to their one.
All the while young Thomas can be seen looking around in the background.
It was the first time on holiday for young Thomas. His mother and father picked the resort specifically because it had a kitchen
Faye said today: 'It was our first family holiday and our boy is only six months old, so we only went to this resort because it had a kitchen.
'The builders were working on several of the bungalows in the resort, refitting tiled floors and bathrooms, throughout the week.
'That particular morning they started working on the bungalow that was attached to ours at 8am. We were only separated by a thin wall hence the loud angle grinder you can hear.
'I think by the end of the week the works ramped up considerably and the noise could be heard around the pool so they had a lot of unhappy guests.
'We complained to reception and they told us the works had to go on and there wasn't anything they could do about it.'
Thomas can be seen in the video kicking his legs and looking around, possibly trying to figure out the source of the noise
Faye said: 'We had to keep the windows and doors shut on the bungalow when he slept. On the day of the video there wasn't much chance of him being able to sleep.'
Faye posted on the TUI community page and said: 'TUI, we have always booked with you, but you need to write off this hotel!
'Going home today, and so glad to be leaving this construction site we have stayed in this week. 8AM wake-up call.'
The holiday resort received a similar complaints in May.
Spetunia2013, writing on TripAdvisor, claimed: 'Bungalows habitable - just. Terrible road noise the bungalow we had 4817. Hotel repairing damp proof courses next door.
'It totally spoilt our 10 days there. We only had 6 nights sleep and could not catch up on sleep during the day because of building work.'
A spokesman from TUI UK said; 'We are sorry to hear about Ms Gent's holiday experience. We have asked her to contact us so that we can investigate and be in touch directly to discuss the matter further.'
A drunk driver who u-turned on a motorway, killing a father-of-four, has been jailed for 11 years.
Adrian Radu caused the death of Mark Downham, when he performed the manoeuvre in the middle lane of the M1, in March this year.
The 28-year-old Romanian national from Nottingham was also handed a 13-and-a-half year driving ban, after pleading guilty to causing death by dangerous driving.
Adrian Radu (pictured) has been jailed for 11 years
A judge at Nottingham Crown Court said Radu - who was found with a bottle of whisky in his jacket - had shown a reckless disregard for the safety of other motorists before his 'disgraceful' decision to drive away from the scene towards oncoming traffic.
Shocking dash-cam footage shows how Radu was speeding along the carriageway, just moments before the fatal smash.
His blue Vauxhall Astra can be seen braking sharply before making a u-turn on the southbound carriageway, going from the middle lane and turning to face the wrong direction into the over-taking lane.
The incident happened just over a mile after junction 27 for Hucknall, Nottinghamshire.
Van driver, Neil Rowe, who was travelling behind was unable to avoid smashing into him and the Eddie Stobart lorry he was overtaking.
Mark Downham, 48, was sleeping on the backseat of the van after being picked up from his home in Chorley, Lancashire.
He was rushed to hospital after the crash but died two days later as a result of catastrophic head injuries.
A car brakes suddenly as it sees Radu about to attempt to turn around - the car manages to swerve and avoid hitting him
Radu's Astra can be seen performing the u-turn into the fast overtaking lane (right) as the car in front managed to squeeze past
Mark Downham was killed by a drunk driver who performed a dangerous u-turn on the M1 and was later found with a bottle of whisky
Following the crash Radu continued to drive the wrong way down in the fast lane for approximately 550 metres before eventually coming to a stop.
Police attended the scene and Radu was arrested after being found with a bottle of Jack Daniel's whisky in his pocket and failing a roadside breath test.
Radu was twice over the drink drive limit two-and-a-half hours after the crash, providing a reading of 71 micrograms of alcohol in 100 millilitres of breath, while the legal limit is 35.
Radu previously admitted dangerous driving, driving while disqualified, driving while over the prescribed limit and driving without insurance.
During the trial on Tuesday at Nottingham Crown Court, he was found guilty of causing death by dangerous driving and Judge Gregory Dickinson QC warned Radu that he faced the 'inevitable outcome' of a lengthy prison sentence.
Radu continues the turn before (off camera) a van smashes into the car, killing a father-of-four sleeping on the back seat
The Trump administration has agreed to let some of the immigrant families who were separated at the Southern U.S. border have a second shot at applying for asylum in America a change that could affect more than 1,000 people.
The government filed the settlement late Wednesday after reaching a deal with immigrant-rights groups that have been representing the interests of the separated families in federal court. Three federal judges must still approve the agreement before it can take effect.
More than 2,600 children were separated from their parents during an immigration policy that ended on June 20 when Trump signed an executive order putting a stop to the practice.
Isidra Calderon hugs her son Jonathan Avila in August in Guatemala City, Guatemala. Jonathan had just arrived from U.S. detention after mother and son were separated at the U.S. border
The new settlement addresses three separate lawsuits filed against the government over the Trump administration's now-defunct practice of dividing families. Judges in all three cases will have a say in whether the settlement is approved.
The deal provides a second chance for parents to participate in a screening interview to determine whether they face a 'credible fear' if they return to their home countries.
The interview is the first step for people seeking asylum. If either the parent or child is successful during the interview, families will be allowed to apply for asylum as a group.
One of the ongoing legal challenges argues that many parents failed their initial credible fear review because they 'had anxiety, they couldn't sleep, they couldn't think about anything other than their kids,' said Sirine Shebaya, a senior attorney for Muslim Advocates, which is representing immigrants in that lawsuit.
'The parents were too traumatized by the separation from their children when they were going through these credible fear interviews,' Shebaya told DailyMail.com. 'When they were being interviewed many didn't even know where their children were.'
The government also agreed to consider reopening cases in which parents have already been deported to their home country on a case-by-case basis.
More than 1,000 people could be eligible to reapply for asylum, according to Muslim Advocates, which represents immigrants in one of the lawsuits against the government.
The settlement is a 'significant victory,' Shebaya said.
'The parents in these lawsuits all came to the United States fleeing unspeakable violence and seeking shelter for themselves and their children,' she said. 'With this agreement, they will finally have a real chance to be heard and to secure safety and stability for themselves and their families.'
Any immigrant who does not agree to the settlement would be 'promptly removed to their country of origin,' according to the settlement
Honduran father Juan and his six-year-old son Anthony worship during Sunday Mass on September 9, 2018 in Oakland, California. Father and son were separated at the Southern U.S. border under the Trump administration's immigration policy and placed in detention for 85 days before being reunited
Between April and June, the Trump administration separated more than 2,600 children from their parents after the families came into the country - legally and illegally - across the southern U.S. border as part of a 'zero tolerance' immigration policy.
The actions sparked massive public outrage, leading to Trump ending it through an executive order on June 20.
U.S. Attorney Jeff Sessions has blamed the separation of children and families on the parents fleeing violence in Latin America for breaking U.S. immigration laws.
The efforts to reunify families has been executed under the oversight of U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw, who ordered that it was the government's responsibility to make those families whole.
More than 400 children have yet to be reunited with their parents - many of who have already been deported from the U.S.
The ex-boyfriend of Allison Mack is speaking out about his time with the actress, which began years before the Smallville star joined Nxivm and ended two years after she joined the sex-slave cult.
Chad Krowchuk had been living with Mack for a few years when many of the actors they were friends with in Vancouver began to show an interest in Nxivm.
He told Vice that he and Mack had little interest in the group, but that all changed after the actress came back from a 2007 retreat enthralled with what she had just experienced and eager to share it all with her boyfriend.
'That was the part that scared me the most,' said Krowchuk.
'Before we had conversations about it, and we both thought it seemed kind of weird and creepy. I dont necessarily know if she thought it was creepy, but we agreed it seemed a little messed up.'
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Former member: Chad Krowchuk was living with Allison Mack in 2007 when she became enthralled with Nxivm following a weekend retreat with the Bronfmans (Krowchuck and Mack above in her short film Frog)
Change of heart: 'Before we had conversations about it, and we both thought it seemed kind of weird and creepy,' said Krowchuck, who joined with Mack in Albany (Clare Bronfman in court in July on left, Mack in May on right)
That weekend has been spoken about in past interviews by members who revealed that the Bronfman sisters, Clare and Sarah, rolled out the red carpet to woo Mack.
It worked, and Krowchuk said he soon found himself in Albany with his girlfriend, tagging along as she made her way up the ranks in Nxivm.
They were joined by a number of their friends, at a very steep cost.
'Allison paid for a lot of my courses,' explained Krowchuck.
'I would slowly pick away at paying her back, but I couldnt afford to do it. Most normal people couldnt afford to do this.'
He noted that Mack's Smallville co-star Kristen Kreuk was also part of Nxivm at the time, and admitted that she seemed to benefit from the classes.
'I felt like I related more to Kristin than anyone there, I could see what the appeal is,' he explained.
Krowchuck also said that Mack's closest friend in the group, Nicki Clyne, was soon so inspired by what she was learning that she halted her acting career.
'Nicki I know she was the first example of somebody who had a decent acting career, she was doing quite well, and then she took the courses and went, "f*** it, I want to do this thing instead,"' said the actor.
He eventually left in 2009 and said that Mack seemed to be fine and he had no worries, though he did see the possibility for something to go very wrong given the teachings and philosophies that were being spread.
Those teachings are now being stiffed as a number of members, most notably Mack and Clare Bronfman as well as founder Keith Raniere, are facing federal charges.
'It is with deep sadness that we inform you we are suspending all NXIVM/ESP enrollment, curriculum and events until further notice,' reads a message on the group's website.
'We will be in touch with more information for anyone currently enrolled in upcoming events/programs.'
The message goes on to state: 'While we are disappointed by the interruption of our operations, we believe it is warranted by the extraordinary circumstances facing the company at this time. We continue to believe in the value and importance of our work and look forward to resuming our efforts when these allegations are resolved.'
Stars are born: Mack was a popular child star in Canada thanks to her role on Opposite Sex, which also starred a young Chris Evans and Milo Ventimigli (above), and Smallville
A superseding indictment released in July revealed that Raniere, Mack and Laren Salzman were being charged with wire fraud.
It was also revealed that Raniere and Salzman allegedly locked a woman in a room for two years because she was affectionate for a man who was not her master.
'Raniere and Lauren Salzman trafficked a victim, who was once a sexual partner of Ranieres, for labor and services,' read a statement released by the US Attorney's Office.
'The victim was confined to a room in Clifton Park, New York, for nearly two years as punishment for having romantic feelings for a man who was not Raniere.
'The victim was told that if she left the room she would be sent to Mexico without any identification documents.
'As threatened, she was driven to Mexico and her family was instructed by co-conspirators, including Lauren Salzman, not to send the victim her identification documents.'
The women who are out on bail are under home confinement, while Raniere has not been granted bail in the case.
The six members have all entered pleas of not guilty to the charges against them, which carry considerable prison time.
'Raniere and his inner circle, including the defendants Clare Bronfman, Allison Mack, Nancy Salzman, Lauren Salzman and Kathy Russell also known as 'Prefect,' and others known and unknown, comprised an organized criminal enterprise (the 'Enterprise'),' reads the new indictment.
'The principal purpose of the Enterprise was to obtain financial and personal benefits for the members of the Enterprise by promoting the defendant Keith Raniere, also known as 'Vanguard,' and by recruiting new members into the Pyramid Organizations.
'By promoting Raniere and recruiting others into the Pytu-id Organizations, the members of the Enterprise expected to receive financial opportunities and increased power and status within the Enterprise.'
Among the criminal offenses that members of this group allegedly carried out are 'identity theft, harboring of aliens for financial gain, extortion, forced labor, sex trafficking, money laundering, wire fraud and obstruction of justice.'
Bronfman is not accused of sex trafficking.
It was however Bronfman and her sister Sara who helped woo Allison Mack when she considered joining the group according to multiple sources who previously spoke with DailyMail.com.
Mack was also aggressively recruited in hopes that she would become their Tom Cruise-like figure and publicize the group much like the actor had done with Scientology.
The Bronfmans helped with this by flying Mack private, all part of the $150 million the two have allegedly put into Nxivm over the past two decades.
Clare Bronfman, 39, is the youngest daughter of Edgar Bronfman Sr, the billionaire philanthropist who was formerly head of Seagram.
Her mother is Rita Webb, the British-born second wife of Edgar Bronfman, who would divorce and then remarry Edgar shortly after Clare Bronfman's birth. Rita Webb - now known as Georgiana Bronfman - has since married British Chariots Of Fire actor Nigel Havers, making Clare is step-daughter.
Rita and Edgar's second divorce split the family, with the girls living in England and Kenya with their mother while their father stayed in the United States.
They would visit him in New York City as well as his nearby home in Westchester, and even took him to a Nxivm meeting at one point.
When she was 17, Clare Bronfman began to compete in equestrian events, something she would continue to do for a decade.
She was ranked 12th in the country and 80th in the world at her peak.
Bronfman gave it all up though for Nxivm.
This is the incredible moment a glowing 'yooperlite' rock was found for the first time.
The minerals, first discovered by Erik Rintamaki in June 2017, are said to be Sodalite gemstones that glow under a 365 nanometer UV light.
The video, taken by Erik last month, shows Shirley Klemmer finding the colourful shinning rocks on the coast of Lake Superior in Michigan, USA.
Mr Rintamaki, 43, named the glowing rocks after residents of Michigan, who are often referred to as 'yoopers.'
The casino worker, who has been selling the rocks online, said: 'I was leading a tour of people who wanted to find yooperlites and I asked Shirley if I could film her.
'Once I posted it online, it just went berserk. Thousands of people were watching it.
The 'yooperlite' rock was found on the shore of Lake Superior in Michigan USA when a tourist shone a UV light on to the ground searching for them
'When I first discovered these rocks, I was elated. You could probably hear my screaming from 20 miles away.
'I didn't even know what they were at first, so I just made up a name for them and went from there.
'I'm just a regular everyday guy who collects rocks. Never in my wildest dreams did I think this many people would be interested in them.'
The rocks which were discovered by, Erik Rintamaki, include the mineral Sodalite which reacts to UV light
Mr Rintamaki decided to hit the beach at night with a UV light last year and came home with handfuls of the glowing rocks.
He has now collected dozens of yooperlites, and he sells them for $32 a pound to people all over the world, in places like the UK, Belgium and Singapore.
What is a yooperlite? 'Yooperlites' are rocks that have an orange glow under certain UV lights The rocks contain mineral, Sodalite, which is fluorescent to UV light The glowing rocks can be found mostly on Lake Superior between Whitefish Point an Grand Marais, and on the Keweenaw Peninsula Advertisement
However, he isn't the first person to ever discover the glowing rocks, but was the first to bring them to geologists who verified for the first time there is Sodalite in Michigan, according to UpNorthLive.
All minerals have the ability to reflect light making them visible to the human eye, according to Geology.com.
Some minerals have an interesting physical property known as 'fluorescence.'
These minerals have the ability to temporarily absorb a small amount of light and an instant later release a small amount of light of a different wavelength.
This change in wavelength causes a temporary color change of the mineral in the eye of a human observer.
A tranquil island with a population of 160 has been rocked by its first crime in 20 years.
The last time a felony was recorded on the Argyll isle of Gigha off the west coast of Scotland was when a bicycle was stolen two decades ago.
But 2,000 disappeared from the only hotel on the island, leaving staff to discover the theft on Sunday morning.
Gigha Hotel food and beverage manager Arthur Katilius said: 'The hotel was full, there were people in B&Bs and some boats on the pontoons.
The isle of Gigha (pictured) off the west coast of Scotland has been rocked by its first recorded crime in 20 years
'It is a shock in a small island community where everybody knows each other. The place is to get CCTV now.
'As soon as we came into the hotel we could see something was wrong and money had been taken. It is quite sad.'
The community trust-owned hotel is leased by a private business. The island hit headlines in 2002 when it was the subject of a community land buyout.
Resident Willie McSporran, 82, who led the islands community land buyout in 2002, said: 'Its terrible that these things are happening now after all these years.
'The last thing I remember is a bike going missing about 20 years ago, when my brother had the local shop.'
Alastair Redman, ward councillor for Kintyre and the Islands, said: 'On Gigha, much like most of our island communities, there is no crime.
The island has a population of just 160 and one resident revealed that the last recorded theft was a bicycle 20 years ago
'How someone could steal from not only a private business in a small beautiful place like Gigha I dont know, but to steal from the community trust is absolutely unfathomable.
'If residents need any help to try to find out who is responsible I would be happy to lend my support.
'This is really shocking. Theft and rural crime seems to be on the increase. This is the exception to the rule. However it cant be ignored by the local constabulary and I hope they take it all the way.'
A Police Scotland spokesman said: 'Between 10pm on Saturday, September 8, and 1am on Sunday, September 9, at the Gigha Hotel on the Isle of Gigha, entry was gained to a store room and money was stolen.
'Constable David Hope at Campbeltown Police Station is investigating and is appealing for witnesses or anyone with any information to contact him on 101 or anonymously through Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.'
Former Mafia boss Francis 'Cadillac Frank' Salemme (pictured in a 1995 photo) faces a life sentence for the murder of a nightclub owner
A former Mafia boss-turned-FBI-informant faces a life sentence for a murder he committed more than two decades ago.
Francis 'Cadillac Frank' Salemme is scheduled to be sentenced on Thursday for the 1993 murder of Boston nightclub owner Steven DiSarro.
DiSarro, a 43-year-old father-of-five, went missing on May 10, 1993. His remains were discovered in 2016 behind an old mill in Providence, Rhode Island.
Authorities said DiSarro was murdered to prevent him from cooperating in a federal investigation targeting Salemme and his son Frank, the Boston Globe reports.
Salemme, now 85, was convicted in June, along with a local plumber named Paul M. Weadick. Salemme and Weadick, 65, face mandatory life sentences.
According to the Globe, DiSarro was a businessman and bought the Channel, a now defunct nightclub. Salemme and his son were interested in buying the club and were also being targeted by the FBI and state investigators at the time.
Salemme and another man, Paul M. Weadick, were convicted in June for the 1993 murder of nightclub owner Steven DiSarro (pictured)
DiSarro's children were present for the trial and said they were glad justice has finally been served
Salemme and Frank believed DiSarro was working with the FBI. On May 10, 1993, DiSarro's wife reported seeing her husband get into an SUV outside their Westwood home. He was never seen again and police did not locate his remains until a drug dealer came forward with information in 2016.
Former gangster Stephen 'The Rifleman' Flemmi testified during trial that he saw Salemme's son, Frank, strangling DiSarro inside Salemme's home. Flemmi said Weadick were holding DiSarro's legs as Salemme watched the murder.
Salemme's son died in 1995 from lymphoma.
Flemmi also testified that Salemme told him that he knew DiSarro had been approached by federal investigators and feared he would cooperate with them. Flemmi is currently serving a life sentence after he was convicted of 10 murders.
Former mobsters Robert and Joseph DeLuca also testified that Salemme personally delivered DiSarro's body to them in Providence and had them bury it.
Robert DeLuca was sentenced to five-and-a-half years last month for lying to investigators about the DiSarro murder. The Boston Globe reports that he only revealed details on the murder after authorities were led to the remains.
A former gangster testified in court that Salemme's son Frank strangled DiSarro to death while Salemme (pictured on the left in an undated photo) watched and Weadick (right) held DiSarro's legs
Salemme is one of New England's most well-known and oldest mobsters. He became an FBI informant in 1999 after he was indicted in a sweeping federal racketeering case along with Mafia bosses James 'Whitey' Bulger, Flemmi and others.
Flemmi and Bulger had already starting working with the government. Salemme provided information to authorities to help them take down John J. Connolly Jr, a retired FBI agent convicted of racketeering, obstruction of justice and murder.
Salemme was admitted to the witness protection program and had been living in Atlanta under the alias Richard Parker when authorities discovered DiSarro's remains and arrested him.
DiSarro's children were present for the trial and released a statement on Thursday afternoon.
'We've waited a long time for answers and explanations to things that are unexplainable. We can now put many of our questions and the questions of others to rest and for that we are eternally grateful,' they said, according to NBC 10.
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World leaders and international dignitaries gathered to pay their last respects to former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan at his funeral in Ghana today.
Annan, who died last month in Switzerland aged 80, was honored with a state funeral in his home country.
The grandson of tribal chiefs, he was the first black African to become the UN leader, serving from 1997 to 2006.
He was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize in 2001 for helping to galvanise the organisation in the midst of the Iraq War and an HIV pandemic.
World leaders and international dignitaries gathered to pay their last respects to former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan at his funeral in Ghana today
Nane Maria, the widow of Kofi Annan, Ghanaian diplomat and former Secretary General of United Nations who died on August 18 at the age of 80 after a short illness
The grandson of tribal chiefs, he was the first black African to become the UN leader, serving from 1997 to 2006
Nane Maria Annan, the Swedish wife of the former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, who died in Switzerland, prays in front of the casket of her husband lying in state at the International Conference Centre
Mourners included Princess Beatrix (centre), the former queen of the Netherlands, and her daughter-in-law Princess Mabel, who were close friends of Annan
Mourners included Princess Beatrix, the former queen of the Netherlands, and her daughter-in-law Princess Mabel, who were close friends of Annan.
'Kofi Annan was courageous, speaking the truth to power while subjecting himself to intense self-scrutiny,' said current UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
Presidents from across Africa joined Guterres, Annan's family and many others in a ceremony that concluded two days of viewings.
The presidents of Namibia, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Ethiopia and Sierra Leone attended, along with Niger's prime minister and Angola's vice president.
Former leaders from Europe and Africa also joined the ceremony, including Graca Machel, wife of the late South African President Nelson Mandela.
Clergymen pray over the coffin of former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, draped with the Ghana flag
Annan, who died last month in Switzerland aged 80, was honored with a state funeral in his home country
Former leaders from Europe and Africa also joined the ceremony, including Graca Machel, wife of the late South African President Nelson Mandela
Kofi Annan's son Kojo Annan, left, widow Nane Annan, second left, and daughter Ama Annan, center, join other family members to pay their respects
A woman wearing traditional dress dances and members of the public pay their respects as the coffin of former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan
Dignitaries sit before the coffin of the late Kofi Annan, during a state funeral at the Accra International Conference centre
Gutteres said the late Annan 'was an exceptional global leader - and he was also someone virtually anyone in the world could see themselves in: those on the far reaches of poverty, conflict and despair who found in him an ally; the junior UN staffer following in his footsteps; the young person to whom he said until his dying breath always remember, you are never too young to lead - and we are never too old to learn.'
Guterres, who was selected by Annan to be the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, spoke of the honor of working with him to weather 'many of the same global storms.'
'The world has lost a standard-bearer of global cooperation. The United Nations has lost an embodiment of its mission,' he said. 'Now that I occupy the office Kofi once held, I am continually inspired by his integrity, dynamism and dedication. To him, indifference was the world's worst poison.'
Even after serving as secretary-general he continued to work on the front lines of diplomacy, said Guterres.
'He helped to ease post-election tensions in Kenya, gave his all to find a political solution to the brutal war in Syria and set out a path for ensuring justice and rights for the Rohingya people of Myanmar,' said Guterres.
Ghana's President Nana Dankwa Akufo-Addo said Annan was bold and never gave up on what he believed in.
Mette-Marit (left), Crown Princess of Norway attends a state funeral for Kofi Annan with Princess Mabel (right) of the Netherlands
Dignitaries attend the state funeral for the late Kofi Annan at the Accra International Conference centre, Ghana, 13 September 2018. Kofi Annan the seventh Secretary General of the United Nations passed away on 18 August 2018 at age 80
Guards of a Ghanaian chief wear black and plants on their heads, a tradition when going to a funeral, and queue outside to pay their respects
Traditional leaders pay their respects to former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, who died in Switzerland
Soldiers guard the coffin of Kofi Annan, Ghanaian diplomat and former Secretary General of United Nations who died on August 18 at the age of 80
Ghanaian chiefs queue outside to pay their respects to the coffin of former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan
Ashanti dancers perform as local chiefs, politicians and extended family members wait to pay their respects to Kofi Annan
Kofi Annan was an ardent believer in the capacity of Ghana and the continent of Africa to chart its own path of progress. Pictured: A woman mourns
'Despite the unjustified attacks on him, trying to fix him with responsibility for the genocides in Rwanda and Srebrenica when he was head of U.N. peace operations, he never lost his moral compass, as he showed when he stood up to the might of the United States of America when she was embarking on the ill-fated intervention in Iraq.'
History has vindicated Annan, said Akufo-Addo, saying that his 'epic but unavailing effort to establish the supremacy of international law over the actions of even the world's greatest power won him the admiration of all right-thinking persons.'
He said Kofi Annan was an ardent believer in the capacity of Ghana and the continent of Africa to chart its own path of progress.
Annan's wife, Nane 'thanked God for giving her such an extraordinary human being,' while his daughter Ama Annan Adedeji said her father 'was one of the most loving people l have known.'
Mourners have thronged to the conference center in Accra, where his coffin has been since his body arrived Monday, and where the funeral was held.
A private burial follows at Accra's Military Cemetery, with full military honors and a 17-gun salute.
Members of the public pay their respects as the coffin of former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, draped in the Ghana flag
Dignitaries sit before the coffin of the late Kofi Annan, during a state funeral at the Accra International Conference centre
Jared Kushner is the top pick of conservative columnist Ann Coulter as the author of the anonymous New York Time op-ed because he'll need it to re-enter New York society, she claims.
The name of President Donald Trump's son-in-law has floated around as a contender for the 'senior official in the Trump administration' who penned the piece describing a 'resistance' movement in the White House.
Coulter said Kushner would write it so he could claim to New York society he and wife Ivanka Trump were the rational voices in the administration.
Jared Kushner is the top pick of conservative columnist Ann Coulter as the author of the anonymous New York Time op-ed. He is pictured outside his home in Washington DC on Thursday night
Anne Coulter said Jared Kushner would write the New York Times piece so he could claim to New York society he and wife Ivanka Trump were the rational voices in the administration
She offered no further proof.
'Because he and Ivanka are going to have to go back to the Upper East Side and go to the Hamptons,' Coulter told The Daily Beast. 'They're probably worried that Trump will be removed within the next few years. They had just gone to the McCain funeral, and [the op-ed] was right after Labor Day, so they were probably feeling wistful for the Hamptons. And the only way they can get back in is if they can say, 'Don't worry, we're the ones who stopped the wall.'
The couple was at the late Senator John McCain's funeral service on Saturday, September 1, at the Washington National Cathedral.
They both work in the White House as advisers to President Trump.
She also slammed Kushner for working on prison reform, pointing out his father served time.
Charles Kushner, spent 14 months in prison from 2005 to 2006 after pleading guilty to tax evasion, election law violations and witness-tampering felonies.
'On a larger point, there's his prison reform, which you'd think would be a little embarrassing for a guy whose father spent time in prison,' she said.
Coulter is promoting her latest book 'Resistance Is Futile! How the Trump-Hating Left Lost Its Collective Mind.'
Guessing who wrote the piece has become one of Washington D.C.'s new favorite parlor games.
The New York Times opinion piece describes the president as 'impetuous, adversarial, petty and ineffective' and says the author is part of an organized 'resistance' whose goal is 'to preserve our democratic institutions while thwarting [President] Trump's more misguided impulses until he is out of office.'
Jared Kushner and wife Ivanka Trump work in the administration
Donald Trump Jr. says there are few people working in the White House his father can trust
Multiple administration officials - including first lady Melania Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and all Cabinet secretaries - have denied being the author.
And Donald Trump Jr. said earlier this week there are few people working in the White House his father can trust in the wake of the anonymous New York Times' op-ed and Bob Woodward's book 'Fear,' which paints an administration in chaos.
'I think there are people in there that he can trust, it's just - it's a much smaller group than I would like it to be,' he told ABC News in an interview that aired Tuesday on 'Good Morning America.'
The first son declined to say who he trusts in the West Wing but suggested that family members working in the administration remain a part of the inner circle.
President Trump's daughter, Ivanka Trump, and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, are both White House advisers.
'I'm talking outside family. That goes without saying,' Trump Jr. said.
The FBI is declining to investigate Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh's connection to a Democratic senator's mysterious claim that troubling 'information' had come to her information reportedly concerning sexual misconduct when he was in high school.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California said Thursda in a statement that she had referred her information to federal investigators, just a week before the U.S. Senate is scheduled to begin a series of votes on his nomination.
Feinstein is a liberal California Democrat who has called on her colleagues to slow down the march toward confirming President Donald Trump's pick to succeed Justice Anthony Kennedy.
The Washington Post reported Thursday evening that the FBI handed the senator's materials over to the White House instead of opening a probe, and considered it an update to his background check file.
'Upon receipt of the information on the night of September 12, we included it as part of Judge Kavanaugh's background file, as per the standard process,' an FBI official told the Post.
The New York Times reported Thursday that Feinstein received a letter about the unspecified allegations against Kavanaugh 'this summer' meaning she may have held onto it for dramatic effect at an inopportune moment for Republicans.
FBI request: Diane Feinstein has referred a letter she has received to the Justice Department. It reportedly concerns Brett Kavanuagh's high school behavior
The unnamed woman has reportedly retained Debra Katz, a prominent Washington D.C. attorney involved in the #MeToo movement
Debra Katz, a Washington, D.C. lawyer best known for representing women who make '#MeToo'-style accusations against powerful men, is reportedly representing the unnamed woman. Katz was seen leaving Capitol Hill on Wednesday night.
Feinstein is the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, which is considering Kavanaugh's nomination. Republicans are pushing to confirm him to the Supreme Court by Oct. 1, when its next term begins.
A tight-lipped Feinstein had released a cryptic statement saying that the woman who provided the information about Kavanaugh 'strongly requested confidentiality, declined to come forward or press the matter further, and I have honored that decision.'
Buzzfeed claimed Thursday that it believes it knows who Kavanaugh's potential accuser is, and has for at least a week, but hasn't been able to reach her to confirm it.
A White House spokeswoman complained about the timing of the vague and gauzy revelation.
'Not until the eve of his confirmation has Sen. Feinstein or anyone raised the specter of new "information" about him,' Kerri Kupec said.
Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn mocked the idea of a legitimate bombshell that could sink Kavanaugh
'Let me get this strsight': Cornyn was in disbelief about what appeared to be the substance of Feinstein's letter
Cornyn also pointed out that the FBI had already cleared Kavanaugh and that committee Democrats had their report
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, she said, had 'promised to "oppose Judge Kavanaughs nomination with everything I have," and it appears he is delivering with this 11th hour attempt to delay his confirmation.'
Kupec added that the FBI had already 'thoroughly and repeatedly vetted Judge Kavanaugh, dating back to 1993, for some of the most highly sensitive roles.'
Judiciary Committee chairman Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican, told reporters outside a Senate hearing room that he hadn't seen the letter Feinstein is guarding.
'All I know is what I read, and I wouldnt make any judgment of it until I get more information,' Grassley said.
Fellow committee Republican John Cornyn of Texas reacted with a digital eye-roll.
'Let me get this straight: this is statement about secret letter regarding a secret matter and an unidentified person. Right,' Cornyn tweeted.
In a second tweet, he added that 'the FBI already performed and has reported on a background investigation on the nominee and this has been made available to all Senators on the Judiciary Committee.'
Feinstein received her information in a roundabout fashion. The Intercept reported late Wednesday that the alleged incident was described to someone affiliated with Stanford University, who then wrote to Democratic Rep. Ana Eshoo, who represents the area.
Eshoo passed the letter to Feinstein, but neither lawmaker will describe what's in it. Eshoo's office says it's considered part of an active and confidential constituent-service case.
Feinstein is closely guarding it, refusing to share it even with her fellow Judiciary Committee Democrats.
She complained Thursday during a committee meeting that Republicans were rushing engaged in a 'rush to judgement' as they moved to close the file on Kavanaugh before its full contents could be examined.
Republicans have already provided Democrats with an avalanche of documents, including tens of thousands from his time serving as staff secretary in the George W. Bush White House.
'What in Judge Kavanaugh's records are Republicans hiding?' Feinstein exclaimed.
After a heated summer of campaigning that has seen controversies ranging from mailers to bagels, New Yorkers are finally voting in the Democratic governor primary.
The battle between incumbent Gov Andrew Cuomo and former Sex and the City star Cynthia Nixon will finally come to a head on Tuesday night.
Polls opened in the Big Apple and its suburbs at 6am on Tuesday and were open across the rest of the state at noon. The polls will close at 9pm.
A new survey released on Monday showed that Nixon was far behind in the race, with Cuomo leading by 41 points.
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Cynthia Nixon smiles while casting her vote in New York on Thursday morning
Nixon is challenging incumbent New York Governor Andrew Cuomo for the Democratic nomination, though polls in today's primary election have her trailing by many points
And every major poll has the governor, who has been endorsed by Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton, ahead by at least 30 points.
But Nixon, a first-time candidate, has not been fazed by the numbers and said such polls aren't reaching those who will actually turn out for her on Election Day.
'We have a younger, more progressive, more diverse electorate,' Nixon told the New York Times last month.
'Those are the people that are going to turn out for me.'
Nixon wouldn't be the first New York primary candidate to beat the polls this year.
A new survey released on Monday showed that Nixon was far behind in the race, with Cuomo leading by 41 points. Cuomo holds his ballot while voting on Thursday
Cuomo, pictured alongside girlfriend Sandra Lee, casts his ballot at the Presbyterian Church in Mt Cisco, New York
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was down 36 points before she defeated incumbent Rep Joe Crowley in a June primary, beating him by 15 points.
'We need fundamental change. That has come from a groundswell from the people,' Nixon said on public radio on Tuesday.
'Don't believe the polls, don't believe the hype. We have a chance to strike a blow for real progressives.'
Throughout the campaign, Nixon has hammered Cuomo for not investing enough in New York City's beleaguered transit system, for not addressing political corruption and for failing to deliver on economic development promises upstate.
Nixon, a first-time candidate, had not been fazed by the numbers and said such polls aren't reaching those who will turn out for her on Election Day
Nixon happily chatted with voters while on the subway en route to voting in the primary
Nixon also took time to greet voters in Union Square on Election Day in New York on Thursday
Nixon, who has promised to raise taxes and fight for single-payer health care and universal rent control, also said Cuomo hasn't done enough to push forward progressive policies.
'I voted for him eight years ago because I remembered his dad,' Nixon, referring to the late former Gov Mario Cuomo, said during a Brooklyn rally on Saturday.
'And because I believed that he was a Democrat, the way he said he was,' she added.
'But what happened? Since he's taken office, he seems to have forgotten that he's a Democrat. He's governed like a Republican.'
Sandra Lee gives Cuomo a kiss after they vote in the New York Democratic primary Thursday
Cuomo's campaign has spent little time focusing on Nixon as the Governor has focused on portraying himself as a direct opponent to President Donald Trump
Cuomo's campaign has spent little time focusing on Nixon as the Governor has focused on portraying himself as a direct opponent to President Donald Trump.
'I am the most aggressive governor in the United States of America in taking him on,' Cuomo said during a speech on Monday, failing to mention Nixon's name even once.
'This Thursday the 13th, we're going to make it an unlucky day for Donald Trump... let's fight back and let's show him that his nonsense doesn't sell here'
At a different rally, Cuomo mentioned his feud with Trump and asked voters to reject the president by giving their vote to him.
Polls opened in the Big Apple and its suburbs at 6am on Tuesday and were open across the rest of the state at noon. The polls will close at 9pm
A new survey released on Monday showed that Nixon was far behind in the race, with Cuomo leading by 41 points. Pictured is a woman exiting a polling station in Brooklyn
'The president says, "I'm fighting with Gov Cuomo but it's just Gov Cuomo that I'm fighting with, just Gov Cuomo - everybody else agrees with me'", Cuomo recalled.
'I want you to come out Thursday and vote for me. And I want, when you fill in that little hole there on that little ballot, I want you to be saying "No, President Trump, it's not just Andrew who disagrees with you. Every decent New Yorker disagrees with you."'
'When I stand up, I stand up for every person in New York and every Democrat in New York and every reasonable person in New York,' Cuomo said in another rally on Wednesday night.
'And when you come after me, you come after the State of New York and we're not going to let it happen.'
But behind the scenes, Cuomo has taken Nixon as a serious threat.
Four years ago he largely ignored primary challenger Zephyr Teachout, refusing even to shake her hand, and lost a third of the vote.
Every major poll has Cuomo, who has been endorsed by Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton, ahead by at least 30 points
Cuomo has spent $16million of his $31million campaign fund to stall Nixon's efforts
This year he's spent millions on ads, marshaled key endorsements and, intentionally or not, moved to the left on issues such as legalizing marijuana, banning plastic bags, returning voting rights to former inmates, and addressing conditions in New York City public housing.
And Cuomo has spent $16million of his $31million campaign fund to stall Nixon's efforts, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Nixon, meanwhile, has spent around $2million on her own campaign.
Despite his hefty war chest, Cuomo has turned out to be one of his campaign's biggest liabilities.
The governor was mocked weeks ago after he declared that America was 'never that great' while criticizing Trump during a speech.
And Cuomo came under fire after a Democratic Party mailer falsely claimed that Nixon was 'silent on the rise of anti-Semitism'.
Cuomo claimed to have no knowledge of the mailer, despite his control of the party and a recent $2.5million contribution to its campaign operations.
Party Director Geoff Berman later said the mailer was a mistake, and Cuomo's spokeswoman acknowledged that a Cuomo campaign worker was behind the piece.
Nixon's biggest scandal, it seems, has been when she dared to order cream cheese and lox on a cinnamon raisin bagel last week - sending the internet into a frenzy.
The winner of the primary will face Republican Dutchess County Executive Marc Molinaro, Green Party candidate Howie Hawkins and former Syracuse Mayor Stephanie Miner, an independent, in the November general election.
Nixon, who has promised to raise taxes and fight for single-payer health care and universal rent control, said Cuomo hasn't done enough to push forward progressive policies
Thursday's primary also features a four-way Democratic contest for attorney general, which is being closely watched because of the office's ability to investigate Trump and his business and charity dealings.
New York City Public Advocate Tish James, who has Cuomo's support, faces Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney, attorney Leecia Eve and Teachout, a Fordham University law professor who has Nixon's endorsement.
James was the early frontrunner but Monday's Siena poll suggests she's now nearly neck-and-neck with Maloney and Teachout.
Whoever wins that race would be heavily favored against Republican Keith Wofford in November.
Several competitive primaries for the state Legislature will also be decided, including some high-profile contests featuring challengers hoping to retire state senators who were former members in the Independent Democratic Conference.
The Independent Democratic Conference is a now defunct faction that broke with mainline Democrats to support Republican control of the chamber.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has blasted the charged Senate confirmation process for Supreme Court pick Brett Kavanaugh as a 'highly partisan show.'
The liberal Ginsburg denounced the process, which many court observers have blasted as broken, during an event at George Washington Wednesday on a day when Democrats who were virtually shut out of the confirmation process bombarded the nominee with 1,200 questions on issues ranging from gambling to his days as a clerk in a fruitless effort to slow down Kavanaugh's nomination.
'The way it was, was right. The way it is, is wrong,' Ginsburg said at the GW Law School, the Washington Times reported, drawing applause from a crowd.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg blasted the modern confirmation process as a 'highly partisan show'
Asked how things had changed since her own confirmation under the Clinton administration, the octogenarian responded: 'The atmosphere in 93 was truly bipartisan.'
'The vote on my confirmation was 96 to 3 even though I had spent about 10 years of my life litigating cases under the auspices of the ACLU and I was on the ACLU board and one of their general counsel,' she said, referencing the American Civil Liberties Union.
'My White House handlers asked me questions about my ACLU affiliation. They were very nervous about it. And I said forget it, just forget it, nothing you can do can lead me to bad-mouth the ACLU,' she recalled.
Ginsburg noted that the late Justice Antonin Scalia was confirmed unanimously. The judge President Obama picked to replace him didn't get a hearing
Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh's hearings were inundated with interruptions by protesters and stalling efforts by Democrats angry about the process and thousands of his documents that were kept confidential
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) delayed a hearing on Judge Merrick Garland for 10 months, keeping a vacancy open for President Donald Trump to fill early in his term
Ginsburg said the confirmation process was better in the past, although recent decades also featured some bitter confirmation fights, including the one over Justice Clarence Thomas
'And not a single question. No senator asked me any question about that,' She said.
'It was the same for Justice [Stephen] Breyer who was nominated a year later. Or think of Justice Scalia, who was certainly a known character He had been a law professor and written many things. He had been on the D.C. Circuit [Court of Appeals].'
'The vote was unanimous. Every Democrat and every Republican voted for him. But thats the way it should be. Instead of what its become, a highly-partisan show,' she concluded.
Ginsburg was confirmed on a 96-3 vote in the Clinton administration
Apart from saying things were better in the past, Ginsburg did not sort through the series of actions and counter-actions that helped bring about the modern slug-fest of Supreme Court confirmation hearings.
Kavanaugh's hearing featured a series of angry disruptions from protesters demanding Democrats vote 'no.' Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats themselves tried to make a series of motions to adjourn after tens of thousands of Kavanaugh documents were made available only hours before the hearing.
New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker released confidential documents in protest of the process, declaring it an 'I am Spartacus moment' that the GOP denounced as presidential grandstanding.
Trump selected the highly-credentialed and conservative nominee to replace Justice Anthony Kennedy, who for years was the swing vote on 5:4 court decisions. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell held up the last Democratic nominee, Merrick Garland, for ten months when President Obama nominated him. Garland never got a hearing. He serves on the same D.C. Circuit where Kavanaugh serves and Scalia, whose death created the vacancy, once served.
Republicans ended the ability of the minority to filibuster Supreme Court nominations to push through the last Trump-nominated justice, Neil Gorsuch, creating a disincentive for the president to work for minority support. Prior to that, Democrats invoked the 'nuclear option' to end filibuster for lower court nominees, using the new power to install Obama nominees on the courts, a strategy Trump has followed during his own tenure.
'If the Republicans move in lock-step, so do Democrats. I wish I could waive a magic wand and have it go back to the way it was,' Ginsburg said.
The adorable moment a Texas dog was reunited with her owner has been captured in a sweet video.
Earlier this month, Nancy Spadoni returned home from a 10-month deployment with the Navy to Afghanistan. Her wife, Aimee Beasley-Spadoni, captured the heartwarming moment Nancy was reunited with their dog Remy.
In the video, posted to Aimee's Facebook page, Remy is seen lying on top of Nancy licking her face as Nancy laughs and hugs the tiny pup.
Missed you: A Texas woman captured the heartfelt moment their dog Remy welcomed Nancy Spadoni home
Remy was so excited to see her owner that she jumped on the woman and showered her kisses
At one point in the video, Remy jumped off Nancy Spadoni but hopped back on her to give her more kisses
Remy is clearly excited to see her owner. The dog jumps off Nancy but quickly hops back on her chest to give her more kisses.
Remy is heard 'crying' in the video as she jumps on and off Nancy.
'Listen to her crying,' Aimee says. 'Oh my gosh, she's kissing you. She's laid out on you.'
'I know, I know,' Nancy says, trying to soothe the excited dog. 'I know sweetheart. I missed you so much... Hi sweet girl.'
Aimee Beasley-Spadoni (right) said her wife Nancy Spadoni (left) is in the Navy and was deployed in Afghanistan for the past 10 months
Aimee told The Dodo that she and Remy would FaceTime with Nancy while she was deployed.
'I could tell Remy missed her,' she said.
Aimee said in the days since Nancy came home, Remy's excitement has not waned.
'She hardly leaves Nancy's side when she is home and seems to be giving her extra kisses,' she said.
The future of world heritage site, Bleinheim Palace, has been assured after the High Court opened the way for millions to be ploughed into its conservation.
The funds are set to be generated by a land sale, which will go towards the preservation of the site.
The palace was originally given to the 1st Duke of Marlborough by Queen Anne in 1705 in recognition of victories that established Britain as a world power.
Blenheim Palace (above) is a monumental country house in Oxfordshire. It is the residence of the Dukes of Marlborough, and the only non-royal, non-episcopal country house in England to hold the title of palace
Since then, by Act of Parliament, the palace has been held in trust for Duke after Duke and is currently the home of the 12th, Jamie Spencer-Churchill.
Jamie Spencer-Churchill (pictured) is the 12th Duke of of Marlborough
Maintaining the palace is a huge task and the family has set up a heritage foundation with a view to spending 40million on its conservation.
A judge's ruling today means that a large chunk of that money can come from the sale of 166 agricultural acres in nearby Woodstock for housing.
The majority of the profits from the sale will go to the Blenheim Palace Heritage Foundation and will be used to maintain the palace as a national treasure.
The palace hold various events throughout the year. Pictured above the bands of the Scots, Irish and Welsh Guards are gathered in the Great Court at Blenheim Palace
When family trustees bought the farmland in Woodstock in 1986, it was tenanted, with its market value worth around 1,000 an acre.
However, in May this year, West Oxfordshire District Council granted outline planning permission for construction of 300 new homes on the land.
Judge Matthew told the High Court that this would mean it is worth between 90 and 100 times its value as agricultural land.
The snag, however, was a condition attached to the planning permission that 70 per cent of the profits must go to conserving the palace.
The main beneficiaries of the family trust which owns the land are the heir presumptive to the Dukedom, Lord Blandford, and his younger brother, Caspar, aged 10.
The trustees only had power to benefit them and David and Maximilian Gelber, grandsons of the 11th Duke who established the trust.
Blenheim palace (above) is the birthplace and family home of wartime Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill
Trustees had to go to court as they had no power to reach an agreement with the council that would see profits from the land sale go to the foundation.
Coming to their aid, Judge Marsh ruled there were 'compelling reasons' why the trustees should be granted power to do a deal with the council.
Unlocking the land's full development potential would leave the trust in a 'hugely improved financial position' and 'benefit future generations of the family.'
Jamie Spencer-Churchill makes a speech before the unveiling of a bust of Sir Winston Churchill in the grounds of Blenheim Palace
He highlighted that paying 70 per cent of the profits from the land sale to the foundation might, at first, appear to be 'bold step'.
But David Gelber had told the court of the family's commitment to maintaining Blenheim as 'a place of immense natural beauty and significant historic and architectural interest'.
He said: 'My understanding is that the members of our family have always felt a moral obligation to support Blenheim as an asset of the nation from which our family have derived significant benefit.
Blenheim Palace first opened its doors to the public in 1950
'We are therefore keen that the foundation should have sufficient funds to ensure that the World Heritage Site Management Plan can be carried out for the public benefit.'
Judge Marsh granted the trustees power to enter into a deed of covenant with the council so that 70 per cent of the land sale profits will go to the foundation.
The court heard no precise value has yet been put on the development land, which will depend on the number of affordable homes required by planners.
A retired NYPD detective and his wife have been named as the ringleaders of a police-led prostitution and gambling ring.
Ludwig Paz, 51, and Arelis Peralta from Queens, New York, were indicted on Thursday along with seven active duty NYPD officers.
Prosecutors say they ran a prostitution ring which consisted of brothels across Brooklyn, Queens and Long Island, and illegal gambling rooms hidden in beauty salons.
Over the course of 13 months, the scheme allegedly pocketed them $2million. The brothels charged patrons $40 for 15 minutes of sexual activity and $160 an hour.
Paz and Peralta, who have children together, are said to have run seven of eight brothels between September 2016 and 2017.
Retired Vice detective Ludwig Paz, 51, and his wife Arelis Peralta have been charged with running a prostitution ring across Queens, Brooklyn and Long Island
He allegedly used his police knowledge to evade detection by making sure any new clients who visited the brothel took off their clothes before they got inside, ruling out the chance that any undercover cops had come because police officers are not allowed to expose their genitals when dealing with prostitutes while on duty.
He also, it is alleged, paid active duty cops for information so he was able to avoid being raided.
Paz and his wife were arrested along with seven active duty cops; Rene Samaniego, 43, Sergeant Carlos Cruz, 41, Giovanny Rojas Acosta, 40, Sergeants Cliff Nieves, 37, Steven Nieves, 32, Giancarlo Raspanti and Sergeant Louis Failla.
In total, however, 49 people were charged.
The investigation began in September 2015 after NYPD detectives received a tip-off about an operation.
Over the course of two years, they used wire taps to monitor the group and dismantle the operation.
According to police, Peralta and her husband also operated illegal lottery betting services out of beauty salons
The couple are said to have made $2million from the scheme over a year. They are pictured on a tropical vacation
Paz and his wife have enjoyed a lavish lifestyle over the last several years.
Social media photographs show them on South American vacations and in nightclubs surrounded by bottles of champagne.
Paz, Samaniego, Cruz and Rojas Acosta were all charged with enterprise corruption.
The Nieves brothers were charged with promoting prostitution and operating a brothel for the sole purpose of hosting a bachelor party.
Raspanti is accused of providing Paz with confidential police information in exchange for discounted sex at a brothel, and Failla is charged in connection with allegedly assisting Paz following a brothel raid.
Peralta is charged with enterprise corruption, fifth-degree conspiracy and first-degree promoting gambling.
Police say Paz used his knowledge of the police force to stop raids and even paid active duty cops in discounts at the brothels for inside information
The couple, who have two children, ran seven of the eight brothels, according to police
Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said: 'The vast majority of NYPD police officers are honest and dedicated to enforcing and upholding the law.
'However, todays indictments of one former detective and seven current police officers of the NYPD dishonor the badge.
'The main culprit in this case - a retired detective - allegedly used his knowledge of the inner workings of the New York City Police Department to run a string of brothels in Queens, Brooklyn and Hempstead, Long Island.
'These operations stop today.'
Police Commissioner ONeill added: 'These NYPD officers, who swore an oath to uphold ideals greater than themselves, have ruined their own careers and reputations.
'More importantly, they have diminished the great work of tens of thousands of other honest and ethical cops.'
Two former high school swimming stars found dead in a burned-out car on Monday in upstate New York were both shot in what appeared to be a targeted attack, police revealed on Thursday.
The bodies of Alexander Allen Cease Burrow, 20, and Bruce Kane, 18, were discovered inside the gutted red Ford Focus sedan behind a warehouse in Hamlin. However, the medical examiner has not yet revealed their cause of death.
Police want to speak to the driver of a dark-colored pick-up truck that made a U-turn by a convenience store during the time the crime is thought to have occurred, reported The Democrat and Chronicle.
The bodies of Alexander Allen Cease Burrow, 20, (left) and Bruce Kane, 18, (right) were discovered inside the gutted red Ford Focus sedan behind a warehouse in Hamlin
'Because of the proximity of the store to the crime, we do want to speak to that operator of that vehicle and see if perhaps they saw something out of the ordinary that could help us with this investigation,' said Chief Deputy Michael Fowler of the Monroe County Sheriff's Office.
Police do not think the driver was involved in the murders, which they believe were 'an isolated incident'.
It appeared Kane, from Sweden, was driving the Ford Focus while Burrow, of Clarkson, was a passenger. The car was registered to Kane's father and caught fire at some point between Saturday afternoon and Monday morning, cops said.
Both men swan on the Brockport High School swim team and set the 200-yard freestyle relay record at a 2016 meet.
It appeared Kane, ( from Sweden, was driving the Ford Focus while Burrow, of Clarkson, was a passenger
Burrow (pictured) graduated in 2016 and was going into his second year at the University of Buffalo
Burrow graduated in 2016 and was going into his second year at the University of Buffalo.
His brother, Shane Cease, called him the 'light of everybody's world'. 'This kid was willing to give you the shirt off his back,' he added.
Courtney DiGennaro, a friend, messaged him after hearing about the car fire to check if he was ok, but the message was never returned.
Brockport Central School District tweeted its condolences on Wednesday.
'We are saddened to learn of the loss of two former students. Bruce Kane graduated from BHS this past June and Alex Burrow in 2016. We offer our heartfelt condolences to the families, friends and all those affected by this tragedy. Counselors will be available throughout the week.'
Kane graduated from the high school in 2018. A vigil for both men will be held on Sunday.
Anyone with information can phone the tip line on (585) 753-4175.
The Vatican press office was skewered by Twitter users on Thursday for releasing a photo showing Pope Francis grinning along with US cardinals and bishops during an emergency meeting to address a church sex scandal.
In the handout image from the Vatican Media, the Holy Father looks to be in a jovial mood while talking to Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, of Galveston-Houston, who leads the US Conference of Bishops, Cardinal Sean O'Malley, Archbishop of Los Angeles Jose Horacio Gomez and Monsignor Brian Bransfield, of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.
All five clergyman in the photo taken before a private audience to address the groping allegations against former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick appear to be smiling or laughing.
Something's funny? Users on Twitter were up in arms about this photos released by the Vatican Media showing Pope Francis and his US bishops and cardinals grinning during Thursday's meeting to discuss a sexual abuse scandal within the church
To make matters worse, the focal point of the image is a statuette decorating the Pope's desk, which depicts a man in a long tunic with his arm draped around a young boy.
Critics on Twitter were quick to seize upon the jolly mood captured in the photo, which they argued was tone-deaf given the serious nature of the meeting.
'Here is @Pontifex merry as all get out! Laughing past the graveyard...' one user wrote.
One irked commenter fired off: 'they look like they're having a good time talking about rape.'
Twitter user Kevin O'Higgins lashed out at Vatican officials for allowing this image to be made public.
'Whoever in Vatican's Press Office decided this was an appropriate depiction of today's meeting should be fired,' he fumed.
The Pope this morning accepted the resignation of West Virginia Bishop Michael Bransfield and gave the green light to launch an investigation into allegations that Bransfield sexually harassed adults.
The news came just as the highly anticipated emergency meeting between Francis and US cardinals and bishops was getting under way in the Vatican to address the McCarrick scandal.
After the audience, Cardinal Daniel DiNardo released a statement calling the meeting 'fruitful' and saying the US Catholic Church and Vatican will work together to determine the next steps.
'We are grateful to the Holy Father for receiving us in audience. We shared with Pope Francis our situation in the United States - how the Body of Christ is lacerated by the evil of sexual abuse. He listened very deeply from the heart,' DiNardo stated. 'It was a lengthy, fruitful, and good exchange.
'As we departed the audience, we prayed the Angelus together for God's mercy and strength as we work to heal the wounds. We look forward to actively continuing our discernment together identifying the most effective next steps.'
DiNardo made no mention of his earlier plans to ask Francis to authorize a Vatican investigation into McCarrick's case.
Bransfield had been implicated in 2012 in an infamous Philadelphia priestly sex abuse case, but he denied ever abusing anyone and claimed vindication years ago. He continued with his ministry until he offered to retire, as required, when he turned 75 last week.
Pope Francis poses with Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, Archbishop of Galveston-Houston, Archbishop of Los Angeles Jose Horacio Gomez, Cardinal Sean Patrick O'Malley, Archbishop of Boston, and Monsignor Brian Bransfield, General Secretary of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, during a private audience at the Vatican Thursday
Thursday's emergency meeting was called to address a sexual abuse scandal involving a disgraced former American cardinal
The Vatican said Francis accepted his resignation this morning, announcing the decision at the exact moment that the US delegation was arriving at the Apostolic Palace for the meeting with the pope.
Francis appointed Baltimore Bishop William Lori to take over Bransfield's Wheeling-Charleston diocese temporarily. Lori said in a statement that Francis had also instructed him to 'conduct an investigation into allegations of sexual harassment of adults against Bishop Bransfield.'
Lori set up a hotline for potential victims to call, and vowed to conduct a thorough investigation into what he said were 'troubling' claims against Bransfield.
The revelation was the latest development in a stunning turn of events in the US that began with the June 20 announcement that one of the most prestigious US cardinals, Theodore McCarrick, had been accused of groping a teenage altar boy in the 1970s.
Francis removed McCarrick as a cardinal in July after a US church investigation found the allegation credible. After news broke of the investigation, several former seminarians and priests came forward to report that they too had been abused or harassed by McCarrick as adults.
Pope Francis on Thursday accepted the resignation of West Virginia Bishop Michael Bransfield, pictured on the left speaking to then-Pope Benedict XVI on his 83rd birthday in 2010
Francis has authorized an investigation into allegations that Bishop Bransfield (pictured in 2005) sexually harassed adults
The McCarrick affair - coupled with revelations in the Pennsylvania grand jury report detailing decades of abuse and cover-up in six dioceses - has fueled outrage among the rank-and-file faithful who had trusted church leaders to reform themselves after the abuse scandal first erupted in Boston in 2002.
On Tuesday, Archbishop Georg Gaenswein, private secretary to Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, described sexual abuse against minors by clergy as the church's 'own 9/11'.
The outrage has also been directed at Francis and the Vatican, and has fueled conservative criticism of Francis' pontificate.
According to the results of a new poll published by CNN on Wednesday, Pope Francis's popularity has nosedived in the US recently.
The poll showed that only 48 per cent of Americans in general supported the Argentinian pontiff and his popularity has also plummeted among US catholics to 63 per cent from 83 per cent 18 months ago.
A former ambassador to the Holy See, Monsignor Carlo Vigano, has even called on the pontiff himself to resign, accusing him of covering up for McCarrick.
Pope Francis shakes hands on Thursday with Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, who had requested the papal audience last month
The Vatican hasn't responded to allegations by Archbishop Vigano that Francis effectively rehabilitated McCarrick from sanctions imposed by Pope Benedict XVI over allegations McCarrick would routinely invite seminarians to his beach house and into his bed.
Francis has, however, responded to the overall scandal with a series of initiatives aimed at trying to convince the faithful that he 'gets it' and is prepared to take measures to put an end to what he has called the 'culture of cover-up' in the church.
The head of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, Houston Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, had requested the papal audience last month following revelations that McCarrick had risen through church ranks even though the allegations of sexual misconduct were known in US and Vatican circles.
DiNardo requested a full-fledged Vatican investigation into the McCarrick affair, and said he also wanted answers to allegations that a string of Vatican officials knew of McCarrick's misdeeds since 2000, but turned a blind eye.
DiNardo said he wanted to present a 'plan of action' to the pope to make reporting of abuse and misconduct by bishops easier.
Referring to the McCarrick case, DiNardo called for a 'prompt and thorough examination... into how the grave moral failings of a brother bishop could have been tolerated for so long and proven no impediment to his advancement.'
DiNardo requested a Vatican investigation into allegations that Vatican officials knew that Cardinal Theodore McCarrick (pictured in 2015) had been accused of groping a teenage altar boy in the 1970s but chose to turn a blind eye
In the US, a group of 5,000 Catholic chief executives have frozen $820,000 in funds paid annually to the Holy See pending clarification of the sex abuse cases.
On the eve of the US audience, Francis announced he was summoning the presidents of bishops conferences around the world to a February summit to discuss prevention measures and protection of minors and vulnerable adults.
The surprise announcement was largely dismissed as a belated damage control effort by victims' advocates.
Church historians questioned why such an urgent problem was being scheduled for discussion six months from now with the very bishops who are blamed for much of the scandal.
'Where are the laity and others who might provide both new and uncomplicit voices and insights into the process?' asked Margaret Susan Thompson, associate professor of history at Syracuse University.
Monsignor Carlo Vigano, former ambassador to the Holy See, has even called on the pontiff to resign, accusing him of covering up for McCarrick
Even DiNardo's own record on protecting children has now come into question. On the eve of his audience with Francis, The Associated Press reported that two victims in Houston had accused him of not doing enough to stop a priest who was arrested this week on sexual abuse charges.
The archdiocese issued a statement Wednesday confirming that both people had come forward to report abuse by the priest, the Rev. Manuel LaRosa-Lopez, one of them in 2001.
The priest is now the pastor at St. John Fisher Catholic Church in Richmond while also serving as the archdiocese's episcopal vicar for Hispanics.
Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) today denounced the refusal by the Myanmar leadership to accept responsibility for its part in the brutal and systematic killing and displacement of thousands of Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine state. The following statement is attributable to PHRs director of programs, Homer Venters, MD, and is in reaction to comments made by Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi today at the World Economic Forum:
Aung San Suu Kyis comments today, defending the militarys violent crackdown in August 2017, on the Rohingya population of Rakhine state, calling it an attempt to ensure rule of law directly contradict the findings of an independent United Nations investigation which stated that top commanders in the Myanmar military should face prosecution for crimes against humanity and war crimes.
We, at Physicians for Human Rights, have sent teams of independent medical experts to Bangladesh on four different occasions since October 2017, and have conducted our own independent forensic investigations and epidemiological surveys into what took place in Myanmar in August of that year. We found that widespread and systematic human rights violations were committed, which forced at least 720,000 Rohingya to flee their homes in Myanmar and seek refuge in Bangladesh. Countless murders took place. Torture, rape, sexual violence and enforced disappearances all happened with impunity. These atrocities must be investigated and prosecuted as crimes against humanity.
It is long overdue for the Myanmar government, and Suu Kyi as its leader, to finally acknowledge the grave and brutal events that took place in Rakhine state. It must take responsibility for its part in the bloodshed, and put measures in place to ensure the security of all its people, including the Rohingya. For Suu Kyi to say that the situation could have been handled better or to describe what happened in August 2017 as anything other than a calculated and systematic attack campaign, is nothing but dishonest.
Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) is a New York-based advocacy organization that uses science and medicine to prevent mass atrocities and severe human rights violations. Learn more here.
Retirement could be consigned to history as workers stay in their jobs for their entire lives, the Bank of England governor claimed today.
Mark Carney warned that as the economy changes in a new industrial revolution there would be a need for more education and training in later life.
He said the elderly could become effectively unemployed instead of retired as new technology comes on stream.
The Bank of England chief's remarks to the Bank of Ireland today came as he was under a storm of criticism from Brexiteers for outlining an apocalyptic no deal scenario to the Cabinet yesterday.
Jacob Rees-Mogg, the influential leader of Brexiteer Tory MPs, accused the Governor of acting like a 'screaming banshee'.
Mr Carney outlined a stress test for banks imagining a 30 per cent plunge in house prices, spiralling unemployment, higher interest rate and booming inflation.
Bank of England Governor Makr Carney (pictured today in Ireland) has warned that a no-deal Brexit could be as disastrous as the 2008 financial crash
In a lecture at the Republic of Ireland's central bank in Dublin, Mr Carney predicted the 21st Century revolution in the economy would be different to the past.
He said: 'Unlike in the previous industrial revolutions, the more rapid pace of adjustment and longer working lives means workers may not have the option of retiring.
'This raises risks of substantial skills mismatch, leading to increased structural unemployment and adverse macroeconomic outcomes.'
Mr Carney focused on the challenge to traditional employment posed by technology and the use of artificial intelligence.
He said those without the skills to exploit the move towards roles geared to originality or emotional intelligence could be left unemployed.
Employers and societies will also have to deal with the decrease in the labour supply produced by an ageing population.
The governor raised the role of innovation in education to try to prevent a skills mismatch.
He said: 'The biggest issue may be how to institutionalise retraining in mid-career and to integrate it with the social welfare system.'
Jacob Rees-Mogg (pictured in Westminster on Wednesday) said the Governor was acting like a 'screaming banshee'
In his lecture, Mr Carney also defended his doom-laden Cabinet briefing on no deal Brexit. The Bank of England chief was lashed as a 'cracked record' today after details of his rare invitation to brief Theresa May's ministers emerged.
But he said: 'Our job, after all, is not to hope for the best but to plan for the worst.'
He warned 'uncertainty around Brexit has had an additional dampening effect' on the economy.
But Brexiteers reacted with fury today after Mr Carney's speech to Cabinet emerged.
Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Tory in charge of the powerful European Research Group, told MailOnline: 'The Governor of the Bank of England is meant to be able to influence events through the modest movement of his eyebrows, not by imitating a screaming banshee.'
Brexiteer Nigel Evans told MailOnline it was the same gloomy story from Mr Carney.
He said: 'The Governor's pronouncements should be known as Carneyage - that's when you predict doom, gloom and mayhem and get it wrong every time.
Mr Carney (pictured yesterday leaving Downing Street) told yesterday's no deal Cabinet that crashing out could produce a recession worse than the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis
'He consistently predicted Armageddon before the referendum if we voted leave and he got it wrong and he is playing the same dreary cracked record again.
'Unemployment has fallen every month, we have record employment and a huge surge in exports- in my patch they are building houses at record numbers and this would not be happening if the house builders couldn't turn a profit.'
Tory MP Simon Clarke added: 'This is the latest in a series of scare stories designed to catastrophise about Brexit. At the Treasury Select Committee this week, we heard a new member of the Prudential Regulation Committee and veteran finance expert, Jill May, brand the Bank's scenarios extreme.
'It is high time we stopped dealing with Project Fear and focused on Project Fact.'
Mr Carney's Cabinet briefing emerged after it was claimed British business will be hit by a 'sledgehammer' of red tape and higher costs if the UK crashes out of Europe without a deal.
The CBI said a slew of new Government papers on how Britain would tackle a collapse in talks proved the dangers of failure in Brussels.
The prime minister was warned that house prices could fall over a three-year period in today's briefing
Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab (pictured arriving for the Cabinet meeting today ) has said he is still focused on getting a deal with the EU
The Prime Minister's (pictured yesterday in Downing Street) Brexit blueprint imagines Britain following EU rules on goods to maintain existing trade, while striking out in other areas such as services
The warnings came after Theresa May secured the agreement of her Cabinet to step up preparations for no deal.
A tranche of papers on the impact of crashing out of the EU says motorists would need new 5.50 international permits to use their cars on the continent.
They also warn that if negotiations with Brussels fail ex-pats might be forced to retake driving tests after March next year, as their UK ones will no longer be valid.
Britons with less than six months to run on their passports would also have to renew before travelling to the EU - while traditional-style British blue passports will not start being issued again until late in 2019.
The government played down fears that holidaymakers would be hit with swingeing roaming charges for using mobile phones in the EU - saying the biggest telecoms companies have agreed not to impose extra fees.
But in one of the most striking warnings, the documents predicted that the EU will refuse to share information with the UK about asteroids that could wipe out humanity.
The latest slew of 'technical' notices were published after Mrs May put ministers on notice at a special Cabinet meeting that large-scale 'no deal' Brexit plans will have to be activated if agreement has not been reached by mid-November.
Home Secretary Sajid Javid (left) and Trade Secretary Liam Fox (right) were at Downing Street for the Cabinet meeting today
Bank of England governor Mark Carney (pictured arriving for the Cabinet meeting) briefed ministers on preparations in the financial sector
The key revelations in the notices - designed to dispel EU doubts that the UK is really prepared to leave without a deal - included:
International Driving Permits, costing 5.50 each, would be required for the EU after March. The government will not start providing the permits until February next year - raising fears of chaos with huge numbers of people applying weeks before the deadline.
Ex-pats will need to get driving licences for the countries where they reside and could be required to take tests again.
UK passports will not refer to the EU from March - but the traditional blue versions will not start being issued until the end of next year.
Britain will be reliant on the United States for surveillance and tracking data on asteroids, dead satellites or other debris falling to earth after a no deal Brexit.
The Common Travel Area will be honoured whether there is a Brexit deal or not - meaning Irish citizens will be able to travel to and remain in the UK.
Reaction to yesterday's no deal notices was dominated by business warnings of the additional red tape likely to be imposed on firms.
CBI director general Carolyn Fairburn said no deal would be devastating for firms.
She warned: 'These notices make clear firms would be hit with a sledgehammer in the event of 'no deal'.
'They also illustrate the extent of the disruption consumers can expect if ideology wins over evidence.'
EU could refuse to share information on space debris after Brexit Britain could be left reliant on the United States for data on space debris crashing to earth after a no deal Brexit, Government papers suggested today (artist's impression) Britain could be left reliant on the United States for data on space debris crashing to earth after a no dealBrexit, Government papers suggested today. Theresa May has repeatedly insisted that a no deal Brexit would 'not be the end of the world'. But the EU is currently building a system designed to protect satellites from crashing into other equipment or debris. It also tracks material crashing back to earth on a 'scheduled or unscheduled basis'. Without a deal, the UK will no longer take part in the EU Space Surveillance and Tracking programme, the notice reveals. It says: 'If the UK leaves the EU in March 2019 with no agreement in place, the UK will not be eligible to participate in the EU Space Surveillance and Tracking programme. 'UK organisations will not therefore be able to contribute to providing services to the EU Space Surveillance and Tracking, to participate in the scientific and technical groups to develop the programme further or be able to receive grant funding to pay for UK involvement. 'The UK will continue to receive space, surveillance and tracking data from the United States of America.' Advertisement
Adam Marshall, director general of the British Chambers of Commerce said: 'Firms still need greater precision from the government in order to be able to plan ahead with confidence.
'Many companies tell us they are deeply concerned by the impression that key information they need in order to prepare for change is being held back due to political sensitivities as the party conference season commences.
'Speed, precision and clarity are of the essence so that businesses can prepare for change.'
Mike Cherry, chairman of the Federation of Small Businesses, said: 'With each release of the Government's technical notes, we get a clearer picture of how dangerous and damaging a sudden no-deal Brexit will be for our small businesses.'
Shadow Brexit Secretary Sir Keir Starmer said: 'We are less than 200 days until we leave the European Union and the Government still has no credible plan for Brexit. The Cabinet should be planning to negotiate a good deal for Britain, not planning for failure or blaming businesses for the Government's chaos.
'The only reason the Government is talking about no deal is because the Tory civil war on Europe prevents the Prime Minister from negotiating a good deal.
'With the clock ticking, Ministers should drop the irresponsible rhetoric and start putting jobs and the economy first.'
One of the papers confirms that 'International Driving Permits' would be needed across much of the EU if there is no deal.
'You may be turned away at the border or face other enforcement action, for example fines, if you don't have the correct IDP,' the document states.
The document says the government will only start providing IDPs at most Post Offices after February 1 next year - which could fuel concerns about an administrative log-jam for people wishing to travel to the continent.
Currently they can only be obtained from around 90 Post Offices nationwide or by mail order from two private companies.
There are two types of IDP required by EU countries, depending on whether they have ratified the 1949 or 1968 conventions on road traffic - meaning some travellers will need both permits.
Shadow Brexit Secretary Sir Keir Starmer warned 'we are less than 200 days until we leave the European Union and the Government still has no credible plan for Brexit'
Adam Marshall, director general of the British Chambers of Commerce said a no deal Brexit would ensnare business in red tape
Motorists could be away at borders or face enforcement action if they have not obtained the correct documents.
Driving licences may no longer be valid in the EU after no deal UK driving licences may no longer be valid on their own to drive in the European Union if there is a no-deal Brexit, the Government has warned. Drivers could need International Driving Permits (IDP) if the EU does not agree to recognise UK licences, according to new guidance. They may be turned away at borders or face enforcement action if they have not obtained the correct documents. There are two types of IDP required by EU countries, depending on whether they have ratified the 1949 or 1968 conventions on road traffic. This means some itineraries will require both permits, such as when people drive into France and then Spain. The documents cost 5.50. The 1949 type is available over the counter at around 90 Post Office branches or by mail order from two private companies. The mail order service will cease on January 31, and the Government will begin providing IDPs the following day. Motorists will be able to apply for both types at 2,500 Post Office branches across the UK. Advertisement
The Department for Transport believes up to seven million permits could be requested in the first 12 months after Brexit.
The notice urges ex-pats to trade in their existing licences for one valid in the country where they live.
'If, after exit day, you become resident in an EU country you would not have the automatic right under EU law to exchange your UK licence for a driving licence from the EU country you're living in,' the paper says.
'Depending on the laws of the EU country you move to, you may need to take a new driving test in that country.'
Edmund King, president of motoring association AA, said: 'This will be an extra burden for UK drivers wanting to take a holiday abroad.
'We are also disappointed that from the end of January next year the AA will no longer be permitted to issue IDPs as we have done for decades. We had campaigned to maintain the right to issue these permits, but the Transport Secretary has decided that IDPs will only be issued at post offices.'
The assessment on passports says that if the UK has 'third party' status, EU countries could demand at least six months is left before their expiry date.
'To avoid any possibility of your adult British passport not complying with the Schengen Border Code we suggest that you check the issue date and make sure your passport is no older than nine years and six months on the day of travel,' it says.
Business minister Claire Perry (pictured) was also at the no-deal planning meeting in Downing Street today
Irish citizens will keep the right to enter and remain in the UK regardless of the Brexit outcome, the document says.
Blue passports will be issued from late 2019 Blue passports will be issued for the first time decades from late 2019, the no deal papers revealed. But the change may come as little comfort to travellers in a no deal scenario. The technical notices warn some UK citizens could be blocked from entering EU countries despite having a valid passport. Currently, there is no requirement for Britons travelling to the bloc to have a minimum or maximum amount of time left on their passports before they expire. But this could change if the UK departs on March 29 next year without a deal, according to a Government paper. Most EU countries are signed up to the Schengen Agreement, which allows passport-free travel. Although the UK is not a member, British citizens are currently able to enter the Schengen area if they have a valid passport, and there is no requirement to have a certain amount of time left before expiry, the Home Office guidance says. Advertisement
The paper also reveals that from next March the UK will start producing passports without a reference to the EU - and blue passports will be issued from the end of 2019.
Britain will be reliant on the United States for surveillance and tracking data on asteroids, dead satellites or other debris falling to earth after a no deal Brexit.
The EU is currently building a system designed to protect satellites from crashing into other equipment or debris.
It also tracks material crashing back to earth on a 'scheduled or unscheduled basis'.
Without a deal, the UK will no longer take part in the EU Space Surveillance and Tracking programme, the notice reveals.
Labour MP Jo Stevens said: 'It is deeply worrying that the UK will be shut out of some of the most cutting edge research in the world. This research provides thousands of high-tech jobs and provides the economy billions every year.
'Theresa May used to say wouldn't be the end of the world - but actually it could be!'
Britain's car manufacturers face new barriers to selling their vehicles into Europe if the UK crashes out without a deal.
They will have to get new EU safety certificates before they will be allowed to sell their cars into the lucrative market, as their car models would no longer be automatically recognised.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock (left) and Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt (right) were all smiles as the arrived for the no-deal discussions today
The Government paper says the firms will need to get the relevant documents from each EU country potentially creating a major bureaucratic nightmare for the sector.
French minister warns Eurostar would stop running after 'no deal' British planes and Eurostar trains could be turned away at the French border after a no deal Brexit, France's Europe Minster warned today. Nathalie Loiseau told a Chatham House event that the claims were 'correct' amid fears of travel chaos if no agreement is in place on Brexit day next year. Her warning comes days after Transport Secretary Chris Grayling irritated Brussels by asking all 27 EU countries to strike a backup side deal with Britain if there is no main Brexit deal. Pro-EU campaigners said it was 'shocking' that Britain faced travel 'gridlock' because of Brexit. Asked about the claims of chaos today, Ms Loisea said: 'If we reach no agreement this is what will happen, among other things.' Advertisement
The paper states: 'In a no deal scenario, type-approvals issued in the UK would no longer be valid for sales or registrations on the EU market.
'EC type-approvals issued outside of the UK, would no longer be automatically accepted on the UK market.
'This means that affected manufacturers would need to ensure that they have the correct type-approval for each market ...
'Manufacturers currently holding a VCA-issued [Vehicle Certification Agency-issued] EC type-approval, who intend to continue placing their products on the EU market, must obtain a new EC type-approval from a type-approval authority in an EU country.'
Manufacturers who produce goods that are not currently governed by EU-wide rules would face major new hurdles to export into Europe after a no deal.
Currently, anything that meets UK regulations but which is not subjected to harmonised EU rules can be sold anywhere in the single market. This is known as 'mutual recognition'.
The products involved include significant sectors for UK industry, including the historic textile trade and products such as bicycles an area which includes high profile British brands such as Brompton.
After a no deal Brexit, mutual recognition would no longer apply meaning goods would have to meet regulations in the country in which they are sold.
Mrs May has been under pressure over her Brexit plan with Boris Johnson (pictured running near his Oxfordshire home today) thought to be plotting a leadership challenge
Dominic Raab, UK exiting the European Union secretary, left and Michel Barnier, chief negotiator for the European Union, shake hands following a news conference in Brussels, Belgium, on 31 August
Because the products concerned are not subject to EU-wide rules, this could mean manufacturers having to meet 27 sets of regulation.
Exporters of bicycles and textiles could face hurdles after Brexit Manufacturers who produce goods that are not currently governed by EU-wide rules would face major new hurdles to export into Europe after a no deal. Currently, anything that meets UK regulations but which is not subjected to harmonised EU rules can be sold anywhere in the single market. This is known as 'mutual recognition'. The products involved include significant sectors for UK industry, including the historic textile trade and products such as bicycles an area which includes high profile British brands such as Brompton. After a no deal Brexit, mutual recognition would no longer apply meaning goods would have to meet regulations in the country in which they are sold. Because the products concerned are not subject to EU-wide rules, this could mean manufacturers having to meet 27 sets of regulation. Importers would also have to ensure non-harmonised good brought into Britain meet UK rules. Advertisement
Importers would also have to ensure non-harmonised good brought into Britain meet UK rules.
The notice on satellites and space programmes confirms the UK and British firms will be blocked taking on future work on Galilo, the EU's equivalent to GPS.
Devices that use the satellite network will continue to work as normal meaning consumers should see no impact.
But the UK will be excluded from encrypted parts of the system due to come online by the mid 2020s, despite British investment in the network.
Business, academics and researchers could also lose out and those with existing contracts are at risk of penalties.
The report confirms 92million has been set aside to explore the possibilities of a UK Global Navigation Satellite System but not to actually develop one.
The Home Office has published assurances that a no-deal Brexit will not alter the terms of the Common Travel Area which allows British and Irish citizens to live, work and receive welfare benefits in one another's countries.
In one of a set of no-deal preparation papers issued by the Government, the Home Office confirmed that the CTA, which dates back to the 1920s, would remain in place in the case of the UK leaving the EU without a deal.
'If you are an Irish citizen you would continue to have the right to enter and remain in the UK, as now,' said the paper.
'You are not required to do anything to protect your status.'
The reference to 'European Union' will be removed from UK passports (pictured right) from March - but traditional-style blue versions (pictured left) will not start being issued until the end of 2019
Where required, domestic legislation would be updated in the event of no deal, to guarantee reciprocal rights including the right to work, study and vote, access to social welfare benefits and health services.
Irish citizens will keep rights to live in UK even if Brexit talks fail Ministers said they are absolutely committed to maintaining the Common Travel Area between the UK and the Republic of Ireland (pictured, the Irish border) Irish citizens will still be allowed to live and work in Britain under the same rules as exist today if there is a no deal Brexit, the Government has promised. Ministers said they are absolutely committed to maintaining the Common Travel Area between the UK and the Republic of Ireland. And they sought to reassure anxious citizens that nothing would change even if the UK crashes out of the Brussels bloc. The pledge comes in a Government paper - one of 28 released today - detailing what is being done to prepare for a no deal Brexit. The paper states: 'If you are an Irish citizen you would continue to have the right to enter and remain in the UK, as now. You are not required to do anything to protect your status.' Advertisement
There would be 'no practical changes to the UK's approach to immigration on journeys within the CTA' and 'no routine immigration controls on journeys from within the CTA to the UK'.
Britons getting a divorce from an EU national or in a child custody battle face being stuck in limbo if Britain crashes out without a deal, the technical papers also war,
Currently, EU legislation covers civil courts meaning that judgements passed down by British courts are automatically recognised across the other 27 member states.
But a no deal Brexit would pull the plug on these agreements meaning 'there would be no agreed EU framework for ongoing civil judicial cooperation between the UK and EU countries'.
Ministers said they would scramble to put in place other laws, but warned Britons affected that they should seek legal advice.
It adds: 'We will seek to provide legal certainty for businesses, families and individuals who are involved in ongoing cases on exit day.
'Broadly speaking, cases ongoing on exit day will continue to proceed under the current rules.
'However, we cannot guarantee that EU courts will follow the same principle, nor that EU courts will accept or recognise any judgments stemming from these cases. Individuals with cases in progress on 29 March are encouraged to seek legal advice on how this may affect them.'
Meanwhile, Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab has opened another flank in the Brexit battle by threatening to slash the 39billion 'divorce bill' if Brussels refuses to compromise.
French minister for Europe Nathalie Loiseau (pictured) ramped up the rhetoric on a visit to London today, claiming that planes would be grounded and Eurostar trains would not run
The EU Commission President (pictured making his State of the Union address) said the EU would work 'day and night' for a close relationship after the UK quits the bloc
Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Mr Raab said one of the consequences of a no-deal Brexit 'is that obviously we wouldn't pay out the money that has been agreed as part of the withdrawal agreement'.
Cross-border divorces could be stuck in limbo by no deal Britons getting a divorce from an EU national or in a child custody battle face being stuck in limbo if Britain crashes out without a deal. Currently, EU legislation covers civil courts meaning that judgements passed down by British courts are automatically recognised across the other 27 member states. But a no deal Brexit would pull the plug on these agreements meaning 'there would be no agreed EU framework for ongoing civil judicial cooperation between the UK and EU countries'. Ministers said they would scramble to put in place other laws, but warned Britons affected that they should seek legal advice. It adds: 'We will seek to provide legal certainty for businesses, families and individuals who are involved in ongoing cases on exit day. 'Broadly speaking, cases ongoing on exit day will continue to proceed under the current rules. 'However, we cannot guarantee that EU courts will follow the same principle, nor that EU courts will accept or recognise any judgments stemming from these cases. Individuals with cases in progress on 29 March are encouraged to seek legal advice on how this may affect them.' Advertisement
The said the UK would 'recognise our strict legal obligations' but that the amount paid would be 'significantly, substantially lower' than the 39billion.
There are claims the figure could be more than halved if the EU blocks an agreement and the UK could slow down the timetable for paying the balance.
Mr Raab issued a stark warning to Tory Brexiteers - and some Remainers - who have criticised Mrs May's Chequers plan, saying they will merely increase the chances of a no-deal outcome.
'I do appreciate the concerns on all sides,' he said.
'But when push comes to shove, there will be the choice between the deal that I'm confident we can strike with the EU and the no deal scenario.
'We are making sure we are ready for the latter. But I think it would be by far the optimum outcome to have a negotiated deal, and I think that will focus everyone's minds.'
Mr Raab's comments echo Mrs May's statement yesterday that Britain's 39billion divorce offer to Brussels will be slashed if the EU fails to grant a comprehensive trade deal.
The Prime Minister insisted it was a 'specific offer' made on the expectation of an acceptable agreement.
She warned the bloc that without a deal 'the position changes'. Mrs May stressed that the UK was 'a country that honours our obligations'. But sources suggested the divorce payment could be slashed by more than half if there is no deal.
Mrs May said: 'The specific offer was made in the spirit of our desire to reach a deal with the European Union and on the basis, as the EU itself has said, that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. Without a deal, the position changes.'
Vodafone, Three, EE and O2, which account for 85 per cent of the market, have agreed the deal following months of talks with ministers.
The 45-a-month cap on mobile data in the EU will also remain, even if talks collapse.
What no deal Brexit papers have been published today? Here is a full list of the no deal Brexit preparation papers being released by the Government today: Connecting Europe Facility energy funding if theres no Brexit deal European Regional Development Funding if theres no Brexit deal European Social Fund (ESF) grants if theres no Brexit deal Funding for UK LIFE projects if theres no Brexit deal Driving in the EU if theres no Brexit deal Handling civil legal cases that involve EU countries if theres no Brexit deal Appointing nominated persons to your business if theres no Brexit deal Travelling with a European Firearms Pass if theres no Brexit deal Trading under the mutual recognition principle if theres no Brexit dea Trading goods regulated under the New Approach if theres no Brexit deal Vehicle type approval if theres no Brexit deal Accessing public sector contracts if theres no Brexit deal Broadcasting and video on demand if theres no Brexit deal Merger review and anti-competitive activity if theres no Brexit deal What telecoms businesses should do if theres no Brexit deal Data protection if theres no Brexit deal Industrial emissions standards (best available techniques) if theres no Brexit deal Reporting CO2 emissions for new cars and vans if theres no Brexit deal Upholding environmental standards if theres no Brexit deal Using and trading in fluorinated gases and ozone depleting substances if theres no Brexit deal Running an oil or gas business if theres no Brexit deal Trading in drug precursors if theres no Brexit deal Satellites and space programmes if theres no Brexit deal Getting an exemption from maritime security notifications if theres no Brexit deal Recognition of seafarer certificates of competency if theres no Brexit deal Mobile roaming if theres no Brexit deal Travelling in the Common Travel Area if theres no Brexit deal Travelling to the EU with a UK passport if theres no Brexit deal Advertisement
On driving licences, motorists will need a new international licence to use their cars in the EU in the event of no deal. The EU is likely to refuse to recognise UK driving licences if Brexit talks collapse, a Department for Transport document will state.
An international driving licence will be needed for anyone driving in the EU after March 29, for hiring or obtaining insurance, unless Brussels or individual member states waive the rules. To complicate matters, there are two types of permit and different versions could be needed for different countries.
Ministers say the UK will continue to recognise EU licences.
The Cabinet 'no deal' meeting today the first of its kind was told contingency plans will have to be activated in November in order to have them up and running in time for the UK's departure from the EU in March next year.
The timescale will intensify the pressure on both sides to strike a deal at a special EU Brexit summit now being pencilled in for the middle of November.
Ministers met for three and a half hours to discuss preparations for a no deal Brexit.
The PM's official spokesman said: 'Cabinet agreed that securing a deal with the EU based upon the Chequers white paper is the Government's firm aim and we are confident of success.
'However, as a responsible Government we need to plan for every eventuality.
'Cabinet agreed that no deal remains an unlikely but possible scenario for six months time.
'Departments have significantly increased no deal preparations in recent months. Cabinet agreed to further ramp up no deal preparations in the weeks and months to come to ensure the country is ready for all possible scenarios.'
Brussels is sceptical about Mrs May's willingness to leave without a deal. The new technical notices are designed to demonstrate to both Brussels and the public that the Government will be ready to leave at the end of March.
Bank of England government Mark Carney attended Cabinet today to give a briefing on preparations in the financial sector.
Mr Raab said: 'We are stepping up our no-deal preparations so that Britain can continue to flourish, regardless of the outcome of negotiations.'
Questioned in the House by Tory Chris Philp on whether the 39billion divorce bill would be withheld if there was no deal with the EU, Mrs May said Britain was a 'country that honours our obligations'.
But she insisted it was 'very clear that we need to have a link between the future relationship and the withdrawal agreement'.
'The specific offer was made in our desire to reach a deal with the European Union,' she said.
'And on the basis, as the EU themselves have said, that nothing is agreed until everything is agreed, without a deal the position changes.'
Roam free! Britons will NOT pay EU roaming charges even in the event of 'no deal', Brexit secretary says Free data roaming across the EU will continue even if Britain crashes out of the bloc without a deal, the government announced today. Ministers have struck a deal with Europe's four largest mobile operators - including Vodaphone and EE - to ensure there is no return to the rip-off fees of the past. The news came in a series of technical notices published on Thursday by Brexit secretary Dominic Raab, following on from a first series published in August. Britons will be free to use their mobile phones anywhere in the EU without incurring extra charges even after Brexit, the government has said Other areas covered by the documents include the impact of a no-deal scenario on standards relating to the environment and vehicles. The papers were published after a special meeting of the Cabinet focused on how a no-deal outcome could be handled. Advertisement
Two Russian assassins accused of trying to kill Russian double agent Sergei Skripal by putting deadly nerve agent Novichok on his door-handle were today interviewed on Russian State TV and said they were only tourists not killers.
The two suspected agents, believed to be from Siberia, told Russia Today they were stuck in Salisbury twice in two days after failing to get to Stonehenge because of snow.
In the 'absurd' interview the men even admitted they may have ended up at Sergei Skripal's suburban home 'by accident' while looking for the cathedral, which has a 400ft spire and is 25 minutes in the other direction.
The Russian assassins appeared to be regurgitating a script and intent on fixing their 'poker faces', a body language expert told MailOnline today.
Petrov was the most controlled and calm while Boshirov shows symptoms stress or anxiety, Judy James said.
The expert has watched the RT interview back and this is what she saw:
Alexander Petrov, right in CCTV footage, and Ruslan Boshirov, left, were named by British authorities as the suspects but insisted they are victims of a smear and were merely on holiday
Petrov sits slightly slumped rather than in a more alert, pleading style as you might do if you were trying to convince people of your innocent role. His arms and hands are hidden below the table.
This can be used as a body version of a 'poker face', when someone is keen to hide their hands in case they give the wrong signals away, but it can also be a desire to hide and feel protected by the table barrier.
His trait of turning his chair from side to side is interesting as it could signal nervousness or it could suggest a much more controlling impatience and annoyance. His eyes remain pinned to the interviewer throughout most of the clip with what looks like a confident, piercing stare.
When he closes his eyes and nods for an affirmative answer his emphatic facial gestures do suggest power rather than submission.
During their brazen TV appearance (pictured) the men claimed they now fear for their lives and demanded an apology from Britain and RT said they were so nervous they needed Cognac before going on air
Former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia (pictured together in Salisbury) were poisoned with Novichok after it was smeared on his front door
When we are in a state of stress or anxiety our blink rate often increases as the adrenalin of fear kicks in. Petrov's blink rate looks extremely slow here though. At one point he does almost five turns of his chair between blinks and this could again suggest inner strength or confidence.
When he is told they look nervous his upper lip seems to lift in a small snarl as though either the accusation annoys him or the fact his nerves have been prompted by events annoys him.
What were they doing in Salisbury? His eyes flick to the right which can suggest creative thinking, although he might have looked in that direction because he had known his friend was about to begin his travelogue of the beautiful sights of Salisbury on cue.
Boshirov is far more active during the clip and he also shows more symptoms of what could be nervousness. His first pose looks overall superficially more confident, sitting back in his chair with his elbows on the arms in a slight splay of control, but the movement of his upper chest suggests shallow rapid breathing that can occur when someone feels under pressure.
The two Skripal suspects Ruslan Boshirov (left) and Alexander Petrov (right) have spoken out for the first time and say they were just tourists enjoying the delights of Salibury
Alexander Petrov (left) and Ruslan Boshirov (right) have been accused by British police of being two Russian spies (pictured in their passport photos)
His blink rate is also much faster than his friend's and he takes several large swallows that could also be prompted by stress or anxiety.
He swings into action when they are accused of looking 'nervous', leaning forward suddenly with both arms on the table, performing a hand-shrug before linking his fingers and forming a steeple gesture with his thumbs, which is normally a signal of power or status.
Apparently frustrated, he puffs and shrugs before sitting back leaving one hand on the table.
His 'guide book' monologue about Salisbury comes after a very deep breath and a forward stare as though he's accessing an inner script in his head.
The pair claim they were only in Salisbury for an hour because of gaps in the Sunday train service to London and said if they stumbled upon Sergei Skripal's suburban house it was only by accident
The Nebraska parents of a little boy killed two years ago by an alligator announced that they have welcomed a baby boy into their family.
Matt and Melissa Graves revealed the happy news on Wednesday, telling media outlets that their newest bundle of joy was born last week.
The couple named their son Christian Lane Graves, in honor of their two-year-old son Lane Graves who was tragically killed in 2016 when he was attacked by an alligator at a Grand Floridian Resort lagoon during a family trip to Disney World in Florida.
'Although we know the pain of losing Lane will never go away, we feel God has blessed our family with this precious miracle of life,' the statement read.
Matt and Melissa Graves (pictured in September) announced they have welcomed a baby boy named Christian Lane Graves
In June 2016, the couple lost their two-year-old son Lane (pictured) when he was attacked by an alligator during a vacation to Disney World
The couple said Lane is a 'guardian angel' watching over their baby boy Christian and daughter Ella.
'The love and support we continue to receive from so many is greatly appreciated, but we ask that our desire for privacy continue to be honored,' the couple added.
Lane had been playing near the shoreline of Disney's Grand Floridian Resort and Spa on June 14, 2016 when an alligator pulled him into the lagoon. His father jumped into the water to rescue his son, and was attacked by a second alligator.
Authorities said trappers killed five alligators in the lagoon during their 16-hour search for Lane's body. The toddler's body was found, intact, several hours after the attack.
The couple said Lane (pictured as a baby in an older photo with his family) is a guardian angel watching over their son Christian and daughter Ella
Lane was playing in sand at the water's edge when a gator pulled him into the lagoon. The area has since been updated with signs warning visitors of alligators and snakes
The area where Lane was attacked had 'no swimming' signs posted, but nothing warning visitors of alligators. The signs have since been updated to warn people of gators and snakes.
In the wake of Lane's death, the family started The Lane Thomas Foundation, which helps cover expenses for families with children in need of life-saving organ transplants being treated at Nebraska Medicine or Omaha's Children's Hospital.
In June, the family remembered Lane on the second anniversary of his death posting a sweet photo to Facebook of Matt Graves embracing the smiling toddler in a tight hug.
'LT, we love you to heaven and down to the grass. Hug, kiss, ugga mugga. We will fight every day to keep your memory alive and make a positive difference in your name,' the family captioned the picture.
A top FEMA official defended the agency after a photo revealed millions of water bottles the agency had positioned on the island sitting on a runway a year after Hurricane Maria knocked out critical supply chains.
A FEMA administrator said the bottles, pictured on pallet after pallet on a Puerto Rican runway and covered in blue plastic, were deemed surplus.
FEMA deputy administrator Daniel Kaniewski told "CBS This Morning' that: 'Those are excess water bottles. Those were not needed during the response phase and were not distributed by the governor of Puerto Rico or FEMA for that reason.'
A top FEMA official defended the agency after a photo revealed millions of water bottles the agency positioned on the Puerto Rico sitting on a runway a year after Hurricane Maria devastated the island
The network posted aerial images posted by Abdiel Santana, of the United Forces of Rapid Action agency, a part of the Puerto Rican Police force.
Kaniewski defended the decision, amid a tense time for the agency, as President Trump lauded the agency's handling of the hurricane and disputed an analysis that put the death toll at nearly 3,000 people while Hurricane Florence started slamming into the Carolinas.
'I'm confident that those that needed those bottles of water got them during the response phase and these were excess bottles of water that were, again, transferred to save money for the American taxpayer in January,' Kaniewski said.
The water was deemed 'excess,' according to FEMA, and said they were transferred to save taxpayers' money
The bottled war gained attention after President Trump hailed the hurricane response as another storm prepared to wallop the Carolinas
Carlos Mercader, head of the Puerto Rico Federal Affairs Administration, said in a statement FEMA didn't deliver the bottles to the Puerto Rican government until April, USA Today reported. When 700 bottles were sent out, residents complained about the odor and they were deemed undrinkable.
Another FEMA official had told CBS: '"If [FEMA] put that water on that runway, there will be hell to pay ... If we did that, we're going to fess up to it.
Angel Cruz Ramos, the mayor of Ceiba, the town that includes the runway, told CNN it was too much water to be useful and came at the wrong time: "The time and heat has made it bad."
President Donald Trump lauded the Hurricane response and rejected the death toll of nearly 3,000.
The local mayor told CNN the heat spoiled the bottled water
Trump tweeted this week: 'We got A Pluses for our recent hurricane work in Texas and Florida (and did an unappreciated great job in Puerto Rico, even though an inaccessible island with very poor electricity and a totally incompetent Mayor of San Juan). We are ready for the big one that is coming!
Then on Tuesday, he hailed the Maria response, saying: 'I actually think it was one of the best jobs thats ever been with respect to what this is all about.'
Trump kept tweeting about the death toll on Thursday, as Hurricane Florence barreled toward the Carolinas.
President Donald Trump now says the accepted death toll from hurricanes that hit Puerto Rico in 2017 is inflated and claims Democrats are leveraging the number 'to make me look bad'
Puerto Ricans were left to dig themselves out of debris in the wake of Hurricane Maria last year in dangerous conditions after losing power, running water and cell phone service
'3000 people did not die in the two hurricanes that hit Puerto Rico,' the president tweeted.
'When I left the Island, AFTER the storm had hit, they had anywhere from 6 to 18 deaths. As time went by it did not go up by much. Then, a long time later, they started to report really large numbers, like 3000.'
'This was done by the Democrats in order to make me look as bad as possible when I was successfully raising Billions of Dollars to help rebuild Puerto Rico. If a person died for any reason, like old age, just add them onto the list. Bad politics. I love Puerto Rico!'
Half of Puerto Ricans surveyed in a Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation poll poll said they couldn't get enough water during the storm and were concerned about water quality.
Diane Abbott sparked anger by linking the Government's immigration policies to those of murderous African dictator Idi Amin.
The Shadow Home Secretary claimed Tory ministers were failing to treat migrants as humans and drew comparison with the racist Ugandan tyrant who expelled all Asians from his country.
The Labour MP also suggested the Conservative stance could lead to children being detained in 'cages' like on the US-Mexican border.
Last night opponents blasted the comments inserted at the last minute into a keynote address as 'outrageous'.
Diane Abbott has sparked anger by linking the Government's immigration policies to those of murderous African dictator Idi Amin
Idi Amin, who died in exile in Saudi Arabia in August 2003 aged 78, 'ethnically cleansed' up to 500,000 people in mass executions
Idi Amin, who died in exile in Saudi Arabia in August 2003 aged 78, 'ethnically cleansed' up to 500,000 people in mass executions and tribal purges in eight bloody years in the 1970s.
In 1972, after stirring up hatred against the wealthy Indians who controlled Uganda's economy, he gave them all a mere 90 days to leave the country.
Around 80,000 left in the mass expulsion, with a third of them coming to the UK as they already had British passports from when Uganda was a colony.
Miss Abbott made her remarks as she unveiled Labour's proposals to scrap the Government's immigration cap and let in unlimited numbers of overseas workers if there are UK skills shortages.
Condemning the Government's treatment of scores of members of the Windrush generation, who were wrongly detained or booted out of Britain, she said: 'How can this happen?
'The most important factor is that official policy, ministerial rhetoric and media coverage fails to treat migrants as people.
African dictator who expelled Asian people In August 1972, Idi Amin the tyrannical president of Uganda ordered the countrys Asian population to leave the country within 90 days. The wealthy community of around 80,000 people, mainly Gujaratis from India, had assumed a dominant role in the economy under the British rule which ended a decade earlier. Idi Amin (pictured) the tyrannical president of Uganda ordered the countrys Asian population to leave within 90 days After Uganda became independent in 1962, resentment grew against the remaining Indian population. Amin, pictured, stoked this hostility after taking dictatorial control in 1971, and a year later he expelled the entire Asian population for sabotaging Ugandas economy. Around 27,000 fled as refugees to the UK, where they could settle as they still had British passports. The rest mainly moved to India, Canada and neighbouring Kenya. Some smuggled their jewellery out of the country, which they sold to buy businesses in their new lands. Amin was ousted in 1978, and lived the rest of his life in exile. Advertisement
'And this goes all the way back to the debate about East African Asians under Idi Amin, what we have always seen is the other-isation of migrants. And we've seen it, I'm sorry to say under Labour and Conservative Governments.'
Miss Abbott also risked a backlash with extraordinary comments linking British immigration rules to the detention of child migrants by US president Donald Trump.She pledged not to deport or exclude from the UK family members of migrants already living here and insisted she would scrap the minimum income threshold for Britons who want to bring in non-EU spouses and children.
She said: 'I pledged to uphold the right to a family life. Some of you will have seen the TV pictures of Mexican children held in cages at the US-Mexican border.
'That is where paying no attention to the family and people's right to family union takes you and we are pledged to upholding the right to family values.'
Responding to her mentioning Idi Amin, Tory MP David Morris said: 'This comparison is outrageous and frankly offensive to all the victims of that brutal regime.
'Diane Abbott is either divorced from reality or shamelessly scaremongering. Either way, Labour cannot be taken seriously on immigration.'
Miss Abbott vowed that a Labour government would scrap 'meaningless' immigration caps and make it easier to enter Brexit Britain prompting concerns of a fresh immigration free-for-all. Any foreign worker with 'bona fide skills' would be allowed to come and work in UK as long as no British national could do the job.
But Lord Green, chairman of the MigrationWatch think-tank, which campaigns for controlled migration, stressed that under Labour net migration had tripled from around 50,000 in 1997 to some 150,000 in 1999.
He said: 'These proposals are incredible. Offering work visas to all who want to come here will spell the end of migration controls.' Meanwhile Immigration Minister Caroline Noles said Labour's new policy would 'tear up the rules for people coming from outside the EU which would allow more low-skilled immigration'.
A homeless father-of-three who had been living with sons inside a trashed, abandoned car for six months has received overwhelming show of support.
Local government institutions, celebrities and the public where taken aback by Tuesday's local Dominican Republic newscast interview of Julio Roberto Ramirez Abreu, which showed the inhumane living conditions the Dominican Republic native and his sons had been subjected to.
About six months ago, Abreu was left in shock when he returned home from work to find his home in the sector of Los Guaricanos completely destroyed by a bulldozer.
The owner of the plot sold it behind Abreu's because she was in fiancial straits.
Abreu was threatened by a group of masked armed thugs and was forced to leave the premises, taking with his whatever he could while he and his sons wondered where they would live next.
Ever since his family have been living in squalor and have struggled to put together enough money for small amounts of food.
Julio Roberto Ramirez Abreu his three sons, ages seven, nine and 12, had been living inside an abandoned car for the last six months after their home was wrecked by a bulldozer
Vincent Carmona (second right), also known as El Dotol Nastra on the Dominican radio waves, was alarmed by the condition Julio Roberto Ramirez Abreu (third left) and his sons dealt with
Images of the interview, which has gone viral, show all of the family's belongings spread throughout an abandoned car, spared by a poor homeowner who was disheartened by the appearance of the widowed husband and his three children, ages seven, nine and 12.
'I feel impotent because I don't know what do,' Abreu told Noticias Sin.
On Wednesday morning, the National Housing Institute and the Presidency's Welfare Plan came to the family's aid and temporarily placed them in a home for the next two months, rent free, in the sector of Villa Juana.
The government agencies will be moving Abreu and his three sons into a small modest home that is currently under construction.
Government officials also stepped in and found a school to temporarily take in his sons.
With the assistance of other local celebrities with ties to the local music industry, three beds were also donated and strangers came about with food and clothing donations.
According to Noticias SIN, Abreu, 38, purchased a small land plot with a humble home built out of wood for $55,000 Dominican pesos [$1103.97], money he received after he and his four brothers sold their family house four years ago.
Sadly enough, his wife Yaquenia, 29, passed away a year after falling sick due to a stomach ulcer, leaving Abreu the responsibilty of raising three young boys by himself.
Vincent Carmona (carrying a child), also known as El Dotol Nastra, helped with the donation drive to assist Julio Roberto Ramirez Abreu (second from right) and his three boys
Volunteers deliver a mattress to Julio Roberto Ramirez Abreu's temporary home that was rented and pay for by local government agencies
The viral story of family-of-four, who spent the last six months living inside an abandoned car, caught the attention of strangers, politicians and local celebs in the Dominican Republic
According to a government source who spoke to the DailyMail.com on the condition of anonymity, Josephina Olivares, who sold the small land plot to Abreu, was in a tough economic situation due to her delinquent son.
She allegedly went behind Abreu's back and forged a business deal with a local man, and swapped the land for a $40,000 Dominican pesos loan [$883.18].
Unable to afford a new home, the poor family wandered about in the streets of Villa Consuelo until a friend offered up his old car as shelter as other folks helped them with food.
Prosecutors have filed charges against Olivares in hope of finding a solution to Abreu's family's plight.
The owner of a strawberry farm at the centre of a hidden needle crisis has broken his silence about the scandal - and claims he doesn't know who is behind the sinister sabotage.
Four cases of contaminated strawberries have been identified by police after shocked consumers found sewing needles embedded in their fruit.
Berrylicious and Berry Obsession brands boss Kevin Tran said he is unsure who is responsible for hiding the small metal objects inside the strawberries.
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Queensland mother Angela Stevenson said she found another metal object while cutting up a piece of the fruit to feed to her 12-month-old baby Koby-Rose
Four cases of contaminated strawberries have been identified by police after shocked consumers found sewing needles embedded in their fruit
All four of the recent cases of needles being found inside strawberries are believed to stem from Mr Tran's farm
'I don't know, because the problem is there's so many people handling the fruit all the time, and packing, so I cannot say where it happened,' he told Nine News.
He claimed to be 'devastated' by the scandal, which has affected both his farm and the entire strawberry industry.
'I don't know anything, at this stage, I don't know anything, I'm like you guys, I want to find out,' he said.
All four of the recent cases of needles being found inside strawberries are believed to stem from Mr Tran's farm.
Police believe there are copycat attempts to hide needles inside strawberries as the crisis has spread interstate.
A recall has been issued for Berry Obsession and Berrylicious strawberries in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria. Authorities have advised people in possession of those brands to dispose of them immediately.
Hoani Hearne, 21, also found a needle inside a strawberry (pictured) after buying a punnet from Strathpine Centre Woolworths north of Brisbane on Sunday
Mr Hearne swallowed part of the needle and had to be taken to hospital after experiencing severe abdominal pain
Berrylicious and Berry Obsession brands boss Kevin Tran (pictured) said he is unsure who is responsible for hiding the small metal objects inside the strawberries
Queensland mother Angela Stevenson said her nine-year-old son Mason bit into a strawberry with a needle in it, and she found another metal object while cutting up a piece of the fruit to feed to her 12-month-old baby Koby-Rose.
Hoani Hearne, 21, also found a needle inside a strawberry after buying a punnet from Strathpine Centre Woolworths north of Brisbane on Sunday.
Mr Hearne swallowed part of the needle and had to be taken to hospital after experiencing severe abdominal pain.
Four punnets of strawberries have been found to have needles inside them: two in Queensland and two in Victoria.
The Queensland Stawberry Growers Association believes a disgruntled employee is responsible.
Four punnets of strawberries have been found to have needles inside them: two in Queensland and two in Victoria
Cynthia Nixon emerged as a surprise contender for New York state governor in March.
Since then, the Sex and the City stars campaign has picked up steam, growing in popularity with younger voters especially. On Thursday, voters across New York flocked to the polls to cast their votes in the primary elections, which pitted Nixon and incumbent governor Andrew Cuomo against one another.
Nixon, 52, is running on a progressive platform that includes a plan to fix the New York City subway system, a focus on education, prison reform policy, single-payer health care, womens issues, rent control policy, marijuana legalization, immigration rights and a plan to end homelessness.
Sex and the City star Cynthia Nixon is running for New York state governor in the primary election on Thursday
Former actress Cynthia Nixon will take on Gov. Andrew Cuomo in the New York state gubernatorial primary election
She and Cuomo debated on August 29. Their political face-off got heated, with the pair bickering and pointing the finger at one another.
At one point, Nixon accused Cuomo of using the MTA like an ATM.
Can you stop interrupting? he snapped. Can you stop lying? Nixon retorted.
As soon as you do, he quipped back.
While you anxiously await the outcome of the New York primary election, heres what more you need to know about Cynthia Nixon.
Are you ready to vote for a New York that puts our needs first?
We're so ready we can't help but dance.
Vote. #TeamCynthia pic.twitter.com/ReHKIchIDs Cynthia Nixon (@CynthiaNixon) September 13, 2018
Who is Cynthia Nixon?
Cynthia Nixon is an American actress turned political hopeful, born on April 9, 1966 in New York City.
She attended Barnard College, receiving a bachelors degree in English literature.
Nixon got her start in the acting business at the age of 12. She appeared on The Seven Wishes of a Rich Kid in 1979.
The following year she starred opposite Tatum ONeal and Kristy McNichol in Little Darlings.
She took a break from the silver screen to appear in several Broadway and off-Broadway productions, including The Philadelphia Story, Lydie Breeze, The Real Thing and Hurlyburly.
Nixon rose to fame as Miranda on HBOs Sex and the City. She was nominated for three Emmy Awards for the role and won one in its final season.
After Sex and the City, Nixon appeared on ER in 2005. She later landed a role in HBOs Warm Springs as Eleanor Roosevelt.
My family didnt have a lot of money, but I had opportunities that I dont see for the vast majority of kids today. We can change that.
Vote for a better, fairer, more inclusive New York today. #TeamCynthia pic.twitter.com/Pb6c5PrbwL Cynthia Nixon (@CynthiaNixon) September 13, 2018
In 2009, Nixon was awarded her first Grammy for Best Spoken Word Album alongside Beau Bridges and Blair Underwood for An Inconvenient Truth.
Since then shes had roles on Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, Broadways Wit, and more.
Shes been a long-time advocate for education reform, womens health and the LGBT community.
In March she announced that she intended to run for Governor of New York. Shes up against Gov. Cuomo.
As for her personal life, Nixon has two children with a man called Danny Mozes. The eldest of her two children is transgender a fact Nixon revealed in June.
Nixon started dating a woman called Christine Marinoni in 2004. They got engaged in April 2009 and have been married since May 2012.
They share a son called Max Ellington.
In 2006, Nixon was diagnosed with breast cancer. She stayed silent about her battle with the disease until 2008, when she made the reveal on Good Morning America.
Nixon is now a breast cancer activist.
Cynthia Nixon net worth
According to Celebrity Net Worth, Cynthia Nixons net worth is about $60 million. The majority of her fortune has been made through acting, whether it be on the stage or in TV and film.
Just cast my ballot for a New York that works for all of us. #TeamCynthia pic.twitter.com/M0cgT7EmDP Cynthia Nixon (@CynthiaNixon) September 13, 2018
New York State Governor election candidates
Cynthia Nixon is up against two men and one other woman in the New York state gubernatorial race.
Her biggest competition is Gov. Andrew Cuomo, though shes also running against Marc Molinaro and Stephanie Miner.
Marc is a Republican candidate, while Stephanie is an Independent.
Cynthia Nixon platform
Cynthia Nixons platform focuses on education, infrastructure, health care, prison reform, immigration, rent control policies, economic issues, womens rights, the environment and marijuana legalization.
She became a popular candidate among young New York City-dwelling voters with her promises to fix the subway system.
Nixons website reads: With eight million rides a day, subways and buses are the lifeblood of New York City. Instead of meeting growing need, subway performance has declined, with delays almost quadrupling from 20,000 per month in May 2012 to 76,000 in January 2018.
On-time performance hovers at a failing 60 per cent much lower than any other transit system in the world. Trains now move slower than they did in 1950.
Cynthia aims to provide proper funding to the MTA to get subways and buses moving, modernize signals, replace cars, add more subways to accommodate a growing number of riders and more.
On womens rights, Nixons site says: Women used to come to New York for reproductive healthcare. Now, they sometimes have to leave because New York State law does not comprehensively protect reproductive freedom.
For eight years, Andrew Cuomo has claimed to be a pro-choice champion. And for eight years, New York has failed to pass the Reproductive Health Act or the Comprehensive Contraception Coverage Act. Enough is enough.
She intends to see the aforementioned acts passed, create a maternal mortality review board, provide menstrual products to prisons, homeless shelters and schools free of charge and more.
To get more information on where Cynthia Nixon stands on the issues, click here.
Where to vote in New York
You can search for your polling place here. Polls are open until 9pm ET in New York.
President John F. Kennedy's oldest sister, Rosemary Kennedy, would have celebrated her 100th birthday on Thursday.
Now, new unseen letters reveal more about how she was a vivacious and kind young woman prior to being left with a severe mental disability after she was forced to undergo a lobotomy aged 23 by her father Joseph P. Kennedy.
Three years prior the surgery, Rosemary was sent by the Kennedy family to Ireland and England for three weeks in 1938 where she was placed in the care of a young Irish woman named Dorothy Smyth.
When Rosemary left, she decided to keep in contact with Smyth and wrote letters about her time in Europe.
The tone in her letters to Smyth often were childlike and 'innocent', according to Kate Larson, who is the biographer and author of The Hidden Kennedy a book which discusses in depth about Rosemary's life along with other Kennedy family members.
'The letters are important because they reflect Rosemary as much younger, intellectually, than her 20 years and that she had a full life and her family included her,' Larson told People. 'They were written before Rosemary's lobotomy and they reveal the loss more acutely.'
President John F. Kennedy's oldest sister, Rosemary Kennedy, would have celebrated her 100th birthday on Thursday. Rosemary is pictured above center in 1998 being escorted by two women at a facility where she lived in Wisconsin
New unseen letters now reveal more about Rosemary being a vivacious and kind young woman prior to being left with a severe mental disability after she was forced to undergo a lobotomy aged 23 by her father Joseph P. Kennedy. She is pictured above right as her mother, Rose stands center and her sister Kathleen stands left while they leave their London house to be presented at court
Three years prior the surgery, Rosemary was sent by the Kennedy family to Ireland and England for three weeks in 1938 where she was placed in the care of a young Irish woman named Dorothy Smyth. When Rosemary left, she decided to keep in contact with Smyth and wrote letters about her time in Europe. The tone in her letters to Smyth often were childlike and 'innocent', according to Kate Larson, who is the biographer and author of The Hidden Kennedy a book which discusses in depth about Rosemary's life along with other Kennedy family members. Rosemary is pictured above right next her sister Eunice in an undated photo
Smyth died in the 1960s, but her family kept the letters for years according to her nephew, Michael Fisher who described the letters to People as holding a 'childlike innocence'.
'When you read the letters or look at the pictures of her going to a ball in London in a formal dress when she was introduced to society and then you reflect on her lobotomy,' Fisher added to People. 'That is the story of Rosemary.'
Smyth's family returned the letters to the Kennedy family in the 1990s.
Larson is delivering a talk and book signing to commemorate Rosemary's birthday at the John Fitzgerald Kennedy National Historic Site in Brookline, Massachusetts today.
It was revealed in Larson's book that when Rose Kennedy went into labor with Rosemary at the family's home in Brookline, Massachusetts, only a nurse was present to assist her.
The obstetrician who was called to supervise the delivery was running behind so the nurse forced Rose to keep her legs together and stop pushing. When that failed, the nurse reached into the birth canal and held the infant's head inside for two hours until the doctor arrived at the family home, according to excerpts from Larson's book.
It's suspected that Rosemary was deprived of oxygen and left with possible brain damage as a result of what occurred during the labor process.
While she was growing up, her parents realized that she was developing slowly compared to other children in her age group.
Rose wrote in her 1974 memoir that her daughter Rosemary crawled, stood, walked and spoke her first words late.
As she got older, it was difficult for her to perform simple tasks like writing and she was shier than her siblings.
When she was able to begin school, her mother spoke with experts who labelled her as 'retarded' which was a term wrongly used for years to describe a wide range of mental disabilities.
Her parents worked for years to hide her condition, but as she aged it became harder.
When she was aged 11, Rosemary was sent by her parents to the first of many boarding schools for children with special needs.
When Rose Kennedy went into labor with Rosemary at the family's home in Brookline, Massachusetts, only a nurse was present to assist her. The obstetrician who was called to supervise the delivery was running behind so the nurse forced Rose to keep her legs together and stop pushing. When that failed, the nurse reached into the birth canal and held the infant's head inside for two hours until the doctor arrived at the family home. It's suspected that Rosemary was deprived of oxygen and left with possible brain damage as a result of what occurred during the labor process. Rose is pictured above with her three young children: Joseph Jr., Rosemary and Jack
Rose wrote in her 1974 memoir that her daughter Rosemary crawled, stood, walked and spoke her first words late. As she got older, it was difficult for her to perform simple tasks like writing and she was shier than her siblings. Pictured Joseph and Rose pose with eight of their children. Front Row (L-to-R), Patricia, Rose and Joseph Kennedy, with baby Edward, Rosemary, Eunice, and Kathleen. The rear row is John, Jeanne, and Robert
When she was able to begin school, her mother spoke with experts who labelled her as 'retarded' which was a term wrongly used for years to describe a wide range of mental disabilities. Her parents worked for years to hide her condition, but as she aged it became harder. The Kennedy family is pictured above left to right: Edward, Jeane, Robert, Patricia, Eunice, Kathleen, Rosemary, John F. Kennedy, Rose Kennedy and Joseph P. Kennedy
At age 19, her father was appointed the US Ambassador to Great Britain and the family moved to London where she attended a convent school.
It was during this period she began to gain weight, which was not acceptable by her father who wrote to her school about it and said: 'She is getting all together too fat and I told her in no uncertain terms.'
When she reached her early 20s, Rosemary was deemed unmanageable by her parents since she had grown into a beautiful young woman.
Her father had begun to focus on his sons' political careers around this period and felt that Rosemary could damage the family's name if she fell pregnant.
In an effort to gain more control over her, Joseph spoke to his wife about a new experimental brain surgery known as a lobotomy. But upon looking into the procedure, their daughter Kathleen Kennedy said: 'It's nothing we want for Rosie'.
However, Joseph disregarded her advice and went ahead with procedure for Rosemary without telling anyone including his wife.
Rosemary's nephew, Timothy Shriver, wrote in his 2014 book Fully Alive: Discovering What Matters Most, that the 'chilling' procedure involved doctors cutting into the brain while the patient was still conscious and only stopping once the patient could no longer speak.
When she reached her early 20s, Rosemary was deemed unmanageable by her parents since she had grown into a beautiful young woman. Her father had begun to focus on his sons' political careers around this period and felt that Rosemary could damage the family's name if she fell pregnant. In an effort to gain more control over her, Joseph spoke to his wife about a new experimental brain surgery known as a lobotomy. Rose was against it, but Joseph forced Rosemary to undergo the procedure secretly. Rosemary is pictured above center, Eunice is pictured left and Jean is pictured right
After the procedure, Rosemary couldn't speak and 'lost independence for the rest of her life,' according to her nephew. Joseph sent Rosemary away to a facility where she was hidden from her mother and siblings for years until he had a stroke in the 1960s and they discovered the secret of what happened to her. Eventually she was taken out on visits by her family members until her death in 2005. She is pictured above left next to her sister Jean
He wrote: 'The outcome, in Rosemary's case, was devastating.'
Her mobility was damaged, she couldn't speak and 'she lost her independence for the rest of her life,' Shriver wrote.
Rose later claimed that her husband, who refused to visit Rosemary after the procedure due to his guilt, did not reveal that she underwent a lobotomy for 20 years.
'The code of secrecy kicked in and Rosemary disappeared,' Shriver wrote.
The Kennedy family traveled to Wisconsin to visit Rosemary for the first time in 1961 after Joseph suffered a stroke.
Rosemary was being escorted by two nuns and broke away into a sprint to lunge at her mother and screamed at her. Her siblings also reportedly didn't know what happened to her and thought she worked as a teacher and lived in the Midwest until that visit.
Over the years, her siblings visited her often and she was occasionally taken on visits out of the facility to go shopping. She even traveled out of state for visits with family members.
She died on January 7, 2005 the first of Joseph and Rose Kennedy's children to die from natural causes.
In the span of just two years, Paul Manafort has gone from one of Washington's most sought-after Republican lobbyists to a political pariah with a shattered family.
'My life - personally and professionally - is in shambles,' he told Judge T.S. Ellis III, in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia on March 7.
'The last two years have been the most difficult years for my family. Humiliated and would be a gross understatement.'
He laid it on thicker to the next sentencing judge, Amy Berman Jackson, in Washington D.C. on March 13: 'I will be 70 years old in a few weeks. My wife is 66. She needs me. I need her. Please let me and my wife be together.'
Self-pitying certainly, but hardly wrong. Sitting in a wheelchair and contemplating the real prospect of dying behind bars, Manafort was diminished in every way, the extravagantly-tailored and immaculately connected powerbroker who could ask for millions for his counsel now wearing prison green as he asked not for money but compassion.
Typically though, the whole story was not on display; in recent years, Manafort had betrayed his wife with a mistress 30 years his junior who he put up in a New York apartment and handed an unlimited credit card.
That infidelity was only another staging post on the long and spectacular fall from grace for the 69-year-old former Trump campaign manager, the son of a small-town mayor who went on to work for four U.S. presidents and made his fortune as the Washington mouthpiece for some of the world's most notorious dictators.
Today Manafort has few defenders in the nation's capital, after being convicted of tax fraud and money laundering by special counsel Robert Mueller - who first secured a guilty verdict from a jury then a plea deal on the eve of a second trial.
Even Manafort's former boss, President Trump, claimed he never would have hired the former lobbyist if he had known about the allegations.
'Paul Manafort came into the campaign very late and was with us for a short period of time (he represented Ronald Reagan, Bob Dole & many others over the years), but we should have been told that Comey and the boys were doing a number on him, and he wouldn't have been hired!' wrote Trump in a Twitter post in June 2018.
The president had faced Manafort co-operating with Robert Mueller 'fully and truthfully.'
But even that was beyond the ability of Manafort, who Mueller's prosecutors charge lied to them after his agreement to cooperate.
The power brokers: Paul Manafort, his future business partners Roger Stone and Lee Atwater, were photographed as young Republican operatives. Stone, a Trump confidante and notorious political dirty trickster is now fighting off the Mueller probe himself; Atwater died in 1991, a former RNC chairman with a reputation for dirty campaigns. All three cashed in on their political work by lobbying those they got elected
Manafort, the grandson of an Italian immigrant, was raised in a staunch Republican home in New Britain, Connecticut.
When he was 16, his father Paul John Manafort Sr. was elected mayor of New Britain and served for three terms.
In 1981, Manafort Sr. was indicted but later acquitted on perjury charges in a sweeping city corruption and bribery scandal that also ensnared the police and fire chiefs.
After Catholic parochial schools and graduating from Georgetown University Law School, Manafort went on to work as an advisor for Republican Presidents Gerald Ford. It is unclear why he was not drafted for Vietnam.
He went on to serve as an advisor to Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and Bob Dole's presidential campaign.
But he worked out how to turn political advising into a gusher of cash: by lobbying the very politicians they had helped elect.
He co-founded a prominent lobbying firm with ex-Nixon aide Roger Stone, and Lee Atwater, another notorious figure, which shopped their access to top Republicans to U.S. businesses, state and city governments, and anyone who would pay.
The lobbying would be punctuated by periods of working for campaigns - guaranteeing the access on which they depended if their candidates won (which by and large they did).
That came to embrace the wider world too; the Manafort lobbying roster included brutal regimes willing to pay high fees for his services including Filipino dictator Ferdinand Marcos and Zaire military leader Mobutu Sese Seko.
Betrayed: Kathleen Manafort stood by her husband despite his family finding proof of his mistress on Instagram; she attended every minute of his trial and was there when he said he was flipping
Manafort went on to found his own political consulting firm in 2005, bringing on his former intern Rick Gates as his trusted deputy.
He also continued to take on controversial clients. In 2010, Manafort helped elect Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, head of Ukraine's Putin-allied Party of Regions.
The victory paid off between 2010 and 2014, federal investigators said Manafort's firm earned 'a cash spigot': $60 million in fees from the Party of Regions' political patrons.
According to prosecutors, Manafort stashed the funds away in a series of offshore bank accounts and shell companies, and failed to disclose the income in his tax returns. In total, they claim he dodged taxes on $15 million.
But after Yanukovych was voted out of power by Ukraine's parliament in 2014, Manafort's fortunes suddenly changed. He stopped getting payments from Yanukovych's wealthy oligarch supporters, and started to have trouble paying his bills.
This is when prosecutors claim Manafort started applying for loans using phony financial information. In total, they said he scammed banks out of $20 million.
Manafort's then-alleged crimes were uncovered during the course of a special counsel investigation led by Robert Mueller, who has been investigating potential Russian interference in the 2016 election and collusion with the Trump campaign.
Even before the charges were filed against him, Manafort's personal life had been unravelling, according to years of hacked text messages between his daughters Andrea, 32, and Jessica, 36, that were posted online.
According to the messages, Manafort's family had caught him having an affair with a woman who was around the same age as his daughters, renting a pricey house for her in the Hamptons and paying her credit card bill.
They discovered the affair after seeing the woman's posts boasting about her expensive travel and dinners on Instagram.
Manafort, who was undergoing an emotional breakdown according to the messages, committed himself to a psychiatric clinic in Arizona in 2015.
Texts: Manafort's daughters Jessica (left, with now ex-husband Jeff Yohai, who flipped) and Andrea (right with husband Christopher Shand) exchanged text messages which were hacked revealing his affairs and calling him a psychopath. Jessica has changed her name to Bond, her mother's maiden name
Fruits of lobbying: This is the condo overlooking the Potomac where the FBI raided Manafort on orders from Mueller. He bought it for $2.75 million, part of a property empire worth conservatively $15 million
After he was released in 2016 - claiming he had 'new insight' into himself - he linked up with the Trump campaign and became the candidate's campaign manager during the crucial months surrounding the Republican National Convention.
His daughter Andrea took a different view of that. She wrote in a leaked text to a friend, who was not named in the leak: 'Trump probably has more morals than my dad. Which is really just saying something about my dad. My dad is a psycho!!! At least trump let his wives leave him. Plus, Trump has been a good father.'
And she also texted: 'Trump waited a little too long in my opinion, but I can attest to the fact that he has now hired one of the world's greatest manipulators. I hope my dad pulls it off. Then I can sell my memoir with all his dirty secrets for a pretty penny.'
But getting in tow with Trump in June 2016, his neighbor in Trump Tower, was to prove catastrophic.
Trump in fact fired him in August 2017 when questions about Manafort's dealings with Russians in Ukraine started to surface.
Manafort returned to his shadowy lobbying life, but then he was caught up in the Mueller probe.
In July 2017 his home in Alexandria was raided before dawn; in October he and his loyal deputy Gates were indicted, with charges of tax fraud, bank fraud, money laundering, failing to register as foreign agents and conspiracy against the United States.
Manafort's legal strategy was to split the cases in two, meaning two separate trials - one for the monetary charges, the second conspiracy and failing to register as a foreign agent.
But before they began, Gates took a plea bargain, turning on his boss, agreeing to cooperate fully and truthfully with Mueller. From there Manafort's path was consistently downhill.
In Washington D.C. Judge Amy Berman Jackson, an Obama appointee, proved tough; she had him locked up before trial when Mueller accused him of witness tampering.
Turned: Rick Gates
That meant he attended his first trial, in Virginia, from jail, walking in every day with federal marshals and walking out in handcuffs.
In Virginia, Ronald Reagan-appointee T.S. Ellis III presided over the first trial in August 2018. Manafort and his supporters might have been cheered by his apparent toughness on the Mueller prosecutors, including berating them in front of the jury, and repeated demands for them to hurry up.
But when the jury returned its guilty verdicts on eight of the 18 counts, other legal observers said Ellis was making sure the case could not be appealed. Ellis declared a mistrial on the remaining 10 counts, which meant that Mueller could keep them in reserve for a second trial.
And if there were any lingering thoughts that the judge had sympathy for the felon, Ellis told Manafort that he would be wearing prison, not regular, clothing for subsequent hearings.
The next month his second trial was due to begin but Manafort then decided, finally, to seek a deal with Mueller, and pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud the United States and witness tampering.
He also admitted to most of the 10 charges which the jury could not reach a verdict on the previous month, and - crucially - agreed to cooperate fully and truthfully with Mueller.
But he could not even manage that; by November, Mueller filed a court document accusing him of lying in breach of the plea deal.
The next month they revealed Manafort's attorney had briefed the White House on his dealings with Mueller.
Then in January came a moment which showed Manafort still had the power to shock: Mueller revealed in a court filing that he had passed Trump campaign polling data to Konstantin Kilimnik, his one-time aide who has been named as a suspected Russian intelligence asset.
In a February hearing Mueller's prosecutors went further, suggesting Manafort might have lied about passing on the polling data to boost his chances of a presidential pardon.
Judge Berman Jackson ruled he had lied and set his sentencing for March; his sentencing in Virginia will come after that.
If he were to get a pardon, the peril is hardly over; New York state's attorney general is investigating his tax fraud to see if he could be prosecuted for evading state taxes. Presidential pardons do not apply in state courts.
Left in tatters is a reputation, a fortune, and a family.
His elder daughter, Jessica Manafort filed to change her name to Jessica Bond in August 2018, after his conviction, telling the Los Angeles Times: 'I am a passionate liberal and a registered Democrat and this has been difficult for me.'
Despite the clearly unhappy family, Manafort's wife Kathleen stood by him in the face of his infidelity.
She loyally attended each day of his tax fraud trial, always sitting in the row directly behind his defense table.
Tarnished legacy: Paul Manafort Sr. was three-term mayor of New Britain, CT
Since June 2018, Manafort has been incarcerated in a county jail in Alexandria.
Largely held in solitary confinement for his own safety, his health has clearly suffered. He attended some hearings in a wheelchair and his legal team disclosed he had been diagnosed with gout.
Perhaps more stinging to his vanity, in a mug shot, the fashion-conscious Manafort sported a jailhouse jumpsuit and shadowy stubble. His brown hair, which he previously dyed, is now tinged with grey.
The former lobbyist, who once spent $18,000 on a python skin jacket, has also been forced to attend his trial without socks because he reportedly balked at the white ones he is required to wear as an inmate.
He has depression and anxiety and his lawyers complained he had little contact with his family. In letters submitted ahead of his sentence family members pleaded for leniency.
But there were no letters from the rich, powerful Republicans who Manafort had counted as his friends.
Manafort's conviction even impacted the legacy of his father, the popular three-term mayor in New Britain, Connecticut, from 1965 to 1971.
In August 2018 the city changed a street named after the former mayor from 'Paul Manafort Drive' to 'Paul Manafort Sr. Drive.'
About Me Scott Because prophetic scriptures are found throughout the bible, it is obvious that a comprehensive, systematic approach would be useful, if not necessary, for the understanding of prophecy. Past prophecies have been fulfilled in a literal manner, as confirmed by the dating of these writings and historical records of confirmation. These past prophecies also serve as a model of how to interpret future prophecies. A literal view of prophecy clearly indicates a certain sequence of events will occur within a single generation, concluding with the Tribulation and Second Advent and these events will be obvious. The prophetic signs appear to be present in this generation and we believe these signs are revealed in the news from around the world. View my complete profile
CBS This Morning hosts rallied around reporter Jericka Duncan after it was revealed 60 Minutes producer Jeff Fager sent her threatening texts that ultimately led to his termination this week.
Duncan contacted the longtime 60 Minutes producer asking for a comment on the new allegations of sexual harassment made about him in a New Yorker story as the scandal involving CEO Les Moonves unfolded.
In the texts, which were sent after Duncan went for comment, Fager wrote: 'If you repeat these false accusations without any of your own reporting to back them up, you will be held responsible for harming me.'
That was followed up with a text that stated: 'Be careful. There are people who lost their jobs trying to harm me, and if you pass on these damaging claims without your own reporting to back them up, that will become a serious problem.'
Duncan appeared on the CBS This Morning round table Thursday to discuss the matter, a day after Fager was terminated.
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CBS This Morning hosts rallied around reporter Jericka Duncan after it was revealed 60 Minutes producer Jeff Fager sent her threatening texts
Hosts (L-R) John Dickerson, Norah O'Donnell and Gayle King are pictured at the studio in New York City in January 2018
CBS reporter Duncan received warning texts from 60 Minutes producer Fager about the coverage of the sexual misconduct allegations against him, just three days before he was terminated
Co-host Gayle King said: 'This is a very difficult story for us to cover... big trees are falling at CBS, but I really do believe that the company wants to and will get this right.
While looking toward Duncan, she said: 'I can only imagine what this has done to you and how this has affected you... I certainly applaud you for speaking up.
Norah O'Donnell then asked the reporter how she felt when she was sent the texts.
Duncan replied: 'I was shocked... the many people that I've covered, you finally understand that conflicting feeling about why and what... and why would you even put me in this position?'
When O'Donell asked is she viewed his words as a threat, Duncan added: 'I did... and it's even hard to say that today, because, yes, we do receive harsh language all the time.
'But this is someone who held an enormous amount of power here, who I respected, and I was shocked.'
'If you repeat these false accusations without any of your own reporting to back them up, you will be held responsible for harming me,' wrote Fager in a text
60 Minutes veteran Sharyn Alfonsi initially said she didn't 'understand how you get fired over a text message' but when she saw the messages, she said she 'felt sick'
King then said: 'I think once people saw that text, they might have felt differently about it - it certainly sounded like a threat.'
John Dickerson chimed in: 'It was a threat.'
60 Minutes correspondent Alfonsi, initially backed Fager while speaking to The New York Times.
'I think its a terrible day for CBS News,' Alfonsi said. 'I think it is awful... I dont understand how you get fired over a text message.'
But when she later saw the context of Fager's words, Alfonsi added she 'was stunned' and 'felt sick' - calling the texts 'inappropriate'.
Fager sent the text messages to Duncan, warning her about the coverage of the sexual misconduct allegations against him, three days before he was fired from the company.
Just hours after Fager was fired on Wednesday, a composed Duncan spoke on CBS Evening News about the text messages and then announced: 'I am that reporter.'
Duncan, who has been tasked with reporting on both Fager and Moonves for CBS News these past few days, then went one step further and revealed the exchange that led to Fager's exit.
.@jeffglor to @Jerickaduncan: "...You have been on this since the beginning. You have done great work. It's difficult enough without dealing with this. That message was unacceptable. I think it's important for you to know...that the entire team at Evening News supports you 100%." pic.twitter.com/E43JYHad9t CBS Evening News (@CBSEveningNews) September 12, 2018
Duncan teased her appearance Wednesday just before she appeared on air to report the story.
'Many people have asked if the text Jeff Fager referenced was to me. It was. Ill have more reporting on this tonight,' she wrote on Twitter.
Once on-air, she said that she felt the need to speak in light of recent developments.
'Since Jeff Fager publicly referred to our exchange today, I want to be transparent about it,' she told viewers.
It was shortly after outlets began to pick up the news of Fager's exit that he released a statement of his own, in light of CBS News' refusing to comment on his specific violation.
'The companys decision had nothing to do with the false allegations printed in The New Yorker,' said Fager.
'Instead, they terminated my contract early because I sent a text message to one of our own CBS reporters demanding that she be fair in covering the story.
'My language was harsh and, despite the fact that journalists receive harsh demands for fairness all the time, CBS did not like it.'
Fager sent these two text messages to Duncan after she asked him for comment about sexual misconduct allegations against him in a New Yorker article
He added: 'One such note should not result in termination after 36 years, but it did.'
CBS News president David Rhodes confirmed part of this as well in his memo, writing: 'This action today is not directly related to the allegations surfaced in press reports, which continue to be investigated independently.'
It was then noted: 'However, he violated company policy and it is our commitment to uphold those policies at every level.'
Nineteen women have come forward to detail what they claim was a hostile environment at 60 Minutes where harassment was condoned, with some detailing specific incidents involving Fager.
Duncan teased her segment on Wednesday's CBS Evening News just hours before
Sarah Johansen said that when she was an intern Fager allegedly groped her buttocks at a party, and she was later told this move was referred to as the 'Fager arm.'
'Jeff Fager is leaving the company effective immediately,' read a memo sent to CBS staff Wednesday afternoon.
'Bill Owens will manage the 60 Minutes team as Ingrid Ciprian-Matthews and I begin the search for a new executive producer of the program.'
That memo went on to state: '60 Minutes is the most significant news broadcast on television.
'We are fortunate to have incredibly talented journalists in place whom we know will continue to deliver our defining investigative work.'
Apple appears to have abandoned its AirPower wireless charging gadget.
First unveiled one year ago during the iPhone X launch event, the device was designed to be an all-in-one wireless charger for iPhone, Apple Watch and AirPods.
But despite the latest range of iPhone Xs unveiled yesterday being equipped with wireless charging capabilities, the Californian firm remained tight-lipped about its own charging solution.
Apple has also removed all prominent references from its online retail store, bar a trademark for the name buried in the legal section of its site.
For now, those who buy the latest Apple hardware will have to purchase a third-party solution that is compatible with the Qi standard of wireless charging.
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It was meant to be the wireless charging accessory to free users from the tyranny of cables but it appears Apple has quietly abandoned its AirPower gadget charging mat (pictured)
Apple was widely-expected to launch its wireless charging accessory alongside its new iPhone models during the hardware event yesterday.
At the time of the iPhone X launch last year, the Cupertino company said it expected the device to be available for purchase in 2018, but it didn't specify a date.
Since then, AirPower hasnt been publicly discussed by Apple.
However, the release date has been quietly dropped from the official website amid a flurry of rumours the company is struggling with the wireless technology.
In a rare move for Apple, it has suggested iPhone customers buy charging hubs from Mophie, Belkin and Logitech which are also listed on its online retail store.
Writing on Twitter, renowned Apple pundit John Gruber said: 'AirPower must be well and truly f*****. No one at Apple will say a word about it, even off the record.
'And as a result they didnt even mention inductive charging during the event, even though the XS and XR both charge faster than the X.'
Apple hasn't discussed AirPower publicly since it was first announced last September. At the time, Apple said it expected the device to be available for purchase in 2018
Speaking on-stage during the 2017 iPhone event, Apple Senior Vice President of Worldwide Marketing Phil Schiller said: 'We hope people love it, and that it encourages others to create more advanced solutions based on technology like this.
'Were going to be working with the Qi standards team to incorporate these benefits into the future of the standards to make wireless charging better for everyone. So look for the AirPower charger next year.'
One of the biggest issues believed to be causing the delays with Apple AirPower is the mechanism to charge three separate devices, including an iPhone, Apple Watch and wireless AirPods headphones, simultaneously on the same surface.
The amount of power required to charge all of the devices is causing some issues with overheating, according to the latest rumours from inside Apple.
A multi-device charging mechanism likely requires differently sized charging components for the three types of devices, which would all overlap across the mat something that could generate dangerous levels of heat.
Apple also hoped to allow people to place their device anywhere on the AirPower pad to charge, however, this purportedly requires incredibly complex circuitry.
Most wireless chargers highlight a designated area where the phone needs to be placed in order to draw power.
HOW DOES WIRELESS CHARGING WORK? Wireless charging as a concept has been around since Nikola Tesla, a Croatian inventor, first suggested in the 19th century that you could transfer power between two objects via an electromagnetic field. The charging pad contains a loop of coiled wires around a bar magnet, known as an inductor. When an electric current passes from the mains through the coiled wire, it creates an electromagnetic field around the magnet. This can then be used to transfer a voltage or charge to the smartphone. Apple is rumoured to working on a charging system that will operate at 7.5 watts. That means that it won't offer faster charging speeds than conventional chargers, which offer 15 watts as standard. Advertisement
AirPower is based on the Qi charging standard, which powers wireless chargers for Android and iOS smartphones alike.
However, Apple claimed to have added a number of software features to improve the wireless charging experience when used with its iPhone and Watch products.
AirPower is expected to include a custom Apple chip that runs a stripped-down version of the iOS operating system to conduct on-device power management and pairing with devices that are placed on the charging mat.
It's now been a year since AirPower was first announced and with no sight of the device yet, many are noting that it highlights Apple's growing supply chain woes.
Apple faced similar issues with the HomePod smart speaker, which was released this year, about six months after the device was first announced.
But many are calling Apple's slow release of AirPower out of character for the company.
'Hopefully, Apple learns a lesson to only announce products that are for sure shipping soon or immediately after announcing,' Ben Bajarin, analyst at Creative Strategies, told Bloomberg in June.
Plastic is killing 40 per cent of young sea turtles, shocking new research has shown.
Baby turtles are almost four times more likely to be killed by ingesting plastic waste compared to adults.
Not only do these animals have weaker bodies, but they also feed in offshore waters closer to the surface, which are more likely to be contaminated with large plastic items that can accumulate in their digestive tracts.
Post mortems on almost 1,000 dead turtles found more than half of the babies and about a quarter of juveniles had swallowed plastic, compared to just one in seven adults.
The study looked at species including loggerheads, green turtles, leatherbacks, hawksbills, Kemp's ridleys Olive ridleys and flatbacks.
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Not only do they have weaker bodies but they also feed in offshore waters closer to the surface. These ares are more likely to be contaminated with large plastic items that can accumulate in their digestive tracts
Scientists discovered between one to 329 individual pieces of plastic ingested by the turtles in the study.
The maximum weight of the plastic was 10.41g (0.4 ounces).
There was a 50 per cent probability of death once the animal had just 14 pieces of plastic in its gut, according to scientists.
The study, which is the first of its kind, was led by scientists from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation in Hobart, Tasmania.
It sheds fresh light on the risk plastic pollution poses to the world's declining sea turtle population, who often mistake rubbish dumped in the ocean for food.
This can range from six pack rings from canned drinks to discarded fishing gear.
Corresponding author Dr Denise Hardesty, of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation said: 'The accumulation and persistence of plastic debris in the marine environment is of increasing concern.
'An estimated 4.8 to 12.7 million metric tonnes of plastic debris entered the world's oceans from land-based sources in 2010 alone, with this input likely to increase exponentially into the future.
'This poses a considerable threat to marine life, primarily through entanglement and ingestion.'
She said that although entanglement can have devastating effects, particularly when it involves fishing gear, ingestion of man-made debris is of increasing concern.
Her team examined data from 952 autopsies on sea turtles washed-up on the coast of Queensland since 1992.
Their research confirmed fears plastic was disproportionately affecting younger generations especially babies.
Species looked at included loggerheads, green turtles, leatherbacks, hawksbills, Kemp's ridleys Olive ridleys and flatbacks.
They found 54 per cent of post hatchlings and 23 per cent of juveniles had eaten plastic, compared to 16 per cent of adults.
Plastic is killing 40 per cent of young sea turtles, shocking research has revealed. Baby turtles are almost four times as likely to die from eating plastic than adults. Pictured is all the plastic removed from the large intestine of a Green sea turtle
WHAT ARE THE LATEST PREDICTIONS FOR THE FUTURE IMPACT OF OCEAN WASTE? The amount of plastic in the oceans is expected to triple in just ten years, a report issued by the UK government in March 2018 warned. This key environmental problem risks being out of sight, out of mind with more known about the surface of Mars and the Moon than the deep sea bed, it added. The toll of plastic pollution in the sea could be 150million tonnes by 2025 treble the 50million tonnes estimated in 2015. Our oceans store carbon dioxide and heat while producing oxygen and food, the Foresight Future of the Sea Report stressed. On the growing blight of plastic pollution, the document warned this will leave a physical presence, accumulating on coasts or in particular areas of ocean. The report also warned plastic litter on coasts can increase the risk of dangerous bacteria in the water, such as E.coli. It said efforts to reduce plastic pollution should focus on stopping it entering the sea, developing new biodegradable materials and public awareness campaigns. Advertisement
The amount of plastic in the turtles' digestive tracts also varied depending on their cause of death.
Those that had died from unknown causes, which acted as a statistical control group, had consumed the smallest amounts followed by those that had been hit by boats or had drowned.
Crucially, those confirmed to have died from plastic ingestion had eaten the most underlining its threat to sea turtles and other marine life.
Dr Hardesty said: 'Animals dying of known causes unrelated to plastic ingestion had less plastic in their gut than those that died of either indeterminate causes or due to plastic ingestion directly - such as gut impaction and perforation.
'We found a 50 per cent probability of mortality once an animal had 14 pieces of plastic in its gut.'
She added: 'Our results provide the critical link between recent estimates of plastic ingestion and the population effects of this environmental threat.'
The amount of plastic in the turtles' digestive tracts also varied depending on their cause of death. Pictured is a Green sea turtle swimming near North Stradbroke Island
Last year University of Exeter researchers found over 1,000 sea turtles are killed every year from plastic waste in the oceans and on beaches. The worldwide study said this figure is 'almost certainly a gross underestimate'
The findings, published in Scientific Reports, show feeding location and life history stage may impact the turtles' risk of dying.
Dr Hardesty explained: 'Younger turtles tend to drift with currents and feed in offshore waters closer to the surface, which are more likely to be contaminated with large plastic items that can accumulate in the animals' digestive tracts, or cause perforation.'
Sea turtles were among the first animals recorded to consume plastic debris, a phenomenon that 'occurs in every region of the world and in all seven marine turtle species'.
She said: 'Globally, it is estimated that approximately 52 per cent of all sea turtles have ingested plastic debris.
'Plastic in the marine environment is a growing environmental issue.
'Sea turtles are at significant risk of ingesting plastic debris at all stages of their life-cycle with potentially lethal consequences.'
The study has implications for all marine life from seabirds and fish to mammals and a range of invertebrates, including corals.
Dr Hardesty said: 'Nearly 700 species are now known to interact with manmade debris and as more species are investigated, the number continues to rise.
'The model has broad applicability and can be adapted for other taxa to understand dose responses to plastic ingestion for other marine taxa of interest.'
Last year, University of Exeter researchers found over 1,000 sea turtles are killed every year from plastic waste in the oceans and on beaches.
The worldwide study said this figure is 'almost certainly a gross underestimate.'
Worms will be sent into space to be studied aboard the International Space Station (ISS) in a bid to study muscular dystrophy.
More than 360,000 one millimetre long roundworms will be launched into orbit in a container no bigger than a matchbox.
The experiment, the first developed by the UK Space Agency to be tested aboard the ISS, hopes to analyse the worms' rate of spaceflight-induced muscle loss.
The extreme environment of space triggers a number of negative health changes, with astronauts typically losing around 40 per cent of their muscle after six months.
Scientists believe that combating the health impacts for astronauts in space could lead to a greater understanding of the ageing process on Earth and might help researchers improve treatment of diabetes and ageing muscle loss.
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Thousands of one millimetre long roundworms (pictured) will be launched into orbit in a container no bigger than a matchbox by scientists hoping to analyse their rate of spaceflight-induced muscle loss
The UK Space Agency, which is based in Swindon, Wiltshire, has chosen to use the microscopic Caenorhabditis elegans species for the experiment.
The species, known as C. elegans, shares many of the same essential biological characteristics as humans.
In fact, we share almost 80 per cent of the same genes with C. elegans, which are highly similar at the metabolic level, and have muscles that act much like our own.
As such, the worms will be affected by the same biological changes in space, including alterations to muscle and the ability to use energy.
These worms are also ideal specimens to send to space because they are small, quick to mature, and easy to keep alive.
Thousands of purpose-bred nematodes have now been sent to the US and will be launched on the Space X Dragon capsule in November as part of the programme titled Molecular Muscle Experiment.
Sue Horn, head of space exploration at the space agency, said: 'I'm really pleased to have experiments ready to be conducted on the ISS.
'It was difficult to get this approved as only the best ideas are selected.
'We have put a lot of research into finding this specific species for the experiment and we believe this will show great results.'
The tiny nematodes (pictured) have been sent to the US and will be launched on the Space X Dragon capsule in November as part of the programme titled Molecular Muscle Experiment
The microscopic worms, C elegans, being used in the experiment share many of the essential biological characteristics as humans
Ms Horn added: 'Understanding changes to provide opportunities to understand how humans age on earth and develop countermeasures for this is essential to the test.
'If this works it will help in so many ways with contributing to medicine on earth and it will also help astronauts.'
Scientists have previously looked to C. elegans to study genetics.
MP Sam Gyimah, the Minister for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation, said: 'It's not every day that you hear of the potential health benefits of sending worms into space, but this crucial project which is also the first of its kind, could lead to better treatment for muscular conditions for people on Earth as well as improving the wellbeing of our astronauts.'
This is the project logo for the UK mission to send worms to space. The worms will be bred again at the space station and samples of medicine will be administered to them before they are frozen and brought back down to earth
The worms will be bred again inside the International Space Station.
Samples of medicine to combat muscle loss will be administered to the worms before they are frozen and brought back down to earth.
Experiments are expected to take around ten days and will be carried out over three months. Preparations to send worms into space in November have already started.
The worms are in liquid bacterial feed and are sealed in a special gas permeable plastic bag. These bags will soon be housed in a special incubator.
The worms reproduce in space and after growing to adults (a process which takes around 6.5 days) they will be frozen until returning to Earth.
The Molecular Muscle Experiment is the first UK-led experiment to take place on the International Space Station.
UK scientists are able to carry out this research thanks to the UK Space Agency's membership to the European Space Agency's exploration programme, which contributes to the costs of the International Space Station.
The UK joined the scheme back in 2012.
The worms, which were found in a rubbish tip, will be blasted into space in the UK's first experiment on the International Space Station (pictured)
Tim Etheridge, Senior Lecturer at the University of Exeter, said; 'Worms are, perhaps surprisingly, a very good model for human muscle maintenance.
'At the molecular level, both structurally and metabolically they are highly similar to that of humans and from a space flight specific perspective they provide a lot of practical advantages.'
They are very small, quick to grow, cheap and easy to maintain which makes them good to work with, he said.
'Spaceflight represents the accelerated human model of the ageing condition and so, hopefully, by understanding the molecular changes it may provide the opportunity to understand human ageing on earth'.
Libby Jackson, Human Spaceflight and Microgravity Programme Manager at the UK Space Agency said: 'This is the first of many exciting experiments heading to the International Space Station from the UK, thanks to our contributions to ESA.
'The Molecular Muscle Experiment will provide knowledge that will benefit our understanding of muscle aging and help to improve life on Earth.'
Uber has undergone its second rebrand in three years in an attempt to dispel its 'hyper masculine' reputation.
As well as a specially commissioned font - dubbed Uber Move - the redesign includes new logos for the ride sharing app and its food delivery service.
The changes will begin to roll out this week, with the app logos already updated for many users.
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Uber has undergone its second rebrand in three years in an attempt to dispel its 'hyper masculine' reputation. The top image shows the new logo compared to the old, pictured bottom
Uber began life as a black car service for 100 friends in San Francisco.
Today, it's a transportation network spanning 400 cities in 68 countries that delivers food and packages, as well as people, all at the push of a button.
Services like uberX and uberPOOL have taken it from a luxury to an everyday transportation option for millions of people worldwide.
The firm says it wants to to move away from its elitist and masculine dominated roots, as evoked by its branding, in favour of a more inclusive feel.
'Youre talking about adrenaline, letters that live on a grill. The letters are squareish and hyper masculine,' designer Forest Young, creative director at Wolff Olins who came up with the rebranding, told FastCompany,
As well as a specially commissioned font - dubbed Uber Move - the redesign includes new logos for the ride sharing app and its food delivery service. The changes will begin to roll out this week, with the app logos already updated for many users. This is how they appear on the iPhone
Uber previously unveiled a radical new look, replacing the familiar U with colourful geometric shapes, back in February 2016 (left). The geometric design has now been replaced by a simple black circle with containing the word Uber in the new font (right).
A specially commissioned font - dubbed Uber Move (pictured above) - has been created in an attempt to dispel its 'hyper masculine' reputation
Uber previously unveiled a radical new look, replacing the familiar U with colourful geometric shapes, back in February 2016.
However, the logo caused uproar online, with users deriding it as a 'wrong turn' for the car firm.
The man behind it, Head of Design & Brand Andrew Crow, left the company shortly after the new look rolled-out to customers worldwide.
The geometric design has now been replaced by a simple black circle with containing the word Uber in the new font.
Animations show how the font may appear in a variety of settings. The top image shows how it may look in non western alphabets. The middle shows in bold and light font and the bottom shows how destinations around the world would look
Uber will also be hoping to move beyond a number of controversies that have hit the firm in recent years.
CEO Travis Kalanick announced he was stepping down in June last year, following heavy pressure from a large group of shareholders.
The company was hit by allegations of sexual assaults by drivers, disputes over driver pay and a corporate culture of sexual harassment.
On March 19 this year, a self-driving Uber vehicle struck and killed a pedestrian in the first death involving a fully autonomous test vehicle, further tarnishing the company's standing.
Mark Zuckerberg attempted to reassure the public that his firm is ready to protect this year's elections from any interference.
In a 3,000-word post, the Facebook CEO wrote that the firm is 'better prepared' to defend against efforts to manipulate the platform for the purpose of influencing elections.
He added that Facebook has recently thwarted foreign influence campaigns targeting several countries - an indicator that it has the proper tools to do the same in the US.
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Mark Zuckerberg attempted to reassure the public that his firm is ready to protect this year's elections from any interference. He noted that the firm has already thwarted interference
The post comes as the midterm elections are now two months away.
Zuckerberg outlined a series of steps the leading social network has taken to protect against misinformation and manipulation campaigns aimed at disrupting elections.
'In 2016, we were not prepared for the coordinated information operations we now regularly face,' Zuckerberg wrote in the post.
'But we have learned a lot since then and have developed sophisticated systems that combine technology and people to prevent election interference on our services.'
However, he warned that the task continues to be difficult because 'we face sophisticated, well-funded adversaries.'
'They won't give up, and they will keep evolving,' he added.
In a 3,000-word post , the Facebook CEO wrote that the firm is 'better prepared' to defend against efforts to manipulate the platform for the purpose of influencing elections
Zuckerberg called on journalists, governments and non-profits to help fight misinformation, while seeking cooperation from law enforcement and intelligence agencies to track 'money flows' from 'foreign adversaries.'
He pointed out that bad actors don't usually limit their activities to one social media platform and that certain agencies or organizations might have access to privileged information that could help bolster their ability to remove accounts.
'Traditional cyberattacks remain a big problem for everyone, and many democracies are at risk of attacks on critical election infrastructure like voting machines,' Zuckerberg said.
'The more we can share intelligence, the better prepared each organization will be.'
Zuckerberg also detailed how the company has already taken steps to prevent attempts at interference.
The firm identified and removed fake accounts ahead of elections in France, Germany, Alabama, Mexico and Brazil.
He called on journalists, governments and non-profits to help fight misinformation, while seeking cooperation from law enforcement and intelligence agencies to track 'money flows'
WHAT ARE THE CLAIMS ABOUT RUSSIAN INTERFERENCE ON FACEBOOK DURING THE US ELECTION? Google, Twitter and Facebook have come under fire for allowing the spread of bogus news - some of which was directed by Russia - ahead of the 2016 US election and in other countries. In a blog post in September 2017, Facebook said that more than 3,000 advertisements posted between June 2015 and May 2017 had Russian links. These ads came from a Russian company called Internet Research Agency. According to CNN, Russia-linked Facebook ads were targeted to reach people living in Michigan and Wisconsin, both of which were won narrowly by Trump. Facebook told Congress that the apparent political meddling included use of its image-sharing application Instagram. Facebook general counsel Colin Stretch told a hearing that Instagram posts by suspect Russian accounts were seen by some 20 million Americans last year. 'I've expressed how upset I am that the Russians tried to use our tools to sow mistrust,' Zuckerberg said The data on Instagram is on top of the estimated 126 million Americans exposed to Facebook posts from Russian entities seeking to create divisions during the election campaign. 'I've expressed how upset I am that the Russians tried to use our tools to sow mistrust,' Zuckerberg said. 'What they did is wrong and we are not going to stand for it.' Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg addressed criticism over allowing disinformation and manipulation during the US presidential election, just hours after the company's top lawyer faced a grilling at a Washington congressional hearing at the end of last year. 'Our community continues to grow and our business is doing well,' Zuckerberg said. 'But none of that matters if our services are used in ways that don't bring people closer together. Protecting our community is more important than maximizing our profits.' Advertisement
It also took down foreign influence campaigns from Russia and Iran that attempted to target elections in the US, UK, Middle East and other places.
The Facebook co-founder said the social network remains in a constant battle with those who create fake accounts that could be used to spread false information -- having blocked more than a billion.
'With advances in machine learning, we have now built systems that block millions of fake accounts every day,' he said.
'In total, we removed more than one billion fake accounts -- the vast majority within minutes of being created and before they could do any harm -- in the six months between October and March.'
Zuckerberg's post was the latest in a series of steps aimed at repairing the damage from its missteps in 2016, including the hijacking of personal data on millions of Facebook users by a political consultancy working for Donald Trump.
Nasa's plans to launch a spacecraft capable of crashing into an asteroid to knock it off its collision course with Earth has now entered the final stages.
The space agency is set to fire its Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) system, which could one-day be called upon to save the planet, into space by 2020.
DART is set to target the binary asteroid Didymos to test the system, following approval from Nasa late last month.
Although the egg-shaped target, also known as 'Didymoon', is only 160 metres (525ft) across, the test will highlight whether the technique cold be used to deflect a much larger asteroid that threatens to wipe out human civilisation.
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The joint US-European Aida (Asteroid Deflection & Assessment) mission will crash a probe into the smaller of a pair of binary asteroids to see if the object's path can be altered
The DART system is being designed, built and managed by the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland.
The joint US-European Aida (Asteroid Deflection & Assessment) mission will crash a probe into the smallest of two binary asteroids to test whether the object's path is able to be altered by the spacecraft.
As it stands, Nasa is unable to deflect an asteroid set to impact Earth.
The space agency could only hope to mitigate the impact of the asteroid by issuing evacuation orders to protect lives and property.
'With DART, we want to understand the nature of asteroids by seeing how a representative body reacts when impacted, with an eye toward applying that knowledge if we are faced with the need to deflect an incoming object,' said APL's Andrew Rivkin, who co-leads the DART investigation with APL's Andrew Cheng.
'In addition, DART will be the first planned visit to a binary asteroid system, which is an important subset of near-Earth asteroids and one we have yet to fully understand.'
DART would use what is known as a 'kinetic impactor technique' striking the asteroid to shift its orbit.
The impact would change the speed of a threatening asteroid by a small fraction of its total velocity.
However, doing so well before a predicted impact adds up enough over time to result in a big shift of the asteroid's path from Earth.
The joint US-European Aida (Asteroid Deflection & Assessment) mission will crash a probe into the smaller of a pair of binary asteroids to see if the object's path can be altered (pictured)
Dr Patrick Michel, lead investigator for the European Space Agency half of the mission, said back in 2015: 'To protect Earth from potentially hazardous impacts, we need to understand asteroids much better what they are made of, their structure, origins and how they respond to collisions.
'Aida will be the first mission to study an asteroid binary system, as well as the first to test whether we can deflect an asteroid through an impact with a spacecraft.
'The European part of the mission... will study the structure of Didymoon and the orbit and rotation of the binary system, providing clues to its origin and evolution.
How it will work: A pair of spacecraft, the ESA-led Asteroid Impact Mission (AIM) and NASA-led Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), will rendezvous with the Didymos asteroid and its small natural satellite, known informally as Didymos
'Asteroids represent different stages in the rocky road to planetary formation, so offer fascinating snapshots into the solar system's history.'
Aida is made up of two 'sub-missions', the ESA-led Asteroid Impact Mission (Aim) and the American space agency Nasa's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (Dart) mission.
Aim will measure properties of Didymoon, including its mass and density, before deploying a small lander to investigate the object's internal structure.
Recent missions have shown that asteroids vary greatly in their geology, structure and evolution.
Almost all asteroids appear to be covered by soil, known as 'regolith', but this varies from fine grains to lumpy pebbles.
Most asteroids are aggregates of material, rather than solid bodies, but it is unclear whether they are filled with large rocks, pockets of empty space, or finer gravel.
Didymos made its closest recent approach to Earth in 2003, a distance of 7.18 million kilometres (4.46 million miles).
The abrupt closure of a solar observatory in New Mexico last week due to an undisclosed 'security issue' has sparked countless conspiracy theories across the internet, most of which center on extraterrestrial activity.
And, the ongoing silence has done nothing but stoke the fire.
The National Solar Observatory in Sunspot has been closed since last Thursday, along with the nearby post office, but officials remain tight-lipped as to whats going on.
The secrecy persists even as local media report the FBI has showed up to the site, and Blackhawk helicopters have been seen circling overhead.
Now, the observatory has finally issued a statement on its website and across social media, but it's done little to quell the excitement, offering no explanation on why the facility was shut down.
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The National Solar Observatory in Sunspot, NM has been closed since last Thursday, along with the nearby post office, and employees affected have no idea why. The mysterious activity coincides with a solar storm, which hit Earth this week
The Sunspot Solar Observatory tweeted a link to its statement on Thursday Sept 13, exactly a week after the initial shutdown.
On Thursday September 6th, AURA made the decision to temporarily close Sunspot, the observatory said in a statement shared on social media.
The Sunspot Solar Observatory continues to work closely with AURA in order to allow for us to reopen as soon as possible.
With the excitement this closure has generated, we hope you will come and visit us when we do reopen, and see for yourself the services we provide for science and public outreach in heliophysics.
Though several days have passed since the evacuation, no details have been released.
The facility is managed by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA), and has been vacant since September 6.
Last week, a spokesperson for AURA told the Alamogordo Daily News that they evacuated as a precautionary measure.
Otero County Sheriff Benny House revealed that even local law enforcement has been kept in the dark, despite being told to stand by.
The FBI is refusing to tell us whats going on, House told Alamogordo Daily News.
The observatory has finally issued a statement on its website and across social media, but it's done little to quell the excitement, offering no explanation on why the facility was shut down
Weve got people up there that requested us to standby while they evacuate it. Nobody would really elaborate on any of the circumstances as to why.
The FBI were up there. What their purpose was nobody will say. But for the FBI to get involved that quick and be so secretive about it, there was a lot of stuff going on up there.
There was a Blackhawk helicopter, a bunch of people around antennas and work crews on towers but nobody would tell us anything.
As of September 11, officials confirmed the facilities were still closed, and would not be reopened until they were given the green light.
We were told on September 6th that we would be evacuated along with the surrounding area, we were not told why, USPS spokesperson Rod Sturgeon told ABC 7 KVIA.
We were just told to be out of the area. We remain suspended until we are allowed to return.
The mysterious activity has sparked conspiracy theories across the internet given its alignment with with this week's solar storm. A solar storm that could damage power supplies, affect satellites and trigger aurora was expected to slam the Earth's atmosphere Sept 11
BELIEVE IN CONSPIRACY THEORIES? YOU'RE PROBABLY A NARCISSIST, RESEARCHERS SAY People who doubt the moon landings are more likely to be selfish and attention-seeking, according to a 2015 study. Over the course of three online-based studies, researchers at the University of Kent showed strong links between the belief in conspiracy theories and negative psychological traits. Writing in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science, the team explained: 'Previous research linked the endorsement of conspiracy theories to low self-esteem.' In the first study, a total of 202 participants completed questionnaires on conspiracy beliefs, asking how strongly they agreed with specific statements, such as whether governments carried out acts of terrorism on their own soil. Alongside this, they were asked to complete a narcissist scale and a self-esteem assessment. The results showed that those people who rated highly on the narcissism scale and who had low self-esteem were more likely to be conspiracy believers. Advertisement
Conspiracies were further fueled by the mysterious incident's alignment with a geomagnetic storm, which sent charged solar particles streaming toward's Earth's atmosphere earlier this week.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) issued a storm watch for a G2-level solar storm which is considered 'moderate' on the 5-level scale (5 is the highest).
Apart from potential GPS disturbances and disruptions to satellites, however, the event of this scale would have little effect on day to day business.
Most space burials are suborbital, meaning when ashes are released, they do not remain in orbit.
Instead they rain back down on Earth miles from where they launched, carried by gravity and the wind.
UK firm Ascension Flights, which offers space burials at 800 ($1,044) a pop, promises some kind of return to the planet.
'As the particles eventually return to Earth, precipitation will form around them, creating raindrops and snowflakes,' its website claims
'Small amounts of nutritious chemicals will stimulate plant growth wherever it lands.'
Space burials come in many forms, with some spreading the ashes upon reaching the stratosphere.
Others place a small rocket capsule containing the ashes into orbit, remaining there for several years until it burns up in the atmosphere.
Around 670 people have had their ashes sent into space on official flights with Nasa and space burial companies like Elysium Space and Celestis.
Some of these remains were scattered in Earth's orbit, while others were sent to the moon or deep space.
The total number of pace burials is likely significantly higher, as many weather balloon flights launched by members of the public are not recorded.
Wireless charging as a concept has been around since Nikola Tesla, a Croatian inventor, first suggested in the 19th century that you could transfer power between two objects via an electromagnetic field.
The charging pad contains a loop of coiled wires around a bar magnet, known as an inductor.
When an electric current passes from the mains through the coiled wire, it creates an electromagnetic field around the magnet.
This can then be used to transfer a voltage or charge to the smartphone.
Apple is rumoured to working on a charging system that will operate at 7.5 watts.
That means that it won't offer faster charging speeds than conventional chargers, which offer 15 watts as standard.
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This is not a Gouda look for a hotel room.
Italian-Canadian artist Cosimo Cavallaro went about covering a twin suite at the Washington Jefferson Hotel, on New York's upper west side, with 1,000lbs of melted cheese.
Photos of room 114's dairy makeover shows it carpeted with a generous spread of cheese from the floor to the walls to the ceiling.
Italian-Canadian artist Cosimo Cavallaro went about covering a twin suite at the Washington Jefferson Hotel on New York's upper west side with 1,000lbs of melted cheese
The beds, chairs and walls were coated with a stringy layer of the creamy substance.
Even the telephone and lampshades didn't escape the deluge of liquid cheese.
Although Cavallaro's bizarre stunt took place in 2009, he's still credited with creating one of the cheesiest hotel rooms ever.
Apparently Bob Lindenbaum, the owner of the Washington Jefferson Hotel, commissioned the artist to decorate room 114 in a bid to attract some attention.
Bob Lindenbaum, the owner of the Washington Jefferson Hotel, commissioned Cosimo Cavallaro to decorate room 114 in a bid to attract some attention
Photos of room 114's dairy makeover show it carpeted with a generous spread of cheese from the floor to the ceiling
Commenting on the unusual interior design project, Libertina wrote on seriouseats.com: 'It looks like something out of a horror movie. My arteries are clogging just looking at it!'. The room has since been cleaned
Lindenbaum told Reuters at the time: 'Well this is a hotel in New York City as you know, and we figure we have all these guests coming into New York.
'They want to see things about New York. And we figure let them start off by seeing something here in the hotel.'
Commenting on the unusual interior design project, Libertina wrote on seriouseats.com: 'It looks like something out of a horror movie. My arteries are clogging just looking at it!'
Lindenbaum admitted that the room did smell pretty bad in the warm weather.
Room 114 at the Washington Jefferson Hotel has since been cleaned. Whey to go!
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Time travel, it seems, is possible after all.
These images show the remarkable wooden airports operating in Russia's wilderness areas that look as though they are from a bygone era.
They sprung up in the mid-20th century close to dirt runways and proved invaluable to people trying to reach the remotest spots in the land.
It's not likely you will have heard of any of them, though some may well be known to passengers using Ryanair, a no-frills airline known for using out-of-town hubs.
What they lack in duty free shops and fast food joints, they make up for with beguiling lost-in-time character.
Scroll down to discover the airports where runway expansion means putting a lawnmower or snowplough to work...
The eye-catching Turukhansk Airport in Eastern Siberia, where the terminal resembles an old barn. The town of Turukhansk was one of the first Russian settlements in Siberia
Plankety-plank: The old wooden building of Chara Airport in the rural east of Russia. Despite its tiny size, the airport handles more than 8,000 passengers a year, with flights taking many to Chita, near Lake Baikal
Close to the shore of the White Sea in north-western Russia, Letnyaya Zolotitsa airport almost looks like a house. Only 180 people live in Letnyaya Zolotitsa, which translates as 'Summer Gold'
A snowmobile and sledge sit outside Ust-Kuyga Airport in Sakha Republic in north-eastern Russia. Many of the airports in this region are built using wood from the nearby forests
Seymchan's Airport in Magadan Oblast, on Russia's far east coast. It was built in 1942 to help with the Soviet Union's efforts in the Second World War. It provides flights to Magadan, the regional capital
Mezen Airport in the Arkhangelsk region of the far north of Russia stands out due to its pale blue exterior. It was built during the Second World War and helps passengers reach even more remote locations in the north of the country
Showing hundreds of revellers with their feet in the sand and cold drinks to hand, these incredible aerial shots show how sandbar parties are all the rage in the U.S.
Everyone, unsurprisingly, arrives at the party on boats, which are often tied together to encourage socialising.
One shot, taken above Lake Havasu on the Arizona-California border over Labor Day Weekend at the end of August, shows a veritable swarm of people on a narrow bank of land.
Showing hundreds of revellers with their feet in the sand and cold drinks to hand, these incredible aerial shots show how sandbar parties are all the rage in the U.S. The above shot, taken above Lake Havasu on the Arizona-California border over Labor Day Weekend at the end of August, shows people swarming on a narrow bank of land
Another image, taken by the U.S. Coast Guard, shows a large sandbar shindig taking place at Torch Lake, Michigan's longest inland stretch of water
Another image, taken by the U.S. Coast Guard, shows a large sandbar shindig taking place at Torch Lake, Michigan's longest inland stretch of water.
Apparently a sandbar party at the location in 2015 to mark Independence Day on July 4 caused quite a stir.
It attracted 10,000 party-goers and got out of hand. The Detroit News reported that there were 166 arrests and citations and 62 medical calls.
The event has since become a more controlled celebration, with the authorities involved in its organisation.
Apparently a sandbar party at Torch Lake in 2015 to mark Independence Day caused quite a stir when it attracted 10,000 party-goers
A sunny view over the glistening blue waters of Torch Lake as a sandbar party attracts dozens of boats
The sandbar event at Torch Lake has since become a more controlled celebration, with the authorities involved in its organisation. Above, a U.S. Coast Guard helicopter keeps an eye on the July 4 event
Over in Florida, boats.com recommends the Holiday Isle sandbar off the coast of Islamorada for partying.
Apparently there is a party on the sandbar every Sunday with locals and tourists getting stuck in.
Merrymakers are told to expect a day filled with 'sun, sand and plenty of booze'.
Miami Beach is another popular spot for sandbar events.
For those who don't have a boat, there are plenty of companies offering sandbar party excursions including Yacht Charters in Miami and The Charter Agency.
And for travellers with less of an urge to party, The Charter Agency notes that sandbars can also be a cool place for 'spending a day in the sun or shade', 'swimming in the water', or gentle paddle boarding.
Revellers in the waters off Miami Beach can be seen drifting towards a sandbar, with a range of vessels out on the water
Sandbar parties are held regularly in some parts of America, with locals and tourists getting stuck in
Miami Beach is another popular spot for sandbar events. For those who don't have a boat, there are plenty of companies offering sandbar party excursions including Yacht Charters in Miami and The Charter Agency
Ryanair cabin crew members from five European countries will go on strike later this month, threatening hundreds of flights in what could be the airline's biggest walkout.
A Belgian union official confirmed that staff from Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain and Portugal will stage a stoppage on the Irish no-frills airline on September 28.
Several European labour unions met in Brussels for talks today before confirming the 24-hour walkout.
Cabin crew members from the no-frills airline Ryanair from five European countries will go on strike on September 28
'Unfortunately, discussions continue without results,' CNE delegate Yves Lambot told AFP at the meeting, describing negotiations with Ryanair management.
Ryanair workers - pilots, ground staff and cabin crew - are demanding improved working conditions and want their contracts to be based on the law in their country of residence rather than Ireland.
'They have promised to change our contracts into national contracts by 2022. This is too late for us. We want 2019,' Mr Lambot said.
Shortly before the announcement in Brussels, Ryanair insisted that the strike would fail in its attempt to cause 'travel chaos'.
In a statement, Ryanair's chief marketing officer Kenny Jacobs said: 'Repeated false claims made by these unions about "travel chaos" have proven to be unfounded.
'While we regret the limited strike actions that have taken place this summer, in all cases we have judiciously pre-cancelled a small number of our 2,500 daily flights in order to minimise customer disruption and inconvenience.
'If there is a further unsuccessful cabin crew strike on the September 28 next then, as we demonstrated in Germany yesterday, Ryanair will pre-advise customers of a small number of flight cancellations.
Ryanair suffered a 24-hour cabin crew and pilot strike in Germany prompting the cancellation of 150 out of 400 flights. Pictured is a picket line at Frankfurt Airport yesterday
'The overwhelming majority of Ryanair's flights and services that day will operate as normal, and we will carry the overwhelming majority of the 400,000 passengers who will be scheduled to fly with us that day.'
The September 28 strike will be the biggest strike in the company's history, according to the unions.
It comes after a strike in five countries in August, which forced the cancellation of 400 flights in the middle of the holiday period, affecting 55,000 passengers.
On Wednesday, the company suffered a 24-hour cabin crew and pilot strike in Germany prompting the cancellation of 150 out of 400 flights.
But Ryanair CEO Michael O'Leary described it as a 'failure'.
Speaking on Wednesday, Ryanair CEO Michael O'Leary described the strike in Germany as a 'failure'
'We are not easyJet, we will not roll over every time we are threatened with a strike,' O'Leary told reporters in London, mocking a rival low-cost carrier.
The no-frills airline boasts lower costs per passenger than its competitors and is eyeing profits of around 1.25 billion euros ($1.45 billion) this year.
But staff have long complained that they earn less than counterparts at rival airlines.
Unions also want the airline to give contractors the same work conditions as staff employees.
Ryanair counters that it has already offered significant pay increases and steadier contracts.
It also revealed that German pilots can make 'up to 190,000 euros a year'.
A father has been described as 'turning parenting up to 11' by reaching out on a flight and cradling his daughter's head from the seat behind so she could sleep.
A photograph of the man letting his daughter use his hand as a pillow in an economy cabin was posted to Twitter - and the internet fell in love with him.
The unnamed dad apparently kept his hand in place for over 40 minutes, according to Twitter user Satar_Gaza, who posted the image.
Twitter user Satar_Gaza photographed an unknown man cradling his daughter's head in his hand for around 40 minutes in an economy cabin
His accompanying caption read: 'This father keeps putting his hand under his daughter's head during the trip for more than 40 minutes. No one will love you like your parents.'
Since the heartwarming image was shared online on September 10 it has garnered more than 10,800 'likes'. It was also posted to Imgur and Reddit.
Satar_Gaza added that the father was Egyptian and that he spotted the act of kindness while travelling from the resort town of Sharm El Sheikh to Cairo.
He also remarked that during these short-haul trips airlines usually don't give pillows to passengers, so that's why the dad went the extra mile.
The father was Egyptian and performed the act of kindness while travelling from the resort town of Sharm El Sheikh to Cairo
Dozens of commenters have commended the father for his actions.
Imgur user Ratiofarming14 said: 'That's very nice of him. Parenting level 11/10.'
And user 'Whiachy6' said: 'Good dad doing dad good.'
Meanwhile, ButteryCommissar said that they'd helped their 80-year-old mother-in-law in the same way when she couldn't stay upright in the seat in front, and added that it was 'worth the numb arm'.
Taking a more humorous approach, BahamutBBob said: 'And with modern airlines, he didn't even have to lean forward.'
It was supposed to be a night of perfect romance.
But as TV host Jimmy Fallon proposed to his beloved, Nancy Juvonen, he got so nervous and mushy she feared he was having a stroke, the TV host revealed in People on Wednesday.
And this was his second desperate attempt at a proposal, the 43-year-old host of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon confessed to the magazine.
Fated Love: When Jimmy met Nancy she had already worked with Clarence Clemons of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band, Jimmy's all-time favorite act, so they shared a musical heritage
Jimmy and Nancy, 51, met in 2004 on the set of the movie Fever Pitch: he was the lead actor, a man-boy obsessed with the Red Sox, and she was the Hollywood business partner of his leading lady, Drew Barrymore.
After three years of bicoastal dating, he revealed, he knew Nancy was the one and he picked a night when she was visiting New York to get down on one knee.
'I wanted it to be romantic and perfect,' he recalled.
'I'm a pretty mushy guy and I just wanted it to be perfect. I got down on one knee and I immediately (started weeping)' Jimmy said of his proposal which took place three months after his first failed attempt
Instead, she surprised him with a reservation at Per Se, superchef Thomas Keller's three Michelin starred restaurant in tony Columbus Circle.
He said: 'I didn't want to propose in Per Se because what if one year it moves locations and years later Im going to have kids and go, 'Your mom and I got (engaged here). I know it's a laser tag place but at one point it was a very fancy restaurant.
'Cut to 14 courses later,' the funnyman recalled, 'I was bombed out of my mind. Wine came with every course So I waited another three months.'
Not always so debonair: The comedian admitted that he was a nervous wreck when he finally got around to proposing to Nancy with a Neil Lane-designed engagement ring
Jimmy finally made his move when they were staying in her parent's summer house on Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire. It was an idyllic location where the Jane and Henry Fonda movie On Golden Pond was shot in 1981.
Jimmy planned it all out: he waited for sunset, summoned up his nerve and strode forth towards matrimony.
'I went out to the dock and said (to myself) "Dont cry. Let her cry first."
'I'm a pretty mushy guy and I just wanted it to be perfect. I got down on one knee and I immediately (started weeping).
'She's like, "Are you having a stroke?" My face was like I was smelling burnt toast.
Nancy and Jimmy: Nancy is a powerhouse Hollywood name, running Flower Pictures with her friend Drew Barrymore and producing films such as Charlie's Angels and Donnie Darko
But his famous charm paid off and Nancy, the daughter of a military airman, accepted his one-of-a-kind Neil Lane designed engagement ring.
'She said yes and we celebrated and it was fun. The rest is history.'
The pair tied the knot at Sir Richard Branson's Necker Island in the Caribbean on December 22 2007.
And there was a fairytale ending, they now have two daughters, Winnie Rose, five, and Frances Cole, three.
Brooke Blurton revealed on Wednesday's episode of The Bachelor that she previously had two relationships with women, but admitted she now wants to be with a man to start a family.
And after the show aired, Australian Survivor star and AFLW legend Moana Hope slammed Brooke for her comments, pointing out that it is perfectly possible for same-sex couples to have children.
Taking to her Instagram Story, the 30-year-old athlete shared a picture of her TV screen and used a face palm GIF, writing in part of her post: 'FYI three letters... IVF.'
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'Three letters... IVF': Survivor star and AFLW legend Moana Hope (pictured) has slammed The Bachelor's Brooke Blurton after she caimed she wanted to be with a man to 'have children'
She then shared a video of her model girlfriend Isabella Carlstrom, in which she joked to her: 'Babe, I have to break up with you.'
'I have to get all the men... to have babies. I need a boyfriend.'
Isabella laughed as she replied: 'Quick, find one!'
Speaking out! Taking to her Instagram story, the 30-year-old shared a picture of her TV screen and used a face palm GIF, writing in part of her post: 'FYI three letters... IVF'
Smitten: Moana is in a relationship with model Isabella Carlstrom (pictured)
On Wednesday's episode of The Bachelor, Brooke revealed her 'big' secret to Nick Cummins by telling him she previously had 'two relationships with women'.
'This is really uncomfortable for me to tell you but... I've had two relationships with women,' The Perth-based youth worker told Nick at the cocktail party.
'But um... I'm a big person of who you are inside. Obviously not face value and what you look like or what you are.'
Being honest with him: On Wednesday's Bachelor, Brooke (pictured) revealed her 'big' secret to Nick 'Honey Badger' Cummins, telling him she previously had two relationships with women
'So, for me, when I was in those relationships, I looked beyond what they were as female and I really loved for who they were as people,' she added.
Brooke then said she saw herself settling down with a man to start a family, adding that she didn't consider herself to be a lesbian or a bisexual.
'I'm not a bisexual or a lesbian or anything like that, I'm a big lover of people and who they are,' she clarified.
'And... I just really don't wanna be judged on that.'
Her dreams: She then told Nick (pictured) that she sees herself settling down with a man to start a family, adding that she doesn't consider herself to be a lesbian or a bisexual
'I want to be with a male. I wanna have children and, you know... that for me is a powerful thing,' she continued.
'And it's not the only thing. I feel more sexually attracted to men. I'm just being completely honest.'
Nick thanked her for sharing, and seemed to be very accepting of her sexuality.
Her thoughts: 'I want to be with a male. I wanna have children and, you know... that for me is a powerful thing,' she said
Meanwhile, it seems other fans of the show agreed with Moana, with some taking to Twitter to slam Brooke for saying she wants to be with a man to 'have children'.
'Hate how the "big secret" was about Brooke's sexuality. And of course Nick had no problem with it. Also, Brooke saying she's not bisexual or a lesbian (sounds like she's pansexual) and wants to be with a man to have kids...,' one wrote, adding a face palm emoji.
Another added of Brooke's 'secret': 'Why is that such a bombshell? I was expecting so much more.'
Former NRL star Beau Ryan has been filling in for Kyle Sandilands recently on his breakfast radio show, with the shock jock taking two days off this week due to gastro.
And the radio host's spate of absences has prompted fans to speculate that KIIS FM management is perhaps lining up Beau, 33, to replace him.
A listener recently commented below an Instagram snap of co-host Jackie O: '[Beau] could replace Kyle! Lol, but seriously would love to hear you guys as a trio show.'
What's going on with Kyle Sandilands? Rumours swirl as the radio host takes MORE days off work due to sickness - and former footy star Beau Ryan becomes a regular fixture on the show
Another added: 'You're actually such a good replacement. Your dynamic with Jackie O is great. Kyle should be worried.'
'You complete the team at KIIS,' wrote a third listener.
Meanwhile, underneath a recent video clip shared to Kyle and Jackie O's Instagram, fans were divided about whether they like Beau appearing on the show.
Filling in: Former NRL star Beau Ryan (pictured) has been filling in for Kyle Sandilands recently on his breakfast radio show, with the shock jock taking two days off this week due to gastro
'He could replace Kyle!' The radio host's spate of absences has prompted fans to speculate that KIIS FM management is perhaps lining up Beau, 33, to replace him
Fan approval? 'You're actually such a good replacement. Your dynamic with Jackie O is great. Kyle should be worried. Lol,' one listener wrote about Beau on Instagram recently
'We love Kyle but gosh we love Beau also. You're doing a great job Beau,' one listener remarked.
'Beau is the Man. It's not easy to fill in for Kyle,' a similar comment read.
However, another follower slammed Beau and claimed they 'switch off' from KIIS FM on days when he fills in for Kyle.
'As soon as I hear his voice, I'm off to Nova or WSFM. Loyalty only goes so far,' they wrote.
Divided: Meanwhile, underneath a recent video clip shared to Kyle and Jackie O's Instagram, fans were divided about whether they like Beau appearing on the show
'I'm off to Nova': One listener claimed they 'switch off' from KIIS FM on days when Beau fills in for Kyle
Is Kyle okay? 'I've been away.... did Kyle die? Get fired?' another fan commented
'I've been away.... did Kyle die? Get fired?,' another commented.
An ARN spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia on Thursday that Kyle has gastro and Beau is filling in for him as a 'friend of the show'.
'As Kyle has explained on air this week, he has been unwell with gastro for the past few days,' they said.
'All of us at ARN and KIIS wish him a speedy recovery, but while he takes the time he needs to get well Jackie has been on air with Beau Ryan who has been a friend of the show for many years.'
Last week, Kyle was off sick for three days and claimed he was suffering painful side effects from a lower back issue.
He's still King Kyle! An ARN spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia on Thursday that Kyle has gastro and Beau is filling in for him as a 'friend of the show'
Kyle added that he went to a kinesiologist to fix the issue.
'[The kinesiologist] fixes you up. He said my leg was one-and-a-half inches longer than it's supposed to be. My whole back was out. I was a wreck!' he revealed.
'I couldn't be here. I had a bad headache [and I was] vomiting!'
The Sydney radio star explained that the therapist did manage to restore balance to his misaligned body and he felt 'better'.
Unwell: Last week, Kyle was off sick for three days and claimed he was suffering painful side effects from a lower back issue. Pictured: Kyle and Jackie O
'There was a little big of manipulation... and now I'm better!' Kyle said.
'Now your leg is short again?' Jackie remarked.
'Not short, but they're both the same length... both the same size,' he explained.
Kyle's first day off last week came a day after the reigning FM breakfast champions lost their top spot to WSFM's Jonesy and Amanda.
However, he denied that his absence had anything to do with ratings, telling The Daily Telegraph he was 'crook' and dealing with side affects from his new medication.
She secretly got married last month to social venture entrepreneur Philip Schneider mid-last month.
But it was back to work for Hilary Swank on Wednesday, leading the pack of stars at the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival for her latest flick What They Had.
The 44-year-old beauty showcased her incredible lean physique in a stunning black frock with a cut-out at the back.
Stunner: Hilary Swank was elegant at the What They Had premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on Wednesday
Hilary's floor-length gown featured a modest key-hole cut-out and a fringed shoulder.
The detailing continued at the back drawing attention to her trim build.
She accessorized with a rectangular clutch and added platform heels to her 5ft 6in stature.
Beauty: Hilary's floor-length gown featured a modest key-hole cut-out and a fringed shoulder
Stunning design: The 44-year-old beauty showcased her incredible lean physique in a stunning black frock with a cut-out at the back
Simplistic: Hilary's glam was minimal to ensure all eyes were on her designer dress
Hilary's glam was minimal to ensure all eyes were on her designer dress.
The P.S. I Love You actress' brunette tresses were styled into a loose up-do and her makeup kept dewy with emphasis on her blush cheeks and nude lip.
Hilary was joined by 24-year-old actress Taissa Farmiga on the carpet.
Glamour queen: The P.S. I Love You actress' brunette tresses were styled into a loose up-do and her makeup kept dewy with emphasis on her blush cheeks and nude lip
Rising star: Hilary was joined by 24-year-old actress Taissa Farmiga on the carpet
Royal beauty: The Nun starlet dazzled in a royal navy colored strapless dress that featured a train
The Nun starlet dazzled in a royal navy colored strapless dress that featured a train.
Taissa long brunette locks were styled into a loose plait with a white scrunchie securing the end.
Her makeup was luminous with blushed cheeks and a smokey blue eye.
Bold: Her makeup was luminous with blushed cheeks and a smokey blue eye
The woman behind the film: One shot saw Taissa gleefully smile beside the movie's writer and director Elizabeth Chomko
Dressed to impress: Co-star Michael Shannon looked incredibly dapper on Wednesday night's carpet
One shot saw Taissa gleefully smile beside the movie's writer and director Elizabeth Chomko.
Co-star Michael Shannon looked incredibly dapper on Wednesday night's carpet.
All suited up, he dressed in a lightly checkered navy suit with a maroon colored tie.
Time to shine: All suited up, he dressed in a lightly checkered navy suit with a maroon colored tie
Made it out! Robert Forster also joined the cast and crew for the international premiere and was seen taking some time to sign autographs for fans
He was joined by Kate Arrington who opted for a light and dark blue maxi dress.
Robert Forster also joined the cast and crew for the international premiere and was seen taking some time to sign autographs for fans.
The movie follows Bridget, played by Hilary, who returns home to care for her elderly mother who suffers from Alzheimer's Disease.
There have been claims that Brooke Blurton and intruder Jamie-Lee Dayz, 27, were more than just friends in The Bachelor mansion.
And now frontrunner Brooke, 23, has once again addressed rumours of a romantic connection in a candid interview with OK! Magazine.
The 23-year-old shut down the suggestion, revealing there is no sexual chemistry between the two women.
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'We developed a really great friendship': The Bachelor's Brooke Blurton responds to rumours of a relationship with intruder Jamie-Lee Dayz... after whispers of the women's 'close bond' on set
'We developed a really great friendship, but there's definitely no sexual relationship there,' she told the publication.
'I was there for Nick and that was my focus'.
Whispers of chemistry between the pair came after eliminated 'villain' Romy Poulier told NW Magazine that it was common knowledge among the cast.
'I heard that some of the girls formed a really close friendship. I have heard there's a vibe going on... You get close to everyone and it's pretty intense,' she said.
'There's definitely no sexual relationship there,' 23-year-old youth worker Brooke told OK! Magazine. Pictured: Brooke (left) and Jamie-Lee (right)
Brooke also denied the claims in WHO Magazine, saying 'Jamie-Lee and I are definitely just friends. I feel glad I actually had her there in the house.'
'Most of the girls will say you get close to girls in the house and obviously, just because we have a tendency of being with girls, people will obviously put us in that category of liking one another,' the indigenous youth worker added.
Meanwhile, Brooke opened up about her sexuality during a private conversation with Nick 'The Honey Badger' Cummins, 30, on Wednesday night's episode.
'I have heard there's a vibe going on': Whispers of chemistry between the pair came after newly-eliminated 'villain' Romy Poulier told NW Magazine that it was common knowledge among the cast
'This is really uncomfortable for me to tell you but...I've had two relationships with women,' The Perth-based beauty told the ex-Wallabies star at the cocktail party.
'I'm a big person of who you are inside. Obviously not face value and what you look like or what you are...I looked beyond what they were as female and I really loved for who they were as people,' Brooke revealed.
However, Brooke confirmed she doesn't consider herself to be a lesbian or a bisexual.
'I'm not a bisexual or a lesbian or anything like that, I'm a big lover of people and who they are...and I just really don't wanna be judged on that,' she said.
Smiling, Nick responded: 'I'm so glad that you feel comfortable enough to share that with me,' and asked 'Out of both of your experiences... what do you feel is right for you?'
Brooke confirmed she 'wants to be with a male' as she feels more sexually attracted to men and has a desire to have children in the future.
The Bachelor continues Thursday at 7.30pm on Network Ten
She has been putting on a defiant display with her Love Island boyfriend Charlie Brake in recent weeks after slamming 'secret split rumours'.
But Ellie Brown spent the evening away from her beau as she headed for a girls nights night out with pal Samira Mighty on Wednesday night.
The reality star, 20, oozed style in a white two-piece as she attended the Missy Empire dinner at Ours restaurant in Kensington, west London.
Wow: Ellie Brown, 20, oozed style in a white two-piece as she attended the Missy Empire dinner at Ours restaurant in Kensington, west London
Ellie's co-ords consisted of a tiny midriff-flashing crop top, which was teamed with a matching figure-hugging midi skirt.
She teamed her ensemble with a pair of glitzy barely-there heels, while keeping her look accessory free.
The Geordie beauty worked half of her golden locks up into a sleek ponytail, leaving the rest of her tresses to cascade down her chest in loose waves.
BFFS: Ellie spent the evening away from her beau Charlie Brake as she headed for a girls nights night out with pal Samira Mighty on Wednesday night
Sultry: Ellie's co-ords consisted of a tiny midriff-flashing crop top, which was teamed with a matching figure-hugging midi skirt
Ellie added to her glam look with a coat of make-up in natural tones, in keeping with her neutrally toned evening bag.
Samira, who joined her at the clothing brand's dinner, turned heads in an on-trend snake print mini dress.
The former West End star showcased her incredible figure in the form-fitting frock, which also put her toned pins on display.
Stylish: She teamed her ensemble with a pair of glitzy barely-there heels, while keeping her look accessory free
Fierce: Samira teamed her dress with a pair of perspex block heels, keeping the attention on her boldly printed mini, which she accessorised with a pink fluffy bag
Samira teamed her dress with a pair of perspex block heels, keeping the attention on her boldly printed mini, which she accessorised with a pink fluffy bag.
She accentuated her natural beauty with light touches of make-up, including a matte pink lip, styling her hair in soft waves.
They were joined by their co-star, Darylle Sargeant, who wowed in a plunging nude jumpsuit with button detailing.
Glowing: She accentuated her natural beauty with light touches of make-up, including a matte pink lip, styling her hair in soft waves
Sassy: They were joined by their co-star, Darylle Sargeant, who wowed in a plunging nude jumpsuit with button detailing
However she ensured to add a pop of colour to her look with a pink lip and eye-shadow to her otherwise neutrally toned ensemble.
Darylle appeared to be in high spirits during the evening, as she beamed for the cameras, showing off her heavily accessorised outfit.
She wore her ombre tresses in beachy waves, completing her outfit with a pair of statement leopard-print heels.
All smiles: Darylle appeared to be in high spirits during the evening, as she beamed for the cameras, showing off her heavily accessorised outfit
Smoulder: She wore her ombre tresses in beachy waves, completing her outfit with a pair of statement leopard-print heels
As well as attracting Love Island contestants, the event also enticed TOWIE favourites Courtney Green and Chloe Meadows.
Courtney, who recently claimed she is putting her relationship with Myles Barnett behind her, looked sensational as she attended the dinner party.
Showing her ex what he was missing, Courtney slipped her curves into a belted white mini dress with zip detailing.
Pose: As well as attracting Love Island contestants, the event also enticed TOWIE favourites Courtney Green and Chloe Meadows
Moving on: Courtney, who recently claimed she is putting her relationship with Myles Barnett behind her, looked sensational as she attended the dinner party
She flaunted her toned pins in the thigh-skimming number, while adding inches to her pint-sized frame with a pair of studded heels.
Meanwhile, her best pal Chloe sported a leopard print slip dress, which was clinched around her waist with a black belt.
Chloe styled her golden locks in a sleek waves, opting for a natural make-up look to highlight her attractive visage.
Working it: Showing her ex what he was missing, Courtney slipped her curves into a belted white mini dress with zip detailing
Radiant: Amber Dowding looked radiant in a matching white lace bralet and wide-legged trousers
Stunner: The brunette beauty added a quirky edge to her look with a green paid blazer
Quirky: Also working the plaid vibes was former Made In Chelsea star Nicola Hughes who arrived in a coordinating jacket and skirt
Chic: Nicola teamed her co-ords with a pair of cream sock bootss
Rock chic: Betsy-Blue English donned an oversized yellow T-shirt and skin-tight latex trousers
It's been mere days since Coronation Street's Ryan Thomas was crowned champion.
And several Celebrity Big Brother stars were reunited for dinner on Wednesday night in London's Mr Chow restaurant, with Chloe Ayling and Natalie Nunn leading the glamour in a skintight red mini-dress.
The 21-year-old kidnap victim's ample cleavage was caught in the eye-line of cheeky Ben Jardine as the pair joined housemates Natalie, Kirstie Alley, Nick Leeson and Gabby Allen for the evening.
Back together: Celebrity Big Brother's stars were reunited on Wednesday night, as Ben Jardine caught a cheeky glance of Chloe Aylin's cleavage outside London's Mr Chow restaurant
Never one to shy away from a glamorous look, Chloe showed off her incredible figure in the tight red dress with an array of cutouts, giving her already-busty front a boost.
The glamour model accessorised with black strapped heels and long grey coat, with her blonde hair tumbling down her back.
As they were exiting the restaurant, Ben could be seen catching a glance at Chloe's chest as he left arm-in-arm with Kirstie, as the cast of 2018 celebrated being back together following Monday's final.
Gorgeous: Putting on a glamorous display with Chloe was Bad Girls Club star Natalie Nunn, and the pair even managed to share a cheeky kiss as they exited the eatery
Legs for days: The 21-year-old kidnap victim had her amazing bust on display in a tight red bondage-style dress with black strapped platform heels
Covered up: Chloe teamed her leggy frock with a black coat with printed sleeves, and her blonde hair in curled tousled style
Sensational: Chloe joined many of this year's CBB stars after they were reunited at the live final
One too many? Ben appeared to be enjoying the night's festivities as he partied with his co-stars
Bad Girls Club star Natalie also put on a glamorous display as she exited the club, showing off her incredible pins in a skintight black silk dress and blue faux fur jacket.
The American beauty had her raven tresses slick back in a poker straight ponytail as she casually waved to fans.
The live conclusion of the Channel 5 show saw Ryan crowned champion to Kirstie's runner-up after 26 days of drama that left many viewers stunned and outraged.
Ryan and Roxanne were at the centre of a media superstorm as she accused him of 'punching' her in a playful exchange, and eventual fallout led her to quit the house days later.
Trendy: Gabby Allen strutted down the street in a denim one-piece
Bleary-eyed: Chloe couldn't contain her glee as she made her exit from the swanky dinner
Glam: Bad Girls Club star Natalie also put on a glamorous display as she exited the club, showing off her incredible pins in a skintight black silk dress and blue faux fur jacke
Strut: The American beauty had her raven tresses slick back in a poker straight ponytail as she casually waved to fans
And after Roxanne appeared to go into hiding to avoid the enormous fan backlash, Ryan said in his exit interview with host Emma Willis he would forgive Roxanne.
He said: 'Forgiveness is a big thing, and this is a horrible place if you get it wrong, and I don't want to be a part of that, if she wants forgiveness and it makes it better I would rather give her that, I think she's been punished enough by the public.'
Meanwhile Kirstie herself also slammed Roxanne's behaviour in an interview on Wednesday's This Morning, saying the actress had risked ruining Ryan's career.
Mwah! Chloe and Natalie shared a smooch as they made their way out of the venue
Here we go: Chloe and Natalie engaged in the playful exchange shortly before making their way home on Wednesday evening
Close: The former enemies appeared to have patched up their differences after clashing in the Celebrity Big Brother house
Steady on: The two girls touched tongues as they made their exit on Wednesday evening
Unlikely pals: Ben Jardine left the event arm in arm with Hollywood star Kirstie Alley
Smoulder: Chloe covered up in the cold with a black mac which she wore over her red mini
Hey fans! Natalie ensured she greeted her awaiting fans with a quick wave
Pals: Hot on her heels was her pal Chloe who she later kissed in the street
She said: 'The thing with Roxanne was, it was 48 hours before anyone knew. I certainly didnt know for 48 hours.
'When I found out what her actual accusation was, I realised that it was a career destroyer and it became serious business.
'My only advice to Ryan was get to the producers. At that time I heard shed gone to the producers and to her manager
Kirstie was also shown the footage of the 'punch' incident and responded with incredulity. She said: 'That was it?! We were all jacking around like that. That looks like he didnt even make contact.
Dinner out: The group hung out outside the restaurant before making their way home
Cheeky! A very cheeky Ben got an eye full of Chloe's assets
Upbeat: Ben was in typically high spirits as he joined model Chloe outside the restaurant
Home time: Gabby attended the dinner with her brother David who followed her out of the restaurant
Siblings: The pair put on an affectionate display as their worked their angles outside Mr Chow
Wow: Gabby teamed her denim look with a black leather belt and a pair of peep-toe heels
Sweet: Gabby brought David out to meet the people she had been sharing the Celebrity Big Brother house with
Good times: Both Kirstie and Chloe were in high spirits as they made their way home on Wednesday evening
She's won rave reviews for her portrayal of a High Court judge in her new film The Children Act, adapted from Ian McEwan's novel.
And following her success Emma Thompson stepped out in New York wearing a stylish striped Markus Lupfer blouse on Wednesday.
The actress, 59, even stopped to sign her autograph for a fan as she made her way into a hotel in the Big Apple.
Stylish: Following her success in The Children's Act, Emma Thompson stepped out in New York wearing a stylish striped Markus Lupfer blouse on Wednesday
Emma, who attended the premiere of her new flick on Tuesday evening, teamed her blouse with a pair of dark chic trousers.
She added a glamorous edge to her day-time look with a pair of silver metallic mules, otherwise keeping it accessory free aside from a white watch.
The star opted for minimal make-up and wore her short platinum locks swept back off her face.
Chic: The actress, 59, even stopped to sign her autograph for a fan as she made her way into a hotel in the Big Apple
As her movie premiered earlier in the week, Emma was in great spirits as she cuddled up to her co-star Fionn Whitehead.
The acclaimed British actress looked chic in a tailored grey suit with sporty detail for her big night.
Emma was smart in a loose grey blazer and wide-legged trousers with an on-trend stripe running down the sides.
Suited: Emma arrived in style for the New York premiere of her new film The Children Act on Tuesday
She ditched the heels in favour of black and white trainers, while adding a touch of bling with her delicate drop earrings.
A glossy lip colour and a sideswept style to her peroxide blonde cut completed the ensemble perfectly.
In The Children Act the Oscar winner plays Fiona Maye, whose marital issues overshadow a legal case regarding the survival of a teenage boy, played by Dunkirk actor Fionn.
Talented pair: The acclaimed actress cuddled up to her co-star Fionn Whitehead inside the Walter Reade Theater at the Lincoln Center
Directed by Richard Eyre, the film unfolds as experienced High Court judge Maye discovers that her long, childless marriage has fallen apart without her noticing.
The Children Act also stars Stanley Tucci and Ben Chaplin and had it's world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival last September, before a limited release in the UK this month.
While the film itself has attracted mixed reviews, Emma's performance has received acclaim with Matthew Bond for Event Magazine writing last month: 'Thompson ends up being quietly magnificent'.
Chic: Emma was smart in a loose grey blazer and wide-legged trousers with an on-trend stripe running down the sides
Star: In The Children Act the Oscar winner plays Fiona Maye, whose marital issues overshadow a legal case regarding the survival of a teenage boy, played by Dunkirk actor Fionn
'Emma Thompsons performance, so elegant and vulnerable, carries the picture,' wrote Peter Bradshaw for The Guardian after the Toronto premiere last year.
Geoffrey Macnab for The Independent agreed writing: 'Thompson plays Fiona with intelligence and sensitivity, conveying the characters inner struggles as she tries (and largely fails) to balance her professional career, her morality and her own desires.'
The multi-talented actor, writer and producer recently spoke out against the gender pay gap scandal, revealing that she has never been paid the same as her male co-stars despite almost 30 years in showbusiness.
Acclaimed:Directed by Richard Eyre, the film unfolds as experienced High Court judge Maye discovers that her long, childless marriage has fallen apart without her noticing
Complicated: Fionn plays a teenage boy with cancer who is refusing a blood transfusion on religious principle
A toast to us! The movie's stars mingled with their producer Duncan Kenworthy (left)
Old friends: Emma caught up with her Sense and Sensibility director Ang Lee
Writer: Ian McEwan who wrote both the novel upon which the film is based and the screenplay was also at the premiere
She told Good Housekeeping she fully supported calls for gender pay gaps to be published, saying that over a century after getting the vote women are still considered 'second-class citizens.'
She said: 'I was always paid less than my male counterparts. Publishing figures is the first step.
'It's a forensic way of looking at how women are second-class citizens, and I appreciate that because it's not emotional. This is the fact: this person does the same work for less money, and that's just wrong.'
Emma also said her strong views on the subject have only grown over time, and she worries less about expressing her views now than she did in the early days of her career.
She added: 'Ive never felt so powerful and so calm. I just dont care, because Im too old.'
Bethenny Frankel asked Dennis Shields for a $17,000 private jet to Miami during a fight with Carole Radziwill in Colombia.
Dennis, Bethenny's ex boyfriend, was found dead on August 10 in his Manhattan apartment.
A special Passports Edition of RHONY on Wednesday showed Bethenny, 47, calling her ex asking for the expensive escape plane.
Special edition: Bethenny Frankel was shown asking her late ex-boyfriend Dennis Shields for a private jet to escape Carole Radziwill on Wednesday's special Passports Edition of RHONY
'I'm going to call Dennis and ask him to get me a plane,' she said, as a Bravo pop-up box revealed the price of her planned trip back to the US.
'Come get me, pick me up,' she pleaded on the phone to Dennis, who died at age 51 of a drug overdose at Trump Tower.
Bethenny later decided to stay on the disastrous vacation.
'Speaking to Dennis calmed me down for a second, he said ''come home if you want to come home'', but I decided to stay, because I just don't want the big drama of an exit,' she said.
Former friend: Carole during the episode compared her friendship to Bethenny to being in an 'abusive relationship'
Private jet: A pop-up during the special edition said a private jet from Cartagena, Colombia to Miami costs about $17,000
Former couple: Dennis, who died in August in New York City, is shown with Bethenny in February 2016
The frantic phone call that Bethenny made to Dennis showed the depth of their on-and-off relationship before his death.
Bethenny wanted to leave because of her disintegrating relationship with 55-year-old author Carole.
While in Colombia, Carole likened her 'friendship' with Bethenny to being in an 'abusive relationship.'
Support system: Dennis who died in August was able to calm down Bethenny on the phone
Carole, who has announced that she will not be returning to the show next season, appeared at a loss with her former friend.
Bethenny was in tears saying: 'I'm cracking, I can't even deal.'
'Negative, toxic energy,' remarked Carole, who went shopping with the others while Bethenny weeped at their $2,900-per-night holiday home.
Happier times: Carole and Bethenny traveled together before their friendship fractured
'There's no apparent reason for any of Bethenny's breakdowns,' added Carole unsympathetically.
It was also revealed that the women were treated to a 24/7 on-call doctor, one personal bodyguard each, 10 translators and a local fixer who was with them at all times.
Carole and Tinsley Mortimer had the most luggage, but Tinsley was the only one with a personalized glam squad on call 24-hours
On one 'casual' day the 43-year-old socialite's outfit consisted of $795 Valentino wedges and an $800 Camila dress, plus an abundance of glittering bling.
Casual style: A pop-up showed that Tinsley was wearing a $600 Camilla dress
Cool shoes: Tinsley also wore $795 Valentino wedges
Helping out: A pop-up highlighted Bethenny's philanthropy via her B Strong organization
Despite their luxury surroundings, gourmet food and extensive entourage of helpers Bethenny called the trip: 'The worst vacation I have ever been on.'
The Bravo crew announced that they 'never ate any of the ladies leftovers, no matter how good it looked.'
Throughout the booze-fueled vacation Luann de Lesseps managed to stay dry.
'Pretty mind-blowing for me,' she said as she sipped $8 'mocktinis'.
The Real Housewives Of New York City will return next season on Bravo.
She raised eyebrows with her quirky outfits at New York Fashion Week.
And Tammy Hembrow turned heads yet again as she sauntered into Gold Coast's Robina Shopping Centre in denim shorts on Wednesday.
The 24-year-old flaunted her pert derriere and toned legs in her skimpy ensemble as she stepped out in the warm Queensland weather.
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Thigh's the limit! Instagram model Tammy Hembrow showed off her pert derriere and toned legs in a pair of skimpy denim shorts on the Gold Coast on Wednesday
Tammy, who has almost nine million Instagram followers, showed off her toned figure and muscular arms in a white singlet.
The social media sensation tucked the top into her shorts, highlighting her flat stomach and svelte waistline.
She finished her casual look off with white sneakers, a black handbag and stylish, cat eye sunglasses.
Fit mama! Tammy, who is a mother of two young children, showed off her toned figure, svelte waistline and muscular arms in a figure-hugging white singlet
That's cheeky! The 24-year-old was joined by a more conservatively dressed female friend
The slender mother-of-two styled her blonde hair up in a bun, while opting for a natural look with her makeup.
Tammy later shared a picture to Instagram of herself in the outfit, captioning the post: 'I don't know, but I think I'm 90 per cent iced Americano.'
Sitting on a couch as she held the Starbucks beverage in her hand, she put on a delightfully leggy display.
'I think I'm 90 per cent iced Americano': Tammy later shared a picture to Instagram of herself in the outfit, captioning the post: 'I don't know, but I think I'm 90 per cent iced Americano'
On her Instagram Story, she also claimed to be 'back in the office' of her activewear label Saski Collection.
Tammy recently flew home after spending several days in America, where her brand was showcased on the New York Fashion Week runway.
Saski was one of a handful of local brands featured at NYFW by the agency Fashion Palette, which was founded by former My Kitchen Rules star Sonya Mefaddi.
She is set to wow audiences yet again in her new psychological thriller Everybody Knows, alongside real-life husband Javier Bardem.
And Penelope Cruz looked absolutely flawless as she arrived for the Madrid premiere for the upcoming mystery drama on Wednesday.
The acclaimed actress, 44, showed off her sensational figure in regal lace black gown teamed with classic black heels.
Glamorous: Penelope Cruz, 44, looked absolutely flawless as she arrived for the Madrid premiere for the psychological thriller Everybody Knows on Wednesday
Penelope lived up to her glamorous reputation as she took to the red carpet in the dazzling number.
The dress boasted an eye-catching neckline and caught the light perfectly with its glittering material.
Giving way to her drop silver earrings, Penelope pinned back her brunette tresses on both sides.
Style queen: The acclaimed actress showed off her sensational figure in regal lace black gown teamed with classic black heels
Eyes on her: Penelope lived up to her glamorous reputation as she took to the red carpet in the dazzling number
A-list: The dress boasted an eye-catching neckline and caught the light perfectly with its glittering material
In good condition: Giving way to her drop silver earrings, Penelope pinned back her brunette tresses on both sides
The Vicky Cristina Barcelona star accentuated her gorgeous features with a blush-infused cheeks and heavily outlined eyes.
Earlier on in the day, Penelope looked sensational as she attended the Madrid photocall for Everybody Knows.
The Oscar-winning actress exuded elegance in a stylish halterneck monochrome gown, which showcased her toned figure as she posed.
Beauty: The Vicky Cristina Barcelona star accentuated her gorgeous features with a blush-infused cheeks and heavily outlined eyes
Dream team: Penelope posed with husband Javier Bardem (L) and director Asghar Farhadi
Movie star: She is set to thrill audiences yet again in her new psychological thriller Everybody Knows, alongside real-life husband Javier Bardem
Monochrome magic: Earlier on in the day, Penelope looked sensational as she attended the Madrid photocall for Everybody Knows
The top portion of the gown featured black and white chevrons before flowing in a chic tailored black skirt. The Spanish beauty added height to her look with black stiletto sandals.
The Vanilla Sky star's caramel flecked tresses were styled in bouncy waves while her pretty features were enhanced with smoky kohl liner, mascara and a glossy taupe lipstick.
She also joined the film's cast, including beau Javier, 49, and director Asghar Farhadi for a snap to promote the film, known as Todos Lo Saben in Spain.
Penelope and her husband have been busy promoting their new drama, directed by two-time Academy Award winner Asghar.
Waving it up: The Oscar-winning actress exuded elegance in a stylish halterneck monochrome gown, which showcased her toned figure as she posed
Stylish: The top portion of the gown featured black and white chevrons before flowing in a chic tailored black skirt
Radiant: The Vanilla Sky star's caramel flecked tresses were styled in bouncy waves while her pretty features were enhanced with smoky kohl liner, mascara and a glossy taupe lipstick
Spanish siren: The brunette beauty added height to her look with black stiletto sandals
In the layered, psychological film Penelope plays Laura, a mother who travels with her young son and teenage daughter to her sister's wedding.
Having left her husband Alejandro (Ricardo Darin) in Argentina, tensions begin to rise as feelings for her old boyfriend Paco (Javier) resurface when they cross paths.
But things take a dramatic turn when the power cuts out during the wedding, and Laura finds that her daughter has gone missing when they come back on.
Swish: The beauty adjusted her glossy tresses before posing for another flawless snap
Smile: The star looked fabulous as she posed up with director and double Oscar winner Asghar Farhadi
Leading lights: Penelope's hunky husband and co-star Javier Bardem joined the duo
Line-up: (L-R) Inma Cuesta, Sara Salamo,Elvira Minguez, Javier, Asghar, Penelope, Barbara Lennie and Eduard Fernandez posed up at the photocall
As for their own romance story, the couple fell madly in love with each other when they starred in the Woody Allen-directed 'Vicky Cristina Barcelona' in 2008.
Penelope scooped an Academy Award for playing Javier's emotionally unstable love interest in the movie.
The married lovers tied the knot during the summer of 2010 in a private ceremony at a friend's home in the Bahamas.
They raise their five-year-old daughter Luna and seven-year-old son Leo at their home.
Ensemble: In the layered, psychological film Penelope plays Laura, a mother who travels with her young son and teenage daughter to her sister's wedding
Hilaria Baldwin attended Us Weekly's Most Stylish New Yorkers party on Wednesday night in the Big Apple.
The 34-year-old fitness expert, who wore a plunging high-low dress, rocked a metallic leather jacket that she paired with glittery pumps.
She was joined by former Real Housewives of New York star Kelly Bensimon, who wowed in white denim and a faux fur jacket.
Fashionistas: Hilaria Baldwin and Kelly Bensimon attended Us Weekly's Most Stylish New Yorkers party on Wednesday night
Edgy: The 34-year-old fitness expert, who wore a plunging high-low dress, rocked a metallic leather jacket to the evening's soiree
Nikki and Brie Bella turned heads on the red carpet in their chic, satin ensembles designed by Chanel.
Nikki, recently single, looked red-hot in a wrap dress that featured a thigh-high slit and plunging neckline.
As for Brie, she looked ready for business in a coordinating orange pantsuit that showed off her ample bosom.
Sister, sister: Nikki and Brie Bella turned heads on the red carpet in their chic, satin ensembles designed by Chanel
Date night: Ryan Seacrest, dressed in a navy suit, attended the event with his girlfriend Shayna Taylor, 26
Ryan Seacrest, dressed in a fitted navy suit, attended the event with his girlfriend Shayna Taylor.
Taylor, 26, looked glamorous in off-white, silk pants and a patterned blazer that she teamed with a lace bralette.
The Bachelor's Andi Dorfman sparkled in a red romper, while comedian Heather McDonald wore an all-black ensemble.
Strike a pose: The Bachelor's Andi Dorfman sparkled in a red romper, while comedian Heather McDonald wore an all-black ensemble
So chic: Pretty Little Liars' Shay Mitchell, one of the evening's honorees, walked the red carpet in a structured mini dress and sky-high heels
Pretty Little Liars' Shay Mitchell, one of the evening's honorees, walked the red carpet in a structured mini dress and sky-high heels.
The 31-year-old actress swapped her lengthy locks for a blunt bob, while model Shanina Shaik wore her hair in crimped waves.
Mitchell's PLL co-star Torrey DeVitto and Gossip Girl's Kelly Rutherford were also present at the Effen Vodka sponsored soiree.
Hollywood hotshots: Mitchell's PLL co-star Torrey DeVitto and Gossip Girl's Kelly Rutherford were also present at the Effen Vodka sponsored soiree
Tracey Jewel, 35, has been diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) following her stint on Married At First Sight.
The troubled star spent nearly three weeks in a mental health clinic last month, after her suicide attempt in Berlin, Germany in late July and she has revealed she bumped into a fellow reality star at the facility.
'Let's just say I wasn't the only reality TV star that was in there,' she told Who magazine on Thursday without revealing the star's identity.
'I wasn't the only one in there': Tracey Jewel reveals PTSD diagnosis and says she bumped into another reality star while getting treatment at a mental health clinic
'They were going through exactly the same things as I was, so it was a really good support.
She added: 'I was at the clinic for two-and-a-half weeks. I'm now a day patient going through a cognitive behaviour therapy program to help with my agoraphobia and my anxiety.'
Agoraphobia is the irrational fear of leaving the house or being in crowded places.
Tracey, who shares a five-year-old daughter Grace with her ex-husband Jake, is back at home living with her parents in Perth.
Drama: Tracey was a breakout star on MAFS earlier this year, with viewers captivated by her 'marriage' problems with Dean Wells (right)
She now sees her only child 'at least once a week' as she focuses on her recovery.
It comes after the troubled Channel Nine personality made a triumphant return to social media on Monday.
She took to Instagram on Monday to announce that she's started penning her next book, claiming that she's already written 26,000 words in just three weeks.
The 35-year-old put on a studious display in a pair of thick black glasses and smiled as she posed next to a locked diary that undoubtedly contained the first manuscript of her next tome.
She's back! It comes after the troubled Channel Nine personality made a triumphant return to social media on Monday
'I've been putting my down time to good use working on a few projects and writing a lot!' gushed the star.
'26,000 words in 3 week's [sic] and counting!' she continued. 'Thanks for the continued love everyone!'
The prolific author is best known for her 'Goddess' series of self-help books, which includes Don't Mess With The Goddess and This Goddess Means Business.
Wordsmith: The prolific author is best known for her two self-help books, Don't Mess With The Goddess and This Goddess Means Business
Inspirational: The brunette's second book Don't Mess With The Goddess details Tracey's personal journey of how she transformed her life and found success
The latter was somewhat controversial after it was published with multiple grammatical errors.
In a scathing review, news.com.au compared it to a 'funeral pamphlet' and said that the 'super tiny' book could be read in under 20 minutes.
At the end of June, Tracey was left 'stranded' in Berlin without money for a flight home after splitting with her boyfriend Patrick Kedemos during a European holiday from hell.
'Funeral pamphlet': This Goddess Means Business was slammed for having grammatical errors
In a moment of desperation, the mother-of-one tried to kill herself by 'overdosing' on medication.
Thankfully, the talented author is doing much better after spending time in a mental health facility in Perth last month.
In a message to her loyal fans a few weeks ago, the brunette said she was 'focusing on getting well.'
At the end of June, Tracey was left 'stranded' in Berlin, Germany without money for a flight home after splitting with her boyfriend Patrick Kedemos during a European vacation from hell
Rock bottom: In a moment of desperation, the mother-of-one tried to kill herself in Berlin by 'overdosing' on medication
Earlier this year, Tracey became one of the most talked-about women in Australia when she was involved in a love triangle on Married At First Sight.
She was paired with Dean Wells on the 'social experiment', but was left blindsided when he had an 'affair' with fellow contestant Davina Rankin.
In the months after the show aired, however, Tracey emerged as one of the series' most controversial and divisive contestants.
She has faced criticism for running an allegedly fraudulent competition, plagiarising content in her books and falsely implying she suffered from cervical cancer.
If you, or someone you know, needs support please call Lifeline on 13 11 14 or visit lifeline.org.au
The Block's Jess Eva and Norm Hogan are the only team yet to win a single room challenge on the Channel Nine renovation show.
And in a promotional trailer for Sunday night's episode, the pressure of completing their kitchen appears to hit builder Norm hard.
'Norm collapses - defeated and broken,' a narrator is heard describing the yet-to-be-aired incident on the popular series.
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Tools down! The Block's Norm Hogan, 40, collapses from exhaustion during overnight renovations in Gatwick Hotel apartment (Pictured: Norm with partner Jess Eva
The 40-year-old appears distraught in the teaser trailer, shown on the floor of their half-renovated kitchen with his head lowered.
Norm's Queensland-based partner Jess tells the camera in another scene: 'We had a really difficult night.'
All the teams struggle to contain flooding in the apartments during the upcoming episode, which results in power to the complex being cut.
'Defeated and broken': The builder, 40, appears distraught in the teaser trailer as he's seen on the floor of their half-renovated kitchen with his head lowered
Oh no! The teams appear to be struggling to contain flooding into the apartments during the episode, which results in power to the complex being cut
Host Scott Cam is then seen telling all the teams to put their 'tools down'.
It's not the first time The Block has seen a contestant collapse on the show's renovation site.
In 2015, contestant Suzi Taylor collapsed from exhaustion on the South Yarra set of the popular Channel Nine series.
Tough gig: In 2015, contestant Suzi Taylor (PICTURED) collapsed from exhaustion on the South Yarra set of the popular Channel Nine series
She was rushed by ambulance to hospital after she was found unconscious, according to radio station 3AW at the time.
Nine told Daily Mail Australia that the former model was 'suffering from exhaustion' following a protected open day inspection at the weekend.
The Block returns to Nine on Sunday from 7pm
He failed to find love on Married At First Sight last season.
And following his stint on the Channel Nine show, it appeared as though Sean Thomsen was pulling out all the stops for a date.
Screenshots of profiles featuring photos of Sean on dating apps Tinder and Bumble surfaced this week, but the reality star has denied they belong to him.
Not him? Married At First Sight's Sean Thomsen described Tinder and Bumble profiles that surfaced this week as 'fake'
On Tinder, Sean appears to be purporting to be '30' while on Bumble his age was listed as '32'.
Both ages have a few years shaved off what the FIFO worker originally told Channel Nine when he took part on MAFS.
In a 'Get To Know Sean' clip which is still featured on 9Now's website, he introduces himself by saying: 'Hi, I'm Sean. I'm 34 and I'm from Perth.'
What's his age again? While Sean was introduced on Married At First Sight as being '34', the 'fake' dating app profiles listed him as '30' and '32'
When alerted to the discrepancy on Thursday, Sean told Daily Mail Australia the accounts were not authentic.
'Well they are obviously fake accounts,' he claimed. 'Thanks for letting me know Ill be reporting it.'
Ouch: Married At First Sight's Tracey Jewel (left) dumped Sean in May after just several months of dating
During an action-packed season of Married At First Sight, Sean was paired with Blair Rachael in short-lived 'marriage'.
After their split, Sean struck up a romance with co-star Tracey Jewel, who had experienced a disastrous relationship with her own match Dean Wells.
That romance also didn't have a fairytale ending, with Tracey dumping Sean in May.
In recent months, he has been linked to 19-year-old Melbourne-based Instagram model Sarcia Alexandra.
Melissa George has enlisted the help of an Australian real-estate agent pal to sell her luxury one-bedroom Manhattan apartment.
The Australian actress' choice to relist the property comes after a New York agency failed to find a buyer last year.
According to Domain, Melissa, who now bases herself in Paris, has placed the enviable property on the market for A$3.65 million.
Back on the market! Melissa George has relisted her one-bedroom Manhattan apartment for $3.65 million
Split: The Hollywood star purchased the Flatiron apartment during her 10-year marriage to Claudio Dabed (R) for A$2.34million, over six years ago
The 42-year-old made her start in Australia, before moving to the United States in 1997 to pursue an acting career.
She has since appeared in Mullholland Drive, Down with Love, Alias, Greys Anatomy and The Good Wife.
The Hollywood star purchased the Flatiron apartment over six years ago during her 10-year marriage to Claudio Dabed for A$2.34million.
She split with Claudio in 2011 over her desire to have children.
Prime real estate! The 112 m apartment hosts one bedroom, a home office, two bathrooms, a large living area and a private outdoor terrace
Australian agent Louise Snowden of Snowden Jones, who has known Melissa for 20 years, explained why she thought the residence failed to sell in the past to Domain.
'I think a lot of the problem, apart from the long lease, was with how the property was marketed,' she said.
At 112-square metres, it really should be a two-bedder. The over-sized study could easily be turned into a proper second bedroom with just the addition of a doorway,' she added.
Louise said the current tenant's long-term lease ends in January 2019.
Chic! Pictures of the highly sought-after pre-war beaux art architecture accommodation on Fifth Avenue, show chic and immaculate design and decor throughout
Pictures of the highly sought-after pre-war beaux art architecture accommodation on Fifth Avenue, show chic and immaculate design and decor throughout.
The 112 m apartment hosts one bedroom, a home office, two bathrooms, a large living area and a private outdoor terrace.
Each room is fitted with superior high-end finishes, including the lavish marble-top kitchen with a built-in Miele coffee system and Bosch dishwasher.
Stylish! The home features a lavish marble-top kitchen with a built-in Miele coffee system and Bosch dishwasher
Room for more! Australian agent Louise Snowden of Snowden Jones says the study could be converted into a second bedroom
New York skyline: The condominium building comes with a full time doorman and a stunning shared roof deck with spectacular views of the city
The condominium building comes with a full time doorman and a stunning shared roof deck with spectacular views of the city.
Melissa has decorated the abode with stylish touches and art deco-inspired furniture.
The agent claims purchasers who admire the look of its current decor, including the gilded mirrors, velvet tub chairs, and even the sumptuous bed, can negotiate to buy the apartment fully furnished.
The stars were out for the New York premiere of the Netflix documentary Quincy Wednesday night.
And no one lit the up the red carpet brighter than actress Heather Graham.
The 48-year old Boogie Nights star wowed in a leg-revealing black and white floral frock.
Shining star: Heather Graham, 48, was among the stars who walked the red carpet for the New York premiere of the Netflix documentary Quincy
Adding to it's pop factor, the number featured sheer fabric around her arms and shoulders that also included hints of the eye-pleasing floral pattern.
She matched it perfectly with a pair of black pumps and kept the accessories to a minimum.
The 5ft 8in beauty styled her trademark blonde tresses with some subtle waves and with a part in the middle.
Commanding attention: The Boogie Nights star wowed in a leg-revealing black and white floral frock
Bringing it: Quincy co-director/co-producer Alan Hicks held his own on the red carpet next to The Hangover star
Strike a pose: The actress flaunted owned the floral number that featured sheer fabric around her arms and shoulders
Real Hollywood starlet: Heather's lengthy feature film resume includes Boogie Nights, Swingers, Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, From Hell and The Hangover
The namesake and subject of the documentary, Quincy Jones, 85, was among the stars who also shined on the red carpet.
The musical legend looked distinguished as he posed for photographers by himself and with special guests.
Among those other special guests were actor Danny Glover, Jazz Foundation of America executive director Wendy Oxenhorn, Bleed For This Director Ben Younger and model Hollie Witcthy.
Quincy's daughter/actress, Rashida Jones, worked with filmmaker Alan Hicks on the project, which has been described as 'an intimate look into the life of the iconic music producer, trumpeter, songwriter, conductor, composer and music arranger.
'A unique force in music and popular culture for 70 years, Jones has transcended racial and cultural boundaries; his story is inextricably woven into the fabric of America.'
Legend: Super-producer, trumpeter, songwriter, conductor, composer and music arranger Quincy Jones hit the red carpet along with co-director/producer Alan Hicks
Making his mark: Quincy Jones gained prominence as a jazz arranger/conductor in the 1950's; he became a household name as a producer for music icons Ray Charles, Michael Jackson, Frank Sinatra, and Aretha Franklin
Rashida, 42, and Hicks had the monumental task of sifting through 800 hours of new video they shot and 2,000 hours of archival footage.
And in hindsight, after all the work, the Parks and Recreation alum revealed some surprises she learned about her famous father along the way.
'I think it was just the consistency of pattern that he pushed himself to the limit every decade to sometimes a health crisis or a nervous breakdown or whatever it was,' she admitted to USA Today. 'And then every single time, he managed to survive, reset, recalibrate and make a decision to live his life in a different way.'
Quincy came to prominence in the 1950s as a jazz arranger and conductor, before moving on to popular music and film scores.
Along the way he won 27 Grammys and produced albums for late musical icons such as Ray Charles, Michael Jackson, Frank Sinatra, and Aretha Franklin.
Quincy is slated to debut on Netflix September 21, with a limited theatrical run in New York and Los Angeles.
Stars are out out in NYC: Bleed For This Director Ben Younger and model Hollie Witcthy were chummy as they walked the red carpet
Music lovers: Jazz Foundation of America executive director Wendy Oxenhorn and actor Danny Glover showed their support for the documentary in NYC
She is one of a variety of young stars appearing in the upcoming flick Assassination Nation.
But it was Bella Thorne who stole the spotlight as she walked the red carpet in a plunging black dress.
The 20-year-old actress highlighted her sinewy stems and ample cleavage while joining the flick's other stars at the Los Angeles premiere.
Spotlight: It was Bella Thorne who stole the spotlight as she walked the red carpet in a plunging black dress
The floor-length frock featured a high slip over her left leg and a delicate decolletage that fell to a couple inches above her navel.
There was a matching belt cinched around her slender waist and she added a couple inches with a pair of glimmering heels.
She pulled her dark tresses into a tight bun, and wisps of yellow feathers were seen peeking up from the back.
Accessorizing with a variety of necklaces, including one featuring a large cross pendant, the Midnight Sun star wore heavy red eye shadow, adding an extra bit of flair to the already edgy look.
Her boyfriend Mod Sun, 31, joined her on the red carpet, donning a red camo tracksuit.
Opening: The 20-year-old actress highlighted her sinewy stems and ample cleavage while joining the flick's other stars at the Los Angeles premiere
Feathers: She pulled her dark tresses into a tight bun, and wisps of yellow feathers were seen peeking up from the back
Date night: Her boyfriend Mod Sun, 31, joined her on the red carpet, donning a red camo tracksuit
Odessa Young, who stars as lead Lily Colson, looked stunning in a black bra top and wide-legged, high-waisted blue pants.
Speaking exclusively with a Daily Mail reporter, the 20-year-old actress said about her character, 'To me she represented the wide American girl. She is a girl who has been placed in circumstances that she has no control over and she is simply trying to survive, and that's even at the beginning of the movie.
'You survive in this world as a teenage girl. It never feels like you are quite comfortable in your place in the world, and you're five steps behind trying to get ahead.
'Then, of course, the movie takes a turn and that all becomes too real, but that's what I love about it. I got an opportunity to represent someone who had definitely been through something like that before.'
The Looking for Grace actress explained that from her first read-through, she 'loved how it gave teenage girls the love and respect that they deserve.'
Interview: Odessa Young, who stars as lead Lily Colson, looked stunning in a black bra top and wide-legged, high-waisted blue pants
Opening up: Speaking exclusively with a Daily Mail reporter, the 20-year-old actress said about her character, 'To me she represented the wide American girl. She is a girl who has been placed in circumstances that she has no control over and she is simply trying to survive, and that's even at the beginning of the movie
Suki Waterhouse was also breathtaking in an intricately stitched floral top that also featured a plunging neckline.
The 26-year-old actress also donned a frilly black skirt and puled her dirty blonde tresses into a loose bun.
She added a couple inches with black heels and painted her lips a soft pink adding an elegant touch to the chic ensemble.
Breathtaking: Suki Waterhouse was also breathtaking in an intricately stitched floral top that also featured a plunging neckline
Stunner: The 26-year-old actress also donned a frilly black skirt and puled her dirty blonde tresses into a loose bun
Coleman Domingo, 48, also attended the premiere, donning yellow tracksuit with a China blue floral pattern.
He added a black-and-white two-tone jacket on top and paired it all with slick white sneakers.
Sam Levinson looked his part of the astute writer-director in an all-black ensemble.
Patterns: Coleman Domingo, 48, also attended the premiere, donning yellow tracksuit with a China blue floral pattern
Behind the lens: Sam Levinson looked his part of the astute writer-director in an all-black ensemble
It was certainly a star-studded night as celebrities from across the map appeared on the flick's red carpet.
Charlie XCX flaunted her legs in a short, sleeveless black dress and knee-high black boots.
Rumer Willis mixed up shades of yellow with her ensemble that featured a large coat and a shirt-dress.
Dove Cameron, 22, elected for an off-the-shoulder black frock with one long sleeve and let her long blond tresses fall straight down her back.
Star-studded: Charlie XCX flaunted her legs in a short, sleeveless black dress and knee-high black boots
Yellows: Rumer Willis mixed up shades of yellow with her ensemble that featured a large coat and a shirt-dress
Carpet walk: Dove Cameron, 22, elected for an off-the-shoulder black frock with one long sleeve and let her long blond tresses fall straight down her back
Afterwards the crew headed to the afterparty at Avenue Los Angeles where SVEDKA cocktails were being served all night as Michelle Rodriguez, Troye Sivan, and Rumer's sister Tallulah joined in.
The R-rated movie revolves around four high school girls in modern-day Salem who start packing heat after a hacker exposes the town's dirty secrets.
It soon escalates into a full-on gender war and obtained its rating for 'disturbing bloody violence, strong sexual material including menace, pervasive language, and for drug and alcohol use - all involving teens,' according to IMDb.
Assassination Nation is set to open in theatres on September 21 in the United States, and in the United Kingdom on November 23.
He's one of the world's most in demand male models thanks to his chiseled jawline and smouldering good looks.
But on Thursday, Jordan Barrett was spotted arriving at the Messika Jewellery party in New York, looking a little different.
The 21-year-old blond appeared to be sporting a very heavy application of fake tan.
Bronzed ambition! Male supermodel Jordan Barrett wears a VERY heavy application of fake tan as he attends a fashion party in New York (R, pictured L in May)
Jordan - who hails from Byron Bay - cut a stylish figure in a long black jacket, T-shirt and trousers paired with black leather boots.
He had his long locks out in tousled waves and gave the photographers a brooding stare.
Jordan - who has modelled for the likes of Tom Ford, Balmain and Versace - joined American beauty Gigi Hadid at the event.
Fashion! Jordan - who hails from Byron Bay - cut a stylish figure in a long black jacket, T-shirt and trousers paired with black leather boots
Brooding: He had his long locks out in tousled waves and gave the photographers a brooding stare
Meanwhile, the runway sensation was back in Australia last month and appeared in a rather awkward interview with The Morning Show's Larry Emdur and Sally Obermeder.
The 21-year-old fashionista was left thoroughly unimpressed after Sally and her co-host Larry Emdur repeatedly got his age wrong by saying he was 23.
Introducing the segment, Sally said: 'Jordan Barrett has taken the fashion industry by storm and he's only 23.'
Interrupting the introduction, Jordan said: 'One - I'm 21.'
As Sally politely corrected herself, saying, 'You're only 21? He gets younger as he sits here!', Jordan added: 'They keep getting it wrong but yes, I'm still 21.'
Larry then attempted to inject some humour into the mishap by joking that Jordan was actually 14 years old before the interview commenced.
On Tuesday she spoke of feeling 'iced out' by her co-stars after she pressed the studio to delete a scene she unwittingly filmed with a convicted sex offender.
But on Wednesday, Olivia Munn was all smiles as she attended a special screening of her new movie The Predator at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood.
The 38-year-old shone in a silver dress with a deep plunging neckline.
Shine on: On Wednesday, Olivia Munn was all smiles as she attended a special screening of her new movie The Predator at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood
The X-Men: Apocalypse actress's dress also boasted a high thigh split which showed off plenty of Munn's gorgeous gams.
Olivia wore her wavy brunette tresses untied and accentuated her lips with a bold slash of deep red lipstick.
Munn says she felt shunned by her castmates in The Predator after she blew the whistle on her convicted sex offender co-star and got his scene cut from the film.
War paint: Olivia wore her wavy brunette tresses untied and accentuated her lips with a bold slash of deep red lipstick
The Six actress spoke about how she was iced out by her colleagues after she notified studio executives that fellow actor Steven Wilder Striegel was registered sex offender on The Ellen Show Tuesday.
Munn said it wasn't until after she filmed a scene with Striegel that she learned the 48-year-old, a close friend of the film's director Shane Black, pleaded guilty in 2010 to attempting to form an online sexual relationship with a 14-year-old female relative.
'Nobody talked to me. Nobody reached out that whole day,' the actress, who plays Casey Bracket in the sequel to the classic 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger movie out Friday, told Ellen.
'At first I thought maybe it was just because they don't know what to say, they wanted to say it out of the way, but privately I did feel iced out.'
Not so icy now: On Tuesday she spoke of feeling 'iced out' by her co-stars after she pressed the studio to delete a scene she unwittingly filmed with a convicted sex offender. Seen here with Sterling K Brown
Dapper: This Is Us star Sterling K. Brown wowed in a white linen suit
Also at the event was The Handmaid's Tale breakout star Yvonne Strahovski.
The 36-year-old Australian actress flaunted her baby bump in a flowing, floral maternity dress.
Yvonne's wavy blonde tresses were left untied, flowing and with an off-center part.
Bumping along nicely: Yvonne Strahovski rocks a floral maternity dress over her baby bump
Co-stars: Keegan Michael-Key [L] and Boyd Holbrook
The happy trio: Brown poses with wife Ryan Michelle Bathe and friend
Unorthodox: Actor Thomas Jane took to the red carpet sans footwear
Sarah Jessica Parker has denied keeping $150k worth of jewelry she borrowed two-and-a-half years ago.
On Wednesday Page Six reported the Sex And The City Star was being sued by Kat Florence design for failing to return a number of pieces after a 2016 photoshoot.
The 53-year-old's lawyer Ira Schreck subsequently told Us Weekly: 'This is just plain false.'
No thief: Sarah Jessica Parker has denied keeping $150k worth of jewelry she borrowed two-and-a-half years ago
'SJP was under contract to Kat Florence and was asked to keep the jewelry so that she could wear it on red carpets and other events when appropriate.
'Sarah Jessica Parker is as honest and trustworthy a person as anyone I have ever met. She has never and would never hold onto anything belonging to someone else.
He added: 'In fact, she has been asking ever since Kat Florence wrongfully stopped paying her to have the pieces returned, but Kat Florence didnt seem terribly interested in getting them back.'
The company alleged the actress had asked to keep some pieces, including $40k earrings and a $27k ring and they agreed to let her hold onto them for two months.
Long term loan: On Wednesday Page Six reported the Sex And The City Star was being sued by Kat Florence design for failing to return a number of pieces after a 2016 photoshoot
They claim she never gave them back, and are seeking $150,000 in restitution.
Kat Florence Designs attorney told Page Six in a statement: 'It is our position in this case that after a photo shoot as part of the endorsement agreement, Ms. Parker requested that she could personally keep some of the pieces of the jewelry for a few months to wear personally.
We agreed and documented what she had. This happened in March 2016. Over two years later, the jewelry was never returned to us. We believe that as Ms. Parker has kept the jewelry since 2016 that she should pay us for it.'
Earlier this year, Parker and Florence became embroiled in legal drama after a partnership between them turned sour.
Florence sued Parker in April claiming it signed a $7.5million deal with her to promote their brand, which she reneged on.
Parker meanwhile counter-sued in July, claiming they didn't pay her for services rendered, and because they were continuing to use her image without her permission.
Yoink: The company alleged the actress had asked to keep some pieces, including $40k earrings and a $27k ring and they agreed to let her hold onto them for two months
The jewelry company paid the star $5 million upfront to allow them to use her face and name for their Sarah Jessica Parker D-Flawless Diamond collection, page Six reported at the time.
The federal lawsuit, which was filed in Manhattan, says that per the agreement, the star was allegedly supposed to be on hand to open their London store and promote the jewelry during events.
She was in London at the same time as the opening but did not attend, which caused the event to be canceled.
The actress was in the English capital to promote her fragrance at the time.
According to the website, the document states: 'The failure of [Parker] to participate during this time period has resulted in the lose of the line, the loss of the London store, the loss of goodwill and has several damaged the reputation of [Kat Florence Designs].'
The company also claims that Sarah Jessica was 'unavailable' for four months in 2016 because she was filming her HBO show Divorce - the same year the brand was planning on launching.
In addition, jewelry company alleges that the movie star didn't take photos with the Kat Florence, the company's president, during the 2017 Golden Globes, where she was supposed to promote the line.
Sarah Jessica allegedly did not 'inexplicably' acknowledge the jewelry designer at the awards show, reported Page Six.
Happier times: Sarah pictured with Kat and photographer Peter Lindbergh during promotional shoot
She didn't take part in interviews to promote the brand, choosing to 'promote her TV series.'
They claim she didn't even follow Kat on Instagram: '[Parker] even refused to do the simplest of marketing and promotion such as follow on Instagram.'
Sarah is still featured on Kat Florence's website in two different videos - both behind the scenes clips of the star posing for what appears to be an ad campaign.
A quote from her is also featured on the jewelry website; it reads: 'It is the lovely expression narrating a feeling of balance and proportions that attracted me to this partnership.'
However, TMZ's source said at the time that the company had several more requests after she signed the original deal.
Their insider revealed that the new demands were not in the contract she signed and they included things like bringing Kat to four events and 50 Instagram posts per year, wearing the jewelry brand to all award shows and 24 events per year.
In addition, TMZ said that they requested she wear one piece to all magazine shoots she does and talk about the jewelry in 12 international magazines each year.
The representative told the website: 'Kate Florence reneged on their contract with SJP. They have refused to compensate her after fulfilling her contractual obligations and continue to use her image for advertising and publicity to promote their brand.'
She's one of the world's most sought after models who has her own jewelry collection with Messika.
So celebrating her latest collaboration with the brand was the perfect way for Gigi Hadid to wrap up a successful and final New York Fashion Week for 2018.
The 23-year-old was led the pack of stars at the event and was accompanied by her father Mohamed Hadid, 69, and Irina Shayk, 32.
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Gigi's night! Gigi Hadid was joined by her dad Mohamed and fellow model Irina Shayk to celebrate her latest Messika collection in New York on Wednesday night
Gigi opted for a sheer yet sparkling strapless jumpsuit that showcased her enviable physique.
The top Vogue model's ensemble featured a G-string leotard underneath and was form-fitting around her curves.
She teamed the ensemble with a pair of pointed-toe strappy black heels.
Gorgeous: Gigi opted for a sheer yet sparkling strapless jumpsuit that showcased her enviable physique
Quite the sight! The top Vogue model's ensemble featured a G-string leotard underneath and was form-fitting around her curves
Beauty: Her blonde locks were teased into a voluminous crown and left straightened behind her shoulders
Gigi accessorised her look with rings, earrings and necklaces from her collection.
Her blonde locks were teased into a voluminous crown and left straightened behind her shoulders.
The beauty's glam was done by celebrity makeup artist Patrick Ta and featured a soft glow with a sweep of blush and well defined eyebrows.
Sparkling: Gigi accessorised her look with rings, earrings and necklaces from her collection
Simple look: She teamed the ensemble with a pair of pointed-toe strappy black heels
Where's Zayn? Gigi's date for the evening with her billionaire father Mohamed Hadid
Gigi's date for the evening with her billionaire father Mohamed Hadid.
He dressed in a buttoned up suit and tie and sported a pair of blue tinted shades.
Irina Shayk was also spotted at the event in a velvet midi-length frock from FRAME.
Looking sharp: He dressed in a buttoned up suit and tie and sported a pair of blue tinted shades
Beauty: Irina Shayk was also spotted at the event in a velvet midi-length frock from FRAME
Who's the guy? While her fiance Bradley Cooper did not attend, she was seen walking into the venue with a mystery man
The dress featured a v-neck cut and was held up with spaghetti straps.
Irina showcased her bronzed physique for the night out and completed her makeup with a simplistic dewy glow.
While her fiance Bradley Cooper did not attend, she was seen walking into the venue with a mystery man.
Breathtaking: Irina showcased her bronzed physique for the night out and completed her makeup with a simplistic dewy glow
She works out! Teyana Taylor ensured all eyes were on her incredible washboard abs on Wednesday night
Ab-tastic! The toned songstress wore an animal printed bra and matching trousers
Teyana Taylor ensured all eyes were on her incredible washboard abs on Wednesday night.
The toned songstress wore an animal printed bra and matching trousers.
She completed her outfit with an oversized long green and blue leather coat.
Stylish: She completed her outfit with an oversized long green and blue leather coat
Gorgeous: Teyana's makeup was radiant with attention on her nude glossy plump pout
Teyana's makeup was radiant with attention on her nude glossy plump pout.
Her brunette locks were styled into tight waves.
Jordan Barrett, known as 'fashion's bad-boy' was also in attendance at the jewelry event.
He's here! Jordan Barrett, known as 'fashion's bad-boy' was also in attendance at the jewelry event
Natural summer glow? Jordan's blonde locks were tousled into a messy do and he appeared to still have a generous amount of fake tan still on his face following his runway appearance at the Marc Jacobs show
He opted to dress in a head-to-toe black outfit with his T-shirt tucked into his trousers.
He kept warm with a coat of the same color and wore a pair of leather boots.
Jordan's blonde locks were tousled into a messy do and he appeared to still have a generous amount of fake tan still on his face following his runway appearance at the Marc Jacobs show.
Fashion-forward: He opted to dress in a head-to-toe black outfit with his T-shirt tucked into his trousers
Bringing the laughs: And it was an event for all with comedic actress Tiffany Haddish also stepping out to celebrate the jewelry line at Milk Studios of Wednesday night
And it was an event for all with comedic actress Tiffany Haddish also stepping out to celebrate the jewelry line at Milk Studios of Wednesday night.
She sported a one-shoulder black dress that featured a ruffled across the middle.
The Girls Trip star paired the look with minimalistic black strappy heels and sported a dazzling cross bar ring from the collection.
Tiffany styled her dark shoulder-length balayage locks into loose waves and sported a radiant glow with subtle smokey eye.
At one point she was seen posing alongside celebrity stylist Law Roach.
Law was also dressed in black, opting for what looked to be a padded vest over his chest and one leg.
She's currently in the midst of a decidedly busy promotional cycle, as she touts her upcoming movie, Colette.
And Keira Knightley pressed on with her duties on Wednesday evening, as she attended a special BAFTA screening of the highly anticipated film with her co-star Dominic West in New York City.
The 33-year-old-actress, who is fresh from attending the Toronto International Film Festival, wowed as she arrived in a glittering silver semi-sheer top, which she teamed with high-waisted baggy maroon trousers.
Special unveiling: Keira Knightley joined Dominic West, left, at a BAFTA screening of their film Colette in New York City on Wednesday night
With her glossy chestnut brown tresses falling beyond her shoulders in voluminous soft waves, the screen star highlighted her natural beauty with a palette of makeup that included a deep pink blush, eyeshadow and lipstick.
Standing tall in a pair of embellished, strappy black block heels, she posed alongside fellow Brit Dominic, 48, who put on a dapper display in a dark suit.
Earlier in the day, the mother-of-one sported the same ensemble as she made her way to the Midtown Manhattan studios of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.
Sensational: The 33-year-old-actress wowed as she arrived in a glittering silver semi-sheer top, which she teamed with high-waisted baggy maroon trousers
Tress-ed to impress: Her glossy chestnut brown tresses were styled in voluminous soft waves
The audience: Inside the exclusive event, she sat down for a Q&A session with the audience
Jet-setter: British beauty Keira is fresh from attending the Toronto International Film Festival, where she also promoted her anticipated film
The screen star's movie Colette is based on the life of the author of the same name who lived from 1875 to 1954, dying at age 81.
Set in the early 20th century, author Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette is pushed by her overbearing husband, Henry Gauthier-Villars, to write novels under his name in the biopic.
When they become bestsellers, she fights to make her talents known, challenging gender norms of the time. Dominic West plays her husband.
Colette premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah in January and played at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 7.
Busy schedule: The actress has been busy on the promotional circuit as she touts Colette
Coming to a screen near you: The film is due out on a limited release in the US on September 21, while it is scheduled for a January 25, 2019, opening in the UK
Good spirits: The group appeared to be in an upbeat mood as they spoke with the audience
The film is due out on a limited release in the US on September 21, while it is scheduled for a January 25, 2019, opening in the UK.
After a small role in Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace in 1999 and Bend It Like Beckham in 2002, Keira found fame co-starring in Pirates Of The Caribbean: The Curse Of The Black Pearl in 2003.
She went on to co-star with Johnny Depp in three more of the five films in the Pirates franchise including the most recent, Dead Men Tell No Tales in 2017.
Shining star: Earlier in the day, she was seen arriving at the Midtown Manhattan studios of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert
Bringing the bling: The star dazzled as she wore the same ensemble that she would sport at the screening of Colette
Maggie Gyllenhaal has revealed she became a producer of gritty porn drama The Deuce to ensure she'd have 'protection' during the sex scenes.
The 40-year-old actress plays prostitute-turned-porn-star Eileen 'Candy' Merrell in the 1970s-set critically acclaimed HBO series, which returned for a second season this week.
The Secretary star explained that she needed to know bosses 'wanted my mind as well as my body', so she gave them an ultimatum - telling them she wouldn't do the show unless she was a producer.
Candid: Maggie Gyllenhaal stunned in a plunging slip dress as she revealed she became producer of porn drama The Deuce so she'd have 'protection' during the raunchy sex scenes
'It was clear from the first three scripts i would have to do a lot of sex scenes and be naked,' she explained during an In Conversation With... Maggie Gyllenhaal event at the Toronto International Film Festival on Wednesday.
'Fundamentally I was almost all the way there in terms of trusting that we all wanted to tell the same story and I thought "I need some protection".'
She added: 'I wanted to know they wanted my mind as well as my body I really wanted to do the job.
'But I just said I cant do this unless I'm a producer because I want to be in the room, I want to be part of the conversation.'
Honest: 'It was clear from the first three scripts i would have to do a lot of sex scenes and be naked,' she explained during an In Conversation With... Maggie Gyllenhaal event at the Toronto International Film Festival on Wednesday
Protection: 'Fundamentally I was almost all the way there in terms of trusting that we all wanted to tell the same story and I thought "I need some protection"'
The Donnie Darko star, who donned a plunging slip dress and tailored blazer for the talk, also reflected on what it was like playing Eileen for a second season.
'I just knew the character so well, I'd already played her, which was so strange, to go back to play her again. It was easy to pick her up and put her back down.'
She added that the aim of the gritty drama is to tell the stories of people in the sex industry who have been shunned by society.
'One of our goals is to humanise a group of people who have been totally marginalised,' she explained.
Racy: The 40-year-old actress plays prostitute-turned-porn-star Eileen 'Candy' Merrell in the 1970s-set critically acclaimed HBO series, which returned for a season season this week
Gritty: Charting the legalisation of the porn industry in the 1970s and its effect on the sex industry, the show is from the acclaimed creators of The Wire - David Simon and George Pelecanos
Stripped: The Deuce also stars Gbenga Akinnagbe, Chris Bauer, Gary Carr and Dominique Fishbac and James Franco, who also serves as a producer on the show alongside Maggie
'You think about sex work, women had no way to make money at all until how ever many years ago.'
She went on: 'In the civil war, everyone's husbands and brothers and fathers died and there was a massive raise in the number of sex workers because how else where they supposed to make money?
'Why the total disdain? I think there are varying degrees of transactional sex that go on all the time.'
Maggie recently detailed why she is comfortable doing frequent nude scenes for her role in the New York City-set show.
Gripping role: The Donnie Darko star, who donned a plunging slip dress and tailored blazer for the talk, also reflected on what it was like playing Eileen for a second season
Challenging: 'I just knew the character so well, I'd already played her, which was so strange, to go back to play her again. It was easy to pick her up and put her back down'
Speaking candidly to W Magazine, the star admitted that a sex scene was an actress' best way to 'express when people are making love. Or f***ing. Or whatever.'
Detailing her understanding for her character Candy, Maggie continued: 'Im a sex worker in The Deuce, so I have to pretend to f*** someone Ive just met. And then another guy. And another.
'So whats expressed in those scenes is somebody whos doing a transaction. Then its fine to act naked, because all these other things are going on in your mind.'
The talented actress revealed that due to the amount of transactional sex her character was having, she wanted her to have the 'realest orgasm ever' to add to the vulnerability of the performance.
The Secretary star explained that she wanted to know bosses 'wanted my mind as well as my body', so she gave them an ultimatum - telling them she wouldn't do the show unless she was a producer
Important: She added that the aim of the gritty drama is to tell the stories of people in the sex industry who have been shunned by society
The Deuce also stars Gbenga Akinnagbe, Chris Bauer, Gary Carr and Dominique Fishbac and James Franco, who also serves as a producer on the show alongside Maggie.
James, who plays identical twin brothers Vincent and Frankie, is also an executive producer on the series.
Charting the legalisation of the porn industry in the 1970s and its effect on the sex industry, the show is from the acclaimed creators of The Wire - David Simon and George Pelecanos.
Season two's Sunday premiere saw the storyline jump five years to 1978 and Maggie's character Candy Darlings burgeoning directorial career.
Madeleine West, 38, is set to heat up our television screens when she stars as blonde WAG Kath in Network Ten's new eight-part series Playing For Keeps.
The actress is seen stripping down to her lacy lingerie in the show's trailer which was released in August.
In the clip, the mother-of-six is seen sprawled in bed wearing the scant ensemble, while looking suggestively at her on-screen husband.
From a blindfolded threesome to a negligee-clad lap-dance: A look at Madeleine West's RAUNCHIEST roles ever (pictured in new drama Playing For Keeps)
However, it isn't the first time Madeleine has stripped off for a provocative scene.
Between 2007-2010, the blonde beauty appeared in several love scenes while playing the role of Mel, a high-class escort, in Australian drama-series Satisfaction.
In one scene she is seen enjoying a threesome with a blindfolded man, while in another she was seen leaning over the kitchen bench exposing her derriere.
Raunchy: Madeleine West, 38, is set to heat up our television screens when she stars as blonde WAG Kath in Network Ten's new eight-part series Playing For Keeps (pictured in new drama Playing For Keeps)
In 2008, Madeleine starred as Danielle McGuire in crime drama Underbelly.
Madeleine was seen acting in a slew of racy scenes with her fellow co-stars Callan Mulvey and Robert Mammone.
One scene showed the actress being spanked by her on-screen lower with her underpants pulled down.
Racy! One scene showed the scantily-clad actress being spanked by her on-screen lover (Madeleine West with co-star Callan Mulvey in Underbelly)
And although she's starred in some very raunchy scenes, Madeleine has previously admitted to she is quite conservative in her everyday life.
She spoke to Daily Mail Australia in 2014, and confessed she was a little nervous about 'putting it out there' after having three more children since the last time she played Danielle McGuire in Underbelly.
'But you get into the skin of the character. Im very conservative in my normal life so it doesnt feel like me,' she explained.
Cheeky: In one scene the actress was seen leaning over a kitchen bench exposing her perky derriere (Madeleine West with co-star Robert Mammone in Underbelly)
Last week, Madeleine West announced her separation from her partner of 13 years, Shannon Bennett last week.
The former Neighbours actress, 38, revealed the news to Stellar magazine on Sunday, saying that she and celebrity chef Shannon, 42, are 'striving to reconnect as friends and parents'.
The couple share six young children together, with Madeleine telling the publication that a 'multitude' of kids 'puts exponential pressures on a relationship'.
Playing For Keeps is set to air on Channel Ten later this year.
Kylie Jenner has shared an insight into her teenage years as a member of the most famous family on the planet.
In emotional Snapchat video reposted to a fan site and shared by Kylie's sister Kendall on Thursday, the makeup mogul says she's felt bullied by the whole world since the age of nine.
Kylie, 21, was just a child when her family were launched to fame by their reality show Keeping Up With the Kardashians.
In the spotlight: Kylie Jenner has shared an insight into her teenage years as part of the most famous family on the planet
In the video, which was shared by Kylie's older sister Kendall on Twitter with the caption 'that made me cry', Kylie pours her heart out in a bid to help others being bullied.
Talking quietly as her words flash up on the screen, she tells her fans: 'Half of you guys think I'm weird. And the other half think I'm funny. But I've been bullied since I've been nine. From the whole world it feels like sometimes.'
The video shows clips of Kylie growing up in the spotlight alongside raw moments of the star crying as the voiceover continues.
Teen years: Kylie, 21, was just nine when her family were launched to fame by their reality show Keeping Up With the Kardashians (pictured with sister Kendall in 2011)
'And I think, I think I've done a really great job in handling all of this. But there're bullies everywhere,' she says.
'So this just a little like snapchat to tell whoever with their own bullies that the only opinion that really matters is yours and to never change.'
Kylie, who gave birth to her daughter Stormi earlier this year, ends the video by explaining: 'This isn't a pity party though, don't get it twisted. This is for those with bullies out there to know that you're not alone. Now goodnight, spread love.'
Bullied: In the video, which was shared by Kylie's older sister Kendall on Twitter with the caption 'that made me cry', Kylie pours her heart out in a bid to help others being bullied
Speaking out: The video shows clips of Kylie growing up in the spotlight alongside raw moments of the star crying as the voiceover continues
Kylie and her sister Kendall were the youngest members of the family when KUWTK first aired in 2007.
The sisters quit Sierra Canyon High School in 2012 to be educated at home, while Kylie has previously revealed she was bullied over appearance, spurring her on to create her hugely successful makeup line.
'I was 15 and I was insecure about my lips,' She confessed during an episode of her reality show Life of Kylie.
Mom life: Kylie, who gave birth to her daughter Stormi earlier this year, ends the video by explaining: 'This isn't a pity party though, don't get it twisted'
'I have really small lips. And it was like one of my first kisses and a guy was like, "I didn't think you would be a good kisser because you have such small lips."'
'But I took that really hard. Just when a guy you like says that, I don't know, it just really affected me. I just didn't feel desirable or pretty. I really wanted bigger lips.'
'I would overline my lips with lip liner just to create the illusion of bigger lips. And then finally I was like this lip liner isn't doing it. [I] ended up getting my lips done.'
Peace: 'This is for those with bullies out there to know that you're not alone. Now goodnight, spread love'
After confessing in 2015 to having lip fillers, Kylie has gone on to have huge success with her Lip Kits, with Forbes magazine reporting her net worth is $900 million.
In August the magazine predicted that Jenner will become the youngest self-made billionaire ever.
Speaking to Glamour UK for their latest issue, Kylie admitted she's learned to have a thick skin as a result of the huge public interest in her.
'So many negative things come at me all the time,' she explained. 'Of course, it does affect me, but you develop a thick skin.
'Nothing has lasted so long that I havent gotten through it, so whenever a new bad story or rumour emerges, I know it will pass, too. Everything in life is transient,' she stated.
Kate Moss has retracted her iconic quote: 'Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels'.
The 44-year-old supermodel, who was deemed the original face of the 'Heroin chic' movement, famously caused huge controversy among campaign groups when she made the bold statement in a 2009 interview with WWD Magazine.
Speaking to NBC's Megyn Kelly, the model has now admitted she does not believe the quote to be true and that the industry has improved and become more diverse.
Something tastes as good now? Kate Moss has retracted her iconic quote: 'Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels'
Kate's controversial quote shocked the fashion industry to its core as she was accused of promoting eating disorders, particularly due to her position at the helm of the 'waif-like look' following her introduction to modelling aged 14.
Fast-forward 30 years however and she has now withdrawn her comments, as she explained in the new interview that the quote was merely in jest.
The famously-coy model, who recently launched her own agency, candidly revealed: 'My friend used to say it, because you know, we were all living together, and we'd go for the biscuits and go: "Oh, nothing tastes as g..." It's a little jingle...
'There's so much more diversity now, I think it's right. There's so many different sizes and colours and heights. Why would you just be a one-size model and being represented for all of these people? So yes, for sure, it's better.'
Woah: The 44-year-old supermodel, who was deemed the original face of the 'Heroin chic' movement, famously caused huge controversy among campaign groups when she made the bold statement in a 2009 interview with WWD Magazine (pictured in 1994)
Open and honest: Speaking to NBC's Megyn Kelly, the model has now admitted she does not believe the quote to be true and that the industry has improved and become more diverse
The quote divided opinion and the iconic star came under fire from former Ultimo model Katie Green, who launched the 'Say No To Size Zero' campaign the same year.
She said at the time: 'There are 1.1 million eating disorders in the UK alone. Kate Moss's comments are likely to cause many more. If you read any of the pro-anorexia websites, they go crazy for quotes like this.'
Additionally, chief executive of eating disorder charity Beat, Susan Ringwood at the time: 'This phrase is often used as one of their 10 commandments or mantras.
'And it is young women between the age of 12-20 who are the most at risk from anorexia, which is unfortunately the same group that could be influenced by celebrity culture.'
Shock: Kate's controversial quote shocked the fashion industry to its core as she was accused of promoting eating disorders, particularly due to her position at the helm of the 'waif-like look' following her introduction to modelling aged 14 (pictured in 1997)
Svelte: The quote divided opinion and the iconic star came under fire from former Ultimo model Katie Green, who launched the 'Say No To Size Zero' campaign the same year (pictured in 2001)
Kate also discussed in the interview how she was pushed into posing topless and how she would never let her 15-year-old daughter Lila Grace Moss Hack.
She said: 'Yes, there was pressure. I worked with a woman photographer called Corinne Day, and she always liked me with no top on, and I did not like it at all when I first started. I wouldn't let my daughter do it.
'I look at her now, and she's 15, and to think that I was going topless at her age is crazy. [I tell models they] dont have to do it if they dont want to'.
Vogue Williams has defended her choice to briefly return to work just days after welcoming her first child with husband Spencer Matthews.
The presenter, 32, gave birth to a baby boy on September 5 and on Wednesday shared a update with her followers that she had 'work today', a week after her son arrived.
The star also posted videos of herself thanking her 'glam squad' for her hair and make-up, which appeared to draw the ire of some of her fans.
Fuming: Vogue Williams has defended her choice to briefly return to work just days after welcoming her first child with husband Spencer Matthews
New mother:The presenter, 32, gave birth to a baby boy on September 5 and on Wednesday shared a update with her followers that she had 'work today', a week after her son arrived
Hitting back at the comments, The Jump star said it was her choice, that she had only taken part in one shoot and urged followers not to 'parent shame' her.
She wrote: 'So many messages about going back to work yesterday.
'1. It's my choice and I feel happy to,
'2. I'm not fully back to work yet. It was one shoot.
Backlash: The star also posted videos of herself thanking her 'glam squad' for her hair and make-up, which appeared to draw the ire of some of her fans
Defence: Hitting back at the comments, The Jump star said it was her choice, that she had only taken part in one shoot and urged followers not to 'parent shame' her
'3. I only intend on taking jobs where I can have my baby with me as I'm breastfeeding so we shall be glued together for the next few months.
'4. I don't get maternity leave in my job so I'll obviously be going back sooner than others.
'5. Let's not start the parent shaming already. He is eight days old and a VERY happy loved baby.'
The couple - who tied the knot in a romantic ceremony in the Scottish Highlands in June - welcomed a 'beautiful and healthy' baby boy in the early hours of Wednesday morning.
Taking to Instagram, the presenter posted: 'This morning at 3:55am, we welcomed our son into a quiet London hospital... He is beautiful and healthy. We feel truly blessed.'
Baby boy:The couple - who tied the knot in a romantic ceremony in the Scottish Highlands in June - welcomed a 'beautiful and healthy' baby boy in the early hours of Wednesday morning
Vogue shared a heartwarming snap of the tiny tot in a striped baby gro, resting her hand gently on the infant's feet.
Meanwhile, former Made In Chelsea star Spencer, 30, chose to announce the news with an arty black and white image of his hand clasping his newborn's, reposting the same message as his wife.
Vogue also took to her Instagram stories to write 'I'm so in love'.
The pair, who have yet to reveal the baby's name, were inundated with well wishes from their delighted followers and celebrity friends.
Recently Vogue gushed over her marriage to Spencer, admitting that the couple are 'delighted' with themselves.
The star revealed during an interview with the Independent that she is happiest when she is in a relationship.
'I'm so in love': Former MIC star Spencer, 30, chose to announce the news with an arty black and white image of his hand clasping his newborn's, reposting the same message as his wife
However despite finding happiness with former MIC bad boy Spencer, she claims she has previously been hurt in the past.
Prior to her relationship with Spencer, Vogue was married to Westlife's Brian McFadden for three years, and before that she was with graffiti artist Al Hester, aka Maser for six years.
The Irish beauty has also been linked to British actor Laurence Fox and rapper Professor Green, who was previously married to Spencer's former co-star Millie Mackintosh.
However Vogue suggested that she has never been one to stray, adding that when she falls for someone it is very much about that one person, especially Spencer.
Cute couple: Recently Vogue gushed over her marriage to Spencer, admitting that the couple are 'delighted' with themselves
When questioned about the pace of their relationship, after meeting in January 2017 and getting married in 2018, she said: It hasn't been that long and it's quite crazy to think how far we've come in that time.
But it doesn't feel weird either, it just feels like it was always meant to be this way.'
Vogue joked that she has accepted the fact her little boy, whose name is yet to be announced, will have an English accent.
However she cheekily added that you can get away with a lot more with an Irish accent.
She was catapulted into the spotlight for her role as schoolgirl in coming-of-age series The Inbetweeners.
And Emily Atack has taken on a more risque character as she enjoys a steamy foursome with Avengers star Cobie Smulders in upcoming comedy film Alright Now.
In a short scene from the movie, the 28-year-old actress turns up the heat as she strips down to lingerie for her steamy rendezvous with her co-stars.
Racy display: Emily Atack has taken on a more risque character as she enjoys a steamy foursome with Avengers star Cobie Smulders in upcoming comedy film Alright Now
Captain America star Cobie, 36, portrays the lead role of American rock musician Joanne Skye.
In a bid to expand her skills, Joanne applies for university in the UK, and eventually embarks on a relationship with Peter (Richard Elis).
The couple's romance heats up as they try to get under the sheets, but walk in on Mandy, played by Emily, getting frisky with her beau.
Hot and heavy: In a short scene from the movie, the 28-year-old actress turns up the heat as she strips down to lingerie for her steamy rendezvous with her co-stars
Upcoming film: Captain America star Cobie, 36, portrays the lead role of American rock musician Joanne Skye
New journey: In a bid to expand her skills, Joanne applies for university in the UK, and eventually embarks on a relationship with Peter (Richard Elis, far right)
Awkward! The couple's romance heats up as they try to get under the sheets, but walk in on Mandy, played by Emily, getting frisky with her beau
Turning the encounter on it's head, Mandy suggests that the couple engage in a foursome, with the character showcasing her cleavage in a grey lace bra.
Mandy and Joanne can't contain their laughter during their racy session, with things becoming even more weird when their partners seem to enjoy themselves a little too much.
Shot over just five days, the actors expanded their skills as they completely improvised the film.
Stripping off: Turning the encounter on it's head, Mandy suggests that the couple engage in a foursome, with the character showcasing her cleavage in a grey lace bra
Impressive: Shot over just five days, the actors expanded their skills as they completely improvised the film
Strange: Mandy and Joanne can't contain their laughter during their racy session, with things becoming even more weird when their partners seem to enjoy themselves a little too much
Speaking on body confidence, Emily recently told The Sun's Fabulous: 'I think there is a lot of [pressure] in this industry. It is very image-based, and for the past 10 years Ive constantly worried about my weight and my looks.'
'Now Im really starting to let it go a bit. Im never going to be a size 6, and I want to show who I am.'
The actress is best known for her part as the blonde schoolgirl Charlotte in The Inbetweeners, whom seduces the hopeless Will (Simon Bird).
Speaking out: 'I think there is a lot of [pressure] in this industry. It is image-based, and for the past 10 years Ive constantly worried about my weight and my looks', Emily recently admitted
Honest: 'Now Im really starting to let it go a bit. Im never going to be a size 6, and I want to show who I am', she continued in an interview with The Sun's Fabulous
It was an absolute blast filming the show, Emily told The Daily Mail's You magazine last year. 'We had such a laugh, but Id forgotten how rude it was until I came across a repeat recently.
'It was hilarious, but so crude! Its great to be associated with such a successful show and Im proud of the work, but it comes as a relief when people recognise me as Emily rather than Charlotte Big Jugs.
The star, a svelte size ten, admitted she is always the 'biggest girl at any casting' but she refused to succumb to body-shaming.
Confident: The star, a svelte size ten, admitted she is always the 'biggest girl at any casting' but she refused to succumb to body-shaming
I know Im in a very appearance-driven industry, but this is who I am and theres no point starving myself into someone Im not, she explained in The Daily Mail's You magazine
I know Im in a very appearance-driven industry, but this is who I am and theres no point starving myself into someone Im not, she explained.
The actress also stars in new movie Lies We Tell, a British thriller which tells the story of a man compelled to destroy evidence of his employer's infidelities.
Prior to the latest big-screen role and since the Inbetweeners, Emily has starred as Daphne in the remake film of Dad's Army.
She also courted attention in a raunchy nude scene in the Hollywood drama Lost In Florence, as well as playing an extra in Tracey Ullman's impressions programme.
For the past few months, it's been rumoured that she's set to take part in the next season of I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here!.
And Kate Garraway appeared to be a step closer to confirming the speculation on Thursday, when she faced some playful probing from her Good Morning Britain co-host Susanna Reid and veteran TV personality Lorraine Kelly.
While Kate, 51, didn't explicitly state that she was boarding a flight to the Australian jungle for a reported fee of 150,000 she quipped during the live broadcast: 'I love how all of my colleagues want to see me buried and covered in cockroaches.'
Tease: Kate Garraway appeared to be a step closer to confirming rumours she's set to appear on I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! on Good Morning Britain on Thursday
The enquiring started when Lorraine was beamed into the GMB studios to tease what was coming up on her eponymous talk show later that morning, including the latest round of speculation of who has joined the I'm A Celeb lineup for this year.
And after Lorraine claimed that the GMB team were 'very close' to one of the rumoured participants, Susanna asked: 'Are we boiling hot?'
Responding, Lorraine smiled as she quipped: 'Steaming hot,' sparking laughter from the team in the GMB studios.
Probed: The beloved TV personality faced some playful probing from her co-hosts Ben Shephard and Susanna Reid as they spoke about the speculation
Money talks: Kate is reportedly set to earn 150,000 for her appearance on the reality show
While Susanna did explicitly ask Kate if she is planning to appear on I'm A Celeb when the series returns in November, she has yet to confirm the rumours.
It has also been reported that Hollyoaks star Malique Thompson-Dwyer is set to appear on the show, which will be co-hosted by Holly Willoughby and Declan Donnelly, as Ant McPartlin takes an extended break from presenting.
Malique plays Prince McQueen on the Channel 4 soap and caught the attention of Im A Celeb producers at The British Soap Awards after winning Best On-Screen Partnership with his brother on the show, Theo Graham.
Late last month, it was also claimed that Monica Lewinsky is in 'advanced discussions' to join the new series of I'm a Celeb.
Staying mum: Kate has yet to confirm the I'm A Celeb rumours, which she has refused to deny
Another one joining the club? It has also been reported that Hollyoaks star Malique Thompson-Dwyer is set to appear on the show
The 45-year-old speaker and writer, who hit headlines around the world hen her affair with then-President Bill Clinton went public in the 1990s, is reportedly considering a large pay packet from ITV to enter the Australian jungle.
A source told the Sunday Express: 'Monica now has a platform on which to speak about bullying, particularly in a digital age that's why she agreed to explore being on the show. Plus, of course, the money being offered is very, very attractive.'
MailOnline has contacted representatives for Monica and I'm A Celebrity for comment.
Monica has spent decades putting her life back together after her affair with then-President Bill Clinton went public during the 1990s when she was just a 22-year-old White House intern.
Discussions: Last month, it was reported that Monica Lewinsky is in 'advanced discussions' to join the new series of I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here!
Controversy: She spent decades putting her life back together after her affair with then-President Bill Clinton went public during the 1990s as a 22-year-old White House intern
The speaker's tryst began in November 1995, Clinton was 49 years old and Lewinsky was 22.
Clinton would initially deny having sexual relations with Lewinsky, claiming in a January 1998 deposition that the two were never alone together in the White House.
Unknown to Clinton, however, Lewinsky had already revealed the details of the affair to her friend Linda Tripp, saying there were nine sexual encounters through March of 1997; several included oral sex and at least one involved Clinton penetrating her with a cigar.
I'm A Celeb: The speaker and writer, 45, is reportedly considering a large pay packet from ITV to enter the Australian jungle
Controversy: Monica has spent decades putting her life back together after the public scandal
Tripp and Lewinsky became friends at the Pentagon, where Lewinsky was transferred after White House aides became suspicious of her long visits to the Oval Office.
The Clinton-Lewinsky affair became public a day after Clinton's sworn testimony, when Tripp gave Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr tapes of Lewinsky admitting to her relationship with the president.
'I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky,' he said in a nationally televised press conference.
Host: Holly Willoughby has been confirmed as co-host alongside Declan Donnelly this season
He admitted months later that the accusations were accurate, but claimed that his definition of 'sexual relations' differed from others'.
'I know that my public comments and my silence about this matter gave a false impression. I misled people, including even my wife,' he said at the time. 'I deeply regret that.'
'Indeed I did have a relationship with Ms. Lewinsky that was not appropriate. In fact, it was wrong. It constituted a critical lapse in judgment and a personal failure on my part for which I am solely and completely responsible.'
He was impeached in 1998 on charges of lying under oath and obstruction of justice. The Senate acquitted him along party lines, with no Democrats casting 'guilty' votes.
She always makes a style statement on the red carpet and at fashion parties.
And Iskra Lawrence stayed true to her sartorial credentials on Wednesday, as she attended the NYLON's Annual Rebel Fashion Party during New York Fashion Week.
The 27-year-old model, who has worked tirelessly to make the fashion industry more inclusive, dazzled in a plunging yellow tuxedo dress at Gramercy Park Hotel.
Looking good: Iskra Lawrence stayed true to her sartorial credentials on Wednesday, as she attended the NYLON's Annual Rebel Fashion Party during New York Fashion Week
The blonde beauty certainly took centre-stage in the dress, which inched in her tiny waist thanks to flattering drape detail.
Injecting an added dose of colour into her look, she boosted her height with a stylish pair of leopard-print heels.
Styling her glossy golden locks in a tousled middle-parting, Iskra framed her features with glowing minimal make-up.
Chic: The 27-year-old model, who has worked tirelessly to make the fashion industry more inclusive, dazzled in a plunging yellow tuxedo dress at Gramercy Park Hotel
Stylish: The blonde beauty certainly took centre-stage in the dress, which inched in her tiny waist thanks to flattering drape detail
Glam: Styling her glossy golden locks in a tousled middle-parting, Iskra framed her features with glowing minimal make-up
She has been pulling off all her best looks during her venture to the Big Apple, as she has attended a number of the shows in equally eye-catching ensembles.
Last week, Iskra told Femail that she hopes to see all kinds of beauties being celebrated at this year's Fashion Week.
She said: I want it to be a celebration of all women and a celebration of empowerment'.
Taking centre-stage: Teyana Taylor took to the stage to perform for the fashionable elite
Stealing the limelight: The 27-year-old dazzled in a bright orange trench coat and corset bodysuit
Killer heels: The Harlem-born beauty boosted her height with white leather boots
'Fashion is a statement. Every time you get dressed in the morning you decide who you want to be and how you want to feel, and I think that New York Fashion Week is a celebration of that.
'I love that it ties together so many other things as well including music and culture. I really enjoy coming to Fashion Week and seeing everyone who worked so hard get this time to just shine.'
Iskra, who made her NYFW debut in 2016 for Chromat, doesn't expect to hit the catwalk during this year's event, though she's already gearing up for a busy Paris Fashion Week between the end of this month and the beginning of October.
Double trouble: Fifth Harmony's Lauren Jauregui posed alongside NYLON's editor-in-chief Gabrielle Korn
Man of the hour: P-Diddy's son Christian Combs donned an all-white ensemble with a pink vest
Her towering height has seen her take on more brazen roles, having played a warrior in Game of Thrones and a First Order stormtrooper in the Star Wars franchise.
And it isn't just in the movies that Gwendoline Christie has embraced being different, as the British actress said she's 'happy to be on the outside' in a refreshing new interview with ES Magazine.
The Top of the Lake star, who stands at 6ft 3in, revealed she was bullied 'terribly' at school but has learned to find her 'inconsistencies and ugly parts' beautiful in later life.
Inspiring: It isn't just in the movies that Gwendoline Christie has embraced being different, as the British actress said she's 'happy to be on the outside' in a refreshing new interview with ES Magazine
She confessed: You either think Im unconventional and theres no place for me and therefore I should disappear, or you think good, Im happy to be on the outside.
'Because if this is the small-minded, mean, uncompassionate viewpoint of the inside, then I dont want to be there. Im happy out here with all the other leftovers, who show love and support for each other.
'All of the inconsistencies, complexities and ugly parts whatever that might mean can exist and beauty can be made out of it. Thats what I want beauty to be.
Content: The Top of the Lake star, who stands at 6ft 3in, revealed she was bullied 'terribly' at school but has learned to find her 'inconsistencies and ugly parts' beautiful in later life
The actress also admitted clothes became a form of escapism following years of torment at school.
Gwendoline explained: 'It was a combination of wanting to escape the unpleasant narrative that was being applied to me at school, where I was bullied terribly, and loving the transportative nature of the arts.
'It was about not wanting to live a prescriptive life.
The model, who is in a relationship with designer Giles Deacon, also confessed her role as warrior Brienne of Tarth was both a 'professional and personal' triumph.
'I love the transportative nature of the arts': The actress also admitted clothes became a form of escapism following years of torment at school
She enthused: 'I know how generic it sounds but it just was, in every sense of the word, incredible that that part should come along, made for me in a way that none of my friends wouldve identified for a second.
'They saw all of the fighting, the physicality, the fact that it was a character who was constantly being described as ugly.
'None of the people who knew me could understand why I would want to play that part.
The full interview appears in this weeks Fashion Edition of ES Magazine, Thursday 13th September 2018.
He's been at the centre of several court battles in the last few years, due to a messy divorce from Amber Heard and recent assault claims from a crew member.
But Johnny Depp cast the legal controversy aside on Thursday, as he jetted into Tokyo Narita Airport in Japan.
The Murder On The Orient Express actor, 55, displayed his typically quirky style in a striped beret and mirrored sunglasses as he strolled through the terminal.
Bold look: Johnny Depp displayed his trademark quirky style in a striped beret and mirrored shades as he jetted into Tokyo on Wednesday
The Pirates Of The Caribbean actor certainly stole the limelight in a double-breasted suit teamed with lace-up patent boots.
He carried his belongings in an oversized brown canvas bag and finished off his look with plenty of silver jewellery.
Johnny's outing comes after a crew member of his yet-to-be-released film, City Of Lies, accused him of 'forcefully punching' him.
Casual: The Pirates Of The Caribbean actor certainly stole the limelight in a double-breasted suit teamed with lace-up patent boots
Flying under the radar: The Edward Scissorhands actor appeared to be in good spirits
The Hollywood veteran was at a receiving end of a lawsuit in July, as location manager Gregg 'Rocky' Brooks claimed the Edward Scissorhands actor struck him on multiple occasions amid a dispute during filming, TMZ reported.
Brooks said that during production the evening of April 13, 2017, he told Depp and Furman they needed to wrap things up based on their schedule. He said a boozy Depp hit him two times in his ribs, then told him, 'I will give you $100,000 to punch me in the face right now,' before the star's guards guided him away.
However the film's script supervisor, Emma Danoff, has claimed that the dispute was actually sparked when Brooks racially abused a African-American homeless woman who got in his way.
Jet-setter: He carried his belongings in an oversized brown canvas bag and finished off his look with plenty of silver jewellery
In a declaration Danoff claimed she was sitting with Depp when they witnessed Brooks using 'racial and derogatory slurs' about 25 feet away, according to a new report in The Hollywood Reporter.
Danoff stated in her declaration: 'He immediately stood up from our shared seat on the edge of a planter bench and went over to Brooks to stand up for the woman.'
She claimed no punches were thrown and that there was no offer of $100,000, and said she took multiple photographs of the incident which support her account.
Scandal: Johnny's outing comes after a crew member of his yet-to-be-released film, City Of Lies, accused him of 'forcefully punching' him
Claims: The Hollywood veteran was at a receiving end of a lawsuit in July, as location manager Gregg 'Rocky' Brooks claimed the Edward Scissorhands actor struck him on multiple occasions amid a dispute during filming, TMZ reported
In the movie, which examines the aftermath of law enforcement examining The Notorious B.I.G.'s March 1997 murder in the wake of Tupac Shakur's October 1996 killing, Depp, 55, plays Det. Russell Poole.
Depp has had a difficult summer, including a Rolling Stone story that called his lifestyle and finances into question; residual fallout from domestic violence allegations made by his ex-wife Amber Heard.
Depp, who denied the allegations of physical abuse against Heard, issued a statement saying that 'there was never any intent of physical or emotional harm' in the marriage upon agreeing on a settlement two years ago.
Henry Cavill will be putting his Superman costume away after scheduling conflicts led Warner Bros to rule out any appearances for the actor in the DC Extended Universe franchise.
The Man of Steel first starred as the blue-suited superhero in 2013 and later starred in 2016s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice before his role in last years Justice League.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, producers had tried to recruit the Mission: Impossible - Fallout star but contract talks ended without an outcome.
Actor Henry Cavill will be putting his Superman costume away after scheduling conflicts
Who is Henry Cavill?
Born Henry William Dalgliesh Cavill on May 5, 1983 on Jersey, one of the Channel Islands, he developed an interest in acting while at Stowe boarding school and went on to perform in a number of stage productions, according to Biography.com.
Despite this, Henry later revealed that he had missed his home greatly, had dealt with a number of bullying incidents and was attacked over his weight.
His first notable role was arguably in the 2001 thriller Laguna and he also starred in The Inspector Lynley Mysteries series.
Henry then landed the part of Albert in the 2002 adaptation of The Count of Monte Cristo and after this, he was able to embark on a career on screen, mainly featuring in period and fantasy dramas.
Following this, he appeared in the British comedy I Capture the Castle before his supporting roles in Hellraiser: Hellworld and Tristan & Isolde in 2006.
Henry Cavill seen here playing Charles Brandon in a scene from the BBC series The Tudors
Around this time, Cavill was tapped to star as Superman for the first time, but the project fell through as did his role as James Bond, which Daniel Craig took on from the release of Casino Royale.
Henry garnered the lead as Charles Brandon in The Tudors, which also starred Jonathan Rhys-Meyers as Henry VIII and ran for four seasons.
He then appeared in Stardust and worked with Woody Allen in the Larry David comedy Whatever Works before his roles in The Immortals and Cold Light of Day.
In 2013, Cavill starred as Superman in the Christopher Nolan-produced Man of Steel alongside an all-star cast and for the role, worked out with 300 trainer Mark Twight to adopt the physique needed to portray the superhero.
The smash made $670 million (513m) worldwide and Henry partnered with Ben Affleck to star in the sequel Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice three years later, before he starred in the remake of The Man From U.N.C.L.E.
A scene from The Man from U.N.C.L.E. with Alicia Vikander, Armie Hammer and Henry Cavill
Henry Cavill girlfriend
Henry Cavill is currently single after splitting from his stunt woman girlfriend Lucy Cork at the start of this year and has not been linked with anyone else, despite revealing that he was ready to mingle. According to College Candy, his first serious girlfriend was Ellen Whitaker, who trained as a showjumping rider.
Following their split, Henry met Gina Carano at a VIP reception while he was filming Fast and Furious. The couple were together on and off for two years, before calling it quits for good in 2014.
Henry also dated Kaley Cuoco for 12 days. The Big Bang Theory star revealed that the relationship had given her the most media coverage she had ever received. Ive been in this business for 20 years, and I my whole life I could go anywhere, do anything. There had not been one paparazzi photo of me until like several months ago, Kaley said.
After meeting at Maven Crossfit Gym, Henry then dated Marisa Gonzalo, who was 21-years-old when he was 31 and when they split, she leaked photos of their hunting trips, despite the actor being a public animal rights activist.
The age gap increased with his relationship with Tara King, who was 13 years younger than her and she was referred to his teenage girlfriend in the press. The Mirror reported in 2016 that they had split after just a year together following a meeting at London nightclub Mahiki while she was studying at Bristol University.
Henry and Tara have split it is official. Henry said the two of them could stay friends and he even invited her to his recent birthday party, which she did go to. But their relationship is over. It has been very difficult for Tara, who has been saying he was the love of her life, a source revealed.
Henrys most recent relationship was with Lucy Cork and seemed to be ready to move on after he was spotted flirting with Demi Lovato on Instagram earlier this year, despite gushing about his former girlfriend months earlier.
Taking to the social media site, he said: 'This is my Lucy. She is one of the best stuntwomen in the world. She has defined herself. She continues to define herself. She grows, every day. She is Lucy Cork because she says so.'
However, Henry Cavill also faced backlash for comments he had made about dating in the time of the #MeToo movement in an interview with GQ Australia.
He said: There's something wonderful about a man chasing a woman. There's a traditional approach to that, which is nice. I think a woman should be wooed and chased, but maybe I'm old-fashioned for thinking that.
He continued: It's very difficult to do that if there are certain rules in place. Because then it's like: Well, I don't want to go up and talk to her, because I'm going to be called a rapist or something. So you're like, Forget it, I'm going to call an ex-girlfriend instead, and then just go back to a relationship, which never really worked.
But it's way safer than casting myself into the fires of hell, because I'm someone in the public eye, and if I go and flirt with someone, then who knows what's going to happen? Henry continued to explain how there is a lack of a chase in 2018.
Now? Now you really can't pursue someone further than, No. It's like, OK, cool. But then there's the, Oh why'd you give up? And it's like, Well, because I didn't want to go to jail? He was then asked whether he had ever crossed the line and said: I like to think that I've never been like that.
I think any human being alive today, if someone casts too harsh a light on anything, you could be like, Well, OK, yeah, when you say it like that, maybe. But it's such a delicate and careful thing to say because there's flirting which, for example, in a social environment is in context - and is acceptable. And that has been done to me as well, in return.
After the interview was published, many took to Twitter to voice their opinions and said that Henry was tone deaf. One user said: Hello [boring and false men are afraid to ask women out since #MeToo rhetoric] my old friend, Ive come to talk with you again.
While another said: This is absurd. If Henry Cavill doesnt want to be called a rapist then all he has to do is... not rape anyone. The mental gymnastics some men are doing to position themselves as victims of #MeToo is insane.
Henry Cavill addressed the backlash in a statement, which read: Having seen the reaction to an article in particular about my feelings on dating and the #metoo movement, I just wanted to apologize for any confusion and misunderstanding that this may have created. Insensitivity was absolutely not my intention.
In light of this I would just like to clarify and confirm to all that I have always and will continue to hold women in the highest of regard, no matter the type of relationship whether it be friendship, professional, or a significant other.
Never would I intend to disrespect in any way, shape or form. This experience has taught me a valuable lesson as to the context and the nuance of editorial liberties. However, this is not the first time that Cavill has been called out after he made a joke about double standards and catcalling in a 2016 interview with The Sunday Times.
Superman
After The Hollywood Reporter reported that Henry Cavill may not star in future Superman appearances because Warner Bros intended on shifting focus to a Supergirl movie, the actor confirmed he would not be returning to the franchise.
This shift means that Cavills character will essentially be removed from the storyline because the origin story will feature a teenage superheroine and Superman, or Kal-El, would be an infant at the time, according to DC theory.
A studio source said: Superman is like James Bond, and after a certain run you have to look at new actors. A Warner Bros spokesperson added: We have a great relationship and great respect for Henry Cavill that continues to remain unchanged. Additionally we have made no current decisions regarding any upcoming Superman films.
Cavills manager, Dany Garcia, responded to the news, writing on Twitter: Be peaceful, the cape is still in his closet. Warner has been and continues to be our partners as they evolve the DC Universe.
Cavill, who was expected to cameo in Shazam!, the upcoming superhero which stars Zachary Levi, has now responded with a cryptic Instagram post that shows him staring at the camera with a Superman figurine, which he moves out of shot.
Henry Cavill net worth
Henry Cavills net worth has accumulated to $20 million (15m), according to Celebrity Net Worth.
Cavill is thought to have earned the majority of his wealth through his television and film appearances. However, according to The Telegraph, Henry had one of the lowest salaries for a superhero and earned $300,000 (230,000) for Man of Steel, a low figure but a far cry from his earnings for the 2001 film Laguna, for which he received $413,000 (316,000).
Following this, he earned $306,000 (234,000) for The Count of Monte Cristo, $162,000 (124,000) for I Capture the Castle, $142,000 for Hellraiser: Hellworld, $126,000 (96,000)for Tristan & Isolde, $103,000 (79,000) for Red Riding Hood and $87,000 (66,600) for Stardust, according to The Richest.
He also raised $78 million (60m) after his ALS Ice Bucket Challenge in 2013, which he donated to charity.
Dan Osborne has been forced to deny he got Rodrigo Alves kicked out of the Celebrity Big Brother house because he was uncomfortable with the star walking around naked.
The former TOWIE star, 27, hit back at the claim on Twitter after a false statement pertaining to be from him appeared online.
The statement, now deleted from the internet, claimed Dan had asked for Rodrigo, known as the Human Ken Doll, to be removed because he was walking around naked, making him uncomfortable.
Fury: Dan Osborne has been forced to deny he got Rodrigo Alves kicked out of the Celebrity Big Brother house because he was uncomfortable with the star walking around naked
Nudity: A false statement, now deleted from the internet, claimed Dan had asked for Rodrigo to be removed because he was walking around naked, making him uncomfortable
Earlier this week, in an interview with The Sun, Dan said of the reasons behind Rodrigo's premature exit: 'There was an incident in the house, it was just something inappropriate, I didn't appreciate it. I don't really want to talk about it.'
Hitting back over the false statement via social media, Dan responded to an inquisitive fan: 'Not one bit of that is true. Who released that statement?'
On the subject of Rodrigo's removal from the house, Dan refused to elaborate on what had unfolded.
He said: 'Ive had stories told about me, so I know its not nice. I dont want to do that to anyone else. It wasnt scary for me just uncomfortable... Its just not me to talk about someone. I would rather not elaborate.'
Statement: Dan said of the reasons behind Rodrigo's premature exit: 'There was an incident in the house, it was just something inappropriate, I didn't appreciate it'
Denial: Hitting back over the false statement via social media, Dan responded to an inquisitive fan: 'Not one bit of that is true. Who released that statement?'
And while Dan was left feeling 'uncomfortable' over the alleged incident, he admitted that it's unlikely he'd ever confront Rodrigo about it if they ever saw one another again.
'I never bumped into Rodrigo before going into the house so I probably wont bump into him again,' said Dan. 'If I did I wouldnt have a chat about it, I would say hello.'
Rodrigo has not commented on the reasons why he left the house or Dan's recent claims.
The star has denied anything untoward happened in the house and insists he left of his own accord.
Dan's revelation comes after Rodrigo apologised for his use of the N-word on CBB , explaining that being of black heritage himself, and having English as his second language, meant he didn't realise how offensive the term is.
Speaking exclusively to MailOnline, the 35-year-old plastic surgery enthusiast insisted that he is not racist, and meant no malice with his words
Sorry: Rodrigo recently apologised for his use of the N-word during his ill-fated stint on Celebrity Big Brother, explaining that he didn't realise how offensive the term is
Rodrigo, who received a formal and final warning for declaring 'I prefer n***** boys' during a chat about his type of men in the CBB house, revealed: 'I made a huge mistake when I was in the Celebrity Big Brother house, but I am most definitely not a racist.'
The TV personality who is of mixed race heritage explained: 'In Brazil, I was bought up in a multicultural, multiracial society. I am very proud of my Latino and black heritage.'
He added: 'English is not my first language. Through my Brazilian upbringing, my black family members and street/hip hop music in Brazil I was not naturally conditioned against the word.
'I was naive not to realise how offensive what I said is in English speaking countries, and what that word represents in terms of the horrific and sustained human rights abuses against black people over many generations.
'For this, I offer my sincerest and heartfelt apologies for any offence I may have caused. Racism is a state of mind often manifesting itself in abusive language.
Apologising: Speaking exclusively to MailOnline, the 35-year-old plastic surgery enthusiast insisted that he is not racist, and meant no malice with his words
'In my case, my use of a particular word has been used to portray me as having a mindset that I don't have and never have had.'
Rodrigo - who was later removed from the house for a 'serious incident' according to CBB bosses, whilst he claims he left on his accord - added: 'I used an expression frequently used in Brazil that describes a particular look because I could not find the right words in the English language.
'Channel 5 could have chosen not to broadcast the footage and I am surprised they did. However, it was me that made the mistake and me who will take responsibility for it.
'I can only assure people that I understand the offence I caused; that it was not intentional; and apologise. It wont happen again.'
Rodrigo was said to have been barred from the Celebrity Big Brother final after he departed the house, allegedly due to a 'serious inappropriate incident'.
Shocking: Rodrigo's shocking slur came as he was talking to Bad Girls Club star Natalie Nunn and Gabby Allen about his relationship status, before saying: 'I prefer n**** boys!'
He was ejected from the house in an abrupt, non-televised manner three weeks ago and a fortnight ahead of the final week.
Rodrigo previously told MailOnline upon his exit that it was his own choice to leave.
The Sun also claimed: 'Rodrigo behaved seriously inappropriately inside the house. It came to the attention of producers who watched the footage back.
'After a discussion they decided the only course of action would be to remove him from the house. Producers wanted minimum disruption to the show after making their decision.'
The Brazilian TV personality hit back at critics as the rumours have continued to circulate after his shock departure.
A show insider exclusively revealed to MailOnline that Human Ken Doll suffered a 'meltdown' after entering the Diary Room, where he was last seen heading.
What went on in the room was supposedly too much to be explained or shown on the show, and Rodrigo had to leave immediately.
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Taylor Swift has put her stunning Beverly Hills home on the market for an eye-watering $2.65million, after the star was forced to slash $300,000 from the asking price.
According to the Los Angeles Times, the 28-year-old songstress put the stunning four-bedroom home on the market as she plots to sell her US homes to spend more time in the UK with boyfriend Joe Alwyn.
Taylor's soon-to-be former home is nothing short of an idyllic oasis in one of the most expensive parts of California, with state-of-the-art security, a 1000-bottle wine cellar and even a private pool.
Amazing: Taylor Swift has put her stunning Beverly Hills home on the market for an eye-watering $2.65million, after the star was forced to slash $300,000 from the asking price
Never one to settle for anything less-than luxury, Taylor's single-story abode has been extensively renovated and boasts 2,950-square-feet of living space.
High-beamed ceilings allow a light and lofty feel throughout the home, with walls of windows and a large skylight adding even more ambience to the Mid-Century estate.
In addition to a massive, temperature-controlled 1,000-bottle wine cellar, a top-of-the-line chef's kitchen includes new appliances and a breakfast nook.
Jaw-dropping: The 28-year-old American songstress is reportedly selling the home in order to spend more time with her boyfriend Joe Alwyn in the UK
Taylor's soon-to-be former home is nothing short of an idyllic oasis in one of the most expensive parts of California, with state-of-the-art security, a 1000-bottle wine cellar and even a private pool
Grand: High-beamed ceilings allow a light and lofty feel throughout the home, with walls of windows and a large skylight adding even more ambiance to the Midcentury estate
Giving the home plenty of privacy, the home's backyard is lined with lush, leafy foliage, with the feeling of a tropical oasis accentuated thanks to the lagoon-style pool and granite patio.
The home also has an elaborate security system with 11 cameras positioned throughout the property, making sure Taylor can feel protected from prying eyes.
This is not the first time in recent months Taylor has put property on the market, as she recently parted ways with a nearby 1.4-acre mini estate for $4 million, garnering nearly $450,000 in profits.
Cozy: In addition to a massive, temperature-controlled 1,000-bottle wine cellar, a top-of-the-line chef's kitchen includes new appliances and a breakfast nook
On with the new: Taylor is reportedly unloading properties stateside as she plans a move to the UK to be closer to her British beau Joe Alwyn, 27
Stunning: The luxury abode also includes an elaborate security system with 11 cameras positioned throughout the property, making sure Taylor is kept safe from prying eyes
Taylor has reportedly been selling off her Stateside properties as she is planning a move to the UK to be closer to her British beau Joe Alwyn, 27.
London - where Joe is based - or rural Oxfordshire are said to be two key locations being considered by the star, as a source told The Sun last month she feels she can live undisturbed in the country.
They said: 'Taylor loves the UK and how she can live a relatively normal life without being disturbed. Setting down roots is something shes thought long and hard about.'
She's been quite the busy bee as she's set to star in three films this year.
And Keira Knightley maintained her hard work ethic as she promoted her latest movie Colette on Good Morning America in New York City on Thursday morning.
The Duchess actress, 33, exuded elegance as she donned a blue midi shift dress by Bora Aksu, embellished with intricate floral patterns throughout.
Busy bee: Keira Knightley maintained her hard work ethic as she promoted her latest movie Colette on Good Morning America in New York City on Thursday morning
Upping the style ante, the screen star complemented her sophisticated look with a navy double-breasted blazer.
The Never Let Me Go actress commanded attention as she boosted her height in a pair of pointed heels and accessorised with a chain-strap handbag.
Keira added a pop of colour to her look with a slash of bright pink lipstick and a brown smokey eye look, and styled her glossy tresses into loose waves.
Looking good: The Duchess actress, 33, exuded elegance as she donned a blue midi shift dress by Bora Aksu, embellished with intricate floral patterns throughout
All in the details: Upping the style ante, the screen star complemented her sophisticated look with a navy double-breasted blazer
The screen star's movie Colette is based on the life of the author of the same name who lived from 1875 to 1954, dying at age 81.
Set in the early 20th century, author Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette is pushed by her overbearing husband, Henry Gauthier-Villars, to write novels under his name in the biopic.
When they become bestsellers, she fights to make her talents known, challenging gender norms of the time. Dominic West plays her husband.
Standing tall: The Never Let Me Go actress commanded attention as she boosted her height in a pair of pointed heels and accessorised with a chain-strap handbag
Stunning: Keira added a pop of colour to her look with a slash of bright pink lipstick and a brown smokey eye look, and styled her glossy tresses into loose waves
Iconic author: Keira spoke on the CBS show about her movie Colette, based on the life of the author of the same name who lived from 1875 to 1954
Speaking on Good Morning America, Keira touched on the importance of the movie: 'The film focuses on the early years of her life, when she was married to first husband, who took credit for her first four novels. It's about the fight for her own voice, feminism and gender politics.'
Colette also sees the actress share a steamy kiss with co-star Eleanor Tomlinson, as the character explores her sexuality.
Keira elaborated: 'They were a celebrity couple, and her husband was brilliant at marketing. He marketed her and didn't give her voice, but she took her voice back.'
Candid: 'My Fair Lady is my go-to film, I sing along really badly, my husband is like stop', Keira laughed when speaking about her favourite movie during a short Q&A on GMA
During a short Q&A with the audience, she detailed her favourite movie, and spoke about her upcoming role in The Nutcracker and the Four Realms.
'My Fair Lady is my go-to film, I sing along really badly, my husband [James Righton] is like stop', Keira laughed.
'I'm in The Nutcracker, I can't remember when its coming out, I think its in November. I play the Sugar Plum Fairy and look like a big cake in the film.'
Working hard: Colette is due out on a limited release in the US on September 21, while it is scheduled for a January 25, 2019, opening in the UK
Colette is due out on a limited release in the US on September 21, while it is scheduled for a January 25, 2019, opening in the UK. Keira is also set to star in the romantic film Berlin, I Love You.
After a small role in Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace in 1999 and Bend It Like Beckham in 2002, the brunette beauty found fame co-starring in Pirates Of The Caribbean: The Curse Of The Black Pearl in 2003.
She went on to co-star with Johnny Depp in three more of the five films in the Pirates franchise including the most recent, Dead Men Tell No Tales in 2017.
Eva Longoria took her new baby on a trip on Wednesday evening.
The Desperate Housewives alum was seen with her son Santiago - who is only two months old - at the airport in Los Angeles. She was likely coming back from Miami where she has been working all month.
Dressed in black with a black hat to match and large black sunglasses on, the 43-year-old actress appeared to want to fly under the style radar.
Back in Cali: Eva Longoria took her new baby on a trip on Wednesday evening. The Desperate Housewives alum was seen with her son Santiago - who is only two months old - at the airport in Los Angeles
Strong connection: Eva doted on her little boy as she checked on him while he was in his stroller; he sweetly looked up at his mom
Eva doted on her little boy as she checked on him while he was in his stroller; he sweetly looked up at his mom.
The Devious Maids producer appeared to have no makeup on and was carrying her own baby bag.
This comes after she shared a sweet new photograph of Santiago Enrique on Instagram on Friday.
Longoria was seen planting a kiss on her baby boy and captioned the snap: 'Smooches from Santi'.
Dark attire: Dressed in all black with a black hat to match and large black sunglasses on, the 43-year-old actress appeared to want to fly under the style radar
The former Desperate Housewives star gave birth to her first child, whom she has with her husband Jose 'Pepe' Baston, in June.
She has since returned to work and has been juggling motherhood with her new ABC TV series Grand Hotel.
She is an executive producer on the show, and is also directing. She regularly takes her son along to the set and shares snaps on social media for her fans.
The drama, which is based on a Spanish series, focuses on the last family-hotel in Miami.
Smooches for Santi! The star shared this sweet snap of her baby boy on Friday
'Bring your baby to work day'! Eva took Santi onto the set of Grand Hotel earlier this week
Eva was also recently cast in the new Dora the Explorer movie.
She will voice the young adventurer's mother Elena 'Mami' Marquez in the upcoming live adaptation alongside Isabela Moner, who will play the titular character.
Michael Pena will portray Dora's father Cole 'Papi' Marquez.
And action! Baby Santi has joined his mother in the director's chair
Dora the Explorer is a children's television programme which first aired in 2000 and is based around the adventures of the titular Spanish-speaking girl, her monkey Boots, her backpack and other animated friends.
It ran for 14 years and was geared towards the younger viewers, with the franchise also branching out into dolls and video games.
Dora the Explorer is set to hit cinema screens in 2019.
Bodyguard fans have noticed what could be a major clue as to the fate of Keeley Hawes' character in the hit BBC drama.
Movie and TV database website IMDB has Keeley's character Julia Montague as appearing in the sixth and final episode of the drama, which will air on September 23, despite her death being announced in the latest installment.
The credit could point to a flashback scene but it has done little to quell fan speculation that the Home Secretary didn't die in the shock explosion at the end of episode three.
Back from the dead? Bodyguard fans have noticed what could be a major clue as to the fate of Keeley Hawes' character in the hit BBC drama
Keeley is not listed as appearing in episode five of the drama, but will make an appearance in some form in the sixth and final episode.
Fans have flooded Twitter with excited comments, with one viewer exclaiming: 'Imdb for #bodyguard has been changed and keeley hawes is now only credited in 5 episodes not 6. The plot thickens!!!'
The IMDB credit comes after actor Stuart Bowman refused to confirm that Julia is dead during a TV interview this week.
Alive? IMDB has Keeley's character as appearing in the sixth and final episode of the drama despite her death being announced in the latest installment (pictured with Richard Madden)
Speculation: Fans have flooded Twitter with excited comments after spotting the credit
The actor, who plays MI5's head of security on the BBC One drama, appeared on Wednesday's Good Morning Britain, and was put through a grilling from hosts Piers Morgan and Susanna Reid.
Last week's episode of Bodyguard saw Richard Madden's character David Budd told his client and lover Julia had died in the explosion at the end of episode three.
With two more episodes to go though, fan theories are rife that the Home Secretary isn't actually dead, especially as viewers weren't shown her demise on screen.
Twist: Last week's episode of Bodyguard saw Richard Madden's character David Budd told his client and lover Julia Montague had died in the shock explosion at the end of episode three
Instead doctors were shown breaking the news to Julia's mother as Dave looked on, after she apparently succumbed to her injuries in hospital.
Piers asked the question on everyone's lips during GMB's interview with Stuart on Wednesday, demanding: 'Is Julia Montague dead or not?
After smiling and trying to swerve the question, Susanna eventually got the coy actor to admit: 'You don't really want to know. People offer their theories and then just look at me.'
Questions: Stuart Bowman, who plays MI5's head of security on Bodyguard, appeared on Wednesday's GMB, and was put through a grilling from hosts Piers Morgan and Susanna Reid
The actor admitted though that he loved working with Keeley, gushing: 'She's funny that's the great thing. We laugh. It was just fun, she's just got funny bones.'
Bodyguard creator Jed Mercurio revealed earlier this week that he decided to kill off a main character halfway through the series because the audience would never expect it.
Discussing his decision to apparently write her out of the show, Jed admitted that he wanted to 'alter the dynamic' of the runaway six-part hit.
Shock: Bodyguard creator Jed Mercurio has revealed that he decided to kill off a main character halfway through the series because the audience would never expect it
Speaking to Radio Times, the Line of Duty creator said: 'I think theres a certain expectation with series TV that it will always orbit around an equilibrium, in which nothing much changes for the main stars, and there are no drastic changes to the set-up, especially now things tend to run for several series.
'But, with my work, I like to try to do things that move the story on, and with Bodyguard I wanted to have this event mid-series that would completely alter the dynamic.
Adding: 'I remember watching TV as a kid and, whenever there was some sort of jeopardy involving the hero, I could reassure myself that they were what Id call a "cant-die" character, so everything would be OK.'
'Alter the dynamic': Now discussing his decision to write her out of the show, Jed admitted that he wanted to 'alter the dynamic' of the runaway six-part hit, which also stars Richard Madden
No stranger to Jed's no holds barred writing, Keeley's Line of Duty character DI Lindsay Denton, was sent to an early grave when he killed her off in the fifth episode of series three.
Pick up a copy: Read the full interview out today
When asked if she commented on an apparent running theme, he insisted that Keeley was onboard with the decision for her appearance on the series to be cut show, although much to the dismay of fans.
He said: 'Yes, she did. But she did it, as she usually does, with good humour. I think, for her, its about the work as a whole, and the role. I think shed take the view that its better to do a few episodes of something meaty than lots of episodes of something thin.'
Keeley, 42, shared a sweet tribute to her time on the show as the character, using humour to try and reassure fans of theBBC One series, which has become the biggest new drama on British television in more than a decade.
Laughter is the best medicine: Bodyguard star Keeley shared a gushing post about the hit BBC One show on Monday after THAT shocking twist
Taking to Twitter, the actress wrote: 'It has been amazing to be part of #Bodyguard. Everyones enthusiasm for the show has made it so exciting.'
She added: 'Thanks again for watching and for the lovely messages. And Iiiiieeiiiieeeiiiiiiiiii will always love youuuuuuuuuuuuu! @_richardmadden (sic)'
Her amusing post was a reference to the Whitney Houston song I Will Always Love You, which was the theme song for 1992 drama The Bodyguard.
During the third episode, Keeley's character was giving a speech about her controversial RIPA-18 bill at St Matthews' College when a bomb went off, sending her flying through the air.
Drama: The news of her death set Richard's character PS David Budd into a downward spiral, as he was seen placing a gun against his head and pulling the trigger later in the episode
It was unclear what her fate was, but then, in the middle of Sunday's episode, her family were told at the hospital that she had died of her injuries.
The news of her demise set Richard's character PS David Budd into a downward spiral, as he was seen placing a gun against his head and pulling the trigger later in the episode.
Luckily for Madden fans, the gun the Principal Protection Officer used was a blank - seemingly having been tampered with by someone with access to his flat.
Throughout the episode fans took to Twitter to express their shock - and disbelief - at the various curveballs featuring throughout the hour-long episode.
Shock: Sunday night's episode left fans devastated after Home Secretary Julia Montague was suddenly killed off following the bomb attack during last week's episode
The BBC One series has achieved consolidated viewing figures of 10.4 million for its first episode.
This is the highest launch figure for any new drama across all UK channels since 2006, the corporation said.
The series kicked off on August 26, when it scored the highest overnight audience for a drama launch this year by more than one million viewers.
Bodyguard continues on BBC One on Sunday at 9pm.
The Mercury Prize 2018 is just around the corner and the performers for this years ceremony have been confirmed.
The majority of the nominees will take to the stage next week before finding out who is the 2018 Mercury Prize winner.
The Mercury Prize is a music award that honours innovation and is given out once a year to the best album released in the United Kingdom. Primal Scream won the first ever Mercury Prize back in 1992 for their album, Screamadelica.
Arctic Monkeys' Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino is one of the albums shortlisted this year
Officially known as the Hyundai Mercury Prize Awards Show, it is designed to celebrate and showcase true artistic achievement across a range of of contemporary music genres, and aiming to provide a snapshot of the year in music.
Here is all you need to know about this years Mercury Prize host and performers.
Who is the 2018 Mercury Prize host?
BBC Radio 1 DJ Annie Mac is hosting this years awards.
Who are the Mercury Prize nominees?
Twelve albums have been recognised including the Arctic Monkeys Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino, Lily Allens No Shame and Florence - the Machines High as Hope.
Here is the full list:
Lily Allen: No Shame
Arctic Monkeys: Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino
Everything Everything: A Fever Dream
Everything Is Recorded: Everything Is Recorded
Florence + the Machine: High as Hope
Noel Gallaghers High Flying Birds: Who Built the Moon?
King Krule: The Ooz
Novelist: Novelist Guy
Nadine Shah: Holiday Destination
Jorja Smith: Lost and Found
Sons of Kemet: Your Queen is a Reptile
Wolf Alice: Visions of a Life
Click here for more information on the Mercury Prize nominations and judges.
Who is performing at the awards ceremony?
Almost all of the nominated acts will perform including Everything Everything, Everything Is Recorded, Florence + The Machine, Jorja Smith, King Krule, and Lily Allen.
Wolf Alice, Novelist and Sons of Kemet will also perform. However, neither Noel Gallagher nor Arctic Monkeys will be performing at this years awards ceremony.
Each act will perform one track from their shortlisted album.
Excited to announce an incredible line-up of performers at the 2018 #HyundaiMercuryPrize on Thursday 20 September!
Tickets from 22, available now https://t.co/WCuieN2Ez8 pic.twitter.com/0v3b9Oc0ML Mercury Prize (@MercuryPrize) September 6, 2018
2018 Mercury Prize winners odds
According to Betfair, its anyones for the taking.
Out of the big acts, Lily Allen, the Arctic Monkeys, Florence + the Machine and Noel Gallaghers High Flying Birds, are all three acts down at 8/1 to take home the prize on 20 September.
The bookmakers has artists with debut albums, Jorja Smith and rapper Novelist, down as 6/1 and 10/1, respectively.
Betfair singles out Nadine Shag and King Krule as the strong contenders based on the market, with the artists coming in at 8/1 and 6/1 respectively.
Wolf Alice is down as 8/1, while Everything Everything comes in at 10/1. Jazz band Sons of Kemet is down at a surprisingly short 6/1.
So how *does* it feel to be Shortlisted for a Mercury Prize?
With just one week to go until we find out the 2018 winner, our shortlisted artists reveal their feels #HyundaiMercuryPrize pic.twitter.com/SCbBn6PeVm Mercury Prize (@MercuryPrize) September 13, 2018
How to buy tickets
Tickets are still available via the Eventim website.
Prices range from 22 to 29.75 and 41.25.
How to listen to the awards
Those not attending the Mercury Prize can catch the awards ceremony live on BBC Music.
There will be live coverage of the awards on BBC Four between 9pm and 10.15pm, while BBC Radio 6 Musics Tom Ravenscroft will be providing live coverage of the ceremony between 7pm and 10pm.
Lena Dunham has given fans a candid look at her endometriosis battle and chronic pain management.
On Thursday the actress posted a Polaroid taken from her recent stay at the hospital, where she sat on the edge of her bed while waiting to be discharged.
'Thank you Georgie for capturing that chronic illness isn't pretty,' Lena, 32, wrote in the photo, thanking her photographer, Georgie Wileman.
'Chronic illness isn't pretty': Lena Dunham posted a candid Polaroid from her recent stay at a hospital, as she continued her battle with endometriosis
The photo was taken as part of the hashtag, This Is Endometriosis, which sees women chronicle their daily battle with the disorder on social media.
It has been nearly a year since the Emmy nominee underwent a radical hysterectomy after suffering severely from endometriosis, and the star has been an open book about her experience with the condition on social media.
Georgie provided more details about the shoot on her Instagram, complimenting the actress on her 'strength and bravery.'
'I worked with the wonderful Lena for THIS IS ENDOMETRIOSIS yesterday. We took this polaroid before we started shooting. Visiting the hospital I've lain in countless times was challenging, but when I saw this girls face, my hands stopped shaking. The love and connection between two people that are living the same fight is hard to put into words.
Candid: The photo was taken as part of the hashtag, This Is Endometriosis, which sees women chronicle their daily battle with the condition on social media
Tucking in: Fortunately for Dunham, the actress was greeted by the love and support of her friends and family when she returned home from the hospital
'@lenadunham was waiting to be discharged after yet another hospital stay, a painful regularity for those with endometriosis. Like all those I meet with this disease, Lena's strength and bravery ached my heart.'
Fortunately for Lena, the actress was greeted by the love and support of her friends and family when she returned home from the hospital.
The actress nourished herself with a plate full of potatoes, and even managed to enjoy fashion week from the comfort of her bedroom.
'I'll be wearing this in my room with the heating pad on': Lena thanked several designers for sending them their clothing, even though she wasn't feeling well enough to attend their shows
'I have my pain managed by these queens': Lena also revealed she had relied on the help of healers to help her in her pain management
Lena thanked several designers for sending them their clothing, even though she wasn't feeling well enough to attend their shows.
'Continuing #NYFW from my room!' Lena declared in one snap. 'I wasn't well enough to get out to shows but I'm blessed to know wise, body positive designers who gift me stunning pieces. My true fave is @batshevadress! What a (crown emoji) Esther she is. Good luck today, Bat! I'll be wearing this in my room with the heating pad on.'
Lena also revealed she had relied on the help of healers to help her in her pain management.
'And I have my pain managed by these queens,' she wrote in a snap of herself laying on a bed. 'Woman healers change lives and open new possibilities and keep me out of the f**king hospital - I am blessed in every way.'
It doesn't look like Sofia Richie is letting the recent reports that she's been a total diva get her down.
On Thursday, the beauty flaunted her model body in a skin-baring ensemble during a night out in New York.
The 20-year-old is in the Big Apple for fashion week and she kicked up her street style game in a casual yet revealing outfit.
Model style: Sofia Richie didn't seem to let recent negative reports about her behavior get in the way of her fun. The star flaunted a taught tummy in a tiny crop to on Thursday in New York
Diva? Recently several reports surfaced calling Sofia a total diva after she refused to play ball with reporters and talk about her boyfriend Scott Disick or her father Lionel Richie
Showing off her ample assets, the younger sister of Nicole Richie was spotted out with friends in a tiny black crop top flashing her rock hard abs and some tan lines.
Sofia paired the teeny top with a relaxed fit pair of fatigue green, highwaisted slacks and pointy black booties.
The model treated a Manhattan sidewalk like a catwalk and strutted with pals in the wee hours of Thursday morning.
She had her chestnut hair parted down the middle and slicked back in a low pony and sported a fresh face of makeup.
On one arm the starlet carried a small multicolored purse.
The up-and-comer just got back to the States after a headline making trip Down Under to promote a partnership with footwear brand, Windsor Smith.
Stunning: Sofia went for a simple yet stunning look while showing off some tan lines in a crop top and olive green slacks
Very happy: Following the scathing reports, Sofia sat down with an outlet in Australia while promoting her new footwear collaboration and finally talked about how happy she is in her relationship with the 35-year-old reality star
Sofia was accused of acting like a total diva after she refused to talk to reporters in Australia about the two of the major reasons that she's famous, her father and her boyfriend.
Her demands allegedly prompted Confidential to turn down the model for an interview and the publication later claimed that Channel Ten's The Project also had to pull an interview.
Turns out the budding young starlet wouldn't budge in her decision not to answer questions about Scott Disick and Lionel Richie.
After the media dragged her for the diva-like behavior, Richie spoke with The Goss and finally waxed poetic on the previously off-limits topic if Lord Disick.
On her relationship with the former longtime boyfriend of Kourtney Kardashian, Sofia said, 'we are very happy, very lovey dovey.'
The Keeping Up With the Kardashian's star, who is 15 years her senior, started dating the aspiring fashion designer when she was just 19.
Off limits: The aspiring model wanted her tabloid worthy relationship off the table during a promo tour and the demands didn't go over well
So close: Over the last year Richie and Disick have gotten extremely close and even Kourtney has reportedly given her stamp of approval
She added: 'We are best friends and that is mainly the strongest connection we have. We have always had that best friend connection and from there it has really worked out. I am so happy.'
It turns out everyone seems pretty happy about the unexpected pairing in the Kardashian world.
PEOPLE reports that: 'Sofia is helping Scott be a better, healthier person. Kourtney feels confident that Scott and Sofia take good care of the kids. Scott is a great dad when he has his life together.'
Sofia's father, however, isn't on board.
The All Night Long crooner has reportedly repeatedly expressed his disapproval of the pair.
They're set to get married in just a matter of days.
And Olivia Buckland couldn't resist putting on a loved-up display with her fiance Alex Bowen as she tried on rings in Mayfair, London, ahead of their wedding.
The Love Island star, 24, looked effortlessly chic as she walked hand-in-hand with her husband-to-be, 26, and excitedly looked at Thomas Sabo's jewellery collections.
Smitten: Olivia Buckland couldn't resist putting on a loved-up display with her fiance Alex Bowen as she tried on rings in Mayfair, London, ahead of their wedding
Olivia showed of her enviable curves in a mustard yellow coloured plunging boilersuit with a tuxedo-style neckline and tortoiseshell buttons.
She accessorised the item of clothing with a black vest top underneath, a pair of military platform heel boots and a Gucci chained handbag.
Olivia looked every inch the glowing bride-to-be as she styled her blonde ombre locks into a curly blow-dried hairdo, she added a slick of glamorous make-up.
Glowing: The Love Island star, 24, looked effortlessly chic as she walked hand-in-hand with her husband-to-be, 26, and excitedly looked at Thomas Sabo's jewellery collections
The happy couple: Olivia showed of her enviable curves in a mustard yellow coloured plunging boilersuit with a tuxedo-style neckline and tortoiseshell buttons
Chic: She accessorised the item of clothing with a black vest top underneath, a pair of military platform heel boots and a Gucci chained handbag
Meanwhile, Alex cut a casual figure in grey skinny jeans with rips, an oversized white t-shirt and a black denim jacket, he added a pair of beige trainers.
The couple appeared more loved-up than ever as they put on a cosy display and tried on several different rings in the upmarket Mayfair jewellery shop.
Olivia's outing comes after she reportedly had a row with her former best friend and Love Island co-star, Cara De La Hoyde, over bridesmaid duties.
Bride-to-be: Olivia looked every inch the glowing bride-to-be as she styled her blonde ombre locks into a curly blow-dried hairdo, she added a slick of glamorous make-up
Stylish couple: Meanwhile, Alex cut a casual figure in grey skinny jeans with rips, an oversized white t-shirt and a black denim jacket, he added a pair of beige trainers
Exciting times: The couple appeared more loved-up than ever as they put on a cosy display and tried on several different rings in the upmarket Mayfair jewellery shop
The 24-year-old business woman has since declared that she realises who her 'real friends are' after her pal revealed she is no longer attending her wedding.
Writing in her column for this week's new! magazine, Olivia admitted she and Cara 'haven't spoken for a bit', but insisted 'everything is fine' between the pair.
The Love Island star's reported feud comes after she exclusively revealed to MailOnline last year that she was turning into a bridezilla.
Drama: Olivia's outing comes after she reportedly had a row with her former best friend and Love Island co-star, Cara De La Hoyde, over bridesmaid duties
Candid: The 24-year-old business woman has since declared that she realises who her 'real friends are' after her pal revealed she is no longer attending her wedding
'Feud': Writing in her column for this week's new! magazine, Olivia admitted she and Cara 'haven't spoken for a bit', but insisted 'everything is fine' between the pair
Having met on the 2016 series of ITV2's Love Island, Olivia and Alex came in second place behind Cara and her fiance Nathan Massey.
Following their stint on the popular series, the couple quickly moved in together in her native Essex in August 2016, before Alex popped the question during a romantic trip to New York that December after just five months of dating.
Olivia revealed that she's feeling the pressure of organising her special day, admitting that she's on the path to becoming a bridezilla after saying yes to a 2,069 Sophia Tolli dress on the TLC reality show in May.
She said: 'I think I might turn into Bridezella at some point, just waiting for it to happen.'
'Bridezilla': The Love Island star's reported feud comes after she exclusively revealed to MailOnline last year that she was turning into a bridezilla
Love Island stardom: Having met on the 2016 series of ITV2's Love Island, Olivia and Alex came in second place behind Cara and her fiance Nathan Massey
She has appeared on screen as a man-eating heiress, a killer detective and a leatherclad vampire.
But Kate Beckinsale, 45, could have topped all those roles by playing the most fierce female superhero of them all - Wonder Woman.
The British beauty has revealed that she was considered for the role of Amazonian princess and crime fighter Diane Prince, also known as the lasso-casting Wonder Woman.
British Beauty: Kate Beckinsale, 45, was considered by producer Joe Silver as the next Wonder Woman. But she is glad the role went to Israeli actress Gal Gadot; seen on Wednesday
Confirming long-whispered rumors she told Variety: 'Yes, there was a period of time, a long time ago, when Joel Silver was involved with it.'
The colorful producer developed many big actions movies, including Lethal Weapon, The Matrix and Predator.
Yet Kate suspected the Silver version could have been an embarrassment. 'It would have been a terrible movie based on the script that I read,' she said.
The right choice: Kate praised Gal Gadot's performance in the 2017 version of Wonder Woman. The sequel, Wonder Woman 1984, opens in November, 2019
She is grateful than, nearly a decade later, Hollywood found the right script, the right director in Patty Jenkins and the right actress in the former soldier and Miss Israel, Gal Gadot, 33.
'That was a wonderful film that Gal did,' said Kate.
It was also a massive hit, earning more than $800 million worldwide. A sequel, Wonder Woman 1984, again with Gal and Patty Jenkins, is scheduled to be released in November, 2019.
Kate as a gun-totin' vampire: Her character Selene is a 600-year-old vampire soldier who will shoot and kick her way back onto the big screen in a sixth movie
Posh Kate made her name as an actress playing Shakespeare in Sir Kenneth Branagh's Much Ado About Nothing while she still studying French and Russian literature at New College, Oxford.
But she has said she loved to break out into more physical, fun roles - like Selene the 600-year-old and yet still hot vampire soldier in the Underworld franchise.
She is due to return for a sixth film in the series next year.
Ready for a lifetime of wonder: Lynda Carter played the Amazonian crime-fighter on TV for five years in the 1970's and is still celebrated across the world as the 'real' Wonder Woman
Kate has taken time off for making movies to look after Lily, her daughter with fellow-Brit actor Michael Sheen, 49.
Lily, 19, has voiced a young Selene in the Underworld series, which also featured her father as a muscular werewolf.
The big-brained beauty said it was always a script or the director that got her back to work, especially if its a smaller-budget project rather than a Wonder Woman-style blockbuster.
'I've done indie movies where I'm sitting on a piece of folded carpet and it was wonderful. I've done great big movies that were the worst misery of my life," she told Variety. 'It all depends.'
'At university, I never studied drama, so I always felt like from the beginning of my career that it was an apprenticeship," she told the film business magazine.
"That freed me up to try a lot of things. It gave me a lot of latitude. I started out in the indie space," she said.
'I never anticipated doing one of those heavy-weight, very physical franchise things. It was scary to see myself on movie posters on the side of every single bus."
Lynda Carter, who played Wonder Woman on TV between 1975 and 1979, might identify with that.
Although Lynda, 67, has gone onto many other roles including video game voice-overs and a strong singing career, she has admitted she cannot entirely shrug off that star spangled costume created in the 1940s.
'You have to be prepared for a life time of fandom: once you are Wonder Woman, you are Wonder Woman for life. And that is not something everyone wants.'
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She has been enjoying a whirlwind trip around Europe promoting her latest cinematic offering The Favourite.
And Emma Stone, 29, was back to her promotional duties on Thursday night as she stepped out on the red carpet for the world premiere of her new Netflix series Maniac at London's BFI Southbank alongside her co-star and pal Justin Theroux, 47.
The Oscar-winning actress looked sensational in a plunging red crepe camisole with lace inlay around the neckline as she joined Maniac writer Patrick Somerville and director Cary Fukunaga.
Walk this way: Emma Stone, 29, was back to her promotional duties on Thursday night as she stepped out on the red carpet for the world premiere of her new Netflix series Maniac at London 's BFI Southbank alongside her co-star and pal Justin Theroux, 47
Continuing her chic display, she tucked her slinky garment into a pair of black high-waisted suit trousers which accentuated her lithe frame while she posed for photos.
The La La Land actress, who stars in the upcoming Netflix series opposite Jonah Hill, added inches to her svelte frame as she teetered up the carpet in a pair of black and silver heels.
Keeping to her glamorous ways, she swept her flame-coloured locks off her face into a soft ponytail, which was held into place with a black bow, and sported a pair of diamond hoops earrings.
Emma worked a dramatic smokey with Iconic London's chrome flash eye pot in lunar and nude lip while she commanded attention making her way inside the venue, holding onto a kooky leopard print clutch.
Red alert: The Oscar-winning actress looked sensational in a plunging red crepe camisole with lace inlay around the neckline
Beaming: The Oscar-winning actress looked sensational in a plunging red crepe camisole with lace inlay around the neckline
Far from pants: Continuing her chic display, she tucked her slinky garment into a pair of black high-waisted suit trousers which accentuated her lithe frame while she posed for photos
Walk this way: The La La Land actress, who stars in the upcoming Netflix series opposite Jonah Hill, added inches to her svelte frame as she teetered up the carpet in a pair of black and silver heels
Following Emma's fashionable display, her co-star Justin looked dapper in an all black suit with a simple black T-shirt underneath. The pair previously set tongues-wagging whether there was anything more to their friendship in May but it appeared to be speculation.
Noticeably absent from the red carpet was Emma's co-star Jonah Hill, 34, who play Owen Milgrim in the new series.
Emma stars opposite Jonah Hill, 34, for new mind bending Netflix mini-series Maniac, which follows two strangers who end up 'caught in a mind-bending pharmaceutical trial gone awry'.
The new trailer of the upcoming show was released in July as part of the Television Critics Association press tour and gave fans of the Oscar winner and nominee a first look at their kooky new roles.
Sitting across from each other in an all white environment, the pair stared deep into one another's eyes clad in their grey boiler suits as a voiceover begins.
Ring it in! She sported a number of sparkling rings across her dainty hands
Picture perfect: Emma posed for photos alongside director Cary Fukunaga, Maniac writer Patrick Somerville and co-star Justin Theroux
Catching up: Keeping to her glamorous ways, she swept her flame-coloured locks off her face into a soft ponytail, which was held into place with a black bow, and sported a pair of diamond hoops earrings. Pictured with series director Cary Fukunaga
Having a laugh: She held onto a kooky leopard print clutch while joking around with her director
Camera ready: Emma worked a dramatic smokey with Iconic London's chrome flash eye pot in lunar and nude lip
All smiles: Emma happily posed alongside the show's director and writer
What is Netflix's new series Maniac about? The mind bending new series from Netflix tells the story of Annie Landsberg (Emma Stone) and Owen Milgrim (Jonah Hill), two strangers drawn to the late stages of a mysterious pharmaceutical trial, each for their own reasons.
While little is known about the show's arc, Deadline reported that it is 'set in a world somewhat like our own and similar to our time'
Maniac is a limited series from director Cary Fukunaga, known for Beasts of No Nation and the first season of True Detective
Jonah stars opposite Stone, Sonoya Mizuno, and Justin Theroux in the series, which was penned by Patrick Somerville
The show is set to hit the streaming service on September 21, and is based on the Norwegian television series of the same name by Hakon Bast Mossige
Jonah and Emma previously worked together on 2007 comedy Superbad, which catapulted both of them to success Advertisement
The narrator starts: 'Once you begin to appreciate the structure of the mind, there is no reason to believe that anything about us that can't be changed. The mind, can be solved.'
The room soon takes a trippy turn as shots are filtered with hues of cobalt blue, bright green and red as a melodic hum of 'One, two, three, one, two, three' begins bellowing over.
Maniac is a limited series from director Cary Fukunaga, known for Beasts of No Nation and the first season of True Detective.
Jonah stars opposite Stone, Sonoya Mizuno, and Justin Theroux in the series, which was penned by Patrick Somerville. The show is set to hit the streaming service on September 21, and is based on the Norwegian television series of the same name by Hakon Bast Mossige.
'Set in a world somewhat like our own and similar to our time, Maniac tells the stories of Annie Landsberg (Stone) and Owen Milgrim (Hill), two strangers drawn to the late stages of a mysterious pharmaceutical trial, each for their own reasons,' explains Deadline about the plot.
The pair first worked together on Judd Apartow's 2007 hit comedy Superbad, which saw them play love interests Seth and Jules.
Both have gone on to receive much success in Hollywood since then with Emma winning an Academy Award in 2017 for her role in musical La La Land.
While Jonah himself was recognised by the Academy for his turns in The Wolf of Wall Street and Moneyball, he has failed to win an Oscar yet.
Elsewhere, Emma has been enjoying time in Europe over the past few weeks after she attended the Venice Film Festival with her latest flick The Favourite.
Dapper: Following Emma's fashionable display, her co-star Justin looked dapper in an all black suit with a simple black T-shirt underneath
But first let me take a selfie: Justin happily posed for photos with fans outside the venue
Leading stars: Justin and Emma posed together for a photo inside the star-studded event
Getting chic done: Carol Vorderman slipped into a vibrant orange dress for the red carpet event
Bag it up: She carried a black leather bag and walked the carpet in a pair of nude pointed stilettos
Stepping out: Actress Emma Mackey walked the red carpet in a dip-low hemmed dress
Yellow there: The Innocents actress Sorcha Groundsell donned a yellow mini dress
The Favourite is directed by Yorgos Lanthimos and is 'a bawdy, acerbic tale of royal intrigue, passion, envy and betrayal' set in the court of Queen Anne in early 18th century England, according to Fox Searchlight Pictures.
Olivia Colman stars as Queen Anne, Rachel Weisz as her adviser and lover Sarah Churchilll, while Emma is Sarah's younger cousin Abigail, who turns the relationship between Anne and Sarah upside-down.
With Anne more concerned about tending to her flocks of ducks rather than governing the country, Sarah the Duchess of Marlborough steps in to take over the political work.
The eight-week shoot took place last year in various locations in southern England including Hatfield House in Hertfordshire, a country mansion that has been the backdrop for features including My Week With Marilyn and Sherlock Holmes.
The Favourite - which also stars Nicholas Hoult, Olivia Coleman and Joe Alwyn - is released in US cinemas on November 23 and hits UK screens on January 1, 2019.
The Favourite will have to impress this year's jury panel, the president of which is director, Guillermo Del Toro. The jury consists of Christoph Waltz, Taika Waititi, Malgorzata Szumowska, Trine Dyrholm, Nicole Garcia, Sylvia Chang and Paolo Genovese.
Check her out: Jasmine Guinness walked the red carpet in an eye-catching look
Suit you: Sting's daughter Eliot Sumner attended the star-studded event
'Human Ken Doll' Rodrigo Alves has been seen for the first time since Dan Osborne revealed that he was removed from the Celebrity Big Brother house for 'doing something inappropriate.'
The 35-year-old Brazilian plastic surgery fan showed off his typically eclectic style sense in mixed prints as he shopped in Europe's fashion capital Milan.
Rodrigo's outing came after Dan was forced to deny that he got Rodrigo removed from the house because the star walking around 'naked' left him feeling 'uncomfortable.'
Out and about: 'Human Ken Doll' Rodrigo Alves has been seen for the first time since Dan Osborne revealed the reason why he was removed from the Celebrity Big Brother house
On his Italian outing, Rodrigo was seen picking up some new purchases from high-end boutique Gucci before enjoying a coffee or two in an intimate cafe.
The reality TV star showed off his toned figure in a blakc floral printed shirt and matching white shorts, finishing off his quirky ensemble with yellow suede tassel slippers.
With his white blonde hair slicked back, Rodrigo kept his essentials close to hand in a large designer tote bag showing off his incredibly tanned skin as he commanded attention in the town.
Low-key: Stepping out in Milan, the 35-year-old Brazilian plastic surgery fan could be seen chatting on the phone as he relaxed in an Italian cafe
Dynamic: Showing off his sartorial style sense, Rodrigo teamed a black floral silk shirt with matching white printed shorts, as he made some indulgent purchases from Gucci
Busy: Never one to shy away from commanding attention, Rodrigo had his white-blonde hair in a slicked-back style to showcase his tanned complexion
Jovial: The star was putting on an animated display as he flashed a peace sign to fans from inside an Italian cafe
Prepared: Carrying his essentials in a designer tote bag, Rodrigo was seen indulging in a spot of retail therapy in Milan
Rodrigo's outing is his first since Dan spoke to The Sun as the reasons behind his removal from the house, which to that point had been shrouded in mystery.
Dan was previously forced to deny he orchestrated Rodrigo's removal, after a false statement pertaining to be from him, appeared online.
Earlier this week, Dan said of the reasons behind Rodrigo's premature exit: 'There was an incident in the house, it was just something inappropriate, I didn't appreciate it. I don't really want to talk about it.'
Busy: He also took some time out to indulge in a cup of coffee inside an cosy cafe, flashing a hint of his bare chest in the low-cut shirt
Beaming: Rodrigo's outing came after his CBB housemate Dan Osborne told The Sun about the real reasons behind his removal from the house, which to that point was shrouded in mystery
Explosive: Dan said: 'It wasnt scary for me just uncomfortable... Its just not me to talk about someone. I would rather not elaborate'
Mysterious: Fans were left fuming when the only element of Rodrigo's 'exit' shown on-screen was him being called to the Diary Room, with no other details given by producers
Keeping quiet: Rodrigo has not commented on the reasons why he left the house or Dan's recent claims
Truthful: The star has denied anything untoward happened in the house and insists he left of his own accord
Hitting back over the false statement via social media, Dan responded to an inquisitive fan: 'Not one bit of that is true. Who released that statement?'
On the subject of Rodrigo's removal from the house, Dan refused to elaborate on what had unfolded.
He said: 'Ive had stories told about me, so I know its not nice. I dont want to do that to anyone else. It wasnt scary for me just uncomfortable... Its just not me to talk about someone. I would rather not elaborate.'
Fury: Meanwhile Dan has also been forced to deny he got Rodrigo kicked out of the house because he was uncomfortable with the star walking around naked
Nudity: A false statement, now deleted from the internet, claimed Dan had asked for Rodrigo to be removed because he was walking around naked, making him uncomfortable
Denial: Hitting back over the false statement via social media, Dan responded to an inquisitive fan: 'Not one bit of that is true. Who released that statement?'
And while Dan was left feeling 'uncomfortable' over the alleged incident, he admitted that it's unlikely he'd ever confront Rodrigo about it if they ever saw one another again.
'I never bumped into Rodrigo before going into the house so I probably wont bump into him again,' said Dan. 'If I did I wouldnt have a chat about it, I would say hello.'
Rodrigo has not commented on the reasons why he left the house or Dan's recent claims.
The star has denied anything untoward happened in the house and insists he left of his own accord.
Dan's revelation comes after Rodrigo apologised for his use of the N-word on CBB , explaining that being of black heritage himself, and having English as his second language, meant he didn't realise how offensive the term is.
Speaking exclusively to MailOnline, the 35-year-old plastic surgery enthusiast insisted that he is not racist, and meant no malice with his words
Sorry: Rodrigo recently apologised for his use of the N-word during his ill-fated stint on Celebrity Big Brother, explaining that he didn't realise how offensive the term is
Controversial: The slur led many fans to demand he be removed from the house, and producers have not given any confirmation of the reason behind his ejection
Rodrigo, who received a formal and final warning for declaring 'I prefer n***** boys' during a chat about his type of men in the CBB house, revealed: 'I made a huge mistake when I was in the Celebrity Big Brother house, but I am most definitely not a racist.'
The TV personality who is of mixed race heritage explained: 'In Brazil, I was bought up in a multicultural, multiracial society. I am very proud of my Latino and black heritage.'
He added: 'English is not my first language. Through my Brazilian upbringing, my black family members and street/hip hop music in Brazil I was not naturally conditioned against the word.
'I was naive not to realise how offensive what I said is in English speaking countries, and what that word represents in terms of the horrific and sustained human rights abuses against black people over many generations.
'For this, I offer my sincerest and heartfelt apologies for any offence I may have caused. Racism is a state of mind often manifesting itself in abusive language.
Apologising: Speaking exclusively to MailOnline, Rodrigo insisted that he is not racist, and meant no malice with his words
Responding: He said: 'In my case, my use of a particular word has been used to portray me as having a mindset that I don't have and never have had'
'In my case, my use of a particular word has been used to portray me as having a mindset that I don't have and never have had.'
Rodrigo - who was later removed from the house for a 'serious incident' according to CBB bosses, whilst he claims he left on his accord - added: 'I used an expression frequently used in Brazil that describes a particular look because I could not find the right words in the English language.
'Channel 5 could have chosen not to broadcast the footage and I am surprised they did. However, it was me that made the mistake and me who will take responsibility for it.
'I can only assure people that I understand the offence I caused; that it was not intentional; and apologise. It wont happen again.'
Rodrigo was said to have been barred from the Celebrity Big Brother final after he departed the house, allegedly due to a 'serious inappropriate incident'.
Shocking: Rodrigo's shocking slur came as he was talking to Bad Girls Club star Natalie Nunn and Gabby Allen about his relationship status, before saying: 'I prefer n**** boys!'
He was ejected from the house in an abrupt, non-televised manner three weeks ago and a fortnight ahead of the final week.
The Sun also claimed: 'Rodrigo behaved seriously inappropriately inside the house. It came to the attention of producers who watched the footage back.
'After a discussion they decided the only course of action would be to remove him from the house. Producers wanted minimum disruption to the show after making their decision.'
The Brazilian TV personality hit back at critics as the rumours have continued to circulate after his shock departure.
A show insider exclusively revealed to MailOnline that Human Ken Doll suffered a 'meltdown' after entering the Diary Room, where he was last seen heading.
What went on in the room was supposedly too much to be explained or shown on the show, and Rodrigo had to leave immediately.
Gone: On his removal The Sun previously claimed: 'Rodrigo behaved seriously inappropriately inside the house. It came to the attention of producers who watched the footage back'
She got all glammed up for a night out during New York Fashion Week less than 24 hours earlier.
But Irina Shayk was back on mom duty as she spent some quality time with her one-year-old daughter, Lea, on Thursday.
From playing with her daughter in a playground to taking her around New York City by stroller, Irina, 32, was every inch the doting mommy.
Mom duty! Irina Shayk was back on mom duty as she spent some quality time with her one-year-old daughter, Lea, on Thursday
Dressed in head to toe black, Irina soaked up the autumn day in a turtleneck, jogger pants, beige sneakers, and a pair of stylish sunglasses.
She had her brunette tresses scraped back away from her complexion, putting her pretty, blemish-free complexion on show.
Once at the playground, Irina joyfully pushed her girl in her swing set.
The daughter of Irina and Bradley Cooper also hopped into a little toy blue car.
Aww: Shayk played with her little girl during a stop at the playground
Low-key and sporty: Shayk rocked head-to-toe black, including a turtleneck and striped trousers
The outing comes less than 24 hours after Irina enjoyed a night out during New York Fashion Week.
The model wowed in a sexy, low-cut black dress that showed off a hint of leg.
Irina's partner Bradley, 43, is currently in Canada at the Toronto International Film Festival where he's attending multiple events for his latest flick A Star Is Born with Lady Gaga.
On the go: The model enjoyed a day out in the Big Apple with her one-year-old
Mom's here: Shayk appeared to be making some silly faces as her daughter swung towards her
Doting parents: Irina and her partner Bradley Cooper welcomed baby Lea last year
Family affair: Last month the model mom and baby Lea joined Bradley during the 75th Venice International Film Festival amid rave reviews of the actor's new movie
Last month the model mom and baby Lea joined Bradley during the 75th Venice International Film Festival amid rave reviews of the actor's new movie.
The Hollywood Reporter wrote: 'There's a lot to love in Bradley Cooper's entertaining remake of A Star is Born.'
It is the fourth version of the film, which origins reach back to 1937.
The original was then adapted into a 1954 musical starring Judy Garland and James Mason before seeing its revival once again in 1976 courtesy of Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson.
A Star Is Born will receive wide-release October 5 in both the US and UK.
Dua Lipa is head-over-heels for boyfriend Isaac Carew and its no wonder why.
In addition to his runway-caliber good looks, Isaac is handy in the kitchen he just announced his impending cookbook and a special supper club series with Francesco Mazzei to celebrate.
Tickets for the event will cost about 35. Attendees will be given a sneak preview of Isaacs forthcoming cookbook, The Dirty Dishes.
The book is named after his popular cooking website.
Dua Lipa reconnected with Isaac Carew after a January 2018 split with Paul Klein. They broke up in 2017 after three-and-a-half years together
Dua hasnt publicly celebrated her beaus latest achievement, but has been known to show him love on social media. Perhaps shell be at one of Isaacs supper club events.
Want to know more about Dua Lipas boyfriend, Isaac Carew? Check it out.
Who is Isaac Carew?
Isaac Carew is a model/chef. He also happens to be dating Dua Lipa.
The pair dated for three-and-a-half years, ending in 2017. They got back together after Dua ended her relationship with another man and have been happy in love ever since.
Isaac is a trained chef whos worked with the likes of Gordon Ramsay, according to his modeling bio. He currently has his own cooking website, The Dirty Dishes, which is aimed at young cooks.
He recently announced the impending release of his cookbook, also called The Dirty Dishes.
The book release will be celebrated with a series of supper clubs hosted with Francesco Mazzei.
Isaac Carew cookbook
Isaac Carews forthcoming cookbook will be called The Dirty Dishes. Its named for the cooking website he launched prior.
The book is currently available for pre-order on Amazon UK.
The book is described as a collection of the food thats inspired his life-long love of cooking.
The Dirty Dishes returns Isaac to his first love with a fresh and modern collection of a hundred recipes: from lazy brunches to easy weekday suppers, and from vegan delights to late-night bites, it reads.
He shares his new takes on popular dishes such as Poached Salmon Nicoise and the more adventurous Tamarind Treacle Tart. Modern and bursting with flavour, the book reveals the secrets of Isaacs culinary training and gives you everything you need to get a bit messy and have fun in the kitchen.
Who is Dua Lipa?
Dua Lipa is a popular musician, born on August 22, 1995. She was raised in London, England by Albanian parents from Kosovo.
Her name translates as love from Albanian to English.
Growing up, Dua attended the Sylvia Young Theater School before returning to Kosovo in 2008. During that time, she shared videos of herself online covering songs by popular artists like Nelly Furtado and P!nk.
She returned to London and started focusing on her singing career. Dua starred in an ad for The X Factor and in 2015 began putting together her debut album for Warner Music Group.
She gained international success with the release of her first single, New Love, and later, Be The One.
In 2017, after several chart-worthy releases, Dua released her self-titled album. The project featured her hit single, New Rules, which also served as her first No. one hit.
Dua Lipa relationship
Dua Lipa is currently dating model/chef Isaac Carew. The pair were a couple for three-and-a-half years until they decided to call it quits in 2017.
At the time, Dua told The Sun: We didnt break up because we didnt want to be with each other we just needed to be on our own and thats really it.
She went on to date LANY frontman Paul Klein until they broke up in January. In May, she and Isaac were seen with their arms around one another according to The Sun.
Before long, theyd confirmed they were a couple again and were making regular appearances on each others Instagram accounts.
Around the same time the two got back together, rumors began swirling that Isaac cheated on Dua. He addressed the drama on Instagram, assuring fans that he has nothing but the utmost respect for her and would never do such a thing.
Speaking on photos of him seemingly kissing someone else in a club, Isaac said: Both Dua and I have fallen into the hands of tabloids causing drama and linking us to different people when there is simply nothing there.
Im in a gay bar dancing with a friend and its been shown in a bad light. There was no kissing and Im disappointed at myself for even dancing for a brief moment given the way it was portrayed. It was a loud club and I was talking to her in her ear.
He continued: Dont believe everything you see because these people are paid to create drama.
Dua Lipa net worth
Dua Lipas net worth is $3 million (2.1m).
Slick Woods showed off her very pregnant baby bump while wearing lingerie on Rihanna's Savage x Fenty runway show during New York Fashion Week on Wednesday night.
And soon after stepping backstage, the 22-year-old model went into labor, according to TMZ. An ambulance was reportedly called and she was rushed to the hospital.
The baby boy, whose father is model Adonis Bosso, will be named Saphir.
Good timing: Slick Woods went into labor as soon as she stepped off Rihanna's Fenty runway in NYC on Wednesday evening, according to TMZ
The daddy: Woods' beau and the father of the child is model Adonis Bosso
The timing is incredible for the catwalker.
Just before she went into labor she became an instant celebrity thanks to her eye-popping outfit at the show.
Not only did she have a very big bump, but she looked incredibly fit in the extremely skimpy outfit that include straps and pasties.
Woods' Instagram account exploded after the event - she now has almost 700K followers.
And she has been heavily searched online after she won the night on the Fenty catwalk.
Woods came to fame two years ago when she modeled for Marc Jacobs.
The mastermind: Rihanna handpicked Woods for the show and put her in the outfit
Strike a pose: An ambulance was called and she was rushed to the hospital
Star: The boy will be named Saphi, the site claimed. She has yet to issue a statement
At Fenty on Wednesday, Slick closed the Neverland meets lost girls themed show in her very daring look.
The beauty was dressed in a string one piece with cut-outs to highlight her bump, teamed with glitter-adorned stockings and killer heels.
Nipple covers, sparkling hoop earrings and a black velvet headband completed the runway look as Slick strutted past the FROW and posed with a hand on her bump.
This is where it happened: The beauty backstage at the show just before she went into labor
Work it: Woods' Instagram account exploded after the event - she now has almost 700K followers
Rihanna asked her muse to model for her lingerie collection after declaring she wants to empower women through her designs.
'Women should be wearing lingerie for their d**n selves,' Rihanna told Vogue in an interview. 'I can only hope to encourage confidence and strength by showing lingerie in another light. You don't have to stick to one personality with lingerie; it's fun to play around.
'You can be cute and playful one week and a black widow next week. You can take risks with lingerie. I want people to wear Savage x Fenty and think, 'I'm a bad b****. I want women to own their beauty.'
Accessories: Slick also rocked glitter-adorned stockings for her catwalk strut
Slick, real name Simone Thompson, revealed she was pregnant with her first child two months ago.
Taking to Instagram, the star was seen sitting on the edge of a pool while flaunting her baby bump.
'In good company,' she captioned the shot taken by British model Leomie Anderson.
Expecting: Slick, real name Simone Thompson, revealed she was pregnant with her first child two months ago
Slick is the face of Rihanna's clothing and beauty line Fenty, has starred in Italian, Japanese and American Vogue and hailed herself as a 'reincarnation of Tupac'.
Reflecting on her success, she told ES Magazine last year: 'I see myself being a new-age Black Panther, doing things that are really important.
'I see myself changing the world,' she continued.
Slick has seen a huge rags to riches rise to stardom and has previously spoken about her past drug abuse and homelessness.
While she was living on the streets at the age of 19, she was discovered by British model Ash Stymest who helped propel her to international success.
Boss babe: Rihanna looked incredible in a sheer dress as she walked the runway
She's been struggling to adjust to life without her daughter Sophia, four, as she goes to school for the first time.
And Tamara Ecclestone was being treated to a dinner date by her husband Jay Rutland on Thursday night, spending some quality couple time in the midst of their landmark few days.
The Formula One heiress was looking glamorous in a simple LBD for her outing, showcasing her tanned legs in the thigh-skimming number.
Date night: Tamara Ecclestone was being treated to a dinner date by her husband Jay Rutland on Thursday night, spending some quality couple time
Tamara looked elegant in the simple knitted number featuring a high neck and long sleeves.
The star completed her look with a pair of strappy stilettos and wore her hair in glossy curls.
Jay was looking dapper in a dark suit as he strolled along beside his glamorous wife.
Leggy: The Formula One heiress was looking glamorous in a simple LBD for her outing, showcasing her tanned legs in the thigh-skimming number
Glamorous: Tamara looked elegant in the simple knitted number featuring a high neck and long sleeves
Natural beauty: The star completed her look with a pair of strappy stilettos and wore her hair in glossy curls
The couple's outing comes after Tamara revealed Sophia is almost done with breastfeeding.
The daughter of former Formula 1 boss Bernie Ecclestone admitted the youngster is almost done with being breastfeed as she prepares for her first term.
But the socialite, 34, said she was feeling emotional about the upcoming changes.
Smart: Jay was looking dapper in a dark suit as he strolled along beside his glamorous wife
Nearly there: The couple's outing comes after Tamara revealed Sophia, four, is almost done with breastfeeding
I definitely think its something that [Sophias] almost done with and its phasing out, she told Hello! magazine.
And Im fine about that. Its happened so gradually and Ive been expecting it.
The billionaire heiress and socialite is an outspoken advocate of breastfeeding, and over the years has shared pictures on social media of herself breastfeeding her child while fending off criticism from detractors.
Opening up: The star previously admitted she is yet to spend a night away from her daughter, who she shares with husband Jay Rutland, has never employed a nanny and lets her sleep in their bed
Despite the criticism, Tamara insisted breastfeeding helps her reconnect with her daughter and settles her down at the end of the day.
Its only at bedtime, she explained. Its her bedtime routine. We do bath time, then we read four stories every night, then she has the boob.
She falls asleep. Thats her way, she doesnt have a dummy or a bottle to comfort her.
The star previously admitted she is yet to spend a night away from her daughter, who she shares with husband Jay Rutland, has never employed a nanny and lets her sleep in their bed.
Proud: The billionaire heiress and socialite is an outspoken advocate of breastfeeding, and over the years has shared pictures on social media of herself breastfeeding her child
The couple recently celebrated their fifth wedding anniversary, and took Sophia along for the evening to continue their co-sleeping.
Speaking in April, she revealed: Its my fifth wedding anniversary soon and Fifis coming. I can see it as a problem when Jay is like get her out of the bed. Tamara confessed that Fifi will join her and husband Jay Rutland for their fifth wedding anniversary celebrations.
Its my fifth wedding anniversary soon and Fifis coming. I can see it as a problem when Jay is like get her out of the bed, she added of their co-sleeping arrangements.
Of her daughter getting ready to go to school, she said: Its crazy how quickly its gone from her being born to now going to school. Nursery went by in a flash.
Read all about it: The full story is available in the current issue of Hello!, out now
The day she was getting measured for her school uniform I was getting really teary and the lady could tell, and she said: Oh dont worry, all the mums get a bit emotional.
I will definitely cry on the first day of school - not because I dont want her to go, but because Im just so proud of her.
Tamara and her husband married in a lavish 7 million wedding in 2013 and welcomed Sophia the following year.
The heiress wed the former banker in front of 150 guests at the French Rivieras most luxurious hotel, the Grand-Hotel du Cap-Ferrat near Nice.
She wore a bespoke Vera Wang gown with a 30ft train and crystals on the bodice.
The couples first dance was to a cover of Lionel Richies Endless Love, performed live by Mariah Carey - hired for 2.5 million.
Eric McCormack received his star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame on Thursday.
The 55-year-old actor cut a dapper figure in a classic suit and tie as he was introduced by industry legend Michael Douglas, 73, on Hollywood Blvd.
And the star debuted a few hilarious poses as he was joined by his wife Janet Holden, son Finnigan, 16, and the cast of Will & Grace including Debra Messing, Sean Hayes, and Meghan Mullally.
Star power: Eric McCormack, 55, received his star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame on Thursday
Daring to impress, the handsome thespian looked sophisticated chic in his classic tailored suit.
His established assistant director wife was pretty as a petal in a navy blue floral gown as their son rocked rolled up jeans and a jacket.
The cast of Will & Grace were joined by creator Max Mutchnick and NBC's Bob Greenblatt.
Meanwhile, NBC announced that White Collar actor Matt Bomer will appear on the show as 'a smooth-talking TV news anchor' who dates Will.
Funny guy: Daring to impress, the handsome thespian looked sophisticated chic in his classic tailored suit
Tender moment: Eric shared a kiss with his wife Janet Holden
Family affair: And the Will & Grace star posed with son Finnigan, 16
Bomer, 40, tweeted 'Dream come true!!' after the news broke, prompting a tweet back from McCormack: 'And you are so freakin funny, @MattBomer!'
It wasn't the only casting news to be revealed.
Olympic ice skater Adam Rippon is set to make a cameo in a season 10 episode.
Supportive co-workers: The cast of Will & Grace - including Meghan Mullally, Debra Messing, and Sean Hayes - showed up to support Eric
Work it: Will & Gracecreator Max Mutchnick and NBC's Bob Greenblatt joined in on the fun
It will be the first scripted TV appearance for the athlete who has found a niche in reality TV, appearing on ABC's Dancing With The Stars and being named a judge on its spin-off DWTS Juniors.
Returning to the popular sitcom this season will be Minnie Driver, who plays Lorraine Finster, the stepdaughter of Megan Mulally's character Karen.
Will & Grace has become guest star heavy since it reboot in the 2017-18 season with a roster including Alec Baldwin, Chelsea Handler, Jon Crywer and Mary McCormack.
The comedy went off the air in 2006 after eight seasons and returned in the fall of 2017 with all four original castmembers - Messing, Eric McCormack, Megan Mulally and Sean Hayes.
Legend: The star was introduced by legendary actor Michael Douglas, 73, on Hollywood Blvd
The first season finale left roommates Grace and Will in existential crisis over the engagement of their parents, played by Robert Klein and Blythe Danner, according to THR.com.
Speaking about plans for the second season, co-creator Max Mutchnick told the Hollywood Reporter more celebrity guest stars would be showing up on screen.
'Once theyre on the show and when they fit in as well as they do, we hope to see these people over and over again because we feel like the audience likes it as much as we do,' Mutchnik said.
Will & Grace, nominated for five Emmys at next month's awards show, is set to return on October 4 on NBC.
Julia Roberts looks like she's been through the ringer a few times in the new trailer for Amazon Studios' new thriller series Homecoming.
Roberts plays Heidi Bergman, who works at the Homecoming Transitional Support Center, helping soldiers make a smooth transition from the battlefield to home.
While nothing seems terribly amiss at this facility, it becomes clear that there is more to this place, with possibly sinister overtones.
Insane in the membrane: Julia Roberts gets strained in the trailer for Amazon's Homecoming
While the trailer doesn't delve too deep, one shot in particular is intriguing, which teases the show's big mystery.
Department of Defense auditor Thomas Carrasco (Shea Whigham) asks Bergman what she remembers about working at the Homecoming facility, and she can't remember anything.
That's because, according to E! Online, that scene takes place four years after she worked at Homecoming, and she's working as a waitress while living with her mother (Sissy Spacek).
The trailer also offers glimpses at Bobby Cannavale's Colin Belfast, Heidi's boss who is seen chasing her down in one scene, along with Stephan James as Walter Cruz.
Homecoming was co-created by Sam Esmail, creator of the hit USA Network series Mr. Robot, with a supporting cast that includes Alex Karpovsky and Marianne Jean-Baptiste.
This thrilling new program marks the first time that Roberts has starred in a TV series, with Amazon giving it a two-season pickup last summer.
Roberts is coming off the 2017 movie Wonder, and she next stars in the big screen drama Ben is Back, hitting theaters December 7.
Mystery is afoot: Roberts plays Heidi Bergman, who works at the Homecoming Transitional Support Center, helping soldiers make a smooth transition from the battlefield to home.
Don't look back: While nothing seems terribly amiss at this facility, it becomes clear that there is more to this place, with possibly sinister overtones.
KEY POINTS FROM PETER DUTTON ON AU PAIR SAGA:
OVERALL:
* Did not grant a visa to a person employed by him or his wife as a nanny.
* Do not have any personal connection or any type of relationship with the people involved in the matters.
ADELAIDE CASE:
* An AFL government relations officer made a representation to his chief of staff, who then sought information from the immigration department.
* The department compiled a submission which recommended intervention and this was supported by the minister.
BRISBANE CASE:
* The minister has not socialised with or had any personal contact with the former police officer who sought intervention.
* "No reasonable person could come to the conclusion that my professional association through working in the same large public service some 20 years ago constitutes either a personal connection or relationship."
* A staff member in the minister's office asked for information from the department, then sought further information through the department liaison officer.
* At no time did he speak with the ABF Commissioner, the department liaison officer or any other member of the department regarding the matter.
* The department compiled a submission which recommended intervention and the minister accepted the recommendation.
(Source: Dutton statement to parliament.)
Legal Aid services need more funding to help those involved in family law cases, Labor says.
New laws ban people who bash or emotionally manipulate their partners from directly cross-examining them in court, so parties must have legal representation for cross-examination to occur.
This means judges may have minimal information to make a decision if lawyers are unavailable.
Shadow attorney-general Mark Dreyfus told parliament on Monday there was "nothing left in the tank" at Legal Aid offices around the country, with lawyers concerned a lack of funding would prevent the ban from working effectively.
A community health worker will have emergency surgery after allegedly being stabbed in the neck by a woman outside Sydney's Royal Prince Alfred Hospital.
The 34-year-old was attacked just before 11.30am on Monday outside a cafe in Camperdown near the inner west hospital, NSW Police said in a statement.
A 46-year-old woman was arrested by police at the scene and taken to Newtown Police Station to be interviewed.
The health worker was rushed to the nearby hospital where she is expected to undergo surgery.
AAP understands the pair knew each other through the victim's role in community health.
The alleged stabbing follows a string of assaults against nurses in Sydney's hospitals.
A nurse was allegedly slashed by a man at Blacktown Hospital in late August and another nurse was allegedly punched in the face by a patient who was being discharged at RPA less than a week later.
Scott Morrison has used his first question time as prime minister to pay tribute to United States Senator John McCain, who died last month.
Mr Morrison said it was unusual for parliament to recognise foreign politicians who weren't heads of state, but Senator McCain was a "worthy exception".
"From prime ministers Hawke to Turnbull, John McCain was a steadfast friend who understood that our alliance is a reflection of two similar peoples," Mr Morrison told parliament on Monday.
Senator McCain's father and grandfather served in the navy, defending Australia in World War II, while his sons served alongside Australian soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"I extend our deepest condolences to Senator McCain's wife, Cindy, his family and the American people he served so magnificently and may you rest in peace," Mr Morrison said.
Opposition Leader Bill Shorten said meeting Senator McCain when he visited Australia last year was a privilege.
"We all remember John McCain as a devoted friend of Australia," Mr Shorten told parliament.
WHAT WE LEARNED
* The new Nationals chief whip is Murray MP Damian Drum, and deputy whip is Flynn MP Ken O'Dowd.
* The late Senator John McCain's grandfather came to Australia in 1908 with the 'Great White Fleet' and his father was a submarine captain based in Perth.
* The prime minister won't be dismissing Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton.
--
WHAT THE GOVERNMENT WANTED TO SPIN
The government is keeping the economy strong, keeping Australians safe and keeping Australians together.
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WHAT LABOR WANTED TO TALK ABOUT
Why was the prime minister replaced?
--
WHAT THEY SAID
"Malcolm Turnbull is no longer prime minister of Australia. Why?" - Labor leader Bill Shorten to Scott Morrison.
"When placed in command, take charge." - Morrison quoting Stormin' Norman Schwarzkopf.
"Is this what the prime minister meant when he said his own government was a Muppet show?" Labor deputy leader Tanya Plibersek.
"The curtain's down on that performance." - Morrison in reply.
--
TWEETED
@TimWattsMP Extraordinarily, Scott Morrison begins his first #qt as Prime Minister by confirming that the latest change in the leadership of the Liberal Party has nothing to do with the Australian public. Amazing.
Newcastle star Kalyn Ponga is set to undergo surgery on his troublesome ankle on Thursday but could recover in time to be picked for the Kangaroos' trip to New Zealand.
Ponga is a chance of being part of the Australian squad to face Tonga and the Kiwis next month following an eye-catching maiden season at the Knights.
The 20-year-old's year was so impressive that he was crowned Players' Champion at the players' union awards on Tuesday night, adding to the Knights' top gong he won last week.
"The last week has been a bit like my season - a bit of a blur," Ponga told AAP.
"It's huge to get recognised by your peers because they're the ones that you train all pre-season to play against. Like Johnathan Thurston said, it's the highest accolade you can get."
The Knights fullback was hampered by an ankle injury over the final month of the regular season.
And while he will be out of action for two weeks - ruling him out of a potential spot in the Prime Minister's XIII's annual trip to Papua New Guinea - he could be back in time for the Kangaroos.
NSW fullback James Tedesco is likely to fill the No.1 jersey left vacant by Billy Slater, however Tom Trbojevic and Valentine Holmes are also likely to be taken across the Tasman.
Ponga, who made a memorable debut in State of Origin this year, isn't holding his breath.
"The ankle's alright at the moment. I'll get surgery on it in a couple of days and be sweet for next year. I won't be out for too long. I'll be back before pre-season starts," he said.
"I'm not really looking at Kangaroos. There are obviously a few players ahead of me anyway, but it definitely gives me something to strive for."
Two teenage Aboriginal boys have drowned in Perth's Swan River after diving in to evade police, with the tragedies to be treated the same as deaths in custody.
As police pursued five boys on foot following reports of teenagers jumping fences in suburban Maylands on Monday afternoon, four of them jumped into the water.
Police captured two, but the other two were seen struggling in the middle of the river and did not resurface, sparking an immediate and desperate search.
The first body was recovered on Monday night and the second was discovered on Tuesday morning.
The search continued amid fears a third boy had drowned as he was last seen running on the riverbank, but police confirmed he was safe with family on Tuesday afternoon.
A coroner will hold an inquest into the deaths, which will be treated with the same seriousness as a death in custody, Mr Dawson said.
Aboriginal Legal Service chief executive Dennis Eggington urged the state government to put extra resources into the investigation, saying the vast majority of the Noongar community would be in mourning.
"I haven't seen this level of grief, bordering on anger, but certainly grief and pain for a long, long time," Mr Eggington told the ABC.
He said the boys would have been "absolutely in terror, running frightened and hitting the river, and being in more trouble and being more frightened", while the survivors would be "scarred for the rest of their lives".
Aboriginal activist Herbert Bropho told Nine news he held police responsible for the deaths.
Mr Dawson said the fatalities were "nothing short of a tragedy".
Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk will deliver the annual State of the State address on Wednesday, spruiking her government's achievements and plans for the future.
The premier is expected to tout her government's job creation programs, as well as the big infrastructure spend which she says is also driving jobs growth.
It comes after the state's population passed the five million mark earlier this year, with the unemployment rate just over 6 per cent and an overall softening of the job market taking the shine off booming export figures.
A Perth father accused of murdering his three daughters, wife and mother-in-law showed no hint of financial or emotional problems, but his franchisor says he failed to respond to phone calls several times.
Anthony Robert Harvey, 24, allegedly used a blunt instrument and knives to kill three-year-old Charlotte, two-year-old twins Alice and Beatrix, his wife Mara Lee Harvey, 41, and mother-in-law Beverley Ann Quinn, 73, at a Bedford home in Perth.
Police say Harvey, who ran a Jim's Mowing franchise, stayed in the house for days before travelling about 1500km north, then turned himself in.
Jim's Group managing director Jim Penman said Harvey had been a respected and well-liked franchisee.
"(He) had given no hint of financial or emotional problems in the many contacts we had with him over the past few months," Mr Penman said on Tuesday.
"The only suggestion of trouble was his failure on several occasions to respond to phone calls."
Mr Penman said Jim's Group would consider tightening requirements for franchisees to keep in regular contact to prevent something similar happening again.
The bodies have been removed from the house but mourners have left toys, notes and flowers outside.
It is the third family mass-murder in WA in four months, representing 15 of 23 domestic violence-related deaths in the state this year.
Three adults and four children were fatally shot in Osmington in regional WA in May, while a mother and two of her children were killed in Ellenbrook, in Perth's northeast, in July.
Federal Minister for Women Kelly O'Dwyer became emotional in parliament on Tuesday while discussing the Bedford deaths.
"Any attempt to describe the horror of this tragedy that ended the lives of three small children, the children's mother and their grandmother is futile. It is incomprehensible," she said.
"Sadly, it marks the third terrible killing, a family killing, in WA this year. It is clear that family and domestic violence remains far too prevalent."
She stressed that both sides of parliament at every level must do more to tackle the issue.
WA Premier Mark McGowan has urged anyone with mental health or domestic violence concerns to seek help.
Lifeline 13 11 14
1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732)
The Queensland parliamentary committee considering laws to decriminalise abortion will hold a public hearing in Brisbane on Wednesday, after emotional hearings in Townsville and Cairns earlier in the week.
The Health committee has heard evidence from pro-choice and pro-life advocates, as well as medical professionals. It has also heard distressing testimony from women who have undergone abortions.
Bowen woman Ashleigh Foley told the committee in Townsville on Monday about her experience having an abortion in 2014 after her baby was diagnosed with severe spina bifida.
Ms Foley said she would not have given birth to her two subsequent healthy children if she had chosen to carry her first baby to term and care for the chronic condition.
She said her experience led her to believe no woman would procure an abortion without a very good reason, refuting pro-choice advocates' claims women would abuse freer access to the procedure.
In the Cairns sitting on Tuesday the committee heard from Zena Mason who chose to terminate a pregnancy at 22 weeks in 2017.
Ms Mason's baby was also diagnosed with severe spina bifida, with doctors saying the baby would require constant care.
She has since given birth to a healthy baby boy and has become an advocate for the decriminalisation of abortion in Queensland.
The Australian Christian Lobby's Wendy Francis has told the committee she believed decriminalising abortion would lead to people aborting babies in an attempt to select the sex of their child, but couldn't offer any evidence or expert advice, when pressed.
The Brisbane hearing is expected to hear from pro-life group Cherish Life Queensland, as well as the Australian Medical Association Queensland and the Queensland Law Society.
The committee is due to report back to the government by October 5, with laws expected to be debated in state parliament later that month.
Under the proposed changes, abortion would be legal up to 22 weeks and procedures after that time could be approved under certain conditions by two separate doctors.
The Labor government will allow its MPs a free vote, while the LNP opposition is waiting for the committee's report before it decides whether to grant its members a conscience vote.
Queensland and NSW are the only states of Australia that still treat abortion as a crime, with the Queensland laws dating back to 1899.
The man Peter Dutton accused of having "groomed" a woman 30 years younger than him wants the Home Affairs Minister to withdraw the "disgusting" comment.
Mr Dutton on Tuesday used parliamentary privilege to accuse former Australian Border Force boss Roman Quaedvlieg of having "groomed" a younger woman who became his girlfriend.
But Mr Quaedvlieg demanded he withdraw the "disgusting and offensive" comment, which he said was an accusation of a criminal sexual offence.
The Home Affairs Minister verbally attacked the ex-ABF boss in parliament, after Labor quizzed Mr Dutton over claims he pushed for two Queensland police officers to secure jobs at the agency.
"(Mr Quaedvlieg) was, as commissioner, sacked from his position. He was a man who had groomed a girl 30 years younger than himself," Mr Dutton told parliament.
"He is discredited and disgraced."
Mr Quaedvlieg, who was fired from his role after helping his girlfriend get a job, responded on Twitter.
"Grooming? Are you serious? That has a legislative meaning. Is that what he meant? Parliamentary privilege, huh?" Mr Quaedvlieg tweeted.
In a statement he labelled it "extraordinary behaviour" from a cabinet minister.
The stoush between the two former Queensland police officers originally erupted over Mr Dutton's decision to grant visas to two au pairs held in immigration detention.
Mr Dutton was also accused of lobbying Mr Quaedvlieg to secure jobs at the ABF for two other former police officers, including one who is now an adviser in his ministerial office.
"He put in for a job with Australian Border Force, there was no interference with that process," Mr Dutton said.
A Senate committee is investigating Mr Dutton's decision to personally intervene to stop the deportation of an Italian nanny in 2015, after his office was contacted by a former Queensland police colleague.
The visa was granted within hours, but Mr Dutton said he intervened at short notice in many cases.
He also intervened in a similar case after AFL boss Gillon McLachlan's staff contacted his office about a French au pair.
Mr Quaedvlieg has provided evidence about what he says could be a potential third case, detailing a conversation with Mr Dutton's chief of staff about an au pair detained at Brisbane airport.
The committee will deliver its report on September 19, with Labor and the Greens talking to coalition MPs about the possibility of a no confidence motion in Mr Dutton.
Australia's leading human rights groups are urging the federal government to sever military ties with Myanmar and impose targeted sanctions on commanders responsible for atrocities against Rohingya.
The United Nations has recommended Myanmar's top military generals be investigated for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.
A coalition of human rights groups are jointly calling on Australia to step up and press for accountability of those responsible.
"Those with blood on their hands, for the explosion of violence perpetrated by Myanmar's security forces against Rohingya villagers across northern Rakhine State, must be held to account," Amnesty's Diana Sayed said.
"The Australian government must explore all avenues to achieve this, in particular an immediate mechanism for evidence collection and preservation for future criminal prosecutions at the International Criminal Court."
UN officials last month released a report detailing instances of murder, rape, torture and systemic oppression and discrimination.
At the time, Foreign Affairs Minister Marise Payne said Australian was deeply disturbed by the findings and demanded the perpetrators of war crimes and genocide be held to account.
"Perpetrators must be held to account. We will continue to work internationally to this end, including through our position on the Human Rights Council and at the UN General Assembly," she said.
The United States, UK and European Union have all taken steps to suspend military cooperation with the Myanmar military.
Australia maintains an arms embargo, but rights groups are concerned the government continues to offer the Myanmar military support through humanitarian assistance, peacekeeping and English-language training.
There are more than 900,000 displaced Rohingya in Bangladesh and another 530,000 in Rakhine State.
Australia has provided $70 million in humanitarian assistance to deliver emergency supplies to Rakhine State and food, water, shelter and healthcare to Cox's Bazar in Bangladesh.
The time has come for Defence Minister Christopher Pyne to end Australia's defence cooperation with Myanmar's military," Mark Purcell from the Australian Council for International Development said.
"Australia has a responsibility to send a strong signal that it has a zero-tolerance approach for gross human rights violations in our region, including the abhorrent use of sexual violence as a weapon of war."
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has denied suggestions Malcolm Turnbull had to take over the successful conclusion of GST carve-up talks with Tasmania after he abused the state's treasurer.
Tasmania Treasurer Peter Gutwein was verbally attacked by Mr Morrison, who was then federal treasurer, The Herald-Sun reported on Wednesday citing senior Liberal sources.
It's claimed Mr Morrison called Mr Gutwein a "f**king mendicant", another worth for a beggar or someone who relies on charity, and adds to a recent run of leaks playing up Mr Turnbull's record in office.
US sheriffs say two Australian firefighters were not set upon by hunters, chased and shot at during an incident in bushland in Washington state.
"It's a misunderstanding," Yakima County Sheriff's office spokesman Casey Schilperoort told AAP on Tuesday.
A media report described how Australian firefighters on patrol with US Forest Service personnel last month in a remote area 160 kilometres from Seattle were pursued across a ridge by the hunters in a restricted area.
Sheriffs and Washington state patrol were alerted but an investigation found the firefighters were not in danger, the hunters were not pursuing them and there was "no contact between them whatsoever".
"If they (the firefighters) felt they were in danger then that's how they felt, but the evidence does not show they were in danger in any way other than them being completely surprised by people and gunshots," Schilperoort said.
Schilperoort said the incident happened at the start of hunting season in a landscape shaped like a bowl surrounded by mountains.
The hunters' shots would have echoed around the bowl, he said.
"I completely understand how the firefighters were surprised to see people and having five or six shots fired off in an area where they are at," Schilperoort said.
"The bowl makes the rifle shot sound all around them."
The area was closed to hunters at the time and US Forest Service did issue the hunters with citations for violating a closure order.
Australia and the US have a highly-successful exchange program where firefighters from each nation fly in to add manpower and expertise to firefighting efforts.
Benin President Patrice Talon said he was putting promised constitutional reforms on hold
Benin President Patrice Talon has decided to put his constitutional reform project on hold, arguing that the organisation of a vote would cost too much and was not a priority.
"A referendum is expensive and we are a few months away from the legislative elections," said the head of state in a televised speech late Tuesday on the eve of Benin's 58th independence annicersary.
"The reform initiated by the National Assembly is important, but it is not, for now, a priority issue," Talon said in the address.
The reform, included in Talon's campaign pledges, did not get the required majority when it was considered by the National Assembly at the beginning of July, so was automatically referred to a referendum vote.
The reforms included the improvement of women's representation in parliament, the abolition of the death penalty, the establishment of a court of auditors and, most importantly and controversially, the consolidation of all elections.
The opposition fears the reforms could give an advantage to the ruling party and potentially extend its time in office.
Talon vowed to return to the subject in the future, saying: "I am convinced that one day the sense of national interest and reason will eventually override political (considerations)."
Analysts noted that the referendum could have less to do with issues of reform than serve as a mid-term vote on Talon's performance.
In that case, the referendum was a risky gamble for the head of state, who is facing more and more criticism from trade unions on his liberal policies in the tiny west African country.
Alibaba said Ma will handover the reins to protege Daniel Zhang in September 2019
Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma announced on Monday he would step down as head of the pioneering Chinese e-commerce giant in one year, a departure already drawing comparisons to the retirement of late Apple founder Steve Jobs.
Analysts said the early withdrawal of 54-year-old Ma, the charismatic face of a company that has revolutionised how and what China's people consume, will challenge Alibaba to carry on Ma's vision amid rising competition.
But like Apple's transition to current boss Tim Cook, Alibaba's CEO and anointed successor Daniel Zhang is less magnetic than his predecessor but has proven an able steward since effectively taking the operational reins years ago, they said.
"Day-to-day operations-wise Alibaba will not be affected that much. But since he's (Ma) the face of the company, people may lose a little bit of faith," said Jackson Wong, associate director with Huarong Securities in Hong Kong.
"But where Jobs died, Ma is expected to stay on in an advisory role, so there shouldn't be too much impact."
Alibaba's CEO and anointed successor Daniel Zhang is less magnetic than his predecessor but has proven an able steward since effectively taking the operational reins years ago
Ma -- who turned 54 on Monday -- said in a statement he will serve as executive chairman until his 55th birthday before passing the torch to Zhang.
"I will work closely with Daniel to ensure a smooth and successful transition," Ma said.
Ma, who has expressed a desire to follow in the philanthropic footsteps of Microsoft founder Bill Gates, said he would remain on Alibaba's board until 2020.
"The one thing I can promise everyone is this: Alibaba was never about Jack Ma, but Jack Ma will forever belong to Alibaba," he said.
- Humble beginnings -
A former English teacher, Ma started Alibaba in 1999 in his apartment in the eastern city of Hangzhou -- where its headquarters remain -- building an e-commerce colossus and becoming one of the world's richest men and most recognisable figures in China.
Ma's net worth is more than $40 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, and Alibaba, which has shares listed in New York, was valued at $420.8 billion as of last Friday.
Ma -- who turned 54 on Monday -- said in a statement he will serve as executive chairman until his 55th birthday
Alibaba sought to reassure investors over the change, with Ma saying he had "full confidence" that a leadership team in place for years will "win support from customers, employees and shareholders".
Jeffrey Towson, an author, equity investor and Peking University business professor, said Ma was "never a technology guy" anyway and that his team-building skills leave Alibaba in excellent shape.
"He's always been building team and culture, never technology, so he's made himself unnecessary," Towson said.
"Is the internal culture already so ingrained that it's an Alibaba culture, not a Jack Ma culture? I think that's become true."
With his impish grin, Ma in recent years has largely acted as a globe-hopping ambassador, including playful antics such as dressing up as Michael Jackson for a dance routine at a company gathering last year, while leaving Alibaba's running to others.
Analysts said company shares could face short-term pressure.
But while Alibaba loses an iconic figurehead, the brains remain with Zhang, analysts added.
It's largely been under the more reserved Zhang's stewardship that Alibaba's two main e-commerce platforms, Taobao and Tmall, have turned into cash cows as other arms like digital payments have also flourished, they said.
- Wowing investors -
With Zhang as CEO, the company has continued to wow investors each quarter with sterling revenue growth.
"Tim Cook can't innovate like Steve Jobs but he has turned Apple into one of the world's largest companies in a way Jobs never could," Towson said.
"So they question is: can Daniel Zhang be Tim Cook?"
The news comes with Alibaba's cyber-dominance under challenge from rivals like Tencent, JD.com, and other upstarts.
But Alibaba is pouring investment into new initiatives to broaden its ecosystem and stake out turf in new territory including bricks-and-mortar retail, cloud computing, AI, digital media, movies, the grocery sector, meal deliveries and advertising.
Alibaba did not specify Ma's future plans, but the former teacher has made expanding access to education a pet project.
"I still have lots of dreams to pursue. Those who know me know that I do not like to sit idle," he said.
Rebel fighters take part in a mock battle as they prepare for an expected Syrian government offensive on Idlib province at a training camp of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham on August 14, 2018
Hailing from far and wide, they flocked to Syria to wage "holy war". Now foreign jihadists face a fight to the last to hold onto Idlib, their final bastion.
Syrian troops, backed by Russia and Iran, have massed around the northwestern province ahead of an expected onslaught against the largest rebel-held zone left in the country.
Since 2015, Idlib has been home to a complex array of anti-regime forces: secular rebels, Islamists, Syrian jihadists with ties to Al-Qaeda -- and their foreign counterparts.
The non-Syrians include fighters from Uzbekistan, Chechnya and China's ethnic Uighur minority who cut their teeth in other wars but then swarmed to Syria to take up the cause.
The threatened assault by President Bashar al-Assad's regime could deprive the few thousand left of their last stronghold in their adopted homeland.
"These are people who cannot be integrated into Syria really, under any circumstances, who have nowhere to go and who may just be ready to die in any case," says Sam Heller, a senior analyst at the International Crisis Group.
"So they're a real stumbling block to any solution," Heller tells AFP.
In a bid to avert an assault, the top three powerbrokers in Syria's war -- Russia, Iran, and Turkey -- agreed on Friday to work together on "stabilising" Idlib.
But they revealed few details.
A major obstacle to a substantive agreement, observers say, is the fate of jihadists in the province, including foreign hardliners.
- Uighurs with street cred -
Smoke billows following a bombardment by Syrian government forces around the town of Khan Sheikhun on the southern edges of the rebel-held Idlib province on September 8, 2018
Chased out of their own homelands and targeted in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, experienced foreign jihadists embraced Syria's war as their own starting around 2013, two years into the conflict.
Many joined the Islamic State group but others stuck by Al-Qaeda and its former Syrian affiliate -- which now leads the powerful Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) alliance dominating Idlib.
One of the largest is the Turkestan Islamic Party (TIP), whose members belong to the ethnic Uighur Muslim minority facing a stifling crackdown in China's Xinjiang region.
They gained fighting experience in Afghanistan before heading to Syria and helping to oust regime troops from Idlib in 2015.
"From there, they raided weapons stocks and ever since have been among the most potent factions in the north, so they're not a joke," says Heller.
Their fighters, estimated to number between 1,000 to several thousand, are based around the town of Jisr al-Shughur in Idlib's southwest, hit in recent days by escalating artillery and rocket fire.
TIP will likely fight hard in an all-out assault, probably as a key battlefield ally for HTS, says Tore Hamming, a specialist on jihadist movements at the European University Institute.
"Not necessarily because of the group's numbers, but because they have become known as good fighters and they're really well-respected in the jihadi and rebel environment," he says.
But since the TIP cannot operate in Xinjiang, a potential loss in Idlib would deprive them of one of their major "alternative battlefields", says Hamming.
- Uzbeks, Chechens -
The TIP aren't the only battle-hardened Asians in Idlib -- Uzbek fighters have joined a smattering of groups close to HTS.
Syrian rebel fighters prepare for an expected offensive by government forces on Idlib province their final bastion in the war-wracked country
They honed their skills alongside the Taliban or Al-Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan, before heading to Syria as allies of Al-Qaeda's then-branch there.
One group is Katiba al-Tawhid wal-Jihad, which Russian and Kyrgyz security services say is headed by Sirozhiddin Mukhtarov, 28, also known as Abu Saloh al-Uzbeki.
Another is the Imam al-Bukhari Brigade, whose online propaganda often depicts child soldiers and which was designated as a "terror" group by the US this year.
Both are known to have fought in Idlib, but there is little other information available.
Perhaps the most infamous foreign combatants are Chechens, veterans of brutal wars with Russia and linked to HTS.
The two most prominent Chechen groups in Syria are Junud al-Sham and Ajnad al-Kavkaz, but they have kept mum in recent months to avoid picking sides in Idlib's rebel infighting.
A regime assault could put them back in the limelight.
"Everyone is holding their breath to see what happens," says Joanna Paraszczuk, who tracks foreign jihadists for the intelligence review IHS Jane's.
Many travelled to Syria as early as 2012, marrying Syrian women and starting families there, so they are likely to do all they can to protect their new home.
Paraszczuk says that would mean joining battlefield coalitions with larger groups like HTS, and providing snipers and shock troops.
Moscow, in particular, would be keen to make sure any jihadists opposed to it do not make it back to Chechnya to combat its forces.
"Killing them, from that perspective, would be a psychological bonus for Russia," says Paraszczuk.
Under pressure from France, the Europeans firmly reject that farming goods be included in trade negotiations and Europe's top trade official Cecilia Malmstrom will attempt to clear up the matter with US counterpart Robert Lighthizer
Top officials from the US and EU meet in Brussels on Monday in an effort to iron out differences on trade talks announced to great fanfare this summer.
US President Donald Trump and European Commission head Jean-Claude Juncker in July pledged to hold off from further tit-for-tat tariffs and to work towards a limited trade accord that would scrap customs duties on all goods.
Both sides ballyhooed the deal as a major breakthrough, but subsequent statements made clear that misunderstandings persisted, especially over agriculture, which Washington insists will be a key part of any agreement.
Under pressure from France, the Europeans firmly reject that farming goods be included in trade negotiations and Europe's top trade official Cecilia Malmstrom will attempt to clear up the matter with US counterpart Robert Lighthizer.
"The idea is that the commission and the United States agree on a framework document, perhaps by the end of the year," a European source told AFP.
"Trump and Juncker have an agreement, but in reality, we didn't completely agree on the scope of the discussions," she added.
Officials have set very low expectations for the meeting, which is the first of several expected sitdowns to map out on which sectors common ground can be found.
- 'Bad as China' -
The summer's mending of fences is fragile however, with Trump last week again haranguing the EU and raising the spectre of slapping tariffs on Europe's auto industry, especially with mid-term elections approaching in the US.
Auto tariffs would be seen as a devastating blow by Germany and would add to existing levies on steel and aluminium that Trump imposed on Europe in June. The EU imposed a raft of counter-duties in return.
The EU's Malmstrom late last month said that a trade deal could include scrapping transatlantic tariffs on autos, but Trump swiftly excluded the possibility adding that Europe was virtually closed to US cars.
"It's not good enough," Trump said, speaking of the Brussels offer.
Trump also worryingly compared the EU to China, which on Friday received a threat of tariffs on all goods exported to the United States.
"The European Union is almost as bad as China, just smaller," Trump told Bloomberg on August 31.
But the Europeans, led by jittery Germany, want the US at the negotiating table and seem ready to hand Trump small victories in exchange for the truce.
Since July the EU commission has announced a series of commitments to the US, but observers point out that these are largely done deals.
Most-celebrated by the White House is a huge increase in European purchases of US soybeans, that Trump says vindicates Washington's toughness and resolve against its partners.
EU officials however say the explosion in demand is purely a market phenomenon and a knock-on effect of Trump's trade war with China.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe visited the quake-hit area
The death toll from a powerful earthquake that triggered massive landslides in northern Japan rose to 44 on Monday with tens of thousands of police and troops still on the ground to support survivors.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said no one was left on a missing list, which suggested the figure could be the final death toll.
Around 40,000 police, fire fighters, troops and maritime safety officials were providing assistance, with more than 2,700 people still forced to stay in shelters after the killer quake struck the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido last week.
The majority of the dead are from the small rural town of Atsuma, where a cluster of dwellings were wrecked when a hillside collapsed from the force of the 6.6-magnitude quake, causing deep brown scars in the landscape.
"The government will strive to get hold of what is needed on the ground and take every possible measure so that people can return to a normal, safe life as soon as possible," Suga told a news conference.
He also warned that islanders should remain on alert as rainfall was forecast in the region, which could trigger fresh landslides.
The quake was the latest in a string of natural disasters to batter the island nation.
Western parts of the country are still recovering from the most powerful typhoon to strike Japan in a quarter of a century, which claimed 11 lives and shut down the main regional airport.
Launching a campaign for another term as head of his ruling party, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe reiterated his government will "do its best" to restore the disasters-hit regions.
Politburo Standing Committee member Li Zhanshu (L) met North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un (R) during a military parade and mass rally to mark the 70th anniversary of the founding of North Korea
China's top legislator voiced hope that North Korea and the United States will implement their nuclear summit agreement as he met with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, Chinese state media said Monday.
Li Zhanshu, sent by President Xi Jinping to attend North Korea's 70th anniversary parade on Sunday, said China was committed to the goal of denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula, the Xinhua news agency said.
"We have high regards of the efforts the DPRK has made towards regional peace and stability," Li was quoted as saying, using the acronym for the North's official name.
Xinhua said Li also conveyed his hope that North Korea and the United States could implement the outcome of the June summit between Kim and President Donald Trump in Singapore and work to preserve peaceful talks.
Trump and Kim reached a vague agreement to work towards the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula, but there has been little movement since and Trump has accused Beijing -- North Korea's sole major ally -- of complicating Washington's relationship with Pyongyang.
But North Korea refrained from displaying its intercontinental missiles during Sunday's parade, a conspicuous absence that Trump hailed as "a big and very positive statement".
For his part, Kim said North Korea adheres to the consensus reached at the summit and "has taken measures in this regard while the US side should take corresponding actions to jointly promote the political settlement of the Korean peninsula issue," according to Xinhua.
Li also handed a signed letter from Xi to Kim.
In the missive, according to Xinhua, Xi wrote that it "is an unswerving policy of the CPC (Communist Party of China) and the Chinese government to safeguard, consolidate and develop China-DPRK relations".
Relations between Pyongyang and Beijing have gone through a rough patch in recent years, with China backing United Nations sanctions to punish its Cold War-era ally for its nuclear activities.
But ties have recently improved as Kim met Xi in China three times this year.
Although the Chinese leader has yet to return the favour with his own visit to Pyongyang, he sent a major figure in Li to represent him. Li is a member of the Communist Party's seven-person Politburo Standing Committee, China's ruling council.
Scott Morrison became Australia's new prime minister after a bruising leadership challenge
Australia's new prime minister Scott Morrison's maiden address to parliament on Monday was overshadowed by a poll indicating he may soon be out of a job.
Morrison -- an evangelical Christian and former head of Australian tourism -- stepped up to the dispatch box for a boisterous first session of prime ministerial questions with the future of his own two-week-old administration already in doubt.
Earlier Monday, a Newspoll survey showed his ruling Liberal Party trailing badly against the opposition, amid public unease over squabbling and careerism inside the ruling party.
Despite adequate personal approval ratings, Morrison's Liberals have the support of just 44 percent of voters, versus the Labor Party's 56 percent, implying a looming electoral rout.
With elections expected by May next year, it is a gloomy political backdrop for the 50-year-old, who has struggled to parry questions about the leadership coup that brought him to power.
The Liberals removed Malcom Turnbull as prime minister two weeks ago during a bruising leadership challenge that exposed plotting, backstabbing and infighting within the party.
Morrison prompted wry laughs in the chamber when he offered Turnbull his "best wishes" but largely used his inaugural appearance to try and turn the page -- focusing on the solid economic growth this G20 economy has seen for the last 27 years.
Morrison said he would follow the dictum of Gulf War general "Stormin'" Norman Schwarzkopf and "take charge".
"That's what I propose to do, take charge to ensure that we continue the stable government that has delivered the strong economy that has seen a million people come into work since we were elected in 2013," he said.
But opposition Labor leader Bill Shorten was having none of it, turning the knife with questions about why Turnbull was removed.
"They cannot answer the very first question that every Australian has been asking for the last 16 days: Why was Malcolm Turnbull sacked?" he said caustically.
Australia is no stranger to leadership upheaval -- having six changes of prime ministers in the past decade -- but Morrison's arrival comes at a precarious time.
After a decades-long boom there are warning signs that Australia's economy, the fifth largest in Asia, may have entered choppier waters with a disconnect between healthy GDP figures and weak wages growth.
The number two at Australia's central bank on Monday warned about household debt, which stands at among the highest levels of any developed economy.
There are also growing concerns that the real estate market, a key driver of growth may be cooling.
The Tower of Voices stands above visitors, dignitaries and family members of the victims of Flight 93 at the Flight 93 National Memorial Shanksville, Pennsylvania
President Donald Trump paid tribute Tuesday to the "heroes" who fought back against hijackers on September 11, 2001, vowing he would do whatever it takes to keep America safe.
Under a gray sky in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, Trump praised the courage of the 40 men and women aboard Flight 93 who rushed the four hijackers who had seized control of the plane and diverted it towards Washington.
"The passengers and crew members came together, took a vote, and they decided to act," Trump said.
"They attacked the enemy. They fought until the very end. And they stopped the forces of terror and defeated this wicked, horrible evil plan."
He said the "brave patriots turned the tide on our nation's enemies and joined the immortal ranks of American heroes."
After calling their loved ones to say final farewells, many passengers aboard Flight 93 are believed to have charged the hijackers and prevented the plane from striking the US capital.
The plane crashed into a field in rural Shanksville, where a permanent memorial called the "Tower of Voices" has been erected.
"This memorial is now a message to the world. America will never, ever submit to tyranny," Trump said, noting that nearly 5.5 million Americans had joined the US military since 9/11.
"As commander-in-chief, I will always do everything in my power to prevent terrorists from striking American soil," he added, while also paying tribute to the nearly 7,000 US service members who have been killed "facing down the menace of radical Islamic terrorism."
US President Donald Trump arrives at John Murtha Johnstown-Cambria County Airport in Johnstown, Pennsylvania
A short while earlier in Trump's native New York, there was a minute's silence at 8:46 am (1246 GMT), the moment the first of two hijacked airliners struck the World Trade Center.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, the US ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley and Mayor Bill de Blasio, together with his predecessors, Michael Bloomberg and Rudy Giuliani, were among those who attended.
"It is not a day to give speeches, it is not a day to talk about politics. It's about the heart," said Alice Greenwald, director of the 9/11 Memorial Museum.
"We need to stand together, that's the only way we can deal with that kind of pain."
In what has become an annual tradition, relatives began reading out the long list of those who were killed, saying a few words about those who died, in a ceremony that takes longer than three hours.
- Deadliest ever attacks -
In all, four planes were hijacked by Al-Qaeda militants who used them to topple the trade center's twin towers and hit the Pentagon. Flight 93 was the fourth plane.
A New York State Court Sergeant looks down into the South Pool during 9/11 observances at Ground Zero
With 2,996 people killed and more than 6,000 injured, the attacks remain the deadliest ever on US soil.
They plunged the United States into a chain of rolling wars against Islamic jihadists.
At the Pentagon, a huge American flag was unfurled over the building's western side at sunrise, marking the spot where Flight 77 smashed into the military headquarters.
All 59 passengers and crew aboard the flight were killed, along with another 125 personnel working in the building.
During a ceremony at the Pentagon's 9/11 memorial site, where the names of the fallen are etched into a series of benches, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said those who died did not do so in vain.
"For in their passing they empowered us forever. And we remember that hatred, disguised in false religious garb to murder innocents, will not prevail," Mattis said.
In addition to those killed on September 11, thousands of first responders, construction workers and residents have since developed illness, many of them terminal, as a result of inhaling toxic fumes.
An Iraqi Kurdish man prepares an election poster for upcoming parliamentary polls in the autonomous Kurdistan region of northern Iraq on September 11, 2018
Campaigning kicked off on Tuesday for a parliamentary election in Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region amid political divisions a year after hopes for independence were dashed.
Around 673 candidates from 29 political movements have thrown their hats into the ring hoping to secure one of 111 seats in Kurdistan's parliament at the election on September 30.
Eleven of the seats are however reserved for religious and ethnic minorities and five will go to Turkmen candidates, five to Christians and one to the Armenian community.
The outgoing parliament is dominated by the Kurdistan Democratic Party of veteran leader and former president Massud Barzani -- as is the government.
The KDP currently holds 38 seats, while its traditional rival, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), has 18.
The main opposition Goran (Kurdish for "change") party has 24 seats in the outgoing parliament.
The election is not expected to change the political map in Kurdistan, according to experts, but could shed light on the divisions that emerged after the September 2017 independence referendum.
That vote -- championed by Barzani -- saw more than 92 percent of Kurds back secession but the federal government in Baghdad was incensed after long warning that any plebiscite would be "illegal".
In response Baghdad imposed economic penalties while federal troops pushed Kurdish forces out of oil fields in Kirkuk province which were vital for Kurdish economy.
"The political climate is tense," said Kurdish political analyst Hokar Jeto.
"All indications are that there could be a low voter turnout similar to what happened in the Iraqi legislative polls."
The Kurdish election follows a parliamentary election across Iraq in May which saw a record low turnout of around 55 percent, with longtime political figures pushed out by voters seeking change in a country mired in conflict and corruption.
An SDF member watches as a US-led coalition helicopter flies by in the town of Shadadi, about 60 kilometers (37 miles) south of the northeastern Syrian city of Hassakeh
Coalition-backed ground forces in Syria have begun what is expected to be the final phase of an operation to clear the Islamic State group from a pocket of terrain, officials said Tuesday.
The ground offensive, dubbed Operation Roundup, is being conducted by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) with powerful air and artillery support from the US-led coalition in northeastern Syria.
The operation "will clear remnants of (IS) from northeastern Syria along the Middle Euphrates River Valley toward the Syria-Iraq border," the coalition said in a statement.
Operation Roundup began May 1, with the final phase getting underway Monday, officials said.
The SDF, comprised mainly of Kurdish fighters and Syrian Arabs, has been the main ground force through which the coalition has been able to push IS out of the vast parts of Syria it once held.
On Monday, an SDF commander told AFP that the new assault had killed at least 15 IS fighters.
IS still controls part of Deir Ezzor as well as some territory in the south in Syria, though US officials say the group has lost control of more than 98 percent of the ground they once held.
The coalition said it would not leave Syria once IS loses control of the last pockets.
"Moving forward, we will continue coordination with the SDF and other partners to promote regional security and stability that will ensure a lasting defeat of ISIS," said Major General Patrick Roberson, commander of the coalition's Special Operations Joint Task Force.
A shipping container is offloaded from the Hong Kong based CSCL East China Sea container ship at the Port of Oakland on June 20, 2018 in Oakland, California
China is planning to ask the World Trade Organization next week for permission to impose more than $7 billion in sanctions annually on the United States over anti-dumping practices.
The WTO said Tuesday that a special meeting of its Dispute Settlement Body would be convened on September 21 to discuss developments in a five-year-old trade dispute.
The news sparked fears of a new escalation in the burgeoning trade war between the world's top two economies, and put pressure on European and US stock markets.
The case dates back to December 2013, when China filed a dispute against the United States, taking issue with the way Washington assesses whether exports have been "dumped" at unfairly low prices onto the US market.
The use of anti-dumping duties are permitted under international trade rules as long as they adhere to strict conditions, and disputes over their use are often brought before the WTO's Dispute Settlement Body.
In this specific case, China alleged that the United States, in violation of WTO rules, was continuing a practice known as "zeroing", which calculates the price of imports compared to the normal value in the United States to determine predatory pricing.
In October 2016, a panel of WTO experts found largely in China's favour in the case, including on the issue of "zeroing".
The United States, which has repeatedly lost cases before the WTO over its calculation method, said in June last year that it would implement the panel's recommendations within a "reasonable" time frame.
This past January, the DSB set an August 22 deadline for Washington to bring its practices in line with the 2016 ruling.
According to WTO rules, the plaintiff in such cases can request permission to impose sanctions if the parties have not reached agreement on a satisfactory compensation within 20 days of the WTO deadline.
According to the Chinese request, which was circulated to WTO members Tuesday, Beijing "requests authorisation from the DSB to suspend concessions or other obligations with respect to the United States at a level equivalent to the nullification or impairment suffered as a result of the failure of the United States to comply with the recommendations and rulings of the DSB."
"Based on analysis of currently available data," the document said, "the level of nullification or impairment totals approximately $7.043 billion annually."
"China will update the level of suspension of concessions or other obligations annually using the most recently available data," it added.
Washington will nonetheless still have the right to oppose any sanction decision, opening the way for a lengthy arbitration process that could take months to settle.
US National Security Advisor John Bolton says Washington is prepared to sanction ICC judges if the court proceeds against any Americans in its probe of war crimes in Afghanistan.
Threats by the United States to sanction judges from the International Criminal Court if it pushes ahead with a probe into war crimes in Afghanistan have further strained Washington's relationship with the tribunal.
Here are four questions and answers about The Hague-based ICC:
- What does the ICC do? -
The International Criminal Court was created through the adoption of its founding Rome Statute in July 1998 and started operating in The Hague in July 2002.
To date 123 countries have signed up to the court, which has a mandate to investigate and prosecute the world's worst crimes including genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. It is the world's first permanent war crimes court.
An independent legal institution, the ICC is a court of last resort and can only get involved when states are unwilling or unable to investigate the crimes themselves.
The United States is one of the few Western countries that has not joined. Although it did sign the Rome Statute, it was never ratified under the administration of former president George W. Bush.
China, Israel and Russia have also not ratified the statute.
- Can the ICC probe US citizens? -
In Afghanistan it can. The Rome Statute says the ICC can exercise its jurisdiction to probe crimes where "one or more" states have signed up to the treaty and the alleged crimes were committed on the territory of such a state.
Afghanistan joined the Rome Statute in February 2003, therefore the ICC's prosecutors argue they have jurisdiction to investigate any crimes committed in the war-ravaged country.
ICC chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda has opened an investigation into war crimes in Afghanistan, including by US forces and the CIA.
Following a preliminary probe, the ICC's chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda in November last year asked the court's judges to authorise her to open a full-blown investigation into war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Afghanistan, including by US forces and members of the CIA.
It is believed that a decision by the court's judges on the matter is imminent.
- What crimes? -
In 2007 the ICC said it was opening a preliminary investigation in Afghanistan reaching back to 2002, shortly after the United States launched Operation "Enduring Freedom" in the wake of the September 11 attacks.
The probe is also looking at war crimes committed by the Taliban and its affiliated Haqqani network as well as the Afghan National Security Forces.
But the ICC has particularly targeted CIA operations, saying information "provides a reasonable basis to believe members of the CIA committed war crimes of torture and cruel treatment, outrages on personal dignity and rape and other forms of sexual violence."
Euphemistically called "enhanced interrogation" these alleged crimes "appear to have been committed with particular cruelty, involving the infliction of serious physical and psychological injury... leaving victims deeply traumatised," Bensouda said.
- Can the US hit back? -
Inside US circles there have been different strands of thought as to how to engage with the ICC, said Carsten Stahn, international criminal law professor at Leiden University.
Under former president Barack Obama, the adminstration unofficially supported the ICC where it served US interests.
But "the pendulum has now shifted to a more aggressive policy," Stahn told AFP.
National Security Advisor John Bolton said on Monday the US was prepared to slap financial sanctions and criminal charges on ICC officials if they proceeded against any Americans.
But Stahn said such a move would be unprecedented, adding that "experts dispute whether such a claim has a basis in US law."
The US Congress in 2002 passed the American Service Members Protection Act which contained a number of provisions should a US citizen ever be dragged before the world war crimes court.
Also known as the "Hague Invasion Act," one provision within the federal law allows for the US president to authorise military force to free any US personnel held by the ICC.
However, "threatening to remove ICC detainees by force would be a clear violation of international law," Stahn said.
South African farmers and farm workers train in the use of firearms and self defence after a spike in farm murders
President Cyril Ramaphosa on Tuesday dismissed fears that South Africa may come under sanctions if it carries out a proposal to expropriate white farms without compensation.
US President Donald Trump tweeted last month that white farmers were being forced off their land and many of them killed, touching on the overwhelmingly white ownership of farmland in South Africa: one of the most sensitive issues in the country's post-apartheid history.
Trump said he had asked Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to look into the reforms, which have raised fears that the policy could have disastrous repercussions like in neighbouring Zimbabwe, whose economy was ruined in the process.
"We have no reason to believe that any country would impose sanctions on South Africa for any actions that we take, actions that are constitutional, that are lawful and consistent with international law," Ramaphosa told parliament, responding to a question.
Ramaphosa said South Africa would "keep on educating those who are interested in our affairs...those who may not understand the processes that we have gone through".
"And it is for this reason that we respond as we do, not only to the Americans but to whomsoever has a question about this".
According to Ramaphosa, whites, who make up eight percent of the population "possess 72 percent of farms". In contrast, only four percent of farms are in the hands of blacks.
A few days after Trump's tweet, Ramaphosa reacted angrily saying: "I dont know what Donald Trump has to do with South African land because he has never been here."
"South Africa belongs to all the people who live here in South Africa, it does not belong to Donald Trump; he can keep his America, when I meet him I will tell him."
Ramaphosa told lawmakers that "no communication was received by my office from the government of the United States of America regarding the expropriation of land without compensation".
Ramaphosa, who faces elections in 2019, has said expropriating farms without compensating their owners would "undo a grave historical injustice" against the black majority during colonialism and the apartheid era.
"Israel supports American actions that are designed to make it clear to the Palestinians that refusing to negotiate and attempts to attack Israel in international forums will not advance peace," Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday hailed the United States for closing the Palestine Liberation Organisation mission in Washington.
"The US made the correct decision regarding the PLO mission in Washington," Netanyahu said in a statement published on Twitter.
The Israeli premier's comment comes a day after the US State Department announced it would shutter the mission, accusing Palestinians leaders of refusing to engage with the US or Israel.
"Israel supports American actions that are designed to make it clear to the Palestinians that refusing to negotiate and attempts to attack Israel in international forums will not advance peace," Netanyahu said.
The State Department cited a move by the Palestinians to have Israeli officials prosecuted at the International Criminal Court in The Hague as one of the reasons for closing the mission, saying such actions violated conditions set for the delegation in Washington.
Relations have nosedived in recent months between the United States and the Palestinian leadership, which cut off contact with President Donald Trump's administration in December after he recognised the disputed city of Jerusalem as Israel's capital.
The State Department has accused Palestinian leaders of rejecting outright a still unseen US peace plan, while in turn the Trump administration is viewed by the Palestinians as being biased in favour of Israel.
Syrian Hadheefa al-Shahadh, 27, sits with his children in a cave that he dug inside his house to shelter him and his family as part of preparations for any upcoming raids in the rebel-held Idlib province
Turkey on Tuesday appealed for international backing for a ceasefire in Idlib, telling the UN Security Council that an all-out assault on Syria's rebel-held province will trigger a massive wave of refugees and could threaten Europe.
Russia called for the council meeting to brief members on a summit it held with Iran and Turkey on military plans to re-take Idlib, the last major rebel stronghold in Syria.
"There is no doubt that an all-out military operation would result in a major humanitarian catastrophe," Turkish Ambassador Feridun Sinirlioglu told the council meeting.
Air strikes and bombings will trigger a "massive wave of refugees and tremendous security risks for Turkey, the rest of Europe and beyond," he warned.
Turkey, which has sent troops to Idlib and supports some of the armed groups, called for "an immediate ceasefire" and urged "the international community to vocally and actively support our efforts to this end."
Russia and Iran rejected Turkey's call for a ceasefire at the summit in Tehran on Friday.
US Ambassador Nikki Haley said Syrian forces, backed by Russia and Iran, had already launched 100 air strikes on Idlib this month and that their sole aim was "a bloody military conquest of Idlib."
Haley warned that "the consequences will be dire" if the assault goes ahead and there are mass casualties. "The world will hold them responsible," she added.
Britain and France backed the call for a ceasefire, recalling that these had been agreed under arrangements for a "de-escalation zone" in Idlib that were overseen by Russia, Iran and Turkey.
Russia and Iran insisted that a military offensive in Idlib would be a counter-terrorism operation and that measures will be taken to spare civilians.
"We cannot allow terrorists to hold hostage and use hundreds of thousands of people of Idlib as human shields," said Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia.
The Security Council was meeting just days after hearing UN peace envoy Staffan de Mistura warn of a looming catastrophe from the military offensive in Idlib, where some three million people live.
UN diplomats are hoping there is still time for talks to avoid large-scale violence in Idlib.
South Carolina's Myrtle Beach, pictured, and Virginia Beach, further north are popular destinations particularly vulnerable to the full force of stormy seas
From Charleston's colonial mansions with finely-crafted balustrades, to fragile Outer Banks beaches, to exalted centers of American history, the tourism-heavy US East Coast is facing a potentially devastating blow from Hurricane Florence.
Here is an overview of key sites under threat.
- Charleston, South Carolina -
Historical sites near Charleston, South Carolina, such as Boone Hall Plantation, seen in 2015, could face damage as Hurricane Florence approaches the US East Coast
The 130,000 residents of this water-surrounded colonial gem are accustomed to flooding. Founded in the 17th Century, the historic city sits on a peninsula overlooking the Atlantic. Hardy Charlestonians often throw "storm parties" in the face of brutal weather. But this time the entire population of the city -- and coastal South Carolina -- is under an evacuation order.
The full force of Florence is threatening the city's colonial structures, cobblestone streets and dozens of bohemian bars and cafes, which delight the region's five million annual visitors. A direct hit on Charleston could shock the area's $4.2 billion tourism industry, which employs more than 47,000 people.
- Outer Banks, North Carolina -
This 200-mile-long (320 km) stretch of barrier islands is lined with pristine beaches that draw a wild and picturesque line between the vast Atlantic and the North Carolina mainland.
A 200-mile-long stretch of barrier islands in North Carolina known as the Outer Banks is lined with pristine beaches that draw a wild and picturesque line between the vast Atlantic and the North Carolina mainland
Brothers Orville and Wilbur Wright made history's first successful motorized airplane flights here, in December 1903 between the wind-swept dunes of Kitty Hawk. A museum on the site has been undergoing renovations for two years and was due to re-open September 28.
It was on one of the islands, Roanoke, that explorers attempted in the late 16th century to found the first permanent English settlement in North America. One of the settlers who sailed back to Europe found no one on his return to Roanoke, and only the letters "Croatoan," the name of an Indian tribe, engraved on a tree.
For centuries the fate of the "Lost Colony" has remained shrouded in mystery.
- Myrtle Beach, Virginia Beach -
Confederate soldier re-enactors look out at Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, from positions in Fort Moultrie early on April 12, 2011 in Charleston, South Carolina, an area that could be in the path of Hurricane Florence in September 2018
Large expanses of fine sand are flanked by miles of grand hotels, restaurants, and boardwalks in South Carolina's Myrtle Beach and Virginia Beach, further north in Virginia. The popular destinations are particularly vulnerable to the full force of stormy seas. Millions of tourists visit each year, lured by mild weather until late in the summer season.
- Civil War and colonial sites -
The beautifully preserved colonial city of Williamsburg, Virginia, seen in 2011, is not under evacuation orders as Hurricane Florence approaches but could still suffer flooding as it's near a waterway
Fort Sumter, near Charleston, was site of an artillery battle between Union and Confederate forces that launched the American Civil War, on April 12, 1861. The fortress, including its cannons, is today among the major attractions of the region.
Further north in Virginia, the beautifully preserved colonial city of Williamsburg, and nearby historical sites of Jamestown and Yorktown, are not under evacuation orders but could suffer flooding as they are near waterways.
- Washington -
Washington is a prime tourist zone, with more than 20 million visitors last year. Between the US Capitol and the Lincoln Memorial, the National Mall is home to world-class museums, celebrated monuments and the White House, all of which could face flooding in the event Hurricane Florence brings her wrath northward.
Between the US Capitol and the Lincoln Memorial, the National Mall in Washington is home to world-class museums, celebrated monuments and the White House, all of which could face flooding in the event Hurricane Florence brings her wrath northward
The mayor of the city, which is famously built on a swamp, declared a state of emergency Tuesday to mobilize resources in preparation for the storm.
Across the Potomac River in Alexandria, Virginia, authorities began distributing sandbags on Monday to fight flooding in sections of the historic downtown already besieged by weeks of heavy rain.
The investigation into whether any of US President Donald Trump's associates colluded with Russia has taken down a handful of figures, but his son Donald Trump Jr said he was not worried about going to jail
US President Donald Trump's eldest son said he was not worried that he could be jailed over his role in the Russia probe, but suggested investigators might try to "create" legal difficulties for him.
In an interview with ABC that aired Tuesday, he also attacked as "disgusting" the senior administration official who wrote a recent anonymous op-ed detailing a chaotic White House, and acknowledged the president's trusted inner circle has shrunk since the piece's publication.
Trump Jr has been under scrutiny for his role in apparent efforts to get dirt on Hillary Clinton from Russian sources during the presidential campaign, including when he met with a Kremlin-connected Russian lawyer and other Trump campaign officials in June 2016 in Trump Tower.
Asked on ABC's "Good Morning America" whether he was scared he was in legal jeopardy and could go to jail, Trump Jr replied: "I'm not, because I know what I did and I'm not worried about any of that.
"That doesn't mean they won't try to create something," he added. "We've seen that happen with everything. But again, I'm not."
Trump Jr last year released a series of emails that included a 2016 message from an intermediary offering information that would "incriminate Hillary" and help the elder Trump in his campaign.
"If it's what you say I love it," Trump Jr wrote back.
Trump's son was questioned at length by the Senate Judiciary Committee, one of the congressional panels examining whether any of Trump's campaign associates colluded with Russian officials to interfere in the 2016 US election.
Several of Trump's former associates have been questioned or indicted by special counsel Robert Mueller, or have pleaded guilty to crimes including campaign-finance violations.
"I understand that they are trying to get my father and they'll do anything they can to get that," Trump Jr said.
Last week the White House was rocked by an explosive op-ed in the New York Times in which an anonymous official wrote that White House aides were so alarmed by the president's "erratic" and amoral behavior that they were actively working to undermine him.
"I imagine this is a very low-level person," Trump Jr said, adding that the piece's publication has made his father more wary.
"I think there are people in there he can trust," he said. "It's just a much smaller group than I would like it to be."
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Scientists have identified two of the sets of remains of US troops killed in the Korean War that were recently returned by North Korea, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Tuesday.
"There's been already some closure for a couple of families that have waited many, many years for this," Mattis told Pentagon reporters.
Praising the "good work" of forensic scientists, the Pentagon chief said they had been able to quickly identify the two remains thanks to a variety of information, including where they had been found.
North Korea in July handed over what are thought to be the remains of 55 US servicemen who were killed during the Korean War.
With the exception of a single military tag, the remains did not have any obvious identifying features, so experts are using a range of techniques including DNA analysis and dental records.
The repatriation of the remains followed a summit between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, during which Kim agreed to send home some of America's war dead.
On Monday, the Pentagon said UN military officials met with North Korean counterparts last week to discuss the repatriation of additional remains.
The US-led UN delegation was led by US Air Force Major General Michael Minihan, who is chief of staff for the command that fought alongside South Korea's troops during the war.
The US decision to close the Washington office of the Palestine Liberation Organisation is the latest in a series of measures against the Palestinians by US President Donald Trump's administration
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday hailed the US decision to shut the Washington mission of the Palestinians, whose actions against the Jewish state he said do nothing for peace.
The US decision to close the mission of the Palestine Liberation Organisation came on Monday as the Palestinians announced a fresh push against Israel at the International Criminal Court (ICC).
The PLO said it was being blackmailed by a White House blatantly biased in favour of Israel and called the move a "dangerous escalation" of tensions in the region.
"The US made the correct decision regarding the PLO mission in Washington," Netanyahu said in a statement posted on his Twitter account.
"Israel supports American actions that are designed to make it clear to the Palestinians that refusing to negotiate and attempts to attack Israel in international forums will not advance peace," Netanyahu added.
The PLO mission in Washington served as the de facto Palestinian embassy in the United States.
Explaining the US decision to shutter the mission, the State Department accused Palestinian leaders of refusing to engage with the United States and Israel.
It cited their moves to have Israeli officials prosecuted at the ICC in The Hague as one of the reasons for closing the mission, saying such actions violated conditions set for the delegation in Washington.
Relations have nosedived in recent months between the United States and the Palestinian leadership, which cut off contact with President Donald Trump's administration in December after he recognised the disputed city of Jerusalem as Israel's capital.
- Palestinians 'collectively punished' -
The United States has accused Palestinian leaders of rejecting outright a still unseen US peace plan, while in turn the Trump administration is viewed by the Palestinians as being biased in favour of Israel.
Palestine Liberation Organisation's secretary general Saeb Erekat says the US decision to close the PLO office in Washington is "yet another affirmation of the Trump administration's policy to collectively punish the Palestinian people"
State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said the mission had been allowed to remain open on a special waiver since November in order to foster work on achieving "a lasting, comprehensive peace between Israelis and the Palestinians."
"However, the PLO has not taken steps to advance the start of direct and meaningful negotiations with Israel," she added.
In recent weeks, the United States cut more than $200 million in bilateral aid to the Palestinians and cancelled its support for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, or UNRWA.
The Palestinian leadership condemned the latest US move.
"This is yet another affirmation of the Trump administration's policy to collectively punish the Palestinian people, including by cutting financial support for humanitarian services including health and education," said PLO secretary-general Saeb Erekat.
Husam Zomlot, head of the PLO mission in Washington, called the closure of the office "bullying and blackmailing" and said the US government was "blindly executing Israel's 'wish list.'"
"The main part of it is just going ahead and implementing the grocery list that was submitted to them by Netanyahu," he added.
Both Erekat and Zomlot pledged to push forward with Palestinian efforts at the ICC, where the chief prosecutor has already opened a preliminary probe into the allegations of rights abuses by the Israelis.
The Palestinians have asked the ICC to investigate Israel on a range of issues including settlement building in the occupied West Bank and civilian casualties in the 2014 Gaza war.
Bob Woodward: the Watergate reporter's new book on President Donald Trump has rocked the White House
Bob Woodward began his career by bringing down a president, Richard Nixon.
Forty-four years later, the premier chronicler of life in the White House could be foreshadowing the demise of another, Donald Trump.
In "Fear: Trump in the White House," which hit stores on Tuesday, Woodward paints a devastating picture of a US president in crisis -- an angry, paranoid leader whose staff battles to rein in his worst impulses.
It is his most blistering work since he and colleague Carl Bernstein drove Nixon to resign with their Watergate reporting for The Washington Post -- the foundation for their landmark book "All the President's Men."
"Fear", Woodward's 19th book, immediately rocketed to number one on Amazon's best-seller list, driven by excerpts reported last week depicting the White House in a perpetual "nervous breakdown."
It quotes Trump's own chief of staff, John Kelly, calling his boss "unhinged" and the White House "Crazytown."
Trump's former lawyer, John Dowd, depicts the president as a congenital liar.
While it is hardly the first book to paint Trump's 20-month-old administration in an unflattering light, "Fear" comes with something different: the Woodward stamp of quality, honed since the 1970s.
- Unparalleled access -
Bob Woodward's tell-all book of the Trump White House, "Fear", soared to the top of Amazon's best-sellers list on release Monday
Woodward, 75, studied at Yale University and did a five-year tour in the US Navy, before turning to journalism. When he first applied at The Washington Post, he was rejected due to a lack of experience.
After a stint at a local paper in the Washington suburbs, he got his shot at the Post in 1971.
He had barely a year of reporting under his belt when he and Bernstein stumbled into the story of a lifetime -- the 1972 break-in at Democratic Party offices in Washington's Watergate compound.
Their classic gumshoe investigation of the scandal prompted several formal investigations. In 1974, Nixon resigned.
"All The President's Men" was a smash hit that was turned into an Oscar-winning film. The man chosen to play Woodward? Robert Redford.
Since then, whenever Woodward calls, Washington's politerati answer without hesitation.
He has put out a book about every two years, including authoritative, real-time tomes on Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama.
Woodward has also offered deep insights into the Supreme Court, the Central Intelligence Agency, and former Federal Reserve czar Alan Greenspan -- all while remaining at the Post, now as an associate editor.
The steady stream of books has allowed him to keep the channels of communication open with the fading titans of Washington, while also opening the doors of newcomers.
His brand as a reliable reporter about the corridors of power is virtually unmatched, and his dogged ability to back up whatever insider tales he hears has earned him grudging respect in the US capital.
"We always felt it was important for the president and others to participate in interviews with him," Scott McClellan, a spokesman for president George W. Bush in the 200s, told AFP.
"We wanted to make sure he had access to the president and others in order to have a more full and accurate account of what happened and the thinking behind the decisions."
- 'Not my job to judge '-
US President Donald Trump calls Woodward an 'idiot' and branded his new book 'a work of fiction'
In all of his books, Woodward lays out meticulous details of meetings, discussions and policy issues in a wooden, no-drama-added style, and avoids stepping back and putting what he reports into any perspective.
"These are books in which measurable cerebral activity is virtually absent," author Joan Didion criticized in a 1996 essay on six of his works.
But his defenders say the just-the-facts approach is the bedrock of his credibility.
"In an age of 'alternative facts' and corrosive tweets about 'fake news,' Woodward is truth's gold standard," veteran journalist Jill Abramson wrote in The Washington Post about "Fear."
"It's not my job to provide judgment," Woodward told the website Vox earlier this year, saying his job "is to tell exactly what people have done, what it might mean, what drives them, and who they are."
- 'I've done the work' -
His signature approach is evident in "Fear," which is more damning than his other White House tell-alls.
It opens with Trump's economic advisor Gary Cohn stealing a document from the president's desk to keep him from signing it, to prevent damage to US security.
Woodward details meetings in which Trump appears not to understand crucial issues. Mortified aides plot to block his most dangerous orders and mollify his temper tantrums.
Woodward devastatingly quotes Defense Secretary Jim Mattis as saying Trump has the understanding of "a fifth- or sixth-grader" -- an 11-year-old child.
Trump predictably blasted the book as "a work of fiction" and labelled Woodward an "idiot."
Numerous Trump aides, including Mattis and Kelly, denied quotes attributed to them and said they did not provide information to Woodward.
But the author says many sources warn him ahead of time that they will deny everything.
"I'm not" lying, Woodward said Monday on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert."
"What is the contest in America other than the political contest? It's a contest for the truth," he said.
"I've done the work. This is the best reporting you can do, or that I can do."
Syrian rebel fighters from the recently-formed "National Liberation Front" parade following military training in Idlib province on September 11, 2018
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned Syria and its backers Tuesday against launching a full-scale offensive in Idlib, saying the rebel-held province "must not be transformed into a bloodbath."
"It is absolutely essential to avoid a full-scale battle in Idlib," Guterres told reporters at UN headquarters.
"This would unleash a humanitarian nightmare unlike any seen in the blood-soaked Syrian conflict."
The UN chief spoke after Russia and Iran clashed with Turkey at a summit last week on plans for military action to restore Syria's control over Idlib, where three million people live.
Turkey is appealing for a ceasefire to allow for negotiations on the fate of armed groups in Idlib, Syria's last major rebel stronghold, but its call has been rejected by Russia and Iran.
Guterres said he was appealing to Iran, Russia and Turkey to "spare no effort to find solutions that protect civilians" and warned that any use of chemical weapons would be "totally unacceptable."
The UN Security Council met earlier to hear a briefing from Russia, which insisted that the planned assault on Idlib is a "counterterrorism operation" and that measures will be taken to spare civilians.
"There is no doubt that an all-out military operation would result in a major humanitarian catastrophe," Turkish Ambassador Feridun Sinirlioglu told the council meeting.
Air strikes and bombings will trigger a "massive wave of refugees and tremendous security risks for Turkey, the rest of Europe and beyond," he warned.
Turkey, which has sent troops to Idlib and supports some of the armed groups, called for "an immediate ceasefire" and urged "the international community to vocally and actively support our efforts to this end."
Iran, Russia and Turkey last year set up the Astana process, a negotiating track to end Syria's war that has largely eclipsed the UN-led peace process.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi is under pressure to quit following deadly protests in Basra
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi faces calls to quit after deadly protests in southern Basra crushed his fledgling, and vital, alliance with a popular Shiite cleric.
With the new parliament set to meet Saturday to swear in its speaker the political stakes are high, and experts say Abadi's position highlights Iraq's dilemma, caught between its two allies, bitter foes Iran and the United States.
Here are four questions and answers to help unravel the intricacies of Iraqi politics.
- Why did Basra spark a political crisis? -
After years of devastating war against jihadists, anger over rampant corruption, unemployment and decrepit public services boiled over last week into protests in oil-rich Basra, which left 12 dead.
Late Friday demonstrators also set the Iranian consulate in Basra on fire, shouting "Iran out", referring to the city's influential neighbour.
Iraqi Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr has abandoned an alliance in parliament with Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi
Amid the violence, Iraqi Shiite firebrand cleric, Moqtada Sadr, whose bloc won the May elections, distanced himself from his one-time ally Abadi, withdrawing from an alliance reached less then two weeks ago.
On Saturday, a rival alliance of pro-Iranian former paramilitary fighters did a swift U-turn, vowing to now work with Sadr to form a new government to exclude Abadi.
It accused the beleaguered prime minister of having "failed" to meet the demands of the protesters, who say the government has unfairly distributed the country's oil wealth.
- Is Abadi out? -
Abadi's political group came third in the May 12 elections, and he had depended on the September 2 accord with Sadr's alliance and 14 other groups to create the largest force in the 329-seat legislature.
The loss of Sadr's support could now cost Abadi his parliamentary majority, yet again delaying the formation of a new government.
In another blow, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the spiritual leader of Iraq's Shiite majority, hinted in a statement on Monday that he was opposed to Abadi staying in the post, saying he didn't want a new prime minister "who had already been in power".
"It's the final blow to the American plan," said Qais al-Khazali, a leading member of the pro-Iran bloc, Asaib Ahl al-Haq.
In the post since 2014, Abadi has been perceived as the preferred "candidate of the West" with the nomination of a prime minister long a tacit agreement between Iran and the United States.
- What happens next? -
All eyes will be on Saturday's parliamentary session when it is set to elect its new speaker. The results of the vote will give a concrete indication of how the behind-the-scenes haggling is playing out.
If the pro-Iran bloc appears to have gained the upper hand with the numbers to form a government, it will still have to find a candidate acceptable to all sides.
Some experts say it may well look to a technocrat candidate so far not well-known publicly, as was the case for Abadi in 2014.
- Move towards Iran? -
If the pro-Iran bloc does appear to be taking power, the unrest which swept Basra may well limit its margin of manouevre, experts said.
Even though the two neighbours fought a bitter war in the 1980s, Iran is a key power broker in Iraq and many of the armed groups and political parties whose offices were torched in the unrest are known to be close to the Islamic republic.
An Iraqi protester holds up a portrait of Iran's former and current supreme leaders along with an Iranian flag in Basra on September 7, 2018
"This crisis has shown that in the Iraqi national consciousness, the country is far from having turned the page on the rivalry with Iran, and that the wounds which had only been patched up are quickly re-opened," said Karim Bitar, head of research at the Paris-based Institute for International and Strategic Affairs.
Since the defeat of Islamic State group jihadists who once captured a swathe of the country "there is a return of Iraqi national feeling and demands focused on living standards, the fight against corruption and bad governance," he said.
During the 1980-1988 war "Basra was on the frontlines" and came under "a hail of Iranian shelling," recalled political analyst Essam al-Fili, a university professor in Baghdad.
Since the 2003 fall of dictator Saddam Hussein it has lived "under the tight control of Islamic parties heavily tied" to Iran.
"A future government which served the interests of Iran first and foremost will be quickly toppled by public opinion," he insisted.
The election dates were announced following the killing of Alexander Zakharchenko, leader of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic, on August 31
The US on Wednesday condemned reports of a plan to conduct elections in Ukraine's rebel strongholds of Donetsk and Lugansk, calling the polls a Russian-backed sham.
Both self-proclaimed republics have scheduled votes for November 11, according to Russian and Ukrainian media, following the murder of separatist leader Alexander Zakharchenko last month.
"The United States condemns the announcement of a plan to conduct 'elections' in the so-called 'Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics,'" the State Department said.
"Given the continued control of these territories by the Russian Federation, genuine elections are inconceivable.
"By engineering phony procedures, Russia is once more demonstrating its disregard for international norms and is undermining efforts to achieve peace in eastern Ukraine."
It follows a similar statement by the European Union, which said the proposed votes ran contrary to the Minsk agreements brokered by France and Germany in 2015.
The election dates were announced following the killing of Zakharchenko, leader of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic, on August 31.
Zakharchenko was killed in a bombing at a Donetsk cafe becoming the four-year conflict's most prominent victim from the Moscow-backed side.
Moscow and rebel authorities have said Kiev was behind the assassination, while Ukraine links the bombing to internal feuding and Russia's desire to control the territory.
More than 10,000 people have been killed since the rebel insurgency broke out in the eastern Donetsk and Lugansk regions in April 2014 following Russia's annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.
Kiev and its Western allies accuse Russia of funneling troops and arms across the border. Moscow has denied the claims despite evidence to the contrary.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will meet President Moon Jae-in for the third time next week in Pyongyang
North Korea is "willing to denuclearise" and the US is prepared to end hostile relations, President Moon Jae-in said Thursday as he struck an upbeat tone ahead of his third meeting with Kim Jong Un next week.
The summit will be the third between the leaders of North and South Korea this year and comes as talks between Washington and Pyongyang over dismantling the North's nuclear arsenal have stalled.
Moon conceded there was a "blockage" and both sides needed to compromise to make progress on the controversial subject.
"North Korea is willing to denuclearise and therefore willing to discard existing nuclear weapons... and the US is willing to end hostile relations with the North and provide security guarantees," Moon said.
"But there is a blockage as both sides are demanding each other to act first and I think they will be able to find a point of compromise."
Moon, who helped broker the June summit between Kim and US President Donald Trump and has called for a follow-up meeting between the two sides, added South Korea would help mediate contacts between Washington and Pyongyang to "speed up the denuclearisation process".
Trump and Kim Jong Un pledged to denuclearise the Korean peninsula at their historic Singapore meeting.
However, no details were agreed, and Washington and Pyongyang have sparred since over what that means and how it will be achieved. Last month, Trump abruptly cancelled a planned visit by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to Pyongyang.
South Korea's Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha has urged progress on denuclearisation talks with the North
The new US envoy for the North, Stephen Biegun, said in August Kim had promised "final, fully verified denuclearisation" at the Singapore summit.
But Pyongyang has slammed Washington for its "gangster-like" demands for complete, verifiable and irreversible disarmament.
South Korea's Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha said Thursday that making progress on denuclearisation talks with North Korea is a "daily concern".
"Getting traction on the denuclearisation and peace process that is very much now in motion -- it's a daily concern to get movement on this," she told a regional economic forum in the Vietnamese capital Hanoi.
Speaking on the sidelines of the forum, Kang called for "openness" from the North about their weapons programme and added a second Trump-Kim summit should deliver "concrete" results.
"A second summit has to be something that really significantly moves the agenda forward," she added.
The White House said earlier this week Trump had received a "very positive" letter from Kim seeking a follow-up meeting, since adding it is in the process of coordinating a possible second meeting between the two leaders.
South Korean national security advisor Chung Eui-yong said Thursday Moon and Kim will discuss "more in-depth and detailed ways to achieve denuclearisation".
The two Koreas will be holding a closed working-level meeting on Friday to discuss the logistics of next week's summit, an official at the South's presidential office said.
The main Maldives opposition candidate, Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, has said he does not expect a free and fair election, but is confident that voters will come out against the government
The Maldives opposition has accused President Abdulla Yameen of covering up his attempt to "steal" this month's elections by denying access to foreign media.
The United States, the European Union and others have expressed alarm over the political situation in the Indian Ocean archipelago. Yameen's main rivals are either behind bars or in exile.
The opposition alliance hoping to unseat him on September 23 said late Wednesday that the government had tightened already stringent visa requirements for foreign journalists wanting to cover the vote.
"The visa measures are a deliberate attempt to restrict foreign journalists from travelling to the Maldives for the election, thus reducing independent scrutiny of the vote and President Yameen's likely attempts to steal it," the opposition said.
"In this regard, the measures should be viewed as a pre-emptive cover-up of planned electoral fraud," it said in a statement.
Conditions for journalists obtaining visas include naming a local sponsor who will be held responsible for any reporting deemed unacceptable.
Maldivian authorities have already turned down requests by international media to cover the elections.
The main opposition candidate, Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, told reporters in Colombo late last month that he did not expect a free and fair election, but was confident that voters would come out against the government.
Solih is endorsed by former president Mohamed Nasheed, who is in self-imposed exile himself after being handed a "terrorism" conviction and a 13-year jail term in 2015.
The United Nations has described Nasheed's trial, which disqualified him from running in the election, as politically motivated.
The country of 340,000 people popular with well-heeled foreign tourists has been on edge since Yameen imposed a 45-day state of emergency in February in order, his critics say, to prevent efforts to impeach him.
In the last election in 2013, the Supreme Court annulled the results of the first round of voting when Nasheed was in the lead.
The subsequent vote was then twice delayed, allowing Yameen time to forge alliances that helped him narrowly win the contested run-off.
A member of the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI) sprays red paint at holes in a wall created by shrapnel in the wake of a rocket attack at the party's headquarters in Koysinjaq, in Iraqi Kurdistan, September 12, 2018
A man wearing a white surgeon's mask sprays red paint at pockmarks left in a white wall by shrapnel -- honouring comrades who died in an Iranian missile attack in Iraqi Kurdistan.
The man is a member of the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran, a rebel group based in northern Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region, whose headquarters were targeted by the missile attack on September 8.
At least 15 KDPI leaders and members were killed at the base in Koysinjaq, according to the rebels.
A member of the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI) collects books while inspecting damage at the party headquarters in Koysinjaq, in the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq, on September 12, 2018
"The victims have obviously left a big hole", said KDPI Secretary General Mustafa Muludi, one of around 30 wounded in the strikes.
"We have suffered a great loss because (the dead leaders) had political experience and expertise", he said.
"We have always considered Iran a danger to us. This bombardment has made our fear stronger."
The rubble strewn headquarters of the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI) in Koysinjaq, in the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq, on September 12, 2018, in the wake of an Iranian missile attack
But Muludi said he was confident the KDPI would fill the leadership void.
Iran said the strikes were retaliation for repeated cross-border incursions by the "terrorist" group.
The KDPI is Iran's oldest Kurdish separatist group.
It was banned after the Islamic revolution of 1979.
A member of the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI) applies a bandage to a hole in a tree made by shrapnel from a rocket at the party's headquarters in Koysinjaq, in the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq, on September 12, 2018
Iran's armed forces chief of staff said on Tuesday that Kurdish leaders in Iraq had given assurances in the past that they would rein in the KDPI and other anti-Iran militants.
"But since last year, provoked by America, they broke this pledge," Major General Mohammad Bagheri told Iran's semi-official ISNA news agency.
While Iran has called on Iraq to expel the rebels, Baghdad has called the missile strikes a violation of its sovereignty.
Members of the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI) salvage items at their headquarters in Koysinjaq, in the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq, in the wake of an Iranian missile attack
Kurds, a non-Arab ethnic group, have long agitated for their own state.
They number between 25 and 35 million people spread across Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran.
In Iran they make up around 10 percent of the population.
French President Emmanuel Macron sparked controversy on the campaign trail last year by declaring that France's colonisation of Algeria was a "crime against humanity"
France admitted Thursday that it instigated a "system" that led to torture during Algeria's independence war, a conflict that remains hugely sensitive six decades on.
President Emmanuel Macron is set to acknowledge that mathematician Maurice Audin, a Communist pro-independence activist who disappeared in 1957, "died under torture stemming from the system instigated while Algeria was part of France", his office said.
Macron, who was due to visit Audin's widow later Thursday, will also announce "the opening of archives on the subject of disappeared civilians and soldiers, both French and Algerian".
During the 1954-62 war, which claimed some 1.5 million Algerian lives, French forces brutally cracked down on independence fighters in the colony ruled by Paris for 130 years.
Hundreds of thousands of young French men were conscripted to fight in a conflict that left deep scars in France's national psyche as it wound down from being a colonial power after World War II.
The French state has never previously admitted that its military forces routinely used torture during the war.
Macron, the first president born after the conflict, sparked controversy on the campaign trail last year by declaring that France's colonisation of Algeria was a "crime against humanity".
He later walked back the comments, calling for "neither denial nor repentance" over France's colonial history and adding: "We cannot remain trapped in the past".
On Thursday he will visit the widow of Audin, whose disappearance has long been a source of fascination in France.
An assistant professor at the University of Algiers, Audin was 25 when he was arrested at his home by French paratroopers, accused of harbouring armed members of the Algerian Communist Party.
He was tortured repeatedly in a villa in the Algiers neighbourhood of El Biar.
His widow Josette was told 10 days later that the mathematician had escaped while being transferred between jails.
This remained the official version of events until 2014, when Macron's predecessor Francois Hollande acknowledged that Audin died in detention.
Historian Sylvie Thenault said the French state's acknowledgement that Audin's death resulted from a "system" pointed to a broader recognition of wrongdoing.
"Through recognition of the state's responsibilities in the disappearance of Maurice Audin, have the state's responsibilities in all disappearances in Algiers in 1957 not been recognised?" she wrote on The Conversation, a news website.
French President Emmanuel Macron with Michele Audin, daughter of Maurice Audin, after visiting Maurice's widow at her home east of Paris to apologise for his torture and death at the hands of French soldiers during the Algerian war
France acknowledged Thursday that it instigated a "system" that facilitated torture during Algeria's independence war, a landmark admission about a conflict that remains hugely sensitive six decades on.
Emmanuel Macron -- the first president born after the conflict -- went further than any of his predecessors in recognising the scale of abuses by French troops during the 1954-62 war.
He made the announcement as part of an admission that the French state was responsible for the torture and death of mathematician Maurice Audin, a French Communist pro-independence activist who disappeared in Algiers in 1957.
Visiting Audin's widow, Macron also announced that France would open up its archives on the thousands of civilians and soldiers who went missing during the war, both French and Algerian.
Josette Audin, now in her eighties, tried to thank Macron during an emotional visit to her apartment in Bagnolet east of Paris.
But he replied: "It's for me to ask your forgiveness, so don't say anything."
In a statement, the presidency said the special powers given to the army to restore order in Algeria "laid the ground for some terrible acts, including torture".
During the bloody war, which claimed some 1.5 million Algerian lives and ended 130 years of colonial rule, French forces cracked down on independence fighters and sympathisers, with a French general later admitting to the use of torture.
Independence fighters also mistreated prisoners during a complex conflict characterised by guerrilla warfare, which left deep scars in the national psyche.
France censored wartime newspapers, books and films that claimed it was using torture, and atrocities by its troops have remained a largely taboo subject.
But on Thursday, the government declared, "There can be no liberty, equality and fraternity without the search for truth."
- 'Recognition, not repentance' -
Previous presidents of the left and right had taken cautious steps to acknowledge French wrongdoing in Algeria, without openly apologising.
In 1998, Jacques Chirac acknowledged the massacre of civilians in the town of Setif in 1945, and in 2012 Francois Hollande recognised the "suffering" caused by the colonisation.
But by acknowledging that France instituted a system that facilitated torture, and deciding to open the archives, Macron broke new ground, historian Patrick Garcia told AFP.
Maurice Audin was 25 when he was arrested at his home -- likely by French soldiers -- accused of harbouring communist independence fighters
"Beyond the symbolic case of Maurice Audin there is a much bigger and important gesture," he told AFP, calling it a "milestone".
But he stressed that what Macron had announced was "a policy of recognition, not of repentance".
"It's not about beating ourselves up about it, it's about recognising what took place."
Macron had sparked controversy on the campaign trail last year by declaring that France's colonisation of Algeria was a "crime against humanity".
He later walked back the comments, calling for "neither denial nor repentance" over France's colonial history and adding: "We cannot remain trapped in the past".
The far-right National Rally, previously known as the National Front, reacted indignantly to his latest remarks on Algeria.
"What is the point of the president opening old wounds by bringing up the Maurice Audin case?" asked its leader Marine Le Pen, whose ex-paratrooper father Jean-Marie -- the party's founder -- served in the war.
Algeria's Minister for Ex-Combattants Tayeb Zitouni, by contrast, called Macron's remarks "a positive step".
- Secrets and lies -
Audin's disappearance had long been a source of speculation in France.
"I never thought this day would come," his widow Josette told reporters before Macron's arrival at her home.
An assistant professor at the University of Algiers, Audin was 25 when he was arrested at his home and accused of harbouring independence fighters.
The father of three was tortured repeatedly in a villa in the Algiers neighbourhood of El Biar.
Josette was told 10 days later that her husband had escaped while being transferred between jails.
This remained the official version of events until 2014, when Macron's predecessor Francois Hollande acknowledged that Audin died in detention.
While Macron acknowledged the state was responsible for his death, the exact circumstances of his disappearance remain unclear.
A 2014 book by journalist Jean-Charles Deniau claimed the mathematician was killed by a French army officer on the orders of General Jacques Massu.
That order was confirmed by another general, Paul Aussaresses, who died in 2013 and who admitted to torturing and killing dozens of prisoners.
President Salva Kiir (R) and his estranged deputy Riek Machar shake hands as they sign another peace deal
Scepticism and war-weariness on Thursday greeted the latest South Sudan peace deal between the president and main rebel leader aimed at ending a dragging conflict which has killed tens of thousands, displaced millions and triggered a regional refugee crisis.
The agreement, brokered by regional bloc the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), and signed by President Salva Kiir and rebel leader Riek Machar late Wednesday in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, is the culmination of a months-long revival of negotiations.
In South Sudan's capital Juba, which witnessed some of the war's heaviest fighting at its outbreak in December 2013, and again when the last peace deal collapsed in July 2016, there were few celebrations.
Susy William, executive director of the country's National Alliance for Women's Lawyers, captured the disappointment of many, who feted a hard-won freedom from Sudan in 2011 only to see a fresh war begin between two of the nation's independence heroes, just two years later.
"Citizens believed these leaders were not going to take us back to war because these were our leaders who fought for this country, these were the leaders who led us to independence," she said of Kiir and Machar, former comrades and bush war commanders.
"But the opposite happened: they dragged us back. They have failed to demonstrate their responsibility," she added.
"These are people who don't care about us as citizens, but people who care about their positions."
Under the new agreement, Kiir remains president while Machar wins back his old post of deputy.
- 'No hope' -
South Sudan's latest war began in December 2013 when Kiir accused Machar of plotting a coup.
Several IGAD-brokered peace efforts and ceasefires have since failed, with the last agreement collapsing in July 2016 during days of fighting in the capital Juba that forced Machar to flee for his life.
A return to the status quo, with the same people in the same positions, has disappointed outside observers as well.
Long-time South Sudan watcher John Prendergast of the Enough Project pressure group said the deal has "significant flaws".
"(It) lacks meaningful checks and balances on a presidency that already wields immense powers, which are primarily used to loot the country's resources and deploy extreme violence against opponents," he said.
"This new peace deal fails to undo the theft of government revenue by entrusting the same corrupt politicians without any meaningful checks and balances."
Diplomats in Addis Ababa tentatively welcomed it as a step in the right direction, but little more.
"Scepticism prevails," said one. "It's definitely not perfect," conceded another.
But for the array of diplomats and leaders pushing for peace over nearly five years, a faulty deal is better than none.
"We remain concerned about the parties' level of commitment to this agreement," said a group of ambassadors from Britain, Norway and the US, together known as the Troika, demanding "a significant change in their approach."
While welcoming the deal the Troika said, "We remain concerned the agreement will not deliver the peace that the people of South Sudan deserve."
Humanitarian situation in South Sudan
China's top diplomat for Africa, Xu Jinghu, had a more upbeat assessment, rehashing an old maxim to describe the peace plan as "an exemplary practice of African solutions, by African people, to African issues."
But this did not find many takers in South Sudan itself.
"The peace deal is signed and it's better than no deal, but I can only praise the parties if they implement it," said Mary Nyoka, a teacher in Juba whose experience of the war and the country's leaders has taught her caution.
William was more pessimistic still. "I don't think there's any hope," she said.
STOCKHOLM (AP) - The Latest on Sweden's general election (all times local):
12:35 a.m.
Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Lofven says he intends to remain in the job after his center-left party recorded its worst election performance.
Prime minister and party leader of the Social Democrat party Stefan Lofven speaks at an election party in Stockholm, Sweden, Sunday, Sept. 9, 2018. Preliminary results of the 2018 Swedish parliamentary elections showed on Sunday night that Centre-Left bloc of the Social Democratic Party, the Green Party and Left party gained 40.7 percent of votes, narrowly heading in the race. The opposition Center-Right alliance bloc of the Moderate Party, the Centre Party, the Liberal Party and the Christian Democrats gained 40.3 percent votes. Anti-immigration, the far-right Sweden Democrats scored 17.6 percent votes. (Jonas Ekstromer /TT via AP)
Lofven, who brought the Social Democrats to power in 2014, said "the results are still unclear" from the election held Sunday, but acknowledged that forming the next government could take a while.
He sounded somber, but firm as he told supporters that "now it is up the political parties to cooperate responsibly and create a strong government."
Preliminary results from Sunday's election had Lofven's party receiving 28.1 percent of the vote, which was estimated to translate into a loss of 13 seats in Sweden's 175-seat parliament, the Riksdagen.
Responding to the increase in support that could give the far-right Sweden Democrats 14 more seats, Lofven said "a party with roots in Nazism" would "never ever offer anything responsible, but hatred."
He said of the weeks ahead: "We have a moral responsibility. We must gather all good forces. We won't mourn, we will organize ourselves."
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11:30 p.m.
The leader of the party that was poised to place second in Sweden's general election says he has secured a mandate to form a new government and the sitting prime minister should resign.
Ulf Kristersson, the head of the Moderates, told supporters on Sunday night that a four-party opposition alliance in parliament "is clearly the largest and the government should resign."
With most ballots from Sunday's election counted, the Moderates had 19.2 percent of the vote. The ruling Social Democrats led by Prime Minister Stefan Lofven had 28.1 percent, and the far-right Sweden Democrats 17.9 percent.
Kristersson said: "We have gone the first round for creating a new government."
Both major blocs in parliament said before the election they wouldn't include the anti-immigration party as a coalition partner.
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10:55 p.m.
The leader of a far-right party that campaigned with an anti-migrant message says the party has "won" Sweden's national election.
Returns reported by the Scandinavian country's election commission showed the Sweden Democrats placing third in the parliamentary election held Sunday.
Addressing supporters after more than four-fifths of ballots were counted, party leader Jimmie Akesson said the victory was in the number of seats the party gained in the national assembly, the Riksdagen.
Akesson told the crowd chanting his first name: "No one can take that from us."
He says he is interested in cooperating with other parties and wants to tell the head of the party that came in second, the Moderates, "how to govern the country."
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10:05 p.m.
A preliminary count from Sweden's general election showed an anti-immigrant party with a neo-Nazi past placing third and the ruling center-left party making its worst showing in decades with more than half of the ballots tallied.
Sweden's national election commission reported the governing Social Democrats had 28.1 percent of the vote at a little past the midway point in the vote count from Sunday's election. The count showed the Moderates next with 19.2 percent, and the far-right Sweden Democrats getting 17.9.
It was unlikely any single party would secure a majority of the 175 seats in the Riksdagen, Sweden's parliament. It could take weeks or months of coalition talks before the next government is formed.
Both the left-leaning bloc led by the Social Democrats and the center-right bloc have said they would refuse to consider the Sweden Democrats as a potential coalition partner.
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This item has been corrected to show the ruling party represents the center-left, not center-right.
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8:05 p.m.
An exit poll is projecting that nearly one in five Swedish voters backed an anti-immigrant party with white supremacist roots in the Scandinavian country's election.
However, Swedish broadcaster SVT said its poll from Sunday's election indicates that the center-left Social Democrats governing Sweden now would remain the largest party in parliament.
The poll projects that the ruling party received 26.2 percent of the vote.
If the exit poll results carry over to the official count, the far right Sweden Democrats would be the second-largest party in parliament. The poll gave the party 19.2 percent of the vote.
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4:15 p.m.
Swedish media are reporting that voters and journalists were harassed at several polling places by members of a neo-Nazi movement, including some running in the parliamentary election.
The Svenska Dagbladet newspaper said the Nordic Resistance Movement members entered voting stations and attempted to take photos of voters, voting slips and journalists.
The newspaper says such incidents have caused anxiety at balloting locations in Boden, Ludvika and Kungalv.
Svenska Dagbladet also reported that the far-right Alternative for Sweden party raised alleged election breaches by "shouting loud" on social media as soon as polls opened on Sunday.
Separately, Swedish tabloid Expressen interviewed a representative of the right-wing Sweden Democrats. Emilia Orpana said she and another party supporter were threatened by two young men who called them "damned racists."
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3 p.m.
Voters in Sweden appear to be split in an unpredictable general election that may turn into one of the most thrilling races in the Scandinavian country's history for decades amid heated debate on immigration.
Latest opinion polls suggest the ruling Social Democrats led by Prime Minister Stefan Lofven would substantially lose seats at the Parliament but would still win ahead of the far-right and anti-immigration Sweden Democrats the popularity of which has steadily risen since the 2014 election.
Its strong rhetoric has shocked many Swedes. Voter Veronica Lundqvist said the party led by Jimmie Akesson is saying "awful things" about migrants, while Karl Ljung said Sweden has an "integration issue" with migrants that needs solving.
Sunday's vote is first since the nation of 10 million accepted 163,000 migrants in 2015. While far less than what Germany took in that year, it was the most per capita of any European nation.
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8 a.m.
Polls have opened in Sweden's general election in what is expected to be one of the most unpredictable and thrilling races in the Scandinavian country for decades amid heated debate on immigration.
Sunday's election will be Sweden's first since the government in 2015 allowed 163,000 migrants into the country of 10 million. While far less than what Germany took in that year, it was the most per capita of any European nation. It's highly unlikely that any single party will get a majority, or 175 seats.
The latest opinion poll suggests that Prime Minister Stefan Lofven's ruling Social Democrats will substantially lose seats but still emerge a winner with an estimated 24.9 percent of the votes.
The polls showed far-right, anti-immigration Sweden Democrats would get 19.1 percent of the votes.
The Moderates party leader Ulf Kristersson speaks at an election party in Stockholm, Sweden, Sunday, Sept. 9, 2018. Kristersson, the head of the Moderates, told supporters on Sunday night that a four-party opposition alliance in parliament "is clearly the largest and the government should resign." (Henrik Montgomery/TT via AP)
People vote in polling booths during election day in Stockholm, Sunday Sept. 9, 2018. Voters in Sweden appear to be split in an unpredictable general election that may turn into one of the most thrilling races in the Scandinavian country's history for decades amid heated debate on immigration. (Hanna Franzen/TT News Agency via AP)
Jimmie Akesson, leader of the right-wing nationalist Sweden Democrats party, prepares to vote in Stockholm, Sweden, Sunday Sept. 9, 2018. Polls have opened in Sweden's general election in what is expected to be one of the most unpredictable and thrilling political races in Scandinavian country for decades amid heated discussion around top issue immigration. (Stina Stjernkvist/TT via AP)
Sweden Democrats party leader Jimmie Akesson is interviewed in Stockholm, Sweden, Sunday, Sept. 9, 2018. Returns reported by the Scandinavian country's election commission showed the Sweden Democrats placing third in the parliamentary election held Sunday. Addressing supporters after more than four-fifths of ballots were counted, Akesson said the victory was in the number of seats the party gained in the national assembly, the Riksdagen.(Anders Wiklund /TT via AP)
Stefan Lofven, leader of the Social Democratic Party and prime minister of Sweden, right, arrives with his wife Ulla to cast their votes in Stockholm, Sweden, Sunday Sept. 9, 2018. Polls have opened in Sweden's general election in what is expected to be one of the most unpredictable and thrilling political races in Scandinavian country for decades amid heated discussion around top issue immigration. (Soren Andersson/TT via AP)
Two women vote in Malmo, Sweden, Sunday Sept. 9, 2018. Polls have opened in Sweden's general election in what is expected to be one of the most unpredictable and thrilling political races in Scandinavian country for decades amid heated discussion around top issue immigration. (Johan Nilsson/TT via AP)
Ebba Busch Thor, party leader of the Christian Democrats, campaigns outside a polling station in central Stockholm, Sweden, Sunday Sept. 9, 2018. Polls have opened in Sweden's general election in what is expected to be one of the most unpredictable and thrilling political races in Scandinavian country for decades amid heated discussion around top issue immigration. (Jessica Gow/TT via AP)
People queue up in a polling station to vote in Stockholm, Sweden, Sunday Sept. 9, 2018. Polls have opened in Sweden's general election in what is expected to be one of the most unpredictable and thrilling political races in Scandinavian country for decades amid heated discussion around top issue immigration. (AP Photo/Philipp Jenne)
DALLAS (AP) - The Latest on the shooting of a man by a Dallas police officer who said she mistook his apartment for her own (all times local):
10:20 p.m.
The group Mothers Against Police Brutality says the arrest of a white Dallas officer in the off-duty shooting death of her black neighbor is a "first step" toward justice and accountability.
Allison Jean embraces hers son's friends following a prayer vigil for Botham Shem Jean at the Dallas West Church of Christ on Saturday, Sept. 8, 2018 in Dallas. He was shot by a Dallas police officer in his apartment on Thursday night. (Shaban Athuman/The Dallas Morning News via AP)
Officer Amber Guyger was arrested Sunday on a manslaughter charge and later released on bond. She fatally shot 26-year-old Botham Jean on Thursday at Jean's apartment. Guyger told responding officers she mistook Jean's apartment for her own.
A co-founder of Mothers Against Police Brutality, Sara Mokuria, says the group is happy with the arrest, but believes it should have come days ago. Mokuria says police officers should be held to a higher level of accountability and not afforded special treatment.
She says going forward the group expects transparency and accountability in the case.
Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings tweeted a statement Sunday night in which he thanked investigators, asked for continued prayers for Jean's family and said he appreciated that citizens and community leaders "were so respectful of the investigative process over these past few days."
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8:05 p.m.
The Texas Department of Public Safety says a white Dallas police officer has been arrested on a manslaughter warrant in the shooting of a black man at his apartment.
The department said in a news release Sunday night that Officer Amber Guyger was booked into the Kaufman County Jail and that the investigation is ongoing. It said no additional information is available at this time.
The 30-year-old Guyger killed 26-year-old Botham Jean on Thursday.
Police say Guyger shot and killed Jean after returning in uniform to the South Side Flats, where they both had apartments, following her shift. She reported the shooting to dispatchers and she told officers who responded that she had mistaken Jean's apartment for her own.
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12:15 p.m.
The lawyer for the family of a 26-year-old man who was shot and killed by a Dallas police officer who said she mistook his apartment for hers is calling for her to be charged.
S. Lee Merritt, who is representing the family of 26-year-old Botham Jean, said Saturday that the family isn't calling on the authorities to jump to conclusions or to deny Officer Amber Guyger her right to due process.
But he says they want Guyger "to be treated like every other citizen, and where there is evidence that they've committed a crime, that there's a warrant to be issued and an arrest to be made."
Online records show that Guyger hadn't been charged as of Sunday morning.
This photo provided by the Kaufman County Sheriff's Office shows Amber Renee Guyger. Guyger, a Dallas police officer, was arrested Sunday, Sept. 9, 2018, on a manslaughter warrant in the shooting of a black man at his home, Texas authorities said. The Texas Department of Public Safety said in a news release that Guyger was booked into the Kaufman County Jail and that the investigation is ongoing. It said no additional information is available at this time. (Kaufman County Sheriff's Office via AP)
Jean's family lawyer Lee Merritt gives talks to members of the press following a prayer vigil for Botham Shem Jean at the Dallas West Church of Christ on Saturday, Sept. 8, 2018 in Dallas. He was shot by a Dallas police officer in his apartment on Thursday night. (Shaban Athuman/The Dallas Morning News via AP)
NEW YORK (AP) - The Latest on sexual misconduct allegations against CBS chief Leslie Moonves (all times local):
8:15 p.m.
Shortly after resigning as CEO of CBS, Les Moonves again denied sexual misconduct allegations.
FILE - In this Sept. 19, 2017, file photo, Les Moonves, chairman and CEO of CBS Corporation, poses at the premiere of the new television series "Star Trek: Discovery" in Los Angeles. On Sunday, Sept. 9, 2018, CBS said longtime CEO Les Moonves has resigned, just hours after more sexual harassment allegations involving the network's longtime leader surfaced. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP, File)
Moonves' three-paragraph statement says "untrue allegations from decades ago" are being made against him and are not consistent with who he is.
He also says he is deeply saddened to leave the company but wishes CBS and its employees well.
Moonves says it was a privilege to lead CBS during what he called a renaissance that transformed it into a leading global media company.
A dozen women have come forward with allegations of misconduct that include being forced to perform oral sex and retaliation when advances were turned away.
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5 p.m.
CBS says longtime CEO Les Moonves has resigned, just hours after more sexual misconduct allegations involving the network's longtime leader surfaced.
A statement posted on CBS's website says Moonves' resignation is effective immediately.
The network's chief operating officer, Joseph Ianniello, will serve as president and acting CEO until CBS's Board of Directors looks for a replacement. In the meantime the network says Moonves' chairman position will remain open.
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1 p.m.
Six women are making new sexual misconduct allegations against CBS chief Leslie Moonves, whose reign as one of the most powerful executives in Hollywood appears nearing an end.
The New Yorker on Sunday reported the women's accusations, which include Moonves forcing them to perform oral sex and retaliating when advances were turned away. Moonves acknowledged relations with three of the women but said they were consensual, and that he had never used his position to hurt women's careers.
CBS said Sunday that it takes the allegations very seriously, and that its board of directors is investigating.
Six other women accused Moonves of misconduct in another New Yorker article published last month. Even before the new allegations came to light on Sunday, CBS' board was reportedly discussing terms of Moonves' exit.
TOKYO (AP) - The Japanese economy grew at a robust annual rate of 3 percent in April-June on the back of healthy capital spending, according to revised government data released Monday.
The revision is an upward change from the 1.9 percent annual rate from an earlier preliminary reading, and a reversal from the 0.6 percent annual contraction rate in January-March.
That contraction had ended two years of continual expansion, the longest stretch in nearly three decades for Japan.
The annual rate of growth is what the pace would have been if that quarterly number had continued for a year. The data are for real gross domestic product, or GDP, the total value of a nation's goods and services.
Junichi Makino, chief economist at SMBC Nikko Securities, said the recovery momentum is better than expected, and will likely continue as electronics, auto and chemical sectors invest more, and consumer spending holds up.
He said despite worries about President Donald Trump's tariff policies, some targeting Japan, the impact appeared to be minimal so far.
The Trump administration has imposed tariffs this year on imports of steel and aluminum from many countries, including Japan.
It is also threatening tariffs on Japanese autos and auto parts. The damage to the Japanese economy from the auto tariffs is expected to be greater than the action on steel and aluminum.
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Her work can be found at https://www.apnews.com/search/yuri%20kageyama
NEW YORK (AP) - Prabal Gurung had a lot to say at New York Fashion Week, and he said it in living color.
The designer sent models from 35 countries around the globe down his runway Sunday, chosen to represent a world where "all humanity reigns." Because, as Bruce Springsteen said in Gurung's closing song, we can "Dream Baby Dream."
Until then, we can imagine living in Gurung's festive utopia beneath his rainbow of Buddhist prayer flags hanging from the ceiling center stage. And we can take a hint printed on seat assignment cards left for his guests: "I am a voter."
The Prabal Gurung spring 2019 collection is modeled during Fashion Week Sunday, Sept. 9, 2018, in New York. (AP Photo/Kevin Hagen).
And, for the first time, we can revel in his first menswear collection. There were loose yellow trousers with a red tank, a blush tone summer suit, a colorblocked anorak, and orange floral joggers paired with a long-sleeve pullover shirt showing off horizontal stripes of pink, green and white. Among his men was Anwar Hadid, joined in the show by his supermodel sisters, Gigi and Bella.
Gurung said in show notes that his collection for spring symbolized a voyage inspired by his own recent travels, from indigenous villages in his native Nepal to the urban streets of Tokyo, London, Mumbai, Paris, Shanghai, Abu Dhabi and New York. He wants to "see no borders," using color as his universal language.
Color, we had in abundance, including lush purples, sunshine yellow, persimmon orange and grass green done in knits, chiffon, cotton jersey and poplin, and hand-painted velvet devore.
Joan Smalls opened in a silk chiffon swing skirt of peridot green, hemmed in fuchsia. Gigi followed close behind, wearing a drawstring skirt of red, white and, yes, blue. There were sari looks, including one that draped a shoulder in orange, swinging bead fringe in orange on a sparkly pink dress and loose feathers that swooshed on the legs of stone-colored pants.
Gurung used female artisans in Nepal to hand embroider organic cotton and hand dip tie-dye cashmere knits. Ostrich feathers adorned sandals and earrings held pearls from the South Sea.
Much of what Gurung had in mind was beach ready, while other looks were dressier, including a strapless gown of vertical yellow and green stripes.
Whether in a sky blue dress printed in green flowers with a sheer skirt, or wearing a cozy sweater in purple with stripes of orange and pink with draped skirt, Gurung urges us on.
"Live in colour," he wrote in his notes. "Lead with your heart. Find peace in the journey."
The Prabal Gurung spring 2019 collection is modeled during Fashion Week Sunday, Sept. 9, 2018, in New York. (AP Photo/Kevin Hagen).
The Prabal Gurung spring 2019 collection is modeled during Fashion Week Sunday, Sept. 9, 2018, in New York. (AP Photo/Kevin Hagen).
The Prabal Gurung spring 2019 collection is modeled during Fashion Week Sunday, Sept. 9, 2018, in New York. (AP Photo/Kevin Hagen).
Prabal Gurung jogs onto the runway following his spring 2019 collection during Fashion Week Sunday, Sept. 9, 2018, in New York. (AP Photo/Kevin Hagen).
Models prepare for the Prabal Gurung spring 2019 collection during Fashion Week Sunday, Sept. 9, 2018, in New York. (AP Photo/Kevin Hagen).
The Prabal Gurung spring 2019 collection is modeled during Fashion Week Sunday, Sept. 9, 2018, in New York. (AP Photo/Kevin Hagen).
The Prabal Gurung spring 2019 collection is modeled during Fashion Week Sunday, Sept. 9, 2018, in New York. (AP Photo/Kevin Hagen).
The Prabal Gurung spring 2019 collection is modeled during Fashion Week Sunday, Sept. 9, 2018, in New York. (AP Photo/Kevin Hagen).
The Prabal Gurung spring 2019 collection is modeled during Fashion Week Sunday, Sept. 9, 2018, in New York. (AP Photo/Kevin Hagen).
The Prabal Gurung spring 2019 collection is modeled during Fashion Week Sunday, Sept. 9, 2018, in New York. (AP Photo/Kevin Hagen).
The Prabal Gurung spring 2019 collection is modeled during Fashion Week Sunday, Sept. 9, 2018, in New York. (AP Photo/Kevin Hagen).
The Prabal Gurung spring 2019 collection is modeled during Fashion Week Sunday, Sept. 9, 2018, in New York. (AP Photo/Kevin Hagen).
The Prabal Gurung spring 2019 collection is modeled during Fashion Week Sunday, Sept. 9, 2018, in New York. (AP Photo/Kevin Hagen).
The Prabal Gurung spring 2019 collection is modeled during Fashion Week Sunday, Sept. 9, 2018, in New York. (AP Photo/Kevin Hagen).
The Prabal Gurung spring 2019 collection is modeled during Fashion Week Sunday, Sept. 9, 2018, in New York. (AP Photo/Kevin Hagen).
The Prabal Gurung spring 2019 collection is modeled during Fashion Week Sunday, Sept. 9, 2018, in New York. (AP Photo/Kevin Hagen).
The Prabal Gurung spring 2019 collection is modeled during Fashion Week Sunday, Sept. 9, 2018, in New York. (AP Photo/Kevin Hagen).
The Prabal Gurung spring 2019 collection is modeled during Fashion Week Sunday, Sept. 9, 2018, in New York. (AP Photo/Kevin Hagen).
The Prabal Gurung spring 2019 collection is modeled during Fashion Week Sunday, Sept. 9, 2018, in New York. (AP Photo/Kevin Hagen).
The Prabal Gurung spring 2019 collection is modeled during Fashion Week Sunday, Sept. 9, 2018, in New York. (AP Photo/Kevin Hagen).
WASHINGTON (AP) - Attorney General Jeff Sessions has vigorously pushed President Donald Trump's agenda at the Justice Department, and before that, spent 20 years championing conservative causes in the Senate.
Yet as Sessions enters what may be the final stretch of his tenure, those efforts are at risk of being eclipsed by his boss' relentless verbal jabs that have made the attorney general seem like a perpetual presidential punching bag. It's a role Sessions never sought but perhaps could have anticipated.
The steady diatribes , most recently a tweet excoriating Sessions for the federal indictments of two Republican congressmen, reflect Trump's single-minded outrage over the special counsel's Russia investigation. And they are all the more striking because Sessions is the cabinet member most clearly aligned with Trump's values.
FILE - In this Aug. 22, 2018, file photo, Attorney General Jeff Sessions speaks during a news conference regarding the country's opioid epidemic in Cleveland. Sessions has pushed President Donald Trump's agenda at the Justice Department and spent 20 years before that as a champion of conservative causes in the Senate. (AP Photo/Tony Dejak, File)
The treatment has largely overshadowed the attorney general's work on violent crime, illegal immigration and opioid addiction, clouding a legacy that in other times would be more broadly cheered in conservative circles.
"There are folks that ask me constantly, 'What's wrong with Sessions?'" said former Cincinnati mayor Ken Blackwell, a longtime friend who says the criticism is "eroding what otherwise would be a very respectable portfolio."
"The punches that he throws in Sessions' direction are landing and they're distorting the track record," Blackwell added, "and they're having people start to question not just his loyalty to the president but his competency - when his record is a very successful record and could be compared to any other Cabinet secretary."
Sessions has mostly absorbed the blows quietly while marching through a tough-on-crime agenda, bringing to the job the same hard-line principles that once placed him far to the right of many other Republican senators.
He has encouraged more aggressive marijuana enforcement, directed prosecutors to bring the most serious charges they can prove, announced a zero-tolerance policy for immigrants crossing the border illegally and targeted the MS-13 gang. He also has alarmed his critics, who fear he has degraded civil rights protections by not defending affirmative action, police reform or transgender legal rights.
But neither Sessions' work nor his loyalty seems to resonate with Trump. The president has belittled his attorney general since Sessions stepped aside from an investigation into ties between Trump's 2016 campaign and Russia. Trump interpreted the move, which legal experts said was inevitable given Sessions' campaign support, as an act of disloyalty that led to special counsel Robert Mueller's appointment.
Trump has said if he had known Sessions would take that step, he would not have picked the Alabama Republican to be attorney general. The president now asserts that Sessions never has had control of the department, and accuses Sessions of failing to aggressively pursue Trump's political rivals and to investigate potential bias in the Russia investigation.
Trump told Bloomberg News last week that Sessions' job was safe through the November election. The president gave no reassurances about after that. Meanwhile, the solid Republican support in the Senate that has buffered Sessions is showing signs of cracking.
The most recent broadside Monday, about the charges against the two GOP lawmakers, was stunning for its norm-shattering obliteration of the bright line between the White House and Justice Department. Trump said the indictments, coming before an election when control of Congress is at stake, had left "two easy wins now in doubt." He ended the tweet with a sarcastic "Good job Jeff."
"You're harassing the attorney general for not dealing with political bias at the DOJ and then conversely accusing him of not engaging in political bias at the DOJ," said Cameron Smith, a former Sessions counsel in the Senate. "Those cannot both be simultaneously consistent positions."
Sessions didn't respond to that criticism, though in the past he's issued statements saying the department won't bend to political considerations and promising to serve with integrity and honor. His only mentions of Trump are laudatory, and in public appearances, Sessions is far more likely to focus on the work that has impassioned him for decades than on the controversies around him.
The Justice Department declined to comment.
The criticism has created an unusual dynamic where Trump-aligned Republicans who ordinarily would praise Sessions are joining in the condemnation, while progressives opposed to his agenda fear that his firing for political reasons could destabilize democracy.
Vanita Gupta, the Justice Department civil rights chief in the Obama administration, said she believed Sessions was terrible for civil rights but she did not want him dismissed as a means of crippling Mueller's investigation.
"It isn't about protecting Jeff Sessions," Gupta said. "It's about protecting the notion that nobody is above the law in this country and that the Constitution applies to everybody."
It wasn't always this way for Sessions, a federal prosecutor during the 1980s-era "war on drugs."
His conservative Senate positions, including opposing bipartisan legislation that would have created a path to citizenship for millions of immigrants in the country illegally, made him a natural fit for Trump. Sessions was the first senator to endorse Trump, joining the candidate for campaigning and foreign policy meetings. The loyalty paid off with the attorney general post, but it also wound up entangling him in the Russia investigation.
Even as Sessions has pushed the Trump agenda, he's confronted headlines about his campaign interactions with the Russian ambassador and about his attendance at a campaign meeting where the prospect of a Trump-Vladimir Putin meeting was broached.
"It's not as if Trump's background didn't have a lot of red flags in it and Sessions decided, 'Hey, I want to get on board with this person' and it frankly turned out poorly for him as a person," said Smith, the former Sessions aide. "I do think that's a lesson in discretion."
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Associated Press writers Michael Balsamo in Washington and Jay Reeves in Alabaster, Alabama, contributed to this report.
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Follow Eric Tucker on Twitter at https://twitter.com/etuckerAP
Attorney General Jeff Sessions waits to speak at the dedication for the United States Courthouse for the Southern District of Alabama in Mobile, Ala., on Friday, Sept. 7, 2018. (AP Photo/Dan Anderson)
U.S. Sen. Doug Jones, D-Ala., left, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, center, and U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., react at the ribbon cutting ceremony for the United States Courthouse for the Southern District of Alabama Friday, Sept. 7, 2018, in Mobile, Ala. (AP Photo/Dan Anderson)
Attorney General Jeff Sessions speaks at the dedication for the United States Courthouse for the Southern District of Alabama, Friday, Sept. 7, 2018, in Mobile, Ala. (AP Photo/Dan Anderson)
U.S. Sen. Doug Jones, D-Ala., speaks with Attorney General Jeff Sessions during the dedication for the United States Courthouse for the Southern District of Alabama in Mobile, Ala. on Sept. 7, 2018. (AP Photo/Dan Anderson)
WASHINGTON (AP) - Democrats don't have the votes to block Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. But that didn't stop them from putting up a rowdy, leave-nothing-on-the-table fight during four days of Senate confirmation hearings that marked a new stage in the party's resistance to President Donald Trump.
From the moment that the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman gaveled in the first session, the proceedings were tumultuous, disrupted first by Democratic senators objecting to the rules and then by protesters shouting "Sham president, sham vote" and other chants.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, an 84-year-old Iowa Republican, later said it was like nothing he had ever experienced during 15 Supreme Court confirmation hearings.
In this Sept. 6, 2018, photo, Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., left, and Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., confer before questioning Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh as he testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee on the third day of his confirmation hearing, on Capitol Hill in Washington. Spurred on by the left, Democrats brought fire and fury to the confirmation hearings for President Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominee, but their aggressive tactics have put at least one senator at risk of an ethics investigation. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
The bedlam is unlikely to change any votes in the Senate. The mathematic march toward Kavanaugh's confirmation at month's end remains the same in the Senate, where Republicans hold a51-49 edge. Still, the battle may have changed the Democrats, who are being transformed by a new generation of politicians spoiling for a fight with Trump, even if it creates political challenges for some Democratic candidates in the November election.
"Sometimes you just have to make a stand," said Brian Fallon, a former top adviser to Hillary Clinton and the Senate's top Democrat, New York's Chuck Schumer. Fallon's organization, Demand Justice, is leading the opposition to Kavanaugh.
Fallon compared the decision on the court nominee to big votes of the past such as the Iraq War authorization that end up defining lawmakers' careers.
"This vote is not going to age well," Fallon said. He is holding out hope that not only will Democrats reject Kavanaugh, but that two pivotal Republicans, Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine, will join in to help stop the confirmation.
"Democrats should fight like hell," he said, "even if it's not going to sway Susan Collins."
Republicans have been eager to capitalize on the political "circus," as they called the hearing, particularly as potential 2020 presidential hopefuls Sens. Kamala Harris of California and Cory Booker of New Jersey took turns aggressively questioning Kavanaugh in what many saw as a prelude to presidential primary campaigns.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., portrayed the Democratic Party as dominated by "unhinged" protesters and aligned with liberals calling to abolish U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The second-ranking Republican, Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, bemoaned the "mob rule" at the hearings.
Trump took on his potential 2020 rivals directly. During campaign stops for GOP candidates challenging Senate Democrats this fall in Montana and North Dakota, states where Trump remains popular, he ridiculed Democrats as "making fools out of themselves."
"The way they're screaming and shouting, it's a disgrace to our country actually," Trump said Friday during a fundraiser in Fargo, North Dakota, for the GOP opponent to Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp. "I'll be running against them and I look so forward to it."
With the midterms less than two months away, Kavanaugh's nomination carries political risks for both parties as they potentially alienate the large swath of independent voters who have big say in elections.
"Independents are looking for things to work," said David Winston, a Republican pollster. But he said the showy, disruptive display at the Kavanaugh hearing "reinforces their concerns of people not focusing on the challenges the country faces."
Democratic senators running for re-election in states where Trump is popular have the most to lose from the party's Supreme Court fight.
Sens. Joe Donnelly in Indiana or Claire McCaskill in Missouri may benefit from a court battle that energizes the Democratic base. They need heavy voter turnout in metro Indianapolis and Kansas City, Democratic strongholds, if they have any hope of carrying otherwise red states that Trump won in 2016.
Yet the court fight might be unhelpful as some Democrats, including Heitkamp in North Dakota and Sen. Joe Manchin in West Virginia, try to appeal to the moderate Republicans and independents they need to win over.
"It's probably the last thing that Democrats running for re-election in red states want to be talking about," said Alex Conant, a Republican strategist and former top aide to Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla.
Before the hearings began, Schumer gathered Democrats for a weekend conference call to plot strategy. They debated options, Schumer said, but decided on a strategy of staying in the room for questions, protest and disruption.
At a time when Democrats are churning as a party, they're also awakening to the political potency of judicial nominees, a longtime GOP priority.
Gone are the niceties and overtures of an earlier era, when senators deferred to a president's prerogative to put in place a qualified nominee of the commander in chief's choosing.
Trump is a different kind of president, they say, and the Senate a changed institution after President Barack Obama's pick for the Supreme Court, Merrick Garland, was denied a hearing or vote.
Schumer, on Friday, seemed pleased with the result of the hard-edged approach. He said in a statement that Democrats "were able to shine a bright light - for the American people and Republican Senators to see - on Judge Kavanaugh's troubling views on women's rights, presidential power, and protections for people with pre-existing conditions."
"This was a good week."
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NEW YORK (AP) - Bejeweled bodices, thigh-high platform pumps, stiletto nails and seductive fishnet stockings brought a new level of femme fatale among Disney villains onto the catwalk.
The catwalk of the design duo The Blonds, that is. David and Phillipe Blond, known for edgy, provocative collections and runway shows, collaborated with Disney to merge the wicked and the sleek among its most famous villains - Ursula, Maleficent and more.
Paris Hilton was Cruella de Vil in a studded silver bodysuit, carrying a Chihuahua down the runway Friday, long black and, of course, blonde, hair extensions cascading down. She wore one black thigh-high boot and one in white.
Paris Hilton models during the presentation of the Blonds spring 2019 collection with a Disney villains theme during Fashion Week Friday, Sept. 7, 2018, in New York. (AP Photo/Kevin Hagen)
The Disney collaboration, the Blonds told The Associated Press, took them even more over the top than usual.
"It just gave us license to have a lot more fun," David said.
Phillipe agreed: "Yeah, it gave us a lot of creative license. Our shows are theatrical already."
Guests were eating it up.
"I love that they have no limits," said "13 Reasons Why" actress Ajiona Alexus. "I love that they always push it over the edge and do what they really feel. I'm all about color, expressing yourself, and I think that's what fashion is about, especially for me, so I love that they're just different and they really push the boundaries."
Barron Hilton and new wife, Tessa, were on board. He and sister Paris have attended shows by The Blonds in the past.
"I've been here with Paris before and there's always like the craziest stuff, and I love it. It's like art," Barron said.
Tessa added: "The outfits, definitely. It's a live walking art show."
Also on the runway was model Shaun Ross, YouTuber Patrick Starrr (that's not a typo) and 10-year-old drag kid Desmond Napoles, the creator of the first drag club for children.
David Blond said he and Phillipe had been inspired by Disney villains since they were both children.
"Plus they have the coolest wardrobe, you know," said Phillipe. "The Villains. The Blonds. Like, how perfect is that?"
So who are their favorite Disney villains?
"My favorite's Maleficent, I think. Or Cruella. One of those two, or both, I guess," Phillipe said.
"I think you're a combination of both," David added.
For Patrick Starrr, getting to play Ursula, was "beyond my wildest dreams."
The Blonds spring 2019 collection with a Disney villains theme is modeled during Fashion Week Friday, Sept. 7, 2018, in New York. (AP Photo/Kevin Hagen)
The Blonds spring 2019 collection with a Disney villains theme is modeled during Fashion Week Friday, Sept. 7, 2018, in New York. (AP Photo/Kevin Hagen)
The Blonds spring 2019 collection with a Disney villains theme is modeled during Fashion Week Friday, Sept. 7, 2018, in New York. (AP Photo/Kevin Hagen)
Designer Phillipe Blond models during the presentation of the Blonds spring 2019 collection with a Disney villains theme during Fashion Week Friday, Sept. 7, 2018, in New York. (AP Photo/Kevin Hagen)
The Blonds spring 2019 collection with a Disney villains theme is modeled during Fashion Week Friday, Sept. 7, 2018, in New York. (AP Photo/Kevin Hagen)
The Blonds spring 2019 collection with a Disney villains theme is modeled during Fashion Week Friday, Sept. 7, 2018, in New York. (AP Photo/Kevin Hagen)
The Blonds spring 2019 collection with a Disney villains theme is modeled during Fashion Week Friday, Sept. 7, 2018, in New York. (AP Photo/Kevin Hagen)
The Blonds spring 2019 collection with a Disney villains theme is modeled during Fashion Week Friday, Sept. 7, 2018, in New York. (AP Photo/Kevin Hagen)
Designer Phillipe Blond models during the presentation of the Blonds spring 2019 collection with a Disney villains theme during Fashion Week Friday, Sept. 7, 2018, in New York. (AP Photo/Kevin Hagen)
The Blonds spring 2019 collection with a Disney villains theme is modeled during Fashion Week Friday, Sept. 7, 2018, in New York. (AP Photo/Kevin Hagen)
The Blonds spring 2019 collection with a Disney villains theme is modeled during Fashion Week Friday, Sept. 7, 2018, in New York. (AP Photo/Kevin Hagen)
The Blonds spring 2019 collection with a Disney villains theme is modeled during Fashion Week Friday, Sept. 7, 2018, in New York. (AP Photo/Kevin Hagen)
The Blonds spring 2019 collection with a Disney villains theme is modeled during Fashion Week Friday, Sept. 7, 2018, in New York. (AP Photo/Kevin Hagen)
The Blonds spring 2019 collection with a Disney villains theme is modeled during Fashion Week Friday, Sept. 7, 2018, in New York. (AP Photo/Kevin Hagen)
The Blonds spring 2019 collection with a Disney villains theme is modeled during Fashion Week Friday, Sept. 7, 2018, in New York. (AP Photo/Kevin Hagen)
Designers David, left, and Phillipe Blond appear following the presentation of The Blonds spring 2019 collection with a Disney villains theme during Fashion Week Friday, Sept. 7, 2018, in New York. (AP Photo/Kevin Hagen)
The Blonds spring 2019 collection with a Disney villains theme is modeled during Fashion Week Friday, Sept. 7, 2018, in New York. (AP Photo/Kevin Hagen)
Costume accoutrements are kept backstage at the presentation of The Blonds spring 2019 collection with a Disney villains theme during Fashion Week Friday, Sept. 7, 2018, in New York. (AP Photo/Kevin Hagen)
Model Paris Hilton prepares backstage for the presentation of The Blonds spring 2019 collection during Fashion Week Friday, Sept. 7, 2018, in New York. (AP Photo/Kevin Hagen)
Models prepare backstage for the presentation of The Blonds spring 2019 collection with a Disney villains theme during Fashion Week Friday, Sept. 7, 2018, in New York. (AP Photo/Kevin Hagen)
Models prepare backstage for the presentation of The Blonds spring 2019 collection with a Disney villains theme during Fashion Week Friday, Sept. 7, 2018, in New York. (AP Photo/Kevin Hagen)
WASHINGTON (AP) - Eager to dismiss his critics, President Donald Trump is fabricating the circumstances regarding jobs, the economy and the social safety net.
He insists that Social Security and Medicare are becoming stronger under his watch when the most recent government report shows the financial condition of both programs worsening. On the economy, his claims of spurring the strongest U.S. growth ever fall way short.
The statements were among varied misrepresentations from the White House and in hearings for his Supreme Court nominee, coming in a remarkable week after an anonymous senior official went public about an effort within the administration to thwart his agenda. Trump also faces the special counsel's continuing Russia investigation, fewer than 60 days before November's midterm elections.
In this Sept. 5, 2018, photo, President Donald Trump responds to a reporters question during an event with sheriffs in the East Room of the White House in Washington. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
A look at the rhetoric and how it compares with reality:
MEDICARE AND SOCIAL SECURITY
TRUMP: "We're saving Social Security. The Democrats will destroy Social Security. We're saving Medicare. The Democrats want to destroy Medicare. ...We will keep it going. We're making it stronger. We're making Social Security stronger." - remarks Wednesday.
TRUMP, promoting Montana Republican Matt Rosendale's Senate campaign: "I'm going to protect your Social Security. We're going to take care of your Social Security. Matt Rosendale is going to make sure we're not touching your Social Security and your Medicare is only going one way. That's stronger." - Montana rally Thursday.
THE FACTS: Trump hasn't made Medicare and Social Security stronger.
The government's annual trustees reports on the programs released in June shows the financial condition of both worsening significantly since last year. The projected insolvency for Social Security stayed unchanged - in 2034 - but Medicare's moved three years closer, to 2026.
Both programs also will start tapping their reserves this year, meaning that income from payroll taxes and interest earned by the Social Security and Medicare trust funds will no longer cover costs. That threshold was still a few years away in last year's report. As a result, Social Security and Medicare will need a $416 billion transfer from the government's general revenues this year, when the federal deficit is already rising.
Last year's Republican tax bill, which cut taxes on Social Security benefits, helped exacerbate the shortfall. So did the Trump-supported repeal of the individual mandate in so-called Obamacare. The repeal promises to increase the number of people without health insurance and therefore Medicare payments for uncompensated medical care.
Trump campaigned on a promise not to cut Social Security or Medicare, but he hasn't offered a blueprint for either program. Democrats want to expand the social safety net by spending more.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has argued that tax cuts, rolling back regulations and better trade agreements could boost economic growth and help stabilize Medicare and Social Security. But nonpartisan government experts who produced the annual Social Security assessment didn't seem to accept that, forecasting "sustained moderate economic growth."
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TRADE
TRUMP: "'Ford has abruptly killed a plan to sell a Chinese-made small vehicle in the U.S. because of the prospect of higher U.S. Tariffs.' CNBC. This is just the beginning. This car can now be BUILT IN THE U.S.A. and Ford will pay no tariffs!" - tweet Sunday.
THE FACTS: It's not true that Trump's taxes on Chinese imports will now mean the Focus Active can be built in the U.S.
Citing Trump's new tariffs, Ford on Aug. 31 said it was dropping plans to ship the hatchback vehicle to the United States from China.
But Ford said in a statement Sunday "it would not be profitable to build the Focus Active in the U.S.," given forecast yearly sales below 50,000. For now, that means Ford simply won't sell the vehicle in the United States.
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ECONOMY
TRUMP: "We are breaking all Jobs and Economic Records." - tweet Saturday.
TRUMP: "The Economy is booming like never before, Jobs are at Historic Highs." - tweet Thursday.
THE FACTS: The economy, though healthy, has been in better shape at many times in the past.
Growth reached 4.2 percent at an annual rate in the second quarter. That's the best in the past four years. So far, the economy is growing at a modest rate compared with previous economic expansions. In the late 1990s, growth topped 4 percent for four straight years, from 1997 through 2000. In the 1980s expansion, growth even reached 7.2 percent in 1984.
The unemployment rate of 3.9 percent is strong but it's not at the best point ever. It is near an 18-year low. The all-time low came in 1953, when unemployment fell to 2.5 percent during the Korean War. Meanwhile, a greater percentage of Americans held jobs in 2000 than now.
As a whole, the economy is in its 10th year of growth, a recovery that began under President Barack Obama, who inherited the Great Recession. The data show that the falling unemployment rate and gains in home values reflect the duration of the recovery, rather than any major changes made since 2017 by the Trump administration.
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2016 ELECTION
TRUMP: "The Dems have tried every trick in the playbook-call me everything under the sun. But if I'm all of those terrible things, how come I beat them so badly, 306-223?" - tweet Saturday.
THE FACTS: For the record, Trump misstates the Electoral College vote in his 2016 presidential race against Democrat Hillary Clinton. The official count was 304 to 227, according to an Associated Press tally of the electoral votes in every state.
Clinton won the popular vote, receiving nearly 2.9 million more votes than Trump after racking up more lopsided victories in big states such as New York and California, according to election data compiled by AP. But she lost the presidency due to Trump's winning margin in the Electoral College, which came after he narrowly won less populous Midwestern states including Michigan and Wisconsin.
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'FAKE NEWS' MEDIA
TRUMP: "Isn't it a shame that someone can write an article or book, totally make up stories and form a picture of a person that is literally the exact opposite of the fact, and get away with it without retribution or cost. Don't know why Washington politicians don't change libel laws?" - tweet Wednesday.
TRUMP, addressing GOP Sens. John Thune and Mike Rounds of South Dakota: "We have lousy libel laws... 'Hey Mike and John, could you do me a favor? Create some libel laws, that when people say stuff bad about you, you can sue them and if you're right, you win.'" - remarks Friday at fundraising event in South Dakota.
THE FACTS: He misstates libel law in claiming that someone can "totally make up stories" or freely write "fake news" without penalty.
Under defamation laws, people can bring a lawsuit for slander or libel if they believe someone's statements have injured their reputation. For public officials such as Trump, they must meet a higher legal bar than ordinary people due to First Amendment guarantees of a free press and show the statements were made with "actual malice." That means a publication is at risk by acting with reckless disregard for the truth.
Trump often pledges to make it easier for people to sue for defamation, typically after the publication of books or news articles that present an unflattering portrait of the White House. But he has little influence to change the laws.
Libel laws are set at the state level, which the president and Congress do not have authority to change. Any attempt to loosen the laws would likely run afoul of the First Amendment, barring a successful Supreme Court challenge or constitutional amendment.
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TREASON
TRUMP, questioning whether one of his senior officials acted illegally about an administration effort to thwart his agenda: "TREASON?" - tweet Wednesday.
THE FACTS: Not treason. The official who wrote anonymously in The New York Times about the "quiet resistance" against Trump is surely disloyal to the president but not a traitor in the legal sense.
Treason occurs when a U.S. citizen, or a noncitizen on U.S. territory, wages war against the country or provides material support, not just sympathy, to a declared enemy of the United States.
For instance, in the Cold War case of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were executed for giving atomic secrets to Russia, the Rosenbergs were convicted of espionage, not treason, because the U.S. and Russia were not officially at war. No one has been convicted of treason since the aftermath of World War II, few have been through history and no one has been executed for that crime, says Carlton F.W. Larson, a University of California law professor who has a book coming on treason.
In 2006, the Bush administration brought a treason indictment against Adam Gadahn, an American who authorities say became an operative and spokesman for al-Qaida abroad. The Obama administration said he was killed in a 2015 counterterrorism operation in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region.
Treason is addressed in the Constitution as part of an effort by the framers to prevent the government from using it as a reason to suppress political speech, said J. Richard Broughton, associate dean at University of Detroit Mercy and a member of the Republican National Lawyers Association. Congress has little if any power to change the definition and the executive branch can only bring charges in extremely limited cases.
Trump's opponents have used "treason" loosely as the special counsel investigates contacts between the Trump campaign and Russia, and it is thrown around widely in the public discourse by all sides.
Trump is using the word loosely now.
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KAVANAUGH HEARINGS
DEMOCRATIC SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR of Minnesota, asking about Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh's views on the scope of a president's executive power: "I'm asking about your position that you stated in this law review article that a president should be not subject to investigations while in office. You're only saying that they should be subject to investigation as part of an impeachment (proceeding by Congress) and that there's no other investigation that could occur? Is that fair?" - Senate hearing Wednesday.
KAVANAUGH: "No. ... On criminal investigation and prosecution, I did not take a position on the constitutionality. Period."
THE FACTS: His claim is highly questionable, based on his past writings.
In a 2009 Minnesota Law Review article, Kavanaugh cast doubt on whether a president should be subject to what he described as "time-consuming" criminal investigations, cautioning that it could distract the nation's chief executive from doing the job. He wrote in a footnote that "a serious constitutional question exists regarding whether a President can be criminally indicted and tried while in office."
A decade earlier, Kavanaugh wrote that the Constitution seems to dictate that "congressional investigation must take place in lieu of criminal investigation when the President is the subject of investigation, and that criminal prosecution can occur only after the President has left office."
Special counsel Robert Mueller has been investigating whether the Trump campaign coordinated with Russia during the 2016 campaign to tip the election in his favor, and whether Trump obstructed justice such as by firing FBI director James Comey.
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DEMOCRATIC SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN of California: "In the 1950s and 60s, the two decades before Roe, deaths from illegal abortions in this country ran between 200,000 and 1.2 million. That's according to the Guttmacher Institute." - Senate hearing Wednesday.
THE FACTS: That's wrong, and she corrected herself Friday. Known deaths from illegal abortion were much smaller. The California senator conflated the estimated number of women who had an illegal abortion with the number who died from it, according to the research she cites.
The Guttmacher Institute, which supports abortion rights, cites estimates in a 2003 report that 200,000 to 1.2 million illegal abortions were performed in the 1950s and 1960s in the U.S. The report says the number of deaths from illegal abortion dropped from just under 1,700 in 1940 to just over 300 by 1950 and a little under 200 by 1965. The Supreme Court established a constitutional right to abortion in the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.
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RUSSIA INVESTIGATION
TRUMP ATTORNEY RUDY GIULIANI, citing a "60 day run-up to 2018 elections": "If Mueller wants to show he's not partisan, then issue a report on collusion and obstruction. They will show President Trump did nothing wrong." - tweet Aug. 25.
THE FACTS: He's wrong in suggesting there is a 60-day cutoff date before the Nov. 6 midterm elections, which came Friday, for Mueller to wrap up the Russia investigation.
Trump and his allies including Giulani often cite a Justice Department policy on the issue. But in fact, no written policy setting a deadline exists and Mueller can continue the probe and issue new indictments. He also has no time constraints regarding finishing or releasing the findings of his investigation.
The only thing that's changed is that Labor Day kicked off high election season in the battle for control of the House and Senate. So any action by Mueller between now and the Nov. 6 voting risks being seen as an effort to affect the outcome.
The Justice Department does have guidelines about investigations in advance of an election, which have been interpreted over the past decade to mean that investigators, if possible, should avoid taking specific actions - such as indicting candidates or raiding their office - in the run-up to an election.
"Law enforcement officers and prosecutors may never select the timing of investigative steps or criminal charges for the purpose of affecting any election, or for the purpose of giving an advantage or disadvantage to any candidate or political party," one such memo from 2012 states.
But the policy does not impose a specific cutoff date for investigations before an election.
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Associated Press writers Paul Wiseman, Christopher Rugaber, Josh Boak, Cal Woodward, Eric Tucker and Laurie Kellman contributed to this report.
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SINGAPORE (AP) - A Singaporean court has ordered the return of 15.3 million Singapore dollars ($11.1 million) linked to the indebted 1MDB Malaysian state investment fund.
Law firm Tan Rajah & Cheah said Monday that the misappropriated funds were being transferred to a special 1MDB recovery bank account in the Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur.
It did not say how many individuals were involved.
"Efforts to recover other unlawfully misappropriated assets are ongoing," the firm said in a statement seen by The Associated Press.
Citing an unnamed source, Malaysia's National News Agency Bernama reported in July that the government had appointed the Singapore firm to act against 53 individuals and companies to recover funds belonging to 1MDB.
The news agency said fugitive businessman Low Taek Jho, known just as Jho Low, was among the defendants. The U.S. Justice Department alleges Low was a key figure in the theft and international laundering of $4.5 billion from Malaysia's 1MDB investment fund by associates of former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak.
Najib has pleaded not guilty to seven charges of criminal breach of trust, abuse of power and money laundering in a case related to the alleged multibillion-dollar looting of the 1MDB fund that led to his stunning electoral defeat four months ago.
All the charges against him involve the transfer of 42 million ringgit ($10.1 million) into his bank accounts from SRC International, a former unit of the 1MDB fund that international investigators say was looted of billions by Najib's associates.
LOS ANGELES (AP) - A ten-city North America tour will feature stories and music aimed at bringing together women of all ages and backgrounds.
Reese Witherspoon's Hello Sunshine and WME Partner on Tuesday announced "Together Live" will launch in Boston on Nov. 3. Leaders, musicians, comedians, celebrities and ordinary people will share real stories from their lives.
Witherspoon, Cheryl Strayed, Ruthie Lindsey, Cleo Wade, Abby Wambach, Maysoon Zayid and Priya Parker are among the participants.
FILE - In this Aug. 6, 2018 file photo, Reese Witherspoon arrives at the Hello Sunshine Video on Demand channel launch in Los Angeles. Witherspoon's Hello Sunshine and WME Partner announced Tuesday, Sept. 11, that "Together Live," a ten-city North America tour bringing together women of all ages and backgrounds will launch in Boston on Nov. 3. Leaders, musicians, comedians, celebrities and ordinary people will share real stories from their lives. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, File)
The tour will also visit Philadelphia, Washington, Toronto, Cincinnati, Ohio, Ann Arbor, Michigan, Chicago, Minneapolis, Fayetteville, Arkansas and Austin, Texas.
Organizers say content from the tour will be made available online.
Anyone interested in purchasing presale tickets can register at TogetherLive.com.
WASHINGTON (AP) - Four presidential campaigns. Eight congressional elections. The longest war in U.S. history.
The Sept. 11 attacks have shaped U.S. politics, sometimes over the objections of victims' families. The attacks that crashed four airliners and killed nearly 3,000 also tested U.S. presidents, starting with that indelible image of still-new President George W. Bush hearing his chief of staff whisper news of the attacks that would define his presidency.
A look at how the tragedy affected American politics and leaders:
FILE - In this Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001 file photo, Chief of Staff Andy Card whispers into the ear of President George W. Bush to give him word of the plane crashes into the World Trade Center, during a visit to the Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, Fla. (AP Photo/Doug Mills, File)
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DONALD TRUMP
Trump marked the 17th anniversary by visiting the Shanksville, Pennsylvania field and its brand-new memorial to the 40 people who died when they attempted to regain control over their hijacked airliner and it crashed.
"This field is now a monument to American defiance," Trump said Tuesday. "A piece of America's heart is buried on these grounds."
But Trump, who was in his Trump Tower penthouse four miles from the World Trade Center on the date in 2001, has a mixed history with his response to the attacks. He praised New Yorkers, but also made unsubstantiated claims about what he did and saw that day.
Trump, talking about Muslims, said that "thousands of people were cheering" in Jersey City, New Jersey, as the towers collapsed. There is no evidence of mass celebrations there by Muslims.
Trump has also said he lost "hundreds of friends" in the attack on New York City. He has not provided any names but has mentioned knowing a Roman Catholic priest who died.
As president, Trump's has proposed mass deportations and a ban on some Muslims traveling to the U.S. as part of his anti-terrorism policy.
During a 2016 presidential debate, Trump told Jeb Bush, brother of former President George W. Bush: "The World Trade Center came down during your brother's reign."
Retorted the former Florida governor: "During incredibly challenging times, he kept us safe."
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BARACK OBAMA
On May, 1, 2011, Obama ordered the strike that killed the attacks' architect, Osama bin Laden, in Pakistan and put a trove of terrorist intelligence in U.S. hands.
Obama wasn't shy about that achievement. During his Jan. 10, 2017 farewell address in Chicago, he said he couldn't have dreamed the U.S. would "take out the mastermind of 9/11" on his watch. And he noted the nation had come under no similar attack.
"Because of the extraordinary courage of our men and women in uniform, and the intelligence officers, law enforcement, and diplomats who support them, no foreign terrorist organization has successfully planned and executed an attack on our homeland these past eight years," he said.
Obama became president in part because of an anti-war backlash in the Democratic party by 2008. But he also ordered a troop surge in Afghanistan in December 2009. Under his presidency, the U.S. withdrew most military personnel from Iraq by December 2011.
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GEORGE W. BUSH
The former Texas governor who won the presidency after a Supreme Court battle had been in office only about seven months on the day of the attacks. At 9:05 a.m. he was seated, on camera, before a second-grade class at Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, Florida, when his chief of staff, Andrew Card, whispered: "A second plane has hit the second tower. America is under attack."
A stream of words and images followed: Bush standing atop the debris pile in New York with a bullhorn. "I can hear you!" he declared. "The rest of the world hears you!"
Bush standing before Congress, issuing a challenge to the rest of the world: "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists." Bush, presiding over period of national unity to fight what he called the "axis of evil" and enact legislation to root out terror plots.
Bush invaded Afghanistan and, with bipartisan consent of Congress, Iraq, the latter on the premise - later disproven - that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. Bush won re-election in 2004.
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RUDY GIULIANI
The images of New York's 107th mayor wading through the World Trade Center rubble with a bullhorn and face mask gave Giuliani a national profile as a key leader in the aftermath. However, he was later criticized for declaring the ground zero air quality safe. The U.S. Geological Survey determined it was toxic.
Time magazine named Giuliani Person of the Year for his leadership. Queen Elizabeth made him a knight. Giuliani ran for president in 2007 but was forced to abandon the effort during the GOP presidential primaries.
He backed Trump in 2016 and is now the president's lawyer as special counsel Robert Mueller investigates Russian meddling in the presidential election.
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HILLARY CLINTON
Her 2002 vote in favor of the Iraq war haunted Clinton as she pursued the presidency. She ultimately said the vote to authorize the war had been a mistake.
But she is indelibly part of the response to the 9/11 attacks. Clinton, then a freshman senator from New York, stood on the stairs of the Capitol with other lawmakers that day sang, "God Bless America." She was with Giuliani on the walk through the rubble of the World Trade Center.
And as Obama's secretary of state, she was there, hand over mouth, in the iconic Situation Room photo in which the president and his adviser watch the operation to take out bin Laden unfold. She said during a 2016 presidential debate that she had advised Obama to go through with the raid and she was "proud" to have done so.
On Sept. 11, 2016, Clinton nearly fainted at the ground zero ceremony and was recorded being hustled into an SUV. That prompted questions about her health. Clinton said she was suffering from pneumonia.
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COST OF WAR
A Pentagon report from July 2017 says the post-9/11 war against terrorism in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria cost taxpayers $1.5 trillion.
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CONGRESS
The House and Senate may get an infusion of post-9/11 national security knowledge after the midterm elections.
A generation of military personnel forged on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is retiring, and many veterans are running for seats in Congress on platforms of a can-do ethics that's less partisan than it is pragmatic.
Those who survive the Nov. 6 election are nearly certain to change the face of the institution. Right now, only 19 percent of lawmakers are military veterans, down from around 70 percent in the decade after the Vietnam War.
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'STOP. STOP.'
Nicholas Haros Jr., who lost his mother on Sept. 11, spoke at the 9/11 service in Manhattan Tuesday and called on politicians to stop invoking the date for political purposes.
"Stop. Stop," pleaded Haros, who lost his 76-year-old mother, Frances. "Please stop using the bones and ashes of our loved ones as props in your political theater. Their lives, sacrifices and deaths are worth so much more. Let's not trivialize them."
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Associated Press Writer Lolita Baldor and Associated Press News Researcher Jennifer Farrar contributed to this report.
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Follow Kellman on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/APLaurieKellman
President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump, stand along the September 11th Flight 93 memorial, Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2018, in Shanksville, Pa., escorted by (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
Visitors listen to remarks by President Donald Trump during the September 11th Flight 93 Memorial Service in Shanksville, Pa., Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2018. Trump is marking 17 years since the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil by visiting the Pennsylvania field that became a Sept. 11 memorial. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
President Donald Trump speaks during the September 11th Flight 93 Memorial Service in Shanksville, Pa., Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2018. Trump is marking 17 years since the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil by visiting the Pennsylvania field that became a Sept. 11 memorial. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Trump administration moved closer Tuesday to rolling back Obama-era rules reducing oil and gas industry leaks of methane gas, one of the most potent agents of climate change.
The Environmental Protection Agency formally released its proposed substitute for a 2016 Obama administration rule that aimed to step up detection and elimination of methane leaks at well sites and other oil and gas facilities. The agency's move is part of a broad Trump administration effort to undo President Barack Obama's legacy programs to fight climate change by cutting emissions from oil, gas and coal.
The EPA's proposal Tuesday conceded that relaxing the Obama-era rule for methane leaks at oil and gas sites would put an additional 380,000 tons (350,000 metric tons) of methane into the atmosphere from 2019 to 2025. The amount is roughly equivalent to more than 30 million tons (27 million metric tons) of carbon dioxide, another fossil-fuel emission that receives far more attention in efforts to slow climate change.
FILE - In this March 25, 2014 file photo, a worker adjusts pipes during a hydraulic fracturing operation at a well pad near Mead, Colorado. The Trump administration is moving to roll back Obama-era rules intended to reduce leaks of climate-changing methane from oil and gas facilities. The Environmental Protection Agency formally released a proposed substitute rule Tuesday. The EPA acknowledges the rollback would lead to more methane leaking into the atmosphere. The agency says relaxing oversight will save $75 million in regulatory costs annually. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley, file)
The EPA noted that overall increased pollution as a result of its proposal "may also degrade air quality and adversely affect health and welfare." Relaxing federal oversight will save $75 million in regulatory costs annually, the agency said.
Kathleen Sgamma, president of the Western Energy Alliance, a Colorado-based group that represents more than 300 companies, said the proposed changes make the EPA rule more efficient and workable. The previous rule was overly burdensome and "full of red tape. This rule cleans that up, makes it more practical" for industry to comply, Sgamma said in an interview.
Oil and gas drillers have "a four-decade long trend to reduce emissions," and the new EPA rules recognize that reality, Sgamma said, adding that she hopes an Interior rule to be finalized in coming days will show a similar practical streak. The pending rule by the Bureau of Land Management applies to fracking sites on public lands.
Environmentalists contend energy companies already have demonstrated they can comply with tougher monitoring and that only poorly operated companies were having trouble with the new requirements.
"Once again, the Trump administration is putting the interests of the worst-operated oil and gas companies ahead of the health and welfare of everyday Americans," said Matt Watson, an associate vice president at the Environmental Defense Fund.
Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown of California on Tuesday told a meeting in San Francisco ahead of a climate conference there that President Donald Trump's proposal to ease monitoring of methane releases is "insane" and "borders on criminality."
"It perhaps is the most obvious and dangerous and irresponsible action by Mr. Trump - and that's saying quite a lot," Brown said.
The EPA under Obama completed the existing rule in May 2016, and it took effect that August. Industry groups pushed the EPA to reconsider, and the Trump administration put parts of it on hold in May 2017.
The rule was reinstated by the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., last year after environmental groups sued, and it remains in effect, according to the EPA.
Tuesday's action opens a 60-day period for public comment ahead of any final decision by the Trump administration.
In North Dakota, the nation's biggest oil-producing state after Texas, drillers scaled back production for a time this summer to keep so-called flaring - burning off of methane and other gases pumped up as waste byproducts with the oil - within state limits.
North Dakota Air Quality Director Terry O'Clair said the state typically adopts "nothing more stringent than the federal rules." State officials would reconsider their recently toughened rules on oilfield gas leaks if federal officials loosen theirs, he said.
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Brown reported from Billings, Montana. Matthew Daly in Washington, James MacPherson in Bismarck, N.D., and Juliet Williams in San Francisco also contributed.
HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) - Zimbabwe opposition leader Nelson Chamisa plans his own "inauguration" on Saturday after losing disputed elections, the latest in a series of African politicians to hold a ceremony of defiance while claiming the presidency.
The rally at a stadium in the capital, Harare, will affirm Chamisa as the "duly elected president," spokesman Nkululeko Sibanda told The Associated Press.
The spokesman refused to say whether Chamisa will take an oath: "We are still working on the modalities but we will not break any laws."
A government deputy minister, Energy Mutodi, warned on Twitter that "any attempt to delegitimize gvt will not be tolerated and those bent on causing anarchy will be dealt with mercilessly."
The 40-year-old Chamisa narrowly lost the July 30 election, the first after the fall of decades-long leader Robert Mugabe. The Constitutional Court rejected a legal challenge by his opposition Movement for Democratic Change alliance that alleged irregularities and upheld the win of President Emmerson Mnangagwa, a former Mugabe confidant.
Mock inaugurations have become a mini-trend in Africa in recent years.
In January, Kenya's opposition leader Raila Odinga held one after successfully challenging last year's election in court but then boycotting a fresh vote, despite warnings from the government that the ceremony would constitute treason. Chamisa counts Odinga as a close ally.
Odinga and President Uhuru Kenyatta later made a high-profile reconciliation, saying they would work together to unite the country after months of deadly turmoil.
In 2016, after losing an election marred by allegations of fraud, Ugandan opposition figure Kizza Besigye was sworn in at a secret ceremony witnessed by some colleagues. After Besigye's party released a video of it, the government charged him with treason.
That case remains in court, while Besigye is popularly celebrated by many supporters as "the people's president."
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Associated Press writer Rodney Muhumuza in Kampala, Uganda contributed.
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Follow Africa news at https://twitter.com/AP_Africa
WASHINGTON (AP) - Defense Secretary Jim Mattis says that two Korean War dead have been identified from remains turned over to the U.S. in July by North Korea.
Mattis tells Pentagon reporters Tuesday that experts moved swiftly on analyzing those two sets of remains, as they thought they had a good chance of identifying them because of where they were located and other information.
He didn't publicly identify them.
North Korea turned over 55 boxes of remains to U.S. officials at Wonsan, North Korea, on July 27. The Defense Department laboratory in Hawaii is working to identify them. Last month, the department identified one service member whose dog tag was returned.
Mattis says talks are ongoing with North Korea to get additional remains repatriated.
TORONTO (AP) - Alfonso Cuaron's last movie, the dazzling space thriller "Gravity," won seven Oscars and grossed more than $720 million worldwide. His new movie, "Roma," is based on his childhood memories and was shot in black and white in the Mexico City neighborhood he grew up in.
With limitless opportunities at his disposal after the success of "Gravity," Cuaron decided to go home. And the result - a neorealist blend of intensely personal filmmaking and overwhelming visual command - has been hailed as a masterpiece.
"There were huge and beautiful offers after 'Gravity,' and very tempting. And offers from a financial standpoint that were really appetizing," Cuaron said in an interview. "But it was one of these things that I needed to do out of the deepest admiration for cinema that has to do with personal journeys."
Director Alfonso Cuaron holds aloft the Golden Lion Best Film award for 'Roma' at the awards photo call of the 75th edition of the Venice Film Festival in Venice, Italy, Saturday, Sept. 8, 2018. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
Days after "Roma" took the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, Cuaron and the film arrived at the Toronto International Film Festival where the rapturous responses to his soul-searching continued unabated. "Roma," which will have a limited theatrical release on Netflix this December, is Cuaron's first Spanish-language film since his 2001 breakthrough, "Y Tu Mama Tambien."
But for Cuaron, "Roma" is more than that. It's a new beginning.
"It's something that's been brewing for a long, long, long time. I first started taking it seriously in 2006. It's the film I was meant to do. It's my first film. It's the film in the sense that I made absolutely fearlessly. I threw away everything that I have learned to do this film," said Cuaron. "Well, not everything because I wouldn't have been able to do this before now."
"Roma" is about domestic worker Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio, speaking in her native Mixtec), who devotedly works for a family that lives in the Mexico City neighborhood of Roma. Their home life, while pristine, is cracking (the father leaves his wife). And the tumult of early '70s Mexico, when student protests clashed violently with the police, is all around. Society is fraying, and it's the women who bear much of the brunt of it.
"It's an observation of a character journey as much as it's an observation of a country, and a country that, like the United States and much of the world, has this perverse relationship between social class and race," said Cuaron.
The production was unique. In the lengthy 108-day shoot, no crew member or actor had a screenplay. The only one beside Cuaron who did have a script was executive producer David Linde of Participant Media, who noted at the film's Toronto premiere: "And I don't speak Spanish." Unlike most films, Cuaron also shot in absolute continuity.
"I didn't want the actors or even the crew to have preconceptions or defined answers," said Cuaron. "It was a process for everyone to be constantly searching. I was just honoring moments - the sense of time and space in those moments, but also honoring the emotional elements of those moments."
Cuaron estimates that 90 percent of the film comes from his own memories and old photographs. He reproduced his family's home, cast actors who looked as close as possible to his family members and obsessed over recreating the details of his early life. Cuaron served as his own cinematographer after his usual director of photography, Emmanuel "Chivo" Lubezki, had to pull out due to other commitments.
"I reproduced every inch of my childhood home with 70 percent of the original furniture," Cuaron said. "We reproduced every single tile that existed in that house. We shot on the street of my childhood home. We shot in most of the places where those scenes took place."
And though "Roma" is of a far smaller scale and more intimate than his "Gravity" or "Children of Men," the 56-year-old filmmaker used many of the techniques he's mastered from more spectacle-driven movies. He shot it digitally in 65mm and used Dolby Atmos for the lush sound design. In the film's climactic moment, the sounds of the churning surf on a beach envelop the audience.
On the stage of the Princess of Wales Theatre in Toronto, Cuaron explained the journey of "Roma" to the crowd: "I really wanted to come to terms with the elements that forged me."
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Follow AP Film Writer Jake Coyle on Twitter at: http://twitter.com/jakecoyleAP
For many vacationers on North Carolina's Outer Banks, a trip there is not complete without at least catching a glimpse of the majestic wild horses that roam the islands. As Hurricane Florence approaches, many are expressing concern about how the horses will fare during the powerful Category 4 storm.
The Facebook page of the Corolla Wild Horse Fund was peppered with comments from worried tourists and residents.
"Thinking of all of the horses as Florence approaches. ... Praying for their safety," wrote one concerned woman.
FILE - In this July 25, 2011, file photo, a group of wild horses cools off in the ocean breeze on the beach in Corolla, N.C. As North Carolina braces for Hurricane Florence, some tourists and residents are worried about the famous wild horses that roam the Outer Banks. But Sue Stuska, a wildlife biologist based at Cape Lookout National Seashore, said the horses instinctively know what to do in a storm. (AP Photo/Virginian-Pilot, Steve Earley, File)
"Prayers for protection from the storm for these beautiful animals & the young foals," wrote another.
Wildlife experts say they needn't worry. Wild horses are believed to have first settled on the Outer Banks hundreds of years ago and have survived many powerful storms.
Sue Stuska, a wildlife biologist based at Cape Lookout National Seashore, where 118 wild horses live on Shackleford Banks, said the horses are highly sensitive to weather changes and instinctively know what to do in a storm. She said they go to higher ground during flooding, including the dunes, and head for shrub thickets and a maritime forest during high winds.
"Naturally, they are meant to be outside and they have high ground and they have thick places to hide," Stuska said.
"Don't worry about them. They've survived for hundreds of years, and we expect that they'll be just fine."
The Corolla Wild Horse Fund, a group devoted to protecting and managing a herd of wild Colonial Spanish Mustangs that roams on the northernmost Currituck Outer Banks, posted a message on its Facebook page Monday to reassure horse lovers that they expect the animals will be just fine.
"The horses have lived on this barrier island for 500 years, and they are well equipped to deal with rough weather," the group wrote.
"They know where to go to stay high and dry and are probably in better shape right now than most of us humans who are scrambling with final preparations. They are much better off without any help from us; anything we might do in the hopes of 'protecting' them would probably end up being more dangerous and stressful for them than the storm."
Horse deaths during storms are not unheard of, however.
John Taggart, an associate professor emeritus who teaches environmental science at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, said five wild horses drowned after they were swept off the Rachel Carson Reserve near Beaufort, North Carolina, during Hurricane Isabel in 2003. But that kind of loss is unusual during storms, Taggart said.
"They do have an instinct for protection, of trying to head for higher ground, getting out of the wind and then sticking together in a group," he said.
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For the latest on Hurricane Florence, visit https://www.apnews.com/tag/Hurricanes .
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Chloe Sevigny has been trying to do a fresh take on the Lizzie Borden tale for over a decade.
A fateful trip to the house in Fall River, Massachusetts, convinced her to look at Borden's life through a different, more empathetic lens, pulling back the curtain on the suffocating circumstances surrounding the infamous 1892 ax murders of her father and stepmother and what might have driven her to do it. Borden was tried and acquitted of the killings, but continues to be a source of intrigue today.
After years of false starts, "Lizzie," a tense and beautifully rendered psychological thriller co-starring Kristen Stewart as Bridget Sullivan, the maid and a pivotal figure in Borden's life, is finally making it to select theaters Friday.
In this Aug 23, 2018 photo, Kristen Stewart, left, and Chloe Sevigny pose for a portrait at the Four Seasons Hotel in Los Angeles to promote their film "Lizzie," a provocative Lizzie Borden biopic. (Photo by Rebecca Cabage/Invision/AP)
Sevigny, 43, and Stewart, 28, it girls of different generations, spoke to The Associated Press about the shoot, why the nudity in it is "punk" and directing short films before features.
The following remarks have been edited for clarity and brevity.
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AP: How did you decide to go after Kristen?
Sevigny: Bryce (Kass), the writer, said Kristen and I was like 'Oh yeah. No one else.' So then we went about trying to seduce her.
Stewart: I'm really easy. It was not difficult.
AP: Visiting the house helped you figure out the story?
Sevigny: It bore out our decision to tell the story this way. Not only were we interested in the love story, a tragic love story at that, and them both searching for freedom and finding each other, but also just the practicality that she (Bridget) was outside the house. There was no way she couldn't have known what was going on.
AP: Kristen what did you find compelling about Bridget?
Stewart: I felt protective over her. She's got truly no voice. I really liked the kind of lens that she provided us of Lizzie. The way she saw her was really sweet and kind of innocent but also pure.
AP: It shows women at that time of different classes.
Sevigny: They're all Andrew (Borden's) prisoners. Me and Abby and Emma and Bridget. We're all prisoners in this household together with no options.
AP: Tell me about the decision to be fully exposed in this film.
Sevigny: The movie deserved it. That's what the movie needed. I think it was even my decision. I wanted the movie to have that. And I think it's kind of punk as a 43-year-old to be naked. I feel like we're bombarded with these beauty ideals and I am trying to in my small way (with my Instagram) to say look at this woman, look at Anna Magnani, she's a great beauty, and have girls see that and see more diversity and shapes and sizes and looks and know that these people are also appreciated for whatever they bring, not only their looks, but their talent.
AP: I saw on your Instagram that you two hung out at this bar, Original Pinkie Masters, during the shoot in Georgia.
Sevigny: That was I think the first gay bar in Savannah. And there's an art school there so a lot of the art students and professors would be there. It was a nice generation gap. They had a great jukebox with all this amazing obscure music and it was just our local.
Stewart: It's just a great bar.
Sevigny: Cool crowd. Nobody bothered her. They bothered me more than her.
Stewart: Which means it's a REALLY cool bar.
Sevigny: It just means they're older.
AP: Why did you both start out directing shorts before features?
Sevigny: I was frustrated as an actress, always giving myself over to someone else's vision. Not that I didn't always agree with their vision or wanted to be part of it or thought they were great filmmakers, but still you're not in the editing room, it's somebody else's thing. I wanted to have my own thing and express my own ideas and visions and loves.
Stewart: Yeah same, I started so young, I've never felt more seen or expressed or like allowed to really be as when you've really told a story well, one that got inside you. I don't draw a huge distinction between acting and directing. I think as an actor I love the indulgence, but I don't want to say lack of control because I'm very controlling, I'm always in the director's back pocket like, "How is this being seen?" I want to be able to fit into your frame perfectly. I want to know what it looks like.
Sevigny: I don't. I become too self-aware.
Stewart: But I wanted to do a short before a feature because I had never done it before. Straight-up. And I love what shorts do for people's willingness to do weird things. You're not trying to entertain people, not that that's something that I'm not into, I'm into that too, but it's fun to do truly a free-verse poem.
Sevigny: More of an expression.
Stewart: It doesn't have to be an hour and-a-half, it doesn't have to be digestible. It just has to have a taste.
Sevigny: People are like why are you doing another short, why aren't you doing a feature? And I have such reverence for feature filmmakers, I'm not prepared yet. I still am experimenting and learning.
AP: And as actors you both are often rebelling against the big business of Hollywood, consistently choosing interesting projects and directors to work with.
Sevigny: It's called taste.
Stewart: And she strikes again! Dude! Honestly if I said that I would sound like such a tit, but because it's her, because you genuinely actually have the pull, you can actually lift up that statement and (expletive) hurl it.
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Follow AP Film Writer Lindsey Bahr on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ldbahr
In this Aug 23, 2018 photo, Kristen Stewart, left, and Chloe Sevigny pose for a portrait at the Four Seasons Hotel in Los Angeles to promote their film "Lizzie," a provocative Lizzie Borden biopic. (Photo by Rebecca Cabage/Invision/AP)
In this Aug 23, 2018 photo, Kristen Stewart, left, and Chloe Sevigny pose for a portrait at the Four Seasons Hotel in Los Angeles to promote their film "Lizzie," a provocative Lizzie Borden biopic. (Photo by Rebecca Cabage/Invision/AP)
In this Aug 23, 2018 photo, Kristen Stewart, left, and Chloe Sevigny pose for a portrait at the Four Seasons Hotel in Los Angeles to promote their film "Lizzie," a provocative Lizzie Borden biopic. (Photo by Rebecca Cabage/Invision/AP)
As Hurricane Florence churns toward the East Coast with catastrophic power, the storm has become a reminder of how vulnerable North Carolina's coast is.
Vast amounts of new development now stand on the shifting sands of barrier islands there, amid the rising waters of climate change.
Except for a few short stretches, the state is flanked almost entirely by those islands, which are susceptible to flooding and storm surges. Climate change and development are only making matters worse. North Carolina's governor has ordered a mandatory evacuation for the barrier islands.
FILE - In this May 15, 2007, file photo, summer vacation and rental properties sit vulnerable beside the ocean, in Buxton N.C. Hurricane Florence has become a reminder of how vulnerable North Carolina's coast is. Experts said Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2018, that the storm could be the state's most destructive on record. (AP Photo/Gerry Broome, File)
Here's a look at why North Carolina could be particularly hit hard and how climate change and development have made living on the coast even more risky.
WHY IS NORTH CAROLINA SO VULNERABLE?
North Carolina's coast is almost entirely made up of narrow, low-lying barrier islands. And a modern wave of tourist-driven development, including acres of pricey vacation homes, has been built in places where it probably should not have been.
The Outer Banks stretch along the northern half of the state's coast and jut out into the Atlantic. But barrier islands also flank much of the lower part of the state. These islands are particularly vulnerable to storm surges and to being washed over from both sides.
Development only makes the problem worse because communities replenish shorelines that are eroding or have been depleted by storms. As sea levels rise, barrier islands typically move toward the mainland over long periods of time. Holding them in place by artificial means only makes them more vulnerable.
"You look out there and you think the shoreline is a fixed line in the sand, and it's not," said Laura J. Moore, an associate professor of geology at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.
"The sea level is rising and the shoreline needs to move with it," she said. "By preventing islands from moving, we're ultimately leading to the diminishment and loss of the islands."
WHAT COULD HAPPEN?
Florence could be the most destructive storm to hit North Carolina's coast since record keeping began, said Robert S. Young, director of the Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines, which is a joint venture between Duke University and Western Carolina University.
The storm surge could surpass the one wrought by Hurricane Hazel in 1954, which was 18 feet above median sea level when it hit Sunset Beach near the South Carolina border.
On the Outer Banks, new inlets could form while others are widened and deepened. The storm likely will blow water into the Pamlico and Albemarle sounds. As Florence churns back out, the wind could blow that water back over the Outer Banks.
"We will once again kiss Highway 12 goodbye," Orrin H. Pilkey, a professor emeritus of geology at Duke University, said of the Outer Banks' main highway.
Much of the mainland in eastern North Carolina is also likely to flood from heavy rains because the terrain is so flat and the water table is so high.
But the damage likely won't be as catastrophic as Hurricane Sandy was when it hit New Jersey or other storms that have struck far more developed areas in places like Florida.
"It's not a worst-case scenario for property damage," said Young. "Many of these communities have tried to limit development. But there's still a lot of property value there. The damage still might be catastrophic on a North Carolina scale."
WHAT ROLE DOES CLIMATE CHANGE PLAY?
Climate change is making a bad situation worse.
Warmer waters increase the size and intensity of hurricanes. The storm season is longer. As sea levels rise, shorelines become more vulnerable. Water tables are higher, making coastal areas more susceptible to flooding.
"A storm like this would have been massively destructive 100 years ago, even before we had that century of rising sea levels," Young said. "And it will be significantly greater 100 years from now depending on what sea-level rise does."
Pilkey, of Duke University, said he hopes Florence offers people more motivation to retreat from North Carolina's barrier islands.
"Sooner or later we need to get out of there," he said. "We'll retreat now in a planned fashion. Or we'll retreat later in response to a catastrophe like the one that's about to happen."
For the latest on Hurricane Florence, visit www.apnews.com/tag/Hurricanes .
FILE-In this Oct. 15, 1954 file photo, Hurricane Hazel destruction is seen in Morehead City, N.C. The last time the midsection of the East Coast stared down a hurricane like Florence, Dwight Eisenhower was in the White House and Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio were newlyweds. Florence could inflict the hardest hurricane punch the Carolinas have seen in more than 60 years, with rain and wind of more than 130 mph (209 kph). (AP Photo/Clifton Guthrie, File)
FILE - In this May 10, 2015, file photo, the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse is seen from the porch of the light keepers house in Buxton, N.C. Hurricane Florence has become a reminder of how vulnerable North Carolina's coast is. Experts said Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2018, that the storm could be the state's most destructive on record. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen, File)
MANASSAS, Va. (AP) - It began with an argument between husband and wife over whether she'd attend a male dance revue. It ended with the wife dead, a police officer fatally wounded and two other officers shot and bleeding on a suburban northern Virginia lawn.
Jurors heard opening statements Tuesday in the death-penalty trial of an Army staff sergeant charged with killing his wife and one of the officers, who responded to the scene on her very first shift. The two other officers survived, but suffered serious injuries.
Ronald Hamilton, 34, an Army staff sergeant from Woodbridge, is charged with capital murder and other counts in the deaths of his wife, Crystal Hamilton, and Officer Ashley Guindon.
Prosecutor Brian Boyle told jurors in opening statements that Hamilton's actions reverberated beyond the Hamilton and Guindon families.
"By the time he was done unleashing his violence, a neighborhood was scarred, a police department was devastated, three police officers were on operating tables and only two would survive," Boyle said. "A son was left without a mother."
Boyle said Guindon and the other officers arrived just a few minutes after Crystal made her 911 call. Officer Jesse Hempen arrived first, and asked Ronald Hamilton to let him in to check on the welfare of his wife. As Hamilton shut the door, a second officer, David McKeown, arrived with Guindon and tried to use his foot to force his way into the home. It was then that Hamilton began shooting at the officers with a military-style rifle. One of the officers, despite his wounds, was able to radio his colleagues a "signal one," meaning an officer was down. That prompted a massive police response.
Boyle said that when officers arrived, "bodies are littered across the front yard of the Hamilton residence. ... As the officers come in all they see are heaps of bright blue" from the officers' uniforms.
Defense attorneys acknowledged that Hamilton committed the shootings. Indeed, they offered shortly after Hamilton's arrest to plead guilty and accept a life sentence if prosecutors took the death penalty off the table. The prosecutors declined.
What is in dispute is Hamilton's state of mind at the time of the shootings, said defense lawyer Edward Ungvarsky, who told jurors that Hamilton lacked premeditation necessary to be convicted of capital murder.
Ungvarsky said the Hamiltons' marriage had long been troubled, and that a fight that day was precipitated by Ronald Hamilton's anger at his wife's plans to attend a Chippendales-style dance revue with her girlfriends. Ronald Hamilton struck his wife during the argument, and Crystal Hamilton called 911 for help. At that point, he knew that his military career, which depended on maintaining a security clearance, and his marriage could be over.
"He felt his world was crashing down around him," Ungvarsky said. "Passions erupted."
Ungvarsky said Hamilton fired indiscriminately at the officers as they tried to enter his home, but that he lacked any intention of killing them.
Jurors heard the 911 call Crystal Hamilton made, in which she said through sobs that her husband had slammed her onto the floor. That last thing heard before the call disconnected was her screaming "Stop!"
Jurors also heard a written statement from the Hamiltons' 13-year-old son, Tyriq, who was home at the time of the shootings. Both sides agreed to let him provide a written statement so he wouldn't have to testify in person.
The statement was read to jurors by Tyriq's maternal grandmother.
"I heard like three shots," Tyriq wrote in the statement. "Then my mom went silent."
Hamilton, dressed in his military dress uniform, did not speak during Tuesday's proceedings and often hung his head as his actions were described to the jury.
The trial is expected to last several weeks. Among those scheduled to testify are the two officers who survived the shootings, McKeown and Hempen.
WASHINGTON (AP) - Extremism poses a greater global threat today than it did 17 years ago, despite costly U.S. military action overseas, according to members of the U.S. government commission that investigated the Sept. 11 attacks.
Deaths from terrorist attacks each year have increased substantially since 2001 and violent extremism has spread, according to the report Tuesday from the task force on extremism in fragile states led by former New Jersey Gov. Tom Kean and former Democratic Rep. Lee Hamilton.
Kean and Hamilton led the 9/11 Commission that was created in 2002 to make an official report of events leading up to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington by al-Qaida, and make policy recommendations. Members of the more recently constituted task force include former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, former Deputy Secretary of State William Burns, and former U.S. national security adviser Stephen Hadley.
Their assessment, released on the attacks' anniversary, comes as the war in Afghanistan, which was initiated to defeat al-Qaida and their Taliban hosts, shows no sign of ending. American troops are also deployed in Iraq and Syria and are seeking what the Trump administration calls the "enduring" defeat of the Islamic State group, or IS, which has emerged as the most lethal, global terror threat in recent years. Further U.S. forces are scattered at trouble spots in Africa.
"Terrorists still aspire to strike the United States, but the dangers of extremism to the United States now extend beyond the homeland," said the report published by the U.S. Institute for Peace which convened the task force. It warns that violent extremism "has spread across a wide arc of instability stretching through fragile states in the Middle East, the Horn of Africa, and the Sahel." The Horn of Africa lies in the east of the continent, and Sahel refers to North Africa.
The report says the ensuing chaos and instability has undermined U.S. influence and allowed extremists to launch "their most daring onslaughts" and make "their greatest gains."
U.S. officials offered a more upbeat assessment of American counter-terrorism efforts on Tuesday. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in a statement that while efforts to eradicate terrorism continue, the U.S. has made "great strides" in that fight. He noted the "central role" of diplomacy in combating extremism and promoting global stability and freedom.
FBI Director Christopher Wray said the U.S. is "dramatically better positioned," against another possible Sept. 11-style attack. While major terrorist organizations continue to pose a threat to the U.S., Wray said the FBI is also "very focused now on homegrown violent extremists," largely radicalized online.
The task force's report says that extremists have tried to drive the United States to "military, financial, and political exhaustion through the relentless grind of asymmetric warfare."
Wars against terrorism in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria have cost taxpayers $1.5 trillion, according to a Pentagon report from July 2017. A Brown University study puts the price tag at more than $4 trillion if costs like the medical care of wounded veterans are taken into account.
Still, the task force urges that the U.S. consolidate its gains in the fight against IS extremists which it says "remain a threat to stability in recently liberated areas, as well as in our homelands."
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Latest on journalist Bob Woodward's new book on President Donald Trump's administration (all times local):
1:35 p.m.
Former White House staff secretary Rob Porter says a new book from journalist Bob Woodward offers a "selective and often misleading portrait" of President Donald Trump and his administration.
FILE - This June 11, 2012 file photo shows former Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward speaking during an event to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Watergate in Washington. Woodward says top staffers in President Donald Trump's administration "are not telling the truth" when they deny incendiary quotes about Trump attributed to them in his new book. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, file)
Porter says in a statement that suggesting materials from Trump's desk were "stolen" to prevent Trump from adding his signature "misunderstands how the White House document review process works."
The book by the longtime Washington Post reporter says former Trump economic adviser Gary Cohn once removed a document from the president's desk that would have ended a trade deal with South Korea.
Porter says he was tasked with ensuring that "pros and cons were evaluated" on policy proposals and other decisions. He says that doesn't make a person "part of a 'resistance.'"
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5:51 a.m.
President Donald Trump vented over White House leaks on Monday as a new tell-all book commands attention, an anonymous writer detailing "resistance" in the administration remains at large and a former staffer reveals more private recordings of the commander in chief.
Trump continues to insist privately that he wants leakers punished - in particular, the author of an unsigned New York Times opinion piece. But it remains unclear if his administration will discipline anyone.
Spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders has said that no lie detectors are being used to smoke out the writer of the op-ed, though she insisted the West Wing would like to see an investigation.
Sanders said it's up to the Justice Department to make that determination.
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) - An Oklahoma man says new evidence of prosecutors withholding information should result in a new trial on his 1999 murder conviction and death penalty for killing an Arkansas family as part of a plot to set up a whites-only nation in the Pacific Northwest.
Attorneys for Danny Lee, 45, of Yukon say in documents filed late Monday in U.S. District Court in Little Rock that prosecutors illegally failed to tell defense attorneys that a witness, who testified that Lee admitted to the murders to him, also told investigators he believed Lee was lying.
The witness "warned authorities that Mr. Lee had a habit of falsely claiming responsibility for criminal acts in order to make himself seem like a 'tough guy,'" according to the filing, which said the man was told by prosecutors not to volunteer information while testifying.
FILE - In this Oct. 31 1997, file photo Danny Lee waits for his arraignment hearing for the 1996 murders of an Arkansas family in Russellville, Ark. Lee wants to get a new trial in his 1999 conviction and death sentence. Attorneys for Lee said in documents filed Monday, Sept. 10, 2018, in federal court in Little Rock that prosecutors illegally failed to tell defense attorneys that a witness who testified that Lee admitted to the murders also told investigators he believed Lee was lying. (Dan Pierce /The Courier via AP, File)
"He therefore did not relate to the jury that Danny Lee had a penchant for boasting about acts he had not done; that he had consistently warned authorities about that fact; and that despite appearing as a witness for the (g)overnment, he continued to discount the veracity of Mr. Lee's purported admission," the motion said.
Lee's attorneys also said DNA tests in 2007 excluded Lee from evidence connected to the slayings and that, plus the newly revealed information should result in a new trial.
The motion did not indicate when the information was discovered, and Lee's attorney, Morris Moon of the Federal Capital Habeas Project, did not immediately return a phone call to The Associated Press.
The filing also said DNA testing in 2007 revealed that hair on evidence linked to the killings, and to Lee by testimony during the trial, has excluded Lee.
Court filings do not show that a direct appeal based on DNA evidence has been filed, but an appeal claiming Lee's defense attorneys during the trial should have requested DNA testing on the hair was denied in 2008 on the grounds that not enough of the evidence existed at the time.
Lee and Chevie Kehoe, 45, of Colville, Washington, were convicted of killing gun dealer William Mueller, his wife Nancy Mueller and her 8-year-old daughter, Sarah Powell, of Russellville in 1996 and stealing guns and cash as part of the plot to set up a whites-only nation.
Kehoe, described by federal prosecutors at the time as the leader of the plot, was sentenced to life without parole days before Lee was sentenced.
Prosecutors, seeking the death penalty for both men, at the time described Kehoe as the ringleader and Lee as his henchman.
"In light of the sentencing that Chevie Kehoe received, I'm struggling to understand the verdict," said Jack Lassiter, who represented Lee at the time.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Chris Givens in Little Rock referred questions to the U.S. Department of Justice, which also did not immediately return a phone call for comment.
PITTSBURGH (AP) - The attorney for a Pennsylvania officer charged in the shooting death of an unarmed black teenager as he fled a traffic stop Tuesday asked the judge in the case if he would be willing to recuse himself.
Attorney Patrick Thomassey, who represents East Pittsburgh Police Officer Michael Rosfeld, asked Judge Anthony Mariani during a pre-trial hearing to recuse himself because of comments he made on a cable news program about whether the shooting was justified. The comments were made before he was assigned to the case. Thomassey said Mariani used language suggesting that the bystander video of the incident might show the shooting wasn't justified and saying the officer might have shot 17-year-old Antwon Rose Jr. out of frustration.
Mariani said Tuesday that he was able to be fair and was inclined to stay on the case, but he set a hearing date for Sept. 21 if Thomassey wanted to make a formal motion to have him removed. Thomassey did not immediately return a message from The Associated Press seeking comment Tuesday.
Rosfeld, 30, is charged with criminal homicide in the June shooting death of Rose as he fled a traffic stop. The officer was charged after investigators said his story about whether he saw or believed he saw a gun in Rose's hand changed during his interview.
Thomassey made the argument Tuesday that Rosfeld was justified in firing his weapon because he believed the teen had a gun.
The car Rose was a passenger in, and which was later determined to be a jitney, was stopped because it matched the description of a vehicle involved in a drive-by shooting that happened a few minutes earlier in a neighboring town to East Pittsburgh. Prosecutors have said Rose was not armed and was not involved in that shooting.
Rose was shot in the back, elbow and jaw as he fled. Witnesses recorded portions of the shooting and posted it to social media.
Thomassey indicated in court Tuesday that he also plans to file a motion to have the jury selection take place in a different county because of the wide amount of publicity the case has received.
The shooting led to days of protests including a late-night march that shut down a portion of a major highway.
A trial date was set for Feb. 26, 2019, which would be faster than the 12 to 18 months an average homicide case takes to reach a jury in Allegheny County.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) - Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is referencing hurricanes to describe the "challenging election" that Senate Republicans are facing.
The Kentucky Republican says the "wind's going to be in our face, we don't know if it's going to be Category 3, 4 or 5." He named nine states, including Tennessee and Indiana, as places where Senate races are "dead even."
"Every one of them like a knife fight in an alley, just a brawl in every one of those places," McConnell told reporters Tuesday in Louisville. He says he hopes "when the smoke clears we'll still have a majority in the Senate."
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Ky., right, Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., left, Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., center left, speak with reporters after the Republican policy luncheon on Capitol Hill, in Washington, Wednesday, Sept. 5, 2018. (AP Photo/Cliff Owen)
Republicans have a slim 51-49 Senate majority, but they have one big advantage in the election. They are defending only nine incumbent seats, while Democrats are defending 26.
CAIRO (AP) - Marking the 17th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, the leader of al-Qaida has called on Muslims to wage war against the United States throughout the world.
In a 30-minute speech released Tuesday, Ayman al-Zawahri went to great lengths to portray the United States as a religious enemy of Muslims, using Washington's transfer of its embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem as evidence of that enmity.
The Washington-based SITE group, which monitors media material by militants across the world, released an English transcript of the speech.
"America (is) the number one enemy of Muslims ... despite of its professed secularism," al-Zawahri said in the video. He listed 14 directives to fight the United States, including an appeal for Muslim unity and jihadists close ranks.
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - The death of a woman living at a Minneapolis homeless camp is raising fresh concerns about the health of the rapidly growing number of people staying there.
Alissa Rose Skipintheday, 26, was found unconscious and not breathing last week near the camp, which is known by locals as the Wall of Forgotten Natives because it is close to a highway sound wall and is made up primarily of Native Americans. Skipintheday died Saturday at Hennepin County Medical Center, the Star Tribune reported. The Hennepin County Medical Examiner's office said Tuesday that her death remains under investigation.
Family members and camp residents say Skipintheday was without her emergency inhaler when she had an asthma attack. She had been living at the camp for weeks.
"This is a tragic event that is painful for that entire community," said Dr. Antony Stately, chief executive of the Native American Community Clinic in Minneapolis. "It really highlights the critical nature of conditions at the camp and the urgent need for on-site medical care."
About 300 people are living at the site near the Little Earth housing project for Native Americans. The growing tent city has alarmed health officials and American Indian leaders. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey had pledged to find housing for everyone by the end of September. But many Native American agencies see that goal as unrealistic as the encampment has roughly quadrupled in size over the past month.
Residents say they are seeking safety in numbers, as opposed to sleeping alone in spots across the city, as well as access to food, clothing and social services.
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Information from: Star Tribune, http://www.startribune.com
UXBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) - A Massachusetts man is accused of burying his dog alive because it wasn't getting along with his cat and he could not find it a new home.
Richard Piquard was arraigned Tuesday on an animal cruelty charge in Uxbridge District Court and freed after posting a $1,000 bond.
The 24-year-old Northbridge man ignored reporters who requested comment from him outside the courthouse. According to a police report, he said he thought the dog was dead when he buried it.
Prosecutors say the Shih Tzu, named Chico, was found alive Sunday in a shallow grave, but had to be euthanized because of its injuries.
The woman who found the dog told the Worcester Telegram & Gazette that a large rock had been placed on top of the animal.
Piquard is due back in court Oct. 26.
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Information from: Telegram & Gazette (Worcester, Mass.), http://www.telegram.com
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) - The publisher of The New York Times said Tuesday that the newspaper's decision to run an anonymous opinion piece criticizing President Donald Trump's leadership "added to the public understanding of this administration and the actions and beliefs of the people within it."
Publisher A.G. Sulzberger defended running the op-ed to a gathering of U.S. news leaders in Austin, Texas. He provided no clues about the author, whom the Times identified as a senior administration official.
The author professed to be a member of a "quiet resistance within the administration" that was straining to thwart Trump's "more misguided impulses." Trump fumed after the piece was published last week, saying the newspaper should turn over the author's name and calling on the U.S. Justice Department to investigate and unmask the person.
Sulzberger said the newspaper believed the piece crossed the threshold for using an anonymous source.
"We didn't think there was any way to make that contribution without some guarantee of anonymity," Sulzberger said. "And I think the president's actions since the release of this piece have underscored exactly why we felt that was so important."
The op-ed coincided with veteran journalist Bob Woodward's new book "Fear." The explosive narrative of Trump's turbulent 18 months in office relies on comments described by sources Woodward doesn't name. Sulzberger said the timing of the opinion piece and excerpts of Woodward's book coming out were coincidental.
Trump called the author "GUTLESS" on Twitter. Trump cited "national security" as the reason U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions should investigate. He also said he was exploring bringing legal action against the newspaper.
A White House official later said Trump's call for a government investigation was an expression of his frustration with the essay, not an order for federal prosecutors to take the extraordinary action.
Granting anonymity for such a piece is unusual but not unprecedented. Some journalists have drawn comparisons to protecting a source with anonymity in news stories. James Dao, the Times' op-ed editor, told a Times reporter that the piece was submitted through an intermediary, and anonymity wasn't granted until editors were confident in the writer's identity.
In July, Sulzberger and Trump had an off-the-record meeting that became public after the president tweeted to his 53 million Twitter followers that they discussed the "vast amounts of Fake News being put out by the media & how that Fake News has morphed into phrase, 'Enemy of the People.' Sad!"
Sulzberger has said that Trump's aides had requested that the July 20 meeting not be made public, but said he decided to comment after Trump's tweet.
On Tuesday, Sulzberger said he felt the meeting was a chance to look Trump in the eye and raise concerns about the dangers of anti-press rhetoric.
"My biggest regret when I left that meeting was that it wasn't on the record," Sulzberger said. "Because if he's not going to change his rhetoric, the biggest thing that I would hope to accomplish is to put a conversation like that on the record so that he cannot say that he was not warned if something terrible happened."
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Follow Paul J. Weber on Twitter: www.twitter.com/pauljweber
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) - The dismissal of a lawsuit against a Maryland judge who ordered a deputy to shock a defendant has been upheld by a federal appeals court.
The Daily Record reports the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed on Monday a U.S. District judge's dismissal of the suit citing "judicial immunity."
The decision notes Robert Nalley's actions were "outrageous and unlawful" and that the former Charles County Circuit Court judge was convicted of a federal civil rights offense and excused from judicial service.
Delvon King sued Nalley after Nalley demanded King's stun cuff be activated to quiet him during a 2014 gun charge hearing.
King's attorney Steven Silverman says they're considering an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Maryland attorney general's office represented Nalley. It didn't return The Record's messages seeking comment.
BIG PINE KEY, Fla. (AP) - A year after Hurricane Irma passed through the Florida Keys, the island chain's largest recreational vehicle resort has formally reopened to visitors.
Sunshine Key RV Resort in the Lower Keys marked the reopening Monday of 100 of its 399 RV sites, as well as new resort amenities. The resort says the remainder of the sites will return to business by Oct. 1.
The 75-acre (30-hectare) resort's owner, Chicago-based Equity Lifestyle Properties, invested millions to rebuild infrastructure and enhance facilities after Irma's storm surge and winds pummeled the property Sept. 10, 2017.
This aerial photo, provided by the Florida Keys News Bureau, shows recreational vehicles parked Monday, Sept. 10, 2018, at Sunshine Key RV Resort near Big Pine Key, Fla., in the Florida Keys. The 75-acre, 399-site property was pummeled by Hurricane Irma on Sept. 10, 2017. A year later it formally reopened to guests with 100 sites ready. Resort officials said that all sites will be ready on Oct. 1. (Bob Care/Florida Keys News Bureau via AP)
More than 90 percent of lodging facilities have reopened throughout the Keys.
Officials say tourism employs 54 percent of the Florida Keys workforce and is worth about $2.7 billion to the Keys economy.
Dean Sartain, left, and his wife Cynthia, paddle their kayak beside a new pier Monday, Sept. 10, 2018, at Sunshine Key RV Resort near Big Pine Key, Fla., in the Florida Keys. The 75-acre, 399-site property was pummeled by Hurricane Irma on Sept. 10, 2017. A year later it formally reopened to guests with 100 sites ready. Resort officials said that all sites will be ready by Oct. 1. (Andy Newman/Florida Keys News Bureau via AP)
ATLANTA (AP) - Georgia's nationally watched governor's race will feature two televised debates during the closing weeks of the campaign.
Republican Brian Kemp and Democrat Stacey Abrams announced Tuesday that they will meet Oct. 23 in a debate sponsored by the Atlanta Press Club and broadcast by Georgia Public Broadcasting. They will follow that with a Nov. 4 debate broadcast by WSB-TV in Atlanta.
The election is Nov. 6.
FILE - This combination of May 20, 2018, file photos shows Georgia gubernatorial candidates Stacey Abrams, left, and Brian Kemp in Atlanta. Georgia's nationally watched governor's race will feature two televised debates during the closing weeks of the campaign. Republican Kemp and Democrat Abrams announced Tuesday, Sept. 11 that they will meet Oct. 23 in a debate sponsored by the Atlanta Press Club and broadcast by Georgia Public Broadcasting. They will follow that with a Nov. 4 debate broadcast by WSB-TV in Atlanta. The election is Nov. 6.(AP Photos/John Amis, File)
The contest has drawn attention both for Abrams' bid to become the nation's first black female governor and as an example of the two parties' shifts in a potential presidential battleground.
Abrams is running as an unapologetic liberal. Kemp has embraced the nationalism of President Donald Trump.
Polls suggest a tight race in a state Trump won by 5 percentage points in 2016.
COON RAPIDS, Minn. (AP) - A bald eagle has visited a Minnesota tribute marking the 17th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terror attacks.
The national bird landed Tuesday on top of a firefighters' aerial truck parked on a highway overpass in the northern Minneapolis suburb of Coon Rapids.
Members of the Andover Fire Department were gathered to pay tribute to the nearly 3,000 people who died in the attacks and to the 9/11 emergency responders.
The Fire Department posted video of the eagle's landing on its Facebook page. After perching on the basket at the top of the truck, the eagle flew off.
The Star Tribune reports that the unscripted event happened after several firefighters had set up department vehicles on the overpass, posted U.S. flags and draped a banner over the railing reading, "We will never forget."
NEW YORK (AP) - Stocks that moved substantially or traded heavily on Tuesday:
Integrated Device Technology Inc., up $4.48 to $46.56
The chipmaker agreed to be bought by Renesas Electronics for $49 a share, or $6.34 billion.
Yum China Holdings Inc., down $4.92 to $31.94
Bloomberg News reported that a Chinese consortium has decided to end its effort to buy the fast food company.
Sonos Inc., down $4.68 to $16.56
Shares in the wireless speaker company slumped after its first earnings report as a publicly traded company.
Casey's General Stores Inc., up $7.99 to $124.78
The convenience store chain had a stronger first quarter than analysts expected.
MetLife Inc., down 38 cents to $45.21
Insurance companies slipped as Hurricane Florence moved toward the East Coast.
Home Depot Inc., up $3.16 to $213.85
Home improvement retailers rose as investors bet that damage from the storm might lead to a spike in sales later.
General Mills Inc., down 68 cents to $46.75
High-dividend stocks including household goods companies headed lower as bond yields increased.
Johnson Controls International PLC, down 80 cents to $37.60
Industrial companies gave back some of their recent gains as investors focused on trade tensions between the U.S. and China.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - A U.S. appeals court ruled Tuesday that California's attorney general can collect the names and addresses of top donors to two conservative nonprofit groups, including one with links to the billionaire Koch brothers.
The information from Americans for Prosperity Foundation and Thomas More Law Center serves the important state goal of preventing charities from committing fraud and was unlikely to be released publicly, a three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said. The unanimous ruling overturned a lower court decision that blocked the state from collecting the donor names.
California requires all charities that collect money from state residents to give the state an Internal Revenue Service form identifying their largest contributors. The state is not allowed to disclose the names publicly, but state officials say they need the names to determine whether a group is really doing charitable work and is not involved in illegal business activity.
FILE - In this Monday, Feb. 26, 2018, file photo, Members of the American Federation of Teachers hold up signs depicting Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and Koch brother, David Koch, while protesting in support of unions outside of the Supreme Court in Washington. A U.S. appeals court says California's attorney general can collect the names and addresses of top donors to two conservative non-profit groups, including one with links to the billionaire Koch brothers. A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2018, the information from Americans for Prosperity Foundation and Thomas More Law Center serve the important state goal of preventing charities from committing fraud. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)
Americans for Prosperity Foundation is a charitable organization connected to the primary political organization supported by brothers David and Charles Koch. The brothers' organizations have spent hundreds of millions of dollars supporting Republican candidates and conservative policies, making the brothers frequent targets of attacks by Democrats.
The Thomas More Law Center's mission includes preserving "America's Judeo-Christian heritage," according to its website. It provides free legal representation in lawsuits it sees as key to its mission.
Americans for Prosperity Foundation spokesman Bill Riggs said in a statement the 9th Circuit's ruling would "imperil people's First Amendment right to freedom of speech and of association."
Requiring the groups to disclose their top donors would deter contributors and subject donors to threats and harassment, the two groups argued. The 9th Circuit panel rejected those arguments, saying the groups had not identified a single person whose willingness to contribute depended on whether their names would be disclosed to the California attorney general.
"The mere possibility that some contributors may choose to withhold their support does not establish a substantial burden on First Amendment rights," 9th Circuit Judge Raymond Fisher wrote for the panel.
The judges said the state had not previously maintained the donor names as securely as it should have, but it had since imposed stronger policies to prevent public disclosure.
Riggs said the foundation "intends to continue doing all it can to champion and protect the important constitutional rights at stake."
The Thomas More Law Center had no immediate comment.
FILE - In this May 22, 2012, file photo, Charles Koch speaks in his office at Koch Industries in Wichita, Kan. The conservative Charles Koch Foundation is dramatically increasing its donations to colleges and universities at a time when its philanthropy is facing increasing scrutiny, according to tax records. A U.S. appeals court says California's attorney general can collect the names and addresses of top donors to two conservative non-profit groups, including one with links to the billionaire Koch brothers. A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2018, the information from Americans for Prosperity Foundation and Thomas More Law Center serve the important state goal of preventing charities from committing fraud. (Bo Rader/The Wichita Eagle via AP, File)
NORRISTOWN, Pa. (AP) - Bill Cosby wants a Pennsylvania judge to step down from his case days before sentencing on sex assault charges.
A defense motion Tuesday accuses Montgomery County Judge Steven O'Neill of having a longtime grudge against a key witness in a 2016 pretrial hearing.
The witness, ex-prosecutor Bruce Castor, says he declined the case in 2005 and promised Cosby that he could never be prosecuted over the 2004 encounter with a woman at his home.
O'Neill found no evidence of a binding agreement and sent the case to trial.
Cosby faces sentencing Sept. 24 after he was convicted of three felonies this spring.
He faces up to 10 years in prison on each count.
O'Neill's office did not immediately return a call for comment.
Camille Cosby in a separate statement Tuesday calls O'Neill's alleged bias in her husband's case a "horrible injustice."
BRIDGEPORT, Conn. (AP) - Connecticut's only zoo has announced the birth of a baby giant anteater.
The Beardsley Zoo in Bridgeport says the anteater was born July 30, is a male and now weighs 9 pounds. The zoo didn't announce the baby's name yet.
The parents, father EO and mother Pana, were brought to the zoo in 2015 with the hopes they might start a family.
This August 2018 photo provided by the Beardsley Zoo shows a baby male giant anteater with his mother, born on July 30 at the zoo in Bridgeport, Conn. Female anteaters give birth to one offspring at a time and the baby rides on the mother's back for the first several months of life. (Linda Tomas/Beardsley Zoo via AP)
They had their first baby in 2016. Mochilla is now in residence at Alexandria Zoo in Louisiana.
The zoo says Pana and baby are in seclusion most of the day, with brief forays into the outdoor habitat. Female anteaters give birth to one offspring at a time and the baby rides on the mother's back for the first several months of life.
The public can follow the baby's growth on Facebook and Instagram .
NEW YORK (AP) - CBS News anchor Gayle King says the network should release its report on sexual misconduct allegations against former chief executive Leslie Moonves, who was ousted on Sunday.
King, speaking Tuesday on "CBS This Morning," said that "I don't know how we move forward if we at CBS don't have full transparency."
A law firm is investigating reports that Moonves forced women to perform oral sex and retaliated against people who resisted his advances. The former executive has denied the charges. Its report is central to a determination of whether Moonves gets severance.
FILE - In this Feb. 13, 2018 file photo, "CBS This Morning" anchor Gayle King attends a special screening of "Black Panther" in New York. King says the network should release its report on sexual misconduct allegations against former chief executive Leslie Moonves, who was ousted on Sunday. (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File)
It hasn't been determined whether that report will be made public. Documents show that Moonves and CBS agreed to keep that confidential unless the board determines it's in the best interest of the company to release it.
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - Ohio State President Michael Drake is offering condolences after a student died in a fall from a university parking garage.
The male student died at the Ohio State hospital following the incident on Tuesday morning.
Police are investigating and there's no report yet on what happened.
Two students fell from a university garage in April, with one dying, and another student died in 2017 in a fall from the same garage.
The university created a task force earlier this year to review suicide prevention efforts and mental health support services.
Drake urged people to call 911 or go to the nearest emergency room if they are in danger of harming themselves or others.
ENFIELD, Conn. (AP) - A suspect in the stabbing death of a 16-year-old Connecticut boy broke down Tuesday during his initial court appearance and a brawl broke out after the courtroom was cleared.
Eighteen-year-old Shyhiem Adams, of Hartford, is charged with manslaughter in the death of Justin Brady.
Brady, an Enfield High School student, was found stabbed in the front yard of a home in town early Monday morning.
Shyhiem Adams is aided by a court marshal after collapsing as friends of the Justin Brady were screaming at Adams during his arraignment in Enfield Superior Court on charges in the stabbing death of 16-year-old of Justin Brady, Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2018, in Enfield, Conn. Enfield police on Tuesday announced that 18-year-old Adams was charged with manslaughter in the death of Justin Brady. (Jim Michaud/Journal Inquirer via AP, Pool)
Adams and the victim were involved in a dispute and met up to fight after exchanging text messages, according to an arrest affidavit.
Adams had grabbed a knife from inside the home before he went outside to meet with Brady, according to the document.
A witness told investigators that during the fight, Brady yelled, "He's cutting me," and the witness could see Adams stabbing Brady, the affidavit said.
During his appearance in Enfield Superior Court, Adams dropped to the floor in tears.
"I'm a good soul. Jesus, please!" he shouted, according to The Hartford Courant.
Adams' attorney, Ann Guillet, said her client was the victim of bullying at school. She said he left and finished school this spring in Florida.
There were several outbursts from teens attending the presentment and fights erupted outside after the judge ordered the courtroom cleared. Several people were taken into custody. It was not immediately clear if any charges were filed.
Adams case was transferred to Hartford for arraignment Sept. 24.
He is being held in lieu of $750,000 bond.
Shyhiem Adams, second right, is quickly surrounded by court marshals as they look towards the screaming coming from some of the friends of Justin Brady in the packed courtroom during his arraignment in Enfield Superior Court on charges in the stabbing death of 16-year-old of Justin Brady, Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2018, in Enfield, Conn. (Jim Michaud/Journal Inquirer via AP, Pool)
MASHPEE, Mass. (AP) - The country's largest Native American organization is calling on the Trump administration to explain its decision not to recognize the reservation of a Massachusetts' tribe.
The National Congress of American Indians said Tuesday it "disagrees strongly" with the U.S. Department of the Interior's decision to reverse an Obama-era ruling placing land in trust for the Mashpee Wampanoag (MASH'-pee WAHM'-puh-nawg) tribe.
The organization wants the agency to explain what the decision signifies for Indian land policy going forward.
The Interior Department took 321 acres into trust for the Mashpee in 2015, but a federal judge ordered the agency to reconsider the decision after local residents sued.
Bureau of Indian Affairs spokeswoman Nedra Darling declined to comment, citing pending litigation. She confirmed the Mashpee land, for now, remains in trust pending a final court order.
PIERRE, S.D. (AP) - South Dakota would start collecting sales taxes from many out-of-state internet retailers this fall under a bill the Legislature's budget-writing committee endorsed Tuesday ahead of this week's special legislative session to implement a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that cleared the way for the changes.
Lawmakers gather Wednesday at the Capitol for the special session to consider Gov. Dennis Daugaard's legislation, which would allow the collections to start Nov. 1. A second bill the panel recommended would require marketplaces that handle payments such as eBay to collect sales taxes for sellers on their platforms.
"After working with the Department of Revenue and consulting with legislative leaders, I am proposing two bills that will allow the state of South Dakota to benefit from the national tax fairness victory that we led," Daugaard said in an earlier statement announcing the measures.
It was a South Dakota case that led to the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in June to overturn two decades-old high court decisions that have made it tougher for states to collect sales taxes for certain purchases online. But even after the victory, South Dakota hasn't been able to enforce its online sales tax requirement because of an injunction in place under state law.
That injunction would be lifted under the proposal allowing the state to start collecting the sales taxes, with the companies involved in the state's case exempted as court proceedings continue.
Members of the Legislature's Interim Joint Committee on Appropriations convened Tuesday to discuss the legislation, endorsing the first unanimously and the second on a 15-3 vote. Republican Sen. Deb Peters urged support of the measure allowing the taxes to be collected, called Senate Bill 1, saying it's time to "get moving and going forward."
"Senate Bill 1 is ... 'Hooray we won, oh my gosh, now what do we do?'" Peters said.
The sales tax obligation applies to sellers outside the state who do more than $100,000 of business in South Dakota or more than 200 transactions annually with state residents under a law passed in 2016.
South Dakota has estimated it loses about $50 million annually to e-commerce. But any future sales tax windfall isn't likely to result in major new state spending, because current state law aims to give gains from the new collections back to taxpayers.
The governor has said the special session won't address a provision in state law that requires a 2016 sales tax hike for teacher pay be scaled back if the state is able to collect tax on the online purchases. Under the law, the state's 4.5 percent rate is to be rolled back by one-tenth of a percent for every additional $20 million the state reaps, with a floor of 4 percent.
Decisions on changing or maintaining that law will fall to a new governor and set of state lawmakers after Daugaard leaves office in January 2019.
Lawmakers at this week's special session are also set to debate an unrelated third bill on the timing of the new governor's inauguration in January. The proceedings will include an address from Daugaard to legislators during the joint session.
The state's last special session was held in 2017 to create rules governing the use of lakes on private land for recreation.
BEIRUT (AP) - The Syrian army, backed by allies Iran and Russia, is preparing for a military offensive to retake the country's last major rebel stronghold -the province of Idlib.
The battle could bring an end to a seven-year-old uprising-turned-civil war, but at the cost of a humanitarian disaster on a scale yet unseen in the bloody conflict. Some 3 million civilians are trapped in Idlib, along with tens of thousands of opposition fighters, including hard-core militants.
In recent days, Syrian and Russian warplanes stepped up bombings, targeting the southern edge of the province and signaling a slow start to the campaign.
This photo released on Monday, Sept. 10, 2018 by the Syrian Civil Defense group known as the White Helmets, shows smoke rising from a Syrian government airstrike, in Hobeit village, near Idlib, Syria. High-level diplomats from Iran, Russia and Turkey were meeting Tuesday with the U.N. envoy for Syria about creating a committee to revise the war-battered country's constitution. Tuesday's talks in Geneva under U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura come amid concerns he and other U.N. officials have expressed about a looming battle for Idlib. (Syrian Civil Defense White Helmets via AP)
Here's a look at the issues involved:
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WHO IS IN IDLIB?
Idlib is located in the northwestern corner of Syria. It is ringed by Turkey to the northwest, the Turkish-controlled Afrin region to the northeast and government-controlled territory to the southwest and southeast. A vital highway linking the cities of Aleppo and Damascus, known as the M5, cuts through Idlib's eastern flank.
The province fell into rebel hands in early 2015. It is now home to a dizzying array of opposition fighters, Islamic militants and jihadis. An alliance known as Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham, spearheaded by al-Qaeda affiliates formerly known as the Nusra Front, dominates the province. Another rebel umbrella group called the National Front for Liberation is backed by Turkey.
An estimated 50,000 rebels, including more than 10,000 hard-core militants and al-Qaida-linked fighters, are cornered in Idlib. With nowhere left to go, some might opt to fight till death rather than surrender.
Turkey also maintains a troop presence - hundreds of soldiers deployed at 12 observation posts in Idlib. Syrian government forces have massed to the south and southwest of the province.
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WHY IS IT A POTENTIAL CATASTROPHE?
An estimated 3 million people live in Idlib, nearly half of them having arrived there after being displaced by fighting elsewhere in Syria. Among the civilians are close to 1 million children, according to rights groups.
The province saw its population swell drastically as rebels and civilians were being sent there from other opposition strongholds after they capitulated to government forces.
A full-scale air and ground offensive is likely to send waves of refugees surging toward the sealed Turkey border, coinciding with the onset of winter. A top U.N. official has warned that an attack on Idlib could lead to this century's worst loss of life.
Even a partial offensive focusing on specific areas of Idlib could displace hundreds of thousands of people and cut off aid access to the province. Most aid currently enters through the Bab al-Hawa crossing with Turkey.
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WHAT HAPPENS IF CHEMICAL WEAPONS ARE USED?
U.N. investigators have previously attributed several chemical attacks in Syria to government forces, including one attack using the nerve agent Sarin gas against the Idlib town of Khan Sheikhoun in April 2017.
In the run-up to a possible Idlib offensive, the Syrian government and Russia have alleged that rebels in Idlib are planning to use chemical weapons to frame the government and induce Western punitive airstrikes.
The U.S. has pushed back, with Defense Secretary Jim Mattis saying this week that "right now we see zero evidence that the opposition has any chemical capability, notwithstanding what Russia has been broadcasting repeatedly."
The U.S. says it will retaliate harshly to any chemical weapons attack by President Bashar Assad's forces and has suggested such internationally prohibited weapons are being readied for the battlefield.
Twice before, the U.S. has resorted to missile strikes in response to chemical weapons attacks, only to see them used again.
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CAN BLOODSHED BE AVERTED?
The presidents of Russia, Iran and Turkey met last week in Tehran to consider alternatives, but failed to reach a consensus. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani back military action, despite a cease-fire call by their Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The U.N. envoy for Syria has told the U.N. Security Council there are signs the three leaders intend to continue talking.
Turkey stands to lose the most from a battle on its border that is sure to have a destabilizing effect on the country and areas it controls inside Syria.
In an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal this week, Erdogan warned that an Idlib offensive would "create serious humanitarian and security risks for Turkey, the rest of Europe and beyond." He said it would amount to "indiscriminate attacks to wipe out its opposition and not a genuine or effective campaign against terrorism."
For Russia and Iran, recapturing Idlib would deal a decisive defeat to the opposition and stamp out the last remains of the rebellion against Assad that began in 2011.
While an assault to retake Idlib appears to be inevitable, there are ongoing talks on ways to separate the militants from the civilians.
Proposals include urging Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham to dissolve itself or join the Turkey-backed rebels. This would supposedly bring the group more under Turkish control and make it easier to deal with. But there are thousands of foreign jihadis among Idlib's fighters, including Chechens and Chinese.
Another proposal is to open humanitarian corridors through which civilians could leave to government-controlled areas, although that suggestion has yet to gain any traction.
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WHAT IS THE U.S. ROLE?
Despite dire U.S. warnings and fears of a humanitarian disaster, the Trump administration has little leverage to stop Russia, Iran and Syria from pressing ahead with the Idlib offensive.
Washington has threatened military action in case of a chemical weapons attack but its mixed messaging on retaining a U.S. presence in Syria and a cut in aid has diminished its already limited influence over the conflict.
American airstrikes launched against Assad government assets have had limited impact in the past.
Another tool in the U.S. arsenal is economic pressure, but sanctions have been ineffectual since they first began to be applied during the Obama administration.
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Follow Zeina Karam on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/zkaram
In this Tuesday Sept. 11, 2018 photo, schoolchildren attend an event at their school's yard, in the northern town of Jisr al-Shughur, Syria, west of the city of Idlib. Syrian government forces, backed by Russia and Iran, have been massing troops for weeks in preparation for an attack on Idlib province, the last major rebel stronghold in the country. The U.N. has warned that a battle will spark a humanitarian catastrophe. (Ugur Can/DHA via AP)
This photo released on Monday, Sept. 10, 2018 by the Syrian Civil Defense group known as the White Helmets, shows civil defense workers clean rubble from a house which was damaged by a Syrian government airstrike, in Hobeit village, near Idlib, Syria. High-level diplomats from Iran, Russia and Turkey were meeting Tuesday with the U.N. envoy for Syria about creating a committee to revise the war-battered country's constitution. Tuesday's talks in Geneva under U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura come amid concerns he and other U.N. officials have expressed about a looming battle for Idlib. (Syrian Civil Defense White Helmets via AP) (Syrian Civil Defense White Helmets via AP)
This photo released Monday, Sept. 10, 2018 by the Syrian Civil Defense group known as the White Helmets, shows flames and smoke rising from a Syrian government airstrike, in Hobeit village, near Idlib, Syria. High-level diplomats from Iran, Russia and Turkey were meeting Tuesday with the U.N. envoy for Syria about creating a committee to revise the war-battered country's constitution. Tuesday's talks in Geneva under U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura come amid concerns he and other U.N. officials have expressed about a looming battle for Idlib. (Syrian Civil Defense White Helmets via AP)
In this Monday, Sept. 10, 2018 photo, a vendor waits for clients in the market of the northern city of Idlib, Syria. Syrian government forces, backed by Russia and Iran, have been massing troops for weeks in preparation for an attack on Idlib province, the last major rebel stronghold in the country. The U.N. has warned that a battle will spark a humanitarian catastrophe, where more than 3 million people live in the territory, nearly half of them already displaced from fighting elsewhere in Syria. (Ugur Can/DHA via AP)
In this Monday, Sept. 10, 2018 photo, family members ride their motorcycles in the centre of the northern city of Idlib, Syria. Syrian government forces, backed by Russia and Iran, have been massing troops for weeks in preparation for an attack on Idlib province, the last major rebel stronghold in the country. The U.N. has warned that a battle will spark a humanitarian catastrophe, where more than 3 million people live in the territory, nearly half of them already displaced from fighting elsewhere in Syria. (Ugur Can/DHA via AP)
In this Tuesday Sept. 11, 2018 photo, Turkey-trained Syrian opposition fighters of the 'National Army' group formally known as Free Syrian Army, train in a camp in the Turkish-controlled northwestern city of Azaz, Syria. Syrian government forces, backed by Russia and Iran, have been massing troops for weeks in preparation for an attack on Idlib province, the last major rebel stronghold in the country. The U.N. has warned that a battle will spark a humanitarian catastrophe. (Ugur Can/DHA via AP)
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) - An Indonesian court sentenced an Islamic militant on Thursday to 11 years in prison after finding him guilty of conducting training in preparation for a terrorist attack.
Wawan Kurniawan was arrested along with four other militants last October by the anti-terror squad in Pekanbaru, the capital of Riau province.
Judge Suhartono, who presided over the trial at West Jakarta District Court, said Wawan had been proven guilty under the anti-terror law.
Islamic militant Wawan Kurniawan gestures during his trial at West Jakarta District Court in Jakarta, Indonesia, Thursday, Sept 13, 2018. The Indonesian court sentenced the Islamic militant to 11 years in prison for conducting training in preparation for a terrorist attack. (AP Photo/Tatan Syuflana)
Wawan, 43, was the local leader of Jemaah Anshorut Daulah, an Indonesian militant network affiliated with the Islamic State group that has been implicated in attacks in the country.
Wawan was accused of having provoked a riot in May at a high-security police detention center in which six officers were killed by Islamic inmates who took control of part of the prison near Indonesia's capital. One militant was also killed.
A week later, four sword-wielding men who allegedly belonged to Jemaah Anshorut Daulah attacked a police headquarters in Pekanbaru and were fatally shot by police. A fifth man who drove their vehicle was arrested while trying to escape. One officer died and two others were injured.
The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement carried by its Aamaq news agency.
Prosecutors had sought a 13-year jail sentence for Wawan, but the panel of judges said they decided to be lenient because of his politeness during the trial and because he had never been sentenced in a criminal case before.
Indonesia has carried out a sustained crackdown on militants since bombings by al-Qaida-affiliated radicals in Bali in 2002 killed 202 people.
Islamic militant Wawan Kurniawan, center, is escorted by masked police officers upon arrival for his trial at West Jakarta District Court in Jakarta, Indonesia, Thursday, Sept 13, 2018. The Indonesian court sentenced the Islamic militant to 11 years in prison for conducting training in preparation for a terrorist attack. (AP Photo/Tatan Syuflana)
Developing a cure for dementia is not an unrealistic goal and could happen by 2028, the head of a research institute into the disease said.
Professor Bart De Strooper, a world-renowned Belgian neuroscientist, became director of the 250 million Dementia Research Institute (DRI) in 2016, and said there could be a standard toolbox for treating patients within a decade.
This could include genetic therapies or drugs known as anti-amyloids which fight against the presence of a protein called amyloid beta, which accumulates in the brains of people with Alzheimers.
The Alzheimers Society said there are an estimated 850,000 people with the disease in the UK, with this number set to surpass a million by 2025.
Prof De Strooper told the Daily Express: I think we will have a cure. In 10 years we will have a cure. I hope earlier.
You start to see biochemical changes about 20 years before dementia manifests itself so if you could stabilise the disease in this insidious phase then that would be very good, that would also be a cure.
Medics hope early intervention could help curb dementia (Lynne Cameron/PA)
Its a bit like with cancer, you dont hope to treat the patient when the cancer has taken over the body, you want to treat it in the beginning when you have limited trouble.
Nearly 300 researchers are working across six universities as part of the DRI to find an effective way of treating the causes of dementia rather than masking symptoms.
Adrian Ivinson, DRI chief operating officer, told the paper that researchers were hopeful about creating a blood test for dementia which could be used as part of a national screening programme.
He said: We dont have a blood test yet but that is what we are hoping for and where we are heading.
Some of the big programmes within the institute are focused on that.
It might be a few years but its a realistic prospect.
The number of crimes dropped without investigation within 24 hours by the Met more than doubled to over 30,000 in the space of a year, according to new figures.
A Freedom of Information (FOI) request by the Guardian revealed that 34,164 incidents reported in 2017 were dropped within one day of being reported up from 13,019 the year before.
So far in 2018, 18,093 cases have been closed without further investigation, the FOI found.
Reports of violent assaults, sex attacks and burglaries were among the offences that were dropped.
The number of sexual offences abandoned within a day increased from 20 in 2016 up to 49 in 2017, and 32 have been dropped so far in 2018, the Guardian said.
It added that 303 cases of violence resulting in injury had been screened out the process used to decide which offences are investigated and which are abandoned so far this year, compared to 209 throughout 2016.
Last year, 4,670 cases of arson and criminal damage were dropped on the first day, up from 2,284 in 2016.
Police tape at a crime scene (Peter Byrne/PA)
In October last year, the Met announced more lower level crimes would go uninvestigated as Scotland Yard battles to meet spending cuts.
Deputy assistant commissioner Mark Simmons said at the time: Of course we are not talking about things like homicide, kidnap, sexual offences, hate crime or domestic violence, but the lower level, higher volume offences such as shoplifting, car crime and criminal damage.
This is not to say these cases will not be investigated further, however by applying the assessment policy we will be able to determine very quickly if it is proportionate to do so.
On Friday, the Press Association reported that police across England and Wales close investigations without identifying a suspect in three quarters of reported vehicle thefts and four out of five residential burglaries.
No suspect is identified in almost half of shoplifting cases.
Metropolitan Police recruits saluting during a passing out parade (Nick Ansell/PA)
The 44 forces logged 106,334 offences of theft or unauthorised taking of a motor vehicle in 2017/18, the highest tally for an equivalent period since 2009/10.
For 81,788 of these offences, the outcome was investigation complete no suspect identified.
West Midlands Police and the Metropolitan Police closed 91% and 85% of vehicle thefts they recorded without a suspect being identified respectively, the analysis found.
Only City of London Police had a higher percentage, at 96%, although it recorded the smallest number of such offences, with 54.
All but five forces closed over half of these cases without identifying a suspect.
A police car attending an incident (Victoria Jones/PA)
Deputy chief constable Amanda Blakeman, National Police Chiefs Council lead for acquisitive crime, said increased demand and fewer officer numbers have led to forces prioritising cases with a realistic prospect of prosecution.
She added: Police investigate all cases of theft, burglary and shoplifting. Particularly for these types of offences, police focus on targeting prolific offenders, organised crime networks, and ensuring prevention measures by homeowners and businesses are in place.
The Met said its new crime assessment policy does not mean some crime types are not investigated, adding that cases initially screened out can be reopened if forensic work produces results.
Alex Mayes, of charity Victim Support, told the Press Association: News like this could undermine confidence in the criminal justice system and prevent people reporting in the future.
Russia has launched its largest military exercise since the Cold War, with war games that will also involve thousands of Chinese troops in a show of burgeoning military ties between Moscow and Beijing.
Moscow said the Vostok (East) 2018 manoeuvres will span vast expanses of Siberia and the Far East and involve nearly 300,000 Russian troops, more than 1,000 aircraft, about 36,000 tanks and other military vehicles and 80 warships.
China is sending about 3,200 troops, 900 combat vehicles and 30 aircraft to join the drills at a Siberian firing range, a significant deployment that reflects its shift toward a fully fledged military alliance with Russia. Mongolia has also sent a military contingent.
(PA Graphics)
As the manoeuvres kicked off, Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Russia to attend an economic forum in Vladivostok.
President Vladimir Putin treated him to pancakes with caviar and shots of vodka in a show of their warm personal ties.
Moscow and Beijing have forged what they described as a strategic partnership, expressing their shared opposition to the unipolar world, the term they use to describe perceived US global domination.
President Xi and President Putin tuck in (Sergei Bobylev/Tass News Agency/AP)
Some experts pointed that the US helped spawn closer Russian-Chinese military ties by labelling them strategic competitors.
They feel they need to embrace to deal with the increasingly high pressure and containment from the US, said Yue Gang, a military expert and retired Chinese army colonel.
He noted that China feels that the USs hostile attitude and actions, such as deploying a missile defence system in South Korea, relieve it of any need to take Washingtons views into consideration when deepening strategic trust with Moscow.
The war games have laid a foundation for China and Russia to enhance co-operation in an international arena and will lift the combat proficiency of both sides, he said.
Russian planes prepare to take off (Russian Defence Ministry Press Service/AP)
Chinas media touted the Chinese involvement in the manoeuvres as the countrys largest-ever dispatch of forces abroad for war games.
Some noted that the Peoples Liberation Army, which has not fought a war since the attempted invasion of Vietnam in 1979, is keen to learn from Russias experience in the Syrian campaign, where it tested its latest weapons and tactics.
From Chinas perspective, the emerging military alliance with Russia sends a strong signal to the US and its ally Japan as Beijing moves to defend its interests in the South China Sea, which China claims virtually in its entirety, as well as Taiwan and the Senkaku and Diaoyu islands controlled by Japan but claimed by Beijing.
For Russia, the increasingly robust alliance with China is particularly important amid growing tensions with the US and its allies and a looming threat of more biting US sanctions.
Russian soldiers in Eastern Siberia (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service/AP)
The US and its Nato allies are closely eyeing the exercises for what they reveal about military co-operation between Russia and China and their mounting military might.
Were obviously aware of it, were watching it closely, said Army Colonel Rob Manning, a Pentagon spokesman.
Were aware of Russias right to sovereignty and to exercise in order to ensure their readiness.
Nato spokeswoman Oana Lungescu said the exercise fits into a pattern we have seen over some time: a more assertive Russia, significantly increasing its defence budget and its military presence.
She added: China has growing military capabilities and is playing an increasingly significant global role. Its important for Nato to engage with China.
Irelands premier has vowed to bring home the best possible deal ahead of the final negotiations to agree the terms of the UKs withdrawal from the European Union.
The UK and EU are hoping to reach agreement in talks over Brexit next month, including for a transition period up to the end of 2020.
The UK is set to leave the EU on March 29 2019.
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has described Brexit as the greatest challenge to Ireland since independence.
Were working tirelessly to get the best possible deal for this country, he told the Letterkenny Chamber of Commerce during a visit to the north-west of Ireland on Tuesday.
This means preparing our businesses and our agriculture sector, as well as ensuring the transport sector is ready for whatever happens.
Irelands contingency planning is well advanced. We must plan for all scenarios, including an unlikely one no deal.
Mr Varadkar reminded the audience in the border town of measures previously announced, including the preparation of Irish ports and airports to take account of a changed trading relationship with Britain post-Brexit.
An Taoiseach Leo Varadkar addressing the business community in Letterkenny and Donegal #PresidentsLunch @campaignforleo pic.twitter.com/R3mIApQEaK Letterkenny Chamber #lovelocal #staysafe (@lkchamber) September 11, 2018
Irelands Budget 2018 saw the announcement of a number of measures, including a 300 million euro Brexit Loan Scheme for businesses and a 25 million euro Brexit Response Loan Scheme for the agri-food sector.
Mr Varadkar said it is the Governments desire that there will be the closest possible relationship between the EU and UK after Brexit.
If that does not prove possible, the backstop will be in place as part of the withdrawal treaty to ensure no hard border on the island and this will apply unless and until a better solution is found,
agreed and implemented, he said.
The Government has always been clear that the outcome it is seeking from the EU-UK negotiations must include the protection of the Good Friday Agreement and the avoidance of any hard border on the
island of Ireland.
The Irish Government is seeking to avoid a hard border with Northern Ireland (Brian Lawless/PA)
Our priority is that work continues on the conclusion of the Withdrawal Agreement, including the Protocol on Ireland and Northern Ireland, which encompasses the backstop for the border.
At the same time, it is vital to Irelands interests that the EUs Single Market is fully protected. It is crucially important that we maintain a level playing field for our businesses and investment.
You can be sure that the Government will be deeply engaged and vigilant on all aspects of Brexit in the weeks ahead. We will bring home the best deal possible and we will stand our ground.
A small number of protesters associated with the Irish Republican Socialist Party (IRSP) held a demonstration against Mr Varadkar in Letterkenny during his address to the chamber.
A spokesman said the protest was over the appointment of Drew Harris as Garda Commissioner and the ongoing housing crisis in Ireland.
An Taoiseach and Minister McHugh are in Burnfoot, Co.Donegal this morning to make an announcement about 90 new jobs at E+I Engineerings Headquarters in Burnfoot, Co. Donegal. @engineeringei @Entirl @DeptAHG pic.twitter.com/Wml0TdxfjS MerrionStreet.ie (@merrionstreet) September 11, 2018
Earlier Mr Varadkar visited E+I Engineering Ltd in Burnfoot where he welcomed the creation of 90 new jobs.
Donald Trump has remembered the band of brave patriots aboard a September 11 flight that crashed in Pennsylvania, praising passengers and crew members who resisted hijackers and sent a message that the nation would never, ever submit to tyranny.
He honoured those killed 17 years ago in a field where the fourth airliner of the day crashed after those aboard realised what was happening and several passengers tried to storm the cockpit.
The president praised those who took control of their destiny and changed the course of history.
A piece of Americas heart is buried on these grounds, but in its place has grown a new resolve to live our lives with the same grace and courage as the heroes of Flight 93, he said.
This field is now a monument to American defiance. This memorial is now a message to the world: America will never, ever submit to tyranny.
Mr Trump listened as the names of the 40 victims were read aloud, followed by the tolling of bells.
He was joined in remembrances by first lady Melania Trump, Pennsylvania governor Tom Wolf and former governor Mark Schweiker, who was the states lieutenant governor on 9/11.
Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump at the memorial service (Evan Vucci/AP)
Nearly 3,000 people died that day when other planes were flown into New Yorks World Trade Centre and the Pentagon in an attack planned by al Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.
Bin Laden was killed in May 2011 during a US military operation ordered by Barack Obama.
Mr Trump, a New York native, made his first visit as president to the Shanksville site and paid tribute to the Americans who died.
Donald and Melania Trump, escorted by Stephen Clark, at the September 11 Flight 93 memorial in Shanksville (Evan Vucci/AP)
He said the site marks the moment when America fought back, and said the anniversary recalls the day a band of brave patriots turned the tide on our nations enemies and joined the immortal ranks of American heroes.
Mr Trump observed the solemn anniversary for the first time as president last year. He and the first lady led a moment of silence at the White House accompanied by aides and administration officials marking the time that hijackers flew the first of two planes into the World Trade Centres Twin Towers.
The president also participated in the Pentagons September 11 observance last year. Vice president Mike Pence represented the administration there on Tuesday.
Mike Pence speaks during the memorial at the Pentagon (Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP)
The president was in his Trump Tower penthouse, four miles from the World Trade Centre, during the 2001 attacks.
He has a mixed history with September 11, often using the terrorist strikes to praise the response of New Yorkers to the attack but also making unsubstantiated claims about what he did and saw that day.
He has also accused fellow Republican George W Bush, who was president on September 11, of failing to keep Americans safe.
Mr Trump has said when talking about Muslims that thousands of people were cheering in Jersey City, New Jersey, across the Hudson River from lower Manhattan, as the towers collapsed.
There is no evidence in news archives of mass celebrations there by Muslims.
He has also said he lost hundreds of friends in the attack on New York City. He has not provided any names but has mentioned knowing a Roman Catholic priest who died while serving as a chaplain to the citys fire department.
A transport union has balloted thousands of ScotRail staff for industrial action in a row over pay for working on rest days.
The RMT union has sent ballot papers to 3,000 members for industrial action up to and including strikes.
RMT regional officer Mick Hogg said the issue regarded pay discrepancies for working on days off.
The union is seeking pay parity with ScotRail drivers who are reported to be paid up to 300 for working on rest day while other workers recieve less.
Mr Hogg said all workers should be treated equally.
https://t.co/VLaIUsqVFh TSSA members seeking parity with drivers over rest day working payments #ScotRail seem to forget they are utterly reliant on staff goodwill just now - our members sacrificing time with family should be rewarded fairly for it. TSSA Scotland (@TSSAScotland) September 11, 2018
Meanwhile, a second transport union has said it has notified ScotRail of its intention to ballot members on the same issue.
TSSA General Secretary Manuel Cortes said: Rest Day Working payments are paid to staff to compensate them for giving up a days rest in order to keep our railway running.
Our railways need more than train drivers to run. Our members in ScotRail keep trains running safely from the control room and they also make sure that passengers are safe and informed.
ScotRail are treating our members with as second class citizens.
General secretary of the Transport Salaried Staffs Association Manuel Cortes plans to ballot ScotRail staff for industrial action (Rick Findler/PA)
A ScotRail spokesman said: We are continuing to work with the trade unions and our people to try to reach a solution that benefits everyone.
We do not expect this to affect services.
The train operator is recruiting 140 new workers to cut the need for rest day working and overtime.
A senior Vatican official said the clerical sex abuse scandal is such a game-changing catastrophe for the Catholic Church that he called it the churchs own 9/11 on the 17th anniversary of the attacks in the US.
Archbishop Georg Gaenswein, an aide to both retired Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis, told a book presentation that he by no means was comparing the scandal to the nearly 3,000 people killed in the US on September 11 2001.
But he said the years-long sex scandal, and recent revelations in a Pennsylvania grand jury report, showed how many souls have been wounded irrevocably and mortally by priests from the Catholic Church.
Today, even the Catholic Church looks full of confusion at its own 9/11, at its own September 11, even though this catastrophe isnt associated with a single date but rather at so many days and years, and innumerable victims, he said.
Pope Francis (Alessandra Tarantino/AP)
While no one has attacked churches with planes full of passengers, Mr Gaenswein said, recent news from the US sends a message that is even more terrible than the sudden collapse of all the churches of Pennsylvania together with the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington.
Mr Gaenswein, who serves as secretary to Benedict and prefect of Franciss papal household, was speaking at a presentation of a book by conservative American author Rod Dreher, who has been at the forefront in reporting on the recent scandal in the US over ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick.
Francis removed McCarrick as a cardinal in July following a credible accusation that he groped a teenage altar boy in the 1970s. Soon after it emerged that it was apparently an open secret including at the Vatican that McCarrick routinely bedded seminarians and young priests.
The McCarrick scandal has taken on crisis proportions after the Vaticans former US ambassador, Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, accused two dozen Vatican and US cardinals and bishops of covering up for McCarrick for two decades.
Cardinal Theodore McCarrick (Robert Franklin/South Bend Tribune/AP)
Specifically, Mr Vigano accused Francis of rehabilitating McCarrick from canonical sanctions imposed on him by Benedict 2009 or 2010.
The Vatican has not responded to the accusations, but clarifications are expected.
Mr Gaenswein, who serves as an occasional spokesman for Benedict, has limited his comments about the scandal to denying a report that Benedict had confirmed Mr Viganos 11-page denunciation.
Mr Gaenswein did not refer to the Vigano scandal on Tuesday, but more generally to the turbine of news of recent weeks. He cited specifically the Pennsylvania grand jury report, which found 300 priests abused more than 1,000 children over 70 years and bishops covered up for them.
Witnesses to the murder of a man who was shot dead in North Lanarkshire have been urged to come forward to stop another family going through the same nightmare.
Relatives of Gary More made the comments after detectives investigating the incident described the public response so far as very poor.
The 32-year suffered significant injuries after a number of shots were fired at him in Gartness Drive, Airdrie, at around 8.10pm on Thursday.
Gary More with his mother Angela (Police Scotland/PA)
Police and ambulance crews rushed to the busy residential area in North Lanarkshire, but he died at the scene.
Mr Mores sister Lynsey said: There are no words to describe the devastation we have experienced as a family losing a son, brother, father and uncle.
Our hearts have been broken and we cannot understand how anyone could even consider taking this course of action against another human being.
People who really knew Gary know how much he valued friends and family they were the centre of his life.
He was a good person with a good heart and we all loved him so much. Our world has been shattered and our lives will never be the same again.
She added: Gary did not deserve this, no one deserves this.
It has been a great comfort to us to receive so many messages of kindness and support from the people who really knew Gary.
We would urge anyone with information, no matter how small, to make the police aware of it.
By doing so you might prevent another family from experiencing our nightmare.
The suspect is believed to have got into a white Skoda Fabia which sped off with a number of people inside.
The same model and colour of car was later found burnt out near Craigmaddie Road in Balmore, Milngavie, and is being examined by forensic teams.
Police Scotland said enquiries have established the car was stolen on August 2 this year from the Pollokshields area of Glasgow.
Its original registration was SH13 UMG but it may have had other plates fitted.
Detectives are now appealing for any information on the whereabouts of the car between August 2 and September 6.
Drivers are also being asked for any sightings between 7pm and 11pm on Thursday.
Detective Superintendent Allan Burton added: We have had a very poor response so far for information despite the fact that children and members of the public were there at the time and could so easily have been injured, therefore I am urging anyone with information to please pass it on to police immediately.
I would like to reassure people that information can be given in confidence and you can also contact Crimestoppers where you can remain anonymous.
A second person has been diagnosed with monkeypox in England, health officials confirmed. The patient is believed to have acquired the infection in Nigeria.
Here are some facts about monkeypox:
What is monkeypox?
Symptoms include fever and headache (Dominic Lipinski/PA)
A rare disease caused by a viral infection.
How does it spread?
Most commonly when a person comes into close contact with an infected animal.
It is not spread easily between people.
What are the symptoms?
Infected people usually start to show symptoms between five and 21 days after infection.
These include fever, headache, muscle aches, backache, swollen lymph nodes, chills and exhaustion.
How serious is it?
Most patients recover within a few weeks and do not need treatment, but it can cause severe illness in some people.
Why is it called monkeypox?
The disease was first discovered in monkeys kept for research in 1958. The first human case was recorded in 1970 in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Where is it prevalent?
Cases have been reported in a number of countries in Africa, including Cameroon, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia and Nigeria.
An outbreak occurred in America in 2003 after rodents were imported from Africa.
There was a sustained outbreak in Nigeria last year and there have been sporadic cases reported since then.
Unions have warmly welcomed a pledge by Labour to transform workers rights, with special help for millions in the so-called gig economy.
Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell received a standing ovation from the TUC Congress in Manchester when he laid out a series of measures aimed at tipping the balance from employers to workers.
A Labour government would ban zero-hours contracts, repeal the Trade Union Act, clamp down on bogus self-employment, end Private Finance Initiatives and set up a new Employment Department to drive forward the polices, he said.
Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell received a standing ovation from the TUC Congress in Manchester (Steve Parsons/PA)
He added: Its time to tip the balance to the workers. It is the biggest extension of individual collective rights our country has ever seen. It will transform the workplace and workers rights.
Unite general secretary Len McCluskey said: Every decent person in the country should applaud the proposals set out by John McDonnell.
It was inspiring to hear Shadow Chancellor @johnmcdonnellMP set out @UKLabour plans to overhaul the gig economy and address the imbalance of power in the workplace. Watch the full speech #TUC150 https://t.co/LZLFDQfLiZ Trades Union Congress (@The_TUC) September 11, 2018
The impact on families and workers when work has been casualised, as it has been for millions in this country today, is appalling.
It is simply not right for the sixth richest country on earth to have allowed a situation to develop whereby a worker only knows if he or she will earn a wage that day when they get a text message to tell them that they have a shift.
Paddy Lillis, general secretary of the shopworkers union Usdaw, said: We welcome the commitment to help workers on zero and short-hours contracts by requiring employers to guarantee a minimum number of hours for their staff.
It is clear that Labour fully understands the problems low-paid workers have in getting enough hours to make a weekly wage they can live on.
Mr McDonnell said workers in the gig economy will be given the same rights as other employees including sick pay and parental leave under a Labour government.
He criticised the Governments Taylor Report into employment for ignoring trade unions.
He said: Even if the Government adopt every positive recommendation in Taylor, it will not be enough because the most effective way to improve the lives of working people is through trade unions and collective action.
Just because you dont work regular hours doesnt mean you can afford not to work when you are sick.
Just because you work several jobs doesnt mean you can afford to lose one of them without warning.
Just because you value the freedom of independence or the convenience of flexibility doesnt mean you have to forgo basic rights.
Mr McDonnell said the burden of proof should be shifted so that the law treats gig staff as workers unless the employer can prove otherwise.
He added that the Conservatives have stripped back employment rights to a level not seen since the economic depression of the 1930s.
Speculation is mounting that Tesco is set to launch a new discount format amid ever-increasing market share gains by German discounters Aldi and Lidl.
The UKs biggest retailer has invited reporters to join chief executive Dave Lewis at its site at Chatteris in Cambridgeshire on September 19.
The supermarket giant simply said it will be sharing some exciting news but did not give any further detail.
Tesco will hold a briefing on its plans next week (PA)
In July, Tesco advertised for staff for a new store format in Chatteris, seeking to recruit retail assistants, retail customer service assistants and retail managers.
Media reports in July said Tesco was close to launching a chain of discount stores in Britain called Jacks after Jack Cohen, who founded a business in 1919 that became Tesco.
Tesco is Britains grocery market leader with a share of 27.4% while Aldi and Lidl have increased their combined share to 13.1%, according to the latest Kantar Worldpanel data.
Earlier this year Tesco announced it would form a strategic alliance with French retailer Carrefour as part of efforts to cut prices.
The long-term deal will be covered by a three-year framework and see the two companies form a strategic relationship when dealing with global suppliers.
In June, Tesco reported its 10th consecutive quarter of sales growth, boosted by its acquisition of wholesaler Booker.
Fraser McKevitt, head of retail and consumer insight at Kantar Worldpanel, said: Aldi and Lidl account for over 13% of take-home grocery sales and are growing at 10% each year.
Strategically, it makes sense for Tesco to consider its own discount chain and try to capture some of that growth.
The big four now make up less than 70% of grocery sales down from 76% a decade ago. The proposed Sainsburys-Asda merger acknowledges this decline, as did Tescos own acquisition of Booker, which gave it access to wholesale and out-of-home sales.
The opening of a new discount chain would be further recognition of this shift.
A woman convicted of helping a former street preacher kidnap Elizabeth Smart in 2002 will be freed from a US prison more than five years earlier than expected.
Ms Smart called the surprise decision incomprehensible on Tuesday.
Wanda Barzee, 72, will be released on September 19 after the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole determined it had miscalculated the time she previously served in federal custody, board spokesman Greg Johnson said.
Barzee pleaded guilty to kidnapping Smart and helping keep her captive for nine months before then-teenager was found and rescued.
Elizabeth Smart is opposed to the release (Rick Bowmer/AP)
Ms Smart, now 30, said in a statement she was surprised and disappointed to learn that Barzee will be freed next week.
She said she is exploring her options and plans to speak publicly in the coming days.
It is incomprehensible how someone who has not cooperated with her mental health evaluations or risk assessments and someone who did not show up to her own parole hearing can be released into our community, Ms Smart said.
The board said previously Barzee would be released in January 2024 after it denied her an early parole following a hearing that she chose not to attend.
At that June hearing, the board said that Barzee had refused to take a psychological exam.
At the same hearing, her lawyer questioned the calculation of her release date, which led the Utah board to look into it.
Lawyer Scott Williams said he appreciates that the board reviewed it and agreed with his assessment.
Mr Williams said he is not concerned about Barzee being a danger to the community, but declined to say why he believes that.
He has said Barzee has been diagnosed with several mental illnesses.
Ms Smart said in an Instagram post after the hearing that she is not a vindictive person but was worried about Barzees release after learning she was still carrying a manuscript containing revelations that accomplice Brian David Mitchell said he received from God telling him to kidnap Ms Smart.
Wanda Barzee leaving a court hearing (Jeffrey D. Allred/AP)
She said the manuscript also contains other disturbing and dangerous ideas.
She did not say how she knows Barzee has the book.
Ms Smarts abduction from her bedroom at knifepoint by a man who came in through an open kitchen window triggered waves of fear around the country.
Ms Smart was found while walking with Barzee and Mitchell on a street in the suburb of Sandy, Utah, by people who recognised the couple from media reports.
Mitchell is serving a life sentence after being convicted of kidnapping and raping Ms Smart.
He and Barzee were married at one point.
Barzee was sent to the Utah state prison in April 2016 after finishing a federal sentence in Texas.
Ms Smart, now married with two children, has written a book about the ordeal and helped make a Lifetime movie and documentary.
She is now a child safety activist who regularly gives speeches.
She said in her statement she appreciates the support she is receiving and vowed to work to address the issue of Barzees release so the same thing does not happen again.
Barzee will be under federal supervision for five years.
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has personally apologised to the mother of an Irish woman who was murdered in India, after his department was initially reluctant to assist because she had been travelling on a UK passport.
Andrea Brannigan and her daughter Jolene met the Irish premier on Tuesday evening at the Bishops Gate Hotel in Londonderry.
Mr Varadkar described the meeting as constructive and said the Department of Foreign Affairs is now assisting the family.
Danielle McLaughlin, 28, from Buncrana in Co Donegal, was found dead in a secluded spot in Canacona, an area of Goa popular with holidaymakers, in March last year.
Danielle McLaughlin, who was found murdered at an Indian beach resort (Family handout)
Her mother requested a meeting with Mr Varadkar to discuss how families could be better supported when a loved one dies abroad.
But Ms Brannigan said she was told by Government officials that it was probably not worthwhile as her daughter was not an Irish citizen.
The distraught mother was advised to contact British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt.
In a statement, the Department of Taoiseach said officials incorrectly concluded Ms McLaughlin was a British citizen as Ms Brannigan said she was travelling on a UK passport.
They apologised to Ms McLaughlins family over the matter.
Speaking after the meeting on Tuesday evening, Mr Varadkar said he had apologised to Ms Brannigan.
Leo Varadkar met Danielle McLaughlins mother in Londonderry (Brian Lawless/PA)
I had a very helpful and constructive meeting with Ms Brannigan and her daughter Jolene, Mr Varadkar said.
I offered my condolences to them on Danielles tragic death. I also apologised for the error my department made with respect to her citizenship.
Ms Brannigan gave me several examples of how the Government could better assist her and other families in similarly difficult circumstances, including the appointment of family liaison officers, an amendment to the Victims Charter, more written information, counselling services and monitoring of overseas trials by our diplomatic staff.
I agreed to follow up on these matters and a contact person has been assigned to her in the Department of Foreign Affairs.
The Taoiseach took part in a series of engagements in the north west of Ireland earlier.
Mr Varadkar visited E+I Engineering Ltd in Burnfoot where he welcomed the creation of 90 new jobs.
Mr Varadkar also officially opened a new bridge in Buncrana and addressed a meeting of the Letterkenny Chamber of Commerce.
He departed from City of Derry airport on Tuesday evening.
Brazils Workers Party has replaced jailed former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva as its candidate for Octobers general election, clarifying one of the biggest question marks hanging over the vote to lead Latin Americas largest nation.
The party confirmed the move after a meeting of its executive committee in the southern city Curitiba, where da Silva is jailed.
Fernando Haddad, a former Sao Paulo mayor, will lead the ticket and be joined by Manuela DAvila, a member of Brazils Communist Party.
The move, while long expected, was an acknowledgement that the party could not get da Silva, who Brazilians universally call Lula, on the ballot despite numerous attempts in the courts.
Ex-president Lula da Silva is currently in custody (Geoff Caddick/PA)
The struggle has just begun. Lets go, Haddad! Haddad is Lula! the Workers Party Twitter account said.
He was a Lula minister, he is a Lula attorney and best of all: he is a friend of Lulas.
The political science professor turned education minister and later politician was meeting with da Silva after the decision, members of the left-leaning party said.
A press conference and formal announcement were expected later in the afternoon.
Da Silva is serving a 12-year sentence for trading favours with construction company Grupo OAS for the promise of a beachfront apartment.
Marina Silva is the presidential candidate for the Sustainability Network Party (Silvia Izquierdo/AP)
The former president, who governed between 2003 and 2010, has always denied wrongdoing, arguing this case and several others pending against him are meant to keep him off the ballot.
Lula led polls for more than a year, but his candidacy was recently barred by the countrys top electoral court.
Recent polls show Mr Haddad far behind, but the party hopes he will now rise with da Silvas endorsement.
The current leader is far-right congressman Jair Bolsonaro, consistently over 20% in a race that puts several candidates at around 10%.
Mr Haddad was education minister under da Silva and his successor, Dilma Rousseff.
In 2012 he was elected mayor of Sao Paulo, the most populous city in South America, but failed to get re-elected four years later.
A Datafolha poll published on Monday shows Mr Haddad in fourth place, favoured by 9%.
Jair Bolsonaro is carried away after being stabbed during a campaign rally (Fernando Goncalves/AP)
That was a rise of five percentage points in just a few weeks, but still behind Mr Bolsonaros 24, left-leaning Ciro Gomes 13, centrist Marina Silvas 11 and right-leaning Geraldo Alckmins 10%.
The poll had a margin of error of 2 percentage points.
All the 2,804 voters sampled were interviewed on Monday, days after da Silvas candidacy was barred by the electoral court and Mr Bolsonaro was stabbed in an incident that might put him in hospital until election day.
If no candidate gets more than 50% on October 7, a runoff will be held on October 28.
The mother of an Irish woman who was raped and murdered in India has commended Taoiseach Leo Varadkar for apologising to her personally for an error made by his department over her initial request to meet him.
Andrea Brannigan met the Irish Premier at the Bishops Gate Hotel in Londonderry on Tuesday night.
She commended him for spending almost two hours with her and her daughter Jolene, but warned actions speak louder than words.
Danielle McLaughlin, 28, from Buncrana in Co Donegal, was found dead in a secluded spot in Canacona, an area of Goa popular with holidaymakers, in March last year.
Danielle McLaughlin, who was found murdered at an Indian beach resort (Family handout)
Her mother requested a meeting with Mr Varadkar to discuss how families could be better supported when a loved one dies abroad.
But the Taoiseachs department initially redirected her to the British Foreign Office because Ms McLaughlin had been travelling on a UK passport.
The department has since apologised for what it termed an error.
On Tuesday night, Mr Varadkar apologised to her personally.
That was the first thing he did, apologise for what happened (the error by his department, she said.
He shook my hand. He listened which was the main thing, and even stayed with us over the time. The meeting lasted nearly two hours.
A representative from the Irish Foreign Office was also present during the meeting.
The Irish Foreign Office have an embassy in Delhi so they are going to send someone every few months to observe the trial, she said.
The trial over Danielles murder started in India in April, and is still running.
Ms Brannigan welcomed the meeting, but warned actions speak louder than words.
We are very hopeful that our Taoiseach will keep his promises so we can finally say our government have helped us, she said.
Actions speak louder than words, we are glad Leo has agreed to help us so we now hope he actually does.
The meeting was very constructive and we felt so welcomed. Leo Varadkar made sure we had his complete undivided attention throughout our meeting which we are very thankful for.
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said the meeting was constructive (Brian Lawless/PA)
Ms Brannigan said her family want legislation passed so that in future Irish families who lose a loved one abroad will be supported.
We hope that Danielles amendment may be passed so that no family who have had a loved one killed abroad will ever have to feel like we have or be treated the way we have, she said.
We do not want any family in a similar situation to us to feel isolated and alone.
In a statement, Mr Varadkar described the meeting as constructive.
I had a very helpful and constructive meeting with Ms Brannigan and her daughter Jolene, Mr Varadkar said.
I offered my condolences to them on Danielles tragic death. I also apologised for the error my department made with respect to her citizenship.
Ms Brannigan gave me several examples of how the Government could better assist her and other families in similarly difficult circumstances, including the appointment of family liaison officers, an amendment to the Victims Charter, more written information, counselling services and monitoring of overseas trials by our diplomatic staff.
Bill Cosby wants a judge to step down from his case days before sentencing on sex assault charges.
A defence motion on Tuesday accused Pennsylvania Judge Steven ONeill of having a longtime grudge against a key witness in a 2016 pre-trial hearing.
The witness, ex-prosecutor Bruce Castor, said he declined the case in 2005 and promised Cosby that he could never be prosecuted over the 2004 encounter with a woman at his home.
Mr ONeill found no evidence of a binding agreement and sent the case to trial.
Actor Bill Cosby holding the Bob Hope Humanitarian Award (PA)
Cosby faces sentencing on September 24 after he was convicted of three felonies this spring.
He faces up to 10 years in prison on each count.
Mr ONeills office did not immediately return a call for comment.
Camille Cosby in a separate statement called Mr ONeills alleged bias in her husbands case a horrible injustice.
Sir James Dyson has hailed the fact that over a third of students at his engineering institute are women, as demand for places at the university rockets.
The Dyson Institute of Engineering and Technology has welcomed 43 undergraduate engineers in its second cohort, 40 percent of which are female.
It takes the total number of women enrolled in the degree course to 26 out of 76 at the Malmesbury-based campus in Wiltshire.
Sir James said: I am thrilled to be welcoming these bright young people to The Dyson Institute. They are opting for something new and exciting I am looking forward to seeing what exceptional things they achieve over the next four years.
Our second cohort of Dyson Undergraduates is nearly half female which is good news given that engineering has traditionally attracted so few women.
The Institute said this has been achieved through targeted recruitment.
Inventor Sir James Dyson at the Dyson HQ in Malmesbury, Wiltshire (PA)
According to the Women in Engineering Society, the UK has the lowest percentage of female engineers in Europe at just 11% of the total workforce.
Women make up just 15.1% of those on engineering undergraduate courses in the UK as a whole, and Sir James said that by 2025 Britain will be 1.8 million engineers short.
The 43 school leavers were amongst 950 to apply this year, which Dyson said made it one of the most competitive higher education degrees in the UK with 22 applications for each place.
Alongside the challenging demands of their degree studies they will quickly be contributing to the next generation of Dyson products which will be used all around the world.
They trust us with their education and in return they will learn from some of the best engineers in the world, develop real products from day one, earn a salary, and pay no tuition fees, Sir James added.
The Brexit-backing technology tycoon is investing 31.5 million into the institute and Dyson has also started work on a second 517-acre campus at Hullavington in Wiltshire.
It will be the launchpad for Dysons electric cars, which it will start selling from 2021.
MP Robert Halfon said: The Dyson Institute of Engineering and Technology is the future its how all universities should be run.
They really are ground-breaking and should be congratulated on their understanding of the future of education.
The recently held BIMSTEC (Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation) conference made Kathmandu a safe haven for optimists and escapists alike who found refuge in living the conference-mode for a short while. In sheer euphoria, albeit briefly, it was forgotten that geopolitics was the raison detre for the birth of BIMSTEC. And this is because the Indian Ocean is strategically important where rivalry between China and India is real and not easy enough to be overlooked.
New geopolitics: PM Narendra Modi with Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena and Nepal's PM OP Oli at the BIMSTEC summit. (Photo: Reuters)
Noticeably, China heavily relies on the Indian Ocean and the Malacca Strait for oil movement, where the US Navy has considerable influence. China, thus essentially, is desperate to open alternate access points in BIMSTEC member-countries. This goes with Chinas expansionist tendency to disturb the bilateral and trilateral spheres in South Asia, where India has conventionally been a strong player.
There is a perception that puts forward a case where the Indian Ocean is believed to be the Chickens Neck to Chinas national security. Hence, there is an official Chinese line that views Indias control over the Indian Ocean as a threat to Chinas energy security with or without the US. Moreover, Indias Look East is taken as a policy to counter Chinas String of Pearls strategy.
Testing the waters: Chinese warships in the Indian Ocean. (Photo: AP)
With BIMSTEC, India hopes to get China to step back from the Indian Ocean. Indias unprecedented recent investment in its naval force is a step in the direction of creating and maintaining a level-playing field with an aggressive and unpredictable China.
To give an impression of BIMSTEC unity through the joint military exercise that was not originally a part of the BIMSTEC charter, India ended up temporarily shaking the political establishment in Nepal.
Surprisingly, resistance came not only from within the ruling Communist block, but also the main Opposition. The Nepali Congress vehemently resisted Nepals move to join the proposed joint military exercise in Pune, India.
Under fire from all sides, Nepal's Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli did what he was expected to do. Nepal decided against participating in the military exercise. However, to pacify the host, it let the officers, who had already reached Pune, stay there as observers.
Nepal, otherwise not known for flexing its muscle or having an ambition to emerge as a strong military power, came down heavily on the plan that had the potential to irk China. Significantly, the Nepal-China Transit and Transport Agreement was signed during this tumultuous phase a deal that ended Nepals dependence on India for vital access to ports.
The double-jolt to India was not something that was expected from Nepal in the wake of the BIMSTEC summit, giving enough reasons to the Modi government to rethink its event-centric methods in dealing with external affairs. What is required is to let policies guide action in the region and come to terms with changing fundamentals in the immediate neighbourhood.
Friends with benefits: The Nepal-China Transit and Transport Agreement ends Kathmandu's dependence on India for vital access to ports. (Credit: AP photo)
From the Indian perspective, Delhi needs to accept that Nepal has been working keeping in view mass sentiments that wanted the country to end its over-dependence on India, without disturbing the natural tenets of friendly ties. While India will keep availing the goodwill generated over the decades in Nepal, it is unlikely that it will enjoy the same dominating position ever again.
According to the new agreement, China has also agreed to allow Nepal to use its land ports at Lanzhou, Lhasa and Shigatse and roads linking to these places. Under this arrangement, it would be possible now to route Nepal-bound cargo from Japan, South Korea and other north Asian countries through China, saving shipping time and costs.
As of now, Nepal heavily relies on India for overland trade and for the supply of essential goods, including fuel and cooking gas.
Kolkata port has been the lifeline so far, but with changing equations, it may now face stiff competition with ties between Kathmandu and Beijing deepening. Noticeably, China managed to route over $8 billion into investments in Nepal last year, leaving India way behind as the countrys largest foreign investor.
A series of misguided interventions from New Delhi in recent years, especially the alarming economic blockade imposed in 2015 as a mark of denouncement against Nepals new Constitution, created a deep chasm between the two countries. The damage-control measures by New Delhi were seen as too little, too late.
Severing ties: The economic blockade of 2015 created a deep chasm between Kathmandu and New Delhi. (Credit: Twitter)
Meanwhile, China, that was desperate to get greater hold over Nepal, seized the moment and exploited it in its favour. Apparently, the Modi governments pet foreign policy, Neighbourhood First, is not serving Indias cause on expected lines in Nepal, and is instead letting China pursue its nasty expansionist policies.
What came as an aftershock was that Nepal has reportedly decided to take part in a 12-day long military exercise with China. Nepal Army spokesperson Brig Gen Gokul Bhandari shared with the media that the joint exercise between Nepal and China is called Sagarmatha Friendship-2 and will take place on September 17-28 in Chengdu. The main focus of the exercise would be counter-terror operations.
If all goes as planned, this should worry India.
But to stay on turf, New Delhi will have to give counter-strategy a chance. Overlooking due procedures and undermining the role of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) will further damage Indias chances in the tug of war with China where Nepal is an underrated trump card.
Clearly, the recent developments show how Oli is getting success in consolidating support from "reactionary forces" in his favour and challenging his political rivals (though within the coalition), including Prachanda, who was in India when these major decisions were taken. As Prachandas claim on the Prime Minister's chair is due, Oli played a master stroke to diminish his balanced stand for India and China.
However, through regular diplomatic channels and policies, India can still aim to be right at the centre.
Also read: Why the Nepali communist challenge to India is deadly
'I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character.'
Martin Luther King (1963)
I did not vote for Prime Minister Imran Khan's 'Naya Pakistan'. This was not by design. I would have liked to vote, but like many Pakistanis, I have grown weary of the constant political circus that is Pakistani politics with civilian governments being ushered in and out of power, without any discernible change in the country's direction.
If I had been in Pakistan, I would still have voted though. I did last time, in 2013 when, despite being skeptical about Mr Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e Insaf (PTI) party, I cast a vote for it. They won in my constituency of Lahore but lost the province of Punjab. They did manage to form a government in the restive Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province where they have been in power for the last five years.
The news from KP about their government's tenure, at least what I read, has been mixed. There were reports of improvements in health, the police service and other administrative matters. Khan also managed to open a campus of his widely heralded Shaukat Khanum Cancer Hospital (named after his late mother) in Peshawar, KP's largest city, and he announced another one in Pakistan's largest city of Karachi.
His stint in regional governance drew mixed reports. (Photo: Reuters)
On other matters, there was decidedly less progress.
Photos circulating in the news and social media showed that infrastructure was still a mess and a much vaunted city-wide bus service project appeared bogged down in red tape.
At any rate, by the time I came back to Lahore, the election was over and it appeared that the PTI had at last gained enough seats to patch together a coalition. A few days later, Khan was elected Prime Minister with a comfortable majority. A few days after that came his first nationally televised speech which, although long on rhetoric and short on policy, did contain some points that were music to the ears of liberal leftists like myself.
Speaking for the first time as Pakistan's PM, Imran pleased liberal ears. (Photo: Reuters)
In a folksy, homely style, Khan talked passionately about child malnutrition, Pakistan's water and climate crisis, our perpetual energy woes and, most importantly, our wounded economy which was hemorrhaging foreign exchange at an alarming rate - Pakistan's currency has declined by about 15% in the months before the election.
While we had watched Khan's wooing of militant Islamists in the run-up to the election with alarm, we all felt slightly reassured after the speech. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad after all. And the best thing about Khan's ascendance to power was that he had, finally, given Pakistanis the much longed-for 'third option' in politics. We no longer had to hold our noses and vote either for Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) or the even more discredited Pakistan People's Party (PPP).
At least Imran Khan seemed to offer a third option in Pak politics. (Photo: Reuters)
Immediately after the speech though, the new government appeared to stumble badly.
There was a series of missteps, some probably inadvertent that appeared to show an administration completely unprepared to run a country. There was an embarrassing incident involving a call between American Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Khan, then another one which bordered on the absurd about Khan and the French president.
There was a silly matter about Khan travelling by helicopter from his residence to Parliament and also the matter of Khan appointing a complete political non-entity to the post of Chief Minister of Pakistan's most populous Punjab province. All this though appeared to be the expected teething problems of a team unused to handling national political matters.
The most recent issue however has raised serious concerns about where Mr Khan's government is heading it started quietly enough. No one had even heard of a gentleman by the name of Atif Mian until this happened although Khan apparently had.
The video in which Imran Khan can be seen pitching for Atif Mian in 2014.
He is on video taunting Nawaz Sharif at his 'dharna' in 2014 that unlike him (Sharif), he would not appoint his 'samdhi' ('in-law') to be finance minister (Sharif had appointed Ishaq Dar, whose son is married to Sharif's daughter). Khan further boasted that he would invite Atif Mian, "a professor at Princeton and one of the 25 top economists in the world", to be his finance minister.
Atif Mian is one of the best known economists from Pakistan, rejected by his own nation for being Ahmadi (Photo: Twitter)
It now appears that even back then, a group of Islamists had approached Khan after his speech to inform him that Mian, brilliant economist though he was, belonged to the 'Ahmaddiya' sect (the Ahmadiyya claim that they are a sect of Islam, like the Shia. Militant Islamists vehemently reject this assertion, terming them 'kafirs', based primarily on their interpretation of the concept of 'Khatm-e Nabuwwat' finality of Prophethood).
Ahmadis (sometimes referred to in a derogatory fashion as 'Qadianis' from 'Qadian', a town in district Gurdaspur, where the founder of the faith, Mirza Ghulam Ahmed, was born) were declared 'Non-Muslims' by Pakistan's Parliament in 1973 when then-Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto buckled under the pressure of religious extremists.
Discrimination against Ahmadis started under Bhutto's government. (Photo: Reuters)
Ever since, discrimination against the Ahmadiyya is enshrined in Pakistan's Constitution with both passive suppression (not allowing them to pray in public or even call their prayer places 'mosques') as well as active oppression against them (in the form of regular beatings, killings and property seizures). Every Pakistani, when they go to have a national ID card or passport made, has to sign an oath declaring themselves not Ahmadis and explicitly disavowing any association with them. Tens of thousands of Ahmadiyyas have left Pakistan and settled abroad and those that remain keep very low profiles to stay out of trouble.
Second-class: Ahmadis are not treated as equal citizens of Pakistan (Photo: Reuters)
Interestingly, the only Nobel laureate in Pakistan's history (Professor Abdus Salam, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1979) belongs to this community.
Imran Khan's government recently announced that Mr Mian would serve on the government's Economic Advisory Council (EAC) welcome news for a country which is an economic basket case. Almost immediately, a whispering campaign started against Mian on media and social media. To Khan's initial credit, his information minister and chief spokesman Fawad Chaudhry came forward and stridently denounced the critics, asking rhetorically 'Are Pakistan's minorities not citizens of this country?'; the exact same thing leftists and liberals have been saying for years about the country's much persecuted minorities these include not just the Ahmadiyya but also Shias, Hazaras, Hindus, Christians and many others.
While we all celebrated on social media, some voices, older or maybe just more pessimistic, advised caution.
Sure enough, just three days later, Khan's government announced that it had removed Mian from the EAC (later changing its statement to say he had resigned). Mian himself remained the picture of grace throughout this saga, tweeting, "My prayers will always be with Pakistan and I will always be ready to help it in any way that is required."
1/ For the sake of the stability of the Government of Pakistan, I have resigned from the Economic Advisory Council, as the Government was facing a lot of adverse pressure regarding my appointment from the Mullahs (Muslim clerics) and their supporters. Atif Mian (@AtifRMian) September 7, 2018
2/ Nevertheless, I will always be ready to serve Pakistan as it is the country in which I was raised and which I love a great deal. Serving my country is an inherent part of my faith and will always be my heartfelt desire. Atif Mian (@AtifRMian) September 7, 2018
3/ Moving forward, I now hope and pray that the Economic Advisory Council is able to fulfill its mandate in the very best way so that the Pakistani people and nation can prosper and flourish. Atif Mian (@AtifRMian) September 7, 2018
4/ My prayers will always be with Pakistan and I will always be ready to help it in any way that is required. Atif Mian (@AtifRMian) September 7, 2018
But Khan's spokesman then appeared to debase himself further by tweeting in support of his and his party leadership's religious credentials and eulogising those he had criticised as 'extremists' just three days before as 'Ulema' ('religious scholars').
The Islamists, of course, had a field day crowing on social media that they had forced the new government to capitulate. To make matters worse, in the days to follow, two more eminent economists publicly announced their dissociation from the EAC in solidarity with Mian and more are expected to follow. In addition, several prominent international economists spoke out in favour of Mr Mian and against the actions of Khan's government.
Despite his flying high, Pakistan is not going to take off. (Photo: Reuters)
Imran Khan himself remained suspiciously silent throughout the furore when he finally appeared on TV the day after Mian was removed from the EAC, it was not to address this matter but to make a faintly ridiculous appeal to expatriate Pakistanis to donate $1000 each to his government's 'Dam building fund'.
The contrast could not be more stark a government that fires a world-class economist from its top team, loses a few more in the process, then proceeds to ask donors to send money to solve its economic woes.
So, once again, people like me who had dared to hope against hope for Imran Khan to begin the process of rolling back Pakistan's inexorable slide towards religious extremism and get the economy back on track are left to rue the moment. A government that never tires of shouting about 'merit' and 'qualifications' from the rooftops, and then rejects an eminently qualified professional on the basis of his personal religious beliefs, seems ill-equipped to handle the myriad problems facing the nation.
And if Khan and his government can't be bothered to take a stand when they have a comfortable majority in Parliament and a political opposition in total disarray, what will happen when things get tough?
It's too painful to think about.
Suffice to say that the day when Pakistan will value its sons and daughters on the 'content of their character' seems farther away than ever.
Also Read: Why removal of Atif Mian from the Economic Advisory Council is neither a service to Islam nor to Pakistan
Citizen-centric initiatives of the Government prove were progressing from the archaic mindset of lower-level bureaucrats towards good governance
My father is a retired professor in his mid 80s and one of his biggest challenges is the annual ritual of proving to the State Bank of India that he is alive so that the bank disburses his pension. This is true of lakhs of pensioners across the country. Often, one comes across elderly lining up in public sector banks to assert their existence. Not only in banks, go to any Government office dealing with pension, its not difficult to find a number of hapless elderly people struggling to negotiate the rude, stubborn and archaic mindset of lower-level bureaucracy.
In one stroke, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal dealt a severe blow to this mindset and age-old roadblock to good governance when he launched the ambitious doorstep delivery of Government services programme this month. Described by Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia as a first-of-its-kind in the country, people can avail of 40 services from seven Government departments, sitting at home. This is truly a historic initiative and transforms the way governance is delivered. In a tweet, Kejriwal wrote that there is a need to change the way we are being governed administration and governance needed complete overhaul and both should become citizen-centric.
This programme can become a game-changer and a model for several States as it promises to bring about a paradigm shift in peoples engagement with the Government. It will mean a world of difference to them, especially the elderly, disabled, women and children. After the happiness curriculum and mohalla clinic programmes, this comes as an icing on the cake and takes governance reforms to new levels. One of the understated advantages of competitive federalism that Prime Minister Narendra Modi so passionately articulates is that it sets a new benchmark in public policies and programmes.
The Prime Minister has led from the front and his people-centric programmes are yielding effective results. Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana, for instance, is lighting up lives in areas that hitherto remained mired in misery and darkness. Narendra Modi once said, Federalism is no longer the fault line of Centre-State relations but the definition of a new partnership of Team India. Among others, this spirit may have triggered multiple innovations of governance. Recently, Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje launched a unique programme to enable poor families to get access to information on Government programmes without any intermediary. Under the Bhamashah Digital Family Scheme, every Bhamashah family who are entitled to National Food Security, will be given Rs 1,000 in two installments by the State Government to purchase Internet-enabled smartphones.
Telangana Civil Supplies Department and Civil Supplies Corporation undertook a unique reform to plug loopholes in the public distribution system (PDS). IT-based systems are the only way to cut corruption on a long-term basis. IT helps to cut interaction between Government and citizens while offering public services. Lesser interaction means lesser corruption, says Akun Sabharwal, Commissioner & Secretary, Consumer Affairs, Food & Civil Supplies. According to Sabharwal, an IPS officer, Technology has been effectively integrated at the four layers of the PDS architecture, from procurement till distribution to beneficiaries, and this has brought about transparency and efficiency besides blowing a death-knell to corruption, informs. In fact, Telangana Minister for Finance and Civil Supplies, Eatela Rajender had said that the State Government had saved more than Rs 1,000 crore worth rice by plugging loopholes by effective use of IT in procurement and distribution.
At the first stage of procurement, 3,000 odd paddy purchase centers were provided with tabs to enter the details, besides effective streamlining of the procedure through what is called the Online Procurement Management System (OPMS). This caused impressive gains in procurement from 24.28 lakh metric tonne in 2014-15 to 54.06 lakh metric tonne in 2016-17, besides eliminating middlemen in payment of MSP to farmers. To monitor movement of procured paddy in GPS fitted trucks, from buffer godowns to corporation godowns and subsequently to fair price shops, a special Command Control Centre was established by the department. The department introduced geo-fencing of 18,0000 routes to curb pilferage and smuggling. For last mile distribution through fair price shops, the department effectively used National Informatics Centres (NIC) ePDS software and Aadhaar seeding of beneficiaries.
Telangana is the first State to have completed 100 per cent seeding of Aadhaar with 2.75 crore beneficiaries. Our electronic point of sale machine has also been introduced in all 31 districts and this offers massive ease to consumers besides securing the system against any foul play, informs Sabharwal. CCTVs at PDS shop, a special T-Ration app and offering anywhere ration portability are some other revolutionary reforms that have brought about a revolutionary change in the PDS. Sabharwal didnt lose time in acknowledging Herculean team effort, including those of his predecessors IAS Officer Rajat Kumar and IPS Officer CV Anand, who ensured this iconic metamorphosis. I am just carrying the baton forward, he avered. And he seemed to be doing that quite well.
(The writer is a strategic communications professional)
At a meeting at Dakshin Kali temple near Chandi Ghat here on Thursday, the president of All India Akhada Parishad Narendra Giri and the head of Dakshin Kali Mandir Kailashanand Saraswati demanded the system of reservation be scrapped. They also suggested that all the Hindus, irrespective of the caste, should use the word Hindu in the place of surnames, adding that it would unite the Hindus across the land. They, further, said that the suggestion would be placed for endorsement during the congregation of the saints to be held in Allahabad next month.
Giri said that the Government must stop Christian missionary organisations from proselytising and converting the tribal/rural people to Christianity. This is an imperative in view of what is happening in several parts of the country, particularly in the northeast, he said.
Calling caste-based reservation as the principal impediment to the emotional integration of the Hindu nation, Giri said that the time has come when it must be done away with. At the same time, the Hindus should use Hindu at the end of their names by way of asserting their religious/cultural identity, he said.
The Akhada chief also said that the Government should take a serious note of the rampant proselytizing activities being carried out by the Christian missionaries, particularly in the north-eastern states. They are converting the tribal people professing Hinduism to Christianity with impunity. This is a dangerous trend which must be stopped with a heavy hand. The Government must step in immediately, Giri said.
Kailashanand Brahmchari expressed the hope that the Ram Mandir would be constructed at Ayodhya before the 2019 general election.
They both pitched for scrapping of Article 370 of the Constitution, dubbing it as the chief inspiration for the fissiparous movement going on in Jammu and Kashmir. They said that no state of the Indian Union is entitled to a special status. The article is the greatest destabilising factor in the restive northern State, they said.
Communal tension prevailed in Bahraich after two groups clashed over a puja pandal set up to celebrate Ganesh Chaturthi, leaving half a dozen women injured.
The situation could be controlled only after a heavy police force reached the spot.
A case was registered and three women were taken into custody.
As per reports, members of two communities at Nanpara locality of Bahraich had a dispute over setting up a puja pandal for celebrating Ganesh Chaturthi. One of the groups opposed the pandal claiming that the area would be used to take out a procession during Moharram.
The other community was, however, adamant maintaining that both communities should be able to perform their religious functions.
On Tuesday morning, sub-divisional magistrate of Nanpara, Siddharth Yadav, and circle officer VP Singh summoned both parties and asked them to reach a compromise so that both functions could be held peacefully.
However, on Tuesday evening, the situation took an ugly turn when members of a community started putting up barricades at the demarcated site for celebrating Ganesh Chaturthi without any hurdle.
In the meantime, Munni Begum of Nai Basti locality of Nanpara reached there and objected. She hurled abuses after which two policemen deployed at the spot forced her to leave the spot.
However, Munni Begum returned soon, accompanied by dozens of other members, identified as Annu Begum, Bibi Begum, Munda Begum, Salman, Razzan, Shahnawaz, Akram, Zaved, Harun, and others, and they attacked the other group leaving Santosh, Manju Devi, Neelu, Ragini, Meera, Bhagyarani and Sanjay with serious injuries.
It was only when senior officers rushed to the spot with additional force that the troublemakers left the spot.
Later, Moharram committee in-charge, Naseem Chaudhary, and Ganesh Puja Committee head Deepak Srivastava confirmed that Munni Begum created the entire trouble. A case was registered against her and a heavy police force was deployed to avert fresh trouble.
Meanwhile in Gonda, three kanwariyas drowned in the Kuano river on Wednesday morning.
The deceased were identified as Himanshu (14), Shekhar Shukla (13) and Vikas Kumar (14)
On Monday morning, the victims along with their two friends went to the Kuano river to get some water for jalabhishek and slipped into deep waters.
The locals tried to save the youngsters but by that time they had drowned.
The bodies were sent for autopsy.
Elsewhere in Rae Bareli, a woman and her son died in a stove blast while her husband was injured.
As per reports, Sudhir lived with his family in Devanandpur hamlet of Mill Area in Rae Bareli. On Wednesday morning, Sudhir's wife Malti was cooking food on a kerosene stove when it exploded, critically injuring her and her 3-year-old son Prince.
As the two caught fire, Sudhir rushed to their rescue and suffered burns in the process.
All the three were rushed to district hospital where Malti and Prince succumbed to their injuries in the afternoon.
The locals staged a protest as the treatment of the victims was delayed by an hour due to absence of stretcher in the hospital.
A case was registered and the bodies were sent for autopsy.
A day after a State Commission for Protection of Child Rights (SCPCR) team visited two ashrams and asked for the cancellation of their NOCs, their owner Swami Anupmanand Giri filed a complaint against the chairperson of the child welfare body Usha Negi at the District Magistrates office on Thursday. He said in the complaint that she had forced her entry into the ashram premises and tried to extort money from him. However, Negi rubbished the charge and said that he is desperate to shield himself from an inquiry into the sordid state of things in the two ashrams where many children are living in a miserable condition. Notably, following the visit of the team, Negi had urged the DM to cancel NOCs of the two ashrams-Hari Om Ashram and Shiv Om Ashram-given the poor facilities being provided to the children inmates.
Asked to comment on the complaint lodged against her, Negi said while talking to The Pioneer that the team she led had dared to enter the premises while no officer was ready to enter. She, further, said that the allegation was baseless as the team had entered the premises of both the ashrams along with teams of police and media. Everything was clear. The motive behind the complaint is to scuttle a probe which would expose things fully, she said.
She, further, informed that the commission had acted after it had received several complaints against the ashrams from Uttarakhand State Commission for Women. Such complaints cannot stop us from visiting more such houses where children are living.
It is our duty to ensure they are well cared for and they enjoy the basic facilities of living, Negi said and added that the officers who keep turning blind eye to the shabby state things of the ashrams must explain their callousness to the commission.
Negi said that the commission would have the children living in the ashrams shifted either to Bal Niketan or to Nari Niketan in the coming days. Presently, 39 children-both girls and boys are living in the Hari Om Ashram while 14 girls aged above 10 years are living in Shiv Om Ashram.
In order to consolidate its support base in time for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party has planned to capitalise on the legacy of the late former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee while also propagating the ideals of Mahatma Gandhi and Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel along with holding shows of the movie Chalo Jeete Hain inspired by the childhood of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. From poetry recitation events and medical camps in slums to 150 kilometre long walks in all assembly constituencies, the BJP will undertake various activities including Shaurya Diwas to mark the anniversary of the surgical strikes in Pakistan occupied Kashmir in the coming months.
The BJP State president Ajay Bhatt informed about these planned activities while addressing the media following the meeting of the State-level office bearers of the party here on Thursday.
Bhatt informed that to mark one month of Vajpayees demise on September 16, Kavyanjali programme will be held at the Vidhan Sabha and Lok Sabha levels wherein poems by Vajyapee and about him will be recited in homage to him. A day later, the Kavyanjali Sewa Saptah will be launched and observed till September 25-the birth anniversary of Deendayal Upadhyaya.
As part of this programme, medical camps will be held in slums and the residents will also be informed about the Ayushman Bharat Yojana. After the programme, the movie Chalo Jeete Hain inspired by the PMs childhood experiences-will be screened in various cities and big villages across the State. On September 29, the party will observe Shaurya Diwas to mark the anniversary of the 2016 surgical strikes carried out by the Indian Army on terror launch pads in P0K.
Ex-servicemen and families of martyrs will be honoured, talks will be held and statues of martyrs will be garlanded on the occasion. On October 2, to commemorate the 150th Gandhi Jayanti, party workers will undertake a fortnight long 150 kilometre walk in each Vidhan Sabha constituency raising public awareness about the works undertaken by the Government to fulfill Gandhis vision of Gram Swarajya.
Run for Unity will be organised on October 31 to mark Sardar Patels birth anniversary.
Earlier, while addressing party leaders and State office bearers, Bhatt said that the BJP State organisation had been appreciated at the national level. In the coming Lok Sabha and local body elections, the party will achieve a resounding victory on the strength of its taintless leadership and works.
BJP joint general secretary (organisation) Shivprakash said that the party will secure a majority in the coming Lok Sabha polls. The party will have to clarify the position strongly and clearly to counter the misconceptions being spread in the public by the Congress and other opposition parties, he added.
Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat said that the party has the capability and leadership to reach every person and voter in the State ahead of the parliamentary polls. While the party had secured 55 per cent votes in Uttarakhand in the previous polls, it will aim for 65 per cent votes this time. About 60 State level office bearers of the party were present in the meeting.
Chhattisgarh will have tribal interpretation centres at sites selected by the Central Government for Tribal Tourism Circuit, officials informed.
Interpretation centres are a kind of museums which use varied means of communication to enhance the understanding of heritage.
Given the significant dominance of indigenous population in the region, the Union Ministry of has selected Chhattisgarh to be included in the Swadesh Darshan Scheme under Tribal Circuit theme, with an objective to acknowledge the sovereignty of tribes, promote the rich and diverse primitive assets in the state, the Ministry of Tourism informed in a press release.
Chhattisgarh is known for its exceptional scenic beauty and uniquely rich cultural heritage. The state has always been synonymous with tribes and tribal culture. Over one third of the state population is of tribes, the tribes here are unique in their lifestyles and have beautifully retained their own culture and traditions for centuries, it informed.
Major components sanctioned include eco log huts, craft haats, souvenir shops/ kiosk, tourist reception & facilitation centres, open amphitheatre, tribal interpretation centres, workshop centres, tourist amenities centres, last mile connectivity, wayside amenities, viewpoints, nature trails, solar illuminations, signages solid waste management etc. These components are perceived to improve existing tourist facilities and enhance the overall tourist experience, therefore, help in getting more visitors which in return will increase job opportunities in the area.
Notably, K.J Alphons, Union Minister of State for Tourism (Independent Charge) will be inaugurating the project Tribal Tourism Circuit implemented under the Swadesh Darshan Scheme of Ministry of Tourism, in Gangrel, Chhattisgarh on September 14, 2018.
This is the second project under the Swadesh Darshan Scheme being inaugurated in the country.
This project which is to be inaugurated was sanctioned by the Ministry of Tourism in February 2016 for Rs 99.21 Crores. The project covers thirteen sites in Chhattisgarh .
Swadesh Darshan scheme is one of the flagship schemes of the Ministry of tourism, for development of thematic circuits in the country in a planned and prioritised manner. The scheme was launched in 2014 -15 and as on date the Ministry has sanctioned 74 projects worth Rs. 5997.47 Crore to 31 States and UTs. 30 projects / major components of these projects are expected to be completed this year.
Development of Tribes and Tribal Culture is one of the prime area of focus for the Ministry of Tourism. The Ministry is carrying out an array of activities for development and promotion of tourism in the tribal region.
The Ministry is developing the tourism infrastructure in the region under its schemes of Swadesh Darshan. Under the tribal circuit theme of the scheme the Ministry has sanctioned 4 projects to Nagaland, Telangana and Chhattisgarh for Rs. 381.37 Crores.
The question on Rafale deal is being raised by the Opposition because the deal which was done during the UPA regime was terminated without Cabinet decision and those of other concerned committees , said All India Congress Committee (AICC) General Secretary and Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad on Thursday.
Addressing a press conference here at Rajiv Bhawan while on a visit to Raipur to speak on Rafale deal he said that the Congress party had introduced the concept of Make in India in year 2012 through the deal by technology transfer of 126 Rafale fighters, called through international tendering and rate negotiation of Rs 526 crore where 26 fighters were to be delivered while the others has to be made through HAL.
He said that local engineers would have been able to manufacture the Rafale aircraft but with new deal only 36 fighters would be delivered at higher cost of Rs 1617 crore. This is what the people of country want to know, why it is being purchased at such a high price. The delivery of the aircraft would take place in year 2022.
Comparing with UPA regime , he said that when Opposition demands probe on the deal, then the resignation of Minister is taken and the probe is done, so why the ruling government is shying away from the problem.
Azad said that decision for aircraft purchase was taken first and then the signature of concerned committees were taken in back date. It is the reason for raising the demand for probe, he said.
During the period of former Prime Minister late Atal Behari Vajpayee there was democracy as the media had the freedom and everyone was heard, Azad said.
When Opposition raises any issue , the government does not reply to it and even raises the issue of being in opposition and no probe is conducted on the issues, he said.
In case of Bofors or 2G Scam or Coal Scam, Congress government ordered probe and now everything is clear what had happened why the present government is not ready for it. Let government start probe on the Rafale deal also, he said.
The Manohar Lal Khattar Government in Haryana will soon constitute Faridabad Metro Development Authority (FMDA) on the pattern of Gurugram Metro Development Authority (GMDA) to provide basic infrastructure facilities to the people residing in Faridabad.
Addressing a news conference here to highlight achievements and future plans of Town & Country Planning Department here, Chief Minister Manohar Lal said that since Faridabad is the second largest city of the state after Gurugram, it has been decided to constitute FMDA to make available all infrastructure facilities to the people and also address their problems.
The State Government had constituted the GMDA on August 12, 2017 thus fulfilled the long pending demand of the people, he said.
He also announced that the government has allowed the construction of four-storey residential buildings in the state, the registration of which will be opened from September 13 onward.
He said that Haryana Building Code 2017 has been framed in order to remove variations and bring uniformity in building bye-laws adopted by different development agencies.
The Chief Minister also announced to constitute an Appellate Tribunal to hear the complaints of allottees against the decision of Haryana Real Estate Regulatory Authority (HRERA). The office of the Appellate Tribunal would be set up at Karnal, he said.
He said that the State Government has set up Haryana Real Estate Regulatory Authority (HRERA) to redress the grievances of allotees.
Though geographically, Haryana is comparatively a small state, we have set up two separate Authorities- one at Gurugram to exclusively deal with the cases of Gurugram and the second one at Panchkula to deal with the cases of rest of Haryana, Manohar Lal said.
The Chief Minister said that HRERA has so far received 842 complaints out of which 209 complaints have already been disposed off. Remaining complaints would also be redressed soon, he asserted.
He further said that with a view to inject transparency in the allotment of sites for petrol pumps and CNG filling stations, the Haryana Government has decided to allot such sites through auction process.
The petrol pumps and CNG filling stations sites would be allotted only to the petroleum companies on lease. The allotment of the sites would start from next month and the petroleum company offering highest bid money would be allotted the sites, he added.
Apart from this, he announced that the Haryana Shehari Vikas Pradhikaran (HSVP) plans to float nine sectors including a defence sector exclusively for defence personnel in the state during the current financial year.
This would be in three sectors in Mahendergarh (sector-9A, 10, 11-Part) and one each in Bhiwani (23 Part-II), Yamuna Nagar (sector-24), Dabwali (sector-10), Taoru (sector-7) and Pinjore (sector-27). Apart from this, a defence sector exclusively for defence personnel is likely to be floated at Jhajjar, he said.
He informed that the HSVP has a plan to float 30,470 plots in 47 residential sectors across the state and a schedule in this regard will be issued soon. At present, 9500 acre land valuing Rs 18,000 crore is available with the HSVP, he said while answering a query.
The Chief Minister also announced to rename the metro stations falling in Haryana segment on Bahadurgarh to Mundka Metro line and metro stations on the Mujesar (YMCA Chowk) to Ballabhgarh metro corridor.
Among the stations falling in Haryana segment on Bahadurgarh to Mundka Metro line, the MIE Metro Station has been renamed as Pandit Shree Ram Sharma Metro Station, Bus Stand Metro Station as Bahadurgarh City Metro Station and City Park Metro Station as Brig. Hoshiar Singh Metro Station.
Similarly, NCB Colony Metro Station has been renamed as Sant Surdas (Sihi) Metro Station and Ballabhgarh Metro Station as Raja Nahar Singh Metro Station.
The Anti-Terrorists Squad (ATS) on Thursday arrested a suspected operative of Hizbul Mujahideen from Kanpur who was planning subversive activity in the industrial town during Ganesh Chaturthi festival which began from Thursday.
The terrorist, identified as Qamar-uz-Zama alias Dr Hureha, 38, was arrested from Chakeri area of Kanpur on the inputs from National Intelligence Agencies (NIA), disclosed Director General of Police OP Singh while briefing media persons about the breakthrough here on Thursday evening.
The ATS sleuths who made the arrest were tracking him for the past 8-10 days and it appeared from his mobile phone that he was carrying out a recce.
The DGP said Qamar-uz-Zama, a native of Assam, had rented the house of a local corporator posing as a student and the ATS nabbed him at 3 am on Thursday. He said the Hizbul Mujahideen operative was educated and had a sound knowledge of computers but he had failed his BA third- year exam.
Singh disclosed that the ATS sleuths had recovered several documents and photographs of different temples of the industrial city where the terrorist was slated to unleash terror activity during the 10-day-long Ganesh Chaturthi celebrations.
Qamar-uz-Zama had reportedly received arms training in a camp operated by Hizbul Mujahideen in Kishtwar district of Jammu and Kashmir and in Pakistan and had joined the terror outfit in April 2017 with the help of one Osama. The terrorist outfit had named Qamar-uz-Zama as Dr Hureha.
According to the details given by the DGP, the terrorist had also stayed in the Philippines between 2008 and 2012 and had posted a picture of himself with a AK-47 assault rifle on the social media after which the anti-terror agencies, including the NIA, had launched a hunt for him.
Top officials of the ATS are interrogating the arrested terrorist and trying to trace his links with other people in the state and also his source of funding.
The court has remanded Qamar-uz-Zama to police custody for seven days.
The South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) has decided not to charge toll tax for a period of another 17 days from specified commercial vehicles entering into Delhi from all border toll points.
The decision to suspend collection from 14th September to 30th September 2018 was taken due to ongoing work to install Radio Frequency Identification Device (RFID) technology at all 13 toll plazas points covering 65 toll lanes.
However, during this period ECC (Environment Compassionate Charges) will be charged from specified commercial vehicles during the period, a senior SDMC official said.
On August 10, SDMC has decided not to charge toll tax from vehicles entering into Delhi for the next 36 days.
It may be recalled that SDMC is in the process of installing RFID at 13 border toll plaza points in Delhi, covering 65 toll lanes to comply with the orders of Supreme Court order.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will attend Ashura Mubaraka, the commemoration of the death anniversary of Imam Husain, on September 14 in Indore.
This is one of the most important occasions for the community. Dawoodi Bohra Muslims have huge presence in Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat and have been supporters of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The Prime Minister will address a gathering. The event will include speeches by Syedna Mufaddal Saifuddin - spiritual head of the Dawoodi Bohra community, Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan, Madhya Pradesh Governor Anandiben Patel and Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan. Ashura Mubaraka refers to a period of 10 days at the beginning of the Islamic year. It is dedicated to the remembrance of the Prophet Mohammed and his Ahle Bayt (family and kin), specifically his grandson Imam Husain. The tenth day of Muharram, the first month of the Islamic calendar, is known as Ashura and marks the day on which Imam Husain was killed along with his family members and companions.
The prime minister's visit here also assumes significance as Assembly polls are due in the BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh by year-end.
Around 2.5 lakh Dawoodi Bohras are estimated to live in the state, mainly in Indore, Ujjain and Burhanpur districts. In view of the prime minister's visit, security has been beefed up. Police would employ drone cameras to keep an eye over the city along with 150 CCTV cameras, he said. About 3,500 policemen have been deployed in the city.
Punjab Power Minister Gurpreet Singh Kangar on Thursday issued directions to the State power utility, Punjab State power corporation Limited (PSPCL) to expedite the proceedings of disciplinary cases to bring the guilty to the book.
At the same time, the Minister has directed to hand over the punishment to those guilty commensurate with severity of misconduct and irregularities. That was not all, he has also asked the PSPCL authorities to follow up with the police authorities at the highest level to get FIRs registered in pending cases and accelerate investigation in FIRs already registered to expose culprits and their misdeeds to take the matter to its logical conclusion.
The directions were issued in the wake of a latest multi-crore fraud in the power utility, that was reported recently, involving an amount of Rs 5.32 crores, against Rs 250 crores as reported in the press, out of which Rs 3.65 crores stand recovered.
The reports stated that PSPCL suffers a loss of Rs 250 crore for meter tempering, in past five years in different cities.
Taking note, the Minister sought a report into the matter, according to which, certain unscrupulous officials of sub-divisions at Patiala, Malerkotla, Nabha, Sangrur, Barnala and Ludhiana, in connivance with some consumers, made reversal entries in the billing account in the computerized billing system.
The Minister said that PSPCL has been invariably vigorously following up any case of fraud that comes to light and invariably police is asked to register FIR and in addition departmental proceedings are initiated against errant officials, along with all out efforts to recover the amount of loss.
The case of bill reversal of West, Model Town division Patiala surfaced in 2016 and based on preliminary inquiry, PSPCL suspended nine officials including one SDO found to be prima facie involved. Moreover, CE (South Zone) wrote to Police authorities on September 12, 2016, to register an FIR and also ask IT wing of Punjab Police to conduct thorough probe in all SAP towns, he said.
He pointed that the matter was initially investigated by Punjab Polices Cyber Crime Cell and the same had finally registered FIR on July 19, 2017 against delinquent officers or officials.
He said that a total of Rs 532.37 lakhs fraud was committed at eight offices, out of which an amount of Rs 364.66 lakhs has been recovered till date.
Full recoveries have been made for frauds committed at West Division, Patiala, Sherpur 1 Sub Division and Sunder Nagar 1&2, Ludhiana, and an amount of Rs three crore against total amount of Rs 3.72 crore has already been recovered at Sahnewal Sub Division, Ludhiana, he said.
PSPCL chairman-cum-managing director Baldev Singh Sran said that some of the possible reasons of frauds or irregularities in SAP have been highlighted by investigation agencies.
Special audit of all reversal entries is being carried out. As follow up, instructions have been circulated to stop single step alteration of entry or transaction in SAP system, certain transfer codes have been disabled; and like banks, two-stage customer relationship management (CRM) process has been implemented in which cashier on daily basis will initiate reversal process and concerned RA/SDO will approve, he said.
Sran said that for reversal of any debit entry, RA will initiate reversal process and concerned SDO will approve. Moreover, on transfer, officers or officials have to forgo the right of access to domain that was under their charge and acquire new rights as per their new posting, he said.
Besides, a Committee of officers has been constituted to suggest improvement in IT system to avoid such scams.
Union Minister for Textiles, Smriti Zubin Irani, will attend an event at Pandit Deendayal Upadhyay Auditorium, Science college premises here on Friday.
Chief Minister Raman Singh and Union Minister of State for Textiles Ajay Tamta will be present on the occasion.
Irani would be reaching Raipur at 10.25 am in a scheduled flight from New Delhi and would directly proceed to the event venue.
She will give away the National Award for Shilp Guru and National Award for the Year 2016 to Master craftspersons.
After the programme, she would proceed to Airport at 1.20 pm and leave for New Delhi at 2.50 pm .
A Twitter war has erupted between Uttar Pradesh government and principal opposition Samajwadi Party over sugarcane arrears and who helped the cane farmers the most during their respective regimes.
The Twitter war was triggered by Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav who tweeted twice in the last two days, blaming the Bharatiya Janata Party for the problems of the cane growers and their mounting arrears.
On Thursday, Sugarcane Development Minister Suresh Rana retaliated through his official Twitter handle, blaming the previous SP regime for the mess.
A day earlier, Akhilesh had tweeted: BJP government is facing the ire of farmers for not paying cane dues. Statement of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath aggravated the problem of farmers that sowing cane is increasing diabetes among the people. I suggest that the CM should give such sermon to his supporters who are triggering differences in the society.
In the second tweet, the SP chief attacked the government on import of sugar from Pakistan.
BJP government which protests against Pakistan from time to time, imported sugar from Pakistan which had hampered the income of cane farmers of the country. The farmers will give them a reply in the 2019 polls, Akhilesh keyed in.
Suresh Rana defended the government in his tweet and slammed the SP chief. Former CM Akhilesh Yadav has no moral right to speak over cane. During his tenure in 2015-16, cane farmers only got Rs 16,000 crore but in Yogi rule this year, they have already been paid Rs 25,500 crore, he tweeted.
The twitter war erupted after Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath announced that the total dues of cane farmers to the tune of Rs 10,000 crore would be paid by October 15.
The UP government has sanctioned about Rs 5,500 crore in its supplementary budget for paying off dues of cane growers of the state.
Eight militants, three of them Pakistanis, were killed on Thursday in three separate gun battles in Jammu and Kashmir, one of which also injured 12 police and paramilitary personnel and soldiers.
While three were killed near the Line of control (LoC) in Keran sector in Kupwara district that borders Pakistan, two Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM) militants were shot dead in Sopore town and the three Pakistanis died in a 33-hour fighting in Reasi district.
Soldiers noticed suspicious movements along the LoC in Dat Gali area of Kupwara and challenged a small group of men trying to sneak into India, triggering a gun battle.
"Three terrorists were killed. Their bodies are lying close to the border fence and have not been recovered yet," a Defence Ministry source said.
Two JeM militants were killed in Arampora locality of Sopore town.
Police said the security forces, including Rashtriya Rifles, the Special Operations Group and the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), cordoned off Arampora in the morning after being tipped off about the gunmen.
"As the cordon was tightened, the militants opened fire," a police officer said.
Three Pakistani terrorists, also belonging to JeM, were killed in Reasi district after a joint operation by the security forces, General Officer Commanding (GOC) Major General Arvind Bhatia said.
He said they had recently infiltrated into Jammu and Kashmir from Pakistan in Samba sector of the international border.
The Pakistanis were killed in a 33-hour encounter in Kakriyal village near the Mata Vaishno Devi University.
Twelve security personnel, including a Deputy Superintendent of Police, were injured in the fighting.
The others injured included a Major and two para-commandos of the Army, five CRPF troopers and three policemen.
"The injured were shifted to the Narayana hospital in Katra town where doctors said all of them are out of danger," a police officer said.
The Army, police and CRPF had tracked down the militants using drones, helicopters and other surveillance gadgets in the forests of Jhajar and adjoining areas.
Once the militants were discovered, the villagers were evacuated before the final assault on them was mounted.
A villager earlier told the security forces that on Wednesday night the three armed militants entered his home, changed their clothes, took away biscuits and water and left.
Traffic on the national highway between Nagrota and Jhajar Kotli was suspended on Thursday. Schools in the area were closed.
The police on Wednesday detained the driver and helper of the truck. An AK-47 rifle and three magazines were recovered.
Farewell to Kofi Annan at ghana state funeral
Accra: World leaders past and present, traditional rulers and global royalty on Thursday joined the family of Kofi Annan, as the former United Nations Secretary Generals State funeral took place in his native Ghana.
EU blasts Myanmars jailing of reporters
Strasbourg (France): The EUs diplomatic chief on Thursday condemned Myanmars jailing of two Reuters journalists, hours after the countrys tarnished democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi strongly defended the mens treatment.
Pak Premier House to be turned into an institute
Islamabad: The Pakistan Government will turn the palatial PM House here into a campus of a top postgraduate institute as part of the plans to utilise official buildings for public use, the Education Minister said Thursday.
Maduro eyes economic boost in China visit
Beijing: Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro was expected to arrive in Beijing on Thursday to strike deals with his crisis-hit countrys biggest creditor.
UK dismisses claim of 2 russian suspects
London: The UK Government Thursday dismissed as obfuscation and lies the claim of the two Russians accused of carrying out a deadly nerve agent attack in the country on a former Russian spy and his daughter that they were merely civilian tourists.
A UN Commission on Wednesday called on rebel groups in Syrias Idlib province to leave urban areas to protect civilians from any looming regime assault.
The proposal comes after the United Nations peace envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, last week suggested a deadline be set for fighters in Idlib to pull back from its cities.
UN agencies and relief organisations have warned repeatedly that any major assault on the province of Idlib, which borders Turkey, could spark one of the worst humanitarian disasters of Syrias seven-year war.
On Wednesday, the UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria called for jihadists and opposition fighters to leave the most densely populated areas in the region where some three million people live.
Most of those terrorist groups and other armed groups, they are in the cities. Perhaps one wonderful scenario is: leave the cities, commission chief Paulo Pinheiro said.
Hany Magally, a fellow panel member, said: Shouldnt the armed groups move out and spare the civilian population? Idlib and adjacent areas are largely controlled by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, an alliance led by Al-Qaedas former Syrian affiliate, as well as rival rebels. HTS controls the provincial capital Idlib city.
The northwestern region has seen its population almost double with the arrival of Syrians displaced from other parts of the country, many of whom already depend on aid.
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The following companies are subsidiares of Accenture: 2nd Road, 2nd Road Pty Ltd., ?What If!, ?What If! China Holdings Ltd, ?What If! Holdings Limited, ?What If! Innovation Singapore Holdings Pte, ?What If! Limited, ?What If! Shanghai Co. Ltd, ?What If! USA LLC, ACN Consulting Co Ltd, AD Dialeto Agencia de Publicidade SA, AD.Dialeto (Digital Agency acquired by Accenture), AGS Business and Technology Services Limited, ASM Research Inc., ASM Research LLC, ATAN, Accenture (Beijing) Mobile Technology Co Ltd, Accenture (Botswana) (Proprietary) Limited, Accenture (China) Co Ltd, Accenture (Shenzhen) Technology Co. Ltd., Accenture (South Africa) (Proprietary) Limited, Accenture (South Africa) Pty Limited, Accenture (UK) Ltd, Accenture 2 Business Process Services S.A., Accenture 2 LLC, Accenture A/S, Accenture AB, Accenture AG, Accenture AS, Accenture Africa Pty Ltd, Accenture Australia Holding B.V., Accenture Australia Holdings Pty Ltd, Accenture Australia Pty Ltd, Accenture Azerbaijan Ltd, Accenture BPM Operations Support Services S.A., Accenture BPM S.C.R.L., Accenture BV, Accenture Branch Holdings B.V., Accenture Bulgaria EOOD, Accenture Business Services for Utilities Inc, Accenture Business Services of British Columbia Limited Partnership, Accenture Business and Technology Services LLC, Accenture C.A, Accenture CAS GmbH, Accenture Canada Holdings Inc., Accenture Capital DAC, Accenture Capital Inc, Accenture Central Europe B.V., Accenture Chile Asesorias y Servicios Ltda, Accenture Cloud Services GmbH, Accenture Cloud Software Solutions Ltd, Accenture Cloud Solutions Australia Pty Ltd, Accenture Cloud Solutions LLC, Accenture Cloud Solutions Ltd, Accenture Cloud Solutions Pty Ltd, Accenture Co Ltd, Accenture Co Ltd., Accenture Communications Infrastructure Solutions Ltd, Accenture Company Ltd, Accenture Consulting Services Ltd Tanzania, Accenture Consultores de Gestao S.A., Accenture Consultoria de Industria e Consumo Ltda, Accenture Consultoria de Recursos Naturais Ltda, Accenture Credit Services LLC, Accenture Customer Services Distribution SAS, Accenture Customer Services Limited, Accenture Danismanlik Limited Sirketi, Accenture Defined Benefit Pension Plan Trustees Ltd, Accenture Defined Contribution Pension Plan Trustees Ltd, Accenture Delivery Poland sp. z o.o., Accenture Dienstleistungen GmbH, Accenture Digital France Holdings SA, Accenture Digital Holdings GmbH, Accenture East Africa Limited, Accenture Ecuador S.A., Accenture Egypt LLC, Accenture Enterprise Development (Shanghai) Co Ltd., Accenture Federal Services LLC, Accenture Finance (Gibraltar) III Ltd, Accenture Finance GmbH, Accenture Finance GmbH in liquidation, Accenture Finance II GmbH, Accenture Finance II GmbH in liquidation, Accenture Finance II Ltd, Accenture Finance Limited, Accenture Finance and Accounting BPO Services S.p.A., Accenture Finance and Accounting Services Srl, Accenture Flex LLC, Accenture GP LLC, Accenture Ghana Limited, Accenture Global Holdings Ltd., Accenture Global Services Ltd, Accenture Global Solutions Ltd, Accenture GmbH, Accenture HR Services Ltd, Accenture HR Services S.p.A., Accenture Healthcare Processing Inc., Accenture Holding GmbH, Accenture Holding GmbH & Co. KG, Accenture Holding GmbH in liquidation, Accenture Holdings (Iberia) S.L., Accenture Holdings B.V., Accenture Holdings France SAS, Accenture Holdings plc, Accenture Hungary Holdings Kft, Accenture Inc, Accenture Industrial Software Limited Liability Company (Accenture Endustriyel Yazylym Cozumleri Limited irketi), Accenture Industrial Software Limited Liability Company (Accenture Endustriyel Yazlm Cozumleri Limited Sirketi), Accenture Industrial Software Solutions Kft, Accenture Industrial Software Solutions SA, Accenture Insurance Services LLC, Accenture Insurance Services SAS, Accenture Insurance Services SpA, Accenture International BV, Accenture International Capital SCA, Accenture International LLC, Accenture International Limited, Accenture International Sarl, Accenture Japan Ltd, Accenture Korea BV, Accenture LLC, Accenture LLP, Accenture Lanka (Private) Ltd, Accenture Limited, Accenture Ltd, Accenture Ltda, Accenture Maghreb S.a.r.l., Accenture Managed Services SRL, Accenture Managed Services SpA, Accenture Management GmbH, Accenture Middle East B.V, Accenture Middle East BV, Accenture Minority I BV, Accenture Minority III Ltd, Accenture Mozambique Limitada, Accenture Mzansi (Pty) Ltd, Accenture NV/SA, Accenture NZ Limited, Accenture Newco LLC, Accenture Nova Scotia Unlimited Liability Co., Accenture OOO, Accenture Operations Sp. z o.o., Accenture Outsourcing SRL, Accenture Outsourcing Services, Accenture Outsourcing Services S.A., Accenture Oy, Accenture Panama Inc, Accenture Participations BV, Accenture Participations II Limited, Accenture Peru S.R.L, Accenture Peru S.R.L., Accenture Post Trade Processing SAS, Accenture Post-Trade Processing Limited, Accenture Process Ltd, Accenture Product Lifecycle Services, Accenture Properties, Accenture Pte Ltd, Accenture Puerto Rico LLC, Accenture S.A., Accenture S.C., Accenture S.L., Accenture S.R.L., Accenture SAS, Accenture SG Services Pte Ltd, Accenture SRL, Accenture Saudi Arabia Limited, Accenture Sendirian Berhad, Accenture Service Center SRL, Accenture Services (Mauritius) Ltd, Accenture Services AB, Accenture Services AG, Accenture Services AS, Accenture Services GmbH, Accenture Services Ltd, Accenture Services Morocco SA, Accenture Services Oy, Accenture Services Pty Ltd, Accenture Services S.r.l., Accenture Services SRL, Accenture Services Sp. z o.o., Accenture Services Sp. z.o.o., Accenture Services and Technology Srl, Accenture Services fur Kreditinstitute GmbH, Accenture Services s.r.o., Accenture Servicos Administrativos Ltda, Accenture Servicos de Suporte de Negocios Ltda, Accenture Solutions Co Ltd, Accenture Solutions Private Limited, Accenture Solutions Pte Ltd, Accenture Solutions Pty Ltd, Accenture Solutions Sdn Bhd, Accenture Sp. z o.o., Accenture Sp. z.o.o., Accenture SpA, Accenture State Healthcare Services LLC, Accenture Sub II Inc., Accenture Sub Inc, Accenture Sub LLC, Accenture Systems Integration Limited, Accenture Sarl, Accenture Tanacsado Kolatolt Felelossegu Tarsasag, Accenture Tanacsado Kolatolt Felelossegu Tarsasag KFT, Accenture Technologia, Accenture Technologia Consultoria e Outsourcing S.A., Accenture Technology Infrastructure Services Pty Ltd, Accenture Technology Solutions (Dalian) Co Ltd, Accenture Technology Solutions (HK) Co. Ltd., Accenture Technology Solutions (Thailand) Co. Ltd, Accenture Technology Solutions - Solucoes Informaticas Integradas, Accenture Technology Solutions - Solucoes Informaticas Integradas S.A., Accenture Technology Solutions GmbH, Accenture Technology Solutions Oy, Accenture Technology Solutions Pty Ltd, Accenture Technology Solutions S.A. de C.V., Accenture Technology Solutions SAS, Accenture Technology Solutions SRL, Accenture Technology Solutions Sdn. Bhd., Accenture Technology Solutions Slovakia s.r.o., Accenture Technology Ventures BV, Accenture Technology Ventures S.P.R.L., Accenture Uruguay SRL, Accenture Vietnam Co., Accenture Vietnam Co. LTD, Accenture Zambia Limited, Accenture do Brasil Limitada, Accenture plc, Accenture s.r.o., Acceria, Acquity Customer Insight Limited, Acquity Group, Adaptly LLC, Adaptly UK Limited, AddVal Technology, Adqptly, Advantium Inc., Agave Consultants Limited, Agilex Technologies Inc., Allen International, Allen International Consulting Group Ltd, Alnova Technologies Corporation S.L., AlphaBeta Advisors, Altima, Altima Asia Ltd., Altima SAS, Altitude, Altitude LLC, Analytics 8 LP, Analytics 8 Pty Ltd, Analytics8, Aorui Advertising (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Apis, Appaloosa Technology SAS, Arca, Ariba - BPO, Arismore, Aspiro Solutions (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Avanade, Avanade (Guangzhou) Computer Technology Development Co. Ltd., Avanade (Thailand) Co Ltd, Avanade Asia Pte Ltd, Avanade Australia Pty Ltd, Avanade Belgium SPRL, Avanade Canada Inc., Avanade Denmark A/S, Avanade Denmark ApS, Avanade Deutschland GmbH, Avanade Europe Holdings Ltd, Avanade Europe Services Ltd, Avanade Federal Services LLC, Avanade Finland Oy, Avanade France SAS, Avanade GZ Computer Technology Development Co. Ltd. (SH), Avanade Guangzhou, Avanade Holdings LLC, Avanade Hong Kong Ltd, Avanade International Corporation, Avanade Ireland Limited, Avanade Italy SRL, Avanade KK, Avanade Malaysia Sdn Bhd, Avanade Netherlands BV, Avanade Norway AS, Avanade Poland Sp. z o.o., Avanade Poland Sp. z.o.o., Avanade Schweiz GmbH, Avanade South Africa, Avanade South Africa Pty Ltd, Avanade Spain SL, Avanade Sweden AB, Avanade UK Ltd, Avanade do Brasil Limitada, Avanade Osterreich GmbH, AvantBiz Consulting Limited, Avenai, Axia Ltd., BABCN LLC, BCT Solutions, BCT Solutions Pty Ltd, BPO Servicos Administrativos Ltda, BRIDGE Energy Group, Beacon Consulting Group Inc., Beijing Genesis Interactive Technology Co. Ltd., Benext, Bionic, Blue Horseshoe, Boomerang Pharmaceutical Communications, Boomerang Pharmaceuticals Communications Ireland Limited, Bow & Arrow, Brand Learning, Brand Learning Group Limited, Brand Learning LLC, Brand Learning Ltd, Brand Learning Partners Limited, Brand Learning Pte Limited, Bridge Energy Group LLC, Brightstep AB, Byte Prophecy, CAS, CRMWaypoint, CadenceQuest Inc., Capable Marketer Limited, Capgemini - North American health practice, Capital Consultancy Services Inc., Certus Solutions Consulting Services Ltd, Certus Solutions Ltd, ChangeTrack Research Pty Ltd., Chaotic Moon Studios, Chengdu Mensa Advertising Co. Ltd., Cimation, Cimation UK Limited, Cirruseo, Cirruseo SAS, Clarity Insights, Clearhead, Clearhead Group, Clearhead Group LLC, ClientHouse GmbH, Cloud Sherpas, Cloud Sherpas (GA) LLC, Cloud Sherpas (SN) (PTE.) Limited, Cloud Sherpas New Zealand Ltd., Cloud Talent Limited, Cloudsherpas, Cloudsherpas Inc., Cloudworks, Codagenic Pty. Ltd., Computer Research and Telecommunications LLC, Concrete Desenvolvimento de Sistemas Ltda., Concrete Solutions, Concrete Solutions Ltda., Context Information Security, Coritel S.A., Corliant Inc., CreativeDrive, CustomerWorks Europe SL, Cutting Edge Solutions Ltd, D5 Global Holdings LLC, DAZ Systems Inc, DAZ Systems LLC, DAZSI Systems (India) Pvt. Ltd., DMA Solutions Limited, Davies Consulting, DayNine Consulting, DayNine Consulting (Australia) PTY LTD, DayNine Consulting (Deutschland) GmbH, DayNine Consulting (New Zealand) Limited, DayNine Consulting France SAS, DayNine Consulting Japan K.K., DayNine Consulting LLC, Declarative Holdings, Declarative Holdings LLC, Defense Point Security, Deja vu Security, Design Strategy and Research de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Designaffairs LLC, Digiplug S.A.S., Digiplug SAS, Digital Consulting & Software Services LLC, Droga5, Droga5 LLC, Droga5 Studios LLC, Droga5 UK Ltd., Duck Creek Technologies, Duck Creek Technologies LLC, Deja Vu Security LLC, ESR Labs, Elcurator SAS, Enaxis Consulting, Enaxis Consulting L.P., End-to-End Analytics, Energuia Web, Energuia Web S.A., Energy Management Brokers Ltd., Energy Quote Private Ltd., EnergyQuote JHA, EnergyQuote JHA Ltd., EnergyQuote Trading Ltd., Enimbos, Enkitec, Enterprise System Partners, Enterprise System Partners B.V. , Enterprise System Partners Bilisim Danismanlik Ticaret Anonim Sirketi, Enterprise System Partners Global Corporation, Enterprise System Partners Limited, Enterprise System Partners PR LLC, Enterprise System Partners S.A.S., Entropia, Epylon, Ethica Consulting Group, Evopro Group, Exactside Limited, Exton Consulting, Fairway Technologies Inc, Fairway Technologies LLC, Filmproduction ApS, First Annapolis Consulting, First Annapolis Consulting Inc., First Annapolis Consulting LLC, First Annapolis International, Fjord, Focus Group Europe, Focus Group Europe Limited, Formicary, Formicary Holdings Limited, Formicary Limited, FusionX, FutureMove Automotive, Gapso Servicos de Informatica Ltda., Genfour, Genfour Limited, George Group Consulting L.P., Gestalt LLC, Gestion Altima Canada Inc., Gevity, Global Public Firm S.L., GlobalView SAS, GoodFilm GmbH Filmproduktion Stuttgart, H.B. Maynard and Co. Inc., HRC Retail Advisory, Hagberg Consulting Group, Hangzhou Aiyunzhe Technology Co. Ltd., Happen, Hjaltelin Stahl, Hjaltelin Stahl K/S, Hytracc Consulting AS, Hytracc Consulting Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., Hytracc Consulting UK Limited, Hytracc Holding AS, I-Faber S.p.A., IBB Consulting, IMJ Corp, IMJ Corporation, INCAD, INSITUM, IT One Company Limited, ITBS Servicios Bancarios de Tecnologia de la Informacion SL, Icon Integration, Imagine Broadband (USA) Ltd, Imagine Broadband USA LLC, Imaginea Inc, Industrie&Co, Infoman AG, Infoman Schweiz AG, Informatica de Euskadi S.L., Infusion Development Inc., Infusion Development UK Limited, InfusionDev LLC, Innoveer Solutions India Pvt Ltd, Insitum Consultoria Argentina SRL, Insitum Consultoria Brasil LTDA, Insitum Consultoria Colombia SAS, Insitum Consultoria Europa SL, Insitum Consultoria Peru SAC, Insitum Consultoria S.A. de C.V., Intrepid, Intrigo Systems Inc, Intrigo Systems India Pvt. Limited, Intrigo Systems LLC, Inventor Advertisement (Beijing) Co. Ltd., Inventor Technology Limited, InvestTech, Investtech Systems Consulting LLC, Javelin Group, Javelin Group (Bulgaria) EOOD, Javelin Group Limited (UK), Javelin Group SASU, K Comms Group Limited, KCS.net AG, KCS.net AG West, KCS.net Deutschland GmbH, KCS.net Holding AG, KCS.net Osterreich GmbH, Kaper Communications Limited, Karma Communications Debtco Limited, Karma Communications Group Limited, Karma Communications Holdings Limited, Karmarama, Karmarama Comms Limited, Karmarama Limited, Knowledge Rules Inc., Knowledgent, Knowledgent Group LLC, Kogentix, Kogentix LLC, Kogentix Ltd, Kogentix Singapore Pte. Ltd, Kogentix Technologies Private Limited, Kolle Rebbe, Kolle Rebbe GmbH, Kream Comms Limited, Kunstmaan, Kunstmaan NV, Kurt Salmon, Kurt Salmon Canada LTD, Kurt Salmon UKI, Kurt Salmon UKI Ltd., Kurt Salmon US LLC, LEXTA, LINKBYNET, LabAnswer, LabAnswer Government, LemonXL Limited, Logistics Market Place Limited (UK), Loud & Clear Creative Pty Ltd, MAXIM Systems Inc., MCG US Holdings LLC, Mackevision CG Technology and Service (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Mackevision Corporation, Mackevision Japan Co. Ltd., Mackevision Korea Ltd, Mackevision Medien Design, Mackevision Medien Design GmbH, Mackevision Singapore Pte. Ltd., Mackevision UK Ltd, Maglan, Maglan Information Defense Technologies Research Ltd., Maihiro, Matter, Matter Llc, Maud Corp Pty Limited, Maxamine International, Media Audits Ltd., Media Hive, Mediasenz Pty Ltd., Meredith Specialty LLC, Meredith Xcelerated Marketing, Meredith Xcelerated Marketing Corporation, Meridian Informed Purchasing Ltd., Mindtribe, Mindtribe Product Engineering LLC, MobGen, MobGen Technology S.L, Moonrise NV, Mortgage Cadence, Mortgage Cadence an Accenture Company, Most Champion Ltd, Mudano, N3 LLC, NBS Marketing Inc., NYTEC, Nanjing Demeng Advertising Co. Ltd., Nashco Consulting, NaviSys Inc., NellArmonia, Neo Metrics Analytics S.L., Neo Metrics Chile, Neo Metrics Chile S.A., New Content, New Content Chile SpA, New Content Editora e Produtora Ltda., New Energy Aborda, New Energy Associates Ltd, New Energy Group, New Energy S.r.l., NewsPage, NewsPage (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, NewsPage China Ltd., NewsPage Pte Ltd, Nice Agency Limited, Northstream, Northstream AB, Northstream Holding AB, OCTO Technology, OPS Rules Management Consultants, Octagon Research Solutions Inc., Octo Technology LTDA, Octo Technology Pty Ltd, Octo Technology SA, Octo Technology SPRL, Octoman SAS, Odgaard ApS, Olikka, Openmind, Openminded, Operaciones Accenture S.A. de C.V., OpusLine, Orbium, Orbium Consulting Ltd, Orbium GmbH, Orbium Holding AG, Orbium Inc., Orbium International AG, Orbium International sp. z o.o., Orbium Licences AG, Orbium Limited, Orbium Pte. Ltd., Orbium Pty Ltd, Orbium Services sp. z o.o., Orbium Sarl, Origin Digital, PCO Innovation, PCO Innovation Canada Inc., PCO Innovation EURL, PIXO PUNCH Limited, PLM Systems S.r.l, POC Holdings, PRION GmbH, PT Accenture, PT Asta Catur Indra, PT Kogentix Teknologi Indonesia, Pach Invest SARL, Pach Invest SAS, PacificLink Group, PacificLink iMedia Ltd., Paja Finanssipalvelut Oy, Parker Fitzgerald Inc, Parker Fitzgerald Inc., Parker Fitzgerald International Limited, Parker Fitzgerald Limited, Parker Fitzgerald PTY Ltd, Parker Fitzgerald Services Limited, Parker Fitzgerald Solutions Limited, Partners Technology Mexico Holdings BV, Pecaso Ltd., Pegasus Production K/S, Perseroan Terbatas. Accenture, Phase One Consulting Group, Pillar Technology, Pollux, Pragsis Bidoop, Pragsis Bidoop UK Ltd, Pragsis Technologies S.L, PrimeQ, PrimeQ Australia Pty Ltd, PrimeQ Ltd, PrimeQ NZ Pty Ltd, Procurian Germany GmbH, Procurian Inc., Procurian International I LLC, Procurian International II LLC, Procurian LLC, Procurian Singapore Pte. Ltd., Procurian Switzerland GmbH, Procurian USA LLC, Proquire LLC, PureApps Ltd., Qi Jie Beijing Information Technologies Co Ltd, Radiant Services, Radiant Services LLC, Random Walk Computing Inc., Reactive Media Limited, Reactive Media Pty Ltd., Real Protect, Realworld OO Systems Ltd., Redcore, Redcore (Asia) Pte Ltd, Redcore (India) Private Limited (India), Redcore (New Zealand) Limited, Redcore Group Holdings Pty Ltd, Redcore Pty Ltd, Renacentis IT Services, Revolutionary Security, RiskControl, Rothco, Rothco Holdings Designated Activity Company, Rothco Unlimited Company, S.C. EnergyQuote S.r.l., S3 TV Technology Limited, S3 TV Technology Ltd., SEC Servizi, SEC Servizi S.p.A., SOPIA Corp., Sagacious Consultants, Sagacious Consultants LLC, Salt Solutions, Sanchez Capital Services Pvt Ltd, Schlumberger Business Consulting, Seabury Airline Planning Group, Seabury Aviation & Aerospace (UK) Limited, Seabury Aviation & Aerospace Asia (Hong Kong) Limited, Seabury Aviation Consulting LLC, Seabury Cargo Advisory B.V., Seabury Consulting, Seabury Corporate Advisors LLC, Seabury Human Capital LLC, Seabury Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., Seabury Structured Finance LLC, Search Technologies BPO, Search Technologies BPO Inc., Search Technologies GmbH, Search Technologies International LLC, Search Technologies LATAM, Search Technologies LATAM S.A., Search Technologies LLC, Search Technologies Limited, Sente Partners LLC, Sentelis, Servicios Tecnicos de Programacion Accenture S.C., Shackleton, Shackleton Barcelona S.L., Shackleton Chile S.A., Shackleton Madrid S.L., Shackleton S.A., Shanghai Baiyue Advertising Co. Ltd., Shun Zhe Technology Development Co. Ltd., Silveo, Simian Pty Limited, SinnerSchrader, SinnerSchrader AG, SinnerSchrader Commerce GmbH, SinnerSchrader Content GmbH, SinnerSchrader Deutschland GmbH, SinnerSchrader Praha s.r.o., SinnerSchrader Swipe GmbH, Sistemes Consulting S.L., Solutions IQ, Solutions IQ LLC, SolutionsIQ, SolutionsIQ India Consulting Services Private Limited, Storm Digital, Storm Digital B.V., Structure Consulting Group, Structure Consulting Group LLC, Sutter Mills, Systor AG, TQuila Limited (UK), Tadata Creative Unlimited Company, Tara Insurance DAC, Tara Risk DAC, TargetST8, TargetST8 Consulting LLC, Tech - Avanade Portugal Unipessoal Lda, Tecnilogica Ecosistemas S.A., Tecnilogica Ltd., Tecnilogica, The Brand Learning Partners Limited, The Callisto Integration Corporation, The Monkeys, The Monkeys Pty Limited, The Myrtle Group, Total Logistics, Total Logistics Supply Chain Consultants Limited, Tquila, Trivadis AG, Troop Studios Pty Ltd, VanBerlo, Verax Solutions, Verax Solutions Corporation, Vertical Retail Consulting (Shanghai) Ltd., Vertical Retail Consulting Hong Kong, Vertical Retail Consulting Hong Kong Ltd., Vertical Retail Consulting Ltd., Vivere Brasil Servicos e Solucoes SA, Vivere Brasil Solucoes De Credito Ltda., Wabion GmbH, Weblinc Pty Ltd, Wire Stone, Wire Stone LLC, Wire Stone Sarl, Wolox, Workforce Insight, Yesler, Zag, Zenta, Zenta Global Philippines, Zenta Global Philippines Inc., Zenta Mortgage Services LLC, Zenta Recoveries Inc, Zenta US Holdings Inc., Zielpuls, Zielpuls (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Zielpuls GmbH, avVenta, designaffairs, designaffairs Business Consulting (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., designaffairs GmbH, designaffairs group China Co. Ltd., dgroup, i4C Analytics, iDefense, and solid-serVision.com GmbH.
The following companies are subsidiares of Bristol-Myers Squibb: 1096271 B.C. ULC, 345 Park LLC, A.G. Medical Services P.A., AHI Investment LLC, AbVitro LLC, Abraxis BioScience Australia Pty Ltd., Abraxis BioScience Inc., Abraxis BioScience International Holding Company Inc., Abraxis BioScience LLC, Abraxis BioScience Puerto Rico LLC, Acetylon Pharmaceuticals Inc., Adnexus, Adnexus a Bristol-Myers Squibb R&D Company, Allard Labs Acquisition G.P., Amira Pharmaceuticals, Amira Pharmaceuticals Inc., Amylin Pharmaceuticals, Apothecon LLC, B-MS Generx Unlimited Company, BMS Benelux Holdings B.V., BMS Bermuda Nominees L.L.C., BMS Data Acquisition Company LLC, BMS Forex Company, BMS Holdings Sarl, BMS Holdings Spain S.L., BMS International Insurance Designated Activity Company, BMS Investco SAS, BMS Korea Holdings L.L.C., BMS Latin American Nominees L.L.C., BMS Luxembourg Partners L.L.C., BMS Omega Bermuda Holdings Finance Ltd., BMS Pharmaceutical Korea Limited, BMS Pharmaceuticals Germany Holdings B.V., BMS Pharmaceuticals International Holdings Netherlands B.V., BMS Pharmaceuticals Korea Holdings B.V., BMS Pharmaceuticals Mexico Holdings B.V., BMS Pharmaceuticals Netherlands Holdings B.V., BMS Real Estate LLC, BMS Spain Investments LLC, BMS Strategic Portfolio Investments Holdings Inc., Blisa Acquisition G.P., Bristol (Iran) S.A., Bristol Iran Private Company Limited, Bristol Laboratories Inc., Bristol Laboratories International S.A., Bristol Laboratories Medical Information Systems Inc., Bristol-Myers (Andes) L.L.C., Bristol-Myers (Private) Limited, Bristol-Myers Middle East S.A.L., Bristol-Myers Overseas Corporation, Bristol-Myers Squibb (China) Investment Co. Ltd., Bristol-Myers Squibb (China) Pharmaceuticals Co. Ltd., Bristol-Myers Squibb (Israel) Ltd., Bristol-Myers Squibb (NZ) Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb (Proprietary) Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb (Shanghai) Trading Co. Ltd., Bristol-Myers Squibb (Singapore) Pte. Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb (Taiwan) Ltd., Bristol-Myers Squibb (West Indies) Ltd., Bristol-Myers Squibb A.E., Bristol-Myers Squibb Aktiebolag, Bristol-Myers Squibb Argentina S. R. L., Bristol-Myers Squibb Australia Pty. Ltd., Bristol-Myers Squibb Axia Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb B.V., Bristol-Myers Squibb Belgium S.A., Bristol-Myers Squibb Business Services Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb Canada Co., Bristol-Myers Squibb Canada International Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb Delta Company Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb Denmark Filial of Bristol-Myers Squibb AB, Bristol-Myers Squibb EMEA Sarl, Bristol-Myers Squibb Egypt LLC, Bristol-Myers Squibb Epsilon Holdings Unlimited Company, Bristol-Myers Squibb Farmaceutica Ltda., Bristol-Myers Squibb Farmaceutica Portuguesa S.A., Bristol-Myers Squibb GesmbH, Bristol-Myers Squibb GmbH & Co. KGaA, Bristol-Myers Squibb Holding Germany GmbH & Co. KG, Bristol-Myers Squibb Holdings 2002 Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb Holdings Germany Verwaltungs GmbH, Bristol-Myers Squibb Holdings Ireland Unlimited Company, Bristol-Myers Squibb Holdings Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb Holdings Pharma Ltd. Liability Company, Bristol-Myers Squibb Ilaclari Inc., Bristol-Myers Squibb India Pvt. Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb International Company Unlimited Company, Bristol-Myers Squibb International Corporation, Bristol-Myers Squibb Investco L.L.C., Bristol-Myers Squibb K.K., Bristol-Myers Squibb Kft., Bristol-Myers Squibb Luxembourg International S.C.A., Bristol-Myers Squibb Luxembourg S.a.r.l., Bristol-Myers Squibb MEA GmbH, Bristol-Myers Squibb Manufacturing Company, Bristol-Myers Squibb Marketing Services S.R.L., Bristol-Myers Squibb Middle East & Africa FZ-LLC, Bristol-Myers Squibb Norway Ltd., Bristol-Myers Squibb Nutricionales de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Bristol-Myers Squibb Peru S.A., Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharma (HK) Ltd, Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharma (Thailand) Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharma Company, Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharma EEIG, Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharma Holding Company LLC, Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharma Ventures Corporation, Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharmaceuticals Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharmaceuticals Unlimited Company, Bristol-Myers Squibb Polska Sp. z o.o., Bristol-Myers Squibb Products SA, Bristol-Myers Squibb Puerto Rico Inc., Bristol-Myers Squibb Puerto Rico/Sanofi Pharmaceutical Partnership Puerto Rico, Bristol-Myers Squibb Romania S.R.L., Bristol-Myers Squibb S.A.U., Bristol-Myers Squibb S.r.l., Bristol-Myers Squibb SA, Bristol-Myers Squibb Sanofi Pharmaceuticals Holding Partnership, Bristol-Myers Squibb Sarl, Bristol-Myers Squibb Service Ltd., Bristol-Myers Squibb Services Sp. z o.o., Bristol-Myers Squibb Spol. s r.o., Bristol-Myers Squibb Theta Finance Ltd., Bristol-Myers Squibb Trustees Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb Verwaltungs GmbH, Bristol-Myers Squibb de Colombia S.A., Bristol-Myers Squibb de Costa Rica Sociedad Anonima, Bristol-Myers Squibb de Guatemala S.A., Bristol-Myers Squibb de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Bristol-Myers Squibb/Astrazeneca EEIG, Bristol-Myers Squibb/Pfizer EEIG, Bristol-Myers Squibb/Sanofi Pharmaceuticals Partnership, Bristol-Myers de Venezuela S.C.A., CHT I LLC, CHT II LLC, CHT III LLC, CHT IV LLC, CR Finance Company LLC, Cardioxyl Pharmaceuticals, Cardioxyl Pharmaceuticals Inc., Celem LLC, Celem Ltd., Celgene, Celgene A.B., Celgene AS, Celgene Ab (Finland), Celgene Alpine Investment Co. II LLC, Celgene Alpine Investment Co. III LLC, Celgene Alpine Investment Co. LLC, Celgene ApS, Celgene B.V., Celgene BVBA, Celgene Brasil Produtos Farmaceuticos Ltda., Celgene CAR LLC, Celgene CAR Ltd., Celgene Chemicals Sarl, Celgene China Holdings LLC, Celgene Co., Celgene Corporation, Celgene Distribution B.V., Celgene EngMab GmbH, Celgene Europe B.V., Celgene Europe Limited, Celgene European Investment Company LLC, Celgene Financing Company LLC, Celgene Global Holdings Sarl, Celgene GmbH [Austria], Celgene GmbH [Germany], Celgene GmbH [Switzerland], Celgene Holdings East Corporation, Celgene Holdings II Sarl, Celgene Holdings III Sarl, Celgene Ilac Pazarlama ve Ticaret Limited Sirketi, Celgene Inc., Celgene International Holdings Corporation, Celgene International II Sarl, Celgene International III Sarl, Celgene International Inc., Celgene International Sarl, Celgene K.K., Celgene Kft., Celgene Limited [Hong Kong], Celgene Limited [Ireland], Celgene Limited [New Zealand], Celgene Limited [Taiwan], Celgene Limited [UK], Celgene Logistics Sarl, Celgene Ltd, Celgene Luxembourg Sarl, Celgene Management Sarl, Celgene NJ Investment Co, Celgene Netherlands B.V., Celgene Netherlands Investment B.V., Celgene Pharmaceutical (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Celgene Pte. Ltd., Celgene Pty Ltd, Celgene Puerto Rico Distribution LLC, Celgene Quanticel Research Inc, Celgene R&D Sarl, Celgene RIVOT LLC, Celgene RIVOT Ltd., Celgene RIVOT SRL, Celgene Receptos Limited, Celgene Receptos Sarl, Celgene Research Incubator At Summit West LLC, Celgene Research S.L.U., Celgene Research and Development Company LLC, Celgene Research and Development I ULC, Celgene Research and Development II LLC, Celgene Research and Investment Company II LLC, Celgene S. de R.L. de C.V., Celgene S.L.U., Celgene S.R.L., Celgene SAS, Celgene Sarl AU, Celgene Sdn Bhd, Celgene Services Sarl, Celgene Sociedade Unipessoal Lda, Celgene Sp. Z.o.o., Celgene Sro [Czech Republic], Celgene Summit Investment Co, Celgene Switzerland Holding Sarl, Celgene Switzerland II LLC, Celgene Switzerland Investment Sarl, Celgene Switzerland LLC, Celgene Switzerland Sarl, Celgene Tri A Holdings Ltd., Celgene Tri Sarl, Celgene UK Distribution Limited, Celgene UK Holdings Limited, Celgene UK Manufacturing II Limited, Celgene UK Manufacturing III Limited, Celgene UK Manufacturing Limited, Celgene d.o.o., Celgene sro [Slovakia], Celmed LLC, Celmed Ltd., ConvaTec Divestiture, Cormorant Pharmaceuticals, Cormorant Pharmaceuticals AB, Crosp Ltd., Delinia Inc., Deuteria Pharmaceuticals Inc., DuPont Pharmaceuticals, E. R. Squibb & Sons Inter-American Corporation, E. R. Squibb & Sons L.L.C., E. R. Squibb & Sons Limited, EWI Corporation, EngMab Sarl, F-star Alpha, FermaVir Pharmaceuticals L.L.C., FermaVir Research L.L.C., Flexus Biosciences, Flexus Biosciences Inc., Forbius, Galecto Biotech, GenPharm International L.L.C., Gloucester Pharmaceuticals LLC, Grove Insurance Company Ltd., Heyden Farmaceutica Portuguesa Limitada, IFM Therapeutics, Impact Biomedicines Inc., Inhibitex, Inhibitex L.L.C., Innate Tumor Immunity Inc., JuMP Holdings LLC, Juno Therapeutics GmbH, Juno Therapeutics Inc., Kosan Biosciences, Kosan Biosciences Incorporated, Linson Investments Limited, Mead Johnson (Manufacturing) Jamaica Limited, Mead Johnson Jamaica Ltd., Medarex, Morris Avenue Investment II LLC, Morris Avenue Investment LLC, MyoKardia, O.o.o. Bristol-Myers Squibb, Oy Bristol-Myers Squibb (Finland) AB, Padlock Therapeutics, Padlock Therapeutics Inc., Pharmion LLC, Princeton Pharmaceutical Products Inc., Receptos LLC, Receptos Services LLC, RedoxTherapies Inc., Route 22 Real Estate Holding Corporation, SPV A Holdings ULC, Seamair Insurance DAC, Signal Pharmaceuticals LLC, Sino-American Shanghai Squibb Pharmaceuticals Limited, Societe Francaise de Complements Alimentaires(S.O.F.C.A.), Squibb Middle East S.A., Summit West Celgene LLC, Swords Laboratories, VentiRx Pharmaceuticals Inc., Westwood-Intrafin SA, Westwood-Squibb Pharmaceuticals Inc., X-Body Inc., ZymoGenetics, ZymoGenetics Inc., ZymoGenetics LLC, ZymoGenetics Paymaster LLC, iPierian, and iPierian Inc..
Wall Street analysts have given iShares Edge MSCI USA Momentum Factor ETF a "N/A" rating, but there may be better buying opportunities in the stock market. Some of MarketBeat's past winning trading ideas have resulted in 5-15% weekly gains. MarketBeat just released five new stock ideas, but iShares Edge MSCI USA Momentum Factor ETF wasn't one of them. MarketBeat thinks these five companies may be even better buys.
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Drax Group plc, together with its subsidiaries, engages in the generation and supply of electricity in the United Kingdom. The company operates through three segments: Generation, Customers, and, Pellet Production. It produces low carbon and renewable electricity; and provides system support services to the electricity grid. The company owns and operates Drax Power Station that produces electricity from biomass and coal with an installed capacity of 3,906 megawatts (MW) located in Selby, North Yorkshire; Cruachan Power Station, a pumped hydro storage station, with an installed capacity of 440 MW located in Argyll and Bute, western Scotland; and Lanark and Galloway hydro-electric power stations with an installed capacity of 126 MW located in southwest Scotland. It also owns and operates combined cycle gas turbine power stations, including Damhead Creek power station with an installed capacity of 805 MW; Rye House power station with an installed capacity of 715 MW; Shoreham power station with an installed capacity of 420 MW; and Blackburn power station with an installed capacity of 60 MW located in England. In addition, the company owns and operates Daldowie fuel plant that processes sludge from a wastewater treatment plant and converts it into dry and low-odour fuel pellets. Further, it manufactures and sells compressed wood pellets for use in electricity production; supplies and manages electricity and gas for large industrial and commercial sector customers, as well as small businesses; and provides debt recovery services. Drax Group plc was incorporated in 2005 and is based in Selby, the United Kingdom.
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Wall Street analysts have given Revolution Bars Group a "N/A" rating, but there may be better buying opportunities in the stock market. Some of MarketBeat's past winning trading ideas have resulted in 5-15% weekly gains. MarketBeat just released five new stock ideas, but Revolution Bars Group wasn't one of them. MarketBeat thinks these five companies may be even better buys.
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Guwahati, Sep 13 : In a case of medical apathy and lack of proper road connectivity, a woman has been forced to deliver a baby on road near the bank of a river in Assams Lakhimpur district on Thursday.
The incident was happened at Patharichuk Parghat near Luit Khabalu area, bordering area of Lakhimpur and Majuli district.
According to the reports, the incident took place as the village does not have a concrete road and it is difficult for commuters to travel in emergency situations.
Due to dilapidated conditions of roads, no ambulance could make it to the remote area, where the pregnant woman identified as Aimoni Narah is from.
The family members of Aimoni taken her to the hospital early this morning for delivering the baby, but the doctor informed them that, her delivery was dated next week.
When they returned from the hospital, the woman feeling more labour pain and she delivered a baby boy on road with the help of some local women.
Local people had covered her with few steel roof sheets to protect from rain.
We covered the woman, when she delivered a baby on road. It is very unfortunate that, a woman gave birth on road, a local youth said.
The people of several remote villages of Lakhimpur and Majuli districts are facing communication problems since Independence.
I feel much more labour pain when reached at Khabalu. Due to lack of proper road connectivity, I walked from my home to hospital, Aimoni Narah said.
It is to be mentioned that, the family members of a pregnant woman have been forced to carry her to a government run hospital in a hand-cart by crossing three rivers and 9 km of roads last month.
On February 6 this year, another shocking incident was happened in Majuli, where the family members were forced to carry the body of a 50-year-old man on a cart from the government run hospital at Kamalabari and travelled over 7 km due to the absence of ambulance.
Earlier in April, 2017 a man had forced to carry the body of his brother on bicycle due to absence of ambulance.
Libbey, Inc. manufactures and markets glass tableware products. The firm operates through following geographical segments: U.S. & Canada, Latin America, EMEA and Other. The U.S. & Canada segment includes sales of manufactured glassware products and sourced tableware having an end-market destination in the U.S & Canada. The Latin America segment includes primarily sales of manufactured and sourced glass tableware having an end-market destination in Latin America, as well as glass products for OEMs regardless of end-market destination. The EMEA segment includes primarily sales of manufactured and sourced glass tableware having an end-market destination in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. The Other segment includes primarily sales of manufactured and sourced glass tableware having an end-market destination in Asia Pacific. The company was founded in 1818 and is headquartered in Toledo, OH.
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Reaves Utility Income Fund is a closed ended balanced mutual fund launched and managed by W. H. Reaves & Company, Inc. The fund invests in public equity and fixed income markets of the United States. It seeks to invest in securities of companies operating in the Utilities sector. The fund primarily invests in dividend paying stocks and debt instruments of companies operating across all market capitalizations. It employs a combination of quantitative and fundamental analysis with bottom-up stock picking approach to create its portfolio. Reaves Utility Income Fund was formed on September 15, 2003 and is domiciled in the United States.
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GlaxoSmithKline Plc is a healthcare company, which engages in the research, development, and manufacture of pharmaceutical medicines, vaccines, and consumer healthcare products. It operates through the following segments: Pharmaceuticals; Pharmaceuticals R&D; Vaccines and Consumer Healthcare. The Pharmaceuticals segment focuses on developing medicines in respiratory and infectious diseases, oncology, and immuno-inflammation. The Pharmaceuticals R&D segment focuses on science related to the immune system, the use of human genetics and advanced technologies, and is driven by the multiplier effect of Science x Technology x Culture. The Vaccines segment produces pediatric and adult vaccines to prevent a range of infectious diseases including, hepatitis A and B, diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough, measles, mumps and rubella, polio, typhoid, influenza, and bacterial meningitis. The Consumer Healthcare segment develops and markets brands in the oral health, pain relief, respiratory, nutrition and gastro intestinal, and skin health categories. The company was founded in 1715 and is headquartered in Middlesex, the United Kingdom.
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Christopher & Banks Corporation, through its subsidiaries, operates as a specialty retailer of private-brand women's apparel and accessories in the United States. The company designs and sells women's apparel and accessories to customers ranging in age from 40 and older. Its stores offer women's apparel consisting of casual clothing, everyday basics, wear-to-work, leisure/active wear, and sleepwear in missy, petite, and women sizes, as well as jewelry and accessories. As of December 4, 2018, the company operated 461 stores, including 314 MPW stores, 80 Outlet stores, 35 Christopher & Banks stores, and 32 stores in its women's plus size clothing division CJ Banks in 45 states. It also operates christopherandbanks.com, an e-commerce Website for its Christopher & Banks and CJ Banks brands. The company was formerly known as Braun's Fashions Corporation and changed its name to Christopher & Banks Corporation in July 2000. Christopher & Banks Corporation was founded in 1956 and is headquartered in Plymouth, Minnesota.
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Wall Street analysts have given Invesco S&P Emerging Markets Momentum ETF a "N/A" rating, but there may be better buying opportunities in the stock market. Some of MarketBeat's past winning trading ideas have resulted in 5-15% weekly gains. MarketBeat just released five new stock ideas, but Invesco S&P Emerging Markets Momentum ETF wasn't one of them. MarketBeat thinks these five companies may be even better buys.
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Guwahati : A first year BTech student of IIT-Guwahati had allegedly committed suicide in the higher educational institution hostel on Wednesday.
According to the reports, 18-year-old Nagashree SC Aithal hailing from Shimoga in Karnataka had allegedly committed suicide by hanging herself from a ceiling fan of her room of Dhansiri girls hostel of IIT-Guwahati.
The first year BTech in Mechanical Engineering student joined in July this year.
Labanu Konwar, PRO of IIT-Guwahati said that, one of her roommate went to attend a morning class and she came back to the room after attending the class.
The roommate didnt get any response when she knocked the door. She immediately informed security people and they also informed the IIT-Guwahati authorities and the local police. The institute authority and the local police immediately rushed to the hostel and break down the door and found the student by hanging herself from a ceiling fan, the IIT-Guwahati PRO said.
Police had also recovered a suicide note from the room and the student saying she wanted to be a teacher, not an engineer.
After arrival of the magistrate, police had sent the body to the Guwahati Medical College Hospital (GMCH) for post-mortem.
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KG, KUM Co. Ltd., KUM LLC, KUMAP Co. Ltd., Movimento (Shanghai) Co Ltd., Movimento Europe GmbH, Movimento Group, Movimento Group AB, Movimento Inc., Movimento International S. de R.L. de C.V., Noteco Comercio e Participacoes Ltda., On-Site Limited, Ottomatika, Ottomatika Inc., PT Aptiv Components Indonesia, Phoenix Assets Holdings Ltd., Pipe Holding GmbH, Potio Holding GmbH, ProSTEP Produktions Technologie AG, Productos Delco de Chihuahua S. de R.L. de C.V., PureDepth, PureDepth Inc., PureDepth Incorporated Limited, PureDepth Limited, Rebafin GmbH, Rio Bravo Electricos S. de R.L. de C.V., Staeng Limited, Tyson Intermediate Holdco Corp., Tyson Upper Intermediate Holdco Corp., Unterstutzungsgesellschaft mbH Delphi Deutschland, Unwired Holdings Inc., Unwired Technology, WF Global (BVI) Limited, WF Global (HK) Limited, Winchester Holding Inc., Winchester Interconnect, Winchester Interconnect (M) Sdn. Bhd., Winchester Interconnect (Shanghai) Co. Ltd, Winchester Interconnect (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., Winchester Interconnect CM Corporation, Winchester Interconnect Cable Assemblies LLC, Winchester Interconnect Corporation, Winchester Interconnect Hermetics LLC, Winchester Interconnect RF Corporation, Winchester Interconnect Ruggedized Corporation, YanCheng SeMyung Electronics Co. Ltd., gabo Systemtechnik, gabo Systemtechnik GmbH, nuTonomy, nuTonomy Asia Pte. Ltd., and nuTonomy Inc..
Wall Street analysts have given iShares MSCI Italy ETF a "N/A" rating, but there may be better buying opportunities in the stock market. Some of MarketBeat's past winning trading ideas have resulted in 5-15% weekly gains. MarketBeat just released five new stock ideas, but iShares MSCI Italy ETF wasn't one of them. MarketBeat thinks these five companies may be even better buys.
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KATHMANDU: Lawmakers have demanded conducting parliamentary investigation to check violence against women including rape cases.
MPs speaking during the zero hour in the meeting of the House of Representatives today voiced their opinion citing increasing reports of rape in the country.
Drawing the governments attention to the need of bringing the culprits of such incidents to book and taking strong action against them, lawmakers suggested setting up a new section within the Nepal Police to address issues related to rape and violence against women.
They also drew the governments attention, through the parliament, to the urgent need of systematization of the foreign employment sector, expediting the construction of the Nijgadh International Airport and fixing the capitals of the provinces at the earliest.
Wall Street analysts have given iShares National Muni Bond ETF a "N/A" rating, but there may be better buying opportunities in the stock market. Some of MarketBeat's past winning trading ideas have resulted in 5-15% weekly gains. MarketBeat just released five new stock ideas, but iShares National Muni Bond ETF wasn't one of them. MarketBeat thinks these five companies may be even better buys.
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Wall Street analysts have given Bonavista Energy Co. (BNP.TO) a "N/A" rating, but there may be better buying opportunities in the stock market. Some of MarketBeat's past winning trading ideas have resulted in 5-15% weekly gains. MarketBeat just released five new stock ideas, but Bonavista Energy Co. (BNP.TO) wasn't one of them. MarketBeat thinks these five companies may be even better buys.
View MarketBeat's top stock picks here.
Brookfield Asset Management, Inc. engages in the management of public and private investment products and services for institutional and retail clients. It operates through the following segments: Asset Management, Real Estate, Renewable Power, Infrastructure, Private Equity, Residential Development, and Corporate Activities. The Asset Management segment includes the management of its listed partnerships, private funds and public securities. The Real Estate segment is comprised of the ownership, operation and development of core office, core retail, LP investments and other properties. The Renewable Power segment encompasses the ownership, operation and development of hydroelectric, wind, solar, storage and other power generating facilities. The Infrastructure segment consists of the ownership, operation and development of utilities, transport, energy, data infrastructure and sustainable resource assets. The Private Equity segment refers to the broad range of industries, and is mostly focused on business services, infrastructure services and industrials. The Residential Development segment represents homebuilding, condominium development and land development. The Corporate Activiti
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CAE Inc., together with its subsidiaries, designs, manufactures, and supplies simulation equipment and training solutions to defense and security markets, commercial airlines, business aircraft operators, helicopter operators, aircraft manufacturers, and healthcare education and service providers worldwide. The company's Civil Aviation Training Solutions segment provides training solutions for flight, cabin, maintenance, and ground personnel in commercial, business, and helicopter aviation; flight simulation training devices; and ab initio pilot training and crew sourcing services, as well as end to end digitally-enabled crew management, training operations solutions, and optimization software. Its Defence and Security segment offers training and mission support solutions for defense forces across multi-domain operations, and for government organizations responsible for public safety. The company's Healthcare segment provides integrated education and training solutions, including surgical and imaging simulations, curriculum, audiovisual and centre management platforms, and patient simulators to healthcare students and clinical professionals. The company was formerly known as CAE Industries Ltd. and changed its name to CAE Inc. in June 1993. CAE Inc. was founded in 1947 and is headquartered in Saint-Laurent, Canada.
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DowDuPont Inc., through its subsidiaries, engages in agriculture, materials science, and specialty products businesses in the United States, Canada, the Asia Pacific, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. The company's Agriculture segment produces, and sells hybrid corn seed and soybean seed varieties; sunflowers, wheat, alfalfa, canola, cotton, rice, and sorghum; silage inoculants; and crop protection products that include weed control, disease control, and insect control. Its Performance Materials & Coatings segment manufactures and sells architectural paints and coatings, and industrial coatings; performance monomers and silicones; standalone silicones; and home and personal care solutions. The company's Industrial Intermediates & Infrastructure segment offers ethylene oxides, propylene oxide derivatives, cellulose ethers, redispersible latex powders, and acrylic emulsions; sustainable solutions; and chlorine and caustic soda. Its Packaging & Specialty Plastics segment provides ethylene, and propylene and aromatic products; and polyolefin elastomers and ethylene propylene diene monomer rubbers. The company's Electronics & Imaging segment offers materials and systems for mobile devices, television monitors, personal computers, and electronics. Its Nutrition & Biosciences segment provides specialty ingredients, as well as cellulosic- and alginates-based pharma excipients; and enzymes, biomaterials, biocides, and antimicrobial solutions and process technologies. The company's Transportation & Advanced Polymers segment offers engineering resins, adhesives, lubricants, and parts for transportation, electronics, healthcare, industrial, and consumer end-markets. Its Safety & Construction segment provides engineered products and integrated systems for construction, worker safety, energy, oil and gas, transportation, medical device, and water purification and separation industries. The company was founded in 1897 and is headquartered in Midland, Michigan.
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Celanese Corp. engages in the provision of technology and specialty materials businesses. It operates through the following segments: Engineered Materials, Acetate Tow, Acetyl Chain and Other Activities .The Engineered Materials segment includes the engineered materials business, food ingredients business and certain strategic affiliates. The Acetate Tow segment serves consumer-driven applications and is a global producer and supplier of acetate tow and acetate flake used in filter products applications. The Acetyl Chain segment includes the integrated chain of intermediate chemistry, emulsion polymers and ethylene vinyl acetate (""EVA"") polymers businesses, based on similar products, production processes, classes of customers and selling and distribution practices as well as economic similarities over a normal business cycle. The Other Activities segment consists of corporate center costs, including administrative activities such as finance, information technology and human resource functions, interest income and expense associated with financing activities. The company was founded by Camille Dreyfus and Henri Dreyfus in 1918 and is headquartered in Irving, TX.
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The EU
Google says the EU requires a notice of cookie use (by Google) and says they have posted a notice. I don't see it. If cookies bother you, go elsewhere. If the EU bothers you, emigrate. If you live outside the EU, don't go there.
Deutsche Beteiligungs AG is a private equity firm specializing in direct and fund of fund investments. Within direct investments the firm specializes in expansion capital, management buyout, middle market, growth capital, add-on acquisitions, bridge financing, management buy-ins for experienced executives, corporate spin-offs, succession arrangements and generational transition in a family-owned business, small and medium-sized companies and pre-IPO stage investments. Within fund of fund investments the firm invests in private equity funds. It does not invest in start-up and early stage companies. The firm prefers to invest in automotive suppliers, industrial, mechanical and plant engineering, businesses develop, building supplier, measurement and automation technology, specialty chemical, support service providers, printing, media, broadband/telecommunication, IT services/software, healthcare and packaging sectors. It also prefer to invest in manufacture industrial components for very different customer sectors, produced machines and plants for various customer sectors, industrial support services, and logistics. It have accessed business models and invested very successfully in other sectors as well. The firm primarily seeks to invest in companies headquartered or having significant business relationships in Germany Mittelstand, DACH (Austria, Switzerland and Germany) France, Netherlands, United States of America, European neighboring countries, and in German speaking European countries. Within European Emerging Markets, it prefers to invest in Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia. The firm typically invests between A10 million ($11.07 million) and A75 million ($105.61 million) in companies with revenues between A30 million ($55.33 million) and A500 million ($704.12 million) and enterprise value between A35 million ($35.26 million) and A300 million ($422.47 million), but may also consider investments in smaller companies or participating in larger transactions. In individual instances, it also prefers structure transactions, in which the enterprise value exceeds this range and which require equity capital investments of up to A200 million ($235.19 million). It can also co-invest with other firms. The firm seeks to take majority or minority stakes in its portfolio companies. It prefers to invest in split-offs of peripheral activities from large corporations, a sale from the portfolio of another financial investor, and a capital requirement to fund a company's growth. The firm seeks to take seats on the portfolio companies' advisory councils or supervisory boards. It typically holds its investment for a period of eight years. Deutsche Beteiligungs AG was founded in 1965 and is based in Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
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CoreLogic, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, provides property information, insight, analytics, and data-enabled solutions in North America, Western Europe, and the Asia Pacific. The company operates in two segments, Property Intelligence & Risk Management Solutions (PIRM) and Underwriting & Workflow Solutions (UWS). The PIRM segment combines property information, mortgage information, and consumer information to deliver housing market and property-level insights, predictive analytics, and risk management capabilities. It also offers proprietary technology and software platforms to access, automate, or track the information and assist its clients with decision-making and compliance tools in the real estate and insurance industries. This segment primarily serves commercial banks, mortgage lenders and brokers, investment banks, fixed-income investors, real estate agents, MLS companies, property and casualty insurance companies, title insurance companies, government agencies, and government-sponsored enterprises. The UWS segment combines property, mortgage, and consumer information to provide comprehensive mortgage origination and monitoring solutions, including underwriting-related solutions, and data-enabled valuations and appraisals. This segment also provides proprietary technology and software platforms to access, automate, or track the information and assist its clients with vetting and onboarding prospects, and meeting compliance regulations, as well as understanding, evaluating, monitoring property values. It primarily serves mortgage lenders and servicers, mortgage brokers, credit unions, commercial banks, fixed-income investors, government agencies, and property and casualty insurance companies. The company was formerly known as The First American Corporation and changed its name to CoreLogic, Inc. in June 2010. CoreLogic, Inc. was incorporated in 1894 and is headquartered in Irvine, California.
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First BanCorp (Puerto Rico) is a holding company, which engages in the provision of personal, commercial, and corporate banking services through its subsidiaries. It operates through the following segments: Commercial and Corporate Banking, Consumer (Retail) Banking, Mortgage Banking, Treasury and Investments, United States Operations, and Virgin Islands Operations. The Commercial and Corporate Banking segment consists of the company's lending and other services for large customers represented by specialized and middle-market clients and the public sector. The Consumer (Retail) Banking segment includes consumer lending and deposit-taking activities conducted mainly through FirstBank's branch network in Puerto Rico. The Mortgage Banking segment focuses on the origination, sale, and servicing of a variety of residential mortgage loan products and related hedging activities. The Treasury and Investments segment deals with treasury and investment management functions. The United States Operations segment represents all banking activities conducted by FirstBank on the United States mainland. The Virgin Islands Operations segment includes all banking activities conducted by FirstBank in
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The following companies are subsidiares of Iron Mountain: AB Archyvu Centras, AB Archyvu Sistemos, AB Archyvu Sistemos Estonia Branch, AKTATRADE Iratendezo Selejtezo es Megsemmisito Bt., AS Archivu Serviss, Accutrac Software Inc, Administradora de Informacion Ltda, ArchivesOne, Archyvu sistemos, Ausdoc Group Pty Limited, Ausdoc Holdings Pty Limited, Bonded Services Group, Box Butler, Britannia Data Management Limited, Connected Corporation, Cornerstone Records Management, Crozier Fine Arts, Crozier Philadelphia LLC, Custodia S.O.S. SA, Custodia de Documentos Limitada, Data Outsourcing Centre doo, Data Security Services Pty Limited, DigiGuard, Docu-File Cape Town Proprietary Limited, Docu-File Durban Proprietary Limited, Docu-File JHB Proprietary Limited, DocuTar Iratrendezo es Tarolo Szolgaltato Kft., DocuVault, Docufile (Pty) Ltd, Docufile Holdings (Proprietary) Limited, Docufile Lesotho Proprietary Limited, Docufile Services Proprietary Limited, Docugroup Papir Szolgatato Kft., Document Holdings Sweden AB, Docuscan Cape Town Proprietary Limited, Docuscan Proprietary Limited, EAC Invest, Endless Document Storage Services LLC, EvoSwitch, File Express Limited, Fine Paper Recyclers Sydney Pty Ltd, Fontis International GmbH, Fontis International Inc., Fortrust, G4S Secure Data Solutions Colombia, Hays IMS, Horanross Limited, IBEX IM Limited, IBEX Information Management Limited, IG2 Data Security, IMSA Peru SRL, IO.com, Information Storage Consolidation Co, Interfile Participacoes S.A., Intradis SA, Iron Mountain (Deutschland) Service GmbH, Iron Mountain (Espana) Services S.L, Iron Mountain (Gibraltar) Holdings Limited, Iron Mountain (Ireland) Services Limited, Iron Mountain (Nederland) Services BV, Iron Mountain (UK) EES Holdings Limited, Iron Mountain (UK) Limited, Iron Mountain (UK) Services Limited, Iron Mountain A/S, Iron Mountain Acquisition Holdings Pty. Ltd., Iron Mountain Argentina S.A., Iron Mountain Arsivleme Hizmetleri A.S., Iron Mountain Asia Pacific Holdings Ltd, Iron Mountain Australia Group Pty. Ltd., Iron Mountain Australia Group Services Pty. Ltd., Iron Mountain Australia Holdings Inc., Iron Mountain Australia Property Holdings Pty Ltd, Iron Mountain Austria Archivierung Gmbh, Iron Mountain BPM International S.a.r.l., Iron Mountain BPM SPRL, Iron Mountain Belgium NV, Iron Mountain CIS LLC, Iron Mountain Canada Operations ULC, Iron Mountain Ceska Republika S.R.O., Iron Mountain Chile S.A., Iron Mountain Chile Servicios S.A., Iron Mountain Colombia S.A.S., Iron Mountain DIMS Limited, Iron Mountain Deutschland GmbH, Iron Mountain Do Brasil Ltda, Iron Mountain EES Holdings Ltd., Iron Mountain EES Sp. z.o.o., Iron Mountain Espana SA, Iron Mountain Europe (Group) Limited, Iron Mountain Europe PLC (fka Iron Mountain Europe Limited), Iron Mountain Finland OY, Iron Mountain France S.A.S., Iron Mountain Fulfillment Services Inc., Iron Mountain Global Holdings Inc., Iron Mountain Global LLC, Iron Mountain Global Luxembourg S.a.r.l., Iron Mountain Group (Europe) Limited, Iron Mountain Hellas SA, Iron Mountain Holdings (Europe) Limited, Iron Mountain Holdings (France) SNC, Iron Mountain Incorporated, Iron Mountain India Private Ltd, Iron Mountain Information Management LLC, Iron Mountain Information Management Services Canada Inc., Iron Mountain Information Management Services Inc., Iron Mountain Intellectual Property Management Inc., Iron Mountain International (Holdings) Limited, Iron Mountain International Holdings BV, Iron Mountain International Information Management Co. Ltd., Iron Mountain Ireland Holdings Limited, Iron Mountain Ireland Limited, Iron Mountain Latin America Holdings Sociedad Limitada, Iron Mountain Luxembourg S.a.r.l., Iron Mountain Luxembourg Services S.a.r.l., Iron Mountain Luxembourg Services S.a.r.l. Schaffhausen Branch, Iron Mountain MDM Limited, Iron Mountain Magyarorszag Kereskedelmi es Szolgaltato Kft., Iron Mountain Management Services GmbH, Iron Mountain Mayflower Limited, Iron Mountain Mexico Holding S. de RL de CV, Iron Mountain Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Iron Mountain Mexico Servicios S. de RL de CV, Iron Mountain Mortgage Finance Holdings LLC, Iron Mountain Mortgage Finance I LLC, Iron Mountain Nederland B.V., Iron Mountain Nederland Holdings B.V., Iron Mountain New Zealand Limited (fka Recall New Zealand Ltd), Iron Mountain Norge AS, Iron Mountain Participations SA, Iron Mountain Peru S.A., Iron Mountain Poland Holdings Ltd, Iron Mountain Polska Services Sp z.o.o., Iron Mountain Polska Sp. z.o.o., Iron Mountain Receivables QRS LLC, Iron Mountain Receivables TRS LLC, Iron Mountain Records Management (Puerto Rico) Inc., Iron Mountain Records Management (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Iron Mountain SRL, Iron Mountain Secure Shredding Canada, Iron Mountain Secure Shredding Inc., Iron Mountain Services Private Ltd, Iron Mountain Services S.A.S., Iron Mountain Shanghai Co Ltd, Iron Mountain Slovakia s.r.o., Iron Mountain South America S.a.r.l., Iron Mountain Southeast Asia Holdings Limited, Iron Mountain Switzerland GmbH, Iron Mountain UK Services (Holdings) Limited, Iron Mountain US Holdings Inc., Iron Mountain Ukraine LLC, Iron Mountain Vietnam Company Limited, Iron Mountain d.o.o. Beograd, Jin Shan Limited, KDM Spectrumdata Pty Ltd, KH Data Capital Development Land LLC, Kestrel Data (Canada) Ltd, Kestrel Data Services Limited, Kestrel Information Management Pty. Ltd., Livevault, Marshgate Morangis S.a.r.l., Mimosa Systems, Mobilshred Inc., Navbharat Archive Xpress Private Limited, Nettlebed Acquisition Corp., Pipax Security S.A., Preferred Media Limited, Prism Integrated Sdn Bhd, Recall, Recall (London) Limited, Recall (Schweiz) AG, Recall (Shanghai) Ltd., Recall A/S, Recall AS, Recall Asia Pte Limited, Recall Corporation Sdn. Bhd., Recall Enterprises (Thailand) Limited, Recall Enterprises Sdn. Bhd., Recall Europe Finance Ltd. (fka Recall Europe Finance Plc), Recall Europe Limited, Recall Finance Limited, Recall Finland OY, Recall France SA, Recall France SA Belgium Branch, Recall France SAS, Recall GQ Limited, Recall Holdings, Recall Holdings Limited, Recall Holdings Sweden AB, Recall Hong Kong Ltd., Recall India Information Management Pvt. Ltd., Recall Information Services SRL, Recall International Pty Limited, Recall Italia SRL, Recall Limited, Recall Overseas Holdings Pty Limited, Recall Shredding Limited, Recall Sweden AB, Recall Taiwan Ltd., Recall Technology Pty. Ltd., Recall Total Information Management India Pvt. Ltd., Recall Total Information Mgt Pte Ltd, Recall do Brasil Ltda, Record Data Limited, Royal Seal S.R.O., Safehouse Information Management Solutions Private Limited, Secur Archiv SA, Secure Paper Services Pty Ltd, Shuttle SRL, Silver Sky Limited, Sispace AG, Startify, Storbox SA, The Coding Company Pty. Ltd., The Imaging Centre Pty Ltd, UAB Confidento, Upper Providence Venture I L.P., Venues Australia Pty Ltd, and Xepa Digital.
Wall Street analysts have given iShares S&P Mid-Cap 400 Value ETF a "N/A" rating, but there may be better buying opportunities in the stock market. Some of MarketBeat's past winning trading ideas have resulted in 5-15% weekly gains. MarketBeat just released five new stock ideas, but iShares S&P Mid-Cap 400 Value ETF wasn't one of them. MarketBeat thinks these five companies may be even better buys.
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Helix Energy Solutions Group, Inc. is an international offshore energy company. It focuses on subsea construction, maintenance and salvage services to the offshore natural gas and oil industry. The firm also provides specialty services to the offshore energy industry, with a focus on well intervention and robotics operations. The company operates through three segments: Well Intervention, Robotics and Production Facilities. The Well Intervention segment offers vessels and related equipment that are used to perform well intervention services primarily in the Gulf of Mexico and North Sea regions. The Robotics segment involves four chartered vessels and also includes ROVs, trenchers and ROVDrills designed to complement offshore construction and well intervention services. The Production Facilities segment includes its investment in the Helix Producer I and Kommandor LLC. Helix Energy Solutions Group was founded in 1979 and is headquartered in Houston, TX.
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The Southern pays an annual dividend of $2.64 per share and currently has a dividend yield of 4.22%. SO has a dividend yield higher than 75% of all dividend-paying stocks, making it a leading dividend payer. The Southern has been increasing its dividend for 20 consecutive years, indicating the company has a strong committment to maintain and grow its dividend. The dividend payout ratio of The Southern is 81.23%. Payout ratios above 75% are not desirable because they may not be sustainable. Based on earnings estimates, The Southern will have a dividend payout ratio of 74.58% next year. This indicates that The Southern will be able to sustain or increase its dividend.
View The Southern's dividend history.
The following companies are subsidiares of Marsh & McLennan Companies: 8WORKS INC., 8WORKS LTD, A. Constantinidi & CIA. S.C., A.C.N. 000 951 146 Pty Limited, A.C.N. 001 572 961 Pty Limited, A.C.N. 076 935 683 Pty Limited, A.C.N. 102 322 574 Pty Limited, ACE Insurance Agents Limited, ACE Insurance Consultants Limited, ACE Insurance and Reinsurance Brokers Limited, AD Corretora de Seguros, AFCO Premium Acceptance Inc., AFCO Premium Credit LLC, Access Equity Enhanced Fund GP LLC, Admiral Holdings Limited, Agnew Higgins Pickering & Co. (Bermuda) Ltd, Aldgate Investments Limited, Aldgate Trustees Ltd, Alexander Forbes Group Holdings Limited, Alpha Consultants Limited, Alta SA, Altius Real Assets (GP) LLC, Amal Insurance Brokers Limited (in liquidation), Anda Insurance Agencies Pte Ltd, AssetVal Pty Ltd, Assur Conseils Marsh S.A., Assurance Capital Corporation, Assurance Services Corporation, Australian Insurance Brokers Pty Ltd, Australian World Underwriters Pty Ltd., BBPS Limited, Barney & Barney Orange County LLC, Beaumonts (Leeds) Limited (in liquidation), Beaumonts Insurance Brokers Limited (in liquidation), Beaumonts Insurance Services Limited, Beneficios Integrales Oportunos SA, Benefitfocus Inc., Blue Marble Micro Limited, Blue Marble Microinsurance Inc., Bluefin, Bluefin Insurance Group Limited, Bluefin Insurance Services Limited, Boulder Claims LLC, Bowring (Bermuda) Investments Ltd., Bowring Marine Limited, Bowring Marsh (Bermuda) Ltd., Bowring Marsh (Hong Kong) Limited, Bowring Marsh Asia Pte. Ltd., Bowring Marsh Corretora de Resseguros Ltda., Bowring Marsh Limited, Broderick Piller Pty Ltd, Broker 2 Broker Limited, BuildPay LLC, Burke Ford Trustees (Leicester) Limited, C.T. Bowring Limited, CMC-Belgibo NV, CPRM Limited, CPSG Partners LLC, Carpenter Marsh Fac Chile Corredores de Reaseguros Limitada, Carpenter Marsh Fac Colombia Corredores de Reaseguros S.A., Carpenter Marsh Fac Peru Corredores de Reaseguros S.A.C., Carpenter Marsh Fac Re LLC, Carpenter Turner Cyprus Ltd, Carpenter Turner S.A., Cascade International Holdings C.V., Cascade Regional Holdings Limited, Central Insurance Services Limited, Charter Risk Management Services LLC, Chartwell Healthcare Limited, Chronos Insurance Brokers Pty Limited, Claims and Recovery Management (Australia) Pty Limited, Clark Thomson Insurance Brokers Limited, Client Provide Limited, Colombian Insurance Broking Wholesale Limited, Consultores 2020 C.A., Cronin & Co Insurance Services Limited, DVA - Deutsche Verkehrs-Assekuranz-Vermittlungs GmbH, Dawson Insurance, DeLima Marsh S.A. - Los Corredores de Seguros S.A., Dovetail Insurance Corp., Dovetail Insurance Corp., Dovetail Managing General Agency Corporation, Dovetail Technology Service India Private Limited, Draw Connect Limited, Draw Create Limited, Draw Group London Limited, Eagle & Crown Limited, Echelon Australia Pty Limited, Echelon Claims Consultants Sdn Bhd, Echelon New Zealand Limited, EnBW Versicherungs Vermittlung GmbH, Encompass Insurance Agency Pty Ltd., English Pension Trustees Limited, Epsilon (US) Insurance Company, Epsilon Insurance Company Ltd., Eustis Insurance & Benefits, Evolution Management Ltd, Exchange Insurance Services Limited (in liquidation), Exmoor Management Company Limited, Faulkner & Flynn LLC, Freedom Trust Services Limited, GC Genesis LLC, GCube Insurance Services Inc, GCube Underwriting Limited, Gama Consultores Associados Ltda., Gem Insurance Company Limited, Global Premium Finance Company, GrECo International Holding AG, Gracechurch Trustees Limited, Gresham Pension Trustees Limited, Group Promoters Pty Limited, Guy Carpenter & Cia (Mexico) S.A. de C.V., Guy Carpenter & Cia. S.A., Guy Carpenter & Co. Labuan Ltd., Guy Carpenter & Company AB, Guy Carpenter & Company Corredores de Reaseguros Limitada, Guy Carpenter & Company Corretora de Resseguros Ltda., Guy Carpenter & Company GmbH, Guy Carpenter & Company LLC, Guy Carpenter & Company Limited, Guy Carpenter & Company Limited, Guy Carpenter & Company Ltd./Guy Carpenter & Compagnie Ltee, Guy Carpenter & Company Participacoes Ltda., Guy Carpenter & Company Peru Corredores de Reaseguros S.A., Guy Carpenter & Company Private Limited, Guy Carpenter & Company Proprietary Limited, Guy Carpenter & Company Pty. Ltd., Guy Carpenter & Company S.A., Guy Carpenter & Company S.A. (Uruguay), Guy Carpenter & Company S.A.S., Guy Carpenter & Company S.r.l., Guy Carpenter (Middle East) Limited, Guy Carpenter Bermuda Ltd., Guy Carpenter Broking Inc., Guy Carpenter Colombia Corredores de Reaseguros Ltda., Guy Carpenter Insurance Brokers (Beijing) Co. Ltd., Guy Carpenter Japan Inc., Guy Carpenter Mexico Intermediario de Reaseguro S.A. de C.V., Guy Carpenter Reasurans Brokerligi Anonim Sirketi, HAPIP GP 2009 LLC, HAPIP GP LLC, HSBC Insurance Brokers International (Abu Dhabi) LLC (in liquidation), Hamilton Bond Limited, Hansen International Limited, Hayward Aviation Limited, INSIA Europe SE, INSIA SK s.r.o., INSIA a.s., INSURANCE BROKERS OF NIGERIA LIMITED, IRC Asia Insurance Brokers Limited, InSolutions Limited, Industrial Risks Protection Consultants, Ingeseg S. A., Ingeseg S.A., Insbrokers Ltda., InsurTech Alliance LLC, Insure Direct (Brokers) LLC, Insure Direct (Brokers) LLC [BAHRAIN BRANCH], Insure Direct - Jardine Lloyd Thompson Limited, International Catastrophe Insurance Managers LLC, International Loss Control Services Limited, International Risk Consultants (Asia) Limited, Invercol Limited, Irish Pensions Trust Limited, Isosceles Insurance (Barbados) Limited, Isosceles Insurance Company Limited, Isosceles Insurance Ltd, Isosceles PCC Limited, J&H Marsh & McLennan Limited, J.W. Terrill Benefit Administrators Inc., JI Holdings Limited, JIB Group Holdings Limited, JIB Group Limited, JIB Holdings (Pacific) Limited, JIB Overseas Holdings Limited, JIB UK Holdings Limited, JL Marine Insurance-Brokers GmbH & Co. KG, JLM Verwaltungs GmbH, JLT (Insurance Brokers) Limited, JLT Actuaries and Consultants Limited, JLT Advisory Limited, JLT Affinity Colombia Solutions SAS, JLT Agencies Limited, JLT Asesorias Ltda, JLT Asia Holdings BV, JLT Asia Shared Services Sdn Bhd, JLT Belgibo, JLT Benefit Consultants Limited, JLT Benefit Solutions Limited, JLT Benefit Solutions SA (Pty) Ltd, JLT Bermuda Ltd, JLT Brasil Holdings Participacoes Ltd, JLT Chile Holdings SpA, JLT Colombia Retail Limited, JLT Colombia Wholesale Limited, JLT Consultants & Actuaries Limited, JLT EB Holdings Limited, JLT EB Services Limited, JLT Employee Benefits Holding Company (PTY) LTD, JLT Employee Benefits SA (Pty) Ltd, JLT Financial Planning Limited, JLT France Holdings, JLT Group Services Pty Limited, JLT Holdings (Barbados) Ltd, JLT Holdings (NZ) Limited, JLT Independent Insurance Brokers Private Limited, JLT Insurance Agencies Limited, JLT Insurance Brokers Co. Limited, JLT Insurance Brokers Co. Limited ( Shanghai Branch), JLT Insurance Brokers Co. Limited (Beijing Branch), JLT Insurance Brokers Co. Limited (Guangzhou Branch), JLT Insurance Brokers Ireland Limited, JLT Insurance Brokers SA, JLT Insurance Group Holdings Ltd, JLT Insurance Management Malta Limited, JLT Intellectual Property Limited, JLT Intellectual Property [UK Branch], JLT Interactive Pte. Ltd., JLT Investment Management Limited, JLT LATAM (Southern Cone) Wholesale Limited, JLT Latin American Holdings Limited, JLT Life Assurance Brokers Limited, JLT Management Services Limited, JLT Marine (Pty) Ltd, JLT Mexico Holdings Limited, JLT Mexico Intermediario de Reaseguro S.A. de C.V., JLT Netherlands BV, JLT Norway AS, JLT PLA, JLT Pension Trustees Limited, JLT Pensions Administration Holdings Limited, JLT Pensions Administration Limited, JLT Peru Reinsurance Solutions Limited, JLT Peru Retail Limited, JLT Peru Wholesale Limited, JLT QFM Services Limited, JLT RE Brasil Administracao e Corretagem de Resseguros Ltda, JLT Re (French Branch), JLT Re (Northern Europe) AB, JLT Re Argentina Corredores de Reaseguros S.A.U., JLT Re Labuan Limited, JLT Re Limited, JLT Re Pty Ltd, JLT Reinsurance Brokers GmbH, JLT Reinsurance Brokers Limited, JLT Reinsurance Brokers Limited [French Branch], JLT Risk Management Limited, JLT Risk Solutions AB, JLT Risk Solutions AB Branch - Germany, JLT SA IB Holdings Company (Pty) Limited, JLT SCK Affinity Administracao e Corretora de Seguros Ltda., JLT SCK Corretora e Administradora de Seguros, JLT Secretaries Limited, JLT Sigorta ve Reasurans Brokerlii A.., JLT Singapore Holdings Pte. Ltd., JLT Specialty France, JLT Specialty Insurance Broker A/S, JLT Specialty Limited, JLT Specialty Limited [DUBAI BRANCH], JLT Specialty Pte. Ltd., JLT Towner Insurance Management (Anguilla) Limited, JLT Trust Services (Barbados) Ltd, JLT Trustees (Southern) Limited, JLT Trustees Limited, JLT UK Investment Holdings Limited, JLT Vantage Risk and Benefit Consulting Private Limited, JLT Wealth Management Limited, JLT do Brasil Corretagem de Seguros Ltda, JLTPCS Holdings Pte. Ltd., JMIB Holdings BV, JSL Securities Inc., Japan Affinity Marketing Inc., Jardine IBR Limited, Jardine Lloyd Thompson (Proprietary) Limited, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Asia Pte Ltd, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Australia Pty Limited, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Canada Inc, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Group Ltd, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Group plc, Jardine Lloyd Thompson India Private Limited, Jardine Lloyd Thompson India Private Limited (UK Branch Office), Jardine Lloyd Thompson Insurance Consultants Limited, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Insurance and Reinsurance Brokers Inc., Jardine Lloyd Thompson Ireland Holdings Limited, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Ireland Unlimited Company, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Korea Limited, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Limited, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Limited [Macao Branch], Jardine Lloyd Thompson PCS (Dubai) Limited, Jardine Lloyd Thompson PCS Limited, Jardine Lloyd Thompson PCS Pte Ltd, Jardine Lloyd Thompson PCS SA, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Private Limited, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Pty Limited, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Sdn Bhd, Jardine Lloyd Thompson Valencia y Iragorri Corredores de Seguros SA, Jardine Pension Trustees Ireland Limited, Jardine Risk Consulting Co. Limited, Jardine ShunTak Insurance Brokers Limited, Jardine ShunTak Insurance Brokers Limited [Macao Branch], Jardines PF- Consultoria Em Gestao De Risco Limitada, Jelf, Jelf Commercial Finance Limited, Jelf Financial Planning Limited, Jelf Insurance Brokers Limited, Jelf Limited, Jelf Risk Management Limited, Jelf Wellbeing Limited, John Lampier & Son Ltd, Johnson & Higgins (Bermuda) Limited, Johnson & Higgins Limited, KESSLER & CO AG, Kepler Associates Limited, Kessler & Co Inc., Kessler Consulting Inc., Kessler Prevoyance Inc., Key Underwriting Pty Limited, Kroll, Lambert Brothers Holdings Limited, Lambert Brothers Insurance Brokers (Employee Benefits) Limited, Lambert Brothers Insurance Brokers (Hong Kong) Ltd, Laterlife.com Limited (in liquidation), Lavaretus Underwriting AB, Lavaretus Underwriting AB (BRANCH - Denmark), Libra Insurance Services Limited (in liquidation), Lloyd & Partners Limited, Local Government Insurance Brokers Pty Limited, Lomond Macdonald Limited, Lynch Insurance Brokers Limited, M&M Vehicle L.P., M.P. Bolshaw and Company Limited, MAG JLT SpA, MERCER ALTERNATIVES LIMITED, MM Risk Services Pty Ltd (for dissolution), MMA Mid-Atlantic Employee LLC, MMA Securities LLC, MMB Consultores S.A., MMC (Singapore) Holdings Pte. Ltd., MMC 28 State Street Holdings Inc., MMC Borrower LLC, MMC Brazilian Holdings B.V., MMC Capital Inc., MMC Cascade Regional Holdings LLC, MMC FINANCE (EUROPE) LIMITED, MMC FINANCE HOLDINGS LTD, MMC Finance (Australia) Limited, MMC Finance (Singapore) Limited, MMC France Holdings (Luxembourg) S.a.r.l., MMC GP III Inc., MMC Group Services sp. z o.o., MMC Holdings (Australia) Pty Ltd, MMC Holdings (New Zealand) ULC, MMC Holdings (UK) Limited, MMC International Finance (Barbados) SRL, MMC International Holdings LLC, MMC International Limited, MMC International Treasury Centre Limited, MMC Middle East Holdings Limited, MMC Poland Holdings B.V., MMC Realty Inc., MMC Regional Asia Holdings B.V., MMC Regional Caribbean Holdings Ltd., MMC Regional Europe Holdings B.V., MMC Regional LATAM Holdings B.V., MMC Securities (Europe) Limited, MMC Securities LLC, MMC Treasury Holdings (UK) Limited, MMC UK Group Limited, MMC UK Pension Fund Trustee Limited, MMOW Limited, MMRC LLC, MOW Holding LLC, MPIP III GP LLC, MPIP IV GP LLC, MPIP V GP LLC, MPIP VI GP LLC, Mangrove Insurance Europe PCC Limited, Mangrove Insurance Solutions PCC, Mangrove Insurance Solutions PCC Limited, Manoel Management Services Ltd, Marchant McKechnie Insurance Brokers Limited, Marine Aviation & General (London) Limited, Marsh & McLennan (PNG) Limited, Marsh & McLennan Agencies AS, Marsh & McLennan Agencies Limited, Marsh & McLennan Agency A/S, Marsh & McLennan Agency LLC, Marsh & McLennan Agency Limited, Marsh & McLennan Agency Pty Ltd., Marsh & McLennan Argentina SA Corredores de Reaseguros, Marsh & McLennan Colombia S.A., Marsh & McLennan Companies Acquisition Funding Limited, Marsh & McLennan Companies Acquisition Limited, Marsh & McLennan Companies Asia Pacific Treasury Center Limited, Marsh & McLennan Companies BVBA/SPRL, Marsh & McLennan Companies Finance Center (Luxembourg) S.a.r.l., Marsh & McLennan Companies France S.A.S., Marsh & McLennan Companies Holdings (Luxembourg) S.a.r.l., Marsh & McLennan Companies Inc., Marsh & McLennan Companies Regional Holdings S.a.r.l., Marsh & McLennan Companies Services B.V., Marsh & McLennan Companies UK Limited, Marsh & McLennan Europe S.a.r.l., Marsh & McLennan GP I Inc., Marsh & McLennan Global Broking (Bermuda) Ltd., Marsh & McLennan Holding GmbH, Marsh & McLennan Holdings (Canada) ULC, Marsh & McLennan Holdings Inc., Marsh & McLennan Incorporated (for dissolution), Marsh & McLennan Innovation Centre Holdings II, Marsh & McLennan Innovation Centre Holdings S.a.r.l., Marsh & McLennan Innovation Centre Limited, Marsh & McLennan Insurance Services Limited, Marsh & McLennan Ireland Limited, Marsh & McLennan Management Services (Bermuda) Limited, Marsh & McLennan Risk Capital Holdings Ltd., Marsh & McLennan Servicios S.A. De C.V., Marsh & McLennan Shared Services Canada Limited, Marsh & McLennan Shared Services Corporation, Marsh (Bahrain) Company SPC, Marsh (Beijing) Risk Management Consulting Co. Ltd., Marsh (China) Insurance Brokers Co. Ltd., Marsh (Hong Kong) Limited, Marsh (Insurance Brokers) LLP, Marsh (Insurance Services) Limited, Marsh (Malawi) Limited, Marsh (Middle East) Limited, Marsh (Namibia) (Proprietary) Limited, Marsh (Pty) Ltd, Marsh (Risk Consulting) LLP, Marsh (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., Marsh A/S, Marsh AB, Marsh AG, Marsh AS, Marsh Advantage Insurance Holdings Pty Ltd, Marsh Advantage Insurance Pty Ltd., Marsh Africa (Pty) Ltd, Marsh Argentina S.R.L., Marsh Associates (Pty) Ltd, Marsh Austria G.m.b.H., Marsh Aviation Insurance Broking Pty Ltd (for dissolution), Marsh B.V., Marsh Botswana (Proprietary) Limited, Marsh Brockman y Schuh Agente de Seguros y de Fianzas S.A. de C.V., Marsh Broker Japan Inc., Marsh Broker de Asigurare-Reasigurare S.R.L., Marsh Brokers (Hong Kong) Limited, Marsh Brokers Limited, Marsh Canada Limited/Marsh Canada Limitee, Marsh Company Management Services Cayman Ltd., Marsh Compensation Technologies Administration (Pty) Ltd, Marsh Corporate Services (Barbados) Limited, Marsh Corporate Services Isle of Man Ltd, Marsh Corporate Services Limited, Marsh Corporate Services Malta Limited, Marsh Corretora de Seguros Ltda., Marsh EOOD, Marsh Egypt LLC, Marsh Emirates Consultancy LLC, Marsh Emirates Insurance Brokerage LLC, Marsh Employee Benefits Limited, Marsh Employee Benefits Zimbabwe (Private) Ltd, Marsh Eurofinance B.V., Marsh Europe S.A., Marsh FJC International Insurance Brokers Limited, Marsh For Insurance Services S.A.E., Marsh Franco Acra S.A., Marsh GSC Servicos e Administracao de Seguros Ltda., Marsh GmbH, Marsh Holding AB, Marsh Holdings (Pty) Ltd, Marsh India Insurance Brokers Private Limited, Marsh Insurance & Investments LLC, Marsh Insurance Brokers, Marsh Insurance Brokers (Macao) Limited, Marsh Insurance Brokers (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Marsh Insurance Brokers (Private) Limited, Marsh Insurance Brokers AO, Marsh Insurance Brokers Limited, Marsh Insurance Consulting Saudi Arabia (in liquidation), Marsh Insurance and Reinsurance Brokers LLC, Marsh Intermediaries Inc., Marsh International Broking Holdings Limited, Marsh International Holdings II Inc., Marsh International Holdings Inc., Marsh Investment B.V., Marsh Ireland Brokers Limited, Marsh Ireland Brokers Limited (UK Branch), Marsh Ireland Holdings Limited, Marsh Israel (1999) Ltd., Marsh Israel (Holdings) Ltd., Marsh Israel Consultants Ltd., Marsh Israel Insurance Agency Ltd., Marsh Israel International Brokers Ltd. (in liquidation), Marsh JCS Inc., Marsh Japan Inc., Marsh Kft., Marsh Kindlustusmaakler AS, Marsh Korea Inc., Marsh LLC, Marsh LLC Insurance Brokers, Marsh LLC [Ukraine], Marsh Lda., Marsh Limited, Marsh Limited [Fiji], Marsh Limited [New Zealand], Marsh Limited [PNG], Marsh Ltd. [Wisconsin], Marsh Management Services (Bahamas) Ltd., Marsh Management Services (Barbados) Limited, Marsh Management Services (Bermuda) Ltd., Marsh Management Services (Dublin) Limited, Marsh Management Services (Labuan) Limited, Marsh Management Services (MENA) Limited, Marsh Management Services (USVI) Ltd., Marsh Management Services Cayman Ltd., Marsh Management Services Guernsey Limited, Marsh Management Services Inc., Marsh Management Services Isle of Man Limited, Marsh Management Services Luxembourg S.a.r.l., Marsh Management Services Malta Limited, Marsh Management Services Singapore Pte. Ltd., Marsh Management Services Sweden AB, Marsh Marine & Energy AB, Marsh Marine Nederland B.V., Marsh Medical Consulting GmbH, Marsh Mercer Holdings (Australia) Pty Ltd, Marsh Nest Inc., Marsh Oman LLC, Marsh Oy, Marsh PB Co. Ltd., Marsh Philippines Inc., Marsh Privat A.I.E., Marsh Private Client Life Insurance Services, Marsh Pty. Ltd., Marsh Qatar LLC, Marsh RE S.A.C. Corredores de Reaseguros, Marsh Rehder Consultoria S.A. (MRC), Marsh Rehder S.A. Corredores de Seguros, Marsh Resolutions Pty Limited, Marsh Risk Consulting B.V., Marsh Risk Consulting Limitada, Marsh Risk Consulting Ltda., Marsh Risk Consulting S.L., Marsh Risk Consulting Services S.r.L., Marsh Risk and Consulting Services (Pty) Ltd, Marsh S.A. Corredores De Seguros, Marsh S.A. Mediadores de Seguros, Marsh S.A.S., Marsh S.p.A., Marsh SA [Argentina], Marsh SA [Belgium], Marsh SA [Luxembourg], Marsh SA [Uruguay], Marsh SIA, Marsh Saldana Inc., Marsh Saudi Arabia Insurance & Reinsurance Brokers, Marsh Secretarial Services Limited, Marsh Semusa S.A., Marsh Services Limited, Marsh Services Spolka z.o.o., Marsh Sigorta ve Reasurans Brokerligi Anonim Sirketi, Marsh Spolka z.o.o., Marsh Szolgaltato Kft., Marsh Takaful Brokers (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Marsh Treasury Services (Dublin) Limited (in liquidation), Marsh Treasury Services Limited, Marsh Tunisia S.a.r.l., Marsh UK Limited, Marsh USA (India) Inc., Marsh USA Borrower LLC, Marsh USA Inc., Marsh Uganda Limited, Marsh Venezuela C.A. Sociedad de Corretaje de Seguros, Marsh Vietnam Insurance Broking Company Ltd, Marsh Zambia Limited, Marsh Zimbabwe Holdings (Private) Limited, Marsh d.o.o. Beograd, Marsh d.o.o. za posredovanje u osiguranju, Marsh for Insurance Services - Jordan, Marsh i-Connect (Pty) Ltd, Marsh s.r.o., Matthiessen Assurans AB, Mercer (Argentina) S.A., Mercer (Australia) Pty Ltd, Mercer (Austria) GmbH, Mercer (Belgium) SA-NV, Mercer (Canada) Limited/Mercer (Canada) Limitee, Mercer (China) Limited, Mercer (Colombia) Ltda., Mercer (Danmark) A/S, Mercer (Finland) OY, Mercer (France) SAS, Mercer (Hong Kong) Limited, Mercer (Ireland) Limited, Mercer (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., Mercer (N.Z.) Limited, Mercer (Nederland) B.V., Mercer (Norge) AS, Mercer (Polska) Sp.z o.o., Mercer (Portugal) Lda, Mercer (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., Mercer (Sweden) AB, Mercer (Taiwan) Ltd., Mercer (Thailand) Ltd., Mercer (US) Inc., Mercer Administration Services (Australia) Pty Limited, Mercer Africa Limited, Mercer Agente de Seguros S.A. de C.V., Mercer Asesores de Seguros S.A., Mercer Asesores es Inversion Independientes S.A. de C.V., Mercer Broking Ltd., Mercer Career Unipessoal Lda, Mercer Consultation (Quebec) Ltee., Mercer Consulting (Australia) Pty Ltd, Mercer Consulting (Chile) Limitada, Mercer Consulting (France) SAS, Mercer Consulting (India) Private Limited, Mercer Consulting B.V., Mercer Consulting Group Inc., Mercer Consulting Holdings Sdn. Bhd., Mercer Consulting Limited, Mercer Consulting Middle East Limited, Mercer Consulting S.L.U., Mercer Consulting Venezuela C.A., Mercer Corredores de Seguros Limitada, Mercer Corretora de Seguros Ltda, Mercer Danismanlik Anonim Sirketi, Mercer Deutschland GmbH, Mercer Employee Benefits - Medicacao de Seguros Unipessoal Lda., Mercer Employee Benefits Limited, Mercer Financial Advice (Australia) Pty Ltd, Mercer Financial Services Limited, Mercer Financial Services Limited liability company, Mercer Financial Services Middle East Limited, Mercer Global Investments Europe Limited, Mercer Global Investments Management Limited, Mercer HR Consulting Borrower LLC, Mercer HR Services LLC, Mercer Health & Benefits (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., Mercer Health & Benefits Administration LLC, Mercer Health & Benefits LLC, Mercer Holdings Inc., Mercer Holdings Inc. [Philippines], Mercer Human Resource Consulting Ltda, Mercer Human Resource Consulting S.A. de C.V., Mercer ICC Limited, Mercer Investment Consulting Limited, Mercer Investment Management (Shanghai) Co. Ltd, Mercer Investment Solutions (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., Mercer Investments (Australia) Limited, Mercer Investments (Hong Kong) Limited, Mercer Investments (Japan) Ltd, Mercer Investments (New Zealand) Limited, Mercer Investments LLC, Mercer Ireland Holdings Limited, Mercer Italia Srl Socio Unico, Mercer Japan Ltd., Mercer Korea Co. Ltd., Mercer LLC, Mercer Limited, Mercer MC Consulting Borrower LLC, Mercer Master Trustees Limited, Mercer Mauritius Ltd., Mercer Oliver Wyman Holding B.V., Mercer Outsourcing (Australia) Pty Ltd, Mercer Outsourcing S.L.U., Mercer Pensionsfonds AG, Mercer Pensionsraadgivning A/S, Mercer Philippines Inc., Mercer Private Investment Partners IV General Partner S.a.r.l., Mercer Private Markets AG, Mercer Private Markets Advisers (US) AG, Mercer Services Poland Sp. z.o.o., Mercer Sigorta Brokerligi Anonim Sirketi, Mercer South Africa (Pty) Limited, Mercer Superannuation (Australia) Limited, Mercer Switzerland Inc., Mercer System Services LLC, Mercer Technology Acquisitions Limited, Mercer Treuhand GmbH, Mercer Trust Company LLC, Mercer Trustees Limited, Mercer WorkforcePro LLC, Mercury Insurance Services Pty Ltd, Moola Systems Limited, Mountlodge Limited, Muir Beddal (Zimbabwe) Limited, NERA Australia Pty. Ltd., NERA Economic Consulting GmbH, NERA Economic Consulting Limited, NERA S.R.L., NERA SAS, NERA UK Limited, NERA do Brasil Ltda. (for dissolution), National Economic Research Associates Inc., NetComp Insurance Corp., Neuburger Noble Lowndes GmbH, Normandy Reinsurance Company Limited, Northern Alliance Brokers Limited (in liquidation), OWL Marine Insurance-Brokers GmbH & Co.KG, OWL Marine Verwaltungs GmbH, Oliver Wyman (Bermuda) Limited, Oliver Wyman (Hong Kong) Limited, Oliver Wyman AB, Oliver Wyman AG, Oliver Wyman Actuarial Consulting Inc., Oliver Wyman B.V., Oliver Wyman Consulting (Shanghai) Ltd, Oliver Wyman Consultoria em Estrategia de Negocios Ltda., Oliver Wyman Energy Consulting Limited, Oliver Wyman FZ-LLC, Oliver Wyman Group KK, Oliver Wyman Inc., Oliver Wyman LLC, Oliver Wyman Limited, Oliver Wyman Limited Liability Company, Oliver Wyman Limited/Oliver Wyman limitee, Oliver Wyman Ltd., Oliver Wyman Pte. Ltd., Oliver Wyman Pty. Ltd., Oliver Wyman S. de R.L. de C.V., Oliver Wyman S.A.S., Oliver Wyman S.L., Oliver Wyman S.r.l., Oliver Wyman SNC, Oliver Wyman SPRL/BVBA, Oliver Wyman Sdn. Bhd., Oliver Wyman Services Limited, Oliver Wyman Servicios S. de R.L. de C.V., Oliver Wyman sp. z o.o., Omega Indemnity (Bermuda) Limited, Organizacion Brockman y Schuh S.A. de C.V., Osbornes Insurances Oxford Limited (in liquidation), PFT Limited, PI Indemnity Company Designated Activity Company, PT JLT Reinsurance Brokers, PT Jardine Lloyd Thompson, PT Marsh Indonesia, PT Marsh Reinsurance Brokers Indonesia, PT Mercer Indonesia, PT Nexus Asia Pacific, PT Oliver Wyman Indonesia, PT Quantum Computing Services, PT Quantum Investments, PT Quantum Support Services, Pallas Marsh Servicos Ltda., Pavilion Alternatives Group (Singapore) PTE. Ltd, Pavilion Financial Corporation Holdings UK Limited, Pavilion U.S. Investments Holdco LLC, Pension Trustees Limited, Pensionsservice Benefit Network Sverige AB, Perils AG, Personal Pension Trustees Limited, Pet Animal Welfare Scheme Limited, Portsoken Trustees (No. 2) Limited, Portsoken Trustees Limited, Potomac Insurance Managers Inc., Premier Pension Trustees Limited, Premium Services Australia Pty Limited, Professional Claims Handling Limited (in liquidation), Profund Solutions Limited, Promerit AG, Promerit Hungary Kft, Promerit Schweiz AG, Pymetrics Inc., R G Ford Brokers Limited, R R B Beratungsgesellschaft fuer Altersversorgung mbh, R. Mees & Zoonen Holdings B.V., Renewable Energy Loss Adjusters LLC, Renewable Energy Loss Adjusters Limited, Resource Benefit Associates, Rightpath Reinsurance SPC Ltd., Risk Management Australia Pty Limited, Rivers Group Limited, Rockefeller Risk Advisors Inc., Rutherfoord International Inc., SAFCAR-Marsh, SBJ Holdings Limited, SCIB (Bermuda) Limited, SCM Global Real Estate Select GP LLC, SCM Infrastructure General Partner S.a r.l., SCM International Private Equity Select III GP LLC, SCM LT General Partner S.a.r.l., SCM PE General Partner S.a.r.l., SCM PE II GP Ltd., SCM PE II Scotland GP Ltd, SCM Strategic Capital Management (Luxembourg) S.a.r.l., SICAR Marsh S.a.r.l., SME Insurance Services Limited, Sail Insurance Company Limited, Scalene Re Ltd, Seabury & Smith Borrower LLC, Seabury & Smith LLC, Secure Limited, Sedgwick (Holdings) Pty. Limited, Sedgwick Consulting Group Limited, Sedgwick Dineen Group Limited, Sedgwick Financial Services Limited, Sedgwick Forbes Middle East Limited, Sedgwick Group, Sedgwick Group (Australia) Pty. Limited, Sedgwick Group (Bermuda) Limited, Sedgwick Group (Zimbabwe) Limited, Sedgwick Group Limited, Sedgwick Internationaal B.V., Sedgwick Limited, Sedgwick Management Services (Barbados) Limited, Sedgwick Management Services (Singapore) Pte Limited, Sedgwick Noble Lowndes (UK) Limited, Sedgwick Noble Lowndes Group Limited, Sedgwick Noble Lowndes Limited, Sedgwick Overseas Investments Limited, Sedgwick Private Limited, Sedgwick Re Asia Pacific (Consultants) Pte Ltd (for dissolution), Sedgwick Trustees Limited, Sedgwick UK Risk Services Limited, Sedgwick Ulster Pension Trustees Limited, Settlement Trustees Limited, Shanghai Mercer Insurance Brokers Company Ltd., Shorewest Insurance Associates LLC, Sirota Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd., Sirota Consulting UK Limited, Smith Long Term Disability Management Group Inc., Societe d'Assurances et de Participation Guian SA, Software Underwriting Systems Limited (in liquidation), Southern Marine & Aviation Inc., Southern Marine & Aviation Underwriters Inc., Sudzucker Versicherungs-Vermittlungs GmbH, Sumitomo Life Insurance Agency America Inc., Sylvite Financial Services, TBX Solutions Limited, Talent Tech Labs LLC, The Benefit Express Holdings Limited, The Benefit Express Limited, The Carpenter Management Corporation, The Insurance Partnership Holdings Limited, The Insurance Partnership Services Limited, The Positive Ageing Company Limited, The Purple Partnership Limited, The Recovre Group Pty Ltd, Thomsons Online Benefits (HK) Ltd., Thomsons Online Benefits Inc., Thomsons Online Benefits Limited, Thomsons Online Benefits Pte Ltd., Thomsons Online Benefits S.R.L, Torrent Government Contracting Services LLC, Torrent Insurance Services LLC, Torrent Technologies, Torrent Technologies Inc., Tower Hill Limited, Tower Place Developments (West) Limited, Tower Place Developments Limited, U.T.E. AMG, U.T.E. Marsh - Caja Castilla La Mancha Junta de Comunidades, U.T.E. Marsh - Salvado Reus (in liquidation), U.T.E. Marsh - Salvado Reus 2012, U.T.E. Marsh - Salvado Vila-Seca 2010, UAD BB Marsh Lietuva, Vezina & Associes Inc., Vezina Assurances Inc., Victor Insurance Europe B.V., Victor Insurance Holdings Inc., Victor Insurance Italia S.r.l., Victor Insurance Managers Inc., Victor Insurance Managers Inc./Gestionnaires d'assurance Victor inc., Victor O. Schinnerer & Co. (Bermuda) Ltd., Victor O. Schinnerer & Company Limited, Victoria Hall Company Limited, Wellnz Limited, William M. Mercer (Canada) Limited/William M. Mercer (Canada) Limitee, William M. Mercer AB, William M. Mercer Comercio Consultoria e Servicos Ltda., Wortham Insurance & Risk Management, everBe SAS, and realright GmbH.
The Boeing Co. is an aerospace company, which engages in the manufacture of commercial jetliners and defense, space and security systems. It operates through the following segments: Commercial Airplanes; Defense, Space and Security; Global Services; and Boeing Capital. The Commercial Airplanes segment includes the development, production, and market of commercial jet aircraft and provides fleet support services, principally to the commercial airline industry worldwide. The Defense, Space and Security segment refers to the research, development, production and modification of manned and unmanned military aircraft and weapons systems for global strike, including fighter and combat rotorcraft aircraft and missile systems; global mobility, including tanker, rotorcraft and tilt-rotor aircraft; and airborne surveillance and reconnaissance, including command and control, battle management and airborne anti-submarine aircraft. The Global Services segment provides services to commercial and defense customers. The Boeing Capital segment seeks to ensure that Boeing customers have the financing they need to buy and take delivery of their Boeing product and manages overall financing exposure. T
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The Hartford Financial Services Group, Inc. is an insurance and financial services company. The company provides life insurance, group and employee benefits, automobile and homeowners insurance and business insurance, as well as investment products, annuities, mutual funds, and college savings plans. It operates through the following segments: Commercial Lines, Personal Lines, Property & Casualty Other Operations, Group Benefits and Hartford Funds. The Commercial Lines segment provides workers compensation, property, automobile, liability and umbrella coverage under several different products, primarily throughout the U.S., within its standard commercial lines, which consists of The Hartford's small commercial and middle market lines of business. The Personal Lines segment includes automobile, homeowners and home-based business coverage to individuals across the U.S. The Property & Casualty Other Operations segment includes certain property and casualty operations, currently managed by the company, that have discontinued writing new business and substantially all of the company's asbestos and environmental exposures. The Group Benefits segment offers group life, accident and disabi
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Ormat Technologies, Inc. operates as a holding company. The firm engages in the provision of geothermal and recovered energy power business. It operates through the following segments: Electricity, Product and Energy Storage. The Electricity segment focuses in the sale of electricity from the company's power plants pursuant to PPAs. The Product segment involves in the manufacture, including design and development, of turbines and power units for the supply of electrical energy and in the associated construction of power plants utilizing the power units manufactured by the company to supply energy from geothermal fields and other alternative energy sources. The Energy Storage segment consists of battery energy storage systems as a service and management of curtailable customer loads under contracts with U.S. retail energy providers and directly with large commercial and industrial customers. The company was founded in 1965 and is headquartered in Reno, NV.
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The following companies are subsidiares of Molina Healthcare: Aetna & Humana - Medicare Advantage, Affinity Health Plan, AmericanWork Inc., Better Health Network, Camelot Care Centers Inc, Children's Behavioral Health Inc., Choices Group Inc., College Community Services, Dockside Services Inc, Family Preservation Services Inc., Family Preservation Services of Florida Inc., Family Preservation Services of North Carolina Inc., Family Preservation Services of Washington D.C. Inc., Family Preservation Services of West Virginia Inc., Florida NetPASS LLC, Hclb Inc., Magellan Complete Care, Maple Star Nevada Inc., Maple Star Oregon Inc., Mercy CarePlus, Molina Clinical Services LLC, Molina Healthcare Data Center Inc., Molina Healthcare of Arizona Inc., Molina Healthcare of California, Molina Healthcare of Florida Inc., Molina Healthcare of Georgia Inc., Molina Healthcare of Illinois Inc., Molina Healthcare of Iowa Inc., Molina Healthcare of Louisiana Inc., Molina Healthcare of Maryland Inc., Molina Healthcare of Michigan Inc., Molina Healthcare of Mississippi Inc., Molina Healthcare of Nevada Inc., Molina Healthcare of New Mexico Inc., Molina Healthcare of New York Inc., Molina Healthcare of North Carolina Inc., Molina Healthcare of Ohio Inc., Molina Healthcare of Oklahoma Inc., Molina Healthcare of Pennsylvania Inc., Molina Healthcare of Puerto Rico Inc., Molina Healthcare of South Carolina LLC, Molina Healthcare of Texas Inc., Molina Healthcare of Texas Insurance Company, Molina Healthcare of Utah Inc., Molina Healthcare of Virginia Inc., Molina Healthcare of Washington Inc., Molina Healthcare of Wisconsin Inc., Molina Holdings Corporation, Molina Hospital Management LLC, Molina Information Systems LLC dba Molina Medicaid Solutions, Molina Medical Management Inc., Molina Pathways LLC, Molina Pathways of Texas Inc., Molina Youth Academy, NextLevel Health Illinois, Pathways Community Corrections Inc., Pathways Community Services LLC, Pathways Community Support of Texas Inc., Pathways Health and Community Support LLC, Pathways Human Services LLC., Pathways of Arizona Inc., Pathways of Delaware Inc., Pathways of Idaho LLC, Pathways of Maine Inc., Pathways of Massachusetts LLC, Pathways of Oklahoma Inc., Pathways of Washington Inc., Providence Community Services, Providence Human Services, Raystown Developmental Services Inc., The Game of Work LLC, The RedCo Group Inc., Total Care Medicaid plan, Transitional Family Services Inc., Unisys -Health Information Management, and YourCare Health Plan.
Gildan Activewear Inc. manufactures and sells various apparel products in the United States, Canada, and internationally. It provides various activewear products, including T-shirts, fleece tops and bottoms, and sport shirts under the Gildan, Gildan Performance, Gildan Hammer, Comfort Colors, American Apparel, Anvil by Gildan, Alstyle, Prim + Preux, and GoldToe brands. The company also offers hosiery products comprising athletic; dress; and casual, liner, therapeutic, and workwear socks, as well as sheer panty hoses, tights, and leggings under the brands of Gildan, Under Armour, GoldToe, PowerSox, GT a GoldToe Brand, Silver Toe, Signature Gold by Goldtoe, Peds, MediPeds, Kushyfoot, Therapy Plus, All Pro, Secret, Silks, Secret Silky, and American Apparel. In addition, it provides men's and boys' underwear products, and ladies panties under the Gildan and Gildan Platinum brand names; and ladies' shapewear, intimates, and accessories under the Secret and Secret Silky brands. The company sells its products to wholesale distributors, screen printers, or embellishers, as well as to retailers and consumer brand companies. The company was formerly known as Textiles Gildan Inc. and changed its name to Gildan Activewear Inc. in March 1995. Gildan Activewear Inc. was founded in 1946 and is headquartered in Montreal, Canada.
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Reinsurance Group of America, Inc. is a holding company, which engages in the provision of traditional and non-traditional life and health reinsurance products. It operates through the following segments: U.S. and Latin America; Canada; Europe, Middle East, and Africa; Asia Pacific; and Corporate and Other. The U.S. and Latin America segment markets individual and group life and health reinsurance to domestic clients for a variety of products through yearly renewable term agreements, coinsurance, and modified coinsurance. The Canada segment offers individual life reinsurance, and to a lesser extent creditor, group life and health, critical illness and disability reinsurance, through yearly renewable term and coinsurance agreements. The Europe, Middle East, and Africa segment serves individual and group life and health products through yearly renewable term and coinsurance agreements, reinsurance of critical illness coverage that provides a benefit in the event of the diagnosis of a pre-defined critical illness and underwritten annuities. The Asia Pacific segment comprises individual and group life and health reinsurance, critical illness coverage, disability, and superannuation thr
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CNA Financial Corp. operates as an insurance holding company. Its products primarily include commercial property and casualty coverages, including surety. The company's services include risk management, information services and warranty and claims administration. The firm operates through Property & Casualty Operations and Outside Property & Casualty Operations. The Property & Casualty Operations comprises of three segments: Specialty, commercial and international. The Specialty segment provides professional, financial and specialty property and casualty products and services. The Commercial segment includes property and casualty coverages sold to small businesses and middle market entities and organizations primarily through an independent agency distribution system. The International segment underwrites property and casualty coverages. The Outside Property & Casualty Operations consists of two segments: Life & Group and Corporate & Other. The Life & Group segment includes the results of the individual and group long term care businesses that are in run-off. The Corporate & Other segment involves in the corporate expenses, including interest on corporate debt, and the results of
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Weatherford International plc, an oilfield service company, provides equipment and services for the drilling, evaluation, completion, production, and intervention of oil and natural gas wells worldwide. The company operates in two segments, Western Hemisphere and Eastern Hemisphere. It offers artificial lift systems, including reciprocating rod, progressing cavity pumping, gas, hydraulic, plunger, and hybrid lift systems, as well as related automation and control systems; pressure pumping and reservoir stimulation services, such as acidizing, fracturing and fluid systems, cementing, and coiled-tubing intervention; and drill stem test tools, and surface well testing and multiphase flow measurement services. The company also provides safety, downhole reservoir monitoring, flow control, and multistage fracturing systems, as well as sand-control technologies, and production and isolation packers; liner hangers to suspend a casing string in high-temperature and high-pressure wells; cementing products, including plugs, float and stage equipment, and torque-and-drag reduction technology for zonal isolation; and pre-job planning and installation services. In addition, it offers directional drilling services, and logging and measurement services while drilling; services related to rotary-steerable systems, high-temperature and high-pressure sensors, drilling reamers, and circulation subs; managed pressure drilling, conventional mud-logging, drilling instrumentation, gas analysis, wellsite consultancy, and open hole and cased-hole logging services; reservoir solutions and software products; and intervention and remediation services. Further, the company provides equipment and drilling tools; tubular handling, management, and connection services; equipment rental services; and onshore contract drilling and related services through a fleet of land drilling and workover rigs. Weatherford International plc was incorporated in 1972 and is headquartered in Baar, Switzerland.
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The following companies are subsidiares of NRG Energy: 3279405 Nova Scotia Company, 3283764 Nova Scotia Company, 7549709 Canada Inc., 7644868 Canada Inc., 7711565 Canada Inc., AC Solar Holdings LLC, Ace Energy Inc., Agua Caliente Borrower 1 LLC, Agua Caliente Solar Holdings LLC, Agua Caliente Solar LLC, Allied Home Warranty GP LLC, Allied Warranty LLC, Arthur Kill Gas Turbines LLC, Arthur Kill Power LLC, Astoria Gas Turbine Power LLC, Bayou Cove Peaking Power LLC, Beheer-en Beleggingsmaatschappij Plogema B.V., Berrians I Gas Turbine Power LLC, BidURenergy Inc., Big Cajun I Peaking Power LLC, Bluewater Wind Delaware LLC, Bluewater Wind Maryland LLC, Bluewater Wind New Jersey Energy LLC, Boquillas Wind LLC, Cabrillo Power I LLC, Cabrillo Power II LLC, Camino Energy LLC, Carbon Management Solutions LLC, Carlsbad Energy Center LLC, Carlsbad Energy Holdings LLC, Chester Energy LLC, Chickahominy River Energy Corp., Cirro Energy Services Inc., Cirro Group Inc., Citizens Power Holdings One LLC, Commonwealth Atlantic Power LLC, Connecticut Jet Power LLC, Cottonwood Development LLC, Cottonwood Energy Company LP, Cottonwood Generating Partners I LLC, Cottonwood Generating Partners II LLC, Cottonwood Generating Partners III LLC, Cottonwood Technology Partners LP, Delaware Power Development LLC, Devon Power LLC, Doga Enerji Uretim Sanayi ve Ticaret Limited Sirketi, Doga Isi Satis Hizmetleri Ticaret Limited Sirketi, Doga Isletme ve Bakim Ticaret Limited Sirketi, Dunkirk Gas Corporation, Dunkirk Power LLC, EHI Development Fund LLC, EME Eastern Holdings LLC, EVgo Services LLC, Eastern Sierra Energy Company LLC, Ecokap Power LLC, El Segundo Energy Center II LLC, El Segundo Power II LLC, El Segundo Power LLC, Elkhorn Ridge Wind II LLC, Energy Alternatives Wholesale LLC, Energy Choice Solutions LLC, Energy Curtailment Specialists, Energy Plus Holdings LLC, Energy Plus Natural Gas LLC, Energy Protection Insurance Company, Everything Energy LLC, Forward Home Security LLC, GCP Funding Company LLC, GenOn Energy, Geostellar Inc., Gladstone Power Station Joint Venture, Goal Zero, Goal Zero Europe GmbH, Goal Zero LLC, Granite II Holding LLC, Granite Power Partners II L.P., Green Mountain Energy, Green Mountain Energy Company, Green Mountain Energy Sun Club, Gregory Partners LLC, Gregory Power Partners LLC, Hanover Energy Company, Huntley IGCC LLC, Huntley Power LLC, Independence Energy Alliance LLC, Independence Energy Group LLC, Independence Energy Natural Gas LLC, Indian River Operations Inc., Indian River Power LLC, Intellastar LLC, Ivanpah Master Holdings LLC, Ivanpah Project I Holdings LLC, Ivanpah Project II Holdings LLC, Ivanpah Project III Holdings LLC, James River Power LLC, Kaufman Cogen LP, LSP-Nelson Energy LLC, Long Beach Generation LLC, Long Beach Peakers LLC, Long Beach Power LLC, Louisiana Generating LLC, MEC Esenyurt B.V., MEC San Pascual B.V., Maplekey UK Finance Limited, Maplekey UK Limited, Meriden Gas Turbines LLC, Middletown Power LLC, Midway-Sunset Cogeneration Company, Midwest Finance Company LLC, Midwest Generation EME LLC, Midwest Generation Holdings I LLC, Midwest Generation Holdings II LLC, Midwest Generation LLC, Midwest Generation Procurement Services LLC, Midwest Peaker Holdings LLC, Mission Bingham Lake Wind LLC, Mission Del Cielo LLC, Mission Energy Construction Services LLC, Mission Energy Holdings International LLC, Mission Energy Wales LLC, Mission Funding Zeta LLC, Mission Midway-Sunset Holdings LLC, Mission Midwest Coal LLC, Mission Minnesota Wind LLC, Mission Watson Holdings LLC, Mission Wind Boquillas LLC, Mission Wind New Mexico II LLC, Mission Wind Owaissa LLC, Mission Wind Pinnacle LLC, Mission del Sol LLC, Montville IGCC LLC, Montville Power LLC, NEO Chester-Gen LLC, NEO Corporation, NRG Acquisition Holdings Inc., NRG Advisory Services LLC, NRG Affiliate Services Inc., NRG Alexandria LLC, NRG Arroyo Nogales LLC, NRG Arthur Kill Operations Inc., NRG Asia-Pacific Ltd., NRG Astoria Gas Turbine Operations Inc., NRG Astoria Power LLC, NRG Audrain Generating LLC, NRG Audrain Holding LLC, NRG Bayou Cove LLC, NRG Berrians East Development LLC, NRG Bluewater Holdings LLC, NRG Bluewater Wind Massachusetts LLC, NRG Bourbonnais Equipment LLC, NRG Bourbonnais LLC, NRG Brazoria Energy LLC, NRG Business Services LLC, NRG CTA Holdings LLC, NRG Cabrillo Power Operations Inc., NRG Cadillac Inc., NRG Cadillac Operations Inc., NRG California Peaker Operations LLC, NRG Capital II LLC, NRG Carbon 360 LLC, NRG Cedar Bayou Development Company LLC, NRG Chalk Point CT LLC, NRG CleanTech Investments LLC, NRG Coal Development Company LLC, NRG ComLease LLC, NRG Common Stock Finance I LLC, NRG Common Stock Finance II LLC, NRG Connected Home LLC, NRG Connecticut Affiliate Services Inc., NRG Connecticut Peaking Development LLC, NRG Construction LLC, NRG Cottonwood Tenant LLC, NRG Curtailment Solutions Canada Inc., NRG Curtailment Solutions Inc., NRG DG Development LLC, NRG Development Company Inc., NRG Devon Operations Inc., NRG Dispatch Services LLC, NRG Distributed Energy Resources Holdings LLC, NRG Distributed Generation PR LLC, NRG Dunkirk Operations Inc., NRG ECOKAP Holdings LLC, NRG ESA Joint Development LLC, NRG El Segundo Operations Inc., NRG Energy Center Eagles LLC, NRG Energy Center Oxnard LLC, NRG Energy Fuel LLC, NRG Energy Fuel Services LLC, NRG Energy Gas & Wind Holdings Inc., NRG Energy Holdings II Inc., NRG Energy Holdings Inc., NRG Energy Inc., NRG Energy Labor Services LLC, NRG Energy Petroleum LLC, NRG Energy Services Group LLC, NRG Energy Services International Inc., NRG Energy Services LLC, NRG Equipment Company LLC, NRG Fuel Cell CA1 LLC, NRG Fuel Resources LLC, NRG Fuel Transportation LLC, NRG GTL Holdings LLC, NRG Gas Development Company LLC, NRG Generation Holdings Inc., NRG Gladstone Operating Services Pty Ltd, NRG Granite Acquisition LLC, NRG Greenco LLC, NRG HQ DG LLC, NRG Holding Leasing Vehicle 7 LLC, NRG Home & Business Solutions LLC, NRG Home Services LLC, NRG Home Solutions LLC, NRG Home Solutions Product LLC, NRG Homer City Services LLC, NRG Huntley Operations Inc., NRG Identity Protect LLC, NRG Ilion LP LLC, NRG Ilion Limited Partnership, NRG Independence Solar LLC, NRG International LLC, NRG Kaufman LLC, NRG Latin America Inc., NRG Lease Co LLC, NRG Lease Development LLC, NRG Limestone 3 LLC, NRG Maintenance Services LLC, NRG Mesquite LLC, NRG Mextrans Inc., NRG MidAtlantic Affiliate Services Inc., NRG MidCon Development LLC, NRG Middletown Operations Inc., NRG Middletown Repowering LLC, NRG Midwest Holdings LLC, NRG Midwest II LLC, NRG Montville Operations Inc., NRG NE Development LLC, NRG Nelson Turbines LLC, NRG New Roads Holdings LLC, NRG NewGen LLC, NRG North Central Operations Inc., NRG Northeast Affiliate Services Inc., NRG Norwalk Harbor Operations Inc., NRG Ohio Pipeline Company LLC, NRG Operating Services Inc., NRG Oswego Harbor Power Operations Inc., NRG Oxbow Holdings LLC, NRG PacGen Inc., NRG Peaker Finance Company LLC, NRG Portable Power LLC, NRG Potrero Development LLC, NRG Power Marketing LLC, NRG Procurement Company LLC, NRG Project Company LLC, NRG Reliability Solutions LLC, NRG Renter's Protection LLC, NRG Repowering Holdings LLC, NRG Residential Solar Solutions LLC, NRG Residential Solar Solutions Leasing II LLC, NRG Retail LLC, NRG Retail Northeast LLC, NRG Rockford Acquisition LLC, NRG Rockford Equipment II LLC, NRG Rockford Equipment LLC, NRG Saguaro Operations Inc., NRG Security LLC, NRG Services Corporation, NRG Sherbino LLC, NRG SimplySmart Solutions LLC, NRG Solar Arrowhead LLC, NRG Solar CVSR Holdings 2 LLC, NRG Solar Dandan LLC, NRG Solar Guam LLC, NRG Solar Ivanpah LLC, NRG Solar Ring LLC, NRG Solar SC Stadium LLC, NRG Solar Sunrise LLC, NRG South Central Affiliate Services Inc., NRG South Central Generating LLC, NRG South Central Operations Inc., NRG South Texas LP, NRG Sterlington Power LLC, NRG Storage Fabrication & Delivery LLC, NRG Storage on Demand NY LLC, NRG SunCap Leasing I LLC, NRG Telogia Power LLC, NRG Texas C&I Supply LLC, NRG Texas Gregory LLC, NRG Texas Holding Inc., NRG Texas LLC, NRG Texas Power LLC, NRG Texas Retail LLC, NRG Trading Advisors LLC, NRG Transmission Holdings LLC, NRG ULC Parent Inc., NRG Victoria I Pty Ltd, NRG Warranty Services LLC, NRG West Coast LLC, NRG Western Affiliate Services Inc., NRG Wind Development Company LLC, NRG Wind Force LLC, NRG Wind LLC, NRG dGen Advisory Services LLC, NRGenerating German Holdings GmbH, NRGenerating International B.V., NRGenerating Luxembourg (No. 1) S.a.r.l., NRGenerating Luxembourg (No. 2) S.a.r.l., New Genco GP LLC, New Jersey Power Development LLC, Norwalk Power LLC, O'Brien Cogeneration Inc. II, ONSITE Energy Inc., One Block Off The Grid Inc., Oswego Harbor Power LLC, Pacific Generation Company, Petra Nova CCS I LLC, Petra Nova Holdings LLC, Petra Nova LLC, Petra Nova Parish Holdings LLC, Petra Nova Power I LLC, Pure Energies Group, Pure Energies Group ULC, Pure Energies Installation Inc., Pure Energies Solar Services Inc., Pure Group Inc., RDI Consulting LLC, RERH Holdings LLC, Reliant Charitable Foundation, Reliant Energy, Reliant Energy Northeast LLC, Reliant Energy Power Supply LLC, Reliant Energy Retail Holdings LLC, Reliant Energy Retail Services LLC, Restoration Design LLC, Roof Diagnostics Solar Holdings LLC, Roof Diagnostics Solar and Electric LLC, Roof Diagnostics Solar and Electric of NY LLC, Saguaro Power Company a Limited Partnership, Saguaro Power LLC, San Gabriel Energy LLC, San Joaquin Energy LLC, San Juan Energy LLC, San Pascual Cogeneration Company International B.V., Sherbino I Wind Farm LLC, Solar Partners I LLC, Solar Partners II LLC, Solar Partners VIII LLC, Solar Power Partners, Solar Pure Energies ULC, Somerset Operations Inc., Somerset Power LLC, South Texas Wind LLC, Station A LLC, Sunrise Power Company LLC, Sunshine State Power (No. 2) B.V., Sunshine State Power B.V., TCV Pipeline LLC, Tacoma Energy Recovery Company, Taloga Wind II LLC, Texas Coastal Ventures LLC, Texas Genco GP LLC, Texas Genco Holdings, Texas Genco Holdings Inc., Texas Genco LP LLC, Texas Genco Services LP, US Retailers LLC, Valle Del Sol Energy LLC, Vienna Operations Inc., Vienna Power LLC, WCP (Generation) Holdings LLC, Watson Cogeneration Company, West Coast Power LLC, XOOM Alberta Holdings LLC, XOOM British Columbia Holdings LLC, XOOM Energy BC ULC, XOOM Energy California LLC, XOOM Energy Canada ULC, XOOM Energy Connecticut LLC, XOOM Energy Delaware LLC, XOOM Energy Georgia LLC, XOOM Energy Global Holdings LLC, XOOM Energy Illinois LLC, XOOM Energy Indiana LLC, XOOM Energy Kentucky LLC, XOOM Energy LLC, XOOM Energy Maine LLC, XOOM Energy Maryland LLC, XOOM Energy Massachusetts LLC, XOOM Energy Michigan LLC, XOOM Energy New Hampshire LLC, XOOM Energy New Jersey LLC, XOOM Energy New York LLC, XOOM Energy ONT ULC, XOOM Energy Ohio LLC, XOOM Energy Pennsylvania LLC, XOOM Energy Rhode Island LLC, XOOM Energy Texas LLC, XOOM Energy Virginia LLC, XOOM Energy Washington D.C. LLC, XOOM Ontario Holdings LLC, XOOM Solar LLC, and eV2g LLC.
Thomson Reuters Corporation provides business information services in the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Asia Pacific. It operates in five segments: Legal Professionals, Corporates, Tax & Accounting Professionals, Reuters News, and Global Print. The Legal Professionals segment offers research and workflow products focusing on legal research and integrated legal workflow solutions that combine content, tools, and analytics to law firms and governments. The Corporates segment provides a suite of content-enabled technology solutions for legal, tax, regulatory, compliance, and IT professionals. The Tax & Accounting Professionals segment offers research and workflow products focusing on tax offerings and automating tax workflows to tax, accounting, and audit professionals in accounting firms. The Reuters News segment provides business, financial, national, and international news to professionals through desktop terminals, media organizations, and industry events, as well as directly to consumers. The Global Print segment offers legal and tax information primarily in print format to legal and tax professionals, governments, law schools, and corporations. The company was formerly known as The Thomson Corporation and changed its name to Thomson Reuters Corporation in April 2008. The company was founded in 1851 and is headquartered in Toronto, Canada. Thomson Reuters Corporation is a subsidiary of The Woodbridge Company Limited.
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ConocoPhillips engages in the exploration, production, transportation and marketing of crude oil, bitumen, natural gas, natural gas liquids, and liquefied natural gas on a worldwide basis. It operates through the following geographical segments: Alaska; Lower 48; Canada; Europe, Middle East and North Africa; Asia Pacific; and Other International. The Alaska segment primarily explores for produces, transports and markets crude oil, natural gas and natural gas liquids. The Lower 48 segment consists of operations in the U.S. and the Gulf of Mexico. The Canada segment is comprised of oil sands development in the Athabasca Region of northeastern Alberta and a liquids-rich unconventional play in western Canada. The Europe, Middle East and North Africa segment consists of operations and exploration activities in Norway, the United Kingdom and Libya. The Asia Pacific segment has explorations and product operations in China, Indonesia, Malaysia and Australia. The Other International segment handles exploration activities in Columbia and Argentina. The company was founded in 1875 and is headquartered in Houston, TX.
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"Overcriminalization: Administrative Regulation, Prosecutorial Discretion, and the Rule of Law" | Main | Hoping to help Kickstart a notable new death penalty documentary
November 20, 2014
"The Racist Origins of Felon Disenfranchisement"
The title of this post is the headline of this recent New York Times commentary by Brent Staples. Here are excerpts:
The state laws that barred nearly six million people with felony convictions from voting in the midterm elections this month date from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when Southern lawmakers were working feverishly to neutralize the black electorate. Poll taxes, literacy tests, grandfather clauses and cross burnings were effective weapons in this campaign. But statutes that allowed correctional systems to arbitrarily and permanently strip large numbers of people of the right to vote were a particularly potent tool in the campaign to undercut African-American political power. This racially freighted system has normalized disenfranchisement in the United States at a time when our peers in the democratic world rightly see it as an aberration. It has also stripped one in every 13 black persons of the right to vote a rate four times that of nonblacks nationally. At the same time, it has allowed disenfranchisement to move beyond that black population which makes up 38 percent of those denied the vote into the body politic as a whole. One lesson here is that punishments designed for one pariah group can be easily expanded to include others as well.... Maine residents vigorously debated the issue last year, when the Legislature took up and declined to pass a bill that would have stripped the vote from some inmates, whose crimes included murder and other major felonies. Families of murder victims argued that the killers had denied their loved ones the right to vote and therefore should suffer the same fate. Those who opposed the bill made several arguments: That the franchise is enshrined in the state Constitution and too important to withdraw on a whim; that voting rights keep inmates connected to civic life and make it easier for them to rejoin society; that the notion of restricting rights for people in prison was inconsistent with the values of the state. A former United States marshal and police chief argued that revoking inmate voting rights would strip imprisoned people of dignity and make rehabilitation that much more difficult. The editorial page of The Bangor Daily News argued against revocation on the grounds that, Removing the right of some inmates to exercise their legal responsibility as voters in a civilized society would undermine that civilized society. The fact that most states view people who have served time in prison as beyond the protection of the bedrock, democratic principle of the right to vote shows how terribly short this country has fallen from achieving its ideals.
November 20, 2014 at 08:42 AM | Permalink
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Comments
I'm surprised this piece isn't granted at least an endorsement as an "effective" commentary...
Posted by: SH | Nov 20, 2014 10:24:42 AM
Hello Legislators, Prosecutors, Judges and Lawyers!
Stop making everything besides parking tickets a FELONY.
i.e., don't demonstrate proper respect to a police officer (only their word required), you have a felony for resisting arrest.
Posted by: albeed | Nov 20, 2014 11:16:51 AM
This editorial only scratches the surface of this subject, which is so large and comprehensive that it has its own Wikipedia page. About 6% of the adult population of the United States (about 18 million people) have felony convictions, and about 1/3 of those (6 million) live in states where they cannot register to vote. Notably, there is no provision in the U.S. Constitution or in Federal law that prevents felons from voting in Presidential and Congressional elections. The exclusion of former felons from voting in Federal elections arises out of the historical anachronism that there is no separate Federal voter registration from registration thru the various states' electoral registration processes. In effect, the Feds have always piggy-backed onto state voter registration laws.
The idea that states can refuse to permit those with felony convictions to vote remains viable in the modern world only because of the U.S. Supreme Court's 5-4 decision in "Richardson v. Ramirez", 418 U.S. 24 (1974). Since the "Richardson" case was decided in 1974, at least 10 states that previously refused to restore the voting rights of former felons have changed their laws and now automatically restore voting rights after the felon has completed his/her sentence, including probation and parole. Thus, one must wonder whether the Supreme court would decide this issue the same way today, based upon the Constitutional idea of evolving societal standards. As of 2014, only three states continue to refuse to automatically restore voting rights to former felons: Kentucky, Iowa and Florida. In some states, voting rights are only restored to non-violent former felons.
In 2000, when the outcome of the Presidential election was determined by 525+ votes in Florida, more than 850,000 Florida felons (out of a population of more than 23 million people) were prevented from voting. There is little doubt that Florida's felony disenfranchisement changed the outcome of a Presidential election, and all that followed, including the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, where thousands of Americans have died, hundreds of thousands have been wounded and injured and $2 trillion has been expended.
In my home state, Kentucky, there is no automatic restoration of voting rights. Former felons in Kentucky cannot vote unless they obtain a kind of partial pardon from the Governor, called a "Restoration of Civil Rights". As a result, more than 20% of the black men in Kentucky cannot vote. The current Democratic Governor, Steve Beshear, grants about 95% of the applications (which typically also require assent of the prosecutor and that all criminal fines and restitution have been paid). The last Republican Governor, Ernie Fletcher, however, granted only about 45% of the applications. For the last 8 years, Rep. Jessee Crenshaw (D. Lex.)(who is black) has sponsored legislation that would facilitate an Amendment to the Kentucky Constitution, to facilitate the automatic restoration of voting rights to former felons. Each term, the resolution has received overwhelming support in the Democratically-controlled Kentucky House of Representatives, with votes of about 80 to 15. But then the Bill has hit a stone wall in the Republican-controlled Kentucky Senate, where Senate President David Williams would assign the Bill to a Committee chaired by Senator Damon Thayer (R. Georgetown) (a/k/a, "Little Jesus"), who would keep it bottled up in Committee, never permitting hearings or a committee vote (much less a vote of the entire Senate, where they were aware there have always been enough votes to pass it). Two years ago, however, Senator Williams left the Senate, to accept an appointment by the Governor to become a Circuit Court Judge at $124,000 per year (which will dramatically increase his state pension when he retires). Williams was replaced as Senate President by Robert Stivers (R. Manchester), who is slightly more open-minded on the issue than Senator Williams had been. In February 2014, Senator Thayer (who is no longer the committee's chairman) introduced a proposed "Senate Substitute" Bill that would have effectively have gutted the House version. Senator Thayer says that he is "philisophically opposed" to automatic restoration of voting rights to former felons. Kentucky's Republicans seem to have made a political calculation that if voting rights are automatically restored, then the new voters will disproportionately register Democratic and vote for Democratic candidates. To the extent that automatic restoration of voting rights would hurt the Republican party and its candidates, the Senate Republicans simply will not permit the law to be changed. Senator Thayer's Bill would have excluded certain types of violent and sex crimes felons from restoration of rights altogether, and would have imposed a 5-year waiting period after the other felons completed their sentences, including probation an parole, before voting rights would have been restored. During those 5 years, the former felon could not receive any new criminal convictions, not even misdemeanors. The head of the Kentucky NAACP pointedly asked Senator Thayer at the hearing whether former felons would also be exempted from paying taxes during the 5 years they were waiting to have their voting rights restored. After all, "taxation without representation" is a fundamental reason that American colonists fought the Revolutionary War against the English in 1775. Because the recidivism rate for former felons is more than 50% during the 5 years, most felons would never have had their voting rights restored under Senator Thayer's version of the Bill. The Senate approved that version of the Bill, but no Conference Committee ever met to try to work out differences between the House and Senate versions of the Bills, so automatic restoration died at the end of the 2014 legislative session. Rep. Crenshaw (D. Lex.) has now retired and did not stand for re-election in November, so it is not clear who, if anyone, will pick up this mission in the 2015 legislature.
In Kentucky, one might be more likely to change the law in this area by taking a newly-filed case up to the U.S. Supreme Court than by trying to get the state legislature to change the existing felony voter disenfranchisement law. Surely the time has come for the Supreme Court to recognize that society's standards for equal protection of voters have changed since 1974.
Posted by: Jim Gormley | Nov 20, 2014 1:41:53 PM
I have to agree. Absent a conviction for some type of major capital crime against the country itself like treason. The ideal that anyone can strip a CITIZEN of a democratic country of their right to vote is simply treason in it's own rite.
Posted by: rodsmith | Nov 20, 2014 5:15:38 PM
I appreciate the long comment but a small correction: "Richardson v. Ramirez" was a 6-3 ruling and only two of the dissenters did so on the merits though if pressed, the third very well might have (being Justice Douglas). And, I think the main dissent is correct.
In general, a vague phrase in a never used enforcement mechanism should not be used to justify the practice. The actual text holds that a state's congressional delegation can be decreased if voting rights are diminished with certain exceptions including "participation in rebellion, or other crime." This is a step beyond striking down a particular state electoral practice as unconstitutional or not allowing it to be in effect. And, in Hunter v. Underwood, other grounds (racist intent) was left open as a reason to strike down even this sort of regulation.
The fact the disenfranchisement is "racially freighted" is important and is shown by a reasoned analysis of history and practice. It also shows there are 15A implications here. It also can be seen as a cruel and unusual punishment to deny fundamental rights once one's regular sentence is complete. This blog notes that other fundamental rights are blithely threatened here too -- that is gun rights even for the likes of Martha Stewart. And, minorities aren't the only one pulled into the vortex here. Criminal justice is inequitable in other ways and voting rights are fundamental for all.
A few here ridiculed the importance of voting rights, but the idea that denial provides a stigma that burdens and even discourages full re-entry to useful society is clear. This stigma should be deemed as obsolete and at the very least voting rights should be re-established for felons once their sentence is complete. This should also not be some sort of game where "completion" technically only comes years later.
Posted by: Joe | Nov 24, 2014 11:07:11 AM
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Various federal, state and local perspectives on the latest fronts in the latest battles of the never-ending drug war | Main | Marijuana, mandatory minimums and jury nullification, oh my: split Ninth Circuit affirms panel federal convictions, though remands to address DOJ spending rider
September 13, 2018
"Can We Downsize Our Prisons and Jails Without Compromising Public Safety? Findings from California's Prop 47"
The title of this post is the title of this new article in Criminology & Public Policy authored by Bradley Bartos and Charis Kubrin. Here is its abstract:
Research Summary Our study represents the first effort to evaluate systematically Proposition 47's (Prop 47's) impact on California's crime rates. With a statelevel panel containing violent and property offenses from 1970 through 2015, we employ a synthetic control group design to approximate California's crime rates had Prop 47 not been enacted. Our findings suggest that Prop 47 had no effect on homicide, rape, aggravated assault, robbery, or burglary. Larceny and motor vehicle thefts, however, seem to have increased moderately after Prop 47, but these results were both sensitive to alternative specifications of our synthetic control group and small enough that placebo testing cannot rule out spuriousness. Policy Implications As the United States engages in renewed debates regarding the scale and cost of its incarcerated population, California stands at the forefront of criminal justice reform. Although California reduced its prison population by 13,000 through Prop 47, critics argue anecdotally that the measure is responsible for recent crime upticks across the state. We find little empirical support for these claims. Thus, our findings suggest that California can downsize its prisons and jails without compromising public safety.
The authored of this research also have this new commentary in Governing headlined "The Myth That Crime Rises as Prisons Shrink: California's dramatic reduction in its prison populations hasn't compromised public safety." Here is an excerpt:
Approved by the voters in 2014, Prop 47 was controversial from the start. It downgraded the lowest-level non-violent drug and petty-theft crimes from felonies to misdemeanors. Critics warned that the measure would embolden would-be criminals as felony arrests throughout the state plummeted. After Prop 47 went into effect in 2014, lowering prison populations by 13,000, that controversy only escalated. Soon law-enforcement officials were calling for the measure to be repealed. They blamed rising crime rates on Prop 47. But the science doesn't support the assertion that Prop 47 is to blame. We recently published a study that was the first effort to systematically evaluate Prop 47's impact on crime in California. Our research found that the proposition had no appreciable impact on crime in the year following its enactment.
September 13, 2018 at 04:12 PM | Permalink
Comments
Prop 47 was not the only reason that the prison population decreased.
Posted by: John Neff | Sep 14, 2018 9:32:40 AM
The California Prison population maximum was in FY 2006 the abrupt decrease in population started in FY 2010 and was completed by FY 2012 two years before Prop 47.
Complex adaptive systems are difficult to understand because more than one factor is involved and they interact. We find it convenient to ignore the fact that criminals are part of the criminal justice system and that they adapt rapidly to changes in their environment.
Posted by: John Neff | Sep 14, 2018 10:29:09 AM
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As Booker enters its adolescence, do we really know much of substance about substantive reasonableness review? | Main | "Can We Downsize Our Prisons and Jails Without Compromising Public Safety? Findings from California's Prop 47"
September 13, 2018
Various federal, state and local perspectives on the latest fronts in the latest battles of the never-ending drug war
As noted in this prior post, the new Drug Enforcement and Policy Center (DEPC) at The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law has a lot of programming and resources already assembled on the interesting and intricate drug sentencing and prison reform initiative headed for the November 2018 ballot here in Ohio called the "Neighborhood Safety, Drug Treatment and Rehabilitation Amendment" or just Issue 1. In particular today, Thursday, September 13 at 12noon, starts a series five public panels about Issue 1 under the title Ballot Insights (and DEPC has also created a Resources Page for Issue 1 and Commentary Page on Issue 1). I find Issue 1 fascinating because the players involved and perspectives shared on drug enforcement and drug policy amidst a state-wide direct democracy campaign is already proving remarkable (e.g., Ohio judges have been very vocal so far fiercely opposing Issue 1's drug sentencing reforms).
Meanwhile, this week also brought an interesting local perspective (mostly from Ohio) on another front of the drug war in the form of this very lengthy piece by Jack Shuler in The New Republic titled "Overdose and Punishment." The sub title of the piece highlights its themes: "When Chad Baker died from a lethal combination of cocaine and heroin, prosecutors charged Tommy Kosto, his friend and fellow drug user, with killing him a tactic from the Reagan-era war on drugs that is gaining popularity around the country and making today's opioid crisis even worse."
Providing yet another perspective on these matters is Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who yesterday delivered this speech to the National Narcotics Officers' Associations Coalition Drug Enforcement Forum. Those who regularly read the AG's speeches will find a lot in this latest speech familiar, but I still though it useful to reprint some of his discussion of the drug war "surge" now on-going at the federal level:
[I]n the districts where drug deaths are the highest, we are now vigorously prosecuting synthetic opioid trafficking cases, even when the amount is small. Its called Operation Synthetic Opioid Surge or S.O.S. We are in a desperate fight to curtail the availability and spread of this killer drug. Synthetic opioids are so strong that there is no such thing as a small case. Three milligrams of fentanyl can be fatal. Thats equivalent to a pinch of salt. Depending on the purity, you could fit more than 1,000 fatal doses of fentanyl in a teaspoon. I want to be clear about this: we are not focusing on users, but on those supplying them with deadly drugs. In Manatee County, Florida, in partnership with the Sheriff, we tried this strategy and it worked. This past January, they had half the number of overdose deaths as the previous January. The Manatee County Sheriffs Office went from responding to 11 overdose calls a day to an average of one a day. Those are promising results. We want to replicate those results in the places that have been hardest hit. And so I have also sent 10 more prosecutors to help implement this strategy in ten districts where drug deaths are especially high. And that is in addition to the 12 prosecutors I sent to prosecute opioid fraud in drug hot spot districts. To help them do that, I have begun a new data analytics program at the Department called the Opioid Fraud and Abuse Detection Unit to use data to find opioid-related health care fraud.... I have also sent more than 300 new federal prosecutors to our U.S. Attorneys offices across America. This is the largest surge in prosecutors in decades. You can be sure drugs, gangs, and related violence will be a priority for them.
September 13, 2018 at 10:18 AM | Permalink
Comments
"I find Issue 1 fascinating because the players involved and perspectives shared on drug enforcement and drug policy...'
Not too mention the fact that you are the executive director of said organization. If I may offer a helpful suggestion, you should probably add that title to the list of titles on the side bar to the view's left so that you would not need to make that disclosure every time you reference something from your organization.
Posted by: Daniel | Sep 13, 2018 3:13:03 PM
Good idea!
Posted by: Doug B. | Sep 13, 2018 3:59:39 PM
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An increase of material import
According to the General Statistics Office of Vietnam, in the first 8 months of 2018, the export turnover reached $155.41 billion, a rise of 14.5 percent compared to this time last year. The one of this August was around $20.9 billion, an increase of 2.9 percent in comparison with the previous month.
The import value of the first 8 month of this year was approximately $152.6 billion, a growth of 11.6 percent compared to this time last year. That of this August was $21 billion, a rise of 0.2 percent in comparison with the previous month.
Reports from Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) has also displayed a serious trade deficit. Particularly, the total import value of the city in August was about $24.66 billion, a growth of 6 percent against this time last year. Except for raw oil, the export turnover of the city was $22.97 billion, an increase of 16.2 percent in comparison with 12.9 percent of last year, while the import value was $30.68 billion in the first 8 months, a rise of 9.6 percent compared to this time last year.
The signal of a trade deficit was clearer when the export turnover kept stable and then reduced from the first quarter of 2018. In particular, the export development rate started at a very high level of 22 percent in the first quarter. But it then decreased to 19 percent and under 16 percent in April and the end of the second quarter, respectively. Until the end of July, the export development rate remained steady at around 15 percent.
According to Mr. Pham Xuan Hong, Chairman of the HCMC Textile and Garment - Embroidery Association, the trade deficit came back, especially strongly in August, because this is the usual time when many businesses begin their material import to prepare for next years manufacturing season. It is not at all an abnormal situation, but a regular need of enterprises in order to minimize potential risks of price instability while ensuring to fulfill production goals of the following year after a long Tet holiday.
He demonstrated the data of the key export products which witnessed a turnover increase in August, including oil, phones and their parts, chemicals, rubber, all having a rise of 41.5 percent, 13.9 percent, 13.1 percent, and 8.1 percent, accordingly. In contrast, certain key import products that experienced a strong growth were material to manufacture phones and their parts, rubber, textile, fertilizer, and automobiles, with an increase of 35.3 percent, 14.8 percent, 12.5 percent, 11.1 percent, and 10.3 percent, respectively.
A solution for more active material supply
Nevertheless, economic experts worry that the trade war between the USA and China has somehow affected the export development rate of Vietnam.
At the moment, China is the largest export market of Vietnam regarding produce, marine products. However, this market has been quite gloomy lately. Many businesses concern that the deadlock in trade discussion between the two above countries might increase the value of the US dollar, which means a price rise of various kinds of merchandise. This in turn temporarily halt commercial activities of those enterprises.
Meanwhile, the pressure of a tax rise on Chinese imported goods also leads to bankruptcy of several Chinese businesses, especially the middle- and small-scale ones, resulting in a dip of demand to import manufacturing material from Vietnam.
The Department of Import and Export Control (under the Ministry of Industry and Trade) said that until the end of August 2018, the export status of produce as well as marine products to not only the Chinese but also the USA, European, Australian markets experienced a reduction on both quantity and value. Particularly, the export of marine products reached 1.282 million tonne with a value of $5.526 billion, a decrease of 1.1 percent on quantity. The figures of August were 177.7 tonne and $800 million, a drop of 10.2 percent on quantity and 4.2 percent on value compared to this time last year. The most troublesome was shrimp.
It is worth mentioning that the export development rate largely depends on activities of enterprises with foreign investment, especially Samsung Corporation. Therefore, this rate is not sustainable.
This is clearly displayed when Samsung increased its export turnover of smart phones in the first quarter of 2018, leading to a significant growth of the national export turnover as well. Yet, in the next two quarters, when Samsung focused more on importing parts for manufacturing activities, that rate saw a decrease.
Mr. Pham Xuan Hong affirmed that to reduce the risk of trade deficit and increase the stability of the national export turnover, it is high time that businesses actively seek domestic material suppliers. Simultaneously, related ministries and agencies when attracting foreign investment should put more effort on material and accessories manufacturing industries in order to meet the demands of the key industries of Vietnam. There must also be an effective supporting policy to improve the ability of enterprises in these fields so that they can enter the global supply chain of businesses with foreign investment successfully.
By AI VAN Translated by Yen Nhi
[September 13, 2018] NewVoiceMedia Named by Forbes as One of World's Top 100 Cloud Companies NewVoiceMedia, a leading global provider of cloud contact center and inside sales solutions, has for the third consecutive year been named in the Forbes 2018 Cloud 100, the definitive list of top 100 private cloud companies in the world, published by Forbes in collaboration with Bessemer Venture Partners and Salesforce Ventures. "It's a real privilege to be recognized as one of the top 100 private cloud companies in the world for the third year running," commented Dennis Fois, NewVoiceMedia (News - Alert) CEO. "We operate in a multi-billion-dollar market that is accelerating its transition to the cloud. Our global cloud contact center platform helps companies outcompete on customer experience by bridging the conversation gap from digital interactions to voice, making every conversation great. Our company has seen rapid growth and success, owing to our total commitment to helping our customers deliver a better, more emotive customer experience. We look forward to continuing to scale operations, accelerate our already impressive growth trajectory and to develop world-class customer success for our growing customer base." As part of the rigorous selection process for the Forbes 2018 Cloud 100, Bessemer Venture Partners received submissions from the top cloud startups. The Forbes Cloud 100 judging panel, including top public cloud company CEOs, reviewed the data to select, score and rank the top 100 cloud companies from all over the world. The evaluaton process involved four factors: market leadership, estimated valuation, operating metrics, and people and culture.
"All of the twenty-five cloud IPOs and major cloud acquisitions over the past three years have been prior members of the Cloud 100, and we absolutely expect that the dominant public cloud companies of the future will also come from this list," said Byron Deeter, a top cloud investor and partner at Bessemer Venture Partners. "The 2018 Cloud 100 represents well over $135B in private shareholder value - an astonishing figure that reminds us yet again of the power of the cloud. The way we do business will be dramatically different as a result of these companies and I am honored to celebrate the remarkable accomplishments of the founders and teams behind each company on the 2018 Cloud 100." Serving more than 700 customers, NVM is outperforming the rapidly expanding cloud contact center market twofold and continues to attract new customers through exciting technological developments. It recently unveiled key capabilities that will enable businesses to drive digital transformation and create unified, consistent and integrated experiences irrespective of the channel chosen by the customer. Additionally, NVM was recently named a Leader in Ventana Research's 2018 Value Index for Contact Center in the Cloud and achieved top positions for Reliability and Validation, for its efficient operations, global capabilities and customer satisfaction. For further information about NewVoiceMedia, visit www.newvoicemedia.com. - ENDS - About NewVoiceMedia NewVoiceMedia is a leading global provider of cloud contact center and inside sales technology that enables businesses to create exceptional, emotive customer experiences to serve better and sell more. Its award-winning platform joins up all communications channels without expensive, disruptive hardware changes and plugs straight into your CRM for full access to hard-won data. With a true cloud environment and proven 99.999% platform availability, NewVoiceMedia ensures complete flexibility, scalability and reliability. NewVoiceMedia's 700+ customers include Canadian Cancer Society, Ebury, FCR Media, FlixBus, JustGiving, Kingston University, Lumesse, Paysafe and Vax. For more information, visit www.newvoicemedia.com or follow NewVoiceMedia on Twitter (News - Alert) @NewVoiceMedia. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180913005459/en/
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The gravity of the existential threat we face from Islamic Jihad is truly of epic proportions. It is essentially a battle pitting free-civilized man against a totalitarian barbarian. What is at stake is the struggle for our very soul - namely who we are and what we represent. The lives that were sacrificed for individual rights and freedoms that we've come to cherish are being chiseled away from right under our noses by the stealth jihadists. And many of us are in denial and totally clueless.
The left's appeasement and pandering to evil is nothing new. What makes their utopian delusions so infuriating and unpardonable is that it is not only they who will have to pay the consequences, and deservedly, so, they are thwarting and undermining our best efforts at resistance and are thus dragging us down in the process as well.
By Peter Lancz,, the head of the Raoul Wallenberg World Campaign Against Racism.
Approaching the fifth year of Chattanoogas city-wide potluck known as One Table, host Causeway is renaming the event for national expansion. Locally, the event will remain the same, taking place during the lunch hour on Nov. 19 in the middle of Martin Luther King Boulevard at one long table.
"One Table was born from a desire to unite different groups of people in Chattanooga. In 2014 the staff of Causeway, a local social innovation nonprofit, were walking to lunch discussing the invisible wall that stood on Martin Luther King Boulevard, dividing two of the citys green spaces, Miller Park and Miller Plaza. Miller Plaza is known as a popular venue for outdoor concerts and plays a key role in Chattanoogas startup culture. Before the current reconstruction, Miller Park was known as a place for people experiencing homelessness, or who lived in nearby subsidized housing. Causeway decided to invite both sides, and the broader groups that they represented, to share a meal at one table in the middle of that dividing line.
"The first year 700 people showed up to what the nonprofit thought would be a one-time event. Because the city embraced it so much, it has since become a beloved tradition. Each year, the event has grown. In 2015, it was covered in the Washington Post. In 2016, the event was replicated in Huntsville, Al. In 2017 it was replicated in Milan, Tn. Locally last year, over 1200 neighbors showed up, and 100 percent of the people who took Causeways survey said that they had a conversation with someone they had never met before," officials said.
Causeways Creative Director Chelsea Conrad says, In my experience, people actually want to get to know people who are different from them, but they dont always know how to go about it. At this event, we are really intentional about designing an experience that makes people more comfortable taking that step and introducing themselves to someone they would probably never meet in their day-to-day lives.
In addition to the two cities that have already replicated the event, Causeway has received many requests from other cities who have heard about the event and want to host their very own city-wide potluck.
"In 2014 when Causeway hosted the first One Table, they did not foresee the growth and success that would come with it. Once the group started to look at national expansion, they found an existing nonprofit named One Table that already existed in several cities where they were looking to expand," officials said.
In order to be able to share the event with other cities, Causeway has rebranded One Table to be called Gratefull. The name, brand, and a replication guide are free for any city to use to host their own event.
After five years of growth, this event is a big production for us that takes a lot of planning and a lot of partners. But the first year, we planned it in just a few weeks with a couple thousand dollars, and the social return on that investment has been exponential. We want to empower other cities to bring their community together in the same way, says Abby Garrison, Causeways executive director.
There are no strict rules around the replications. It has to be a free meal the week of Thanksgiving that is open to everyone. Otherwise, Causeway invites other cities to host the event in a way that makes sense within the context of their city.
In Huntsville, the event closely mirrored Chattanoogas, taking place at lunch time on the Monday before Thanksgiving in the middle of a downtown street. Milan is a small town in west Tennessee with a population of just under 8,000 people. Because most people tend to commute into other cities for work, the town hosted their event on a Saturday afternoon when more families could attend. We had to think about the resources that we had in our community to pull it off. The churches cooked most of the sides, the firemen cooked the turkeys and everyone was able to come on a Saturday, said Kathy Conrad, organizer of One Table Milan. It was truly powerful to see our community not just serving the needy, but sharing a meal and really getting to know people who were different than them.
Locally everything remains the same. Gratefull Chattanooga will be hosted by Causeway on Monday, Nov. 19 from 11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. on the 200 block of MLK Boulevard at one long table in the middle of the street. The Feed Co. Table and Tavern is the presenting sponsor this year. Dish t Pass is cooking the turkey and the dressing at cost, as they have since the very first year. Many local restaurants are bringing large side dishes to share, and individuals are again encouraged to bring a potluck dish. Causeway is still accepting additional sponsors for this years event at causeway.org/gratefull.
Mahesh Bindra, a former Member of New Zealand Parliament representing the New Zealand First party, who is expecting a second term in 2020. (Photo: Jay Mandal/On Assignment)
The following story by me is on the IANS wire worldwide today.
By Mayank Chhaya, Indo-Asian News Service
Chicago, September 12: With his first three-year term as a Member of Parliament in New Zealand behind him, Mumbai-born Mahesh Bindra is biding his time for the next phase of his engagement in his adopted countrys public life.
With some luck I might get a second term but irrespective of that I enjoy being part of politics in a democratically vibrant country, Bindra told IANS on the sidelines of the recently concluded World Hindu Congress in Lombard near here where he was a special invitee.
An immigrant from Mumbai, who went to New Zealand with his wife and three children in 2002, Bindra has attained a position of political prominence after becoming a MP in 2014. From being a principal correctional officer at the Mount Eden prison, which then had 400 inmates, Bindras career took a political turn when he asked a tough question of Winston Peters, leader of the controversial New Zealand First party who is also the countrys deputy prime minister and foreign minister, at a public gathering.
Peters and his party had the reputation for race-baiting and Bindra being an outspoken man wanted to find out the truth for himself. A candid exchange with Peters prompted the latter to invite Bindra to join the party and consider politics. I come from a political family. My father was an active member of the Bharatiya Jan Sangh. When Peters asked me to consider a political career it seemed like a natural progression, he said.
He became a member of NZ First in 2006 over cautions of fellow Indian immigrants, many of whom thought Peters and his party were racist. I studied the partys policies closely. In fact, Peters even asked me to make policy suggestions over immigration. My many interactions told me that the perceptions of NZ First being racist were unfounded and in fact Peters and others were open to suggestions, he said.
When he first contested for parliament from the Mount Roskill constituency in the city of Auckland in 2011 he got 419 votes and was placed 21st on the party list. It was only after he began rising steadily that in 2014 he was elected to parliament under New Zealands rather complex electoral system. Although his first term ended last year, there are strong expectations that he will return in 2020.
During his term as a MP, Bindra was appointed spokesman for Corrections, Customs, Ethnic Affairs and Land Information New Zealand.
In a country where the aboriginal Maori population constitutes about 15 percent of the total of 4.74 million people Bindra won their hearts when he took his oath in the Maori language apart from English. He said the Maori members were overcome by his gesture. I told them it was my way of respecting and acknowledging the original inhabitants of New Zealand, he said.
Bindra said he is conscious of the fact that the Maori make up for more than 50% of the prison population and wants to continue his engagement to address the often unjust legal system. Race relations in New Zealand are by and large healthy but we have our own challenges. As an immigrant I feel it is my duty to play my part in improving them, especially for the Maori people, he said.
Bindra sees himself as a long-term politician dedicated to represent New Zealand in the best possible way I can. He believes that Indians in their adopted countries around the world must get involved in politics at all levels because that is the best way to assimilate and get heard.
--Indo-Asian News Service
(CNN) A pair of red sequined slippers from the classic 1939 film "The Wizard of Oz" has been found, 13 years after they disappeared from a Minnesota museum, law enforcement said Tuesday.
But the investigation continues into who's responsible for the 2005 theft of the cherished piece of movie memorabilia.
"We reached the first goal, the recovery, and it's a great day," North Dakota United States Attorney Christopher Myers said. "But we're not done."
The slippers are one of four known pairs that actress Judy Garland wore in her role as Dorothy in the classic film. They disappeared in August 2005 from a museum dedicated to the actress in her hometown of Grand Rapids, Minnesota.
The theft sparked years of rumors and dead-end leads. Finally, a tip last summer led law enforcement outside Minnesota, and the FBI got involved. This summer, the shoes were seized in an undercover operation in Minneapolis, the FBI said.
"There's a certain romance in these types of schemes, sometimes sophistication, but at the end of the day it's a theft," Myers said.
"These types of offenses not only deprive the owner of their property, but all of us," Myers said. "This type of cultural property is important to us as a society. It reflects culture, it holds our memories, it reflects our values."
'We were literally crying'
The long-lost slippers were shown to reporters Tuesday at the FBI's Minneapolis headquarters in a news conference conducted in reverential tones, with repeated references to rainbows and the memorable quote "there's no place like home."
"They're more than just a pair of shoes, the slippers. They're an enduring symbol of the power of belief," Grand Rapids Police Chief Scott Johnson said.
Memorabilia collector Michael Shaw loaned the slippers to the Judy Garland Museum for Grand Rapids' annual "Wizard of Oz" festival in 2005. Shaw rejected the museum's offer to store them in a vault each night because he didn't want people handling the delicate shoes by moving them daily, he said in the 2016 documentary, "The Slippers."
"But most importantly, I was assured that the museum had security," said Shaw.
A thief broke in through the museum's back door, according to the Grand Rapids Police Department. The perpetrator smashed a glass case in the museum's gallery and stole the slippers, which were insured for $1 million. The alarm did not sound to a central dispatch station and no fingerprints were left behind, police said.
The theft was "the biggest thing that ever happened to our museum," museum co-founder Jon Miner told CNN affiliate KQDS in 2015. "We were literally crying."
Investigators had no evidence, aside from a single sequin that had fallen off one of the slippers. As the mystery deepened, museum staff became the target of rumors of an inside job, allegations they vehemently denied.
"We're the ones that want to find them because they were entrusted to us," Miner said in "The Slippers."
Ten years after the theft, the museum teamed up with the Itasca County Sheriff's Dive Team to investigate the theory that someone had thrown the slippers into a nearby lake. During the 40th Annual "Wizard of Oz" Festival, divers scoured the depths of the Tioga Mine Pit lake but came up empty-handed.
Extortion investigation leads to shoes
Tips flowed in over the years but they led either nowhere -- or to reproductions. One week, they were nailed to a wall in a roadside diner in Missouri, or resting at the bottom of a water-filled ore pit. Would-be tipsters reported them on display at the Smithsonian, which was true -- "Yeah, we know that, that's another pair," Johnson said.
"The thieves not only took the slippers, they took a piece of history that will be forever connected to Grand Rapids and one of our city's most famous children," Johnson said.
A break in the case came in the summer of 2017, the FBI said in a statement.
An individual approached the company that insured the slippers, saying he had information about the shoes and how they could be returned, and "it became apparent that those involved were in reality attempting to extort the owners of the slippers," Special Agent Christopher Dudley, who led the investigation from the FBI's Minneapolis Division, said in the statement.
After nearly a yearlong investigation involving the bureau's Art Crime Team, the FBI Laboratory, and field offices in Chicago, Atlanta and Miami, the slippers were recovered during an undercover operation in Minneapolis, the statement said.
Jill Sanborn, special agent in charge of the Minneapolis division of the FBI, called the shoes' recovery a "significant milestone." But law enforcement is still seeking information about the 2005 theft, she said.
"This is still a very, very active and ongoing investigation," said Sanborn.
Multiple pairs
Over the years, the mystery of the slippers' disappearance only seemed to enhance their reputation as one of the most coveted items on the Hollywood memorabilia market.
Valued at $2 million to $3 million and thought to be worth as much as $5 million at auction, they would be hard to sell on the black market -- and even harder to hide.
"Whoever has them, illicitly, has their hands full with them," journalist Rhys Thomas said in "The Slippers."
"One way or another, over the course of time, the shoes will out you."
Thomas tracked down several pairs of the famed shoes for a Los Angeles Times article published in 1988.
In the documentary, Shaw says he bought the shoes from a Hollywood costume designer who found them in MGM Studios' backlot property in Culver City, California. As the story goes, Kent Warner found several pairs on a dusty shelf and took one to the famed MGM Studios auction in 1970. He kept the rest for himself -- the exact number is not clear -- selling them off to collectors, including Shaw.
Meanwhile, a Tennessee schoolteacher won another pair in a contest in 1940. She sold them at auction in 1988 to a private collector for $165,000.
Another pair has been on display in the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History in Washington since 1979. In 2016, the organization launched an online campaign to raise money to restore their luster.
In 2012, a group of actors led by Leonardo DiCaprio purchased a pair to be displayed at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, set to open this year in Los Angeles.
As Glinda the Good Witch says in the movie when she is describing the slippers' appeal to the Wicked Witch, "Their magic must be very powerful, or she wouldn't want them so badly."
CNN's Eliott C. McLaughlin contributed to this report.
(WB) In an exchange with high school students that was caught on tape, a Republican congressman from New Jersey was tongue-tied over the prospect of same-sex couples adopting children and suggested kids would be better off in orphanages than with LGBT families.
Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) made the remarks May 29 when addressing student constituents in the auditorium of Colts Neck High School. They asked the congressman about his opposition to adoption by same-sex couples, according to a source familiar with the recording. A source familiar with the tape, who delivered the recording on Monday exclusively to the Washington Blade, said it was obtained in recent days.
The recording begins with Hannah Valdes, a senior at Colts Neck High School, telling Smith she has a gay sister who has said in the future she wants to adopt a child with her partner. The student asks the New Jersey Republican whether based on household studies her sister would be less of a legitimate parent than someone in a different-sex relationship and why she shouldnt adopt a child.
In an apparent reference to the U.S. Supreme Courts 2015 ruling for marriage equality, Smith says the issue, legally, is moot at this point especially with the Supreme Court decision and tells the student her sister is free to adopt.
Although the Supreme Court settled the issue of marriage, attempts are still underway to deprive LGBT families of the right to adopt. An increasing number of states have passed laws allowing religious-affiliated, taxpayer-funded agencies to refuse placement to LGBT homes for religious reasons. In the U.S. House, Republicans incorporated as a component of appropriations an amendment from Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-Ala.) that would penalize states and localities for having policies prohibiting anti-LGBT discrimination in adoption.
But that wasnt enough for Valdes, who pressed Smith on why he thinks her sister shouldnt be able to adopt. Smith, apparently having difficulty finding words for his response, said he believes there are many others who would like to adopt who can acquire a child and the waiting periods are extremely long.
When another student asks what makes these others more suited to become parents than her fellow students sister, Smith starts to reply, in my opinion a child needs every possibility of, without finishing his sentence. That might have been a prelude to saying a child needs every chance of being raised by a mother and a father.
Thats when Smith praised orphanages. In that context, Smith suggested even being raised in an orphanage without parents would be better for a child than having LGBT parents.
Somebody mentioned orphanages before, Smith said. I mean, orphanages are still a possibility for some kids.
One student is heard uttering an indignant response over the idea the congressman would rather have kids in orphanages than being raised by LGBT parents: Youd rather have kids in an orphanage than with ?
Speaking to the Blade, Valdes said theres more to the exchange with Smith on gay adoption than whats heard on the tape. Earlier in the assembly, another student asked about one of Smiths votes in 1999 in favor of an amendment that would have banned adoption by gay parents in D.C.
The student, Valdes said, asked Smith if he would still vote in support of banning gay adoption, and whether his views have changed since 1999. In response, Valdes said, Smith said his position hasnt changed.
Rep. Smith responded by saying that he does not approve of gay adoption because gay households are not healthy environments for children to grow up in, Valdes said. He then stated that numerous household studies show that children that have heterosexual parents have better lives than children that have homosexual parents.
Its hard to know what household studies Smith was referencing. According to Cornell University, at least 75 studies have concluded children with same-sex parents fare no worse than other kids.
At that moment, Valdes said she thought of her gay sister and raised her hand for the question challenging his views on gay adoption, which was heard on the recording.
After I asked my question and challenged him, an administrator cut in to change the topic, Valdes said. Rep. Smith started to discuss a recent project he was working on, but the auditorium was already filled with tension, and most of the audience was already talking about what Rep. Smith had just said. More students began to raise their hands, and the administration quickly realized that their students would likely be asking more questions regarding LGBT rights. Instead of taking further questions, the assembly was promptly ended and all of us were sent back to class.
Valdes said Smith exhibited prejudice and homophobic views that were offensive, and the entire student body of Colts Neck High School was in shock that someone had come to our school with these opinions.
We have an LGBT club at our schoolwhich exemplifies just how accepting our school is, Valdes said. Prejudice in our hallways is not tolerated, so it was shocking to have an elected official a congressman no less stand in front of hundreds of students, openly shaming the LGBT community. I knew that there were multiple students in the auditorium who were a part of the LGBT community, and that they were simply too scared to say anything to this congressman. In a situation like this, I just simply could not stay silent.
Despite the exchange, the school praised Smith for coming to speak with students. Brian Donahue, principal of Colts Neck High School, tweeted after the event thanking the lawmaker and saying, Our students appreciate hearing first hand how our government functions.
Donahue didnt immediately respond to the Blades request for comment on whether Colts Neck High School was OK with Smith making comments against LGBT adoption at a student assembly.
Smith, a longtime member of Congress who has represented New Jerseys 4th congressional district in the U.S. House since the start of the Reagan administration, has built a substantial anti-LGBT track record in Congress aside from his 1999 vote against gay adoption. In recent years, the Republican has repeatedly earned a score of 0 from the Human Rights Campaign on its biennial congressional scorecard.
Among his anti-LGBT actions include votes for the anti-gay Defense of Marriage Act and a U.S. constitutional amendment that would have banned same-sex marriage nationwide. In the early years of the Obama administration, Smith voted against Dont Ask, Dont Tell repeal and hate crimes protections legislation.
In recent years, Smith co-sponsored the First Amendment Defense Act, a federal religious freedom bill that would enable anti-LGBT discrimination, and voted for an amendment that would have barred the U.S. military from paying for transition-related health care for transgender service members, including gender reassignment surgery.
Smiths office didnt respond to the Washington Blade request for comment on the tape and either deny its accuracy or explain why orphanages are better for kids than LGBT homes. Also unanswered was an inquiry on whether Smith opposes the Aderholt measure pending before the House.
As the mid-term elections approach, Smith is facing a challenge from Democratic candidate Josh Welle, a businessperson and Navy veteran.
In a statement to Washington Blade, Welle drew on his experience as a veteran as he criticized Smith for suggesting orphanages are a better fit for children than gay parents.
Chris Smiths out-of-touch views might have flown in 1980 when he was elected, but his time has passed, Welle said. In 2018, in Central Jersey, it is unacceptable to imply a child would be better off in an orphanage than with a loving LGBTQ family. As a veteran, I fought on the front lines alongside men and women who gave their lives to protect and defend the civil liberties that our Constitution ensures for everyone, not just a few. Chris Smith takes us backwards on inclusion and basic human rights for all.
Despite the expected blue wave in November, Welle faces an uphill challenge. Political observers have rated New Jerseys 4th congressional district as a safe or solid Republican seat.
After the assembly, Valdes said other students thanked her for posing the question and called her brave, but she doesnt see it that way.
All students should feel safe and comfortable in their own school, and all people should feel safe and comfortable in their lives, Valdes said. Smith has done, and continues to do, the opposite of this.
UPDATE: After the publication of the Blade article, the Smith re-election campaign issued a statement criticizing the reporting on the exchange caught on tape, saying the recording was edited to misrepresent him.
Anybody can twist your words and make false representations when they splice up a tape, Smith said. It is despicable that someone thought they could score political points by distorting the truth and raising false questions about my record and the full range of topics at the assembly.
The Smith campaign made public what it said was the full one-hour tape of the May 29 assembly at Colts Neck High School and a separate record of another exchange at the assembly in which he says orphanages arent the best option for children.
In the shorter recording, a student is heard asking, So would you say that foster care and orphanages would be in the better interest of the child?
Smith replies, No. Lord, no. We have waiting periods for families to adopt children, often by years.
The Blade stands by its initial reporting. The exchange reported by the Blade in which Smith suggests orphanages are better for children than adoption by LGBT parents is also heard in the one-hour tape. In the exchange the Smith campaign circulated, the question posed to him wasnt about LGBT parents and Smiths reference to families being better than orphanages is general and not necessarily inclusive of them. That exchange also is heard prior to the time Smith suggests orphanages are better than same-sex parents, which was the result of students seeking clarification of his initial response on families and left students with that impression.
In other words, the totality of the recording indicates Smiths view is that different-sex family households are better for children than orphanages, but when it comes to LGBT families, orphanages are better.
Smiths office and campaign never reached out for comment or clarification and hasnt responded to Blade requests for clarification. The Blade was made aware of the statement and additional recording through other media sources.
In the longer, one-hour recording, Smith is also heard articulating positions against LGBT rights. In response to the previously reported question on Smiths vote in 1999 against gay adoption in D.C., Smith talked about his opposition to same-sex marriage.
Smith said he has a strongly held belief and referenced former President Obamas one-time opposition to same-sex marriage as well as Obamas articulation of that view as a presidential candidate in 2008 at Saddleback Church.
He said, I believe marriage is between a man and a woman, and God is in the mix, Smith said. That was from Sen. Barack Obama. Now hes changed. He now supports same-sex marriage. My belief is squarely where it used to be that marriage is between a man and a woman.
As for adoption, Smith said its all about the best interests of the child, and although there are people who feel the best interest of the child is for gay couples to adopt, there are studies that take into account all kinds of factors.
Ultimately, Smith said hed vote the same way against gay adoption as he did in 1999: I would vote the same way, frankly, as I did then.
Smith also criticized LGBT rights supporters for being unconcerned about Catholic adoption agencies that say theyd have to close if forced to place children with LGBT families.
Theres little concern from the LGBT community, which I find disconcerting, and that is that a lot of the best organizations for adoption have been put out of business because of their refusal, like in D.C., to facilitate such adoptions, Smith said. Catholic charities, which is one of the greatest humanitarian organizations in the United States for the poor or disabled, and for adoptions, they have now been denied the ability to do any adoption in D.C., in Illinois, in Massachusetts and in some other states because they believe the best of interest of the child is not that of adoption.
No government is actively seeking to close Catholic adoption agencies. They have threatened to shut their doors on their own in the wake of the legalization of same-sex marriage because they feel theyll be forced to place children with gay couples who marry.
Kia is running a voting contest to coin the name of its debutant Indian offering, the 2019 SP concept-based compact SUV.
Kia, Hyundais subsidiary brand, kick-started its Indian operation in February at the 2018 Auto Expo with the world debut of the SP concept. The production-spec version of the concept will become Kias first-ever offering in the Indian market and will be launched around mid-2019. The South Korean automaker is currently running a voting contest under Fame for Name label to coin the name of its upcoming compact SUV.
The voting is going on between four names: Tusker, Trazor, SP-Z and Trailster. Out of these four, Trazor is leading the charge with maximum votes as of 22 May 2018, followed by Tusker. The voting process will be open for all till 20 June 2018 and participants get a chance to win Kia merchandise. Wanna vote? Head over to Kias website here.
Kia Motors India (KMI) is one of the three automakers (other two are MG and Peugeot) that are entering the Indian car market soon. Kia plans to start the production of the Kia Trazor (likely to be called this) around mid-2019 at its upcoming plant in Anantapur district of Andhra Pradesh. The plants construction is in full swing right now and is expected to be completed by the second quarter of 2019, just before the SUV rolls down the assembly line.
The SP concept is underpinned by a modified Hyundai Creta platform and the production-spec model is expected to resemble the near-production concept from the Expo. Equipment list is likely to be at par with the recently launched Creta facelift, with goodies on offer such as powered driver seat, sunroof and wireless charging. Powertrain options are likely to be borrowed from the Creta as well. However, we expect Kia to debut the Trazor with a BSVI petrol engine followed by a BSVI diesel engine some time later. Besides the Creta, the Kia Trazor will go up against the Renault Captur and the Duster.
Disclaimer: This article has not been edited by Deccan Chronicle and is taken from a syndicated feed. Photos: CarDekho.
The NCLAT had last week directed the lenders of the Essar Steel to expeditiously take a decision on the bids.
New Delhi: A day after the reports that ArcelorMittal has given an ultimatum to the lenders of Essar Steel to clear its bid, the steel and mining major on Wednesday assailed the order of National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) asking it to pay Rs 7,000 crore to become eligible bidder. The LN Mittal-promoted group, in the Supreme Court, said that it had already divested its shares in the firms Uttam Galva Steel and KSS Pet-ron, whose bad loans were directed to be paid by it.
ArcelorMittal India, which has made a bid of Rs 42,000 crore for Essar Steel, alleged before a bench of Justices RF Nariman and Indu Malhotra that NuMetal was ineligible to bid for the steel company.
On the other hand, NuMetal, a consortium of Russia's VTB-JSW, told the bench that it has also filed an appeal challenging the NCLAT order allowing ArcelorMittal to take part in the bid.
ArcelorMittal is completely disqualified. The law says that the petitioner is disqualified for want of non-payment (of Rs 7,000 crore), senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for NuMetal, said.
Senior lawyer Harish Salve, appearing for ArcelorMittal, assailed the NCLAT order.
The company had exited Uttam Galva in February this year and its revised bid was submitted after it had divested from Uttam Galva, Salve said. Moreover, ArcelorMittal never had any directors on the board of Uttam Galva, he added. We did not set up these companies (Uttam Galva Steel and KSS Petron). We did not exercise management powers. I had divested the shares. No bank has ever made any demand with regard to their loans. No personal guarantees were given, Salve further said.
Salve also referred to NuMetal's earlier share-holding pattern and said it was incorporated in a joint venture with Arora Enterprises and Russian VTB Bank. Arora Enterprises was owned by Rewant Ruia who is related to Essar Steel promoter, said Salve.
The European Union had passed an order against the VTB Bank for irregularities and it was "unusual" that a Russian bank was wanting to take over a sick company, he further added. At the outset, when Salve alleged that NuMetal was ineligible to bid, the bench said You worry about your client (AMI) and not about Rohatgis client (NuMetal).
He said initially the bids of both ArcelorMittal and NuMetal were rejected but later NuMetal was allowed to bid and a condition was imposed on AMI to pay the money as it was a stigma. The bench posted the appeal of ArcelorMittal for hearing tomorrow when the appeal of Numetal may also come up for consideration.
On being inquired as to whether the court would pass any interim order in the matter, the bench said it will pass order straightaway. There will be no interim order. ArcelorMittal has moved the apex court challenging the NCLAT order of September 7 by which it had held as eligible the second bid of NuMetal, a consortium of Russia's VTB-JSW, for Essar Steel.
The NCLAT had asked ArcelorMittal to clear the stigma of defaulter by clearing the dues of its then subsidiaries. It had last Friday ruled that NuMetal's second bid for Essar Steel was eligible but the same by ArcelorMittal will qualify only if it cleared the Rs 7,000 crore dues of firms it was previously associated with within three days.
Both the companies had in February submitted separate bids to takeover Essar Steel, which lenders were auctioning, to recover their Rs 49,000 crore defaulted loans. The Committee of Creditors (CoC) had, however, disqualified both the bids saying their promoters were tied to companies which were bank loan defaulters and hence ineligible under Section 29A of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC). The second round of bids was called where JSW Steel joined NuMetal to put in a bid of Rs 37,000 crore, while Vedanta entered the fray as a third bidder.
ArcelorMittal too had put in a bid. The NCLAT had last week directed the lenders of the Essar Steel to expeditiously take a decision on the bids. It held that NuMetal was not related to promoters of Essar Steel and hence eligible for submitting a resolution plan for the company. However, in the case of ArcelorMitta, it had held that the company was connected to Uttam Galva and KSS Petron, which are classified by banks as NPAs.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is likely to celebrate his 68th birthday in his parliamentary constituency of Varanasi, where he will spend the day with schoolchildren and watch a film based on his life, a district official said here Thursday. (Photo: Twitter)
Varanasi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi is likely to celebrate his 68th birthday in his parliamentary constituency of Varanasi, where he will spend the day with schoolchildren and watch a film based on his life, a district official said here Thursday.
Modi is likely to go for a two-day visit to Varanasi on September 17 and 18. He will also offer prayers at the famous Kashi Vishwanath temple during his visit and address a public gathering in Varanasi, the official said.
On his 68th birthday, the prime minister will watch a 32-minute film called "Chalo Jeete Hain" with schoolchildren and is also likely to inaugurate several development projects worth crores of rupees.
A special cleanliness drive will be launched and health camps will also be organised in the town, he said.
"District officials are holding meetings regarding the visit and all the security arrangements are being made for the various events in which he will take part, though the final itinerary of the prime minister's visit is awaited," the official said.
UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath held meetings with the district officials here on Wednesday and reviewed the preparations for the prime minister's two-day visit, sources said.
Mumbai: Alia Bhatt's personal photographer 'RK' has yet again proved that he knows all the right angles and perfect lights while clicking her pictures.
Lately, Alia has been posting several pictures of her on Instagram clicked by her rumoured boyfriend Ranbir Kapoor.
The 'Raazi' actor has shared another picture on Instagram, clicked by Ranbir, and captioned it, "keep your eyes lifted high upon the sun, & you'll see the best light in everyone.. RK."
Bollywood's rumoured love birds have been painting the town red off late. Apart from spending time together, the couple has been bonding with each other's friends as well.
While Ranbir continues to hide away from social media, Alia is making sure that his fans don't miss out on his awesomeness.
On August 26, Alia shared a photo clicked by Ranbir and captioned it, "When the angle is right, you gotta do what you gotta do... RK"
On August 1, Alia shared a photo clicked by Ranbir and captioned it, "& into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul (amaze photographer - RK)"
This public display of affection (PDA) on social media started in July, when the 'Highway' star posted a photo on Instagram, where she can be seen standing by a window overlooking the city view with a friend, and gave the picture credit to RK.
The actors are currently shooting together for Ayan Mukerji directorial 'Brahmastra' in Bulgaria, which is scheduled to release on August 15, 2019. The cast list also includes Amitabh Bachchan, Mouni Roy, and Tollywood star Nagarjuna
Abhishek Bachchan with then girlfriend Aishwarya Rai at TIFF for Guru premiere in 2006; with Manmarziyaan team members Vicky Kaushal, Anurag Kashyap and Taapsee Pannu on Tuesday.
Toronto: Fans of Bollywood filled the cavernous Roy Thomson Hall in downtown Toronto to the rafters on Tuesday night for the Gala world premiere of Anurag Kashyap's Manmarziyaan.
It was, as always is the case when a star-driven vehicle from the Mumbai movie industry is unveiled in North America's leading film festival, a celebratory occasion.
The film's director, a Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) regular, and his three leading actors Abhishek Bachchan, Taapsee Pannu and Vicky Kaushal flew into the city after hectic rounds of promotions back in India for the all-set-for-release romance.
Photo: AP
Photo: AP
TIFF artistic director Cameron Bailey, introducing Manmarziyaan to its first audience, described Kashyap as "a pure cinephile". He said: "I just met him backstage. After a big hug, he asked me what films he should watch in the festival. Anurag has a voracious appetite for films... We love the fact that he loves films as much as we do."
"He has made a pure, joyful masala movie," Bailey said, adding that he personally loves such films.
He also announced that Manmarziyaan, titled Husband Material in English, will open in TIFF Bell Lightbox, the festival's headquarters and principal venue, on September 21, a week after its India release.
Kashyap said: "This is actually the first time that I've made a love story... I am grateful to Colour Yellow Films for letting me do the film exactly the way I wanted it."
He added: "It is always great to come to TIFF. If you love cinema, this is a great place to catch films."
Referring to Abhishek Bachchan's return to the big screen after a two-year hiatus, the director said: "I consider myself lucky that he chose to come back with this film."
Photo: AP
"The last time I was in TIFF," Bachchan joked, "I proposed to my wife (Aishwarya Rai Bachchcan). She has warned me not to do any such thing this time.
Data released by the UK government in August revealed Danish semen to be most popular among single, middle-class, affluent and well-educated women across the country, the Daily Mail reported.
Figures show that Danish semen makes up almost half of all non-British male reproductive material imported into the UK.
Women are shelling out close to 460 per laboratory issue 'straw'. The cost is even higher when IVF treatment is involved.
Sperm bank Cryos sends Danish sperm all over the world. Its CEO Peter Reeslev believes his clinic is responsible for close to 6,000 babies in Britain.
Cryos has nearly 500 donors in the books. They are all thoroughly vetted. Donors are paid almost 54 and some even 'deposit' twice a week.
Danish sperm has been in high demand and has become increasingly popular.
"It is difficult to be precise because there is no obligation for women to report back to us," he told the Daily Mail, "but we're keen to understand the numbers involved, so weve introduced a new system to encourage them to do so, with a financial incentive."
What is about Danish sperm that's so appealing? Amanda Tinker, a British woman who used a Danish sperm donor to have her baby Jamie, told the Daily Mail:
"They are a good-looking bunch, but they are not all Alexander Skarsgard, she laughs, referencing the hunky (Swedish) actor.
"They are human. Some have big noses and buck teeth, but you go with what is available at the time. In my case I went for someone who was roughly the right height and the blond hair was more about matching my colouring.
"Scandinavians have a healthier attitude to sex and procreation. They see it as honourable."
Gearing up for its first flight test, NASA's Adaptable Deployable Entry Placement Technology, or ADEPT, is no ordinary umbrella. ADEPT is a foldable device that opens to make a round, rigid heat shield, called an aeroshell.
This game-changing technology could squeeze a heat shield into a rocket with a diameter larger than the rocket itself. The design may someday deliver much larger payloads to planetary surfaces than is currently possible.
Spacecraft typically approach planets at speeds tens of thousands of miles per hour --screaming fast. Entering a planet's atmosphere at those speeds compresses atmospheric gas, creating pressure shock and generating intense heat right in front of the spacecraft.
Aeroshells slow spacecraft during entry and shield them from heat. ADEPT could be key to future NASA missions that require extra-large aeroshells to protect spacecraft destined to land on the surface of other planets, all without requiring larger rockets.
ADEPT's first flight test is scheduled for Sept. 12 from Spaceport America in New Mexico aboard an UP Aerospace suborbital SpaceLoft rocket. ADEPT will launch in a stowed configuration, resembling a folded umbrella, and then separate from the rocket in space and unfold 60 miles above Earth.
The test will last about 15 minutes from launch to Earth return. The peak speed during the test is expected to be three times the speed of sound, about 2,300 miles per hour. That is not fast enough to generate significant heat during descent, but the purpose of the test is to observe the initial sequence of ADEPT's deployment and assess aerodynamic stability while the heat shield enters Earth's atmosphere and falls to the recovery site.
"For a deployable like ADEPT, you can do ground-based testing, but ultimately, a flight test demonstrates end-to-end functionality - surviving launch environments, deploying in zero gravity and the vacuum of space, holding that rigid shape and then entering, in our case, Earth's atmosphere," said Paul Wercinski, ADEPT project manager at NASA's Ames Research Center in California's Silicon Valley.
This umbrella-like mechanical aeroshell design uses flexible 3D woven carbon fabric skin stretched over deployable ribs and struts, which become rigid when fully flexed. The carbon fabric skin covers its structural surface, and serves as the primary component of the entry, descent and landing thermal protection system.
"Carbon fabric has been the major recent breakthrough enabling this technology, as it utilizes pure carbon yarns that are woven three-dimensionally to give you a very durable surface," said Wercinski. "Carbon is a wonderful material for high temperature applications."
The next steps for ADEPT are to develop and conduct a test for an Earth entry at higher "orbital" speeds, roughly 17,000 miles per hour, to support maturing the technology with an eye towards Venus, Mars or Titan, and also returning lunar samples back to Earth.
The ADEPT aeroshell heat shield technology was developed at Ames. The center leads the agency in the development and innovation of thermal protection system technologies.
ADEPT was funded by the Space Technology Mission Directorate's (STMD) Game Changing Development program. The flight test was funded by STMD's Flight Opportunities program, managed at NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center in Edwards, California. Through both programs, NASA supports promising technologies from government, industry and academia for development and/or testing. UP Aerospace, based in Highlands Ranch, Colorado, is the flight provider.
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Tularemia is rare but can affect both humans and animals if they eat undercooked meat from an infected animal, usually rabbits. (Photo: Pixabay)
In a bizarre case, a man developed mysterious boils on his neck after catching a life-threatening infection from his cat.
The 68-year-old from Missouri, went to the doctor after enduring painful red swellings on the right side of his neck for two months.
Blood tests revealed he was battling the rare condition tularemia, which can cause deadly pneumonia in up to 60 per cent of cases. The man is thought to have caught the disease from his cat, who died two days before he started feeling unwell.
Tularemia is rare but can affect both humans and animals if they eat undercooked meat from an infected animal, usually rabbits. Skin-to-skin contact with an infected pet can also spread the condition.
After being treated with antibiotics for a month, the patient made a full recovery.
After being transferred to Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis, the man was told his red, painful swellings where actually enlarged lymph nodes.
According to the case report published in The New England Journal of Medicine, blood tests revealed he was infected with the bacteria Francisella tularensis but was otherwise healthy.
He was diagnosed with glandular tularemia, which occurs when a person's lymph nodes swell at the site the bacteria enters their body.
It is the second most common form of illness from an Francisella tularensis infection, with the most common causing the same symptoms but with ulceration.
When asked if anything unusual had happened in the lead up to his illness, he told doctors his cat had died from 'feline leukemia' days before.
Yet this cancer diagnosis was made by a vet without any lab tests being carried out to confirm it.
The man is therefore thought to have caught Francisella tularensis from his cat while giving his pet the cancer drug prednisone.
Study finds overweight mums likely to give up breastfeeding within the first week. (Photo: Pixabay)
A new study has found overweight mothers are highly likely to stop breastfeeding their newborn within the first week, the Daily Mail reported.
Experts urge mothers to breastfeed their babies for the first six months of their life. However, researchers from the London School of Economics and the University of Auckland, found a large number of mothers, who have a BMI of over 25, give up feeding the 'natural' way within the first seven days.
For the study, researchers examined data of close to 17,000 mothers. The results showed 26% of overweight mother gave up compared to the 8% of healthy weight mums.
Body image issues or difficulty in producing milk could be some of the reasons women choose to stop.
Lead author of the study Dr Tammy Campbell told the Daily Mail: "We speculate a substantial proportion of overweight women are likely to want to breastfeed but have more difficulty doing so."
Adding, "We would like to emphasise, though, that this support really does need to be good quality practical and sensitive, for those who want it."
The need to get more women to breastfeed is important as breast milk contains antibodies, which helps strengthen baby's immune system in order to tackle infections and viruses.
The findings were originally published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.
Within six years of the woman's organs being transplanted, four of the five recipients had died as a result. (Photo: Pixabay)
An extraordinary case report has revealed that three people died after the same organ donor gave them all breast cancer.
According to a story published in MailOnline, the donor, a 53-year-old woman, died of a stroke in 2007 and donated her kidneys, lungs, liver and heart to patients needing transplants.
However, within six years of the woman's organs being transplanted, four of the five recipients had died as a result.
The heart patient died of sepsis but the other four developed breast cancer which spread into their healthy organs. Only one survived.
The cancer was not noticed by doctors before the woman's organs were donated and they acted as Trojan horses, secretly carrying the disease into the patients' bodies.
Experts are of the opinion that the odds of getting cancer from any single organ transplant could be as small as one in 10,000 and they believe this is the first time one patient has passed cancer on to four recipients, and it has never been seen to take so long for tumours to develop.
Research by scientists at University of Tubingen in Germany and the VU University Medical Center in the Amsterdam, the Netherlands, revealed the strange tragedy which unfolded during six years after the donor died.
The first person to be diagnosed in the peculiar case was a 42-year-old woman who received both the donor's lungs and less than a year-and-a-half after receiving her new lungs, the woman was admitted to hospital because they weren't working properly.
Doctors then discovered she had breast cancer which had started in her lungs and spread to her bones it later spread to her liver and she died in August 2009.
Medics proved the cancer had originated in the organ donor by doing DNA testing.
When news got out about the lung transplant recipient dying, the 62-year-old woman who recieved the left kidney and the 32-year-old man who received the right kidney were both warned about the risk of cancer.
Tests were done on both but no sign of the disease was found right away.
But in 2011 the man was diagnosed with cancer in his kidney, and the woman was found to have cancer in her liver, but not until five years later.
The man had his transplanted kidney removed and took chemotherapy drugs for a year, and has been cancer free since 2012.
However, the woman's cancer, which was first noticed in her liver, then spread across her body and she died two months after being diagnosed. The fourth patient to get cancer from the transplanted organs was a 59-year-old woman who received the liver, to replace hers which was damaged by cirrhosis.
Her tumour was detected in 2011 but she refused to have the liver removed. When the cancer began to spread in 2014, she refused any further treatment and died.
The 10-day long Ganesh festival began Thursday and ends with the immersion of Ganesha idols in water bodies on the final day. (Photo: AP)
Celebrated on Shukla Chaturthi of the Hindu Month of Bhadra (Between August and September), people bring idols of Lord Ganesh to their homes and worship him there.
Ganesh Chaturthi also known as Vinayaka Chaturthi is celebrated as the birthday of Lord Ganesh across India. Lord Ganesha is the elephant-headed son of Lord Shiva and Goddess Parvati and is considered as the symbol of wisdom, prosperity and good fortune.
From cars, autos, taxis to trucks and scooters, people across the country welcome the elephant-headed god to their hearts and homes.
Here's looking at a few glimpses of when devotees welcomed Lord Ganesha into their lives:
Devotees transport an idol of elephant-headed Hindu God Ganesha to a place of worship for Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Ahmadabad. (Photo: AP)
Devotees carry an idol of Lord Ganpati on the occasion of Ganesh Chaturthi, in Navi Mumbai. (Photo: PTI)
Devotees transport an idol of elephant-headed Hindu God Ganesha home in an auto for worship during Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Ahmadabad. (Photo: AP)
Devotees carry home idols of elephant-headed Hindu god Ganesha for worship during Ganesh Chaturthi festival celebrations in Mumbai. (Photo: AP)
Devotees carry home an idol of elephant-headed Hindu god Ganesha in a taxi for worship during Ganesh Chaturthi festival celebrations in Mumbai. (Photo: AP)
Devotees carry a Ganesh idol home on a cycle-rickshaw for worship during Ganesh Chaturthi festival celebrations in Mumbai. (Photo: AP)
Devotees offer prayers before entering their homes with an idol of elephant-headed Hindu God Ganesha during Ganesh Chaturthi festival celebrations in Mumbai. (Photo: AP)
A boy sits with an idol of elephant-headed Hindu god Ganesha in the trunk of a car during Ganesh Chaturthi festival celebrations in Mumbai. (Photo: AP)
Boy meets girl, girl gives boy wrong number: some people might take it as a hint, but one Canadian student decided it was a challenge.
He emailed 246 women at the University of Calgary with the first name "Nicole" in search of the one he had met the night prior -- causing many of the women on the mass email chain to strike up a friendship.
"We have this Nicole network now," said communications student Nicole Manaog.
Some dude emailed every Nicole at U of C to try to find the girl he met last night and instead they formed a girl gang and I am legit DYING @ucalgary #nicolefromlastnight pic.twitter.com/ql4sxuBADQ sarah jurassic park (@ParisEsther) September 8, 2018
The girl gang formed after Carlos Zetina met one Nicole on Thursday when the pair apparently hit it off -- but Zetina only managed to snag her first name and a wrong number.
So he sent out an email blast: "Met you last night and you gave me the wrong number," he wrote in the subject line.
But as a Dutch exchange student, Toetenel does not have an email address affiliated with the university in Canada's Alberta province.
The other women, however, began a long thread and soon created a Facebook page they dubbed "Nicole From Last Night" to have a mass conversation sans Zetina.
"We created a Facebook page and we've been chatting that way," said theater student Nicole Rathberger. "It's kind of neat that we've been using the technology to get to know each other."
Some 15 of the Nicoles met up at a bar near the university campus, and the "real Nicole" was finally made aware of the situation through a friend late Friday.
She is expected to attend the next meeting of the Nicoles, along with a least 25 more women.
Zetina finally received word from the object of his affection via text message.
The two plan to get coffee next week, Rathberger told AFP, a date to which the other Nicoles have not been invited.
While Ravish was waiting, one of the men threw chilli powder at him, pulled out a chopper and demanded that he part with valuables. (Representional Image)
Bengaluru: The Bannerghatta police are on the lookout for two men who allegedly chopped the hand of a 31-year-old man in a bid to rob him, on Tuesday evening.
Police said a manhunt has been launched to trace the culprits and the severed hand, which they took away.
The victim, a 31-year-old electrical contractor from Madhuri, has been identified as Ravish. He had gone to a temple in Bannerghatta with his friend, identified as Jayalakshmi a woman constable at V.V. Puram traffic police.
Police said the incident took place towards evening near Champakadhama temple. After offering prayers Ravish and Jayalakshmi were allegedly sitting near a pond and chatting.
Investigations revealed that Ravish felt thirsty and he went to two people standing nearby and asked for water. The duo asked him to wait claiming that their associate had gone to get water.
While Ravish was waiting, one of the men threw chilli powder at him, pulled out a chopper and demanded that he part with valuables. When Ravish tried to resist, the accused attacked him with chopper, inflicting deep cut on his hand. They robbed his wallet and mobile phones of both Ravish and Jayalakshmi.
The complainant said the accused told them to stay back till they leave the place. However Ravish and Jayalakshmi tried to follow them as he was bleeding profusely.
Enraged by their conduct, the accused attacked him again. This time they severed his hand and took it away.
Due to the second attack Ravish fell on the ground and began to scream while Jaya called for help and also informed the police.
The local residents rushed to his help and put a cloth around the injured part to stanch the blood flow. The Bannerghatta police rushed to the spot and shifted him to a hospital, the police added.
Based on Ravish and Jayas statement the police have registered a case.
Social activist Stephen Mathews is on a hunger strike for the past six days demanding the arrest of rape accused Jalandhar Bishop Franco Mulakkal. (Photo: Twitter | ANI)
Kochi: Amid ongoing protests social activist Stephen Mathews is on a hunger strike for the past six days demanding the arrest of rape accused Jalandhar Bishop Franco Mulakkal.
Bishop Franco Mulakkal is accused of raping and having unnatural sex multiple times with a nun from Kerala between 2014 and 2016.
Bishop Mulakkal has been summoned by Kerala police for question on September 19.
Read: Kerala cops summon Jalandhar Bishop Franco Mulakkal amid public outrage
Meanwhile, the group of nuns seeking action against Bishop Mulakkal said Thursday that they would continue their six day old protest till justice is delivered.
They said their agitation was not against the Church or its rules, but a cry, seeking justice for their victimised fellow nun.
The nuns said they would not have come out in the open had the Church authorities delivered justice.
The Kerala Catholic Bishop Council (KCBC) had Wednesday slammed the nuns' protest, saying that it has "crossed all limits".
"We are not against the Church. We are not against the Church rules. We still accept the sacraments and we are not against it. We will continue our protest till we get justice," a nun told reporters in Kochi.
It also noted that both the complainant nun and accused Bishop were members of Catholic family and the church shared their "wounds and agony".
The nun recently sought urgent intervention of the Vatican for justice and demanded the Bishop's removal as the head of the Jalandhar diocese, questioning why the church was "closing its eyes to the truth" when she mustered courage to make public her sufferings.
Also Read: Kerala nun abused by Jalandhar Bishop writes to Vatican seeking justice
The Bishop had, however, dismissed the allegations as "baseless and concocted", insisting she levelled those as the Catholic order had rejected her demand for favours.
Also Read: Didnt rape Kerala nun, falsely implicated by anti-church elements: Jalandhar Bishop
The KCBC had said the allegations levelled against the Bishop was 'serious', adding that whoever the accused may be, they should be punished if the charges were proved.
"This is the firm stand of the Church," it said.
KCBC had also alleged attempts by vested interests and a section of the media to tarnish the church and the bishop community as a whole under the cover of the protesting nuns and said this was not "acceptable".
Police should not succumb to any kind of pressure and complete the probe impartially at the earliest, Varghese Vallikkat, deputy secretary general and official spokesperson of KCBC, had said in a press release.
The protest of various Catholic reformist organisations in Kochi, seeking justice to the victim, entered the sixth day Thursday.
Many women leaders, including eminent writer Sara Joseph and social activist K Ajitha visited the agitators, who include five fellow nuns of the victim.
Police said the deceased man identified as A. Moses Raj (56) killed himself by hanging from a fan. (Representational Images)
Chennai: A 56-year-old man, who was allegedly drunk, committed suicide by hanging himself after a quarrel with his wife in Maduravoyal on Tuesday night.
The incident happened around 11 pm at Ganga Nagar in Maduravoyal. Police said the deceased man identified as A. Moses Raj (56) killed himself by hanging from a fan.
According to police, on Tuesday night Moses came home in an inebriated condition and picked up a quarrel with his wife Pushpa Mary(52).
The couple assaulted each other verbally and upset with this Mohan locked his room leaving the window open, as he wants his wife to witness the suicide. After Puspha Mary cried for help, neighbours came to know about the incident.
However, the man killed himself by hanging from the fan before anyone could help.
On information, police rushed to the spot and sent the body to Kilpauk government hospital for post-mortem.
A case was registered with Maduravoyal police and investigation is on.
Students raise slogans as they campaign during Delhi University elections, in New Delhi, on Wednesday. (Photo: File)
New Delhi: The counting for Delhi University Students Union (DUSU) elections was suspended midway Thursday due to "faulty EVMs and the students' uproar over it", a university official said.
The counting was initially stopped for an hour when there were allegations of faulty EVMs, however, following objections by students the election officials decided to suspend the counting.
"We had proposed rectification of the faulty EVMs and resumption of the counting but the students were not ready for it. It was decided to suspend counting. A fresh date for the counting will be announced soon," an election officer for DUSU polls said.
In the initial trends, Congress-backed NSUI was leading for the president post, while BJP-affiliated ABVP was leading for the vice president's post.
Amid heavy police presence and some last-minute wooing of voters, DUSU polls were held on Wednesday with a voter turnout of 44.46 per cent.
Polling took place at 52 centres in the colleges. There are as many as 23 candidates in the fray.
Chennai: Madras high court has directed the directorate of vigilance and anti-corruption to file a report on the day-to-day preliminary investigation conducted by it on the complaint from DMK against Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami, alleging irregularities in the award of contract for highway projects.
Justice A.D. Jagadish Chandra who gave the directive said, Let the report be filed in a sealed cover and also explain why the complainant has not been inquired by the investigating officer.
The judge posted to September 17 for further hearing of the petition filed by R.S.Bharathi, organising secretary of DMK, which sought a direction to the DVAC to conduct a preliminary inquiry into the allegations against the Chief Minister and register an FIR.
In his petition, Bharathi alleged that the Chief Minister, by abusing his power, has allotted highway projects worth Rs 3,500 crore to his relatives and benamis. He also filed an additional petition on Tuesday, seeking to transfer the investigation to an independent investigating team since DVAC was technically under the control of chief minister.
When the case came up for hearing on Wednesday, senior counsel N.R. Elango, appearing for the petitioner submitted the cost of the projects that would ordinarily not to exceed Rs 8 to Rs 10 crore has been escalated to Rs 21 crore and above.
Placing reliance on the manual issued by the World Bank governing such world bank funded projects, he said the manual clearly says the tender issuing authorities should not have any conflict of interest with the firms to which such contracts were awarded.
Opposing the same, advocate general Vijay Narayan submitted that Chief Ministers son was married to the daughter of one such contractor in 2014. But the contractor was in the business since 1991. There was no enhancement of cost at all. These were all annuity contract projects completely monitored by the World Bank.
At this stage, the court has to see only whether process of law was followed. Technically the plea has become infructuous since DVAC has completed the preliminary inquiry and forwarded its report to the vigilance commissioner. The commissioner can reject the report and direct the DVAC to proceed further. It was up to the commissioner, he added.
The Delaware (Ohio) County Fair will be simulcasting all five days of its 2018 harness racing meet.
Dave Brower will host the simulcast television broadcast on Sunday, Sept. 16 (first post 1 p.m.) and Monday, Sept. 17 (3 p.m.).
Dave Bianconi and Wendy Ross will join Brower for the Tuesday, Sept. 18 (1 p.m.), Wednesday, Sept. 19 (11 a.m.) and Thursday, Sept. 20 (11 a.m.) coverage.
Announcers Roger Huston and Jason Settlemoir will provide additional race analysis during the week.
The simulcast show will begin 30 minutes before the first race post each day.
(Delaware County Fair)
Uttar Pradesh DGP O P Singh said that the arrested Hizbul Mujahideen terrorist had plans to launch an attack on occasion of Ganesh Chaturthi. (Photo: Twitter | ANI)
Kanpur: Anti-Terrorism Squad has arrested a Hizbul Mujahideen terrorist from Kanpur on Thursday.
The suspect named as Qamar Uj Zama was arrested on a tip-off from the National Investigation Agency (NIA).
Uttar Pradesh Director General of Police (DGP) O P Singh said that the arrested Hizbul Mujahideen terrorist had plans to launch an attack on occasion of Ganesh Chaturthi.
Singh said that Qamar Uj Zama was active from April 2018 when he had first posted his pictures on Facebook with AK 47. He was a native of Assam.
"During questioning he told us that he had gone for training to Kashmir in April 2017. He is of Indian nationality and is a literate person," the DGP added.
At least 488 people have died in Kerala due to the rains and flood this monsoon, which hit 14 districts of the state. (Photo: File | PTI)
New Delhi: The Kerala government on Thursday sought Rs 4,700 crore as compensation from the central government for the damage caused by the recent floods, termed as the worst in a century, officials said.
At least 488 people have died in Kerala due to the rains and flood this monsoon, which hit 14 districts of the state.
The Kerala government has sent a memorandum to the Home Ministry giving details about the loss of human life, properties, infrastructure and crops and sought about Rs 4,700 crore as compensation, a senior government official said.
In case of any natural calamity beyond the coping capacity of a state, the state government submits a detailed memorandum indicating sector-wise details of damage and requirement of funds for relief operations of immediate nature. Accordingly, the Kerala government sent the memorandum, the official said.
As per the existing guidelines, the central government will soon send an Inter-Ministerial Central Team (IMCT) for on-the-spot assessment of damage and additional requirement of funds.
The IMCT report will be considered by the Sub-Committee of National Executive Committee (SC-NEC) headed by the Union home secretary in conformity with the norms and then by a high-level committee, chaired by the home minister for approving the quantum of additional assistance from the NDRF.
The financial mechanism to meet the rescue and relief expenditure during any notified disaster event is governed by guidelines on State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF) and National Disaster Response Fund (NDRF), another official said.
State Disaster Response Fund has been constituted in each state in which the Centre contributes 75 per cent for general category states and 90 per cent for special category states of hilly regions every year according to the award of the successive Finance Commissions.
According to the guidelines, the Centre provides its allocation to SDRF of each state in advance in two instalments. In case of any natural calamity, the state meets the expenditure of relief and rescue from the State Disaster Response Fund already available at its disposal.
On August 21, the central government had released Rs 600 crore to flood-hit Kerala as promised by Prime Minister Narendra Modi (Rs 500 crore) and Home Minister Rajnath Singh (Rs 100 crore) during their visits to the state.
This was in addition to Rs 562.45 crore already made available in State Disaster Relief Fund of the state.
BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra claimed that Rahul Gandhi was on the backfoot in the case of Kingfisher Airlines and its promoter Vijay Mallya as well as the entire Gandhi family traveled on the airline and their travel was upgraded to business class for free. (Photo: File)
New Delhi: The political battle between the BJP and opposition sparked minutes after fugitive liquor baron Vijay Mallya on Wednesday claimed that he met Finance Minister Arun Jaitley with settlement offer before leaving the country.
In an all-out attack against the Opposition, Congress, the ruling-BJP on Thursday alleged that it was the Congress and Gandhi family who were close to Vijay Mallya and that the previous UPA government had given a "sweet deal" to the beleaguered Kingfisher Airlines to keep it afloat.
BJP said that the airline was perhaps owned by the Gandhi family and there are 18 pages worth of evidence about their links.
"Papers show that Kingfisher Airlines was not owned by Mallya but by the Gandhi parivaar," BJP national spokesperson Sambit Patra said at a press conference.
Attacking Rahul Gandhi, Patra showed a purported confessional statement of a hawala trader, alleged that the Congress chief had links with a shell company.
He claimed that Rahul Gandhi was on the backfoot in the case of Kingfisher Airlines and its promoter Vijay Mallya as well as the entire Gandhi family traveled on the airline and their travel was upgraded to business class for free.
"The entire Gandhi family was in fact helping Mallya and Kingfisher Airlines with the sweet deal," Patra said, while showing a bunch of documents related to the loans given by banks to the airline.
Read: Met Arun Jaitley to 'settle matters' before leaving India: Vijay Mallya
Patra alleged that Rahul Gandhi took a loan of Rs 1 crore from Vijay Mallya. "That he (Rahul Gandhi) and his mother Sonia Gandhi used to get free business upgrade (in Kingfisher flights) is something which is in the public domain," Patra added.
Reading out from one of a bunch of papers, which Patra said were evidence of the links between the Congress and Mallya, he cited the boss of Kingfisher Airlines having said that the loans to the now defunct airline were restructured twice -- in 2008 and 2012. The second time it was done by the request of the government, Patra added, citing what he said were letters from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). The government requests, he said, mentioned that the favour should be extended "only for Kingfisher."
"There is a series of letters between the RBI (Reserve Bank of India) and the SBI (State Bank of India). These letters show us how the previous dispensation under Sonia Gandhi was biased, partial and kept all norms and regulations at bay to give a sweet deal to Kingfisher Airlines," Patra alleged.
"Sometimes it seems the airline was not owned by Mallya, but by the Gandhi family in proxy," Patra said, adding that Rahul Gandhi, who himself is out on bail (in the National Herald case), had no right to question others on corruption.
After Vijay Mallyas claims on Wednesday that he met Arun Jaitley before leaving India in 2016, the finance minister dismissed it as "factually false" and said the tycoon had accosted him in the corridor of parliament.
Also Read: Jaitley refutes Mallya's claim; says never gave appointment for meeting
Later, Vijay Mallya too backtracked, confirming the minister's version of events.
Also Read: Feel like a scapegoat, says Mallya as Jaitley rubbishes meeting claims
"The appointment was not done in corridor but in Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's office. Manmohan Singh helped Kingfisher Airlines... Sonia, Rahulji, please hold a press conference and provide answers to this," Sambit Patra said.
Minutes after BJPs press meet, Congress president Rahul Gandhi held a media conference where he said one of its leaders had witnessed Arun Jaitley and Vijay Mallya having a discussion in parliament just on March 1, 2016, two days before Mallya left for the United Kingdom.
Also Read: Jaitley 'lying', Cong leader saw Mallya 'talking discreetly' to FM: Rahul Gandhi
The Congress also said on its official Twitter handle that Mallya met Jaitley 'several times' before escaping the country to discuss a settlement plan. (Photo: File | PTI)
New Delhi: Opposition parties Wednesday latched on to Vijay Mallya's statement he had met Arun Jaitley before leaving India, and demanded a probe into the fugitive liquor baron's claim, which was rubbished by the finance minister as "factually false".
Read: Jaitley refutes Mallya's claim; says never gave appointment for meeting
Congress chief Rahul Gandhi tweeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi should immediately order an independent probe into Mallya's "extremely serious allegations" and Jaitley should step down while the investigation is underway. The claim made by Mallya, facing charges of fraud and money laundering amounting to Rs 9,000 crore, has triggered a political storm, with the Congress saying the government must explain how and why Mallya was allowed to leave India.
Jaitley, however, said he never gave Mallya an appointment after becoming a minister in 2014, but the liquor baron misused his position as an MP to accost him once in Parliament.
Read: Met Arun Jaitley to 'settle matters' before leaving India: Vijay Mallya
Soon after Jaitley's rebuttal, Mallya appeared to tone down the seriousness of his claim, saying it was not a "formal meeting" and he only "happened to meet" the minister, when he told him he was going to London.
Mallya also said he was not "tipped off" by anyone to flee the country.
Reacting on the issue, BJP leader Subramanian Swamy tweeted, "I learn from my sources that the Lookout Notice issued by CBI for Mallya was modified from "Block Departure" to "Report Departure" on October 24, 2015 on orders from someone in MoF. Who? (sic)".
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, too, described as "absolutely shocking" the revelation by Mallya and asked, "Why did the finance minister hide this information till now?" "Absolutely shocking. PM Modi meets Neerav (sic) Modi before he flees the country. FM meets Vijay Mallya before he flees India. What transpired in these meetings? People want to know," Kejriwal said on Twitter.
Former BJP leader Yashwant Sinha, a former union finance minister who has been critical of Jaitley and his handling of the ministry, said the entire BJP leadership, not just the finance minister, must come clean on its ties with Mallya. Congress leader Abhishek Singhvi said the government was "fully complicit" in the flight of Mallya and Punjab National Bank fraud accused Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi from India.
"Everybody was complacent and everybody was aware... Whether it was - a casual meeting or a structured meeting. We need proper disclosures, full inquiries on this," he said.
Singhvi said the moot question remains why was no action taken before Mallya fled the country. He said Mallya's claim is a vindication of the Congress's stand that the government always knew about the fleeing defaulters. He said India wants to know what transpired during the meeting between Mallya and Jaitley. CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury said Mallya's escape reconfirmed how Modi government "enables big defaulters to loot public money and scoot". "The fundamental point is how he got away despite 'lookout notices'?" Yechury tweeted while mocking Prime Minister Narendra Modi by tagging a picture of him performing yoga by resting on a stone and facing the sky. RJD leader Tejaswi Yadav said the entire NDA government was "hand in glove" with scamsters and absconders.
"They hatched a plot to loot hundreds of thousands of crores. PM and FM must respond on this," Yadav said in a tweet. Terming Mallya's offer to settle overdue loans of more than Rs 9,000 crore to his now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines as "bluff offers", Jaitley said he did not even take the papers the liquor baron was carrying during that brief encounter.
Mallya, 62, is fighting numerous lawsuits in the UK and back home over fraud and money-laundering allegations as well as an extradition to India.
"I left because I had a scheduled meeting in Geneva. I met the Finance Minister before I left, repeated my offer to settle with the banks. That is the truth," he told reporters outside a London court hearing a case for his extradition.
The verdict in the extradition case will be announced on December 10. The Congress also said on its official Twitter handle that Mallya met Jaitley "several times" before escaping the country to discuss a settlement plan.
"In spite of this, the BJP government allowed him to flee with thousands of crores debt. Do we need anymore proof that this govt. is in the pocket of crony capitalists." Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said Mallya's revelation shows that the BJP is running "a travel, tour and immigration agency for looters to settle abroad".
"Vijay Mallya left India with the country's money after a farewell from Arun Jaitley. Chowkidaar nahin, Bhagidaar hai (Not a watchman, but a partner)," he tweeted in Hindi.
'Kerala government is not taking any action as they do not want to break the cordiality between the church and the authorities as elections are approaching,' brother of the Kerala nun said. (Photo: Twitter | ANI)
Kochi: Brother of the Kerala nun who has accused Jalandhar Roman Catholic priest of rape, on Thursday said that influential politicians are shielding and supporting Bishop Franco Mulakkal.
The rape survivors brother alleged that with eye on upcoming elections, the Kerala government is refraining from taking any action to break cordiality between the church and the authorities.
He also questioned police inaction in the case and said, Police have not done anything in the past 78 days.
Kerala government is not taking any action as they do not want to break the cordiality between the church and the authorities as elections are approaching. Influential politicians are supporting him, the brother of Kerala nun said.
The brother of the nun earlier alleged that a relative of the accused Bishop Franco Mulakkal and two other priests approached his friend and conveyed that they are willing to pay Rs 5 crore if the nun withdraws her complaint.
Read: Was offered Rs 5 crore to spare bishop in rape case: Kerala nun's brother
In her complaint lodged with Kottayam district police, the nun who is in her late 40s accused Bishop Franco Mulakkal of raping and having unnatural sex with her multiple times between 2014 and 2016.
Earlier this week, the nun wrote to the Vatican seeking justice. In her letter to The Apostolic Nuncio of India, Giambattista Diquattro an Ambassador to the Pope, she listed names of all the people she had asked for help, including the Pope himself. Nobody has bothered to help her.
The nun said she was writing the letter to the Vatican as victim of sexual abuse who is seeking justice.
From childhood we have been taught to believe that the Church is our mother. But in the light of my experience I am beginning to think that the Church is a stepmother to women and laity, the letter stated.
Also Read: Kerala nun abused by Jalandhar Bishop writes to Vatican seeking justice
Bishop Franco had always an eagles eye on few other MJ (Missionaries of Jesus) sisters as well. Whichever sister Bishop Franco felt attraction to, he tried to put them in his trap by force or taking advantage of their weaknesses.
Though Bishop Franco had sexually abused me several times, I could not reveal the full story to my Superior General or to her Councilors. I only told them repeatedly that the Bishop is taking many disciplinary actions through them just because I resisted to lie down with him. As they failed to understand even the seriousness of these words, I could not tell them more than this. And I had the fear that Bishop Franco may harm me with the support of my superiors (sic).
After public outrage and persistent protests by nuns, the Kerala police on Wednesday summoned Bishop Franco Mulakkal on September 19 for questioning him about his alleged involvement in the case.
Further alleging collusion between Arun Jaitley and Vijay Mallya, Congress president Rahul Gandhi demanded resignation of the Finance Minister. (Photo: Twitter | @INCIndia)
New Delhi: Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Thursday slammed Arun Jaitley over Vijay Mallyas alleged claims that he met the Finance Minister with a settlement offer before leaving the country.
Rahul asked why Jaitley didnt inform any central probe agencies or police when Mallya informed him about going to London.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley first claimed that he never met Vijay Mallya, but Mr. Mallya met him in the corridor and informed that he was going to London. Why didn't the finance minister then inform CBI or ED? the Congress president asked at a press conference in Delhi.
Rahul Gandhi further claimed that his party leader P L Punia saw Jaitley and Mallya talking discreetly in the Central Hall of parliament on March 1, 2016.
Congress lawmaker P L Punia, who also addressed the press conference, said: I have clearly stated about this (Vijay Mallya meeting Arun Jaitley) in each of my interview with media. There are CCTV cameras, we can all see that for proof. If I'm wrong I'll resign from politics.
Further alleging collusion between Jaitley and Mallya, the Congress president demanded resignation of the Finance Minister. This is a clear-cut case of collusion. There is some deal between them. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley must resign and this should be investigated, Gandhi said.
Ahead of his extradition hearing before the Londons Westminster Magistrate Court, Vijay Mallya on Wednesday claimed that he met Finance Minister Arun Jaitley before leaving the country.
Read: Met Arun Jaitley to 'settle matters' before leaving India: Vijay Mallya
Rubbishing his claims, Arun Jaitley in his Facebook blog said, He (Mallya) paced up to catch up with me and while walking uttered a sentence that I am making an offer of settlement. Having been fully briefed about his earlier bluff offers, without allowing him to proceed with the conversation, I curtly told him there was no point talking to me and he must make offers to his bankers.
Also Read: Jaitley refutes Mallya's claim; says never gave appointment for meeting
Rahul Gandhi also questioned Arun Jaitleys silence for almost two-and-a-half years over his alleged meeting with Mallya.
Yesterday (Wednesday), Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said that Vijay Mallya had formally approached him in Parliament. He writes lengthy blogs but why did he not mention any of this before? the Congress chief asked.
New Delhi: The External Affairs Ministry Wednesday dismissed reports that West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee was denied permission to visit Chicago to attend the world Hindu conference.
Spokesperson of the ministry Raveesh Kumar said the government did not receive any request for clearance for her visit.
"We did not receive any request for clearance regarding the visit of Ms Mamata Banerjee to Chicago for the event. The reports about the denial of permission are, therefore, not true," he said in response to a question on the reports.
The West Bengal chief minister had on Wednesday said, "I wanted to go to Chicago... I could not go there because of an unholy conspiracy hatched by certain people. This incident has given me a lot of pain."
She had made the comment at a gathering in Belur Math, the global headquarters of the Ramakrishna Math and Mission, to mark 125th anniversary of Swami Vivekananda's historic speech at the Parliament of the World's Religions held in Chicago.
We are reviewing (Chabahar project) in the context, in particular of Afghanistan, and in the spirit that the idea of our sanctions are not to punish partners or to imperil partners, but to bring a price tag for Iran's malign behaviour," Alice Wells, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia said. (Photo: File | AP)
Washington: The Trump administration, which is determined to impose fresh set of sanctions on Iran and countries and entities engaged in business with Tehran, is currently reviewing India's development of the strategically important Chabahar port in the Islamic Republic, a senior government official has said.
The Chabahar port is being considered a gateway to golden opportunities for trade by India, Iran and Afghanistan with central Asian countries besides ramping up trade among the three countries in the wake of Pakistan denying transit access to New Delhi.
"We are reviewing (Chabahar project) in the context, in particular of Afghanistan, and in the spirit that the idea of our sanctions are not to punish partners or to imperil partners, but to bring a price tag for Iran's malign behaviour," Alice Wells, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia, told a Washington audience.
"As we review the issue of Chabahar, it'll be in the context of what it provides for the stabilisation of Afghanistan or for the kind of regional connectivity that serves other interests as well. But it's an ongoing process of review," Wells said in response to a question at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a top American think-tank.
Last month, President Donald Trump issued a strong warning to anyone trading with Iran, following his re-imposition of sanctions on the country.
During the recently held 2+2 Dialogue, Wells said the US emphasised the administration's resolve to impose sanctions on Iran and voiced its expectation that its partners will work to reduce oil imports from the oil-rich Islamic Republic to zero. Wells said the Trump administration is very focused on bringing Iranian oil exports down to zero by November. As such, the US officials have had a detailed conversation both with the Indian private sector and the Indian counterparts to discuss what this means and what steps the US is taking to ensure the adequate supply.
"Obviously, India is quite sensitive to price fluctuations," she said, acknowledging that particularly in an election year, this is a very important issue.
"We've already seen a reduction underway over the last month. There's been a substantial reduction (in India's purchase of oil from Iran). I think the private sector responds to a risk and concern over consequences. So I think that's going to be there. You're going to see a clear response from the private sector in that regard and will continue our conversations with the government of India," she said.
David F Helvey, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defence for Asian and Pacific Security Affairs, said that the Trump administration is committed to implementing all provisions of Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA), which imposes sanctions on countries and entities making major arms deal with Russia. A recent amendment has the provision of a presidential waiver in some cases.
"We are working with our partners, including India, and talking to them about ways to encourage them to avoid potentially, sanctionable acquisitions or activities. So those conversations are ongoing," he said, noting that he can't really get into details or the specifics of what those conversations are.
"With respect to the waiver provision in National Defence Authorisation Act (NDAA)fundamentally though this is a provision that allows the president to make these determinations. I'm not going to get ahead of the president how he may or may not exercise that authority," he said.
"But I do think it's just important to know that the purpose of the sanctions is not to punish our allies or our partners or damage their military capabilities. (The purpose) is to impose costs and consequences on Russia for its behaviour. This is a complicated issue. We are having the conversation with India and all our partners. But I'm not gonna speculate on how, when, or where, or if, that waiver provision would be employed," Helvey said.
Responding to a question, Helvey said the Trump administration recognises that there's a considerable amount of India's legacy force structures of Russian origin or other defense partners of India.
"I'm part of the process of working with the Indians to make sure that we've got the right assurance and mechanisms in place to ensure that our defence technology, which is hard to come by and based on investment of considerable resources to develop the type of technology that we have, that we want to put in the field with our forces, our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines, to make sure that they have the best equipment," he said.
"We're willing to share that with our partners and we just have to make sure that we have the right types of assurances with that. So when you have agreements, whether it's COMCASA (Communications Compatibility and Security Agreement) or others, that allow us to have that confidence that gives us the space to be able to move forward and look at where we can do," he said.
The two countries are looking at co-development and co-production in the defence technology and trade initiative or even just looking at ways to have the right type of interoperability and that's what the COMCASA agreement allows.
Kerala CM earlier demanded Rs 2,000 crore on an immediate-basis from the Centre, while pegging losses at around Rs 20,000 crore. (Photo: File)
New Delhi: BJP MP Udit Raj has suggested that the "gold and wealth" of three prominent temples in Kerala could be used for helping the people of the state which was devastated by floods last month.
"The Gold & Wealth of Padmanabha,Sabarimala,Guruvayur is more than 1 lakh crores & to compensate the losses of 21 thousand Crores is for less than temples wealth. What is use of such and wealth. When people are dying and crying (sic)," the Dalit leader said in a tweet.
The Gold & Wealth of Padmanabha,Sabarimala,Guruvayur
is more than 1 lakh crores & to compensate the losses of 21 thousand Crores is for less than temples wealth. What is use of such and wealth. When people are dying and crying. Dr. Udit Raj, MP (@Dr_Uditraj) September 11, 2018
The North West Delhi MP has urged the public to make this demand. Over 400 people died in the deluge in Kerala last month and massive rebuilding efforts are underway at present.
The centre has released Rs 600 crore to the flood-hit state. Various state governments have donated to help Kerala.
Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan earlier demanded Rs 2,000 crore on an immediate-basis from the Centre, while pegging losses at around Rs 20,000 crore.
Bengaluru: Rattled by reports that a bloc of Congress MLAs led by the powerful Jarkiholi brothers of Belagavi are planning to jump ship and back the opposition BJP, KPCC president Dinesh Gundurao on Wednesday paraded some of the disgruntled MLAs before the media.
The MLAs B. Nagendra, Anand Singh and Pratapgouda Patilwho were seen with the Jarkiholi brothers on Tuesday, accompanied Mr Gundurao to the KPCC office and asserted that they were still in the Congress and had no intention to quit the party.
Speaking to reporters, Mr Gundurao said, "Contrary to media reports that our MLAs are planning to quit the party, some BJP MLAs are in touch with us. But we have not yet initiated any move to get them to our side yet. If the BJP tries to harm us, we will not keep quiet."
Commenting on the machinations of the Jarkiholi brothers, he said, "they enjoy good ties with Mr Singh, Mr Nagendra and Mr Patil and many more in our party. As party colleagues, they keep meeting often. There is nothing much to read into it."
At this juncture, Mr Nagendra, Mr Singh and Mr Patil too made it clear that they had never been in touch with the BJP and they were not aware why their names had kept cropping up in the media.
The Jarkiholi brothers are upset with Water Resources Minister D.K. Shivakumar for trying to challenge their supremacy in Belagavi district through his aide and MLA Lakshmi Hebbalkar. The siblings were made to accept candidates of the Hebbalkar camp in the recent Primary Land Development(PLD) Bank elections in Belagavi, which has reportedly infuriated them.
The brothers claim the support of eight MLAs and are in touch with the BJP fuelling speculation about the stability of the Kumaraswamy government. Former minister Satish Jarkiholi justified thn Legislators claim they never contacted BJPeir moves saying, "factionalism is found in all parties. Our faction is of like-minded people."
"We have faith that party seniors will resolve the issues. I met Mr Gundurao to discuss how to stop this because negative reports damage the party. Mr. Gundurao has sought two days' time to discuss the matter," he said. Ruling out the possibility of quitting the Congress, Satishs brother and Municipal Administration Minister Ramesh Jarkiholi told reporters, "There is no question of me quitting the party. I am very much in the Congress. I met Mr Mallikarjun Kharge, who is a father figure to me and explained the situation to him. I have full faith in our seniors who will set things right." Meanwhile, Deputy Chief Minister Dr G. Parameshwar termed reports about the government collapsing as mere speculation. " Yesterday Ramesh Jarkiholi had contacted me. He gave me some suggestions. There was nothing like a threat to topple the government if their demands were not met," he said but did not elaborate on what the Jarkiholis had demanded. Sources said the Jarkiholi brothers have told the state leadership that they would brook no interference from "outsiders" in their district and had demanded a key post for Satish, who is a ministerial aspirant. Speculation is also rife in political circles that the brothers are making these moves at the behest of former chief minister Siddaramaiah, with whom they are close, to
contain Mr D.K. Shivakumar's rising influence.
...but bjp says wait and watch
Even as the ruling Congress party put up a brave face parading its MLAs on Wednesday to dismiss rumours of some of them crossing over to the BJP, the saffron party claimed several Congress MLAs had approached them and 'dozens were planning to resign soon.' BJP leaders also dismissed Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy's claim that five of their party MLAs were in touch with him and had offered to support the JD(S)-Congress coalition government. They alleged that Mr Kumaraswamy and KPCC president, Dinesh Gundurao were trying to create confusion in BJP ranks by "desperately spreading such rumours."
Trot Insider has compiled this comprehensive report from Day 4 of the proceedings in regard to the civil lawsuit that a group of Ontario Standardbred breeders has filed against the Province of Ontario and the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation over the cancellation of the former Slots at Racetracks Program.
Monday (Sept. 10) marked the first day of court hearings in the civil suit (Seelster Farms Inc. v Her Majesty The Queen In Right Of Ontario) which is taking place at the A. Grenville and William Davis Courthouse, located at 7755 Hurontario St. in Brampton, Ont.
The breeders' lawyers, from Lax OSullivan Lisus Gottlieb LLP in Toronto, had been presenting the Plaintiffs factum as part of their Motion for Summary Judgment since Monday. The lawyers finished presenting their motion Thursday afternoon, at which point the lawyers representing the Province of Ontario took their turn and started to present their Motion for Summary Judgment.
To read Trot Insiders coverage from Day 2 and 3, please utilize the corresponding links which appear below.
Tuesday, September 11
Wednesday, September 12
Thursdays proceedings (Day 4) got underway at 10:00 a.m. Trot Insider's recap of the Day 4 proceedings appear below.
Testimony continued on Thursday morning in the case of Standardbred breeders vs. The Government of Ontario and the OLG, with the plaintiffs stressing that the plan to phase out the Slots at Racetracks Program was done without consultation with the industry, despite government claims that there was extensive consultation.
Lisus, representing the Ontario breeders, began the day pointing out evidence to the court that there was no consultation or study with respect to either a three-year or five-year phase out of the Slots at Racetracks Program.
Lisus quoted testimony from Rod Phillips, who was the president and CEO of the OLG at the time, about whether or not there was any consultation prior to "going to zero."
Phillips said in testimony that there was not any consultation with the horse racing industry by OLG and there was no consultation that he was aware of by the government related specifically to the end of the horse racing revenue sharing program.
According to Lisus, cabinet stated that there was "extensive stakeholder consultation and market analysis" when, in fact, the industry was never spoken to regarding it.
Lisus also quoted Minister Dwight Duncan in question period in the Ontario Legislature on April 26, 2012 stating that there was extensive consultation about the decision being made. Lisus said that, in fact, there was not any consultation with the industry to end the program.
Lisus stated that after announcing the decision, the government began a "very regrettable" and harmful campaign to speak negatively about the horse racing and breeding industry.
According to Lisus, the Auditor General in her report said the Minister of Finance and Chief of Staff went to Finance staff to inform them that they would be going to zero on horse racing and remove all funding and a "complete exit," and funding to the horse racing industry be eliminated, not reduced.
Lisus said that decision came after a meeting between Duncan, McGuinty and Shortill on February 3, 2012, despite cabinet deciding earlier to a three-year phase out plan.
After a short morning break, plaintiff lawyer Ian Matthews, representing the Standardbred breeders, argued that the obligation of 20 per cent of slot revenues going to the industry, agreed upon in the original Slots at Racetracks Letter of Intent, still remains in force.
He argued that the signed letter of intent, guaranteeing 20 per cent of slot revenues to the industry, is an enforceable agreement. He further argued that the only agreement the industry entered into was the letter of intent.
According to the plaintiffs, the letter of intent was the only document signed by Ontario Horse Racing Industry Association (OHRIA), which did not sign any siteholder agreements.
Addressing the question of whether the Standardbred breeders could seek to enforce the benefits of the letter of intent when they are not specifically mentioned in the letter of intent, the plaintiffs argued that OHRIA was clearly "representing all segments of the horse racing industry."
In addition, that letter of intent was signed by a director of Standardbred Canada. The plaintiffs, when asked by the judge if any Standardbred breeders signed the letter of intent, indicated that Standardbred Canada is the national breed organization that represents Standardbred breeders.
According to the plaintiffs, it is the letter of intent that holds the parties to the 20 per cent commitment. The siteholder agreements signed with racetracks may implement the core of that bargain, but also deal with private matters between the OLG and racetracks. "The 20 per cent bargain was established in the letter of intent and it remains in force."
The plaintiffs raised a number of case law examples where letters of intent were deemed to have been agreements.
According to the plaintiffs, the letter of intent is an enforceable agreement, explaining that a letter of intent can be enforceable if a reasonable person would contend that the parties intended to contract when they signed the letter of intent.
The plaintiffs argued that the test is whether the parties conducted themselves as if they had an agreement, and, yes, the parties did so for 14 years.
Matthews noted that nowhere in the siteholder agreements does it indicate that the siteholder agreement overrides the letter of intent. Instead, the siteholder agreement in fact refers to the letter of intent.
According to Matthews, the only document that the industry is a party to is the letter of intent and the addendum of the letter of intent, which indicates that 20 per cent of slot revenues are to be paid to the industry.
The plaintiffs argued that there was a deal (20 per cent) with the industry, and the breeders were not party to the siteholder agreements.
Matthews pointed out that there are still numerous racetracks in Ontario with slot machines, yet the industry is not currently sharing 20 per cent of revenues as clearly defined in the letter of intent.
The plaintiffs point out that the letter of intent has no termination provision and no termination date.
The plaintiffs point out case law about what happens when there is no termination date noted. The words "trust and confidence" were noted.
Addressing how much notice would be expected to potentially terminate an agreement of this sort, the plaintiffs said, "breeding a horse is a five-year investment and the evidence is abundant that the defendants knew that."
Thus, the plaintiffs concluded that the news release that the end of SARP would happen after a one-year period was in breach of the letter of intent.
The lawyers representing the plaintiff breeders concluded their testimony on Thursday afternoon at 3:10 p.m. by speaking about the immediate and long-term damages suffered by Ontario breeders as a result of the cancellation of the Slots at Racetracks Program.
Upon the conclusion of the plaintiff testimony, the Province of Ontario began its defence. The province is one of two defendants in the case. The OLG will present its defence afterward.
The position put forward by the lawyer representing the province of Ontario was that Cabinet decided to terminate SARP with one year's notice. Because of the one-year notice, there was a year before the SARP money dried up. During that one year there was a panel to determine transition.
The defence argued that no one has the right to public funds and that the plaintiffs do not have a case in court.
According to the province's defence, there were no misrepresentations and the plaintiffs do not have any contractual rights. The only contracts are the siteholder agreements between the OLG and the individual racetracks and it is not an issue that the plaintiffs are not signatories to these agreements.
After speaking for less than 15 minutes, the defence argued that they could simply sit down at this point, but because of the claims made by the plaintiffs, they will instead address them.
The defence claimed that "there is a lot of noise" and the claims are not legally relevant for the purposes of the plaintiff claims, submitting that it is not the court's responsibility to grade the policy choices made by cabinet in the legislature; and that while one of the tasks of the court is to decide if the policy decision was irrational or made in bad faith, "It is abundantly clear there is no evidence that the court could come to this decision."The government concluded the afternoon session by stating that it is the position of the province, and the OLG, that the letter of intent signed in 1998 is not a contract.
According to the defence, the Honourable Chris Hodgson signed for Ontario. He was a cabinet minister.
"Our position with respect to SARP is that 'fundamentally, SARP was a policy to allow slots in racetracks in order to benefit the horse racing industry and the rural economy through contracts between OLG and racetracks that contained one-year termination clauses.'"
Following the statement, the judge asked the defence that if the Slots at Racetracks Program was a policy, why was it a letter of intent with all parties signing, rather than an edict from the government?
The defence attorney called the question "an excellent question" that she was not sure of the answer to. "Perhaps, I don't know, to get everyone motivated?"
The defence subsequently stated that SARP was put into a formal document in 1998 in the cabinet minutes, and then through siteholder agreements with the racetracks.
"These siteholder agreements are the only contracts. There are no other ones," stated the defence.
According to the defence, the Sadinsky report, while it does not recommend termination of SARP, does set out a number of perceived flaws with SARP, which helped educate decisions later made.
The case will continue on Friday.
Sweden, which was once almost a byword for European social democracy, flirting with the far right evokes a sense of despair.
During the summer, some opinion polls suggested that Sweden Democrats, an organisation with neo-Nazi origins including a co-founder who was a Waffen SS veteran, could win one-fourth of the vote and possibly emerge as the largest party in the Swedish parliament, or Riksdag.
Thankfully, that did not happen when Swedes voted last Sunday. The Social Democrats managed to maintain their century-old tradition of top-scoring at the ballot box, but with only 28.4 per cent of the vote, their least impressive tally since 1917. The mainstream conservative Moderates scored 19.8 per cent, not far ahead of the far-right Sweden Democrats 17.6 per cent. The result leaves the broadly left and right alliances, which include a number of smaller parties, with roughly 40 per cent each of seats in the Riksdag, and although both sides have balked at the idea of collaborating with the Sweden Democrats, the possibility of the latter informally backing a right-wing government may well come to pass. The obvious alternative is a centrist coalition transcending the ideological divide.
In several nations in the neighbourhood, meanwhile, conservative forces have been open to collaboration with the far right, and it would be disappointing if Sweden were to go the same way. Like many of their counterparts across Europe, the Sweden Democrats have relied on whipping up angst over the mid-decade influx of refugees. In 2015, the country accepted 163,000 asylum-seekers, which was more generous, per head of population, than any other European nation, including Germany.
The Sweden Democrats have sought to spruce up their image under the leadership of Jimmie Akesson, denying neo-Nazi links and decrying racism, but the white supremacism that underpins their ideas often proves hard to disguise. Inevitably, it often takes the shape of a particular bias against all manner of Muslims. Sweden began losing its reputation for relative egalitarianism some three decades ago, when both sides of politics opted for neoliberal orthodoxy, so its hardly surprising that inequality has seeped in. And its all too easy for the Social Democrats to blame it primarily on the level of immigration which, mind you, has dwindled dramatically in the past couple of years.
In Germany, too, the rise of the far right exemplified by the level of support that enabled Alternative for Germany to become the main opposition party in the Bundestag has been based on fears over immigration. The eruption in Chemnitz late last month, which incorporated the Nazi salutes mentioned at the outset, came after an Iraqi and a Syrian were accused of stabbing to death a German-Cuban during an altercation. It is believed that the chargesheet against one of the culprits was leaked by the police. Not long afterwards, the head of Germanys domestic intelligence agency challenged chancellor Angela Merkels denunciation of neo-Nazis chasing suspected immigrants down the streets of Chemnitz by decrying it as deliberate misinformation. His intervention lends credence to the suspicion of surreptitious collaboration between the far right and elements in the police and other security agencies, as well as within Merkels Christian Democrats and some of their allies.
The worst aspects of Europe have for a while been in evidence in what was once the Eastern European bloc, not least in Hungary and Poland, but lately they have been spreading westwards, notably to Italy and France but also to Germany and Sweden.
Although previously totalitarian states have exhibited a greater eagerness to lean towards the far right, the contagion has spread far beyond the former Soviet satellites.
Sweden and Germany are not yet lost causes and may reclaim their better natures, but Europes direction cannot be dissociated from the Trump-Putin context.
By arrangement with Dawn
H10
The deep state or establishment, as the Pakistani military is pejoratively referred to in that country, was supposed to have thrown its crucial weight behind Imran Khans recent electoral success. The lurking shadow of the Pakistani generals in the garrison city of Rawalpindi had always loomed large for the past 10 years, even as the civilian governments alternated between the PPP first, and then the PML(N). The facade of civilian control was maintained even as the generals routinely intervened to rap the knuckles of the politicians each time the Pakistani military felt that the politicos had overstepped the red lines, and particularly so on India, Afghanistan and on matters pertaining to admittance of sovereign complicities. The generals had also not shied away from propping up political alternatives, as the hand of Rawalpindi was visible during the politically crippling Azadi March, where the Pakistani military propped up, nudged and posited Imran Khans Tehreek-e-Insaf onto the centrestage of the public and political imagination.
Now Prime Minister Imran Khan has the delicate and onerous task of morphing from a rabid Opposition leader to a mature statesman, who must steer the crumbling Pakistani socio-economic destiny, while keeping the establishment on his side. Politically, Imran Khan has both the numbers in Parliament and a full five-year term ahead of him to effect changes. Unlike the PPP or the PML(N), he carries no personal baggage of institutional tensions with the Pakistani military. Psychologically and philosophically, Imran Khans pan-Pakistani persona and modernist moorings (irrespective of his public positions on some regressive matters like the blasphemy laws, Ahmediyas, etc) are more in tune with the westernised Pakistani military, as opposed to the feudal-regional appeal of the Sindh-centric PPP or the religious-conservatism of the PML(N). The real challenge for Imran Khan is therefore to reset (the term suggested by the recent American delegation) the Pakistani narrative, will depend on the dexterity, urgency and steadfastness in steering the societal, economic, civil, and even diplomatic changes, without touching the hyper-sensitive toes of the Pakistani generals.
Early optics suggests a more collaborative and inclusive politico-military approach. Unlike earlier times, when Pakistans civilian leaders and Army House held separate meetings with the visiting foreign delegations, Prime Minister Imran Khan held a joint meeting at his house, with the Army Chief in tow, for his first formal US-Pakistan engagement with US secretary of state Mike Pompeo, chairman of joint chiefs of staff Gen. Joseph Dunford and US special adviser on Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad. Then for all his posturing on austerity and anti-ostentation declarations, Imran Khan was understandably silent on the second largest government expense military budgets. Even with the recent spike of 20 per cent in its budgetary allocation a few months back, the undebated, disproportionately large and unaudited military budget remained strictly off limits for Imran Khans corrective discourse. For a country reeling under an unsustainable annual bill of $24 billion for sovereign debt servicing, the thriving civilian enterprises of the Pakistani military and the generals themselves that pay negligible taxes found no mention in the Prime Ministers national address.
The suggested reset, or recalibration, could take form of an inevitable quid pro quo, where Imran Khan could selectively and visibly pull back from meddling in Afghanistan affairs in order to pacify the Americans and reinstate US aid. ISI-patronised terror groups like the Haqqani Network, which have a specific Afghanistan mandate, have a residual, collateral and regressive impact of radicalisation and weaponsiation on the Pakistani side of the Durand Line that often spills violently onto its benefactors the Pakistani military. Islamabad is already cornered by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) notices wherein it faces further punitive prospects by getting blacklisted. However, the same reset approach would not be extended to the India-focused terrorist groups in deference to the Pakistani militarys institutional necessity of retaining a formidable enemy and justifying its fat purse. But surrendering Pakistans strategic depth in Afghanistan could settle many issues immediately hounding Pakistan, and the generals too may not be averse beyond a point, given the circumstances and the known unreliability of terror groups, especially after the flush-out drives like Operation Zarb-e-Azb.
In enlisting support for this reset, Imran Khan may well find dealing with the generals a lot more straightforward than managing the ambitions and concerns of his own partymen and their agendas, most of whom are ship-jumping electables from other parties. Societally, conservative elements and the clergy too could put spokes in the plan, however much Pakistans military clamps down on any overt dissent in its inimitable manner. The Pakistani military and its generals in particular are used to a certain Western-style liberalism, freedom and luxury, which they know fully well will certainly not remain as forthcoming in case the Pakistani nation goes belly-up and in full control of the Chinese with whom the Pakistanis have no civilisational, cultural or even religious commonality. The financially-powerful, historically benevolent and the still-very-relevant sheikhdoms of the Middle East would also be amenable to a thaw and re-engagement with the United States.
India in general and Kashmir in particular will remain the emotional epicentre and the coalescing factor for various Pakistani institutions, and beyond a point the Americans will restrict their aid-linked threats only to the Afghanistan theatre. Contrary to the promised reciprocity in if India takes one step, Pakistan will take two, any portents of peace in Kashmir would delegitimise Pakistans genealogical two-nation theory. Peace with India (especially after an imminent step-back in Afghanistan) would completely render the Pakistani military irrelevant and unnecessarily burdensome a wholly unacceptable perception by Pakistans generals. Unfortunately, the tenor and approach of Pakistans new PM towards India is person-agnostic. However, the generals will support the anti-corruption, anti-feudal and socio-economic corrections that dont interfere with its military sensitivities. Imran Khan has visibly toned down his Opposition-leader spiels and avoided taking belligerent positions, as the writing of the unavoidable reset is on the wall, and the leeway to do so by the Pakistani generals will only be in parts.
H10
The deep distress that Indias banking system is mired in cant be stressed enough and the government will do well to take seriously the suggestions by former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan. He had suggested to the then UPA government and the PMO that banks be distanced from the government and professionalised. Interestingly, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said on taking over in 2014 that the days of banks getting phone calls from New Delhi would be over. If this has actually happened, its a good thing. If not, as is more likely, Mr Modi should look into it.
Whats intriguing is that Mr Rajan gave the PMO a list of fraudsters and suggested that if one or two of them were punished, it would send a strong message to others. But Mr Modi failed to act on this, and such inaction by a Prime Minister who came to power on the plank of anti-corruption seems inexplicable. It adds muscle to the suit-boot sarkar accusation by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi.
Its truly a matter of concern that one-third of 21 PSU banks are headless because the panel headed by the Prime Minister is yet to clear CEO appointments. Also, three of them dont have a chief executive for the past seven months. The only conclusion is that banks are still tied to the governments apron strings.
The government is yet to relinquish control by bringing down its majority stake in several PSU banks as recommended by the P.J. Nayak Committee, which was appointed by the RBI to improve corporate governance in banks. The government, however, must be credited for constituting the Banks Board Bureau, which was to recommend the selection of chiefs for banks and financial institutions. This body had in 2016 recommended the names of 14 candidates to the Centre, but the Appointment Committee of Cabinet, headed by the Prime Minister, is yet to take a call. This is a sad state of affairs as it defeats the purpose of appointing such a board.
Public sector banks are saddled with losses of Rs 79,000 crores and bad loans for just 2017-18 amount to Rs 8.6 lakh crores. The magnitude of the loss due to bad loans can be imagined as its equal to one-third of the nations annual budget of Rs 24.4 lakh crores, while PSBs losses are equivalent to the agriculture budget, which is Rs 58,000 crores. The PSBs also lost Rs 25,775 crores due to frauds. If one goes by the recent Punjab National Bank case, where diamantaire Nirav Modi and his uncle Mehul Choksi cheated it of Rs 13,000 crores, it was evident they could do this with the help of low-level bank insiders.
If banks were professionalised, perhaps these frauds would not take place or at least they would be marginal as professionals are more vigilant and would be held accountable.
H10
No Christian celebration can ever be complete without a Cross being at its centre since Christians believe that Jesus Christs death on the Cross and his resurrection brought salvation to the world. (Photo: Pixabay)
Some readers may or may not be quite aware of the difference between a Cross and crucifix. Most of the churches or buildings have a Cross mounted on it which do not have the crucified figure of Jesus Christ on it. The crucifix, however, normally found inside a church or a building is a Cross having also the image of Jesus on it.
A Cross and/or crucifix is a certain sign to recognise if one is a Christian or if it is a Christian institution. Though it is also true that neither everyone wearing a Cross is Christian nor the other way round, i.e. that every Christian or Christian institution would have it displayed. But no Christian celebration can ever be complete without a Cross being at its centre since Christians believe that Jesus Christs death on the Cross and his resurrection brought salvation to the world.
While the churches celebrate various festive and holy days associated with the salvific Cross of Christ, the feast on September 14 is known as the Exaltation of the Cross. The feast recalls three significant historical events: the finding of the True Cross by Saint Helena, emperor Constantines mother; the dedication of churches built by Constantine on the site of the Holy Sepulchre and Mount Calvary; and the restoration of the Cross to Jerusalem.
According to the tradition, Saint Helena decided, under divine inspiration, to travel to Jerusalem in 326 to look for the True Cross on which Jesus was crucified. Paradoxically a certain Judas led those excavating to the spot where it was hidden. To celebrate the discovery of the Holy Cross, Constantine ordered the construction of churches at the site. Those churches were dedicated on September 13 and 14, in 335. Thereafter the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross began to be celebrated on 14. The feast slowly spread from Jerusalem to other churches, until, by the year 720, the celebration became universal.
In the early Seventh century, Persian king Khosrau II captured this Cross and took it to Persia. But after Khosraus defeat by Emperor Heraclius II in 629, Heraclius restored it to Jerusalem. Tradition says that he carried the Cross on his own back, but a strange force stopped him from entering the church on Mount Calvary. Patriarch Zacharias of Jerusalem, seeing the emperor struggle, advised him to take off his crown and robes and to dress in a penitential robe instead. As soon as Heraclius did that, he was able to carry the Cross into the church.
The Cross of Jesus has been both, a sign of contradiction for nailing the incarnate word of God on it, while at the same time it is the definitive sign of Gods total and unconditional love for humanity shared with us by the same Jesus.
B09
Indian diplomacy backed only by soft power is facing many challenges with its neighbours Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Myanmar and Nepal increasingly coming under Chinese influence, while Pakistan, which is being courted by Russia and China, seeks to get back into the good books of the United States, whose unpredictable President Donald Trump has to decide if India is a strategic partner when he takes a decision on waiving sanctions due to Countering Americas Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) as India imports arms from Russia and oil from Iran. Hopefully, India has a Plan B to cater for a worst-case scenario, despite the recent signing of Communications Compatibility and Security Agreement (Comcasa) in New Delhi.
What does a nation do when confronted by a rising hegemonic power, China, which is adding two blue-water warships to its Navy every month, after successive Indian governments have degraded its military capability and its scientists cannot make even a decent rifle for its troops, and it faces American sanctions like CAATSA for procuring Russian arms or needs to bring its Iranian energy imports to zero by November 4, 2018?
India did what it could do diplomatically: invited the mercurial US President to be the chief guest for the 2019 Republic Day parade (he has not confirmed attendance yet); signed the Helicopter Operations from Ships other Than Aircraft Carriers (HOSTAC); cleared imports of 24 MH-70 multi-role ship-borne helicopters (worth about $2 billion); indicated willingness to import an American missile shield for protecting Delhi against a 9/11-type terror attack (worth $1 billion) and on September 6, 2018 signed the Comcasa during the inaugural 2+2 dialogue in New Delhi. It agreed to have a hotline between the Indian foreign and defence ministers and their American counterparts, conduct the first-ever Indo-US tri-service military exercise in 2019 off the Indian east coast, depute an Indian Navy officer to the United States Naval Forces Central Command (NAVCENT), which deals with US Navy operations in the Middle East and Afghanistan. The Americans agreed to push for Indias entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group, while both issued a statement against Pakistan-sponsored terror. Also, the US secretary of state has said that the US understands the Indian need for Russian arms and time needed to unwind from Iranian oil imports the ultimate decision of course rests with President Trump.
India has now signed two of the three foundational agreements (Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement or LEMOA in 2016 and Comcasa in 2018) and is expected to sign Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement for Geo-spatial Cooperation (BECA) in the future. All these will permit India as a major defence partner to import new American technology, receive the latest tactical pictures in real time from American units to American-origin Indian platforms like warships, naval P8I LRMP aircraft, MH-70 ship-borne helicopters, Sea Guardian armed drones, and IAF aircraft like C17, C130, Chinook heavy-lift helicopters, etc. The US is the global leader in satellite reconnaissance, electronic intelligence (ELINT) gathering, maritime domain awareness (MDA), anti-submarine warfare (ASW) and amphibious warfare. Thus, the Indian Navy would be major beneficiary from these real-time intelligence inputs, which would provide information on the location of Chinese warships, submarines in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) and rest of Indo-Pacific Region (IPR), and also the daily location of about 70 supertankers which each carry over 100,000 tonnes of crude oil to China from the Middle East via the Sunda and Lombok straits.
Thus, given the accurate real-time inputs, the limited assets of the Indian Navy could be optimally employed to locate and track Chinese warships, subs, merchant ships in the vast IOR. Of course, the Americans would expect reciprocal inputs from the Indian Navy via the new IN-USN communications data links. The important issue for the IN would be to have safe and secure communications-cum-data links with its other non-American origin units, particularly its largely Russian-origin submarine force of conventional and nuclear subs, while having a data interface between its own units of American origin and non-American origin units. Another likely sticky point which would need to be resisted in the future maybe proposed American agreement to share details of IN submarine patrol areas in the interest of underwater space management, similar to what the Americans have with Japan and the UK, but not France. Further, Russia (which like Japan) also wants a LEMOA agreement with India, may also insist on a Comcasa and BECA-type agreements for strategic reasons, since it supplies 62 per cent of Indian military hardware, and is the only supplier to India of nuclear subs (SSNs), long-range SAMs like SA400, nuclear power plants, oil and gas, and assists in Indian space exploration.
Incidentally, India and France also signed a LEMOA-type agreement this year.
The next two months are crucial for India. President Vladimir Putin is expected to arrive in New Delhi in October for a summit meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the two countries are expected to sign a $12 billion deal for S-400, an SSN on lease, four frigates, and light utility Kamov helicopters. The US Senate has authorised President Trump to waive off CAATSA sanctions for India, Indonesia and Vietnam. Its to be seen if President Trump does authorise this waiver. In any case, India, the US and Russia will need to work out long-term agreements to avoid this Damocles sword of CAATSA. India imports over 23 per cent of its energy needs from Iran and is poised to take over management of strategic Chabahar port shortly to get strategic access to Afghanistan and the Central Asian Republics (CAR). A high-level Iranian team was recently in New Delhi to negotiate modalities to continue trade after the November 4, 2018 deadline (when the US will sanction those trading with Iran).
Their is no doubt that India has bargained hard to protect its national interests: LEMOA covers basically fuel transfers in port or at sea in only four conditions viz port calls, joint exercises, training and humanitarian assistance and disaster relief. Any other requirements have to be mutually agreed on a case by case basis. The planned 2019 first-ever Indo-US tri-service exercise, off the east coast of India, is being done after India did a similar first ever tri-service exercise with Russia in Vladivostok a few months back.
And herein lies the challenge to Indian diplomacy how to manage strategic relations with long-term partner Russia (which is still not only the largest military supplier to India, but the only supplier of strategic platforms like nuclear subs and does transfer of technology or ToT) while increasing strategic ties with the US (which has sold over $17 billion worth of arms to India in the last decade, but has done no ToT).
Indias problems are further aggravated by its focus on diplomacy without hard power. Chinas meteoric economic-cum-military rise with border disputes, a bankrupt and unstable nuclear-armed Pakistan, which is being courted by China, Russia and American focus on issues beyond rising China (Russia and Iran are seen as American enemies, while they are important to India).
Indeed, the present situation brings to mind the competition between European sea powers (Portuguese, French and British, etc) in the IOR after Vasco da Gama landed in Calicut, India, in 1498, who fought amongst themselves and against the shortsighted, strategically clueless sea blind leaders of the subcontinent, and finally colonised this land. History repeats itself is an old saying, and hopefully our leaders recognise the triple threats from terror, China and Pakistan, diplomatically manage strategic ties with the US and Russia while urgently focusing on creating an Indian military-industrial complex, carry out military reforms, review our no first use nuclear doctrine and plug the loopholes in our national security apparatus. And yes, have a Plan B, in case President Trump imposes any sanctions on India for its trade with Russia and Iran.
B09
Googles new investment is in addition to the $150 million it spent to build the centre.
Google will invest $140 million to expand the tech giants sole data centre in Latin America, a development Chiles president hailed on Wednesday as proof of the countrys enthusiastic participation in the fourth industrial revolution.
The expansion, announced by Google and Chilean officials, represents the companys second stage of growth for the data centre in Quilicura, near Santiago, which became fully operational in 2015. Google said the new investment will triple the data centres size to 11.2 hectares (27.7 acres) and create more than 1,000 new jobs in the construction process and 120 new permanent jobs.
Googles new investment is in addition to the $150 million it spent to build the centre. The company first announced data centre construction plans Chile in 2012, eight months after it opened offices in the country. Since January of 2017, the data centre has operated entirely on solar power from Chiles Atacama region, Google said.
Edgardo Frias, Googles general manager in Chile, said the improved infrastructure that came from establishing a data centre in Chile helped the company develop its capacity in Artificial Intelligence and machine learning.
This new stage reinforces the promise Google made to the region to ensure that large and small companies, non-profit organizations, students, educators and all users can access key tools in a reliable and rapid way, Frias said.
In a show of the importance Chile is placing on developing a digital economy to diversify from its dependence on copper, Chilean President Sebastian Pinera attended the event.
He vowed that Chile will be on the forefront of what he called the current of history in the technology revolution.
What we have to decide is which side are we going to be on: where the new works of the future are created, or where the old works of the past are destroyed, Pinera said.
Googles announcement comes amid conversations between Chiles government and rival Amazon.com Inc about its interest to house and mine massive amounts of data generated by the countrys giant telescopes.
Chile and Argentina, two of South Americas largest economies, have been courting investment from the cloud computing and e-commerce company.
Google executives told Reuters they had looked at a number of different countries as a venue to establish Googles first Latin American data centre and had chosen Chile because of its favourable climate for foreign direct investment, a clear regulatory framework and a good supply of renewable energy resources.
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LG Displays predicament was in many ways one of its own making. (Photo: AP)
The chief executive of South Koreas LG Display, Han Sang-beom, was determined to deliver a strong message when he appeared before 1,000 employees at the firms main manufacturing plant last spring.
So he donned a pair of goggles, picked up a hammer, and smashed a liquid-crystal display screen to bits.
The symbolism was impossible to miss: LCD panels, the companys mainstay for years, were being relegated to the industrial dustbin. The companys future would depend on a newer technology, organic light-emitting diode, or OLED.
Ive never seen him do such a thing, said one company official who was present. His performance showed a grim determination to weather this crisis.
Yet LG Displays predicament was in many ways one of its own making. Less than a year earlier, the company had showered employees with perks and bonuses as profits rolled in, driven by the companys leadership in LCD screens for TVs, computer monitors and smartphones.
But LG Display had misread the market: Chinese competitors were coming on strong, and by early this year prices for LCD screens were plummeting. The fat profits of 2017 turned into big losses in 2018 - and the company abruptly announced in July that it would slash $2.7 billion in capital spending it had planned through 2020.
It did not reveal its total or previous targets but made about $6 billion in capital expenditures in 2017, according to Eikon data.
The companys troubles stand as a stark example of the risks inherent in hotly competitive technology businesses that require massive capital investment.
It seems that LG Display made a major miscalculation on its LCD business, not accurately judging the timing to pull away when they could see Chinas rapid catch-up, said Lee Won-sik, an analyst at Shinyoung Securities.
We knew from last year LCD prices would go down but we did not expect this big and fast fall, acknowledged one LG Display official, who, like others in this article, declined to be identified because he was not authorized to speak to the media. Customers had been asking for price cuts, but we didnt act until it got too late.
LG Display posted five straight years of strong profits after Han took the helm in 2012, riding a tide of LCD screen orders from Apple Inc and strong demand for both phone and TV screens from LG Electronics, which owns more than a third of the display-maker.
LG Display also began to invest in OLED displays, which unlike LCD screens dont require backlighting and can deliver more natural-looking colors. OLED screens also consume less energy and can be bent and folded.
But the technology is expensive, and LG Display was earning the vast majority of its revenue from LCDs. Until its recent cutbacks, it was running eight LCD production lines in South Korea and another in China.
While LG Display hummed along, Chinese companies, led by BOE Technology Group Co Ltd, were pouring huge sums into LCD production.
By January 2017, BOE had become the No. 1 supplier of LCDs larger than 9 inches, according to market tracker IHS Markit, taking 22.3 percent of unit shipments versus 21.6 percent for LG Display. It was the first time a Chinese display maker had taken the top spot.
By early 2018, prices for many types of LCDs were in free-fall. Prices for 50-inch LCD television panels, for example, slid 32 percent in August versus the same month last year, according to IHS Markit.
LG Displays big South Korean rival, the display unit of Samsung Electronics, had begun pulling back from LCD years earlier, shutting down older LCD production lines in South Korea beginning in 2010, according to a Samsung Display official. The company now has just two LCD factories in South Korea and one in China.
But LG Display was caught flat-footed and is now furiously slashing LCD capacity. It has closed three LCD production lines since last year and abandoned plans for a new one.
The company in April also rolled out an emergency management system, with employees being told to use cheaper flights and cut back on group meals, company sources told Reuters. Cash flow has become a concern: it was negative 838.2 billion won ($743.93 million) in the second quarter, according to Eikon data, and has been negative for three straight quarters.
Three company sources say the company is not planning layoffs for fear of losing talent to China, but some employees are frustrated with cuts in benefits.
Executives are trying to keep the morale up, telling us media reports about a voluntary redundancy program are false, a company source with knowledge of the matter said.
LG Display is now betting the house on OLED, and says it can fund $17.6 billion in OLED investments over the next three years. It expects the newer technology to account for 40 percent of revenue by 2020, up from just 10 percent today.
As OLED becomes more prevalent, LG Displays fortunes could turn, analysts say.
LG Displays OLED panels have helped its sibling, LG Electronics, take the lead in high-end televisions. Some analysts believe LG Display has been pressured to supply those panels cheaply, hurting its profitability, though the company denies that is the case.
But the OLED market promises to be tough. Samsung boasts that it has been investing in OLED since 2005. BOE is getting into OLED too. There are also still technical challenges in making large-panel OLED TV screens that dont wear out too quickly, noted Ross Young, CEO of research provider Display Supply Chain Consultants.
Son Young-jun, LG Displays vice president of public relations, said in a statement that the company is the only producer of large-size OLED displays and had unmatched technological expertise in OLED. The potential and outlook ahead is promising, he said.
LG Display says its OLED division will turn a profit in the third quarter. It also expects LCD prices to stabilize, enabling it to squeeze profits from the older technology until the newer one matures.
Given OLED is our answer and solution to the crisis, theres nothing else we can do other than tightening our belts and pushing for OLED, a company official said.
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Peter Yuryevich Levashov, 38, used the Kelihos botnet - a global network of tens of thousands of infected computers - to harvest login credentials.
A Russian man pleaded guilty on Wednesday in US federal court in Connecticut to criminal hacking charges stemming from his operation of the Kelihos botnet, the US Justice Department said in a statement.
Peter Yuryevich Levashov, 38, used the Kelihos botnet - a global network of tens of thousands of infected computers - to harvest login credentials, distribute bulk spam emails, and install ransomware and other malicious software, the department said.
He pleaded guilty to one count each of causing intentional damage to a protected computer, conspiracy, wire fraud and aggravated identity theft, the department said.
Levashov was arrested in Spain in April 2017 and the Justice Department announced in February that he had been extradited to the United States.
He is due to be sentenced on Sept. 6, 2019.
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Myanmar is facing international pressure over atrocities allegedly committed by its military in the crackdown that followed August 2017 attacks by Rohingya militants on security forces. (Representational Image/ AP)
Hanoi: Myanmar's handling of its Rohingya Muslims, 700,000 of whom have fled to Bangladesh amid a brutal counterinsurgency campaign, could have been handled better, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and leader Aung San Suu Kyi said Thursday.
Myanmar is facing international pressure over atrocities allegedly committed by its military in the crackdown that followed August 2017 attacks by Rohingya militants on security forces.
The army is accused of committing mass rape, killings and setting fire to thousands of homes. A report issued two weeks ago by a specially appointed UN human rights team recommended prosecuting senior Myanmar commanders for genocide and other crimes.
"There are of course ways in which with hindsight I think the situation could have been handled better," Suu Kyi said, responding to questions during a one-on-one discussion at the World Economic Forum's regional meeting in Hanoi. She still defended Myanmar security forces, saying that all groups in Rakhine state had to be protected.
"We have to be fair to all sides," Suu Kyi said. "The rule of law must apply to everyone. We cannot choose and pick."
Suu Kyi said the situation was complicated by the myriad ethnic minorities in the area, some of which are at risk of disappearing entirely and which include not just the Muslims and Rakhine Buddhists.
Although the violence in Rakhine state has eased, Myanmar has to deal with its aftermath, especially the repatriation of the Muslim Rohingya who fled and the underlying causes of tension that makes them targets of discrimination and repression in overwhelmingly Buddhist Myanmar.
Suu Kyi said that Myanmar is prepared to take those who fled back, but their return has been complicated by the fact that two governments are involved. Aid workers say conditions for a safe and orderly return of the refugees have not been met.
Suu Kyi also rejected criticism over the show-trial conviction last week of two Reuters news agency reporters who helped expose extrajudicial killings of 10 Rohingya men and boys.
The reporters were both sentenced to seven years' imprisonment on charges of possessing state secrets.
US Vice President Mike Pence is among those who have condemned the verdicts and called for the journalists' release. "The case has been held in open court," Suu Kyi said.
"If anyone feels there has been a miscarriage of justice I would like them to point it out." "They were not jailed because they were journalists. They were jailed because ... the court has decided they have broken the Official Secrets Act," she said. Suu Kyi noted that the two can appeal their sentences.
Francis key cardinal advisers announced the decision Wednesday, a day before Francis meets with US church leaders who have been deeply discredited by the latest accusations in the Catholic Churchs decades-long sex abuse and cover-up scandal. (Photo: File)
Vatican City: Pope Francis is summoning the presidents of every bishops conference around the world for a February summit to discuss preventing clergy sex abuse and protecting children--evidence that he realises the scandal is global and that inaction threatens to undermine his legacy.
Francis key cardinal advisers announced the decision Wednesday, a day before Francis meets with US church leaders who have been deeply discredited by the latest accusations in the Catholic Churchs decades-long sex abuse and cover-up scandal.
The February 21-24 meeting at the Vatican is believed to be the first of its kind, and signals a realisation at the highest levels of the church that clergy sex abuse is a global problem and not restricted to the Anglo-Saxon world, as many church leaders have long tried to insist.
Earlier this year, Francis faced what was then the worst crisis of his papacy when he repeatedly discredited victims of a notorious Chilean predator priest. He eventually admitted to grave errors in judgment and has taken steps to make amends, sanction guilty bishops and remake the Chilean episcopacy.
More recently, Francis papacy has been jolted by accusations from a retired Vatican ambassador that he rehabilitated a top American cardinal from sanctions imposed by Pope Benedict XVI for having molested and harassed adult seminarians.
The Vatican hasnt responded to the accusations by Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, but has promised clarifications that presumably will come sometime after Francis meeting Thursday with the US delegation.
The Vatican said Tuesday the meeting would be headed by Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, head of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, and also include Francis top sex abuse adviser, Cardinal Sean OMalley.
Di Nardo has said he wants Francis to authorise a full-fledged Vatican investigation into ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who was removed as cardinal in July after a credible accusation that he groped a teenager.
The Vatican has known since at least 2000 that McCarrick would invite seminarians to his New Jersey beach house and into his bed.
St John Paul II made him archbishop of Washington and a cardinal in 2001, presumably because Vatican officials were impressed by his fundraising prowess and considered his past homosexual activity a mere moral lapse and not a gross abuse of power.
DiNardo has also said recent accusations that top Vatican officials - including the current pope - covered up for McCarrick since 2000 deserve answers.
Batavia Downs has announced that starting on Wednesday, October 3 and continuing through the end of the meet, all purses will be raised by 10 per cent across the board.
The increase is due to a combination of two factors: there has been a significant rise in handle realized by the track so far this season, plus there were 43 less races contested than last year.
Our on-track betting is up 4.9 per cent and our export handle is up 15.3 per cent after the first 26 cards of racing, said Todd Haight, Batavia Downs director/GM of live racing. By raising purses starting next month it will put approximately $204,000 back into local horsemens pockets, and that, in turn, can help bring new and better racing stock to western New York. Were pleased the numbers are heading in the right direction.
The increase would take the current low-to-high purse structure from $2,750-$10,500 to $3,025-$11,550.
The racing at Batavia has been very aggressive this year, which has provided a better product to wager on and one of the reasons for that was the removal of the passing lane that had been in place since 1988.
There is no question that removing the passing lane has led to more competitive racing, and both on and off track patrons have responded in a positive manner to that change, Haight said. Weve gotten feedback from our customers since the start of the meet and now theyve also made a statement through the betting windows.
The Batavia Downs live meet will continue through Saturday, December 15 with a Wednesday, Friday, Saturday schedule. Post time remains 5 p.m. mid-week and 6 p.m. on the weekends. There will be a special Columbus Day matinee on Monday, October 8 that will start at 1:15 p.m.
(Batavia Downs)
Four people lost their lives and another was seriously injured after their car had a head-on collision with a BMTC Volvo bus near ISRO office on Old Airport Road in eastern Bengaluru on Wednesday.
While the car driver, Laveen (24), and other passengers, Reena (50), Nimmi alias Nirmala (53) and Elsamma (52), died, Sreeja (53) sustained grievous injuries and was admitted to the Vydehi Hospital in a critical condition.
All the victims were residents of Munekolala and Doddanekundi, Marathahalli, police said.
Place of accident
According to the police, the accident occurred around 2.45 pm on the Doddanekundi Road at the Jawaharnagar turn when they were returning from the funeral service of Laveens uncle in Halasuru. Laveens father Joseph who did not attend the funeral said he lost his brother on Tuesday and his son and wife on Wednesday.
The speeding car was trying to overtake another vehicle and collided head-on with the
Volvo bus coming in the opposite direction, police said.
The collision was so severe that the front of the Hyundai Santro, bearing registration number KA 53/Z 1581, was mangled and it took a while for the police to extricate the bodies of Laveen and
Reena. Meanwhile, police pulled out the three women who were seated behind and rushed them to a private hospital.
Quoting the doctors, police said Sreeja was now able to speak but her condition remained critical.
Though none of the bus passengers was injured, the bus driver, Nagesh, sustained minor bruises while applying sudden brakes.
The Old Airport Road traffic police have registered a case against the deceased car driver, booking him for rash and negligent driving causing accidental deaths.
After we rushed to the spot, we confirmed it was the car drivers mistake and not of the BMTC driver and we have registered the case accordingly, said Anupam
Agarwal, DCP Traffic (East).
Director: Shane Black
Cast: Boyd Holbrook, Jacob Tremblay, Olivia Munn
There was an appeal in McTiernans original Predator. At the time, it was not the best-received film, but thankfully, time has been kind to it and it raised itself to one of the best the 80s had to offer, with its complete package of action, tension, great dialogue, comedy and a very, very simple story as its skeleton. Its surprising to note how similar The Predator is to Predator, yet how very different and unwelcoming it feels.
It starts on a very complicated note: Two alien ships are having a dogfight somewhere in space, and before the bigger one can destroy the smaller, it escapes to Earth and crashlands in America, unleashing the Predator we all know into the world...for a few minutes before its captured by the government.
Meanwhile, Quinn McKenna, an Army Ranger, who discovered the existence of the Predator at the bloody cost of his 2 friends, is arrested and thrown into a bus filled with loons. As this is happening, the bigger ship makes its way to Earth with a different occupant.
Director Shane Black (who incidentally starred in the first Predator as well) was given the reins after 2010s Predators failed to excite fans and critics (but clearly made the studio enough money to warrant this attempt) tries his best to create a film that can pass for a Predator film true to the original. It is filled with references to the first film and its sequel in a none-too-subtle fashion.
However, it feels like Black forgot what made Predator such a good watch at least for the most part anyway. While the first film carried a very simple survive the hunt motif with a bit of occasional horror thrown in, The Predator takes a completely different, and unfortunately, detrimental approach; mixing in elements introduced in Predators by way of the 11-feet-tall super Predator and adding a complicated explanation as to why the Predators always took the spines of their kills - and were seen feasting on its contents at one point.
It also foregoes the subtle climate change talk introduced in Predator and goes straight into the deep end of that particular pool, but fails to extract any meaningful value to the film. In addition, the first half of the film could easily be described as a series of very questionable decisions, and while the last 20-ish minutes of The Predator actually manages to reclaim the tension of Predator, it is but a fleeting compensation for being able to make it so far into it.
But thankfully, The Predator does have some merits: It boasts a decent cast, well-written - although sometimes questionable - comedy, and some very tightly played out action. The cast of the film keep themselves in-character from their introduction right to the very end, and some of them actually end up being somewhat endearing to witness. The characters, though very under-developed, manage to remain relevant right up to the very end, bringing in either smarts, brawn or even both. The classic Predator, though given some technical and visual upgrades, also has a presence that has been absent in the series for long, but the super Predator is basically a bad guy for the sake of being one. Despite actually having dialogues, it never elevates itself beyond being a generic antagonistic force to the heroes. Even the dog has more personality than it.
The Predator also features a slightly updated version of the original theme from Predator, courtesy Henry Jackman a welcome addition to the film. It elevates some of the more mediocre parts of the film to bearable and the better parts of the film to a decent watch.
Overall, the film is a shambled mess. It doesnt know what its trying to be or show. Shane Black may be a talented director and a veteran of the series, but even he cant save what is a terribly-written though well-acted, mess.
Score: 2/5
UPPER DARBY A month after areas of the county were flooded from torrential downpours, and days before a hurricane may touch the Philadelphia region, a state emergency manager toured creek ways in the eastern end of the county to evaluate proactive responses to prevent future weather damage.
Pennsylvania Emergency Management Agencys Bureau of Recovery and Mitigation Director Chris Evans toured notable areas of water retention and creek beds throughout Upper Darby on Wednesday with township officials and state lawmakers. Darby Creek and Naylors run were two waterways that were observed. Flooding there contributed to millions of dollars in damage in Upper Darby, Springfield and Darby Borough back in August.
Historically we know that these are problem areas, and what can we do ahead of time to alleviate damage to help mitigate so those areas dont choke up with flooding, it backing up and flooding residential and commercial areas, said Evans. We have the second most river systems in the country, so its always an ongoing problem. The stream debris that goes into it, making sure that we have proper storm water management so that water is held verses putting bends into the creeks are all things were looking at.
Wednesdays tour started at the Quarry Center in Havertown which houses a large stormwater retention system under the premises that slowly releases water out to control the flow of accumulating water back into the community. Other stops included Naylors Run Park and the Baltimore Avenue bridge over Darby Creek at the Lansdowne and Clifton Heights borders.
As Evans looked for more proactive approaches, Upper Darby Mayor Tom Micozzie, state Rep. Jamie Santora, R-163 of Upper Darby, and state Sen. Tom McGarrigle, R-26 of Springfield, have been proposing more regional control to be able to do what needs to be done to clean up waterways that collect shrubbery, trash and other debris that causes flooding. The three leaders brought that idea to Gov. Tom Wolf directly when he toured flood damaged areas in Upper Darby last month. He agreed with the notion.
When youre saying Naylors Run Dam or Manor Road they know the districts, but they dont know the intricacies of our alarm system, said Micozzie about regional control. We can give them the tools necessary to help us when theyre having that dialogue with Harrisburg.
At present, approval is sought by the state Department of Environmental Protection to get clearance to do such work, but with the state of emergency declaration the governor made last month, it alleviates that bureaucratic step which would otherwise take two to three weeks for approval.
We all need to work together, we need to start working upstream in Radnor, Haverford and those areas because its coming down and hitting Upper Darby, Clifton Heights, and Darby gets the brunt of it, said McGarrigle. We want to see what resources are available from the state to do preventive maintenance. The governor has been great since the (August) storm and we want to see whats available so Jamie and I can fight for it for Delaware County to do the services that we can get.
Micozzie said Wolf has sent them post-flood resources to help with residential cleanups and housing vouchers for families that sustained damage in their homes.
Santora said he isnt naive to how storms hit and any cleanup that ensues afterward, but he wants to minimize it as much as possible the use of resources by acting ahead on the front end.
Santora added the suggestion of using chainsaw gangs that are deployed to clear out large tree trunks and other arborous items that crowd the flood banks and backup the flow of water to be used before torrential storms come.
Its actually less dangerous for them to be cutting before the storm than it is after the storm, McGarrigle noted of chainsaw gangs.
The state lawmakers are championing a hotline through the county dedicated solely to handle calls dealing with areas on water banks that should be cleaned up before a storm to prevent the stuff from being swept up and damming up downstream.
In all of the work weve done in expanding our trail systems we got more and more people now to report it, said county Emergency Services and Management Director Tim Boyce about the hotline item.
Aside from the state and municipal response, PEMAs Evans encouraged homeowners to get flood insurance whether they live in flood-prone areas or not. He said it was a part of the preparedness of having a family plan.
Serving time in jail is a tough sentence no matter how you slice it. But the reality is that thousands of ex-offenders are released from American jails every month and its imperative that local employers make a genuine effort to hire qualified ex-offenders that are re-entering society.
If we (employers) dont make the genuine effort to train and/or hire ex-offenders then we become guilty of handicapping their opportunity to attain gainful employment, which greatly reduces recidivism and crime in the community at-large.
To give this issue some perspective, it costs tax payers a bundle every year to incarcerate inmates. The fee to cover the average cost of incarceration for federal inmates in Fiscal Year 2015 was $31,977.65 ($87.61 per day), according to the United States Department of Justice Bureau of Prisons.
The costs to taxpayers to fund half-way house facilities isnt cheap either, The average annual cost to confine an inmate in a Residential Re-entry Center for Fiscal Year 2015 was $26,082.90 ($71.46 per day).
In 2015, there were an estimated 1,526,800 prisoners under the jurisdiction of state and federal correctional authorities, as reported by the U.S. Department of Justice-Office of Justice Programs Bureau of Justice Statistics.
Wrap your mind around this, American taxpayers spent at least $48.8 billion annually to incarcerate its prison population. In 2015, taxpayers spent more on prisoners than we did on U.S. Department of Educations entire Pell Grant budget ($31.4 billion) that helps low-income students fund their college education! The more ex-offenders we gainfully employ, the least likely they are to return to a life of crime and be re-incarcerated. The fewer people we have in jail, the more federal and state taxpayer dollars we can divert to education, senior citizen programs, road and bridge repair, health care and other important domestic programs and services.
In Pennsylvania, Philadelphia is our largest metropolitan city and Americas fifth largest city.
In his 2017 article 10 Things You Should Know about Re-entry in Philadelphia published by Generocity.org, reporter Tony Abram reveals that, As of 2011, approximately 40,000 people return to Philadelphia from state and federal prison every year Thats hundreds of thousands of Philadelphians, primarily people of color, fighting to escape the pull of gravity the cycle of recidivism that keeps people with criminal records unemployed, at risk of re-arrest and eventually, back in prison.
Organizations like Connection Training Services, PACareerLink, and UpLift Solutions Inc., are just a few local regional community agencies committed to helping move ex-offenders from unemployment into successful training programs and gainful employment. On Aug. 20, 2018, in collaboration with UpLift Solutions and Temple University, I hosted an employment open house event exclusively for ex-offenders on Temple Universitys campus, the event drew more than 500 ex-offenders, all eager and desperate for employment!
There are some current policies and financial incentives to urge employers to hire ex-offenders. Community Integrated Services, in Philadelphia, reports on its website that Philadelphia Re-Entry Employment Program (PREP) grants a $10,000 credit against Philadelphias Business Privilege Tax to any eligible employer who hires an ex-offender. Employers can receive up to a $10,000 tax credit each year for three years for each ex-offender hired for at least six months. The maximum amount of tax credit a business may receive for any one qualifying employee over all tax years is $30,000.
Creative financial incentives like these give small businesses and large employers strong financial reasons to consider hiring ex-offenders. Employers like Browns ShopRite Superstores and Fresh Grocer are great examples of two employers that hire ex-offenders.
John Shegerian, Chairman and CEO of Electronic Recyclers International, has 20 years of experience hiring ex-offenders. Hes employed hundreds of ex-cons. In an article published by the Business News Daily (5 Reasons to Consider Hiring an Ex-Prisoner), Shegerian says ex-offenders, try harder to and take their job very seriously Imagine what would happen to our recidivism rates, gang participation rates, crime rates and drug abuse rates if every business in the U.S. opened their doors and their hearts to hire just one ex offender.
For ex-offenders, its important that they remain steadfast in their commitment and diligent in seeking out proven training programs, education, and support services that can greatly buttress their efforts to secure gainful employment.
If business and industry isnt willing to take a chance on re-purposing ex-offenders for gainful employment, then by default, we become guilty in aiding in their return to a life of crime. To blackball ex-offenders from workforce opportunities is further punishment and an added sentence to their rap sheet.
When legislatures and political leaders ignore initiating policies and procedures that support employment of hiring ex-offenders, they become a part of the problem of contributing to the escalating recidivism rate thats occurs throughout the American prison industrial complex. Lets make a concerted effort to give qualified ex-offenders a second chance to succeed.
WASHINGTON, Sept. 12, 2018 /Standard Newswire / -- Judicial Watch announced today that it filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Department of Justice for details of the 302 interviews the FBI conducted with Bruce Ohr, who was removed from his position as U.S. Associate Deputy Attorney General in December 2017. The interviews could be key to understanding how anti-Trump dossier author, British spy Christopher Steele's information was transmitted to the FBI.Judicial Watch sued ( Judicial Watch v U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:18-cv-02107) ) after the Justice Department failed to respond to a FOIA request seeking Form 302s for a number of interviews with Ohr concerning his interactions with Steele. A Form 302 is used by FBI agents to summarize the interviews...
SALT LAKE CITY Former President Barack Obama once got booted out of Disneyland.
It was before he was president of the country, though.
During a campaign speech rallying for California congressional candidates, Obama shared a story about how Disneyland kicked him off the property for smoking cigarettes, CNN reported.
As a college student, Obama and his friends left a concert and decided to jump on some rides while smoking. Large security officers approached and escorted Obama and his friends from the park for breaking the rules.
This is a true story, everybody, he said. I was booted from the Magic Kingdom.
The guards told him he could come back to the park at any time.
Disney CEO Bob Iger said on Twitter Saturday that the parks rules havent changed.
(Barack Obama) just opened his speech in Anaheim with a story from his college years about getting kicked out of Disneyland for smoking cigarettes on a ride. This is a true story everybody, I was booted from the Magic Kingdom! He can always come back, as long as he doesn't smoke! he tweeted.
@BarackObama just opened his speech in Anaheim with a story from his college years about getting kicked out of Disneyland for smoking cigarettes on a ride. "This is a true story everybody, I was booted from the Magic Kingdom!" He can always come back, as long as he doesn't smoke! Robert Iger (@RobertIger) September 8, 2018
Obama encouraged voters at the California speech to take off their bedroom slippers and wear marching boots so they could go out and vote, The New York Times reported.
The biggest threat to our democracy is not one individual, he said, encouraging people to go out and vote.
Obama made his speech while campaigning for Democrats to retake the House of Representatives during the upcoming November elections, according to MarketWatch.
Obama, who stayed out of politics since he left the White House, has been more vocal in recent days, including his speech from the University of Illinois last week when he spoke out against President Donald Trump and Republicans.
SALT LAKE CITY Amazon is about to disrupt Christmas.
Amazon plans to sell and ship fresh, full-size Christmas trees beginning this holiday season, according to the Associated Press.
The trees, which include Douglas firs and Norfolk Island pines, will be shipped within 10 days of being cut down, or even sooner, depending on the order. The trees should arrive without breaking.
The trees will be bound and shipped without water, however.
Amazon said it plans to put trees, wreaths and garlands on sale, beginning in November.
Some of the trees will come with free shipping for Amazon Prime customers.
So what will the costs look like? You can buy a 7-foot tree from a North Carolina farm for $115.
Tim O'Connor, the executive director of the National Christmas Tree Association, told the AP that families enjoy heading out to farms to pick out and cut down their own trees.
However, Amazon is filling a vacuum left by the disappearance of Christmas trees.
As I reported on last year, droughts and wildfires across the country left farms without Christmas trees. In fact, Oregon and North Carolina farmers said they saw fewer trees in 2017 than in years past.
Another reason the economy. Christmas trees being sold today were initially planted 10 years ago, when there was less demand for trees, meaning that fewer trees were planted that year, according to WSMV-TV, a Nashville news outlet.
Now that the economy has bounced back and more people plan to buy Christmas trees again, we're left with a high demand for trees, and a low supply meaning tree prices are expected to go up, according to WSMV-TV.
Regardless of where you choose to buy your tree, youll want to be mindful of when you buy it. Quartz reported last year that youll pay less for a Christmas tree the closer you get to Christmas.
Christmas trees cost close to $66 around Black Friday but drop down to $30 around Christmas Eve.
Buying a tree two weeks earlier also means two extra weeks of twinkling Christmas lights and the aroma of pine in your living room, according to Quartz. So a trees price isnt just a reflection of quality, but also of a premium placed on the Christmas spirit that comes with it.
HONOLULU A gradually weakening tropical storm hit Hawaii on Wednesday, soaking a part of Maui and sending gusts of wind that toppled trees and cancelled flights at a number of airports in the state.
Maui Mayor Alan Arakawa urged residents and visitors to stay off the road until the Tropical Storm Olivia passed, but he was hopeful the effects of the storm on his county would be limited.
"It's been an ordeal but we're coming through this fairly well," Arakawa said. "I'm not seeing any really large areas of damage, no homes destroyed or flooded to any kind of extreme measures as we did in previous storms."
The Central Pacific Hurricane Center said Olivia was about 45 miles (75 kilometers) south of Honolulu on Oahu, the state's most heavily populated island. The storm had maximum sustained winds of 40 mph (65 kph).
The storm made landfall twice: once in the west Maui mountains and again on Lanai before continuing to move further west.
Lori-Lei Rawlins-Crivello, owner of one of the two gas stations on the small island of Molokai, said she was watching a nearby river rise.
She closed her Texaco service station in the afternoon. Most stores in Kaunakakai, the island's largest town, were closed, she said.
A flash flood warning was issued for Molokai island and Maui. A wind gust of 51 mph (82 kph) was recorded at the airport on the island of Lanai.
A rain gauge recorded 7.72 inches (20 centimeters) of rain in 24 hours at West Wailua Iki on Maui.
The storm, which was a hurricane earlier in the week, slowly lost power as it neared and crossed the state.
Matthew Foster, a meteorologist with the hurricane center, said strong winds will likely continue on Maui through early afternoon and then start to die off. They'll linger on Oahu through the early evening.
Tropical storm warnings were canceled overnight for the Big Island and Kauai, but remain in place for Oahu, Maui and small islands surrounding Maui.
Schools, courts and government offices were closed in Maui County in preparation for the storm.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency sent emergency teams and supplies to Maui ahead of the storm. The National Guard has mobilized personnel and trucks to the east side of Maui.
President Donald Trump has signed a disaster declaration for Hawaii, which will help FEMA respond, Gov. David Ige said.
Hawaiian Airlines cancelled flights by its commuter airline, Ohana by Hawaiian.
Public schools on the Big Island, Oahu and Kauai were open.
Tourists, like Randy McQuay from Texas, weren't letting the storm dampen their vacations. "No, coming from Houston we're used to storms and hurricanes," he said. "Didn't expect to find one in Hawaii, but yeah we're used to it."
Solana Miller, who lives on Oahu's North Shore, said she wasn't too worried about Olivia.
"I feel like it's mainly just going to be some rain and wind, but we'll see. The last storm was supposed to be a category 5 hurricane and it was just a couple hours of rain," she said.
Miller said she has leftover preparations from when Hurricane Lane passed near the state last month.
"We kind of just kept all the water and the cans of food and stuff," she said, "so if anything really hits we'll be fine."
___
Associated Press writers Caleb Jones in Honolulu and Mark Thiessen in Anchorage, Alaska, contributed to this report.
Four years ago I decided that I needed to better understand the Rio Grande neighborhood and what people experiencing homelessness went through as they sought services here. So I left my wallet and phone at home and went to live as if I were homeless for four days.
While four days is too short a time to really understand the experience of being homeless, it did give me some valuable insights.
I learned that neither the law, the police nor our public officials had any control of the Rio Grande neighborhood. Drugs and dealers were the only ones with authority.
I watched a non-stop market for drugs that used the homeless as shields and societys neglect to flourish. I saw parents pushing strollers buy drugs. I watched college-aged kids who were obviously not homeless buy drugs. I watched people of all walks of life buy drugs.
I saw real-life zombies: people so strung out that they lost any perception of their surroundings. They shuffled aimlessly, head down, on sidewalks and in the road.
In fact, much of this happened under the watchful eye of children, whose playground was only separated by a fence from the most disgusting things I have seen in my life.
This was Salt Lake City.
I have seen much of the world and I have spent time in many of its urban areas, but I had never seen such depravity as I witnessed on our own doorstep.
I felt anger. I was upset that we had yielded authority in our city to those who trafficked in human misery and suffering. I was appalled that we were doing it in a neighborhood that was so vital in helping our most vulnerable populations.
Rather than offering people help, we were condemning them to a pit of despair.
I have seen much of the world and I have spent time in many of its urban areas, but I had never seen such depravity as I witnessed on our own doorstep.
Fortunately, after four years I am pleased to say that things are changing.
One, largely because of relentless efforts by Mayor Ben McAdams, children no longer have a front-row seat to the worst of drugs and violence in our state. Mayor McAdams has also kicked off important changes to our entire way of addressing homelessness. These changes may not be flashy but they are making a difference and will continue to have benefits for years to come.
And two, a little over a year ago we took our biggest step to reclaiming our streets from drug dealers and thugs with Operation Rio Grande.
Speaker Greg Hughes showed real leadership, concern and courage in spearheading this effort. He was joined in an impressive way by the rest of the Legislature, our governor and city and county officials.
As a result of Operation Rio Grande, our neighborhood is noticeably safer today. Where we once had rates of crime more than two times higher than any other Salt Lake neighborhood, we are now on par with other places. Furthermore, the improvements here have led to a drop in overall crime in Salt Lake City.
Importantly, these safety improvements mean that our most vulnerable members of society are not condemned to a gauntlet of drugs and crime just to seek necessary services. And they are seeking those services. Im pleased that homeless service providers are still seeing essentially the same number of clients as before Operation Rio Grande.
No, things are not perfect and there is still work to be done just last week we had a shooting death in our neighborhood but we have come a long way. It is worth celebrating this success even as we commit to improving in this important work.
The future of the Utahs housing will likely rest in high-density projects, a necessary component to accommodating population growth and lowering housing costs. As such, key leaders must exercise a spirit of compromise and thoughtful foresight to avoid making this issue a needless division for years to come.
There is an unavoidable need to create more housing for more people in less space. But finding consensus on a local level on how to manage such growth is difficult, as we have already witnessed in communities from Holladay to Herriman.
As a critical transportation planning project for the Wasatch Front nears completion, the basic nature of civic planning is experiencing a paradigm shift that is likely to influence, if not dominate, local politics in the coming months and years.
The Wasatch Front Regional Council charged for 50 years with overseeing long-term transportation planning is approaching completion of its vision plan for the area come the year 2050, when the population along the front will have risen from the current 3 million to over 5 million. Different from its past strategies, the council now places emphasis on land-use planning and the need for zoning changes to accommodate housing types and locations that we can both afford and work best for our lives.
For the first time in a half-century, Utah now has more households than actual houses, whether owned, rented, on single plots or in apartment or condominium complexes.
It is an oblique reference to the need to build higher density housing, something that runs in contrast to tradition and the strongly held preferences of many current residents who prize living in single-family homes on spacious lots. Room for that kind of subdivision sprawl no longer exists in great quantity, as communities lap up against the foothills of the Oquirrhs and to the shores of Utah Lake and the Great Salt Lake. Building up and not out is the future of development, and planners will be hard put to foster that new wave without strident opposition.
As in Holladay, residents have resisted plans for relatively high-density housing on the site of the former Cottonwood Mall, arguing the project will detract from the towns village-like atmosphere. And in Herriman, residents successfully mounted political pressure to derail plans for a development of nearly 9,000 housing units on about 900 acres about three times more dense than neighboring developments.
For the first time in a half-century, Utah now has more households than actual houses, whether owned, rented, on single plots or in apartment or condominium complexes. Housing costs are rising at a rate of 7 percent per year, nearly triple the growth in household income. Young families are forced to live in parents basements or suffer long commutes from places where housing is more affordable at least for now.
Salt Lake City is an exception among local municipalities when it comes to forcefully addressing the issue. The city has vigorously worked to accommodate development of affordable housing almost exclusively in the form of multi-unit development. In most cities and towns, the issue surfaces from the bottom up, as developers propose and politicians react to requested zoning and other changes to create such developments.
As the regional council completes its Wasatch Choice 2050 plan, it's critical that it spotlights the question of how local leaders can best manage the process of adapting to the realities of a dwindling housing stock and the inevitable need to accommodate more people living in smaller spaces on less land.
SALT LAKE CITY It appears Salt Lake City Mayor Jackie Biskupski is already facing a steep climb to win re-election next year.
A new Utah Policy poll released Wednesday found more than half of Salt Lake City residents think Biskupski does not deserve a second term as mayor.
And as news of the poll spread, several potential challengers who have been rumored to be planning a run against Biskupski confirmed to the Deseret News they're seriously considering a campaign and one, though he hasn't formally announced, confirmed he's planning a run.
The survey of 203 likely Salt Lake City voters asked whether Biskupski should be elected to another four-year term or whether it's time to give someone new a chance to serve. The poll found that 56 percent said it was either "definitely" or "probably" time for Biskupski's time to end.
Of that 56 percent, 29 percent said it was "definitely" time to elect someone else, and 27 percent said it was "probably" time.
About 34 percent said Biskupski should be given another term, while 9 percent said they didn't know, according to the poll.
The Dan Jones & Associates survey was conducted Aug. 22 to Sept. 12, with a margin of error of plus or minus 6.8 percent.
Biskupski who was in San Francisco on Wednesday representing Salt Lake City at the Global Climate Action Summit did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.
In her almost three years in office after she defeated former Mayor Ralph Becker in 2015, Biskupski has been embroiled in several controversies at times clashing with the Salt Lake City Council and other county and state leaders.
Those controversies include asking for the closed-door selection of the sites to build four new homeless resource centers in Salt Lake City; standoffs with state leaders, including House Speaker Greg Hughes, over the shutdown of Rio Grande Street to clean up the area around the downtown homeless shelter; and most recently a breakdown of negotiations with Gov. Gary Herbert over a special legislative session to make changes to the bill that created the controversial Utah Inland Port Authority.
Potential challengers
Even before Wednesday's poll, indications Biskupski would be facing a tough re-election have been brewing for months heading into 2019, fed by rumors that a crowd of potential challengers have been testing the waters.
Among those possible candidates, three confirmed to the Deseret News Wednesday they're considering jumping in the 2019 race: former Salt Lake City Councilman Stan Penfold, David Garbett, of the Pioneer Park Coalition, and outgoing state Sen. Jim Dabakis.
But one well-known Democrat and business consultant David Ibarra told the Deseret News in an email Wednesday "while I have not formally announced, I am planning to run for mayor."
Noting he was on a flight, Ibarra declined further comment about the poll or why he's planning a run.
However, Penfold and Garbett, who both said they're "seriously" considering challenging Biskupski next year, said they weren't surprised by Wednesday's poll, noting they've been hearing rumblings of dissatisfaction from city residents for some time.
"I have been exploring it and I am very interested," Penfold said. "I am concerned about the sort of lack of direction or lack of vision for the city. I think residents deserve more than they're getting."
"It wasn't surprising to me because this is what I've heard from people as I've chatted out the direction the city is going," Garbett said, noting he believes issues such as homelessness and affordable housing haven't been adequately addressed.
Dabakis, who responded to the Deseret News via text message only, said he's "considering options."
"I love Salt Lake City!" Dabakis said, declining further comment.
A tough' race
Acknowledging the 2019 general election is more than a year away, Jason Perry, director of the University of Utah's Hinckley Institute of Politics, said "almost no matter how you look at it," the poll "is a tough poll for Mayor Biskupski."
"She's had an embattled first term in office," Perry said, noting conflicts with her own council, the Utah Legislature and even the governor. "And the reality is, after you have that many battles, it starts taking a toll."
But Perry said "there's still a lot of time," and "at least she knows ahead of time" what areas she'll need to work on to gain support.
Judging from the poll's results which showed 78 percent of Republicans said Biskupski should not be re-elected Perry said Biskupski should focus on her own party to gain support.
About 46 percent of poll respondents who said they were "very liberal" and 49 percent who said they were "somewhat liberal" said the mayor should get another term, according to Utah Policy.
"She really needs to spend some time with Democrats and her core supporters," Perry said.
"In politics, you never say it's too late," he added.
If you thought outrageous cigarette ads were left inside your grandparents Zenith when it hit the scrap heap, you havent been paying attention to the e-cigarette industry.
Take, for example, one video on YouTube. A young man appears at wits end while typing on a computer. He slaps his palms on the desk, obviously distracted and devoid of ideas, or maybe unable to find just the right word for that important report.
Then he remembers something. He opens the top desk drawer and finds a Juul e-cigarette. One quick drag and he raises a finger to the sky the classic Aha! moment. He has his word or winning idea or whatever he was missing. The day is saved thanks to nicotine, or whatever else is in the liquid concoction that creates the vapor e-cigarette users inhale.
Really?
What in the name of nine-out-of-10-doctors in the 50s is going on here? And whats a Juul? Is spellcheck not working?
The answers can be summed up neatly in one sentence: Disruptive technology has hit the cigarette industry.
That doesnt mean the industrys tactics have changed much in 60 years, it just means old tobacco industry regulars are being replaced by something more hip and modern, and with a product to smoke that no longer even contains tobacco.
While many of us were sleeping, this has crept into the culture. Only, it has come with one interesting and complicating twist.
Many longtime smokers, including people I know, believe e-cigarettes, because they omit some of the harmful products in traditional cigarettes, offer a way to help them quit or at least to cut down on the chances of getting some horrible disease.
The industrys tactics have changed much in 60 years, it just means old tobacco industry regulars are being replaced by something more hip and modern, and with a product to smoke that no longer even contains tobacco.
That would be a good thing. But on the other end of the spectrum, experts warn that young people who never have smoked are suddenly puffing away on products they may falsely believe are harmless. E-cigarettes may not contain tobacco leaves, but they do contain nicotine, which is hardly safe, especially for developing adolescents.
In Utah, the state Health Departments most recent survey, conducted last year, found that 23.1 percent of students in the eighth grade or older had, at one time or another, used an e-cigarette. This compares with 22.3 percent who had tried alcohol and 11.9 percent who had smoked an old-fashioned cigarette.
This isnt the first time Ive written about this. Three years ago, I called on Utah lawmakers and the federal government to take action. The Legislature finally did something earlier this year, passing a bill that requires retailers to get a permit from the state Health Department before being allowed to sell the product. That means greater control over the products and what they contain.
And now the federal Food and Drug Administration is taking action. On Wednesday, FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb issued a statement that calls the e-cigarette craze an epidemic, a word he says he doesnt use lightly.
Gottlieb said the FDA is giving Juul Labs, one of the most popular e-cigarette makers, and others who make similar things 60 days to prove they can keep minors from using their products. This came not long after the FDA opened an investigation into Juuls marketing practices and whether they target teenagers.
Juul vehemently denies the allegations, saying its products are intended solely for adults who already smoke tobacco.
Thats an argument difficult to prove. In Juuls defense, you dont have to target teenagers directly to appeal to them. All you have to do is make your product look cool.
But then, not in Juuls defense, they make a product that many doctors and scientists say isnt safe.
So, what about the grownup smokers who want to use the product to help quit regular cigarettes?
Gottlieb acknowledged e-cigarettes give them an important opportunity to transition off combustible tobacco products. The FDA plans to regulate nicotine levels in these products so this can be more effective. Juuls website, incidentally, now emphasizes this as its most important aim.
But really, when kids lives are at stake, should anything else take precedence? If two of every five students in Utah have tried a harmful product, dont grownups owe it to them to do something? If, as the New York Times reports, more than 2 million kids in middle and high schools nationwide vape regularly, shouldnt we be alarmed?
Besides, there was something strange about those ads I watched on YouTube. I didnt see any that portrayed old smokers trying to quit. That wouldnt be cool.
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SALT LAKE CITY Mitt Romney doesn't think the time spent planning his potential transition to the White House cost him the presidency in 2012 as President Donald Trump suggests in a controversial new book about his administration.
"There were reasons for my loss but jinxing is not high among them," Romney told the Deseret News on Wednesday. "I'm afraid my own mistakes were responsible for my loss, not the effect of black magic."
In Bob Woodward's newly released book, "Fear," candidate Trump is described as complaining that his transition team was "stealing" from his campaign and "jinxing" his chance to win in 2016.
Woodward writes that Trump told aides Romney didn't beat President Barack Obama because he focused too much on the transition and not enough on the campaign.
"That's why he lost," Trump said, according to the book.
Romney, who said he has only read excerpts of Woodward's book so far, is running in Utah to replace retiring fellow Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch. He faces Democratic Salt Lake County Councilwoman Jenny Wilson.
The 2012 GOP presidential nominee defended his own transition effort headed by former Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt.
"I did not know that (Trump) attributes our transition team to be one of our difficulties," Romney said. "The transition team was one of the best parts of our effort."
Romney said he anticipated that he would be able to deliver on the promises he made during the campaign. He said he planned to lay out a series of regulatory changes, including the needed legislation, in the first 100 days of his presidency.
"I think planning made us more effective in recognizing that what I was saying was not merely talk and politics but would actually need to be implemented," he said.
Leavitt told the Deseret News that during the campaign, Romney spent less than an hour a week planning for his potential presidency, "essentially no time on the transition" and its 138-page blueprint.
Preparing for a Romney administration "was a full-time job for me and many others," he said. The 2012 election "was the first time there was a congressionally established transition process. Romney's team was ready to govern."
Woodward's book and a recent anonymous New York Times op-ed by a senior Trump administration official paints a White House in disarray as those around the president attempt to head off his impulsive behavior.
Romney said if someone is as opposed to the president's agenda as the anonymous op-ed writer, he or she should have resigned instead of speaking from inside the administration.
"I don't think it's the job of a person in an administration to oppose the policies and agendas of the person who's elected through a democratic process," he said.
Wilson said last week she doesn't think the op-ed is made up. She said there's enough evidence from Trump's "unfiltered" tweets and "alarming" and "derogatory" statements to show that.
"It's clear to me it's a true account of what's happening," she said.
Romney said it's hard separate fact from fiction among the assertions made about the Trump administration. He said history would eventually determine Trump's effectiveness as a leader.
But he said the president can claim a list of accomplishments, including a "booking" economy, tax and regulatory reform, low unemployment, and in Utah, the shrinking of the Bear Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments.
Romney said any talk of impeaching Trump is premature.
"I don't think that it's productive to talk about impeachment. It's way too speculative," he said.
Wilson told the Deseret News and KSL editorial boards Monday that if there are legal grounds for it, she "will support moving toward impeachment."
"If the (special counsel Robert) Mueller report comes out with a grounds toward impeachment, I think we are in such chaos as a nation, we cannot heal until he's gone," she said.
Romney said he has full confidence in Mueller's investigation but he's not going to speculate on the results. He said he takes Mueller at his word that Trump is not a target.
But Romney said he wasn't ready to "punditize" about whether Trump is helping or hurting Republican candidates around the country. He said the president's approach is to aggressively rally and energize GOP voters.
That apparently won't be happening in Utah, at least on Romney's behalf.
"If he comes here to help me, then my campaign is facing some real challenges. That would mean I'm in a neck-and-neck race. If that's the case, why, my campaign would be facing challenges," Romney said.
Polls show Romney, one of the state's most popular politicians, has a sizeable lead over Wilson.
Wilson told the editorial boards, "I'm just going to tell you who I am and what I am. Time will tell if it's enough this cycle."
Romney, she said, is the "same ol' and I'm seeing more and more and of that on this campaign. I'm frankly more and more frustrated by his lack of engagement and his sort of high-level answer to stuff. We need to get in the weeds."
SALT LAKE CITY One of Wanda Barzee's nieces hopes that when her aunt is released from prison next week she'll get the help she needs.
"She needs to go somewhere where she can be helped," Tina Mace said Wednesday. "I don't think she should be on the street at all. I don't think she can make it."
Her reaction comes a day after the Utah Adult Probation and Parole Board announced that it had erred in calculating Barzee's sentence.
Barzee, 72, along with her then-husband, Brian David Mitchell, kidnapped 14-year-old Elizabeth Smart in 2002 from her home and held her captive until their arrests nine months later. After years of court battles over her competency, Barzee pleaded guilty in federal court in 2009 to kidnapping and unlawful transportation of a minor.
In 2010, Barzee was found competent to proceed in a separate state court case against her. She pleaded guilty and mentally ill in state court to the 2002 attempted kidnapping of Smart's cousin and sentenced to up to 15 years in prison.
After completing her federal prison sentence, Barzee was returned to the Utah State Prison in April 2016.
A parole hearing was held in June, but Barzee declined to attend it. The board determined that if Barzee served her full sentence, she would be released on Jan. 29, 2024.
But after the hearing, Barzee's attorney, Scott Williams, argued that his client's two sentences were supposed to run concurrently and that Barzee had already served her time. The board re-examined the case and agreed with Williams. It announced Tuesday that Barzee's new release date would be Sept. 19.
Mace said from what the family has heard from news reports, they believe Barzee needs mental health treatment and fear she's not getting it in prison, possibly because she's refusing it.
"She needs help," she said, while noting the family is not capable to taking care of her needs once Barzee is released.
Mace recalled how her aunt was "normal" when she and Mitchell were first married and even played piano at Mace's wedding. But she was also vulnerable, and Mitchell was manipulative, she said.
Mace recalled watching her aunt during Mitchell's trial, after she had been medically restored to competency. She recalled watching as Barzee testified against her husband and how she seemed more like her old self.
"I'm just glad she nailed Brian," Mace said. "Because he knew what he was doing."
When Barzee is released from the Utah State Prison, she still has to spend five years under federal supervision. According to the terms of her federal sentence, Barzee will be required to participate in a mental health treatment program and register as a sex offender. She will also be closely monitored by federal probation officers who she will be required to check in with.
While it remained unknown Wednesday where Barzee will live, Eric Anderson, deputy chief U.S. probation officer for Utah, said a transition plan was being formulated.
But whether Barzee can ever return to her old self, or even the person she was during Mitchell's trial, Mace said, "I don't know."
"Maybe there is hope she can be medically taken care of," she said.
Mace said she also feels extremely bad for Smart, but is "amazed" at what she has accomplished since the abduction.
Correction: A previous version incorrectly referred to the Utah Adult Probation and Parole Board instead of the Utah Board of Pardons and Parole.
SALT LAKE CITY Netflix co-founder Marc Randolph dropped a bomb on the attendees of a health care analytics conference Wednesday, warning that if their companies fail to embrace technology, and leverage it for better outcomes, they should expect to be left in the dust by innovators who are undaunted by risk.
"You never know where the next threat is going to come from," Randolph said. "They may not look like you. They may not even be in business today. You need to figure out how to disrupt yourself."
Randolph is a serial risk-taker himself, having founded six other companies in addition to Netflix, and acknowledged while a couple have achieved success measured in billions, he has also experienced mediocre results and even dismal failures. The key, he noted, is to just jump in.
"Take that risk," Randolph said. "Do something, try something, sell something, test something."
Randolph spoke exclusively with the Deseret News following his presentation and noted that while his exit from the company in 2004 sprang from his desire to continue working in the realm of startups, he was very pleased with how the company has continued to evolve.
Netflix is now engaged with some 130 million users and has made a successful move into the realm of content creation. He noted that a company tenet embraced early on by himself and co-founder Reed Hastings to focus on content, versus the delivery mechanism, continues to validate its prescience.
"We decided early on that we would commit fully to becoming the best place to find the content you love while remaining delivery agnostic," Randolph said. "It worked when you received your content via DVDs, it worked when the world changed to digital delivery, and it will work at the next iteration possibly beaming directly to your fillings."
Randolph said that while Netflix's segue from the delivery of physical discs to digital streaming was well anticipated, the company's jump into the production and distribution of original programming was less easy to predict. HBO, he said, illuminated the path forward with its early forays into exclusive content creation.
"HBO was the trailblazer on original content," Randolph said. "They recognized early on that if every cable service was carrying the same movies, why would anyone pay a premium?
"The solution they crafted was, of course, to create content available only on HBO."
Randolph said Netflix was well positioned, from a data perspective, to jump into content production. That, of course, is thanks to the wealth of information the company has accumulated on its customers' tastes in viewing. Those billions of data points was, and is, an invaluable vetting mechanism for hatching their homegrown programming, which has found success across numerous genres.
Netflix hits include "House of Cards" (political drama), "Orange Is the New Black" (comedy/drama based on Piper Kerman's prison memoir), "Master of None" (Aziz Ansari-driven comedy), "Daredevil" (live action Marvel series), and "The Crown" (sweeping period drama tracking the life of Queen Elizabeth II), just to name a few.
Randolph said Netflix keyed on an approach that trumped, at the time, one of the best data-gatherers in the business.
"Early on we recognized we were in a much better position to do this than Amazon, which was basing its recommendations on purchase decisions," Randolph said. "We were basing ours on what you told us you liked and it ended up being a much stronger signal."
Randolph, with over a half-dozen startups under his belt, has also delved into the world of investing in disruptive new businesses. He believes even with the profound changes and paradigm shifts that have accompanied the growth of the internet and now "smart" mobile devices, the world is still in the early days of digital innovation.
"There are millions of other things that can be connected and controlled in a way to improve people's lives," Randolph said. "Just look at Netflix 130 million users should be seen as a numerator. The denominator is the number of internet-enabled people on the planet. The opportunities that are out there, for all innovators, have more than just an economic upside, they're going to be life-changing."
Randolph also lauded Utah's burgeoning tech sector, noting that while every place is trying to replicate its own Silicon Valley, it's a formula that it's impossible to "grow in a lab" by building office parks, offering tax incentives or running high-speed internet. It requires, Randolph said, something that is both simpler and much more elusive.
"Here's what the places that have successful innovation hubs have going for them," Randolph said. "It's centered on people who are taking risks and are able to iterate their way through things that are not predictable in advance."
Randolph also had this piece of advice for those young women and men who may be taking their first steps on quests for entrepreneurial success.
"Take a pass on that chance to intern at Google," Randolph said. "Instead, go work for and eight-employee company with a smart CEO and watch how that person makes decisions.
You'll see a person who, every single day, has the discipline to get up, plug away at a problem and fail and change directions and plug away and fail and change directions. If you think that kind of drive and persistence is the coolest thing in the world, then you've found the right place to be."
SALT LAKE CITY Netflix co-founder and California resident Marc Randolph says Dallas is his favorite place in the world.
Randolph's emotional connection to the city stems from a meeting he had with Blockbuster executives in its downtown Renaissance Tower when they were Goliaths of the video industry, and Netflix a lowly David.
With Netflix struggling to stay financially viable, Randolph and co-founder Reed Hastings tried to set up a meeting with Blockbuster executives to see whether there was any interest in buying their company.
But Netflix, at a little more than 2 years old, had less than 100 employees while Blockbuster had 60,000, so getting a meeting at all had been like pulling teeth, Randolph recalls.
"We sent emails, we tried calling, and not a peep nothing," he said.
Finally, Randolph and Hastings were invited to Blockbuster headquarters at Renaissance Tower. Underdressed because of the short notice, and seemingly without much leverage, the men offered to sell Netflix for $50 million.
"The meeting went downhill very quickly after that," Randolph said.
The men returned to California without a deal and as determined as ever to best Blockbuster.
A "miraculous" combination of no late fees, personalized rental queues automatically ordering the next DVD for customers, and a new subscription revenue model ultimately turned the company around, Randolph said, and Netflix never looked back, even as its success began to depend more and more on video streaming. It now has 130 million paying customers.
Meanwhile, Blockbuster has one remaining store in the United States, in Bend, Oregon.
Sharing that success story Wednesday with 1,500 medical professionals and executives at the Healthcare Analytics Summit held at the Grand America Hotel, Randolph said the takeaways that apply to innovators in all industries are "the capacity to generate ideas," a "tolerance for risk," and of course, confidence and optimism.
The conference, in its fifth year, is hosted by Salt Lake data analytics startup Health Catalyst, and is designed to teach the health care industry how to use big data to make decisions on how to improve patient care.
Speakers preached data solutions to medical problems because the expert use of analytics has shown to be capable of not only pinpointing inefficiencies in treatment and health organization management, but also identifying solutions, said Dan Burton, CEO of Health Catalyst.
Burton added more patient health data than ever is available for large-scale analysis.
"There is an absolute data explosion. If you think of 10 or 20 years ago, there was literally no electronic data about you as an individual, from a health perspective. Now we've shifted to where medical records are electronic, (and) shifted dramatically in terms of what other data we're able to collect through your iPhone, through other sensors, through other devices," Burton said.
" This explosion of data opens up all kinds of amazing possibilities that should dramatically improve the way we treat chronic disease, the way we treat all kinds of health care issues."
Big data collection, and real-world application of solutions found in data, will be a defining feature of successful health care systems in the not-too-distant future, said Dr. Toby Cosgrove, who finished his tenure as CEO of the renowned Cleveland Clinic at the end of 2017.
"I don't think great physicians, or innovative physicians, are going to go to places that don't have data capability," Cosgrove told attendees. "That's going to become an increasing coin of the realm. I mean, it's a must-have."
Cosgrove, who is currently an adviser for Google Healthcare & Life Sciences, another big data group, said analytics professionals should be embraced more closely by health care systems than has happened so far in the industry.
"Health care's not been very good at partnering with people. If you come in with a brand-new idea to a hospital we've been trained to look for problems," he said. "You have a new idea and everybody's poking a hole in it."
Cosgrove said this is partly because, in "how doctors are selected" in their schooling in training, "you're not selected or trained to be innovative. You're trained to be repetitive and maintain the status quo."
Keeping the status quo is precisely the opposite of what was behind Netflix's success story, Randolph said. Rather, taking risks is what ultimately paid off.
"Is it that I was smart? Well, no. Almost all my ideas were bad ones," Randolph said. "Maybe it's that I'm persistent. Well, I will take a little credit for being persistent. But there's actually something I'm even more proud of. I'm proud that I'm an optimist, and I'm not a glass half (full) optimist, I am a glass overflowing optimist."
" When people tell you that idea will never work, most of the time they're gonna be right, but you have to say, 'Not this time. I'm going to figure this out, there is a right solution and I'm going to get there.'"
Randolph urged attendees to engage in "validation hacking" by trying out as many ideas as possible without staking everything on any one single idea succeeding "testing it without doing it" was his description.
"It was not about having good ideas. It was about a system and a culture of trying lots of bad ones. What we realized is that the key to this is not the good idea. It was how quickly and easily and cheaply you could try as many ideas as you could think of," he said.
SALT LAKE CITY BYU's honor code had long interested Rahul Karad, but when he finally got to visit the campus this week, he wanted to know whether it was for real.
So Karad, executive president of MIT World Peace University in India, spontaneously stopped separate, random groups of students during his visit and quizzed them whether they follow the honor code.
"You can discover the real pulse of an institution by its students," he said.
Karad, whose school last year bestowed its World Peace Prize on Elder D. Todd Christofferson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which owns and operates BYU, said Wednesday that the university's students impressed him.
The students told Karad they follow the honor code. When he asked why, one said, "Because of the covenants I've made." Separately, another said, "I have made a commitment to God."
Karad also said he was impressed to see thousands of students attend Tuesday's campus devotional and see some running across campus to see BYU President Kevin Worthen and his wife Peggy speak.
"At this age, to have that enlightenment is remarkable," he said. "I understand that it is family values that instill this. You can't just summon it from nothing at age 18."
Karad learned about BYU's honor code from his father, Vishwanath Karad, who previously visited Utah and BYU. The elder Karad is founder and head of MIT World Peace University, which now has 40,000 students and a primary and secondary school system with another 22,000 students.
The Karads and Latter-day Saints leaders are interested in continued partnerships, especially surrounding education.
On Oct. 2, the Karads will dedicate the World Peace Dome near their university in the city of Pune in central India. Elder Don R. Clarke, an emeritus General Authority Seventy, will travel to Pune for the event and deliver a major speech on Latter-day Saint scripture related to education during the university's World Parliament of Science, Religion and Philosophy.
Elder Christofferson was the ninth person to receive the World Peace Prize. No prize will be awarded this year because of the dome dedication, Karad said, but the university plans to bestow another honor in 2019.
"It was a great honor when the honorable Elder Christofferson came to our university and accepted the World Peace Prize," Karad said.
Karad visited Utah with his wife, Aditi Karad, the executive director of MIT's Vishwaraj Hospital. They spent Tuesday morning at BYU and met with Worthen, then toured the church's humanitarian sites in Salt Lake City in the afternoon.
On Wednesday morning, they met with administrators at Salt Lake Community College and lunched with Elder Kent F. Richards, an emeritus General Authority Seventy and director of church hosting, and his wife, Marsha, who explained the temple covenants the BYU students referred to when Karad asked them about the honor code.
In the afternoon, the Karads met with Elder Christofferson, Elder Gerrit W. Gong of the Quorum of the Twelve, who supervises the church's Southeast Asia Area and Elder Robert C. Gay of the Presidency of the Seventy. They also visited with Clark Gilbert, president of BYU-Pathway Worldwide.
The World Peace Dome will be the largest dome in the world by diameter, Karad said, surpassing Rome's St. Peter's Basilica, which remains the world's tallest. The Pantheon in Rome has been the world's largest dome by diameter.
The dome is 160 feet in diameter and 263 feet tall. It includes 54 statues of world religious leaders, philosophers and scientists, from Jesus Christ to Mahatma Gandhi and Galileo to Socrates.
"It is the world's biggest structure to unify the world and create harmony," Karad said. "It is a union of religious founders and others who laid the foundation for world society."
Karad expects the dome which can hold 3,200 people at a time, will draw 2,000 visitors a day.
The dome will house a library and prayer hall named for the Philosopher Saint Shri Dnyaneshwara, whose name is also part of the World Peace Prize.
WEST JORDAN West Jordan police say a Midvale man who was eating inside a fast-food restaurant was gunned down early Thursday.
By Thursday afternoon, three people had been arrested. Jonathan Hunt, 18, and his friend Jayden Olsen, 22, both of Murray, were booked into the Salt Lake County Jail. A 17-year-old girl whose name was not released was booked into juvenile detention.
Just afer midnight, Noe Armijo-Luna, 20, was eating in Rancheritos, 7849 S. Redwood Road, when two other men walked into the 24-hour restaurant. Olsen had been in an ongoing dispute with Armijo-Luna, according to police.
The dispute started about five months ago, allegedly over a relationship with a woman, said West Jordan Police Lt. Richard Bell. On Wednesday, the men happened to run into each other again and the disagreement was rekindled, he said.
Later that night, Olsen and Hunt tracked Armijo-Luna down at the restaurant through the social media app Snapchat, a probable cause statement against Hunt says.
The two men walked in and confronted Armijo-Luna.
While Hunt's friend got into a verbal argument with Armijo-Luna, Hunt started punching Armijo-Luna from behind, according to the statement. Armijo-Luna then got up "to confront" Hunt, the statement says.
Hunt then pulled out a handgun and shot, striking Armijo-Luna multiple times, police said.
The two men then got into a car that the 17-year-old girl was waiting in and drove off, Bell said.
It was not immediately known how many other customers were inside the restaurant at the time. No one else was injured.
Working with the Metro Gang Unit, West Jordan police were able to locate all suspects a short time later and took them to police headquarters for questioning. The dispute, however, was not gang-related.
Bell said the man eating with Armijo-Luna was familiar with Olsen, which helped lead police to identifying the suspects.
According to the probable cause statement, Hunt was booked on investigation of criminal homicide, two counts of felony discharge of a firearm, possession of a controlled substance and use or possession of drug paraphernalia.
Police believe Hunt to be a flight risk because he is "currently homeless." He also "identifies as a Blood gang member and is known to carry firearms," according to the statement.
As Hurricane Florence barrels toward the East Coast, equal bluster and gale-force winds are coming out of Washington. President Donald Trump continues to focus on making the case for the success of the governments response to last years devastation in Puerto Rico.
This has been debated and analyzed for months, even as the official death toll from Puerto Rico increased. The preparation by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the nations emergency response to the East Coast this week is evidence that some lessons from the storms that ravaged Houston and Puerto Rico have been learned; if the president has had a role in that, we commend him for it.
Heres what we have a problem with: The president called out the mayor of Puerto Rico as totally incompetent.
This is neither helpful nor hopeful for those in the path of Hurricane Florence, particularly the mayors and local leaders called on to make important decisions. Now those mayors have something else to worry about: drawing the wrath of the president.
Dealing with disasters should not be a political exercise; it is a people exercise and nothing should get in the way of that. If a mayor of storm-ravaged city needs resources, he or she should not have to calculate making a request against a potential tweet storm or unfounded public rebuke.
Government and elected officials will always play an important role in recovery efforts after a natural disaster. The brave men and women of fire, police, National Guard and search and rescue have specialized skills that save lives. Getting supplies to those who need them is a master class lesson in logistics.
We must never lose sight that for many, the real first responders will be a neighbor helping a neighbor in need, local church members checking on one another and community service organizations providing relief. Before any elected official gets to the impacted area, helping hands will be extended in countless ways. In Houston, sportsmen with flat boats formed a brigade that rescued many. A group of them have already self-deployed to the East Coast.
We all should do our part because that is who we are and what we do in this country.
Government officials, including presidents and mayors, should be held accountable for how they deal with emergencies. But the time for that debate is not when the eye of the storm is headed your way.
SALT LAKE CITY The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, located in Geneva, announced Samira Harnish, founder and executive director of Women of the World, is a 2018 Americas Region Nansen Award finalist.
Harnish, herself an Iraqi immigrant, was recognized for leading Women of the World in supporting refugees, asylum seekers and immigrants who have fled their homes and resettled in Utah.
The other finalists are Mayor Andreas Hollstein and the volunteers of Altena, Germany, for welcoming refugees to their small town; Tuenjai Deetes, for devoting four decades of her life to ending statelessness in Thailand; and the Jordanian group Reclaim Childhood for empowering refugee girls through sport and building better links with their local communities.
The nonprofit Women of the World, founded in 2010, focuses on such issues as training women in conversational English; ensuring their physical and mental health is treated before requiring further achievement in academia or industry; developing job skills in language, service or creative industries that increase their earnings; and providing advocacy when unfortunate events occur in any stage of resettlement.
The annual award is named in honor of Norwegian explorer and humanitarian Fridtjof Nansen, the first high commissioner for refugees, who was appointed by the League of Nations in 1921.
According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the winner is not among the finalists and will be announced Sept. 25. However, each finalist will receive a certificate signed by the U.N. high commissioner for refugees, and finalists are still eligible to win the award in following years. The award ceremony will be held on Oct. 1 in Geneva.
JENSEN, Uintah County The Utah Division of Wildlife Resources will host a sandhill crane viewing day on Saturday, Sept. 22.
The free event will begin at 7 a.m. at the Jensen Nature Park, 8775 E. 6000 South, where participants will be able to look for the 4-foot tall birds with crimson crowns and gray bodies in fields near the park. Division biologists will be on hand to answer questions about the largest migratory birds in the world.
After the morning viewing event, participants can head to the Uintah County Library, 204 E. 100 North, Vernal, to learn about cranes and participate in crane-related activities. Activities will include sandhill crane yoga, sandhill crane crafts, a documentary film titled Crane Song and a presentation by Van Graham, a retired Colorado Parks and Wildlife biologist, on the Rocky Mountain population of greater sandhill cranes. The activities will take place between 9:30 a.m. and 4 p.m.
The next opportunity to view cranes will be at 4 p.m. Thats when participants will leave the library and head to the cranes roosting grounds at Pelican Lake and the Ouray National Wildlife Refuge. The auto tour wraps up at 6 p.m.
Bring your own vehicle, clothes youre comfortable wearing outside, binoculars if you have them, and drinks, water and snacks, Tonya Kieffer-Selby, regional conservation outreach manager for the division, said in a statement. Also, if you want to get good, quality photos, bring a telephoto lens for your camera.
For more information, call 435-781-9453.
WEST VALLEY CITY The Junior League of Salt Lake City will host its ninth annual Touch-A-Truck and Safety Fair on Saturday, Sept. 29, in the parking lot of Valley Fair Mall, 3601 S. 2700 West.
The family friendly event, which runs from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., will give children of all ages the chance to explore large vehicles, see how they work, and even sit in the driver's seat. These large vehicles include construction trucks, utility trucks, emergency responder vehicles and helicopters.
Quiet hour will be held from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. for kids who are sensitive to horns and sirens.
Tickets are $5 per person or $20 for a family or group up to five people. Children 2 and under get in free. To purchase tickets, log on to jlslc.org.
All proceeds will go to the Junior League of Salt Lake City, which is committed to empowering women by building better communities.
SPANISH FORK Thousands of residents in Woodland Hills and Elk Ridge were ordered to evacuate as the Pole Creek Fire crested a nearby peak and threatened homes below late Thursday afternoon.
Ignited by lightning last week along the Nebo Loop Road, the Pole Creek Fire had surged to about 20,000 acres shortly before 10 p.m., fueled by warm, dry and windy weather, fire officials reported. The blaze is 2 percent contained.
Late Thursday afternoon, residents of Woodland Hills and Elk Ridge cities, as well as the Covered Bridge community in Spanish Fork Canyon, were told to evacuate.
"The Pole Creek Fire has reached Santaquin Peak, putting them in greater danger," Utah County Sheriff's Sgt. Spencer Cannon tweeted. "Evacuees needing shelter or assistance can gather at Salem Hills High School in Salem."
People living in areas of Spanish Fork south of Powerhouse Road have also been told to prepare to leave their homes should the need arise.
Earlier in the day, homes were evacuated along U.S. 89 from the junction of U.S. 6 to Indianola in Sanpete County as flames moved east.
The fire started on Sept. 6 in the Spanish Fork Ranger District in Juab County.
Thursday afternoon, Cannon estimated that about 40 homes along U.S. 89 were in the evacuation area but a "number" of them were unoccupied.
"We tried to get (residents) out as quick as we could, and I think most of them were gone in 30, 35 minutes," Cannon said.
However, one resident refused to leave, he said.
"It's not uncommon to have somebody who says, 'No, this is my castle, I'm not leaving,'" Cannon said.
Cannon said the man told officials if they returned later, he still wouldn't leave.
"There's good reason why fire officials make the decision to evacuate. And the reason they do that is because it's dangerous to them. And if people choose to stay, and they get caught up in the fire and they call for help, then you have to take resources away from the fire to try to help these people," Cannon said.
"We just tell them that it'd be a really, really good idea if you left."
High winds Thursday afternoon prevented firefighters from attacking the fire from the air as the flames spread.
Firefighters from Salt Lake City, Unified fire, Draper, Lone Peak, Provo and West Valley City left Thursday to aid in the battle, officials said.
"Hopefully we will be able to take some of the pressure off of the firefighters that are already working hard on this fire," Salt Lake City Fire Capt. Matt Taylor said in a news release.
A Type 1 fire crew is expected to take over command of the fire on Friday, officials said.
U.S. 89 and U.S. 6 are closed in both directions near the fire, according to the Utah Department of Transportation. The Nebo Loop Road and Nephi Canyon Road are closed at the turnoff from state Route 132 in Juab County while firefighters battle the blaze.
Lt. Gov. Spencer Cox who has often tweeted about fires this summer, including voicing frustration about a controlled burn near his hometown of Fairfield that got out of hand took to social media Thursday afternoon with criticism of the U.S. Forest Service's management of the Pole Creek Fire.
"More inept decision-making by the Forest Service who decided to try and 'manage' this fire and let it burn instead of suppression during one of the worst droughts in recent history. Now raging out of control, homes are threatened and Highway 89 is closed," he tweeted.
Gov. Gary Herbert also took to Twitter Thursday evening with concern for the many people displaced by the blaze.
"Can't stop thinking about the many Utahns who have been evacuated tonight. If you are in the area, please heed warnings and instructions from officials and firefighters," Herbert wrote.
Rep. Mia Love, R-Utah, tweeted her concern as the fire spread.
"My prayers are with the residents of S. Utah county evacuated because of the runaway Pole Creek fire. My thoughts are with you as I monitor this situation, and I am grateful to the brave firefighters who are working hard to control the flames," Love said.
Thai operator dtac now has just two days to migrate its customers off its 2G network after the countrys regulator refused to allow a temporary extension of its 850MHz spectrum concession.
Dtac, which is the countrys third largest operator, has been offering 2G services on state-owned CAT Telecoms 850MHz network via a concession that expires at midnight on 15th September. Now that a grace period has been ruled out, these services will be shut down at this time whether or not dtac has migrated its 90,000 2G customers onto other networks.
In July, the NBTC (National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission) offered dtac a chance to extend the length of this concession if it bid in a previously scheduled auction for 900MHz spectrum. The operator declined this offer and the auctions were cancelled as no other participants were forthcoming.
Dtac is now attempting to overturn the NBTCs condition via legal channels, and has filed a court petition in an attempt to enshrine its customers right to continue using its network after the concession expires. All of dtacs customers could have their service disrupted if its 2G network is cut off, as the operator uses the 850MHz spectrum to facilitate roaming onto other networks.
NBTC secretary-general Takorn Tantasith told the Bangkok Post that the regulator had denied the extension request as dtac did not have a substantial enough base of active subscribers on its 2G network. If the number of active users on the network had been higher, the terms of dtacs concession would have allowed for an extension.
The regulator also noted that if dtac had acquired 900MHz spectrum in the previously scheduled auctions, it would have been able to offer 850MHz services following an upgrade.
Two Chattanooga-area projects are among those being considered in the 2018 Engineering Excellence Awards competition, presented by the American Council of Engineering Companies of Tennessee. The award is one of the highest honors an engineering firm can receive and is considered the Academy Awards of the engineering industry.
Chattanoogas Big Dig, a project completed by S&ME, Inc. and Civic Engineering for the city of Chattanooga, provides the storm drainage backbone for a 1,100-acre area. The project protects the historic St. Elmo District, large parts of Alton Park and South Chattanooga from a 100-year flood event. The new infrastructure has been designed with expansion in mind to pave the way for future development of the area in conjunction with the planned extension of the Chattanooga Riverwalk.
Ooltewah-Ringgold Road at Standifer Gap Road Roundabout, completed for Hamilton County Engineering by ARCADIS, created a safer intersection with input from the community using the roadway. In an area that had experienced 45 crashes, the roundabout has reduced speeds and fits with the aesthetics of the East Brainerd community. To date, no fatal or incapacitating crashes have been reported since the projects completion.
Project entries from across the state are up for consideration. The winners of the 2018 Engineering Excellence Awards will be announced during an awards gala at the Omni Hotel in Nashville on the evening of Oct. 26, where ACEC Tennessee will also celebrate its 50th Anniversary. Additional information about the Awards can be found at www.acectn.org.
In 2017, The TDOT Diverging Diamond Interchange at SR-66: Exit 407 project, completed by engineering firm Gresham, Smith and Partners, won the top prize.
Our round-ups of the worlds most drivable roads wouldnt be complete without an edition dedicated to Japan. The island nation is home to one of the most fascinating carscapes on the planet, as well as some of its most zealous auto enthusiasts.
As the land that gave us drifting, Japan has no shortage of rousing routes to explore, just resist the urge to drive like Drift King Keiichi Tsuchiya unless youre actually Keiichi Tsuchiya. Or that DK guy from Tokyo Drift. We give you, the best driving roads in Japan.
Iroha-zaka Winding Roads | Tochigi Prefecture
Iroha-zaka is a pair of winding roads that connect the lower elevations near central Nikko to the higher elevations of the Okunikko region. Used by ascetics in a former life, the Iroha-zaka Winding Roads are composed of 48 hairpin turns, each of which corresponds to a letter of the ancient Japanese alphabet. The turns are all labelled with their respective characters, which youll pass in alphabetical order along your journey.
Kawazu-Nanadaru Loop Bridge | Shizuoka Prefecture
The Kawazu-Nanadaru Loop Bridge is an exemplary illustration of Japanese ingenuity. The steep grade of the mountainside made a linear ramp impossible, so instead a spiraling road that looks more roller coaster than motorway was constructed. The twin coils are 1.1 km long, 80 m in diameter, and carry cars up and down a full 45 m. As tempting as it may be to floor it, the unique structure demands careful driving and the speed limit is only 30 km/h. We suppose 30km/h sideways shall have to suffice.
Mount Aso | Kumamoto Prefecture
In the centre of Kyushu, Japans third largest island, is the countrys most active volcano. The picturesque location makes it one of the best driving roads in Japan, it lends itself to leisurely driving with stops for soaks in the natural hot springs that abound in the area. Pay a visit to the spectacular Nakadake Crater provided the risk of volcanic activity is low and your respiratory system can handle the intense volcanic gases followed by some retail therapy at the Tosu Premium Outlets.
Norikuya Skyline Road | Nagano Prefecture
Take a cruise amongst the clouds on Japans highest road. Mount Norikura climbs to 3,026 m above sea level, offering unparalled panoramic views of the Northern Alps Mountain Range. The Norikuya Skyline Road is often closed due to heavy snowfall, but when open drivers are free to meander up to 2,700 m. Past that point, the road is no longer public and a taxi or bus must be taken to continue. The highest peak, Kengamine, can only be reached on foot.
Bandai Azuma Roadway | Fukushima Prefecture
The Azuma-Kofuji peak, located in the Mount Azuma volcanic mountain range, is a perfect miniature replica of Mount Fuji. Arriving at the base means travelling the Bandai Azuma Skyline, one of Japans most impressive mountain roads. Outstanding views are in ready supply, particularly when the autumn colours are in full bloom. Take note: the road is far in-land from the Fukushima nuclear powerplant and safe to drive.
Hakone Hill Climb | Kanagawa Prefecture
The iconic Hakone Hill Climb is a bucket list item for drivers in Japan. The road took the pioneers of drifting to the remote mountain passes where the technique was born, and has a surface thats better suited to a speedway than a normal street, making it the place to go if you want to put your skills to the test. Since its a privately owned toll road, odds are good that traffic will be minimal and youll have free range to explore its twists and turns at your own pace.
Kanjo Loop | Osaka Prefecture
Kanjo requires us to answer two questions: what? and who? First the what: the Kanjo Loop is an elevated highway system in the heart of Osaka. For most of the citys citizens, its just a regular roadway. For the who in question, an underground band of outlaws known as Kanjo Racers or Kanjozoku, the loop is an opportunity to throw caution (and laws) to the wind. The Kanjo street racing scene is an insane, highly illegal, and utterly captivating automotive mystery.
Mikuni Pass | Shizuoka Prefecture
Mt. Fuji is one of Japans most recognisable symbols and the countrys highest mountain. Its extraordinarily symmetrical cone is a must-see if youre in the vicinity of Tokyo and in the mood for sightseeing. Take a serene and spirited drive along Mikuni Pass, which provides breathtaking views of the mountain and Lake Yamanaka below. The viewing spots can be crowded, but keep driving and eventually youll find a calm patch to take in the scenery.
Tateyama Snow Canyon Road | Toyama Prefecture
Drive along Tateyama Snow Canyon Road and Game of Thrones fans will be forgiven for thinking theyre beyond the Wall in Westeros. There are no White Walkers here, just gravity-defying snow walls that reach up to 20 m high. The route is only 37 km in length, but the fantasy landscape is so unique that the trip is well worth it. Currently the road is only used for sightseeing, so expect a flood of tourists exercising their arms with selfie sticks.
Mount Haruna | Gunma Prefecture
The final stop for the best driving roads in Japan is the Gunma Prefecture, a drivers paradise that serves as the setting of drifting culture comic and animation Initial D. Take a spin on Mount Haruna, home base of Initial Ds main character Fujiwara Takumi and setting in the PlayStation 2 games Tokyo Xtreme Racer: Drift and Tokyo Xtreme Racer: Drift 2. Youll see plenty of modified cars and motorcycles that have come out just to take the illustrious drive.
The Best Of The Rest
For business travellers, the ability to get some quality shut eye is second only to getting work completed. And if you (or your team) are about to walk straight out of the airport and into an important meeting with a clear mind, youre going to want both.
With Qsuite, Qatar Airways new revolutionary Business Class offering, business travellers can now make the most of their time in the sky thanks to the shiny new conference rooms available in each suite, at 40,000 feet. Although some might take this as an unwelcome hint to take their eye-masks off and put their productivity hats on, the suite comes with state of art relaxation facilities too.
The recently launched, award-winning Qsuite is the first ever Business Class suite available on Australian flight paths, featuring lie-flat double beds, moveable partitions, privacy doors and plenty of workspace.
The cutting-edge quad configuration with moveable walls and slidable panels allows travellers to turn their suite into an office-style space for meetings with up to four colleagues (five, if you dont mind getting cosy).
Highlights include:
Quad configuration: adjustable monitors and panels allow business travellers to create their own office in the sky
Double bed: lie flat double beds with premium sleepwear ensures you are well rested before the important work meeting
Work space: abundant table space in the suits allow for plenty of room to work or share a meal with your colleagues
A-la-carte menu: restaurant-style quality meal from a specially designed menu will have you reimagining what airline food can be
And who knows, there may be more to come: As we continue to grow in Australia, we are glad to also be contributing to the market by providing greater consumer choice, Qatar Airways GCEO, Mr. Akbar Al Baker said in a press release.
Since its launch, Qsuite has received tremendous attention globally, and we are delighted to introduce this revolutionary product on our Canberra and Sydney routes.
For those itching to get their mitts on the coolest workspace since Hemingways Finca Vigia, The Qsuite is available on flights to and from Canberra via Sydney to Doha, then onwards to over 150 destinations.
RELATED: Etihads $27,000 Travel Class Take A Virtual Tour
In Thursday's edition of the Donegal Democrat, readers can avail of a fantastic free 48-page supplement entitled 'Autumn Breaks'
It's a wonderful guide, full of offers and ideas, for those thinking of taking an Autumn Break here in Ireland.
Of course, some of you might not want to stray too far if you're planning a day away. There's plenty to do here in Donegal.
SEE ALSO: Autumn Breaks 2018
In recent years Donegal has become a strong feature on many's a bucket list, not just at home, but in far off fields where the warmth of the people is often regarded as our most valuable asset.
Time after time visitors remark on the warmth of the welcome, the lyrical tongue, the sparkle in the eyes and sheer friendlieness.
When choosing a holiday destination people really try to define just what is different about their choice. In Donegal we like to think that we have such a diverse product - hundreds of miles of unspoilt coastline, mountains, lakes, rivers and streams and as the song says, hearts as big as mountains.
Many have described parts of Donegal as a land that time forgot, when they talk about Tory, Owey Island, Port, Malinbeg and other locations. There are also destinations where they will find no shortage of great activities, small intimate pubs and restaurants with a great choice of accommodation options.
Take in some of the best scenery in Ireland as you travel along Slieve Liag heading on to the Silver Strand and Malinbeg, stopping for a while in the Glencolmcille Folk Village. A short drive will take you over to Ardara and the stunning Maghery beach and caves which are located on one of west Donegal's most remote peninsulas.
SEE ALSO: Top ten things to do in Donegal
Errigal mountain, the tallest peak in Donegal, towers over the other Derryveagh mountains at an impressive 2,464 ft. and offers great climbing opportunities. If youve ever driven around Donegal, the chances are youll have marvelled at Errigals dramatic quartzite peak from afar, as its visible from many places across the county.
Horn Head, close to the town of Dunfanaghy, is a must. You can throw on the walking boots and head off on a walk along the cliffs or drive the Horn Head loop.
You will see Fanad Head Lighthouse dominate many guides naming the best things to do in Donegal - its a special place.
The drive to and from Fanad Lighthouse is worth the trip alone, as you pass through the beautifully quaint countryside that leads to it. The craggy land and seascapes that encompass Donegal are out of this world.
Sit up on an old stone wall and switch off for a while. Soak up the sounds of the ocean and bask in the beauty of one of Irelands most spectacular corners. Catch a wave along one of Donegal's deserted beaches or saddle up and discover many of the wooded glens and glistening mountain streams.
Along the way you will find no shortage of restaurants where food just flows from the sea to the plate, from the farm to the fork.
From castles to cottages, homely guest houses to glamping, there is no shortage of quality and affordable accommodation.
We have always been proud of our culture and traditions and no visit is complete without a trip to the Gaeltacht of west Donegal. Immerse yourself in the sounds and traditions, and undiscovered charm of a unique people.
An experience, once discovered, thats never forgotten.
Bigi linn.
Building contractors in Donegal are being invited to attend an information event on new frameworks that have been launched this week to streamline the tendering process for 100m in contracts for minor building works across the entire public service including 31 local authorities, the HSE, the OPW, the Department of Education and Teagasc.
This event is being hosted by the Local Government Operational Procurement Centre (LGOPC) and will be held on Thursday, September 27 at 7.00pm in the Clanree Hotel, Letterkenny.
It will provide details of the framework and the opportunities that may arise for local businesses and is being supported by InterTradeIreland who will provide advice to businesses about registering and tendering on www.etenders.ie. This is a good opportunity for local businesses to win public sector contracts across the public sector in Ireland.
The frameworks will be tendered from October 2018 with two opportunities for contractors to participate minor building works residential and minor building works commercial. While the scope and complexity of the works will vary significantly, it is envisaged that the average contract value will be in the region of 50,000 for residential works and 100,000 for commercial works.
Moira Murrell, Chairperson of the Local Government Procurement Programme Board said: The local government sector, as lead partner, brings this opportunity to SMEs in Ireland in 2018. It represents a very significant opportunity for SMEs to deliver key contracts across the public sector. The value of the frameworks is estimated at 100m and the local government sector is eager to communicate this message to all small contractors in the building industry.
These minor works frameworks are a great opportunity to win business from the public sector. They are open to businesses seeking to gain a first contract or those stepping up to tender for larger or commercial contracts. The local government sector is providing a number of supports to small businesses to help them to engage with this procurement process, including a series of regional information briefings.
This information session is one of eight regional briefings on the frameworks taking place around the country.
Support documents, details of information briefings and a link to register for the event are available at www.lgma.ie.
Queries from service providers in respect of the Framework should be made to The Local Government Operational Procurement Centre (LGOPC) Helpdesk on eproc@kerrycoco.ie / 079-1064020.
The agency has partnered with allcove, a growing state network of youth mental health centers designed with, by and for young people to reduce mental health stigma, embrace mental wellness, increase community connections and provide equitable access to services.
Met Eireann has warned that Louth, and the entire country, could be in for "very disturbed weather" with a "risk of extremely windy conditions with heavy rainfall" from the start of next week.
Weather chiefs are warning that Ireland could catch the tail end of Hurricane Helene as it u-turns away from America.
Met Eireann said: "There is a lot of uncertainty in the details for early next week but indications are for very disturbed weather. Mild, very humid conditions are expected to develop during Monday, with rain moving up from the south in freshening southerly winds. There is a risk of some extremely windy conditions with heavy rainfall on Monday night or Tuesday but there is a large degree of uncertainty in details at present."
Local weather expert Louth Weather said the following in his latest forecast.
"THURSDAY: Dull and cloudy with hill fog. A lot of dry weather today, but some patchy periods of light rain will occur now and again. Max 16C. Moderate SW winds.
"FRIDAY: Cloudy and damp for most of the morning with light rain or drizzle. The afternoon will be brighter with occasional showers. Max 15C. Moderate to fresh westerly winds.
"SATURDAY: Mostly cloudy but overall dry. Max 15C. Light to moderate SW winds. Some light rain Saturday night, though it will be mild and humid with temperatures staying above 15C.
"SUNDAY: Another cloudy but mostly dry day. Slightly milder at 16C."
He also made some predictions about how Louth would be affected by the tail end of Hurricane Helene.
He said: "NEXT WEEK: It looks like the status quo of the past four weeks will end. This produced quite boring and mostly cloudy conditions. Next week sees the jet stream sink south, with a strong SW flow bringing two, if not three, low-pressure systems sweeping NE close to, or across Ireland. It's uncertain how close these will be, or indeed how deep they will develop, but either way I think we'll be seeing much more autumnal and windy conditions next week. Monday night into early Tuesday should see the first of these lows arrive, so keep an eye out for my updates."
There is the possibility that there could be two different time zones on the island of Ireland by October 2019 under a new proposal announced yesterday by the European Commission.
The new proposal was announced by the European Commission's President Jean-Claude Juncker, would end the practice of EU countries alternating between summer time and winter time every year.
Under the plan, the last mandatory change to summertime would happen on Sunday, March 31, 2019.
It would need to be approved by the European Council and the European Parliament and member states would be required to choose whether they would permanently remain in summer time or winter time.
Those who choose to remain in winter time will make the final clock change at the end of October 2019.
The UK, which is due to leave the EU on Friday, March 29, 2019, will continue to change between Greenwich Mean Time and British Summer Time every year.
Speaking to RTE, Fianna Fails Brexit spokesperson Lisa Chambers that two time zones existing on the island of Ireland would be "totally impractical".
She said: "I would hope that with something like this there would be a common sense approach and no time difference on the island.
"This is precisely the kind of thing that could get lost in the noise of the other, bigger Brexit issues to be resolved and while most people will laugh at the suggestion of such a time difference on the island of Ireland, it would not be funny if it were to actually transpire."
Sinn Fein Brexit spokesperson told RTE that it was a "ludicrous situation".
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The City of Sunrise Firefighters' Pension Fund recently filed a lawsuit alleging that Oracle executives lied about the company's successes in the cloud and engaged in coercion and threats to sell its cloud products, "creating an unsustainable model that fell apart."
I don't understand everything about the new lawsuit, as I am not an attorney.
The plaintiff apparently is seeking class-action status for the suit. Oracle has called the suit meritless and said it would defend against it. The company might have a point, because unsustainable models emerge all the time, not as a result of malicious intent but as vagaries of the market.
Deception or Pragmatism?
While reviewing my notes from the March earnings call, which seems to have caused some of the consternation among the firefighters, I recalled thinking at the time that the company hadn't been doing very much in the cloud. I was surprised that so much of the company's cloud business was coming from net new customers, not the installed base.
"Less than 15 percent of our on-premise applications customers have begun to migrate their applications to the cloud," co-CEO Mark Hurd said in the earnings announcement. "As the other 85 percent of our applications customers start to move their applications to the Cloud, we have a huge opportunity in front of us. We expect to more than double the size of our SaaS business very quickly."
To my recollection, during the subsequent call Hurd was insistent that the cloud revenues represented net new business that did not come from the installed base.
Clearly, the company expected to ramp up its cloud business with its installed base, but just as clearly, it lacked a good deal of the public infrastructure it needed to make that happen. For a company accustomed to reporting in terms of billions of dollars, the outlier line item was this: "Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) revenues were up 28 percent to (US)$415 million. Total Cloud Revenues were up 32 percent to $1.6 billion."
If memory serves, at the time there were just three data centers deployed to handle the cloud business. There are more now, but there would need to be many more cloud data centers for Oracle to achieve its vision of moving its installed base to the cloud -- even if many of its largest enterprise customers decided to continue operating their own data centers in private clouds. That's why the $415 million number was so small.
Lastly, Oracle was well aware of the heavy lift the transition to the cloud would be. On multiple occasions, Larry Ellison, Mark Hurd and others cautioned that the move could take a decade or more. All of this suggests to me that the company was not lying about its progress in moving to the cloud. If anything, I thought, it was being pragmatic.
Arm Twisting
On a related topic, the lawsuit claims that Oracle used coercion and threats of software audits to incentivize customers to move applications to the cloud. This is a more difficult situation to rationalize, because each case will be different.
Each conversation between Oracle representatives and individual clients will cause individuals to take away different impressions. Did a representative try to twist an arm beyond what is commonplace in sales negotiations? It's hard to say.
What's certain is that software audits didn't sprout from the ground a few months ago. They've been a part of the Oracle license agreements for a long time. Representatives of the company have told me that they perform a small number of audits relative to the size of the customer base (425,000-plus businesses) each year. Their purpose is to ensure compliance and to avoid mission creep in a deployment that avoids paying for additional use. Nobody likes that but it's reality.
When a discrepancy is discovered between what's licensed and what's in use, several things can happen. A customer might be liable for back charges and new upfront charges for continuing a use pattern that varies from the agreed terms. Alternatively, the company might at its discretion offer to waive the charges if the business chooses to make a purchase to rectify the situation.
To be sure, none of this is black and white. Many large businesses operate thousands of Oracle databases and applications, and the audit process likely will, on occasion, surprise all parties. There's no allegation of conscious theft in the process. It's also true that in the cloud, the gray areas that on-premises systems can be subject to, don't exist. Every configuration is specified, and the seats are allocated and paid for, so one of the big issues that drives audits doesn't exist.
That means hosting a database on a computer that could support alternative uses of the software from what was licensed isn't prevalent. Many audits turn up questionable hosting but not actual use, which is part of the gray area problem.
In such a situation, a reasonable person could imagine a conversation between Oracle and a customer that includes a statement like, "If you had these apps in the cloud, this wouldn't be a problem." That's not coercion. I'm not saying that did or didn't happen, only that it's a gray area.
Analysts React
Shortly after the earnings call, Gartner issued a negative opinion of Oracle's progress in migrating to the cloud, and on March 20, Oracle shares fell 9.4 percent causing the pension fund to lose money. We know that for sure, but we also know that earnings calls are full of forward-looking statements and safe harbor declarations that insulate vendors from errant predictions.
We also know that the value of shares fluctuates in the open market based on numerous factors, including what a company says about its successes and failures and what others say too.
Last Words
Oracle's earnings numbers were solid in March, but the forward guidance was cautious, given such things as the need to build more cloud data centers and the delicate dance of moving on-premises enterprises to the cloud. I think it was the forward-looking statements about future earnings that troubled analysts and may have spooked investors, so I am not sure what the lawsuit hopes to prove.
It's hard from this vantage point to say if Oracle did anything wrong. We can have our suspicions -- but it's also hard to believe that a company as big, savvy, and as well-lawyered as Oracle is could make the rookie mistakes alleged in the complaint.
No one likes to lose money in the stock markets, but the reality is that it happens all the time, and everyone who enters that public space should keep that in mind.
Denis Pombriant is a well-known CRM industry analyst, strategist, writer and speaker. His new book, You Can't Buy Customer Loyalty, But You Can Earn It, is now available on Amazon. His 2015 book, Solve for the Customer, is also available there. Email Denis.
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Bias is a nasty beast. A market research class I took in graduate school focused on the identification and elimination of bias. My final paper was on an intentionally biased piece of research. It was far easier to introduce bias and then talk about the bias than it would have been to attempt to do unbiased work and defend it as unbiased.
For that reason alone, the Trump administration's recent complaints that Google's search engine is biased are almost certainly true.
The nature of the bias, however, has not been determined. It actually could be bias in favor of Trump (though the odds are against that because Google was so tight with the Obama administration and liberals in general).
The perception of bias simply may be driven by the overwhelming amount of negative ink on the administration and a revenue-focused algorithm that pushes people to that volume.
I'll share some thoughts on bias and then close with my product of the week: The Lenovo Yoga Book C930, announced at IFA last week, is one of the most innovative laptop/tablet products on the market.
Why Bias Is Bad
Bias is bad because it creates an unknown variation from the truth. A biased answer to a question is by nature not accurate. It results from taking reality through a filter that alters the perception of that reality and then produces a false conclusion based on the filter rather than the reality.
For instance, suppose someone asks me what car to buy, and I say, "Don't buy a Ford, it stands for 'Fix Or Repair Daily' and all Fords suck." What I likely did was take my personal experience, based on ownership of a number of bad Ford cars, and use it to color my view, ultimately concluding that the brand was low quality.
In reality, Ford's quality is in line with other similar car makers -- and often better, depending on the line. So, even if the best car for you might be a Ford, I've excluded all Fords from consideration due to my bias. My advice would be suboptimal at best. At worst it could influence you to make a truly bad decision.
One of the most obvious places we see bias play out is in relationships. When we go into a relationship it is often with a bias toward our partner. We see the good, not the bad, which is due in part to the fact that in a new relationship people are initially on their best behavior. It's also because we downplay the bad or ignore it, focusing instead on what we want to see.
Flip to the other side. During a breakup or divorce, our perception is 180 degrees different. Now we can see only the bad and not the good. That once angelic partner has become a close and personal friend of Satan. Both perceptions likely are biased. During the good times, the partner wasn't all good, and when the relationship failed, the partner wasn't all bad.
One of the ways to ensure better relationships is to do your homework on potential partners up front, before you become invested. What were their past relationships like? What are they looking for in a new relationship? Are they honest and transparent? Can you tolerate their family? Are your most important views, values and goals aligned?
More typically, people are interested in whether prospective partners are hot or financially secure. Though these are factors to consider, they shouldn't override the others. Assuming that success is either a long relationship, marriage, or at least a lasting friendship, then doing the honest assessment up front should get you closer to a good match. At the very least, you waste less time on sure failures, and are more likely to avoid nasty dramas.
Google Is Biased
People create the algorithms that Google uses, which increasingly are considered AIs. Any bias those people have likely will be built into the algorithms because we don't see our own biases. We don't intentionally put filters between our brains and eyes, but they get there nonetheless, and the result is that our biased reality is our reality.
A more common expression of this is that to us, perception is reality. The Google employees who build and test the Google algorithms for accuracy naturally are biased.
From the standpoint of political bias, we should see a bias to the left in Google searches, given Google's history with the Obama administration and the fact that tech companies, including Google, generally tend to lean left.
What makes this difficult to confirm is that the news media obviously is biased against the Trump presidency. You really can't blame them, though, because Trump stands out as pounding on media as dishonest. So even if Google were unbiased, the results from Google search would look biased, because of what appears to be an overwhelming bias in the news media.
The big problem with Google, however, is likely not political bias but financial bias. We don't pay Google for our results. We aren't really the customer. In Google's world -- and this is the same for social media as well -- we are the product. The customer is the vendor paying to find out about us, so they can sell to us more effectively.
For instance, if I want to buy tires for one of my Jaguars (yes, I have more than one) the search starts with a listing from stores with prices. Some do attempt to answer the question, but likely are biased toward the tires that provide them the best margins.
The one relatively unbiased source, the Jaguar Forum, was down mid-page and overwhelmed by the retailers. If Google were unbiased, it would rank the Jaguar Forum and sources like Consumer Reports toward the top, because, odds are good that they'd be a ton less biased than companies that are tying to sell me whatever tire they have overstocked.
Now having the best tire does have an impact on your life. It can make the difference between avoiding an accident and dying in one. I should point out that this isn't always the case, however. If you do a search on "best ways to lose weight," for instance, Google does seem to put the independent sources up front, and it isn't until the second page that you suddenly seem to get overwhelmed by biased vendor links.
On politics it gets interesting. If you search on just the names "Trump Clinton" you are overwhelmed with negative Trump stories. To be clear, it does look like the stories out there are overwhelmingly negative except for those from Fox, which don't show up at all on the first page (at least they didn't when I tried it).
However, we also know that Fox is one of the most powerful news organizations in America, so its stories should have shown up on the first page. If they don't appear, then what else from the conservative side are we missing?
You can see this if you just add the word "Fox" to Trump and Clinton. Granted, that is obviously biased toward Fox, but you suddenly see stories that should have come up in the more generic search.
We know that conservative interests largely align with Fox while liberal positions are spread across a wider group of news suppliers. That should have pushed the Fox coverage to the top if the algorithm were based on general interest, but it didn't.
I'm a conservative myself. Given that these results should have been biased toward my interests and not away from them, it appears to confirm the likelihood that Google's search engine algorithm has a goal other than meeting my personal needs and interests.
Now I'm not suggesting any of these news sources are unbiased, the chart I link to above clearly shows they aren't. However, we are focused on Google search and not the news services right now.
It appears that Google's bias is stronger politically than it is financially, because people don't like to look at information that disagrees with their world view. Were Google exclusively, or mostly, revenue-driven, it likely would just give me Fox results (still bias, but driven by the need for profit rather than a political agenda).
Back to Bias Being Bad
Regardless of whether the bias is financial or political, it is not in our best interests because search results lead to decisions. Ideally, we should be getting the closest thing to the truth that Google can deliver. That doesn't appear to be the case, at least when it comes to politics or car tires.
Now that would suggest the need for substantial government oversight, but how do we ensure that those doing the oversight aren't swapping Google's bias for their own? A bunch of Republican moderators would result in an all Fox result, and a bunch of Democrats would favor MSNBC. Neither would be better.
That doesn't mean we don't need to prioritize fixing the problem. As we increasingly look to AIs to provide for our care and survival, it's critical that we make sure those AIs have our best interests as their primary drivers. So far, as Google and Facebook showcase, we have failed to implement the proper protections and assurances.
Wrapping Up: Perhaps IBM Is the Answer
When it comes to getting ahead of this, the one company that truly stands out is IBM, which earlier this year issued a series of internal edicts: Transparency and Trust in the Cognitive Era.
Basically, they are rules to prevent IBM from developing technology that was counter to the interests of the people who used it. Before Google gets regulated, which now may be a foregone conclusion, the company likely should create a similar list and take it far more seriously than its old "don't be evil" motto.
We users may be Google's product, but if its focus on creating political or financial bias harms us, then it likely harms Google as well. This class of Google users includes investors, employees, and the employees of the firms that fund Google.
Put differently, Google still has to live in the world it screws up. What I'm suggesting is that if avoiding regulation isn't enough of a motivator to shift to IBM's more human-centric path, then maybe staying alive might be. Just saying...
There are two products that really stand out to me as the only true 2-in-1 computers in market. They are the Surface Go and the Yoga Book.
What makes them fit into this category better than others is their size and weight. Both are light enough and small enough to be considered a tablet (we know from surveys that most people will not accept a tablet that has an 11-inch or larger screen or a carry weight of much over a pound.
The first Yoga Book stood out because of its more versatile flat keyboard that could work as a digitizer, but that keyboard was too strange and limited for most.
Instead of that odd flat keyboard, the just-announced Yoga Book C930 has an ePaper display with touch capability and haptics. This allows you to not only write and draw on the keyboard but see what you drew on the keyboard as well.
Lenovo Yoga Book C930
In addition, the ePaper display makes for a better high-contrast reading platform than any LCD or OLED screen can, and ePaper uses a tiny fraction of the power an LED screen consumes.
Better with the WAN option so that you are always connected, the Yoga Book C930 really sets the bar in terms of innovation and delivers on the promise of a true 2-in-1. It is a legitimate, though small, laptop as well as a tablet you will be comfortable using as a tablet.
Another really interesting thing about the keyboard is that it can shift not only between modes but also between languages and key configurations, near instantly.
The only note of discord is that it has an Intel rather than an ARM processor, which likely would have been more appropriate for this form factor. I expect Lenovo is holding out for the Snapdragon 1000 before making that jump.
The Yoga Book C930 is arguably the most innovative notebook I've seen in some time, and as a result, it is my product of the week.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ECT News Network.
Rob Enderle has been an ECT News Network columnist since 2003. His areas of interest include AI, autonomous driving, drones, personal technology, emerging technology, regulation, litigation, M&E, and technology in politics. He has an MBA in human resources, marketing and computer science. He is also a certified management accountant. Enderle currently is president and principal analyst of the Enderle Group, a consultancy that serves the technology industry. He formerly served as a senior research fellow at Giga Information Group and Forrester. Email Rob.
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The European Parliament on Wednesday approved a directive aimed at protecting the intellectual property of copyright holders on the Internet. It would require online platforms to scrutinize content their users post online and enter licensing agreements with rights holders.
The Parliament approved the copyright directive with a vote of 438-226, with 39 abstentions.
"I am very glad that despite the very strong lobbying campaign by the Internet giants, there is now a majority in the full house backing the need to protect the principle of fair pay for European creatives," said Parliament member Axel Voss.
"There has been much heated debate around this directive and I believe that Parliament has listened carefully to the concerns raised. Thus, we have addressed concerns raised about innovation by excluding small and micro platforms or aggregators from the scope," he said.
"I am convinced that once the dust has settled, the Internet will be as free as it is today, creators and journalists will be earning a fairer share of the revenues generated by their works, and we will be wondering what all the fuss was about," Voss added.
Protecting Online Freedom
The latest version of the measure contains provisions to protect the intellectual propery of rights holders while preserving freedom on the Internet, according to proponents.
For example, sharing hyperlinks and descriptions won't be subject to copyright constraints.
The directive also requires Internet platforms to design filtering systems that avoid catching "non-infringing" works. The systems must also have "rapid redress" processes for quick resolution of copyright disputes.
Wikipedia and open source software platforms, like GitHub, are excluded from compliance with copyright rules.
The directive will guarantee that artists (notably musicians, performers and script authors), news publishers and journalists are paid for their work when it is used by sharing platforms such as YouTube and Facebook, or news aggregators such as Google News, according to its supporters.
Making Sharing Difficult
Although the directive applies only to European nations, its impact is likely to be felt globally.
"Because it will be easier for most tech companies to comply with European law for global operations, most Internet users will be affected the way European users are affected," said Gus Rossi, global policy director at Public Knowledge, an advocacy group based in Washington, D.C.
"We're going to see very broad application in non-EU contexts, because the stakes for getting it wrong are too high," said Cory Doctorow, a special advisor to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an online rights advocacy group based in San Francisco.
"There are high statutory damages," he explained. "They vary from country to country, but they tend to be in the six-figure range per download."
The directive will make it harder for users to share information, knowledge and political satire, as well as to create new forms of content, Rossi told the E-Commerce Times.
Under the directive, Internet platforms are required to compensate rights holders for links to their content posted on the platforms.
"If a platform doesn't agree to pay news sources, then users won't be able to share trustworthy information created by professional journalists," Rossi pointed out.
That could feed the distribution of fake news on the Internet.
"Users who wish to share information with their contacts will opt to share less-trustworthy information," Rossi explained. "Instead of sharing information from The New York Times, they'll share information from a random blog post they found online. That creates a problem for trustworthiness of information online."
In the past, licensing schemes have been tried in Spain and Germany, he noted, but "in both countries, they failed dramatically."
Feeding US Dominance
The directive would lead to censorship, Rossi also maintained.
The directive makes Internet platforms responsible for what their users post, which "will chill speech online," he said. "It creates incentives for Internet websites to censor content."
Another provision in the directive requires platforms to filter all the content posted by their users to prevent copyright infringement.
"That's going to make the U.S. Internet companies a lot more dominant," Doctorow said.
"There's not really anyone outside a few companies in China and one or two in Russia that can afford this kind of compliance. All the small European companies will be put out of business at the stroke of a pen when this comes into effect," he predicted.
"The filters that we're talking about are outrageously expensive," Doctorow observed.
"The one that YouTube uses just tracks the audio tracks of videos, and it cost (US)$60 miliion to build," he noted. "To operate a platform where users share video and text and 3D models and audio and all the things we see frequently shared on a single platform will mean hundreds of millions of dollars in compliance costs."
Scaremongering Tactics
The new directive is aimed largely at harmonizing copyright law across the European Union, but only two provisions seem to be garnering any attention, remarked Roy S. Kaufman, managing director for business development at the Copyright Clearance Center, a copyright licensing services provider in Danvers, Massachusetts.
"Why?" he asked. "Because these two provisions -- one creating a 'neighboring right' for publishers and one holding platforms at least somewhat responsible for the infringing content on which they profit -- led to a major counteroffensive by technology platforms," he told the E-Commerce Times.
"To the platforms, their lobbyists and astroturf organizations, these provisions will 'break the Internet,'" Kaufman noted.
However, "the EU has rejected this scaremongering," he said. "The EU sensibly looked at the concentration of power in the platforms, the harm to democracy and free expression that comes from continued economic takings from authors, musicians, artists -- and yes, publishers, newspapers, studios and recording labels -- and concluded, on balance, that culture was under threat."
What's Next
The copyright directive next goes to something called "trilogue negotiations," where representatives of the EU parliament, European Council and the European Commission will hammer out a final version of the law.
Then the directive will go to the European Parliament for final action.
Because European Parliament elections will be held in the second half of 2019, however, the directive needs to clear the body by the end of the spring or face an indefinite delay.
Whether the Parliament approves the finalized directive or not will depend on how much of a third rail it becomes between now and then.
"There isn't anyone who's going to go home and campaign on 'Vote for me, I did this copyright thing,'" Doctorow said, "but there are plenty of voters who might vote against someone for breaking the Internet."
John P. Mello Jr. has been an ECT News Network reporter since 2003. His areas of focus include cybersecurity, IT issues, privacy, e-commerce, social media, artificial intelligence, big data and consumer electronics. He has written and edited for numerous publications, including the Boston Business Journal, the Boston Phoenix, Megapixel.Net and Government Security News. Email John.
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Hackers cracked into a wide array of voting equipment Def Con's Voting Village, an event held Friday at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Last year, conference goers hacked five machines and an e-poll book of registered voters. This year, in addition to voting machines, tabulators and smart card readers were available for hacking.
Websites weren't off limits, either. An 11-year-old hacked into a replica of the Florida secretary of state's office site in 10 minutes and changed the results there. In real life, such an attack might create confusion, but it would not effect the actual vote tally of an election.
Election stakeholders last year were caught by surprise by the hacking frenzy at the Voting Village, but they were prepared for it this time around.
One of the largest providers of election equipment in the United States, ES&S, sent an email to its customers advising them that it was highly unlikely that any hacker would be able to get the physical access to a voting machine that a Def Con attendee could get at the conference.
Significant Threat
The National Association of Secretaries of State, which represents local officials overseeing elections in the states, expressed similar sentiments, arguing that the unlimited physical access Def Con attendees got to voting machines, many no longer in use, did not replicate real-world election conditions.
However, the weaknesses Def Con hackers exposed should not be ignored, security experts warned.
"These hacks pose a tremendously significant threat to election systems," said John Cassidy, CEO of Alexandria, Virginia-based King & Union, maker of a cybersecurity analysis collaboration platform.
"They illustrate just how poorly security has been considered in many of these systems," he told the E-Commerce Times.
While the Def Con hacks required manual access to the voting machines, it is highly likely hackers already know of other vulnerabilities that do not require that kind of access, Cassidy said.
More Than Machines
"Def Con demonstrates how vulnerable the system is," remarked Avivah Litan, a security analyst at Gartner, a research and advisory company based in Stamford, Connecticut.
"It's just amazing the country is so lax at responding to this. We don't have any national response that's meaningful," she told the E-Commerce Times. "Hacking elections has become a partisan issue."
As the 11-year-old's hack illustrated, more than voting machines are at risk.
"There are many different attack vectors," Litan said. "It's the tabulation systems, the absentee balloting systems and the system management systems."
Making matters worse is the lack of central control over voting systems.
"Even when weaknesses are exposed, the only people who can fix them are at the local level," Litan explained. "The Feds don't have any jurisdiction, and local people won't let anyone into their systems because of partisan concerns."
Lax Cyber Hygiene
Although the focus on election meddling has been at the national level, local elections might be better targets for foreign hackers, observed Major General Earl Matthews, USAF (Ret.), chief strategy officer of Verodin, a McLean, Virginia-based maker of a platform for measuring cybersecurity effectiveness.
An attack on a presidential election is a high-impact event, but it has a low likelihood of success, he told the E-Commerce Times. That contrasts with hacking a local election, where the impact would be lower, but the likelihood of success would be higher.
"While not highlighted in the media as much as national election attacks, influencing local, state and congressional elections will be valuable to attackers," Matthews said. "Those attacks are more likely to succeed without being noticed."
The cyber hygiene surrounding electronic voting machines hasn't changed drastically in more than a decade.
"The good guys and bad guys alike have had plenty of time to discover, and potentially exploit, vulnerabilities in the systems and processes underlying democracy around the world," Matthews noted.
Halfhearted Security
Despite proven vulnerabilities and a demonstrative lack of security, manufacturers and officials have not improved electronic voting systems, according to Matthews.
The combination of "a lack of basic security processes, such as penetration testing and security-by-design, and comprehensive physical access controls has resulted in halfhearted security, which enables an attack," he said.
"Voting machines become easier to compromise as vulnerabilities are discovered and left unpatched," Matthews continued, "and most of the time the concern doesn't arise until election time, and then it's too late to remedy."
The security of the election infrastructure needs the same attention that protection of the nation's critical infrastructure has been getting, maintained Eddie Habibi, CEO of PAS, a provider of security software for industrial control systems, based in Houston, Texas.
"Similar attention must be given to election voting machines to ensure every vote counts, and it counts only once," he told the E-Commerce Times.
"The confidence of the voting public in our western democracy is essential to our confidence in the government and in the rule of law," Habibi continued. "To that end, voting machines should be considered essential systems and be proactively protected against any kind of attack, domestic or foreign."
Return to Paper
Because of the difficulties of ensuring the security of electronic voting devices, there has been a call from some quarters to return to paper ballots.
"Paper ballots have first-degree integrity because they can be manually recounted and depend on a trusted chain of custody," Matthews said, but a paper ballot system offers challenges of its own.
"This is still not perfect," he added, "as there have been numerous reported cases of election officials altering ballots, removing ballot boxes, or otherwise compromising the paper trail."
Voter registration lists stored on computer systems also must be protected, Gartner's Litan added.
"Everyone who is entitled to vote should be able to vote, and there should be no tinkering with the registration databases," she said. "We already know the Russians are in those databases and may be stealing identities to cast fake votes, or deleting people from the rolls."
A return to total paper balloting would not be a wise move, however, according to Mounir Hahad, head of the threat lab for Juniper Networks based in Sunnyvale, California.
"We don't want to wipe decades of progress," he told the E-Commerce Times, "because we're choosing not to handle security risks properly."
John P. Mello Jr. has been an ECT News Network reporter since 2003. His areas of focus include cybersecurity, IT issues, privacy, e-commerce, social media, artificial intelligence, big data and consumer electronics. He has written and edited for numerous publications, including the Boston Business Journal, the Boston Phoenix, Megapixel.Net and Government Security News. Email John.
A good start and a strong finish: State education leaders build a large part of their education policy around ensuring children are equipped for both as they move through the K-12 system and beyond. But how does that play out when 50 state education systems are stacked up against each otherand what kind of picture emerges for the nation as a whole when that mosaic comes together?
Quality Counts 2018 offers some examples and takeaways through the data collected in its Chance-for-Success Index, which looks at both ends of the learning spectrum and what it means for a persons lifelong trajectory.
First a couple of basics, subjective though they may be, as captured by the 13 indicators selected by the Education Week Research Center for its index.
A good start can take the form of making sure children have access to high-quality early-childhood education, including preschool, public or private, state and locally funded or federally supported, as in the long-established Head Start program.
Deciding Where to Focus
The strong finish refers to the array of programs available to make sure that students graduate from high school and that those who want to enroll in college are prepared to do so and supported when they do.
In effect, along with 4th and 8th grade achievement, the Chance-for-Success Index captures both the beginning and the end of a students educational career, everything from preschool and kindergarten enrollment to high school graduation and college enrollment and graduation.
An examination of a decades worth of data suggests theres no easily discernable connection among these particular indicators. States with notable increases in preschool enrollment, for example, are not necessarily the same states that have boosted high school graduation rates or college-attendance rates. The interplay among all these factors is complex.
However, these are areas where policymakers are expending a lot of energy to try to move the needle of success for young people.
Take preschool, as an example.
Spending on state-funded preschool alone has grown from $2.4 billion in 2002 to more than $7.6 billion in 2017, according to the National Institute of Early Education Research.
Cities have also entered the preschool space, including New York, Philadelphia, San Antonio, and Seattle. And, of course, parents pay money to enroll their children in private preschools.
Those efforts are having an impact, at least as far as individual state participation is concerned.
In Colorado and Connecticut, for example, the percentage of 3- and 4-year-olds enrolled in preschool in both states increased more than 8 percentage points over the past decade. In contrast, the nation as a whole saw growth of just under 2 percentage points in the same time period.
A deeper look shows about 51 percent of Colorados young children are enrolled in public or private preschool, compared with about 48 percent nationwide. But 10 years ago, only about 43 percent of Colorados young children were attending preschool.
What changed? For one thing, the Colorado legislature in 2014 allocated funds to add about 5,000 slots to the Colorado Preschool Program, which serves children at risk of school failure. Nearly 30,000 children receive services through that program, said Heidi McCaslin, the director of state-funded preschool for the Colorado education department.
In Connecticut, about 66 percent of 3- and 4-year-olds are enrolled in public or private preschool. Ten years ago, it was 57 percent.
Overall State Grades Catch up on how the nation and states fared on a broad range of K-12 categories, including school finance, as reported in this years first installment of Quality Counts, published Jan. 17.
In 2013, Connecticut created a Cabinet-level agency, the office of early childhood, to pull together early-care and early-education funding streams that had been scattered across several state agencies.
Bringing those programs under the control of one agency has allowed state dollars to be spent more efficiently, said David Wilkinson, the states early-childhood commissioner.
For example, the agency controls the states child-care and -development block-grant money, which provides vouchers to low-income families to pay for child care and preschool. That program often has a waiting list.
The early-childhood agency also manages the state-run preschool program, which has sometimes returned unspent funds to the state because not enough children have enrolled.
The power of having those two programs under one roof is that the agency can now refer families who might be on a waiting list for one program to open slots in another.
In an environment where its hard to raise additional revenue, our best opportunity for growth is focusing on how we more intelligently deploy our limited resources, Wilkinson said.
Kindergarten Challenges
While preschool has drawn most attention from lawmakers, kindergarten has not received the same level of attention. Slightly more than 78 percent of kindergarten-age children are enrolled in some form of program, but it may only be a half day, with parents paying tuition to make up the difference.
Only 17 states, plus the District of Columbia, require children to attend kindergarten. Just 13 states and the District of Columbia require schools to offer full-day kindergarten programs.
Still, full-day kindergarten has become a popular goal, said Bruce Atchison, the principal of early-learning initiatives for the Education Commission of the States. Every state wants to have full-day kindergarten, but its not necessarily funded through their school funding formula, he said.
Some states have been making moves to increase the availability of free full-day kindergarten, sometimes in creative ways.
In New Hampshire, Gov. Chris Sununu, a Republican, made state funding for full-day kindergarten a centerpiece of his first term. About 70 percent of the states school districts already offer it, accounting for about 80 percent of the states kindergartners. But districts get half as much state aid for kindergarten pupils as they do for those in grades 1-12.
Last year, however, New Hampshire legalized and taxed electronic-gambling machines and is using that tax money to provide additional funding to districts that offer full-day kindergarten programs.
Full-day kindergarten is good for children and families and a critical tool in retaining our future workforce, Sununu has said.
High School Diplomas
Turning to a latter part of the age spectrum, education leaders are also engaging in initiatives to support high school graduation.
Jennifer Zinth, a director of high school programs at the Education Commission of the States, said some examples include a renewed focus on career and technical education, which allows students to graduate with training or an industry-recognized credential; work-based learning, which connects them with mentors in fields that they are interested in; early-warning systems that allow schools to spot and intervene with students at risk of dropping out; and curbing reliance on suspensions and expulsions, which have been linked to higher dropout rates.
Overall, the nations high school graduation rate has been on the rise. In 2017, it was around 84 percent, reflecting data compiled from the 2015-16 school year. That was the highest since the U.S. Department of Education started requiring states to track the number of 9th graders who earn a diploma four years later. Prior to that requirement, states were using varying methods to calculate graduation, making it hard to compare states and monitor trends.
John Bridgeland, the chief executive officer at Civic Enterprises, which works with other groups to monitor and report on the graduation rate in its annual Building a Grad Nation report, notes that the graduation-rate increases are being driven by Latino students and black students, who in previous years had been at higher risk of dropping out. And states have increased the rigor of their diploma requirements and seen graduation rates still go up.
At the same time, Bridgeland said that credit-recovery programs and alternative schools, where many students earn credits to graduate, are question marks.
Ive been to really high-quality ones and Ive seen ones that would make you tear your hair out, said Bridgeland. The same is true for alternative schoolssome are excellent, others are dumping grounds, he said.
College Pipeline
Black and Latino students are also behind some of the increased numbers of youths ages 18 to 24 who are either enrolled in college or have completed their degrees. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, the overall college-enrollment rate for young adults increased from 35 percent in 2000 to 41 percent in 2016. But while the enrollment rate increased by 3 percentage points for young white adults, it rose by 6 percentage points for young black adults and by 17 percentage points for young Hispanic adults.
States with high numbers of first-generation college students or students from traditionally underserved minority populations are stepping up efforts through their higher education systems to support these students.
California State University, Northridge, in Los Angeles, has seen a burgeoning population of students who are the first in their families to enroll in college. About half its students are eligible for Pell Grants, meaning they come from families that earn less than $30,000 a year. About 60 percent are first-generation students, and about half are Latino, said Elizabeth T. Adams, the universitys associate vice president of undergraduate studies.
The university has found that students need support at two critical inflection points: the second semester of their freshman year and the gap between their freshman and sophomore years. Students who leave at that point are unlikely to earn a college degree, she said.
The university has hired graduation and retention specialists to focus specifically on those areas, Adams said. She also said the university works to create cohorts where students feel connected to others who are taking the same classes.
If there are things that we are doing that are disadvantaging some of our students, because we are not thinking about cultural differences or generational differences or access to technology, its not [the students] who have failed. Weve failed them, she said.
Over the past year, a flurry of new immigration policy directives and actions have gushed forth like water from a broken fire hydrant, layering over each other and causing confusion for schools and other service providers. The shifting landscape means educators must proactively consider how the current U.S. political climate is affecting their increasing number of students from immigrant families, including those who are undocumented and whose families are of mixed legal status.
A 2016 Kaiser Family Foundation survey found that roughly a quarter of all U.S. children have at least one immigrant parent . And, according to a Pew Research Center report from the same year, approximately 7 percent of students in grades K-12 (or 3.9 million children) have at least one undocumented parent . The majority of these students are U.S. citizensonly around 725,000 are themselves undocumentedand they live all over the country, from small rural Midwestern towns to growing cities in the Southeast to large urban ethnic enclaves.
While such statistics mostly account for families and children who have been in the United States for years, there are countless other families who are trying to enter the country today in order to escape war, poverty, and violence. Despite judicial rulings requiring the reunification of families separated at the border earlier this year, many parents still do not know how and when they will see their children again. Most recently, the Trump administration has proposed a rule to allow longer detention of migrant children, challenging long-time precedent established by the Flores settlement. Whether families live near the United States-Mexico border or in a Heartland state, these events have instilled fear that any kind of refugee or immigrant family could be ripped apart.
This is enough to signal that pre-K-12 educators need to protect children in ways that may not have been covered in their previous training. For instance, some schools or districts may call themselves sanctuary schools, attempting to signal that they will protect individuals of undocumented status by not allowing U.S. Immigrant and Customs Enforcement officials onto their campus without a warrant. However, there is often confusion about schools responsibilities to immigrant children and parents, particularly if they are undocumented. Teachers and principals may feel at a loss for how to respond to potential ICE raids or recently arrived students who have experienced incredible trauma.
As researchers, we have studied how school leaders and other educators perceive their legal and professional ethical responsibilities toward undocumented students. Combined with our work preparing school leaders and language educators, we can offer some practical advice to address what educational stakeholders need to know right now:
Legal and ethical responsibilities: Every child in the United States has a legal right to a free, public K-12 education, according to the 1982 U.S. Supreme Court ruling Plyler v. Doe. Importantly, this includes unaccompanied minors, undocumented youth, and those seeking asylum. Under federal guidance, school districts cannot ask about or report childrens immigration status. This is why the U.S. Secretary of Educations June comment that it was up to local schools to decide whether or not to report children to ICE sparked such an uproar .
Ethically, educators should strive to meet the needs of all students. Be sure all faculty, families, and volunteers in the school district learn specifics about immigration in your state .
Consider conducting an Immigrant Equity Audit in your district. Ask questions to learn personnels knowledge of policies, legal responsibilities, language education, and the kind of programs that sustain immigrant families cultural wealth.
Utilize resources in the classroom that build empathy and counter prevalent stereotypes and myths about immigration."
Preparedness: Ensure that your school leaders and school board members are not only aware of their legal responsibilities under Plyler v. Doe, but also local policies that respond to ICE.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement states that it considers locations like schools and churches sensitive, meaning it tries to be mindful of conducting operations near them. This does not mean, however, that ICE cannot legally operate near schoolsor that its presence in the broader community will not affect the school environment.
Collaborate with immigration lawyers for training. All faculty in the district, from front office personnel to teachers to building principals, should know who to contact if ICE comes to a school or creates a stir in the community. In many cases, this may be the districts legal counsel. School counselors should also be prepared to offer trauma counseling to children whose parents have been detained, and teachers and principals must have a plan to get children home safelyor to an alternate home if necessaryif an ICE raid occurs.
School board members should consider attending state or national conferences where such topics are addressed.
Critical media literacy: In an era where viral videos and opinions are presented as fact, educators must read across the political spectrum to understand multiple perspectives on an issue. They should also be sure to teach students how to assess evidence and critically analyze information and to empathize with others conditions and stories. See Civic Online Reasoning resources by the Stanford History Education Group.
Boundary work: Recognize that people often understand the world as them and us, and in turn may neglect what we have in common. Commit to learning how to cross boundaries, sustain engagement with immigrant families, and provide spaces for sharing stories and experiences with all kinds of stakeholders. Utilize resources in the classroom that build empathy and counter prevalent stereotypes and myths about immigration . Focus on finding common ground.
Our national discourse on immigration policy can feel threatening to immigrants and refugees. Our policy directives seem focused on dividing immigrant familiespotentially at the expense of human rightsrather than displaying compassion and valuing human dignity. Across the country, rural, suburban, and urban communities continue to experience demographic change. We know that educators can step up and speak out, tapping their courage and deep compassion to prepare themselves for whatever may come. We have seen school leaders and others working to meet the needs of their newest constituents as best they can. Together, equipped with some understanding of U.S. immigration lawand combined with educating for love, the heart, and mind we can meet our students challenges and support those who seek life in new communities.
U.S. ENERGY INFORMATION ADMINISTRATION
WASHINGTON DC 20585
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 13, 2018
EIA introduces interactive dashboard detailing natural gas storage activity
Today the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) released a new interactive Natural Gas Storage Dashboard with daily and weekly information that provides a broader context to the data released in EIAs Weekly Natural Gas Storage Report (WNGSR). The new dashboard gives users a comprehensive way to identify Lower 48 and regional storage activity and the key market fundamentals that affect underground natural gas storage activity.
The WNGSR is one of the U.S. government's Principal Federal Economic Indicators. Most of these indicators, which include metrics like employment, international trade, housing construction, and crop production, are released on a quarterly or monthly basis.
EIA will post updates to the dashboard in the mid-afternoon on the same days EIA releases its latest weekly natural gas storage estimates, which are usually on Thursdays. The dashboard will follow the same holiday reporting schedule as the WNGSR.
The dashboard includes the Lower 48 and regional natural gas storage inventories, net inventory changes, and utilization indicators. Other metrics include temperature visualizations, estimated natural gas consumption by sector, net exports, and futures prices.
Information sources used reflect a combination of EIA and third-party data. Key sources of non-EIA data include temperature data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), natural gas demand and import/export data from OPIS PointLogic, and natural gas futures prices from CME Group and Bloomberg.
EIA has incorporated many interactive features into the dashboard, such as the ability to select national or regional information, choose specific years or ranges, animate trends, and download selected data series or images. In addition to the data visualizations, the commentary tab will provide more context on recent natural gas storage-related market conditions. These entries will focus on many aspects of the natural gas storage market, such as potential drivers of changes in storage inventories, occasional details on EIA-derived storage statistics, and trends on natural gas storage infrastructure.
The Natural Gas Storage Dashboard can be found at:
https://www.eia.gov/naturalgas/storage/dashboard/
The product described in this press release was prepared by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), the statistical and analytical agency within the U.S. Department of Energy. By law, EIAs data, analysis, and forecasts are independent of approval by any other officer or employee of the United States Government. The views in the product and press release therefore should not be construed as representing those of the Department of Energy or other federal agencies.
EIA Program Contact: Chris Peterson, 202-586-4804, Christopher.Peterson@eia.gov
EIA Press Contact: Jonathan Cogan, 202-586-8719, Jonathan.Cogan@eia.gov
EIA-2018-06
Over-75's Free TV licence review
Free TV licence fees for over-75s are to be reviewed, the BBC has confirmed.
The corporation took over the cost from the UK Government of providing free TV licences for over-75s as part of its charter renewal negotiations.
The move is being phased in from 2018-19 with sole responsibility from 2020, when it is estimated to cost the broadcaster around 725 million.
In April, the Manx Government and the BBC agreed to fund licences for over-75s on the Island.
IOM plummets in Finance Centre Worldwide Rankings
Athol Street in Douglas - Once the heart of the Island's business district
The Isle of Man has fallen in its ranking in the 100 Global Financial Centres Index.
Out of 96 locations, the Island has been ranked in 85th place - that's 28 places down on last year.
New York, London, Hong Kong, Singapore and Shanghai make up the top five.
The City think tank compiles its lists using data from international bodies such as the World Bank and responses to a survey.
The financial system needs to be reshaped to trigger the investments needed to address climate change, says Kirsten Dunlop, CEO of EIT Climate-KIC, and innovation is crucial to bringing sustainable finance to the next level.
The need to catalyse investments required to meet climate and sustainable development goals is high up on the agenda in the EU and globally. The opportunity has recently been estimated as a $26 trillion boost for the global economy by 2030 if efforts to prevent the worst impacts of climate change are scaled up in time. But will current efforts to mainstream sustainable finance actually drive the changes needed and unlock this enormous opportunity?
Kirsten Dunlop, CEO of EIT Climate-KIC the EU's largest public-private partnership addressing climate change through innovation is hopeful that sustainable finance is about to enter a more ambitious phase. She explains one of the most exciting recent developments is the increasing concern and 'self-questioning' she is seeing among policy makers and financiers. "I'm extremely energised by what looks to me like a convergence of self-reflection and more determined intent," she says.
On a global level, Dunlop is starting to see "genuine self-questioning and concern" that emissions targets outlined in the Paris Agreement aren't being met and were inadequate in the first place.
At EU-level, she highlights last year's "visionary" Lamy Report, a major review of Horizon 2020, the EU's flagship research and innovation initiative. The review concluded that Europe's future R & I programmes should invest differently and more ambitiously to support transformation rather than incremental change. The report advocates for a systemic, mission-oriented approach to societal challenges, for example by integrating research, innovation and policy initiatives and by boosting impact through citizen involvement.
Also at the EU-level, the European Commission's Action Plan on Sustainable Finance published in 2018 is a major effort to align financial flows with climate goals. In the context of Paris targets, the High-Level Expert Group on Sustainable Finance whose recommendations fed into the Action Plan identified an annual investment gap in Europe of at least 180 billion through to 2030.
"We support this effort to rewire the financial system to achieve climate-compatible investments at the scale and speed needed", says Dunlop, "Closing this investment gap isn't about more of the same. It is about systemic changes in finance, infrastructure and innovation, and a new mission-oriented approach that aims for transformation rather than incremental change."
"To succeed, the Action Plan will need a much bigger push in that direction," she adds.
Dunlop points to the efforts of the Action Plan Technical Expert Group which is working on a green taxonomy, a European green bond standard and measures to align capital requirements and investment mandates with sustainability factors. "These are finance innovation experiments with global relevance," says Dunlop, "and we want to support them with experiments that help to shift these efforts towards systems-level transformation."
Developing investment-ready assets and solutions
Dunlop says the Climate-KIC innovation community is looking for opportunities to move beyond linear, sector-level interventions. "We are asking 'what are the leverage points for shifting whole systems towards exponential increases in decarbonization and resilience? How can we unlock this massive opportunity?'".
"A key part of this rewiring is figuring out where investors should be putting their money to make a real impact," says Dunlop.
To address this, EIT Climate-KIC has joined forces with Mission Innovation, a global initiative including the EU and 23 other countries, whose purpose is to significantly accelerate clean energy innovation. The partnership, which also includes the RI.SE (The Research Institutes of Sweden) and other partners, is developing an "avoided emissions" investor framework that aims to rapidly identify emissions-saving solutions needed to limit global warming to below 1.5 C and to scale them up by directing public and private capital into those solutions.
"Innovation across policy, finance, technology and governance will be needed to identify and develop 'investment-ready' assets and business models that are defined as green and sustainable under a future EU taxonomy," Dunlop says.
Climate-KIC's partnership with Mission Innovation will be launched at Climate Innovation Summit 2018: Mission Finance, taking place in Dublin on 6-8 November. The event will also launch the EU Hub of the UN's Financial Centres for Sustainability Network, which will be based in Dublin.
Changing investor mindsets to unlock climate innovation capital
There is no shortage of capital, says Dunlop, but capital providers and stewards are yet to truly make the connection between the material risks facing them and all of society if investments are not rapidly directed towards managing current transitional risks and reducing future physical risks.
When it comes to the availability of capital, Dunlop would know she joined EIT Climate-KIC last year from Australian insurance and financial services giant Suncorp and before the global insurer Generali Group. "My experience working on innovation in financial services is that insurance and pension funds hold a huge bank of untapped capital for which there is an extraordinarily useful alignment of interest to release the liquidity to fund the kind of transformative innovation that will help us adapt to and mitigate climate change impacts," she says. "This would frankly be a better use of risk capital than having it locked up in long-term bonds."
To succeed in ramping up innovative investments, Dunlop wants to challenge the state-of-play on sustainable finance and the rules-of-the-game of the global financial system. Too much attention is focused on scaling of investments in individual or stand-alone technologies and solutions that are already well-understood and established. Meanwhile, too little time and capital is allocated to systems-level innovation that brings baskets of solutions together for climate-compatible investment, she adds.
An immediate barrier to unlocking capital for systemic change is investors saying that there are not enough "investment-ready" and innovative ideas, assets and business models available. Dunlop challenges that perception saying that they are there but reiterates that investors and capital holders are not taking the scale of climate risk, and opportunity, sufficiently into account in their investment mandates and strategies to change course.
EIT Climate-KIC is working to address this through its community of over 330 partners across Europe, and their networks, including cities, regions, industry, SMEs, start-ups, and universities. When asked for example of initiatives it has backed that are addressing challenging areas through systems innovation, Dunlop highlights Oasis, an open-source catastrophe loss modelling framework. Last year, it launched Oasis Hub, "a multi-sided marketplace for tools and services using risk modelling", through which information on the scale and impact of natural hazards like hurricanes, flooding and wildfires is made available to non-financial organisations. They can subsequently use this information to plan resilience responses. This is disruptive in the way that it lowers the barrier for the non-financial community to understand climate and environmental risks and helps shape demand for innovate risk transfer methods and partnerships with financial services players to manage the risks better in the first place, she says.
And the self-reflection seen in sustainable finance is also taking place within EIT Climate-KIC in order to keep improving, Dunlop says. "One of the journeys of self-questioning we've embarked on is to look at how we begin to walk our talk in our work with start-ups," she says. "We also want to take a portfolio approach, supporting start-ups and projects that can act as 'options' intervening at multiple points in a system finance, agriculture and land use, urban transformation, materials and begin to attract investors to portfolios of solutions across the value chain, rather than to a single start-up because they are looking for a unicorn."
Dunlop hope this is the type of thinking and self-reflection that will bring forward innovation at scale. "The world of sustainable finance is just nowhere near where it needs to be and the trajectory remains underwhelming it's mediocre in its ambition and uninspiring in terms of the solutions it is currently focusing on," she says.
"Perhaps a dawning sense of panic combined with the desire to actually acknowledge and address the problems opens the door to the more ambitious path we need a new era in which a rewired global financial system is the driving mechanism for climate innovation."
This article is part of an eight-part series by Climate-KIC and Environmental Finance discussing Mission Finance, the theme of the 2018 Climate Innovation Summit in Dublin on 6 8th November. To see the series hub click here; it will be updated weekly prior to the conference. To register for the conference please click here.
WASHINGTON, D.C. - The seventh annual Golden Goose Award ceremony will recognize three teams of scientists whose silly-sounding research has returned serious benefits to society. Led by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the award committee includes several science and higher education organizations and a bipartisan group of Congressional supporters.
Note: Media are welcome to attend the award ceremony at the Library of Congress on September 13 at 5:30 p.m. EDT. Please RSVP to media@aaas.org.
Video footage of each of the winners is also available. The videos, which are linked in the titles below, are embargoed until 8:00 a.m. EDT on September 13, 2018. Video credit: 522 Productions.
The 2018 Golden Goose Award winners are:
Mahzarin Banaji, Anthony Greenwald and Brian Nosek
For these social scientists, the early days of the internet offered a new way to experiment. Mahzarin Banaji and her mentor, Anthony Greenwald, have spent decades researching and developing the concept of "implicit bias," unintentional, unconscious biases that may impact decision-making. In 1998, graduate student Brian Nosek developed a simple web-based tool to aid in the research; the still-running website has since collected millions of data sets. The idea of implicit bias, once surprising, has now found diverse applications in boardrooms, classrooms, hospitals and more.
Stanley Cohen
In a sense, it was "spoiled" eggs - spoiled in that they didn't work for his first experiment - that led Stanley Cohen to find evidence of what he named "cytokines," small proteins that cells use to communicate. Cohen's exploration of eggs in the failed experiment was a critical step toward discoveries that led to new therapeutic approaches to cancer and autoimmune diseases.
Bruce Glick (in memoriam)
As a graduate student, Bruce Glick was determined to figure out the purpose of a mystery gland found in geese, known as the bursa of Fabricius. His studies revealed that the gland was linked to the immune system, and the insights from this initial unexpected finding have helped lead to new frontiers in cancer treatment.
"I am proud to join this bipartisan group of lawmakers as we recognize and celebrate scientific success that benefits our society," said Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), who joined other Congressional supporters of the award this year. "We must continue to invest in curiosity-driven scientific research in order to remain the global leader in innovation."
"Who knew that studying geese, eggs and bias could improve cancer treatment and the understanding of how we think? That's what this year's winners have done: transform the ordinary into the miraculous," said Rep. Jim Cooper (D-TN). "This is science at its best, and the government must invest in it."
"AAAS is proud to support the Golden Goose Award, highlighting scientific success stories that would not have been possible without federal funding," said Rush Holt, chief executive officer of AAAS. "These scientists have changed the world in unpredictable ways, and we applaud their curiosity, their tenacity and their achievements."
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About the Golden Goose Award
The Golden Goose Award honors scientists whose federally funded work may have been considered silly, odd or obscure when first conducted, but has resulted in significant benefits to society. In 2012, a coalition of business, university and scientific organizations created the Golden Goose Award, conceived by Rep. Jim Cooper (D-TN) as a strong counterpoint to criticisms of basic research as wasteful federal spending such as the late Sen. William Proxmire's (D-WI) Golden Fleece Award. Learn more about the award, including past winners and supporters: http://www.goldengooseaward.org.
As if college were not difficult enough, more than one-third of first-year university students in eight industrialized countries around the globe report symptoms consistent with a diagnosable mental health disorder, according to research published by the American Psychological Association.
"While effective care is important, the number of students who need treatment for these disorders far exceeds the resources of most counseling centers, resulting in a substantial unmet need for mental health treatment among college students," said lead author Randy P. Auerbach, PhD, of Columbia University. "Considering that students are a key population for determining the economic success of a country, colleges must take a greater urgency in addressing this issue."
Auerbach and his co-authors analyzed data from the World Health Organization's World Mental Health International College Student Initiative, in which almost 14,000 students from 19 colleges in eight countries (Australia, Belgium, Germany, Mexico, Northern Ireland, South Africa, Spain and the United States) responded to questionnaires to evaluate common mental disorders, including major depression, generalized anxiety disorder and panic disorder.
The researchers found that 35 percent of the respondents reported symptoms consistent with at least one mental health disorder as defined by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th Edition. Major depressive disorder was the most common, followed by generalized anxiety disorder. The findings were published in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology.
"The finding that one-third of students from multiple countries screened positive for at least one of six mental health disorders represents a key global mental health issue," said Auerbach.
Previous research suggests that only 15-20 percent of students will seek services at their respective counseling center, which may already be overtaxed, according to Auerbach. If students need help outside of their school counseling center or local psychologists, Auerbach suggested that they seek Internet resources, such as online cognitive behavioral therapy.
"University systems are currently working at capacity and counseling centers tend to be cyclical, with students ramping up service use toward the middle of the semester, which often creates a bottleneck," said Auerbach. "Internet-based clinical tools may be helpful in providing treatment to students who are less inclined to pursue services on campus or are waiting to be seen."
Future research needs focus on identifying which interventions work best for specific disorders, said Auerbach. For example, certain types of depression or anxiety may be best treated with certain types of Internet interventions, whereas other disorders, such as substance use, may require treatment in person by a psychologist or other mental health professional.
"Our long-term goal is to develop predictive models to determine which students will respond to different types of interventions," said Auerbach. "It is incumbent on us to think of innovative ways to reduce stigma and increase access to tools that may help students better manage stress."
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Article: "The WHO World Mental Health Surveys International College Student Project: Prevalence and Distribution of Mental Disorders," by Randy Auerbach, PhD, Columbia University; Jordi Alonso, MD, PhD, and Gemma Vilagut, PhD, IMIM Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute, Barcelona: Pim Cuijpers, PhD, Amsterdam Public Health Research Institute; David Ebert, PhD, Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen Nuremberg; Penelope Hasking, PhD, Curtin University; Matthew Nock, PhD, Harvard University; Dan Stein, PhD, University of Cape Town: Alan Zaslavsky, PhD, Ronald Kessler, PhD, Stephanie Pinder-Amaker, PhD, and Nancy Simpson, PhD, Harvard Medical School; Philippe Mortier, MD, PhD, Koen Demyttenaere, MD, PhD, and Ronny Bruffaerts, PhD, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven; Corina Benjet, PhD, National Institute of Psychiatry Ramon de la Fuente Muniz; Jennifer Greif Green, PhD, Boston University; and Elaine Murray, PhD, Ulster University. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, published Sept. 13, 2018.
Full text of the article is available from the APA Public Affairs Office and at
http://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/abn-abn0000362.pdf
Contact: Randy Auerbach via email at rpa2009@columbia.edu or by phone at (646) 774-5745.
The American Psychological Association, in Washington, D.C., is the largest scientific and professional organization representing psychology in the United States. APA's membership includes nearly 115,700 researchers, educators, clinicians, consultants and students. Through its divisions in 54 subfields of psychology and affiliations with 60 state, territorial and Canadian provincial associations, APA works to advance the creation, communication and application of psychological knowledge to benefit society and improve people's lives.
Rockville, Md. (September 13, 2018)--New research suggests that obesity changes how airway muscles function, increasing the risk of developing asthma. The study is published ahead of print in the American Journal of Physiology--Lung Cellular and Molecular Physiology.
The prevalence of asthma and obesity--as both separate and coexisting conditions--has grown considerably in the U.S. in recent years. Obesity is a major risk factor for asthma, in part because of the systemic and localized inflammation of the airways that occurs in people with a high body mass index.
People with obesity "also manifest a higher risk of severe asthma, decreased disease control and decreased response to corticosteroids therapy," explained the bicoastal team of scientists who conducted the research. However, previous studies suggest that some people with obesity may have a type of asthma that is not caused by airway inflammation, but by hyperresponsiveness--a higher-than-normal response to an allergen--in the airway smooth muscle. Hyperresponsiveness causes the airways to narrow, obstructing ease of breathing, and can occur when the muscles contract or begin to spasm.
The research team combined human airway smooth muscle cells with histamine, a chemical the immune system makes in response to an allergen, and carbachol, a drug that stimulates the part of the nervous system that controls the airways. Stimulating airway cells with these substances causes the cells to release calcium, which mimics muscle contraction. The researchers found that muscle cells from obese donors released more calcium and had greater shortening--a function that occurs during muscle contraction--than the cells from normal-weight donors. In addition, the cells from female obese donors released more calcium than cells from male obese donors.
These results suggest that obesity "imprints on structural cells [or airway smooth muscle cells] a unique signature that can be identified and that may lead to novel targeted approaches to improve asthma management without the use of steroids," explained Reynold Panettieri Jr., MD, director of the Rutgers Institute for Translational Medicine and Science and corresponding author of the study.
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Read the full article, "Obesity increases airway smooth muscle responses to contractile agonists," published ahead of print in the American Journal of Physiology--Lung Cellular and Molecular Physiology.
NOTE TO JOURNALISTS: To schedule an interview with a member of the research team, please contact the communications@the-aps.org or 301-634-7209. Find more research highlights in the APS Press Room.
Physiology is the study of how molecules, cells, tissues and organs function in health and disease. Established in 1887, the American Physiological Society (APS) was the first U.S. society in the biomedical sciences field. The Society represents more than 10,000 members and publishes 15 peer-reviewed journals with a worldwide readership.
Researchers from Aarhus University are among the first to study the condition of cull sows on the day of transportation to slaughter
About half of the Danish sows are culled and destined for slaughter each year - approx. 500,000 animals - and are sent on their last journey to the abattoir. So far, this group of animals has received almost no scientific attention. Recently, researchers from Aarhus University carried out one of the first studies of the clinical condition of cull sows on the day of transportation to slaughter, and the results are now published in a scientific journal.
Previous international studies have focused on the condition of sows when they arrive at the abattoir. The results from these studies demonstrated that - compared to market weight pigs - culled sows constituted the majority of animals showing signs of fatigue, being seriously lame or of a low body condition score at arrival. So far, however, knowledge on the clinical condition of culled sows prior to being transported to the abattoir is very limited.
- It seems paradoxical, as this knowledge is very relevant when it comes to assessing whether the animals are fit for transport, says Karen Thodberg, Department of Animal Science at Aarhus University, and one of the authors of the recently published study.
Hundreds of cull sows are examined
The Aarhus University study comprised 12 herds, each of which were visited by trained technicians on the day of transportation. The technicians conducted thorough clinical examinations of all sows selected by the farmers for slaughter - a total of 522 animals. The clinical variables examined included e.g. body temperature, breathing frequency, body condition score, gait and various injuries.
Only four of the sows selected by the farmers, were considered unfit for transportation. They remained in the herd and were not included in the study. A significant part of the rest of the sows had various injuries or disabilities that might affect their welfare during transport.
- The various injuries or lesions indicate that the sows are more sensitive to the strain related to transportation than other types of pigs, says Karen Thodberg.
Less than 1 percent of the sows were lame, and a major part of the sows showed signs of various injuries such as wounds (approx. 55 percent), superficial skin lesions (approx. 30 percent) and udder lesions (approx. 25 percent), and 60 sows had at least one shoulder ulcer.
Lactating cull sows may be more sensitive
A significant part - almost 40 percent - of the sows came directly from the farrowing barn, and were lactating at the day of transportation to slaughter. The lactating sows displayed a higher frequency of deviations from normal on clinical variables related to the udder, such as udder swellings and other signs of inflammation. In the scientific paper, the researchers discuss whether lactating cull sows have a higher sensitivity to heat stress caused by their high metabolism.
This study provides an overall insight into the extent as well as type of injuries and abnormalities in cull sows; however, there is a need for further knowledge about the sows' behavior and welfare in the last days of their lives.
- Our results demonstrate that there is a need for further studies focusing on different aspects of the condition of cull sows in the interval from the culling decision is made until the time of slaughter. These should also comprise the housing systems and group size that best ensure sow welfare in this period, as well as the conditions during transportation to the abattoir. The conditions for lactating cull sows should be given special attention, says Karen Thodberg.
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This article was published in the print edition of Translational Animal Science on July 25, 2018 (https://doi.org/10.1093/tas/txy057), but was published online ahead of that on May 3, 2018.
Further information
You may want to read the scientific article Transportation of cull sows - a descriptive study of the clinical condition of cull sows before transportation to slaughter.
The study was initiated via a request from the Ministry of Environment and Food of Denmark as part of a major examination of livestock fitness for transportation.
Contact
Karen Thodberg
Department of Animal Science, Aarhus University
E-mail karen.thodberg@anis.au.dk
Tel.: +45 8715 7938
Mette S. Herskin
Department of Animal Science, AU
E-mail: mettes.herskin@anis.au.dk
Tel.: +45 8715 7945
Mobile: 5050 2969
The status quo of the US pharmaceutical market may soon be turned on its head
The development, manufacture and sale of pharmaceutical drugs in the United States is a complex landscape involving intellectual property and strict federal regulations.
But according to Colorado State University scientists, the status quo of the U.S. pharmaceutical market may soon be turned on its head. That's due in part to a growing community of do-it-yourself "biohackers" who are disrupting business-as-usual for pharmaceutical discovery, development and distribution.
A Sept. 13 perspective piece in Trends in Biotechnology frames these emerging issues, and predicts how the pharmaceutical industry, and the U.S. regulatory environment, will need to change in response. The paper's authors are Jean Peccoud, the Abell Chair in Synthetic Biology in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering; Jenna Gallegos, a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering; and collaborators from Bio-Link Australia, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and Boston University School of Public Health. Peccoud is also a faculty member in the School of Biomedical Engineering at CSU.
As the prices of many medicines continue to rise, new models of funding, research and drug development have emerged as part of what the authors call a "novel innovation ecosystem." Most notably, this ecosystem involves drug manufacturing at smaller, more personalized scales.
"Key drugs are still too expensive," Peccoud said. "People don't have access to them, so what if they can make it themselves? What do we do about that?"
The authors use the California-based Open Insulin Project as a case study of how the DIY bio movement might shape the future of medicine. Founded in 2015, the project's creators are trying to increase competition in the insulin market by developing and releasing an open-source protocol for manufacturing off-patent insulin.
Why does the Open Insulin Project exist in the first place? Insulin is 100 years old, but it remains prohibitively expensive for many patients, with some uninsured patients paying up to $400 a month for this life-saving medicine. People are angry, and in some cases, people are dying, from lack of access to affordable insulin.
The U.S. regulatory system today favors existing manufacturers of biologic drugs like insulin. Biologics are drugs made from a living organism, as opposed to small-molecule drugs, such as aspirin, which are synthesized chemically. When making off-patent small-molecule drugs, a competing company need only demonstrate that they've made pure aspirin. But biologic drugs are more difficult to control for quality; thus competing companies have to do expensive human clinical trials - not worth the $250 million price tag, if they can't even file for a patent to recoup their investments.
While the structure of human insulin is no longer patent protected, the handful of large companies that produce insulin continue to market "insulin analogues" that are supposedly improved varieties of plain insulin. The authors note that the medical benefits of these new versions of insulin are debatable.
That's where the biohackers come in. If the Open Insulin Project succeeds in developing a protocol for "home-brewed" insulin, they'll need to avoid violating patent-protected methods of manufacturing insulin. But biohackers making insulin for their own, personal use wouldn't need to worry about patent infringement - although safety considerations are certainly at play.
"It would be prudent for regulators to engage patients and innovators in community bio-labs to design adaptive oversight that fosters an ethos of responsibility," the authors say.
The real challenge for Open Insulin Project biohackers, should they want to enable competing pharmaceutical companies to sell off-patent insulin, will be regulation, the authors say. The success of the project will be severely limited by the cost of regulatory approvals, which include proving biological consistency, safety and possibly efficacy.
If such new models of insulin production are to succeed, they will depend on alternative approval processes, the authors say. If biosimilarity of biohacked insulin could be confirmed without clinical trials, the cost of development would dramatically decrease. This could be achieved through smaller-scale, decentralized manufacturing. And the technology already exists; microbioreactors that are capable of producing smaller doses of biologics have been developed in university labs.
"In short, the status quo has got to change," Gallegos said. "We can't address the issues if we don't acknowledge them."
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A novel insect-inspired flying robot, developed by TU Delft researchers from the Micro Air Vehicle Laboratory (MAVLab), is presented in Science (14 September 2018). Experiments with this first autonomous, free-flying and agile flapping-wing robot - carried out in collaboration with Wageningen University & Research - improved our understanding of how fruit flies control aggressive escape manoeuvres. Apart from its further potential in insect flight research, the robot's exceptional flight qualities open up new drone applications.
Flying animals both power and control flight by flapping their wings. This enables small natural flyers such as insects to hover close to a flower, but also to rapidly escape danger, which everyone has witnessed when trying to swat a fly. Animal flight has always drawn the attention of biologists, who not only study their complex wing motion patterns and aerodynamics, but also their sensory and neuro-motor systems during such agile manoeuvres. Recently, flying animals have also become a source of inspiration for robotics researchers, who try to develop lightweight flying robots that are agile, power-efficient and even scalable to insect sizes.
Novel highly agile flying robot
TU Delft researchers from the MAVLab have developed a novel insect-inspired flying robot; so far unmatched in its performance, and yet with a simple and easy-to-produce design. As in flying insects, the robot's flapping wings, beating 17 times per second, not only generate the lift force needed to stay airborne but also control the flight via minor adjustments in the wing motion. Inspired by fruit flies, the robot's control mechanisms have proved to be highly effective, allowing it not only to hover on the spot and fly in any direction but also be very agile.
'The robot has a top speed of 25 km/h and can even perform aggressive manoeuvres, such as 360-degree flips, resembling loops and barrel rolls', says Mat?j Karasek, the first author of the study and main designer of the robot. 'Moreover, the 33 cm wingspan and 29 gram robot has, for its size, excellent power efficiency, allowing 5 minutes of hovering flight or more than a 1 km flight range on a fully charged battery.'
Research on fruit fly escape manoeuvres
Apart from being a novel, autonomous micro-drone, the robot's flight performances, combined with its programmability also make it well suited for research into insect flight. To this end, TU Delft has collaborated with Wageningen University. 'When I first saw the robot flying, I was amazed at how closely its flight resembled that of insects, especially when manoeuvring. I immediately thought we could actually employ it to research insect flight control and dynamics', says Prof. Florian Muijres from the Experimental Zoology group of Wageningen University & Research. Due to Prof. Muijres' previous work on fruit flies, the team decided to program the robot to mimic the hypothesized control actions of these insects during high-agility escape manoeuvres, such as those used when we try to swat them.
The manoeuvres performed by the robot closely resembled those observed in fruit flies. The robot was even able to demonstrate how fruit flies control the turn angle to maximize their escape performance. 'In contrast to animal experiments, we were in full control of what was happening in the robot's "brain". This allowed us to identify and describe a new passive aerodynamic mechanism that assists the flies, but possibly also other flying animals, in steering their direction throughout these rapid banked turns', adds Karasek.
Potential for future applications
The MAVLab has been developing insect-inspired flying robots for over 10 years within the DelFly project. The MAVLab scientific leader, Prof. Guido de Croon, says: 'Insect-inspired drones have a high potential for novel applications, as they are light-weight, safe around humans and are able to fly more efficiently than more traditional drone designs, especially at smaller scales. However, until now, these flying robots had not realized this potential since they were either not agile enough - such as our DelFly II - or they required an overly complex manufacturing process.' The robot in this study, named the DelFly Nimble, builds on established manufacturing methods, uses off-the-shelf components, and its flight endurance is long enough to be of interest for real-world applications.
The DelFly Nimble will be further developed within the TTW project, 'As nimble as a bee', which is a collaboration between TU Delft and Wageningen University, funded by the Dutch science foundation NWO.
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The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has started a new mission to shed light on the evolution of the earliest galaxies in the Universe. The BUFFALO survey will observe six massive galaxy clusters and their surroundings. The first observations show the galaxy cluster Abell 370 and a host of magnified, gravitationally lensed galaxies around it.
Learning about the formation and evolution of the very first galaxies in the Universe is crucial for our understanding of the cosmos. While the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has already detected some of the most distant galaxies known, their numbers are small, making it hard for astronomers to determine if they represent the Universe at large.
Massive galaxy clusters like Abell 370, which is visible in this new image, can help astronomers find more of these distant objects. The immense masses of galaxy clusters make them act as cosmic magnifying glasses. A cluster's mass bends and magnifies light from more distant objects behind it, uncovering objects otherwise too faint for even Hubble's sensitive vision. Using this cosmological trick -- known as strong gravitational lensing -- Hubble is able to explore some of the earliest and most distant galaxies in the Universe.
Numerous galaxies are lensed by the mass of Abell 370. The most stunning demonstration of gravitational lensing can be seen just below the centre of the cluster. Nicknamed "the Dragon", this extended feature is made up of a multitude of duplicated images of a spiral galaxy which lies beyond the cluster.
This image of Abell 370 and its surroundings was made as part of the new Beyond Ultra-deep Frontier Fields And Legacy Observations (BUFFALO) survey. This project, led by European astronomers from the Niels Bohr Institute (Denmark) and Durham University (UK), was designed to succeed the successful Frontier Fields project [1]. 101 Hubble orbits -- corresponding to 160 hours of precious observation time -- have been dedicated to exploring the six Frontier Field galaxy clusters. These additional observations focus on the regions surrounding the galaxy clusters, allowing for a larger field of view.
BUFFALO's main mission, however, is to investigate how and when the most massive and luminous galaxies in the Universe formed and how early galaxy formation is linked to dark matter assembly. This will allow astronomers to determine how rapidly galaxies formed in the first 800 million years after the Big Bang -- paving the way for observations with the upcoming NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope.
Driven by the Frontier Fields observations, BUFFALO will be able to detect the most distant galaxies approximately ten times more efficiently than its progenitor. The BUFFALO survey will also take advantage of other space telescopes which have already observed the regions around the clusters. These datasets will be included in the search for the first galaxies.
The extended fields of view will also allow better 3-dimensional mapping of the mass distribution -- of both ordinary and dark matter -- within each galaxy cluster. These maps help astronomers learn more about the evolution of the lensing galaxy clusters and about the nature of dark matter.
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Notes
[1] Frontier Fields was a Hubble programme that ran from 2013 to 2017. Hubble spent 630 hours of observation time probing six notable galaxy clusters, all of which showed effects of strong gravitational lensing.
More information
The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between ESA and NASA.
Image credit: NASA, ESA, A. Koekemoer, M. Jauzac, C. Steinhardt, and the BUFFALO team
Links
* BUFFALO project page - https://buffalo.ipac.caltech.edu/
* Hubblesite release - http://hubblesite.org/news_release/news/2018-39
* Press releases on the Frontier Fields - http://spacetelescope.org/news/?search=%22frontier+fields%22
Contacts
Charles Steinhardt
Niels Bohr Institute
Copenhagen, Denmark
Tel: +45 35 33 50 10
Email: Steinhardt@nbi.ku.dk
Mathilde Jauzac
Durham University
Durham, UK
Tel: +44 7445218614
Email: mathilde.jauzac@durham.ac.uk
Mathias Jager
ESA/Hubble, Public Information Officer
Garching, Germany
Tel: +49 176 62397500
Email: mjaeger@partner.eso.org
Ceramic heterostructures for optical and microelectronic devices will provide the supremacy in such fields like range findings, optical communications, data laser processing and recording. Work is carrying out under the grant support of the Russian foundation for basic research (RFBR).
Young scientists team of Far Eastern Federal University (FEFU) led by Denis Kosyanov, senior researcher, School of Natural Science, got RFBR grant funding for developing and standardization of manufacturing processes of the new materials based on "laser ceramic - thermoelectric" heterostructures. This project was highlighted as one of the best amidst interdisciplinary fundamental research projects in the field of "Ceramic materials for electronic and medicine".
RFBR grant is three year-long program. During this period, scientists will synthesize the basic nanopowders, establish sintering parameters of the laser-ceramic layer with a thermoelectric component, elaborate the method for their combination into unified material, and will standardize this material functionality and then put it into practice. For the producing of heterostructural ceramics the innovative method of reactive vacuum sintering will be applied. Yttrium-aluminum garnet YAG:RE3+ and strontium titanate SrTiO3?TiO2 were proposed as sintering components.
As Denis Kosyanov said, the methods, which his team apply in the frame on ceramic technologies, remove many principal restrictions, which are innate part of traditional methods of monocrystals growing for laser systems. Incorporating the laser environment with a thermoelectric, the combined ceramic structures will improve the performance characteristics of the final material in several ways. It includes the possibility of cooling the active laser medium - the so-called "active" way, and conversion of a part of thermal energy into electrical energy - the so-called "passive" way. As a result, a multiple reduction in thermal stress (in comparison with monolayer structures) will provide the high pumping efficiency, peak radiation power and material destruction threshold.
"The fundamental scientific task of the project is to establish the regularities of the joint sintering of laser and thermoelectric nanoceramics, which are different in terms of the crystal structure and phase composition. The task is further complicated by the fact that the key properties of the ceramic thermoelectrics SrTiO3?TiO2 are determined by the characteristics of a two-dimensional electron gas localized along the grain boundaries of SrTiO3 and TiO2 grains. In other words, a high Q-factor of similar thermoelectrics is possible only when we create a structure where the SrTiO3 and TiO2 grains are located in a "checkerboard" order throughout all the volume of the material. When this problem solved, it will be possible to manufacture complex YAG:RE3 + / SrTiO3?TiO2 composite structures in a single technological cycle," says Denis Kosyanov.
"The development of combined laser ceramics with thermoelectric layers is innovative task of a high interest. The results aim the development of a new field of knowledge - the physicochemistry of ceramic heterostructures. These works are conducted as a part of one of the main research activity of the FEFU key laboratory "Perspective Materials and Nanotechnologies". I want to point out that amidst the staff won RFBR's grant there is no a single Doctor of Science, and the average age of the performers is 27 years. When we formed the Laboratory at the beginning of 2018, we gave preference to talented young scientists, and now it gives a significant result," said the vice-rector for scientific work of the FEFU Kirill Golokhvast.
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The interdisciplinary project will combine the experience of key performers in the field of condensed state physics, inorganic and physical chemistry (Ph.D. S. Tikhonov and A. Zavjalov), materials science (D. Kosyanov, Ph.D.) and biology (Ph.D. A. Zakharenko), representing the School of Natural Sciences and the Engineering School of the FEFU.
Earlier, FEFU press office had already reported on the win of the young FEFU scientists D. Kosyanov and A. Zavjalov in the contest within the Presidential Research Projects Program of the Russian Science Foundation (2018).
Grant of the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (RFBR) 18-29-11044
CDC-recommended 'expedited partner therapy' can get antibiotics to partners of infected people quickly, but barriers stand in the way
ANN ARBOR, MI - Nearly 2.3 million times last year, Americans learned they had a sexually transmitted disease.
But despite these record-high infection rates for chlamydia and gonorrhea, most patients only receive treatment for their own infection - when they probably could get antibiotics or a prescription for their partner at the same time.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recommended this approach -- called "expedited partner therapy" -- since 2006, as a way to slow the growing STD epidemic. Most states have laws allowing doctors who diagnose a patient with an STD to write a prescription or provide medications for their partner, sight unseen. The laws also allow clinics and pharmacies to distribute STD treatment for partners.
In a new paper in the American Journal of Public Health, three University of Michigan physicians describe the barriers that stand in the way of getting expedited partner therapy to more people.
Overcoming those barriers, they say, could prevent many STD infections, including reinfections of people who have already gotten tested and treated.
Cornelius Jamison, M.D., M.S.P.H., M.Sc., led the team behind the paper, and also leads current research that is diving deeper into the barriers that may prevent the clinical implementation and use of EPT. He notes that this is one public health issue where public policy is ahead of clinical practice. Many major medical societies have endorsed EPT based on evidence that it's cost-effective and safe, but it's still under-used across the country.
"We need to make sure everyone in the medical and public health community has a basic understanding of what expedited partner therapy is, how it can work, and what it will take for it to reach widespread use," says Jamison, a family physician and member of the U-M Department of Family Medicine and Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation. The new paper includes a conceptual framework that diagrams all the potential barriers to EPT use, to help guide future work to overcome them.
Special considerations for STDs
Some of the barriers to widespread use of EPT relate to the very nature of the diseases it's designed to treat, and the stigma attached to an STD infection. This can drive teens and young adults to avoid seeking STD testing and care in ways that would tip their parents off to their infection status through insurance records, bills or notifications of a positive test result.
Instead, Jamison says, they may seek a diagnosis or treatment at a walk-in clinic, on a free or cash basis. This means that such sites are especially important to increasing the use of EPT.
Similarly, these patients' partners may not have insurance, or may not want to use their insurance to pay for an STD test or treatment even if they do.
A packet of EPT antibiotics given them by a partner who got tested and treated could overcome these barriers, says Jamison. So could a pre-written prescription.
More about EPT use and barriers
The drugs used to treat chlamydia and gonorrhea are often prescribed together even if the patient only tested positive for one infection. A single 1-gram dose of azithromycin (sold as Zithromax), and a single 400-milligram dose of cefixime (sold as Suprax), taken together can clear both infections. The cost of the EPT medications can vary, but even low costs can be a barrier for low-income people or teens paying out of their own pockets, Jamison notes.
Several guidelines recommend that all sexually active teens and young women be tested for chlamydia and gonorrhea every year. Some recommend testing for all women depending on sexual activity. However, not all providers screen consistently, which means infections can linger. Left untreated, they can lead to pelvic inflammatory disease and infertility and increased risk of HIV in women.
The recent increase in screening, and treatment, means more opportunities for providers to talk with patients who have STDs about the importance of getting antibiotics to their sexual partners, as well as practices such as condom use that can prevent STDs from spreading.
Jamison and his colleagues also say that besides the clinical barriers to EPT, some policy hurdles remain. Seven states and Puerto Rico lack precise laws that give clear legal status to EPT. South Carolina and Kentucky do not allow EPT under current law.
Physician and pharmacist concern about liability if an EPT recipient experiences side effects may drive a lot of the reluctance to provide EPT to their patients, even in states where the law protects them, says Jamison.
Jamison's current research focuses on studying EPT use in federally qualified health clinics, which provide care to any patient at low or no cost, regardless of insurance status. A full list of such clinics nationwide is available at https://findahealthcenter.hrsa.gov/ .
More data is still needed on the actual prescribing and use of EPT in all settings nationwide, and on the specific steps clinics could take to ensure EPT is provided or prescribed to appropriate patients. Protocols in electronic health records, for instance, that automatically suggest EPT to physicians when they tell a patient they have an STD, could assist.
"Our review and conceptual model show the barrier that we as providers, researchers and policy makers face," says Jamison. "But it also shows the importance of coming together to figure out how to do the right thing for patients."
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In addition to Jamison, the paper's authors are Tammy Chang, M.D., M.P.H., M.S., of U-M Family Medicine, and Okeoma Mmeje, M.D., M.P.H., of the U-M Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology. Chang and Mmeje are also members of IHPI.
Reference: AJPH, October 2018, Vol. 108, No. 10, doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2018.304570
NASA's Aqua satellite provided an infrared look at Helene as it continued tracking toward the Azores Islands in the Eastern Atlantic Ocean. Satellite imagery shows that Helene is decoupled from wind shear.
The National Hurricane Center or NHC said "Helene's surface circulation has become fully exposed this morning with the center decoupled about 110 miles south of edge of the remaining deep convection." That means that the circulation or center of the storm is off-center, and the bulk of the storm has been pushed away from the rotating center. That decoupling happened because Helene is dealing with southwesterly (coming from the southwest) vertical wind shear. NHC noted that the wind shear is expected to increase later on Sept. 13.
What is Wind Shear?
In general, wind shear is a measure of how the speed and direction of winds change with altitude. Wind shear can tear a tropical cyclone apart or weaken it.
NASA's Infrared View of Helene
NASA's Aqua satellite passed over Hurricane Helene on Sept. 13 at 12:45 a.m. EDT (0445 UTC) and the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer or MODIS instrument aboard analyzed cloud top temperatures in infrared light. Coldest cloud top temperatures were being pushed northeast of center and were as cold as or colder than minus 70 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 56.6 Celsius). Cloud top temperatures that cold indicate strong storms that have the capability to create heavy rain.
Helene's Status on Sept. 13, 2018
At 5 a.m. EDT (0900 UTC), the center of Hurricane Helene was located near latitude 23.5 degrees north and longitude 37.3 degrees west. Helene is currently about 1,170 miles (1,885 km) miles southwest of the Azores. Helene is moving toward the north near 14 mph (22 kph). A turn toward the north-northeast with an increase in forward speed is expected tonight followed by a turn toward the northeast over the weekend of Sept 15 and 16.
Maximum sustained winds have decreased to near 75 mph (120 kph) with higher gusts. Continued weakening is forecast over the next couple of days, and Helene is expected to become a tropical storm by tonight.
Heads Up to the Azores
On Sept. 13, Helene is weakening while moving northward over the eastern Atlantic and interests in the Azores should monitor the progress of the storm.
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For updated forecasts, visit: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov
NASA's Aqua satellite provided an infrared look at a weakening and now tropical depression Olivia in the Central Pacific Ocean. Olivia soaked the Hawaiian Islands on its east to west track through them.
The Central Pacific Hurricane Center or CPHC noted now that Olivia's center has moved west of the Hawaiian Islands, as such there are no coastal watches or warnings in effect. However, interests in the northwest Hawaiian Islands should monitor the progress of Olivia.
On Sept. 13, Olivia was moving rapidly toward the west-southwest, far southwest of Hawaii, however, flooding rainfall continues across parts of the main Hawaiian Islands.
At 2:20 a.m. EDT (0230 UTC) on Sept. 13, Moderate Resolution Imagine Spectroradiometer or MODIS instrument aboard NASA's Aqua satellite analyzed Tropical Depression Olivia in infrared light. MODIS found coldest cloud top temperatures in powerful storms with cloud tops as cold as or colder than minus 70F (minus 56.6C) west of the Hawaiian Islands. NASA research has found that cloud top temperatures as cold as or colder than the 70F/56.6C threshold have the capability to generate heavy rainfall.
Despite the heaviest rainfall off-shore, the CPHC noted scattered thunderstorms continue to develop far northeast, southeast, and south of the low-level circulation center, but the core of the system remains completely devoid of deep convection (developing strong thunderstorms).
The CHPC forecast said "Lingering moisture from Olivia continues to cause heavy rainfall across portions of the main Hawaiian Islands this morning. These wet conditions will likely persist through tonight. Since many areas are already saturated, any additional heavy rainfall could produce life-threatening flash flooding."
Olivia is being weakened by southwesterly vertical wind shear of over 30 knots (34.5 mph/55.5 kph). In general, wind shear is a measure of how the speed and direction of winds change with altitude. Wind shear can tear a tropical cyclone weaken it or even tear it apart.
At 11 a.m. EDT (5 a.m. HST/1500 UTC), the center of Tropical Depression Olivia was located near latitude 19.5 degrees north and longitude 162.2 degrees west. That's about 250 miles (400 km) southwest of Lihue, Hawaii.
CPHC said the depression is moving toward the west-southwest near 18 mph (30 kph), and this general motion is expected to continue through this morning with a slight decrease in forward speed, followed by a turn toward the west later today. Olivia, or its remnant low, is forecast to turn toward the west-northwest later tonight or Friday.
Maximum sustained winds are near 35 mph (55 kph) with higher gusts. Little change in strength is forecast through tonight. Olivia is expected to become a post-tropical remnant low by Friday.
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For updated forecasts on Olivia, visit: http://www.prh.noaa.gov/cphc
Diagnosis of dementia was made via cognitive function tests such as Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) and medical imaging systems at hospitals, a fairly large system for the purpose. As our population ages, an increasing number of people are developing dementia. Thus, easy-to-use dementia detection tests are sought after. In previous studies, diagnoses were made mainly using neuropsychological questions, so habituation to the same questions lowered performance in detecting dementia.
A joint group of researchers from Osaka University and Nara Institute of Science and Technology demonstrated that it was possible to detect dementia from conversations in human-agent interaction. This technique has been realized through machine-learning: a machine learns characteristics of sounds of elderly people who answered easy questions from avatars on a computer.
The researchers proposed machine learning algorithms for detecting signs of dementia in its early stages, developing a dementia detection system using interactive computer avatars. They created a model for machine learning based on features of speech, language, and faces from recorded dialogues with elderly participants. Through machine learning, a computer came to able to distinguish individuals with dementia from healthy controls at a rate of 90 percent in 6 questions (2-3 minutes per question).
The team prepared fixed questions based on neuropsychological tests and random questions not based on specific tests, recording interactive data of spoken dialogues with avatars from 12 participants (individuals diagnosed with dementia by a psychiatrist according to the diagnosis criteria Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)-IV) and 12 healthy controls. They extracted speech, language, and image features from the recorded data, creating a model for detecting dementia and enabling a computer to learn for itself to detect dementia.
As a result, the computer was able to distinguish between healthy controls and individuals with dementia with an accuracy of 92%. It was found that dementia could be distinguished with high accuracy by combining features of dementia, such as delay in response to questions from avatars depending on the content of questions, intonation, articulation rate of the voice, and the percentage of nouns and verbs in utterance.
Senior author Takashi Kudo says, "If this technology is further developed, it will become possible to know whether or not an elderly individual is in the early stages of dementia through conversation with computer avatars at home on a daily basis. It will encourage them to seek medical help, leading to early diagnosis."
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The article, "Identifying Dementia Patients based on Behavioral Markers in Human-Avatar Interaction" was presented at WFSBP (The World Federation of Societies of Biological Psychiatry) Asia Pacific Regional Congress of Biological Psychiatry, 7-9 September 2018, and the article "Detecting Dementia through Interactive Computer Avatars" was published in IEEE Journal of Translational Engineering in Health and Medicine, https://doi.org/10.1109/JTEHM.2017.2752152.
About Osaka University
Osaka University was founded in 1931 as one of the seven imperial universities of Japan and now has expanded to one of Japan's leading comprehensive universities. The University has now embarked on open research revolution from a position as Japan's most innovative university and among the most innovative institutions in the world according to Reuters 2015 Top 100 Innovative Universities and the Nature Index Innovation 2017. The university's ability to innovate from the stage of fundamental research through the creation of useful technology with economic impact stems from its broad disciplinary spectrum.
Website: http://resou.osaka-u.ac.jp/en/top
This study was presented at the conference on 8 September 2018 and part of this study was published in IEEE Journal of Translational Engineering in Health and Medicine on 15 September 2017
The Genome 10K (G10K) announces the official launch of a new project, the international Vertebrate Genomes Project (VGP), and its first release of 15 new, high-quality reference genomes for 14 species representing all five vertebrate classes - mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fishes. The mission of the VGP is to provide high-quality, near error-free, and complete genome assemblies of all 66,000 vertebrate species on Earth to address fundamental questions in biology, disease, and conservation.
The new sequences are stored and publicly available in the Genome Ark database a new digital open-access library of genomes generated by the G10K-VGP consortium and hosted by Amazon, and will soon be processed for gene identifications in international public genome browsing and analyses databases, including the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), Ensembl, and University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC) genome browser. The G10K-VGP consortium has convened more than 150 experts from academia, industry, and government, from over 50 institutions in 12 countries, to develop high-resolution sequencing and genome assembly methods that reduce cost and eliminate errors that plague current reference genomes. The new VGP genomes eliminate many of these errors. For conservation efforts, these VGP genomes will be used to identify species most genetically at risk for extinction, preserving their genetic information for the future and helping to save them from extinction.
One of the species included in the first release is the kakapo, a flightless parrot found only in New Zealand that is on the brink of extinction, with less than 150 alive. In partnership with the Kakapo Genetic Rescue Project, G10K Chair Erich Jarvis, professor at Rockefeller University and Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, and his group helped sequenced samples from a bird named Jane to create a high-quality assembly that will now become the reference genome for her species. Jane unfortunately died on May 17, 2018, just before the completion of her genome. This first data release of species is being dedicated to Jane and to conservation efforts all over the world to preserve Earth's biodiversity.
The 15 genomes created through the VGP are a proof of principle demonstrating the strength of the G10K-VGP consortium and the new sequencing technology's dependability and scalability to sequence all vertebrate genomes. These genomes are currently the most complete versions of their species to date:
Fish (5 species) These species represent a large diversity of traits and are used to study species evolution and adaptation: Flier Cichlid (Archocentrus centrarchus), native to Central America Eastern happy (Astatotilapia calliptera), also a cichlid fish Native to Lake Malawi, Africa Climbing perch (Anabas testudineus), native to inland waters of Southeast Asia Tire track eel (Mastacembelus armatus), native to rivers of Southeast Asia Blunt-snouted clingfish (Gouania willdenowi), native to north Mediterranean coast, Syria to Spain
These species represent a large diversity of traits and are used to study species evolution and adaptation:
Over the last three years, the G10K-VGP consortium worked behind the scenes to compare all the major sequencing and analysis technologies on just a few animals to help advance and develop the needed technologies to create higher quality, "platinum-level" genomes. They found, as some others have, that sequencing technologies with long reads always gave higher-quality results than with short reads and that technologies that measure long-range genome interactions are necessary to "assemble" these DNA reads into whole chromosomes. Further, they found that the common practice of merging the paternal and maternal chromosomes (haplotypes) into one genome was causing numerous errors. Therefore, they are now assembling the paternal and maternal DNA of an individual separately (called phasing).
Dr. Jarvis says "I got tired of having my students spend months to a year or more, and more money, re-cloning and re-sequencing genes because the current draft genome assemblies were not good enough for our studies of genetics of vocal learning and spoken language in songbirds and humans. So, when I was asked and voted in as G10K Chair, I decided to make it a mission to help generate high-quality genome assemblies for studies using any vertebrate species. The bird genomes are also being generated as part of an associated Bird 10,000 (B10K) genomes project."
Gene Myers, a director of the Max-Planck Society in Dresden and well-known bioinformatician, G10K Council member and lead of one of the sequencing hubs, says, "The advances in long-read sequencing and long-range scaffolding technologies is revolutionizing de novo DNA sequencing. After a 10-year hiatus, this trend inspired me to return to genome assembly as I believe we will ultimately be able to produce near-perfect, telomere-to-telomere genome reconstructions, and if current cost trends continue, for less than $1,000 on average per vertebrate species, thus dramatically altering the landscape of genomics."
The current Phase 1 genomes are being built with Pacific Biosciences long reads to generate an initial assembly of pieces of chromosomes (called contigs), 10X Genomics linked reads to join them together in bigger pieces (called scaffolds), Bionano Genomics optical DNA maps to link them at a larger scale and correct structural errors in the sequence assembly, Arima Genomics (also Dovetail Genomics and Phase Genomics) Hi-C proximity-ligation data to bring larger pieces together into whole chromosomes, and G10K-VGP genome assembly computer algorithms, which were specifically developed by this consortium and will become useful for all species.
Adam Phillippy, Chair of the VGP Assembly Working Group and head of the Genome Informatics Section at the National Human Genome Research Institute, says, "Until recently, sequencing the complete genome of a single animal required millions of dollars and years of effort. New sequencing technologies have dramatically reduced the cost and made it possible to reconstruct near-perfect genomes for the first time. Despite these advances, the computational challenges of assembling and analyzing thousands of genomes remain. To tackle these remarkable challenges, we have assembled an all-star team of bioinformaticians and are recruiting help from around the world. In addition, our corporate informatics partners at DNAnexus and Amazon Web Services have been instrumental in getting this project off the ground."
The G10K-VGP consortium plans to complete the VGP in taxonomic hierarchy from Phase 1 representing all 260 orders of living vertebrates, to Phase II representing 1,045 families, Phase III representing 9,478 genera, and finally Phase IV, representing approximately all 66,000 species of vertebrates. Additionally, the VGP will sequence the heterogametic sex where it exists, so that both sex chromosomes can be recovered for each species. The species in Phase 1 are based on a proposed new definition of orders based on species that diverged from each other soon after the last mass extinction event that killed off the dinosaurs 66 million year ago. Studying these ordinal-level species will help scientists determine what type of species survived that mass extinction and inform efforts on how to help species survive the current anthropogenic 6th mass extinction event.
Richard Durbin, of the University of Cambridge and the Wellcome Sanger Institute, G10K Council member and lead of the sequencing hubs, says, "The last 20 years have proven the value of openly available high-quality reference genome sequences to scientific research, but until now, these have mostly been available just for humans and other key organisms. We are entering an era in which we will obtain reference genome sequences for all species across the Tree of Life. This announcement and data release are key steps towards this goal, for vertebrates, the phylum of animals that we belong to."
Prof. Emma Teeling, University College Dublin, Ireland and Director of the associated Bat 1K Project, said, "Today represents a monumental example of what is possible when determined people imagine the future. Working together we have sequenced 15 exquisite genomes from across deep evolutionary time, unique in their quality and perfection, enabling us for the first time to uncover the genetic basis of vertebrate life. Now that we started producing exquisite genomes of all living vertebrate orders at high-quality, imagine doing so for all life. Why not?".
Jenny Graves, one of the pioneers of comparative genomics and sex chromosome evolution who was not involved in recent sequencing projects, exulted, "This is a real tour-de-force. We could not have imagined, twenty years ago, that we would ever have genome sequences of more than a handful of animals. Now we have real prospects of solving evolutionary mysteries and charting population health in endangered (even extinct) animals."
The G10K-VGP leadership consists of a 15-member council, a board of trustees, and 16 subgroups that perform the daily operations of the VGP, including obtaining tissue sample permits, executing DNA extractions, sequencing genomes, performing genome alignments and annotation, and managing the project within and across institutions and countries. The genome sequencing hubs are currently based at the Rockefeller University in New York led by Olivier Fedrigo and Erich Jarvis, the Sanger Institute in the United Kingdom led by Richard Durbin and his team including Shane McCarthy and Kerstin Howe, and the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden, Germany led by Gene Myers and his team including Martin Pippel and Sylke Winkler. The assembly team to which they all belong is led by Adam Phillippy, along with his team members Arang Rhie and Sergey Koren at the NIH. Building on her previous experience assembling and phasing human and animal genomes, Dr. Rhie made a massive effort to help develop a standard assembly process for the VGP. Harris Lewin and his postdoc Joana Damas at UC Davis and others played essential roles in evaluation of assemblies and other stages of the project. The VGP hubs are currently working with major sequencing and assembly companies to further test, improve, and generate new approaches for producing the most complete and error-free reference genomes possible. The G10K-VGP has an open-door policy for any scientist and others that want to join, so long as they follow the G10K policies.
Approximately $600 million is needed to complete all VGP phases. The G10K-VGP is currently focused on completing Phase 1 through crowdsourcing among scientists, having raised $2.5 million of the $6 million thus far needed for this phase. For those in the public that wish to help support the project, or even sponsor a species, more information is available at https://vertebrategenomesproject.org/ways-to-help-1/. Financial gifts to the G10K-VGP can be donated at https://giveandjoin.rockefeller.edu/vgl-donate.
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The Rockefeller University
The Rockefeller University is the world's leading biomedical research university and is dedicated to conducting innovative, high-quality research to improve the understanding of life for the benefit of humanity. Our 82 laboratories conduct research in neuroscience, immunology, biochemistry, genomics, and many other areas, and a community of 1,800 faculty, students, postdocs, technicians, clinicians, and administrative personnel work on our 14-acre Manhattan campus. Our unique approach to science has led to some of the world's most revolutionary and transformative contributions to biology and medicine. During Rockefeller's 117-year history, 25 of our scientists have won Nobel Prizes, 23 have won Albert Lasker Medical Research Awards, and 20 have garnered the National Medal of Science, the highest science award given by the United States.
The Vertebrate Genome Laboratory at the Rockefeller University
The Vertebrate Genome Laboratory (VGL) at the Rockefeller University is a Resource Center specializing in ultra-High-Molecular Weight DNA (uHMW DNA) and long-read genomic technologies. The primary objective of the VGL is to generate at least one high-quality, phased, chromosome-level, annotated, reference genome assembly of all approximately 66,000 vertebrate species for the Vertebrate Genomes Project (G10K-VGP). The VGL consists of ~1,500 sq. ft. located on the 7th floor of the Weiss Research Building. The team is composed of four members, including a Director, two Research Support Specialists/Associates, and a Research Assistant. The VGL is equipped with four state of the art Pacific Biosciences Sequel sequencers, one Bionano Genomics Saphyr optical mapper, one 10x Genomics Chromium microfluidics platform, and all the necessary ancillary instruments for preparing uHMW DNA.
The Wellcome Sanger Genome Institute
The Wellcome Sanger Institute is one of the world's leading genome centres. Through its ability to conduct research at scale, it is able to engage in bold and long-term exploratory projects that are designed to influence and empower medical science globally. Institute research findings, generated through its own research programmes and through its leading role in international consortia, are being used to develop new diagnostics and treatments for human disease. To celebrate its 25th year in 2018, the Institute is sequencing 25 new genomes of species in the UK. Find out more at http://www.sanger.ac.uk or follow @sangerinstitute
The MPI-CBG
The Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics (MPI-CBG) is one of 84 institutes of the Max Planck Society, an independent, non-profit organization in Germany. 500 curiosity-driven scientists from over 50 countries ask: How do cells form tissues? The basic research programs of the MPI-CBG span multiple scales of magnitude, from molecular assemblies to organelles, cells, tissues, organs, and organisms.
The Rockefeller University has announced that Jennifer Doudna will receive this year's Pearl Meister Greengard Prize, a major international accolade honoring outstanding women scientists. Doudna is a professor of chemistry and molecular and cell biology at the University of California, Berkeley, where she also holds the Li Ka Shing Chancellor's Chair in Biomedical and Health Sciences. She will be given the prize during a ceremony on the Rockefeller campus on Tuesday, October 2. Agnes Gund, president emerita of the Museum of Modern Art, a philanthropist, arts education and social justice advocate, and longtime supporter of women in the arts and sciences, will present Doudna with the award.
A pioneer in the study of RNA, Doudna has devoted decades to illuminating many new facets of one of life's essential molecules. Her research on the remarkably versatile structures and functions of this molecule has deepened scientists' understanding of how certain RNAs act as ribozymes--enzyme-like molecules that catalyze chemical reactions--while others play a key role in the replication of hepatitis C and other viruses. In recent years, she has also become well known for her work on the gene-editing technology CRISPR.
"Dr. Doudna's career is filled with discoveries that have revealed unexpected and surprising features of RNA, and ushered in a revolutionary new era of possibilities in genomics," said Paul Greengard, Vincent Astor Professor and head of the Laboratory of Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience at Rockefeller.
This year marks the 15th anniversary of the Pearl Meister Greengard Prize, which he founded together with his wife, sculptor Ursula von Rydingsvard, and named after his mother who died giving birth to him. A lifelong advocate for women scientists, Greengard won the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his contributions to understanding nerve cell communication in the brain. He donated his monetary share of the Nobel honorarium to The Rockefeller University to establish the prize, which then grew to become the preeminent international award for women in science it is today, comprising a $100,000 honorarium. Prize winners are chosen by a committee of 10 scientists, four of whom are recipients of the Nobel Prize.
Doudna joins an esteemed roster of Pearl Meister Greengard Prize recipients, including neuropsychologist Brenda Milner; molecular biologist Joan Steitz, who was awarded the 2018 Lasker-Koshland Special Achievement Award in Medical Science earlier this week; geneticist Mary-Claire King, who identified the BRCA1 gene associated with inherited forms of breast cancer; and Helen Hobbs, who uncovered the link between mutations in the PCSK9 gene and cholesterol levels.
In addition to her UC Berkley appointments, Doudna is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, the executive director of the Innovative Genomics Institute, a joint University of California, Berkeley-University of California, San Francisco center, and a Gladstone Institutes Senior Investigator. She has received many previous honors including the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences, the Gruber Prize in Genetics, and the Kavli Prize in Nanoscience. Doudna is also a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine, and the National Academy of Inventors.
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Visit this page to register for the Pearl Meister Greengard Prize ceremony and learn more about the award. The event is open to the public, but you do need to register to attend.
The world needs to keep global temperatures in check by meeting the goals set out in the Paris Agreement, or more people could die because of extreme temperatures, say authors of a new study in the letters section of Springer's journal Climatic Change.
The Paris Agreement, adopted in 2015 under the auspices of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), binds nations to hold warming well below 2 degrees Celsius (C) in global mean temperature, relative to pre-industrial levels. It also urges countries to make additional efforts to limit warming to 1.5C.
Led by researchers at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), this is the first study that evaluates global temperature-related health impacts under scenarios consistent with the Agreement. The researchers assessed the mortality impacts projected for a range of temperature increases, either compatible with the thresholds set in Paris (1.5C and 2C) or higher (3C and 4C). These projections took into account how an increase in heat-related deaths might be offset against a decrease in deaths due to cold, as global temperatures rise.
The scope of the study allowed global comparisons across various areas of the world. The team at LSHTM first analyzed historical data on temperature-related deaths from 451 locations in 23 countries with different socio-economic and climatic conditions. They then projected changes in mortality under climate scenarios consistent with the various increases in global temperature, while keeping demographic distributions and temperature-health risks constant.
The results indicated dramatic increases of heat-related deaths under extreme warming (3C and 4C) compared to the mildest threshold (1.5C), with additional excess mortality ranging from +0.73 per cent to +8.86 per cent across all regions. The net difference remained positive and high in most of the areas, even when potential decreases in cold-related deaths were considered.
The picture was more complex when comparing 2C versus 1.5C warming. A net increase in deaths was still projected for warmer regions such as South America, South Europe, and South-East Asia (with changes ranging from +0.19 per cent to +0.72 per cent), while in cooler regions the excess mortality was predicted to stay stable or drop slightly.
The results support the assessment of an upcoming Special Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, scheduled for approval in October, that evaluates the health risks associated with 1.5C and 2C of warming.
"Our projections suggest that large increases in temperature-related deaths could be limited in most regions if warming was kept below 2C," explains Ana Maria Vicedo-Cabrera, the first author of the study. "Under extreme changes in climate, large parts of the world could experience a dramatic increase in excess mortality due to heat. This would not be balanced by decreases in cold-related deaths. Efforts to limit the increase in global temperature to below 1.5C could provide additional benefits in tropical or arid regions, including the most populous and often poorest countries."
Antonio Gasparrini, co-author of the study, says: "We hope that the results will help convince nations to take decisive actions by implementing ambitious climate policies consistent with the Paris Agreement in an effort to save lives. Currently, we are on a trajectory to reach over 3C of warming, and if this trend continues there would be serious consequences for health in many parts of the world."
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Reference: Vicedo-Cabrera, A. M. et al (2018). Temperature-mortality impacts under and beyond Paris Agreement climate change scenarios, Climatic Change Letters DOI: 10.1007/s10584-018-2274-3
Astrocytes--the star-shaped cells of our brain--are very busy. Their job description includes maintaining the blood-brain barrier, removing excess neurotransmitters, repairing brain tissue and more.
Their important role in brain function suggests astrocytes are also involved in disease. Scientists are particularly interested in uncovering how they may drive inflammation in the brain. Brain inflammation is linked to a host of mysterious and devastating diseases, including multiple sclerosis (MS), Alzheimer's disease and mental illness. New treatments are urgently needed for these disorders.
Now, scientists at Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute (SBP) have identified an astrocyte subpopulation as the dominant cell type to spring into action in vivo (in a living organism) in a neuroinflammatory disease setting. Their early activation inspired their new name: ieAstrocytes (immediate early astrocytes). The study published today in eNeuro.
"There is an urgent need for treatments of brain inflammation disorders that are involved in many diseases, including MS and Alzheimer's disease," says Jerold Chun, M.D., Ph.D., senior author of the paper and professor and senior vice president of Neuroscience Drug Discovery at SBP. "Developing therapies that prevent the formation of ieAstrocytes or reduce their activation levels in the brain could offer new approaches for treating neuroinflammatory and neurodegenerative diseases."
The scientists identified the new type of astrocyte using an unbiased, fluorescent labeling technique to visualize the most active brain cells that express an activity-dependent transcription factor, cFos. Cells that were "turned on" glowed green, allowing the researchers to track activated cells over time and space. Applying this method to a mouse model of brain inflammation allowed visualization of which cells were activated as the disease progressed.
"We expected to see immune cells light up--but surprisingly, they weren't activated. Neither were neurons or microglia," says Chun. "ieAstrocytes were the first and predominant cells activated during disease initiation and progression, suggesting that they are a key gatekeeper and mediator of disease. This is a departure from our previous understanding that astrocytes are spectator cells, only 'moving to the dark side' once initial damage has occurred."
ieAstrocytes increased in number as brain inflammation progressed, indicating they play a key role in disease. Treating the brain cells in an in vivo experiment with a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved drug for MS, GILENYA (fingolimod), reduced ieAstrocyte formation, further implicating their role in disease and identifying direct brain effects of the drug.
"Greater understanding of ieAstroycytes could unlock more of the brain's mysteries," says Chun. "Defining these cells through their in vivo activity is an important first step, as it can help to guide therapeutic development using a readout that tracks with a brain disease."
Chun's team is already working on their next step: characterizing these astrocytes at the molecular level, particularly the specific genes that are activated.
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Co-first authors of the study are Aran Groves, M.D., Ph.D., now a resident pediatric physician at UCLA; Yasuyuki Kihara, Ph.D., research assistant professor at SBP; and Deepa Jonnalagadda, Ph.D., postdoctoral associate at SBP. Additional co-authors include: Richard Rivera and Grace Kennedy, SBP; and Mark Mayford, UC San Diego. The study's DOI is 10.1523/ENEURO.0239-18.2018.
Research reported in this press release was supported by a grant from Novartis; National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants NS084398, DA019674 and R01NS10394; and fellowship support from the Uehara Memorial Foundation, the Kanae Foundation for the Promotion of Medical Science, Mochida Memorial Foundation for Medical and Pharmaceutical Research, and the Human Frontier Science Program. Groves was supported by the Medical Scientist Training Program and Pharmacology Training Grant at the University of California, San Diego (T32GM007752). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NIH.
About Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute
Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute (SBP) is an independent nonprofit medical research organization that conducts world-class, collaborative, biological research and translates its discoveries for the benefit of patients. SBP focuses its research on cancer, immunity, neurodegeneration, metabolic disorders and rare children's diseases. The Institute invests in talent, technology and partnerships to accelerate the translation of laboratory discoveries that will have the greatest impact on patients. Recognized for its NCI-designated Cancer Center and the Conrad Prebys Center for Chemical Genomics, SBP employs nearly 900 scientists and staff in San Diego (La Jolla), Calif., and Orlando (Lake Nona), Fla. For more information, visit us at SBPdiscovery.org or on Facebook at facebook.com/SBPdiscovery and on Twitter @SBPdiscovery.
SMU Office of Research & Tech Transfer - The US and China take contrasting approaches to digital trade, according to new research published in the Journal of International Economic Law. By acknowledging and understanding the different stance each country takes, policy makers may find ways to bring down trade barriers, says Associate Professor Henry Gao of the Singapore Management University School of Law, who led the first-ever comparative study of the two countries' differing approaches to digital trade issues.
With the advent of the internet, the sale of goods and services is no longer limited to physical storefronts or geographical borders. Electronic commerce, or e-commerce, is now worth trillions of dollars globally, raising the stakes for companies engaged in digital trade. Yet, in many cases, the precise definitions of digital products and whether they should be subject to tariffs, customs duties or other fees have yet to be ironed out at the international level.
In this study, Professor Gao tracked the regulation of digital trade by the World Trade Organisation (WTO), highlighting that its members have thus far been unable to arrive at a consensus on the rules governing e-commerce. The study also noted that the world's ten largest internet companies - Amazon, Alphabet (Google), Facebook, Priceline, eBay, Netflix, JD.com, Tencent, Alibaba and Baidu - are all based in the US or China, suggesting that the two countries are poised to play significant roles in crafting international e-commerce rules.
By examining proposals made by the US and China at various economic fora and to the WTO, as well as e-commerce clauses in their respective free trade agreements, the study documented a stark contrast in the two countries' positions on digital trade. "The US tends to focus more on the 'digital' side [of e-commerce], which includes internet search and social networking. China, however, focuses more on the traditional 'trade' side, that is, trade in goods," explains Professor Gao. "In other words, the US trades bits while China still trades atoms."
This being the case, the US cares more about digital barriers like internet censorship and restrictions on cross-border data flow, whereas China is more concerned about traditional trade barriers like tariffs, argues Professor Gao in the study.
Further, the two countries' distinct domestic regulatory frameworks affect their stances on the regulation of digital trade, the study found. With its historical preference for letting market forces determine acceptable boundaries for the internet and e-commerce domestically, the US has also voiced its preference for deregulation when it comes to digital trade at the international level. On the other hand, China has traditionally opted for stronger government control over the internet, a standpoint that is embedded in its e-commerce proposals to the WTO, the study noted.
"These deeply entrenched differences will require time to reconcile. To move forward, perhaps both countries could start with issues where they share some common interests, such as a permanent moratorium on customs duties on e-commerce," suggests Professor Gao.
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For more information, please contact:
Goh Lijie (Ms)
Office of Research & Tech Transfer
DID: 6828 9698
Email: ljgoh@smu.edu.sg
There has been an increase in the use of medications to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in both adults and children between 2001 and 2015, according to a major observational study involving over 154 million individuals from 14 countries in Europe, North America, Asia, and Australasia, published in The Lancet Psychiatry journal. The study provides the most comprehensive analysis yet of trends in ADHD medication use.
Global estimates suggest that ADHD affects 5% to 7% of children and around 2.5% of adults. While use of ADHD medications in children and adolescents (aged 3-18 years) has gone up in all countries, the number of people using medication ranged from 0.3% in France to 6.7% among Medicaid beneficiaries in the USA in 2010. In adults, use of these drugs was less common, ranging from 0.003% in Japan to 1.5% among privately insured individuals in the USA in 2010.
The findings highlight that prescription rates are still far below diagnosis rates in many countries. Additionally, the wide and persistent disparities in use of these drugs between countries and regions, suggests marked differences in the clinical approach to treating ADHD, underscoring the need for evidence-based guidelines to be followed consistently in clinical practice so that individuals with ADHD receive optimal treatment.
ADHD is one of the most common neurodevelopmental disorders in children. However, it can be a lifelong condition and at least two-thirds of children continue to show symptoms in adulthood. A recent study published in The Lancet Psychiatry found that ADHD medications can be effective and safe treatment options for children, adolescents, and adults [2].
"What's especially important is our finding that the rates and type of drug treatment prescribed appears to depend largely on where you live," says Professor Ian Wong from The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, who co-led the study.
"We believe increases in the prescribing of ADHD medications reflect improved awareness of ADHD and recognition of the importance of effective treatment to avoid long-term problems. Yet, in most countries these rates are considerably lower than ADHD prevalence estimates, indicating that many cases of ADHD may be going undiagnosed and untreated--especially in nations in Asia where use is low. However, in the USA where rates of prescribing in many states already outstrip prevalence of the condition, we cannot exclude the possibility that ADHD is overdiagnosed and overmedicated. There is a need for monitoring medication safety and effectiveness in exposed populations, particularly in adults." [1]
Despite concerns over the rising use of ADHD drugs and inappropriate prescribing of medications, little was known about the trends and usage patterns in different world regions, particularly among adults, before this latest research.
The study analysed electronic patient records from 14 countries in northern Europe, western Europe, Asia and Australia, and North America to compare ADHD medication use in over 154 million individuals aged 3 years or older between 2001 and 2015 [3]. The authors note that prevalence data were not available for all countries in all years [4].
Over the study period, an average of around 2% of children (aged 3-18 years) and 0.4% of adults were given at least one prescription for an ADHD drug. Regional prevalence was highest in North America, where 4.5% of children and 1.4% of adults were using ADHD medications, and lowest in western Europe (0.7% and 0.03% respectively).
Use of these drugs in children and adults increased over the study period in all countries.
The rise in medication was most pronounced among children in Canada, with average increases of over 45% a year (from 0.2% of children using ADHD drugs in 2001 to 1.8% in 2009). In adults, growth in Japan has been faster than in other countries, with average increases of 76% a year (0.003% of adults in 2010 to 0.5% in 2015). However, despite large increases, overall medication use remains low.
Comparatively, in the USA--where medication use is high--the rate of increase has been slower than in other countries in both children (around 3% a year; 4.6% of children in 2002 to 5.6% in 2014) and adults (about 13% a year; from 0.42% of adults in 2001 to 2.1% in 2014).
In Europe, children and adults from northern regions are increasingly likely to be prescribed ADHD medications compared to their western counterparts, and especially high rates of ADHD medication use have been reached in Iceland (5% of children and 1.6% of adults in 2013).
Additionally, there were average rises in medication use of 22% a year in Finland (0.2% of children in 2005 to 1% in 2012) and 29% in Denmark (0.03% of adults in 2001 to 0.52% in 2013), while the increase in medication use among children in the UK was much slower (5% a year; 0.3% children in 2001 to 0.64% in 2014).
The types of medications prescribed also varied. Methylphenidate was the most commonly prescribed drug for ADHD in all countries in 2010--ranging from more than 90% of patients in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Canada, Finland, and Spain to less than 60% in Australia, and 45% of US Medicaid patients. The main treatment for privately insured US patients (MarketScan) was amphetamine (41%), followed by methylphenidate (34%) and lisdexamfetamine (21%).
The authors speculate that the variation in prescribing practices is likely to be due to a number of factors, including varying diagnostic practices and thresholds used to initiate treatment in individuals with ADHD, the availability and cost of medicines, and differences in regional treatment guidelines. For example, The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence in England and Wales (NICE) guidelines until recently recommended non-pharmacological treatment as the first-line treatment for children and young people aged 6 years and older; whereas medications have been recommended as first-line treatment by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry guidelines.
"Renewed efforts are needed to improve the consistent identification and treatment of ADHD across the international community and to develop consensus on best practices and to implement such practices", says co-author Dr Patrick Ip from The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China. "Further research is needed to show the longer-term safety and effectiveness of ADHD medications to develop evidence-based guidelines, particularly in adults." [1]
The authors point to some limitations including that the data only relate to the proportion of individuals with at least one prescription in a calendar year and not to the proportion receiving treatment at any given time. They also note that for some countries, data sources with complete population coverage were not available (ie, USA, Canada, and the UK), and this may have affected the accuracy and generalisability of the results. Finally, the study examined medication use regardless of an ADHD diagnosis, so it is unclear what proportion of participants were prescribed medications for ADHD or hyperactivity symptoms in patients with other disorders such as autism.
Writing in a linked Comment, Margaret Sibley from Florida International University, Miami, Florida, USA discusses the reasons why stimulant medication prescriptions are rising globally, adding that: "There is an urgent need to refine evidence-based guidelines for stimulant medication. This mission extends beyond ADHD. Researchers should address pressing questions, including the following: which sources of cognitive dysfunction (eg, illness, sleep difficulties, stress, trauma, low intelligence quotient, high demands, or fatigue) are appropriate for stimulant prescription and under which circumstances is it appropriate to prescribe stimulants to cognitively healthy individuals (eg, weight loss or cognitive enhancement)? Resolving these issues represents an important step towards improving global stimulant medication practices."
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Peer-reviewed / Observational study / People NOTES TO EDITORS:
[1] Quotes direct from authors and cannot be found in the text of the Article.
[2] http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0366(18)30269-4/fulltext press release from The Lancet is also available for this study.
[3] Northern Europe (Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, and Iceland); western and southern Europe (France, Spain, UK); Asia and Australia (China and Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, Australia); and North America (Canada, USA--including two data sources representing two component of the US population: privately insured through employers [Marketscan] and individuals on low incomes covered by a social health-care programmes [Medicaid])
[4] Asia and Australia region: Australia (2009-2014), Hong Kong (2001-2015), Japan (2010-2015), Taiwan (2002-2010); North America: Canada (2001-2009), US MarketScan (2001-2014), US Medicaid (2001-2010); Northern Europe: Denmark (2001-2013), Finland (2005-2012), Iceland (2003-2013), Norway (2004-2013), Sweden (2006-2013); Western Europe: France (2006-2014), Spain (2001-2014), UK (2001-2014).
The labels have been added to this press release as part of a project run by the Academy of Medical Sciences seeking to improve the communication of evidence. For more information, please see: http://www.sciencemediacentre.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/AMS-press-release-labelling-system-GUIDANCE.pdf if you have any questions or feedback, please contact The Lancet press office pressoffice@lancet.com
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Awarded in recognition of contributions made to the advancement of our knowledge of the nature and consequences of light in the ocean
The Oceanography Society (TOS) congratulates Dr. Annick Bricaud on being selected as the 2018 recipient of the Jerlov Award. The citation for Dr. Bricaud recognizes her groundbreaking contributions to ocean optics, which cover experimental and theoretical studies on seawater optical properties, fieldwork-based bio-optical relationships, and algorithms for deriving biogeochemical products from satellite ocean color. She is a senior research scientist at the Laboratoire d'Oceanographie de Villefranche (LOV), CNRS - Sorbonne Universite, Villefranche-sur-Mer, France, which she joined in 1976. Her 75 papers received the outstanding number of 11,400 citations, and many opened new avenues of research. Annick mentored numerous students, in France and worldwide, and has a long record of contribution to community service. She is among the first female researchers in optical oceanography. Dr. Bricaud will receive the award on October 11, 2018, during a ceremony at the Ocean Optics XXIV Conference in Dubrovnik, Croatia.
The nominating letter for Dr. Bricaud states, "Annick's early career work then provided, and still provides today, a powerful framework for interpreting the natural variability encountered in field observations and for modeling ocean color for satellite applications. Annick's coupled theoretical-experimental studies published in 1981 continue to be among the most cited in optical oceanography. Measuring optical properties, in particular backscattering, was not an easy task at a time where no user-friendly, commercially available, instrumentation existed. Hence Annick had to design and build, for her PhD research, her own light back-scatterometer equipped with an integrating sphere, which she could do thanks to her strong engineering background in theoretical and empirical physical optics. She was the ideal person, at the right place, and at a critical time."
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Nils Gunnar Jerlov was an early leader in the area of ocean optics research. His name is recognized widely within the entire international oceanographic research community. Jerlov's theoretical and experimental work on ocean optical and related processes helped form the foundation of modern ocean optical research. He proposed the concept of an optical ocean water mass classification and the Jerlov water types are familiar to many outside of the ocean optics community. His book, Marine Optics, published in 1976, remains widely referenced and is considered required reading for all students of ocean optics and ocean color remote sensing.
The Oceanography Society (TOS) commemorates Dr. Jerlov and his many contributions to the study of light in the ocean with an international award, established in his name, to recognize outstanding achievements in ocean optics and ocean color remote sensing research.
The Oceanography Society (TOS) was founded in 1988 to advance oceanographic research, technology, and education, and to disseminate knowledge of oceanography and its application through research and education. TOS promotes the broad understanding of oceanography, facilitates consensus building across all the disciplines of the field, and informs the public about ocean research, innovative technology, and educational opportunities throughout the spectrum of oceanographic inquiry. TOS welcomes members from all nations. Any individual, business, or organization interested in ocean sciences is encouraged to join and to participate in the activities and benefits of the society.
Year- 6 medical student Mr Lai Hei-ming from the Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine at the University of Hong Kong (HKU) won the 11th China Adolescents Science and Technology Innovation Contest with his breakthrough in the visualisation of human brain tissue at the microscopic level. Mr Lai is one of the 100 young researchers in China to win the award this year and the only winner in Hong Kong.
On receiving the award, Mr Lai said, "I am very honoured to be the only winner in the Hong Kong region. Balancing medical school and laboratory work has been extremely challenging. I am also immensely grateful for the support of my parents and the research team, without which I wouldn't have been successful. While this exploratory study may not directly impact clinical practice, it certainly has been a valuable and fruitful journey for me."
Under the supervision of Honorary Professor Wutian Wu from the School of Biomedical Sciences in HKU, Mr Lai and a team of scientists from Imperial College London developed a new tissue clearing solution OPTIClear which can turn specimen human brain tissue transparent, enabling high-resolution and deep imaging of neuronal circuitries without the need of sectioning the tissues. This not only save time and labour, but can show nerve cells, glial cells, and blood vessels in exquisite detail, with their 3D relationship determined. A better understanding of the connections and circuitries of the brain will help uncover the pathologies that underlie the common degenerative diseases of the brain, such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease. As lead researcher of the study, Mr Lai hopes this technique can be used in studying other diseases, and eventually help to unravel the mysteries of the human body. This study won him two awards and have been published in various academic journals.
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The China Adolescents Science and Technology Innovation Contest was founded in 2004 and extended to students in Hong Kong and Macau in 2008. The fund rewards about 100 people each year in five categories: postgraduate students, undergraduate students, senior high school students, junior high school students and elementary school students. Postgraduate and undergraduate students are awarded a scholarship of RMB20,000 each, while winners in primary and secondary schools are awarded a scholarship of RMB5,000 each, on top of a certificate of honour and a trophy.
The chemotactic protein CCL17 attracts immune cells to where they are currently needed. Doctors have long known: A high level of this substance in the body indicates an allergic reaction. A team of scientists led by the University of Bonn has now discovered a completely new function: CCL17 also influences signal transmission in the brain. There may even be a molecular link to autism. The results have now been published in the journal "Glia".
Chemotactic cytokines, chemokines for short, are signaling proteins that act like an attractant and ensure, for example, that immune cells migrate from the bloodstream into the tissues. The chemokine CCL17 is known to increase inflammation and is associated with allergic diseases. A high level of CCL17 in the blood is regarded by doctors as a diagnostic marker of ongoing allergic reactions such as atopic eczema. The further the research on chemokines progresses, however, the more functions are discovered. Thus, an earlier joint study by the Universities of Munster and Bonn showed that animals with a defect in the expression of the receptor for CCL17 have behavioral problems: For example, they were unable to build proper nests like their normally developed mates.
"These behavioral changes indicated that CCL17 not only affects the immune system but perhaps also the brain," explains the corresponding author of the study, Prof. Dr. Irmgard Forster from the LIMES Institute at the University of Bonn, who is also a member of the Cluster of Excellence "ImmunoSensation". If there is such a connection, which cells in the brain produce CCL17? This question was investigated by doctoral student Lorenz Fulle and Irmgard Forster, together with scientists from the Institute of Cellular Neurosciences around Prof. Dr. Christian Henneberger, Dr. Annett Halle from the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE) and Dr. Judith Alferink from the University of Munster.
Through a genetic modification, the researchers coupled the release of CCL17 with the production of a fluorescent dye that illuminated all cells that produce the chemokine. The scientists additionally stimulated CCL17 production by simulating an infection using a substance contained in bacterial cell membranes. The production sites of the chemokine in the brain were then clearly visible under the microscope. "CCL17 is mainly produced by neurons of the hippocampus," reports lead author Lorenz Fulle. This structure, which is shaped like a seahorse, is present on the right and left side of the brain, and fulfills an important function in tasks such as orientation and memory formation.
Scientists blocked the gene for CCL17
As a next step, the scientists blocked the gene for CCL17 production and observed the effect. In the absence of the chemokine, the microglial cells in these "knockout" mice were significantly smaller and there were only half as many as in untreated control animals. Microglial cells have long been known as immune cells of the brain, where they take responsibility as "health guards" for the disposal of cell debris and infectious agents. Meanwhile, it has been shown that these "scavenger cells" also directly support the work of the neurons independently of their phagocytic activity.
In order to investigate the effect of CCL17 on the function of neurons, scientists in the laboratory of Prof. Dr. Christian Henneberger at the Institute of Cellular Neurosciences (University of Bonn Medical School) examined neuronal signaling in the brain. Henneberger: "The experiments indicate that CCL17 attenuates signal transmission in the hippocampal region of the brain." Since autism in humans is also associated with elevated levels of CCL17 in the blood, CCL17 could also play a role in this developmental disorder, for example due to an infection or an allergic reaction in early childhood. "But so far these are speculations," says Forster. "The exact effects of CCL17 have yet to be demonstrated by further research."
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Publication: Lorenz Fulle, Nina Offermann, Jan Niklas Hansen, Bjorn Breithausen, Anna Belen Erazo, Oliver Schanz, Luca Radau, Fabian Gondorf, Konrad Knopper, Judith Alferink, Zeinab Abdullah, Harald Neumann, Heike Weighardt, Christian Henneberger, Annett Halle and Irmgard Forster: CCL17 exerts a neuroimmune modulatory function and is expressed in hippocampal neurons, GLIA, DOI: 10.1002/glia.23507
Media contact:
Prof. Dr. Irmgard Forster
LIMES-Institut
Cluster of Excellence ImmunoSensation
University of Bonn
Tel. +49 (0)228/7362780 or 7362789
E-mail: irmgard.foerster@uni-bonn.de
Consumers need to stop demanding shark fin soup and other products in the absence of robust laws and sustainable practices regulating shark overfishing, research co-authored by the Sea Around Us initiative at UBC has found.
The study, conducted by researchers from the University of Hong Kong, the Sea Around Us initiative at the University of British Columbia and WildAid HongKong, shows that wealthy consumers' growing appetite for luxury items like shark fin soup has led to massive declines in populations of some shark species in recent years.
"Sea Around Us data show that shark catches amount to approximately 1.4 million tonnes per year, more than double what they were six decades ago," said Daniel Pauly, study co-author and principal investigator with the Sea Around Us initiative at UBC's Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries. "This overexploitation has led to almost 60 per cent of shark species being threatened, the highest proportion among all vertebrate groups."
The study argues that the problem lies with both legal and illegal fisheries, and how challenging it is to enforce sustainable fishing practices in the high seas. The overwhelming bulk of shark fins traded globally originate from the unmanaged fisheries of less economically developed countries like Indonesia, where annual shark catches exceed 100,000 tonnes.
India, Spain and Taiwan also play an important role in the netting of sharks and subsequent sale of their fins in international markets, particularly in Hong Kong from where they are later re-exported to mainland China.
"Hong Kong is the entry point for about half of all globally traded dried shark fins. They are the main ingredient of shark fin soup, which is a prestigious dish to ethnic Chinese both in China and abroad, eaten in banquets, Lunar New Year celebrations, or high-end restaurants," said Yvonne Sadovy, lead author of the study and professor at the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Hong Kong. "The exclusiveness linked to the product combined with its limited natural supply increases its price and makes it an attractive trading good for business networks, particularly for those with shady or illegal practices."
The study estimates that only 4,300 tonnes of dried fins are produced sustainably every year, while a further 25,000 tones originate from largely unsustainable and illegal fisheries. Telling the difference between the two is extremely difficult as the mixing of catches is a common practice that hampers traceability efforts.
"Shark finning and the mixing of catches tend to take place in the open seas or in remote ports, where there is little to no oversight. Moreover, authorities show little interest in controlling illegal wildlife trade or if they do, their enforcement capabilities are very limited," said Pauly.
Waiting for multilateral organizations to develop and enforce rules regarding shark finning and regulate fin trade to protect the species is not an option because time is not a luxury many sharks have.
"Extinction must not make the decision for us. Consumers have to act fast and decide what is acceptable and what is not when it comes to luxury, vulnerable, uncontrolled species. The appetite for shark fin soup is growing in places like Vietnam and Macau but slowly declining in Hong Kong and mainland China, where young people are starting to see it as a cultural practice that is worth abandoning," Pauly said.
The paper "Out of control means off the menu: The case for ceasing consumption of luxury products from highly vulnerable species when international trade cannot be adequately controlled; shark fin as a case study" was published in Marine Policy. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2018.08.012
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CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Researchers have cleared one hurdle toward environmental cleanup of certain contaminants with a newly designed synthetic enzyme that reduces the compound sulfite to sulfide - a notoriously complex multistep chemical reaction that has eluded chemists for years.
In the journal Science, chemists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign described their enzyme containing two different iron-containing centers linked together by a single enzyme.
Sulfite reduction, a common oxidation-reduction - or redox reaction - can interfere with the cleanup of a major class of environmental contaminants including nitrate, arsenate and perchlorate. These contaminants enter the environment as byproducts from the production of rocket fuel, munitions and fertilizer. Sulfite also occurs naturally and interferes with the elimination of more toxic compounds, and chemists have not been able create catalysts to remove sulfite because it requires multiple steps of reactions using a complex active site that is difficult to design and synthesize.
"Many biochemical reactions require a series of enzymes working together to carry out multistep reactions, but sulfite reduction uses only one enzyme, called sulfite reductase, that does all of the work," said Yi Lu, a professor of chemistry at Illinois. "Nature created a very complex enzyme structure to handle this chemical reaction, and researchers have not been able to replicate it until now."
Past groups that have attempted to build a synthetic sulfite-reducing enzyme have concentrated on making structural models that look like the active site of native enzymes, said chemistry graduate student Evan Mirts. For this study, the team used an enzyme as a scaffold to anchor clusters of iron and sulfur atoms that behave like tiny molecular batteries, transferring the electrons needed to push the redox reaction.
"I believe we were successful because we focused on the functionality of our synthetic enzyme, not rebuilding the simplest possible structure," Mirts said. "We accounted for interactions that are typically thought of as secondary, or less important to the overall redox reaction. It turns out that these interactions are extremely important."
"When we accounted for those so-called weaker interactions in our designed enzyme, we suddenly saw redox reaction activity that was very similar to that of the naturally occurring sulfite-reducing enzyme," said Lu, also a joint appointee at the U.S. Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.
The team envisions their newly developed enzyme inspiring a new generation of catalysts to help clean up toxic waste in the environment and help improve the quality of petroleum products.
"Aside from the practical applications, I think our work here has advanced the frontier of artificial enzyme design in terms deciphering the complexity of redox reactions and designing multifactor catalysts with very high activity," Lu said. "With the successful demonstration of this system, we can now begin to design many other multicofactor enzymes that perform even more complex, difficult reactions that we could only dream of before."
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The U.S. National Institutes of Health and the DOE supported this study through the Center for Advanced Bioenergy and Bioproducts Innovation.
Editor's notes:
Please contact the U. of I. News Bureau for a video featuring this research.
To reach Yi Lu, call 217-333-2619; yi-lu@illinois.edu.
The paper "A designed heme-[4Fe-4S] metalloenzyme catalyzes sulfite reduction like the native enzyme" is available online and from the U. of I. News Bureau.
Based on field surveys in northern Afghanistan, ecologists report this week that they have for the first time documented by direct observation the presence of two rare Asian wild goat species in the country
AMHERST, Mass. - Based on field surveys in northern Afghanistan, Zalmai Moheb, an ecologist with the Wildlife Conservation Society's Afghanistan Program and a doctoral candidate in environmental conservation at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, with others, report this week that they have for the first time documented by direct observation the presence of two rare Asian wild goat species in the country.
The species, both of concern to conservationists, are the markhor (Capra falconeri) or screw-horned goat, and the Siberian ibex (Capra sibirica), which occur in several countries. Both have been reported in Afghanistan, but few studies have been made there in recent years and their distribution is largely unknown, Moheb points out.
The report of field surveys he and colleagues conducted from July to October 2011 has just been published in the annual newsletter of the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Caprinae Specialist Group.
Moheb and colleagues report that they directly observed markhor and ibex on the Afghan side of the Amu Darva River, the border with Tajikistan, for the first time in the Shahr-e Buzurg district and the Darwaz region, plus indirect field evidence and local community reports.
They say, "The strip of land along the Amu Darya River from western Darwaz to Shahr-e Buzurg district through Khawahan and Raghistan districts should be a priority site for future markhor and ibex conservation in Afghanistan. If protection measures are taken, this area along with the adjacent protected area in Tajikistan, could act as valuable and viable refuge for sustaining markhor and other wild species that inhabit the region."
Moheb and co-authors Said Naqibullah Mostafawi and Peter Zahler, with the Wildlife Conservation Society at the time of the survey, plus his advisor at UMass Amherst professor Todd Fuller, point out that the animals are "nominally protected" from hunting, but both species are most likely hunted throughout their range by local tribesmen. Zahler is now vice president of conservation initiatives at Woodland Park Zoo, Washington, D.C. and Mostafawi is now a free-lance consultant.
For this work, the research ecologists surveyed a strip of shrubby scrubland along the Amu Darya River in four districts of Afghanistan's northern Badakhshan Province. They visited 46 villages and four field sites, most in valleys, over 115 square miles (300 sq. km) in Shahr-e Buzurg and 770 square miles (1,997 sq. km) in the Darwaz region. They also interviewed and showed photographs to village headmen, hunters and shepherds believed to be the most knowledgeable about local wildlife.
They also visited potential markhor and ibex habitats suggested by sources using experienced local hunters as field guides to confirm animals in the area. In Shahr-e Buzurg the ecologists report 41 of 67 respondents, 61 percent, said that markhor were present and once abundant, but numbers have declined and few remain. The researchers themselves saw four markhor in the Payan-e Moor area and local hunters said they thought about 20 markhor were in the area. They also found horns and markhor skins.
In the Darwaz region, the researchers report that 37 percent, 15 of 40 respondents said markhor existed in the western part of the district, and the researchers themselves saw six animals and four pairs of markhor horns. Further, 56 percent of respondents, 74 or 131, said that ibex occurs in some parts of the region and showed them skin and horns.
Overall, the ecologists say markhor populations in Shahr-e Buzurg are believed to be small and may only survive due to animals coming in from Tajikistan. Markhor populations in Leiwgard in the Kof Ab district of Darwas appear "larger and more stable," though still linked to nearby Tajik populations.
"We suspect that when water level drops in the river during winter, markhor could move between both areas," the authors note. "The remoteness of Leiwgard is likely the primary reason that markhor and ibex still exist in this area." Leiwgard is home to roughly 80 markhor, sources said, along with ibex, brown bear and snow leopards.
Local sources also reported that markhor and ibex share the same area, but markhor prefer lower elevations and steep cliffs, while ibex like higher elevations with colder environments. "This, if true, is one of the very few areas where these two caprid species overlap," the researchers note.
Moheb and colleagues urge taking several conservation management actions to assist markhor and biodiversity in the area, in particular along the Amu Darya River. "This area is a priority for future markhor conservation and for other endangered wildlife such as snow leopard. The area has the advantage of being connected to the M-Sayod Conservancy on the Tajik side of the border, and so efforts could be combined between Afghanistan and Tajikistan to promote conservation in the larger area," they point out. Coordinating conservation efforts could preserve unique habitats and endangered wildlife, they add.
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The International Union for Conservation of Nature's Caprinae Specialist Group is a network of volunteer experts working on the ecology, behavior, taxonomy, conservation and management of wild sheep, goats, goat-antelopes, muskox and allies in the Caprinae genus worldwide, promoting research and conservation of the animals and their mountain habitat.
These studies were also supported by the United States Agency for International Development, and the authors acknowledge that the work would not have been possible without the active support of the provincial and district administrations of Shahr-e Buzurg District and Darwaz Region of Badakhshan.
DURHAM, N.H.--Researchers at the University of New Hampshire will undertake the largest study ever conducted on intimate partner violence among lesbian, gay, bisexual and other sexual minority college students thanks to a grant from the National Science Foundation.
Fifteen colleges and universities across the country have agreed to participate and the researchers expect to survey more than 20,000 students and 10,000 faculty and staff. The survey will be conducted by Katie Edwards from UNH and Heather Littleton at East Carolina University.
The survey will evaluate a new theoretical model that examines the ways in which institutional and individual stigma increases risk for intimate partner violence experiences among sexual minority students. Schools are recognizing intimate partner violence among sexual minorities as an issue, but campus climate surveys cost money and require time and expertise that not all institutions of higher education have access to. Each participating school will receive comprehensive school-specific findings and recommendations.
"This study is important for two key reasons," said Katie Edwards, associate professor of psychology and women's studies as well as an affiliate of UNH's Prevention Innovations Research Center. "First, it allows us to rigorously evaluate a new model of sexual stigma. Second, it will help us identify risk and protective factors that will not only help reduce the rate of partner violence among sexual minority students, but may also reduce other public health concerns like problem drinking and suicide in this population."
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The University of New Hampshire is a flagship research university that inspires innovation and transforms lives in our state, nation and world. More than 16,000 students from all 50 states and 71 countries engage with an award-winning faculty in top ranked programs in business, engineering, law, health and human services, liberal arts and the sciences across more than 200 programs of study. UNH's research portfolio includes partnerships with NASA, NOAA, NSF and NIH, receiving more than $100 million in competitive external funding every year to further explore and define the frontiers of land, sea and space.
University of Otago researchers have helped characterise a genetic variant that enables new understanding of why some people are at risk of gout, a painful and debilitating arthritic disease.
Gout is caused by persistently elevated levels of urate in the blood, which causes severe joint pain and swelling, especially in peoples' toes, knees, elbows, wrists and fingers. It can be treated using drugs that lower urate levels. But if left untreated, it can cause serious damage to joints, kidneys and quality of life.
PhD student Sarada Ketharnathan together with Associate Professor Julia Horsfield from the Department of Pathology and Professor Tony Merriman from the Department of Biochemistry have recently characterised the genetic variant that lies not inside, but just next to a gene called PDZK1.
This PDZK1 protein product helps excrete urate through the kidney and gut. In this way, PDZK1 controls the amount of serum urate which, when high, form crystals that cause gout.
"We found that the genetic variant doesn't affect the PDZK1 protein, but causes change in the amount of the PDZK1 gene produced," Associate Professor Horsfield explains.
"Unexpectedly, the effect of the genetic variant in humans is in the gut as well as the kidney. We confirmed this by studying where the variant switches on gene expression in zebrafish embryos, which are ideal because their embryos are transparent," she says.
"Our results have identified a new molecular pathway for gout, enabling new understanding of why there is gout risk in patients with this particular genetic variant."
The research, which also involved researchers from the University of Auckland, was recently published in the journal Human Molecular Genetics. It was funded by the Health Research Council of New Zealand.
Associate Professor Horsfield explains there are dozens of regions in the human genome with signals that increase serum urate levels and risk of gout, and kidney function. The new scientific challenge is converting these signals into functional insights. This information is critical to allow new medical intervention in gout and kidney disease.
"Since many of the regions lie outside of genes, it is not known how they could control urate levels and risk of gout or kidney disease. These associated regions probably represent regulatory elements that control gene expression," she says.
Understanding how genetic variation contributes to someone's risk of gout or kidney disease can, going forward, inform choice of treatment for that person.
"This kind of scientific understanding of disease risk is bringing us into a new age of 'precision medicine'."
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For further information, please contact:
Associate Professor Julia Horsfield
Department of Pathology
Tel 03 479 7436
Mob 021 106 5099
Email Julia.horsfield@otago.ac.nz
Professor Tony Merriman
Department of Biochemistry
Tel 03 479 7846
Mob 027 847 2878
Email tony.merriman@otago.ac.nz
Liane Topham-Kindley
Senior Communications Adviser
Tel 03 479 9065
Mob 021 279 9065
Email liane.topham-kindley@otago.ac.nz
MADISON, Wis. -- In one video, you can see a hungry caterpillar, first working around a leaf's edges, approaching the base of the leaf and, with one last bite, severing it from the rest of the plant. Within seconds, a blaze of fluorescent light washes over the other leaves, a signal that they should prepare for future attacks by the caterpillar or its kin.
That fluorescent light tracks calcium as it zips across the plant's tissues, providing an electrical and chemical signal of a threat. In more than a dozen videos like this, University of Wisconsin-Madison Professor of Botany Simon Gilroy and his lab reveal how glutamate -- an abundant neurotransmitter in animals -- activates this wave of calcium when the plant is wounded. The videos provide the best look yet at the communication systems within plants that are normally hidden from view.
The research is published Sept. 14 in the journal Science. Masatsugu Toyota led the work as a postdoctoral researcher in Gilroy's lab. Gilroy and Toyota, now at Saitama University in Japan, collaborated with researchers from the Japan Science and Technology Agency, Michigan State University and the University of Missouri.
"We know there's this systemic signaling system, and if you wound in one place the rest of the plant triggers its defense responses," says Gilroy. "But we didn't know what was behind this system."
"We do know that if you wound a leaf, you get an electrical charge, and you get a propagation that moves across the plant," Gilroy adds. What triggered that electric charge, and how it moved throughout the plant, were unknown.
But calcium was one candidate. Ubiquitous in cells, calcium often acts as a signal about a changing environment. And because calcium carries a charge, it can also produce an electrical signal. But calcium is ephemeral, spiking and dipping in concentration quickly. The researchers needed a way to see the calcium in real time.
So Toyota developed plants that showed calcium in a whole new light. The plants produce a protein that only fluoresces around calcium, letting the researchers track its presence and concentration. Then came caterpillar bites, scissor cuts and crushing wounds.
In response to each kind of damage, videos show the plants lighting up as calcium flows from the site of damage to other leaves. The signal moved quickly, about one millimeter per second. That's just a fraction of the speed of animal nerve impulses, but it's lightning fast in the plant world -- quick enough to spread out to other leaves in just a couple minutes. It took just a few more minutes for defense-related hormone levels to spike in distant leaves. These defense hormones help prepare the plant for future threats by, for example, increasing the levels of noxious chemicals to ward off predators.
Previous research by Swiss scientist Ted Farmer has demonstrated that defense-related electrical signals depended on receptors for glutamate, an amino acid that is a major neurotransmitter in animals and also common in plants. Farmer showed that mutant plants missing glutamate receptors also lost their electrical responses to threats. So Toyota and Gilroy looked at the flow of calcium during wounding in these mutant plants.
"Lo and behold, the mutants that knock out the electrical signaling completely knock out the calcium signaling as well," says Gilroy.
Where normal plants blaze brightly with fluorescent calcium waves during wounding, videos show the mutant plants barely sputtering marginal flashes of light. These results suggest that glutamate spilling out from wound sites triggers the burst in calcium that spreads across the plant.
The study connects decades of research that has revealed how plants, often seen as inert, dynamically respond to threats by preparing distant tissues to deal with future attacks. Glutamate leads to calcium leads to defense hormones and altered growth and biochemistry, all without a nervous system.
Gilroy says that in addition to helping tie all these pieces together, the videos help him visualize the flurry of activity within plants that's normally invisible.
"Without the imaging and seeing it all play out in front of you, it never really got driven home -- man, this stuff is fast!" he says.
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This work was supported by grants from the National Science Foundation (MCB-1329273, IOS- 1557899, IOS-1456864), Department of Energy (DE-FG02-91ER20021), NASA (NNX14AT25G) and Japan Science and Technology Agency PRESTO, KAKENHI (17H05007, 18H04775, 18H05491).
Eric Hamilton, (608) 263-1986, eshamilton@wisc.edu
Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center researchers have answered questions about the incidence and timing of rare but sometimes fatal reactions to the most widely prescribed class of immunotherapies.
Their research, which appeared Sept. 13 in JAMA Oncology, is the largest evaluation of fatal immune checkpoint inhibitor toxicities published to date. They determined that although these severe events can happen, the risks are "within or well below" fatality rates for more common cancer treatments, including chemotherapy, stem cell transplants and complex cancer surgeries.
When fatal reactions did occur, they tended to happen early after starting treatment, on average 15-40 days, depending upon the type of immune checkpoint inhibitor. Their study further characterized the fatal toxicities and timing of reaction by type of cancer and specific drug.
"These drugs are quite transformative," said Douglas Johnson, MD, MSCI, senior author of the article. "The benefits outweigh the risks, but patients and doctors should be aware of their toxicities. These side effects can be quite severe, and they are something that we really need to pay attention to."
The team sorted through more than 16 million adverse drug reaction reports in a World Health Organization (WHO) database searching for those related to immune checkpoint inhibitors. They also reviewed the records from seven academic centers, including Vanderbilt, that have been at the forefront of immunotherapy research. Additionally, they conducted a meta-analysis of published trials for the drugs.
Checkpoint inhibitors unleash the immune system to attack cancer, but they may also spur an attack on organs, including the heart, lungs, liver and colon. Steroids are prescribed to relieve the resulting inflammation: myocarditis, pneumonitis, hepatitis and colitis, and are usually extremely effective. Timely treatment with steroids is crucial, Johnson said.
"Some of the patients who died had a long delay before they received steroids," Johnson said. "In some cases, the patient didn't call in to report their symptoms or experienced a very unusual presentation that was difficult to diagnose."
The data also showed that older patients were more prone to experience fatal toxicities, although the occurrence was still rare.
"We don't necessarily think that older patients have more side effects, but when they do have toxicities, they can potentially have more complications," Johnson said.
The team found 613 fatal immune checkpoint inhibitor toxicities within the more than 16 million reports in the WHO pharmacovigilance database (Vigilyze) from 2009 to 2018. Myocarditis (inflammation of the heart) had the highest fatality rate, as nearly 40 percent of patients with this side effect died.
The review of records from the seven academic centers revealed a 0.6 percent fatality rate. The meta-analysis of data from 112 clinical trials showed a fatality death rate ranging from 0.36 percent to 1.23 percent, depending upon the specific type of immune checkpoint inhibitor.
The study notes that this range is "dramatically lower than the near 100 percent fatality rate for metastatic solid tumors." The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has at this point in time approved immune checkpoint inhibitors for 13 different types of metastatic cancers.
"We have clinics full of patients now who received these treatments who are alive today because they responded to these treatments," Johnson said.
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The study was supported by the National Institutes of Health/National Cancer Institute, The Cancer ITMO of the French National Alliance for Life and Health Sciences, the James C. Bradford Jr. Melanoma Fund and the Melanoma Research Foundation.
Canada has pledged to increase the number of visas available for parents and grandparents wishing to move to the country to live with their families.A cap of 5,000 was set but now that is to be increased fourfold to 20,000 applications for the sponsorship of parents and grandparents visa programme in 2019.The decision to increase the number of applications that Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) will accept for processing is a result of continually high demand and the fact that the system has sped up, reducing the waiting time.The inventory has dropped from a peak of 167,000 people, in 2011, to just under 26,000 people, in June 2018.After increasing the 2018 cap to 17,000 complete applications, IRCC sent a second round of invitations to randomly selected potential sponsors who submitted an Interest to Sponsor form in early 2018. Those invited to the second round have until 5 October 2018, to submit a complete application.Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen also announced that, as a result of listening to stakeholders, the Government is making further changes to the application intake process that will streamline access to the programme and improve the client experience.He explained that using this modified intake process will give the government more flexibility in the application process, ensuring that we receive as many applications as possible.In 2019, as in previous years, the Interest to Sponsor form will be available online, at the beginning of the year, so eligible potential sponsors can let IRCC know they wish to sponsor their parents and grandparents to come to Canada.However, instead of randomly selecting the sponsors to apply, they will be invited to submit an application to sponsor parents and grandparents based on the order in which the department receive their Interest to Sponsor forms. This process will continue until the 2019 cap of 20,000 complete applications is reached.Over the last few years, we have made substantial improvements to the parents and grandparents sponsorship process and eliminated the backlog of applications, said Hussen.Now, by accepting even more applications this year and next as well as enhancing the intake system, the Government of Canada is demonstrating its commitment to helping families live, work and thrive together, in Canada, he added.IRCC will accept for processing 17,000 applications for sponsorship of parents and grandparents, in 2018, and 20,000 applications, in 2019.In 2018 the Government plans to admit 20,000 parents and grandparents in its immigration levels plan, then admission levels will increase to 20,500 in 2019 and 21,000, in 2020.
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From: American Evaluation Association (AEA) For Immediate Release: Dateline: Washington , DC Thursday, September 13, 2018
Douglas Clay, a longtime Cleveland resident and evaluator with Candor Consulting. I focus on data analysis and assessment training mostly with K-12 schools. Ive been in Cleveland long enough to remember when the Browns were a winning team, when the shopping centers were steel mills, and trendy Tremont was the plain old Southside. As the city is on an upswing, enjoy your stay and check out some of the revitalized sections of my town during the conference.
After you return to work you might like to investigate the following resource I discovered years ago while working with the Cleveland Public Schools. I was tasked with preparing student testing results for school administrators and teacher leaders for a weekend planning retreat. I was called down to the superintendents office on a Tuesday afternoon and given a box of state testing reports. I was responsible for turning these stacks of little numbers into usable information for educators in three days. What I learned that afternoon was that nothing focuses the mind like terror. Luckily, I was able to draw upon the genius of Edward Tufte and his classic book,
Rad Resource:
Tufte outlines the theory and practice of designing data graphics. The book gives detailed analysis in how to display data with precision, accuracy, high data-ink ratio, and aesthetics. There are over 250 illustrations showing right (and wrong) ways to display lots of numbers in a small space for maximum understanding. His theories of graphical excellence are extended in subsequent books on the subject, all worth your time if you have a need to make sense of complex data sets and engage stakeholders in meaningful discussions. The quickest way to jump into graphical excellence is
The following graphics are from work Ive done recently and I hope they illustrate Tuftes principles. The first displays 256 separate data points to show test scores over time. It allows a school to see the overall direction as well as how their progress deviates from the average. What they viewed as plateauing over two years after years of increasing scores is contrasted with neighboring, similar, schools falling off a cliff.
This graphic displays a high schools recent graduates college enrollment. The National Clearinghouse dataset follows college graduates for years as they enroll and complete college degrees. It allows for measurement of persistence and transfers between schools. Tufte will teach you why this graph is more effective as a donut rather than a pie chart, and also allows decision makers to see the data without poring over charts of numbers.
Were looking forward to the fall and the Evaluation 2018 conference all this week with our colleagues in the Local Arrangements Working Group (LAWG). Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this aea365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the aea365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to contribute to aea365? Review the contribution guidelines and send your draft post to
About AEA The American Evaluation Association is an international professional association and the largest in its field. Evaluation involves assessing the strengths and weaknesses of programs, policies, personnel, products and organizations to improve their effectiveness. AEAs mission is to improve evaluation practices and methods worldwide, to increase evaluation use, promote evaluation as a profession and support the contribution of evaluation to the generation of theory and knowledge about effective human action. For more information about AEA, visit www.eval.org. Hello, and welcome to Cleveland! Im, a longtime Cleveland resident and evaluator with Candor Consulting. I focus on data analysis and assessment training mostly with K-12 schools. Ive been in Cleveland long enough to remember when the Browns were a winning team, when the shopping centers were steel mills, and trendy Tremont was the plain old Southside. As the city is on an upswing, enjoy your stay and check out some of the revitalized sections of my town during the conference.After you return to work you might like to investigate the following resource I discovered years ago while working with the Cleveland Public Schools. I was tasked with preparing student testing results for school administrators and teacher leaders for a weekend planning retreat. I was called down to the superintendents office on a Tuesday afternoon and given a box of state testing reports. I was responsible for turning these stacks of little numbers into usable information for educators in three days. What I learned that afternoon was that nothing focuses the mind like terror. Luckily, I was able to draw upon the genius of Edward Tufte and his classic book, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. Tufte outlines the theory and practice of designing data graphics. The book gives detailed analysis in how to display data with precision, accuracy, high data-ink ratio, and aesthetics. There are over 250 illustrations showing right (and wrong) ways to display lots of numbers in a small space for maximum understanding. His theories of graphical excellence are extended in subsequent books on the subject, all worth your time if you have a need to make sense of complex data sets and engage stakeholders in meaningful discussions. The quickest way to jump into graphical excellence is Tuftes one day course . He tours the country presenting to groups of academics, journalists, financial analysts, and policymakers. The course includes all his books and is well worth your time. As I explained to a colleague who questioned my investment of time into creating graphs for schools by asking, What, do you have to draw them a picture? I responded, Yes, yes, I do. Tufte shows how to make that picture the most effective one for each type of data.The following graphics are from work Ive done recently and I hope they illustrate Tuftes principles. The first displays 256 separate data points to show test scores over time. It allows a school to see the overall direction as well as how their progress deviates from the average. What they viewed as plateauing over two years after years of increasing scores is contrasted with neighboring, similar, schools falling off a cliff.This graphic displays a high schools recent graduates college enrollment. The National Clearinghouse dataset follows college graduates for years as they enroll and complete college degrees. It allows for measurement of persistence and transfers between schools. Tufte will teach you why this graph is more effective as a donut rather than a pie chart, and also allows decision makers to see the data without poring over charts of numbers.Were looking forward to the fall and the Evaluation 2018 conference all this week with our colleagues in the Local Arrangements Working Group (LAWG). Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this aea365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the aea365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to contribute to aea365? Review the contribution guidelines and send your draft post to aea365@eval.org
Oil companies are dramatically increasing their hedges on Permian Basin oil prices into 2020, locking in prices through long-term futures contracts in case a slew of new pipeline projects fail to come online in time, according to a new report from the energy research firm Wood Mackenzie.
Permian oil producers increased their 2020 hedging positions by more than five times in the second quarter, suggesting a fear that major pipeline constraints could extend well beyond next year. The lack of pipeline capacity has made it difficult to move crude oil to the Gulf Coast and other markets and forced producers to discount their prices.
The huge jump in producers pledging to deliver oil at agreed-upon prices two years from now represents unusually high trading for 2020 contracts, said Andrew McConn, a corporate research analyst at Wood Mackenzie .
The only reasonable conclusion one can draw from this surge is that Permian producers are concerned that key pipeline projects wont be completed on schedule, McConn said.
READ MORE: U.S. refineries process record amounts of crude
The Permian Basin in West Texas is producing more oil than it can ship out on pipelines, forcing some companies to turn to more expensive truck and train options to move the oil. The result is Permian oil is selling at a nearly $15 a barrel discount compared to the U.S. benchmark price, which has been trading around $69 a barrel this week.
Several multibillion-dollar oil and gas pipelines are planned or under construction to move the oil and gas to Gulf Coast refiners and ports, but the first arent expected to come online until mid-2019. Others arent scheduled for completion until 2020 or beyond.
The companies placing the biggest hedges on Permian oil in the second quarter are Concho Resources of Midland and Energen Corp., which is in the process of being acquired by Diamondback Energy, also of Midland, according to Wood Mackenzie . The next biggest users of hedging are Noble Energy of Houston and SM Energy of Denver.
Until recently, oil companies were not committing to futures contracts beyond next year. McConn said companies now fear project delays could keep prices in the Permaian depressed for longer, so they are hedging more to lock in oil prices. Producers, of course, run the risk that pipelines will get completed on time and prices will raise above those in their futures contract.
READ MORE: Oil sector hunkers down for Gordon
In the meantime, many oil companies are waiting to complete Permian wells until the Permian crude discount shrinks. As a result, drilling activity and production in the Permian has slowed.
Permian production had surged from about 2.5 million barrels a day last year to roughly 3.4 million barrels per day now, representing almost one-third of the nations record oil production of about 11 million barrels a day.
The U.S. Energy Department said Tuesday it expects U.S. crude production will average 10.7 million barrels a day for all of 2018 - way up from 9.4 million barrels last year - and that 2019 will average about 11.5 million barrels daily, potentially making the U.S. the worlds largest oil producer.
The Houston company Enterprise Products Partners brought its Midland-to-Sealy crude oil pipeline online earlier this year, but most other projects wont be completed until at least next year. As companies rush to complete the pipelines and meet the Permians demand, they run the risk of overbuilding, meaning some pipelines could be forced to operate well below their capacity.
A former West Side print shop and hub for Latino politicos will get new lease on life as a workspace for tech workers and entrepreneurs a project spearheaded by former San Antonio Mayor Henry Cisneros.
Cisneros, who also served as U.S. Housing and Urban Development secretary under President Bill Clinton, plans to renovate the building formerly occupied by his familys print shop at 2201 Buena Vista St. into a two-story tech workspace, the first of its kind on the West Side.
I just didnt want to see it fall into disrepair and fall into the wrong hands, Cisneros said. I decided to pay a tribute to the creative work that my grandfather did there for generations by creating a creative space for the new generation, of a new kind.
So far, no one has signed on to lease a part of the planned 8,000-square-foot space, called The Shop Workspaces. But Cisneros said he has received inquiries from potential tenants and that the space could accommodate as many as 25 tenants when its projected to open in summer 2019.
READ ALSO: Future of West Side plaza to be discussed
Other people are now seeing what were doing and approaching me about joining in that effort and building some other development along that corridor, Cisneros said. So maybe were going to be able to get some real economic development going on the West Side. Im confident that were right on the cusp of being able to do that.
When it opens, The Shop Workspaces will join a trio of new West Side warehouse complexes that officials hope will attract more white-collar workers and younger talent to the area.
The Parish a workspace complex aimed at attracting artists opened in February inside a renovated 107-year-old church at 1624 Buena Vista St. That development opened near two other workspaces along Buena Vista: Brownstone Studios and Warehouse 5.
The quality of local school districts along with the presence of Haven for Hope and Bexar County Adult Detention Center have long prevented development from downtown San Antonio from spreading to the West Side, said Leonard Rodriguez, president and CEO of Westside Development Corp.
But cheap land and proximity to downtown San Antonio as well as three universities St. Marys University, Our Lady Of The Lake University and the University of Texas at San Antonios downtown campus could make the West Side an attractive target for investors and workers looking for affordable living, Rodriguez said.
READ ALSO: Sidewalks for the neighborhoods with greatest need
Its telling us that there certainly is a professional creative class that I think is desiring or wanting a more real experience, not something thats completely just fabricated but knowing that you can step outside your commercial work space and theres a community need, Rodriguez said.
West Side leaders are working to attract development while not displacing long-time residents, Rodriguez said.
At the same time, we know that we need to attract more vibrancy, more brain power, more youth to the area, Rodriguez said. There is always that concern about changing the environment too rapidly.
The space that The Shop Workspaces will occupy has its own storied past.
Romulo Munguia Sr., a Mexican revolutionary, founded Munguia Printers in 1934 after breaking ranks with then-President Alvaro Obregon in the 1920s and moving his family to San Antonio. He used the press as a commercial operation and as a way to advance Mexican-American issues, printing several newspapers.
Under his son Ruben Munguia, the West Side shop one of the few in San Antonio affiliated with the AFL-CIO became the meeting ground for West Side politicos and helped launch the careers of many local Democrats, including Cisneros and the late Congressman Henry B. Gonzalez.
READ ALSO: Look inside the Monte Vista home where H-E-B shoots ads
Ruben Munguia, Cisneros uncle, was considered an crucial part of what was known as the West Side Coalition.
During a tour of the site Wednesday morning, Cisneros and cousins Martha Ybarra and Edward Ybarra recalled working in the shop.
The company peaked in the early 1970s, employing 45 workers and operating two shifts a day. The shop published community newspapers at area military bases, the East Side and the archdiocese and also printed most of the regions grocery circulars.
But industry changes in the 2000s that arose with the proliferation of computers and the March 2003 death of Ruben Munguia eventually led Martha Ybarra, Ruben Munguias daughter, and her husband to close the shop in 2007.
Martha and I realized that the technology that we were facing was something that we grew tired of, Edward Ybarra said. We just couldnt keep with the changes in the industry.
Meanwhile, debt to creditors and late taxes piled up. Cisneros and his wife Mary Alice bought the property in 2016 when the Bexar Appraisal District assessed the land to be worth $247,740 and paid off the debts. Cisneros would not say how much debt had accrued.
I did not want to see my familys work at auction on the courthouse steps, Cisneros said.
What if you could use virtual reality to train employees simulating an experience they might encounter at some point on the job instead of watching their eyes glaze over as you click through a PowerPoint presentation?
After spending eight years in various roles at Canadian video game company BioWare, Jonathan Perry saw an opportunity to introduce companies and government and law enforcement agencies to virtual reality. At Ractive, the San Antonio startup he launched in 2015, Perry creates simulated scenarios aimed at replacing or supplementing traditional training.
The virtual experiences can cut down on the time it takes to teach a new employee the requisite skills while providing an avenue to practice and test what theyve learned, Perry said.
Its experiential learning, he said.
This week, DC Industries announced plans to incorporate a scenario Perry developed into their training programs. Based at Port San Antonio, DCI provides cybersecurity training and courses for companies, and will also begin using virtual reality in every course that has a technical aspect, it said in a statement.
Within the experience Perry designed, a participant has to figure out what channels a threat actor used to breach a system and what documents they were able to access. DCI will use the scenario in a pilot class before adding it to regular courses.
Its designed to teach people how the bad guys are looking at a network, said instructor Rob Dodson.
The company emphasizes hands-on learning, and virtual reality is another tool they can use to prepare people for real-world situations, Dodson said. From an educators perspective, students recall is improved with the use of virtual reality, he added.
VR increases the retention of critical skills much longer than anything else out there, Dodson said. (Participants) learn better, their skills are better and their retention is better.
Perry is also working with Braustin Mobile Homes, whose founders he met through Geekdoms pre-accelerator program, to design an augmented reality app for the company. The app will enable customers to take a virtual tour of the mobile homes brothers Alberto and Jason Pina sell.
Beyond company trainings, virtual reality scenarios can help prepare law enforcement agencies and others encountering high-intensity situations, Perry said. Ractive is subcontracted to provide virtual reality work for a firefighter training project and Perry is developing CPR training that would incorporate VR headsets, motion capture gloves and a manikin to help people practice their skills.
Adding the VR component can help put someone in a realistic scenario, where theyre on the scene and performing an action, he said. It can help get somebody used to what it feels like, so that when something does happen, theyve kind of already experienced it.
Perry has also worked with the National Infantry Museum in Georgia to develop two scenarios for visitors. Seated in a replica Humvee or Blackhawk helicopter with headsets, participants have to rescue civilians while sparring with enemy forces and dodging environmental risks. The experiences are multiplayer, so each person can see, hear and talk to the other participants.
As he looks to expand Ractives partnerships, Perry hopes to eventually hire staff and open a facility with equipment that would allow companies to come in and run through a course in-house. With the amount of military training happening in San Antonio, the local military community is one group that could benefit from incorporating virtual reality components, he said.
A handful of years ago, companies were resistant to virtual reality training, but Perry said thats changing quickly. Equipment has gotten cheaper for example, some of the headsets Perry uses have dropped from around $1,000 apiece to around $200 and as advancements continue to be made in virtual and augmented realities, he expects interest to grow.
The perception used to be that it was really expensive and a hassle to set up, he said. Thats absolutely changing.
Industries like aerospace have long embraced the advantages of augmented reality and virtual reality, and more sectors are beginning to follow in their footsteps, said Jim Perschbach, CEO of Port San Antonio. The labor and quality advantages are tremendous, and enable companies to be more efficient, he said. The partnership between DCI and Ractive is indicative of this trend and the benefits of embracing technological advances.
The ability to simulate something as a training device is proven and valuable, he said. When we talk about applying new and advanced tech to industries, its exactly this (partnership).
miszler@express-news.net | Twitter: @madisoniszler
Makers of the CBS-TV comedy "Young Sheldon," a spin-off from the hit series "The Big Bang Theory," are issuing grants to 19 schools in Texas and California to support their STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) programs.
Producer Chuck Lorre's The Chuck Lorre Family Foundation has launched the Young Sheldon Stem Initiative, which will offer more than $600,000 in two-year grants to a variety of elementary, middle and high schools. Texas and California were chosen because the series is set in East Texas and filmed in Burbank, Calif.
TOM REEL, STAFF / SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS-NEWS
Local philanthropist Harvey Najim has donated $1 million to KIPP Texas San Antonio, some of which will support the charter networks efforts to open its second high school in the city.
Being a community leader, I do support public schools and I also support charter schools, he said Wednesday at KIPP Esperanza Dual Language Academy. He praised KIPPs graduation rates and efforts to get students to college, as well as its longer school days.
A $25 million federal reimbursement for the eight-mile Mission Reach project on the San Antonio River is included in a package of funding bills Congress approved this week.
The payment will go to Bexar County because it initially paid for most of the project that transformed the stretch of the river south of downtown.
U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-San Antonio, said the reimbursement was approved by the Senate on Wednesday and the House om Thursday.
The Mission Reach, started in 2008 and completed in 2013, is a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers project to prevent river flooding and restore natural plant and animal habitats. Bexar County loaned the money to corps, and the corps has been paying it back gradually through allocations approved by Congress.
The project has received $30.8 million in reimbursements, not counting the payment just approved, according to Cuellar.
In a release, Cuellar thanked various lawmakers and Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Reps. Will Hurd, Lamar Smith, Joaquin Castro, and Lloyd Doggett, for their help in repaying these Bexar County funds.
I would also like to recognize the San Antonio River Authority for their tireless work on this important project, he said.
The county is seeking $61.3 million in all has said repaid funds would be used to provide more river and creek improvements. The projects total cost of $271 million also included money from the city, the San Antonio River Foundation and the Corps of Engineers.
Scott Huddleston is a staff writer in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. Read him on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | shuddleston@express-news.net | Twitter: @shuddlestonSA
The City Council on Wednesday gave an initial stamp of approval to a proposed set of regulations for the rapidly growing number of electric scooters appearing downtown and beyond.
Three companies, including one local firm, now offer the vehicles for rent, and several others are eyeing the market. The new devices, which look like narrow skateboards with handlebars, are dockless, meaning they can be parked anywhere, and are unlocked through smart-phone apps and GPS.
The council is set to approve an ordinance Oct. 11 and institute a six-month pilot program. Next spring, city staff will report findings from the pilot and the council will decide whether to tweak the regulations.
Laying out the proposal to the council during a Wednesday briefing, Assistant City Manager Lori Houston said cities across the U.S. are currently going through the same exercises.
We are one of the few cities that will have a policy, she said.
A few have passed regulations and others are grappling with the same issues how to craft a set of rules that protects riders, motorists and pedestrians alike, ensures the scooter companies are responsible for their equipment and following rules themselves while encouraging their customers to do the same.
And all with a light touch that wont run off the latest disruptive technology arriving in town.
Mayor Ron Nirenberg and Councilman Rey Saldana, chairman of the councils transportation committee, noted the efforts to strike the right balance in crafting the proposed scooter rules.
Unlike Austin and San Francisco, San Antonio doesnt currently plan on capping the number of scooters allowed to operate here. Houston, the assistant city manager, reported that between Bird and Lime the first two companies to launch this summer there are at least 2,000 scooters now in operation. And Blue Duck, the local start-up, has begun deploying scooters as well.
If the city staffs recommendations are approved in October, San Antonio will prohibit anyone younger than 16 from riding and will require that scooters always yield to pedestrians and operate in bike lanes when present. Sidewalks wont be off limits, as originally proposed by city staff this summer.
When operating scooters on sidewalks, riders must maintain a 2-foot berth for pedestrians. The battery-powered devices, which operate at top speeds between 15 and 20 mph, would be prohibited on streets where the speed limit exceeds 35 mph.
City staffers told the council that more than 20 scooter-related injuries have been reported in San Antonio. Councilman John Courage encouraged staff to inform local medical facilities that there's an influx of scooters here and that they should be prepared for such injuries. He asked that staff request that clinics and hospitals track the scooter injuries and report them to the city.
The citys ordinance also will require companies operating here to pay a vendor application fee of $500, plus $10 per vehicle.The city likely wont institute geographic limits of where the scooters can operate, though existing city code that prohibits the use of electric vehicles on the River Walk, in parks and along trails and creekways will stay in effect.
The proposed ordinance will allow parking on sidewalks with some restrictions. They cant be parked within 8 feet of a building entrance, a bus-stop pole or bus shelter, in commercial or pedestrian loading zones, or within 4 feet of street furniture things like benches and parking pay stations. Scooters cant block curb ramps, entryways or driveways. Parking will also be prohibited in parks, plazas and trails, including places like Alamo Plaza, La Villita, Main Plaza and Market Square, Houston said.
City Manager Sheryl Sculley told the council that the city is encouraging the public to report scooter violations directly to the vehicles company. Houston added that 311 will also be equipped to field calls.
The companies will have two hours to correct parking violations and 60 minutes to retrieve scooters that are parked in prohibited areas. Failing to correct such infractions could result in the city collecting the offending scooter, which could be retrieved by the owner for a $50 relocation fee.
Scooter drivers could face fines, too, for reckless driving, riding while intoxicated and moving infractions.
The council was generally receptive to the proposal. Councilwoman Rebecca Viagran noted that the devices have been especially helpful to get around town in the hot summer months.
It makes it easier than walking from one area to another in a coat and heels, she said.
Councilman Manny Pelaez said he supported enacting regulations quickly after his own experience.
I rode a scooter, said the 6-foot, 260-lb, Pelaez. It was as hilarious as it sounds.
Pelaez admitted to what would soon be a violation when he told his colleagues that he and his 12-year-old son recently rode scooters around downtown, nearly striking a senior citizen.
He said that hes doesnt like regulation for the sake of regulation but fears that without some set rules, major injuries could be imminent.
Not to be outdone, Councilman Greg Brockhouse said he, to,o rode a scooter recently.
I had my 3-year-old nephew ride one with me, and we hit two seniors, he said. Thats a joke! Thats a joke!
Josh Baugh is a staff writer in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. Read him on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | jbaugh@express-news.net | Twitter: @jbaugh
With two major victories this year, the Texas Organizing Project, a progressive grassroots group based in San Antonio, is joining the fray against two proposed City Charter amendments on the Nov. 6 ballot.
The group plans to knock on 36,000 doors to talk to potential voters about why the San Antonio Fire Fighters Association-backed proposals are bad for the city, TOP Executive Director Michelle Tremillo said in an interview. One proposal would loosen requirements for referendum attempts and the other would set salary caps and term limits for future city managers.
TOPs board decided against taking a position on the third proposed amendment, which would require binding arbitration between the city and the firefighters union.
Board members met separately with Mayor Ron Nirenberg and Chris Steele, president of the fire union. Both made presentations on their positions and then answered questions from board members.
Nirenberg said hes excited about TOPs opposition to two of the proposed amendments.
We are happy to have them on the side of our community in this crucial fight, Nirenberg said. The amendments are the agenda of destructive special interests, and we need all hands on deck to defeat them.
Steele did not return a phone call seeking comment.
Tremillo said TOP members often feel frustrated with City Manager Sheryl Sculley that she earns too much money and has too much power. Yet the TOP board said the proposed amendment isnt the appropriate fix.
Our members didnt feel this package was the best solution to the problems this proposition aims to address, Tremillo said.
She also said TOPs grassroots work against the proposal will do little good if the Go Vote No campaign the work of political consultant Christian Archer and the Secure San Antonios Future political action committee doesnt shift its messaging quickly.
This proposition is appealing to voters because it offers solutions to the problems theyve felt for many years, Tremillo said. And at this point, all of the messaging coming from the Go Vote No campaign is asking people to keep the status quo. Its not acknowledging that the status quo is not working for the majority of San Antonians.
Tremillo suggested that Nirenberg and the City Council take seriously concerns about Sculley and address them with input from the community. She said she believed the proposition will pass unless they find a way to inspire voters and invite them in to craft a different way to run our city.
Archer said hes seeing an increase in support for the fight against the proposed charter amendments.
More organizations are understanding the impact that these proposed amendments would have on the future of the city, Archer said. And Im thrilled that each day more and more organizations are coming on board to help defeat the propositions.
Archer said he understands the points Tremillo and TOP have made about the Go Vote No campaign.
One of the hard things about this campaign that we say over and over again is that these are complex propositions, and we encourage people to get educated on what these propositions do, he said. Id be happy to work with TOP and any organization, for that matter, so that our messaging is targeted to every community and to make sure we are listening and we communicate how bad these propositions are to their community.
Winning support from TOP whose board includes Rosie Castro, longtime activist and mother of twin politicos Julian and Joaquin Castro is a boon for the mayor and majority of council opposing the proposed charter amendments, along with Secure San Antonios Future PAC and its opposition campaign.
Most recently, the group delivered about 144,000 petition signatures calling for an ordinance mandating earned paid sick leave for all employees working in San Antonio. Earlier this year, the group was credited for helping deliver an upset victory to Joe Gonzales in the Democratic primary for district attorney, ousting incumbent Nico LaHood. Among other things, the group has pushed the city to make major infrastructure investments in its neighborhoods and pushed the county to study indigent defense.
Councilman Rey Saldana said TOPs support is significant for San Antonio.
TOPs fight against these measures is an indicator of two things: One the most vulnerable communities would be the hardest hit by these measures, he said. And two TOPs growing strength is as important as any industry or business leader. What I respect about TOP is that they are powered by the formerly powerless in our community and have proven very capable of amplifying their voices. No one can be overlooked in this campaign.
As the story about the fire unions controversial charter amendments was unfolding, TOP was out collecting signatures for its own petition proving in the process that the current threshold for petitions in San Antonio is achievable.
Tremillo said TOP members know that the current threshold for referendum is onerous. Under the charter currently, a petition must include signatures from registered voters of at least 10 percent of the total number of registered voters at the last municipal election. Thats currently just below 70,000 required signatures. The amendment aims to reduce the signature threshold to 20,000 and significantly increase the amount of time signatures could be collected.
The organization didnt feel comfortable with lowering it to 20,000 and expanding the time allotted for gathering those signatures, Tremillo said.
TOP plans to use a mix of paid staff and volunteers to knock on doors and make phone calls to potential voters in the days leading up to the Nov. 6 election. TOP pays $15 an hour to its canvassers, many of whom come from the same neighborhoods that theyll be working in, Tremillo said. Theyre technically contract workers, but they qualify for earned paid sick time, she said, pointing to the organizations marquee accomplishment in San Antonio.
TOP also will be campaigning for Rep. Beto ORourke, D-El Paso, in his insurgent campaign to unseat Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, as well as Gonzalesand Gina Ortiz Jones, the Democratic nominee seeking to oust Rep. Will Hurd, R-San Antonio.
Josh Baugh is a staff writer in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. Read him on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | jbaugh@express-news.net | Twitter: @jbaugh
A witness told a Criminal Court jury on Wednesday that a 30-year-old woman who was knifed to death in Highland Park was drinking and driving around with him and Tyrone Murphy in the wee hours of the morning.
Murphy is standing trial for the slaying of Ashley Cates on June 4, 2017.
Ervin Tanner said he worked with Murphy at Sticky Finger's downtown, and after work Murphy asked for a ride home. He said Murphy wanted to show him some hygiene items he had for sale in his apartment at 1512 Bailey Ave.
He said when they got to the house late in the evening that a young woman was on the porch of the house smoking cigarettes. He said she also had a beer and a magazine with her.
Tanner, who earlier served 14 years of a 22-year prison term for second-degree murder, said Murphy went up to his room while he talked with the female for about 10 minutes. He then went up to Murphy's room and the woman came up also.
He said she asked if someone could take a look at her refrigerator. Murphy went in and checked it out briefly. Tanner said he told her to just call the maintenance man. All three then went back out on the long front porch and talked awhile.
The witness said Murphy asked the female if she could take him somewhere to pick up a friend. He said he would give her gas money and she agreed.
However, he said her car was so crowded with items that they wound up going in his vehicle. He drove and the woman sat in the front seat. He said they went to a convenience store on 20th Street where he got cigarettes and a six-pack of Bud Lite beer. He said he split the beers with the other two after they got back to the apartment house.
Tanner said they talked more on the porch and he had one of his share of two beers. He said the woman asked about what was up on the third floor of the old house. Murphy said it was a lot of antiques. Tanner said the woman said she loved antiques and was curious to see them.
He said they all went back in the house and upstairs. Murphy got flashlights for all three. He said Murphy suddenly said he needed to go back downstairs. He said he and the woman continued on looking around upstairs. He said, "It looked like a haunted house." He said he began backing out when he saw roaches eating a dead rat.
Tanner said they returned to the porch and he drank the second beer. He then went to the side of the house to urinate. He said he "could hear them talking and laughing on the porch."
By then he said it was around 2 a.m. and time for him to go. He said, "I blew the horn and they both waved at me."
Tanner said when he went back into work the next day a co-worker asked, "Did you hear what happened to Murphy? He killed his roommate."
The witness said when he was with Murphy that night he never saw a cut on his hand. The next day, Murphy went to the hospital to get a damaged hand worked on. He told police he had cut it on a trash can at work.
A witness from the TBI Crime Lab said blood found on the victim's driver's license belonged to Murphy. Police found a bag of items in the laundry room, including some bloody towels and rags as well as the purse, wallet and driver's license of Ms. Cates.
It was also found that blood on the inner door knob of the Cates apartment came from Murphy as well as blood spots found in her room, it was stated.
Murphy said in a lengthy statement to police that was played for the jury that he only spoke with the woman briefly on two occasions. He said he never was in her room.
Asked about his blood being in her room, he told a detective, "I don't know what happened. I have not been in her apartment."
Detective Daryl Slaughter said the murder weapon was not found. A piece of a knife broke off in the victim's head. She was stabbed over 15 times.
Prosecutor Cameron Williams told Judge Barry Steelman that a resident of the apartment building, Donna "DJ" Weaver, had just informed Cates family members about the discovery of a knife or a partial knife.
She said the next resident of the Murphy room had plumbing problems. She said the plumber found the knife was causing the blockage.
Prosecutor Williams said the state did not intend to try to introduce that late-obtained information.
WASHINGTON - In one of the new Democratic-sponsored health care ads airing in Houston for congressional candidate Lizzie Pannill Fletcher, a woman examining a pill bottle asks: "Hey Audrey, why in the heck are these prescriptions so expensive?"
In an ad in San Antonio with black-and-white photos of unnamed Texans, Democrat Gina Ortiz Jones blames second-term U.S. Rep. Will Hurd, the Republican she hopes to unseat, for a precarious grip on health care felt by many Texans.
"These are the faces of the more than 300,000 people in this part of Texas who could lose their health care coverage because they have a pre-existing condition or will no longer be able to afford the premiums," Jones says in the ad.
Ads dont always tell the whole story: Hurd was one of 20 Republicans who defected from his party at a pivotal moment last year the repeal of the Affordable Care Act by a narrow margin in the GOP-run House.
With or without details, Democrats across the country are unleashing a fusillade of commercials and campaign tactics tied to health care, the issue many see as the ticket to regaining control of the House in November.
The ads are a big investment: The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committees spots in the Houston area are the first of a $2 million, six-week broadcast and cable buy backing Fletchers drive to unseat nine-term GOP incumbent John Culberson.
Candidates are using that pulpit both to bludgeon Republicans for unfinished business on health insurance and to accentuate personal appeals.
Mary "MJ" Hegar, of Round Rock, who is trying to unseat eight-term GOP Rep. John Carter, released a health care ad last week highlighting her injuries in Afghanistan, and the tattoos that cover them.
"When I took a round through my helicopter windshield, the bullet fragmented across my arms and leg. I immediately learned how important quality medical care is and its why Ill fight politicians and insurance companies to lower the cost of health care," Hegar says in the ad, filmed partly in a tattoo parlor.
Issue resonates in Texas
Even before all the new ads, 44 percent of 3,998 ads aired in Texas in August in congressional campaigns mentioned health care, according to a study by the Wesleyan Media project based on ad tracking. Nationally, 37 percent of the ads had a health care link.
Democrats reliance on health-care issues is a stark reversal from recent elections, in which "repeal Obamacare" became the Republicans clarion call in campaigns for Congress.
The political offensive reflects polls that show voters deepening concerns about health insurance costs and what they pay for prescriptions. Those concerns hold special significance in Texas: Federal court proceedings in Fort Worth initiated by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and 19 other GOP attorneys general could lead to all or part of the nations health insurance law being declared unconstitutional.
The laws protections for health insurance consumers with pre-existing conditions - which the Trump administration has chosen not to defend in the Fort Worth courtroom - are especially popular.
A Kaiser Family Foundation poll released last week found that 75 percent of Americans consider it "very important" that those protections remain law, with 4 in 10 very worried that they or a family member will lose coverage if the protections are overturned in court.
That result mirrored findings in a Texas Medical Centers national consumer survey released this week showing that more than 6 in 10 say they are likely to only vote for candidates in November who promise health care fixes.
Polls give Democrats an overwhelming advantage when voters are asked which party can best deal with health care issues. An NBC-Wall Street Journal survey last month put the Democratic advantage at 18 percent, the highest in more than a decade of asking the question.
GOP fights back with the economy
Republicans unleashed their own array of ads this week, marking national parties first heavy entry into the battle for House control. They were largely silent on health-care matters, instead trumpeting the strength of the economy and immigration while skewering Democrats for alleged ethical transgressions and ties to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.
Jack Pandol, spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, expressed no concern about the effect of the Democrats onslaught. He contends Democratic divisions over moving to a single-payer insurance system that showed up in primary elections will gird his party this season.
Pandol raised the specter that a single-payer system an unlikely outcome in Congress any time soon - would bring lead to massive tax increases and rationed care.
"What weve seen over and over again in polling across the country and in Texas is that when voters see Democratic support for this government-run health-care plan, they run away as fast as they can," he said.
Brad Woodhouse, executive director of the advocacy group Protect Our Care, says the Democratic debate on single-payer - also known as "Medicare for All" - was largely limited to primary races and shouldnt be an issue in the fall campaign.
"Republicans have lied and demagogued on health care for years. They were the ones who came up with the term death panels, which never existed," he said. "We are not in charge. Its not our policies or programs or governance that voters are going to express their views on in November. This is a referendum on Republican office-holders."
Texas Sen. John Cornyn, a Republican, said of Democratic candidates tactics: "Democratic pollsters told them that they need to stoke peoples fears about eliminating coverage for pre-existing conditions and the like."
Speaking to reporters, he added: "The argument that the only way you can cover pre-existing conditions is to continue with the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as Obamacare, is simply untrue. There are ways to cover pre-existing conditions and still give people choices when it comes to their health care coverage rather than mandate one-size-fits-all, which is what Obamacare did."
Looking for middle-ground with Trump
National Democrats last weekend chose U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett of Austin, a senior member of the powerful Ways and Means Committee, to deliver the Democratic rebuttal to President Donald Trumps weekly radio address.
"Apparently, our Republican colleagues are afflicted with their very own special type of pre-existing condition, called amnesia. They have forgotten about all the suffering, for so many, before the Affordable Care Act became the law of the land," Doggett said in his national address.
In an interview, Doggett said that while traveling his district in recent weeks, people spoke of their fears of losing protection for their pre-existing conditions if Paxton and allies win their suit. People with diabetes are especially troubled, he said.
"Its the kind of pre-existing condition that will result in being denied entirely, excluded from protection they need most or leading to unaffordable premiums for their coverage," he said.
Doggett said that even if Democrats win control of the House in November, health care solutions would be uncertain.
"Well move from a situation of worst to just bad," he said, noting the prospect of vetoes to Democratic-drawn bills.
The strategy in a Democratic-run House, he said, would be adding health-care provisions to must-sign bills such as those that fund the military or crafting bipartisan legislation that might appeal to Trump.
He noted the presidents expressed support of allowing Medicare to negotiate the prices of drugs directly with manufacturers, prohibited now by law.
"That may be an issue where we can have a victory, Trump can have a victory and, more importantly, all those people who are being gouged can have a victory," he said.
As the hurricane season hits its stride, with a major storm headed for the southern East Coast, maritime managers and harbormasters across the region are urging boat owners to take bad weather seriously.
It is possible the remnants of Hurricane Florence will be felt locally, depending on the track of the storm when it makes landfall. But however the big storm proceeds, it should be a reminder to boaters to take steps to protect property and lives are safe, public-safety officials say.
Greenwich Harbormater Ian Macmillan put together a safety checklist for boaters after consultations with other harbormasters and experts in the region.
Recreational boaters, I want to give them something to think about. Hopefully, it will stimulate some thought, said Macmillan. Especially, due to the fact that one of the most powerful hurricanes ever recorded is bearing down on us.
Heavy-weather preparations should be routine, whether or not a major hurricane is in the news, he said: These actions should be practiced as a standard, since unnamed and unpredicted storms can also cause significant damage.
Macmillan also repeated calls for more dredging work to be done on the coastline, as means of making local waterways safe from the storm. He noted Greenwich Harbor, like others in the region, is overdue for maintenance work.
Some boaters have a way of taking unnecessary risks, local marina workers say. At the Harbor Point Marina in New Haven, manager Mark Hampson has seen plenty of boaters who are over-confident and under-prepared for serious weather through the years.
I remember one time, the forecast said wed get storms from 2 to 3 p.m. This one guy, he went out at 1:30, Hampson recalled. The man damaged his boat in heavy seas, and was not wearing a life jacket when he returned with his party.
Tips for boaters in the event of storms: ?-? Remove anything from your boat that can catch wind and become airborne, including flags and radar reflectors. ?-? Rig a storm bridle (secondary bridle) tied around your mast or primary winches. Attach a storm line or bridle to the bow cleat at all times. Attachment should be verified prior to a storm. ?-? Remove and stow anchors. Anchors, especially plow anchors, can act like knives in rough seas and cut mooring bridles. ?-? Leave your boat unlocked, batteries charged and on, keys in ignition. Check your bilge and pumps. Keep a flashlight handy. ?-? Make sure that chocks have no rough edges that can cause chafe, and make sure cleats are securely fastened to the deck. During rough seas little can be done to prevent a bridle from chafing on a burred chock. You may use chafing gear with some liquid soap to lubricate. ?-? Prior to hurricane conditions, if at all possible, attempt to have boat hauled out or relocated to a sheltered harbor. ?-? When in a dock or slip, keep lines from being too tight. Be sure to have fenders between your boat and your neighbor's boat as well as the dock. - Greenwich Habormaster Ian Macmillan See More Collapse
Foolhardy, Hampson noted.
Frank Gulia, a manager at the Cedar Marina in Bridgeport, said he always likes to remind people about safety in a friendly way when hes out on the docks.
Hows your batteries? Hows your radio? Do you have your flares? Gulia will ask when chatting with boaters.
Its a conversation we try to have. You can get people to think without lecturing them, he said.
The boating season in Bridgeport is still going strong, Gulia said, especially since Hurricane Florence doesnt appear to be threatening the northeast. No one seems to be in a rush to bring their boats in, the marina manager said.
Its a favorite time of year for a lot of people. The fishing is terrific and the water is still warm, Gulia said.
The U.S. Coast Guard advises boaters that fall weather can be particularly subject to extremes on the water.
Petty Officer Hunter Medley, a Coast Guard spokesman, said conditions can change rapidly in the fall months.
Always keep an eye on the forecast, keep your safety gear intact and file a float plan - let a friend or spouse know where youre going and when youll be back, Medley said. Be especially aware of the weather - be cognizant of how the weather can change pretty quickly this time of year.
BRIDGEPORT Mayor Joe Ganim spent nearly $850,000 in his unsuccessful bid for governor, and not only is he out a $60,000 personal loan, but he chipped in another $3,500 to help get his campaigns budget in the black.
According to Ganims post-gubernatorial primary finance report, filed Thursday with the state, Bridgeports mayor raised $840,708 and spent all but $167.57 trying to wrest the Democratic Partys endorsement from Ned Lamont at the polls on Aug. 14.
So the good news is Team Ganim, 30 days later, has no outstanding expenses to worry about.
The mayor does, however, have an unreimbursed $60,000 loan to himself. And Ganim contributed an additional $3,500 in late August to his failed cause $2,000 of it on a credit/debit card, $1,500 in a personal check.
The Bridgeport Democratic Town Committee, run by close Ganim friend Mario Testa, also pitched in $2,000 to help balance the post-primary books.
Ganims campaign for governor also raised nearly $4,000 in late August, selling off equipment.
As previously reported, seven days before the Aug. 14 contest with Lamont, Team Ganim was running on fumes. His prior criminal conviction prevented the mayor from participating in the states so-called clean elections grant program, so the underdog candidate had $173,010 raised the old-fashioned way left.
Meanwhile Lamont was a self-funded Greenwich millionaire and cable entrepreneur.
During that final week Ganim did manage to bring in an additional $51,534 but, as his supporters complained following the Aug. 14 results, it was nowhere near enough.
One group that may feel some relief over Ganims loss to Lamont is City Hall employees. Whether they supported the mayor or just wanted job security, municipal workers continually gave generously to their boss.
Ganims final campaign finance report was, like all the others, peppered with contributions from municipal workers, some of whom had previously cut checks Police Chief Armando Perez, Economic Development Director Thomas Gill, David Dunn,the head of Civil Service, Associate City Attorney Mark Anastasi, Gina Malheiro, a mayoral aide and head of the Port Authority, Emergency Operations Director Scott Appleby and Steven Auerbach, who is in charge of the new downtown parking meters.
Controversial collections lawyer Juda Epstein and his family also, through personal contributions and a Political Action Committee Southern Connecticut Citizens for Government Excellence gave Ganim $10,000.
Epstein for years has been one of the go-to attorneys for Bridgeport when it comes to collecting unpaid sewer use fees, because he is successful at it. As such, he recently has come under criticism from activists and City Council members who want to reform what they consider a too-punitive collections process that benefits Epstein at the expense of poorer residents.
Ganims finance report also gives insight into his cash-strapped, end-of-days strategy against Lamont. The campaign spent $118,251 on television advertising, a few thousand dollars on internet advertising, and hired get-out-the-vote staff for, on average, $120 to $140 worth of work, mainly in New Haven, Hartford, East Hartford, Waterbury, Stamford, Middletown and New Britain.
Given his big city credentials Ganim ran Bridgeport from 1991 until his 2003 corruption conviction, then was re-elected in 2015 the mayors gubernatorial campaign was focused on beating Lamont in urban areas. But that effort failed. Even on Ganims home turf of Bridgeport the primary results were closer than his supporters would have liked.
The mayor does seem intent on seeking another four year term next year.
Ganim had already begun fundraising for re-election in early 2017, but since losing the primary, has declined requests for interviews from Hearst Connecticut Media about his political future locally.
But according to his gubernatorial finance report, Ganim for Governor sold $2,547 worth of furniture and equipment to Ganim for Bridgeport 2019.
In Stuart Kaplans world, Pamela Colman Smith is as constant a presence mentally as she is physically, looking over him as he works in his Stamford office.
That was the missing link, he says of the portrait on the wall near his desk. I had to have that painting.
In 2013, after four decades of waiting, Kaplan finally secured, at auction, the work created by Alphaeus P. Cole in 1906. In it, Cole has captured the likeness of Colman Smith, a British-born artist who primarily is known as the illustrator of the Rider-Waite tarot deck, the most popular deck used today. For Kaplan, 86, the wait was not unlike all his other legwork over the past 40 years to give greater attention to Colman Smith.
Im glad that I can share this woman with more people, he says on a recent morning. I think this book will bring more people to her work, and bring out some of the missing pieces.
That portrait is the cover of a new 440-page book published by Kaplans company, U.S. Games Systems Inc., which has published the Rider-Waite tarot deck since the early 1970s. For 50 years, the company has published tarot, divination, oracle and inspirational card decks, along with games and playing cards. Kaplan co-authored the illustrated biography, Pamela Colman Smith: The Untold Story ($45), with other Colman Smith scholars, including Mary K. Greer, Elizabeth Foley OConnor and Melinda Boyd Parsons.
Kyle Michael King / For Hearst Connecticut Media
Kyle Michael King / For Hearst Connecticut Media
The book paints a comprehensive picture of this poet, author, folklorist, illustrator and publisher whose creative output primarily spans the mid-1890s to the 1920s. Yet, most people are only familiar with the three-month gig that brought her art to the masses the iconic images for 78 tarot cards in 1909.
Born in London in 1878 to American parents, Pixie as she was known, was a worldwide traveler, spending her early years in Jamaica and later studying art at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, N.Y. Most of her life was spent in England. An artist seemingly on the rise, her paintings found a home in galleries in England and the United States, including Alfred Stielitzs Photo-Secession Gallery the first non-photographic artist to gain wall space there. Readers saw her work in books, some of which she wrote; theatrical brochures; A Broad Sheet, with Jack Yeats from 1902-03, and later her own publication The Green Sheaf, from 1903-04. She also created paintings or music pictures which were inspired by classical music.
She worked with Bram Stoker to illustrate his 1911 book Lair of the White Worm, designed costumes for a 1914 production in London of Brer Rabbit and Mr. Fox, and created posters. However, by 1919 she was back in England, in Cornwall, where she continued with her art. But by the time she died in 1951, in Bude, England, where she had moved in the early 1940s, her work, the authors write, had slipped into obscurity. That tarot deck was still reaching the masses, but it had been named for the publishers, not the artist.
Ive just always been on the hunt for everything she ever did, says Kaplan, whose contribution to the book is a collection of Smiths art work and primary sources, such as letters and documents. He was introduced to her tarot images when the late Donald Weiser, the founder of the publishing company Samuel Weiser, suggested that Kaplan purchase the rights to the deck. As early as 1982, Kaplan had sought to learn more about the artist, running ads in England seeking information on her grave site, or items and art people might possess or know about. So began his adventure and multiple trips to England, New York City and anywhere else that held the promise of building his collection.
I had six solid filing cabinets of everyone I have ever contacted, he says. There must be 500 folders of correspondence of anyone who ever knew her or knew of her. I was exhaustive in trying to research this.
And tenacious. When he discovered the United Kingdoms National Trust had rare Colman Smith sketches he knew he had to have them for the book (spoiler alert: they are in there). If he had run into any problems, he promised himself he would send a letter to his His Royal Highness, The Prince of Wales himself, to gain the request.
He also counts a series of lucky breaks and fortuitous coincidences in his quest. Sometimes it is a call out of the blue about an item he doesnt know existed or hes called just a the right time someones decided to part with an item.
Kaplan believes this to be the most comprehensive account of her body of work. However, he cannot find Colman Smith herself. Her gravesite remains a mystery.
Sadly, my guess she is in a paupers grave somewhere in Bude, he says. I walked every gravestone in every Catholic cemetery there and I could not find one for her.
Still, he has managed to marshal the forces to give a fitting sendoff to the woman whose talent helped build his company.
Kaplan has always been clear that he decided to leave Wall Street and become a divination and playing card publisher because he was attracted to the history and artwork of tarot cards, rather than their ability to divine the future. However, it seems natural to ask whether he thinks there was some sort of providence that caused the deck to land in his hands.
He smiles slowly. I think there was.
chennessy@hearstmediact.com; Twitter: @xtinahennessy
FAIRFIELD Growing enrollment in the school districts Early Childhood Center has officials taking another look at how, and where, the program is housed.
Parents and staff, however, pushed back at Tuesdays Board of Education meeting on any possible plans to decentralize the special education preschool program to several different elementary schools.
My daughter is now in middle school, said Longview Avenue resident Christy Vitale, who is not related to the school board member by the same name. What I have learned is that the integration of services at the ECC is so incredibly unique.
Instead of just one speech therapist, for example, she said, there are two or three therapists with different specialties working with your child.
There are tons of skill-sets working together, Vitale said.
Superintendent of Schools Toni Jones said no decision has been made, and one wont be made until at least November.
We have some challenges that are very much facility-driven that are impacting lots of aspects, Jones said.
She said an additional ECC classroom was added at Stratfield School during the 2017-18 school year because there was not enough room at the ECC facility at Fairfield Warde High School.
Last year the enrollment grew by 41 students during the school year. This year, there are 128 students enrolled, and that includes 25 children at Stratfield. The program is open to students with special needs beginning at age 3. There are also opportunities for typical children to enroll in the preschool to serve as social role models.
Kristen Bruno, the special education coordinator, said enrollment changes throughout the year and children come to the preschool program in several different ways, including the states Birth to Three program.
Our current challenges is our facility at Fairfield Warde is at capacity, said Robert Mancusi, special education director. Our class size is larger than wed like; our ratio is smaller than wed like.
Ideally, he said, the district would like to have a 50/50 ratio of special education and typical children in classes.
A letter signed by all of the teachers and staff at the ECC implored the Board of Education to stick with a centralized program.
Our children and families are vulnerable, the letter states. This is their first experience with the special education process. It is very important to us that we provide them with the care and counsel they need to navigate what is often a difficult time.
The letter said the centralized ECC provides a comprehensive program with a holistic approach for each child and includes monthly assessments of the children and monthly parent workshops.
I have had a child go through ECC for two-and-a-half years, board member Trisha Pytko said. It is nothing short of a miracle what you guys did with my daughter. I want to see this program stay centralized. I know firsthand the work they do.
Pytko said perhaps instead of looking at it as a capacity issue, they should be looking at another facility for the ECC, or perhaps split it into two locations.
We already have something that works, she said. Why change the model.
Mancusi said they are looking at the ECC programs in different districts, including Greenwich, Darien, Trumbull and Milford. Some, he said, are centralized programs, while others are decentralized.
Were not saying the centralized model is failing the students in any way, Mancusi said. The challenge right now is the facility is impacting our ability to provide the program.
Board member Jeffrey Peterson said he would like to see if there are advantages to one model over the other, and whether there is any way to expand the programs space at Fairfield Warde. Chairman Phil Dwyer agreed that one part of the presentation over the next few months should be expansion capabilities at Warde.
There will be presentations on a timeline for any change to the program, as well as a financial analysis, Mancusi said.
greilly@ctpost.com; 203-842-2585
Mkango Resources Ltd., together with its subsidiaries, explores for and develops rare earth elements and associated minerals in the Republic of Malawi, Africa. It explores for uranium, niobium, tantalum, zircon, nickel, cobalt, rutile, and gold ores. The company's principal project is the Songwe Hill property within the Phalombe exploration license, which covers an area of 849.1 square kilometers located in southeast Malawi. It also holds 100% interests in the Thambani, Chimimbe Hill, and Mchinji licenses. Mkango Resources Ltd. is based in Vancouver, Canada.
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KAZ Minerals PLC, together with its subsidiaries, engages in mining and processing copper and other metals primarily in Kazakhstan, Russia, and Kyrgyzstan. It operates through Bozshakol, Aktogay, East Region and Bozymchak, and Mining Projects segments. The company operates the Aktogay and Bozshakol open pit copper mines in the east region and Pavlodar region of Kazakhstan; three underground mines in the east region of Kazakhstan; and the Bozymchak copper-gold mine in Kyrgyzstan. It also develops greenfield metal deposits; operates Koksay deposit in Kazakhstan, and the Baimskaya licence area in the Chukotka region of Russia; and produces and sells various by-products, such as gold, silver, molybdenum, and zinc. In addition, the company supplies and distributes heat, water, and electricity; and offers construction, project management, financing, management, sales and logistics, and repairs and maintenance services. The company was formerly known as Kazakhmys PLC and changed its name to KAZ Minerals PLC in October 2014. KAZ Minerals PLC was founded in 1930 and is based in London, the United Kingdom.
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Lonmin Plc explores, mines, refines, and markets platinum group metals in South Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Europe. The company explores for platinum, palladium, rhodium, iridium, ruthenium, and gold, as well as chrome, nickel, copper, and cobalt deposits. Its flagship property is the Marikana mine located on the Western Limb of the Bushveld igneous complex in South Africa. In addition, the company holds 100% interest in Pandora mine. The company was founded in 1909 and is headquartered in Melrose North, South Africa.
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CRESTLINE, Ohio At just 26 years old, Crawford County grain farmer Casey Niese is in a position that many young farmers would envy.
Along with his father and grandfather, a cousin and various other employees, Niese Farms operates in nine counties on a little more than 12,000 acres.
But even though Niese is young and brings new ideas to the operation, he listens to the wisdom of his elders.
Im very fortunate that Im in the position that Im in, with still having my grandpa (Jerry) and my dad (Rick), because theyve seen the bad times and theyve seen the good times, Casey said.
Age: 26
County: Crawford
Education: OSU Agricultural Technical Institute
Acres: 12,600
Crops: Corn and soybeans The next generation Casey said theres actually a lot of job opportunities in agriculture and rural communities, but young people have to be willing to look and sometimes move away from home. He often meets with high school and college students at educational and career-based events. If its something theyre truly passionate about, they may have to move away for a little while. Theres plenty of farm opportunities out there they just may not be at home.
The period from 2009 through 2014 was one of the best times agriculture has ever seen, with corn prices that topped $7 bushel. But Casey said as good as those prices were, he knew they wouldnt last, especially with the way his father and grandfather saw prices tumble in the 1980s.
Being cautious
Expecting a change in markets, Casey said the farm sat pretty idle during the good years, in terms of growth. And that plan worked out well, he said, because in the past few years, even amid low crop prices, the farm has been able to add another 1,600 or so acres.
Thats what being patient has done for the farm, which is fighting the same low profit margins as other crop farmers, but with a careful eye on the future and good marketing.
Rick Niese handles most of the marketing, while Casey manages fieldwork and budgeting. His cousin Chad is in charge of the shop, but they share roles throughout the year. The farm employs six people full-time and as many as 25 during peak season.
Casey said he wasnt planning on going to college after high school, but his dad basically made it a requirement if Casey wanted to return to the farm. So, Casey earned an associates degree in crop management from Ohio State Universitys Agricultural Technical Institute, where he furthered his knowledge of managing a crop farm, and also made some key connections.
Since graduating college in 2013, Casey has worked to improve the farms recordkeeping and budgeting, and now they have budget numbers from each farm, so they can do a better job of managing across multiple locations.
The family owns more than half of the land they farm, according to Casey, but the owners include aunts, uncles and extended family. With a better handle on the numbers, he said they can make an accurate offer to landlords and show them what the land costs to farm.
The Nieses work hard to build good relationships with landlords, offering tiling services, conservation practices and upkeep based on the farm and the arrangement. The focus is treating every acre the same, whether its owned or rented ground, Casey said.
Although spring and fall are the busiest times of the year, theres work to do all year. Casey enjoys going to industry meetings to network and learn new ideas, and likes knowing hes producing food for other people to eat.
I feel like theres nothing closer to God than what we do, he said. You put a seed in the ground and you pretty well leave it up to Him to let it grow. Its gratifying knowing you are feeding the world. That you are doing something to help society.
Casey also likes to help young people, especially those in the local FFA. As a member of the Buckeye Central FFA Alumni Committee, he goes into the schools to talk about soil testing and crop production, and he tries to encourage students to pursue jobs in agriculture.
I always try to encourage those kids, because theres going to be work out there youve just got to go look for it, he said.
In fact, the year Casey graduated college, in 2013, his first job was on a custom combining crew out West. He became full-time at Niese Farms in 2015, but he said the off-farm job helped him see how other farms do things.
Looking ahead, Casey said it will be increasingly important to do a good job of grain marketing, and making smart business decisions about growth. He said farmers will also need to pay attention to input costs, and whether achieving a higher yield is really worth the extra cost.
He looks forward to farming with his family, and making industry friends who he can share experiences with whether good or bad.
Making connections can really be beneficial, he said. If you surround yourself with the right people, it can make you a little more comfortable.
Farm and Dairy has featured young farmers throughout the year. Read more of our Young and Farming features here.
WOOSTER, Ohio Much like land values, cash rents for farmland are holding steady and even seeing a slight increase in some areas.
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which publishes the results of a cash rent survey each August, the average cash rent in Ohio is $152 an acre, unchanged from 2017, but up from $122 an acre in 2012.
In Pennsylvania, the average rent for farmland is $80.50 an acre, up a dollar from last year, and up $8 per acre from 2012.
However, according to Ohio State Universitys Western Ohio Cropland Values and Cash Rents Survey, published Aug. 13, cash rents are actually expected to decline in western counties, from 1.2 percent to 3 percent, depending on the region and land class.
Reaching a deal
The actual rent a landlord and farmer agree to varies widely, and is based on location, geography and the potential return per acre.
Anthony Bush, a grain farmer from Morrow County who also serves on the National Corn Growers Association Board, said rent is still highly competitive in his area, even though inputs are going up and the farm profit margin for grain crops is slim.
Its a pretty tight squeeze right now, he said. Nobody wants to let go of anything right now because another farmer will come in and take it.
Bush said its usually less expensive to rent ground than to buy it, which is part of the reason theres so much demand for farmland.
He said farmers can use conservation practices, and quality of farming as tools for negotiating a fair rent, but it still comes down to what each landlord is willing to accept.
I still think it all comes down to the relationship you have with that landlord, he said. That means everything.
Buying vs. renting
Casey Niese, whose family grain farms in nine Ohio counties, said theyve seen cash rents stay consistent the last two years. But with all the competition, he said it sometimes makes more sense to buy the ground outright.
Niese said he expects more farms to come onto the sale market, because the older generation is dying and theres no one in the family to continue those operations.
I think that number is just going to keep growing, because the rented thing is so competitive, he said.
Niese said its also important to study each parcel of land, and to have a budget for each farm. Some farms may require $100 an acre for fertilizer, and some may only need $15, so by keeping better track of the numbers, hes able to offer a more accurate figure for cash rents.
According to OSU, cash rent per parcel ultimately comes down to supply and demand, coupled with the expected return from producing crops and the variability of those crops. A wide variety of factors can influence the return, including location, size of field, the potential for wildlife damage, and of course, soil type and fertility.
Factors that affect cash rents:
Soil quality and fertility: Higher quality soils that are more fertile usually translate into higher rents.
Drainage/irrigation capability: Better surface and subsurface drainage of a farm often results in better yields and higher rent.
Size of farm/fields: Large farms and fields typically command higher rents per acre due to the efficiencies of working in larger fields.
Shape of fields: Square fields with fewer point rows will generally translate into higher rents, as operators have to turn less and can plant complete, straight rows.
Previous tillage systems and crops: Previous crops and tillage systems that allow for an easy transition for new operators may enhance the cash rent value.
Field border characteristics: Fields surrounded by tree-lined fence rows, woodlots or other borders that affect crop growth at the field edge will negatively impact yield. Wooded borders can shade sunlight from reaching the crop, and also harbor wildlife, which can lead to crop damage and loss.
Secondary factors that affect rent:
Buildings and grain storage availability: Access to machinery and grain storage may enhance the value of the cropland rental rate.
Location of farm (including road access): Proximity to prospective operators may determine how much operators are willing to bid for cash rents. Good road access will generally enhance cash rent amounts.
USDA farm program participation: Farms that participate in the USDA farm program and have higher program yields may command higher cash rents than non-program farms.
Services provided by operator: Farmers who provide services such as clearing fence rows, snow removal and other services may be valued by the landowner. This may even be a partial substitute for cash rent compensation.
Conditions of lease: Conditions placed on the lease by the landowner may result in fewer prospective operators and a lower average cash rent.
Payment dates: Leases that require part or all of the rent to be paid early in the year (upfront) may result in lower rental rates due to higher borrowing or opportunity costs for the operator.
Reputation of landowner or operator: Reputations of the parties may play a part in the cash rental negotiations. A landowner with a reputation of being difficult to work with may see cash rents negatively affected by this reputation. Farmers with a similar negative reputation may have to pay higher rents.
Special contracts: Farms with special contract commitments may restrict the operator from changing crops based on market conditions. This may negatively impact cash rents. There may also be contracts that positively affect cash rents such as high value crop contracts.
(Sources: OSU Western Ohio Cropland Values and Cash Rents 2017-18; USDA Cash Rents Survey, published each August.)
Preemptive or pre-salvage harvesting of black walnut anywhere in Ohio, due to the presence of thousand cankers disease (TCD) in Butler County, is not justified, and not recommended.
Although TCD has been discovered in Ohio, it is not prevalent and there is no need to start cutting walnut trees due to this tree disease.
In fact, see below for information regarding how recent studies and observations have shown that TCD may not be a major cause of decline and mortality in black walnut trees in Ohio. Its always best to call a forester before agreeing to sell your trees!
Hotline
The Call Before You Cut hotline number is 1-877-424-8288, or go to callb4ucut.com/ohio. A forester can evaluate whether harvesting is right for you and your woods and if so, help you develop a harvesting plan that meets your needs and assures healthy woodlands for the future.
What is thousand cankers disease, and from where did it originate? Thousand cankers disease (TCD) is a disease complex involving a fungus (Geosmithia morbida) that is carried into walnut trees by walnut twig beetles (Pityophthorus juglandis; WTB).
The fungus causes numerous small cankers (areas of dead plant tissue) just under the bark of twigs and stems near the entry points of the beetles, hence the name thousand cankers disease. The fungus and insect responsible for TCD are native to the southwestern United States and Mexico but have been accidentally introduced to areas in several western and eastern states.
First detection
The first detection of TCD in the eastern U.S. occurred in 2010 in Tennessee. In 2012, WTB was discovered in southwest Ohio in Butler County, caught in traps monitored by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) Division of Forestry.
The TCD fungus was identified in trees at the same site in 2013.
What is the threat from TCD, and what has been done?
Thousand cankers disease is a relatively new tree disease. Researchers are working on understanding its biology, impacts, and management with some recent key findings.
TCDs impact on black walnut (Juglans nigra) seems to be more severe in the western U.S. than in the east. The reasons have not been proven but may be related to regional differences in growing conditions.
Black walnut is native to the eastern U.S., including all of Ohio. Though it is not native in the western U.S., it is planted there as an ornamental and for wood and nut production.
Soil and climate conditions in the west can be quite different from those of the native range of black walnut and may not be optimal for black walnut growth.
More susceptible
If trees are growing in sites where they are not well-suited, they can be more susceptible to attack and damage by pests and diseases. There is some evidence to show that drought-stressed black walnut trees infected with TCD in the East can recover from dieback after rainfall amounts return to normal.
Studies have shown that the fungus involved in TCD is a weak plant pathogen that likely would only do damage to trees that are already stressed, whether due to drought, poor site conditions, physical damage or other stressors.
In one study, researchers experimentally inoculated walnut branches in Ohio and Indiana with the Geosmithia fungus and were unable to kill any branches. Immediately after discovering walnut twig beetle and thousand cankers disease in Ohio, the Ohio Department of Agriculture imposed a quarantine, still in effect, restricting the movement of walnut material out of Butler County.
The quarantine is a precautionary measure levied to prevent the movement of the disease to new areas. Movement of plant material, including firewood, should always be minimized to limit potential spread of any plant pests or diseases.
Continued monitoring
Both the ODNR Division of Forestry and the Ohio Department of Agriculture continue to monitor traps across the state for possible new populations of WTB and the pathogen it carries. The population of WTB in Ohio appears to have crashed since 2013.
The reason for this is not known, but it is possible that the colder than average winters of 2013-14 and 2014-15 may have played a role. Cold winter temperature-induced mortality may limit the spread and establishment of walnut twig beetle).
What should I do with my walnut trees?
Recent studies and observations have shown that TCD may not be a major cause of decline and mortality in black walnut trees in Ohio. As a result, the recommendations to landowners with black walnut trees is to monitor their trees during the growing season for signs of branch dieback and to promote tree health.
Maintaining tree health
Tree health can be maintained by planting trees in appropriate sites, irrigating during drought, mulching to reduce soil compaction and reduce competition with other trees, and avoiding physical wounding from lawnmowers or other equipment.
If dieback is observed, contact the ODNR Division of Forestry at 614-265-6694 or the Ohio Department of Agricultures Plant Health Division at 614-728-6400. Potentially infected trees can also be reported using the Great Lakes Early Detection Network (GLEDN) reporting app via smartphones.
Experts can then determine whether TCD is present, and work with the landowner on a management strategy.
COLUMBUS It can be tough to stop using antibiotics on a farm. Farmers need them to prevent and treat diseases in their animals. But increasingly, certain antibiotics used to treat illnesses in farm animals and humans are not working.
More antibiotics are being used with humans and animals, and with each use, sensitive bacteria are killed and resistant bacteria grow and multiply. Those resistant bacteria can then trigger infections and become tougher for doctors and veterinarians to fight, according to Greg Habing, an associate professor in the College of Veterinary Medicine at The Ohio State University.
The same resistant bacteria are affecting animals and people, Habing said. Human use of antibiotics has a bigger effect than agricultural use, but its still likely that agricultural use of antibiotics nonetheless has an important effect.
In the past three years, fluoroquinolones antibiotics that had long been used to fight human infections from salmonella as well as pneumonia in cows and pigs have been shown to be ineffective against salmonella infections in a rising number of cases, Habing said.
Other antibiotics used to treat salmonella infections in humans are similarly losing their effectiveness.
Beginning in the early 2000s, cephalosporins, which are used to fight infections in dairy cattle, started losing their ability to fend off salmonella infections in humans, Habing pointed out.
Learn more at FSR
Habing will discuss Antibiotic Use in Animals: Does It Matter for Human Health? Sept. 18 at 10:40 a.m. and Sept. 19 at 1:40 p.m. at the Farm Science Review near London, Ohio.
His talks are part of the Ask the Expert program in which individuals present their expertise on various agricultural topics.
Be smart in kitchen
When antibiotics are given to food animals, some of the bacteria those animals carry can become resistant to antibiotics, survive and spread. So if a consumer buys the animals meat and does not sufficiently cook the meat, the resistant bacteria may not have been killed off and instead get eaten.
The resistant bacteria also can be eaten if the raw meat was cut with a knife that was later used to slice lettuce for a salad.
While preventive measures are important, Habing cautions that theres no need for consumers to be alarmed. He notes that the threat of salmonella thats resistant to antibiotics in the United States is low for healthy individuals with good food safety practices.
A little bit of concern is warranted, but you can feel good about purchasing meat in the grocery store, especially if youre handling and cooking the food appropriately.
Use judiciously
Since January 2017, farmers nationwide have no longer been allowed to use antibiotics to promote growth in their animals. They still can use them, however, to prevent and treat diseases.
Typically farmers are not quick to turn to antibiotics because thats another expense, Habing said.
The solution to the growing problem of antibiotic resistance is not to eliminate the use of all antibiotics from farms, he pointed out.
If a farmer has a calf with a bacterial infection and doesnt treat it, that animal and others could suffer, Habing said. We want to make sure that animals that get bacterial infections get appropriately treated.
The key for farmers is to try to prevent diseases in their animals as much as possible by being careful about introducing contaminants onto the farm through new animals or equipment.
Adequate nutrition, clean housing conditions and appropriate vaccinations also can help keep animals from getting sick.
When animals do suffer illnesses, a veterinarian should help to accurately identify when antibiotics are needed and when theyre not, Habing said.
What were trying to do is improve how farmers use antibiotics, but at the same time ensure animal welfare and farmer profitability, he said.
WILMINGTON, Ohio Wilmington Colleges entering class for the fall 2018 semester is a record-breaker. The college realized it was on a record pace as impressive numbers of freshmen made commitments throughout the spring.
Then it became even more certain as they attended summer orientation. On Aug. 16, the numbers still looked good when several hundred new students moved in and began their orientation and first day of classes the following Monday.
The record numbers became official Sept. 4, with the 14-day census, which constitutes the enrollment totals reported to the Ohio Dept. of Education and other official entities. Wilmington College is hosting a record 385 first-time freshmen and 450 new students, the latter of which constitutes a combination of the new freshmen and 65 transfer students.
The total number of students on the main campus totals 1,103, while the Cincinnati Branches are hosting 139 students.
The fall semester enrollment of new freshman eclipses the long-standing record set in 1946 and equaled in 2014. The GI Bill fueled an enrollment boom in the years immediately following World War II.
This years total of new students breaks the previous record 437 from 2014.
President Jim Reynolds said the enrollment records provide further proof the College is on a positive trajectory.
Dennis Kelly, vice president/chief enrollment officer, cited the record entering class as a direct result of the college implementing and delivering on several new strategic initiatives. For example, the former Wilmington SUCCEEDS program expanded this year to Clinton County SUCCEEDS, which resulted in a modern-day record number of local residents attending WC.
Also, the College employed a new corporate marketing partner and dramatically increased the number of campus visits by prospective students.
The NFU has criticised the Agriculture Bill for "falling short" of the "essential ingredients" for a profitable and progressive food and farming sector post Brexit.
The Agriculture Bill has been introduced into the House of Commons. The long-awaited Bill seeks to steer UK farm policy towards one which invests more in the environment.
It sets out how farmers and land managers will in future be paid for public goods, such as better air and water quality and improved soil health.
MPs will next consider the Bill at its Second Reading, which has not yet been announced.
The NFU has responded to the publication of the Bill, saying it "falls short" of the union's aspirations.
NFU President, Minette Batters said the "essential ingredients" for farmers is an industry that is "progressive, profitable, and sustainable".
"These include comprehensive measures to improve the environment and productivity and tackle volatility alongside free and frictionless trade and access to a competent and reliable workforce," Mrs Batters said.
"The Bill, as described in the announcement falls short of our aspirations in these regards.
It is vital that in the future British farmers can continue to meet the food needs of a growing population. A future agricultural policy that ignores food production will be damaging for farmers and the public alike," Mrs Batters added.
'Very concerned'
She said farmers across the UK will be "very concerned" that the Bill provides only a short term commitment to improve their competitiveness.
The Bill sets out how the UK will replace the current subsidy system of Direct Payments, which Defra Secretary Michael Gove calls "ineffective".
The NFU President said: "We cannot future-proof farming businesses based on the time-limited initiatives outlined in this announcement."
Along with other farmers I will also be looking to the Bill to set out means to address the clear market failure in food chain that means farmers are not rewarded fairly for the risk and investment they make .
"British farmers will need to compete with farmers all over the world, nearly all of whom are supported financially to produce food.
"If British farmers are to underpin the nations food security, then they will need the right financial and policy framework to do so in a competitive and volatile global marketplace," she said.
A farming union has been accused of undertaking a "misleading campaign" in relation to the end of direct support in Wales.
In an open letter to Welsh farmers, Rural Affairs Secretary, Lesley Griffiths criticised the Farmers' Union of Wales (FUW) for their "unhelpful" campaign against the Welsh government's plan for post-Brexit support.
Ms Griffiths said the two separate funds which will replace the EU's land-based payments are "vital".
The new schemes will replace Basic Payment Scheme (BPS), Glastir and other parts of the Rural Development Programme.
The programme will consist of the Economic Resilience Scheme, which will provide investment to farmers and their supply chains to increase competitiveness and make improvements in food productivity.
The second fund, the Public Goods Scheme, will provide a new income stream to farmers delivering public goods from the land.
According to the Welsh government, the current BPS is "insufficiently targeted" to respond to challenges as it is solely an income support scheme.
But the FUW has been critical of the proposals. Nick Fenwick, director of policy with the FUW, told the BBC the union is "within their right" to highlight "huge potential flaws".
"We are within our rights to highlight huge potential flaws in what they have put forward as a proposal, given the uncertainty around Brexit," he said.
'Do things differently'
Following a recent FUW campaign urging farmers to respond to government's proposals, the Cabinet Secretary is writing to all farmers to explain the need for change.
Ms Griffiths said: Brexit means we have to do things differently. Simply maintaining current payments cannot offset the negative impacts from leaving the European Union. Keeping the system would leave Welsh farmers worse off.
There is no debate on whether we should support farmers: we will and we will continue to protect the funding. But we need to provide support in a different way to keep farmers on the land.
I am open to new ideas and this is a genuine consultation. But I am clear that business as usual is not an option.
She added: We need farmers to engage properly with us to help make this work, so the recent misleading FUW campaign is not helpful. That is why I am today writing to all farmers to reiterate the case for change. I have also shared with them a myth-busting factsheet.
The Welsh government says the new schemes could be fully in place by 2025.
A farmer who has been described as a "persistent waste criminal" has been given another 22 weeks sentence for waste crimes.
John Bruce, aged 46, has already been sentenced to 26 months imprisonment for dumping approximately 26,000 tonnes of waste at Ridgeway Park Farm, Throckmorton Airfield, Worcestershire.
He was also found to be burying and burning hazardous waste at the site.
However, Mr Bruce has now returned to court and pleaded guilty to carrying out illegal waste activities at the farm without an environmental permit.
He has been handed a 22 week custodial sentence to run concurrently to his existing sentence.
'Blatant disregard'
The case concerned illegal waste operations at Ridgeway Park Farm in January and February 2016, where Mr Bruce had accepted over 60 tonnes of redundant kitchen and bathroom materials onto his site.
When Environment Agency officers visited the farm, they saw that in addition to these materials, flat pack furniture and packaging materials were being burnt on site.
In mitigation, the Judge noted that Mr Bruce had pleaded guilty and therefore avoided the need for a full trial.
An Environment Agency officer in charge of the investigation said that the farmer had shown a "blatant disregard" for the environment and the local community by operating a large scale illegal waste site at his farm.
"His actions undermine legitimate businesses and dangers the wider local economy. The additional custodial sentence signals the severity of the crimes committed and demonstrates support from the judicial system in the fight against waste crime," the officer said.
A farming union is urging farmers to respond to the BPS and Greening Loan Scheme offers letters being issued by Scottish government.
The National Basic Payment Scheme Support Scheme (NBPSS) 2018/19 loan offer letters give Scottish farmers the opportunity, by opting in, to secure up to 90 percent of their anticipated basic support through a loan.
The loan scheme was launched in response to the unprecedented severe weather of 2018.
The scheme provides access to a cash injection to support farming businesses which may be facing additional costs and cash flow shortages following months of adverse weather conditions.
Offers are being made to more than 14,000 businesses with the potential to inject more than 249 million into the rural economy.
'Long and costly'
NFU Scorland Policy Director, Jenny Brunton said farmers must get their replies in ahead of the deadline as a "long and costly" winter lies ahead.
While the response rate to previous loan letters has always been good, this is a reminder to all those who receive an offer to opt in and get their replies in ahead of the deadline if they wish to be considered for the first run of loan payments, Ms Brunton said.
This is proving to be a difficult and challenging 12 months for farmers and crofters and the reality is that a long, costly winter still lies ahead.
This loan scheme gives farmers and crofters the opportunity to opt-in for a loan that will go some significant way to easing the cashflow worries that are building on farms and crofts, she added.
The response date is 28 September and Scottish Government Rural Payments and Inspections Directorate (SGRPID) expect the first tranche of loan payments to be made in mid-October to those who apply before the deadline.
Beef from cattle given growth-boosting hormones could enter the UK food supply if standards are sacrificed as part of a post-Brexit trade deal, a new report has warned.
Such standards declining after the UK leaves the EU might even provoke a boycott of beef in and from the UK, the authors warn.
New research by the Food Research Collaboration highlights how British consumers could be left in the dark about "hazardous" hormone-treated beef if a weakened UK makes food trade deal concessions.
As the UK prepares to leave the EU, there are signs that some government ministers would be willing to sacrifice food standards to win trade agreements with non-EU states such as the USA.
The new report by food policy experts Profs Erik Millstone and Tim Lang, from University of Sussex and City, University of London, shows that if standards were lowered, meat will not be labelled to say how it had been produced.
Meanwhile, hormone-produced beef would remain unlawful in the EU, on what the paper calls "sound scientific grounds".
'Bargaining chip'
The report calls on ministers to ensure that food safety standards in the UK will never be weakened, especially not as a bargaining chip in trade talks.
The authors also urge UK farmers, supermarkets and butchers to make "explicit commitments" to consumers never to produce or sell hormone-treated beef.
Erik Millstone, professor of science policy at the University of Sussex said: The idea that, once the UK leaves the EU, it will become a rule-maker, not a rule-taker, is illusory. Exporting to other countries requires accepting their standards. The choice is: Which rules to take - the EUs, the USAs or the World Trade Organisations?
If UK products dont match their standards, they wont buy them. Trade requires shared rules and minimum standards. Food standards in the EU are far higher than those in the USA, and US standards are far higher than WTO standards.
Mr Millstone added: The UK should at least stick to EU; the only changes allowed should be to make food safer, never less safe.
Hormone use is permitted in cattle rearing by US, Canadian, Mexican and Australian authorities but beef from hormone-treated cattle has been banned in the EU since the mid-1980s.
The report warns that Public Health England, the Food Standards Agency and Environment Agency, whose role is to protect standards, will require a significant increase in funding to cope, something which no minister has committed to so far.
Members of Parliament have been urged to show their support for the agricultural industry next week on Back British Farming Day.
MPs will be joining the likes of the NFU and members of the public to show their support for British farming next week on Wednesday 12 September.
Politicians will be demonstrating their support for the industry by wearing a Back British Farming wheat-pin badge.
The badge is made from British wheat and wool to symbolise the importance of food and farming in Britain.
And for the first time, Westminster will be serving approximately 9,000 Back British Farming meals throughout the week in all its canteens to celebrate British food.
The NFU is now encouraging members of the public to join in the celebration and take to social media to show their support by using the hashtag #BackBritishFarming.
'Strategic importance'
NFU President, Minette Batters said the day is a "great opportunity" to celebrate the role farmers play in feeding the nation and caring for the countryside.
By wearing the wheat-pin badge politicians are not only showing their support for British food and farming but acknowledging that they have a part to play in shaping the future of domestic agriculture and food production, Mrs Batters said.
Decisions made in Parliament must reflect the strategic importance of the food and farming sector to the nation.1 With over 9,000 meals from the Back British Farming menu being served across the week to MPs, researchers, decision-makers and visitors, food and farming will be at the very centre of Westminster activity.
She added: Farming is the backbone of life in Britain and its only right that it is put at the forefront of future policy so farmers can continue to produce safe, traceable and affordable food for the country.
MPs are now being invited to the NFUs breakfast reception in Westminster on Back British Farming Day.
Farming is the bedrock of the UKs largest manufacturing sector, food and drink, which contributes 111 billion to the countrys economy and provides 3.8 million jobs.
A union has warned farmers against a new convincing "ghosting" scam which has left one farming business thousands of pounds out of pocket.
An Ayrshire farmer recently fell victim to ghosting. He had agreed to buy a new machine from a machinery dealer and was negotiating, through phone calls and emails, a finance agreement with the bank.
Half way through the negotiation, the contact at the bank replied to the email conversation with "revised" account details.
The convincing email still bore the electronic signature of the bank with all the usual fraud warnings, telephone numbers and logos attached.
The farmer duly sent the money to this account believing everything to be in order.
Shortly afterwards, the farmer received a phone call from the dealer chasing up the payment on the machine.
When the farmer contacted the bank, they informed him that they had been unable to complete the transaction as he had suddenly stopped replying to emails half way through the conversation.
'Ghosting'
This type of scam is referred to as "ghosting" where the scammer has hacked an email account, removed the banker from the conversation and started mimicking emails from the bank.
The bank involved has launched an investigation into this in conjunction with Police Scotland's fraud team.
The farmer involved, who remains anonymous said: Please be vigilant folks. Even in hindsight, and having reviewed the emails, the only indication that an intruder had taken over the email conversation with the bank was a very slight change in writing style - something that we simply assumed was a banker typing in a hurry.
It was a very convincing scam that has stung us, leaving us several thousand pounds out of pocket and no guarantee that we're getting it back.
NFU Scotland has warned farmers that scammers are becoming "increasingly devious" when it comes targeting businesses, and ghosting scams in Scotland serve as a reminder to "be alert at all times".
The government's new pilot scheme to attract non-EU farm workers after Brexit has been criticised by farmers and growers for not going far enough to plug the labour drain opened by Brexit.
Announced on Thursday (6 September), the scheme will be capped at just 2,500 non-EU workers a year as part of a two-year trial.
The pilot, introduced by Home Secretary Sajid Javid and Defra Secretary Michael Gove, will mean the UK's fruit and vegetable farms are able to employ migrant workers amid a severe shortage.
While welcomed as a step in the right direction, farm groups and associations have said the '2,500' figure will have "little effect" on the current shortages UK farms are facing.
UK horticulture employs 60,000 seasonal staff from the EU annually, with berries alone accounting for 29,000 workers.
Nick Marston, Chairman of British Summer Fruits said: Our farms are reporting staff shortages of 10-20% already, and to have any effect in terms of supporting our successful industry, around 10,000 are needed now not 2,500.
The proposal represents a 4% increase in a shrinking workforce, the UK berry industry grows by at least 8% per annum and this will not sustain a standstill, let alone growth.
'Simply not enough'
The last UK seasonal agricultural workers scheme (SAWS), discontinued after 2013, allowed 21,250 workers to enter the UK from Romania and Bulgaria prior to their accession to the EU.
British farms then had unfettered access to workers to the EU 8, yet still needed over 21,000 extra staff a year, according to Mr Marston.
A non-EU SAWS scheme from now and in to the future will need to provide numbers of over 20,000 workers, he said.
Ali Capper, chair of the NFUs horticultural and potatoes board, described news of the pilot scheme as a fantastic start, but admitted it was "simply not enough".
We need more than 11,500 seasonal workers by 2021 to keep pace with a crop that is set to grow. Right now, the pilot permits us to recruit 2,500, she said.
This is simply not enough and our growers are already struggling to recruit workers."
The pilot will commence in the spring of 2019, will run until the end of December 2020 and will be monitored by the Home Office and Defra.
The announcement that Vivergo Fuels will be closing its door for good has been described as a "significant blow" to the British grain industry, the NFU has said.
The bioethanol producer, which sources from 900 farms, has blamed its closure on the government's slow implementation of E10 and an uncertain business environment.
Vivergo Fuels plant is the UKs largest and Europes second largest producer of bioethanol, a low-carbon renewable transport fuel which is blended with petrol.
The bioethanol plant can produce up to 420 million litres of bioethanol and the bioethanol is made from 1.1 million tonnes of feed wheat, sourced from nearly 900 farms mostly across the East and North Yorkshire and Northern Lincolnshire regions.
The company's proposed cessation of production is the 30 September.
'Significant blow'
NFU combinable crops board chairman, Tom Bradshaw said the announcement is a "significant blow" to the grain industry
As the largest single intake for feed wheat in the county, it will particularly hit arable and livestock farmers in the North East where the plant is based, Mr Bradshaw said.
Farmers have made long-term commitments to supply the biofuel industry and will be frustrated they are now left with a much reduced market for their product.
Farmers supplying wheat into the plant will now have to find somewhere else to sell their product, which is likely to be a greater distance from the farm, resulting in increased transport costs and a lower price.
At a time when livestock farmers are suffering with feed shortages, this decision will also have serious knock-on effects for protein feed availability with farmers becoming more reliant on imported feed for their livestock, Mr Bradshaw added.
'Government procrastination'
Protein feed is a highly sustainable co-product of bioethanol production, reducing the reliance on imported soya meal.
However, the biofuel industry has suffered for a number of years following government procrastination on renewable fuel policy.
The private sector has invested hundreds of millions of pounds on the premise of a supportive policy, only to be let down by government back-tracking, according to the NFU.
Mr Bradshaw added: E10 petrol needs to be embraced, particularly as it is a clear match for the green Brexit the government is trying to deliver. We continue to call on the government to fast-track the introduction of E10 to the UK fuel mix.
Vivergo Fuels is also the countrys largest single production site for animal feed, delivering 500,000 tonnes of high protein feed to over 800 farms across the UK.
Global food prices reach highest level in over a decade
Prices jumped by over 30% in past year, UN says
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The ravishing Raai Laxmi is one of the most popular and successful actresses in South cinema today. The lovely lady enjoys a strong fan following thanks to her good looks, bold personality, simple nature and impressive performances. Over the years, she has worked in quite a few popular films and acted alongside some popular names that this has helped her find firm footing in the industry. Now, here is some awesome news for her well-wishers.
Today(September 13, 2018), on the occasion of Ganesha Chaturthi, the Mankatha beauty took to Twitter and shared some lovely photos with her fans. In them, she can be seen offering prayers and seeking divine blessings. The lady seems to be enjoying the spiritual experience to the fulest and looks extremely happy.
Besides Raai Laxmi, actor Siddharth too shared some photos from his Ganesha Chaturthi celebrations. While posting the pics, the Aval star jokingly said that he was 'addressing the elephant in the room'.
Just like Siddharth and Raai Laxmi, former Bigg Boss Tamil Season 2 contestant Danny too offered prayers and posted a photo on the social media.
Based on these photos, it can safely be said that these stars enjoyed the festive occasion to the fullest and had a good time.
So, did you like these photos? Tell us in the space below.
#ShailajaReddyAlludu has nothing new to offer and also predictable but its not boring, making it a decent watch.
Naga Chaitanya and Ramya Krishna performance comedy OK. Cinematography
One time for timepass. Akhil Sravan Kumar (@sravannerella00) September 13, 2018
A Timepass Movie?
Here is a tweet regarding Shailaja Reddy Alludu, which suggests that the film is a timepass one. It has also been mentioned that the movie is a predictable affair but still it qualifies for a decent watch.
#ShailajaReddyAlludu Interval - Vennela Kishore comic timing and Maruthi dialogues worked for me. Chaitanya super unnaru Chaitanya (@illusionistChai) September 13, 2018
First Half Report
Here is a tweet regarding the first half of Shailaja Reddy Alludu. Praises are there for the performance of Naga Chaitanya, Vennela Kishore as well as the dialogues penned by Maruthi.
#ShailajaReddyAlludu Movie complete family entertainer ...... Chaitu super n comedy easy ga workout indi .....happy ga theater lo enjoy chesi vellochu abhi (@kabhilash91) September 13, 2018
A Good Entertainer
Here is another positive report regarding Shailaja Reddy Alludu. According to the tweet, the Naga Chaitanya starrer is a perfect family entertainer.
#ShailajaReddyAlludu done with the movie in Melbourne . family audience will easily connect to the movie & moreover its festival time , its also have all the commercial elements
1st half : Chala bagundhi
2nd half : hilarious #BlockbusterShailajaReddyAlludu Srikar Chagarlamudi (@chsrikar777) September 13, 2018
For The Family Audiences
Going by the above tweet, Shailaja Reddy Alludu will definitely cater well to the faily audiences and it has all the commercial elements in it. Praises are there for the both the halves of the movie.
#ShailajaReddyAlludu - Average Movie with Some Comedy Scenes AA Fan (@ChethanAAHCF) September 13, 2018
An Average Movie?
According to the above tweet regarding Shailaja Reddy Alludu, the movie is a average fare but praises are there for the comedy sequences in the film.
#ShailajaReddyAlludu Konchem better 2nd haf compared to boring 1st haf, no much difference thou.Below average.Shivagami #SailajaReddyAlludu Do For Kerala (@urstrulyadhil) September 13, 2018
A Better Second Half
In the above tweet, it has been mentioned that the second half of the movie is slightly better than the first half. Praises are there for the performance of Ramya Krishnan.
- Eight consecutive years of strong growth, balanced across all core businesses and geographies
- Emerging markets continue accelerating growth trend - up by 10%
- 21 acquisitions and 4 new alliances in 2018 expand resources and capabilities in strategy, AI, blockchain, cyber, RPA and digital
- To spend US$1b in technology-related capabilities over the next two financial years, buttressing growth in new innovation services
- Commits more than one-half billion dollars annually to upskilling EY people, and another 65,000 people to join in FY19
- EY expands reporting to include key non-financial metrics for stakeholders and moves to long-term value creation
LONDON, Sept. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- EY today announces combined global revenues of US$34.8 billion for the financial year ended June 2018. Overall, financial year (FY) 2018 revenues grew by 7.4% in local currency and 11% in US dollars (versus FY17). All EY service lines delivered strong growth in FY18: in local currency Assurance grew 4.4%; Advisory 10.1%; Tax 6.4% and Transaction Advisory Services (TAS) 13.9%. Over the five years since the launch of its Vision 2020 plan in 2013, EY has recorded strong 8.5% compound annual growth.
Mark Weinberger, EY Global Chairman and CEO, says:
"This year more clients turned to EY for support in their digital and transformation strategies, and for our bedrock services across audit and tax. Our significant and innovative investments are driving growth and supporting the delivery of high-quality services. Most of all, our success is driven by the contributions of 260,000 EY people around the world."
Innovation and technology transforming traditional EY services and driving growth
EY has been redefining how it uses technology to transform and strengthen its traditional and new service offerings across all businesses, including labor-intensive manual processes and innovations using blockchain, artificial intelligence (AI) and robotic process automation (RPA). EY is using over 2,000 bots across its businesses and client services. Of these, the 700 bots supporting EY internally have saved more than 2.1 million people hours and brought higher accuracy to manual processes.
In FY18, EY doubled the number of blockchain projects it undertook and launched a number of groundbreaking solutions and pilots. EY Assurance is running a pilot of blockchain audit technologies known as EY Blockchain Analyzer that enhances the ability to perform in-depth reviews of cryptocurrency business transactions. This will also lay the foundation for automated audit tests of smart contracts and blockchain assets.
Additionally, EY teamed up with Microsoft to launch the first blockchain solution for content rights and royalties management. Ubisoft, one of the world's leading game publishers, is testing the solution, which will be extended from gaming to other industries like music and publishing. EY and Guardtime also announced that their blockchain platform for the marine insurance sector is now in commercial use - a world-first. EY is also working with the City of Vienna using blockchain to validate and secure its data, from voting results to transport schedules and routes.
Targeted strategic acquisitions and alliances also supported EY's innovation efforts. In FY18, there were 21 acquisitions in EY, which expanded the organization's professional skills and capabilities in areas like digital, data, analytics, strategy and cyber. New alliance agreements, such as those with BlackLine Systems and JDA Software, are expanding the range of services and skills EY can bring to clients in areas like cloud-technology, supply chain and fintech.
As part of its innovation drive, EY will invest US$1b in new technology solutions and capabilities over the next two financial years in areas like financial services, cyber, risk management, managed services, software, digital tax and digital audit. In FY18, two additional EY wavespace flagship locations opened in Milan and Tel Aviv, bringing the number of globally connected flagship innovation centers to 18. EY plans to launch a further six locations in FY19 to continue its aim to help clients conceive and launch solutions in mobility, customer experience, data analytics and more.
Carmine Di Sibio, EY Global Managing Partner - Client Service, says:
"Our commitment to deploying the best use cases for new technologies helps clients not just keep pace, but stay ahead of the vast disruption in today's business world. Significant investments in people, technology and alliances over the past few years are transforming traditional and emerging EY services alike. We are proud that we are empowering clients to succeed and grow in this complex environment."
Commitment to audit quality
As a multidisciplinary professional services organization, audit quality is - and will always be - the highest focus at EY and is the key measure of its reputation. To stay relevant and to deliver long-term value through EY services, the Assurance business is evolving its thinking and judgments around the execution of the audit process to help ensure audit quality. The EY Sustainable Audit Quality program, in its fourth year, continues to improve quality by holding EY people accountable on a specific set of metrics that are executed globally. This is complemented by the multi-year US$500m investment in digital audit capabilities, people and global audit methodologies.
The future of work
EY continues to transform its approach to talent, providing meaningful career opportunities and enabling EY people to develop "hot" skills. Last year, it introduced digital credentials known as EY Badges to help EY people cultivate skills related to emerging technology, innovation and sectors. Today, more than 15,000 EY Badges have been initiated and more than 2,800 EY Badges have been earned, with data visualization and RPA being the most earned badges to date. In FY19, EY aims to have 50,000 badges initiated.
EY strives to be a leader in the recruitment and development of people around the world. In FY18, nearly two million people applied to work in the organization. More than 65,000 people with core audit and tax skills as well as STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) and technology backgrounds joined. Today there are more than 20,000 data and analytics practitioners and more than 2,000 data scientists in EY. Approximately US$500m has been invested and more than 13 million formal hours in learning have been conducted annually, on top of experiential development and systemized mentoring.
Overall, headcount increased by 5.7%, to over 260,000 people globally. In FY18, 747 people were promoted to partner and more than 400 new external partners were admitted. Partner promotions reflected key priorities: 29% of the promoted partners are within the Assurance business, 32% of new partners are from emerging markets and women represent nearly 30%. This year the gender diversity on the Global Executive, the highest governing body in EY, increased to more than 26%.
The EY global talent marketplace, called GigNow, is currently available in 10 countries, expanding from the US, the UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand to Canada, China, India, the Netherlands and Singapore. At the end of FY18, GigNow had 16,000 contractors registered for short-term "gigs" and filled more than 1,300 positions for EY projects around the world.
EY continues to be recognized on prestigious lists for its outstanding people culture. It continues to be the world's most attractive professional services employer for business students in Universum's annual "World's Most Attractive Employer" ranking, and fourth overall behind Apple, Google and Goldman Sachs. In the US, EY was recognized in Fortune's "100 Best Companies to Work For" annual list for a record 20-consecutive years. EY was also inducted into DiversityInc's first-ever "Top 50 Hall of Fame" recognizing EY's corporate values, culture and its longstanding commitment to diversity and inclusion.
Growth across geographies, key industries and markets
Revenue increased across all four of the EY geographic areas: the Americas 7.4%; Europe, Middle East, India and Africa (EMEIA) 6.9%; Asia-Pacific 10.5% and Japan 3.1%.
Across the developed markets, the US has had another impressive year, achieving US$14b in revenue, a 7.3% increase over FY17. The Transactions business led the growth in the US buoyed by a strong M&A market and increased demand for strategic consulting, integration, diligence and other services. Its double-digit Advisory growth was driven by areas including cyber services, digital, analytics and technology transformation, while Assurance continued a steady flow of new audit engagements, including two Fortune 500 corporations. Elsewhere, Germany achieved strong growth, led by double-digit growth in TAS and Advisory. EY also saw strong growth in Australia, Canada, Italy, the Netherlands and Spain.
The emerging markets continue their strong growth trend and are up by 10% (vs. 8.9% growth in FY17). Greater China, one of EY's top five markets by revenue overall, recorded its third year of double-digit growth, up by 11.6%, driven by strong growth across all EY service lines. India continues its eighth consecutive year of double-digit growth, up by 16.3%. Mexico also achieved double-digit growth at 15.3%.
EY recorded strong revenues across various industry sectors with Wealth & Asset Management and Insurance both achieving double-digit growth. Growth in Wealth & Asset Management was driven by strong demand for technology and business transformation, customer experience and operational efficiency initiatives. Insurance achieved double-digit growth from demand for technology and business transformation services across Advisory and Tax, as well as providing clients with IFRS 17-related services including finance, risk and regulatory advice.
Investments and growth in the business
Assurance: Audit quality remains an unrelenting focus. Through long-term and continued investments in digital technology, EY people and its global methodologies, the business achieved increased growth of 4.4% (vs. 4% in FY17). Its EY Canvas and EY Helix audit platform and tools are enhancing quality and confidence to meet the evolving needs of business, regulators and investors. Further innovations to support audit quality in FY18 include: EY Lease Reviewer, which uses AI to support transitions to new accounting standards; EY Canvas mobile applications, which are radically transforming the support of an audit, providing more connectivity and streamlined communication. Its market-leading audit technology is a major factor in new audit clients. New engagements include: BHP Billiton, General Motors, Grupo Bimbo, Jiangxi Copper, Standard Chartered Bank and Tate & Lyle. Financial Accounting Advisory Services once again delivered impressive double-digit growth, by supporting clients with the adoption of numerous accounting standard changes and providing accounting support to clients with transactions (IPOs, divestitures and more). EY also continues to build a broader set of Forensic & Integrity Services offerings that help organizations protect and restore enterprise and financial reputation.
Audit quality remains an unrelenting focus. Through long-term and continued investments in digital technology, EY people and its global methodologies, the business achieved increased growth of 4.4% (vs. 4% in FY17). Its EY Canvas and EY Helix audit platform and tools are enhancing quality and confidence to meet the evolving needs of business, regulators and investors. Further innovations to support audit quality in FY18 include: EY Lease Reviewer, which uses AI to support transitions to new accounting standards; EY Canvas mobile applications, which are radically transforming the support of an audit, providing more connectivity and streamlined communication. Its market-leading audit technology is a major factor in new audit clients. New engagements include: BHP Billiton, General Motors, Grupo Bimbo, Jiangxi Copper, Standard Chartered Bank and Tate & Lyle. Financial Accounting Advisory Services once again delivered impressive double-digit growth, by supporting clients with the adoption of numerous accounting standard changes and providing accounting support to clients with transactions (IPOs, divestitures and more). EY also continues to build a broader set of Forensic & Integrity Services offerings that help organizations protect and restore enterprise and financial reputation. Advisory: Strong client demand for services for technologies - including intelligent automation, blockchain, Internet of Things (IoT), data analytics and cybersecurity - contributed largely to Advisory's eighth consecutive year of double-digit growth. New and existing global strategic alliances continue to support revenue growth. In FY18, EY announced four new joint solutions with Microsoft and it teamed up with JDA Software to transform EY clients' supply chains by delivering the latest digitalization advances. It also formed an alliance with BlackLine to expand EY services to clients to improve finance and accounting operations. Strategic acquisitions - like Melbourne -based Open Windows and Aspect Security - continue to support high- growth areas like cybersecurity.
Strong client demand for services for technologies - including intelligent automation, blockchain, Internet of Things (IoT), data analytics and cybersecurity - contributed largely to Advisory's eighth consecutive year of double-digit growth. New and existing global strategic alliances continue to support revenue growth. In FY18, EY announced four new joint solutions with Microsoft and it teamed up with JDA Software to transform EY clients' supply chains by delivering the latest digitalization advances. It also formed an alliance with BlackLine to expand EY services to clients to improve finance and accounting operations. Strategic acquisitions - like -based Open Windows and Aspect Security - continue to support high- growth areas like cybersecurity. Tax: Global and US tax reform and legislative-driven demand for transfer pricing and indirect tax services led the growth of the Tax business. Digital technology is changing how organizations and authorities manage tax reporting and obligations. This also boosted revenue growth as clients sought digital tax administration services and support with the application of blockchain, robotics and AI in tax operations to manage tax "big data." To complement its digital portfolio, in FY18 EY acquired the technology assets and related patents for a Crypto-Asset Accounting and Tax (CAAT) tool to support tax liability calculations for cryptocurrencies and crypto-assets. Additionally, demand for EY legal services fueled its expansion to more than 2,200 law practitioners in more than 80 countries around the world. EY People Advisory Services continued to grow and announced a collaboration with Concur on the first fully integrated tax and immigration solution for business travelers.
Global and US tax reform and legislative-driven demand for transfer pricing and indirect tax services led the growth of the Tax business. Digital technology is changing how organizations and authorities manage tax reporting and obligations. This also boosted revenue growth as clients sought digital tax administration services and support with the application of blockchain, robotics and AI in tax operations to manage tax "big data." To complement its digital portfolio, in FY18 EY acquired the technology assets and related patents for a Crypto-Asset Accounting and Tax (CAAT) tool to support tax liability calculations for cryptocurrencies and crypto-assets. Additionally, demand for EY legal services fueled its expansion to more than 2,200 law practitioners in more than 80 countries around the world. EY People Advisory Services continued to grow and announced a collaboration with Concur on the first fully integrated tax and immigration solution for business travelers. Transaction Advisory Services: The fourth consecutive year of double-digit growth in TAS was led by an across-the-board increase in all its services including capital strategy, corporate finance and divestments. In FY18, it advised on 8 of the top 10 global M&A deals. As clients pursue digital transformations, they are increasingly turning to EY TAS to advise on capital allocation strategies, as well as to access to leading-edge analytical tools applied to M&A, divestments and capital infrastructure investment programs.
Building a better working world
EY is a purpose-driven organization, committed to its purpose of building a better working world. This is fulfilled by helping governments, businesses and communities globally solve their toughest challenges. Its purpose inspires EY people to use their knowledge, skills and experiences to support the communities in which they live and work around the world. In FY18, EY invested nearly US$125m in projects dedicated to strengthening its communities and its people contributed 740k hours of time to a variety of initiatives and value-in-kind projects. For example:
As part of its commitment to inclusive and long-term growth, EY has been working with the Coalition for Inclusive Capitalism and more than 30 companies representing nearly US$30t of assets under management on a framework to reflect the full value companies create. This follows calls for businesses around the globe to demonstrate their contribution to long-term value creation for all of society. EY and the Coalition will share their progress and commitments in November this year.
EY NextGen is helping young girls in South Africa pursue degrees in fields such as medicine, engineering and accounting.
pursue degrees in fields such as medicine, engineering and accounting. In the US, EY is helping students, unemployed people and startups in local communities to develop their public speaking, networking and presentation skills so they have the confidence to lead and grow professionally.
Through its neurodiversity program in the US, EY is hiring people on the autism spectrum and sharing program leading practices with other leading organizations around the world to help address the broader unemployment challenges people with autism face.
In Kenya , EY is working with Sanergy to help scale a business that is helping to make basic sanitation affordable and accessible in some of the poorest areas of Nairobi .
Investments in people and new technologies not only help EY succeed in the market, but sustains its role in building a better working world.
Commitment to long-term value creation
As part of the EY purpose to build a better working world, it is focused on creating long-term value for all its stakeholders, including the capital markets, EY people and the communities in which it operates. For the first time this year, EY is reporting a broader range of financial and non-financial metrics to demonstrate how it is creating long-term value for its stakeholders. The metrics, available in its Global Review, cover a range of areas, including:
Commitment to EY people: measures on career progression, investment in new skills, people engagement scores, attrition rates and diversity and inclusiveness.
measures on career progression, investment in new skills, people engagement scores, attrition rates and diversity and inclusiveness. Service quality, environmental and stakeholder relationships: measures on sustainable audit quality, greenhouse gas emissions and community impact, and commentary on relationships with regulators and alumni.
measures on sustainable audit quality, greenhouse gas emissions and community impact, and commentary on relationships with regulators and alumni. Growth: traditional growth metrics and relative brand strength.
- ends -
Notes to editors
About EY
EY is a global leader in assurance, tax, transaction and advisory services. The insights and quality services we deliver help build trust and confidence in the capital markets and in economies the world over. We develop outstanding leaders who team to deliver on our promises to all of our stakeholders. In so doing, we play a critical role in building a better working world for our people, for our clients and for our communities.
EY refers to the global organization, and may refer to one or more, of the member firms of Ernst & Young Global Limited, each of which is a separate legal entity. Ernst & Young Global Limited, a UK company limited by guarantee, does not provide services to clients. For more information about our organization, please visit ey.com.
This news release has been issued by EYGM Limited, a member of the global EY organization that also does not provide any services to clients.
B-roll footage
To watch EY Global Chairman and CEO Mark Weinberger discuss its FY18 results, please visit here. For broadcast quality, downloadable b-roll video, please contact yvonne.diaz@uk.ey.com.
EY FY18 global revenues
EY revenues by service line - US$ millions
FY18 FY17 % change in local currency FY18 v. FY17 5-year CAGR
(FY13 - FY18) Assurance 12,534 11,632 4.4% 5.0% Tax 8,995 8,179 6.4% 7.8% Advisory 9,621 8,526 10.1% 13.0% Transaction Advisory Services 3,622 3,067 13.9% 13.3% Total 34,772 31,404 7.4% 8.5% EY revenues by geographic area - US$ millions
FY18 FY17 % change in local currency FY18 v. FY17 5-year CAGR
(FY13 - FY18) Americas 15,606 14,506 7.4% 9.0% EMEIA 13,914 12,175 6.9% 7.9% Asia-Pacific 4,119 3,617 10.5% 10.2% Japan 1,133 1,106 3.1% 3.4% Total 34,772 31,404 7.4% 8.5% EY people by service line
FY18 FY17 FY18 v. FY17
% change
Assurance 88,849 86,562 2.6%
Tax 53,008 49,386 7.3%
Advisory 59,794 53,525 11.7%
Transaction Advisory Services 15,246 13,654 11.7%
Practice support 44,662 44,443 0.5%
Total 261,559 247,570 5.7%
EY people by geographic area
FY18 FY17 FY18 v. FY17
% change
Americas 70,341 67,075 4.9%
EMEIA 106,775 100,792 5.9%
Asia-Pacific 43,722 41,898 4.4%
Japan 7,824 7,880 (0.7%)
Global Delivery Services [1] - Client Service 18,793 16,248 15.7%
Global Delivery Services - Enablement 7,397 7,200 2.7%
Executive services and functions [2] 6,707 6,477 3.6%
Total 261,559 247,570 5.7%
Basis of presentation: Revenues are aggregated revenues of the individual EY member firms that have been combined for presentation purposes and include expenses billed to clients. For purposes of reporting combined global revenues, revenues between member firms have been eliminated. Headcount numbers reflect personnel as at the end of June of each financial year.
[1] Global Delivery Services (GDS) are the EY internal shared services organization, consisting of legal entities ultimately owned by a number of EY member firms. GDS entities support EY member firms across the world by providing support capabilities to their client-serving account teams as well as internal enablement support services.
[2] Includes EY internal support services such as: Global and Area leadership; Technology; Talent; Finance; Brand, Marketing and Communications; Knowledge; Markets and Risk Management.
Yvonne Diaz
EY Global Media Relations
+44 20 7980 0612
yvonne.diaz@uk.ey.com
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Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - September 12, 2018) - WPC Resources Inc. (TSXV: WPQ) ("WPC" or the "Company") announces changes to its Board of Directors and Executive. Al Fabbro has resigned as a director. Wayne Moorhouse has also resigned as a director and as the Company's CFO and Secretary. These changes were accepted by the Board at its meeting held today.
The continuing Board members are Ian Graham, Robert Metcalfe, Kenneth Yurichuk and Stephen Wilkinson. The departing directors will not be immediately replaced making for a leaner Board of 4 directors of which three are independent. WPC anticipates announcing its new CFO and Secretary once its candidate is accepted by the board.
Stephen Wilkinson, WPC's President and CEO, stated "On behalf of the Board and the Company, we thank Al for his work as a director and as past President of the Company. We also thank Wayne who has served as director and CFO and Secretary since 2014."
About WPC Resources Inc.
WPC is a Vancouver, Canada, based gold exploration company focused on mineral exploration and development. In 2014, the Company entered into an agreement to acquire Inukshuk Exploration Inc., the owner of a 100% interest in the 8,015 ha Hood River property located contiguous to the Ulu Gold Property. WPC has an agreement to acquire the Ulu Gold Property, an advanced exploration project. The Company has 130.9 million shares issued and is listed on the TSX Venture Exchange with the trading symbol: WPQ. The Company website is: www.wpcresources.ca.
For additional information, please contact:
Stephen Wilkinson, President and CEO
Telephone: (778) 379-1433
E-mail: info@wpcresources.ca
Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the Policies of the TSX-Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this Release.
CAUTIONARY NOTE REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS AND INFORMATION
This news release contains certain "forward-looking information" within the meaning of Canadian securities laws. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking information. All information included herein, other than statements of historical fact are forward-looking statements and involve various risks and uncertainties. There can be no assurance that the forward-looking information will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such information.
CHANGSHA, China, Sept. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- On August 26, SANY HEAVY INDUSTRY CO., LTD (hereinafter referred to as SANY Heavy Industry) released its performance announcement of the first half year of 2018. By June 30, the company achieved sales revenue of 28.1 billion yuan (4.09 billion USD), year-on-year growth of 46.2 percent; the net cash flow from operating activities reached 6.221 billion yuan (906 million USD), year-on-year growth of 5.55 percent, the highest record in the same period of its history. The net profit achieved 3.389 billion yuan(494 million USD), an increase of 192.09 percent over the same period last year, reaching 161 percent of the net profit of year 2017.
Rapid growth of the revenue from product line
Driven by infrastructure construction, the growing demand for the renewal of equipment and the increasing awareness for environment protection, the sales of the company's excavating machinery, concreting machinery and hoisting machinery maintained rapid growth.
In the first half year, SANY Heavy Industry achieved sales revenue of 11.16 billion yuan for excavator machinery, year-on-year growth of 61.62 percent, which has been the domestic sales champion for 8 consecutive years; the sales revenue of the concrete machinery reached 8.549 billion yuan, year-on-year growth of 29.36 percent, ranking as the top brand in the world; the sales revenue of the hoisting machinery achieved 4.102 billion yuan, an increase of 78.47 percent over the same period of last year with steady promotion of its market position; the piling machinery and road machinery also achieved rapid growth, increasingly expanding their market share.
Benefiting from the significant growth of the sales revenue and the increase in profit making, the company's gross profit rate is 31.64 percent, 1.57 percentage higher than that of 2017. The Net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies is 3.389 billion yuan, reaching 161 percent of the full-year level in 2017.
Management quality greatly improved
Cash flow hits record high
The company has been paying attention to management quality and risk control. Based on a perfect risk control system, the company has good control on the business risks. The company's cash flow for operating activities is 6.221 billion yuan, a year-on-year growth of 5.55 percent, the highest level in the same period of the company's history.
Business innovation and transformation
SANY Heavy Industry has taken great effort in business renovation and transformation since the beginning of this year. It has achieved remarkable efforts in digitization, intelligentialization and mass entrepreneurship and innovation platforms. The company is fully pushing forward the digitization and upgrading of marketing service, R&D, supply chain and financial affairs by implementations of the projects of CRM, PLM, SCM and GSP.
Additionally, SANY-SPARK incubator focuses on the incubation and operation of projects relating to AI, big data, internet, Internet of Things and new materials. It has won 14 honors, including the national innovative space for intelligent manufacturing and the national-level innovative space.
Increased investment in R&D
In the first half year, SANY Heavy Industry invested 1.426 billion yuan in R&D, year-on-year growth of 73.12 percent. It developed a number of competitive products such as SY155H excavator for mining use, SAC2200T all-ground crane and SYM5230THB370C-8 truck-mounted concrete pump. Its new businesses in fire pumper and intelligent residue vehicle maintained steady development.
According to statistics, the company has applied for 7,609 patents and been authorized 6,253 patents by June 2018, ranking No.1 in China for the applied patent quantity.
For more details:
global clients: 0086-731-85835199
Australian clients: 1800 GO SANY (1800 467 269)
Official website: www.sanyglobal.com
Email: sales31@sanygroup.cn
Facebook: SANY Group
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European routes continue to drive FRA's passenger traffic - Fraport's Group airports also report further growth
FRANKFURT, Germany, Sept. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- FRA/ds-rap - In August 2018, Frankfurt Airport (FRA) welcomed some 6.8 million passengers - an increase of 8.1 percent year-on-year. Since the beginning of 2018, FRA has achieved growth of 8.7 percent, with European routes continuing to drive passenger traffic. In the reporting month, aircraft movements climbed by 8.0 percent to 46,389 take-offs and landings, while accumulated maximum take-off weights (MTOWs) rose by 5.5 percent to about 2.9 million metric tons. With 182,589 metric tons (up 0.8 percent), cargo (airfreight + airmail) almost reached the same level as last year.
The airports in Fraport's international portfolio continued their growth path in August 2018. Ljubljana Airport (LJU) in Slovenia recorded an increase of 3.1 percent to 202,423 passengers. Fraport's two Brazilian airports in Fortaleza (FOR) and Porto Alegre (POA) reported combined traffic growth of 4.6 percent to about 1.2 million passengers. The Group's 14 Greek airports achieved overall positive growth of 6.6 percent to some 5.4 million passengers in August 2018. Fraport Greece's fastest growing airports included Corfu (CFO) with 704,741 passengers and Kos (KGS) with 538,382 passengers - both recording a 12.2 percent gain - while traffic at Mytilene Airport (MJT) on the island of Lesbos jumped by 11.6 percent to 71,636 passengers.
Lima Airport (LIM) in Peru saw traffic increase by 6.6 percent to about 2.1 million passengers.Bulgaria's Twin Star airports of Varna (VAR) and Burgas (BOJ) registered combined growth of 5.8 percent to nearly 1.4 million passengers. Traffic at Antalya Airport (AYT) on the Turkish Riviera surged by 14.7 percent to about 4.9 million passengers. Hanover Airport (HAJ) closed the reporting period with 667,084 passengers (up 8.1 percent). Traffic also advanced at Pulkovo Airport (LED) in St. Petersburg, Russia, and Xi'an Airport (XIY) in China - where almost 2.1 million travelers (up 11.6 percent) and some 4.2 million passengers (up 8.8 percent) were served, respectively.
Print-quality photos of Fraport AG and Frankfurt Airport are available for free downloading via the photo library on the Fraport Web site. For TV news and information broadcasting purposes only, we also offer free footage material for downloading. If you wish to meet a member of our Media Relations team when at Frankfurt Airport, please do not hesitate to contact us. Our contact details are available here.
Fraport Traffic Figures
August 2018
Fraport Group Airports1
August 2018
Year to Date (YTD) 2018
Fraport Passengers Cargo* Movements Passengers Cargo Movements Fully-consolidated airports share (%) Month ? % Month ? % Month ? % YTD ? % YTD ? % YTD ? % FRA Frankfurt Germany 100.00 6,798,055 8.1 179,902 0.8 46,389 8.0 46,343,945 8.7 1,428,158 -1.1 340,098 8.3 LJU Ljubljana Slovenia 100.00 202,423 3.1 915 -11.6 3,451 1.7 1,232,529 10.3 8,019 5.0 23,970 4.3 Fraport Brasil 100.00 1,245,813 4.6 7,398 47.4 12,332 10.4 9,535,558 4.6 55,051 48.1 91,386 5.1 FOR Fortaleza Brazil 100.00 524,295 7.2 3,861 26.9 5,263 22.4 4,127,550 4.9 28,550 22.5 37,192 7.3 POA Porto Alegre Brazil 100.00 721,518 2.7 3,537 78.9 7,069 2.9 5,408,008 4.4 26,501 91.0 54,194 3.6 Fraport Regional Airports of Greece A+B 73.40 5,409,953 6.6 690 44.7 42,367 6.1 21,400,274 9.0 5,314 12.2 174,041 7.4 Fraport Regional Airports of Greece A 73.40 2,827,413 6.4 509 39.2 21,176 4.9 11,845,201 7.6 3,966 9.0 93,019 6.1 CFU Kerkyra (Corfu) Greece 73.40 704,741 12.2 32 n.a. 5,162 13.3 2,492,170 16.2 135 > 100.0 19,353 19.9 CHQ Chania (Crete) Greece 73.40 489,679 -2.3 41 0.0 3,028 -0.6 2,183,365 -1.1 301 -8.1 13,850 -2.3 EFL Kefalonia Greece 73.40 174,815 11.3 0 n.a. 1,621 14.6 581,245 20.8 1 -63.4 5,346 19.7 KVA Kavala Greece 73.40 67,385 8.3 8 -43.5 561 1.4 311,975 36.6 57 -26.9 3,136 23.3 PVK Aktion/Preveza Greece 73.40 129,510 1.3 0 n.a. 1,134 4.4 433,275 2.8 0 n.a. 3,976 2.3 SKG Thessaloniki Greece 73.40 839,748 7.6 428 38.1 6,843 1.1 4,474,253 4.8 3,469 7.4 37,573 0.8 ZTH Zakynthos Greece 73.40 421,535 5.2 0 n.a. 2,827 2.4 1,368,918 9.2 4 > 100.0 9,785 6.4 Fraport Regional Airports of Greece B 73.40 2,582,540 6.7 181 62.8 21,191 7.2 9,555,073 10.7 1,348 22.9 81,022 8.9 JMK Mykonos Greece 73.40 328,202 10.2 15 n.a. 4,164 1.9 1,067,365 13.6 68 > 100.0 13,712 8.0 JSI Skiathos Greece 73.40 119,178 6.2 0 n.a. 1,055 -2.0 350,253 5.1 0 n.a. 3,237 -1.5 JTR Santorini (Thira) Greece 73.40 379,698 9.2 17 n.a. 3,535 14.2 1,597,797 16.2 118 > 100.0 14,406 17.8 KGS Kos Greece 73.40 538,382 12.2 36 > 100.0 3,706 15.2 1,896,804 16.3 185 44.2 14,187 17.3 MJT Mytilene (Lesvos) Greece 73.40 71,636 11.6 30 9.3 816 21.4 325,135 5.5 254 0.2 3,854 -2.3 RHO Rhodes Greece 73.40 1,056,599 2.6 59 13.1 6,895 3.2 3,983,785 6.5 539 23.5 27,423 5.2 SMI Samos Greece 73.40 88,845 1.2 23 -15.3 1,020 9.1 333,934 11.4 184 -8.1 4,203 2.1 LIM Lima Peru2 70.01 2,060,930 6.6 24,102 -6.1 16,905 2.0 14,695,541 8.8 180,065 4.7 128,788 5.3 Fraport Twin Star 60.00 1,383,868 5.8 630 -62.9 9,116 6.8 4,472,463 13.5 5,664 -47.6 32,007 11.5 BOJ Burgas Bulgaria 60.00 911,407 5.4 618 -63.4 5,859 6.7 2,720,755 9.7 5,590 -47.5 18,727 7.9 VAR Varna Bulgaria 60.00 472,461 6.4 12 21.9 3,257 7.1 1,751,708 19.8 74 -56.7 13,280 17.0
At equity consolidated airports2
AYT Antalya Turkey 51.00 4,924,825 14.7 n.a. n.a. 26,824 13.9 22,017,848 22.5 n.a. n.a. 127,915 20.6 HAJ Hannover Germany 30.00 667,084 8.1 1,036 -5.6 7,555 2.3 4,153,185 8.2 10,843 -0.3 52,266 2.6 LED St. Petersburg Russia 25.00 2,099,021 11.6 n.a. n.a. 16,368 5.4 12,153,915 11.1 n.a. n.a. 110,530 8.5 XIY Xi'an China 24.50 4,152,303 8.8 27,108 25.8 29,261 3.3 29,728,658 7.9 186,625 13.2 218,422 3.7
Frankfurt Airport3
August 2018 Month ? % YTD 2018 ? % Passengers 6,798,610 8.1 46,346,722 8.7 Cargo (freight & mail) 182,589 0.8 1,455,260 -0.7 Aircraft movements 46,389 8.0 340,098 8.3 MTOW (in metric tons)4 2,872,329 5.5 20,997,386 5.5 PAX/PAX-flight5 155.4 -0.3 145.5 0.2 Seat load factor (%) 83.9
79.6
Punctuality rate (%) 66.6
67.6
Frankfurt Airport PAX share ? %6 PAX share ? %6 Regional Split Month YTD Continental 63.8 11.5 64.3 12.5 Germany 9.6 7.0 10.7 4.8 Europe (excl. GER) 54.2 12.3 53.6 14.2 Western Europe 44.6 11.5 44.5 13.9 Eastern Europe 9.6 15.9 9.1 15.7 Intercontinental 36.2 2.6 35.7 2.4 Africa 4.4 13.4 4.3 10.8 Middle East 5.4 2.7 5.3 2.5 North America 14.2 2.7 12.7 2.8 Central & South Amer. 2.6 2.5 3.3 0.6 Far East 9.6 -2.1 10.2 -0.7 Australia 0.0 n.a. 0.0 n.a.
Definitions: 1 According to ACI definition: Passengers: commercial traffic only (arr+dep+transit counted once), Cargo: commercial and non-commercial traffic (arr+dep excluding transit, in metric tons), Movements: commercial and non-commercial traffic (arr+dep); 2 Preliminary figures; 3 Commercial and non-commercial traffic: Passengers (arr+dep+transit counted once, incl. general aviation), Cargo (arr+dep+transit counted once, in metric tons), Movements (arr+dep); 4 Inbound traffic only; 5 Scheduled and charter traffic; 6 absolute change vs. previous year in %; *Cargo = Freight + mail
Fraport AG
Maria Linden Telephone: +49-69-690-70557 Corporate Communications E-mail: m.linden@fraport.de Media Relations Internet: www.fraport.com 60547 Frankfurt, Germany Facebook: www.facebook.com/FrankfurtAirport
For further information about Fraport AG please click here.
ASKER, NORWAY (13 September 2018) - TGS is pleased to announce Jaan, a fully harmonized 3D multi-client project in the southern portion of the MSGBC Basin from northern Senegal, through The Gambia and the AGC zone, into Guinea-Bissau down to the Guinea transform fault. This project will consist of 11,135 km of new acquisition complemented by the reprocessing and full pre-stack merging of existing multi-client 3D. The new data will be acquired using modern triple source broadband acquisition. Once complete, the final depth migrated volume will be over 28,300 km and will completely capture the prospective paleo-shelf edge trend from the shallow to the deep.
This investment is being undertaken by TGS as operator and majority investor together with PGS and GeoPartners. Data will be acquired using the BGP Prospector seismic vessel and acquisition will commence early Q4 2018. Data processing will be performed by TGS using its Clari-Fi broadband technology.
"The Jaan project will further cement TGS' position as the leading provider of seismic data in this rapidly emerging basin. This further expansion in the MSGBC basin confirms TGS' continued commitment to the Northwest Africa Atlantic Margin data, where TGS already has over 50,000 km of 2D data and over 17,000 km of 3D data," commented Kristian Johansen, CEO, TGS.
This survey is supported by industry funding.
Company Summary
TGS-NOPEC Geophysical Company (TGS) provides multi-client geoscience data to oil and gas Exploration and Production companies worldwide. In addition to extensive global geophysical and geological data libraries that include multi-client seismic data, magnetic and gravity data, digital well logs, production data and directional surveys, TGS also offers advanced processing and imaging services, interpretation products, and data integration solutions.
For more information visit TGS online at www.tgs.com (http://www.tgs.com/).
Forward-looking statements and contact information
All statements in this press release other than statements of historical fact are forward-looking statements, which are subject to a number of risks, uncertainties and assumptions that are difficult to predict, and are based upon assumptions as to future events that may not prove accurate. These factors include TGS' reliance on a cyclical industry and principal customers, TGS' ability to continue to expand markets for licensing of data, and TGS' ability to acquire and process data products at costs commensurate with profitability. Actual results may differ materially from those expected or projected in the forward-looking statements. TGS undertakes no responsibility or obligation to update or alter forward-looking statements for any reason.
TGS-NOPEC Geophysical Company ASA is listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange (OSLO:TGS).
TGS sponsored American Depositary Shares trade on the U.S. over-the-counter market under the symbol "TGSGY".
For additional information about this press release please contact:
Sven Brre Larsen
Chief Financial Officer
Tel: +47 90 94 36 73
Email: sven.larsen@tgs.com (mailto:sven.larsen@tgs.com)
Will Ashby
SVP Investor Relations, HR & Communication
Tel: +1 713 860 2184
Email: will.ashby@tgs.com (mailto:will.ashby@tgs.com)
This information is subject of the disclosure requirements acc. to 5-12 vphl (Norwegian Securities Trading Act)
TGS Jaan 3D Press Release Map (http://hugin.info/86869/R/2215795/865194.pdf)
This announcement is distributed by Nasdaq Corporate Solutions on behalf of Nasdaq Corporate Solutions clients.
The issuer of this announcement warrants that they are solely responsible for the content, accuracy and originality of the information contained therein.
Source: TGS via Globenewswire
London, March 21, 2019
Following the previous announcement by CNH Industrial N.V. (NYSE: CNHI / MI: CNHI) of the launch of a benchmark note issuance denominated in Euro, CNH Industrial N.V. confirms that the offering will be of Euro 600,000,000 in principal amount of 1.75% notes due March 25, 2027 with an issue price of 98.597% of the principal amount.
The closing of the offering is currently expected on March 25, 2019. The notes will be issued by CNH Industrial Finance Europe S.A., a wholly-owned subsidiary of CNH Industrial N.V., under the Euro Medium Term Note Programme guaranteed by CNH Industrial N.V. CNH Industrial Finance Europe S.A. intends to use the net proceeds from the offering for its general corporate purposes.
NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION OR RELEASE IN THE UNITED STATES OR TO U.S. PERSONS
MiFID II professionals/ECPs-only / No PRIIPs KID - Manufacturer target market (MIFID II product governance) is eligible counterparties and professional clients only (all distribution channels). No PRIIPs key information document (KID) has been prepared as not available to retail in EEA.
The notes will be offered and sold only outside the United States to institutional investors that are not "U.S. persons" (as such term is defined in Regulation S under the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "Securities Act")) and have not been and will not be registered under the Securities Act or any other securities laws. The notes may not be offered or sold in the United States or to or for the account or benefit of "U.S. persons" absent registration under the Securities Act or an applicable exemption from the registration requirements thereof.
This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or an offer of financial products or securities, nor shall there be any sale of these notes, in the United States or any state or jurisdiction in which such an offer or sale would be unlawful. No action has been or will be taken to permit a public offering of the notes in any jurisdiction.
The offering of the notes has not been cleared by the Commissione Nazionale per le Societa e la Borsa (CONSOB), pursuant to Italian securities legislation. Accordingly, the notes have not been and will not be offered, sold or delivered in Italy in a solicitation to the public (sollecitazione all'investimento), and the notes may only be offered, sold or delivered in Italy in compliance with applicable laws and regulations.
This press release is directed only (i) to persons who are outside the United Kingdom, (ii) to persons who have professional experience in matters relating to investments falling within Article 19(5) of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Financial Promotion) Order 2005, as amended (the "Financial Promotion Order") or (iii) to high net worth entities falling within Article 49(2)(a) to (d) ("high net worth companies, unincorporated associations, etc.") of the Financial Promotion Order (all such persons together being referred to as "Relevant Persons"). This press release must not be acted on or relied on by persons who are not Relevant Persons. Any investment activity to which this press release relates is reserved for Relevant Persons only and may only be engaged in by Relevant Persons.
In the Netherlands, this press release is directed only to qualified investors within the meaning of the Dutch Financial Supervision Act (Wet op het financieel toezicht).
This press release contains forward-looking statements. These statements reflect current beliefs, as well as assumptions made by, and information available to, the entities referred to in this press release. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties. Actual future results and developments could differ materially from those set forth in these statements due to various factors. These factors include, among others, changes in the general economic and competitive situation, particularly in the CNH Industrial Group's businesses and markets. In addition, future results and developments could be affected by the performance of financial markets, fluctuations in exchange rates and changes in national and supranational law. None of the companies referenced in this press release undertake any obligation to update forward-looking statements.
CNH IndustrialN.V.
Contacts:
Corporate Communications
Email: mediarelations@cnhind.com
Investor Relations
Email: investor.relations@cnhind.com
Attachment
41 million raised through a capital increase and an OBSA bond issue
Successful implementation of commercial infrastructures in the United States
Reinforced management team
Regulatory News:
Pursuant to the adoption of the interim consolidated financial statements for the period ended June 30, 2018 by the Board of Directors on September 12, 2018, Biom'up (the "Company") (Paris:BUP), specialist of surgical hemostasis, today announces its first-half results.
The statutory auditors have performed a limited review of the consolidated financial statements adopted by the Board of Directors on September 12, 2018.
Etienne Binant, Chief Executive Officer of Biom'up, commented: "Biom'up has made significant progress since its successful IPO in October 2017. The two financing deals completed at the start of the year, i.e. the capital increase through a public offering and the bond issue with stock warrants attached, have allowed the Company to raise 41 million since the IPO, thus ensuring we have the resources to match our ambitions over the medium-term. The first half results published today reflect our efforts of the last six months, focused on financing, increased production capacity and the successful implementation of our commercial infrastructure in the United States. The remainder of the year will be focused on launching the construction of the second manufacturing facility near Saint-Priest, the expansion of the hemostatic line with continuing studies required for HEMOBLASTTM Bellows and HemosnowTM and, of course, the commercial launch of our lead product in the United States."
The French-language interim financial report for the first half of the 2018 fiscal year has been filed with the Autorite des marches financiers and is available to the public. It can be downloaded from the Company's internet website (www.biomup.com), folder Investisseurs Documentation.
KEY FINANCIAL AGGREGATES AT JUNE 30, 2018
Income statement
(000s) 06/30/2018 06/30/2017 Revenue 558 1,193 Current operating profit/(loss) (15,642) (7,298) Operating profit/(loss) (15,522) (7,482) Net profit (loss) attributable to equity holders of the parent (17,084) (8,643) Diluted earnings per share (in ) (1.39) (1.97)
Balance sheet
(000s) 06/30/2018 12/31/2017 Shareholders equity attributable to equity holders of the parent 41,341 43,192 Non-current debt 25,751 6,349 Cash and cash equivalents 44,169 32,954
DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS OF THE FINANCIAL CONDITION AND RESULTS OF OPERATIONS
Revenue
The Company's decision to focus resources on its lead product, HEMOBLAST Bellows, and discontinue the sale of its historical products (COVA, COVAMESH and MATRIBONE) led revenue at June 30, 2018 to be down from one year earlier.
Sales in the 2018 first half were largely generated by the disposal of stock from this same historical portfolio in France.
With the launch of the HEMOBLAST Bellows product in the 2018 second half, the Company expects this trend to be reversed by year end.
Operating profit/(loss)
After reinforcing commercial teams and preparing for the launch of the HEMOBLAST Bellows line, selling and marketing costs rose significantly in relation to 2017. This increase in part reflects the decline in operating profit in the 2018 first half.
In addition, the number of salaried employees has risen to increase production capacity, implement the appropriate organization and infrastructure to support HEMOBLAST Bellows' commercial development and ensure Biom'up group's management. In consequence, staff costs are up twofold from the last fiscal year.
Cash flows
The cash balance at June 30, 2018 stood at 44.1 million compared to 32.9 million at December 31, 2017. Cash inflows amounted to 41 million in the first half, originating mainly from the capital increase in February 2018 and the bond issue with stock warrants attached in March 2018, and cash outflows to 29.7 million, including a 8.4 million repayment of financial debt, 2.8 million in capital expenditures and 15.4 million in operating expenses.
(000s) 06/30/2018 06/30/2017 Cash flows from operating activities 15,443 5,696 Cash flows from investing activities 2,788 7,048 Cash flows from financing activities 29,545 10,966
SIGNIFICANT EVENTS OCCURRING IN THE FIRST SIX MONTHS OF THE YEAR
Financing activities
On February 20, 2018, Biom'up announced a capital increase entailing the issuance of 1,452,418 new shares, representing 12.9% of the share capital pre-capital increase, by means of a public offering with a priority subscription period, on the basis of exact rights (a titre irreductible) only, for existing shareholders, at a price per share of 11.00, or a total amount of 16 million (including additional paid-in capital).
On April 3, 2018, Biom'up announced the successful issuance by way of a private placement of a 25 million bond issue with stock warrants attached subscribed by Athyrium Opportunities III Acquisition LP, a fund managed by Athyrium Capital Management, L.P. ("Athyrium"). Subject to certain conditions the bond issue may be topped up by an additional 10 million within a year from issuance. The bond issue will be repayable quarterly as of the third anniversary of the initial issue (or, subject to certain conditions, as of the fourth anniversary of the initial issue), and takes the form of 5-year bonds with stock warrants attached which will entitle their holders to subscribe for up to 420,000 new shares (or 3.2% of the existing share capital) including 300,000 new shares in respect of the first tranche of 25 million and 120,000 new shares in respect of the second tranche of 10 million. On this occasion, Athyrium Opportunities III Acquisition LP, represented by Mr. Laurent Hermouet, joined the Company's Board of Directors as a non-voting observer (censeur
The net proceeds from the capital increase and the bond issue will be used to increase HEMOBLAST Bellows' production capacity, by constructing a second manufacturing facility close to the existing unit in Saint Priest to support HEMOBLAST Bellows' deployment in Europe and the United States, continue to fund preclinical and clinical trials for HEMOBLAST Bellows and Hemosnow and, finally, to repay in advance the Kreos venture loan for an amount totaling 7.6 million.
Construction of a new production plant
On March 6, 2018, the Company announced the construction of a new production plant for 2020 on the Lyon Metropole territory and the creation of 150 jobs. The plant that will cover an area of 700 m2, will be able to supply up to 500,000 units of HEMOBLAST Bellows per year by 2020 and up to 750,000 units per year by 2022 subject to additional financing.
Pursuant to the announcement of the creation of this new plant, Mr. Thierry Darnis was appointed as Global Vice President for manufacturing and engineering.
Success of the training program for surgeons in the use of HEMOBLAST Bellows
On April 24, 2018 the Company announced the implementation of a training program for surgeons in the use of HEMOBLAST Bellows to prepare for its commercial launch. These training programs led by the Company's experts in collaboration with key opinion leaders in surgical hemostasis experienced significant attendance, with more than 200 surgeons having received training in HEMOBLAST Bellows' use.
Finalization of a commercial infrastructure in the United States
On May 2, 2018, the Company announced the finalization of its commercial infrastructure to support HEMOBLAST Bellows' launch in the United States. The Company has recruited an experienced management team and independent specialist sales representatives to drive the nationwide marketing and sales campaign of HEMOBLAST Bellows. This commercial organization has already attracted in excess of 150 members, providing sufficient geographic coverage to ensure the success of HEMOBLAST Bellows' commercial launch.
Biom'up's own sales and marketing team, which will oversee the efforts of those in-direct sales professionals, has recently been reinforced with the appointments of Clay Beaty as area Vice President Sales, Western U.S., Paul Uricchio as U.S. Director of Marketing, and Ken Mingus as Regional Business Director, West Coast.
SIGNIFICANT DEVELOPMENTS SINCE JULY 1, 2018
Changes in governance
On July 3, 2018, the Company announced the arrival of Ms. Caroline Lang as independent director and Ms. Janice Hogan as non-voting observer (censeur) to strengthen its focus on the US market.
On September 4, 2018, the Company announced Dr. Peter Byloos' addition to the Board as an independent director.
Commercial launch of HEMOBLASTBellows in the United States
On July 3, 2018, the Company announced the signature of a supply agreement for HEMOBLAST Bellows by a first hospital in North America, namely the UCLA Medical Center, a leading Los Angeles hospital.
In addition, the first commercial supply of HEMOBLAST Bellows in the United States was made on July 2, 2018.
To date, medico-economic evaluations are currently being performed by Value Analysis Committees at 140 US hospitals.
HEMOBLAST Bellows laparoscopic Applicator obtains CE Marking
On July 12, 2018, the Company announced that it obtained CE Marking for its laparoscopic Applicator, thus enabling European surgeons to use HEMOBLAST Bellows hemostatic powder for both open and laparoscopic surgery, while continuing to benefit from the same advantages in terms of efficacy, simplicity and rapidity.
The HEMOBLAST Bellows laparoscopic Applicator is designed to deliver the HEMOBLAST Bellows hemostatic powder in cases of surgical bleeding through a trocar with a diameter of at least 5 mm. The 35 cm polycarbonate accessory is compatible with the existing HEMOBLAST Bellows applicator, already with CE Marking.
2018 profit-sharing plans
On 27 August 2018, the Board of Directors adopted the terms of the following profit-sharing agreements:
1) free shares representing 1.36% of the existing share capital were granted to employees and corporate officers of the group pursuant to the authorization granted by resolution fourteen of the general meeting of August 31, 2017;
2) stock options representing 2.81% of the existing share capital were granted to employees of the US subsidiary of the Company, Biom'up USA, Inc., pursuant to the authorization granted by resolution eleven of the general meeting of June 5, 2018; and
3) warrants representing 0.12% of the existing share capital were granted to an independent director and a service provider (Key Opinion Leader), pursuant to the delegation of authority granted by resolution twelve of the general meeting of June 5, 2018.
2018 OUTLOOK AND THE CONTINUING EXECUTION OF THE STRATEGY
Biom'up has the resources to implement its development strategy which shall focus on the following:
1) pursuing the commercial launch of HEMOBLAST Bellows in the United States and Europe;
2) increasing production capacity for HEMOBLAST Bellows;
3) continuing to develop HEMOBLAST Bellows through:
clinical trials to expand its scope of application for the following surgical indications 1 : laparoscopy, spine surgery, urology, head and neck...
: laparoscopy, spine surgery, urology, head and neck... post-marketing follow-up clinical studies for HEMOBLAST Bellows in order to further define requisite skills for the product's use.
4) strengthening the network of distributors and sales agents to accelerate market penetration;
5) developing a new version of the HEMOSNOW product for the North American market (launch of clinical studies in 2019 in the United States in connection with a PMA application with the FDA).
1 As HEMOBLAST Bellows has already obtained CE marking and FDA approval for the US market for selected procedures, some of the studies are not mandatory from a regulatory perspective though may be used by the Company to illustrate the benefits offered by the product for these indications.
About HEMOBLAST
HEMOBLAST Bellows is a hemostatic product to control bleeding in a broad range of surgical procedures, such as cardiac surgery, general surgery, and orthopedic surgery, etc.. Biom'up conducted a successful clinical trial in the United States with 412 patients admitted to cardio-thoracic, abdominal or orthopedic (lower limb) surgeries which met all of its primary and secondary endpoints. Given the compelling preliminary results (93 effectiveness at 6 minutes, compared with 74 for the control arm), the Independent Data Monitoring Committee (IDMC) unanimously recommended to stop the study before the initially planned date after an interim analysis of the data, which allowed the company to accelerate the submission of its filing for premarket approval (PMA) to regulatory authorities in June 2017 for the United States.
After obtaining expedited FDA approval for HEMOBLAST Bellows in December 2017, 7 months ahead of original plan, Biom'up's efforts are focused on industrial and commercial et commercial activities and the recruitment of sales and marketing teams in the U.S. to prepare the commercial roll-out of our lead product in the United States planned for the 2018 third quarter.
On July 12, 2018, Biom'up obtained CE Marking for its HEMOBLAST Bellows Laparoscopic Applicator designed to deliver the HEMOBLAST Bellows powder in minimally-invasive procedures. This has opened the way for the Company in a new market segment representing approximately 500,000 surgeries per year in Europe.
In addition, on July 2, 2018 the Company filed a PMA supplement to obtain approval for HEMOBLAST Bellows for all laparoscopic surgical procedures in the United States.
About Biom'up
Founded in 2005 and based in the Lyon suburb of Saint-Priest (France), Biom'up designs hemostatic products based on patented biopolymers that aim to simplify surgical procedures in numerous specialties (spine, cardiothoracic, general, orthopedic, plastic) and give patients a better quality of life.
Since its creation, Biom'up has benefited from the support of prominent European investors such as Bpifrance, Innobio, GIMV, Lundbeckfond, Merieux Participation, SHAM and ACG, as well as all the Company's managers, who have invested 2 million in equity. Biom'up successfully completed its IPO on Euronext Paris, raising 42.5 million in October 2017. This has been followed by a 16 million capital increase in February 2018 and a 25 million bond financing agreement with Athyrium, a US fund specializing in innovative companies in the healthcare sector, in March 2018.
Forward looking statement
This press release may contain certain forward-looking statements. Although the Company believes its expectations are based on reasonable assumptions, all statements other than statements of historical fact included in this press release about future events are subject to (i) change without notice and (ii) factors beyond the Company's control. These statements may include, without limitation, any statements preceded by, followed by or including words such as "target," "believe," "expect," "aim," "intend," "may," "anticipate," "estimate," "plan," "project," "will," "can have," "likely," "should," "would," "could" and other words and terms of similar meaning or the negative thereof. Forward-looking statements are subject to inherent risks and uncertainties beyond the Company's control that could cause the Company's actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from the expected results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Except as required by law, the Company assumes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements publicly, or to update the reasons actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements, even if new information becomes available in the future. This press release has been prepared in both French and English. In the event of any differences between the two texts, the French language version shall supersede.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180912006001/en/
Contacts:
Biom'up
Jean-Yves Quentel, +33 4 86 57 36 10
Chief Financial Officer
investisseurs@biomup.com
or
Alize RP
Investor Relations
Caroline Carmagnol, +33 6 64 18 99 59
biomup@alizerp.com
Boehringer Ingelheim exercises its option to acquire all shares of oncolytic virus company ViraTherapeutics
ViraTherapeutics will operate in Innsbruck, Austria as a distinct unit of Boehringer Ingelheim's Discovery Research organization, maintaining its innovative biotech heritage and close connections to the Medical University of Innsbruck and the regional scientific community
Acquisition strengthens Boehringer Ingelheim's commitment to research and development of viral-based immuno-oncology treatment options aimed at transforming the lives of patients
Boehringer Ingelheim today announced that it has acquired all shares of ViraTherapeutics, a biopharmaceutical company specializing in the development of oncolytic viral therapies. ViraTherapeutics developed the lead candidate VSV-GP (Vesicular Stomatitis Virus (VSV) with modified glycoprotein (GP)), which is being investigated alone and in combination with other therapies. The total transaction value of EUR 210 million is based on an option and share purchase agreement signed between the companies in August 2016.
Oncolytic viral therapy is a cancer treatment approach with two modes of action. First, the virus specifically replicates in and kills cancer cells. Second, viral infection stimulates the immune system to recognize these same cancer cells, leading to immune-mediated killing of both infected and non-infected cancer cells, further enhancing tumor control. Boehringer Ingelheim and ViraTherapeutics are working to develop a next generation oncolytic viral therapy platform. The lead investigational candidate leveraging the platform, VSV-GP, has shown promising results in pre-clinical models, especially in combination with key immune modulatory principles Boehringer Ingelheim is developing.
"The acquisition of ViraTherapeutics with its exciting oncolytic virus platform is the conclusion of a trusting and close cooperation over two years," said Dr. Heinz Schwer, CEO of ViraTherapeutics. "We are highly optimistic that our VSV-based development programs and technology will complement Boehringer Ingelheim's immuno-oncology franchise and will serve as a source of innovative, new treatment options for patients living with cancer."
"I want to thank the team around scientific founder Dorothee von Laer, CEO Heinz Schwer and COO Lisa Egerer for their dedication to research and scientific progress that led to a productive collaboration with Boehringer Ingelheim and ultimately to the early exercise of the purchase option," said Dr. Klaus Schollmeier, Chairman of ViraTherapeutics' advisory board. "I also want to thank the investors and my fellow board members for their hands-on commitment to this project. I am convinced that ViraTherapeutics' research will become core to Boehringer Ingelheim's oncology product pipeline."
Using a dual approach for potential treatment options, specifically combining immuno-oncology approaches with tumor cell-directed treatments, is central to Boehringer Ingelheim's cancer immunology research strategy. Oncolytic virus-based therapies are consistent with and complement that strategy.
"Our approach is rooted in transforming 'cold' tumors or immunologically inactive tumors that are not responsive to the checkpoint blockers to 'hot' tumors those that are most susceptible to immune system attack," said Dr. Michel Pairet, member of Boehringer Ingelheim's Board of Managing Directors responsible for Boehringer Ingelheim's Research and Development. "We are committed to investing in early research with promise and where our expertise best complements the strengths of our partners. Together, we aim to discover breakthrough medical treatments to transform the lives of patients and win the fight against cancer."
ViraTherapeutics was a portfolio company of the two venture investors EMBL Ventures and the Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund (BIVF). BIVF is focused on strategic investment in highly innovative biotechnology and start-up companies to help drive innovation in medical science. The BIVF has EUR 250 million under management and currently supervises a portfolio of 22 active companies and is one of the most active investors in immuno-oncology world-wide.
For notes to editors, please visit:
http://www.boehringer-ingelheim.com/press-release/boehringer-ingelheim-acquires-all-viratherapeutics-shares
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180912006199/en/
Contacts:
Boehringer Ingelheim
Dr. Reinhard Malin
Head of Communications Innovation Unit
Boehringer Ingelheim Corporate Center GmbH
Media PR
+49 6132 77-90815
press@boehringer-ingelheim.com
or
Linda Ruckel
Associate Director, Media and Corporate Reputation
Boehringer Ingelheim U.S.
Media PR
+ 203-791-6672
linda.ruckel@boehringer-ingelheim.com
LONDON, September 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --
Former Hotwire and Expedia president takes reins at Europe's largest manager of holiday rentals
The group comprises of multiple leading brands including, Landal GreenParks, Novasol, Cottages.com, Hoseasons, James Villa Holidays and Friendly Rentals
Henrik Kjellberg, former president at Expedia, has been appointed group chief executive of the European Vacation Rentals business acquired by Platinum Equity from Wyndham Worldwide earlier this year.
(Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/742566/Platinum_Equity_Kjellberg.jpg )
Already an industry leader, the business is the largest manager of holiday rentals in Europe, operating in over 600 destinations in more than 25 countries through its local brands which include Landal GreenParks, Novasol, Cottages.com, Hoseasons, James Villa Holidays and Friendly Rentals. This appointment, with immediate effect, comes at a significant time for the company as it embarks on the next phase of its growth trajectory, which will see major investment in technology innovation.
The European Vacation Rentals business will also undergo a rebrand within the coming months to redefine the group's identity, alongside ongoing investment in its existing consumer-facing brands.
Kjellberg has spent more than twenty years working in global positions for travel and technology brands, including serving as president of Hotwire and Expedia Group's affiliate network (EAN), where he was responsible for Expedia Group's global affiliate and partnership deals. Kjellberg also served as president of Expedia Asia, and was chairman of the Chinese travel company eLong Inc.
Henrik Kjellberg commented: "I have always admired the success of the European Vacation Rentals business established by Wyndham Worldwide Corporation. The group and its local brands have a long-standing heritage of delivering unrivalled experiences across Europe.
"Under the new ownership, I'm looking forward to working with the leadership teams within each of the brands to capitalise on our success to date and the tremendous growth opportunities available, and to continue to deliver the kind of experiences and services our guests, homeowners and partners have come to expect from our family of brands."
Daniel Madden, Principal and head of Portfolio Operations at Platinum Equity in Europe commented: "Amongst other areas, Henrik brings a wealth of experience in Product, Technology, Customer and Partner Service, Innovation and Distribution. As an investor we will support the organic as well as acquisitive growth ambitions of the business and we look forward to partnering with Henrik on this journey."
Notes to Editors:
About European Vacation Rentals
The industry-leading European Vacation Rentals business is the largest manager of holiday rentals in Europe, with more than 110,000 units in over 600 destinations across more than 25 countries. The business operates more than two dozen local brands, which include Landal GreenParks, Novasol, Cottages.com, Hoseasons, James Villa Holidays and Friendly Rentals.
In February 2018, Wyndham Worldwide Corporation announced that it had entered into a definitive agreement for the sale of its European Vacation Rental business to Platinum Equity for $1.3 billion.
About Platinum Equity
Founded in 1995 by Tom Gores, Platinum Equity is a global investment firm with $13 billion of assets under management and a portfolio of more than 30 operating companies that serve customers around the world. The firm is currently investing from Platinum Equity Capital Partners IV, a $6.5 billion global buyout fund. Platinum Equity specializes in mergers, acquisitions and operations - a trademarked strategy it calls M&A&O - acquiring and operating companies in a broad range of business markets, including manufacturing, distribution, transportation and logistics, equipment rental, metals services, media and entertainment, technology, telecommunications, and other industries. Over the past 22 years Platinum Equity has completed more than 200 acquisitions.
The collaboration between INITIAL, a Prodways Group company, and L'Oreal has paved the way to manufacturing final material parts using 3D-printed moulds. INITIAL accelerates the development of injection-moulded parts using plastic additive manufacturing and its new solution: 3D Molding.
The fast marketing of new products is a constant challenge to meet consumers' specific and wide-ranging demands. This is a major issue in the cosmetics industry, where prototypes should be manufactured quickly in order to perform functional tests with the final material.
INITIAL and L'Oreal have combined their expertise to accelerate the development of injection-moulded parts. INITIAL and L'Oreal chose to collaborate to enable them to produce final material parts, in a record time of two weeks and at a limited cost, paving the way for accelerated approval and iteration processes for the development of new packaging .
Injection-moulded final material parts with 3D printing
As Yvon Gallet, INITIAL's Chairman, explains: "We produce the 3D Printing mould and the final material parts are then directly injection-moulded. With our 3D printing and injection expertise, we were best placed to develop this unique solution. It is aimed at designers in the development phase and complements our traditional machining and injection solutions. It is an innovative alternative that meets the needs of manufacturers, like L'Oreal, that could benefit from this technological advance to reduce their time to market."
The synergy of these skills enabled to develop this new solution quickly: 14 resin test molds were needed, plus 20 injection-moulding test runs and several hundred moulded parts. This marriage of machine and material comes from combining Prodways Technologies' patented MOVINGLight technology and Prodways Materials' PLASTCure Rigid 10500 resin. This resin guarantees extreme accuracy and excellent resistance to injection-moulding constraints.
INITIAL, the leading French producer of additive-manufactured parts, a Prodways Group subsidiary since 2015, was able to offer this innovation to the leading beauty product manufacturer thanks to Prodways Group integrated offer:
3D printing and injection-moulding expertise with INITIAL,
Custom and innovative materials with Prodways Technologies and Prodways Materials,
Assistance from start to finish of the solution development process from Prodways Conseil.
Next release:
Half-year results publication on Friday 14 September 2018 before market open
About Prodways Group
PRODWAYS GROUP is a specialist in industrial and professional 3D printing with a unique positioning as an integrated European player. The group has developed right across the 3D printing value chain (software, machines, materials, parts & services) with a high value added technological industrial solution. PRODWAYS GROUP offers a wide range of 3D printing systems and premium composite, hybrid and powder materials (SYSTEMS division). The company also manufactures and markets parts on demand, prototypes and small production run 3D printed items in plastic and metal (PRODUCTS division). The Group targets a significant number of sectors, from aeronautics to healthcare.
In 2017, the company generated revenue of 34.8 million, including close to 40% outside of France. Building on revolutionary and proprietary technology, MOVINGLight, PRODWAYS GROUP today has global visibility in the industrial 3D printing sector and with leading customers.
PRODWAYS GROUP is a Groupe Gorge company.
For further information: www.prodways-group.com
Follow us and and keep up with Prodways Group's latest news on Twitter!
INVESTOR CONTACTS
Prodways Group - Raphael Gorge
Chairman and CEO
Tel: +33 (0)144 779480
Actus Finance - Natacha Morandi
Investor relations
Tel: +33 (0)1 53 67 36 94/nmorandi@actus.fr
PRESS CONTACTS
INITIAL - Julie Preel
Marketing & Communication manager
Tel: +33 (0)4 50 69 33 73/ communication@initial.fr
Actus Finance - Jean-Michel Marmillon
Press Relations
Tel: +33 (0)153 673673/jmmarmillon@actus.fr
Releases from the Prodways Group may contain forward-looking declarations with statements of objectives. These forward-looking statements reflect the current expectations of the Prodways Group. Their realization, however, depends on known or unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results, performance or events to differ significantly from those previously anticipated. The risks and uncertainties that might affect the Group's future ability to achieve its targets are reiterated and presented in detail in our Basis Document available on the Prodways Group's website (www.prodways-group.com). This list of risks, uncertainties and other factors is not exhaustive. Other unanticipated, unknown or unpredictable factors may also have significant negative effects on the achievement of our objectives.
The current release and the information contained therein do not constitute an offer to sell or to subscribe, nor a solicitation for an order to purchase or subscribe to shares in Prodways Group or in any subsidiaries thereof listed in whatsoever country.
------------------------
Copyright Actusnews Wire
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Full and original release in PDF format:https://www.actusnews.com/documents_communiques/ACTUS-0-54960-prodwaysgroup-loreal-13092018-en.pdf
Regulatory News:
Lysogene (Paris:LYS) (FR0013233475 LYS) (the "Company"), a pioneering biopharmaceutical company specializing in gene therapy targeting central nervous system (CNS) diseases, announced today that it has been informed of the resignation of Bpifrance Investissement from its mandate as director of the Company.
The permanent representative of Bpifrance Investissement within the Board of Directors is replaced at the Audit Committee by Mr. Peter Lichtlen, independent member of Lysogene's Board of Directors.
About Lysogene
Lysogene is a gene therapy company focused on the treatment of orphan diseases of the central nervous system (CNS). The company has built a unique capability to enable a safe and effective delivery of gene therapies to the CNS to treat lysosomal diseases and other genetic disorders of the CNS. A pivotal clinical trial in MPS IIIA and a phase 1-2 clinical trial in GM1 Gangliosidosis are in preparation, while we are currently collaborating with a major partner to define the strategy of development for the treatment of Fragile X syndrome, a genetic disease related to autism. www.lysogene.com.
Forward looking statement
This press release may contain certain forward-looking statements. Although the Company believes its expectations are based on reasonable assumptions, all statements other than statements of historical fact included in this press release about future events are subject to (i) change without notice, (ii) factors beyond the Company's control and (iii) the financial capabilities of the Company. These statements may include, without limitation, any statements preceded by, followed by or including words such as "target," "believe," "expect," "aim," "intend," "may," "anticipate," "estimate," "plan," "project," "will," "can have," "likely," "should," "would," "could" and other words and terms of similar meaning or the negative thereof. Forwardlooking statements are subject to inherent risks and uncertainties beyond the Company's control that could cause the Company's actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from the expected results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. A further list and description of these risks, uncertainties and other risks can be found in the Company's regulatory filings with the French Autorite des Marches Financiers, including in the 2017 registration document (Document de reference), registered with the French Markets Authorities on June 4, 2018, under number R. 18-047, and future filings and reports by the Company. Except as required by law, the Company assumes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements publicly, or to update the reasons actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in the forward-looking statements, even if new information becomes available in the future.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180912005887/en/
Contacts:
NewCap
Julie Coulot Emmanuel Huynh, 33 1 44 71 94 95
lysogene@newcap.eu
Financial year 1 July 2017-
30 June 2018
The return on equity holdings was 8.8 per cent in the financial year
Solidium's result for the financial year was EUR 350 million
Solidium's net asset value increased by EUR 384 million during the review period and was EUR 8.0 billion at the end of the financial year
Solidium's Annual General Meeting decided on a distribution of dividends totalling EUR 351 million
Six-month period of 1 January-
30 June 2018
The return of Solidium's equity holdings in the review period was 4.5 per cent
Solidium acquired 3.3 per cent of Nokia for EUR 845 million
Solidium disposed of its entire holding in Telia Company for EUR 517 million
Solidium disposed of one sixth of its holding in Sampo for approximately EUR 467 million
Solidium disposed of 14 million Stora Enso R-shares and acquired 1.4 million Stora Enso A-shares releasing capital for approximately EUR 220 million
Antti Makinen was elected board member of Metso, Sampo and Stora Enso boards
Solidium's CEO Antti Makinen's comments on the review period:
"The financial year was characterised by strategy implementation which was demonstrated by increased purchasing and divestment activities compared to previous years. In the beginning of the year we divested our entire holding in Telia Company and reduced our ownership in SSAB and Sampo. We invested the proceeds of the transactions mainly in our Nokia investment. Nokia fits perfectly into Solidium's portfolio. Nokia's strong market position and broad technological expertise are appealing factors and provide good opportunities for value creation. In line with our mandate, we strengthen and stabilize domestic ownership in this nationally very important company.
As a whole, the return of the portfolio remained good during the financial year and Solidium's return on equity holdings was 8.8 per cent for the past financial year and 4.5 per cent for the review period. The best returns were generated by Stora Enso, which benefited from strong demand for pulp and increased prices of end products. That is why we released over EUR 200 million of our Stora Enso holding for future needs.
Our objective is for Solidium to have a representative in the board of each portfolio company in the long term. Solidium's Board members hold board memberships in three of our portfolio companies. During the review period, the AGMs of Metso, Sampo and Stora Enso elected me to their boards. Our goal in board work is to promote the interests of the company in question and to do our part to help it outperform its peers. As a board member, Solidium's representative has access to a wealth of information analysed by Solidium's investment team about the the portfolio companies, their industries and competitors. This information is applied in full to benefit the companies."
SOLIDIUM'S HOLDINGS
Development of holdings and key indicators
The value of Solidium's all holdings (equity holdings and money market investments) was EUR 9,093 million on 30 June 2018 (EUR 8,847 million on 31 December 2017 and EUR 8,930 million on 30 June 2017). The return on all holdings was 4.3 per cent over the review period of six months, and 8.3 per cent for the past financial year. More detailed information on the investment key indicators are attached.
Equity holdings
The value of Solidium's equity holdings was EUR 8,108 million on 30 June 2018 (EUR 8,538 million on 31 December 2017 and EUR 8,223 million on 30 June 2017). The total return of Solidium's equity holdings was 4.5 per cent during the review period and 8.8 per cent for the past financial year. During the six-month period and the financial year the best returns were generated by Stora Enso and Elisa.
Money market investments
Solidium's money market investments amounted to EUR 985 million on 30 June 2018 (EUR 309 million on 31 December 2017 and EUR 707 million on 30 June 2017). The return of money market investments was 0.0 per cent during the review period and 0.2 per cent for the past financial year.
Distribution of profit to Solidium
During the financial year, Solidium received a total of EUR 362 million before taxes as dividends distributed by its portfolio companies (1 July 2016 - 30 June 2017: EUR 314 million) and after taxes EUR 351 million (EUR 307 million). The dividend income received by Solidium was approximately 4.5 per cent proportioned to the value of equity holdings on 30 June 2018.
Participation in nomination boards
A central aspect of Solidium's corporate governance model is to actively influence the composition of the boards of directors of the portfolio companies. Solidium actively participated in the work of the nomination boards responsible for preparing board elections. Solidium pursues board compositions which best serve the needs of the companies and the goal of shareholder value creation. During the financial year, a total of fourteen new members were elected to the boards of directors of Solidium's portfolio companies. Five of the new members were women.
Solidium's representatives have served as the chairman of the shareholders' nomination boards of Elisa, Outokumpu, Outotec, Stora Enso and Valmet, and as members of the shareholders' nomination boards of Kemira, Metso, SSAB, Telia Company and Tieto. The nomination boards prepared the proposals related to the selection and remuneration of the board members for the 2018 Annual General Meetings.
According to Solidium's strategy the objective for Solidium is to have a representative in the board of each portfolio company. In the spring 2018 AGM season Solidium's CEO Antti Makinen was elected board member of Metso, Sampo and Stora Enso boards.
Share transactions
In the beginning of the year 2018 Solidium acquired 3.3 per cent of the shares in Nokia Corporation for approximately EUR 845 million. Nokia is a global leader in creating the technologies of our connected world. Nokia's strong market position combined with broad technological expertise are extremely appealing factors and provides an opportunity for value creation.
In March 2018 Solidium disposed of one sixth of its holding in Sampo plc for approximately EUR 467 million. The continued excellent development of Sampo Group had led to a situation where the company's share of Solidium's total investment assets reached almost 35 per cent. By the sale of the shares Solidium balanced its portfolio, however, remaining as a significant shareholder of Sampo.
In June 2018 Solidium disposed of 14 million Stora Enso R-shares and acquired 1.4 million Stora Enso A-shares. Following the arrangements Solidium's holding in Stora Enso remains at 27.3 per cent of the votes but decreased from 12.3 per cent to 10.7 per cent of the outstanding shares releasing capital for approximately EUR 220 million for future needs.
During the financial year Solidium executed its owner strategy by decreasing its holding in Outokumpu Oyj from 23.8 per cent to 22.8 per cent through the divestment of shares in the market for EUR 36 million and in SSAB AB by decreasing its holding from 17.1 per cent to 13.5 per cent for EUR 151 million. Solidium acquired shares in Konecranes plc for EUR 88 million increasing its holding from 3.2 per cent to 6.2 per cent
SOLIDIUM OY'S EVENTS
Annual General Meeting
Solidium's Annual General Meeting was held in Helsinki on 11 September 2018. The Annual General Meeting adopted the company's financial statements for the financial year
1 July 2017-30 June 2018 and discharged the members of the Board of Directors and the CEO from liability. In accordance with the Board's proposal, the Annual General Meeting decided on a profit distribution of EUR 351 million to the owner, which corresponds to the amount of dividends received by Solidium, taking the taxes payable on the dividends into consideration. For a term ending at the end of the next Annual General Meeting, the following persons were elected to the Board of Directors: Harri Sailas was elected as the Chairman, Eija Ailasmaa as the Vice Chairman, and Timo Ahopelto, Aaro Cantell, Markku Hyvarinen, Paula Lehtomaki, and Marjo Miettinen as Board members. The Annual General Meeting confirmed the existing remuneration of the Board of Directors: Chairman of the Board of Directors shall receive a remuneration of EUR 5,500 per month, the Vice Chairman EUR 3,000 per month, and each member EUR 2,500 per month. In addition, a meeting remuneration of EUR 600 was confirmed for each meeting. KPMG Oy Ab, authorised public accountants, with APA Raija-Leena Hankonen as the principal auditor, was appointed as Solidium's auditor to serve for a term ending at the end of the next Annual General Meeting.
Financial key indicators
Since 1 July 2017, Solidium has introduced section 5.2a of the Accounting Act regarding recognition of financial instruments, according to which shareholdings are valued at fair value on the balance sheet, and that changes in fair value are recorded in the fair value reserve in shareholders' equity. A deferred tax liability or deferred tax asset is recorded as a result of changes in fair value. Changes in fair value are not taxable because they are
not recognized in profit and loss.
Solidium's net profit for the financial year was EUR 350 million. Solidium's operating expenses were EUR 4.6 million, resulting in a management cost ratio of operations of 0.06% at an annual level. Solidium's net asset value increased as a result of the value changes of equity investments by EUR 0.4 billion during the review period and was EUR 8.0 billion at the end of the review period.
1 July 2017-
30 June 2018 1 July 2016-
30 June 2017 Operating profit, EUR million -4.6 -4.6 Profit for the period, EUR million 349.6 304.6 Return on investment at fair value, % 8.3 32.4 Management cost ratio of operations, % 0.06 0.07 Net asset value, EUR million 8,009.9 7,626.3 Financial liabilities, EUR million 350.0 350.0 Equity ratio, % 88 85 Profit distribution, EUR million 351.0 307.0 Average number of employees 11 11
* Comparative figures for the previous financial year are reported in accordance with the new accounting practice.
Solidium's Annual Report in English is available on Solidium's website at http://www.solidium.fi/en/publications-and-media/annual-report/ .
This report is unaudited.
Solidium Oy
Further information: CEO Antti Makinen, tel. +358 10 830 8905
Solidium is a limited liability company wholly owned by the State of Finland. Its mission is to strengthen and stabilise Finnish ownership in nationally important companies and increase the values of its holdings in the long term. The basis and core objective of Solidium's strategy is proper, value-enhancing asset management of its current holdings. Through its stakes, Solidium is a minority owner in twelve significant listed companies: Elisa, Kemira, Konecranes, Metso, Nokia, Outokumpu, Outotec, Sampo, SSAB, Stora Enso, Tieto and Valmet. The value of Solidium's total investment assets is approximately 8.5 billion euros.
Further information: www.solidium.fi.
Attachment
Dr Orion Penner wins $25,000 USD, for his innovative proposal for of an indicator of the extent to which a research publication represents a pivot between old and new ideas
PHILADELPHIA, Sept. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Clarivate Analytics, the global leader in providing trusted insights and analytics to enable researchers to accelerate discovery, today announced the recipient of the 2018 Eugene Garfield Award for Innovation in Citation Analysis at the 23rd Science and Technology Indicators Conference in Leiden, Netherlands. Launched in 2017, this award recognizes scientists working on innovative approaches in citation analysis that improve how we measure the impact of scientific research-also known as scientometrics-a field in which Garfield was a pioneer.
This year's recipient is Dr. Orion Penner, researcher and Ambizione Fellow in the Chair of Innovation and IP Policy within the College of Management of Technology at Ecole polytechnique federale de Lausanne. Originally trained in physics and complexity science, Penner applies tools from data science, economics and other social sciences to publication and patent databases to ask interesting questions about research and innovation as a system and how research careers evolve. Last year he was selected by the Swiss National Science Foundation for the prestigious Ambizione program, one of the most competitive funding schemes in Switzerland.
Dr. Penner's current research program focuses on researcher careers, in particular how success is influenced by the decisions individual researchers make in allocating research effort across multiple topics, or in selecting a new job or mentor. His findings speak directly to the present discussion surrounding the sustainability of the current academic career system.
In studying researcher careers Dr. Penner has pioneered the rigorous application of various natural language processing techniques, including topic models, to a variety of textual data arising from researcher careers. Through this award Penner will extend those techniques to the problem of identifying individual publications that have played an unusually pivotal role in scientific discourse.
Penner will receive $25,000 of prize money and access to Web of Science data, the world's largest publisher-neutral citation index. Penner will also have the opportunity to collaborate with the prestigious Institute for Scientific Information (ISI), which was originally established in 1960 by Dr Eugene Garfield. The ISI focuses on the development of existing and new scientometric approaches.
Scientometric data do not only provide researchers with insights about the impact of their work but they also help funding bodies and universities assess the impact of their research investments.
Upon receiving word that he was selected this year, Dr. Penner said, "This award affords me the opportunity to shift my research in a new direction that previously I felt was too risky. I see this as an excellent opportunity to step up efforts aimed at evaluating the current generation of machine learning and natural language processing algorithms as they may be applied to the citation and publication data in the Web of Science. The output will be of significant value to my ongoing research on academic careers, as well as in establishing my independent research program."
Professor Jonathan Adams, Director of ISI said, "Clarivate Analytics is delighted to select Dr. Orion Penner for the 2018 Eugene Garfield Award for Innovation in Citation Analysis for his innovative proposal points us towards an innovative idea about how we might to generate an indicator of the extent to which that paper could represents a pivot between old and new ideas. It does this by using the paper's forward and backward citation networks. This creative application of citation data from Web of Science is a perfect example of the type of inventive and inspiring research that Dr. Garfield supported throughout his long and distinguished career. It is equally an innovative path for Dr Penner, drawing on his experience but setting himself new objectives."
About Clarivate Analytics
Clarivate Analytics is the global leader in providing trusted insights and analytics to accelerate the pace of innovation. Building on a heritage going back more than a century and a half, we have built some of the most trusted brands across the innovation lifecycle, including Web of Science, Cortellis, Derwent, CompuMark, MarkMonitor and Techstreet. Today, Clarivate Analytics is a new and independent company on a bold entrepreneurial mission to help our clients radically reduce the time from new ideas to life-changing innovations. For more information, please visit clarivate.com.
About Eugene Garfield
As a pioneer in automated indexing and retrieval of information, Eugene Garfield developed numerous citation databases that have changed how scientists search and assess scholarly literature. These include the Clarivate Analytics Web of Science, which indexes the contents and the citation network of the world's premier scientific and scholarly journals and proceedings, and the Journal Citation Reports, which provides journal impact factors and other citation metrics describing the influence of journals and how they are related to one another. These are but two of Garfield's unprecedented, valuable, and enduring inventions. Garfield had many interests related to information science and technology, but one of the key threads across all of them is citation indexing and analysis and its impact on information retrieval, research assessment, and the study of the science of science.
About Web of Science
Web of Science is the world's most trusted and largest publisher-neutral citation index, powering global discovery and citation analytics across the sciences, social sciences and art & humanities. With over 1.4 billion cited references going back to 1900 and millions of users per day - from leading government and academic institutions and research-intensive corporations - the Web of Science citation network serves as the foundation for the Journal Impact Factor, InCites and other powerful and trusted citation-impact measures. The Web of Science helps researchers, research institutions, publishers and funders discover and assess the citation impact of over a century of research publications found in the most prestigious books, conference proceedings and journals.
About ISI
ISI is the 'university' of the Science & Academic Research group at Clarivate Analytics. It maintains the knowledge corpus upon which the Web of Science (WoS) and related information and analytical content, products and services are built; it disseminates that knowledge internally through reports and recommendations and externally through events, conferences and publications; and it carries out research to sustain, extend and improve the knowledge base.
Media Contact
Lisa.Hulme@clarivate.com
T: +44 7464 646536
Werbehinweise: Die Billigung des Basisprospekts durch die BaFin ist nicht als ihre Befurwortung der angebotenen Wertpapiere zu verstehen. Wir empfehlen Interessenten und potenziellen Anlegern den Basisprospekt und die Endgultigen Bedingungen zu lesen, bevor sie eine Anlageentscheidung treffen, um sich moglichst umfassend zu informieren, insbesondere uber die potenziellen Risiken und Chancen des Wertpapiers. Sie sind im Begriff, ein Produkt zu erwerben, das nicht einfach ist und schwer zu verstehen sein kann.
Third Point Offshore Investors Limited
(A closed-ended investment company incorporated in Guernsey with registration number47161)
LEI Number: 549300WXTCG65AQ7V644 Renewal Date- 20/12/2018
(The "Company")
13 SEPTEMBER 2018
BOARD CHANGE
Third Point Offshore Investors Limited (the "Company") announces that Marc-Antoine Autheman has stepped down as Non-Executive Chairman with immediate effect due to a perceived conflict with his other business interests.
Claire Whittet, Non-Executive Director of the Company since April 2017, has agreed to assume the role of acting Non-Executive Chairman with immediate effect. The Board intends to appoint an independent search company to identify suitable candidates for the position of Chairman.
Claire Whittet said "On behalf of the Board, I would like to thank Marc-Antoine Autheman for his significant contribution to the Company over the last 11 years. His hard work and wise counsel since the Company's launch has been invaluable and we all wish him well in his future endeavours."
A further announcement will be made in due course once a new Chairman has been selected.
Enquiries:
Company Website: www.thirdpointoffshore.com
Northern Trust International Fund Administration Services (Guernsey) Limited
The Company Secretary
Trafalgar Court
Les Banques
St Peter Port
Guernsey
GY1 3QL
Tel: 01481 745001
Foundation Issues Request for Proposals for Index of Industry Actions to End Smoking in This Generation
LONDON, Sept. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The Foundation for a Smoke-Free World today announced at the Global Tobacco and Nicotine Forum that it is calling for proposals to develop and implement the Smoke-Free Index. The index will critically evaluate industry progress toward achieving a smoke-free world and assess actions taken to undermine that progress. It will complement the World Health Organization Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) efforts by further examining necessary future transformation of the global tobacco industry and nicotine ecosystem to achieve a world free of the core products - combustible cigarettes - that are responsible for preventable and premature death and morbidity.
The Smoke-Free Index is part of the Foundation's Industry Transformation initiative that will report on industry practices to drive effective change, and is a core pillar of the Foundation's overall mission to achieve a smoke-free world within this generation. The Foundation believes this is the ideal time to execute this transformation program since unprecedented and innovative technologies are currently leading to nicotine-delivery products that may have reduced health risks compared to those associated with emissions found specifically in combustible cigarettes. The Foundation will seek to engage various stakeholders, including its critics, to successfully implement this Index and develop metrics that investors and policy-makers understand, value, and utilize.
"Senior global health leaders have started to acknowledge the importance of tobacco industry transformation and what this means for how we engage in building solutions," said Dr. Derek Yach, President of Foundation for a Smoke-Free World. "It is long overdue that tobacco companies use their leverage in the market to assert greater influence on each other to act far more decisively to end the use of combustible cigarettes globally."
The Foundation is issuing a Request for Proposals (RFP) for qualified research organizations to develop and implement the first annual Smoke-Free Index. Applicants will be evaluated based on a number of criteria, including alignment with the Foundation's mission, expertise and prior experience, global research capabilities, demonstrated quality assurance and oversight processes, cost, and timeline. All applicants must be independent from tobacco and e-cigarette companies. The RFP process will identify one to three grantees who will carry out the work independently of the Foundation.
The Smoke-Free Index will provide quantifiable evidence of how companies are addressing industry transformation. The Foundation anticipates the collection and compilation of verifiable metrics on research and development, shifts in capital expenditures and marketing spending, investments aimed at phasing out cigarette production - and much more. Through the Index, the awarded grantee(s) will also deploy a systematic approach in collecting verifiable data and specific examples of illegal actions or those incompatible with good corporate practices.
"Our main goal is to save lives. Although the Foundation accepts industry funding, we have a binding pledge agreement that ensures our independence, and we are not afraid to speak out critically about any tobacco company," Yach continued. "Progress can and will be accelerated by technology disruption and by changing the very structure of the tobacco industry and nicotine ecosystem, starting with the biggest players," he added.
The Smoke-Free Index RFP submission process is detailed on the Foundation's website. The RFP process will be completed by the end of 2018, and the grantee(s) will be awarded in January 2019. The inaugural Smoke-Free Index will be published during the first half of 2020, and subsequent reports will be issued annually thereafter.
ABOUT THE FOUNDATION FOR A SMOKE-FREE WORLD, INC.
The Foundation for a Smoke-Free World is an independent, non-profit organization with the purpose of improving global health by ending smoking in this generation. The Foundation supports its mission through three core pillars: Health, Science and Technology; the Agriculture Transformation Initiative; and Industry Transformation. The Foundation's Health, Science, and Technology work complements ongoing tobacco control efforts and focuses on countries where most smokers live, bringing a smoker-oriented agenda to accelerate quitting and switching to reduced-harm products. The Agricultural Transformation Initiative aims to diversify tobacco dependent economies, and the Foundation's Industry Transformation efforts focus on attaining change within the entire global tobacco industry and nicotine ecosystem.
The Foundation has received a pledge of $80 million annually for 12 years, beginning in 2018 from Philip Morris International (PMI). Under the Foundation's bylaws and Pledge Agreement, PMI and the tobacco industry, generally, are precluded from having any control or influence over how the Foundation spends its funds or focuses its activities. The Foundation's acceptance of the annual pledge does not constitute an endorsement by the Foundation of any of the pledgor's products.
For more information about the Foundation, please visit www.smokefreeworld.org.
Jared Bauer Named Interim CEO and Details Seven-Point Go-Forward Strategy
SALT LAKE CITY, UT / ACCESSWIRE / September 13, 2018 / ProLung, Inc. ("ProLung" or the "Company") today announced the Company is taking significant steps to better align its product, regulatory, marketing, and consulting functions by focusing upon research and development. This realignment will strengthen the Company's ability to bring the product through FDA approval and to successful commercialization. The Company also announced its appointment of Jared Bauer as interim CEO, as well as additional executive changes.
The ProLung Test shows great promise helping extend lung cancer patient lives. Over the past few months, the Company has enjoyed many successes on its path to market, including finalizing its FDA De Novo application and securing an appointment with the FDA for September of 2018.
"Unfortunately, thirteen years under the former CEO Steve Eror's "slow play" strategy have taken their toll on the Company's operations. Mr. Eror's strategy has led ProLung into a costly and unwieldy corporate structure. Under the previous leadership, ProLung allocated heavy resources to marketing, accounting and medical teams while underfunding, understaffing and outsourcing key technical functions. This approach has failed shareholders. The Company's key differentiators - its hardware and software capabilities - have been outsourced.
"Your Board and the senior leadership team is realigning the business to address these shortcomings with every available resource in an expeditious manner, while continuing to pursue ProLung's uninterrupted development. The Company will be applying medical technology industry-demonstrated best practices to reframe ProLung as a lean, energetic company with an experienced product-focused staff and a strong research and development focus. These changes will allow the Company to effectively improve lung cancer diagnostics and responsibly return value to its shareholders."
Robert Raybould, Vice Chair of the Board of Directors
Executive Changes
The Company is pleased to announce that it has appointed Jared Bauer as interim CEO. Mr. Bauer brings over a decade of leadership in the medical device industry and looks forward to steering ProLung through this transitional phase and further along the path to market. Michael Garff will return to his position as COO where he will prioritize FDA approval.
"I am excited to join the ProLung team. Moving forward, the management and executive team will be characterized by deep medical technology industry-specific expertise. The new team is prepared to enhance ProLung's research and development function, improve regulatory compliance, and achieve FDA approval. In order to do so, the Company is announcing reductions in non-essential staff as part of the reorganization to focus on ProLung's core technology. The Company has also hired an outside accounting firm to perform its accounting and prepare SEC filings, which will ensure transparency in its accounting practices moving forward."
Jared Bauer, Interim CEO
"Your Board and management team are committed to full transparency and look forward to making demonstrable steps that will mend the relationship between the Company and its shareholders. The team is eager to create an effective diagnostic product that can make a difference for lung cancer patients, and provide a better opportunity to earn a financial reward for its shareholders while doing so."
Robert Raybould, Vice Chair of the Board of Directors
The Company is also announcing the following changes:
In order to assist the Company with cost-cutting, Mark Anderson resigned as CFO. ProLung will outsource its accounting and finance needs going forward to save shareholder money. Mr. Anderson will continue to add value as a member of the Board. We wish Mr. Anderson continued success and commend him for his efforts at ProLung.
Andy Robertson, currently Chief Marketing Officers, will become VP of Business Development. Mr. Robertson will pay particular attention to increasing partnerships, improving relationships with distribution partners, reimbursement, and utilizing ProLung's CE mark.
Corporate Strategy
In a letter to shareholders attached to this press release, Mr. Bauer has expressed in a comprehensive manner the reasons he accepted the position of interim CEO, his assessment of the past management problems experienced by the Company, the challenges confronting the Company, and his plan for the future success of the Company. Mr. Bauer believes this will require a paradigm shift towards prioritizing the product and maintaining its unique value. Your Board has outlined a new Seven-Point Strategy that defines how this can be achieved:
Full Transparency. The ProLung team is committed to full transparency. This includes celebrating successes together with its investors as well as addressing setbacks in a timely manner. Starting today, the Company will also renew its regular updates via email, and will meet with shareholders as often as possible for a public company. Focus on the Core Team. The Company looks forward to re-organizing and re-deploying its internal talent to focus on regulatory affairs, science and technology, with the driving goal of supporting ProLung's FDA De Novo submission. This requires ensuring that the right people with the right skills are in the right positions to navigate the ProLung Test along the path toward FDA approval and marketplace penetration. Technology Focus on ProLung Test Performance. Technological performance will ultimately determine ProLung's success. Therefore, technological progress dictates ProLung's future. Improving our internal technology processes requires collaborating with the right experts, including statisticians to optimize our predictive algorithm, FDA experts to fine-tune our De Novo submission, regulatory and quality experts to ensure that we are compliant with regulations, and engineers that can characterize the ProLung System and patient database as well as address end of life and patient data privacy regulations. Leveraging our Clinical Partnerships. The Company will regularly engage with key Primary Investigators (lead researchers for clinical trials) to determine the publication strategy for PL-208, commercial strategies, and next steps on an ongoing basis. Our current partners include MD Anderson in Houston, Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, and Loyola in Chicago. Where applicable, we will engage with additional medical experts. Cultivate our Strategic Partnerships. The Company intends to both nurture its strategic relationships as well as identify additional potential partners. Our goals include: (1) a potential strategic partner exit, (2) utilizing existing go-to-market teams that will deliver more rapid and less costly revenue, and (3) licensing our product to improve the performance of the ProLung Test, or to increase the size of the lung cancer product offering. Gain Reimbursement for ProLung Test. As reimbursement drives doctors' purchasing behavior in the United States, the Company intends to leverage its growing base of evidence for codes. We must invest in this process now, as it requires published evidence of our clinical validation study, as well as the product efficacy in the marketplace, in order to support an explosive go-to-market strategy and generate revenue. Maximize and Protect our Financial Capital. Our goal is to ensure that our capital spending, and shareholders' investment, is cost-effective and provides the Company with maximum flexibility. We will better allocate our remaining capital by focusing on our essential business objectives rather than the residual structure left by the former CEO. This will likely include fundraising, so ProLung will have time and resources to make the best possible choices for the product and the flexibility to return the highest possible value to shareholders.
"We are confident that adhering to these strategic principles and strengthening its executive team with industry-specific experience will reinvigorate ProLung's ability to make great strides in lung cancer diagnostics, improve lung cancer patient outcomes, and provide a better path to return value to its shareholders."
Scott Nixon, Director
Sincerely yours,
THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF PROLUNG, INC.
Michael Garff, Mark V. Anderson, Robert W. Raybould, J. Scott Nixon and Jared Bauer
Media Contact:
Phil Denning- ICR Inc.
Phil.Denning@ICRinc.com
(646)277-1258
About ProLung, Inc.
The mission of ProLung, Inc. ("ProLung" or the "Company") is to make a difference in time for lung cancer patients. ProLung is the world leader in innovative predictive analytics technology and non-invasive tests for the risk stratification of lung cancer. The Company develops, tests, and commercializes solutions which may shorten the time to diagnosis and expand the therapeutic window for lung cancer patients. ProLung's predictive analytics platform for lung cancer risk stratification is approved for sale in the European Economic Area and investigational use in the USA.
Important Additional Information
ProLung, its directors and certain of its officers are participants in the solicitation of consent revocations from ProLung's stockholders in connection with the consent solicitation conducted by Mr. Steven C. Eror and certain other persons acting in concert therewith (the "Consent Solicitation"). On August 27, 2017, Company filed a definitive consent revocation statement and GOLD consent revocation card with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (the "SEC") in connection with any such solicitation of consent revocations from the Company's stockholders. STOCKHOLDERS OF THE COMPANY ARE STRONGLY ENCOURAGED TO READ SUCH CONSENT REVOCATION STATEMENT, ACCOMPANYING GOLD CONSENT REVOCATION CARD AND ALL OTHER DOCUMENTS FILED WITH THE SEC CAREFULLY AND IN THEIR ENTIRETY WHEN THEY BECOME AVAILABLE AS THEY WILL CONTAIN IMPORTANT INFORMATION. Our definitive consent revocation statement contains information regarding the direct and indirect interest, by securities holdings or otherwise, of the Company's directors and executive officers in the Company's securities. In the event that the holdings of the Company's securities change from the amounts provided in our definitive consent revocation statement, such changes will be set forth in SEC filings on Forms 3, 4 and 5, which can be found through the Company's website at www.prolunginc.com in the section "Investor Relations" or through the SEC's website at www.sec.gov. Stockholders will be able to obtain any consent revocation statement, any amendments or supplements to our consent revocation statement and other documents filed by the Company with the SEC at no charge at the SEC's website at www.sec.gov. Copies will also be available at no charge at the Company's website at www.prolunginc.com in the section "Investor Relations."
Forward-Looking Statements
This release may contain forward-looking statements regarding projected business performance, operating results, financial condition and other aspects of the Company, expressed by such language as "expected,""anticipated,""projected" and "forecasted." Please be advised that such statements are estimates only and there is no assurance that the results stated or implied by forward-looking statements will actually be realized by the Company. Forward-looking statements may be based on management assumptions that prove to be wrong. The Company and its business are subject to substantial risks and potential events beyond its control that would cause material differences between predicted results and actual results, including the Company incurring operating losses and experiencing unexpected material adverse events.
APPENDIX
September 13, 2018
Dear ProLung Shareholders and Colleagues,
I have accepted the position of interim CEO of ProLung, Inc. It is an honor to be given the opportunity to work with each of you and to lead ProLung in its next phase of growth. I am excited by what lies ahead and have already become fully immersed in the Company. I am acutely aware that most of you do not know me. While I look forward to meeting you in person, I want to share why I am excited about ProLung's future and the new initiatives ProLung will be pursuing.
What Excites Me About ProLung
With experience as a hands-on CEO for multiple medtech companies, it is clear that ProLung has a unique opportunity to save lives. I believe that if we are able to make the ProLung device commercially viable and can successfully get through the initial FDA De Novo application, we have a solid market waiting for us.
I have spent the last few weeks closely analyzing the company, its history, its current issues, the way it has allocated its resources, and more. What I have uncovered and observed is deeply disturbing, but also fixable. First, let me preface my findings with facts.
There Are Critical Facts You Need to be Aware of
In the 13 years that Mr. Eror led ProLung as its CEO, he consistently assembled a Board of Directors WITHOUT specialized medtech / biotech experience. Perhaps more surprising is that his "enlarged and enhanced" proposed Board is also missing expertise in this key area.
As a result of the former CEO's misconduct with employees, ProLung has been served with a sexual harassment charge by the Labor Commission of the State of Utah.
The ProLung System is built on outdated hardware and software using many key components that are no longer manufactured, supported by the original manufacturers or compliant with basic regulatory guidelines.
ProLung does not have, and for many years has not had, the hardware or software development competency to develop and implement critical solutions.
Numerous outside consultants have been alienated by our former CEO, Steven Eror, and will not work with us as long as he has any role with ProLung.
ProLung does not have reimbursement codes to allow facilities to pay for the ProLung Test, which is critical to successful commercialization.
ProLung has not broken the data blind on our pivotal validation study (PL-208) and does not know how the ProLung Test performed. Anyone saying or implying otherwise, is either guessing or not being truthful.
There Are Challenges We Need to Address Immediately
Traditionally, in pre-revenue and pre-FDA approval med-tech companies, the product receives the internal focus. At ProLung, we see the opposite. While millions of dollars have been spent on building the organization, very few resources have been allocated to product research, development, improvement, or the pursuit of the constantly moving standards required by regulatory authorities. Instead, ProLung spent its money on an ill-advised, ill-timed failed IPO process, non-exclusive consultants, marketing teams (for a product that is not approved for sale), and other support staff that is non-essential and has limited value at this stage.
As noted above, I am absolutely committed to building out a Board of Directors with medtech and biotech experience that can efficiently guide our company forward. In the past few weeks, ProLung has vetted numerous candidates and spent considerable time with five leading candidates for Board or consulting roles. The combined backgrounds of these five former CEOs and functional leaders boast decades of medtech and biotech leadership at the highest levels, specifically in the areas of product development, regulatory submissions, commercialization, mergers and acquisitions and fund raising. Specifically, we have interviewed and are considering the following:
a candidate with biotech operational experience and pulmonary experience as CEO;
a scientist with deep cancer diagnostic expertise;
an National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD) Governance Fellow with pulmonary expertise as a board member, who is well-connected with senior medtech and biotech executives;
a mechanical engineer with hands-on product development experience for diagnostic and biological detection products; and
a CEO with extensive medtech operational acumen.
You have my commitment that I will help construct a Board of Directors with these critical skills who can, and will, hold a CEO accountable. You should not accept a Board less qualified (i.e. without medtech experience) or not independent from the CEO.
Focusing on Product Development and Gaining FDA Approval
Beginning today, we will begin an immediate restructuring of ProLung with a direct focus on developing our product, gaining FDA clearance, and building a team with solid product expertise. Changes will include laying off staff that are not essential to where we really are as a company, instead of where we would hope to be some day. We will reorganize the remaining staff with a focus on our core technology. Over the next few months, we will analyze potential changes to our system that will allow us to comply with current regulations and make improvements in our hardware and software.
We will be taking some immediate actions, which we believe will save up to $1 million annually, including:
Aligning our staffing with the actual size and phase of the Company, which will lead to an initial annual savings of approximately $600,000. We expect some offset of that reduction by hiring experts in key areas that will lead to a more sensitive and specific system.
Implementing corporate policies that require a broader approval for higher level employees, and that will place an immediate freeze on salary increases.
Shifting from a full-time CFO and accounting department to an outside contractor arrangement.
Outsourcing marketing, which will also reduce costs but also utilize external expertise on reimbursement codes, pricing and our target market.
Our Seven-Point Strategy for Success
Effective today, all staff will be working from our new Seven-Point Strategy, which is outlined below:
Full Transparency. The ProLung team is committed to full transparency. This includes celebrating successes together with its investors as well as addressing setbacks in a timely manner. Starting today, the Company will also renew its regular updates via email, and will meet with shareholders as often as possible for a public company. Focus on the Core Team. The Company looks forward to re-organizing and re-deploying its internal talent to focus on regulatory affairs, science and technology, with the driving goal of supporting ProLung's FDA De Novo submission. This requires ensuring that the right people with the right skills are in the right positions to navigate the ProLung Test along the path toward FDA approval and marketplace penetration. Technology Focus on ProLung Test Performance. Technological performance will ultimately determine ProLung's success. Therefore, technological progress dictates ProLung's future. Improving our internal technology processes requires collaborating with the right experts, including statisticians to optimize our predictive algorithm, FDA experts to fine-tune our De Novo submission, regulatory and quality experts to ensure that we are compliant with regulations, and engineers that can characterize the ProLung System and patient database as well as address end of life and patient data privacy regulations. Leveraging our Clinical Partnerships. The Company will regularly engage with key Primary Investigators (lead researchers for clinical trials) to determine the publication strategy for our pivotal validation study (PL-208), commercial strategies, and next steps on an ongoing basis. Our current partners include MD Anderson in Houston, Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, and Loyola in Chicago. Where applicable, we will engage with additional medical experts. Cultivate our Strategic Partnerships. The Company intends to both nurture its strategic relationships as well as identify additional potential partners. Our goals include: (1) a potential strategic partner exit, (2) utilizing existing go-to-market teams that will deliver more rapid and less costly revenue, and (3) licensing our product to improve the performance of the ProLung Test, or to increase the size of the lung cancer product offering. Gain Reimbursement for ProLung Test. As reimbursement drives doctors' purchasing behavior in the United States, the Company intends to leverage its growing base of evidence for codes. We must invest in this process now, as it requires published evidence of our clinical validation study, as well as the product efficacy in the marketplace, in order to support an explosive go-to-market strategy and generate revenue. Maximize and protect our financial capital. Our goal is to ensure that our capital spending, and shareholders' investment, is cost-effective and provides the Company with maximum flexibility. We will better allocate our remaining capital by focusing on our essential business objectives rather than the residual structure left by the former CEO. This will likely include fundraising, so ProLung will have time and resources to make the best possible choices for the product and the flexibility to return the highest possible value to shareholders.
As a company we face significant challenges. Many of these challenges seem to be masked by the current proxy fight launched by Steven Eror. While I do not intend to make that fight mine, I will make the following statement regarding the previous management based on my extensive review of the organization over the past several weeks.
During my early analysis of ProLung, it became very clear that the previous management team has nearly ZERO knowledge of what it takes to run an early stage med-tech startup, get a product through an FDA 510(k) De Novo application, and manage a pre-revenue company.
For years, the Company had the wrong team, controlled almost entirely by one person, Steven Eror. It is evidenced by ProLung's lack of internal knowledge regarding the product, the lack of communication between various departments, software and hardware systems (essential to the product validity) that were outdated a decade ago, out of control spending, very few internal checks and balances, failure to implement or follow policies and procedures, a Board of Directors with less medtech or industry knowledge than was needed, and a general lack of credibility in the marketplace due to the previous leadership's lack of accountability for key development milestones.
ProLung's Path Forward
ProLung is at a crossroads with their current FDA application and preparations to break the blind on the data. Moving forward we will be more systematic, strategic, and intelligent in the decisions we make, in the professionals that we hire, and in our approach with shareholders and investors. ProLung needs a solid team of experts who, when things are difficult, can encourage quick decision making and implement solutions. This will allow us to give the FDA solid answers based on facts and real data moving forward. Let me be clear, having worked with the FDA for many years, as well as regulatory bodies in over 50 countries: data is the ONLY thing that counts.
I cannot predict the future of ProLung, but I can say without hesitation that these changes will greatly increase the likelihood of success for our product, and ultimately a return to our shareholders.
I look forward to getting to know you better as we work together to make ProLung a success.
Sincerely Yours,
Jared Bauer, Interim Chief Executive Officer
SOURCE: ProLung, Inc.
View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/511874/ProLung-Inc-Announces-Organizational-Changes-to-Sharpen-Focus-on-Achieving-FDA-Approval-and-Successful-Commercialization
WATERLOO, Ontario, Sept. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Intellijoint Surgical Inc., a privately-held Canadian medical technology company, announces entry into the European market beginning with the United Kingdom (UK). Intellijoint Surgical's flagship product, Intellijoint HIP, received CE Mark (Conformite Europeenne) approval in October 2017 and has recently completed registration for entry into the UK.
Photo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/743307/Intellijoint.jpg
Intellijoint HIP is a 3D mini-optical navigation system that provides real-time, intraoperative measurements for cup position, leg length, offset, and hip centre of rotation for total hip replacements (THR). This navigation system is suitable for primary or revision THR, regardless of surgical approach, and is compatible with all implant vendors. With an added average operating theatre time of only 2.9 minutes, it is very fast and orthopaedic surgeons become efficient users within five procedures or less. Intellijoint HIP is accessible and affordably priced, enabling hospitals to 'pay as you go' as an alternative to large capital investments.
"In just two short years of commercialization in the United States and Australia, Intellijoint HIP has been used in over 5,000 procedures by some of the world's top orthopaedic hospitals," explained Armen Bakirtzian, Intellijoint CEO & Co-Founder. "Entry into the UK will give us access to over an additional 110,000 THRs annually and a launch point for further expansion into Europe."
Intellijoint HIP provides cup position angles accurate to within less than one degree and leg length measurements accurate to within 0.3 - 0.8 millimetres. Two clinical studies have been accepted for presentation at the ISTA 31st Annual Congress in LondonOctober 2018 that further discuss the added accuracy Intellijoint HIP brings for delivering a functional cup position and how Intellijoint HIP can reduce dislocation rates post revision THR.
"Intellijoint HIP is innovative navigation that provides measurements and data that I cannot access during non-navigated THR," said Allan Gross, MD, orthopaedic surgeon at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, Canada. "I have been able to participate in the evolution of Intellijoint HIP from prototype to a simple fully featured navigation system. International expansion - beginning with the UK - will give surgeons, globally, access to highly accurate navigation for implant positioning without the high cost and operating theatre time-add associated with traditional navigation."
If you are a surgeon, hospital administrator or distributor in the UK interested in learning more about Intellijoint HIP, please visit www.intellijointsurgical.com and contact us at sales@intellijointsurgical.com.
About Intellijoint Surgical:
Intellijoint Surgical develops and commercializes surgical navigation solutions. Intellijoint's flagship product, Intellijoint HIP provides surgeons with real-time, intraoperative measurements to ensure proper size selection and positioning of orthopaedic implants during total hip replacements. Intellijoint is committed to improving patients' lives by providing every surgeon with effective, easy-to-use technology.
Intellijoint Surgical is the recipient of the North American Frost & Sullivan Enabling Technology Leadership Award and the Futurpreneur Shopify True Grit Award.
Media Contact: Rebecca MacIntyre, Marketing & Communications Manager, r.macintyre@intellijointsurgical.com, Mobile: +1 (647) 861-6800
After the success of the share issue carried out in June 2018, WALLIX (Euronext symbol: ALLIX), a software company providing cyber-security solutions, is currently rolling out an ambitious international growth plan via the launch of a "Cyber" world tour, during which the Group will take part in 17 IT events by the end of the year. This is a clear sign of the priority the European cyber-security expert is giving to growing its market share in the EMEA region and North America by expanding its network of resellers and strategic partners.
INTERNATIONAL GROWTH, A KEY FEATURE OF THE "AMBITION 2021" PLAN
Currently delivering solutions in 55 countries, WALLIX is investing in international growth with a view to covering 80% of the global market by 2021.
This ambition entails increased involvement in international events attended by key cyber-security players in Germany, the Middle East, Benelux and the USA over the last four months of the year, generally a peak period for customer demand for solutions.
In October alone, WALLIX will exhibit at the following events:
IP Expo in London, the digital transformation event that covers cyber-security issues;
Security Congress in New Orleans, organized by (ISC) 2 and attended by international cyber-security experts;
and attended by international cyber-security experts; IT SA in Nuremberg, the flagship event in Germany,
Les Assises cyber-security event in Monaco, a must-attend event for the market,
Digital Industry Summit in Paris, in partnership with Siemens, which seeks to address digitization challenges facing industrial companies.
By taking part in these events, WALLIX plans to extend its value-added reseller network, acquire new advisor-integrator partners to assist customers in the deployment of cyber solutions, and cement new strategic alliances in key sectors currently undergoing digital transformation, such as healthcare, finance, industry, retail and cloud operators.
By expanding its global footprint, the WALLIX Group also seeks to enhance its capacity to meet the needs of large multinationals that generally operate through a number of locations and subsidiaries.
ABOUT WALLIX
A software company providing cyber security solutions, WALLIX Group is a European specialist in privileged account
governance.
In response to recent regulatory change (NIS/GDPR in Europe and OVIs in France) and the cyber security threats affecting all companies today, Bastion helps users protect their critical IT assets: data, servers, terminals and connected objects. It is the first market solution to have been awarded first-level security certification (CSPN) by France's National Cybersecurity Agency (ANSSI) and thus meet all of the criteria for regulatory compliance
WALLIX accompanies more than 570 companies and organizations on a day-to-day basis, securing the access to more than 200,000 hardware and software resources. Its solutions are marketed through a network of more than 130 resellers and trained and accredited integrators. Listed on Euronext under the code ALLIX, WALLIX Group is a leader on the PAM market with a strong presence throughout Europe and EMEA. Alain Afflelou, Dassault Aviation, Gulf Air, Maroc Telecom, McDonald's, Michelin, and PSA Peugeot-Citroen trust WALLIX to secure their information systems.
WALLIX Bastion was a winner at the 2016 Computing Security Awards and has been rated Best Buy by SC Magazine, as well as being named among the PAM leaders in the Product and Innovation categories of the KuppingerCole 2017 Leadership Compass report. The company is a member of Bpifrance Excellence, a champion of the Pole Systematic Paris Region cluster and a founding member of the Hexatrust grouping of cyber security companies. In 2017, WALLIX Group was included in Forbes France's Futur40 ranking of fastest-growing listed companies.
For more information, visit the WALLIX website at: www.wallix.com
ACTUS finance & communication
Natacha Morandi - Investor Relations
Tel. +33 (0)1 53 67 36 94 / wallix@actus.fr ACTUS finance & communication
Nicolas Bouchez - Financial Press Relations
Tel. +33 (0)1 53 67 36 74 / nbouchez@actus.fr
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Full and original release in PDF format:https://www.actusnews.com/documents_communiques/ACTUS-0-54965-cp-wallix_worldtour_uk_v5.0.pdf
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - September 13, 2018) - BTV-Business Television visits mining companies from around the world including Peru and the Yukon and learns of a rapid lithium extraction technology. Full Episode
Chakana Copper Corp. (TSXV: PERU) - With comments from Ralph Aldis, Portfolio Manager at US Global Investors, BTV visits a copper project in Peru situated in a highly mineralized copper-gold belt, and only 35km next to a major mine. See Feature
Tinka Resources LTD. (TSXV: TK) (BVL: TK) - BTV shares how this company's timing, with their high grade discovery, is right to meet the increasing demand for Zinc. See Feature
Victoria Gold (TSXV: VIT) - BTV continues to follow the impressive construction progress of Canada's next gold mine situated in the Yukon. See Feature
MGX Minerals (CSE: XMG) (OTCQB: MGXMF) - BTV goes on location showcasing their technology for rapid lithium brine extraction as MGX advances the transition from fossil fuels to renewables. See Feature
Nighthawk Gold Corp. (TSX: NHK) (OTCQX: MIMZF) - is focused on advancing their Colomac Gold Project with a current inferred resource of 2.6 million ounces of gold. Weighing in with BTV on this company is Mick Carew, Mining Analyst at Haywood Securities. See Feature
BTV, a half-hour weekly investment program, profiles emerging companies across Canada and the US to bring investors information for their portfolio. With Hosts Taylor Thoen and Jessica Katrichak, BTV interviews experts, top analysts, plus features companies at their location for an insightful business perspective.
BTV BROADCAST TIMES:
CANADA: BNN - Saturday Sept. 15 @ 8:00pm EST, Sunday Sept. 16 @ 9:30pm EST
Bell Express Vu - Saturday Sept. 15@ 8:00pm EST, Sunday Sept. 16 @ 9:30pm EST
Air Canada: TV Seatback: Business Channel
U.S. National:
Biz Television Network - Sun Sept. 23 @ 10:00pm & 4:30pm PST, Sat Sept. 29 @ 9:00pm PST
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Contact: (604) 664-7401 x3 info@b-tv.com
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STOCKHOLM, Sept. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Itiviti, the leading global provider of multi-asset trading technology and financial infrastructure, has partnered with Brazilian risk management provider LOTE45, a prominent technology provider to the buy-side industry. The combination of Itiviti's NYFIX independent trading hub with LOTE45's Asset Portfolio Manager (APM) and Compliance Portfolio Manager (CPM) will provide asset managers an execution platform, with full regulatory framework verification.
LOTE45's pre-order CPM system allows robust regulatory framework checks before executing trades that comply with CVM555, BACEN 4661, CMN 4444, 1585, Managerial Funds Regulations and managerial set ups. The order flow will leverage Itiviti's NYFIX trading hub to reach capital markets and brokers worldwide, while post-execution, the APM system will calculate the net asset value (NAV) online; measure risk through stress tests, historical and parametric value at risk (VaR); as well as performance attribution for any period.
The solution connects onshore and offshore administrators and dealers through Itiviti's award-winning NYFIX Marketplace client connectivity service, which combines global reach and regional proximity. LOTE45 leverages the NYFIX platform's ability to seamlessly connect with any OMS solutions; this "plug and connect" feature positions NYFIX as the natural go-to solution for local and regional vendors looking to expand their international footprint at minimal cost and within a short timeframe.
LOTE45 is already the sixth Brazilian partner firm to join Itiviti's Global Alliance Programme (GAP), the umbrella under which the company manages all partner relationships globally, enabling clients to leverage a highly integrated network of providers.
"We've launched our new trading platform, offering a full execution platform through the integration with NYFIX" says Ronei Frigerio, LOTE45 CEO. "LOTE45 has made great strides by adding new clients and expanding the scope of our offering. We needed a short time-to-market launch and were impressed with the versatility and integrated services of NYFIX. This partnership enables us to focus on our business ensuring our clients immediately get access to capital markets."
"Through the Itiviti Global Alliance Programme, we are building a strong community of technology providers, both traditional and SaaS/cloud-based, that want to work with an agnostic, un-conflicted vendor," says Philippe Carre, Global Partnerships Director at Itiviti. "We are not a buy-side technology provider ourselves and do not compete with our partners; it is in our interests to ensure NYFIX connections are lit up quickly and efficiently, while providing participants security and robustness. Our strategic vision remains to operate a global connectivity utility for trading and post-trade services."
For further information, please contact:
Itiviti
Philippe Carre, Global Partnerships Director, Itiviti, Tel: +44-797-995-4548, Email: philippe.carre@ullink.com
Megan Geldman, Senior Marketing Manager Americas, Itiviti, Tel: +1-312-541-4181, Email: megan.geldman@itiviti.com
LOTE45
Ronei F Frigerio, partner, LOTE45, Tel: +5511-2127-4500/ 11-9-8245-2302
About Itiviti
tiviti is a market-leading global provider of multi-asset trading technology and financial infrastructure solutions for buy-side and sell-side market participants, including NYFIX, one of the industry's largest FIX-based trading communities.
Serving around 2000 clients worldwide, we provide consistent, reliable access to the most up-to-date and innovative order routing, connectivity and trading solutions available. Top-tier trading firms, banks, brokers, exchanges and institutional investors rely on our technology, solutions and expertise to streamline their daily operations, connect to their desired markets, and trade when and where they want. All while being able to comply with global regulation.
With global offices in 18 locations covering all major financial centers the merger of Itiviti and ULLINK in March 2018 created a full-service technology and infrastructure provider, covering all asset classes, geographies and regulatory landscapes.
For more information, please visit www.itiviti.com or www.ullink.com.
Itiviti is owned by Nordic Capital Fund VII.
About LOTE45
LOTE45 is a Brazilian global provider company of risk and operational management system trusted by over 70 of the Brazilian's top-tier Portfolio Managers, insurance companies and Family offices. LOTE45 began its operations in April 2006 with focus on asset management and financial advisory but in April 2008 started offering global Risk and compliance solutions through APM- Asset Portfolio Manager. The "name" LOTE45 is a tribute to the investment bank Garantia founded by Jorge Paulo Lemann and its unique and strong culture. The word "LOTE" means harvest while "45" was the number that Garantia used to have on the floor in the stock exchange Bovespa and BM&F in Brazil. Thus, the name LOTE45 refers to "Garantia's unique harvest" and excellence culture.
For further information, please visit http://www.lote45.com.br/BR/index.php.
Follow Itiviti on social media on Twitter @Itiviti_AB, on Facebook @ItivitiAB, and on LinkedIn.
This information was brought to you by Cision http://news.cision.com
http://news.cision.com/itiviti-group-ab/r/lote45-partners-with-itiviti-s-nyfix-for-new-execution-platform,c2617030
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BARCELONA, Spain', September 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --
The third edition of In(3D)ustry (http://www.in3dustry.com.) will showcase some of the main 3D-printing applications in the medical sector, one of the most innovative sectors that uses this technology. Among the speakers participating are representatives from GE Venture Healthcare, United Therapeutics, Aprecia Pharmaceutical and 3DHEALS, among others.
(Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/659718/Fira_Barcelona_Logo.jpg )
(Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/743684/Fira_de_Barcelona.jpg )
From 16 to 18 October, Hall 8 of Fira de Barcelona's Montjuic venue will host the third edition of the In(3D)ustry, the trade show focusing on the main 3D printing applications in the industrial sector. 35 international experts and representatives from leading companies within industries such as automotive, retail, healthcare, manufacturing and aeronautics will explain how they are implementing additive manufacturing in their production processes. This year, taking advantage of the joint celebration with Healthio, the event about innovation in healthcare also organized by Fira de Barcelona, In(3D)ustry will have a special focus on healthcare.
In this sense, the show will feature leading international speakers as Dr. Jaedeok Yoo, researcher and founder of Aprecia Pharmaceuticals, and specialized in the manufacture of 3D drugs that allows the customization of drug dosage according to the specific needs of every patient and also the acceleration of its dissolution improving its morphology.
The participants will also include Jessica Zeaske, investment director of GE Ventures Healthcare, General Electric's health-related risk capital fund, which manages a portfolio of 75 companies with a large technological innovation component, as well as Luis Alvarez, head of organ manufacturing at United Therapeutics, one of the companies with the highest level of innovation in the race to produce human organs in the not-too-distant future.
Another leading speaker will be neuroradiologist Dr. Jenny Chen, founder and CEO of 3DHeals, a platform devoted to connecting the entire global healthcare 3D printing ecosystem by creating communities throughout the world, and Dr. Pedro Martinez Seijas, physician at the HM Vigo Hospital and a pioneer in the use of 3DP in Spain in oral and maxillofacial surgery.
The event is planned around a stage where speakers representing 5 sectors (automotive, aeronautics, retail, health and industry) will explain how they are implementing additive manufacturing in their production processes.
Apart from the 35 speakers that will participate in the arena, In(3D)ustry will host 40 companies, a congress on robotics and a contest on innovative projects based on 3D printing.
VCAS for DVB Cardless Helps Major Operator in Ukraine Transition to Hybrid Network Delivery
AMSTERDAM, Sept. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- IBC 2018 (Booth # 5.A59) -- Verimatrix, a specialist in securing and enhancing revenue for network-connected devices and services, today announced that 1+1 Media, one of the largest media holdings in Ukraine, has deployed the Verimatrix Video Content Authority System (VCAS) for DVB to secure its digital satellite (DVB-S) network.
"Cardless security offers a more modern and flexible approach that enables us to upgrade our network services more cost efficiently, while still maintaining a high security standard for premium content," said Pakholchuk Yaroslav, COO, 1+1 Media. "We are happy to be working with Verimatrix to help us continue to grow our network footprint in the region."
The cardless VCAS for DVB system supports future network expansion, including the addition of more advanced and flexible services, such as over-the-top (OTT) video delivery. Direct broadcast satellite television distributor Viasat Ukraine, which is related to 1+1 Media, has previously partnered with Verimatrix to secure IPTV and OTT services with VCAS revenue security solutions.
"We're delighted to extend our relationship within the 1+1 Media Group to help position them for future growth," said Steve Oetegenn, president, Verimatrix. "This deployment underscores our strength in the Eastern European region and leverages our powerful partner ecosystem to help meet 1+1 Media's operational and business needs."
Verimatrix partnered with Romsat Ukraine, who was the systems integrator for this deployment, and set-top box providers Skyworth and Skardin, which feature secure system-on-chips (SoCs) from ALi Corporation. In a recent white paper from Cartesian, a specialist consultancy for the telecoms, digital media, and technology industries, they found that the introduction and increasing deployment of Trusted Execution Environments (TEEs) in the SoC provides a highly secure environment for the deployment of cardless security, which can be quickly and easily upgraded over the air. For more details, download the paper at http://bit.ly/cardlessCA
Verimatrix will be showcasing its revenue security and enhancement solutions at IBC 2018. Visit our site to schedule a meeting www.verimatrix.com/ibc2018
About 1+1 Media
1+1 Media Group is one of the largest media holding companies in Ukraine. We never rest and continue to set ambitious goals for us. That is why 1+1 Media Group holds the leading positions in the media market. Our mission is creating content that changes the way people think about the world and themselves. The structure of 1+1 Media includes 7 television channels - "1+1", "2+2", "TET", "PLUSPLUS", "1+1 International", "UNIAN TV" and "Bigudi", a group of Internet-sites, own distribution and production departments, VOD-platform 1+1 video and the High School of Media & Production.
For more information contact us by reception@1plus1.tv or visit our website https://media.1plus1.ua/en/media and follow 1+1 Media Group on Facebook and Instagram.
About Verimatrix
Verimatrix specializes in securing and enhancing revenue for network-connected devices and services around the world and is recognized as the global number one in revenue security for IP-based video services. The award-winning and independently audited Verimatrix Video Content Authority System (VCAS) family of solutions enables next-generation video service providers to cost-effectively extend their networks and enable new business models. The company has continued its technical innovation by offering a comprehensive data collection platform, Verspective Analytics, for automated system real-time quality of experience (QoE) optimization to drive user engagement and content monetization, and data collection/analytics and Vtegrity, advanced security that addresses IoT threats and service lifecycle management.
Its unmatched partner ecosystem enables Verimatrix to provide unique business value beyond security as service providers introduce new applications that leverage the proliferation of connected devices. For more information, please visit www.verimatrix.com, our Pay TV Views blog and follow us @verimatrixinc, Facebook and LinkedIn to join the conversation.
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VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Sept. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Integrated Cannabis Company, Inc. (CSE: ICAN) (OTCQB: ICNAF) (ICAN.CN) (the "Company" or "Integrated Cannabis"), is pleased to announce the completion of a market ready Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC)-infused spray product and the required licensure for manufacturing of the product in Colorado.
Over the past ten months the Company has engaged and worked with contractors, consultants and various state and municipal regulators in order to successfully gain licensing and approvals for facilities that manufacture CBD- and THC-infused products in the State of Colorado.
The THC product employs the same nanotechnology used to enhance the CBD-infused X-SPRAYS, resulting in higher bioavailability and faster uptake versus capsules or powder. The Company continues to enhance the flavor profiles in order to find an optimal formula.
"We are pleased to be adding THC products to our proprietary line of sprays and plan to launch via distribution in Colorado beginning in Q4 and shall pursue other legal markets thereafter," said Mr. John Knapp, CEO of Integrated Cannabis.
To best demonstrate the Company's activities in the Manufacturer of Infused Products (MIP) area, a chronological outline follows:
Completed the build out of a commercial kitchen adjacent to a licensed Medical and Recreational extraction lab
Completed Process Validation with the Colorado Marijuana Enforcement Division (MED)
Secured a high-quality CBD source from a supplier with Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) Registration Certificate and Colorado Hemp License
Received Shelf Stability approval to sell X-SPRAYS CBD formulation in Denver
Received approval to sell CBD formulated products throughout all of Colorado
Secured a high-quality THC source from a duly licensed Colorado Medical and Recreational extraction lab
Received approval to sell THC formulated products throughout most of Colorado - only awaiting approval for City of Denver
- only awaiting approval for Submitted Shelf Stability application to sell X-SPRAYS THC formulation in Denver
About Integrated Cannabis Company
Integrated Cannabis Company, Inc. is comprised of dedicated scientists and product engineers who are passionate about health and creating health and lifestyle products utilizing advanced delivery systems and formulations. For more information, please visit the company's website at: www.x-sprays.com.
ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD
"John Knapp"
Chief Executive Officer
The CSE does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Market Regulator (as that term is defined in the policies of the Canadian Securities Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. The Canadian Securities Exchange has not in any way passed upon the merits of the proposed transaction and has neither approved nor disapproved the contents of this press release.
This news release may include forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties. All statements within, other than statements of historical fact, are to be considered forward looking. Although the Company believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results or developments may differ materially from those in forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements include market prices, exploitation and exploration successes, continued availability of capital and financing, and general economic, market or business conditions. There can be no assurances that such statements will prove accurate and, therefore, readers are advised to rely on their own evaluation of such uncertainties. We do not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements except as required under the applicable laws.
For further information, please contact:
Eugene Beukman
Email: investors@cnrpmining.com
Jason Miller
+1-778-403-3358
Dr. Kupiec to leverage neurodegenerative experience from prior senior positions at Pfizer and Sanofi-Synthelabo
TORONTO and CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Sept. 13, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- ProMIS Neurosciences, Inc. (TSX: PMN; OTCQB: ARFXF), a biotechnology company focused on the discovery and development of antibody therapeutics selectively targeting toxic oligomers implicated in the development of neurodegenerative diseases, today announced the appointment of James Kupiec, MD, to the position of Chief Medical Officer. In this newly created role, reporting to both the Executive Chairman and CEO, Dr. Kupiec will lead ProMIS' clinical development programs, in particular the initiation of clinical trials of PMN310 for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease (AD) in the second half of 2019.
"We are very pleased to welcome Dr. Kupiec to our senior management team," said ProMIS Executive Chairman, Eugene Williams. "Jim's expertise and experience as an accomplished leader of clinical development programs in Alzheimer's disease and other neurodegenerative disorders will be a great source of strength for ProMIS. He will not only provide outstanding clinical trial leadership but will also play a significant role in interaction with regulatory authorities, key neuroscience opinion leaders and potential pharmaceutical partners."
Dr. Kupiec is a physician-scientist with over two decades of broad, hands-on experience in translational, early- and late-stage neuroscience drug development in the pharmaceutical industry.
"I am thrilled to join the ProMIS leadership team at this critical stage," said Dr. Kupiec. "ProMIS' innovative approach selectively targeting toxic oligomers for treatment of neurodegenerative disorders is unique and provides a real opportunity for transformative, novel therapies. I am delighted to contribute to the advancement of the ProMIS clinical pipeline."
Dr. Kupiec most recently served as VP, Global Clinical Leader for Parkinson's Disease, and Clinical Head of the Neuroscience Research Unit in Cambridge for Pfizer, Inc. He joined Pfizer in 2000 after seven years at Sanofi-Synthelabo, and two years with Ciba-Geigy Pharmaceuticals. During his career at Pfizer, he had extensive governance, business development, alliance and leadership responsibilities. Much of his work during the last decade has focused on developing potential disease modifying and symptomatic therapies for Alzheimer's disease and other neurodegenerative disorders, including monoclonal antibodies. As project leader and Clinical Head, Dr. Kupiec created and implemented global drug development strategies, met with worldwide regulatory authorities, and chaired numerous joint development committees with other pharmaceutical companies.
He earned his BS with Honors in Biochemistry at Stony Brook University and his MD from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He completed his residency training at the Strong Memorial Hospital, University of Rochester School of Medicine, and is certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine.
About ProMIS Neurosciences
ProMIS Neurosciences, Inc. is a development stage biotechnology company focused on discovering and developing antibody therapeutics selectively targeting toxic oligomers implicated in the development and progression of neurodegenerative diseases, in particular Alzheimer's disease (AD), amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and Parkinson's disease (PD). The Company's proprietary target discovery engine is based on the use of two complementary techniques. The Company applies its thermodynamic, computational discovery platform-ProMIS and Collective Coordinates - to predict novel targets known as Disease Specific Epitopes on the molecular surface of misfolded proteins. Using this unique precision medicine approach, the Company is developing novel antibody therapeutics for AD, ALS and PD. ProMIS is headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, with offices in Cambridge, Massachusetts. ProMIS is listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange under the symbol PMN, and on the OTCQB Venture Market under the symbol ARFXF.
For further information please consult the Company's website at: www.promisneurosciences.com
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For media inquiries, please contact:
Shanti Skiffington
shanti.skiffington@gmail.com
Tel. 617 921-0808
For Investor Relations please contact:
Alpine Equity Advisors
Nicholas Rigopulos, President
nick@alpineequityadv.com
Tel. 617 901-0785
Dr. Elliot Goldstein
President and Chief Executive Officer, ProMIS Neurosciences Inc.
Tel. 415 341-5783
Elliot.goldstein@promisneurosciences.com
The TSX has not reviewed and does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. This information release contains certain forward-looking information, including about the timing and completion of the Offering, the receipt of TSX approval and the expected use of proceeds from the Offering. Such information involves known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from those implied by statements herein, and therefore these statements should not be read as guarantees of future performance or results. All forward-looking statements are based on the Company's current beliefs as well as assumptions made by and information currently available to it as well as other factors. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this press release. Due to risks and uncertainties, including the risks and uncertainties identified by the Company in its public securities filings, actual events may differ materially from current expectations. The Company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
Enables world-class customer experience for dealers, sales teams to track and analyze quotes, orders
PROS (NYSE: PRO), a provider of AI-powered solutions that optimize selling in the digital economy, today announced that Manitou Group, a world leader in the design, manufacture, distribution and services for all-terrain material handling equipment, is implementing PROS Smart CPQ across its global dealer network. With its digital transformation underway, Manitou plans to deliver an omnichannel buying experience for more than 1,500 dealers around the world.
Manitou Group, headquartered in France, operates 11 production sites across 26 subsidiaries in more than 140 countries in the United States; Europe, the Middle East and Africa; and Asia. Its globally recognized brands include Manitou, Gehl, Mustang, Loc and Edge Attachments.
"Our dealers are located across the globe, and they look to Manitou for an omnichannel eCommerce experience that combines smart data, analytics and connected systems that are personalized and mobile-friendly," said Randy Carey, Manitou Group Vice President, Digital Transformation. "With PROS, dealers can order directly from an electronic catalog to configure and place orders, ensuring a real-time sales experience and complete order accuracy. Our sales teams are now guided to products that customers need, with precise configurations, pricing and quotes. We appreciate PROS ongoing partnership and commitment to helping us deliver a world-class customer experience."
"Customers expect a frictionless and transparent digital experience, accompanied by dynamic pricing across every selling channel," said Sebastian Mamro, PROS Vice President of Customer Success. "Across the globe, we see firsthand that companies are redefining how they serve their customers with a modern commerce strategy. We appreciate the confidence of Manitou in selecting PROS to enable its digital transformation."
PROS Smart CPQ automates and simplifies configuration, pricing and quoting processes, empowering sales to instantly create accurate, personalized solutions for each customer. Companies are able to deliver the most profitable and compelling offers. Using artificial intelligence and machine learning, PROS AI-powered Guidance solution provides prescriptive insights into willingness-to-pay at the individual customer level, giving sales teams the ability to offer the right product at the right price in real-time for every customer.
To learn more, visit the PROS website or follow PROS on Twitter at @PROS_Inc.
About PROS
PROS Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: PRO) provides AI-powered solutions that optimize selling in the digital economy. PROS solutions make it possible for companies to price, configure and sell their products and services in an omnichannel environment with speed, precision and consistency. Our customers, who are leaders in their markets, benefit from decades of data science expertise infused into our industry solutions.
Forward-looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements, including statements about the functionality and benefits of AI-powered solutions to organizations generally as well as the functionality and benefits of PROS software products. The forward-looking statements contained in this press release are based upon PROS historical experience with AI-powered solutions and its current expectations of the benefits of AI-powered solutions for organizations that implement and utilize such software. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described herein include the addressability of an organization's AI-powered solution needs, the risks associated with PROS developing and enhancing products with the functionality necessary to deliver the stated results and the risks associated with the complex implementation and maintenance of AI-powered solutions such as PROS software products. Additional information relating to the uncertainty affecting the PROS business is contained in PROS filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. These forward-looking statements represent PROS expectations as of the date of this press release. Subsequent events may cause these expectations to change, and PROS disclaims any obligations to update or alter these forward-looking statements in the future whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180913005051/en/
Contacts:
PROS Public Relations
James Gerber, 617-960-9875
pros@marchcomms.com
Claudin18.2 specific CAR-T cells show tumor elimination in PDX models
SAN DIEGO, Sept. 13, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Crown Bioscience, a global drug discovery and development services company providing translational platforms to advance oncology, inflammation, cardiovascular and metabolic disease research, has completed a joint study with CARsgen Therapeutics and Shanghai Cancer Institute, demonstrating the elimination of gastric tumors in mice using CLDN18.2 targeting CAR-T cells. The work was recently published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
Gastric cancer is the fifth most common cancer and has a less than 10% five-year survival rate globally, largely due to lack of early detection. Surgery remains the only option for many late stage stomach cancers. Development of new treatments is critical for improving survival at late stage. Immunotherapy could be a promising treatment and this publication discusses these advances in preclinical models.
CAR-T cells were engineered to target Claudin18.2 and tested in gastric adenocarcinoma PDX models expressing high levels of Claudin 18.2. These are the most translatable preclinical models currently available, directly derived from patient tissue and reflecting the heterogeneity seen in patient populations.
"Humanized antibodies were developed and tested for their ability to redirect CAR-T cells on our PDX models. Tumor elimination was observed with no deleterious effect on normal gastric tissue in the mice, further validating it as high value CAR-T target and demonstrating a promising result for gastric and other CLDN18.2 positive tumors," said Dr. Henry Li, also a co-author on the paper and Senior VP of Research and Innovation at Crown Bioscience. "We are very excited to see the successful establishment of these relevant disease models for evaluating new CAR-T therapies, as testified by this peer-reviewed high-impact scientific journal."
"At CrownBio we have dedicated significant efforts to the development of these models," said Jean-Pierre Wery, CEO of Crown Bioscience. "Immunotherapy holds significant promise for improving cancer outcomes and we look forward to working with our partners on improved in vivo efficacy studies."
More information on the publication can be found here:
https://academic.oup.com/jnci/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/jnci/djy134/5091914
About Crown Bioscience Inc.
CrownBio is a global drug discovery and development solutions company providing translational platforms to advance oncology, inflammation, cardiovascular and metabolic disease research. With an extensive portfolio of relevant models and predictive tools, CrownBio enables clients to deliver superior clinical candidates. Learn more at: https://www.crownbio.com
The firm opens a Cayman Islands office and appoints leading industry professionals
Leading global professional services firm Alvarez & Marsal (A&M) has expanded its global footprint with the opening of a new office in the Cayman Islands and the appointment of three senior on-the-ground professionals. The joining of Alex Lawson, as Managing Director and Head of A&M Cayman Islands, along with Chris Kennedy, as Managing Director, and Barry Lynch, as Senior Director, will provide a full service offering for alternative investments restructuring for corporates, institutional investors, hedge funds and private equity (PE) firms.
The A&M Cayman Islands office complements the firm's ability to work on restructuring engagements in parallel tracks with the U.S., U.K., Europe and Hong Kong. This expansion will benefit clients by strengthening the reach of A&M's U.K. based Insolvency practice and bolstering the firm's soft wind-down and advisory offering. As at June 2017, the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority reported total international assets and liabilities of US$1.026 trillion and US$1.027 trillion, respectively.
Bryan Marsal, A&M's Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, said, "Restructuring advisory is at the cornerstone of A&M's operational heritage. The Cayman Islands is the fifth largest financial jurisdiction in the world. Our expansion here, and plans for growth, demonstrates our continuing commitment to meet our clients' complex, international restructuring needs, related global valuation demands, as well as disputes and investigations concerns."
Richard Fleming, an A&M Managing Director and leader of the firm's Restructuring practice in Europe, added, "A&M's presence in the Cayman Islands enhances our ability to maximize value for clients. Alex's, Chris' and Barry's individual and combined expertise will provide the seasoned restructuring counsel required to help our clients address their turnaround challenges."
Mr. Lawson brings over 15 years restructuring experience, 10 of which were exclusively in the Cayman Islands. He has served as an appointment holder for Provisional, Official and Voluntary liquidations, Controllerships and Inspectorships and has held key leadership roles in numerous engagements. Mr. Lawson has worked across all restructuring and insolvency procedures with a focus on unlocking value for hedge funds, PE funds and global enterprises in distress. Prior to joining A&M, Mr. Lawson served as a Partner with KPMG in the Cayman Islands.
Mr. Kennedy is a qualified Insolvency Practitioner in the Cayman Islands, a Chartered Accountant (Ireland) and a Cayman Islands Monetary Authority (CIMA) registered Director who advises on distressed solutions for financial services sector clients. He specializes in corporate advisory, restructuring and insolvency and has been appointed as an Official, Provisional and Voluntary Liquidator to numerous Cayman registered entities. Mr. Kennedy has worked in the Cayman Islands for over 9 years. He has extensive experience advising on multi-jurisdictional matters across a wide range of industries, with a focus on protecting and recovering value for stakeholders. The U.S. Courts under Chapter 15 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code have recognized Mr. Kennedy on multiple occasions.
Mr. Lynch is a qualified Insolvency Practitioner in the Cayman Islands specializing in providing distressed solutions to the financial services sector with diverse experience across the hedge fund, banking and capital markets, oil gas and shipping industries. Mr. Lynch has been appointed as an Official Liquidator by the Grand Court of the Cayman Islands, and has led multiple high profile multi-jurisdictional insolvency, restructuring and advisory cases across the Cayman Islands, the U.S., U.K., the British Virgin Islands, Portugal, Monaco and Switzerland. He has also acted as a Board Director on behalf of numerous distressed structured finance CDO deals. Prior to joining A&M, Mr. Lynch served as a Senior Manager with RHSW Caribbean and as a Manager with PwC in Dublin.
About Alvarez Marsal
Companies, investors and government entities around the world turn to Alvarez Marsal (A&M) when conventional approaches are not enough to make change and achieve results. Privately held since its founding in 1983, A&M is a leading global professional services firm that provides advisory, business performance improvement and turnaround management services.
With over 3000 people across four continents, we deliver tangible results for corporates, boards, private equity firms, law firms and government agencies facing complex challenges. Our senior leaders, and their teams, help organizations transform operations, catapult growth and accelerate results through decisive action. Comprised of experienced operators, world-class consultants, former regulators and industry authorities, A&M leverages its restructuring heritage to turn change into a strategic business asset, manage risk and unlock value at every stage of growth.
When action matters, find us at alvarezandmarsal.com. Follow A&M on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180913005294/en/
Contacts:
Infinite Global
Kelsey Eidbo, +1 415 732 7804
or
Alvarez & Marsal
Sandra Sokoloff, +1 212 763 9853
Senior Director of Global Public Relations
or
Alvarez Marsal
Margaret Cameron-Waller, +44 (0)207 7155202
Director of Marketing U.K. Europe
VANCOUVER, BC / ACCESSWIRE / September 13, 2018 / ParcelPal Technology Inc. ("ParcelPal" or the "Company"), (CSE: PKG) (FSE: PT0) (OTC PINK: PTNYF) - is pleased to give further insight into their cannabis plan for Federal legalization in Canada on October 17th, 2018.
As part of ParcelPal's strategy moving forward, the Company plans to take advantage of the bourgeoning marijuana market imminently. The marijuana vertical proposes a large opportunity and catalyst for ParcelPal to launch into many urban areas across Canada. The Company has been speaking with Provincial Government regulators and Crown Corporations to best assess how to implement and execute on their strategy going forward with recreational and medicinal marijuana. Additionally, the Company has been speaking with major LP's to ensure a supply and consistent demand to ensure a smooth execution into the industry.
For consumers, taking advantage of ParcelPal's service provides many benefits, such as:
Quick Delivery: Getting their cannabis products/ancillaries delivered in an hour or less;
Anonymity: Not having to visit a retail location and remaining anonymous;
Mitigating Intoxication: No longer having to leave the house; mitigating the risk of driving while intoxicated;
The ability to service both medicinal as well as recreational users.
Customers that order marijuana through the ParcelPal platform will be required to upload and verify their ID. Users that are under the age within their jurisdiction will not be allowed into this vertical on the application. The ID verification system ensures that the person is of age, the ID is in fact real, and is checked twice - once before, and upon delivery. Consumers who order product will have to be the person to receive the order. ParcelPal's technology complies with all local, provincial, and federal laws.
Additionally, ParcelPal's Cannabis vertical helps Major LP's & other suppliers of cannabis products with the following:
Easy access to consumers, providing an omnichannel approach to sales and distribution.
Quick delivery - the ability to deliver Cannabis products within an hour allows for immediate gratification for consumers; something others currently can't provide.
Compliance with regulatory framework.
Management team and board familiar with regulatory environments for a quick path to implementation.
Increase business between existing players in the cannabis industry.
Uninterrupted services, without strikes.
President and CEO Kelly Abbott states, "This is a critical time for the cannabis industry as a whole. Adult recreational use is on the precipice of becoming legal across Canada and we are poised to take advantage of the ancillary market yet to come. We are setting a standard in Canada for accessibility, safety, and professionalism." Abbott continued, "I believe attention from the investment community will shift from production to those who are supporting production and all things distribution."
The company's reach will enable access to data and further insights into patient and user demographics, preferences, behaviors, and patterns. ParcelPal plans on utilizing their delivery data to educate and inform regulators and LP's, which is essential for ensuring continued safe access for everyone within the industry.
About ParcelPal Technology Inc.
ParcelPal is a technology driven logistics company that connects consumers to the goods they love. Customers can shop at partner businesses and through the ParcelPal technology receive their purchased goods within an hour. The Company offers on-demand delivery of merchandise from leading retailers, restaurants, medical marijuana dispensaries and liquor stores in Vancouver and soon in major cities Canada-wide.
ParcelPal Website: www.parcelpal.com
The Canadian Securities Exchange ("CSE") or any other securities regulatory authority has not reviewed and does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release that has been prepared by management.
CSE - Symbol: PKG
FSE - Symbol: PT0
OTC - Symbol: PTNYF
Contact: Peter Hinam, Investor Relations - peter@parcelpal.com
Forward Looking Information
This news release contains forward looking statements relating to the Proposed Transaction, and the future potential of ParcelPal. Forward looking statements are often identified by terms such as "will", "may", "should", "intends", "anticipates", "expects", "plans" and similar expressions. All statements other than statements of historical fact, included in this release are forward looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. These risks and uncertainties include, without limitation, the risk that the Proposed Transaction will not be completed due to, among other things, failure to execute definitive documentation, failure to complete satisfactory due diligence, failure to receive the approval of the CSE and the risk that ParcelPal will not be successful due to, among other things, general risks relating to the mobile application industry, failure of ParcelPal to gain market acceptance and potential challenges to the intellectual property utilized in ParcelPal. There can be no assurance that any forward looking statements will prove to be accurate and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements.
The Company cannot guarantee that any forward looking statement will materialize and the reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on any forward looking information. Such information, although considered reasonable by management at the time of preparation, may prove to be incorrect and actual results may differ materially from those anticipated. Forward looking statements contained in this news release are expressly qualified by this cautionary statement. The forward looking statements contained in this news release are made as of the date of this news release and the Company will only update or revise publicly any of the included forward looking statements as expressly required by Canadian securities laws.
SOURCE: ParcelPal Technology Inc.
View source version on accesswire.com:https://www.accesswire.com/511886/PKG-News-Release-ParcelPal-Announces-Marijuana-Strategy
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - September 13, 2018) - StrikePoint Gold Inc. (TSXV: SKP) (OTCQB: STKXF) is pleased to announce that it has mobilized a second diamond drill rig to their Porter Project near Stewart, British Columbia.
Targeting the Silverado Veins
Diamond drilling at the Porter Project has been focused on gathering information from the historic resource area and stepping out on the eastern flank of Mount Rainey. This drilling is in the vicinity of the former Prosperity - Porter Idaho underground mine. The historic Silverado veins are found two kilometers away on the western side of the mountain at the former Silverado underground mine and like Porter were worked historically through to the 1920's.
Surface sampling in the 1980's by Teck highlighted four main veins in the Silverado system with noted results of 1,875 grams per tonne from one of these veins. Work by Strikepoint this summer has identified possible structural extensions revealed as the Silverado Glacier has retreated.
The plan includes the drilling of at least three diamond drill holes at Silverado to a total depth of 1,500m to gather vital subsurface information and intersections with vein extensions. It is hypothesized that the Silverado Veins are an extension of the Porter system, but their connection has been hidden by ice cover on the top of Mount Rainey. The Silverado veins were not included in the existing historical resource.
Silverado Extension
To view an enhanced version of this graphic, please visit:
https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/5044/38619_enhance.jpg
Drilling Update
Thirteen drill holes has been completed on the Porter Property as at September 8th, 2018, with a total meterage of 1,920 meters. These all represent exploration holes in and around the historic resource in the Porter project, including the D-Vein. Other holes have explored the connection between the Angelo and Melvin veins as well as extensions to the west of the Blind, Flat and Prosperity vein systems. Assay results from the 2018 drill campaign are still pending.
About the Golden Triangle
The Golden Triangle is an area of northwestern British Columbia that has seen extensive historic mining and prospecting activity, and has recently been the site of modern discoveries, including the Premier Gold, Snip and Eskay Creek Mines. The area has seen a resurgence in infrastructure investment which supports exploration activities, including upgraded transmission lines supplying clean, affordable and reliable hydroelectric power. Other recent improvements include highway upgrades, new ocean port infrastructure at the ice-free port of Stewart and the commissioning of three hydroelectric facilities.
StrikePoint Gold is a well-financed gold exploration and development company. The company controls a portfolio of gold properties in the Yukon and throughout Canada.
The technical information contained in this news release has been approved by Andy Randell, P. Geo., Vice President, Exploration of StrikePoint Gold. Mr. Randell is a qualified person as defined in NI 43-101.
For further information please visit our website: www.strikepointgold.com
ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD of STRIKEPOINT GOLD INC.
Shawn Khunkhun
CEO and Director
For more information, contact:
Shawn Khunkhun
604-602-1440
sk@strikepointgold.com
Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
Joint investment in the power of ideas and the worldwide inspiration of The Nobel Prize
ABB and Nobel Media today announced an international partnership, bringing together two respected organizations committed to the development of innovation, education and scientific research, making ABB one of a select group of Nobel International Partners.
This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180913005530/en/
ABB and Nobel Media announce international partnership
Nobel Media, an entity within the Nobel Foundation, extends the reach of the Nobel Prize to millions of people around the world through inspirational events, digital media and special exhibitions and activities related to the legacy of Alfred Nobel and the achievements of the Nobel Laureates. Through these activities and events including global Nobel Prize Dialogue gatherings Nobel Media reaches and engages students, decision makers and a curious general public around the world.
The ABB-Nobel Media partnership aims to share knowledge broadly, inspire people to engage in science and shed light on our time's greatest challenges. As a pioneering technology leader, ABB will bring deep scientific and innovation experience and commitment into the partnership.
ABB CEO Ulrich Spiesshofer commented, "We are delighted to become a Nobel International Partner to celebrate the visionaries who are shaping the world and writing the future. Nobel and ABB share a deep commitment to innovation and the power of ideas, and we are inspired by this opportunity to spotlight the groundbreaking work of Nobel Laureates, to celebrate science and discovery and to inspire the next generation of extraordinary pioneers. We look forward to working closely with Nobel and to involving our customers, employees and communities around the world in this exciting endeavor."
Managing Director, ABB Sweden, Johan Soderstrom added, "Partnering with one of our country's most important institutions is a privilege for all of us at ABB. We are excited to explore the events, activities and engagements together with the best scientists in the world. This partnership also strengthens our commitment to younger generations."
"The Nobel Prize stands for the power of ideas and the making of a better world through knowledge and science. Committing to these values is more important than ever, a responsibility we share with ABB," said Mattias Fyrenius, Chief Executive Officer of Nobel Media. "In order to handle our time's greatest challenges, strengthening the ties between the business community, policy makers and academia is key, which makes me proud to announce the partnership with ABB".
Nobel Media's events and activations include thought-provoking conferences, lectures and exhibitions globally as well as engaging content through broad-reaching digital channels. The next Nobel Prize Dialogue which brings together Nobel Laureates, world-leading scientists, policy makers and thought leaders from around the world will be held in Santiago, Chile in mid-January 2019.
For more on the announcement, please watch the video.
Nobel Media spreads knowledge about Nobel Prize-awarded achievements and stimulates interest in science, literature and peace in line with Alfred Nobel's vision and legacy. The company reaches a global audience of millions through its high-quality productions: The official digital channels of the Nobel Prize, the Nobel Prize Concert, as well as a series of intercontinental, inspirational lecture events featuring Nobel Laureates. The company also manages a portfolio of publishing licenses, footage sales, and live broadcast rights to the Nobel Prize Award Ceremonies.
Please visit: www.nobelprize.org, Twitter: @NobelPrize, Facebook: facebook.com/Nobelprize, YouTube: www.youtube.com/nobelprize
Nobel Media, Nobel Prize and Nobelprize.org are registered trademarks of the Nobel Foundation. Disclaimer: Nobel Media AB is not directly or indirectly involved in the process of nominating or selecting Nobel Laureates. These procedures are strictly confidential and regulated by the Nobel Prize awarding institutions.
ABB (ABBN: SIX Swiss Ex) is a pioneering technology leader in power grids, electrification products, industrial automation and robotics and motion, serving customers in utilities, industry and transport infrastructure globally. Continuing a history of innovation spanning more than 130 years, ABB today is writing the future of industrial digitalization with two clear value propositions: bringing electricity from any power plant to any plug and automating industries from natural resources to finished products. As title partner in ABB Formula E, the fully electric international FIA motorsport class, ABB is pushing the boundaries of e-mobility to contribute to a sustainable future. ABB operates in more than 100 countries with about 147,000 employees. www.abb.com
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180913005530/en/
Contacts:
ABB Media Relations
Phone: +41 43 317 71 11
Email: media.relations@ch.abb.com
or
Nobel Media
Rebecka Oxelstrom
Press Officer
rebecka.oxelstrom@nobelmedia.se
PALM BEACH, Florida, September 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --
MarketNewsUpdates.com News Commentary
The Cannabidiol (CBD) infused products market continues to experience rapidly rising consumer demand as its multi-billion dollar revenues climb higher. The industries that CBD has worked its way into are numerous, with innovation creating new products almost on a daily basis. Between 2017 and 2018, the U.S. hemp-derived CBD market has nearly doubled in size, but the five-year growth projections for this market are now dramatically higher than they were a year ago and some believe will eventually eclipse the cannabis market entirely. According to a new estimate from cannabis industry analysts the Brightfield Group, the hemp-CBD market alone could hit $22 billion by 2022. Active cannabis stocks in the markets today include: CROP Infrastructure Corp. (CSE:CROP) (OTC:CRXPF), Canopy Growth Corporation (TSX:WEED) (NYSE:CGC), Aphria Inc. (TSX:APH) (OTC:APHQF), HEXO Corp. (TSX:HEXO) (OTC:HYYDF), The Green Organic Dutchman Holdings Ltd. (TSX:TGOD) (OTC:TGODF).
CROP Infrastructure Corp. (CSE:CROP) (OTCPK:CRXPF)) BREAKING NEWS: CROP Infrastructure announced today it is developing a new cannabis-infused line of soft drinks. Called 'CANNADRINK', the beverage will be developed to be a zero calorie, non-GMO, ketogenic-friendly line of soda pop, and will include tea and coffee versions.
The global carbonated soft drinks market is projected to reach USD 605.6 Billion by 2025, according to a March 2018 report by Grand View Research, Inc.
CROP Infrastructure Director and CEO, Michael Yorke, stated: "The cannabis-infused beverages market has attracted the attention of world class beverage companies as legalization spreads. We see it as a tremendous opportunity for CROP Infrastructure's branding & IP portfolio and as an axillary opportunity for each of our cultivation tenants Globally"
"The global soft drink market, in another study, is forecast to grow at a CAGR of 5.62% through to 2021. It is also going sugar free. Studies from the World Health Organization have shown that a simple can of carbonated soda drink can contain over 40 grams of sugar, equivalent to 10 teaspoons of table sugar. As an example, Britain's sugar tax has forced many soft drinks companies to re-evaluate the sugar content of their soft drinks and are developing new low or reduced-sugar beverages with additional claimed health benefits, in response to consumer demand."
"Functional beverages are a new class of products that offer beyond basic nutritional ingredients including vitamins, minerals, herbs, amino acids and probiotics. We believe that cannabis's medically known benefits will enhance our own formulations, so we are bang on target with our CANNA DRINK line." concluded Yorke. Read this full announcement and more news for CROP Infrastructure at: http://www.marketnewsupdates.com/news/crop.html
Additional cannabis industry related developments from around the markets:
Canopy Growth Corporation (NYSE:CGC) (TSX:WEED.TO) earlier this week announced that the shareholders of the respective companies have overwhelmingly voted in favour of all matters in connection with the previously announced business combination involving Canopy Rivers and AIM2 that will result in a reverse take-over of AIM2 by Canopy Rivers (the "Transaction") and will constitute AIM2's "Qualifying Transaction" (as such term is defined in Policy 2.4 of the TSX Venture Exchange (the "TSXV") Corporate Finance Manual). The AIM2 shareholders approved all matters contemplated at the AIM2 meeting including increasing the size of the AIM2 board, the election of all proposed board members, the consolidation of AIM2's existing common shares on a 26.565 for 1 basis (the "Consolidation"), the implementation of a dual class voting structure, including the creation of a new class of subordinated voting shares and a new class of multiple voting shares (the "Dual Class Voting Structure"), the name change from AIM2 to "Canopy Rivers Inc." (the "Name Change") and the adoption of a new stock option plan. The Consolidation, Name Change and implementation of the Dual Class Voting Structure are expected to be implemented immediately prior to closing of the Transaction. The Transaction is subject to final approval of the TSXV and is expected to close on or about September 17, 2018.
Aphria Inc. (TSX:APH.TO) (OTCQB:APHQF) recently announced that it has entered into a wholesale supply agreement with Emblem Cannabis Corp., wholly owned subsidiary of Emblem Corp. and a licensed producer of medical cannabis under the Access to Cannabis for Medical Purposes Regulations, to supply 175,000 kilograms of high-quality cannabis over a five-year period starting May, 2019, with a total of 25,000 kg deliverable for the balance of the first year. Under the terms of the agreement, Aphria will receive a non-refundable deposit of $22.8-million, which comprises $12.8-million in cash and 6,952,169 of common shares of Emblem. The Emblem common shares issued to Aphria are subject to a contractual lockup and standstill arrangement, with five equal releases over the term of the agreement, subject to certain customary exceptions.
HEXO Corp. (TSX:HEXO.TO) (OTCPK:HYYDF) recently announced it has acquired an interest in a 2,004,000-square-foot facility in Belleville, Ont. This is the first facility of the company to be established outside of Quebec, further delivering on its national expansion strategy and providing capacity for the manufacturing of advanced cannabis products, including cosmetics, vapes, non-alcoholic beverages and other edibles. The centralized location, conveniently located along primary shipping routes in Ontario, presents the opportunity to process and distribute products and to fulfill commitments across Canada. The space also supports the company's hub-and-spoke model. Its scalability, flexibility and location are ideal to deliver on anticipated future joint ventures with Fortune 500 companies for cosmetics, edibles, vapes and more, positioning it to become a centre of excellence for all of Hexo's joint ventures. Hexo's expansion will also lead to the creation of jobs and a rejuvenated employment sector for the area.
The Green Organic Dutchman Holdings Ltd . (TSX:TGOD.TO) (OTCQX:TGODF) announced the launch of its premium, certified organic cannabis brand. This preeminent launch coincides with Canadian Organic Week, the largest annual celebration of organic food, farming and products across the country. This is a pivotal step for the Company in becoming the largest, organic cannabis brand in the world. TGOD cannabis adheres to the highest production standards for organic cultivation - the product is grown naturally in Canadian soil, without the use of synthetic pesticides, herbicides or fertilizers. According to a 2018 Hill & Knowlton research study, 57% of Canadian medical cannabis consumers and 43% of recreational cannabis consumers prefer organic cannabis. Of 116 licensed producers in Canada , TGOD is one of only two that are certified organic.
DISCLAIMER: MarketNewsUpdates.com (MNU) is a third party publisher and news dissemination service provider, which disseminates electronic information through multiple online media channels. MNU is NOT affiliated in any manner with any company mentioned herein. MNU and its affiliated companies are a news dissemination solutions provider and are NOT a registered broker/dealer/analyst/adviser, holds no investment licenses and may NOT sell, offer to sell or offer to buy any security. MNU's market updates, news alerts and corporate profiles are NOT a solicitation or recommendation to buy, sell or hold securities. The material in this release is intended to be strictly informational and is NEVER to be construed or interpreted as research material. All readers are strongly urged to perform research and due diligence on their own and consult a licensed financial professional before considering any level of investing in stocks. All material included herein is republished content and details which were previously disseminated by the companies mentioned in this release. MNU is not liable for any investment decisions by its readers or subscribers. Investors are cautioned that they may lose all or a portion of their investment when investing in stocks. For current services performed MNU has been compensated forty nine hundred dollars for news coverage of the current press release issued above by CROP Infrastructure Corp. by a non affiliated third party. MNU HOLDS NO SHARES OF ANY COMPANY NAMED IN THIS RELEASE.
This release contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended and such forward-looking statements are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. "Forward-looking statements" describe future expectations, plans, results, or strategies and are generally preceded by words such as "may", "future", "plan" or "planned", "will" or "should", "expected," "anticipates", "draft", "eventually" or "projected". You are cautioned that such statements are subject to a multitude of risks and uncertainties that could cause future circumstances, events, or results to differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements, including the risks that actual results may differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements as a result of various factors, and other risks identified in a company's annual report on Form 10-K or 10-KSB and other filings made by such company with the Securities and Exchange Commission. You should consider these factors in evaluating the forward-looking statements included herein, and not place undue reliance on such statements. The forward-looking statements in this release are made as of the date hereof and MNU undertakes no obligation to update such statements.
Media Contact:
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St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador--(Newsfile Corp. - September 13, 2018) - Sokoman Iron Corp. (TSXV: SIC) ("Sokoman" or "the Company") today announced that Mr. John Ryan has resigned as CFO and Director of the Company to pursue other opportunities, effective immediately. Mr. Ryan will stay on as a consultant to ensure the year-end audit is completed on time. The Company extends its thanks to John and wishes him well in the future. Sokoman is pleased to welcome Mr. Eric Myung as its new CFO. The transition is expected to be seamless and orderly.
Mr. Myung is a Senior Financial Analyst of Marrelli Support Services Inc. and has previously worked in a public accounting firm focused on small and medium business for seven years. Mr. Myung is a Canadian Chartered Professional Accountant and has a Master of Accounting degree from University of Waterloo.
Issuance of Incentive Stock Options
The Company announces that, in accordance with its stock option plan and subject to regulatory approval, it has granted 3,950,000 incentive stock options, exercisable at $0.16 for a period of 5 years to directors, officers, employees and consultants of the Company.
About Marrelli Support Services Inc.
The Marrelli Group of Companies provides reporting issuers and private clients the following offerings - DSA Corporate Services and DSA Filing Services; MSSI Financial Accounting and MSSI Outsourced Chief Financial Officer Services. Working with public companies across all sectors of the economy, their client base consists of reporting issuers listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX), the TSX Venture Exchange (TSX-V), and the Canadian Securities Exchange (CSE), including many companies inter-listed on U.S. and other international markets.
About Sokoman Iron Corp.
Sokoman Iron Corp. (TSXV: SIC) is a discovery-oriented company with projects in Newfoundland & Labrador, Canada. The Company's primary focus is its portfolio of gold projects in Central Newfoundland on the structural corridor hosting the 3.1 million ounce Valentine Lake gold project 150 km southwest of the Company's high grade Moosehead gold project. The Company also has a 100% interest in an early-stage antimony project in Newfoundland, as well as a 100% interest in the Iron Horse (Fe/U/REE) project in Western Labrador.
For more information, please contact:
Sokoman Iron Corp.
Timothy Froude, P. Geo., President & CEO
Phone: 709-765-1726
Email: tfroude@sokomaniron.com
CHF Capital Markets
Cathy Hume, CEO
Phone: 416-868-1079
Email: cathy@chfir.com
Website: www.sokomaniron.com
Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
Investors are cautioned that trading in the securities of the Corporation should be considered highly speculative. Except for historical information contained herein, this news release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially. Sokoman Iron Corp. will not update these forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date hereof. More detailed information about potential factors that could affect financial results is included in the documents filed from time to time with the Canadian securities regulatory authorities by Sokoman Iron Corp.
Jersey, England--(Newsfile Corp. - September 13, 2018) - Tethyan Resources plc (TSXV: TETH) ("Tethyan" or the "Company") is pleased to announce the commencement of exploration drilling at the Rudnica copper-gold porphyry prospect in Serbia. The drill programme will consist of 3 to 4 diamond drill holes, for a total of between 1,500 - 2,000 metres, stepping-out from Tethyan's previous drilling at Rudnica South as well as targeting an untested area known as Rudnica North situated approximately 500 metres to the north (Figures 1 and 2).
Rudnica North has not previously been drilled, and was identified as a result of Tethyan's exploration programme which returned coincident copper-gold-molybdenum soil anomalies with high chargeability and high magnetic geophysical anomalies, in an area of leached and silica altered andesite with a variable density of quartz veinlets. Previous channel sampling in the area returned results including 40 metres at 0.21 g/t gold, 30 metres at 0.24 g/t gold and 10 metres at 0.26 g/t gold (see news release dated March 2, 2018). The geochemical and geophysical signature, and mapped alteration and veining at Rudnica North are analogous to Rudnica South, and as such is interpreted by Tethyan to represent a possible second porphyry apophysis.
Fabian Baker, Tethyan's President and CEO, commented: "The Rudnica prospect as a whole is a large porphyry exploration target, of which we have only focused on a small area to date. We want to make sure we are covering that ground and testing it thoroughly. Typical geochemical and geophysical characteristics that might indicate the upper reaches of a porphyry system do coincide at Rudnica North, however these are true exploration scout drill holes and so we will eagerly wait to see what they return."
Figure 1: Map of the Rudnica porphyry prospect area showing a compilation of exploration data and the location of the planned drill holes.
To view an enhanced version of Figure 1, please visit:
https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/5611/38646_tethyan1enhanced.jpg
Figure 2: Map of the Rudnica porphyry prospect area showing a compilation of exploration data and the location of the planned drill holes.
To view an enhanced version of Figure 2, please visit:
https://orders.newsfilecorp.com/files/5611/38646_tethyan2enhanced.jpg
About Tethyan
Tethyan Resources plc is a precious and base metals mineral exploration company incorporated in England & Wales and listed on the TSX Venture Exchange. Tethyan is focused on the Tethyan Metallogenic Belt in Eastern Europe, mainly Serbia, where it is acquiring and exploring a portfolio of quality precious and base metals projects with known mineralisation and compelling drill targets. Tethyan emphasises responsible engagement with local communities and stakeholders, and is committed to proactively implementing Good International Industry Practice (GIIP) and sustainable health, safety and environmental management. More information can be found on our website: www.tethyan-resources.com.
Qualified Person
The technical information in this news release has been reviewed and approved by Tethyan's Exploration Manager, Andrew Tunningley, MAusIMM(CP), who is a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101.
Tethyan Resources Contact
Tethyan Resources plc
+44 1534 881 885
Fabian Baker (CEO)
fabian@tethyan-resources.com
TSX Venture Exchange Disclaimer
Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as such term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
Forward Looking Statements
Certain information contained herein constitutes "forward-looking information" under Canadian securities legislation. Forward-looking information includes, but is not limited to, statements with respect to the drill holes and target areas comprising the drill programme; and the possibility of a second porphyry apophysis. Generally, forward-looking information can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "will", "possible" or variations of such words and phrases or statements that certain actions, events or results "will" occur. Forward-looking statements are based on the opinions and estimates of management as of the date such statements are made and they are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause the actual results, level of activity, performance or achievements of Tethyan to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements or forward-looking information, including: the receipt of all necessary regulatory approvals, capital expenditures and other costs, and financing and additional capital requirements. Although management of Tethyan have attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking statements or forward-looking information, there may be other factors that cause results not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Accordingly, readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements and forward looking information. Tethyan will not update any forward-looking statements or forward-looking information that are incorporated by reference herein, except as required by applicable securities laws.
Biolog-id, a world leader in connected health solutions, today announced the establishment of its U.S. operational center in Atlanta. This new site will enable Biolog-id to continue the growth of its presence in North America and offer its business solutions in the biggest health market in the world.
Biolog-id LLC's offices are located in Alpharetta, 15 minutes north of Atlanta, Georgia. Pierre Parent, President of Biolog-id, has named Amit Mayer as the General Manager of the subsidiary.
Amit Mayer is an experienced manager with a variety of experience in the health, innovation, marketing and education domains. As an entrepreneur, consultant, teacher and businessman, Amit has worked for high-profile businesses and organizations throughout the world and is particularly interested in the healthcare sector. He has been based in Atlanta for the last 5 years.
"Biolog-id has developed unique expertise in connected health solutions and has created a ground-breaking innovation which enables the reliable tracking of sensitive therapeutic products (red blood cell concentrates, platelets, plasma, and chemotherapy products), and ensures their safe administration to patients. By establishing a permanent presence in the US, Biolog-id aims to offer local clients quality support for its product offerings in America. This operational center will manage sales, sales support, operations and R&D. "Biolog-id is poised to establish itself in the US market and we are convinced Amit is the right person to make this a success", says Pierre Parent.
"Biolog-id's solutions are based on the Internet of Things (IoT), which improves the quality and safety of medical procedures and patient care by ensuring that the right product is administered to the right patient, and allowing healthcare professionals to devote more time to patient", adds Amit Mayer. "They can be entirely integrated into existing work processes and provide significant financial savings by reducing product loss and optimizing the supply chain (reducing stock, remote management with no manual handling, etc.). In addition, Biolog-id's solutions also help improve working conditions for healthcare professionals by relieving them of time-consuming administrative and logistical tasks. This transatlantic site is testament to our aim to make use of all our synergies to provide the North-American market with a one-of-a-kind service offering. By forming a team that is focused on adapting solutions to the specific features of blood transfusion centers, hospital blood banks and pharmacies responsible for injectable products, Biolog-id aims to provide ad hoc solutions with significant added value, enabling our rapid growth in North America."
About Biolog-id
Biolog-id was founded in 2005 based on a pioneering concept: using RFID technology to identify, track and manage sensitive health products (red blood cells, plasma, platelets, chemotherapy products). This ground-breaking innovation enabled the development of a totally unique product: the "Biolog solution" and its intellectual property rights, currently amounting to 100 or so international patents.
The company's corporate office is located in Paris and its manufacturing and product and customer support facility is situated in Bernay in the Normandie region of France. It currently employs approximately 80 people and is continuing its recruitment plan both in France and abroad. www.biolog-id.fr
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180913005540/en/
Contacts:
Biolog-id
Amit Mayer, +1 404 953 3169
amit.mayer@biolog-id.com
Calgary, Alberta--(Newsfile Corp. - September 13, 2018) - Cube Business Media, producer of the Business Transitions Forum (BTF), is excited to announce that BTF Calgary will take place October 10-11 at the Westin Calgary. In its third year, the event will bring together 100's of entrepreneurs and their executive teams from a broad range of industry sectors and different stages of business life-cycles with legal, financial and business experts. With over 40 speakers, the conference promises to deliver attendees the tactical take-aways needed in order to make smarter decisions in the short term while setting the business up for successful transition in the future.
This year, CEO's from home-grown organizations such as Swimco, Goldray Glass, Uncommon Wine Rooms, Rent Me and Lithion Energy Group and the Calgary Chamber of Commerce, will be sharing stories about their transition journeys. Expert advisors from BDC Capital, RSM, ColumnB Acquisitions, Grant Thornton, PwC and AltaCorp, to name a few, will provide valuable insights to help business owners understand the selling process, how to add value to a business, tax strategies, family succession planning and much, much more. Speaker, author, entrepreneur, Eric Termuende, NoW Innovations, will be Keynoting at the event.
"We are thrilled to be back in Calgary for this seminal conference, as year-over-year, we see more business owners recognizing that it isn't a matter of if, but when, they will transition their business, they know they are better prepared". Stated Mark Stephenson, Co-Founder and CEO of Cube Business Media. "For two days, business owners will get a crash course on how to maximize any business transition or exit - most importantly, they'll learn where to start and how to avoid some of the costly mistakes made by others."
Returning sponsor and BTF Advisory Board member, Kellie Manchester, Partner, Sequeira Partners, notes that "the content of BTF is important for business owners to hear, because eventually everyone is going to have to transition whether it's today, tomorrow or 10 years down the road".
Watch the Business Transitions Forum Calgary Highlight Video and get inspired to attend the conference October 10-11. Early Bird ticket pricing ends Friday, September 14th, 2018.
About Cube Business Media
Cube Business Media Inc. is a boutique conference and exposition company, founded to generate connections, build content & create communities. We create physical hubs where like-minded individuals can gather face-to-face, en masse. Cube Business Media was founded specialize in building annual events from the ground up. With a history of building well-attended annual events that bring professionals back year after year. www.cubebusinessmedia.com
Contact Information:
Michelle Sklar, Director of Conferences
604.449.2284, Ext 5
msklar@cubebusinessmedia.com
Picton Property Income Limited
("Picton" or the "Company")
LEI Number: 213800RYE59K9CKR4497
13 september 2018
RESULT OF ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING
At the Annual General Meeting of the Company held on 13 September 2018, all Ordinary Resolutions set out in the Annual General Meeting Notice sent to Shareholders dated 6 August 2018 were duly passed. A copy of the full voting totals will be published on the Company's website at: www.picton.co.uk
In accordance with Listing Rule 9.6.2 the following Special Business resolutions were also passed:
MARKET ACQUISITIONS
To renew the authority of the Company, in accordance with Section 315 of The Companies (Guernsey) Law, 2008 (as amended) ("the Law"), to make market acquisitions (within the meaning of Section 316 of the Law) of the Ordinary Shares of No Par Value in the share capital of the Company ("the Ordinary Shares") provided that: -
a) the maximum number of Ordinary Shares hereby authorised to be acquired shall be 14.99 per cent of the issued Ordinary Shares on the date on which this resolution is passed;
b) the minimum price which may be paid for an Ordinary Share shall be 1p;
c) the maximum price (exclusive of expenses) which may be paid for an Ordinary Share shall be an amount equal to the higher of 105 per cent of the average of the middle market quotations (as derived from the Daily Official List) for the Ordinary Shares for the five business days immediately preceding the date of purchase or the higher of such price of the last independent trade and the highest current independent bid at the time of purchase; and
d) unless previously varied, revoked or renewed, the authority hereby conferred shall expire at the conclusion of the Annual General Meeting of the Company to be held in 2019, save that the Company may prior to such expiry, enter into a contract to purchase Ordinary Shares under such authority and may make a purchase of Ordinary Shares pursuant to any such contract.
DISAPPLICATION OF PRE-EMPTION RIGHTS
To empower the Directors of the Company to dis-apply the right of shareholders to receive a pre-emptive offer of new Ordinary Shares pursuant to Article 5.12 of the Articles of Incorporation provided that this power shall be limited to the issue of up to 27,002,683 Ordinary Shares (being equal to 5 per cent of the Ordinary Shares in issue as at the date of this Notice) and shall expire (unless previously renewed, varied or revoked by the Company in a general meeting) at the end of the Annual General Meeting of the Company held in 2019, or, if earlier, the date falling 15 months after the date of this Resolution, but during this period the Company may make offers, and enter into agreements, which would, or might, require Ordinary Shares to be issued (and treasury shares to be sold) after the power given to the Board pursuant to this Resolution ends and the Board may issue Ordinary Shares (and sell treasury shares) under any such offer or agreement as if the power had not ended.
DISAPPLICATION OF PRE-EMPTION RIGHTS
That conditional and in addition to extraordinary resolution 10 above having been passed, to empower the Directors of the Company to dis-apply the right of shareholders to receive a pre-emptive offer of new Ordinary Shares pursuant to Article 5.12 of the Articles of Incorporation provided that this power shall be: (i) limited to the issue of up to 27,002,683 Ordinary Shares (being equal to 5 per cent of the Ordinary Shares in issue as at the date of this Notice); and (ii) used only for the purposes of financing (or refinancing, if the authority is to be used within six months after the original transaction) a transaction which the Directors determine to be an acquisition or other capital investment of a kind contemplated by the Statement of Principles on Disapplying Pre-Emption Rights most recently published by the Pre-Emption Group prior to the date of this notice, and shall expire (unless previously renewed, varied or revoked by the Company in a general meeting) at the end of the Annual General Meeting of the Company held in 2019, or, if earlier, the date falling 15 months after the date of this Resolution, but during this period the Company may make offers, and enter into agreements, which would, or might, require Ordinary Shares to be issued (and treasury shares to be sold) after the power given to the Board pursuant to this Resolution ends and the Board may issue Ordinary Shares (and sell treasury shares) under any such offer or agreement as if the power had not ended.
For further information:
Northern Trust International Fund Administration Services (Guernsey) Limited
The Company Secretary
Trafalgar Court
Les Banques
St Peter Port
Guernsey
GY1 3QL
Tel: 01481 745001
Note to Editors
Picton is a property investment company established in 2005. It owns and actively manages a 678 million diversified UK commercial property portfolio, invested across 49 assets and with around 360 occupiers (as at 30 June 2018). Through an occupier focused, opportunity led approach to asset management, Picton aims to be one of the consistently best performing diversified UK focused property companies listed on the main market of the London Stock Exchange.
For more information please visit: www.picton.co.uk
END
- CSA members are the latest regulators to turn to Kx to meet their advanced surveillance requirements to ensure market integrity -
Kx, a division of First Derivatives plc, announces that it has been selected by the Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) to build and manage a next generation market analytics platform designed to assess, investigate and explain potential market abuse cases. Kx will combine the power of the technology's existing suite of analytics with machine learning algorithms to deliver a Market Analysis Platform (MAP) that will improve insight and support market integrity.
MAP will be hosted and managed by Kx and will provide rapid and flexible data interrogation capabilities for the CSA. The multi-year contract extends Kx's market-leading presence for regulators seeking advanced technologies to ensure the integrity and security of their markets, with regulators across the globe relying on Kx's capabilities.
Brian Conlon, Chief Executive Officer of Kx commented: "Kx is a natural choice to assist CSA members in ensuring the integrity of its markets. We continue to win market share in surveillance, with banks, buy side firms, exchanges as well as regulators, with key drivers including the power and flexibility of our technology as well as our capabilities in areas such as AI and machine learning."
About Kx
Kx is a division of FD, a global technology provider with 20 years of experience working with some of the world's largest finance, technology, retail, pharma, manufacturing and energy institutions. Kx technology, incorporating the kdb+ time-series database, is a leader in high-performance, in-memory computing, streaming analytics and operational intelligence. Kx delivers the best possible performance and flexibility for high-volume, data-intensive analytics and applications across multiple industries. The Group operates from 14 offices across Europe, North America and Asia Pacific, including its headquarters in Newry, and employs more than 2,400 people worldwide.
For more information about Kx please visit www.kx.com. For general enquiries, write to info@kx.com.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180913005728/en/
Contacts:
Kx
Jordan Hendricks
pr@firstderivatives.com
Nexa Resources S.A. ("Nexa Resources" or the "Company"), in accordance with applicable law, informs about the voting results of the General Meeting that was held on September 13, 2018 in Luxembourg, Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. The approved resolution authorizes the Board to establish, from time to time, share buyback programs, pursuant to which the Company, directly or indirectly through its subsidiaries, may purchase, acquire, receive or hold and sell shares of the Company listed on the New York Stock Exchange or the Toronto Stock Exchange, through normal course open market transactions (the "share buyback authorization").
Please see the detailed results on the table below:
Voting Results of the General Meeting of Shareholders held at the offices of Elvinger Hoss Prussen, societe anonyme, 5 place Winston Churchill L-1340, Luxembourg, Grand Duchy of Luxembourg on September 13, 2018 Resolution FOR AGAINST ABSTENTION Total number of votes cast (excluding Abstentions) Majority (%) (a) as per tabulation report (FOR) (b) other than (a) Total number FOR (a) as per tabulation report (AGAINST) (b) other than (a) Total number AGAINST (a) as per tabulation report (ABSTENTION) (b) other than (a) Total number ABSTENTION (FOR) (AGAINST) (ABSTENTION) 1. Authorisation under article 430-15 of the law of 10 August 1915 on commercial companies (as amended) granted to the Board of Directors of the Company to purchase, acquire, receive or hold and sell shares in the Company directly or indirectly through the Company's subsidiaries. 26,765,843 85,655,128 112,420,971 1,018 0 1,018 21,729 0 21,729 112,421,989 99.999
The share buyback resolution is valid for a period of three years ending on September 12, 2021 for share repurchases of up to 6.5 million common shares of the Company (the "shares"), representing 4.875% of the current issued and outstanding shares. As of August 31, 2018, the Company had 133,320,513 shares issued and outstanding. During the three-year share buyback period contemplated by the share buyback resolution, the Board will be empowered to determine, within the limits set forth by this share buyback resolution and in accordance with applicable law, the timing and conditions, including amounts involved of share buybacks by establishing share buyback programs. The share buyback programs will depend on a variety of elements, including the Company's business plans, financial performance and market conditions, and will be subject to applicable securities laws and stock exchange rules. There cannot be any assurance as to how many shares will ultimately be purchased under the share buyback authorization.
Please consult the General Meeting detailed materials which are available on the Company's website at https://ir.nexaresources.com, on EDGAR at www.sec.gov and on SEDAR at www.sedar.com.
About Nexa's Compliance with GDPR:
Nexa is adapting to the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the European Union. Please check our Privacy Notice on the link below: https://ir.nexaresources.com/privacy-policy
About Nexa
Nexa is a large-scale, low-cost integrated zinc producer with over 60 years of experience developing and operating mining and smelting assets in Latin America. The Company owns and operates five long-life underground mines, three located in the Central Andes of Peru and two located in the state of Minas Gerais in Brazil. Two of the Company's mines, Cerro Lindo in Peru and Vazante in Brazil, are among the 10 largest zinc mines in the world and combined with the Company's other mining operations, place the Company among the top five producers of mined zinc globally in 2017, according to Wood Mackenzie.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180913005759/en/
Contacts:
Nexa Resources
Investor Relations
Leandro Cappa
ir@nexaresources.com
Signal Mountain Middle High School tallied six National Merit Semifinalists for 2019.
This years group is the largest number from any area school.
It includes: Friedrich Max Burk, David Cornea, Paolo Iacoponi, Jacob Little, Emily Perez, and Jack Poss.
Principal Dr. Shane Harwood said, We are so proud of these six amazing students for all of their hard work in achieving this prestigious accomplishment! With this being my first year at SMMHS, I also want to congratulate our amazing staff, our former principal Mr. Stinson and last years wonderful administrative team, and our parents for the roles theyve played in supporting these students along the way. It is through a collective commitment to excellence in teaching and learning that our students aim for and reach the very highest of goals and we are so excited to see what the future holds for each of them."
These students qualified as Juniors last year by taking the Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test (PSAT/NMSQT), the initial screen of program entrants. They are among the 16,000 highest scorers nationwide of the 1.6 million students who took the test, which evaluates critical reading, math, and writing skills.
These academically talented students will have the opportunity to continue in the competition for some 7,500 National Merit Scholarships worth more than $31 million that will be offered next spring. Of the 16,000 Semifinalists, over 90 percent are expected to obtain Finalist standing and about half of the Finalists will win a National Merit scholarship.
Regulatory News:
Gecina (Paris:GFC) has consolidated its position as the leading listed office real estate company in Europe in the Global Real Estate Sustainability Benchmark (GRESB), which assesses the CSR policies and performance of real estate companies each year.
Gecina achieved an overall score of 92/100 and was awarded Green Star status, the highest category in the GRESB rankings, for the sixth consecutive year. The Group stood out in particular for its "Management" and "Policy Disclosure" performance, achieving the maximum score of 100 points. Gecina also made significant progress with its "Building Certification" and "Monitoring Environmental Management System" scores, increasing them by 4 and 3 points respectively. With these results, Gecina is setting out its determination to successfully implementing its "2020 Targets" plan and respecting its CSR commitments and the ESG criteria from the sustainability performance-linked loans set up with ING France and Credit Agricole Corporate Investment Bank (CACIB).
"This outstanding result reflects our commitment to sustainable development and long-term value creation for our customers and all our stakeholders. The GRESB rankings confirm the relevance of our 2020 Targets plan, focused on four priorities (wellbeing, biodiversity, low-carbon and circular economy), and recognize the high level of dedication shown by all our teams each day," explains Meka Brunel, Gecina's Chief Executive Officer.
At the European Public Real Estate Association (EPRA) annual conference in Berlin, Gecina once again received two Gold Awards, including Gold in the Sustainability Best Practices Recommendations (SBPR) Awards. This recognition highlights the quality and transparency of the Group's sustainability reporting.
About GRESB
The Global Real Estate Sustainability Benchmark (GRESB) assesses the sustainable performance of real estate portfolios around the world for institutional investors. GRESB compares data provided by the companies on social, environmental and societal issues. The final ranking benchmarks real estate companies' sustainable performance levels against their direct competitors. Gecina's category includes real estate companies whose office assets represent more than 75% of their NAV. In 2018, GRESB assessed 903 real estate companies worldwide.
About EPRA
The European Public Real Estate Association (EPRA) is an association representing companies from the real estate industry. Its role is to promote, develop and represent listed real estate companies at European level.
Gecina, living the city in a different way
Gecina owns, manages and develops property holdings worth 19.8 billion euros at end-June 2018, with nearly 93% located in the Paris Region. The Group is building its business around France's leading office portfolio and a diversification division with residential assets and student residences. Gecina has put sustainable innovation at the heart of its strategy to create value, anticipate its customers' expectations and invest while respecting the environment, thanks to the dedication and expertise of its staff.
Gecina is a French real estate investment trust (SIIC) listed on Euronext Paris, and is part of the SBF 120, CAC Next 20, CAC Large 60, Euronext 100, FTSE4Good, DJSI Europe and World, Stoxx Global ESG Leaders and Vigeo indices. In line with its commitments to the community, Gecina has created a company foundation, which is focused on protecting the environment and supporting all forms of disability.
www.gecina.fr
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180913005833/en/
Contacts:
GECINA CONTACTS
Financial communications
Samuel Henry-Diesbach, 33 (0)1 40 40 52 22
samuelhenry-diesbach@gecina.fr
or
Virginie Sterling, 33 (0)1 40 40 62 48
virginiesterling@gecina.fr
or
Press relations
Julien Landfried, 33 (0)1 40 40 65 74
julienlandfried@gecina.fr
or
Armelle Miclo, 33 (0)1 40 40 51 98
armellemiclo@gecina.fr
AUCKLAND, New Zealand, Sept. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Wellington Drive Technologies ("Wellington"), a leading global provider of Internet of Things (IoT) solutions and energy-efficient motors, is pleased to announce that New Zealand refrigeration manufacturer SKOPE Industries ("SKOPE") has chosen Wellington's IoT and EC motor products as key components in SKOPE's market-leading ActiveCore Glass Door Display refrigerator range.
SKOPE's new ActiveCore 2, which was launched at the recent Fine Food Australia show in Melbourne is one of the world's most energy efficient commercial refrigerator ranges. It will also be the first fridge from SKOPE to incorporate IoT capability via its new SKOPE-connect app.
SKOPE's Operations Manager, Bruce Vine commented, "SKOPE searched for a partner that could help to develop IoT technology to make SKOPE-connect a reality. We wanted to ensure the next generation of our market-leading ActiveCore range had IoT functionality which enabled our customers to monitor the refrigeration and energy performance of our fridges via their smartphones.Wellington exceeded our needs in this respect."
With SKOPE-connect, a SKOPE customer receives sales activity updates and insights into fridge performance -- such as energy consumption and maintenance requirements. Users can also customize their fridge to suit their requirements. Options include: pre-set temperatures for different projects, a low-noise mode, settable venue opening hours to control light, and others.
"We see the launch of SKOPE-connect as a vital new development, as our products move beyond keeping products cold, by delivering real information that helps our customers manage and grow their businesses," Mr. Vine added.
Wellington CEO, Greg Allen commented, "The relationship with SKOPE is Wellington's first direct technology partnership with a refrigeration manufacturer and it signals a new channel for the business to deliver its IoT solution to a wider food and beverage market. Delivering actionable insights through data is what this partnership is all about. We're thrilled to partner with another leading innovative New Zealand business like SKOPE, whose passion and dedication to delivering premium refrigeration solutions globally is well-known."
In its recent 2018 first half result, Wellington reported 18% growth in revenue and over $1m EBITDA profit. This is in part made possible by a dedication to developing relationships with great customers, and strong market acceptance of the SCS Connect IoT platform and ECR2 motor.
About Wellington Drive Technologies
Wellington is a leading global provider of IoT solutions, cloud-based fleet management platforms, energy-efficient electronic motors and connected refrigeration control solutions for the retail food and beverage markets. Through its iProximity brand in Australia it provides proximity-based marketing for Smart Cities. Wellington's SCS Connect IoT products, iProximity digital marketing solutions, and ECR motors serve some of the world's leading food and beverage brands as well as refrigerator manufacturers with advanced products and solutions that improve product sales, decrease operating costs and reduce energy consumption. Wellington is headquartered in Auckland, New Zealand, and is listed on the New Zealand stock exchange under the ticker symbol NZ:WDT.
For further information visit www.wdtl.com
About SKOPE:
SKOPE is a world-leader in commercial refrigeration technology with a 50-year plus history of servicing some of the world's top global food and beverage brands. The company prides itself on its position as a globally recognized innovator in its field that is known for combining outstanding performance with market-leading efficiency.
SKOPE's extensive product range includes upright and undercounter fridges and freezers for food service, drinks merchandisers, bar refrigeration, cool room inserts and shelving, along with modular cool-rooms, blast chillers and ice machines.
For further information visit www.skope.com
Washington, D.C.--(Newsfile Corp. - September 13, 2018) - The Securities and Exchange Commission is closely monitoring the impact of Hurricane Florence on investors and capital markets.
"The SEC is keeping a close eye on the progress of Hurricane Florence and any effects it may have on investors and capital markets. Dedicated staff stand ready to help ensure investors have access to their securities accounts, to evaluate the need to extend deadlines for filings and other regulatory requirements, and to keep a watchful eye for storm-related scams," said SEC Chairman Jay Clayton. "We encourage everyone in the path of the storm to stay safe by heeding the warnings of local officials."
The SEC divisions and offices that oversee companies, accountants, investment advisers, mutual funds, brokerage firms, transfer agents, and other regulated entities and investment professionals will continue to closely track developments. They will evaluate the possibility of granting relief from filing deadlines and other regulatory requirements for those affected by the storm. Entities and investment professionals affected by Hurricane Florence are encouraged to contact Commission staff with questions and concerns:
Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations staff in the Commission's Atlanta Regional Office can be reached by phone at 404-842-7600 or email at atlanta@sec.gov,
Office of Compliance Inspections and Examinations staff in the Commission's Philadelphia Regional Office can be reached by phone at 215-597-3100 or email at Philadelphia@sec.gov,
Division of Corporation Finance staff can be reached by phone at 202-551-3500 or via online submission at www.sec.gov/forms/corp_fin_interpretive,
Division of Investment Management staff can be reached by phone at 202-551-6825 or email at imocc@sec.gov,
Division of Trading and Markets staff can be reached by phone at 202-551-5777 or email at tradingandmarkets@sec.gov, and
Office of Municipal Securities staff can be reached by phone at 202-551-5680 or email at munis@sec.gov.
Individuals experiencing problems accessing their securities accounts or with similar questions or concerns relating to the hurricane are encouraged to contact the SEC's Office of Investor Education and Advocacy by phone at 1-800-SEC-0330 or email at help@sec.gov.
Investors should be vigilant for Hurricane Florence-related securities scams and check the background of anyone offering them an investmentby using the free and simple search tool on Investor.gov. The Division of Enforcement will vigorously prosecute those who attempt to defraud victims of the storm. The SEC is asking investors to report any suspicious solicitations at www.sec.gov/complaint/tipscomplaint.shtml.
Toronto, Ontario--(Newsfile Corp. - September 13, 2018) - World Wide Inc. ("World Wide" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has entered into a non-binding letter of intent (the "LOI") dated August 30, 2018 with Rhode Island-based Abacus Health Products, Inc. ("Abacus") whereby the parties will complete a business combination by way of a transaction that will constitute a reverse takeover of the Company by Abacus (the "Transaction"). Pursuant to the Transaction, the Company will apply to list on the Canadian Securities Exchange (the "CSE").
The resulting issuer that will exist upon completion of the Transaction (the "Resulting Issuer") will change its business to the development, production and sale of CBD infused topical pain relief products. The final structure of the Transaction will be determined by the parties following receipt of tax, corporate and securities law advice. The Transaction is an arm's length transaction.
Description of Abacus and its Business
Abacus develops, manufactures and sells a series of OTC FDA registered products using CBD, a non-psychoactive ingredient derived from cannabis. Its first family of products, CBD-Medic and CBD-Clinic, are aimed at the rapidly growing market for topical pain relief and are based on proprietary patent-pending technologies developed by Abacus. Abacus is developing a pipeline of other CBD products addressing additional medical indications and health and wellness segments. Abacus' products are distributed across the United States
World Wide Shareholder Meeting
Prior to the closing of the Transaction (the "Closing"), World Wide will call a meeting of its shareholders for the purpose of approving, among other matters (collectively, the "World Wide Meeting Matters"):
a change of name of the Company to "Abacus Health Products Inc." or such other name as is directed by Abacus and acceptable to applicable regulatory authorities effective upon Closing;
the consolidation of its shares based upon a ratio to be determined;
the creation of a new class of securities to be called "proportionate voting shares" which will have the right to 100 votes per share;
an amendment to its articles of incorporation to remove its authorized class of the Special Shares, of which there are presently none outstanding;
the approval of a new stock option plan to be effective upon Closing;
the election of a slate of directors appointed by Abacus, which elections will be effective upon Closing;
the appointment of a new auditor; and
if required by governing regulatory bodies, the approval of the Transaction.
The Transaction is an arm's length transaction. World Wide will, however, prepare and file with the CSE a CSE Form 2A listing statement or other principal disclosure document (the "Listing Statement") providing comprehensive disclosure on Abacus and the Transaction in connection with the CSE listing.
Management of the Resulting Issuer
Upon closing of the Transaction, all of World Wide's current directors and executive officers will resign and the board of directors of the Resulting Issuer will, subject to the approval of governing regulatory bodies, consist of between 3 and 7 directors, each of which shall be appointed by Abacus in its sole discretion. All of the executive officers shall be replaced by nominees of Abacus, all in a manner that complies with the requirements of governing regulatory bodies and applicable securities and corporate laws.
Details of insiders and proposed directors and officers of the Resulting Issuer will be disclosed in a further news release.
Closing Conditions
The completion of the Transaction is subject to a number of conditions, including but not limited to the following:
the execution of a definitive agreement;
completion of mutually satisfactory due diligence;
completion of the World Wide Meeting Matters; and
receipt of all required regulatory, corporate and third party approvals, including approvals by governing regulatory bodies, the shareholders of World Wide, applicable governmental authorities, and the fulfilment of all applicable regulatory requirements and conditions necessary to complete the Transaction.
Further information
Further details about the Transaction and the Resulting Issuer will be provided in a comprehensive news release when the parties enter into the definitive agreement.
Investors are cautioned that any information released or received with respect to the Transaction in this press release may not be complete and should not be relied upon. Trading in the common shares of the Company should be considered highly speculative.
The securities to be issued in connection with the Transaction have not been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act") or any state securities laws and may not be offered or sold within the United States or to U.S. Persons (as defined in Regulation S promulgated under the U.S. Securities Act) unless registered under the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state securities laws or an exemption from such registration is available. This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy nor shall there be any sale of the securities in any jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation or sale would be unlawful.
Completion of the Transaction is subject to a number of conditions, including but not limited to, CSE acceptance and if applicable, disinterested shareholder approval. Where applicable, the Transaction cannot close until the required shareholder approval is obtained. There can be no assurance that the Transaction will be completed as proposed or at all.
Investors are cautioned that, except as disclosed in the management information circular or Listing Statement to be prepared in connection with the Transaction, any information released or received with respect to the Transaction may not be accurate or complete and should not be relied upon. Trading in the securities of World Wide should be considered highly speculative.
Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange (the "CSE") nor its Market Regulator (as that term is defined in the policies of the CSE) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
About World Wide Inc.
World Wide Inc. previously operated as a mineral exploration company but presently has no current activities or operations.
Cautionary Statements Regarding Forward Looking Information
This news release contains "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities laws relating to the proposal to complete the Transaction and associated transactions. Any such forward-looking statements may be identified by words such as "expects", "anticipates", "believes", "projects", "plans" and similar expressions. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. Statements about, among other things, the expected terms of the Transaction, the number of securities of World Wide that may be issued in connection with the Transaction, shareholder approval, Abacus' strategic plans and the parties' ability to satisfy closing conditions and receive necessary approvals are all forward-looking information. These statements should not be read as guarantees of future performance or results. Such statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from those implied by such statements. Although such statements are based on management's reasonable assumptions, there can be no assurance that the Transaction will occur or that, if the Transaction does occur, it will be completed on the terms described above. World Wide and Abacus assume no responsibility to update or revise forward-looking information to reflect new events or circumstances unless required by applicable law.
For more information, please contact:
World Wide Inc.
Yaron Conforti, CEO and Director
Telephone: (416) 716-8181
Abacus Health Products, Inc.
Perry Antelman, Chief Executive Officer
E-mail: perry@abacushp.com
THIS NEWS RELEASE IS INTENDED FOR DISTRIBUTION IN CANADA ONLY AND IS NOT INTENDED FOR DISTRIBUTION TO UNITED STATES NEWSWIRE SERVICES OR DISSEMINATION IN THE UNITED STATES.
Panoramic Resourceshas agreed to sell its Lanfranchi Nickel Project to a wholly owned subsidiary of Texas-based Black Mountain Metals for $15.1 million.Panoramic and Black Mountain have executed a binding Sale and Purchase Agreement to which Black Mountain will acquire all of the issued shares in Panoramics wholly-owned subsidiary Cherish, which owns 100 per cent of the Lanfranchi Nickel Project and associated infrastructure in Western Australia.The sale of Lanfranchi is consistent with Panoramics strategy to focus its efforts on the restart of the long-life Savannah Ni-Cu-Co Project, which is on schedule to deliver concentrate early in the March 2019 quarter.Shares in Panoramic Resourcesclosed 4.35 per cent lower to 44 cents yesterday.
By Stephen Nellis and Sonam Rai CUPERTINO, Calif. (Reuters) - Apple Inc introduced its largest-ever iPhone and a watch that detects heart problems on Wednesday in an attempt to get customers to upgrade to more expensive devices in the face of stagnant global demand for smartphones. The relatively small changes to its lineup, following last year's overhauled iPhone X, were widely expected by investors, who sent the company's shares down 1.2 percent to $221.07
By Stephen Nellis and Sonam Rai
CUPERTINO, Calif. (Reuters) - Apple Inc introduced its largest-ever iPhone and a watch that detects heart problems on Wednesday in an attempt to get customers to upgrade to more expensive devices in the face of stagnant global demand for smartphones.
The relatively small changes to its lineup, following last year's overhauled iPhone X, were widely expected by investors, who sent the company's shares down 1.2 percent to $221.07.
The strategy has been successful, helping Apple's stock up more than 30 pct this year and making it the first publicly traded U.S. company to hit a market value of more than $1 trillion.
Apple's new iPhone XS, pronounced "ten S," has a 5.8-inch (14.7-cm) screen, and starts at $999. The XS Max, the largest iPhone to date and one of the biggest on the market, has a 6.5-inch (16.5-cm) screen, and starts at $1,099.
They have finally added a larger-screen phone so that they can directly compete with the Galaxy Note9 products," Gartner analyst Annette Zimmermann said at the event at Apple's Silicon Valley headquarters, referring to rival Samsung Electronics <005930.KS>, which has led the trend towards big-screen phones.
"The larger screen will be very important in China to turn around the trend there, because they have lost some share in the last few years, partly because of screen size, she added.
Apple also introduced a lower-cost 6.1-inch (15.5 cm) iPhone XR made of aluminium, starting at $749.
(GRAPHIC: Apple stock performance six months ahead of each iPhone launch - https://reut.rs/2CJ8fgI)
The iPhone Xs Max's display size is 26 percent larger than the previous largest iPhone display, marking the largest increase in screen size since 2014, wrote analyst Gene Munster of Loup Ventures in a note.
This year's three top phones are all more expensive than last year's models.
With two of them starting at $999 or higher in the United States, Apple appears to be taking advantage of a strong U.S. economy, low unemployment, and rising household wealth. The median U.S. household income rose for a third straight year in 2017 to the highest on record since 1967 by one measure, government data showed on Wednesday.
MEDICAL DEVICE MARKET
Looking for ways to lessen reliance on phones, which represent more than 60 percent its revenue, Apple opened its event by announcing the new Apple Watch Series 4 with edge-to-edge displays, like its latest phones, which are more than 30 percent bigger than displays on current models.
It is positioning the new watch as a more comprehensive health device, able to take an electrocardiogram to detect an irregular heartbeat and start an emergency call automatically if it detects a user falling down, potentially appealing to older customers.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said it worked with Apple to develop apps for the Apple Watch and has been taking steps to ease the regulatory pathway for companies seeking to create digital healthcare products.
"This is a pretty big deal," said healthcare tech analyst Ross Muken at Evercore. "This update really establishes the companys increasing efforts to push the watch as a serious medical device. Apple seems to be diving into heart disease first, the most common cause of death around the world, making serious moves as a health company."
Shares of fitness device rival Fitbit Inc fell 6.9 percent after the Series 4 announcement.
Apple's event was held at the Steve Jobs Theater at its new circular headquarters in Cupertino, California, named after the company's co-founder who wowed the world with the first iPhone in 2007.
Executives made no mention of a wireless charging mat, or content deals for Apple TV, as some industry analysts had expected.
"We all knew this was going to be a transitional but not transformational phone update," said Trip Miller, managing partner at hedge fund Gullane Capital, which owns Apple shares.
(GRAPHIC: Apple's Growth Seen Slowing - https://reut.rs/2CS6xt8)
(Reporting by Sonam Rai in Bengaluru and Stephen Nellis in Cupertino, California; Additional reporting by Supantha Mukherjee in Bengaluru, Nadine Schimroszik in Berlin and Yasmeen Abutaleb in Washington; Writing by Bill Rigby; Editing by Bernard Orr and Nick Zieminski)
This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
By Stephanie Kelly NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil futures rose on Wednesday, with Brent reaching $80 a barrel, after a larger-than-expected drop in U.S. crude inventories and as U.S. sanctions on Iran added to concerns over global oil supply
By Stephanie Kelly
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil futures rose on Wednesday, with Brent reaching $80 a barrel, after a larger-than-expected drop in U.S. crude inventories and as U.S. sanctions on Iran added to concerns over global oil supply.
Benchmark Brent crude futures rose 68 cents to settle at $79.74 a barrel. The global benchmark earlier reached $80.13 a barrel, its highest level since May 22.
U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures rose $1.12 to settle at $70.37 a barrel, a one-week high.
U.S. crude inventories fell by 5.3 million barrels in the last week, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said on Wednesday. Analysts had expected a decrease of 805,000 barrels.
"Today's crude stock draw of 5.3 million barrels fell far short of the (American Petroleum Institute's) decline but was significantly larger than the normal draw of around 1 million barrels for this particular week," Jim Ritterbusch, president of Ritterbusch and Associates, said in a note.
Also supporting prices were supply concerns surrounding U.S. sanctions on Iran. Since the spring, when the Trump Administration said it would impose the sanctions, traders have been focussing on the potential impact on global supply. The sanctions will target Iran's oil exports from November.
"Iran is increasingly becoming the preoccupation of the crude market. The last couple of weeks have seen the expected squeeze on Iranian crude flows taking shape, with overall outflows down markedly," consultancy JBC Energy said.
(GRAPHIC: Iran oil exports to Asia - https://tmsnrt.rs/2CEzade)
Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak on Wednesday warned of the impact of the U.S. sanctions against Iran.
"This is a huge uncertainty on the market how countries, which buy almost 2 million barrels per day (bpd) of Iranian oil, will act. The situation should be closely watched, the right decisions should be taken," he said.
Novak said global oil markets were "fragile" due to geopolitical risks and supply disruptions, but added his country could raise output if needed.
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries cut its forecast for oil demand growth in 2019 in its monthly report and said rising challenges in some emerging and developing countries could negatively impact global economic growth. [OPEC/M]
OPEC said it expected demand growth of 1.41 million bpd in 2019, a 20,000-bpd downgrade from its previous forecast.
Oil traders were also watching the progress of category 4 Hurricane Florence, which is expected to make landfall on the U.S. East Coast by Friday.
Crude output will not be affected by the massive storm, but the evacuation of more than a million residents, as well as businesses, has prompted a near-term spike in fuel demand.
(Additional reporting by Amanda Cooper in London and Henning Gloystein in Singapore; Editing by Susan Thomas, Phil Berlowitz and Paul Simao)
This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
Retail rates are high after adding excise duty, which is charged by the central government, commission paid to petrol pumps dealers and VAT, charged by state governments.
Mumbai: Petrol prices are on a relentless upward march. On Thursday, petrol was up by 13 paisa at Rs 81 per litre -- an all-time high in Delhi, while petrol was sold at Rs 73.08 per litre., according to a price notification of state-owned fuel retailers.
In Mumbai, the price of petrol was Rs 88.39 per litre and diesel at Rs 73.08 per litre. In Chennai, petrol is being sold at Rs 84.19 per litre and diesel at Rs 77.25 per litre while in Kolkata, the costs were Rs 82.98 per litre and Rs 75.03 per litre respectively.
The price of petrol is the highest in Maharashtra's Parbhani district in Maharashtra. On Tuesday, fuel price reached a new high retailing at at Rs 90.11 per litre.
According to oil companies, refinery gate price of petrol, without considering any central or state tax and dealers commission, is Rs 40.45 per litre. The same for diesel is Rs 44.28.
Retail rates are high after adding excise duty, which is charged by the central government, commission paid to petrol pumps dealers and VAT, charged by state governments.
Dealer's commission on petrol currently is Rs 3.34 per litre and that on diesel is Rs 2.52.
While crude oil advanced 0.4 percent to $67.78 a barrel, the relentless slide in rupee has added fuel to the fire. The currency fell to a new low of 72.7375 on Tuesday.
Fuel rates have been on fire since mid-August, rising almost every day due to a drop in rupee value and rise in crude oil rates. Petrol price has risen by Rs 3.65 a litre and diesel by Rs 4.06 per litre - the biggest increase in rates witnessed in any month since the launch of daily price revision in mid-June last year.
PM calls for meeting to review fuel, rupee hike
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has called for a meeting where fuel price hike may be discussed said media reports.
Though a few states have announced a reduction in VAT for fuel thus bringing down prices, Maharashtra is yet to do so.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee announced a Re 1 cut in fuel prices on Tuesday. On Monday, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu announced a cut in petrol and diesel price by Rs 2 each.
Earlier, Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje announced a four percent reduction in VAT on petrol and diesel on Sunday, which will reduce fuel prices by Rs 2.5 per litre in the state. VAT on petrol will be reduced from 30 to 26 percent and on diesel from 22 to 18 percent, Raje announced. The decision will cost the exchequer Rs 2,000 crore, but will provide the people of that state a relief of Rs 2.5 per litre on petrol and diesel.
--With inputs from agencies
By Henning Gloystein SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Oil prices slipped on Thursday, although U.S. crude remained above $70 a barrel on the back of falling crude inventories and Brent was still close to $80 because of looming sanctions against Iran.
By Henning Gloystein
SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Oil prices slipped on Thursday, although U.S. crude remained above $70 a barrel on the back of falling crude inventories and Brent was still close to $80 because of looming sanctions against Iran.
U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were at $70.19 per barrel at 0024 GMT, down 18 cents from their last settlement.
Brent crude futures dipped 11 cents to $79.63 a barrel.
Brent rose above $80 per barrel the previous session for the first time since May, spurred by expectations that U.S. sanctions against Iran's oil exports, which will start in November, will tighten global markets.
U.S. crude inventories fell 5.3 million barrels in the week to Sept. 7 to 396.2 million barrels, the lowest since February 2015 and about 3 percent below the five-year average for this time of year, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) said in its weekly report on Wednesday.
Stephen Innes, head of trading for Asia-Pacific at futures brokerage Oanda in Singapore, said crude inventory data for last week showed "a much deeper drop than analyst's expectations ... propelling Brent briefly above the fundamental and psychological $80 a barrel for the first time since May, and was equally as supportive for the WTI contract."
U.S. crude oil production fell by 100,000 barrels per day (bpd), to 10.9 million bpd.
Innes said the slight dips on Thursday came as rising refined product inventories, which the EIA also reported, "slightly dampened market overexuberance" as it indicated that U.S. fuel demand may be weakening.
Gasoline stocks rose 1.3 million barrels, while distillate stockpiles , which include diesel and heating oil, climbed by 6.2 million barrels, the EIA data showed.
Overall, however, Innes said "the confluence of bullish near-term signals (of) Iran sanctions and sinking U.S. crude inventories should keep oil prices supported for the remainder of the week."
(GRAPHIC: Iran oil exports to Asia - https://tmsnrt.rs/2CEzade)
(Reporting by Henning Gloystein; Editing by Joseph Radford)
This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
By Steve Holland WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Trump administration has invited Chinese officials to restart trade talks, the White House's top economic adviser said on Wednesday, as Washington prepares to escalate the U.S.-China trade war with tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods. Larry Kudlow, who heads the White House Economic Council, told Fox Business Network that U.S.
By Steve Holland
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Trump administration has invited Chinese officials to restart trade talks, the White House's top economic adviser said on Wednesday, as Washington prepares to escalate the U.S.-China trade war with tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods.
Larry Kudlow, who heads the White House Economic Council, told Fox Business Network that U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin had sent an invitation to senior Chinese officials, but he declined to provide further details.
"Theres some discussions and information that we received that the Chinese government the top of the Chinese government wished to pursue talks," Kudlow said. "And so, Secretary Mnuchin, who is the team leader with China, has apparently issued an invitation."
Two people familiar with the effort said Mnuchin's invitation was sent to his Chinese counterparts, including Vice Premier Liu He, the top economic adviser to Chinese President Xi Jinping, for talks in coming weeks.
The Trump administration is preparing to activate tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods, hitting a broad array of internet technology products and consumer goods from handbags to bicycles to furniture. It was unclear whether any U.S.-China talks would delay the duties.
Kudlow earlier told reporters outside the White House that communications with Beijing had "picked up a notch" and added he saw that as "a positive thing."
"I think most of us think it's better to talk than not to talk, and I think the Chinese government is willing to talk," Kudlow said.
Asked if the Trump administration would like to have additional trade talks with China, Kudlow said: "If they come to the table in a serious way to generate some positive results, yes, of course. That's what we've been asking for months and months."
But he cautioned: "I guarantee nothing."
The timing and location of the proposed meeting were unclear, the sources familiar with the matter said. Mid-level U.S. and Chinese officials met on Aug. 22 and 23 with no agreements.
A U.S. Treasury spokesman did not respond to requests for comment.
The invitation was first reported by the Wall Street Journal. A meeting among Cabinet-level officials could ease market worries over the escalating tariff war that threatens to engulf all trade between the world's two largest economies and raise costs for companies and consumers.
CONCERNS OF ESCALATION
So far, the United States and China have hit $50 billion worth of each other's goods with tariffs in a dispute over U.S. demands that China make sweeping economic policy changes, including ending joint venture and technology transfer policies, rolling back industrial subsidy programs and better protecting American intellectual property.
U.S. President Donald Trump said last week that in addition to preparing tariffs on the further $200 billion worth of goods, he had tariffs on an additional $267 billion worth of goods ready "on short notice if I want."
China has threatened retaliation, which could include action against U.S. companies operating there.
U.S. business groups are escalating their fight against Trump's tariffs, with over 60 industry groups launching a coalition to put political pressure on the Trump administration to seek alternatives to tariffs.
(Reporting by Steve Holland; Additional reporting by David Lawder and Ginger Gibson; Writing by David Lawder; Editing by Leslie Adler and Peter Cooney)
This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
The drug Risedronate Sodium delayed-release tablets, used for the treatment of osteoporosis in post-menopausal women.
New Delhi: Drug firm Zydus Cadila has received a final nod from the US health regulator for Risedronate Sodium delayed-release tablets, used for the treatment of osteoporosis in post-menopausal women.
The company has received final approval from the USFDA to market the tablets in the strength of 35 mg in America, Zydus Cadila said in a statement on Thursday.
The product will be manufactured at the groups formulations manufacturing facility at Moraiya, Ahmedabad, it added.
Risedronate alters bone formation and breakdown in the body. This can slow bone loss and may help prevent bone fractures. This medicine is used to treat osteoporosis in women, caused by menopause, Zydus Cadila said.
The group now has 218 approvals and has so far filed over 330 abbreviated new drug applications (ANDAs) since the commencement of its filing process, it added.
A Government of Delhi source explained that after the number of operators at the call centre was increased from 40 on the day of the launch to 150, and number of phone lines increased from 50 to 200
The Delhi government has stepped up the operational strength of its much-publicised 'Doorstep Delivery of Services' four-fold, but due to the massive response from citizens, a larger number of calls went unanswered even on the third day of operation. A statement issued by the Delhi government said, "On the third day of the launch more than 21,000 calls were connected. With the back-end system, phone lines and operators increased manifold compared to the day of the launch, no call failed on the third day, although not all were answered as many of them were on waiting and the unanswered calls are being returned."
As per data released by the government, the total number of calls answered (of the over 21,000 that were connected to call centres) was only 3,517. A Government of Delhi source explained that after the number of operators at the call centre was increased from 40 on the day of the launch to 150, and number of phone lines increased from 50 to 200, the numbers of calls that got connected soared.
On the very first day of the scheme, the number of calls connected was only 2,728. On the second day, it rose to 11,055 and on the third day, it crossed the 21,000 mark. The number of calls answered also saw a steady rise; it stood at only 1,286 on the first day, 3,472 on the second and 3,517 on the third. "The people who failed to get Doorstep Delivery of Services due to heavy traffic, are being called back. A separate desk to call back these citizens has been added to the call centre," said Arunodoy Prakash, media advisor to Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia.
He also added that 4,200 people were called back on the third day until as late as 5 pm by this desk.
"More phone lines and operators will be added if required to accommodate more calls. But the high number of calls waiting seems to be a case of multiple calls made by a single caller," he added. Of the 21,000 attempted calls that could not be connected on the first day, it was found when the calls were returned, that only 4,200 numbers were found to be unique. "We are presently in a phase in which we are trying to anticipate the possible number of callers we are going to get everyday. Once this is sorted out, the manpower required to operate the scheme can be estimated," he said.
In the past three days, nearly 34,839 number of calls were connected out of which 8,275 calls were answered directly and 4,200 people were called back. A further 18,913 persons whose calls could not be answered, were sent SMSes. Since its launch, the doorstep delivery team has visited 223 households and 2,187 appointments were fixed between citizens and officials in the government.
Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Monday launched the scheme to provide government services to citizens at their doorstep. At the inauguration event for the scheme he said, "Today we are making a start with 40 services and the Delhi government will soon add 30 more, and the number of services that the Delhi government will ultimately provide will grow to 100 services, on the doorstep of citizens within next three months."
The government's rationale is to weed out the coterie of middlemen who peddle government services for money. "Many times, we are informed about malpractices in the government services. Corruption challenges the very vision of the present government and it cannot be tolerated at any cost. The doorstep delivery of government services is the solution to this problem," said Prakash.
Significantly, the Delhi chief minister also has issued strict orders that no request for services by citizens can be rejected on any grounds without the approval of the concerned minister in charge of the department.
He also said, "If any of the requests/applications are delayed under this scheme, it will be taken as an attempt to sabotage the pro-people scheme to further one's corrupt practices."
The services covered under this scheme include:
1) Issuance of Caste Certificate (OBC)
2) Issuance of Caste Certificate (SC
3) Issuance of Caste Certificate (ST)
4) Issuance of Domicile Certificate
5) Issuance of Income Certificate
6) Issuance of Delayed Birth Order
7) Issuance of Lal Dora Certificate
8) Issuance of Land Status Report
9) Issuance of Permanent ID Card to the Disabled Person
10) Issuance of Return On Revenue
11) Issuance of Solvency Certificate
12) Issuance of Surviving Member Certificate
13) Registration of Marriage
14) Enrolment as Civil Defence Volunteer
15) Duplicate Registration Certificate of vehicles
16) Change of Address in Registration Certificate of vehicles
17) Transfer of Ownership of vehicles
18) Hypothecation Addition
19) Hypothecation Termination
20) Issuance of NOC of vehices
21) Learners Licence
22) Permanent Driving Licence
23) Duplicate Driving Licence
24) Change of Address in D/L
25) Delhi Family Benefit Scheme
26) Handicap Pension Scheme
27) Old Age Pension Scheme
28) Issuance of Priority Household Card
29) Updation of Member Details in the AAY/Priority Household Card
30) New Water/sewer Connection
31) Mutations related to Delhi Jal Board
32) Re-Opening (After rebuilding of house etc.) related to Delhi Jal Board
33) Disconnections related to Delhi Jal Board
34) Approval of Installation of Passenger Lift, Lift Shaft & Machine Room
35) Services under Delhi Shops & Establishment Act, 1954
36) Financial Assistance for purchase of Stationery to SC/ST/OBC/Minority Category
37) Scholarship/ Merit Scholarship to SC/ST/OBC/Minority Students for the school (for Class I to XII) and for OBC(Class VI to XII)
38) Reimbursement of Tuition fees for students belonging to SC/ST/OBC/Minority Category
39) Issuance of delayed death order
40) Renewal of Driving Licence.
Step-by-step procedure to avail services under the scheme:
- Applicants will have to call 1076
- The call centre will inform the applicant about the services available
- The applicant will be told about the documents required for a particular certificate to be made
- The applicant can fix an appointment anytime between 8 am and 10 pm
- A mobile sahayak will visit the applicant's home on the time fixed for the appointment
- Mobile sahayaks will be police verified and will not have any details of the applicant other than the postal address
- Mobile sahayaks will scan the concerned documents in the presence of the applicant and will provide an e-receipt of fees paid for the service (Rs 50)
- Once the application is complete, it will be electronically transferred to the concerned government office
- The applicant will receive an SMS at every stage of the process from the time the request was generated to the delivery of the certificate
- Delivery of the certificate will be ensured within the stipulated time-frame either by post or by mobile sahayak
Although the scheme is aimed at providing door step delivery of government services, the applicant will have to visit the concerned office of the concerned department wherever it is mandatory. "For example, in the case of issuing a new Driving Licence, a mandatory test whether the applicant can drive a vehicle is to be conducted. This procedure cannot be bypassed. The applicant will get an appointment from the concerned official of the department to appear for the test. Similarly in the case of marriage, the couple will have to visit the magistrate as per norms. Again, the appointment here will be fixed by the system itself," said Prakash.
A spokesperson to the VFS Global Services Pvt Ltd in an email communication said, "The e-governance initiative of doorstep delivery of 40 essential citizen services is unique and enables people to avail the same at the convenience of their homes. As the service implementation partner, VFS Global is responsible for providing IT solution and managing the entire manpower of Mobile Sahayaks responsible for ensuring the services are delivered to citizens. To avail of the Doorstep Delivery of Services, a citizen has to call the call centre and make a request. This call centre is managed by the Delhi government. The request received by the call centre is routed to the nearest Mobile Sahayak for processing of the application."
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Wednesday reacted to embattled liquor tycoon Vijay Mallya's claim that he met him before leaving India.
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Wednesday reacted to embattled liquor tycoon Vijay Mallya's claim that he met him before leaving India and said that "the statement is factually false in as much as it does not reflect truth."
"My attention has been drawn to a statement made to the media by Vijay Mallaya (sic) on having met me with an offer of settlement," Jaitley said in a Facebook post.
The finance minister said that Mallya "misused" his privilege of being a member of the Rajya Sabha and "paced to catch up" with him while he was walking out of the Rajya Sabha.
"I had never given him an appointment, never at my office and never at my residence, nor have I ever offered to meet him," Jaitley further told ANI.
#WATCH Finance Minister Arun Jaitley says, "I never gave him an appointment" on Vijay Mallya's claim that he met the Finance Minister before he left. pic.twitter.com/aGxlD69NHY ANI (@ANI) September 12, 2018
Apart from the encounter which Jaitley claimed to have described in his Facebook post, the finance minister said, "There is no question of my having ever met him, spoken to him. I even did not receive any paper from him at that time. And therefore, to convey an impression that he met me with an offer of settlement is factually not correct.
The finance minister also lashed out at the Congress for its remarks over the issue and said, "They (Congress) cannot even understand the kind of honest politics practised by people like us."
The 62-year-old former Kingfisher Airline boss, who arrived to appear before the Westminster Magistrates' Court in London, told reporters that he had met the minister and offered to settle the issue with the banks.
"I left India because I had a scheduled meeting in Geneva. Before leaving, I met the finance minister and offered to settle (the issue with the banks), Mallya said, without naming Jaitley.
Jaitley was the finance minister in 2016 when Mallya left India.
Mallya also said that he had made a "comprehensive settlement" offer before the Karnataka High Court that will help in paying off all his dues.
The former Kingfisher Airlines boss, who has been on bail on an extradition warrant since his arrest last April, responded to the swarm of reporters gathered outside the court in his characteristic manner and said the "courts will decide".
"I hope the honourable judges will consider it favourably; everybody gets paid off and I guess that's the primary objective, said Mallya, who is fighting extradition to India on charges of fraud and money laundering amounting to around Rs 9,000 crore.
The accused include a liftman, security guards, plumbers, electricians and other maintenance staff working at an apartment complex in Ayanavaram locality in Chennai where the girl lived. She was allegedly sexually assaulted several times over seven months.
Chennai: A charge sheet was filed on Wednesday against 17 people in the alleged rape of an 11-year old hearing-impaired girl, arraigning the accused under the new law which provides for death penalty for child rapists.
The charge sheet was filed by Special Public Prosecutor N Ramesh before a Mahila court here for cases under Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, nearly two months after the incident came to the fore.
The accused include a liftman, security guards, plumbers, electricians and other maintenance staff working at an apartment complex in Ayanavaram locality where the girl lived. She was allegedly sexually assaulted several times over seven months.
Apart from the POCSO Act, the charge sheet invokes various sections of the IPC, including under the newly added sections 376AB and 376DB that provide for a minimum 20-year rigorous imprisonment and maximum death penalty for raping girls under 12 years.
The new provisions have come into force after Parliament on 6 August last passed the Criminal Law (Amendment) Bill which replaced an earlier ordinance promulgated in the wake of Kathua rape case. This is the first time that the amended provisions have been invoked by the prosecution in the state.
The horrific incident had led to shock and outrage and the arrested had been attacked by some lawyers in the court where they were produced on 17 July. According to police, the girl was sedated with injections, drug-laced soft drinks and made to sniff a powder by the accused before sexually assaulting her repeatedly.
The incident had come to light after the victim, a class seven student, narrated her ordeal to her elder sister, who then informed their parents. Following this a police complaint was lodged on 15 July.
Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said the impeccable credentials and uprightness of Justice Gogoi are known to all.
New Delhi: Welcoming the appointment of Justice Ranjan Gogoi as the 46th Chief Justice of India, the Congress on Thursday said people are looking forward to a resilient court under his leadership, which will dispense justice in a fearless manner.
Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said the impeccable credentials and uprightness of Justice Gogoi are known to all.
"The entire legal fraternity and common people are looking forward to a resilient court under his leadership, dispensing justice in a fearless manner to uphold the essential foundational values of our Constitutional democracy," he said.
"We welcome the appointment of Justice Ranjan Gogoi as the Chief Justice of India. We hope that during his tenure he will continue to push the cause of justice as he has done previously in his career," the Congress said on its Twitter handle.
President Ram Nath Kovind signed warrants of appointment of Justice Gogoi following which a notification announcing his appointment was issued by the Law Ministry earlier on Thursday. Justice Gogoi will assume office on 3 October after incumbent Dipak Misra retires a day before.
He will have a tenure of a little over 13 months and would retire on 17 November, 2019.
Daily bulletin: DUSU results to be announced today, Rahul Gandhi demands immediate probe into allegations made by Vijay Mallya- here are the day's top stories
Apple iPhone XS, XS max and XR launched
Apple on Wednesday unveiled updated versions of its priciest iPhones along with a new smartwatch that allows users to take their own electrocardiograms as the US tech giant looks to boost its momentum in a sputtering market. The California tech giant revealed its iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max, updating the top-of-the-line handsets released a year earlier. They also introduced a more affordable iPhone called the iPhone Xr. The iPhone Xs starts at Rs 99,900, the larger iPhone Xs Max begins at Rs 1,09,900 and the supposedly more affordable iPhone Xr starts at Rs 76,900. The new devices are aimed at maintaining Apple's share in the premium segment. Apple also introduced the fourth generation of Apple Watch with a major redesign and a series of features designed to improve its performance as a medical and health device.
DUSU election results counting to begin at 8.30 am
The results for the Delhi University Students' Union (DUSU) elections are to be announced on Thursday. The counting of the votes will begin from 8.30 am. Amid heavy police presence, the polls went off peacefully with around 44.46 percent voter turnout till 7.30 pm on Wednesday. Polling took place at 52 centres in the colleges, where as many as 1.35 lakh voters have been involved in deciding the fate of 23 candidates in the DUSU polls. According to the information received by PTI, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) has won 71 seats in 19 colleges. The RSS-affiliated party won in various colleges, including Hindu College, Shri Ram College of Commerce, Kirori Mal College, Bhagat Singh (Morning), Zakir Hussain (Morning), Dyal Singh (morning) colleges in Wednesday's poll. The National Students' Union Of India (NSUI) won 75 seats in 20 colleges. They won in Sri Venkateswara College, Atma Ram Sanatan Dharma College, Aryabhatta College, Zakir Hussain College, among others. The results will be officially announced on Thursday.
Rahul Gandhi demands immediate probe into allegations made by Vijay Mallya, asks Arun Jaitley to step down
Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Wednesday demanded an immediate probe into the "extremely serious" allegations made by fugitive liquor baron Vijay Mallya and said finance minister Arun Jaitley should step down till the investigation is over. Mallya, facing charges of fraud and money laundering amounting to around Rs 9,000 crore and fighting an extradition case, told reporters in London that he met the finance minister before leaving India and offered to settle with the banks. "Given Vijay Mallya's extremely serious allegations in London on Wednesday, the prime minister should immediately order an independent probe into the matter. Arun Jaitley should step down as the finance minister while this probe is underway," Gandhi tweeted.
Kerala nun rape case: Police summons Jalandhar bishop to appear on 19 September
The Kerala Police on Wednesday summoned Bishop Franco Mulakkal of Jalandhar diocese to appear before it on 19 September in connection with the probe into allegations of rape by a nun amid mounting pressure for action against him and continuing protests. Announcing the decision to summon the clergyman after a meeting where the probe in the case was reviewed, Inspector General of Police Vijay Sakhare said the delay in completing the investigation was due to "contradictions" in the statements given by the victim, the witnesses and the accused. Sakhare said a decision on arresting the bishop could be taken only after ironing out the contradictions in the statements.
Arvind Kejriwal in Seoul: Visits Cheonggyecheon stream, attends Sarang festival
Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Wednesday visited Seoul's Cheonggyecheon, an open public space and the site of an urban renewal project which is now a popular tourist attraction. Kejriwal, accompanied by Urban Development Minister Satyendar Jain is currently visiting South Korea, his first bilateral visit to a foreign country after becoming chief minister. Kejriwal also attended a leg of the ongoing India Festival in South Korea 'Sarang 2018' at Yonsei University, and praised the Indian Embassy in Seoul for showcasing India's heritage to Koreans. Kejriwal is scheduled to leave Seoul on 14 September.
Henry Cavill, Ben Affleck quit DC cinematic universe
Henry Cavill reportedly is no longer part of DC cinematic universe as Superman. The actor, who first appeared as the superhero in 2013s Man of Steel, and later reprised his role in Superman V Batman and last years Justice League, is parting ways with Warner Bros, sources told The Hollywood Reporter. The studio is unlikely to make a solo Superman film for at least several years. Ben Affleck is also being said to depart his DCEU role as Batman, as a new, probably younger actor is expected to take on the mantle in Matt Reeves stand-alone film.
A CCTV video footage shared by news agency ANI, has brought to light a horrific incident involving former DMK Corporator Selvakumar, where he is seen mercilessly hitting a woman inside a beauty parlour in Tamil Nadu's Perambalur.
A CCTV video footage shared by news agency ANI, has brought to light a horrific incident involving now-former DMK corporator Selvakumar, where he is seen mercilessly hitting a woman inside a beauty parlour in Tamil Nadu's Perambalur.
#WATCH Former DMK Corporator Selvakumar hits a woman at a beauty salon in Tamil Nadu's Perambalur. The incident took place on 25th May' 18. He has been arrested by the police and has been suspended from primary membership of the party (Source: CCTV footage) pic.twitter.com/B623qaLc0k ANI (@ANI) September 13, 2018
The incident took place on 25 May, 2018 although the video only came to light on Thursday and the politician has since been arrested by the police and suspended from primary membership of the party, ANI reported. However, social media users are now demanding stricter action against the corporator.
In the video, Selvakumar can be seen repeatedly kicking a woman, in the presence of three other women in the parlour. The other women try to stop him but he shrugs them off and continues hitting the woman.
DMK members, including party chief MK Stalin, have yet to comment on the incident.
DUSU election results 2018 latest updates: The Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) bagged three posts president, vice President, and joint secretary on Thursday, while the National Students' Union of India (NSUI) secured one.
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According to PTI, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) has won 71 seats in 19 colleges including Hindu College, Shri Ram College of Commerce, Kirori Mal College, Bhagat Singh (Morning), Zakir Hussain (Morning), Dyal Singh (morning) colleges in Wednesday's poll.
Polling took place at 52 centres in the colleges, where as many as 1.35 lakh voters have been involved in deciding the fate of 23 candidates in the DUSU polls.
Amid heavy police presence and some last-minute attempts to woo voters, the Delhi University Students' Union polls went off peacefully with around 44.46 percent voter turnout till 7.30 pm on Wednesday.
The Aam Aadmi Party's (AAP) student wing, the Chhatra Yuva Sangharsh Samiti (CYSS), and left-wing students' outfit All India Students Association (AISA) are jointly contesting the DUSU polls. After the AAP came to power in Delhi in February 2015, its students wing had unsuccessfully contested the DUSU polls. It has promised to ensure installation of CCTV cameras, setting up of police booths on campus, ending the "culture of hooliganism" and opposing commercialisation of education.
While the National Students' Union of India (NSUI) has promised the "Institute of Eminence" tag for Delhi University and thalis for Rs 10, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) has promised to spend 50 per cent of the union's budget on women and social justice-related activities, along with a special attention to promoting sports and installing sanitary pad vending machines on college campuses.
Ending hooliganism on campus, 24X7 libraries for students, safer campus for women were some of the issues that weighed on the minds of the students of Delhi University before voting in students' union polls Wednesday. Subsidised food in campus, promotion of sports and women issues were some of the other promises made by contesting parties.
While NSUI has promised the 'Institute of Eminence' tag for Delhi University and thalis for Rs 10, ABVP has promised to spend 50 percent of the student unions budget on women and social justice-related activities.
Another student said when it comes to DUSU polls, they always go by a candidate's reputation. "We see whether the candidate has personally helped us in some way or has helped our peers. Even if a candidate does not belong to the party whose ideology I believe in, I have voted for them," he said.
Aanchal, a second-year law student, said they have voted for the resolution of their college issues. Mridul, a second-year law student said, "There should be 24X7 libraries for students. We do not even have fans in the hall. Issues like these should be taken up by the representatives."
Shubham Chaudhary, a second-year law student, said students do not vote for parties, rather they vote on the basis of the candidates' reputation and what work he or she has done.
The polls went off peacefully on Wednesday with around 44.46 percent voter turnout till 7.30 pm. Polling took place at 52 centres in the colleges, where as many as 1.35 lakh voters were involved in deciding the fate of 23 candidates in the DUSU polls.
Students who voted in the polls on Wednesday said that the results will help political parties gauge the mood of young voters ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
After the AAP came to power in Delhi in February 2015, its students' wing had unsuccessfully contested the DUSU polls.
However, the DUSU polls are being seen as a direct face off between the RSS-backed ABVP and Congress-backed NSUI, not only because of the ideological war between the two national parties, but also because AAP is a relatively new entrant in the fray.
In the fray are the National Students' Union of India, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, and the Aam Aadmi Party's students' wing Chhatra Yuva Sangharsh Samiti (CYSS), which is contesting with left-wing students' outfit All India Students Association (AISA).
The counting for the DUSU polls will begin at 8.30 am on Thursday. Polling took place at 52 centres in the colleges, where as many as 1.35 lakh voters have been involved in deciding the fate of 23 candidates in the DUSU polls.
Both NSUI and ABVP were heard canvassing on the issue of women's security on campus. However, the representation of women in student's body continues to be low. This time too, out of the 23 candidates, only five are women. Preeti Chauhan of the Indian National Students' organisation is the only woman nominated for the post of DUSU president this year.
Use of muscle and money power is not unheard of in Delhi University elections as student bodies backed and financed by one or another national parties raise the stakes with rigorous campaigning. However, as a DNA report pointed out that supporters of key parties have been camping in the varsity campus to reach out to voters and help their candidates canvass. The report said that about 400 students poured in from Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Haryana who have been helping their parties garner votes.
The National Students' Union Of India (NSUI) won 75 seats in 20 colleges. They won in Sri Venkateswara College, Atma Ram Sanatan Dharma College, Aryabhatta College, Zakir Hussain College, among others.
According to the information received, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) has won 71 seats in 19 colleges. The RSS-affiliated party won in various colleges, including Hindu College, Shri Ram College of Commerce, Kirori Mal College, Bhagat Singh (Morning), Zakir Hussain (Morning), Dyal Singh (morning) colleges in Wednesday's poll.
The ABVP, who was at the centre of a controversy due to the incident of violence during polls, has managed to bag the president's, secretary's and central council posts in the Zakir Hussain College (Morning).
The NSUI's presidential candidate in Zakir Hussain Evening College has won with the lead of more then 250 votes. AISA's candidate Nabiya Alam won on central councillor Post in Zakir Husain Delhi College.
With 44.5 percent students turning out tp caste their votes, DUSU elections recorded highest voter count in 11 years. However, the repsonse from morning colleges remained tepid. According to a PTI report, only 33.9 percent voters had cast their vote till around noon.
ABVP candidates Shakti Singh, who is contesting for the post of vice president and Ankiv Baisoya who is contesting for president have arrived at the Community center, Kingsway Camp, Delhi.
Candidates are being frisked properly and are asked to pass through metal detector before they are allowed inside the community center. They are also not allowed to carry a mobile phone or any other electronic device inside the result center.
The Delhi administration has made heavy security arrangements in and around the Community Centre, Kingsway Camp where the counting is being done. Apart from ensuring proper barricading and heavy police presence, the authorities have also made arrangements for metal detectors.
However, whether or not the NSUI manages to convert this interest in their manifesto into actual votes remains to be seen.
Two other students told NDTV that if food was made available at Rs 10 in the canteen, that would practically mean a free meal. They said that this would really mean a lot for students who are staying away from home in Delhi.
The canvassing for the Delhi University Student Union Polls saw organisations making a host of promises. However, NSUI's promise to offer a full meal at Rs 10 in the college canteen seems to stick with most people. Speaking to The Times of India, a student of Hansraj College said, "NSUIs Rs 10 thali promise is good enough to impress anyone. All students should get cheap and hygienic food on college campuses."
Although there are several contenders for the DUSU president's post, Ankiv Basoya and Sunny Chhillar of NSUI and ABVP, respectively, are betted to be the strongest ones for the post of president. The two groups have in the past also kept the four posts president, vice-president, secretary, joint-secretary between them.
Anushesh Sharma, National Secretary NSUI, says that the NSUI this year focused on online campaigning and is confident that they would win the election. He also said NSUI has been running a positive and issue-based campaign which will help them win all four seats this time. The NSUI also urged DU to spread more awareness about the election to increase voter turnout
The court was hearing a public interest litigation by advocate Prashant Manchanda, seeking a complete ban on the defacement of public property and also direction to the civic agencies to impose heavy fines on political parties and aspiring candidates in order to prevent further defacement of property - IANS.
The Delhi High Court on Wednesday was informed that political leaders are involved in the defacement of public property during the Delhi University Students Union (DUSU) elections.
"Everything remained peaceful in the first round of voting. There was no incident of any EVM glitch anywhere," Chief Election Officer Vijay Kaul told IANS. In all, over 450 Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) were used for colleges in both campuses for students to cast their ballot amid heavy security.
However, underlying issues such as isolation of women's college from mainstream varsity politics, discrimination against northeastern students, problems faced by research fellows and the delay in revaluation results failed to feature on the candidates' agenda.
Even as parties campaigned on popular (populist) student issues, the underlying theme of Delhi University polls remained an ideological clash between RSS-backed ABVP and Congress backed-NSUI. The NSUI pitched the narrative that the ABVP resorts to hooliganism and violence to polarise students, while the ABVP maintained a theme of nationalistic fervour in its campaign.
The Rashtriya Janata Dal's student wing has also fielded a candidate, Jayant Kumar, for the first time in the JNUSU elections. Congress-backed NSUI has nominated Vikas Yadav as its candidate, while Birsa Ambedkar Phule Student Association's presidential candidate is Thallapelli Praveen.
The election to the JNUSU president's post is scheduled to be held on Friday. United-left panel candidate N Sai Balaji, a frontrunner for the top post is pitted against Lalit Pandey, the candidate of the BJP's student wing ABVP.
According to early trends, NSUI's Sunny Chhillar is leading ahead of ABVP's Ankiv Baisova on the DUSU's presidential post. However, the right leaning student outfit has managed to stay ahead of NSUI on vice-president, secretary and joint secretary post. However, Madhurima Kundu, Secretary DU AISA rejected the reports saying, "We don't believe in these updates. We are confident in winning the presidential and joint secretary post.
The counting has resumed after a 50-minute delay. The counting was paused due to a technical error in an EVM, where the display stopped working.
The bench directed the police, the municipal bodies and Delhi University to file reports indicating the extent of defacement, the steps that were taken to prevent it and action taken against each candidate who violated the law. It had earlier warned the students that they might have to go to jail if they were found defacing public property ahead of the next elections.
Manchanda told a bench of Chief Justice Rajendra Menon and Justice V. Kameswar Rao that littering of pamphlets, pasting of posters and spray painting of walls occurred this year as well in violation of court orders.
The Delhi High Court had directed the Centre, Delhi University and the city police to ensure no defacement of public property takes place during the DUSU elections. However, the court was informed by lawyer Prashant Manchanda that political leaders were involved in the defacement of public property.
Delhi HC took stern view on public property defacement in DUSU polls, students may go to jail over issue
Four electronic voting machines have now been found faulty. Thus the counting has been halted once again. Earlier, the counting was halted for roughly 50 minutes after the first EVM's display malfunctioned. The counting resumed later, after a new display arrived, only to be shut down again.
Meanwhile, NSUI supporters have started protesting, saying that ABVP has meddled with the EVMs because it is "BJP sarkar."
Out of the four faulty EVMs, one machine was is for the post of DUSU secretary. In this EVM, 40 votes were cast in favour of ballot number 10. However, neither any candidate, nor the option NOTA is listed against the number 10. This has lead to a confusion within the counting centre.
The counting has been halted for the day after four EVMs developed a technical glitch.
The counting was initially stopped for an hour after the allegations of faulty EVMs surfaced. However, following objections by the students, the election officials decided to suspend the process.
Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad's Shakti Singh said, "Only one EVM was faulty and it can be repaired. We want the counting to be resumed. Since we were leading on all the seats, the other parties are demanding fresh elections."
In a tweet, the all India NSUI president Fairoz Khan said, "Delhi University election counting depicts the pathetic picture of the violent murder of the democracy by ABVP, that too in front of the police. ABVP has butchered the democratic values."
AAP leader Gopal Rai took to Twitter to raise concern over the alleged EVM tampering in DUSU election. "The situation is not only worrying, but it is in the form of a serious threat to the democracy," he said.
Counting, which was suspended due to fault in EVMs, to resume in half an hour: Official tells PTI
Thanking the student for "reposing their faith" in NSUI, the party said, "We promise that we will not allow the fascist RSS-BJP to subvert our democratic mandate."
In a statement, the NSUI said, "NSUI was winning the DUSU election after six rounds when the EVMs magically started malfunctioning. One EVM showed votes on secretary post on ballot number 10 when there are only eight candidatess. EVM also showed zero votes for NSUI candidate. It is clear that any further counting on these EVMs has no credibility and we demand that our candidates are declared winners immediately."
Security has been beefed up to prevent any untoward incidents. Mobile jammers have also been added.
It said that the NSUI and CYSS should not clutch onto the excuse of tampered EVMs. "If at all there are any genuine concerns, they should approach the authorities instead of causing havoc and halting the counting on all posts," the ABVP said.
As the counting of votes resumed, the ABVP said on Twitter that style of politics practised by Congress and Aam Aadmi Party is "quite evident" in their student organisations.
"We had proposed rectification of the faulty EVMs and resumption of the counting but the students were not ready for it. It was decided to suspend counting in the afternoon," he added.
"After elaborate discussions it was decided that the counting will be resumed today. All candidates have reached an agreement on this," an election officer for DUSU polls earlier told PTI.
"Students and youth should discern and raise their voice against the brutal execution of the democracy by ABVP by overthrowing the democratic values, dismissing the mandate of the students, exploiting the power of administration as well as misusing the EVMs," NSUI president Fairoz Khan said in a tweet.
The ABVP is leading in two seats, while the NSUI is also ahead in two.
ABVP leader Ankiv Baisoya won for the DUSU president post with 20,457 votes on Thursday. Shakti Singh (ABVP) bagged the vice-president post with 23,046 votes, while Jyoti Chaudhary (ABVP) won the joint secretary post with 19,353 votes. NSUI managed to win one seat, as student leader Akash Choudhary won the secretary post with 20,198 votes.
"AISA-CYSS alliance was forged at the very last moment and we couldnt convert the immense support we received into votes. Yet, the way we fought this election has given a new dimension to students politics in DU. And we believe that the future of DU students politics will be determined by this alliance. We demand a high-level judicial enquiry in the poll mismanagemen and EVM malfunctioning," it said.
After the results of the DUSU elections were out, the AISA targetted the ABVP, saying that the organisation was especially violent and attacked AISA leaders on many occasions. "The reports of mismanagement in polls and the recurring problems in the EVM has reinstated the nationwide suspicion that the ruling party (BJP) is trying to scuttle democratic institutions and the DU administration has once again lost the trust of common students. Despite these adversities, our campaign got tremendous support from DU students which is very encouraging.
Security has been beefed up to prevent any untoward incidents. Mobile jammers have also been added.
When loss looks inevitable, clutching onto the excuse of tampered EVMs is an old and juvenile technique! ABVP urges both the organisations to not interrupt the counting and face the results gracefully. #DUSUElection2018 #ABVP4DUSU
It said that the NSUI and CYSS should not clutch onto the excuse of tampered EVMs. "If at all there are any genuine concerns, they should approach the authorities instead of causing havoc and halting the counting on all posts," the ABVP said.
As the counting of votes resumed, the ABVP said on Twitter that style of politics practised by Congress and Aam Aadmi Party is "quite evident" in their student organisations.
"We had proposed rectification of the faulty EVMs and resumption of the counting but the students were not ready for it. It was decided to suspend counting in the afternoon," he added.
"After elaborate discussions it was decided that the counting will be resumed today. All candidates have reached an agreement on this," an election officer for DUSU polls earlier told PTI.
Students and Youth should discern and raise their voice against the brutual execution of the Democracy by ABVP by overthrowing the democratic values, dismissing the mandate of the students, exploiting the power of administration as well as misusing the EVM's. pic.twitter.com/NRRVTwwn7i
"Students and youth should discern and raise their voice against the brutal execution of the democracy by ABVP by overthrowing the democratic values, dismissing the mandate of the students, exploiting the power of administration as well as misusing the EVMs," NSUI president Fairoz Khan said in a tweet.
The ABVP is leading in two seats, while the NSUI is also ahead in two.
ABVP leader Ankiv Baisoya won for the DUSU president post with 20,457 votes on Thursday. Shakti Singh (ABVP) bagged the vice-president post with 23,046 votes, while Jyoti Chaudhary (ABVP) won the joint secretary post with 19,353 votes. NSUI managed to win one seat, as student leader Akash Choudhary won the secretary post with 20,198 votes.
"AISA-CYSS alliance was forged at the very last moment and we couldnt convert the immense support we received into votes. Yet, the way we fought this election has given a new dimension to students politics in DU. And we believe that the future of DU students politics will be determined by this alliance. We demand a high-level judicial enquiry in the poll mismanagemen and EVM malfunctioning," it said.
After the results of the DUSU elections were out, the AISA targetted the ABVP, saying that the organisation was especially violent and attacked AISA leaders on many occasions. "The reports of mismanagement in polls and the recurring problems in the EVM has reinstated the nationwide suspicion that the ruling party (BJP) is trying to scuttle democratic institutions and the DU administration has once again lost the trust of common students. Despite these adversities, our campaign got tremendous support from DU students which is very encouraging.
DUSU election results 2018 latest updates: The Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) bagged three posts president, vice President, and joint secretary on Thursday, while the National Students' Union of India (NSUI) secured one.
As the counting of votes resumed, the ABVP said on Twitter that style of politics practised by Congress and Aam Aadmi Party is "quite evident" in their student organisations. It further said that the NSUI and CYSS should not clutch onto the excuse of tampered EVMs, and should instead "face the results gracefully".
The counting has begun from the seventh round now. Protesters belonging to the AISA and NSUI earlier shouted slogans against the Delhi University administration, saying, "Stop the murder of democracy" over the allegations of poll rigging. In a tweet, the NSUI president Fairoz Khan said, "Delhi University election counting depicts the pathetic picture of the violent murder of the democracy by ABVP, that too in front of the police. ABVP has butchered the democratic values."
The Election Commission had asked the contesting cadidates to sign an affidavit of sorts for recounting. While the ABVP has agreed to sign such an agreement, the NSUI said they will sign only when the faulty EVMs are repaired.
The DUSU election officer said that counting for Delhi University Students Union (DUSU) polls was suspended due to fault in EVMs and ruckus by students.
The counting has been halted for the day after four EVMs developed a technical glitch.
Out of the four faulty EVMs, one machine was is for the post of DUSU secretary. In this EVM, 40 votes were cast in favour of ballot number 10. However, neither any candidate, nor the option NOTA is listed against the number 10. This has lead to a confusion within the counting centre.
Meanwhile, NSUI supporters have started protesting, saying that ABVP has meddled with the EVMs because it is "BJP sarkar."
After another EVM was found to be faulty, counting was stopped due to the technical error. Counting had earlier resumed after a 50-minute delay. The counting was paused due to a technical error in an EVM, where the display stopped working.
The counting has resumed after a 50-minute delay. The counting was paused due to a technical error in an EVM, where the display stopped working.
According to early trends, NSUI's Sunny Chhillar is leading ahead of ABVP's Ankiv Baisoya on the DUSU's presidential post. However, the right leaning student outfit has managed to stay ahead of NSUI on vice-president, secretary and joint secretary post.
Even as parties campaigned on popular (populist) student issues, the underlying theme of Delhi University polls remained an ideological clash between RSS-backed ABVP and Congress backed-NSUI. However, underlying issues such as isolation of women's college from mainstream varsity politics, discrimination against northeastern students, problems faced by research fellows and the delay in revaluation results failed to feature on the candidates' agenda.
Both ABVP and NSUI appeared confident of winning all four seats. The two parties had split two seats each in the four elected posts of the DUSU council. Meanwhile, Left leaning AISA and AAP-backed CYSS, which had entered an alliance this time, have settled on the third spot in college-wise polls.
Students who voted in the DUSU polls on Wednesday felt that the results will help political parties gauge the mood of young voters ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
Prerna Bhardwaj, a second year student of BA (Hons) in Political Science at Kirori Mal College, said, "The Delhi University has students coming from across India. There can be no better way than this to know what the young India wants. In a way, the election results will be an indicator as to what the young voter of India wants."
ABVP candidates Shakti Singh, who is contesting for the post of vice president and Ankiv Baisoya who is contesting for president have arrived at the Community center, Kingsway Camp, Delhi.
CRPF forces were stationed outside Community Center, Kingsway Camp where the counting of votes is taking place. The candidates in fray have also started gathering outside the counting centre along with their supporters.
According to the information received, the ABVP has won 71 seats in 19 colleges, while the NSUI bagged 75 seats in 20 colleges. The college-wise results show the mood of the students, many of whom opined that they vote based on a candidates reputation, than his or her ideological bent.
In the fray are the National Students' Union of India, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, and the Aam Aadmi Party's students' wing Chhatra Yuva Sangharsh Samiti (CYSS), which is contesting with left-wing students' outfit All India Students Association (AISA). However, the DUSU polls are being seen as a direct face off between the RSS-backed ABVP and Congress-backed NSUI
Amid heavy police presence and some last-minute attempts to woo voters, the Delhi University Students' Union polls went off peacefully with around 44.46 percent voter turnout till 7.30 pm on Wednesday. The results will be announced on Thursday with counting starting at 8.30 am.
Polling took place at 52 centres in the colleges, where as many as 1.35 lakh voters were involved in deciding the fate of 23 candidates in the DUSU polls. Last year, the election saw a 43 per cent voter turnout. Heavy police force was deployed in the area, with around 700 personnel stationed in the north campus and over 500 personnel deployed in the south campus.
A person wearing a question mark sign was detained by police outside the Ramjas College, but after it was found he had a college ID card, he was let off. Some members of parties, who were seen canvassing for votes, were warned by the police personnel. Senior faculty members were posted as observers at the centres and around 700 electronic voting machines (EVMs) had been installed, the official said.
According to the information received, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) has won 71 seats in 19 colleges. The RSS-affiliated party won in various colleges, including Hindu College, Shri Ram College of Commerce, Kirori Mal College, Bhagat Singh (Morning), Zakir Hussain (Morning), Dyal Singh (morning) colleges in Wednesday's poll. The National Students' Union Of India (NSUI) won 75 seats in 20 colleges. They won in Sri Venkateswara College, Atma Ram Sanatan Dharma College, Aryabhatta College, Zakir Hussain College, among others.
In Vivekananda College, there was a delay of over an hour in the commencement of the elections, since there was no data available for students to vote for the treasurer's post, sources said. The voting resumed after the data was keyed-in. The Aurobindo College witnessed a turnout of 44.72 percent, Hansraj 50 percent, Deshbandhu College 44 percent and Aditi Mahavidyalaya 48 percent.
In the morning colleges, polling began at 8.30 am and ended at 1 pm. In the evening colleges, polling was held between 3-7.30 pm.
In the fray are the candidates of the NSUI, ABVP and the AAP's student wing, Chhatra Yuva Sangharsh Samiti (CYSS) which is contesting the polls in alliance with left-wing students' outfit All India Students Association (AISA).
While the NSUI has promised the 'Institute of Eminence' tag for Delhi University and thalis at Rs 10 in canteens, the ABVP has promised to spend 50 per cent of the union's budget on women and social justice-related activities, along with a special attention on promoting sports and installing sanitary pad vending machines in college campuses.
After the AAP came to power in Delhi in February 2015, its students wing had unsuccessfully contested the DUSU polls. This time, it has promised installation of CCTV cameras, setting up of police booths in the campus, ending the "culture of hooliganism" and opposition to "commercialisation of education".
Firstpost has learnt that Central agencies have received significant leads into the case against Sudhir Choudhrie and his associates
New Delhi: On 22 November, 2015, a chartered aircraft landed at Delhi Airport. A sharply dressed man alighted from a blue-silver jet. He was none other than Sudhir Choudhrie, a well-known 66-year-old arms dealer and UK-based businessman. This was his third trip to India within a fortnight. The Indian agencies probing his alleged linkages in some arms deal were perplexed over his frequent visits to the National Capital beginning 16 April that year despite the fact that he figured in the Central Bureau of Investigation's (CBI) Undesirable Contact Men (UCM) list and the agency had registered a Preliminary Enquiry (PE) against him. Three days later (on 25 November), he flew out of Delhi.
Before flying into India, Sudhir, said informed sources, had spent two days (from 15 November onwards) in Bangkok, which had not gone unnoticed by investigators. His trips were followed by the Enforcement Directorate's (ED) show cause notice and a wider investigation, with the help of other Central agencies, into his arms dealings.
Firstpost has learnt that Central agencies have received significant leads into the case against Sudhir and his associates. Sources claimed he has been operating with impunity, outsmarting investigating agencies struggling to gather prosecutable evidence against him due to the use of a proxy for managing dubious transactions.
"Two Indian businessmen are working as a front for Sudhir. One of the firms has stakes in aviation and the defence sector, and is known to be collaborating with defence firms from Europe and the US, while the other is in the business of packaging," an informed sourced told Firstpost on the condition of anonymity. A questionnaire sent to Sudhir's son Bhanu seeking his response on the claims made by investigating agencies remained unanswered as of the time of publishing this story.
Bhanu runs the flagship C&C Alpha Group Limited in the UK and is also a director in over a dozen companies registered in India.
Further investigations revealed that one of Sudhir's proxies is working closely with a government-owned company, which has linkages with him ever since his uncle was associated with it.
"The probe also suggested that a few meetings were held in May 2015 when Sudhir was in Delhi for around a week. It has also come to our notice that meetings with foreign associates were held in Dubai and Bangkok. We are probing to unearth various layers involved in these deals and the way kickbacks are secretly transferred," sources said. Firstpost has reviewed a note prepared by the investigators suggesting that Sudhir was in Dubai for almost two weeks during the said period.
"Another characteristic of his activities is the large number of shadow offshore firms, he (Sudhir) has registered in tax havens in order to make it difficult for the state authorities to follow his activities, as well as his profits, the note said.
The dealings are secretive and so are his meetings. According to sources, frequent consultations were held between the businessmen and Sudhir at a five star hotel in South Delhi's Bhikaji Kama Place.
Since, Sudhir's firms are not directly involved in money transactions arising out of defence deals, the agencies have so far been groping in the dark. The CBI had booked him nicknamed Bunny in the shadowy arms trade world for alleged payment of bribes in securing a contract for an upgrade of artillery guns for Israel-based defence firm Soltam and his name subsequently featured in the Barak missile scandal of 2006-07. Although the CBI FIR had mentioned that there was prima facie evidence against Sudhir, both cases were closed by the agency citing lack of evidence. A probe by the UK's Serious Fraud Office (SFO) into the Rolls-Royce scandal met with a similar fate.
Although Sudhir and Bhanu were briefly arrested by the SFO, they were released due to a lack of evidence.
"We are also probing the role of one of his London-based relatives, who is a known venture capitalist and handles certain deals on behalf of Sudhir. Incidentally, he was present in some meetings at a South Delhi five star hotel. Sudhir still maintains strong political, bureaucratic and military links," sources said.
The festival began with devotees, mostly attired in traditional clothes, bringing colourfully-crafted idols of the elephant-headed God in their homes and pandals and installing them amid chants of 'Ganapati bappa moraya'.
The ten-day-long Ganesh Chaturthi festival kicked off with zeal and religious fervour across India on Thursday. The festival began with devotees, mostly attired in traditional clothes, bringing colourfully-crafted idols of the elephant-headed God to their homes and pandals and installing them amid chants of 'Ganapati Bappa Moraya', beating of drums and and sprinkling of 'gulal' (red coloured powder).
In the financial capital, Mumbai, known for its grand pandals and idols of the Hindu God, Thursday saw devotees carrying home idols of Ganesha in taxis, rickshaws, trucks etc.
Decoration of Ganesha idols using ornaments is an important part of the celebration. Devotees were seen carrying decorative items like flowers, banana leaves from various flower markets across the city to their homes in local trains in the morning.
In view of the festival, Maharashtra Police beefed up security across the state. In Mumbai, at least 15,000 security personnel have been deputed to keep a vigil during the festival.
Mumbai police spokesperson, DCP, Manjunath Shingte, had told reporters on Wednesday that along with the personnel of local police stations, security personnel from Local Armed Division, State Reserve Police Force (SRPF), Riot Control Police, Quick Response Team (QRT), Bomb Detection and Disposal Squad (BDDS) and the Civil Defence force would be been deployed across the city.
Idols of Ganesha, the deity of prosperity, are decorated with several ornaments, often made of gold and other precious metals, and kept in pandals or makeshift stage, on the eve of ten-day-long Ganesh Chaturthi festival.
Several beautifully decked up pandals have been erected in all major cities and towns across India where huge idols of Lord Ganesha have been placed on raised platforms for people to worship. These makeshift tents also serve as a venue for promoting social causes such as free medical checkup, blood donation camps, charity for poor during the festival days.
Also known as Vinayak Chaturthi, the festival is celebrated across the country as birthday of Lord Ganesha which comes to an end after 10 days when people come out in large numbers for immersing the idols in the sea or in different water bodies. Dance, music and celebrations mark both the arrival as well as departure of the Ganesha idol.
The festival sees devotees offering to the deity various sweets as prasad, of which 'modak' (sweet rice flour dumplings filled with coconut and jaggery) is an integral part.
According to the Hindu mythology, modak is believed to be Lord Ganesha's favourite sweet. As per the rituals, 21 modaks are offered to the God and eventually served to the devotees.
The Ministry of Health on Wednesday banned the manufacture for sale or distribution of 328 fixed-dose combination (FDC) drugs, including Saridon with immediate effect, stating that there is no therapeutic justification for the ingredients.
The Ministry of Health on Wednesday banned the manufacture for sale or distribution of 328 fixed-dose combination (FDC) drugs, including painkiller Saridon with immediate effect, stating that there is no therapeutic justification for the ingredients. FDCs are two or more drugs combined in a fixed ratio into a single dosage form.
The government said, The Drugs Technical Advisory Board recommended, amongst other things, that there is no therapeutic justification for the ingredients contained in 328 FDCs and that these FDCs may involve risk to human beings. The board recommended that it is necessary to prohibit the manufacture, sale or distribution of these FDCs under Section 26A of the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940, in the larger public interest.
Besides, it has also restricted the manufacture, sale or distribution of six other FDCs which include popular cough syrups, painkillers and cold medication subject to certain conditions, the official statement said. The sale of the six FDCs amount to over Rs 740 crore annually, reported News18.
The ban brings an end to a two-year-long legal battle between manufacturers of these combination drugs and the ministry, which has been working to get these irrational and unsafe drugs banned since 2016, reported The Times of India. Around 6,000 brands are likely to be affected.
The medicines that have been banned include painkiller Saridon, skin cream Panderm, combination diabetes drug Gluconorm PG, antibiotic Lupidiclox and antibacterial Taxim AZ. They are expected to have a combined market size of between Rs 2,000 crore and Rs 2,500 crore, according to News18.
The Health Ministry, through its notification published on 10 March, 2016, had prohibited the manufacture for sale and distribution for human use of 349 FDCs under Section 26 A of the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940. But the matter was contested by the affected manufacturers in various high courts and the Supreme Court.
Fifteen FDCs out of the 344 prohibited on the 10 March, 2016, which were claimed to be manufactured prior to 21 September, 1988, have been kept out of the purview of current notifications, the statement added.
The board recommended that it is necessary to prohibit the manufacture, sale or distribution of these FDCs under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940 in the larger public interest.
Full list of banned medicines:
With inputs from PTI
The aggressive tone of the language of AFSPA has been exploited by various quarters, including anti-national elements, to paint India and its armed forces red and create a perception internationally that we function under draconian laws.
I continue to believe that the Indian Army cannot operate in Jammu and Kashmir under the current circumstances without the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act. This is a belief I have held for a long time, which should put some minds to rest. However, as someone who has handled empowerment under AFSPA from the sub-tactical to the operational levels and the emotive aspects related to it, I am of the opinion that anything to do with this subject must be under the purview of wide open discussion with exchange of ideas, something which has eluded us for a fairly long time, especially in relation to some contentious issues.
This piece relates to the unconfirmed media reports of a move afoot to dilute the shoot to kill clause enshrined in Section 4(a) of AFSPA. Unilateral decisions without comprehensive analysis of effects will, yet again, bring turbulence. No one can blame those who drafted the language of AFSPA 1958; the same was used in 1990. It relates to an era when people were not as aware of the concept of human rights as they are today. Back then, Section 4(a) did not seem like an arbitrary empowerment to use lethal force, as it does to many today (at least that's the perception).
Section 4(a): Any commissioned officer, warrant officer, non-commissioned officer or any other person of equivalent rank in the armed forces may, in a disturbed area if he is of opinion that it is necessary so to do for the maintenance of public order, after giving such due warning as he may consider necessary, fire upon or otherwise use force, even to the causing of death, against any person who is acting in contravention of any law or order for the time being in force in the disturbed area.
The phrase even to the causing of death interpreted positively actually relates to calibration in use of force and not necessarily to be seen in absolute terms of taking action which causes only death, and nothing less. In fact, much of AFSPAs language is couched in what may be perceived by many as aggressiveness, but to those who operate in such disturbed areas, this perception does not come to mind as they are essentially task-oriented and not nuanced in their perception.
The aggressive tone of the language has been exploited by various quarters, including anti-national elements, to paint India and its armed forces red and create a perception internationally that we function under draconian laws. There is nothing draconian about AFSPA because there is no absolutism in its execution through empowerment; calibration is a part of military training.
However, if the language of Section 4(a) is to be amended for legal clarity and greater caution on the part of soldiers, no one should have any issue with that. It is an opportunity to correct the perception of AFSPA, which has been used to flog the Indian Army and the Government of India, that the Centre must seize.
Since 1958, (and especially since 1990), when human rights concerns proliferated around the world, the Government of India, the Supreme Court of India and the Indian Army have taken a series of measures to bring greater humanisation to internal conflict situations. In 1993, the Indian Army preceded all institutions in setting up its Human Rights Cell at the army headquarters followed by posting of officers at corps headquarters and later at Rashtriya Rifles (RR) Force headquarters to specifically look at the human rights angle of internal conflict.
This system, including the incorporation of human rights as a component in the training of its leaders, has helped in sensitising the rank and file. In 1994, the Northern Command headquarters issued an elaborate standard operating procedure (SOP), which has been refined from time to time, for the conduct of operations; the primary concern here was human rights.
Clear advice was given to troops to search houses with female inmates only in presence of policewomen or a member of the clergy. Directions on property in civilian houses under search were also given. In 1997, a set of do's and don'ts were issued after approval by the Supreme Court of India. Included among these is the necessity to incorporate members of the civil administration (local police) any time operations are conducted by the army.
The Supreme Court also left a degree of discretion: knowing that the army may not easily find civilian representatives at some locations (and times) when they conduct such operations. In 1993, the army chief issued directions to troops regarding their conduct during operations in disturbed areas. These came to be known famously as the Ten Commandments: additional directions based on these have been issued by various commanders in the chain.
In 1997, the army formally adopted Operation Sadbhavna as a military civic action (MCA) project to bring an institutional understanding among officers and troops with regard to the importance of winning over and keeping the people of the conflict zone with them. The army continues to identify locals as the centre of gravity in such conflicts and calls upon all troops to use their power of goodwill to ensure their well-being and support.
The concept and doctrine explaining Operation Sadbhavna, the degree of funds made available and the goodwill sought by the army through its actions have a huge humanising effect on the conflict situation. The presence of Army Goodwill Schools in good numbers, the conduct of medical and veterinary camps and the outreach to areas where civil administrations hold is yet tenuous, have all been humanising efforts which continue as a part of counter-terrorist operations. In 2011, the army adopted the Hearts Doctrine as a step beyond Operation Sadbhavna and included the human rights sensitisation of every single individual in uniform tasked to operate in Jammu and Kashmir.
It is for consideration of the powers that be and decision makers at the higher levels that incorporation within the legislation of AFSPA at the time of its amendment, if at all, must include an addendum which forms annexures to the main text. This addendum must incorporate all the above mentioned facts in a language which must reveal the concern of the authority for human rights. It must also communicate the measures that have been taken by various authorities to ensure calibration in execution of the powers that have been given to the army to conduct its operations. The purpose is to ensure that those who read the provisions of AFSPA must also peruse how the Indian State and its institutions respect human rights and are willing to go the extra mile to implement them. Much of the allegations of alleged human rights violations may be diluted through this measure.
The author is a retired lieutenant-general and former general officer commanding 15 and 21 Corps
Justice Misra, on 4 September had sent a letter to the Central government recommending Justice Ranjan Gogoi as his successor
On Thursday, President Ram Nath Kovind appointed Justice Ranjan Gogoi as the next Chief Justice of India. Gogoi will assume the office on 3 October, a day after the retirement of Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra.
On 4 September, Justice Misra sent a letter to the Centre recommending Justice Ranjan Gogoi as his successor. The CJI wrote to the Ministry of Law and Justice endorsing Gogoi, the most senior judge, as the next CJI.
According to the Supreme Court's official wesbsite, Gogoi joined the Bar in 1978. He mostly practised in the Guhawati High Court and was appointed as a Permanent Judge of the same high court on 28 February, 2001.
Later, he was transferred to the Punjab and Haryana High Court on 9 September, 2010 and was then appointed Chief Justice on 12 February, 2011. On 23 April, 2012, Gogoi became a judge of the Supreme Court.
On 12 January, 2018, Justice Gogoi along with justices J Chelameswar (since retired), MB Lokur and Kurian Joseph called a press conference and said the situation in the apex court was "not in order" and many "less than desirable" things had taken place. Unless this institution is preserved, "democracy will not survive in this country," the four judges had said.
A day later, Gogoi had said that "there is no crisis" in the Supreme Court. On 13 July, 2018, Justice Gogoi said that a "revolution, not reform" is needed to keep the institution of judiciary serviceable for the people, asserting that the judiciary would have to be more "pro-active" and on the "front foot".
He had said that "independent judges and noisy journalists are democracy's first line of defence... reports of the death of democracy are greatly exaggerated. But the least bad system of government ever devised, is in trouble. It needs defenders."
The nun who has accused Bishop Franco Mulakkal of raping her has written to the Apostolic Nunco, the permanent diplomatic representative (head of diplomatic mission) of the Holy See , seeking the intervention of Pope Francis, according to documents exclusively with Firstpost.
The nun who has accused Bishop Franco Mulakkal of raping her has written to the Apostolic Nunco, the permanent diplomatic representative (head of diplomatic mission) of the Holy See , seeking the intervention of Pope Francis, according to documents with Firstpost.
The nun recently sought urgent intervention of the Vatican for justice and demanded the bishop's removal as the head of the Jalandhar diocese, and questioned why the church was "closing its eyes to the truth" when she mustered courage to make public her sufferings. In a scathing letter to the Vatican that was made available to the media Tuesday, the nun also asked if the Church be able to return what she has lost.
She alleged that Bishop Franco Mulakkal was using "political and money power" to bury the case against him. She accused the clergyman of sexually assaulting her repeatedly between 2014 and 2016. The bishop had, however, dismissed the allegations as "baseless and concocted", insisting she levelled those as the Catholic order had rejected her demand for favours.
Mulakkal, on the other hand, has denied all allegations made against him, claiming there was a "conspiracy" against him and that the case was a tactic to pressure the government.
The Kerala Police sent a notice to controversial Bishop Franco Mulakkal of the Roman Catholic Diocese in Jalandhar, asking him to appear before them on 19 September.
The Kerala Police has asked Jalandhar diocese's Bishop Franco Mulakkal, accused by a nun of raping her multiple times between 2014 and 2016, to appear before the investigating team on 19 September.
The decision to summon the clergyman was taken after a meeting chaired by Sakhare, Inspector General (Ernakulam range), which was also attended by Kottayam district superintendent of police Harisankar and Vaikom deputy superintendent of police K Subhash amid mounting pressure on police to initiate action against Mulakkal.
"We reviewed the entire case today (Wednesday) and there are contradictions in the statements of the victim, the accused and the witnesses. So, we have asked the bishop to appear before us on 19 September, when the Investigation Officer would question him.
"The contradictions in the statements have to be cleared, or else there could be issues," Inspector General of Police (IGP) Vijay Sakhre told the media in Kochi soon after a review meeting on the case.
"Security to the complainant and the witnessess is there and we have registered cases against the death threats that the nuns have allegedly received," he added.
Industries Minister EP Jayarajan, deputising for Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, who is off to the United States for treatment, told the media in the state capital that the government is with the victim.
"No one needs to be worried for anything and it's unfortunate that nuns have had to stage protests. We all know that the probe has been going on for a while now, but since it has to be submitted to the court, there just can't be any errors," Jayarajan was quoted as saying by IANS.
The nun had recently sought urgent intervention of the Vatican for justice and demanded the bishop's removal as the head of the Jalandhar diocese, questioning why the church was "closing its eyes to the truth" when she mustered courage to make public her sufferings. In a scathing letter to the Vatican that was made available to the media Tuesday, the nun also asked will the Church be able to give back what she has lost.
She alleged that Bishop Franco Mulakkal was using "political and money power" to bury the case against him. She had accused the clergyman of sexually assaulting her repeatedly between 2014 and 2016. The bishop had, however, dismissed the allegations as "baseless and concocted", insisting she levelled those as the Catholic order had rejected her demand for favours.
Mulakkal, on the other hand, has denied all allegations made against him, claiming there was a "conspiracy" against him and that the case was a tactic to pressure the government.
On Wednesday, a day-long protest before the state secretariat in Kochi was organised by the Joint Christian Council, whose indefinite relay fast at in the state capital entered its 5th day.
In the Kerala capital, joining the protesters was former state Congress president VM Sudheeran, who said the protests should not be mistaken as one against the Christian community.
"The police itself said that all the evidences are there with them in the case, then why are they hesitant to go forward? The state police chief is unable to go forward in this case and it's most unfortunate," said Sudheeran.
In Kochi, Wednesday saw more and more leaders political and otherwise visiting to the protest venue. They included top political leaders from various parties, civil society members and film personalities.
Coming to the defence of Mulakkal was his own diocese, which in a statement said that this is nothing but a conspiracy hatched against the bishop.
"This is just an allegation... The bishop had visited the nun's home for a function and she looked very happy also. According to her complaint, the previous day the bishop had abused her. If that were the case, could she be happy? Moreover, all the complaints surfaced after a lady came with a complaint against the nun," said the statement.
Popular Malayalam film personality Joy Mathew led a protest in Kozhikode against the callousness of the authorities in the case as the nun is yet to get justice.
Incidentally, the Kerala High Court will on Thursday look into an affidavit that it asked the state government to file detailing the steps taken on the complaint of a nun alleging that a bishop sexually abused her for three years.
"All the details in the case would be presented before the high court on Thursday in the affidavit," said Kottayam Superintendent of Police who is leading the probe.
It was in June that the victim alleged that Bishop Franco Mulakkal of the Roman Catholic Diocese in Jalandhar had sexually abused her several times between 2014 and 2016.
An FIR was registered against the bishop and a 114-page detailed statement was taken from the nun and other inmates of the convent. However, Mulakkal has denied any wrongdoing.
With inputs from agencies
Apart from the emergency alert mechanism, the Maharashtra police have also been told to set in place a senior citizens' helpline in all districts and commissionerates.
Mumbai: The Maharashtra government has asked the police to develop an internet and GPS based Emergency Alert System to help senior citizens in times of distress, an official said on Thursday.
The state home department issued an advisory to this effect on Monday, asking the police to implement a comprehensive policy for senior citizens. Apart from an emergency alert mechanism that could render help to senior citizens by way of mobile alarms, internet or Global Positioning System, police have also been told to set in place a senior citizens' helpline in all districts and commissionerates, the official added.
Senior citizens will be able to contact the helpline to get help in case of medical or other types of emergencies, the official said.
The advisory also instructed police to take up cases concerning senior citizens on priority and resolve them immediately. "Police have been told to create a jurisdiction-wise list of senior citizens staying alone. Police personnel will periodically visit such homes along with social workers to provide help," he said.
A nodal officer should be appointed in each district, commissionerates and state police headquarters to help resolve problems concerning senior citizens, the advisory instructed.
During a cordon and search operation, three militants who fired at two persons on the Jammu-Srinagar highway in Udhampur district before escaping were tracked down to a house in Kakriyal area on Thursday, after which gunfight ensued, police said.
Three terrorists of pro-Pakistan Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) were killed and 12 security personnel, including three officers, injured on Thursday in an encounter in Jammu and Kashmir's Reasi district, a day after they fired on a police party and escaped, officials said.
During a cordon and search operation, the security personnel found three terrorists who fired at two persons on the Jammu-Srinagar highway in Udhampur district on Wednesday before escaping. They were tracked down to a house in Reasi district on Thursday, police said. As the security personnel narrowed down on the exact location of the terrorist, the encounter broke out.
Twelve security personnel were injured in the operation, police said. Six CRPF personnel, including the deputy commandant and the assistant commandant, five cops, including Deputy Superintendent of Police Mohan Lal, and an Armyman were injured, they said, adding that they had been admitted to the Narayana hospital in Katra.
The army, police and the CRPF tracked the terrorists' movement using drones, helicopters and other surveillance gadgets in the bushy forests of Jhajjar and adjoining areas.
"They were finally tracked down to a house in Kakriyal area near Mata Vaishno Devi University," the officer said. The villagers were promptly evacuated from the area as the final assault on the terrorists was launched.
Earlier on Wednesday, these terrorists on board a truck had attacked a check post in Jhajjar Kotli area of Udhampur injuring a CRPF trooper and a forest guard.
The terrorists after the incident had fled into the forest belt of which Kakriyal is a part. During the operation, security agencies were informed by a villager that the terrorists had taken food and clothes and left his house on Wednesday night, a senior police official said.
Speaking to reporters, the villager said, "They came to my house at 8 pm and demanded clothes to change from their(combat) dress. They demanded food. They ate biscuits and drank water and left at around 9.10 pm."
The terrorists also demanded a vehicle, but "we told them, we do not have one," the villager said, adding that they were asked to switch off their mobile phones. The official said the family immediately informed the police after the terrorists left. The CRPF, the police and the army along with personnel from other security agencies are combing the area, he said. The official said areas and check posts along the Jammu-Srinagar national highway are on alert. More checkpoints have been created and vehicles are being searched and passengers frisked, he said
Earlier, two militants were killed on Thursday in an encounter with security forces in Sopore area of Baramulla district of Jammu and Kashmir. Security forces launched a cordon and search operation in Chinkipora near Arampora area of Sopore township in the north Kashmir district Thursday morning after receiving intelligence input about the presence of militants in the area. The search operation turned into an encounter after the militants fired upon the security personnel.
With inputs from agencies
WHY DONT YOU READ THESE?
Defending his 'unpadh-gawaar' (illiterate) remark against Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Congress leader Sanjay Nirupam on Thursday said that his words were not 'undignified'.
Mumbai: Defending his 'unpadh-gawaar' (illiterate) remark against Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Congress leader Sanjay Nirupam on Thursday said that his words were not 'undignified'.
"It is a democracy and the prime minister is not God in a democracy. People speak of him while maintaining decorum. The words I used are not undignified," Nirupam told ANI.
He added, "If the children will ask about educational qualification of the prime minister, what will you tell them? People don't know his qualification. What are the forces which pressurise Delhi University not to release his degree, even when it is claimed that he studied there?"
On Wednesday, Nirupam got embroiled into controversy after he said, "Jo bachhe school, college mein padh rahe hain woh Modi jaise unpadh-gawaar ke baare mein jaan kar unko kya milne wala hai? Yeh bahut sharmnaak baat hai ki aaj tak humare desh ke nagrik aur bacchhon ko pata hi nahi hai ki Prime Minister ki degree kitni hai. (What will the children studying in schools, colleges get by learning about an illiterate like Modi? It is a very shameful thing that citizens and children of India are not aware of the degrees that our prime minister holds)."
Nirupam's remark reportedly came in response to the screening of 'Chalo Jeete Hain' - a short film inspired by prime minister Modi's life - in schools across Mumbai.
During her visit, she will attend the 23rd India-Russia Inter-Governmental Commission on Technical and Economic Cooperation (IRIGC-TEC). It will be co-chaired by Swaraj and Yuri Borisov, Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation.
New Delhi: External Affairs Minister (EAM) Sushma Swaraj on Thursday left for a two-day visit to Moscow, Russia.
During her visit, she will attend the 23rd India-Russia Inter-Governmental Commission on Technical and Economic Cooperation (IRIGC-TEC). It will be co-chaired by Swaraj and Yuri Borisov, Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation.
IRIGC-TEC is a standing body which annually meets and reviews ongoing activities of bilateral cooperation in the fields of bilateral trade and investment, science and technology, culture and other issues of mutual interest.
The Commission, after taking the stock of bilateral cooperation in various fields, will provide policy recommendations and directions in the concerned fields. The last meeting of the Commission was held in New Delhi in December 2017.
A division bench of the Delhi High Court (HC) Thursday ruled that the National Investigation Agency (NIA) lacks evidence to establish the role of Pakistan High Commission in funding separatist activities in Kashmir.
A division bench of the Delhi High Court (HC) Thursday ruled that the National Investigation Agency (NIA) lacks evidence to establish the role of Pakistan High Commission in funding separatist activities in Kashmir. The court further noted that the separatist organisation All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) was not a banned outfit under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA).
The observations came during the bail plea hearing of Srinagar businessman Zahoor Ahmad Wattali, the main accused in the Kashmir terror funding case, by the bench comprising Justice S Muralidhar and Justice Vinod Goel. The court granted the bail plea of Wattali, who has been charged by the NIA with getting money from Pakistan and providing it to separatist leaders in Jammu and Kashmir.
The case was registered after the uprising in the Valley following the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen militant commander Burhan Muzafar Wani in July 2016, which saw a clampdown on protesters which was condemned by both mainstream politicians and separatists. Nine separatist leaders, including Hurriyat (G) chairman Syed Ali Shah Geelani's son-in-law Altaf Fantosh, his former personal assistant Peer Saifullah and Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front leader Farooq Ahmad Dar, have been in judicial custody in Tihar Jail since 17 August 2016. They were arrested after multiple raids in Jammu and Kashmir and outside the Valley.
The court noted in its order that it has emerged during the course of the hearing of the case that neither the APHC nor any of its 26 constituent organisations are banned organisations within the meaning of the UAPA.
The court noted in the order that the charges that the Pakistan High Commissions first secretary-level officer was acting as a channel to receive funds from Pakistan and deliver them to Wattali could not be proved by the NIA. It may be noted that at this stage in the chargesheet, no one in the PHC (Pakistan High Commission) is named. It is not asserted that NIA is unable to proceed against such individuals because of diplomatic immunity or status, the court observed.
Although the NIA had, in its chargesheet, accused the Pakistani High Commission in New Delhi of organising functions and meetings with Hurriyat leaders, and giving them funds and instructions on a regular basis, the court held that except for a reception held at the PHC at New Delhi on 22 March, 2013, no dates of functions/meetings organised by the PHC in Delhi where the Hurriyat and other separatist leaders were given instructions and funds have been mentioned.
Yet, none from the PHC has been named, much less statement of such a person been recorded to confirm that Wattali received funds from Pakistan officials in Delhi, the court noted.
Allowing Wattali's bail, the court ordered him to furnish a personal bond of Rs 2 lakh with two sureties of the like amount. The court further directed Wattali to report to the case's investigating officer (when required) and ordered him not to travel outside India without the permission of the court.
The court also held that the NIA, which relied on a signed document recovered during the raids in Kashmir showing that Wattali gave funds to some separatist leaders, cant constitute material to even prima facie connect the appellant with the crime with which he is sought to be charged.
The court is not satisfied that a sheet of paper containing typed entries and in loose form, not shown to form part of the books of accounts regularly maintained by the appellant or his business entities, can constitute material to even prima facie connect the appellant with the crime with which he is sought to be charged. The conclusion of the trial court that this document shows the connection of the appellant with the other accused as regards terrorist funding does not logically or legally flow from a plain reading of the document, the court noted.
The court also noted that statements of some of the protected witnesses recorded in the case that have neither been provided to the appellant nor discussed in the chargesheet and have also not been examined by the NIA court to reject bail cant be relied before the high court to oppose the bail to Wattali.
The statements under Section 164 of the Code of Criminal Procedure purportedly recorded of Charlie and Romeo not being provided to the appellant, not having been discussed in the chargesheet and with those statements not having been examined by the trial court while passing the impugned order, the prosecution ie, NIA cannot rely on such statements in his court to oppose the grant of bail to the appellant, the order read.
Director General of Police OP Singh said the terrorist was arrested in Kanpur's Chakeri area, and has been identified as Qamar-uz-Zama (37), a resident of Assam.
Lucknow: An Hizbul Mujahideen terrorist who was planning an attack on Ganesh Chaturthi was arrested in Kanpur on Thursday, police said.
The arrest was made by the state's Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS).
"The terrorist has been identified as Qamar-uz-Zama (37), a resident of Assam, and is an active member of Hizbul Mujahideen," Director General of Police OP Singh said.
He was arrested in Kanpur's Chakeri area, Singh said at a hurriedly convened press conference in Lucknow.
Three back-to-back statements and clarifications from absconding liquor king and alleged fraudster Vijay Mallya and Union finance minister Arun Jaitey about their unofficial encounter at some place in Parliament (which both agreed that it happened), raises some serious questions.
Three back-to-back statements and clarifications from absconding liquor king and alleged fraudster Vijay Mallya and Union finance minister Arun Jaitley about their unofficial encounter at some place in Parliament (which both agreed that it happened), raises some serious questions. Mallya said he met Jaitley and told him to facilitate a settlement deal with banks and, more importantly, also told the finance minister that he was leaving for London.
Jaitley was quick to dismiss any official meeting with Mallya, but has confirmed this unofficial encounter at Parliament. Hence, let's take what Mallya has said at face value during his corridor talk and examine the context of this case:
For sake of clarity, this is what Mallya said. "I happened to meet (Mr) Jaitley in Parliament and told him that I am leaving for London... I did not have any formal meetings scheduled with him," Mallya said.
Remember, the Mallya-Jaitley encounter happened in the thick of Kingfisher case.
Everyone knew the seriousness of Mallya case. The Rs 9,000-crore loan given by 17- state-run banks to the failed Kingfisher airline had turned an NPA (Non-performing asset) long back in 2011-2012 and a bank consortium was very close to moving Supreme Court seeking Mallya's detention fearing he'll escape the country.
State-run banks, led by the State Bank of India, had apprised the government and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) about the large default and possible financial fraud in the handling of money. Jaitley must have known the developing situation since Mallya was already under the radar of banks and the CBI.
One can forget about Mallyas talk with Jaitley about the settlement part, this was anyway not acceptable for banks since Mallya was offering much less than what the banks claimed he owed them.
But the revelation, that he told Jaitely about his intentions to leave for London soon, is important and it raises two important questions:
Why didnt the Modi government, also the owner of banks whom he allegedly defrauded, take precautionary action to make sure Mallya doesnt cross the border?
And more importantly, why did the CBI tweak the look-out notice from detention to just inform around the same period effectively letting Mallya escape easily a week before banks moved the Supreme Court and the issue hogged national headlines?
Jaitley's clarification that he didnt meet Mallya officially and snubbed his settlement offer isnt enough. The Modi government and, particularly Jaitley, must answer to why they didnt act despite knowing that a high profile defaulter and alleged fraudster is about to leave the jurisdiction of Indian laws. More intriguing is the CBI's approach in this case and its action of changing the nature of look out notice effectively facilitating his escape.
Heres the chronology of the events involving the CBI look out notice and Mallyas escape.
On 16 October, 2015, the CBI first issued a look-out notice on Mallya asking the Bureau of Immigration (BoI) to detain Mallya at the airport if he tries to leave the country. This notice made it impossible for the flamboyant King of Good Times to leave the country. But in November, just a month later, another look-out notice came from the same agency, this time, asking the BoI only to inform it about Mallyas departure and his travel plans and not detain him.
On 25 February, 2016 Mallya resigns from the USL board as its chairman securing a fat $75 million (Rs 500 crore) severance pay from Diageo as part of a non-compete agreement. Mallya, in a statement, leaves a hint that he would want to move to UK to be closer to his family and is still in dialogues with banks for a One Time Settlement.
On 26 February, SBI, the lead bank in the consortium, approaches the Bangalore DRT seeking the arrest of Mallya, first right on his $75 million pay and impounding his passport, but the DRT postpones the case.
On 26 February: In a text message to Firstpost, the then SBI chairman, Arundhati Bhattacharya said the bank is taking further action in the context of Mallya hinting to leave the country. We are taking action as per law to protect our interests, said Bhattacharya.
On 1 March: Mallya attends the Rajya Sabha in his capacity as a Member of Parliament.
On 2 March: Mallya leaves India with seven bags and with an unidentified woman in a Jet Airways flight.
On 7 March: The Bengaluru DRT finally issues an interim order only putting a temporary ban on Mallya from drawing the severance pay. Earlier in the day, the Enforcement Directorate registered a money laundering case against him and others in connection with the alleged default of loans worth Rs 900 crore from IDBI Bank. Why did the ED take much time to register this case, which has been there for while?
On 8 March: The SBI-led consortium files a Special Leave Petition in Supreme Court seeking the intervention of the court to prevent Mallya from leaving the country. But, it was almost a week by then since Mallya left the country.
The key point to note here is that Mallya was in attendance in Parliament even just a day before he left the country. Had the government moved the court pushing for Mallyas detention, or directed the investigators including CBI to detain him citing the seriousness of the case, or at least if the CBI hadnt changed the nature of look out notice a few months before the escape, Mallya would not have left the country.
Perhaps, the liquor king would have been made to pay back banks failing which he would have been already behind the bars. Indian authorities wouldnt have been in a situation to endlessly wait outside UK court rooms to get a favourable judgment for Mallyas extradition and even make a presentation to UK judges about the facilities an conditions of Indian jails.
Jaitley probably owes another clarification on why he gave a major miss to Mallyas clue on the great escape to UK, the dream safe haven for a number of fraudsters.
The chronology of events mentioned above was published on Firstpost in 2016
With Finance Minister Arun Jaitley embroiled in controversy over defaulting liquor baron Vijay Baron meeting him before he left India, BJP leader Subramanian Swamy on Thursday said there were two 'undeniable facts' related to his 'escape'.
With Finance Minister Arun Jaitley embroiled in controversy over defaulting liquor baron Vijay Mallya meeting him before he left India, BJP leader Subramanian Swamy on Thursday said there were two "undeniable facts" related to his "escape".
In a tweet, Swamy mentioned that in 2015, a lookout notice against Mallya was diluted from "Block" to "Report" which aided in the former Kingfisher Airlines boss' departure. However, he also claimed that Mallya told Jaitley that he was leaving for London.
We have now two undeniable facts on the Mallya escape issue: 1. Look Out Notice was diluted on Oct 24, 2015 from Block to Report departure enabling Mallya to depart with 54 checked luggage items. 2. Mallya told FM in Central Hall of Parliament that he was leaving for London. Subramanian Swamy (@Swamy39) September 13, 2018
While Jaitley has been receiving backlash from Opposition parties, the BJP has staunchly defended the senior party leader and said Mallya's statement was "false" and factually incorrect. Swamy's tweet is one of the first from a BJP leader hinting at criticism of the ruling NDA over the Mallya case.
On Wednesday, a defiant Mallya, facing money laundering charges in a multi-crore fraud case in India, said he met the finance minister before leaving the country. Talking to reporters outside London's Westminster Magistrates' Court, Mallya said, "I met the finance minister to settle matters before I left. The banks had filed objections to my settlement letters."
As this Firstpost article points out, Mallya's statement brought up two crucial questions:
Why didnt the Modi government, also the owner of banks whom he allegedly defrauded, take precautionary action to make sure Mallya doesnt cross the border?
And more importantly, why did the CBI tweak the look-out notice from detention to just inform around the same period effectively letting Mallya escape easily a week before banks moved the Supreme Court and the issue hogged national headlines?
After the hearing in the Westminster Magistrates' Court, reporters asked Mallya for details of his meeting with Jaitley. The businessman then said: "I'm afraid this is a controversy created by my friends in the media. I was standing here during lunch and I happened to answer a question on the circumstances under which I flew out. I said that I happened to meet Mr Jaitley in Parliament, and I told him that I was leaving for London, and that I want to settle with the banks."
"I did not have any formal meetings scheduled with him. I met him often enough in Parliament, in the House and in central hall," Mallya said. "I don't understand what this controversy is all about."
Jaitley didn't waste much time in responding to the statement and said he never gave him an appointment since 2014 but the fugitive liquor baron misused his position as Rajya Sabha MP to accost him in Parliament. In a Facebook post, Jaitley said, "He misused that privilege on one occasion while I was walking out of the House to go to my room. He paced up to catch up with me and while walking uttered a sentence that 'I am making an offer of settlement'."
Mallya, who has been on bail on an extradition warrant since his arrest in April last year, responded to the swarm of reporters gathered outside the court in his characteristic manner, saying the "courts will decide".
"As far as I am concerned, I have made a comprehensive settlement offer before the Karnataka High Court. I hope the honourable judges will consider it favourably; everybody gets paid off and I guess that's the primary objective, said Mallya, who is fighting extradition to India on charges of fraud and money laundering amounting to around Rs 9,000 crore.
With inputs from agencies
To equate the RSS' view of life with that of the Muslim Brotherhood is an affront to our great civilisational heritage and history.
Congress president Rahul Gandhis feeble attempt to draw equivalence between the Muslim Brotherhood and the RSS caused astonishment in those familiar with the RSS and people who hold a national perspective. Alternatively, those professing a communist and Maoist ideology, and practitioners of opportunistic politics were predictably elated. Neither of these responses are unanticipated.
However, it must not be assumed that the Congress president lacks awareness about the violence that Islamist terrorists inflict on the civilised world. Neither does this mean that he is unaware of the social work that the RSS carries out through its affiliated organisations, not to mention the growing appeal and support the Sangh receives from society. But then, why would he say such a thing?
His political advisers have succeeded in convincing him that criticising the RSS will yield political dividends, and that baseless and provocative statements will compensate for the lack of ground work that is required to lift the grand old party out of its political misfortunes. Hence, he has been schooled to render these statements in a dramatic style without paying any attention to their veracity. When one such statement was legally challenged by a swayamsevak, the Congress president avoided explaining his position in court.
In reality, the Sangh is engaged in the noble work of connecting and binding Bharatiya society with the everlasting thread of spirituality and the integral and holistic Bharatiya view of life. To equate this inclusive view of life with the Muslim Brotherhood is an affront to our great civilisational heritage and history. If one was to view the Islamist ideology in practice, the word brotherhood itself is inappropriate. In fact, the Muslim Brotherhood, which he chose to cite as an example, views not only the non-Muslims as outsiders, but even Muslims outside the Salafi Sunni fold as outside their ideological commune, and not Muslim.
11 September, 2018 will be the 125th anniversary of Swami Vivekanands Chicago address in the parliament of world religions. In that historic address, he presented to a world audience the inclusive worldview of Hindu culture. This was not merely an exercise in intellectualism, but one where the strings of the heart were playing a unique tune for an audience unfamiliar with the Hindu view of life but responsive to the music in those sincere words. Swami Vivekananda began his address with My American Brothers and Sisters, an endearment which was received with a standing ovation that lasted a few minutes.
In that speech, Swami Vivekananda said, I am proud to belong to a religion which has taught the world both tolerance and universal acceptance. We believe not only in universal toleration, but we accept all religions as true. I am proud to belong to a nation which has sheltered the persecuted and the refugees of all religions and all nations of the earth. I am proud to tell you that we have gathered in our bosom the purest remnant of the Israelites, who came to southern India and took refuge with us in the very year in which their holy temple was shattered to pieces by Roman tyranny. I am proud to belong to the religion which has sheltered and is still fostering the remnant of the grand Zoroastrian nation.
Sectarianism, bigotry, and its horrible descendant, fanaticism, have long possessed this beautiful earth. They have filled the earth with violence, drenched it often and often with human blood, destroyed civilisation and sent whole nations to despair. Had it not been for these horrible demons, human society would be far more advanced than it is now.
Dr Ambedkar has also written about the Islamic view of the world. In his book Thoughts on Pakistan, he says, Islam is a close corporation and the distinction that it makes between Muslims and non-Muslims is a very real, very positive and very alienating distinction. The brotherhood of Islam is not the universal brotherhood of man. It is brotherhood of Muslims for Muslims only. There is a fraternity but its benefit is confined to those within that corporation. For those who are outside the corporation, there is nothing but contempt and enmity.
Muslim Brotherhood wants to bring the Shariat State everywhere, whereas the Sangh stands for a Hindu Rashtra that is based on the ideal of spreading universal acceptance, as propagated by Swami Vivekananda.
How can the fundamentalist Islamist ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood be equated with the universal brotherhood of Swami Vivekananda. And furthermore, why does Rahul Gandhi feel compelled to speak ill of an organisation that follows the precepts of universal brotherhood and is focused on organising the entire society?
A senior columnist once said to me a few years ago, that the Congress has been reduced to a party desperately trying to come to power by any means and is outsourcing its intellectual activity to the communists. Ever since the Congress has carried out this outsourcing to the comrades, it has allied itself with intolerance and has opposed national views and activities.
Before independence, the Congress was an open platform, amongst its members were Hindu Mahasabhaites, supporters of revolutionaries, those with radical approach (garam dal) and also those having a moderate approach (naram dal). There was space for everyone. However when this platform started taking the shape of a political party, it went from being a large tent of ideas to an organisation alienating and excluding those having different views. It was, however, a gradual progression. Even after independence, there was space for diverse viewpoints; if Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was an staunch critic of the RSS, Sardar Patel invited swayamsevaks to join the Congress party. In 1962, during the India- China war, Nehru, once a critic of the RSS, was so impressed by the selfless service of the Sangh that he invited the RSS to participate in the Republic Day parade. And even though it was very short notice, as many as 3,000 swayamsevaks participated with pride in the parade.
During the 1965 Pakistan invasion, Lal Bahadur Shastri called for a meeting with prominent leaders, including the second RSS chief Guruji Gowalkar, going so far as to arrange his immediate transport to the national capital. During this meeting, a communist leader repeatedly asked Shastri, "What was your army doing when India was invaded?" Agitated by this stance, especially at such a critical time, Guruji Gowalkar intervened and asked the gentleman why he couldnt say, our army? He asked him if he belonged to some other country.
Setting politics aside, this tradition of a dialogue (samvaad) continued till the 1970s. Subsequently, the influence of the communist ideology started gaining traction in the Congress and the intolerance and otherness so closely linked with Stalinist ideals began rearing its ugly head. Confrontational language and an "us vs them" discourse started dominating.
Apart from the BJP, most political parties reflect communist influence in their intellectual cell in varying degrees. Hence, we find that for short-sighted political gains, there is a tendency to side with attempts (inspired by leftist ideology) of breaking or weakening the unity of the people of the country, and at the same time opposing national ideas and forces. This enervating influence over the past few decades has left the Congress in a strange condition, almost as if its body is but a shell that is now occupied by a Maoist soul. This is not merely an observation, but is borne out by the displays of support the Congress routinely expresses for Maoist protests. It is obvious that the authors who wrote articles in support of the above-mentioned statement of the Congress president seem to have links with the Left ideology.
Is it not alarming that Congress leaders stand in solidarity with those who raised slogans of Bharat tere tukde honge, Inshallah, Inshallah, Bharat ki barbadi tak jung rahegi or Afzal Guru hum sharminda hai, tere qatil zinda hai? Afzal Guru was the mastermind behind the terrorist attack on the Parliament, the temple of democracy; a person who was sentenced to death by the Supreme Court during the UPA regime. When the Congress supports those who instigate caste violence, undermining and violating the Constitution, one is compelled to feel that the Maoist soul guides their action, using the Congress' identity as a cover. The infiltration of disruptive urban Maoists into mainstream life and their influence has only recently come to light. When a mainstream party like the Congress, which has held power for so many years, supports their destructive designs, it is not an occasion to be surprised, but to be saddened. Despite ideological differences, it is important to concede that the Congress of the past never spoke in the terms used by their current leaders or aligned with disruptive forces that undermined the country and national interest.
It is deeply worrying to see the oldest political party in the country, one that enjoys support across the country, stand with such anti-national elements. As a result, the Congress' support base is being eroded. Swami Vivekananda had crossed the oceans to plant the flag of Bharatiya civilisational and cultural values in a foreign land. Today, a politician from the same country travels abroad and equates the Indian cultural ethos with the Muslim Brotherhood. This is an insult to Bharatiya civilisational values and culture.
In a democracy, it is expected that there will be differences in opinion and ideologies. However, it is imperative to rise above these differences for the good of the nation. It is only when this unity supersedes politics will the country find solutions to the problems that ail us and move towards realising the Bharat that Swami Vivekananda presented to the world all those years ago.
The author is sahsarkaryavah (joint general secretary) of the RSS
DUSU election officer confirmed that the counting for the DUSU polls stands suspended after four EVMs were found to be faulty.
Counting for Delhi University Students Union (DUSU) elections was suspended on Thursday due to technical faults in Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) and following protests by students. The process has now been resumed.
DUSU election officer had confirmed that the counting for the polls to four DUSU posts, which was held on Wednesday, was suspended after four EVMs were found to be faulty. He further cited the students' protest over the issue at the counting centre as the reason behind poll panel's decision to suspend counting.
"We had proposed rectification of the faulty EVMs and resumption of the counting but the students were not ready for it. It was decided to suspend counting. A fresh date for the counting will be announced soon," an election officer for DUSU polls told PTI.
Earlier, the counting, which was supposed to begin at 8.30 am on Thursday, had started with a delay of around 80 minutes due to unexplained reasons.
The case of faulty EVMs
The first EVM glitch was spotted at around 11 am, following which the counting was halted for over 50 minutes. Polling officials said that the display of the EVM was not responding, hence, so they had to wait for a new display to be sent to the community centre in New Delhi's Kingsway Camp, where the counting was underway.
However, soon after the counting resumed, there were reports of four more EVMs developing a snag. One EVM which malfunctioned showed a strange error. The machine reportedly recorded 40 votes in favour of ballot number 10, which was vacant. Neither a candidate, nor the option NOTA (None of the above) was listed against that number.
Following this, the National Students' Union of India (NSUI) alleged that the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) students rigged the polling machine. NSUI supporters surrounded the counting centre and started raising slogans. They were held back by police barricades, thanks to the heavy presence of security forces at the venue.
Meanwhile, ABVP candidates want the counting to continue, a move which is being resisted by other student organisations. ABVP's vice-presidential candidate Shakti Singh said, "Only one EVM was faulty and it can be repaired. We want the counting to be resumed. Since we were leading on all the seats, the other parties are demanding fresh elections."
Following allegations of rigging, the Election Commission asked the candidates of all parties to sign an agreement for recounting of votes. However, the move has met with some resistance. While the ABVP has agreed to sign the agreement, NSUI has demanded that the faulty EVMs be repaired before they agree to a recount. At the time of filing this report, the impasse continued. However, the poll panel is expected to give the final word by evening.
AAP slams 'one nation, one poll on EVM malfunction; Congress alleges foul play
Soon after the controversy broke out, the Aam Aadmi Party, whose student wing the Chhatra Yuva Sangharsh Samiti (CYSS) had allied with left-leaning students' outfit All India Students Association (AISA) in polls, held a press conference. Party leader Dilip K Pandey said the government wants to conduct simultaneous Assembly and Lok Sabha polls across the length and breadth of the country, but asked how it would undertake such a massive exercise if it cannot even conduct polls for a student's council. AAP MLA Alka Lamba also took to Twitter and said that malfunctioning EVMs always coincided with the BJP's defeat in any polls.
All India Congress Committee joint secretary, Ruchi Gupta alleged, "NSUI was winning the post of DUSU president and secretary after 6 rounds. Then 6 EVMs started malfunctioning and EC wanted to set those aside. How is it that machines which were working till yesterday during polling are no longer working during counting? Clearly some sabotage to help ABVP."
She claimed that similar circumstances arose in the past as well. "NSUI had submitted a memo to the Election Commission last year and this year on transparency and integrity of the polls. Last year too after announcing that NSUI won (ahead) on 3 seats, we magically lost JS (joint secretary's seat). In Baroda too, after winning both seats, we suddenly lost 1. What is victory without credibility?" Gupta asked.
In the early rounds of counting, reports said that NSUI's Sunny Chhillar was in the lead for the president's post and was trailed by ABVP's Ankiv Baisova. Shakti Singh of the ABVP was ahead in race for the post of vice president, while Aakash Chaudhary, of the NSUI, surged ahead of ABVP's Sudhir Dedha after his initial lead for the post of secretary. Jyoti Chaudhary of the ABVP was leading for the post of joint secretary, according to the last update that had come in before counting was suspended.
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With inputs from Team 101 Reporters and DU Student Harsh Verma
In a live video conference with BJP booth workers, Narendra Modi Modi said that that the Congress' goal is the welfare of the Gandhi family, while the BJP's is the welfare of the nation.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday accused the Congress of being consumed with greed, saying that he feels bad for the Congress workers who work to benefit party president Rahul Gandhi and his family.
In a live video conference with BJP karyakartas from five Lok Sabha seats Jaipur, Nawada, Ghaziabad, Hazaribagh, and Arunachal West the prime minister said, There will always be people who are scared of good work, who are so consumed with their own greed. They should know that the BJP is not just sloganeering. We show results for the things that we promise.
He added that the Congress' goal is the welfare of the Gandhi family, while the BJP's is the welfare of the nation. At times, I have a sense of condolence for the many old cadres of Congress who have struggled, worked on the ground. Their struggle is benefitting only one family. Many talented individuals have had to sacrifice their work to ensure the growth of one family, Modi was quoted as saying by Times Now.
Responding to comments about the threat of the united Opposition camp, Modi said: "The united Opposition is not a strong union, it is just an attempt to hide their faults and flaws. The Congress is just looking to stay alive, and these other parties are just a support system to save them from the ICU."
He went on to criticise the Opposition's "vote bank politics," and said that such diplomacy will not garner trust from the public. ANI quoted Modi as saying:
If Congress&its associates had worked together since last 4 yrs&brought issues before public,people would have at least believed them.But they were least bothered in last 4 yrs. Now that elections are approaching they've come together: PM while speaking to BJP booth level workers pic.twitter.com/5F871Q7tcg ANI (@ANI) September 13, 2018
The prime minister added that the BJP believes in the power of the people, and national unity will move India forward. According to Times Now, Modi said none of the other political parties have the courage to take people from all castes and creeds forward together. It is only the BJP that believes in 'Sabka Sath, Sabka Vikas'. The country can develop if there is Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas it's not just a slogan for us but a motivation mantra, he said.
Development is our path and progress our goal, he said.
Modi also lauded the BJP's attempts to make government-led schemes more accessible to the poor. "Today we have empowered the poor with technology, we have provided them with 4G internet. The books and media that children of the rich in Delhi and Mumbai, are now available to the children of tribals in every little corner of the country," he said, adding that even the costs of health care have been reduced.
Additionally, he expressed the importance of booth workers in the upcoming 2019 Lok Sabha elections, and said, "Our karyakartas are our strength, they are the link between the BJP and the people."
The prime minister thanked the booth workers, attributing the BJPs's widespread reach to them. "All the BJPs success is thanks to you," he said. He also said that the other biggest strength in the BJP's success is the motto mera booth, sab se majboot (my booth is the strongest), saying that the BJP owes its victories to its grassroot-level workers.
It is a pertinent question as to why no one except Congress' Panna Lal Punia ever claimed to have witnessed the conversation between Jaitley and Mallya.
Congress president Rahul Gandhis belated attempt to bring "proof into the public domain to conclude that finance minister Arun Jaitley colluded" with Vijay Mallya is interesting.
The proof for Rahul was the statement of Panna Lal Punia, his confidant and a Congress Rajya Sabha MP. Punia claimed that on 1 March 2016, a day before Mallya fled, he with his own eyes saw the erstwhile liquor baron and promoter of Kingfisher Airlines and Arun Jaitley chatting very intimately in the central hall of Parliament, first standing in a corner and then seated on a bench.
Rahul took this claim to be the final proof in the matter, and came to the conclusion that this was an open and shut case. He demanded that Jaitley must immediately resign.
A few questions arise out of Rahuls accusations that the Narendra Modi-led government colluded with Mallya.
Before going into other details, one should understand the kind of place that the central hall of Parliament is. This is where the president addresses both Houses of Parliament at the beginning of the year. Visiting foreign dignitaries are invited to speak to parliamentarians here. Further, other important parliamentary functions such as the roll out of GST, which happened at midnight on 30 June, 2017 are held at this hall. For the rest of the year, when Parliament is in session, MPs of the two Houses, including ministers, and senior accredited journalists, sit there during leisure and informally interact over tea. The hall is an open house where people walk in and out. At any given point in the day, there are over 50 people present there.
In such a scenario, Punia couldnt have been the only witness to the extended meeting between Mallya and Jaitley in the central hall. There would have been a whole lot of other MPs and mediapersons present there. It is a pertinent question as to how nobody other than Puniya made this charge, or ever claimed to have witnessed this conversation between Jaitley and Mallya. Puniya could not have been a chance witness.
Punia now claims that he had been speaking about this conversation since 3 March, 2016. Did he not inform his party leadership, Rahul Gandhi in particular, in the last two-and-a-half-years about having seen this? If he did, then did Rahul Gandhi and the rest of the Congress leadership not consider his claim to be serious enough to be presented as "proof" at a press conference?
Rahul, while alleging collusion between the Modi government and Mallya, conveniently forgot the way in which the Manmohan Singh government controlled by him and his mother Sonia Gandhi extended undue favors to Mallya and Kingfisher Airlines. A series of correspondences brings this aspect to light. For instance, on one occasion, a relieved and pleased Mallya had thanked Singh for meeting him and responding positively to his demands. On another occasion, Mallya met with Singh's principal secretary TKA Nair, and the latter spoke to concerned persons in the ministry, directing them to sort things out. On yet another occasion, Mallya had written to his colleague and made a reference to P Chidambaram speaking with a senior State Bank of India (SBI) official about a fresh loan to be granted to Kingfisher Airlines.
But the most damning fact is a series of correspondences between the Reserve Bank of India and State Bank of India. In one such correspondence, the RBI overruled the SBI and advised it not to downgrade Kingfisher's status in the books and re-structure loans to bail the airline out. The former asked the SBI to treat this as an exception, not to be used as a precedent for anyone else.
The Congress, surely, will have a difficult time explaining its position on these aspects. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had recently spoken of top Congress leaders during the UPA regime engaging in an unofficial dial-a-loan system.
Rahul, however, now believes that in Punias statement, he has found the ultimate proof to indict the Modi government in the Mallya case. He is using Mallyas statement given in London on Wednesday as another proof. Mallya had said, I happened to meet Jaitley in Parliament. I told him that I was leaving for London and want to settle with banks, and (asked if he would) facilitate discussions. I did not have any formal meeting scheduled with him. To a question as to what was Jaitley's response, Mallya said nothing.
Jaitley was quick to issue a rebuttal. He said The statement is factually false in as much as it does not reflect truth. Since 2014, I have never given him any appointment to meet me and the question of his having met me does not arise. However, since he was a member of the Rajya Sabha he misused that privilege on one occasion while I was walking out of the House to go to my room. He paced up to catch up with me and while walking, uttered a sentence that `I am making an offer of settlement. Having been fully briefed about his earlier `bluff offers, without allowing him to proceed with the conversation, I curtly told him 'there was no point talking to me and he must make offers to his bankers. Besides this one sentence exchange, where he misused his privilege as a Rajya Sabha member, in order to further his commercial interest as a bank debtor, there is no question of my having ever given him an appointment to meet me.
Triggering a controversy, Mumbai Congress chief Sanjay Nirupam on Wednesday called Narendra Modi 'illiterate', while criticising the state government's decision to screen a short film on the prime minister's life at schools in Maharashtra.
Mumbai: Triggering a controversy, Mumbai Congress chief Sanjay Nirupam on Wednesday called Narendra Modi "illiterate", while criticising the state government's decision to screen a short film on the prime minister's life at schools in Maharashtra.
His comment drew sharp reaction from BJP leaders with the party's Maharashtra unit spokesperson Shaina NC calling Nirupam "mentally deranged."
"The decision to screen the film forcibly is wrong. Children should be kept away from politics. What will students learn from watching a film on an uneducated and illiterate person like Modi," the Congress leader told a news channel.
"Children and people do not know how many degrees the prime minister holds," he said.
Later, asked by reporters about his choice of words, Nirupam said the ruling party need not object to each and every word, and "in democracy the prime minister is not god".
Reacting to Nirupam's remarks, Shaina NC tweeted, "Yet another abnoxious comment by a mentally deranged @sanjaynirupam . May be he forgets that @narendramodi is elected by 125 cr Indians who aren't "unpad or gavar".@INCIndia is devoid of ideology and relevant questions. Sure citizens will give a befitting reply in 2019 (sic).
Anil Shirole, a BJP MP from Maharashtra tweeted, "PM is not a representative of one party, he is the Prime Minister of the Country and it's people. @sanjaynirupam by insulting our PM you have insulted and disrespected the office, the country and the constitution drafted by Dr.Babasaheb Ambedkar ji (sic).
The Zilla Parishad (ZP) schools in Maharashtra have been asked to screen a short film on Modi next week, a directive which has drawn criticism from Opposition.
A government official said that ZP schools were asked to screen the short film Chalo Jeete Hai on 18 September as it has a "social message" and would inspire students.
The 32-minute film directed by Mangesh Hadawale and presented by Aanand L Rai and Mahaveer Jain, is based on the early life of Modi.
Opposition Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) have slammed the BJP-led dispensation over the decision.
BJP leader Nirmala Sitharaman termed as 'motivated' the Congress' demand of Finance Minister Arun Jaitley's resignation over his meeting with Vijay Mallya.
New Delhi: BJP leader Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday termed as "motivated" the Congress' demand of Finance Minister Arun Jaitley's resignation over his meeting with Vijay Mallya, saying it is a strategy to deflect attention from the UPA government's "cronyism and favouritism".
The defence minister told PTI that a brief conversation which Mallya had with Jaitley in a corridor of Parliament is being "played up" and asserted that responses to the issue have "reinforced" the fact it was not a conversation of any merit.
Jaitley, she noted, had already explained as to how Mallya misused his privilege as a Member of Parliament to speak to him.
To a question about Congress MP PL Punia's claim that he had seen Jaitley sitting with Mallya in Parliament's Central Hall and there would be CCTV footage to corroborate it, Sitharaman shot back, asking if the footage would also have audio recording.
"It already seems a very motivated allegation," she said of the Congress' charge against Jaitley.
Hitting out at the Congress, she said letters were written to the Reserve Bank of India and State Bank of India during the UPA's rule to help Mallya.
"They are in tour face. How favouritism naming that one company has been made...Whose period made it sick? Whose period had favouritism and cronyism entering in to suggest to the central bank and written instructions given to banks to lend to this defaulter," she asked.
Looking at the strategy with which Congress would want to deflect it, she asked wryly if that "minutes' conversation" helped him to go away or all the lending happened (during the UPA rule) because of it.
Multiple loans were given to bogus accounts which did not have credit worthiness, she said.
The BJP leader said the Modi government had brought in a law through which defaulters' property can be confiscated.
The UPA government passed some laws but never made rules, she said.
Mallya had Wednesday claimed in London that he had met the finance minister before leaving for the UK, drawing a rebuttal from Jaitley who said he never gave him any appointment but the businessman used his privilege as an MP to accost him in Parliament.
Immediately after Jaitley's sharp rebuttal Wednesday, Mallya appeared to tone down the seriousness of his comments, saying it was "not fair" to create a controversy over this issue as it was not a "formal meeting" and he only "happened to meet" the finance minister.
Reuters
Six major web companies and internet-service providers, including AT&T Inc, Twitter Inc, and Alphabet Incs Google, will detail their consumer data privacy practices to a US Senate panel on 26 September, according to a congressional statement on 12 September.
The Senate hearing will give the six technology-related companies, which also include Amazon.com Inc, Apple Inc and Charter Communications Inc, an opportunity to explain their approaches to privacy, said US Senator John Thune, the Republican chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee.
They will also testify on how they plan to address new requirements from the European Union and California, and what Congress can do to promote clear privacy expectations without hurting innovation, Thune said.
Data privacy has become an increasingly important issue, fueled by massive breaches that have compromised the personal information of millions of US internet and social media users, as well as breaches involving large retailers and credit reporting agency Equifax Inc.
Separately, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy said in a tweet late on Tuesday that Google claims to be fair, but gave a silent donation to a left-wing group to stop Trump and works w/ China/Russia to censor the internet, but canceled a contract with our military.
He noted Google declined to take part in a Senate Intelligence hearing last week that featured Twitter and Facebook. Its time for @Google to answer some ?s An invite will be on its way, McCarthy wrote.
Google Claims to be fair, but gave a silent donation to a left-wing group to stop Trump
Works w/ China/Russia to censor the internet, but cancelled a contract with our military
Ignores Senate hearing Its time for @Google to answer some ?s An invite will be on its way. Kevin McCarthy (@GOPLeader) September 11, 2018
Google said in a statement on Wednesday that the suggestion that Googles products or actions are politically biased is simply wrong. The company said it will continue to ensure that our products and election efforts remain strictly non-partisan in nature.
The Internet Association, which represents more than 40 major internet and technology companies, said on Tuesday it backed modernizing US data privacy rules but wants a national approach that would pre-empt new regulations in California that take effect in 2020.
The witnesses at the 26 September Senate hearing include Googles chief privacy officer, Twitters global data protection officer and Apples vice president for software technology.
The White House said in July it was working to develop consumer data privacy policies and officials have held more than 50 meetings with major firms and other groups as the Trump administration seeks to help the policies become enshrined in legislation eventually.
California Governor Jerry Brown signed data privacy legislation in June aimed at giving consumers more control over how companies collect and manage their personal information, although it was not as stringent as new rules in Europe.
Under the law, large companies would be required starting in 2020 to let consumers view the data they have collected on them, request deletion of data, and opt out of having the data sold to third parties.
The European Union General Data Protection Regulation took effect in May, replacing the blocs patchwork of rules dating back to 1995. Breaking privacy laws can result in fines of up to 4 percent of global revenue or 20 million euros ($23.2 million), whichever is higher, as opposed to a few hundred thousand euros.
Reuters
Google will invest $140 million to expand the tech giants sole data center in Latin America, a development Chiles president hailed on Wednesday as proof of the countrys enthusiastic participation in the fourth industrial revolution.
The expansion, announced by Google and Chilean officials, represents the companys second stage of growth for the data center in Quilicura, near Santiago, which became fully operational in 2015. Google said the new investment will triple the data centers size to 11.2 hectares (27.7 acres) and create more than 1,000 new jobs in the construction process and 120 new permanent jobs.
Googles new investment is in addition to the $150 million it spent to build the center. The company first announced data center construction plans Chile in 2012, eight months after it opened offices in the country. Since January of 2017, the data center has operated entirely on solar power from Chiles Atacama region, Google said.
Edgardo Frias, Googles general manager in Chile, said the improved infrastructure that came from establishing a data center in Chile helped the company develop its capacity in Artificial Intelligence and machine learning.
This new stage reinforces the promise Google made to the region to ensure that large and small companies, non-profit organizations, students, educators, and all users can access key tools in a reliable and rapid way, Frias said.
In a show of the importance Chile is placing on developing a digital economy to diversify from its dependence on copper, Chilean President Sebastian Pinera attended the event.
He vowed that Chile will be on the forefront of what he called the current of history in the technology revolution.
What we have to decide is which side are we going to be on: where the new works of the future are created, or where the old works of the past are destroyed, Pinera said.
Googles announcement comes amid conversations between Chiles government and rival Amazon.com Inc about its interest to house and mine massive amounts of data generated by the countrys giant telescopes.
Chile and Argentina, two of South Americas largest economies, have been courting investment from the cloud computing and e-commerce company.
Google executives told Reuters they had looked at a number of different countries as a venue to establish Googles first Latin American data center and had chosen Chile because of its favorable climate for foreign direct investment, a clear regulatory framework and a good supply of renewable energy resources.
Reuters
Brave, a privacy-focused web browser set up by Silicon Valley engineering guru Brendan Eich, filed privacy complaints in Britain and Ireland that could become a test case against search company Google and other digital advertising firms.
The petitioners say they want to trigger an article in the new European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) requiring an EU-wide investigation, making it a test case for a new European Data Protection Board created to give the privacy regime more teeth.
The GDPR seeks to ensure that individuals have greater control over the data that companies hold about them. Brave and the co-plaintiffs say Google and others are playing fast and loose with peoples data.
There is a massive and systematic data breach at the heart of the behavioral advertising industry. Despite the two-year lead-in period before the GDPR, adtech companies have failed to comply, Braves chief policy officer Johnny Ryan told Reuters.
The complaint argues that when a person visits a website, intimate personal data that describe them and what they are doing online is broadcast to tens or hundreds of companies without their knowledge in order to auction and place ads.
This, it says in the complaints filed on Wednesday, violates the GDPRs requirement for personal data to be processed in a way that ensures they are properly secured, including against unauthorized or unlawful processing and against accidental loss.
Google says it has already implemented strong privacy protections in consultation with European regulators and is committed to complying with the GDPR.
Brave operates as a private browser and ad blocker, preventing the use of trackers on web pages to harvest data about peoples online behaviourgiving it detailed insight into the inner workings of the online ad industry.
Brave brave.com's co-founder Eich is best known as the creator of the Javascript web programming language and was also a co-founder of Mozilla, the open-source web browser.
The new data privacy law could also have a huge impact on the small army of tech firms that comes between giants like Google and its users to harvest and crunch data from websites to form very specific consumer profiles.
Heavy fines
Were the regulator to find in favor of the plaintiffs, that could undermine the foundations of the data-driven model on with the online ad industryforecast by research firm eMarketer to grow to $273 billion this yeardepends.
The GDPR is the first data privacy regime that foresees heavy fines for serious violationsof up to 4 percent of a companys global turnover.
The filing, on behalf of Ryan, Jim Killock of the Open Rights Group, a non-profit organization, and academic Michael Veale of University College London, coincided with the opening of a major digital marketing fair in Cologne, Germany.
A copy of the complaint seen by Reuters argues that Google and the adtech industry commit wide-scale and systematic breaches of the data protection regime through the way they place personalized online ads.
This happens through a process called real-time bidding and does so through two main channels. One, called OpenRTB, is used by most players in the industry, while a second, called Authorised Buyers, is run by Google.
The complaint argues that these gather and broadcast more personal data than could be justified for advertising purposes; that this data is then subject to further unauthorized processing; and that it can include sensitive information such as sexuality, ethnicity or political opinions.
Ravi Naik, a partner at ITN Solicitors in London who is representing the plaintiffs, said this case addressed a long-standing data-protection concern that is likely to have far reaching and dramatic consequences, which may change our fundamental relationship with the Internet.
tech2 News Staff
After announced the Xiaomi Mi 8, Mi 8 Explorer Edition, and Mi 8 SE in China, the company is apparently now ready to launch another smartphone in the series, called the Xiaomi Mi 8 Youth.
According to a teaser shared by Xiaomi on its official Weibo account, the company will be hosting an event in Chengdu, China, on 19 September, to launch a new smartphone in the Mi 8 series. The big 8 on the teaser, clearly gives that bit away.
And the graphics on the teaser, together with numerous previous leaks, particularly suggest the smartphone to be the Xiaomi Mi 8 Youth. Another tip is the teasers design aesthetics resemblance to a recent poster shared by Xiaomi, which confirmed the upcoming-launch the Mi 8 Youth.
However, we must mention that there are also a few rumours that suggest that the Mi 8X may as well be on the cards.
Now, Xiaomi has obviously not confirmed any of these specifications, however, the purported Mi 8 Youth was recently spotted on the Chinese certification website, TENAA, which revealed a bunch of specifications about the smartphone.
The leak suggests that the Xiaomi Mi 8 Youth will be fueled by a 3,250mAh battery. It will apparently come in three variants, which will differ based on the RAM on-board. There is suggested a 4 GB, a 6 GB, and an 8 GB RAM model.
Further, the Mi 8 Youth is believed to run Android 8.1 Oreo out-of-the-box, with an octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 710 SoC under the hood, 4G VoLTE, a dual-camera setup at the rear, and a fingerprint sensor at the back. The leaked information also hinted at the presence of a 19:9 display with the possibility of a notch on top.
Alice Wells told a Washington audience that the United States has had conversations about human rights with all countries, including India.
Washington: India is a vibrant democracy which has constitutionally enshrined rights for minorities for freedom of religion, a senior Donald Trump administration official said on Wednesday.
Alice Wells, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia, told a Washington audience that the United States has conversations about human rights with all countries including India. "India is a vibrant democracy which has constitutionally enshrined rights for minorities, for freedom of religion," she said.
In response to a question, if the human rights issue came up during the recently held 2-plus-2 dialogue between India and the US on 6 September in New Delhi, she said, "We respect democracies. We respect democracies because we believed democracies are self-correcting because there are institutions at play."
"I think the spirit of the dialogue takes place within that framework of respect for one another and the fact that we stand for and have fought for and have been trained in institutions, these principles, and recognizing that we too are not immune from criticism, Wells said.
Asking the question, Alan Kronstadt from Congressional Research Service pointed to the increasing concern at the Hill about the religious freedom in India. "I wanted to ask specifically about human rights. As you know, your own department puts out reports that discuss extensive human rights violations. Some of them seem to be perpetrated by the state in India, he alleged. And one item that's attracted a lot of attention on the Hill recently is the religious freedom issue under this BJP led government," he said.
In lead up to the 2-plus-2 dialogue, some members of Congress wrote a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, asking him to bring up some of these issues with his interlocutors and counterparts. Can you say if that took place during the two plus two. And how much you respond to folks who are concerned that human rights issues have fallen away when it comes to US India engagement, Kronstadt asked.
The true human cost of Hurricane Maria, and the chaotic federal response to the storm, triggered a year-long controversy, which Donald Trump revived this week even as another powerful hurricane, Florence, bore down on the East Coast
Washington: US President Donald Trump on Thursday rejected the official death toll in Puerto Rico's Hurricane Maria in 2017, saying it had been inflated to almost 3,000 as part of a ploy to make him look bad.
The true human cost of Maria, and the chaotic federal response to the storm, triggered a year-long controversy, which Trump revived this week even as another powerful hurricane, Florence, bore down on the East Coast.
"3000 people did not die in the two hurricanes that hit Puerto Rico," Trump tweeted early Thursday. "When I left the Island, after the storm had hit, they had anywhere from 6 to 18 deaths."
"Then, a long time later, they started to report really large numbers, like 3000..." he said, going on to claim: "This was done by the Democrats in order to make me look as bad as possible when I was successfully raising Billions of Dollars to help rebuild Puerto Rico. If a person died for any reason, like old age, just add them onto the list."
Hurricane Maria killed 2,975 people in Puerto Rico, a long-awaited independent investigation into the 2017 storm concluded in August. It was initially said to have killed just 64 people.
After nearly a year of controversy over the figures, the governor of the US island territory said the new estimate would now be considered the official death toll.
Hurricane Florence is the first major test of the Federal Emergency Management Agency since its much-criticized response to Maria, which caused devastation when it struck Puerto Rico as a Category 4 storm a year ago.
A US government report published in August concluded that the federal response in Puerto Rico was hampered by a lack of trained staff as well as by major logistical challenges.
But Trump has continued to boast about the handling of Maria, calling it "an incredible unsung success" as he warned residents of the Carolinas not to take chances with Florence.
"I'm sorry, Sir, shame on you," San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz retorted on CNN, calling the federal disaster response in the US territory a "despicable act of neglect."
"If he thinks that 3,000 people dying on his watch is a good news story or is an unsung success... nobody's going to be singing his praises," she said.
"If (Trump) doesn't learn from his mistakes, he's going to make them again and people are going to continue to die."
Death Toll
Puerto Rico Governor Ricardo Rossello also criticized Trump for not providing additional federal funds still needed for emergency housing and debris removal.
Rosello is a leader of the island's pro-statehood New Progressive Party, which aligns with Republicans, while Cruz is from the Popular Democratic Party, whose members affiliate with the Democratic Party.
Maria destroyed the island's electricity grid, leaving it largely without power for weeks and crippling its health care system.
Despite the low initial official death toll, outside studies showed that the impact on mortality in the three months after the storm was far greater. A Harvard University study released in May estimated that more than 4,600 people may have died as a result of the hurricane.
Then on 28 August, an epidemiological study by George Washington University commissioned by the island's government concluded that 2,975 people were killed as a result of the storm.
Authorities say a gunman in California has killed five people, including his wife, before turning the gun on himself as a sheriff's deputy closed in.
A gunman in California Kern County killed five people, including his wife, before turning the gun on himself as a sheriff's deputy closed in, authorities said.
Kern Co. Sheriff says shootings that left 6 dead near Bakersfield stem from domestic dispute. Suspect allegedly shot man, then his wife, then others at 5 different locations, then himself. pic.twitter.com/iKI4XXQyNa KenWayne (@KenWayne) September 13, 2018
Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood said that the shootings began shortly before 5.30 pm (local time) on Wednesday and occurred at a business and a home in Bakersfield, about 90 miles north of Los Angeles, The Associated Press reported.
"Obviously, these are not random shootings," Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood told KERO-TV. Six people died in a short amount of time, he added.
The man first showed up at a trucking business with his wife shortly before 5.30 pm where he confronted another man.
"The suspect, the husband, shot the person at the trucking company and then turned and shot his wife. He then chased and shot another man who showed up," Youngblood said.
The gunman then went to a home where he shot two people, the sheriff added.
He then carjacked a woman who was driving her child. The woman and child escaped and the man drove to a highway where a sheriff's deputy saw him, Youngblood said. The gunman saw the deputy and pulled into a lot. When the deputy confronted him at gunpoint the man shot himself in the chest, the sheriff said. His identity was not immediately released.
Except for the gunman's wife, there was no immediate word on how the victims might have been related. About 30 people saw the shootings and were being interviewed by deputies, Youngblood said.
According to local media, there are multiple crime scene locations. The main focus is at a business located in the 8000 block of Di Miller Drive. The shooting reportedly arose from a domestic dispute, KRON reported. Police were also carrying out multiple search warrants in the area, Breaking 911 reported.
With inputs from agencies
Moon Jae-in conceded there was a 'blockage,' in the negotiations, and that both North Kore and the US needed to compromise to make progress on the matter.
Seoul: North Korea is "willing to denuclearise" and the US is prepared to end hostile relations, South Korean president Moon Jae-in said on Thursday as he struck an upbeat tone ahead of his third meeting with Kim Jong-un next week.
The summit will be the third between the leaders of North and South Korea this year and comes as talks between Washington and Pyongyang over dismantling the North's nuclear arsenal have stalled.
Moon conceded there was a "blockage," and that both sides needed to compromise to make progress on the controversial subject. "North Korea is willing to denuclearise and therefore willing to discard existing nuclear weapons... and the US is willing to end hostile relations with the North and provide security guarantees," Moon said. "But there is a blockage as both sides are demanding each other to act first and I think they will be able to find a point of compromise," he added.
Moon, who helped broker the June summit between Kim and US President Donald Trump in Singapore, and has called for a follow-up meeting between the two sides, added South Korea would help mediate contacts between Washington and Pyongyang to "speed up the denuclearisation process".
Trump and Kim Jong Un pledged to denuclearise the Korean peninsula at their historic Singapore meeting. However, no details were agreed, and Washington and Pyongyang have sparred since over what that means and how it will be achieved. Last month, Trump abruptly cancelled a planned visit by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to Pyongyang.
The new US envoy for the North, Stephen Biegun, said in August Kim had promised "final, fully verified denuclearisation" at the Singapore summit. But Pyongyang has slammed Washington for its "gangster-like" demands for complete, verifiable and irreversible disarmament.
South Korea's Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha said Thursday that making progress on denuclearisation talks with North Korea is a "daily concern". "Getting traction on the denuclearisation and peace process that is very much now in motion it's a daily concern to get movement on this," she told a regional economic forum in the Vietnamese capital Hanoi.
Speaking on the sidelines of the forum, Kang called for "openness" from the North about their weapons programme and added a second Trump-Kim summit should deliver "concrete" results. "A second summit has to be something that really significantly moves the agenda forward," she added.
The White House said earlier this week Trump had received a "very positive" letter from Kim seeking a follow-up meeting, since adding it is in the process of coordinating a possible second meeting between the two leaders.
South Korean national security advisor Chung Eui-yong said on Thursday that Moon and Kim will discuss "more in-depth and detailed ways to achieve denuclearisation". The two Koreas will be holding a closed working-level meeting on Friday to discuss the logistics of next week's summit, an official at the South's presidential office said.
If we believe in the rule of law, they have every right to appeal the judgment and to point out why the judgment was wrong, Suu Kyi said on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum on ASEAN in Hanoi.
Myanmar's de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi said Thursday that two Reuters journalists jailed for investigating a massacre in Rakhine state were not convicted because they were journalists but because they broke the law. Wa Lone, 32, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 28, were each imprisoned for seven years last week for breaching the country's hardline Official Secrets Act while reporting atrocities committed during the military crackdown in Rakhine. The sentence prompted a storm of global outcry as an assault on freedom of speech, while erstwhile rights champion Suu Kyi came under intense pressure for failing to speak up for the pair.
Suu Kyi broke her silence on the issue on Thursday during a discussion at the World Economic Forum, robustly defending the court's decision to jail the duo. "They were not jailed because they were journalists" but because "the court has decided that they had broken the Official Secrets Act", she said in her first direct comments on the issue.
Challenging critics of the verdict including the United Nations, rights groups who once lionised her and the US Vice President to "point out" where there has been a miscarriage of justice, Suu Kyi said the case upheld the rule of law. "The case was held in open court... I don't think anybody has bothered to read the summary of the judge, it had to do with an Official Secrets Act," she added.
If we believe in the rule of law, they have every right to appeal the judgment and to point out why the judgment was wrong, Suu Kyi said on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum on ASEAN in Hanoi.
Army-led "clearance operations" last August drove 7,00,000 Rohingya into Bangladesh, carrying with them widespread accounts of atrocities rape, murder and arson by Myanmar police and troops. The Reuters reporters had denied the charges, insisting they were set up while exposing the extrajudicial killing of 10 Rohingya Muslims in the village of Inn Din in September 2017.
This week, the UN rights office accused Myanmar of "waging a campaign against journalists". It decried "the instrumentalisation of the law and of the courts by the government and military in what constitutes a political campaign against independent journalism".
Suu Kyi, who has so far bristled at foreign criticism of her country and defended the crackdown against "terrorists" from the Muslim minority, also addressed the army's handling of the crisis. "There are of course ways (in) which, in hindsight, the situation could have been handled better," she said in rare comments on the crackdown.
Myanmar has come under intense diplomatic pressure in recent weeks, with the UN rights office singling out its powerful military chief for his role forcing the Rohingya from the country. The stateless Rohingya are denied citizenship in Myanmar and widely reviled in the Buddhist-majority country.
With inputs from agencies
By Suleiman Al-Khalidi AMMAN (Reuters) - Jordan and Syria held their first technical talks on opening a major border crossing in southern Syria that was recaptured from the opposition last July, a Jordanian official source said on Thursday.
By Suleiman Al-Khalidi
AMMAN (Reuters) - Jordan and Syria held their first technical talks on opening a major border crossing in southern Syria that was recaptured from the opposition last July, a Jordanian official source said on Thursday.
Damascus, which took back the crossing from the opposition, hopes to reopen the Nassib route vital to its hopes of reviving Syria's shattered economy and rebuilding in territory under its control.
Amman also hopes the opening of the border crossing will reactivate billions of dollars of annual transit trade between Europe and Gulf markets across Syria.
The source told Reuters the meeting that was requested by Syria was held on Wednesday at the Jaber crossing, on the Jordanian side of the border, where technical teams began talks on the practical arrangements from customs to security needed to reopen the crossing.
"The meetings will continue to put a complete view of all the arrangements linked to reopening the crossings in the coming period," the source said.
The crossing's recapture by Syrian forces in July was one main goal of a Russian-backed military campaign launched last June to regain control of rebel-held parts of the southwest.
Western diplomatic sources say Russia had been pressing Amman to open the crossing as part of a drive to show the war was drawing to a close and to help rehabilitate President Bashar al Assad. Many Western and Arab countries have not restored ties with Assad and blame him for the civil war.
Jordan's Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi last month said the country wants to open its borders with Syria but was waiting for a formal Syrian request to begin discussions.
Another Jordanian official said the crossing could open by the end of this year.
Diplomatic sources say the opening would not signify a thaw in political ties, as the two countries' foreign policies diverge over the Middle East peace process and the role of Iran in the region.
Jordan is a staunch US ally and supports Washington and its Arab Gulf state allies in their tough stance towards Iran.
The closure of the crossing has also weighted on Lebanese exporters who used it to export hundreds of millions of dollars of produce and goods to lucrative Gulf markets.
Jordan's private sector is also hoping for a revival in bilateral trade with a major neighbouring market where Jordanian business have long-standing ties.
Syria's army has regained control of most of the country, helped by Iranian-backed militias and Russian aerial bombs.
With Russian air power, government forces have this year defeated the armed opposition in the last remaining enclaves near the cities of Homs and Damascus, and swept through the rebel-held southwest.
(Reporting by Suleiman Al-Khalidi; Editing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg and Hugh Lawson)
This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
By Jeff Mason and Steve Holland WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Under fire over his handling of Russian election meddling, U.S.
By Jeff Mason and Steve Holland
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Under fire over his handling of Russian election meddling, U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Wednesday meant to strengthen election security by slapping sanctions on foreign countries or people who try to interfere in the U.S. political process.
The order, coming only eight weeks before congressional elections on Nov. 6, drew immediate criticism from both Republican and Democratic lawmakers as too little, too late.
Trump signed the order behind closed doors with no reporters present, a rare departure from what has been his standard practice.
Sanctions could include freezing assets, restricting foreign exchange transactions, limiting access to U.S. financial institutions, and prohibiting U.S. citizens from investing in companies involved, national security adviser John Bolton told reporters.
Bolton said sanctions could be imposed during or after an election, based on the evidence gathered.
U.S. intelligence agencies concluded that entities backed by the Kremlin sought to boost Republican Trump's chances of winning the White House in the 2016 election against his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton. But Trump in July publicly accepted Russian President Vladimir Putin's denials at a joint press conference after they met for a summit in Helsinki.
Special Counsel Robert Mueller and congressional panels are investigating Russian interference, which Moscow denies. Mueller is also looking into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian officials. Trump dismisses the investigations as a political witch hunt.
Lawmakers said the executive order, which would give the president decision-making power on imposing sanctions, was insufficient.
"Today's announcement by the administration recognises the threat, but does not go far enough to address it," said Republican Senator Marco Rubio and Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen in a joint statement, advocating legislation.
The order represents an effort by the administration to look tough on election security before the voting in November, which will determine whether Trump's Republicans maintain their majorities in the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate.
Bolton said criticism of the president's response to the issue, which has included his controversial comments in Helsinki and numerous tweets, played "zero" role in driving the issuance of the executive order.
"The president has said repeatedly that he is determined that there not be foreign interference in our political process," Bolton said on a conference call. "I think his actions speak for themselves."
The order would direct intelligence agencies to assess whether any people or entities interfered. The information would be provided to the Justice and Homeland Security departments, and then based on their assessment of the validity and impact, trigger automatic sanctions, U.S. Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said.
Intelligence agencies would have 45 days to make an assessment. Then the two departments would have 45 days to determine whether action is required, Coats told reporters.
The State and Treasury departments would decide on additional sanctions to recommend and impose.
Bolton said the order was necessary to ensure a formal process and authorization for sanctions. He said he was in talks with lawmakers about possible legislation.
Senator Mark Warner, a Democrat who is vice chairman of the intelligence committee, said, "Unfortunately, President Trump demonstrated in Helsinki and elsewhere that he simply cannot be counted upon to stand up to Putin when it matters."
"While the administration has yet to share the full text, an executive order that inevitably leaves the president broad discretion to decide whether to impose tough sanctions against those who attack our democracy is insufficient," Warner said.
DNI Coats said the measure was being put in place as part of government efforts to report on any suspicious activity between now and November's elections and to do a full assessment after the election that would trigger sanctions if necessary.
Coats said the United States had seen signs of election meddling from Russia and China, and potential capabilities for such meddling from Iran and North Korea.
"It's more than Russia here that we're looking at," he said.
U.S. lawmakers have introduced various pieces of Russia-related legislation urging punishments for election meddling.
Congress passed a Russia sanctions bill more than a year ago. Some lawmakers have chafed at what they saw as the administration's reluctance to implement it.
Trump signed the bill into law only after Congress passed it with huge majorities. Acting on the law, the Treasury Department has imposed sanctions against 24 Russians, striking at allies of Putin.
(Reporting by Jeff Mason and Steve Holland; Additional reporting by Christopher Bing and Patricia Zengerle; Editing by Kevin Drawbaugh and Grant McCool)
This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
By Tom Miles GENEVA (Reuters) - Palestinian citizens are trapped in an economy of jobless growth with no prospects, especially in Gaza, which is undergoing 'de-development', the United Nations trade and development agency UNCTAD said in an annual report published on Wednesday. It said unemployment in the Palestinian territories was the highest in the world in 2017, at 27.4 percent, while agricultural production fell by 11 percent. Half of Palestinians under 30 were unemployed.
By Tom Miles
GENEVA (Reuters) - Palestinian citizens are trapped in an economy of jobless growth with no prospects, especially in Gaza, which is undergoing "de-development", the United Nations trade and development agency UNCTAD said in an annual report published on Wednesday.
It said unemployment in the Palestinian territories was the highest in the world in 2017, at 27.4 percent, while agricultural production fell by 11 percent. Half of Palestinians under 30 were unemployed. The economy grew 3.1 percent but was flat on a per capita basis.
Every year the situation becomes more and more unacceptable and difficult, UNCTAD Deputy Secretary-General Isabelle Durant told a news conference in Geneva, describing the economic situation as "absolutely unsustainable".
A customs union between Israel and the Palestinian territories has isolated the Palestinian economy from the rest of the world and left it dependent on Israel, the report said.
The major reason for this dark situation from the economic development point of view is a set of Israeli restrictions," Mahmoud Elkhafif, coordinator of the report, said.
"These measures include permit systems for Palestinians to work in Israel, you have road blocks in the West Bank, you have earth mounds, trenches, road check points, gates and separation barriers.
In Gaza, where real incomes have fallen 30 percent since 1999 and production capacity has been hit by successive military operations, households got an average of two hours of electricity daily, and only about 10 percent had drinking water.
"It is de-development, it is not development," Elkhafif said.
Hamas, an Islamist movement designated a terrorist group by Western countries and Israel, seized control of the territory in 2007 following a brief civil war with forces loyal to Mahmoud Abbas, the Western-backed Palestinian president based in the West Bank.
Israel withdrew its troops and settlers from Gaza in 2005, but, citing security concerns, maintains tight control of its land and sea borders. Egypt also restricts movement in and out of Gaza on its border.
Abbass Palestinian Authority has also sought to use financial measures to isolate Hamas, last year slashing the salaries of thousands of government workers in Gaza by 30 percent.
Total international support dropped significantly, from $2 billion in 2008 to $720 million in 2017.
A further blow came this month when U.S. President Donald Trump halted funding for the U.N. Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA, leaving a $200 million gap.
Durant said it was too early to assess the impact of the U.S. move, and she hoped European or other donors might at least partially make up the shortfall.
(Reporting by Tom Miles; Editing by Alison Williams)
This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
UN agencies and relief organisations have warned repeatedly that any major assault on the province of Idlib, which borders Turkey, could spark one of the worst humanitarian disasters of Syria's seven-year war.
Beirut: A UN commission on Wednesday called on rebel groups in Syria's Idlib province to leave urban areas to protect civilians from any looming regime assault. The proposal comes after the United Nations' peace envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, last week suggested a deadline be set for fighters in Idlib to pull back from its cities.
UN agencies and relief organisations have warned repeatedly that any major assault on the province of Idlib, which borders Turkey, could spark one of the worst humanitarian disasters of Syria's seven-year war. On Wednesday, the UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria called for jihadists and opposition fighters to leave the most densely populated areas in the region where some three million people live.
"Most of those terrorist groups and other armed groups, they are in the cities. Perhaps one wonderful scenario is: leave the cities," commission chief Paulo Pinheiro said. Hany Magally, a fellow panel member, said: "Shouldn't the armed groups move out and spare the civilian population?" Idlib and adjacent areas are largely controlled by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, an alliance led by Al-Qaeda's former Syrian affiliate, as well as rival rebels. HTS controls the provincial capital Idlib city.
The northwestern region has seen its population almost double with the arrival of Syrians displaced from other parts of the country, many of whom already depend on aid. "All the other disasters would be minor events compared to what can happen in Idlib," Pinheiro said.
On Friday, rebel backer Turkey and regime allies Russian and Iran failed to reach an agreement in Tehran to avoid a regime assault on Idlib. On Tuesday, UN chief Antonio Guterres warned a full-scale battle on Idlib "would unleash a humanitarian nightmare unlike any seen in the blood-soaked Syrian conflict".
More than 350,000 people have been killed and millions more displaced in Syria's war since it started in 2011. In the eastern province of Deir Ezzor, US-backed fighters were battling to oust IS from the town of Hajin on the east bank of the Euphrates, the most significant remnant of the jihadists' "caliphate" which once spanned Syria and Iraq.
The operation "will clear remnants of (IS) from northeastern Syria along the Middle Euphrates River Valley toward the Syria-Iraq border," the US-led coalition said. Despite a number of military campaigns against them, IS fighters are still present in Deir Ezzor, as well as in the vast desert that stretches from Damascus to the Iraqi border.
Although the S&P 500 managed to climb more than 3% and avoided the wrath of the dog days of summer, gold mining stocks didn't fare quite as well. Due in large part to the more than 1.5% drop in the price of gold, shares of Eldorado Gold (NYSE:EGO), IAMGOLD (NYSE:IAG), Kinross Gold (NYSE:KGC), and Yamana Gold (NYSE:AUY) all suffered double-digit losses. Let's take a closer look at what led to these stocks losing their sheen.
Greece (still) is the word
Besides the market price of the yellow metal falling, Eldorado Gold's shareholders responded unfavorably to a mixed second-quarter earnings report. Attributable primarily to the commencement of operations at Olympias and an increase in production at Kisladag, quarterly revenue totaled $153.2 million, an 85% increase over the same period last year. The strong top-line growth, however, didn't translate to the bottom line. Whereas Eldorado reported all-in sustaining costs (AISC) of $846 per gold ounce in Q2 2017, the company reported AISC of $934 per gold ounce in the recently completed quarter. This, in addition to a weakening in the Turkish and Brazilian currencies in relation to the U.S. dollar, led to the company reporting a net loss of $24.4 million compared to the $11.2 million net profit it reported in Q2 2017.
Perhaps most disheartening for Eldorado's investors, though, was the lack of news regarding Skouries in Greece. While the company seemed to be making progress with development of the mine last spring, management seemed less enthusiastic on the company's conference call, stating that it has "been disappointed by the government's failure to act on earlier assurances to address the Skouries permitting issue following the conclusion of the arbitration."
Unfazed by the promise of a glittering future
Despite a year-over-year decline due to lower throughput at Rosebel and Essakane, IAMGOLD reported gold production of 214,000 ounces in the second quarter and reaffirmed its production guidance of 850,000 to 900,000 ounces for 2018. Attempting to paint an even brighter picture of the company's future, management reported favorable results from the pre-feasibility study of the Heap Leach Project at Essakane. According to the study, the Heap Leach Project will increase average annual gold production about 16% to 480,000 ounces. Moreover, the company reported a 39% increase in reserves at the project located in West Africa.
The auspicious findings from the pre-feasibility study, however, weren't enough to distract shareholders from several blemishes on the company's Q2 earnings report. While IAMGOLD revealed a 1% year-over-year increase in revenue, the company posted a net loss of $26.2 million compared to a net profit of $506.5 million during the same period last year. According to management, the decrease in profitability was largely due to the reversals of impairment charges -- about $524 million -- relating to the Cote Gold Project and the Rosebel mine in Q2 2017. Cash flow in the second quarter provided an additional cause for shareholders to worry. Whereas IAMGOLD reported operational cash flow of $86.2 million in Q2 2017, it reported $50.6 million in the recently completed quarter.
Kinross presses pause
Citing the highest quarterly throughput in the past four years at Paracatu in Brazil, Kinross Gold's management lauded the company's performance and reported production of 602,049 gold equivalent ounces in the second quarter. Consequently, the company reiterated its outlook for 2018 production of approximately 2.5 million gold equivalent ounces. Like its peers, however, Kinross failed to grow quarterly revenue, reporting $775 million on the top line compared to $868.6 million for the same period last year, and it suffered on the bottom line as well. The drop in the price of gold contributed to the company generating a lower margin, $539 per gold equivalent ounce sold, in Q2 2018 compared to $600 per gold equivalent ounce sold in Q2 2017. This, in turn, resulted in net earnings of $2.4 million in the recently completed quarter compared to $33.1 million in Q2 2017.
For Kinross Gold's shareholders, however, the more pressing concern may have been the company's decision to halt progress on the Phase Two project at the Tasiast mine in Mauritania. With the construction of Phase One complete, the project is now in the final stages of commissioning. Stating in its earnings report the desire to remain "committed to disciplined capital allocation," management has decided to forgo development of Phase Two as it continues "to engage with the Government of Mauritania regarding [its] activities in the country."
Don't be fooled by the drop in this gold miner's stock
Kicking August off on a bright note, Yamana Gold, according to Thefly.com, received an upgrade to outperform from BMO Capital on the last day of July, but even this, in addition to a strong Q2 earnings report, wasn't enough to help the stock escape the fear wrought by the drop in the price of gold.
With the help of commercial production commencing at Cerro Moro, Yamana Gold reported production of 240,271 gold equivalent ounces -- a 7% year-over-year increase -- leading management to estimate that annual 2018 production will exceed the original guidance of 900,000 ounces. Unaffected by factors that compromised its peers' earnings reports, Yamana Gold reported $18 million in net earnings for the quarter compared to a $39.9 million net loss in the same period last year. The company, furthermore, reported growth in operational cash flow (before net change in working capital): $157.5 million in Q2 2018 compared to $122.8 million in Q2 2017.
The golden takeaway
It comes as no surprise that many gold mining stocks fell in August with the slumping price of the yellow stuff. For Eldorado and Kinross, however, the stocks' declines reflect well-warranted concerns regarding their growth prospects. Consequently, investors would be better served to closely follow developments at Skouries and Phase Two at Tasiast in regards to Eldorado and Kinross, respectively. IAMGOLD's investors, likewise, should monitor the development of the Heap Leach Project at Essakane, while Yamana's investors confirm that Cerro Moro continues to live up to management's high expectations.
goeasy Ltd. Launches Second Annual Feed Their Future Campaign to Support easybites Goal of 100 Kitchens for Boys and Girls Clubs Across Canada
TORONTO - Sept. 13, 2018 // GLOBE NEWSWIRE // - With $1 million raised from corporate and customer-facing initiatives and 40 kitchens to be completed by the end of the year, goeasy is well on its way to meet its goal of new, safe and functional kitchens for 100 Boys and Girls Clubs across the country by 2023 through their unique easybites initiative.
To build on this exciting momentum, goeasy is launching their second annual Feed Their Future campaign, a fundraising program that encourages customers to raise and donate funds that will support the easybites initiative for Boys and Girls Clubs. The creative from the campaign will be showcased in all 350 easyhome and easyfinancial locations as well as in print ads and across social media.
Weve had a strong partnership with Boys and Girls Clubs for 15 years now, contributing over $1.5 million to various programming within the organization. We work as a team determining where their greatest need lies, and how we can step in to help, says Andrea Fiederer, Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer, goeasy Ltd. Providing a functional kitchen space in all Boys and Girls Club locations goes beyond teaching the importance of nutrition. These kitchens serve as platforms to provide key life skills independence, yet also working effectively with others, problem-solving and taking and giving direction.
Launched in 2014 with a total financial commitment from goeasy of $2.5 million, easybites has overseen the completion of 27 kitchens to date with work getting underway over the last year to refit 13 more kitchens in provinces such as New Brunswick, British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario. The Clubs that have participated in the easybites program have benefited from an increase in their capacity to provide healthy meals and snacks and expand programs that teach young people essential food and nutrition skills.
The easybites kitchen renovation projects have allowed our Clubs to have the updated equipment and food prep resources they need to serve meals to thousands of young people, says Owen Charters, President and CEO, Boys and Girls Clubs of Canada. Thats important on its own, of course, but these kitchens are also the heart and soul of our Clubs. This generous program from goeasy has a long-term, sustainable impact that will benefit our Clubs for years to come.
This years Feed Their Future fundraising campaign will kick-off the week of September 10th and will include the Kids Table - an evening at easybites, in Toronto on October 3rd, where members of the Eastview (Toronto) Boys and Girls Club will host a restaurant-inspired event for parents of Club participants and other invited community members, supported by volunteers from goeasy and Boys and Girls Clubs of Canada.
Canadians are encouraged to help make the Feed Their Future campaign a success for the young people across Canada that benefit so greatly from Boys and Girls Clubs. Starting September 10 until October 8, Canadians can pledge $2, $5 or $10 donations at any easyfinancial or easyhome location, or online at www.goeasy.com/feedtheirfuture. Between September 18 to September 22 goeasy will donate $2 for every loan or lease entered into with the company.
About goeasy Ltd.
goeasy Ltd. is a leading full-service provider of goods and alternative financial services that provides everyday Canadians with a chance for a better tomorrow, today. goeasy Ltd. serves its customers through two key operating divisions, easyfinancial and easyhome. easyfinancial is a non-prime consumer lender that bridges the gap between traditional financial institutions and costly payday lenders. It is supported by a strong central credit adjudication process and industry leading risk analytics. easyfinancial also operates an indirect lending channel, offering loan products to consumers at the point-of-sale of third party merchants. easyhome is Canada's largest lease-to-own company, offering brand-name household furniture, appliances and electronics to consumers under weekly or monthly leasing agreements through both corporate and franchise stores. Both operating divisions of goeasy Ltd. offer the highest level of customer service and enable customers to transact through a national store and branch network and through its online and mobile eCommerce enabled platforms.
goeasy Ltd. is listed on the TSX under the trading symbol GSY. For more information, visit www.goeasy.com.
About Boys and Girls Clubs of Canada
Community-based services. Positive relationships. Life-changing programs. As Canada's largest child-and youth-serving organization, Boys and Girls Clubs provide vital programs and services to over 200,000 young people in 700 communities across Canada. Learn more at bgccan.com and follow us on social media @BGCCAN.
Media Contacts:
Andrea Fiederer
Executive Vice-President and CMO
goeasy Ltd.
afiederer@goeasy.com
(905) 272-2788
Jared Morrow
Media Relations Manager
Boys and Girls Clubs of Canada
jmorrow@bgccan.com
(905) 477-7272 x 202
SOURCE goeasy Ltd.
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Soon, pre-existing conditions may disqualify a member of your family from getting health care. Again! Since 2014, insurance companies havent been able to deny coverage due to a prior medical condition.
But with Governor Haslams blessing, the Tennessee Attorney General has partnered with other Republican Attorneys General and the Trump Administration to take away this protection.
Some examples may include pregnancy, high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease, coronary artery disease, migraine, cancer, Alzheimers, stroke, sleep apnea, mental health disorders, kidney or liver disease, fibromyalgia and arthritis.
Individuals with these conditions would at least get charged a higher premium but could also have benefits carved out or be denied coverage altogether.
What will the loss of pre-existing protections mean to Tennesseans?
Currently, about one in five Tennessee adults (ages 18-64) are without health insurance.
Of those with insurance, many have employer-sponsored health care. But many do have individual policies and they are at risk.
According to an analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation, 30 percent of non-elderly adults in the Knoxville area and 30 percent in the Memphis area have a declinable pre-existing condition. In Kingsport-Bristol, its over 40 percent.
Tennessee leads the nation in bankruptcies, and most bankruptcies are due to medical bills.
When Governor Haslam was interviewed on NPR about this, he said:
Any time you take away any kind of benefit, that is politically tricky at best if not a real death wish politically.
What Haslam misses is that for most developed nations on earth, this isn't a "benefit", it's a human right.
His comment shows how much power and influence the private insurance financial interests have purchased in the legislature.
But if more Tennesseans are denied coverage, the demand for universal health care will get even stronger.
Matthew Hine, M.D.
News
editor's pick
Parents of accused gunman attack 'erroneous facts'
Dimitrios Pagourtzis
Parents of the teenager accused of killing 10 people and wounding 13 more at Santa Fe High School say they werent negligent and did as much as they could for their son, their attorney, Ron Rodgers said.
In a certain manner of speaking, they lost their son, too, Rodgers said. Theyre struggling like everyone else on where they go from here.
Rodgers said hes trying to clear up erroneous facts about his clients propagated in two civil lawsuits, including that the parents didnt teach their son respect for life and that they had allowed him access to firearms by failing to secure their weapons. But the accused shooters father kept his guns locked in a case, Rodgers said.
Dimitrios Pagourtzis, 17, is accused of killing 10 people inside Santa Fe High School on May 18 in the deadliest school shooting in Texas history.
Rodgers, hired about a week ago, filed answers Monday in both civil suits on behalf of Rose Marie Kosmetatos and Antonios Pagourtzis, parents of Dimitrios Pagourtzis, generally denying the assertions.
Meanwhile, attorneys in civil cases against the parents said its too early to know all the facts, but at least one said he was more confident in the assertions about the parents than he was on May 18.
We look forward to presenting our case at trial, attorney Clint McGuire said. We are confident in the allegations and claims against the parents.
But the lawsuits against the parents were filed soon after the shooting, alleging facts nobody really knew at the time, Rodgers said.
Those arent really the facts, Rodgers said.
McGuire, originally representing Rosie Yanas and Christopher Stone parents of Christopher Jake Stone, 17 filed the first lawsuit against the family May 24 in the Galveston County Court at Law No. 3, accusing Pagourtzis parents of negligence in failing to teach him respect for life and for allowing him access to firearms.
The suit is seeking more than $1 million in damages and has since grown to include six different parents, according to court documents.
A status conference is set for today in that case and attorneys are hoping to learn more evidence through discovery in the coming weeks, McGuire said.
The murderer pulled the pistols and sawed-off shotguns triggers, but also upon them, pressed just as firmly, were the fingers of his parents, who utterly failed to teach their son any respect for life whatsoever, the lawsuit argues.
The parents negligently and grossly negligently failed to secure their weapons in a reasonable way and put them directly and proximately into use as authors of community-wide tragedy and incomprehensible loss, the lawsuit asserts.
But Antonios Pagourtzis did keep his guns locked in a safe, Rodgers said.
Based on my understanding, he must have taken his fathers keys for the gun cabinet, Rodgers said.
The family hasnt been able to see the weapons and cant confirm whether they were in fact the fathers, Rodgers said.
But Lawrence Tylka, the attorney who filed the second lawsuit against Pagourtzis and his parents, said there are still so many questions surrounding the events of May 18.
We arent trying to cast aspersions about anything as theres a lot of discovery left to do, Tylka said. Their child hasnt filed an answer to any suit, but the way I read their answer, theyre trying to say they are not responsible for him or his actions. But this is their son and their weapons, used in a manner that is totally inappropriate. Its their duty to secure them in some manner.
Tylka filed suit against the parents and the accused shooter Aug. 15 in Galveston County probate court on behalf of the family of Cynthia Tisdale, a substitute teacher and one of 10 people killed during the shooting.
The lawsuit seeks more than $1 million in damages, court records show.
Tylka on Tuesday filed a motion for summary judgment against Dimitrios Pagourtzis, asserting he hadnt responded to the suit by deadline.
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Welcome to my genealogy blog. Genea-Musings features genealogy research tips and techniques, genealogy news items and commentary, genealogy humor, San Diego genealogy society news, family history research and some family history stories from the keyboard of Randy Seaver (of Chula Vista CA), who thinks that Genealogy Research Is really FUN! Copyright (c) Randall J. Seaver, 2006-2021.
Use of plastic bags to be reduced from the 1st of October - GeorgianJournal
Google to shut 'Inbox by Gmail app by end of March 2019 News oi-Priyanka Dua The most recent features included such as Nudging, Smart Reply, and high-priority notifications.
Search engine giant Google has decided to shut down its 'Inbox by Gmail' app at the end of March 2019.
The company has also created a transition guide to help users of Inbox to switch to the new Gmail.
"We're planning to focus solely on Gmail and say goodbye to Inbox by Gmail at the end of March 2019," Matthew Izatt Product Manager, Gmail said in blog post.
We introduced the new Gmail in April this year, incorporating many of the same features you've come to love about Inbox plus newer features like Smart Compose, which helps you draft emails faster, he further said.
The most recent features included such as Nudging, Smart Reply, and high-priority notifications.
The company has also announced that it is working with Samsung to offer an enhanced smartphone messaging experience, accelerating the industry initiative toward global Rich Communication Services (RCS) coverage and interoperability.
This collaboration will ensure that Android Messages and Samsung Messages will work seamlessly together and with RCS messaging, enabling features like the ability to chat over WiFi, create rich group chats, see typing indicators and read receipts, and share high-resolution photos and videos across platforms.
Both Google and Samsung will ensure that their messaging clients, Android Messages and Samsung Messages, work seamlessly with each company's RCS technology, including cloud and business messaging platforms.
As part of this expanded collaboration, Samsung will work to bring these RCS features to existing mobile phones beginning with the Galaxy S8 and S8+.
In fact, new Samsung Galaxy smartphones will also natively support RCS messaging, starting with those on a set of carriers that have or will soon launch RCS.
This means that consumers and brands will be able to enjoy richer chats with both Android Messages and Samsung Messages users.
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UK slams Putin's account on suspected agents in poisoning case
Iran Press TV
Wed Sep 12, 2018 02:08PM
The British government has slammed Russia's most recent clarifications on a spy poisoning case that has caused bilateral relations to sink to historic lows, saying Moscow has responded with nothing but "lies" to requests for more investigation into the issue.
In a statement on Wednesday, Prime Minister Theresa May's spokesman slammed Russian President Vladimir Putin's denial that two men Britain had suspected of poisoning former spy Sergei Skripal with a nerve agent were military intelligence officers.
The spokesman said Russia was continuing to stick to a pattern of "obfuscation and lies" when responding to allegations that the government in Moscow was directly involved in the poisoning of Skripal and his daughter in March in the southern English city of Salisbury.
"We have repeatedly asked Russia to account for what happened in Salisbury in March, and they have replied with obfuscation and lies," the official told reporters.
The remarks came after Putin challenged Britain's account that the two men suspected of carrying out the poisoning attack were agents of the Russian military intelligence service, known as the GRU.
Putin said Wednesday that Russia knew the real identity of two men, identified by British prosecutors as Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, adding that the pair had nothing special in terms of criminal records.
"We of course checked who these people are. We know who they are, we found them. Well, I hope they will come out themselves and speak about themselves," Putin said while speaking in an economic forum in Vladivostok, adding, "There's nothing special and criminal about it, I assure you. They are civilians of course ... They will come somewhere, to you, the mass media..."
The British government spokesman reiterated allegations that the two men, who had allegedly travelled to Britain under aliases, had tried to murder the Skripals with a military-grade nerve agent.
"These men are officers of the Russian military intelligence service, the GRU, who used a devastatingly toxic illegal chemical weapon on the streets of our country," said the official.
Despite suffering rounds of sanctions and diplomatic actions from the West, Russia has insisted that it had no role in the Skripal case. Some officials in Moscow have said that the entire story was a fabrication by British intelligence services in a bid to pile more pressure on Russia.
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Putin Says Russia Has Identified U.K.'s Novichok Suspects, Claims They Are Civilians
RFE/RL September 12, 2018
President Vladimir Putin says Russia has identified the men Britain suspects of poisoning former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter with a military-grade nerve agent, contradicting U.K. authorities by claiming they are civilians.
"We know who they are. We have found them," Putin said at an economic forum in the Far Eastern city of Vladivostok on September 12.
"They are civilians, of course," Putin said, contradicting the British government's assertion that they are officers of Russia's military intelligence agency, known as the GRU.
He said that there was "nothing criminal" about the two men and that he hoped they would come forward and tell their own story, adding: "That would be better for everybody."
Putin gave no indication that Russia would help Britain pursue the suspects, and his poker-faced remarks appeared to indicate that it would not.
Russia adamantly denies involvement in the poisoning, which had added to severe strains in ties between Russia and the West.
Following Putin's declaration, British Prime Minister Theresa May's spokesman said that Britain's attempts to get an explanation from Moscow over the poisoning had always been met with "obfuscation and lies."
The two suspects are GRU officers, the spokesman reiterated, adding, "The government has exposed the role of the GRU, its operatives, and its methods, this position is supported by our international allies."
Last week, British authorities announced that they had charged two Russian men, identified as Aleksandr Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, with carrying out the poisoning on March 4.
They accused the pair of smuggling the Soviet-designed nerve agent Novichok into Britain in a fake perfume flask and smearing some of the substance on the front door of Sergei Skripal's home in the English city of Salisbury, where the former GRU officer settled after being sent to the West in a Cold War-style spy swap in 2010.
The attack left Sergei Skripal, 67, and Yulia Skripal, 34, in critical condition, but both have recovered after weeks in the hospital.
A couple who authorities said found the perfume bottle after it was discarded by the attackers fared worse: Charlie Rowley recovered after treatment in the hospital but his partner, Dawn Sturgess, 44, died on July 8.
British authorities have said that a European arrest warrant has been issued for the two Russians, who they suspect were using aliases.
Putin made no comment about whether the names they used were real.
On September 12, Russian state television channel Rossia-24 quoted Petrov, one of the Russian suspects, as declining to comment on the case for now, saying only that he worked for a pharmaceutical company in the Siberian city of Tomsk.
British Home Secretary Sajid Javid said on September 9 that Britain will catch the two men and bring them to prosecution if they ever step out of Russia.
Calling the poisoning a "sickening and despicable" attack, Javid said it was "unequivocally, crystal-clear this was the act of the Russian state -- two Russian nationals sent to Britain with the sole purpose of carrying out a reckless assassination attempt."
Javid described the GRU as a "very well-disciplined organization" that would "only act with orders from the highest level of the Russian government."
Britain's security minister, Ben Wallace, said on September 6 that Putin "ultimately" bears responsibility for the poisoning because "it is his government that controls, funds, and directs the military intelligence."
The poisoning led Britain, the United States, the European Union, and others to carry out a series of diplomatic expulsions and financial sanctions against Moscow.
It has further damaged already severely strained relations between Russia and the West and has been a cause for solidarity at a time when Western officials accuse Moscow of seeking to cause rifts in relations between Western countries.
With reporting by AFP, AP, Reuters, RIA Novosti, Interfax, Dozhd, and Meduza
Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/putin-says-skripal-suspects- identified-by-u-k-are-civilians/29485406.html
Copyright (c) 2018. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.
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Airmen Monitor Florence, Provide Data to National Hurricane Center
Sept. 12, 2018
By Air Force Lt. Col. Marnee L.C. Losurdo
403rd Wing
KEESLER AIR FORCE BASE, Miss. -- The Air Force Reserve's 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron based here is flying missions over the Atlantic Ocean this week to monitor Hurricane Florence.
The 53rd WRS is the only Defense Department unit that flies reconnaissance missions into severe tropical weather during the hurricane season, June 1 through Nov. 30, to gather data for the National Hurricane Center to improve the center's forecasts and storm warnings.
The Hurricane Hunters' first mission into Florence was Monday evening. The Hurricane Hunters departed here Sept. 9 to operate out of Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport, Georgia, for Florence reconnaissance. Florence became a hurricane Sept. 9 and will impact the Carolinas and Virginia late Thursday and into Friday, according to the NHC.
The Hurricane Hunters have completed two missions into Florence, now a Category 4 storm -- including one today -- with three more missions already tasked and two more possible, said Air Force Lt. Col. Thomas Moffatt, a navigator for the 53rd WRS.
Lifesaving Data
Oceans are data-sparse environments, due to the lack of radar and weather balloons over those areas. And satellite data can be incomplete, so the data the Hurricane Hunters provide is vital, potentially saving lives and property, said Air Force Maj. Jeremy DeHart, 53rd WRS aerial reconnaissance weather officer.
During a hurricane, crews fly through the storms at 5,000 to 10,000 feet above sea level, flying through the eye of a storm four to six times to locate the low-pressure center and circulation. During each pass through the center, they release a dropsonde, an expendable weather reconnaissance device that collects weather data such as surface winds and pressure on its descent to the ocean surface.
Each crew has a loadmaster that drops an average of 8 to 12 dropsondes while in flight, depending on how many times the mission flies through the center of the storm, said Air Force 1st Lt. Garrett Black, 53rd WRS aerial reconnaissance weather officer. Ten devices were dropped on the most recent flight. It takes about 10 minutes for the collected data to travel from the dropsonde to the plane to the NHC being 10 minutes.
Working alongside the Navy, which is gathering data showing the relationship of the ocean temperature and how it can affect storms, are members of the U.S. Coast Guard Reserve. These members are releasing buoys called Airborne/Air Expendable Bathytherographs, or AXBTs, which collect data such as water temperature, said Coast Guard Reserve Chief Petty Officer Steve Jayne, a maintenance engineer.
Providing this data to the NHC will keep the squadron busy, especially since September is the peak of the annual hurricane season. Last year was the 10th busiest season on record, and this month looks to be a busy one as well.
In addition to monitoring Hurricane Florence, members of the unit deployed to Hawaii this month to fly reconnaissance missions into Hurricane Olivia, and today they are tasked to fly a low-level investigation mission into a disturbance approaching the Gulf of Mexico. Tropical Storm Isaac and Hurricane Helene are also in the Atlantic, but the squadron is not tasked to fly those storms.
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Rule of law in Hungary: Parliament calls on the EU to act
12-09-2018
- Proposal approved by 448 votes to 197
- EP sees a clear risk of a serious breach of the EU founding values in Hungary
- Judicial independence, freedom of expression, corruption, rights of minorities, and the situation of migrants and refugees are key concerns
- Council may address recommendations to Hungary to counter the threat
Parliament has asked EU member states to determine, in accordance with Treaty Article 7, whether Hungary is at risk of breaching the EUs founding values.
The request was approved by 448 votes to 197, with 48 abstentions. To be adopted, the proposal required an absolute majority of members (376) and two thirds of the votes cast - excluding the abstentions.
This is the first time that Parliament has called on the Council of the EU to act against a member state to prevent a systemic threat to the Union's founding values. These values, which are enshrined in EU Treaty Article 2 and reflected in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, include respect for democracy, equality, the rule of law and human rights.
MEPs called on EU countries to initiate the procedure laid down in Article 7(1) the EU Treaty, noting that despite the Hungarian authorities' readiness to discuss the legality of any specific measure, they have not addressed the situation, "and many concerns remain". They stress that this is the preventive phase of the procedure, providing for a dialogue with the country concerned, and that it is "intended to avoid possible sanctions".
Parliament recalls that Hungary's accession to the EU "was a voluntary act based on a sovereign decision, with a broad consensus across the political spectrum" and underline that any Hungarian government has a duty to eliminate the risk of a serious breach of the EU's values.
Parliament's key concerns relate to:
- the functioning of the constitutional and electoral system,
- the independence of the judiciary,
- corruption and conflicts of interest,
- privacy and data protection,
- freedom of expression,
- academic freedom,
- freedom of religion,
- freedom of association,
- the right to equal treatment,
- the rights of persons belonging to minorities, including Roma and Jews,
- the fundamental rights of migrants, asylum seekers and refugees, and
- economic and social rights.
Quote
Judith Sargentini (Greens/EFA, NL), who authored the report, said: "In the week that we debate the state of the Union, the European Parliament sends out an important message: We stand up for the rights of all Europeans, including Hungarian citizens and we defend our European values. Now it is up to the European leaders to take their responsibility and stop watching from the sidelines as the rule of law is destroyed in Hungary. This is unacceptable for a Union that is built on democracy, the rule of law and fundamental rights."
Next steps
The proposal for a Council decision will now be sent to the EU member states. They may, acting by a majority of four fifths, determine the existence of a clear risk of a serious breach of the EU values in Hungary. The Council would first have to hear the views of the Hungarian authorities, and Parliament would need to give consent. The EU member states may also choose to address recommendations to Hungary to counter the risk.
At a later stage, the European Council may determine, by unanimity and with the Parliament's consent, the existence in Hungary of a serious and persistent breach of the rule of law, democracy and fundamental rights. This could eventually lead to sanctions, such as the suspension of the voting rights in the Council.
Contacts:
Estefania NARRILLOS
Press Officer
Contact data:
Phone number: (+32) 2 28 31324
Phone number: (+33) 3 881 73661 (STR)
Mobile number: (+32) 498 98 39 85
E-mail: estefania.narrillos@europarl.europa.eu
E-mail: libe-press@europarl.europa.eu
Twitter account: @EP_Justice
Ref.: 20180906IPR12104
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Navy Sets Tropical Cyclone Condition of Readiness Two in Hampton Roads
Navy News Service
Story Number: NNS180912-07
Release Date: 9/12/2018 1:21:00 PM
From Navy Region Mid-Atlantic Public Affairs
NORFOLK (NNS) -- Commander, Navy Region Mid-Atlantic ordered all Navy installations in the Hampton Roads area to set Tropical Cyclone Condition of Readiness Two (II) as Hurricane Florence is forecasted to bring high winds and rain to the Mid-Atlantic coast.
Tropical Cyclone Condition of Readiness II means destructive winds of greater than 50 knots associated with a tropical system are expected within 24 hours.
Navy preparations include:
- Securing hazards and buildings throughout the installations
- Protecting essential equipment
- Moving small craft to safe havens
- Preparing sandbags
- Removing debris from drainage areas
- Removing large items from the waterfront, such as dumpsters and vehicles
"Our team at Navy Region Mid-Atlantic has been working around the clock to provide support to both our military and civilian personnel, as well as their families, to insure their safety during this very stressful time," said the commander of Navy Region Mid-Atlantic, Rear Adm. Charles Rock. "In addition, it's equally important that we are able to recover as quickly as possible after the storm passes to support the fleet when they return."
To date, mandatory evacuations have been authorized for the following areas: Virginia Zone A, which includes the following Navy/Public Private Venture (PPV) housing areas: Dam Neck Annex (all residential and recreational housing), Lafayette River Annex (PPV housing), Norfolk Naval Shipyard (PPV housing), Willoughby Bay (PPV housing), Portsmouth Annex (PPV housing); and the following North Carolina counties: Beaufort County, Brunswick County, Carteret County, Craven County, Currituck County (which includes Corolla and Carova); Dare County, Hyde County, New Hanover County, Onslow County, Pamlico County, and Tyrell County.
Military personnel, their families and federal employees should contact their respective commands for specific manning information and are encouraged to stay tuned to local television and radio stations for updated information and visit www.knowyourzoneva.org to identify the zone they reside in.
All personnel and their families should review their Navy Family Accountability and Assessment System (NFAAS) account at https://navyfamily.navy.mil, as well as review hurricane checklists and evacuation plans in the event an evacuation is necessary. Some important resources include making a family plan, building an emergency kit, filling medications, ensuring personal vehicles are topped off with gas, and staying informed.
It is also advised for personnel and their families to visit the Ready Navy website at http://ready.navy.mil and/or follow them on Twitter at @ReadyNavy. Ready Navy is designed to provide information, tools, and resources that empower the Navy family to more aptly prepare for, react, and recover when faced with any emergency, with or without advanced warning.
Navy Marine Corps Relief Society (NMCRS) offices will remain open in Hampton Roads for as long as feasible to support active duty personnel and their families with evacuation assistance loans. Personnel or family members should bring a current I.D. card and Leave and Earnings Statement, if available. Because of the sortie of ships and personnel, the active duty member is not required to be present for NMCRS to assist the family. For information on office locations go to www.nmcrs.org.
Local cities and communities will have shelters open to support families who choose not to evacuate the area. Personnel are encouraged to check with their municipality on locations, monitor local media and social media for information and updates. Frequently Asked Questions on the evacuation and the authorized expenditures for reimbursement can be found on the Navy Region Mid-Atlantic Facebook page.
Look to the following resources and critical processes to help you prepare and stay informed for any hazard:
- Navy Region Mid-Atlantic's Facebook at www.facebook.com/CNRMA.PAO
- General resources including the Internet, local/national television and radio, and social media.
- Government websites such as Ready.gov, FEMA.gov, NOAA.gov, and CDC.gov.
Note to media:
Tropical Cyclone Conditions of Readiness are as follows:
- Condition III: Destructive winds are possible within 48 hours.
- Condition II: Destructive winds are possible within 24 hours.
- Condition I: Destructive winds are possible within 12 hours.
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Weaponry, Technology and Threats Improve Destroyers Over Time
Navy News Service
Story Number: NNS180912-13
Release Date: 9/12/2018 2:46:00 PM
By Kelley Stirling, Naval Surface Warfare Center, Carderock Division Public Affairs
WEST BETHESDA, Md. (NNS) -- With the advancement of technology and weaponry, as well as evolving threats to the United States, the progression of the U.S. Navy destroyer has changed dramatically over the years.
The first destroyers, built more than 100 years ago, were designed as torpedo-boat destroyers, said James Harrison, director for the Expeditionary Warfare Ships Division at Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA 05D3), during another one of his "history lessons" at Naval Surface Warfare Center, Carderock Division in West Bethesda, Maryland, on Sept. 6.
In "From Flivvers to Flight III," Harrison talked about the evolution of the Navy's destroyers. He called the very first destroyers built starting in 1899 "proto-destroyers" since the Navy was still trying to figure out exactly what a destroyer should be. He said he considers the "flivver," commissioned in 1909, the first ship built with a true destroyer mission.
When other navies were building torpedo boats to go after battleships, which were large and expensive, the U.S. Navy decided to build less-expensive, ocean-going, high-speed boats to protect the battleship and other high-value assets from asymmetric threats.
"You don't want your battleships fighting torpedo boats, you want them fighting other battleships," Harrison said.
The Smith- and Paulding-class torpedo-boat destroyers, starting with USS Smith (DD-17), became known as flivvers because the ship was built in fairly high numbers, was high-powered and shook and rattled when it was underway, similar to the Model T Ford at the time, which had the nickname "flivver."
Throughout the history of designing and building destroyers, the Navy considered threats in the world at the time, whether it was torpedo boats as in the case of the flivver, or fast-attack crafts for the Arleigh Burkes.
"Before they even delivered the first of the flivvers, the Navy was taking another round turn on the design," Harrison said.
By the time the U.S. entered World War I, the Navy had three types of destroyers: the proto-destroyers, flivvers and what became known as 1,000-tonners, of which USS Cassin (DD-44) was the first built.
The 1,000-tonners did get more guns and torpedo tubes, adding to a destroyer's offensive capabilities, with the threat still being torpedo boats and enemy destroyers.
"When the ships were built, submarines were not a concern," Harrison said. "But, during World War I, the Germans are doing U-boat warfare. In fact, that's one of the reasons we are in the war."
The Navy added Y guns to project depth charges off either side of the ship with the objective of sinking a submarine. Harrison said it wasn't very effective, as only about 1 percent of depth-charge attacks result in the sinking of a submarine, but it was effective at preventing the submarine from launching an attack.
With anti-submarine warfare in mind, the Navy started building another class of destroyer before the end of World War I called the flush deckers. With the larger ship, the Navy streamlined the forecastle, thinking it would be able to handle the waves better, which is why it is called a flush decker. Harrison said that didn't seem to make a difference, no matter how large the ships became over the generations, so the Navy ultimately went back to the larger, flared forecastle, which is still the case in the Arleigh Burkes.
The flush deckers, which became known as the World War I-era destroyers since they continued service into World War II, were built in very large numbers. Between April 2017 and the end of World War I, the Navy delivered 42 flush deckers, and after the war, most of the earlier destroyers were retired. In all, the Navy built 273 flush deckers. Many of these ships got mothballed, since the need wasn't there anymore.
The next line of destroyers the Navy started building in the 1930s became known as the gold platers, because of how much nicer they were than the flush deckers.
Sonar was added to the ships at this time, increasing the anti-submarine warfare capabilities, but not by much. Harrison said the early sonar meant pointing the hydrophone specifically in the direction a submarine was thought to be, listening, potentially hearing it and maybe tracking it.
Improvements in machinery engineering allowed the designers to start trunking from the boilers, therefore needing only one or two exhaust stacks, instead of the four that all previous destroyers had.
As air warfare became a threat, the Navy started adding anti-aircraft weaponry to the destroyer. With some of the gold platers, they replaced one 5-inch gun with 40-mm and 20-mm guns in service. They started adding shields to the guns, as well as more depth charges.
"Of the eight Farragut-class destroyers, one was sunk in battle and two were sunk by typhoon, because once all these modifications were made, they had very limited stability," Harrison said.
When the Navy built the next round of destroyers starting in 1942 at 50 percent larger, future improvements in technology were a consideration, leaving room for upgrades in anti-aircraft weaponry, especially during World War II, when the threat was Japanese aircraft. But by 1947, new threats in jets and the German Type XXI submarine made the Fletcher-class destroyer obsolete. After building 100s of the Fletcher class, the Navy began a fleet rehabilitation and modernization (FRAM) update to the ships in the 1950s, changing much of its weaponry to meet the challenges of the time.
Many of the upgrades included air conditioning and noise reduction technology, which meant the machinery would take up more space. The new destroyers also had more advanced radar and larger sonar. The guns became automatic and higher-velocity, shooting potentially 40-rounds per minute, versus 15.
With the Spruance-class destroyers, built in the 1970s, the Navy had gone to gas-turbine engines, finally shedding its decades-long dependence on steam, somewhat behind the rest of the world. The ship had more silencing technology and habitability improvements. The Spruance was also the first class of destroyers built with a modular weaponry system, allowing for somewhat plug-and-play upgrades.
Harrison ended his talk by focusing on the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, a ship that some of the current naval architects at Carderock have worked on in their careers. The advancement in technology and weaponry was so vast in the Arleigh Burke, Harrison said the Navy just kept making improvements to the same hull, calling the newer versions Flight I, Flight II and lastly, Flight III.
"In 100 years or so, we've gone from six guys standing on the bow, hoping they don't trip over something and fall over the side, looking down the barrel of a gun, trying to hit something maybe 300 yards away, to a ship that can knock down a ballistic missile hundreds of miles away in any weather, any condition," Harrison said. "What's next?"
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Navy Afloat Network Undergoes First Upgrade on Forward-Deployed Ship
Navy News Service
Story Number: NNS180912-10
Release Date: 9/12/2018 2:35:00 PM
By By Rita Boland, Program Executive Office Command, Control, Communications, Computers and Intelligence Public Affairs
San Diego (NNS) -- Representatives from the U.S. Navy's Tactical Networks Program Office (PMW 160) visited USS Porter (DDG 78) in Rota, Spain, September 4-7, as part of a first-time technology refresh to a Forward Deployed Naval Force (FDNF) warship and a new approach to training.
The technology refresh and training are for the Consolidated Afloat Networks and Enterprise Systems (CANES) that is managed by PMW 160. The program office initially installed CANESthe Navy's afloat network providing critical network, computer and cybersecurity capabilities to ships and submarineson USS Porter in 2014. PMW 160 is a program office at Program Executive Office Command, Control, Communications, Computers and Intelligence (PEO C4I).
When the refresh is complete, Sailors aboard USS Porter will have enhanced cybersecurity and upgraded capabilities including improved network performance and enhanced system management tools and storage.
"This refresh brings together tools and inputs from the Navy's leading cyber command to make networks more secure and faster," said Joe Acquafredda, PMW 160's assistant program manager (APM) for production. "It's also about better quality of life for the Sailors."
For a stateside technology refresh, CANES personnel and their partners at Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center (SPAWAR) Fleet Readiness Directorate (FRD) and SPAWAR Systems Command (SSC) Atlantic normally have five to six months to deliver all the improvements, but in this first FDNF refresh, they have to do all the same work in less than 100 days. The first portion of the work finished a week ahead of schedule and involved switching out hardware on several CANES racks, doing an in-place modification rather than taking entire racks off ship then reinstalling them. The process is no mean feat. It demands working with equipment weighing hundreds of pounds and dealing with the multitude of systems that connect to CANES.
And that's the easy part. Now, the team heads into the more complex part of the processloading new software onto the CANES racks.
Mike Smith, PMW 160 deployment APM, said, "I feel comfortable about meeting deadline because we met and exceeded the time for the hardware. We can use every day we can get."
The CANES team has prior experience with loading the software onto the new racks (including trying to do it in the shortened timeframe with a practice run stateside) but the team is preparing for unexpected hiccups. "This equipment did travel thousands of miles," Smith said.
In part because of the challenges and opportunities inherent in this first FDNF refresh, Smith and the PMW 160 Program Manager, Capt. Kurt Rothenhaus, traveled to Rota to obtain first-hand knowledge on the project.
"This was a team effort from the very beginning," said Rothenhaus. "We worked with the SPAWAR Fleet Installation Office, the Integrated Logistic Support team and the NIEF [Navy Integrated Engineering Facility] Atlantic to develop an executable plan to accomplish the work in the available window of opportunity. Our forward and stateside teams are doing tremendous work to execute this technical refresh on schedule and on budget." Rothenhaus added that, "the expertise of the on-site team led by Mr. Dean L'hoste, along with the excellent support from the Forward Deployed Regional Maintenance Center were critical to the success to date."
As part of the trip, Rothenhaus also visited with the five USS Porter information systems technicians (ITs) who received a new type of training for CANES the same week. The instruction will reinforce original CANES training and teach the administration and capabilities of the refreshed system. The ships ITs shared lessons learned with the program office and thoughts on how to improve the system further.
Normally, this type of training requires ITs to travel to San Diego or Virginia Beach, Va. Bringing the training to the ship's location saves several thousand dollars and ensures all the Sailors who need the training receive it. The in-place training also baselines Sailors' system knowledge and provides the whole team a uniform experience.
Nichole Sellers, PMW 160's training APM, said, "We're always trying to get the right training to the right people at the right time. Now, we're adding a layer to thatin the right place."
The changes are part of a high-velocity training effort that moves PEO C4I from a systems-based training approach to a capabilities-based training approach that includes the use of virtual training environments. PMW 160 completed similar training for USS Blue Ridge (LCC 10) in Japan; USS Mount Whitney (LCC 20) in Croatia; and USS Chafee (DDG 90) in Hawaii.
In the future, more of this training will occur via the CANES Training Virtual Environment, an option that further reduces travel costs while providing the same level of instruction.
Program Executive Office Command, Control, Communications, Computers and Intelligence (PEO C4I) provides integrated communication and information technology systems that enable information warfare and command and control of maritime forces. PEO C4I acquires, fields and supports C4I systems which extend across Navy, joint and coalition platforms. More information can be found at http://www.public.navy.mil/spawar/PEOC4I/Pages/default.aspx
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Saudi-led airstrikes kill 15 civilians in Yemen's Hudaydah
Iran Press TV
Wed Sep 12, 2018 08:53PM
At least 15 civilians, including one child, have been killed as the Saudi-led coalition resumed its airstrikes on the outskirts of Yemen's port city of Hudaydah despite widespread international criticism over the war's impact on civilians.
According to reports by Yemen's Arabic-language al-Masirah television, about 20 civilians were also injured during Wednesday's bombings that were launched after a brief truce since July.
The Saudi-backed forces also captured a number of towns as well as two main supply routes linking Hudaydah to the capital Sana'a and Ta'izz province, the report added.
The bombings resumed after UN-brokered peace efforts failed in Geneva last week. The talks were aborted after the UN failed to meet conditions set by Yemen's Ansarullah movement, including transfer of wounded people to hospital for proper treatment and guarantees on the safety of the Yemeni delegation. Ansarullah also accused Saudi Arabia of planning to strand the delegation in Djibouti, where their plane was to make a stop en route to Geneva.
Delegates from Yemen's former government and representatives of the Houthi movement held their last UN-sponsored negotiations in Kuwait in 2016 in a bid to hammer out a "power-sharing" deal, but they fell apart after the Saudi-backed side left the venue.
Saudi Arabia and a number of its regional allies launched a devastating military campaign against Yemen in March 2015, with the aim of bringing the government of former president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, back to power and crushing Ansarullah.
Some 15,000 Yemenis have been killed and thousands more injured since the onset of the Saudi-led aggression.
More than 2,200 others have died of cholera, and the crisis has triggered what the United Nations has described as the world's worst humanitarian disaster.
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Trump signs executive order to sanction foreign meddling in elections
Iran Press TV
Wed Sep 12, 2018 05:41PM
US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order banning any form of foreign meddling in the American elections.
Based on the decree signed on Wednesday, any foreign companies or people who interfere in US elections, based on intelligence agency findings, will be slapped with sanctions.
The move comes amid an ongoing investigation into alleged interference of Russia in favor of Trump in the 2016 presidential election. Trump has repeatedly rejected there was any collusion between his campaign and Moscow. Russia has also slammed the allegations as baseless.
The signing of the executive order comes amid calls by US intelligence agencies, military and law enforcement that there should be more legal options to protect the November 6, 2018 congressional elections from any potential foreign interference.
Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said while announcing Trump's new order on Wednesday that his department has seen signs that countries like Russia, China, Iran and North Korea have plans to interfere in the upcoming elections.
Officials had said Tuesday that the new sanctions will impact individual people or entire companies accused of interfering in elections by cyber attacks or other means.
A range of agencies including the CIA, the National Security Agency and the Homeland Security Department could also decide whether meddling occurred in the elections. Any federal agency that becomes aware of election interference by foreigners would be required to pass the information to the office of Director of National Intelligence, according to a draft of the executive order seen by reporters before Trump signed it.
The signing of the order comes despite Trump's repeated refusals to sign a congressional sanctions bill against Russia a year ago. The US President only signed the bill after it was passed in the Congress with a huge majority of both the Republicans and the Democrats. The bill allowed the US Treasury to impose major sanctions against 24 Russians, a move which has been seen as one of the most aggressive punitive measures by Washington against Moscow.
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The sextoy market is growing quite rapidly in India right now.
Although it is not a big trend, it is a hot topic on the internet as it is secretly expanding its market.
In this article, we will focus on sextoy and introduce recommended sextoy for Indian beginners of sextoy by gender.
India, the birthplace of the Kama Sutra, is very strict about sex.
Also, premarital sex is basically not allowed. Therefore, there are many people who are sexually restricted.
But what happens when you continue to be sexually restricted?
Frustration may build up and you may end up taking your sexual stress out on your partner.
If you are able to adopt sextoy in a timely manner, you can get rid of those problems.
I want to have more exciting sex than Im having now.
I want more variation in masturbation
I want to get even stronger pleasure than I do on my own.
If you have any of these problems, please stay with me until the end.
What is sex toys for Indian?
Sextoy, as the name implies, is a toy used during sex and masturbation.
It is a generic term for vibrators, Egg-vibrators, Electric massagers, dildo, handcuffs and condoms.
They are used to make regular sex more exciting or to make masturbation more pleasurable.
Because sextoy is very stimulating, it can help you to get rid of the problems and frustrations of being in a rut of sex with your partner for a long time, or if you are unhappy with the lack of pleasure in sex with your partner.
The ability to satisfy your desires with movement, texture, and size, which cannot be done by a normal human being, can help you to be satisfied with sex and, as a result, improve your relationship with your partner.
It is also said to help improve sexual dysfunction (inability to get an erection or ejaculate) and difficulty in feeling during sex (insensitivity), which is attracting more attention than in the past.
In recent years, the demand for sextoy has increased due to the spread of smartphones and the Internet and the increasing number of people using online shopping.
Even those who are concerned about the appearance of sextoy (and find it difficult to purchase) can now easily obtain it by using mail order.
In the case of online shopping, most of the stores have taken steps to ensure that the contents of the products delivered to you are not revealed, so you can purchase them without your family members knowing.
Until a while ago, you had to go to the store where the adult goods were sold to buy them, so it was quite a hurdle to overcome.
Also, many people may have an image that sextoy is somehow embarrassing to own.
But nowadays, some of them are so stylish and cute that you cant believe they are sextoy at a glance.
More and more people are using them for travel and outdoor use because they are not too bulky and are suitable for carrying around.
Sextoy situation in India
Before introducing the recommended sextoy for Indians, lets talk about one of the sextoy situations in India in recent years.
In India, due to the high concentration of population, the following six cities have particularly high sales of sextoy in India.
Mumbai
Kolkata
Bangalore
Delhi
Chennai
Hyderabad
These cities account for roughly 70 percent of sextoy sales in India.
In the future, the percentage of sextoy use will gradually increase in other cities in India as well.
If you never talk about sextoy publicly, that girl in your neighborhood might be a sextoy user too.
If you are interested in sextoy, you dont have to suppress your desire for it.
What are Sextoys for beginner?
Among all sextoys, sextoy for beginners are vibrators, dildo, masturbators, Sex Lubricants, and condoms.
Sex Lubricants and condoms, which are familiar to people who have had sex, are also a great beginners sextoy.
I will explain the details of each toy later, but there are many sextoy products that are painful to use and can only be used after some anal expansion.
I assume that the Indian readers of this article are people who have not had much experience with sextoy.
If such people use professional sextoy suddenly, they are at risk of injury or trauma.
Therefore, to introduce sextoy, you need to start with a beginners version and gradually become familiar with it.
Advantages of using sextoy for Indians
There are three advantages of using sextoy for Indians
You can masturbate in a wide variety of ways.
Can have stimulating sex
Can develop new sexual zones
If you try to masturbate with your own fingers or hands, it tends to be a pattern.
However, with sextoy, you can easily masturbate in a variety of ways.
You will definitely be fascinated by the attraction of new stimulation.
Also, your daily sex life will be more exciting than ever.
There are many things in sextoy that are visually stimulating and give you a strong and intense feeling of pleasure.
This allows you to see your partners promiscuity in a way that you wouldnt normally see it.
When you are in a relationship, sex with your partner may become a pattern, but it can also eliminate these problems.
It can also lead to the development of new sexual zones (which is the training of sexual stimulation to allow you to feel orgasms).
For more information on the development of new sexual zones, see the following articles
[Women's Erogenous Zone]How to find and develop, 7 hidden sexual zones !![In India] In this issue, we will dissect the female erogenous zone! ..." Many of you may be like that. Men, in particular, shou...
Thus, the use of sextoy can only be a good thing for the men and women of India.
Sextoy for beginner men in India
So, lets continue with the recommended goods for Indian sextoy beginners.
For ease of understanding, we will introduce them by gender. Lets start with the men!
The following five goods are recommended for novice Indian sextoy men
Masturbator
Cock rings
Love Doll
Sex Lubricants
Toys for the prostate
Lets check each one in detail.
Masturbator
The masturbator is a sextoy for men that elaborately reproduces a womans vagina, mouth, and anus, and is one of the most popular sextoy products.
It is used by men to masturbate, and it is popular because it provides stronger stimulation and pleasure more easily than using hands.
Most are made of good quality silicone, and their softness is something that cannot be achieved with ones own hands.
They can provide stronger pleasure than a real womans vagina, so be careful not to overuse them. (You wont be able to have an orgasm in a womans vagina anymore.)
Again Male masturbators are a wonderful toy. I do not need any favourite timing, bothersome bargaining. You do not have to worry too much.
Revolutionize your masturbation time! ! !
Made in Japan is a wonderful kinky toy.#sextoysindia #SexToyIndia #Japanhttps://t.co/4k70QGzoTP pic.twitter.com/tRVdxTKPpa SEXToys India PR (@SextoysIndia) November 12, 2018
Some of them are disposable, while others can be washed and used over and over again, so its fun to buy a few to use depending on your mood.
If you want to know more about masturbator, please click here
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Cock Ring
A cock ring is literally a ring-shaped sextoy that is worn on a mans penis.
It maintains an erection by binding the penis with a ring of rubber and blocking blood flow.
It is sometimes used as an accessory to be worn on the penis, and may be made of metal or plastic as well as rubber.
In some cases, cock rings have parts or vibrators attached to them that stimulate the vagina, so they kill two birds with one stone, giving a woman pleasure while maintaining an erection.
Cock rings are also sometimes used to treat erectile dysfunction.
It can help with erectile dysfunction, where the penis doesnt get hard when you get an erection or doesnt last long when you try to insert it.
Men who are prone to breakage or who are unsure of the hardness and size of their erections can use a cock ring to increase the size of their penis and maintain an erection for a longer period of time.
Cock rings vary in price from around RS700 to over RS2000 with a vibrator function.
Some of them do not fit your penis, so you should check the size of the cock ring before you buy.
You should know the size of your partners or your own penis when it is erect.
[Penis enlargement] What is a cock ring? Types and usage Cock rings can make your penis bigger and harder. It also makes sex with women more fulfilling and increases your sat...
Love Doll
Love dolls, also known as Dutchwives, are dolls with the appearance of a woman who can experience simulated sex.
There are dolls that look like a woman, but they have no face and only have their breasts and lower torso cut off, and some dolls are so realistic that they can actually be mistaken for real women.
Some expensive dolls can cost more than 1 million yen, and the quality of the doll is easily influenced by the price.
The higher the price, the higher the quality of the doll will be, the closer it will be to the real woman, and the cheaper the doll will be, the less elaborate it will be, making it look like a real doll! Something is wrong! That is also true.
You cant go wrong if you choose a balance between price and taste.
There are stores that allow you to make custom-made love dolls, so you can create a girl of your choice.
You can make a girl of your choice. You can start with inexpensive love dolls at first, and once you get used to it, you can try custom-made love dolls.
If you want to know more about Love doll, please click here
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Sex lubricants
Sex lubricants are used as a substitute for lubricating fluid during sex or as a lubricant for men to use masturbator rules.
It is not uncommon for women to have difficulty getting wet, depending on their physical condition, or to have difficulty getting wet due to their constitution.
Forcing the penis into the vagina at such times can cause painful intercourse.
There are various types of Sex Lubricants, some with a warming effect, some with a cooling effect, and some with a scent.
Changing the Sex Lubricant used during play is recommended as a good sex accent.
If you want to learn more about Sex Lubricants, click here.
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Toys for the Prostate
Another sextoy for men is prostate toys.
The most famous prostate toys include Enemagra, which was originally a prostate massager developed by an American urologist to treat an enlarged prostate line.
Modern prostate toys are imitations of Enemagra that have spread as sextoy for men.
Many people think of prostate toys as being used by gay men, but in fact they are often used by straight men.
What is the prostate?
The prostate is an organ found only in men. It is a walnut-sized organ located deep in the pelvis, just below the bladder, and its primary role is to protect and nourish sperm.
You cannot touch the prostate gland from outside the body, but you can touch it by inserting a finger or sextoy through the anus.
By inserting a finger or sextoy through the anus and touching the prostate and developing it, you can feel intense orgasms.
Orgasms felt in the prostate are mainly dry orgasms, which are orgasms that do not involve ejaculation. (You can also feel orgasms with ejaculation through prostate stimulation.)
The prostate is called the male G-spot, and dry orgasms can be much more intense than ejaculation.
Therefore, men who are able to develop a prostate can become addicted to the pleasure.
sextoy for beinner women in India
The following are the recommended goods for Indian women who are new to sextoy.
The following three are recommended for use by women who are new to sextoy.
Vibrator.
Dildo
Electric Masserger
Lets check out what each one is in detail.
If you want to check out womens toys, click here.
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Vibrators
A vibrator is a sextoy that vibrates with an Egg-Vibrator to provide stimulation and is often referred to simply as a vibrator.
Some vibrate as well as rotate, and there are many variations of sextoy.
It is quite a popular sextoy, and is well recognized by people who do not know much about sextoy.
Its usage is similar to that of a massager, but it is more compact and easier to carry than a massager, and many of them look as cute as a lipstick or a macaroon, so they are popular among women.
For a while, a famous influencer on twitter said, This is good! You may have heard of the topic of this article by introducing the recommended vibrators.
Vibrators are great for women to use on their own, but they are also recommended for men who have difficulty satisfying women with sex.
Since it is powered by electricity, it is far less tiring than moving your hands by yourself.
This makes it easier to satisfy a woman with sex because you can caress her for longer than usual.
Vibrators are mainly used on the female side, but they can also be used on men.
When used on men, they are used to attack the nipples and glans, and in both cases it is recommended to wear a condom for hygiene reasons.
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Dildo
A dildo is a model sextoy made to mimic a male penis.
It can be made of silicone, elastomer (think of it as a material similar to PVC), metal or glass.
A dildo can be used by a man for his female partner during sex, or by a woman for masturbation to get pleasure from it.
They are mainly inserted into women, but some can be used in the male anus as well.
It is sometimes used synonymously with vibrators, but the vibrator is not the same thing as a vibrating device.
A model of a penis that does not vibrate is a dildo.
Some of them have suction cups that can be attached to the floor or wall so that you can enjoy realistic masturbation without using your hands.
For fun, there is a dildo made in the shape of your partners penis.
This one is also popular as a gift, and if youve been together for a long time and are having trouble finding a gift for your partner, you might want to pick one.
To learn more about dildo, please click here.
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Electric Masserger
A Electric Masserger is a hand-held electric massager, also known as a handheld massager, and can usually be purchased at electronics stores.
It was originally designed to relieve stiff shoulders and back pain, so the hurdle of buying one in a physical store is quite low.
Many people may have seen or used it in some form or another, as it is often installed in leisure hotels.
Such a massager is highly recommended for beginners because it is easy for women to get pleasure from it when they use it during masturbation.
It is larger than Egg-Vibrator and vibrations are stronger than those of Egg-Vibrators and vibrators, so even just hitting the clitoris can give you a great deal of pleasure.
For those women who have never had an orgasm during sex with their man, the massager may be a good way to get a feel for what it feels like to have an orgasm.
It looks and feels like an electric massager, so you wont have to feel awkward if your roommate finds out.
If you are in a rut of having sex with your partner, if you want to feel an orgasm through masturbation, or if you are thinking of using a sextoy, why dont you try it from a simple massager?
To learn more about Electric Masserger, click here.
What is a massager? Introducing types, selection methods, and usage Originally, the Magic-wand vibrator and the massage machine were sold as a home massage machine used for the back and th...
How to choose a sextoy for Indian
Now that weve covered the different types of sextoy, heres how to choose one.
Especially if you are trying sextoy for the first time, pay attention to the following three points: Does the size fit you (the partner)?
Does the size fit you (your partner)?
Is the environment able to produce sound without problems?
Price range
First of all, the choice of size is quite important.
Most sextoy are used against or inserted into the genitals, but the genitals are very delicate organs for both men and women.
For this reason, using an inappropriate size may cause damage.
Secondly, the environment should be able to produce sound without problems.
Some sextoys not only wear, but also rotate and vibrate. Its easier to get pleasure from something that moves than something that doesnt, but the fact that it moves means that the internal rotors make some noise.
If you live in a house with thin walls or if you have roommates, you may not be able to concentrate because of the noise, so it is best to choose one that is silent or has a low noise level.
Especially in India, where many people live with their families, it is very important that you dont have to worry about sound when you use it.
Finally, there is the price range.
The price range of sextoy ranges widely, from around RS500 at the cheapest to RS10,000 or more at the highest.
Its good to consider how much money you can afford and how much you want to buy.
Do you want your family to not find out about sextoy?
I live with my family and want to use sextoy without them finding out! If you are a man, you should buy a camouflage sextoy that does not look like a sextoy at first glance.
For men, there are many masturbators that do not look like a sextoy, and for women, there are vibrators that only look like cosmetics.
If you choose such a type, youll be safe in case your family members find out.
How to buy sextoys in India
The best way to purchase sextoy is through online shopping.
For more information on how to purchase sextoy, please see the article below.
Sextoy is one of them.
Therefore, you can easily get sextoy in India by using online shopping.
SexToysINDIA is a long established and stable sextoy store and you can have sextoy delivered to any place in India.
They also offer cash on delivery, so those who are worried about shopping with a credit card do not have to worry.
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To begin with, many people may be concerned about whether they are legally allowed to purchase sextoy.
ikmAs it turns out, its not illegal.
Right now, it is not open to the public because the Indian adult market is still in the development stage, but it will gradually spread from now on.
Take advantage of sextoy and open the door to new pleasures and culture.
Cautions for Indians using sextoy
When using sextoy, keep the following three things in mind
Keep sex toys clean
Watch out for electrical leakage
Beware of the heat generated by the body while using a sex toy
As I mentioned earlier, many sextoy products are used for the delicate zone.
Therefore, it is most important to keep the sextoy itself clean. It is very important to keep the sextoy itself clean, because if a slight scratch is created by friction, bacteria can enter and breed there.
It is safe to wear a condom when using the masturbator, just in case.
In addition, many sextoy devices are powered by a power source, so if they are not waterproof, there is a possibility of electric shock or malfunction due to wetness.
Some may even develop heat during continuous use. If the fever becomes too much, you may get burned, so be careful.
If you get a fever during use, stop driving the sextoy immediately and refrain from using it.
You will enjoy sex more if you keep it safe and use it correctly.
Summary
What did you think?
In this article, we have introduced the recommended sextoy for the beginners of sextoy in India.
The sextoy market is growing rapidly in India and it will continue to grow steadily in the future.
As India is a rather closed-minded country, it can be difficult to be open about ones sexual habits and values.
However, being faithful to ones desires by properly dissolving ones sexual desire is very effective for ones physical and mental health.
If this is your first time to learn about sextoy, or if you are interested in using sextoy, why not give it a try?
Indian Sextoys for ur best! will introduce you to sextoy and other trivia about sextoy, sexuality, and sexuality for men and women.
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Citing Russian 'Mischief,' U.S. Defense Secretary To Visit Macedonia
Mike Eckel September 12, 2018
WASHINGTON -- U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said he would travel to Macedonia ahead of a crucial referendum on changing the country's name, and he voiced concern about possible Russian "mischief" in the run-up to the vote.
Mattis told reporters on September 11 that the visit will occur this weekend and is aimed at supporting the Macedonian voters in the September 30 referendum. If the referendum passes, it would help pave the way for membership in NATO and the European Union.
"I am concerned about...the kind of mischief that Russia has practiced from Estonia to the United States, from Ukraine and now to Macedonia," Mattis said, according to a Pentagon transcript.
This visit, Mattis said, "is in support of their decision -- their own sovereign decision to make sure that they know that we believe it should be our Macedonian friends charting their country's future, and not outsiders."
The referendum is aimed at getting voters' approval for a deal Macedonia signed with Greece in June. The deal changes Macedonia's name to the Republic of North Macedonia, ending a dispute with Greece that has lasted for decades.
Nationalists in both countries have opposed the deal.
If the deal is approved, and Macedonia's constitution is changed, it will open the door for Macedonia to join the EU, and also NATO, something that Russia has publicly opposed.
Russia's ambassador to Skopje has warned that Macedonia could become "a legitimate target" if relations between NATO and Russia deteriorate further.
Greece has seen nationalist demonstrations in opposition of the deal. But in June, Athens expelled two Russian diplomats, accusing them of having helped encourage the protests and also bribing unidentified officials to undermine the deal.
Macedonia has seen a steady stream of U.S. and European officials traveling to the country, encouraging voters to turn out and cast their ballots -- and in support of the name change.
U.S. Senator Ron Johnson, who sits on a Senate subcommittee overseeing European and regional security, traveled to Skopje on September 9, where he urged Macedonians to "get out and vote."
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have also visited.
With reporting by Reuters
Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/mattis-us-macedonia-russia/29485112.html
Copyright (c) 2018. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.
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In Surprise Move, Putin Proposes Signing Peace Pact With Japan This Year
RFE/RL September 12, 2018
Russian President Vladimir Putin has proposed signing a World War II peace treaty with Japan by the end of the year "without preconditions."
Putin made the surprise offer in public, sitting next to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on a stage at an economic forum in the Russian city of Vladivostok on September 12.
After Abe pressed Putin on the subject of a treaty and a solution to the decades-long dispute over a group of islands claimed by both countries, Putin said: "An idea has just come into my head."
"Shinzo said, 'Let's change our approaches.' Let's! Let's conclude a peace agreement -- not now but by the end of the year, without any preconditions," Putin said.
He said issues that are in dispute could be resolved later, and that the pact could specify that the sides are determined to reach mutually acceptable agreements.
There was no immediate response from Abe, whose country has sought the return of the islands that lie northeast of Hokkaido since the war.
A treaty without preconditions would leave Russia in control of the disputed islands, which Russia calls the Southern Kuriles and Japan calls the Northern Territories.
Soviet forces occupied the islands at the end of World War II, and the territorial dispute has prevented Moscow and Tokyo from formally ending hostilities in the war.
Russian and Japanese Foreign Ministry officials said that work on a future agreement would continue as usual, and a Japanese official made clear that Tokyo wants an agreement on possession of the islands before it will sign a peace treaty.
"The government will continue its negotiations on the basic principle that we will sign a peace treaty after resolving the issue of the attribution of the four Northern Islands," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told reporters. "This stance hasn't changed."
In Moscow, Deputy Foreign Minister Igor Morgulov told Russian news agencies that Putin's announcement would not require any changes to the current format of negotiations.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said later in the day that Putin and Abe had not had a chance to discuss the proposal.
Russian commentator Georgy Kunadze, a former deputy foreign minister, told Ekho Moskvy radio that he believes Putin was "trolling" Abe and "does not expect anything" to result from the proposal.
The quest for the return of the islands is an emotive issue in Japan, and Kunadze suggested that Abe would never accept a deal that would be political suicide.
In years of talks, Russian officials have repeatedly signaled that Japan could not hope for a swift solution and hinted that the best way to get closer to a deal was to invest in the sparsely populated, windswept islands and engage in other areas of economic cooperation.
Meeting Abe on the sidelines of the forum in Vladivostok two days earlier, Putin had told the Japanese prime minister that "it would be naive to think that it can be resolved quickly."
In his remarks on September 12, Putin said concluding a pact would create a better atmosphere and enable Russia and Japan to "continue to resolve all outstanding issues like friends."
"It seems to me that this would facilitate the solution of all problems, which we have not been able to solve over the past 70 years."
With reporting by AFP, RIA Novosti, Reuters, and AP
Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/putin-proposes-signing-peace-treaty- with-japan-this-year-without-preconditions-/29485459.html
Copyright (c) 2018. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.
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Trump Issues New Order On Sanctions For Foreign Meddling In U.S. Elections
RFE/RL September 12, 2018
U.S. President Donald Trump has issued a new executive order aimed at punishing foreigners who interfere in U.S. elections.
The order, signed on September 12, comes amid continuing criticism of Trump and his administration for downplaying threats to the U.S. elections, including the 2016 presidential vote that he won.
Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence, said the United States was not yet seeing the intensity of Russian interference that was seen in 2016. He also said the order was not specifically aimed at Russia, and he cited China, North Korea, and Iran as other possible threats.
"It's more than Russia here," he told reporters.
National-security adviser John Bolton said the order gave the State and Treasury departments the authority to decide on appropriate sanctions, which would include freezing assets, limiting access to U.S. financial institutions, and travel restrictions.
Military and law enforcement agencies have warned that the upcoming November 6 congressional elections could be at risk from foreign meddling. That vote will determine control of Congress.
Trump has repeatedly downplayed the U.S. intelligence findings about alleged Russian interference, even as Congress has moved to impose strict penalties against Russia and others for things that include election meddling.
New legislation currently making its way through Congress would impose even harsher punishment against Russia, including things like cutting Moscow off from sovereign-debt markets.
Trump has also derided Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russian election meddling.
In July, Mueller's team announced an indictment against 12 Russian military intelligence officers, who prosecutors said were behind the hacking of the servers belonging to the Democratic Party in 2016.
Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/trump-issues-new-order-on-sanctions-for- foreign-meddling-in-u-s-elections/29486504.html
Copyright (c) 2018. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.
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European Parliament Votes To Discipline Hungary Over Democratic Values, Rule Of Law
RFE/RL September 12, 2018
BRUSSELS -- The European Parliament has voted in favor of launching disciplinary proceedings against Hungary for allegedly undermining the European Union's democratic values and the rule of law.
The September 12 vote marks the first time that the European Parliament has invoked the so-called Article 7 procedure against an EU member state, a process that can lead to a country losing its voting rights in the bloc's council.
Hungary condemned the decision to set a punitive procedure in motion, dismissing it as the "petty revenge" of pro-immigration politicians and vowing a challenge.
A two-thirds majority of those present was required for a European Parliament vote in favor of disciplinary proceedings, and legislators cleared this threshold with a 448 to 197 vote.
The outcome of the vote depended substantially on the center-right European People's Party (EPP), the dominant group in the legislature, of which Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban's Fidesz party is a member.
Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said his country would seek legal ways to challenge the ruling, suggesting it was unfair that abstaining votes were not counted.
"Today's European Parliament decision was nothing but the petty revenge of pro-immigration politicians against Hungary," Szijjarto said. "The decision was made in a fraudulent way, and contrary to relevant rules in European treaties."
The basis of the vote was a report by Dutch lawmaker Judith Sargentini, which said the Hungarian government's actions involving the media, minorities, and the rule of law presented a "clear risk of a serious breach" of EU values.
In a debate on the report on September 11, Orban accused the European Parliament of attempting to "blackmail" Budapest and added that it "insults Hungary and insults the honor of the Hungarian nation."
The European Commission launched similar infringement procedures against Poland in December 2017.
But the measures are unlikely to result in the punishment of Poland or Hungary, as unanimity is required among the bloc's 28 member states to strip a country of its voting rights and Budapest and Warsaw are pledging to support each other.
With reporting by Rikard Jozwiak in Brussels, dpa, Reuters, and AP
Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/european-parliament -votes-to-discipline-hungary-over-democratic -values-rule-of-law/29486119.html
Copyright (c) 2018. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.
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Juncker Wants EU States To Abandon Unanimity, Play Greater International Role
Rikard Jozwiak September 12, 2018
BRUSSELS -- European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker has urged EU member states to abandon the requirement of unanimity for decisions on some foreign policy matters, including human rights issues, and play a greater role on the world stage.
Juncker made the call on September 12 in his state-of-the-EU speech to the European Parliament in Strasbourg, saying that EU states should rein in divisions over budgets, immigration, and other issues.
"We must improve our ability to speak with one voice when it comes to our foreign policy," Juncker, who is entering his last year in office, told EU lawmakers.
He said that "whenever Europe speaks as one, we can impose our position on others."
Juncker cited as an example the EU's failure to condemn human rights abuses by China at the United Nation's Human Rights Council, referring to an incident in June when Greece stopped Brussels from voicing concern about Beijing's crackdown on journalists and dissidents.
Although not mentioned during his speech, the written text of his comments published by the commission afterward also stated that "it is not right that one member state was able to hold the renewal of our arms embargo on Belarus to ransom, or that sanctions on Venezuela were delayed for months when unanimity could not be reached."
EU foreign policy is one of the areas where decisions are made by unanimity, but the commission has highlighted three areas where a so-called qualified majority vote (QMV) should be introduced: to respond collectively to attacks on human rights, to apply effective sanctions, and to launch and manage civilian security and defense missions.
QMV means that a decision is passed if 55 percent of the member states, representing at least 65 percent of the EU population, agree.
The commission hopes that EU leaders will agree to the change at an EU summit in the Romanian city of Sibiu on May 9, 2019, which takes place less than two months after Britain is expected to leave the EU and two weeks ahead of the European Parliamentary elections.
In his September 12 speech, Juncker also called for more solidarity and less last-minute scrambling to address the issue of migrants.
"We cannot continue to squabble [in an effort] to find ad hoc solutions each time a new ship arrives. Temporary solidarity is not good enough," he said. "We need a lot more. We need more solidarity, and solidarity must be lasting and organized."
He also stressed that EU needed legal routes for migration and "skilled migrants."
"The commission is today proposing to further strengthen the European Border and Coast Guard to better protect our external borders with an additional 10,000 European border guards by 2020," he said.
Juncker also said the EU needed more solidarity and a "forthright attitude" on the future inclusion of more countries in the Western Balkans, where Russia, Turkey, and other countries are vying for influence.
"We must find unity when it comes to the Western Balkans -- once and for all," he said. "Should we not, our immediate neighborhood will be shaped by others."
With reporting by dpa, Reuters, and the BBC
Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/juncker-wants-eu- states-to-abandon-unanimity-play-greater -international-role/29485854.html
Copyright (c) 2018. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.
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Afghan Parliament to Review Security Pact With US - Reports
Sputnik News
20:45 12.09.2018(updated 20:46 12.09.2018)
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - A majority of lawmakers in Afghanistan's parliament have voted to review their nation's security agreement with the United States, including permission for permanent US military bases to remain in the country, according to reports on Wednesday.
"The idea [of a review] was put forward by some lawmakers in the Lower House on Monday and it was approved by the majority of the MPs through voting on Wednesday," the television news outlet 1TV reported.
The present agreement allowed US forces and military bases to remain in Afghanistan after the US combat mission ended in 2014, the report explained.
However, the security condition continues to worsen, with killings of civilians and security forces rising, as with Tuesday's suicide terrorist attack that killed 68 people and wounded 165 in Nangarhar province, the report noted.
The report indicated that Afghanistan's present government continues to back a continued US presence as necessary to strengthen the nation's security forces.
Sputnik
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Mattis to Fly to Skopje to Show US Support for Macedonia Joining NATO - Pentagon
Sputnik News
20:44 12.09.2018(updated 20:45 12.09.2018)
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - US Secretary of Defense James Mattis has set next Sunday as the date for his promised trip to Macedonia to support the Macedonian government's move to join NATO, the Department of Defense announced in a press advisory on Wednesday.
"Secretary of Defense James N. Mattis embarks Sunday, September 16 on a trip to Skopje, Macedonia to show US support for Macedonia during NATO accession and continued US commitment to peace and security in the region," the advisory said.
Mattis had previously said that he would visit Macedonia ahead of an upcoming referendum on the change of the country's name on September 30, while expressing concern about possible Russian interference in the process.
"The secretary is scheduled to meet with and deliver a joint press statement with Prime Minister Zoran Zaev," the advisory added.
A number of Western leaders including Angela Merkel, Sebastian Kurz and Theresa May have recently visited Macedonia in an effort to persuade Macedonians to participate in the referendum.
Macedonians have engaged a campaign of mass boycott, calling the referendum an attempt at genocide that seeks to legitimize the treasonous actions of the US-installed government of Zoran Zaev to undo the Macedonian nation-state and shift the responsibility onto them.
In all polls, Macedonians have overwhelmingly rejected the government's agreement with Greece to rename their country and therefore erase their Macedonian ethnic and national identity, but particularly for the purposes of membership in NATO and the European Union under US diktat. The polls reveal that between 80 percent and 90 percent of Macedonians will boycott the referendum.
Greece has blocked Macedonia from entering NATO and the European Union despite a 1995 bilateral Interim Accord to allow Macedonia's membership not under its name, but under the provisional reference "former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia." Moreover, NATO has said the alliance was not bound by a 2011 International Court of Justice ruling that Greece has violated the Interim Accord.
Sputnik
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Yemeni Gov't Forces Block Strategic Road East of Port City of Hodeidah - Source
Sputnik News
20:43 12.09.2018
CAIRO (Sputnik) - Yemeni government forces have blocked a strategic highway located between the western port city of Al Hodeidah and the capital of Sanaa, a source in the local administration told Sputnik on Wednesday.
The source said that the government forces had taken up a position 12 kilometers (7 miles) east of Al Hodeidah and "blocked the strategic Al Hodeidah-Sanaa highway after fighting against Houthi militants with the support of intensive [Saudi-led] coalition airstrikes."
On June 13, the Yemeni government forces, backed by the Saudi-led coalition, launched an offensive to seize the port of Hodeidah from the Shia Houthi rebels. The operation continued despite the UN warnings of a possible humanitarian catastrophe. UN Special Envoy Martin Griffiths held talks with the Houthis in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa, but failed to persuade the rebels to withdraw from al Hodeidah.
Yemen has been engulfed in an armed conflict between the government forces led by President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi and the Houthi rebels for several years. The Saudi-led coalition of mostly Persian Gulf nations has been carrying out airstrikes against the Houthis at Hadi's request since March 2015.
Sputnik
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Fiji Joins US-Led Coalition Against Daesh - Spokesperson
Sputnik News
18:13 12.09.2018
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - Fiji has become the latest country to join the US-led coalition against the Daesh* terrorist group (banned in Russia), Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve spokesman Sean Ryan said in a statement on Wednesday.
"The Coalition is pleased to announce that Fiji has joined the Coalition to defeat [DAESH] as its 79th member," Ryan said via Twitter.
He highlighted that Fiji has 40 years experience in international peacekeeping efforts, including in the Middle East. The nation is also seen as a leader in the Pacific region, he added.
The US-led coalition conducting military operations against Daesh in Syria and Iraq. The coalition's operations in Iraq are conducted in cooperation with the Iraqi government, but those in Syria are not authorized by the government of President Bashar Assad or the United Nations Security Council.
*Daesh (also known as ISIS/ISIL/IS) is a terrorist organization banned in Russia and many other countries.
Sputnik
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Saudi Arabia, UAE Governments Reduce Harm to Civilians in Yemen Pompeo
Sputnik News
16:27 12.09.2018
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - The United States has certified that the governments of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have made serious steps to ensure that civilians in Yemen are not harmed by their military operations in the country, Secretary of State Michael Pompeo said on Wednesday.
"I certified to Congress yesterday that the governments of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are undertaking demonstrable actions to reduce the risk of harm to civilians and civilian infrastructure resulting from military operations of these governments," Pompeo said in a statement.
Pompeo's decision to issue the certification ensures that the United States can continue to provide support to the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen. Had Pompeo chosen not to issue the certification, the newly passed legislation would have prevented US forces from continuing to refuel Saudi and UAE jets involved in military operations in Yemen.
In his statement, Pompeo reiterated Washington's view that ending the conflict in Yemen is a national security priority for the United States.
"We will continue to work closely with the Saudi-led coalition to ensure Saudi Arabia and the UAE maintain support for UN-led efforts to end the civil war in Yemen," he said.
Pompeo also underscored the need to provide unimpeded access to humanitarian aid workers in Yemen and to take actions to mitigate the impact of the conflict on civilians.
Yemen is engulfed in an armed conflict between the government headed by Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi and the Houthi movement, also known as Ansar Allah. The Saudi-led coalition of mostly Persian Gulf nations has been carrying out airstrikes against the Houthis at Hadi's request since March 2015.
Sputnik
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US Seeks to Boost Its Greek Clout Amid Tensions With Turkey Over S-400 Reports
Sputnik News
09:45 12.09.2018(updated 09:54 12.09.2018)
Washington has repeatedly warned Ankara against purchasing the Russian S-400 missile defense systems, something that the White House said may prompt it to scrap deliveries of the US F-35 fighter jets to Turkey.
The Wall Street Journal has cited US sources as saying that the Pentagon is in talks with Athens to expand the US military's operations on Greek territory, in a "potential move toward the eastern Mediterranean amid growing tensions with Turkey."
"There are both geopolitical and geographical factors that make Greece an appealing site for the US military," the sources said, referring to the current "apex" in Washington-Athens ties.
At the same time, General Curtis Scaparotti, the current Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) of NATO Allied Command Operations, who is at the helm of the talks, is not considering the deployment of American troops and military equipment in Greece on a permanent basis, according to the sources.
Last week, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford told reporters in Athens that Greek officials are considering the expansion of US access to additional military bases in their country.
Those officials "made a general overture, saying they would be willing to consider that, and I certainly was enthusiastic about the possibility," Dunford pointed out, adding that the US military has already "taken advantage of Souda Bay, a critical piece of infrastructure here in the region."
The developments come against the backdrop of ever-increasing tensions between Turkey and the United States.
The flare-ups have been high ever since US President Donald Trump recently authorized the doubling of steel and aluminum tariffs on Turkish exports, to 50 and 20 percent, respectively, after Turkey refused to release detained American pastor Andrew Brunson, who is accused of being involved in the failed 2016 military coup in Turkey.
Adding fuel to the fire of bilateral tensions is Ankara's plans to buy Russian-made S-400 surface-to-air missile systems, which Washington warned may prod it to stop supplying the US F-35 fighters to Turkey.
In June, the US Senate passed a bill banning the sale of the F-35 jets to Turkey citing Ankara's planned purchase of two batteries of S-400 systems.
Turkish officials have responded to Washington's pressure by saying that Ankara does not accept sanctions from NATO partners when discussing deliveries of the S-400s.
Sputnik
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Concerned About Russian 'Mischief,' US Defense Secretary to Visit Macedonia
Sputnik News
04:30 12.09.2018
US Defense Secretary James Mattis said he would visit Macedonia ahead of an upcoming referendum on country's name issue, while expressing concern about possible Moscow interference in the process.
"If you have a vote, Moscow will meddle with it," seems to be the precept fixed into the minds of senior US leaders these days. Any vote is inherently endangered by Russia's meddling techniques, which are so advanced that US intelligence is still either unable or simply too worried to furnish evidence of their existence. But that hasn't stopped the public barrage of allegations.
This time, the vote is in Macedonia over the nation's name problem. A conflict with Greece, one of whose provinces is also named Macedonia, has been behind Greece's blocking the Balkan country's accession to the EU and NATO for a while (Greece is a member of both organizations). The Macedonian government, however, is so desperate to enter the two blocs in search of a better life for its people that it is eager to rename the entire country to do so.
Unsurprisingly, patriotic forces within the country have opposed the idea fiercely. This has brought the country to a political stalemate, which can only be solved by a referendum, scheduled for September 30, as a part of political agreement with Greece.
Ahead of said referendum, US Defense Secretary James Mattis will visit the country, to "make it clear that the United States supports the Macedonian people," Reuters reported Monday.
As he announced his plan, Mattis expressed his concerns about the horrible threat of you guessed it Russian meddling with the referendum, which he referred to as "mischief."
"I am concerned about it The kind of mischief that Russia has practiced from Estonia to the United States, from Ukraine and now to Macedonia, it always has adapted to the specific situation, and it's always beyond the pale," Mattis said, according to Reuters.
Why would he even bring this up, one might ask?
It is no secret that Moscow opposes the spread of NATO towards its borders; should Macedonia join the military bloc, it would become a "legitimate target" for Russian strikes in the event a full-scale conflict between Russia and NATO were to occur, as Oleg Shcherbak, Moscow's ambassador to Skopje, has put it. Therefore, should the referendum fail, it stands to reason that "Russian meddling" would be a convenient narrative to spin to de-legitimize its results.
Earlier in July, Athens exploited the convenient "meddling" narrative when it accused Russia of encouraging demonstrations and bribing unidentified officials to thwart the agreement with Macedonia. Greece expelled two Russian diplomats over the allegations, which Moscow denied, responding in kind.
Sputnik
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US Blocks Russian Surveillance Flights Despite Open Skies Treaty - Russian MoD
Sputnik News
01:45 12.09.2018(updated 02:29 12.09.2018)
The Open Skies Treaty covers most NATO member states as well as Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Sweden and Finland. As a rule, flights of Russia and NATO member states are conducted on a reciprocal basis.
The 2019 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) has revealed in August that the US would not obligate any funds to implement the Open Skies Treaty until penalties are imposed against Russia for previous violations. In June 2017, the United States said Moscow was violating the terms of the Open Skies Treaty by placing restrictions on overflights of Kaliningrad, Russia's enclave on the Baltic Sea.
In turn, the Russian Foreign Ministry has said it has complied with its obligations under all international agreements including the Open Skies Treaty.
Russia's National Nuclear Risk Reduction Center Sergei Ryzhkov said on Wednesday that the US has blocked the surveillance flights of Russia's new Tu-214 plane which was to operate under the Open Skies Treaty.
"Based on the results of the tests, the heads of delegations from 22 countries have signed the final protocol permitting the surveillance flights of this aircraft over the territories of the member states. However, the head of the US delegation refused to sign the final document, referring to direct instructions from Washington, in violation of the requirements of the Treaty on Open Skies and without explaining any reasons," Ryzhkov told the official newspaper of the Russian Defense Ministry.
Ryzhkov confirmed Russia's adherence to the treaty which, according to the official, was "one of the cornerstones of the European security.
"We demand that the United States return to the Treaty on Open Skies and require explanations of this situation in accordance with the treaty provisions," Ryabkov said. The official added that Washington could not "put up with the fact that Russia outperformed the United States by five-seven years" with the new plane.
On September 2-11, over 70 experts from 23 member states of the treaty conducted inspections of Russia's new Tu-214ON aircraft. The participants confirmed full compliance of the plane with the requirements and limitations of the treaty.
The Treaty on Open Skies was signed in 1992 as one of the measures to strengthen trust in Europe after the Cold War. The treaty allows the member states to openly gather information on the armed forces of each other and their military activities. The signatories include most of the NATO states, Russia, Belarus, Ukraine and several others.
Sputnik
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Economy and living standards of Gaza 'eviscerated' by crippling blockade - UN trade and development report
12 September 2018 - The Occupied Palestinian Territory now suffers the highest unemployment rate in the world, with incomes and agricultural production going down, the United Nations trade and development agency said on Wednesday, noting that women and young people were worst affected, as the Israeli occupation continues.
"With the blockade now in its eleventh year, the Gaza Strip has been reduced to a humanitarian case of profound suffering and aid dependency," said the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), in a news release announcing its findings.
"The productive capacity of Gaza has been eviscerated by three major military operations and a crippling air, sea and land blockade," it added.
In its report on assistance to the Palestinian people, the UN agency also warned of poor growth prospects due to lessening donor support; a freeze in the reconstruction of Gaza; and unsustainable, credit-financed public and private consumption.
It also noted that the longstanding electricity crisis in Gaza worsened with households receiving, on average, two hours of electricity a day in early 2018 and power shortages seriously impacting everyday life and interrupting the delivery of basic services.
"The enduring deprivation of basic economic, social and human rights inflicts a heavy toll on Gaza's psychological and social fabric, as manifested by the widespread incidence of post-traumatic stress disorder and high suicide rates," said UNCTAD, noting that in 2017, 225,000 children more than 10 per cent of the total population required psychosocial support.
The report also noted that construction of settlements accelerated in 2017 and early 2018 and highlighted evidence of "incremental annexation" of large parts of the West Bank, which included the transfer of Israeli citizens into settlements, forcing out Palestinians.
It further noted that a customs union established in 1967 and formalized in 1994 under which free trade prevails between Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory, is inherently flawed because of the structural differences between the two economies and their vastly different levels of economic development.
According to the report, the outcomes are made worse due to a lack of cooperation and the fact that Israel sets the terms and conditions of how the union operates.
"Effectively, the Occupied Palestinian Territory is isolated from the more competitive global markets, which in turn fosters an extremely high level of a trade diversion towards Israel, the report says," said UNCTAD.
To break the cycle of dispossession and backwards development, the report called for replacing the union with a new framework that guarantees the Palestinian National Authority full control over its customs territory, borders and trade and industrial policies.
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Death Toll Doubles in Suicide Bombing in Eastern Afghanistan
By Ayaz Gul September 12, 2018
Officials in Afghanistan's eastern Nangarhar province say the death toll from Tuesday's suicide bombing has risen to 68 people, up from the previous figure of 32.
The attack happened in the remote Mohmand Dara district as residents were staging a protest in the Daka village to demand the dismissal of a local police commander.
In a statement Wednesday, Atttahullah Khogyani, a spokesman for the provincial governor, said another 165 people were wounded in the bombing.
The Taliban denied any involvement in the attack.
Hours earlier three schools were hit by bombings in the provincial capital of Jalalabad. At least one child was killed and several people were injured, a spokesman for the provincial education directorate told VOA.
There were no claims of responsibility for the attacks in Jalalabad, where almost all recent bombings and militant raids against civilian and educational facilities have been claimed by Islamic State.
The Afghan affiliate of Islamic State, known as IS Khorasan Province (ISK-P), and the Taliban insurgency operate bases in Nangarhar next to the border with neighboring Pakistan.
Taliban makes advances, drought worsens
Taliban insurgents have been conducting battlefield attacks since Saturday, focusing on northern Afghan provinces. The raids have reportedly killed about 140 Afghan security forces and brought more territory under insurgent control.
The spike in violence comes amid a severe drought.
The United Nations Office for the Humanitarian Affairs in Afghanistan said the conflict and the drought have displaced half-a-million Afghans since the beginning of the year.
"The total displacement due to the drought has reached a total of 275,000 people, exceeding the number of people displaced by conflict in 2018 by 52,000 people," the agency said.
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US Lawmakers Reject White House Ruling on Civilian Deaths in Yemen
By VOA News September 12, 2018
U.S. lawmakers of both political parties rejected the Trump administration's determination that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are doing enough to prevent civilian casualties in Yemen, where Saudi coalition airstrikes have killed thousands of noncombatants.
"I do not agree with that [determination]," Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine told VOA on Wednesday. "I've been very concerned about the humanitarian disaster in Yemen and the role that the Saudi bombing has played."
New Mexico Democratic Senator Tom Udall echoed Collins.
"I think they [Saudi-led coalition] have been careless, and I think there is a lot more we could do to make sure this effort is run in a humane way," Udall said.
Earlier in a statement, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said he certified to Congress that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates are "undertaking demonstrable actions to reduce the risk of harm to civilians and civilian infrastructure resulting from military operations of these governments."
He did not elaborate.
Congress had given Pompeo until Sept. 12 to certify the coalition is taking steps to reduce civilian deaths. If it hadn't done so, the U.S. would be prohibited from refueling Saudi aircraft. The U.S. also provides the coalition targeting information, logistical support and weapons.
In a statement, U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said he endorses and fully supports the determination that the coalition is "making every effort to reduce the risk of civilian casualties and collateral damage to civilian infrastructure."
The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Republican Bob Corker of Tennessee, disagreed.
"I don't think we've got any good actors there [in the Yemeni conflict], so I don't know that I want to second that [administration determination]," Corker told VOA. "I think all parties could be doing a much better job of protecting civilians, including the Saudis."
The Saudi-led coalition admitted last month "mistakes were made" in an August bus bombing that killed dozens of children. It vowed to hold responsible those who bombed the bus and said it would improve its targeting procedures.
Sarah Margon, the Washington director of Human Rights Watch, said in a tweet that Pompeo's determination was based on "farcical analysis."
Asked if U.S. cooperation with the Saudi coalition should be curbed, Collins said, "I'm not saying there should be a curtailment, but I think we may need to look at putting more restriction on arms that we [the United States] provide [to the coalition]."
The Senate's No. 2 Republican, John Cornyn of Texas, argued that any American withdrawal of support could make a bad humanitarian situation worse.
"In the absence of American help, I think the collateral damage and the humanitarian crisis would be even more serious," Cornyn said.
The three-year-old conflict in Yemen has killed more than 10,000 people, with millions facing starvation and disease.
The Saudi-led coalition has been fighting Houthi rebels since 2014, when the Houthis seized the capital. The coalition is trying to restore the government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.
VOA's Michael Bowman contributed to this report.
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Violence Continues to Disrupt Life in Many Parts of Cameroon
By Moki Edwin Kindzeka September 12, 2018
People are deserting the English-speaking regions of Cameroon after hundreds of armed separatists and the military were involved in Tuesday's bloody conflicts in five towns and villages leaving at least 15 people dead. The population complains that the army was slow in responding to simultaneous attacks by the separatists.
Intensive shooting between an unknown number of armed separatists and at least 50 soldiers of the Rapid Intervention Battalion, BIR, an elite corps of Cameroon's military is going on at Mile 16, Bolifamba, a neighborhood in the southwestern town of Buea.
As the military shoots, some of the troops clear the wreckage of vehicles, abandoned containers, trees and heavy metals the armed separatists are said to have used in blocking all entrances into the town before the military arrived. The military said the attackers also burned vehicles, houses and shops.
Some residents are rushing to various destinations including the bush.
Businessman Peter Bongkiyung, 24, says he saw two corpses including that of a soldier and does no longer feel safe in the town.
"I am still believing that come what ever I have to go," he said.
Jenine Ita, a 47-year-old jurist, working in the town, is also leaving with her three children and wounded husband. She says the armed men invaded Mile 16 as early as 5 a.m. Tuesday, blocking the road and setting some transport buses on fire. Jenine says she is surprised that the military which is found at various entrances to the town came late.
"We can not continue living in such an environment where you can not trust your neighbor. Where are the armed men coming from? How do they get into town without the knowledge of the military?" she said.
Similar simultaneous attacks were reported in four other villages in the Northwest and Southwest regions including Bamenda. Mamfe and Wum.
Bernard Okalia Bilai, governor of the Southwest region says he is pleading with the separatists to drop their guns and stop the carnage. He says the upcoming presidential election should offer an opportunity for them to democratically express their views should they be disgruntled with the government.
"The presidential election is a very important moment for all the countries in the world and the south west should not miss to be fully involved in the presidential election on October 7. We should stop the killings, the kidnappings, the disturbances and all the nuisance that the present crisis has brought in our region," he said.
The government has been assuring voters that they will be protected.
Unrest began in Cameroon in November 2016 when English-speaking teachers and lawyers demonstrated against the overbearing use of the French language. Separatists took over and started demanding the independence of the English-speaking from the French-speaking regions of the bilingual country.
Last Saturday, armed Anglophone separatists burned buses and blocked traffic into and out of the capital of the English-speaking Northwest region and said the action in Bamenda was to disrupt next month's presidential election.
The United Nations reports that 300 people including 130 policemen and the military have been killed, hundreds of thousands have fled for their lives to the bushes and towns in the French-speaking regions. At least 20,000 have crossed over to Nigeria.
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Hurricane Hunters fly Florence, conduct search and rescue
By Master Sgt. Jessica Kendziorek, 403rd Wing Public Affairs / Published September 12, 2018
KEESLER AIR FORCE BASE, Miss. (AFNS) -- Members of the U.S. Air Force Reserve's 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron assisted the U.S. Coast Guard with a search and rescue mission Sept. 11, locating a white 41-foot Bali sailing catamaran after completing their mission for Hurricane Florence.
The vessel was making a trans-Atlantic voyage from Portugal to the Bahamas, and was not responding.
The U.S. Coast Guard asked the aircrew to locate, make contact with the missing vessel via VHF radio frequencies, and provide information about the vessel, the number of passengers, safety and emergency equipment.
"After receiving the request from the U.S Coast Guard to assist with locating a sailboat, I forwarded the information to the aircraft commander to gather information about their intentions due to the storm, the vessel's capability and equipment," said Lt. Col. Thomas Moffatt, 53rd WRS navigator. "This isn't the first time we have conducted a search and rescue mission, because as aviators and even mariners, we have a duty to render assistance."
After traveling toward the last known location of the vessel, members of the crew hailed the boat, and received a reply. The Hurricane Hunters then turned to the new coordinates obtained from the sailboat crew in order to locate them.
Members of the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Coast Guard, who occasionally fly with the 53rd WRS, assisted the Hurricane Hunters by searching the ocean below for the sailboat, which was located within 10 minutes of arriving at the location.
Once the sailboat crew was located, the aircrew circled the area and continued gathering information, which was relayed to the Coast Guard. The sailboat crew was notified about Hurricane Florence and after their destination and intent was received, the Hurricane Hunters headed back to Savannah, Georgia.
Maj. Brandon Roth, 53rd WRS pilot said, "Although our primary mission is to gather data from storms, we are trained to render assistance in emergencies that occur in the open waters, and often times, we are the only ones available to assist because of that mission."
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US Senator: Nearly $10M Diverted to Immigrant Detention
By Victoria Macchi September 12, 2018
U.S. Homeland Security officials are downplaying the transfer of nearly $10 million from the U.S. disaster response agency to immigration enforcement efforts, first brought to national attention in a TV appearance by a senator Tuesday night.
Jeff Merkley, a Democrat from the northwestern state of Oregon, told a nightly MSNBC news program that the funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, were allocated for "detention beds" and "transportation and removal" by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He shared a budget document that showed the funds "reprogrammed" for the FEMA "Operations and Support" fund.
Both agencies are part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
DHS said the transfer of funds would neither affect FEMA's readiness for emergencies, nor support immigration enforcement.
In a statement emailed to reporters Wednesday morning, a DHS spokesperson referred to "misinformed reports" of the $9.8 million transfer.
The department did not deny the transfer, instead saying the money was not part of FEMA's disaster response.
Citing an unnamed "DHS official," the statement added that the "mission-impact on FEMA response and recovery of this transfer of funds is zero."
Top DHS spokesman Tyler Q. Houlton tweeted during the show, "Under no circumstances was any disaster relief funding transferred from @fema to immigration enforcement efforts."
A Washington Post report indicates the document was written in June and approved by Congress between July and September.
DHS said the money was left over when FEMA management expenses "came in under budget" ahead of the end of the 2018 fiscal year on September 30, and that FEMA has a disaster response/recovery budget of $25 billion.
The senator's allegation on Tuesday hits the Trump administration on two of its more criticized policies: disaster preparedness and immigrant detention.
The U.S. government response to natural disasters is under intense scrutiny after a study of hurricane deaths in Puerto Rico revised the original death toll said to have been in the dozens to nearly 3,000 people killed as a result of Hurricane Maria that hit the U.S. territory last year.
The Trump administration also has come under fire in recent months for its immigration detention and deportation policies, which reached a peak with the separation of parents and children who crossed the U.S. border from Mexico earlier this year.
"To prioritize the separation and detention of families over providing relief to disaster-stricken communities is a scandalous use of taxpayer dollars," said Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum. "Funding family separation, detention and deportation with money meant to help Americans prepare for and recover from natural disasters flies in the face of American values and puts public safety at risk."
The financial fracas came to light Tuesday as several U.S. states in the mid-Atlantic and southeastern region have declared states of emergency ahead of Hurricane Florence. The Category 4 storm, which prompted the evacuation of more than a million residents of coastal areas in North and South Carolina, is expected to make landfall with "life-threatening storm surge and rainfall" in the coming days.
At last report, the storm was about 800 kilometers from the U.S. coast.
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Indian Air Force Chief Raises Concern Over Dearth of Fighter Jets
Sputnik News
17:01 12.09.2018
Observing that the combined air combat strength of China and Pakistan cannot be matched by India even if it were to add 200 fighter jets to its current fleet, India's air force chief has expressed hope that the addition of Rafale fighter aircraft and S-400 air defense systems would help plug the gap to a large extent.
New Delhi (Sputnik) In a startling admission, Indian Air Force (IAF) Chief BS Dhanoa has revealed that India cannot match the combined air combat strength of China and Pakistan even if it were to add around 200 fighter jets to its fleet, while warning that India is currently facing grave threats from its adversaries.
"What we do not have are the numbers, against a sanctioned strength of 42 squadrons, we are down to 31. Even when we do have 42 squadrons, we will be below the combined numbers of two of our regional adversaries. We have to match neighbors Pakistan and China to tackle a two-front war," Air Chief Marshal BS Dhanoa said while speaking at an event in New Delhi.
Each squadron of the Indian Air Force consists of 18 fighter jets. Pakistan has 20 squadrons "that can be brought to bear against us" while China has approximately 1,700 fighter aircraft, 800 of them fourth generation, Air Chief Marshal Dhanoa added.
The IAF chief further elaborated on the threat from the northern adversary observing that China has enhanced its combat strength in the Tibetan region in recent years.
"Chinese fighter aircraft have been permanently stationed in the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR) in the past few years. Advanced radar and surface-to-air missiles have also been stationed in the region," Dhanoa added.
However, he was of the opinion that Rafale fighter jets and the S-400 Triumf air defense system would help bolster the combat capabilities of the country.
"By providing the Rafale and S-400, the Government is strengthening the IAF to counter the depleting force numbers," Dhanoa stated.
India and Russia are expected to seal the contract in the first week of October on a S-400 purchase, as all negotiations including money transfer issues between the two countries have been settled.
Prior to signing the deal during the upcoming visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin to New Delhi, India's Minister of External Affairs Sushma Swaraj will visit Moscow on September 13-14 to hold a meeting of the 23rd India-Russia Inter-Governmental Commission on Technical and Economic Cooperation (IRIGC-TEC), co-chaired by her and Yuri Borisov, deputy prime minister of the Russian Federation.
Sputnik
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Chinook helicopter makes emergency landing near Tehran
IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency
Tehran, Sept 12, IRNA -- Army's Air Force public relations department announced on Wednesday that a Chinook helicopter belonging to the force made emergency landing near Tehran.
During force landing on Wednesday before noon the chopper was seriously damaged.
The copter was in training operation for pilots for 'emergency landing' in Karaj city, when it made force landing.
All on board are fully safe and sound and the helicopter had minor damage.
Cargo-transport helicopter of CH-47 Chinook made by Boeing Company is serving in Iran's Army Air Force for more than four decades.
1391**2050
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Salehi: Trump on loser's side, won't benefit from JCPOA withdrawal
IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency
Tehran, Sept 12, IRNA -- Iran's nuclear chief said on Tuesday that he hoped the atomic deal between Tehran and world powers survives, but says the program would be in a stronger position than ever if the deal does not survive.
The remarks by Ali Akbar Salehi, who also serves as a vice president to President Hassan Rouhani, come as Iran and other signatories to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) try to salvage the accord, now challenged by US President Donald Trump.
Salehi sought to contrast Iran's behavior, which includes abiding by the atomic deal, against "emotional and sensational moves."
"I think [Trump] is on the loser's side because he is pursuing the logic of power," Salehi told the Associated Press in an exclusive interview in Tehran. "He thinks that he can, you know, continue for some time but certainly I do not think he will benefit from this withdrawal, certainly not."
The US withdrawal from the Iran deal and the return of US sanctions already has affected Iran's economy, crashing its rial currency. Further sanctions coming in November threaten Iran's oil industry, a major source of government funding.
Salehi heads the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, whose Tehran campus encompasses a nuclear research reactor given to the country by the US in 1967, under the rule of the former shah.
Iran has long said its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, but it faced years of sanctions due to Western concerns. The 2015 nuclear deal Iran struck with world powers, including the US under former president Barack Obama, was aimed at relieving those concerns.
Under it, Iran agreed to store its excess centrifuges at its underground Natanz enrichment facility under constant surveillance by the United Nations' nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency. Iran can use 5,060 older-model IR-1 centrifuges at Natanz, but only to enrich uranium up to 3.67 percent.
That low-level enrichment means the uranium can be used to fuel a civilian reactor. Iran also can possess no more than 300 kilograms (660 pounds) of that uranium. That's compared to the 100,000 kilograms (220,460 pounds) of higher-enriched uranium it once had.
Salehi spoke about Iran's efforts to build a new facility at Natanz that will produce more advanced centrifuges, which enrich uranium by rapidly spinning uranium hexafluoride gas..
For now, the nuclear accord limits Iran to using a limited number of an older model, called IR-1s. The new facility will allow it to build advanced versions called the IR-2M, IR-4 and IR-6. The IR-2M and the IR-4 can enrich uranium five times faster than an IR-1, while the IR-6 can do it 10 times faster, Salehi said.
"This does not mean that we are going to produce these centrifuges now. This is just a preparation," he said. "In case Iran decides to start producing such centrifuges in mass production, we would be ready for that."
Salehi suggested that if the nuclear deal fell apart, Iran would react in stages. He suggested one step may be uranium enrichment going to "20 percent because this is our need." He also suggested Iran could increase its stockpile of enriched uranium.
In the wake of Trump's decision, Western companies from airplane manufacturers to oil firms have pulled out of Iran. Iran's rial currency, which traded before the decision at 36,000 to $1, now stands at about 140,000 to $1.
Despite that, Salehi said Iran could withstand the economic pressure, as well as restart uranium enrichment with far more sophisticated equipment.
"If we have to go back and withdraw from the nuclear deal, we certainly will not go back to where we were before," Salehi said. "We will be standing on a much, much higher position."
Source: Iran Daily
9060**1771
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Mogherini: EU continues supporting Iran Deal
IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency
Tehran, Sept 12, IRNA -- High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy reaffirmed EU's commitment to defend Iran nuclear deal also known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
Mogherini made the remarks Tuesday while addressing the plenary session of the European Parliament on EU-US relations.
She referred to the main disagreement between the EU and the US as regard multilateralism, saying 'Now, it is no secret that we have one main disagreement that concerns multilateralism and the very idea of a system for global governance. We Europeans continue to see multilateralism as the best way to prevent chaos, conflicts and confrontations in a multi-polar world.'
'This is why we continue and we will continue to defend the nuclear deal with Iran, the Paris agreement on climate change, and to fund the essential work of all the UN agencies, including UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East,' Mogherini was quoted by the European External Action Service (EEAS) as saying.
After Washington's May 8 exit from the historic Iran Deal the US gave 90 to 180 wind-down period to other countries before it starts re-imposing oil sanctions on Tehran on November 4.
Part of the US illegitimate sanctions were imposed on Iran on August 9.
US President Donald Trump also said he would reinstate the US nuclear sanctions on Iran and impose "the highest level" of economic bans on the Islamic Republic.
This is while, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Yukiya Amano earlier in a statement announced that Iran has complied with its commitments under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
'Iran is implementing its nuclear-related commitments under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. It is essential that Iran continues to fully implement those commitments,' the statement reads addressing a meeting of IAEA Board of Governors.
'The Agency continues to verify the non-diversion of nuclear material declared by Iran under its Safeguards Agreement. Evaluations regarding the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran continue.'
9376**1396
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Iran nuclear chief hopes deal will survive
ISNA - Iranian Students' News Agency
Wed / 12 September 2018 / 13:49
Tehran (ISNA) - Iran's nuclear chief said he hopes Tehran's landmark atomic deal with world powers will survive, warning the Islamic Republic's program stands ready to build advanced centrifuges and further enrich uranium.
In an exclusive interview with The Associated Press, Ali Akbar Salehi, the head of Atomic Energy Organization of Iran stressed Tehran would be guided by "prudence and wisdom" when weighing whether to abandon the deal if European nations fail to protect it from Trump.
"Yes, we have our problems. Yes, the sanctions have caused some problems for us. But if a nation decides to enjoy political independence, it will have to pay the price," Salehi said. "If Iran decides today to go back to what it was before, the lackey of the United States, the situation would" be different.
Salehi spoke to the AP on Tuesday about Iran's efforts to build a new facility at Natanz that will produce more-advanced centrifuges, which enrich uranium by rapidly spinning uranium hexafluoride gas.
"I think (Trump) is on the loser's side because he is pursuing the logic of power," Salehi added. "He thinks that he can, you know, continue for some time but certainly I do not think he will benefit from this withdrawal, certainly not."
The new facility will allow Iran to build versions called the IR-2M, IR-4 and IR-6. The IR-2M and the IR-4 can enrich uranium five times faster than an IR-1, while the IR-6 can do it 10 times faster, Salehi said.
"This does not mean that we are going to produce these centrifuges now. This is just a preparation," he said. "In case Iran decides to start producing in mass production such centrifuges, (we) would be ready for that."
Salehi suggested that if the nuclear deal fell apart, Iran would react in stages. He suggested one step may be uranium enrichment going to "20 percent because this is our need." He also suggested Iran could increase its stockpile of enriched uranium.
"If we have to go back and withdraw from the nuclear deal, we certainly do not go back to where we were before," Salehi said. "We will be standing on a much, much higher position."
A string of bombings, blamed on Israel, targeted a number of scientists beginning in 2010.
"I hope that they will not commit a similar mistake again because the consequences would be, I think, harsh," Salehi warned.
While the U.N. repeatedly has verified Iran's compliance with the deal, Trump withdrew the U.S. from it.
End Item
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Russia says halting Iran's oil sales 'not feasible'
Iran Press TV
Wed Sep 12, 2018 04:35PM
Russia says US efforts to bring down Iran's oil exports to zero would lead to nothing with a top official describing Washington's objectives in pursuing sanctions against Iran as "unrealistic."
Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov was quoted by the media in Tehran as saying that Washington had already become too isolated in its agenda against Iran to be able to create an international consensus to halt Iran's oil sales.
"I don't this [bringing Iran's oil sales] would be feasible," Ryabkov was quoted as saying by Tasnim news agency.
"Furthermore and more importantly, I don't think America's expectation to that effect would be realistic particularly at a time that it has internationally become isolated over its anti-Iran drive."
The Russian official added that the international community believed the 2015 Iran nuclear deal specifically mechanisms in it that authorized Iran's oil sales - needed to be preserved "due to political and economic reasons."
Preserving the deal, he added, would also lead to a stronger stability in the global energy market and help promote non-proliferation.
Ryabkov further said Moscow had serious plans to protect the Iran deal technically known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) - in face of US pressures, adding that arrangements were being done with Chinese as well as European partners to the same effect.
"We are making very intense contacts both with Iranian friends but also with European colleges and with our Chinese partners," he said.
"All this should be preserved, strengthened and protected against the US effort to defeat the deal all together," Ryabkov said as reported by Tasnim.
Elsewhere in his remarks, the Russia official said Moscow and Tehran could create a banking mechanism independent from SWIFT which he said could be subject to US sanctions.
Such a mechanism, he said, could be developed by using the potentials of Russia's MIR payment system. Other countries, the official added, would also be able to join it to help diversify international payment mechanisms beyond SWIFT.
"We would also welcome any efforts to ensure that SWIFT is modernized in the way that it is not just a simplified element of the world financial architecture but can easily be adjusted according to political preferences of one country or another one."
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Iran rejects US claims over Basra protests as 'provocative, irresponsible'
Iran Press TV
Wed Sep 12, 2018 01:54PM
Iran has rejected as "provocative and irresponsible" US accusations regarding the recent unrest in the Iraqi city of Basra, saying Washington cannot cover up its involvement in fomenting tension in Iraq by blaming others.
"The US administration's policies to create tension, its meddlesome measures and aggressive interference are the main reason behind instability, insecurity, tension and division in the region, and the policies of this country in Iraq have led to nothing but insecurity and instability," Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Bahram Qassemi said on Wednesday.
He added that the recent unrest in Iraq, including the attack on Iran's consulate in Basra, was the outcome of the US's policies and its "unwise and short-sighted policy, either covert or overt, to support groups promoting and spreading violence and extremism."
The remarks came in response to a recent statement by the White House press secretary that blamed Iran for the recent wave of violence in Basra. It also accused Iran of not preventing attacks in recent days on the US consulate in Basra and the American embassy compound in Baghdad.
Qassemi said the US claims "lacked credibility" and were "astonishing, provocative and irresponsible."
He said "the US government must be held accountable for its years-long support for the [terrors] groups in the region and issuing such suspicious statements that put blame on others cannot reduce their (Americans') burden of responsibility for creating tension and attacking diplomatic sites and state buildings in that country and other parts of the world."
He added that Washington cannot cover the consequences of its "wrong, fruitless and destabilizing" policies through playing "gauche" blame games.
Protests broke out in Basra early this month over alleged corruption and government neglect and later turned into deadly violence in the oil-rich city.
In the course of the protests, the Iranian consulate in Basra was stormed, with attackers setting the building ablaze in their brutal raid, causing serious financial damage.
On Friday, three mortar shells also struck the ultra-secure green zone in Baghdad, which houses Iraqi authorities and the US embassy. Unknown assailants also hit the perimeter of the airport in Basra on Saturday, although no damage or casualties were reported. The US consulate is adjacent to the airport.
Elsewhere in his remarks, Qassemi reaffirmed Iran's policy to contribute to promotion of peace, stability and security in regional countries. He said the Islamic Republic advocates a secure and developed Iraq, noting that plots by third parties will fail to undermine Iran-Iraq relations.
The US invaded Iraq in 2003 under the banner of "war on terror" two years after invading Afghanistan under the same pretext. The deployment was followed by rampant violence and chaos, which set the stage for the rise of the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group in 2014.
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US threatens Iran over attack on consulate in Basra
Iran Press TV
Wed Sep 12, 2018 05:02AM
The United States has threatened Iran with a response over the unrest in the Iraqi city of Basra, saying Tehran will be held accountable for any possible harm to the American citizens stationed there.
The White House issued the warning on Tuesday, days after protests over alleged corruption and government neglect escalated into deadly violence in the oil-rich port city.
At least 12 protesters were killed in Basra and many of its institutions and buildings.
Meanwhile, three mortar shells struck the ultra-secure green zone in Baghdad, which houses Iraqi authorities and the US Embassy, on Friday and unknown assailants fired Katyusha rockets at the airport in Basra, which also houses the US consulate, on Saturday.
White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders blamed Iran. "Over the past few days, we have seen life-threatening attacks in Iraq, including on the United States consulate in Basra and against the American embassy compound in Baghdad."
"Iran did not act to stop these attacks by its proxies in Iraq, which it has supported with funding, training, and weapons," she added.
"The United States will hold the regime in Tehran accountable for any attack that results in injury to our personnel or damage to United States government facilities. America will respond swiftly and decisively in defense of American lives."
The White House's statement is in sharp contrast with the assertion of Iraqi officials, who have blamed the US, Daesh terrorists and remnants of former Ba'ath regime for the recent wave of violence.
Angry demonstrators on Friday stormed Iran's fortified consulate, setting the building ablaze and causing serious financial damage.
"We have complete information and documents that show the US embassy and consulate in the country caused the Basra unrest," Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the second-in-command of Hashd al-Sha'abi, a volunteer anti-terror group, said on Sunday.
Muhandis said it was actually meant to sow discord among different Iraqi political parties and movements.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, who visited Basra on Monday, condemned the Friday attack on the Iranian consulate.
In recent months, US President Donald Trump has repeatedly touted his administration's success in defeating Daesh and destroying its so-called caliphate in Iraq and neighboring Syria.
However, the Pentagon acknowledged last month that the terrorist organization appeared to be "well-positioned to rebuild and work on enabling its physical caliphate to re-emerge."
The US first deployed forces to Iraq in 2003 under the banner of "war on terror" two years after invading Afghanistan under the same pretext. The deployment was followed by rampant violence and chaos, which set the stage for the rise of Daesh in 2014.
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Iran Calls U.S. Blame Over Iraq Attacks 'Astonishing, Provocative'
RFE/RL September 12, 2018
Iran's Foreign Ministry has described accusations by the United States that Tehran's allies were responsible for recent attacks on U.S. diplomatic missions in Iraq as "astonishing, provocative, and irresponsible," Iranian media report.
The semiofficial ISNA news agency quoted ministry spokesman Bahram Qasemi as making the remarks on September 12, the day after the United States warned it would hold Iran accountable for any attack by its proxies and allies that results in injury to its personnel or damage to U.S. government facilities.
"America will respond swiftly and decisively in defense of American lives," the White House said in a statement on September 11.
The warning came after the U.S. Consulate in the southern Iraqi city of Basra was hit by rocket fire on September 8.
A day prior to that, three mortars landed inside Baghdad's Green Zone, where the U.S. Embassy is located.
No casualties or damage was reported in either case, but the mortar attack was the first in several years on the Green Zone.
Qasemi blamed the attacks on U.S. support for "groups that have spread and promoted violence and extremism," ISNA reported.
Basra has seen a surge in deadly protests in the past week, with demonstrators -- angry over corruption and the lack of basic services and jobs in a province that generates much of Iraq's oil wealth -- setting alight government buildings as well as the offices of political parties and militias backed by Iran.
The unrest also saw the Iranian Consulate in the city burnt down, and Iran's ambassador to Iraq on September 11 inaugurated the premises of the new mission.
With reporting by AFP and Reuters
Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/iran-calls-u-s-blame-over- iraq-attacks-astonishing-provocative-/29486379.html
Copyright (c) 2018. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.
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Conditions for elections not yet ripe in Libya, says Prime Minister Seraj
Iran Press TV
Wed Sep 12, 2018 03:01PM
Libyan Prime Minister Fayez Seraj, who leads the UN-brokered transitional government based in Tripoli, says conditions in the conflict-ridden country are too unstable to hold elections in coming months.
"You cannot vote with instability in the streets ... it is necessary that everyone accepts the result of the ballot. We need shared rules," Seraj said in an interview with Italian daily Corriere della Sera.
The premier also cast doubts on a French-led push for a vote in December, which purportedly aims to end years of turmoil across the country. "We had talked about elections in Paris, but the constitutional document, which is ready but not approved, must first be voted on," the premier added.
In May, French President Emmanuel Macron hosted a conference where rival Libyan factions agreed to work with the United Nations for a national election by December 10.
Elsewhere in his remarks, Seraj said factions would need to agree on a constitution before any vote is held.
"Unfortunately, the parliament of Tobruk has not yet examined it. Without the constitution, how can one go to a national vote?"
Seraj's Government of National Accord (GNA) has sought to unify powerful factions, but despite support from the UN, it has struggled to assert its authority since it began work in Tripoli in March 2016.
A rival administration based in Libya's remote east, with which military commander Khalifa Haftar is allied, refuses to recognize Seraj's government.
Seraj has close relations with Italy. His main rival, military commander Khalifa Haftar, is aligned with a government based in the east and is seen as closer to France.
PressTV-Political rivals seek roadmap for lawless Libya
Libyan rivals in Paris agree to hold elections in December, but a political roadmap faces major obstacles.
Libya slid into chaos after a NATO-backed uprising that toppled and killed longtime dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. France was at the forefront of airstrikes carried out along with the United States and others in the NATO operation.
Armed groups have vowed to resume hostilities if talks to be hosted by UN Special Envoy Ghassan Salame do not result in a lasting settlement.
In recent years, the country has also become a base for Takfiri Daesh terrorist group and other extremists and a departure point for African migrants seeking to enter Europe.
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The United States and UN Sanction Libyan Militia Leader Ibrahim Jadhran
Media Note
Office of the Spokesperson
Washington, DC
September 12, 2018
Today, the United States, in coordination with the UN Security Council's Libya Sanctions Committee, imposed financial sanctions on Libyan militia leader Ibrahim Jadhran. In accordance with today's UN listing, which was proposed by Libya's Permanent Mission to the UN, the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has designated Jadhran pursuant to Executive Order 13726. Consequently, all of Jadhran's assets within U.S. jurisdiction are blocked, and U.S. persons are generally prohibited from engaging in transactions with him. In addition, the corresponding UN sanctions require all UN Member States to impose an asset freeze and travel ban.
In June 2018, forces led by Jadhran violently attacked and seized control of the Libyan oil ports Ras Lanuf and Al Sidra. This created an economic and political crisis that cost Libya more than $1.4 billion in revenue and set back efforts to promote political progress and stability in Libya.
Libya's oil facilities, production, and revenues belong to the Libyan people. These vital Libyan resources must remain under the exclusive control of the legitimate National Oil Corporation (NOC) and the sole oversight of the Government of National Accord (GNA), as emphasized in multiple UN Security Council Resolutions.
Today's action shows that the United States and the international community will take concrete and forceful action in response to those who undermine Libya's peace, security, or stability.
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Treasury Sanctions Militia Leader Responsible for Multiple Attacks on Libyan Oil Facilities
U.S. Department of the Treasury
September 12, 2018
WASHINGTON The U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) took action today targeting the leader of a militia in Libya that has been the cause of many fatalities this year alone and that has repeatedly attacked critical Libyan oil facilities, causing severe damage to Libya's economy. Ibrahim Jadhran oversaw forces that attacked Libyan oil facilities in the "oil crescent," a lucrative target for rogue militias and criminals, thereby damaging the peace and stability of Libya.
"Jadhran's repeated militia attacks on Libya's oil facilities have done colossal damage to its economy and robbed the Libyan people of billions of dollars in oil revenue," said Sigal Mandelker, Treasury Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence. "The wealth generated by Libya's 'oil crescent' belongs to the Libyan people and the legitimate government in Tripoli, and Treasury is taking forceful action against rogue criminals and militia forces who undermine peace and security."
OFAC designated Ibrahim Jadhran pursuant to Executive Order (E.O.) 13726, "Blocking Property and Suspending Entry Into the United States of Persons Contributing to the Situation in Libya," for being the leader of an entity that has, or whose members have, engaged in planning, directing, or committing attacks against any Libyan state facility or installation (including oil facilities), against any air, land, or sea port in Libya, or against any foreign mission in Libya.
In June 2018, militia forces under Jadhran's command attacked and seized control of two oil export terminals in the Libya's vital "oil crescent" region, which is the source of the majority of Libya's oil exports. The damage resulting from attacks to these oil facilities resulted in tens of millions of dollars lost each day the facilities were offline. By the time the facilities were retaken days later, the economic and political crisis cost Libya more than $1.4 billion in lost revenue and negatively impacted efforts to promote political progress and stability.
This was Jadhran's most recent attempt to regain control of the "oil crescent" since 2016, when Jadhran's forces were previously ousted from the "oil crescent." Jadhran's attacks have impacted Libyan oil exports since 2013, which has led to billions of dollars of lost revenue for the Libyan economy. In 2014, Jadhran was responsible for the attempt of the vessel Morning Glory to load illicit crude oil from the port of el Sidra, which was later inspected by the United States Navy and returned to Libya.
The United States' action, any property, or interests in property, of Ibrahim Jadhran within U.S. jurisdiction are blocked, and U.S. persons are generally prohibited from engaging in transactions with him. Additionally, the corresponding UN sanctions obligate all UN Member States to impose an asset freeze and travel ban.
Identifying information on the individual designated today.
####
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Myanmar finally grants UN first access to Rakhine before Rohingya returns
Iran Press TV
Wed Sep 12, 2018 01:52PM
The United Nations has begun assessment of conditions in Myanmar's Rakhine state after it was finally given permission to operate there for the first time since violence escalated last year and forced more than 700,000 Rohingya Muslims to flee to neighboring Bangladesh.
Myanmar granted specialists from the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) the permission to enter northern Rakhine on Friday before work began on Wednesday.
"The team is on the ground and commenced with the first assessments today," UNHCR spokeswoman Aoife McDonnell said Wednesday.
The access came two months after the UN signed an agreement with Myanmar that would give its agencies access to the epicenter of the Rohingya crisis as members of the persecuted minority fear returning to their home country. The deal aimed to pave the way for voluntary repatriation of Rohingya refugees.
More than 700,000 members of the Muslim minority group have fled the state-sponsored violence to southeast Bangladesh since the military launched a crackdown on the Rohingya in August 2017. The UN has described the campaign as a textbook example of "ethnic cleansing," saying it possibly amounts to "genocide" as well.
Bangladesh and Myanmar reached an agreement in December for the repatriation of the Rohingya to begin in January. However, many refugees still refuse to return to Myanmar out of fears that they might be subject to renewed crackdown by the military and Buddhist mobs.
The UN teams are expected to visit 23 villages and three additional clusters of hamlets. This first step of the UN's "confidence-building measures" is estimated to take two weeks.
The expectation is this "very initial and small step in terms of access will be expanded rapidly to all areas covered" by the deal, McDonnell added.
On Monday, the United Nations' new human rights chief called for the establishment of "an independent international mechanism" to prepare criminal indictments against Myanmar's military for atrocities committed against the Rohingya Muslim community.
Her remarks preceded a ruling by the International Criminal Court that it has jurisdiction to probe the forced deportations of Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar to neighboring Bangladesh as a possible crime against humanity.
The Rohingya, who have lived in Myanmar for generations, are denied citizenship and are branded illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, which likewise denies them citizenship.
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CPJ: Pakistan's Military Curbing Press Freedoms Using Fear, Intimidation
RFE/RL September 12, 2018
The climate for press freedom in Pakistan is deteriorating as the country's powerful army "quietly, but effectively" restricts reporting through "intimidation" and other means, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) says in a new report.
The report, released on September 12, says the military is preventing journalists from doing their work by "barring access, encouraging self-censorship through direct and indirect acts of intimidation, and even allegedly instigating violence against reporters.
"Journalists who push back or are overly critical of authorities are attacked, threatened, or arrested," according to the report, which is based on interviews with journalists during a mission to Pakistan this year.
The "deterioration" in the climate for press freedom in Pakistan comes as fewer journalists have been killed in recent years, but the organization says impunity remained entrenched, with the military, intelligence, and military-affiliated political groups suspected in the killings of 22 reporters in the past decade.
"While the decline in the killing of journalists is encouraging, the government needs to counteract pressures that have resulted in rampant self-censorship and threats to the media," said Steven Butler, the Asia program coordinator at the New York-based watchdog.
"Pakistan must address the disturbing trend of impunity and attacks on journalists to shore up this faltering pillar of democracy," he added.
According to the report, the military, which plays an unusually prominent role in the South Asian nation's domestic and foreign affairs, has used its battle against terrorism as a pretext to pressure the media.
The CPJ said it was told by the journalists that the media has been "under siege" since 2014, when the attempted murder of Geo TV anchor Hamid Mir "led to a fallout among media groups and with the military."
That year, the Pakistani Taliban also carried out an attack in the northwestern city of Peshawar that left 150 people dead, prompting a military crackdown on militancy. With high-profile attacks on reporters, the CPJ quoted journalists as saying that they are "often forced to play it safe by toning down or avoiding controversial but newsworthy stories."
"Privately, senior editors and journalists say that conditions for the free press are as bad as when the country was under military dictatorship, and journalists were flogged and newspapers forced to close," says the CPJ report.
Pakistan's military has ruled for approximately half the period since the country's independence in 1947, staging coups three times.
The Pakistani media have come under unprecedented pressure in recent months from the all-powerful army but also hard-line religious groups and militant organizations.
In May, the distribution of Pakistan's oldest newspaper, Dawn, was disrupted across most of the country. The disruption came days after Dawn published an interview with ousted Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in which he criticized the army and alleged it was backing militants who carried out the deadly attacks in the Indian city of Mumbai in 2008.
In April, Geo TV, part of Pakistan's largest commercial media group, Jang, was taken off the air in many parts of the country. The ban ended a month later after talks between the military and the network's chiefs.
Meanwhile, prominent Pakistani columnists have had their writing on sensitive topics rejected by news outlets, without explanation.
Prominent Pakistani journalist Taha Siddiqui left Pakistan in January, shortly after armed men beat, threatened, and attempted to kidnap him in broad daylight in the capital, Islamabad.
Siddiqui is known in his homeland for his critical reporting on the military.
Cyril Almeida, a leading columnist and assistant editor at Dawn, was barred from leaving the country in 2016 shortly after he wrote an article about a rift between the government and the military. He left for New York when the government order was lifted weeks later.
The media watchdog Reporters Without Borders ranked Pakistan 139th out of 180 countries in its 2018 press freedom index.
Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/cpj-pakistan-s-military-curbing-press -freedom-using-fear-intimidation/29485269.html
Copyright (c) 2018. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.
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In Russia, a whopping 300,000 troops drilling for readiness
Iran Press TV
Wed Sep 12, 2018 06:04AM
A drill mobilizing at least 300,000 troops, thousands of vehicles, fighter jets, and warships has gotten underway in Russia.
The military drill, dubbed "Vostok-2018" (East-2018), started on Tuesday in Russia's Eastern Military District a sparsely-populated area close to its borders with China and Mongolia. It will run until September 17.
The exercise, described by Russia's Defense Ministry as the country's largest drills since the end of the Cold War, also incorporates contingents from China and Mongolia.
Images provided by the ministry showed columns of tanks, armored vehicles, and warships on the move and combat helicopters and fighter aircraft getting into position for the initial stage of the drill.
Some weapon systems will be showcased in the drill for the first time.
The Russian Airborne Troops will be deploying their freshly-supplied BMD-4M air-dropped infantry fighting vehicles and Patriot pickup trucks armed with Kornet anti-tank missiles for the first time during the drill.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has described the exercise as essential "in the current international situation, which is often aggressive and unfriendly toward our country."
Some 3,500 Chinese troops and a small contingent of Mongolian soldiers will also take part in the military maneuver.
Russian President Vladimir Putin praised his country's increasingly close ties with China as he met his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, on Tuesday.
As the commander-in-chief of Russia's armed forces, Putin is expected to observe the exercises later this week.
President Putin is currently hosting world leaders, including President Xi, at the Russian-sponsored Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok on the Russian Pacific coast.
"We have trustworthy ties in political, security, and defense spheres," said the Russian president.
The Chinese President, for his part, said that the two countries' "friendship is getting stronger all the time."
NATO, which has already condemned the drill as a rehearsal for "large-scale conflict," said it would monitor the exercise closely, as will the United States, whose relations with both Moscow and Beijing have been fraying.
Message to US, NATO?
Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman Wu Qian, however, explained that the drill was not aimed at any third party and did not "have anything to do with the regional situation."
"China's participation is aimed at consolidating and further developing the comprehensive and strategic partnership of coordination between China and Russia," Wu said.
Some observers, however, see the drill as a message to Washington and NATO, at a time of heightened tensions with both Beijing and Moscow.
"With its Vostok 2018 exercise, Russia sends a message that it regards the US as a potential enemy and China as a potential ally," said Dmitri Trenin, a former Russian army colonel.
He said by sending its forces to train with Russia, China is also "signaling that US pressure is pushing it toward much closer military cooperation with Moscow."
A retired Russian general also explained the massive drill as "a response to the US sanctions."
"The maneuvers are aimed at deterring the aggressive intentions of the US and NATO," Russian Interfax news agency quoted Leonid Ivashov as saying.
NATO has often held military maneuvers near Russia's western borders, stationing advanced military hardware. It has also been trying to co-opt more countries from near Russia.
The US, which has a strong military presence in the Asia-Pacific region, dominates the 29-member NATO.
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OPCW urged to prevent use of chemical weapons in Idleb
IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency
Tehran, Sept 12, IRNA -- Russia called upon the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) not to allow any act of provocation by the use of chemical weapons in Idleb province.
Permanent Representative of Russia to OPCW Alexander Shulgin said that the Organization should speak up to prevent the occurrence of any provocative act, SANA reported from Berlin.
The Russian Defense Ministry had revealed reliable information confirming that terrorist organization started filming scenes of a fabricated chemical attack in Jisr al-Shughour city in the countryside of Idleb to accuse the Syrian Arab Army of committing it.
Shulgin added that some delegations have agreed on this viewpoint as Russia pointed out to the necessity of working hard to prevent the occurrence of such a provocative behavior.
1396**1396
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UN Chief warns of consequences of battle in Idlib
IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency
Tehran, Sept 12, IRNA -- Antonio Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations in a message warned of the humanitarian consequences of war in Syrian city of Idlib.
'A full-scale battle in Syria's Idlib province will create a humanitarian nightmare unlike any seen in this blood-soaked conflict,' Guterres tweeted on Wednesday.
'My message to all parties: Protect civilians. Preserve hospitals. Respect international humanitarian law,' he added.
He went to on to say that 'fighting terrorism does not absolve warring parties of their core obligations under international law.'
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the final statement of Tehran summit, released on September 7, emphasized their strong and continued commitment to the sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity of the Syrian Arab Republic as well as to the purposes and principles of the UN Charter and highlighted that they should be respected by all.
Tehran summit was held while the Syrian army is preparing to liberate the last major stronghold of terrorist groups in Idlib in northwestern Syria.
In the meantime Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in a Twitter message said 'as @realDonaldTrump destroys US credibility & humiliates his 'allies' with 'little games', we're delighted to engage with responsible powers today in Tehran to further move towards political solution in #Syria. Agreed to work to end terrorism & avoid human suffering in #Idlib.'
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2nd round of talks on Syria Constitutional Committee held in Geneva
ISNA - Iranian Students' News Agency
Wed / 12 September 2018 / 14:45
Tehran (ISNA) - Four days after the successful meeting of the guarantor states of the Astana process in Tehran, in which the three countries' presidents stressed on the need for continuing cooperation to facilitate the formation of Syria's constitutional committee, their representatives held a meeting on the Arab country's constitution in Geneva, Switzerland.
In the meeting, Hossein Jaberi Ansari, Alexander Lavrentiev and Sedat Onal, the top negotiators of Iran, Russia and Turkey in the Syria peace process, and UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura discussed the constitutional committee.
The participants discussed progress in the political process to settle the Syrian conflict, particularly the formation of the constitutional committee and stressed the following points:
1. The political process must be intra-Syrian and the integrated national sovereignty of Syria must be protected.
2. The composition of the committee must be acceptable to various sides and should be based on the facts on the ground in Syria.
3. All issues and details regarding the constitutional committee will be agreed upon as a single package.
4. Considering the sensitivity of issues and the consequences of the multi-year crisis in the country, making arrangements for formation of such a constitutional committee is time-consuming. But all sides stressed on the need for paying attention to both the speed and quality of the process.
In the meeting, the representatives of the three guarantors of the peace process in Syria agreed to create a working group comprising their experts to prepare the ground for consultations with the UN to facilitate the creation of the constitutional committee. They also agreed to start the third round of consultations late October.
End Item
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Militants kidnap kids to stage chemical weapons attack in Syria's Idlib: Russia
Iran Press TV
Wed Sep 12, 2018 03:55PM
Russia's Defense Ministry says the foreign-backed Takfiri militants have abducted children from Syria's Aleppo to use them in a staged chemical weapons attack in Idlib to be blamed on the Syrian government.
On Wednesday, Syria's official news agency SANA quoted the defense ministry as saying that the terrorists kidnapped 22 children with their relatives from Aleppo countryside as well as a group of orphans to use them in a false-flag chemical attack.
The ministry added that the militants are planning to use toxic substances made of chlorine against civilians in Idlib.
Last week, Russia's military said terrorist groups, including Jabhat an-Nusra, and the Western-backed White Helmets "aid group", which stands accused of working with Takfiri militants, met in Idlib earlier this month to prepare the final scenarios for the false-flag chemical attack which will target the cities of Jisr ash-Shugur, Serakab, Taftanaz and Sarmin.
Syria's Ambassador to the UN Bashar Ja'afari earlier said that Damascus had already submitted information to the UN Security Council that a false-flag chemical attack in Idlib was being prepared by the terrorists. He said they sought to lay the blame on the Syrian government to provoke a Western attack.
Damascus and Moscow have warned that the US, along with Britain and France, is gearing up for a new military attack against Syria as the army prepares for the liberation of Idlib.
Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem also said the United States was using internationally-banned chemical weapons to invent a pretext for a military campaign against his conflict-plagued Arab country.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with English-language al-Hayat magazine published on Tuesday, Muallem said it was not the first time that chemical attack claims had been used to justify an attack on Syria.
On April 14, the US, Britain and France launched a coordinated missile strike against sites and research facilities near Damascus and Homs with the purported goal of paralyzing the Syrian government's capability to produce chemicals.
The strike came one week after an alleged gas attack hit the Damascus suburb town of Douma, just as the Syrian army was about to win the battle against the militants there.
Syria surrendered its entire chemical stockpile in 2013 to a mission led by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and the UN.
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Iran, Russia call for continued anti-terror fight in Syria at UN Security Council
Iran Press TV
Wed Sep 12, 2018 08:25AM
At the UN Security Council, Iran and Russia have underlined the need to purge Takfiri terrorists from their last major stronghold in Syria amid strong objections by sponsors of militant groups fighting against the Syrian government.
During a meeting on Tuesday, Iran's Ambassador to the UN Gholamali Khoshroo defended the counter-terrorism fight in Syria's Idlib Province, saying it its part of the procedure to restore security to the war-torn state.
Iran, Russia and Turkey, the three guarantor states of the Syria peace process, believe that civilians should be taken into account in the Idlib liberation operation, he added.
Khoshroo also described dialog as the only way to resolve the Syria crisis, saying that last week's summit in Tehran affirmed the Syrian people's right to determine their own fate.
He further warned against attempts by certain states to stage a false-flag chemical attack in Syria and then accuse the government of President Bashar al-Assad of using chemical weapons against its own people.
The latest "fake" news on the possible use of chemicals by the Syrian government is nothing more than a scenario to justify another Western military aggression against the country, the Iranian envoy noted.
Touching on Iran's military advisory mission in Syria, Khoshroo said that the Islamic Republic is fighting terrorism at the request of the Damascus government.
On the contrary, he said, the US military presence in Syria is illegal and violates the UN Charter.
The Security Council met at Russia's request to brief the 15-member body on the outcome of the Tehran summit, which was attended by the Iranian, Russian and Turkish presidents.
In turn, Russia's UN Envoy Vasily Nebenzya told the UNSC that foreign-backed Idlib terrorists should not be shielded and allowed to hold civilians hostage.
"Terrorists must not be allowed to hold hostages indefinitely and use hundreds of thousands of civilians in Idlib as a human shield," he said, adding that "it is impossible to exist side by side with terrorists."
Nebenzya emphasized that the de-escalation zones in Syria were created as "temporary entities," not permanent ones.
"Sooner or later, they were to be replaced, first by local truces. And in those cases where that did not take place, by an anti-terrorist operation, which happened in other de-escalation areas, which are currently under the control of Syrian authorities," he said.
Nebenzya dismissed plans by the Syrian government to conduct a gas attack, saying that there was "irrefutable proof" showing that the militants were planning such an assault.
Meanwhile, US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley said that Washington would consider any large-scale military campaign on Idlib as a "reckless escalation" and called on Russia to prevent it.
"Russia, Iran and Assad are demolishing Idlib and asking us to call it peace," she said, warning that Washington would not tolerate the use of chemical weapons.
Nebenzya fired back and accused some Security Council member states of escalating rhetoric.
"The wordings started sounding basically along the lines that saying force against a sovereign state Syria can be used, and not only related to alleged use of chemical weapons, but basically also if there is a military operation in Idlib," he said. "We are not talking about a military operation. It's an anti-terrorist operation."
Prior to Tuesday's meeting, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres appealed to Russia, Iran and Turkey to find ways to protect Idlib civilians and avoid a full-scale battle there.
"It is important that those especially the three guarantors of the Astana process find a way in which it is possible to isolate terrorist groups. And it is possible to create a situation in which civilians will not be the price paid to solve the problem of Idlib," he told reporters.
Guterres also said he understood that the situation in Idlib was unsustainable, but "fighting terrorism does not absolve warring parties of their core obligations under international law."
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Geneva talks: Syria guarantors, UN agree on constitutional body candidates
Iran Press TV
Wed Sep 12, 2018 05:51AM
Following a round of talks in Geneva, Russia says the three guarantor states of the Syria peace process have reached a consensus with the United Nations on candidates for the country's constitutional committee.
Russian President's Special Representative for Syria Alexander Lavrentyev told reporters in the Swiss city of Geneva on Tuesday that representatives of Iran, Russia and Turkey had met the UN envoy and "agreed in principal" on the two lists of candidates for Syria's constitutional body.
"We are moving on and we have made some progress. We have agreed in principal on the first two lists [of candidates for the Syrian constitutional committee] - one from the government and the other one from the opposition. Of course these two lists will require final approval by the representatives of the three guarantor states and Mr. Staffan de Mistura, after the final third list from the so-called civil society has been agreed on," he said.
Lavrentyev also noted that a technical commission will be set up to accelerate the process of approving candidates for the constitutional committee.
"We need to speed up the process a bit, and for that purpose we have decided to create a technical group of experts, who will study all these questions and agree on certain names [of candidates from the civil society list] that would be acceptable for both the government and opposition," he added.
The official further expressed hope that representatives of the three guarantor states could hold another meeting in Geneva within a month, stressing that the Russian delegation will continue consultations with the Iranian and Turkish partners.
"It is very important for us to ensure successful work of the Constitutional Committee so that it could yield visible results," he said.
The Syrian government, Lavrentyev pointed out, "demonstrates readiness to help form the constitutional committee and launch its productive work."
Additionally, the Turkish Foreign Ministry confirmed the fresh agreement in the Geneva meeting on Syria's constitutional committee.
"During the meeting, they discussed the formation of a constitutional committee and its codes of practice which constitute an important step in the struggle of finding a political solution to the Syrian crisis," the ministry said in a statement.
It added that meetings between the three guarantors of the Astana peace process for Syria will continue.
Tehran, Moscow and Ankara have recently stepped up their diplomatic efforts to resolve the Syria crisis.
Last week, Iran's President Hassan Rouhani hosted his Russian and Turkish counterparts for a trilateral summit on Syria.
In a joint statement, the participants at the Tehran summit said the Syria crisis could only be resolved through a negotiated political process, and has no military solution.
'Militants in Idlib should surrender'
Elsewhere in his remarks, Lavrentyev said that Tuesday's Geneva meeting had also focused on the situation in Idlib Province, the last remaining militant stronghold in Syria.
Turkey, which backs some militant groups operating in Idlib, opposes an upcoming Syrian army liberation operation in the province fearing a fresh wave of refugees.
However, Iran and Russia strongly support the planned counter-terrorism battle in Idlib.
"It was noted that the situation there is really difficult and every effort is needed to spare civilians from suffering," Lavrentyev said. "Fight against terrorist organizations must be continuous and none of those present at the meeting called it to question."
He further emphasized that Turkey is responsible for separating Takfiri terrorists from other militants based in Idlib.
Russia, Turkey and Iran would agree on "scheme and mechanism" of the Idlib military camping, he said, adding that the situation will be settled in the Syrian province in a peaceful way if the militants surrender.
Separately on Tuesday, Iranian Foreign Minister's Special Assistant for Political Affairs Hossein Jaberi Ansari said that the Islamic Republic shares the UN concern about a potential humanitarian catastrophe in Idlib and will seek to avert it.
"We are also worried. We are going to work toward that not happening," he said in Geneva.
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In partnership with the National Park Service, Eastern National will host Janet Elizabeth Croon, editor of The War Outside My Window: The Civil War Diary of LeRoy Wiley Gresham, 1860 1865. Ms. Croon will be available Tuesday from 11 a.m.-3 p.m. inside the Chickamauga Battlefield Visitor Center to meet guests and sign copies of her book. This first-hand account of the Civil War details the perspective of a young Georgia boy.
Review for The War Outside My Window:
The War Outside My Window: LeRoy Wiley Gresham was born in 1847 to a prominent slave-holding family in Macon, Ga. At the age of eight, LeRoy severely injured his leg, which left him crippled. LeRoys mother gifted him with a blank journal so that he could record his upcoming journey to see a medical specialist in Philadelphia. LeRoy, then 12 years old, began journaling almost every day. His writings would become a primary source outlining events during the Civil War in addition to detailing personal hardships with declining health during his teen years.
The War Outside My Window is really a window looking into the thoughts and perceptions of a doomed teenager who watched the Confederacy die even as he was dying himself. Intimate, observant, thoughtful, often amusing, his diary offers a heartrending portrait of courage and resilience by a young man robbed of his youth, one personal tragedy amid the decline and collapse of the South. Pitiably few records survived to give us an understanding of the inner world of the young in the Civil War era. LeRoy Greshams Window lets in more light on the subject than any other source we have.William C. Davis, author of Inventing Loreta Velasquez.
Ms. Croon graduated in 1983 from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a Bachelors Degree in political Science, Modern European History, and Russian Language and Area Studies. In 1985, Ms. Croon graduated from the University of Dayton with a Masters Degree in International Studies. For almost 20 years, Ms. Croon was an educator of International Baccalaureate History at Fairfax County Public Schools. She developed an interest in the Civil War by living in northern Virginia.
Funds generated from a purchase support the programs at Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park.
By Trend
The Minister of Energy of Azerbaijan, Mr Parviz Shahbazov will deliver a speech at the official opening of the German-Azerbaijani Business Forum Energy and ICT in Azerbaijan, to be held on 9 October 2018 in Baku. In addition, Mr Keith Martin, CCO of Uniper SE and Mr Elshad Nassirov, Vice President for Investments and Marketing at SOCAR will address the participants as keynote speakers of the Forum.
The German-Azerbaijani Business Forum Energy and ICT in Azerbaijan will take place on 9 October 2018 at Fairmont Hotel Baku. This business event is expected to welcome high-level representatives of the Azerbaijani government and business community, including numerous (Deputy) Ministers of the Republic of Azerbaijan, the representative of the German Eastern Business Association as well as the Directors/CEOs of leading German companies in Azerbaijan.
In addition to the Impulse dedicated to the business climate and current projects in Azerbaijan, the programme of the event also entails parallel discussions focusing on innovation in the Energy sector and ICT as a driving force for economic reforms in Azerbaijan.
The German-Azerbaijani Business Forum Energy and ICT in Azerbaijan aims to present projects, proposals and needs of German and Azerbaijani companies and to identify current opportunities for cooperation. The main focus of the Forum will be on reforms and perspectives for partnership in the Energy and ICT sectors. The Forum is organised by the German-Azerbaijani Chamber of Commerce (AHK Azerbaijan) in cooperation with the German Eastern Business Association (Ost-Ausschuss Osteuropaverein der Deutschen Wirtschaft e.V.). Participation in the Forum is free of charge and the registration deadline is 1 October 2018.
France Ready to React in Case of Proven Use of Chemical Weapons in Syria FM
Sputnik News
17:14 12.09.2018(updated 18:22 12.09.2018)
Earlier, the Russian military said that it had evidence that militants in the besieged terrorist-held Syrian province of Idlib were preparing to stage a false flag chemical attack to discredit the Syrian government and prompt Western military intervention.
Paris and its allies are prepared to react to the use of chemical weapons in Syria, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said, speaking to French lawmakers on Wednesday.
"France is prepared to react firmly together with its allies in the event of the proven use of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime," Le Drian said.
Noting that "the situation in Idlib is extremely serious," the foreign minister said that "we are at the beginning of a humanitarian catastrophe."
Le Drian noted that the possibility of "war crimes cannot be excluded once one begins to indiscriminately bomb civilian populations and hospitals."
The French foreign minister also suggested that "the worst can be avoided" if Damascus were to "show responsibility," adding that "France recognizes only a political solution."
Earlier on Wednesday, the Russian Center for Syrian Reconciliation warned that it had intelligence indicating that the Tanzim Hurras ad-Din* terrorist group, in coordination with the White Helmets, was preparing to use chemical weapons against children, tape the incident and blame Damascus for the crime.
According to the center, nine scenes showing the alleged use of chemical weapons by Syrian troops against civilians were filmed this week in the settlement of Jisr al-Shughur, in northern Idlib, with crews from several regional networks as well as a US broadcaster said to be involved. The White Helmets and Nusra Front** terrorists have already approved the transfer of two clips to the United Nations and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), the center said. The Russian military also warned that preparations were being made for a chemical attack to be staged in the village of Kafir-Zait.
Also on Wednesday, Alexander Shulgin, Russia's permanent representative to the OPCW, called on the organization to not allow provocations involving the use of chemical weapons in Idlib.
The US and its British and French allies have already launched air and missile strikes against Syria based on false claims that the government had used chemical weapons on two separate occasions, in April 2017 and April 2018. Both attacks were preceded by disinformation campaigns supported by the White Helmets group.
The situation in Idlib, the armed opposition's last bastion in Syria, has been the site of international tensions in recent weeks amid regular warnings by Washington and its allies urging the Syrian Army not to launch a large-scale operation to liberate the province. Earlier this week, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing its own sources, that the Pentagon could not rule out strikes against Russian positions in Syria, nor those of Iranian advisors assisting Damascus in its campaign against the terrorists.
*An al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamist terrorist group outlawed in Russia.
** Aka al-Qaeda in Syria; also outlawed in Russia.
Sputnik
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Russia Calls on OPCW Not To Allow Provocation With Chem Weapons in Idlib - Envoy
Sputnik News
11:41 12.09.2018(updated 12:29 12.09.2018)
Earlier, the Russian Defense Ministry warned that it had intelligence indicating that militants in the besieged terrorist-held Syrian province of Idlib had started creating footage of fake chemical attacks in an effort to discredit the Syrian government.
Russia's permanent representative to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), Alexander Shulgin, has called on the organization to not allow provocations involving the use of chemical weapons in Idlib.
"[The OPCW] must bring its weight to bear on the matter and not allow this provocation to take place," Shulgin said, speaking to Ruptly. "A number of delegations have agreed with this view. We stressed that everything possible must be done to prevent a provocation," the official added.
On Tuesday, the Russian military reported that it had evidence to suggest that members of the controversial White Helmets rescue group were planning to film video footage "showing 'activists' 'helping' the residents of Jisr al-Shughur" in northwest Idlib following a fabricated attack by the Syrian Army using so-called barrel bombs filled with poisonous substances. For this purpose, the military warned, militants had brought containers filled with a chlorine-based toxic substance to the area to make the provocation seem authentic.
According to the military, all footage showing provocations involving chemical weapons use in Jisr al-Shughur would be handed over to regional and international broadcasters, several of whom had sent video crews to the area, and would be released on social media, by Tuesday evening.
In recent weeks, Syrian and Russian officials have repeatedly warned about the dangers of new false flag provocations in Idlib, the last major stronghold of anti-government forces including Islamist terrorist groups. Such fake attacks, they've said, would provide the US and its allies with a pretext to launch new attacks against Damascus. In late August, the Russian military reported on the deployment of US naval and air forces around Syria in the Mediterranean Sea and Qatar, which could strike in the aftermath of any new provocations.
The US, the UK and France attacked Syria on April 14, 2018, in response to the Syrian military's alleged use of chemical weapons in East Ghouta. The "evidence" used for that attack, which included video footage of members of the White Helmets "treating victims" in a local hospital, has since been thoroughly discredited. Before that, on April 7, 2017, the US attacked Syria's Shayrat air base following a similar provocation in Homs province.
Sputnik
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A record one million Syrians displaced over six months, during six key battles: UN investigators
12 September 2018 - All parties to the seven-year Syria conflict and the States that support them should do "everything in their power" to prevent a full-scale military assault on Idlib, a high-level United Nations-appointed panel of investigators said on Wednesday.
"All the other disasters would be minor events compared to what can happen in Idlib," said Paulo Pinheiro, chair of the Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic.
At a press conference in Geneva, to discuss the panel's latest findings on rights violations committed in Syria, Mr. Pinheiro called on "all parties to the conflict and those estates who support them, to do everything in their power to prevent a massacre in Idlib".
The development comes amid growing international calls for a de-escalation of violence in and around the north-west region, which is home to nearly three million people. They are some of the victims of an "unprecedented" level of internal displacement across Syria, according to the report.
On Tuesday, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres urged those involved in the more than seven-year war to avoid a further escalation, warning that failure to do so would unleash "a humanitarian nightmare unlike any seen in the blood-soaked Syrian conflict" so far.
The UN chief also underscored that while the presence of terrorist groups sheltering in Idlib could not be tolerated, fighting terrorism "does not absolve warring parties of their core obligations under international law".
Some 10,000 fighters that have been identified as terrorists by the UN are believed to be living in Idlib, in among 2.9 million civilians, Mr. Pinheiro said. The protection of civilians was paramount, he insisted:
"Of course, you don't have anything against fighting against terrorists, but something has to be done to protect the rights of three million people and one million children. I think that this is something that has to move the powers involved in this decision."
Unprecedented levels of civilian displacement
The latest Commission of Inquiry report is its 16th update on the conflict, as mandated by the Human Rights Council in August 2011.
It details how in under six months this year, as pro-Government forces moved to recapture large swathes of territory, more than one million Syrian men, women, and children were displaced in six key battles.
Most now face dire living conditions, Hanny Megally, Member of the Commission of Inquiry, told journalists in Geneva.
"Many of them are living in tents," he said. "Many of them are living in destroyed propertySo any further deterioration of their living situations is of great concern."
The panel's 24-page report highlights intense fighting between January and June in Aleppo, northern Homs, Damascus, Rif Damascus, Dara'a, and Idlib governorates.
Most battles were marked by war crimes by all belligerents, it says, including launching indiscriminate attacks, deliberately attacking protected objects, using prohibited weapons, pillaging and/or forced displacement.
In other instances, parties to the conflict failed to take all feasible precautions to protect civilians, as required by international humanitarian law.
Noting the "extremely high cost" to civilians of the battle to regain territory, Mr Megally said that some areas including Yarmouk camp in Damascus and parts of eastern Ghouta had been so heavily destroyed "that there is no foreseeable possibility of civilian return".
The panel's findings also detail alleged chemical weapons attacks by Government forces in heavily populated areas of Douma, eastern Ghouta, earlier this year. "Witnesses consistently recalled the distinctive smell of chlorine at the affected sites and on victims' clothing," the report reads.
On the munitions allegedly used in the Douma attacks, the report indicates that "material evidenceindicated a type known to have been used only by Government forces or, rarely by militias".
"What we've identified is rockets that were manufactured in Iran, that have been adapted in Syria and have been adapted in a way that they could be used, it seems, to then be filled up with chlorine and used in some of these chlorine attacks," Mr. Megally said.
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U.S. reaffirms support for Taiwan after recall of ambassadors
ROC Central News Agency
2018/09/12 12:31:49
Washington, Sept. 11 (CNA) The United States reiterated its support for Taiwan Tuesday after recalling its top diplomats to three nations in Central America and the Caribbean for consultations related to recent decisions by those countries to cut diplomatic relations with Taiwan.
The U.S. Department of State summoned the U.S. Ambassador to the Dominican Republic Robin Bernstein, the U.S. Ambassador to El Salvador Jean Manes, and the U.S. Charge d'Affaires in Panama Roxanne Cabral for "consultations related to recent decisions to no longer recognize Taiwan," the State Department said in a statement issued Friday.
At a regular press conference Tuesday, State Department Spokesperson Heather Nauert reiterated U.S. support for Taiwan, saying that those chiefs of mission will meet with U.S. government leaders to talk about ways in which the U.S. can support strong, independent, democratic institutions and economies throughout Central America and the Caribbean.
"We see Taiwan as a democratic success story." "It is a reliable partner to the United States and a force for good in the world," Nauert said.
The United States will continue to support Taiwan as it seeks to expand its already significant contributions to addressing global challenges and as Taiwan resists efforts to constrain its appropriate participation on the world stage, she added.
Asked whether she was concerned about China trying to influence countries that have official ties with Taiwan, Nauert said the U.S. recognizes the importance of worldwide development and the need to improve infrastructure all over the world.
In response to a question why countries like El Salvador should be punished or warned because of cutting official ties with Taiwan when the U.S. did exactly the same in 1979, she said "we have a relationship with Taiwan."
Washington does not see it as particularly advantageous to revise a set of practices that have enabled the U.S. to maintain close unofficial relations with Taipei and develop relations with Beijing, Nauert went on to explain.
Basically, "this is the kind of relationship that works for us. It doesn't necessarily work for every other government," she said.
Meanwhile, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Florida, said Tuesday she was pleased to see the State Department call back the three ambassadors.
The U.S. congresswoman, a longstanding supporter of Taiwan, who will retire later this year, also said she will ensure her successor continues to support Taiwan.
(By Chiang Chin-yeh, Rita Cheng and Evelyn Kao)
Enditem/AW
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Over 22,000 Taiwanese apply for Chinese residency in 10 days
ROC Central News Agency
2018/09/12 18:07:51
Beijing, Sept. 12 (CNA) Over 22,000 residents of Taiwan who have lived in China for longer than six months applied for mainland residency between Sept. 1 and Sept. 10, An Fengshan (), the spokesman for China's Taiwan Affairs Office, said Wednesday, citing unofficial statistics.
Effective Sept. 1, China began issuing residence permits for Taiwanese living, working and studying in China, according to China's State Council.
The new residence permits for Taiwanese are different from China's resident identity cards, An said at a regular press conference, adding that the permits serve as "identity cards" to increase the convenience for Taiwanese living, working and studying in China and are unrelated to any adjustments to political rights and obligations.
Taiwanese applicants are not required to either register on China's household registration system or to have their Taiwanese household registrations automatically revoked, according to An.
The new system is not designed to replace Chinese travel permits for Taiwan residents and the rights granted to the travel permit holders will not be compromised by the issuance of the new residence permits, An said.
In addition, Taiwanese will not have their tax filing status or tax liabilities in China changed, regardless of whether they have obtained the new residence permits, An added.
(By Lawrence Chiu and Evelyn Kao)
Enditem/J
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Symbol: AZM.TSX Venture
LONGUEUIL, Sept. 13, 2018 - Azimut Exploration Inc. ("Azimut" or "the Company") (TSXV: AZM) is pleased to announce it has recently acquired the Elmer Property where historical exploration programs revealed many high-grade gold-silver-copper-zinc prospects. Azimut also owns the adjacent Duxbury Property. Together, these two properties provide a controlling position over a highly prospective 32-kilometre corridor known as the Elmer Trend. Both projects can be accessed by the quality infrastructure of the James Bay region of Quebec, one of the most active regions for gold exploration in Canada (Figure 1).
Azimut's short term objective is to build a robust exploration model for the Elmer Trend. The Company is systematically reviewing and reprocessing the large historical database for the Elmer Property, and is undertaking a preliminary field assessment. The Elmer gold system has significant untested drill targets. Its geological setting and mineralized context share strong similarities with the Windfall Project in the Abitibi region (Osisko Mining). Past explorers have also compared features of the Elmer Trend to the Hemlo and Bousquet-Doyon mining camps.
The wholly owned Elmer Property was acquired by map designation and covers 158 claims (82.2 km2). It is located 285 kilometres north of the town of Matagami, 60 kilometres east of the municipality of Eastmain, and 40 kilometres west of the James Bay Road, a major paved highway. The Property is situated within the Lower Eastmain Archean greenstone belt of the geological La Grande Subprovince in the Superior Province.
Most historical prospects are located within an ENE-WSW corridor 12 kilometres long by up to 3 kilometres wide (Figure 2). The geology of the corridor is dominated by felsic volcanics, synvolcanic felsic intrusions and gabbro.
Selected previous results from high-grade prospects are reported below with the corresponding sample types: grab (G), channel (C) or drill core (D).
Gabbro Zone
42.65 g/t Au, 116.2 g/t Ag (G)
40.94 g/t Au, 116 g/t Ag (G)
35.2 g/t Au, 102 g/t Ag (G)
34.5 g/t Au, 101.7 g/t Ag (G)
12.65 g/t Au (G)
7.2 g/t Au (G)
Patwon
10.1 g/t Au, 4 g/t Ag (G)
3.83 g/t Au, 11 g/t Ag (G)
Gold Zone
102.52 g/t Au, 19.9 g/t Ag (G)
2.61 g/t Au (G)
Other significant prospects include, from west to east:
AJ-2 Prospect
1.16 g/t Au, 13.5 g/t Ag, >1% Zn (G)
0.45 g/t Au, 8.5 g/t Ag, >1% Cu, 0.59% Zn (G)
5.0 g/t Ag, >1% Zn, 0.17% Pb (G)
Boulder Lake
3.57 g/t Au, 6.9 g/t Ag (G)
West Zone
4.65 g/t Au, 160 g/t Ag, 7% Cu (G)
60 g/t Ag, 1.44% Cu, 4.7% Zn (G)
155 g/t Ag, 3.54% Cu, 3.36 % Zn (G)
0.13% Cu over 7.0 m; 0.23% Zn over 8.0 m (D)
Vein Zone
2.3 g/t Au, 4.2 g/t Ag (G)
Silver Zone NW
0.45 g/t Au, 10.2 g/t Ag, 0.43% Cu over 1 m (D)
Andesite Zone
0.76% Zn, 0.24% Cu over 9.7 m (D)
Silver Zone
3.1 g/t Au (G)
2.34 g/t Au, 18.2 g/t Ag over 0.5 m (C)
Patwon East
2.2 g/t Au (G)
A21 Zone
0.5 g/t Au, 45.0 g/t Ag over 30 m (D)
0.36 g/t Au over 31.0 m (D)
2.7 g/t Au, 5.0% Zn over 1 m (D)
0.8 g/t Au over 11 m (D)
East Zone
6.3 g/t Au (G)
The majority of the historical holes were drilled from surface down to 200 metres, revealing some evidence of lateral and depth continuity. Many targets remain untested by drilling, including the high-grade Gabbro and Patwon prospects. This 1,300-metre-long underexplored area (from Gabbro up to Patwon East) remains open at both ends.
Most mineralization on the Elmer Property is found in two main geological environments:
Sericitic calc-alkalic felsic volcanic and tuffaceous host rocks containing sulphide disseminations and/or stringers (pyrite, chalcopyrite and sphalerite) or, locally, semi-massive to massive sulphides;
Sheared gabbro or felsic volcanic host rocks containing disseminations and/or stringers of pyrite (chalcopyrite, sphalerite) associated with quartz carbonate-tourmaline veins.
The mineralization has been interpreted as a hydrothermal system associated with a synvolcanic porphyry intrusion. The underlying quartz-feldspar porphyry intrusion may have acted as the source of fluids carrying polymetallic Au-Ag-Cu-Zn mineralization.
This system can be compared to the Windfall Project (Osisko Mining) where most gold mineralization seems closely related to quartz porphyry dykes in contact with felsic volcanics or hosted in gabbro. At Windfall, gold is associated with disseminated pyrite and stockworks containing some chalcopyrite and minor galena-sphalerite. Strong sericite-carbonate and/or silica alteration haloes are present (source: InnovExplo 43-101 Technical Report on the Windfall Lake Project, June 12, 2018).
The wholly owned Duxbury Property covers 181 claims (95.3 km2). It is adjacent to the eastern boundary of the Elmer Property. The James Bay Road is located about 5 kilometres east of the Duxbury Property. SOQUEM has the option to retain this project under the terms of its regional Strategic Alliance with Azimut.
Geological and regional magnetic data indicate a probable extension of the favourable Elmer lithologies onto the Duxbury Property. In contrast to Elmer, Duxbury has seen very little exploration work. A grab sample from the only known prospect returned 1.9 g/t Ag and 0.58% Cu in a quartz vein.
This press release was prepared by geologist Jean-Marc Lulin acting as Azimut's qualified person under National Instrument 43-101.
About Azimut Exploration
Azimut is a mineral exploration company whose core business is centred on target generation and partnership development. Targeting is performed using a pioneering proprietary approach to Big Data analytics, enhanced by extensive exploration know-how. The Company maintains rigorous financial discipline. It has 48.5 million shares outstanding.
Azimut holds a strategic position for gold and base metals in Quebec, including one of the largest exploration portfolios in the James Bay region (22 properties covering 4,651 claims or 2,417 km2). The Company's current active projects include the Eleonore South Property (Azimut-Goldcorp-Eastmain JV) and a Strategic Alliance with SOQUEM covering the James Bay region over 176,300 km2.
www.azimut-exploration.com
Neither TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
SOURCE Azimut Exploration Inc.
VANCOUVER, Sept. 13, 2018 - Kootenay Silver Inc. (TSXV: KTN) (the "Company" or "Kootenay") is pleased to announce Capstone Mining Corp. (TSX: CS) ("Capstone Mining") has informed the Company that an exploration program is underway on the La Mina Project (the "Property"), located 180 kilometers southeast of the city of Hermosillo in Sonora State, Mexico.
Detailed geological mapping, rock chip and stream sediment sampling is underway in order to define potential drill targets on the Property. The Company is looking forward to Capstone advancing the project towards drill stage. Kootenay will report on results after programs are complete and Capstone reports them to the Company.
As announced on June 28th, 2018 (see KTN NR 18-14), Kootenay entered in to an option agreement (the "Agreement") with Capstone Mining, whereby Capstone Mining can earn an initial 60% ("Initial Earn In") interest in La Mina by making staged cash payments totalling US$600,000 and incurring exploration expenditures totalling US$4 million over 4 years. Following the Initial Earn In, Capstone may earn up to a 100% interest in La Mina in stages by completing certain milestones including preparation of a preliminary economic assessment, a pre-feasibility study and paying an additional aggregate total of US$8.4 million to Kootenay in stages at each of the various milestones.
Qualified Persons
The Kootenay technical information in this news release has been prepared in accordance with the Canadian regulatory requirements set out in National Instrument 43-101 (Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects) and reviewed on behalf Kootenay by James McDonald, P.Geo, President, CEO & Director for Kootenay, a Qualified Person.
Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
About Kootenay Silver Inc.
Kootenay Silver Inc. is an exploration company actively engaged in the discovery and development of mineral projects in the Sierra Madre Region of Mexico and in British Columbia, Canada. Supported by one of the largest portfolios of silver assets in Mexico, Kootenay continues to provide its shareholders with significant leverage to silver prices. The Company remains focused on the expansion of its current silver resources, new discoveries and the near-term economic development of two of its priority silver projects located in prolific mining districts in Sonora, State and Chihuahua, State, Mexico, respectively.
CAUTIONARY NOTE REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS:
The information in this news release has been prepared as at September 17, 2018. Certain statements in this news release, referred to herein as "forward-looking statements", constitute "forward-looking statements" under the provisions of Canadian provincial securities laws. These statements can be identified by the use of words such as "expected", "may", "will" or similar terms.
Forward-looking statements are necessarily based upon a number of factors and assumptions that, while considered reasonable by Kootenay as of the date of such statements, are inherently subject to significant business, economic and competitive uncertainties and contingencies. Many factors, known and unknown, could cause actual results to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date made. Except as otherwise required by law, Kootenay expressly disclaims any obligation or undertaking to release publicly any updates or revisions to any such statements to reflect any change in Kootenay's expectations or any change in events, conditions or circumstances on which any such statement is based.
Cautionary Note to US Investors: This news release may contain information about adjacent properties on which we have no right to explore or mine. We advise U.S. investors that the SEC's mining guidelines strictly prohibit information of this type in documents filed with the SEC. U.S. investors are cautioned that mineral deposits on adjacent properties are not indicative of mineral deposits on our properties. This news release may contain forward-looking statements including but not limited to comments regarding the timing and content of upcoming work programs, geological interpretations, receipt of property titles, potential mineral recovery processes, etc. Forward-looking statements address future events and conditions and therefore involve inherent risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those currently anticipated in such statements.
This press release uses the terms "Measured", "Indicated", and "Inferred" resources. United States investors are advised that while such terms are recognized and required by Canadian regulations, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission does not recognize them. "Inferred Mineral Resources" have a great amount of uncertainty as to their existence, and as to their economic and legal feasibility. It cannot be assumed that all or any part of an Inferred Mineral Resource will ever be upgraded to a higher category. Under Canadian rules, estimates of Inferred Mineral Resources may not form the basis of feasibility or other economic studies. United States investors are cautioned not to assume that all or any part of Measured or Indicated Mineral Resources will ever be converted into Mineral Reserves. United States investors are also cautioned not to assume that all or any part of a Mineral Resource is economically or legally mineable.
SOURCE Kootenay Silver Inc.
By Trend
Head of the Department for International Military Cooperation of the Azerbaijani Ministry of Defense, Major General Huseyn Mahmudov met with the Bulgarian delegation in Azerbaijan led by the head of the Department for Bilateral Cooperation and Regional Initiatives of the Bulgarian Ministry of Defense Daniela Grigorova, Azerbaijani Defense Ministry said in a message on Sept. 13.
During the meeting, the sides discussed issues of regional security, current state and prospects of developing bilateral military cooperation, as well as joint events.
Consolidated Contractors Company (CCC) has been named the number one international contractor in the Middle East for 2018 - marking four years running, according to ENR's Top 250 International Contractors report for 2018.
The Top 250 List ranks firms based on contracting revenue projects from outside their home countries, measuring their presence in international commerce.
CCC has been ranked within the top 24 of the Top 250 overall for the last 10 years. In 2018, CCC's number 18 ranking out of the Top 250 overall shows an international revenue of over $6 billion for the company, with more than $2.7 billion in new contracts in 2017.
CCC's president of Engineering and Construction, Samer Khoury, said the company was proud of its ranking - which holds a strong, leading position in the Middle East, Africa and the CIS.
"We are pleased to be a strong player in the international contractors market - we are seeing a turnaround globally, and are proud to be leaders in this significant, vital industry," Khoury said.
"Our construction operations span the globe including the CIS, Africa, Australasia, the GCC and other countries in the Middle East.
"CCC's major clients are international and national oil companies like ExxonMobil, BP, TOTAL, ARAMCO, ADNOC and QP. Our partners include some of the most reputable engineering companies in the world - Bechtel, Fluor, KBR, ABB, Chiyoda, JGC, Linde, Krupp Uhde, Hochtief, Technip, Saipem and Bonnati, to name a few.
"We are pleased to see international contractors also progressing in their social and environmental roles - along with their economic presence.
"We take great pride in insisting on solid business ethics, anti-corruption, anti-bribery policies and sustainable growth throughout our entire industry, he added. TradeArabia News Service
BY: Ghanaian staff in the UN
Category: General News
Riverbed, a digital performance company, will showcase platforms for digital experience management and next-generation infrastructure at the upcoming Gitex, a major technology show in Dubai, UAE.
Under the theme Maximize Digital Performance:#RETHINKPOSSIBLE, Riverbed will highlight its products Riverbed SteelCentral, the market-leading digital experience visibility solution for end-to-end network, application and end-user experience monitoring.
In the digital era, digital performance is business performance, explained Elie Dib, regional vice president, Middle East, Turkey and North Africa (METNA) at Riverbed.
Riverbed has evolved its portfolio significantly in recent years with solutions that help organizations maximize digital performance across every aspect of their business, allowing them to fundamentally Rethink Possible. By experiencing first-hand the breath of our portfolio of solutions at GITEX, attendees will understand why we are a necessary catalyst in the implementation and successful adoption of major technology trends including cloud, artificial intelligence, mobility and analytics.
Riverbeds unified and integrated Digital Performance Platform, brings together a powerful combination of Digital Experience Management and Next-Generation Infrastructure from the edge, data center to the cloud solutions that provide a modern IT architecture for the digital enterprise, delivering new levels of operational agility and dramatically accelerating business performance and outcomes.
The Platform also includes world-class support and professional services from Riverbed. In addition, Riverbed partners with leading technology companies such as Microsoft, AWS, Zscaler, Palo Alto Networks, and ServiceNow, which drives integration and further value for customers.
Participating at GITEX for a number of years, Dib continues, GITEX has always been a focal point of our efforts in the region. It enables us to showcase our latest solutions, thereby initiating and extending conversations with new and existing customers, Dib said.
While we intend to strategically leverage our participation to engage with CIOs and IT decision makers, we understand the shows potential to extend engagement far beyond this. During the five days of the exhibition, we have consistently managed to build and strengthen relationships with all stakeholders, from our customers and technology alliance partners to the channel, and this year will be no different.
Gitex runs from October 14 to 18 at Dubai World trade Centre.- TradeArabia News Service
Fluor Corporation said that the US Department of Energy (DOE) has extended its current management and operating contract of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) through March 31, 2024.
The contract is currently being executed by Fluor Federal Petroleum Operations (FFPO), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Fluor. Fluor will book the $2 billion contract extension value in the third quarter of 2018.
FFPO began management and operations work on the SPR on April 1, 2014. As a result of this contract extension, Fluor will continue to support DOE in the execution of the SPRs life extension engineering and construction efforts.
We are pleased that the Department of Energy has confidence in our performance and ability to deliver on the important work that is underway on the SPR, said Tom DAgostino, president of Fluors Government Group.
Fluor has a strong legacy supporting our countrys national security objectives and has a history as a prime contractor committed to our DOE customer. This experience is fortified by Fluors 100-plus years in the oil and gas industry and makes us well suited to enhance the critical mission of securing and maintaining our nations energy reserves.
The SPR is the worlds largest supply of emergency crude oil. The federally owned oil stocks are stored in underground salt caverns in Louisiana and Texas. Decisions to withdraw crude oil from the SPR are made by the President of the United States.
The SPR has conducted non-emergency sales of oil to respond to lesser supply disruptions or to raise revenues. Most recently in 2017 and 2018, the SPR conducted congressionally mandated oil sales to raise revenue for the US Treasury and to fund the SPR modernization program, respectively.
Founded in 1912, Fluor Corporation is a global engineering, procurement, fabrication, construction and maintenance company that transforms the world by building prosperity and empowering progress. TradeArabia News Service
Al-Futtaim Honda, the sole distributor for the Japanese automotive brand in the UAE, said Honda has been ranked as the Preferred Sedan Car Brand of the Year by the readers of The Filipino Times, a Filipino newspaper in the UAE, for the fourth consecutive year.
The Al Futtaim Honda sedan range includes the new Honda Accord which was launched earlier this year, the Honda Civic, Honda City and the latest Honda Jazz, said a statement from the company.
The award was presented to Fardeen Sara, general manager sales and marketing, Al Futtaim Honda, at a recent ceremony held at the JW Marriott Marquis Hotel in Dubai, it added.
Eric Benavente, regional managing director, Al-Futtaim Honda, said: We are extremely delighted to have won this award. It is further testament to how the Filipino community acknowledge Honda cars for their outstanding quality, durability, reliability and performance.
This recognition is extremely important to us as we continue to place the customer at the centre of everything we do, he added.
Honda was also nominated for the Preferred SUV Car Brand of the Year, it said.
The Filipino Times awards are based on voting open to its readers and the general public with over 40,000 readers casting their vote this year. TradeArabia News Service
Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA) said its board of directors has appointed Bryan Stirewalt as the new chief executive with effect from October 1. He succeeds Ian Johnston, who in late 2017 had announced his intention to step down.
During his tenure, Johnston made a significant contribution to the DFSA and was key to its development as a strong and internationally respected regulator, as well as to the development of the Dubai International Financial Centre, said a statement from DFSA.
An industry veteran, Stirewalt is an acclaimed financial regulator with a career that spans over 30 years in various public and private sector roles. He has been with the DFSA for 10 years, serving for the last eight years as managing director, supervision.
DFSA Chairman Saeb Eigner said: "The Authority plays a crucial role as the independent financial regulator of the DIFC. Stirewalt has played a vital part in executing the DFSAs regulatory mandate and developing its risk-based supervision framework."
"He comes with wide international experience combined with a thorough knowledge of the workings of the DFSA and the context in which it operates. The board and I are looking forward to working with and supporting Stirewalt as he takes the lead in steering the work of the DFSA and further developing its capability as a robust regulator," he noted.
On his new role, Stirewalt said: "I would like to extend my thanks and appreciation to the board for entrusting me with this responsibility. I am very privileged to step into the CEO role and look forward to further contributing to the DFSAs work in delivering world-class financial regulation in the DIFC."
Stirewalt has extensive experience in financial regulation and played an active role in supporting the work of international standard-setting bodies.
He now serves as the co-chair of the Basel Consultative Group, which provides a forum for deepening the Basel Committee on Banking Supervisions engagement with country supervisors.-TradeArabia News Service
Jordan-based prominent law firm Zalloum & Laswi has signed a collaboration agreement with Andersen Global, an international association of tax and law firms.
Initially established in 1993 as a law office by managing partner Azzam Zalloum, Zalloum & Laswi later became a full-fledged law firm and now has more than 20 professionals. The collaboration broadens Andersen Globals presence internationally and is a significant development for the practice in the Middle East.
Andersen Global chairman and Andersen Tax LLC CEO, Mark Vorsatz, said: The collaboration in Jordan provides us with a platform in a key market and our growth here is part of a larger strategy to continue our existing build-out of the Middle East throughout the next year. Zalloum & Laswis vast experience in commercial litigation and transactions, as well as their insight on the Jordanian judicial system positions us for continued opportunities for expansion.
Zalloum & Laswi provides in-depth knowledge on a wide range of legal issues to a variety of clients, but typically mid to large sized Jordanian corporations or foreign corporations that require representation in Jordan.
The firms practice areas include banking and finance, civil law, contracts, foreign investment, intellectual property rights, international trade and cross-border issues, corporate and commercial law, criminal law, litigation and dispute resolution, mergers & acquisitions, and real estate. Led by Partners Azzam Zalloum and Rasha Laswi, Zalloum & Laswi maintains a comprehensive understanding of local Jordanian laws and regulations.
We feel that quality and people are the heart of the Andersen Global culture, so we are excited to join the team and collaborate with like-minded individuals who share our value of putting people, both internal and external, at the forefront, said Rasha Laswi. Our priority is catering to the needs of each of our clients, which we achieve by providing quality legal services compatible with todays economic challenges. Our collaboration with Andersen Global will allow us to combine best-in-class tax and legal services internationally and even better service our clientele.
Andersen Global is an international association of legally separate, independent member firms comprised of tax and legal professionals around the world. Established in 2013 by US member firm Andersen Tax LLC, Andersen Global now has more than 3,500 professionals worldwide and a presence in over 112 locations through its member firms and collaborating firms. TradeArabia News Service
GREENWICH Jeffrey Gallagher got by on the skin of his teeth before he moved in to public housing.
The Greenwich native moved back to his hometown several years ago to be close to family. Working as a contractor at a car dealership, Gallagher waited two years to be accepted as a resident of Wilbur Peck Court, a family apartment complex subsidized by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. After nearly six years of living in the complex with his son, the single father has saved thousands of dollars. The money will allow him to phase out of public housing.
At a ceremony on Thursday at Town Hall, Gallagher was presented with a check for $62,000 the amount he saved through the federal Family Self Sufficiency program.
Narciza Rey, also a Wilbur Peck resident, received the $5,800 she saved through the program at the same celebration.
Im proud of myself, she said through a translator. [I learned] that somebody can really be independent and keep growing and actually be self-sufficient.
Rey has lived in Wilbur Peck for a decade. She currently works two jobs: cleaning houses and performing maintenance work.
I have to save a lot, she said. And I have to keep working all the time full-time, part-time, whatever I have to do to save the money.
When a federal housing residents income increases significantly, they are required to pay more rent. Through the self sufficiency program, which the Housing Authority of Greenwich contracts the nonprofit Family Centers to operate, the amount of that increase is put in an escrow account, where it accrues interest.
Participants set financial goals with counselors when they begin. They learn financial literacy skills, including how to budget, how to buy a house and how to maintain a good credit score. They also have access to family support and job skill training.
After five years, the residents can access their savings if they are employed and pay rent on time. The money can be used for investments in their future, like homeownership, car payments or tuition.
The program has been offered in Greenwich for 13 years. In that time, the housing authority has paid $277,000 to its graduates.
Because the federal government limits participation, between 50 and 60 residents at a time out of the 2,600 people the Housing Authority of Greenwich assists are served by the program.
This [initiative] is one of the only ones Ive ever seen that actually creates a safety net, so they can move ahead and get that education or get the job and move out of public housing, said Jessica Herlihey, manager of the self sufficiency program for Family Centers.
The clients are always motivated to better their financial situations, Herlihey said, but the program gives them the support they need to make their goals reality.
Every time a barrier or an obstacle comes up, were there to really push them through that, she said. A lot of times, what we hear from them is that this is the first time theyve actually been able to save.
Without the savings program, residents may not feel as motivated to work to increase their wages, because it means paying higher rent and receiving less benefits, said Myriam Zelada, coordinator of the self sufficiency program for Family Centers.
This is a program thats rewarding you for getting a better income, she said.
Most of the people whove gone through the program have come off public assistance altogether, according to Herlihey. Three of last years graduates recently purchased their own homes.
Its really amazing the difference [this program] makes in our local economy, Herlihey said.
WASHINGTON - In a rare break with President Donald Trump, a growing number of congressional Republicans are calling on him to reverse his opposition to giving federal employees a pay raise next year, warning his stance could hurt the party in November's midterm elections.
Some GOP lawmakers fear denying even a small pay increase to the 2.1 million civil servants across the country could be politically damaging in House districts the GOP is defending this fall, particularly those with heavy concentrations of federal workers that provide support to military bases.
"Look, a lot of members have a significant federal presence in their district and feel very strongly about this," said Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., whose constituents include more than 20,000 federal workers, the majority at Tinker Air Force Base.
"The idea that people who are comparatively well-off get tax cuts and we're not going to help federal employees get a reasonable raise . . . I think it's a signal to the workforce about how they're valued," added Cole, who was among 23 House lawmakers who sent a letter to Trump last week urging him to reconsider his position.
Shortly before Labor Day, Trump repeated his call for lawmakers to freeze the salaries of federal employees in 2019, a move he first proposed in February. House and Senate negotiators are working to finalize a budget bill that will determine the salaries of federal workers.
Unless Congress passes and the president signs a bill that includes a raise by the end of the year, federal pay rates will remain flat.
The chorus of voices from the right calling for a federal pay hike reflects an unusual pushback against Trump from members of his own party.
Corey Stewart, the GOP Senate candidate in Virginia, declared earlier this month he was breaking with Trump on the issue, saying that federal employees "wake up early, face punishing traffic and work hard to serve their nation and support their families."
Rep. Barbara Comstock, R-Va., said in an interview that she is hopeful Trump will change his mind, adding that Rep. Mark Meadows, chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, had spoken to the president directly and urged him to back a pay hike. A spokesman for Meadows declined to comment.
The day after repeating his call for a pay freeze, Trump said he was going to "study" the issue in the wake of objections from lawmakers.
But since then, the president has indicated to advisers that he is not inclined to relent, according to White House officials. Trump has been urged to hold the line by White House budget director Mick Mulvaney, whose spending plan early this year canceled the automatic 2.1 percent annual raise that federal workers receive.
Trump is deeply distrustful of bureaucrats in the federal government and has targeted federal workers as part of the Washington "swamp" he pledged to drain. The recent publication of an anonymous op-ed in the New York Times by a senior administration official deeply critical of Trump only deepened his antipathy toward a workforce some in the White House have derided as "the administrative state," officials said.
If federal pay remains flat in 2019, it would be the first time federal employees would not see an across-the-board raise since the three-year freeze that then-President Barack Obama put in place after the recession.
Such a move is harder to justify in the current economic climate, experts said.The vast majority of federal employees - about 80 percent - work outside the District of Columbia. region. Many of the Republicans lobbying Trump on the issue represent large populations of federal employees that could be key voting blocs in the midterms.
"It's one thing when it happens in the middle of a giant fiscal meltdown," said Don Kettl, a public affairs professor at the University of Texas at Austin, "but now we have the strongest economy in a generation and Republicans are being forced to walk the plank against their own constituencies."
In the letter last week to Trump, which was organized by Rep. Scott Taylor, R-Va., 16 Republicans and seven Democrats cited national security concerns as a reason to give federal workers a raise, saying they need to back civilians supporting the military.
Taylor, whose Hampton Roads-area district has at least eight military installations and about 30,000 civilian federal employees, said in an interview that he understands the president "wants to be fiscally responsible" and called the decision "well-intended."
"But perhaps there wasn't an understanding of how important this is to so many people" who play "fundamental roles in allowing the national security apparatus to continue," said Taylor, who holds one of three Virginia seats Democrats are targeting in their quest to regain control of the House.
In addition, 158 House Democrat led by Reps. Jamie Raskin, Md., and Gerald Connolly, Va., sent House leaders a letter last week urging them to ignore the president's position.
It remains uncertain how the issue will be resolved on Capitol Hill. Comstock, whose district includes 35,000 federal workers, said leaders on the House Appropriations Committee told her they would include a raise in the final budget, following the Senate, which agreed in August to a 1.9 percent increase.
Jennifer Hing, a spokeswoman for the committee, said the issue remains undecided.
The Congressional Budget Office said a 1.9 percent boost to federal pay rates would cost an estimated $3.3 billion in the 2019 fiscal year.
Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., has not raised the question of a federal pay hike directly with the president, according to a House GOP leadership aide. However, Rep. Steve Stivers, R-Ohio, who chairs the House GOP campaign committee, was among the Republicans who signed the letter to Trump.
Rep. Tom Graves, R-Ga.,, who chairs the House Appropriations panel examining the issue, said he is looking for direction from the White House.
"It would help to have a little more clarity from the administration and I know they're working through that," Graves said.
Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (Dewa) has formed a strategic partnership with Berkeley Artificial Intelligence Research (Bair) Lab. It is the first public utility in the world to do so.
This partnership is part of Dewas continuous cooperation with the University of California, Berkeley.
This comes after the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) by Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, MD & CEO of Dewa, and Diana Wu, dean at the University of California, Berkeley, during his visit to the US last June.
Bair Lab brings together UC Berkeley researchers in computer vision, machine learning, natural language processing, planning, and robotics, as well as cross-cutting themes including multi-modal deep learning, human-compatible AI, and connecting AI with other scientific disciplines and the humanities.
We lead global transformation efforts for utilities around the world. Through Digital Dewa, the digital arm of Dubai Electricity and Water Authority, we are redefining the concept of a utility to create a new digital future for Dubai. Dewa will disrupt the entire business of public utilities by becoming the worlds first digital utility to use autonomous systems for renewable energy and storage. At the same time, we are expanding our use of Artificial Intelligence and digital services, said Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer.
Dewa has launched Rammas as a virtual employee, which uses AI technology to answer all customer enquiries. It can learn and meet customer needs, based on their questions. It also analyses and evaluates available data to provide as accurate a response as possible. The service is available 24/7 on Dewas website, its smart app, Facebook account, Amazon's Alexa, and on Google Assistant. - TradeArabia News Service
Is a recession coming? Absolutely, positively yes. When? Who the heck knows?
Even with the economy as strong as it is, some economists warn that it could be sometime in the next year. Others are not so pessimistic. The media reports that unemployment is low and that Gross Domestic Product is on the rise. But then "They" say that housing starts have stalled and that wages are stagnant. But then "they" say that small and consumer confidence is at an historical high. Is all this conflicting data really helpful?
I've learned, as a result of the Great Recession of 2009, to keep an eye on three little known metrics that helped me to gauge whether or not an economic slowdown is coming. Of course, they're not completely foolproof. But they each have a reliable history of predicting downturns.
Related: The Recession Is Coming: How to Set Up Your Company for Survival
The Baltic Dry Index
No, this not a measurement of the price of spices in the Baltic. It's a freight index. It measures the cost of freight for products being shipped across the Baltic Sea, which is one of the world's busiest shipping lanes. The idea is that when global shipping begins to decline there is less of a demand for freight and therefore the price of transportation falls. This decline often precedes an actual turndown in the global economy, so a trend downward may give you a strong indication that slower times are coming. The good news is, as of today, the index has been holding steady around the same level as four years ago and is even trending up a little. But keep an eye out -- a decline over a few months period of time means that demand is weakening.
Related: How Your Business Can Thrive Even When a Recession Bites Hard
ISM Report on Business
According to its website, the Institute for Supply Management is the first and largest not-for-profit professional supply management organization worldwide and has more than 50,000 members located in 100 countries. It's basically an organization of people in the supply management chain. You know: purchasing managers. You know: the guy from the big company who beats you up on pricing and delivery and drives you crazy with his demands because that's what he does all day, every day, every week of the year. So who better to ask about the state of the economy?
Every month the ISM polls their membership about their current and future orders, production, inventory, employees, purchasing plans and business conditions to come up with their Report on Business for both manufacturers and non-manufacturers. You won't find these results mentioned on the evening news, but you'll notice economists talking about this data. More good news: last month's manufacturing index grew for the 112th straight month. A slowdown should raise your antenna.
Related: Finding the Real Key Economic Indicators for Small Business
Chemical Activity Barometer
Let's face it -- one of the facts about modern society is that all of the products that we use (and eat) contain some form of chemicals. Ugh.
But theyre not all that bad, and it's natural to contend that the more chemicals that are being produced and purchased, the more products are being sold. Of course, the opposite is true, too. The American Chemistry Council, an industry group for the chemical industry, likes to track that in their monthly Chemical Activity Barometer. This leading metric is a composite index that takes into account different sectors from chlorine to plastic resins and measures sales, prices, production, hours worked, orders and even building permits. The result is a two-to-14 month leading indicator that gives a pretty good idea where the economy is heading. Last month's index was flat, which may be a concern. The next barometer will be released on September 25th.
Yes, I'm leaving out a bunch of other interesting metrics. But these are the ones I personally use and cmonlets not get too complicated here. The important thing to remember is that you, as a business leader, must decide on a few good macro-metrics to make sure you're getting some idea of the future so that you can navigate your business through any upcoming downturn. That's your job and mine. Too many people -- our customers, suppliers, partners, employees...and their families -- are relying on us to be doing this. So please, have a few good metrics. Peoples livelihood may depend on it.
Related:
These Are 3 Little-Known Metrics That May Tell Us if a Recession Is Coming
The Number of New Startups Is Down -- and That's OK
5 Challenges that Lie Ahead of India According to the Economic Survey 2018
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Biman Bangladesh Airlines has ordered three new Bombardier Q400 turboprops after signing a purchase agreement with the Canadian Commercial Corporation (CCC).
Based on the list price of the Q400 aircraft, the firm order is valued at approximately $106 million.
We are very excited about adding these Q400s to our fleet. We currently operate two Q400s and without hesitation, we can say that these aircraft are ideal for our domestic and regional operations, said A M Mosaddique Ahmed, managing director and CEO, Biman Bangladesh Airlines. With its outstanding economics, comfort and operational flexibility, the Q400 will allow us to offer high-frequency services within Bangladesh and neighbouring countries.
Bombardier vice president of sales in Asia Pacific, Francois Cognard, said: We are very pleased that Biman is expanding its Q400 fleet with this order for three new aircraft, The Q400s greater seating and cargo capacity really set it apart from the competition. Furthermore, the Q400s mix of turboprop economics and jet-like performance were the best match for Bimans mix of short and long-range routes. Operators coming back for more Q400 aircraft really validates the benefits of the aircrafts unique characteristics. - TradeArabia News Service
It's been nine months since the beginning of 2018 and this is the first solid evidence that Samsung is readying a follow-up to the Galaxy A7 (2017). The 2016 and 2017 versions all launched at the beginning of each year while the 2018 model seems to be delayed more than half a year.
According to a Bluetooth certification sheet, the device is on its way and we are pretty sure the SM-A750N and SM-A750FN are model names belonging to the Galaxy A7 (2018) despite the fact that Samsung changed its naming scheme for the A-series this year with the release of the Galaxy A6 (2018) and Galaxy A8 (2018).
It will be interesting to see how it will be positioned spec and price-wise compared to the current A6 and A8 devices.
Source | Via (in Dutch)
For the first time ever, Apple has announced iPhones with Dual SIM functionality. The new iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max have this built-in, but in most places it won't necessarily be what you might expect.
See, the iPhones come with just one physical SIM slot as usual. It's just that this is augmented with an eSIM. So if at least one of the carriers you intend to use supports the eSIM standard, then you can take advantage of the Dual SIM function. Otherwise, you're out of luck.
The good news is that more and more carriers should start waking up to the eSIM reality. The bad news is that, at the moment, the list is very short: only 14 networks across 10 countries support this standard, along with worldwide service providers GigSky and Truphone.
Note that to use two different carriers, your iPhone must be unlocked. If a CDMA-based carrier (such as Verizon or Sprint in the US) provides your first SIM, then your second SIM will not support CDMA.
To use the eSIM you will activate your cellular plan with a QR code provided by your carrier. You can store more than one eSIM in your device, but can only use one at a time.
If you buy an iPhone XS Max in China, Hong Kong, or Macau, none of the above applies. Over there Apple will provide a special SKU of its biggest handset ever, one which comes with a proper Dual SIM setup. As you can see from the image above, the two cards will basically sit on top of each other in the slot.
Both systems use Dual SIM Dual Standby, which lets you make and receive calls on both lines. Note though that if one number is on a call, incoming calls on the other number will go to voicemail. Also, if you are active on a voice number that isn't your designated data number, data will not work while your are on the call.
As with other Dual SIM solutions on the market, Apple lets you label each SIM card, as well as choose a default line. The secondary line can be used for data only - a handy option if you're traveling and pick up a local SIM just for that purpose.
For each contact you call the iPhone will choose the same number you used last time. If you haven't called before, then your default number will be used. Yet if you want you can specify which subscription to use for a specific contact.
Source 1 | Source 2
Okay, we were expecting LG to spill the beans soon given that its V40 ThinQ is collecting regulatory approvals from the NRR and the FCC but we weren't expecting it so soon. In a blog post on its official website, the company scheduled an event to announce its new flagship.
The date is October 3 and the event will be held in New York followed by a secondary launch in Seoul, South Korea on the next day. The invitation comes in the form of a video that hints at a triple camera setup.
We've also had some revealing reports for the past few weeks as well as alleged press renders, but there are still plenty of questions left unanswered about the V40 ThinQ.
Source (in Korean)
Haiti - Diplomacy : Accreditation of 3 new Ambassadors
Wednesday at the National Palace, President Jovenel Moise, received the credentials of three new ambassadors accredited to Haiti. These are their Excellencies Mrs. Genevieve Federspiel Singh (Switzerland), Pedro Jose Sanz Serrano (Spain) and Jose Gomez (France).
These new ambassadors renewed their commitments to maintain close ties of friendship and strengthen bilateral cooperation between Haiti and their respective countries, and President Moise reassured these ambassadors of his willingness to work together for the harmonious development of relations between these sister nations.
It should be noted that Jose Gomez is the 23rd Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the French Republic to the Republic of Haiti since 1945. Professor and then career diplomat, Gomez previously served as First Secretary in Havana (1993-1996), Advisor Cooperation and Cooperation in Bogota (2000-2004) and First Counselor in Caracas (2004-2007). Back in Paris, he assumed the responsibilities of Deputy Director for Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean (2007-2010), then of Inspector of Foreign Affairs (2010-2013) and of Deputy Director of the Americas and the Caribbean (2013-2015).
Gomez was Ambassador of France to the Dominican Republic since September 2015
HL/ HaitiLibre
By Vasia Orion | Published on 2018/09/12
I'm already feeling sorry for this character, and he hasn't even been cast yet. Actor Song Sae-byeok may soon land his first leading role in a drama, having been offered the possessed detective in "Possessed". The sweet man with a tough demeanor sounds like he's going to have trouble adjusting to his new, double life.
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Song Sae-byeok is positively considering the role of Kang Pil-seong, a detective in the Sangdong Police Station. His nasty appearance, and even nastier tongue make it difficult to believe that he's an officer of the law, until he shows his badge. In other words, he walks a fine line between acting like a cop and a thug. Soooo, like most drama cops then.
Thankfully, however, it gets better. Although he's lazy and rough, he has one of the most important aspects of a good detective, his unbeatable foresight. Contrary to his appearance, he's also deeply contemplative, and has a kind heart. While he's not afraid of criminals of any kind, he's terrified of insects and ghosts.
That's right. Our soon-to-be possessed detective is terrified of ghosts, and he is about to be plunged into a case full of them, as per the premise I shared last week. Can this rough softie handle it? I look forward to finding out, and I hope as hard as I can hope that Song Sae-byeok accepts, and that Go Joon-hee and Yeon Jung-hoon join him. "Possessed" will be airing on OCN in January.
Written by: Orion from 'Orion's Ramblings'
Sources (1) (2)
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Harper was a "great journey" for University of Michigan student
When Faustas Udrenas arrived at Harper College in 2016, he wasnt sure if hed be missing out on opportunities, having opted for a two-year school over the four-year institutions his friends were choosing.
A big thing for me was that I felt like I wasnt involved enough in high school, and I wasnt enough of a leader or someone who was outgoing, said the Lithuanian-born 19-year-old from Crystal Lake.
Because of this, Udrenas wanted more than just a program to study mathematics he wanted a place where he could participate in extracurricular activities, engage with the community and connect with faculty.
Two years later, he wrapped up his time at Harper by addressing his fellow students as a Motorola Solutions Foundation Award for Excellence winner and Coca-Cola Scholars Program bronze medalist at Harpers Honors Convocation, utterly convinced that he made the right decision.
I think I got more out of Harper than I would have at a four-year school, said Udrenas, who recently transferred to the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Its been a really great journey.
Udrenas, who concentrated in math and graduated this past spring with a 4.0 GPA, was president of Harpers Honors Program. Other accomplishments included traveling to Phi Theta Kappa honor society conventions, helping to start a food bank for students, studying gentrification and homelessness with the Honors Program in London, and presenting his own research on evolving approaches to probability to the Honors Council of the Illinois Region.
The research opportunities were perhaps the most significant validation of Udrenas decision to attend Harper.
Research was easily accessible, I was able to do it with lots of professors, and it was well-developed, he said. I dont know how much research you could do at a four-year school, especially when the professors have these huge lecture halls and its hard to get that connection.
That personal attention was reciprocated through Udrenas own teaching at Harpers Tutoring Center, where he shared his love of math.
Once I started (tutoring), I realized how much fun it is to see things from other perspectives and try to help other students, he said.
Udrenas also praises the person who got him to see the discipline from another angle: Harper math professor Kyle Knee.
He made the whole class really fun and interesting, said Udrenas. He kind of proved to me that math isnt just a logical thing, it could also be a beautiful thing.
Knee himself has no doubt that Udrenas will succeed in future pursuits.
What made Faustas stand out to me was his interest in really understanding material as opposed to just memorizing it for an exam, Knee said. I could tell that he really enjoyed learning and was excited to explore and was ready to be amazed by what he was learning.
Udrenas has taken that sense of awe to the University of Michigan, where he earned full tuition through the schools Provost Award. He plans to pursue actuarial science or math, with the ultimate goal of becoming a university professor of pure mathematics.
Thanks to Harper, Udrenas admits hes not the same reserved teen who matriculated two years ago.
Ive been able to grow my confidence a lot. Ive had a chance to grow as a leader, both on campus and off campus, he said. Its just been a completely fruitful experience for me.
Phil Bredesen, in a campaign commercial, carefully refutes the claim he raised sales and gas taxes. But hes obviously been trained in Clinton-speak as he only denies raising sales and gas taxes.
Heres a message Phil probably would not approve: he did raise taxes on cigarettes in 2007, HMOs in 2009 and in true politician form he closed loopholes in taxes on businesses twice that generated a whopping a $724 million in additional taxes. Then he raised unemployment taxes generating another $240 million. You might hear Patti Page as Phil waltzes around the tax issue, but you wont hear what taxes he really increased in his application to become your senator.
As was cited in a recent post in this forum by Gerald Presley, Bredesen shifted funds out of the Transportation Department to pay for an ever ballooning TennCare. You wont hear about that in his expensive commercials. And as I previously pointed out, to also cover TennCare costs, Phil failed to make any funding improvements to higher learning. This placed an even greater financial strain on already burdened college students. Policies like this set up college students for the Democrat Socialists grand promises to pay off their loans and give new students free college. See how politics works for old Phil and his party and oh yeah, he never raised sales or gas taxes. He didnt need to.
Another commercial has Phil, sitting on a front porch appearing to reassure us, speaking like a wise old great-grandfather. But when he says, if President Trump proposes something that is good for Tennessee, Ill support it, ask yourself: is this just more Clinton-speak in a rustic package?
I guess it all depends on your definition of what is....is.
Ralph Miller
Pata Travel Mart (PTM), the Asia Pacifics leading travel trade event, was thrown open today with more than 1,400 delegates from 70 countries attending the exhibition being held at Mahsuri International Exhibition Centre (MIEC) in Langkawi, Malaysia.
Pata Travel Mart continues to stand tall as Asia Pacific's most value-adding networking and contracting event. For over 40 years, the events continued success has been due to its ability to strike the right balance between quality and quantity when it comes to buyer-seller appointments. This years Pata Travel Mart continues that strong tradition with some strong official figures, Pata chief executive officer Mario Hardy said in his address.
The international event, which got off to a colourful start on September 12 with an inaugural dinner reception dinner at the MIEC, has registered a total of 389 sellers from 208 organisations and 33 destinations. On the buyer side, it has hosted a total of 252 buyers from 241 organisations from 53 source markets. The event ends on September 14.
Speaking on the occasion, Yb Tuan Mohamaddin Ketapi, Minister Of Tourism, Arts And Culture Malaysia, said: As the host country of PTM, it is an opportunity for us to promote Malaysia as the ideal leisure and business destination. With an overwhelming 67 Malaysian sellers on board this year, we are really leveraging hard on this opportunity to meet international buyers. The Malaysian sellers include the private sector and state governments/agencies such as Sabah, Sarawak, Selangor, Penang, Labuan, Kedah and Johor.
A key area we are constantly working on is visa facilitation. Improved visa facilities in China and India are making it convenient for more travellers to visit Malaysia. In fact, we are seeing double-digit growth from these two markets due to the positive steps taken to facilitate their travel here, and we hope that this can be expanded to other markets, Ketapi said.
Malaysia has also signed up to be the Official ITB Partner Country 2019. We are deeply grateful to accept this titleship as it entails publicity opportunities globally as well as the potential to reach out to key decision makers and top industry players in the region, he added.
Malaysia had last hosted Pata Travel Mart (PTM) in 1986 and 2005. It has now returned, this time, to the beautiful island of Langkawi, which is being positioned by the country as a top-of-mind destination.
Last years tourism performance saw Malaysia welcoming a total of 25.9 million tourists with RM82.2 billion ($19.8 billion) in receipts. It is now targeting to grow to 30 million arrivals and tourist receipts to reach RM100 billion ($24.1 billion) by the year 2020.
Moving forward, our direction for 2018-2020 is to optimise digital marketing; focus on industry collaborations; leverage on major events for publicity; also leverage on mega projects coming on board in Malaysia; integrate our marketing campaigns with other Government agencies; and promote Malaysia as a filming destination, Ketapi added.
We are optimistic that the tourism industry will flourish in light of upcoming infrastructure and facilities developments, our promotional and marketing strategies for 2018 until 2020, and support from the Government and private sector, he said. - TradeArabia News Service
Montana FWP
Are you ready for hunting season?
Montana has some of the longest hunting seasons in the West, healthy herds of game and access to millions of acres of public land. However, hunters must be mindful of fire danger and of private landowners who are facing grass shortages, poor crop production and fatigue from monitoring for fire. Hunter harvest helps to reduce wildlife densities on a stressed landscape, and perhaps to help lessen winter depredation on hay stacks or winter range.
The badlands, farmland and rolling prairie of southeast Montana are home to a vast number of animals, including strong populations of mule and white-tailed deer, variable antelope numbers and a growing number of elk.
Mule deer in the region recovered rapidly from their low point in 2012, and since 2016 remain at one of the higher densities seen in southeastern Montana since current surveys were initiated in the 1980s. Following back-to-back severe winters in 2009-10 and 2010-11, mule deer numbers bottomed out at 61 percent of long-term average. Spring 2018 surveys indicate populations are 29 percent above long-term average.
"Drought conditions last summer, combined with a long, cold winter that stretched into late April contributed to some winter mortality," said FWP biologist Melissa Foster. "Our spring surveys indicate that deer populations are about 11 percent below last year, but that's not concerning because our deer population is still very strong. In just five years, we've gone from extremely low to extremely high deer numbers.
"The age structure of the population continues to improve," Foster said. "Early in that recovery, the population was heavily skewed toward younger age classes; we had lots of yearlings, lots of 2-year-olds, but fewer mature deer. That's perfectly natural. It's a result of the boom in production following the population decline.
"With fewer mouths on the landscape, almost everyone enters winter in good body condition," she added. "They're able to find winter browse and thermal cover, resources are essentially unlimited and fawn production and survival rates are extremely high."
Going into the 2018 hunting season, biologists expect that there will be strong cohorts of 3- to 5-year-old bucks on the landscape. Deer in the 6- to 8-year-old range will still be relatively few and far between, as these age classes would have survived as fawns or been born following the severe winters when fawn production and survival rates were low. The number of 5-year-olds this year should be modest, as they would have been born in 2013, a year with healthy fawn production but fairly low numbers of deer. Numbers of 3- and 4-year-olds will be better, and there will once again be high numbers of yearlings and 2-year-olds. Buck numbers as a whole are phenomenal; the region-wide average was 46 bucks to 100 does following the 2017 hunting season.
"We are still at a high point for deer numbers," Foster said. "At 29 percent above the long-term average, habitat degradation is already beginning to occur. The drought last year means that deer entered winter with fewer fat reserves than prior years. Huge numbers of mouths on the landscape means that it will be more difficult for deer to find good winter browse and thermal cover."
Habitat is important, and high numbers of deer can have an effect.
"Deer can and do have the ability to eat themselves out of house and home," said John Ensign, FWP Region 7 wildlife manager. "When deer numbers are high like they are right now, they impact winter browse. As that browse component declines, so does the number of deer that the landscape can support."
"It's counterintuitive," Foster said. "But the best thing that we can do oftentimes to improve deer numbers is to harvest more deer."
Good harvests can mean better deer health through the winter and into spring because the habitat can better handle the pressure. This often equates to higher adult survival, as well as increased production, health and survival of fawns born the following spring.
"The antlerless mule deer quota has been at 11,000 since 2017, which means there's plenty of opportunity for hunters to fill their freezers while helping to maintain herd health," Ensign said.
Whitetail numbers have held steady in southeast Montana. Epizootic Hemorrhagic Disease outbreaks have been localized in scale and small in magnitude since 2012. Local hunters will recall the last major EHD outbreak in 2011, which caused heavy mortality in whitetails throughout many parts of Region 7.
Region-wide, whitetail buck numbers are also very strong at 67 bucks to 100 does following last season.
"We are at a good place right now with whitetail numbers," Ensign said. "As deer densities increase, the risk of major EHD outbreaks increases. The disease is transmitted by a biting midge. When you get deer in close proximity, it's an ideal situation for disease transmission."
"It's impossible to stockpile wildlife, including whitetails," he said. "Whether in the form of disease, drought or harsh winters, Mother Nature always intervenes."
Hunters who do their homework by scouting and visiting with private landowners should have success locating good areas to hunt whitetails.
Antelope populations are variable across southeastern Montana. Herds in central and eastern Montana were hit hard by harsh winters in the late 2000s and early 2010s. The rate of recovery since then has been mixed in Region 7. Antelope numbers in the southeast corner of the state continue to be strong. During summer surveys, biologists observed more than six antelope per square mile in the southeast corner of the state, which transitioned to a little over three antelope per square mile in the more northerly portions of hunting district 705, and fewer than two antelope per square mile throughout the rest of Region 7.
"The message here is that the extra windshield time to reach the southeast corner of Region 7 is absolutely worth it," Foster said. "Hunters will find better densities and good public land opportunity in this remote portion of Region 7."
Summer production surveys indicate that southeast Montana antelope numbers have increased 89 percent from the low in 2012 to a recent peak in 2016 and have since leveled off. Despite a drought last year followed by a tough winter, fawn recruitment was robust this summer. Buck ratios are also strong at 59 bucks per 100 does prior to this hunting season.
FWP is offering more either-sex rifle licenses than in the previous few years, allowing more sportsmen to enjoy the opportunity provided by the current strong buck numbers. Doe-fawn licenses remain relatively low at 1,500, where they have been since 2016. Again, those wishing to harvest an antelope in Region 7, especially a doe or fawn, will have the greatest opportunity in the southern portion of the region.
These are good times for elk hunters because Montana elk populations continue to be strong across most of the state. In many hunting districts, however, access to private lands can be difficult, which can affect hunting success given landownership patterns and distribution of elk.
Even if you didn't draw a special permit this year, remember that Montana offers numerous opportunities to hunt for elk with just a general hunting license.
The most recent winter surveys indicated that elk in southeast Montana are continuing moderate growth and gradual expansion into unoccupied available habitat. FWP biologists observed strong calf recruitment - 53 per 100 cows - and an excellent composition of bulls - 43 per 100 cows.
The Missouri Breaks, Hunting District 700, and Custer Forest Elk Management Unit, HDs 702, 704, 705, remain the two "core" elk populations. Outside of these areas, elk numbers across the region are low, distribution is spotty and elk are primarily found on private land where public hunting access is limited.
Bull hunting is by permit only in HDs 700, 702, 704, and 705 and the far western portion of 701. In HD 703 and in the rest of 701, hunters can pursue either-sex elk with a general license.
New as of the 2016 hunting season is the 007-00 B license. This license is valid for antlerless elk throughout Region 7. During the archery-only season it is valid on all land types, and during general rifle season it can be used on all lands except for the Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge and the Custer National Forest.
Beginning in 2018, the general elk license will now be valid for spike bull or antlerless elk in HDs 702, 704 and 705. Previously it was only valid for antlerless elk. This change provides more opportunity for sportsmen, reduces accidental harvest of spike bulls, and is not expected to have a measurable impact on bull numbers. See regulations to determine which lands the general elk license is valid for during the archery and general seasons.
Additional antlerless opportunities exist in the region via a general and/or B-license, and hunters are encouraged to review the regulations for more details on those opportunities. It is important for hunters to note that there are no elk shoulder seasons in any of the hunting districts in Region 7.
Now needs to pass Senate to go to president
The Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa Indians is the closest it has ever been to receiving federal recognition as a Native American tribe.
Wednesday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill sponsored by Rep. Greg Gianforte, R-Mont., to recognize the tribe.
The Little Shell Tribe has had to wait too long for the federal government to act toward its well-deserved recognition, Gianforte said in a release Thursday. I appreciate the hard work, dedication and determination of Chairman Gray and the Little Shell people. Today marks an important milestone for the tribe, and I am proud that I could help move their efforts forward. Its time to get this bill through the Senate and to President Trump.
Little Shell Tribal Chair Gerald Gray praised Gianfortes efforts.
This bill will help restore the dignity of my tribe and force the federal government to stop ignoring us, Gray said in the release. We now look to the Senate to continue on the congressmans great work to secure passage by that chamber.
Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., who passed a bill recognizing the tribe out of committee last year the has not been scheduled for a vote on floor also called on the Senate to act.
Today is a strong step toward recognizing the Little Shell, but time is ticking away and the tribe deserves a vote in the Senate now, with no political shenanigans, secret holds or strings attached, Tester, whose first bill after he first took office in 2007 was for recognition of the Little Shell, said in a statement Wednesday. Federal recognition is long-overdue and I wont stop banging on doors in Washington until this bill is on the presidents desk.
Both of Gianfortes and Testers bills require the Department of the Interior to provide the Little Shell with 200 acres to use for a tribal government center, housing or other purposes.
The Little Shell, a tribe with 4,500 or more members concentrated in the Great Falls area but spread throughout central and northern Montana and across the nation, have been formally trying to gain federal recognition since at least the 1930s.
Montanas members of Congress have repeatedly sponsored bills to have Congress recognize the tribe, but the House passage Wednesday is the farthest those bills ever have gone.
The Little Shell evolved from a group of French and Indian hunters and trappers affiliated with the historical Pembina Band of Chippewa Indians.
The tribe has been without a recognized homeland since the late 1800s, when Chief Little Shell and his followers in North Dakota broke off treaty negotiations with the U.S. government. Tribe members later settled in Montana and southern Canada.
Gray and other members trace their other attempts back to the 1860s, when the Pembina Band of Chippewa signed a treaty with the U.S. government.
In 1978, the Little Shell petitioned the Bureau of Indian Affairs for recognition through the Bureaus Federal Acknowledgement Process. Despite a favorable report by the Department of the Interior in 2000 and recognition of the tribe by the Montana government that same year, the Bureau of Indian Affairs denied the tribe recognition in 2009 and again in 2013.
More than 500 Native American tribes are federally recognized in the United States.
Karen Ann (Skram) Eggen (March 14, 1942 - August 31, 2018) passed away August 31, 2018, at her home in Spring, Texas after a long battle with cancer.
She is survived by her husband of 52 years, Maurice "Maury"; her children, David Eggen and Kirsten Walsh; son-in-law, Lucien Walsh; sister, Reidun Erickson; and grandchildren, Cassie Eggen, Nathan Eggen, Elie Walsh and Axel Walsh.
She was preceded in death by her father, Alf Skram, and mother, Elie (Aardal) Skram.
A person who always put the needs of others before her own, she was the very definition of selflessness and courage. Although she spent many years as an educator and librarian, her most cherished role was wife, mother and grandmother. She loved her family dearly and always put them before herself. There was not a gentler, sweeter, kinder more generous person in the world than her.
Karen was born in Havre, MT, in 1942, attended high school and college in Montana, then taught for three years on the Rocky Boy reservation in northern Montana before marrying Maury in 1966. In 1967, she moved with Maury and their infant son, David, to Michigan, where Maury attended graduate school. Karen and Maury were in Michigan for 15 years before they moved to San Antonio, Texas, in 1981.
At the same time as she raised her two children, she also attended graduate school and obtained considerable training in library science. The library was always her first love, although she also taught elementary school when she first arrived in San Antonio. She and Maury lived in San Antonio for 34 years while Maury taught at Trinity University. She had a very rewarding career in the public school libraries of the San Antonio Independent School District. There are many children who learned a love of the library from Karen.
Karen retired in 2006 when she was first diagnosed with cancer. Even though the cancer was advanced, she successfully fought it for 12 years before the cancer finally won. During that 12 years she enjoyed traveling all over the world. Her last trip, Karen's trip, was to South Africa, where she was able to see giraffes in the wild. It was one of her fondest wishes, and she enjoyed every second of it in spite of declining health.
Karen's final wish was that her body be willed to support medical research. The family deeply appreciates the care and support it received from Texas Home Health Hospice and their caring staff.
A remembrance and celebration of Karen's life is planned for the springtime, near her birthday in March. Karen lives on through the life she lived, the love she gave, the lessons she taught and the family values she epitomized. She will never be forgotten. Her spirit is strong.
For memorials and more information about Karen please see https://pages.lightthenight.org/nc/Charlnc18/meggen/.
Downstream communities continue to suffer from abandoned Pegasus Gold mine
For the Fort Belknap Indian Community, the state of Montanas bad actor mining law is a matter of accountability, justice and common sense. We support the state enforcing that law against Hecla Mining CEO Phillips Baker.
Baker was the top financial official at Pegasus Gold when the company filed for bankruptcy. Baker moved on to his next venture, but those of us living downstream from Pegasus Golds abandoned Zortman-Landusky mines did not have that luxury. After obliterating areas of the Little Rocky Mountains that are sacred to the Gros Ventre and Assiniboine Tribes and contaminating streams with cyanide and acid mine drainage, the bankrupt Pegasus Gold walked away from its reclamation obligations.
For the Fort Belknap Indian Community, there is no walking away. Twenty years after the Pegasus bankruptcy, we continue fighting to control an endless flow of toxic pollution from the Zortman-Landusky mines. Acid mine drainage has reached our tribes powwow grounds and ceremonial sites. It has fouled drinking water sources formerly used by tribal members and harmed our ability to fish. The impact on our people and their cultural ties to the land has been devastating.
And the problem is not going away.
The state of Montana expects that water treatment to staunch the flow of pollution onto our tribal lands will be required forever, costing millions of dollars every year. Funding to continue that work, let alone address the root of the problem, is woefully inadequate.
Against this backdrop, the decision by Gov. Steve Bullock and the Montana Department of Environmental Quality to enforce the bad actor law against a top executive of Pegasus Gold is only common sense. Why should Baker be allowed to come back to Montana and profit from new mines as Heclas CEO while our community continues to suffer from the fallout of his last venture in the state? How is that fair?
Mining companies and their executives should be held accountable for their pollution. Those that claim Baker should be welcomed back to Montana under his new corporate banner have not suffered the consequences of mining pollution as we have.
The states job is to protect its citizens and our environment. Handing out new mining permits to the top officials of Pegasus Gold while our community continues to suffer from their abandoned mines and all Montana taxpayers bear the companys financial burdens would fly in the face of those basic responsibilities.
If Baker wants to mine in Montana again, he must pay back the public for the costs of cleaning up his former companies messes. Those funds could be put to work immediately arresting the contamination of our tribal lands from the Zortman-Landusky mines and providing resources for perpetual water treatment. Unless and until Baker takes responsibility as the law requires, he and his new company, Hecla, should not be allowed to profit from new mines in Montana. DEQ has done the right thing by enforcing the bad actor law against Baker.
Andrew Werk Jr.
President, Fort Belknap Indian Community Council
By TwoCircles.net Staff Reporter
In two days time, students will be voting for representatives in the university-wide student union elections in Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi. Like the past few years, students from BAPSA (Birsa Phule Ambedkar Students Association) will contest for key positions. All of them are now wrapping up the final stages of their campaigns.
Thallapelli Praveen running for President, Purnachandra Naik for Vice President, Vishwambhar Nath for General Secretary and Kanaklata Yadav for Joint Secretary, all hail from marginalised communities. Several other BAPSA candidates are also running for Councilors of the various schools within the university.
BAPSAs ideals envision a unity of the oppressed. One that seeks to unite an SC/ST/OBC student population with students from Muslim and other religious minority backgrounds. BAPSA has also grown steadily and rapidly in the four years since it was founded in 2014.
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BAPSAs offer of space for identity, religious beliefs and politics for oppressed people by oppressed people has seemingly proven a strong message.
An indicator of how strong BAPSA has grown is visible in the reaction from the Left Parties, who formed a coalition of the United Left. This unity is recent especially as the history of JNUs Left politics was the history of animosity between Students Federation of India (SFI) and the All India Students Association (AISA). This new coalition Left is now campaigning against BAPSA and other campus student groups.
Sri Raman S, BAPSA candidate running for Councilor for School of Language, Literature, and Culture Studies commented on this development. The Marginalised community has already lost 35 years but promises made to SC, ST and OBC community remain unfulfilled. It is important to remember that Left Unity was not formed due to a want to address student issues; it was an opportunistic unity. They have been pointing out ABVP as the threat for the past three years and continue to use the same agenda. This is not enough though. It doesnt address our problems.
TCN spoke to a few national leaders to understand what BAPSA meant to them and their vision for the communities overall. Here are the excerpts:
This whole nation has Dalits and other oppressed people struggling for different things in different places. To me, it feels like BAPSA is representing us all on a national stage in some way. For these students from Dalit, Adivasi, OBC and Muslim communities to take charge and run this organization and compete in this way is a really really big deal. The way BAPSA has grown in just four years is really historical. The most important thing is that it is run and represented by the oppressed themselves. No one is speaking for us but us. -Manisha Mashaal, Dalit feminist leader, Swabhimaan Society, Haryana
There are many movements all over the country for different issues, be it women, queer, trans, Adivasi, Muslims or others, but student organisations like BAPSA offer students from marginalized communities to experience what larger political action and strategies for the nation can look like and that makes me glad. BAPSA is showing that student politics can drag down whole power structures and change it around. I also see that BAPSA is using the slogan Satrangi Salaam from this year. I think this is good and I welcome this acceptance. Until now there havent been platforms where trans and queer people can belong with equity, not equality. This is important and I really hope to see more trans people in BAPSA in the coming years. Grace Banu, Dalit transgender rights activist, Trans Rights Now Collective
Students movements are like a thermometer for how the national movements are performing and by the performance of BAPSA, I can say that I am starting to have a lot more hope and positivity for our people overall. I want to mention in particular, the issue around the UGC recommendations and policies that have effectively led to reservation abolishment and trying to wash out the scholarships for students from marginalized communities. BAPSA has been one of the most vocal groups against these constitutional violations. In fact, courageous protests from these students against these policies resulted in the suspension of nine BAPSA students and their suspensions have not been revoked yet. We all know why these policies are being initiated and why the penalties for protesting against them are so high. Its a near-impossible dream for poor Bahujan students to get admission to prestigious universities like JNU and when they do get in, they see what is happening there and feel enraged and they want a change. This leads to influential student agitations and administrations and governments feel pressure. Changing the entry requirements for Bahujan students is cutting off the assertion at the bud. To me, BAPSA represents one of the most ideologically sound and most promising Bahujan movements in the nation and I want to appeal to everyone in our community those who are educated who are in jobs to channel resources and support into BAPSA for our young leaders to take Babahebs dream forward.
Gowthama Meena, Dalit feminist, Founder, All-India Intellectual Property Scheduled Castes Employee Association
As one of the founding members of BAPSA, who has been there since Day 1 and now also as an independent activist with my own organisation, what I know to be true is that establishing BAPSA was a milestone in Phule-Ambedkarite student movement history. Seeing how BAPSA has grown makes me hopeful. When we started, we were few in number, we had almost only representatives from each of these oppressed communities Dalit, Adivasi, Muslim and so on but now what I can see is that students at BAPSA are not just representatives, they are members, they are leaders, they are their en masse. All of this BAPSA has achieved not just through political representation. It has achieved it through everyday work of earning trust and faith in the ideology from students. Energy built in campuses inspire student movements elsewhere and inspires our youth from marginalized communities to want to be a part of a new vision for this nation.
Sanghapali Aruna Lohitakshi, Director, Project Mukti
BAPSA candidate for Councillor Deeksha Rahul is hopeful for the election. Contesting for the post is important for claiming our spaces in politics which is very much needed to break the authoritative hegemony of certain community people and to access our right in democratic politics. And I believe BAPSA will do that well in the upcoming elections.
BAPSA now faces a tough challenge ahead of them for the upcoming election tomorrow but the real win for them has been in the way they have established growth and inclusion and inspired and set a tone for national Ambedkarite movements.
In the US, ride-hailing service Lyft tops the list with a global headcount of more than 3,000 employees. The San Francisco-based company is known to look after the well-being of its workers, having introduced mental health benefits and training managers on how to detect distress signals from employees, LinkedIn said.
Trailing Lyft at number two is Los Angeles food and beverage company Halo Top. A team of 100 is powering the hypergrowth startups rise to the top as the best-selling ice cream pint in US grocery stores. One secret to keeping Halo Top employees happy: the company lets everybody work remotely.
Over in Canada, robo-adviser Wealthsimple leads the pack. With 170 employees, the Toronto fintech company is disrupting the financial services sector by enabling investors to build their portfolios automatically at a lower cost than they would with other wealth advisers. The startup is currently managing 75,000 clients across Canada, the US and UK.
Another fintech company Coinsquare came it at number two on the Canadian list. Torontos fastest-rising startup introduces a simplified system for buying and selling digital currencies. The team behind Coinsquare has seen massive growth, increasing in size by more than 92% in one year. It is also reportedly targeting a European expansion.
A new wearable ultrasound patch that non-invasively monitors blood pressure in arteries deep beneath the skin could help people detect cardiovascular problems earlier on and with greater precision. In tests, the patch performed as well as some clinical methods to measure blood pressure.
Applications include real-time, continuous monitoring of blood pressure changes in patients with heart or lung disease, as well as patients who are critically ill or undergoing surgery. The patch uses ultrasound, so it could potentially be used to non-invasively track other vital signs and physiological signals from places deep inside the body.
A team of researchers led by the University of California San Diego describe their work in a paper published Sept. 11 in Nature Biomedical Engineering.
Wearable devices have so far been limited to sensing signals either on the surface of the skin or right beneath it. But this is like seeing just the tip of the iceberg, said Sheng Xu, a professor of nanoengineering at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering and the corresponding author of the study. By integrating ultrasound technology into wearables, we can start to capture a whole lot of other signals, biological events and activities going on way below the surface in a non-invasive manner.
We are adding a third dimension to the sensing range of wearable electronics, said Xu, who is also affiliated with the Center for Wearable Sensors at UC San Diego.
The new ultrasound patch can continuously monitor central blood pressure in major arteries as deep as four centimeters (more than one inch) below the skin.
Physicians involved with the study say the technology would be useful in various inpatient procedures.
This has the potential to be a great addition to cardiovascular medicine, said Dr. Brady Huang, a co-author on the paper and radiologist at UC San Diego Health. In the operating room, especially in complex cardiopulmonary procedures, accurate real-time assessment of central blood pressure is neededthis is where this device has the potential to supplant traditional methods.
A Convenient Alternative to Clinical Methods
The device measures central blood pressurewhich differs from the blood pressure thats measured with an inflatable cuff strapped around the upper arm, known as peripheral blood pressure. Central blood pressure is the pressure in the central blood vessels, which send blood directly from the heart to other major organs throughout the body. Medical experts consider central blood pressure more accurate than peripheral blood pressure and also say its better at predicting heart disease.
Measuring central blood pressure isnt typically done in routine exams, however. The state-of-the-art clinical method is invasive, involving a catheter inserted into a blood vessel in a patients arm, groin or neck and guiding it to the heart.
A non-invasive method exists, but it cant consistently produce accurate readings. It involves holding a pen-like probe, called a tonometer, on the skin directly above a major blood vessel. To get a good reading, the tonometer must be held steady, at just the right angle and with the right amount of pressure each time. But this can vary between tests and different technicians.
Its highly operator-dependent. Even with the proper technique, if you move the tonometer tip just a millimeter off, the data get distorted. And if you push the tonometer down too hard, itll put too much pressure on the vessel, which also affects the data, said co-first author Chonghe Wang, a nanoengineering graduate student at UC San Diego. Tonometers also require the patient to sit stillwhich makes continuous monitoring difficultand are not sensitive enough to get good readings through fatty tissue.
The UC San Diego-led team has developed a convenient alternativea soft, stretchy ultrasound patch that can be worn on the skin and provide accurate, precise readings of central blood pressure each time, even while the user is moving. And it can still get a good reading through fatty tissue.
The patch was tested on a male subject, who wore it on the forearm, wrist, neck and foot. Tests were performed both while the subject was stationary and during exercise. Recordings collected with the patch were more consistent and precise than recordings from a commercial tonometer. The patch recordings were also comparable to those collected with a traditional ultrasound probe.
Making Ultrasound Wearable
A major advance of this work is it transforms ultrasound technology into a wearable platform. This is important because now we can start to do continuous, non-invasive monitoring of major blood vessels deep underneath the skin, not just in shallow tissues, said Wang.
The patch is a thin sheet of silicone elastomer patterned with whats called an island-bridge structurean array of small electronic parts (islands) that are each connected by spring-shaped wires (bridges). Each island contains electrodes and devices called piezoelectric transducers, which produce ultrasound waves when electricity passes through them. The bridges connecting them are made of thin, spring-like copper wires. The island-bridge structure allows the entire patch to conform to the skin and stretch, bend and twist without compromising electronic function.
The patch uses ultrasound waves to continuously record the diameter of a pulsing blood vessel located as deep as four centimeters below the skin. This information then gets translated into a waveform using customized software. Each peak, valley and notch in the waveform, as well as the overall shape of the waveform, represents a specific activity or event in the heart. These signals provide a lot of detailed information to doctors assessing a patients cardiovascular health. They can be used to predict heart failure, determine if blood supply is fine, etc.
Next Steps
Researchers note that the patch still has a long way to go before it reaches the clinic. Improvements include integrating a power source, data processing units and wireless communication capability into the patch.
Right now, these capabilities have to be delivered by wires from external devices. If we want to move this from benchtop to bedside, we need to put all these components on board, said Xu.
The team is looking to collaborate with experts in data processing and wireless technologies for the next phase of the project.
Paper title: Monitoring of the central blood pressure waveform via a conformal ultrasonic device. Co-authors include joint co-first authors Xiaoshi Li and Hongjie Hu, Lin Zhang, Zhenlong Huang, Muyang Lin, Zhuorui Zhang, Zhenan Yin, Hua Gong, Shubha Bhaskaran, Yue Gu, Mitsutoshi Makihata, Yuxuan Guo, Yusheng Lei, Yimu Chen, Yang Li, Tianjiao Zhang, Albert P. Pisano and Liangfang Zhang, UC San Diego; Chunfeng Wang, Zhengzhou University, China; and Zeyu Chen and Qifa Zhou, University of Southern California.
This project was supported by the National Institutes of Health (grant R21EB025521) and the Center for Wearable Sensors at UC San Diego.
UC San Diego
Influenza A viruses are highly adaptable, managing to infect and replicate rapidly and to spread efficiently from person to person. An outbreak has the potential to kill millions of people globally, and many scientists are racing to develop drugs that target the fundamental processes of the virus, such as its genetic replication or acid transport.
Researchers at the University of Chicago and University of Kent in the United Kingdom have discovered critical information about the behavior of the influenza A M2 protein, which facilitates the release of infectious particles, called virions, from the infected host cell. This discovery could lead to drugs that inhibit M2, thus blocking the virus from infecting other cells.
Viruses spread from cell to cell through budding, wherein the infected cells membrane begins to curve into a pouch and form a neck. The neck is then cut in a process called scission, and the pouch containing viral matter is set free to attack other cells. In influenza, experimental evidence has shown that a protein called M2 protein plays this critical role.
Through computer simulations, UChicago researchers have now learned that the process of gathering M2 proteins in the budding membrane neck is facilitated by the entropy, or disordered state, of the lipids in the region. Once there, the proteins can then cooperate to cut the bud neck to release the virion.
The M2 protein is a cone-like structure with four helices. It likes to be in the neck because of the way it is bent, said Gregory Voth, the Haig P. Papazain Distinguished Service Professor in Chemistry and corresponding author on the paper.
The shape of the protein, along with the interaction between proteins and the flexibility of the lipids in the region, is important for drug development.
If you wanted to impair this function of the M2 protein, you might find a drug that binds tightly and distorts that shape. If it cant bud off, you can stop the virus, said Jesper Madsen, first author and postdoctoral fellow at the University of Chicago.
The researchers used a special technique called coarse-grained molecular modeling to show how the M2 assembles in the membrane neck. When you simplify by coarsening, or grouping interactions together, you can see a complex collaborative process that would be hard to see experimentally or with other higher resolution computational methods, Voth said.
Now that researchers have identified the fundamental physics behind this process, they are working with experimental scientists to continue their research based on the computational predictions. The discovery could eventually lead to a new avenue for anti-influenza treatment.
The other authors on the paper were John Grime (formerly of UChicago) and Jeremy Rossman of the University of Kent.
Citation: Entropic forces drive clustering and spatial localization of influenza A M2 during viral budding. Madsen et al, PNAS, Aug. 27, 2018. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1805443115
Funding: National Institute of Health, Medical Research Council; European Union Seventh Framework Programme and Carlsberg Foundation.
University of Chicago
We're a family of seven living in Georgia where Andrew's working as a professor at GSU. You can read more about us here
A man from Dublin has appeared in court charged in relation to a burglary which was carried out in Cork, moments before two men were assaulted by a group of people.
Carl O'Brien (27) was brought before a sitting of Cork District Court on Tuesday, where he was charged with a single count of burglary.
The incident happened at around 9pm on Sunday, at a house in Churchfield Avenue, Cork.
Hammer
Two men entered the unoccupied property and were approached by a group of unknown people a short time later.
The two men were then physically assaulted and required hospital treatment.
It has been alleged that one of them was hit on the head with a hammer during the public order incident.
Mr O'Brien, with addresses in Dublin and Cork, was arrested at Cork University Hospital on Tuesday after being treated for injuries.
He was charged and taken to Cork District Court, and later remanded in custody after gardai objected to bail.
The accused is charged with a count of burglary.
Mr O'Brien, who has resided in Dun Laoghaire, Co Dublin, and most recently in St Helen's, Blarney, Co Cork, is due to appear in court again next week in relation to the incident.
The accused was remanded in custody after being refused bail and will appear before the same court again on September 28.
The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) is expected to give directions in relation to the incident ahead of the next court appearance.
In a statement gardai said they had responded to a public order incident on Sunday evening in the Churchfield Avenue area.
"Two injured males were discovered at the scene and brought to University Hospital Cork," a spokesman said.
Treatment
"Following inquiries being carried out at the scene, it emerged an alleged burglary had been carried out at a nearby property before the assault."
A second male, aged in his late 20s and originally from the Tipperary area, was also taken to hospital.
He was yesterday continuing to receive treatment at Cork University Hospital for his injuries.
A source said that this man was expected to be arrested for questioning in relation to the alleged burglary once he was declared medically fit by hospital staff.
Pat Kennys Newstalk show has more listeners than ever before. Picture Brian McEvoy -
Newstalk has announced that broadcaster Pat Kenny has signed a new two-year contract with the station.
The move means Kenny (70) will remain with the radio station until at least late 2020.
The former RTE host presents The Pat Kenny Show from 9am to noon, with the most recent JNLR figures revealing it enjoyed its highest listenership yet at 152,000.
"For the past five years, the show has examined the main issues in Ireland and around the world, and I am looking forward to providing the same forensic analysis and insight for our listeners in the future," said Kenny.
Adventures
"In Newstalk, I am lucky to have a brilliant, dynamic team behind me and we will strive to continue making fresh and compelling radio.
"It has been an eventful and exciting five years at Newstalk, which has flown past. The team has put together a show of the highest quality, and their success has been mirrored in great listenership figures.
"I look forward to more radio adventures."
Kenny also presented The Pat Kenny Show on TV3, but the show will be scaled back to only a handful of debate-style episodes each year following the channel's rebranding as Virgin Media One.
Virgin Media Television's director of programming Bill Malone insisted it was a natural evolution for the current affairs show to take.
"It was clear after the recent referendum that the standout moment in broadcasting was Pat Kenny's debate, it was fantastic," he said.
The house off Dublin Hill, Cork city, where the family lived.
A toddler who died in a curtain cord tragedy has been described as "a little ray of sunshine".
Devastated neighbours and friends of one-year-old Leah Troy paid tribute to her following her death after getting tangled up in a cord while playing in a downstairs room at her home at Delaney Park, off Dublin Hill, Cork city.
Neighbours described Leah's mother and father, Alice and Mike, as devoted parents who idolised both her and her brother Alex (4).
The couple had moved into the area only recently, having been renting in another part of Cork city.
Horrified
Mike is from Cork city while Alice is originally from Carrigaline.
Leah was discovered by her horrified mother when she went to check on the toddler shortly before lunch on Monday.
A curtain string had somehow become entangled around Leah's neck and she had accidentally strangled herself.
Desperate efforts by paramedics and doctors to revive her failed and she was pronounced dead at Cork University Hospital (CUH) shortly after being admitted.
Leah had celebrated her first birthday in mid-August.
"It was heartbreaking this morning when Alice arrived back at the house to collect some of Leah's toys, including a teddy bear," said one neighbour who asked not to be named.
"Neighbours called to the house to offer whatever help we could and just to tell Alice and Mike that we are there for them if they need us.
"Everyone is devastated."
The woman, whose own child is friendly with Alice and Mike's son, said the entire community had been left traumatised by the freak accident.
"It is unbelievable. One minute life is normal and the next you see a family dealing with this kind of freak tragedy. You just don't know what to say.
"Everyone knows everyone else around here. This estate is full of retired people and young families.
"It is a lovely place to live and everyone looks out for everyone else.
"We are just so devastated for them because they are such a lovely young couple and are such great parents.
Smiling
"Every time you'd see them out with Leah and Alex they were smiling, laughing and happy."
A post-mortem was carried out at CUH yesterday and a file will now be prepared for the Cork coroner's office.
Gardai stressed that they are treating the incident as a tragic accident.
Uprooted Palestinians are at the heart of the conflict in the M.E Palestinians uprooted by force of arms. Yet faced immense difficulties have survived, kept alive their history and culture, passed keys of family homes in occupied Palestine from one generation to the next.
All gave some; some gave all. Here's how to honor veterans this year
Photography is sometimes referred to as a hobby of a lifetime, and in the case of Donna Bourdon, that bit of popular wisdom has certainly borne out. The Chattanooga-based photographers love of capturing images began when she was nine years old.
My parents gave me my first Brownie camera, and I never looked back, Ms. Bourdon says, adding that she upgraded to her fathers hand-me-down Minolta SR-7 as a teenager.
Inspired by watching episodes of Mutual of Omahas Wild Kingdom, her love of photography and wildlife naturally intertwined. Soon, she invested in better equipment and sought opportunities to capture spectacular animal imagery in some of the wildest places on Earth a quest aided, in part by her participation in trips organized and led by the Tennessee Aquarium.
Those made the dreams of Africa come to life, Ms. Bourdon says. I took my first Aquarium-sponsored trip there in 1998. Since then, Ive been on eight African photo-safaris, five of those with the Tennessee Aquarium.
Ms. Bourdon has warmed hearts with photos of Snow Monkeys, Coastal Brown Bears, Puffins and Red-Crowned Cranes. Her shots also have garnered international acclaim. One, an image of a crocodile taking a young Cape Buffalo, was used in an African segment of the Nat Geo Wild program Caught in the Act.
One of her images, Rhapsody in Pink, was selected as a finalist to be included in BigPicture, an annual photography exhibit at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco.
Since launching in 2014, BigPicture highlights the works of the worlds best nature and conservation photographers. This annual competition focuses a lens on the wonders of the natural world and critical environmental issues facing our planet. More than 6,000 entries poured in from around the world for the 2018 BigPicture Natural World Photography Competition, which includes a shot Ms. Bourdon captured while in St. Augustine, Fl.
This beautiful Roseate Spoonbill is flying into the nest with its wings in what is referred to as the orchestra position, Ms. Bourdon says. I love capturing beautiful images of nature that inspire others to fall in love with the natural world. Hopefully, my works inspire others to promote conservation and protection of these precious animals and vital resources.
Beginning Oct. 1, the BigPicture exhibition will be on display at the Tennessee Aquarium, sponsored locally by Erlanger Health Systems and GET OUT Chattanooga. This will be the only location outside of San Francisco to host this photo collection.
This collection of amazing images is a perfect fit with the Aquariums mission to connect people with nature and empower them to make informed decisions about water and wildlife, says Cindy Todd, the Aquariums vice president and chief marketing and communications officer. This exhibit will inspire more people to get outdoors, observe nature more closely, and appreciate all of the amazing ways that wildlife can thrive.
In the introduction to Wonders, a companion book about BigPicture, famed oceanographer, explorer, and conservationist Dr. Sylvia Earle describes how technology enables more individuals to focus on conservation issues.
The photographs in this extraordinary collection do more than capture moments in timethey tell stories, arouse sympathy, provoke joy, and make you gasp with wonder. Images such as these are precisely what is needed to inspire new generations of people to know and care about wild places and wildlife, and to take action while there is still time.
The BigPicture Natural World of Photography exhibit is free with Aquarium admission.
The terms fascist and fascism are currently being bandied about. Leaders of Opposition parties, human rights activists, and ostensibly eminent journalists, are prone to making such accusations against those in authority, without perhaps fully comprehending what the term means. The time has come to shine a light on who actually is a fascist, and who is not. Sunlight, as they say, is a good disinfectant.
The president of the Indian National Congress uses terms such as fascist ideology and authoritarian interchangeably. Rahul Gandhi might like to acquaint himself with four developments in recent history that shaped the evolution of his party and Indias democracy. First, the curtailing of civil liberties in 1975, the darkest moment in the history of independent India. To forcefully sterilise individuals, lock up journalists, arrest political leaders, and undermine the judiciary, is the defining legacy of that period. Rahul Gandhi is a direct beneficiary of a system produced by the policies of his grandmother that placed dynasty before nation.
Second, the riots in 1984 following the assassination of Indira Gandhi. It is an insult to the minority Sikh community to which I belong that Mr Gandhi remains in denial of the atrocities committed by Congressmen. He conveniently says that he was merely 14 years old when the massacre took place. He is much older now. It is clear from the statement of his father (When a big tree falls, the earth shakes) and now his own denial, that under their watch, the perpetrators of the heinous crimes of 1984 have found a safe haven.
Third, much has been made about Sonia Gandhis sacrifice in 2004, when she decided that Manmohan Singh would be Indias prime minister, and not she. What seems to have been conveniently forgotten is the fact that, the constitution of the Congress Parliamentary Party (CPP) was amended to create a post more powerful than the chairperson of the CPP for Sonia Gandhi. This allowed her to hold unconstitutional power it introduced into our polity a system of diarchy in which a nominated prime minister was to run a government without having political authority. Singh served at the pleasure of Sonia Gandhi, making the UPA a remote-controlled sarkar.
And finally, the undermining of the Dalit cause that Congress has spearheaded over much of the past seven decades. It might be useful for Rahul Gandhi to remember that Prime Minister Modi himself belongs to a backward community. While members of his party take great pride in referring to him in derogatory terms, the BJP is proud of the fact that he is from humble origins, without a famous surname, and can be democratically chosen as prime minister. And it is thanks to his efforts that the Dalit community is today the master of its own destiny, and not at the mercy of the Congress. Through the governments various missions, PM Modi has chosen to empower the Dalit community, rather than seek their votes through fake victimhood.
Rahul Gandhi is not alone in spreading falsehoods. He has been joined by individuals who pretend to be activists, but are at their core political actors. Their aim is to undermine the state, and derail any effort made towards development. Arundhati Roy is one such individual. Her most recent attack against the government comes in the wake of the arrests of individuals the Pune police suspect of aiding the Maoist and Naxalite movement.
Naxalism is Indias biggest internal security threat. Its objective is an armed rebellion against the Indian state and the overthrowing of its democratic polity. State capture through an armed struggle is qualitatively different from the expression of dissent. To proudly claim I am an Urban Naxal, therefore, does great disservice to our security forces, many of who have died fighting Naxalism.
Roys hypocrisy, however, doesnt stem from her support for Naxalites; she has been consistent in this regard. At a press conference on the arrests made in Pune, she propagates the lies spread by the Rahul Gandhi on the Rafale deal. When did Roy and Rahul Gandhi become allies? Roy needs to be reminded that it was Rahul Gandhis party that had first come down hard against Naxals. P Chidambaram is on record suggesting the use of air power against Naxalites, in the aftermath of a brutal attack in 2010, that claimed the lives of 76 security personnel.
The purpose of this article is not to pick on specific individuals. It is to expose an ecosystem that would like people to believe their lies, to mask their hypocrisy. The very fact that this ecosystem can so clearly misuse their freedom of speech by spreading fabricated stories shows that the present establishment is not in the least bit authoritarian. I would, in fact, argue that this dispensation has faced more scrutiny than any previous government. And, more importantly, no prime minister has been critiqued as often, and as bitterly, as Modi. The government has taken such accusations on its chin, and continued to deliver on its promise of good governance.
Hardeep S Puri is Union minister of state (Independent Charge) for Housing and Urban Affairs
The views expressed are personal
Alia Bhatts sister, Shaheen Bhatt, shared a photo with the actor and father, filmmaker Mahesh Bhatt, on Wednesday. The troika are smiling at the camera and Shaheen aptly captioned it, These are our happy faces.
Mother Soni Razdan was among the first few to comment on the photo. All three have the same smile, she wrote even as Alia and Shaheens half sister, actor-filmmaker Pooja Bhatt, could not stop sending love to the family. Awww, love, love, LOVE this photo, she wrote with a lot of heart emoticons.
Alia and sister Shaheen are very close. On her sisters birthday, Alia had given a peek into their relationship, writing,Youre soo beautiful you make me cry! Ive never ever felt soo much love and happiness just looking at someone.. Technically youre my sister but youre much more than that - my parent, best friend, technology advisor, home maker, roomie, fellow weirdo, the reason I love animals soo much! Haha this list can go on and on! I love you soo much you beautiful soul! Im not as good a writer as you so this post may make no sense ( and I couldnt ask you to correct it like you always do).
Meet tha Bhatts: Mahesh Bhatt with Soni Razdan and children Alia, Shaheen, Pooja and Rahul.
Alia Bhatt and Shaeen with mother Soni Razdan.
Alia Bhatt with sister Shaheen.
Mahesh recently opened up about Shaheens battle with depressions, saying she came to the point of contemplating suicide when she was 12 or 13. My daughter Shaheen, Alias elder sister, she, at the age of 16 discovered finally that she is suffering from clinical depression. In October, she is launching her own memoir in which she has talked about the kind of struggle she has gone through in that phase, he said during a media interaction, adding, She also came to a point of attempting a suicide at the age of 12-13 so this is the truth of my own house.
After the suicides of Anthony Bourdain and designer Kate Spade, Shaheen had written in Vogue, I was crying because every time I hear of someone who was unable to go on living with the darkness within them, Im reminded of how that could have just as easily been me.
Salman Khans family brought the Ganpati home with a lot of fanfare on Thursday even as the actor himself missed out on all the fun. Salmans sister, Arpita Khan Sharma, hosted the Ganesh Chaturthi celebrations at her Mumbai home and her entire family arrived to take part in the puja ceremony.
Arpita carried the Ganesha idol out of her car and posed for pictures for the paparazzi gathered outside her home. Her elder sister Alvira also joined her sister for pictures. The two sisters looked pretty in their bright and beautiful outfits. Alvira wore a floral organza suit and Arpita also wore a floral outfit. Check out their pics:
Arpita Khan Sharma at Ganesh Chaturthi celebrations. (Viral Bhayani)
Arpita Khan Sharma at Ganesh Chaturthi celebrations. (Viral Bhayani)
Arpita Khan Sharma and Alvira Agnihotri at Ganesh Chaturthi celebrations. (Viral Bhayani)
The sisters were also joined by their brother, actor and producer Arbaaz Khan. He arrived for the festivities with his new girlfriend, Giorgia Andriani. Arbaazs ex wife Malaika Arora was also seen at the celebrations. He was seen in a pink pathani suit and she wore a powder blue lehenga. Arbaazs father, Salim Khan also waved for the cameras. Salims wife and veteran actor Helen was also seen at the celebrations as was his son Sohail.
Arbaaz Khan with his girlfriend at Ganesh Chaturthi celebrations. (Viral Bhayani)
Salim Khan at his daughters home for Ganesh Chaturthi. (Viral Bhayani)
Sohail with his father Salim Khan at Ganesh Chaturthi celebrations. (Viral Bhayani)
Helen at Ganesh Chaturthi celebrations at daughter Arpitas home. (Viral Bhayani)
Arpita also shared videos and pictures on Instagram of her home getting decorated with a tonne of flowers to prepare for Ganpati. She decked up the altar with purple flowers and a video of the same was shared online.
Arpitas husband, Aayush Sharma will soon make his Bollywood debut opposite Warina Hussain in Loveratri. The film is produced by her brother, Salman and is being released under his banner. A Muzaffarpur court directed the police to file an FIR against the film, claiming that Loveratri, which is set to be released around Navaratri, will hurt the sentiments of the Hindu community.
The romantic drama is set in Gujarat against the backdrop of Navratri, where a happy-go-lucky boy from Baroda (Aayush), falls in love with an NRI, (Warina) when she visits the town during the nine-day festival.
Loveratri is slated to hit the big screens on October 5.
Follow @htshowbiz for more
Looks like after Alia Bhatt, Janhvi Kapoor is fast becoming the new constant in Dharma Productions. Her first film, Dhadak was produced by Karan Johar. Later, when he announced his next directorial Takht, Janhvi featured in that one too. Now, as per a report in Mumbai Mirror, she will feature in her third Dharma film, a movie on Indian Air Force pilot Gunjan Saxena, one of Indias first female combat aviators, who was posted in Kargil during the 1999 war.
Quoting a source, the report said that Janhvi already started preparing for the role and has met Gunjan to observe her mannerisms and understand her story. The film will go into production sometime next year and while Karan will be producing it, the production house is still in the lookout for a director.
Janhvi has already begun her prep and has met Gunjan to understand her story and observe her mannerisms. The film is expected to go on the floors sometime next year. While Karan is producing the film, a director is yet to be finalised, the report said.
Janhvi has been on the high since the release of her debut film Dhadak which turned out to be a hit. Just recently, she bagged her first major advertisement contract. She will soon be the brand ambassador of cosmetics brand. Janhvi has been quite a fashionista even before her film debut, if her late mother Sridevis Instagram account and her own account are anything to go by.
Janhvis second film with Karan, Takht, will be a multi starrer featuring a galaxy of big stars including Ranveer Singh, Kareena Kapoor, Alia, Bhumi Pednekar, Vicky Kaushal among others. It is said to be a Mughal era tale of love, betrayal, power, lust and more.
Follow @htshowbiz for more
The RSS-backed Akhil Bhartiya Vidhyarthi Parishad (ABVP) made a comeback in the Delhi University Students Union (DUSU) elections, winning three out of four posts on the panel, including those of the president, vice-president and joint secretary. The Congress student wing NSUI had to settle only for the secretarys post.
Last year, both the student groups had won two seats each.
Terming the victory as a prelude to the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the victorious ABVP candidates began celebrating as soon as the results were announced. The results indicate the electoral mood of the young voters. The youth is with the BJP, said Ankiv Baisoya, the newly elected DUSU president.
The results, declared a day after polling on Wednesday, were marred by unusual delays and allegations and counter-allegations as members of all political student groups alleged tampering of the electronic voting machines (EVMs). The counting was halted three times and was finally suspended by the universitys election commission in the afternoon. However, it resumed around 5:30pm after all the candidates reached an agreement.
The new panel comprises ABVPs Baisoya, Shakti Singh and Jyoti Chaudhary, as president and vice-president and joint secretary, respectively, and the NSUIs Aakash Chaudhary as secretary. The NSUI had won the top two positions last year.
The newly-formed alliance of the Left-backed AISA and Aam Aadmi Partys (AAP) youth wing CYSS could not win on any positions. The CYSS this year was contesting students elections after a gap of two years. We have got around 8,000 votes. We demand a high-level judicial enquiry in the poll mismanagement and EVM, said AISA DU president Kawalpreet Kaur.
In a statement, CYSS said that they are encouraged to have won several positions in college panels.
The winning margins of Baisoya and Singh were 2,000 and 8,000 votes in this years elections that had recorded a 44.5% turnout, highest in the last 11 years. Out of around 60,000 votes, 27,739 opted for NOTA (None of The Above).
The NSUI, however, alleged that EVMs were tampered with the election officers at the behest of the ABVP. We have come to know that the data of seven EVMs is missing. We will raise this issue with the administration on Friday, Chaudhary said. The NSUI will hold a press conference on Friday where Delhi Congress chief Ajay Maken will address the issue.
The DU election committee, however, said that they carried out a free and fair election and asked the NSUI members to check the EVMs. Though there was a glitch in one EVM, but the committee has maintained high standard of discipline and conducted free and fair election, said DU chief election officer VK Kaul.
The EVMs in question is not of the Election Commission as no such machines had been allotted or issued to DU It seems that DU has procured these machines privately. A detailed report in this regard will be sent subsequently, said Manoj Kumar, chief election officer (EVM).
The Delhi Police on Wednesday said they have arrested the managing director of a real estate company for allegedly duping flat buyers of crores of rupees. Police said the flat buyers had invested in the companys residential society project at Noidas Sector-137.
Deputy commissioner of police (economic offences ) MI Haider said Diwakar Sharma, managing director of Shubkamna Buildtech Private Limited, was arrested on September 6 in a cheating case that registered against the company in 2017.
Haider said the case was registered on a complaint that Techomes Flat Buyers Welfare Association filed on behalf of its 49 members who had invested money to buy flats in the project, shubhkamna-advert techomes being developed by Shubkamna Buildtech Pvt Ltd.
The company had assured to give possession of the flat to its buyers within 36 months from start of the construction, starting February 2011. The buyers had paid 90% of the money. But the company stopped construction and Sharma diverted the funds for his own use, said Haider.
No official of Shubkamna Buildtech Pvt Ltd could be reached for a comment.
The grandeur of Ganesh Chaturthi celebrations in Delhi-NCR rivals that of the Mumbai utsavs. But usually, that also means litter in the streets and a polluted river after visarjan. This year, however, is going to be another story. This time, the Ganpati festival (on September 13) will bring good luck to not just the devotees but also to the environment.
Besides getting delicious modaks as prasad, devotees will also get saplings. This is an extension of the eco-friendly steps that Ganpati puja organisers have been taking for the past few years so far, weve seen chemical-free Ganesha idols, and curbs on the use of plastic at pandals.
Mahendra Ladda, founder-president, Shri Ganesh Area Mandal, which organises Delhi ka Maharaja in Laxmi Nagar, says, Weve been celebrating Ganpati puja for 16 years, and four years ago, we started using an eco-friendly Ganesha idol. We even initiated the practice of visarjan in the pandal itself, to avoid polluting the Yamuna and reducing traffic jams. And then we thought, What about the pollution that has already corroded our environment? To fight this pollution, we decided to use plants as our weapons.
Were decorating our Ganesha pandal with 4,500 potted plants, which will be distributed to visitors along with prasad, after visarjan Mahendra Ladda, founder-president, Shri Ganesh Area Mandal
Were decorating our Ganesha pandal with 4,500 potted plants, which will be distributed to visitors along with prasad, after visarjan. This is to ensure that we do something for our future generations, so that they dont curse us for having depleted whatever nature gave!
Ladda tells us that the inspiration to counter pollution came to him after watching a video, in which he saw former President APJ Abdul Kalam explaining that by 2070, we might run out of natural resources if we dont replenish them. Therefore, weve ensured no plastic use, even in the waterproofing of the tent, he says.
The sapling idea is shared by the committee of Lalbagh ka Raja, Pitampura. Puja pradhan Naresh Goyal says, Weve decided to present potted plants along with mementos to our guests wholl visit during the Ganpati celebrations. These guests include Bollywood celebrities, and we feel that if they join us in the drive to plant saplings, then more people will follow.
Some organisations began the festivities with plantation drives. Take the Sarvajanik Ganeshotsav Samiti, which sets up a Ganpati puja pandal at Huda Community Centre, Sector 27, Gurugram. Before setting up the pandal, we organised a plantation drive, where around 150 people participated and planted 70 trees. Also, during the 10-day celebrations, well have potted plants at our reception, which will be given away free to those who wish to take them. We dont want to force people to take a plant, but we want that those who take it home should take good care of it, says Manoj Kharad, president of the committee.
We thought of giving the message of Save the Environment during this years Ganpati celebrations Mandeep Singh, president of Dilli Ka Raja Utsav Samiti
Spreading awareness to nourish the urban greenery is also on the to-do list of other puja committees. Mandeep Singh, president of Dilli Ka Raja Utsav Samiti in Ramesh Nagar, says, Recently, the NGT (National Green Tribunal) ordered some authorities to not to cut trees To support this decision, we thought of giving the message of Save the Environment during this years Ganpati celebrations. We have, therefore, decided to distribute at least 500 plants at the pandal. Well encourage everyone who visits the pandal to plant at least one sapling in their lifetime and take the responsibility of watering it regularly, so that it lives on for years after theyre gone.
Interact with the author at Twitter/@HennaRakheja
Delhi Police on Wednesday arrested an Aligarh-based pharmacist and seized 1.68 lakh vials of a prescription drug worth over Rs 3 crore. Police said the man was smuggling vials of the drug through courier services that transported them through train and bus routes.
HT had on August 20 reported how a security audit by the Delhi Police showed that the parcel area at Delhis railway stations did not have any security checks.
Police officials identified the seized drug as Buprenorphine, a painkiller which is often abused by drug addicts. Senior officers said a team from the crime branch on Wednesday arrested Vineet Garg alias Bunty, a pharmacist from Aligarh and recovered a consignment of 1.68 lakh Buprenorphine vials from him, which was about to be sent to Delhis neighbouring states.
Additional commissioner of police (crime) Rajiv Ranjan said the police arrested four men who were part of a syndicate smuggling another prescription drug Tramadol, a common pain killer, on August 28.
During investigation we found that these men are also involved in an illegal supply chain of Buprenorphine. We found that their associate Vineet Garg alias Bunty, proprietor of Bunty Pharma in Aligarh, supplied Buprenorphine illegally after replacing their labels with genuine medicines and transported them through different courier companies, Ranjan said.
Ranjan said two such consignments which were in transit were traced and seized.
Following the seizures, a raid was conducted and Bunty was arrested. His arrest led to the recovery of 1.68 lakh vials of Buprenorphine. The labels of 11,000 vials were removed so that the drug could not be identified, he said.
During interrogation, Bunty told the police that after the death of his father, who owned a pharmacy, he faced a financial crunch.
Earlier this year, two men, Harish Singhal and Sunil Sharma, approached him and proposed that he would be given a commission if he illegally supplied them certain drugs. On their instructions, Bunty started removing the labels of Buprenorphine vials and supplied them through various courier companies, Ranjan said.
To raise funds to complete Amrapalis unfinished housing projects, the Supreme Court on Wednesday appointed a debt recovery tribunal (DRT) officer to oversee the sale of unencumbered assets of the beleaguered real estate company.
The court also gave the National Building Construction Corporation (NBCC) a go-ahead to take over and complete all unfinished work of the group. A bench of justices Arun Mishra and UU Lalit issued the directives after hearing that the group had not filed its income-tax returns between 2015 and 2018.
The court said DRT officer Dharmendra Singh Rathore will be in charge of selling the properties. All stakeholders have been asked to appear before him on September 25 to provide details, including the encumbrances.
NBCC was asked to ascertain if Amrapalis assets can be utilised to raise funds to kick-start the work. The order included opening of an account in the Supreme Court, where funds can be deposited once the assets and inventories are sold. The money would be disbursed to NBCC from this account, the court said.
Justice Lalit told additional solicitor general Pinky Anand, who appeared for NBCC, that since the corporation had shown willingness, it has to be concrete. We will hold you to do that, the judge said.
The court has already ordered a forensic audit of Amrapalis accounts. On Wednesday, the companys internal auditor told the bench that no I-T returns were filed between 2015 and 2018.
Auditor Ravi Kapoors counsel said it was given records only till March 31, 2015. Amrapalis lawyer, Guarav Bhatia, explained that the returns could not be filed due to pending litigation.
Justice Lalit told Kapoor that as a good auditor, he should have asked the company to provide him with the documents and, if denied, he should have put down his papers. He was directed to give the documents to the auditor conducting a forensic audit.
The bench also deliberated on the option of asking the homebuyers to pay their dues as one of the ways to raise funds to enable NBCC start the work. Opposing this, lawyer for homebuyers ML Lahoty argued that the homebuyers deserved compensation, to which the bench said: We are aware.
However, the bench said it would not deal with the compensation plea at this stage.
A woman tourist from the United States of America has taken to YouTube to allege sexual assault on Delhis streets and harassment inside a hotel in Paharganj during her stay in July.
The woman, who is also a travel video blogger (vlogger), alleged she had been groped and grabbed while walking on the streets in central Delhi and received a vulgar proposal by a passerby despite the presence of her boyfriend. She accused the staff of a Connaught Place hotel of sharing her personal details with a stalker. She also alleged that workers of a Paharganj hotel made vulgar calls on her intercom.
The Paharganj hotel was associated with Oyo Rooms a company with tie-ups to budget hotels - at the time of the alleged crime. A spokesperson for Oyo Rooms identified the hotel as Vishal Guest House and said that they have delisted the property and terminated their relationship with the hotel owner after the alleged crime came to their notice. The spokesperson said that Oyo Rooms is in touch with the woman to support her.
Mohammad Farid Alam, manager of Vishal Guest House, said though it was unlikely that the staff misbehaved with the woman, an internal enquiry has been initiated against them. We have CCTV cameras on that floor, but recordings of only one month are saved, said Alam.
Alam claimed that it was the hotel that had cut ties with Oyo Rooms and not the other way round because of delayed payments and poor hotel rates. Oyo Rooms refuted the claim.
Even though the woman claimed that there is an ongoing police investigations in these cases, the Delhi Police said they are yet to receive a complaint. We encourage the woman to approach us. Simultaneously, we are identifying the hotels she has blamed, said Mandeep Singh Randhawa, deputy commissioner of police (central).
In her Youtube video that she uploaded on Saturday, the woman said she was on a three-week visit to India during which she also visited Delhi. She was accompanied by her boyfriend.
She accused the staff of The LaLiT in Connaught Place of sharing her personal details such as full name and room number with a stalker. That forced her to move to a budget hotel in Paharganj. We are investigating the matter. We remain committed to the safety and security of all our guests, said Gaurav Mishra, General Manager - Marketing & Communications, The LaLiT
The problems at the Paharganj hotel began just four days before her departure, she claimed. She said her boyfriend left four days before her and when the hotel staff got to know of it, they allegedly began stalking her.
She would allegedly receive calls on her intercom with a man at the other end making sexual noises. The calls were allegedly followed by the staff intentionally switching off her air-conditioner and Wi-Fi connections to look for an excuse to enter her room.
The woman later took to the comments section of YouTube to explain that she couldnt contact the police because of absence of wi-fi or a working phone. She said that her video led to Oyo Rooms and the Lalit hotel acting against the suspects. Her video also prompted many tourists sharing similar experiences in Delhi.
Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Raos move to dissolve the state assembly and opt for polls, nine months ahead of schedule, was a calculated gamble. It was meant to spring a surprise on the main opposition Congress and prevent it from consolidating its position.
With elections to four more states Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Mizoram due around the same time, Mr Rao may have been hoping that the Congress, which has a big stake in those elections if it wants a national revival, will not be able to devote the same attention and resources to Telangana. Mr Raos calculation would also have factored in that the Congress high command would be tied down fighting those other battles.
However, Indias Grand Old Party, in a display of alacrity, has shown a degree of political speed and nimbleness which has caught not just analysts but its opponents by surprise. It quickly joined hands with the Telugu Desam Party and the Communist Party of India to form a Maha Kootami, a grand alliance which can pose a formidable challenge to Mr Raos Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS). The new alliance is even trying to rope in a few other partners such as the CPM and the Telangana Jana Samithi floated by one-time KCR protege, M Kodandaram, who was also the head of the joint action committee that spearheaded the demand for a separate state.
There are three reasons why the grand alliance that the Congress is putting together will be watched closely. One, the fact that the TDP (which was born on an anti-Congress platform), is part of the alliance carries a symbolism which is hard to miss. One may argue that, given the TDPs acrimonious break-up with BJP and its initial role in opposing the creation of Telangana, it had its own political compulsions. Nonetheless, its open embrace of the Congress will be observed carefully by other regional parties across the country. Several of them carry legacies similar to the TDPs.
Second is the Congresss newfound flexibility and its willingness to walk the extra mile to forge partnership with even small parties such as the CPI, the CPM and the TJS. This, and the fact that it is ready to be accommodative in seat allocations towards its allies, contrasts sharply with a strident BJP which is trying to elbow itself in to the territory of its own partners. Regional parties protective of their turf would not miss this difference in attitude between the two main national parties.
Finally, irrespective of the eventual outcome of the election in which the TRS has had an early head start, this alliance could provide a national template in which the Congress could opt for state-specific alliances to form a broad anti-BJP front.
The Institute of Banking Personnel Selection (IBPS) on Wednesday released the admit card/call letter of officers scale I, Scale II and Scale III main examination 2018 for recruitment in participating regional rural banks (RRBs). Candidates can download their admit card by visiting this page on the official website.
The institute (IBPS) has also released the scribe declaration form and information hand out for these exams on the official website ibps.in.
IBPS had declared the result of online preliminary examination for recruitment of scale I officers last week. The examination was held on August 11, 12. The main examination for officers Scale I, II and III will be held on September 30, 2018. The declaration of results will be done in October and the interview will be conducted in November. The provisional allotment of banks to successful candidates for officers scale I, II and III will be made in January 2019. All these dates are tentative.
IBPS is expected to declare the result of its office assistants (Multipurpose) preliminary examination in a few days. The notification for the examination says that the office assistant prelims results will be declared in September but does not give any firm date for its announcement. The online preliminary examination for office assistants (Multipurpose) was held on August 19 and August 25.
Steps to download the call letter/admit card for officer scale I, II, III main 2018:
1) Go to official website of IBPS
2) Click on the link to download main exam call letter for CRP RRBs-VII officers scale I, II and III running on the top of the page
3) You will be directed to a new page
4) Click on the link to download call letter for officer scale I
4) Enter your registration no and password
5) Enter the captcha code
6) Click on login and your admit card will be displayed on the screen
7) Take a print-out and save it on your computer
The admit card for officer scale I , II and III will be available for downlaod until September 30.
Click here to download the call letter for Officer scale II and III. Follow the same process on the login page.
Note: Visit official website of IBPS for latest news and updates.
The functional loss of a single gene may have helped humans become one of the best long-distance runners in the animal kingdom, a study has found.
Researchers at the University of California San Diego in the US studied mice engineered to lack the gene called CMAH. Two to three million years ago, the functional loss of CMAH triggered significant changes in what would eventually become the modern human species, altering everything from fertility rates to increasing cancer risk from eating red meat, researchers said.
The study, published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, suggests that the lost gene may have contributed to humanitys well-documented claim to be among the best long-distance runners in the animal kingdom.
At roughly the same time as the CMAH mutation took hold, human ancestors were transitioning from forest dwellers to life primarily upon the arid savannahs of Africa.
While they were already walking upright, the bodies and abilities of these early hominids were evolving dramatically, researchers said.
Major changes in skeletal biomechanics and physiology resulted in long, springy legs, big feet, powerful gluteal muscles and an expansive system of sweat glands able to dissipate heat much more effectively than other larger mammals, they said.
Such changes, scientists say, helped fuel the emergence of the human ability to run long distances relatively tirelessly. This allowed our ancestors to hunt in the heat of the day when other carnivores were resting and to pursue prey to their point of exhaustion, a technique called persistence hunting, they said.
We discovered this first clear genetic difference between humans and our closest living evolutionary relatives, the chimpanzees, more than 20 years ago, said Ajit Varki, a professor at UC San Diego School of Medicine. Researchers investigated how the genetic difference might have contributed to the origin of Homo, the genus that includes modern Homo sapiens and extinct species like Homo habilis and Homo erectus.
We evaluated the exercise capacity (of mice lacking the CMAH gene), and noted an increased performance during treadmill testing and after 15 days of voluntary wheel running, said graduate student Jon Okerblom. Ellen Breen, a research scientist at the UC San Diego, observed that the mice displayed greater resistance to fatigue, increased mitochondrial respiration and hind-limb muscle, with more capillaries to increase blood and oxygen supply.
Varki said the data suggest CMAH loss contributed to improved skeletal muscle capacity for oxygen utilisation. And if the findings translate to humans, they may have provided early hominids with a selective advantage in their move from trees to becoming permanent hunter-gatherers on the open range, he said.
When the CMAH gene mutated in the genus Homo two to three million years ago, perhaps in response to evolutionary pressures caused by an ancient pathogen, it altered how subsequent hominids and modern humans used sialic acids.
It is a family of sugar molecules that coat the surfaces of all animal cells, where they serve as vital contact points for interaction with other cells and with the surrounding environment. Varki and other resaerchers have linked the loss of the CMAH gene and sialic acids to not just improved long-distance running ability, but also enhanced innate immunity in early hominids.
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Hemant Soren, 43, is working president of the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) and holds the record for being the youngest chief minister of Jharkhand. Currently, the leader of the Opposition in the tribal-dominated state, Soren is part of the efforts to form a front against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the 2019 election. He spoke to Kumar Uttam on issues confronting the Opposition and how it plans to take on the BJP. Excerpts:
Opposition parties recently gave a Bharat Bandh call and staged a dharna in Delhi against the rise in petrol and diesel prices. What are the other issues you want to take up?
There are many issues that are troubling people. But you will note that development is missing from discourse, totally, when the BJP is your Opposition. They deviate from real issues. We have seen that happening in Karnataka and Gujarat. Karnataka election was fought on the issues of why does a college have portrait of Muhammad Ali Jinnah and why do Muslims offer namaz on the streets.
Every party in power tries to ignore the main issues. It will be important for the Opposition to establish the real issues in the discourse during elections. We always try to raise such issues.
There are several such issues at the moment, which are related to people. But we hear that BJP will attempt to raise issues like Ram Temple and other controversial subjects in the next election.
The 2014 parliamentary polls became a kind of a presidential (personality-based) election. Does the opposition have enough issues to confront another personality-based election?
There are sufficient issues. Narendra Modi conducted the 2014 election with branding. This time ,such tricks will not work. You may say there are some issues on which today Opposition is either speaking in a low pitch or is not taking up properly nationally. But these issues are being taken up strongly at the regional level. We have won several battles through agitations.
On some issues, you find a mute support even from people in the ruling party that people should get relief. When thinking of so many people is converging on a common point, then these issues will become important in the election.
Whether it was the election of the deputy chairman or the no-confidence vote against the Narendra Modi government, the Opposition did not stay together. How will you ensure unity in 2019?
We are smaller parties and have a limited role. The management team has a major role in keeping everyone united. No doubt, the Congress has a major role to play in managing things. You saw the kind of preparedness during the election for the Rajya Sabhas deputy chairman post.
Preparedness matters a lot. If there is any shortcoming in preparedness, then these questions do come up.
But I am confident that when it will come to the issue of main battle (in 2019) all will remain united. 2019 election is the target for each Opposition party. What is happening in between is not relevant.
How difficult it will be for the opposition parties to elect a leader?
In a democracy, elected representatives should choose a leader. The BJP has established this culture that you seek vote for a person, no matter what are his policies and ideology. The new generation will look back. They are coming up with issues like jobs, good life and engagement. They will keep these issues in mind.
The anti-BJP front in Jharkhand has more than four major players. How will you distribute 14 Lok Sabha seats among yourselves?
There is an in-principle agreement that the entire opposition should stay together. We will have to be flexible if we have to stay together.
If we do not realise the seriousness of the situation, then things will turn bad. We are standing with a common agenda for 2019.
Do you think the challenge for you in 2019 is as difficult as it was in 2014?
2014 was a super-duper hit film. People went and watched it. It is not necessary that people will go to watch the same film again and again.
China is looking forward to bullet train services connecting Kunming in south western China and Kolkata in Bengal, Chinese consul general in Kolkata, Ma Zhanwu, said on Wednesday.
We are looking forward to bullet trains from Kolkata to Kunming. The whole Asia will be connected, said Zhanwu while addressing a conference on connectivity and trade relations between China and India.
It will only take a few hours to reach Kolkata from Kunming if the rail link becomes a reality, he asserted.
However, the Chinese diplomat did not divulge the details of the route and whether it would follow the proposed Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar (BCIM) economic corridor that is projected to run through Mandalay in Myanmar, Chittagong and Dhaka in Bangladesh terminating in Kolkata.
Zhanwu described India as a rising economy and said China wants to maintain stable relations with its neighbours. He added that despite the fall in value of rupee lately, the rise of Indian economy is irreversible.
The Congress and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) are trying to resolve the deadlock over the sharing of seats in the upcoming assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.
A senior Congress functionary familiar with the developments said the BSP has been demanding 50 seats in Madhya Pradesh and 15 in Chhattisgarh.
The Congress is willing to give 20-22 seats in Madhya Pradesh and seven to nine in Chhattisgarh, but is keen to have a seat-sharing agreement with the BSP to oust the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has ruled both states for the past 15 years.
Dalits account for more than 15% of Madhya Pradeshs 75 million-population and 11.6% of Chattisgharhs 26 million, making the Congress very interested in a partnership with the BSP.
The BSP contested 227 out of 230 seats in the 201]3 elections in MP, won four, and ended up with vote share of 6.29%. Thats a significant vote share. The Congress won 58 seats with a share of 36.38% and the BJP 165 seats with a share of 44.88%.
In Chattisgarh, the BSP fought in all the 90 seats in the 2013 election, winning one and ending up with a vote share of 4.27%. The Congress won 39 seats with a vote share of 43.33%, and the BJP 49 seats with a share of 54.44%. These numbers may need to be seen differently now because Ajit Jogi, a former Congress leader, formed a separate party in 2016, and is widely considered to be in a position to play spoiler in the state.
The Congress functionary said while the party cannot afford to accept the BSPs demands because it has strong candidates and doing this would cause heartburn and force people to work against the party, both parties will try and sort out the issue and firm up an alliance soon.
BSP leaders refused to come on record on the issue, saying the final call on the alliance would be taken by BSP chief Mayawati.
BSP founder Kanshi Ram had fought his first Lok Sabha election from Janjgir-Champa, a district in the tribal-dominated state of Chattisgarh where the party has around 40% Satnami vote.
The negotiations between the two parties have also been strained by the BSPs demand that the alliance extend to Rajasthan, a state where the Congress believes it has a limited presence.
Political observers are of the view that the onus is on the BSP as the Congress has been a major player directly contesting the BJP in both Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. There has to be reasonable give and take from the sides. All this talk of demands is mere posturing before the leaders of the two parties formally sit to seal the deal, said Delhi-based political analyst Balveer Arora.
The Congress is a key player in both the states and the BSPs main strength is in Uttar Pradesh. Its presence in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh is not that significant. It is important for both the parties to understand the necessity of having an alliance, he added.
Triggering a controversy, Mumbai Congress chief Sanjay Nirupam on Wednesday called Narendra Modi illiterate, while criticising the state governments decision to screen a short film on the prime ministers life at schools in Maharashtra.
His comment drew sharp reaction from BJP leaders with the partys Maharashtra unit spokesperson Shaina NC calling Nirupam mentally deranged.
The decision to screen the film forcibly is wrong. Children should be kept away from politics. What will students learn from watching a film on an uneducated and illiterate person like Modi, the Congress leader told a news channel.
Children and people do not know how many degrees the prime minister holds, he said.
Later, asked by reporters about his choice of words, Nirupam said the ruling party need not object to each and every word, and in democracy the prime minister is not god.
Reacting to Nirupams remarks, Shaina NC tweeted, Yet another abnoxious comment by a mentally deranged @sanjaynirupam . May be he forgets that @narendramodi is elected by 125 cr Indians who arent unpad or gavar.@INCIndia is devoid of ideology and relevant questions. Sure citizens will give a befitting reply in 2019 (sic).
Anil Shirole, a BJP MP from Maharashtra tweeted, PM is not a representative of one party, he is the Prime Minister of the Country and its people. @sanjaynirupam by insulting our PM you have insulted and disrespected the office, the country and the constitution drafted by Dr.Babasaheb Ambedkar ji (sic).
The Zilla Parishad (ZP) schools in Maharashtra have been asked to screen a short film on Modi next week, a directive which has drawn criticism from Opposition.
A government official said that ZP schools were asked to screen the short film Chalo Jeete Hai on September 18 as it has a social message and would inspire students.
The 32-minute film -- Chalo Jeete Hai -- directed by Mangesh Hadawale and presented by Aanand L Rai and Mahaveer Jain, is based on the early life of Modi.
Opposition Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) have slammed the BJP-led dispensation over the decision.
(This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.)
A 28-year-old Dalit man was allegedly stabbed to death by two assailants in Ranwar village of the Karnal district on Wednesday.
The deceased has been identified as Rajiv Kumar, who is survived by his wife and two children. Police suspect that he was murdered due to old enmity.
The incident took place when Rajiv went to a shop where the two assailants were already present. They allegedly attacked him with sharp-edged weapons and fled the spot. Rajiv was taken to a hospital where doctors declared him brought dead.
A relative of the victim, Mahender Singh, has accused two upper caste men, Vicky and Parv Kumar, residents of the same village, of the murder. He alleged that Dalits are being targeted and the police are doing nothing.
He also demanded compensation for the family members of the deceased.
Meanwhile, the family members of the deceased held a protest and blocked the village road, demanding arrest of the assailants at the earliest.
Gharaunda deputy superintendent of police (DSP) Virender Saini, who reached the spot to pacify the protesting family members, said an FIR has been registered against the two accused, as per the statement of family members and efforts are on to arrest the accused.
Following the DSPs assurance, the family members of the deceased agreed to lift the raod blockade and the body of the deceased was sent for postmortem.
The Himachal Pradesh vigilance and anti-corruption bureau has closed investigations in the disproportionate assets complaint against former chief minister Prem Kumar Dhumal and his two sons Anurag Thakur and Arun Dhumal.
The probe into the six-year-old case has been closed due to lack of evidence. Probe has been closed as nothing substantial was found, an official of state anti-corruption and vigilance bureau, requesting anonymity, told Hindustan Times.
The anti-corruption bureau has submitted a report to the the state home department mentioning that it has found no evidence into the compliant that properties owned by Dhumal have been made through illegal means.
After taking over reigns in 2012, Virbhadra Singh-led Congress government had ordered a vigilance probe on the complaint of a Dharamsala based lawyer. The complainant alleged that Dhumal and his sons owned properties within and outside the state that were disproportionate to their declared assets.
The vigilance bureau had constituted a special investigating team (SIT) to look into the matter. Based on the complaint, it had prepared a list of 32 properties in Himachal, Punjab, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh. Besides it had also sought revenue records from Hamirpur and Kangra districts.
Virbhadra Singh government, at one point, had contemplated handing over the probe to the CBI.
The state anti-corruption bureau had also sent notices to Dhumal seeking details about his assets through a questionnaire.
Refuting the allegations, Dhumal had described the probe as an act of vengeance.
Later, retaliating against the Congresss move, Dhumal had written a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi demanding to probe assets of all the successive chief ministers of the state.
After assuming the office last year, chief minister Jai Ram Thakur had announced that his government will not pursue political vendetta and cases filed on political consideration would be withdrawn. Recently, the state government had moved court to withdraw cases against Vidhan Sabha speaker Rajeev Bindal that pertained to recruitment in Solan municipal corporation when he headed the civic body in 1999.
The Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) has taken custody of the two suspects arrested on Wednesday in connection with the murder of journalist Gauri Lankesh, from the special investigation team (SIT) of the Karnataka Police.
The accused, Bharat Kurne, 37, and Sujeeth Kumar, 37, were arrested by the SIT after their names were found in the diary of Amol Kale, said to be the second-in-command of the right-wing group involved in terror activities. They were produced before a special court and remanded in police custody till September 17.
But Maharashtras chief public prosecutor Jaysingh Desai argued Kurne and Kumar were linked to the group arrested for possession of arms and ammunition by the state ATS in Nalla Sopara in August.
Investigation has revealed there were several plans hatched by this group and some were withdrawn. Kurne is one of the key members involved in the planning, Desai told the court.
According to ATS, Kurne was the one who drove Lankeshs killers to a safe house in Bengalurus outskirts. The agency, after interrogating another arrested suspect in the case, found that Kurne owned a three-acre farmhouse in Khanapur (in the Belagavi district of Karnataka) and trained Lankeshs murderers to handle firearms. The probe revealed that the accused conducted a recce of their target, Desai told the court. The ATS also informed the court that they had located five two-wheelers (which were stolen) in connection with the case and are trying to confirm if two of them are from Karnataka.
Last week, the ATS arrested a mechanic named Vasudev Suryavanshi from Jalgaon who they believe modified the licence plates of the stolen bikes. Four of them have been kept in the ATS Juhu unit while one is in Pune.
The defence counsel for Kurne and Kumar objected to the ATS demand for their longer custody, arguing that the duo have already been in the SITs custody for long and nothing new would come out of them.
Bharat Kurne, 37, said to be key suspect, and Sujeeth Kumar, 37, were arrested by the Karnataka SIT and were remanded in police custody till September 17
The external affairs ministry on Wednesday dismissed reports that West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee was denied permission to visit Chicago to attend the world Hindu conference.
Spokesperson of the ministry Raveesh Kumar said the government did not receive any request for clearance for her visit.
We did not receive any request for clearance regarding the visit of Ms Mamata Banerjee to Chicago for the event. The reports about the denial of permission are, therefore, not true, he said in response to a question on the reports.
The West Bengal chief minister had Wednesday said, I wanted to go to Chicago... I could not go there because of an unholy conspiracy hatched by certain people. This incident has given me a lot of pain.
She had made the comment at a gathering in Belur Math, the global headquarters of the Ramakrishna Math and Mission, to mark 125th anniversary of Swami Vivekanandas historic speech at the Parliament of the Worlds Religions held in Chicago.
Investigators probing the death of a Gujarat businessman, his wife and teenage daughter on Wednesday have found a second suicide note in the house. This one, the police said, was by the wife who blamed what she called the evil spirit of his husbands former girlfriend..
Kunal Trivedi, 45, was found hanging in a bedroom of his flat, while his wife Kavita (45) and daughter Shreen (16) were found lying on the floor.
Trivedis mother Jayshreeben, 75, was also found unconscious when police broke open the door of their Avni Sky apartment on Wednesday morning after being alerted by the familys relatives, who grew concerned at their repeated calls to the Trivedis going unanswered.
The man left a three-page suicide note blaming dark forces for their deaths, police said, adding investigators were trying to determine if Trivedi killed his wife and daughter before hanging himself or if the deaths were the result of a suicide pact. Now the wifes suicide note has deepened the mystery.
Inspector HB Vaghela of the Naroda police station said that the bodies were sent for post-mortem and police were also waiting the forensic science laboratory reports to reach any conclusion.
Trivedis mother, who was admitted in a hospital, is in critical condition.
In the three-page suicide note, written in Hindi and addressed to Jayshreeben, Trivedi blamed dark forces for the tragedy, Vaghela said.
Everyone called me alcoholic ... I never drank out of my will the dark forces took advantage of my weakness ... but mother you did not understand me If you would have understood on the very first day then my life would have been different today word suicide was never found in my dictionary many a times I told you about dark forces but you did not believe me, he had written in the note, according to police.
Trivedi also said the family wasnt in any debt or facing any financial issues in the note, Vaghela said, adding that there was no mention of a tantric.
According to police, Trivedi earlier worked with private sector insurance companies, but recently started his own cosmetic products business.
Eight militants were killed in three separate incidents in Jammu and Kashmir on Thursday, including three who died in a gunfight with soldiers along the Line of Control (LoC) with Pakistan in North Kashmirs Kupwara , state police said.
The exchange of fire at Dat Gali was triggered after the three militants ignored warnings by men of the Jammu and Kashmir Rifles manning the LoC, while trying to sneak into India from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.
Officials said a combing operation was underway at the scene of the firefight and the bodies of the three unidentified militants, which were lying close to the LoC fence, had not been recovered until reports last came in.
In the neighbouring Baramulla district, an improvised explosive device (IED) expert was among two militants killed in Sopore town.
The Jammu and Kashmir police called the duos killing a major success ahead of the municipal and panchayat polls in the state in October and November.
The polls are seen as crucial for the governments attempts to turn the tide in the state amid a spike in violence since the killing of militant commander Burhan Wani in 2016.
Officials said the two militants killed in Sopore were cornered after the army, Jammu and Kashmir police and the Central Reserve Police Force launched an operation in the towns thickly populated Arampora locality following a tip-off about their presence on Wednesday night.
A police officer said the two militants fired on the security forces and were killed in the retaliatory fire on Thursday morning. The bodies of the two were later spotted through drone cameras.
A police statement identified the two as Pakistani nationals Ali and Zia-ur-Rehman. Both were affiliated with the Jaish-e-Mohammad militant outfit, it said. Ali had been active since 2014. The statement said Ali was involved in an IED blast that killed four policemen in January.
Internet services in Sopore were snapped while schools and colleges were shut in view of the anti-terror operation.
Separately, two militants were killed at Jhajjar Kotli near Jammu. A police officer said the two were among a group of three militants, who had on Wednesday night held a family hostage at their home.
The family was let off after the militants took biscuits and apples from them. The group later took another family hostage at Dhirthi before they were killed by security forces, the officer said. A Jammu and Kashmir police officer was among those injured in the anti-terror operation.
(With agency inputs)
Former Haryana chief minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda on Wednesday hit out at the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) for acting in collusion with the ruling BJP during the recent assembly session.
INLD is not the principal opposition party in Haryana but a principal ally of the BJP, he said on Wednesday during an interaction with mediapersons.
On assembly speaker Kanwar Pals decision to suspend Congress MLA Karan Singh Dalal for a year, Hooda said they were contemplating petitioning the court to challenge the speakers illegal order.
It was a black day in the history of state assembly. The behaviour of treasury benches and the leader of the opposition reeked of fascism and dictatorship. Dalal had sought the speakers ruling on whether the word which led to his suspension was un-parliamentary, the former chief minister said.
Hooda said speaker Kanwar Pal did not perform his duty by not allowing the Congress MLA an opportunity to explain before ordering his suspension.
Dalal said he would visit every district to expose the nexus between the ruling BJP and the INLD.
We very well know how INLD MP Dushyant Chautala requested chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar to promote 1994-batch IPS officers so that
Dushyants father-in-law Paramjit Singh Ahlawat who retired on August 31, could be promoted.
This clearly shows that they are in collusion, alleged Dalal.
The police probe against Franco Mulakkal, the Jalandhar bishop accused by a nun of raping her, is moving in the right direction, the Kerala high court said on Thursday after the police reported there were contradictions in the statements of various people including the complainant.
The high court also declined to order the police to arrest the Bishop, seen as a huge setback for the campaign to demand action against him.
Let the police quiz him again. We will hear the case after this, the court said.
The court, which had earlier directed the state government to explain the details of action taken against Mulakkal, will hear the case again on September 24.
The 43-year-old nun has alleged that Mulakkal assaulted her after summoning her on the pretext of discussing an important issue in 2014. He later allegedly raped her 13 times in the next two years.
The bishop had dismissed the allegations as baseless and concocted, insisting she levelled those as the Catholic order had rejected her demand for favours.
The nun has recently sought the urgent intervention of the Vatican for justice and demanded the bishops removal as the head of the Jalandhar diocese, questioning why the church was closing its eyes to the truth when she mustered the courage to make public her sufferings.
Money plays an important role in the Behror assembly constituency of Rajasthan, bordering Haryana on NH 8 between Jaipur and New Delhi. Due to the inclusion of Neemrana industrial area in this constituency, it is also one of the most developed areas in Alwar district.
Haryana and its political culture exercise a huge influence on Behror. Out of 11 assembly seats in Alwar district, fighting an election from Behror is the most expensive. People prefer candidates with a solid personality rather than going by party loyalty.
The area is home to about one lakh people from the Yadav community and thus it becomes imperative for parties to field a Yadav candidate. Since the Yadav vote is divided between two of their own candidates, the contestant who can manage support from scheduled caste, Brahmin, Jat, Rajput, Saini and business community wins the election.
BJP MLA and labour welfare minister Dr Jaswant Singh Yadav, who lost the Lok Sabha by-poll in January to Congress candidate Dr KS Yadav by over two lakh votes, wants to field his son, Mohit Yadav, from Behror this year. According to the minister, who had won the last assembly election, his sons qualification will help him develop the region. He feels his achievements in the past five years construction of a new stadium, new Krishi Upaj Mandi, the sanction of new bus stand and ITI colleges, CHC and PHC and schools up to class 12 in every panchayat will help Mohit win.
The Congress, meanwhile, is banking on former independent candidate Baljeet Yadav to win in 2018. Baljeet, who joined the Congress two months ago, is popular among the youth and had proved his might in the last assembly elections when he ended at the second position after bagging 34,000 votes. If he wins, his aim will be to generate jobs, said Baljeet.
He said that in spite of the Japanese Zone with a number of industries in Neemrana, people from Behror are not getting employment there. Baljeet alleged that last time Jaswant had promised to get 30,000 jobs for the youth in Neemrana for a minimum salary of Rs 35,000 per month. However, not a single person has found employment there.
Baljeet said that the BJP candidate had also promised that Behror will be granted the status of a district and a womens college will come up, but none of those promises has been fulfilled. The law and order situation in Behror is poor and corruption is at an all-time high. For me, my slogan will be fear and corruption-free Behror. I have been raising these issues for a long time. If the Congress decides to give me a ticket, I will gather support from the youth, win this election and resolve their issues, Baljeet said.
National security advisor Ajit Doval is expected to visit Washington as early as this week, ahead of Russian President Vladimir Putins India visit next month.
He will address US concerns over Indias purchase of the S-400 missile system from Russia, and to convince the Trump administration that the deal merits a waiver from the provisions of Countering Americas Adversaries Through the Sanctions Act (CAATSA).
President Putin will be hosted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on October 4 and 5 in New Delhi for the annual bilateral summit. PM Modi has a great personal rapport with President Putin and both India and Russia, old allies, are not keen on shelving the purchase.
Officials in New Delhi and Washington confirmed that Doval would be meeting his counterpart John Bolton, who, along with the US State Department, has still not decided on India getting a waiver in the Russian missile deal. However, there is another view in both the Pentagon and Foggy Bottom that a major defence partner of the US like India should not be penalised, especially because New Delhi has a history of hardware acquisition from Russia over the past 70 years. The CATSA was not discussed in the September 6 two-plus-two talks in Delhi. More than 60% of Indian military inventory is from Russia. Since the break-up of the erstwhile Soviet Union, Russia has been selling arms including the S-400 missile system to China.
Although the Indian forces are all for the S-400 surface to missile system, a waiver from US President Trump is essential or else US defence contractors such as Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon and Sirkorsky, who are supplying critical equipment to India like the C-17, C-130 J transport aircraft, Apache and Chinook helicopters, will come under sanctions. Besides CAATSAs impact on the S-400 deal, Doval will discuss the situation in the Af-Pak region with the Americans showing signs of negotiating with the Taliban as long as US bases are not targeted by the Islamic fundamentalists backed by Pakistans deep state.
With the Taliban making advances in Afghanistan, Indias assessment is that US will keep out of military operations, leaving the Asharf Ghani regime to negotiate a political settlement with Taliban through their mentors across the Durand Line.
National security planners say that a settlement with Taliban will be detrimental to peace in the region as it will further strengthen the proxies of Pakistan, including the Haqqani network. They add that the US will give a green signal to talks with Taliban on the assurance that the fundamentalist group will not attack American bases monitoring developments in Iran, Central Asia, Russia and China.
The government on Wednesday prohibited the manufacture, sale or distribution of 328 fixed dose combination (FDC) drugs for human use with immediate effect, thereby settling the dust on the fate of irrational FDCs.
It also restricted the manufacture, sale or distribution of six other FDCs in respect to specific indications subject to certain conditions.
FDCs are two or more drugs combined in a fixed ratio into a single dosage form.
Painkillers, antibiotics, antiseptics for treatment of mouth and throat conditions and anti-diabetic drugs got a relief but with caveats, according to two people aware of the matter.
These six FDCs have not been given a clean chit. They are going to be restricted or regulated, said one of the persons mentioned above.
The expert panel probing the efficacy of 349 banned FDCs complied with the December 2017 apex court judgement and gave its report to Indias top drug advisory body, the Drug Technical Advisory Board (DTAB), on 25 July.
The panel after considering these drugs irrational, citing safety issues and lack of therapeutic justification, recommended continuing the ban.
The expert panel also found that many FDCs were formulated without due diligence, with dosing mismatches that could result in toxicity.
In its report submitted on 20 January 2015, the panel led by Chandrakant Kokate, vice-chancellor of KLE University, Karnataka, deemed these FDCs irrational, saying they posed health risks and, hence, banned them, pushing some of the firms and the pharma groups to challenge the governments notification banning FDCs in the court.
Last December, the apex court referred the matter to DTAB for a fresh review on whether these drugs should continue to be marketed.
The Supreme Court suggested DTAB decide whether the manufacture and sale of these drugs should be regulated, restricted or banned outright, and submit its report and recommendations to the government within six months.
An expert panel was then formed under the chairmanship of Nilima Kshirsagar, professor-head clinical pharmacology, G.S. Medical College and KEM Hospital, Mumbai, to review the safety, efficacy and therapeutic justification of these drugs.
The health ministrys ban on FDCs included painkillers, anti-diabetic, respiratory and gastro-intestinal medicines, covering 6,000 brands.
President Ram Nath Kovind has cleared the appointment of Justice Ranjan Gogoi as the next Chief Justice of India. He will take over from CJI Dipak Misra on October 3 and continue in office till November 17, 2019.
Justice Gogoi, who will take over as the 46th CJI, will be the first in the post from the Northeast. He is from Assam.
He began his legal career in 1978 as an advocate in the Gauhati high court. In 2001, he was appointed as a judge in Gauhati high court. He was elevated to the Supreme Court in 2012 from the Punjab and Haryana high court, where he was chief justice for almost a year.
In 2016, he created a stir as a Supreme Court judge when he issued a contempt notice against a retired judge of the court, Justice Markandeya Katju.
In a Facebook post, Katju had criticised the top courts verdict in the 2011 Soumya rape-and-murder case. The court had held the accused guilty of the rape but not the murder of the 23-year-old woman who was travelling in a passenger train from Ernakulam to Shornur.
That judgment was authored by a bench headed by Gogoi. Justice Katju appeared in the court of Gogoi and apologised for the Facebook post, thereby ending the matter.
Justice Gogoi has also been hearing the contentious National Register of Citizens (NRC) case in Assam. It is on the orders of Justice Gogoi that the NRC for Assam has been prepared.
The first draft of the NRC has been published and over four million people have been left out. The case is still pending. Recently, the court directed the Centre to draw up a standard operating procedure to deal with the claims of the four million people excluded from the NRC, which has been prepared to identify and deport illegal residents of Assam.
Justice Gogoi was also a part of the extraordinary January 11 press conference called by the four senior-most judges of the Supreme Court. Issues pertaining to the administration of the top court and allocation of cases to junior judges by the CJI were raised at the press conference.
Justice Gogois taking part in the press conference was seen as a bold move in legal circles, as he was in line to be the next CJI and his chances for appointment could have been jeopardised.
Negotiations for procuring 126 Rafale jets under the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government failed because state-run aerospace company Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. (HAL) didnt have the capability to produce the aircraft in India in collaboration with French company Dassault Aviation, Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said Thursday.
Sitharaman said A K Antony, who was defence minister in the UPA government, made an unprecedented intervention in 2013 when the cost negotiation committee was finalising the deal but that put the final nail in the coffin.
Dassault Aviation, after rounds of negotiations with HAL, felt that the cost of jets will escalate significantly if they were to be produced in India, she said during an interaction with PTI editors and reporters at the news agencys headquarters in Delhi.
Dassault could not progress in the negotiations with HAL because if the aircraft were to be produced in India, a guarantee for the product to be produced was to be given. It is a big ticket item and the IAF (Indian Air Force) would want the guarantee for the jets. HAL was in no position to give the guarantee, she said.
Sitharaman said the weapon systems, avionics and other key add-ons to the Rafale aircraft, expected to be delivered beginning September 2019, will be much superior than that negotiated by the UPA government, and her government is getting the planes for 9% cheaper than what was earlier agreed upon.
The UPA government started negotiating with French Dassault Aviation to buy 126 Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) in 2012 .
The plan was for Dassault Aviation to supply 18 Rafale jets in fly-away condition while 108 aircraft were to be manufactured in India by the company along with HAL. However, the deal could not be sealed.
The Congress party, which led the UPA government, has asked the government to explain why HAL was not involved in the new deal.
Sitharaman said the UPA-era deal collapsed, as HAL did not have the capability to produce 108 aircraft in India.
Even during negotiation with HAL, Dassault felt that the cost with which the HAL will produce will be far higher than the aircraft produced in France. That was the reality, she said.
Why could not the then defence minister say that we will pump in all the required resources into the HAL. He could have done it. That was not done, Sitharaman said, adding that the current government was initiating steps to strengthen the company.
In 2016, the Modi government signed a government-to-government deal with France for purchase of 36 Rafale jets at a cost of Rs 58,000 crore. The Congress has been alleging irregularities in the deal.
Rebutting charges of corruption in the deal, the defence minister also asserted that people of the country have put a closure on the issue as they trust Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
There is a trust in the prime minister. He is not going to be corrupt. So with all this, I think mentally, people of India have reached a closure on it, saying there is no corruption here, she said.
Sitharaman ruled out calling the opposition parties for a meeting to allay their concerns over the Rafale deal, saying they are throwing an allegation without any basis as well as showing no concern for operational preparedness of the air force.
She said the Congress was running short of issues and corruption was a plank on which it utterly failed.
It is one of the cleanest governments India has ever seen. On corruption, the Congress is very frustrated. The party will have to learn from this government.
I am saying this with a certain sense of confidence and not arrogance. The defence ministry is being run without any middleman and in a transparent way. We have proved that defence procurement can happen without middlemen, she said.
On Antonys intervention, she said he held back the file at a stage where he did not have any role to play. However, she did not elaborate on reasons for Antonys action.
The Congress has repeatedly criticised the deal for the 36 Rafale jets, alleging that the government was procuring each aircraft at a cost of over Rs 1,670 crore as against Rs 526 crore finalised by the UPA government.
Sitharaman said the Rs. 526 crore figure refers to the bare aircraft, capable of just flying and landing, and does not take into account the avionics, arsenal and other associated technologies that make it a complete fighting machine.
MIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi Thursday claimed that the RSS represents Hindu nationalism and said he would never accept any invitation from it to participate in any event held by the organisation.
The Hyderabad Lok Sabha MP was reacting the invitation being extended by RSS to various leaders for a three-day lecture series of RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat, scheduled to be held in New Delhi next week.
The RSS has indicated that it would invite Congress president Rahul Gandhi, CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury and the leaders of all the political outfits of different ideologies besides religious leaders, sportspersons, media personalities and ambassadors of more than 60 countries.
Owaisi said RSS stood for Hindu nationalism. It is an organisation which believe in Indian nationalism. I will never do this stupidity and mistake of what Pranab Mukherjee did..., he told reporters in Hyderabad.
He was referring to the participation of the former president in an RSS event at Nagpur in June last, which had then triggered a controversy with senior Congress leaders opposing it.
I cannot speak for Congress president and I can speak only for myself.I would never even in my thought process think for a second about such an invitation, he said when asked about his reaction to Gandhi being invited.
Owaisi attacked the Centre over rising fuel prices, saying Prime Minister Narendra Modi has created enough darkness by ensuring that the price of petrol and diesel go beyond common mans means.
Targeting the prime minister over the issues of Jammu and Kashmir, demonetisation and employment generation, he said Modi might have created light for his party.
People are lynching Dalits and Muslims in the name of cow. Everywhere there is darkness. Light will come only when BJP is removed from power, he claimed.
On BJP leader Subramanian Swamys remarks that the lookout notice against businessman Vijay Mallya got diluted, eventually allowing him to flee the country, Owaisi said he should approach a court seeking justice.
If Subramanian Swamy is real patriot, what is stopping him from taking it to a logical conclusion by going to the court of law, he said.
(This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text. Only the headline has been changed.)
Terming the action of the Kerala government as a misadventure entrenching upon the field of judcial review, the Supreme Court has struck down an ordinance passed by the Kerala government regularising the admissions of 180 MBBS students in Kannur Medical College and Karuna Medical College run by the Prestige Educational Trust and the Safe Development Alms Trust.
In 2017, the Kerala government had passed an ordinance nullifying the Kerala high court and Supreme Court judgments that set aside admissions made by these private colleges to MBBS courses for the academic year 2016-17.
Invalidating the ordinance on Wednesday, a bench of justices Arun Mishra and Indira Banerjee said, In case such a power of covering up illegal action is given to the State Government in individual cases of two colleges, the day is not far off when every judgment can be annulled. It is crystal clear in the instant case that the State Government has exceeded its powers and has entrenched upon the field reserved for the judiciary. It could not have nullified the judgment.
The admissions of 180 students to MBBS course in the two private medical colleges were declared illegal by the high court and Supreme Court on the ground that they were admitted without their having applied online for the course.
The admission supervisory committee (ASC) of professional colleges in Kerala had issued instructions to all medical colleges that MBBS seats should be filled only through an online process. But the two medical colleges flouted the instructions while admitting the 180 students.
The Supreme Court judgment delivered on Wednesday says the ordinance had been brought to benefit only two colleges and students in question.
The court ruled that, It is also apparent that what the State Government has done by way of the impugned Ordinance is not only impermissible and beyond legislative competence, it also has the effect of perpetuating illegality and arbitrariness committed by the colleges in question by not following the mandate of law laid down by the High Court as affirmed by this Court.
As the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) begins preparations for the year-end elections in four states and the Lok Sabha polls next year, the party cadre have received a message from the Prime Minister -- to strengthen the organisation at the grassroots and ensure there is no let-up in engagement with the people.
Urging party workers on Thursday to follow the Mera Booth Sabse Mazboot (My booth strongest) line, PM Narendra Modi said that though the wind was blowing in the BJPs favour and opposition parties were banking on each other to withstand its force, there should be no laxity in preparations for the polls.
Interacting by video-conference with cadre from five Lok Sabha seats -- Rajasthans Jaipur (Rural), Uttar Pradeshs Nawada and Ghaziabad, Jharkhands Hazaribagh and Arunachal Pradeshs Arunachal West -- he said they should ensure that at least 20 families and youth work with the BJP in every polling booth.
The BJP is a cadre-based party that relies heavily on interactions at the booth level -- the smallest unit of the constituency -- to forge relations with the electorate.
Ahead of the elections, the cadre of the BJP along with those of its parent organisation, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), are tasked with reaching out to the electorate to draw support.
The need to reinforce booth-level interactions was underlined after the BJP suffered losses in as many as eight Lok Sabha by-polls in Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra earlier this year. Most of these losses, particularly that of Gorakhpur, the bastion of Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath, were attributed to the cadres complacency.
To prevent a repeat in the forthcoming elections, the PM on Thursday said the BJPs biggest strength was its workers and their hard work had ensured the partys success and progress in a short span of four years.
Replying to a question on opposition parties tying up for the 2019 polls, Modi --- he was nominated the BJPs prime ministerial candidate this day in 2013 -- assured party workers that the BJP would win again.
... the wind is blowing in favour of the BJP, even stronger than 2014. Thats why opposition parties are clutching each others hands to save themselves from being blown away, he said.
Hitting out at the Congress, he said that unlike the BJP, it was a one-family party.
In the BJP, responsibilities are given on the basis of work, not name, he said.
The opposition was resorting to lies in its campaign, Modi claimed, but today the people in the country were awake while the opposition was not ready to come out of its slumber.
Ajay Gudavarthy, professor at the Centre for Political Studies, JNU, said the BJP was facing a crisis of strategy as it was not sure what to go to the polls with. They have raised the aspirations of the people so much that they are not confident of going to polls on the basis of their accomplishments, he said.
An alleged member of Hizbul Mujahideen who planned to attack a temple during Ganesh Chaturthi celebrations in Kanpur was arrested on Thursday by the anti-terrorism squad of Uttar Pradesh police, a senior official said.
Director general of police OP Singh said Qamar-uz-Zama alias Dr Huraira confessed during an interrogation that he had conducted a reconnaissance of the Siddhi Vinayak temple in Collectorganj after his handlers ordered him to attack it.
Singh said the National Investigation Agency (NIA) was tracking Zama since April this year after he posted his photograph holding an AK-47 assault rifle on social media. It was then that he came on the radar of intelligence and security agencies, Singh said during a press conference.
The central agency was tracking the 38-year-olds movement since then and tipped off the states anti-terrorism squad about his location in Shivnagar locality of the citys Chakeri area after spotting him there, Singh said.
The senior official said Zama, a resident of Jamunamukh in Assams Hojai district, lived in different locations in the state and country in the past few months. He was living in a rented accommodation in Kanpur for the last ten days before he was arrested.
He said the ATS has recovered a mobile phone with pictures and approach routes of the temple.
The officer said Zama told the police he is an active member of Hizbul Mujahideen since April last year when he underwent a training in Kishtwar of Jammu and Kashmir. Zama said a person named Osama roped him in the terror group and organised his training before assigning any task.
Singh added Zama, a diploma holder in a computer course, was trained to carry out any kind of terrorist activity and was pursuing graduation from a college in Assam. Zama will be questioned by NIA, ATS, the Intelligence Bureau as well as other agencies, he said.
Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Thursday attacked the government over fugitive business tycoon Vijay Mallyas exit from the country in 2016, demanding that finance minister Arun Jaitley resign over what he called an act of collusion with Mallya.
Gandhi alleged the minister knew about Mallyas plan to flee the country but did not alert the probe agencies. This is a clear-cut case of collusion. There is some deal between them. Finance Minister Jaitley must resign and this should be investigated, he said, a day after Arun Jaitley denied that he had a meeting with Mallya before he fled the country in 2016.
At a press conference on Thursday, Gandhi also targeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Why did Jaitley allow Mallya to escape, or was it an order from the prime minister? he said.
In a statement yesterday Arun Jaitley dismissed Vijay Mallyas claim that he had a meeting with the minister before leaving the country in which he offered to settle his unpaid loans. Jaitley said Mallya did try to start a conversation when he was on his way out of the Rajya Sabha in 2016 and recalled curtly telling him that he should talk to the banks about his outstanding loans.
Rahul Gandhi today insisted that the meeting between the minister and Mallya had gone on for much longer in parliaments central hall on March 1, 2016. Also at the press conference was Congress leader PL Punia, who claimed that he had witnessed the meeting, alleging that Jaitley and Mallya had initially spoken for about 5-7 minutes in one corner of the hall and later sat down on the bench. In all, the two spoke for about 15-20 minutes, Punia said.
There are CCTV cameras, we can all see that for proof. If I am wrong, I will resign from politics, Punia said.
This is an open and shut case where an economic offender talks to the minister before fleeing to London within days of this meeting, the Congress president stressed at the briefing, minutes after the BJP accused the previous UPA government of giving a sweet deal to the beleaguered Kingfisher Airlines to keep it afloat.
Later union minister Piyush Goyal also rubbished the Congress accusation. Rahul Gandhi should first answer what were the relations between his family and Mallya, the railways minister said, underlining that the now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines was given loans bypassing all norms, laws and regulations.
Sometimes it seems the airline was not owned by Mallya, but by the Gandhi family in proxy, BJP spokesman Sambit Patra said, adding that Rahul Gandhi, who is out on bail in the National Herald case, had no right to question others on corruption.
Vijay Mallya, a liquor baron who founded the now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines, fled to the UK allegedly when a group of banks launched efforts to recover around Rs. 9,000 crore from him.
Mallya, 62, who is fighting Indias request to the UK to send him back, is wanted in India for defaulting on loans worth crores and money.
The court decision on Mallyas extradition is expected on December 10.
A day after tigress Sundari, brought to Odishas Satkosia tiger reserve from the Bandhavgarh reserve in Madhya Pradesh under Indias first inter-state tiger relocation exercise, allegedly mauled a 45-year-old woman to death, the Odisha government on Thursday decided to send it back to its original abode.
On Wednesday, the badly mauled body of Kailashi Sai, a resident of Hatibari village on the fringe of the Satkosia tiger reserve in Angul district, was found, triggering anger among locals who suspected the relocated tigress to have killed her.
As villagers set fire to a forest range office, several boats of forest department and a beat house in the tiger reserve and blocked traffic, the state acceded to the peoples demand to move the animal out of Satkosia. The incident has cast a shadow on the entire tiger relocation exercise.
The forest department officials and the district administration held a meeting today and decided that the tigress would be sent back to Bandhavgarh within the next fortnight. The officials of Wildlife Institute of India and NTCA (National Tiger Conservation Authority) would make the necessary preparation for sending the tiger back. Since yesterday, the villagers were not agreeing to allow post-mortem of the woman and so there was little way out, said Angul district collector Anil Samal.
The district administration also had to give Rs 20,000 for cremation of the woman before the angry villagers lifted the roadblock.
Two militants were killed in a gunfight with security forces in Jammu and Kashmirs Sopore town on Thursday, officials said.
On specific information about presence of militants in the area, a joint team of army, police and the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) launched an operation in congested Arampora locality in the town of Baramulla district. As the search was on, hiding militants fired on the security forces, resulting in the encounter breaking out.
The bodies of two killed militants were spotted by drone cameras employed by the security forces.
An army spokesman confirmed that two militants were killed in the operation. The operation is still in progress, he said.
Internet services in Sopore have been snapped and all schools and colleges shut. The identity of the militants is yet to be ascertained..
Two militants who had opened fire at a check post on the Jammu-Srinagar-highway on Wednesday were killed in a shootout with security forces after being surrounded near a village in Jammu and Kashmirs Reasi district on Thursday and the third was trapped, officials said.
Eight security personnel including a deputy superintendent of police were injured in the encounter that was barely five km away from the Shri Mata Vaishno Devi university and super specialty hospital.
A senior police officer said that around 8:15 pm on Wednesday, the three militants, fleeing after the attack on the checkpost near Jhajjar Kotli area, held the family of Sudershan Khajuria at a village in Jhajjar Kotli till 9:30 pm and then took some biscuits and apples from the family before leaving their house.
On Thursday morning, the trio had held the family of Raju hostage at Dhirthi, said police sources, adding that the family was rescued and some villagers evacuated to safety before engaging with the hiding militants.
Senior commanders of Nagrota-based 16 Corps personally supervised the operations.
According to major general of Arvind Bhatia, commander of the Rashtriya Rifles Uniform Force, the militants had infiltrated into the state recently through the Samba border in Jammu region, and were trying to go to either Srinagar or the Jammu bus station but seemed to have lost their way. He said they had taken clothes from the villagers to disguise themselves but were trapped in the area as they could not cross the overflowing Jhajjar rivulet.
Asserting that the third ultra wounded in the leg would also be soon eliminated, he said the two militants seemed be non-Kashmiris and possibly of the Lashkar-e-Taiba.
The three militants on board a truck had attacked a checkpost in Jhajar Kotli area injuring a Central Reserve Police Force trooper and a forest guard on Wednesday. They had then abandoned the vehicle and vanished into the bushes. A search operation was on ever since.
Bhatia said that the truck driver and helper who were held after the attack on Wednesday morning were overground workers for the militant outfits.
The Supreme Court on Thursday ordered all states and Union territories to frame a rule whereby uninsured vehicles involved in fatal or non-fatal accidents would be auctioned and the sale proceeds, deposited with the Motor Accident Claim Tribunal (MACT) to compensate victims.
A bench led by chief justice Dipak Misra issued the order on a petition filed by a woman whose husband was killed and son injured in a road accident in Punjab. The petitioner sought compensation from the Punjab government because the vehicle responsible for the accident was uninsured.
The court refused to accept the petitioners contention, but it issued the direction after being informed that Delhi in 2008 had amended the rule under the Motor Accident Claims Tribunal (MACT) to prohibit release of uninsured motor vehicles involved in accidents. Under the law, a magistrate hearing a MACT case is empowered to order the sale of the offending vehicle in a public auction.
The bench headed by CJI Misra issued the direction to chief secretaries of all the states and fixed a 12-week deadline to implement the order.
Under the Motor Vehicles Act, it is mandatory for all transport/non transport vehicles to carry a third party insurance policy so as to indemnify the victims/deceased family members in case of a road accident. But in several cases, as in the one before the top court, the offending vehicles do not have a third-party insurance policy. As a result neither the owner of the vehicle nor the insurer offers to pay compensation, leaving the victim or his or her family without any remedy.
The matter reached SC in February this year with the petitioner, Usha Devi, urging the court to implead the Punjab government as a party in the MACT case instituted after her husband died in the road accident. Her advocate Radhika Gautam took the plea that Devi should be compensated by the sate that had failed to stop an uninsured vehicle from plying.
Government vehicles are exempt from insurance. Section 146 of the Motor Vehicle Act states that there is no necessity for insurance against any third party loss if any vehicle is owned by the central government or a state government and used for official purposes, unconnected with any commercial enterprise. However, in the case of accident involving a government vehicle, the liability will be on the respective government to pay the compensation.
Mental and physical torture, husbands promiscuity and parents refusal to stand by her when she wanted to end her marriage are some of the things troubling Indian Revenue Service (IRS) officer Binny Sharma leading up to her suicide. Apart from a three-line suicide note, a diary maintained by her reveals her state of mind.
The government officer hanged herself at her Bajaj Nagar home in Jaipur on August 7. In a suicide note, she had blamed her husband and mother-in-law for her death.
I am living my last nine years full of lies and defeat. My husband has ruined my life, so has his mother. May God look after my children, read the three-line suicide note.
The diary provides a detailed account of what Sharma allegedly went through in the eight years of marriage. The pages of the diary were made public by Binnys father on Tuesday.
I have been cheated, betrayed, deceived taken undue advantages of blackmailed emotionally, abused in all ways possible, simply because I married a man who is pathetically morally depraved human being, who has nothing humane about him and is thoroughly self-centred money minded, feeding off the ill-gotten wealth hoarded by his father, she wrote in her diary on September 16 last year.
In another entry, on May 23 this year, she wrote, All that I have put up with after marriage makes me feel there is nothing more to lose as far as humanity is concerned. People have been shamelessly promiscuous, depraved and failing the basic tenets of being human. Perhaps, I was given the shabby treatment just because I was too naive to understand the ways of the world.
Speaking for her husband Gurmeet Walia, his lawyer Vivek Raj Singh Bajwa denied the charges levelled in the diary and subsequently repeated by Sharmas father, Chandra Mohan Sharma.
The truth is Binny was mentally unstable and was undergoing treatment in Mumbai, Walias lawyer said.
After the IRS officers suicide, Jaipur police booked Walia and his mother, Ravinder Kaur, for abetment of suicide on August 10. The two got anticipatory bail from Rajasthan high court on September 7 and appeared before Bajaj Nagar police the same day for the investigation.
Her father also shared footage from a CCTV camera at her house in which the IRS officer is seen questioning her 16-year-old maid, who was allegedly sexually assaulted by Walia. In the video, the maid is seen confirming that she was sexually harassed.
Walias lawyer Bajwa said, After one month, Binnys father has come up with an allegation that my client had sexually molested his maid... why he waited for so long?
Jaipur East deputy commissioner of police Gaurav Yada said the police was trying to track the maid once the fresh allegations were made. Once she is traced, we will record her statement and if it is found that the allegations are true, we will register a case, he said.
The state government on Thursday ordered immediate release of Bhim Army chief Chandrashekhar, alias Ravan, who was arrested for the clashes between Dalits and the police in Saharanpur on May 9, 2017, principal secretary (Home) Arvind Kumar said.
Kumar said the decision to release Chandrashekhar was taken after his mother filed a mercy application to the state government. He added that the situation in Saharanpur and other circumstances were also analysed before the decision.
Chandrashekhar, the founder of Bhim Army a group of Dalit youth has enjoyed a celebrity status in his neighbourhood in Saharanpur where many consider him to be a crusader for social justice. His and his groups growing influence in the region was seen to have been a part of a stronger Dalit voice that has risen in the last couple of years.
Chandrashekhar was accused of sparking the May 9 clashes during a protest against the police cane charge on people protesting caste violence in Saharanpurs Shabbirpur village on May 5.
Police had invoked the National Security Act (NSA) against Chandrashekhar, a lawyer by profession, after his arrest. He has been in jail since his arrest by UP Special Task Force from Himachal Pradesh on June 8, 2017. NSA was also slapped on five other members of the Bhim Army, of whom Sonpal, Sudhir and Vilas were released on September 6 and 7, Kumar said. Two others, Sonu and Shiv Kumar, will be released with Chandrashekhar, he added.
Kumar said the order has been sent to Saharanpur district administration and their release was likely by Friday.
While Chandrashekhars judicial custody was till November 1, 2018, that of Sonu and Shiv Kumar was till October 14, 2018.
The Bombay high court on Wednesday asked the citys JJ Hospital to submit by Friday, a report on the plea of a 13-year-old rape survivor, who is also battling cancer, to terminate her 24-week pregnancy.
The petitioners mother, who works as house help, with the help of NGO Majlis, approached the HC on the grounds that her daughter was being treated for cancer and continuing with the pregnancy would be harmful for her.
According to lawyer Kuldeep Nikam, the teenager has been undergoing treatment for blood cancer at Wadia Hospital since 2010. The pregnancy came to light during a visit for to the hospital on September 5. The girl then told her mother that a school friend had raped her.
A criminal complaint was lodged against the rapist, who is also a minor, with Bhoiwada police station under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.
Majlis co-founder and advocate Flavia Agnes told the court that the parents were under a lot of stress owing to their daughters ailment and the pregnancy would only aggravate matters.
Submitting the sonography report of Wadia Hospital confirming the pregnancy, Nikam told the court that it was an unwanted pregnancy and medical experts had advised against it, as it would pose a serious threat to the life of the teenager as well as the foetus. He argued that the unborn foetus could not be put on a higher pedestal than the rights of a living woman.
After hearing the submissions, a division bench of justice Abhay Oka and Mahesh Sonak directed the dean of JJ Hospital to appoint a committee and examine the victim on Thursday.
The three-member committee appointed by the Bombay high court (HC) to enquire into the fire at Kamala Mills in December 2017, has held the owner of the mill and two restaurant proprietors responsible for the incident.
The committee concluded that the immediate and probable cause of the fire on December 29, 2017 was burning charcoal from a hookah and that fire safety violations were committed by the owner of Kamala Mills, Ramesh Gowani, and the owners of two rooftop restaurants.
Headed by former chief justice of Kerala high Court Arvind V Sawant, the committee submitted its 200-paged report to the HC, which heard the report in court on Tuesday.
The immediate and probable cause of the fire was that hookah was being served in southern corner of Mojos Bistro Restaurant with the help of charcoal-burning segree on the open terrace with inflammable material and a group of youngsters dancing all around, said the committee report. The committee also noted that the restaurants didnt have the necessary no objection certificates (NOCs), provided by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), or fire safety measures like smoke detectors, sirens and fire extinguishers. Additionally, fire escapes were blocked, which increased the fatalities. Gowani was also accused of illegally using extra floor space index (FSI) for commercial purposes.
We hold that Ramesh Gowani has committed serious violations of the modified DCR-58 (Development Control Regulation) by illegally consuming FSI for commercial purpose, in excess of the permissible 20% of the total FSI, says the report. Gowani is also guilty of not ensuring that 80% of the total FSI is used for information technology purposes, said the committee and recommended action against him for this obvious illegal change of user.
Three officers from the excise department have also been named in the report for dereliction of duty.
The HC had appointed the committee in response to two public interest litigations filed after the fire, one of them by former Mumbai police commissioner Julio Ribeiro. The fire led to the loss of 14 lives.
The police nabbed a proclaimed offender involved in drug peddling on Thursday, two years after he fled the country to evade arrest.
The accused, identified as Sukhwinder Singh alias Sukha (30) of Phullanwal village was arrested in 2014 for drug peddling. He, however, fled to Thailand in 2016 after he got a bail and stayed there for two years before he was deported in August, police said.
PO staff in-charge inspector Gurbinder Singh said after coming back to India, the accused was constantly changing his location to evade arrest.
He added that after receiving a tip-off on location of the accused, the police laid a trap and arrested him from Jalandhar bypass.
During interrogation, the accused told police that he fled the country to avoiding case proceedings. He assumed that the case against him will be cancelled if he remained untraceable.
THE CASE
Sukhwinder Singh was arrested by Shimlapuri police on November 27, 2014 for drug peddling. He was declared proclaimed offender by the court in April 24, 2017 when he did not appear for the hearing of the case registered against him.
The police had registered a case under Sections 22/61/85 of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, against the accused.
In another case, the PO staff arrested another proclaimed offender Gaurav Rai of Shimlapuria in a cheque bounce case.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Wednesday filed a charge sheet against Pearls Group and its chief Nirmal Singh Bhangoo in connection with a ponzi scam involving over Rs 48,000 crore.
Apart from Bhangoo, who is in judicial custody, three of his colleagues and commission agents have also been named in the ED chargesheet filed in a special court here under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
The ED, which started the probe after registering a first information report (FIR) in 2015 based on the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) case, had in January attached Australia-based assets of Pearls Group and Bhangoo worth Rs 472 crore.
Was arrested in 2016
The CBI had arrested Bhangoo and his three colleagues in 2016 following allegations that they collected funds from investors in Delhi, Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan and other states through ponzi schemes, in the name of real estate projects.
Bhangoo, his companies the PACL and the PGFL, as well as lakhs of his commission agents were accused of cheating 5.5 crore investors on the pretext of sale and development of agriculture land.
The companies made false allotments to investors even though they did not own any land in their own name.
Promised moon to investors
Bhangoo and his companies promised the investors that allotment would be done on their investment between 90 and 270 days and if not, handsome returns would be paid.
The ED said the promoters and directors of the PACL and the PGFL collected more than Rs 48,000 crore from investors all over the country through a collective investment scheme in the garb of sale and development of agriculture land. Earlier, the amount was estimated over Rs 45,000 crore.
Of the total funds, PACL invested 164 crore in Pearls Infrastructure Projects Limited (PIPL) for acquiring 25.37% shares and the remaining 74.63% shares of the PIPL were acquired indirectly by the PACL through its 43 front companies for an investment of Rs 493.18 crore. In total, the PIPL received Rs 657.18 crore from the PACL between 2009 and 2014, said an ED statement.
The statement said that the PIPL, an associate company of the PACL, further invested Rs 147.38 crore in 2010 for acquiring 50 shares of Australian firm Miiresorts Group 1 Pty Ltd, and Rs 459.23 crore from 2009 to 2014 for acquiring 99.24% shares of another Australian firm Miigroup Holdings Pty Ltd.
Miigroup further invested Rs 147.38 crore in Miiresorts for acquiring 50% of shares. An amount of 25.07 crore was remitted to Australia to the Hicky Lawyers Trust for purchase of immovable property (Sanctuary Cove Properties).
In May 2010, Miiresorts, out of the funds received, purchased Sheraton Mirage Hotel in approximately AUS $62.5 million and sold it to Australian Wattle Development Pty Ltd in AUS $87.37 million equivalent to Rs 447 crore by the order of the Federal Court of Australia, the statement said.
The Miiresorts and Miigroup are controlled by Bhangoo and his family members.
For the first time, foreign resident doctors working at the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER) and other medical institutes of national importance will be paid salaries.
So far, they were doing free labour while their Indian counterparts would earn anywhere between Rs 70,000 and Rs 1 lakh per month.
There are 668 seats for junior residents (MD/MS), of which 10% (66) are reserved for foreign nationals at the PGIMER. Currently, 58 seats are filled, out of which 50 junior residents are from Nepal, one from Sri Lanka and two from Canada besides other nations. Apart from them, there are 13 foreign senior residents at the institute.
Stating that these doctors work equally hard and deserve salaries, PGIMER director Dr Jagat Ram said: All foreign nationals, who are not sponsored, will get salaries from now on. The government has approved their demand and within a day, we will sign the orders for implementation.
Dr Jagat Ram said that at present, only junior residents have been entitled for salary, and he will be cross-checking with the authorities concerned whether the benefit extends to senior residents as well.
Nepalese doctor took up the issue
Dr Sagar Poudel, a Nepalese citizen who is a junior resident at the All India Institutes of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi, was the one to raise the issue for the first time with his countrys prime minister (PM).
This was a long-pending demand and political intervention was the only solution. In April, when I got to know that our PM is visiting India, I wrote a letter to him as a representative of resident doctors of India. I went to Nepal and could met him and the foreign minister, said Dr Poudel.
Dr Poudel raised the issue again with the PM during his visit to India, following which it was reportedly taken up during bilateral talks with Narendra Modi.
Although written orders have not reached AIIMS and Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research (JIPMER), Puducherry, yet, the PGIMER has received them.
At the PGIMER, the issue was also taken up by the Association of Resident Doctors (ARD) president, Dr Uttam Thakur.
Dr Bipin Kumar Yadav, a foreign national and executive member of the ARD, said: We are very happy with the decision. At least, now we wont put financial burden on our parents. We are professionals who work over 12 hours a day. When asked why they were working for free, he said: The PGIMER is the best training ground.
If there is one thing that the last season of Bigg Boss is best remembered for, it has to be the innumerable fights between Hina Khan and Shilpa Shinde. The two television stars would quarrel at the drop of the hat and but ultimately, were also the finalists on the show.
As the hit reality show returns for a new season this Sunday, its only fair that they welcome new contestants on the show. According to a few news reports, this is exactly what is happening.
A report in The Times Of India says that Hina will join host Salman Khan as he kicks off the 12th season of Bigg Boss on September 16. Hina is definitely the most talked about actress and was quite a popular contestant as well. Hence, we would really like her to be a part of this season in some way or the other, a source told the daily. Hina was also spotted in Mumbai by the paparazzi at the airport on her from a vacation in London.
Another report on India Forum says that Shilpa will be joining her eternal rival on the shows first episode. Shilpa was crowned the winner of Bigg Boss 11 after defeating the other two finalists, Hina and Vikas Gupta.
Shilpa and Hina have continued with their fights even outside the Bigg Boss house. On the show, Hina called Shilpa a chawl girl. Later, in an interview, Shilpa retorted, I dont know much about that, but she is more aggressive than a chawl girl. And she was also the mohalle ki aunty. Shilpa went to the extent of saying that she would never want to meet Hina in real life.
Shilpa told HT in May that while she asked her fan accounts to not spread negativity about Hina and her, she still doesnt consider Hina a friend. Not really. I had liked a video made by a fan which was a compilation of shots of Hina Khan from the reality show. It was funny. Hinas fans got upset that I liked the video so I tweeted that they shouldnt react so much. I dont have any problem with Hina nor is she my competition. Our reality show is over, so what is point of dragging things from the past and having our so-called fans fight over it? These fans point out stuff to us about who said what and who reacted how. I have asked all the fans mine and Hinas to enjoy life and chill. Our industry is small and we might end up working together. Life is too short, so forgive, forget and move on, she said.
Follow @htshowbiz for more
Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan has called the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) the countrys first line of defence when he visited the headquarters of the powerful spy agency in Islamabad for the first time after assuming power.
Senior ISI officials on Wednesday briefed Khan and his senior Cabinet ministers on intelligence and national security matters, an official statement said.
The Prime Minister lauded contributions of the ISI towards national security especially in the ongoing counter terrorism effort. The Prime Minister said that the ISI is our first line of defence and stands out as best intelligence agency of the world, said a statement issued by the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the media wing of the military.
Army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa and ISI director general Lt Gen. Naveed Mukhtar received Khan on his arrival at the HQ.
Khan, who was sworn-in as the 22nd Prime Minister on August 18, has already visited the General Headquarters of Pakistan Army twice first to get an in-depth briefing on the internal security and geo-strategic situation and then to attend the Defence and Martyrs Day ceremony on September 6.
Khan has been accused by his critics of being the security establishments man.
The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party has accused him of reaching the Prime Minister House through the support of the powerful security establishment.
Khan told ISI officials that his government and the people of Pakistan firmly stood behind the armed forces and intelligence agencies and acknowledged the unprecedented achievements of these institutions, said the ISPR statement.
G oop, Gwyneth Paltrow's lifestyle brand, has launched its first furniture and homeware collection ahead of its 10th anniversary later this month.
The collection was designed in collaboration with CB2, a North American furniture brand with a mid-century modern vibe, and it's already proving a hit with the brands' combined 1.2million Instagram followers.
Goop x CB2 is a chic mix of elegant and functional pieces, with an emphasis on modern style but layered with inviting textures, prints and finishes. The 58-piece strong collection includes glassware, pillows, rugs, tables, chairs and sofas.
"There's a layered quality a mix of pieces from different eras, places and times in my life accented by nostalgic objects collected over the years," says Gwyneth Paltrow.
"One of my favourites, the Curvo pink velvet sofa, is a nod to Italian mid-century design with its fluid lines; the Belsize wooden stools, which double as coffee tables, are inspired by African mortars. Put the couch and stools together and...magic," says Paltrow.
Other striking pieces in the collection include solid acacia stools that double as side tables, with brass details providing a contemporary touch to the mass of wood.
And who wouldn't love this handwoven navy and white rope indoor swing chair? Brown leather accents are softened by a navy velvet cushion; an ideal sanctuary for any member of the family.
For a small, sophisticated addition to your dining table, the handblown wine glasses have delicate stems with round bases.
Prices range from 8 for a highball glass to 4,500 for a four-seater sofa.
Good to know
Although British buyers can get most of the collection shipped direct from the United States, not all of the larger items of furniture can be sent. It's also worth keeping an eye out for the shipping and taxes, although the website does make it clear all charges have been factored in, so you won't have to worry about nasty surprises upon delivery.
Appointment
13 September 2018
Fontainebleau Miami Beach announces the promotion of Kevin Bryant as Vice President of Sales for the iconic Miami Beach property. After his return to the resort as Executive Director of Sales earlier this year, Bryant has contributed to the property's success and will continue do so as a member of the hotel's Executive Committee.
"Since his return, Kevin has made great strides leading our successful sales team," says Phil Goldfarb, President and Chief Operating Officer, Fontainebleau Miami Beach. "We are elated to name him Vice President of Sales as he continues to accomplish and exceed our sales goals and contribute to Fontainebleau's overall growth."
Bryant served as Corporate Director of Revenue Management at Fontainebleau's parent company, Turnberry Associates, where he was responsible for creating new revenue management structure and culture across the hospitality portfolio. He also served on the asset committees for numerous properties across Turnberry Associates' portfolio. Bryant later returned to Fontainebleau in early 2018 as Executive Director of Sales with a fresh new approach while utilizing his demonstrated understanding of the iconic property.
As Vice President of Sales, Bryant will sit on the Executive Committee and provide a strategic approach to overseeing the hotel's group and leisure sales teams as they continue to exceed revenue expectations for the property.
Bryant holds a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration from Ball State University.
Appointment
13 September 2018
Columbus, OH - September 12, 2018 - Richard Schaeffer returns to Red Roof asa Franchise Development Director and will lead Franchise sales for the Red Roof brands -including Red Roof Inn, Red Roof PLUS+ and Hometowne Studios by Red Roof in the northeast United States, while continuing the growth of the Red Roof brand.
Schaeffer was recruited to Red Roof after graduating from Pennsylvania State University, after earning his degree in Hotel, Restaurant and Institutional Management. During the eight years he was with Red Roof, he served as General Manager and District Training Manager in Washington DC and Philadelphia.
Schaeffer now joins Red Roof from G6 Hospitality, where he was Regional Director of Development. He spent over a decade developing franchise and partner relationships for Motel 6 and Studio 6 brands. During his time at G6 Hospitality, Schaeffer developed more than 200 locations across the United States focusing on the Northeast region.
Appointment
13 September 2018
Tyrone Dehoedt has been appointed as the new director of food and beverage for Grand Millennium Hotel in Muscat.
The role will see Dehoedt assist in planning, directing, and supervising all activities associated with the operations of the food and beverage division. He will also be responsible for ensuring that the high professional standards expected of the brand are met.
Dehoedt, who has hospitality experience across Asia, Europe, and the Middle East, said: ""The quality of the dining experiences offered at Grand Millennium is getting better and better. I look forward to offering both our local guests and international visitors a dining experience to remember."
His planned strategy for the coming months includes the relaunch of Bahriyat Mediterranean restaurant and a family-orientated brunch at the all-day dining restaurant Taybat.
Supplier News
13 September 2018
After a highly successful 15-year engagement with the company, Silken Hotels has signed a renewed and extended agreement with Pegasus Solutions, a global leader in hospitality technology solutions.
With over 33 properties across Spain, Silken Hotels is recognized as a 4-star, business-oriented brand with city center locations. Avant-garde design, comfort, functionality, high level of services and the best location are the chain's signature hallmarks. The new agreement continues the partnership and extends the term for another five years. Silken Hotels will leverage a full suite of Pegasus products including GDS, ADS, Voice, Channel Interfacing, RFP Management, Corporate Demand Services, Account Management and Data Services.
"We have a highly successful relationship with Pegasus Solutions; their technology and consultative approach has delivered outstanding results and excellent support for our global business," explains Ms. Itziar Poza, Director of Revenue Management and Global Distribution at Silken Hotels. "This expanded partnership will see us continue to build on that into the future."
Sean Lenahan, CEO of Pegasus, provided further perspective stating "We are very proud of our unique offering which uniquely combines innovative distribution technology with proven Five-Star Service and are thrilled that Silken has renewed our relationship. It is a testament to our technology, to our people, and to the trust that we have built with Silken over a long period of time."
Pegasus' technology empowers hotel companies to gain a competitive edge and grow their businesses in a digital world. The company is a market leader in the electronic processing, management, distribution, sales and marketing of hotel inventory, rates and content across different sales channels to include direct bookings via hotels' branded websites, voice, travel agents (GDS), online travel agents (OTAs) and metasearch partners.
To learn more on why leading hotels worldwide rely on Pegasus Solutions to grow their direct bookings, drive revenue and optimize their business, visit Pegasus.io.
About Silken Hotels
Silken Hotel is a hotel chain based in Spain. Barcelona, Madrid, Seville, Vitoria, Valencia or Tenerife, among others, choose your destination and we will be there to accompany you on each of your trips with 32 hotels and 25 destinations. Over the more than 20 years of the chain's development, creativity and signature design have always been a showcase for functionality, creating multiple personalities within the same Silken universe. Irrespective of the location or reason for your stay, we guarantee you the comfort, sophistication and welcoming environment that you deserve. Transversal values that are not, however, incompatible with uniqueness: although the majority of our hotels have been especially designed to preserve historical buildings, all of them also have a unique interior decor. To learn more or book your next stay, please visit hoteles-silken.com.
After spending several years in England, artist Grant Wood has returned to his native Chattanooga and will be exhibiting a recent body of work at Townsend Atelier. The show, Estranged, will feature landscape and figurative works painted in England and in America recording the coastal towns and local people of both countries.
Works include oils, watercolor, and gouache and will be available for purchase.
The public is invited to an opening reception Friday, Oct. 5, from 5:30-9 p.m.
Review for Grant Wood and the exhibit:
Mr. Wood, best known for his sprawling landscapes painted in a loose and seemingly effortless style, is a classically trained oil painter from Chattanooga. His love for painting grew with his first apprenticeship under the wing of his uncle, the illustrator, and artist, John Wood.
After graduating from The Baylor School, Mr. Wood attended UTC where he continued to thrive under the tutelage of the world-renowned Russian artist Daud Akhriev, learning the Russian academic tradition. In 2011, Mr. Wood won a full scholarship, granted by the Benwood Foundation, to attend the Florence Academy of Art, where he spent a year engulfed in the uber-traditional techniques of the continental European academy. Upon his return to Chattanooga, Mr. Wood graduated in 2013 with a BFA in Painting and Drawing from UTC.
Since University, Mr. Wood spent much of his time traveling and living abroad, namely through England. While in England, Mr. Wood established a name as a landscape artist by appearing twice on the Sky Arts channel show Landscape Artist of the Year (aired October 2015 and 2016). Furthermore, he exhibited at the juried 2016 Royal Art Exhibition put on by Queen Elizabeth in London.
Mr. Wood currently lives full time in Chattanooga where he has continued to be pursued for commissions and exhibitions.
The show will be on view through Nov. 3, Monday-Friday from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. or by appointment.
Press Release
14 September 2018
Raffles Hotels & Resorts, one of the most revered names in luxury hospitality, is pleased to announce a new collaboration with Rizzoli New York. Soirees, Sojourns & Stories is a 200-page slipcased volume that will take readers on an enthralling journey throughout the Raffles world of timeless beauty. From the opening of its Singapore flagship in 1887 to the latest chapter being the recent unveiling of Raffles Europejski Warsaw, the story weaves through history to reveal how Raffles created its extraordinary legacy of bygone elegance and exceptional hospitality across the globe.
Penned by Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni, each chapter is a voyage into Raffles' fascinating world, with readers travelling from Singapore to Cambodia, Dubai, Istanbul, Paris, Warsaw, the Seychelles, and more.
Archival materials complement sumptuous contemporary photography depicting special events, remarkable stories, and celebrity guests. With original illustrations by Luke Edward Hall, and filled with literary excerpts and recipes, this sophisticated tome will fascinate hotel buffs and wanderlust-filled luxury aficionados everywhere.
"Raffles has entered an exciting new era of expansion," said Jeannette Ho, Vice President, Raffles Brand Strategy & Strategic Partnerships. "Yet the brand remains true to its origins, delivering the timeless elegance, first-class travel experiences and the authentic personal charm that our loyal guests have loved for well over a century."
The collaboration with the US-based publisher comes as Raffles prepares its first foray into North America. Scheduled to open in 2021, Raffles Boston Back Bay Hotel & Residences will be a welcoming oasis of refined elegance comprised of a distinctive hotel and exquisitely appointed residences, located in the heart of Boston, Massachusetts. The hotel will be the first Raffles property in North America, bringing one of AccorHotels' most iconic and beloved luxury brands to a city with a powerful history of American cultural significance and landmark events. The property will include 147 guestrooms and 146 branded residences in a striking new 33-story building. Catering to the most discerning travellers and residents, Raffles Boston Back Bay will offer the impeccable and graciously intuitive service, distinguished charm and whimsical adventures that are synonymous with the Raffles name.
In addition to Raffles Singapore, which is currently undergoing a careful and sensitive restoration and scheduled for a highly anticipated reopening in the first quarter of 2019, some of the most admired flagship properties of the luxury hotel brand include Le Royal Monceau, Raffles Paris; Raffles Seychelles; and Raffles Istanbul. At every location, Raffles Butlers deliver the ultimate in discreet, bespoke service, while Raffles Spas are noted for their aesthetic beauty and powers of rejuvenation. A culture of craftsmanship and bespoke cocktails led to the brand's signature Raffles 1915 Gin, a collaboration with Sipsmith London Dry Gin, created to celebrate 100 years of the Singapore Sling at Raffles and the brand's namesake Sir Stamford Raffles, the intrepid founder of Singapore.
Soirees, Sojourns & Stories reveals these tales, along with many other elements of the Raffles experience that have become time-honoured in the minds of returning guests. From the story of the Traveller's Palm to 'service like a gentle breeze'; from Raffles Afternoon Tea and impressive Mooncakes to the collection's architectural achievements and the artists who have graced its halls, readers will find a delightful and riveting history of famous luxury hotel stories amassed over more than 130 years.
"We are delighted to partner with Rizzoli to create this captivating volume; it allows us to showcase our time-honoured traditions, remarkable stories and extraordinary portfolio of hotels in a meaningful way, even as we continue to expand and open new addresses in exciting international locales." said Xavier Louyot, Senior Vice President, Brand Content, Raffles and AccorHotels Luxury Brands.
Available as of December 2018 at Raffles Hotels & Resorts worldwide, and wherever fine books are sold, Soirees, Sojourns & Stories is a beautiful gift for those who appreciate the glamourous world of luxury travel and the wonderful stories of the well-travelled.
About Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni
Natasha Fraser-Cavassoni is the author of Sam Spiegel - A Hollywood Producer, Chanel fashion, Tino Zervudachi, Dior Glamour, Monsieur Dior, Loulou de la Falaise, BiYan, Vogue on Yves Saint Laurent, Vogue on Calvin Klein and her memoir After Andy - Adventures in Warhol Land - that covers her years working at the Warhol Studio and Interview Magazine. The British-born Fraser-Cavassoni has also taught at the American University in Paris and is the co-producer of Inside Dior, the two-part television series. From 1999 to 2004, she was the European editor for Harper's Bazaar, after serving as a staff member and journalist at Women's Wear Daily and W magazine, and assisting Karl Lagerfeld at the Chanel studio from 1989 to 1991. She lives in Paris with her two daughters.
About Luke Edward Hall
Luke Edward Hall is a London-based artist and designer of interiors, fabrics and ceramics. He established his studio in the autumn of 2015 and since then has worked across a broad range of design commissions and projects and has collaborated with a variety of companies including Burberry, Christie's and the Parker Palm Springs hotel in California. His colourful aesthetic is informed by a love of history, an appreciation of beauty and a sense of playfulness.
With the world becoming more and more connected, travel (especially, international travel) is no longer a luxury. As per recent statistics, the travel and tourism industry contributed over 7.6 trillion US dollars in 2016, to the global economy. This has fueled tremendous change within the hospitality sector as well, prompting more and more hoteliers the world over to open their doors to international travelers. Sounds like a lucrative idea! But how does one go about it?
With the world becoming more and more connected, travel (especially, international travel) is no longer a luxury. As per recent statistics, the travel and tourism industry contributed over 7.6 trillion US dollars in 2016, to the global economy. This has fueled tremendous change within the hospitality sector as well, prompting more and more hoteliers the world over to open their doors to international travelers.
Sounds like a lucrative idea! But how does one go about it? How can hotels attract international travelers? As a hotelier, what is your hotel strategy to attract foreign guests? How can you increase your hotels international bookings? We have you covered. In this article, we will discuss some of the most impactful ways to attract international tourists to your hotel.
Weve spoken so much about the power of having a digital presence in the recent past, it is almost impossible to fathom that there existed a world without it not-so-long ago. The internet has helped businesses uncover a window of myriad lucrative opportunities. So, it is really up to us to explore and exploit this opportunity which has tremendous potential.
1. Geo-specific targeting
In this day and age, every hotel should and will have a website. So, I prefer to carry on with the assumption that you have in place an operational brand website. Now, tools like Google Analytics allows you to easily gather data on certain aspects which will help you design an effective hotel marketing strategy.
Some of the important questions that this data will help you answer and understand are:
- From which country & region do you get maximum visits on your website?
- What is the demographic that most frequents your pages?
- Are the visitors mostly male or female?
- Which season attracts maximum visitors from a certain region/country?
How can you use this data to your hotels benefit? By creating targeted marketing campaigns.
A. SEO:
Spend ample time on researching keywords and what is trending and what works for you. Again, identify the geo that brings you the biggest chunk of organic traffic and create a targeted campaign for that geo. Understand that keywords are specific to regions. So, make sure you identify the right keyword for the geo that you are targeting. Create a landing page specific to the keyword, in order to increase organic traffic.
B. Social Media:
The power of social media is that you can make it as targeted or as generic as your need dictates. Most social media platforms, today, help you gather insights on where your audiences live. You can narrow down your marketing campaigns to target only those regions or countries where you are popular.
For example, you run a hotel in Maldives and your Facebook insights suggest that a majority of your audience is between the ages of 23 & 30 from Croatia. In this case, your next move should be to push targeted ads on Facebook to people within that age group, in Croatia. You can narrow it down further to pick a specific gender, add a filter on proximity (for eg: >/< 50 miles of Zagreb), and so on. You can tweak the filters to your preference.
Make sure your ad copy resonates with the demographic so as to prompt them to make a reservation with you. The ad content could be in Croatian to make that much more of an impact. Engage with your social media followers and nurture an on-going association so that you become a familiar brand in their view.
C. OTAs
OTAs are a blessing to hoteliers who wish to attract International hotel guests. As in the previous scenarios, identify the geo you wish to target, first. Your best bet, now, is to connect your Hotel PMS to a channel manager that allows you to tie up with the most popular OTAs in that region. Online searches for hotels are on the rise, the world over. By connecting with popular OTAs, you increase your visibility in that region and therefore, your chances of getting reservations also increase.
Make sure your listing is effective, with realistic pictures of all your offerings. Be clear in your communications so that guests know exactly what they can expect. Dont oversell or undersell yourself.
D. Website
Id mentioned it previously that my assumption is that you already have a website up and running. In order to attract international tourists, there are certain website features that are non-negotiable.
A. Incorporate the multi-currency feature in your online hotel booking engine which clearly communicates a message of global inclusion.
B. Multi-language feature puts global tourists at ease, as they can browse through your website in the convenience of their own language. Apart from the popular Spanish and French options, include the official language of those countries that you want to target.
C. Guest Reviews and ratings are mandatory to attract international tourists as it assures prospective guests that you are a hotel that delivers on promises.
While all these factors do contribute to increased international reservations at your hotel, most of these will not be fully effective unless your have a cloud-based Property Management System in place. Wondering how an online PMS helps you attract international tourists? Heres how:
1.It helps you get more guest feedback by automating mailers and initiating requests for feedback on your behalf.
2.It helps you connect with OTAs and other sales channels across the globe via a channel manager connect.
3.Just having the multi-currency and multi-language feature on your website will not suffice. Your PMS also has to be robust enough to support this feature too as the web booking engine is also linked to it.
Start focusing on increasing your international bookings. Leave every other operational task to our PMS! Get in touch with Hotelogix now!
Author Bio:
Divya Bhat is a content strategist and writer with over a decade's experience in journalism and marketing. Apart from working with some of India's leading media houses, she has also worked as a French language translator. An avid Customer Experience enthusiast, she is also passionate about the Travel & Hospitality industry. You can reach out to her at divya.bhat@hotelogix.com
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2021 Hotel News Resource
Amidst the news that ABC had shelved several Black-ish episodes including one about athletes kneeling and another about Donald Trump, reports surfaced that Netflix was attempting to poach the show's creator Kenya Barris from the network. When Barris' shift to Netflix was announced last month, few were surprised to hear of the talented creator's Multimillionaire deal. The motivations behind this bold move have been unclear to date, but Barris has recently offered up some insight. Speaking to the The Hollywood Reporter, Barris revealed the fragile state of his relationship with his former Disney family network, discussed future creative freedoms at Netflix, and shared his views on former network neighbor, Roseanne Barr.
One of the conversation topics was the controversial Black-ish episode that viewers will likely never be able to view titled Please, Baby, Please. In the episode Anthony Anderson's character tells his youngest child a bedtime story about the past year's events based on a children's book by legendary director Spike Lee and his wife Tonya Lewis Lee. The book, also titled Please, Baby, Please, touched on sensitive issues such as kneeling N.F.L. athletes and the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville. We approached it with the network and the studio as, This is different, Barris shared. We certainly knew people would talk about it. As we now know, ABC pulled the episode from the line-up and will not be releasing it.
Despite being rightfully upset by the move, Barris did not immediately express his desire to leave ABC. But then came the Roseanne scandal. Barris had no interest sharing a network with the bigoted actress. Because fuck Roseanne," he shared. "Shes a fuckin monster. And they were like, Why is this monster killing villagers? And I was like, Because thats what a monster does.
Wherever Barris goes, we're sure his talent will continue to make him a creative force.
When you spend long hours at a time in the studio, sometimes you can forget your basic needs. You don't really get hungry when you get into the zone and sleep pretty much becomes an afterthought. Unless you're taking a quick break to smoke and get water, the door to the studio remains closed at most times. For this reason, Meek Mill and Kodak Black prefer to keep themselves stocked in case of a sudden emergency. Some go for hours without having a meal or a snack when they're recording or mixing. These two artists are prepared for anything when the cravings come, stocking their table with plenty of food and drinks for the team.
Meek posted a photo of himself and Kodak in the studio, listening in to their latest ProTools session to make sure it's perfect. The two generally looked unimpressed as Meek crosses his arms while Project Baby looks distracted by something in the distance. Whatever came out of the session must be enough to wake up their fans though as Meek captioned his image with plenty of fire emojis.
The two likely conversed about the legal difficulties they've encountered respectively as each has had their fair share of trouble with the authorities. With Meek advocating for change in the criminal justice system, he looks to free over one million prisoners in the next few years.
While this collaboration may be arriving in the coming weeks, Kodak will officially be returning to our playlists tonight as he will be featured on a new track with Gucci Mane and Bruno Mars.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BnrSG2inzFJ
Meek Mill is still fighting for his freedom, despite being released from prison. The rapper's attempt for a new trial and judge has been shot down numerous times. Earlier this year, Judge Genece Brinkley's attorney, Charles Peruto, was heard siding with Meek Mill in leaked audio. Now, Peruto is taking legal action against Amazon and Roc Nation over the audio clip.
According to TMZ, Charles Peruto claims he was sabotaged during an interview about Meek Mill's sentence. He's now filed legal documents in order to file a lawsuit against both Roc Nation and Amazon for the leaked audio clip. Peruto was interviewed for a documentary on Meek Mill's legal situation when a reporter asked him if they could go off the record. However, the cameraman didn't actually turn the camera off and the audio was recorded.
In the clip that was leaked, you could hear Peruto side with Meek Mill over Judge Genece Brinkley in the trial. He's heard saying that the judge looked "fucking awful" and should've granted Meek a new trial.
The lawsuit isn't necessarily about what was said in the comment but how the leaked audio came across. He's suing based on the fact that the audio was edited down to make him look bad. He said that Judge Genece Brinkley followed the letter of the law, but that was not heard in the clip that surfaced.
Peruto is suing Roc Nation and Amazon because the cameraman was hired by the companies for the documentary. However, it's still unclear who leaked the audio.
TMZ has procured the mugshot from Young Thug's surrender to police. The portrait is pretty standard fare of him posing without his glasses, lip piercing and all. The YSL rapper turned himself into local authorities on Tuesday, and was immediately told he would be held without bail pending a hearing taking place this afternoon.
The charges stem from an incident last year when cops allegedly found a stash of contraband within his car. They say they only pulled him over to assign him a ticket for having tinted windows. On his person that day, cops say they recouped amphetamine, Alprazolam, codeine (2 counts) and a firearm, all contained within his stash.
Thugger was eventually indicted on eight felony charges including possession and intent to distribute marijuana, hydrocodone and meth. The YSL rapper was essentially responding to an outstanding warrant for his arrest.
Young Thug will have to fend off a persuasive argument from the prosecutor's office who want him held without bond. This legal wrangle could very disrupt his scheduled arrangement with J. Cole on his KOD tour. Even if the Judge shows leniency and sets bail, there's no way Thugger will be allowed to cross the border for Canadian dates, let alone comply with all the demands of the KOD tour.
Check out the mug shot here.
When Swapnil Agarwal came to Houston from India as a teenager, thieves broke into his familys apartment five times - one of them threatening his father by saying he had a gun.
He also recalls that whenever things broke, repairs took weeks.
Ultimately, what people want is a nice, clean, safe place to live, he said. But it was difficult for his family find a better place on his fathers blue-collar salary.
Today, Agarwal, 37, is a real estate investor working to improve options for families such as his own .
He founded a company in 2014, Nitya Capital, that buys older, sometimes rundown apartment buildings and renovates them. It catches up on deferred maintenance and adds amenities inlcuding fitness rooms. Then it brings in Karya Property Management, also owned by Agarwal, to make timely repairs and respond to tenant needs.
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Rent averages $800 a month, he says. Every cluster of apartments has a law enforcement officer living onsite, and the company prides itself in making repairs within 48 hours. Its the intersection of affordability, peace of mind and cleanliness that his family had sought when he was a teen.
And thats just the beginning. Karya Property Management hosts free English classes, healthcare checkups and swimming lessons, Agarwal said. There are free meals for kids during summer and free yearly mammograms for women, provided in partnership with the nonprofits Be a Champion and The Rose. After Hurricane Harvey, Nitya Capital raised $60,000 to help tenants who had lost their jobs pay for rent, and this August, Karya Property Management handed out over 14,000 clear plastic backpacks filled with school supplies to students in their buildings.
These are all costs that are borne by us as owners, providing this to our tenants for free, Agarwal said.
Agarwal says Nitya Capital and Karya Property Management are the first companies to apply such an approach to older properties with tenants making between $30,000 and $60,000 a year.
How does he make it work? By thinking about more than the bottom line.
Obviously, youre doing business to make a profit, but making profit should not be the only motivation, he said. My new philosophy in life is I want to do business because I believe in giving back to society. So even if it means that I make 10, 20, 25 percent less profit, thats fine.
After all, karya means karma in Sanskrit.
Some of his practices pay off in ways that are hard to see at first, such as longer term tenants and fewer repairs, he said. Tenants also will pay more for increased service. People dont mind paying the extra $50, $75, $100 because theyre getting so much in return, Agarwal said.
Karya Property Management was ranked the fastest-growing private company in Houston this year by Inc. 5000. Nitya Capital now owns 51 buildings and will close on three more by the end of October.
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Agarwal used to take the No. 2 metro bus to deliver pizza flyers to apartments, but he now drives a Lamborghini and owns several of those very same buildings where he made deliveries. After graduating from Hastings High School, he studied finance at the University of Texas at Austin, and went on to work at a private equity fund in Hong Kong for seven years before returning to Houston and founding Nitya Capital and Karya Property Management.
In the near future, the two companies are expanding out of state. Nitya Capital is acquiring an apartment complex in Salt Lake City and is also eyeing Arizona, Las Vegas, Florida and Colorado - all areas where Agarwal says current housing is not enough to meet the estimated population growth.
Wherever he goes, Agarwal plans to apply the same strategy -- buying Class B and C properties and adding value.
One Yelp page marks the transformation that took place when Nitya Capital bought a building.
PLEASE DO NOT MOVE HERE! wrote one reviewer in February of 2016 about Providence at Heights Apartments in Houston. These apartments and the office staff are not worth the headache and price of living here.
The string of low reviews changed to praise of cleanliness after Nitya Capital purchased the building that December.
Rueben Brown, one of the maintenance workers there, said thats because Karya Property Management follows through. They are very friendly people, and they never play with words, he said. If they say theyll do something, theyll do it.
rebecca.schuetz@chron.com; @raschuetz
Four diamond-shaped lights shine atop The Post Oak Hotel at Uptown, a symbol of its owner Tilman Fertittas vast business empire spanning restaurants, hotels, amusement parks and casinos.
The Houston billionaire -- founder of Landrys Inc., owner of the Houston Rockets and star of CNBCs Billion Dollar Buyer -- can now add a fifth diamond atop his $350 million luxury hotel near The Galleria.
Only six months after opening, The Post Oak Hotel announced Wednesday it received AAAs most prestigious five diamond rating, becoming the only Houston hotel to earn the coveted distinction this year. The 38-story, 250-room hotel joins an exclusive club of 89 AAA five-diamond hotels in the U.S. The Ritz-Carlton in Dallas is the only other luxury hotel in Texas to make the travel organizations list this year.
The Post Oak Hotel has been recognized as one of North Americas most luxurious hotels, Fertitta said. Im proud to be the only in Houston to receive this honor and hope for continued success in the future.
Earning AAAs five diamond rating is a significant coup for The Post Oak, which not only wins bragging rights but a marketing angle that can help drive high-rolling guest traffic and justify increased room rates. For Houston, a five-diamond rated hotel can help the city attract affluent visitors, business executives and conventions, industry experts said.
If you earn a AAA five diamond, champagne corks pop across the hotel, said Henry Harteveldt, a travel industry analyst with San Francisco-based Atmosphere Research Group. Its a very big deal.
The rating is a mark of excellence that some discerning travelers and conventions look for in choosing a destination, Harteveldt said. Indeed, Houston First, the citys tourism and visitors bureau, is already looking to capitalize on The Post Oaks five-diamond rating to bolster the citys convention cred.
The Post Oak Hotel, now the citys only AAA Five Diamond property, further elevates Houston's brand and our ability to promote the city as a premier, global destination, Brenda Bazan, Houston Firsts president and CEO, said.
The Post Oak Hotel features a 35,000-square-foot conference center with a chandelier-clad ballroom, a Rolls-Royce showroom and Bentley and Bugatti dealership, and several high-end restaurants including Mastros Steakhouse, Bloom & Bee and Willie Gs Seafood. The property also has a multimillion-dollar art collection including works by Alex Katz, Frank Stella and Robert Motherwell. It also offers a presidential suite for $12,000 a night.
A room at The Post Oak starts from $409, more than four times the average daily rate of a typical Houston hotel, according to STR, a Tennessee-based hotel research firm. The Post Oaks posh rooms span 500 square feet to 5,000 square feet, and feature 10-foot ceilings, Egyptian cotton sheets, wall-to-wall marble bathrooms and a tablet that controls lights, temperature and 24-hour room service.
The Post Oak isnt the first luxury hotel in Houston to achieve AAAs five diamond status. The Four Seasons Hotel Houston, the Omni Hotel Houston and St. Regis Houston have earned the distinction in the past.
Tom Segesta, general manager of the Four Seasons, applauded The Post Oak on their achievement. The Four Seasons received AAAs five diamond award between 1996 and 2015.
This recognition is great for our city, as it brings attention our way, Segesta said. This turns more focus to Houston as a world-class destination for business and leisure travelers, which benefits us all.
Five diamond status is a double-edged sword, however, as guests will now have a higher expectation of the hotels amenities and services. And even if a guest can afford to stay at the hotel, there are other factors, such as location, that can pull guests toward a well-appointed four-star hotel.
Furthermore, AAA is no longer the only ratings agency in town. Forbes and Michelin rate luxury hotels, as do a slew of online competitors such as Expedia and TripAdvisor, which offer crowd-sourced reviews from guests. AAA uses independent and anonymous inspectors to review its five-diamond hotels, evaluating everything from room decor and customer service to gym equipment and the cleanliness of the parking garage.
AAA used to be more important that it is today now that everybody is giving ratings, said Jan Freitag, senior vice president at hotel research firm STR. But AAA has been around the longest, so people know and trust them more.
If anything, Post Oak Hotels new five diamond rating gives Houstonians more ammunition in its longstanding rivalry with Dallas, which also has a five-diamond hotel in the Ritz-Carlton.
Houston can now look up the road to Dallas and say, Neh, neh, Harteveldt said.
paul.takahashi@chron.com
twitter.com/paultakahashi
Houston energy investment bank Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. is launching a partnership with Googles new oil, gas and energy division, strengthening the energy sectors connection to Silicon Valley as it works to reinvent itself for the 21st century.
The partnership will give Google a more visible presence in Houston as one of its oldest industries works to cut costs in the wake of the oil bust and remain competitive as electric vehicles and renewable power sources gain market share. The energy unit, based in California with an office in Austin, has been building its business here from a distance.
Its a very important bridge to be built, said Darryl Willis, who in March became the divisions vice president after about 25 years at BP. Houston is ground zero for all things energy.
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He added that the division, which provides cloud computing and data analytics services to energy companies, would consider opening an office in Houston if it developed a strong local customer base.
Economic development officials see the partnership as a step toward proving that Houston is open to Silicon Valley disruption as it strives to establish a startup ecosystem that would foster new, cutting-edge companies to support the digital transition in the energy sector and other industries underpinning the regional economy. The city, passed over last year in Amazons hunt for its second headquarters, has struggled to attract a major technology company with the potential to catalyze the sort of innovation economies that characterize Austin and other tech-focused cities.
The initial movement of the big energy companies was to go to Silicon Valley to get this expertise, said Bob Harvey, president and CEO of the Greater Houston Partnership. We now need to bring this activity back to Houston.
Houston has shown signs of making progress since it failed to make Amazons shortlist last year. The snub kicked off a scramble among leaders in the city and its budding startup community to craft a plan to develop an innovation district that would foster collaboration among local universities, business districts and tech incubators, ideally creating a dense hub of activity that would appeal to larger tech companies and investors.
Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. hopes its partnership with Google will improve its advisory services to energy industry clients looking to use emerging technologies to become more efficient. Google, meanwhile, is seeking to sell its cloud services to both established energy giants and smaller companies developing new ways to make the most of the industrys vast trove of data.
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Barbara Burger, president of Chevron Technology Ventures, the Houston-based venture capital arm of the California oil major, said the city used to lose many of its energy startups to Austin or other tech hubs. Now, she said, theyre starting to stick around, and others based elsewhere are opening sales offices here.
Were seeing more of a culture and comfort among startups here, she said. There is momentum.
Her division in June launched its $100 million Future Energy Fund, which will invest in companies working on ways to reduce carbon emissions within the industry. It's the division's sixth energy fund since it was founded nearly 20 years ago to find new technologies to support Chevron's operations.
Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. last year launched a banking platform focused on finding and advising innovative energy startups and connecting them with clients looking for new technology. Its partnership with Google is the latest indication that the energy sectors push to modernize is gaining momentum as data analytics, artificial intelligence and other technologies become less expensive and more readily available.
Investors, too, have fueled the shift by pressuring companies to boost profits and plan for the day when oil and gas no longer dominate the energy landscape.
Investors are paying attention, said Maynard Holt, CEO of Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. It sets off a competitive dynamic in talking about what different companies are doing.
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Googles energy unit, part of its broader Google Cloud division, already has struck deals with the international oilfield services company Schlumberger, the French oil major Total and Houston oilfield services company Baker Hughes. Google, however, is only the latest major cloud computing provider to make inroads in the energy industry. Companies including Microsoft and Amazon Web Services are also courting customers looking to put operations data to better use with high-powered analytics and artificial intelligence.
The opportunity is significant. Willis said its estimated that energy companies use between 1 and 5 percent of the data at their disposal.
The energy industry is in the early stages of its digital journey, he said.
Data has already played a major role in lifting the energy sector from the depths of the oil bust that knocked prices from $100 a barrel in 2014 to as low as $26 a barrel in early 2016.
Houston oil and gas producer ConocoPhillips, for example, slashed its cost of producing oil in the shale fields of West Texas and elsewhere in part by using data analytics to improve drilling efficiency and compare information across its operations.
The company has used the cloud, which allows people in different locations to store, analyze and share data, to integrate data sets from the companys various divisions historically kept in different computer systems. It has trained 4,000 of its employees in data analytics, and it hopes to boost the number to 11,000 within the next two years.
Everyone is going to be benefiting from the use of analytics tools, Greg Leveille, the companys chief technology officer. It will differentiate the winners and the losers in the industry.
katherine.blunt@chron.com
twitter.com/katherineblunt
Julie Lairson and her husband Ross are leaving on vacation in an hour. Their newly remodeled kitchen is covered in Post-it notes, chronicling instructions for their parents to follow while taking care of the couples children for the next 10 days. Bath rituals. Naps. Milk schedule.
Julie was up until past 1 a.m., writing these precise notes and sticking them all over their Woodland Heights home. All of this for two kids. Imagine if they had three.
Sometimes, Julie does imagine that. But shes not sure if her family can handle three kids. She thinks about the amount of space in their bungalow, the ever-escalating cost of raising kids, and her own mothers experience growing up as the second of three children.
Could I make her a middle child? she asks, looking at her 13-month-old daughter, Annie.
Middle children are increasingly rare these days, across the U.S., as families shrink in size.
In 1976, 65 percent of mothers had given birth to three or more kids by their mid-40s, according to the Pew Research Center. But 40 years later, that figure has decreased to 38 percent, while the remaining 62 percent of moms have had one or two kids. And data from the Texas Department of State Health Services show the share of moms having three or more kids is even smaller in Houstons urban core.
In Rice Militarys 77007 ZIP code, for instance, only 5 percent of moms who gave birth in 2015 (the most recent year for which data was available), were giving birth to their third, fourth, fifth, or you get the point child. The numbers were similar in other parts of the citys innermost neighborhoods, meaning that middle child syndrome, that classic cultural cliche about the overlooked Jan Bradies and Stephanie Tanners is fading away.
But head outside the most concentrated parts of Houston, and the numbers start to look a little more like the national figures. In Cinco Ranchs 77450 ZIP code, the share was 26.2 percent. Further west, in Sealys 77474 ZIP code, it reached 36.8 percent.
No surprise there, says Leslie Frankel, a professor of family studies at the University of Houston.
Look at car sizes. Look at houses in the Loop. Theyre small, or theyre townhomes, or theyre really expensive, says Frankel. I think its probably about house size. And an unfortunate statistic I always tell my students in class is that the USDA says children cost over $200,000 from birth to age 17. Thats for housing, childcare, all those things. And I think housing is like 30 percent of that cost, so if your housing inside the Loop is more money, thats a bigger percentage of the added cost for having a child.
For many families, the decision about how many kids to have is likely a financial one, she posits.
When kids are little, child care costs so much money, she says. For us, it costs more than our mortgage.
According to Pew, the cost of childcare rose more than 70 percent between 1985 and 2011, from $87 to $148 a week. And it has certainly continued to increase since, with families in the Loop regularly shelling out more than $1,000 per child each month.
Right now, the Lairsons arent paying for childcare. After years working in commercial real estate, Julie took an extended maternity leave following the birth of their son, Hank, two-and-a-half years ago.
When my son turned 10 months old, we had the conversation about how I really missed my career. Staying home has been a blessing, but I needed something more. And a week later, we found out we were pregnant, she says.
She decided to stay home through her pregnancy with Annie.
I just passed the three-year marker of being out of work. And that struck me: The three-year gap on the resume is easy to explain, with having babies and getting to a point where they can enter school and day care. And now its time for me to get back to it.
Shes looking into childcare options. And its been a rude awakening.
The cost is pretty outrageous, and its competitive. The wait lists are so long, she says. These wait lists are over a year long theyre 18 months long!
Its enough to make some of the families in the Lairsons social circle re-evaluate the location, location, location that drove them to choose adorable homes in the Heights in the first place.
There are about 12 of us mommies that each have two children, and we get together at least weekly. Most of the moms are saying they want a third, says Julie. And three moms have moved outside the Loop within the last six months.
That is, of course, part of the natural life cycle of urban dwellers, who often move to the suburbs in their 30s or 40s, says Gretchen Livingston, a senior researcher at Pew.
People in urban areas are more likely to be younger on average than people in other areas, and that in and of itself could be a factor, she says. Because in a really simplistic way, the younger you are, the less time youve had to have three kids.
The trend of waiting until later in life to have a first child syncs up well with the demographics of urban areas, too, Livingston notes. In cities, youre more likely to find women with higher levels of education, and that generally correlates with putting off marriage and childbearing.
But theres more at play here than just timing.
The general fertility rate in the U.S. is at an all-time low, says Livingston, who specializes in fertility. That number looks at the number of births per 1,000 women of childbearing age, and its continued to tick down since the recession.
In 2016, the U.S. recorded 62 births per 1,000 women between the ages of 15 and 44, roughly half the rate it had been around 1960. In addition, experts like Livingston use a metric called the Total Fertility Rate to track the number of children born to women over the course of their lives.
The replacement level or the number of children couples would need to have to keep the population steady one generation to the next is 2.1 children. America hit the all-time fertility low on this measure back in 1976, when women had an average of 1.74 children over their lifespans. Were currently at about 1.8, according to Livingston.
And this could have far greater implications than something as simple as the eradication of middle child syndrome, which Frankel insists doesnt actually exist anyway, according to all the research shes read in her role as a family studies professor.
Theres a lot of debate about what this means. On the one hand, some people really wring their hands about these declines, and worry about what it means in the long term for the U.S. in terms of economic development, and having the resources to sustain older people as they age out of the labor force, says Livingston.
Thats a real concern. Last week, the U.S. Census Bureau announced that elderly people will outnumber children by the year 2035, in what the bureau described as an important demographic turning point in U.S. history.
But while Houstonians may not be able to depend on a baby boom inside the Loop, there are plenty of families in the greater Houston area opting for suburban four-bedroom homes to stuff full of large families.
I feel like the number of kids out here is pretty expected. Its at least that 2.1 replacement rate, if not higher, says Dr. Quynh-Thu Gigi Doan, an OBGYN at Houston Methodist West Hospital in Katy.
Of course I have patients who are like, After two kids Im done, but its not unusual for me to have patients who want to have the third and the fourth I see that pretty frequently, says Doan, who gave up her townhome in the Loop with a yard the size of a postage stamp to move out to Katy around the same time she welcomed her first child.
In her eight years of practicing in Katy, Doan has worked with many families who purposely sought out the growing suburban area west of Houston for its reputation as a family-friendly place. Thats what brought her patient, Kathy Seweger, and her family to Cypress when they moved to Texas from Pennsylvania just before the birth of Sewegers fifth child.
Seweger had always wanted a large family. And she knew that would mean a big house, one they wouldnt be able to afford inside the Loop. Theyve equipped one of their four bedrooms with a triple-decker bunkbed for their three girls, while another bedroom is set up for their two boys, leaving a master suite for the adults, and a multipurpose room Seweger uses for homeschool lessons.
I asked my kids what they like about where we live, and my 9-year-old said, We have room to play and room to be ourselves, Seweger says one morning as she drove her brood to drop off library books and attend band practice in a nearby park. Isnt that exactly what you want to hear your children say?
At Julie Lairsons house, she thinks about space. There is a spare bedroom right now, in which her mother stays when she visits from West Texas. She thinks about money. About added time away from work. About the adults being outnumbered by children. About all the time and energy expended in extra-curricular activities as children grow up.
And then she thinks about a loud and messy dinner table.
And she says doesnt yet know what her family will ultimately decide.
maggie.gordon@chron.com;
twitter.com/MagEGordon
The number one answer that I want is, What happened? Allison Jean said on Monday, several days after her son Botham Shem Jean was shot and killed in his apartment by a Dallas Police Officer Amber Guyger.
I have asked too many questions, and I have been told that there are no answers yet, she continued.
The basic facts of her sons death are hard to wrap ones mind around, even though weve all heard of far too many similar tragedies.
Botham, 26, was a beloved young man, originally from St. Lucia, who joined PricewaterHouse Coopers as a risk insurance associate in the firms Dallas office in 2016, after graduating from college in Arkansas. His life was a happy one, with a clear sense of purpose, until it was abruptly extinguished by a violent crimecommitted by a law enforcement officer for no apparent reason.
Guyger was arrested, and charged with manslaughter after an investigation by the Texas Rangers. A grand jury may decide to charge her with murder. Legal experts have argued that the latter charge would make more sense. By Guygers own account, she intended to shoot Jean in other words, his death was a mistake rather than an accident. She told the Texas Rangers she thought she had encountered a burglar, after coming home from work following a long shift that ended late at night. Only later did she realize she had shot one of her neighbors, that shed entered his unit instead of hers in their apartment complex.
But Guyger, clearly, is not necessarily a reliable witness. She is a white law enforcement officer who shot and killed an unarmed black man who had done nothing wrong and who was, at the time of the incident, literally minding his own business in the privacy of his own home.
So the question asked by his mother is the right one: What happened?
I spent some time this week trying to imagine myself in Guygers shoes, because what she did strikes me as inexplicable. I can imagine trying to enter the wrong apartment, after a long day at work. Ive occasionally done that at hotels. And if Jeans door was ajar, as Guyger claims, she might not have realized her mistake right away.
But I cannot understand Guyger why would have confronted Jean as she did. She said she thought she was confronting a burglar, but she was in the entryway of the apartment and could have just retreated and called for backup. Such a confrontation would necessarily put her own life at risk, as well as his. Law enforcement officers are used to taking such risks. And under Texas law, we all have the right as a matter of self-defense or to protect our property to use deadly force against trespassers, if we have reason to believe its necessary.
With that said, were not obligated to use deadly force if confronted by an intruder. Nor are we obligated to confront intruders in the first place. And I personally would be reluctant to provoke such a confrontation, if I had the option of retreating, as Guyger did in this case. Theres no shame in that, surely, even if this is Texas.
Police officers are trained to override certain instincts including a fear for personal safety. That may help explain why Guyger responded as she did after encountering Jean. But what happened as a result was a devastating and senseless tragedy which should spur all of us to self-reflection.
Guyger may not have realized her error until the person who paid the price for it was dying, but Jean was her neighbor, not an intruder. And he would still be alive if she had responded proportionately to the threat she imagined him to be.
erica.grieder@chron.com
twitter.com/ericagrieder
A far-reaching prostitution investigation in North Texas ended Tuesday in the arrest of a man who allegedly lived a life manipulating and pimping hundreds of women from as far as Maine, according to Dallas police.
Tremont Blakemore, 39, and two suspected female accomplices Donna Gonzalez and Peaches Hurtado were arrested at a Fort Worth home and charged with promotion of prostitution and engaging in organized criminal activity.
RELATED: 69 suspects arrested on sex trade charges by the Houston Police Department Vice Division
The trio has been booked into Dallas County Jail. Blakemore's bail has been set at $500,000 for both charges. Gonzalez' bail was also set at $500,000, while Hurtado received a $400,000 bail.
Police said Blakemore and his group have been connected to prostitution activity in multiple Texas cities, and Blakemore has been tied to at least three locations in Fort Worth, Dallas and Lancaster.
Now Playing: An undercover Prostitution Operation was conducted this past week in North Harris County near schools and businesses. Constables made many arrests. Video: Harris County Precinct 4
"The victims [Blakemore] has trafficked for the purposes of prostitution come from as far away as Maine, Wyoming and Montana," according to a Dallas police press release. "He routinely maintains a group of about 20 active females whom he prostitutes for his groups profit."
Police first learned about Blakemore's alleged activities in April , when they received a report of an aggravated assault at a Dallas home. Days later, they received an outcry about prostitution and human trafficking activity at the house.
Police said they later identified Blakemore as the head of a large-scale prostitution operation in the North Texas region.
"Over the years a conservative estimate of the number of women he's controlled and manipulated in this life of prostitution and trafficking easily stretches into the hundreds," police said in the release.
RELATED: 12 charged in north Harris County prostitution sting
On Sept. 11, police from multiple agencies executed search warrants at Blakemore's homes in Fort Worth, Dallas and Lancaster. Investigators interviewed 11 women who had been working for Blakemore in Fort Worth and another four women working for him in Dallas, the release said.
They were all provided counseling services, police said.
The investigation is ongoing, and police have identified at least one more co-conspirator still at large.
If anyone has additional information about this case, Dallas police have asked them to call the Dallas Police High-Risk Victims Unit at 214 671-4217.
Julian Gill is a digital reporter in Houston. Read him on our breaking news site, Chron.com, and on our subscriber site, houstonchronicle.com. | julian.gill@chron.com
Time is running out for one of downtown Houston's oldest buildings.
This week a spokesperson from Chevron, which acquired the former Houston Press building at 1621 Milam in 2013, told Chron.com the structure will be demolished.
"Chevron regularly evaluates and prioritizes its portfolio. The 1621 Milam building has reached the end of its useful life. Chevron plans to demolish the building," the company said in a statement.
OUT WITH THE OLD: The buildings that Houston has lost over the years due to age and progress
Abrahan Garza
For weeks now green fencing has surrounded the former home of one of Houston's remaining alt-weekly newspapers. A demolition permit from the city is being processed, according to the spokesperson.
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Chevron has yet to share any additional plans for the property. The site was was recently appraised at just under $17 million.
THINGS CHANGE: The Montrose home that Clark Gable briefly lived in during his time in Houston was torn down
According to the Harris County Appraisal District, the building was constructed in 1923, although some conflicting reports put it at 1927. It was designed by Hedrick & Gottlieb, the team which also designed Farm Credit Banks Building and the South Main Baptist Church both of which are still standing.
Former Houston Press staffer Abrahan Garza chronicled the history of the building that was once Shelor Motor Company and later a Gillman Pontiac. Where the newsroom stood was once a showroom for cars. There is also a small parking garage inside.
In 1994 Houston artist Suzanne E. Sellers added a "trompe l'oeil" mural on two sides of the building consisting of a series of old building facades inspired by scenes from Boston to Fort Worth.
GOING UP: See what some of Houston's favorite buildings, landmarks looked like while under construction
The alt-weekly moved into 1621 Milam in 1998 and stayed there until Oct. 2013 when the operation moved to a spot blocks away off La Branch. It ended print publication in Nov. 2017 and now only exists online.
During its tenure downtown it saw heavy water damages from Hurricane Ike and the construction of the massive Tellepsen Family YMCA just a street over.
Craig Hlavaty covers Houston history and pop-culture. Read him on our breaking news site, Chron.com, and on our subscriber site, HoustonChronicle.com. | craig.hlavaty@chron.com
It's been a decade since the Houston area was pummeled by Hurricane Ike, leading to months of headaches and years of repairs to property and industry.
The Category 2 hurricane made landfall on Sept. 13, 2008, just after 2 a.m., hitting Galveston first and then moving onto the mainland and blazing a trail of damage.
GALVESTON'S MOMENT: Looking back at the 1900 hurricane that wiped out Galveston 116 years ago
Though it was a Category 2 storm, it packed a Category 5 storm surge, which spelled doom for island property, most notably along the Bolivar Peninsula. Winds topped out at 110 miles per hour here in the Houston area. The area was lucky as the hurricane, elsewhere, at its peak was a Category 4.
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Its girth -- winds of hurricane force spanned 120 miles and those at tropical-storm force spread over 275 miles -- made for epic storm surge with 10- to 13-foot water levels along Galveston Island and flooding of 13 to 17 feet on the Bolivar Peninsula. Water rose up to 20 feet in parts of Chambers County, the National Weather Service reported.
THE LONG ROAD BACK: Dramatic then and now photos show how Hurricane Harvey devastated Houston
It got downgraded to a tropical depression as it hit Dallas later that night at around midnight. As the hurricane moved north and into Canada as a powerful storm it dumped a record amount of rainfall on Ontario. Oddly enough the remnants of the storm made it to, of all places, Iceland by Sept. 17, 2008.
Those of us who were here in Houston at the time can share tales of long lines to buy gas or ice, power outages that lasted days and even weeks, and haggling with insurance adjusters. Sixty-one percent of the flood losses were not covered by insurance, adding to the misery after Ike.
At the height of the outages, 2.6 million of us were without power, and it took an army of CenterPoint employees, with help from out-of-state crews, to get the area back online.
As Houstonians seem to make the most out of a traumatic community event, hurricane parties abounded. The city of Houston had a 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew for a short time and people bonded over the hardships and neighbors finally met each other.
A ROUGH ONE: Mighty Hurricane Carla battered the Texas Gulf Coast in 1961
There was also something called the "Ike Baby Spike" according to the New York Times which visited a Houston hospital the following May as the Women's Hospital of Texas prepared to open a a new expanded wing to accommodate a summer of births.
In all, Ike cost the Texas, Louisiana and Arkansas areas some $29.5 billion, ranking it behind Katrina and Andrew in terms of most expensive hurricanes.
In the wake of the storm, Galveston has come out better than ever with increased development in the area and a sense of renewal, although as hurricane season begins each year some fearful eyes turn to the Gulf of Mexico.
SEE IT IN PHOTOS: Hurricane Alicia hit the Houston area 35 years ago this week
The name Ike was retired in 2009 from the revolving list of hurricane names due to the damages and deaths it brought.
An April 2009 FEMA report on Hurricane Ike includes studies on how local infrastructure held up against the hurricane and offered recommendations for further construction in the area. As bad as Ike was, the consensus by analysts was that it could have been much, much worse.
Later, in 2017, Houston would experience Hurricane Harvey making Ike look like a dress rehearsal.
Craig Hlavaty covers Houston history and pop-culture. Read him on our breaking news site, Chron.com, and on our subscriber site, HoustonChronicle.com. | craig.hlavaty@chron.com
For Tanja Dibrell, everything came into focus on the steps of the Harris County courthouse.
Her husband was in jail, her job was on the rocks, and now a judge had just told her she was on the verge of losing her kids to the state. Ten years of addiction had brought her to this point.
It was a moment of clarity, she said. I was either going to choose drugs or my children.
But her lawyer had a suggestion - a small specialty court, aimed at getting parents and their kids back together.
For more than a decade, the little-known 18-month program has helped more than 200 parents navigate through the complicated Child Protective Services system as they go through rehab and treatment under the structured supervision of a drug court-like model. So far, it seems to be a recipe thats worked.
From 2014 through at least the start of 2017, according to county records, none of the more than two dozen parents who completed the program and regained custody of their children have ended up back in the court.
Despite its successes, Harris Countys Family Intervention - Infant Toddler Court is struggling to expand not due to a lack of funds or to legal roadblocks but something more basic - the logistical difficulty of identifying would-be participants who can otherwise easily get lost in the tangled family court system.
Historically weve never had large numbers, which doesnt make sense with the number of kids in Harris County, said Sarah Bogard, the program director. But one of the issues has always been with the growth of the program.
***
The court started in 2004, under then-Judge Bonnie Hellums, who had a background in counseling. In a decade on the bench, Hellums had seen a parade of broken-hearted parents struggling with substance abuse as they fought to keep custody, often without enough support to succeed.
I thought, Theres got to be a better solution, she said. So she spearheaded the creation of a new specialty court. The goal was simple: provide better outcomes for families impacted by drug use.
The court targeted parents looking to get sober and facing the possibility of losing custody.
After CPS got involved and the case made it before a judge, theyd have the option to shift the proceedings to Hellums, to a court that could offer more specialized support. The program wasnt for anyone, just those who met certain criteria - such as interest participating, a known substance abuse problem, family reunification as a main goal, and no recent felony assault charges.
During the four-phase program, parents would typically start inpatient drug treatment before progressing to a sober living environment and outpatient care. And, crucially, theyd typically get more frequent visitation with their children than through regular CPS channels.
Thats largely how the program works today, though theres been some growth and changes along the way. The biggest boon came in 2010, when a grant helped the program expand its offerings for families with children under three, adding special services and bumping up visitation from once a week to at least twice.
I want the best chance and opportunity for the largest amount of families and children in our community because our children frankly deserve that, said Judge Alicia Franklin York, whose court houses the program.
Today, the roughly 20 court participants are typically reunited with their children for good after just over 80 days in the program, according to Bogard.
Though the punitive nature of drug courts has drawn some criticism in recent years, the family intervention court strives for a more-carrot and less-stick approach thats yielded results.
In general, what we have found is that these specialty courts - especially when they deal with children - have been a good thing, said Bob Sanborn, president of the non-profit advocacy group Children at Risk. The idea is that theres more of a personal approach and more of a specialized approach instead of just a black-and-white law-and-order approach.
The numbers seem to back that up. Over the course of a year-long data collection period ending in 2016, the program got 60 percent of children under age 3 back with their sobered-up parents, according to court data. Statewide, that number was only 18 percent in the same population, according to data from the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services.
And - given the added support and reduced time in placement - Family Intervention Court kids are less likely to be on psychiatric medications, which saves money in terms of medical care and regular screenings.
***
Dibrell kept her drug use under wraps for more than a decade before an outburst at her childrens daycare facility drew attention from CPS.
A Houston native, the mother of three came from a family with a history of substance abuse - but no one around her thought shed go down that path. She got good grades in school, went to community college, and held down a job.
But at 23 - on the heels of her fathers death - she started partying.
It was something I could control in the beginning, she said. Over time, she turned to harder drugs, eventually settling on cocaine and PCP. She had a child, her brother went to prison, and each time something major happened in her life she withdrew further into her addiction.
Even though she was working by day, she was smoking PCP in the backyard by night.
Still, she said, I was leading what I thought was a normal life.
Finally, she found herself on the steps of the courthouse that day in 2016. After the concerned daycare worker had flagged CPS about her case, Dibrell hadnt managed to comply with anything asked of her - until finally a judge took away her kids.
Three months later, she started Family Intervention Court.
***
Since its inception, one of the barriers for the Family Intervention Court has been the difficulty of identifying and referring eligible participants.
Theres no system to automatically refer everyone who might be a good fit, so its a combination of tips from judges, nudges from tuned-in defense lawyers - like the one who piqued Dibrells interest - and old-fashioned pawing through court filings.
We now have somebody reading every affidavit that is filed and identifying potential clients, Bogard said. After evaluating each of the more than two dozen filings that come in every week, a program representative goes to the court to see if the parent is interested and if the judge is willing to move the case over.
Its one of those things that a judge might not have it in their mind when they have a case in front of them unless somebody suggests it, Bogard said. About 60 percent of cases dont qualify because the parent doesnt have a drug problem or is facing more serious criminal charges.
About every other week we are adding someone to the program, Bogard said. But were trying to expand. In an ideal world, our cases would be identified at the point of investigation.
****
Dibrell graduated from the specialty court in a Christmas-time ceremony last year. She finished rehab and outpatient treatment, got her own apartment and got her kids back.
She had some slip-ups along the way to that milestone but, despite a relapse and a drunken driving charge, managed to stay in the program.
Now she no longer spends her nights getting high in secret. Instead, on one recent Friday, she and a group of other Family Intervention Court grads got together at a diner on Westheimer, laying plans for an alumni volunteer group. They made plans to hold bake sales, make holiday stockings for kids, and maybe offer mentoring for people still struggling like they were not that long ago.
I want to help other women, Dibrell said. Because what I found in addiction is addicts are not bad parents, its just that they have a disease and I feel like if they have the proper help they can succeed.
2 1 of 2 Nick de la Torre, Staff / Houston Chronicle Show More Show Less 2 of 2 title slide Show More Show Less
A 17-year-old has been arrested in connection with the a string of at least 22 car break-ins on the University of Houston campus last month, university officials said Thursday.
The suspect, who has not been identified, is not affiliated with the school and faces multiple charges of burglary of a motor vehicle, according to a press release from the university.
A veteran Texas Congressman says he misspoke when he wrongly told a crowd that the 9/11 terrorist attack was carried out by terrorists from Pakistan.
Speaking to an almost exclusively Indian-American audience last month, U.S. Rep. Pete Olson, R-Sugar Land, said he was trying to draw a parallel between 9/11 and a 2008 terrorist attack in Mumbai that was carried out by Pakistanis when he blamed Pakistanis for the attacks on the World Trade Center.
Olson knows that it was not Pakistanis who were responsible for 9/11.
The congressman made the mistake while speaking at India House in Houston on Aug. 15. Olson was one of the invited speakers to celebrate Indias Independence Day. His district is one of most diverse in America and has a large Indian-American population. Olson has twice visited India while in Congress and during his speech talked up his meetings with India Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
September 11th, 2001: 3,000 innocent Americans were killed by terrorists from Pakistan, Olson told the audience. 26 November 2008, Mumbai: Two solid days of killing by people trained in Pakistan.
None of the 19 al-Qaeda hijackers on September 11 were Pakistani. Fifteen were from Saudi Arabia, two from the United Arab Emirates, and one each from Egypt and Lebanon. The 9/11 Commission in its report faulted Pakistan for not doing enough to thwart al-Qaida and the Taliban in Afghanistan.
RARE IMAGES: 9/11 photos from Pentagon show aftermath of terrorist attack
Olsons Democratic opponent, Sri Preston Kulkarni, says he sees something more cynical in Olson blaming Pakistan while speaking to a predominately Indian-American crowd. Pakistan and India have had decades of tension over disputed territory between the two countries.
September 11 was one of the defining moments in American history, said Kulkarni, a former foreign service worker for the U.S. State Department. Pete Olsons statement about this attack is incorrect and inflammatory. When our elected officials do not understand the basic facts of foreign policy, we divide our citizens and risk the lives of our troops.
Olson says Kulkarni is just trying to score political points.
It was clear in the full context of my conversation that I was relating the terror attacks on 9/11 in America, to the terror attacks our Indian friends suffered at the hands of terrorists trained to kill in Pakistan, Olson said. Both events were horrific, pivotal moments in our shared democracies. Taking one sentence where I accidentally transferred the dates in India to the events in America out of context does not change the fact that radical Islamic terrorists were successful in attacking both of our nations.
Olson, 55, is a 5-term member of the U.S. House and is seeking another 2-year-term this year. He represents the 22nd Congressional District, which includes Fort Bend, Brazoria and part of southern Harris County.
Olson has easily one his last four re-elections. But Kulkarni has relied heavily on his ability to connect with the districts diverse population to give Democrats hope that he could pull off an upset in the district. About 20 percent of the population in the district is of Asian heritage more than any other district in Texas. About 25 percent of the districts population is foreign born, according to U.S. Census records.
jeremy.wallace@chron.com
Houston Strong is more than a slogan.
It is the bravery witnessed when everyday people put their lives at risk by hopping in a flat-bottom boat to rescue absolute strangers. It is the compassion on display when thousands refuse to be satisfied with their own safety and line up to volunteer at rescue shelters. It is the community that emerges when disaster strips away everything else.
As the Atlantic Coast endures the eerie twilight hours before Hurricane Florence makes landfall, we want our friends, families and fellow Americans in the storms path to know that our post-Harvey city is sending them all the Houston Strong spirit we can muster.
Were also sending donations and volunteers, and some of Houstons first responders are already on the way.
Deep red dominates the radar map. A swirling gyre aims for the coast. Millions plan to evacuate, or hunker down, their eyes glued to whatever glowing screen can provide the latest update about Mother Natures fury.
We have been there before, and all too recently. We also know that communities in the Carolinas and Virginia have what it takes to endure, survive and recover.
True, Hurricane Harveys 50-plus inches of rain presented a different threat than Florences 140 mile-per-hour winds. The destructive force of a Category 4 hurricane poses a more immediate danger than the relentless deluge of a stalled storm. The fundamentals, however, remain the same.
Evacuate when ordered. Stay put otherwise dont add unnecessary traffic to already crowded freeways. Stock up on water and nonperishable foods. Fill ziplock bags with water and throw them in the freezer. Fill up your bath tubs, too. Charge every device and keep them at 100 percent for as long as you can. Look out for your neighbors, especially the elderly, and make sure everyone has a supply of needed medicines. Look out for children as well, and keep them safe from the traumatic images that will be plastered all over the news and social media.
For Carolinians looking at the challenge before them, the stakes may seem insurmountable.
A little more than a year ago, Houstonians looked out the window and glimpsed the apocalypse and yet we still stand. We know you will stand strong, too.
We also know what it can feel like to turn to the White House for leadership and compassion, only to get a paper towel roll to the face. If Houston can offer any lesson, its that you must grasp ahead of time how this recovery will be different than others.
Lower any expectations of the White House shining a spotlight on your suffering or focusing the nation on your needs. We looked to President Donald Trump for help in the months after Harvey. Instead, he bizarrely and falsely accused Houstonians of pleasure boating during the storm. Just recently, Trump deemed Hurricane Maria an unsung success, seeming to ignore that it killed 3,000 Americans. Trump will probably make some insulting claim about Florence, too. Ignore it, and ignore him.
Take solace in knowing that Houstonians wont be deluded by overly rosy numbers or overly optimistic rhetoric. We know that no disaster is ever an A-plus, and true recovery happens long after the streets dry and the news crews head home.
Ignore the presidents promises to spare no expense in the inevitable rebuilding. Trump made similar boasts about Harvey, only to follow up with a paltry bill and inadequate proposals. Our senior U.S. senator, John Cornyn, had to put a hold on a Trump appointee to force a vote on a hurricane recovery package. Your senators should start preparing their leverage now. Houstonians will tell our representatives to stand arm-in-arm with your delegation in Washington, fighting to get everything you need. Hurricane recovery isnt a project isolated to any one city or state. Storm resilience in an age of climate change must be a national endeavor, from the Ike Dike to the Manhattan Harbor Storm-Surge barrier, and everything between.
During the darkest days of Hurricane Harvey, Houstonians turned to relatively unknown Harris County Flood Control Meteorologist Jeff Lindner as an unexpected source of calm in a storm. As Florence barrels forward, we can only paraphrase his recent post on Twitter: For many this will be a life altering moment. Unimaginable impacts are likely. Heroic, life-saving actions will be required. The upcoming difficult days will present tough challengers that you will overcome together.
Houston is with you.
#CarolinaStrong
Its that time of the year again, when Latinos suddenly transform, Cinderella-like, from an undereducated, downtrodden and problematic population into a desirable voting bloc. They will soon turn out in droves, like an awakened sleeping giant, to revive the fortunes of the Democratic Party.
Or not.
Theres little reason to believe that the upcoming midterms or even the run-up to the 2020 presidential election will inspire any breathless 2012-style magazine covers proclaiming that Latinos will pick the next commander in chief.
Its not because Hispanics are uninterested in political participation, or because immigrants hold no political power. Oh, their clout could definitely be better, but the Pew Research Center recently calculated that at least 65 of the current 529 voting members of Congress (12 percent) are immigrants or the children of immigrants.
Mostly its because, as usual, Latinos are simply taken for granted.
Theyre all going to come out to vote against Donald Trumps candidate, goes the prevailing wisdom, because theres no end to the evidence that life has gotten harder for Latinos during this presidency. So, as a result, its a no-brainer that eligible Latino voters will be energized.
Well, theoretically, thats what should happen.
But theres the pesky business of the Hispanics who voted for Trump in 2016 even by the most thoroughly vetted estimates, this was anywhere from 11 percent (specifically in California, a blue state) to an astounding (and highly contested) 29 percent of Latino voters nationwide.
Then theres the fact that the assumption that Latinos will overwhelmingly vote for Democrats tends to dull outreach efforts.
With the midterms less than two months away, nearly 60 percent of Latino registered voters report that they havent been contacted by a campaign, political party or organization asking them to register or vote, according to a recent tracking poll by the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials.
This poll confirms what we have known for some time that Latino voters are still being ignored by the nations major campaigns, political parties and funders, said Arturo Vargas, NALEO Educational Funds CEO, in a press release. We are once again witnessing an overall lack of investment in Latino outreach efforts across the country in Election 2018, with the little funding that is available being diverted toward partisan outcomes. If we want to make significant progress increasing the number of Americans who vote, we cannot afford to have history keep repeating itself by continuously ignoring the nations second-largest population group election cycle after election cycle. The time for change is now.
Lastly, theres the irrefutable fact that no matter how angry, motivated or passionate Latino voters are, theyre still more likely to face hurdles to getting into the voting booth than people of any other race.
With the midterms less than two months away, nearly 60 percent of Latino registered voters report that they havent been contacted by a campaign, political party or organization asking them to register or vote, compared with 4 percent of white Americans and 7 percent of black Americans, according to a recent Public Religion Research Institute/Atlantic research brief.
Hispanics, like blacks, were three times more likely (9 percent) than white Americans to be told that they or someone in their household lacked the correct identification the last time they tried to vote.
Overall, 7 percent of Americans reported that the last time they tried to vote, they or a household member were told their name did not appear on the rolls even though they were registered. Meanwhile, 11 percent of Hispanics reported they or a household member had this experience.
And Hispanics were twice as likely as whites (16 percent vs. 8 percent) to say they couldnt vote because of not getting the time off work to do so.
Neither public polls nor private research suggests an organic surge to the polls among Hispanic voters outraged by Trump is developing the way it appears to be coalescing among college-educated white women and African-American women, according to a CNN analysis. And that means Democrats face their typical challenge of energizing a community whose voter participation has remained stubbornly low.
Just look at the data: Latino turnout has been stubbornly low by others design.
If anyone Democrats or Republicans wants Latino votes, they need to put both genuine interest and money behind outreach and get-out-the-vote efforts. Only then will we be able to talk about how energized Latino voters can get.
Cepedas email address is estherjcepeda@washpost.com, or follow her on Twitter: @estherjcepeda.
In 2005, after the Houston Chronicle detailed the scary levels of cancer-causing chemicals in Houstons air, Mayor Bill White convened a task force of scientists and physicians to study the problem. They identified ground-level ozone, fine particulate matter, diesel particulate matter and nine hazardous pollutants as a definite health risk to residents. The findings sparked a needed discussion about a healthier path forward for our city.
Unfortunately, since White left office in 2010, local leaders have not confronted Houstons air quality with the same urgency. This is troubling because the problem has not gone away. So far this year we already have endured 26 days with unhealthy levels of ozone, or smog, , exceeding last years total. In July, a north Houston monitor recorded the worst smog day in Texas since 2013. If that was not bad enough, a federal database released last week revealed an alarmingly high cancer risk in some neighborhoods for the chemical ethylene oxide.
A recent analysis also shows that chemical plants and oil refineries released more than 8 million pounds of additional air pollution in the days after Hurricane Harvey began barreling toward the Texas coast. Keep in mind that these pollution releases do not happen only during natural disasters. They are far too common. In 2018 alone, companies in Harris County have reported more than 150 pollution releases that exceeded their state permits, more than 1.5 million pounds in total. Sadly, Texas rarely punishes industry for these releases, allowing 97 percent of them to occur without penalty between 2011 and 2016.
There are two main strategies to protect people from the public health impacts of air pollution reduce emissions and limit exposure. So what can the city do? Here are some recommendations for local leaders.
Reconvene the Mayors Task Force on the Health Effects of Air Pollution
Mayor Sylvester Turner should reconvene the task force that was responsible for Whites efforts to reduce air pollution and protect human health. It is particularly timely with the new finding on ethylene oxide. The risk was as high as 348 cases in 1 million people in Harris County. That elevates the chemical to the definite risk category in Houston, as defined by the original task force.
To prioritize strategies for reducing emissions, the city should commission a study to gain more understanding of its largest sources of toxic air emissions, examine which facilities have implemented the best available control technology, and implement a campaign to reduce air pollution. Given that many emission sources are outside city limits, Houston also can lead by convening decision-makers from other jurisdictions to develop a comprehensive plan to protect us from air pollution.
Leverage data and technology to support the enforcement of existing laws
Data and technology are transforming how cities address air pollution around the country. Pittsburgh, for example, uses the Breathe Cam, a camera that provides real-time views of the city to quantify the amount of pollution in the air. Chicago, meanwhile, is developing a network of air sensors that will monitor pollution and help city officials take action when needed.
In 2015, Houston passed an anti-idling ordinance to reduce air pollution from heavy-duty trucks. When vehicles idle, they emit toxic air pollutants that can harm cardiovascular and respiratory health. To reduce exposure to traffic-related air pollution, the city can leverage these types of tools to identify idling hotspots and target those areas for enforcement instead of overly relying on resident complaints.
Utilize city authority to protect the public health, safety and welfare of its residents.
After Hurricane Harvey wreaked havoc on Houston, Turner said it was necessary to build forward, not just build back. As the city plots a sustainable path forward, local leaders should seriously consider an ordinance that prevents the future siting of hazardous facilities in residential neighborhoods. In Manchester, for example, people breathed air with high levels of cancer-causing benzene after a storm-related leak at the nearby Valero refinery, putting an already vulnerable community at greater risk for long-term health problems.
The science has been clear for decades. Pollution-related health risks decrease with distance from sources. Smaller sources of air pollution, like concrete batch plants, face minimal regulatory oversight and do not belong in these communities. At a minimum, if the city continues to allow these sources in our neighborhoods, they should face higher regulatory oversight and standards. While the state regulates air permits, the city has control over how its land is used. We need both the state and the city to utilize its power by implementing every tool available to decrease emissions and reduce exposure to air pollution.
Everyone has a right to breathe clean air, and where you live should not determine your health. Houstonians should not have to continue to live with unacceptable risks to their health and safety nor have our property rights violated and property values compromised because our leaders lack the political will to protect us.
Nelson is executive director of Air Alliance Houston.
I did not vote for Donald Trump. I regularly critique the president. I must confess, however, that every time I cast aspersions about Trump, I am faced with the selfish realization that during his tenure in office my 401(k) retirement account has grown. Whether that is directly due to Trumps policies or simply correlated with his occupancy in the White House is not the issue and perhaps cannot be proven.
What is noteworthy is that I often feel guilty for even wondering about or entertaining the thought that it might be more in my interest, and thus best to refrain from criticizing Trump, being content that as I approach retirement my financial future is solid.
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I also worry that my open criticism of Trump risks hateful and threatening responses from anonymous readers. I hope my concern for ethics and morality ultimately will prevail. But I would be lying if I said this isnt a constant struggle.
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To be fair, my predicament is no different than that of others. Political scientists and those of us who study political communication have long observed that one of the oddities of human behavior is that people often behave in ways that contradict their own self-interests. One of the most recent and vivid examples of this is the proclivity of a large percentage of evangelicals to support a president of the United States whose words and deeds violate some of the most basic ethical tenets of Christianity.
My purpose in writing is not to condemn them; others already have done that, drawing attention to the fact that ethical principles are not only important but essential to Christianity. Rather, I wish to illustrate how all of us including me have a natural tendency to become rigid, allowing our narrower personal gains to outweigh what in our hearts we know is right and wrong.
What my confession, combined with the reference to the behavior of some evangelicals, reveals is that in politics and life we all experience what scholars in communication and psychology call cognitive dissonance the state of having inconsistent thoughts, beliefs or attitudes, especially as relating to behavioral decisions and attitude change. The question is: How do we reduce dissonance?
Sometimes the answer is abandoning one of the incongruous beliefs. More often, the response is to prioritize which of our beliefs is more important. The latter, of course, can be an arduous process the outcome of which others may not accept or understand.
From the standpoint of persuasion, it is a challenge to know how to convince some that they should alter how they prioritize their beliefs. Put differently, how do we capitalize on anothers dissonance as a tool for persuasion?
NON-STARTER: Trump won't win trade war with China [Opinion]
In my own case, friends frequently remind me that, while monetary gain and protecting myself from the hateful response of others are desirable goals, the cost of singularly pursuing these goals may not be worth the price of abandoning my moral and ethical convictions. In short, the issue for me becomes determining just how essential those ethical principles are to my identity as a human being.
And that is precisely the issue we must ask others including evangelicals to tackle and retackle. Rather than simply attacking them for being hypocrites, which will alienate them and has little chance of persuading, our responsibility is to recognize that like us they are fallible human beings capable of making erroneous judgments.
The best recourse, therefore, is to enable them to resolve their dissonance by finding common ground. For example, we might help them see how their ethical beliefs are more than ordinary beliefs how those beliefs ultimately define their Christian identity and are fundamental to their overarching mission of embodying and practicing Christianity.
My argument is not partisan. It is not a prescription for any specific political belief. It is a recommendation for respecting others and moving beyond the current hyper-polarization, all of which is necessary for the possibility of persuasion. This will not be easy. But without persuasion, which requires everyone including me to recognize that we might be wrong, what chance do we have as a society to survive?
Cherwitz is the Ernest S. Sharpe Centennial Professor in the Moody College of Communication, as well as founder and director of the Intellectual Entrepreneurship Consortium at the University of Texas at Austin.
The worker who breached his visa conditions left the country in September 2017.
Judge Noel Sainsbury said he did not consider there was a real and appreciable risk that any franchise would be jeopardised for an offence of this nature although he accepted there was a degree of uncertainty.
Judge Sainsbury also said that even if it did, Kolan could pursue other business opportunities.
He added that if the defendant was breaching the law relating to foreign workers, it was not his job to protect Kolan from the consequences of his action.
The fines were really only incidental, it was the convictions that would bite, said Judge Sainsbury.
The planned walkout will involve workers from multiple McDonalds outlets in Chicago, Orlando, Kansas City, St Louis, Milwaukee, Miami, New Orleans, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Durham, North Carolina.
Union-backed organisations have been pressuring McDonalds to address labour concerns, including the call for higher wages and better working conditions. In May 2017, restaurant workers staged strikes to protest against the fast-food chains low wages and poor anti-sexual harassment policies.
In a statement to The Associated Press, McDonalds defended its efforts to combat workplace harassment.
We have policies, procedures, and training in place that are specifically designed to prevent sexual harassment at our company and company-owned restaurants, and we firmly believe that our franchisees share this commitment, the company said.
McDonalds also shared plans to work with employment law and anti-sexual violence experts to help advance the companys policies and procedures regarding sexual harassment.
The Central Command of the US Armed Forces is holding military exercise "Regional Cooperation - 2018" at the Edwards military base in Massachusetts from September 10 to 21. Countries of Central Asia - Tajikistan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, as well as Afghanistan and Mongolia - will participate part in them. However, experts believe that these states can withstand the "Islamist factor" only together with Russia.
In addition to US soldiers, 200 people from other countries will participate. Tajikistan sent a group of paratroopers, while only observers participate from Kazakhstan. This year Kyrgyzstan won't participate. During exercises, multinational team will develop a combined military response to several scenarios to improve cooperation. According to the plan of these exercises, soldiers will focus on operations to ensure stability, border security, fight against terrorism and drugs, as well as proliferation of banned materials and technologies.
"These exercises give our soldiers opportunity to work together, build confidence and develop our capabilities while strengthening our partnership," said Col. Earl Brown, spokesman for the US Central Command.
According to Eurasianet, these exercises are funded through Section 1004 of the National Defense Authorization Act, which gives the United States a right to train and equip foreign armed forces engaged in combating drug trafficking and international organized crime.
Exercises are held annually since 2001. Past year, these drills were held from July 10 to July 23 in Dushanbe. Exercises, according to Dushanbe, will help to strengthen security and stability in the region.
However, Dushanbe and other capitals of the region understand that only Russia can help them to withstand the 'Islamic factor'. They can remain sovereign states only with Russia, since it can protect power in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. "Even though there are no Russian troops there, Uzbekistna can also always count on Moscow," said military expert Viktor Litovkin.
Italy's deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini has insisted it will take 80 years to expel migrants to their countries of origin due to a lack of progress over repatriation efforts between states. As Daily Express writes in the article Italy migration CRISIS: Salvini warns expelling illegal migrants will take 80 years, Mr Salvini, leader of Italy's far-right anti-immigration League party, promised to repatriate 100,000 immigrants during his first year in office, but retreated his pledge today. He told Italian radio station RTL: The way things are today well need 80 years to expel them all.
The deputy Prime Minister has declared plans to deport majority of migrants trying to enter Italy - with or without the EU's help - insisting Rome "only has room for migrants fleeing war". Speaking to the BBC, he said: "Brussels has been promising us help and assistance for years and has been doing nothing." Mr Salvini has a long-standing stance against immigration, and continues to lash out against migrants arriving in Italy.
This year, a total of 4,269 illegal immigrants were either flown or shipped back to their countries of origin while another 11,411 were expelled but remain are unaccounted for.
Italy's coalition government has not established repatriation deals with many countries, making it difficult to ship immigrants back to their countries of origin. Up to 80 migrants a week are flown back from Italy to Tunisia, as the North African state remains one of the few countries on a successful repatriation deal with Rome.
Tunisia brought in the highest number of migrants to Rome this year, after more than 4,000 arrived by boat to the island of Lampedusa.
The EU has implemented regulations to prevent the influx of migrants to Italy's borders, employing a Libyan coastguard to stop ships from sailing towars Libyan's borders. However, Libya's coastguards are no longer patrolling seas, according to Italy newspaper Corriere della Sera, amid violent clashes in the country's capital. Last week, tensions escalated in Libya's capital, Tripoli, as thousands of refugees escaped from detention centres. The UN has suggested migrants might set sail for Italy in a bid to escape the violent clashes. UN's new high commissioner for human rights, Michelle Bachelet recently deployed a team of peacemakers to Italy over reports of a rise in racist attacks.
Mr Salvini lashed out at UN's decision, and said: Therefore we take lessons from no one, especially not the UN, which has proved itself to be biased, uselessly expensive and poorly informed. The police have denied that there is alarm over racism.
The Italian far-right minister caused world-wide controversy earlier this month, after he refused to accept a rescue ship, The Aquarius, carrying 630 migrants on board. In his most recent scandal, Sicillian authorities accused Mr Salvini of kidnapping people aboard another migrant boat, the Diciotti vessel, after 50 of them disappeared in Italy. Mr Salving reportedly refused to allow more than 100 of the rescued migrants to dock until the EU took some of them. At the time of the stand-off he said: "Either Europe begins to seriously defend its borders and shares the relocation of immigrants, or we will start taking them back to the port that they left. "Italy has already done its duty, and when it's too much, it's too much."
President of Russia, speaking at the plenary session of the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, proposed to conclude a peace treaty with Japan by the end of the year without any preconditions. We have been negotiating for 70 years. Shinzo (Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe) said: "Let's change the approaches." Let's do it, I came up with an idea - lets conclude a peace treaty, not now, but by the end of the year without any preconditions, " Vladimir Putin said. So far there has been no response from Abe, but this does not prevent Moscow and Tokyo from successfully cooperating in the energy sector.
As S&P Global Platts writes in the article Russia, Japan committed to building closer energy ties despite geopolitical risks, Russian and Japanese companies signed several energy cooperation deals during the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok this week, committing to building closer ties despite geopolitical risks that include US sanctions against Russia and an ongoing territorial dispute.
LNG is a key priority for Russian and Japanese energy companies, as Russia seeks markets for its expanding production and Japan looks to secure supply. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Russian President Vladimir Putin, during a plenary session at the forum on Wednesday, said their goal was to develop strong and fruitful bilateral cooperation and tackle those risks. Abe said: "There is unlimited potential for Japan's relationship with Russia, as we lay the foundation for a peace treaty."
State-run Jogmec CEO Tetsuhiro Hosono said the company was prepared to be patient when negotiating energy deals with Russia, taking into consideration complications such as US sanctions against Russia. "It is true that there are some issues in the course of promoting Russian-Japanese energy cooperation, such as sanctions introduced by a third country. But what Jogmec and a lot of Japanese companies realize is that if we are patient and establish a reliable partnership we can develop stable, mutually beneficial business with Russia," Hosono said.
Earlier, Jogmec signed a Memorandum of Understanding on LNG cooperation with Novatek, and the company saw significant potential for LNG projects in the Russian Arctic, Hosono said.
The LNG sector is a key focus area for future cooperation between the two countries, Putin said earlier, noting that Japanese companies may also take part in the planned expansion of Arctic LNG 2, Sakhalin 2 and Baltic LNG projects, as well as an LNG transshipment facility in Kamchatka.
Hosono said Jogmec, which has been negotiating the projects on behalf of Japanese companies, has focused on upstream projects rather than the transshipment terminal that Novatek is developing to ensure stable and competitive supplies of LNG to Asia from the Yamal peninsula.
On Wednesday, Gazprom and Mitsui signed an MoU on the planned Baltic LNG project, and also discussed the pace of work on the Sakhalin 2 project, where the two partners already cooperate. Sakhalin 2 is considering expansion through building a third train, with a capacity of 5 million mt/year.
Cooperation between Gazprom and Japanese companies is picking up, primarily in the LNG sphere as Japan is traditionally a major purchaser of Gazprom's LNG, accounting for 36% of its total sales of LNG, Gazprom CEO Alexei Miller said.
There were signs, however, that trade tensions are complicating further cooperation agreements. Marubeni chairman Teruo Asada said US sanctions were making it harder for Japanese companies to attract financing for major projects in Russia. "It is quite difficult for us to get competitive and attractive financing due to the US sanctions. Japanese commercial banking institutions will not be able to provide such financing for large infrastructure projects," Asada, who also chairs the Japan-Russia Business Cooperation Committee, said on the sidelines of the forum. "This is a major headache preventing us from proceeding with new projects in Russia," he said.
Despite those concerns, Marubeni Tuesday signed a deal with the Russian Direct Investment Fund and Japan's AEON Infrastructure Corporation on the key terms of construction of a methanol production unit and chemical plant in Volgograd. The $800 million plant, with an estimated capacity of over 1 million mt/year of methanol, is slated to be built by 2023.
The European Union is extending its current sanctions against certain Russian individuals and entities "over actions undermining or threatening the territorial integrity" of Ukraine for another six months, the Council of the European Union announced on Thursday, Sputnik reports.
"The Council has prolonged the restrictive measures over actions undermining or threatening the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine for a further six months, until 15 March 2019. The measures consist of asset freezes and travel restrictions. They currently apply to 155 persons and 44 entities," the statement read.
This market research report from IDTechEx provides a comprehensive analysis of the drone market, considering components, technologies, and application roadmaps. This report delivers short-, medium-, and long-term views of the entire drone industry. It contains forecasts up to 2041 on key business areas and market segments. The key topics covered in the report are as follows:
Business trends in the drone industry: The market research report compiles information from over 120 hardware and software companies to identify the key trends in the drone industry. The major players of the drone industry are compared within the areas of drone industry such as software, hardware, and analytics. This provides you with the knowledge to make informed decisions, and understanding of this disruptive and fast growing market area.
Drone technology/components: The market research report covers the major players in the drone hardware market, identifying their benefits and drawbacks to provide you with insight and understanding into this vast market area. Drone technology typically falls within two groups: fixed wing and rotary craft. Both are considered in this report, along with their benefits and limitations for different use cases and applications.
Drone software, and associated analytics: Software and analytics are key to drones. In this market research report, the following software types are considered: flight control, mission planning & management, and data analytics. The role of each type of software, historic investment and funding trends, along with forecasts, are analysed and presented to give you the insight into this key area of drone adoption and use cases. For example, for flight control we examine how the capability is evolving from basic remote-control towards full autonomous flight via see-avoid/track etc.
Sensors in drones: This market research report covers a range of sensors which are critical to drone operation. In this report the following sensors are considered: IMUs, GPS, camera, infrared, ultrasound, radar and LIDAR sensors. Furthermore, the report contains detailed market analysis of the major players in these markets, compared and analysed.
Regulation: This market research report provides an overview of the regulation of drones in key territories before offering insights into how the regulations might and should be evolved. Regulations currently impose many constraints on drones, shaping their potential market in various applications. Furthermore, technology capability is currently pushing ahead of regulation, therefore legislators worldwide have difficult calls to make to ensure the right balance between commercial interest, public safety, and personal privacy.
Drone use cases: There are many different commercial use cases for drones in the drone market. In this market research report, the following use cases for drones are compared and analysed:
Search and Rescue
Agriculture
Delivery
Security
Mapping and Localisation
Key questions answered in this report include:
Imperial Valley News Center
Executive Order on Imposing Certain Sanctions in the Event of Foreign Interference in a United States Election
Washington, DC - Executive Order on Imposing Certain Sanctions in the Event of Foreign Interference in a United States Election:
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.) (IEEPA), the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1601 et seq.) (NEA), section 212(f) of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (8 U.S.C. 1182(f)), and section 301 of title 3, United States Code,
I, DONALD J. TRUMP, President of the United States of America, find that the ability of persons located, in whole or in substantial part, outside the United States to interfere in or undermine public confidence in United States elections, including through the unauthorized accessing of election and campaign infrastructure or the covert distribution of propaganda and disinformation, constitutes an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States. Although there has been no evidence of a foreign power altering the outcome or vote tabulation in any United States election, foreign powers have historically sought to exploit Americas free and open political system. In recent years, the proliferation of digital devices and internet-based communications has created significant vulnerabilities and magnified the scope and intensity of the threat of foreign interference, as illustrated in the 2017 Intelligence Community Assessment. I hereby declare a national emergency to deal with this threat.
Accordingly, I hereby order:
Section 1. (a) Not later than 45 days after the conclusion of a United States election, the Director of National Intelligence, in consultation with the heads of any other appropriate executive departments and agencies (agencies), shall conduct an assessment of any information indicating that a foreign government, or any person acting as an agent of or on behalf of a foreign government, has acted with the intent or purpose of interfering in that election. The assessment shall identify, to the maximum extent ascertainable, the nature of any foreign interference and any methods employed to execute it, the persons involved, and the foreign government or governments that authorized, directed, sponsored, or supported it. The Director of National Intelligence shall deliver this assessment and appropriate supporting information to the President, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of Defense, the Attorney General, and the Secretary of Homeland Security.
(b) Within 45 days of receiving the assessment and information described in section 1(a) of this order, the Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with the heads of any other appropriate agencies and, as appropriate, State and local officials, shall deliver to the President, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of the Treasury, and the Secretary of Defense a report evaluating, with respect to the United States election that is the subject of the assessment described in section 1(a):
(i) the extent to which any foreign interference that targeted election infrastructure materially affected the security or integrity of that infrastructure, the tabulation of votes, or the timely transmission of election results; and
(ii) if any foreign interference involved activities targeting the infrastructure of, or pertaining to, a political organization, campaign, or candidate, the extent to which such activities materially affected the security or integrity of that infrastructure, including by unauthorized access to, disclosure or threatened disclosure of, or alteration or falsification of, information or data.
The report shall identify any material issues of fact with respect to these matters that the Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security are unable to evaluate or reach agreement on at the time the report is submitted. The report shall also include updates and recommendations, when appropriate, regarding remedial actions to be taken by the United States Government, other than the sanctions described in sections 2 and 3 of this order.
(c) Heads of all relevant agencies shall transmit to the Director of National Intelligence any information relevant to the execution of the Directors duties pursuant to this order, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law. If relevant information emerges after the submission of the report mandated by section 1(a) of this order, the Director, in consultation with the heads of any other appropriate agencies, shall amend the report, as appropriate, and the Attorney General and the Secretary of Homeland Security shall amend the report required by section 1(b), as appropriate.
(d) Nothing in this order shall prevent the head of any agency or any other appropriate official from tendering to the President, at any time through an appropriate channel, any analysis, information, assessment, or evaluation of foreign interference in a United States election.
(e) If information indicating that foreign interference in a State, tribal, or local election within the United States has occurred is identified, it may be included, as appropriate, in the assessment mandated by section 1(a) of this order or in the report mandated by section 1(b) of this order, or submitted to the President in an independent report:
(f) Not later than 30 days following the date of this order, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of the Treasury, the Attorney General, the Secretary of Homeland Security, and the Director of National Intelligence shall develop a framework for the process that will be used to carry out their respective responsibilities pursuant to this order. The framework, which may be classified in whole or in part, shall focus on ensuring that agencies fulfill their responsibilities pursuant to this order in a manner that maintains methodological consistency; protects law enforcement or other sensitive information and intelligence sources and methods; maintains an appropriate separation between intelligence functions and policy and legal judgments; ensures that efforts to protect electoral processes and institutions are insulated from political bias; and respects the principles of free speech and open debate.
Sec. 2. (a) All property and interests in property that are in the United States, that hereafter come within the United States, or that are or hereafter come within the possession or control of any United States person of the following persons are blocked and may not be transferred, paid, exported, withdrawn, or otherwise dealt in: any foreign person determined by the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State, the Attorney General, and the Secretary of Homeland Security:
(i) to have directly or indirectly engaged in, sponsored, concealed, or otherwise been complicit in foreign interference in a United States election;
(ii) to have materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, or technological support for, or goods or services to or in support of, any activity described in subsection (a)(i) of this section or any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order; or
(iii) to be owned or controlled by, or to have acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, any person whose property or interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order.
(b) Executive Order 13694 of April 1, 2015, as amended by Executive Order 13757 of December 28, 2016, remains in effect. This order is not intended to, and does not, serve to limit the Secretary of the Treasurys discretion to exercise the authorities provided in Executive Order 13694. Where appropriate, the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Attorney General and the Secretary of State, may exercise the authorities described in Executive Order 13694 or other authorities in conjunction with the Secretary of the Treasurys exercise of authorities provided in this order.
(c) The prohibitions in subsection (a) of this section apply except to the extent provided by statutes, or in regulations, orders, directives, or licenses that may be issued pursuant to this order, and notwithstanding any contract entered into or any license or permit granted prior to the date of this order.
Sec. 3. Following the transmission of the assessment mandated by section 1(a) and the report mandated by section 1(b):
(a) the Secretary of the Treasury shall review the assessment mandated by section 1(a) and the report mandated by section 1(b), and, in consultation with the Secretary of State, the Attorney General, and the Secretary of Homeland Security, impose all appropriate sanctions pursuant to section 2(a) of this order and any appropriate sanctions described in section 2(b) of this order; and
(b) the Secretary of State and the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the heads of other appropriate agencies, shall jointly prepare a recommendation for the President as to whether additional sanctions against foreign persons may be appropriate in response to the identified foreign interference and in light of the evaluation in the report mandated by section 1(b) of this order, including, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, proposed sanctions with respect to the largest business entities licensed or domiciled in a country whose government authorized, directed, sponsored, or supported election interference, including at least one entity from each of the following sectors: financial services, defense, energy, technology, and transportation (or, if inapplicable to that countrys largest business entities, sectors of comparable strategic significance to that foreign government). The recommendation shall include an assessment of the effect of the recommended sanctions on the economic and national security interests of the United States and its allies. Any recommended sanctions shall be appropriately calibrated to the scope of the foreign interference identified, and may include one or more of the following with respect to each targeted foreign person:
(i) blocking and prohibiting all transactions in a persons property and interests in property subject to United States jurisdiction;
(ii) export license restrictions under any statute or regulation that requires the prior review and approval of the United States Government as a condition for the export or re-export of goods or services;
(iii) prohibitions on United States financial institutions making loans or providing credit to a person;
(iv) restrictions on transactions in foreign exchange in which a person has any interest;
(v) prohibitions on transfers of credit or payments between financial institutions, or by, through, or to any financial institution, for the benefit of a person;
(vi) prohibitions on United States persons investing in or purchasing equity or debt of a person;
(vii) exclusion of a persons alien corporate officers from the United States;
(viii) imposition on a persons alien principal executive officers of any of the sanctions described in this section; or
(ix) any other measures authorized by law.
Sec. 4. I hereby determine that the making of donations of the type of articles specified in section 203(b)(2) of IEEPA (50 U.S.C. 1702(b)(2)) by, to, or for the benefit of any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order would seriously impair my ability to deal with the national emergency declared in this order, and I hereby prohibit such donations as provided by section 2 of this order.
Sec. 5. The prohibitions in section 2 of this order include the following:
(a) the making of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services by, to, or for the benefit of any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order; and
(b) the receipt of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services from any such person.
Sec. 6. I hereby find that the unrestricted immigrant and nonimmigrant entry into the United States of aliens whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order would be detrimental to the interests of the United States, and I hereby suspend entry into the United States, as immigrants or nonimmigrants, of such persons. Such persons shall be treated as persons covered by section 1 of Proclamation 8693 of July 24, 2011 (Suspension of Entry of Aliens Subject to United Nations Security Council Travel Bans and International Emergency Economic Powers Act Sanctions).
Sec. 7. (a) Any transaction that evades or avoids, has the purpose of evading or avoiding, causes a violation of, or attempts to violate any of the prohibitions set forth in this order is prohibited.
(b) Any conspiracy formed to violate any of the prohibitions set forth in this order is prohibited.
Sec. 8. For the purposes of this order:
(a) the term person means an individual or entity;
(b) the term entity means a partnership, association, trust, joint venture, corporation, group, subgroup, or other organization;
(c) the term United States person means any United States citizen, permanent resident alien, entity organized under the laws of the United States or any jurisdiction within the United States (including foreign branches), or any person (including a foreign person) in the United States;
(d) the term election infrastructure means information and communications technology and systems used by or on behalf of the Federal Government or a State or local government in managing the election process, including voter registration databases, voting machines, voting tabulation equipment, and equipment for the secure transmission of election results;
(e) the term United States election means any election for Federal office held on, or after, the date of this order;
(f) the term foreign interference, with respect to an election, includes any covert, fraudulent, deceptive, or unlawful actions or attempted actions of a foreign government, or of any person acting as an agent of or on behalf of a foreign government, undertaken with the purpose or effect of influencing, undermining confidence in, or altering the result or reported result of, the election, or undermining public confidence in election processes or institutions;
(g) the term foreign government means any national, state, provincial, or other governing authority, any political party, or any official of any governing authority or political party, in each case of a country other than the United States;
(h) the term covert, with respect to an action or attempted action, means characterized by an intent or apparent intent that the role of a foreign government will not be apparent or acknowledged publicly; and
(i) the term State means the several States or any of the territories, dependencies, or possessions of the United States.
Sec. 9. For those persons whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order who might have a constitutional presence in the United States, I find that because of the ability to transfer funds or other assets instantaneously, prior notice to such persons of measures to be taken pursuant to this order would render those measures ineffectual. I therefore determine that for these measures to be effective in addressing the national emergency declared in this order, there need be no prior notice of a listing or determination made pursuant to section 2 of this order.
Sec. 10. Nothing in this order shall prohibit transactions for the conduct of the official business of the United States Government by employees, grantees, or contractors thereof.
Sec. 11. The Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Attorney General and the Secretary of State, is hereby authorized to take such actions, including the promulgation of rules and regulations, and to employ all powers granted to the President by IEEPA as may be necessary to carry out the purposes of this order. The Secretary of the Treasury may re-delegate any of these functions to other officers within the Department of the Treasury consistent with applicable law. All agencies of the United States Government are hereby directed to take all appropriate measures within their authority to carry out the provisions of this order.
Sec. 12. The Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Attorney General and the Secretary of State, is hereby authorized to submit the recurring and final reports to the Congress on the national emergency declared in this order, consistent with section 401(c) of the NEA (50 U.S.C. 1641(c)) and section 204(c) of IEEPA (50 U.S.C. 1703(c)).
Sec. 13. This order shall be implemented consistent with 50 U.S.C. 1702(b)(1) and (3).
Sec. 14. (a) Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:
(i) the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or the head thereof; or
(ii) the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.
(b) This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.
(c) This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.
DONALD J. TRUMP
THE WHITE HOUSE,
September 12, 2018.
Absurdly Driven looks at the world of business with a skeptical eye and a firmly rooted tongue in cheek.
Ask and ye shall receive.
Sometimes, Americans take this biblical suggestion a little too far.
Ask becomes demand. Receive becomes deserve to receive and right now.
A blind couple at a Wendy's in Albuquerque, New Mexico, however, neither demanded nor expressed any suggestion that they deserved special treatment.
They placed their order, just as anyone else would.
Wendy's employee Richard Wise-Attwood isn't just anyone else.
At least, that's what another customer -- Cindy Griswold -- observed. So much so that she felt compelled writing about it on Facebook:
He made sure the table was in a good spot and he carried the sodas, straws, napkins, ketchup and of course, he place [sic] the food in the right order, so they knew who's sandwich was in front of them. He went back several times to make sure everything was fine.
These sound like simple gestures.
They're simply not the sorts of gestures many might bother to make.
As Griswold wrote:
He didn't do it because [it] is part of his job, he did it because he wanted to help from the bottom of his heart.
I've been feeling a touch sentimental this week, especially about fast-food employees.
When you have a low-paying job that requires a high degree of tolerance, it's tempting to just do it and go home.
Instead, some still go out of their way.
He was stopped by a 92-year-old woman and asked what he did for a living.
When he explained that he delivered food, she assumed he'd just take her order.
Rather than just laugh in her face, he grabbed his phone and placed the order for her.
As for Wise-Attwood, he had no idea Griswold took pictures of him or that she posted about him on Facebook.
He explained to KRQE-TV that all he was doing was showing basic humanity:
They were cool, they were real nice, didn't bother anybody, they didn't ask for help. I just did it because I knew they needed it.
The needs of others aren't high on many people's to-do lists these days.
Their own needs are, after all, far too broad and important.
Yet stories like this are often passed around as examples of a humanity that's not quite dead. Yet.
A lot of people were upset last year when the tax reform bill was passed by Congress.
Sure, there were significant reductions in income tax rates for certain taxpayers, corporations, and pass-through businesses as well as a host of other tax incentives. But one big tax benefit was taken away for many: the state and local tax deduction. The bill limited this deduction to $10,000, and that was a big deal for residents in states like California, New York, and New Jersey that have a high local burden.
For regular corporations, there remained no cap on state and local deductions. But for some business owners, particularly the owners of pass-through businesses like S corporations and partnerships, the cap seemed to apply. That's because this deduction is ultimately reported on their personal returns.
But wait ... that rule was just clarified -- and it's good news for many small-business owners.
"There's potentially the opportunity for partnerships or some other pass-through businesses to claim deductions above what they'd be able to do with the capped state and local tax deduction," Jared Walczak, a senior policy analyst at the Tax Foundation, told the Los Angeles Times last week. How?
According to a clarification released by the IRS, pass-through businesses will be allowed to claim a full federal tax deduction for contributions to charities or government programs -- particularly those offering private scholarships -- that offer state tax credits.
"The business expense deduction is available to any business taxpayer, regardless of whether it is doing business as a sole proprietor, partnership, or corporation, as long as the payment qualifies as an ordinary and necessary business expense," the IRS said. "Therefore, businesses generally can still deduct business-related payments in full as a business expense on their federal income tax return."
For example, I have a pass-through client near Philadelphia that donates money to a local private school for scholarships. Under Pennsylvania law, 90 percent of that contribution is eligible for a state tax credit under two state programs. As an individual, she would have to reduce the federal charitable tax deduction she claims by the amount of any credit she received on her state taxes. But as the owner of a pass-through business she won't have to do that and can take the full charitable deduction.
"The IRS clarification makes clear that the long-standing rule allowing businesses to deduct payments to charities as business expenses remains unchanged under the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act," Secretary of the Treasury Steven T. Mnuchin said. "The recent proposed rule concerning the cap on state and local tax deductions has no impact on federal tax benefits for business-related donations to school choice programs."
The state and local tax cap was a hotly contested part of the tax reform bill because Democrats felt that it was politically motivated (many of the high-tax states are blue). The clarification is now stoking even more controversy, because some are accusing the government of changing the rules after it became apparent that taxpayers in many red states would also be affected.
Well, the dust has finally settled.
It's true we have crossed a mysterious threshold, and the workforce is now flooded with Millennials--56 million of them. Yet, we also know that Gen Z workers, those who are just about finishing up college as we speak (including my own daughter), grew up in a world that had ubiquitous and fast internet access, a stable social media platform (that would be Facebook), and incredible smartphone technology.
That's why, by 2020, companies will start snapping up these young workers faster than they can fill out a W2 form, and we'll be happy to put Millennials on less important projects or at least shift them up into the management ranks, and let those who live and breathe modern technology become the coders, product testers, and front-line workers in retail and at startups. While Gen Z might not be well-versed in project management or even using apps like Dropbox or Slack in the workplace, they are absolute savants with technology.
I know this because I've watched my own kids. A phone is like a third appendage. They flip, swipe, and press faster than anyone; it's second nature. Millennials, especially those a bit older, had to work through some rough patches in their formative years. They used MySpace, not Facebook. They never touched an iPhone. They barely had high-speed access in the home as elementary age kids, especially if they were outside of a metro area.
Millennials are a bit more jaded and don't trust tech as much, because they remember a time in their early years when it wasn't as pervasive. You can feel sorry for them if you want.
Gen Z have a much more symbiotic relationship with tech.
They don't second guess it, or analyze it as much, or wonder if it is causing problems in some way. It's just there. They see it as a part of society, and they barely remember when it wasn't common. Think about the Apple iPhone. For many Gen Z workers, the iPhone has been around since they were in elementary school. Android phones existed a few years before that. A Wi-Fi connection, once a luxury for some of us, was always around.
That means the typical Gen Z worker will be a major asset for a company trying to move into the next age of technology, one that involves pervasive artificial intelligence, unlimited storage, high-end video processing everywhere you look, digital billboards that are as good as the TV in your living room, and apps that make Snapchat seem like a modern marvel of interface design. If you think some apps and services are a bit hard to learn, it might be because you actually used a pencil in school instead of a laptop or a tablet in school.
It's not overstating the reality that, in many ways, Gen Z are almost like cyborgs--tech is not a learned skill, and there was never any adjustment period. There was life, and then there was the internet. Many Gen Z workers barely ever used a landline. The great digital divide between Millennials and Gen Z is that there are what Gartner calls the natural born and the immigrants to tech; there's never been a generation before Gen Z that grew up with pervasive tech and widespread access in their school and at home. Every day. Almost since birth.
So what does this all mean for the rest of us?
Let's be clear: We know this kind of constant exposure to tech will make a huge difference. Watch someone under 22 these days use a phone--it's a flash and a flicker of constant activity. They know technology better than anyone. It's part of their DNA.
The question isn't whether Gen Z workers will easily outpace everyone else in how they adapt to the workplace and create dazzling new apps and services, or how they will mesmerize us with keen insight into the future tech advancements that await us all.
If you visit some McDonald's on Tuesday in St. Louis, San Francisco, L.A., or Chicago, among other U.S. cities, you may find you have to cross a picket line--or you might even find the restaurant closed. That's because employees at some restaurants in these cities will be striking for one day to protest what some have described as a corporate culture where sexual harassment is routinely tolerated. Workers in some restaurants in Durham, North Carolina, Kansas City, Missouri, Miami, Milwaukee, New Orleans, and Orlando are also planning to strike.
The strike is partly a result of the #MeToo movement, which has emboldened some women who've silently tolerated routine sexual harassment to speak up as never before. And the fast food industry is notorious for tolerating sexual harassment--one survey of 1,200 people found that 40 percent of female fast-food employees had faced sexual harassment at work.
This is the first time in history that a strike has occurred across several states over sexual harassment. In fact, the only other time workers went on strike over this issue was in 1912, when several hundred female employees of a corset factory in Kalamazoo, Michigan walked out in protest of frequent sexual harassment and generally bad working conditions.
Next week's strike was voted in after discussions among hundreds of McDonald's workers at committee meetings around the country, AP reports. Strikers are demanding better procedures for receiving and responding to harassment complaints, mandatory anti-harassment training for managers and employees, and a national committee to fight sexual harassment across the entire chain, made up of workers, representatives from both corporate-owned and franchise restaurants, and leaders from national women's groups.
McDonald's, for its part, seems to believe it already has sexual harassment well in hand. When asked to comment on the strike, a spokesperson for the company sent this statement: "There is no place for harassment or discrimination of any kind at McDonald's. Since our founding, we've been committed to a culture that fosters the respectful treatment of everyone. We have policies, procedures and training in place that are specifically designed to prevent sexual harassment at our company and company-owned restaurants, and we firmly believe that our franchisees share this commitment." The statement went on to say that McDonald's is now engaging third party experts in sexual harassment prevention and response to "evolve our policies, procedures and training."
"Have you ever had white chocolate?"
But many female employees say that in fact sexual harassment is commonplace at the company. Many of the strike's organizers are among the 15 McDonald's employees around the nation who filed 10 complaints against the company with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission describing routine indifference when they reported sexual harassment to their supervisors. In filing their complaints, they had legal assistance paid for by the Time's Up Legal Defense Fund.
Tanya Harrel, a McDonald's franchise employee in New Orleans, complained to her boss when a co-worker fondled her buttocks but said the boss didn't take it seriously. When a different co-worker shoved her in a bathroom and attempted to sexually assault her, she was sure there would be no disciplinary action so she didn't report the incident. Kimberley Lawson, an employee at a franchise in Kansas City, Missouri, said her supervisor sent her home early after she refused his sexual advances. She said she reported the incident to her general manager, with no result.
Breauna Morrow, an employee in St. Louis, said that one co-worker began harassing her almost immediately after she started at her job, telling her what he would do to her and asking, "Have you ever had white chocolate inside you?" When she asked her supervisor what to do, she reports being told, "You will never win that battle." What makes this truly disturbing--especially for parents whose kids work at McDonald's--is that Morrow was only 15.
At the time of the EEOC filings, McDonald's issued a statement similar to the one it sent me after the strike was announced: "McDonald's Corporation takes allegations of sexual harassment very seriously and are confident our independent franchisees who own and operate about 90 percent of our 14,000 U.S. restaurants will do the same." The company also said it was investigating the alleged incidents.
More than 1,645 flights have been cancelled nationwide ahead of Hurricane Florence making landfall on the southeastern coast of the U.S. While that number is staggering in itself, the flight delays are exponentially higher - 20,000+, according to flight-tracking service FlightAware. At my company, Ovation Travel Group, it is our job to help people travel as seamlessly as possible. Safety is always the top priority, and we know firsthand what it means to help travelers whose plans have been disrupted by hurricanes. In terms of Hurricane Florence, over 3,000 Ovation passengers (so far) have had their travel plans affected, either by way of delays, changes or cancellations.
We've been continuously running reports to identify those whose travel is or will likely be affected. And we are proactively reaching out to travelers for whom we anticipate travel problems, in advance of cancellations, giving them a forewarning that we expect their trips will be affected, potentially even cancelled, and allowing them to rebook preemptively, at no added cost as many airlines have extended change waivers for the storm. We've also extended our normal business hours through Sunday (adding staff to handle the increase in call volume, opening earlier, closing later and operating during the weekend), in addition to our standard 24/7/365 service. All of this to assist travelers as Florence progresses, as we know what to do when a weather emergency occurs. Here's what we want you to know about travel and hurricanes:
1. Monitor the Storm. When you hear meteorologists refer to the category of the hurricane (1-5), those categories are defined by the hurricane's sustained wind speed. Hurricanes are the most violent storms on earth and they can be unpredictable, changing paths and speed of movement. In the last 24 hours, Florence has been downgraded to a category 2 storm and also shifted farther south and west from its previously predicted path. Maximum sustained winds are currently at 110 mph and landfall is expected between the border of North and South Carolina tomorrow afternoon; the outer bands of the storm are approaching coastal areas now.
2. Understand Potential Dangers. Even though Florence has been downgraded from its peak of a category 4 storm, the National Weather service has warned it "will bring life threatening storm surge, flash flooding, and destructive winds." It is also larger in size and slower than previously predicted and will remain inland through Saturday at least. Concerns not only include initial flooding and surges up to 13 feet, but also secondary flooding days into the storm, with rain totals expected at up to 30 inches. Even if not directly hit, millions can still be impacted. Duke Energy estimates that up to 3 million people can lose power in the Carolinas due to Florence, and that restoration could take weeks.
3. Listen to the Authorities. If you are told to evacuate by authorities, do so. Evacuations have been underway in the Carolinas for days now. When this happens, authorities often change traffic patterns on highways for easier access, but there usually comes a point when major highways close as well for safety reasons. Watch local news and listen to the radio. Download a weather app and sign up for alerts. If your travel company offers a travel app, download it, you'll get weather updates, real time trip alerts with itinerary updates and in-app access to contact your travel consultant from the road in the unfortunate event that you need to do so.
4. Consider All Transportation Options. If possible, see if your airline can change your trip to get you on an early flight out, or consider simply buying a one-way ticket on another airline. In terms of Hurricane Florence, over 10 airlines have waived change fees in order to get more people to safety. Trains can also be a good option, as can renting a car. You may need to exercise creativity; if you can only find a flight that will get you part-way home, for example, perhaps renting a car to get you that last leg is a good option. Again, you need to monitor the news to get updates; Amtrak has shut down operations in areas surrounding Florence's projected path and travel alerts are in effect for over 20 local airports.
5. Risk Management. At Ovation, we have a contingency plan specifically designed for rapid response whenever there is a significant travel disruption or situation that may cause an increase in call volume, so that we can assist whoever is in need as efficiently as possible. In fact, that plan is in effect now. The contingency plan ensures our team is prepared well before any disruption occurs... and you should have one, too. Make sure people have copies of your itinerary and important phone numbers, and electronic access to copies of your passport or other important documents.
6. Prepare for the Unknown. The bottom line is that no one knows how much rain will fall and how ensuing flooding may cause prolonged damage to airport runways, highways, residential streets and, of course, power and infrastructure. So...do what you can in terms of preparations. If you know you will be in a storm's path, stock up on things like food, water, batteries, flashlights and medication. Charge what devices you can, while you can. And keep a bag packed. If you do need to leave your location quickly, not only do you increase your chances of staying safe, but you are also less likely to forget anything important.
7. Hurricane Help. Whatever the aftermath may be, know that there are multiple organizations and businesses standing by, ready to offer assistance. Airports, airlines and hotels have a lot of experience dealing with weather events. Don't be afraid to call an airline representative; chances are they may already be enacting procedures to assist customers. If you are staying at a hotel, particularly if you are in an area prone to hurricanes, chances are they will be stocked up on things like food, water and generators, in case of a power outage. On that note, Duke Energy, for example, has over 20,000 people in place to restore power in the aftermath of Florence, if needed.
Henry Cavill has responded to a report that he will no longer star as Superman in the Warner Bros franchise.
On 13 September The Hollywood Reporter reported that the British actor was leaving the role after talks with the studio broke down.
Cavill who has played the iconic character in three DC comics movies was expected to cameo in Shazam!, the upcoming superhero movie starring Zachary Levi. However, scheduling conflicts prevented him from making an appearance.
The actor has since responded with a cryptic Instagram post which shows him staring at the camera while bringing a Superman figurine into view, and then moving it back out of the shot.
A representative for Warner released a statement on the situation, stating that no decision has been made at this time.
While no decisions have been made regarding any upcoming Superman films, weve always had great respect for and a great relationship with Henry Cavill, and that remains unchanged, they said.
Cavills manager, Dany Garcia, also responded to the news, writing on Twitter: Be peaceful, the cape is still in his closet. Warner has been and continues to be our partners as they evolve the DC Universe.
The initial report claimed that the breakdown in talks coincided with the studios desire to focus on Supergirl rather than Superman.
The best films of 2018 (so far) Show all 17 1 /17 The best films of 2018 (so far) The best films of 2018 (so far) The Guardians From its slow-burning beginning, The Guardians develops into an epic melodrama. Its a wartime story in which, for a change, the men are relegated to supporting roles. It follows in a tradition of French rural family sagas like Jean De Florette or Manon Des Sources. The landscapes and the changing seasons play as much of a part in the story as the main characters. The best films of 2018 (so far) Dark River Dark River offers little such consolation. It has some lyrical and delicate moments but the mood is generally overwhelmingly bleak and lugubrious. Incest and abuse dont leave much space for any comic interludes. This is a powerful film with a grinding intensity about it. Light relief it isnt but Dark River still has quite an impact. Alamy The best films of 2018 (so far) Zama Late on in Argentinean director Lucrecia Martels startling, highly original new feature, Zama, a character who has just had both his arms cut off, is advised to shove your stumps in the sand if you dont bleed out, youll survive. Its a grisly, darkly humorous moment in a film that continually surprises us with both its brutality and its lyricism. The Match Factory The best films of 2018 (so far) The Breadwinner The most dispiriting aspect of this otherwise enrapturing Oscar-nominated animated feature is that its storyline still seems so current. The film depicts an Afghan society in which women dont have a face. It is set during the Taliban rule, which lasted from the mid-1990s until late 2001, but this doesnt feel like a period piece. Seventeen years after the Taliban were ousted from power in Afghanistan following the US invasion, the plight of women in the country appears hardly to have improved. GKIDS The best films of 2018 (so far) BlacKkKlansman Spike Lees work sometimes risks sensory overload. He fires off so many different ideas and storytelling styles that audiences can become bamboozled by his scattergun approach. BlacKkKlansman is one of his very best films because the digressions are as entertaining as ever but dont get in the way of the main story. AP The best films of 2018 (so far) Early Man Much of the pleasure in Aardman films has always lain in their gently ironic, Alan Bennett-like humour. They take very exotic characters and subject matter but then deal with them in a matter-of-fact fashion. They make a virtue out of their own relative modesty. Early Man isnt the flashiest animated feature that youll see this year but it is certainly the most likeable. The best films of 2018 (so far) Isle of Dogs Like all of Wes Andersons work, Isle Of Dogs is very stylised, very offbeat and characterised by its extremely dry and often ironic humour. This Japanese-set stop-motion fable is also gorgeous to look at packed full of intricate visual detail. It deals with some weighty themes (ethnic cleansing, fascism and corruption) but does so in an idiosyncratic fashion. The best films of 2018 (so far) Three Billboards Outside of Ebbing, Missouri Writer-director Martin McDonagh has a host of award-winning plays behind him but his movies havent always lived up to his stage work. This one certainly does. It shares some of the dark and nihilistic humour found in McDonaghs previous film, Seven Psychopaths. The best films of 2018 (so far) A Quiet Place In an era of wearisome poltergeist movies, haunted house stories and torture porn, A Quiet Place is a refreshingly pared-down and very original affair. Director John Krasinski relies on editing, sound effects and off-screen action to crank up the tension. We do see the creatures from time to time, sometimes even in extreme closeup. They are very grotesque, bigger versions of the polyp-like succubus which exploded out of John Hurts stomach in Alien. However, the most terrifying moments here come when the humans are waiting for them to appear, desperately hoping that they wont. Paramount Pictures The best films of 2018 (so far) Lady Bird Lady Bird is one of the best American coming-of-age films since Barry Levinsons Diner. Written and directed by Greta Gerwig, it offers an utterly winning mix of humour, poignancy and sharp-eyed social observation. Gerwig approaches her subject matter with the same tenderness and affectionate irony with which the adolescent Lady Bird regards Sacramento. Gerwig also shows Lady Birds heroism as the young heroine strives against the odds to become the very best version of herself she can be. A24 The best films of 2018 (so far) Phantom Thread If Phantom Thread is indeed Daniel Day-Lewiss final film as an actor, he is going out on a wondrously bizarre note. This must be the oddest film in his career, one in which he gives a typically commanding but very idiosyncratic performance. Almost everything here is jarring but generally in a very positive way. The best films of 2018 (so far) First Reformed It is not so long ago that Paul Schrader seemed to be giving up on cinema. The American writer-director (whose credits include Taxi Driver, American Gigolo and Affliction) had taken to making movies like the sour Hollywood satire The Canyons with Lindsay Lohan and the cartoonishly violent Dog Eat Dog, shot cheaply, aimed at a VOD audience. The former had a montage of closed-down movie theatres. In interviews, Schrader struck a gloomy note about the future of the industry. This is why First Reformed is so refreshing. This is not just Schraders best film in a very long while. It is also a re-affirmation of the directors belief in the medium. Rex The best films of 2018 (so far) The Happy Prince Oscar Wilde goes to ruin in Rupert Everetts debut feature as director. Everett also wrote and stars in the film, giving a grandstanding performance as the Irish writer at the end of his life, after his release from prison, where he has been doing hard labour for gross indecency. This is a moving and surprising biopic that squeezes out every last drop of pathos from its subject matter. BBC Films The best films of 2018 (so far) Black Panther Black Panther is not only one of the most entertaining recent superhero films but has an intelligence and a political dimension that such inchoate offerings as Suicide Squad and Justice League completely lacked. It is an action movie which touches on Pan-Africanism and which owes as much to Malcolm X as it does to Batman or Captain America. Marvel Studios/Disney The best films of 2018 (so far) Sicilian Ghost Story Sicilian Ghost Story is a genre-bending affair that combines elements of teen romance, gothic psycho-drama and political thriller. It is loosely based on a true story of a boy called Giuseppe Di Matteo whose father, an ex-member of the Sicilian Mafia, turned grass against his erstwhile associates. The Mafia responded by kidnapping Giuseppe and keeping him in captivity for nearly 800 days. Altitude The best films of 2018 (so far) First Man First Man is all about understated heroism. Its affecting precisely because Armstrong (played with quiet intensity by Ryan Gosling) doesnt feel the continual need to boast about his mission. The film is a tearjerker but a very subtle one. AP The best films of 2018 (so far) Dogman Dogman is one of the best Italian films of recent times, a modern day neo realist fable that bears comparison with the great work of Fellini, Rossellini, De Sica et al. Its main character, the dog groomer Marcello (Marcello Fonte), is a wonderful creation: loveable, vulnerable, seedy and comic all at the same time. Curzon Artificial Eye
According to DC comics lore, Supergirls origin story features Superman as an infant suggesting the 35-year-old Cavill would not make an appearance in any Supergirl film.
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Superman is like James Bond, and after a certain run you have to look at new actors, a source told THR.
Should Cavill leave the role, he would be the second high-profile actor to be removed from the Warner Bros franchise after Ben Affleck reportedly quit as Batman.
The pair starred in 2016s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and last years Justice League, with Cavill also appearing in the 2013 Superman movie Man of Steel.
Meanwhile, Cavill recently landed the main role in the Netflix series Witcher, which should effectively fill his schedule for the coming future.
A group of almost 400 of the worlds leading investors, controlling over $30tn (23tn) in assets, have agreed to work together to back initiatives to combat climate change and help meet the objectives of the Paris agreement.
The group aims to lobby and put pressure on governments around the world to accelerate action to tackle global greenhouse gas emissions.
Investors including the BBC Pensions Trust, Transport for London pensions fund, Aviva, the Environment Agency pension fund, Legal and General, and the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust are calling on the companies in their portfolios to reduce their carbon footprint, support clean energy, and strengthen climate-related financial disclosures.
The campaign, announced as part of the Global Action Climate Summit in San Francisco, also aims to put pressure on the US to stick to the terms of the Paris agreement after Donald Trump announced America was pulling out of the accord.
The draconian measures of the agreement would cause a very diminished quality of life for Americans, the US president said, announcing his decision in June 2017.
The list of organisations who are part of the newly launched Investor Agenda includes 279 investors controlling $31tn who had already signed up to the aims of the Climate Action 100+ in agreement with this statement: We, the institutional investors that are signatories to this statement, are aware of the risks climate change presents to our portfolios and asset values in the short, medium and long term.
We therefore support the Paris Agreement and the need for the world to transition to a lower carbon economy consistent with a goal of keeping the increase in global average temperature to well below 2 Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
Welcoming the launch, Patricia Espinosa, the executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), said: Investors are showing great leadership to promote climate action in multiple fronts. Their efforts to meet the shortfall in the financial resources required to deliver the Paris Agreement goals, and further building on engagement with high-emitting sectors are a valuable contribution.
She added: Yet we believe many more opportunities exist. The Investor Agenda offers a clear path to scale-up investor action, which is essential to meet the needs in every region of the world to address climate change. It gives investors multiple opportunities to continue to demonstrate their willingness to become part of the transformation that will lead us to a more cleaner, greener, sustainable future for all.
The group totalling 392 investors, include a core group of 120 firms who claim to be pursuing new investments in low-carbon and climate resilient portfolios and strategies.
Rise for Climate: protests across the world in pictures Show all 26 1 /26 Rise for Climate: protests across the world in pictures Rise for Climate: protests across the world in pictures Quezon City, Philippines Tens of thousands of people joined over 830 actions in 91 countries under the banner of Rise for Climate to demonstrate the urgency of the climate crisis Leo Sabangan/350.org (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) Rise for Climate: protests across the world in pictures Bangkok, Thailand Communities around the world shined a spotlight on the increasing impacts they are experiencing and demanded local action to keep fossil fuels in the ground Pongsit Nopmaneepaisan/350.org (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) Rise for Climate: protests across the world in pictures Port Vila, Vanuatu 350.org (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) Rise for Climate: protests across the world in pictures New York, US There were hundreds of creative events and actions that challenged fossil fuels and called for a swift and just transition to 100% renewable energy for all qphotonyc.com/350.org (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) Rise for Climate: protests across the world in pictures Apia, Samoa Pacific Climate Warriors Samoa want to ensure that children get the futures they deserve. Four schools and four church youth groups participated in a challenge. A challenge to transition to renewable energy and #RiseForClimate 350.org (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) Rise for Climate: protests across the world in pictures Quezon City, Philippines Event organizers emphasized community-led solutions, starting in places most impacted by pollution and climate change Leo Sabangan Rise for Climate: protests across the world in pictures Solomon Islands 350.org (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) Rise for Climate: protests across the world in pictures Quezon City, Philippines Leo Sabangan/350.org (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) Rise for Climate: protests across the world in pictures New York, US qphotonyc.com/350.org (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) Rise for Climate: protests across the world in pictures Bangkok, Thailand 350.org Rise for Climate: protests across the world in pictures 350.org (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) Rise for Climate: protests across the world in pictures Uganda - Green festival Over 15 thousand children accompanied by parents, school patrons and guardians thronged the Kololo Airstrip independence grounds to be part of Africa's biggest sustainability event. The annual event this year took on the Rise For Climate umbrella in solidarity with the rest of the globe. At the event 10 thousand fruit Tree seedlingS were given out thanks to their partners the National ForetForestry 350.org (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) Rise for Climate: protests across the world in pictures Quezon City, Philippines Leo Sabangan/350.org (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) Rise for Climate: protests across the world in pictures Nepal Nepalese Youth for Climate Action (NYCA) rally 350.org (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) Rise for Climate: protests across the world in pictures Surabaya, Indonesia Committee and participants of the Surabaya Rise for Climate Ananta P/350.org (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) Rise for Climate: protests across the world in pictures Sydney, Australia 350.org (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) Rise for Climate: protests across the world in pictures New York, US qphotonyc.com/350.org (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) Rise for Climate: protests across the world in pictures Adelaide, Australia 350.org (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) Rise for Climate: protests across the world in pictures Wellington, New Zealand 350.org (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) Rise for Climate: protests across the world in pictures Quezon City, Philippines Leo Sabangan/350.org (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) Rise for Climate: protests across the world in pictures Newcastle, Australia SW Carter/350.org (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) Rise for Climate: protests across the world in pictures Scotts Head, Australia 350.org (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) Rise for Climate: protests across the world in pictures Melbourne, Australia 350.org (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) Rise for Climate: protests across the world in pictures Chortkiv, Ukraine Bike rally 350.org (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) Rise for Climate: protests across the world in pictures Brisbane, Australia 350.org (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) Rise for Climate: protests across the world in pictures 350.org (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
This will include investing in renewable energy and energy efficiency projects, phasing out investments in coal, and integrating climate change into portfolio analysis and decision-making, a statement from the Investor Agenda said.
This also puts the group in conflict with the Trump administration. The US president, who donned a coal miners helmet during his 2016 campaign, has claimed he has ended the war on beautiful, clean coal.
The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has dismissed a motion filed by Russian companies and banks - Sberbank, VTB, Vnesheconombank, Rosneft, Gazprom Neft and Almaz-Antey to annul the EUs sanctions, TASS reports from the courtroom.
"The court dismisses the action [for annulment of sanctions]," the judge announced.
Russian banks and companies, whose actions to cancel EU sanctions were dismissed by the European Court of Justice, can appeal against the court decision in two months, a court spokesperson told reporters.
Reasons presented by the EU Council [for introduction of sanctions] appear justified, the court said in its ruling.
In July 2014, the European Union imposed sectoral sanctions on Russia in connection with reunification with Crimea and developments in Eastern Ukraine. Sanctions covered companies of defense, energy and financial sectors, particularly banks with the government participation and oil and gas majors. European residents are banned from providing midterm and long-term funding to such banks.
Sberbank filed an action to the European Court of Justice in October 2014 for cancellation of the decision of the EU Council on application of sanctions to the bank. VTB and Vnesheconombank also filed a similar claim, along with Rosneft, Gazprom Neft and Almaz-Antey.
"Two months are in place to appeal against the decision in a superior instance," he said. The procedure will be limited by certain [decision] paragraphs, the spokesperson noted.
Baby sea turtles are particularly vulnerable to the harmful effects of plastic pollution, according to a new study which found around half of the recently hatched reptiles had stomachs full of plastic.
In recent years, scientists have realised that animals ranging from plankton to whales are regularly consuming plastic, since around 10 million tons of it ends up in the sea every year.
Turtles were some of the first creatures ever observed consuming plastic, with reports of bags being found in their stomachs stretching back to the 1980s.
Recommended Turtles are dying after becoming tangled in fishing gear and rubbish
Despite the attention this problem has received, there is still very little known about the overall effect plastic is having on ocean animals.
While some plastic can pass harmlessly through animals digestive systems, it can also accumulate and kill them by either blocking or tearing their guts.
There is also some evidence to suggest that plastic can leach toxic chemicals into their surroundings, although the impact this is having on animals is still largely speculative.
A new study published in the journal Nature has attempted to quantify the harm that plastic is having on the turtle population of eastern Australia.
In their research, a team led by Dr Britta Denise Hardesty from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) examined data from nearly 1,000 dead turtles to understand the role plastic played in their deaths.
They found that the youngest turtles appeared to be most susceptible to plastic pollution.
Just over half of the post-hatchling individuals had ingested plastic, and around a quarter of the slightly older juveniles were affected, compared to around 15 per cent of adults.
While the number of plastic pieces in the reptiles guts varied wildly from one to over 300, the scientists were able to deduce that turtles have a 50 per cent probability of death after consuming 14 pieces.
The work emerges as another study documents the global decline of turtles and tortoises that has left over 60 per cent of the worlds species either extinct or facing extinction.
Ways to reduce your single-use plastic Show all 6 1 /6 Ways to reduce your single-use plastic Ways to reduce your single-use plastic Plastic water bottle for a reusable beverage container Instead of continually buying drinks in plastic bottles you can switch to a reusable beverage container and reduce your single-use of plastics. Selfridges' Bobble 550ml filtered water bottle costs 12.95 and includes a replaceable carbon filter that filters water as you drink, removing chlorine and organic contaminants in the process. You can buy it from selfridges.com Getty/Selfridges Ways to reduce your single-use plastic Coffee cup for a Travel coffee mug It is estimated that the UK throws away around 2.5bn disposable coffee cups a year and almost all are incinerated, exported or sent to landfill because their plastic lining makes them expensive to recycle. The new Latte Levy in the UK means there will now be a 25p charge on every disposable coffee cup bought by consumers. Pret A Manger announced that it will double its discount to 50p in an effort to reduce waste. By swapping to a reusable cup you will be able to help cut the cost of disposable coffee cups. This Keep Cup Brew, cork edition, travel cup in Fika is just one of the many available to purchase. It fits under most commercial coffee machines, is splash-proof and ideal for transporting your coffee whilst on the go. You can buy this particular cup for 19.99 from trouva.com. Getty/Trouva Ways to reduce your single-use plastic Plastic bags for reusable cloth bags An eco-friendly alternative to an ordinary plastic bag is this lightweight shopping bag. It comes with a practical pillowcase pocket and features a black and white ink splatter design. Convenient and durable it also has a matte black spring clip to attach it where you need it. You can buy this from paperchase.co.uk for just 5.00. Getty/Paperchase Ways to reduce your single-use plastic Coffee pods for a pot of coffee Cut your plastic coffee pod usage with a cafetiere. This Barista and Co, 3 Cup Gold Cafetiere, from Habitat offers a simple way to brew and serve in style. Made from borosilicate glass and plated stainless steel with an ergonomically designed handle, the cafetiere is built to last and a pleasure to use; a fine metal filter produces a smooth coffee that retains its natural oils. You can buy it for 30 from habitat.co.uk. Getty/Habitat Ways to reduce your single-use plastic Balloons for eco-friendly decorations Instead of using plastic balloons at your party try swapping them for some eco-friendly bunting. Handmade in Scotland, the bunting comprises thirteen brightly coloured pennants which spell out the words 'Happy Birthday', and uses lettering that has been printed onto 100 per cent recycled card. Included is 11ft of natural jute twine to hang the pennants on, and everything comes packaged in a cello bag. You can buy this bunting from Little Silverleaf on notonthehighstreet.com for 12.50. Getty/notonthehighstreet Ways to reduce your single-use plastic Plastic straw for a reusable bamboo one Swap plastic straws for reusable ones made of bamboo. These straws are handmade in Bali and crafted by local balinese artisans. Made of organic and natural materials they are the best eco-friendly alternative to plastic, steel or glass straws. You can purchase them from Bali Boo on Amazon.co.uk for 13.99. PA/Bali Boo/Amazon
Two centuries ago, sea turtles in the Caribbean Sea were estimated to number in the tens of millions, while more recently their numbers were estimated to be in the tens of thousands.
Together with their land-based relatives, these creatures play pivotal roles in shaping global ecosystems.
We must take the time to understand turtles, their natural history, and their importance to the environment, or risk losing them to a new reality where they dont exist, said Mickey Agha, a researcher at University of California, Davis, who contributed to the study.
Referred to as a shifting baseline, people born into a world without large numbers of long-lived reptiles, such as turtles, may accept that as the new norm.
Heres a good dinner party question for wine lovers: after the big players of Spain, Italy, France and the US, which is the fifth-biggest wine producing country in the world? Well, its not, as might be suspected, somewhere else in Europe or the New World. It is China, with an annual production of around 1.7 million tonnes, which is about half that of the US, but still more than what we might think of as bulk producers such as Chile and Australia, whose wines have such a massive presence on our supermarket shelves. In fact, wine has been made in parts of China since very ancient times although modern industrial production dates largely from the early 20th century and more than 90 per cent of Chinese wine is consumed internally.
You can now also follow on your question to your guests with a bottle of Chinese wine, which, equally surprisingly, is available on your local supermarket shelf at Sainsburys.
The Changyu Noble Dragon Cabernet Gernischt (10 Sainsburys) is made mainly from cabernet gernischt, with some cabernet sauvignon and cabernet franc in the north-eastern coastal region of Yantai, where around 40 per cent of Chinas wine production is based. Gernischt, grown in China since the 19th century, was originally believed to be a relation of cabernet franc, but more recent analysis has matched it exactly with Chiles Carmenere. The wine itself is rich, dark and chewy, with a rustic edge and if you like Bordeaux style cabernet sauvignon based blends, you will certainly enjoy this with roast meats. The style should come as no surprise, since the Chinese have been hoovering up vast amounts of Bordeaux for many years now. Traditional merchants Berry Brothers and Rudd, who believe the quality of Chinese wine will eventually equal that of Bordeaux, also have a selection of Chinese wines: The Moser Family Cabernet Sauvignon 2013 (29.95 bbr.com) is another Bordeaux clone, but bigger and beefier and really well made, because it was created with the help of well-known Austrian wine maker Lenz Moser in the region of Ningxia, south west of Bejing, which he believes compares to Mendoza in Argentina.
But it isnt all about meaty reds. The Changyu Noble Dragon Riesling (10 Sainsburys) is a terrific iteration of the grape: on the right side of dry, with lovely pear and apple flavours, while the Changyu Golden Valley Ice Wine (29 bbr.com) is pitch perfect dessert wine, with the grapes frozen when ripe, as opposed to botrytised (affected by a beneficial fungus), this is fresh, pure and as clean on the palate as, well, an ice cube. Made from the vidal blanc grape, of which more later. Do not, however, be tempted to match any of these wines with your Chinese takeway they deserve better than that.
What other wines can we find from unusual origins, that might make a change from our Kiwi sauvignons or red Riojas? Bulgaria and Georgia like much of central and eastern Europe have long traditions of making wine, not a lot of which has found its way to western Europe, due to a combination of both politics and quality nor was it exactly high quality when it did. But now we can find cutting-edge wines such as the Orange Gewurztraminer Rossidi 2016 (19 winebuyers.com) made in the Eastern Thracian valley of Bulgaria, from a grape mostly associated with off dry German whites. This is a natural wine with 30 days of skin contact, no added sulphites etc; although not officially classed as organic, its the next best thing. Dry, with very intense and spicy flavours of quince and almonds; an acquired taste, certainly, but you might find you grow to love it, with cured meats and hard cheeses.
Georgia, as it now well known, is where some of the very earliest archaeological evidence of winemaking has been discovered. Now the tradition of using buried clay amphora to ferment the wine has been revived with fabulous results, such as the Tblvino Qvevris (10 marksandspencer.com) another quince-flavoured skin contact orange wine made from the indigenous Rkatsiteli grape but much more gentle and less challenging than the Bulgarian, so suitable as an aperitif or with seafood canapes. Both should be drunk chilled.
Israel, in contrast to its neighbour Lebanon, is not normally known as a winemaking country, but with an annual production of only 5,000 tonnes, its still a lot more than the UKs 425 tonnes. Again, winemaking of course dates back to ancient times, although it was expanded in the late 19th century by the investment of Baron Edmond du Rothschild, of Bordeauxs Chateau Lafite-Rothschild. Most winemaking is for internal consumption but is no longer focused entirely on bulk kosher wines and there are now a number of smaller newer wineries. Recanati dates from 2000 and most of its grapes are hand-picked, including this wine from the Judean Hills: the Recanati Shiraz, Petit Syrah, Carignan (11 marksandspencers.com) is a full-bodied, rich and spicy red and will appeal to anyone who likes such rustic blends from the south of France a fine match for any Mediterranean-style foods.
Another country whose wines you will not find easily in the UK is Canada, which has a substantial winemaking industry, spread around the southern parts of this vast country and largely consumed domestically or in the US. It is mostly known for ice-wines, which compete well with dessert wines from all over the world and, like the Chinese ice-wine above, are made with frozen sweet vidal blanc grapes a hybrid developed specifically for cold climates. For a brilliant example from one of the top producers from the Niagara region, try the apricot and lychee flavoured Pillitteri Estates Carretto Vidal Ice Wine (12.99 laithwaites.co.uk) with any rich puddings.
On the western side, the spectacular Okanagan Valley, which runs for 120 miles north to south in British Colombia, is Canadas oldest and biggest wine region. It prides itself on being the most northern area in the world for serious wine making, with a large range of styles and wine varieties, helped by many microclimates. About halfway down is the small, biodynamic Okanagan Crush Pad winery, which makes a range of very individual varietal wines on soils they describe as volcanic vomit. You can find their wines at Red Squirrel Wines, including the Haywire Free Form Sauvignon Blanc 2016 (35 redsquirrelwine.com) made with natural yeasts, no sulphites, five months skin contact and unfiltered, this is an almost savoury sauvignon, with muted tropical fruit and a rich depth of flavour very different any other sauvignon blanc you might have encountered. Not cheap of course, but an extraordinary wine from an extraordinary place. And like all these bottles, demonstrates the amazing diversity of wine-making around the world; think about that the next time you are tempted by a bog standard branded wine on your supermarket shelves.
The development of the Times Up and #MeToo movements have seen a multitude of people speak up about their experiences of sexual assault after years of silence.
But while much progress has been made in revealing the prevalence of harassment and abuse across multiple industries, there remains a long way to go.
A new study has revealed that many women still endure sexual harassment at work, and feel unable to report it for fear of losing their jobs.
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Young Womens Trust, a charity that supports women aged between 16 and 30 living in England and Wales who are on little or no pay, conducted a poll that investigated how gender discrimination still affects women in the workplace today.
Gathering responses from 4,010 participants aged between 18 and 30, the survey found that 15 per cent of the women had experienced sexual harassment at work and didn't report it.
It revealed that a third of women don't know how to report sexual harassment if it occurs at work and fifth state that they are too afraid to complain.
Furthermore, 24 per cent of women fear being fired if they speak openly about being a victim of sexual harassment at work.
Dr Carole Easton OBE, chief executive of Young Womens Trust, professes that much more needs to be done to improve conditions for women in the workplace.
She proposes encouraging employers to deal with sexual harassment claims appropriately, make greater efforts to close the gender pay gap and pay closer attention to the mental health of employees.
Sadly, even a hundred years after the first women gaining the power to vote, its still a rich mans world. Young women continue to lack workplace power and spending power, Dr Easton says.
Four female pilots discuss life on the flightdeck Show all 4 1 /4 Four female pilots discuss life on the flightdeck Four female pilots discuss life on the flightdeck Jessica Sundquist: 787 Dreamliner captain at Norwegian Jessica Sundquist, a Swedish 787 Dreamliner captain for Norwegian, has spoken extensively about being a woman in the industry. In the past shes spoken about the concept of putting your femininity aside in order to succeed. Sundquist says today that she felt she didnt have to do it, but also wanted to fit into the industry without being known as the girl. Today, times are changing, she says, and more women are joining the industry but its not all good news. Despite working hard to get to where I am today as a captain at one of the most modern and exciting airlines, the industry still has a lot more work to do to give women more opportunities, she says In the future, shed like the discussion on gender inequality to remain open and ongoing, but argues that real action also needs to take place to make any difference. Norwegian Four female pilots discuss life on the flightdeck Joanna Riggs: A380 first officer at British Airways First officer Joanna Riggs says she was never particularly exposed to aviation as a career choice, but became a BA cabin crew member after university in order to see more of the world. She says that entering such a highly male-dominated profession wasnt daunting, but that she felt lucky to have two other females on her course. Colleagues have always been supportive in Riggs experience as have for the most part passengers, though some are surprised when they see a female pilot. I hope it will one day be normal to everyone, she adds. Some passengers give a thumbs up or a girl power sign. As for gender differences on the flight deck, Riggs says, We are very professional on the flight deck so it doesnt matter what the gender, race or sexuality of my colleague is. Flying with a fellow female is always a treat though. My brother is also a British Airways pilot, and although I havent flown with him, I get the feeling we would be very similar. British Airways Four female pilots discuss life on the flightdeck Lucy Tardrew: Boeing 747 captain at Virgin Atlantic Lucy Tardrew had always wanted to join the RAF, she says, but it was never allowed to happen because they werent taking girls at the time. Instead, she travelled to America, where she trained before becoming a flying instructor. After returning to the UK and converting her licences, she began flying night mail literally all the posts around the country at night before stints flying executive jets, and last-minute jobs including air ambulances and freighting transplant organs, before joining Virgin 23 years ago. Tardrew is enthusiastic about the company, but is saddened that the ratio of women in the industry as a whole remains low. As for challenges in the workplace, shes never experienced any discrimination. Noting the rare pay equality in the piloting industry, Tardrew feels the reason there arent more female pilots is down to the fact that there arent enough female role models for schoolchildren to think, Im going to become an airline pilot. Virgin Atlantic Four female pilots discuss life on the flightdeck Kate McWilliams: captain at easyJet At 26, Kate McWilliams became the youngest commercial captain in the world. I love being a captain for easyJet, she says. And Im really happy to be working for an airline that is working hard to increase the number of female pilots. Flying was always her goal but she didnt realise how far she could take it. I joined the air cadets at 13-years-old, but it wasnt until much later that I realised I could become a commercial pilot, she says. EasyJet is aiming to inspire young women, with the Amy Johnson Flying Initiative and their sponsorship of the Brownies, giving girls aged seven to 10 the opportunity to earn an Aviation Badge. The work its doing is really important. The Amy Johnson Flying Initiative was launched in October 2015 with the aim of doubling the number of female new entrant pilots, to 12 per cent, over a two-year period. After achieving its aim in the first year, the airline set a target of 20 per cent for new entrant cadet pilots in 2020. easyJet
Our annual survey shows that young womens treatment at work, pay and wellbeing are trailing far behind those of young men.
If 2018 is to be a turning point for womens equality and not just a footnote in history, then its clear that we need deeds, not just words.
We need to be impatient for change: a lot has been achieved in the last 100 years but theres still a long way to go."
In addition to sexual harassment in the workplace, many women also still face gender discrimination when it comes to their salary, the results found.
A quarter of women aged between 25 and 30 claim that theyve been illegally paid a lower salary than male colleagues who are in the same or a similar position at work, and a third of women state that theyve experienced sex discrimination when applying for jobs.
A Chinese restaurant has seen almost $200m wiped off its stock market valuation after local media reported that a pregnant customer found a dead rat in her hotpot.
An employee Xiabuxiabu restaurant in Weifang city, eastern China, allegedly offered the customer 20,000 yuan (2,200) to pay for an abortion after she expressed concern about the impact on her unborn child of eating food from the hotpot in which she found the boiled rodent.
Shares of Xiabuxiabu Catering crashed 6.1 per cent on Monday and a further 11 per cent on Tuesday, after the grizzly find last week.
Photos and video of the rat being fished out of a pot of steaming broth were widely shared online, prompting authorities to temporarily close the restaurant.
A man from Weifang named as Mr Ma told Shanghai-based Kankan News that he and his family were eating at the restaurant when, after a few bites, his wife found a dead rat in the soup.
Mr Ma was quoted as saying that restaurant staff had told him: If you are worried about the baby, then well give you 20,000 yuan to abort it.
The customer said he turned down the offer because he wanted his wife to undergo a medical examination before accepting any compensation.
Xiabuxiabu reportedly issued a statement - now deleted - on Chinese social networking site Weibo, saying that its own investigation had found that the restaurants hygiene procedures were not the cause of the problem.
Cuts to council budgets for addiction services have led to lowest number of people receiving treatment for alcohol dependency in a decade despite people in need continuing to grow, data from the Labour Party shows.
Research by the House of Commons Library estimates the number of alcohol dependent adults in England has risen steadily since 2011 and more than 600,000 adults needed support as of 2016-17.
However the number of people in alcohol treatment has fallen more than 12 per cent since 2013, when damaging NHS reforms introduced by Tory health secretary Andrew Lansley shifted public health responsibility to councils.
Labour shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth has spoken about his own experiences of being raised by an alcoholic father and accused the governments austerity measures of failing the most vulnerable in society.
Speaking at the National Substance Misuse Conference in Birmingham today he will set out his plans to make tackling addiction and the influx of synthetic drugs like monkey dust and spice, a central part of Labours commitments.
Tory austerity has meant cutting treatment services for some of the most vulnerable in our society it is devastating, misguided and completely counterproductive, Mr Ashworth will say.
"The Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs has warned these cuts are short sighted and a catalyst for disaster.
These cuts are pushing addiction services to breaking point. Its especially shameful, when so many new drugs on our streets that young people are using such as spice, that specialist drug and alcohol services for young people are being slashed as well.
In a challenge to the new health secretary Matt Hancock, Mr Ashworth will also demand the reversal of cuts to addiction services as a key part of the Ten Year Plan being drawn up by the NHS.
In 2016-17 there were 80,454 patients being treated for alcohol dependence in England, roughly 13 per cent of the 605,688 people estimated to need support for alcohol addiction.
This is down from a peak of 91,651 people receiving treatment in 2013-14, 15.5 per cent of the 590,039 people needing treatment according to the Commons library.
The research shows that 34m was cut from alcohol and drug misuses services by councils last year and councils have been told to slash 600m from public health services which include sexual health and obesity services by 2020.
NHS in Crisis march: in pictures Show all 25 1 /25 NHS in Crisis march: in pictures NHS in Crisis march: in pictures Protesters call on the government to reverse cuts to the NHS. Rex NHS in Crisis march: in pictures Demonstrators dressed as an undertaker and carrying a fake coffin. Getty Images NHS in Crisis march: in pictures Demonstrators gather on Gover Street in central London ahead of a march towards Downing Street to protest against underfunding and privatisation of the NHS and demand an end to the winter crisis in the health service. Rex NHS in Crisis march: in pictures Health workers and NHS campaigners march through London to a rally outside Downing Street. Rex NHS in Crisis march: in pictures Thousands of protesters marched during the demonstration organised by 'The People's Assembly Against Austerity' campaign group that called for better funding for the National Health Service (NHS) to end the 'winter crisis' in the national health care system. EPA NHS in Crisis march: in pictures A Boris Johnson impersonator lies in a makeshift hospital bed next to an effigy of Theresa May during a People's Assembly demonstration against the Conservative government's health policy. Getty NHS in Crisis march: in pictures A demonstrator in a mobility scooter carries a placard. Getty NHS in Crisis march: in pictures Demonstrators take part in a emergency NHS 'Fix It Now' protest demanding an end to the funding crisis in the Health Service. Rex NHS in Crisis march: in pictures Demonstrators take part in pro-NHS march and protest towards Downing Street in Central London. EPA NHS in Crisis march: in pictures A protestor carries a placard featuring Britain's Health and Social Care Secretary Jeremy Hunt. AFP/Getty NHS in Crisis march: in pictures The demonstration is focused on the current crisis in the National Health Service. Getty NHS in Crisis march: in pictures Demonstrators hold placards and set off flares . Getty NHS in Crisis march: in pictures A demonstrator carries a cardboard skeleton wearing an ambulance uniform . Getty NHS in Crisis march: in pictures Demonstrators hold placards during a People's Assembly demonstration against the Conservative government's health policy Getty NHS in Crisis march: in pictures The Government will be urged to provide more beds, staff and funds to ease the problems facing the service. PA NHS in Crisis march: in pictures Protestors gather calling for an end to the "crisis" in the NHS. AFP/Getty NHS in Crisis march: in pictures Shadow Health Secretary Jon Ashworth M joins people taking part in the march. PA NHS in Crisis march: in pictures A placard reading 'Nurses with fight for the NHS'. AFP/Getty NHS in Crisis march: in pictures Protestors carry placards and shout slogans. AFP/Getty NHS in Crisis march: in pictures People march through central London. PA NHS in Crisis march: in pictures People take part in a march in London in support of the National Health Service. PA NHS in Crisis march: in pictures People hold up a sign in support of the National Health Service to demand an end to the "crisis" in the NHS. PA NHS in Crisis march: in pictures Protestors carry placards featuring Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May and Britain's Health and Social Care Secretary Jeremy Hunt. AFP/Getty NHS in Crisis march: in pictures People take part in a march in London in support of the National Health Service. PA NHS in Crisis march: in pictures Demonstrators carry placards . Getty
Charity Alcohol Concern said that the fall in funding was hitting services in numerous ways. In some cases drug and alcohol support programmes are being combined potentially deterring people with drinking problems from attending. Reductions in staff numbers also means fewer people working in outreach and active support to help people stay in treatment.
Alcohol concern is calling for a 1 per cent increase in alcohol duties equivalent to 3p more for a pint or 5p for a bottle of wine to help generate 100m to help fill the gap and potentially save the NHS three times this amount.
Dr James Nicholls, director of research and police development, said: We should not leave people with severe alcohol problems unsupported, nor should we leave the 200,000 children living with a dependent parent to fend for themselves.
We as a society urgently need to find more money to support essential services.
A Local Government Association spokesperson said: Cuts to councils public health grant by central government means have consequences.
"We have long argued that reductions by central government to the public health grant in local government is a short-term approach and one that will only compound acute pressures for the NHS and other services further down the line."
The Department of Health and Social Care was approached for comment
Doctors have reported a case where three patients died from breast cancer which they contracted from a single organ donor, a 53-year old woman with the disease whose kidneys, lungs, liver and heart were transplanted.
After suffering a stroke in 2007 the womans organs were donated to five people, but her diagnosis was not known to doctors and four patients contracted aggressive donor derived breast cancers.
A fifth recipient died within five months of receiving the heart transplant from sepsis, where the immune system starts attacking the body in response to a foreign organ or other serious infection.
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The patients cancers were first noticed 16 months after the transplant, though others took as long as six years to spread and be picked up.
Using DNA testing doctors were able to match the genetic profile of the cancer cells in each patient with the original donor demonstrating that it had been cancerous cells in the transplant organs to blame.
Experts said there is approximately a one in 10,000 (0.01 to 0.05 per cent) chance of screening tests which check the suitability of donors failing in this way and transplanting an infected organ.
Under the skin best of the British Heart Foundation 2018 image prize Show all 10 1 /10 Under the skin best of the British Heart Foundation 2018 image prize Under the skin best of the British Heart Foundation 2018 image prize Subarachnoid vessels The runner-up image came from Matt MacGregor Sharp, a PhD student at the University of Southampton. The super-high resolution image shows a normal artery at the surface of a rats brain and was taken with a powerful scanning electron microscope. These subarachnoid vessels supply blood to the brain and also act like a drain to remove toxic waste products. Matt Macgregors team are trying to show that failure to remove waste by these vessels is one of the underlying causes of vascular dementia. The researchers took the image using a technique called freeze fracture, where tissue or cell samples are frozen and then split apart to reveal the hidden layers within the sample so they can be studied in extreme detail. Sitting above the brown brain tissue, the artery appears blue, and its surrounding layer, the pia mater, is shown in purple. Matt MacGregor Sharp, University of Southampton, British Heart Foundation - Reflections of Research Under the skin best of the British Heart Foundation 2018 image prize Explosive beginnings Winner: Endothelial cells line all blood vessels in the body, forming a barrier between the circulating blood and the vessel wall. They also help to protect blood vessels from damage and release important chemical messengers which help to control blood pressure. The winning researcher, Courtney Williams, is a Masters student and PhD candidate at Leeds University. Her lab are developing new ways to map the growth of new blood vessels within their surrounding landscape in 3D. Understanding the complex secrets of blood vessel formation could be harnessed to boost the regrowth of damaged blood vessels after a heart attack, and halt blood vessel growth when its counterproductive. Courtney Williams, Leeds University, British Heart Foundation - Reflections of Research Under the skin best of the British Heart Foundation 2018 image prize A snapshot of platelet production - Reflections of Research Supporters Favourite This image from Abdullah Obaid Khan, a PhD student at the University of Birmingham, won the supporters favourite. What look like precious jewels are actually platelets forming within the bone marrow. Platelets are the smallest of our circulating blood cells with a hugely important role in preventing bleeding. However, they also play a role in the formation of clots, which can lead to heart attacks and strokes. Abdullah Obaid Khan and his team are studying rare bleeding disorders. Abdullah Obaid Khan, University of Birmingham, British Heart Foundation - Reflections of Research Under the skin best of the British Heart Foundation 2018 image prize Cardiac collagen web - Shortlist This colourful image shows the web-like, network of the smallest blood vessels in the heart the microvessels. Magenta marks the outer collagen layer of the vessels; while orange marks their inner lining and blue the cell nuclei. Dr Neil Dufton, Imperial College London Dr Neil Dufton, Imperial College London, British Heart Foundation - Reflections of Research Under the skin best of the British Heart Foundation 2018 image prize Heart to Heart - Shortlist This piece shows four ventricles (from a mouse) arranged into the shape of the hearts four normal chambers. The researchers have used fluorescent markers to recognise certain proteins and created the image using of hundreds of images assembled together. Dr Elisa Avolio and Dr Zexu Dang, University of Bristol Dr Elisa Avolio and Dr Zexu Dang, University of Bristol, British Heart Foundation - Reflections of Research Under the skin best of the British Heart Foundation 2018 image prize Loving artery - Shortlist This image shows a cross section of an artery and the different layers which make up the artery wall. Affiliate Professor Silvia Lacchini, University of Glasgow Silvia Lacchini, University of Glasgow, British Heart Foundation - Reflections of Research Under the skin best of the British Heart Foundation 2018 image prize Oxidative inkblot - Shortlist This colour explosion shows one of the culprits in cardiovascular disease an enzyme called NADPH oxidase. The enzyme is considered Janus faced because it is important in health, as well as disease. This picture shows the active enzyme in patients who have high blood pressure. Dr Livia de Lucca Camargo, University of Glasgow Dr Livia de Lucca Camargo, University of Glasgow, British Heart Foundation - Reflections of Research Under the skin best of the British Heart Foundation 2018 image prize Neon skeleton - Shortlist This image shows the developing blood vessel system of a two day old zebrafish embryo. The researchers used gene enhancers (the on-off switches of genes) to switch on fluorescent markers in different types of endothelial cells the important cells which line all blood vessels. All blood vessels switch on the red marker, while the veins also switch on the green marker, resulting in yellow veins and red arteries. Dr Svanhild Nornes, University of Oxford Dr Svanhild Nornes, University of Oxford, British Heart Foundation - Reflections of Research Under the skin best of the British Heart Foundation 2018 image prize Calcium reef - Shortlist This image shows calcium in blood vessel cells from people who have high blood pressure and resembles Australias Great Barrier Reef. Dr Rheure Alves-Lopes, University of Glasgow Dr Rheure Alves-Lopes, University of Glasgow, British Heart Foundation - Reflections of Research Under the skin best of the British Heart Foundation 2018 image prize Budding blood vessels - Shortlist This image shows the growing blood vessels in the mouse retina. In red you can see all the blood vessels and in yellow/green you can see the blood vessels that are actively growing (a process called sprouting). PhD candidate Kira Chouliaras, University of Oxford Kira Chouliaras, University of Oxford, British Heart Foundation - Reflections of Research
Dr Yvette Matser, from VU University Medical Center, The Netherlands, was lead author of the report in the American Journal of Transplantation, which notes: The extremely low rate of transmission of malignancies during transplantation proves the efficiency of the current guidelines.
It says using a CT scan to examine deceased potential donors thoroughly is impractical and increases the risk of false positives which would shrink the already small donor pool.
A medical exam, including a breast exam, to look for tumours is already recommended and should always be carried out.
In this case it is possible that keeping the donor organs warm allowed cancer cells to circulate more widely, they suggest.
The first patient to fall ill was a 42-year old woman who received a double-lung transplant, but by the time she was diagnosed the condition had already spread (metastasised) to her bones, and she died in 2009.
Doctors warned remaining patients about the risk and the man and woman who each received a kidney from the donor were tested, but only began to show signs of the disease several years later.
A male recipient had his kidney removed after a tumour was detected in 2011, he underwent chemotherapy along with stopping the immune system suppressing drugs taken by transplant recipients and is still cancer free.
The remaining two women, recipients of a kidney and liver, died after their cancers spread.
One of them, a 59-year old woman who received a liver, declined to have it removed when the tumour was first discovered because of fears of further complications.
Transplant recipients take powerful immune system suppressing drugs to prevent their organs being rejected and this can make it more likely that cancer cells are not wiped out.
This extraordinary case points out the often fatal consequences of donor-derived breast cancer and suggests that removal of the donor organ and restoration of immunity can induce complete remission, the authors wrote.
Puffins have been in precipitous decline, especially since the 2000s, both in Iceland and across many of their Atlantic habitats. The potential culprits are many: fickle prey, overfishing and pollution.
Scientists say that climate change is another underlying factor that is diminishing food supplies and is likely to become more important over time. And the fact that puffins are tasty, and thus hunted as game in Iceland, hardly helps.
Annette Fayet is trying to solve the mystery of the dwindling Atlantic puffins, and that is why she was reaching shoulder deep into a burrow in Iceland last month. She gently drew a puffin out, having snagged its leg with a thick wire she had curved into a shepherds crook.
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As she brought the croaking seabird into the light, it defecated copiously on her trousers which were, thanks to her long experience with birds, waterproof.
Wow, science! she said, and smiled. Ideally this bird, with its tuxedo-like black-and-white plumage and clownish orange beak, would have voided its bowels into a stainless steel bowl she calls the puffin toilet.
She took a flat wooden spoon, scraped the mess up and placed it in a vial for analysis; she wants to know what these birds have been eating.
Though some puffin colonies are prospering, in Iceland where the largest population of Atlantic puffins is found their numbers have dropped to about 5.4 million individuals from roughly seven million.
Since 2015, the birds have been listed as vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, meaning they face a high risk of extinction in the wild.
The birds are cherished by Icelanders as part of their history, culture and tourist trade and, for some, their cuisine. The puffin is the most common bird in Iceland, said Erpur Snaer Hansen, acting director of the South Iceland Nature Research Centre. Its also the most hunted one.
Hansen is working with Fayet, a junior research fellow at the University of Oxford who is from France, on her project to monitor the activities of four puffin colonies two in Iceland and others in Wales and Norway.
Since 2010, he has also conducted a census; a twice-yearly puffin rally in which he travels more than 3,100 miles around Iceland, visiting some 700 marked burrows in 12 colonies, counting eggs and chicks.
Puffins have suffered because of the decline of their favourite food, silvery sand eels (Shutterstock)
During a recent stop at Lundey Island, Iceland, Hansen encountered jovial hunters who had killed hundreds of the birds. They were carrying them towards their boats to be sold to restaurants that mainly serve the meat to curious tourists.
Hansen maintains an amicable relationship with hunters and uses data from 138 years of hunting club records in his research. He persuaded these hunters to let his assistant photograph the head of every puffin; the bands on their beaks can be counted to determine the birds age.
On Grimsey, a northern island that pokes above the Arctic Circle, gulls and arctic terns swirled in the cloudy sky and the wind at the cliffs blew at 40 mph or more as Fayet and Hansen did their work.
After dinner, the two scientists worked into the bright Arctic night, catching, examining and releasing a dozen birds in their two-day stay on this island. Between captures, Fayet leaned on a rock, staring intently at a cliff face.
Suddenly she leapt up and ran across the uneven soil some 150 feet to the cliff, crouching in front of the one hole among many that she saw a bird jet into.
Hansen moved from burrow to burrow, looking like a spaceman with his white visor clamped over his eyes. He snaked a camera on a flexible stalk inside for a look around. Oh, yeah, he said, having spotted a live, downy chick.
After extracting a bird, they slid it into a plastic tube that oddly enough kept it calm, and weighed it. Hansen attached a steel identifying band to the birds leg. Then they removed it from the tube and attached a tiny GPS tracker to its back, between the wings, with marine tape.
In the week until the lightweight devices drop off, they show how far the birds fly for their food and how deep they dive for it. Each tracker costs more than $800, which means the case containing them was worth more than the battered truck the researchers were driving.
Fayet plucked five feathers for later DNA analysis to determine the birds sex. For identification from afar, she used a marker to put a stroke of blue on its breast and white correction fluid to put a dot atop the black feathers on its head.
Sorry, baby, she said softly, and returned the puffin to its burrow, where it will no doubt tell the story for years to come about its abduction by aliens during the summer of the tags and tape.
Even a slight rise in temperature is detrimental to the survival of sand eels, and consequently puffins (Getty)
Around Iceland, the puffins have suffered because of the decline of their favourite food, silvery sand eels, which dangle from the parents beaks as they bring them to their young. That collapse correlates to a rise in sea surface temperatures that Hansen has been monitoring for years.
The temperature of waters around the country is governed by long-term cycles of what is known as the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation, with periods of colder water alternating with warmer.
Between the 1965-1995 cold cycle and the current warm cycle, Hansen said, winter temperature records show about 1 degree Celsius of additional warming a seemingly small amount, but disastrous for the sand eels.
His theory, he said, is this: If you increase temperatures 1 degree, youre changing their growth rates and their ability to survive the winter.
Aevar Petersen, an Icelandic ornithologist not involved with the project, said an increase in sea temperature brought about by climate change was the key environmental factor behind the sand eels decline.
The picture is complicated; the natural cycles make it difficult to disentangle the influence of climate change. That influence is much weaker in the subpolar North Atlantic, especially near Iceland, said Rong Zhang, a senior scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrations Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory.
Still, climate changes imprint is increasingly evident, said Andrew Dessler, a climate scientist at Texas A&M University. There will come a time when climate change is vastly greater than internal variability, he said.
Without as many sand eels in the water, the birds have to fly farther to find food for themselves and their chicks.
So the data from the GPS loggers, however briefly transmitted, is of great interest. As Fayet sat at her computer on Grimsey, her colleagues in Norway sent the first data from their work the week before and her screen filled with looping paths of foraging birds.
Because this is the first time this is being done, we have no expectations, she said. Everything we get is exciting.
But even thrilling data can contain a sad message. Everywhere, they are going further than we thought, Fayet said. The colonies decline suggests these birds are working too hard for their supper. Flying, for puffins, is very demanding, she said. It is a big energy cost for them.
Hansens puffin rallies show that 40 per cent of the population of Icelandic puffin chicks is losing body mass over time, another bad sign.
When the adults cant catch enough to feed themselves and the chicks, they make an instinctive Malthusian choice; the chicks starve. Fayet called her quest heartbreaking. You put your hand in the burrow and feel with your hand a little ball on the floor, but then you realise its cold, and not moving.
There are still millions of Atlantic puffins, but their plentiful colonies are deceiving. These birds are long lived, so you dont just see them plummeting down, Hansen said. In the long run, he warned, Its not sustainable.
The New York Times
A conspiracy theory that proof of alien life is being covered up is swirling after FBI agents swooped on a space observatory, evacuated it and refused to explain why or what has happened.
The Sunspot Solar Observatory usually spends its time looking at the Sun and trying to understand our celestial neighbour. But it has been banned from doing so for the past week, since federal agents secretly arrived and shut down the entire area.
Its website only says that the shutdown happened "due to unforeseen circumstances" and that the facility would remain closed "until further notice".
Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Show all 30 1 /30 Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Solar Flare An image from Nasa's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) shows a 200,000 mile long solar filament ripping through the Sun's corona in September 2013 Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Nasa Celebrates 50 Years of Spacewalking For 50 years, NASA has been "suiting up" for spacewalking. In this 1984 photograph of the first untethered spacewalk, NASA astronaut Bruce McCandless is in the midst of the first "field" tryout of a nitrogen-propelled backpack device called the Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU) Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space A Hubble Cosmic Couple The spectacular cosmic pairing of the star Hen 2-427 more commonly known as WR 124 and the nebula M1-67 which surrounds it ESA/Hubble & NASA Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Veil Nebula Supernova Remnant Nasa's Hubble Space Telescope has unveiled in stunning detail a small section of the Veil Nebula - expanding remains of a massive star that exploded about 8,000 years ago Nasa's most stunning pictures of space The Soyuz TMA-15M rocket launch The Soyuz TMA-15M rocket launches from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Monday, Nov. 24, 2014, carrying three new astronauts to the International Space Station. It also took caviar, ready for the satellite's inhabitants to celebrate the holidays Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Earth from the ISS From the International Space Station, Expedition 42 Flight Engineer Terry W. Virts took this photograph of the Gulf of Mexico and U.S. Gulf Coast at sunset Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Black Hole Friday Nasa celebrated Black Friday by looking into space instead sharing pictures of black holes Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space NuSTAR X-rays stream off the sun in this image showing observations from by NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, overlaid on a picture taken by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Cassiopeia A c A false colour image of Cassiopeia A comprised with data from the Spitzer and Hubble Space Telescopes and the Chandra X-Ray observatory Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Orion Capsule splashes down The Orion capsule jetted off into space before heading back a few hours later having proved that it can be used, one day, to carry humans to Mars Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Earth Observations From Gemini IV in 1965 This photograph of the Florida Straits and Grand Bahama Bank was taken during the Gemini IV mission during orbit no. 19 in 1965. 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The image shows the robotic arm extended to the rock called Adirondack Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Morning Aurora From the Space Station Nasa astronaut Scott Kelly captured this photograph of the green lights of the aurora from the International Space Station Nasa/Scott Kelly Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Launch of History - Making STS-41G Mission in 1984 The Space Shuttle Challenger launches from Florida at dawn. On this mission, Kathryn Sullivan became the first U.S. woman to perform a spacewalk and Marc Garneau became the first Canadian in space. The crew of seven was the largest to fly on a spacecraft at that time, and STS-41G was the first flight to include two female astronauts Nasa's most stunning pictures of space A Fresh Perspective on an Extraordinary Cluster of Galaxies Galaxy clusters are often described by superlatives. 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Vibrant bands of clouds carried by winds that can exceed 400 mph continuously circle the planet's atmosphere Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Chandra Observatory Sees a Heart in the Darkness This Chandra X-Ray Observatory image of the young star cluster NGC 346 highlights a heart-shaped cloud of 8 million-degree Celsius gas in the central region
Local police said they had received reports that FBI agents arrived in a Blackhawk helicopter and swooped around the observatory. They would not even tell law enforcement why they were there, police said.
The local sheriff's office said it had no explanation of what had happened, but suggested that there was "a lot of stuff going on".
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"The FBI is refusing to tell us what's going on," Otero County Sheriff Benny House told ABC 7.
"We've got people up there (at Sunspot) that requested us to standby while they evacuate it, nobody would really elaborate on any of the circumstances as to why.
"The FBI were up there. What their purpose was nobody will say."
He also described the mysterious scene as the FBI swooped on the facility.
"For the FBI to get involved that quick and be so secretive about it, there was a lot of stuff going on up there.
"There was a Blackhawk helicopter, a bunch of people around antennas and work crews on towers but nobody would tell us anything."
The mystery and the observatory's usual work has led to theories across the internet suggesting the shutdown came after scientists spotted something they shouldn't have. One prominent YouTube channel suggested it had accidentally seen an alien craft, for instance.
Conspiracy theorists have been encouraged by the fact the the observatory is only around 200km from the famous Roswell landing site.
In 1947, a UFO dropped fell down to Earth there that prompted stories that it was an alien craft. Officials initially said it was a weather balloon but it later became clear it was actually part of secretive nuclear testing but some still claim it was something more extraterrestrial.
The UK will be kicked out of the programme that warns the country if dangerous satellites or debris are plunging towards the Earth, the government has warned.
At the moment, the country is part of the EUSST programme, which gives Europe a space surveillance and tracking system to watch the skies above the Earth. One of its most important responsibilities is to look for objects that unexpectedly dropping to the Earth, so that the continent could co-ordinate its response.
If the EU and the UK are unable to come to a Brexit deal, it will be kicked out of that arrangement, the UK government has warned. That would leave it without important information intended to keep the country's population safe.
Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Show all 30 1 /30 Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Solar Flare An image from Nasa's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) shows a 200,000 mile long solar filament ripping through the Sun's corona in September 2013 Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Nasa Celebrates 50 Years of Spacewalking For 50 years, NASA has been "suiting up" for spacewalking. In this 1984 photograph of the first untethered spacewalk, NASA astronaut Bruce McCandless is in the midst of the first "field" tryout of a nitrogen-propelled backpack device called the Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU) Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space A Hubble Cosmic Couple The spectacular cosmic pairing of the star Hen 2-427 more commonly known as WR 124 and the nebula M1-67 which surrounds it ESA/Hubble & NASA Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Veil Nebula Supernova Remnant Nasa's Hubble Space Telescope has unveiled in stunning detail a small section of the Veil Nebula - expanding remains of a massive star that exploded about 8,000 years ago Nasa's most stunning pictures of space The Soyuz TMA-15M rocket launch The Soyuz TMA-15M rocket launches from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on Monday, Nov. 24, 2014, carrying three new astronauts to the International Space Station. It also took caviar, ready for the satellite's inhabitants to celebrate the holidays Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Earth from the ISS From the International Space Station, Expedition 42 Flight Engineer Terry W. Virts took this photograph of the Gulf of Mexico and U.S. Gulf Coast at sunset Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Black Hole Friday Nasa celebrated Black Friday by looking into space instead sharing pictures of black holes Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space NuSTAR X-rays stream off the sun in this image showing observations from by NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, overlaid on a picture taken by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Cassiopeia A c A false colour image of Cassiopeia A comprised with data from the Spitzer and Hubble Space Telescopes and the Chandra X-Ray observatory Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Orion Capsule splashes down The Orion capsule jetted off into space before heading back a few hours later having proved that it can be used, one day, to carry humans to Mars Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Earth Observations From Gemini IV in 1965 This photograph of the Florida Straits and Grand Bahama Bank was taken during the Gemini IV mission during orbit no. 19 in 1965. The Gemini IV crew conducted scientific experiments, including photography of Earth's weather and terrain, for the remainder of their four-day mission following Ed White's historic spacewalk on June 3 Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Frosty slopes of Mars This image of an area on the surface of Mars, approximately 1.5 by 3 kilometers in size, shows frosted gullies on a south-facing slope within a crater. The image was taken by Nasa's HiRISE camera, which is mounted on its Mars Reconaissance Orbiter Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Yellowstone from space NASA astronaut Reid Wiseman shared this image of Yellowstone via his twitter account Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Saturn This near-infrared color image shows a specular reflection, or sunglint, off of a hydrocarbon lake named Kivu Lacus on Saturn's moon Titan Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Worlds Apart Although Mimas and Pandora, shown here, both orbit Saturn, they are very different moons. Pandora, "small" by moon standards (50 miles or 81 kilometers across) is elongated and irregular in shape. Mimas (246 miles or 396 kilometers across), a "medium-sized" moon, formed into a sphere due to self-gravity imposed by its higher mass Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Solar Flare An X1.6 class solar flare flashes in the middle of the sun in this image taken 10 September, captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy An image of the Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy seen in infrared light by the Herschel Space Observatory. Regions of space such as this are where new stars are born from a mixture of elements and cosmic dust Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Mars Rover Spirit Nasa's Mars Rover Spirit took the first picture from Spirit since problems with communications began a week earlier. The image shows the robotic arm extended to the rock called Adirondack Nasa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Morning Aurora From the Space Station Nasa astronaut Scott Kelly captured this photograph of the green lights of the aurora from the International Space Station Nasa/Scott Kelly Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Launch of History - Making STS-41G Mission in 1984 The Space Shuttle Challenger launches from Florida at dawn. On this mission, Kathryn Sullivan became the first U.S. woman to perform a spacewalk and Marc Garneau became the first Canadian in space. The crew of seven was the largest to fly on a spacecraft at that time, and STS-41G was the first flight to include two female astronauts Nasa's most stunning pictures of space A Fresh Perspective on an Extraordinary Cluster of Galaxies Galaxy clusters are often described by superlatives. After all, they are huge conglomerations of galaxies, hot gas, and dark matter and represent the largest structures in the Universe held together by gravity Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Hubble Sees a Galactic Sunflower The arrangement of the spiral arms in the galaxy Messier 63, seen here in an image from the Nasa Hubble Space Telescope, recall the pattern at the center of a sunflower ESA/Hubble & NASA Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Pluto image Four images from New Horizons Long Range Reconnaissance Imager (LORRI) were combined with colour data from the Ralph instrument to create this enhanced colour global view of Pluto Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Fresh Crater Near Sirenum Fossae Region of Mars The HiRISE camera aboard Nasa's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter acquired this closeup image of a "fresh" (on a geological scale, though quite old on a human scale) impact crater in the Sirenum Fossae region of Mars. This impact crater appears relatively recent as it has a sharp rim and well-preserved ejecta Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Hubble Peers into the Most Crowded Place in the Milky Way This Nasa Hubble Space Telescope image presents the Arches Cluster, the densest known star cluster in the Milky Way NASA & ESA Nasa's most stunning pictures of space An Astronaut's View from Space Nasa astronaut Reid Wiseman tweeted this photo from the International Space Station on 2 September 2014 Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Giant Landform on Mars On Mars, we can observe four classes of sandy landforms formed by the wind, or aeolian bedforms: ripples, transverse aeolian ridges, dunes, and what are called draa Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Expedition 39 Landing A sokol suit helmet can be seen against the window of the Soyuz TMA-11M capsule shortly after the spacecraft landed with Expedition 39 Commander Koichi Wakata of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), Soyuz Commander Mikhail Tyurin of Roscosmos, and Flight Engineer Rick Mastracchio of NASA near the town of Zhezkazgan, Kazakhstan (NASA/Bill Ingalls) Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Jupiter's Great Red Spot Viewed by Voyager I Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system and perhaps the most majestic. Vibrant bands of clouds carried by winds that can exceed 400 mph continuously circle the planet's atmosphere Nasa's most stunning pictures of space Chandra Observatory Sees a Heart in the Darkness This Chandra X-Ray Observatory image of the young star cluster NGC 346 highlights a heart-shaped cloud of 8 million-degree Celsius gas in the central region
But it said that it would still continue to receive warnings from the US, whatever happened in Europe.
The EUSST programme was set up in 2014. It has three main responsibilities: watching for collisions in the space above Earth, analysing fragmentation from space vehicles and watching for satellites or debris coming back to earth on a scheduled or unscheduled basis.
If no deal was reached over Brexit, then the UK Space Agency would no longer have any part in that programme. In March 2019, the UK will be kicked out, and it will not receive information or be able to contribute towards its work.
It also provides information to private UK satellite companies, which is not linked to the government's involvement. Officials said they did not know what would happen to those in the event of a no-deal Brexit and that it was seeking further information.
The British space industry is set to be one of the most affected by Brexit and the possibility of no deal. Much of its work is done through the European Space Agency as well as other collaborative projects.
The debris tracking programme is far from the only one to be affected by not reaching a deal. It would also hit the Galileo space programme a major project to offer an alternative to GPS, to which the UK has already contributed significant funding and work as well as the Copernicus Earth observation programme.
The number of white suspected terrorists being arrested in the UK has overtaken those of Asian appearance for the first time in more than a decade.
Statistics released by the Home Office show an overall fall in terror arrests of 22 per cent in the year, with 351 made in the 12 months to the end of June.
The fall is partly due to a relatively large number of arrests being made following terrorist attacks in London and Manchester last year, a report said.
White suspects accounted for 38 per cent of terror-related arrests, followed by those of Asian appearance on 37 per cent and black suspects on 9 per cent.
This was the first time, since the year ending June 2005, that the proportion of white people arrested has exceeded the proportion of Asian people arrested, the report said.
It was the second highest number of arrests of white people in a year since the data collection began in 2001.
The demographics of terrorists in prison, where Islamists make up the majority, is also changing, as the number of far-right extremists jailed rises.
The Home Office said: The number of Islamist, extremist prisoners saw a slight decrease for the first time.
Isis fighters in Afghanistan are communicating with UK terror cells, defence secretary Gavin Williamson says
The proportion of prisoners holding far-right ideologies has increased steadily over the past three years, with the number up from 10 to 28 in the latest year.
Terror arrests have risen significantly since Isis declared its so-called state across Syria and Iraq, causing at least 900 people to leave the UK for its territories and others, who remained in the country, arrested for raising money for the group, spreading its propaganda and planning to commit attacks.
Then in 2016, National Action became the first far-right group to ever be declared a terrorist organisation in the UK, with waves of police raids targeting the neo-Nazis.
Experts have warned of the threat of reciprocal radicalisation, where Islamists and the far-right feed off each other to drive support to their own ideologies.
Since the Westminster attack in March 2017, security services have foiled 13 Islamist plots and four from the extreme right-wing, seeing numerous would-be killers jailed.
Of the five attacks launched in London and Manchester last year, leaving a total of 36 victims dead, Isis claimed responsibility for four and one was carried out by a far-right extremist targeting Muslims.
Islamists make up 82 per cent of terrorist prisoners, followed by 13 per cent far-right and the rest made up of other ideologies including links to Northern Ireland.
Police leaders said the past year saw highest number of terrorists tried and successfully convicted, since data collection began in 2009.
Life sentences were handed out in 10 cases, including for the men who mounted the Finsbury Park and Parsons Green terror attacks.
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PA UK news in pictures 21 October 2021 Flooded fields near Lingfield in Surrey, after southern England was hit overnight by heavy rain and strong winds from Storm Aurore moving in from France PA UK news in pictures 20 October 2021 A wing surfer enjoys the strong winds as they surf in the sea off of Hayling Island in Hampshire PA UK news in pictures 19 October 2021 Actor Jude Law holds hands with Little Amal, a 3.5-metre-tall puppet of a nine-year-old Syrian girl, as it arrives in Folkestone, Kent, as part of the Handspring Puppet Company's 'The Walk' PA UK news in pictures 18 October 2021 A view over Southend-on-Sea in Essex, which is set to become a city in tribute to Sir David Amess MP, who spent years campaigning for the change Getty UK news in pictures 17 October 2021 Members of the Essex Bangladeshi Welfare Association pay their respects by floral tributes laid at the scene where Sir David Amess MP was killed at Belfairs Methodist Church, in Leigh-on-Sea Reuters UK news in pictures 16 October 2021 Boris Johnson, Sir Keir Starmer, Priti Patel and Lindsay Hoyle pay respects to Sir David Amess at Belfairs Methodist Church, in Leigh-on-Sea, the site of his death EPA UK news in pictures 15 October 2021 A person lays flowers at the scene near the Belfairs Methodist Church in Eastwood Road North, Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, where Conservative MP Sir David Amess has died after he was stabbed several times at a constituency surgery. A man has been arrested and officers are not looking for anyone else PA UK news in pictures 14 October 2021 A red deer stag during rutting season in Bushy Park, Richmond, south west London, which is home to over 300 red and fallow deer PA UK news in pictures 13 October 2021 Police officers detain a man as Insulate Britain activists block a roundabout at a junction on the M25 motorway during a protest in Thurrock Reuters UK news in pictures 12 October 2021 The aerial climate installation by Swiss artivist Dan Acher 'We Are Watching' is unveiled at Our Dynamic Earth in Edinburgh PA UK news in pictures 10 October 2021 A young girl is helped by a Border Force officer as a group of people thought to be migrants are brought in to Dover, Kent, following a small boat incident in the Channel. PA UK news in pictures 9 October 2021 People walk past a life-size sculpture of British singer John Lennon entitled "Imagine", by sculptor Lawrence Holofcener, displayed to mark what would have been the 81st birthday for the former member of the Beatles in Carnaby Street Reuters UK news in pictures 8 October 2021 WW II veteran, 96-year-old Lorna Cockayne, who served in the Women's Royal Naval Service (WRNS), popularly and officially known as the Wrens, as a Bletchley Park codebreaker, poses for a photograph with the Legion d'honneur after receiving it during a ceremony at the Pear at Parley in Ferndown, Bournemouth PA UK news in pictures 7 October 2021 British comedian Jo Brand poses with cut-out silhouettes representing women outside the Metropolitan Police headquarters New Scotland Yard, to highlight violence against women by male police officers or former police officers AFP via Getty UK news in pictures 6 October 2021 A protester, wearing a mask of Johnson, holds a sign reading Question it all on the final day of the Tory conference Getty UK news in pictures 5 October 2021 Members of Insulate Britain outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London, before a hearing over the injunction banning the environmental activists from blocking the M25 PA UK news in pictures 4 October 2021 A delegate passes a street cleaner on the second day of the annual Conservative Party Conference being held at the Manchester Central convention centre AFP via Getty UK news in pictures 3 October 2021 Margaret Thatcher-themed mugs for sale at the annual Conservative Party conference in Manchester EPA UK news in pictures 2 October 2021 A couple make their way through a flooded underpass in Bristol as a yellow weather warning for rain and wind is issued for parts of the UK Tom Wren/SWNS UK news in pictures 1 October 2021 A driver talks to members of the media after passing his HGV (Heavy Goods Vehicle) driving test at National Driving Centre in Croydon, south London AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 30 September 2021 The centrepiece One Thousand Springs by Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota is seen ahead of the beginning of the Japan Festival, a celebration of the countrys plants, art and culture running from 2-31 October, at Kew Gardens in London PA UK news in pictures 29 September 2021 The family of Betty Campbell unveil the bronze sculpture of her during the unveiling of the statue in Central Square, Cardiff, of Betty Campbell, Wales' first black headteacher PA UK news in pictures 28 September 2021 A sign referring to the lack of fuel is placed at the entrance to a petrol station in London AP UK news in pictures 27 September 2021 Police officers detain a protester from Insulate Britain occupying a roundabout leading from the M25 motorway to Heathrow Airport in London PA UK news in pictures 26 September 2021 Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer watches the Arsenal v Tottenham Hotspur match at The Font pub in Brighton PA UK news in pictures 25 September 2021 Scottish pro-independence supporters hold a march and rally outside the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh, Scotland Getty Images UK news in pictures 24 September 2021 Police officers remove two protesters from the top of a tanker, as Insulate Britain block the A20 in Kent, which provides access to the Port of Dover in Kent. The environmental activists have moved location after been banned from campaigning on the M25 motorway in London PA UK news in pictures 23 September 2021 Gabriella, the seven year old daughter of imprisoned British-Iranian Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, joins in a game on a giant snakes and ladders board in Parliament Square, to show the ups and downs of her mothers case to mark the 2,000 days she has been detained in Iran AP UK news in pictures 22 September 2021 A new sign hangs on the Millicent Fawcett statue after it was altered by CrackTheCrises coalition activists to highlight the climate crisis as a feminist struggle in Parliament Square in London EPA UK news in pictures 21 September 2021 Gabriella Diment prepares a monumental bronze patinated fibreglass wall sculpture depicting household cavalry soldiers on horseback which is expected to be sold for 12,000-18,000 when it goes up for auction at Summers Place Auctions in Billinghurst, Kent PA UK news in pictures 20 September 2021 Florist Judith Blacklock puts the finishing touches to a floral carousel installation in Halkin Arcade, which she has designed with Neill Strain for the Belgravia in Bloom festival, running from September 20-26, in London PA UK news in pictures 19 September 2021 Bubbles surround Manchester Uniteds Cristiano Ronaldo before the match against West Ham at London Stadium Action Images/Reuters UK news in pictures 18 September 2021 Children take part in the Settrington Cup Pedal Car Race as motoring enthusiasts attend the Goodwood Revival, a three-day historic car racing festival in Goodwood, Chichester, Reuters UK news in pictures 17 September 2021 Hugo, 7, from London rides past a 4x7 metre rainbow arch, made entirely of recycled aluminium cans, which has been installed by recycling initiative 'Every Can Counts', in partnership with The City of London Corporation in front of St Paul's Cathedral in London, to encourage members of the public to recycle their drinks cans ahead of recycling week, which starts on 20 September PA UK news in pictures 16 September 2021 Sheikeh MOhammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, leader of Abu Dhabi, leaves Downing Street after meeting with Boris Johnson PA
Deputy assistant commissioner Dean Haydon, a senior coordinator for national counterterror policing, said: At a time when we are still seeing unprecedented levels of demand across CT Policing, we are still working tirelessly to ensure that our investigations yield positive results at court.
It is a testament to the hard work and dedication of our officers and support staff, not just in London but across our 11 Counter Terrorism Units nationwide.
Were not only successfully prosecuting more people than ever before, but were also jailing the most dangerous offenders for longer helping to keep the public safe.
Recommended Isis fanatic who tried to kill Theresa May and bomb Downing St jailed
Police warned that the fall in terror arrests was linked to a decrease in the large-scale operations seen after last years attacks, and should not be mistaken for a reduction in the threat or police activity.
The number of active investigations being carried out by specialist police and the security services has reached its highest ever level, currently standing at more than 650 probes focusing on the most dangerous individuals.
Demands upon CT Policing have increased by about a third since the start of 2017, said deputy assistant commissioner Haydon.
The step-change in terrorist activity is matched only by an increased effort from police and security services, and our officers are working incredibly hard to protect the public and to bring people to justice, which is evidenced by the impressive conviction rate achieved in the last year.
But I would also like to use this opportunity to remind the public that they, too, play a part in these successes.
Many of these arrests, convictions and investigations hinge upon vital information provided by members of the public.
The figures came as the government consults on new terror laws contained in the Counter Terrorism and Border Security Bill.
If enacted, it could spark a dramatic increase in terror arrests, which are currently being made under two Terrorism Acts, by introducing new crimes.
They include viewing terrorist propaganda online just once, entering designated areas abroad, and making reckless statements that could drive support for a banned group.
People are urged to report suspicious activity online at www.gov.uk/ACT or via the confidential hotline on 0800 789 321.
President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has received a delegation led by Minister of Defense of the State of Israel Avigdor Lieberman, Trend reports.
As Arzu Nagiyev, deputy director of Trend, noted in an interview with Vestnik Kavkaza, topics on the agenda of Lieberman's talks in Baku include military-technical cooperation, regional security and relations between security structures of Israel and Azerbaijan.
"President and Defense Minister will discuss fight against terrorism on regional and global scale. This two-day visit of Mr. Lieberman to the region is associated the political and military-technical ties of Israel with Azerbaijan and Georgia. He wants to prevent threats to security. It should be noted that Azerbaijan buys advanced military technologies from Israel, and prospects of this cooperation will certainly be one of the important topics of negotiations with Ilham Aliyev and Zakir Hasanov," he said.
Overall, as Arzu Nagiyev stressed, Azerbaijan and Israel have excellent relations in military, political and cultural spheres. "There are a lot of Jewish people living in Azerbaijan, who make up a significant part of the country's community. There are many Jewish schools and synagogues. I think our relations are a great example of ties between Jewish and Muslim countries," he believes.
Military expert Uzeir Jafarov highlighted mutual interest of Azerbaijan and Israel in military-technical cooperation. "Apart from the sale of weapons, Israeli side wants to improve cooperation with military-industrial complex of Azerbaijan. This visit's goal is to sign new agreements in this area," he said.
"Our countries have very warm relations in general. Many Azerbaijanis living in Israel maintain relations with their historical homeland. Mountain Jews in the Quba district live peacefully and integrate into the life of Azerbaijan," he stressed.
Trapped Grenfell Tower residents instructed by 999 operators to stay in their homes were only told the guidance had changed if they happened to ring again, an inquiry has heard.
Fire chiefs scrapped the standard stay put high-rise policy, which relies on a fire staying in its flat of origin, nearly two hours after the fire broke out at 2.47am on 14 June last year.
But the London Fire Brigade had a policy not to re-contact callers, meaning residents told to stay in their homes never received the updated guidance.
Hundreds of calls flooded into the control room in Stratford, east London, on the night of the fire, overwhelming the fire service, the public inquiry into the disaster has previously heard.
Labour MP David Lammy responds to documents showing official fire safety warnings were given at Grenfell Tower months before tragedy
Alexandra Norman, the most senior supervisor in the control centre when the fire started, told the probe it would have been impossible to ring everyone back.
The inquirys head lawyer, Richard Millett QC, asked Ms Norman how residents could know an evacuation had been ordered if they were not contacted.
That is a really hard one, but with the amount of calls we had on that night still coming in and the amount of calls we had already received, we would not be able to continue taking 999 calls," Ms Norman said.
The hope would be that those callers would be calling us back to say conditions had worsened so we could give them that advice.
Mr Millett asked: So you were relying on them to call back in?
Ms Norman replied: At that point, yes."
The control room, which was initially staffed with 11 people, received more calls requiring fire survival guidance (FSG) that night than in all of the previous decade across the capital.
Other emergency communication rooms across the country began helping out with calls as the situation worsened.
Ms Norman told the hearing at Holborn Bars on Thursday she was shocked to see how quickly the fire developed, with a request for 10 engines jumping to 20 within minutes.
She spoke to several eventual victims of the blaze, including Denis Murphy, the 56-year-old father accidentally left behind during a rescue attempt on the 14th floor.
Two of her colleagues spent nearly an hour on the phone to different residents, one of whom was 12-year-old victim Jessica Urbano Ramirez.
Mr Millett asked whether there was a specific reason why an operator would not contact an individual if the stay-put advice changed.
It would depend on the amount of callers you needed to call back, the amount of calls coming into the control room, Ms Norman replied.
If you have got lots and lots and lots of calls waiting to be answered and you have taken hundreds of calls already, it would be impossible to search through every single call to find the telephone number to re-contact them.
Grenfell Tower Inquiry: photos of inside the flat where fire began Show all 18 1 /18 Grenfell Tower Inquiry: photos of inside the flat where fire began Grenfell Tower Inquiry: photos of inside the flat where fire began Kitchen in flat 16 where the fire started Grenfell Tower Inquiry/PA Grenfell Tower Inquiry: photos of inside the flat where fire began The kitchen from flat 16 ReutersGrenfell Tower Inquiry/Reuters Grenfell Tower Inquiry: photos of inside the flat where fire began The kitchen from flat 16 PA Grenfell Tower Inquiry: photos of inside the flat where fire began Hallway in flat 16, leading to the kitchen where the fire started Grenfell Tower Inquiry/PA Grenfell Tower Inquiry: photos of inside the flat where fire began The kitchen from flat 16 Grenfell Tower Inquiry/PA Grenfell Tower Inquiry: photos of inside the flat where fire began The kitchen from flat 16 PA Grenfell Tower Inquiry: photos of inside the flat where fire began Bedroom in flat 16 Grenfell Tower Inquiry/PA Grenfell Tower Inquiry: photos of inside the flat where fire began Living room in flat 16 Grenfell Tower Inquiry/PA Grenfell Tower Inquiry: photos of inside the flat where fire began Toilet in flat 16 Grenfell Tower Inquiry/PA Grenfell Tower Inquiry: photos of inside the flat where fire began Living room in flat 16 Grenfell Tower Inquiry/PA Grenfell Tower Inquiry: photos of inside the flat where fire began Bedroom 2 of flat 16 Grenfell Tower Inquiry/Reuters Grenfell Tower Inquiry: photos of inside the flat where fire began Bedroom in flat 16 Grenfell Tower Inquiry/PA Grenfell Tower Inquiry: photos of inside the flat where fire began Bedroom 2 of flat 16 Grenfell Tower Inquiry/Reuters Grenfell Tower Inquiry: photos of inside the flat where fire began The kitchen from flat 16 Grenfell Tower Inquiry/PA Grenfell Tower Inquiry: photos of inside the flat where fire began Kitchen in flat 16 where the fire started Grenfell Tower Inquiry/PA Grenfell Tower Inquiry: photos of inside the flat where fire began Door to flat 16 from the lobby on floor 4 Grenfell Tower Inquiry/PA Grenfell Tower Inquiry: photos of inside the flat where fire began Living room in flat 16 Grenfell Tower Inquiry/PA Grenfell Tower Inquiry: photos of inside the flat where fire began Hallway in flat 16 Grenfell Tower Inquiry/PA
She had never worked during an emergency where she needed to ring someone back with updated advice, she told the inquiry, claiming her training dealt neither with any changes in survival guidance nor how to manage a major fire with numerous callers.
The inquiry was told the control room did not initially realise how catastrophically the fire had spread because their temporary base in Stratford lacked access to live helicopter footage.
Crews at the scene also did not tell the control room how severely the blaze was escalating until most of the building was engulfed, Ms Norman said.
According to expert fire safety witness Dr Barbara Lane, the stay put guidance had substantially failed by 1.26am, when flames could be seen at the top of the 23-storey tower block, but the fire service waited more than an hour before ordering an evacuation.
Additional reporting by Press Association
British detectives investigating the disappearance of Madeleine McCann 11 years ago have asked the government for funding to continue the probe for six months.
The Metropolitan Police has requested funding from the Home Office to extend the 11.6m probe beyond the end of September.
In March, the force was granted an extra 150,000 to continue its investigation for another three months.
Madeleine was three when she was last seen on holiday with her family in Portugal in May 2007.
Scotland Yard launched an investigation, Operation Grange, in 2013 after Portuguese detectives failed to make headway.
A Metropolitan Police spokeswoman said: "All funding matters regarding Operation Grange are dealt with by the Home Office, but the MPS are currently in dialogue with the Home Office regarding future funding."
The government said earlier this week that any request for further funding would be "carefully considered".
UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 31 October 2021 Extinction Rebellion activists protest in Edinburgh as the Cop26 conference begins in Glasgow Getty UK news in pictures 30 October 2021 First Minister Nicola Sturgeon with Mapuche leader and Minga Indigena Lead Coordinator Claflin Lafkenche (right) alongside indigenous delegates at a ceremonial gathering at the Tramway in Glasgow in a symbolic gesture to mark a unified demand for climate justice PA UK news in pictures 29 October 2021 Ocean Rebellion put on a display of puking oil heads ahead of climate change conference COP26 in Glasgow EPA UK news in pictures 28 October 2021 A man dressed as Santa Claus outside Selfridges in London as the department store unveils its Christmas windows on Oxford Street PA UK news in pictures 27 October 2021 Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak during a visit to Fourpure Brewery in Bermondsey, London, after the chancellor announced a cut to beer taxes in his budget PA UK news in pictures 26 October 2021 Activist Steve Bray demonstrates with a toilet outside the gates of Downing Street, after MPs voted in Parliament against the Environment Bill, allowing companies to pump raw sewage into UK rivers and seas, in London Reuters UK news in pictures 25 October 2021 Second World War veteran James White, 96, at the opening of the Edinburgh Garden of Remembrance, marking the start of the remembrance period PA UK news in pictures 24 October 2021 Richard Ratcliffe holds up a photo of his wife Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe as he protests outside the Foreign Office while on hunger strike, part of an effort to lobby the UK foreign secretary to bring his wife home from detention in Iran Getty UK news in pictures 23 October 2021 Partner of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, Stella Morris and Editor in Chief of WikiLeaks Kristinn Hrafnsson attend a protest ahead of the appeal hearing over Assange's extradition, in London Reuters UK news in pictures 22 October 2021 Palace Gardener Justine Howlett adds the finishing touches to pumpkins bearing the face of Henry VIII and his wives, at Hampton Court Palace. PA UK news in pictures 21 October 2021 Flooded fields near Lingfield in Surrey, after southern England was hit overnight by heavy rain and strong winds from Storm Aurore moving in from France PA UK news in pictures 20 October 2021 A wing surfer enjoys the strong winds as they surf in the sea off of Hayling Island in Hampshire PA UK news in pictures 19 October 2021 Actor Jude Law holds hands with Little Amal, a 3.5-metre-tall puppet of a nine-year-old Syrian girl, as it arrives in Folkestone, Kent, as part of the Handspring Puppet Company's 'The Walk' PA UK news in pictures 18 October 2021 A view over Southend-on-Sea in Essex, which is set to become a city in tribute to Sir David Amess MP, who spent years campaigning for the change Getty UK news in pictures 17 October 2021 Members of the Essex Bangladeshi Welfare Association pay their respects by floral tributes laid at the scene where Sir David Amess MP was killed at Belfairs Methodist Church, in Leigh-on-Sea Reuters UK news in pictures 16 October 2021 Boris Johnson, Sir Keir Starmer, Priti Patel and Lindsay Hoyle pay respects to Sir David Amess at Belfairs Methodist Church, in Leigh-on-Sea, the site of his death EPA UK news in pictures 15 October 2021 A person lays flowers at the scene near the Belfairs Methodist Church in Eastwood Road North, Leigh-on-Sea, Essex, where Conservative MP Sir David Amess has died after he was stabbed several times at a constituency surgery. A man has been arrested and officers are not looking for anyone else PA UK news in pictures 14 October 2021 A red deer stag during rutting season in Bushy Park, Richmond, south west London, which is home to over 300 red and fallow deer PA UK news in pictures 13 October 2021 Police officers detain a man as Insulate Britain activists block a roundabout at a junction on the M25 motorway during a protest in Thurrock Reuters UK news in pictures 12 October 2021 The aerial climate installation by Swiss artivist Dan Acher 'We Are Watching' is unveiled at Our Dynamic Earth in Edinburgh PA UK news in pictures 10 October 2021 A young girl is helped by a Border Force officer as a group of people thought to be migrants are brought in to Dover, Kent, following a small boat incident in the Channel. PA UK news in pictures 9 October 2021 People walk past a life-size sculpture of British singer John Lennon entitled "Imagine", by sculptor Lawrence Holofcener, displayed to mark what would have been the 81st birthday for the former member of the Beatles in Carnaby Street Reuters UK news in pictures 8 October 2021 WW II veteran, 96-year-old Lorna Cockayne, who served in the Women's Royal Naval Service (WRNS), popularly and officially known as the Wrens, as a Bletchley Park codebreaker, poses for a photograph with the Legion d'honneur after receiving it during a ceremony at the Pear at Parley in Ferndown, Bournemouth PA UK news in pictures 7 October 2021 British comedian Jo Brand poses with cut-out silhouettes representing women outside the Metropolitan Police headquarters New Scotland Yard, to highlight violence against women by male police officers or former police officers AFP via Getty UK news in pictures 6 October 2021 A protester, wearing a mask of Johnson, holds a sign reading Question it all on the final day of the Tory conference Getty UK news in pictures 5 October 2021 Members of Insulate Britain outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London, before a hearing over the injunction banning the environmental activists from blocking the M25 PA UK news in pictures 4 October 2021 A delegate passes a street cleaner on the second day of the annual Conservative Party Conference being held at the Manchester Central convention centre AFP via Getty UK news in pictures 3 October 2021 Margaret Thatcher-themed mugs for sale at the annual Conservative Party conference in Manchester EPA UK news in pictures 2 October 2021 A couple make their way through a flooded underpass in Bristol as a yellow weather warning for rain and wind is issued for parts of the UK Tom Wren/SWNS UK news in pictures 1 October 2021 A driver talks to members of the media after passing his HGV (Heavy Goods Vehicle) driving test at National Driving Centre in Croydon, south London AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 30 September 2021 The centrepiece One Thousand Springs by Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota is seen ahead of the beginning of the Japan Festival, a celebration of the countrys plants, art and culture running from 2-31 October, at Kew Gardens in London PA UK news in pictures 29 September 2021 The family of Betty Campbell unveil the bronze sculpture of her during the unveiling of the statue in Central Square, Cardiff, of Betty Campbell, Wales' first black headteacher PA UK news in pictures 28 September 2021 A sign referring to the lack of fuel is placed at the entrance to a petrol station in London AP UK news in pictures 27 September 2021 Police officers detain a protester from Insulate Britain occupying a roundabout leading from the M25 motorway to Heathrow Airport in London PA UK news in pictures 26 September 2021 Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer watches the Arsenal v Tottenham Hotspur match at The Font pub in Brighton PA UK news in pictures 25 September 2021 Scottish pro-independence supporters hold a march and rally outside the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh, Scotland Getty Images UK news in pictures 24 September 2021 Police officers remove two protesters from the top of a tanker, as Insulate Britain block the A20 in Kent, which provides access to the Port of Dover in Kent. The environmental activists have moved location after been banned from campaigning on the M25 motorway in London PA UK news in pictures 23 September 2021 Gabriella, the seven year old daughter of imprisoned British-Iranian Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, joins in a game on a giant snakes and ladders board in Parliament Square, to show the ups and downs of her mothers case to mark the 2,000 days she has been detained in Iran AP UK news in pictures 22 September 2021 A new sign hangs on the Millicent Fawcett statue after it was altered by CrackTheCrises coalition activists to highlight the climate crisis as a feminist struggle in Parliament Square in London EPA UK news in pictures 21 September 2021 Gabriella Diment prepares a monumental bronze patinated fibreglass wall sculpture depicting household cavalry soldiers on horseback which is expected to be sold for 12,000-18,000 when it goes up for auction at Summers Place Auctions in Billinghurst, Kent PA UK news in pictures 20 September 2021 Florist Judith Blacklock puts the finishing touches to a floral carousel installation in Halkin Arcade, which she has designed with Neill Strain for the Belgravia in Bloom festival, running from September 20-26, in London PA UK news in pictures 19 September 2021 Bubbles surround Manchester Uniteds Cristiano Ronaldo before the match against West Ham at London Stadium Action Images/Reuters UK news in pictures 18 September 2021 Children take part in the Settrington Cup Pedal Car Race as motoring enthusiasts attend the Goodwood Revival, a three-day historic car racing festival in Goodwood, Chichester, Reuters UK news in pictures 17 September 2021 Hugo, 7, from London rides past a 4x7 metre rainbow arch, made entirely of recycled aluminium cans, which has been installed by recycling initiative 'Every Can Counts', in partnership with The City of London Corporation in front of St Paul's Cathedral in London, to encourage members of the public to recycle their drinks cans ahead of recycling week, which starts on 20 September PA UK news in pictures 16 September 2021 Sheikeh MOhammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, leader of Abu Dhabi, leaves Downing Street after meeting with Boris Johnson PA UK news in pictures 15 September 2021 Children pose by ice sculptures depicting people collecting water by charity Water Aid to show the fragility of water and the threat posed by climate change in London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 14 September 2021 Heavy rain covers the A149 near Kings Lynn in Norfolk PA UK news in pictures 13 September 2021 Luke Jerram's 'Museum of the Moon' at Durham Cathedral PA UK news in pictures 12 September 2021 Inspirational young fundraiser Tobias Weller crosses the finish line, near his home in Sheffield, as he completes his latest epic feat where he swam and triked his way to the end of his awesome year-long Ironman Challenge. This is the third challenge Tobias, who has cerebral palsy and autism, has completed, raising more than 150,000 for his school and Sheffield Children Hospitals charity PA UK news in pictures 11 September 2021 British player Emma Raducanu, holds up the US Open championship trophy winning the women's singles final of the US Open in New York AP
Madeleines parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, have vowed they will never give up on finding their daughter, who vanished from the holiday apartment in which they were staying in the Algarcve resort of Praia da Luz.
Her disappearance sparked one of the most high-profile and costly police investigations of recent times.
In 2015, Scotland Yard cut the number of detectives working on the case from 29 to four.
It was the "true story" that seemed like it could have been lifted straight from the pages of spy fiction.
And now some are claiming it really was lifted straight from the pages of spy fiction.
Last week Hodder & Stoughton announced its latest book with breathless excitement and attention-grabbing tweets.
Pilgrim Spy, the publishing giant declared, was one of the great untold stories of the Cold War.
It was a tale of roof top chases, a beautiful East German female suspected of being a Stasi spy and betrayal ending in a climactic gun battle at Colditz castle all told by the lone SAS man who took lethal action to thwart the 1989 plot to assassinate Russian president Mikhail Gorbachev.
Major Vladimir Putin of the KGB, appears in the events depicted, while the publicity blurb made reference to the kind of thing that happens in James Bond thrillers.
Which some now think may have been a mistake.
Because in a series of claims that were vigorously disputed by those responsible for the book, one reader said he had found remarkable similarities between the SAS veteran Tom Shores true story, and the entirely fictional thriller Quiller KGB by the prolific author Adam Hall.
Novelist Jeremy Duns also alleges that chunks of the background in Pilgrim Spy appear to have been lifted from Wikipedia, including the description of the Red Army Faction, the terrorist group whose assassination plot Shore is supposed to have foiled.
Hodder & Stoughton backed its author, and said it had also checked that he had served in the SAS.
Duns, however, claimed Shore had "totally screwed up" because his supposedly "true story" followed precisely the plot of the novel Quiller KGB.
In the fictional Quiller KGB, a plot to assassinate Gorbachev when he meets East German leader Erich Honecker in late 1989 is foiled by a lone British agent Quiller.
In the "true story" Pilgrim Spy, a plot to assassinate Gorbachev when he meets East German leader Erich Honecker in late 1989 is foiled by a lone British agent SAS man Shore.
There are also other similarities between the relatively obscure novel and the "true story" of Tom Shore, which is a pseudonym.
In Quiller KGB there is a rogue MI6 agent, Pollock. In Pilgrim Spy, there is a rogue MI6 agent, Scott.
Outlining his doubts on Twitter, Duns said: The novel also features rooftop escapes, grenades in cars, beautiful agents, assignments in forests and other stuff [that also appeared] in Pilgrim Spy.
Coming to a rather post-truth conclusion about Shores story, Duns added: Could it be true, or even partially true? I doubt it, frankly. [But] I think Hodders going to have a bestseller on its hands because nobody cares."
Shore suggests that had the plot to assassinate Gorbachev succeeded, the events that led to the fall of the Berlin Wall might not have happened (Reuters)
Published in May 1989, Quiller KGB envisaged Gorbachev and Honecker meeting in late 1989 and the Berlin Wall falling shortly afterwards - which it did, a month after the Soviet leader had visited in October 1989 to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the founding of the German Democratic Republic (DDR).
But Duns, himself the author of spy thrillers including the Paul Dark series, does not think that the late Adam Hall could have been so prophetic - or so well-informed - as to predict a real-life intelligence operation that was about to begin just a few months after his novel was published.
He claimed: The only way Tom Shore has not fabricated this extraordinary, never-before-heard-of, world-changing operation is if the British spy novelist Adam Hall predicted the entire operation in one of his books. I dont think this is plausible.
Tom Shore, however, has said he has never heard of the novel Quiller KGB or its author.
A Hodder & Stoughton spokeswoman told The Independent: As for [the] serious allegation that he has copied Quiller KGB, Tom Shore tells me he had never read the book or heard of the author.
She added that Pilgrim Spys editor at Hodder & Stoughton had never heard of Quiller KGB or its author either.
Duns and other critics, however, also think that some parts of Pilgrim Spy that provide background context are based on sizeable chunks of Wikipedia that have been copied almost verbatim without acknowledgement.
Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall - In pictures Show all 7 1 /7 Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall - In pictures Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall - In pictures Trabi at intersection, Berlin 1997 Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall - In pictures Same intersection. Under Malboro Country; graffiti: Mao More than ever. Berlin, 1997. Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall - In pictures By the Berlin Wall on the western side, Winter 1987. Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall - In pictures Workers desk at Project Manual Reconstruction of the Stasi File Authority, Zirndorf, 2000 Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall - In pictures Frau Paul, a former Eastern European political prisoner, outside the Hohenschonhausen Prison, Berlin,2006 Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall - In pictures Klaus Renft, a musician, in his apartment in Berlin 2000 Stasiland: Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall - In pictures Herr Christian showing Funder the petrol station where he used to spy in disguise.
Shore, 66, who admits his account might raise a few eyebrows introduces the Stasi, by writing: I knew all about the East German Stasi. It was the official state security service of the DDR, and has often been described as one of the most effective and repressive intelligence and secret police agencies in history.
Wikipedia states: The Stasi was the official state security service of the German Democratic Republic. It has been described as one of the most effective and repressive intelligence and secret police agencies to have ever existed.
The Wikipedia page has a box containing a quotation from historian Hubertus Knabe. Part of this quote also appears in Shores book.
Other apparent similarities involve a summary of the career of senior Soviet army officer Ivan Konev and a passage about the historically poor quality of communist East German coffee which seems like the Coffee Crisis 1976-79 section of Wikipedias History of East Germany page.
And despite claiming he also knew all about the Red Army Faction (RAF), and went on to kill three of its members who were trying to assassinate Gorbachev, Shores descriptions of the terrorist group seem uncannily similar to Wikipedias.
Shore writes:I knew all about the RAF, or Rote Armee Fraktion as they called themselves. In 1970, Andreas Baader, Gudrun Enslin, Horst Mahler and Ulrike Meinhof formed an association which, at the time, described itself as a communist, anti-Imperialist, urban guerrilla organisation engaged in an armed struggle with the West.
The Wikipedia page begins: The Red Army Faction was a West German, far-left militant organization founded in 1970. Key early figures included Andreas Baader, Gudrun Enslin, Horst Mahler and Ulrike Meinhof, among others.[b]
Footnote b reads: The RAF described itself as a communist and anti-imperialist urban guerrilla group engaged in armed resistance against what they deemed to be a fascist state.
A few paragraphs later, Shore writes: The group is often talked about in terms of generations. The first generation consisted of Baader, Ensslin, Meinhof and others. The second generation came about after the majority of the first generation was arrested in 1972. The third generation RAF existed in the 1980s,1990s and up to 1998.
The Wikipedia page reads: Sometimes the group is talked about in terms of generations:
the "first generation", which consisted of Baader, Ensslin, Meinhof and others;
the "second generation", after the majority of the first generation was arrested in 1972; and
the "third generation" RAF, which existed in the 1980s and 1990s up to 1998, after the first generation died in Stammheim maximum security prison in 1977.
Duns and others have suggested that if the similarities to Wikipedia were more than just unwitting coincidence, they amount to plagiarism because Shore should have acknowledged his source.
They also say the apparent similarities with Wikipedia raise further doubts about whether Shore was describing real events.
Duns said: As well as being plagiarism that shouldnt be released by a major publisher, it raises another question: if you are writing a memoir about taking on the Red Army Faction but your expertise on them is just taken directly from Wikipedia Did you really take on the Red Army Faction, or are you writing a bad thriller described as a memoir?
Hodder & Stoughton, however, told The Independent the apparent similarities with Wikipedia occurred because Shore turned to the online encyclopaedia when asked to supply background at a late stage in the books production.
A company spokeswoman said: The editor asked Tom at a late stage of editing to add dates etc to the different generations of the Red Army Faction, for example. He sees now that Tom checked these using Wikipedia and didnt change the wording which is sloppy but not criminal.
"As a soldier sent in on a sneak and peak mission to find out information about a suspected major military manoeuvre, he had no reason to expect an encounter with the RAF or reason to research them.
The spokeswoman added: I can see three sentences taken from Wikipedia which arose because the editor asked him to add in a paragraph of historical background.
The first words in Shores book are What you are about to read is a true story. A story that has never been told or shared.
He later writes that no-one in the British secret service knew about his mission because the rogue MI6 man Scott sent him to East Germany without telling his superiors as Scott explains in the final climactic confrontation, when he thinks he is about to kill Shore.
Having turned the tables on Scott but resisted the temptation to kill him, Shore himself decides to keep quiet because he thinks his superiors would believe the word of a seemingly respectable MI6 man over that of a parachute regiment squaddie turned SAS.
In his book, however, Shore says that if he had not foiled the Gorbachev assassination plot, Europes history in the second half of the 20th Century and beyond would have been very different.
Shore explains that the RAF assassins were being directed by Kremlin hardliners opposed to Gorbachevs Glasnost reforms.
The assassination of the Soviet leader in East Germany, Shore says, would have given these hardliners the excuse to reassert total Russian control over the German Democratic Republic, stopping the freedom movements of eastern Europe.
At one point, seeming almost to imply that he saved the world from nuclear Armageddon, Shore also describes the assassination plot as a master plan to bring Europe to the brink of yet another world war.
He foils it in the nick of time, after forming an attachment to, but resisting the advances of a beautiful East German who at one point knocks at his door and appears standing there in nothing but her underwear her body lean and toned, like a gymnast.
He says: Although the fact that a British soldier was operating behind the Iron Curtain, alone and for close to four months, might still raise a few eyebrows, I believe this is an important episode that needs to be made public.
Tom Shore's publisher has backed him and said the book's editor believed his account of events that included a gun battle at Colditz Castle
Insisting that care had been taken to check Shore's story and military background, the Hodder & Stoughton spokeswoman said:
The editor did as much background checking as possible prior to acquisition [of the book]. The editor checked he was in the SAS and that the military details are correct it was read by a senior soldier and details of the events confirm the well-known historical facts.
Asked about the plausibility of such episodes as a gun battle at Colditz castle, the spokeswoman said: It is an extraordinary episode. The editor questioned him keenly on his plan B, suggesting it was extremely unlikely to come off.
Shore said that when your life is in imminent and extreme danger and you are juggling with extreme odds, you sometimes do things that would seem irrational to people who have never been in this position.
The editor asked Shore if he wanted to cut this, given that people would question it. He said: No. That is exactly what happened and it must stay as it is. The editor believed him.
A leading British Jewish organisation has condemned Conservative MEPs after they voted in defence of Hungarys far-right government under Viktor Orban.
The Board of Deputies of British Jews said it was very concerning that the Conservatives had chosen to defend Hungarys appalling track record which they pointed out included both vivid antisemitism and islamophobia.
The attack is likely to be embarrassing for Theresa May, whose MEPs were last night accused of helping to defend Mr Orban in a bid for backing in Brexit talks due next week, something Tory sources have denied.
Recommended Conservatives accused of seeking Brexit favours after backing Orban
The full statement from the Board of Deputies president, Marie van der Zyl said : I note with disappointment that Conservative Party MEPs have voted in defence of Hungarys populist, right-wing government of Viktor Orban.
As we have stated previously, we are very alarmed by the messages at the heart of Orbans election campaign, including his comments about Muslim invaders, calling migrants poison, and the vivid antisemitism in the relentless campaign against Jewish philanthropist George Soros.
Ms van der Zyl said that Hungarys whipping up of prejudice, restrictions on the media and judiciary must be stopped.
She added: It is very concerning that Conservative Party MEPs chose to defend Hungarys appalling track record, rather than supporting a motion to protect the rule of law.
Slovakia: EU considers personal leadership dangerous - Orban
Politicians from across the EU voted by a two-thirds majority 448-197 in favour of starting the Article 7 process on Wednesday which could ultimately see Hungary stripped of its voting rights at the European Council.
An analysis of votes by The Independent has found the Tories were the only governing conservative party in western Europe to vote against the move.
Of the Tory MEPs, only Nosheena Mobarik rebelled to vote for the motion, while two others, Charles Tannock and Sajjad Karim, abstained. Separately, Richard Ashworth and Julie Girling, who were elected as Conservatives but left their political group over Brexit and do not take the whip, also backed action.
Last night Mr Karim told The Independent that he had refused to vote against the motion because of Mr Orbans antisemitism and islamophobia, adding: I cannot vote in any way that Victor Orban may choose to mislead Hungarians.
It is very concerning that Conservative Party MEPs chose to defend Hungarys appalling track record, rather than supporting a motion to protect the rule of law Board of Deputies president, Marie van der Zyl
Ahead of the vote, Tories in the parliament claimed the EUs process had been politicised and was counterproductive, while Conservative sources in Strasbourg denied the vote had anything to do with Brexit afterwards.
Their counterparts in London highlighted that the European group is autonomous and decides its own whipping arrangements independently, pointing out that Theresa May had not played a role in the decision to back Orban.
But one Tory politician told The Independent: No one will say it publicly, but its clear that we are going to gain brownie points with people who might be able to help us in the Brexit negotiations.
UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 2 November 2021 A person walks along the Basingstoke canal near to Dogmersfield in Hampshire PA UK news in pictures 1 November 2021 Sir David Attenborough delivers a speech during Cop26 in Glasgow Reuters UK news in pictures 31 October 2021 Extinction Rebellion activists protest in Edinburgh as the Cop26 conference begins in Glasgow Getty UK news in pictures 30 October 2021 First Minister Nicola Sturgeon with Mapuche leader and Minga Indigena Lead Coordinator Claflin Lafkenche (right) alongside indigenous delegates at a ceremonial gathering at the Tramway in Glasgow in a symbolic gesture to mark a unified demand for climate justice PA UK news in pictures 29 October 2021 Ocean Rebellion put on a display of puking oil heads ahead of climate change conference COP26 in Glasgow EPA UK news in pictures 28 October 2021 A man dressed as Santa Claus outside Selfridges in London as the department store unveils its Christmas windows on Oxford Street PA UK news in pictures 27 October 2021 Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak during a visit to Fourpure Brewery in Bermondsey, London, after the chancellor announced a cut to beer taxes in his budget PA UK news in pictures 26 October 2021 Activist Steve Bray demonstrates with a toilet outside the gates of Downing Street, after MPs voted in Parliament against the Environment Bill, allowing companies to pump raw sewage into UK rivers and seas, in London Reuters UK news in pictures 25 October 2021 Second World War veteran James White, 96, at the opening of the Edinburgh Garden of Remembrance, marking the start of the remembrance period PA UK news in pictures 24 October 2021 Richard Ratcliffe holds up a photo of his wife Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe as he protests outside the Foreign Office while on hunger strike, part of an effort to lobby the UK foreign secretary to bring his wife home from detention in Iran Getty UK news in pictures 23 October 2021 Partner of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, Stella Morris and Editor in Chief of WikiLeaks Kristinn Hrafnsson attend a protest ahead of the appeal hearing over Assange's extradition, in London Reuters UK news in pictures 22 October 2021 Palace Gardener Justine Howlett adds the finishing touches to pumpkins bearing the face of Henry VIII and his wives, at Hampton Court Palace. 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A man has been arrested and officers are not looking for anyone else PA UK news in pictures 14 October 2021 A red deer stag during rutting season in Bushy Park, Richmond, south west London, which is home to over 300 red and fallow deer PA UK news in pictures 13 October 2021 Police officers detain a man as Insulate Britain activists block a roundabout at a junction on the M25 motorway during a protest in Thurrock Reuters UK news in pictures 12 October 2021 The aerial climate installation by Swiss artivist Dan Acher 'We Are Watching' is unveiled at Our Dynamic Earth in Edinburgh PA UK news in pictures 10 October 2021 A young girl is helped by a Border Force officer as a group of people thought to be migrants are brought in to Dover, Kent, following a small boat incident in the Channel. PA UK news in pictures 9 October 2021 People walk past a life-size sculpture of British singer John Lennon entitled "Imagine", by sculptor Lawrence Holofcener, displayed to mark what would have been the 81st birthday for the former member of the Beatles in Carnaby Street Reuters UK news in pictures 8 October 2021 WW II veteran, 96-year-old Lorna Cockayne, who served in the Women's Royal Naval Service (WRNS), popularly and officially known as the Wrens, as a Bletchley Park codebreaker, poses for a photograph with the Legion d'honneur after receiving it during a ceremony at the Pear at Parley in Ferndown, Bournemouth PA UK news in pictures 7 October 2021 British comedian Jo Brand poses with cut-out silhouettes representing women outside the Metropolitan Police headquarters New Scotland Yard, to highlight violence against women by male police officers or former police officers AFP via Getty UK news in pictures 6 October 2021 A protester, wearing a mask of Johnson, holds a sign reading Question it all on the final day of the Tory conference Getty UK news in pictures 5 October 2021 Members of Insulate Britain outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London, before a hearing over the injunction banning the environmental activists from blocking the M25 PA UK news in pictures 4 October 2021 A delegate passes a street cleaner on the second day of the annual Conservative Party Conference being held at the Manchester Central convention centre AFP via Getty UK news in pictures 3 October 2021 Margaret Thatcher-themed mugs for sale at the annual Conservative Party conference in Manchester EPA UK news in pictures 2 October 2021 A couple make their way through a flooded underpass in Bristol as a yellow weather warning for rain and wind is issued for parts of the UK Tom Wren/SWNS UK news in pictures 1 October 2021 A driver talks to members of the media after passing his HGV (Heavy Goods Vehicle) driving test at National Driving Centre in Croydon, south London AFP via Getty Images UK news in pictures 30 September 2021 The centrepiece One Thousand Springs by Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota is seen ahead of the beginning of the Japan Festival, a celebration of the countrys plants, art and culture running from 2-31 October, at Kew Gardens in London PA UK news in pictures 29 September 2021 The family of Betty Campbell unveil the bronze sculpture of her during the unveiling of the statue in Central Square, Cardiff, of Betty Campbell, Wales' first black headteacher PA UK news in pictures 28 September 2021 A sign referring to the lack of fuel is placed at the entrance to a petrol station in London AP UK news in pictures 27 September 2021 Police officers detain a protester from Insulate Britain occupying a roundabout leading from the M25 motorway to Heathrow Airport in London PA UK news in pictures 26 September 2021 Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer watches the Arsenal v Tottenham Hotspur match at The Font pub in Brighton PA UK news in pictures 25 September 2021 Scottish pro-independence supporters hold a march and rally outside the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh, Scotland Getty Images UK news in pictures 24 September 2021 Police officers remove two protesters from the top of a tanker, as Insulate Britain block the A20 in Kent, which provides access to the Port of Dover in Kent. The environmental activists have moved location after been banned from campaigning on the M25 motorway in London PA UK news in pictures 23 September 2021 Gabriella, the seven year old daughter of imprisoned British-Iranian Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, joins in a game on a giant snakes and ladders board in Parliament Square, to show the ups and downs of her mothers case to mark the 2,000 days she has been detained in Iran AP UK news in pictures 22 September 2021 A new sign hangs on the Millicent Fawcett statue after it was altered by CrackTheCrises coalition activists to highlight the climate crisis as a feminist struggle in Parliament Square in London EPA UK news in pictures 21 September 2021 Gabriella Diment prepares a monumental bronze patinated fibreglass wall sculpture depicting household cavalry soldiers on horseback which is expected to be sold for 12,000-18,000 when it goes up for auction at Summers Place Auctions in Billinghurst, Kent PA UK news in pictures 20 September 2021 Florist Judith Blacklock puts the finishing touches to a floral carousel installation in Halkin Arcade, which she has designed with Neill Strain for the Belgravia in Bloom festival, running from September 20-26, in London PA UK news in pictures 19 September 2021 Bubbles surround Manchester Uniteds Cristiano Ronaldo before the match against West Ham at London Stadium Action Images/Reuters UK news in pictures 18 September 2021 Children take part in the Settrington Cup Pedal Car Race as motoring enthusiasts attend the Goodwood Revival, a three-day historic car racing festival in Goodwood, Chichester, Reuters UK news in pictures 17 September 2021 Hugo, 7, from London rides past a 4x7 metre rainbow arch, made entirely of recycled aluminium cans, which has been installed by recycling initiative 'Every Can Counts', in partnership with The City of London Corporation in front of St Paul's Cathedral in London, to encourage members of the public to recycle their drinks cans ahead of recycling week, which starts on 20 September PA UK news in pictures 16 September 2021 Sheikeh MOhammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, leader of Abu Dhabi, leaves Downing Street after meeting with Boris Johnson PA UK news in pictures 15 September 2021 Children pose by ice sculptures depicting people collecting water by charity Water Aid to show the fragility of water and the threat posed by climate change in London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 14 September 2021 Heavy rain covers the A149 near Kings Lynn in Norfolk PA UK news in pictures 13 September 2021 Luke Jerram's 'Museum of the Moon' at Durham Cathedral PA
Mr Orban himself arrived at the meeting of the European parliament saying: We would like to have a fair Brexit because we love the British and because we cooperated always well and you deserve a good deal, a fair deal.
Theresa Mays spokesman said on Wednesday: The outcome was the result of a democratic vote in the European parliament and is now a matter for the European Council.
We await the process going forward which is to be set out by the Austrian presidency.
We place great values on the importance of the rule of law. We hope a resolution can be found that respects a nations right to set its own constitutional arrangements within the framework of international norms.
He also denied that any support Mr Orban might derive from the vote by Tory MEPs was in return for any support from the Hungarian leader for Brexit.
Downing Street tried to contain the fallout after Conservative MEPs drew controversy for backing authoritarian Hungarian leader Viktor Orban in a key vote, leaked messages suggest.
The Tories were the only governing conservative party in Western Europe to vote overwhelmingly in support of Mr Orbans far-right government, which has been accused of attacking press freedom and minorities, and undermining judicial independence.
Religious groups have accused the Conservatives of giving bigotry a free pass and prioritising support for their Brexit plans over the rights of minorities by whipping their 19 MEPs to oppose a censure motion against Hungary in the European Parliament on Wednesday.
The motion passed with a two-thirds majority, 448197, to start the 'Article 7' process, which could eventually see Hungary stripped of its voting rights on the European Council.
Number 10 intervened amidst furious criticism by privately asking MEPs to share a tweet distancing themselves from the populist leader, according to Whatsapp messages obtained by Buzzfeed News.
Ashley Fox, who leads the Conservatives in the European Parliament group, sent a message to the MEPs WhatsApp group, saying Downing Street had ordered the party's European chief whip Daniel Dalton to send a tweet distancing their MEPs from Orban.
The message said: "Downing Street have asked Dan D [Daniel Dalton] to tweet that our vote on Art 7 does not imply support for Orban."
Mr Fox added: "Can I ask all members to retweet DD without further comment."
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said any attempts to play down support for Mr Orban after the vote were "disgraceful" and called on Theresa May to apologise.
He posted on Twitter: "The Tories brought shame on the UK by backing Hungary's far right government in a crucial vote in Europe.
"Theresa May trying to sweep it under the carpet is disgraceful.
"The prime minister must apologise and explain why her party voted in the way it did."
His comments came after the Muslim Council of Britain said the incident raised fresh concerns about bigotry in the party, as the organisation has repeatedly demanded an inquiry into allegations of Islamophobia in Conservative ranks.
Secretary general Harun Khan said: At a time when there are growing concerns about the rise of the far-right across Europe, it is deeply disappointing that Conservative Party MEPs were whipped to align themselves with far-right parties in supporting Mr Orban.
One can only hope that the rights of Muslims and other minorities are not considered expendable as support is sought for the governments Brexit position, as appears to have been the case with this vote.
The Board of Deputies of British Jews said it was very concerning that the Conservatives had opted to defend Mr Orban's appalling track record, which they claimed included vivid antisemitism and Islamophobia.
President Marie van der Zyl said: As we have stated previously, we are very alarmed by the messages at the heart of Orbans election campaign, including his comments about Muslim invaders, calling migrants poison, and the vivid antisemitism in the relentless campaign against Jewish philanthropist George Soros.
Of the Tory MEPs, Nosheena Mobarik rebelled to vote for the motion, while two others, Charles Tannock and Sajjad Karim, abstained.
A government source said: "This was simply a suggestion to help clarify the reason for this particular vote".
Downing Street previously denied that any support had been given to Mr Orban in exchange for backing in the Brexit talks.
Boris Johnson 'suicide vest' Brexit jibe causes Tory divide Show all 14 1 /14 Boris Johnson 'suicide vest' Brexit jibe causes Tory divide Boris Johnson 'suicide vest' Brexit jibe causes Tory divide Internal divisions in the Conservative Party have exploded into a bitter public row over Boris Johnsons disgusting criticism of Theresa May. Some senior Tories furiously denounced the former foreign secretary after he accused the prime minister of having wrapped a suicide vest around Britain Reuters Boris Johnson 'suicide vest' Brexit jibe causes Tory divide Sajid Javid, Home secretary Sajid Javid, the home secretary, rebuked his former cabinet colleague and said: I think there are much better ways to articulate your differences. He told the BBCs Andrew Marr Show that the public wanted politicians to use measured language BBC/PA Boris Johnson 'suicide vest' Brexit jibe causes Tory divide But other MPs leapt to Mr Johnsons defence, as dividing lines ahead of a possible leadership contest begin to take shape. The Uxbridge MP has repeatedly criticised Ms Mays Chequers plan and used a newspaper article on Sunday to suggest it amounted to wrapping a suicide vest around the British constitution. His latest salvo at the prime minister prompted immediate condemnation, with one minister publicly vowing to end Mr Johnsons career over the matter PA Boris Johnson 'suicide vest' Brexit jibe causes Tory divide Alan Duncan, Foreign minister Alan Duncan, a foreign minister who worked in Mr Johnsons team for two years, wrote on Twitter: For Boris to say the PMs view is like that of a suicide bomber is too much. This marks one of the most disgusting moments in modern British politics. Im sorry, but this is the political end of Boris Johnson. If it isnt now, I will make sure it is later. Getty Boris Johnson 'suicide vest' Brexit jibe causes Tory divide James Brokenshire, Housing secretary Housing secretary James Brokenshire added his voice to the criticism, calling Mr Johnsons comments wrong He said: I think he is wrong on this...I think the tone that he has used isnt right and I think that we just need to be very focused on actually moving forward with the Chequers plan. AFP/Getty Boris Johnson 'suicide vest' Brexit jibe causes Tory divide Zac Goldsmith But as Tory hostilities spilled over into open public warfare, Richmond Park MP Zac Goldsmith, an ally of Mr Johnson, hit back at Mr Duncan. He wrote: There are a number of possible motives behind this tweet, but given its author, we can be certain principles arent one of them. Getty Boris Johnson 'suicide vest' Brexit jibe causes Tory divide Jacob Rees-Mogg Senior Tory Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg told The Independent he thought Mr Johnsons suicide belt accusation was little more than a characteristically colourful catchphrase. He added: I agree with the sentiment. The criticism of Boriss wording merely serves to highlight his point. It means more people hear of Boriss criticism of Chequers and many will agree with him. Reuters Boris Johnson 'suicide vest' Brexit jibe causes Tory divide Nadine Dorries Nadine Dorries, another Brexit supporter, said Mr Johnsons opponents were terrified of his popular appeal, adding: Dont underestimate the vitriol thatll be directed towards Boris today. He delivered the Leave vote, Remainers and wannabe future PMs hate him. If Mr Johnson became leader and prime minister he would deliver a clean and prosperous Brexit, she said Rex Boris Johnson 'suicide vest' Brexit jibe causes Tory divide Andrew Bridgen Andrew Bridgen said Ms May was to blame for her leadership problems. Asked if Mr Johnson had put a bomb under her leadership, Mr Bridgen said: I think that Theresa May did that herself when she put forward the Chequers proposals without consulting widely prior to that. Boris Johnson 'suicide vest' Brexit jibe causes Tory divide Steve Baker, former Brexit minister Steve Baker, the former Brexit minister, warned Ms May the Conservatives faced a "catastrophic split" if she did not jettison her Chequers plan. Mr Baker, who quit the government in July over the scheme, said: When negotiating, the prime minister needs to demonstrate her intent and also her power to deliver. "If we come out of conference with her hoping to get Chequers through on the back of Labour votes, I think the EU negotiators would probably understand that if that were done, the Tory party would suffer the catastrophic split which thus far we have managed to avoid. But he insisted he did not want a change in the Conservative leadership, saying Brexiteers did not want to be in a position of conflict with our own prime minister Reuters Boris Johnson 'suicide vest' Brexit jibe causes Tory divide Tom Tugendhat The deep divisions on the Tory benches were laid bare as Tom Tugendhat, who chairs the Commons foreign affairs committee and is a possible leadership rival to Mr Johnson, also hit out at the former foreign secretary. Recalling how he encountered a suicide bomber in Afghanistan during his time in the army, Mr Tugendhat told Mr Johnson to grow up. He said: A suicide bomber murdered many in the courtyard of my office in Helmand. The carnage was disgusting, limbs and flesh hanging from trees and bushes. Brave men who stopped him killing me and others died in horrific pain. Some need to grow up. Comparing the PM to that isnt happy. PA Boris Johnson 'suicide vest' Brexit jibe causes Tory divide Alistair Burt Alistair Burt, another Foreign Office minister who worked in Mr Johnsons team, said: Im stunned at the nature of this attack. There is no justification for such an outrageous, inappropriate and hurtful analogy. If we dont stop his extraordinary use of language over Brexit, our country might never heal. Again, I say, enough. AFP/Getty Boris Johnson 'suicide vest' Brexit jibe causes Tory divide It comes amid that Ms Mays former aides drew up a dossier on Mr Johnsons sexual encounters with the aim of undermining his leadership prospects. The document was compiled in 2016, when the Uxbridge and South Ruislip MP was seen as the main rival to Ms May in her bid to enter No 10. Downing Street and Conservative Campaign Headquaters (CCHQ) both denied having leaked the 4,000 word memo after it was circulated around Westminster AFP/Getty Boris Johnson 'suicide vest' Brexit jibe causes Tory divide Mr Johnson confirmed that his 25-year marriage to wife Marina had ended AP
Ms May's spokesman said on Wednesday: The outcome was the result of a democratic vote in the European parliament and is now a matter for the European Council.
We await the process going forward which is to be set out by the Austrian presidency.
We place great values on the importance of the rule of law. We hope a resolution can be found that respects a nations right to set its own constitutional arrangements within the framework of international norms.
A Conservative spokesman said: Victor Orban has a track record of responding to legal moves not political threats.
Politicising the issue at this early stage simply undermines any future legal action, while boosting Orban's domestic support.
The leader of one of Britains main trade unions has suggested that Israel created the antisemitism row that has engulfed Labour over the summer.
Mark Serwotka, who leads the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) and is a staunch supporter of Jeremy Corbyn, told a fringe event at the Trades Union Congress (TUC) conference that the Jewish state could have created a story that does not exist in order to distract attention from atrocities he said it has committed.
His comments were condemned by antisemitism campaigners, who said Mr Serwotka should resign over the despicable claims.
The comments risk reigniting the row over claims of anti-Jewish abuse in Labour, which has died down in recent days after the partys ruling executive bowed to pressure to adopt an internationally recognised definition of antisemitism.
Speaking at an event organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Mr Sertwoka, who was last week elected as president of the TUC, said he deplored antisemitism but claimed accusations against Mr Corbyn were the result of something sinister going on.
He told the event in Manchester: I think it is unfortunate that the Labour Party allowed a lot of this to drag on in a way that actually did not help anybody.
In a year when Donald Trump has moved the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, in a year when dozens of Palestinians including children were gunned down unarmed innocent civilians by the Israeli military, in a year when the Americans are cutting off aid ... isnt it a vile world when, instead of being on the front foot, denouncing these atrocities, demanding an independent and sovereign state for the Palestinian people, we have had a summer of asking ourselves whether leading Labour movement people are in any way antisemitic?
He added: Im not a conspiracy theorist, but Ill tell you what one of the best forms of trying to hide from the atrocities that you are committing is to go on the offensive and actually create a story that does not exist for people on this platform, the trade union movement or, I have to say, for the leader of the Labour Party.
Mr Corbyn has previously called Mr Serwotka his friend. The firebrand union leader was expelled by Labour in the 1990s for his membership of a left-wing group and banned from voting in the 2015 leadership contest because the party said he did not share its aims and values. He was allowed to rejoin after Mr Corbyn became leader.
Labour declined to comment and did not respond when asked if the union leader was likely to face disciplinary action.
Protests against Labour antisemitism Show all 14 1 /14 Protests against Labour antisemitism Protests against Labour antisemitism Protesters clashed during the demonstration Reuters Protests against Labour antisemitism Members of the Jewish community hold a protest against Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn and antisemitism in the Labour Party AFP/Getty Protests against Labour antisemitism Protesters hold placards and flags during a demonstration, organised by the British Board of Jewish Deputies for those who oppose antisemitism, in Parliament Square Reuters Protests against Labour antisemitism Hundreds of people gathered in Parliament Square to protest against antisemitism in the Labour Party EPA Protests against Labour antisemitism Labour MP Luciana Berger speaks during the protest PA Protests against Labour antisemitism A protester blows through a shofar during the demonstration Getty Protests against Labour antisemitism Members of London's Jewish community protest in support of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn outside parliament EPA Protests against Labour antisemitism Labour MP John Mann speaks during a protest against antisemitism PA Protests against Labour antisemitism People protest against antisemitism in the Labour Party as Jewish community leaders have launched a scathing attack on Jeremy Corbyn, claiming he has sided with antisemites again and again PA Protests against Labour antisemitism Labour politicians Stella Creasy and Chuka Umunna leave after attending the demonstration Getty Protests against Labour antisemitism A pro-Jeremy Corbyn protester holds a placard during a counter-protest Getty Protests against Labour antisemitism A support of the Labour Party hold up a placard during the demonstration Reuters Protests against Labour antisemitism Jeremy Corbyn supporters during the demo Reuters Protests against Labour antisemitism A protester holds up a sign reading For the many, not the Jew AFP
Mr Serwotka told trade union members in Manchester there had been the most systematic attempt to shut down all those advocating justice for the Palestinians in a way that should trouble all those who want to expose injustices.
He added: And we fast-forward to this year, and the dominating headline has not been the actions of the Israeli state; it is whether we as a movement have any form of antisemitism in our attitude to Palestinians.
Euan Philipps, a spokesperson for Labour Against Antisemitism, said: Mark Serwotkas speech is a stark illustration of how deeply embedded antisemitism is within the Labour movement.
To intimate that the Israeli government is somehow responsible for the antisemitism crisis that has torn across the Labour Party this summer is a baseless lie.
He added: It callously dismisses the serious and legitimate concerns of the Jewish community, while also drawing on antisemitic tropes (including dual loyalty and conspiracy theory) to draw attention from what is a recognised issue of discrimination against Jews across the political left.
The suggestion that there is a malevolent power manipulating British politics is as absurd as it is offensive.
With this speech Mr Serwotka has brought the entire TUC into disrepute. It deserves widespread condemnation and he should resign as general secretary of the PCS.
Jennifer Gerber, director of Labour Friends of Israel, said: Mr Serwotkas comments are despicable. There is a problem of antisemitism in the Labour Party because of antisemites and Jeremy Corbyns failure to deal with them, not because of Israel.
For a general secretary of a major trade union to allude to conspiracy theories and blame Jews for their own persecution shows the extent of the problem we now see on the left.
British Jews are leaving the country because of antisemitism, claims rabbi Jonathan Sacks
Mr Serwotka also used his speech to pay tribute to Hugh Lanning, a former PSC deputy general secretary who now works for the Palestine Solidarity Campaign.
Speaking at the same event, Mr Lanning said Israel was a racist state and claimed the row over antisemitism in Labour had had a chilling effect.
He said: Its time to speak up and stand up for Palestine. And the situation Mark was describing, which has had this chilling effect across the whole trade union Labour movement.
To loud applause, he added: I take the view that if Israel wants to have racist laws, if it wants to have roads that only some people can go on, to have different laws and education systems based on race, we shouldnt be frightened of calling it a racist state.
If it acts and behaves like an apartheid state, we should call it an apartheid state and not be frightened of doing so.
Mr Lanning said the row over antisemitism was an opportunity to focus peoples attention on Israel.
Calling for boycott, divestment and sanctions against the Jewish state, he told trade union members: Weve got to shift the tipping point within the Labour and trade union movement and you are the shock troops who are able to do this.
One of the things thats happened over the summer is that Palestine has been brought into the political agenda probably more than it has been for a long time.
We can take that as an opportunity ... so what the people who wanted to keep us quiet end up doing is making us shout very loudly.
A PCS spokesperson said: Mark spoke at a Palestine Solidarity Campaign fringe event at the TUC an organisation PCS is affiliated to.
He made the point at the start of the meeting that we need to oppose antisemitism in society and within the labour movement.
But we should not allow the issue of antisemitism to be used by people who are attempting to silence Palestinian voices as they legitimately struggle for their rights and a sovereign state.
Dominic Raab has admitted a no-deal Brexit would bring risks and disruption with delays for businesses and exports hit by tariffs, ahead of issuing further advice to the public.
The Brexit Secretary sought to temper expectations about crashing out of the EU without an agreement, saying: No one should pretend that no deal would be straightforward.
Mr Raab said ministers could mitigate the dangers, easing the flow of imports into the UK by recognising certain EU-approved goods for import, for example.
But, in a newspaper article, he warned: In a no-deal scenario, we can't control the EU's response to UK goods going the other way.
He wrote: There would be risks and some short-term disruption. Extra checks at the EU border would bring delays for businesses.
Later, in a radio interview, Mr Raab did not challenge industry warnings that a no-deal Brexit would bring delays at Channel ports of 45 mins for just one truck.
Certainly, there are some risks in relation to no deal and one of them would be disruption at the border if in the worst-case scenario the EU and member states responded without the collaborative spirit.
There would be contra-flow systems on the M20, appearing to confirm plans for lorries to be parked for many miles along one side of the key motorway link to Dover.
People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal Show all 30 1 /30 People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal Rex People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal AFP/Getty Images People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal A young protestor shouts as she takes part in the People's Vote demonstration against Brexit Getty Images People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal Reuters People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal EPA People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal A protester's pro-EU t-shirt EPA People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal EPA People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal AFP/Getty Images People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal EPA People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal AFP/Getty People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal EPA People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal Gina Miller and Caroline Lucas EPA People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal EPA People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal EPA People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal Tens of thousands of people march through London EPA People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal EPA People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal Demonstrators at the People's Vote March Getty People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal 'Two months too young to decide on my future' REUTERS People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal PA People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal A young girl joins in the march PA People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal An EU flag is draped across the statue of Winston Chruchill in Parliament Square REUTERS People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal AFP/Getty Images People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal Vince Cable MP, Pro-EU campaigner Gina Miller, Tony Robinson and Caroline Lucas MP join with crowds PA People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal PA People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal Crowds gather on Pall Mall PA People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal A man resembling Britain's Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, joins EU supporters Reuters People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal Reuters People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal People gather in Trafalgar Square REUTERS People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal Pro-EU campaigner Gina Miller and Tony Robinson PA People's Vote march demanding vote on final Brexit deal EU supporters, calling on the government to give Britons a vote on the final Brexit deal, participate in the 'People's Vote' march REUTERS
Nevertheless, Mr Raab hit back at companies criticising Brexit preparations, saying: Its easy for businesses to blame Brexit, rather than take responsibility for their own decisions.
And, in the article for The Daily Telegraph, he insisted: The UK will manage the challenges of no deal so that we make a success of Brexit.
He also wrote: It's nonsense to claim that UK supermarkets would run out of food, although the warnings have only been off shortages, not empty shelves.
The comments came ahead of a special three-hour meeting of the cabinet, its longest discussion yet on readiness for leaving the EU without a deal.
The Brexit department will then issue a further 28 technical notices for businesses and the public, covering mobile phone roaming charges and environmental and vehicle standards but not, as expected aviation.
In the article, Mr Raab also repeated warnings that the government would not pay the full 39bn divorce bill if no withdrawal agreement reached.
The government would not pay the terms of the financial settlement as agreed with the EU. Theres no deal without the whole deal, he wrote.
However, on Tuesday, Philip Hammond told a House of Lords committee that Britain would still honour its financial obligations, whatever the outcome.
It appears likely that Britain would pay around half the bill the half which was originally calculated as the obligations from 45 years of EU membership.
Economists have pointed out that a saving of up to 20bn would be dwarfed by the economic damage from a no-deal Brexit, which the Treasury said would blow an 80bn hole in the public finances.
The government would put a "limit" on the reintroduction of roaming charges in the event of a no-deal Brexit, Dominic Raab has said amid conflicting reports over whether British consumers will continue to enjoy the benefit outside the EU.
The Brexit secretary said two firms Vodafone and Three had publicly committed not to introduce the charges and he hoped other providers would follow suit.
"But in any event we would legislate for a limit on roaming charges to make sure in a no-deal scenario we would protect British consumers, he told the BBC.
Weve had some good news from businesses, like Vodafone and Three, theyve publicly said they wont introduce roaming fees for UK consumers travelling on the continent."
However he stopped short of saying ministers would push for an outright ban on the reintroduction of extra costs for Britons using their phones on the continent.
All extra charges for phone calls, texts and internet use on mobile phones within the EU were eliminated in June 2017.
End of EU roaming charges - what you need to know
O2 and EE have both said they currently have no plans to change their roaming services across Europe and are working closely with the government on post-Brexit arrangements.
Mr Raab's remarks came as the government was releasing a new raft of technical papers expected to focus on how a no-deal Brexit would impact on areas including the environment and transport.
There has been speculation that leaving the EU without a solid agreement could see the return of levies for using mobile devices on the continent.
Mobile phone companies have been urged not to introduce (AP)
The pro-Europe Best for Britain campaign said the re-imposition of roaming charges could cost business people visiting the EU up to 778 a month.
Mr Raab called on "our EU friends to match the ambition and pragmatism we have demonstrated" in order to avoid a no-deal scenario.
The biggest issues facing UK on leaving EU Show all 8 1 /8 The biggest issues facing UK on leaving EU The biggest issues facing UK on leaving EU Post-Brexit immigration workers sorting radishes on a production line at a farm in Norfolk. One possible post-Brexit immigration scheme could struggle to channel workers towards less attractive roles - while another may heighten the risk of labour exploitation, a new report warns. PA The biggest issues facing UK on leaving EU Customs union A key point in the negotiations remains Britain's access to, or withdrawal from, the EU customs union. Since the referendum there has been hot debate over the meaning of Brexit: would it entail a full withdrawal from the existing agreement, known as hard Brexit, or the soft version in which we would remain part of a common customs area for most goods, as Turkey does? No 10 has so far insisted that Brexit means Brexit and that Britain will be leaving the customs union, but may be inclined to change its position once the potential risks to the UKs economic outlook become clearer. Alamy The biggest issues facing UK on leaving EU Northern Ireland-Irish border Though progress was made last year, there has still been no solid agreement on whether there should be a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. To ensure borderless travel on the island, the countries must be in regulatory alignment and therefore adhere to the same rules as the customs union. In December, the Conservative Partys coalition partners, the DUP, refused a draft agreement that would place the UK/EU border in the Irish Sea due to its potential to undermine the union. May has promised that would not be the case and has suggested that a specific solution would need to be found. Getty The biggest issues facing UK on leaving EU Transition period Despite protests from a small number of Conservative MPs, the Government and the EU are largely in agreement that a transitional period is needed after Brexit. The talks, however, have reached an impasse. Though May has agreed that the UK will continue to contribute to the EU budget until 2021, the PM wants to be able to select which laws made during this time the UK will have to adhere to. Chief negotiator Michel Barnier has said the UK must adopt all of the laws passed during the transition, without any input from British ministers or MEPs. EPA The biggest issues facing UK on leaving EU Rights of EU citizens living the UK The Prime Minister has promised EU citizens already living in the UK the right to live and work here after Brexit, but the rights of those who arrive after Brexit day remains unclear. May insists that those who arrive during the transition period should not be allowed to stay, whereas the EU believe the cut-off point should be later. Getty The biggest issues facing UK on leaving EU Future trade agreement (with the EU) Despite this being a key issue in negotiations, the Government has yet to lay out exactly what it wants from a trade deal with the EU. Infighting within the Cabinet has prevented a solid position from being reached, with some MPs content that "no deal is better than a bad deal" while others rally behind single market access. The EU has already confirmed that access to the single market would be impossible without the UK remaining in the customs union. Getty The biggest issues facing UK on leaving EU Future trade agreements (internationally) The Government has already begun trying to woo foreign leaders into prospective trade agreements, with various high profile state visits to China, India and Canada for May, and the now infamous invitation to US President Donald Trump to visit London. However the UK cannot make trade agreements with another country while it is still a member of the EU, and the potential loss of trade with the world's major powers is a source of anxiety for the PM. The EU has said the UK cannot secure trade deals during the transition period. EPA The biggest issues facing UK on leaving EU Financial services Banks in the UK will be hit hard regardless of the Brexit outcome. The EU has refused to give British banks passporting rights to trade within the EU, dashing hopes of a special City deal. However according to new reports Germany has suggested allowing trade on the condition that the UK continues paying into the EU budget even after the transition period. Getty
He also said one of the consequences of failing to reach an agreement was that the UK would refuse to pay the so-called divorce settlement.
He told the BBC the UK would "recognise our strict legal obligations" but that the amount paid would be "significantly, substantially lower" than the 39bn.
Vehicles made and approved in the UK could no longer be sold in the EU if Britain crashes out without a deal, a shock government document admits.
EU type-approval would no longer be granted to prove the vehicles comply with safety and environmental standards, it warned.
It was issued just two days after the boss of Jaguar Land Rover attacked Theresa Mays Brexit strategy, warning that that tens of thousands of jobs were being put at risk.
Manufacturers would need to seek approval from an authority in an EU member state if such an agreement could be struck.
The document says that, if there is a no-deal Brexit, the government would act unilaterally to ensure EU-made cars could still be bought in this country, by recognising approvals.
But it acknowledges that Brussels might no longer be willing to consider the UKs Vehicle Certification Agency (VCA) as an appropriate body for sales in the EU.
In a no deal scenario, type-approvals issued in the UK would no longer be valid for sales or registrations on the EU market, the document reads.
This means that affected manufacturers would need to ensure that they have the correct type-approval for each market.
The biggest issues facing UK on leaving EU Show all 8 1 /8 The biggest issues facing UK on leaving EU The biggest issues facing UK on leaving EU Post-Brexit immigration workers sorting radishes on a production line at a farm in Norfolk. One possible post-Brexit immigration scheme could struggle to channel workers towards less attractive roles - while another may heighten the risk of labour exploitation, a new report warns. PA The biggest issues facing UK on leaving EU Customs union A key point in the negotiations remains Britain's access to, or withdrawal from, the EU customs union. Since the referendum there has been hot debate over the meaning of Brexit: would it entail a full withdrawal from the existing agreement, known as hard Brexit, or the soft version in which we would remain part of a common customs area for most goods, as Turkey does? No 10 has so far insisted that Brexit means Brexit and that Britain will be leaving the customs union, but may be inclined to change its position once the potential risks to the UKs economic outlook become clearer. Alamy The biggest issues facing UK on leaving EU Northern Ireland-Irish border Though progress was made last year, there has still been no solid agreement on whether there should be a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. To ensure borderless travel on the island, the countries must be in regulatory alignment and therefore adhere to the same rules as the customs union. In December, the Conservative Partys coalition partners, the DUP, refused a draft agreement that would place the UK/EU border in the Irish Sea due to its potential to undermine the union. May has promised that would not be the case and has suggested that a specific solution would need to be found. Getty The biggest issues facing UK on leaving EU Transition period Despite protests from a small number of Conservative MPs, the Government and the EU are largely in agreement that a transitional period is needed after Brexit. The talks, however, have reached an impasse. Though May has agreed that the UK will continue to contribute to the EU budget until 2021, the PM wants to be able to select which laws made during this time the UK will have to adhere to. Chief negotiator Michel Barnier has said the UK must adopt all of the laws passed during the transition, without any input from British ministers or MEPs. EPA The biggest issues facing UK on leaving EU Rights of EU citizens living the UK The Prime Minister has promised EU citizens already living in the UK the right to live and work here after Brexit, but the rights of those who arrive after Brexit day remains unclear. May insists that those who arrive during the transition period should not be allowed to stay, whereas the EU believe the cut-off point should be later. Getty The biggest issues facing UK on leaving EU Future trade agreement (with the EU) Despite this being a key issue in negotiations, the Government has yet to lay out exactly what it wants from a trade deal with the EU. Infighting within the Cabinet has prevented a solid position from being reached, with some MPs content that "no deal is better than a bad deal" while others rally behind single market access. The EU has already confirmed that access to the single market would be impossible without the UK remaining in the customs union. Getty The biggest issues facing UK on leaving EU Future trade agreements (internationally) The Government has already begun trying to woo foreign leaders into prospective trade agreements, with various high profile state visits to China, India and Canada for May, and the now infamous invitation to US President Donald Trump to visit London. However the UK cannot make trade agreements with another country while it is still a member of the EU, and the potential loss of trade with the world's major powers is a source of anxiety for the PM. The EU has said the UK cannot secure trade deals during the transition period. EPA The biggest issues facing UK on leaving EU Financial services Banks in the UK will be hit hard regardless of the Brexit outcome. The EU has refused to give British banks passporting rights to trade within the EU, dashing hopes of a special City deal. However according to new reports Germany has suggested allowing trade on the condition that the UK continues paying into the EU budget even after the transition period. Getty
And it adds: VCA would continue to act as a technical service for the purpose of testing for UK type-approvals. However, it may no longer be recognised as a technical service by EU type-approval authorities.
This week at a conference attended by the prime minister the chief executive of Jaguar Land Rover warned of the horrifying consequences of a hard Brexit, costing the company 1.2bn a year.
Ralf Speth said: Brexit is due to happen on the 29 March, next year. Currently, I do not even know if any of our manufacturing facilities in the UK will be able to function on the 30, he warned.
Gareth Thomas MP, a Labour MP and supporter of the anti-Brexit Best for Britain group, as another unnecessary blow to the countrys car industry.
Crashing out with no-deal could mean the future of UK car exports to the EU could hang in the balance, damaging an industry filled with thousands of high skilled job, he warned.
This no deal scenario cannot be seriously considered as an option when we know how much is at stake.
However, the department for transport said it was incorrect to say UK-made cars could not be sold in the EU after a no-deal Brexit, insisting manufacturers would be able to apply to an EU approval authority.
The deciding factor is whether they obtained their EU type approval in the UK or an EU member state, not where they are manufactured, a spokeswoman said.
The situation is another example of how the governments no deal preparations would in fact involve trying to strike a series of separate micro-agreements with the EU, to head off huge damage.
Dominic Raab, the Brexit secretary has written to the EU to propose what he called no deal deals, if the need arises but Brussels had previously rejected such an approach.
Theresa May has condemned the lies and blatant fabrications in the interview given by the two Russian men accused of perpetrating the Salisbury novichok attack.
The prime minister said the interview given to Russian state-sponsored television was offensive to the victims of the chemical weapons attack aimed at killing ex-spy Sergei Skripal.
It follows an interview with the Kremlin-funded RT network, in which the men denied they were Russian intelligence agents and rejected any knowledge of the toxic substance or assassination attempt, instead claiming they were in Salisbury to see the cathedral.
Ms May's spokesman said: The lies and blatant fabrications in this interview given to a Russian state-sponsored TV station are an insult to the publics intelligence and more importantly they are deeply offensive to the victims and loved ones of this horrific attack.
"Sadly it's what we've come to expect."
Investigators released images of the two suspects, who have been charge with attempted murder, saying they arrived in Britain on genuine Russian passports in the names of Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov.
Police said the pair travelled to Salisbury from on 3 March to carry out reconnaissance, then returned to launch the attack the following day and flew back to Moscow hours later. Novichok traces were found in their London hotel room.
'Nothing criminal' about UK Skripal suspects says Putin
Ms May's spokesman went on: "An illegal chemical weapon has been used on the streets of this country, we have seen four people left seriously ill in hospital and an innocent woman has died. Russia has responded with contempt.
The police have set out very clearly the evidence against these two men, they are wanted men and we are taking all steps to make sure they are apprehended and brought to justice in the UK if they ever again step outside of Russia.
But the men characterised themselves as tourists and claimed they travelled to Salisbury two days in a row merely for sightseeing. They failed to explain why they arrived in Britain using business visas.
Petrov and Borishov apparently decided the capital's sights were not worthy of a visit during what would have been an extremely short holiday.
The Metropolitan Police last week released images of the two men, announcing that they had been charged with the poisoning and made subject to European Arrest Warrants and Interpol red notices. The government has said it believes the operation was approved at a senior level of the Russian state.
The bearded Mr Boshirov attempted to answer why the two men had chosen to visit Salisbury. Friends had suggested visiting this "wonderful town," he said. It had an internationally-famous cathedral, known for its 123m spire.
UK Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson on Novichok and 'an increasingly aggressive Russia'
"And its clock, which is one of the first ever created and is still working," he added.
The other man, Mr Petrov, said the two had made two consecutive trips to Salisbury due to bad weather on the first day. The temperature of 2C below zero on that day would not appear to represent extreme weather conditions for two men used to Russian winter.
But, in their version, the snow and slush had got in the way of a visit to Stonehenge and Old Sarum: We got wet, took the nearest train and came back [to London].
As part of the schools Upper School and Boarding Family Weekend, St. Andrews-Sewanee School welcomes the public to a free concert by The Vega String Quartet on Friday, Sept. 28, at 8 p.m. in the schools McCrory Hall for the Performing Arts.
The quartet will be performing the music of Ludwig van Beethoven, including the Allegro moderato from the Trio in Bb Major, Op. 97, Archduke and the String Quartet in Bb Major, Op. 130.
Review for The Vega String Quartet:
The Vega String Quartet, Quartet-in-Residence at Emory University, is cultivating a new generation of chamber music lovers through dynamic performances and innovative community engagement.
They perform nationally and internationally, most recently in Baltimore, Chicago, Nashville, Sacramento, Berlin, San Miguel, and the Brahmssaal in Viennas Musikverein. The Quartet's major performing projects at Emory have included the complete cycle of Beethoven quartets, as well as pairing Bachs complete works for solo violin, viola and cello with the six Bartok quartets. They have also developed a series of Jazz Meets Classics programs, bringing the two genres together.
The Vega Quartet has won numerous international awards, including at the Bordeaux String Quartet Competition, as well as top prizes from the Coleman Chamber Ensemble Competition, the Carmel Chamber Music Competition, and the National Society of Arts and Letters String Quartet Competition.
Russian-German relations are not tense though some political disagreements remain between the two countries, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with Germanys DPA news agency, TASS reports.
"I would not describe relations between Russia and Germany as tense. We do have some political disagreements that complicate relations to a certain extent," he said. "However, our common history, cultural and social interpenetration, economy and human wisdom, if you please - all of this constitutes the foundation that allows the people of our countries to believe in a good and predictable future and work together to build it, overcoming tactical issues, I am sure," the Russian top diplomat added.
"It is encouraging that even under the current circumstances, cooperation between Russia and Germany continues to evolve, particularly in the trade, economic, humanitarian and public fields. Dialogue on the key issues of today continues. It may facilitate the gradual restoration of mutual trust and full-fledged cooperation. For our part, we are ready to do this work," Lavrov stressed.
British driving licences may no longer be valid in the EU in the event of a no-deal Brexit, the government has admitted.
The latest batch of Whitehall planning papers revealed lorry drivers and holidaymakers could be forced to obtain permits for the countries they visit, similar to those already used to drive in some states in the United States or Japan.
Expats that move abroad after Brexit day may also have to re-sit their driving test, as their UK licence would no longer be recognised on the continent.
It comes as the government steps up its preparations for the risks if Britain crashes out of the EU without a deal next March, publishing a second wave of 28 papers warning of the day-to-day impact on areas ranging from car manufacturing to data roaming changes.
The advice from the Department of Transport (DfT) said: Your driving licence may no longer be valid by itself when driving in the EU.
If you move to another EU country to live, you may not be able to exchange your licence after the UK has left the EU.
Mutual recognition of driving licences between the UK and the EU would end if there is no deal with Brussels, meaning British drivers would have to obtain an international driving permit (IDP) to journey abroad.
Tourists driving between France and Spain would need two separate IDPs, as both countries are covered by different conventions.
Anyone without the 5.50 permit could face fines or be turned away if they try to cross a border in Europe.
IDPs will be available from February next year, prompting warnings over a rush on post offices from hundreds of thousands drivers.
The National Audit Office previously warned that up to 7 million IDPs could be issued in the first year if Britain crashes out without a deal.
Edmund King, AA president, said: In some circumstances, such as driving into France and then Spain, drivers will need two separate IDPs as Spain, Eire, Malta and Cyprus have not ratified the 1968 Vienna Convention.
This will be an extra burden for UK drivers wanting to take a holiday abroad. We are also disappointed that from the end of January next year the AA will no longer be permitted to issue IDPs as we have done for decades."
He added: We envisage quite a rush on post offices next year for the 5.50 IDPs if no deal is reached.
"Hopefully an agreement can be reached to prevent further red tape and expense for drivers.
The Road Haulage Association (RHA), which represents lorry drivers, said the warnings were nothing more than a smoke screen more pressing issues that need to be addressed before March 2019.
RHA chief executive Richard Burnett said: It is disappointing that the international haulage technical paper was not published today.
Boris Johnson 'suicide vest' Brexit jibe causes Tory divide Show all 14 1 /14 Boris Johnson 'suicide vest' Brexit jibe causes Tory divide Boris Johnson 'suicide vest' Brexit jibe causes Tory divide Internal divisions in the Conservative Party have exploded into a bitter public row over Boris Johnsons disgusting criticism of Theresa May. Some senior Tories furiously denounced the former foreign secretary after he accused the prime minister of having wrapped a suicide vest around Britain Reuters Boris Johnson 'suicide vest' Brexit jibe causes Tory divide Sajid Javid, Home secretary Sajid Javid, the home secretary, rebuked his former cabinet colleague and said: I think there are much better ways to articulate your differences. He told the BBCs Andrew Marr Show that the public wanted politicians to use measured language BBC/PA Boris Johnson 'suicide vest' Brexit jibe causes Tory divide But other MPs leapt to Mr Johnsons defence, as dividing lines ahead of a possible leadership contest begin to take shape. The Uxbridge MP has repeatedly criticised Ms Mays Chequers plan and used a newspaper article on Sunday to suggest it amounted to wrapping a suicide vest around the British constitution. His latest salvo at the prime minister prompted immediate condemnation, with one minister publicly vowing to end Mr Johnsons career over the matter PA Boris Johnson 'suicide vest' Brexit jibe causes Tory divide Alan Duncan, Foreign minister Alan Duncan, a foreign minister who worked in Mr Johnsons team for two years, wrote on Twitter: For Boris to say the PMs view is like that of a suicide bomber is too much. This marks one of the most disgusting moments in modern British politics. Im sorry, but this is the political end of Boris Johnson. If it isnt now, I will make sure it is later. Getty Boris Johnson 'suicide vest' Brexit jibe causes Tory divide James Brokenshire, Housing secretary Housing secretary James Brokenshire added his voice to the criticism, calling Mr Johnsons comments wrong He said: I think he is wrong on this...I think the tone that he has used isnt right and I think that we just need to be very focused on actually moving forward with the Chequers plan. AFP/Getty Boris Johnson 'suicide vest' Brexit jibe causes Tory divide Zac Goldsmith But as Tory hostilities spilled over into open public warfare, Richmond Park MP Zac Goldsmith, an ally of Mr Johnson, hit back at Mr Duncan. He wrote: There are a number of possible motives behind this tweet, but given its author, we can be certain principles arent one of them. Getty Boris Johnson 'suicide vest' Brexit jibe causes Tory divide Jacob Rees-Mogg Senior Tory Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg told The Independent he thought Mr Johnsons suicide belt accusation was little more than a characteristically colourful catchphrase. He added: I agree with the sentiment. The criticism of Boriss wording merely serves to highlight his point. It means more people hear of Boriss criticism of Chequers and many will agree with him. Reuters Boris Johnson 'suicide vest' Brexit jibe causes Tory divide Nadine Dorries Nadine Dorries, another Brexit supporter, said Mr Johnsons opponents were terrified of his popular appeal, adding: Dont underestimate the vitriol thatll be directed towards Boris today. He delivered the Leave vote, Remainers and wannabe future PMs hate him. If Mr Johnson became leader and prime minister he would deliver a clean and prosperous Brexit, she said Rex Boris Johnson 'suicide vest' Brexit jibe causes Tory divide Andrew Bridgen Andrew Bridgen said Ms May was to blame for her leadership problems. Asked if Mr Johnson had put a bomb under her leadership, Mr Bridgen said: I think that Theresa May did that herself when she put forward the Chequers proposals without consulting widely prior to that. Boris Johnson 'suicide vest' Brexit jibe causes Tory divide Steve Baker, former Brexit minister Steve Baker, the former Brexit minister, warned Ms May the Conservatives faced a "catastrophic split" if she did not jettison her Chequers plan. Mr Baker, who quit the government in July over the scheme, said: When negotiating, the prime minister needs to demonstrate her intent and also her power to deliver. "If we come out of conference with her hoping to get Chequers through on the back of Labour votes, I think the EU negotiators would probably understand that if that were done, the Tory party would suffer the catastrophic split which thus far we have managed to avoid. But he insisted he did not want a change in the Conservative leadership, saying Brexiteers did not want to be in a position of conflict with our own prime minister Reuters Boris Johnson 'suicide vest' Brexit jibe causes Tory divide Tom Tugendhat The deep divisions on the Tory benches were laid bare as Tom Tugendhat, who chairs the Commons foreign affairs committee and is a possible leadership rival to Mr Johnson, also hit out at the former foreign secretary. Recalling how he encountered a suicide bomber in Afghanistan during his time in the army, Mr Tugendhat told Mr Johnson to grow up. He said: A suicide bomber murdered many in the courtyard of my office in Helmand. The carnage was disgusting, limbs and flesh hanging from trees and bushes. Brave men who stopped him killing me and others died in horrific pain. Some need to grow up. Comparing the PM to that isnt happy. PA Boris Johnson 'suicide vest' Brexit jibe causes Tory divide Alistair Burt Alistair Burt, another Foreign Office minister who worked in Mr Johnsons team, said: Im stunned at the nature of this attack. There is no justification for such an outrageous, inappropriate and hurtful analogy. If we dont stop his extraordinary use of language over Brexit, our country might never heal. Again, I say, enough. AFP/Getty Boris Johnson 'suicide vest' Brexit jibe causes Tory divide It comes amid that Ms Mays former aides drew up a dossier on Mr Johnsons sexual encounters with the aim of undermining his leadership prospects. The document was compiled in 2016, when the Uxbridge and South Ruislip MP was seen as the main rival to Ms May in her bid to enter No 10. Downing Street and Conservative Campaign Headquaters (CCHQ) both denied having leaked the 4,000 word memo after it was circulated around Westminster AFP/Getty Boris Johnson 'suicide vest' Brexit jibe causes Tory divide Mr Johnson confirmed that his 25-year marriage to wife Marina had ended AP
Without clarity, any changes in supply chain operations cannot be delivered in the time left between now and next March. With so many unanswered questions, how can businesses even begin to prepare?"
Labour MP Virendra Sharma, who backs the Best for Britain campaign said: "It's official: Brexit is driving the UK round the bend.
"British drivers will now have to get driving licenses for multiple countries if they want to drive down to Spain. And that's if they're lucky and can get one!
"It's just another cost and more bureaucracy Brits will have to go through."
Close Hurricane Florence flood on North Carolina coast in US
Eight people, including a mother and her infant child, have died in the Carolinas from the deadly effects of Hurricane Florence.
The powerful storm flattened trees, buckled buildings and knocked out power to nearly 930,000 homes and businesses as it battered the southeast coast of the US.
It made landfall on Friday with a life-threatening storm surge pushing water inland for miles and more than 60 people had to be pulled from a collapsing motel.
Nearly 400 people had to be rescued from their flooded homes in New Bern, North Carolina, after they decided to try and see out the wind and rain.
Governor Roy Cooper called Florence an "uninvited brute" that could wipe out entire communities as it grinds its way across land.
"The fact is this storm is deadly and we know we are days away from an ending," he said.
Florence was downgraded to a tropical storm with winds of 60 mph (95 kph) as it slowly moved west.
The first known deaths related to the storm were a mother and her infant child who were killed when a tree fell on their house in Wilmington, North Carolina.
In Lenoir County a 78-year-old man was electrocuted and a 77-year-old man was found dead after he went outside to check on his dogs.
A woman also died of a suspected heart attack in Pender county. Although it was not directly related to Florence, emergency services were blocked from attending by storm damage. On Saturday, a further three deaths were confirmed. According to Duplin County Sherriff Blake Wallace, two of the deaths happened outside of Kenansville, while the third happened in Kornegay.
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Experts had warned the effects of the hurricane could be devastating.
This is a horrific nightmare storm from a meteorological perspective, University of Georgia meteorology professor Marshall Shepherd said. Weve just never seen anything like this. This is just a strange bird.
The Duke Energy company estimated that between 1 million and 3 million homes could be without power in the wake of the hurricane.
Hurricane Florence hits the US East Coast Show all 20 1 /20 Hurricane Florence hits the US East Coast Hurricane Florence hits the US East Coast Barmen protect their business from the storm and the opportunists Getty Hurricane Florence hits the US East Coast Many supplies have run out as Hurricane Florence approaches in Nichols, South Carolina AP Hurricane Florence hits the US East Coast Hurricane Florence seen from space on September 12 AP Hurricane Florence hits the US East Coast Students of East Carolina University's Coastal Storms class use anemometers to measure wind speeds at Union Point Park in New Bern, North Carolina AP Hurricane Florence hits the US East Coast Rescue workers are on the scene in James City, North Carolina Getty Hurricane Florence hits the US East Coast Sixteen hours before Florence even hits land, the Neuse River bursts its banks and floods New Bern, North Carolina Alamy Hurricane Florence hits the US East Coast Volunteer rescue workers help three children out of their flooded home in James City, North Carolina Getty Hurricane Florence hits the US East Coast A boardwalk is damaged in Atlantic Beach on North Carolina's coast Getty Hurricane Florence hits the US East Coast Union Point Park in New Bern is closed Reuters Hurricane Florence hits the US East Coast A child sits in Conway High School, which is being used as an evacuation centre in South Carolina AFP/Getty Hurricane Florence hits the US East Coast Locals voice their disapproval of the storm in Atlantic Beach, North Carolina Getty Hurricane Florence hits the US East Coast Volunteer rescue workers help children from their flooded home in James City Getty Hurricane Florence hits the US East Coast A man floats down his street in a metal tub after the Neuse River burst its banks in New Bern, North Carolina Getty Hurricane Florence hits the US East Coast Electric lines are affected in Wilmington, North Carolina Alamy Hurricane Florence hits the US East Coast Floods in New Bern, North Carolina as Florence approaches Alamy Hurricane Florence hits the US East Coast Waves crash over a pier on Atlantic Beach in North Carolina as Hurricane Florence approaches AP Hurricane Florence hits the US East Coast Hurricane Florence is seen from the International Space Station as it churns in the Atlantic Ocean towards the east coast of the US NASA/Reuters Hurricane Florence hits the US East Coast This NOAA/RAMMB satellite image taken on September 10, 2018, shows Hurricane Florence off the US' east coast in the Atantic Ocean AFP/Getty Hurricane Florence hits the US East Coast In this NOAA satellite handout image, Hurricane Florence is shown travelling west and gaining strength in the Atlantic Ocean southeast of Bermuda on September 10, 2018 Getty Hurricane Florence hits the US East Coast Firefighters rescue people by boat in New Bern, North Carolina Getty
Donald Trump issued a stark warning on Twitter on Wednesday, telling Americans to evacuate and not to play games with Florence. Its a big one, maybe as big as theyve seen, and tremendous amounts of water, he added in a video posted to Twitter.
He claimed federal authorities were fully prepared for the hurricane, saying: The storm will come, it will go, we want everybody to be safe. Were fully prepared, food, medical, everything you can imagine, we are ready.
But despite that, bad things can happen when youre talking about a storm this size. Its called Mother Nature, you never know. But we know, we love you all, we want you safe, get out of the storms way, listen to your local representatives.
It came just days after an official report criticised the US governments handling of the response to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, the US territory where some 3,000 people were killed last autumn.
Donald Trump has claimed that nearly 3,000 people did not die in Puerto Rico due to the impact of Hurricane Maria, despite the islands government putting the official death toll at up to 2,975.
The president wrote on Twitter that Democrats inflated the death toll to make him look as bad as possible in the wake of criticism over his handling of the response to the disaster.
The official toll had been given as 64, before the release of findings from researchers from George Washington University that lifted the total dramatically in a study commissioned by the US commonwealths government. While that number is an estimate, which could rise or fall, it is clear that the number of people killed is far in excess of the 6 to 18 deaths Mr Trump claimed when he left the island having visited.
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3000 people did not die in the two hurricanes that hit Puerto Rico. When I left the Island, AFTER the storm had hit, they had anywhere from 6 to 18 deaths, the president tweeted. As time went by it did not go up by much. Then, a long time later, they started to report really large numbers, like 3000...
.....This was done by the Democrats in order to make me look as bad as possible when I was successfully raising Billions of Dollars to help rebuild Puerto Rico, the president continued. If a person died for any reason, like old age, just add them onto the list. Bad politics.
He added: I love Puerto Rico!
The president has spent the week celebrating his administrations efforts to combat the destructive impact of Hurricane Maria on Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands, calling it an unsung success and adding in a televised statement to reporters in the White House, If you ask the governor, hell tell you what a great job was done.
Bringing aid to Puerto Rico Show all 20 1 /20 Bringing aid to Puerto Rico Bringing aid to Puerto Rico Crew chief Kenney shelters under the blade of an HH-60 Blackhawk helicopter from 101st Airborne Division's "Dustoff" unit preparing to take off during recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria, in Isla Grande, Puerto Rico, October 6, 2017 Reuters/Lucas Jackson Bringing aid to Puerto Rico An HH-60 Blackhawk helicopter from 101st Airborne Division's "Dustoff" unit takes off behind Crew Chief Alexander Blake and his fellow soldiers during recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria, in Morovis, October 5, 2017 Reuters/Lucas Jackson Bringing aid to Puerto Rico Crew member Bynum stands in tropical rain as a HH-60 Blackhawk helicopter from 101st Airborne Division's "Dustoff" unit prepares to take off during recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria, in Isla Grande, October 6, 2017 Reuters/Lucas Jackson Bringing aid to Puerto Rico UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter pilot Chris Greenway receives a hug from a woman thanking him for water as he works with the First Armored Division's Combat Aviation Brigade during recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria, in Verde de Comerio, October 7, 2017 Reuters/Lucas Jackson Bringing aid to Puerto Rico A man carries a case of water away from an HH-60 Blackhawk helicopter after soldiers working with 101st Airborne Division's "Dustoff" unit dropped off relief supplies during recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria, in Jayuya, October 5, 2017 Reuters/Lucas Jackson Bringing aid to Puerto Rico Crew chief Alexander Blake from 101st Airborne Division's "Dustoff" unit loads water into a helicopter during recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria, in Isla Grande, October 5, 2017 Reuters/Lucas Jackson Bringing aid to Puerto Rico Residents wait for soldiers in UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters from the First Armored Division's Combat Aviation Brigade to deliver food and water during recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria, in San Lorenzo Reuters Bringing aid to Puerto Rico An HH-60 Blackhawk helicopter from 101st Airborne Division's "Dustoff" unit lands in a field to avoid lightning during recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria, in Manati, October 5, 2017 Reuters/Lucas Jackson Bringing aid to Puerto Rico Residents hold their hands aloft to signal that they need water as UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters from the First Armored Division's Combat Aviation Brigade fly past during recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria, near Ciales, October 7, 2017 Reuters/Lucas Jackson Bringing aid to Puerto Rico Tropical rain splashes on a runway as HH-60 Blackhawk helicopters from 101st Airborne Division's "Dustoff" unit wait for weather to clear during recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria, in Isla Grande, October 6, 2017 Reuters/Lucas Jackson Bringing aid to Puerto Rico Pilot Eldwin Bocanegra Torres speaks with residents isolated by landslides in the mountains after unloading water and food from a helicopter during recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria, near Utuado, October 10, 2017 Reuters/Lucas Jackson Bringing aid to Puerto Rico Residents stand in front of wind-damaged trees as they wait for soldiers in UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters from the First Armored Division's Combat Aviation Brigade to deliver food and water during recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria, in San Lorenzo, October 7, 2017 Reuters/Lucas Jackson Bringing aid to Puerto Rico The contents of a home are seen from the air during recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria near Utuado, October 10, 2017 Reuters/Lucas Jackson Bringing aid to Puerto Rico Thomas looks out of the window of an HH-60 Blackhawk helicopter from 101st Airborne Division's "Dustoff" unit, loaded with relief supplies, during recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria in Isla Grande, October 6, 2017 Reuters/Lucas Jackson Bringing aid to Puerto Rico A message written on the rooftop is seen from the air during recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria near Humacao, October 10, 2017 Reuters/Lucas Jackson Bringing aid to Puerto Rico A HH-60 Blackhawk helicopter from 101st Airborne Division's "Dustoff" unit lands in a field during recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria in San Sebastian, October 6, 2017 Reuters/Lucas Jackson Bringing aid to Puerto Rico Sergeant First Class Eladio Tirado, who is from Puerto Rico, looks for a landing spot for a UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter from the First Armored Division's Combat Aviation Brigade, during recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria near Ciales, October 7, 2017 Reuters/Lucas Jackson Bringing aid to Puerto Rico Boys carry water away from an HH-60 Blackhawk helicopter after soldiers working with the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division's "Dustoff" unit dropped off relief supplies during recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria, in Jayuya, October 5, 2017 Reuters/Lucas Jackson Bringing aid to Puerto Rico Sergeant First Class Eladio Tirado from the First Armored Division's Combat Aviation Brigade, who is from Puerto Rico, speaks with residents as he helps during recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria, in San Lorenzo, October 7, 2017 Reuters/Lucas Jackson Bringing aid to Puerto Rico Residents peek through a fence at helicopters from 101st Airborne Division's "Dustoff" unit that had parked in a locked field during recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria, in Lares, October 6, 2017 Reuters/Lucas Jackson
That caused governor Ricardo Rossello to release a statement criticising the president and correcting his claims.
No relationship between a colony and the federal government can ever be called successful because Puerto Ricans lack certain inalienable rights enjoyed by our fellow Americans in the states, the governor said in the statement. This was the worst natural disaster in our modern history. Our basic infrastructure was devastated, thousands of our people lost their lives and many others still struggle. Now is not the time to pass judgement; it is time to channel every effort to improve the lives of over 3 million Americans in Puerto Rico.
Meanwhile, Hurricane Florence is churning towards the US coastline as a Category Two storm, with an increasing potential for rainfall and storm surging at catastrophic levels, according to the National Weather Service.
Hurricane Florence: New satellite video shows storm raging as it heads toward US east coast
Mr Trump has described the oncoming storm as tremendously big and a tremendously wet hurricane.
They havent seen anything like whats coming at us in 25, 30 years, maybe ever, he said during a White House briefing on how his administration is planning relief efforts surrounding Florence. It could very well be very similar to Texas in the sense that its tremendous amounts of water ... Probably more water than weve ever seen in a storm or a hurricane.
Close Cynthia Nixon wants to legalise marijuana in New York
Andrew Cuomo has won the Democrat primary for New York governor, defeating challenger Cynthia Nixon after a highly anticipated election.
Mr Cuomo's win has not come as a surprise, with far greater financial resources going into the race, and polls suggesting he held a strong lead before voting began.
His challenger, Ms Nixon, an activist and star of Sex and the City, had hoped to become the latest liberal challenger to unseat a powerful insider in Albany's Democratic establishment. The night did award some progressive candidates, however, including a State Senate seat for first-time Latina candidate, 27-year-old Julia Salazar, as well as Letitia James, New York's public advocate, who will now serve as the state attorney general.
Mr Cuomo's campaign dismissed Ms Nixon as inexperienced and touted the governor's work to push back against President Donald Trump.
His victory comes despite several missteps, including a widely condemned mailer that questioned Ms Nixon's support for Jewish people. She has two Jewish children and called the attack sleazy.
Mr Cuomo will face Republican Marc Molinaro and independent Stephanie Miner in November's general election.
Ms Nixon endorsed several progressive candidates vying for positions in Thursdays election, including Zephyr Teachout, who ran against Ms James for state attorney general, as well as Jumaane Williams, who ran for lieutenant governor.
New York New York: A Visual Hymn by Richard Koek Show all 18 1 /18 New York New York: A Visual Hymn by Richard Koek New York New York: A Visual Hymn by Richard Koek East River State Park in Brooklyn Richard Koek/Lannoo New York New York: A Visual Hymn by Richard Koek Third Avenue in Manhattan Richard Koek/Lannoo New York New York: A Visual Hymn by Richard Koek Bergdorf and Goodman on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan Richard Koek/Lannoo New York New York: A Visual Hymn by Richard Koek AMC Empire, 42nd street in Manhattan Richard Koek/Lannoo New York New York: A Visual Hymn by Richard Koek Fulton Street in Brooklyn Richard Koek/Lannoo New York New York: A Visual Hymn by Richard Koek A passenger with his pet on the G-train in Brooklyn Richard Koek/Lannoo New York New York: A Visual Hymn by Richard Koek Bowery in Manhattan Richard Koek/Lannoo New York New York: A Visual Hymn by Richard Koek Whyte Avenue in Brooklyn Richard Koek/Lannoo New York New York: A Visual Hymn by Richard Koek Times Square in Manhattan Richard Koek/Lannoo New York New York: A Visual Hymn by Richard Koek Squibb Park in Brooklyn Richard Koek/Lannoo New York New York: A Visual Hymn by Richard Koek Broadway in Manhattan Richard Koek/Lannoo New York New York: A Visual Hymn by Richard Koek Seventh Avenue in Manhattan Richard Koek/Lannoo New York New York: A Visual Hymn by Richard Koek Gotham Awards at Cipriani Wall Street in Manhattan Richard Koek/Lannoo New York New York: A Visual Hymn by Richard Koek Oculus Church Street in Manhattan Richard Koek/Lannoo New York New York: A Visual Hymn by Richard Koek Models get ready in the Manhattan Centre on 34th street Richard Koek/Lannoo New York New York: A Visual Hymn by Richard Koek Third Avenue on 149th street in the Bronx Richard Koek/Lannoo New York New York: A Visual Hymn by Richard Koek Whitney Museum of American Art in Manhattan Richard Koek/Lannoo New York New York: A Visual Hymn by Richard Koek New York New York: A Visual Hymn Lannoo
The Democratic Partys primaries took most of the state's media focus for the day, with just one Republican vying for the governors seat. Marc Molinaro, a Dutchess County executive and former member of the New York State Assembly, has also criticised the two-term Democratic incumbent over his handling of the citys subway system and other major issues.
Follow along with The Independents live updates throughout the night, as New Yorkers decide the outcome of the crucial 2018 primaries.
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Of all of the heartbreaking things that have happened to Pamela Winn in her lifetime, nothing compares to the moment she learned she had lost her baby while haemorrhaging in a jail cell in Clayton County, Georgia.
Im laying there, Im bleeding, Im shackled to a bed, Ive got these two men down between my legs that I dont know from Adam, and theyre there saying that they threw my baby in the trash, she told The Independent of the moment, more than 10 years ago, when the doctors told her she had miscarried. Its not something I will ever forget. Ever.
Its exactly the kind of experience Representatives Karen Bass and Mia Love are hoping to prevent from ever happening again. Their new bill, the Pregnant Women in Custody Act, aims to provide a national standard of care for pregnant prisoners by requiring access to pre- and post-natal care in detention facilities, and mandating training for all correctional staff.
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The bill, which they introduced on Thursday in the House, would also put a nationwide ban on the shackling and solitary confinement of pregnant prisoners.
I thought it was despicable, frankly, that this is the United States in 2018 and ... we still carry out such a barbaric practice, Ms Bass told The Independent.
She added: Its bad enough that we have the largest prison population in the world, but how we treat people when they are incarcerated is shameful to our country.
Pamela Winn says she miscarried while in prison in Georgia (YouTube/Change.org)
Ms Winn who says her mother was in and out of jail throughout her childhood, and who was the first person in her family to graduate high school, much much less college was indicted in 2003 on 20 counts of healthcare fraud. It was only during her intake evaluation at Robert A Deyton Detention Facility in 2008 that she learned she was six weeks pregnant.
Ms Winn says the facility provided her no extra medical care or nutrition during the first weeks of her incarceration. In fact, they continued to shackle her in arm and leg cuffs when transporting her back and forth to court hearings a practice condemned by both the American College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and the American Psychological Association.
On one of those trips, Ms Winn says, she tried to step into the van but missed, as her legs were constrained by the iron cuffs. She fell hard, unable to catch herself because her arms were shackled, too. That night, she started bleeding into her underwear.
Ms Winn says it took days to get a prison doctor to check on the bleeding, and a total of twelve weeks to get her requests approved to visit to an outside doctor, obstetrician, and ultrasound technician.
A spokesman for the GEO Group, which runs the facility, said a search of records from that time period did not turn up any grievances or complaints. The US Marshals office did not respond to requests for comment.
One night, while waiting for approval on yet another request to see her ultrasound results, Ms Winn says she felt a rush of blood coming from her vagina. Then came the cramps a pulsing pain in her uterus that made her cry out for help.
By the time medical personnel arrived, it was too late. When she finally arrived at the hospital, the doctor informed her that she had miscarried while in her prison cell. When she asked the prison guards for her sheets, they said they had thrown them away. Her foetus had been thrown in the trash.
That had to be my lowest point ever, just to hear that the child was thrown in the trash can, Ms Winn said. My baby, something that was a part of me, just discarded like trash I just felt empty inside.
UK prison conditions: in pictures Show all 8 1 /8 UK prison conditions: in pictures UK prison conditions: in pictures A cell covered in graffiti at HMP Liverpool. PA UK prison conditions: in pictures HMP Liverpool has some of the worst conditions inspectors have seen. HM Inspectorate of Prisons/PA UK prison conditions: in pictures A broken window in a cell at HMP Liverpool HM Inspectorate of Prisons/PA Wire UK prison conditions: in pictures A shower unit with protruding electric cable at HMP Liverpool HM Inspectorate of Prisons/PA UK prison conditions: in pictures Litter at HMP Liverpool HM Inspectorate of Prisons/PA Wire UK prison conditions: in pictures A wall damaged by damp at HMP Liverpool HM Inspectorate of Prisons/PA UK prison conditions: in pictures A pool table at HMP Liverpool HM Inspectorate of Prisons/PA UK prison conditions: in pictures A sign for HMP Liverpool, where drones are seized at a rate of more than one a week. The prisons watchdog flagged up the impact of the remote-controlled flying devices at HMP Liverpool. PA
It is unclear how many pregnant women are currently incarcerated, but its estimated that approximately 2,000 women give birth in custody each year. The number of women in prison has soared in recent years, due to an increase in drug sentences and in some cases an inability to make bail. Between 1980 and 2016, the number of incarcerated women increased by more than 700 per cent, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
Ms Bass said she heard numerous stories like Ms Winns while working for the Community Coalition an organisation she founded in Los Angeles in 1989 to combat mass incarceration and the war on drugs. She became increasingly convinced of the need to protect pregnant inmates after joining Congress, where she observed first-hand the kinds of criminal justice reform bills that were being discussed.
What I noticed right away was when members were talking about it, they were not saying anything specific to gender, she said. The needs of women who are incarcerated and in the criminal justice system in general are not being addressed.
'Barbaric practices': Representative Karen Bass has spoken out (Paul Morigi/Getty) (Paul Morigi/Getty Images)
There are currently no state or federal laws limiting the restrictive housing of pregnant prisoners, according to a review by the National Womens Law Centre. Twenty-two states either explicitly allow the use of leg irons or waist chains on pregnant inmates, or have no policy on them at all. Forty-three states do not require medical examinations as part of prenatal care, and 48 states do not offer pregnant prisoners screening for HIV.
The Bureau of Prisons (BOP) handbook states that inmates who are pregnant, in labour, or receiving post-natal care should not be placed in restraints unless they pose an immediate, serious threat to themselves or others. Wardens, the handbook adds, are responsible for providing each pregnant inmate with medical and counselling services, as well as a social worker and case manager.
The BOP said in a statement that they are "committed to ensuring the safety of all staff and inmates in our facilities through a controlled environment that is secure and humane".
"The BOP provides programmes and services that address the unique needs of female offenders, including pregnant inmates," the statement said. The bureau also pointed to their policies on the use of restraints, and the requirement that all staff at female facilities complete training on how to work with female offenders.
But Ms Bass said these policies are often disregarded, or only loosely followed. She spoke of one pregnant woman she met who had asked for supplemental nutrition and was given a single extra peanut butter and jelly sandwich per day.
If women are given peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and thats considered additional nutrition, what we are doing now regardless of what the handbook says is not adequate, she said.
This new cafe in Manchester city centre is staffed by former prisoners
According to an advance copy viewed by The Independent, Ms Bass and Ms Loves bill would prohibit the use of restraints and restrictive housing on prisoners who are pregnant, or who have given birth within the last eight weeks with exceptions for inmates who are likely to escape or physically harm themselves.
The bill would also establish minimum standards of care for pregnant women, foetuses, and newborns in federal custody, and require the Department of Justice to develop training programmes and guidelines for federal correctional officers.
Finally, it would require the Justice Department to collect data on the mental and physical health of pregnant women in custody, and establish a Government Accountability Office (GAO) study to of services and protections for pregnant prisoners in local and state facilities.
Ms Bass, a Democrat, and Ms Love, a Republican, have amassed a bipartisan group of more than 50 congresswomen to support the legislation, which they hope will usher it through to party leadership. While the bipartisan process means some issues were left out namely, the treatment of women in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody Ms Bass said the dual party support should help the legislation pass swiftly.
A group of Democratic senators introduced similar legislation in the upper chamber last year, which would have banned the shackling and solitary confinement of pregnant women, among other things. The bill stalled in the Judiciary Committee, but resulted in the Bureau of Prisons agreeing to provide free menstrual products, and several states introducing laws to that effect.
Ms Winn, who consulted on the current legislation as well as the Senate bill, said she is thrilled the issue is getting national attention. She emphasised the importance of data collection on pregnant inmates, which is currently spotty and difficult to access. The biggest threat to pregnant prisoners, she said, is that they are simply ignored.
Who knows how many women are in there, and may be going through something worse than what I went through, and nobody even knows theyre there, she said.
The mayor of the capital of Puerto Rico has called President Donald Trump delusional for claiming thousands of Americans did not die in Hurricane Maria.
Mr Trump tweeted on Thursday that 3000 people did not die in the two hurricanes that hit Puerto Rico last September a rejection of his own governments assessment that 2,975 people died as a result of Hurricane Maria and the months-long recovery that followed.
The president claimed the recently updated death toll was done by the Democrats in order to make me look as bad as possible, adding: If a person died for any reason, like old age, just add them onto the list. Bad politics. I love Puerto Rico!
San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz, who has sparred frequently with Mr Trump about his response to hurricane, responded with a tweet of her own, calling the president delusional, paranoid, and unhinged from any sense of reality.
This is NOT about politics this was always about SAVING LIVES, she added.
The government updated the death toll from Hurricane Maria last month, in light of the finding by researchers at George Washington Universitys Milken Institute School of Public Health that nearly 3,000 more people died in the six months after the storm than usually would have during that period. The results supported a Harvard University study that found thousands more people died as a result of the storm than originally predicted.
Bringing aid to Puerto Rico Show all 20 1 /20 Bringing aid to Puerto Rico Bringing aid to Puerto Rico Crew chief Kenney shelters under the blade of an HH-60 Blackhawk helicopter from 101st Airborne Division's "Dustoff" unit preparing to take off during recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria, in Isla Grande, Puerto Rico, October 6, 2017 Reuters/Lucas Jackson Bringing aid to Puerto Rico An HH-60 Blackhawk helicopter from 101st Airborne Division's "Dustoff" unit takes off behind Crew Chief Alexander Blake and his fellow soldiers during recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria, in Morovis, October 5, 2017 Reuters/Lucas Jackson Bringing aid to Puerto Rico Crew member Bynum stands in tropical rain as a HH-60 Blackhawk helicopter from 101st Airborne Division's "Dustoff" unit prepares to take off during recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria, in Isla Grande, October 6, 2017 Reuters/Lucas Jackson Bringing aid to Puerto Rico UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter pilot Chris Greenway receives a hug from a woman thanking him for water as he works with the First Armored Division's Combat Aviation Brigade during recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria, in Verde de Comerio, October 7, 2017 Reuters/Lucas Jackson Bringing aid to Puerto Rico A man carries a case of water away from an HH-60 Blackhawk helicopter after soldiers working with 101st Airborne Division's "Dustoff" unit dropped off relief supplies during recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria, in Jayuya, October 5, 2017 Reuters/Lucas Jackson Bringing aid to Puerto Rico Crew chief Alexander Blake from 101st Airborne Division's "Dustoff" unit loads water into a helicopter during recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria, in Isla Grande, October 5, 2017 Reuters/Lucas Jackson Bringing aid to Puerto Rico Residents wait for soldiers in UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters from the First Armored Division's Combat Aviation Brigade to deliver food and water during recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria, in San Lorenzo Reuters Bringing aid to Puerto Rico An HH-60 Blackhawk helicopter from 101st Airborne Division's "Dustoff" unit lands in a field to avoid lightning during recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria, in Manati, October 5, 2017 Reuters/Lucas Jackson Bringing aid to Puerto Rico Residents hold their hands aloft to signal that they need water as UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters from the First Armored Division's Combat Aviation Brigade fly past during recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria, near Ciales, October 7, 2017 Reuters/Lucas Jackson Bringing aid to Puerto Rico Tropical rain splashes on a runway as HH-60 Blackhawk helicopters from 101st Airborne Division's "Dustoff" unit wait for weather to clear during recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria, in Isla Grande, October 6, 2017 Reuters/Lucas Jackson Bringing aid to Puerto Rico Pilot Eldwin Bocanegra Torres speaks with residents isolated by landslides in the mountains after unloading water and food from a helicopter during recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria, near Utuado, October 10, 2017 Reuters/Lucas Jackson Bringing aid to Puerto Rico Residents stand in front of wind-damaged trees as they wait for soldiers in UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters from the First Armored Division's Combat Aviation Brigade to deliver food and water during recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria, in San Lorenzo, October 7, 2017 Reuters/Lucas Jackson Bringing aid to Puerto Rico The contents of a home are seen from the air during recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria near Utuado, October 10, 2017 Reuters/Lucas Jackson Bringing aid to Puerto Rico Thomas looks out of the window of an HH-60 Blackhawk helicopter from 101st Airborne Division's "Dustoff" unit, loaded with relief supplies, during recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria in Isla Grande, October 6, 2017 Reuters/Lucas Jackson Bringing aid to Puerto Rico A message written on the rooftop is seen from the air during recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria near Humacao, October 10, 2017 Reuters/Lucas Jackson Bringing aid to Puerto Rico A HH-60 Blackhawk helicopter from 101st Airborne Division's "Dustoff" unit lands in a field during recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria in San Sebastian, October 6, 2017 Reuters/Lucas Jackson Bringing aid to Puerto Rico Sergeant First Class Eladio Tirado, who is from Puerto Rico, looks for a landing spot for a UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter from the First Armored Division's Combat Aviation Brigade, during recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria near Ciales, October 7, 2017 Reuters/Lucas Jackson Bringing aid to Puerto Rico Boys carry water away from an HH-60 Blackhawk helicopter after soldiers working with the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division's "Dustoff" unit dropped off relief supplies during recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria, in Jayuya, October 5, 2017 Reuters/Lucas Jackson Bringing aid to Puerto Rico Sergeant First Class Eladio Tirado from the First Armored Division's Combat Aviation Brigade, who is from Puerto Rico, speaks with residents as he helps during recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria, in San Lorenzo, October 7, 2017 Reuters/Lucas Jackson Bringing aid to Puerto Rico Residents peek through a fence at helicopters from 101st Airborne Division's "Dustoff" unit that had parked in a locked field during recovery efforts following Hurricane Maria, in Lares, October 6, 2017 Reuters/Lucas Jackson
But Mr Trump has refused to back down from his claim that the government did a great job in its response to Puerto Rico, where power was only fully restored in August nearly a year after the hurricane hit.
On Tuesday, days after the Government Accountability Office released a report showing that more than half the federal workers deployed to disaster zones at the time were known to be unqualified, Mr Trump called the recovery effort incredibly successful.
"It was one of the best jobs that's ever been done with respect to what this is all about, he said at a briefing.
President Trump says federal govt is 'ready' for Hurricane Florence, and reflects on what he describes as 'incredibly successful' response to Puerto Rico hurricane
Ms Yulin Cruz was an outspoken critic of the administration's response to Hurricane Maria in the direct aftermath of the storm, as well as in the months that followed. She first earned the presidents ire in a press conference days after the hurricane hit, when she begged for help and claimed the government was killing us with the inefficiency.
The politicians seem not to have lost their animosity in the intervening months, with Mr Trump calling the mayor totally incompetent in a tweet on Wednesday.
We got A Pluses for our recent hurricane work in Texas and Florida (and did an unappreciated great job in Puerto Rico, even though an inaccessible island with very poor electricity and a totally incompetent Mayor of San Juan), he wrote.
In reference to Hurricane Florence, which was expected to strike the East Coast any day, he added: We are ready for the big one that is coming!
Aung San Suu Kyi has defended Myanmar's decision to jail two Reuters journalists who were investigating the killings of Rohingya Muslims in the face of global condemnation.
Wa Lone, 32, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 28, helped uncover the alleged extrajudicial killings of 10 men and boys before being arrested in December.
Both were jailed for seven years on charges of possessing state secrets. They maintain their innocence and say they have been framed.
The case has generated international outrage and has been criticised by the United Nations, the European Union and the United States.
However, Ms Suu Kyi, Myanmar's leader and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, defended the prosecution and sentencing.
"The case has been held in open court," she said during an appearance at the World Economic Forum's regional meeting in Hanoi.
"If anyone feels there has been a miscarriage of justice I would like them to point it out.
"They were not jailed because they were journalists. They were jailed because... the court has decided they have broken the Official Secrets Act."
As well as international condemnation, the case has also drawn attention to accusations that democratic reforms in Myanmar have been eroded by Ms Suu Kyi's government, which has been in power since 2016.
However, Ms Suu Kyi also pointed out that the two reporters can appeal against their sentences.
Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director for Human Rights Watch, criticised Ms Suu Kyi's comments.
"She fails to understand that real 'rule of law' means respect for evidence presented in court, actions brought based on clearly defined and proportionate laws, and independence of the judiciary from influence by the government or security forces," he said.
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"On all these counts, the trial of the Reuters journalists failed the test."
Some 700,000 Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh after a brutal military campaign. Myanmar's army have been accused of mass rape, killings and burning Rohingya villages in the aftermath of an attack by Rohingya militants in August 2017.
"There are of course ways in which, with hindsight, I think the situation could have been handled better," Ms Suu Kyi said, though she went on to defend Myanmar's security services.
"The rule of law must apply to everyone. We cannot choose and pick."
Associated Press contributed to this report
An appeal to prevent forest rangers from executing a tiger believed to have killed as many as 13 people has been rejected by Indias supreme court.
The court has said it would not step in if any attempts to sedate and relocate the animal were unsuccessful.
The spate of deaths over the last two years has caused panic in Pandharkawada, a town in central India, where bodies have reportedly been found missing limbs and covered in large scratch marks.
Officials say the female tiger has killed at least five people, while local reports put the number as high as 13.
But activists have questioned whether the tigress was behind all of the deaths as it is very rare for a single tiger to have attacked so many people.
Forest officials have said they would first try to tranquilise and capture the tigress, known as T1.
Last week the New York Times reported rangers were gearing up for a military-style operation to deploy rangers with tranquiliser guns on the backs of half a dozen elephants to surround the tiger, capture her and move her to a zoo.
If this is unsuccessful, the animal will have to be shot in order to avoid further loss of human life, forest official Pradip Rahurkar Rahurkar told the BBC Marathi service.
Local politicians are under pressure to have the tiger shot dead, particularly after three people were reportedly killed in August.
I dont want to kill this beautiful animal, KM Abharna, a top forestry official in the Pandharkawada area, told the New York Times. But theres a hell of a lot of political pressure and a hell of a lot of public pressure.
Officials said they will also try to tranquilise and relocate the tigresss two cubs along with a male tiger called T2, which has also been spotted in the area but has not been blamed for any deaths.
Indias efforts to conserve its tigers have seen an increase in numbers of the animals up from 1,411 in 2006 to an estimated 2,500 today, meaning India is now home to 60 per cent of the worlds tigers.
However, the countrys booming population and mushrooming towns and cities have seen forests shrink to become isolated islands, and when tigers attempt to move between them, they are increasingly coming into conflict with humans.
Thailand's Tiger Temple raid Show all 10 1 /10 Thailand's Tiger Temple raid Thailand's Tiger Temple raid Thai officers carry a sedated tiger outside its cage at the Wat Pha Luang Ta Bua Tiger Temple Getty Images Thailand's Tiger Temple raid Wildlife officials sedate a tiger at the Tiger Temple AP Thailand's Tiger Temple raid A tiger stands in a cage at a property in Saiyok district in Kanchanaburi province AP Thailand's Tiger Temple raid Thai army display a tiger skin found inside Tiger Temple as officials continue moving live tigers from the controversial place REUTERS Thailand's Tiger Temple raid A sedated tiger is stretchered as officials start moving tigers from Thailand's controversial Tiger Temple, a popular tourist destination which has come under fire in recent years over the welfare of its big cats REUTERS Thailand's Tiger Temple raid Thai wildlife officials load a cage containing a tiger onto a truck after they removed it from an enclosure at the Wat Pha Luang Ta Bua Tiger Temple AFP/Getty Images Thailand's Tiger Temple raid Tiger cub carcasses were found in jars containing liquid as officials continue to investigate the Tiger Temple REUTERS Thailand's Tiger Temple raid Thai officers observe the carcasses of 40 tiger cubs and a bear found undeclared at the Wat Pha Luang Ta Bua Tiger Temple Getty Images Thailand's Tiger Temple raid A Thai wildlife official looks at a Malayan sun bear in a cage as found during a raid at the Tiger Temple in Kanchanaburi Province EPA Thailand's Tiger Temple raid An official looks at a stuffed bear as they continue moving live tigers from the controversial Tiger Temple REUTERS
In addition, a crackdown on the beef industry by the Hindu government has left large numbers of abandoned cattle in some areas, meaning tigers often move out of forested reserves to attack the animals.
Officials have tried to capture T1 on four previous attempts, but each time she has escaped.
A man has been charged over the deaths of more than 130 wedge-tailed eagles Australias largest bird of prey.
The bodies of 136 birds were found hidden in scrubland on properties in Tubbut, Victoria, in south east Australias Snowy Mountains region, in April.
It is alleged the man used poisoned baits to kill the protected species between October 2016 and April 2018.
Victorias Department of Environment Land Water and Planning (DELWP) said it was the largest case of wedge-tailed eagle deaths in the states history.
We would like to inform the community that investigations are ongoing, including forensic examination of evidence recently seized during searches of relevant properties, a spokeswoman said.
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In June, locals told the authorities they feared the true figure could be far higher.
The remains of the birds found were spread across four properties which covered about 2,000 hectares.
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation understands the man charged is not the owner of the Tubbut properties involved.
He is facing two charges under the Wildlife Act 1975 and has been released on bail. The deliberate killing of this number of wedge-tailed eagles carries a maximum penalty of up to six months imprisonment and fines totalling about AUS$115,000 (63,000) the ABC said.
The man was charged following a state-wide investigation involving more than 30 people.
Where not to visit if you love animals Show all 9 1 /9 Where not to visit if you love animals Where not to visit if you love animals Monkey shows Chimpanzees are forced to perform demeaning tricks on leashes and are often subject to cruel training techniques. Animals who are confined to small, barren enclosures and forced to perform unsurprisingly show symptoms of stress and depression. Chimpanzees have been documented rocking back and forth, sucking their lips, salivating and swaying against enclosure perimeters in distress. Getty Where not to visit if you love animals Marine parks Some parks confine orcas to concrete tanks and force them to perform meaningless tricks for food - many die in captivity. Orcas are highly intelligent and social mammals who may suffer immensely, both physically and mentally, when they're held in captivity. Getty Where not to visit if you love animals Tiger shows Tigers are forced to live in an unnatural and barren environment and have to endure interactions with a constant stream of tourists. Since tigers never lose their wild instincts, across the world they are reportedly drugged, mutilated and restrained in order to make them safe for the public. However, every year, incidents of tiger maulings are reported at this type of tourist attraction. Getty Where not to visit if you love animals Donkey rides Sunning on the beach is great for humans we can take a quick dip or catch a bite to eat when we get too hot or hungry. But it's pure hell for donkeys who are confined to the beach and forced to cart children around on the hot sand. Some donkey-ride operators at beach resorts in the UK even keep the animals chained together at all times. Getty Where not to visit if you love animals Swimming with dolphins Some marine parks use bottlenose dolphins in performances and offer visitors the opportunity to swim with dolphins. Unfortunately, people are often unaware that these animals are captured in the wild and torn from their families or traded between different parks around the world. Getty Where not to visit if you love animals Canned hunting Lions are confined to fenced areas so that they can easily be cornered, with no chance of escape. Most of them will have been bred in captivity and then taken from their mothers to be hand-reared by the cub-petting industry. When they get too big, they may be drugged before they are released into a "hunting" enclosure. Because these animals are usually kept in fenced enclosures (ranging in size from just a few square yards to thousands of acres), they never stand a chance of surviving. Getty Where not to visit if you love animals Running of the Bulls Every year, tourists travel to Pamplona for the Running of the Bulls. The bulls who are forced to slip and slide down the town's narrow cobblestone streets are chased straight into the bullring. They are then taunted, stabbed repeatedly and finally killed by the matador in front of a jeering crowd. The majority of Spaniards reject bullfighting, but tourists are keeping the cruel industry on its last legs. Getty Where not to visit if you love animals Horse-drawn carriages City streets are no place for horses. The animals toil in all weather extremes, suffering from respiratory distress from breathing in exhaust fumes as well as numerous hoof, leg and back problems from walking on pavement all day long. As easily spooked prey animals, horses subjected to the loud noises and unexpected sounds of city streets are likely to be involved in accidents, even deadly ones. Getty Where not to visit if you love animals Zoos The zoo community regards the animals it keeps as commodities, and animals are regularly bought, sold, borrowed and traded without any regard for established relationships. Zoos breed animals because the presence of babies draws visitors and boosts revenue, yet often, there's nowhere to put the offspring as they grow, and they are killed, as we saw with Marius the giraffe in Denmark. Some zoos have introduced evening events with loud music and alcohol which disrupt the incarcerated animals even further. EPA
Authorities have not discussed a possible motive, but during the investigation, locals told the ABC wedge-tailed eagles had become a big issue for sheep farmers.
The wedge-tailed eagle has a wingspan up to 2.84m (9 ft 4 in), and has been known to attack paragliders and bring down drones used for mining surveys in Australia.
OSCE Parliamentary Assembly President George Tsereteli has reiterated OSCE PAs support for the work of the OSCE Minsk Group and its Co-Chairs on the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, said a message on the organizations website, Trend reports.
He reiterated the OSCE PAs support for the work of the OSCE Minsk Group and its Co-Chairs on Nagorno-Karabakh, but stressed that the ultimate responsibility on delivery of concrete results and progress lies with the political leaderships of the parties involved, said the message.
The Spanish parliament has backed a government plan to dig up the remains of Francisco Franco and relocate it from a controversial mausoleum built in the former dictator's name.
Franco was buried in 1975 in the Valley of the Fallen, a shrine he ordered built 30 miles northwest of Madrid and topped with a 150-metre cross.
On Thursday the royal decree passed by 172 in favour to two votes against in a largely symbolic vote in the lower house, or the Congress of Deputies.
There were 164 abstained votes, from the centre-right Citizens and most of the Popular Party conservatives.
In August, Spain's new centre-left administration of Pedro Sanchez approved legal amendments to a 2007 law to allow an exhumation of Franco's tomb.
Having Francos tomb there [at the Valley of the Fallen complex] shows a lack of respect... for the victims buried there, deputy prime minister Carmen Calvo said at the time.
Only the mortal remains of people who died as a result of the Spanish Civil War will lie in the Valley of the Fallen.
There are plans to turn the mausoleum into a site commemorating the victims of the brutal three-year war. The government also aims to establish a truth commission and identify the 114,000 victims of the 1936-39 conflict and Francos 36-year dictatorship.
Some 34,000 people from both sides are buried at the Valley of the Fallen complex, most of them unidentified.
Proposals to remove Franco's body from the site have been discussed for years but faced opposition from his descendants and supporters.
The 30,000 lost children of the Franco years are set to be saved from oblivion Show all 3 1 /3 The 30,000 lost children of the Franco years are set to be saved from oblivion The 30,000 lost children of the Franco years are set to be saved from oblivion Getty Images The 30,000 lost children of the Franco years are set to be saved from oblivion Getty Images The 30,000 lost children of the Franco years are set to be saved from oblivion
Last year the conservative Peoples Party, then leaders of the ruling coalition, argued removing Francos remains would stress and divide the nation.
Francos family also criticised the move last month, but said they would take charge of his remains rather than leave them in the hands of the government.
Political events at the Valley of the Fallen were banned under the 2007 Memory Law, which formally condemned the dictatorship under Franco.
The monument took nearly 20 years to complete, and was officially opened in 1959.
Additional reporting by AP
Over 17,000 refugees are living in Greek island camps in conditions unfit for human habitation, more than a dozen charities and NGOs have warned.
More than 8,300 refugees are housed in one former military camp, where they live in shipping containers and flimsy tents that are frequently criticised as unfit for purpose.
The NGOs criticising the conditions in camps, including Oxfam and Action Aid, urged authorities to take action that extended beyond focusing on one camp.
The announcement follows one by the governor of Greece's North Aegan region, who said that the Moria camp on the island of Lesbos faces closure next month unless authorities clean up the uncontrollable amount of waste.
The Moria detention centre is Greece's biggest camp but inspectors have declared that it is "dangerous for public health and the environment" after inspectors found broken sewage pipes, overflowing bins, stagnant water and flies in toilets.
The groups called the conditions at Moira "shameful" but encouraged authorities to also focus on other camps.
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"There is no excuse for the ... conditions in which thousands of people remain trapped in limbo while they wait out their asylum claims, the NGOs said.
Moria ... is currently housing almost three times its capacity. The sewage system does not work and filthy toilet water reaches the tents and mattresses where children sleep."
Lesbos was the preferred point of entry into the European Union for nearly a million refugees fleeing Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq in 2015 and boats continue to arrive there.
Last month the UNHCR, the UN's refugee agency, urged Greece to speed up transfers of eligible asylum seekers to the mainland.
Reuters contributed to this report
Yemeni government forces backed by a Saudi-led coalition have cut off a crucial supply route between Yemen's capital, Sanaa, and the port city of Hodeidah, in a major blow to the Houthi rebels which control both cities.
UN officials had hoped peace talks would prevent an attack on Hodeidah, which is a lifeline for millions of ordinary Yeminis as the entry point for most of Yemens imports and aid supplies.
Officials fear an attack on Hodeidah could trigger famine in a country where an estimated 8.4 million people are starving.
Planned peace talks between Houthi forces and the Saudi-backed Yemini government collapsed on Saturday after the Houthi delegation failed to attend.
Abdul Malik al-Houthi, the leader of the Houthi rebels, accused the coalition of blocking his teams movement so they were unable to attend the talks.
Khaled al-Yamani, Yemens foreign minister, said the Houthis were trying to sabotage the negotiations.
The Saudi and Western-backed military alliance then resumed its offensive against Hodeidah.
Brutal effects of Yemeni war Show all 12 1 /12 Brutal effects of Yemeni war Brutal effects of Yemeni war Yemen organised by the UAE's National Media Council shows a Yemeni woman holding a child diagnosed with malnutrition at a hospital in the southeastern port city of Mukalla, the capital Hadramawt province AFP/Getty Images Brutal effects of Yemeni war Mohamed, 2, is treated for Malnutrition in Mukalla, the capital Hadramawt province, Yemen Bel Trew Brutal effects of Yemeni war a trip in Yemen organised by the UAE's National Media Council (NMC) shows a Yemeni woman holding a child diagnosed with malnutrition at a hospital in the southeastern port city of Mukalla, the capital Hadramawt province. AFP/Getty Images Brutal effects of Yemeni war UAE's National Media Council (NMC) shows a Yemeni woman sitting next to a child diagnosed with malnutrition at a hospital in the southeastern port city of Mukalla, the capital Hadramawt province. AFP/Getty Brutal effects of Yemeni war AFP/Getty Images Brutal effects of Yemeni war Mohamed, 2, is treated for Malnutrition in Mukalla, the capital Hadramawt province, Yemen Bel Trew Brutal effects of Yemeni war A Yemeni child suffering from malnutrition is weighed at a hospital in the northern district of Abs, in Yemen's Hajjah province AFP/Getty Images Brutal effects of Yemeni war A Yemeni child suffering from malnutrition awaits treatment at a hospital in the northern district of Abs, in Yemen's Hajjah province AFP/Getty Images Brutal effects of Yemeni war A Yemeni child suffering from malnutrition awaits treatment at a hospital in the northern district of Abs, in Yemen's Hajjah province AFP/Getty Images Brutal effects of Yemeni war Yemeni nurses weigh a malnourished child at a hospital in the northern district of Yemen's Hajjah province AFP/Getty Images Brutal effects of Yemeni war A Yemeni woman carries a malnourished child as she waits during food distribution in the province of Hodeida AFP/Getty Brutal effects of Yemeni war AFP/Getty Images
The coalition of Sunni Muslim states, led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, has repeatedly claimed they would be able to force the Houthi movement into negotiations through cutting off their main supply line.
The main entrance in Hodeidah leading to Sanaa has been closed after forces backed by the UAE took control of the road, a pro-coalition military source told Reuters.
The citys residents said the main eastern gate had been damaged in coalition airstrikes and fighting was continuing on secondary roads near the main road.
A second, more circuitous, road could still be used as a supply route between Hodeidah and Sanaa.
The United Nations said 981 civilians, including 300 children, died in Yemen in August alone. Estimates for the overall death toll ranges from 10,000 killed to five times as many.
Additional reporting by Reuters
A British Airways flight from London to Calgary had to make an emergency landing in Nunavut, Canada, after the cockpit reportedly filled with fumes and a burning smell.
Pilots had to don oxygen masks during the incident, according to photojournalist and aviation photographer Tom Podolec.
He tweeted: British Airways #BA103 from London to Calgary diverted to Iqaluit. Reported fumes in the cockpit. Pilots were on oxygen. Fire department at the aircraft. Fumes said to be electrical burning smell in nature. Aircraft stopped on the runway.
He later added: Paramedics requested for a passenger in need of medical attention. Aircraft now at the terminal.
Passengers to be deplaned after medical is dealt with.
The Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner landed shortly after 7pm local time on 12 September, five and a half hours into the eight hour journey from Heathrow to Calgary International Airport in Alberta.
Pictures of the plane on the runway at Nunavat show fire crews at the scene.
Passengers were deplaned and put up in Iqaluit overnight; as of 11pm, a replacement aircraft was en route to take passengers to Calgary the following morning.
BA said in a statement: The aircraft landed safely.
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Our highly trained flight crew diverted the aircraft as a precaution after a possible technical issue.
Were very sorry that our customers have been inconvenienced and delayed. Our cabin crew have been looking after them and well get them on to their final destination as quickly as we can.
The safety of our customers and crew is always our top priority.
Passenger Kara Gibson commended the crew during the incident, tweeting: We were heading to Calgary on BA103 but had a little diversion to Nunavut. An extra little adventure on our holiday. A special thanks to the crew who showed incredible professionalism throughout.
This event has shown why we choose BA!
The busiest flight route in the world has been revealed, and its to a destination you might not have heard of.
More than 13.4 million people travelled on the service from Seouls Gimpo Airport to Jeju, an island off the southern coast of the Korean Peninsula, in 2017. This represented a jump of 9.4 per cent from the previous year, making it the most in-demand route in the world.
An average of 180 flights go each day from South Koreas capital to the island, well-known as a tourist destination in Asia for its beach resorts, volcanic landscape and bizarre Love Land theme park. That makes one every eight minutes.
The analysis of the worlds busiest flight paths was conducted by aviation network Routes.
In second place was the Melbourne to Sydney route, on which 9.9 million passengers flew in 2017 - trounced by the Seoul-Jeju route by 4.4 million.
According to the Routes data, the Asia-Pacific region dominates the top 100 busiest routes by passenger numbers, accounting for more than 70 per cent of the total.
In terms of the busiest international route, Hong Kong to Taipei ranked top, with 6.7 million passengers flying the 802km journey in 2017.
Europe appears in the top 10 busiest international routes just twice, with the Dubai to London Heathrow routes (ranked sixth with 3.2 million passengers in 2017) and New York JFK to London Heathrow (2.9 million) only just making the cut.
Meanwhile, the study found that the route between Bangkok Suvarnabhumi and Chiang Mai is the fastest-growing in the top 100, with a 36 per cent year-on-year spike in two-way passenger numbers.
This research backs up forecasts that the Asia-Pacific region will be the biggest driver of passenger demand over the next 20 years, said Steven Small, brand director of Routes.
The top 10 busiest routes in the world
Ryanair cabin crew from five countries will hold a coordinated one-day strike on 28 September.
Unions from Spain, Italy, Portugal, the Netherlands and Belgium have confirmed the 24-hour stoppage will go ahead after months of demanding the application of various national labour laws instead of Irish legislation.
We all want Ryanairs success, but not at any cost, and certainly not at the expense of the most basic workers rights, the unions have said.
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The news was announced at a press conference in Brussels on 13 September.
Yves Lambot, secretary of Belgian union CNE, claimed the strike would be bigger than the two-day walkout by cabin crew in July, which resulted in 600 cancelled flights. German workers may also join the strike, he added.
Ryanair has been scornful of the claim that the proposed strike will cause chaos.
Ryanairs Kenny Jacobs said: Repeated false claims made by these unions about travel chaos have proven to be unfounded. While we regret the limited strike actions that have taken place this summer, in all cases we have judiciously pre-cancelled a small number of our 2,500 daily flights in order to minimise customer disruption and inconvenience.
We object to these lurid and inaccurate press headlines which wrongly to refer to travel chaos, despite the fact that during the seven days of partial strikes by a small minority of our pilots and cabin crew this summer, there has been very little disruption and absolutely no chaos.
Of the upcoming strike, he added: Ryanair will pre-advise customers of a small number of flight cancellations, and the overwhelming majority of Ryanairs flights and services that day will operate as normal, and we will carry the overwhelming majority of the 400,000 passengers who will be scheduled to fly with us that day.
The announcement comes one day after German Ryanair pilots held a 24-hour strike, resulting in 150 of the 400 scheduled flights to and from Germany being cancelled.
In a statement, Ryanair labelled the German strike a surprise and unnecessary.
Both the pilots' union VC and cabin crew union ver.di are pushing for better pay and working conditions.
Ryanair has just undergone a "summer of discontent", which saw cabin crew and pilots from various countries stage industrial action. This, coupled with Air Traffic Control strikes across Europe, resulted in 550 flight cancellations in August, up from just 27 cancellations the same month the previous year.
Anybody flying to or from East Asia this week will have seen a powerful storm on the horizon.
Typhoon Mangkhut, the strongest storm to hit the region this year, is due to make landfall on the Philippine island of Luzon on Saturday 15 September, before continuing onto southern China and Hong Kong if it continues on its current course.
Its already barrelled through Guam and the Marshall Islands.
What is Typhoon Mangkhut?
Also referred to as Typhoon Ompong in the Philippines, the superstorm is expected to make landfall in the Cagayan-Isabela area of the Philippines on Saturday in the early morning.
According to the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration, the storm is packing a maximum wind speed of 205kph near the centre, with gusts of up to 255 kph.
There will be heavy rainfall over the northern Philippines, bringing with it potential landslides and flash floods on 14-15 September.
After battering the northern Philippines, Mangkhut is expected to head towards Southern China and Hong Kong on Sunday 16 September. The Hong Kong Observatory warns that the storm is expected to remain in the category of super typhoon after entering the South China Sea.
The weather agency adds: Although there are still uncertainties in the subsequent track of Mangkhut and its distance from Hong Kong, Mangkhuts extensive circulation will bring significantly deteriorating weather to Hong Kong on Sunday with frequent heavy, squally showers. Seas will be very rough with swells and low-lying areas may be affected by storm surge.
The former director of the Hong Kong Observatory, Lam Chiu-ying, said that the storm could constitute a great danger to Hong Kong, according to the South China Morning Post.
Asias typhoon season typically runs from April to October, with the Philippines, Taiwan, Japan and southern and eastern China the worst affected areas.
What are the implications for travel to the region?
Airlines operating in the region have cancelled flights this weekend.
Philippine Airlines, whose hub is in Manila, has cancelled a suite of flights for Friday 14 and Saturday 15 September mainly from the capital to other cities in northern Luzon.
Budget carrier Cebu Pacific has followed suit. Both airlines have advised passengers to check whether their flight is running before heading to the airport.
Passengers on both airlines can rebook flights within 30 days of the original departure date for free.
The Foreign Office advises: If youre in the area you should monitor the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration and local news coverage and follow the advice of the local authorities.
Hong Kongs flagship carrier Cathay Pacific said in an advisory note that conditions for flight operations are very likely to deteriorate and that passengers should expect delays and cancellations this weekend. The airline is asking passengers travelling on 14-15 September to rebook for free.
On 11 September, the Foreign Office updated its guidance to Hong Kong a popular holiday destination for Brits advising that typhoon Mangkhut is forecast to bring hazardous sea and weather conditions to Hong Kong from around Sunday 16 September.
Other Hong Kong-based carriers, including Hong Kong Airlines and Hong Kong Express, are also waiving rebooking fees for flights booked for this weekend.
Check the airlines websites for more information.
The words themselves, standing on their own, are the kind of thing that a crank might come up to someone in a pub and mutter behind his hand: Im not a conspiracy theorist but Ill tell you what one of the best forms of trying to hide from the atrocities that you are committing is to go on the offensive and actually create a story that does not exist for people on this platform, the trade union movement or, I have to say, for the leader of the Labour Party.
Were they not so woefully self-incriminatory, and about the Labour antisemitism row, a serious matter, they might even be judged parodic. Were they not uttered by the leader of a major trade union, the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), representing about 200,000 civil servants, they might be dismissed as irrelevant. Were they not said by Mark Serwotka, long-term ally and friend of Jeremy Corbyn, we might also dismiss them as fringe lunacy.
The timing could hardly be less opportune or, in a way, better. Inopportune because they feed, quite powerfully, into the debate about antisemitism in the Labour Party. The notion of the Israeli government creating false stories about British politics in order to deflect attention from its own atrocities a particularly powerful word in this context is the stuff of historical antisemitic tropes. If Mr Serwotka is a dedicated anti-racist, he should at least ask himself why he has fallen into this manner of thinking.
The Labour Party, and the wider Labour movement too, has some thinking of its own to do. It is one thing to, belatedly, adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism in its entirety, and to pledge action to root out the problem. But it is worth investigating why the genuine passion many feel about the plight of the Palestinian people and, again justified, outrage at the actions of the Israeli defence forces has transmuted into this sort of fantastical nonsense. Why do such ideas have such currency at all levels of the Labour Party?
It is not enough, and never will be, to accuse Labours critics of double standards, even if they exist.
It is clear that British Conservative MEPs did themselves a grave disservice this week in being the only representatives in the European parliament to defend the Hungarian premier, Viktor Orban, from censure over his own assaults on civil liberties. Many view Mr Orban as an antisemite, and a dangerous one. The politics of Brexit provides neither a reasonable explanation nor an excuse. Theresa May should explain and apologise for what her MEPs have been up to and discipline them too.
None of that, however, can undo the stupidity, at best, of Mr Serwotkas remarks. They echo, far too convincingly, the traditional idea about an international a Jewish (or Zionist) conspiracy for how else would the Israeli state be able to propagate its falsehoods against Labour if not through allies or dupes in the media or the establishment? The implication seems clear enough for a man admitting that he is proposing a conspiracy theory.
On the face of it, and as a Labour Party member since Mr Corbyn allowed him back in, Mr Serwotka should be the first to be disciplined under the new definition of antisemtisim. In that sense, he spoke with impeccable timing; a moment for the Labour movement to act decisively, and add actions to its words.
In particular, Mr Serwotka seems to be at odds with this article in the IHRAs definition: Making mendacious, dehumanising, demonising or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as collective such as, especially but not exclusively, the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions.
At any rate, Mr Serwotka needs to explain himself. The ultimate irony is that he also asked the meeting he was addressing how on earth it came to be that Labour has spent the summer getting embroiled in an argument about antisemitism that it should never have had to deal with. Mr Serwotka could start by asking himself that same difficult question.
Up to nine of Ireland's leading regional shopping centres with a combined value of between 300m and 400m could be competing for buyers by the end of this year.
The Irish Independent understands that a plan to bring Navan Shopping Centre to the market at a guide price in the region of 80m is being progressed, while the process of selecting selling agents to handle the disposal of three other shopping centres with a total value of 100m is also underway.
The sale of a number of Dublin suburban shopping centres could also be in prospect should US fund Varde, reignite its bid to sell Bloomfield in Dun Laoghaire, Kilbarrack in Donaghmede and the Mill in Clondalkin. The three properties were already offered for sale in 2017 by joint agents JLL and HWBC as part of the 43m Project Anchor portfolio.
News of the potential disposal of the seven shopping centres comes just over a week after Savills Ireland brought Wilton Shopping Centre in Cork to the market at a guide price of 86m, and two weeks after it put Limerick's CityEast Retail Park up for sale at a guide price in excess of 28m.
In the case of Wilton Shopping Centre, Savills Ireland is seeking offers in excess of 76m for the shopping centre, and 10m for an adjoining development site on behalf of its owners, US-headquartered York Capital, and Tony Leonard and Paddy McKillen's Clarendon Properties.
The move to sell Wilton Shopping Centre comes just over two years after York and Clarendon acquired the centre from Nama in a deal code-named Project Hazel. The April 2016 transaction included two other shopping centres in Galway, and in Drogheda, Co Louth.
The growing pattern of shopping centre sales comes at the same time as Sigma Retail Partners, which is headed up by Nama's former senior retail property adviser, Marcus Wren, and retail property specialist Neil Bannon, continue to work on plans for the flotation of Ireland's first retail Reit (real estate investment trust).
Sigma Retail Partners currently manages retail assets with a combined value of over 500m in 13 locations including Dublin, Galway, Navan, Bray, Drogheda, Naas, Thurles, and Waterford on behalf of US fund, Oaktree.
The centrepiece of the portfolio is the Square Shopping Centre in Tallaght, which Oaktree acquired for 250m last February. While that price represented a 17m premium on the 233m asking price quoted by joint agents JLL and Cushman & Wakefield for a "controlling interest" of over 90pc of the scheme's units, it was still a massive fall from the near 640m valuation the scheme carried in 2007 when financier Derek Quinlan's Quinlan Private sold a stake of around 51pc to developer Noel Smyth for 320m.
Oaktree's acquisition of the Square Shopping Centre is considered by industry sources to have provided the scale required for a public offering to proceed.
The Urban Land Institute (ULI) holds its Europe Real Estate Forum in Dublin today. The Institute, with over 40,000 members, is a research and education organisation representing land use and real estate development professionals, in both public service and private enterprise. In my experience, ULI produces innovative and high-quality information and I was delighted to have the opportunity to chat with Lisette Van Doorn, the ULI Europe Chief Executive Officer, who will be speaking at the conference.
The theme of the conference is 'Placemaking' and Van Doorn, who has managed multi-billion portfolios of assets across Europe for CBRE Global Investors and others, is well placed to comment on how investors and developers are facing a rapidly-changing investment environment.
Van Doorn tells me that placemaking, that is, urban development and redevelopment, is increasingly being seen as a longer-term project and responsibility, with less emphasis on shorter-term financial gain. Much work has been done around "the low-hanging fruit" such as creating links to schools, universities, community services and public transport, but there is a growing understanding that successful development must create communities, and hubs where people come together.
She tells me that while in Europe "we have seen public/private partnerships go wrong" there must be a stronger collaboration between the public and private sectors. She also points to how investors are changing their strategies, in order to be part of this move to create better, long-term development.
"Fifteen years ago, investors would not take a development risk - they only bought turn-key, and they would separate investment into different categories, like retail, office and residential. Now, investors are getting involved at a much earlier stage - in more mixed-use projects. They are providing debt or equity early as they want to have an influence through the development stage. Also, investors need to have critical mass in order to affect development."
As an example she cites the early involvement of APG, the Dutch state pension fund, in the development of a new town centre at Cherrywood, Co Dublin, alongside Hines. This type of investor wants a long-term stable return, in places where everyone can live - not just the richest.
She points to the development of HafenCity, Hamburg, Europe's largest inner city redevelopment project, as an example of where modern placemaking principles are being successfully employed, to create large, sustainable, diversified, new communities, with great public transport.
The push for more mixed-use and greater diversification of population and income groups, is causing similar debates across Europe, says Van Doorn, and there are lessons for Ireland. She tells me about the central business district in Amsterdam, where offices were always built. Some in the local authority argued that the city should be maximising land values by building only offices, and that profits could be used to build social and affordable housing in the suburbs. In recent years, however, the placemaking argument has won out, and the city centre is seeing residential development - including social and affordable housing.
Van Doorn says that long-term investors are realising there is a bigger picture to their investment than just financial gain. For example, pension funds routinely invest in city centre residential development, and usually favour high-end expensive apartments. While this might produce good profits to support paying pensions, high-end apartment development pushes nurses out of the cities, and this then affects the quality of life of the pensioners.
Van Doorn says a change of mindset is needed in addressing problems such as homelessness. "We must get away from thinking about maximising land values, to longer-term thinking. Over time, you'll create more resilient places, reduce volatility through markets and create long-term value."
She says cities also need denser building, to create critical mass.
info@paulmcneive.com
OSCE Secretary General Thomas Greminger will visit Georgia today, InterPressNews reported.
T his is Secretary General Thomas Greminger first ever visit to Georgia.
Within the frames of the visit, the OSCE Secretary General will hold meetings with the President of Georgia, the Prime Minister, the Foreign Minister and the representatives of the legislative authorities.
Talks aimed at resolving an ongoing dispute between vets and the Department of Agriculture are expected to resume later this week under the chairmanship of former Labour Relations chairman, Kieran Mulvey.
However, both sides are being tight-lipped about predicting an outcome to the talks.
The industrial relations row centres on temporary vets who staff the country's meat factories and an attempt by the Department of Agriculture to alter their terms of employment.
The department has been trying to change the status of the temporary vets (TVIs) from the full-time status they enjoyed under a 1991 agreement with the department paying tax and PRSI, to "casual contracts" where they would lose the benefits of full-time contracts.
The dispute, which is at a work to rule stage, has been going on for several months and Mr Mulvey has been working to bring the sides together since August.
Veterinary Ireland has a mandate up to and including strike action if the contract issue is not resolved.
Finbarr Murphy, the head of Veterinary Ireland, told the Farming Independent this week that "reasonable progress" has been made during the Mulvey talks so far. "But we are waiting for the Department of Agriculture to reply to proposals aimed at resolving the industrial relations impasse during the talks and we are awaiting responses from the department."
The department has refused to comment on the current state of play in the talks.
A department spokesman stated it has been in discussion for several months with Veterinary Ireland about a number of matters and "the services of Mr Kieran Mulvey have been engaged to facilitate this process, which is ongoing."
A radical change in the way meat processors and farmers do business is required to ensure beef finishers receive a sustainable price, IFA Livestock chair Angus Woods has urged.
Mr Woods told the Farming Independent that factories need to look towards the co-op model of price arrangements and contracts which have helped reduce risk in dairy and grain sectors.
"If you look at the dairy industry there are lots of options available. For example in Glanbia you can forward sell a percentage of your milk. Grain growers can also forward sell part of next year's harvest to Glanbia but if you look at beef you can't determine the price next week, not to mind next year," said Mr Woods.
"There has to be an element of risk sharing, if you buy 100 cattle now for finishing next winter, you've to go in to the bank manger asking for money but you've no guarantee of what you are going to get for them. There has to be contracts available for big and small farmers. We can't just look after the big farmer."
At the Joint Committee on Agriculture Oireachtas meeting last week, Agriculture Minister Michael Creed said he cannot control factory prices and that often Irish prices are comparable to other EU prices.
However, Mr Woods said this is "not good enough" and a targeted 200 suckler payment has to be implemented to save the sector. "The Minister saying he can't step in means that he is not even looking at the problem. He has a role in this. He needs to meet the factories because they can't keep squeezing farmers," said Mr Woods. "Major thinking is needed on this. There's serious potential for exporting in to Spain and the government really needs to develop and support this."
Mr Woods added that following a number of weeks of falling prices in the UK, prices have turned and increased strongly for the last two weeks. He said UK steers were making 3.73/kg, which is the equivalent of 4.37/kg including VAT at an exchange rate of 90p/.
Against this background in our major export market, Irish factories were in a position to stabilise and increase prices and he called on the factories to show some commitment to their suppliers.
'Cliff edge'
IFA president Joe Healy warned that suckler farming is now on a "cliff edge", due to EU agricultural policy which is asking farmers to produce beef at low prices while reducing direct payments and insisting on ever higher standards.
Meanwhile, the INHFA is calling for the allocation of 120m in the upcoming budget to develop a new 'Sustainable Suckler Cow Payment'. INHFA president Colm O'Donnell said the scheme could provide immediate support to suckler cow farmers by providing payments of up to 3,500.
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Glanbia will pay its Member milk suppliers 32 cent per litre (cpl) including VAT for August manufacturing milk supplies at 3.6pc butterfat and 3.3pc protein.
This is unchanged from the July price paid to Members. Glanbia Ireland (GI) has increased its base milk price for August from 31 cpl to 32 cpl including VAT, for manufacturing milk at 3.6% fat and 3.3% protein.
There will be no support payment from Glanbia Co-op this month.
Glanbia Chairman Martin Keane said: The market outlook remains cautious. The level of milk supply from the main exporting regions will be a key factor determining the price outlook over the coming months. The Board will continue to monitor developments on a monthly basis.
Lakeland Dairies has held its base milk price at 32.78 cents per litre including VAT for August milk supplies.
Dairy processors have been urged to close the gap between Irish and European prices as supply shortages emerge across the continent.
Many of the increases we saw (here) over the last two months were in the 1 to 2c per litre range. Given that Irish prices were at the lower end of the European milk league for July, even after some processors had increased their price Irish milk co-op purchasers will have to look seriously at increasing prices, said ICMSA dairy chairman Gerard Quain.
Wholesale prices have picked up recently due to increased demand from Europe as the dry weather has affected key EU member states. This is reflected in the ongoing strength of Dutch dairy quotes and other European quotes which are returning almost 35c/l for the Butter/SMP mix and 32.5c/l for WMP, said Mr Quain.
Another key indicator is that demand for SMP intervention stocks picked-up significantly in the most recent tender with just under 31,500 tonnes sold, showing that there is demand in the market for powder and confirming that resilience demonstrated in recent months.
The market could be described as positively steady and this should be reflected in August milk price returned to the farm gate.
ICMSA always believes that the Ornua PPI is the minimum starting point for all price announcements
and thats the base on which well be looking at price announcements for August milk over the coming weeks, he concluded.
IFA dairy chairman Tom Phelan said that with farmers spending massively more this year on feeding animals, they need co-ops to pay as much for milk as markets allow.
Feed Bills
Processors should now give a firm commitment on the milk price until next spring at a minimum.
The significant 3.1pc downturn in Irish supplies for July reflects the drought which has affected grass growth and milk output growth dramatically and influenced market sentiment positively with market average, spot and future quotes improving for most dairy products including SMP, said Mr Phelan.
The anticipated rise in the August milk price will come as a massive relief to dairy farmers in the drier regions of the south and east who are feeding up to 9kg of feed per cow per day which at current prices equates to a feed bill of around 225/day for a 100-cow herd.
The EU could bring forward proposals to stop the annual daylight saving procedure or putting back and forward the clocks to next year.
The European Commission has proposed to end the biannual clock change in 2019 - two years earlier than the previously announced date of 2021.
MEP for Ireland South and Ireland's representative on the European Parliament Working Group on the bi-annual Clock Change has welcomed the proposal which would allow Member States to decide whether they want to maintain permanent summer - or wintertime.
Member States would notify the European Commission of their decision. After this, they would no longer be able to apply seasonal clock changes. Member States will remain free to decide which time zone to apply to their territories, he said.
"I am pleased that the Commission is moving quickly on this, particularly given discussions last week were around an end date of 2021 for the clock change.
"An earlier date, which we called for, is better as it puts pressure on us to begin the legislative process immediately, and hopefully get it completed by the beginning of next year or sooner," he said.
The Austrian Presidency have signalled a willingness to move quickly on this issue too, and will raise it at the next Council meeting later in the month. This shows a real willingness to push through this important legislation.
"The proposal is good as an initial first step, and it will now be up to the Parliament and Council to agree on a common approach.
"I think a lot of the discussion ahead will focus on a smooth transition towards an EU-wide workable system. It would bring logistical difficulties to have Member States on many different time zones, and so it would make sense to ensure there is some degree of alignment. That is for the negotiations ahead.
"This will bring important benefits to EU citizens. In the consultation, citizens attributed negative health impacts, road accidents and increased energy use, and so this change will bring important benefits in this regard."
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Shanahan: "Every time a company decides to invest in Ireland, the effects become amplified because it supports further employment."
For more than half a century, Ireland has successfully attracted foreign direct investment projects that have made a significant contribution to our economic development.
By themselves, multinationals contribute 66pc of national exports.
But the story is so much richer than that.
Over time, many multinationals have become woven into the fabric of their local communities.
Almost 60pc of them have been here for over a decade, and one-third of them first established operations more than 20 years ago.
Some familiar names have shown a decades-long commitment to the country: IBM first came to Ireland in 1956; Pfizer arrived in the late 1960s, while Apple set up its Cork operation back in 1982.
Moreover, companies like these have consistently reinvented themselves in Ireland, adapting in line with changing industry trends or strategic shifts in focus.
The highly skilled, high-value work they carry out in Ireland today bears little resemblance to how they began here.
Many of the companies build upon their foundations by expanding their original sites, bringing further investment and creating more jobs.
Even as we welcomed 75 new names in the first half of this year, 64 approved investment projects were from existing companies choosing to expand their activities.
It is also fair to say that FDI has delivered benefits to many parts of Ireland.
Over recent years, IDA Ireland has pursued a deliberate strategy to further diversify investment locations around the country.
Some of the investment projects already announced this year reflect this emphasis; they include Wasdell and WuXi in Co Louth, Quidel in Galway, Deutsche Borse in Cork, Jaguar Land Rover in Shannon, AbbVie and LiveTiles in Sligo, Red Seal Cups in Longford and SkOUT in Portlaoise.
Today, 58pc of employees that work in multinationals are based outside Dublin. Between 2015 and 2017, there have been 294 regional investments by FDI companies. These companies spend 2.5bn annually in capital expenditure outside of Dublin.
From Cork to Sligo and from Shannon to Letterkenny, there are people whose families' incomes and livelihoods depend directly on multinationals. These companies directly employ 10.2pc of Ireland's labour force.
Including indirect employment, the figure rises to over 20pc.
Many thousands of jobs in Ireland rely on the presence of an anchor employer in a particular location. In 2016, multinationals spent 17.9bn in the Irish economy on payroll and on Irish-sourced materials and services.
Welcoming multinationals into Ireland has also helped to strengthen our best domestic businesses. For example, when Dan Kiely founded his support services business Voxpro in Cork, global corporations' sites in Ireland were among his first customers.
This early source of business proved vital to growing the company and ultimately led to its successful partnership with TELUS of Canada in 2017. It has been a similar story for many companies providing business support services into the base of multinational operations in Ireland.
Countless Irish companies gained invaluable experience from working with best-in-class global corporations. It has helped them to improve their own business processes, while the customers' internationally recognised brands have also given the Irish companies a vital calling card to expand into overseas markets.
Some of our best-performing indigenous companies are in sectors where FDI activity is strongest, including technology, medtech and pharmaceuticals. This is no accident, and it reflects the knowledge and experience that founders and startups gained from working with, or for, the Irish operations of a global company.
These examples sum up what we think of as the 'multinational multiplier effect'. This is the many downstream benefits to Ireland from an FDI project.
Every time a company decides to invest in Ireland, the effects become amplified because it supports further employment and helps to sustain local businesses and communities. It is worth noting that, less than a decade ago when Ireland struggled during the downturn, the FDI sector showed enormous commitment to this country and this made a huge contribution to our subsequent economic recovery.
The inaugural Invest in Ireland awards will reflect the success of the FDI sector and its role in Ireland. The 10 chosen award categories reflect the breadth of activity among multinationals across many industry sectors and locations throughout the country.
This includes: use of R&D; sourcing in Ireland; organisational transformation; collaboration between public and private sector; excellence in regional investment; staff upskilling; commitment to diversity; corporate social responsibility; and emerging business.
An independent panel of judges will determine the winners in each category. There is also an award for investment of the year, and the event will also honour an 'FDI hero' with a lifetime achievement award.
All multinational companies with manufacturing or services operations in the Republic of Ireland are eligible to enter.
The closing date for nominations is September 24.
The awards will be presented at a gala ceremony taking place at the Round Room of the Mansion House on Thursday October 18.
I encourage all eligible companies to celebrate their involvement in Ireland by entering nominations Visit investinirelandawards.ie to find out more, and I look forward to welcoming you at the Mansion House next month.
O'Leary: "Flights to and from Europe will be stopped in a hard Brexit." Photo: Getty Images
Ryanair chief executive Michael O'Leary has insisted that the airline "won't be blackmailed" by striking pilots and "won't roll over and concede" anything that would "endanger" its business model.
He was speaking on Bloomberg Television in London as Ryanair pilots and cabin crew in Germany staged a full-day strike yesterday, causing the cancellation of 150 flights.
German pilot union Vereinigung Cockpit has threatened further action unless Ryanair makes what it said are "improved offers" in labour talks.
Mr O'Leary told the London press conference that the airline will continue to defend its low-cost business model, after a year of labour unrest.
"We don't want strikes but we are willing to accept strikes, put up with them, if it means defending our cost basis and our ability to offer low fare air travel to our customers," he said.
The airline chief also said that Ryanair is still bracing for a hard Brexit. "Flights to and from Europe will be stopped in a hard Brexit," Mr O'Leary said.
"I do think it's possible that there will be an agreement on flights between the UK and the European 27 [EU member states post-Brexit], I'm just not sure that it will be reached in time for the first of April next year if there's a hard Brexit," he added.
Meanwhile, Aer Lingus chief executive Stephen Kavanagh said yesterday that he is "extremely confident" that the United Kingdom will continue to be a significant source market for the airline despite Brexit.
A Cork-based firm has partnered with Agility Communications in a 1.5m deal that is expected to generate up to 10 new jobs across both companies.
The agreement will allow Conversation Piece to deliver voice, telephony and cloud products to its business customers over the Irish telecoms firm's network.
Celebrating 40 years in business this year, Conversation Piece currently employs 15 people in its Dublin and Cork office.
The company provides both cloud-based and on-site phone systems to SMEs and multinationals across a range of industries nationwide.
Sales Manager at Conversation Piece Seamus Dunne said the company have worked with Agility since 2015 as it offers "unparalleled" service.
Dublin-based Agility has invested significantly in building a network architecture to provide its partners with a robust and flexible infrastructure, ensuring 24/7 connectivity.
Head of Carrier Services Shane Tully said that the deal is significant for both companies.
"Not only does it ensure continued growth and new jobs but it enables Irish SMEs to avail of industry-leading telecoms solutions they can trust," he said.
The new jobs are expected to be filled over the next two years.
Aer Lingus chief executive Stephen Kavanagh with DAA chief executive Dalton Philips at the report launch in the Conrad Hotel, Dublin.
The continued development of Dublin Airport as a major European transatlantic hub could be worth 18.7bn to the Irish economy by 2033 and add five million more passengers at the gateway, according to a report prepared for Aer Lingus by accountancy and consultancy group EY.
The report - released yesterday as Aer Lingus also unveiled new routes from Dublin to Minneapolis/St Paul and Montreal - predicted that almost 10.5bn of the GDP boost would be in the tourism sector.
The study also predicted that the expansion of hub activities at Dublin would help create almost 34,000 jobs in the economy by 2033, 27,000 of those in the tourism sector.
It also insists that the surge in hub activity would result in a 6bn boon to the Exchequer between 2021 and 2033.
Speaking at the launch of the new routes - which will bring the total transatlantic network at Aer Lingus to 15 services - the airline's chief executive, Stephen Kavanagh, cited a number of US and Canadian cities the carrier is likely to target.
They include destinations such as Denver, Vancouver, Dallas and Las Vegas.
"With the appropriate infrastructure [at Dublin Airport], we have not put a constraint on the size of business that Aer Lingus can develop," said Mr Kavanagh.
Aer Lingus currently has a 3pc share of all passenger traffic between Europe and North America.
"Why should we be comfortable with a 3pc market share?" asked Mr Kavanagh.
Dublin already has one of the highest levels of connectivity with North America among European airports.
The Montreal service will be the first of the airline's routes to use the new Airbus A321LR aircraft.
The carrier has eight on order, with the first arriving next year.
Last year, Dublin Airport, which is controlled by the DAA, handled almost 30 million passengers, with 1.8 million of those using it as a hub to travel to onward destinations in North America or elsewhere in Europe.
That transfer passenger figure was up 32pc compared to 2016.
The EY report predicts that about 24pc of Dublin Airport's passengers will be using it as a hub by 2033, and that 15pc of all passengers will have an overnight stay in Dublin.
Aer Lingus has been a vocal critic of infrastructure development at Dublin Airport, while the DAA , whose chief executive is Dalton Philips, has countered that it is investing heavily in delivering vital assets such as aircraft stands.
"The opportunity [for Dublin as a hub] will be forgone unless we can invest and build in a timely manner," said Mr Kavanagh.
'The larger supermarket groups have a very structured decision-making process which can take many months, even up to a year to get a product on shelf.' Stock image
Q I am an early-stage food producer and want advice on how to get into the large supermarkets before Christmas as my product would suit the Christmas market.
A Generally speaking, the larger supermarket groups have a very structured decision-making process which can take many months, even up to a year to get a product on shelf. That can depend on many factors.
First of all, in a very large supermarket, there can be over 30,000 products and therefore they don't change the ranges frequently as it simply would be too much work. Do remember that there is no empty space on the shelf currently waiting for new products, so they have to get rid of something else to take your product.
That means a lengthy decision-making process that has to fit into a calendar.
If your product is very specific to the Christmas market, then it is probably too late for any of the big supermarkets as the decisions for Christmas listings were probably made in January or February.
My advice to you would be to talk with the symbol retailers first.
These are the shops in your neighbourhood which are locally owned and have the name of the local retailer over the door.
These symbol retailers have discretion to list products directly at local level which will allow you to move from shop to shop and get individual listings. While there are some downsides to the process, in that you will end up with dozens of customers to be invoiced etc, it is an easier first step for you and you will also learn the industry. The speciality shops are also a good source for early stage listings.
Your Local Enterprise Office will also have some good route to market programmes which really help you understand the best steps for you to take. Make enquiries about Food Starter and Food Academy programmes.
You will secure listings with the larger retailers but just start at a slightly slower pace which will actually benefit you in the medium term.
Q I recently tried to apply for an Enterprise Ireland Innovation Voucher only to find out they are restricted to limited companies.
Is there another way for a sole trader to get support for innovation?
A I share your frustration. For most of the early stage businesses I have met, the majority start as sole traders and the general advice from their accountants is that the cost of becoming a limited company in the early stages is not worth doing.
That creates a bit of an anomaly. The Enterprise Ireland Innovation Voucher scheme is designed to provide expertise to businesses who are in need of this, and ultimately the objective is to help them grow their businesses.
The limited company rule almost defeats the purpose of the objective. There is nothing we can do about that right now.
Talk to your Local Enterprise Office and explore the possibility to see if you would be eligible for a feasibility grant which might help, or even the priming grant mechanism, although some of those grants are only 50pc funded whereas the innovation voucher is worth 5000 and all you have to pay is the VAT. I know that the innovation voucher rule is frustrating and hopefully will change over time.
Send your small business questions to himself@feargalquinn.ie
Russian President Vladimir Putin proposed at the plenary session of the Eastern Economic Forum (EEF) to sign a peace treaty between Russia and Japan until the end of the year without any preconditions, UrduPoint reports.
The fact that Japan and Russia have never signed a permanent peace treaty after the end of World War II has long been a stumbling block in Russia-Japan relations. The main issue standing in the way of a treaty is an agreement concerning a group of four islands that both countries claim Iturup, Kunashir, Shikotan and Habomai, collectively referred to as the Southern Kurils by Russia and the Northern Territories by Japan. Japan claims the islands, referring to the bilateral Treaty on Trade and Borders of 1855. Moscow's position is that the South Kurils have become part of the Soviet Union following World War II and Russian sovereignty over them was established under international law.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said at the plenary session of the EEF that he and Putin would make every effort to conclude a peace treaty between the two countries. "Our new approaches are changing the shape of the Japanese-Russian cooperation. Without violating the legal position of both sides, we are implementing what can be done. We are accumulating such experience, we are moving toward what we with president [Putin] aspire - toward a peace treaty. In order to solve the problem ... we together with the president will make every effort," he said.
Following this statement by Abe, Putin said that he "has an idea" - to sign a peace treaty until the end of 2018 without any preconditions. "We have been negotiating for seventy years. Shinzo said that we should change approaches. So I have an idea - let's conclude a peace treaty - not now, but until the end of the year - without any preconditions," Putin said.
Putin later said that he was not joking about signing a peace treaty with Japan and emphasized the need to create a comfortable environment for settling Moscow's disagreements with Tokyo. "We can indicate it in the treaty that we will work on settling all the issues. I am sure that we will do it someday. We need to get rid of everything that hampers the development of our relations," Putin added.
The president continued by saying that the territorial disputes between Russia and Japan were not fundamental. However, these political and moral disagreements were a very sensitive issue for both countries, Putin added, noting the need to "consider carefully the approaches to the settlement of these issues." Abe, on his part, admitted that the absence of a peace treaty between the two countries was an abnormal situation, adding that the joint economic activity on the disputed islands is the key for reaching an agreement.
The Foreign Ministries of Russia and Japan issued some comments regarding Putin's sudden proposal.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Igor Morgulov said that Moscow was ready to instantly launch negotiations with Japan on the long-expected bilateral peace treaty, adding that the work on the achievement a treaty has never been ceased and is steadily continuing. "We are ready, but it will depend on the readiness of our Japanese friends ... We are ready to begin it without delay," Morgulov told reporters at EEF.
According to Morgulov, Putin's proposal will create an atmosphere necessary for solving complex problems in bilateral relations. The deputy minister added that the dialogue on the peace treaty would continue in the existing mode without the need to create a new format to address the problem.
In turn, Japan's Foreign Ministry refrained from commenting on Putin's statements, noting that Tokyo's position on the peace agreement with Russia has not changed. "The Japanese government is aware of the mentioned Putin's statement. We refrain fromcommenting on President Putin's public statements. But there are no any changes in the Japanese government's [commitment] to persist in negotiating the peace treaty in compliance with [the government's official position] following resolution of the issue of the attribution of the four northern islands [four South Kuril Islands: Iturup, Kunashir, Shikotan and Habomai]," the Japanese Foreign Ministry's representative told Sputnik.
European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker launched another assault on Irish powers to veto tax matters at European level.
The European Union should scrap some national vetos on tax, he said at his annual State of the Union address to the European Parliament in Strasbourg.
Instead, he suggested that the EU should move to a system of majority voting - comments which would cause concern among the Government here.
Mr Juncker has long been pushing for EU-wide tax reforms to be implemented via qualified majority voting rather than unanimous agreement.
He repeated that call yesterday, saying: "I also think we should be able to decide on certain tax matters by qualified majority."
But there are concerns that such changes would undermine the competitiveness of the 12.5pc corporate tax rate offered by Ireland.
Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe and colleagues have vehemently insisted that they will resist any such changes and that Ireland retains a valid veto.
Meanwhile, Mr Juncker said solidarity with Ireland over tough Brexit talks would remain a priority for the EU.
He said the EU, including the Commission and all member states, would "show loyalty and solidarity with Ireland" over the Border.
Europe will "find a solution to avoid a hard Border in Ireland and defend all elements of the Good Friday Agreement".
But he pointed out it was Brexit, and "not the EU", making the Border an issue.
Mr Juncker - who is in his final year as president of the commission - issued a veiled rejection of the UK's recent Brexit plan, also known as the 'Chequers proposal'.
He said "someone who leaves" the EU, "cannot be in the same privileged position" as it once was while a fully fledged member.
Mr Juncker also called for the EU to promote the euro as a global currency to challenge the US dollar.
"We must do more to allow our single currency to play its full role on the international scene," he said. "It is absurd that European companies buy European planes in dollars instead of euro.
"The euro must become the face and the instrument of a new, more sovereign Europe."
In his speech, he proposed fining Google, Facebook, Twitter and other online platforms if they fail to remove extremist content within one hour.
Brussels gave internet firms three months in March to show they were acting faster to take down radical posts, but EU regulators say too little is being done without legislation forcing them to do so.
If authorities flag it, the commission wants content inciting or advocating extremist offences, promoting extremist groups, or showing how to commit such acts to be removed within a hour.
"One hour is the decisive time window the greatest damage takes place," Mr Juncker said.
CEO Adrian Howd told the AGM that Altan and 3D4 Medical were not providing the same magnitude of returns.
Shareholders at State-backed Malin Corp rejected its 2017 remuneration arrangements yesterday, in a sign of investor discontent at a company trading at half its IPO price.
The vote is non-binding but is embarrassing for Malin which has embarked on a review of its remuneration policy.
Shareholder advisors ISS had previously expressed discontent with severance arrangements for executives, as well as share awards which ISS said should be distributed to executives over a longer time period.
Former CEO Kelly Martin exited the business with a 3.2m cash severance.
The State backed the life sciences investor to the tune of 50m at its 2015 IPO via the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund (ISIF).
ISIF has said this was on the basis of "significant commitments" to invest in Ireland, saying Malin had set targets for backing companies with Irish operations.
Since the IPO at 10 a share Malin is now trading around half that level. It has recently excluded its two major Irish investments from its "core" portfolio.
CEO Adrian Howd told the company's AGM yesterday that four investee companies - Poseida, Immunocore, Kymab and Viamet - are the "cornerstone" of its portfolio.
"Our strategy is to focus our resources on these core assets, with the potential to deliver significant value for our shareholders," Dr Howd said.
That leaves Irish-based Altan and 3D4 Medical outside the company's core portfolio. Malin's interest in those businesses may ultimately be sold as the company has embarked on a strategic review which is set to include the disposal of some non-core assets. Chief financial officer Darragh Lyons said there would be no "fire sales" however.
"If you look at those companies, we see returns there for our shareholders but they're probably not of the magnitude of the other four," Dr Howd said when asked about Altan and 3D4 Medical.
Ian Curley, a former senior executive at Ardagh and Smurfit Kappa, has recently joined as chairman as part of a board overhaul. Aside from ISIF, another major shareholder, is Woodford Investment Management - run by famous London hedge fund manager Neil Woodford.
Dr Howd told reporters yesterday that the way to restore investor confidence was in "showing people the quality of the assets".
He said any decision to invest further money in its portfolio companies would be done on a case-by-case basis, and that he did not anticipate Malin returning to the market for cash.
The profit last year takes account of 3.39m in lease payments and non-cash depreciation costs of 195,143. Stock image
Pre-tax profits at the firm which operates the four-star Radisson Blu hotel off South Great George's Street in Dublin increased almost fourfold to 1.02m last year.
New accounts show that the company, Luxor Leisure Ltd, enjoyed the sharp increase in pre-tax profits to 1.02m in spite of gross profits declining by 2pc from 12.08m to 11.84m in the 12 months to the end of October last.
Luxor Leisure Ltd is owned by Galway building group JJ Rhatigan and the Luxor company in 2016 ended its management agreement with Radisson Blu operator SAS Hotels A/S Denmark for the hotel at Golden Lane in Dublin.
The ending of the management agreement on June 1, 2016, cost Luxor Investments Ltd 1.2m in a termination fee.
In its place, Luxor now has a franchise agreement with the Radisson Blu operator.
The 1.2m cost did not reoccur last year for Luxor contributing to the 294pc increase in profits in 2017.
Last year, the hotel secured planning permission for a nine-storey extension that includes 103 additional bedrooms that will bring the total number of rooms at the hotel to 255.
The profit last year takes account of 3.39m in lease payments and non-cash depreciation costs of 195,143. The hotel building is owned by another JJ Rhatigan firm, Luxor Investments Ltd.
The company's accumulated profits last year increased from 4.7m to 5.6m with the cash pile increasing from 3.66m to 4.05m. Numbers employed increased from 114 to 120 with staff costs increasing from 2.8877m to 2.933m.
Ryanair's decision to ban journalists from attending its annual general meeting (AGM) next week is a surprising and backward step.
Journalists don't like the idea of being denied access anywhere. In a journo's perfect world we would all be sitting around the Government Cabinet table taking notes as key political decisions are made.
It wouldn't work very well when it comes to running the country any better - or would it? Perhaps that is a debate for another day.
Publicly-listed companies are not legally obliged to allow the media to sit in at their annual general meeting, but, at least in this part of the world, it is the norm with very rare exceptions.
After all, if anyone is entitled to buy a share in the company, then anyone should be entitled to know what gets said at its AGM.
That has tended to be the thinking around letting journalists cover these events, even in circumstances where a company is in particularly challenging times.
Preventing journalists can become self-defeating on a number of levels. Firstly, all the journalist has to do is buy a couple of shares or arrange with a shareholder to be their proxy or representative and they can attend anyway. This is a minor inconvenience that irritates the media and doesn't help future relations.
Secondly, enforcing the rule on the day can be difficult. For a large meeting like this, it means having a lot of checks and staff on hand which can set an unpleasant and heavy-handed tone
Thirdly, it can make a company look fearful of the impact of what is going to be said by somebody at the meeting. Whenever it came to media criticism or challenges to Ryanair from critics in any quarter, the airline was never fearful of robustly defending its ground in public.
I remember watching a British television journalist seek to doorstep Michael O'Leary with questions as part of a TV documentary a few years ago. Instead of just walking on, Mr O'Leary stopped and on the spot rebutted every question put to him by the programme-maker, in a very emphatic and convincing manner. To the average viewer, the Ryanair CEO won the argument.
But a lot has changed at Ryanair in the last 12 months. Its decision to recognise trade unions has brought a whole new set of obvious challenges. It has been dogged by one-day strikes and industrial relations negotiations.
And there is a lot more to come as passengers face more disruption after unions representing cabin crew in five different countries across Europe demanded contracts based on local rather than Irish law.
Ryanair's first annual general meeting since engaging with trade unions brings with it the very real possibility that the meeting will be a noisy raucous affair, as union representatives seek to get their point across.
Some shareholders might not be too happy either. Ryanair shares are down 26pc in the last 12 months. Throw into the mix, the call by one corporate governance proxy firm, that Ryanair chairman of 20 years, David Bonderman, should not continue because he has been in situ too long.
Yet, none of this explains why the airline would chose to not admit journalists to cover the event or decide not to hold a press conference or briefing afterwards.
Shareholders have backed Mr Bonderman for the last 20 years because the company has continued to deliver for them. Despite its recent falls, its share price is at similar levels to where it was two years ago and is up more than 100pc in the last five years.
Some aspects of ideal corporate governance practice are often overlooked by investors when they have done well out of how a company is run.
Yes, there will probably be a bun fight at the AGM with various groups articulating their views about the company's industrial relations practices, remuneration and corporate governance.
Preventing journalists from covering the event won't change that, and what gets said will probably be reported anyway.
Ryanair has said that it wants to allow shareholders to "discuss all matters freely with the board without these discussions being distorted for PR purposes".
In its defence, this may not be a Trump-like swipe at the "fake news" of traditional media, but it may raise valid points about who represents "media" these days anyway. Bloggers with axes to grind, websites with links to stakeholders of various kinds, may all call themselves "media" in today's communications landscape without disclosing their biases.
How can a company decide which publications are "real media" and which are not? Who is allowed in and who is not? Therefore, it is easier to just say journalists cannot attend.
On the day, journalists might simply walk in, but TV cameras will not.
But this isn't workable either. Publicly traded companies are privately owned but there is a greater onus on them to deliver openness and disclosure which can backfire if a firm retreats simply to what is permissible under the letter of the law rather than what is publicly expected of it. There are a few precedents where publicly listed companies have decided to prevent journalists from attending an AGM in Ireland.
I covered one such meeting in Belfast in the mid-1990s. The company was a listed property vehicle called Ewart PLC. It was in the middle of a major boardroom power struggle as solicitor and property investor Noel Smyth sought to gain control.
Without any advance notice we were told at the door of the event, we would not be allowed in. I rang the Irish Stock Exchange immediately and was told the company had the right to do that.
Noel Smyth rather apologetically explained afterwards that it wasn't his idea to ban journalists but others on the board had made the decision.
Funny enough a boardroom power struggle was behind another example. Ten years ago the London AIM-listed payments group Payzone barred reporters from an extraordinary general meeting in Dublin.
Shareholders were due to vote on ousting then chief executive John Nagle and chief financial officer John Williamson.
Ryanair has been planning this move for at least six weeks. The annual general meeting is being held at 9am in Co Meath and the AGM notice drafted on August 1 states that somebody must be a shareholder or representative of a shareholder to attend the meeting.
One wonders whether the decision on banning journalists was taken by management or the board and was it unanimous? Several of its board members sit on other public limited company boards. How comfortable are they with this decision?
Similar moves in the past have been indicative of internal power struggles around the board table. Could the same be happening at Ryanair?
Whatever the reasons behind this decision, it represents a shift in tone at the company which I believe is regressive rather than progressive.
CEO Michael O'Leary signed a five-year contract which ends in September 2019. With just 12 months left to run on that contract, one would expect an announcement in the coming months about whether he is or isn't staying on in the job.
Forget the AGM, oh to be a fly on the wall for a board meeting!
The economy grew by 2.5pc in the three months to the end of June, driven by higher technology exports in particular.
Consumer spending also showed strong growth.
But there are signs trade with the UK has slowed even ahead of Brexit, according to new data from the Central Statistics Office.
The data shows gross domestic product, the standard measure of the Irish economy, showed growth of 2.5pc, while gross national product (GNP) rose 0.7pc.
On an annualised basis, GDP was 9.1pc higher in the second quarter of 2018, versus the same time last year. GNP is up 11.9pc.
The data shows trade with the UK declined over the past year by around 1.1bn and Ireland's balance of trade with the UK has shifted to a deficit.
Mobacar has done a lot of work in the car rental sector. (stock image)
Travel technology business Mobacar is looking to raise as much as 50m.
The company has begun exploratory talks with a number of large venture capital firms about the deal and is looking to complete a 30m-50m fundraising, according to a report by the Ireland bureau of 'Mergermarket'.
The report said the money would be used to offer the company's products to a wider range of industries.
Mobacar, based in Kerry and run by former Fexco head of global sales and business development Mike Webster, uses artificial intelligence to help connect customers with the most appropriate means of travel.
It has done a lot of work in the car rental sector.
The idea is to offer tailored products to individual customers based on their predicted buying habits.
Existing backers include Enterprise Ireland, Irish venture capital business Delta Partners, and US-based car rental firm AutoEurope.
Mobacar did not respond to a request for comment from the Irish Independent.
Irish average earnings of around 46,000 are on a par with those of German workers, and are 10pc higher than in the UK as the gap continues to widen. Photo: Bloomberg
If you really want to get on these days, you need a catchy word or phrase. Something like 'pre-distribution' - a clever play on the more common redistribution. It was coined by Yale University economist Jacob Hacker back in 2011 and has become quite the thing among governments and social economists. This is not to decry the merits of Dr Hacker's insights - quite the reverse. Pre-distribution might have been invented with Ireland in mind.
The standard definition is that the state should try to prevent inequalities occurring in the first place, rather than ameliorating them through the tax and benefits system once they have occurred via redistribution. It has gradually dawned on people recently that Ireland is a world leader in exactly that.
It took a long time for clarity to emerge, but this is an area bedevilled by multiple meanings and definitions, leading to inevitable confusion. In Britain, for instance, pre-distribution is seen as a way of tackling the effects of a low-wage economy and has been taken up by various socialist groups.
In Ireland, it might be said to be exactly the opposite; tackling the effects of a high-wage economy. Not that much is being said at all, even though the Government has a pre-distribution agenda and a set of policies designed to implement it.
For a long time governments were berated by figures showing that Ireland was one of the most unequal pre-distribution economies in the rich world - except that the word 'pre-distribution' was not used.
Instead, it was portrayed as a gap between the very rich and the poor. But Ireland's rich are not especially rich by international standards. It is Ireland's higher paid workers, not its plutocrats, who do particularly well.
This is still an area where few dare tread, despite the incontrovertible evidence that, what ever about pre-distribution, Ireland's redistribution system is remarkably effective.
One of the widest gaps in the OECD before tax and social payments becomes one of the smallest after they kick in.
At first glance, this is something to be proud of, and it is certainly better than the alternative of cosseting the higher paid and leaving the lower to fend for themselves - even though a considerably number of lobbyists and commentators who insist that this is what actually happens.
But pride must be tempered by the existence of that huge pre-distribution gap in the first place, the reasons for it analysed and any ill-effects confronted. That does not happen to any extent.
As a result, most people would be astonished to learn that Irish average earnings of around 46,000 are on a par with those in Germany and 10pc higher than the UK. Right now, that gap is widening rapidly.
On the other hand, almost half the Irish workforce earns less than 30,000 and no less than a quarter have incomes below 10,000. What distinguishes this country from many others is the 20pc who earn more than 50,000 a year.
This is the pre-distribution issue which but politicians generally prefer to ignore, concentrating on the 3pc with incomes above 100,000.
Apparently, they will be able to solve all our redistribution problems on their own.
They won't, but that leaves the question as to who should be distributing to who, and by how much.
Politics, and a lot of lobbying, is based around the presumption that the narrowest international gap in disposable income is still not narrow enough.
The facts to the contrary are beginning to have an impact though, with attention shifting beyond income to areas like housing and - last week's big story - childcare costs.
Pre-distribution may be more relevant here than redistribution. Central Bank lending rules are based on gross earnings. But the cost of houses and childcare must be paid from after tax income.
In Dublin at any rate, the average house costs more to build than our average couple on 90,000 a year can prudently borrow, while the pattern of gross income means we should not be surprised that childcare is one of the most expensive in the OECD.
Surprised or not, the fact is that costs are hardly discussed, and even more rarely analysed.
Yet the idea that these problems can be dealt with by more redistribution looks increasingly threadbare.
If any group is entitled to feel hard done by, it is those below average earnings who face moving into the top rate income tax band and joining the distributors.
Their plight is the subject of promises before every Budget, including this year's, but in fact they have been royally ripped off in almost every budget during the last decade. In 2009, the top rate kicked in at 36,900. This year it is 34,550.
That was bad enough when earnings were stagnant after the crash but, with a 3pc rise expected this year, tax cuts will not start until that figure is increased to 35,580. Anything less represents a tax rise.
That is the original stealth tax. Avoiding it is expensive. If it is done, there will be little left for a reduction in the pre-distribution burden; even if that were government policy, which is unlikely. Not with the Redistributor-in-Chief around, in the shape of the Department of Social Protection.
This is the source of the most peculiar piece of pro-cyclical policy. Social spending rose during the credit bubble and fell in the recession. The same pattern is being repeated as unemployment tumbles from 15pc to 5pc.
Cash payments such as jobs benefit must be replaced by non-cash ones, so that the magic figure of 20bn in social spending remains intact.
It is politically convenient to ignore that and concentrate on pre-distribution income inequality. This requires no unpopular instant actions such as pay cuts on higher public salaries or reductions in untargeted benefits; just comforting ideas such as more pre-school places, lifelong learning and apprenticeships, wider access to third level and greater competition and consumer protection.
The idea is that more people will then be able to command higher-paid jobs, thereby reducing the need for redistribution.
Alas, these are mostly areas where Ireland historically is also an outlier in the OECD - near the bottom. They have been on the bucket list for every government in decades but with little to show for it but the ignominious dissolution collapse of the Fas training agency.
Even if the current programmes do better, results will take a long time coming through.
In the meantime, the question must be asked as to whether the present system, with its steeply rising income taxes and wide disbursements, where a typical family on average earnings is a net recipient from the State, has gone beyond what is helpful into what is harmful.
Of course, just because the question should be asked, does not mean it will be.
Conor McGregor speaks during a news conference while holding up his Notorious-branded Irish whiskey.
Conor McGregor has withdrawn his trademark application to register his 'Notorious' moniker for his planned whiskey brand.
Last year, the MMA fighter told fans that his Notorious brand whiskey was "coming soon".
The Irish MMA fighter announced his intentions to roll out the alcoholic range here following his well publicised boxing match with Floyd Mayweather.
"Notorious Irish whiskey coming soon. Im going to take over the Irish whiskey market, and this is delicious," McGregor said at the time.
But his plans suffered a setback after Carlow Brewing Company founder Seamus O'Hara formally objected to Mr McGregor's firm registering 'Notorious' as a trademark.
McGregor filed an application with the European Union Intellectual Property Office (Euipo) to register the 'Notorius' trademark, but O'Hara - who already owns a European trademark of the same name - intervened.
However, the move to withdraw his application is not expected to hit his plans to launch a whiskey.
In a post, he said: "Working hard at my Whiskey distillery. In my opinion, the finest distillery we have on this great island."
Other trademark battles:
The CCPC concluded that the commitments are appropriate and effective in addressing its competition concerns. (stock photo)
Ireland's Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) has cleared the acquisition by 'Daily Mirror' publisher Reach Plc of its rival UK newspaper publisher Northern & Shell Network - including a 50pc stake in the 'Irish Daily Star'.
The sale was signed off subject to binding commitments from Reach and Daily Star co-owner Independent News & Media (INM) to prevent the direct or indirect exchange of competitively sensitive information between the parties following the sale.
The agreement was also extended to International Distribution Limited 2018, a distribution business being acquired by Reach as part of the wider deal.
The CCPC concluded that the commitments, which were taken into account as part of its determination, are appropriate and effective in addressing its competition concerns.
The sale remains subject to separate media merger approval from the Minister for Communications Denis Naughten, who will assess the deal in relation to media plurality.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has accepted Chinese President Xi Jinpings invitation to take part in the second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation (BARF) in 2019, TASS reported citing the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
"Chairman of the Peoples Republic of China Xi Jinping has invited Russian President Vladimir Putin to take part in the second Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation next year during his visit to Russia for the Eastern Economic Forum," the ministry said in a statement. "[Russian] President [Vladimir] Putin immediately and willingly accepted this invitation," the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported.
Godfrey: "We are vulnerable with the number of staff we have at the moment."
Understaffing at communications regulator ComReg has left the authority "vulnerable", the watchdog's chairman has said.
In a wide-ranging interview with the Irish Independent, Jeremy Godfrey said that the agency badly needs more powers and staff to keep rogue operators and rule-breaking service providers in check.
"We are vulnerable with the number of staff we have at the moment," said Mr Godfrey, the sole serving commissioner on ComReg. The other two ComReg commissioner roles are currently vacant.
"We're worried about what we need to do our job and we are telling them [the Government] what we think we need."
The admission comes after a number of mainstream telecom operators wrote to Communications Minister Denis Naughten warning that ComReg is critically understaffed and may be unable to effectively police the sector.
"With more resources we could do our job better and do things faster," said Mr Godfrey. "There would be less risk of delays. It's a very, very broad remit."
Mr Godfrey also said that it needs more effective powers, such as the ability to issue administrative fines, as a deterrent to operators gaming the system or dragging disciplinary proceedings out in lengthy court actions.
The authority is charged with regulating electronic communications - including telecoms and broadcasting - as well as the postal sector.
"We've been very public about ComReg's ability to enforce regulation and the powers that other regulators have," he said. "That is particularly with regard to administrative powers in non-compliance situations and where penalties can have a significant deterrent effect. That would help us do our job more effectively. It might also help us to save some resources."
Mr Godfrey also said that Eir will soon be asked to lower key rural broadband prices that are "unjustified".
"We will certainly be proposing quite substantial changes to Eir's ability to choose what the connection charge should be," he said, talking about Eir's wholesale fibre broadband being rolled out to 330,000 rural homes and businesses.
Earlier this week, Eir CEO Carolan Lennon said the company may challenge ComReg if the regulator attempts to lower the prices set for its rural wholesale broadband.
However, Mr Godfrey said that the watchdog is currently attempting to broker a long-term solution to Eir's governance issues.
"There was an audit of Eir's regulatory governance carried out with serious inadequacies found," he said. "We've been clear that those inadequacies should be remedied. We are now in discussions with Eir about proposals that they are making to improve matters and that's in the context of a possible settlement of legal actions that are ongoing at the moment.
"If those discussions are successful, then I think we'll see a very big improvement in Eir's regulatory governance quickly. And that will give all the operators in the market a very high degree of confidence that they are going to be treated fairly by Eir and that they won't be discriminated against."
Seattle has a fraught relationship with tech giants like Amazon based there
In Seattle, the locals don't like newcomers very much. It was ever thus, from the Yukon gold rushes to its 20th century development as the financial centre of the Pacific Northwest.
But as I sit here, a transplant from Ireland, via New York, I can definitely feel it. Outsiders don't always feel especially welcome.
I've sometimes wondered whether it's related to the influx of young tech workers who are moving here in droves.
When I arrived here [about a year ago] and the movers were dropping off boxes, they had the measure of me fairly quickly.
"Amazon, Microsoft, or Facebook?"
If you're someone who looks like they might spend too much time on a computer, it's not a question of whether you work for a tech company, but which one.
It's not a bad guess. Seattle's population has grown 20pc since 2010, and a lot of that is down to the three companies mentioned above.
But that hostility...
The city is historically so hostile to outsiders, there's even a term for it.
The 'Seattle Freeze' is a phenomenon given to native Washingtonians being polite, but not overly friendly or warm.
This is so ingrained in the culture here that the 'Seattle Times' (the local paper of record) once called it "fundamental to our collective civic character".
But it's not quite so straightforward.
Seattle's dislike of outsiders - and, ironically, tech companies - clashes with Seattle's love of talking about work.
"So what do you do?" is a go-to question from bartenders, taxi drivers, and first dates. To a large extent, your employer defines you. (I'm saved from some of the ire because, despite working in tech, I work for a non-profit organisation. The altruism of the company means I avoid snarky or scathing remarks.)
Friends of mine who work for one of the big tech companies recount a similar sermon they hear from local Seattleites when it becomes clear who they work for.
"Newcomers are ruining Seattle's famously weird vibe."
"You're driving up housing prices."
"You're changing the character of the city."
There's a neighbourhood-based social network here called Nextdoor - open it anywhere in Seattle (it works based on the area you're using it in) and you can read people bellyaching about 'techies' ruining the city.
Sometimes, sentiments reach a more active level. Earlier this year, protesters physically blocked a bus bringing workers to Microsoft, as well as a streetcar full of Amazon employees.
None of this is helped by the fact that tech companies don't all feel warmly toward the city, either.
In May, Seattle passed a tax on large businesses to combat the growing homelessness problem here.
The tax targeted businesses making over $20m in gross revenue. The city authorities clearly had the big tech firms in mind.
But they figured without the massive power that the big tech firms have these days in Seattle.
The 'head tax' caused an absolute uproar. In less than a month, the city council reversed their decision.
Amazon had led the charge against the tax, going as far as to halt construction on a major new project in protest. It was a lesson; mess with Jeff Bezos and other big tech firms at your peril.
Were they right to oppose the tax? Were legislators right in backing down?
Here on the ground, it does look as if some of local citizens' fears are justified. Homelessness and a lack of adequate mental health services are huge problems in the city.
Unquestionably, the tech boom is contributing to this rather than helping it. A glance at the annual rise in rental prices here in recent years would make your hair turn white.
Looked at this way, there is a feeling that Amazon and other tech companies shouldn't be allowed to grow unconstrained.
But how much of this is down to us, the immigrant tech workers? Ask any Amazon or Microsoft employee and they'll tell you that they often feel demonised by those who have lived in the city for decades. They're now regularly blamed for every problem facing the city.
Seattle's distrust of strangers and emigres is also the ultimate chop of the nose to spite their face.
I work in the general tech ecosystem, so I may be a little partisan. But when it comes to it, local Seattle folks are looking a gift horse in the mouth.
These companies bring jobs and innovations to the cities where they're based. They bring measurable economic growth.
Tech workers tend to be educated, ambitious, and relatively affluent - exactly the sort of people who can boost the local economy. Tech jobs are also multipliers: a recent study found that every one high-tech job creates four others.
(Obviously, this isn't my opening conversation line with cab drivers.)
I'll even go as far as to say that the techies are helping with the dreaded Seattle freeze.
As I mentioned, my non-profit job protects me from the wrath of the locals, and I've spent a lot of time talking to them about how the city has changed in the last few years.
One of the most common things I hear is that the city feels friendlier.
People smile on the street, and actually know their co-workers. If you start up a conversation with a stranger in a cafe, you're more likely to get a response than a cold look.
What's going on? My hypothesis is that Seattle's local-born population is increasingly becoming a minority. Today, more than half of the city's software developers were born outside the US, let alone outside of Seattle. These newcomers have missed the memo that Seattleites are supposed to be parochial.
Young techies might be changing the character of the city, but I suspect we're making it friendlier.
Watchdog: ComReg commissioner Jeremy Godfrey is liaising with the European Commission on regulation of the wholesale broadband market and pricing
Ireland's telecoms industry is entering its most critical period of change since the Government privatised Telecom Eireann 20 years ago. Seminal issues include radical plans from Eir's new owner to overhaul its network, the future of landline competition and an unprecedented, State-backed rural broadband rollout to 540,000 Irish homes and businesses.
Sitting in judgement is the telecom regulator, ComReg. The decisions it takes in the coming months will have a lasting effect on the lives and businesses of millions in Ireland for the next decade.
Jeremy Godfrey is currently ComReg's sole serving commissioner, and speaks here exclusively about the heavyweight issues he must soon adjudicate on.
Adrian Weckler [AW]: The scope and range of ComReg's regulatory duties have mushroomed in recent years. Do you believe that ComReg is adequately staffed?
Jeremy Godfrey [JG]: We are vulnerable with the number of staff we have at the moment. The remit of ComReg has expanded over the years. The complexity of the markets, the amount of money at stake with ComReg decisions. We have 60,000 enquires from consumers every year.
We have about 25,000 different issues that we work with on behalf of consumers, on behalf of operators. We run spectrum auctions. It's a very, very broad remit. With more resources we could do our job better and do things faster. There would be less risk of delays.
AW: Have you asked for more staff?
JG: We are in contact with the Government about what we think the right level of staff would be.
AW: Have you suggested a number?
JG: I won't comment on any precise number. Obviously there are other factors here, relating to the size of the public sector and governmental policy.
We're worried about what we need to do our job and we are telling them what we think we need.
But we also expect that we won't necessarily get everything we ask for.
AW: One current flashpoint in Ireland is Eir's new rural fibre broadband network. It says it will have 330,000 rural premises connected by next June. But major rival operators like Vodafone and Sky say that Eir is charging too much to access it for them to offer competition. Is ComReg looking at this issue?
JG: Yes. We will certainly be proposing quite substantial changes to Eir's ability to choose what the connection charge should be. When we consulted on it, we said we didn't like that charge and we didn't think it was justified and we proposed some significant changes. That will be notified to the European Commission with all the other pricing stuff.
AW: What about wholesale broadband pricing generally?
JG: This is a very high priority. In terms of what we're looking at the moment, the big project has been the regulation of the wholesale broadband market.
That's probably the most fundamental market in Ireland. It underpins the bundles of broadband and voice and, often television, to many, many consumers.
Our regulation of that market is fundamental to allowing competitors like Vodafone or Sky to use the Eir infrastructure to compete.
We've had some concerns over wholesale product development, about discrimination and fairness.
We've taken some compliance cases against Eir as well. There have been loopholes in previous rules such as service level agreements. That's taken some time to resolve. But we're reaching the end of that process.
There are three decisions we're making.
One is a fundamental decision about whether there's significant market power and what the shape of the remedies should be.
We've considered the results of a public consultation, we've revised our proposed decision and we've notified that to the European Commission. They've come back with a small number of comments.
We're about to notify on the other two decisions which are to do with pricing. That will happen in another two weeks and then the Commission will have a month to get back to us.
I expect those decisions to be made well before the end of this year.
Eir has to be transparent about its network and not favour its own service.
We have decided that there should be a price control, both on fibre to the kerb and fibre to the home and then how bundles should be treated.
The last piece of the jigsaw is what the price should actually be. But we'll wait till we get the Commission's comments and then we'll do them together.
AW: Have companies such as Eir been notified yet?
JG: We consulted on the pricing levels. In the light of what the companies said to us, we made some changes.
We haven't notified the companies of those changes.
When we notify the Commission, the notification becomes public.
At that point everyone will see what we're proposing. Our formal notification comes when we make the final decision and then we formally notify the company, which is Eir.
AW: While we're talking about Eir, are you any closer to a conclusion over how Eir should be governed in future?
JG: As you know, there was an audit of Eir's regulatory governance carried out with serious inadequacies found.
We've been clear that those inadequacies should be remedied. We are now in discussions with Eir about proposals that they are making to improve matters and that's in the context of a possible settlement of legal actions that are ongoing at the moment.
If those discussions are successful, then I think we'll see a very big improvement in Eir's regulatory governance quickly.
And that will give all the operators in the market a very high degree of confidence that they are going to be treated fairly by Eir and that they won't be discriminated against. But you can't rely on discussions reaching agreement. If we don't get it, we will end up consulting on the use of regulatory powers to secure those improvements.
But that would be a longer process, so it would be desirable to reach agreement.
AW: Are you optimistic about it?
JG: Well we're still in discussions. We're next in court with Eir on the eighth of October. I think we will either be very close by then or we'll know that we're not.
AW: Will ComReg intervene in the standoff between Eir and Enet, which is complaining about the cost of accessing Eir's rural network infrastructure to make the state-sponsored National Broadband Plan work? Eir says this is a regulated price from ComReg.
JG: No, we set a maximum price that it is allowed to charge. Eir is perfectly entitled to charge a lower price than that maximum if they want.
We've made it very clear to them that if they choose to charge a lower price in the context of the NBP, that those are unique circumstances and that it wouldn't necessarily follow that they may then have to charge the same price to everybody else for much more limited access to poles in different circumstances.
So Eir actually has quite a bit of flexibility itself on this. But we're due to look at that pricing in the next year or so anyway. Sometimes the model assumptions change and the data changes and then the price changes. But it's unlikely to change for the next year.
AW: Why a year?
JG: Because by the time we've gathered the data, assessed it, done the modelling, consulted on it, given people a chance to look at the model and come back with comments, review those comments, notify the commission and review those comments from the commission, it will typically have taken the best part of a year.
AW: On the National Broadband Plan, to what extent will ComReg be regulating the service to those 540,000 rural homes and businesses? Or are they completely under State control?
JG: We don't think it would be sensible for ComReg to duplicate provisions of the NBP contract and make the NBP contractor answer to two masters.
That said, all of the consumer protection issues are still regulated by ComReg. That will certainly continue to be the case for people living in the NBP area.
So, if a retail service provider doesn't give them proper notice of a contract change, or doesn't allow them to port their number, or hits them with hidden charges, people can come to ComReg and ComReg will take up the complaint with the service provider.
This sort of thing applies to every operator in Ireland whether they're in an urban area or NBP area, whether they're a dominant provider with significant market power or a small provider.
AW: What about other elements of regulation?
JG: Well, ComReg doesn't regulate except in cases where there is significant market power.
AW: But there will be very significant market power in the National Broadband Plan areas as there'll only be one wholesale provider there.
JG: Yes, but significant market power is based not just on your market position but also on your ability to exploit that power. So they may not be able to exploit the power because there are contractual conditions that prevent them.
In the short-term, the contract between the NBP company and the Government will address the same suite of wholesale remedies as are applied [by us] through regulation.
That's the whole design of the intervention. So we don't see that there's any point of duplicating that.
AW: Assuming the National Broadband Plan rolls out home fibre connections to 540,000 rural premises, does that not make the copper lines going into those homes and businesses redundant? What happens to the universal service obligation, requiring Eir to keep maintaining those copper lines, even where it's likely that fewer and fewer people will use them?
JG: The USO is there to protect vulnerable users, to provide a basic telephone service. Of course this can be provided over fibre, as well as over copper.
But our fundamental objective will be that people who only want a voice service can get that.
So, if people are buying a bundle of broadband and voice, we'd be a bit concerned about the people who only have a telephone line and want to keep on just having a telephone line. There must be an alternative for them.
It's not that we think you should have a right to a copper line forever.
But if a USO is justified, then they still have the right to have a telephone service.
And if there's going to be a change in technology to provide that, they shouldn't be unduly disadvantaged, they shouldn't have to pay money for the change.
AW: But if 540,000 homes have a fibre line going in, is it fair that Eir is still legally required by you to also run a copper line in there?
JG: The only obligation Eir has is to provide a service. We've said that we will look again at the scope of the USO once the NBP becomes a reality.
We're not opposed to copper withdrawal and replacement with fibre. And it's not in anyone's interest for two parallel networks to be operating at the same time.
But Eir has an obligation not to withdraw that service once it's there without ComReg's permission. The question is around the circumstances and how to manage a transition.
There has to be a replacement wholesale product so that people who move off the copper product can move onto the fibre product.
So we will need to consider whether there's a need for the USO in order to ensure that the people in the NBP area who only want a voice line get serviced.
If we do decide there's a need, we'll have to decide who should have the obligation.
AW: Telecoms Minister Denis Naughten said that ComReg will have a searchable mobile network map by the end of this year, one that will allow people to check what the coverage strength is a particular area. How is that coming along?
JG: Yes, that will be ready by the end of the year.
AW: Where is the data coming from for that?
JG: The mast data is coming from the operators. Then ComReg's own analysis will use detailed engineering models to calculate down to cells of 10 square metres.
The idea is that people can select a place and select a network and it will tell them based on ComReg's information whether they are likely or unlikely to get coverage there.
AW: There was an impression given before that the data would be updated by individuals checking in from different places to inform the map of live reception on the ground. Is that not happening?
JG: While there are possibilities to verify the data based on user experience, the crowd-sourced status is tricky to be accurate because people have different phones.
As we've seen, the antenna varies a lot. So the crowd-sourced data might not be reliable. The better engineering solution is to use the proper engineering models based on data.
AW: But that will mean it's still just a prediction, not actual data.
JG: Well we'll have the precise of the masts and the characteristics of those masts.
And the modelling will be very detailed. With these things, you want to walk before you run.
AW: Will it be available as an app?
JG: The first version will likely be a website. If we can do an app later, we might do an app. We want to do something quick rather than something perfect.
Stormy Daniels is writing her autobiography, which will include details of her alleged affair with President Trump.
Full Disclosure will be published on October 2 and, according to the publishers St Martin's Press, it will chart her journey "from a rough childhood in Louisiana onto the national stage, and the events that led to the nondisclosure agreement and the behind-the-scenes attempts to intimidate her".
Stormy, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, alleges she had an affair with Trump, which began in 2006, and that she was paid $130,000 hush money as part of a non-disclosure agreement, signed before the 2016 election.
Trump has denied ever having had an affair with the actress.
His former attorney Michael Cohen pleaded guilty in August to campaign violations regarding the hush money payment. Cohen claims Trump instructed him to pay off Daniels and another woman.
Trump said he was not aware of the payments until after they had been made.
Daniels said she wrote the book to tell the full story of the alleged affair and the court case as she felt she had not had the opportunity to properly address them in interviews.
Everybody knows that a lot of the 60 Minutes [interview] was cut down for time and there are things that I said in my interview that I really wanted people to know that are very important to me that I didnt get to say, Daniels told The View.
The adult film star's attorney, Michael Avenatti, told ABC's The View on Wednesday that it will be "three long weeks before the book comes out for Donald Trump".
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Stars of Netflix series Maniac appear at the world premiere in London (Victoria Jones/PA)
Hollywood stars Emma Stone and Justin Theroux have appeared at the world premiere of their new Netflix series Maniac at Londons Southbank Centre.
Academy Award-winning actress Stone, 29, and Theroux, 47, posed for photographs and signed autographs for fans ahead of the screening.
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The dark comedy sees Stone and Oscar nominee Jonah Hill play two strangers who participate in a radical pharmaceutical trial held by Theroux character, inventor Dr James K Mantleray.
Mantleray claims his treatment can permanently repair mental illness or heartbreak and has no side effects.
Stone, who wore a red top and black trousers to the screening, previously starred alongside Hill in teen comedy film Superbad in 2007.
Hill was not present at the screening but Stone said it was great to be reunited with him on-screen.
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Stone said: We had kept in touch throughout that whole time so to get to look across and see youre shooting scenes with him again was really wonderful.
I mean of course we reminisced, but it was also so great to play five such different characters with each other throughout. It was like doing five different stories in one.
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Joining the actors at the event was the shows director Cary Fukunaga and its writer and creator Patrick Somerville.
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Therouxs cousin the documentary maker Louis Theroux and TV presenter Carol Vorderman also attended.
The Little Stranger is almost upon us. Lenny Abrahamsons hugely-anticipated gothic drama an adaptation of the best-selling novel, by Sarah Waters stars Domhnall Gleeson as Dr Faraday, a country doctor who, during the summer of 1948, is called to visit a patient at Hundreds Hall, the once exquisite, British countryside manor where his mother worked as a housemaid.
Aroused by the deteriorating mansion, and its enigmatic inhabitants, Dr Faraday soon forms a bond with the Ayres family, particularly daughter Caroline (Ruth Wilson). Alas, there is something amiss at Hundreds Hall. Lets just say that there are dark secrets at play, and that Abrahamsons chilling, slow-burning, haunted house story will stay with you long after the credits have rolled.
The Little Stranger also marks another intriguing career move for the inimitable, Golden Globe-winning British actress, Ruth Wilson. You may know her as Alison Lockhart in The Affair (which she bowed out of this summer), or Alice Morgan in Luther. You might recall her acclaimed turns in Jane Eyre and Dark River. And, were particularly excited to see her in the forthcoming BBC adaptation of Philip Pullmans His Dark Materials. In the meantime, Independent.ie caught up with Ruth to talk career goals, switching between theatre and screen, and getting to grips with The Little Stranger
Aside, of course, from getting to adapt the best-selling novel, by Sarah Waters, and getting to work with the great Lenny Abrahamson, what was it that initially drew you to The Little Stranger?
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I think it was the sort of mystery at the heart of it, to be honest. I didnt quite understand it, and I read it and then I had to read it again, and then it got under my skin. There was something unnerving about it, and so I think that intrigued me, and I read the book, and that was even more unnerving! And I loved the character - I thought [Caroline] was sort of eccentric and odd, and again there were lots of puzzles to her. For me, if its intriguing and theres lots to explore, and it feels like its something Ive never read before, then thats why I take it.
The film retains a heightened level of suspense, intrigue and tension. How did you go about shaking this off at the end of the day?
Oh, I dont know! I mean, it was quite odd on this. We were filming in London which is where I live - but really far in north London, near Watford, and it would take an age to go back to my house, so I would stay up in this hotel, which had a swimming pool, and was a bit random. It was a bit of a weird experience, to be honest.
I mean, Lenny and Domhnall were great fun and amazing, and a lot of the crew were amazing as well, but it was quite an awkward environment - or an uncomfortable environment, and I think that was partly because of the nature of the film, so everything was quite stilted - we were playing repressed people, it was kind of in this big weird mansion, which felt very claustrophobic, even though it was massive, so it was quite a weird experience. I remember Id come out of it and go, What was that? I dont know what that is.
Every day, Id be feeling like that, so it wasnt like the most joyous experience - not in a bad way! Im just saying thats kind of what came out. I think it was like constantly [being] not sure who this character was, and what this world was, necessarily, and thats the nature of the piece, I think.
The film has received a lot of attention from the press. Do you read reviews?
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Yeah, I do actually. Im quite intrigued, because I watched this film and I was really chuffed with it in many ways, and so I was intrigued about how people might view it, and what they might think of it, because I knew that it is a difficult film in some ways - it straddles lots of genres, its not clear-cut. So, I was interested to see what people would think of it, and if theyd get it, basically, and I was really chuffed with a lot of the reviews, because they did. And I think that that was a relief that people saw what I saw in it, or what Lenny saw in it, or what we all saw in it when we took the job - that there was a worthwhile story to tell.
What was it that made you want to become an actor?
I dont know, really. I was the youngest of four kids, [I have] three older brothers and I dont know when it was, or why it was. I know that my mum put us all in like, an acting club, to get us out of the house, and I started doing that when I was about eight, and I remember watching my brothers do plays, and I wanted to do what they were doing, because it looked like fun, and it was magical.
And I think that theatre had that sort of spell-like effect on me, you know, creating a world of magic on stage and in the auditorium, and so I think thats probably why Ive always loved theatre - you create the contract between the audience and the actor, and its very magical and theres a lot of people involved and committed to creating that magic, and thats really unique, thats really unusual - in this day and age, even more so, you know, a lot of people all committing to make-believe, I mean thats amazing, thats fascinating to me, and I just loved being in that world of make-believe, perhaps. Its sort of more exciting than reality.
Obviously, being an actor has worked out rather well for you, but was there ever a plan B?
There wasnt really a plan B. I was always a little bit conscious that I might not be very good - I didnt know what was good and what wasnt, I didnt have any kind of measure of it in my family, and no-one in my family knew about the world of acting at all. Neither did I. I went to UNI and I did history and I did loads of acting on the side, and it was there that I met loads of friends who all had acting and directing in common.
They were all going to drama school and I thought, Oh, Ive gotta give it a go, and I gave myself two years out of drama school, which is nothing, right, but I didnt know. I was like, I dont wanna keep getting rejected - if Im not good enough, Im not gonna keep trying, Im not gonna keep forcing this on people if Im not good enough! So I kind of gave myself two years. I didnt have a back-up plan, I didnt have a clue, I was thinking, Im pretty competent, I can sort of do other things. I dont know what that would be, and thank God it didnt happen, because I dont know what Id be doing know, I might be working in an office somewhere, really hating my life!
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But I was quite pragmatic about it, in a way - I didnt want to believe that I was gonna make it, I was like, Dont think youre gonna make it, youve gotta work fucking hard to get it. That was kind of my attitude. And luckily, I got a job pretty soon. I got one job, and then Jane Eyre (the 2006 BBC drama) was the second job that I got, after lots of auditions - I mean I did an awful lot of auditions, and got rejected from a lot of things
You spent four years working on The Affair, and three years in Luther. Is being a part of an ongoing television series the closest thing that an actor gets to working a full-time job? Is it strange, then, leaving that character behind?
Yeah, its funny, I am sort of reluctant as well to commit long-term to things, I have a sort of aversion to commitment, although I do it a lot! Like, I sort of hate myself for committing, but I often do it because Im fascinated by it, or thats where the most interesting characters have settled for me, despite them being three seasons, or whatever, its what has kind of enticed me more than a film role thats come my way. I go for the things that seem the most interesting.
Something like The Affair, thats a really unusual experience for me and the first time that it felt like that. I mean Luther has been in and out and its a bit part, really, so it doesnt take up much time and its every few years, so it doesnt feel the same, but yeah, five months every year going and filming [The Affair] out in New York, that felt like a sort of regular job, and I liked and didnt like that, at the same time. It means you can become really familiar with the character in a way that becomes second nature, and other times I sort of feel, Am I getting lazy?
Thats my fear [that] you get sort of lazy, and when you let go of it, it is weird, I mean it feels like a part of you - but thats with most characters. With someone like [The Affairs] Alison, she constituted a lot of my life, you know? Two years, really, if you put it all together, so yeah, its a long time that youre exploring that person and playing them. And theyll always be with you, and Im sure if I ever find myself in Montauk, things will remind me [of that role], and it will be really interesting. Ive only just stopped it, so it will be a while before I can look back properly
Finally, you work in theatre, TV and film. Do you have a preference?
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I dont know! Theyre all amazing. Theatre would exhaust me if I did it full-time, and you get paid nothing! I mean, I love theatre, because it is magical, and you have the most control as an actor, I think, to tell the story every night. But it is exhausting. So, I think they all exist for a reason and I luckily get to dip my toe into all of them, and that makes me feel much more sort of rounded, and it allows me to express different parts of me in different ways, so yeah, thank god theres all three of them. Thats a really hard decision! If theatre paid a lot more, then maybe Id go with that!
The Little Stranger is in cinemas from Friday September 21st.
Gardai carrying out searches and inset, some of the alcohol seized
Gardai carrying out searches and inset, some of the alcohol seized
Gardai in Carrick-on-Shannon ensured teenagers celebrated their Junior Cert results sober last night as they searched a number of disco-bound buses for alcohol.
A large quantity of drink was confiscated including nagins of vodka and cans of Druids and Bulmers.
"A number of Mummys and Daddys are right now getting phone calls about their little darlings informing them of their behaviour," gardai posted on Facebook.
"These events are strictly alcohol free, for obvious reasons. If you are found to be under the influence, you will not be getting in," they warned youngsters.
More than 62,000 students received their results yesterday.
Parents of celebrating pupils were urged to talk to them about the dangers of alcohol.
Miriam Taber, chief executive of Drinkaware, said alcohol should have no place in their celebrations.
"The Junior Cert results are a fantastic achievement and of course should be celebrated. But these young people are about 15 years old, which is too young to be drinking alcohol and we should not accept alcohol is synonymous with these events," she said.
"Our research highlights a worrying trend: an increasing number of parents now find it acceptable for their children to drink at home before 15 years."
A recent survey of 500 parents revealed two in five believe it is a good idea to introduce children to alcohol at home before the age of 18.
"International research shows people who start drinking alcohol before the age of 15 years are four times more likely to experience alcohol-related issues later in life than those who begin at age 20 or older," said Ms Taber.
Clive Byrne, director of the National Association of Principals and Deputy Principals, urged schools to give out results as late in the day as possible. "We discourage schools from issuing them immediately because that encourages students to be out around the town or village or city."
A Derry GP feared her 14-year-old patient was so gravely unwell he was going to die in front of her before he could be transferred to Altnagelvin Hospital, an inquest has heard.
Dr Karen Connolly was giving evidence at the inquest into the death of Orin McBride, from Strabane Old Road in the Waterside area of Derry.
Orin, who had a complex medical history of hydrocephalus, epilepsy and global developmental delay, died at the Royal Belfast Hospital for Sick Children (RBHSC) on June 28, 2015, from pancreatitis.
Dr Connolly told the inquest sitting in Strabane that she was contacted on June 16 by Orin's mother, Majella McBride, who told her Orin was unwell and was having difficulty breathing.
Dr Connolly advised Ms McBride to call an ambulance and get her son transported to Altnagelvin.
However, Ms McBride said she wanted her son taken to Belfast where the medical team who had been providing long-term care for Orin was based.
Dr Connolly said Ms McBride ended the phone call rather abruptly, which left her feeling uneasy, so she decided to visit the family home and see Orin, and was "very alarmed at his appearance".
Dr Connolly was asked by counsel for the Coroner, Patrick McGurgan, if she thought Orin could have survived the journey to Belfast, which was in line with his mother's wishes and in accordance with a care plan put in place when the boy had been discharged from RBHSC a month earlier.
Dr Connolly said "definitely not" and added: "He (Orin) needed urgent medical care. I took a medical decision based on his best interest and went against her (Ms McBride) wishes.
"I felt I needed to get him to the nearest hospital for stabilisation. I didn't think he would survive a journey to Belfast.
"I feared he may not make it to Altnagelvin because he was so gravely unwell. I thought he mightn't survive while I was in the house."
Orin remained in Altnagelvin hospital for three days until a bed in a medical ward at RBHSC became available.
Orin's condition continued to deteriorate after he was admitted to the paediatric Intensive Care Unit at RBHSC until June 28, when a decision was made to withdraw life support.
Earlier in the inquest, Ms McBride gave evidence that she did not consent to this decision and denied saying that Orin had "fought long enough, just make him comfortable".
Dr Sharon Christie, who was one of two doctors in the room with Ms McBride when the 'end of life' discussion took place, told the inquest it had been made clear throughout the day to Ms McBride how unwell her son was.
Dr Christie said she felt it had been communicated to his mother "that there was nothing else we could do and that on this occasion we were at the point of no return".
She said the decision was made to "not actively intervene" and "not actively resuscitate" Orin and that Ms McBride understood and consented to this.
She told the court she was a fairly direct person, and had said: "Your son isn't going to pull through."
Mr McGurgan asked Dr Christie if she was sure Ms McBride knew it was end of life and she was seeking her consent, as that issue was being disputed by Ms McBride.
Dr Christie there was another doctor and two nurses present at the time and she had asked Ms McBride if she understood, if she had any questions, and then arranged for a priest to come.
Dr Christie told the court she wrote her notes on the meeting as soon as Ms McBride left the room to go and be with her son, so she was clear in what had been said by Ms McBride.
Dr Christie also said the ventilator would not have been removed from Orin, as Ms McBride had said in her evidence, because that wasn't part of the process of withdrawing life support.
The inquest continues.
Europe will have no choice but to comply with U.S. sanctions on Iran, according to Javier Solana, a former NATO secretary general and early advocate of the nuclear deal abandoned by President Donald Trump.
Solana, who was a long-time promoter of diplomacy with Iran as the European Unions foreign envoy, said that the U.S.s international financial clout means EU efforts to get around sanctions are doomed to fail, Tehran Times reported citing Bloomberg.
I wish I could say yes, Solana said when asked if European moves to circumvent sanctions will succeed. Rather, the U.S. Treasurys ability to sanction transactions carried out in dollars effectively kills those plans, he added.
All charged with violent disorder: Michael Davitt, from Clamaurice road, Donnycarney, Conor Shannon, from Glendale Estate, Leixlip, and Seamus O'Cearra, from Mount Symon Green, Clonsilla, leaving CCJ. Parkgate Street, Dublin. Picture: Caroline Quinn
Sentencing of three teachers and two other men for their part in a violent pub brawl has been adjourned so a judge can examine CCTV footage of the incident.
The five accused, who have admitted taking part in a melee at a well known Dublin pub, were remanded on continuing bail today.
Judge Brian OShea said he wanted to watch the footage himself before he finalises the case. He adjourned it to a date later this month for the video to be brought to court.
The five pleaded guilty to violent disorder in a row that broke out at McGowans pub in Phibsborough on July 14, 2017.
Teachers Michael Davitt (34) from Clanmaurice Road Donnycarney, Conor Shannon, (33), of Glendale Estate, Leixlip, Co. Kildare and Seamus O Cearra (34) from Mount Symon Green, Clonsilla, appeared at Dublin District Court over the punch-up which involved 10 people.
Stephen Cantwell (28) from Collins Avenue and David McSweeney (31) from McKee Avenue, Finglas are also charged with violent disorder in the incident.
Expand Close All charged with violent disorder: Michael Davitt, from Clamaurice road, Donnycarney, Conor Shannon, from Glendale Estate, Leixlip, and Seamus O'Cearra, from Mount Symon Green, Clonsilla, leaving CCJ. Parkgate Street, Dublin. Picture: Caroline Quinn / Facebook
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Whatsapp All charged with violent disorder: Michael Davitt, from Clamaurice road, Donnycarney, Conor Shannon, from Glendale Estate, Leixlip, and Seamus O'Cearra, from Mount Symon Green, Clonsilla, leaving CCJ. Parkgate Street, Dublin. Picture: Caroline Quinn
Mr McSweeney faces an additional charge for producing a glass as a weapon during a dispute.
The case came before the court for sentence today when Judge OShea said he had not yet seen CCTV footage and he could not make a determination until he does so.
Judge OShea said he also needed something in writing so he could identify the various accused on the footage.
He said he was looking for something that will allow me to identify what I am looking at.
A garda sergeant said he had asked for the footage some time ago and he did not have it yet but it will be got.
The judge repeated that he wouldnt be satisfied to adjudicate on it until he saw the CCTV.
I am conscious that some of them are teachers, he said, setting an adjournment date and asking if there was a period of mid term coming up.
Solicitor Michael Hanahoe, for the three teachers, said his clients would make themselves available for whatever date was set.
He said it would be more appropriate to leave mitigation until the next date. Solicitor Stephen OMahony, for Mr Cantwell and Mr McSweeney said he had not yet seen the CCTV footage and asked to be furnished with a copy.
The judge was handed testimonials on the accused before he adjourned the case to a date later this month.
Previously, the court heard the incident occurred at 2.40am and up 10 people got into a row which continued even after staff tried to separate them.
The fight continued for a while but was finished by the time gardai arrived.
It was alleged Stephen Cantwell was observed hitting another male from behind after he had been punched by that man earlier in the row.
The court was told Michael Davitt was also in the melee and had thrown a number of punches but not at anyone in particular.
He also suffered a bloody nose after receiving a blow to the face, the court heard.
David McSweeney was also seen fighting and threw a glass which hit Seamus O Cearra who was injured and suffered a cut to his forehead.
OCearra was also kicked, however, he was also observed punching one man in the face knocking him to the floor.
Judge OShea heard Conor Shannon was knocked down during the fight though he was seen throwing punches, but was not observed assaulting any person in particular.
No damage was caused to the pub but bottles and glasses had to be cleaned up afterwards. None of the staff were injured, the court heard.
Judge Kelleher was told Hopkins has a total of 101 previous convictions, none involving any offence of a sexual nature. Stock image
A man who trespassed into one of Ireland's most prestigious girls' secondary schools and made "sexual and suggestive" comments to a shocked teen near a toilet cubicle was jailed for 10 months.
Tadhg Hopkins (40) was sentenced after pleading guilty before Judge Olan Kelleher at Cork District Court to charges in relation to incidents at Scoil Mhuire on June 6 last, the opening day of the Leaving Certificate examinations.
Judge Kelleher was told Hopkins, of Nash's Boreen halting site, Fairhill, Cork, had walked into a secure area of the fee-paying Cork school by following someone with a security pass card.
Once inside the school at Sidney Place on Wellington Road, he wandered around until he came to the girls' toilet block.
A Leaving Cert student later said she got the fright of her life when, on emerging from a toilet cubicle, she saw a middle-aged man unzipping his trousers and chatting to her in a sexual way.
The court heard there was absolutely no suggestion that Hopkins had attempted to make any type of physical contact with anyone.
"This young woman was starting her Leaving Cert," Judge Kelleher said.
"It is not what you would hope to deal with when doing a State examination. It [clearly] had such consequences for her. She did observe him [Hopkins] undoing his zip in front of her and she got the fright of her life."
Hopkins admitted that he trespassed at the school without reasonable excuse in a manner likely to cause fear in another person.
He also admitted that he intentionally engaged in offensive conduct of a sexual nature. Inspector Ronan Kennelly said Hopkins also had a conversation with two girls near an elevator that was both sexual and suggestive in nature.
One of the girls was a Junior Cert student.
Judge Kelleher was told Hopkins has a total of 101 previous convictions, none involving any offence of a sexual nature.
A teenage boy has admitted sexually assaulting a schoolgirl who was surrounded by a group on a footpath and prevented from getting away.
The girl, who is in her teens, had been on her way home from school when the terrifying incident happened in north Co Dublin on a date in 2016.
The now 17-year-old boy, who cannot be named because he is a minor, pleaded guilty at the Dublin Children's Court and was remanded on bail yesterday, pending sentence.
Judge John O'Connor asked the Probation Service to draft a pre-sentence report on the teenager, who has to attend a sexual offending treatment programme for adolescents.
In an account of the evidence against the boy, then aged 15, Garda John Delaney said a then 16-year-old girl "was walking home from school at about 4pm when she was stopped by a group of youths, of which the accused is alleged to have been one.
"She was not allowed to continue on her journey and the accused grabbed the injured party's breast before leaving the scene," Gda Delaney said.
He said the girl was "extremely scared, there was no one else in the vicinity; there was no one outside this group that could see what was happening".
A backpack was also swung at her and the group called her names and abused her before they began to walk away in another direction.
The girl then ran home and explained what happened to her mother who called the local Garda station, Gda Delaney said.
From their enquiries, the youth was identified as one of the culprits. He had no prior criminal convictions.
A victim impact statement prepared by the girl was handed in to court.
A 16-year-old boy was accused of false imprisonment in connection with the incident, a charge he has denied.
Education Minister Richard Bruton has formally instructed Kildare and Wicklow Education and Training Board (KWETB) to sharpen up, following an investigation into a series of transactions involving former chief executive Sean Ashe.
Mr Bruton said a report on the investigation into KWETB by Dr Richard Thorn raised "matters of serious concern" and highlighted certain "shortcomings" in how the board's business has been conducted.
Dr Thorn's report, published yesterday, confirms that some of the matters under investigation have been referred to the Garda Fraud Squad.
The Thorn investigation included scrutiny of a property rental deal as well as contracts for school heating and boiler maintenance and small building works involving a company with which Mr Ashe had a family connection.
Other issues under investigation included additional costs of 483,000 on a school building project, value for money around the purchase and sale of a van that was sold a year after it was bought because of numerous faults and breaches of, or inconsistencies with, procurement requirements.
The business case for the use of a car pool and any benefit-in-kind obligations that may accrue as a result also came under the spotlight.
The concerns first came to light following an audit by the State spending watchdog, the Comptroller and Auditor General.
In a letter, dated yesterday, to the chairperson of KWETB, Noel Merrick, Mr Bruton noted that while the report outlined adequate arrangements to manage procurement and conflicts of interest were in place, there were "shortcomings on an operative basis in the implementation of procurement processes and in relation to management intervention in certain projects".
Mr Bruton said KWETB was already improving governance arrangements and addressing matters of concern, but, in light of the final report from Dr Thorn, he has formally directed it to take further measures. He has this power under Section 41 of the Education and Training Board Act.
Among the actions already taken by the board is a review of the use of pool vehicles with a view to terminating the practice.
The full range of actions to be taken by the board are to be agreed between KWETB and the Department of Education. KWETB has an annual budget of about 130m and 2,500 staff.
The minister said his department was also updating the code of governance for the entire ETB sector to reflect issues arising from the report.
KWETB chief executive Dr Deirdre Keyes welcomed the publication of the report and the directions issued by Mr Bruton. She said the board would meet shortly.
Making the grade: Leah Nolan goes over her results with parents Nicola and Bryan at Donabate Community College, Dublin. Photo: Gerry Mooney
Emily Calton O'Keeffe was flying high after scoring 10 As in her Junior Certificate exams.
The hard-working 16-year-old, from Castletroy in Limerick, has been training to be a pilot since she was 14.
Now a top gun both in the air and the classroom, Emily remained grounded as she received her sterling exam results at Gaelcholaiste Luimnigh.
An impressive six students at the school, including Emily, achieved As in all of their 10 higher level subjects.
Twenty-four of the school's 103 junior certificate students received higher level grade As and Bs in their results.
"I want to be a pilot, flying the big 747s. There's no pilots in my family at all I just always wanted to do it," said Emily.
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One of the youngest members of Limerick Flying Club, she has already "had a few lessons" in the air, and "loves it".
"I have flown in Coonagh [Airfield] on a small little two-seater plane.
"I haven't taken off or landed the plane yet, but I've taken the controls while we were up in the air," she explained.
Emily was "over the moon" at her exam results, while her mother, Anne Calton O'Keeffe, was "delighted", adding: "She worked extremely hard, and it's great its paid off for her.
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"She started flying when she was 14 with Limerick Flying Club. She loves it.
"Maybe we'll get a few free air miles out of her," she joked.
Five other students at the school celebrated getting their 10 As - Ide Ni Ifearnain, Joe Tanner, Eve McMahon, Muireann Ni She, and Seoda Ni Chaoimh.
All admitted they were "surprised" to get top marks in every subject.
Ide, from Lisnagry, added: "It feels great to see the work you put in come good. I didn't expect to do that well in English so I'm really happy."
Joe, from Annacotty, was cool and calm as he reflected on achieving 10 As.
"It wasn't too bad, and it worked out in the end anyway," he said.
His mother, Mary Tanner, said she was "extremely proud" of him.
"He worked hard and steady since last September, so he deserved his results," she said.
Seoda said that, after delivering top marks across every subject, she was looking forward to a bit of rest and relaxation.
"It was hard when my brother and sister were watching movies and I had to do my homework, but I can watch all those movies now," she added.
Principal Donnacha O Treasaigh said he was "thrilled" for all those who received results.
"We're absolutely delighted and thrilled," he said.
"The students are extremely hard-working and very committed to their studies.
"The most important thing is the student meets their own potential."
Leaving home, flying the nest, growing up; it sounds poetic. The reality is red rimmed eyes from sleepless nights, cheeks stained with diluted mascara and snotty tissues shoved up the sleeve of my jumper. Poetic.
I remember the car journey. Mom was coming. If Mom came then I couldn't be visibly worried because then she would worry and then I would worry there was something to be worried about. Dad and I don't see eye to eye on several issues but here's the great thing about him: when you're caught up in your worry, he assumes the polar opposite state of being, a state of utter tranquillity. "Would yih geh over yerself."
I felt guilty to grow up, the first of Mom's 'chicks' (is it any wonder I'm so sensitive?) to fly the nest. After everything my parents had done for me, this felt like an abandonment. I didn't want to feel like this. I kept waiting to feel excited or, at least, brave. I'd miss my bed. I'd miss the dog. I'd miss my Mom. I'd miss the lack of peace with her reminding me, quite painfully between bites, to clean the pan because it won't scrub itself. I'd miss asking her to let me live in the present, to let me sit and eat my organic, ethically produced eggs.
I'm a middle-class millennial who has been fortunate enough to have lived a sheltered life. My comfort zone is relatively tiny and stepping outside of it results in a drastic spike in heart rate. We, bubble-wrapped, middle class millennials need to run from our comfort zones. Run like your mother is about to sit you down and give you advice on boys. Faster than that. Run like your Da is about to sit you down and give you advice on boys. It's not our fault we were molly-coddled. Our parents showered us in love and praise (what were they thinking?). It's not our fault that there was a rule in primary school which banned running in yard, and later skipping ropes for the fear one of us fell and, God forbid, scraped a knee. I was one of those unfortunate children with little co-ordination and a love for running and so, at lunch time, you could find me at the secretary's office. I was what Brenda, the school's beloved secretary, termed, "a bleeder". "Your poor knees again," she'd say. Later the school playground incorporated rubber flooring. The kids who came after me would never know what I knew.
On the way down to Limerick, I have my earphones in. I'm banging out the High School Musical tunes in the back of the car because the alternative is to listen to my parents bicker about who's going to win the All-Ireland. Mom is a Kerry woman and Dad bleeds blue. Even the tension in that car could not provide sufficient distraction from that feeling. My belly filled with tiny moths. Moths, not butterflies, because butterflies are reserved for excitement and nervous enthusiasm for the future. I didn't have the butterflies, I had a case of the moths.
They creeped and crawled inside of me, foraging into the nooks and crannies of my intestines. I wish I was brought alive by change. I wish I spent the whole journey with my face pressed against the window, unable to contain myself. Instead, I found myself thinking of all the ways it could all go wrong. The year prior, I learned it will go wrong. You fall and your knees bleed. So, I lied. I lied when asked "are you buzzing to start college again?". "Yep, can't wait." Mostly, I think I was terrified of this thing called failure. I left for college feeling fearful and cowardly, vulnerable and incapable. I told myself I would be ok. I had my nails chewed to stumps as I tried not to call home because I didn't want to need anyone, trying my best to adult independently.
I won't sugar coat the realities of change. I'm not laying down the rubber flooring in the playground. The location of your life is irrelevant. If you can't control yourself around the Nutella jar late at 1am in Dublin, it's likely this will remain a problem for you when you move to Limerick. If you're not a wake-up at 6.30am, make your bed and run five miles kind-of-gal, it's unlikely a new city will incite drastic internal change. I still have no self-control around a Nutella jar and I'm still a night owl and a terrible runner. There's no flying away from your problems. I have changed though. I'm not the same person I was when I started college the first time round or even the second time round for that matter. I eat less Nutella. I try to eat it on fruit now as opposed to straight out of the jar with a soup spoon. I suppose one might say I've blossomed from a scared chick into this socially awkward, sensitive, compulsive Nutella-eating, young chicken. Or rather, I'm blossoming. It's a process.
Although you can't escape yourself, you can work on yourself. I admit it is hard work, to change yourself; but if change is the only constant there is, we can apply this principle to ourselves. Young people are not soft. They're just learning to cope in a world that is changing faster than before. We're learning. Change is hard. The rate at which change occurs changes too. As adolescents move into adulthood, the rate of change increases. Several aspects of their lives change at once. We should be mindful of our young people during this period of change. It's not about feeding them romantic platitudes or drowning their idealism in realism. It's about offering a support, something solid, something concrete.
My advice to incoming first years is to expect failure. This failure will not be pretty, especially if, like me, you are not adept in the acceptance of imperfection. You do not want to see me after I get subbed in a match or a C on an assignment. I am a teary, messy failure. We're all failures though, aren't we? Failure and change. Change and failure. The two, I find, are inextricably linked. We grow up through this process of encountering change and failing at first to adapt. It is because of failure, we make necessary changes to ourselves to meet life's demands. Then, life changes again and we begin once more with failure. When starting off in college, when change and failure are omnipresent in your life, I now know the best thing to do is make yourself a cuppa, sit down and give your auld mother a call.
'What doesn't kill you makes you stronger'. Nietzsche said this originally but then Jessie J wrote a hit song about it and one too many girls had it tattooed on their lower backs and it lost meaning. It's a cliche, but it epitomises the process. This life, this student life, is messy. You can't afford organic eggs and your knees bleed. Then, the wound heals itself. Just like that. Magic. The skin where the wound used to be is harder, tougher, stronger. I think that's magical. This magical, messy life.
Protesters during the Take Back the City Rally. Photo: Tony Gavin
Garda Commissioner Drew Harris has addressed the issue of gardai wearing hoods during a peaceful protest, saying the form of dress used at the event "was not correct".
Mr Harris insisted that hoods should only be worn underneath a protective helmet if their use is "deemed necessary".
He insisted a directive was issued today from the Deputy Commissioner to reinforce this requirement to all personnel.
The Garda Commissioner also condemned the alleged racial abuse of a member of gardai during the protest.
In a statement released this afternoon, Mr Harris said: "At the start of this event, An Garda Siochana deployed three community policing officers to oversee the safe compliance of a High Court order.
"As the atmosphere at the event grew more tense, a small number of public order officers were deployed to ensure public safety. The use of a fire retardant hood by public order officers is a matter for the operational commander on the ground and is designed to protect the safety of our members based on a risk assessment. However, the form of dress used at the event was not correct.
"I have requested a report from Assistant Commissioner, DMR, to see what lessons can be learnt from the event.
"Members of An Garda Siochana showed restraint in the face of physical and verbal abuse from a very small minority and I condemn the racist abuse suffered by an individual member of An Garda Siochana working at the event."
Gardai have come under criticism as members of the public order unit - who had their faces covered - stood in front of no. 34 North Frederick Street in Dublin city centre while a men in balaclavas from a private security group removed activists from the building.
Five activists were arrested for public order offences, with two due to appear before the Criminal Courts of Justice on October 2.
Four people were later hospitalised following the incident, according to a statement released by Take Back the City, a network of 18 grassroots activist groups who are "working together to take direct action" against Ireland's housing crisis.
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The activists were removed from the property as they had been defying a court order to remain in the building for a number of weeks.
The order was issued on 28 August, when the High Court ordered that all persons occupying the house vacate it by 2pm the following day.
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Mr Justice Michael Quinn granted Patricia Ni Greil, the owner of 34 North Frederick Street, Dublin 1, injunctions requiring persons unknown to vacate and cease trespassing at the four-storey building.
"The people who had occupied the building left the building peacefully in accordance with the High Court order. Subsequent to this, a small crowd failed to leave the area despite repeated warnings from An Garda Siochana under the Public Order Act and five people were arrested," Garda Commissioner Harris said.
The GRA has said that the Bill "only partly" addresses industrial relation deficiencies for gardai
THE Garda union representing over 10,500 frontline officers has warned of possible future industrial disputes if "defects" in a proposed industrial relations bill aren't addressed.
Earlier this year the Industrial Relations (Amendment) Bill 2018 was put forward by the Government and proposed giving gardai access to certain industrial relations mechanisms including the Labour Court.
Minister Heather Humphreys, who launched the proposal in July, said that the legislation would be commenced once robust internal dispute settlement procedures are developed with the Gardai.
Following lengthy discussions amongst members of the Garda Representative Association (GRA), the union said that it welcomed certain aspects of the bill but that it does not go far enough.
The GRA has said that the Bill "only partly" addresses industrial relation deficiencies for gardai and that it fails to give the organisation the option of trade union status.
The Garda union have also suggested that the Government are in "dereliction of its international obligations" for not allowing gardai the right to strike despite a ruling by the Council of Europe.
The 'Eurocop' case in 2014, by the Council's committee on social rights, ruled that Ireland was in breach of the European social charter in denying gardai the right to industrial action mechanisms given to other police forces.
The right to strike, the GRA say, is not provided for in the proposed Industrial Relations (Amendment) Bill 2018.
John O'Keeffe, spokesman for the garda union, said that the Bill will fail to "fully remedy its inherent defects" without balance and fairness.
"The practical effect of the Bill is that gardai will not be in the same position as other workers in processing disputes at the WRC and Labour Court. The absence of an entitlement to engage in industrial action will place gardai and their representative associations at a disadvantage.
"The second area of concern is the Bills failure to allow the option of trade union status to the garda representative associations. Given that other modern democracies allow police trade unions without any difficulty, this omission is difficult to understand. The prohibition can only be regarded as regressive and is emblematic of a past era," Mr O'Keeffe said.
"There are clear advantages to addressing the defects in the Bill in a considered fashion. The alternative is to again risk having to confront deficiencies in an ad hoc way in the heat of some future industrial dispute. This is not in any partys interest," he added.
In July Minister Humphreys said that the Bill, when enacted, will deliver on a commitment given by Government in 2016 to provide the Garda representative associations with access to the State industrial relations institutions the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) and the Labour Court.
In 2016 a nationwide industrial action was deferred to allow for further talks between garda unions and the Government.
Women battling cancer were subjected to a string of damaging, hurtful and offensive behaviours by some doctors in the cervical cancer scandal.
In his long-awaited report, health expert Dr Gabriel Scally has delivered scathing conclusions on the state of the national cervical cancer screening service.
The author of the new report into the CervicalCheck debacle described it as so poorly run it was doomed to fail and said some of the treatment of women bordered on misogynism.
The hurt and distress suffered by the 221 women who developed cervical cancer and the families of 18 victims who died was aggravated by some doctors.
These doctors passed on much-delayed audit reports telling them for the first time they had got a wrong smear test result.
But one woman who asked her oncologist what open disclosure meant was stonewalled.
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He ushered me out the door with no support, she said.
In another case, a woman was left distressed when the doctor who had failed to pass on the audit report showing her test result was incorrect just sat back in his chair.
She recalled that his attitude was that he could not give two hoots.
One grieving family who lost their mother were horrified to be told: Nuns dont get cervical cancer.
The doctor reminded them that she was a smoker.
Another doctor excused his failure to pass on the audit, saying it "got lost in his file".
A doctor told a patient that he did not tell her because "he did not know the protocol".
Other women remarked that the doctor dealing with them "could not look me in the eye".
When one woman asked her doctor how she would be informed from then on, he said to "watch the news".
A clearly upset patient was shocked that she attended the doctor for years but he remained silent about having her audit report. "So am I just a number?" she wondered.
Dr Scally became emotional as he recalled the testimonies of women who got cervical cancer, but were kept in the dark for years about the audits showing their test results were wrong. "They kept me honest," he said.
He believes there is a tradition of looking at women's health as "secondary". The experiences of the women prompted him to conclude: "paternalism is alive and well".
Dr Scally said the women felt particularly betrayed that doctors kept the audit reports from them. He said: "I would really like someone to say sorry and someone who means it to say sorry."
His conversations with the women were rarely, if ever, short and some were harrowing and emotional.
His 170-page report, which has 50 recommendations, highlights the system-wide failures and found nobody was in charge of CervicalCheck.
"The current policy and practice in relation to open disclosure is deeply contradictory and unsatisfactory," he said.
Open disclosure should involve a patient being told promptly that they were the victim of harm by a health service or doctor.
But currently "there is no compelling requirement on clinicians to disclose" and little guidance even from the Medical Council, the regulatory body which should hold them ethically to account.
Dr Scally said he found no reason why CervicalCheck should not continue using the three labs which currently carry out screening, one in the United States and the other two in Dublin.
The strongly worded report and the manner in which it delved into the failures in CervicalCheck was welcomed by several of the victims.
Vicky Phelan, the Limerick mother of two whose High Court case uncovered the presence of the secret audits, said she felt "vindicated" by the report.
But she echoed the call by Stephen Teap, the Cork father of two young boys who lost his wife Irene to cervical cancer, that the recommendations must not be left to gather dust.
Health Minister Simon Harris said failure to disclose the audit findings to the victims amounted to a "breach of trust". He said the attempt to release the audits to victims was "botched".
Dr Scally found that the medical advisory committee of CervicalCheck only met once in the last 10 years.
For every 1,000 women screened, around 20 women will have pre-cancerous changes. The traditional cervical test will identify some 15 of these women.
The HPV test, which will be introduced next year, will pick up 18, according to the report.
Responding to the Scally report, the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland said it would take time to "fully consider" those recommendations which will inform medical training and education programmes.
Quizzed: Taoiseach Leo Varadkar speaking at the launch of 31 Local Authority Culture and Creative Strategies 2018-2022 in Merrion Square yesterday. Photo: Frank McGrath
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar refused to take more than one question on the CervicalCheck scandal following the release of the Scally report.
Dr Gabriel Scally found system-wide failings in the cervical screening process, which has affected the lives of hundreds of women and their families.
However, Mr Varadkar walked off after only answering one question about the national scandal, which has caused devastating heartache for those involved and this week saw his Government under fire after elements of the report were leaked before families were briefed on it.
In his report, Dr Scally suggested that no further inquiries into the controversy would be necessary, believing no further facts would be found.
Mr Varadkar said the Government's current position was still to hold a commission of investigation into the scandal. "The Government's decision is to have a commission of investigation and that has not yet been changed," he said.
The Taoiseach said a further inquiry was not a decision for the Government.
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"I really need to hear and the Government needs to hear from the women affected and their families, the patient reps, as to what their wishes are and we also need to consult with the opposition because ultimately this is a decision for the Oireachtas and not the Government," he said.
Mr Varadkar said a number of the women involved told him they would like something good to come from the controversy. He said two good things can come from it.
"The first is that we aim to make cervical cancer in Ireland a rare disease and that can be done by improving our screening programme and extending our HPV vaccines to boys and girls. We can do that and we're going to do that.
"The second really is to embed a culture in our health service of open disclosure of grace, of candour and of compassion," he added.
Health Minister Simon Harris pledged there would be "no more knee-jerk decisions" in relation to the scandal.
He conceded there may have been mistakes in his handling of the controversy to date, but he said all decisions stemmed from wanting to ease the pain and suffering of the women affected and their families.
In relation to the next step in terms of an investigation, he told RTE's 'Six One' that if a commission of investigation is the best way forward the Government will do it.
However, he said "if there's a better way of doing it... let's do it that way".
Labour TD Alan Kelly said a "short-term inquiry to compel witnesses is still needed". He also questioned whether the HSE would carry out an internal inquiry into the scandal.
"The question must be asked 'should the HSE be investigating themselves?'
"I don't believe the HSE should carry out this investigation internally, but it should be done externally through an investigative process working with Dr Scally," he said.
European Affairs Minister Helen McEntee tweeted how the family of one woman was told by a doctor that nuns don't get cancer.
"Nuns don't get cervical cancer! My blood is boiling. All of the recommendations must be taken on board..." she wrote.
Fianna Fail health spokesman Stephen Donnelly said every woman affected "must now be told exactly when they will get the chance to be briefed by Dr Gabriel Scally in person".
"Public confidence in the CervicalCheck system has been shaken. There's no two ways about it. Dr Scally's suggestions on how to restore that trust are essential. The trust that thousands of women placed in the system has been breached. Moving to mandatory disclosure is essential."
Meanwhile, Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin said his party would be guided by the Scally report in its consideration of whether or not there should be a commission of investigation.
He said they would consider the "overall importance of the cervical screening programme itself and the degree that it does work in terms of protecting many women and preventing the onset of cancer".
Social Democrats co-leader Roisin Murphy said the "paternalistic" culture among some medics was exposed in the report.
TAOISEACH Leo Varadkar has said that doctors who kept information from women affected by the cervical cancer scandal should apologise in person.
Mr Varadkar spoke of the importance of the policy of open disclosure between doctors and patients in the wake of the damning Scally report on the controversy.
Mr Varadkar agreed with the the report which said the episode showed treatment of women "bordering on misogynism".
Mr Varadkar said: "Theres certainly a degree of misogyny... there is an attitude among some health care professionals and its a very old fashioned attitude that if something bad has happened its okay not to tell the patient because it wouldnt make a difference anyway and it might just upset them more.
"Thats a really wrong attitude.
"Its never the nurses or doctors or midwives decision to make that call.
"This is peoples health, information about their health and they have a right to know this.
"This goes well beyond CervicalCheck unfortunately and thats what really needs to change."
Mr Varadkar said that the government and HSE have already apologised to the women.
He added: "What now should be done as recommended by Scally is women being offered individual meetings with individual consultants who had the information and didnt pass it on to offer that apology in person."
The Government faces tough choices in deciding which direction to take on income tax and the USC Stock image
Fianna Fail and Fine Gael are to clash over what Universal Social Charge (USC) and income tax changes to make in the Budget.
Micheal Martin has dug in on Fianna Fail's preference for USC cuts over other income tax measures.
Fine Gael, meanwhile, wants to use the bulk of the resources available for tax measures to change the tax bands to offer relief for middle income workers.
It comes as Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe updated the Cabinet on Budget 2019. When pre-committed expenditure is taken into account, there is an unallocated amount of 800m to be split between tax and expenditure measures.
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Fine Gael has been clear that raising the point at which workers enter the higher rate of tax is central to its Budget plans, and Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has been vocal on the issue. Last night, one minister said: "Our main focus will be spending the tax budget on increasing the entry point for the top rate of tax."
The source indicated they would like to increase the entry point by at least 1,000 at a cost of around 213m.
That amounts to most of the sum available in the upcoming Budget for tax measures under the 2:1 ratio that was agreed with Fianna Fail under the confidence and supply deal, unless revenue raising measures are brought in.
Mr Martin, meanwhile, is adamant that his party is prioritising USC cuts over income tax changes. He said that investment in services, housing and health was his party's focus, but his party was seeking "modest reductions" in USC for low and middle- income workers. When asked whether this was his preference over income tax changes, he replied: "Yes, absolutely."
A Government spokesman said whether both USC and income tax cuts can be accommodated was "part of Budget negotiations".
He said Mr Varadkar had "made his views known" on tax band changes and added that the point of Budget talks was to come to an accommodation, as had been done in the past two years.
Mr Martin is also seeking a range of health measures, including a "significant increase" in cash for the National Treatment Purchase Fund to cut waiting lists and 55m for mental health services.
Report: The Northern Ireland Police Ombudsman said Mairia Cahill was let down by a disjointed investigation into rape allegations against a suspected IRA man. Photo: Gerry Mooney
Mary Lou McDonald has unreservedly apologised to Mairia Cahill after a police ombudsman report found evidence suggesting the man accused of raping the former senator was suspended from Sinn Fein as it was suspected he was abusing children.
In a statement, Ms McDonald said she deeply regrets that Sinn Fein did not have mandatory reporting procedures in place at the time of Ms Cahills ordeal.
I have no doubt that the three women at the heart of this report have been through an ordeal, she said. I want to commend their bravery, in particular the bravery of Mairia Cahill for waiving her anonymity, she added.
Ms McDonald did not respond to any questions surrounding Sinn Feins decision to suspend a member over child abuse concerns or whether the party reported these concerns to the authorities.
It comes as RUC intelligence shows police in Northern Ireland received information in 2000 which suggested Martin Morris was suspended from Sinn Fein because he was suspected of abusing certain children.
The Northern Ireland Police Ombudsman also found the RUC received intelligence around the same period which suggested the Provisional IRA were investigating the child sex abuse accusations made against Mr Morris.
Mr Morris has denied the allegations and was acquitted of charges of rape and IRA membership when his trial collapsed in 2014. The Ombudsman found the Ms Cahill was failed by the police over their handling of her sex abuse allegations.
The new highly sensitive RUC information will not be published by the Police Ombudsman, but it is set out in a letter to alleged sex abuse victim, Ms Cahill.
RUC CID (Criminal Investigation Division) received information in 2000 that suggested Mr Morris was suspended from Sinn Fein as it was suspected that he was abusing certain children, the letter states.
This information was placed on police systems and shared with specific police officers within the CARE unit, CID and Special Branch
Upon Request by the Police Ombudsman, police confirmed they could find no electronic record of any actions having been taken by the police officers with whom this information was share, it adds.
The letter also states, it was evident that police within RUC Special Branch and CID had received intelligence reports in 2000 onwards that collectively suggested that Mr Morris was allegedly involved in the sexual abuse of children and that was being investigated by the PIRA.
In a statement the Ombudsman, Dr Michael Maguire, said he had found Ms Cahill had been failed by a disjointed police investigation.
He confirmed the RUC, which was the predecessor to the PSNI, had information about the alleged abuse ten years before it began investigating the case and recommended four officers be disciplined for shortcomings in the police response.
Ms Cahill, a grand-niece of prominent Belfast republican Joe Cahill, told detectives in 2010 she had been sexually abused by Morris in 1997 and 1998 when she was 16. He was later acquitted of rape and denies all wrongdoing.
In 2014, Ms Cahill revealed she had several meetings with then Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams about her abuse claims. She also alleged she was subject to an IRA interrogation over her allegations.
Mr Adams has previously insisted the party did not engage in any cover-up of abuse at any level.
He also previously denied claims by Ms Cahill that she was subjected to an IRA kangaroo court.
Ms Cahill told the Irish Independent the report showed she was telling the truth about the abuse she endured and the IRAs involvement investigating her rape allegations.
Contemporaneously intelligence obtained by the Ombudsman which had been given to the RUC and special branch detailed an IRA investigation into sexual abuse and Sinn Feins actions towards the abuser who was a member of their party, she said.
In addition, from the failure of the police to act on this information you can reasonably conclude children were potentially put at risk.
Dr Maguire found that the PSNI investigation had failed the victims, but he did not support the allegations that it chose not to arrest some of the individuals concerned because they were police informants or that it had been subject to political interference.
He found there was an inconsistent approach to the investigation of some of the people suspected of IRA membership. But he found no evidence that anyone had been protected from prosecution.
The new US Ambassador to Ireland may not be officially appointed until early in the new year, it has emerged.
The news came as confusion over President Donald Trump's visit to Ireland continued - with US and Irish officials unable to say if the trip had been postponed.
However, as chaos reigned over the prospect of Mr Trump visiting Ireland, the Cabinet approved the appointment of Edward F Crawford as the US Ambassador to Ireland.
The White House was expected to officially nominate Mr Crawford as the US administration's candidate for the vacant embassy position yesterday afternoon - but again surprised Government officials by failing to release the name.
It is expected that the Trump administration will put the billionaire manufacturing mogul's name forward for nomination in the coming days. However, after Mr Crawford is nominated, he will have to go before the US Senate's Foreign Relations Committee where he will be grilled on his credentials.
It is unclear when these hearings will take place, but it is not expected that Mr Crawford's nomination will face serious resistance from Democratic Party politicians who oppose Mr Trump's regime.
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Sworn
After the hearings, US senators will vote on the businessman's appointment, and if he is successful he will be sworn into office, most likely by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
Once sworn in by the US administration, Mr Crawford will travel to Ireland where he will present his credentials to the Irish President.
Previous US ambassadorial appointments to Ireland took up to four months to be finalised - and the process around appointing Mr Crawford could stretch into the new year.
The Government is anxious to have the ambassador in place as soon as possible so as to improve relations between Ireland and the US.
The chaos surrounding Mr Trump's proposed visit has intensified calls for the appointment of an ambassador.
Yesterday, Government official could still not definitively say if the US president's visit was postponed.
Several queries to the White House also went unanswered.
White House Spokesperson Sarah Huckabee Sanders caused confusion when she said details of the visit had not been finalised.
Confusion was further added to yesterday when the chief economist to the White House, Kevin Hassett, said he was "not convinced" Mr Trump's visit to Ireland had been called off.
"I know the president and [his chief of staff] General [John] Kelly are very eager to come to Ireland. I think we view Ireland as one of our closest and dearest allies, and if it doesn't work out this time I'm sure something will work out soon," Mr Hassett said.
"The thing I can say is that it's election season in the US and the visit - which I'm not convinced it absolutely won't happen yet, I checked into it last night - the visit was scheduled for right after the elections and there are a bunch of things that might have to happen that involve foreign trips for negotiating reasons and so on that are all budding up against how much he can spend coming to Ireland and Paris," he said.
Fianna Fail leader Micheal Martin said the cancellation of Mr Trump's visit to Ireland shows the relationship between the two countries is "not functioning".
Mr Martin said the whole episode had been a "very unedifying experience".
However, he later welcomed news that the Cabinet had approved the appointment of a new US ambassador.
Dublin City Council has decided not to endorse any candidate for the upcoming presidential election following bizarre and outrageous scenes at City Hall this afternoon.
Six presidential hopefuls were invited to a special meeting of the council to deliver a five-minute pitch on why they should be nominated for the race.
They included Sarah-Louise Mulligan, Peter Casey, Norma Burke, Gemma ODoherty, John Groarke, and Marie Goretti.
However, it was Ms Burkes eccentric presentation that received the loudest reaction.
In the space of five minutes, the newest candidate in the race, suggested burning dead people for fossil fuels and turning the Aras into a luxury hotel, hunting lodge and spa.
Donning the alias Bunty Twuntingdon-McFluff, she introduced herself to the council as a PR executive.
As Im new in town I thought it would be a super idea to run for president to get some free publicity for my business.
If I win, Id cease trading for seven years, however Id use that time to host people useful to my interests and make a lot of powerful contacts.
I propose to serve as the CEO of the newly created Aras hunting lodge and spa. Id be in one room in the Aras and the rest will be rented out as hotel rooms to wealthy guests who would pay top dollar to hunt deer in the Phoenix Park.
Ms Burke also suggested the possibly of creating a new reality television show to our screens called In Your Aras.
You might see me in the morning in my silk jim-jams eating my breakfast... Perhaps even touching myself if it gets good ratings.
We would cut all taxation and welfare spending that will lead to significant reduction in population, then you would burn the bodies of the dead for fossil fuels.
Cllr Mannix Flynn then interrupted and told the chamber This is an absolute insult to the office of the president and for anyone else nominating themselves. This is not good for the other candidates... Its outrageous.
Later Ms Burke, who is a film maker and writer, told the Irish Independent that creating the nomination hoax was due to her belief that the majority of the other candidates were running for their own personal gain.
Following the speeches from the six candidates, councillors were asked to vote on a motion brought by Fine Gaels Kieran Binchy not to endorse any candidate.
Dublin resident Sarah-Louise Mulligan told the chamber that she would run as a pro-life candidate and would donate some of her salary to set up crisis pregnancy centres.
Businessman Peter Casey pledged to limit the presidential term to five years and wants to start a programme to bring Irish children living abroad to visit the country and embrace its culture.
Roscommon farmer John Groarke told councillors he is seeking a Republic where everyone is equal and believes the Irish Government could learn from the qualities of the Amish communities in the US.
Journalist Gemma ODoherty pledged to serve the cause of truth, justice and integrity for the Irish people.
Councillors voted by 29 votes in favour of the motion, with nine against and two abstentions.
Police have told a thief who took a charity box raising money to help pay for treatment for a little boy suffering a brain tumor, he has made "a grave mistake" warning him they can't "protect him from community anger".
Officers advised the man "a wise choice would be to quickly and quietly" hand himself in. They also urged the public to exercise restraint.
"No violence can in any way pay tribute to such a brave and happy young lad," said an officer.
The Poyraz kebab shop on Bridge Street, Dromore, Co Down was broken into in the early hours of Wednesday morning. Windows were smashed and a door forced in the 3.30am raid.
Police said they are "fairly confident" they would catch the man responsible and forensic officers had found blood at the scene.
As well as a charity box, a tip jar were stolen. That charity box had been for the Cure4Cam cause.
Cameron Truesdale, from Waringstown, Co Down, died last week. In January 2017 he was given just nine months to live after being diagnosed with an aggressive fatal brainstem cancer - Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma (DIPG).
However, in a bid to defeat the cancer he made multiple trips to Mexico to receive pioneering treatment which the fundraiser helped to pay for. His funeral was held on Sunday.
Cameron's father expressed his anger over the theft of the box one week on from his son's death. CCTV from the area at the time of the burglary has been widely circulated on social media.
Gareth Ingram owns the building and leases out the kebab shop.
"It was a bucket and unfortunately it had been on the counter for some time." he told the Belfast Telegraph.
"It was half full but we have no way of knowing exactly how much was in it. He also took the money from a tip jar and 60 from the til."
He said the person responsible had likely been in the shop and saw the charity box but during his raid left significant amounts of evidence to be traced.
"They are just blinkered ... all they want is money, they don't care where it came from or what it's for," he added.
"The community is up in arms."
A Craigavon police officer said there had been a great deal of anger as word spread of the theft.
"As a parent, when I heard about this, my fists clenched. What those close to Cameron and the family will be feeling now will be off the scale, and no one can blame them for that."
"The imagery speaks for itself. A business serving the community and helping the community losing both the money they raised, and tips the appreciative public gave them. It is a particularly personal attack and loss."
He added: "This isn't appeal just for info ... This is an appeal to the person responsible.
"You have made a grave mistake here. Whatever it is you desperately need money for, there is help out there for you, help which we can sign post you towards.
"What we cannot do is protect someone we don't know from community anger. There is no doubt that someone will recognise you. A wise choice would be to quickly and quietly bring yourself to Lurgan or Banbridge station and hand yourself in.
"We urge restraint and calm at this time. No violence can in any way pay tribute to such a brave and happy young lad. If anyone has any information, pass it to us straight away. You can PM us, or better still call 101. The reference number is 122 of today, 12/09/18."
Desperate efforts by paramedics and doctors to revive Leah failed, and she was pronounced dead at Cork University Hospital (CUH) shortly after admission. Photo: Daragh McSweeney/Provision
A toddler who died in a curtain cord tragedy has been described by heartbroken neighbours as "a little ray of sunshine" who lit up her community.
Tributes were paid by the devastated Cork neighbours and friends of little Leah Troy, who died after getting accidentally tangled in a curtain cord while she played in a downstairs room at her family home at Delaney Park, off Dublin Hill in Cork city.
Neighbours described Leah's mother and father, Alice and Mike, as totally devoted parents who idolised both the toddler and older brother Alex (4).
The couple had only moved into the area recently, having been renting in another part of Cork city. Mike is from Cork city while Alice is originally from Carrigaline.
Leah was found by her horrified mother when she went to check on the toddler shortly before lunch last Monday. A curtain string had somehow become entangled around Leah's neck, and the child had accidentally been strangled.
Desperate efforts by paramedics and doctors to revive Leah failed, and she was pronounced dead at Cork University Hospital (CUH) shortly after admission.
Leah had only celebrated her first birthday in mid-August.
"It was heartbreaking this morning when Alice arrived back to the house to collect some of Leah's toys, including a teddy bear," said one neighbour who asked not to be named. "Neighbours called to the house to offer whatever help we could and just to tell Alice and Mike that we are there for them if they need us. Everyone is devastated."
The entire community was traumatised by the freak accident. "It is unbelievable - one minute life is normal and the next you see a family dealing with this kind of freak tragedy. You just don't know what to say," said the neighbour.
"Everyone knows everyone else around here - this estate is full of retired people and young families. It is a lovely place to live and everyone looks out for everyone else.
"We are just so devastated for them because they are such a lovely young couple and are such great parents. Every time you'd see them out with Leah and Alex they were smiling, laughing and happy."
A post-mortem examination was concluded at CUH yesterday by Assistant State Pathologist Dr Margaret Bolster, and a file will now be prepared for the Cork Coroner's Office.
Gardai stressed they are treating the incident as a tragic accident.
Details of Leah's Mass of the Angels will be announced later.
The accident is the latest curtain cord tragedy to hit Ireland. Toddlers have died in Dublin, Co Kilkenny and Co Cork since 2005.
Four years ago, a three-year-old Co Donegal boy had a miraculous escape when he was found entangled in a curtain cord. Doctors were able to revive him.
In 2014, Roisin Redmond (2) from Graiguenamanagh, Co Kilkenny, died after getting accidentally caught in a looped blind cord at a relative's house.
Her mother, Lynda, issued an emotional safety appeal. "Maybe I can save someone's life by talking about this. If this can happen to us, it can happen to anyone," she said.
A near identical tragedy in February 2009 claimed the life of Arran Malley (2), who died after he got entangled in a cord while playing in a bedroom of his home in Carrigtwohill, Co Cork.
Arran's parents, Shane and Gillian, launched a determined safety awareness campaign. They warned in 2009 they didn't want any other family to suffer their heartbreak.
"When that happened to Arran we were hoping to get information on window blind dangers out to as many people as we could," Shane said.
Over 40pc of women experience some level of trauma during childbirth, according to research. Stock Image
Mumsnet "horror stories" could be one reason why some women suffer from a pathological terror of childbirth, a leading expert and midwife has said.
Tocophobia is a mental condition defined as a severe fear or dread of childbirth.
It affects an estimated 14pc of women, and can be serious enough to prompt requests for Caesarean deliveries and abortions. Research suggests that worldwide, rates of the disorder have been rising since 2000.
Catriona Jones, a lecturer in midwifery at the University of Hull in England, believes social media is partly to blame for the phenomenon.
She said: "You just have to Google childbirth and you're met with a tsunami of horror stories. If you go onto any of the Mumsnet forums there are women telling their stories of childbirth - 'oh, it was terrible, it was a blood-bath'. I think that can be quite frightening for women."
Ryanair passengers face more disruption as unions are today set to reveal the date of the "biggest strike action the company has ever seen" later this month.
Worker representatives in five European countries are expected to announce a 24-hour stoppage on September 28 at a press conference in Brussels today, a union spokesperson said.
Yves Lambot, of the Belgian union CNE, claimed the strike that will take place on this date will be bigger than the industrial action by cabin crew in July that led to the cancellation of 600 flights. He said German workers may join in.
It is unclear if Irish passengers would be affected by the industrial action.
In a statement today, Ryanair rejected what it said were "false claims" by CNE that the strike action would result in "travel chaos."
Repeated false claims made by these unions about travel chaos have proven to be unfounded. While we regret the limited strike actions that have taken place this summer, in all cases we have judiciously pre-cancelled a small number of our 2,500 daily flights in order to minimise customer disruption and inconvenience," Ryanair spokesman Kenny Jacobs said.
We object to these lurid and inaccurate press headlines which wrongly to refer to travel chaos, despite the fact that during the seven days of partial strikes by a small minority of our pilots and cabin crew this summer, there has been very little disruption and absolutely no chaos.
"Unions in Spain, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Portugal are involved," said Mr Lambot. "It will be bigger than the cabin crew strike in July. We are meeting next week to prepare the strike."
The unions include Uiltrasporti in Italy, FILT-CGIL in Italy, SNPVAC in Portugal and USO in Spain.
The budget airline cancelled 150 out of 400 scheduled flights yesterday due to a walkout by German pilots and cabin crew in their battle for better terms and conditions.
However, Irish-based pilots have ended a campaign of industrial action after backing a deal to roll out a seniority agreement on the allocation of annual leave, base transfers and promotions.
Ryanair's senior management team may face turbulence next week after UK shareholder advisory firm PIRC advised shareholders to oppose a resolution to re-elect chief executive Michael O'Leary and chairman David Bonderman.
The airline has banned media from its annual general meeting and will not hold a press briefing afterwards.
City Index senior market analyst Fiona Cincotta predicted there may be big changes on the way.
She said Ryanair shares were holding surprisingly steady as the company was about to face another round of strikes by German pilots and crew.
"Though the shares initially fell to 13, they started clawing their way back to 13.18 during the afternoon," she said yesterday.
"The U-turn comes not so much because the company is impervious to the union pressure, but because it has been locked in a series of strikes with German flight unions for the better part of the last six months and the shares have already fallen from a high of 16.81 in June."
She said that in May alone the company had to cancel 1,100 fights compared with 43 in the same month last year.
Given higher oil prices and declining passenger numbers in the airline industry, she said Ryanair may find it difficult to yield to the pressure from pilots and crew who say their wages are far too low.
Ms Cincotta said Ryanair had to also face inwards pressures amid mounting speculation that the company's board might vote against re-electing Mr Bonderman as chairman. He has been in the position for almost two decades.
"The Irish airline has banned media from its AGM scheduled for next week and for the first time in years chief executive Michael O'Leary has decided there would be no press briefing after the event," she said.
"Changes are most likely afoot for the airline."
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I'm sitting across from RTE Prime Time presenter Miriam O'Callaghan, who is wearing nothing but her bra and knickers.
Sure, I'm focused on her thoughts on Dee Forbes. And yes, of course I want to know her views on the release of the station's recent pay figures.
But reader, I'm human, and it's taking every ounce of professionalism to hold her steely stare and avoid looking down.
Only a few minutes before, we were both fully dressed (it's worth noting I remained so) and I had dropped into Brown Thomas - where she was shooting a photograph for Breast Cancer Ireland's awareness campaign in conjunction with the luxury department store.
I had arrived unannounced and it seemed to unsettle her: "I have nothing to say, I have no good lines for you," she laughed, as a PR woman led me quickly to another area.
But when she eventually did the interview, in her underwear, I couldn't help but wonder if the woman renowned for unnerving the Taoiseach and making politicians sweat had suddenly turned the tables on me.
I was invited into her dressing room, where her pink dress came off. I sat on a small footstool and turned to face the wall. "Don't worry," I promised, "I won't look."
But my modesty proved unnecessary. The RTE star pulled up a low footstool and sat opposite me, legs akimbo, in a matching skin-toned bra and knickers.
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Miriam's husband Steve Carson has just landed the biggest job in BBC Scotland. From tomorrow he will be responsible for BBC Scotland's entire programme output, across TV, radio and online. It's a massive promotion. A job anyone would leap at.
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But after four years as the Head of BBC Northern Ireland's Content Production, it will bring Mr Carson further away from home.
I put the colour of the moment aside and ask her thoughts on the move.
"It's really exciting, I'm very proud of him," she says.
"When I met Steve, the only thing I worried about was he had a very fine career in London and I obviously had young daughters.
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"He came to live with me in the Republic of Ireland."
So there was a sacrifice from Steve at the beginning?
"I felt that. I felt he sacrificed a very glorious career for me.
"So right now it's wonderful, because I think it has come full circle and he did say he had a wonderful time working in RTE. He ran a production company called Mint, which did very good work.
"But I know, deep in his soul he is really happy to be back in the BBC."
When the job came up, Steve asked his wife her thoughts. "Obviously he said to me 'what do you think love?' and he is such a nice guy that if I had said 'no love', he would probably say 'oh...' [I won't take it] but I told him to go for it. It's such an exciting job. I really believe we have only one life, and this is it, so live it to the full.
"We have a very strong marriage and are very happy together, and I want him to be the happiest man on the planet."
On a personal level she says: "I honestly don't think it will be difficult. What's difficult in the world? It's difficult having a serious illness, it's difficult - I am making a film at the moment about profoundly special-needs adults and that's difficult.
"Difficult is not my husband getting a great job and us flying to Glasgow. It's not difficult.
"The fundamentals of my life are good. I have four healthy daughters, four healthy sons, I wake up every morning grateful for that and I am delighted he is going to Glasgow.
"I think it's a really exciting new chapter in our lives."
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She says she has made up her mind. She will never follow him to the BBC because she is happy in her position at Montrose.
I ask if she ever gets lonely. "It's a very interesting question and I don't want to sound smug, but actually, only once in a blue moon do I get the house to myself when no one is around - not even the dog - and I turn on the music loud and I dance.
"Even though I adore my family, I only get an hour every now and then, so I'm not lonely."
Steve will fly out on Monday mornings and fly home from Glasgow on Friday evenings.
"He will be home every weekend to take his sons to rugby and to take his wife out for dinner," she says.
Miriam has some astute advice to other couples.
"Let everyone have their dream.
"Just because you are in a relationship and you love someone, don't ever stop them doing what they want to do.
"I'm really proud of him and delighted he got the job. The minute he mentioned to me it was coming up, I said 'go for it.' And all the children are very happy. We are planning a Scottish outing for the Irish rugby game."
With that, Miriam gets up to slip into a lipstick-red dress for her next event. Relaxed that I now have my interview in the bag, I can finally let my eyes roam.
Her body is striking. Well-shaped decolletage, taut stomach and toned legs.
There is no sign of the eight children: she is in terrific shape.
But after we say our goodbyes I realised the one question I had wanted to ask Miriam had slipped my mind.
I can only surmise it must have been the bra and knickers.
Perhaps the Prime Time star should consider similar attire next time she has a red-blooded politician in the hot seat.
She would run rings round them.
Meanwhile, I am just praying if I ever have to grill her co-host David McCullagh, he won't be in his tighty-whities.
No offence, David!
From tonight, Brown Thomas Dublin will light up in pink for a week to raise awareness of breast health
Postcard image: Prince Harry and Meghan Markle meet fans in Trinity College after viewing the Book of Kells in July. Photo: Gerry Mooney
When Irish Independent photographer Gerry Mooney received a call from Kensington Palace, he thought it was one of his colleagues having a laugh.
But once he was assured of their legitimacy, the PA to Duchess of Sussex Meghan Markle asked for permission to use a photo he took of the royal.
The latest addition to the British royal family was sending out postcards as a thank you to her fans following their best wishes for her 37th birthday. And Gerry's photo was the one they wanted to use for the cover.
The photo chosen was one of the duchess mingling with fans at Trinity College during her visit to Ireland with Prince Harry over the summer.
The PA told Gerry that Meghan had personally picked that one out as her favourite picture.
"The Duchess would be thrilled to use the photograph as her birthday correspondence card," the PA said.
The initial contact was made in early August, with the postcard now going viral online from fans.
"They were delighted to have it. It came as a surprise to me to be honest," Gerry said.
"When I heard it was Kensington Palace on the phone, at first I thought it was one of the colleagues having a laugh, but no, it was serious.
"They explained what they were doing. When the Duchess goes on a public engagement there's thousands of pictures, both professional and from normal people taken of her every single day.
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"So to have an image picked by her as the image she wanted to use for her birthday card, I have to say I was very pleased with it."
Gerry explained that both Meghan and Harry seemed very relaxed as they did a walkabout around Trinity College and chatted to members of the public.
"The people were very much taken with Meghan," he recalled.
"And I remember taking it -as quick as pictures are taken - and thinking there was a certain bond between her and the people at the time.
"It's something that I'll put up along with other memorabilia from the job.
"It's a lovely memento of the job and it's not every day you get a call from Kensington Palace looking for a picture to be used, and the fact it was in Dublin as well," he added.
Meghan Markle and Jessica Mulroney attend the Instagram Dinner held at the MARS Discovery District on May 31, 2016 in Toronto, Canada. (Photo by George Pimentel/WireImage)
Meghan Markle is reportedly struggling with refining her inner circle as she is "finding it hard to know who to trust" since her engagement to now-husband Prince Harry.
The 37-year-old Duchess of Sussex spent most of her life in Los Angeles before moving to Toronto to film Suits, where she lived for seven years and built a network of trustworthy close friends, most of whom were fixtures in high society so were already familiar with the precariousness of public life. But since announcing her engagement to the British royal last year and their wedding in May, she has moved full-time to the UK where she is trying to forge genuine connections of her own.
In particular, since she's been betrayed so consistently by her father Thomas Sr, half brother Thomas Jr and half sister Samantha Grant, she feels she can only trust her mother Doria Ragland, who is spending an increasing amount of time in London to support her daughter.
"Meghan has lost touch with some of her close friends from before the wedding, which has been tough. She's finding it hard to know who to trust," a source told People magazine.
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There is also the issue of leaks - Meghan flew to Toronto last month for a private visit to see her long-time best friend Jessica Mulroney, a Toronto-based stylist who helped plan her wedding, and she chose to stay at her family home to avoid any media intrusion. Despite not announcing the trip via Kensington Palace as it was a personal trip on her own, the news still broke and soon, details of what she watched - and drank - on the Air Canada flight were reported, although Mulroney earned her stripes as Markle's most trusted confidante as any details of what they got up to in Canada are still under lock and key.
Her makeup artist Daniel Martin, who works with the world's best known celebrities around the world with Dior, said he is part of an assortment that keeps in touch with her.
"There's a small group of us that check in with her and see how she's doing, but she's still the same person," Martin told the magazine.
It's also believed actress Priyanka Chopra is among the names on that short list as she was persistently asked about the royal wedding in the months before the Windsor ceremony, but tactfully managed to give little to nothing away.
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Emily Nash, royal editor with Hello! magazine, said figuring out who you can trust is part and parcel of royal life - the only difference being that Harry, William and Kate, who first became at least informally indoctrinated into the royal circle as a teenager, have had years to cultivate a close circle of friends - and it's rare that you'll see any 'new' friends on the scene.
"She is still going to be seeing and speaking to her most trusted friends just as before," she said, adding that she is "getting used to a more discreet social life".
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As for her British-based friends, it's believed she's trying to forge bonds with Amal Clooney and Victoria Beckham.
The gig economy and zero hours contracts are the "reincarnation of an ancient evil", a leading British cleric has claimed.
Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby also took aim at companies in "new industries" which he said failed to pay a "real living wage", forcing taxpayers to effectively supplement the earnings of workers in the form of benefits.
He said this amounted to large businesses "leeching" off the taxpayer as he accused them of failing to pay their fair share of taxes.
The archbishop attacked the gig economy and the use of zero hours contracts as he addressed the TUC Congress in Manchester.
He said they were "nothing new", and added: "It is simply the reincarnation of an ancient evil. And God says 'let justice flow down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream'."
The archbishop said the gig economy, typically based on flexible working and payment based on tasks completed rather than hours worked, was not the only "reincarnation of oppression of the vulnerable in employment".
"Pensions are just one example of the profit motive leading to the weakest being given the most risk and the strongest the most protection," he said.
File photo taken on August 31, 2010, Trier Bishop Stephan Ackermann presents the new sexual abuse guidelines of the Catholic church during a press conference at the Bishopric of Trier, western Germany. Photo: HARALD TITTEL/AFP/Getty Images
The Catholic Church in Germany acknowledged a "depressing and shameful" legacy of sexual abuse on Wednesday after a leaked study said clerics had abused thousands of children over a 70-year period.
The document, commissioned by the German Bishops' Conference, revealed that 1,670 clerics and priests had sexually abused 3,677 minors, mostly males, in the country between 1946 and 2014, Der Spiegel said.
The news magazine quoted a leaked copy of the study, which was compiled by three German universities.
Bishop of Trier Stephan Ackermann said the Church was aware of the extent of abuse demonstrated by the study's results.
"It is depressing and shameful for us," he said in a statement on Wednesday.
The leaked study was published on the day that Pope Francis, who has made several attempts to tackle a spreading sexual abuse crisis that has badly tarnished the Church's image, summoned senior bishops from around the world to the Vatican to discuss the protection of minors.
The Vatican had no immediate comment on the Spiegel report.
The magazine said the study, which examined more than 38,000 files from 27 dioceses, showed more than half of the victims were aged 13 years or under when they were abused.
About one in six of cases documented involved rape and three quarters of the victims were abused in a church or through a pastoral relationship with the abuser. In many cases, evidence was destroyed or manipulated, it cited the study as saying.
The Bishops' Conference was expected to present the "strictly confidential" study's findings later this month, Spiegel said.
Speaking on behalf of the Conference, Bishop Ackermann said that, while he regretted that the study had been leaked, he was convinced its survey were comprehensive and thorough.
"The study is a course of action which we owe not only to the Church, but above all and foremost to those affected," Ackermann said.
The Church had often transferred clerics accused of sexual abuse without providing the new host community with "appropriate information" about them, the study found.
Only one third of those accused had to face proceedings under canon law and sanctions imposed were at most minimal, with 4 percent of those found to have committed abuse still working.
The study called on the Catholic Church to rethink its refusal to consecrate homosexual men and to view the celibacy obligation imposed on its clergy as "a potential risk factor", Der Spiegel reported.
Last month, a U.S. grand jury released study findings showing 301 Catholic priests in Pennsylvania had sexually abused minors over 70 years
Viktor Orban (centre) arrives for a debate on Hungarys situation at the European Parliament in Strasbourg. Photo: Frederick Florin/AFP
The EU has voted to launch action against the Hungarian government of Prime Minister Viktor Orban for allegedly undermining the bloc's democratic values and rule of law.
Hungary called the vote fraudulent and vowed to challenge it.
The lawmakers voted 448-197 in favour of a report recommending the launch of a so-called Article 7 procedure, which could lead to the suspension of Hungary's European Union voting rights.
It is the first time in EU history that the European Parliament had initiated and approved such a motion, which needed a two-thirds majority to pass and was approved by 69.4pc of the lawmakers.
The parliament's vote means the other EU states must now look at what to do with Hungary.
The most severe punishment under the Article 7 procedure is stripping the country of its voting rights in the EU, however, that is highly unlikely to happen as the rest of the EU needs unanimity and Poland's nationalist and anti-immigration government is expected to block any tough action against Mr Orban.
Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto, echoing Mr Orban's long-time position, called the result "petty revenge" against Hungary for its tough anti-migration policies. He also claimed that the vote involved "massive fraud" since abstentions weren't counted into the final tally, which made it easier to reach the needed majority.
There were 48 abstentions, so the 448 in favour exceeded the two-thirds needed only because it was based on 645 votes. If the abstentions were counted into the final tally, there would have been a total 693 votes, so the 448 in favour wouldn't have reached two-thirds.
Mr Szijjarto said Hungary was considering legal options to appeal the result because of the way the vote was tallied.
But Judith Sargentini, who presented the report prepared by the European Parliament's Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, welcomed the outcome.
"Viktor Orban's government has been leading the charge against European values by silencing independent media, replacing critical judges, and putting academia on a leash," Ms Sargentini said. "The Hungarian people deserve better. They deserve freedom of speech, non-discrimination, tolerance, justice and equality, all of which are enshrined in the European treaties.
"This is a historic result for Hungarian citizens and for European citizens everywhere, that the European Parliament has voted by a large majority to stand up for the values we all hold dear," Ms Sargentini said.
The move saw some members of the European People's Party bloc - of which Mr Orban's Fidesz movement is a member - vote against their ally in Budapest.
Even EPP leader Mandred Weber, who earlier was supportive of Mr Orban and is seeking to become the European Commission president next year, said he had voted for triggering Article 7. "I have always been in favour of building bridges and I want to continue to do so, but yesterday [Tuesday] I didn't see any readiness from the Hungarian PM to make a move towards his EU partners and address our concerns," Mr Manfred tweeted.
Mr Orban has for years deflected much of the international condemnation of Hungary's electoral system, media freedoms, independence of the judiciary, mistreatment of asylum-seekers and refugees, and limits on the functioning of NGOs.
Mr Orban has insisted that all of the criticism against his government is based on Hungary's tough anti-immigration policies, which include fences built in 2015 on Hungary's southern borders with Serbian and Croatia to divert the flow of migrants.
Mr Orban has also expressed his desire to remain within the EPP, which he said was "deeply divided" on the issue of migration.
A close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny with violence, challenging him to a duel for making what he described as libellous and insulting corruption accusations.
Viktor Zolotov, head of Russia's National Guard, accused the jailed opposition leader of being a puppet of Washington and said his aim was to destabilise Russia.
Zolotov was visibly angry in a seven-minute clip aired online as he rejected Navalny's allegations of graft in the National Guard.
"I simply challenge you to a fight - in the ring, on the tatami, whatever, and I promise to make nice, juicy mincemeat of you in a few minutes," the uniformed Mr Zolotov said, raising his fist.
Navalny is serving a 30-day jail sentence after a court convicted him last month of breaking protest laws.
The Turkish leader has been mounting a public campaign to focus the worlds attention on the dangers of an attack on the rebel-held province. Image: AP Photo
A full-scale Syrian regime attack on Idlib would lead to a flow of refugees to Europe and "serious humanitarian and security risks" to the continent, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has warned.
The Turkish leader has been mounting a public campaign to focus the world's attention on the dangers of an attack on the rebel-held province, where around three million people are bracing themselves for an assault by Bashar al-Assad's forces.
In an article in the 'Wall Street Journal', Mr Erdogan said the international community "must understand their responsibilities as the assault on Idlib looms".
"A regime assault would also create serious humanitarian and security risks for Turkey, the rest of Europe and beyond," he said.
Turkey is already sheltering more than three million Syrian refugees within its borders and has repeatedly said that it cannot take any more.
Ankara has warned the EU it would not stop the new refugees from heading towards Europe, raising the prospect of a repeat of the 2015 refugee crisis.
In an apparent effort to underscore Mr Erdogan's warnings and threats, a pro-government newspaper published a map in Arabic showing how Syrian refugees might pass through Turkey and into Europe.
The map, published by the 'Daily Sabah', seemed meant to encourage Syrians to head to Europe and to focus the attention of the EU on a potential new wave of arrivals.
Around 30,000 people have already been displaced by fighting in Idlib and the neighbouring province of Hama since September 1, the United Nations said. ( Daily Telegraph London)
Afghan men carry an injured man to a hospital after the suicide attack in Nangarhar province. Photo: Reuters
The death toll from a suicide attack on Afghan protesters has soared to 68, officials said yesterday, as violence flares across the country ahead of elections and a key Islamic holy day.
The bombing on Tuesday in the eastern province of Nangarhar was the latest in a wave of deadly insurgent attacks which has claimed the lives of hundreds of civilians and security forces in Afghanistan.
The blast wounded another 165 people, an official said.
There has been no claim of responsibility for the massacre but Isil, which has carried out most of the recent suicide bombings in Afghanistan, is active in the province.
Scores of demonstrators had blocked the highway between the provincial capital of Jalalabad and a major Pakistan border crossing in protest over the appointment of a local police chief when the suicide bomber blew himself up.
The dead and wounded were rushed to several hospitals in the back of pickup trucks and ambulances, overwhelming doctors and nurses as they struggled to cope.
Zar Khan, one of the injured, told AFP he saw a young man get out of a car and run towards the protesters shouting "Allahu akbar" (God is greatest).
"Then the explosion happened and I found myself surrounded by blood and flesh," Mr Khan said from his hospital bed.
Violence across the country has intensified in recent weeks as the Taliban makes gains on the battlefield and Isil launches deadly urban attacks.
It comes as Afghanistan enters a typically violent period of the year - the holy month of Muharram, which began on Tuesday.
Georgia is one of 19 states that allows corporal punishment. (stock photo)
A school in the US state of Georgia has introduced a new method of instilling discipline in its pupils: Up to three clouts with a wooden paddle.
The Georgia School for Innovation and the Classics, which takes children from the age of five to 15, asked parents before the start of term this week for consent to paddle their children if they were caught breaching rules for the third time.
Jody Boulineau, the school's superintendent, told local reporters: "In this school we take discipline very seriously."
Georgia is one of 19 states that allows corporal punishment.
"There was a time where corporal punishment was kind of the norm in school and you didn't have the problems that you have," added Mr Boulineau.
He said the proposal had received a mixed response with some parents enthusiastic, although many people also took to social media to denounce the policy.
So far about a third of respondents have given their permission.
The new policy, spelled out in a letter to parents in Hephzibah, Augusta, says children will be suspended for up to five days if the school does not have permission to administer the paddle.
"There's no obligation. A parent can either give consent for us to use that as a measure, or they can deny consent," said Mr Boulineau.
The policy specifies "the student will be taken to an office behind closed doors". ( Daily Telegraph London)
A researcher said microwave weapons might be to blame. Photo: Stock Image
Russia has emerged as the main suspect behind a spate of mysterious illnesses to afflict American diplomats in Cuba and China, say US officials.
They told NBC News that communications intercepts indicate Moscow was involved but that the evidence was not sufficiently conclusive to publicly blame the Kremlin.
The twist comes at a time of strained relations between the two countries. Donald Trump's administration has expelled diplomats in response to the poisoning of a former Russian spy in Britain and concerns at attempts to meddle in November's mid-term elections.
American officials have struggled to work out who or what was behind the health problems first reported at the US embassy in Cuba two years ago. Victims said they heard a high-pitched whine and later suffered headaches, nausea and dizziness among a range of symptoms doctors said resembled brain trauma.
The circumstances led to speculation a sonic weapon had been deployed, although no evidence of such a device was ever found. Last week, a researcher said microwave weapons might be to blame.
Cuban officials, who are conducting their own investigation, have denied involvement.
The State Department said in June it brought a group of diplomats home from China over concern they were suffering from a mysterious malady resembling brain injury.
President Donald Trump at a briefing on Hurricane Florence at the White House yesterday. Photo: Zach Gibson/AFP
US authorities have ordered up to 1.7 million people to flee the path of Hurricane Florence.
Across several eastern states, residents scrambled to leave as the Category 4 storm, with winds of 225kmh, approached.
"This storm is a monster. It's big and it's vicious. It is an extremely dangerous, life-threatening, historic hurricane," said Roy Cooper, governor of North Carolina, as he warned people not to gamble their lives on riding out the storm.
President Donald Trump took to Twitter to issue his own warning.
"Please be prepared, be careful and be SAFE," he wrote.
Mr Trump was later briefed in the Oval Office in front of TV cameras by Brock Long, head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema).
The president said: "The safety of American people is my absolute highest priority. We are totally prepared. We are ready. We're as ready as anybody's ever been."
Mr Long said the hurricane would be a "devastating event" and urged Americans to evacuate if they've been asked to leave their homes.
He said electric power could be out for weeks.
South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster ordered as many as one million residents of the state's eastern coast to leave their homes ahead of the storm's predicted arrival today.
Schools in 26 of the state's 46 counties were closed from Tuesday.
The governor of neighbouring North Carolina ordered an evacuation of the Outer Banks, barrier islands that are a popular tourist destination, and parts of coastal Dare County, while a state of emergency was declared in Virginia.
"This is a very dangerous hurricane," Mr McMaster said, adding that the evacuation order for coastal counties was "mandatory, not voluntary".
"We do not want to risk one South Carolina life in this hurricane," the governor told reporters. "We're liable to have a whole lot of flooding."
Hours later, Mr Trump approved emergency declarations for both coastal states, a move allowing the release of federal funds and equipment to help protection and recovery efforts.
The US president said he had spoken to governors of threatened states, adding that the "federal government stands by, ready to assist 24/7".
Hurricane Florence has the potential to bring catastrophic flooding to areas of the eastern United States already soaked by heavy rain and it may be the strongest storm to hit the region in decades.
A Category 4 on the five-level Saffir-Simpson hurricane wind scale, Florence was 750km south-southeast of Bermuda and the centre of the hurricane was forecast to pass between Bermuda and the Bahamas yesterday, the National Hurricane Centre (NHC) said.
Forecasters expected some strengthening in the next 36 hours, as Florence marched west-northwest at 20kmh.
Wilmington, North Carolina, just north of where the hurricane is expected to come ashore, was sunny around midday yesterday as the town appeared to be emptying.
"I'm not approaching Florence from fear or panic," said Brad Corpening (35), who planned to ride out the storm in his boarded-up delicatessen in Wilmington. "It's going to happen. We just need to figure out how to make it through."
Officials in New Hanover County, which includes Wilmington, have stockpiled enough food and water for 60,000 people for four days, along with more than 28,000 tarps. Shelters in the city were filling and some people were being bused inland to Raleigh, even though some residents there were told they might have to evacuate.
"It's going to be bad," said Woody White, chairman of the New Hanover County Commissioners. "But no matter how bad it's going to be, it will pass and our job will be to rebuild this community together, and that's what we're going to do."
Even miles away from the Atlantic, North Carolina residents in low-lying areas were boarding up and emptying stores.
"A lot of our storefronts are boarded up," said Lynn Davis, town manager for Belhaven which sits at sea level in northeastern North Carolina.
"People are taking down awnings and U-Haul trucks have come in and take the entire contents of stores."
On its current track, Florence is expected to hit the Carolinas and Virginia the hardest, the NHC said.
Pope Francis has summoned senior Catholic bishops from around the world to the Vatican to discuss the protection of minors, in his latest attempt to come to grips with a spreading sexual abuse crisis.
The heads of the national Catholic bishops' conferences will meet with Francis from February 21-24 next year, a Vatican spokeswoman said.
The announcement came at the end of a three-day meeting of the "C-9", a group of nine cardinals from around the world which meets about four times a year to advise the Pope.
The spokeswoman said the sexual abuse crisis was the main topic at the meeting, which six of the members attended.
The Catholic Church is facing sex abuse scandals in the United States, Chile, Australia and Germany, among others.
'Der Spiegel' magazine reported yesterday that a study commissioned by the German bishops' conference had revealed that 1,670 clerics and priests had sexually abused 3,677 minors, mostly males, in Germany over a 70-year period.
In the United States, a grand jury has found that 301 priests in the state of Pennsylvania sexually abused minors over a similar period.
Francis meets today with US Church leaders to discuss that report, as well as a scandal involving a former American cardinal and demands from an Italian archbishop, Carlo Maria Vigano, that the pontiff step down over that case.
Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, president of the US bishops' conference, asked for the meeting after Mr Vigano last month accused the Pope of knowing for years about sexual misconduct by former US cardinal Theodore McCarrick and doing nothing about it.
Vladimir Putin has insisted Russia is a peaceful nation after inspecting war games in Siberia which have been billed as the biggest in the countrys history.
The week-long Vostok (East) 2018 manoeuvres span vast expanses of Siberia and the Far East, the Arctic and the Pacific Oceans.
They involve nearly 300,000 Russian troops along with 1,000 Russian aircraft and 36,000 tanks and other combat vehicles.
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Speaking at a firing range in the Chita region on Thursday, the Russian president lauded the troops for their high-level performance and insisted the drills are not targeted at any other country.
Russia is a peaceful nation, Mr Putin said. We do not and cannot have any aggressive plans.
More than 3,000 Chinese troops have joined the Russian military in the manoeuvres aimed to showcase burgeoning military ties between Moscow and Beijing amid their tensions with the US.
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The Chinese media described the Peoples Liberation Army involvement in the drills as the countrys largest ever dispatch of forces abroad for war games.
National Park Partners announce the 13th Annual Moccasin Bend Fall Lecture Series, sponsored since 2006 by Greg A. Vital. All lectures will take place at the Bessie Smith Cultural Center, 200 E. M.L. King Blvd. in downtown Chattanooga, and will begin at 7 p.m.
The series kicks off on Monday, Sept. 24, with Dr. Daniel Littlefield, Jr., director of the Sequoyah National Research Center at the University of Arkansas-Little Rock. He will present his in-depth knowledge of The Role of American Indians in World War I and discuss how, although not citizens of the United States at the time, American Indians enlisted by the thousands to serve our country.
The second lecture takes place on Monday, Oct. 15, and features Dr. Lauret Savoy, professor of Environmental Studies at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Ma. She will present a reading from her book, Trace: Memory, History, Race, and the American Landscape, winner of the 2016 American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation and the 2017 ASLE Creative Writing Award.
Our third and final lecture will take place on Monday, Nov. 5, and feature Dr. Paul Finkelman, president of Gratz College in Philadelphia, Pa. A legal expert and Constitutional scholar, Dr. Finkelman will address the Implications of the Civil Rights Amendments to the U.S. Constitution on the eve of election day. His lecture will coincide with a 15th Amendment exhibit, created by the National Park Service, opening in October at the Bessie Smith Cultural Center. Beginning at 5 p.m., attendees are invited to arrive early to view the exhibit at no charge and enjoy light refreshments prior to the lecture.
Tricia Mims, executive director of National Park Partners, emphasizes how this years lecture series reflects the organizations efforts to support the National Park Service in engaging new and diverse audiences. As we complete the Centennial and Beyond grant program, funded by the National Environmental Education Foundation, National Park Partners is encouraged by growing relationship between the National Park Service and the Bessie Smith Cultural Center. We plan to continue supporting the Parks programming and outreach efforts; and finding creative ways to connect people to the Park by showing the relevance of these historic, cultural, and natural resources in their lives today.
ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS
TO MEMBERS OF THE "TENSHO KENOH SHISETSU KENSHOUKAI" ASSOCIATION (JAPAN)
Study of the Paul VI Hall
Wednesday, 12 September 2018 [Multimedia]
Dear friends from Japan,
Good morning! I am very happy to meet you and with you Fathers Renzo De Luca and Shinzo Kawamura.
The Pope is very pleased to welcome you, delegates of the Tensho Kenoho Shisetsu Kenshokai Association, to Rome. More than 400 years ago, in 1585, four young Japanese arrived in Rome, accompanied by some Jesuit missionaries, to visit the Pope, who was then Gregory XIII. It was an extraordinary journey, as it was the first time that a group of representatives of your great country came to Europe. The four young people received a wonderful welcome, not only from the Pope, but also from all the cities and courts that they passed through: Lisbon, Madrid, Florence, Rome, Venice, Milan, Genoa ... Europeans met Japanese and Japanese experienced Europe and the heart of the Catholic Church. It was an historic meeting between two great cultures and spiritual traditions, and it is right to preserve the memory, as your Association does.
The journey of your young predecessors lasted more than eight years; there were no planes in those days. Yours is shorter and less tiring. But I hope you feel welcomed by the Pope as they were and that, like them, you will experience the joy of this meeting and be encouraged to return to your country as ambassadors of friendship and promoters of great human and Christian values. The four young people of the Tensho era did exactly this, showing commitment and courage. In particular, I want to remember their leader Mancio Ito, who became a priest, and Julian Nakaura who, like many others, was executed on the famous hill of the martyrs of Nagasaki and was proclaimed blessed.
I know that your Association promotes fine projects of culture and solidarity. I especially encourage your current efforts to set up a fund for the training of young people and orphans, thanks to the contribution of companies that are sensitive to their problems. You wish to show that religion, culture and the economy can work together peacefully to create a more humane world marked by an integral ecology. This is fully in accordance with what I also wish for our human family today and tomorrow, as I wrote in my Encyclical Letter Laudato si. It is the right path for the future of our common home.
Thank you once again for your visit. Like your four young predecessors, convey to your beloved people and your great country the friendship of the Pope of Rome and the esteem of the whole Catholic Church.
Availing myself of this occasion, I would like to communicate my intention to visit Japan next year. I hope to be able to fulfil this wish.
[The following are Popes off-the-cuff words]
Estoy muy contento de lo que Ustedes me han dicho y de esta historia que conocia de lejos. Las amistades se hacen a lo largo de la historia. Por eso es importante la memoria. No olviden las cosas que nos dieron la cultura, el pais, la lengua, la religion, la pertenencia social. No olviden eso y dar un paso adelante. El Provincial lo sabe porque fue director de un museo, asi que conoce bien. Hay que cultiv
Burmas handling of its Rohingya Muslims could have been better, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and leader Aung San Suu Kyi has said.
Burma is facing international pressure over atrocities allegedly committed by its military in the crackdown that followed August 2017 attacks by Rohingya militants on security forces.
The army is accused of committing mass rape, killings and setting fire to thousands of homes.
A report issued two weeks ago by a specially appointed UN human rights team recommended prosecuting senior Burma commanders for genocide and other crimes.
There are of course ways in which with hindsight I think the situation could have been handled better, Ms Suu Kyi said, responding to questions during a one-on-one discussion at the World Economic Forums regional meeting in Hanoi.
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She still defended Burma security forces, saying that all groups in Rakhine state had to be protected.
We have to be fair to all sides, Ms Suu Kyi said. The rule of law must apply to everyone. We cannot choose and pick.
Ms Suu Kyi said the situation was complicated by the myriad ethnic minorities in the area, some of which are at risk of disappearing entirely and which include not just the Muslims and Rakhine Buddhists.
Although the violence in Rakhine state has eased, Burma has to deal with its aftermath, especially the repatriation of the Muslim Rohingya who fled and the underlying causes of tension that makes them targets of discrimination and repression in overwhelmingly Buddhist Burma.
Ms Suu Kyi said that Burma is prepared to take those who fled back, but their return has been complicated by the fact that two governments are involved.
Aid workers say conditions for a safe and orderly return of the refugees have not been met.
Ms Suu Kyi also rejected criticism over the show-trial conviction last week of two Reuters news agency reporters who helped expose extrajudicial killings of 10 Rohingya men and boys.
The reporters were both sentenced to seven years imprisonment on charges of possessing state secrets.
US vice president Mike Pence is among those who have condemned the verdicts and called for the journalists release.
The case has been held in open court, Ms Suu Kyi said. If anyone feels there has been a miscarriage of justice, I would like them to point it out.
They were not jailed because they were journalists. They were jailed because the court has decided they have broken the Official Secrets Act, she said.
Ms Suu Kyi noted that the two can appeal their sentences.
Donald Trump has rejected the official conclusion that nearly 3,000 people died in Puerto Rico from last years Hurricane Maria.
The US president argued without evidence that the number was wrong and called it a plot by Democrats to make him look as bad as possible.
As Hurricane Florence approached the Carolinas, the president picked a fresh fight over the administrations response to the Category 4 storm that smashed into the US territory last September.
Mr Trump visited the island in early October to assess the situation amid widespread criticism over the recovery efforts.
He said: When I left the Island, AFTER the storm had hit, they had anywhere from 6 to 18 deaths. As time went by it did not go up by much. Then, a long time later, they started to report really large numbers, like 3000
He added: This was done by the Democrats in order to make me look as bad as possible when I was successfully raising Billions of Dollars to help rebuild Puerto Rico.
Puerto Ricos governor last month raised Marias official death toll from 64 to 2,975 after an independent study found that the number of people who succumbed in the sweltering aftermath had been severely under-counted.
Previous reports from the Puerto Rican government said the number was closer to 1,400.
Mr Trumps comments drew swift criticism from elected officials and residents of the island, where blackouts remain common, 60,000 homes still have makeshift roofs and 13% of municipalities lack stable phone or internet service.
Governor Ricardo Rossello said in a Facebook post in Spanish, the victims of Puerto Rico, and the people of Puerto Rico in general, do not deserve to be questioned about their pain.
Mr Rossello said he left the analysis of the deaths in the hands of experts and accepted their estimate as the official death toll. I trust that this process was carried out properly, he said.
San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz, a Democrat who has sparred with Mr Trump, tweeted that Trump is so vain he thinks this is about him. NO IT IS NOT.
Simply put: delusional, paranoid, and unhinged from any sense of reality. Trump is so vain he thinks this is about him. NO IT IS NOT. pic.twitter.com/K96H5O3NKM Carmen Yulin Cruz (@CarmenYulinCruz) September 13, 2018
Damn it: this is NOT about politics this was always about SAVING LIVES. pic.twitter.com/SjwywKN3Jh Carmen Yulin Cruz (@CarmenYulinCruz) September 13, 2018
Luis Gutierrez, whose parents were Puerto Rican immigrants, spoke on the House floor in front of a printout of the Puerto Rican flag, saying Mr Trump is delusional and incapable of empathy or basic human decency.
Mr Trump began to focus on Hurricane Florence earlier this week, calling for an Oval Office briefing to warn about the threat.
But as the hurricane began to dominate news coverage, the administrations efforts after Hurricane Maria came under new scrutiny and began to infuriate Mr Trump, according to two Republican advisers.
When a reporter asked Mr Trump about Maria in the Oval Office, he swiftly unleashed a defence of his response to the hurricane.
Mr Trump told confidants that the media was underplaying the challenging circumstances in Puerto Rico and trying to exploit the storm to attack him. He told one adviser that he felt that the media would stop at nothing to undermine him and blamed local authorities for their inept response.
The estimate of nearly 3,000 dead in the six months after Maria devastated Puerto Rico and knocked out the entire electricity grid was made by researchers with the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University.
The study said the original estimates were so low because doctors on the island had not been trained to properly classify deaths after a natural disaster.
A big one. A monster. A once-in-a-lifetime storm. Hurricane Florence deserves all the names it is being called as it threatens to cause historic flooding, blow catastrophic winds and idle for days over the Carolinas and the Mid-Atlantic.
Adding to the storm stress is uncertainty about exactly where Florence will make landfall, after a shift in its track put more of the south-eastern states in danger.
By the numbers
Get out: 1.7 million people are under mandatory and voluntary evacuation orders, and more than 10 million live in places under storm watches or warnings
Grounded: Nearly 1,000 flights cancelled through to Friday
Filling stations running on empty: 5% in North Carolina were out, plus 2.1% in South Carolina, and 1% in Virginia
Going dark: Duke Energy anticipates one million to three million homes and businesses losing power
How to make a monster storm
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Florence has it all: Hot ocean temperatures that fuel hurricanes, favourable wind patterns, higher sea levels that exacerbate storm surge, cloud cover that could encompass multiple states, and an unusual combination of other weather systems that are likely to stall Florence when it hits land, allowing it to sit for days and dump huge amounts of rain.
What Trump said
Worried about how the government will respond to Hurricane Florences devastation? President Donald Trump said there was nothing to fear because his administration did such good work responding to last years storms including Hurricane Maria, which killed 3,000 people in Puerto Rico.
In a series of tweets on Wednesday, he said the government got A Pluses for storm recovery in Texas and Florida, and did an unappreciated great job in Puerto Rico. His remarks fell flat in Puerto Rico where islanders are continuing to struggle a year after the Category 4 storm.
Military safeguards
Florence is heading straight for some of the most well-known military bases in the country. The Navy, Air Force and Army have been moving people, ships and aircraft out of harms way, though evacuations were not mandatory at bases such as Camp Lejeune.
Marines Prepare for Florence
Marines with Headquarters and Support Battalion, Marine Corps Installations East, Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, set up cots at the Wallace Creek Fitness Center on Camp Lejeune, N.C., Sept. 11, 2018. pic.twitter.com/27WBCNI7UF U.S. Marines (@USMC) September 13, 2018
The commanding general says anyone remaining on base will have food, water and protection despite being in the projected path of the storm.
Economic hit
Businesses across the Carolinas, Virginia and Georgia are likely to suffer financial losses from the storm, with ports closing, farmers moving livestock and expected power outages that could last for weeks.
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The losses will not be easily or quickly overcome, but it could have been worse: Labour Day marked the end of the peak tourism season in the Outer Banks of North Carolina and other coastal getaways. There are now fewer tourists to send away.
Toxic waters
North Carolina has about 2,100 industrial-scale pork farms containing more than nine million hogs. Florences heavy rains could cause an environmental disaster if waste from manure pits, coal ash dumps and other industrial sites wash into homes or threaten drinking water supplies.
When Hurricane Floyd made landfall near Cape Fear in 1999 as a Category 2 storm, bloated carcasses of hundreds of thousands of pigs, chickens and other drowned livestock bobbed in a stinking soup of faecal matter, pesticides, fertiliser and fuel so toxic that fish flopped helplessly to escape it.
Gullah-Geechee
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Elder relatives carry as much weight as meteorologists in a tight-knit community of slave descendants on the South Carolina coast. St Helena Island, near the South Carolina-Georgia border, is used to riding out big storms from one that killed an estimated 2,000 people in 1893 to Tropical Storm Irma last year.
But barber Josh Dais says the islands 5,000 residents are trying to decide whether to flee ahead of Hurricane Florence. He says: If Mama and Grandma are going, then a lot of people are leaving.
Racetrack camping
Some Florence evacuees are steering towards Bristol Motor Speedway near the Tennessee-Virginia border and Atlanta Motor Speedway, where campgrounds have been opened for people fleeing the storm.
REMINDER: BMS campgrounds are open free-of-charge to evacuees of #HurricaneFlorence. Please call toll free 866.415.4158 for more information. pic.twitter.com/ClFxkVHq9k BristolMotorSpeedway (@BMSupdates) September 12, 2018
At least two dozen utility trucks gathered near Charlotte Motor Speedway to prepare to move in and start restoring power as soon as conditions are safe.
Valuable possessions
What would you take if a major hurricane was threatening to inundate or pull apart your home? One North Carolina woman packed flowers to leave on her sons grave. Evacuees also loaded their vehicles with extra fuel cans, their pets mostly dogs, and one cockatoo coolers filled with sandwich meat, family photographs and blankets.
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The shopping list for people who have decided to ride out the storm at home: plywood to board up their windows, sandbags, bilge pumps, generators, rubbish bags, crisps, bottled water and wine.
Docs Friends, the organization and support group which operates the Boeing B-29 Superfortress known as Doc made a press release today showing just how far progress has come with the building of the WWII strategic bombers new home in Wichita, Kanasa. Progress is moving forwards so well that they expect to move into the facility this November! For details, see below.
Construction is moving along as scheduled on the B-29 Doc Hangar and Education Center in Wichita, KS. The hangar door has been installed and this week, painters began to paint the ceiling and interior walls of the new maintenance hangar and education center for B-29 Doc.
The 32,000 sqft. facility is on-schedule and on-budget, and construction is scheduled to be completed by November 5.
The Doc team is making plans to move out of the current temporary hangar and into the new facility through the month of November, said Josh Wells, Docs Friends spokesman. It will take a few weeks to move all of our maintenance gear into the new hangar and get it organized. After that, we plan to schedule an open house for the public to come in and see Docs new home and observe for the first time our volunteers working on the historic warbird as they begin the scheduled winter maintenance operation.
Details on the winter maintenance schedule, as well as a public open house and grand opening, will be released in the coming weeks. The hangar will also be open to the public through the winter months, as well as throughout 2019 and beyond.
We are working out the details on hangar hours, as well as our tour plans for 2019 with Doc right now, Wells said. We know that the 2019 tour season will include multiple air shows, along with multiple ride flight weekends, across the country. Details on all of that will be released before the end of the year.
Meanwhile, you can still purchase a brick or granite paver to honor a loved one, or to simply say youre a part of the Docs Friends family! Click here to learn how you can get involved today!
The cape is still in his closet, wrote Henry Cavills agent on Twitter rubbishing rumours suggesting that the actor is leaving Superman franchise. On the other hand, Warner Bros wrote, no decisions have been made regarding any upcoming Superman films," and that "we've always had great respect for and a great relationship with Henry Cavill, and that remains unchanged."
Be peaceful, the cape is still in his closet. @wbpictures has been and continues to be our partners as they evolve the DC Universe. Anticipate a WB statement later today. Dany Garcia (@DanyGarciaCo) September 12, 2018
And fans are lefts confused. Is Henry Cavill bowing out of the role after having done three films? His Instagram post has left fans even more baffled. Whats happening?
The actor, who first appeared as the superhero in 2013's Man of Steel, and later reprised his role in Superman V Batman and last year's Justice League, is parting ways with Warner Bros, sources tell The Hollywood Reporter.
According to insiders, the development comes after talks of Cavill's cameo in "Shazam!" did not come to fruition due to scheduling conflicts.
"There's a recognition that some parts of the previous movies didn't work," says the studio insider.
Another source says Warners is trying to hit a "reset" button with the DC universe.
Talks are on to find new face for the beloved superhero.
"Superman is like James Bond, and after a certain run you have to look at new actors," says a studio source.
reuters
A source says the decision solidified as Cavill recently signed on to star in Netflix's "The Witcher". Another insider, however, says that the series commitment came after the impasse with Warners, suggesting a change in the studio's strategy.
It is being said the studio has shifted its focus to a Supergirl movie, which will be an origin story featuring a teen superheroine, which effectively removes an actor of Cavill's age from the storyline as Superman, aka Kal-El, would be an infant, according to DC lore.
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Another voice adds that the studio is unlikely to make a solo Superman film for at least several years.
Ben Affleck is also being said to depart his DCEU role as Batman, as a new, probably younger actor expected to take on the mantle in Matt Reeves' stand-alone film on the Caped Crusader.
If you belong to either Mumbai or Delhi, you definitely know about the forever ongoing debate about which of these two cities is better to live in. I have lived in Mumbai and Delhi and have had the opportunity of call myself a Mumbaikar as well as Dilliwaali. Today, I am here to compare and contrast the dynamics of two of my favourite cities in India. If you are someone who has lived in Mumbai and Delhi, both, you will definitely relate to what I have to say.
1. Dilli Ki Sardi & Mumbai Ki Baarish
Even though, we now dont have four month long winters in Delhi, the month of December and January is a bliss when it comes to people who enjoy the cold weather. Dilli ki sardi is perfect is you want to have a hot cup of tea on a cold winter evening. Mumbai is no less, by the way. If Delhi has winters, Mumbai has rains. Though, often the rains create a havoc in the city, but times when it rains just as much is required, Mumbai is a sight you dont want to miss. The weather is pleasant and you can spend your evening under the moonlight watching the sea water flowing through your feet.
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2. From Chaat Papdi To Vada Pav
When it comes to street food, theres a constant fight between the two cities. Of course, Delhi is more popular with its momo stalls, gol gappa thelas and chaat papdi corners, but you will find that Mumbai has truck loads of street food, too. From sandwich vale bhaiyas near every college, to vada pav redis, the street food in Mumbai is to die for. So yeah, if you are a foodie, you probably enjoyed your time in Mumbai and Delhi hogging all kinds of street food.
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3. Cycle Rickshaw Rides Vs Kaali Peeli
Public transport is really important when you dont own a personal vehicle and have to travel daily to work or college. While I love Delhis cycle rickshaws, I equally hate taking autos in Delhi, why, you ask? Well, because they dont go by meter and dont follow any rules, whatsoever. Mumbai, on the other hand has amazing autowalas, who do follow rules and charge you by the meter. Though, there have been experiences where Mumbai autowalas refuse too. While Delhi has the epic Delhi Metro, Mumbai has the local which is indeed the lifeline of the city.
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4. Delhi Vs Mumbai - The Luxury Of Space
You know where we are going with this If youve ever rented a house in Mumbai, you know what it feels like to live in a box. The issue of space in the maximum city is a problem that almost everyone hates to admit. But well, its true. Whereas, Delhi has a larger than life appearance. Not to mention, both Mumbai and Delhi are expensive, but in Delhi at least you get a house to live at even if you pay a bomb. Good luck finding a house in Mumbai, though.
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5. Marine Drive And Marine Drive
The one thing that Mumbai has and Delhi doesnt (and will never have) is Marine Drive. The sea is where Mumbai wins from Delhi. If you have lived in Mumbai, you know that the city might give you a tough time, but when at the end of the day, you sit at Marine Drive, watching the horizon, all your worries seem to fade away for that moment. You know that no matter how tough the going gets, you will survive in this big city if you believe in yourself.
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If you ask me, I cant choose between these two amazing cities. Theyve both taught me how to lead an independent life and Im forever thankful to them for making me the person I am today.
So, whats your Mumbai and Delhi story? Do tell us in the comment section.
Artificial Intelligence technologies are being brought about to avoid human errors. Recently, Microsoft was looking at a bot that can translate poems into Chinese language. Uber, Apple, Toyota are looking at driverless cars, robots are being prepped up to take on every nook and cranny of this world.
Driverless cars might still take a few years to take off commercially. In the time, we take a look at the pitfalls self-driving cars pose which need to be addressed before they can be rolled out on the streets.
Carelessness while driving results in the death of around 12.5 lakh people globally every year.
This is twice the number of people killed because of war, crime and terrorism, combined altogether, reported Forbes.
Photo: AP/A self-driving Nuro vehicle parked outside a supermarket
Yuval Noah Harari, wrote in his latest book 21 lessons for the 21st century that more than 90 percent of the car accidents happen due to human errors. While somebody was in an inebriated state while driving, another fell asleep on the wheel. Texting while driving and daydreaming all resulted in the death of millions of people.
Driverless Cars Was Thus Seen As The Only Solution
The biggest hurdle seen with human beings is their unpredictable nature. If human beings driving automobiles are replaced with driverless cars then 10 lakh lives can be saved globally.
For instance, if two drivers are approaching the same endpoint then there is a possibility of miscommunication between the two of them which can result in collision. Since driverless cars are inducted with one single algorithm, there are lesser chances of miscommunication among them.
Another advantage of having such cars is that if a nations transport authority updates its traffic regulations then it can be updated in all the vehicles since driverless cars would operate on a single algorithm. However, the same cannot be said about human beings.
Photo: Decentralize Today
Another advantage of having self-driving cars was a reduction in the cost of taxis. This will not only lead to fewer parking slots but will also result in fewer people buying human-driven cars. The precious city land which is now being exploited for parking posh vehicles could be used for lucrative development opportunities like parks and playgrounds.
If Self-Driving Cars Are So Effective Then Whats The Real Issue?
The multinational technology giant, Apple has reportedly around 5,000 employees that are working on its self-driving car program. Just last month, one of the companys driverless car crashed on a test-run near its headquarters on autonomous mode.
An Uber self-driving car killed a woman in Arizona, U.S on March 18 this year. This particular news garnered headlines around the globe and posed a serious question
Who Is To Be Blamed For An Accident By A Driverless Car?
Even if driverless cars are employed, accidents will still happen. The main problem with self-driving cars is how will politicians handle these type of accidents? How will the insurance companies tackle the insurance policies that are given against car accidents?
Photo: Fairwheels.com/Representational Purpose
Hector MacDonald in his book, Truth: How the Many Sides to Every Story Shape Our Reality writes, Motor insurance will have to shift from individual driver cover for human error to manufacturer cover for technical failure, potentially wreaking havoc in the general insurance industry. reported Forbes.
Driverless cars will have a direct impact on employment opportunities especially in countries like India, Bangladesh, Pakistan or African countries where the labour is cheap. In fact, the most common job for American men is driving.
Advanced technology will wipe out these employees completely in the next couple of years. How will a countrys government handle the issue of massive unemployment then?
There is a moral dimension as well that drives the philosophy of a driverless car. While driving human beings are continuously making a decision. When faced with a troublesome situation they have to make a decision of saving themselves and their co-passengers or the pedestrians.
Photo: City Journal/ Photo for representational purposes
Embedding an algorithm that enables it to make such a decision is a challenging task.
Driverless Cars Can Be Easily Hacked And Infected With Viruses
Addressing a Blackberry Security Summit in London on Wednesday, CEO of the technology company, John Chen said that driverless cars offered enormous scope for for hackers to exploit vulnerabilities to insert malware.
"A car could easily be infected with viruses [and] is literally a fully loaded weapon. If hackers can get hold of it, you can imagine what they could do." the Telegraph, reported.
Mr. Chen even called for governments to set safety standards that tech giants can adhere to as they develop driverless vehicles.
Blackberry too currently is developing a software for driverless cars in partnership with Baidu, the Chinese internet search giant. Also, all these tech giants that are developing self-driving cars must ensure a single algorithm standard to ensure smooth functioning of these vehicles.
Photo: SCMP.COM
It is also important that these cars are upgraded with the latest technology instead of becoming outdated or obsolete. For example, the self-driving cars designed by Waymo, a subsidiary of Googles parent company, Alphabet has problems understanding the basic rules of the road.
Though, these problems are not hampering investment into driverless cars. Toyota announced plans to invest $500m in Uber in a tie-up to enter the driverless market while Bosch and Daimler are plotting an autonomous car that could challenge US tech giants.
So as you can see, there are a lot of things that need to be looked at before the driverless future becomes a reality. Hopefully it'll arrive sooner rather than later.
The Niti Ayaog report on water has made a startling revelation about the depleting water tables in various cities across the country. According to the report, by 2030, there could be a huge water crisis in India, if immediate actions are not taken to restore water bodies in the country. The situation is even worse in the new cities that are being built keeping in mind the needs of international visitors and top brass of the large corporate houses. The millennium city, Gurugram, is also reeling under the tremendous pressure caused by the lack of water in the city. The city's water table is depleting so quickly that it has already reached an alarmingly low level.
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In the last one decade or so, the city's water table has seen a stupendous decline of 82 per cent. If the pre-monsoon data collected by Gurugrams groundwater cells in May is taken into account, the water table fell to 36.21 metres which is almost double to the mark of 19.85 metres in 2006. The decline of 17 metres alone explains a lot about the problem that the city and its planners have been doing so far.
Pre-monsoon data collection happens every year in the month of June and last years data had the water table at 32.32 metres which shows roughly a depletion of 4 metres in water table each year.
36 metres is average, at places, its already over 50 metres
Sector-29 and areas around it which comprises even the hallowed MG Roads and the better part of new Gurgaon most of us relate to is most affected. The average groundwater level is over 50 metres deep which speaks of the alarming depletion of the water table and why the threat of a waterless Gurgaon is as real as it gets. At Chakkarpur village which is located just behind MG Road, the average water table is above 65 metres, which is worst in the district.
Other areas like Kherki Dhaula (38.8), Bandhwari (22), Wazirabad (47.1), Chakkarpur (65.5), Gurgaon village (39.5).
Warnings were issued in 2013
In 2013, the Centre Ground Water Board (CGWB) categorised as over-exploited and in last five years, the pace of the decline has been 1.5-2 m every year. Several reports have said Gurugram is run out of the water in the next half a decade. In the last five years, the pace of the decline has been 1.5-2m every year, which is faster than Delhi.
Experts believe its almost over for the city
Experts also believe that its high time, the government take adequate steps, otherwise, its already quite late for Gurugram. Sushmita Sengupta, deputy programme manager in the water team at the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), said to TOI in May this year, Gurugram is heavily dependent on groundwater, but has no city-wide groundwater recharge plan. Compare this to every other state, which has a groundwater recharge plan that extends to individual buildings.
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Some also raised the need to map groundwater for the Gurugram metropolitan area. Due to massive concretisation and urbanisation, the water table has fallen precipitously, said Chetna Agarwal, an environmental analyst to TOI.
Rampant urbanisation the real culprit
The city has grown from leaps and bounds in last fifteen years. Half a decade back it had 58 sectors including old Gurgaon and now the number of sectors have increased to 115 and more surprisingly more and more people are moving in these sectors.
People need water and deficit of rain, poor water harvesting and damage to ecological water recharging mechanism of Aravallis due to massive construction has contributed to Gurgaon staring at a waterless future.
Shashwat Kumar of Development 2050, an NGO that works for water conservation, said, Gurugrams population has gone up exponentially in the last 10 years. Massive urbanisation and construction of real estate have led to this situation. The problem is there is no emphasis on reviving water bodies and other ways of groundwater recharge. If this continues, the city might run out of groundwater soon.
The district hydrologist, however, pointed out that the city has been able to maintain a better average water level depth in the last five years. V S Lamba told TOI, Since 2011, weve been supplying over 60-70 MGD (million gallons per day) of canal water to the city, which means water supply has improved and not many people rely on groundwater now. The decline could have been worse if the canal water supply had not been planned by the authorities. We also take strict action against illegal groundwater extraction.
The political storm kicked off by fugitive business tycoon Vijay Mallya has taken another turn after he claimed that no formal meeting between him and Arun Jaitley took place and that he happened to meet the Finance Minister in Parliament.
Mallya issued the clarification after Jaitley in a statement said that he had not granted the tycoon any formal appointment and that Mallya who was a Rajya Sabha MP at the time misused access to accost him in a corridor in Parliament to claim he had made an offer of settlement for outstanding loans.
REUTERS
"He paced up to catch up with me and while walking uttered a sentence that 'I am making an offer of settlement'. Having been fully briefed about his earlier 'bluff offers', without allowing him to proceed with the conversation, I curtly told him 'there was no point talking to me and he must make offers to his bankers,'" Jaitley said.
Earlier Mallya who was the London court for the extradition case hearing kicked up a political storm after he told reporters that before leaving for London he had met Jaitley and repeated his offer to settle loans.
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The opposition, including Congress, was quick to get on the offensive against the government accusing it of helping Mallya flee the country.
Congress spokesperson Abhishek Singhvi demanded a probe into Mallyas comments while BJP spokesperson G V L Narasimha Rao said that by this token, former PM Manmohan Singh and former finance minister P Chidambaram should be in jail as they not only met Mallya but helped him get loans from public sector banks.
In June 2015, China showed interest in developing a high-speed rail link between its modern transportation hub, Kunming and West Bengals Kolkata. Now, the Chinese consul general, Ma Zhanwu has reinstated Chinas interest in this project.
On September 12, the counsel general said, It will only take a few hours to reach Kolkata from Kunming if the rail link becomes a reality, reported The Hindu. The proposal had been earlier brought up at the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) in 2015.
The High-Speed rail link was being seen as a project that would help to revive the ancient silk route, traversing through Myanmar and Bangladesh. Zhanwu who was addressing a conference on connectivity and trade relations between China and India asserted that the project will lead the development of a cluster of industries along the route.
It leads to the possibility of economic development of the countries that are involved in the 2,800 km long project.
Zhanwu however, didnt reveal any details regarding the route, the bullet train will traverse through. It is not clear if the train will follow the proposed Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar (BCIM) economic corridor that is projected to run through Mandalay in Myanmar, Chittagong and Dhaka in Bangladesh terminating in Kolkata.
China had pledged $40 billion for the silk route, the ET had reported.
The festival of Lord Ganesha is here, and people are seen everywhere beaming with joy, eager to welcome bappa into their homes and colonies. Every Ganesh mandal has a fund so they can celebrate the festival with pomp and show. However, one mandal in Pune decided to cut down its funds this Ganesh Chaturthi.
The reason for that is extremely heartwarming.
satish jori / facebook
The Navshakti Mitra Mandal of Navi Peth - which was established 56 years ago - has reduced the size of its pandal to a quarter of the size it was last year. This pandal is famous for having a large space on Shastri Road, but this time it will move to a relatively less famous place and lesser area.
This move was taken in order to save the life of a 22-year-old boy who has no family. Satish Jori, a boy who the mandal knew, underwent a surgery last Sunday. Satish is the resident of the same locality and had met with an accident that injured his head severely. He was found bleeding on the floor of his house on Saturday, as he had nobody to take care of him. According to a report by Pune Mirror, because the boy has no kin he was refused treatment at four major hospitals.
However, one could call it a miracle of the divine that Satish could be finally admitted to a private hospital in Kothrud. Mandal president, Vilas Navadkar, told Pune Mirror that after being admitted in Devyani Hospital on Saturday evening, Satish developed complications in his nervous system due to heavy bleeding. He had a surgery on Sunday which was successful and has now been advised rest and proper medical care.
image: pune mirror
Navadkar was quoted telling the publication, "We have saved over 80 per cent of our Ganeshotsav funds to channel into his medical treatment. So far, weve spent Rs 1.5 lakh, and we are told we will have to fork out Rs 4.5 lakh in all for him." According to the report, Satish lost his mother when he was a child, while his father passed away five years ago. He lost his only living relative - an uncle - two years ago.
What the mandal did for Satish is an amazing example of how miracles happen and can save someone's life, and that miracles can also be done by a person out of sheer goodness.
You will often find Mumbaikars cribbing about the city, its infrastructure, its climate and of course, the population. But it is that time of the year when falling in love with the city and the festivities is inevitable - it's Lord Ganesha's birth celebration!
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If Mumbaikars themselves are spellbound for these ten days, those coming to Mumbai are obviously awestruck by the scale of celebrations here - gigantic idols, finger-licking food, the enthusiastic crowd and of course, the music!
A woman who lived in Bangalore for 10 years recently shared her experience of the festival. In a Twitter thread, she talks about how she fell in love with Mumbai during the festivities. How she was asked by her colleagues if she had been to Lalbaug cha Raja and she said she hadn't. After that, she narrates the experience she says she will never forget!
@swatieyz wrote, "Ganesh chaturthi is here and I am thinking about the night in 2016 when Bombay first made me fall in love with the beautiful city that it is. I moved to Bombay on 5th sep 2016 after spending almost 10 years in Bangalore. This was the day Ganesh festival began that year.
Ganesh chaturthi is here and I am thinking about the night in 2016 when Bombay first made me fall in love with the beautiful city that it is.
I moved to Bombay on 5th sep 2016 after spending almost 10 years in Bangalore.
This was the day Ganesh festival began that year. RiderOnTheStorm (@swatieyz) September 12, 2018
Last day of the festival, a colleague at work asked if I had visited Lal Baug Cha Raja yet. Till then I used to think that Lal Bagh ka Raja was a famous temple and didnt know that the idol only remains for 10 days of the festival - just like our Durga Pujo. RiderOnTheStorm (@swatieyz) September 12, 2018
So I tell him I havent and my manager also joins him and jokes saying that I made a significant move in career and changed cities and arrived in Bombay on the day of Ganesh Chaturthi and how can I not pay my respects to Lal Bagh Ka Raja! RiderOnTheStorm (@swatieyz) September 12, 2018
The Pacific Aviation Museum Pearl Harbor on Ford Island, Hawaii is holding their annual Living History Day on September 22nd between 9:00 am and 4:30 pm. The following press release provides all the details for what will undoubtedly be a fascinating day for families to learn about WWII and aviation history.
In affiliation with Smithsonian Magazines Museum Day, Pacific Aviation Museum Pearl Harbor will bring Americas history during World War II to life at its annual Living History Day.
The Museum Day ticket provides free admission to Living History Day for two people.
Event will feature student-created exhibits, WWII themed games and activities, re-enactors, and much more. In our Museum Theater, we will hold two screenings of the award-winning film Go For Broke: An Origin Story, followed by Q&A panels with the cast and crew.
*You must still download your Smithsonian Magazine ticket. Movie Registration does not secure free entry to the Museum.
Also in the theater, we will host a Hangar Talk with portrait photographer Shane Sato, who will discuss his coffee table book, The Go For Broke Spirit: Portraits of Courage.
All-Day Activities:
Hula Lessons
Museum Tours
Living Historians
Scavenger Hunt
Caring for Vintage Photographs
Women in Codebreaking
Schedule of Activities:
Hangar 37:
9:15 am ~ 9:45 am Meet and Greet with Veterans of the 442nd
Hangar 37 Theater:
10:00 am ~ 10:45 am Hangar Talk with Shane Sato
For nearly two decades, Shane Sato has been photographing Japanese American WWII Nisei veterans, featured in his 2017 book, The Go For Broke Spirit: Portraits of Courage. Shane will share stories about his work to document and honor the legacy of the 100th Infantry Battalion/442nd Regimental Combat Team.
10:30 am ~ 11:00 am Award-Winning national History Day Presentations
View two award-winning National History Day student documentaries highlighting the stories of two groups who are underrepresented in history books. The first, a ten- minute junior division documentary called The Unsung Heroes of the Pacific: The Military Intelligence Service. The second, a ten-minute senior division film called Prevention of Japanese American Incarceration Camps: The Conflict and Compromise of Japanese Americans in Hawaii. Both presentations will be followed with a Q&A and discussion with the student filmmakers.
10:45 am ~ 11:15 am Book Signing with Shane Sato
11:15 am ~ 1:00 pm Screening of Go For Broke: An Origin Story
Fighting not only the Germans, but rampant racism on the home front, Japanese Americans in the 100/442nd became the most decorated unit in US history for their size and time in battle. The film tells the story of these brave young men who served their country valiantly, despite the injustices and prejudice they suffered.
1:00 pm ~ 1:30 pm Panel Discussion and Q&A with Go For Broke Cast & Crew
2:00 pm ~ 3:45 pm Screening of Go For Broke: An Origin Story
3:45 pm ~ 4:15 pm Panel Discussion and Q&A with Go For Broke Cast & Crew
4:30 pm Event Ends
This is an annual national celebration of culture and learning between the two museums. Pacific Aviation Museum Pearl Harbor is a Smithsonian Affiliate and ranked one of the nations top 10 aviation attractions in the nation by TripAdvisor.
An Indian American researcher at the University of Michigan, Arul Chinnaiyan (center), has been honored with the Outstanding Investigator Award by the U.S. National Cancer Institute. (University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center photo)
Oracle has introduced Project Helidon, an open source microservices framework for Java.
Helidon features a collection of Java libraries for writing microservices that will run on a web core powered by the Netty network application framework. The project also includes Helidon Reactive WebServer, which provides a functional programming model to run on Netty. Cloud application development is supported, along with health checks, metrics, tracing, and fault tolerance.
Oracle said that although it is already possible to build Java EE (Enterprise Edition) microservices, it is better to have a framework designed for this purpose. The intent has been to build lightweight libraries that do not require an application server and can be used in Java SE (Standard Edition).
Although these libraries can be used separately, when used together they provide foundations for microservices creation, including security, configuration, and a web server.
Helidon implements Version 1.1 of MicroProfile, a microserivces effort that arose out of frustration with Oracles perceived neglect of Java EE two years ago; both Java EE and MicroProfile have since been placed under the jurisdiction of Eclipse. Plans also call for Helidon to back new versions of MicroProfile as well as relevant Jakarta EE standards. Jakarta EE is Eclipses enterprise Java implementation. Oracle Cloud integrations also are expected for Helidon.
Helidon is packaged in two versions:
Helidon SE, a lightweight microframework developed in a reactive way. JDK (Java SE Development Kit) serves as the runtime.
Helidon MP, a MicroProfile implementation providing a development experience familiar to Java EE and Jakarta EE developers. It serves as a runtime for microservices.
Where to download Helidon
You can download Helidon from GitHub.
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Following the trifecta of hurricanes in late 2017, it became especially evident that more insurance manpower is needed to help insureds before, during and after future storms.
The people piece of the puzzle was really shown as a weakness last year for the industry in general, said Daniel. There were fewer resources than the industry needed last year, so we focused a lot, in terms of people, on growing the number of adjusters we have available so that if and when something happens, we would have enough or more than we had last year.
In the days before Florence made landfall, insurance companies have been hard at work. Andrew Higgins, technical manager of the Americas for Allianz Risk Consulting, told Insurance Business that his clients mainly large industrial locations have received information on flood and wind storm emergency planning consisting of checklists on how to prepare and what to do after the storm has passed.
For example, one of the things that we tell our insureds to do at this point in time is make sure that any kind of equipment or storage, or anything outside, that you bring it indoors or you secure it outdoors, he said. Its a good idea to go up on your roof and make sure that your drains are free, theres no debris clogging it, make sure theres no loose equipment or objects up on the roof because that stuff can start tumbling and [be] damaging.
High winds, storm surge and inland flooding are the main culprits to watch out for, though not all clients will be exposed to all three of these elements. If a business is located several hours from the coastline, they should prepare primarily for inland flooding, explained Higgins, adding that after last years hurricane season, most of Allianz Risk Consultings insureds have some type of flood insurance.
Before last year, we went 12 years without having a major hurricane hit the coast of the United States, said Higgins. Because we had such a long period of really weak hurricane seasons, I think people tended to forget that and you tend not to be as prepared, so last year was a wake-up call for everyone.
Introducing our commercial automotive product is a major milestone for us as we become the single source for all small business insurance needs, said Next Insurance co-founder and CEO Guy Goldstein. Our commercial auto insurance offers the convenient, quality coverage customers have come to expect from Next Insurance, all at prices that are affordable for all sizes of business.
Benefits and highlights of the insurance product include:
Business owners can choose the level of protection they need based on their risk and budget needs.
Business owners can also select from several limits and can choose whether to include protection for their own vehicle (when used for business purposes) on top of required liability auto coverage.
Policies offer coverage for up to four different vehicles and eight drivers.
The commercial auto insurance is currently available in six states Arizona, Colorado, Indiana, Illinois, Minnesota, and Ohio and will later be made available in all 50 states.
In July, Next Insurance raised $83 million in a Series B funding round, led by Redpoint Ventures. The funding round brought Nexts total funding to $131 million in two years.
Were calling on our industry our reinsurance partners, our competitors, and our colleagues in health and life insurance companies to join us, Lemonade co-founder and CEO Daniel Schreiber wrote in a recent blog post. [F]or insurance companies in the business of underwriting polluting projects we have a simple ask: please dont.
While insurers were among the first to warn about climate change in the 1970s, that early recognition of the risk hasnt translated into action, Insure Our Future said.
The insurance industry is supposed to protect us from catastrophic risk, yet when it comes to climate change, theyre adding fuel to the fire through their investments and underwriting, said Lindsey Allen, a partner in the Insure Our Future campaign and executive director of the Rainforest Action Network. Our communities are the ones who are paying the price through wildfires, massive flooding, increased premiums and denial of coverage.
According to Insure Our Future, the insurance industry is fueling climate change by insuring fossil fuel projects like the Keystone XL pipeline and coal-fired power plants. The industry is also a major investor in fossil fuel companies. According to Insure Our Future, the 40 largest US insurers hold more than $40 billion in coal, oil, gas and electric utility stock and bonds, making insurers more invested in fossil fuels than average index funds.
The campaign also accused insurance companies of abandoning communities that live in the path of climate risks. In California, for instance, complaints of premium hikes and loss of coverage in counties at risk of wildfire have tripled.
Insurance companies are gouging and deserting policyholders in fire-prone areas while fueling those very wildfires, said campaign member and president of Consumer Watchdog Jamie Court. Insurance companies that complain about the problem need to be part of the solution.
The Virginia Bureau of Insurance says it is confident that insurers are actively preparing for this storm as the potential impact of Hurricane Florence is anticipated in the state.
The Bureaus focus is first to encourage everyone to prepare and second to deal with matters regarding damage after the storm, a Virginia Bureau of Insurance spokesperson told Insurance Journal.
Indeed, as the top carrier of homeowners insurance in Virginia, a State Farm spokesperson told Insurance Journal its focus is the same. Its claims operation has been trained to handle catastrophe claims and is prepared to go anywhere in the country within hours of being notified, the spokesperson said.
Catastrophes routinely cause heavy damage to a communitys infrastructure and often leave the area without power, phone service and navigational landmarks such as street signs, the spokesperson stated. Our on-the-ground team is fully equipped to respond to our customers needs
While Insurance Journal reported that Hurricane Florence was downgraded yesterday to a Category 2 hurricane as its maximum sustained winds decreased to about 110 mph, according to NOAA, Florence remains a large and dangerous threat. Storm surge as high as nine feet in some places and extreme rainfall of 30-to-40 inches can be expected, with even a few tornadoes possible, according to NOAA.
Accuweather has reported that Norfolk and Virginia Beach, Va., can expect significant coastal flooding as a result of strong high pressure to the north, which is likely to enhance winds, wave action and coastal flooding farther north along the coast than what would normally occur.
With this in mind, Virginia Governor Ralph Northam stated during a press conference last night that his request for a federal disaster declaration has been granted by President Trumps administration. This will ensure the availability of federal resources to help Virginia with storm response, he stated during the press conference. Northam earlier issued a mandatory evacuation order for coastal Virginia residents in Zone A which encompasses the lowest-lying areas of coastal Virginia and the Eastern shore in advance of Hurricane Florence. The evacuation order went into effect beginning Tuesday, September 11, at 8 a.m.
Hurricane Florence has the potential to cause catastrophic flooding, especially in our coastal areas, Governor Northam said in a press release issued by his office. This evacuation is for the safety of thousands of Virginians living in that zone. But the effects of this storm will be felt statewide, and I encourage everyone in Virginia to prepare now.
For insurers, James Brown, CEO of enterprise customer communications management provider Smart Communications, says time is of the essence when working to respond to a natural disaster such as a hurricane or tropical storm.
If property and casualty insurers do not already have a customer communications strategy in place well before a major weather event occurs, it is too late, he told Insurance Journal. A situation such as this requires a dedicated strategy timely reminders of coverage limits, policy details and the claims filing process.
He added that digital communication can be particularly important as evacuations occur, meaning many customers may have left their homes in advance and are only able to effectively communicate through digital channels.
It is vitally important that the right customers receive the right information as quickly as possible, while also maintaining quality and accuracy, he said. Any time a customer needs to file a claim, its going to be emotional, but this is even more true during large disasters such as a major hurricane. It is at these times that customers want to feel connected to and taken care of by their chosen providers. The way they are communicated with has tremendous impact on this.
Tropical Storm Florence was initially formed on August 31 before intensifying over the Atlantic Ocean to become a Category 4 hurricane on September 5 and then being downgraded yesterday to a Category 2 hurricane.
This is a developing story.
Topics Carriers Catastrophe Hurricane Homeowners Virginia
Hurricane Florence could put pressure on U.S. Congress to extend the National Flood Insurance Program, but it is still an open question as to whether it will lead to a comprehensive reform bill passing, Robert Bradshaw, president and CEO of the Independent Insurance Agents of Virginia (IIAV), told Insurance Journal.
The program, administered through the Federal Emergency Management Agency, is the primary source of flood insurance in the U.S. with about 5 million policy holders across the country, Bloomberg reported. However, the NFIP remains more than $20 billion in debt, with some experts calling for reforms, the Bloomberg report added.
Indeed, Hurricane Florence could add to the NFIPs roughly $20.5 billion debt, as Right Street reported, although in order to come close to using all of the programs resources, Florence would have to approach the record $16.3 billion the NFIP paid out in 2005 for Hurricane Katrina.
While Insurance Journal reported that Hurricane Florence was downgraded yesterday to a Category 2 hurricane as its maximum sustained winds decreased to about 110 mph, according to NOAA, Florence remains a large and dangerous threat. Storm surge as high as nine feet in some places and extreme rainfall of 30-to-40 inches can be expected, with even a few tornadoes possible, according to NOAA.
Although the bulk of the storm centers on the Carolinas, severe coastal flooding due to Florence is a concern in areas of Virginia such as Norfolk and Virginia Beach, as Accuweather has reported.
With this in mind, Virginia Governor Ralph Northam earlier this week issued a mandatory evacuation order for coastal Virginia residents in Zone A which encompasses the lowest-lying areas of coastal Virginia and the Eastern shore in advance of Hurricane Florence. The evacuation order went into effect beginning Tuesday, September 11, at 8 a.m.
Bradshaw said he believes the issue of significant flooding in the Virginia Hampton Roads area is growing and needs more attention from consumers, businesses and governments as Zone A is considered a high-prone area for flooding even during normal events.
There are several legislative studies going on, and its going to need much more attention, he said. Whether you agree with climate change or not, Zone A flooding is a fact and the zone is growing.
Although he believes previous experience with flooding may have led insurers and agencies in Virginia to exercise better pre-planning communications ahead of any anticipated storm surge or flooding resulting from Hurricane Florence, memories are weak, Bradshaw said.
There are still areas where the insurance industry can help that businesses generally dont understand, such as business interruption insurance, he said. Its not important, howeveruntil its important.
He added that he believes improving response time in severe flood situations means those in the insurance industry need to be considered second responders in emergency events such as this.
During previous administrations, we participated in emergency pre-planning exercises with the insurance industry being second responders as it were, he said. The sooner you can get the insurance adjustors into damaged areas, the sooner the recovery. We have a new administration here, and we need to press for these discussions to start again.
That said, as the potential impact of Hurricane Florence is anticipated in the state, the Virginia Bureau of Insurance told Insurance Journal it is confident that insurers are actively preparing for this storm.
The Bureaus focus is first to encourage everyone to prepare and second to deal with matters regarding damage after the storm, a Virginia Bureau of Insurance spokesperson said in an emailed statement.
Bradshaw agreed that overall, insurers and agencies in Virginia took a much greater communications strategy on pre-planning for Hurricane Florence this month.
The Independent Insurance Agents of Virginia also worked early on to alert agencies about dusting off their disaster plans and sending out reminders of emergency processes, he said. Now, it appears that at least Virginia has dodged the bullet, so for us, this is an emergency drill.
Related:
Topics Catastrophe Natural Disasters Agencies Flood Hurricane Market Virginia
Chinas financial system poses one of the bigger risks to global financial stability, Bank of England Governor Mark Carney said in an interview with the BBC to mark the 10th anniversary of the global financial crisis.
Carney also cited domestic risks to Britain from Brexit, a further significant rise in household debt and cyber-attacks on the banking system, risks the BoE has previously highlighted in regular reports on Britains financial stability.
In its last report in June, the BoE hit back at European Union concerns that banks operating in Britain were poorly prepared for the risk that the country leaves the EU in March next year without any kind of transition deal.
One of the bigger risks for the global economy are developments in China, Carney said in an extract of the interview released on Wednesday on the BBCs website.
China is a great source of growth in the global economy, an economic miracle lots of positives. At the same time their financial sector has developed very rapidly, and it has many of the same assumptions that were made in the run-up to the last financial crisis, he added.
A new financial crisis on the scale of that which started in the United States a decade ago could not be ruled out if bankers and regulators grew complacent, Carney warned.
Could something like this happen again? he said. Could there be a trigger for a crisis if were complacent, of course it could.
However, British banks were now required to hold significantly more capital to protect themselves and the public against downturns than was the case 10 years ago, he added.
(Reporting by David Milliken; Editing by Kim Coghill and Clarence Fernandez)
Topics Europe China Uk
Google is going to Europes top court in its legal fight against an order requiring it to extend right to be forgotten rules to its search engines globally.
The technology giant was set for a showdown at the European Union Court of Justice in Luxembourg this week staring Tuesday with Frances data privacy regulator over an order to remove search results worldwide upon request.
The dispute pits data privacy concerns against the publics right to know, while also raising thorny questions about how to enforce differing legal jurisdictions when it comes to the borderless internet.
The two sides will be seeking clarification on a 2015 decision by the French regulator requiring Google to remove results for all its search engines on request, and not just on European country sites like google.fr.
Google declined to comment ahead of the hearing. Its general counsel, Kent Walker, said in a blog post in November that complying with the order would encourage other countries, including less democratic regimes, to try to impose their values on citizens in the rest of the world.
These cases represent a serious assault on the publics right to access lawful information, he added.
In an unusual move, the court has allowed a collection of press freedom, free speech and civil rights groups to submit their opinions on the case. These groups agree with Google that forcing internet companies to remove website links threatens access to information and could pave the way for censorship by more authoritarian regimes such as China, Russia and Saudi Arabia.
The courts ruling is expected within months. It will be preceded by an opinion from the courts advocate general.
The case stems from a landmark 2014 Court of Justice ruling that people have the right to control what appears when their name is searched online. That decision forced Google to delete links to outdated or embarrassing personal information that popped up in searches of their names.
Authorities are now starting to worry about the risk that internet users can easily turn to proxy servers and virtual private networks to spoof their location, allowing them to dig up the blocked search results.
Google said in its most recent transparency report that it has received requests to delete about 2.74 million web links since the ruling, and has deleted about 44 percent of them.
Not all requests are waved through. In a related case that was also be heard Tuesday, the EU court was to be asked to weigh in on a request by four people in France who want their search results to be purged of any information about their political beliefs and criminal records, without taking into account public interest. Google had rejected their request, which was ultimately referred to the ECJ.
Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Topics Europe
The Insurance Development Forum (IDF) announced the appointment of Denis Duverne as chair of its Steering Committee, succeeding Stephen Catlin, effective Sept. 11, 2018.
The IDF is a public-private partnership, led by a senior insurance industry executive and supported by the United Nations and the World Bank, which aims to enhance the use of insurance to build greater resilience against disasters. overseen by a Steering Committee..
Duverne is chairman of Paris-based AXA Group, where, since 1995, he has held senior roles, including CFO and deputy CEO. Since 2016, he has been a member of the IDF Steering Committee, which oversees the group.
Duverne will replace Catlin, founder and former CEO of Catlin Group Ltd, who has led the IDF as Chair since its creation in 2016.
During Catlins tenure, the IDF has supported several groundbreaking insurance developments, including the Centre for Global Disaster Protection and the G20 InsuResilience Global Partnership by the UK and German governments. It has also driven critical initiatives on enhancing open source and transparent risk modeling, market-enabling regulation and partnerships with international institutions.
From just a concept a few years ago, the IDF has mobilized an extensive network of experts and influencers in the insurance and development space and has made great strides in strengthening public-private dialogue. Id like to thank the IDF founders and participants for all their hard work to get it to where it is today, said Catlin.
I would like to thank Stephen for his important contribution to the IDF as chair, said Duverne. Over the past two and half years, he has managed to build an unprecedented public-private partnership. I am honored to have the opportunity to lead the IDF in leveraging the insurance industrys extensive expertise for real impact.
Stephen has been critical in driving the IDF to become the platform for private and public-sector collaboration on insurance and international development to achieve the UN development goals. I look forward to working with Denis, a leader in the private sector, to take IDF to the next operational level, said Achim Steiner, UN Development Programme Administrator and IDF Steering Committee co-chair.
With his wealth of experience in leading a multi-national re/insurer, Denis will be an invaluable asset in driving the vision of the IDF and its operational agenda, building on the strong foundations and partnerships created by Stephen, said Joaquim Levy, managing director and World Bank Group CFO and IDF Steering Committee co-chair.
When Stephen became IDF chair in 2016 it was a promising initiative, but he transformed it into a comprehensive Steering Group of industry leaders and has taken it to an entirely different level, said Rowan Douglas, chair of the IDF Operating Committee and head of Capital, Science and Policy Practice at Willis Towers Watson.
I dont know anyone else who could have taken this on and achieved it so successfully and we are enormously grateful for his drive and commitment. I extend my warmest thanks to Stephen and welcome the incoming chair, Denis Duverne to build on these rich foundations, added Douglas.
Source: Insurance Development Forum
Related:
Topics AXA XL
Section 5(a) of the Illinois Workers Compensation Act provides the damages an employer must pay for work-related injuries. It specifies a worker injured in the line of duty cannot sue her employer or its other employees.
That prohibition is easy enough to apply where one employee is injured by the negligence of another, or of the employer, at the business premises or on a job site. But what happens to the notion that the Act is the only available recovery when the employee is hurt at a public location and a third party is at least partially to blame? How much exclusivity can an employer expect in those circumstances?
In Peng v. Nardi, Kouk, and Guan, a case recently decided by the First District Appellate Court, Peng, a restaurant worker, was injured in a collision between the van in which she was a passenger and vehicles operated by Nardi and Kouk. In addition to those two, Peng sued Guan, who was driving the van, and Royal, the owner of the restaurant where she was employed. Guan also worked at the restaurant.
The van, a 15-seater, had been provided by Royal to transport employees like Peng to and from the restaurant. Not only did Royal provide the van, it paid Guan extra to drive it. Moreover, Royal covered Guans expenses. Royal also set limits on Guans use of the van; for example, he could not use it for personal errands and was to leave it parked when he was not transporting Royals employees.
Peng argued that regardless of whether Royal provided the van, her presence in it had nothing to do with her job duties. She stressed that: 1) she was not required to use the van to get to work; and, 2) was not on the clock (and therefore uncompensated) as she travelled in it.
The court rejected Pengs arguments under the authority of Section 5(a). Applying the Exclusivity Provision to the facts at hand, the court concluded that by providing a vehicle for transporting workers to and from the job, Royal had sent (Peng) home on a small ambulatory portion of the (business) premise. The operative facts, according to the court, showed Royal controlled petitioners transportation and had thus expanded the risk of the workplace.
So Royal avoided its employees lawsuit, but, as an employer, was it completely insulated from all civil liability? That issue was not squarely addressed by the Peng court, but the opinion of the Illinois Supreme Court in Ramsey v. Morrison (1997) takes it on. The worker, Ramsey, was hurt when the truck in which he was a passenger collided with a vehicle operated by Morrison. Ramsey sued Morrison who in turn filed contribution actions against Baker, the driver of the truck, and Auto Repair, Auto. The evidence demonstrated that Auto was the employer of both Ramsey and Baker and that, at the time of the crash, the two were engaged in job connected duties.
In considering whether Morrison was owed contribution by Baker or Auto, the Supreme Court first noted that by virtue of the exclusivity language of Section 5(a), neither owed any recovery to Ramsey separate from what was available under the Workers Compensation Act. Likewise, Baker, driving the truck in discharge of his job duties, was protected even from Morrisons claim for contribution. However, as against Auto, the court held Morrison could recover contribution in a limited amount on the basis of the negligence of its employee Baker. The court concluded though that Autos liability to Morrison could not exceed the amount of the workers compensation benefits provided to Ramsey.
Thus, the scope of protection afforded an employer under the concept of workers compensation exclusivity extends only so far. In cases where one of its employees negligently injures another as they pursue job-related tasks, the employer is safe from civil liability to the worker, but not to a third party whom the injured worker sues.
Brady is a founding partner in the Chicago ofce of Brady, Connolly & Masuda, P.C.
Topics Auto Workers' Compensation Illinois Restaurant
The U.S. government signaled that it is prepared to adopt a tougher stance on electronic cigarettes in order to stem an epidemic of use by teens and children, after taking a more cautious approach last year.
The Food and Drug Administration told five major e-cigarette manufacturers on Wednesday to address youth use of their products in the next 60 days or the agency could require them to stop selling flavored tobacco pods that appeal to children.
The move is part of a campaign by regulators to limit sales to minors of new cigarette-smoking alternatives, which officials say still contain addictive nicotine and can have negative effects on brain development. FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said that data the agency would soon release showed a substantial increase in youth vaping over the past year.
The FDA had attempted to ease regulations on the e-cigarette industry last year as a way to encourage development of more products that could help adults quit smoking. But critics of the agency had said that it didnt do enough to prevent kids from using products like Juul, a pocket-sized device that resembles a USB drive and has become popular with students.
Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said in an interview at Bloombergs office in New York that the FDA has his complete, undivided support, and that, as a father, the effort has personal urgency.
I have teens, and I get to hear anecdotally whats going on in the schools in terms of access to Juul and other products, Azar said. We are extremely concerned about this and were not going to permit it.
The products being targeted are Juul, Altria Group Inc.s MarkTen, Fontem Ventures BVs blu, British American Tobacco Plcs Vuse and Logic.
By working together, we believe we can help adult smokers while preventing access to minors, and we will continue to engage with the FDA to fulfill our mission, Juul said in an e-mailed statement. Altria said it looks forward to sharing its thoughts with the FDA on an issue weve focused on for decades. Fontem said it would continue to work with regulators.
Benefits Overshadowed
Gottlieb recently began to ask whether the use of Juul and other similar products by kids is overshadowing any benefit to adult smokers using the devices to help them quit cigarettes. He said in June tobacco companies better step up and step up soon, but he didnt divulge what consequences the industry could face until now.
In July 2017, the FDA said it was considering lowering nicotine levels in cigarettes. In addition, the agency pushed back until 2022 a deadline for electronic-cigarette companies to submit applications to the FDA. Gottlieb said at the time he was trying to ease the regulatory pathway for products that are potentially less harmful sources of nicotine than smoking.
I have grown increasingly concerned around what we see as rising youth use in these products, and Im disappointed in the actions the companies have taken to try to address this, Gottlieb said in an interview this week.
The Truth Initiative, a tobacco-control group based in Washington, is pleased with the FDAs move, but it wants the agency to immediately pull flavored e-cigarettes from the market, said Chief Executive Officer Robin Koval.
The circumstances have changed and were glad to see them reacting in the real world, Koval said about the FDA. Organizations like ours have been saying for quite some time now that products like Juul are a risk.
Like the Truth Initiative, Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut, said in a statement Wednesday that the FDA should remove flavored e-cigarettes from the market immediately. Another Democrat who often weighs in on tobacco issues, Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, thanked the FDA for taking an important step.
Smoking Spark?
Despite the setback dealt to big tobacco companies nascent electronic-cigarette business, shares of the companies rallied. Cigarette smoking has been falling in the U.S. for decades, but former smokers who vape could be pushed to return to traditional cigarettes if flavored e-cigarettes are no longer available.
Altria, which makes Marlboro cigarettes in the U.S., gained 6.7 percent in New York trading, the biggest advance for the stock in nearly 10 years. U.S.-traded shares of British American, the maker of Camel cigarettes, climbed 6 percent, also the biggest gain in almost 10 years.
Nevertheless, regulators made clear that the intent behind the proposed new restrictions on alternative tobacco devices was to drive smoking rates as low as possible, by closing off an enticing entry point for children.
We are committed to getting people off of combustible tobacco, Azar said. We just simply cannot allow the e-cigarettes to be a vehicle for kids getting addicted on nicotine products and then potentially waking up years from now that thats become an on-ramp for combustibles and a whole other generation hooked on combustible just as were seeing improvement in adult consumption rates.
Copyright 2021 Bloomberg.
Topics USA
Spring, Texas, along with more than two dozen cities in the state, will receive smoke alarms from the Insurance Council of Texas (ICT) courtesy of a program called Were Out to Alarm Texas.
Spring firefighters will distribute the 10-year lithium powered First Alert smoke alarms to homeowners who have notified the fire department of their need for working smoke alarms.
Weve provided life-saving smoke alarms to Texas fire departments since 2005, said Mark Hanna, an ICT spokesperson. Weve distributed more than 20,000 smoke alarms to 50 Texas cities and Im proud to say this program has helped save the lives of several Texans.
In its first year of operation, Were Out to Alarm Texas helped to save the lives of three elderly residents in New Braunfels and Waco, after donated smoke alarms alerted them to fires in their smoke-filled homes. Local firefighters were able to successfully rescue the residents before they were overcome by the smoke and fire.
Were Out to Alarm Texas started as a joint effort between ICT and the State Fire Marshals Office, to help save lives by providing smoke alarms to needy citizens. Initially, ICT donated smoke alarms to cities with high fire fatalities, but as information about the program spread, fire departments in every corner of the state asked to join the program.
More than 100 people die every year in structure fires in Texas and smoke alarms have been credited with saving the lives of thousands of would-be fire victims in the United States.
Over the next few weeks, Kyle, Wimberley and Roma, are the other Texas cities receiving ICT donated smoke alarms for the first time.
Several insurance companies and other organizations assisted ICT in purchasing the smoke alarms. They included State Farm, The Travelers Companies, the Association of Fire and Casualty Companies in Texas (AFACT) and First Alert.
Earlier this year ICT donated smoke alarms to the fire departments in Amarillo, Farmers Branch, Point, Rivers End, Haltom City, Laredo, Del Rio, Galveston, Wichita Falls, New Braunfels, Little York, Lufkin, Pearland, San Angelo, Burkburnett, Longview, Travis County, Bastrop, Potter County, Midland, Abilene and Fresno.
Source: ICT
Topics Texas
Kentucky and West Virginia are offering discounted rates on lodging at their state parks for people seeking shelter from Hurricane Florence.
The Kentucky Tourism, Arts and Heritage Cabinet said the discounted nightly rate for lodge rooms is $49.95 for residents of any East Coast state seeking shelter from the hurricane. One-bedroom cottages are $69.95, and two bedrooms are $79.95. The rates are good until Sept. 30.
In West Virginia, Gov. Jim Justice said state parks were offering a 55 percent discount on rooms, cabins and campsites through Tuesday.
West Virginias Agriculture Department also said it will waive movement entry requirements for animals taken to West Virginia because of the hurricane. Also, the State Fair of West Virginia is offering temporary shelter for equine and can accommodate 100 horses.
Copyright 2021 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Topics Agribusiness Virginia Kentucky
Tobacco crops in North Carolina, the top U.S. producer, are right in the projected path for Hurricane Florence, which threatens to cause plants to rot, whether theyre still in the fields or have already been harvested.
Florences Category 4 winds are approaching the state at 130 miles per hour, strong enough for farmers to grow concerned that leaves will blow away and stunt the regions harvest, Matthew Vann, a tobacco extension specialist at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, said in an interview. Flooding is another potential risk, as a deluge could leave plants sitting soaked in fields.
Crop losses could reach as high as $300 million, assuming a 100 percent loss of whats still in the field, Vann said. That would be a very sizable blow to the tobacco-grower base as a whole.
North Carolina is forecast to harvest 158,800 acres this year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. While some of the most valuable leaves are still in the field, about two-thirds of the crop has already been gathered, said Andrea Ashby, a spokeswoman for the states department of agriculture. But for tobacco plants, harvest doesnt guarantee leaves are safe from the storm.
Once picked, tobacco leaves are tightly packed and stored indoors, where the plants are cured for seven to eight days with fans that distribute and regulate heat. If a power outage occurs, the leaves could overheat, spoil and no longer be marketable.
Growers in the region largely along the Interstate 95 corridor in the eastern part of North Carolina have been buying backup generators to prepare. They can only help so much.
Most growers are basically prepared to lose power at some point, Vann said. Even if the storm causes the weather to cool down, that leaf is packed so tightly that ambient temperature outside doesnt matter, leaving it vulnerable to rot, he said.
Altria Group Inc., which owns brands including Marlboro cigarettes and Skoal smokeless tobacco, has a plant in North Carolina and said its monitoring affects of the storm.
If Florence stays on the current path and stalls over North Carolina with massive rainfall, it will definitely be devastating, Charlotte Vick of Vick Family Farms, which produces tobacco and other crops in Wilson, said in an email. We are taking measures today to harvest as much as possible before the storm and prepare with generators for our curing facilities and our housing for our employees.
Copyright 2021 Bloomberg.
Topics Catastrophe Natural Disasters Agribusiness Hurricane North Carolina
Hurricane Florence could be one of the largest storms to hit the Carolinas in decades and state insurance officials say they are ready for whatever it will bring to their regions.
In interviews with Insurance Journal on Tuesday, South Carolina Insurance Director Ray Farmer and North Carolina Insurance Commissioner Mike Causey said they are confident in the financial ability of insurers to pay their claims, with Causey adding that his states beach plan is in a position to handle any influx.
Both said they are prepared to work with insurers to set up claims villages to help consumers file claims and will be watching to be sure there are enough adjusters available and that any contractor fraud schemes are shut down.
We are prepared as a state, Farmer said, noting South Carolina emergency officials come together every spring to go through catastrophe exercises in preparation for an event like Florence. Every state agency that is affected is involved in the planning, and now we see all those plans coming together and being executed.
Causey said similar steps have been taken in North Carolina.
We are very prepared and have been working on this type of situation for some time. We have a great emergency response team that has been fully activated, he said.
Causey, a former insurance agent who was elected as commissioner in 2016, said the NCDOI has been in touch with agent associations, carriers, FEMA, other states nearby that can provide resources, and the North Carolina Coastal Insurance Property Pool (the Beach Plan), which insures seven out of 10 homes along the states coast.
In all my experience being around and watching state government and as insurance commissioner, I have never seen a state as well prepared as they are right now to tackle this event, he said.
Both insurance chiefs have been urging residents to also prepare for what is to come.
This is an extremely large storm we havent seen the likes of this type or size since [Hurricane] Hugo. We have a lot of new residents who have come into our state since then and some are still convinced we dont have hurricanes, Farmer said.
This is shaping up to be a catastrophic storm that could potentially be as devastating as Hurricane Hazel was in 1954 the worst one we have seen in the past seven or eight decades but right now nobody knows for certain, Causey said.
As of Wednesday night, Hurricane Florence was forecast to make landfall in the Carolinas Thursday night into early Friday morning and was listed as a Category 2 storm with little change in strength expected before the center reaches the coast of the Carolinas and weakening expected after the center moves inland, according to the National Hurricane Center. Florence is expected to bring significant storm surge that combined with the tide will cause normally dry areas near the coast to be flooded by rising waters moving inland from the shoreline, NHC said. Water could reach up to 13 feet above ground in parts of North Carolina and rainfall totals could get up to 40 inches in isolated areas there, and up 20 inches are possible in parts of South Carolina.
Farmer said since Oct. 2015 when the state suffered serious flooding from what was at the time called a 1-in-1,000 year megastorm, he has encouraged residents to purchase flood insurance. But he knows there is a large segment of people who do not have flood coverage.
Every opportunity Ive had I have encouraged every homeowner in the state to purchase flood coverage regardless of any amount it costs, he said. We learned in 2015 that every part of state is in a flood zone and people need to have flood insurance.
Causey and Farmer said after the storm passes, they know the insurance industry will be working to get people back on their feet, as is the case after every catastrophe event.
The insurance industry will do what they do best and come in and help our citizens in this trying time, Farmer said.
To assist the insurance industry with the recovery efforts, Farmer issued a bulletin Tuesday allowing carriers to initiate an emergency adjuster process. That means temporary non-resident adjusters can assist with handling claims in the state in the aftermath of the storm.
Causey said he doesnt anticipate an adjuster shortage such as what happened last year after Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria, because of how close together each of those storms occurred. But NCDOI will be ready to respond to that issue if needed.
Neither Causey nor Farmer is concerned with insurers ability to pay claims in what could be a $20 billion event for the industry according to some estimates.
Farmer noted that a number of new and smaller companies have entered the South Carolina insurance market since he started as director back in 2012 and made recruiting insurers to the state one of his priorities. At the end of 2017 there were 813 insurers writing in South Carolina compared with 735 in 2010, and a few more insurers have been admitted this year, he said. But they are all monitored and have a good track record, Farmer added.
I do not expect any [insurer] issues as a result of this hurricane either financially or any problems with timely and sufficient claims payments, Farmer said. At DOI it is part of our job to make sure companies fulfill their obligations and I have no reason in the world to believe we will have any issues with that.
North Carolinas Beach Plan is in better shape financially than any other pool in the country, Causey said.
Both the NCDOI and SCDOI plan to work with insurers to organize claims villages that will make it easier for people to file claims. NCDOI already has an agreement in place with all the Lowes Home Improvement stores in the state to set up claims centers in their parking lot after Florence has passed, Causey said.
Dedicated pages for Hurricane Florence have been created on both the North Carolina Department of Insurance and South Carolina Department of Insurance websites, with information for people on how to prepare, file claims and what to watch out for after the storm.
In addition to claims villages and online information, Farmer said the SCDOI is ready to assist those who need it with a call center, back up call center and a back up to the back up. SCDOI canceled a storm readiness expo that was planned for Sept. 15 so it could devote full attention and manpower to helping citizens prepare and recover from the damage that our state will sustain from this storm, and Farmer said it may be rescheduled and incorporated into a claims village. The South Carolina Captive Insurance Association conference has also been postponed.
Causey said his department will be paying close attention to any scams or fraud from unscrupulous contractors that could arise after the storm, as can often be the case in the aftermath of large catastrophe events.
We have seen it all too often in different states and want to make people aware of that, he said.
Topics Carriers Catastrophe Natural Disasters Claims Flood Agribusiness Hurricane Market North Carolina South Carolina
What Are Approved Participants?
Approved participants are typically institutions that are allowed direct access to an exchange's trading environment. Approved participant status usually affords trade execution cost savings and the right to install trading terminals with direct access to the exchange. This allows the institution to bypass third parties, which may mark up the cost of the trades or cause delays in order execution since it is going through multiple parties before reaching the exchange.
Key Takeaways An approved participant is one who is allowed to access an exchange directly for trading.
In order to be an approved participant, certain qualifications and regulatory thresholds must be met.
Each exchange or jurisdiction will have its own rules on who can be an approved participant, along with the rights and responsibilities granted to them.
Understanding Approved Participants
Approved participants must meet certain eligibility requirements as determined by the respective exchange. For example, to become an approved participant on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), called an Equity Member in this case, the firm must be a U.S. based broker-dealer, who is governed by a Self Regulatory Organization (SRO), and that has a clearing firm. Once membership is accepted, then the firm is allowed to connect directly to the exchange for pricing data and order placement.
Authorized person forms must also be filled out by authorized participants/exchange members. Authorized persons are the people who work for the approved participant and that will be working directly with the exchange.
Approved participant status may vary by exchange. The Montreal Exchange, in Canada, requires firms to be formed in Canada, be a member of an SRO, be or become a member of a clearing corporation, and employees of the approved participant who trade on the exchange must first take a training course. Foreign firms must be legally formed in their resident country, be registered with a regulator, have a clearing agreement with a Canadian clearing corporation, and have an agent residing in the province of Quebec, Canada.
Approved participants must report to the regulatory organization, and by extension the exchange, any changes in their name, change of control, or a merger or acquisition that affects the institution.
Benefits to Approved Participants
Since each exchange is different, the benefits and associated costs will vary.
For example, on the NYSE, advantages include ultra-low latency execution of orders, including the ability to co-locate trading servers next to exchange servers. Access to advanced order types and dark pools. Rebates on trades for adding liquidity (as opposed to executing against orders that are already there), and a further reduction in costs for meeting volume thresholds. Approved participants also have access to opening and closing auctions.
Approved participants on all exchanges enjoy cost savings on trades as a result of cutting out third parties, and have direct access to the exchange via installed connections.
September 13, 2018 (Investorideas.com Newswire) A CIBC report provided the rationale for adding this Canadian company to its covered stocks.
In a Sept. 5 research note, analyst Bryce Adams reported that CIBC initiated coverage on Osisko Mining Inc. (OSK:TSX) with an Outperformer rating and a price target of CA$2.50 per share. The company is currently trading at around CA$2.34 per share.
Adams reviewed the company's high-quality merits. One, he said, is that the miner's Windfall project offers "significant upside well beyond the conservative preliminary economic assessment (PEA)" and CIBC's base case using spot prices, which offers a NAV5% of CA$318 million.
Upside at Windfall could come in the form of grade and/or tonnage, explained Adams, both of which are near-term catalysts. "Our NPV5% would increase by roughly 80% in our upside scenario," Adams indicated.
The way the grade was estimated in the PEA "limited the area of influence of mineralized intersections." Thus, the additional infill drilling that now is underway could result in a roughly 15% higher resource grade.
As for tonnage, the use of narrower, less than 3.5 meters wide stopes, which were excluded from the PEA, could "nearly double the mineable resource," Adams noted. Further, exploration drilling would also likely increase its size.
Along with Windfall's "significant resource upside potential," Adams noted, its other "high-quality merits" are the moderate risk associated with it and the company's strong management team and its chances of being taken out, all of which "offer compelling investor appeal."
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By Padraig Hoare
The hotel and tourism industry has repeated calls to keep the 9% Vat rate, saying regions outside Dublin will be the biggest loser, especially Cork and Kerry, and with jobs at risk.
Despite the fact that hotel room prices have surpassed Celtic Tiger levels and that the exchequer is missing out on 500m yearly from the tax incentive, industry bodies are insisting there is more at stake, including thousands of jobs.
According to Department of Finance figures, estimates show that restoring the 13.5% rate for all businesses favoured by the lower rate since 2011 would result in an additional 527m in revenues to the State.
Reducing the 13.5% Vat rate, to 9%, was originally envisaged as temporary to bolster industries ravaged by the recession.
It has cost the State 2.7bn since its introduction, according to the department assessment. Opponents of retaining the 9% rate say that it has more than met its original target and that it should be removed, now that the hotel and tourism industries are thriving.
However, chief executive of the Irish Tourism Industry Confederation (ITIC), Eoghan OMara Walsh, said thousands of jobs in Cork and Kerry could be adversely impacted, if Vat was increased, with 34,000 employed in the industry in the south-west.
Tourism is a vital economic engine within the south-west and everything must be done to protect and nurture it.
The 9% Vat rate has been a key enabling factor for the sectors success and any change in this is likely to damage the industry and depress demand.
This would be very dangerous, particularly with Brexit looming. We hope that the Government sees that tourism is vital to the regions and leaves the Vat rate unchanged and reverses the cuts to Irelands overseas marketing budgets.
The president of the Irish Hotels Federation (IHF), Michael Lennon, said that as Brexit looms, it makes no sense to jeopardise Irish tourism further and hinder our capacity for growth, when 16 European countries have Vat rates for hotels of less than 10%.
With 70% of tourism jobs based outside of Dublin, tourisms wide geographic distribution is critical to sustaining regional economies, and addressing the rural imbalance. And, as the biggest investor in Irish tourism, the hotels sector is playing a critical role, he said.
By Gilles Guillaume and Eamon Quinn
Peugeot-maker, the PSA Group, is targeting a rise in sales and profits in its second-hand cars division, as part of the companys broader Push to Pass strategic plan for up to 2021, said a PSA executive.
Marc Lechantre, who heads up PSAs second-hand cars unit, said the company was targeting 600,000 sales in 2018, with a target of 800,000 by 2021.
Mr Lechantre said PSA was on track to lift profits within the second-hand cars division by a multiple of four. In July, PSA reported that it had turned its recently acquired, Opel-Vauxhall business sharply back into the black, while achieving record first-half profitability at its French car brands, sending its shares to 10-year highs at the time.
Yesterday, the shares rose 2% in Paris, which brings their gain in the past year to 18%.
The car-maker is valued at 20.8bn.
Separately, Audi Ireland said it appointed Thorsten Godulla as its new managing director. Mr Godulla has worked the previous 25 years with Audi in the UK and at its head offices in Germany, in sales, aftersales, dealer development, and finance posts.
He is currently director of overseas sales for Africa and the Near Middle East region, working out of Germany.
He takes over from Henning Dohrn, who has secured the post of head of sales strategy at Audis head offices in Ingolstadt.
Fintan Knight, who heads up Audi in Europe, said it is preparing for new models. Moreover, one of the next steps is the launch of the all-new Audi Q8.
Reuters and Irish Examiner staff
Dog Day Media, a Cork based production company are celebrating their involvement in Apple's latest music documentary.
Songwriter is an "intimate and personal look into the writing process of one of the worlds biggest artists Ed Sheeran."
Filmed by Murray Cummings, Songwriter "details the creation of Sheerans third studio album and gives authentic insight into his life through never-before-seen home videos".
The company has been heavily involved in the production of this film - Billy Cummings acting as 2nd Unit Director and 2nd cameraman, as well as William Bean running graphics and animation.
Dog Day Media themselves worked on the marketing and social media campaign to promote the film.
Billy Cummings sat down for a Q&A to describe to people what it was like to work on such a momentous project.
Are you related to the director? I noticed the same surname...
Yes, he's my older brother! We've always had similar interests in film & music and both studied multimedia so naturally, we ended up in similar lines of work.
How did Dog Day Media get involved in the project?
Murray has been filming Ed since the very early days of small pub gigs up to world tours, focusing on tour diaries and just general documenting his journey. I would of helped out filming big events like Croke Park, Glastonbury and stepped in to film an Australia tour. It was after that tour that Ed started working on his album Divide' and Murray realised he wanted to make a film about Ed the songwriter and not the massive performer. So Murray asked me to join him and between us, we followed Ed around America & UK documenting the album being made, from first chords to final studio touches! Once the film entered the post production stage, another one of the Dog Day team, William Bean started work on animation & graphic elements. We also provided a graphic and marketing package of social media content & website etc
Is this your biggest/most exciting project to date?
Yeah, definitely the biggest. We've had some exciting ones along the way for sure. like the 'Ballymaloe Space Project', 'Mini Irish Roadtrip' or last year we made a short film installation for Google. But this tops it! Getting to see the film up on a big screen in Berlin (Berlinale Film Fest) New York (Tribeca Film Fest) and then the Apple launch in Hollywood is just nuts. We started this company as 4 mates in 2012 with a dream of working for people like Google & Apple... So obviously we're buzzing!
What was Ed like?
Ed's great. He is what you see; Just a funny, talented, down to earth lad who wants to make music. Being a fly on the wall while he goes through his creative process was an incredible insight and one any fan or creative person is going to love to see.
Highlights of the project for you?
There's a scene recording in Abbey Road which is the standout highlight for me. When you think about all the people who have recorded in that room and there I am with my brother, filming Ed sing with a full orchestra, playing a piece Ed's brother wrote, it's going to be pretty hard to top! The sound in there was incredible and people who watch the film are in for a real treat!
Any filming done in Ireland? Any during his Irish tour? (I sense maybe not)
The majority of the film was recorded in America and UK but there's a few snippets of Ireland alright as the film covers his career in montages. We get to see some Croke, O2 and Galway.
Whats next for the team at Dog Day?
We're really enjoying working on more narrative pieces at the moment. Working on a recent Mo & Diplo music video in West Cork and a Red Bull documentary on the O'Donovan brothers. So definitely want to keep that up.
Stephen Cadogan
Global rows over what technology farmers can use may come to a head, as the glyphosate spotlight falls in Brazil.
In August, a Brazilian judge ordered the sale and use of glyphosate to be suspended until the Brazilian Health Regulatory Agency concludes a toxicity re-evaluation.
In news terms, this was probably overshadowed by a California jury in the same month finding Monsanto liable in a lawsuit, and ordering it to pay $289 million in damages to a man who alleged the companys glyphosate-based weed-killers, including Roundup, caused him cancer.
In any case, the injunction in Brazil was overturned earlier this month, but proponents of the ban on glyphosate may still appeal the overturning decision.
If the ban returns, and remains in place, there could be difficulties in controlling weed infestations in Brazils next crop season, due to the countrys high dependency on the product.
So say global agri-trade analysts at Rabobank, who go on to explain the huge significance of the potential setback for Brazils soy crop.
Rabobank expects the recent temporary suspension of glyphosate to have only a small impact on Brazils soybean expansion, even though glyphosate has become the most important herbicide used in Brazil, because of the widespread use by Brazilian soybean farmers of crops genetically modified to be glyphosate-tolerant. Using this GMO technology, farmers were able to do more no-till farming, and simplified weed control, thus saving time and money. From about 50% of the Brazilian soybean crop in 2005, GMO soybean (glyphosate-resistant) has increased to 97%.
This enabled soybean to become the main crop in Brazil, both in scale and in value.
The country is the worlds second biggest grower, producing nearly one third of the global crop, and on course to pass out the United States as the No 1 grower in the coming decade.
Technological efficiency for production in tropical lands, availability of arable lands, and entrepreneurial farmers, have helped Brazil become the largest soybean supplier to China, delivering 57% of the imported soybean China needs for its vast livestock operations, to feed its increasingly prosperous 1.4 billion citizens
Therefore, a lot of people around the world were depending on the recent legal battle after a Brazilian judge determined at the beginning of August that Anvisa (the Brazilian Health Regulatory Agency) had to suspend registry of all products containing glyphosate before September 3, and finalise a re-evaluation of toxicity by December 31.
The injunction was overturned earlier this month, because of the importance of glyphosate in Brazils agriculture, and the timing of the injunction just before Brazilian farmers start planting the 2018/19 crop. If a follow-up court appeal rules out glyphosate again, farmers will have to find substitute herbicides, likely to increase their expenditure on herbicides by at least 80%, or the equivalent of 26 plus per hectare.
Most of the soybean acreage expansion expected this year would take place on underused pasturelands, but higher costs without glyphosate may make this unfeasible. And Rabobank analysts say the scenario of farmers being unable to use glyphosate, and unable to find enough substitute products, cannot be ignored. As glyphosate replaced the substitutes in recent decades, their production and stocks level were rundown.
This means that the glyphosate ban could cause unpredictable losses in soybean yields and in the Brazilian crop size, with reverberations across the world such as the possibility of China going hungry. Thats why any measure to limit use of crop protection has to consider the ability of farmers to find substitute products, said Rabobank experts.
Brazil recently banned the paraquat herbicide, banned in the EU since 2007. But the Brazil ban wont enter into force until 2020, following a three-year transition period. An even longer transition period would be needed to allow Brazilian and global transition to a glyphosate herbicide ban.
Hundreds of people who have suffered significant court case delays could be compensated by the State under EU laws set to be implemented in Ireland.
The move was agreed by Cabinet under plans put forward by Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan in an attempt to address a growing court case backlog.
During a meeting which also heard that existing rules under mental health laws may be unconstitutional and about the fallout from the cancelled visit of US president Donald Trump, Cabinet was told there is a vital need to address significant court delays.
Putting forward the European Convention on Human Rights (Compensation for Delays in Court Proceedings) Bill, Mr Flanagan said there is an urgent need to tackle an ongoing problem in the system.
Noting that EU officials have told Ireland the country is in breach of human rights laws and must find a remedy for delays in court proceedings, Mr Flanagan said the issue must be immediately addressed.
Under the planned new law, when a court case is delayed by a number of months, an independent assessor will be appointed to examine the reasons for what happened and whether compensation is required.
The non-court-based solution to the backlogs and delays is designed to prevent any further scheduling problems, with a spokesperson saying it will reduce costs for the State.
In addition, it is claimed the assessor model will avoid undue formality in the application process and be a more efficient and accessible option for complainants.
The court delays move came during a Cabinet meeting which also heard about plans for emergency legislation to address concerns that existing rules under the Mental Health Act 2001 may be unconstitutional as they can force a person to remain in a psychiatric hospital against their will.
In a briefing note from junior minister for mental health Jim Daly, Cabinet was told the existing act allows for the involuntary detention of patients for up to six and 12 months depending on the circumstances, regardless of whether they wish to leave.
It was noted the existing rules are potentially unconstitutional as they breach a voluntary inpatients human rights, and that there is an urgent need for the Government to address the matter.
Yesterdays Cabinet meeting was also told that while US president Donald Trumps trip to Ireland via France in November is now off, it is unclear if it will be put back on the schedule in the coming weeks.
It is understood both Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and Tanaiste Simon Coveney are still open to the possibility of the trip being organised again, with a spokesperson for Mr Varadkar saying the Government is awaiting final confirmation on the matter.
The Cabinet was also given an update on exchequer figures by Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe.
By Sean ORiordan
Cork County Council has been told to prepare plans to get a number of harbour forts, Martello towers, and what was once the largest gunpowder factory in the world added to Unescos world heritage status list.
The Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht has informed the council that the National Monuments Service is currently planning to create a new list of nominations for Unesco.
The current Unesco heritage list contains 1,037 sites in 167 countries, but only two in Ireland Bru na Boinne and Skellig Michael.
The department has told the council to present its sites, predominantly around Cork harbour, in a serial nomination.
The news was welcomed by Cllr Marcia DAlton, who last May proposed that the historic military installations in the harbour should be protected by the Unesco designation.
Military historians claim that Cork has some of the finest historic harbour defences of anywhere in the world.
Ms DAlton has proposed that the Napoleonic-era sites and fortifications stretching from Cork Harbour to Ballincollig be considered for inclusion on the Unesco list.
These sites include Spike Island (Fort Westmoreland/Mitchell); Fort Camden/Meagher; Fort Carlisle/Davis; Ringaskiddy Martello Tower; Haulbowline Island Martello Tower; Haulbowline Island naval buildings; the Belvelly, Rossleague, and Monning Martello towers; Collins Barracks, and the Ballincollig Royal Gunpowder Mills.
Cllr Gillian Coughlan has asked Ms DAlton to add the Fastnet lighthouse to the proposed list.
I am delighted with the positive response from the department. They intend to re-open the process by which nominations of sites of outstanding universal value can be made.
Their positivity to receiving our application is hugely encouraging, said Ms DAlton.
A skilled criminal group, providing an illegal TV streaming service, earned 700,000 over the last three years, a major garda investigation has found.
Officers believe that the full amount generated by the group could be multiples of this, as investigations, here and abroad, continue.
The operation in Ireland was conducted by the specialist Intellectual Property Crime Unit (IPCU), which is part of the Garda National Bureau of Criminal Investigation.
The Criminal Assets Bureau is being brought into the investigation to uncover proceeds of crime, such as valuables, cars or properties, as well as identifying suspect criminal income that could be subject to tax demands.
The IPCU conducted searches in Dublin and Meath on Tuesday morning and arrested four people, all Irish nationals.
The operation was part of a wider investigation by police forces in England and Scotland and co-ordinated by Europol, the EU police agency. Europol said a further two people were arrested in south-east England, in what was a complex investigation across the three countries.
Money-laundering legislation was used here to freeze bank accounts, and more than 80,000 in the accounts was frozen.
The unit warned that people were funding organised crime in availing of the illegal service, which included pay-per-view channels.
An Garda Siochana said it had carried out searches of two houses, in Crumlin and Ashbourne, on September 11.
"Four people (two women, aged 37 and 40, and two men, aged 42 and 45) were arrested and detained under Section 4, Criminal Justice Act, 1984, in Crumlin and Ashbourne Garda Stations, and were later released.
It said that the suspects were arrested for offences under both the Copyright and Related Rights Act, 2000, and the Criminal Justice (Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing) Act, 2010.
The operation was the culmination of an investigation by An Garda Siochana into the illegal streaming of TV content, including pay-per-view products.
The statement said significant support was being provided by some of the major TV companies and the Motion Picture Association.
It added: The operation is supported by the Criminal Assets Bureau, the Garda National Cyber Crime Bureau and local Gardai in Crumlin and Ashbourne.
"Six bank accounts and two credit union accounts have been identified and freezing orders, pursuant to money-laundering legislation, have been invoked.
"In total, 84,000 has been frozen.In addition, nine third-party payment accounts have been identified and limited. It has been established that over 700,000 in total has been paid into these accounts in the last 3 years.
Speaking yesterday, Detective Superintendent George Kyne, of the Garda National Bureau of Criminal Investigation, said:
This is an organised, criminal enterprise, where consumers are funding criminality and depriving genuine industry of legitimate revenue. Consumers are providing their payment details to unknown individuals and leaving themselves open to being the victims of fraud and/or data theft.
"The security around these devices and illegal-streaming platforms exposes customers and leaves their home systems vulnerable. It is important that the public is aware of the impact of illegal streaming and its consequences.
Europol said it deployed two experts to Dublin during the investigation.
This story first appeared in the Irish Examiner.
By Sean ORiordan
The future of one of the most iconic piers in the world has been secured after planning permission was approved for its refurbishment.
More than 1m emigrants have embarked from the pier in Cobh, Co Cork, including 123 passengers who boarded tenders to the ill-fated Titanic.
Known as Heartbreak Pier because so many never returned to Ireland, it is finally going to be turned into a visitor attraction.
The wooden pier was in danger of falling into the sea until the owners of the towns Titanic Experience carried out conservation works on it.
They have now secured planning permission from Cork County Council to upgrade the pier into a viewing stand, which will, for the first time in years, make it accessible to visitors who will be able to walk in the footsteps of the emigrants who left there for Australia and America.
Gillen Joyce, managing director of the Titanic Experience, said the local authority had granted planning permission which includes removing a spire proposed for its centre.
We are pleased to move to the next stage of the project, which will be hugely positive for Cobh and the surrounding region, said Mr Joyce.
Titanic Pier, as an additional tourist attraction in the town, has the potential to draw a further 30,000 visitors to the region which will have a significant and positive impact on the economy as well as Cobhs positioning as a must visit location in the south of Ireland.
The company had previously lodged a planning application for the rejuvenation of the pier, but withdrew it to seek further consultation with architects, archaeologists, and county council planners.
That application involved putting sails on the structure.
The sails were removed from the plans when the new application was lodged.
Mr Joyce said the investment the company will make in the new project will secure this incredible national and international monument into the future.
By Niall Murray, Education Correspondent
Gardai have been sent details of inconsistencies around whether proper tendering took place for work on a Kildare and Wicklow Education and Training Board (ETB) property by a company with family links to the boards former chief executive.
The issue is detailed in the report of an investigation ordered 11 months ago by Education Minister Richard Bruton into procurement and other matters at the board. The minister said he has serious concerns about the matters on which findings are made in the report.
His department received the report in July and has referred it to the Garda National Economic Bureau.
Richard Thorns report, published yesterday, said two of the matters he was asked to probe, in relation to procurement, use and disposal of assets, and other issues, have been referred to gardai.
One relates to the process by which a company connected through a family member to then Kildare and Wicklow ETB chief executive Sean Ashe was contracted to carry out works on a building in Naas, intended for use as a training facility.
The premises was leased by the ETB from June 2015; an aide-memoire by Mr Ashe on its files says he asked the company to do electrical, air conditioning, and other work to make the property safe.
Mr Ashe retired as Kildare and Wicklow ETB chief executive last December, two months after the investigation was ordered.
Mr Thorns investigation found, if adhered to, governance arrangements around procurement in place at Kildare and Wicklow ETB in 2015, 2016, and 2017 were sufficient to ensure conflicts of interest did not arise in procurement matters.
The investigation report says that Mr Ashe told the Department of Education last September that a company related to the one with family links to him had been asked in 2015 to make the property in Naas safe and that they would use two offices in lieu of the costs.
The first company subsequently occupied part of the building in return for a rent waiver against work undertaken, but the waiver agreement was withdrawn for tax reasons.
An invoice for rent and utilities, totalling 8,519, was issued last July for a 10-month occupation from August 2015. The first of three invoices regarding the cost of the works was dated January 2016 for 19,100.
Mr Thorn said no documents associated with the rent and refurbishment of the building were given by the ETB to him, or previously to the Comptroller and Auditor General or Department of Education. Mr Thorn said Mr Ashe was also offered the opportunity to provide information on tendering of the remedial works when he was interviewed but none was forthcoming.
Last December, Mr Thorn received an email with an attached report of the tendering of the works, dated December 15, 2015, and prepared by a third company.
A separate email from the company to KWETB with some back-up documents was also sent.
Mr Thorns report said there are several inconsistencies in the narrative, including a lack of contemporaneous documentary or oral confirmation that tendering took place other than from the former chief executive and the tender report and documents produced last December.
He said the time between the December 15, 2015, date of the tender report and the January 2016 invoice appeared very short, given the intervening Christmas period, to allow response to the successful tenderer, for the contractor to mobilise on site, and the work to be undertaken.
The report says the fact that an invoice was issued for rent and utilities covering a period of occupation before the date of the tender report supports the former chief executives original assertion that the company was requested to do works in return for a rent waiver and so was already in occupation of the building prior to the date of the tender report.
Mr Thorn wrote that he could not make a finding as to the authenticity of the tender process disclosed very late in his investigation.
Determination of the authenticity of the tender report and documentation [sic] reconciliation of the inconsistencies requires investigative powers beyond the scope of this investigation and the matter has been forwarded to the Garda National Economic Crime Bureau, he wrote.
Mr Thorns report found several inconsistencies beyond his powers to investigate also surround procurement of minor building works, and this matter has also been referred to the bureau.
ETB board welcomes investigators report
Sean Ashe, former chief executive of Kildare and Wicklow ETB did not reply to a request for comment yesterday.
He told the Irish Examiner he wished to read the report by the investigator Richard Thorn first.
Arising from the reports findings, Education Minister Richard Bruton plans to make the first use of legal powers to direct the ETB to take a number of actions, including a review of measures to prevent conflicts of interest and inappropriate interventions in procurement processes.
The board welcomed the report and Mr Brutons acknowledgement of work to date to implement actions on foot of a draft report in January.
Current chief executive Deirdre Keyes said directions proposed by Mr Bruton under the 2013 Education and Training Boards Act are also welcomed, and that the ETB board will meet shortly to review them.
They also include a requirement for mandatory governance training for new and existing board members, and to ensure obligations to report to gardai, the Comptroller and Auditor General or other statutory agencies, in relation to matters addressed in the Thorn report are addressed.
The Irish Examiner made serveral attempts to contact Mr Ashe for comment.
By Conor Kane
Hook Lighthouse in Co Wexford has been shortlisted for the prestigious British Guild of Travel Writers world tourism awards for 2018.
The guild is the leading organisation of travel media professionals in the UK and members nominate tourism attractions and destinations for their annual awards.
Since initially being nominated by travel writer and guild member Isabel Conway during the summer, Hook Lighthouse has undergone a rigorous judging process and made it to the final as one of just three attractions or projects in the running for the award of Best Tourism Project in the UK and Ireland.
Manager at Hook Lighthouse, Ann Waters, said it was a "huge honour" to be shortlisted for the award. "The British Guild of Travel Writers awards are nominated and voted on by the industry's best travel writers, therefore, the profile and benefit to us of reaching this stage alone in the awards is incredible."
The recognition is a fitting tribute to the work of all the team at the lighthouse, Ms Waters said.
"We are also delighted to showcase what we have to offer here on the Hook Peninsula as part of Ireland's Ancient East to a world stage audience at the London awards event."
The next stage of the awards process is a private guild member voting opportunity to choose each winner in the three categories: UK and Ireland; Europe and the Wider World.
The winners will be announced at the awards ceremony which is always held on the eve of the annual World Travel Market tourism event in London on November 4th.
Hook Lighthouse is set to host its third annual Harvest Moon celebration on Saturday, September 22, 2018 from 5.30 Visitors can enjoy watching the sunset and the harvest moon rise over Hook Peninsula beneath the protective beam of the worlds oldest intact operational lighthouse pic.twitter.com/TXCzpSMBns Hook Lighthouse (@hooklighthouse) September 10, 2018
The British Travel Writers Guild Awards provide the first opportunity for around 340 ambassadors, ministers of state, travel and tourism CEOs and their top executives, PRs and key travel editors, journalists and bloggers, to get together and network as they arrive in London for the global tourism event.
Travel Writer Isabel Conway said Hook Lighthouse is "truly deserving" of being a finalist in the British Guild of Travel Writers Awards.
"As an attraction Hook Lighthouse is world-class and unique. A Republic of Ireland project has not been a finalist for these awards for many years and Hook Lighthouse very much merits a place in the 2018 final line up."
In recent years, Hook Lighthouse has undertaken a strategic review and development of its tour experience and offering, developing a brand new visitor experience and additional evening and early morning tour and food experiences at the 800-year-old lighthouse.
It is also currently starting a three-year development plan with Failte Ireland and Wexford County Council to further develop its visitor experience.
By Louise Roseingrave
An inquest into the death of a homeless man found dead in rural north Dublin has been adjourned.
Coroner Dr Myra Cullinane adjourned case of Michael Kurek (33).
A Polish national of no fixed abode, Mr Kurek was found dead by the roadside at Grange near the village of Ballyboughal in North County Dublin on August 4 2017.
The coroner was informed that one man has been charged with the murder of Mr Kurek.
Sebastian Barczuk, of no fixed abode, appeared before Dublin District Court this morning where he was charged with murdering Mr Kurek at an unknown location on 3 or 4 August last year.
The inquest at Dublin Coroner's Court heard that the mans family in Poland are being kept informed of developments through a family liaison officer.
The coroner adjourned the inquest until all criminal proceedings are complete.
Ireland is not doing enough to stop cross-border corruption, a report from Transparency International has found.
The report describes the Government as being slow to tackle international corruption involving Irish companies and financial institutions.
Ireland is among 18 of the 44 jurisdictions with 22% of world exports that have the lowest enforcement status. Similarly rated countries include Russia, Turkey, and Bulgaria.
Germany, Israel, Italy, Norway, Switzerland, the UK, and the US with a 27% share of world exports all actively enforce the convention.
The latest edition of the Exporting Corruption report from the anti-corruption organisation rates countries on their enforcement levels against foreign bribery.
One of the reports key findings is that only one in four world exports come from countries with active law enforcement against companies bribing abroad.
All of the countries are rated based on their enforcement against foreign bribery under the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Anti-Bribery Convention.
The convention was ratified by Ireland in 2001 and made it a crime for Irish companies to bribe officials overseas.
The report welcomes the recent enactment of new anti-corruption legislation but points out that Ireland has yet to prosecute any company alleged to have bribed foreign officials.
Transparency International Ireland chief executive John Devitt said the Government deserved credit for updating the law on bribery and corruption. However, they were concerned that not enough resources and political energy were spent on tackling the problem.
There have been no prosecutions for foreign bribery and Ireland has recently been threatened with legal action by the European Commission for failing to transpose the latest EU Anti-Money Laundering Directive, said Mr Devitt.
In the meantime, the Department of Business, Enterprise and Innovation has recently amended the Protected Disclosures Act 2014 which means that whistleblowers who share commercially-valuable information when exposing bribery and other crimes could face prosecution.
Several recent money laundering investigations or cases brought in other countries have mentioned the use of Irish shell companies. Irish banks are also accused of failing to prevent the laundering process of proceeds of corruption from overseas.
The report finds there is no publicly available information about the number of complaints, investigations or files referred for prosecution or cases where no prosecution took place in Ireland.
Also, Ireland does not publish statistics on requests for mutual legal assistance from other jurisdictions.
It says the current situation makes it difficult to determine how proactive the Government is in responding to allegations of bribery and related money-laundering from overseas.
It is just over 20 years since the convention was adopted and the report says its multilateral approach to international corruption was needed more than ever.
Developed countries, in particular, have a self-interest and an obligation to tackle the problem, it says.
The report says that top priority should be directed to cases of grand corruption involving politicians and senior public officials.
Suicide and self-harm crisis centre, Pieta House, saw almost twice as many people in 2017 as it did the previous year.
In 2016, the charity helped 3,971 people. It helped 7,117 last year, an increase of around 80%.
To date, this year, Pieta House has seen 5,000 clients, meaning it will likely be another record year of people seeking help with issues such as self-harming, depression, and suicidal ideation.
Pieta House spokesperson, Darran Coyle Garde, said the sharp rise is not necessarily a negative.
As the stigma surrounding such issues continues to lift, more people are presenting to Pietas services, which means more people are talking about their problems and getting the help they need, he said.
Go back even 15 years or so, and suicide and mental health were issues that were totally swept under the rug. They werent talked about.
But, now, were getting to the stage where people feel okay to talk about it.
They see the difference it can make, said Mr Coyle Garde.
So, yes, the numbers are rising, but that also means more people are looking for help. I mean, its rare, these days, to find someone who hasnt been affected by these issues.
Whether its themselves or a friend, or a work colleague or a family member, pretty much everyone in this country knows someone who has been affected either by depression or suicide, said Mr Coyle Garde.
The issue now, he said, is that with the rise in clients, Pieta House grows more overstretched and underfunded every day.
This is more acutely felt in Cork and Dublin, where larger populations mean more clients seeking services. Currently, Pieta House receives just 15% of its funding from the Government. The other 85% is raised by the public through fundraisers and initiatives.
Mr Coyle Garde said a huge ambition of Pieta House is is 50/50 funding: half from the Government and half from charitable donations.
For the moment, however, the charity is relying on the goodwill of people like Cork residents, Alan and Adriana Watters, who have spearheaded the latest Pieta House fundraiser by recording and launching a new CD, containing remixes of a song about mental health.
The main song is called Shine (I Wanna Listen) and features vocals from Alan Watters and from 16-year-old St Angelas College student, Leah McSweeney. Backing vocals come from a newly formed choir, called The Volunteers.
You can contact Pieta House on 1800 247 247 (Freephone 24/7), or text HELP to 51444
Its what is called the ace in the hole.
Former president Mary McAleeses son Justin is not an official Fianna Fail candidate just yet, but it is widely expected he will be on the ticket when his constituencys selection convention takes place in the coming weeks.
It is likely he will be among the centre-piece candidates Micheal Martin will be attempting to promote, not only to gain an extra seat but to show his party is despite claims to the contrary keeping up with a changing Ireland.
Having spent 14 years between 1997 and 2011 with his parents ensconced in Aras an Uachtarain, the now 33-year-old Mr McAleese has a wealth of experience of what happens behind the scenes in the political arena.
And, alongside his vocal campaigning during the 2015 same-sex marriage and public confirmation he was gay and now married to a doctor, he also speaks for a new generation of Irish voters looking for a new form of politics.
Mr McAleese is planning to run in the Dublin-Rathdown constituency.
The contest is tight, with Transport Minister Shane Ross, Culture Minister Josepha Madigan and the Green partys deputy leader Catherine Martin currently holding the Dail seats, while former justice minister Alan Shatter is closely eyeing a Leinster House return.
However, should Mr McAleese formally be selected to enter the contest as expected, he is likely to be seen positively by different strands of the electorate.
Only a small number of bumps in the road are apparent in Mr McAleeses potential route to the Dail, with his criticism of Mr Martins failure to emphasise the same-sex marriage referendum in a 2015 ard fheis speech chief among them.
Returning for second Dail bid: Lisa McDonald, Wexford
A decade ago, Fianna Fails Lisa McDonald narrowly lost out on a seat in Wexford by just 800 votes after a closely fought contest.
Now, the former senator is preparing to run for a seat she still feels is winnable and can be taken if the campaign vote split is carefully managed.
The mother-of-two from Wexford town, who has her own legal practice, entered politics as a student in UCD, where she became the second ever female chair of the colleges Fianna Fail ogra wing.
She was elected to Wexford county council in 2004, before running in the 2007 general election where she received more than 9,000 votes but narrowly lost out to now Fine Gael junior finance minister Michael DArcy.
Ms McDonald was subsequently elected to the Seanad where she remained until 2011 before starting up her own business.
Ms McDonald was co-opted onto the council in 2016.
In July this year, she succeeded in being nominated to the Fianna Fail ticket for Wexford alongside sitting TD James Browne.
Ms McDonald believes the Fianna Fail team is capable of taking two of the five seats on offer, in part because of what she says is the failure by existing TDs to adequately address genuine issues in the constituency.
We believe we can win two seats: Norma Moriarty, Kerry
While the shadow of the Healy Raes is covering large parts of the county, Waterville-based Fianna Fail candidate Norma Moriarty believes she and her running mate John Brassil TD are capable of pulling off a dual shock of their own in Kerry.
Were up against some of the biggest brand names in the country when it comes to politics here, but we believe we can win two seats. You want to be competitive. The former school teacher, who has taken a career break since becoming a councillor in 2014, is targeting a seat alongside Mr Brassil by focusing on key issues for the local area.
Giving opportunities to local people to stay in Kerry while still taking in a good salary, she says, is key to the survival of local towns in the constituency.
We need to afford people the opportunity to have a high-earning capacity to live and work in the county, instead of going to Dublin or elsewhere.
In the past weve suffered from the brain drain; the loss of that cohort has hamstrung some areas, she says.
Among the policies Ms Moriarty who admits her bid to win a Dail seat in 2016 was a steep learning curve is championing are tourist industry-friendly Vat initiatives and greater security and Garda presence in rural areas.
An Bord Pleanala has refused planning permission for more than 500 homes in north Dublin.
The project, which was initially given the go-ahead earlier this year, would have seen 432 apartments and 104 houses built on lands at St Paul's College in Raheny.
By Liam Heylin
A Leaving Certificate student at a private school in Cork got the fright of her life on the first day of her exams when she emerged from a cubicle in the school toilets to see a man unzipping his trousers and talking to her in a sexual fashion.
Tadhg Hopkins, aged 40, of halting site Nashes Boreen, Fairhill, was jailed for ten months yesterday at Cork District Court in relation to the incident at Scoil Mhuire on Sidney Place, Wellington Rd.
Detective Sergeant Kieran OSullivan said the student had prepared a victim impact statement for yesterdays sentencing hearing but she asked for this not to be read out in court.
Frank Buttimer, defending, said: Clearly there have been consequences for the young lady they leap off the page.
Judge Olann Kelleher said: This young lady was starting her Leaving Cert. It is not what you would hope to deal with when doing a State exam and it had such consequences for her.
She did observe him undoing his zip in front of her and she got the fright of her life.
The charges relate to June 6. Two charges state that Hopkins trespassed at the school without reasonable excuse in such a manner as caused or was likely to cause fear in another person. Two other charges state that Hopkins intentionally engaged in offensive conduct of a sexual nature.
Inspector Ronan Kennelly said that at 1.40pm on June 6, Hopkins had entered Scoil Mhuire girls school on Wellington Road.
Here he spoke to two girls in an elevator in the school. The content of the conversation was sexual and suggestive in nature, he said.
One of the girls in the elevator was starting her Junior Cert and made a statement of complaint giving rise to one of the sexual counts, but she opted not to prepare a victim impact statement.
The second count arose out of the actions of Hopkins after he left the elevator.
Insp Kennelly said: He went into the ladies toilet where the Leaving Cert student had opened the cubicle to be confronted by the accused. She said he had his trousers open and had his hand down his trousers. This lady exited the toilet and the male was escorted from the school by staff.
It was clarified that the defendant did not force or attempt to force any party to engage in physical activity.
Det Sgt OSullivan said Hopkins had 101 previous convictions none for offences of a sexual nature. He had 13 assault convictions, including two for causing harm. He said Hopkins followed people entering a secure area of the school and there may have been a belief that he was an examiner.
Mr Buttimer said Hopkins had a significant, long-standing difficulty with alcohol and had alcohol taken on that occasion, but was not greatly under the influence of alcohol.
Mr Buttimer said Hopkins knew little of the school and believed it was some kind of college.
This story first appeared in the Irish Examiner.
By Joe Leogue
SuperValu has been accused of using the planning laws to thwart competition, jeopardising employment, after the owner of one of the chains supermarkets in a Cork town objected to proposals to expand a rival store across the road from his business.
Last month, Cork County Council had granted Lidl planning permission to demolish its existing 1,342 sq m store in Fermoy, and an adjacent 745 sq m unit that formerly operated as A Touch of Luxury, to make way for a new 2,167 sq m supermarket with ancillary off-licence and bakery.
On Monday, the Irish Examiner revealed the decision has been appealed to An Bord Pleanala by Michael Riordan owner of the SuperValu supermarket directly across the road from the Lidl premises.
In his objection, Mr Riordan said the proposed development is not suitable for its Courthouse Rd setting, the main road into Fermoy from the east.
This prominent gateway site demands a building of much higher quality and merit than is currently proposed, states Mr Riordans submission.
Responding to the appeal, Lidl yesterday issued a statement in which it accused SuperValu of using planning law to target rival businesses.
While the building design has been listed among its reasons for objecting, it is clear SuperValu is continuing to use the planning process as a delaying tactic to thwart competition and expansion plans that have been welcomed by local residents, states Lidl.
The multimillion investment in the store rebuild will now be delayed by up to nine months while An Bord Pleanalas decision is awaited, resulting in undue delays to investment and employment in the local area.
If approved, the development would create 100 jobs during the construction of the store in addition to a further 10 full-time retail jobs post completion.
Given the endorsement by Cork County Council and the strong local support for the development, Lidl are confident that An Bord Pleanala will recognise SuperValus objections as an unfounded delaying tactic.
Responding, Mr Riordan yesterday told the Irish Examiner that: As a business owner who works and lives in Fermoy, I am fully supportive of the development of a thriving, sustainable community.
An Bord Pleanala will provide a determination in relation to the proposed redevelopment and, during that process, it would be inappropriate to comment on the matter.
Riordans has operated on Courthouse Rd since the 1980s, when it took over the former Top Hat dancehall premises. Lidls store opened in 2001.
This story first appeared in the Irish Examiner.
By Pet OConnell
A colourful character, incredibly exuberant, he spent his life teaching people about the set dancing and the music of the area he loved.
The death of Timmy McCarthy, a London-born butcher who became an unlikely champion of music and dance in Cork and Kerry, has brought floods of tributes for a legend and a one-of-a-kind gentleman affectionately known as Timmy the Brit.
One of Cork Folk Festivals founders and driving forces, Timmy found his inspiration in the Sliabh Luachra tradition he first discovered in Dan OConnells pub in the Cork-Kerry border village of Knocknagree.
William Hammy Hammond, who followed in Timmys footsteps as folk festival organiser, said: His legacy is reviving and bringing to prominence about 14 traditional Irish sets. Some of them were definitely gone and Timmy and Dan OConnell and others helped to revive those.
He also leaves a legacy of music in the city, added Hammy, in the founding of the folk festival, and that has continued as a very vibrant festival.
In later years, he said accordion player Timmy became the events spiritual director. The 39th Cork Folk Festival next month will honour his memory. Were a bit shell-shocked, but there will definitely be a tribute to Timmy at the festival.
Timmys gift for connecting and enthusing musicians saw him form the Folk Fainne, a nationwide association of clubs. He organised events at Corks set-dancing nightclub, the Sraidbhaile on the Grand Parade.
For years he ran a Cork and Kerry set-dancing weekend, spreading his love for the areas music and dance to audiences in France, North America, and Russia, teaching in Sardinia, Austria, Bavaria, and Norway.
The son of Cork City parents who emigrated to England, Timmy was orphaned by the age of nine and taken into the care of religious orders, for which he had nothing but praise.
Making the move back to Cork, where his English accent earned him his nickname, he worked as a butcher, spending his free time teaching the set dances he researched and revived.
He told the Irish Examiner how his love of dance began: A woman called Eily Buckley saw me sitting down and she took me up and threw me round the floor. I didnt know what the hell had happened to me, but that was the Sliabh Luachra set, and it changed my life.
Deeply moved by a concert in his honour this year, he said: When I see the line-up for that concert... people know me as Timmy the Brit, but they were the people that made me feel Im home, Im Irish. Im just overwhelmed. Ive had a fabulous life and this is an amazing, gob-smacking tribute.
Vicky Phelan, Stephen Teap, and Lorraine Walsh have urged the complete implementation of all 50 recommendations contained in the Scally review, which they say raises more questions about how their own cases were handled.
The trio discussed the Scally findings on RTE radios Ray DArcy Show, with all three left wondering whether people reviewing CervicalCheck scans in US laboratories were moonlighting or not properly qualified for the job in hand.
They revealed that in the course of a meeting with Dr Gabriel Scally on Tuesday after parts of his report had been leaked the issue of whether a commission of inquiry was still needed was discussed at length.
Mr Teap, from Carrigaline, Co Cork, whose wife Irene died in July 2017 after she had received two incorrect smear test results, said he is still considering legal action. He is awaiting a review of his wifes smears.
Ms Walsh, who lives in Galway, said she was also awaiting a review of her smear slides before deciding on legal action.
As for the main finding that Dr Scally did not believe there was any kind of conspiracy, Ms Phelan said it appeared to have been a case of incompetence and a shambles across the board.
Ms Walsh referred to the part of the report outlining where and how some smear tests from CervicalCheck were analysed in US labs.
Specifically she read the section in which Dr Scally outlined how in order to increase capacity sufficiently to undertake the Irish workload, CPL recruited staff to its pre-existing histology and cytopathology laboratory in San Antonio, Texas, as well as to its main laboratory in Austin.
The report goes on to state: It would appear, therefore, that a significant part of the Irish CervicalCheck work was undertaken by laboratory staff whose main employment was elsewhere in a training role, or in another role with little screening workload.
Ms Walsh wondered if they may have been moonlighting in addition to their day job.
Both Ms Phelan and Mr Teap agreed that if that was the case, is was a danger the people looking at the slides could miss something, particularly if they were coming to the task from another job.
Speaking about her own case, settled in the High Court for 2.5m earlier this year, Ms Phelan said she was shown a normal smear slide and her own smear slide originally categorised as normal by the lab by her solicitor, Cian OCarroll.
There was a massive difference, she said, adding that her status leapt from zero to one of the highest levels. That indicates that someone didnt look at the slide at all, and if they were moonlighting, and looked at it and were not qualified.
Apportioning blame was not within the terms of reference of the Scally review Ms Phelan said she and others understood this was the case before they had even read the report.
She said she was not sure that sanctioning people at this stage would improve the overall situation.
I wouldnt say I have mellowed out, [but] I am not sure there is any merit in it for me, she said.
I am sure other women may feel differently.
Ms Phelan said it was astonishing that the risk committee of the directorate met once in eight years.
Mr Teap said he wanted to know why more action was not taken when, in 2011, it had been determined that standards in use at CPL were not up to scratch.
Mr Phelan said her own treatment with the drug Pembrolizumab had helped with a 50% reduction in tumour size, even though she was frustrated that not everyone who wanted the same access to the drug could do so.
I dont think I am on borrowed time any more, she said. Its working, simple as that.
She said she was feeling great and as for the report and the process that led to it, Ms Phelan added: I will stand over it when all those recommendations are put in place.
Many people dismiss the reality format as rubbish, but the shows and the social media discussion they promote are an important indicator of public opinion on vital issues, writes Su Holmes
So, were told that the UKs Celebrity Big Brother and Big Brother franchise may disappear from our screens, at least for a while. Channel 5 is reported to be planning for a year without the reality format in 2019 due to declining ratings. As an avid viewer, Ive read these reports with disappointment and concern, trying to imagine my schedule without the welcome return of one of my favourite TV programmes of all time.
Im a professor of TV Studies, and Im proud to say I dont think Ive missed an episode of Celebrity Big Brother (CBB) since it began in 2001. Given that the format and its close sibling Big Brother have pretty much become synonymous with trash television in the UK, this statement may seem contradictory. But I dont see my job and my enthusiasm for CBB as incompatible. And this is why.
Controversy is one of the primary motors of CBB and is intrinsic to the format thats why you put 12 people in a house with differing backgrounds, experiences and political views. But although the ensuing controversies may not have occurred in the real world (they emerge from the highly structured environment of the show), they do speak to very real world issues and debates which should matter to us all. This is particularly so when the controversies involve questions of gender, race, sexuality, class or trans identity (as they so often do).
The recent series of CBB was no exception to this. Racism has already emerged as topic of contention in a row between TV psychic Sally Morgan and Scottish TV presenter and comedian Hardeep Singh Kholi. Morgan suggested that because of the colour of his skin Kohli looked too healthy (or not pale enough) to be a patient in the pretend hospital drama they were staging in the show, wondering if he needed some talcum power to help him play the role. She had also previously asked him if she could use that thingy on his head (his turban) as a bandage. This prompted a heated conversation about what constituted racism and when it was appropriate to raise issues of race.
The incident created the rather uncomfortable spectacle of the predominantly white members of the house suggesting that Kohli may be too easily offended by issues which are not really about race at all. Former TOWIE reality star Dan Osborne even explained that he felt uncomfortable when Kohli referred to himself as a brown man. So, Kohli was essentially shut down within the house as the the younger housemates in particular provided a revealing insight into generational perceptions of a post-race society in which race and racism is apparently no longer a thing.
Cue twitterstorm
But of course the conversation didnt stop there: it continued on social media and other forms of popular media coverage. As one viewer directing her tweet at Kohli observed:
@misterhsk I don't think @SallyMorganTV & the others are open to examining the unconscious #racism inherent in those of us with white privilege. Shows what a long way we still have to go. Sorry you had to live that. I think you were brave. #CBB #CBBUK Tig Savage (@TracyTig) September 9, 2018
As is the nature of Twitter, others of course disagreed:
Watching #cbb tonight I think #hardeep is borderline #roxannepallet. I haven't seen anyone in the #cbb house be maliciously #racist. He is too much. He has actually played the #racism card an awful lot in this series and it sad. Sam mcgahan (@McgahanSam) September 8, 2018
Viewers worked over the question of what constitutes racism in British society how it is recognised, named and debated, as well as the impact of white privilege on how and when racism is permitted to be raised.
Check your privilege
Equally, when CBB launched its Year of the Woman series in January this year (timed to chime with the centenary of womens suffrage), there were many who suggested that this was nothing short of a catastrophe for feminism:
If you listen carefully, you can actually hear Emmeline Pankhurst spinning around in her grave! #CelebrityBigBrother Darren Dutton (@DazzoD1) January 2, 2018
What the suffragettes would have made of CBB is impossible to say. But such views seem to consolidate the view that the feminism(s) explored in popular media are intrinsically lacking and will always fall short of some (mythical) real thing. The exploration of feminism, gender equality and womens position in contemporary society during the series was certainly complex and contradictory but its value again lay in getting us talking about issues which affect us all.
Some viewers, for example, felt that the programme was sexist towards men and that the theme was redundant because gender equality had now been achieved:
Others hotly contested this view of the current state of gender equality, with one replying to the tweet with the question of historical inequality:
While some hotly debated the persistence of gender inequalities in contemporary British society, others talked about the lack of intersectionality in CBBs construction of feminism, or the ethics of including in the series Dapper Laughs, also known as comedian Daniel OReilly who, in 2014, made an unpleasant rape joke during his stand-up show which threatened to kill off his career.
Many threads extended the programmes controversial discussion of the #MeToo sexual harassment movement, while other debates still ignited talk about the guilt of working mothers, feminism and generational identity, and the relationship between trans identity and feminism today.
Bold and explicit
The format undoubtedly has its flaws and it has certainly over the years raised questions of ethics, offence and exploitation. But this doesnt take away its cultural value as a forum for political discussions about identity. In fact, I can think of few documentaries, dramas or TV discussion shows which have ignited such discussions in such a bold and explicit way.
So I for one will miss the format if it doesnt return. To the Big Brother franchise Id like to say thank you, so long, its been eye-opening (and please lets keep the discussion going).
This article was written by Su Holmes of University of East Anglia and was originally published on The Conversation
Read the original article here.
When I showed my aunt Assassins Creed Odyssey, she said: Its all Greek to me. For once, she and gaming were on the same page. The latest entry to Ubisofts seemingly perpetual series will take place in Ancient Greece, a setting fans have long anticipated.
Assassins Creed has taken some interesting turns during its ten-year history. The first entry was janky but promising,with excellent platforming sections but poor combat and a limited world to explore. The second game, however, delivered on all fronts, creating the open world historical toy-box we are still playing today. In Assassins Creed II, we were introduced to the Renaissance not only in terms of the time period, but for the series itself too.
Rebirth has been a theme of Assassins Creed ever since, with the series taking us to Rome, the American Revolution, industrial London, the era of pirates and ancient Egypt.
Its not just the scenery that has changed, with gameplay evolving heavily too. Slowly but surely, the series has gone from a platformer to the leading template for open-world games everywhere, with naval battles, mini-games and a loot system all added over time
Assassins Creed Odyssey, which releases on October 5, continues that incessant journey of evolution, building on the advancements made by Origins in a number of ways. For a start, you can now choose between a male or female character, Alexios and Kassandra. While both characters will have the same story and general approach to gameplay, this is the first time Creed has given us the option to choose the face and voice of our hero, doubling down on the RPG elements.
Taking another cue from Mass Effect are the dialogue options now in play. You can choose how to respond in conversations, by getting angry, flirting, bartering, and so on. How you handle a situation will lead to different
outcomes, all of which tie into the overall theme of war between Sparta and Athens. Choosing a side will lead to bounties being placed on your head and different story paths.
With war serving as the backdrop, youll be spending plenty of time engaging in combat and it looks like the development team will further grow the role-playing features introduced in Origins. The loot and levelling
systems will return, but Ubisoft have also added special power slots that allow you to heal and perform special moves. Overall, it looks like the combat may finally be on a par with more standard action titles in terms of flexibility and choice.
It seems like Assassins Creed has been on a never-ending journey of improvement these last ten years. If the latest entry continues that odyssey, it could be a Greek classic.
LIFE IS STRANGE
Theres a different kind of journey on display in Life is Strange 2. The original game was a coming-of-age story with supernatural elements, largely set around a college campus and the character Maxine Caulfield. In the sequel, which features entirely new characters and plot, two young brothers go on the run after being implicated in a murder.
Developers Dotnod say that they have built the story around the themes of brotherhood and education, drawing heavily on the work of a photographer called Mike Brodie, who hopped from freight to freight across the US and recorded the lives of drifters.
In Life is Strange 2, the brothers Sean, 16, and Diaz, 9, must find their way home to Mexico from Seattle in a journey that is sure to be full of puzzles, exploration and top notch character development. Life Is Strange 2 travels to PC and consoles on September 27.
QUIET MAN
Finally, if youre looking for some quiet time away from the noise, Square Enixs latest experiment probably doesnt fit the bill. The Quiet Man no relation to the film is a bizarre beat-em-up starring a deaf teenager on a revenge mission against Latino mobsters.
While weve only seen videos so far, The Quiet Man comes across as highly campy and almost entirely laden with non-interactive video cutscenes, which then transition into dodgy action gameplay. Its exactly the kind of game that would have been released 20 years ago as a gimmick. Well keep an open mind to what is a strange move from Square Enix, but The Quiet Man doesnt look like anything worth shouting about.
Eva OCathaoir explores the origins of the Fenian movement in Munster and its spread throughout Ireland, Britain and North America
My book contains mini-biographies of more than 1,000 activists, many of whom are now barely remembered in their Munster and Kilkenny home areas. But during the 19th century, they were pivotal figures who kept Irish separatism alive, ultimately culminating in the Easter Rising. There are fascinating, early photographs of suspects, commissioned by Dublin Castle for purposes of identification.
The Fenian movement developed in response to the Great Famine, the worst catastrophe of modern Irish history. Death and emigration decimated a population of eight to six million in less than a decade. The long-standing grievances of tenant farmers were ignored and emigration continued by 1900 Ireland contained only four million inhabitants. Michael Doheny, John OMahony and James Stephens, who had fled abroad after the 1848 Rising, opposed prevalent contemporary ideas that an economic recovery depended on an acquiescent Ireland benefitting from the British Empire. Doheny and OMahony were passionate supporters of the Irish language and Gaelic culture, which was being decimated by the Famine, while a supremely self-confident Stephens persuaded his followers that a Republic was achievable with help from Irish-America. In 1858, he founded the Irish Republican Brotherhood in Dublin, followed by its American auxiliary, the Fenian Brotherhood, under John OMahony in New York.
Among the earliest, life-long supporters were John Haltigan, a foreman printer of Kilkenny, James Cody and Edmund Coyne of Callan, Denis Mulcahy of Clonmel, his son Denis Dowling and daughter Catherine. In Cork, Brian Dillon, James Mountain, both now honoured by plaques in their native city, John Lynch, who was to die in jail in England, and James OMahony, a Bandon grocer and aficionado of Irish, soon joined. Initially, Fenianism was much stronger in Cork than in Dublin.
Organisers began swearing in young men in preparation for an insurrection, but there were problems: how was the Fenian expedition from America to be financed and could it evade the formidable Royal Navy? Disagreements on policy and personality clashes led to a disastrous split in the Fenian Brotherhood. Lacking self-confidence after the Famine, some members proclaimed their plans loudly rather than proceeding with silent action, as urged by the Irish People, the Dublin Fenian newspaper, edited by John OLeary, future mentor of W.B. Yeats. Stephens followers drilled all over Ireland, but he depended on arms and officers to arrive with a Fenian expedition from the US.
At the end of the American Civil War in 1865, hundreds of demobbed soldiers crossed the Atlantic to support the Irish conspirators. Dublin Castle watched uneasily as veterans disembarked in Cobh with their weapons, including Capt. John McCafferty, a colourful character, who claimed to have fought for the Confederacy, the unassuming, but effective William Mackey Lomasney, Capt. Mackey, whose parents had emigrated from Co Cork during the Famine and the resourceful Col. John Byron of Clogheen, Co Tipperary. The authorities realised that the British Army had been infiltrated. Nightly meetings took place and some weapons were smuggled to J.J. Gearys pub and grocery in Cork city, where American officers and organisers met with Sergeant Major Thomas Darragh of the 2nd Queens Regiment, who had taken the Fenian oath and was scheduled to lead the Cork insurgents when the Rising broke out. Fenian fever seemed to seize the country.
Despite the arrest and trial of the Irish People staff and their supporters in September 1865 and the temporary detention of numerous American suspects in Ireland, including Mackey, Byron and McCafferty, the excitement continued. J.J. Geary escaped abroad, while his apprentice John Sarsfield Casey of Mitchelstown, a teenage organiser, was among those sentenced to imprisonment.
In February 1866, Dublin Castle suspended the Habeas Corpus to imprison hundreds of activists without trial. Important Munster men were transferred to Dublin prisons, which made access for relatives difficult and acted as a deterrent to the membership still at large. Families began petitioning Dublin Castle, citing innocence, ill health and the suffering of dependants, who had lost their breadwinners, as grounds for discharge. The endorsement of establishment figures for such petitions was eagerly sought. These arrests badly handicapped the movement, but the American officers, now based in England to evade arrest, were resolved on a Rising in March 1867.
Ellen OLeary, sister of John, a poet and woman of independent means, helped to coordinate preparation from Dublin. Godfrey Massey was to lead in the initial stages, but his arrest at Limerick Junction, on foot of information received, made any success unlikely. In Cork, Dominick OMahony, a cooper, was the leader. In Midleton, James OSullivan, a clerk in the distillery, had constructed a model for a cannon, burying it in a field. Capt. Patrick Joseph Condon, an Irish-American, was to command in East Cork on 5 March, but his sudden arrest aborted effectiveness. Ultimately, 400 Midelton Fenians with contingents from Ballinacurra, Cloyne and Carrigtwohill under carpenter Timothy Daly failed to take Castlemartyr Constabulary Barrack. The insurgents fled when Daly was shot dead, but among them was sixteen year old Patrick Neville Fitzgerald, who would become a pivotal figure in the IRB and the GAA in Cork later.
Peter ONeill Crowley of Ballymacoda, an idealistic farmer, led his Fenians to seize the rifles of Knockadoon Coastguard Station, for some of them carried only sharpened rasps, fastened to rake handles with waxed hemp as weapons. Grasping how isolated they were, ONeill Crowley disbanded his followers and went on the run in Kilclooney Wood, where he was killed resisting arrest on 31 March 1867. In Cork city, 1,500 men turned out and marched northwards in search of arms. Led by Capt. Mackey they took Ballyknockane Constabulary Barracks near Mallow, but British Army arrests began soon afterwards. While the insurgents failed seize Kilmallock Constabulary Barracks in Co. Limerick and were dispersed at Ballyhurst, Co. Tipperary, Capt. Mackey went on the run, conducting arms raids in Co. Cork to the great annoyance of Dublin Castle until his arrest in February 1868.
Captain John McCafferty, a colourful character who claimed to have fought for the Confederacy.
Although the Rising failed, the Fenian movement continued through an amnesty campaign for the prisoners, which saw the incarcerated ODonovan Rossa elected to Parliament. It drew international attention to Irelands grievances. Activists like Michael Davitt would become vital to resolve the land issue, others helped to found the GAA. Edmond ODonovan, son of the great Gaelic scholar and a major activist during the 1860s, went on to a career as an explorer, travel writer and war correspondent, still quoted today. Aloysius OKelly, a rediscovered 19th-century painter, was also a Fenian alongside his better-known brother J.J. OKelly, who later numbered among Parnells M.P.s. In Cork, Long John OConnor, an energetic, early IRB leader, promoted the Land League and finally became a Home Rule M.P.
The movement might well have collapsed, were it not for its female supporters, who remain largely hidden. Besides Ellen OLeary, who highlighted the prisoners plight in the radical press, handsome Mary Jane ODonovan Rossa of Clonakilty (Rossas third wife) wrote poetry and toured America, giving patriotic readings. The women formed a Ladies Committee and assisted the dependants of detainees.
Some working-class women registered their opposition to the status quo. In Cork, Susan OConnell, who had married Capt. Mackey on the run, became a local celebrity. Her sister Mary and Albina Mahony, a young dressmaker, who had been held and searched without privacy during Capt. Mackeys trial, threatened the constabulary with exposure in the transatlantic press and won damages for unlawful imprisonment.
Women hid various activists on the run. In Lisronagh near Clonmel, Felix ONeill, a leader, had created a dugout on his farm. His sister Margaret had assisted in preparations for the Rising and managed the rescue of Capt. Laurence OBrien, a native of Cahir, from Clonmel Jail in 1867. OBrien finally escaped to America, where he became a Clan na Gael leader in New Haven.
The Soldiers of Liberty. A Study of Fenianism, 1858 1908 by Eva OCathaoir, published by Lilliput Press. 60
By Ellie OByrne
ACTOR and playwright Karen Cogan is revisiting her roots in Drip Feed, her self-scripted one-woman show set in Corks gay scene in 1998.
Drip Feed, Cogans second play, tells the story of Brenda, a lesbian woman in her thirties living a life at once hedonistic and lost, looking for love and finding rejection in Irelands second city, in an era where homophobia was still rife.
I had the idea that I wanted to revisit the feeling of 1990s Cork, Cogan says.
Post-divorce referendum, pre-marriage-equality referendum was a really interesting cultural moment for the queer community in Ireland.
Now in her 30s and having lived in London for the past 11 years, Cogan was in her teens when she came out and began frequenting Corks handful of LGBT haunts in the late 1990s. Although informed by her experiences, Brendas story is not her own; she says her memories of the time are coloured by youthful excitement.
My awareness was quite teenage and unclear, she says. They were letting people into Sir Henrys nightclub underage and I remember it all as super exciting, but in hindsight of course it was extremely small and limiting.
A smattering of bars and clubs catered to Corks LGBT community in the 90s: Loafers bar on Douglas Street, since closed, was a hub and the only visibly gay bar in the city for many years, while clubs like Sir Henrys were a mixed crowd, but gay-friendly. The Other Place on South Main St and, years later, LINC (Lesbians in Cork), offered community supports, health advice and social opportunities.
But the flip-side of this burgeoning sense of community was the ever-present homophobia. So many of my friends experienced horrendous homophobia in the streets, Cogan says. Theres a moment in the play where Brenda recounts being spat at by a man in the street while shes holding hands with her girlfriend. Thats something that really happened to a friend of mine, who was 18 at the time.
Cogan left Cork in 2002 and lived in Dublin for five years before going to London to train at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA). It had been her ambition to act since childhood, and her second attempt at getting one of RADAs notoriously competed-for places: she previously auditioned at 17, and didnt get in.
Yet now, eight years after her graduation, shes making waves as much as an emerging playwright as an actor. Her first play, The Half Of It, picked up a Stewart Parker Trust Award last year following a sold out Dublin run.
Dripfeed itself has been commissioned by a production company for television development and just enjoyed a run in Edinburgh. She has several other ambitious writing projects on the go.
I find myself not wanting to take up loads of my writing time with acting. This could be transient, I dont know. I might go back to acting on other peoples projects in the future. I dont want to be negative, but there were just a lot of disappointing scripts: a lot of it is still very male-centric.
Oh Duubliin Friiiinge the shoows the shoows are caalling..
My Ireland antenane are up & I can't wait to get home for @dublinfringe @oonaghmurphy & I are taking Drip Feed to @projectarts for 5 SHOWS ONLY and we would like it to be a party. COME! #DripFeedhttps://t.co/MgNtvFT5pq Karen Cogan (@KarenMCogan) August 30, 2018
Ever since the Waking The Feminists campaign shone a spotlight on imbalanced gender representation in Irish theatre in 2016, theres been an increased awareness that theatre hadnt exactly offered a diversity of voices, and Cogan says the same is true in the UK.
Theyve just published a study to see how many female playwrights are being put on big stages, and its still shocking, she says. Change is in the ether, but its still slow. Not to get too political but the structures were working with are inherently patriarchal. Its going to take time and it cant just be women and queer people pushing for change: it has to come from the top.
It was, then, partly her quest for female roles real enough in their flaws that set her on her current writers trajectory. You hear a lot from male writers on the grotesqueness of bodily functions and this kind of inner monologue of the male mind. Its still not so normal to hear that from the female perspective. I really wanted to go deep into Brendas heart and mind, and the awfulness of her in many ways.
Drip Feed by Karen Cogan runs during Dublin Fringe Festival from Sept 19-22 in the Project Arts Centre. www.fringefest.com
Do you use Instagram? Probably. Did you read the terms of use? Probably not. Youre not alone. Most people dont read terms and conditions. So here are some key things to know and understand about Instagram, writes Hayleigh Bosher.
1. The terms are confusing
Users must agree to the terms of use before they can have an Instagram account. The minimum age to sign up is 13. But the reading age for the terms are closer to university level. They are written using complicated language. For example, the licence granted is described as a non-exclusive, royalty-free, transferable, sub-licensable, worldwide license to host, use, distribute, modify, run, copy, publicly perform or display, translate, and create derivative works of.
2. You own your own photos, right?
Instagram claims it does not take ownership of its users content. But the terms state that the user grants Instagram a non-exclusive, fully paid and royalty-free, transferable, sub-licensable, worldwide license to use their content. What this means is that Instagram has all the rights of the original owner of the content aside from the fact that it is not an exclusive licence. It is important that photographers are aware of this because if they sell an image under an exclusive licence, posting the image on their Instagram would breach that licence.
Many people upload pictures to their Instagram accounts without understanding the terms of use. Disobeyart/Shutterstock
3. Instagram can give away or sell your content
Instagram can sub-licence your content. This means that it could licence a users photograph or video to any third party, for free, without seeking permission, giving any notice or offering any payment to the user. It could also take a users content and let another company use that photo in exchange for a fee which Instagram keeps.
4. It can use your content for its own purposes
Likewise, Instagram can make use of any user material for its own purposes or promotions without seeking permission, letting the user know or making any payments to the user. This also includes the ability to edit, modify, share, copy and communicate the content.
5. Instagram can also give away these rights
Not only can Instagram sub-licence, use, distribute, modify, run, copy, publicly perform, display, translate, and create derivative works of users content, but it can also pass the rights to do these things onto a third party without permission. It can do this because the terms state that the licence is transferable. This means that Instagram can freely assign or licence the rights to use its users content to another company or individual.
6. It can do this anywhere
Since there is no geographical restriction on the agreement, it could do any of the above things anywhere in the world.
7. Its a one-way street
The terms state that the same rules do not apply to Instagrams content, which they specify is protected by Intellectual Property and cannot be copied, modified, edited, published, used or licenced. This restrictive approach is particularly problematic for other app developers, such as those who create apps to work in conjunction with Instagram to perform additional functions, such as analysing followers, unfollowers and boosting likes.
8. Instagram makes money from sharing
Instagram, which was launched in 2010 and bought by Facebook in 2012, reaches over 500m daily active users who share approximately 80m photos a day. It is a lucrative business and it is expected to make US$10.87 billion in 2019. The companys key revenue stream is advertising essentially, the more people who use and share on Instagram, the more money they make.
Why are Khloe Kardashian and other celebrities getting sued for posting photos of themselves? https://t.co/BPw66D9hww VANITY FAIR (@VanityFair) April 29, 2017
9. You could be sued for copyright infringement
Even though the culture of social media is all about sharing, technically posting a photo or video that isnt your own, would be contrary to the Instagram terms and could be an infringement of copyright. In the terms, users agree that they either own all the content they post or have sought permission to use it. Otherwise, it could be construed as copyright infringement. For example, Khloe Kardashian faced legal action (which was later dropped) after she posted a photograph of herself on her own Instagram which was owned by a photographic agency.
10. Instagram should do better
Instagrams user agreement gives it unnecessarily broad rights over its users content. It encourages sharing for the benefit of advertising revenues but leave users vulnerable to copyright infringement claims.
In my own research I have argued that Instagram should introduce an improved copyright policy that includes:
amending its user agreement so that it is clearer and fairer towards users and does not leave them vulnerable to copyright claims, or licence breaches.
adopting a Notice and Takedown procedure so users can request that infringing copies of their work are taken down by Instagram similar to when content is blocked for copyright reasons on YouTube to enable copyright holders to enforce their rights, rather than taking court action.
the company should introduce a copyright education tool to provide information and awareness about the law to its users and inform copyright holders when another user has screen-grabbed their image (while at the same issuing a copyright notice to the person who has taken the grab).
If Instagram does not take these steps, the company might find itself in a spot of trouble. Just this month, the Paris Court of First Instance found that Twitters Terms of Use (not dissimilar to Instagrams) were void and unenforceable because they were abusive towards users. Twitter, which could face fines of up to 30,000 Euros, will now have to remove the terms and replace them with ones which are compliant.
This article was written by Hayleigh Bosher, Lecturer in Intellectual Property Law, Brunel University London and was originally published on The Conversation.
Read the original article here.
A commission of investigation into the CervicalCheck scandal may be more trouble than its worth but it leaves the Government with a dilemma, writes Michael Clifford
On what basis is the Government proposing to establish a commission of investigation into the CervicalCheck scandal? Is it to comfort the victims? If so, why has the same Government refused to set up a commission into the Stardust tragedy? Or is it all about taking the heat out of a political scandal and to hell with the cost, both financial and in terms of confidence in the system?
Dr Gabriel Scally has uncovered a shocking litany of failures and shortcoming in the screening system and in relation to how developments were communicated to victims of the mishaps.
He has also indicated that there is no need to establish a commission of investigation into the whole matter. This leaves the Government with a dilemma. It also raises some serious questions about the approach of successive governments to inquiries, the use of public money, and what exactly governance means these days.
Dr Scally is of the opinion that a commission of investigation might be more trouble than it is worth under the prevailing circumstances.
He writes: There is a danger that a prolonged investigation, while it might further elucidate the matters I have considered and correct inexactitudes in this report, would consume valuable energy and resources that would be better devoted to the implementation of recommendations and achieving progress.
His conclusion infers that if a commission were to go ahead, it is possible it would not be in the best interests of the screening service. The system, which has saved an indeterminable number of lives, is already hovering, in the public mind, just above disrepute.
Undermining further confidence in the system could precipitate more tragedies. These would occur behind closed doors, far from the centres of power or media, but would have further devastating impact on citizens and their families. Victims of the scandal, such as Vicky Phelan, have been commendably vocal in urging women to continue using the system, despite what has befallen her and her family.
Had Dr Scally decreed that deeper investigation was required, it would be absolutely vital to proceed. But he didnt, and he is regarded as an expert in his field. His brief was wide, and he did the work in a short four months, notwithstanding some dubious delays in co-operation from elements of the HSE. Are we now at a stage where experts are not to be trusted when they come up with unexpected answers?
So what to do? Should a commission proceed against his advice? If so, why?
The commission of investigation model was introduced in 2004 against the background of the burgeoning costs of running public tribunals. It is certainly a cheaper model, conducted behind closed doors where everybody doesnt have to be lawyered within an inch of their lives. The timeframe for the work can be expedited, although some commissions still go on for years. Overall, the model has been a success.
One fallout from the success has been that a commission is now called for at the drop of any kind of a controversy. Whenever full answers are not forthcoming, there are inevitable calls for a commission. In many instances, this is perfectly warranted. In others, it is merely a tool for acquiring political capital.
The usual approach of successive governments has been to conduct a scoping inquiry to determine whether the statutory model is required. Sometimes the scoping inquiry comes back with a recommendation to proceed. This occurred, for instance, in 2014 when a senior counsel investigated Sergeant Maurice McCabes complaints of malpractice in An Garda Siochana. Another example was the outcome of a scoping inquiry into the death of Gary Douch in Mountjoy Prison in 2006.
On other occasions, the result of a scoping inquiry is that there is no discernible reason to proceed. This occurred last year in relation to the Stardust fire tragedy in 1981 after claims new evidence had been uncovered. That case has been a festering sore in public life for 37 years. The bereaved families are of the opinion that there has been a failure to properly examine the case. Yet the outcome of an investigation by retired judge Pat McCartan was that nothing further would be served at this juncture by establishing a commission. Various government figures have repeatedly referenced the outcome of that scoping inquiry when explaining why there would be no commission.
On a few occasions, the government has bypassed a scoping inquiry and gone the whole hog directly. This occurred in 2014 with the setting up of the Fennelly commission into the taping of phone calls to Garda stations.
At the time, Garda scandals were consuming Leinster House. The indecent haste to set up a commission was widely perceived as an attempt to park the scandal pronto.
In that instance, the inquiry model was used, and arguably abused, for nothing more than naked political expediency.
In the current issue, the Scally inquiry served as a scoping exercise. So why would Dr Scallys advice be ignored?
Is there a case for setting up a commission primarily to comfort those afflicted in the most grievous manner by shortcomings in the system? Is that a correct avenue to proceed down irrespective of the chances of uncovering further answers?
If that is the basis for proceeding, then others, particularly the Stardust families, would surely be entitled to a review of their case.
At the height of the CervicalCheck scandal last April and May, there were times when it looked as if the Government could actually fall. Much of that was attributable to the depth of tragedy associated with the scandal. The testimonies of victims was heartbreaking. The contributions of Ms Phelan, Stephen Teap, and others brought home to the public the human cost of what had occurred.
Minister for Health Simon Harris before talking to the media at Government Buildings after today's cabinet meeting which discussed the Scally report on the Cervical Check crisis. Photo: Leah Farrell/RollingNews.ie
However, misinformation about the scandal also spread like wildfire. This was largely down to elements in politics, the media, and others who had an interest in the matter. At the height of that maelstrom, Heath Minister Simon Harris said there would be a commission of inquiry into the matter.
Now an expert has laid out the facts. If his recommendation is not accepted, then a full explanation, weighted in reason rather than emotion, should be provided. Making such a decision based on little more than political expediency would do a disservice to everybody concerned.
The great fear is that the women who have been so dramatically and so appallingly failed by this State will be failed again, writes Daniel McConnell
Why does it always happen to women?
The stark question which cut to the core of what went wrong in the CervicalCheck scandal.
The answer, set out in stark terms by the highly impressive Dr Gabriel Scally at the launch of his much-awaited report, is that engrained in our health system is a poisonous culture of misogyny and maltreatment of women.
Squeezed into a modestly sized room in Buswells Hotel in Dublin, journalists listened as the scale of wrongdoing to these women and families was laid bare.
One key point that surfaced on several occasions was that most of the doctors involved in the disclosure (or non-disclosure) process were male. This, and the general way in which they felt they had been treated, led the women to develop concerns that the attitudes and lack of openness were accounted for by paternalism in the healthcare system, states the report.
The point was made that many of the major controversies about maltreatment of patients or denial of reproductive rights in the Irish healthcare system have involved women being damaged.
The anecdotes recounted by Dr Scally at his press conference yesterday and peppered throughout the 170-page report reveal clearly show how the God complexes of doctors took precedence over the welfare of the 221 women affected by this scandal.
Most disturbingly, Dr Scally recounted an anecdote relayed by the close relative of one of the women, now deceased.
As part of the disclosure meeting, the consultant mentioned several times that the late woman was a smoker (it is known that smoking impedes the bodys ability to clear itself of the HPV virus) and they were also told that nuns dont get cervical cancer, he said to audible gasps in the press conference.
Now if that isnt paternalism, what is? Its verging on misogyny.
Three of the women were disclosed to in the same room as they were diagnosed [in] and for one of the women, it was the same room that her mother died in. Now, this is not acceptable, he said, visibly emotional.
Dr Scally also highlighted how, in his view and in the view of many of the victims, the lack of grace toward patients was apparent.
What has been sadly lacking in this whole episode, and what could assist in its resolution is what has, I believe, been very accurately described as grace and compassion.
Although a system of mediation in court cases is already part of the legal process, it rarely, if ever, is accessed unless a court case has been brought in the first place.
This should be regarded as not alone a reasonable but a desirable expectation; and it is easy to see how things could have been handled very differently, said Dr Scally.
Of course, most of the physical effects of cervical cancers cannot be reversed and some women have died and left behind grieving families.
It is however, I believe, not too late to try and repair some of the other damage caused and help achieve the desired outcomes.
Dr Scally concluded that, in every area examined, fundamental issues were uncovered.
Particularly outrageous was the revelation that smear tests which were outsourced to Austin, Texas, were further outsourced to other labs in the state, as well as to Florida and Hawaii. Worse still no one in the HSE or the Department of Health knew anything about it.
Reacting to the report, Health Minister Simon Harris said it disclosed huge failings that need to be addressed in the cervical cancer screening programme. However, he insisted the programme was safe.
Harris said the report into CervicalCheck found system-wide failings and that auditing was clearly utterly botched.
Dr Scally called for the doctors who failed to show compassion to apologise, saying a letter from those on high would be meaningless.
His report was never going to single out any individuals for blame, and it did not, and it was very much in the realm of blaming systems failures.
The danger, as we all know, is that when systems are blamed, nothing ever changes.
Victims including Vicky Phelan, Stephen Teap, and Lorraine Walsh are determined that change must happen in order to make sure no one else has to endure the pain they have had to.
While Scally concluded there is no one left in place who deserves to be removed urgently from their position, the great fear is that the women who have been so dramatically and so appallingly failed by this State will be failed again.
These things tend to happen when you are treated as second-class citizens.
Asia Bangladesh Says it Won't Assimilate Rohingya Muslims
A Rohingya refugee boy walks out after collecting meat from a relief distribution center in the Balukhali refugee camp in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh, on Aug. 23. / Reuters
HANOI Bangladesh has no plans to take in hundreds of thousands of Rohingya Muslim refugees permanently, its foreign secretary said on Wednesday, adding that they belong to Myanmar, from where they fled.
Some 700,000 Rohingya refugees crossed from the west of mostly Buddhist Myanmar into Bangladesh from August last year, according to UN agencies, when Rohingya insurgent attacks on Myanmar security forces triggered a sweeping military response.
Bangladesh and Myanmar reached a deal in November to begin repatriation within two months, but it has not started, with stateless Rohingya still crossing the border.
We are not thinking of assimilating them in Bangladesh. They belong to Myanmar, Foreign Secretary Shahidul Haque told Reuters on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum on ASEAN in Hanoi.
He also called on developed countries to take in more Rohingya on a humanitarian basis.
The Rohingya would stay in refugee camps until they return to Myanmar or are resettled in other countries, Haque said.
UN investigators last month said Myanmars military carried out mass killings and gang rapes of Rohingya with genocidal intent, and that the commander-in-chief and five generals should be prosecuted for the gravest crimes under international law.
Myanmar has denied allegations of atrocities, saying its military carried out justifiable actions against militants.
It has built transit centers for refugees to return, but UN aid agencies say it is not yet safe for them to do so.
The Rohingya in Bangladesh are housed in camps in Coxs Bazar. With a delay in the repatriation plan, Bangladesh has been preparing new homes on a remote island called Bhasan Char, which rights groups have said could be subject to flooding.
Haque told Reuters the island could be ready within months for the Rohingya to move in, adding that the plan to house the Rohingya there was only temporary.
Bangladeshs prime minister this month urged the global community to increase pressure on Myanmar to ensure the repatriation of the Rohingya.
Burma Yangon Attorney General, Five Others Arrested for Corruption in Comedians Murder Case
The Attorney General of Yangon Region, U Han Htoo, attends a Yangon Regional Parliament meeting on Thursday morning. / Yangon Region Government
YANGONMyanmars Anti-Corruption Commission has filed cases against the attorney general of Yangon Region and five other officials including a judge, law officers and a police officer for accepting more than 70 million kyats (nearly US$46,300) to drop the case against three suspects in the murder of Facebook comedian Aung Yell Htwe.
In an announcement on Thursday, the commission said it had found that Yangon Region Attorney General U Han Htoo; Judge U Aung Kyi from the Yangon Eastern District Court; Yangon Region law officer U Thein Zaw; Yangon Eastern District law officer U Ko Ko Lay; Yangon Eastern District deputy law officer Daw Thit Thit Khin; and Police Lieutenant Chit Ko Ko took bribes from U Khin Maung Lay, father of suspect Than Htut Aung (a.k.a Thar Gyi), in exchange for their roles in dropping the case.
Anti-Corruption Commission spokesperson U Kyaw Soe told The Irrawaddy that the accused received a total of 72 million kyats (nearly US$46,300) in cash, along with other gifts including bottles of Blue and Gold Label Scotch Whisky, as bribes. Judge U Aung Kyi received the largest sum33 million kyats (nearly $21,200)while the attorney general received 15 million kyats (nearly $9,600).
The commission confirmed to The Irrawaddy that all six of the accused have been detained at Thuwunna Police Station.
Cases against the suspects have been opened under two different articles of the Anti-Corruption Law. If found guilty they face maximum sentences of between 10 and 15 years in prison under the Anti-Corruption Law.
Than Htut Aung is one of three suspects in the fatal beating of Aung Yell Htwe who surrendered themselves in the presence of their parents soon after the incident in January 2018. All of them were controversially freed on July 25 by the Yangon Eastern District Court. The courts decision is being reviewed by the Yangon High Court.
The Anti-Corruption Commission said on Thursday that Yangon Region Attorney General U Han Htoo approved a request from the victims family to drop the case without making a full assessment in exchange for a bribe from U Khin Maung Lay.
The commission filed the case against U Han Htoo under Article 55 of the Anti-Corruption Law on Thursday at Yangons Thuwunna Police Station.
Article 55 states that any political post holder convicted of committing bribery shall be imprisoned for not more than 15 years and fined.
Judge U Aung Kyi of the Yangon Eastern District Court released the three murder suspects in exchange for a bribe from the same person, the commission said in the announcement.
Police prosecutor Lt. Chit Ko Ko also took a bribe from Than Htut Aungs father and then failed to fully investigate the case according to police procedure, thereby abusing his power, it said.
According to the commission, law officers U Thein Zaw, U Ko Ko Lay and Daw Thit Thit Khin allegedly intentionally built the murder case in such a way that it would be adjudged as lacking sufficient grounds to warrant further investigation.
The commission opened cases against all five under Article 56 of the Anti-Corruption Law. Article 56 states that, Other than the Political Post Holder, if any other Authorized Person is convicted for committing bribery; he/she shall be punished with imprisonment for a term of not more than 10 years and with a fine.
The commission said it would present U Khin Maung Lay as a plaintiff witness. In exchange for his testimony, the commission will not file a case against him, it said.
The case is the second-biggest the ACC has opened since it was founded in 2017. The biggest was its investigation into alleged corruption by the countrys then finance minister, U Kyaw Win, in May. The commission dropped the case in June as the complaints against him could not be substantiated. U Kyaw Win resigned from the post.
Burma Chinese Company Lobbies Locals on Reboot of Suspended Myitsone Dam Project
Graffiti is seen on a rock at the Myitsone project site near Myitkyina, the capital of Kachin State, on March 30, 2017. / Reuters
YANGON The state-owned Chinese company behind the controversial Myitsone hydropower dam in Kachin State is stepping up efforts to convince local residents and officials to back the stalled project.
Mung Ra, a ward administrator in Alan Village, located near the intended dam site, said officials with Chinas State Power Investment Corporation (SPIC) told them at a meeting on Tuesday that the project would improve locals lives.
They explained to us that the Myitsone dam project is totally safe, we dont have to worry about negative consequences, he told The Irrawaddy. They claimed that our village will get benefits, especially electricity.
He said only about 20 local officials were invited to the project briefing.
The SPIC officials, Mung Ra said, claimed that the dam would even benefit people across the planet and that the Chinese-backed Chipwi hydropower dam in Kachin has helped electrify and develop local communities already.
At an estimated cost of $3.6 billion, the 6,000-megawatt dam would send 90 percent of its electricity to southern Chinas Yunnan Province, according to the investment agreement.
Myitsone is one of seven hydropower projects planned for the upper reaches of the Irrawaddy River as well as the Mali and NMai, at whose confluence the Irrawaddy begins. Work started in 2009 when SPIC was known as the China Power Investment Corporation (CPI) with the construction of Aung Myin Thar Village for displaced locals and was expected to take 10 years.
In 2010, authorities forcibly resettled more than 2,100 people to Aung Myin Thar from five villages. According to a government newspaper, CPI spent about $25 million on the resettlement plan.
In 2011, then-President Thein Sein suspended the project amid widespread public concern about the dams social and environmental impacts. But China is hoping the restart work on the dam to help meet its mushrooming power demands.
The project remains in limbo. After the National League for Democracy took power in 2016, the government set up a 20-member commission including the chief minister of Kachin to review the dam and its likely impacts on the environment and local communities. The commission has produced two reports to date, but the government has yet to release either.
Environmentalists say the dam site has some of the highest biodiversity in the world and warn that the project would both destroy the natural beauty of the Irrawaddy River and disrupt water flow. They say it could potentially flood an area the size of Singapore, destroying livelihoods and displacing more than 10,000 people.
In August, two days after 60,000 people were displaced by a dam collapse in Bago Region, SPIC met with residents near the Myitsone dam site to reassure them that its project would be carried out under the supervision of the worlds best dam builders.
Among the villages the company visited was Naung Chain.
We already told them we dont accept the dam. But they approached us in many ways. They keep saying we dont have to worry. But we are residents; we cannot risk our lives based on what they promised, Roi Ja, a Naung Chain resident, told The Irrawaddy.
They said they will build the thickest wall, that the dam would not be breached. But we dont believe them, she said.
Though Naung Chain Village is 16 kilometers downstream from the dam site on the banks of the Irrawaddy, residents still worry that their homes will be flooded if it ever breaks.
They often come to the villages and asked us what our needs are. I am worried the Myitsone will restart soon, said Mung Ra, the Alan Village ward administrator.
In July, Chinese state newspaper Global Times reported that Beijing was not giving up on the Myitsone dam and claimed that Myanmars decision to suspend the project was driving down investor confidence in the country.
Kachin State Chief Minister U Khat Awng could not be reached for comment about the project.
U Win Myo Thu, director of environmental protection group EcoDev, said SPIC wants an answer on the dam before a planned visit to Myanmar by Chinese President Xi Jinping in November.
Before his visit, they want to find the potential result. If we cancel the project, they want to be fully compensated, he said.
Under the original deal, CPI owned 80 percent of the project, the Myanmar government 15 percent and Myanmar-based Asia World the rest.
SPIC says Myanmar will owe it $800 million in compensation if the government cancels the dam but could earn $500 million a year in revenue if it goes head. The government is currently paying the company $50 million a year in compensation while it is suspended.
Myanmar has drawn increasingly close to China over the past year as relations with the West have frayed over its treatment of its Rohingya minority. Some critics of the dam worry Beijings growing leverage could pressure the government into striking a new deal on the dam.
The government recently inked a new deal with another state-owned Chinese company that clears the way for work to resume on the Kyaukphyu Special Economic Zone, a component of President Xis signature Belt and Road Initiative that will give China direct access to the Indian Ocean and boost development in landlocked Yunnan Province.
China and Myanmar on Sunday also signed a memorandum of understanding on the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor, according to the Global Times. The corridor would connect Kunming, the capital of Yunnan, with Kyaukphyu through Mandalay and Yangon.
A 2017 poll by the Yangon School of Political Science found that 85 percent of people in Myanmar oppose the Myitsone dam.
All [environmental experts] have suggested the project should be canceled, but we are not sure what Daw Aung San Suu Kyis decision will be, said U Win Myo Thu.
It doesnt depend on the cabinet. It depends on Daw Aung San Suu Kyi. We are waiting to see her decision.
Burma Govt Signs MoU with Beijing to Build China-Myanmar Economic Corridor
Union Minister of Planning and Finance U Soe Win and He Lifeng, chairman of Chinas National Development and Reform Commission, sign a memorandum of understanding on establishing the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor in Beijing on Sunday. / China National Development and Reform Commission website
YANGONMyanmar on Sunday signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with China agreeing to establish the China-Myanmar Economic Corridor (CMEC), part of Beijings Belt and Road Initiative, according to a statement from the China National Development and Reform Commission.
The agreement was signed by Myanmar Minister of Planning and Finance U Soe Win and He Lifeng, chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC). The NDRC, Chinas top economic planning agency, aims to construct basic infrastructure across key economic centers in Myanmar.
The estimated 1,700-kilometer-long corridor will connect Kunming, the capital of Chinas Yunnan Province, to Myanmars major economic checkpointsfirst to Mandalay in central Myanmar, and then east to Yangon and west to the Kyaukphyu Special Economic Zone (SEZ).
According to the statement, the two officials discussed the agreements between the leaders of the two countries and ways to promote the economic corridors construction.
The 15-point MoU was finalized at the working-group level in February, according to Myanmars Directorate of Investment and Company Administration (DICA). Under the MoU, the governments agree to collaborate on many sectors including basic infrastructure, construction, manufacturing, agriculture, transport, finance, human resources development, telecommunications, and research and technology.
To implement construction of the economic corridor, related ministries in both countries are required to form working groups and joint committees, so that the ministries can set priorities in terms of infrastructure development projects.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi announced the proposal to build the CMEC following a meeting with State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi in Naypyitaw in November 2017. Wang said the economic corridor would enhance investment in development and trade under Chinese-Myanmar cooperation as part of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
The BRI is Chinese President Xi Jinpings signature foreign policy project. Unveiled in 2013, it is also known as the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road. The project aims to build a network of roads, railroads and shipping lanes linking at least 70 countries from China to Europe passing through Central Asia, the Middle East and Russia, fostering trade and investment.
Myanmar occupies a unique geographical position in the BRI, lying at the junction of South Asia and Southeast Asia, and between the Indian Ocean and southwestern Chinas landlocked Yunnan province.
In recent months, Beijing agreed to a new deal with the new chairman of the Kyaukphyu SEZ vowing that the project will not lead to an excessive debt burden on the Myanmar government. Kyaukphyu is a key strategic project under the BRI, as it is expected to boost development in Chinas land-locked Yunnan province. The project will provide China with direct access to the Indian Ocean and allows Chinas oil imports to bypass the Strait of Malacca.
In June, State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi met with Chinese Defense Minister Wei Fenghe in Naypyitaw to discuss bilateral relations. At the meeting, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi vowed to strengthen cooperation on the BRI with China, Chinese media reported.
China is Myanmars top investment partner. According to DICA, China invested USD20.01 billion between 1988 and May of this year in the country.
Burma Home Affairs Ministry Admits Difficulty Fighting Drugs
Myanmar-Thai border gate in Tachilek. / Kyaw Kha / The Irrawaddy
NAYPYITAW The Home Affairs Ministry admitted that it is weak in controlling the smuggling of illicit drug precursors into the country, said deputy minister Major-General Aung Thu.
Since it is difficult to fully control the border gates, we cant adequately control the smuggling of precursors into the country. So there are challenges in fighting drugs, the deputy minister told the Upper House of Parliament.
The deputy minister said so in response to the complaint by lawmaker U Tun Tun Oo of Mandalay Constituency (2) that Yaba tablets can now be easily bought across the country.
The ministry has installed since August modern narcotics detection equipment, which can be used to inspect through exhaust pipes, doors, dashboards, tires and other hidden spaces within a vehicle, at inspection gates along the route used to smuggle drugs, said the deputy minister.
Moreover, the ministry is also planning to equip X-ray machines that can scan a whole truck, he added.
In my question, I urged the ministry to undertake a special anti-narcotics operation. But the deputy minister gave the usual answer. Im not satisfied with it, lawmaker U Tun Tun Oo told reporters.
He said he would meet the Mandalay regional government and urge it to crack down on drug dealers in the region.
Despite his [deputy ministers] answer in Parliament, there are a lot of weaknesses on the ground. [Anti-drug efforts] are not encouraging. To be frank, the mice heavily outnumber the cats. In some areas, lawmakers dare not speak out for fear that their families will be hurt then, lawmaker Dr. Khun Thaung Win of Kachin State Constituency (11) told The Irrawaddy.
The ministry said that it seized over 2 trillion kyats worth precursors and other lab equipment smuggled through the border in 27 cases within eight months from January through August.
The invention of compact tablet-making machines and easier access to illicit drug precursors has contributed a lot to the production and supply of Yaba tablets across the country, said U Tun Tun Oo.
Ko Naung Naung Lat, 22, who spent years behind the bars for drug abuse, told The Irrawaddy: I experimented with drugs, and became addicted. Later, I found myself ready to do anything, good or bad, to get money.
According to the 2017 report of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Myanmars poppy plantations declined from 55,500 hectares in 2015 to 41,000 hectares in 2017. Similarly, opium production declined from 647 metric tons in 2015 to 550 metric tons in 2017.
In May, the Presidents Office created an anti-drug department and incentivized the public to participate in the fight against drug production and dealing.
Translated from Burmese by Thet Ko Ko.
Burma Myanmar Army Raids Home, Detains Alleged Arakan Army Insurgents
Three detainees. / Commander-in-Chief of Defense Services Office
YANGON Myanmar Army soldiers reportedly raided a house in Kachin States Hpakant on Tuesday and detained three men they claimed were insurgents extorting money for the Arakan Army.
The raid happened at a house in the village of Ah Hmike Pon Gone in Hpakant around 10 a.m. on Tuesday.
The village was formerly a dumpsite for mining waste but later prospectors came and resided there. About 1,000 prospectors from Rakhine State currently live there.
People in plain clothes arrived around 10 a.m. in three cars and shot at the house. And they also dragged a few people into the cars. A few Arakanese people were abducted. I dont know if they were dead or alive. For the time being, the house has been blockaded by soldiers, said an Arakanese eyewitness who did not want to be named.
Only Arakanese people live here. We are quite shocked by the shooting. People are in a state of panic. They do nothing wrong and only search for stones. They are worried that they will also be shot, he added.
Other prospectors living in the ward also said on the condition of anonymity that they did not know the reason behind Tuesdays shooting, that the shooters were in plain clothes, and that a complaint had not been filed with the police because the abducted Arakanese youth were single and without family members in the area.
According to the local ward administrators and community elders, there are more than 200,000 prospectors in Hpakant from across the country.
When asked about the incident by The Irrawaddy, the Hpakant Township police force said to ask the Myanmar Army, also known as the Tatmadaw.
In a statement, the Office of the Commander-in-Chief of Defense Services said that security forces searched the mines in response to news that extortion money was being collected from prospectors. Near a pile of waste close to the ward of Maw Wun, insurgents shot four times with small arms. The Tatmadaw returned fire. Four fled and three were arrested, according to the statement.
The Tatmadaw, in its statement, referred to them as Arakan Army (AA) insurgents.
The statement said that the three detainees are San Shwe Tha from Pauktaw Township, and Than Naing and Win Soe from Minbya Township, adding that the three were responsible for collecting extortion money that they handed to their group leader Hla Thein.
Tatmadaw troops are after four men including Hla Thein who fled, and will increase security to prevent insurgents from collecting extortion money in Hpakant, its statement said.
It is an accusation, said press officer Khine Thu Kha of the AA, adding that the three are not AA members.
Hpakant is not a place under the control of the AA, but under the Myanmar Army. They treat all Arakanese as AA members, and [the shooting and abduction] is the bullying of Arakanese youth who earn an honest livelihood.
Shooting at a house without any warrant is not what a government is supposed to do. It is an act of scoundrels. To put it in other words, it is a war crime against citizens, said Khine Thu Kha.
Dashi La Seng, a Kachin State lawmaker representing Hpakant Township, said that he does not know details about the shooting.
According to the Constitution, Hpakant is under the direct control of the Union government while the Myanmar Army provides security for the town. There are nine battalions in Hpakant and the Tatmadaw is solely responsible for security of the area, the lawmaker said.
Translated from Burmese by Thet Ko Ko.
Burma Myanmar Gets First Foreign Investments for Power Projects in Fiscal Year Transition
A section of the power grid is seen in Thaketa Township, Yangon. / Yangon Electricity Supply Corporation
YANGON Myanmar has received its first foreign investments in the power supply sector in the transitional six-month fiscal period, which started on April 1, according to the Directorate of Investment and Company Administration (DICA).
A gas-fired power plant will be built in Mandalay Regions Singaing Township as part of a joint venture between Chinas Power Gen Kyaukse and two Myanmar companies, DICA Deputy Director-General U Than Aung Kyaw said during a press conference in Yangon on Tuesday.
Construction of the $92.7 million, 145-megawatt plant is expected to begin next year. The Myanmar Investment Commission approved the project at a meeting on Friday.
Most of the rural villages are in remote areas and are out of reach of the national grid. It is good that foreign investors have invested in the countrys power supply sector. But it would be better if electricity bills were low, U Kyaw Kyaw Hlaing, chairman of the Myanmar Oil and Gas Entrepreneurs Association, told The Irrawaddy.
The Investment Commission also approved a power project in Myeik, Tanintharyi Region. Min Zaw Ni Fisheries Co, a local company, will invest more than 9.5 billion kyat ($6.1 million) to produce electricity with generators and distribute it in the township.
In the 2017-18 fiscal year, the Investment Commission approved five foreign investment projects in the power supply sector from Singapore, Japan and China totaling $406 million, according to DICA.
They were a 230-megawatt gas-fired power plant in Mon State operated by Myanmar Lighting (IPP) Co; a paddy-husk biomass power plant operated by Myaung Mya FM Biomass Power Co. in Irrawaddy Region; the 99-megawatt Chipwe Nge hydropower dam in Kachin State by Chipwi Nge Hydro Co; a diesel generator-powered 10-megawatt project also in Mon State; and a 19-megawatt power supply project for i-Land Estate in Bago Region operated by i-Land Park Myanmar Ltd.
The Investment Commission also approved four power supply projects from citizens worth $78 million and more than 10.7 trillion kyats.
They include a hydropower project in Shan State, a power project with residual fuel oil in Mon State, a power project with fossil fuel also in Mon State, and a coal-fired power plant in Shan State, according to DICA.
Domestic electricity consumption has increased 15 percent annually in Myanmar. Currently households pay 35 kyats per unit up to 100 units and 40 kyats for every unit after that up to 200 units. Any unit above 200 costs 50 kyats.
Industrial users pay 75 kyats per unit up to 500 units, 100 kyats for every unit after that up to 10,000 units, 125 kyats for every unit after that up to 50,000 units, and 150 kyats for every unit after that up to 300,000 units. The price drops to 100 kyats for each unit above 300,000.
Translated from Burmese by Thet Ko Ko.
Burma No Guarantee Not to Secede: Ethnic Armed Group Leaders
Leaders of signatories and non-signatories of the NCA meet at a conference organized by the Nationwide Ceasefire agreement-Signatories, ethnic armed organization on Sept. 8 to 11, 2018 in Chiang Mai, northern Thailand. / NCA-S EAO / Facebook
MON STATE Ethnic armed groups cannot make a promise never to secede from the Union as Myanmar does not yet have a real democracy or federal union, according to ethnic leaders.
Members of the 10 ethnic armed groups who have signed the Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement (NCA), who make up the group called NCA-S EAO, held a four-day meeting in Chiang Mai, northern Thailand on Sept. 8 to 11, at which ethnic leaders agreed to revert to their former stance based on the Panglong Agreement with leaders vowing not to undo what the historic leaders, including Gen. Aung San, made written agreements on.
The ethnic leaders in attendance gave several reasons for not being able to guarantee they will not secede from the Union.
The first reason is that our older leaders made a written agreement. They wrote it with their hands and we will not delete it with our feet. If we do, we wont be able to escape the blame our ethnic people will lay on us, said Nai Hong Sar, vice chairman of the New Mon State Party who attended the NCA-S EAO meeting.
The second reason is that we have not yet seen what type of rights the government will give our ethnic people, and we dont even know yet what type of federalism the government would establish. Also, the current democracy doesnt appear to be a real one yet, he said.
If we have to agree whenever the (army) pressures us, our future movements may be restricted. Therefore, we all agreed to take a stand and not give them the promise, he said.
While peace negotiations are ongoing in some respects, they say the Myanmar Army continues to oppress ethnic people in the country, and this has influenced the sentiment among ethnic leaders that they cannot make this commitment to the Myanmar Army.
The Myanmar Army has not allowed discussion on political issues at the peace conferences because the ethnic leaders refuse to make the promise never to secede from the Union and, according to the ethnic leaders, this is why the peace talks are in a deadlock.
Ethnic leaders said that the army should reconsider this restriction because peace negotiations cannot move forward otherwise.
A statement issued by the NCA-S EAO on Sept. 11 said that ethnic leaders and the Myanmar Army need to meet as soon as possible in order to overcome this current deadlock.
Ethnic leaders from the NCA-S EAO also requested a meeting with State Counselor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi to discuss with her how to find a solution to the impasse in the peace process.
The NCA-S EAO has decided to hold an ethnic summit in the future to which they will also invite non-signatories of the NCA. The summit is intended as a forum for discussions on how to build a new Myanmar that has equal rights for ethnic peoples, democracy, and a federal system.
Burma Public-led Meeting on Mandalays Crime Crisis Forced to be Postponed
A meeting of members of the public and local CSOs of Mandalay to discuss security and safety in the city, which was planned to be held at Thakya Thiha Pagoda on Thursday, was postponed as permission to hold the event was not granted on time. / Zarni Mann / The Irrawaddy
MANDALAY A meeting to discuss Mandalays public security affairs, which was planned to be held on Thursday, was forced to be postponed because permission from local authorities had not been granted on time.
The discussion, organized by local civil society groups and elders of Mandalay, was to be about how the public would take a role in security matters of the city.
The local authorities asked us to apply for permission and we submitted the permission [application], however, we did not receive any reply regarding the permission to hold the event so we have to postpone it, said U Tin Ko Ko Oo, one of the organizers.
Organizers said the application for permission was submitted on Tuesday to Chan Aye Tharsan Township administration office, Mandalays district administration office and Mandalays regional administration office, but no reply has yet been received from officials.
Since the authorities asked us to seek permission, we do not want to hold the meeting without it in order to avoid any confrontation with the local authorities, we decided to postpone the event until we receive the permission, U Tin Ko Ko Oo said.
An increase in crime and robberies around Mandalay, especially in late evenings, have caused locals and travelers to feel threatened and this is what motivated the local CSOs to organize the meeting.
The aim of the meeting is to find out how the public and CSOs could work to decrease the crime rates and reduce public fear.
Our ambition is to find a way to educate the public on safety measures and how they can help the security personnel, police and victims if they witness a crime, explained U Tin Ko Ko Oo.
We are not going to push the authorities or put the blame on them, however, we suspect that because the local authorities do not want us to interfere with their job, they dare not give us permission for our discussion, he added.
In recent weeks, Mandalay has seen a wave of deadly incidents in which robbers used guns, swords and daggers to rob the victims motorcycles, mobile phones and money. The incidents have evoked fear in the locals and discourage them from going out alone in the late evening.
Some local CSOs and individuals have taken it upon themselves to form small groups to patrol their respective areas at night and one such group has been able to arrest a couple of robbers and hand them over to the police.
Starting this week, the chief minister of Mandalay Region and the divisional police chief have begun leading a patrol of about 300 police every night, covering every corner of the city and crime rates are said to have significantly dropped already.
The news of the robberies has affected us in many ways, especially psychologically, and we are afraid when night falls and we feel unsafe. The buzzing Mandalay nights have gone because of this fear and Mandalay is not the same the city, said U Nyi Pu Lay, the famed author and an elder of Mandalay.
We are here to give our opinions on how can we help or how can we participate to revive the safety of Mandalay, but we are speechless that there is still no permission for holding the meeting, he added.
China has received an invitation from the United States to hold trade negotiations, said a spokesperson of the Ministry of Commerce (MOC) Thursday.
Ministry of Commerce spokesman Gao Feng. [File photo: mofcom.gov.cn]
The confirmation was made by MOC spokesperson Gao Feng at a press conference held in Beijing, saying that China welcomes the attitude and the two countries are in discussion about the details.
"Recently, the negotiation teams of the two sides have maintained contact in various forms and had exchanges on each other's concerns," Gao said, stressing that China believes an escalation of the trade conflict goes against everyone's interests.
Responding to possible U.S. additional levies on all Chinese imports, Gao said the U.S. unilateral tariff hikes will ultimately harm the interests of the people of China, the United States, and the whole world.
The United States has ignored opposition from the vast number of industry representatives and consumers and continued to release news that may lead to an escalation of trade frictions, Gao said.
"This practice of blackmail and pressure does not work on China and will not help solve the problem," Gao said.
China hopes the United States will follow the people's will and adopt pragmatic measures to bring China-U.S. economic and trade relations back to normal through equal and honest dialogue and consultation, Gao said.
When answering a question about the U.S. threat to punish Chinese companies using the excuse of intellectual property theft, Gao said China hopes the United States can treat the business activities of Chinese companies objectively and fairly.
"We hope the United States won't chase the wind and clutch at shadows, and does not seek excuses for its trade protectionism, so as to avoid making global companies, including Chinese ones, lose confidence in the business environment of the United States," Gao said.
Thursday, September 13th, 2018 (11:56 am) - Score 1,068
The European Court of Human Rights has today ruled that the United Kingdoms mass surveillance programmes, which came to light in 2013 after ex-NSA employee Edward Snowden leaked significant details to the press, were unlawful and incapable of keeping the interference to what is necessary in a democratic society.
The Snowden documents revealed that the United Kingdoms intelligence agency GCHQ were conducting population-scale interception, capturing the communications of millions of innocent people and even tapping into at least some of the worlds 10Gbps transatlantic fibre optic cable links (allegedly with the help of Vodafone, BT and others).
The mass spying programmes included TEMPORA, a bulk data store of all internet traffic; KARMA POLICE, a catalogue including a web browsing profile for every visible user on the internet; and BLACK HOLE, a repository of over 1 trillion events including internet histories, email and instant messenger records, search engine queries and social media activity.
Naturally it didnt take long for a coalition of privacy and civil rights organisations including Big Brother Watch, English PEN, the Open Rights Group (ORG) and computer science expert Dr Constanze Kurz to take the Government to task over their snooping arrangements with the USA. Fast forward several years and the ECtHR has found in favour of their concerns, at least some of them.
The ECtHR Ruling
The court appears to have agreed that bulk interception is by definition untargeted, that there was a lack of oversight of the entire selection process and the safeguards were not sufficiently robust to provide adequate guarantees against abuse.
ECTHR Ruling Extract (See Full Summary) It is a matter of some concern that the intelligence services can search and examine related communications data apparently without restriction. While such data is not to be confused with the much broader category of communications data, it still represents a significant quantity of data. The Government confirmed at the hearing that related communications data obtained under the section 8(4) regime will only ever be traffic data. However, according to paragraphs 2.24-2.27 of the ACD Code, traffic data includes information identifying the location of equipment when a communication is, has been or may be made or received (such as the location of a mobile phone); information identifying the sender or recipient (including copy recipients) of a communication from data comprised in or attached to the communication; routing information identifying equipment through which a communication is or has been transmitted (for example, dynamic IP address allocation, file transfer logs and e-mail headers (other than the subject line of an e-mail, which is classified as content)); web browsing information to the extent that only a host machine, server, domain name or IP address is disclosed (in other words, website addresses and Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) up to the first slash are communications data, but after the first slash content); records of correspondence checks comprising details of traffic data from postal items in transmission to a specific address, and online tracking of communications (including postal items and parcels). In addition, the Court is not persuaded that the acquisition of related communications data is necessarily less intrusive than the acquisition of content. For example, the content of an electronic communication might be encrypted and, even if it were decrypted, might not reveal anything of note about the sender or recipient. The related communications data, on the other hand, could reveal the identities and geographic location of the sender and recipient and the equipment through which the communication was transmitted. In bulk, the degree of intrusion is magnified, since the patterns that will emerge could be capable of painting an intimate picture of a person through the mapping of social networks, location tracking, Internet browsing tracking, mapping of communication patterns, and insight into who a person interacted with. Consequently, while the Court does not doubt that related communications data is an essential tool for the intelligence services in the fight against terrorism and serious crime, it does not consider that the authorities have struck a fair balance between the competing public and private interests by exempting it in its entirety from the safeguards applicable to the searching and examining of content.
The court similarly highlighted the risk that a system of secret surveillance set up to protect national security may undermine or even destroy democracy under the cloak of defending it, before noting that it had to be satisfied that there are adequate and effective guarantees against abuse.
The case began in 2013, although the Government has since replaced the old rules with the new Investigatory Powers Act (IPA), which passed into law during November 2016. Todays judgement that indiscriminate spying breaches rights protected by the ECHR (i.e. the right to respect for private and family life/communications) is thus likely to provoke further questions as to the lawfulness of bulk powers in the IPA.
Jim Killock, Executive Director of Open Rights Group, said: Viewers of the BBC drama, the Bodyguard, may be shocked to know that the UK actually has the most extreme surveillance powers in a democracy. Since we brought this case in 2013, the UK has actually increased its powers to indiscriminately surveil our communications whether or not we are suspected of any criminal activity. In light of todays judgment, it is even clearer that these powers do not meet the criteria for proportionate surveillance and that the UK Government is continuing to breach our right to privacy.
The government has already been forced to amend its new IPA a few times and further legal challenges are being prepared by Liberty, not least in order tackle the rules that allow the state to hack our computers, hoover up information about who we speak to, where we go, and what we look at online, and collect profiles of individual people even without any suspicion of criminality (here).
However, its important to note that todays judgement appeared to reject some of the concerns around the issue of sharing such information with foreign governments. Furthermore the ruling doesnt completely say that such surveillance systems shouldnt be allowed, but more that the UKs approach or practice was unlawful.
Thursday, September 13th, 2018 (10:50 am) - Score 1,876
The UK Brexit Secretary, Dominic Raab, has this morning confirmed that both Vodafone and Three UK have committed to retain free EU mobile roaming after Brexit and that the Government would legislate for a limit on roaming charges in the event of a no-deal outcome.
At present citizens of the European Union benefit from free mobile roaming via the Roam Like At Home regulation. As such anybody choosing to use their Mobile (SIM) to make calls, text or use 3G / 4G data while roaming around the EU should be able to do so for the same price as they pay their UK operator (i.e. no extra roaming charges), although there are some caveats for mobile broadband usage above a certain level.
Obviously Brexit, which is due to take effect from 29th March 2019 (ignoring the proposed transitional period thereafter until 2020), could change that situation. Indeed there had been fears that this might result in UK consumers facing higher charges, as well as a possible return to post-travel bill shocks.
The Government hopes to secure a Brexit deal by mid-November, although Raab has now told the BBC that it would legislate to limit a return to roaming charges in the event of a no-deal outcome (here). One problem with this is that such legislation could take time to introduce and imposing a limit is not necessarily the same as a complete ban.
At the same time there would be nothing to stop some EU operators from raising their charges against UK providers. On the other hand EU operators would have to be mindful that EU citizens visiting the UK might also face higher charges, unless existing agreements between operators are retained.
Some operators, such as Vodafone, are large pan-European companies and so will find it easier to support free roaming than others, at least in the countries where they already have a presence.
Microsoft's provision of cloud services in Germany through T-Systems, a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom, that will act as a data trustee, appears to be over, with the software firm announcing that it would now deliver cloud services from new data centres in Germany to meet evolving customer needs.
The stopping of this service could have been prompted by the massive losses that the service incurred, with one German publication, Handelsblatt, reporting back in March that the Windows manufacturer has been set back by more than 100 million (A$162 million).
Microsoft said in its blog post that the reason for winding up the Deutsche Telekom service was because "customers needs have shifted, and the isolation of Microsoft Cloud Germany imposes limits on its ability to address the flexibility and consistency customers desire today".
The setting up of the Deutsche Telekom deal was prompted by data security fears; at the time, in the wake of the revelations about blanket NSA surveillance by whistleblower Edward Snowden, many American firms had looked to set up European operations to provide cloud services in order to satisfy the privacy demands of likely European customers.
The issue of privacy was highlighted bybetween Microsoft and the US Department of Justice, with the company refusing to hand over a tranche of emails stored on one of its servers in Ireland.
The case ended when a new law, the CLOUD (Clarifying Lawful Overseas Use of Data) Act, signed into law by President Donald Trump on 23 March, made the case moot. The Act changed US law so that law-enforcement warrants would henceforth apply to data stored anywhere by US-based tech firms.
This meant that the one feature sought by foreign companies not to have their data at the beck and call of the American Government would no longer be available if they chose to use the cloud services of a US firm.
When Microsoft announced the deal with Deutsche Telekom, it was organised in such a way that Microsoft itself would have no access to the data unless permitted to do so by the data trustee. That trustee was German company T-Systems, a subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom, which would hold the keys, both logical and physical, that controlled access to customer data.
The file sync and share company Nextcloud said a major reason why Microsoft had lost money on this service was due to poor security. Quoting the Handelsblatt report, Nextcloud said the Telekom cloud solution was over-priced, under-performing and unpopular with customers.
Plus, Handelsblatt said, "extra security turned out to be a real hindrance to doing business. Companies who wanted to establish secure information links to Asian subsidiaries or overseas databases were hit with delays and crashes. Servers went down regularly, system updates were often impossible. And all this for a service which cost 25% more than ordinary cloud computing".
Nextcloud has a dog in this fight as it provided cloud services to the German Federal Government.
Comment has been sought from Microsoft.
TAFE South Australia is offering a new certificate 1V in cyber security from October this year, joining the Box Hill Institute, Canberra Institute of Technology and TAFEs in NSW, QLD and WA, in offering such courses.
The TAFE SA course, which will be offered when the next term starts in October, is the first national skills-based cyber security certificate-level qualification.
The qualification has been developed by TAFE SA in close collaboration with a range of industry partners, including the National Australia Bank, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, ANZ Bank, NBN Co, BAE Systems, Telstra, Deloitte, and the Australian Information Security Association.
According to AustCyber an industry-led and not-for-profit company responsible for delivering the activities of the Cyber Security Growth Centre initiative malicious cyber activity is growing worldwide and Australian employers will need at least 11,000 more cyber security workers over the next decade.
And this shortage is not just a local problem, according to the Cyber Security Jobs Report 2018-2021, with demand for cyber security workers expected to rise to six million globally by 2019, with a projected shortfall of 1.5 million workers rising to a 1.8 million shortfall by 2021.
TAFE SA educational manager for Information Technology Studies, Frank Annese, said the new qualification would help address Australias critical cyber security skills gap.
With the growing interconnectivity of devices in modern society, the importance of having confidence in the systems you work and play with is increasingly crucial, Annese said.
Having skilled workers in the ICT industry who can monitor, secure and mitigate against any risks is imperative to the industry and TAFE SA is responding to these needs by training the next generation of cyber-skilled employees.
Annese said graduates could work with ICT departments determining breaches in network security, on ICT helpdesks, looking for threats and vulnerability in systems, doing penetration testing, and investigating cyber hacking activities and Web security functions.
I personally believe that cyber security is extremely important to everyone, although the average person may not recognise this, he said.
From large businesses to small businesses, everyone in society uses technology and the potential risks involved with something as basic as responding to an email can be disastrous.
When large businesses are attacked by bad actors utilising technology to steal data whether its personal or financial it makes the news.
But when the average person is a victim of cyber crime, that person is often left fighting a long battle to regain their life, as there are many types of cyber crimes that affect average people that are not often heard about.
Cyber security is a critical part of how we all live in 2018 and beyond.
For Melissa Williams-Brown, 48 among the first group of students to sign up for the TAF SA cyber security certificate course being able to stop some of the devastating consequences of cyber crime on businesses and individuals, such as fraud, impersonation and theft of sensitive data, has inspired her to pursue a career in cyber security.
Williams-Brown said she was keen to get into a cyber security research/analysis role once she completed the 12-month course.
I want to use my skills to track the bad actors and identify their methods of attack," she said.
Cyber criminals can use strategies to disrupt financial markets and use those results for their own malicious benefit; for example, if a cyber attack on a telco leads to a loss of customer confidence, stock prices [may] drop and perhaps those customers [may] switch to a competitor.
An information session about the Certificate IV in Cyber Security will be held at TAFE SAs Adelaide Campus on 20 September, and enrolments are open for Term 4, 2018 or Semester 1, 2019.
Several Japanese companies have announced plans to use Nvidia's new Jetson AGX Xavier autonomous machine platform in their products.
Announcing the general availability of the Jetson AGX Xavier development kit, Nvidia founder and chief executive Jensen Huang revealed that Yamaha, Fanuc, Komatsu, Musashi Seimitsu and Kawada Technologies would adopt Jetson AGX Xavier in their next-generation autonomous machines.
According to Nvidia, Jetson AGX Xavier has the performance needed to handle the odometry, localisation, mapping, vision and perception, and path planning critical to next-generation robots.
Yamaha has big plans for vehicles and other devices based on Jetson AGX Xavier.
They include unmanned ground vehicles and drones for agricultural uses including spraying farmland, picking fruit, and transporting harvested crops and equipment; autonomous last-mile vehicles to transport people, from shoppers to the elderly, where taxis and buses are not readily available; and autonomous marine vehicles including deep-sea exploration robots and automated sailing boats.
"Yamaha Motor continuously strives to create inspiration for people and meet their expectations," said Yamaha Motors advanced technology centre and solution business operations chief general manager, Hiroaki Fujita.
"By standardising our autonomous machine development platform on Jetson AGX Xavier, Yamaha Motor will transform all of our products with more intelligence, to deliver excitement and the best experience for all users."
The other companies mentioned above plan to use Jetson AGX Xavier in factory automation (including optical inspection), construction and mining equipment, and other aspects of robotics.
"Japan is driving the world of robotics in numerous industries, from factory automation to construction to manufacturing," said Nvidia vice-president and general manager of autonomous machines, Deepu Talla,
"The country's most important companies in this space are adopting Jetson AGX Xavier to usher in a new era of robotics."
The Jetson AGX Xavier includes a 512-core Volta GPU with Tensor cores, alongside an 8-core ARM CPU. It boasts twenty times the performance of the Jetson TX2 while being ten times more energy efficient.
The development kit costs US$2499.
Given that Apple has decided to hike the prices of its iPhones which were announced overnight it would be reasonable to assume that the company is gearing up for the trade spat between China and the US to intensify.
The company, like most others, prices its products at levels that it thinks the market can bear. Last week, US President Donald Trump told Apple in a tweet, how else? that if it wanted to avoid the inevitable price rises that the trade spat with China would bring, it could bring manufacturing back to the US.
As that is impossible, and would be counter-productive to Apple's sales strategy, chief executive Tim Cook has pushed price levels up, anticipating that he would have to do that anyway. He has created a cushion for the company to keep earning at the same rate as it was.
Apple prices may increase because of the massive Tariffs we may be imposing on China - but there is an easy solution where there would be ZERO tax, and indeed a tax incentive. Make your products in the United States instead of China. Start building new plants now. Exciting! #MAGA Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 8, 2018
The other tactic that Cook has employed, successfully, it would seem, is to use fear to sell the Apple Watch. Now that it has tech which can detect when a person falls or is having a heart attack, it will appeal to the older population who have one foot in the grave and the other on a bar of soap. It would be a nice gift for the American yuppie to get grandma for Christmas.
Fear has always been the best way to sell products and win elections. Nothing new in using this emotion to make a few bucks. Cook, of course, would be shocked if asked why he was using such a tactic. But then no journalist who gets invited to the cult meetings which is what Apple launches are would dare ask him about it. It would mean expulsion from the holy of holies.
iPhone users will buy the models because they love to mark themselves out as distinctive. There is little that is new about the models that have been announced. In fact, features have been taken away there is now no iPhone with Touch ID.
There will always be changes in hardware. They mean little, for every mobile device on the face of the earth will not re-use vital bits over again.
The greed factor, of course, is the one thing that keeps all mobile companies in business. We all want something that is better than what the other guy has. (There are, of course, boring people like iTWire editor Stan Beer who will buy an iPhone for practical reasons, but then he is the exception who proves the rule.)
Apple's products have always depended on the greed factor, so intrinsic to the human animal, to sell themselves. And so it is this time too. People will postpone paying their utility bills if need be, but they will just have to buy that new glitzy toy.
Finally, it looks as though Apple has no interest in increasing its marketshare in India, the last big market where it can hope for a big rise in user numbers. But price is the most important thing in that market and Cook has chosen to go in the opposite direction. In a year or two, India will be out of range, because Android phones of every make and description are spreading far and wide.
But then Apple never was a poor man's company.
Joe Sykora: "Bitdefender Australia will play a key role as we continue to build our business and brand into the APAC region."
Romanian security firm Bitdefender has set up an official presence in the Australia and New Zealand region with the purchase of its long-standing regional partner, SMS eTech Business which has its head office in Victoria.
A statement from Bitdefender said this was its first physical presence in the region since it entered the market in 2005.
It said for the last four years, SMS eTech had "served as Bitdefenders exclusive country partner in Australia, successfully growing business by 55%, with a strong emphasis on enterprise sales".
SMS eTech also has offices in New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia and New Zealand.
Our commitment to a direct presence in this key market arrives at an exciting time of explosive growth for our company, said Bitdefender vice-president, World Wide Channels, Joe Sykora.
Bitdefender Australia will play a key role as we continue to build our business and brand into the APAC region. Our channel partners have proven an essential ingredient in our success, and we look forward to working closely with them, locally, to serve and protect more businesses in the region.
Colin Westbury, managing director of SMS eTech, said: The acquisition was the natural progression our two companies.
SMS eTech has always specialised in helping brands establish in the ANZ region. I look forward to watching Bitdefender accelerate its presence and market penetration in the region with their world leading security solutions.
The European Parliament has voted to pass its copyright rules, with 438 members voting for and 226 against, while 39 members abstained.
A vote taken in July failed to pass the rules, with the parliament's plenary voting 318-278, with 31 abstentions.
The rules have now passed what is the first stage of implementation, after safeguards were added to protect small companies and also freedom of expression.
They will now be discussed between the Parliament, the Council of the Europe Union (which represents national governments) and the European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union.
Once a final version is thrashed out, it will be sent to the 27 EU member states - the UK is likely to be on its own by then due to Brexit - for adoption by each government.
A statement from the European Parliament outlined the four major gains from the rules:
Tech giants must pay for work of artists and journalists which they use;
Small and micro platforms are excluded from the directives scope;
Hyperlinks, accompanied by individual words, can be shared freely; and
Journalists must get a share of any copyright-related remuneration obtained by their publishing house.
Rapporteur Axel Voss, who was been steering the rules through Parliament, said: I am very glad that despite the very strong lobbying campaign by the Internet giants, there is now a majority in the full house backing the need to protect the principle of fair pay for European creatives.
"There has been much heated debate around this directive and I believe that Parliament has listened carefully to the concerns raised. Thus, we have addressed concerns raised about innovation by excluding small and micro platforms or aggregators from the scope.
"I am convinced that once the dust has settled, the Internet will be as free as it is today, creators and journalists will be earning a fairer share of the revenues generated by their works, and we will be wondering what all the fuss was about.
The statement said: "Parliaments position toughens the Commissions proposed plans to make online platforms and aggregators liable for copyright infringements.
"This would also apply to snippets, where only a small part of a news publishers text is displayed. In practice, this liability requires these parties to pay right holders for copyrighted material that they make available.
"Parliaments text also specifically requires that journalists themselves, and not just their publishing houses, benefit from remuneration stemming from this liability requirement.
"At the same time, in an attempt to encourage start-ups and innovation, the text now exempts small and micro platforms from the directive."
It said that any action taken by platforms to check that uploads did not breach the rules would have to be designed to avoid catching non-infringing works.
The rules will not affect the uploading of content "in a non-commercial way" to sites such as Wikipedia and open source platforms like GitHub which will not have to comply with the copyright rules. How long GitHub will remain open source remains to be seen now that it has been bought by Microsoft.
The text passed by the Parliament also gives authors and performers more negotiating rights and enables them to claim "additional remuneration from the party exploiting their rights when the remuneration originally agreed is 'disproportionately' low compared to the benefits derived".
If you want to use two SIMs in your new iPhone XS, XS Max or XR, then unless you have a select Chinese model with two physical SIM slots, you'll need to wait for the eSIM to go live.
In Apple's keynote presentation this morning, which I keep repeating is an absolutely must-see event (as most keynotes from major companies actually end up being), Apple noted that China doesn't allow eSIMS, so the Chinese versions will have actual dual nano-SIM capability.
However, the rest of the world will see all three new iPhones, the XR, XS and XS Max, having one nano-SIM card slot as per usual, with an eSIM inside the iPhone the same kind of e-SIM that you have in one of today's iPads and Apple Watch Series 3 models and it's about time, but most of us will have to wait a bit longer yet before being able to use the functionality and feature.
I note this because of the enthusiasm of iTWire editor, Stan Beer, has expressed to buy a dual-SIM capable iPhone XR model, due in late October, but also note that he'll have to wait until Apple delivers a software update that activates the eSIM part of the dual-SIM support equation.
There are also Android handsets that have offered dual-SIM support for years, including the new Samsung Galaxy Note9 smartphone.
Indeed, lest you still think you can use that dual SIM capability immediately, you cannot, yet, with Apple stating in Australia and the US, for example, that the XR, XS and XS Max have a "Dual SIM (nano-SIM and eSIM)", although perhaps Chinese users can get dual-SIM support first, as you'll read further below, but first the situation in the rest of the world.
You see, in the footnote 11 of the specs for all three phones (see the links above), it is stated that: "eSIM will be available later this year through a software update. Using eSIM requires a carrier plan, which may include restrictions on roaming and switching service providers, even after the contract has expired. Not all carriers support eSIM. Use of eSIM in iPhone may be disabled when purchasing from some carriers. See your carrier for details. To learn more, visit https://support.apple.com/kb/HT209044."
Apple's SIM card Support page is entitled: "Learn about Dual SIM with your iPhone Xs or iPhone Xs Max", and is quite detailed, showing how you set dual SIM support.
On that page, we learn: "Here are a few of the many ways you can use Dual SIM:
Use one number for business and another number for personal calls.
Add a local data plan when you travel outside of the country.
Have separate voice and data plans.
Both of your phone numbers can make and receive voice calls and send and receive SMS and MMS.* Your iPhone can use one cellular data network at a time.
This uses Dual SIM Dual Standby technology, which means that both SIMs can make and receive calls. If one number is on a call, incoming calls on the other number will go to voicemail.
We also see this page, which shows the carriers worldwide that support eSIMs, and sadly, none from Australia are on that list or at least, not yet.
Indeed, these are the countries are carriers listed thus far:
Austria:
T-Mobile
Canada:
Bell
Croatia:
Hrvatski Telekom
Czech Republic:
T-Mobile
Germany:
Telekom
Vodafone
Hungary:
Magyar Telekom
India:
Airtel
Reliance Jio
Spain:
Vodafone Spain
United Kingdom:
EE
United States:
AT&T
T-Mobile USA
Verizon Wireless
Worldwide service providers:
GigSky
Truphone
So, eSIM support will come "later this year", and we can only hope that carriers in every country worldwide will support eSIM services, alongside MVNOs (mobile virtual network operators), which also means pre-paid telco resellers such as Amaysim, Kogan Mobile, OVO Mobile and all the rest in Australia and worldwide.
However, in China, as noted in the keynote, eSIMs aren't allowed, so the SIM tray that allows one SIM on the top will allow another underneath.
Perhaps that is in mainland China only, however, for in Hong Kong, we can see that while the XR specs show it has the dual nano-SIM and the XS Max has dual nano-SIMS too, the Hong Kong XS has an eSIM.
"Dual SIM (nano-SIM). iPhone XR is not compatible with existing micro-SIM cards."
On this HK-specific product page, we can see the disclaimer that "Dual SIM, dual standby. data and voice SIM selectable in settings. Use of Dual SIM requires two wireless service plans (which may include restrictions on roaming). Does not support simultaneous use of two CDMA wireless service plans. Dual VoLTE will be available later this year through a software update. Not all carriers support Dual VoLTE. Certain restrictions apply."
So, it seems that the only dual SIM phones that can be used with two SIMs immediately will be those in China or Hong Kong that allow two individual SIM cards to be used.
Whether these will become popular in other parts of the world and whether this will encourage more telcos to rapidly roll out eSIM support are yet to be seen.
Indeed, I am surprised to see no Australian telcos supporting eSIMs yet, but I can only imagine that it will happen soon, hopefully sooner than we expect.
And, for now, that's it. Apple has made a thing of launching products with various bits yet to come in the future, with this year's bits being eSIM support and Group FaceTime, while the Apple Watch will not get its brilliant ECG electrocardiograph technology until "later this year" in the US, and other countries will get it even later.
Even Apple's AirPower wireless charger was announced a year ago but still hasn't seen the light of day.
It's the way of life, it seems, when new products are launched on a yearly cycle, but some features by necessity take longer than that to be ready even for a company with the size and power of Apple.
All that said, those features do end up arriving, so while we might still have to wait for the future to be widely distributed, at least we know it is already here.
I recently downloaded every known, recorded data breach by the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, which has been the most thorough and stalwart public recorder of data breaches in the United States for over two decades. The data file contained just over 8,600 data breaches. I found a few dupes and some missing or erroneous information, but overall, its the best public, non-profit, and free source youre going to find.
[ How much does a data breach cost? Here's where the money goes. | Get the latest from CSO by signing up for our newsletters. ]
I applaud the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse for what theyve done. Their data has been used in hundreds of thousands of news reports since their founding in 1992. Ive used information from the site for at least a dozen of my columns over the years.
That said, I think a big component that could provide a lot of additional value is missing: the size of the risk to the stakeholders of the data from the data breach. We are often given risk ratings for other types of root-cause events, such as software vulnerabilities. Most software vulnerabilities include risk ratings. Theres even a generally accepted standard of risk rating called the Common Vulnerability Scoring System. This open-source rating system is fairly comprehensive. Its not perfect, but at least its a starting point for evaluating your own risk.
Real risk ratings for data
As I highlighted in my last book, A Data-Driven Computer Security Defense, there is a gulf of difference between what you are being told you should be most afraid of and what you really should be most afraid of. Knowing the difference will make you a very valuable computer security practitioner.
For example, one-third to one-fourth of all software vulnerabilities are classified in the highest risk categories. Thats across all 5,000 to 7,000 vulnerabilities that we average each year, year-after-year. Most are easy to exploit (called low complexity in vulnerability circles). So, computer security defenders are being told to be very worried about at least 1250 separate vulnerabilities each year.
As I explained earlier, less than 1 percent of these have known exploits taking advantage of them. Far fewer than that are even achievable in your environment, because you either dont have the software, already have the necessary patch applied, or have some other offsetting control. In reality, a handful of exploits are used against the average company in a given year. If you perform risk analysis on your companys data, youll find that instead of worrying about thousands and thousands of vulnerabilities, that worrying about the right dozen is a far better use of time with a far greater chance of success.
Data-risk analytics should be applied to every type of root-cause hacking worry. Unfortunately, were not getting a risk rating for successful breaches of the very thing we are trying to protect: the data. Todays vulnerability risk ratings are all about potential risk--the likelihood of some vulnerability being exploited to do bad things. Its as if we go, It happened! It was bad! Well try better next time! without letting all the stakeholders (the providers, the owners, the custodians, regulators, etc.) know how bad a particular data breach actually was.
Data breach risk score
For example, while analyzing the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse data, I was surprised by how many records were considered compromised simply because they were sent to the wrong location or person, or maybe left behind in an office after a move. Records accidentally thrown into the garbage instead of being shredded are considered breached. In a world where hundreds of millions of records are compromised each year, I was astounded by how many scenarios likely didnt really result from a malicious action or would be very unlikely to be used maliciously in the future.
For example, if my personal financial records were left in a garbage can accidentally, but discovered the same day, the chance of malicious use is far lower than if they were stolen by an intentional hacker act. Even hacker activities have different risk severities. For example, many breaches were due to ransomware compromises. Ransomware is a big deal, but in most cases the creators just want to be paid to unlock the data and arent looking at the data. Once you have malware taking complete ownership of a computer holding confidential data. you really dont know what that malware will do or has done. In general, we all know that most attackers who employ ransomware just want the quick bitcoins and dont want to be involved in selling data records on the dark web.
Its like when a desktop admin gives a sigh of relief when they find adware on a computer instead of a backdoor Trojan. Both malware programs could have been installed on the system using the same type of vulnerability, but the adware is far less likely to look at my data than a backdoor Trojan.
How I would love it if every data breach announcement had to include the root-cause event, if known, and an estimated risk score to my stolen data. If I heard my records were found the same day in a garbage can or had been left behind for two weeks in an old office, I probably wouldnt rush to sign-up for credit monitoring. At the same time, if my records were found on the dark web or belong to a larger data set that has contained other records that were found to be used in fraudulently transactions, I probably would step up my credit monitoring game.
Data breach risk rating components
Im not 100 percent sure what should be the included components of a data breach risk rating score, but at a minimum it should include the following:
Type of data (e.g., PII, HII)
Type of breach
Number of breached records
Whether the records were breached by unauthorized third party
Likelihood of malicious actions against or with the data
The way the data was used maliciously, if known
How long data was accessed by unauthorized party before discovery
How long before the breach was reported
What offsetting controls (like hashing or encryption) were in place
Im sure readers can think of more criteria. We can make it as complicated or uncomplicated as desired. The ultimate question to be answered is, As the stakeholder, how much should I be worried about this breach of my data? Not much? A bunch? Were not sure?
Weve been calculating risk for a long time about potential exploits. Isnt it time to start rating the risk once the exploit actually happened?
This Week in Review
A weekly review of the best and most popular stories published in the Imperial Valley Press. Also, featured upcoming events, new movies at local theaters, the week in photos and much more.
Okuno-Jones 86 Named Distinguished Nursing Alumna
Sept. 13, 2018
Susan Okuno-Jones 86
BLOOMINGTON, Ill. Susan Okuno-Jones 86 will be honored with the Illinois Wesleyan University School of Nursings "Distinguished Alumna Award for Excellence in Nursing" during Homecoming 2018 festivities, in acknowledgement of her leadership and innovation within the nursing field.
She will deliver her keynote address Dont Forget Your WHY on Saturday, Oct. 6 at 9 a.m. in the atrium of the Center for Natural Sciences (CNS). Tours of the School of Nursing will be available after the presentation.
Okuno-Jones is currently Vice President of Operations in Patient Care Services and Chief Nurse Executive at Advocate Good Samaritan Hospital in Downers Grove, Illinois. Prior to this role, she served as Vice President of Nursing Practice and Innovation for Advocate Health Care, where she led the development of a system-wide, evidence-based approach to nursing professional practice.
She has held additional leadership positions including Magnet Program Director and Executive Director of Service Lines, in which she supported inpatient and outpatient sites of care.
After graduating from Illinois Wesleyan, Okuno-Jones earned her doctorate in nursing practice and masters of science in nursing from the University of Illinois at Chicago, in addition to American Nurses Credentialing Center certifications in Advanced Nurse Executive and Nursing Professional Development. She currently resides in Palatine, Illinois, with her husband Jon Jones 87.
By Rachel McCarthy 21
Sep 13, 2018 | By Thomas
Media artist and robotic engineer, Moritz Simon Geist, will soon release the worlds first techno album played entirely by self-made robots. The album is produced by Mouse On Mars' Andi Thoma and scheduled for release next month.
Robotic electronic music is a burgeoning genre of electro jams that relies on mechanical and physical sound devices to engineer electronic sounds and beats. Each of Geist's "instruments" is custom-made in his workshop in Dresden, Germany, according to Wired. Some are engineered to produce a specific sound, like his take on a kalimba, made from metal pieces and 3D printed parts, while others are made from everyday tools like screwdrivers.
Geist is about to release his debut EP, The Material Turn, in October followed by his full-length album via Kompakt in November on vinyl, CD, and digital. All four tracks of his forthcoming EP are made entirely from homemade instruments: futuristic 3D printed robo-kalimbas, drone guitar, small motors that beat on metal, salvaged parts from old hard drives and crazy psychedelic glasses.
Geist started making electronic music in the 1990s. In 2012, he built his well-known oversized 808 robot, an iconic drum robot installation, 4 by 2 meter, which programmed live by spectators. It got an upgrade with the interactive part in 2015 / 2016.
Since then my whole life is dedicated to experimenting, building, and playing shows with music robots, he wrote in a blog post.
I wake up with them in the morning and think about music robots at night. Why? Because I think that electronic music has evolved and I am very bored with music synthesizers, modular synthesizers, samplers, and computers, Geist continued. I want future! Robots! And techno!
Now, Geist teamed up with the Berliner sound wizards from Mouse On Mars to experiment further with the electronic music. For Geist, it's a way to push the frontiers of electronic musicmaking.
The Material Turn EP is available here. Watch Geist playing with Music Robots below.
Currently Geist also teaches on the progression of technology and society at the NYU Berlin. Watch his behind the scenes video below showing off all of his wonderful robotic creations:
Posted in 3D Printing Application
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Sep 13, 2018 | By Thomas
Researchers at the Centre for Information Technology and Architecture (CITA) of the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts and at the Danish Technological Institute have developed a new hybrid construction concept called "Sparse Concrete Reinforcement In Meshworks" (SCRIM) that intersects robot-based 3D Concrete Printing and textile reinforcement meshes to produce lightweight elements.
Meshwork setup for Experiment 1. Credit: CITA and DTI.
In contrast to current 3D concrete printing approaches, which often stack material vertically, the SCRIM approach permits full exploitation of 6-axis robotic control by utilising supportive meshes to define 3D surfaces onto which concrete is selectively deposited at various orientation angles. Also, instead of fully encapsulating the textile in a cementitious matrix using formworks or spray-ing concrete, SCRIM relies on sparsely depositing concrete to achieve structural, tectonic and aesthetic design goals, minimising material use.
According to Phil Ayres and Wilson Ricardo Leal da Silva, two of the researchers who carried out the study, the motivation behind this novel concept is to fully engage the 3D control capabilities of conventional robotics in concrete use, offering an enriched spatial potential extending beyond extruded geometries prevalent in 3D concrete printing, and diversifying the existing spectrum of digital construction approaches.
Meshwork setup for Experiment 2. Credit: CITA and DTI.
Conventional 3D concrete printing approaches stack material vertically, resulting in a few restrictions in build orientation and incorporation of reinforcement. The SCRIM concept employs carbon-fibre-reinforced polymer (CFRP) meshes that are printed upon directly. In the SCRIM concept, meshes are arranged into target geometries, which can also include vertical areas. Concrete is then selectively deposited into the mesh, which acts as a reinforcement element as well as a stay-in-place formwork.
"Conceptually, we can think of the method as locally reinforcing a textile membrane with concrete, rather than monolithic printing, which underlies existing approaches," Ayres said.
SCRIM results of tapered cone in Experiment 1. Released free-standing assembly (right), with details of deposition process and results (left). Credit: CITA and DTI.
SCRIM results of pipe in Experiment 1.Credit: CITA and DTI.
The SCRIM technique supports subsequent processes such as element addition and embellishment as well as articulates a distinct architectural expression, allowing for greater freedom in design.
"There are still challenges to be solved in 3D concrete printing, but the SCRIM method contributes to diversifying the existing spectrum of digital construction approaches in a field that is being heavily explored in the research community. A key difference is that SCRIM fully engages the 3D control and movement capabilities of six-axis robotics," Ayres said. "From a design perspective, this opens new creative potentials for 3DCP. From a practical perspective, the SCRIM approach enables off-site printing and component based assembly. In addition, because concrete is selectively deposited, this helps reduce concrete consumption and enable the production of lighter building components."
SCRIM results in Experiment 2. a) First deposition attempt; b) second deposition attempt. Credit: CITA and DTI.
Further work will include refining the concrete mix design and investigating the effect of fibres on the early age mechanical properties of 3D printed concrete. In addition, researchers are also looking the possibility of producing tailored carbon fibre reinforced polymer (CFRP) meshes for refined tailoring of structural performance and enable adaptive robotic control to cater for 'print time' dynamics.
Speculative visualisation of an envisaged building element-a graded internal partition.
"We also aim to develop an integrated design environment, linking design intent with simulation, production process analysis and properties of the resulting elements post-production," Ayres said. "Finally, we plan to seek industry partners to develop the concept towards the production of building components."
Posted in 3D Printing Technology
Source: Tech Xplore
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Today
Rain likely. Low 49F. Winds N at 15 to 25 mph. Chance of rain 100%. Rainfall around a half an inch. Higher wind gusts possible..
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Rain likely. Low 49F. Winds N at 15 to 25 mph. Chance of rain 100%. Rainfall around a half an inch. Higher wind gusts possible.
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The government of the Netherlands is facing widespread criticism from lawmakers and citizens after it was revealed it had supported a Syrian rebel group, which Dutch prosecutors had labeled a terrorist organization.
The revelation came in a news report on Nieuwsuur, a current affairs program on public broadcasters NOS and NTR Monday. According to the report, the Netherlands gave non-lethal assistance (NLA) to 22 armed rebel groups. One of the groups has been identified as Jabhat al-Shamiya, which had been supplied with pick-up trucks, uniforms and other equipment last year.
At the time the assistance was given, Dutch officials in the port city of Rotterdam were prosecuting a suspected militant for belonging to Jabhat al-Shamiya, which has been labeled in Dutch court papers as a Salafist and jihadist movement striving for a caliphate.
Following the broadcasting of the report, parliamentarians demand answers describing the group as nothing more than a criminal organization with a terrorist aim. Jabhat al-Shamiya, also known as the Levant Front, is an umbrella group for rebel fighters based in northern Syria.
Politicians from both the opposition and Prime Minister Mark Ruttes ruling coalition demanded clarity. This (news report) screams for an answer, Christian Democratic Appeal party MP Pieter Omtzigt said Monday. He also said the countrys Cabinet or Rutte himself should provide an answer by Tuesday.
Sjoerd Sjoerdsma, MP for the progressive D66 party, described the report as shocking.
Mondays report came just days after Dutch Foreign Minister Stef Blok announced that the government was cutting all support to moderate opposition groups in Syria.
Resulting from the regimes reclamation of large parts of Syria and the shrinking space for moderate opposition, the cabinet has decided to stop the NLA programme, Blok said in a letter sent to Parliament last Friday.
Via TeleSur
Bonus video added by Informed Comment:
Wochit News from Dec. 2016: Syrian Rebels in Aleppo Form New Alliance
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Geneva (AFP) The UN said Wednesday that the situation in Gaza was catastrophic after 11 years of economic siege and warned that Washingtons decision to halt assistance to Palestinian refugees would create more misery.
The situation in Gaza is becoming less and less livable, said Isabelle Durant, the deputy head of the United Nations development agency (UNCTAD).
BELGA/AFP / KRISTOF DEBECKER. Deputy head of the United Nations development agency Isabell Durant, pictured in 2912, says the situation in Gaza is becoming less and less livable.
It is catastrophic, she told reporters in Geneva.
In a new report, the UN agency said the Palestinian economy, long stifled by the Israeli occupation, was being hit hard by a sharp drop in international support to the Palestinians, even before Washingtons dramatic cuts.
Last year, international development assistance to the Palestinians shrunk by more than 10 percent compared to a year earlier.
And at $720 million, it stood at just a third of the $2 billion received a decade earlier, the UNCTAD report showed.
US cuts
That dramatic drop in support came before US President Donald Trumps government decided to completely halt its funding for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), which had previously stood at around $350 million a year.
The Trump administration has also scrapped around $200 million in payments by USAID to the Palestinians, and at the weekend said it would cut $25 million more in direct aid to six hospitals that primarily serve Palestinians in Jerusalem.
The declining international support, coupled with a freeze in the reconstruction of Gaza and unsustainable credit-financed public and private consumption, paint a bleak picture for future growth, UNCTAD said in a statement.
The widespread restrictions on the movement of people and goods, confiscation of land and natural resources, and the accelerating expansion of Israeli settlements were also damaging, it said.
Wednesdays report slammed the shackling of the economy in the Palestinian territories, which are struggling with the worlds highest unemployment rate of more than 27 percent overall and around 44 percent in Gaza alone.
Women and youth are disproportionately impacted by the lack of jobs, it said, with half of Palestinians under the age of 30 out of work, while only 19 percent of women participate in the labour force.
In a report last year, the UN agency said that the Palestinian economy could easily double and that sky-high unemployment and poverty would plummet if the Israeli occupation were lifted.
And in its latest report, UNCTAD suggested that simply removing some of the Israeli restrictions on Palestinian trade and investment could allow the territorys gross economy to swell by up to 10 percent.
Profound suffering
Removing restrictions on Gaza was particularly important, UNCTAD said, warning that the Strip had been reduced to a humanitarian case of profound suffering and aid dependency.
AFP/File / MAHMUD HAMS. In 2012, UNCTAD warned that Gaza (pictured August 2018) risked becoming uninhabitable by 2020, but the agency says conditions are worse than when they made that prediction.
Mahmoud Elkhafif, who coordinates UNCTADs Assistance to the Palestinian People Unit, told reporters that the agency had not yet analysed the impact the US cuts might have on the Palestinian economy, but stressed they would certainly result in more misery in Gaza especially.
In 2012, UNCTAD warned that the area risked becoming uninhabitable by 2020 unless trends were reversed, but on Wednesday the agency said conditions are worse than when they made that prediction.
In the past decade, Gaza has been subjected to three major military operations and a continuous and crippling air, sea and land blockade, which have eviscerated its productive capacity, it said.
Gazas some 1.8 million residents currently count on average a real income per person that is 30 percent lower than in 2000.
And Elkhafif pointed out that half of the people in the Strip were considered food-insecure even before the US announced its cuts to UNRWA, which provides aid to some 80 percent of the population.
Simply lifting the blockade would quickly see its economic growth shoot up by a third, the report said.
Featured Photo: AFP/File / SAID KHATIB. The dramatic drop in support came before US President Donald Trumps administration decided to completely halt its funding for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA).
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - September 13, 2018) - Orla Mining Ltd. (TSXV: OLA) ("Orla" or the "Company") is pleased to report positive results from metallurgical column tests on oxide material from its wholly owned Cerro Quema project in Panama. Gold recoveries on material crushed to 150 millimetres were 96% for the La Pava deposit, which contains approximately two thirds of the current mineral reserves, and 91% for the Quemita deposit. Operational recovery estimates are typically de-rated from column test data, but these results compare very favourably to an average operational recovery of 86% in the 2014 Pre-Feasibility Study ("PFS") at a crush size of -70 millimetres. Results will be incorporated into an updated process plan and operational recovery estimates that will consider one-stage crushing or run of mine instead of the two-stage crushing modelled in the 2014 PFS.
Recent metallurgical test work is part of the Company's effort to update the PFS completed on the Cerro Quema Project in 2014. Orla expects to complete the update of the PFS, including new mineral reserve and mineral resource estimates, by mid-2019. In addition to the work on oxide mineralization, Orla will continue to advance exploration of the Caballito copper-gold sulphide discovery. This style of mineralization, identified late last year, presents potential value to the project in addition to the current heap-leach oxide gold project.
Samples for the metallurgical testing program were generated from six HQ-size core holes drilled specifically for metallurgical testing. Three of the holes were drilled in the La Pava deposit and three were drilled in the Quemita deposit which combined host the 488,000 ounce Cerro Quema oxide gold mineral proven and probable reserve (19.7 million tonnes at 0.77 gram per tonne gold)1. Material from the drill holes was combined into two composites, one for La Pava and one for Quemita. Along with a series of characterization test work, both the La Pava and Quemita composites were evaluated to determine a preferred crush size by column leach tests at three different particle sizes (100% passing sizes of 150 mm, 50 mm and 12.5 mm). Test work showed very high recoveries and essentially no difference in recovery by crush size tested. Leach rates were also high, with the bulk of the gold recovered within 20 days.
____________________
1 For more information on the Cerro Quema mineral reserves, please refer to the NI 43-101 technical report "Cerro Quema Project Pre-Feasibility Study on the La Pava and Quemita Oxide Gold Deposits" published on August 15, 2014 and filed on SEDAR and on the Company's website.
A summary of the results from the column leach tests is presented below:
KCA
Test No. Description Crush Size,
mm Calc. Head,
gms Au/MT Tails Assay,
gms Au/MT Extracted,
% Au 81716 Quemita Composite 150.0 0.639 0.058 91% 81722 Quemita Composite 50.0 0.444 0.053 88% 81728 Quemita Composite 12.5 0.569 0.046 92% 81719 La Pava Composite 150.0 1.066 0.043 96% 81725 La Pava Composite 50.0 1.046 0.052 95% 81731 La Pava Composite 12.5 1.034 0.035 97%
In addition to the column leach testing, agglomeration studies and compacted permeability on leached residue samples were performed. It was concluded that agglomeration will not be required and no percolation issues were encountered. To further investigate mine closure and post-mine conditions, composites were tested for environmental characterization and final barren solution and column wash water characterization were included in the testing program. Leached residues were tested by the meteoric water mobility procedure.
Test Work Protocols
The metallurgical test work described in this release was performed by Kappes Cassiday & Associates in Reno Nevada. All sample preparation, solution and solid assaying and metallurgical studies were performed utilizing accepted industry standard procedures. All solid samples are assayed in duplicate and for column leach testing granulated active carbon samples are used to check against daily pregnant and barren leach solution assays completed by Flame Atomic Absorption methods. Solid samples are assayed in small batches along with certified standards, blanks and additional duplicates. Metallurgical mass balances are followed throughout the program with multiple tests completed on each sample to define operating parameters.
Qualified Person
The technical information in this news release has been reviewed and approved by Mr. Hans Smit, P.Geo., Chief Operating Officer of Orla Mining Ltd., who is the Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects.
About Orla Mining Ltd.
Orla is developing the Camino Rojo Project, an advanced gold and silver open-pit and heap leach project, located in Zacatecas State, Central Mexico. The project is 100% owned and covers over 200,000 hectares. Access and infrastructure is excellent with a paved highway and powerline nearby. A NI 43-101 Technical Report on Camino Rojo dated June 19, 2018 is available on SEDAR under the Company's profile. Orla also owns 100% of the Cerro Quema Project in Panama which includes a near-term gold production scenario and various exploration targets. Cerro Quema's 14,800-hectare concession is close to infrastructure with easy access to site and strong community support. The Cerro Quema Project is currently in the last stage of the permitting process for a proposed open pit mine and gold heap leach operation. Please refer to the "Cerro Quema Project - Pre-feasibility Study on the La Pava and Quemita Oxide Gold Deposits" dated August 15, 2014, which is available on SEDAR.
Forward-looking Statements
This news release contains certain "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Canadian and United States securities legislation, including, without limitation, statements with respect to the results of exploration and planned exploration programs, the potential for discovery of additional mineral resources and the Company's objectives and strategies. Forward-looking statements are statements that are not historical facts which address events, results, outcomes or developments that the Company expects to occur. Forward-looking statements are based on the beliefs, estimates and opinions of the Company's management on the date the statements are made and they involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Certain material assumptions regarding such forward-looking statements are discussed in this news release, including without limitation, assumptions that the Company's activities will be in accordance with the Company's public statements and stated goals; that there will be no material adverse change affecting the Company or its properties; that all required approvals will be obtained and that there will be no significant disruptions affecting the Company or its properties. Consequently, there can be no assurances that such statements will prove to be accurate and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Forward-looking statements involve significant known and unknown risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ materially from those anticipated. These risks include, but are not limited to: risks related to uncertainties inherent in the preparation of preliminary economic assessments, drill results and the estimation of mineral resources; and risks associated with executing the Company's objectives and strategies, including costs and expenses. Except as required by the securities disclosure laws and regulations applicable to the Company, the Company undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements if management's beliefs, estimates or opinions, or other factors, should change.
Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release.
On behalf of the Board of Directors,
Marc Prefontaine, M.Sc., P.Geo.,
President & Chief Executive Officer
For further information, please contact:
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
www.orlamining.com
COQUITLAM, BC, Sept. 13, 2018 /CNW/ - Canada Cobalt Works Inc. (TSXV: CCW) (OTCQB: CCWOF) (Frankfurt: 4T9B) (the "Company" or "Canada Cobalt") is pleased to announce that the OTC Markets Group has approved the upgrade and listing of the Company's common shares on its OTCQB Venture Market under the symbol "CCWOF" effective today, September 13, 2018. The Company's common shares will continue to trade on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol "CCW".
The OTCQB Venture is the premier marketplace for entrepreneurial and development stage US and international companies that are committed to providing a high-quality trading and information experience for their US investors. To be eligible companies must have met a minimum bid price test, are current in their financial reporting and have undergone an annual verification and management certification process. These standards provide a strong baseline of transparency, as well as the technology and regulation to improve the information and trading experience for investors.
US investors can find current financial disclosure and Real-Time Level 2 quotes for the Company at Click Here.
The Company also reports that it is the process of applying to the Underwriting Department at the Depository Trust Company to become "DTC" full service eligible, which will allow for electronic trading. DTC is a subsidiary of the Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation DTCC, and manages the electronic clearing and settlement of publicly traded companies. Securities that are eligible to be electronically cleared and settled through the DTC are considered "DTC eligible."
The ability to have the Company's shares electronically transferred between brokerages in the US is significantly more convenient and reduces the costs incurred in trading shares.
When shares are able to trade electronically, existing investors benefit from greater liquidity and execution speeds, while opening the door to new investors that may have been previously been restricted from the Company's shares.
About Canada Cobalt Works Inc.
Canada Cobalt is a pure play cobalt company focused on its past producing Castle mine in the Northern Ontario Cobalt Camp, Canada's most prolific cobalt district. With underground access at Castle, a recently installed pilot plant to produce cobalt-rich gravity concentrates on site, and a proprietary hydrometallurgical process known as Re-2OX for the creation of technical grade cobalt sulphate as well as nickel-manganese-cobalt (NMC) formulations, Canada Cobalt is strategically positioned to become a vertically integrated North American leader in cobalt extraction and recovery.
"Frank J. Basa"
Frank J. Basa, P. Eng.
President and Chief Executive Officer
Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Service Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. This news release may contain forward-looking statements including but not limited to comments regarding the timing and content of upcoming work programs, geological interpretations, receipt of property titles, potential mineral recovery processes, etc. Forward-looking statements address future events and conditions and therefore, involve inherent risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those currently anticipated in such statements.
Vancouver, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - September 13, 2018) - On September 10 Bayhorse Silver Inc (TSXV: BHS) reported the first set of assays (BHS2018-28) on our channel sampling program at the Bayhorse Silver Mine in Oregon.
Today we are very pleased to report further high grade assays on the next 21 channel samples bringing the total to date to 47 of the 60 samples submitted to the lab.
Highlights of this round include:
three samples graded between 20 oz/t (630 g/t) and 50 oz/t (1,555 g/t)
four samples graded between 10 oz/t (311 g/t) 20 oz/t (630 g/t)
three samples graded between 4 oz/t (124 g/t) and ten oz/t (311 g/t)
the remainder assayed under 4 oz/t (124 g/t)
During the 1984 mining program at the Bayhorse Mine, historic records show that of the tonnage mined, 23% graded between 21 100 oz/t, 71% graded between 6 20oz/t, with the remainder grading under 6 oz/t and the assays of the channel samples we have received are consistent with those levels of mineralization.
In addition to the channel samples we are awaiting an assay of a 30kg metallurgical sample and the assays of the long holes we have drilled.
Bayhorse CEO Graeme O'Neill comments "The channel sample assays to date appear to be showing a strong similarity to the silver grade percentages mined during the 1984 program. This comprehensive sampling program is in support of the Company's NI-43-101 report, that is nearly complete, and to support the imminent removal and processing of a large mineralized block." He also comments "we do not know how long silver prices will remain under pressure but analyst Clive Maund recently has written about the astounding number of short positions against silver that sooner or later must be covered that should lead to much higher prices".
The new full channel sample results are tabulated below:
Sample Ag g/t Ag oz/t 1 S20RR 23.83 0.766 2 S20B 131.57 4.23 3 S20LR 8.83 0.284 4 S21RR 51.01 1.64 5 S21B 79.94 2.57 6 S21LR 63.32 2.10 7 S22RR 177.60 5.71 8 S22B 87.09 2.80 9 S22LR 188.80 6.07 10 S23RR . 432.34 13.90 11 S23B 93.00 2.99 12 S23LR 485.21 15.60 13 S24RR 360.80 11.60 14 S24B 895.78 28.80 15 S24LR 317.25 10.20 16 S25RR 68.12 2.19 17 S25B 656.28 21.1 18 S25LR 1,387.21 44.60 19 S26RR 88.18 2.77 20 S26B - - 21 S26LR 75.27 2.42
Details
The 60 channel samples, each measuring 0.66 meters (2.4ft) by 0.2 meters (6"), were taken on ten (10) foot centers with three components, from the back, and the left and right ribs for each sample site. All are from the westerly end of the newly accessed main haulage way.
To complement the channel samples, a series of long holes, on fifteen (15) foot centers, are being carried out along 200 feet of the haulage way, commencing at the first channel sample location. The long hole groups consist of one vertical hole, one angled 70 degrees in the westerly direction along the haulage way, and one at 70 degrees into the right rib. Cuttings are being taken at one (1) meter intervals up the holes and submitted for assay. Both the channel samples and long holes are for comparison with historically reported and mined, both high grade and low grade material, and with the thickness of the mineralized zone, that was historically reported as averaging 20 feet.
Further assay results will be reported as received.
The Company is not basing any decision to produce on a feasibility study of mineral reserves demonstrating economic and technical viability and also advises there is increased uncertainty and specific economic and technical risks of failure with any production decision. These risks include drop in price of commodities produced, namely silver , copper, lead, and zinc, from the pricing used to make the production decision, failure of the grades of the produced material to fall within the parameters used to make the production decision, and increase in mining costs due to changes within the mine during development and mining procedures. There are also metallurgical recovery changes that cannot be anticipated at the time of production.
Assaying for the samples reported above is by American Analytical Services Labs of Osburn, Idaho. The analytical method used for the silver analysis consists of a 1 Assay Ton (AT) samples subjected to fire assay with gravimetric finish. Base metals are subjected to an ICP 35 element, four acid digestion assay.
The Company has issued the shares for debt as disclosed in the Company's news release BHS2018-27
This News Release has been prepared on behalf of the Bayhorse Silver Inc. Board of Directors, which accepts full responsibility for its contents. Dr. Stewart Jackson, P.Geo., a Qualified Person and Consultant to the Company has prepared, supervised the preparation of, and approved the technical content of this press release.
On Behalf of the Board.
Graeme O'Neill, CEO
604-684-3394
Bayhorse Silver Inc., a junior exploration company, has earned 100% interest in the historic Bayhorse Silver Mine, Oregon, USA. The Company has an experienced management and technical team with extensive exploration and mining expertise.
Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
VANCOUVER, Sept. 13, 2018 /CNW/ - Kootenay Silver Inc. (TSXV: KTN) (the "Company" or "Kootenay") is pleased to announce Capstone Mining Corp. (TSX: CS) ("Capstone Mining") has informed the Company that an exploration program is underway on the La Mina Project (the "Property"), located 180 kilometers southeast of the city of Hermosillo in Sonora State, Mexico.
Detailed geological mapping, rock chip and stream sediment sampling is underway in order to define potential drill targets on the Property. The Company is looking forward to Capstone advancing the project towards drill stage. Kootenay will report on results after programs are complete and Capstone reports them to the Company.
As announced on June 28th, 2018 (see KTN NR 18-14), Kootenay entered in to an option agreement (the "Agreement") with Capstone Mining, whereby Capstone Mining can earn an initial 60% ("Initial Earn In") interest in La Mina by making staged cash payments totalling US$600,000 and incurring exploration expenditures totalling US$4 million over 4 years. Following the Initial Earn In, Capstone may earn up to a 100% interest in La Mina in stages by completing certain milestones including preparation of a preliminary economic assessment, a pre-feasibility study and paying an additional aggregate total of US$8.4 million to Kootenay in stages at each of the various milestones.
Qualified Persons
The Kootenay technical information in this news release has been prepared in accordance with the Canadian regulatory requirements set out in National Instrument 43-101 (Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects) and reviewed on behalf Kootenay by James McDonald, P.Geo, President, CEO & Director for Kootenay, a Qualified Person.
Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
About Kootenay Silver Inc.
Kootenay Silver Inc. is an exploration company actively engaged in the discovery and development of mineral projects in the Sierra Madre Region of Mexico and in British Columbia, Canada. Supported by one of the largest portfolios of silver assets in Mexico, Kootenay continues to provide its shareholders with significant leverage to silver prices. The Company remains focused on the expansion of its current silver resources, new discoveries and the near-term economic development of two of its priority silver projects located in prolific mining districts in Sonora, State and Chihuahua, State, Mexico, respectively.
CAUTIONARY NOTE REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS:
The information in this news release has been prepared as at September 17, 2018. Certain statements in this news release, referred to herein as "forward-looking statements", constitute "forward-looking statements" under the provisions of Canadian provincial securities laws. These statements can be identified by the use of words such as "expected", "may", "will" or similar terms.
Forward-looking statements are necessarily based upon a number of factors and assumptions that, while considered reasonable by Kootenay as of the date of such statements, are inherently subject to significant business, economic and competitive uncertainties and contingencies. Many factors, known and unknown, could cause actual results to be materially different from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date made. Except as otherwise required by law, Kootenay expressly disclaims any obligation or undertaking to release publicly any updates or revisions to any such statements to reflect any change in Kootenay's expectations or any change in events, conditions or circumstances on which any such statement is based.
Cautionary Note to US Investors: This news release may contain information about adjacent properties on which we have no right to explore or mine. We advise U.S. investors that the SEC's mining guidelines strictly prohibit information of this type in documents filed with the SEC. U.S. investors are cautioned that mineral deposits on adjacent properties are not indicative of mineral deposits on our properties. This news release may contain forward-looking statements including but not limited to comments regarding the timing and content of upcoming work programs, geological interpretations, receipt of property titles, potential mineral recovery processes, etc. Forward-looking statements address future events and conditions and therefore involve inherent risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those currently anticipated in such statements.
This press release uses the terms "Measured", "Indicated", and "Inferred" resources. United States investors are advised that while such terms are recognized and required by Canadian regulations, the United States Securities and Exchange Commission does not recognize them. "Inferred Mineral Resources" have a great amount of uncertainty as to their existence, and as to their economic and legal feasibility. It cannot be assumed that all or any part of an Inferred Mineral Resource will ever be upgraded to a higher category. Under Canadian rules, estimates of Inferred Mineral Resources may not form the basis of feasibility or other economic studies. United States investors are cautioned not to assume that all or any part of Measured or Indicated Mineral Resources will ever be converted into Mineral Reserves. United States investors are also cautioned not to assume that all or any part of a Mineral Resource is economically or legally mineable.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Sept. 13, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Brixton Metals Corporation (TSXV: BBB) (the Company or Brixton) is pleased to announce that it has completed field work at its wholly owned Thorn project in Northwestern British Columbia. In collaboration with the Mineral Deposit Research Unit and porphyry specialist, Brock Riedell, Brixton completed a program of core re-logging, geological mapping and sample collection for whole rock lithogeochemical analysis combined with short-wave infrared spectroscopy (SWIR). This is a cost-effective method to vector for copper-gold porphyry targets. Final results are pending however, Brixton reports its preliminary findings for the program.
Scope of Work for 2018
Re-logging of 10 core holes from the Chivas Zone with an emphasis on vein types and distribution
Determine alteration mineralogy patterns and trends at the Chivas Zone using SWIR
Develop geochemical trends and a 3-dimensional zonation model for the Chivas Zone
Expand geological mapping north from the 2017 program at the Chivas Zone
Highlights from Mr. Riedells work
The Thorn Project provides a district-scale opportunity centred on an incompletely explored porphyry Cu-Au-Mo system at the Chivas area. Support for temporal and genetic links among the various mineralized zones in the district includes the following:
Metal ratios in soils and rocks show patterns that are consistent with known Au-rich porphyry systems (cf. Einaudi, 1990), see Figures 1 4
The Chivas Zone represents the centre of the known system based on molybdenum to arsenic (Figure 3) and silver to gold ratios (Figure 1)
Molybdenum to arsenic ratios clearly highlights the exposed Chivas stock (Figure 3)
A distinctive, crowded plagioclase-biotite-hornblende-quartz porphyry of probable quartz monzodiorite composition forms most of the principal Chivas intrusion and is also widespread at the Oban Zone (as host to and as well as most clasts within the breccias), Talisker Zone and Glenfiddich Zone. Relations observed in drill hole THN17-149 indicate multiple porphyry phases are present.
The Ag to Au ratio at Thorn is markedly reminiscent of patterns at the well know Bingham Canyon porphyry located in Utah, USA, where Ag to Au ratio increases from less than or equal to 10 in the porphyry centre to 100-300 near the outer edge of the Pb-Zn-Ag halo. The ratio then drops precipitously to less than 10 spatially outward from the Pb-Zn-Ag zone into the Au-As halo, which contains the Melco and Barneys Canyon distal disseminated Au deposits near Bingham. The Outlaw gold zone at the Thorn Project appears to occupy a similar position to the Chivas zone. Porphyry-targeting ratios for soils are shown below.
Figure 1. Thorn Ag to Au Ratio in Soils Plot
Figure 2. Bingham Canyon Ag to Au Ratio Plot (An Analog for Thorn)
Figure 3. Thorn Mo to As Ratio in Soils Plot
Figure 4. Thorn Au to Cu Ratio in Soils Plot
Figure 5. Thorn Cu-in-Soils Plot
Note the scale of the copper-in-soil anomaly at the Chivas Zone. Cretaceous age quartz monzodiorite intrudes Triassic Stuhini volcanics.
Figure 6. Thorn Au-in-Soil Plot
Quartz and sulphide-veined fragments were noted within the Oban breccia (Figure 7).
Figure 7. Veined Fragment Within Oban Diatreme Breccia
Since net movement in phreatomagmatic breccia is commonly upwards (cf. Sillitoe, 1985), these could help predict the location of underlying porphyry mineralization at depth at the Oban Zone. These will be complemented by application of the MDRU porphyry footprints metal and alteration zoning model (Halley et al., 2015) to estimate the location and depth of the likely porphyry centre(s). The Oban Zone diatreme breccia is located 4km north from the Chivas porphyry and the Outlaw sediment hosted Gold Zone is located about 4km to the northeast of the Chivas porphyry.
Chairman and CEO of Brixton Metals, Gary R. Thompson stated, The Thorn Project is an exceptional example of a wide range of mineralization styles and metal enrichment that can form around porphyry systems. Despite having worked the project for years, Brixton continues to discover new mineralized zones and improve our understanding of this district scale system. We are looking forward to final deliverables from this seasons field work that we believe will provide vectors for a drill program during 2019. Clearly, the porphyry stock itself should be properly drill tested in the next campaign.
Drilling in 2017 at the Chivas Zone targeted the gold-anomalous wall rocks cut material with relatively high pyrite to chalcopyrite ratios and sub-ore copper grades. Higher grades could also occur in shoulders of the exposed porphyry to the southwest or northeast. The Fugro magnetics and Mo-in-soil both suggest the stock remains open to the east and southeast.
Mr. Sorin Posescu, P. Geo., is a Qualified Person as defined under National Instrument 43-101 standards and has reviewed and approved this news release.
About K. Brock Riedell, Consulting Geologist
Mr. Riedell has thirty-nine years of field-based exploration experience for a variety of target types with focus on porphyry Cu-Au-Mo systems, including work with BHP Billiton and Newmont Exploration. He has planned and supervised programs leading to delineation of major porphyry gold and molybdenum deposits in British Columbia, western U.S., Argentina, and Chile. Mr. Riedell recognized open-ended ore northeast of the East zone at Red Chris deposit that led to drilling of hole RC09-350 (647.5 m of 1.50% Cu and 2.68 g/t Au, including 152.5 m of 4.12% Cu and 8.83 g/t Au).
About MDRU
MDRU (Mineral Deposit Research Unit) is one of the most successful integrated mineral deposit and exploration research groups in the world. Founded in 1989, it is a collaborative joint-venture between the minerals industry and the University of British Columbia, focused on solving mineral exploration-related problems and training highly-qualified personnel. MDRU has more than 200 alumni working through the industry and across the globe, and a proven record of accomplishment of delivering successful industry-supported research projects and training.
About the Thorn Project
The wholly owned, 997 square kilometres Thorn Project is located in the Sutlahine River area of northwestern British Columbia, Canada, approximately 90 km ENE from Juneau, AK. The southern limit of the Thorn claim boundary is about 65 km from tide water. The Thorn Project is 200km NW from Imperial Metals Red Chris Mine. More information about Brixtons Thorn Project can be found at: Click Here
References
Atkinson, W.W., Jr., and Einaudi, M.T., 1978, Skarn formation and mineralization in the contact aureole at Carr Fork, Bingham, Utah: Economic Geology, v. 73, p. 1326-1365.
Einaudi, M.T., 1982, Descriptions of skarns associated with porphyry copper plutons, southwestern North America, in Titley, S.R., ed., Advances in geology of the porphyry copper deposits, southwestern North America: Tucson, University of Arizona Press, p. 139-183.
Einaudi, M.T., 1990, Zoning of gold and silver in the central portions of porphyry copper districts (abstract): Geological Society of Nevada, Great Basin Symposium Program with Abstracts, p. 59-60.
Halley, S., Dilles, J.H., and Tosdal, R.M., 2015, Footprints: Hydrothermal alteration and geothermal dispersion around porphyry copper deposits: SEG Newsletter, no. 100, p. 1, 12-17.
Sillitoe, R.H., 1985, Ore-related breccias in volcanoplutonic arcs: Economic Geology, v. 80, p. 1467-1514.
About Brixton Metals Corporation
Brixton Metals Corporation is a gold-silver exploration & development company focused in Canada and USA. Brixton wholly owns 4 projects. The advanced stage, Hog Heaven silver-gold-copper project in NW Montana, USA is a past producer of direct ship ore. Two district scale gold projects, "Thorn (Golden Triangle)" and "Atlin" in British Columbia, Canada, have generated excellent results to date. Lastly, two past producing high-grade silver-cobalt mines, the Langis-Hudson Bay projects, are brownfield projects with excellent infrastructure and are located in Ontario, Canada. The Langis and Hudson Bay mines produced at 25 and 123 opt silver, respectively. The Company is actively seeking JV partners to advance one or more of its projects.
Brixton Metals Corporation shares trade on the TSX-V under the ticker symbol BBB. For more information about Brixton please visit our website at www.brixtonmetals.com.
On Behalf of the Board of Directors
Mr. Gary R. Thompson, Chairman and CEO
Tel: 604-630-9707 or email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
For Investor Relations, please contact Mitchell Smith:
Tel: 604-630-9707 or email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
Information set forth in this news release may involve forward-looking statements under applicable securities laws. Forward-looking statements are statements that relate to future, not past, events. In this context, forward-looking statements often address expected future business and financial performance, and often contain words such as anticipate, believe, plan, estimate, expect, and intend, statements that an action or event may, might, could, should, or will be taken or occur, including statements that address potential quantity and/or grade of minerals, potential size and expansion of a mineralized zone, proposed timing of exploration and development plans, or other similar expressions. All statements, other than statements of historical fact included herein including, without limitation, statements regarding the exploration potential of the property based on resources estimates and forward looking statements. By their nature, forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause our actual results, performance or achievements, or other future events, to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such factors include, among others, the following risks: the need for additional financing; operational risks associated with mineral exploration; fluctuations in commodity prices; title matters; and the additional risks identified in the annual information form of the Company or other reports and filings with the TSXV and applicable Canadian securities regulators. Forward-looking statements are made based on managements beliefs, estimates and opinions on the date that statements are made and the Company undertakes no obligation to update forward-looking statements if these beliefs, estimates and opinions or other circumstances should change, except as required by applicable securities laws. Investors are cautioned against attributing undue certainty to forward-looking statements.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) is in the spotlights of global politics after John Bolton, the national security adviser of US President Donald Trump, lashed out at the court. He outlined a strategy to undermine the work of the ICC, but his attacks could also rally its supporters behind the institution.
If there were any doubts about the Trump administrations position towards the ICC, John Bolton cleared them up. The US presidents national security adviser said on Monday the United States will not cooperate with the ICC, will provide no assistance to the ICC and will not join the ICC. Bolton called the court ineffective, unaccountable, and indeed, outright dangerous.
While the Obama administration has taken a constructive approach and supported the work of the institution for example by assisting in the arrest and transfer of two suspects , Trump is taking an aggressive stance. His government seems ready to block and undermine the ICCs activities in the coming years.
For a president who has declared US supremacy his foreign affairs doctrine and strongly opposes multilateralism, this move would only be consequent. In the past three months, the Trump administration withdrew from the UN Human Rights Council, threatened to leave the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and stopped funding UNRWA, the UN agency tasked with supporting Palestinian refugees.
From this perspective, Boltons remarks are not so much about the ICC but rather about the policy decisions of the US government. The opposition to the ICC follows logically from Trumps America First philosophy and the notion of US exceptionalism that has been shaping US foreign policy for many years the idea that the United States is somewhat different from other countries. An independent international court is incompatible with this idea since the principle that there should be no differences and that no one should be above the law is deeply enshrined in the ICCs DNA. For hawks like Bolton and Trump, the ICC is therefore the embodiment of an international order they detest. The Guardian called the attack on the ICC the unacceptable face of US exceptionalism.
European states react
Most commentators focussed on the negative effects of Boltons speech for the ICC, for example because other states might take it as an excuse to reduce their support as well.)
In reality, however, the increasing disengagement and aggression of the US government often provoked a countermovement. When the Trump administration decided to stop funding sexual and reproductive health programmes for women in developing countries, a coalition of European and African states raised more than 300 million dollars. When it announced the decision to stop funding UNRWA, the European Union, Ireland, Jordan and Germany stepped in.
Similarly, Boltons attacks could rally supporters of the ICC behind the institution. Either because they fear finding themselves aligned with Trump, or because they genuinely support the court and the concept of international criminal justice. The first reactions are already indicating European governments are distancing themselves from the anti-ICC rhetoric. The German Foreign Office tweeted it is committed to the work of the ICC in particular when it comes under fire. Alluding to US threats to undermine the ICC, France said that the court should be able to work without hindrance. Liechtenstein said on Tuesday it strongly supports the work of the ICC.
Boltons strong words could thus lead to a renewal of the support and commitment to the court. A welcome paradox for the ICC, which has never appeared so weak politically and was challenged from within, this very week, in The Hague, by Jordan and other member states on the scope of the courts powers.
More than a century after massacres of indigenous people in former German South West Africa, now Namibia, their descendants and members of German civil society are pressing Berlin for an official apology. The recent returning of remains is not enough, they say.
The massacres of Herero and Nama people by the German army in the former colony are considered by many historians to have been the first genocide of the 20th century. Chased from their land, the Hereros rose up in 1904, killing around 100 German civilians. The following year a smaller ethnic group, the Nama, joined their uprising. The German response was disproportionately brutal. Some 60,000 Hereros and 10,000 Namas were massacred between 1904 and 1908, according to historians. The Germans set up concentration camps and conducted scientific experiments on specimens of what they saw as an inferior race. Nearly 300 skulls were sent back to Germany, the aim being to prove the racist theory of white supremacy over black people.
More than a century later, on August 29, 2018, Germany handed back to Namibia the remains of Hereros and Namas exterminated at the time. The ceremony took place in a protestant church in Berlin. We Germans do acknowledge our historical-political and moral responsibility and the historical guilt borne by the Germans of the time, declared Michelle Muntefering, Minister of State for International Cultural Policy at the German foreign ministry. The atrocities committed at the time in Germanys name constituted what would now be called genocide, even though it was not until later that this term was legally defined.
Apology demanded
For Veraa Katuuo, co-founder of The Association of The Ovaherero Genocide In The U.S.A, it is as though the German government representative had rather turned the knife in the wound. I am disappointed that Germany abdicated its responsibility to a church which was an accomplice, he said. Germany must pass a resolution recognizing the near extermination of the Ovaherero and Nama people as genocide and genuinely apologize for it. The apology must be issued directly to the Ovaherero and Nama people. Not the Namibian government or Namibian people, but directly to Ovaherero and Nama people.
Jefta Nguherimo, a founder member of The OvaHerero/Mbanderu and Nama Genocides Institute, also criticizes the role of the protestant church. The Church was accomplice and remains silent, issuing only vague statements, he told JusticeInfo. The venue and the players during the ceremony have not atoned for their sins. Post-colonial justice will only come when the Western countries including Germany acknowledge, apologize and correct their wrongs during the colonial period. What is needed, he says, is a formal apology by the Chancellor and endorsed by the Bundestag [German federal parliament].
High-handed approach
German civil society and academia have also reacted. Historian Christian Kopp of the NGO alliance No Amnesty on Genocide, thinks Hereros and Namas have a right to ask why chancellor Angela Merkel some days ago laid flowers for the victims of the genocide against the Armenians in 1915 but abstained from the ceremony for the African victims of Germanys first genocide. He says what is needed now is a German president or chancellor kneeling down in the Omaheke desert in commemoration of the 100,000 Ovaherero and Nama children, women and men killed between 1904 and 1908. Christian Kopp deplores what he calls Germanys high-handed approach, colonial style, a mixture of ignorance about the descendants and their lives on the one hand, and of deep-rooted colonial arrogance against African and black people on the other. He is also calling for direct participation of Hereros and Namas in the talks that are under way. There will be no peace and reconciliation as long as the victim groups are excluded by both governments and as long as they are not allowed to speak for themselves as is guaranteed to them in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, he says.
Finally, Kopp is urging all the former colonial powers to return human remains from their former colonies and dare to open a debate on the dark periods of human history. According to him, Berlin alone still has human remains from Rwanda, Burundi and Tanzania, which were all part of former German East Africa. All these skulls, skeletons, single bones, body parts must immediately be offered for restitution, and we have to talk about the circumstances of their coming here in the first place, he says. We have a right to know as well as a duty to tell whats in our basements. We have to gaze into this abyss.
Victims role in talks
However, German foreign affairs ministry spokesman Felix Lung implies that it is not yet the time for official apologies. Since December 2015, special envoys appointed by the German and Namibian governments have been conducting negotiations aimed at healing the wounds of the past, he says. The German government aims to ask for forgiveness on the basis of an agreed text between the two sides.
Asked about the demand of Herero and Nama communities to be recognized as full parties to the dialogue under way, he reiterates that the negotiations are conducted between the German government and the Namibian government. The Namibian Government has set up advisory committees in order to include the Herero and Nama ethnic groups, which are particularly affected by the past, in the talks, he continues. The Namibian government has repeatedly underlined that everyone is welcome to take part. Some ethnic groups are taking part in the talks, but others refuse to join in.
As for returning remains from former East African colonies, he says that currently, no requests to this effect have been presented to the government of Germany by the governments of Burundi, Rwanda or Tanzania. In other words, if nobody asks, Germany will be content with the status quo. A century on, the wounds of the past are not yet about to be healed.
France acknowledged Thursday that it instigated a system that facilitated torture during Algerias independence war, a landmark admission about a conflict that remains hugely sensitive six decades on.
Emmanuel Macron the first president born after the conflict went further than any of his predecessors in recognising the scale of abuses by French troops during the 1954-62 war.
He made the announcement as part of an admission that the French state was responsible for the torture and death of mathematician Maurice Audin, a French Communist pro-independence activist who disappeared in Algiers in 1957.
Visiting Audins widow, Macron also announced that France would open up its archives on the thousands of civilians and soldiers who went missing during the war, both French and Algerian.
Josette Audin, now in her eighties, tried to thank Macron during an emotional visit to her apartment in Bagnolet east of Paris.
But he replied: Its for me to ask your forgiveness, so dont say anything.
In a statement, the presidency said the special powers given to the army to restore order in Algeria laid the ground for some terrible acts, including torture.
During the bloody war, which claimed some 1.5 million Algerian lives and ended 130 years of colonial rule, French forces cracked down on independence fighters and sympathisers, with a French general later admitting to the use of torture.
Independence fighters also mistreated prisoners during a complex conflict characterised by guerrilla warfare, which left deep scars in the national psyche.
France censored wartime newspapers, books and films that claimed it was using torture, and atrocities by its troops have remained a largely taboo subject.
But on Thursday, the government declared, There can be no liberty, equality and fraternity without the search for truth.
Recognition, not repentance
Previous presidents of the left and right had taken cautious steps to acknowledge French wrongdoing in Algeria, without openly apologising.
In 1998, Jacques Chirac acknowledged the massacre of civilians in the town of Setif in 1945, and in 2012 Francois Hollande recognised the suffering caused by the colonisation.
But by acknowledging that France instituted a system that facilitated torture, and deciding to open the archives, Macron broke new ground, historian Patrick Garcia told AFP.
Beyond the symbolic case of Maurice Audin there is a much bigger and important gesture, he told AFP, calling it a milestone.
But he stressed that what Macron had announced was a policy of recognition, not of repentance.
Its not about beating ourselves up about it, its about recognising what took place.
Macron had sparked controversy on the campaign trail last year by declaring that Frances colonisation of Algeria was a crime against humanity.
He later walked back the comments, calling for neither denial nor repentance over Frances colonial history and adding: We cannot remain trapped in the past.
The far-right National Rally, previously known as the National Front, reacted indignantly to his latest remarks on Algeria.
What is the point of the president opening old wounds by bringing up the Maurice Audin case? asked its leader Marine Le Pen, whose ex-paratrooper father Jean-Marie the partys founder served in the war.
Algerias Minister for Ex-Combattants Tayeb Zitouni, by contrast, called Macrons remarks a positive step.
Secrets and lies
Audins disappearance had long been a source of speculation in France.
I never thought this day would come, his widow Josette told reporters before Macrons arrival at her home.
An assistant professor at the University of Algiers, Audin was 25 when he was arrested at his home and accused of harbouring independence fighters.
The father of three was tortured repeatedly in a villa in the Algiers neighbourhood of El Biar.
Josette was told 10 days later that her husband had escaped while being transferred between jails.
This remained the official version of events until 2014, when Macrons predecessor Francois Hollande acknowledged that Audin died in detention.
While Macron acknowledged the state was responsible for his death, the exact circumstances of his disappearance remain unclear.
A 2014 book by journalist Jean-Charles Deniau claimed the mathematician was killed by a French army officer on the orders of General Jacques Massu.
That order was confirmed by another general, Paul Aussaresses, who died in 2013 and who admitted to torturing and killing dozens of prisoners.
Fact-based market research, penetrating industry insights and validated forecasts to help you make better decisions for a stronger future
Research Report on Netherlands Footwear Market Size and Forecast by Type (Men, Women, Children), by Distribution Channel (Online, Offline) And Trend Analysis, 2015 2025
13 September 2018, Netherlands Footwear Market is expected to be valued at USD 2.49 Billion by 2025, driven by an increase in the demand more stylish and good quality products. Growth in consumption pattern, strong improvement in labour market coupled with increasing presence of online retailers in the country is expected to increase the sales of footwear through online channels over the projected period. According to the data from 2011, the Netherlands has approximately 15.4 million 15.9 million internet users, which represents 92% 94% of the total population which in turn is expected to have positive impact on online channel.
In terms of sales, leather segment dominates the footwear industry whereas, in terms of volume, sandal and textile footwear dominates the Netherlands footwear industry
Growing urbanization coupled with rising disposable income is expected to be a key driver for the rise in purchasing power of local Netherlands people. However, highly priced shoe products from multinational brands are expected to hamper the overall footwear segment, but sophisticated adults as well as millenials are ready to pay premium prices for the good quality material used in making footwear.
Netherlands footwear segment is dominated by women owing to majority population of females in Netherlands with a share of 50.3 %. Furthermore, women shoes come with wide variety of styles such as gems, metals, fabrics, feather, etc. Increase in the number of people procuring goods online especially on mobile is expected to increase owing to growing awareness of social media which is expected to increase the demand for footwear over the foreseeable future.
New trend of introducing new technologies, more creative footwear, and better design is expected to display further positive effect on Netherlands footwear industry. Most of the websites in Netherlands focus on fashion & living hence the market competition is expected to get even more stiffer over the projected period, leading to product innovation and investment in R&D
Browse Details of Report @ https://www.hexaresearch.com/research-report/netherlands-footwear-market
Hexa Research has segmented the Netherlands footwear market report based on product type and distribution channel:
Segmentation by Type
Men
Women
Children
Segmentation by Distribution Channel
Online
Offline
Key players analyzed:
Asics
Under Armour
Nelson Schoenen
Ecco
Dune Group
Browse Related Category Reports @ https://www.hexaresearch.com/research-category/consumer-goods-industry
About Us:
Hexa Research is a market research and consulting organization, offering industry reports, custom research and consulting services to a host of key industries across the globe. We offer comprehensive business intelligence in the form of industry reports which help our clients obtain clarity about their business environment and enable them to undertake strategic growth initiatives.
More Information Visit @ www.hexaresearch.com
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2018 - 2019 drilling campaign to target improved Mineral Resource classification and growth
Bankable Feasibility Study Drilling Campaign and Project Optimisation Studies
Sydney, Sep 13, 2018 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Cobalt Blue Holdings Limited ( ASX:COB ) ( OTCMKTS:CBBHF ) announces Bankable Feasibility Study commences with drilling campaign and project optimisation studies.KEY POINTS:- Following completion of a Pre-Feasibility Study (PFS), the Thackaringa Cobalt Project has entered the Bankable Feasibility Study (BFS) phase. We are pleased to update the market on progress.- Cobalt Blue Holdings Limited ( ASX:COB ) is commencing the largest single drilling campaign at Thackaringa - in excess of 15,000 metres will be drilled over the coming six months. Previously, between 2H 2016 and 1H 2018, COB has drilled a total of 20,445 metres (38 diamond drill holes, 93 RC drill holes, and 3 RC drill holes with diamond tails) over three campaigns.- Updated Resource Model due end Q2 2019.2018-2019 Drilling Program Aims:The drilling campaign has five broad aims:- Improved Mineral Resource classification - defining Measured Resources.- Growth of Mineral Resources - exploration along margins of existing mineralised bodies.- Confirmation of the location of infrastructure and site layout - geotechnical and hydrogeological drilling for project infrastructure and process plant civil works.- Overburden definition - identification of oxide and/or transition layer(s).- Blue-sky exploration - follow up previously identified geophysical anomalies.Improved Resource ClassificationBased on the results of the PFS, COB is aiming to define a component of Measured Mineral Resources. This will require in-fill drilling at approximately 40 metre spacing to improve geological confidence and data density. During the BFS Mining Study, Measured Mineral Resources will be evaluated for conversion to Proven Ore Reserves. Typically, the target quantity for Proven Ore Reserves would be sufficient to fulfil the initial 3 to 5 year period of the proposed project production, as defined in the BFS.Additional in-fill drilling will target improved classification of Inferred to Indicated Mineral Resources. Indicated Mineral Resources will be evaluated for conversion into Probable Ore Reserves during the BFS Mining Study.Mineral Resource GrowthIn the upcoming campaign, COB is aiming to increase the Inferred Mineral Resources by targeting down-dip extensions at the Pyrite Hill deposit and shallow strike extensions at the Big Hill and Railway deposits. As part of the BFS, COB is targeting a 20+ year mine life with growth of the overall Mineral Resource a key component of achieving this target. For clarity, future additional drilling campaigns are expected to be undertaken following completion of the 2H 2018 to 1H 2019 program which is described in this announcement.Exploration targets identified for current and future phases of exploration drilling are summarised in Table 1(see link below), and the location of these targets with respect to the Mineral Resources are shown in Figures 1, 2 and 3(see link below).Oxidation Boundary DefinitionCOB will drill near-surface holes to better define the oxide and/or transition oxide-sulphide layers which represent shallow overburden (10-25 metres) on top of the fresh sulphide ore. To date (in the PFS and Scoping Study), oxidised and partially oxidised material was excluded from the reported Mineral Resources and subsequently proposed mining and processing studies. The drilling campaign will identify if any cobalt is present through the oxidation profile, and if so, related metallurgical studies will then be undertaken.Infrastructure and Site LayoutIn support of continuing technical studies commissioned for the broader BFS, COB will complete additional drilling for the purposes of geotechnical, hydrological and hydrogeological assessment related to infrastructure, mining and process plant planning.Blue-sky explorationIn September 2017, the entire project area (63km2) was surveyed using a heliborne electromagnetic (EM) survey (VTEM-Max) at a nominal 100 metre line spacing. Several strong EM responses outside of the existing Mineral Resources (Pyrite Hill, Railway Deposit and Big Hill) were recorded and have now been cross-checked with coincident geophysical (Induced Polarisation) and geochemical anomalism (see Figure 4 in link below). In the upcoming drilling campaign, COB will undertake some preliminary drilling at these targets during the proposed program.We look forward to keeping the market informed as the campaign results become available during Q4 2018 and Q1 2019. An updated Mineral Resource statement is due by the end of Q1 CY2019.Over the period 2H CY 2016 to 1H CY2018, COB has delivered a 118% increase in total Mineral Resource tonnes and a 124% increase in contained cobalt (inclusive of Indicated and Inferred Mineral Resource classifications). This growth in total Mineral Resources and improvement of classification is shown in Figure 5(see link below).The Thackaringa Cobalt ProjectThe Thackaringa Cobalt Project (the Project) is located approximately 23 km west-southwest of Broken Hill and comprises four tenements for a total area of 63 km2. The project is subject to a farm-in agreement between COB and Broken Hill Prospecting Limited ( ASX:BPL ) ( OTCMKTS:BPLNF ).The tenements host three large tonnage cobalt-bearing pyrite deposits with a reported Mineral Resource of 72 million tonnes at 852ppm cobalt (Co), 9.3% sulphur (S) & 10% iron (Fe) for 61Kt contained cobalt (at a 500ppm cobalt cut-off).The Mineral Resource estimate at Thackaringa is apportioned to the three main deposits as detailed in Table 2(see link below).Thackaringa Project Optimisation StudiesCOB is progressing several option studies identified in the PFS. These opportunities are explained below:Target Revenue Increases:- Life of Mine: The production target identified in the PFS provided an initial mine life of 12.8 years at a steady-state throughput of 5.25 million tonnes per annum ore. This mine life is limited largely by current available geological information, rather than economic factors. In other words, the mineral resource of 72 million tonnes limited the production target and remains the most significant upside factor in our focus. Given that the development capital is largely expended in the early years of the project, increasing mine life will drive significant free cash flow generation for the project. Our aspirational target is a 20+ year project and for shareholders this is a substantially different investment. The market can expect a mineral resource update by the end of Q1 2019.- Cobalt and Sulphur Recoveries: The PFS assumed a conservative 85.5% cobalt recovery (in ground to payable metal), including (negative) allowances for scale-up from the existing laboratory testwork results of 88.5% metal recovery. Our long-term target is to achieve a 90% cobalt recovery. A bulk test work program is being commissioned that will enable COB to undertake more detailed marketing studies and build confidence with potential commercial partners. The market can expect an update on recoveries by the end of Q2 2019.Target Cost Reductions:- Power: The PFS identified that approximately 22% of operational cash costs were related to grid power consumption.COB will perform the following power related studies - to be completed by end of Q2 2019:o Optimising waste heat capture and re-use - how much energy can be recycled?o Optimising the daily load profile - how much peak energy can be avoided?o Distributed energy generation and storage - how much energy can be generated on-site? Can energy storage (e.g.: Li-ion batteries) be used effectively to shift demand away from peak time-of-day prices?- Process Plant Tailings: Tailings and associated handling represented approximately 10% of operational cash costs in the PFS. COB is undertaking optimisation studies which are expected to be completed by early Q4 2018.Independent Review - Wood PLCIn parallel with the above studies, Wood PLC (formerly AMEC Foster Wheeler), a leading global engineering firm, has been engaged to provide a gap analysis review of the PFS. This review, expected to be finalised shortly, will help shape the BFS scope and ensure that critical study areas are being addressed with appropriate resources.To view tables and figures, please visit:About Cobalt Blue Holdings Limited
Cobalt Blue Holdings Ltd (ASX:COB) is an exploration and project development company focussed on green energy technology. Work programs are advancing to enable an upgrade of the Mineral Resource at the Thackaringa Cobalt Project in New South Wales to include Measured Resources.
Cobalt is a strategic metal in strong demand for new generation batteries, particularly lithium-ion batteries now being widely used in clean energy systems.
Potential to extend the Mineral Resource at Pyrite Hill, Big Hill, Railway and the other prospects is high. Numerous other prospects within COBs tenement package are at an early stage and under-explored.
National Women's Healthcare Provider Deeply Troubled by Selection of New Planned Parenthood President Contact: Brandi Swindell, 208-867-1307; Danielle Versluys, 909-213-5339
BOISE, Idaho, Sept. 12, 2018 /Christian Newswire/ -- Stanton Healthcare says Leann Wen will continue Planned Parenthood's failed and tragic policies regarding women's health.
Stanton Healthcare provides professional, compassionate, quality healthcare to women, especially those struggling with unexpected pregnancies. Stanton's goal is to provide the highest standard of care to women as they work toward replacing Planned Parenthood with clinics that are focused on true women's health care and not abortion.
Brandi Swindell, Founder and CEO of Stanton Healthcare states; "Every woman in America should be troubled by the appointment of Leann Wen as the new President of Planned Parenthood, the world's largest abortion provider. Every day our clinics see women who have been exploited and treated like a commodity by Planned Parenthood.
"Women deserve better than Planned Parenthood and will receive better health care at clinics not associated with the abortion industry. Regardless of the intentions of Dr. Wen, she cannot save an organization that betrays women, cuts critical healthcare services, and misleads the public on the services they provide.
"If Dr. Wen truly cared about the health of America's women, the last organization she would lead would be Planned Parenthood." Danielle Versluys, COO of Stanton Healthcare comments; "Planned Parenthood claims to be an expert on women's health while their preventative services have dropped tremendously nationwide. For example, from 2006 to 2016, breast exams have dropped at Planned Parenthood by 62%. Cancer screenings have dropped by 67%, and pap tests are down 74%. While taxpayer funding of Planned Parenthood grew by 61%, the number of actual patients served dropped by 23%.
"Sadly during this time, abortions at Planned Parenthood have increased by 11%.
"Instead of throwing taxpayer funds down the money pit of an unethical organization, public resources should be directed to federally licensed community clinics and other reputable healthcare providers." For more information or interviews, contact Brandi Swindell at 208-867-1307 or Danielle Versluys at 909-213-5339.
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BAKERSFIELD, Calif. - Six are dead, including the gunman, following a mass shooting in Bakersfield on Sept. 12.
The violence started on Wednesday night at a trucking business. Reports say that a man and his wife were arguing. The argument escalated and resulted in him killing her and another man.
A bystander tried to get involved and shoot the gunman, but was shot dead as well.
The gunman also went to a nearby home and killed two more people.
According to police, the gunman then hijacked a car with a woman and child inside to try and make an escape. When deputies closed in on the suspect, he then shot himself.
The killing spree lasted about 15 minutes and police are still investigating the motive behind the violent attacks.
The names of the suspect and victims have not yet been released.
Stay with KHSL Channel 12 and actionnewsnow.com for the latest updates as they become available.
This book reveals the tragedy of the HPV vaccine scandal.
Dr. Luc Montagnier, Nobel Prize Winner for Discovery of HIV
The HPV Vaccine on Trial: Seeking Justice for a Generation Betrayed paints a devastating picture of corporate and government conflicts of interest, negligence, and malfeasance in approving and promoting human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines, touted to prevent cervical and other cancers. Coming out on the heels of recent New York Times revelations about astounding financial conflicts of interest at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, this groundbreaking book highlights the lack of transparency, manipulated science, and abuse of state power to market this medical juggernaut, already raking in over $2.5 billion per year.
Authors Holland, Rosenberg, and Iorio conclude:
HPV vaccines have never been proven to prevent cancer of any kind.
No participants in the original HPV clinical trials received true saline placebos.
The clinical trials never investigated the vaccines possible effects on human fertility or potential to cause cancer.
The clinical trials show that the vaccines contribute to HPV lesions, and potentially cancer, in some women. Despite this, neither the manufacturers nor government agencies recommend prescreening to eliminate those with clear risk factors.
Although the vaccine is targeted for 11-12-year-old children, only a small fraction of clinical trial subjects was in this age range.
Lawsuits against HPV vaccine manufacturers and government health agencies are progressing around the world, including the US, India, Japan, Colombia, Spain, and France.
The US government earns millions in royalties from Merck and GSK, the vaccine manufacturers, for its role in the invention of HPV vaccine technology.
Although the US government proclaims HPV vaccines safe and effective, it has paid out millions of dollars to compensate families for death, brain injury, multiple sclerosis, ulcerative colitis, and other severe, debilitating conditions.
With praise from some of the worlds leading scientists on aluminum, autoimmunity, and vaccines, this book fills a critical void, giving people information they need to make commonsense decisions about this vaccine. Written in plain language, The HPV Vaccine on Trial ultimately is about how industry, government, and medical authorities may be putting children in harms way.
About the Authors
Mary Holland, M.A., J.D., is on the faculty at NYU School of Law, directs its Graduate Lawyering Program, and lives in New York City.
Kim Mack Rosenberg, J.D., is a lawyer in private practice and lives in New York City.
Eileen Iorio has practiced in the financial and health fields and lives outside New York City.
To request a review copy or to arrange an interview with the author, please contact:
Nick Magliato / (212) 643-6816 x 225 / nmagliato@skyhorsepublishing.com
The HPV Vaccine on Trial: Seeking Justice for a Generation Betrayed
By Mary Holland, M.A., J.D.; Kim Mack Rosenberg, J.D.; Eileen Iorio
Skyhorse Publishing paperback, also available as an ebook
On Sale: October 2, 2018 / $19.99
ISBN: 9781510710801
In 2018, Microsoft wants everyone to make Windows 10 their official operating system. But with some users keen on Windows 7, you can still continue enjoying the nine-year-old software if youre a loyal useras security updates have been extended.
Microsoft had initially announced its plans to get Windows 10 onto one billion devices by 2018, but about 40 percent of all Windows PCs and laptops are still running Windows 7.While some of these loyalist are home users, most are businesses.
Already, Microsoft pulled the plug on Windows Vista support on April 11, 2017, and Windows XP hasn't gotten any security patches for a long time now. However, in the wake of multiple cyberattacks (particularly ransomware attacks), Microsoft had taken the unusual step of issuing a security patch for both outdated operating systems, because of the high risk and the fact that millions of people are still using these versions of Windows.
Nonetheless, these updates came after the damage had been doneas the computers had already been infected. This is a major reason why it's highly recommended to use a newer version of Windows that receives automatic updates to help protect yourcomputer from disaster.
However, Microsoft recently announced as part of the Extended Security Updates (ESU) plan that it would continue to provide security updates for users who want to continue running Windows 7, up until January 2013after initially announcing end-of-support for the OS on 14 January 2020. This ensure that Windows 7 operating systems still remains as secure as possible.
Unfortunately, this announcement doesnt necessarily apply toHome users as it applies only to Windows 7 Professional and Windows 7 Enterprise versionsmostly aimed at businesses.
In a new Microsoft 365 blog post, Microsoft announced that it will continue to offer IT support for Windows 7 in exchange for a monthly fee. This means that for Windows 7 users who want to continue receivingsecurity updates, theyd be tasked with paying a monthly fee.
Microsoft hasnt announced the specific amount to be paid yet but has said that the extended updates will be sold on a per-device basis and the price will increase each year. However, users can still run an antivirus package for added layer of protectionand use a Bitdefender coupon to save cost on security packages.
Also, the blog post noted that the extended service option will be available to all Windows 7 Professional and Windows 7 Enterprise customers in Volume Licensing, with a discount to customers with Windows software assurance.
The blog equally explained that Office 365 ProPlus will be supported on devices with active Windows 7 Extended Security Updates (ESU) through January 2023. This means that customers who purchase the Windows 7 ESU will be able to continue to run Office 365 ProPlus.
It's important to note that the ESU plan mostly applies to businesses than homes users. Nonetheless, if eventually the prices become too expensiveor youre running the Windows 7 Home versionthen its definitely not advisable to keep running Windows 7 OS past 14 January 2020, especially if your computer is still actively connected to the internet.
Microsoft already made an announcement for the Windows 10 October 2018 Update at IFA 2018which is the next major Windows 10 update.
"With this update, well be bringing new features and enhancements to the nearly 700 million devices running Windows 10 that help people make the most of their time," said Microsofts RoanneSones. "Well share more details about the update over the coming weeks."
"Were excited to bring even more experiences and innovation to our customers with the Windows 10 October 2018 Update," added Microsoft Corporate VP Erin Chapple.
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In 2016, dispatchers in my hometown of Mansfield a Rust Belt city in rural North Central Ohio fielded over 363 overdose-related police calls. The community organized an opiate response team, created to help individuals following an overdose, which could only respond to those experiencing their second overdose. Around the country, small towns and rural communities are making heroic efforts to prevent opioid-related overdose deaths. But matching action by the federal government has been lacking, leaving many rural communities without basic resources for effective treatment. Mansfield, like many rural communities, is over a one-hour drive from the nearest methadone clinic the only place in the United States where this life-saving medication can be prescribed and dispensed.
A decade into the opioid epidemic, there remains a well-documented shortage of access to methadone and the other medications for opioid addiction. This problem is most acute in small towns and rural communities like Mansfield. Methadone prescribing facilities tend to be concentrated in urban areas, and the availability of the drug steadily diminishes in the transition into suburban and rural areas, where health care funding and resources are spread over a greater geographic area.
Congress is currently considering a package of legislation to address the opioid epidemic. Any steps to expand access to treatment will be welcomed, but most indications suggest our legislators are still not broaching bold solutions on the scale with this national tragedy. They could start by following their own recommendations. The presidents commission on combating drug addiction and the opioid crisis earlier this year recommended all medications for opioid addiction be made available in every community.
In order to meet this mandate, the president and Congress should act to authorize approved providers at outpatient clinics to prescribe methadone. Granting this power to outpatient clinics such as federally qualified health centers and rural health clinics would vastly expand access to care. Reforming prescription rules at outpatient centers would bring the U.S. into line with existing systems in Australia and Canada. In both countries, this change expanded rural access to methadone by allowing approved primary care providers and pharmacies to prescribe and dispense methadone for opioid addiction.
Access to methadone is crucial because the three medications for opioid addiction naltrexone, buprenorphine, and methadone are not equivalent or interchangeable. Randomized controlled trials and other studies set in the community demonstrate methadone prevents overdose deaths when compared to those who receive no medication treatment. Buprenorphine and naltrexone are alternative medications, but as with any chronic disease, each medication has advantages and disadvantages, and methadone may be the best hope to reduce overdose risk for many individuals.
Many of the disadvantages of methadone result not from the drug itself but from how we as a nation control its distribution. Current regulations stipulate medication can only be prescribed by facilities approved by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. These facilities, or opioid treatment programs, must adhere to stringent standards. New program participants must present in person five to six days a week to receive their methadone dose. Barriers of mobility and cost make this process too burdensome for many clinics and individuals who would otherwise seek treatment.
The current rules governing methadone prescription also separate the medical management of opioid addiction from the rest of medical care, exacerbating the stigma around addiction and contributing to the counterproductive stereotype of methadone clinics as magnets for bad actors. This, in turn, fosters misconceptions in the broader community that feed resistance to effective treatment. Authorizing outpatient prescribing would reduce stigma by integrating the treatment of opioid addiction into the rest of our health care system a long overdue reform within the United States.
Given that lax prescription procedures played a role in aggravating our current opioid epidemic, resistance to easing methadone regulation is understandable. But innovations such as state prescription monitoring programs and successful outpatient distribution of buprenorphine within the United States demonstrate the risk can be mitigated. The success in Australia and Canada and similar programs in the United States provide models to expand access safely to rural areas. Fear of criminality, meanwhile, would dissipate as opioid treatment is integrated into our larger health care system.
Congress may be at perpetual loggerheads, but addressing the opioid epidemic is one issue that still generates bipartisan interest. Over 10 years ago, a center-right government in Portugal decriminalized most drug use and expanded access to treatment in the name of public order and safety while facing their own opioid epidemic. These reforms are now widely considered a success. As we continue to face our own opioid epidemic, its time for the president and Congress to take bolder action to ensure access to treatment. Reforming the regulation of methadone in order to expand access in rural communities like Mansfield, Ohio is a clear and achievable goal.
Paul Joudrey is an internal medicine physician.
Image credit: Shutterstock.com
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by John Stringer
Its being described as the biggest turmoil in Christchurch local body politics since CEO Tony Marryatts golden handshake back in 2011 that cost many city councillors their seats.
I speak of Eastgate. No, not the east side Christchurch mall in Linwood, but the kerfuffle between Council (alleged) staff and Cr David East (Coastal) and his fellow Coastal-Burwood community board politicians.
I grew up in Burwood. But its real claim to fame, is being one of the peas in that pod of devastated eastern suburbs neglected post-earthquakes. Yknow, that mayor Lianne Dalziel was once MP of (Chch East). Liquefaction, sand, derelict homes, wastelands of emptied streets and red zones and feral cats.
Mike Yardley, writing for STUFF/Press yesterday, opined
Councillor David East and three community board members, Kim Money, Tim Sintes and Darrell Latham, now find themselves the subject of Code of Conduct staff complaints and pending disciplinary action.
This has surprised many fatigued Christchurch residents as somewhat heavy-handed and rather reactionary by their Council. The more cynical are wondering, what is the CCC machine trying to distract ratepayers from? There are disciplinary hearings, threatened lawsuits, and Cr East has been stood down as chairman of an important regulatory committee (hes a very experienced local body councillor) by the mayor.
The main issues are these:
There is a Christchurch Replacement District Plan (born Dec. 2017).
Eastern suburban politicians have been pushing for special dispensation for eastern ratepayers regarding building activity due to their unique circumstances, an RDA or restricted discretionary activity.
There was an Independent Hearing Panel led by Sir John Hansen and Environment Court Judge Hassan who sat to consider, among other things, that building restrictions for eastern landowners were too onerous.
Cr East and other community leaders developed a policy which went forward to the IHP in drafts to help inform deliberations. At some stage someone removed a vital policy the omitted policy; it is alleged therefore the IHP was not fully informed.
Sir John replied to Cr East in a letter, saying My understanding is that while the RDA rule is included in the plan, the policy was at some stage omitted from the planning provisions. He also said,If this matter had been brought to our attention we [the IHP] would certainly have added the policy back into the plan. It would appear that the omission of the policy was known before our jurisdiction ceased.
The issue is WHO or WHAT omitted the policy from the plan which now affects planning consent rules for eastern developers and residents.
It has become an issue of transparent channels of power affecting ratepayers and their money (such as people paying for consents but getting turned down for various building activities). This Southshore couple in the area being discussed, is an example.
It then gets messy.
Eastern poli.s have for sometime used internal CCC channels to try and address these issues. They feel frustrated and stonewalled. So Cr East eventually called a press conference. Taking that action is very against his character and was not done lightly.
The take away line was tampering (someone tampered with the policy) which threw a feral cat in amongst local body stuffed pigeons.
CCC machinery then rounded on that breach (poli.s going public rather than utilising internal processes) which distracted from the serious allegations Cr East and his eastern posse had raised on behalf of their long-suffering residents. Yardley again, Council hierarchy wasted no time circling the wagons and rounding on the four members. Its prompted East to return fire against council staff, filing complaints over what he claims were intemperate character attacks on him.
You then had a war on two fronts: alleged internal tampering; poli.s not following process. One seems small cheese in comparison with the other.
Mike Yardley again, Easts dramatic press conference last week has served its purpose. It has forced the councils hand to front up
The word dramatic relates to the press conference inference it might have been Council staff who were responsible, which is what others believe motivated the disciplinary actions and censure to descend so quickly on the east by officials. But East never made that direct allegation and named no names. However, C&B community board chair Kim Money did. Council staff openly admitted at a meeting last month that they had deleted the clause from the plans final draft.
It gets more murky, in that Council staff knew the policy was not in the IHP draft when it should have been, so allegations are that they took no action to correct that fault as professional civil servants. This has led some to believe interests did not want to correct the error as it de facto served other interests. Yardley accused the Council of perceived spitefulness; not helped by inferences being made against Cr Easts character that prompted talk by the mild mannered Councillor of legal action.
Yardley is right. In the interests of trust, confidence and accountability, the public is owed an explanation [about how/who removed the policy].
To that end a series of public meetings are called, for last night and tonight, to lay out the issues transparently. District Plan Omission, How This Affects Us (eastern ratepayers); Recent Media Release (Cr Easts presser last week). Fliers have been printed. The predominant tone of the public response is one of rallying behind their local politicians, now viewed as champions against an oppressive Nanny State bureaucracy.
That might set a tone for the 2019 elections; the beginnings of an anti-Council sentiment along the lines of the Marryatt tsunami that swept several elected politicians away and brought in a fresh regime under Lianne Dalziel now on the flip side holding a different baby.
As the public now climbs into this local body debate via the public meetings, we shall see if there is any clarity, or whether trenches get dug, artillery is rolled in, and a war on two fronts beds down for a long attrition.
Reporter Chris Lynch, to whom PM Ardern made the obfuscated Clare Curran wasnt sacked (when shed already resigned) comments the day before, had this clarifying video with David East on ZB.
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by John Stringer.
Eastgate report, the public meetings in Christchurch.
More than 300 people attended the Eastgate public meeting in New Brighton on Tuesday and less on Wednesday at Redcliffs, in Christchurch. There were two councillors present, several community board members from across the city, the media, mayor Lianne Dalziel and city CEO Dr Karleen Edwards as well as half a dozen community residents groups.
At New Brighton it was standing room only.
Sir Tipene ORegan was present by way of a letter of support which was read out, saying the elected representatives under Code of Conduct disciplinary action by Council had Properly stood up to Council bureaucracyas they should(against) imperious sultans who seem to have misused their authority
There were several speakers who were all to the point.
Cr David East
outlined the main issues as he saw them and explained why hed gone public. He said the alleged tampering had heavily impacted local residentsdenying residents their legal rights and the economic loss (to them) could run in to the millions.
He said theyd had many meetings over many many months with Council but go nowhere. A policy of deny, defer, delay! Hed therefore raised his concerns with the Office of the Prime Minister and the Local Govt Minister and asked for an enquiry; an independent investigation to establish the reliability of the process and of the actions of the officials involved with Decision 53.
Cr David East and Sir John Hansen (IHP) had several correspondences regarding the onerous conditions of the District Plan and its effect on locals.
Hansen outlined the steps taken to arrive at Decision 53. There had been a minute to Council from the IHP to draw up new maps and effectively be the IHPs drafting body, despite CCC being opposed to the changes and/or that function. However it was done. The IHP still concluded the Plan was onerous and issued 53 granting relief by way of an RDA.
The RDA rule was in the Plan but the policy was omitted. Other changes and corrections were dealt with by Council as the drafting body for IHP but at no time was the omitted policy addressed.
Cr East likened that to a Law Clerk changing a Judges decision when drafting it up, because they did not personally like the Judges decision.
East said there had been a clear undermining of due process during the review of the Plan. There was also a clear statement from staff of their complicity, which came to attention through the community board.
East and his colleagues primary objective was to reinstate the missing clause.
Kim Money Chairman of Coastal-Burwood Community Board
said they all wanted Resolution and Restitutionthat it was an issue that had brought huge trauma to many families.
Weve brought this out into the public arena because it is unjust.
Tim Sintes, Deputy Chair C&B Community Board
Weve gone to CouncilIts so wrong (people not getting their consents after paying the Council thousands of dollars applying). Please fix it!Stop making our job (as Community Board members) so hard!
He expressed his frustration that residents came to them expecting help, but they felt stonewalled and hindered at Council process level.
There was huge applause from the 300 strong crowd at New Brighton when he asked, have we done the right thing? (going public, for which they are now under disciplinary proceedings).
The Rules are impossible to get round. Its criminal!
Darrell Latham, Linwood-Central-Heathcote Community Board
wanted to send a clear message to City Hall that they had a tiger by the trail. He called the issue Red zoning by stealth via the Residential Overlay; that it had caused considerable strain and stress on all of them (East, Money, Sintes, Latham). This issue is a couple of years old. It is finally being heard.
He outlined that residents had wished to remain anonymous to not prejudice their negotiations with Council as applicants, so they were relying on their elected representatives to be their public voice.
Latham criticised Minister Woods for praising the heart of the city was being restored with advancement on the Cathedral rebuild, but said, Time for the Minister to return the heart back in to the coastal suburbs using s.71.
He said their collective second priority was that this must never happen again. We dont want to be Weapons of Destruction but a force for good.
Warwick Schaffer NZ Coastal Residents Forum and local residents group
explained the details of the Clause, the Rule and Policy, put up a map of the (red zone) Residential Overlay and explained the consents restrictions on locals was due to the Coastal Hazards Policy (CHP). Essentially that is the risk of future flooding due to climate change. There was no present risk, and none of it related to the earthquakes, so he felt eastern suburbs were being unduly prejudiced in the Plan. They had submitted that future building in the east should not be restricted.
The IHP of three High Court judges agreed.
The Council favoured a ban on all future building inside the Residential Overlay because of this risk of climate change flooding. As the drafting body of IHP the IHP holds that Council was obliged to follow IHPs instructions.
Mr Schaffer put up a slide that showed the initial submissions which contained the policy, and then the final submission by Council which omitted it altogether and reworded a clause at variance with the policy. Schaffer said the policy was not just deleted but was rewritten. If true, that goes beyond some sort of simple clerical typo or error but deliberate tampering as alleged by Cr East.
The outcome was a void and no provision for development in the east.
The critical point is that residents having paid $25k or so for consents, Planners when reviewing their applications would see a void.
More digging in to this is required. We need to fix it now before we go into who did what. S. 71 is a good option.
Unfortunately under law, the District Plan is now locked and Council cannot change it off its own bat. The mayor made much of this point, blaming the previous government three times on this point. The process is they have to go to the Minister and seek change under a s.71 (the same as applied to variations over the moving of Redcliffs School also in the area).
The eastern members said the issue was in the staff and they needed elected members (Councillors, local MPs, community board members) to step in and help them.
Three Affected Members of the Public
A valuable insight was three speeches from affected locals.
A member of the Pier and Foreshore Society said they were all Undie Supported by Council and had hung 300 undies on the Brighton pier.
He said his family could not extend. Theyd bought in 2016, got geo reports, engineers reports, architects reports and there were absolutely no red flags. None from Council either. They had to vary their plans under direction from Council at more expense, but then found they were declined consent in contradiction to all their earlier advice. Cost: $8000 out of pocket.
People had left the area because they could not expand, say to address a growing family, so left the area.
An almost Retired Mum
cannot insure their eastern house in the Red Zone so she and her husband bought a Red Zone house and section next door for $90k as security in case their home burned down.
When buying there were no issues up to August 2017 via lawyers due diligence, no issues with the bank processes of analysis of risk who loaned them money to buy, no issues with a Master Builder. Council imposed certain foundational stipulations which upped their application costs and they lodged a consent application Feb 2018.
They were advised under s.37 they needed a further Resource Consent. Numerous further Geo Tech reports were added but they are advised under the current regime they are unlikely to be granted a building consent under the Plan. Cost out of pocket $27,749.80c almost 1/3 the value of their property (for nothing).
Almost Retired Mum said the issue was supposedly about the future risk of rising oceans not whether you can build or not, locally. We have a consent but cannot build and are still being charged rates against money weve borrowed to buy and build.
I want Council to have an open, honest and transparent communication process (when people are buying property to build or vary).
Father of Young Family
Said his issues were identical, his costs were: $26,000 out of pocket.
There were robust questions from the floor and mayor Dalziel addressed several of these, as did the CEO over the Code of Conduct issues, which grated with many of the public present. There is to be an informal meeting this Thursday to see if the parties can address that issue alone, in isolation and find a positive way forward.
There was a mixed response to some of the mayors answers and several speakers, including elected members, got up and contradicted statements she had made (particularly regarding her timing awareness of the issue).
Questions
A representative of the South Brighton Residents Assc said the public needed protection, by the Council, against $10,000 insurance raises alongside no ability to build or vary.
A drafter of a motion put to the meeting in support of the eastern elected members said s.15 of the Local Govt. Act unbound elected members from onerous Codes of Conduct and gagging orders, in that they had an elected role to contradict Council if that was in the interests of their residents.
The Mayor
The mayor has to be given credit for attending, as does the CEO, and at first never intended to speak, just to listen, but was specifically asked to by the public to respond.
She gave an undertaking to immediately fix the problem as best Council could, she supported an enquiry to find out how all this happened, she spoke of a Thursday meeting in Council this week to address the issue, and suggested an Order in Council might be the best way forward, to correct the Plan rather than amend it; A s.71 would take longer. Ms Dalziel said shed undertaken significant personal research on this, and spoken to the Minister of Local Government.
The CEO did not answer questions about the Code of Conduct proceedings retreating behind process when asked about details by the public.
~ JS
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There has been a lot of antitrust crusaders building major momentum in Washington, but so far, its still been theory and talk. The Verge reports that groups like Open Markets have made a strong case against big companies (especially the big tech companies) distorting the markets to drive out their competitors. They argue that a new standard for monopolies is needed, one that focuses more on skewed incentives produced by major companies like Google or Facebook and less on consumer harm.
Soon enough, these ideas will be put to test against one of these companies. For anti-monopolists, this would mean a chance to reshape the tech industry into something less destructive and more democratic. The question is which company makes the best target.
On that note, heres a look at four of the biggest targets in the antitrust crusade movement.
GOOGLE: THE CONGLOMERATE
The best model for tech antitrust is the DOJs anti-bundling case in the 90s against Microsoft. The Department of Justice argued that Microsoft was using its control over the PC market to force out competing browsers and operating systems.
The closest youll find to a contemporary equivalent is Google. Most days, Google or Alphabet (its parent company) is the most valuable company in the world by market cap. It has dozens of products supported by a comprehensive ad network. Google also has its committed and clear enemies with companies like Oracle, Yelp, Microsoft, and even the Motion Picture Association of America calling for the companys power to be restricted.
AMAZON: THE PLATFORM
Amazon is another company that makes life hard for its competitors and considering theyre in competition with just about everyone, it makes for a lot of competitors. The most popular example is the companys wholesale pillaging of Diapers.com in 2010. Amazon dropped their prices by as much as 30% and matched Diapers.com pricing move at every turn until the smaller company agreed to sell.
Recently, smaller retailers have stated that theyre being targeted and priced out by generics from Amazon Basics, which draws from Amazons wealth of data. Since Amazon has the money to out-discount any competition, theres not a lot that can be done about it. This laser focus on consumer benefits which usually translates to lower prices has made Amazon a major player in every market it has entered.
UBER: THE PRICE-FIXER
Uber may not be as scary as it once was (during the Kalanick years), however, it is still the largest crowd-labor platform and an essential piece of transportation infrastructure in over 600 cities globally. There are several ways that Uber can subtly manipulate the market for its own benefit. The most popular method being surge pricing, which adds a multiplier whenever the supply of nearby drivers is running low. Uber has recently switched to upfront pricing, however, they still have near total control over the cost of a given ride as well as how much of that money makes it back to their drivers.
FACEBOOK: THE STARFISH
Some may consider Facebook the most urgent case. It is opaque, inescapable, and wield a lot of power over the fundamental functions of our society. Facebooks power feels like an immediate threat more than any other tech giant, which makes it the most likely first target for a congressional action. Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) has put down twenty different measures thatll help rein in Facebook and the other tech giants. Some of these measures include GDPR-style data portability requirements to more carve-outs of Section 230.
By Dr. Tony Docan-Morgan
Sungju Lee's "Every Falling Star: The True Story of How I Survived and Escaped North Korea" (2016, Amulet Books) is a unique addition to the growing genre of English language memoirs written by North Korean refugees.Lee, with Susan McClelland, tells his story about growing up in an elite Pyongyang family and then at the age of 11 losing almost everything. Lee's work is particularly valuable as it traces his experience living as a kotjebi, or homeless street child in North Korea.After providing a brief history of 20th century Korea, Lee describes childhood living in a well-furnished home, idolizing Kim Il-sung, and attending school.Early on, he recalls the death of Kim Il-sung in 1994, as well as his family's "so-called northern holiday" (p. 22), where they board a train and enter a part of the country they had not seen before. Once they reach their new home in Gyongsong, Lee experiences many firsts lack of electricity, vanishing food rations, pervasive starvation, and a public execution.For Lee and his family, survival in Gyongsong becomes grueling. He quits school and his parents stop showing up at their assigned work duties, as they must scavenge for food. Lee's father shares his plan to bribe his way across the Chinese border to trade goods, and departs from the family. Lee's mother also leaves, indicating that she's going to visit her sister in Wonsan to find food.Without family, Lee's nightmares, loneliness, and starvation worsen. With few options, he turns to a group of his classmates, all of whom become kotjebi. Young-bum, one of Lee's primary school friends, introduces him to the bustling market scene, and they team up to steal food and won.After some success, they form a larger group in hopes of working together to persist against rival kotjebi gangs. Lee weaves plentiful detail into his story, including the gang's chain smoking, drinking, occasional infighting, and conversations about death, family, and dreams. Further, Lee's narrative centers largely around the theme of brotherhood.Lee and his gang eventually leave Gyongsong. They sneak onto a coal train that takes them to the outskirts of Chongjin, where they survive by stealing food from the market.Lee remarks, "Death was all around us. We'd enter the market in the mornings to find women wailing and rocking in their arms children who had died during the night ..." (p. 175).Later, they reached a market in Rajin-Sonbong, where they were challenged to another battle and lose one of their brothers, Myeongchul, in a brutal fight.Lee's doubts about North Korea's leadership are sprinkled throughout the memoir.He hears fictionalized accounts from others about his gang, and mentions, "I'd laugh when I'd hear these stories but then later wonder: Was this how Kim-Il-sung's childhood snowball into such an epic? Myeongchul's words came back to me: Folklore has a funny way of becoming truth" (p. 211).Later, Lee and his gang make their way for Hwasong where they are caught stealing from a pear farm and taken to the guhoso (detention center). Lee details the dismal living conditions, witnessing various forms of abuse and the sight of dead children. They end up escaping, but soon after lose another brother from a horrid beating.Lee and his gang eventually return to Gyongsong. At the end of February 2002, a man at the train station approaches Lee, claims to be his grandfather, and convinces Lee to come to his house in the mountains.Once there, Lee is astonished when he sees pictures of his mother and father. After settling in with his grandparents, a man delivers a note from Lee's father, asking Lee to meet him in China.Soon after, Lee decides to accompany the broker. They cross the Tumen River on the outskirts of Hweryong, Lee meets with another guide in China, and he spends nearly a week waiting for the next move.Lee and his guide board a train in Yanji, and equipped with a passport, he is led to board an airplane. Amid his confusion, Lee's plane lands in South Korea, where he is investigated and finally able to meet his father.In the epilogue, Lee tells of his struggles to assimilate in South Korean society, his educational pursuits, and ongoing work with refugees' human rights."Every Falling Star" is a valuable read for both specialists and non-specialists on North Korea. Lee's memoir is particularly noteworthy as it offers detailed insight about life in North Korea, loss, and survival.In addition to the well-written prose, the book offers a high degree of narrative coherence and merit. Further, Lee appears to meet his objective to inspire hope. He ends with a note about his mother: "She is still missing. My father and I search for her ever day. I will never give up hope that we will be reunited" (p. 307).Dr. Tony Docan-Morgan ( tdocan@uwlax.edu ) is a professor in the Department of Communication Studies at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, the U.S.
U.N. Is Called to Recognize Christian Genocide
This week, the United Nations Human Rights Council began its third (and last) regular session of the year, where a major ally of persecuted Middle Eastern Christians will again implore the U.N. to recognize the genocide of Syrian and Iraqi Christians. At the 39th UNHRC session, which runs from September 10 to September 28, the European Centre for Law and Justice will be presenting an appeal to the Council to recognize ISIS's ongoing, rampant persecution of Christians in Iraq and Syria as a "genocide," as it's enshrined in the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. The European Centre for Law and Justice (ECLJ) is the American Center for Law and Justice's European affiliate, and it has been a consistent advocate for persecuted minorities in the Middle East. Their testimony at this session will be their seventh declaring that ISIS is committing genocide against Christians and other religious and ethnic minorities. Before this, their most recent testimony was May 25, when they requested that the U.N. appoint a special adviser to lead an investigative team to collect and preserve evidence of the genocide. According to their written statement for the September 10th session, the declaration of genocide is necessary because it allows for aid that is otherwise unavailable for the victims, and it allows the U.N. to take the steps necessary to "fully halt the genocide and fulfill its responsibility to protect the victims." While many ISIS-controlled areas have been liberated in Syria and Iraq, Christians are returning to destitute towns without electricity, water, or a sense of security, with the threat of terror still looming. "The reality is we cannot stay without the U.S. or the U.N. helping to protect Nineveh directly," Father Afram al-Khoury Benyamen told Fox News after Sunday Mass in 2017 at St. George Cathedral, a 133-year-old church in Bahzani, Iraq. "With international protection, maybe we can remain, but if it doesn't come soon . . . we go." According to a study by Aid to the Church in Need, the treatment of Christians has worsened substantially in the past two years compared with the two years prior and is more violent now than at any other period in modern time. Between the onset of the Syrian war in 2012 and 2017, the number of Christians dropped from 1.5 million to 500,000. In Aleppo, Syria, which was home to Syria's largest Christian population, numbers fell from 150,000 to 35,000 by the spring of 2017, which is a drop of more than 75 percent. In Iraq, over half of the country's Christians are internal refugees, and the report predicts that Christianity in Iraq could be effectively wiped out by 2020 if the population continues to decline as it has in the past two years. Aid to the Church also accuses the U.N. and Western media of neglecting persecuted Christians: "At a time in the West when there is increasing media focus on the rights of people regardless of gender, ethnicity, or sexuality, it is ironic that in much of the secular media there should be such limited coverage of the massive persecution experienced by so many Christians." While the U.N. did appoint the special adviser, as the ECLJ requested, the U.N.'s declaration of the persecution of Christians in the region as "genocide" would be the most consequential step in facilitating and achieving lasting resettlement for the victims. ISIS's crimes against Christians include beheadings, burning victims alive in caskets, and rape. "No one cares about us, like we are not human," said one Christian survivor about the U.N.'s inaction. The Christians in Iraq and Syria are considered some of the oldest continuous Christian communities in the world, and in Iraq, the Assyrians and Chaldean Christians are the indigenous people and speak Eastern Aramaic. Thomas the Apostle and Mar Addai brought Christianity to Iraq in the first century. Residents of Syria's ancient Christian town of Maaloula also speak Aramaic, the language of Christ; Maaloula is among the last communities in the world to speak the nearly extinct language. "The U.N. must defend the rights of all religious minorities, including the Christians in Iraq, Syria, and any other place where ISIS has been engaging in genocide -- without delay," notes the ECLJ testimony for the current session. "The very mission of this organization requires nothing less."
US Military Cancels 300 Million USD Financial Aid to Pakistan. (Photo Credit: ANI)
Islamabad, Sep 12 (PTI) Prime Minister Imran Khan Wednesday visited for the first time the headquarters of the Pakistan's spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) where he was briefed on various strategic intelligence and national security matters.
Khan paid his first visit to the ISI Headquarters in Islamabad after becoming the prime minister, the army said in a statement.
He was briefed in details on various strategic intelligence and national security matters by the senior security officials, it added.
Khan said that government and people of Pakistan firmly stand behind their armed forces and intelligence agencies.
Khan's cabinet ministers were also with him during the visit.
Earlier, Army Chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa and ISI Director General Lt Gen Naveed Mukhtar received Khan on his arrival.
(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
Within a day of the new session of the United Nations Human Rights Committee, representatives of India and Pakistan have clashed over human rights in Kashmir.
In her opening statement, the new human rights commissioner Michelle Bachelet had highlighted the lack of action taken on the report on Kashmir by her predecessor. Piggy backing on Bachelets statement, Pakistan on Tuesday said that it shared Bachelets anguish over Kashmir and lent its support to her demand for implementing the reports recommendations.
Responding to the comments, First Secretary Mini Devi Kumam in a statement on Wednesday said India rejected Pakistans futile efforts to rake up the issue of Jammu and Kashmir, including through repeated references to the motivated and fallacious report rejected by India. The entire state of Jammu and Kashmir is an integral and inalienable part of India, she said.
Rejecting Pakistans attempt to rake up the Jammu and Kashmir issue, India wondered if it was not an irony that a country, which protected and sheltered global terrorists like Osama Bin Laden and Mullah Omar, was raising human rights concerns.
Even as we approach 10 years of Mumbai terrorist attacks, their perpetrators continue to roam freely in Pakistan. The fact that UN proscribed terrorist entities and individuals actively campaigned and contested in the recently held elections reflects the deplorable state of affairs in Pakistan.
in #HRC39 The entire State of Jammu and Kashmir is an integral and inalienable part of India| Terrorism originating from Pakistan remains the biggest threat to regional and global peace and security| ++read: https://t.co/QRJTnRSVPY pic.twitter.com/rt4c2ldqoX India at UN, Geneva (@IndiaUNGeneva) September 12, 2018
The biggest challenge facing India was unrelenting cross-border terrorism from Pakistan, said Kumam, questioning its dismal human rights record. India rejected the reference to Jammu and Kashmir made by Pakistan on behalf of the 53-member Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, saying it has no locus standi to comment on the internal affairs of India.
She said no amount of hyperbole could hide the dismal human rights record of Pakistan, which has been systematically violating the rights and freedoms of people of Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK), including exploitation of their natural resources. Extrajudicial killings and disappearances in Sindh, Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa continue to be the order of the day.
(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Sep 13, 2018 06:08 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).
Patna, Sep 13: The Bihar government on Thursday announced an interim relief of Rs 1 lakh to the victims of mob lynching. According to a tweet by ANI, the Nitish Kumar government in the state said it will give an additional 2 lakhs after the investigation into the lynching incident is completed. The tweet further added saying that the matters in this regard will be heard in a fast track court within a time period of 6 months.
In the last week, six incidents of mob lynching have been reported across the state. These incidences have raised concerns about the law and order machinery in the state. According to reports, the Bihar police earlier this week had registered an FIR against 150 people in a mob lynching case in Sitamarhi district.
#Bihar govt announces an interim relief of Rs 1 lakh to the victims of mob lynching & will give additional 2 lakhs after the investigation is complete. The matters in this regard will be heard in a fast track court within a time period of 6 months. ANI (@ANI) September 13, 2018
On Sunday, a 24-year-old man was lynched by a mob in Sitamarhi district following an allegation of a pick-up van driver that he had snatched money from the latter. According to a report by PTI, Jha was assaulted by a group of villagers near Ramnagra village, in the Riga police station area, after he had an altercation with the driver on Sunday, Veer Dhirendra, a Deputy SP (Sitamarhi Sadar), told PTI.
(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Sep 13, 2018 09:29 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).
Kolkata, Sep 13: A Chinese envoy on Wednesday proposed a bullet train service between Kunming in southwestern China and Kolkata in West Bengal. Ma Zhanwu, Chinese consul general in Kolkata, said China is 'looking forward' for a bullet train service connecting Kunming and Kolkata via Dhaka in Bangladesh and Myanmar.
"We are looking forward to bullet trains from Kolkata to Kunming. The whole of Asia will be connected, said Zhanwu while addressing a conference on connectivity and trade relations between China and India. "If the project becomes a reality, it will take only two hours to complete the 2,000-km journey, compared with flights that take almost two hours and 30 minutes," Zhanwu added. India to Purchase 18 Bullet Trains From Japan for Rs 7,000 Crore.
The Chinese diplomat said the bullet train project would give a thrust to the proposed Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar (BCIM) economic corridor that is scheduled to run through Mandalay in Myanmar, Chittagong and Dhaka in Bangladesh terminating in Kolkata. He said the project figured in the Greater Mekong Subregion meet in Kunming in 2015.
Describing India as a rising economy, Zhanwu said China wants a stable relationship with all neighbours. He praised India by saying that despite a decline in value of the rupee, the rise of Indian economy is irreversible. The envoy added that Chinese policies like the Belt and Road Initiative are mainly designed for extensive discussion and shared benefits with neighbouring countries like India and "not to conquer them".
Meanwhile, the government has started working on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's dream project of a bullet train between Ahmedabad and Mumbai. As per plans, the 508 km-long and India's first Bullet Train project will cost around Rs 108,000 crore which will be constructed with a soft loan from Japan.
(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Sep 13, 2018 10:53 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).
Lucknow, Sep 13: Sleuths of Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) of Uttar Pradesh on Thursday arrested an alleged terrorist of Hizbul Mujahideen from Kanpur. The identity of the suspected terrorist has not been revealed. The accused had plans to carry out terror activities on the ocassion of Ganesh Chaturthi, Uttar Pradesh Director General of Police (DGP) OP Singh told media.
"The ATS has arrested a Hizbul Mujahideen terrorist from Kanpur. He apparently had plans to attack on occasion of Ganesh Chaturthi. During questioning he told us that he had gone for training to Kashmir in April 2017. He is of Indian nationality and is a literate person," the top cop said. Further details are awaited.
Last year in March, a suspected terrorist, Saifullah, was killed in an encounter with the ATS officers. Saifullah, who is said to be behind the Ujjain train blast, was killed in a house on the outskirts of Lucknow after a 12-hour long operation.
UP Polices ADG (Law and Order) Daljit Chaudhary in a press conference later said that Saifullah was self-radicalised and added that the police has no such evidence yet of his link with the ISIS.
(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Sep 13, 2018 04:03 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).
Lucknow, Sep 13: Four students of two private engineering colleges have alleged that they were tricked into escort services after being hired for tuition by an online agency. They said they were forced to give body massage to women. According to the students, the agency threatened and blackmailed them when they complained. The agency also took Rs 30,000 from each in the name of providing a job.
According to the complaint, the students found 'home tuitions' advertisement for college students on the internet. They registered themselves along with Rs 10,000 fee and appeared for a telephonic interview. The tuition-provider company also took details of their bank, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts. The students were then asked to deposit Rs 20,000 as security money. Once the amount was paid, they were given 'tuition task'; however, what happened next left them shocked.
One of the complainants said when he reached the address given by the agency, he found it was a starred hotel. I reached there carrying notebooks and pens for giving tuition but what I got was appalling. In the dim-lit room, suddenly I was surrounded by women speaking in a husky voice. I guessed that I was not at the right place," he told the police, as reported by Times of India.
"In the meanwhile, a woman came to me and shoved me into another room which was completely dark. I was asked to give body massage to the women reclining on couches and bed," he added in the complaint. Other students also experienced the same situation. When they called the numbers given by the agency, they were, and that their social media and other accounts would be hacked, they alleged.
Helpless students then filed a complained in the cyber cell of the Lucknow police. We are tracing the phone numbers to track the location of callers and then will start ground operations," cyber cell in charge Abhay Mishra told the newspaper.
(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Sep 13, 2018 01:27 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).
Vietnam has urged its citizens to stop eating dog meat in an effort to protect the city's reputation. The Hanoi People's Committee said the practice could "negatively impact the image of a civilized and modern capital." The city's website published the message urging its people to stop consuming dog meat. It also tells people to stop having cat meat, which is less popular.
Suu also instructed local governments to raise awareness about the risk of rabies on consuming dog or cat meat. The move is a part of an effort to eradicate rabies in Vietnam by 2021. Vietnamese consume dog as it is believed that the meat increases stamina and the dish is considered a delicacy. UK Prime Minister Theresa May Under Pressure to Ban Killing of Dogs and Their Consumption
According to a report in Independent, Hanoi has a total of 4,93,000 dogs and cats of which 10 per cent are raised for commercial purposes, mostly meat. While people believe that cooking dog properly wipes off the risk of rabies. This year, three people died due to rabies and two others were infected as per official figures.
Vietnamese on social media welcomed the decision however the habit is a deep-rooted one which people cannot easily give up. However, a growing number of people are against the killing of dogs or cats for meat. Meanwhile, some said that banning the dish could amount to curtailing of their freedom and instead heavy taxes should be levied on it. Hanoi is quite known for their street food and receives tourists from across the world.
(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Sep 13, 2018 05:48 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).
In a historic vote, European legislators voted against Hungary to launch censure action against its government over alleged breaches of the European Union's core values.
It is the first time that the parliament has launched the EU disciplinary process against a member state, known as Article 7. This rarely invoked process is designed to prevent member states from breaching the EU's "core values." The vote comes nine months after the European Commission used its power to launch the same process against Poland.
With 448 votes in favour, 197 against and 48 abstentions, the motion was passed in the plenary session on September 12. This vote exposes the growing divide in parts of Europe about the policies pursued by Hungary's nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
Since coming to power, Viktor Orban's government has taken a hardline stance against immigration and asylum seekers. It put up borders to prevent asylum seekers from entering the country and introduced a law which made it a criminal offence for lawyers and activists to help asylum seekers, under the banner of "facilitating illegal immigration". The law targets rights groups and NGOs and allows banning of organisations. In addition to the bill, the Hungarian parliament also passed a constitutional amendment stating an "alien population" cannot be settled in Hungary.
The vote in Strasbourg, France, came after a report from Dutch Green member of the European Parliament Judith Sargentini raised concerns about Hungary's erosion of democracy in recent years, including putting pressure on courts, widespread corruption, crackdown on the media and academic institutions.
Orban addressed the European Union parliament on Tuesday in defence of his government, labeling the threat of censure as a form of "blackmail" and an insult to Hungary. He labeled Sargentinis report as an "abuse of power", and included "serious factual misrepresentations".
The vote against Hungary is symbolic of the growing tug-of-war in Europe between humanitarian values and increasingly nationalistic ones. For example, British Conservative legislators voted in favour of Orban as the Theresa May government is looking to exit the EU. One of the primary motivators for those who voted for Brexit was the migration of people from Europe to the UK. Similarly, the stance being taken by the Orban government is also being echoed in other countries such as Italy.
(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Sep 13, 2018 03:58 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).
Is Pakistans prime minister paying obeisance to his masters? It sure sounds like it. During his first visit to the headquarters of Pakistans powerful Inter-Services Intelligence, Imran Khan called the ISI as "our first line of defence".
Khan, along with senior Cabinet ministers, was briefed on Wednesday on the various strategic intelligence and national security matters by the senior officials of the Inter-Services Intelligence, an official statement said.
"The Prime Minister lauded contributions of the ISI towards national security especially in the ongoing counter terrorism effort. The Prime Minister said that the ISI is our first line of defence and stands out as best intelligence agency of the world," the statement issued by the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the media wing of the military said.
Khan told ISI officials that his government and the people of Pakistan firmly stood behind the armed forces and intelligence agencies and acknowledged the "unprecedented achievements" of these institutions, the statement said.
Khan, who was sworn-in as the countrys 22nd Prime Minister on August 18, has been accused of being an establishment candidate during the general elections he was chosen by Pakistans military and intelligence establishment and his campaign was supported by them. Pakistans general elections were not free and fair as noted by international establishments.
Along with covert support to Imran Khans campaign, the military establishment reportedly worked to discredit and divide the PML-N, Nawaz Sharifs party. Sharif is considered to be anti-establishment as he tried to curb the Armys power during his term as prime minister as well as work independently in matters of foreign relations.
Nawaz Sharif, has since then been arrested and tried for his ownership of properties in London. His daughter too has been sentenced to seven years in prison.
Over the decades, Pakistans military establishment has strengthened its grip over the countrys administration. Whether directly or indirectly, the army has ruled the country since the first Pakistani army chief Ayub Khan staged a coup in October 1958. It has also become intertwined with its economy and has reportedly courted the judiciary to its side. In her 2007 book Military Inc: Inside Pakistans Military Economy, Dr Ayesha Siddiqa estimates the militarys net worth at more than 10 billion roughly four times the total foreign direct investment generated by Islamabad in 2007. She found that the army owns 12 per cent of the countrys land, its holdings being mostly fertile soil in the eastern Punjab. Two thirds of that land is in the hands of senior current and former officials, mostly brigadiers, major-generals and generals. The most senior 100 military officials are estimated to be worth, at the very least, 3.5 billion.
Combined with the miltarys omnipresence and Imran Khans lack of accomplishment as a politician, one does not have to think very hard about why he is loud and clear about his support for Pakistans defence establishment. (With wire inputs)
(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Sep 14, 2018 03:22 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).
Looks like our campaign against Samantha Bee's TBS show, "Full Frontal," is paying dividends. In the August 15 edition of her show (reruns were aired over the past few weeks), Bee ran 23 advertisements; on September 12, there were 19.
We have been able to pick off seven of her most prominent sponsors: Verizon, Procter and Gamble, Wendy's, Ashley HomeStore, The Wonderful Company (maker of pistachios), Popeyes, and Burger King.
What we are most pleased with is a change in Bee's script. We started to target her sponsors because of two things: her relentless anti-Catholic assaults, and her use of the c-word to describe the president's daughter.
Bee has subsequently stopped attacking the Catholic Church and has not employed vulgarities to assail public persons or institutions. We are delighted that she is feeling the pinch.
Do we trust Bee? Not at all. Any person with her record of bigotry and obscenities is not to be trusted. But her producers know that it was her antics that triggered a public revulsion against her, and that the Catholic League has played a major role in that effort.
We will continue to monitor Bee's show, and will resume our campaign if and when she starts acting out again. It is a sorry state of affairs in this country that it takes a stern reaction from groups like the Catholic League to get the likes of Samantha Bee to zip it.
Sep 13, 2018, 2:16pm ET
California hydrogen stations face maintenance, supply problems
Half of Southern California's stations were down for service this week or out of fuel.
Owners of hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles in California face another refueling headache this week, particularly if they actually use their cars for daily transportation.
Half of Southern California's already-limited hydrogen refueling stations were down for service or out of fuel this week, according to Tire Meets Road.
The California Fuel Cell Partnership map shows the Torrance station closed until Friday for "important maintenance work," while the nearby Long Beach location was "out of fuel" until a delivery this morning. Anaheim, Diamond Bar, West LA and Costa Mesa sites are all listed as "offline." Newport Beach, Fairfax-LA and several others show "limited" availability.
Notably, each storage tank at a hydrogen refueling station is said to contain enough fuel for only 40-50 vehicles.
A few automakers remain publicly optimistic that hydrogen will continue to grow in popularity. The SoCal frustrations suggest energy companies are reluctant to invest in more refueling stations, however. Conversely, potential owners may be reluctant to buy an FCV until more refueling sites are established.
FCVs face increasing competition from pure battery-powered electric vehicles that can be charged at home or at thousands of connections throughout the region.
Sep 13, 2018, 11:40am ET
Tesla offers free Supercharging, kWh upgrades for hurricane
Buyers who own a vehicle with software-locked 60-kWh capacity will be able to use all 75-kWh to flee Hurricane Florence.
Tesla has launched another free Supercharging program and unlocked battery capacity for owners fleeing Hurricane Florence.
Some owners bought a Model S and X with a 75-kWh battery pack that had been software locked to 60-kWh for the cheaper base model. During Hurricane Irma, the company rolled out a software update to give owners in affected regions access to the full battery capacity.
The company is now repeating the same program for owners in North Carolina and South Carolina regions that face evacuation orders as Florence approaches the coast.
"We are temporarily enabling your car to access additional battery capacity, as well as free Supercharging, in preparation for Hurrican Florence," Tesla wrote in a notification to owners, as quoted by Electrek. "We hope this gives you the peace of mind to get to a safe location, and will notify you before returning your car to its original configuration in mid-October."
Florence is forecast to create a storm surge of up to 13 feet in some areas. Further inland, the storm is expected to dump 20-30 inches of rain with 40 inches possible in isolated areas.
Officials have ordered evacuations for more than a million residents living along the coast.
Finishing an apple was too much for a burglar who stole a motorcycle, gun and other items from a Bethlehem home, authorities said.
The partially eaten snack allegedly linked Evan Radice to the break-in last fall in the 900 block of Nicholas Drive in the city, and Radice was arraigned Wednesday on burglary and related charges.
The 28-year-old Radice was sent to Northampton County Prison in lieu of $150,000 bail.
Radice was previously being held on $75,000 bail in connection with an alleged April burglary in Manheim Township, Lancaster County. He is awaiting trial in that case.
In the Bethlehem case, police said a mother checking on her son's home on Nicholas Street while he was out of town discovered the break in.
The woman found a rifle case on the living room floor, then discovered a basement door had been forced open and items were missing, including the motorcycle, police said.
The thief stole a 2017 Harley Davidson motorcycle, a .380-caliber pistol, boxes of ammunition, two pistol magazines, a Playstation 3, two watches and two pocket knives.
The homeowner found a partially eaten apple left behind in a closet, and gave it to police.
Police said DNA from the apple matched to Radice; the homeowner said he did not know Radice, did not give him permission to be in the house and did not give him permission to take any items.
Radice is charged with burglary, criminal trespass, receiving stolen property, unauthorized use of a motor vehicle and three counts of theft.
Radice was arrested April 8 when Manheim Township police say he broke into a home with the intent to steal drugs.
Radice was confronted by the homeowner, who tried to call 911, police said. Radice and the homeowner tussled before Radice took the phone and ran off, according to police.
Radice was found by police less than 10 minutes later on North Queen Street in Lancaster County, and arrested.
In that case, Radice is charged with burglary, robbery, theft and criminal mischief.
Sarah Cassi may be reached at scassi@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow her on Twitter @SarahCassi. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
A 20-year-old Palmer Township man charged with kidnapping a woman on Sept. 2 in Easton is under arrest, records show.
Raekwon Washington, 20, of Palmer Township (Courtesy photo | For lehighvalleylive.com)
Raekwon Kenneth Washington, of the first block of Freedom Terrace, was arraigned Wednesday afternoon before District Judge Richard Yetter III on charges of kidnapping, false imprisonment, simple assault and harassment, records show. Yetter set bail at $100,000 and Washington was sent to Northampton County Prison, records show.
The woman had a protection-from-abuse order against Washington. She was at a friend's home on Sept. 2 in the 1200 block of Butler Street when Washington walked by, grabbed her by both arms, picked her up and slammed her into a brick wall, police alleged after speaking to her.
He then forced her into a black vehicle and punched her in the eye, police said. She told an investigator that she screamed for Washington to let her go, but he held her arms and hands so she couldn't get out, police said.
Washington drove to Walmart at 3722 Nazareth Highway in Lower Nazareth Township and wouldn't let her out of the vehicle, police said. While at the store, she was able to get away and ran for help, police said.
Colonial Regional police brought her to Easton police, who took her statement, court papers say. She had swelling to her right eye, bruises to her upper arms and scrapes and scratches to her back and left side, police said.
Washington's preliminary hearing is tentatively scheduled 9 a.m. Sept. 25 in Yetter's court in Wilson Borough.
Tony Rhodin may be reached at arhodin@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @TonyRhodin. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
For the second time this year, a piece of Lehigh Valley trivia made its way to "Jeopardy!"
The long-running quiz show's Wednesday, Sept. 12 episode featured a clue that referenced PeepsFest, the annual Peeps-themed New Year's Eve celebration held at SteelStacks.
"On New Year's Eve Bethlehem, Pennsylvania drops a giant chick, a replica of these marshmallow candies that are made there," host Alex Trebek read to the three competitors.
Last night on Jeopardy! PEEPSFEST returns this winter! #WhatArePEEPS Caitlin Hills Posted by SteelStacks on Thursday, September 13, 2018
Defending one-day champion Lori Goodman, a nonprofit director from California, buzzed in promptly with the correct response, "What is a Peep?"
(Just Born Quality Confections, the Bethlehem-based manufacturer of Peeps might quibble with Goodman's response -- the company always renders the treat as "Peeps," with the "s.")
The clue was the $600 square in the category "I Learned It From Mental Floss."
Goodman went on to lose to challenger Kyle Jones, a music teacher from Colorado.
This isn't the first local shout-out on "Jeopardy!" this year. In April, a clue prompted, "A large circular room with a domed ceiling, like the one at the Lehigh University library," and featured a picture of the distinctive Linderman Library. The correct response was, "What is a rotunda?"
In 2014, none of the three contestants knew that Bethlehem was the correct response to this "Jeopardy!" clue: "Pennsylvania's 'Christmas City,' it was founded by Moravians from Central Europe in 1741."
Peepsfest will be held this year Dec. 30 and 31 at SteelStacks. The dropped Peeps chick stands at 4-foot-9-inches tall and weighs over 400 pounds. Since it's a family event, the chick drops in the afternoon rather than at midnight.
Andrew Doerfler may be reached at adoerfler@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @adoerfler or on Facebook.
A Hackettstown High School student punished for calling a police officer character in a play a pig can sue the school district and officials for her treatment before and after the incident, a federal judge ruled.
The mother of the 17-year-old girl filed the federal lawsuit this past February against the Hackettstown School District; teacher Kathleen Matlack; assistant principal Kevin O'Leary; and Jennifer Spukes, a Harassment, Intimidation, and Bullying specialist at the high school.
The suit contends the girl was discriminated against and her constitutional rights violated as the district accused the girl of bullying and then issued a one day in-school suspension while she attended the school in the 2016-2017 school year.
The girl's parents appealed the suspension to the school board, which affirmed the Harassment, Intimidation, and Bullying (HIB) finding.
The district and employees filed a motion to dismiss the suit in May. Last month, a federal judge ruled all but one of the counts against the employees can go forward.
A message for the attorney representing the defendants, Alyssa Weinstein, was not immediately returned.
The lawsuit details two incidents in March 2017.
The first was when the girl and other students were talking about guns and violence.
O'Leary reportedly asked the girl if they discussed the Black Lives Matter movement. When she said they discussed confrontations between police and black people, O'Leary responded "all lives matter," according to the lawsuit.
O'Leary also allegedly said some people were lucky to have light-colored skin to be able to "pass" as Caucasian. The girl is bi-racial, and believed this was a reference to her, the suit says.
Harassment, intimidation and bullying
Five days later, Matlack's class was studying the play "Blood Brothers" by Willy Russell. When students were asked to choose parts, the girl said she would play the part of "the pig."
Another student in the class, whose father is a police officer, was not in the room but the district contended he could have been offended by the word, the suit says.
Matlack reprimanded the girl for making the comment, and she apologized.
Later that day, a Harassment, Intimidation, and Bullying report was made against the girl based on the pig comment.
A half-hour later, the girl's mother was called and told the girl was the subject of an HIB investigation. The girl's mother asked to be in the room during the "investigation" with her daughter, but the principal denied the request, the suit says.
The girl recorded the meeting with O'Leary and Spukes on her cellphone, unbeknownst to the pair.
O'Leary and Spukes asked the girl how she would feel if she was called the n-word or a derogatory term for a gay person. The girl objected to the administrators using the slurs, but they allegedly continued to say them in front of her.
The pair also criticized the girl for continuing to discuss the Black Lives Matter movement, the suit claims.
The teen was found to have committed an "unintentional HIB offense" and she was given a one day in-school suspension.
The girl's mother claims after the suspension, her daughter was singled out for minor infractions around the school. The girl left the high school and has been taking classes at home, the lawsuit says.
In an opinion issued last month, Judge Peter Sheridan said the student's use of the term pig may constitute protected speech "that was allegedly wrongfully infringed."
For the hostile environment claims, the judge found there is evidence the girl was subjected to what can be interpreted as racially charged slurs.
The judge did dismiss claims against the employees that the girl was discriminated against because she is gay, but kept the same claim against the school district.
Sarah Cassi may be reached at scassi@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow her on Twitter @SarahCassi. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
A Newbridge man who punched a female taxi driver to the back of the head after refusing to get out of her taxi has been sentenced to five months in prison.
The district court heard that the injured party suffered nightmares and is still afraid when working, after being assaulted by Myles Moloney (34), Morristown Estate, Newbridge, Co. Kildare, at the Dublin Road, Monasterevin, on May 7, 2017.
States evidence outlined that on May 7, 2017, the injured party, a female taxi driver, was sitting waiting outside a Chinese restaurant with a passenger in the front seat, when the accused got into the back of the car and told her to drive.
He was intoxicated and began shouting and roaring and the taxi driver, who was frightened, told him to get out of the car.
The accused then grabbed her by the back of the head by the hair and was punching her, but she managed to get out of the taxi and rang the gardai.
The accused was in the company of three others when he entered the car without permission.
The accused had 15 previous convictions.
When the case first came before the court in June, Judge Flann Brennan said the accused was a coward.
When I was growing up, any man who struck a woman was by definition a coward, its a cowardly thing to do, said Judge Brennan.
The judge said that the only thing in the accuseds favour was that the judge was required to seek a victim impact statement in the case.
Telling the accused to have compensation, Judge Brennan put the matter back to September 6 for a probation report.
When the case returned to court last week, Sgt JJ Kirby said that the injured party did not wish to come to court.
Defence, Mr Philip Meagher said his client appreciated that the probation report indicated he had been less than cooperative, but he got some work and failed to inform the probation service. Mr Meagher said the accused had no recollection of the incident and was very remorseful.
On the date in question, he met old school friends and drank spirits.
Mr Meagher said that the accused has now made a commitment to his fiance not to drink and intends to stay off alcohol. The accused had also brought 500 to court for the victim.
Judge Catherine Staines said that taxi drivers in general are very vulnerable, as they dont know who they are letting into their car.
Referring to the victim impact statement, Judge Staines noted that the taxi driver is very nervous when working and keeps her doors locked as she is afraid.
She is terrified and suffered with nightmares and is very conscious of drunk people. She is very wary of who she allows into her car.
This was an appalling assault on an innocent female, said Judge Staines. He jumped into the taxi and demanded to be taken home and then assaulted her.
The judge said that despite this, the court had given him a chance and put the case back for a probation report.
As he had said he had no memory of the incident, the probation officer has advised him of a course to educate himself on the dangers of drink, but he was very reluctant to attend and failed to keep his appointments with probation.
Saying she did not believe he was taking the matter seriously, Judge Staines sentenced the accused to five months in prison.
Recognisance was fixed for an appeal.
The Midland Weather Channel has issued a severe weather warning as Hurricane Helene continues its track towards Ireland.
Meteorologist Cathal Nolan has said, "having assessed the latest weather models and based on my own numerical calculations it looks increasingly likely that hurricane Helene will make landfall in Ireland at some point between 14:00 on Monday and 02:00 on Tuesday next."
"Currently, Helene is 2000km southwest of the Azores and remains a category 1 hurricane, with sustained winds of 130kph and gusts in excess of 170 kph," he continued.
"Helene is weakening, however, and should continue to do so as it crosses the cooler waters of the North Atlantic before impacting Ireland through next Monday/Tuesday," Nolan added.
The latest guidance suggests that the strongest winds will occur along the south and west coasts, where gusts could exceed 130-140 kph.
"Overland gusts of between 110-120 are possible. The storm itself is still some time away and therefore its exact track and intensity remain difficult to pin down," Cathal explained.
"Helene has taken a very similar track to that of Ophelia last year, which is extremely unusual for an Atlantic hurricane," Nolan told us.
"My concern at present is that the storm could deepen during its approach to Ireland, transforming from a Post Tropical Cyclone into a very powerful Atlantic Storm, which would potentially increase the winds along the west and south coast given the storms angle and interaction with the jet stream," he concluded
GALLERY: Portlaoise College students with their Junior Certificate results.
Rural Laois pubs and their customers in the middle of newhere are not being helped by the Dublin Government Minister Shane Ross and his drink driving legislation, according to a well known Laois publican.
Lar Hogan of Sheerans Coolrain said pubs are struggling due to high commercial rates and crippling insurance costs. He said stiffer drink driving laws will make it worse.
Its certainly not helping rural pubs out in the middle of nowher
'People get depressed not been able to get out, its like sending them to prison, but they have done nothing wrong.
e. There are 150 rural pubs closing yearly and mainly due to this Dublin mans ideas.
Apart from his business he was also concerned for his customers.
"What about the senior members of our society who built Ireland, locked away in isolated farms with, in some cases, nobody to chat to other than a cat, dog or cattle. Shame on you, Mr Ross.
I know of senior men and ladies who used to frequent our pub for three or four drinks for the last 40 years and now they dont unless I send my seven seater for them of a Saturday or Sunday night. I dont support drink driving but there has to be a bit of common sense attached to rural areas and not because we are rural, but to keep people alive.
People get depressed not been able to get out, its like sending them to prison, but they have done nothing wrong, he said.
Mr Hogan suggested that the Government give publicans a tax break to drive customers.
He added that the younger generations attitude to drink driving has changed greatly and they arrange their lifts home and collect their cars the following day.
Under the new law a driver found to be over the limit faces an automatic driving ban for three months. One standard drinkcan put someone at risk of going over the limit. This can be a glass of beer, a small glass of wine or a pub measure of spirits.
Newbridge Silverware has just announced it is to host a world exclusive exhibition of items from the estate of Sharon Tate, at the Museum of Style Icons from October 8 to 25.
The exhibition in partnership with LA based Juliens Auctions, the world-record breaking auction house, celebrates the beauty and style of one of Hollywoods most promising actresses and 1960s fashion icon.
Known as one of Hollywood's most magnetic stars of the era, actress and model Sharon Tates life and style embodied the very essence of the decade now known as the swinging 60's. Tate was amongst the celebrities that influenced the sights and sounds of that eras culture, joining the likes of Jean Shrimpton and Twiggy.
Born in 1943 in Dallas, Texas as the daughter of a career military officer, Tate was destined for stardom, winning beauty contests before she was a year old which continued through her teens.
After being noticed in the streets of Verona, Italy, she was cast in the epic film Barrabbas in 1961, as well as a Pat Boone television special. She was noticed by production staff in Italy for the filming of Hemingway's Adventures of a Young Man (1962). Tate landed her first big acting role in 1963 as the bank secretary Janet Trego in the popular television series The Beverly Hillbillies (CBS 1963-1965). Tate was signed by Filmways and her first major starring role was in the 1966 occult classic Eye of the Devil.
Tate was then cast in director Roman Polanski's film The Fearless Vampire Killers (1967) where the two fell in love. They married in London in January 1968 in a wedding ceremony that included a star-studded after party at The Playboy Club with guests that included John and Juliet Mills, Joan Collins, Candice Bergen, Michael Caine, Terry Downes and more.
Her other prominent roles included the comedy beach farce Don't Make Waves (1967) and the spy spoof The Wrecking Crew (1968) with Dean Martin and Elke Sommer.
On August 9, 1969, Tate and four others were murdered by members of the Manson Family in the home she shared with Polanski. At the time of her death, she was eight-and-a-half months pregnant with the couple's son.
Tates black floral lace Christian Dior mini dress worn to the London premiere of Roman Polanski's film Cul-de-Sac in 1966
Her most famous role and acclaimed performance came as Jennifer North in the 1967 cult classic film Valley of the Dolls, which earned her a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best New Actress. Her final film role was in The 13 Chairs, also known as 12+1, which was released posthumously in 1969.
Marie Brennan from the Museum of Style Icons commented, We are delighted to bring yet another world exclusive exhibition to Ireland at the Museum of Style Icons. Sharons style was renowned and this exhibition shows a true fashion icon from the era. We even had to order special mannequins due to the skirt lengths.
Sharon Tate's chocolate mink swing coat designed by "Fuhrman's Beverly Hills
Darren Julien, CEO of Juliens Auctions added, We honour Sharon Tates life and loves in this personal collection that captures the style of a woman whose life was cut way too short and has long been overshadowed by an unspeakable tragedy.
Highlights of the exhibition include a black floral lace Christian Dior mini dress worn by Sharon Tate to the London premiere of Roman Polanski's film Cul-de-Sac in 1966 (estimate: $15,000-$30,000); Tates chocolate sheer silk Alba gown worn by Sharon Tate at The Golden Globe Awards with Roman Polanski in 1968 (estimate: $4,000-$6,000); Tates ivory silk moire mini wedding dress worn at her London wedding held at the Chelsea Registry to Roman Polanski in 1968 (estimate: $25,000-$50,000); Tates chocolate mink swing coat designed by "Fuhrman's Beverly Hills with asymmetrical collar and fur puffs for buttons (estimate: $20,000-$40,000; a two toned jersey mini dress worn by Tate while attending the Cannes Film Festival with Roman Polanski in 1968 (estimate: $5,000-$7,000) and more.
Tates ivory silk moire mini wedding dress worn at her London wedding held at the Chelsea Registry to Roman Polanski in 1968
Members of Carrick-on-Shannon Municipal District were provided with an update of the Urban Regeneration Project in respect of Carrick-on-Shannon at their monthly meeting last Monday.
Director of Services, Joseph Gilhooly, outlined the progress to date of the development which falls under the Government's Project 2040 Scheme.
Mr Gilhooly said a firm of urban architects have been hired by Leitrim County Council and they have carried out an initial survey in respect of the urban regeneration of the county town.
He said that the focus is on the area from the Emerald Star and Carrick Craft boating companies along St. George's Terrace and Main Street up as far as the junction with Summerhill.
The detailed survey including a cost benefit analysis must be submitted by September 29 and there was a short timeframe to have the work carried out.
Mr Gilhooly said it is hoped the plan will be prepared by next week and in that regard a briefing for elected members will take place next Tuesday at 4.30pm followed by a focused consultation event involving local stakeholders such as the Chamber of Commerce and Purple Flag committee.
Cllr Sinead Guckian said the members have not had any input into the plan and asked that they be allowed to see the details.
Cllr Des Guckian questioned the rush to have the plan submitted and said that Project 2040 was cramming people into towns and villages and he didn't think that was right as far as rural Ireland is concerned.
Councillors questioned the funding of the project to which Mr Gilhooly replied, We've got no funding yet, despite what was reported in other media (not present). We are putting together an application for funding and we are eligible to apply for funding.
He said the Council was keen to make sure it
gets its application in for the first call of funding for 2019.
Our vision for Carrick-on-Shannon is for a fairly large scheme, he said.
Mr Gilhooly went on to say that Leitrim County Council has identified Carrick-on-Shannon, Ballinamore and Manorhamilton (as the three largest towns in each municipal district) as a priority and they are endeavouring to secure funding investment for each town.
He added that currently there are 12 towns and villages in the county awaiting funding under the Town and Village Renewal Scheme.
Also read: Carrick lady helps set up new democratic school
Killegar Parish, along with the rector Canon Alison Calvin, is delighted to be celebrating 200 years of worship and community at Killegar Church.
The small, but close knit community enjoy worshipping together on Sundays and there are a range of other activities throughout the year, most notably the summer BBQ which is generously supported by the wider community.
They are always delighted to welcome visitors to any of their events, but especially now as they celebrate our 200th Anniversary Harvest weekend.
Thursday, September 13 at 8pm join the Harvest Songs of Praise
Friday 14 at they celebrate Harvest Thanksgiving
Saturday 15 at 11am Diciple Brunch
Sunday 16 12 noon Family Service
There will also be a concert with The Mohill Sweet Spirit Gospel Choir on Friday 2nd November at 8pm.
A letter from Christopher Godly, Lord Kilbracken
This church was built by my great great great grandfather, John Godley, who inherited some 6500 acres in Leitrim from his grandfather in about 1810, after 26 years of legal wrangling.
He was a merchant in textiles, with a comfortable house in Sackville Street, which is now OConnell Street, in Dublin. He was 35 at the time, and a single man.
Over the next four years, he was very busy. Firstly, he made an extraordinary decision to leave a salubrious part of the capital city, and build himself a large country house on the Cavan border in one of the wilder parts of the Irish countryside. The house was completed in 1813 and he promptly married Catherine Daly, the daughter of Denis Daly MP, and granddaughter of Earl Farnham, and moved to Killegar with his new wife.
Their first-born arrived the following year a son named John Robert who went on to found Christchurch in New Zealand when he was only 35, and he was followed by another eight children, the start of the whole Killegar dynasty, of which I am now the nominal head.
Despite the many demands on his time, including the care of more than 300 tenant farmers, it is a measure of the mans values and priorities that within only five years of his arrival, he had also found the time (and the money) to build this church.
He also went on to build the school and the schoolteachers house. At playtime, the children used to cross the road to play in the field just inside Johns gates, which is still called The Playground to this day.
Other members of the family also had important roles in the church. Johns son Rev James Godley was Incumbent of Killegar Church and was later Rector of Carrigallen, living at Drominchin, where Percy French was a regular visitor.
His daughter Maud died there in 1946, and is buried alongside her parents. Another Incumbent was the Hon Rev Henry OBrien, who was married to Johns daughter Harriett, and was later Vicar of Killeshandra.
Finally, his granddaughter Anna, who spent her whole life at Killegar, played the organ and led the choir for many years and was buried here in 1955.
John died in 1863, at the age of 88, leaving a legacy to be proud of, and I am sure he would be delighted to know that we are celebrating the 200th anniversary of this church today.
The diocese of Kilmore has received 10 new allegations of clerical sex abuse against priests since 2010, a new report issued this week praises the way in which senior Church figures responded to the issue.
The Second Review of Child Safeguarding Practice in the Diocese of Kilmore was undertaken by the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church in Ireland and was published this week.
It paints an extremely positive picture of the work done by Church management in the diocese in relation to ensuring the safety of children and the management of those against whom allegations have been made.
The diocese of Kilmore covers most of Cavan, large sections of Leitrim, three parishes in Fermanagh, and parts of Sligo and Meath.
According to the report, allegations have been made with regard to 13 priests in the area since 1975, relating to 17 claims.
However, since the last review of the diocese, conducted in 2010, 10 allegations have surfaced in relation to six priests, four of whom are still living. Regarding the status of the living, accused priests, one is still in ministry and three are out of ministry.
Of the 10 allegations that have been reported since 2010, four relate to one priest, who was later convicted in the courts, and two relate to another cleric. Regarding the cleric against whom four allegations have been made, the report states that he also faced allegations made prior to 2010.
As for the 10 allegations made in the last eight years, seven were reported to gardai and three were reported to the diocese by An Garda Siochana.
Eight allegations were also reported to Tusla, while one was reported to the diocese by Tusla. The report says Tusla was aware of another allegation since the 2010 review.
One priest has been convicted of offences since 2010 and one priest has been found guilty in a canonical process.
The report stresses that the response to the allegations was swift and comprehensive. Case files were extremely well documented, all allegations were reported promptly, and actions taken to restrict ministry were taken decisively by Bishop Leo OReilly.
Bishop OReilly said the diocese was very encouraged by the findings of the review and the words of affirmation and encouragement from NBSC chief executive Teresa Devlin.
The honesty and integrity with which the church chooses to confront this painful chapter of her history can offer an example and a warning to society as a whole
He continued that mindful of all those who have been harmed in the Catholic Church in Ireland over the years, we renew our commitment to maintaining the highest possible standards.
Also read: Diocesan changes for Kilmore 2018 announced
The new Irish Supergroup Weekend Special have released their debut album In The Heart of The Castle and we have five to give away!
Between them the members of Weekend Special have recorded, shared the stage with or produced the likes of Nick Cave, Mary Black, Glen Hansard, Sherbet, Jim Lauderdale, John Cooper Clarke, Lloyd Cole, Mundy, Billy Bragg and more.
Brothers Rohan and Al (Quiff) Healy played to a television audience of 7 million on The Voice UK Season 5, performed for President Higgins and had countless adventures with The Dublin City Rounders.
There is a local connection to Sean Silke, one of Irelands most prolific and talented songwriters. He has racked up over 500 original songs with no signs of stopping. Seans compositions are used by country stars Michael English and Mike Denver quick to acknowledge the craft and character of Seans work.
Sean Silke's, wife Margaret Giblin is a Drumshanbo native, and both have a great personal connection with the place.
The band is topped off with the smoky soulful strains of the enigmatic Darien Chase.
Weekend Specials debut album, In The Heart of The Castle is out now and is available on all major platforms for streaming and download.
The Leitrim Observer want to give away five CDs of this album to our readers. All you need to do is email your name, address, contact number and answer to leitrimcomp@gmail.com
Q: What is the name of Weekend Special's debut album?
Enter before Friday, September 14 at 5pm.
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THE garda file into a fatal stabbing at a pub in the city earlier this year is nearly complete and will be forwarded to the Director of Public Prosecutions in the coming days.
Formal directions are still awaited in the case of Mark Crawford, aged 41, of Distillery View, Thomondgate who is accused of fatally stabbing Patrick OConnor in July.
The 24-year-old was attacked while socialising at his local pub, Fitzgeralds Bar, on Sexton Street North shortly before midnight on July 7, last.
Mr OConnor, who was from Kileely, died at University Hospital Limerick a short time after the incident.
A murder investigation was subsequently launched after gardai received the results of a post-mortem examination which was carried out by the state pathologist.
During a procedural hearing at Limerick District Court, Judge Mary Cashin was told the garda file is nearly complete and is about to be be transmitted to the office of the DPP.
Sergeant Donal Cronin said it will be a number of weeks before formal directions will be available from the DPP.
The matter was adjourned to later this month for review.
THE Peoples Park in Limerick should remain an oasis of peace, rather than be home to a new war memorial, councillor John Gilligan has said.
He was reacting to plans revealed by the Limerick Leader to construct a shrine to those Limerick people who lost their lives in World War One.
In a lengthy statement, the Independent councillor said: The Peoples Park should remain an oasis of peace with just the song of the birds and the laughter of children to disturb the peace a far cry from the hell of cannon and rifle fire where so many were sent to be slaughtered. That is a more fitting tribute then whats been proposed.
At the heart of the memorial would be a four-metre high stone-central cross. As well as this, the plans show eight stone tablets, two metres high, inscribed with the names of all the victims.
The group delivering the project is the Limerick Civic Trust; the plan being one of the principal goals of its new chairman Thomas Wallace ODonnell for his term.
There would be three stone benches 3.7m long, and 0.45 metres high and associated gravel paths.
Unfortunately, over the years remembering the dead of the First World War has become highly politicised hijacked by the monarchy and the military who were responsible for sending them to there deaths in the first place. What were meant to be places of quiet reflection on a lost generation have become in most cases little more then monuments to imperialism, Cllr Gilligan said.
This should not be the case here in Limerick, he said.
After it ended those who had survived or had witnessed the appalling carnage came together and under the noble slogan of lest we forget vowed never again to die for those who considered them as inferior beings useful only as economic slaves or when needed as cannon fodder, he said.
The survivors gathered each November proudly asserting their common humanity and in total opposition to the international war mongers. In Ireland commemorations can be particularly poignant when we remember the tens of thousands of proud young Irishmen who went to fight for the defence and freedom of small nations, foremost their own, who were cruelly betrayed by the Empire who sent them.
They did not know that freedom for small nations did not extend to their own
A decision will be made on the plans for the People's Park on October 17 next.
IF THINGS had been different Chi-chi Nwanoku, OBE, would have been coming to the Cappamore Show since she was a little girl rather than for the first time.
Chi-chi Nwanoku has gained a reputation as one of the finest exponents of the double bass today. She is the founder, artistic and executive director of the Chineke! Foundation, which supports, inspires and encourages Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) classical musicians working in the UK and Europe.
Chi-chi was awarded an MBE for services to Music in the 2001 Queens Birthday honours and an OBE in 2017 for her services to music.
And from Buckingham Palace to Ballvoreen there she was sitting quietly at a picnic table in a field at the recent agricultural event held in County Limerick at the end of August.
Her late mother, Margaret Hevey, hailed from Lackabeg, Cappamore. She would have been 93 a week after the show. When Margaret, a nurse, met and married Dr Michael Nwanoku, from Nigeria, this was considered taboo in rural Ireland.
Even though my mother always told us beautiful stories about growing up here, it was very clear to us that it was a no-go area to visit," she explained.
"It transpired that she was made to feel that her husband and her children would not be welcome. And she used to say, You know I didnt know which one was worse, the fact that he wasnt Catholic or the fact that he was black! Probably the fact that he wasnt a Catholic was probably worse than him being black in those days. Its incredible. That angered her, said Ci-Chi, who described her mum as a rebel and a pioneer.
Her grandmother Margaret Mary Flynn who married Christopher Hevey was also a strong lady. She secretly travelled to London to visit her daughter and the recently born Chi-chi in the fifties.
My mother kept on writing to her family in Cappamore even though they had said never darken our doorstep again. She continued to write to them to tell them what she was doing and update them with her news. They said never darken our doorstep again and so she did as she was told but my mother carried on writing until at least I was born.
I was the first of her five children. When I was three-months-old, there was a knock at the door and there stood my grandmother. She spent a week with us. It was very brave because her husband would not have known. I think a couple of her other children lived in England so that was her camouflage but she came to visit my mum, said Chi-chi, who proudly wears her grandmothers wedding ring.
While the Nwanokus werent welcome in east Limerick in the 1950s, London wasnt exactly paradise for mixed race families either. Signs outside lodging houses read, No blacks, no dogs, no Irish.
Im two thirds! laughed Chi-chi, aged 62.
"My parents didn't give up, they used to go look for rooms to live in, which had that sign and they'd look at each other and say, 'Well we haven't got a dog so lets give it a try'. And then of course the doors would be slammed in their faces but the thing is they had such a great sense of humour. They could laugh at themselves.
"At my mothers funeral, I remember Gus [a brother] got up to speak, we all spoke, even her grandchildren spoke at her funeral. One of the things that Gus said in his speech at the church was, 'You can choose your friends, but you can't choose your family. And given the chance to choose our parents we would choose the exact same people to be our parents. And everyone, the whole church erupted, she said.
Chi-chi was at the show with brothers Gus and Obi and Irish relatives. They stayed with a local relation Nora Hogan Berkery one of many who got in touch after she heard Chi-chi interviewed by Ryan Tubridy.
What does Cappamore mean to Chi-chi now?
I do feel at home here because we have been met only with warmth. OK It might have taken a generation. When I came back with my mother, after she had not been here for 36 years we were met with warmth and we were met with a lot of people saying, 'Look, Margaret we were ignorant back then, we didn't know any better'. And its the fear of the unknown.
And she and her brothers also felt that warm welcome at Cappamore Show.
We only feel warmth. I think Ireland above any other country has made the most positive steps that I have ever seen, between gay marriage to the religious things, to outing all kinds of wrongs."
This article only scratches the surface of the remarkable Nwanoku and Hevey family story. But to learn more, Gus Nwanokwu has written a book entitled Black Shamrocks that is available from Amazon.
MOLLY and Tom Martens are expected to begin an appeal against their convictions for murdering Limerick man Jason Corbett alleging juror misconduct at the high-profile murder trial.
Attorneys representing the pair have until today Thursday, September 13 to file court briefs to the North Carolina Court of Appeals in a bid to overturn their conviction for the murder of the father-of-two from Janesboro in 2015.
Ms Martens and her father Tom have claimed that the jury at their high-profile trial in 2017 discussed details of their case outside of deliberations, referencing statements made by Tom Aamland, the jury foreman, to media following the verdict.
According to the Winston-Salem Journal, the father and daughter will also challenge the decision to exclude statements made by Jason Corbetts children to social workers that stated that Mr Corbett abused Ms Martens.
These statements were later recanted.
Among other arguments, the appeal is also expected to challenge the decision to exclude a statement from Tom Martens that said Michael Fitzpatrick, the father of Mr Corbetts late first wife, told him that he thought Mr Corbett was responsible for his daughters death, the WSJ reports.
Mr Fitzpatrick has signed an affidavit denying he ever said this to Mr Martens. Mr Corbetts first wife, Margaret Mags Fitzpatrick, died in 2006 at the age of 31 after suffering an asthma attack.
After the September 13 date, it is understood that prosecutors will have about 30 days to file their response, according to the WSJ.
It will be six months to a year before the Court of Appeals makes a decision.
GARDAI in County Limerick are treating a hay barn fire as malicious.
The barn, a lean-to and 70 round bales of hay located at Turagh, Cappamore on the edge of the village were destroyed on Saturday night.
It is an outside farm belonging to popular Cappamore dairy farmer and Limerick IFA rural development officer, Roger Keogh.
Roger had recently bought the hay which cost around 3,000. With the fodder shortage ongoing it is crucial to his operation. The gutted barn and lean-to cost over 40,000.
Limerick Fire and Rescue Service received the call at 10.49pm on Saturday night. One water tender and two water tankers quickly responded from Cappamore and the city. They fought the blaze until after 2am. Gardai from the Bruff district were also called.
A garda spokesperson said: It appears that it was deliberately set on fire. Gardai remained at the scene overnight to preserve the scene until forensic examiners came from Henry Street at around 7.30am on Sunday morning. It is being looked at as if it was a malicious act.
The first thing that every farmer in east Limerick will worry about is if it is connected to the spate of hay barn fires in 2015.
The armed regional response unit were deployed by then chief superintendent, David Sheahan to allay fears amongst the agricultural community.
Gardai stress there is no connection between the hay barn fire on Saturday night and the ones in 2015.
The fire would have been bigger only for the actions of local man Mikey Cleary who saw the smoke.
He jumped in his tractor, went to the yard and proceeded to pull bales of hay out into the field.
They cannot be fed to cattle due to smoke damage but it did mean the blaze could be contained faster by the fire service.
Roger wished to thank Mikey for his bravery.
Id also like to thank the people in the village and in the community since the fire. They have been very sympathetic to me. Id like to thank everyone for their support and help, said Roger, who also praised the fire service in Cappamore and city for their fast response and for preventing even more damage to his property.
There is a slatted shed adjoining the hay barn. If the fire had spread to that it would have taken the roof off it, said Roger.
Cllr Noel Gleeson said he was very disappointed when he heard that the hay was deliberately set on fire.
Cllr Gleeson said it would be a massive blow in any year but especially this year when fodder is so scarce and expensive.
He encouraged anyone who has information to go to the gardai.
Bruff gardai are appealing for anyone who may have seen any suspicious activity in the Turagh area of Cappamore on Saturday evening to contact them on 061 382940.
May 3, 2021, 5 PM
The design for firefighters was unveiled Sept. 13 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, with the participation of Halifax Regional Fire and Emergency, Canadas oldest firefighting department.
By Molly Goad
Canada's firefighters are recognized in the fourth stamp in Canada Post's Emergency Responders series. The design was released this morning (Thursday, Sept. 13) in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
A new stamp design in the five-stamp set is being revealed every day this week, culminating on the Friday, Sept. 14, issue date. The nondenominated permanent-rate stamps pay Canadas basic domestic letter rate.
The stamp depicting two responders heading toward a treacherous blaze is dedicated to all of the part-time, full-time and volunteer firefighters who rush into action at the drop of a hat. Canada Post also recognizes the many other efforts firefighters assist with: rescue operations; motor vehicle accidents; hazardous-material emergencies; and educating the community in areas of fire prevention, escape planning and building and fire codes.
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Canada Post reported that it and the stamp designers "consulted with the Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs, whose members represent roughly 3,500 fire departments across Canada, to ensure the stamp accurately represents firefighters."
The other stamps in the series recognize Canadian paramedics (revealed Monday, Sept. 10), Canadian Armed Forces (revealed Tuesday, Sept. 11), search and rescue experts (revealed Wednesday, Sept. 12), and police officers. The final design honoring men and women in blue will be shown Friday (Sept. 14) in Ottawa, Ontario. Visit Linns.com each day this week to view the new stamps as they are unveiled.
The stamps can be purchased in a booklet of 10 (two of each design), or a pane of five. Each stamp also has its own first-day cover. The stamps will be available for purchase on canadapost.ca and at postal outlets on Friday, Sept. 14.
Homo sapiens created the world's first known drawing on this stone about 73,000 years ago in what is now South Africa.
A small rock flake no larger than a house key is covered with a colossal surprise: the first known drawing ever made by a human.
Some human or humans (Homo sapiens) used a red-ochre crayon to draw a hashtag-like design on a rock flake in what is now South Africa about 73,000 years ago, said the researchers who analyzed the doodle.
It's unclear what the crisscrossed lines mean, but similar designs have been found at other early human sites in South Africa, Australia and France, said study senior researcher Christopher Henshilwood, director of the Centre for Early Sapiens Behaviour at the University of Bergen in Norway. [See Photos of the Ancient Drawing]
"It seems to be part of the human repertoire of producing signs," Henshilwood told Live Science.
Archaeologists discovered the 1.5-inch-long (3.8 centimeters) rock flake in Blombos Cave, an archaeological site on the coast of South Africa, about 185 miles (300 kilometers) east of Cape Town. The cave is famous for its Middle Stone Age artifacts including shell beads and engraved stone tools that were left by humans who lived there between 100,000 and 70,000 years ago.
Study co-researcher Luca Pollarolo, a technical assistant in anthropology and African archaeology at the University of Geneva in Switzerland, made the actual discovery in 2015, when he was going through sediment samples in the lab, which excavators had painstakingly "removed millimeter by millimeter" from the cave, Henshilwood said.
The flake was covered with ash and dirt, but a quick wash revealed the red crosshatch lines, Henshilwood noted. The ancient drawing includes six parallel lines that are crossed by three slightly curved lines, the researchers said. (Go here to see a 3D video of the ancient drawing.)
In other words, the piece of abstract art "is a hashtag," said Henshilwood, who added that the drawing predates other known early human drawings by at least 30,000 years.
Is it real?
As any skeptic would, the researchers wondered whether the drawing was made naturally or if it was created by H. sapiens. So, they reached out to study co-researcher Francesco d'Errico, a professor at the University of Bordeaux, who helped them photograph the artifact and determine that the lines had been applied to the rock by hand.
The research team members even tried making their own designs with ochre on similar pieces of stone. The original artist (or artists) first smoothed the stone and then used an ochre crayon that had a tip between 0.03 to 0.1 inches (1 to 3 millimeters) thick, they found. (Ochre is a clay that can vary in hardness and can leave behind a mark similar to a crayon's.)
Moreover, the sudden termination of the red lines suggests that the pattern originally covered a larger surface. For this reason, the researchers suspect the flake was once part of a larger grindstone, Henshilwood said. Archaeologists are currently searching for more pieces of the grindstone, but they haven't found anything yet, he said. [Gallery: Europe's Oldest Rock Art]
The people who drew the hashtag were hunter-gatherers who excelled at catching big game, including hippos, elephants and 60-lb. (27 kilograms) fish, Henshilwood said. Given their proficient hunting skills, "they probably had a lot of free time to sit around the fire and talk and make things like jewelry," he said.
However, art isn't exactly new to early humans. The oldest known engraving, for instance, is another piece of abstract art: a zigzag line that Homo erectus carved onto a shell 540,000 years ago in Indonesia, Live Science previously reported.
The discovery of the ochre drawing is exceptional but not unexpected, said Emmanuelle Honore, a fellow at the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research at the University of Cambridge in England, who wasn't involved with the study. That's because, in addition to other discoveries of early art, such as the carved shell, the study's authors published a study in 2001 about a bone fragment from Blombos Cave that has "comparable engraved lines in the same archaeological level," she said.
The design on the bone fragment, as well as the newly analyzed ochre drawing, provides insight into our ancestors' abilities to create abstract art and signs, she said.
"It contributes to evidence of the development of what we can call the 'early symbolic behavior' or more largely the 'symbolic mind' of our species, Homo sapiens," Honore told Live Science in an email. "It also shows how fast prehistoric studies are evolving: 50 years ago, we would never have suspected such a degree of intellectual refinement for such ancient ('primitive' was the term rather used at that time) societies."
The study was published online today (Sept. 12) in the journal Nature.
Original article on Live Science.
How weird can a newborn look and still, somehow, be cute? Tonks the baby aye-aye may answer that question.
Born at the Denver Zoo on Aug. 8, Tonks is one of only 24 of the nocturnal lemurs in captivity in the United States. She's a squirrel-size bundle of wiry fur, beady eyes and freakishly scraggly claws, and she's somehow still absolutely adorable. [Secrets of a Strange Lemur: An Aye-Aye Gallery]
Aye-ayes (Daubentonia madagascariensis) are native to Madagascar. No one knows precisely how many exist in the wild. The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) classifies the animals as endangered and estimates that more than half of their wild population has disappeared in the past three decades. Aye-ayes face threats from habitat loss and unsustainable hunting, according to the IUCN, and the animals will likely lose another half of their current population in the next two decades.
As adults, aye-ayes are about the size of possums. They use their spindly fingers to tap on the bark of trees, aiming to spook wood-boring insects inside the tree so that they'll move. When the aye-ayes hear the telltale scuttle of a potential meal, the predators chew holes into the bark and fish the insects out with their weirdly long middle fingers.
Tonks is named after the "Harry Potter" character Nymphadora Tonks, a fitting moniker given that the newborn's mother is called Bellatrix, after the "Harry Potter" villain Bellatrix Lestrange. The new aye-aye's father, another Denver Zoo resident, is named Smeagol, after the dark-loving "Lord of the Rings" character.
Bellatrix initially struggled to care for her newborn, according to Denver Zoo staff, and this prompted zoo veterinarians to step in and feed Tonks from a syringe.
"We provided 24-hour care for the first week and had to teach Bellatrix how to nurse, but now she is nursing well and Tonks has gained a lot of weight," lead primate keeper Becky Sturges said in a statement. "Now, we're just monitoring them to make sure things continue to go well."
A zoo staffer holds Tonks, the Denver Zoo's newest aye-aye. This rare nocturnal lemur is thriving after a rough first week in which zoo staff had to feed her via syringe. (Image credit: Denver Zoo)
In the wild, aye-ayes start breeding at around 3 to 4 years of age, giving birth to singleton babies every two or three years, according to the IUCN. Newborn aye-ayes are tiny and helpless, weighing just a few ounces, according to the Denver Zoo. They nurse for around seven months but stay with their mothers for up to two years, huddling in ball-like nests tucked into tree branches for safety.
Both Smeagol and Bellatrix descended from aye-ayes imported in the late 1980s and early 1990s by the Duke Lemur Center in North Carolina. Bellatrix was born at that center in 2007, and Smeagol was born at the Philadelphia Zoo in 2010.
Original article on Live Science.
San Francisco officials signaled Thursday that theyre willing to back down from the aggressive deadlines they set for the managers of the Millennium Tower to comply with a number of safety measures related to the cracked window on the sinking buildings 36th floor.
In a pointed letter on Wednesday, the Department of Building Inspection ordered the buildings management to survey the entire building for other window cracks, complete a comprehensive report on the original fissure and install an overhead protection system to guard against glass falling to the sidewalk.
If those demands werent met by the end of the week, the department threatened to yellow-tag the building, which could limit access until its deemed safe.
But after meeting with the towers management and its legal counsel Thursday morning, Department of Building Inspection Assistant Director Ronald Tom said the city was willing to be flexible, provided that Millenniums operators kept in close contact about their progress.
We always provide the opportunity within the process for the party receiving the letter to work with us, Tom said.
The departments Wednesday letter expressed frustration over a lack of communication from Millenniums management and its lawyers. Tom said Thursday that part of the purpose of the letter was to get managements attention and said he believed the towers operators would be more communicative in the future.
The buildings managers, known as the Millennium Tower Association, still plan to erect the overhead protection system around the entire perimeter of the 58-story high-rise, which has sunk 18 inches since it opened in 2009. Installation of the protection systems scaffolding was expected to begin Thursday afternoon, according to the associations attorneys, and continue Friday morning.
Tom Miller, an attorney for the association, said in an interview that inspecting the rest of the tower for cracks would require getting homeowners permission to inspect more than 400 units by Friday afternoon. DBI seemed sympathetic, he said, to the fact that management would need extra time to complete that task.
Miller struck a more forceful tone, however, in a letter he sent to the department Thursday. He chastised the department for making what he called negative comments about the associations responses to their own onerous, expensive and unduly restrictive requests and criticized the department for threatening the possibility of yellow-tagging the building.
Miller also said it would be physically impossible to meet the deadlines laid out in the Wednesday letter. We implore the DBI to allow the Association to meet these demands in a realistic time frame, Miller said.
In a statement, Rachel Miller, another attorney for the association, said that after meeting with the department, management was hopeful that the threat to yellow-tag the building (Friday) will be reconsidered.
Dominic Fracassa is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: dfracassa@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @dominicfracassa
A fallen Pacific Gas & Electric Co. power line caused the 152-acre Irving Fire that ignited in Samuel P. Taylor State Park west of Fairfax on Monday night, Marin County officials said Wednesday.
Marin County spokeswoman Laine Hendricks said the power line fell into the grasslands around the Ridge Trail, on the south side base of Mount Barnabe.
A PG&E spokesman said the company is working with state and Marin County fire officials to understand more about the circumstances of this preliminary finding.
We are monitoring fire conditions from our Wildfire Safety Operations Center in San Francisco 24/7, to determine what, if any additional threats the fire may pose to our lines and facilities, Matt Nauman, a spokesman for PG&E, said in a statement.
At least 19 customers in the area were still without power Wednesday, according to a PG&E outage map. The company estimates that power would be fully restored by evening.
As of Wednesday night, containment was 80 percent, according to the Marin County Fire Department. No homes have been burned.
Residents evacuated from the blaze were allowed to go home Tuesday night, authorities said.
Parts of Sir Francis Drake Boulevard and Arroyo Road that had been closed by the fire are now open.
Gwendolyn Wu is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: gwendolyn.wu@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @gwendolynawu
WASHINGTON - Glass sculpture and jewelry created by the artist known as Pascal were on display for 20 years in the Corcoran Gallery of Art, a gift from Pascal's friend and noted philanthropist Alice C. Tyler. But the artwork - like most of the Corcoran's 19,000-piece collection - went into storage in 2014, when what was then the oldest private museum in Washington, D.C., closed.
Susanne Jill Petty - the daughter of the artist, Suzanne Pascal, and trustee of the Alice C. Tyler Art Trust - has spent the past four years trying to retrieve the 100 pieces of sculpture and paintings the Trust gave to the Corcoran, along with the $1 million it donated to establish and maintain a gallery for their display.
"It's personal," says Petty, a Los Angeles resident. "When someone entrusts you with something so dear to them, you need to carry out their wishes."
Pascal, who is now 104, is renowned for glass sculptures that she created with a hammer and chisel. Born almost completely deaf, she spent part of her childhood in Italy, where she studied with a local sculptor. An operation in her late teens restored some of her hearing.
Her works have been collected by Ronald Reagan, Frank Sinatra and the British royal family and are included in the collections of the Vatican and the National Museum of Women in the Arts. Her largest sculpture, "Seated Torso," was purchased by billionaire John Kluge for $3 million and was displayed at his Virginia estate and winery. After buying the property, Donald Trump donated the sculpture to the Dunbar Historical Society.
Petty scored a victory in her crusade to reclaim her mother's work when a California judge last month ordered the Corcoran to return the art, the money and pay her legal fees. Corcoran officials say their lawyers are asking the judge to vacate the order, and if they aren't successful, they will appeal.
It's the latest legal skirmish for the board of the Corcoran. Years of financial problems pushed the board to seek court approval to merge its renowned art school with George Washington University and give custody of its prized art collection to the National Gallery of Art. The NGA accessioned about 8,600 pieces, with the rest going to other Washington institutions.
The deal sparked public criticism and ended with a courtroom showdown that the Corcoran won. But the former museum may not succeed in its latest legal fight.
"They want to read their agreements as they wish they were written, not the way they were written," Petty says.
Public display of Pascal's work was a condition of the 1994 contract signed by Corcoran director David C. Levy and several Tyler Art trustees, including Petty. The trust gave the museum about 100 pieces of art and $1 million "to cover costs associated with establishing and maintaining the permanent gallery and the collection," according to court filings. The agreement states that the art and the cash gift must be returned if the Corcoran "has not complied with the conditions."
Petty said officials initially agreed to return Pascal's work. In a July 1, 2014, letter to Petty, Corcoran interim director Peggy Loar wrote, "We've been advised by the NGA that the Pascal works will not be accessioned ... If there are any museums or venues you are aware of that would be interested in the collection, or up to three locations that could each take a part, please advise and ... we will pack and ship at our expense."
On Aug. 25, 2014, Corcoran attorney David Julyan informed Petty that Loar had left the Corcoran and that he was now the primary contact. "I would like to resolve this matter in the next month if that seems reasonable and realistic from your perspective," he wrote in an email. Neither of these messages mention returning the trust's $1 million gift.
Petty identified two organizations that would accept and display the collection: the Dunbar Historical Society in Pennsylvania - where Pascal's large-scale sculpture is on view - and Marymount High School in Los Angeles.
The Corcoran's position changed after the D.C. judge approved the breakup of the institution and therefore nullified the Corcoran's original deed and other agreements, including the one with the Tyler Art Trust. "The NGA is considering whether it will accession any of the Collection,"Julyan wrote to Petty's attorneys in early 2015, contradicting Loar's previous email. "I cannot predict how long that process will take, but I expect it to continue for several months."
The process took another three years. In May, the Corcoran board announced that the Pascal art was among the 9,000 works given to American University, with another 20 institutions receiving most of the remaining 1,750 works. A spokeswoman for American University said it is not a party in the case and has not yet taken possession of the art.
Julyan declined an interview request, but the Corcoran board issued a statement. "The Corcoran believes that the 2014 court order approving the contracts with the NGA and GW are proper and effective, and resolve all issues. We don't otherwise comment on pending litigation." Pascal's works are the only ones being disputed, according to the Corcoran.
The Corcoran board has assets of $4.8 million as of June 30, 2017, according to its most recent tax return, which also show that legal fees represented the Corcoran's largest expense. Last year, the nonprofit paid Julyan's firm $281,000, and it paid the national firm Paul Hastings LLP $134,546.
Petty's attorney Jim Burgess isn't claiming victory, despite the judge's ruling.
"The Corcoran has indicated that it wants to continue to fight," Burgess said. "I think there will need to be a few more court appearances before the Corcoran sees the light."
Petty is optimistic that the plan will go through.
"They signed the agreement in good faith," she said. "They should live up to it."
Some 30 years after founding the influential Cordua Restaurants group in 1988, founder Michael Cordua has left the company along with his son David.
Known for the groundbreaking Churrascos, Americas, Amazon Grill, Artista, and a catering company, the Corduas released a statement this week thanking the city for its support over the years and offered a glimpse of what the future will hold for the duo.
LIKE FATHER, LIKE SON: The fashion forwardness of the Cordua men
"We would like to extend our heartfelt gratitude to the countless team members who have been our family and friends for more than 30 years," the statement said.
The pair announced they are forming a new hospitality group, Michael and David Cordua Hospitality, the details of which are forthcoming. The younger Cordua, a graduate of Paris' Le Cordon Bleu culinary school, joined the family business in 2007.
"To our many friends in the city of Houston which we are proud to call home, we would like to thank you for your support. The best is yet to come," the statement concluded.
FROM 2008: A brief history of the Cordua Restaurants group
A spokesperson explained the split came about "as a result of a series of governance events undertaken by their financial partners over the last few years, including events that diluted the Cordua family's ownership shares."
"Moving forward, we have learned the importance of partnering with colleagues who share our vision, culture and values," Michael Cordua told Chron.com. "We are excited about the future, to be able to dream and think of the possibilities ahead."
All of the restaurant properties are still owned by Cordua Restaurants which is controlled by shareholder is Deshon Investments. The Corduas have severed their affiliations with that group.
EAT UP: New Houston restaurants that locals have to try
In a statement on Thursday CEO Juan Deshon of Cordua Restaurants told his side of the story.
"In 2011 we agreed to invest into a 50-50 ownership with Michael Cordua in Cordua Restaurants because the company was in dire need of an immediate cash infusion," Deshon said. "Since then, Michael's own actions and inability to meet his financial commitments have ultimately resulted in completely depleting his ownership share in Cordua Restaurants, Inc."
"We deeply regret that the situation has come to this, but simply could not stand idly by while the Corduas sadly and maliciously attacked our business, our outstanding chefs and other employees, and misrepresented provable facts," he added.
Deshon saluted the employees that have made the past 30 years of the operation a success and expressed optimism at the years ahead.
HOMETOWN CHEF: Houston, we have a 'MasterChef' finalist
"We salute the over 400 employees at the heart of the brand's 30-year success, whose passion and hard work day-in and day-out are carrying us toward an exciting future. We remain committed to our customers and our community," Deshon said. "Cordua Restaurants, Inc. is in a strong position, and is moving forward maintaining its focus on culinary excellence, superior customer service and offering an incredible dining experience."
The father and son are set to helm a pop-up dinner series called "Yum DMC" starting Sept. 27 at Montrose's Bar Boheme. According to the release David recently shot a TV pilot for Houston Public Media called "The Houston Cookbook".
Cordua's first Houston eatery Churrascos opened in Aug. 1988 off Bissonnet. At that point Latin-American food was mostly confused with Tex-Mex in the Bayou City. The elder Cordua, a native of Nicaragua, believed that his food could find an audience though.
HOUSTONCHRONICLE.COM: Cordua celebrates 25 years in business (2013)
The South American dining experience at Churrascos managed to touch all the bases for meat lovers with churrascos steaks, fried plantain chips and chimichurri sauce. It soon became a regional hit uniting Tex-Mex fans and steak lovers.
The first Americas concept opened in 1993 and lead to national acclaim for its take on tapas. The counter service concept Amazon Grill opened in 1999.
There are now six Churrascos across Houston and an Americas location in River Oaks. In 2017 Amazon Grill transitioned into an online-only delivery service in the River Oaks, Champions, and Westchase areas.
Craig Hlavaty covers Houston history and pop-culture. Read him on our breaking news site, Chron.com, and on our subscriber site, HoustonChronicle.com. | craig.hlavaty@chron.com
Next Wednesday will be a brew-tiful day for Alamo Ranch residents, when Summer Moon Coffee Bar opens a second San Antonio location.
The South Austin-based roaster, with shops across Texas, will debut the newest location, at 11831 Culebra Road Suite #106, at 6 a.m. The business' sole Alamo City location since 2016 has been at 3233 N. St Mary's St.
To celebrate the expansion, Summer Moon will be handing out free cups of coffee outside the shop on Monday and Tuesday starting at 7 a.m. and going while supplies last, according to an Instagram account owned by the business.
RELATED: Trinity University student gets national shine for start-up cold brew coffee business
The Culebra Road location will follow the cozy aesthetic of the other Summer Moon locations in the family-owned chain and will have a drive-thru for customers on the go. The new store will also feature breakfast tacos and sandwiches supplied by local vendors and pastries from Bird Bakery, according to a news release.
San Antonio sippers poured over with excitement in social media reactions to the news of a second location.
"This is exciting," one Twitter user wrote. "Even though it's on the complete opposite side of town... I'll be over to check it out and hopefully pick up my weekly resupply of beans."
Madalyn Mendoza is a digital reporter for MySA.com. Read more of her stories here.| mmendoza@mysa.com | Twitter: @MaddySkye
Albany
There's a line from the 1990 movie "Slacker" that often returns to me on Election Day: "Withdrawing in disgust is not the same thing as apathy."
It is a reminder that it isn't always disinterest that keeps people from voting. Many are convinced, with good reason, that their votes change nothing and that the process is rigged to the benefit of those who hold power.
Infrequent voters are often made to feel guilty, but the blame for paltry turnout shouldn't be directed at their choice. It is much more the fault of a broken system that convinces people the fix is in.
Nowhere is that more true than in New York.
Election rules in this supposedly progressive and forward-thinking state remain among the most restrictive and regressive in the country. As much of the rest of the country has advanced reforms designed to increase participation, the rules here are designed to reward banal insiders, incumbents especially, and discourage fresh-thinking outsiders and voter enthusiasm.
Consider that a voter who wasn't already a registered Democrat needed to change their registration last October to vote in Thursday's party primary. That means unaffiliated voters inspired by Cynthia Nixon's challenge to Gov. Andrew Cuomo would have needed to change their registration long before Nixon was even a candidate.
You can bet the governor prefers it that way.
More Information Contact columnist Chris Churchill at 518-454-5442 or email cchurchill@timesunion.com See More Collapse
The deadline by far the nation's earliest will keep Nixon's wife, education activist Christine Marinoni, from voting in the primary. Two years ago, it similarly kept Eric and Ivanka Trump from registering as Republicans to cast primary votes for their father.
Want more? Consider that New York is one of just 14 states that entirely closes its primaries to nonparty members. There is no same-day registration here, unlike in many states. Nor is it one of the states with automatic registration.
New York is among 13 states without early voting. It is also the only state to hold two primaries this year one for federal races, another for state contests instead of making things easier for voters by combining them into a single day.
(Oh, and for what it's worth, primary polling locations in most upstate counties open at noon six hours later than in downstate counties.)
"If you wanted to design a system whose goal was to decrease voter participation, insulate incumbents and encourage corruption and nepotism, you could not design a better system that what New York has," said John Opdycke, president of Open Primaries, a New York City-based advocacy group.
Lo and behold, New York has grim and declining rates of voter participation.
In 2012, no state had less voter participation among qualified (but not necessarily registered) voters in the primary, and only six states had less in the general election, according to data from the United States Election Project.
In 2014, 29 percent of qualified New Yorkers participated in the general election. Only Indiana had a lower percentage.
In 2016, 21 percent voted in the primaries, again among the nation's worst, and 57 percent came out for the general election, the sixth-lowest percentage.
And corruption, you say? It isn't necessary to spend time detailing the long list of scandals and convictions that have tarnished Albany in recent years. We all understand that corruption is a devastating stain on state government.
What's interesting about New York's voter restrictions is that hardly anybody tries to defend them. Everybody with even half a brain realizes they are not only archaic, but detrimental to democracy. And yet, despite call after call for reform including changes proposed by the governor nothing ever changes.
Now why could that be?
"It's all about what's best for the two political parties," said Susan Lerner, executive director of the watchdog group Common Cause New York. "They have no concern for the voter."
I asked Lerner if the parties aren't ultimately hurting themselves by limiting the number of people who enroll in them. After all, ahead of the presidential primary, many independent voters would have joined to vote for Trump or Bernie Sanders, had they been allowed.
"What makes you think they want to get bigger?" Lerner asked. "The parties function as aggregators of money for the protection of incumbents. They don't need a lot of people for that; they just need to control how many people have access to the vote."
In other words, the people who don't vote because they think the system is rigged to protect the powerful are not wrong. Their decision can be justified.
The problem, though, is that when too many people withdraw in disgust, the rules that protect the status quo are guaranteed to remain in place.
Nothing changes, which causes other potential voters to give up and walk away.
It's a vicious cycle, really, that incumbents have no reason to break.
cchurchill@timesunion.com 518-454-5442 @chris_churchill
Meteorologists said they expect the disturbance in the Gulf of Mexico to become a tropical cyclone and result in 4-6 inches of rain through the weekend across South Texas. Some isolated areas could get as many as 10 inches or greater.
There is now a 50 percent chance a tropical cyclone forms in the next two days, according to the National Weather Service. Regardless of development, heavy rain is possible as the system reaches Texas, according to the NWS.
Laredo is expected to receive 2 to 3 inches of rain this weekend due to an incoming tropical system in the Gulf of Mexico.
There is now a 50 percent chance a tropical cyclone forms in the next two days, the National Weather Service said Wednesday afternoon. Regardless of development, heavy rain is possible as the system reaches Texas, according to the NWS.
Because so many areas in South and Central Texas are saturated or nearly saturated from recent rainfall, as little as 1 inch of rain could cause flash flooding in some areas, meteorologists said, particularly at low water crossings and in urban areas.
READ ALSO: Flash flooding, up to 10 inches of rain possible through the weekend for South Texas
There are some people on social media circulating rumors that the City of Laredo is not prepared for an emergency.
"People out there are confusing what's going on in North and South Carolina with this event," Laredo Fire Department Chief Steve Landin said. He is also the city's emergency management coordinator. "This event is not even a tropical wave. So what I'm trying to do is get ahead of the rumors. That the sky is falling in Laredo, that we're going to drown, that we're expecting 40 inches of rain that's not it. That's up north."
Laredo is not under any threat of seeing a significant weather event, Landin said, but is expecting rain starting Friday night.
Last year during Hurricane Harvey, hotels and motels in Laredo were full of evacuees fleeing the storm. The city opened three shelters for evacuees as well.
Landin believes last summer's traumatic weather event could be playing into this year's reaction.
"When people get on social media and see this hurricane circulating out there, and then all the sudden they hear somewhere else that there's rains coming to us, and they've seen us getting hit day after day, they're mixing them up," Landin said.
Some areas of Laredo have seen a cumulative 10 inches of rain over the last week, he said.
The fire chief also noted that's the city is in the middle of a "political silly season," and candidates are using this event to raise their collars.
"I just want to bring a message to the public. It's not time to get alarmed. If conditions change, we're going to keep them informed and we're going to keep them safe," Landin said.
RELATED: For meteorologists, Florence 'is a horrific nightmare storm'
The Texas Gulf Coast is under a flash flood watch until Friday. An NWS hazardous weather outlook statement says that from Thursday through Tuesday, scattered showers and thunderstorms are expected across South Texas. Some may produce heavy rainfall, dangerous lightning and wind gusts up to 40 mph.
Earlier this week, Gov. Greg Abbott released a statement about the pending storm, encouraging residents to prepare.
"Texas is taking steps to prepare for a potential tropical system expected to impact the state. Urging all Texans to take precautions and review their emergency plans to prepare now," Abbott said in a tweet.
Weather officials encourage drivers to turn around rather than driving through flooded streets and risking drowning.
The San Antonio Express-News contributed to this report. Julia Wallace may be reached at 956-728-2543 or jwallace@lmtonline.com
A man has been charged with injury to a child after he spanked a girl because she got a hold of some knives from the kitchen, according to Laredo police.
Jose Coreas, 24, was served with an arrest warrant Friday.
A man involved in a hit-and-run incident has been arrested after he allegedly lied to Laredo police about his vehicle being stolen.
Jesse Escarcega, 28, was served with an arrest warrant on Saturday. He was charged with making a false report to police.
Posted on: September 13, 2018 11:19 AM
The Melbourne Anglican newspaper has won gold and silver awards; and The Gippsland Anglican newspaper a Gold award in different categories of the Australasian Religious Press Association awards. The presentations were made at the associations conference in Brisbane at the weekend. The Melbourne Anglican won a gold medal for Best Faith Reflection; and two silver medals for Best Theological Article and Best Editorial or Opinion Piece. The Gippsland Anglican was presented with the gold medal for Best Regional Publication.
But The Melbourne Anglican lost its Publication of the Year title to the Salvation Armys new in-house magazine Others. While the associations top award, the Gutenberg Award, went to New Zealands Baptist magazine.
The Melbourne Anglicans gold medal for Best Faith Reflection was awarded for If grief is overwhelming, how do we cope?, an article on grief by Nils von Kalm, the Church and Community Engagement Coordinator for Anglican Overseas Aid.
The Melbourne Anglicans silver award for Best Theological Article was given to Canon Professor Dorothy Lee, Research Professor at Trinity Theological College, for a piece on Scripture, Male Headship and Abuse .
And their silver award for Best Editorial or Opinion Piece went to Peter Corney, the Emeritus Vicar of St Hilarys Kew, for a piece entitled Van Gogh Speaks to Yearning for Transcendent.
Explaining their award of Best Regional Publication to The Gippsland Anglican, the judges said that its open format . . . invites the reader in, and its 12 pages cover a wide range of topics: devotional reflections, profiles, social issues, well-written news stories from around the diocese (with well-chosen pictures), reviews, a prayer diary and a diocesan calendar.
A petition calling for the release of convicted murderer Miguel Angel Martinez has garnered hundreds of signatures.
Martinez, a native Laredoan, was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to life in prison for his role in a 1991 crime that shocked the Gateway City. Nearly 28 years later, people from around the world are rooting for his parole following the release of the Netflix docuseries, "I am a Killer."
A show that drudges up the United States' most shocking crimes, the audience is introduced to Laredo's infamous "triple ax murders" in episode four.
As the episode commences, a lingering question is left in the air, "Was justice served?"
For Ricki Moore, 29, of Pennsylvania, her answer is "no."
To learn more about the "triple ax murders" and Miguel Angel Martinez click here.
Moore created a petition to free Martinez on change.org a couple of weeks ago after watching Martinez' episode. As of Thursday afternoon, the petition has received over 700 signatures worldwide, including many signatures coming from Laredoans, Moore said.
"I was like, I have to do something to help him. When I watched the other episodes, I saw a couple of (inmates) that fit the title. They would interview the inmate and the guy would be like, 'yeah, I killed him.' Martinez' was not black and white," Moore said.
Martinez was at the scene of the crime, but according to his report and that of the most active participant, Miguel Angel Venegas, his role was small. According to Venegas and Martinez, Venegas killed all three victims.
Moore said she has been in contact with Martinez. When Martinez first found out about the petition, Moore was told that he became really emotional.
"He thought people would see (the episode) and go about their lives," Moore said.
Martinez has since given Moore permission to advocate for him and speak on his behalf.
Corresponding by letters, Moore recalls asking Martinez if there was anything he would like her to share with people.
READ ALSO: How Laredo's 'La Barbie' became the top-ranking leader of a Mexican drug cartel
"He said, 'I want people to know if I was given the opportunity to parole, I would be an asset to the community and affect it positively.' He just wants the chance to live a good life," Moore said.
During his 27-year prison stint, Martinez has earned a bachelor of science in business and two associate of art degrees, according to a website created by his family.
Mariah Graves, Martinez' girlfriend, said he has also completed a number of reformative 12-step and 18-step programs including Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, a faith-based program and a program focused on financial and personal responsibility.
In one particular program, Martinez met with victims of crimes, giving him the opportunity to hear victims' perspectives and to learn from his past behaviors, Graves said.
"He has changed and grown as a person immensely while he's been incarcerated. I believe he would make an excellent candidate for parole if he was given the opportunity," Graves said in a statement to LMTonline.com.
Things have come to light in the last 20 years that have caused normal, rational and sensitive people to question the fairness of treatment and the proportionality of punishment to those involved in the case."
Graves said she hopes that for anyone who has heard about Martinez, they will take the time to review his case and see the injustice that was done to him.
"I'm not saying he hasn't made mistakes or bad decisions. I do believe that he has served his time, though. He has proven himself. I want other people to see that as well," Graves said.
Martinez has an upcoming parole hearing and Moore is urging for people to get involved in his release, sign the petition and write letters on his behalf to the parole board.
"I just want (people) to know that he would just like to be given the opportunity to be free and live a good life," Moore said.
For more information on Martinez and the petition, click here.
JeriLynn Thorpe is a digital reporter for the Laredo Morning Times. Read more of her stories on LMTonline.com | jerilynn.thorpe@lmtonline.com
ALTON A new store opening on East Broadway looks to offer patrons easier access to all things American Hauntings year-round.
The grand opening of the American Hauntings Vault will take place from noon to 5 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 22 at Mineral Springs Mall, 301 E. Broadway and will feature a book signing with Troy Taylor, founder/owner of American Hauntings and author of the book Haunted Alton: History and Hauntings of Illinois Riverbend Region. Books will be available for purchase at the event, and the signing is to end at 3 p.m. A haunted history walking tour around the city will also take place that evening at 7 p.m.
The store, a vault that use to hold cash in the original hotel and more recently was used as storage, will house retail items such as T-shirts, books, stickers and other merchandise for purchase related to American Hauntings.
The vault is located on the main level of the five-story building. Bookshelves line the interior walls, displaying the retail items, and a table and a couple of chairs are stored inside the space, and are brought out and adorned with additional items for purchase as the cash wrap.
The store will also offer an additional hub for customers to purchase tickets to the Alton Hauntings various haunted tours, including walking tours held seasonally and a year-round Ghost River Road tour. The tours are based on Taylors books and explore claimed haunted locations in the city. Prices vary between each type of tour.
We didnt want to open anything too big, so we decided to move into the vault, said Taylor. It seems small but it is bigger than you would think, big enough for what we want to house merchandise.
According to Taylor, the company has a good relationship with the buildings managers, Dave and Donna Nunnally, helping make the idea of opening and operating the retail space possible.
Troy is a good friend of ours, said Dave Nunnally. We will still sell tickets here in our stores for the tours.
As of Wednesday, most of the merchandise had moved into the space.
Currently tickets are sold in the Mineral Springs building and on the Alton Hauntings website. The store will be open on weekends, Friday through Sunday during building hours 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. The building originally opened in 1914, and over the earlier year housed a restaurant, a bar and elaborate decorative features.
Before the vault, Taylor had previously opened a bookstore and began running ghost tours in 1993. The bookstore, History and Hauntings Book Co., was on Third Street in Alton and operated from 1998 to the mid 2000s.
People come up to me all the time and say Boy I sure miss that Alton bookstore, Taylor said. He has written more than 100 books on ghosts, crime and other topics.
American Hauntings Taylors company offering books, events, haunted history and tours celebrates 25 years of business this year, taking groups on guided ghost hunts in Alton, Carlinville, Chicago, Decatur and Jacksonville, all in Illinois.
For more information, call 217-791-7859 or visit the Grand Opening of the American Hauntings Vault event page on Facebook.
A Pulitzer Prize-winning author who visited the Jacksonville Public Library and spoke at Illinois College Wednesday, encouraged those in attendance to be persistent in the pursuit of their dreams while talking about his award-winning book.
Colson Whitehead, the author of The Underground Railroad, spoke to members of the community and Illinois College Wednesday, sharing a passage from his book while telling about this rise as an author.
Starting off reading any genre he could as a child, Whitehead said he started small in journalism before moving on to novels, he first of which received a high number of rejections.
I didnt think I could take it, Whitehead said. It took so long to make it.
After sharing stories of his first failed attempts at being published and his own fears of not producing a compelling story that people will like, Whitehead told the audience that he learned to move forward.
I want them to learn that its OK to fail, Whitehead said. Its OK to follow your weird ideas.
Whitehead said after his first failed attempt at being published, he held off on his idea of writing about the Underground Railroad, despite its prominence in his thoughts.
Instead, he wrote several other works to be published.
Each time I would finish a book, Id go back to my notes, and would think, Im not ready yet, Whitehead said.
Finally, encouraged by those around him, Whitehead said he started the process of writing, researching, reading the stories of slaves and soaking up the words and details.
The Underground Railroad has won a Pulitzer Prize, a Carnegie Medal for Fiction, the Heartland Prize, the Arthur C. Clarke Award and the Hurston/Wright Fiction Award. It also was a New York Times bestseller.
Students at Illinois College read the book as a part of the schools IC Connections Summer Common Reading a requirement for first-year students.
Emily Adams, a academic director for the IC Connections program and associate professor of French at IC, said meeting the author and hearing him talk gives a more indepth connection for students.
I want them to realize that books are not just old things on the shelf, Adams said. There are artists involved. To get to meet a novelist like Colson Whitehead is a once in a lifetime opportunity.
Jacksonville Public Library Director Chris Ashmore said having an author of Whiteheads calliber visit the library was great.
It is quite amazing for us to bring in an author of this stature, Ashmore said. Im glad the community has responded so well.
For Whitehead, the trip through Illinois and the Midwest has been a great experience.
Its great to see the places that were a part of the Underground Railroad, Whitehead said.
Samantha McDaniel-Ogletree can be reached at 217-245-6121, ext. 1233, or on Twitter @JCNews_samantha.
Posted on: September 13, 2018 3:59 PM
Members of the Mothers Union in The Church of the Province of Myanmar are helping alleviate suffering caused by flooding in the country. According to Reuters Relief Net, almost 79,000 people from four townships in the countrys Bago Region had to flee their homes after the Swar Chaung dam was breached at the end of August. This was the latest of five serious flooding events that have hit Myanmar in the past two months. In total, some 100,000 people have been forced to leave their homes since July.
We dont want to face this anymore, the Community Development Coordinator for the Diocese of Hpa-an, Naw Lynn, said. Its the worst its ever been. It is a very desperate situation.
Mothers Union members and young people from the diocese are delivering food, clean water and bags of rice to those whose homes have been flooded as well as people who are stranded and are unable to leave their homes. The only way to get around the area at the moment is by boat because all the roads are badly flooded. Boats are very expensive to buy so one of our branches has made a boat from bamboo until they are able to purchase another boat, Naw Lynn said.
MU members are raising money from church collections throughout the diocese and plan to continue assisting the communities long after the relief effort in helping them with the rehabilitation process.
The Mothers Union in Myanmar celebrated its centenary in 2014. Today it has more than 8,600 members and is described as a strong, dynamic and engaged group of members reaching out to their communities.
A spokeswoman based at the international headquarters of the Mothers Union said that Their outreach work includes projects such as: savings and credit groups, care for the elderly, vocational skills training, parenting programmes, orphan care programmes, health aware programmes and campaigning against gender based violence.
It's been a decade since the Houston area was pummeled by Hurricane Ike, leading to months of headaches and years of repairs to property and industry.
The Category 2 hurricane made landfall on Sept. 13, 2008, just after 2 a.m., hitting Galveston first and then moving onto the mainland and blazing a trail of damage.
GALVESTON'S MOMENT: Looking back at the 1900 hurricane that wiped out Galveston 116 years ago
Though it was a Category 2 storm, it packed a Category 5 storm surge, which spelled doom for island property, most notably along the Bolivar Peninsula. Winds topped out at 110 miles per hour here in the Houston area. The area was lucky as the hurricane, elsewhere, at its peak was a Category 4.
Its girth -- winds of hurricane force spanned 120 miles and those at tropical-storm force spread over 275 miles -- made for epic storm surge with 10- to 13-foot water levels along Galveston Island and flooding of 13 to 17 feet on the Bolivar Peninsula. Water rose up to 20 feet in parts of Chambers County, the National Weather Service reported.
THE LONG ROAD BACK: Dramatic then and now photos show how Hurricane Harvey devastated Houston
It got downgraded to a tropical depression as it hit Dallas later that night at around midnight. As the hurricane moved north and into Canada as a powerful storm it dumped a record amount of rainfall on Ontario. Oddly enough the remnants of the storm made it to, of all places, Iceland by Sept. 17, 2008.
Those of us who were here in Houston at the time can share tales of long lines to buy gas or ice, power outages that lasted days and even weeks, and haggling with insurance adjusters. Sixty-one percent of the flood losses were not covered by insurance, adding to the misery after Ike.
At the height of the outages, 2.6 million of us were without power, and it took an army of CenterPoint employees, with help from out-of-state crews, to get the area back online.
As Houstonians seem to make the most out of a traumatic community event, hurricane parties abounded. The city of Houston had a 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew for a short time and people bonded over the hardships and neighbors finally met each other.
A ROUGH ONE: Mighty Hurricane Carla battered the Texas Gulf Coast in 1961
There was also something called the "Ike Baby Spike" according to the New York Times which visited a Houston hospital the following May as the Women's Hospital of Texas prepared to open a a new expanded wing to accommodate a summer of births.
In all, Ike cost the Texas, Louisiana and Arkansas areas some $29.5 billion, ranking it behind Katrina and Andrew in terms of most expensive hurricanes.
In the wake of the storm, Galveston has come out better than ever with increased development in the area and a sense of renewal, although as hurricane season begins each year some fearful eyes turn to the Gulf of Mexico.
SEE IT IN PHOTOS: Hurricane Alicia hit the Houston area 35 years ago this week
The name Ike was retired in 2009 from the revolving list of hurricane names due to the damages and deaths it brought.
An April 2009 FEMA report on Hurricane Ike includes studies on how local infrastructure held up against the hurricane and offered recommendations for further construction in the area. As bad as Ike was, the consensus by analysts was that it could have been much, much worse.
Later, in 2017, Houston would experience Hurricane Harvey making Ike look like a dress rehearsal.
Craig Hlavaty covers Houston history and pop-culture. Read him on our breaking news site, Chron.com, and on our subscriber site, HoustonChronicle.com. | craig.hlavaty@chron.com
Thirty people were arrested or indicted on child sex crime charges in August in Bexar County, according to records obtained by mySA.com.
The charges include indecency with a child, sexual assault of a child and aggravated sexual assault of a child.
The San Antonio Express-News recently joined the nationwide effort of print media to address fake news. It did so by emphasizing what journalism is all about precise and accurate reporting of details of the meetings you cant attend or ask the questions you would, if you could.
If it is also the responsibility of the journalist to report on those tiresome reports that you dont have, then the same standard could apply to the review and endorsement of a book you probably dont have.
A recent review by Staff Writer Jennifer Hiller on Seamus McGraws new book, A Thirsty Land: The Making of American Water Crisis, is such a case. Deemed a serious policy book, the public could accept what was presented in a review as the truth or take the time to read the book and draw their own conclusions.
Theres good reason to read it because its offered by some as evidence that Texas has failed to show the leadership necessary to secure sufficient water for all Texans in the future. This premise is derived by skillfully weaving interviews of prominent water policy experts and observations of the people of Texas who are exposed to the actions (or inaction) of those who make the law the Legislature.
The consensus of opinion by the experts featured in McGraws book supports a complete reversal of the bottom-up water planning policy of today to a top-down approach through a central government authority. This would be a change thats rightfully noted to result in a visceral negative response by those who expect their government to support their individual liberty over providing for the common good.
To explain such a response, it is imperative to correct the rule of capture as presented by Hiller: It basically works like this: If you can pump the groundwater from your property, its yours. Beat your neighbors to the aquifer. He who arrives first wins.
In fact, though groundwater in Texas is private property, it is also subject to reasonable regulation by a Groundwater Conservation District, or GCD. These water districts are created with specific local powers by the Legislature to manage local groundwater under the leadership of locally elected directors who are typically unpaid volunteers and managed by a small staff of employees.
Noting that surface water is centrally managed by the state on behalf of the public, GCDs are collectively described throughout the book as hundreds of mini-fiefdoms parochial and self-serving entities that enable local interests to win out and obstruct the interests of the state.
In truth, GCDs have provided protection of the groundwater in locally requested districts across the state since 1951. Today, that total number has reached 102.
In areas of Texas without them, the 1904 rule of capture does indeed apply.
Statutorily, a GCD is a legitimate form of government with limited authority as created by the Legislature, and not rogue and self-serving as implied.
The necessity to challenge this mischaracterization and other assertions within A Thirsty Land can be summarized by borrowing a line from it involving an East Texan who nearly accepted that her land would be flooded by a dam but decided to organize a fight to save it. Thats the type of thinking that will get your land took from you.
In this case, accepting everything as written is the type of thinking that will get your water taken from you.
Yes, buy the book for its rich tapestry of history and people, but read it with a critical eye on the various interpretations of our state water policy.
Though it may be tedious to read, you will then have access to information from which you can readily spot news about water that may be reported with a lack of precision and accuracy, no matter the source.
With the truth you can confidently work with your leaders in Austin on ways to best plan for the future of Texas water as it truly is yours, mine and ours.
Milan J. Michalec is d irector, Precinct 2, and board president of the Cow Creek Groundwater Conservation District in Kendall County.
The controversy swirling around U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh is not new. The only Texan to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court faced a similar challenge. Tom C. Clark (1899-1977) was President Harry S. Trumans attorney general when he was named to the court in 1949. Clark hailed from Dallas and his nomination was greeted by cries that he was not qualified for the job.
There was ammunition for critics. Clark had made some missteps.
During World War II, Clark played a minor role in the Japanese internment program. The nation eventually realized that this wartime security measure, which incarcerated thousands, was a national disgrace. It violated the constitutional rights of American citizens of Japanese descent. They were deprived of due process and equal protection, not to mention their property, based solely on their ancestry.
Later, as head of the U.S. Justice Department, Clark had bowed to anti-communist pressures and compiled a list of subversive organizations as part of Trumans controversial loyalty program. That list was seen by some as sacrificing individual liberties on the altar of hysterical concerns about imaginary enemies in government.
Clark was caricatured as the presidents lackey, a lawyer incapable of demonstrating the independence and judgment that is expected on the nations highest tribunal.
Former Vice President Henry Wallace said, Tom Clark has taken upon himself the despotic power to declare without hearing which persons and organizations are to be considered loyal. Wallace also charged that Clark had connived the whole dirty business of wire-tapping and used spies in labor unions.
Former Cabinet member Harold Ickes claimed that Truman had not elevated Clark to the court but had degraded the court to Clarks level. The Washington Star said that Clarks record on individual liberties and human rights was pygmy in size.
The Communist Party alleged that Clark was a stooge of the Rockefellers. Ironically, the National Blue Star Mothers of America also charged Clark with being definitely of communistic tendencies.
Ultimately, Clark was confirmed by the Senate, 73-8. The controversy eventually subsided.
In the famous so-called Steel Seizure Case, Clark demonstrated his independence by voting that Truman lacked the power to seize the steel mills as part of his Korean War efforts. In Brown v. Board of Education, Clark voted to end segregation in schools. In Mapp v. Ohio, Clark wrote the landmark opinion that excludes from state criminal trials evidence illegally seized by the police. Clark also publicly apologized for his role in the Japanese internment, acknowledging that the program was entirely unnecessary.
As a member of the Supreme Court while it was led by Earl Warren from 1953 to 1969, Clark was an important voice in a judicial revolution that transformed American society through an expansive recognition of individual rights and a broad construction of the commerce clause. According to Supreme Court scholar Alexander Wohl, Tom Clark evolved into a more thoughtful and often more progressive Justice, a change due in no small measure to the greatness of those around him, as well as to his own gregariousness and open-mindedness.
By the time Clark left the court in 1967, he was trusted, respected and extraordinarily well-liked. Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote that the Texan had worked prodigiously to awaken lawyers and judges to a realization of their responsibilities. Supreme Court litigator John P. Frank concluded that no other person had done more than Clark to improve the administration of justice.
Whether a nominee to the Supreme Court will become a great justice is determined not by whether there is a controversy at the time of the appointment. Rather, the critical factor is whether the new justice is able, willing and permitted to grow into a position which requires that the occupant be fiercely committed to the idea that decisions must be based on legal principles, not on politics or partisan interests.
Vincent Johnson, J.D., is the South Texas Professor of Law at St. Marys University. He previously served as a fellow at the U.S. Supreme Court.
For more than a century, the Statue of Liberty has greeted immigrants and been embraced as a symbol of hope for those seeking to make a better life in America.
The words on the plaque at the statues base has almost become a national credo. They read, Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!
But those words have developed a hollow ring in the recent years.
Tens of thousands of refugees fleeing life-threatening situations and who are seeking to resettle in the United States are being thwarted in their efforts. They are facing innumerable bureaucratic roadblocks created by an administration intent on living up to a campaign promise to limit immigration, including refugees.
In the last two years, the number of refugees coming into the United States has plummeted to the lowest point in nearly 40 years.
The ceiling on the number of refugees allowed to resettle in the U.S. has gone from a high of 140,000 during President Ronald Reagans administration to just 45,000 under President Donald Trump.
During the last year of the President Barack Obamas administration the ceiling of refugees allowed into the country was 110,000.
This shift in administration policy is slowly dismantling a humanitarian program that has brought more than 3 million people to the United States over half a century. Although the ceiling on refugees allowed into the country was set at 45,000 for the current fiscal year, which ends on Sept. 30, only 19,890 refugees had been allowed into the country as of earlier this month.
Fewer than 1,500 have come to Texas in the last year, according to the State Department.
San Antonio saw the arrival of 1,260 refugees in 2017. This fiscal year, there have been only 440 refugees resettled in Bexar County, the Express-News reported recently.
The changes under the Trump administration have been made quietly without much public fanfare or congressional involvement. There have been shifts in funding and increased security-check requirements for applicants.
Most alarming there has been an increased reliance on reports that misstate the threat posed by people born outside the U.S. while fact-based assessments indicating refugees pose little to no threat have been rejected.
More specifically, in the last two years many of the officers who were hired to interview refugees have been reassigned to the Southern border to interview asylum seekers. Many applicants are having to have additional background checks known as a Security Advisory Opinion in addition to the extensive multiagency screening all applicants must undergo. And many government agencies are being burdened with duplicative procedures that only serve to slow down the process further.
The Trump administration must decide by the end of the month how many refugees it will allow into the country in the next fiscal year.
It needs to be substantially increased. The setting of last years ceiling at 45,000 and then only processing 20,000 or so refugees set a terrible precedent.
Instead of looking for ways to keep the growing number of displaced people out of our country, we must live up to the ideals of helping the tempest-tossed regain their lives.
(PRESS RELEASE) CIBC FirstCaribbean International Bank today announced that it has taken a decision to close its Anguilla office early in the new year.
Managing Director of Barbados and the EC Islands, under which the Anguilla business falls, Donna Wellington, noted, We conducted a strategic review of our business across the region and given the growth path we have identified we have made the difficult decision to close our operations in Anguilla.
Our operation in Anguilla is a small one accounting for just 5 per cent of overall market share there. Since the economic downturn, our business in Anguilla has been experiencing operational losses. Given the continuing economic climate, we have therefore taken the difficult decision to close our office there.
CIBC FirstCaribbean has held discussions with the Government of Anguilla and the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank, as the regulator, and all parties have agreed to work in close coordination to ensure that the transition can take place in an orderly manner and that all are committed to ensuring continued financial stability in Anguilla.
The banks employees in Anguilla will be offered separation packages consistent with the banks policy.
Ms. Wellington added that branch operations will cease on Thursday, 31st January 2019 and the bank was requesting all account holders to close their accounts and transfer their business to another commercial bank in Anguilla. As it prepares for the closure of its Anguilla branch the bank will not be transacting any new business with immediate effect.
The regional bank is also making arrangements with National Commercial Bank of Anguilla Ltd, to allow clients with loan facilities and credit cards to service their debts to completion.
Ms. Wellington asserted, We have met with our staff in Anguilla to apprise them of our decision and we are fully committed to supporting our employees and customers through this process.
She noted: Additionally, we will be communicating with our clients to offer them the support they need in winding up their business with us.
The search for Longford entries for Top Securitys Frank Maher Classical Music Awards for 2018 has begun and, with a 5,000 top prize, they are Irelands largest classical music competition for secondary schools.
The 2013 winner and award-winning violinist Mairead Hickey was at the launch in the Crawford Art Gallery and, as this years competition is taking place earlier than usual, the closing date for entries is now Friday September 14, 2018.
The Frank Maher Classical Music Awards were created in 2001 by Emmet ORafferty, chairman of the Top Security Group, to showcase outstanding young talent in classical music.
Past winners have received national and international recognition for their achievements and used their prize money as a springboard towards a professional career by funding their studies at some of the worlds most renowned music colleges and institutions, the Barenboim-Said Akademie, Royal College of Music, Conservatoire Nationale Superieur de Musique et de Danse, Kronberg Academy and the Meadows School of the Arts to name a few.
Emmet ORafferty said, I established the Awards to honour the memory of one of my late teachers, Fr Frank Maher, who was a pioneer in the nurturing of musical talent in secondary schools. He would have been delighted with the number of incredibly gifted musicians they have attracted over the years and I wish this years prospective entrants the very best of luck.
The Awards are open to sixth year post-primary students of string, woodwind, brass and piano.
The 5,000 top prize will be used by the winner to attend a recognised place of tuition, a course of study in Ireland or abroad or on a purchase necessary for the development of their talent. The finalists will each receive a 250 bursary.
Mairead Hickey added Winning the Frank Maher Classical Music Awards was a wonderful and important career stepping stone for me. It has helped to open doors professionally, so I would certainly be encouraging any aspiring young musicians to enter the competition.
The closing date for entries is Friday September 14 2018. Seven finalists will be selected by an independent board of adjudicators to attend the competition night on Friday 5th October 2018 at the Royal College of Physicians in Dublin to perform in front of an invited audience.
Full details, including rules and a copy of the application form for downloading, are on www.frankmaherclassicalmusicawards.com
Its been the best part of six years in the making, but for a small and dedicated band of altruistic volunteers from Granard, its a wait which could not have been more worthwhile.
On Sunday (3pm) that journey is one which promises to bring emotion, sentiment and quiet contentment in equal measure as the north Longford town finally opens its doors to a state of the art heritage and visitor centre.
ALSO READ: Granard Motte venture takes major step forward
'Knights and Conquests' as it has been aptly dubbed, eloquently tells the story of the Normans arrival into Ireland during the latter half of the 12th century.
Stylishly kitted out with all the mod cons typically associated with similar venues of its ilk, the finished product is living testament to how communities can move forward and prosper under the guise of one common stimulus-hard work.
From high-end interactive features and visually informative presentations on The Normans' association with Granard, you name it this cutting edge educational arena has it.
What's more, there's even a tasteful throwback to the Michael Collins-Kitty Kiernan era of the 1920s.
It was 2012 when all this started, said a visibly upbeat committee member Padraig McNamara as he offered his hand to the Leader during a walkabout of the centre last Friday evening.
The place was lying idle, the downturn came and it went into receivership but a group of us had a vision of having a centre like this in our town to help the town, number one which it has done.
With the alluring whiff that comes with a new premises still very much in the air, Padraig explained how the idea behind Co Longfords latest tourism hot spot was first spawned.
The onset of two commercial units together with 15 acres of land coming onto the market along the main N55 soon sparked conversations locally over how best to utilise them.
Public meetings were held. Tentative talks with NAMA, who held all the aces as to its potential sale were opened. But what the proposed venture needed though was community engagement, something which became very much evident from the outset.
When we started out we didnt have the money to do it, confided the local postmaster.
We said How are we going to do this? We had public meetings in the town and there was a huge response to it.
People came in and they just couldnt believe this was going to happen in their town.
Armed with a 10,000 deposit laid down by ten local community members to provisionally secure the site, the focus soon switched to servicing what would ultimately be a 175,000 loan through fundraising.
A hugely successful 500 club draw helped kick the philanthropic ball rolling while a major drive across the Atlantic in 2016 saw the group raise over 40,000 among ex-pats living overseas.
Not bad for a modestly sized committee of local volunteers who hadnt a red cent to rub together some four years earlier.
Padraigs sense of appreciation and gratitude as a consequence of those efforts are drawn upon time and again during the course of our exchange.
So too is the credit which is laid at the doors of local authority chiefs and elected members who, he claims, went above and beyond their public service pay grades to aid the project.
I think this town (Granard) is streaming ahead, he confidently asserted.
But we wouldnt be doing this without the county councils support and the municipal district that are here are just second to none.
They have supported us through thick and thin. Anytime we have needed help, they have supported us.
County Council Chief Executive Paddy Mahon, Senior Planner Donal Mac An Bheatha and Regeneration Officer Lorraine OConnor are just three names to come in for specific mention.
The decisive injection of some 200,000 under the REDZ (Rural Economic Development Zones) Programme was perhaps the most significant factor in bringing the enterprise one step closer to realisation.
Its a situation organisers like Padraig could only have dreamed about back in 2012.
The site cost us 265,000, this is the tail end of 2018 and we have that mortgage down to less than 90,000.
We are working hard and fast and we want to see this happen. We could pay it off in the morning if we wanted to pay it off. There are funds there to the tune of 90,000 to pay it off if we wanted but we dont want to overstretch ourselves.
We need that funding to do the second phase.
The appointment of an hospitable and dynamic manager in the form of Mullahorans Tara Brady has added a professional feel to affairs while talks with Failte Ireland have already begun about how best to bring the centre and 15 acre park to the next level.
The latter will focus largely on providing unique insights into how the Normans lived and occupied their time in Granard, offering exclusive educationary supports to audiences both domestically and overseas.
Its not only for schools, this is bigger than that, argued a bullish sounding Padraig.
Its a much broader theme we are doing.
We are doing it for schools and we are doing it for our community.
We are also doing it for the county itself, for the visitors who come to the area as we go and visit the likes of Kerry and these other places they will come and see what we have. We are hidden, its a hidden gem we have here.
From the breathtaking proof of what will be unveiled in Granard this Sunday, its an argument which could not be more fitting.
Cathal Nolan of the Midland Weather Channel has been monitoring the path of Hurricane Helene as it makes its way across the Atlantic Ocean and has issued a severe weather warning in light of his latest findings.
In his latest Facebook post, Mr Nolan said that it looks increasingly likely that hurricane Helene will make landfall in Ireland at some point between 14:00 on Monday and 02:00 on Tuesday next.
"Currently Helene is 2000km southwest of the Azores and remains a category 1 hurricane, with sustained winds of 130kph and gusts in excess of 170 kph. Helene is weakening however and should continue to do so as it crosses the cooler waters of the North Atlantic before impacting Ireland through next Monday/Tuesday," he said.
"The latest guidance suggests that the strongest winds will occur along the south and west coasts, where gusts could exceed 130-140 kph. Overland gusts of between 110-120 are possible. The storm itself is still some time away and therefore its exact track and intensity remain difficult to pin down."
And, he added, this particular hurricane is taking a similar path to that of Hurricane Ophelia last year, which he says is extremely unusual for an Atlantic hurricane.
"My concern at present is that the storm could deepen during its approach to Ireland, transforming from a Post Tropical Cyclone into a very powerful Atlantic Storm, which would potentially increase the winds along the west and south coast given the storms angle and interaction with the jet stream."
Met Eireann have thus far released no details of a storm, but stated that weather will be very "disturbed" early next week.
"There is a lot of uncertainty in the details for early next week but indications are for very disturbed weather," said the forecast.
"Mild, very humid conditions are expected to develop during Monday, with rain moving up from the south in freshening southerly winds. There is a risk of some extremely windy conditions with heavy rainfall on Monday night or Tuesday but there is a large degree of uncertainty in details at present."
Madeleine McCann: Could, May and Perhaps rejoin the hunt
Madeleine McCann is back in the news. And its all abut the money.
The Metro tells us that the hunt for Maddie McCann has cost 11600000 so far. Not quite. Thats what Scotland Yards Operation Grange has cost. The Mets investigation into the vanishing of Madeleine McCann began in 2011. Before that Portuguese police were investigating the case of the British child who went missing on the Algarve in 2007. That wasnt without cost. And there was the private investigation funded by well-wishers and run by Madeleine McCanns parents, Kate and Gerry McCann. The headline figure is wrong. But, then, the story isnt about the missing child; its about us and if British readers can turn her into a talking point. Is she worth it?
The Metro oozes: Speculation is growing into whether UK police will stop the hunt when the funding ends as no request for more cash has yet been made. Who is speculating? Hopefully you are. And hopefully tomorrow youll tune in for an update on the single thread story spun out of control by a voracious media.
No news on the money means the story has been kickstarted as far afield as New Zealand, where the Herald announces: Hunt for Madeleine McCann may end within three weeks. When the word may appears in a headline you know your story is in trouble. But she was spotted in a New Zealand supermarket, so maybe the story is local to New Zealand after all?
Shes also been spotted in:
Canada,Italy, Sweden, Portugal, Spain, Morocco, Majorca,Belgium, Bosnia, France, Australia, Brazil,Wales, Malta, Italy, Germany, Australia, France, India, Dubai, Dorset, USA and New Zealand (by boat).
In the Daily Record, readers are told: Kate and Gerry McCann have vowed the search will go on for their missing girl amid reports police could shelve their hunt. Could. Or could not. An unnamed source tells us:
They will never stop looking for Madeleine or hoping that one day she will be found. More than 11 years on there is still no evidence to suggest that she is dead or has been harmed. If the police search comes to an end, there are other avenues to explore. They have carefully managed the money in Madeleines Fund for that eventuality. Whether they choose to employ private investigators or go down another route is something for them to decide.
To recap: There is no news.
Anorak
Posted: 13th, September 2018 | In: Madeleine McCann, News, Tabloids Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
School & Education, Local News, Community, Charity & Cause, Health & Wellness, Press Releases
By Long Island News & PR Published: September 13 2018
The site features definitions and explanations of different kinds of bullying, guidance for spotting bullying and bullying prevention resources.
Hempstead, NY - Sept. 13, 2018 - Nassau County Executive Laura Curran today joined Nassau County Legislator Josh Lafazan, Nassau County Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder and local anti-bullying advocates to unveil an invaluable new resource for Nassau Countys schools: Nassau County Executive Laura Curran today joined Nassau County Legislator Josh Lafazan, Nassau County Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder and local anti-bullying advocates to unveil an invaluable new resource for Nassau Countys schools: NassauStopBullying.org , Nassaus new antibullying website.
The site, developed by Nassau Countys Department of Information Technology, Department of Heath and Human Services and the Nassau County Police Department, features definitions and explanations of different kinds of bullying, guidance for spotting bullying and bullying prevention resources.
After passing with unanimous support in the Nassau County Legislature, Nassau County Executive Curran signed the NassauStopBullying.org bill on July 11th.
There is no excuse for bullying, said Curran. I am proud to support Legislator Lafazans initiative to protect our youth and provide much-needed antibullying resources with this new site.
When families first confront the ugly realities of bullying, its often hard to know where to turn and what to do. By launching NassauStopBullying.org, we hope to make these challenging and frightening moments more manageable for everyone involved, Lafazan said. I am extremely grateful for the support County Executive Curran and our colleagues across Nassau County have shown this important initiative.
Part of the initiative includes identifying a Dignity for All Students Act (DASA) school coordinator for each of Nassau Countys 56 school districts. DASA coordinators will act as antibullying change agents throughout Nassau Countys schools.
Bullying is dangerous, said Ryder. The NCPD is proud to work with the County Executive and Legislator Lafazan on this initiative.
Local News, Crime, Press Releases
By Long Island News & PR Published: September 13 2018
Defendant Arrested in Massachusetts in 2017 by U.S. Marshals NY/NJ Fugitive Task Force.
Riverhead, NY - Sept. 13, 2018 - Suffolk County District Attorney Timothy D. Sini today announced the sentencing of an alleged Bloods gang member in connection with shooting a man in Suffolk County District Attorney Timothy D. Sini today announced the sentencing of an alleged Bloods gang member in connection with shooting a man in Riverhead in 2016 and shooting another man in Oakdale in 2017.
Jovan Bailey, 31, of Medford , was sentenced today by Suffolk County Court Judge Stephen Braslow to 14 years in prison and five years of post-release supervision. He pleaded guilty on April 12, 2018, to charges of Attempted Murder in the Second Degree, a B felony; Criminal Use of a Firearm in the First Degree, a B felony; Assault in the First Degree, a B felony; and Criminal Possession of a Weapon in the Second Degree, a C felony. Orders of protection were issued for the two victims.
This is a dangerous individual and an alleged gang member who repeatedly committed senseless acts of gun violence and then attempted to evade law enforcement by fleeing Suffolk County, District Attorney Sini said. Thanks to excellent collaboration between our office and our partners in the Suffolk County Police Department, Riverhead Police Department, and U.S. Marshals Service, he is now serving a significant prison sentence and being held accountable for these crimes.
On November 26, 2016, at approximately 3:25 a.m., Bailey shot a victim twice in the chest outside of the Suffolk Theater located at 118 East Main Street in Riverhead.
On January 14, 2017, at approximately 3:05 a.m., outside Shakers Pub, located at 4608 Sunrise Highway in Oakdale, Bailey shot a different victim once in the leg. The vehicle in which Bailey fled the scene of the shooting was located by the Suffolk County Police Department. Its owner, Jessica Hardy, 29, of Bellport , was arrested at approximately 5:32 a.m. for illegally possessing an unloaded Glock 9mm semiautomatic pistol found in the car.
A forensic analysis of the weapon found that it matched evidence recovered at the two shooting scenes and DNA analysis tied both Hardy and Bailey to the firearm. An investigation by the Suffolk County Police Department, Riverhead Police Department and Suffolk County District Attorneys Office of the two incidents further identified Bailey as the shooter.
Following the second shooting, Bailey fled the state. He was arrested in Massachusetts on March 7, 2017, by the New York/New Jersey Regional Fugitive Task Force of the U.S. Marshals Service and was brought back to Suffolk County for prosecution.
Hardy pleaded guilty on May 23, 2018, to Attempted Criminal Possession of a Firearm, an A misdemeanor. She was sentenced on July 25 by Judge Braslow to three years of probation.
Local News, Community, Charity & Cause, Press Releases
By Long Island News & PR Published: September 13 2018
The ceremony was to remember the sacrifices made by prisoners of war and servicemembers who are missing in action.
East Meadow, NY - Sept. 13, 2018 - Legislator Debra Mule (D Legislator Debra Mule (D Freeport ) attended Nassau Countys eighth annual POW/MIA Recognition Ceremony and Veterans Picnic at Eisenhower Park on Thursday, Sept. 6. The ceremony was hosted by Nassau County Executive Laura Curran and Nassau County Director of Veterans Services Ralph Esposito to remember the sacrifices made by prisoners of war (POW) and servicemembers who are missing in action (MIA).
During the recognition ceremony, Legislator Mule joined elected in officials in reciting the names of service members missing inaction and thanked veterans in attendance who have served. Hundreds of residents and veterans gathered to recognize and remember the valor exhibited by these soldiers.
Local News, Crime, Press Releases
By Long Island News & PR Published: September 13 2018
Luis DeJesus, 43, pleaded guilty to Assault in the First Degree and Aggravated DWI, DA Singas said.
Mineola, NY - Sept. 13, 2018 - Nassau County District Attorney Madeline Singas announced that a homeless man pleaded guilty to running over a teenage skateboarder with his minivan in October 2017, seriously injuring the then 14-year-old victim.
Luis DeJesus, 43, pleaded guilty to Assault in the First Degree (a B violent felony) and Aggravated Driving While Intoxicated (an unclassified misdemeanor) before Supervising Judge Teresa Corrigan. The defendant is expected to be sentenced to 15 years in prison on October 22.
Because of the callous and thoughtless actions of a drunk driver, a 15-year-old boy continues to suffer life-threatening injuries nearly a year after being run over and dragged by a minivan, DA Singas said. A vehicle can be a dangerous weapon when driven in such an irresponsible and reckless manner. Public safety demands that drivers who engage in this kind of behavior are held responsible.
DA Singas said that on October 27, 2017, at approximately 5:45 pm, seven teenage boys were walking and skateboarding together in the parking lot of the Cherry Valley Shopping Center in West Hempstead . As they were walking, a blue minivan being driven by the defendant drove by them and then made a U-turn.
The defendant revved the minivans engine and drove directly at the teenagers. Several of the boys jumped out of the way of the oncoming vehicle, but one teenager, who was riding his skateboard, was struck and dragged underneath the van.
A group of good Samaritans held the defendant until Nassau County Police Department officers arrived and arrested the defendant. A further investigation determined that the defendant was drunk at the time of the crash.
Following the incident, the victim now 15 was taken to Winthrop Hospital where he underwent emergency surgery for internal bleeding and was hospitalized for five weeks in the Intensive Care Unit. To this day, the victim attends physical therapy three times a week, continues to suffer a brain bleed, permanent vision damage to his left eye, and has a large pulmonary embolism. He has returned to school on a part-time basis.
(ANSA) - Riga, September 13 - President Sergio Mattarella said Thursday the number of "hostile" States behind Web attacks was "alarming".
Speaking about cybersecurity in Latvia, Mattarella said "States are obliged to defend their citizens from virtual attacks." He said the consequences of Web attacks "can be disastrous: on public information systems, banks, electoral systems, social and health systems.
"And the possibility that major criminal groups, or even States with a hostile stance, can provoke this disastrous damage is really alarming for all".
Apples September 12 event revealed the Apple Watch Series 4, iPhone XS, and iPhone XR. Together, the devices delivered plenty of big, new features to focus on, whether its the larger Apple Watch display and its ability to take an ECG, or the fast new A12 processor and improved camera in the iPhones.
But there are always other details waiting to be discovered during these events. Theyre either mentioned in passingblink and youll miss it!or youll find them in the spec sheets or press releases. Sometimes those details are just as interesting than the headliner announcements, or even more so for those who watch Apple closely.
Here are a few of those little details weve uncovered since Apple left the stage on Wednesday.
No more Apple Watch Edition
Remember the all-ceramic Apple Watch Edition model that started at $1,299? Apple apparently struck it from the lineup. Apple still sells the Series 3, but not the Edition model. Now, all Series 4 Apple Watches have ceramic backs, and the sides and fronts of the cases are either aluminum or stainless steel.
Apple Dont worry, you can still spend over $1,000 on an Apple Watch if you really want to.
Dont worry: If you really want to buy an especially pricey Apple Watch instead of paying your mortgage this month, you can get a Hermes modelall of which are stainless steel and come with GPS and cellular connectivity, along with a fancy leather strap and a custom watch face. Those start at $1,299. Youre basically paying about $600 for an admittedly nice leather band and watch face.
Improved iPhone wireless charging
The iPhone 8, 8 Plus, and X were the first iPhones with wireless charging. They started out supporting a charging rate of only 5 watts, but that got boosted to 7.5 watts with a software update.
Their successors may be faster. On the final spec updates slide during the presentation, we can spot the words Improved wireless charging. Improved how? Is it faster? Does it stay cooler when charging? Is it more reliable with a wider connection area?
Apple Whats this? Improved how? We want more details, Apple!
Apple probably means that its faster, though we dont yet know how much faster. 10 watts seems to be the current fast wireless charging standard, though the Qi spec allows for a potential maximum of 15 watts.
With AirPower still a no-show a year after its first announcement, Apple probably just didnt want to draw any attention to wireless charging.
One modem for all U.S. models
For years, iPhones came in two variants: one that supports CDMA wireless networks (with a Qualcomm modem) and one that does not (with an Intel modem). In line with rumors before the event, it seems that Apple has now moved to a single modem. The modem itself is likely made by Intel (and probably the XMM 7560).
Apple Apple iPhone XS specs page lists two seemingly identical models. Its very confusing.
The official Apple specs page still lists two variants: Model A1920 and Model A1921. Thats the iPhone XS and XS Max, respectively, and they support all the same modes and bands. Curiously, the iPhone XR supports all the same technologies and bands as the iPhone XS with one exception: TD-LTE band 46. Weird!
In any case, the phones all have far better cellular capabilities than previous iPhones.
Oh, and youll notice that Band 71 is included: Thats the new 600MHz extended-range LTE band T-Mobile acquired last year and has been rapidly building out. This is the first iPhone to support it.
eSIM is not available on day one
Apples use of the internal software-based eSIM technology to provide dual-SIM support is a neat addition, but it wont be available right when the new phones become available on September 21.
A footnote on Apples tech specs page reads: eSIM will be available later this year through a software update. We dont yet have an estimate of exactly when this is coming, though.
Background NFC tag reading
On the iPhone 8 and X, you can read NFC tags by opening a supporting app and then holding your phone up to the tag. Certain active tags, that broadcast under their own power (like those on some mass transit payment systems) can also trigger the iPhone.
But the new iPhone XS and XR support background tag reading, allowing them to read passive NFC tags while the phone is locked.
The tags wont automatically carry through their intended purpose (like calling a phone number or taking you to a URL). Rather, youll get a notification popup, and have to tap on that in order to see/do what the tag is there for. So, if you hold your locked iPhone XR up to an NFC tag that contains a phone number, youll get a notification and have to tap it and unlock your phone, then the number will be passed along to the phone app.
AppleCare+ with Theft and Loss
Apple now offers a new higher-tier level of AppleCare+ coverage. The original AppleCare+ is still there, but you can opt for a more expensive AppleCare+ with Theft and Loss plan, too. It costs $80-100 more than the standard plan, depending on the phone model.
Apple AppleCare+ with Theft and Loss protection carries a stiff deductible, so its only worth it if youre prone to such things.
It behaves just like the current AppleCare+ plan, with a $29 deductible for a damaged screen and $99 deductible for other accidental damage. But now, if your phone is lost or stolen, you can have it replaced. The deductibles on that change depending on your iPhone model: $199 for iPhone 6 through iPhone 8, $229 for any of the Plus-sized models or the iPhone XR, and $299 for the iPhone X, iPhone XS, or iPhone XS Max.
You still get a pitiful 5-watt power adapter
Apple has been shipping iPhones with a little square 5-watt power adapter for ages. Even though the latest phones support USB-C fast charging and charge much more quickly with either a USB-C power adapter or the 12-watt iPad power adapter, and even though other premium phone makers all seem to include fast chargers in the box, Apple is still sticking with the 5-watt charger.
Apple This little 5-watt charger just isnt cutting it anymore, Apple. Including this with a $1,000 phone is a slap in the face.
Weve done the testing, and the charge rate with other chargers is much better. Bundling a 5-watt charger in the box of a $1,000 phone is ridiculous. Apple should do better.
Theres probably no headphone adapter in the box
While were complaining about Apple cheaping-out on accessories for its incredibly expensive phones, allow us to point out that the In the Box section of the site is missing one particular items it used to include.
The Lighting-to-3.5mm headphone adapter!
Apple Uh, I think you left something out of the box on my super-premium phone, Apple.
Thats right, on both the iPhone XS and iPhone XR specs page, the In the Box section lists everything youd expect except the headphone adapter. You still get Lightning earbuds, but if you want to use your own headphones, youll need to fork over $9 for the Lightning to 3.5mm adapter.
Oh, it gets worse! The adapter used to be listed on the iPhone 8 and iPhone 7 product pages, but is gone from those as well. It used to be there, but now its not.
It would appear that no new iPhones will come with the headphone adapter anymore. Either that, or Apple has conspicuously scrubbed any mention of it even though its in the box (which is something theyve never done before, to our knowledge).
The Apple Watch S4 is thinner, but not really
Right after Apple wowed the crowed by showing that the display on the new Apple Watch was more than 30 percent larger, it claimed, Series 4 is thinner, so theres actually less total volume than on Series 3.
Thats true, but its also misleading. Series 3like Series 2 before itgot a little bit thicker than the original Apple Watch. It went from 10.5mm up to 11.4mm. The Series 3 is back down to 10.7mm, so its almost (but not quite) down to the thickness of the first Apple Watch.
Other Apple Watch Series 4 improvements
A close look at the spec sheet for the Series 4 shows a few other improvements. Its OLED display still has a maximum brightness of 1,000 nits, but now uses LTPO (Low-Temperature Polycrystalline Oxide) technology. Basically, this reduces power consumption of the display by anywhere from 5 to 15 percent.
The Series 4, which has a new W3 wireless chip, also supports Bluetooth 5.0, while the Series 3 with the W2 chip only supports Bluetooth 4.2.
Update: Although Sprint was not mentioned at the event, the company says they will support the eSIM after the software update.
Apple is supporting Dual-SIM-Dual-Standby technology in the iPhone XS and iPhone XR by using the usual nano-SIM along with a software-based eSIM. Its one of those things some users have been hoping Apple would implement for years. In fact, its a real selling point for some Android users.
During its presentation, Apple highlighted the carriers that will work with the eSIM technology (which requires specific carrier support). Notice anyone missing?
Apple Sprint does not appear to be on the list of carriers supporting Apples eSIM technology.
Yep, Sprint is not on the list. Maybe it will come around in the coming months, as Apple says it is working with carriers to expand this list.
iPhone X cases should work with iPhone XS
Apple didnt say as much, but the physical dimensions of the iPhone XS are exactly the same as the iPhone X, and it doesnt appear that any buttons or logos have moved.
That means all existing iPhone X cases should work just fine with the iPhone XS, so theres no need to go out and buy something that says its specifically made for the XS, especially if it costs more. Well update this if we hear differently.
Naturally, the iPhone XS Max and iPhone XR are sized quite differently, so theyll both need new cases.
Slightly shorter iPhone XS battery life?
If you look at the old iPhone X specs page, youll notice the following battery life claims from Apple:
Talk time (wireless): Up to 21 hours
Internet use: Up to 12 hours
Video playback (wireless): Up to 13 hours
Audio playback (wireless): Up to 60 hours
The iPhone XS specs page says it lasts up to 30 minutes longer than the iPhone X but then lists the following specs:
Talk time (wireless): Up to 20 hours
Internet use: Up to 12 hours
Video playback (wireless): Up to 14 hours
Audio playback (wireless): Up to 60 hours
Thats an hour more video playback time, but an hour less talk time. Well just have to wait until we test battery life ourselves, but until then, take Apples claim of longer battery life in the iPhone XS with a grain of salt. The iPhone XS Max, with its much larger battery, outlasts them both, according to Apples specs.
Straight up, Im probably going to buy an iPhone Xs Max when it comes out (and yes, even with my reservations about that tone-deaf name). But I cant deny that for several minutes yesterday, I was seriously entranced by the call of the new iPhone XR. Its packed with the same chip as the iPhone Xs. It comes with almost all of the same internal features. Its got at least one camera thats shared with the iPhone Xs, and it comes in a variety of appealing colors.
All this, and for a comparatively agreeable price of $749, perfectly timed for a phase of my life when Im trying to save as much money as I can. I dont think Im alone in feeling this tug. In fact, I feel pretty confident in saying that Apple will sell a ton of em.
With the iPhone XR, Apple has given us an up-to-date, premium phone that doesnt come with many significant sacrifices over the flagship model. This marks a significant break with the past. Typically when Apple releases an affordable smartphone, its saddled with some kind of limitation over the hotter model that makes it seem backward and undeniably second-rate.
Apple You probably wont see a ton of performance difference on the iPhone XR versus the iPhone Xs apart from graphical fidelity, and thats a good thing.
In 2017 in particular, it didnt take much to feel as though Apple was punishing you for trying to save a little cash or hang on to familiar and trusted design elements like the home button.
The iPhone 8, for instance, still had the old bezel-heavy design and lacked the forward-thinking design of the Face ID. The camera was still impressive, but the absence of Face ID and the associated TrueDepth sensors meant that iPhone 8 users couldnt take part in the cool features like Animoji. The iPhone 8 didnt have the iPhone Xs cool ability to hide the content of notifications unless the proper user was looking at them. Unlike the iPhone X, the display wouldnt always stay on if you were looking at it but not necessarily looking at it. Tap-to-wake didnt even work.
Mini me
And now look at what we have in the iPhone XR. Functionally, its basically the iPhone Xs, although with an aluminum casing (rather than stainless steel), and LCD rather than an OLED, and a single rear camera in place of the iPhone Xss dual cameras. Its display also isnt anywhere near as awe-inducing, limited as it is to a resolution of just 1792828 and 326 pixels per inch. The iPhone Xs, by contrast, boasts a resolution of 26881242 at 458 ppi. It also doesnt support 3D Touch, and instead uses a haptic feedback system that should be familiar to anyone whos used the trackpad on the recent MacBook Pros.
Apple
But itd be foolish to call it a bad display. After all, the iPhone 7 and iPhone 8 both shared the same pixel density, and photos often looked absolutely stunning on them. Importantly, Apple is attempting to give its customers the best phone it can give them without forcing them to fork out $1,000. In this case, Apple has boosted the normal LCD screen into something it calls the Liquid Retina display, claiming that it offers the most advanced LCD in a smartphone and that it offers the most accurate colors on an LCD display. It even supports Apples True Tone technology. For a $749 iPhone, thats pretty impressive.
Ultimately, though, these mainly amount to durability and aesthetic differences. In performance, youre probably not going to notice much of a difference. After all, the iPhone XR has the same A12 Bionic chip thats in the iPhone Xs. The iPhone 8 and the iPhone X shared the same A11 chip, of course, but as Ive said above, they were quite different phones in everyday use. The biggest difference in design is likely the camera, but Apple is even covering its bases on that point.
Taking the right shot
Apples attitude toward the iPhone XRs camera demonstrates that its making clear attempts to provide similar experiences among its new phones even when the onboard technology technically doesnt allow for it. Its a good camera, being the same 12-megapixel f/1.8 wide-angle lens that youll find on the iPhone Xs. Unfortunately, it lacks the separate telephoto lens that youll find in the iPhone Xs, which may lead you to think that it cant do the gorgeous Portrait Mode shots available on the more expensive phone.
Apple Apple claims this shot was taken with the iPhone XR, and if thats what photos from a budget phone look like, Id love to get one.
But youd be wrong, or so Apple tells us. On the stage, Apple showed how it had managed to make Portrait Mode work with a single lens with the help of some tweaks to the neural engine and image signal processor, and the results on stage looked almost as impressive as what Apple was showing us with the iPhone Xs. In some ways, Apples action here is a direct challenge to the Google Pixel, which showed that its possible to achieve those same effects with a single lens. For many Pixel buyers, the price and the camera features were what led them to move away from the iPhone. With the XR, though, Apple is on the right path to winning them back.
Nor does Apple scrimp on the options. Much as with the iPhone Xs and iPhone Xs, the iPhone XR also supports Smart HDR for bringing better highlights and shadows to photos, as well as the impressive option to adjust the depth-of-field from f/1.8 to f/16. For a phone that doesnt include a second lens, thats impressive.
Getting what you pay for
No, the iPhone XR isnt cheap. It starts at $749 for the 64GB model, and the models with more storage will almost certainly push past $800. There are still plenty of people who will likely balk at calling it a budget phone, especially when compared to many of the Android options available.
But the iPhone XR reveals that Apple really was paying attention to all the folks who claimed last year that $1,000 was way too much to pay for the best new iPhone with the best new features.
Still, the big idea here is that you shouldnt feel as pressured to spend $1,000 for Apples Big New Thing.
Apple
Rather than offering more budget-conscious buyers an alternative model rooted in the traditions of Apple past, this year its giving us a lower-cost phone that lets as widely an audience as possible partake in virtually all of the new features. Some buyers will have higher-end models, of course, but the gap will chiefly be cosmetic. And thats the way it should be.
I dont think Apple is getting enough credit for this. In fact, I dont think its a stretch to claim that the iPhone XR could turn out to be Apples bestselling new phone by this time next year. Unlike last years punditry with the iPhone 8 versus the iPhone X, that shouldnt be seen as a mark against the higher-end Xs, but rather a sign that Apple is remembering that its at its best when its best new experiences are shared among all of its users.
At a time when I sometimes find myself questioning Apples direction, I find that the iPhone XR is a sign that Apple is still on the right track.
Everything you need to know about Aotearoa's new COVID-19 'Traffic Light' system
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has announced the new step in the COVID-19 response plan and we're breaking it all down for you.
(ANSA) - Berlin, September 13 - German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer told the Bundestag on Thursday that an agreement with Rome for the return of migrants registered in Italy at the German border had been reached and just needs signing.
"The agreement with Italy has been finalized," Seehofer said.
"All that is lacking are the signatures of two Italian colleagues and mine". On Monday Seehofer said that only thing left was the final approval of Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini.
At the time, Salvini said he was ready to sign it as long as he could be sure Italy was not taking back more migrants than German was accepting. Germany signed similar bilateral accords with Spain and Greece between the end of July and the start of August.
WINDSOR LOCKS -- Irish airline Aer Lingus committed Thursday to continue its nonstop transatlantic service from Bradley international Airport through 2022.
Aer Lingus also agreed to a smaller revenue guarantee, according to a news release from Connecticut Gov. Dannel P. Malloy.
Northwest Airlines stopped flying from Bradley to Amsterdam in 2009. The region went without European service from 2009 to 2016.
In February, Connecticut paid provide Aer Lingus a $4.5 million revenue guarantee. The state payed the subsidy after the flights fell short of revenue goals.
The payment was part of an agreement Aer Lingus signed with the Malloy administration to lure the air carrier to Bradly and restore nonstop European service to the region.
According to stats kept by the Connecticut Airport Authority, 18,000 passengers took Aer Lingus from January through June. More than 41,000 flew Aer Lingus from Bradley in 2017.
The flight, like all air service, is busier in summer vacation season.
The new agreement calls for a reduced guarantee -- limited to certain winter months -- of not more than $3.8 million in 2018, dropping to not more than $3 million in 2019, and not more than $2 million in 2020, bringing the maximum four-year potential subsidy total to $13.3 million.
Aer Lingus has committed to operating the service in 2021 and 2022 with no subsidy from the state. In addition to state support, in the first two years of the service the CAA contributed to the success of the route with landing fee waivers and marketing money.
Aer Lingus has committed to placing one of its first four A321neoLR planes on the Bradley to Dublin route, according to the release.
"Bradley International Airport is a major economic driver for Connecticut and it continues to be a key player in our efforts to grow our economy, boost tourism and improve our transportation system," Malloy said in a news release. "Over the last several years, we have focused our efforts on utilizing this valuable resource to spark growth and increase our economic viability. The addition of Aer Lingus at Bradley has strengthened our economic development efforts, and its success in the Hartford region and ability to provide a direct connection to Europe is having an impact."
While serving Dublin, the flight provides easy access to multiple points in Europe and has seen continuous ridership increases year over year since its inaugural flight.
"We are pleased that (the Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development) and Aer Lingus were able to come to terms on this new arrangement, as nonstop transatlantic service is a critical component of our strategic growth plan at Bradley International Airport," Connecticut Airport Authority Executive Director Kevin A. Dillon said. "We have maintained a very successful partnership between the Connecticut Airport Authority and Aer Lingus, and we look forward to taking this service to the next level together over the next few years."
Flights leave Bradley at 6:10 p.m. daily, arriving in Dublin at 5:20 a.m. the following day. Return flights leave Dublin at 2:20 p.m. and arrive in Connecticut at 4:20 p.m.
Aer Lingus passengers pre-clear customs in Dublin. They arrive at Bradley just as a domestic passenger would. No long waits at the airport.
SPRINGFIELD -- From scorpion bowls to Wiener schnitzel to bangers and mash.
Restaurateur Andy Yee and his partners at the Student Prince Cafe and The Fort Dining Room -- Peter Picknelly and father-and-son business consultants Michael K. Vann and Kevin B. Vann -- have purchased the McLadden's Irish Publick House chain and its four locations: Northampton at the site of the old Pleasant Street Theater, in Simsbury, Connecticut, and two in West Hartford, Connecticut.
McLadden's describes itself online as a craft beer experience gastropub and whiskey bar.
McLadden's founder Michael Ladden will stay on and work as beverage director of the Yee family company, Bean Restaurant Group, Andy Yee said Thursday.
Yee didn't disclose the purchase price.
He said diners should expect the Irish theme to stay.
"There are going to be some changes and modifications to the brand," Yee said. "It will be a complete transformation of the menu."
Besides bangers and mash -- sausages and mashed potatoes -- Yee hopes to add craft-style burgers and other in-demand entrees.
"We did a soft roll out of the new menu at the Simsbury location and it's gone great," he said.
These four new restaurants will make 12 restaurants under control of the Yee family, not counting their iconic Hu Ke Lau restaurant and nightclub in Chicopee, which they closed in April with plans to redevelop the property.
McLadden's will quintuple the the number of restaurants Yee owns with Picknelly and the Vanns.
Picknelly, CEO of Peter Pan Bus Lines, put the group together in 2014 to save the The Fort and keep it open.
Ladden also once had a location in Hampden, Massachusetts, which has closed. The company website promises upcoming locations in Connecticut. But Yee said those projects are no longer in the works.
Yee said he and his partners may one day expand the McLadden's concept, even putting one in Springfield.
"Springfield is buzzing right now," he said.
SPRINGFIELD -- When the Student Prince Cafe and The Fort Dining Room were in danger of closing in 2014 after 79 years, Peter A. Picknelly put together a team to save it.
"It was more of a thing where I didn't want to see it end in Springfield," said Picknelly, CEO of Peter Pan Bus Lines. "I didn't think I'd like the business as much as I do."
On Thursday, the team expanded its restaurant holdings, buying the four McLadden's Irish Publick House locations: Northampton at the site of the old Pleasant Street Theater, Simsbury, Connecticut, and two in West Hartford, Connecticut.
In addition to Picknelly, the ownership group includes restaurateur Andy Yee and their partners, father-and-son business consultants Michael K. Vann and Kevin B. Vann.
"I'm still a bus guy at heart," Picknelly said. "But I eat in the restaurants. I give suggestions. Some of them get ignored."
Picknelly said two of the restaurants are next to each other in West Hartford. He and his team are already renovating one of the West Hartford restaurants, the former Noble & Co., into a new concept and they plan to reopen in mid-October.
"It's going to be a completely new look and a whole new menu," he said. "We are using the design team we used at The Fort. We will continue with some favorites, bring in some dishes from The Fort and from the other Yee restaurants."
The acquisition will bring the Yee family's restaurant holdings to 12, and the number of restaurants owned jointly by the Yees, Picknelly and the Vanns up to five. The group also operates The Fort's Wurst Haus at The Big E.
They don't have a new name yet for the revamped Noble & Co. in West Hartford, which was marketed as a speakeasy.
"It's going to be 'union' something. We like the idea of the union of families. Union Station," Picknelly said.
Both Peter Pan and Yee's Bean Restaurant Group have offices in Union Station. He said talks continue toward opening a fast-service restaurant on the Union Station passenger concourse.
Picknelly emphasized that McLadden's founder Michael Ladden will stay on with his beverage expertise. Ladden will work as beverage director for all 12 Yee properties.
"They are amazing beer restaurants," Picknelly said. "Northampton has 125 beers on tap. No one has a selection like that. This guy is an amazing guy when it comes to beers and wines and liquors."
SPRINGFIELD -- The politics, business, and culture of cannabis will be front-and-center this weekend at the MassMutual Center.
That Cannabis Show! promises business-to-business networking, policy discussions, expert panels, and a celebration of cannabis community.
Special guests include Keith Stroup, founder of NORML; Matt Simon, New England policy director of the Marijuana Policy Project; and Steven Hoffman, chairman of the Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission.
The full roster of guests includes politicians and policy professionals, investors, activists and advocates, public health experts, and entrepreneurs.
A "bud camp" will offer workshops, a film lounge promises non-stop showings, and auditions are slated for The Marijuana Show, a "shark tank" for business startups. Jay Chandrasekhar, star of the films Super Troopers and Beer Fest, will speak and sign autographs.
The event is open to the public, set for Sept. 15 and 16, and tickets are available online and at the door.
The MassMutual Center is now operated by MGM Springfield.
AMHERST -- The University of Massachusetts Amherst will seek a developer to build housing for 1,000 undergraduates on what's now a series of parking lots on the south side of Massachusetts Avenue.
The project would also include the rebuilding of North Village Apartments, on the other side of campus at 990 North Pleasant St. Plans are to replace North Village Apartments on its current site and do the work in stages.
The 190-unit North Village Apartments was built in 1971 and is so worn out that many of its apartments are unrentable due to their condition and not worth the effort of repairing, according to university officials.
The university wants to do the projects as a public/private partnership, said Tony Maroulis, executive director of external relations and university events. Maroulis and Ed Blaguszewski, executive director of strategic communications and special assistant to the vice chancellor for university relations, briefed reporters on the project Wednesday afternoon as the UMass Trustees Committee on Administration and Finance voted in Boston to issue a request for proposals from interested developers.
That RFP would yield specifics like the cost of the project, but it won't hit the streets until January, and UMass probably won't get the proposals back until sometime in 2020.
Amherst Town Manager Paul Bockelman also briefed the Select Board on the project Wednesday night.
Maroulis, who once was head of the Amherst Area Chamber of Commerce, said the undergraduate housing gives Amherst what it wants: more on-campus housing and fewer undergads living off campus. It also achieves the town-gown goal of blurring the lines between UMass and Amherst, bringing undergrads to downtown businesses and inviting the community on campus.
But Bockelman is not so sure. The site is parking lots now. And it abuts the Fearing Street neighborhood. Residents on Fearing Street and its side streets don't like UMass students walking through their neighborhood.
"There are undeniable impacts from that," Bokelman said during a separate interview before the meeting. "We will be watching this project very closely."
Maroulis said the university wants to work with Amherst. But when pressed, he said the proper zoning is already in place. UMass doesn't need the town's approval to do what it wants to do.
Blaguszewski said research UMass has done on its student body shows that students want to live close to the main part of campus. The Massachusetts Avenue site would do that.
Maroulis said that if UMass builds space for 1,000 undergrads, it would pull in about 600 students who otherwise would live off campus, according to their research. The remaining 400 beds would give the university wriggle room to shut down existing dormitories temporarily and make much needed renovations.
The Massachusetts Avenue construction would be in apartments: studios and one- or two-bedroom units. The university would not build traditional dorm rooms, which have fallen out of favor with students.
Maroulis said there is a possibility that the Massachusetts Avenue complex could contain some retail. But it wouldn't need a dining commons as it is close to three existing cafeterias.
He said the housing would be managed, either by the developer or by the UMass student housing system.
The broad outlines -- and that's all there is publicly available at this point -- come form a formal request for information UMass issued in July 2017. That document was a way for the university to gauge interest and raised the possibilities of building not just housing but also retail, restaurants or a medical clinic, a second hotel on campus and improvements to Warren McGuirk Alumni Stadium.
At the time, UMass was looking at four sites. North Amherst and University Drive are no longer in play.
"The responses we got back showed the interest was clearly in housing," Maroulis said.
This would be the first public/private partnership at UMass Amherst, but it would follow the partnership project that built UMass Boston's first ever student housing. That housing opened this year. A similar partnership is in place for a dormitory and dining commons at UMass Dartmouth that is now under construction.
Under the partnership, a developer would build and own the housing and make its money back and its profit from renting it to students. The developer could lease the land from UMass or some other mechanism could be used, Maroulis said.
The university would get the buildings at the end of the term.
The partnership gets the building built and keeps it off the university's balance sheet, Maroulis said, and it won't count toward the 8 percent debt cap set by trustees.
UMass has 13,000 beds for undergraduates, Blaguszewski said. In raw numbers, that gives the Amherst flagship the third-largest undergraduate on-campus living population in the United States.
UMass' newest housing is the Commonwealth Honors College Residential Community, with 1,379 beds. It opened in 2013.
Total undergraduate enrollment is estimated at 22,000, up from last year's 21,766.
Boston Celtic guard Jabari Bird, who was arrested Saturday, will be arraigned at Brighton Municipal Court Thursday.
According to the Suffolk County District Attorney's office, Bird was discharged from an undisclosed hospital and will face charges of assault, kidnapping and strangulation from a domestic incident that occurred late Friday night.
No specific time has been set for the arraignment.
The district attorney's office had waited until Bird's hospital discharge before bringing charges.
According to police, the alleged victim, was treated for injuries at a separate hospital. The Celtics released a statement following the news that Bird had been arrested: "We are aware of the incident involving Jabari and are taking it very seriously. We are actively gathering information and will reserve further comment at this time."
Bird signed a two-year deal with Boston in August. The first year of his contract is guaranteed for $1.35 million. Next year, Bird's $1.55 million deal is not guaranteed.
The Boston Celtics released a statement Thursday in response to Jabari Bird being charged with assault.
The statement read.
"Most importantly, our thoughts are with the victim of this incident. The Celtics organization deplores domestic violence of any kind, and we are deeply disturbed by the allegations against Jabari Bird. Pursuant to Domestic Violence Policy in the NBA's labor agreement, matters of this kind are handled by the League Office, not the team, and so the Celtics will be working with both the league and local authorities to assist in their ongoing investigations. The team will have no further comment at this time."
Bird's was arraigned Thursday in Brighton Municipal Court, six days after his arrest on Saturday for an alleged assault in his apartment, Friday night. He pleaded not guilty to charges of domestic assault, strangulation and kidnapping. Bail was set at $100,000, of which $50,000 must be cash. He must stay away from his girlfriend and witnesses and remain drug and alcohol free.
Bird is alleged to have kept his former girlfriend trapped in the apartment for four hours, thrown her against a wall and strangled her multiple times, including once until she lost consciousness. She eventually hid from Bird in a locked bathroom, prosecutors said during the arraignment.
Its identity as a community enriched by Portuguese immigrant folkways, Ludlow is fortunate to be home to several fine restaurants that celebrate those traditions.
Primavera Cafe Restaurant on East Street is one such establishment.
The restaurant's interior, which is fitted out with a small bar as well as an array of comfortably-spaced dining tables, has a white stucco decor that references the architecture of Obidos, a walled town that's one of Portugal's best-known tourist destinations.
A menu of Portuguese specialties constitutes the Cafe's culinary repertoire. That agenda encompasses Camarao a Mocambique (grilled shrimp -- $18.50) and Javali (tenderloin steak -- $18.50) as well as Carne de Proco Alentejana ($18.50), a classic combination of pork and clams.
Additional entree options include Grilled Chicken Breast ($16.50), Bacalhau Assado (grilled cod -- $21.50), and the iconic seafood casserole, Mariscada (market price).
For starters the Cafe features Camarao a Casa (spicy shrimp -- $10.50), Pasteis de Bacalhau ($7.50), and Asas de Galinha ($8.50).
We began our dinner by sharing a showy presentation. Chourica Assado ($8.50) is a simple idea - a whole chourica sausage is doused with brandy and served "flaming." Primavera observed all the conventions of that particular presentation, right down to the hand-decorated dish in which the sausage is served.
Filled with a red-pepper-spiced mixture of cubed meat, the chourica delivered hearty flavors - smoky, meaty, and spicy -- as well as some visual fireworks fun.
Febras (Portuguese barbecued pork -- $15.50) features thin, cutlet style strips of pork marinated in a mixture of wine, lemon juice, and paprika. Grilled and served sauced with the cooked down marinade, the half-dozen pork strips had a robustly garlicky character.
Paired in traditional fashion with fried potatoes, the Febras also came with steamed rice. Starch on starch, we noted, seems to be a frequent Portuguese food motif.
Our second entree choice was Espadarte Grelhado (grilled swordfish -- $21.50). The two-steak portion was generously sized, the accompanying deep-fried potato rounds an appropriate plate partner, and the vegetable side, a medley of broccoli, green beans, cauliflower, and more, was tender-crisp and impeccably fresh. Like the rest of our Primavera experience, the swordfish was a praiseworthy effort.
The recipe for Bacalhau a Marinheiro ($18.50) employs the bright and fragrantly tart flavors of tomato to good effect. Assembled from a baked cod filet that's topped with shrimp, scallops, and a sauce of tomatoes, onions, celery, and green peppers, it's a dish that elevates mild-mannered cod to something boldly memorable.
Diners at Primavera get to enjoy a basket of country style breads with their meal, and entrees also include a cup of soup. We enjoyed the house-made chicken noodle soup; based on a good broth, it included chunks of chicken, diced carrot, and celery.
Salad is an extra cost option at Primavera.
Fully licensed, the Cafe maintains a small, moderately priced wine list on which the wines of Portugal are well represented.
The assortment of desserts at Primavera incorporates familiar options such as Mousse de Chocolate ($5.50), Cheesecake ($6.50), and a Chocolate Chip Cookie Square ($7.50).
We opted to sample three available Portuguese specialties.
The restaurant's Pudim Flan ($5.50) was a fine example of the genre, with a robust caramel flavor and a substantial, cheesecake-like texture.
A wedge of almond tart (Tarte de Amendoa -- $6) was a dessert masterwork, with its sponge cake base and top layer of caramelized sugar and almonds.
"Biscuit cake" (Bolo de Bolacha -- $7.50) is a no-bake Portuguese confection that's made from layering coffee-moistened sweet wafers with rich buttercream. The result is a dessert experience that's a firmer, more substantial version of tiramisu; it pairs perfectly with after dinner coffee.
At lunch Primavera Cafe Restaurant offers a scaled-back version of its dinner menu with a few sandwich options like Prego (steak sandwich -- $8.50) and Bifana (pork cutlet -- $6.50) added on.
Offering authentic, skillfully prepared specialties, Primavera Cafe Restaurant is a great place to explore the interesting nuances of Portuguese cuisine.
Name: Primavera Cafe Restaurant
Address: 257 East Street, Ludlow
Telephone: (413) 589-0562
Website: primaverarestaurante.com
Hours: Tuesday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 9:30 p.m.
Entree prices: $15.50 - $28.50
Credit cards: American Express, Discover, MasterCard, Visa
Handicapped access: Accessible, with rest rooms equipped for wheelchairs
Reservations: Accepted
(ANSA) - Genoa, September 13 - Genoese magistrates have reportedly gone to Luxembourg as part of an investigation into money laundering of part of 49 million euros taken in by the right-wing party League, allegedly the result of major fraud against the state.
Various newspapers reported the news on Thursday. Prosecutors have in recent days been granted an international rogatory and for two days they will be in Luxembourg to speak to a major witness and acquire documents, according to the reports.
The investigation began after a statement from one of the auditors claiming that part of the 49 million euros (about 10 million) had ended up in a foreign tax haven. According to a reconstruction by investigators, the savings bank Sparkasse had transferred 10 million euros into a trust fund in Luxembourg. Immediately after the elections on March 4, the Luxembourg authorities had blocked the transfer of three million euros for 10 days from the country to Italy and informed their Italian counterparts about the suspicion that the transaction was linked to League accounts. The Genoese judiciary had also been informed of the operation, which already in January had opened an investigation into money laundering after a statement by former auditor Stefano Aldovisi. Sparkasse said that the 10 million were bank funds and that the transfer was linked to ordinary investment operations. The financial police instead suspect that the money is linked to the League. Meanwhile, the Rome prosecutor's office has transferred deeds to their Genoese counterparts on an inquiry into Luca Parnasi, an entrepreneur arrested as part of an inquiry into the building of a stadium in the capital. Investigations have found that Parnasi funded the Piu Voci association, which is linked to the League.
SPRINGFIELD -- An appeals court judge, a long-time police chaplain, a Sister of St. Joseph who works in prison ministry are among the six Catholic individuals being recognized this year by the St. Thomas More Society.
The 70-member society, which is dedicated to "high ethical and moral principles and the pursuit of truth in the legal profession," will honor the individuals during its annual Red Mass Sept. 30 at St. Michael's Cathedral and at an awards brunch that follows at the Log Cabin in Holyoke.
Retired diocesan Bishop Timothy A. McDonnell will celebrate the 10 a.m. Mass.
Michael McDonough, director of the society and an attorney with Egan, Flanagan and Cohen, said the individuals honored are chosen by a committee.
"We delegate the nominating process to a committee which selects and votes on members of the Western Massachusetts legal community, not just lawyers, who exemplify the ideals of high ethical standards in the pursuit of truth and justice," McDonough said.
He added the society, which also holds other events during the year and awards two scholarships annually to local students, is "committed to the fair administration of justice throughout the bench, bar, legislature, government and community at large."
The society is named for Henry VIII's Lord Chancellor who was subsequently beheaded by a Henry in pursuit of an annulment from his childless marriage and in a power struggle with the papacy and resulted in what More deemed his own death "in the faith and for the faith of the Catholic Church, the king's good servant but God's first."
"We strive to celebrate individuals who have selflessly and positively influenced the legal community through their acts, deeds and commitment to justice and the highest ethical standard," said McDonough, nothing that More is the patron saint of lawyers and public servants.
This is the 17th year of the society's Red Mass, named for a European liturgical tradition associated with the Catholic legal community there and adopted by a number of dioceses in this country.
The awards brunch begins at 11:30 and is open to the public.
Tickets are $50 and may be purchased by contacting William Kern at (413) 262-2905 or McDonough at (413) 737-0260.
The six individuals being honored and their biographies as provided by the society are:
Jabari Bird's girlfriend was trapped in his Brighton apartment for four hours while the 24-year-old Boston Celtics guard strangled her more than a dozen times, causing her to lose consciousness, according to a police report.
When the young woman - who is not being identified - returned to her dorm room she had cuts on her neck, bumps on her head, and extensive bruising, police wrote in a police report obtained by MassLive.
She was only able to escape Bird after he passed out. Bird began showing symptoms of a seizure, hours after the incident began, police wrote in the report.
The woman, according to police, lifted the 6 feet 6 inch tall Bird, and placed him on his bed. She told police he has anxiety issues.
Bird pleaded not guilty to charges of kidnapping, strangulation, assault and battery on a family or household member, and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon in Brighton District Court Thursday.
At about 1 p.m., Friday Bird, who recently signed a two-year deal with the Celtics, confronted his girlfriend about "trust issues," he had with her, police wrote in the report.
The argument quickly escalated when Bird "began to strangle her using one of his hands around her neck, also throwing her against the wall," Boston police wrote in the report.
Bird strangled the woman with two hands about 12 times, causing her to lose consciousness, she told police.
"He had a pattern of when she began to go 'limp' he would stop and allow her to regain her breath, and then continue to strangle her," police wrote in the report on file in Brighton District Court.
At one point - after passing out for a few minutes - the woman woke up underneath Bird's bed. When she stuck her head out from underneath the bed, Bird kicked her in the stomach several times, according to police.
She tried to leave but Bird dragged her by the ankles from the door and put her inside the bathroom, police said in the report. When she eventually escaped the bathroom she saw Bird displaying "seizure like" symptoms, police said, and she moved him onto his bed where he fell asleep.
The woman took Bird's friend's car around 5 p.m. and left for her dorm room where she told a friend what happened.
The two women walked to Boston Children's Hospital where the woman was checked for injuries and interviewed by police. In addition to cuts and bruises on her face and neck, she suffered internal bleeding behind her ear, police said in the report.
While the woman and a friend were at the hospital, police found out that a Boston Celtics employee called 911 on behalf of Bird. He had texted his girlfriend threatening to kill himself if she didn't come back. The victim took screenshots of the messages and sent the images to a member of the Celtics organization, who checked on Bird and then called police.
He was taken to the hospital where police monitored him until his release. At that time he arrested on kidnapping, assault and battery, and strangulation charges.
Facing those charges in Brighton District Court Thursday, Bird did not speak except to say he understood the allegations brought against him. He wore a suit and stood behind a glass window.
Assistant District Attorney Khyati Short recommended a $100,000 cash bail for Bird, but Judge David Donnelly set bail at $50,000 cash with conditions.
Attorney Brian Kelly, representing Bird, argued that the cash bail was unreasonable. He said it would be impossible to withdraw that much cash by the end of the day.
"Unless you're a drug dealer you're not walking around with that much cash," Kelly said before the court. He said that no bank in the city would allow a withdrawal of that much cash on short notice.
Donnelly disagreed and gave Kelly until 4 p.m. to post the bail for his client.
"We are in the capital city," Donnelly said.
If released, Bird is ordered not to have contact with the victim or witnesses, to stay away from his victim's campus, to not use drugs and alcohol, and to continue treatment. He is not to leave Massachusetts unless it is for his work as a Celtics player, and he must notify probation officers in advance.
Bird is to return to court on October 25.
The Celtics released a statement saying they were "deeply disturbed" by the allegations against Bird.
"Most importantly, our thoughts are with the victim of this incident. The Celtics organization deplores domestic violence of any kind, and we are deeply disturbed by the allegations against Jabari Bird. Pursuant to Domestic Violence Policy in the NBA's labor agreement, matters of this kind are handled by the League Office, not the team, and so the Celtics will be working with both the league and local authorities to assist in their ongoing investigations. The team will have no further comment at this time," the statement read.
Boston Celtic guard Jabari Bird was arraigned Thursday on charges of assaulting his girlfriend.
Bird's appearance comes six days after his arrest on Saturday.
The reported assault occurred in Bird's apartment. He is alleged to have kept his former romantic partner trapped in the apartment for four hours, thrown her against a wall and strangled her multiple times.
He pleaded not guilty to charges of domestic assault, strangulation and kidnapping. Bail was set at $50,000 cash. Bird is ordered to stay away from his girlfriend and witnesses and remain drug and alcohol free.
Bird signed a two-year deal with the Celtics earlier this summer, with his first year fully guaranteed at $1.35 million.
The Celtics released a statement Saturday morning after news broke of Bird's arrest: "We are aware of the incident involving Jabari Bird and are taking it very seriously. We are actively gathering information and will reserve further comment at this time."
Parents, teachers, and civil rights organizers are trying to block interim Boston Public Schools Superintendent Laura Perille from being appointed permanently.
Perille, who Mayor Marty Walsh and the School Committee appointed replace former superintendent Tommy Chang after his resignation two months ago, has never run a school system before or worked as a teacher or principal, according to the Boston Globe.
"Our goal and expectation is that a quality, diverse, and experienced pool of candidates apply," the groups' statement said, according to the Globe. "Without a definitive statement regarding the Interim Superintendent, however, strong candidates may conclude that the search is not a serious one, and they will decline or be reluctant to apply."
The letter was signed by members of the Black Educators' Alliance of Massachusetts, the Boston Branch NAACP, the Boston Network for Black Student Achievement, Citizens for Public Schools, the East Boston Schools Family Coalition, the Union of Minority Neighborhoods, and Start Smart BPS and others, according to the Globe.
Perille has declined to say whether she will apply for her job permanently. Mayor Marty Walsh's office said the letter will be reviewed once it's received, adding that they "defer any comments on process to the School Committee as they will be leading the search for a new superintendent at BPS."
Boston Public schools declined to commment.
Jane Miller, co-founder of Start Smart BPS, one of the groups that signed the statement testified before the School Committee Wednesday night asking for more transparency.
"Currently every BPS decision seems to be shrouded in secrecy with limited explanation to community members," Miller said before the committee. Details about specific programs are "as difficult to find as the holy grail."
One of the issue presented was late buses. On the first day of school, 49 percent of school buses delivered students late to school. As of Wednesday, 28 percent of students were still late to school, according to numbers provided at the meeting.
The school system's transportation contractor Transdev has been unable to agree on a new contract with the bus drivers union, creating problems for parents, students, and Perille.
"Are the numbers great? Not at all," Perille said at the meeting. Though she said she is not able to speak about negotiations publicly, she assured parents and educators that the district is engaged in "active and ongoing negotiations with the bus drivers."
At the meeting, parents shared frustrating anecdotes - including a bus full of students who were dropped off at an MBTA station rather than school. Some highlighted the additional stress this is placing on parents who do not speak English.
Julia Mejia, a founder of the Collaborative Parent Action Network testified about calls she's received from undocumented immigrants worried about their children being dropped off late at stops in the afternoon. Some are worried about ICE raids.
"I think we need to do a better job with parents who don't speak English and are undocumented... so they are not worried their children have been snatched up," she said.
Boston Police responded to Washington Irving Middle School in Roslindale after a female student was allegedly stabbed there Thursday morning.
Boston Police say they received a report of a stabbing at the middle school on Cummins Highway shortly before 9:30 a.m. Thursday morning. Police responded and the female victim was transported to a local hospital.
Authorities announced no arrests or suspects in the case.
This is a developing story.
Boston City Councilwoman Kim Janey is calling for a hearing on gentrification in the city's Roxbury neighborhood and has proposed using property tax from luxury buildings to "offset the cost of housing" in other areas.
In Roxbury, a former farming community now called the "heart of Black culture in Boston," 81 percent of residents -- or about 51,500 people -- rent housing, according to city data.
This makes the population more vulnerable for displacement and eviction as more students and families flock to the neighborhood. Many people are paying more than half of their income toward rent, Janey said at Wednesday's City Council meeting.
"As the population grows in Roxbury we have to make sure that longtime residents who grew up in this community can continue to call Roxbury home," Janey, who represents the city's District 7 said.
"I'm thinking of all of the people who have told me they need to move because they cannot afford to stay. I'm thinking about constituents who call my office because they are being evicted. I'm thinking about my neighbors who want to buy a home, but the only option they have is to look to Brockton or Randolph."
She added: "I'm thinking about my own granddaughter who is sixth-generation Roxbury and whether or not she will be able to stay in the neighborhood that I love."
Janey, whose motion was supported by her colleagues on the council, said she wants to bring stakeholders and residents together for a discussion on options before it's too late.
"I want us to explore new and innovative ways for us to maintain affordable housing," Janey said. "As more and more land in Roxbury is being developed we need to ask ourselves, 'Who is benefiting?'"
She suggested using the property tax from luxury buildings like the Back Bay's One Dalton Street to fund affordable housing units.
The tower is expected to generate $10 million in tax revenue for the city per year, Janey said.
"The property tax on just one tower could fund one thousand affordable units," she said. "I think that's a conversation worth having."
The Council has not yet set a date for the hearing.
More than 1,000 union workers voted to authorize a strike at eight Marriott Hotels in Boston at a meeting Wednesday night.
Members of the UNITE HERE Local 26, which represents more than 1,800 Marriott International employees, have been working toward a contract for months. But Wednesday's vote marks the first official move toward a strike.
A Marriott International spokesperson told the Boston Globe: "Throughout our longstanding relationship with Local 26, we have always taken the negotiation process seriously and reached agreements. We have no reason to believe that this negotiation process will be any different."
Local 26 president Brian Lang told the Boston Globe that members are "fired up" and ready to walk off the job at any time in coming weeks.
"Our members are voting to strike because Marriott is not taking our concerns seriously. The needs of hotel workers & our families will not be put on hold while our work creates record profits for Marriott. We are fully prepared to do whatever it takes to achieve our goals," Lang wrote on Twitter.
BERNARDSTON - Three Vermont, residents were arrested after State Police found nearly 180 bags of heroin and an unlawful gun in their car after a routine traffic stop, Tuesday.
Trooper Scott Boutell was on patrol on Interstate-91 north when he pulled over a Toyota Celica at about 4:50 a.m., for motor vehicle infractions. After stopping the car, he found the operator was driving improperly on a restricted license and arrested her, Massachusetts State Police said.
During a subsequent search of the car state police found a 9 mm Beretta firearm and ammunition and 148 bags of heroin. Troopers also searched the two passengers and found each had 15 bags of heroin in their possession, police said.
The driver, Anna MacKenzie, 32, was charged possession of heroin and conspiracy to violate drug laws. She was also issued a citation for marked lanes violation, operating a motor vehicle in violation of a license restriction and state highway signal violation.
The passengers, Graham Jacob and Christopher Magoon, both 26, were charged with possession of heroin and conspiracy to violate drug laws. Jacob was also charged with unlawful possession of a firearm, improper storage of a firearm and on motor vehicle charges. Magoon was also charged with tampering with evidence.
The three, who are all from Barre, were arraigned in Greenfield District Court on Friday.
The Most Rev. Michael B. Curry, presiding bishop and primate of the Episcopal Church, will visit Pittsfield and Worcester next month.
Curry, who made global headlines as the charismatic preacher at the royal wedding of England's Prince Harry and American actress Meghan Markle, will preach at the First United Methodist Church in Pittsfield on Oct. 21 at 1 p.m.
The Most Rev. Douglas Fisher, bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Western Massachusetts, will preside over the Holy Eucharist service.
Later in the day, Curry will preach at the Hanover Theatre of Performing Arts in Worcester at 5 p.m.
Both events are part of an Episcopal revival sponsored by the diocese and the Episcopal Church.
The revival is being described as dedicated to "spiritual renewal and transformation."
The revival is open to the public. Free tickets will be available online on Monday.
The Worcester gathering will include a procession from Fuller Park at 4:30 p.m. as well as a program featuring faith sharing and the combined choirs of churches throughout the diocese.
Curry, who visited Springfield last October for the 200th anniversary of Christ Church Cathedral, was installed as his Church's first African-American presiding bishop in 2015.
A married father of two daughters, he is known for his emphasis on social justice issues. He underwent surgery for prostate cancer earlier this summer.
Curry recently took part in a prayer service in support of asylum seekers separated from their families outside a Texas detention center for women run by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
(ANSA) - Paris, September 13 - European Economic Affairs Commissioner Pierrre Moscovici said Thursday that Italy was "a problem" within the eurozone.
"Italy is the issue that I want to concentrate on first of all," Moscovici told reporters in Paris. The Commissioner also called on the Legaue-5-Star Movement (M5S) government to present a realistic budget law for 2019.
"Italy must be credible with a credible budget," he said, reiterating his call for Rome to get cracking on bringing down its public debt of over two trillion euros, saying it was in the country's self interest. He said that it was a "lie" to assert that it was possible to revive investment levels by increasing the deficit.
He also addressed Italian Deputy Premier and Interior Minister Matteo Salvini, saying it was not true that the EU had stopped Italy from making the necessary investments for infrastructure, following a claim made in the wake of the Genoa bridge-collapse disaster.
SPRINGFIELD -- A Holyoke man charged with illegal firearms offenses in both state and federal courts will spend at least the next two months behind bars after a hearing in U.S. District Court Wednesday.
Edward V. Laboursoliere, 50, was arrested in April after his wife called police to report her husband had a stash of guns and raw materials to make explosives.
A search of his home at 1080 Main St. revealed thousands of rounds of ammunition, weaponry including a fully-automatic homemade machine gun and raw bomb-making materials such as 50-pound bag of ammonium nitrate, a three-pound bag of aluminum powder, one-pound containers of potassium nitrate and red iron oxide.
The cache also included fuses and pipes, according to police records.
He was charged with 25 criminal counts in state court. Investigators said in police reports that many of the guns were "lying around the house" where Laboursoliere and his wife were raising their three children.
Police records also say investigators who searched Laboursoliere's basement found evidence bullets had been fired into the wall.
The discoveries and his reported tendency to have an explosive temper and anger at the government prompted a Hampden Superior Court judge in July to hold the retired machinist without bail for 120 days.
Laboursoliere was charged in connection with the machine gun in federal court on Aug. 30. He pleaded not guilty to three charges before U.S. Magistrate Judge Katherine Robertson.
He faces a maximum of 10 years in prison on the federal charges if convicted. But, under federal sentencing guidelines he would more likely face up to 24 months behind bars. The charges will be dropped in state court, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Deepika Baines Shukla.
Despite reports of having a volatile temperament, Laboursoliere appeared mild-mannered in khakis and a polo shirt during his most recent court appearance.
"How are you?" Robertson asked at the beginning of the hearing.
"Not bad," Laboursoliere replied.
Defense attorney A.J. O'Donald III told the judge he intends to attempt to free his client on bail in both venues once the 120-day order expires in state court.
He previously told a judge Laboursoliere's wife called police because the couple was suffering from marital problems aside from the arsenal he was allegedly building in their basement. O'Donald said if his client is freed, he plans to live with his mother and won't order any more gun components over the internet.
The government filed a motion for detention separate from the state order, which Robertson allowed until O'Donald can challenge it anew.
A pretrial hearing is set for Oct. 30 in U.S. District Court.
HOLYOKE - Police apprehended a sex offender less than 24-hours after law enforcement officials announced he had been added to the State Police Most Wanted Sex Offenders list for failing to register as sex offenders and for parole violations.
They also arrested his brother, who was wanted on unrelated outstanding warrants, at the same time.
Shortly after Massachusetts State Police officials announced they added five men to the Most Wanted Sex Offenders list, troopers from the State Police Violent Fugitive Apprehension Section were tipped off that Roberto Jimenez, 35, may be staying in an apartment on Sargeant Street.
Holyoke Police and State Troopers went to the apartment at about 7:30 a.m., Thursday, found Jimenez there and arrested him on parole violations and on a failure to follow his Lifetime Sex Offender Registration requirements, police said.
Jimenez was convicted of rape and indecent assault of a 12-year-old Springfield boy who he met on an online chat room. He assaulted the boy in 2006 after persuading him to meet to play video games, police said.
Officers also found Jimenez's brother, Emmanuel Jimenez, in the apartment at the time of the raid. They arrested him on outstanding warrants charging him with narcotics possession, domestic assault and battery, and motor vehicle offenses, police said.
Both brothers were arraigned in Holyoke District Court Thursday.
This is the second time Jimenez had been placed on the state police Most Wanted Sex Offenders list. In 2013 he was also added and subsequently arrested for violating his registration requirements.
The other men added to the Most Wanted Sex Offender List are:
HOLYOKE - The Holyoke St. Patrick's Parade Committee selected Joseph Weisse the 2019 Citizenship Award Recipient, the committee announced Tuesday evening at the Holyoke Elks Lodge.
A Holyoke native, Weisse owns and operates Laurel Pure, a bottled water company. His father, Frank Weisse, founded the business in 1965.
The award recognizes an individual or organization of Irish or non-Irish descent who "has made substantial contributions to the parade or the parade committee."
The committee also noted Weisse's charitable work, including his 28 years with the St. Patrick's Road Race Committee and efforts with 25 charity races and walks in the region.
His company provides the water for the St. Patrick's Road Race, which attracts up to 7,000 runners.
In a statement, Devin Sheehan, the parade committee's president, said, "Joe Weisse has been a great partner with the St. Patrick's Committee of Holyoke. For many years his company, Laurel Pure, has made sure our runners on Road Race day have been well hydrated.
"He was always willing to help the committee and the City of Holyoke any way he can. I am honored that Joe Weiss is the 2019 Citizenship Award Recipient," Sheehan said.
Weisse attended Holyoke public schools and graduated from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 1987.
Weisse recalled that when he joined the road race committee in the early 1990s, less than 1,000 runners covered the 10K course. The race not only attracts throngs of runners from across the Northeast but has turned into a massive pre-parade celebration downtown.
"I'm thrilled and excited. I can't wait for March 17. Plus, the parade is on St. Patrick's Day this year, which is a neat thing," he said. "It's the first time I'm in the parade. I'm looking forward to it."
He usually watches the parade with family and friends on Beech Street.
The committee will present Weisse, along with other award recipients, the plaque during its annual banquet Feb. 22 at The Wherehouse?.
Visit www.holyokestpatricksparade.com for information about the parade and road race.
Residents in Lawrence, North Andover and Andover who have service from Columbia Gas should evacuate immediately, the Massachusetts State Police said.
"Gas lines are currently being depressurized by the company it will take some time," the State Police said in a Twitter post.
The warning came soon after Lawrence Mayor Dan Rivera made a similar warning as explosions and fires hit the Merrimack Valley area.
He told WBZ he did not know the number of injuries.
"Make sure you're not in a home that smells like gas," he said.
The Merrimack Valley includes cities and towns close to the Massachusetts-New Hampshire border.
Andrew Mayor, town manager in North Andover said on Twitter, "As a precaution, the town is now advising all residents with natural gas to evacuate their homes until further notice."
Multiple working fires in @north_andover companies responding from entire region. Lawrence impacted as well. Andrew Maylor (@Town_Mgr_Maylor) September 13, 2018
The Twitter feed for the town of Andover also told residents and businesses to evacuate the area.
"[I]f you know how to safely shut off your gas, please do so," the feed said. "Residents and businesses are being advised to evacuate. We will post updates as soon as we have information."
Gov. Charlie Baker was at an event in Boston's South End as the news of the fires and explosions broke, and rushed back to the State House.
"Governor Baker is actively monitoring the situations in the Merrimack Valley and is communicating with first responders and public safety officials," a spokeswoman said in an email just before 6:30 p.m.
"The administration urges residents to heed instructions from local officials for important public safety announcements, including evacuations and suspending gas usage," she added.
SPRINGFIELD - A newly released audit by State Auditor Suzanne Bump faults the Hampden District Attorney's office for not doing enough with data collection to determine whether a program for first-time juvenile offenders actually works.
The audit concludes that the office of Hampden DA Anthony Gulluni needs to collect and evaluate data for the Juvenile Diversion Program in order to demonstrate if the program is successful in keeping first-time juvenile offenders from becoming repeat offenders.
In response, Gullini defended the program and its work in steering young people from crime, and said it is based on the "best practices" of similar programs across the state.
"Numerous studies have show diversion for low-risk, low-offending juveniles works ... and gives young people a second chance and a clean slate," he said.
The audit's suggestions are "neither sensible nor practical," Gulluni said, and the findings were compiled "by those with no experience or base of knowledge."
The diversion program is intended to work with first-time juvenile offenders between the ages of 7 and 18 who have been arrested for offenses including possession of alcohol, assault, disturbing the peace, larceny, shoplifting and trespassing. Participants are offered counseling, community service, restitution and other requirements, and when those are complete, the charges are dismissed.
The larger goal is to intervene early enough to direct young offenders away from committing additional crimes.
The audit notes the DA's office does not collect and analyze data that would show whether the diversion program is actually diverting anyone.
"Data such as information on recidivism could be collected and analyzed with minimal additional staff resources to determine the program's effectiveness in meeting the goal of decreasing the likelihood that juveniles will commit further offenses," the audit notes.
It suggests identifying additional resources from within the DA's budget, or requesting money from the legislature that could support collection and analysis of information.
The diversion program has one full-time staff and one part-time. Its budget is around $65,000.
The report includes a response from Gulluni's office that notes the difficulty in finding a direct correlation between completing completing a diversion program and any future arrests.
"Once a child has completed our diversion program successfully, there is no way of determining what factors influenced his or her return to the criminal justice system," the response notes.
The response also faults the audit for not offering guidance on what data to collect, when it should be collected, and how to use it to measure success or failure.
Mass. State Auditor report on Hampden DA's juvenile diversion program uploaded by Patrick Johnson on Scribd
As investigators search to find the cause of explosions and fires that rocked Lawrence, North Andover and Andover Thursday, Massachusetts State Police released a statement saying it is too early to determine the cause of the explosions.
Numerous evacuations of neighborhoods where there are gas odors are underway. Far too early to speculate on cause. Joint investigation will be conducted when situation is stabilized. Mass State Police (@MassStatePolice) September 13, 2018
Boston25News is reporting the Lawrence mayor's office is blaming the more than 20 explosions on over pressurized gas valves.
State police told all Columbia Gas customers in those communities to evacuate their homes.
Investigators with the Massachusetts Gaming Commission are in the final stages of their look into former casino mogul Steve Wynn, the company he founded, and whether the company is still suitable to hold a casino license here.
The investigators are in Las Vegas this week, according to Gaming Commission executive director Ed Bedrosian.
The investigation was slated wrap up by the end of August. Now it's likely to happen sometime this month.
"Our investigators are balancing a sense of urgency with an uncompromising commitment to diligence and thoroughness," Bedrosian said Thursday.
The next commission meeting on Sept. 27 will likely cover the post-investigation process going forward, though not the substance of what the investigation found, he said.
The commission has the authority to revoke or suspend the casino license, as well as the ability to levy a fine.
"I think the key point is comprehensiveness and transparency, that we have considered every angle of the critical issues," Gaming Commission chairman Stephen Crosby told reporters. "Not only what happened but who knew about it, when did they know about it and what did they do about it."
The commission's enforcement bureau launched the investigation after a Wall Street Journal report detailed allegations of extensive sexual misconduct by Wynn. Wynn stepped down as chairman and CEO of Wynn Resorts in February while criticizing a "rush to judgment" and denying the allegations.
The Wynn company in 2014 won the license to build a casino in Everett, north of Boston. Since the allegations against Wynn surfaced earlier this year, the name of the casino changed to Encore Boston Harbor and the cost continued to climb, coming to $2.5 billion.
The company is aiming to open the casino in June 2019.
"There clearly [was] by all accounts at least one terrible predator," Crosby said. "But the culture of the company that we've seen through other devices, they were recognized by the Human Rights Committee of the United Nations as a singularly impressive company in terms of, you know, LGBT rights and so forth and so on."
Crosby added, "So clearly, as with the rest of the world, this whole #MeToo thing and all the horrible transgressions that have come about by powerful men has changed everybody's sensibility. And I'm sure Wynn's sensibilities, Wynn Resorts' sensibilities, have changed, too."
Matt Maddox was appointed to replace Wynn and the board of directors has added three women to its membership. A small exodus of Wynn executives has also occurred.
Investigators "are working hard to finalize their investigation and are following up on a few outstanding matters," Bedrosian told members of the Gaming Commission.
After the bombshell Wall Street Journal report, investigators confirmed that a $7.5 million settlement that Steve Wynn allegedly paid to a manicurist was actively kept from the Gaming Commission as the agency was considering whether to give Wynn the casino license.
This post was updated with comments from Stephen Crosby.
MBTA employee Stephen P. Fagerberg is now accused of stealing more than $450,000 from the fare collection boxes he was responsible for repairing, Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey said Thursday.
The 55-year-old Dedham man was arrested in June during a joint investigation by Massachusetts State Police assigned to the attorney general's office, the Massachusetts State Police, and the MBTA Police.
Originally, authorities say he stole more than $80,000, but that number increased in Healey's announcement Thursday.
Fagerberg is currently suspended without pay from his position at the MBTA.
Fagerberg was indicted by a Suffolk County grand jury on two counts of larceny over $1,200 in a continuous scheme. He will be arraigned in Suffolk Superior Court on Oct. 11.
"As an Automated Fare Technician at the MBTA, Fagerberg was responsible for fixing and repairing fare collection boxes on MBTA buses in South Boston," authorities said.
"Authorities conducted an undercover operation that included planting marked bills in fare collection boxes that Fagerberg serviced. Authorities allege that the defendant deposited the marked bills into his personal bank account via a drive-up ATM."
The investigation first began in April.
There are reports of multiple fires and explosions as a result of gas leaks in the cities of Lawrence, Andover and North Andover, and emergency responders are racing to control the scene.
There are at least 39 homes and businesses that have caught fire in the three communities, Massachusetts State Police said.
"There are so many fires you can't even see the sky," Metheun Police Chief Joseph Solomon told Associated Press in Boston.
Police are evacuating residents from the three towns. Andover residents are being sent to the Senior Center on Whittier Court. North Andover residents are being sent to the town's middle school on 495 Main St., state police said.
Any neighborhood where there are gas odors are being evacuated forcing hundreds of people from multiple neighborhoods from their homes, state police said.
The town of Andover is also advising any resident who knows how to safely shut off their gas line to do so. Residents and businesses are also being advised to evacuate.
State Police fire investigators, detectives and crime scene personnel have responded to different scenes.
Police are advising all residents in Lawrence, North Andover and Andover who have gas service from Columbia Gas to evacuate immediately.
"Far too early to speculate on cause. Joint investigation will be conducted when situation is stabilized," police said on Twitter.
Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency officials said they are heading to the scene to assist with the disaster.
BOSTON - A Salvadoran national and member of the MS-13 gang will spend the next 27 years in prison for shooting a 16-year-old boy while three others stabbed the teenager multiple times, killing him.
Rigoberto Mejia, who is known as "Ninja" pleaded guilty in April on federal RICO conspiracy charges for racketeering activity.
He was sentenced Wednesday in by U.S. District Court Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV to 330 months in prison and five years of supervised release. He will be subject to deportation after his release, said Christina DiLorio-Sterling, spokeswoman for U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling.
His charges were the result of a multi-year investigation into the MS-13 gang which he was identified as a full member, she said.
The investigation showed that Mejia, now 32, and three other MS-13 members killed a 16-year-old in East Boston, who they believed was a member of the rival 18th Street gang, she said.
He is one of 49 defendants convicted as part of this ongoing prosecution. Sixteen of the defendants have been held responsible for racketeering conspiracy involving murder. Forty of the 49 pleaded guilty before their trails. The remaining nine were convicted after trial, she said.
Lelling; Harold H. Shaw, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Boston Field Division; Peter C. Fitzhugh, Special Agent in Charge of Homeland Security Investigations in Boston; Colonel Kerry A. Gilpin, Superintendent of the Massachusetts State Police; Commissioner Thomas Turco of the Massachusetts Department of Corrections; Essex County Sheriff Kevin F. Coppinger; Suffolk County Sheriff Steven W. Thompkins; Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley; Middlesex County District Attorney Marian T. Ryan; Essex County District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett; Boston Police Commissioner William Gross; Chelsea Police Chief Brian A. Kyes; Everett Police Chief Steven A. Mazzie; Lynn Police Chief Michael Mageary; Revere Police Chief James Guido; and Somerville Police Chief David Fallon made the announcement Wednesday. The U.S. Marshals Service provided crucial assistance with the case, she said.
SPRINGFIELD -- Mayor Domenic J. Sarno has turned down a City Council request for the posthumous promotion of the late Police Lt. Robert L. Caulton, saying it is not legally possible and is reserved for officers killed in the line of duty.
Sarno issued the statement after the council passed a non-binding resolution on Monday urging Sarno and Police Commissioner John R. Barbieri to promote Caulton.
The council said Caulton, a black supervisor, was "unfairly denied his promotion even though he was more qualified than others who were promoted solely because of the race politics of his time."
"Legally, this cannot be done, and this revisionist history would open up a Pandora's box," Sarno said. "This request is reserved for an officer killed in the line of duty. Civil service rules and regulations were followed and indicated he was not bypassed."
Sarno also rejected a proposal by the council to name a planned new police station after Caulton. The mayor said there are already plans to name the station after another deceased black officer, Capt. Joseph Budd. The city will find another way to honor Caulton at the new station, he said.
Sarno said he has "much regard for the late Police Lt. Robert Caulton and his family."
"He was a true gentleman and a good cop, who I knew personally and served with on the Board of Directors for the Girls Club Family Center in the mid 1990s to early 2000's."
During a 32-year career with the Springfield Police Department that began in 1964, Caulton sought promotion to captain in 1992. The city's Police Commission appointed two other candidates, Paula Meara and Peter Dillon, who had higher scores on the promotional list, and were praised for their leadership skills by then commission Chairman Henry M. Thomas III.
Sarno also said he is "pained" that after plans were already made to name the new police station after Budd, "some City Councilors and some community members would play politics and evoke the emotions of two highly respected African Americans," referring to the Caulton and Budd families.
Budd was first black officer hired in Springfield, and served for 30 years, rising to the rank of captain. He died in 1986. The Police Department's Youth Services and Assessment Center on Cottage Street was named in his honor.
The move to name the building after Budd was initiated by citizens, Sarno said. He released a copy of an email in May that referred to the plans to name the station after Budd, with recipients of the email including Councilor Kateri Walsh and the city's Health and Human Services commissioner, Helen R. Caulton-Harris, the daughter of Robert Caulton.
SPRINGFIELD -- The Puerto Rican flag will be raised outside German Gerena Community School on Friday in honor of the start of Hispanic Heritage Month, the first anniversary of Hurricane Maria and the annual Springfield Puerto Rican Parade.
Ward 1 City Councilor Adam Gomez said the flag raising is a community event open to anyone wanting to celebrate Latin culture.
"We want to celebrate not only our Puerto Rican culture, but emphasizing that this Latino community is building relationships with all of our brothers and sisters from diverse backgrounds," he said.
National Hispanic Heritage Month runs from Sept. 15 to Oct. 15, and the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Maria, which devastated the island of Puerto Rico, will be on Sept. 20.
The flag raising is an opportunity to honor the victims of the hurricane, as well as the work being done to help evacuees who relocated to Western Massachusetts, Gomez said.
The flag raising will also honor Jafet Robles, a community activist and father of four who was shot to death on Sept. 11, 2017, in Chicopee. The killing remains unsolved.
The event will be held at noon at Memorial Square-Linda Park, in front of the Gerena School on Main Street. Program highlights will include:
Community member Paula Lopez will sing the American national anthem and Puerto Rican national anthem.
David Silva, president of the Puerto Rican Cultural Center, will give a brief history of Puerto Rican culture.
Brenda Cepeda with Bomba de Aqui will present a dance performance.
The Springfield Puerto Rican Parade, themed !Puerto Rico Vive!, will proceed down Main Street starting at 11 a.m. Sunday.
Just when it looks like Washington politics can't sink any lower, it does.
One new example is a crowdfunding effort to muscle Maine Republican Senator Susan Collins, who is a refreshing Capitol Hill anomaly - a public servant whose vote can't be predicted before the facts come in. Collins has supported President Trump on some votes but not others, and she's considered one of the few true swing votes in the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.
Three activist groups have threatened to donate $1.2 million to Collins' opponent if she supports the Kavanaugh nomination. The senator says she's also received vulgar and threatening phone calls.
The crowdfunding campaign has caused Collins to ask that the groups be investigated by the Justice Department. She considers it bribery. Others are describing it as a blatant attempt to corrupt a public official.
"In one case - and we are going to turn this over to the police, but unfortunately, of course, the person didn't leave a name or number - but they actually threatened to rape one of my young female staffers," Collins told the Wall Street Journal.
The phone calls are coming from outside the state of Maine, she said. She added that two lawyers say the crowdfunding effort violates federal bribery law and the third calls it extortion.
Collins is no right-wing radical. Her independent mind provides good service to the country, as it does to her state, whose voters have shown both liberal and conservative tendencies, depending on the issue.
Compare that to the numbing cavalcade of Democratic or Republican robots who have dutifully attended the Kavanaugh hearings but had their minds made up before the nominee had even shown up.
The crowdfunding campaign promises that if Collins votes against Kavanaugh, the 40,000 donors who have pledged the $1.2 million won't be charged. The entire campaign is not about political activism, though, but smells of thuggery in ways that are more about threats and fear tactics than the aboveboard lobbying expected in a democracy.
Whether Collins votes for or against Kavanaugh is not known. Her track record has nonetheless shown her to be fearless in her public service - willing to take on Trump when needed, and willing to side with conservatives when their cause was just and she believed her constituents wanted it.
She doesn't deserve to be muscled or threatened. No senator does. Some of those on either side of the Kavanaugh nomination are truly attempting to argue the merits of an honorable job in an honorable way, but that obviously doesn't include everybody.
A coalition of attorneys general led by Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey won a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Education, which challenged Education Secretary Betsy DeVos' decision not to implement regulations aimed at helping students who were harmed by for-profit schools.
"For years, we've fought for needed protections for student borrowers," Healey said in a statement. "Today's decision in federal court is a victory for every family defrauded by a predatory for-profit school and a total rejection of Donald Trump and Betsy DeVos' agenda to cheat students and taxpayers. It's time for this rule to go into effect and give thousands of students the relief they've been waiting for."
The lawsuit centered on the Borrower Defense Rule, a rule that was finalized in the final days of President Barack Obama's administration in November 2016.
A 1994 law allowed student borrowers to use a school's misconduct as a reason to not repay a federally backed loan, and the school would then be obligated to repay the loan. The rule came up after the collapse of the for-profit Corinthian Colleges in 2015, amid bankruptcy and allegations that the school misrepresented its job placement rates.
The Department of Education concluded that the rule was outdated, and it underwent a rulemaking process to revise it. Among other changes, the revised rule limited schools' ability to require students to sign mandatory arbitration agreements, allowed state attorneys general to obtain loan forgiveness for a class of borrowers and better enabled the Department of Education to seek repayment from the school.
A trade association representing for-profit schools sued, and the Department of Education, after Trump took office, said it would delay implementation of the rule. In response, two students at the New England Institute of Art, as well as 19 states and the District of Columbia sued the Department of Education, trying to force the department to move forward with implementation.
On Wednesday, U.S. District Court Judge Randolph Moss in Washington, D.C., granted summary judgment in favor of the coalition of states and the student borrowers. Moss found that the Department of Education's decision to delay the rule multiple times, without going through the proper procedures, was "arbitrary and capricious," and the department should have gone forward with implementation.
Moss will hold a status conference on Friday with both sides to determine how to move forward.
BOSTON --
Hours after President Donald Trump disputed the death toll suffered by Puerto Rico from Hurricane Maria last year, Red Sox manager Alex Cora called his comments "disrespectful."
"To be tweeting about 3,000 people and being efficient, it's actually disrespectful for my country," Cora said. "We see it that way. I know he probably doesn't feel that way."
Trump tweeted twice Thursday morning about the death toll, claiming that the number of deaths had been exaggerated. Cora, a native of Caguas, Puerto Rico, said that he was frustrated that the argument over the number of deaths had become political.
3000 people did not die in the two hurricanes that hit Puerto Rico. When I left the Island, AFTER the storm had hit, they had anywhere from 6 to 18 deaths. As time went by it did not go up by much. Then, a long time later, they started to report really large numbers, like 3000... Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 13, 2018
.....This was done by the Democrats in order to make me look as bad as possible when I was successfully raising Billions of Dollars to help rebuild Puerto Rico. If a person died for any reason, like old age, just add them onto the list. Bad politics. I love Puerto Rico! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 13, 2018
"Three-thousand, six, 18, I don't know," Cora said. "We will never know how many we lost. I hate that people make it a political issue. This is about human beings. The people that went through this, they know what happened.
"Nineteen percent of our population is elderly," Cora added. "The effect of Sept. 16, the rain, the winds and whatever happens, maybe 18 people died. But the aftereffects, people don't talk about that. And when you don't have food, you don't have water, no communication, no medicine, then this happens."
Cora said that there was no question the U.S. government had helped Puerto Rico in the wake of the storm and thanked the government for its help. His hope is that the focus shifts from arguing over the death toll to trying to find ways to keep helping people.
"It's a little bit frustrating that the topic keeps coming and coming and coming," Cora said. "What's the point? I respect him. He's the president of the United States. But I don't agree with a lot of stuff he says about us."
Cora, who has been involved in charitable missions after the storm with both the Astros and Red Sox, continues to monitor the progress his country has made in the last year.
"One thing I'm proud of is we're standing up on our own two feet," the manager said. "Do we need help? Yeah, we do. We know that. But we've been battling through it. We're not where we were, but we will be there. It's just a matter of time."
UN rejects December 10 for elections in Libya Rejects French request, but renews mandate for UNSMIL
(ANSAmed) - NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER 12 - The UN Security Council extended the mandate for the UNSMIL mission in Libya for one year, until September 15, 2019, but did not approve the December 10 date for elections indicated during the Paris summit called by French President Emmanuel Macron.
The Security Council is calling for elections "as soon as possible so long as the necessary security, technical, legislative and political conditions are present".
France had asked to hold the vote on December 10, but it faced opposition from the United States and other EU countries, including Italy.(ANSAmed).
Turkey sends more reinforcements to Idlib front Along line separating regime troops from anti-regime ones
(ANSAmed) - BEIRUT, SEPTEMBER 13 - Turkey has sent more reinforcements to Syria along the front that separates regime forces from anti-regime one, between the Hama and Idlib provinces.
Reports were from local sources, confirming what had been said by both Al Jazeera and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR). For days Turkish troops have been reinforcing their observation towers and bases set up in recent weeks and months along the perimeter of the Idlib region, the last stronghold of anti-government forces, ahead of an imminent ground offensive by Syrian government troops backed by Russia and Iran. Russia and Iran have also built observations towers and bases opposite the Turkish ones in the area around Idlib and in the surrounding provinces of Latakia (to the west), Hama (south) and Aleppo (east). The sources said that the Turkish reinforcements have been sent in recent hours near the military observation tower near Morek in the Hama province. (ANSAmed).
This report focuses on the global Nursing Care Market status, future forecast, growth opportunity, key market and key players. The study objectives are to present the Nursing Care development in United States, Europe and China.
Nursing care refers to collaborative and autonomous care of individuals of all ages, group, communities and families by skilled person or nurses. Nurses are trained professionals which promote health and prevent diseases. Nurses help patient to cope up with illness and provide assistance to patients in medical procedures. Nurses are responsible for assessing patient, giving medicines and treatments. Nurses also develop and manage nursing care plans. Nursing care includes prevention and cure of diseases. Nursing care includes approaches of personalized care with more safety, convenience and comfort.
North America followed by Europe is dominating the global nursing care market due to high healthcare expenditures. The U.S. is dominating the North American nursing care market due to increasing prevalence of diseases. Asia is expected to show high growth rate in the next five years. Some of the key driving forces for nursing care market in emerging countries are increasing aging population and increasing number of hospitals.
The key players covered in this study
Emeritus
Genesis Healthcare
Life Care Centers for America
Kindred Healthcare
Extendicare
Market segment by Type, the product can be split into
Team Nursing
Primary Nursing
Progressive Patient Care
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Market segment by Application, split into
Nursing Homes
Home Care
Hospitals
Others
Market segment by Regions/Countries, this report covers
United States
Europe
China
Japan
Southeast Asia
India
Central & South America
The study objectives of this report are:
To analyze global Nursing Care status, future forecast, growth opportunity, key market and key players.
To present the Nursing Care development in United States, Europe and China.
To strategically profile the key players and comprehensively analyze their development plan and strategies.
To define, describe and forecast the market by product type, market and key regions.
In this study, the years considered to estimate the market size of Nursing Care are as follows:
History Year: 2013-2017
Base Year: 2017
Estimated Year: 2018
Forecast Year 2018 to 2025
For the data information by region, company, type and application, 2017 is considered as the base year. Whenever data information was unavailable for the base year, the prior year has been considered.
Table of Contents
1 Report Overview
2 Global Growth Trends
3 Market Share by Key Players
4 Breakdown Data by Type and Application
5 United States
6 Europe
7 China
8 Japan
9 Southeast Asia
10 India
11 Central & South America
12 International Players Profiles
13 Market Forecast 2018-2025
14 Analysts Viewpoints/Conclusions
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Wise Guy Reports is part of the Wise Guy Research Consultants Pvt. Ltd. and offers premium progressive statistical surveying, market research reports, analysis & forecast data for industries and governments around the globe.
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Global Pediatric Medical Device Market is expected to grow at a CAGR of approximately 10.5% during the forecast period 2017-2023. The global pediatric medical devices market is growing immensely due to rising occurrence of disease among children, increasing child bearing age among women, high number of children with heart diseases, increasing growth in number of pediatric hospitals and clinics. Furthermore, initiatives by the government and regulatory organization are influencing the market growth.
For example, FDA has taken initiatives like they are collaborating with the Institute of Medicine for the success of post-market surveillance of pediatric medical devices to enhance the development and availability of safe and effective pediatric medical devices. While there are few factors that hamper the growth of the market such as lack of significant biocompatibility and safety criteria for the medical devices have restrained the growth of market. Moreover, devices that can provide appropriate care to the pediatric patients is one of the other major restraint for the market.
Pediatric Medical Device Market Key Players
Key players in Pediatric Medical Device Market are
Abbott (U.S)
General Electric Company (U.S)
Johnson & Johnson Private Limited (U.S)
Medtronic (Ireland)
Siemens AG (Germany)
Koninklijke Philips N.V. (Netherland)
Novamed (U.S)
Phoenix Medical Systems USA (U.S)
Phoenix Medical Systems (P) Ltd. (India)
Pega Medical (U.S)
Pediatric Medical Device Market Segmentation
Global pediatric medical device market has been segmented on the basis of type of devices which includes infant caps, infant incubators, bili lights, newborn hearing screener, infant warmer, cranial orthosis, atrial septal defect occlude, cerebrospinal fluid shunt, others. Other devices include pulse oximeter for infants and automated external defibrillator. On the basis of end users, the market is segmented into hospitals, pediatric clinics and others.
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Pediatric Medical Device Market Regional Analysis
Globally, pediatric medical device market consists of four regions Americas, Europe, Asia Pacific and Middle East & Africa. America is the largest market for pediatric medical devices market whose growth is attributed to availability of wide range of pediatric medical devices, rise in child bearing age among women, and high incidence of chronic illness among children. Europe is the second largest market owing to high prevalence of obesity & other disorders among children as well as availability of funds for research and development activities in healthcare. Asia Pacific shows steady but positive growing owing to increasing awareness regarding child health among women and increasing demand of pediatric medical devices. Middle East & Africa is expected to show high growth in this market due to high prevalence of malnutrition among children and government initiatives to tackle it.
Some of Major Table of Contents for Pediatric Medical Device Market Research Report- Global Forecast till 2023
Report Prologue Introduction
2.1 Definition
2.2 Scope of the Study
2.2.1 Research Objective
2.2.2 Assumptions
2.2.3 Limitations
2.3 Market Structure
2.4. Market Segmentation
Research Methodology
3.1 Research Process
3.2 Primary Research
3.3 Secondary Research
3.4 Market Size Estimation
3.5 Forecast Model
Market Dynamics
.Continued
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by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, September 13, 2018
To a child in 1968, the world seemed like it was in flames.
The prevailing imagery, inescapable even for a nine-year-old, was fire. On our TV screens and the covers of our glossy magazines, fires raged in a dozen American cities and in a strange place faraway that our parents and the old men on the evening news called Vietnam.
The issues were racial, political and generational. Our world was changing. And while it might seem like a small thing today, the introduction of a TV series centered around a strong African-American female character was revolutionary. It was also high time and overdue.
The show was Julia, a situation comedy starring Diahann Carroll as a young, widowed, single mother working as a nurse in the medical office of a California aerospace company. It premiered on NBC 50 years ago next Monday -- September 17, 1968.
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It is considered to be the first TV series in America whose lead character was an African-American woman who held a job other than as a domestic.
Julia's husband had been killed in Vietnam. They had a young son named Corey (played by Marc Copage).
Corey's friend was a white boy named Earl J. Waggedorn (Michael Link), who lived in the same apartment building.
That in itself was ground-breaking. In the 60s, there were still some television markets where some residents objected to The Little Rascals because that series of old movie shorts showed black and white children playing together.
Premiering later in the same year in which destructive urban riots had followed the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on April 4, Julia was both praised and criticized.
It won praise for presenting a strong female African-American lead character, but others felt that its portrayal of its lead character did not reflect the real lives of blacks in America.
Wikipedia quotes two contrasting reviews. The shows plush, suburban setting [was] a far, far cry from the bitter realities of Negro life in the urban ghetto, wrote the TV critic at the Saturday Review.
As a slice of Black America, Julia does not explode on the TV screen with the impact of a ghetto riot, wrote Ebony. It is not that kind of show. Since the networks have had a rash of shows dealing with the nations racial problems, the light-hearted Julia provides welcome relief, if, indeed, relief is even acceptable in these troubled times.
Both takes seem appropriate. The mere fact that the show was centered on this African-American character was notably significant. But since this was, after all, network television, it was not too surprising that the life of the shows lead character would be sanitized in some way.
Still, much was made of the premiere of this show at the time. The premiere was so notable, and our major media so pervasive and influential, that even at age 9, I was aware of it.
I even remember watching the show when it was on because, among other attractive features, it had two boys on it who were about my age.
It never dawned on me, however, that their playing together represented some sort of cultural milestone. I may have been precocious, but not that much.
Thank you Prime Minister for having us here. Thank you for the invitation. It is always a pleasure to be in Israel. It is a pleasure to have these discussions here with you and my friend Nikolas from Cyprus.
We have to discuss about the situation in the Middle East. It is very important to discuss about Syria, about the need for a peace plan. We are three countries that love peace and democracy and that is the reason we want to develop our cooperation.We have many new ideas and many thoughts to discuss.
Ambassador to Libya still in Rome 'for security reasons' 'But embassy open', Tripoli airport closed after rockets
(ANSAmed) - CAIRO, SEPTEMBER 12 - Italian ambassador to Libya Giuseppe Perrone is remaining in Rome due to dangerous tensions sparked by street protests fostered by ''misunderstandings'' created by an interview that the ambassador had ''decidedly on his own to give''. The circumstance merged during statements before the foreign affairs committees of the two houses of parliament by Foreign Minister Enzo Moavero Milanesi, who took the occasion to announce that the international conference on Libya organized by Italy in the first half of November will be held in Sicily. At the conference, Italy will try to stabilize a situation that is ever more precarious, as shown in recent hours by rockets shot at the Mitiga airport.
The airport is the only functioning one in Tripoli and has now been closed again.
In early August, Perrone had underscored in an interview in Arabic with the Libya's Channel television the importance of ''preparing well for the elections'' with a ''clear constitutional'' basis and ''adequate security conditions''. Basically, not before the end of the year, unlike what France and the forces near Field Marshall Khalifa Haftar want. These statements sparked disorder in Libya, with several Italian flags set on fire and other anti-Italian protests in the eastern part of the country. At least two Tobruk institutions that the Italian foreign minister met with in Benghazi three days ago in the eastern part of the country controlled by Haftar made moves against Perrone as well: the foreign affairs committee of the Libyan House of Representatives had designated Perrone 'persona non grata' and the foreign ministry of the 'provisional government' (not recognized by the UN) had accused him of interfering in Libyan affairs. Perrone has been in Italy since mid-August on holiday.
On Wednesday, Moavero informed the parliament of the ministry's decision to keep the ambassador in Italy longer ''for security reasons''.
Howevere, he noted, the Italian embassy in Tripoli is ''open and operating''. The issue of the election date in Libya is at the center of heated debate. On Tuesday, France reiterated the hope that elections would be held by the end of the year, on December 10, in line with French president Emmanuel Macron's plan.
Moavero reiterated on Wednesday that Italy disagrees with the stance taken by France and that ''we are not looking to argue with France but we do not want to be subjected to orders, either''.
The comment was a general one but implicitly included the migration issue in addition to that of Libya. ''There is the idea of working together,'' the minister said.
Sicily, the location chosen for the conference on Libya, is in any case ''a land that aims to symbolize the holding out of a hand across the Mediterranean'', he added.
Meanwhile, meetings continue in Tripoli to keep the ceasefire agreed between militias on September 4 in place, after it was threatened by belligerent declarations by the rebel faction that sparked the clashes - the Seventh Brigade - and rocket launching on Mitiga, responsibility for which was claimed by a smaller group, 'The Tripoli Youth Movement', in a statement that has puzzled analysts. (ANSAmed).
Conference on human rights and peace in Tunis 120 organizations, 250 observers for 4-day event
(ANSAmed) - TUNIS, SEPTEMBER 13 - The Tunisian National Human Rights Committee (NHRC) will organize an international conference on ''Issues of Peace'' in Tunis from 26 to 29 September. Organized by NHRC in Tunis in cooperation with the Arab Institute for Human Rights, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the NGO-NESCO Liaison committee, more than 120 organizations, 250 participants and observers, and UNESCO Member States will attend the four-day conference as part of the celebration of the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and International Day of Peace. Chairman of the National Human Rights Committee Dr Ali bin Smaikh Al Marri will deliver opening remarks.
Head of the Middle East and North Africa Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) Mohamed El Nsour will lead the first roundtable on the major challenges facing human rights today and thinking about inequality.
The second round table will deal with as issue on working to promote inclusion, equality and non-discrimination for all human beings and discusses universal rights, shared responsibility and education on human rights as an instrument against discrimination, as well as issues of equality, justice and freedom.
The third round table will deal with action for Equality and non-discrimination and discuss issues of information technology, new communication tools and topics related to arts, culture and education and it is chaired by President of the Arab Network of National Human Rights Institutions Fafa Zerrougui, while the Secretary-General of the Union of Arab Lawyers Nasser Hamoud Al Karaouine will chair over the general conclusions session and concluded the conference.
On the sidelines of the conference, UNESCO will hold its 9th International NGO Forum entitled "Another Look at Migration".
(ANSAmed).
France to admit it disappeared opposition figure in Algiers Maurice Audin was tortured and then vanished
(ANSAmed) - PARIS, SEPTEMBER 13 - In a historic decision, President Emmanuel Macron will be acknowledging ''the responsibility of the French state'' in the disappearance of Maurice Audin in Algiers in 1957.
The announcement was made on France Inter on Thursday morning by mathematician and representative of the National Assembly Cedric Villani.
Audin, a communist mathematician who worked for the independence of Algeria, was tortured by French soldiers before disappearing without a trace in 1957. The head of state will visit the home of Audin's widow on Thursday and, Villani said, ''will acknowledge the truth that Audin was one of those who fell victim'' to the regime at the time. (ANSAmed).
MADRID - The Spanish Parliament has approved the decree to exhume the remains of former dictator Francisco Franco, with 172 yes votes, two no votes, and 164 abstentions by the People's Party (PP) and the centrists of Ciudadanos.
The decree was presented by the Pedro Sanchez government and includes both the exhumation as well as the removal of the remains from Valle de los Caidos, the memorial dedicated to those who were killed in the Civil War.
In her speech in Parliament in defence of the decree, Deputy Prime Minister Carmen Calvo said that "there will be no peace without justice so long as the atrocious anomaly represented by the fact that a dictator is buried together with his victims is maintained".
Calvo criticised the position of PP and Ciudadanos with respect to the dictatorship.
Spokespeople for the two parties justified the abstentions by accusing the government of having made use of the decree without the necessary component of urgency, 43 years after the dictator's death.
Franco's heirs are opposed to the transfer of the remains and announced in recent weeks that they will appeal to the Constitutional Court, for "desecration of the burial".
According to government plans, the dictator's body will be removed from the basilica by the end of the year and the executive branch of government will decide where to transfer it, in the event the family doesn't express its wishes about the location.
The Valle de los Caidos mausoleum is the only one in Europe in memory of a dictator.
It was ordered built by Franco and constructed between 1940 and 1958 at the feet of the Sierra de Guadarrama mountains, 60 km from Madrid.
It was carved into the rock using the forced labour of thousands of prisoners, in honour of the "martyrs and heroes of the glorious crusade" against the Republic, which gave rise to the Civil War (1936-1939).
Historians consider it the largest public mass grave in Spain, where the remains of at least 34,000 people are gathered, half of them victims of the regime, without a name or a tomb, transferred there without the knowledge of their families.
NEW YORK - The UN Security Council extended the mandate for the UNSMIL mission in Libya for one year, until September 15, 2019, but did not approve the December 10 date for elections indicated during the Paris summit called by French President Emmanuel Macron.
The Security Council is calling for elections "as soon as possible so long as the necessary security, technical, legislative and political conditions are present".
France had asked to hold the vote on December 10, but it faced opposition from the United States and other EU countries, including Italy.
ROME - The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said Thursday it would make "technical observations" on an upcoming decree on migration and asylum being framed by Interior Minister Matteo Salvini.
The UNHCR issued its statement after High Commissioner Filippo Grande met Salvini, Premier Gisueppe Conte and Transport Minister Danilo Toninelli.
The UNHCR said it was ready to offer technical support to the Italian government on possible solutions for the management of migrant flows, and for their inclusion, the statement said.
BAD AXE Huron County officials are not convinced the state will come through with full funding for indigent defense mandates.
Huron County Corporate Counsel Stephen Allen updated the Huron County Board of Commissioners on the issue this week. The state will provide 20 percent of the necessary funding through a grant as of Oct. 1, Allen said.
If the Michigan Indigent Defense Commission runs out of funds, the organization has said it would provide retroactive funding, he added.
The funds cover things like increasing public defenders pay and newly required attorney training.
Allen said the hourly attorney rate will be increased from $65 to between $90 and $110.
Courthouses and jails must also offer a soundproof, private setting for attorney-client meetings. And expert witnesses and investigators would be required for indigent defendants when necessary.
The state has said it will pay any amount that exceeds the countys historical funding for indigent defense services, Allen said.
He added if the state backs out of the deal, that would violate the Headlee Amendment to the Michigan Constitution.
Its a mechanism we can use to make sure that were not paying, Allen added.
Bottom line, if the states not going to pay for it, well cut the hourly rate back, he said. Well cut out the mandatory in-service training. So weve got some mechanism to fight back on if the states going to mandate something theyre not going to pay for.
Safety Chair John L. Bodis added the following:
They want ... to pay 20 percent up front. Theyre trying to establish administrative rules, which they have no authority to do.
Bodis added the Michigan Association of Counties hired a separate law firm for an opinion, which stated that was a violation of the law.
Allen said years ago, Michigan ranked 48 of 50 states in quality of indigent criminal defense, which sparked the movement to improve services.
There are a lot of bumps," he said. "There are a lot of unknowns. Weve got a lot of things going on. We cant start work on various things that the state wants until they give us the money.
TEL AVIV - The Israeli army on Thursday morning began dismantling an outpost that had been erected in recent days by Palestinian activists near the Bedouin village Khan al-Ahmar in the West Bank.
The village includes the 'Rubber Tyre School', which an Italian NGO helped build. Israeli radio reported that five small prefabricated buildings had been demolished.
However, evictions from Khan el-Ahmar - authorized in a definitive manner by the Israeli Supreme Court - has not yet begun. The Israeli military later said that the prefabricated buildings had been demolished because they ''had been built by representatives of the Palestinian National Authority as a gesture of protest and a challenge to the Israeli Supreme Court'' after it authorized the evictions from Khan al-Ahmar.
The military radio added that Israeli forces had meanwhile left the area and that thus the evictions from the village - where dozens of families live - are not expected to happen on Thursday. On Wednesday the Palestinian Authority government called for popular mobilization to support the Bedouins of Khan al-Ahmar and for international pressure on Israel not to remove the Bedouins from their homes. Palestinian officials consider the demolition of Khan al-Ahmar to be part of a plan for Israeli settlements in the area and have said that it seriously jeopardizes the possibility of the 'two-state solution'.
MIDDLETOWN Local police and fire departments responded to a city synagogue Wednesday for reports of a powder-type substance in a letter, according to a Middletown police press release.
Authorities are investigating the incident at Congregation Adath Israel on Broad Street and believe the occurrence to be related to the white powder incidents in Hartford last week, police said.
The U.S. military said Wednesday that two Russian nuclear-capable bombers escorted by two fighter jets flew near Alaska on Sept. 11 before being intercepted by a pair of Air Force F-22 stealth fighter jets, according to a statement by the North American Aerospace Defense Command.
The Russian formation never entered U.S. or Canadian airspace, according to the statement.
NORAD said the Russian bombers and fighter jets were intercepted "west of mainland Alaska" by the American fighter jets at 10 p.m. ET Tuesday, but did not give a more precise location.
It's the second time this month a pair of Russian bombers flew near Alaska. On Sept. 1, the bombers were intercepted by F-22 fighters after crossing into the Alaskan Air Defense Identification Zone south of the Aleutian Islands.
In May, two defense officials told Fox News that two similar bombers came within 55 miles of the state's west coast. The Russian planes did not enter sovereign U.S. airspace on either of the previous two occasions.
The Russian military recently launched its largest military drill since 1981. According to the country's defense ministry, the Vostok -- or "East" -- exercise involves some 300,000 troops and over 1,000 aircraft.
Earlier Wednesday, the Russian military released video on Twitter showing a pair of Cold War era Tu-95 "Bear" bombers and a pair of fighter jets taking off from an airbase in eastern Russia.
Lucas Tomlinson is the Pentagon and State Department producer for Fox News Channel. You can follow him on Twitter: @LucasFoxNews
Three of six young Marine recruits who became critically ill last fall after eating undercooked hamburgers at Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego have filed lawsuits against the foodservice company Sodexo Inc.
Michael Baker Jr., 21; Tristan Abbott, 19; and Vincent Grano, 19, were discharged from the Marines earlier this year after complications from an illness believed to have been caused by contaminated food left them incapable of serving, court documents say.
The trio was among 244 recruits training at the depot in October 2018 when they ate food -- believed to be undercooked Sodexo hamburgers -- contaminated with E. coli, according to the documents. Fifteen men -- including Baker, Abbott and Grano -- developed hemolytic uremic syndrome from the bacteria.
The condition affects the circulation system and "results in the destruction of blood platelets (cells involved in clotting), a low red blood cell count (anemia) and kidney failure due to damage to the very small blood vessels of the kidneys," according to the National Kidney Foundation.
HUS patients have an 85 percent recovery rate, according to the foundation; however, complications that can arise from the syndrome may have long-term effects.
A Defense Department investigation into the incident found "a statistically significant association between ill recruits and the consumption of undercooked ground beef," according to court documents. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also investigated the matter and came to the same conclusion.
Abbott, Baker and Grano are now asking that a jury order Sodexo to compensate them for violating the company's "duty" to serve safe food and warn consumers of possible dangers in its food, according to court documents. They say Sodexo's negligence caused the health issues and that the company is strictly liable to the plaintiffs for their illnesses.
Sodexo has not yet filed a response and its director of public relations, Enrico Dinges, said he was "not able to provide a detailed response at this time" because of the ongoing litigation.
Career-ending illnesses
Baker, of Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, had been at the recruit depot for only 13 days when he was taken by ambulance to Naval Medical Center San Diego and diagnosed with HUS on Oct. 29, 2017, according to the court documents.
Baker ate in the depo's mess hall each day over his short stay, and began feeling ill around Oct. 25, the documents say. He kept up with his boot camp activities for several days despite increasing fatigue, stomach cramps and diarrhea.
By Oct. 29, his stools had become "grossly bloody," according to the court documents. That's when he reported his "desperately ill condition" to his senior drill instructor and was ordered to the depot's medical clinic, which quickly sent him to the naval medical center.
Baker was hospitalized there for the next month and admitted to intensive care three times with severe pneumonia and kidney failure developed as a complication of HUS. He was placed on a ventilator for "at least four days" and underwent repeated dialysis treatments, the court documents say.
He spent a second month hospitalized at San Diego's Alvarado Hospital Medical Center undergoing rehabilitation, the documents say. His kidneys were permanently damaged in the ordeal, and he was discharged from the Marines in March.
Abbott, of Haskell, Ark., arrived in San Diego on Sept. 25. After eating hamburgers from the cafeteria on Oct. 21, he developed bloody diarrhea, vomiting and stomach cramps, according to the court documents. He put up with the symptoms for two days before being taken to nearby Camp Pendleton on Oct. 26 for "additional exercises and training."
Abbot kept working until Oct. 29, when one of his drill instructors took him and another ill recruit to the camp's naval hospital, the court documents say. After two days of hospitalization, medics took him to Scripps Memorial Hospital Encinitas where he was diagnosed with HUS and started on dialysis.
On Nov. 3, Abbott was moved to yet another hospital -- Naval Medical Center San Diego -- to keep up with his worsening symptoms, the court documents said. He remained in intensive care for nearly four weeks and developed involuntary twitching in his head, arms and legs because of a neurological issue caused by HUS.
He later went through rehabilitation at Alvarado Hospital, and remained there until January 3. He then returned to the San Diego recruit depot, but his illness left him unable to continue his training and he entered a rehab platoon, according to the court documents.
Abbott was medically discharged on April 27.
Grano, who began recruit training Aug. 7, 2017, came down with similar symptoms as Abbott and Baker on Oct. 23 -- "the day before he was to begin the final training challenge of boot camp, called 'The Crucible,'" according to the court documents.
Three days later, the resident of Lake in the Hills, Ill., reported his symptoms to his senior drill instructor and took an ambulance to the emergency room and was released later that day, the documents say. But days later, he lost consciousness and woke up in a bed at Naval Medical Center San Diego.
Grano also was diagnosed with HUS, which caused kidney failure and central nervous system problems including sudden-onset seizures that later grew into epilepsy, according to court documents. He went through rehabilitation at Alvarado Hospital, but the diagnoses led to his discharge from the service.
Looking ahead
The court process is in its early stages, as the lawsuits were filed just last month.
Dinges said Sodexo sends its condolences to the ill Marine recruits, and that the company is investigating the source of the bacteria that caused the medical conditions.
"We are sorry to hear that several Marine recruits became seriously ill last October at the Marine Corp Recruit Depot and Camp Pendleton," he said. "Since then, we have been in the process of learning all the facts about the situation. We are continuing to seek a complete understanding of the source of their illness, as the CDC report does not conclusively determine or identify the source of the E. coli."
A platoon leader with the Army's 75th Ranger Regiment at Fort Benning, Georgia, died recently in an accident involving a single tactical vehicle.
First Lt. Connor Bednarzyk, a 25-year-old infantry officer assigned as leader of the Distribution Platoon for Echo Company, 3rd Battalion, died in the Sept. 7 crash, according to a press release from U.S. Army Special Operations Command.
No further details about the accident were available, but the incident is under investigation, the release states.
"First Lieutenant Connor Bednarzyk was an amazing Ranger, leader, and friend," Lt. Col. Michael Klopper, commander of 3rd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, said in the release. "He was known throughout the battalion for his caring and positive attitude. He will be missed by all."
Bednarzyk, a Virginia native, completed the Infantry Basic Officer Leader Course at Benning in 2015 before transferring to 1st Battalion, 41st Infantry Regiment, 4th Infantry Division, at Fort Carson, Colorado, in April 2016.
Bednarzyk was a graduate of Basic Airborne School, Air Assault School, Army Ranger School, and the Ranger Assessment and Selection Program 2 Course.
RASP 2 is the selection course for senior noncommissioned officers, officers, and warrant officers. Candidates are tested on their physical and mental capabilities while learning special tactics, techniques and procedures, as well as the expectations of leading and developing young Rangers.
Bednarzyk's awards and decorations include the Ranger Tab, Air Assault Badge, the Army Parachutist Badge and the Expert Infantryman's Badge.
He was also awarded the Army Achievement Medal with one Oak Leaf Cluster, National Defense Service Medal, Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal, Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, Army Service Ribbon and the NATO Medal.
Bednarzyk is survived by his parents and siblings.
-- Matthew Cox can be reached at matthew.cox@military.com.
According to the plan, the service must become an older, more agile and talent-driven force with more emphasis on retaining...
One of the first women to become an infantry Marine is facing an other-than-honorable discharge after having a relationship with a subordinate in her new unit.
Cpl. Remedios Cruz, a rifleman with 1st Battalion, 8th Marines, pleaded guilty to fraternization as part of a pre-trial agreement after leaders discovered she'd married a lance corporal with whom she had a romantic relationship, officials confirmed.
A decision about whether Cruz, who was busted down in rank from sergeant, will be separated from the Marine Corps could come in days, said Maj. Jordan Cochran, a spokesman for II Marine Expeditionary Force. Cruz's case was first reported Wednesday by The New York Times.
Cruz was accused of adultery, larceny and fraternization, he said.
She pleaded guilty to fraternization during non-judicial punishment to avoid facing court-martial. She also waived her right to an administrative discharge board as part of the pre-trial agreement, Cochran said.
Cruz could not immediately be reached for comment. She told the Times she was ready to move on from the Marine Corps.
"The biggest mistakes I've made in the infantry were from my personal relationships," she said.
Phil Cave, a military defense attorney and former Navy prosecutor, said investigations for fraternization are common, especially in the Marine Corps, where commanders take even junior leaders' responsibilities seriously.
There was likely higher interest in this case, he said, since Cruz and her spouse were in the same unit. "That's where things are likely to have some direct input on the unit."
It's also noteworthy, he added, that she's one of the first female grunts. But that doesn't mean the rules don't apply to her.
"It would not be out of order to see a case of a male Marine face NJP for fraternization," Cave said. "... She's to be applauded for surviving infantry training, of course, but that doesn't give you a pass."
Whether Cruz will face an other-than-honorable discharge, which could affect her access to Department of Veterans Affairs benefits and civilian job opportunities, will be decided by Maj. Gen. David Furness, commanding general of 2nd Marine Division, Cochran said.
An officer overseeing a pre-trial hearing recommended that Cruz be administratively punished for fraternization, but found no probable cause for the adultery and larceny charges, The New York Times reported. Lt. Col. Anthony Johnston, 1/8's commanding officer, recommended that all three charges go to trial, according to the Times, "giving her the choice of going to court and risking conviction, or admit to fraternization as part of a broader plea agreement."
Cave said a general discharge seems more appropriate in this case.
Cruz was a supply clerk before graduating from Infantry Training Battalion. She'd been meritoriously promoted at least once in 2013 while assigned to Marine Aircraft Group 12 before moving to 1/8.
She was featured in a Marine Corps video in 2016 after graduating from Infantry Training Battalion. When she heard about the infantry women's study in 2014, she said all she heard was "challenge."
"Marines, we see a challenge, and we overcome it," she said.
-- Gina Harkins can be reached at gina.harkins@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at @ginaaharkins.
As an 18-year-old on her first field assignment as a teletype operator, to West Germany for Exercise Reforger in 1974, Marilyn McCloud left her tent one night to use the latrine and was raped by another soldier.
Over a 21-year career, McCloud said she was exposed to lesser forms of sexual abuse and harassment, enough so that by the time she retired as sergeant first class, it had damaged her mental health, instilled a deep anger and left her too frightened even to shop near her New Orleans home without her husband.
For a few years before Hurricane Katrina in 2005, which would force her to relocate to St. Petersburg, Fla., McCloud said she tried several times to get the health care she needed from the Department of Veterans Affairs. In her words, she always got the runaround from a skeptical VA staff, both in New Orleans and in Florida, and finally she gave up.
On returning to New Orleans in 2011, McCloud became friends with two national service officers at a local chapter of Disabled American Veterans. These women suggested she might be suffering from Military Sexual Trauma (MST).
I went to my computer and started reading, she said. I did my own research and all the symptoms, that was me. When I saw there was a name to my situation I went back [to the service officers]. They explained to me I could be taken care for that. They gave me more and more information [though] I was still hesitant to go to the VA because earlier it was a whole lot of craziness.
She did access VA care, however, and during three years of group therapy sessions, McCloud said she opened up about the trauma and learned coping skills. She still sees a VA staff psychiatrist to renew medication. She rates her care from VA today as off the charts, on a scale of one to 10, its a 20, she said.
Because of an attentive facility director and strong staff, McCloud said, the Southeast Louisiana Veterans Health Care System in New Orleans is defined by professionalism, from the moment you park and throughout the whole placeHe cares about everybody, said McCloud, 62, now an adjutant of a local DAV chapter.
That a women veteran who, a decade ago disparaged VA health care as failing miserably to meet her needs, praises the system today reflects to some degree real reform. VA has made many, at the direction of Congress, in response to long neglected medical needs of a rising population of female veterans, according to a new report on female veterans that DAV released Wednesday.
Women Veterans:The Journey Ahead is a progress report on gains, and on remaining gaps, in VA services and benefits for female veterans since DAV conducted a first comprehensive report four years ago. It is available online at: https://www.dav.org/wp-content/uploads/2018_Women-Veterans-Report-Sequel.pdf
Women today comprise almost 20 percent of active duty, reserve and National Guard forces. They are 10 percent of Americas veteran population and thats projected to grow to be more than 16 percent over the next 25 years.
Since 2014 women gained the right to compete for any assignment across every military occupational specialty and are the fastest-growing subpopulation of the military and veteran communities, the report says. But the population of women is growing more rapidly than the systems we have in place to support them, including at VA. This has created an environment in whichwhether intentional or notwomens service to the nation is often less recognized, less respected and less valued than their male counterparts.
As barriers to achieve full professional equality have fallen for women, Congress and VA still struggle to ensure parity in their health care and other services. The latest report, says DAV, seeks to educate VA leaders and lawmakers on the unmet needs of women veterans so reforms continue.
Every day, in ways both large and small, women veterans go overlooked because we are attempting to wrap them into an existing, at times ill-fitting, system rather than creating a system that wraps around them, the report says.
One example of a health care reform Congress recently directed that has fallen short is with in vitro fertilization (IVF) services, said Sonya Nunez, 35, a DAV national service officer in Little Rock, Ark. Nunez was a C-130 crew chief in the Air Force when medically retired in 2013 with multiple sclerosis.
While on active duty Nunez also had difficulty getting pregnant and was diagnosed with endometriosis, which required surgery. Nunez and her husband learned they could only have a child through in vitro fertilization, a $20,000 procedure their TRICARE health plan didnt cover.
In fall 2016, Congress approved a two-year test program to cover IVF service for women veterans who cant become pregnant due to a service-connected condition. Nunez qualified, but the only IVF clinic in Arkansas, located in Little Rock, rejected Nunez as a patient when VAs contractor for outside medical services, TriWest, set reimbursement rates for IVF services below that of Medicare.
TriWest then directed Nunez and her husband to another clinic, six hours away in St. Louis, but learned too late this group too rejected its payment rates. Finally, a clinic in Dallas, five hours away, was found that would accept VA rates. But the IVF procedure requires that patients reside locally, for 10 days to two weeks, to receive almost daily testing or treatments, Nunez said.
After one unsuccessful procedure, exhausting her sick leave, racking up thousands of dollars in charges to VA for mileage, meals and hotel accommodations for Nunez and her husband, and trying to use some lab testing at the Little Rock VA hospital to support the Dallas IVF clinic and cut down on the travel demands, Nunez abandoned her dream of conceiving a child using the VA.
In my experience, in the state of Arkansas, VA was not prepared for it. On paper it looks absolutely awesome. Your condition is service-connected. You cant have children. Here you go. Were going to pay for it. Even thinking, Dallas is only five hours away, its still not feasible, Nunez said. You cannot accomplish IVF out of state without having to take ridiculous amounts of time off work.
Ironically, said Nunez, VA spent thousands of extra dollars on travel out of state for her and husband, money that could have been used to pay the higher fees charged by the local IVF clinic, which VA and TriWest had declined to cover.
The 72-page DAV report urges a holistic approach to improving transition, recovery and long-term support of women veterans. It recommends 45 specific actions VA and partner agencies should take to deliver better health care including mental health and suicide prevention services, community care, rehabilitation and prosthetic services, shelter, financial counseling and more.
The report also acknowledges significant gains for women veterans from recent legislation promoting gender-specific VA health care, improved training for clinical providers, more privacy and security in VA facilities, enhanced maternity care services, enhanced peer support programs and expanded access to child care.
More improvements are needed, the report concludes. Women are carving out larger, more prominent places in our military and veteran spaces each day. But we cant just tell them they belong; we have to show them.
To comment, write Military Update, P.O. Box 231111, Centreville, VA, 20120 or email milupdate@aol.com or twitter: @Military_Update.
Military members and veterans can get up to four free months of Apple Music through the Apple Music military discount -- but...
Alternative Label Names
Black Hill is now a suburb of Ballarat. It was the site of extensive gold mining operations in the mid-1800s.Black Hill is immediately north-east of the Ballarat city centre. Originally known as "Bowdun' by the Watha Wurrung people, then Black Hill as named in 1851 by surveyor William Urquart.Gold was discovered at Black Hill in 1851, two months after Golden Point. There were several alluvial gold rushes to the area until 1855. Alluvial mining occurred 1851-1852, deep lead alluvial mining 1853-1875, and quartz reef mining 1854-1918. The area quickly became denuded of vegetation, with shafts, mullock heaps, debris, and tramway trestle bridges over the Yarrowee Creek dominating.The first organised effort at gold extraction was by a Dr. Otway, who erected two Chilean mills, however the wind power source of energy failed. It is thought to be the first gold battery erected in Australia. The Port Phillip and Colonial Gold Mining Company erected two plants in 1856, but closed in 1859 due to poor gold grades, and a lack of water during a drought.The Black Hill Quartz Crushing Company was formed in 1858 principally to test a patent by James V. Penrose. When this enterprise failed the Black Hill Company was formed out of its ashes in 1859. They erected a sixty stamp battery in 1861.Across the 1870's several companies made steady returns from the low grade ore, the main ones Black Hill, Majestic, Two Ton, and Independant. By 1870, most had ceased operations, were on tribute, or worked intermittently. In the 1870's the major mines were Parade, Parade Extended, Grand Duke, Duchess, Countess, and Black Hill. Several smaller claims amalgamated in 1875 as the Black Hill United.The last gold mine at Black Hill closed in 1918.The area today contains remnant shafts, tunnels, foundations, and evidence of open pit mining, not seen elsewhere in Ballarat due to urban development.
This is a list of additional names that have been recorded for mineral labels associated with this locality in the minID database. This may include previous versions of the locality name hierarchy from mindat.org, data entry errors, and it may also include unconfirmed sublocality names or other names that can only be matched to this level.
Black Hill, Ballarat, Victoria, Australia
Select Mineral List Type Standard Detailed Strunz Dana Chemical Elements
List of minerals arranged by Strunz 10th Edition classification Group 1 - Elements 'Gold' 1.AA.05 Au Group 2 - Sulphides and Sulfosalts 'Pyrite' 2.EB.05a FeS 2 Group 4 - Oxides and Hydroxides 'Quartz' 4.DA.05 SiO 2 Unclassified Minerals, Rocks, etc. 'Clay' - 'Sandstone' - 'Slate' -
List of minerals arranged by Dana 8th Edition classification Group 1 - NATIVE ELEMENTS AND ALLOYS Metals, other than the Platinum Group Gold 1.1.1.1 Au Group 2 - SULFIDES A m B n X p , with (m+n):p = 1:2 Pyrite 2.12.1.1 FeS 2 Group 75 - TECTOSILICATES Si Tetrahedral Frameworks Si Tetrahedral Frameworks - SiO 2 with [4] coordinated Si Quartz 75.1.3.1 SiO 2 Unclassified Minerals, Rocks, etc. 'Clay' - 'Sandstone' - 'Slate' -
List of minerals for each chemical element O Oxygen O Quartz SiO 2 Si Silicon Si Quartz SiO 2 S Sulfur S Pyrite FeS 2 Fe Iron Fe Pyrite FeS 2 Au Gold Au Gold Au
Regional Geology
This geological map and associated information on rock units at or nearby to the coordinates given for this locality is based on relatively small scale geological maps provided by various national Geological Surveys. This does not necessarily represent the complete geology at this locality but it gives a background for the region in which it is found.
Click on geological units on the map for more information. Click here to view full-screen map on Macrostrat.org
Paleozoic sedimentary rocks Age: Paleozoic (427.4 - 541 Ma) Comments: Lachlan Fold Belt Lithology: Sedimentary rocks Reference: Chorlton, L.B. Generalized geology of the world: bedrock domains and major faults in GIS format: a small-scale world geology map with an extended geological attribute database. doi: 10.4095/223767. Geological Survey of Canada, Open File 5529. [154] Castlemaine Group Age: Ordovician (458.4 - 485.4 Ma) Stratigraphic Name: Castlemaine Group Description: Marine turbiditic sandstone, mudstone, black shale; minor granule conglomerate. Comments: sedimentary siliciclastic; synthesis of multiple published descriptions Lithology: Sedimentary siliciclastic Reference: Raymond, O.L., Liu, S., Gallagher, R., Zhang, W., Highet, L.M. Surface Geology of Australia 1:1 million scale dataset 2012 edition. Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia). [5]
Data and map coding provided by Macrostrat.org, used under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
References
Sort by Year (asc) Year (desc) Author (A-Z) Author (Z-A)
City of Ballarat (2014) Black Hill Master Plan, Vol. 1, December 2014. City of Ballarat (2018) Black Hill Heritage Precinct, Victorian Heritage Database Report.
External Links
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General Motors is recalling more than 240,000 newer vehicles in North America due to an issue with the brakes that could increase the risk of a crash.
According to documents posted by Automotive News, the recall affects model year 2018-2019 Buick LaCrosse, Cadillac XTS, GMC Terrain, and Chevrolet Bolt, Cruze, Impala, Volt, Equinox and the 2018 Malibu.
"In a small number of these vehicles, the rear-brake caliper pistons may contain trapped hydrogen gas that could be released into the vehicle's brake system," the documents read. "The manufacturer of the brake pistons failed to properly chrome and temper the brake pistons during the manufacturing process.
"In this condition, hydrogen gas can remain trapped in the piston body. When the vehicle is assembled and a piston that contains trapped gas contacts brake fluid, this gas can be released into the vehicle's brake system."
If this defect occurs, GM says that rear-brake performance could be reduced which would increase the risk of a crash. The Detroit-based automaker adds that if gas is in the brake system, then the brakes should feel soft or spongy when pressed.
The Associated Press reports that once owners are notified, dealers will remove any gas from the brake systems. For those who have not been notified of the recall but have felt some of the aforementioned issues, dealers are allowing affected drivers to schedule repairs.
To search active recalls, use the NHTSA's website to search your 17-character VIN at this link. VIN numbers are typically located under the driver's side windshield, or along the inside of the doors behind the seat or under the steering wheel. To sign up for NHTSA safety alerts for a specific vehicle, sign up at this link.
GRAND RAPIDS, MI- For their sixth beer, they decided to get downright spicy. The Grand Rapids chapter of the American Culinary Federation has once again partnered with Grand Rapids Brewing Company to create a chef inspired beer that everyone can enjoy.
The beer, called Bab Bou Jeloud, is a spiced porter, and will be released on Thursday September 13, during a special event at Grand Rapids Brewing Company. According to the brewery, the beer "contains a complex but subtle balance of flavors including cinnamon, cardamom, nutmeg, ginger, chocolate, vanilla, coffee and dates, recalling Moroccan coffee and chocolate-based beverages."
Chef Shawn Kohlhaas from the American Culinary Federation explained that "the new beer was an inspiration from our own Chef David Olson's trip out to Morocco in the spice markets. The team at GRBC decided to brew this beer with David for a very interesting prospective of flavors and beer."
The ACF has brewed up something special every fall for six years now, as a way to raise money for their scholarships and other educational pursuits for Michigan chefs. The event happening on September 13 features food from area member chefs and the bottle release of this beer.
"This event helps support the many efforts of the Greater Grand Rapids American Culinary Federation such as scholarships for students, furthering education and certifications for current chefs in the field as well as building a stronger united culinary community through meetings, educations and charity work to help support those in need in our community," Chef Kohlhaas explained. "It also shows how we all can come together in our service industry and with collaboration create great food, drink and lasting relationships."
You can enter with a $5 donation at the door or purchase admission along with Bab Bou Jeloud merchandise here. Proceeds will benefit the ACF's educational initiatives.
The beer will be available at the brewery for $6 a draft, and $8 a bottle. Get there quick, when they are out, they're out.
Chefs and food being offered at GRBC during the event include:
1. Chef Maggie Thiel - Habanero, bacon, caramelized onion Mac and Cheese
2. Chef Timothy England - White pepper cookies
3. Chef John Monson - Smoked Pulled Pork Stuffed Jalapenos
4. Chef Karen Chaffee - bacon jalapeno wonton cups, raspberry honey compote
5. Chef Garrett Stover - Surprise dish
6. Chef Angela Matusiak- Tteokbokki, Korean spicy stir-fried rice cakes
7. Chef David Olson - Moroccan spiced chicken wings
8. Chef Brian Brookman - Lamb shank sliders in mini pitas
9. Chef Christina Bodanza - Assorted craft cupcakes
10. Chef Chelsea Beckman - Indian spiced mini scones
11. Chef Cyril Mayne - Angus Beef sliders with Bliss steak sauce and fried onions
12. Chef Andrew Eggert - Braised Pork belly
IF YOU GO:
6th Annual Grand Rapids Brewing Company/ACF Brew Challenge
September 13
6:00pm
1 Ionia Ave SW
Grand Rapids, Michigan 49503
(616) 458-7000
DETROIT, MI - Former First Lady Michelle Obama is bringing her 2018 tour to Detroit.
Mrs. Obama will be at Little Caesars Arena on Tuesday, December 11 as part of her U.S. book tour for her upcoming memoir, "Becoming." Tickets (starting at $29.50) go on sale Friday, September 21 at 10 a.m.
The 10-city U.S. tour will kick off in Mrs. Obama's home town of Chicago on Tuesday, November 13. The appearances will feature intimate conversations between Mrs. Obama and a selection of yet-to-be-announced moderators, consisting of stories shared in her book.
Attendees will hear firsthand experiences and events, both public and private, from her childhood on the South Side of Chicago to her years as an executive, to her years spent at the White House.
"I've spent the last year and a half reflecting on my story as deeply and honestly as I could, and now I'm thrilled to travel the country and do the same with readers this fall," said Michelle Obama about her upcoming tour. "I hope that this tour will inspire others to reflect upon and share their own stories--all the joys and sorrows, all the scars and renewals--so that together, we can better recognize that each of us, in our own way, is in a constant process of becoming."
"Becoming" will be released on November 13 in the U.S. and Canada by the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House, as well as in 28 languages around the world. An audio edition of the book, read by Mrs. Obama, will be simultaneously issued in digital and physical formats by Penguin Random House Audio.
Join me on my book tour! JOIN ME ON MY BOOK TOUR! www.becomingmichelleobama.com #IAmBecoming Im from the South Side of Chicago. I went to Princeton and Harvard. Im a wife, a mother, a daughter, and a sister. Ive been a lawyer, a nonprofit leader, a hospital executive, and First Lady of the United States. I like to call these my stats the shorthand we all seem to default to whenever we tell our stories. Where are you from? What do you do? What school did you go to? As Ive written my memoir, BECOMING, Ive spent a lot of time thinking about my story, mining it for the kinds of details Id usually just brush off or even forget aboutthe narrow taillights of my fathers car, a talk with my mother on a drive home, the heat of my daughters forehead when she ran a fever. And in doing so, Ive realized that those surface-level stats dont really tell my story at all. This fall, Id like to share that fuller story with all of you on my book tour. Its the story of my humdrum plainness, my tiny victories, my lasting bruises, my ordinary hopes and worries. Its the story of who I am, truly, and Im proud of itblemishes and all. Go to BecomingMichelleObama.com to find out where Ill be and how to get tickets. #IAmBecoming I hope to see you somewhere along the way! Posted by Michelle Obama on Wednesday, September 12, 2018
Michelle Obama and Live Nation will also be donating 10 percent of every show's tickets to various local organizations, charities and community groups. Those fans will receive free admission to the tour stop in their city.
Im always peskily pointing a finger at other peoples mistakes, so I guess I should own up to one of my own.
As CultureGrrl readers may remember (although I probably shouldnt remind you), I posted, back in August 2008, that an informed source had told me that the four-person shortlist for the directorship of the Metropolitan Museum of Art was believed to include three Met curators (including the ultimate victor, Thomas Campbell) and a wild card, Max Hollein, Frankfurt-based director of the Schirn Kunsthalle since 2001 and, since 2006, also director of the Stadel Museum and the Sculpture Collection of the Liebieghaus.
I rashly predicted that this German wild card would win New Yorks premier art-museum directorship.
Less than a month later, at the end of the press conference that introduced Campbell as the anointed one, then director Philippe de Montebello teased me about my bad call. But I didnt know how misguided I really was until wild card Max himself, visiting New York for two days recently, invited this gullible scribe to chat with him, drink some coffee and also (as it turned out) eat some crow. We had a wide-ranging discussion, which included details about the Stadels major capital project and also his take on his institutions problematic Nazi-era history, the subject of a recently concluded study that he oversaw.
Son of the Pritzker Prize-winning architect Hans Hollein, Max arrived at our table at Untitled, the Whitney Museums restaurant, carrying a flipbook of photos to illustrate his discussion of the Stadels almost concluded 50-million-Euro renovation and underground expansion, designed by Frankfurt architects schneider+schumacher. The museum will open its modern galleries in mid-November and its old master galleries in mid-December and its new contemporary wing in February.
The new wing features portholes in its sod-covered roof, which will illuminate the grounds at night
and will function during the day as skylights for the flexibly configured galleries:
While at the Whitney (which I chose as our meeting place), Hollein took in the mildly engaging Feininger show (now closed) and the exhilarating David Smith show (to Jan. 8). He seemed as surprised as I had been, when I mentioned thatof thehad been lukewarm about the Smith show, which had given me a rush of pleasure, both for the quality of works (gleaned from a variety of lenders) and for the interactions of examples from diverse media.
A smaller version of the display organized by Carol Eliel for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Smith show includes not just well chosen examples of his sculpture (both late, large masterpieces and early, small works), paintings and drawings, but also a group of Smiths less known photographs of his own work (more famously photographed by Dan Budnik), as well as several of his fascinating sketchbooks. They include this object lesson in how he took the forms in a photograph of a violinist and abstracted them:
Here are two views from the Whitneys spacious installation:
But back to Max: He impressed me with his astute ideas regarding museum management and collection-building, not to mention his singular career of managing three independent art venues simultaneously. He has been notably resourceful in raising support for the privately funded Stadel (with important old master and modern collections), in a society where many museums get substantial public subsidies. (The Schirn and Liebieghaus are both municipally funded institutions.) Although about 20% of the Stadels operating budget comes from the city, its really the citizens who have to step in, he sald. The new wing is about 65% privately funded.
Noting that he is more proactive in soliciting private funds than most German art museums officials, he noted that he is very fond of the idea that people who have benefited from society give back and want to become involved. (Hollein is well acquainted with the American fundraising approach, having previously lived in New York and worked at the Guggenheim Museum.)
The only time when his otherwise confident, fluent reponses to my questions grew uncharacteristically hesitant was when I asked how his museum might address the revelations, published in a recent study that he himself had co-authoried, regarding the Stadels role in the Nazi era (or, as he called it, the time of National Socialism).
Hollein noted that his institution had rescued some Expressionist works that would otherwise have been destroyed by the Nazis, who regarded them as degenerate. But, he acknowledged, it also acquired works that had been expropriated from Jewish owners. (This history is described in detailed in Eckard Michels review, not online, of this German-only book, which was published in the October 2011 Art Newspaper.)
Hollein never directly answered my question, though, about how, going forward, his museum would specifically address these candid, disturbing revelations. He did note, however, that restitutions by his museum had previously been made.
Noting that when he arrived, the museum knew very little about the about the Stadels Nazi-era role, Hollein stated:
I said, Lets take the subject very differently, be completely open about it and deeply research it with an outside research group.A lot of it we knew, a lot of it we didnt. Its ambiguous.
After some digressions, he repeated my previous question, What comes next? But he didnt put forward an action plan:
Not only have we learned a lot, but this made us understand that these were also, although we tried to neglect it, formative years of the institution. And you have to be very sensitive about that. This is a moment where the institution went through a period that had significant results, both in losing works from the collection, in having acquired works. The Stadel was one of the first institutions to start researching the provenance of its work, which started way before my time. We restituted a couple of works, which isnt directly linked to the research. I think our efforts for restituting works were actually amplified through the research. At the Stadel, I dont think there are too many difficulties still there, because the core part of the works acquired during the Second World War were already restituted in the Fifties. There are always requests for information and we continue to work on that. When you say, Whats next, its to be more open and not be secretive about that time. The time between 1933 and 1945 will be an integral part of our history and no longer the black hole where we say, It was the dark ages of Germany so we went into hiding. Its part of the institutional development, with its resultssome of them actually positive, where we would never have this Expressionist collection, but some of it obviously negative.
Towards the end of our chat, on a day when he was also planning to visit some artists and attend the meeting of the board (of which he is a member) of the Neue Galerie, I couldnt resist asking two burning New York questions: What vision would he have brought to the Met, had he been chosen to lead it? And what had the search process been like?
Whereupon Max (figuratively) dropped an egg on my head:
I was never in the process. I know that people talked about me and I think that people even did background information. But I was not involved in it.
Splat! Egg on my face. So much for sources.
But lets move on: Would someone like to leak to me plausible shortlists for the directorships of the Getty Museum and Houston Museum of Fine Arts?!?
ANN ARBOR, MI - Following months of work by a citizen-led advisory task force, the Ann Arbor City Council is ready to consider new recommendations for forming a police oversight board.
City Administrator Howard Lazarus has put forward recommendations for forming a volunteer body that city officials have been calling a Community Policing Commission, which would be supported by city staff, while a citizen task force appointed by the City Council has proposed a 21-page ordinance to form what it's calling an Independent Community Police Oversight Commission.
In both cases, it would be a body with 11 voting members appointed by the City Council to provide a new layer of citizen oversight of the Ann Arbor Police Department. But some community activists who've been calling for more police oversight favor the task force's plan and are criticizing the administrator's plan, saying it doesn't provide enough independence for the commission.
The new recommendations will be the focus of a City Council work session starting at 7 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 13.
The meeting is open to the public and takes place inside the council chambers on the second floor of city hall, 301 E. Huron St.
No action will be taken at the meeting, though a presentation and discussion of the recommendations is expected.
City leaders and community members have spent years discussing the idea of forming a police oversight body to review complaints against AAPD, and there's support for it on City Council.
But what exactly the new citizen-led body's roles and responsibilities should be and how much power it should have -- such as whether it should have subpoena power to compel testimony during incident reviews or investigations of complaints -- are yet to be decided and are the subject of some ongoing debate.
According to Lazarus, the ability of council to grant subpoena power is among multiple questions for further legal review.
Lazarus is hoping the City Council will take action to approve a resolution to create a commission on Oct. 1 and have the members seated by January 2019.
In a 23-page memo explaining his recommendations, Lazarus said the City Council has referred to it as a Community Policing Commission, so his recommendations retain that name, but the task force wanted the commission's independent nature and oversight role clearly communicated. It's up to council to ultimately decide the name.
Community organizations including the Collective Against White Supremacy, Transforming Justice Washtenaw, Huron Valley Democratic Socialists of America and Graduate Employees Organization 3550 issued a joint statement this week, noting Thursday's meeting comes nearly four years after Aura Rosser, a black woman, was shot and killed by an AAPD officer while police were responding to a domestic dispute inside a home.
The November 2014 incident, in which the AAPD was cleared of any criminal wrongdoing because Rosser allegedly came at officers with a knife, prompted public outcry and protests, with community members issuing demands for more police oversight.
The coalition's statement offers support for the 21-page draft ordinance put forward by the citizen task force that was formed earlier this year to advise the city on defining the commission's role.
The proposed ordinance outlines the mission of an independent commission, as well as its responsibilities, powers, funding and processes. It would provide the commission with a budget equal to at least 1.17 percent of the AAPD's annual budget, and make it functionally independent of city administration.
This year's police budget is about $28.6 million, which would put the commission's budget at nearly $335,000.
The task force recommends having independent legal counsel and investigators for the commission, as well as subpoena power to compel testimony by city officers and agents.
The commission, as outlined in the proposed ordinance, also would have access to "any AAPD information and records, including confidential and legally privileged information and records so long as privilege is not waived as to third parties, and police databases, subject to any applicable state or federal laws."
The preamble states that, by adoption of the ordinance, the city would be acknowledging that law enforcement officers across the nation have historically defended and enforced racism and segregation.
"For black Americans, policing is the most persistent element of the fight for civil rights because it has consistently been used a mechanism for racial control. Black people, and other people of color as well, already have a complicated and often tense relationship with law enforcement due to documented racial bias, disparities in police use of force, and the impacts of officer-involved shootings and other violent encounters with law enforcement officers," it states.
The preamble goes on to say the city also would be acknowledging that "smart policing in our community is possible, but not until we are able to address our national history of using the police as a tool to reinforce systems of racial inequity."
The task force believes such a commission is necessary to improve relations between residents and police, allowing independent civilian review of incidents to determine what happened in each case and whether changes in policies or practices are warranted.
Part of the commission's mission, the ordinance states, would be to ensure that AAPD treats all people fairly and respectfully, without undue use of force, and with special concern for "segments of the community that are vulnerable and have been marginalized, such as persons of color, immigrants, low-income people, those who suffer from mental illness, and transgender persons."
The coalition supporting the task force recommendations says the ordinance is forward-looking, seeks policy change, and does not overly focus on discipline. But the coalition argues the city administrator's proposal, which calls for routing complaints through the police department for investigation and not providing independent legal counsel, would not provide true independent oversight.
According to Lazarus, many of the recommendations of the task force are aspirational in nature and need further review for consistency with established laws and ordinances, the city charter, relevant city policy documents and collective bargaining agreements.
The task force met 12 times and presented its findings to the city administrator on Aug. 30. Lazarus then presented his draft recommendations to the task force on Sept. 6, and he's now making his recommendations to the City Council.
Lazarus has asked the City Council to consider a resolution to form a Community Policing Commission and give further direction to define its roles and responsibilities, recruit and train members, provide staffing and resource support, and develop a set of bylaws for adoption during the first year of the commission's operation.
A memo he sent to council states the support required for the initial startup of the commission is provided in AAPD's current budget, though resources for full operation of the commission would need to be developed as part of future budget plans.
Lazarus recommends forming a commission with 11 voting members, with one of them being a City Council member and another being a member of the city's Human Rights Commission, plus two advisory, non-voting members who would be selected by members of the Community Policing Commission.
"In making appointments, the mayor and council shall ensure that the overall membership of the commission reflects the city's diverse population," the administrator's proposal states.
"They will ensure that segments of the community that are vulnerable and have been marginalized are amply represented, and that the commission includes members with a variety of skills, expertise, and life experiences bearing on the work of the commission, such as people who have work or have worked in the fields of mediation, conflict resolution, mental health, housing, homelessness, anti-racism, transformative justice, municipal law, law enforcement, and people who have had significant encounters with the Ann Arbor Police Department."
The administrator's proposal states that people who have been engaged in law enforcement within the last three years would not be considered for appointment without concurrence from a majority of the sitting members, and current city employees would not be eligible.
However, Lazarus proposes having the city administrator provide administrative and logistical support to the commission, including designating a staff liaison to assist in the scheduling and conduct of commission meetings and activities, and ensuring "appropriate AAPD participation in commission proceedings."
The staff liaison position is currently not in the budget and would require the addition of a full-time employee to the city administrator's office, according to Lazarus' memo.
Under the administrator's proposal, the city attorney also would get to designate a staff attorney to support the commission.
Lazarus recommends a commission that would advise the City Council and city administrator on policing matters and would have the authority to receive complaints against AAPD and forward them to AAPD for investigation and resolution, including developing processes to protect the anonymity of individuals.
"The commission shall have the authority to independently review AAPD's resolutions of complaints and investigations, and produce independent reports of its findings. These reports will be advisory in nature and will not be binding on the city," the administrator's proposal states. "The city administrator shall ensure the commission is provided with access to the information and resources necessary for the commission to perform its review, consistent with applicable laws, rules, and governing documents, and in a reasonable time and format."
Under the administrator's proposal, the commission also would receive and review recurring reports on AAPD activities from the police chief and review policing policies and procedures, making recommendations to the city administrator and police chief.
The city administrator would retain the authority to redact information with regard to "tactics or approaches that could compromise the safety of the public or the responding police officers."
Lazarus recommends making the commission responsible for developing its own bylaws to be approved by council within six months of its initial meeting, and recommending an organizational ordinance to be adopted into city code after the commission's first year.
The commission also would provide input on AAPD financial plans and would issue an annual report describing its activities.
The task force's proposed ordinance outlines a process where people filing complaints about police could choose whether their complaints are disclosed to the AAPD and the public.
If the person decides they don't want their complaint disclosed to the AAPD, the ordinance states, the commission "shall nevertheless investigate the matter to the extent it can do so" and use any information it learns in making policy recommendations, and possibly advise the complainant as to other steps they can take.
Commission review of incidents, the ordinance states, are important for several reasons.
"First, when the facts are disputed, such review provides a finding, without need for litigation, by a body functionally independent of the AAPD and city administration of what happened," it states.
"Second, whether or not the facts are disputed, such review allows the commission to evaluate what happened, expressing its view as to whether the actions of the officers involved in the incident and of those who examined it were appropriate and justified. Third, such review enables the AAPD and city administration to understand better reasons for community concern, and it enables members of the community - both those involved in the incident and others as well - to understand not only what the police did but also what basis in policy or practice they may have had for doing so."
Finally, the ordinance states, "such review allows the commission to determine, whenever it concludes that the AAPD's actions were not optimal, how they may be improved in the future and accordingly to make recommendations for policy change."
Several members of the task force have stated that the commission should be independent and not subject to control or oversight by either the City Council or the city administrator, Lazarus stated in his 23-page memo. But he said there is no authority for commissions created by the City Council to operate outside of council's control.
"They must comply with all governing documents, and are by definition advisory to the department head, the city administrator, and the council and will study issues of concern, deliberate and collaborate with staff, and provide recommendations," his memo states. "While their work is significant, it is not binding on the city government."
Lazarus said topics requiring additional discussion and legal review as the commission is formed include dispute resolution, subpoena powers and confidentiality of information.
"There is no doubt that in the future there will be disagreement over under what conditions information may be or may need to be withheld or redacted," he wrote. "The processes put in place must be protective of the public's interest and consistent with the intent and authorities contained in the relevant governance documents."
ANN ARBOR, MI - A pair of first-generation college students at the University of Michigan are creating a social networking website that connects underclassmen with questions to trusted upperclassmen who can help.
The web platform, called Peerstachio, is a peer-to-peer learning network for students. It's not available yet, but is closer to launching after founders and UM seniors Scarlett Ong and Cristian Guillen refined it this summer in a 10-week student tech accelerator known as DTX Launch Detroit.
The startup received a $10,000 GM GO Award grant, which was presented at the DTX showcase on Aug. 9.
"The accelerator program helped us better understand our target market," Ong said. "Our mentors at DTX and the feedback we received from potential customers have really helped and continue to help us develop a platform that will guide freshmen and incoming college students throughout their educational journeys."
Ong and Guillen received feedback from a few friends at first, but eventually 100 potential customers helped give the business students a better understanding of their brand.
After creating a profile on Peerstachio, underclassmen will be able to search for a specific course and type out a question. Each course has a group of "experts," or upperclassmen who have already taken the class, who can message back instantly with an answer or advice.
"If (the underclassman and the expert) find it mutually beneficial to continue that conversation, they are able to connect with each other through Peerstachio," Ong said.
The value to the upperclassmen is what Ong and Guillen refer to as a reputation system within the site. Ong said she wanted to stray away from a monetary incentive for users, and instead focus on a platform that thrives on information-sharing.
"With good quality answers and active participation, mentors on the site receive reputation points," Ong said. "What we're trying to create is more of a crowd-source community where students can build off each other and share educational advice that will benefit both upperclassmen and underclassmen."
The platform design is still in the works, but Ong and Guillen plan to test Peerstachio in a 300-person math class at UM by mid-October. As the technical developer, Guillen said he hopes to have all the final bugs and glitches fixed by the end of the fall semester.
The idea for Peerstachio originated from Ong's freshman experience at UM as an international student from Malaysia and being the first in her family to attend college. In an unfamiliar setting in a country far from home, Ong wasn't always sure where to go to seek academic help or guidance in university life.
The business major met Guilllen in a school of information class, where their competitiveness toward each other grew into a friendship, and later a business partnership.
"I liked (Ong's) idea because I'm very interested in higher education as well as technology," Guillen said. "We were able to match her entrepreneurship skills with my developing skills to build an idea around peer-to-peer networking."
Ong's idea hit close to home for Guillen, who is also the first in his family to attend college. Guillen's parents immigrated from Guatemala to the United States in 1997, before Guillen was born.
"The goal my parents had for me has always been to get an excellent education and be the first in our family to get a bachelor's degree," Guillen said. "For me, creating this app is all about giving back and helping people like (Ong) and myself who had a harder time adjusting to university life because it was so new and different.
"It's always good to learn from your peers and we're hoping Peerstachio gives students a platform to get those questions answered in a responsive and efficient way."
ANN ARBOR, MI - Several University of Michigan fraternity chapters have announced they will no longer affiliate with the university's Interfraternity Council, citing changes to Ann Arbor's zoning code requiring all prospective fraternity and sorority houses to maintain university affiliation for permit consideration.
The IFC announced the withdrawals on its website, noting the following fraternities will no longer have access to the institutions, programs or support structures offered by the IFC or UM:
Alpha Epsilon Pi
Alpha Sigma Phi
Delta Chi
Phi Sigma Kappa
Psi Upsilon
Theta Chi
The decision was influenced by the city's July 16 decision to approve new regulations for fraternity and sorority houses, requiring them to maintain an affiliation with UM or another college or university in order for their houses to be specially permitted, the IFC said.
The rule does not retroactively apply to existing fraternities and sororities. Instead, it will take effect only with future permits granted by the city - either permits for newly established fraternities and sororities or for existing organizations looking to expand.
But the changes also mandate that any fraternity or sorority that loses recognition from UM as a result of extreme cases like sexual assault or hazing would have it's special-exemption housing permit expire after two years, and the zoning would revert back to single-family or two-family home status.
Fraternity and sorority houses are allowed as special exceptions under Ann Arbor zoning code when approved by the city's Planning Commission. The changes also codify a past practice for permit consideration to include a maximum occupancy component.
According to the IFC, the fraternities choosing to disaffiliate themselves with the university no longer have access to UM's Greek Activities Review Panel, the Social Responsibility Committee, the Hazing Response Team and the Hazing Task Force.
"On July 16, the Ann Arbor City Council approved non-retroactive changes to the city's zoning code that addressed prospective fraternity and sorority housing exemptions," the IFC's statement reads. "Based on this issue, coupled with concerns on the First Year Experience announcement, some member organizations made an initial decision to leave the student-led Interfraternity Council.
In March, UM announced its Division of Student Life will implement a shift of fraternity and sorority recruitment to winter. The move will bar Greek Life organizations from recruiting first-year students during the fall, beginning in the 2019-20 academic year. The new rules also requires recruits to have earned 12 credit hours at UM and be in good academic and behavioral standing.
"While this has been a challenging time for student leaders, namely those that represent our member chapters, we are confident that our council has learned from this experience and is more dedicated than ever to the important work mentioned here, along with other initiatives," the statement later reads.
In a message sent to students, Interim Director of Fraternity & Sorority Life Nicole Banks noted that if a fraternity is not recognized by the IFC, the group is not benefiting from the education, support and accountability structures provided by the IFC and supported by the university through Fraternity & Sorority Life.
"The university also strongly urges students to avoid attending unsanctioned events sponsored or hosted by fraternities currently functioning without the invaluable oversight and support provided by the IFC," Banks wrote. "The lack of this risk management oversight and university support has the potential of placing students at greater risk of injury or harm."
UM Spokesperson Kim Broekhuizen said it would be up to the IFC to determine whether to allow any of the now-disaffiliated fraternities to re-join the council.
A number of community members, representatives from national fraternity organizations and their legal representation spoke against the ordinance dating back to May, including Stephen Bernstein, general counsel for the Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity, whose UM chapter has been a property owner in Ann Arbor since 1947.
Bernstein previously addressed the proposed changes in a letter to City Planning Manager Brett Lenart, stating that the proposed amendment is discriminatory, unconstitutionally vague, and constitutes an unlawful delegation of municipal authority to UM.
"What you're going to do is interject yourself into student disciplinary proceedings, and I can tell you if you want to stop by my office, there is a ton of litigation on that subject," Bernstein said during a public hearing on the ordinance changes Monday, May 7. "The city is going to become a party to it.
"All you're doing is buying into a lot of litigation and not solving the problem that is ostensibly the basis for this amendment," he added.
Last fall, the IFC suspended all social activities and new member pledges, detailing a number of troubling incidents, including allegations of hazing and sexual misconduct.
Since then, one of the IFC's members, Zeta Beta Tau, was shut down by its national chapter while it was attempting to recolonize, citing hazing incidents.
The IFC has since began allowing social activities to resume, with some changes in place.
BAY CITY, MI -- Off parole for mere months, a 61-year-old Saginaw man is back in jail after police allege he burglarizing a gas station and stole thousands of dollars in cigarettes.
About 4 a.m. on Sept. 10, Bay County Sheriff's deputies responded to an alarm at the Speedy Q at 7484 Westside Saginaw Road in Frankenlust Township. They arrived to find the main entrance of the closed store was pried open.
On the inside, the rear of the counter was in disarray, with cigarette pack shelves on the floor, according to police reports contained in court records.
As deputies and a Michigan State Police trooper spoke with an employee that had arrived on the scene, a passerby pulled up in a vehicle and said, "I don't know what's going on here, but there is a guy in a maroon car in the ditch."
Police found the car in question -- a Mercury Milan -- facing west in a ditch on the southside of Freeland Road. In the ditch near the car was Jeffrey C. "Silky" Hammond, waving his arms and saying he swerved to avoid striking a deer in the roadway, police reports state.
Police noticed someone had walked from the ditch to the surrounding beanfield. They followed the path and located a large plastic bag containing numerous cigarette cartons.
The police handcuffed and arrested Hammond.
Police returned to the Speedy Q, where a manager showed them surveillance camera footage. The footage showed a masked man pry open the store's glass door, go behind the counter, and fill a plastic bag with cigarette cartons and cigars.
In all, the suspect had stolen $6,399.81 in tobacco products. The cigarettes were of the Marlboro and Newport brands, while the cigars were Black & Milds, Swisher Sweets, White Owls, and Game Leafs.
Interviewed by police at the Bay County Jail, Hammond initially denied any knowledge of the break-in. He later changed his story and said he committed the crime, adding he had perpetrated another burglary at the same Speedy Q in August, according to the police report.
Hammond on the afternoon of Sept. 11 appeared before Bay County District Judge Timothy J. Kelly for arraignment on one count of breaking and entering with intent to commit a larceny.
Kelly set Hammond's bond at $150,000 cash-surety, as requested by Bay County Prosecutor Nancy E. Borushko.
The Michigan Department of Corrections discharged Hammond on May 30. MDOC records indicate he's served prison stints on 12 convictions -- six of which are for breaking and entering -- dating back to 1975.
Hammond has also been convicted of felonious assault, fleeing police, assaulting police, escaping prison, and prisoner in possession of contraband. He's committed his crimes in Saginaw, Tuscola, Allegan, and Muskegon counties.
Hammond is to appear for a preliminary examination on Sept. 26.
(Updated: 9:58 a.m., Sept. 13)
DETROIT - A woman who drove drunk on I-75 and killed a road construction worker three months ago is going to prison.
Samiya Speed, 22, was sentenced to serve 46 months to 15 years in prison for driving drunk and crashing into a road construction crew just before 1 a.m., June 14, killing contractor David Snell, 57, of Bay City.
In August, Speed pleaded no contest to one count each of operating under the influence causing death, driving with a suspended license causing death, a moving violation causing death to a construction worker and operating under the influence second offense, records show.
Speed, driving an SUV, entered an active construction zone on northbound I-75 near I-94 in Detroit and hit a construction vehicle where Snell and another worker were standing before hitting a pickup and rolling her SUV onto the freeway, police said previously.
She was arrested by a Michigan State Police trooper arriving at the scene who determined Speed was intoxicated, police said.
The other worker suffered minor injuries in the crash.
Snell was a grandfather, married father of three, a union member and construction worker employed by C.A. Hull, according his obituary.
FLINT, MI -- Residents can celebrate the start of Hispanic Heritage month by attending the fourth annual Flint Hispanic Festival from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. Friday Sept. 14
The festival will be hosted at the Flint Farmers Market at 300 E. 1st St. and will feature El Ballet Folklorico Estudiantil dancers and mariachi, guest speakers, and Tex-Mex band Los Hermanos Escamilla from Chesaning.
Festival-goers can also enjoy a wide selection of vendors selling ethnic crafts and authentic food from Bolivia, Cuba, El Salvador, Mexico, Peru and Venezuela.
"The goal is to have Flint residents have a sense of pride in their Hispanic heritage," festival coordinator Alysia Trevino said. "I'm excited to see the turn out because it grows every year."
Trevino has been organizing the event for El Ballet Folklorico Estudiantil for three years. She said she's hoping for 2,000 residents to come through for the celebration.
National Hispanic Heritage Month begins Sept. 15 and ends Oct. 15. During this month, people celebrate and acknowledge the contributions of Hispanic and Latino Americans to the country's culture.
An after party for the Hispanic Festival will continue after 9 p.m. at Blackstone's Bar and Grill with D.J. Tomas Tello playing a mix of bachata, merengue and cumbias music.
THETFORD TWP, MI - Police say former township Clerk Leanne Pennington smashed her computer's hard drive after she was questioned by investigators looking into the possible misuse of a military surplus program.
Police say in a search warrant affidavit filed July 9 by Genesee Sheriff Lt. William Lanning in Genesee District Court that Pennington was interviewed in connection with an investigation into the township's police Chief Robert Kenny, who is accused of misusing military surplus equipment he obtained for the department through the federal Law Enforcement Support Office program.
In the warrant, Lanning claims Pennington "took the hard drive out of her assigned computer and smashed it" after he interviewed her.
Lanning said he is in possession of the hard drive, but it is "beyond retrievable," according to the warrant.
Kenny was put on unpaid administrative leave after he was arraigned Aug. 23 on embezzlement and obstruction of justice charges in connection with the investigation.
No charges have been filed against Pennington, who resigned from her position with the township the day after Kenny's arraignment.
Her attorney, Edward Farrell, said Pennington did nothing wrong and that she destroyed the hard drive because she received a new computer and the old equipment had sensitive township information on it.
"I think that's what she's done in the past," Farrell said of Pennington destroying the hard drive. "If you ever met this woman, you would know she's got nothing to hide.
"They never even had a procedure in place. So, when they got a new computer, they would smash the old hard drive. There's a lot of information on them."
Pennington was interviewed by detectives three times about Kenny and the surplus equipment but declined to talk a fourth time, according to Farrell.
She told the detectives she smashed her hard drive, Farrell said, adding that he believes Pennington is also being investigated by the sheriff's office.
Genesee County Sheriff Robert Pickell said Wednesday, Sept. 12, that he would not comment on an ongoing investigation.
Thetford Township Supervisor Gary Stevens said Pennington had received a new computer two or three years ago and that the hard drive from the old one was supposed to be saved for seven years because it could potentially contain township information.
Stevens also said an old computer that he previously used currently sits on a cabinet in the township office.
"That's not my property," he said of the old computer. "I just don't understand why she did that. It just makes her look awful suspicious."
The contents of the search warrant were unsealed by the court earlier this month and detailed the police investigation into Kenny.
Kenny received almost 4,000 items that had a retail value of more than $2.7 million since 2012 through the federal program, Pickell said previously. Items included parachutes, mine-detecting devices, excavators, hydroseeders and other equipment.
Pickell previously said Kenny took several heavy-duty metal storage containers obtained through the support program to a Vienna Township scrapyard in 2012 and 2013. He received more than $5,000 in three different checks for the containers and deposited the money in his own account or took it in cash, investigators previously said.
Kenny was arrested on Aug. 22, when his personal vehicle was stopped by Genesee County officers.
A permanent replacement for Pennington has not yet been selected.
GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- The Kent County commissioners relocated their meeting Thursday morning after they were interrupted again by people protesting the county's jail contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The full board meeting was moved to another county building across the street from the County Administration Building at 300 Monroe Ave. NW.
Deputies, who were posted at the door of the new meeting spot, requested media identification for entry. The county's rationale, according to a statement, was to bar protesters.
"The Michigan Court of Appeals ruled that, when a public meeting is disrupted by protest, a public body may relocate its meeting after a recess and exclude protesters from attending, as long as the media is allowed to attend, and the location change is posted," the statement read. "The court concluded this action was the same as removing the protestors.
"Based on the level of disruption at the commission chambers this morning, the board chair has determined that recess and relocation is the commission's best legal recourse to continue to conduct the business of the county."
The break down Thursday came during the public comment period, when Jeff Smith, a coordinator with GR Rapid Response to ICE, announced the formation of a "people's commission" in the back of the public seating area.
A group of protesters then held a mock commission session addressing ICE offenses. Kent County Board Chairmen Jim Saalfeld adjourned the meeting after protesters failed to cease their demonstration.
Smith and others have requested for months that the commission address the ICE contract during its meetings. The county board hasn't done so.
The disruption is the third time since June that protesters have impeded county board meetings.
Protesters want the county to end the jail contract with ICE.
Broadly, the contract formalizes the amount of payment the county receives for each day an inmate flagged for ICE detention is held. It allows ICE detainments for up to three days, rather than the standard two.
In 2017, the Kent County Sheriff's Office kept 185 people jailed at the request of ICE, resulting in a revenue of $17,935, according to county spokesperson Lisa LaPlante. The jail's budget that year was $36 million.
Protesters argue the contract incentivizes the racial profiling of Latinos and profits from their detention. When ICE receives the prints of a person lodged in jail, it might request a detainment of a suspected illegal immigrant.
Kenneth Moore.
GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- Police are asking the public to assist officers in located a 56-year-old Grand Rapids man who is a person of interest in two recent bank robberies within the city.
Kenneth Moore, who has been a parole absconder from the Michigan Department of Corrections for the past three years, is wanted for questioning by the Grand Rapids Police Department.
Moore served time in prison for convictions of assault with intent to commit great bodily harm less than murder, felony firearms, and a prison weapons offense. He violated his parole on April 22, 2015, according to MDOC records.
Local police and the FBI are investigating a pair of bank robbery attempts from Monday, Sept. 10, in Grand Rapids. Within hours Monday, officers were dispatched to a failed robbery at Fifth Third Bank, 1319 Michigan St. NE, and a robbery at Fifth Third Bank, 700 Bridge St. NW.
Officers surrounded an apartment building in the 700 block of Bridge Street NW after a suspect that matched the robber's description was seen entering it following the incidents. Police cleared the scene after they didn't locate the suspect.
Police ask anyone with information about Moore's whereabouts to contact the police department at 616-456-3343, or Silent Observer at 616-774-2345.
GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- A medical manufacturing company is planning to expand its operations in the Cascade area to accommodate growth in its injection molding work.
Medbio is expected to invest $3.5 million for the expansion. It is projected to add 43 new jobs, continuing a trend of job growth in West Michigan's medical device manufacturing sector. The 29 West Michigan companies in that sector have produced 7 percent job growth since 2013.
Based at 3637 Sysco Court SE, the company plans to renovate a 25,000-square-foot building located across the street from its current operations to accommodate the growth.
The Michigan Economic Development Corporation is providing a $180,000 business development performance-based grant. According to state officials, Cascade Township will consider a property tax break for the project.
Due to rapid growth with the companies injection molding operations, Medbio needs additional space for assembly and packaging.
The Right Place, an economic development agency in West Michigan, collaborated with Medbio, Cascade Township and the MEDC.
"We are grateful to The Right Place and Cascade Charter Township for helping us expand right here in the region," said Chris Williams, Medbio president and CEO. "We are eager to expand our footprint, add jobs and operate more effectively."
According to the company's website, Medbio is a contract manufacturer offering innovative manufacturing solutions for the medical and biotechnology industries.
The company specializes in precision injection molding, injection mold tooling, assembly, packaging, project management, and design support.
"Medbio continues to be one of West Michigan's most successful medical contract manufacturers," said Eric Icard, senior business development at The Right Place. West Michigan hosts the highest concentration of medical device manufacturers in the state. As one of the fastest-growing medical clusters in the Midwest, the region now employs over 20 percent of Michigan's medical device professionals."
According to a press release, as of 2017, approximately 2,462 jobs, with an average annual salary of $71,604 can be attributed to the West Michigan medical device manufacturing sector.
"We believe the expansion is a testament to Cascade Charter Township's business-friendly environment, the overall incentive package, and our long friendship with the company," said Cascade Charter Township supervisor Rob Beahan. "Medbio's investment will continue to help drive our region's growing medical and biotech sectors."
Manila (CNN Philippines Life) This book is the realest work Ive ever created. It represents more of me than anything Ive put out into this world, writes Nico Tortorella in the introduction to their first book, all of it is you. The book is a collection of over 100 poems split into three chapters body, earth, and universe spanning the beginning of life (the first poem is entitled sperm) to the depths of the universe (the final two are ufo and god).
Tortorella who prefers they/them pronouns is an actor, a podcast host, and an LGBTQ+ advocate. In interviews, they often speak about love and sexuality, and Tortorella does not shy away from talking about their own personal experiences with either. In fact, they seem to relish it.
Photo by JL JAVIER
As a podcast host, they invite a person that they love to dissect what they say is the common thread that connects us all love, and how it shapes and is shaped by our own identities and sexualities. As an LGBTQ+ advocate, Tortorella is vocal about their fluidity: they are openly bisexual, queer, and polyamorous, and often appears in runway shows and shoots clad in genderbending ensembles. Now as a poet, Tortorella invites readers into their innermost thoughts, about life, the universe, and everything, love and sex most definitely included.
We recently sat down with Tortorella, who was recently here for the Manila International Book Fair, to discuss their book, why they choose to speak so candidly, and being a queer actor in Hollywood today. Below are edited excerpts from the interview.
You're an actor, an LGBTQ+ advocate, and you have a podcast called The Love Bomb. How'd you decide to get into poetry?
I was writing a bunch of poetry for the podcast and when the podcast ended, which was a deliberate choice, I started shopping around a book. And it was actually the book that I'm writing right now, which is like a narrative memoir hybrid. And in one way or another, this opportunity came [to] do the poetry book first. And it's so rare to get offered a poetry book in the modern world. So I took it, I jumped at the opportunity, and I really had to buckle down and get to work. I wrote the whole thing in 45 days. They gave me two months to put the book together, and so I just did it. [Laughs]
What was that process like?
A lot of work! It was like a 40 day, 40 night full spiritual immersion. It was a religious experience. And it still is. Transformative, really.
Why is the book called all of it is you?
When I came up with [the title] I went on this internet chase. I was like, okay, who am I borrowing this from, who said this first? And it didn't pop up anywhere. Which I'm still shocked by. I just birthed this mantra. That's what it is to me. It's become a mantra. And it speaks directly to the reader, directly to the person that picks up this book, you. If you read this title, you think that it's immediately talking about you, which is so wonderful because it is. That's the whole point.
Photo by JL JAVIER
I listened to a few episodes of your podcast and I noticed that the intros to your podcasts are sort of like spoken word poetry. Then when I read the book, I kind of saw a similarity...
There's a rhythm to it, yeah.
Is your poetry inspired by spoken word poetry? And if so, who are your favorites?
That's interesting. I don't really follow that many spoken word poets. I wish I did more. But I just kind of created my own little nook in the space. I mean, some of my best friends work in the queer poetry space [like] Alok Vaid-Menon, Travis Alabanza. But I would say that the inspiration came from my own rhythm of life. And writing songs in high school.
You talk about love and sex and sexuality a lot (in real life and in your poems) and it's interesting because celebrities often shy away from talking about these things. Why decide to be so candid about it?
Because once I started talking about it, and the response was so moving, I couldn't stop. It became so much more than my own experience. It became about everyone else. And Hollywood has changed so much, ever since I have been in it for the last 10 years. But even in the last year, the Me Too movement, and to really see this turnover of these men in power... it's just a different landscape than it used to be. And politically, the way everything across the globe is unraveling, here, in the United States, it lends an opportunity to speak in a way that we never really could, because our leaders are. So one way or another, I'm grateful for that. We have all of these gross men in power, but it's giving rise to us. And I just think the stakes are being raised everywhere across the board.
Photo by JL JAVIER
In the book you have poems like menstruation where you talk about how tampons and pads should be chargeless, our eggs should have more equity than our shit, and just basing off everything you said earlier, Im curious to know if you consider your poetry as a form of activism?
Yeah, absolutely. I think waking up in the morning and looking in the mirror and telling yourself that you love yourself is a form of activism. I think activism can be found in anything and everything. Activism is a form of self-care. I don't want to say it's easy to get out on the street and march because it's difficult, but what does personal activism look like? To fight for yourself every single day. That's the behind-the-scenes activism. That's really the most important. Because without that nothing else matters.
In another poem, identity, you call yourself cisgender, queer, bisexual. I know that you choose to identify as bisexual because youre aware of how pervasive and harmful bisexual erasure is. As an actor, as a leading man, has the stigma around bisexuality affected you?
I don't know that I'll ever really know the answer to that. I think that if there are some high powered, white, cis[gender] male executives that are like, No, we don't want to see Nico for a role because of what they say, I'll never get that news. But I did just have a conversation with my old team about, because I've raised the stakes now that I'm talking about gender fluidity. It's a completely different conversation to be like, Okay, maybe I'm not a man. How does that change for me going out for roles? It does in a lot of ways. And my response was, we need to stop giving any sort of power to the conversation of this closing any door. Because look at how many doors this is opening. I wouldn't be sitting here having this conversation with you right now if I didn't start talking about these things years ago. And it's opening the doors that I actually need in my life, in my career.
***
Catch Nico Tortorella at the SM City Cebu Northwing Atrium at 1 p.m. on Sept. 15, and at the Main Stage of the 39th Manila International Book Fair at 2 p.m. on Sept. 16. all of it is you is available in National Book Store branches nationwide.
OTTAWA COUNTY, MI - Police on Thursday, Sept. 13, arrested a 17-year-old student who allegedly brought a handgun into West Ottawa High School.
Police arrested the suspect and recovered a small-caliber handgun.
No one was injured. No shots were fired.
The incident happened around 10:30 a.m.
WOHS students, thank you for participating cooperatively in the lockdown and shelter in place this morning. All normal school day activities have resumed as of 11:20 a.m. West Ottawa HS (@WestOttawaHS) September 13, 2018
Students alerted school administrators that the 17-year-old had a handgun. School officials contacted two sheriff's deputies who are assigned as school resource officers. The deputies then found the student and recovered the gun.
Police are interviewing the student. His motivation in bringing the gun to school "at this time remains unclear," sheriff's Capt. Mark Bennett said.
Bennett expected to provide additional information later.
GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- About 6 percent of the Grand Rapids Police Department's sworn officers are designated community policing specialists, which separates them from the department's patrol officers.
The group tasked with reviewing the department's policies and procedures for susceptibilities to unequal policing is recommending that every officer in the ranks take ownership of the community officer title.
"Community policing is not just a program where you play with the kids," said Ron Davis, principal for the Grand Rapids-hired 21st Century Policing Solutions firm. "Community policing includes how you fight crime, the strategies you use, and the impact it has on the community."
The city's 14-member Police Policy and Procedures Task Force recommends that every officer being trained on, and tasked with, problem-oriented policing strategies designed to find more effective ways of dealing with the community's challenges.
Additionally, every officer would be evaluated on community policing principals like engagement, collaboration, problem-solving, and building trust and legitimacy under the recommendations.
"Community policing can't be a group of officers or a unit," said Davis, who presented the task force's 38 recommendations to the city commission this week at Grand Rapids City Hall.
"A lot of departments will create a community policing unit. If the beat officers and patrol officers aren't engaged then it allows a beat officer to say community policing is what they do, not what I do. I do real policing, they do community policing."
Police Chief David Rahinsky has regularly said he expects every officer in his department to consider themselves a community officer. The distinction of community-policing specialist is meant to have some officers not tied to responding to calls for service so they can carry out other responsibilities.
The police department has 16 community policing specialists, who work 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. weekday shifts and are tasked with visiting local schools and businesses, attending neighborhood meetings, addressing growing community concerns and building positive relationships throughout their assigned area.
Staffing constraints have pulled those community-policing specialists in to backup patrol officers, however, and Rahinsky has repeatedly asked the city commission to approve funding for additional officers to allow for more community policing.
The commission has been hesitant to approve spending for more officers.
Some commissioners have also echoed the desire to have community policing be a department-wide initiative, and they've made the point that those officers who specialize in building community relationships aren't the same officers regularly responding to calls for service.
Of the task force's eight suggestions related to community policing and crime reduction, five involved a department-wide focus on community policing.
The group wants the police department to free up its patrol officers so they can each complete quarterly problem-oriented policing projects. Their suggestion includes an incentive program for such projects, and adjusted annual performance metrics for officer evaluations.
Problem-oriented policing is an analytic method to develop strategies that prevent and reduce crime by tackling underlying conditions that lead to recurring crime problems.
"What you want to identify is that every officer and civilian dispatcher alike has a role to contribute to community policing," Davis said. "That doesn't mean you may not have a special unit that's a liaison and coordinating and doing a lot of activities a beat officer might not have time for, but it can't just be their responsibility."
Additionally, the group called for:
The city commission to adopt a resolution that mandates community policing as the operating philosophy of the police department, and requires all city departments to contribute to enhancing public safety through community collaboration.
The police department to develop a citywide community policing plan that incorporates crime-reduction strategies, community engagement and partnerships, and police department oversight.
The department to include community members in its process to collect, analyze and map crime data and other essential police performance measures.
Rahinsky didn't have an opportunity to respond to any of the recommendations at Tuesday's meeting. In the past, he has said his officers want to spend more time building relationships in the community and partaking in non-enforcement activities. To do so, he said, would require more officers.
Last month, the city commission voted 5-2 to approve a series of investments for improving community-police relations. Included in the list was an external staffing and deployment analysis of the department. The study is expected to take three to four months.
The city hasn't selected a consultant for the staffing study yet.
The police department has 295 officers -- or about 1.5 officers per 1,000 residents. That's less than the 2016 national average of 2.4, according to FBI data, and falls short of several comparable cities nationwide.
All 38 task force recommendations will be presented to the public during a community event next month. At that time, a 21st Century Policing spokesperson will present the firm's review of the police department.
The 14-member body is made up of equal parts police and community representatives, including Marques Beene, Janay Brower, Sonja Forte, Ed Kettle, Maria Moreno-Reyes, Huemartin Robinson, Raynard Ross, Police Chief David Rahinsky, Deputy Chief Eric Payne, Capt. Michael Maycroft, Lt. John Bylsma, Sgt. Jana Forner, Sgt. Dan Adams and Officer Andrew Bingel.
KENT COUNTY, MI - A young woman who was sexually abused in a mentor program at Cascade Township Fire Department has filed a federal lawsuit against the township and Boy Scouts of America.
Two now-former Cascade Township firefighters - Clem Bell, 53, and Steven Drake, 34 - had relationships with the then-16-year-old girl and exchanged sexually explicit photographs and videos with her.
The two men pleaded guilty last year to possession of child sexually abusive material, using a computer to commit a crime and promoting child sexually abusive activity.
The fallout extended beyond the two who were sentenced to jail, home confinement and placed on Michigan's sex-offender registry. Fire Chief John Sigg retired after 29 years while Deputy Chief John Shipley was fired from his part-paid position. An independent review of the department's Explorer program showed deficiencies in policies and procedures.
Explorers gives those ages 14 to 21 the opportunity to learn about potential careers. In this case, Explorers could learn about emergency services by working alongside professional firefighters.
The program in Cascade Township was suspended after the allegations came to light, and is no longer active, township manager Ben Swayze said. He said that the township would not comment on pending litigation.
Boys Scouts of America would not discuss legal issues but said that Bell and Drake were not registered with the Explorer program. They were banned after the allegation arose.
Boy Scouts relies on fire departments to identify firefighters who are suitable for the program. Fire departments run and supervise the program.
Donald Shepard, Scout Executive/CEO, Michigan Crossroads Council, Boy Scouts of America, said in a statement:
"Nothing is more important than the safety of our youth members. We are outraged there have been times when Explorers were abused and we sincerely apologize to victims and their families. Even one instance of abuse is unacceptable.
"We seek to prevent child abuse through comprehensive policies and procedures to serve as barriers to abuse, and continue to strengthen those efforts at every level of our organization. These include a thorough screening process for adult leaders and staff, requiring youth protection training of all adult leaders and volunteers, and the prompt mandatory reporting of any allegation or suspicion of abuse."
Boy Scouts offers counseling assistance for anyone who suffers abuse in Exploring, and a 24-hour Scouts First Helpline (844-726-8871) and email (scouts1st@scouting.org).
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Grand Rapids, names as defendants: Cascade Township, Boy Scouts of America, the Boy Scouts' Michigan Crossroads Council, and Learning for Life.
Bell and Drake "were able to separately and independently employ similar, well-recognized grooming techniques and abuse the trust and power inherent in their positions to accomplish the sexual assault, abuse, molestation, and harassment of" the young woman, Grand Rapids attorney William Azkoul wrote.
He said the defendants failed to have and enforce policies to protect participants in the Explorer program.
The former fire chief and deputy chief were among a handful registered with Boy Scouts to lead Cascade Township Fire Department's Explorer program. Bell and Drake were not among them.
The registered leaders "were rarely, if ever, involved in supervising or facilitating the education of the Explorers and did not design a structured program of activities for the Exploring students in 2016. Rather, Cascade Township allowed any firefighter to supervise and train the exploring students in an informal and unplanned fashion," the lawsuit said.
The plaintiff, identified by a pseudonym, Jane Doe, spent about 30 hours a week at the fire station, staying as late as 10 p.m. Explorers were not supposed to be at the station past 8 p.m. except for training or emergency response.
Bell and Drake took an interest in Doe, and connected via social media. Both men, married with children, pursued social relationships, too, the lawsuit said.
Bell, the appointed township clerk, convinced her to help his campaign to win a full term, the lawsuit said.
While Boy Scouts of America prohibits adults from fraternizing with Explorers outside of the program, the township had no such policy, the lawsuit said. Boy Scouts policy also prohibits one-on-one contact; interactions should be in view of others.
"Both Drake and Bell frequently drove Jane, alone, in township vehicles to other locations, such as county parks that needed to be locked up at the end of the evening," the lawsuit said.
One June 13, 2016, a firefighter told the fire chief "that Bell was showing inappropriate affection and attention to Jane ... ."
In response, Shipley, the deputy chief at the time, told Bell that others were concerned about what they considered to be an "inappropriate relationship with" the girl. Bell was defensive and said he was only trying to help her. Her parents, Boy Scouts and police were not notified.
Boy Scouts calls for any suspected abuse to be immediately reported to a Boy Scout executive.
The lawsuit said the girl was particularly susceptible to grooming - "special attention, affection, compliments, gifts, isolation, secrecy, blame and threats" - because of mild cognitive problems, a chronic health condition, her trust in authority and her naivete.
The lawsuit said Bell became "extremely controlling" and talked about leaving the country with the girl to start a new life.
"Bell forbade Jane from seeing other boys, having male friends, or going to school dances," the lawsuit said.
MARQUETTE, MI - A Michigan man who once served as a school bus driver has been sentenced for attempting to travel to Canada to have sex with minors.
Michael Keith Feighner, 64, of Rudyard, was sentenced to 12 years in federal prison for the crime, U.S. Attorney Andrew Birge announced on Thursday, Sept. 13. today.
U.S. District Judge Paul L. Maloney also ordered Feighner to serve eight years of supervised release upon the completion of his sentence. He will also be required to register as a sexual offender.
Feighner pled guilty to a charge of attempting to travel to a foreign country for the purpose of having sexual relations with a minor on June 28. In addition to driving a school bus for Rudyard Area Schools from 2013 to 2017, he is a retired state corrections officer who was employed at the MDOC prison in Kincheloe.
The investigation into Feighner began when an undercover Homeland Security Investigations agent, operating from a list of customers who were frequenting child pornography websites and trading child pornography, contacted Feighner.
Believing that he was communicating with the father of three underage children, Feighner arranged for a meeting in Sault Ste. Marie, Canada to engage in sexual acts with the children.
On the agreed date, Feighner traveled from Rudyard and was intercepted and arrested at the International Bridge in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan
KEWEENAW PENINSULA, MI - You might not think of Michigan as a hotbed of earthquake activity, but for a couple years a century ago, our Upper Peninsula was rattled by what some have called a swarm of seismic activity.
And these weren't just faint tremors. These were earthquakes that made a 427-foot boat out in Lake Superior quiver from stem to stern, then swing around in a different direction. They twisted railroad tracks near Houghton into the shape of a snake. And they sent miners running out of their underground tunnels - and prompted some of the men on the next shift to refuse to go to work.
From 1902 to 1909, more than 20 earthquakes jarred the Upper Peninsula, according to author Lisa Thiel in her book "Forgotten Tales of Michigan's Upper Peninsula." She researched old newspaper accounts of that era to describe the damage done by some of the larger quakes.
Because these were felt across Copper Country, the early thought was that they were connected to the area's many mining operations. Descriptions blamed them on "air blasts" in the mines.
In the 1970s, a geologist's report for the Michigan Department of Natural Resources dug a bit deeper:
"It is thought that if the mining operations were not directly responsible for the earthquake, they at least facilitated rock slippage by creating avenues of weakness in the rocks of the subsurface," according to the description of a 1905 quake near Calumet, which measured a 5 on the Richter scale.
Below, we'll share a few of the earthquakes' descriptions. Some of these accounts are shared in Thiel's book. Others were described in newspapers from Michigan and Minnesota, or were compiled by the people behind Michigan's Keweenaw Peninsula Facebook page, an Upper Peninsula tourism group that often shares fascinating tidbits about the Mitten's Land of the Upper Hand.
Men assess the damage near twisted railroad tracks after an earthquake near the Atlantic Mine in Houghton in 1906.
July 26, 1905: On this evening, there was an earthquake near Calumet that measured a 5 on the Richter scale. According to an DNR report on that quake: "Chimneys were toppled and plate glass windows were broken in Calumet, and the shocks from the earthquake were sensed as far north as Copper Harbor (50 kilometers) and as far east as Marquette (105 kilometers)."
A local newspaper carried a report of the damage under the headline "Copper Country Shaken." It read:
"A severe shock of earthquake was felt throughout Copper Country at 6:20 o'clock Wednesday evening."
"The disturbance was especially severe at Calumet, where many windows were smashed, dishes were knocked from shelves, pictures fell from the wall and buildings swayed perceptibly, in some cases chimneys toppling over."
"The quake, which was at first attributed to an air blast, caused considerable excitement and at different mines the night shift men refused to go to work. At about the same hour, the shock was felt in Marquette and surrounding towns."
April 19, 1906: Great Lakes Capt. Harry Gunderson told The Duluth News Tribune that his crew aboard the 427-foot steamer Henry Steinbrenner was shaken by an earthquake when they were off the Keweenaw Peninsula's Eagle Harbor. The ship was on its way to Duluth on a day with nice weather and just a light breeze. Gunderson gave this account of what happened on board:
"Without warning, the great vessel suddenly quivered from stem to stern. She seemed to come to a standstill, though there was no shock of collision or jar from beneath to indicate grounding."
"The vessel rocked as if in the trough of a sea. Captain Gunderson dashed on the deck to find the lake in a terrible commotion. The needle in the compass raced in a circle, and the ship, which had been pointing a little south of west, swung around to the north in spite of the effort of the wheelsman."
"The water became smooth again almost immediately, and in a few minutes, there was nothing to indicate that anything unusual had occurred."
The Henry Steinbrenner, shown in the middle of two other boats in the St. Marys River near the Soo Locks. This photo was taken in 1905. Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress.
May, 1906: An earthquake near the Atlantic Mine south of Houghton left a section of railroad tracks twisted into an S-shape. "Here, almost directly above the lode of the mine, railroad tracks were severely deformed and caving occurred at the ground surface. Two other earthquakes were also experienced during 1906 in this mining region."
Photos from the Copper Country Historical Collections in the Michigan Technological University Archives show men standing by the tracks, assessing the damage. Another photo shows a man and his two young sons posing for a picture in front of the serpentine-shaped tracks.
Jan. 22, 1909: Another quake was felt in that same area. "A rumbling tremor was felt around Houghton and was believed to be caused by the crushing of pillars in a mine," according to a U.S. Geological Survey account.
President Donald Trump weighed in on ongoing negotiations over an agricultural spending bill Thursday, claiming U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Michigan, and other Democrats were holding up the process.
In an afternoon tweet, Trump alleged Stabenow and other Democrats "are totally against approving the Farm Bill," adding, "They are fighting tooth and nail to not allow our Great Farmers to get what they so richly deserve."
Senator Debbie Stabenow and the Democrats are totally against approving the Farm Bill. They are fighting tooth and nail to not allow our Great Farmers to get what they so richly deserve. Work requirements are imperative and the Dems are a NO. Not good! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 13, 2018
In the Senate, their farm bill passed with bipartisan support, but House Republicans have proposed major changes to existing policy that could be difficult to reconcile before the expiration date.
One of the sticking points in the ongoing discussions between House and Senate leaders is whether the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, should be adjusted to require work requirements for food stamp assistance to low income adults.
Trump alluded to this issue in his tweet, saying it was "not good" that Democrats opposed adding in the work requirements.
The Senate version of the farm bill maintains current work requirements for SNAP, but in June, House Republicans passed a farm bill with a provision requiring SNAP participants between ages 18-59 to work at least 20 hours a week or participate in a job training program for 20 hours a week, with exceptions for disabled people or those raising a child under 6.
The House bill also changes existing SNAP eligibility criteria and would shift some funding into work and job training programs.
Stabenow responded to Trump's tweet about an hour later, posting on Twitter that the Senate passed its version of the farm bill with 86 votes.
"I'm not letting politics distract me from working across the aisle to finalize a good bill that will deliver certainty for farmers and families in Michigan and across the country," she said.
In case you missed it, the Senate passed a bipartisan #FarmBill that got 86 votes the most ever. Im not letting politics distract me from working across the aisle to finalize a good bill that will deliver certainty for farmers and families in Michigan and across the country. Sen. Debbie Stabenow (@SenStabenow) September 13, 2018
Stabenow is currently running for reelection against Republican challenger John James, who Trump endorsed ahead of the Aug. 7 primary election.
In a statement, James agreed with Trump: "Our hard-working farmers deserve a Farm Bill, but 43-year career politician Debbie Stabenow is standing in their way," he said.
The farm bill covers a wide range of agricultural programs - including crop insurance for farmers, agricultural research and development and subsidies - as well as food assistance for low-income citizens.
The current version of the farm bill was signed by then-President Barack Obama in East Lansing in 2014, and that is set to expire Sept. 30 of this year.
JACKSON, MI - Consumers Energy, Huron Valley Ambulance and Detroit's U.S. Coast Guard unit are preparing to help those on the east coast affected by Hurricane Florence.
Now downgraded to a Category 2 hurricane, Florence is expected to make landfall near North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia on Friday, Sept. 14.
A six-person crew of paramedics and emergency medical technicians has already been deployed by Ann Arbor-based HVA.
The team will be deployed for at least two weeks, and is equipped with medical supplies, rescue gear and personal items like cots, uniforms and groceries, per an HVA press release.
"Hospitals in the projected path are at risk of flooding," HVA Chief Operating Officer Dirk Borton said in the release. "If needed, the team will help transport patients to a safer area as a precaution. Once the storm hits, the missions tend to focus on emergency 9-1-1 calls."
The crew is taking two ambulances and a mobility transportation vehicle with them.
Coast Guard personnel left Detroit with a helicopter on Wednesday, Sept. 12, to assist in Hurricane Florence operations.
On the electricity end, Consumers is prepared to send "dozens" of workers to help restore power from the storm, spokesman Brian Wheeler said. Company officials are currently rounding up equipment and volunteers and could leave as early as Friday night.
Estimates predict as many as 3 million people could lose power from the storm, per the New York Times. For reference, Wheeler said it took six days to restore power to 400,000 Consumers customers during the 2013 ice storm - and that was with help from workers across a dozen states, he said.
"No energy provider can go it alone in these circumstances," Wheeler said. "You can't control nature, but you can definitely provide the best response you can."
Consumers will be reimbursed for its help. In late August, workers from four states came to help storm cleanup in Michigan.
About 300 people were sent by Consumers to help restore power after Hurricane Irma bowled through Florida in 2017.
"A lot of the workers who have made trips like this, they definitely get a sense of pride," Wheeler said. "There's a pride in knowing you've done something to help people in need."
KALAMAZOO, MI -- Western Michigan University contributed over $1 billion dollars to the Kalamazoo-area economy in a one-year span, according to a new report.
The economic impact the university has on the region is about $1.6 billion, according to a report paid for jointly by Western Michigan University and Southwest Michigan First.
The results of the report, which gathered data from the 2016-2017 fiscal year, were presented during a Board of Trustees meeting Wednesday, Sept. 12. The university's fiscal year begins on July 1.
Bob Miller, the university's associate vice president for community outreach, said the report looked at economic impacts in Kalamazoo, Van Buren and Calhoun counties, and that most of the data was gathered from WMU's own existing institutional research.
Ron Kitchens, who serves as both a WMU trustee and CEO of Southwest Michigan First, said the report shows why community and university partnerships are important.
"This is truly our university and our community and we operate as one," Kitchens said. "That synergy is critical. The success of university is inextricably tied to the success of this community."
The report examined university operations, construction projects and student and visitor spending.
The report placed economic impacts into three categories: direct, indirect and induced. Direct impact represents jobs and payroll generated by the university. Indirect impact represents jobs and salaries created in new or existing firms that supply goods and services to the university. Induced impact is created in local businesses that supply goods and services to WMU workers and their families, the report said.
The majority of the impact comes through university operations. WMU reported an annual operating budget of $665 million including payroll for 8,337 faculty, staff and student employees. The university reported a payroll of $357 million during the 2016-2017 fiscal year.
The report also included figures for indirect and induced employment: 16,690 area jobs in total.
Student spending accounted for 26 percent of the university's impact, totaling $263 million. According to the report, spending by Western students supports nearly 4,000 additional jobs in the region. Student spending excluded the cost of tuition or on-campus housing.
Prepared by Impact DataSource, LLC, a Texas-based economic research firm, the report used a model developed by the U.S. Department of Commerce.
Tony Proudfoot, WMU's new vice president for marketing and strategic communications, said during the board meeting that the university plans to use the results of the report in its future marketing efforts.
"This is something we will talk about for months and years to come," Proudfoot said.
The report cost $14,500 to create, Proudfoot said, which was split between the university and Southwest Michigan First.
President Edward Montgomery said in an interview after the meeting that the report "brings into clarity the full extent of the total impact."
"We already knew (the university) changed individual lives," he said. "But this showed the aggregated impact on the community as a whole."
KALAMAZOO, MI -- Residents are expressing a mixture of feelings about the ongoing occupation of Bronson Park by homeless demonstrators.
Almost twice as many people contacting the City Commission want to see the park cleared, according to more than 35 communications from Aug. 20 to Sept. 4 obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. Emails and phone calls give one look at how residents and business owners feel about the Bronson Park encampment, but City Manager Jim Ritsema said he can't say for sure how the community as a whole is leaning.
"I need to take into account the entire city I work for," Ritsema said. "Obviously this (protest) group has commanded attention, but everything has to be done with a balance. This is a very complicated issue and there's so many different parts to this ... we need to look at the entire picture and that's what we've been doing."
The encampment will now be allowed to stay through the week, though Ritsema said campers are violating city ordinances. Kicking people out of the park won't make the problem go away, he said, but the encampment will need to compromise and move eventually.
Supporters of the protest said demonstrators have nowhere else to go and should be allowed to stay while the city works to help them find long-term housing.
Others said the protest has made the downtown park dirty, unwelcoming and has decreased attendance at events held there.
Members of the homeless encampment itself had conflicting views of the movement.
Attorney Matthew DePerno parks in front of Bronson Park when appearing for cases before the Kalamazoo County Circuit Court, located across the street. DePerno is frustrated city officials have allowed the park to be "taken over completely" by protesters.
"I think what the city has to do is enforce the ordinances and remove people from the park," he said. "There's churches; there's charities in our society, those are supposed to be the groups that come to these people's aid. I think some people have the idea that government is supposed to intervene and do something about that problem. It's not government's issue."
DePerno said it's not city government's job to deal with broader issues of homelessness. He placed some blame on the state for failing to take care of people with mental health issues.
The protest has the support of several downtown faith leaders. The Rev. Nathan Dannison, of First Congregational Church; the Rev. Steve Charnley and the Rev. Julie Kline, of First United Methodist Church of Kalamazoo, said demonstrators need an ongoing venue to communicate their issues.
They also acknowledged that Bronson Park is unsustainable.
Andre Lee, a member of the Bronson Park encampment, said the media has turned public opinion against the protest.
He objected to a narrative that demonstrators are being stubborn negotiators. Everyone has different needs, Lee said, and that makes finding solutions that impact the whole group difficult.
Cedar Street Encampment
While most of the encampment occupies Bronson Park, around a dozen people remain outside a vacant public safety facility on Cedar Street. The location was provided to them by the city until the end of September through an agreement signed by both parties on Aug. 31.
A lack of shade and inadequate sanitation facilities caused the group to renegotiate for a new site days later. They returned to Bronson Park on Sept. 5 after rejecting offers to move to city-sanctioned camps on land owned by the Kalamazoo Gospel Mission and Kalamazoo County Land Bank.
People huddled in tents on a grassy area on Cedar Street said they are at odds with their counterparts in Bronson Park over how the group is dealing with the city.
Todd Price and Jacqueline Shedrow, who were displaced after late February floods, said some in the camp are locked into a lifestyle they don't want to be around.
Joseph Penninger said donations are being hoarded in the Bronson Park camp.
"I tell them people all the time, if you want the community to give something to you, then why don't you give something to them," Penninger said. "Pick up your area, don't let it look like trash."
Mary Caris-Herzog's building at the corner of South Burdick Street and West Cedar Street contains thrift stores, antiquities dealers and a custom picture-framing store. She is frustrated by the city's decision to establish the Cedar Street encampment, a solution that has caused problems for her tenants.
Caris-Herzog said she is sympathetic to people experiencing homelessness, but that Cedar Street and Bronson Park are not suitable places to live. She asked for police to increase patrols to discourage trespassing after people defecated on her building and used her power outlets to charge cell phones.
"I think Kalamazoo is kind of regenerating, but we have to be able to trust that we will be taken care of, that we will be watched and respected," Caris-Herzog said.
The 92-year-old building was purchased by her grandparents after immigrating to the United States from Greece. She recalled a story about her grandmother, who would give gum to children after catching them trying to steal it.
"It makes me cry because I feel like my grandparents worked so hard to leave something for us and a legacy for Kalamazoo, but to have this defamed is wrong, it's not okay," Caris-Herzog said.
Caris-Herzog expressed concerns with sharing her feelings about the encampment, fearing backlash from protesters and the community.
Downtown businesses
Kathleen Widner, owner of The Spirit of Kalamazoo felt similarly. She said Bronson Park is no place to camp, but is more concerned with an increase in panhandling she noticed before the protest began.
The demonstration started on Aug. 19 as a reaction to proposed ordinance revisions that would have decriminalized penalties for violating parks codes and included other, less popular language changes.
At the time, City Attorney Clyde Robinson said some of the changes were spurred by an increase in illegal activity caused by people occupying city parks for long periods of time.
Several downtown business owners since have said more people are panhandling and harassing customers this summer.
The Downtown Kalamazoo Retail and Restaurant Association is drafting a letter to the City Commission on behalf of around 50 business owners, seeking help to address panhandling and "indecency" experienced by employees and customers.
The city's panhandling ordinance protects people from being solicited on private property or in some public spaces. It also prevents aggressive solicitation, which includes following people and continuing to solicit after being told no, among other things.
Panhandling complaints have doubled across the city since 2015. Complaints reported downtown increased by 153 percent, according to figures provided by the Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety.
This year, there were 327 panhandling complaints from downtown.
DKRRA Co-President Cecilia Root, store manager of Teel Jewelers, drew a clear line between those issues and the Bronson Park protest, on which she did not comment.
"We realize the panhandling and homelessness are two completely separate issues and may require separate action," Root said. "The purpose of our letter is not necessarily to claim we have any solutions, it's more of an attempt to bring to light the impact on revenue it has on the businesses down here."
There is a feeling tension among customers, she said, who are sometimes stalked and bothered.
"No one wants to come across as discriminating against the homeless," Root said. "It's not our intent, it's more about the behavior of the panhandlers."
PORTAGE, MI -- Work on the South Westnedge Avenue Reconstruction Project from Romence Road to Mall Drive has stopped as result of a labor dispute, the city of Portage said.
The labor dispute is between the Michigan Infrastructure and Transportation Association (MITA) and the International Union of Operating Engineers #324, the city of Portage said in a news release.
The South Westnedge Avenue Reconstruction Project is being performed with federal funds and therefore involves a contract between the Michigan Department of Transportation and Milbocker & Sons, Inc., who has subcontracted with Rieth-Riley Construction Co., Inc. to perform paving operations.
Rieth-Riley is a member of MITA, Portage siad, and the contract allows Milbocker and Rieth-Riley an extension of time to complete the project in the event of a labor dispute.
"The city of Portage is working diligently to find a solution that would allow for the final completion of this project as expeditiously as possible," the news release states.
The City Administration is exploring more than one potential scenario in the hopes that work can resume immediately.
"The city is working hard to achieve a solution that allows the South Westnedge Avenue Reconstruction Project to be completed as soon as possible," City Manager Larry Shaffer said.
The City of Portage thanks the merchants along South Westnedge Avenue and the motoring public for its patience during this labor dispute, the news release states.
The project was originally scheduled to be substantially completed on Sept. 4. The completion date was pushed back by more than two weeks to Sept. 21, Kendra Gwin, Portage Director of Transportation and Utilities previously said.
The $3 million construction project began on June 4, on South Westnedge Avenue from Mall Drive to Romence Road, and has included lane restrictions during milling and repaving, the city said.
An average of more than 30,000 vehicles travel the section of roadway each day, according to traffic statistics from the Kalamazoo Area Transportation Study.
Update, 7 p.m. Sept. 13: This story has been updated with information about the sailboat crew that conducted the rescue.
MUSKEGON, MI - As first-responders scrambled to reach her, a passing sailboat rescued a woman who was fatigued after swimming after her dog in Lake Michigan Thursday afternoon.
The dramatic rescue of the woman and her dog unfolded about 300 yards offshore from Muskegon's "dog beach" at Kruse Park around 12:30 p.m. Sept. 13. A man who tried to help the woman also was helped from the water.
Concerned first responders at one point requested the U.S. Coast Guard helicopter before the woman was rescued about a half hour after the first call for help was received.
Dispatch first received a call at 12:22 p.m. that someone could be heard calling for help in the area of the Muskegon Lake channel into Lake Michigan, said Muskegon Public Safety Director Jeffrey Lewis. It's believed that the person who reported those calls for help may have been hearing the woman in the water about 2 miles away.
The Muskegon Fire Department launched its rescue boat on Muskegon Lake around 12:25 p.m., and arrived at the channel at about 12:42, Lewis said.
Around the same time the boat was launched, a second call was received about distressed swimmers in Lake Michigan at Kruse Park, Lewis said.
With another medical call coming into the city at that time, Muskegon Heights Fire provided mutual aid and responded to Kruse Park, said Muskegon Heights Fire Chief Christopher Dean, who was among those who went to the park.
Having checked the channel and determining no one in distress was there, personnel on the Muskegon fire boat continued into Lake Michigan toward the park, Lewis said. Meanwhile, Dean looking through binoculars, could see two swimmers about 400 yards out south of the park boundaries.
"They were a long ways out," Dean said.
He said the man and woman had gone to the beach with the dog. The rottweiler, which was wearing a life vest, began swimming farther and farther into Lake Michigan and so the man and woman swam after it, Dean said.
"They said he kind of took off and just kept swimming and they were trying to catch him," he said.
The woman became fatigued and they called for help, he said. A man onshore had tried swimming out to the couple with a flotation device, Dean said.
Dean, watching from shore, asked dispatch if any recreational boaters could be contacted to help. About that time, first responders noticed a sailboat about 100 yards from the struggling woman.
That boat was able to rescue the woman and dog about the same time the Muskegon Fire boat arrived on the scene, Lewis said. The fire boat arrived at around 12:51 p.m., he said. The woman was transferred from the sailboat to the fire boat.
Her male companion, who is from the Grand Rapids area, was able to make it back to shore, Dean said. One of two U.S. Coast Guard boats that had also responded picked up the would-be rescuer with the flotation device and dropped him close to shore, Dean said.
Jack Draper of Sparta said it was the crew on his sailboat, 825 Escape, that rescued the young woman. The crew included Dawn Draper and Rachel Danz, Jack Draper said.
Draper, commander of the Grand Rapids Sail and Power Squadron, said he docks the sailboat at Great Lakes Marina in Muskegon.
"It was nice to help them out today," Draper wrote in an email.
During the incident, North Muskegon Fire was standing by, and Norton Shores Fire was asked to launch its boat docked in Mona Lake, Lewis said.
Professional Med Team Ambulance also responded to the beach.
"It was great coordination by all the units that responded," Dean said.
The lake was relatively calm and there were few people on the beach, Lewis said. With those factors in mind, he said it's not inconceivable that someone, possibly on the Muskegon channel breakwall, could hear the woman's yells for help.
That could explain why the first call to dispatch reported someone in distress near the channel, Lewis said.
It's nearly 2 miles from the channel to the area where the woman was rescued.
CLARE, MI -- A police chief in northern Michigan has returned to the job after prosecutors said they did not find he unlawfully used the Law Enforcement Information Network, or LEIN.
According to Clare County Prosecuting Attorney Michelle Ambrozaitis, a complaint was made against Clare Police Chief Brian Gregory on Aug. 1 by several officers who met with City Manager Ken Hibl to report the alleged incident as well as other claims of a hostile work environment.
The complaint alleged that Gregory used the LEIN information to give to a civilian business owner a background check on an employee.
Hibl reviewed the complaint and turned it over for investigation by the Michigan State Police. Gregory was placed on paid leave on Aug. 1.
The police report was turned over to the prosecutor's office and Ambrozaitis concluded that Gregory did not violate the law.
"These allegations against Chief Gregory are without merit. A LEIN violation did not occur. No charges should or will issue against Chief Gregory and this matter is closed," Ambrozaitis said.
A second opinion by Crawford County Prosecutor Sierra R. Kock agreed with Ambrozaitis.
"Based on my review of the documents I would not charge Brian Gregory with a LEIN violation because I do not believe the evidence sufficiently supports the charge," she wrote.
Hibl said that Gregory has returned to work, however, he has not finished his final report of inquiry until he has the opportunity to meet with the officers who initiated the allegations and share and discuss his report with them.
President Donald Trump took to Twitter Thursday morning, Sept. 13 to not only dispute the death toll in Puerto Rico from Hurricane Maria, but went on to call the figure a plot by Democrats to make him look bad without evidence.
The Associated Press reports Puerto Rico's governor raised the official death toll from 64 to nearly 3,000 after a study found that thousands died in the aftermath as a result of the hurricane. This number has been widely accepted.
"3000 people did not die in the two hurricanes that hit Puerto Rico. When I left the Island, AFTER the storm had hit, they had anywhere from 6 to 18 deaths. As time went by it did not go up by much. Then, a long time later, they started to report really large numbers, like 3000...," the president tweeted.
".....This was done by the Democrats in order to make me look as bad as possible when I was successfully raising Billions of Dollars to help rebuild Puerto Rico. If a person died for any reason, like old age, just add them onto the list. Bad politics. I love Puerto Rico!"
3000 people did not die in the two hurricanes that hit Puerto Rico. When I left the Island, AFTER the storm had hit, they had anywhere from 6 to 18 deaths. As time went by it did not go up by much. Then, a long time later, they started to report really large numbers, like 3000... Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 13, 2018
.....This was done by the Democrats in order to make me look as bad as possible when I was successfully raising Billions of Dollars to help rebuild Puerto Rico. If a person died for any reason, like old age, just add them onto the list. Bad politics. I love Puerto Rico! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 13, 2018
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A.P. says the initial estimates were so low because doctors in Puerto Rico had not been properly trained by the federal government on how to classify deaths after a natural disaster. The study moving the death toll to 2,975 was done by the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University.
This is what denial following neglect looks like: Mr Pres in the real world people died on your watch. YOUR LACK OF RESPECT IS APPALLING! pic.twitter.com/OJEDqT74Sr Carmen Yulin Cruz (@CarmenYulinCruz) September 13, 2018
Thousands of americans, our diaspora & latinos that came to PR to care for us and become advocates for our people deserve better than this. pic.twitter.com/OPaPx6oo1d Carmen Yulin Cruz (@CarmenYulinCruz) September 13, 2018
Simply put: delusional, paranoid, and unhinged from any sense of reality. Trump is so vain he thinks this is about him. NO IT IS NOT. pic.twitter.com/K96H5O3NKM Carmen Yulin Cruz (@CarmenYulinCruz) September 13, 2018
Damn it: this is NOT about politics this was always about SAVING LIVES. pic.twitter.com/SjwywKN3Jh Carmen Yulin Cruz (@CarmenYulinCruz) September 13, 2018
Fake news, fake polls, fake books, now fake deaths. Hopefully someone will brief Trump on what the Puerto Rico mortality studies really showed. https://t.co/sTuPVr1p0R Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) September 13, 2018
Rank 7 | Company: Adobe | Industry: IT, Internet, Software & Services | Country: United States (Image: Moneycontrol)
Adobe Systems Inc, the maker of image-editing software Photoshop, is in negotiations to buy Marketo Inc, a privately held cloud-based marketing software company, according to people familiar with the matter.
The deal would boost Adobe's cloud-based software offerings as it takes on larger peers Microsoft Corp and Oracle Corp. Marketo offers business-to-business marketing applications that would compliment Adobe's marketing business.
Private equity firm Vista Equity Partners Management LLC took Marketo private two years ago for $1.8 billion. Adobe is expected to pay significantly more than that should a deal be reached, the sources said, though the exact amount being considered could not be established.
There is, however, no certainty the talks between Adobe and Vista Equity will lead to a deal, the sources cautioned, asking not to be identified because the matter is confidential.
Adobe and Vista Equity declined to comment, while Marketo did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Adobe, which has a market capitalization of $130 billion, has topped analysts' profit and revenue estimates for the past eight quarters, driven by strength in its digital media business, which houses its flagship product Creative Cloud.
The San Jose, California-based company has been actively exploring possible acquisitions. In May, it agreed to buy e-commerce services provider Magento Commerce from private equity firm Permira for $1.68 billion, in a move to bolster its Experience Cloud business.
Marketo was started in 2006 as an email marketing service and is based in San Mateo, California. Last year, it generated revenue of approximately $321 million, according to credit ratings agency Moody's Investors Service Inc.
Rice export prices in India slumped this week as the rupee fell and demand remained weak with buyers expecting further dips, while low supplies and the prospect of a new deal with the Philippines pushed up prices for the Vietnamese variety.
In top exporter India, rates for the 5 percent broken parboiled variety fell by $5 to $371-$375 per tonne this week, the lowest in 17 months.
"Rates are down due to the rupee and weak demand. Buyers are postponing purchases expecting further falls in prices," said an exporter based at Kakinada in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh.
The Indian rupee has fallen 13 percent so far in 2018 and hit a record low on Wednesday, increasing exporters margins.
In Vietnam, however, rates for benchmark 5 percent broken rice rose to $400-$405 a tonne from $397-$403 last week on tight supplies and rising demand.
"The Philippines is about to announce a plan to buy an extra 133,000 tonnes, while supplies are running low," a Ho Chi Minh City-based trader said.
Meanwhile, the World Economic Forum held in Hanoi from September 11 to 13 saw Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen encouraging the Mekong region to establish an association of rice exporting countries.
In Thailand, benchmark 5 percent broken rice prices were little changed at $390-$393 per tonne, free on board (FOB) Bangkok, compared with last week's $385-$393 as activity remained slow, traders said.
"There's so little market activity lately that traders are just taking naps," a trader in Bangkok said, adding that he has tried to convince buyers to make purchases now when the prices are considered low for the grade.
Thailand had exported 7.65 million tonnes of rice this year up until last Friday, according to the latest commerce ministry data.
Another Bangkok-based trader said he expected demand from the Philippines and Indonesia to pick up in the coming weeks due to recent natural disasters in the two countries.
"Prices have been at this level for a while and shouldn't go any lower. Prices are actually expected to increase because of anticipated demand from the Philippines and Indonesia," the trader said.
Elsewhere, Bangladesh, which stepped up its imports last year after floods destroyed its crops, has procured more than 1.1 million tonnes of rice locally so far to build state reserves, after output of the grain revived.
"We are getting a good response in our local procurement drive and will continue it," a food ministry official said.
More than half a century ago, Indias founding fathers took to setting ablaze foreign-made goods as a sign of defiance to the economic imperialism of the British. Today, India burns more fuel than ever to produce goods for the export market. The tide has turned. And so has the planet.
In the heyday of the Industrial Revolution, Great Britain used to source raw materials from its colonies to feed the newly-mechanised factories back home. The goods churned out from such institutions was shipped back to the colonies where they had a stranglehold on policy matters. It was a win-win strategy.
Source: Wikimedia Commons
In the intervening years, the balance of trade changed. The developed countries, which were quick to embrace industrialization, have now trained their guns on highly sophisticated emerging technologies such as information technology. Unsurprisingly, they are also at the vanguard of renewable energy adoption.
The demographic dividend of developing countries has made them an attractive destination for foreign capital. Multinational firms now outsource the nuts-and-bolts of their manufacturing operations to developing countries while retaining control over design and research patents. Dickensian poverty has been eliminated to a large extent in the West.
Labourers work at a garment factory in Huaibei, Anhui province, China. (Image credit: Reuters)
The gradual migration of manufacturing jobs to emerging markets is not an isolated event. Cities in China and India rank among the most polluted in the world. The inflow of foreign capital is coming at the cost of the environment. With the shift to renewable energy unable to keep pace with economic growth in developing countries, their carbon footprints have grown bigger over the years. But they have big boots to fill.
The environmental accounting research firm, KGM & Associates and Global Efficiency Intelligence, in a recent report concluded that 20 percent of Indias carbon emissions were linked to its export market. The organization studied the embodied emissions associated with global trade. The report was prepared using supply-chain data for over 15,000 sectors in 189 countries, encompassing emissions from all processes involved in the manufacture of a product or service.
Image: Reuters
Developing countries grappling with pollution and climate change have already taken the initiative to make the transition to clean energy, but they might have to cut back on production to meet the goals set by multilateral organizations. Environmental accounting norms might also have to be tweaked to render a more realistic picture of carbon emissions.
When countries report their total emission, they take into account only that accrued from the manufacture of goods for domestic consumption. Emissions for imported goods are excluded in the existing accounting mechanism. If this were not the case, the professed gains made by developing countries in curbing emissions under the Kyoto Protocol would be undone.
India and China have been growing at a fast clip in the past few years, servicing global demand. But globalization and its discontents, manifested through carbon imperialism, could pose a threat to their environments, and affect the quality of life of its citizens.
In 2017, China accounted for almost half the coal mined globally. It is also the largest consumer of coal. The Chinese economy is a big coal guzzler. Coal, equivalent to as much as 1892.6 million metric tonnes of oil, was consumed by factories and power stations in the country. In comparison, the US coal dependence amounts to only 17.54 percent that of China. India is the second-largest consumer of coal, with the equivalent of 424 million metric tonnes of oil, being used to power the economy.
The report by KGM & Associates shows that the US, China, Japan and Germany were the top importers of carbon dioxide in 2015. Interestingly, China is also the top exporter of carbon dioxide, while India comes in at the fourth place.
Source: KGM & Associates and Global Efficiency Intelligence
However, China is a net exporter of carbon dioxide. Its factories emitted 1.48 gigatonnes (Gt) of carbon dioxide in 2015 towards the manufacture of goods for the export market. This exceeds the total import tally of the US, and also that of many European countries considered cumulatively, justifying Chinas moniker as the shop floor of the world.
The findings of the report raise the question of accountability. If the supply chain is being refashioned without a change in the concentration of wealth, manufacturing will be offloaded to the developing world, as will the burden of environmental costs, rendering multilateral climate change conferences a farcical exercise.
The Global Carbon Project categorizes countries carbon dioxide emissions in two production and consumption emissions. This helps in drawing a distinction between the carbon dioxide emitted towards the manufacturing of goods meant for domestic consumption as well as also emissions arising from producing goods to be sold elsewhere.
Source: Global Carbon Project
Wealthy OECD countries consume significantly greater emissions than they emit within their borders. In other words, consumerism in wealthy countries is at the cost of outsourcing environmental pollution to the developing world.
Production emissions have remained static in OECD countries over the past couple of decades. On the other hand, emissions have almost doubled for developing countries, with emissions towards production overtaking that on the consumption front. In this context, emissions cannot be viewed as a surrogate metric for economic development. The economies of OECD countries overshadow that of their peers in the developing world, and the standard of living is also vastly different.
Greenpeace activists, wearing masks of U.S. President Donald Trump, protest against his decision that the United States will withdraw from the Paris Climate Agreement, in front of the U.S. embassy in Prague, Czech Republic. (Image: Reueters)
The divergence in the emission patterns of these two cohorts can be down to a transfer of production away from wealthier countries. However, some world leaders believe that the economic cost of foregoing revenue from manufacturing to the third world is too significant to overlook. Climate change naysayers are also making a comeback. US President Donald Trump has expressed his intent to withdraw from the Paris Agreement on climate change.
In his electoral campaign, he claimed that Americans got the goods they wanted, while China got the jobs. However, the Chinese have also had to contend with the pollution caused by the attrition of jobs in the global marketplace.
Carbon imperialism is also emerging as trigger for many ailments. Air pollution reportedly truncates the life spans of Indians by 1.5 years, according to a paper published in the journal Environment Science and Technology Letters.
While the government has taken steps to promote the renewable energy sector, the existing infrastructure still remains inadequate to power a complete transition to green technologies such as electric vehicles. Without engineering a change in the countrys energy mix, efforts at weaning away end users from fossil fuels will remain an exercise in futility.
Source: KGM & Associates and Global Efficiency Intelligence
Indias embodied emissions have picked up pace since the turn of the decade, as per the study by KGM & Associates. Ironically, it found that 44 percent of emissions in the manufacture of khadi and handloom textiles was induced by foreign demand, a far cry from the pre-Independence days. Leather products, industrial machinery and automobiles remain the other sectors where exports have contributed to emissions in a big way.
The leather has been in the news after being repeatedly chided by the Supreme Court for pollution in the vicinity of the Taj Mahal in Agra, leading to the discolouration of the monument.
Source: KGM & Associates and Global Efficiency Intelligence
The countrys consumption-based emissions dovetailed with the overall territorial emissions for the better part of two decades since the 1970s. However, as the economy opened up after the liberalization reforms of 1991, the two curves began to diverge. India might not command the same share of global exports, but the net import of emissions amounted to 2,55,590 kilotonnes (Kt) of carbon dioxide.
The governments ambitious Make in India scheme set lofty targets for the manufacturing sector, but without transitioning to a green energy base, its realization may have a downside. According to World Health Organization data , 14 of the worlds 15-most polluted cities are in India.
IBM and IIT Bombay have joined the AI Horizons Network, a research group at the technology giant as part of a multi-year collaboration to advance artificial intelligence research.
As part of the collaboration, teams will investigate new techniques for knowledge representation across documents, graphs, charts and other forms of multi-media content.
The AI Horizons Network is a group of IBM researchers, world-class faculty and top graduate students who work together on a series of advanced research projects and experiments designed to accelerate the application of artificial intelligence, machine learning, natural language processing and related technologies.
The collaboration between IBM and IIT Bombay will be used to help develop new AI applications in key industries such as financial services, retail and healthcare, which rely heavily on rich, multi-modal content.
Domain-specific chatbots will be developed as part of the partnership, as well as the exploration of new, domain-neutral training approaches which could enable faster, more efficient training of AI systems.
The Department of Computer Science and Engineering at IIT Bombay has a long history of leadership in data mining and information retrieval systems.
By joining the AI Horizons Network, IIT Bombay's faculty and top graduate students will join hands with AI scientists from IBM Research India to advance and accelerate the application of AI, machine learning, natural language processing and related technologies to business and industry.
"Over its 20-year history, IBM Research-India has been at the forefront of research advances in technologies like AI and blockchain. We have always had strong collaborations with the leading academic institutions in India, said Arvind Krishna, senior vice-president, Hybrid Cloud and director, IBM Research.
With this, IIT Bombay has become the first institution outside North America to join the IBM AI Horizons Network.
This partnership will enable IIT Bombay faculty to work in collaboration with researchers around the world on the frontiers of artificial intelligence focusing on industrially relevant problems and provide access to large data sets. We look forward to fruitful collaboration, which will make a significant impact on the field.
Globally, eight leading universities working on the project are Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Renesselaer Polytechnic Institute, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, University of Michigan, Universite de Montreal, University of Maryland at Baltimore County, UC San Diego and University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
Britain will publish advice to businesses and the public on Thursday about how to cope with the disruption that exiting the European Union without a divorce deal would cause to everything from mobile phone roaming charges to vehicle standards.
Recent signals from Brussels have buoyed hopes that the United Kingdom and the EU can agree and approve a proper divorce agreement before the UK leaves on March 29, though the sides are still divided on about one fifth of the detail of a deal.
But many business chiefs and investors fear politics could scupper a deal, thrusting the world's fifth largest economy into a so called "no-deal" Brexit that they say would weaken the West, spook financial markets and silt up the arteries of trade.
Britain has stepped up planning for the effects of such a departure and on Thursday afternoon will publish 28 technical notices on the impact on areas including customs and borders, competition, fisheries and aviation.
Brexit minister Dominic Raab said a no-deal Brexit was unlikely, but that the United Kingdom would manage the challenges and eventually flourish.
"With six months to go until the UK leaves the European Union, we are stepping up our 'no deal' preparations so that Britain can continue to flourish, regardless of the outcome of negotiations," Raab said.
May chaired a cabinet meeting on preparations for a no-deal Brexit on Thursday. Bank of England Governor Mark Carney attended part of the meeting.
Both sides need an agreement to keep trade flowing between the world's biggest trading bloc and the United Kingdom, home to one of the world's top two financial capitals.
"Getting a deal with the European Union is still by far and away the most likely outcome," Raab said.
But Moody's Investor Service said the probability of a "no-deal" had risen and such a scenario would damage the economy, especially the automotive, aerospace, airline and chemical sectors.
The other 27 members of the EU combined have about five times the economic might of Britain. They also have a strong incentive to deny the UK a deal so attractive it might encourage others to follow the British example.
DEAL OR NO DEAL?
As May tries to clinch a deal with Brussels, she is facing rebels in her Conservative Party who say they will vote down any deal that fails to deliver a sharp break with the EU.
Raab, speaking to BBC radio, said he did not believe May's government would lose a vote in parliament on the deal.
Michel Barnier, the EU's chief negotiator, said on Monday that a Brexit deal was possible "within six or eight weeks" if negotiators were realistic in their demands.
Last month, the government published 25 technical papers out of a total of more than 80, which detailed how tariffs, financial services, state aid and pharmaceuticals would operate if Britain departs without a divorce deal.
Ever since the shock 2016 Brexit vote, major companies have been planning for Brexit, but chief executives say the scale of disruption from a disorderly Brexit is such that it is hard to prepare for.
Profit at Britain's biggest department stores group, John Lewis Partnership, was wiped out in the first half as it was forced to match discounting by its struggling rivals on a fiercely competitive high street.
"With the level of uncertainty facing consumers and the economy, in part due to ongoing Brexit negotiations, forecasting is particularly difficult," John Lewis said.
Brexiteers accept there is likely to be some short-term economic pain but say Britain will thrive in the longer term if cut loose from what they see as a doomed experiment in German-dominated unity and excessive debt-funded welfare spending.
Opponents of Brexit fear that leaving the bloc will weaken what remains of Britain's global influence, further undermine its reputation as a haven for investment and hurt the economy for years to come.
Representative image
Export-Import Bank of India (Exim Bank) expects India's merchandise exports as well as non-oil exports to grow over 12 percent in the second quarter of the ongoing financial year.
While the merchandise exports are likely to grow 12.3 percent in September quarter, non-oil exports may witness 12.4 percent growth during the period, Exim Bank said in a statement.
Merchandise exports during September quarter 2017-18 stood at USD 74.21 billion and non-oil exports stood at USD 65.17 billion.
The forecast is based on Exim Bank's Export Leading Index (ELI), which continued to show a positive growth momentum.
The next growth forecast for October-December would be released during the first week of December 2018.
ELI gauges the outlook for exports and is essentially developed as a leading indicator to forecast growth in total merchandise and non-oil exports of the country, on a quarterly basis, Exim Bank said.
The Ministry of Health has banned the production, sale and dispersal of about 328 fixed dose combinations of drugs (FDCs).
This ban will bring an end to a long legal battle between the ministry and the drug manufacturers. The battle, which has been ongoing since 2016, called for these unsafe drugs to be banned.
Around 6,000 drug brands are expected to be affected by this ban, among them popular brands such as Saridon (painkiller), Panderm (skin cream), Lupidiclox (antibiotic), Corex (cough syrup) and several others.
In March 2016, the government had banned up to 344 FDCs but this was met with heavy criticism and contested in various high courts, and even the Supreme Court, by the manufacturers.
In December 2017, the SC asked Drugs Technical Advisory Board (DTAB) to intervene in the matter. The DTAB eventually said there was no therapeutic evidence that the ingredients in about 328 of these FDCs cause any harm to people.
The SC further added that the remaining FDCs, on the original list, could also not be banned as they have been manufactured in the country since before 1988.
The All India Drug Action Network sought the banning of the drugs which were not part of the DTAB report, as these itself accounted for about Rs 2,500 crore of the pharmaceutical market.
Since then, several drug manufacturers have claimed that such drugs have either been phased out or have gotten their combinations altered.
Rajiv Ranjan Singh
The month of September in the year 2008 will be remembered forever by all who work in the financial world. For a moment, it appeared as if the world sank.
In India, we often say that we are a domestically-oriented economy and safe from a global crisis. However, the Lehman crisis definitely proved otherwise, even if we are protected from a trade perspective, India is exposed via the financial channel especially since we have a current account deficit.
Investors in India need to watch out for developments in the global economy as much as for the domestic ones. Emerging economies, especially China, have a huge influence and we should pay attention.
Coming to the lasting impact of the crisis, we believe that in advanced economies, stagnation of income has given rise to populism and trade wars are a consequence, which threatens future growth.
Some progress has been made on a global basis to make the financial system safer, for instance, upcoming Basel-III norms recommend common equity tier 1 (CET1) ratio to be 7 percent of the risk-weighted assets, including a capital conservation buffer.
Regulatory oversight has improved and banks are subject to routine stress tests. Some risks remain; a major reason behind the crisis was excessive leverage.
According to IMF, leverage of G-20 economies (barring financial sector) in 2016 stood at 235 percent of GDP, exceeding the pre-crisis level of 210 percent.
As central bankers withdraw monetary accommodation provided during the days of the financial crisis, the global economy could face headwinds.
The financial system is dominated by a few "too big to fail" banks.
In 2008, the shock led to fear. I am aware of many bright individuals in the financial sector who chose to pursue a career elsewhere, fearing instability.
Bear markets dont last forever and it is important for those in the financial world to handhold investors during such periods. It is said that bull markets are "born in pessimism".
Money invested in the Sensex would have multiplied by 5.4 times, including reinvested dividends.
However, once bitten twice shy and many investors chose to stay away.
As of now, we believe the Indian economy is accelerating, IMF forecasts growth of 7.3% for FY 2019e and 7.5% for FY 2020e. IMF also forecasts the world economy to grow at 3.9% for both CY 2018e and CY 2019e.
This represents a good opportunity for investors. There has been a trend of increase in financial savings of households which has been finding its way into equities both directly and indirectly via mutual funds and insurance.
(Disclaimer: The author is CEO of Karvy Stock Broking. The views and investment tips expressed by investment expert on moneycontrol.com are his own and not that of the website or its management. Moneycontrol.com advises users to check with certified experts before taking any investment decisions)
Tejas Khoday
What if a lawyer offers to fight a case on your behalf for free, would you take it? If the answer is no, why would you accept the same offer from a mutual fund advisory? The answer is not simple. To understand the basic difference between direct mutual funds and regular mutual funds, you will have to understand what happens behind your eyes. The vast majority of retail investors are completely unaware of how the distribution/brokerage model works. In this article, I will explain it to you in detail so that you can be the judge and decide which one is better for you.
How the mutual fund industry works: Asset management companies (AMCs)/ mutual fund companies have expensive setup and operating costs. Their business is only viable if done on a mass scale as they earn only a few basis points of the total expense ratio. Most asset management companies don't have a distribution reach beyond their immediate circle of influence (Their business connections, friends, relatives, relatives of stakeholders, strategic alliances etc.). Also, it is not feasible to hire a very large sales team. Hence, they all rely on external sources to help get new investors' money into their mutual funds and increase the assets under management. The external sources who help increase the total investor base and amount are known as distributors. These distributors (aka mutual fund advisors) are responsible to convince investors to invest in a particular mutual fund scheme. They don't charge the investor any fees for their services because they are getting a commission from the fund houses directly. Essentially what happens is that the fund house charges an annual management fee which is <2.5% of the total investment amount on a yearly basis. Out of this, approximately 1 to 1.8% is given to the distributor as a commission on a yearly basis (paid monthly), for as long as the investors remain invested with the mutual fund. Any incremental investment into the same fund will also entail a commission to the distributor regardless of whether or not they helped you in any way. For example, if you invested Rs 5,00,000 in a mutual fund on the advice of someone who hasn't charged you a fee, that person/agency will earn approximately between Rs 5000 to Rs 9000 from you on a yearly basis.
The icing on the cake for the distributor is that as your investment amount appreciates, the percentage based commission will be paid on the latest investment value and not on the initial amount of investment. For example, if your Rs 5,00,000 investment has gone up to say Rs 10,00,000, the distributors' commission will now be between Rs 10,000 to Rs 18,000 per year in trail commissions. This effectively reduces the investors' return to that extent. Because of this kind of incentive system, distributors will almost always choose to sell those funds which give the highest commissions since their income depends on it. From a broad perspective, it has been a win-win situation for everyone involved because the asset management companies managed to perform well and in many cases outperform the markets.
Who are these distributors: There are various types. The largest distributors of regular mutual funds are the banks and the national/regional wealth management firms. They have a sizeable market share in this business as they have a vast reach through their extensive branch networks across the country. Their reach allows them to get new investors. Apart from that, the Independent Financial Advisors (IFAs) are individuals, small firms that advise people to invest in mutual funds. Although they are small in size, there are over 85,000 IFAs that employ over 1,70,000 people who are on selling mutual funds across India's Tier 1 and 2 cities.
How things are changing: However, there is a sense of awakening now as the regulator realises that many distributors have been misselling funds and their income stream represents a conflict of interest because they are likely to act in favor of the fund houses rather than the investors because they get paid by them. To change the scenario, SEBI is trying to make the market more transparent by mandating additional disclosures to be made public on a half-yearly basis about how much the mutual fund distributor earns in absolute terms. There is now a mechanism that allows investors to directly invest in mutual funds at the click of a button, just like stocks. These platforms can offer direct/regular funds depending on their business model. Platforms which offer regular funds don't charge the customers directly whereas those that offer direct funds charge a nominal platform fee.
Main differences between direct mutual funds vs regular mutual funds and platforms that offer them:
==Direct mutual funds have a lower expense ratio than regular funds because the fund house doesn't need to pay the distributors any commissions.==Direct mutual funds give higher returns because investors save about 1 to 1.8% per year as there is no intermediary.==Direct mutual fund execution platforms have fixed fees per year regardless of the size of your investment. Although regular mutual fund platforms don't charge, they earn much more indirectly.
==Direct mutual fund platforms charge separately for advice which can be discretionary whereas regular mutual funds don't charge you anything for advice.
In general, people have a reluctance to pay a recurring fee for investment services which is why direct mutual funds are not very popular as yet. In the larger scheme of things, what really matters is the quality of advice being given and the net returns you make as a result of the advice. If you're not looking for advice, then going direct makes the most sense. Make your investment decision after factoring in the above information.
OPEC on Wednesday further trimmed its forecast for 2019 global oil demand growth and said the risk to the economic outlook was skewed to the downside, adding a new challenge to the group's efforts to support the market next year.
In a monthly report, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries said world oil demand next year would rise by 1.41 million barrels per day (bpd), 20,000 bpd less than last month and the second consecutive reduction in the forecast.
The report provides further indication of the rapid oil demand that helped OPEC and allies get rid of a supply glut will moderate in 2019. OPEC last month said global growth faced "numerous challenges", although its latest report suggests concern about them has deepened.
"Rising challenges in some emerging and developing economies are skewing the current global economic growth risk forecast to the downside," OPEC said in the report.
"Rising trade tensions, and the consequences of further potential monetary tightening by G4 central banks, in combination with rising global debt levels, are additional concerns."
Crude briefly pared gains after the OPEC report was released but later rallied to trade above USD 80 a barrel, a level reached earlier this year for the first time since 2014, supported by expectations for a further drop in Iranian exports.
OPEC and a group of non-OPEC countries agreed on 22-23 June to return to 100 percent compliance with oil output cuts that began in January 2017, after months of underproduction by Venezuela and others pushed adherence above 160 percent.
The economic downside risks will provide a talking point for a group of OPEC and non-OPEC energy ministers meeting on 23 September in Algiers to monitor the market. The meeting could make policy recommendations.
OPEC's next meeting to set policy is not until December.
OPEC PRODUCTION RISES
In the report, OPEC said its oil output rose in August by 278,000 bpd to 32.56 million bpd following the June deal.
The biggest rise came from Libya, which is exempt from the agreement. This helped offset declines in Venezuela, where production is declining due to the economic crisis, and Iran, as buyers walked away ahead of the US sanctions.
This means compliance with the original supply-cutting deal has increased to 133 percent, according to a Reuters calculation, meaning members are still cutting more than promised. The original figure for July was 126 percent.
The August production rate is lower than the average demand for OPEC crude in 2018 and considerably more than will be needed next year as rivals such as the US expand supplies.
OPEC said the world will need 32.05 million bpd from its 15 members in 2019, unchanged from last month. This suggests there will be a 500,000 bpd surplus in the market should OPEC keep pumping the same amount and other things remain equal.
The higher prices that have followed the OPEC-led deal are still prompting more growth in rival supply. OPEC said it expects non-OPEC production to expand by 2.15 million bpd next year, 20,000 bpd more than forecast last month.
Singapore witnessed resurgent price growth in the premium market segment due to rising foreign demand and high land bids by developers and leads the global house price rankings (+11.5%) followed by Tokyo at 9.4 percent. Prices of prime properties in Mumbai more or less remained stable at 0.6 percent, according to the Knight Frank Global Wealth report.
As per the Prime International Residential Index (PIRI) that analyses the top 20 top luxury residential markets across the world, the average prime prices across cities rose by 6 percent in the year to December 2017; by June 2018 this figure had dipped to 4.2 percent.
All cities in the below 1 percent range in the half-year update of Knight Franks Wealth Report, indicate that prices of prime properties have remained stable and offer a good entry point for billionaires, points out Arvind Nandan, executive director Research at Knight Frank (India) Pvt Ltd.
While the buying strength of demi-billionaires in this segment is rising, prices of prime property in Mumbai more or less remained stable which means that there could be more opportunities for buyers in this particular segment, he said.
As per PIRI ratings, European cities continue to strengthen Madrid (10.3%), Berlin (8.5%) and Paris (6%). Domestic buyers in Paris are back, buoyed by an improved economy and cheap finance. Los Angeles leads the rankings amongst US cities (7.8%). US cities registered positive growth in the year to June, reflecting the general health of the economy.
Investors may rue the rise in regulations which, in many cases add to their bottom line; on the other hand, new regulations have heightened market transparency enabling some purchasers to move into emerging markets with greater confidence, said Kate Everett-Allen, partner, international residential research at Knight Frank.
GST was rolled out in India in 2017. The closing of price gaps have created greater uniformity and certainty in the Indian market.
The uniform tax regime has evened out the vagaries that were based primarily on the variation in input tax.
We have had a series of regulations - GST, RERA etc in India. These have brought in a structural change in the real estate market. We will have a scenario wherein the buyers in the prime segment will increase and as the rough edges in the tax regime are smoothened, uncertainties in the market will get reduced. This is expected to improve transparency in the market and improve the standing of our premium market in the prime international residential index by a few notches going forward. But these changes will take place progressively, he said.
The report also states that the number of demi-billionaires, those with $500 million or more in net assets, in Asia will overtake those in North America for the first time in the next five years. Wealth data specialists Wealth-X predict that there will be almost 3,000 people based in Asia who have more than US$500 million in assets by 2022.
It cites strong global economic growth, as well as rising asset prices as key drivers behind the growth in the worlds demi-billionaire population. By 2022, Wealth-X anticipates that there will be 9,570 demi-billionaires worldwide, up from 6,900 at the end of 2017.
Despite Asias growth, the US will remain the country with the biggest overall population of demi-billionaires, expected to rise from 1,830 to nearly 2,500 over the next five years. In China, the number will grow from 490 to 990, Wealth-X said.
The wealth report also predicts the rise of e-commerce and shifting trade dynamics in South-East Asia. This will drive an increase in the value of logistics assets in the region.
According to Knight Franks half-year Wealth Report, logistics has become one of the most coveted real estate asset classes, attracting $126 billion of investment globally in 2017. The growth of the sector has been driven by the rise of ecommerce, with increased demand for logistics space from retailers driving rental and capital value growth.
Another trend is that of international demand for accommodation from parents looking to place their children at private schools in the UK capital. This has led to 2 billion being invested in Londons prime housing market over the past 12 months.
The survey shows that the markets sending the largest number of children to school in London are Hong Kong, Mainland China and Russia. The three predominant motivations for parents are the quality of education (87% of all respondents), the prestige of the school name including perceived future employment prospects (67%) and improving their childrens chances of securing a place at a top UK university (62%).
vandana.ramnani@nw18.com
SpiceJet | Company reported loss at Rs 105.6 crore in Q2FY21 against loss at Rs 461.2 crore, revenue fell to Rs 1,070.5 crore versus Rs 2,848.3 crore YoY.
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Budget carrier SpiceJet Thursday announced the launch of its Delhi-Kabul freighter service from October 15 and signing of a pact with the Afghanistan Chamber of Commerce and Industries (ACCI) for transporting fresh fruit, dry fruits, carpets and other commodities from Kabul to India.
Under the pact, aimed at promoting trade for the war-ravaged country through the Indo-Afghan air corridor, SpiceJet plans to transport 1,500 tons of cargo every month, the airline said in a release.
The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed by SpiceJet chief project officer Manjiv Singh and ACCI chief executive officer Atiqullah Nusrat along with senior adviser for banking and financial Affairs to the President of Afghanistan Ajmal Ahmady, the airline said.
"In collaboration with ACCI and with the support of Afghan government, SpiceJet will transport fresh fruits and dry fruits, carpets and other commodities from Kabul to India at government-subsidised competitive prices," the release said.
SpiceJet would be transporting these commodities from Kabul using its freighter aircraft to Indian metro cities and through its pan-India passenger flight network would be distributing it to 47 cities in India, the airline said.
The two nations have opened up two direct air cargo routes - New Delhi-Kabul and Mumbai-Kabul. Since their launch, more than 100 flights have been conducted between the two countries and transported 2,500 tonnes of goods.
The collaborations comes days after the Gurugram-based no-frills airline announced launch of dedicated air cargo service under the brand name SpiceXpress from September 18.
To begin with the air cargo operations will cover Delhi, Bengaluru, Guwahati, Hong Kong, Kabul and Amritsar.
The airline has already inducted one freighter -- a Boeing 737-700 -- in the fleet to commence cargo services. It plans to expand cargo fleet to four freighters during the current fiscal year.
SpiceJet currently offers cargo capacity which is about 500 tonne per day on its passenger aircraft fleet of 36 Boeing and 22 Q400s operating across 47 domestic and 7 international destinations.
With the launch of the dedicated freighter service this capacity would go up to 900 tonnes a day in a phased manner with the addition of four freighters by March 2019, the airline said.
Following the induction of freighters, the airline is all set to strengthen its footprint with seamless air cargo connectivity across India, Asia and Europe, it said.
Rank 2 | Elon R Musk | Company: SpaceX and Tesla | Net worth: $136 billion | YTD change: Gain by $108 billion (Image: Reuters)
Tesla's biggest institutional investor said on Wednesday it was questioned by US securities regulators about Elon Musk's now-abandoned plans to take the electric carmaker private and that the chief executive needed help running the company.
"He needs help, and I mean that psychologically as much as practically," said asset manager Baillie Gifford's James Anderson, the fund manager of Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust, which owns Tesla shares.
Anderson told Reuters he has talked with Musk about the idea of bringing in another executive. Analysts have been calling for Tesla to add a chief operating officer or other new blood to top management.
Tesla, whose shares were up 3.1 percent in afternoon trading after earlier being up 4.5 percent, could not immediately be reached to comment. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) officials also could not immediately be reached.
The last few months have been tumultuous and chaotic for Tesla and its eclectic CEO. While Tesla was wrestling to ramp up production of its mass-market electric Model 3 sedan, Musk tweeted, on 7 August, that he was considering taking the company private at USD 420 per share and that funding was "secured."
On the evening of 24 August Musk, by then facing SEC scrutiny into the factual accuracy of his financing tweet, blogged that Tesla would remain public, citing investor resistance.
Musk was "getting there" on the idea of accepting more help in running the company, Anderson said.
Anderson said that he had suggested to Musk his tweets are "not a great thing" and added that the firm had been talking to the SEC about Musk's proposal and financing claims.
"I don't know what they'll do with him, but there's no implication that we've done anything wrong," Anderson said in an interview at the firm's London office. "I think quite naturally they wanted to know whether major shareholders had any lead indication or knowledge of the tweet about "funding secured."
The next two largest Tesla institutional shareholders, T Rowe Price Group and Fidelity Investments, both declined to comment on whether they have spoken with the SEC about Tesla.
Anderson said he had spoken with Musk twice and was arranging to speak with the company's board.
Anderson added that the media coverage around the going-private comments has not shaken his belief in Tesla or its "extraordinary" CEO.
"We think there is a decent chance that they can prove to be an extremely profitable, competitively advantaged company which will produce high returns," Anderson said.
Musk has said that Tesla should become profitable in the second half of the year.
Tesla may need to raise more capital and would have a better idea of its needs in the next few months, Anderson said, adding he would support such a move.
The US will not tolerate any form of foreign interference in its elections, President Donald Trump said Wednesday after signing an executive order that initiates actions, including sanctions, against foreign entities who meddle or even attempt to interfere in American polls.
"Today, I took action to protect the integrity of the United States electoral system by signing an executive order to ensure that we can swiftly identify and punish any foreign interference in our elections. As I have made clear, the United States will not tolerate any form of foreign meddling in our elections, Trump said in a statement after he signed the executive order.
The executive order requires the intelligence community and other federal agencies to assess the extent of any foreign interference after every US election. If the US determines that any foreign meddling has occurred, the executive order ensures a quick, forceful, and proportionate response, he said.
Specifically, the executive order authorises appropriate and meaningful sanctions some are full blocking sanctions, others are to be designed and calibrated in light of specific facts against any individual, foreign entity, or country that authorises, directs, sponsors, or otherwise supports foreign interference in a US election, he said.
It also directs the executive branch to develop a uniform process for assessing and determining foreign interference in US elections.
"As we enter election season this fall, the American people can rest assured that we are working diligently to ensure that our democracy remains secure from foreign threats, Trump said.
Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen M Nielsen also said election security is national security and any attempt to interfere in the democratic institutions is unacceptable.
"By mandating the imposition of sanctions against any individual or entity that seeks to interfere in our elections, we are sending a clear signal that the US government will not tolerate interference of any kind and will use every tool at our disposal to protect our democratic process," she said.
The executive order does not name any particular country. However, in a conference call, Dan Coats, Director of National Intelligence identified Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea having capabilities to do so.
"We have seen signs of not just Russia, but from China, of capabilities, potentially from Iran and even North Korea. It's more than Russia here that we're looking at," Coats said.
We continue to look at that and will continue to look at that. We have not seen the intensity of what happened in 2016, but it's only a keyboard click away," he said.
However, the opposition Democrats were not satisfied with the executive order.
"The new executive order certainly does not absolve the Senate from passing much-needed legislation and funding to beef up our election security and prevent future attacks on our democracy from foreign adversaries," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said.
The steps outlined in the executive order are "far too little, too late," and they provide no resources to help states protect their elections against future attacks, said Committee on House Administration Ranking Member Robert Brady, Committee on Homeland Security Ranking Member Bennie Thompson, and Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Ranking Member Elijah Cummings.
"While the President appears to acknowledge that foreign actors will continue to attempt to interfere in our elections, he makes no mention of previous Russian attacks, they alleged.
Rather than issuing a weak executive order two years after these attacks, President Trump should have responded swiftly and strongly, they said.
Representative Image
The Congress Thursday accused Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman of "lying" about the number of fighter aircraft required by the Indian Air Force, and termed as "preposterous" her claim that the IAF does not have parking and maintenance facility to fly 126 fighter jets.
Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said Prime Minister Narendra Modi's decision to "arbitrarily" reduce requirement of 126 fighter aircraft to 36 is "unexplainable". Surjewala reiterated his party's demand for a joint parliamentary committee report in the Rafale deal.
"Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is caught lying again on the number of fighter aircraft required by Indian Air Force...PM Modi's decision to arbitrarily reduce requirement of 126 fighter aircraft to 36 is unexplainable," he told reporters.
In a newspaper report Thursday, Sitharaman was quoted as saying the government decided to purchase only 36 Rafale fighter jet from France instead of the 126 being negotiated by the UPA government as infrastructure and other technical requirements of the Indian Air Force do not allow for greater procurement.
"The claim of the defence minister that IAF does not have parking and maintenance facility to fly 126 fighter jets is preposterous and goes against the grain of national security requirements," Surjewala said.
He said the defence minister's argument is "obnoxious" and asked if the government and the Air Force cannot create parking space/maintenance facility in 6-8 years period, during which the aircraft will be delivered.
"Can creation of parking space/maintenance facility be a ground for compromising air superiority and national security?" he asked.
Alleging a scam in the Rafale deal, the Congress leader asked how can the defence minister shed her responsibility by saying that it is a decision taken by 'commercial enterprise' in selecting a private player for offset contracts worth Rs 30,000 crore when it is a 'government-to-government contract'.
"Does she forget her own claim that it is a 'government-to-government contract' backed by 'Inter Governmental Agreement' (IGA) and the amount of Rs 61,000 crore is being paid by Government of India to Dassault? Does it not prove malice and mala fides of the Modi Government?
"Let the prime minister and defence minister own accountability and submit to a JPC probe instead of lying to the nation about the deal," he said.
Surjewala alleged, "Lie, belie and fly in face of stark truth is the chameleon-like character of Modi Government."
He asked whether the defence minister knows there is a sanctioned strength of 42 air squadrons for the IAF.
Noting that the current number of air squadrons is 33, he said they are likely to fall to 31 by 2021. And considering that Rafale aircraft will not be delivered till 2022, there will be available existing space for seven more squadrons that means 126 aircraft, he said.
The Congress leader alleged the defence minister is also guilty of not disclosing the fact that the mandatory 'fast track procedure' for 'emergency purchase' was not followed by PM Modi at the time of announcement of purchase of 36 Rafale aircraft on April 10, 2015.
"She has also failed to point out that no such 'emergency purchase' was approved either by the then Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar or Cabinet Committee on Security. How does she now explain the fact that despite the 'emergency purchase' in April 2015, aircraft will not be delivered upto the year 2022 and that too without 'India Specific Enhancements?" he asked.
Surjewala said the defence minister was also "lying" on the non-disclosure of prices of Rafale aircraft, which she agreed to publicly disclose in a press conference on November 17, 2017 at the Raksha Bhawan.
He also claimed the Congress-UPA tender envisaged 'full weaponry and transfer of technology' and said it was established by the joint statement of April 10, 2015 by French President Francois Hollande and Prime Minister Modi, which stated that the aircraft and associated systems and weapons would be delivered "on the same configuration as has been tested and approved by Indian Air Force".
"Why has the Modi Government then made an extra payment of Rs 41,000 crore from public exchequer i.e from Rs 526 Cr per aircraft to Rs 1670 Cr per aircraft if the India specific enhancements are the same as decided by the IAF (which include weaponry/avionics/ radar enhancements etc)?" he asked.
Launching a scathing attack on global rivals, Flipkart-owned PhonePe alleged that certain international firms are protesting RBI's mandate of data localisation as the move would bring digital payment apps of such companies under the ambit of Indian tax jurisdiction.
Such a mandate would also protect payment data of Indian users from being used to "sharpen user targeting engines" of companies like Google and Facebook who also offer products like search, maps and social media, PhonePe alleged in its blog.
It is pertinent to mention here that Alibaba and SoftBank-backed Paytm has also thrown their weight behind the local storage mandate.
In April, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) issued a circular that mandated all payment ecosystem players operating in India to store all data related to user transactions within national boundaries only and had set a deadline of October 15, 2018.
This, however, had purportedly met with severe criticism from foreign payment firms.
A number of international players operate in the Indian payment segment today including the likes of Google (Google Pay), Mastercard, Visa and Amazon (Amazon Pay). Facebook-owned WhatsApp has also been testing its payments services in India, although it has not been able to roll out full-fledged services.
PhonePe contended that storage of payments data locally will enable a better regulatory oversight and "plug business-jurisdiction related loopholes that some foreign companies have long exploited to evade paying fair taxes in India".
"Most of the protests by Internet companies are related to the fact that RBI is forcing them to process and store payments data only in India. This word 'only' is at the root of the issue, because it also kills most facetious tax evasion arguments in play today," it alleged.
When contacted, Google declined to comment on charges levelled by PhonePe.
According to government sources, Google is learnt to have agreed to follow RBI's local data storage norm for payment services but has sought time until December to comply with the rules.
Google has championed free cross-border data flows and has said the socio-economic impact of restricting data flows must be thoroughly considered while framing any policy. Also, there is a need to find practical and contemporary solutions to policy issues in line with global best practices, the US-based tech giant had said.
PhonePe alleged that if the likes of Google Pay (formerly Tez - Google's payment app) are forced to process digital payments transactions only in India, then these companies cannot claim that the revenues generated from these apps fall under foreign jurisdiction just because their data servers are abroad.
"Indian tax jurisdiction gets very clearly established now," it said.
Confronting the San Francisco-based tech giant, PhonePe said Google needs to clarify its stand "more crisply" -- whether it will process and store all payment transactions-related data only within Indian boundaries, or whether it is adopting data mirroring to keep all their processing systems and primary data storage abroad.
The blog noted that RBI's mandate will also make India's digital payments ecosystem "much more resilient to foreign attacks and global politics" and would create a level-playing field for domestic Internet companies as well.
On concerns of other countries possibly taking counter-steps, PhonePe said India isn't taking an isolated position on data localisation and that many governments across the world -- such as Australia, Canada, China and Russia -- have already passed their own versions of data localisation laws to protect their national interests.
Stating that it is majority-owned by a foreign company, PhonePe asserted that it still processes all payment transactions in India and stores all its "data on India servers only".
"We strongly believe that data localisation is critical for the long-term security of any country's financial services sector... We see no policy contradiction in terms of India having a liberal FDI policy, and having a strong data localisation policy. Both policies can and should co-exist," it said.
Vijay Mallya at an interview with FT
A defiant Vijay Mallya, who is facing money laundering charges in multi-crore fraud case in India, said on Wednesday that he had made a "comprehensive settlement" offer before the Karnataka High Court that will help in paying off all his dues.
The remarks by Mallya came as he arrived at the Westminster Magistrates' Court for a hearing in his extradition case, during which the judge is expected to review a video of the Mumbai jail cell prepared by the Indian authorities for the embattled liquor tycoon.
The 62-year-old former Kingfisher Airline boss, who has been on bail on an extradition warrant since his arrest in April last year, responded to the swarm of reporters gathered outside the court in his characteristic manner, saying the "courts will decide".
"As far as I am concerned, I have . I hope the honourable judges will consider it favourably; everybody gets paid off and I guess that's the primary objective, said Mallya, who is fighting extradition to India on charges of fraud and money laundering amounting to around Rs 9,000 crores.
According to Mallya, he and the United Breweries Group (UBHL) have filed an application in the Karnataka High Court on June 22, 2018, setting out available assets of approximately Rs 13,900 crores.
They have asked the court for permission to allow the sale of assets under judicial supervision and repay creditors, including the Public Sector Banks such amounts as may be directed and determined by the Court.
The extradition trial, which opened at the London court on December 4 last year, is aimed at laying out a prima facie case of fraud against Mallya.
It also seeks to prove there are no "bars to extradition" and that the tycoon is assured a fair trial in India over his now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines' alleged default of over Rs 9,000 crores in loans from a consortium of Indian banks.
In separate legal proceedings, the businessman lost his appeal in the UK's Court of Appeal against a High Court order in favour of 13 Indian banks to recover funds amounting to nearly 1.145 billion pounds.
The High Court order in favour of the State Bank of India (SBI) led consortium had reinforced a worldwide freezing order against Mallya's assets. It was followed by a related enforcement order in June, granting permission to the UK High Court Enforcement Officer to enter Mallya's properties in Hertfordshire, near London, where he has been based since he left India in March 2016.
Activist Shehzad Poonawalla claimed on Thursday that Congress chief Rahul Gandhi met PNB fraud accused Nirav Modi at a plush hotel in New Delhi in the year 2013.
Poonawalla's charge was however denied by the Congress. His allegation came hours after Gandhi asserted his party MP P L Punia saw Finance Minister Arun Jaitley sitting with embattled businessman Vijay Mallya in Parliament before he fled the country.
The former Kingfisher Airlines boss had claimed on Wednesday in London that he met Jaitley before leaving India and offered to settle his dues, a charge the finance minister denied and dubbed "false".
Poonawalla claimed the meeting took place during the same time when loans were given to fugitive diamantaire Mehul Choksi and his nephew Modi and asserted the SPG will have records to prove it.
If PL Punia is proof of @arunjaitley meeting Vijay Mallya (and accosting = meeting) I can swear on Quran & undertake lie detector @RahulGandhi attended Nirav Modi cocktail party & Bridal wear prog at Imperial Hotel Delhi in Sep2013 while loans were wrongly given to Mama Bhanja pic.twitter.com/xhaTAyFDYl
Shehzad Jai Hind (@Shehzad_Ind) September 13, 2018
"Open challenge to Rahul Gandhi to deny he met Nirav Modi in Sep 2013 cocktail party -11th Sep if my memory serves me right! Imperial Hotel- Rahul spent a long time! Same period when loans given to Mehul Choksi and Nirav Modi!! SPG may have records or let's undergo lie detector test?, (sic)" he tweeted.
Earlier in the day, while stepping up the attack on Jaitley, Gandhi had claimed Punia saw him sitting with Mallya in the Central Hall of Parliament on March 1, 2016 and held an elaborate meeting of 15-20 minutes with him.
"There is a reason why Rahul Gandhi has formed a mahagathbandhan (grand alliance) with Vijay Mallya and relies on such fugitives' statements ever since the Narendra Modi government brought in the Fugitive Economic Offender's Law bhagodas (absconders) and potential bhagodas are feeling anxious," Poonawalla alleged.
Later talking to PTI, he said Gandhi and Nirav Modi met during a "special meeting". He said the Congress president "consciously" attended the cocktail and bridal wear party and spent "quite sometime" at the hotel.
"I'm ready to quit politics if proved wrong," he added.
CEO of JPMorgan Chase & Co Jamie Dimon, on Wednesday morning, quickly backtracked from having said he could beat US President Donald Trump in a campaign but not liberal Democrats.
"I should not have said it. I'm not running for President," Dimon said in a written statement released within an hour of his original comments.
Dimon said his original remark "proves I wouldn't make a good politician. I get frustrated because I want all sides to come together to help solve big problems."
Dimon, at an event promoting a USD 500 million JPMorgan investment in cities, first said, "I think I could beat Trump ... because I'm as tough as he is, I'm smarter than he is," according to CNBC, adding: "I can't beat the liberal side of the Democratic party."
"And by the way, this wealthy New Yorker actually earned his money," Dimon added. "It wasn't a gift from Daddy."
Dimon, 62, has said publicly in the past he will not run for president and does not have the temperament for the job. He said in January he expects to be chief executive officer of the bank for about five years.
The White House had no immediate response to a request for comment.
JPMorgan is the biggest bank in the United States by assets.
Vijay Mallya
Opposition parties, on Wednesday, latched on to Vijay Mallya's statement that he had met Arun Jaitley before leaving India, and demanded a probe into the fugitive liquor baron's claim, which was rubbished by the finance minister as "factually false."
Congress chief Rahul Gandhi tweeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi should immediately order an independent probe into Mallya's "extremely serious allegations" and Jaitley should step down while the investigation is underway.
The claim made by Mallya, facing charges of fraud and money laundering amounting to Rs 9,000 crore, has triggered a political storm, with the Congress saying the government must explain how and why Mallya was allowed to leave India.
Jaitley, however, said he never gave Mallya an appointment after becoming a minister in 2014, but the liquor baron misused his position as an MP to accost him once in Parliament.
Soon after Jaitley's rebuttal, Mallya appeared to tone down the seriousness of his claim, saying it was not a "formal meeting" and he only "happened to meet" the minister, when he told him he was going to London. Mallya also said he was not "tipped off" by anyone to flee the country.
Reacting on the issue, BJP leader Subramanian Swamy tweeted, "I learn from my sources that the Lookout Notice issued by CBI for Mallya was modified from "Block Departure" to "Report Departure" on October 24, 2015 on orders from someone in MoF. Who? (sic)"
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, too, described as "absolutely shocking" the revelation by Mallya and asked, "Why did the finance minister hide this information till now?"
"Absolutely shocking. PM Modi meets Neerav (sic) Modi before he flees the country. FM meets Vijay Mallya before he flees India. What transpired in these meetings? People want to know," Kejriwal said on Twitter.
Former BJP leader Yashwant Sinha, a former union finance minister who has been critical of Jaitley and his handling of the ministry, said the entire BJP leadership, not just the finance minister, must come clean on its ties with Mallya.
Congress leader Abhishek Singhvi said the government was "fully complicit" in the flight of Mallya and Punjab National Bank fraud accused Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi from India.
"Everybody was complacent and everybody was aware... Whether it was - a casual meeting or a structured meeting. We need proper disclosures, full inquiries on this," he said.
Singhvi said the moot question remains why was no action taken before Mallya fled the country.
He said Mallya's claim is a vindication of the Congress's stand that the government always knew about the fleeing defaulters. He said India wants to know what transpired during the meeting between Mallya and Jaitley.
CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury said Mallya's escape reconfirmed how Modi government "enables big defaulters to loot public money and scoot".
"The fundamental point is how he got away despite 'lookout notices'?" Yechury tweeted while mocking Prime Minister Narendra Modi by tagging a picture of him performing yoga by resting on a stone and facing the sky.
RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav said the entire NDA government was "hand in glove" with scamsters and absconders.
"They hatched a plot to loot hundreds of thousands of crores. PM and FM must respond on this," Yadav said in a tweet.
Terming Mallya's offer to settle overdue loans of more than Rs 9,000 crore to his now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines as "bluff offers", Jaitley said he did not even take the papers the liquor baron was carrying during that brief encounter.
Mallya, 62, is fighting numerous lawsuits in the UK and back home over fraud and money-laundering allegations as well as an extradition to India.
"I left because I had a scheduled meeting in Geneva. I met the Finance Minister before I left, repeated my offer to settle with the banks. That is the truth," he told reporters outside a London court hearing a case for his extradition.
The verdict in the extradition case will be announced on 10 December.
The Congress also said on its official Twitter handle that Mallya met Jaitley "several times" before escaping the country to discuss a settlement plan.
"In spite of this, the BJP government allowed him to flee with thousands of crores debt. Do we need anymore proof that this govt. is in the pocket of crony capitalists."
Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala said Mallya's revelation shows that the BJP is running "a travel, tour and immigration agency for looters to settle abroad".
Congress President Rahul Gandhi
Stepping up his attack on Arun Jaitley for allegedly meeting Vijay Mallya before he fled to the UK, Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Thursday accused the Finance Minister of colluding with a "criminal" and not informing the probe agencies, despite having information about the liquor baron's plan to leave the country.
Speaking at a press conference, Gandhi also trained his guns on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, asking, "Why did Jaitley allow Mallya to escape, or was it an order from the prime minister?"
. @RahulGandhi says Finance Minister likes writing long blogs but he didnt write about this incident. An eco-offender spoke to the FM for 15-20 mins in the central hall; he didnt inform the CBI, ED that @TheVijayMallya was running away pic.twitter.com/8RwrnhpNiG
CNBC-TV18 (@CNBCTV18Live) September 13, 2018
"This is a clear-cut case of collusion. There is some deal between them. Finance Minister Jaitley must resign and this should be investigated," he said.
Senior Congress leader PL Punia said on March 1, 2016, when he was in the Central Hall of Parliament, he had seen Jaitley and Mallya talking "discretely".
"On March 3, we heard from the media that he (Mallya) fled the country on March 2. I have clearly stated about this in each of my interview with the media. There are CCTV cameras, we can all see that for proof. If I am wrong, I will resign from politics," Punia said.
He added that the meeting between Jaitley and Mallya lasted for 15-20 minutes.
Gandhi wondered that when the "absconder" had informed the finance minister about leaving the country, why did he not notify it to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) or Enforcement Directorate (ED).
Triggering a controversy, Mumbai Congress chief Sanjay Nirupam on Wednesday called Narendra Modi "illiterate", while criticising the state government's decision to screen a short film on the prime minister's life at schools in Maharashtra.
His comment drew sharp reactions from BJP leaders with the party's Maharashtra unit spokesperson Shaina NC calling Nirupam "mentally deranged."
"The decision to screen the film forcibly is wrong. Children should be kept away from politics. What will students learn from watching a film on an uneducated and illiterate person like Modi," the Congress leader told a news channel.
"Children and people do not know how many degrees the prime minister holds," he said.
Later, asked by reporters about his choice of words, Nirupam said the ruling party need not object to each and every word, and "in democracy the prime minister is not god".
Reacting to Nirupam's remarks, Shaina NC tweeted, "Yet another abnoxious comment by a mentally deranged @sanjaynirupam . May be he forgets that @narendramodi is elected by 125 cr Indians who aren't "unpad or gavar".@INCIndia is devoid of ideology and relevant questions. Sure citizens will give a befitting reply in 2019 (sic).
Anil Shirole, a BJP MP from Maharashtra tweeted, "PM is not a representative of one party, he is the Prime Minister of the Country and it's people. @sanjaynirupam by insulting our PM you have insulted and disrespected the office, the country and the constitution drafted by Dr.Babasaheb Ambedkar ji (sic).
The Zilla Parishad (ZP) schools in Maharashtra have been asked to screen a short film on Modi next week, a directive which has drawn criticism from the Opposition.
A government official said that ZP schools were asked to screen the short film "Chalo Jeete Hai" on September 18 as it has a "social message" and would inspire students.
The 32-minute film - "Chalo Jeete Hai" - directed by Mangesh Hadawale and presented by Aanand L Rai and Mahaveer Jain, is based on the early life of Modi.
Opposition Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party have slammed the BJP-led dispensation over the decision.
Dalmia Bharat Sugar: Company started manufacturing hand sanitizers at its distillery units in Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra. (Image: PTI)
The policies of India and Pakistan have contributed to a global glut in the world's sugar market, Australia's Minister for Trade Simon Birmingham told Reuters.
"It is clear that export subsidies introduced recently by the Indian and Pakistan Governments have contributed to a growing glut on global markets," Birmingham said in an emailed statement to Reuters.
"[Australia] has expressed its concerns to the Indian and Pakistani Government at the highest levels in the clearest possible terms."
Raw sugar futures in New York slumped to a 10-year low of 9.91 cents on 22 August as India and Pakistan both moved ahead with price subsidies to boost local production.
India, which is expected to surpass Brazil and become the world's largest sugar exporter this year, in May approved a subsidy of 55 Indian rupees (USD 0.7623) per tonne of cane sold.
Pakistan, whose sugar production has increased in recent years, in January quadrupled the volume of sugar eligible for export subsidies to two million tonnes to reduce excessive domestic supplies.
Birmingham's comments came as Reuters reported Australian and Brazilian sugar industry groups are working on a formal complaint to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) over possible sugar export subsidies by India.
Birmingham declined to confirm the report.
USA and China
The Trump administration has invited Chinese officials to restart trade talks, the White House's top economic adviser said on Wednesday, as Washington prepares to further escalate the US-China trade war with tariffs on USD 200 billion worth of Chinese goods.
Larry Kudlow, who heads the White House Economic Council, told Fox Business Network that US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin had sent an invitation to senior Chinese officials, but he declined to provide further details.
"There's some discussion and information that we received that the top of the Chinese government wished to pursue talks," Kudlow said. "And so, Secretary Mnuchin, who is the team leader with China, has apparently issued an invitation."
Two people familiar with the effort said Mnuchin's invitation was sent to his Chinese counterparts, including Vice Premier Liu He, the top economic adviser to Chinese President Xi Jinping, for talks in coming weeks.
Asian shares advanced on Thursday on hopes that a deal could be struck in the bitter tariff dispute between the world's two largest economies. In China, the yuan jumped and stocks rose.
The Trump administration is preparing to activate tariffs on USD 200 billion worth of Chinese goods, hitting a broad array of internet technology products and consumer goods from handbags to bicycles to furniture. It was unclear whether any US-China talks would delay the duties.
Kudlow earlier told reporters outside the White House that communications with Beijing had "picked up a notch" and added he saw that as "a positive thing."
"I think most of us think it's better to talk than not to talk, and I think the Chinese government is willing to talk," Kudlow said.
Asked if the Trump administration would like to have additional trade talks with China, Kudlow said: "If they come to the table in a serious way to generate some positive results, yes, of course. That's what we've been asking for months and months."
But he cautioned: "I guarantee nothing."
The timing and location of the proposed meeting were unclear, the sources familiar with the matter said. Mid-level US and Chinese officials met on 22 and 23 August with no agreements.
A US Treasury spokesman did not respond to requests for comment.
The invitation was first reported by the Wall Street Journal. A meeting among Cabinet-level officials could ease market worries over the escalating tariff war that threatens to engulf all trade between the world's two largest economies and raise costs for companies and consumers.
CONCERNS OF ESCALATION
So far, the United States and China have hit USD 50 billion worth of each other's goods with tariffs in a dispute over US demands that China make sweeping economic policy changes, including ending joint venture and technology transfer policies, rolling back industrial subsidy programs and better protecting American intellectual property.
US President Donald Trump said last week that in addition to preparing tariffs on the further USD 200 billion worth of goods, he had tariffs on an additional USD 267 billion worth of goods ready "on short notice if I want."
China has threatened retaliation, which could include action against US companies operating there.
US business groups are escalating their fight against Trump's tariffs, with over 60 industry groups launching a coalition to put political pressure on the Trump administration to seek alternatives to tariffs.
The negative impact of the tariffs on US firms has been "clear and far-reaching", according to a joint survey by AmCham China and AmCham Shanghai.
More than 60 percent of US companies polled said the US tariffs were already affecting their business operations, while a similar percentage said Chinese duties on US goods were having an impact on business.
Arvind Kejriwal AAP
The Delhi government's ambitious scheme of doorstep delivery of 40 services, which was launched on Monday, will be implemented by VFS Global, better known as the largest visa processing company in the world.
The company, whose Identity and Citizen Services (ICS) business has been given the contract to manage the project for three years, worked on creating a system to serve Delhi citizens for a little over two months, building an app and integrating with other components of the system.
"From driving licences and birth certificates to e-visas and e-passports, VFS Global assists governments around the world integrate technology into citizen services, with a view to improve service quality, heighten data security and reduce the burden on administrative machinery, and overall turnaround time," Debkumar Bandyopadhyay, Head of Business, ICS, South Asia, told Moneycontrol in an exclusive chat.
The company also has similar contracts for delivering citizen services with the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai since the beginning of 2015, another with the Pune Municipal Corporation and more recently a project with the Manipur government.
In the first phase of the Delhi governments scheme, 40 services will be provided to Delhi citizens at a charge of Rs 50, including driving licences and marriage certificates. This Rs 50 goes to VFS.
"The request for proposal came in March, we bid for the project and the contract was signed in July," said Bandyopadhyay. The contract was awarded in May, and VFS began work on building a back-end application a little before July.
He added that the government was cooperative at all stages of the project, and will be the one processing all applications.
He added that the government was "very positive" and cooperative at all stages of the project.
The project is an initiative of the Delhi government's Administrative Reform Department, and is unique in the aspect of providing government services at the citizens' doorstep.
VFS Global has employed "mobile sahayaks", who will go for collection of documents required for a given service, at a scheduled time slot, carrying devices to collect biometric data and documents required for providing the requested service.
"There are two components of the process one is providing solutions, which includes integration of mobile tablets that the mobile "sahayak" will carry, and integration with call centre which includes creating reports and other stuff. The second component is basically providing the manpower the mobile "sahayak" and supervisors," Bandyopadhyay explained.
At present, the single point of contact for citizens to request a service is the helpline number 1076. They can then fix the date and time slot for mobile "sahayaks" to visit to their house to collect forms, documents and fees.
For example, if you make a driving license application request, the call centre will make a booking at your preferred time slot. VFS' system will then allot the nearest mobile "sahayak" available at your requested time slot to collect the documents.
Once the mobile "sahayak" reaches the citizen, they will collect the documents, scan it with their device and upload through their tablet or device into a server and log a request.
The citizen will then get regular SMS updates about the status of their request. The back-end work and processing of the request will be done by the concerned government department.
Once the driving licence sought by the citizen is ready, it will be sent to their house or office via Speed Post.
Once the document sought by the citizen is ready, it will be sent to their house or office via Speed Post.
The application that is integrated with the call centre and in the mobile "sahayak" devices was defined by VFS Global, and outsourced to a third party agency.
Drawing from its experience in working with visa processing and data handling, ICS has taken precautions to prevent any kind of data theft or leakage.
For instance, each "sahayak" is required to login to the device given to them when they report to work. Once they are assigned to collect documents from a citizen's house, the supervisor of their district will track their movement through the device's GPS.
Once the "sahayak" reaches their destination, they will have to prove their identity to the citizen as well as biometrically login to the data collection application on their device to ensure no unauthorised access to the system.
"We provide non-judgemental services. Our job is to receive documents, process them, collect biometrics wherever required and then pass on to the government authority who takes the decision whether the document should be provided or not," said Bandyopadhyay.
He did acknowledge that issues of jurisdiction in case of a dispute will be a learning curve for both sides in the long run, but said the contract signed with the Delhi government defines and fixes the liability.
The building of the European Court of Human Rights is seen during a hearing regarding the case of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny (not pictured) against Russia at the court in Strasbourg, France, January 24, 2018. REUTERS/Vincent Kessler - RC138940CF00
Human rights groups and journalists scored a victory against the British government's mass electronic surveillance system on Thursday after Europe's top rights court ruled that the so-called "Big Brother" programme violated privacy and free speech.
The European Court of Human Rights, based in Strasbourg, eastern France, did not question the existence of the spying programme in itself but said a lack of oversight and safeguards meant it undermined rights to privacy and free expression.
The court gave Britain, which is in the process of altering legislation on an issue publicly exposed by U.S. whistleblower Edward Snowden, three months to decide whether to request an appeal hearing after Thursday's ruling.
"While the Court was satisfied that the intelligence services of the United Kingdom take their (European human rights) Convention obligations seriously and are not abusing their powers, it found that there was inadequate independent oversight of the selection and search processes involved in the operation," the court said in a statement.
The violations concerned in particular shortcomings when it came to selecting the Internet service providers involved, as well as the search criteria used to filter and select intercepted communications for assessment.
"Furthermore, there were no real safeguards applicable to the selection of related communications data for examination, even though this data could reveal a great deal about a person's habits and contacts," the court statement said.
By related communications, the court said it meant the collection of details like who calls who, from where and when -- rather than the content of the communications.
The cases are the latest legal challenge to the UK in a long-running spy scandal following revelations by Snowden, a former US National Security Agency (NSA) contractor whose revelations in 2013 renewed debate over privacy versus security.
Among the more than one dozen groups that took the case to Strasbourg were the London-based Big Brother Watch organisation, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism and former Guardian reporter Alice Ross.
They said Britain's activities -- many of them run from GCHQ (Government Communications Headquarters), a vast intelligence gathering centre in Cheltenham -- could threaten the privacy of journalists, who may fear their contact lists or the websites they visit are being scrutinised by the government.
"Such data enables intrusion into the most intimate aspects of a person's daily life," Dinah Rose, one of the applicants' lawyers, told the court in hearings last year.
The British government's counsel, James Eadie, said at that time the programmes were necessary in the fight against terrorism.
French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday unveiled an 8 billion-euro ($9.3 billion) anti-poverty plan focused on getting people into work and helping the young.
With his popularity slumping, the former investment banker wants to convince voters that his reform agenda does not only benefit the wealthy. Opponents have dubbed him a "president of the rich", a tag that has hurt his image.
The president announced compulsory school or vocational training until the age of 18, extra creche places to help mothers return to work, more emergency accommodation with a priority for women and children, and breakfast at school for primary school students in the poorest areas.
"I don't want a plan that leaves the poor living in poverty, only more comfortably," Macron said in a speech at the Museum of Mankind in Paris.
Nearly 9 million people in France - a third of them children - live in poverty, defined as 60 percent of the median income. That is equivalent to 14 percent of the population.
Macron also promised reform of the social benefits system, after causing a stir in June when he said that although France continued to "plough a wad of cash" into benefits, people remained poor.
He said he would simplify a system that is so complex that one in three people without an income and eligible for core benefits do not apply.
"Our welfare model, even if it corrects a little, even if it allows some to live better, does not do enough to prevent people falling into poverty, does not do enough to eradicate poverty," Macron said.
WHY ARE WE LIVING LIKE THIS?
Macron's opponents and left-wing voters paint the 40-year-old as a Thatcherite-in-disguise who talks down the poor.
His poll ratings have tumbled since his election victory in May 2017 and he is less popular than his three predecessors at the same stage of his presidential term.
Some critics were swift to point out the gap between the 8 billion euros promised for the anti-poverty plan over four years and the 20 billion the rich will gain in the same period from the scrapping of the wealth tax.
Sambou Coucoure hopes to be one beneficiary of Macron's anti-poverty drive. The former technician quit his job 10 years ago because of back pain. Depression caused his wife to stop working as a care worker, leaving them dependent on benefits worth 1,300 euros a month.
Since March, the couple and their three children have lived in emergency accommodation, two six-metre-square hotel rooms with a sink and microwave.
"We have to buy takeout food because we can't cook," 50-year-old Sambou said. "We never thought it would come to this for our family. As a French citizen, I can't see why we live in conditions like these."
Just when you thought Australias energy picture couldnt get any worseit gets much worse.
In yesterdays Australian, John Durie wrote a great article showing how Australia has pretty much sold off its energy infrastructure assets to foreign interests.
This follows the ACCCs decision to approve the sale of gas pipeline infrastructure owner APA Group [ASX:APA] to CK Infrastructure (CKI), a group controlled by Hong Kongs Li Ka-shing, the 23rd richest person in the world.
While the sale is still subject to a decision by the Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB), Durie says that CKI, along with the 100% Chinese government owned State Grid, now control nearly all of Australias east coast energy distribution assets:
Subject to FIRB approval, CKI and the State Grid Group (including Singapore Power) now has a major ownership interest in all of Victorias electricity and distribution networks and all of its gas transmission pipelines and distribution networks. In South Australia it will own all of its electricity transmission and distribution networks and in NSW all the gas transmission pipelines. In Queensland it will own all the gas transmission pipelines other than purpose-built lines from the Bowen and Surat basins to Gladstone and the Moranbah to Townsville line. The general consumer pipelines will be in CKIs control. The two groups own every single pipeline used in the north-south transport of gas (aside from Moomba to Adelaide) plus 50 per cent of SEA Gas which transports gas from Victoria to Adelaide. FIRB willing, the CKI network will now include the following Victoria assets. Murray Link interconnector, electricity distribution through Powercor, Citipower, United Energy and the Gasnet pipeline plus distribution through Multinet and the Australian Gas Network.
To me it is nothing short of a disgrace that ownership of such crucial energy infrastructure should be concentrated in the hands of two main players. The fact one is an investment arm of a communist nation just rubs salt into the wound.
And nothing in the consumer competition legislation could knock back the approval, even though it further concentrates ownership! Lets hope the FIRB takes a different view.
In this free report, economy expert reveals four ways you could cash in on the global infrastructure boom. Download now.
The impact of selling our assets
It may not prove to be a big deal right now. Or next year, or the year after, or even in 10 years time. After all, the impact of selling out of your strategic assets takes a long time to become apparent.
But heres the deal, and its a deal that our kids and grandkids are not going to be happy with when they realise what weve done. (Thats if they manage to realise it. Higher education these days doesnt do much in the way of promote critical thinking, as much as indoctrinate.)
Remember our chronic current account deficit? Its the result of something called a primary income deficit. This is a measure of the money (in net terms) that flows out of our economy each year as a result of repayments on debt or profits from assets owned by foreign interests.
Thanks to the sell-off of the east coast gas and electricity distribution network over the years, the profits flowing from these assets no longer stay in the country.
In the three months to 30 June, the primary income deficit was $16 billion, or $64 billion annualised. Adding the balance of trade to those figures gives you the current account. Our trade balance is currently in surplus. That gave us a current account deficit of $13.5 billion for the June quarter, or $54 billion annualised.
Roughly speaking, that means we need to attract $54 billion in foreign capital inflows per year to keep our dollar stable. That hasnt been happening of late, which is one reason why our dollar is tanking.
The purpose of a flexible exchange rate is to smooth out these foreign exchange inflows in the least jarring manner possible. A falling dollar increases the purchasing power of foreign currencies, and helps attract the necessary capital.
An exchange rate is just a price. It is the price at which foreign investors think buying Aussie dollar denominated assets is a good deal. And this year, that price has been falling consistently (see chart below).
Source: Optuma
[Click to open new window]
The bottom line is that when global growth is strong, foreign capital pours into Australia to take advantage of it. But when global growth slows, or China/Asia slows, that capital will promptly flee.
As a commodity based economy, its always been like this. But instead of wisely saving the proceeds from each successive commodity boom, our politicians have steered the economy into a deeper and deeper hole.
While selling off our productive assets, our regulations and tax policy incentivises debt accumulation and housing speculation.
Its the dumbest thing ever. We hand over the productive assets in exchange for more and more debt to speculate on land prices. And then sit around in cafes discussing these land prices.
We believe land price equals wealth, but forget to see the debt that is backing it. If the debt doesnt rest with you it rests with your kids, or your grandkids.
We have sold future generations out. We are a nation of idiots.
Regards,
Greg Canavan,
Editor, Crisis & Opportunity
PS: Population growth is booming find out how you can make the most of a massive global infrastructure rush in this free report. Get access now.
The full year results of fallen retail giant Myer Holdings Ltd [ASX:MYR] have been announced, and the verdict is in:
Theyre even more dismal than the last quarterly sales update we heard from the fallen retail giant.
As a result, the share price spiralled down to a mere 0.42c yesterday, indicating a drop of 4.6%.
Why Has Myer Fallen?
Earlier in the year, Executive Chairman Gary Hounsell had tried to lay blame on the weather for poor seasonal results, but in light of the full years decline its clear that other forces are at play.
In comparison to the last financial year, Myers seen some sharp declines.
Total sales were down by 3.2%, loss after tax was reported at $485.8 million and its been revealed that no dividend is to be paid.
In addition, the cost of doing business increased by 1.5% to $1,035 million.
These less than attractive results havent impressed shareholders.
Free Report: The five most potentially lucrative income stocks trading on the ASX right now. Get all the info here.
Whats next for Myer?
For those whove been tuning into news in the retail sector as of late, Myers results wouldnt have been a shock.
The industry has grown increasingly competitive, with more and more options multiplying at customers fingertips by the minute.
On a brighter note, new CEO John King only started his tenure in June. Known as the man who revived British department store House of Fraser from 2006 to 2014, his leadership could see a gradual return to glory for the Australian retail leader.
In addition, ecommerce is still a relatively new player on the scene. One positive aspect of Myers results indicated a healthy rise in online sales. If Myer can yield this success and strategise accordingly, then former status could eventually be restored.
Either way, theres going to be some long, hard work ahead for Myer.
Regards,
Lauren Dinse,
For Money Morning
PS: Income specialist reveals five stocks he calls the best dividend paying stocks on the Aussie market today. Find out which stocks he picked here (free).
Calota glaciara din Groenlanda s-a topit cu circa 3.500 de miliarde de tone in ultimii 10 ani, provocand o crestere cu un centimetru a nivelului oceanului planetar si agravand riscurile de inundatii in lumea intreaga, potrivit unui studiu care a fost ...
Yahoo a anuntat ca serviciile sale nu vor mai fi accesibile din China continentala "ca recunoastere a dificultatilor in crestere cu care se confrunta mediul juridic si de afaceri", fiind al doilea brand tehnologic occidental care se retrage din statu ...
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, September 13) The case against Maguindanao massacre prime suspect Andal "Unsay" Ampatuan Jr. "remains strong" despite the reported recantation of some of the witnesses' testimonies, Malacanang said Thursday.
"I have noted that apparently there are some witnesses against [Andal Ampatuan, Jr.] who have retracted their testimonies. But I have been assured by the panel of prosecutors that so far despite the retraction, the case against Unsay remains strong," Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said in a Palace press briefing.
Roque, who had served as lawyer of some of the victims, said he is meeting with the panel of prosecutors tasked by President Rodrigo Duterte to speed up the trial. The gruesome masscare left 58 people dead in 2009, but no conviction has been made so far.
"I'd like to inform the public that I'm arranging a meeting with the panel of prosecutors in the Palace again. And again, I would like to invite the President to join us in our meeting so that the President can be apprised by the prosecution team on what's happening," Roque said.
He reiterated the President's order that there should finally be a conviction within this year.
Roque's statements come after a newspaper reported efforts are being undertaken to make witnesses recant their testimonies against former Datu Unsay, Maguindanao Mayor Andal Ampatuan Jr. The information came from Maguindanao Gov. Esmael "Toto" Mangudadatu, whose wife and sisters were among those killed in the massacre.
Andal Ampatuan Jr.'s father, the late Andal Ampatuan, Sr. and his brother, Zaldy Ampatuan, are among his co-accused in the bloody Maguindanao massacre on November 23, 2009. A total of 58 people were killed, including 32 media workers, some civilians, and some members of the Mangudadatu family - a rival political family of the Ampatuans. It was also known as the Ampatuan massacre after the town where the corpses of the victims were found, shallowly buried.
Only 116 of the 197 original suspects facing multiple murder charges over the Maguindanao massacre have been arrested. Of this number, 107 remain on trial while five were dismissed. Ampatuan's father and co-accused, Andal Ampatuan, Sr. died in 2015 due to complications from liver cancer.
Toronto, ON (September 13, 2018) - Canadian Business and Macleans today ranked Matrix Mortgage Global No. 144 on the 30th annual Growth 500, the definitive ranking of Canadas Fastest-Growing Companies. Produced by Canadas premier business and current affairs media brands, the Growth 500 ranks Canadian businesses on five-year revenue growth. Growth 500 winners are profiled in a special print issue of Canadian Business published with Macleans magazine and online at CanadianBusiness.com and Growth500.ca.
Matrix Mortgage Global made the 2018 Growth 500 list with five-year revenue growth of 610%. The companies on the 2018 Growth 500 are truly remarkable. Demonstrating foresight, innovation and smart management, their stories serve as a primer for how to build a successful entrepreneurial business today, says Deborah Aarts, Growth 500 program manager. As we celebrate 30 years of the Canadas Fastest-Growing Companies program, its encouraging to see that entrepreneurship is healthier than ever in this country.
Matrix Mortgage Global is honoured to be recognized amongst the top growing companies in every industry sector on the Growth 500 Ranking and as the top mortgage brokerage in Canada. says CEO, Shawn Allen. Our success is a direct result of our Solution Based Lending approach to providing clients across Canada with private and alternative financing for real estate. The Canadian mortgage landscape has gone through many changes in our 10 years of operations. Our mandate has remained constant as a reliable source of alternative financing to Canadian homeowners.
While lenders typically travel across the country, not all of them fly out to the east coast. Whelan says thats one reason shell be attending CMBA Atlantic Canadas conference next month.
Our economy here on the east coast is different than Ontarios or B.C.s, continued Whelan. The lenders that we use go across Canada, but not all lenders across Canada will do the east coast. There are only a small number of lenders who lend here, so you need to foster strong relationships with those banks. We dont have many options, so we utilize the options we do have.
Given the tumult in the industry this year, Whelan says she is looking forward to discussing strategy with other brokerages.
Its great to have another point of view from other successful brokerages, and when youre not in direct competition with a brokerage from, say, Halifax, theyre more open to talking about whats helping them become successful, she said.
Mortgage broker Janet McKeough volunteers with CMBA Atlantic Canada and says this years edition of the conference features relevant information for brokers and brokerages to grow their businesses, including understanding title insurance and marketing tips.
From The SAFE Mortgage Licensing Act, The term residential mortgage loan means any loan primarily for personal, family, or household use that is secured by a mortgage, deed of trust, or other equivalent consensual security interest on a dwelling (as defined in section 1602(v) of Title 15) or residential real estate upon which is constructed or intended to be constructed a dwelling. Additional laws such as RESPA added to the definition to include 1 to 4 family dwellings, condos, and manufactured homes and states can and do add more specificities to the federal definitions.
Investopedia.com defines a commercial real estate loan as: a mortgage loan secured by a lien on commercial, rather than residential, property. Commercial real estate (CRE) refers to any income-producing real estate that is used solely for business purposes.
What about an investor who is purchasing a 1-4 family dwelling for business purposes?
Example: A loan is made to an individual who is purchasing a home at a foreclosure auction. In non-judicial foreclosure states, individual purchasers are required to pay all cash at the auction, by way of a cashiers check. If the individual doesnt have the cash on hand, then the individual applies for a temporary (bridge) loan that will be secured against the residential real property being purchased at the foreclosure auction. Since these bridge loans come with high rates and fees, the loan is typically replaced with a more traditional investor non-owner occupied residential loan very soon after purchase. Do companies and loan originators that make loans to investors such as this need to obtain a residential loan originator company and individual license? Refer to the definition of residential lending above. Generally, if the property meets the definition of a residential loan and is not a bridge (temporary) loan, even though the foreclosure auction investor/purchaser might immediately transfer title into an LLC, and hold a belief that this is a business loan, the property and the loan still meet the definition of residential lending. In a case against Rain City Capital from the state of Oregon, even though the individuals purchasing homes to fix and flip, or fix and hold for rental income were thinking of themselves as business owners, the collateral for the mortgage loan meets the definition of residential real estate and the loan originators and company should become properly licensed in the states in which they are doing business. Check with your state regulator to make sure you are properly licensed. State regulators are a far superior source than any get rich quick real estate seminar guru.
Commercial lending
Commercial loans are made to business entities that own commercial real estate such as corporations, partnerships, funds, and trusts. The business entity leases space to the businesses occupying the commercial real estate and repays the loan with the income from the leases and other revenue sources from the commercial activity. Examples of commercial property include hotels, retail buildings, office buildings, a neighborhood center anchored with a grocery and drug store, a big box power center with few other shop tenants, a lifestyle center with a theater, restaurant, and gym, and apartments. The commercial loan becomes a lien against the commercial property thats being used solely for commercial purposes.
The business entity will submit cash flow statements, leases, future tenant improvement obligations, all income and expenses, rent rolls, pictures, site plans, floor plans, operating statements, and environmental and engineering reports regarding compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
The actress recently appeared on the chat show Feet Up with the Stars and had interesting answers to tricky questions.
Mumbai: The rapid fire round on Karan Johars Koffee with Karan used to be that exclusive fun segment once upon a time, but today many other chat shows, which also include a similar segment, have sprung up, and they always turn out to be enjoyable for the audiences.
After Neha Dhupias No Filter Neha podcast, fashion designer Anaita Shroff Adajania, wife of Cocktail director Homi Adajania, is the latest to join the bandwagon in the interesting Feet Up with the Stars web show.
Sonam recently appeared on the show and made several interesting answers to some of the tricky questions. Check out some of the replies that Sonam gave to Anaitas queries on the show:
Have you mentally murdered a co-star?
Yes, several times. I can even name them, because they are my friends. I think it was a competition between Shahid (Kapoor) and Ayushmann (Khurrana), who takes longer to do their hair. Oh god!
One celebrity who could benefit from being on Tinder?
Jackie (Jacqueline Fernandez) I was like, For Gods sake (date).' She was like, Sons (Sonam), I dont know what to do. I cant meet anybody. I said, 'If you stop working so much, then you will meet somebody na?
Who is?
#Nofilter: Personally, no filter would be Swara (Bhasker). Publicly also it would be Swara.
#MrCongenaility: Honestly, somebody who gets along with everyone. I think Karan (Johar). He gets along with everybody. Why not? Hes a nice guy.
#Serialdater: Right now, Harshvardhan Kapoor.
#Troublemaker: Kangana Ranaut, in the best way possible. She wants to break the glass ceiling and you need to be a troublemaker to do that. Not a trouble maker, but someone who stirs the pot. She does it in the most incredible way, so kudos to her.
#Toohottohandle: Katrina (Kaif), she is so hot. Now (looking) her Instagram profile, Im just like, What is she on?
Best dressed woman: I like the way Sharmila Tagore dresses and I like the way Jaya Bachchan dresses. Theyve got very good tastes.
Best dressed man: My dad (Anil Kapoor) is very well-dressed. Anand (Ahuja) dresses very well. (When told she kept it in the family) Its true, Im sorry, its got nothing to do with family.
Feet up with the Stars airs on the digital platform Voot and episodes featuring Karan Johar, Jacqueline Fernandez, Kartik Aaryan and Ayushmann Khurrana are also out.
To whip up a monstrous storm like the one chugging for the Carolinas you need a handful of ingredients and Florence has them all.
Warmer than normal sea temperatures to add energy and rain to a storm. Check.
A wind pattern that allows a storm to get strong and stay strong. Check.
Higher sea levels to make a storm surge worse. Check.
A storm covering enormous area, to drench and lash more people. Check.
And an unusual combination of other weather systems that are likely to stall Florence when it hits the Carolinas, allowing it to sit for days and dump huge amounts of rain. Check.
The longer it stays, the more wind, the more rain. That means the more trees that could fall, the more power outages, National Hurricane Center Director Ken Graham said.
This one really scares me, Graham said. Its one of those situations where youre going to get heavy rain, catastrophic, life-threatening storm surge, and also the winds.
The National Hurricane Center increased its rainfall forecast to 15 to 25 inches of rain and 35 inches in isolated spots. But a computer simulation known as the European model predicts some places could get 45 inches. Sound unlikely? Its the same model that accurately predicted that last years Hurricane Harvey, which also stalled over land, would drop 60 inches.
It does look a bit similar to Harvey in a sense that it goes roaring into shore and then comes to a screeching stop, said MIT meteorology professor and hurricane expert Kerry Emanuel. This is not a pretty sight.
Florence is unusual in that it is aiming at the Carolinas from the east. Usually storms come to the Carolinas and mid-Atlantic from the south and those usually curve safely out to sea.
But a weather formation known as a high-pressure ridge is parked over the U.S. East coast, preventing Florence from doing the normal turn, said University of Miami hurricane expert Brian McNoldy.
After Florence makes landfall, that ridge, now over Washington and New York, will move east but be replaced by another one forming over the Great Lakes that will likely keep the storm stuck, McNoldy said.
Florences path remains uncertain. It may move a little north into Virginia or a little south into South Carolina. But its such a large storm that the rain will keep coming down in the region no matter where it wanders. And with the Appalachian Mountains to the west, there could be flooding and mudslides, experts worry.
Florences large size tropical storm force winds extend 170 miles from the center in all directions means its fury will arrive long before the center of the storm comes ashore, Graham said.
Some of Florences behavior, both what has been seen so far and what experts expect, show the influence of climate change.
Its expected sluggishness is becoming more common, possibly a result of climate change, said National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration climate scientist and hurricane expert Jim Kossin.
The ocean waters that Florence is travelling over are about 2.7 degrees (1.5 degrees Celsius) warmer than normal, McNoldy said. Even normal water is warm enough for a storm to form there, but this adds to the storms fuel and its rainfall. The air is holding 10 percent more water that can be dumped as rain.
And the storm surge, which could be as much as 12 feet in some areas, will be on top of sea level rise from climate change. For example, the seas off of Wilmington, North Carolina have risen 7.5 inches since 1935, according to NOAA.
Greetings from the Ridge.
Youre offered a choice of flavors like orange mango, coconut, or a combination of blueberry and cucumber, and it comes either plain or carbonated.
The iconic American water cooler has morphed in a healthier, more sustainable, direction with Bevi, a liquid dispenser built to cure our growing disdain for sugary drinks and environment-choking plastic bottles. The company estimates that in the past year it has helped save 25 million bottles and cans.
The set up comes in two sizes, one thatll fit on a shelf and a large model about the size of an old-fashioned Coke machine. You can either swipe a touch screen or send in an order from your desktop. Water basically pure water flavored in whatever way you wish.
About four years ago, MIT came up with idea after discovering that Americans buy about 29 billion water bottles a year, and manufacturers use about 17 million barrels of crude oil to produce these bottles. Only one in six water bottles is recycled and the rest end up in landfills if were lucky and along roads and in oceans if were not. The result was the Bevi, an eco-friendly water cooler that filters and adds carbonation and customized flavors to tap water. Each machine can potentially eliminate 35,000 plastic bottles a year with a 4 million bottle saving last year.
The new coolers seem to be catching on with over 400 companies including Apple, AT&T, Fidelity, GE and Netflix now supplying their break rooms with Bevi dispensers. This year, the companys sales will top $20 million.
You walk up to the machine, swipe whether you want plain or sparkling water, then tap your favorite flavor. The price ranges from $300 to $500 a month and the storerooms are no longer filled with stacks of bottled water. The Bevi keeps track of its own supplies and sends the message to its supplier who fills the machine. All flavors are both vegan and kosher, and it works out to about 20 cents a glass, putting it well below the cost of most bottled water.
I think that the first water cooler I ever saw was at the local John Deere dealership. It was one of those inverted bottle affairs with a clip of conical drinking cups attached to the side. The little cones held about one gulp so it took several trips to the spigot to quench your thirst. But the great American tradition of gathering around the fountain to discuss the affairs of the world was very much in evidence, even among the four employees of the tractor dealership. Around 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., the parts man, the mechanic, the bookkeeper and the salesman would convene at the cooler to rehash the events of the morning, share their views of the more eccentric or troublesome customers, talk about which acts really hit the spot on the previous evenings Ed Sullivan Show and, most importantly, they wrestled with the problems of the world.
It wasnt an ideal setting. There were usually no chairs, the smell of tractor oil hung heavily in the air, and the coned cups were always covered with a thin layer of something not quite discernable, yet the water fountain did indeed provide a forum for that most of American tradition of freedom of expression. Blows were hardly ever exchanged and now and again listening to the views of another might actually enlighten someones mind.
If this sounds like a custom long gone, youre right, and perhaps a new type of water fountain might coax into a more charitable discussion of our differences. After all, how angry can you get while sipping on a carbonated blueberry and cucumber glass of water? And if indeed the Bevi does cause a return to the water cooler convocation then it would be a boon to our democracy as we start airing our opinions and grievances face to face instead of Facebook to Facebook and other often-anonymous social media. I think there must be something inherently dehumanizing about conversing with our fellow man through a computer screen. Ive read that the later at night a digital slam is typed, the most disgruntled is its content. Water coolers, I think, are used mainly during waking working hours.
My grandfather talked about how Democrats and Republicans would go at it tooth and nail around the potbellied stove in his Wayne Feeds store, but that it was all good-natured banter and seldom was a friendship ever destroyed by politics.
Perhaps if we started more political discussions with, Do you want your orange mango water carbonated or plain? then this business of free speech wouldnt leave such a bad taste in our mouths.
You ever in Coonridge, stop by. We may not answer the door but youll enjoy the trip.
Freida Marie Crump chronicles the comings and goings in Coonridge for the Journal-Courier.
We need to scale up digital ...
A grand premiere of Anurag Kashyaps film also starring Taapsee Pannu and Vicky Kaushal was held at TIFF.
Abhishek Bachchan with then girlfriend Aishwarya Rai at TIFF for Guru premiere in 2006; with Manmarziyaan team members Vicky Kaushal, Anurag Kashyap and Taapsee Pannu on Tuesday.
Toronto: Fans of Bollywood filled the cavernous Roy Thomson Hall in downtown Toronto to the rafters on Tuesday night for the Gala world premiere of Anurag Kashyap's Manmarziyaan.
It was, as always is the case when a star-driven vehicle from the Mumbai movie industry is unveiled in North America's leading film festival, a celebratory occasion.
The film's director, a Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) regular, and his three leading actors Abhishek Bachchan, Taapsee Pannu and Vicky Kaushal flew into the city after hectic rounds of promotions back in India for the all-set-for-release romance.
Photo: AP
Photo: AP
TIFF artistic director Cameron Bailey, introducing Manmarziyaan to its first audience, described Kashyap as "a pure cinephile". He said: "I just met him backstage. After a big hug, he asked me what films he should watch in the festival. Anurag has a voracious appetite for films... We love the fact that he loves films as much as we do."
"He has made a pure, joyful masala movie," Bailey said, adding that he personally loves such films.
He also announced that Manmarziyaan, titled Husband Material in English, will open in TIFF Bell Lightbox, the festival's headquarters and principal venue, on September 21, a week after its India release.
Kashyap said: "This is actually the first time that I've made a love story... I am grateful to Colour Yellow Films for letting me do the film exactly the way I wanted it."
He added: "It is always great to come to TIFF. If you love cinema, this is a great place to catch films."
Referring to Abhishek Bachchan's return to the big screen after a two-year hiatus, the director said: "I consider myself lucky that he chose to come back with this film."
Photo: AP
"The last time I was in TIFF," Bachchan joked, "I proposed to my wife (Aishwarya Rai Bachchcan). She has warned me not to do any such thing this time.
Mr Jaitley, who was the Finance Minister in 2016 when Mallya left India, denied the liquor baron's claim.
London/New Delhi: Embattled liquor tycoon Vijay Mallya said on Wednesday that he met the finance minister before leaving India, a sensational claim denied by Arun Jaitley as factually false.
Immediately after Mr Jaitley's sharp rebuttal, Mr Mallya appeared to tone down the seriousness of his comments, saying it was not fair to create a controversy over this issue as it was not a formal meeting and he only "happened to meet" the finance minister.
The 62-year-old former Kingfisher Airline boss, who appeared before the Westminster Magistrates' Court in the case regarding his extradition to India to face the trial on fraud and money laundering charges, was asked by reporters if he was "tipped off" to leave the country.
I left because I had a scheduled meeting in Geneva. I met the finance minister before I left, repeated my offer to settle with the banks. That is the truth, he responded.
Mr Jaitley, who was the Finance Minister in 2016 when Mallya left India, denied the liquor baron's claim. Since 2014, I have never given him any appointment to meet me and the question of his having met me does not arise, the finance minister said in a Facebook post.
External Affairs Ministry dismissed reports that Banerjee was denied permission to visit Chicago to attend World Hindu Conference.
Earlier, Mamata Banerjee had said, 'I wanted to go to Chicago. I could not go there because of an unholy conspiracy hatched by certain people. This incident has given me a lot of pain.' (Photo: File)
Kolkata: Targeting the BJP-RSS, the Trinamool Congress (TMC) on Thursday alleged that "pressure was mounted" on the organisers to cancel a programme in Chicago in the US on the occasion of 125 years of the historic address by Swami Vivekananda, where West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee was invited.
The TMC alleged that the BJP-RSS wanted only one major programme to be held in Chicago on that occasion.
"Vivekananda Vedanta Society of Chicago, on the occasion of 125 years of the historic address by Swami Vivekananda, had invited Mamata Banerjee to attend a programme in Chicago. The Chief Minister of West Bengal confirmed her participation to them," TMC's chief national spokesperson Derek O'Brien said in a statement.
"Subsequently, it is learnt that under 'tremendous pressure', the organisers were prevailed upon to cancel the programme. It is common knowledge that the BJP-RSS wanted only one major programme to be held in Chicago and that would be under the banner of the Global Hindu Congress (World Hindu Foundation) and this programme would be attended by Mohan Bhagwat," the statement added.
It further stated: "To ensure this happened, intense pressure was mounted on Vivekananda Vedanta Mission in Chicago to cancel the programme."
O'Brien also termed the External Affairs Ministry's statement on the issue as "low-on-fact argument".
Banerjee had on Tuesday said, "I wanted to go to Chicago... I could not go there because of an unholy conspiracy hatched by certain people. This incident has given me a lot of pain."
The External Affairs Ministry on Wednesday dismissed the reports that Banerjee was denied permission to visit Chicago to attend the World Hindu Conference.
Ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said the government did not receive any request for clearance for her visit. "We did not receive any request for clearance regarding the visit of Mamata Banerjee to Chicago for the event. The reports about the denial of permission are, therefore, not true," he said in response to a question.
Sacramento, CA Governor Jerry Brown has approved the additional deployment of three swift water/flood rescue teams via the states Office of Emergency services to respond to Hurricane Florence.
Teams based out of Sacramento, Oakland and Orange County are heading to the staging area in Raleigh, North Carolina. They are highly specialized search and rescue teams that can operate in structural collapse situations, and in swiftwater and flood disaster environments. California has 12 additional in state emergency response teams available should they be needed for a state emergency in the coming days and weeks.
The hurricane has been approaching the coast, and up to 40 inches of rain is projected in some areas.
The suspect named as Qamar Uj Zama was arrested on a tip-off from the National Investigation Agency (NIA).
Uttar Pradesh DGP O P Singh said that the arrested Hizbul Mujahideen terrorist had plans to launch an attack on occasion of Ganesh Chaturthi. (Photo: Twitter | ANI)
Kanpur: Anti-Terrorism Squad has arrested a Hizbul Mujahideen terrorist from Kanpur on Thursday.
The suspect named as Qamar Uj Zama was arrested on a tip-off from the National Investigation Agency (NIA).
Uttar Pradesh Director General of Police (DGP) O P Singh said that the arrested Hizbul Mujahideen terrorist had plans to launch an attack on occasion of Ganesh Chaturthi.
Singh said that Qamar Uj Zama was active from April 2018 when he had first posted his pictures on Facebook with AK 47. He was a native of Assam.
"During questioning he told us that he had gone for training to Kashmir in April 2017. He is of Indian nationality and is a literate person," the DGP added.
Stock Photo
The Hale County Grand Jury returned 26 indictments at the end of its session on Aug. 30.
David Luna, 30, 1101 E. Fourth St., Plainview: theft of property of more than $2,500 with two or more previous convictions, state jail felony. Bond: $5,000
He said a person who decides to join the fray will have to face many odds including life-threatening situation.
These parties have also said that the situation in the state is not conducive for holding these elections. (Representational image)
Srinagar:The authorities in Jammu and Kashmir have ruled out possibility of postponing the urban and rural bodies elections in the state in the face of boycott decision of the states two major political parties. They said that involving people at the grassroots level in the running of democratic institutions is more important than any other issue.
The states chief secretary, B.V.R. Subrahmanyam, on Wednesday reiterated that the elections to panchayats and municipalities will be held as per schedule. There will be no change in the date [of municipal and panchayat polls], he said while speaking to reporters here.
Earlier speaking at a function here, he said that there were multiple views being expressed on the issue, but the government has decided to go ahead with the holding of these elections. He said, Weve decided that these elections will go on as per schedule. There will be no change in dates; there will no change in schedule. He added, Three weeks from now, well have urban body elections. (In) first week of November we will have panchayat elections.
The chief secretarys reiteration comes after media reports emanating from New Delhi had suggested that the much-discussed local bodies elections in the restive state, scheduled to be held in several phases from October, are likely to be deferred to January next year after the National Conference (NC), the oldest political party of the state, and its arch rival Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) decided to boycott these elections until the Centre clarifies its position on Article 35A of the Constitution.
These parties have also said that the situation in the state is not conducive for holding these elections. The Congress, on the other hand, too has expressed its apprehension over the issue and said that the situation on ground is not favourable for the exercise.
Parts of the State particularly the Muslim majority Kashmir Valley are in the grip of a separatist campaign which often turns violent. Thousands of people have been killed during the nearly three-decade old turmoil which witnessed escalation in past couple of years. The situation is extremely volatile particularly in southern parts of the Valley where the authorities could not hold by-election to the Anantnag LoK Sabha seat which fell vacant more than two years after sitting MP Mehbooba Mufti quit on being elected chief minister of the State.
The Supreme Court had on August 31 deferred the hearing on petitions challenging the constitutional validity of Article 35A after its 3-member bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra was informed by Attorney General K K Venugopal and Additional Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, representing the federal and Indian government respectively, that in view of the impending eight-phased local body elections and law and order situation in the State, the hearing be deferred.
Article 35A guarantees special rights and privileges to permanent residents of Jammu and Kashmir and thereby prohibiting non-permanent residents from permanent settlement and from acquiring immovable properties, government jobs and scholarships in the State. The provision also empowers the State Legislature to define such permanent residents and provide special rights and privileges to those permanent residents.
However, a petition seeking removal of Article 35A is currently pending before a three-judge bench of the SC. An NGO, We the Citizens, believed to be an RSS think-tank, challenged 35A in the SC in 2014 on grounds that it was not added to the Constitution through amendment under Article 368 and that it was never presented before Parliament, and came into effect immediately.
Meanwhile, JKPCC chief Ghulam Ahmed Mir on Wednesday said that situation particularly in Kashmir Valley is not conducive for holding rural and urban bodies elections. We met the Governor yesterday and tried to clarify the things. But after meeting him, we learned that the Governors administration is confused about conducting the polls. Every hour, the decisions and policies are being changed here. There is no clarity, he said.
He said a person who decides to join the fray will have to face many odds including life-threatening situation. Who is going to take responsibility for that?, he asked and regretted that, so far, neither the government at the Centre nor the Governors administration or the election authorities have said a word on this vital issue.
Mr. Mir said that the Congress partys core group at the state-level discussed the issue threadbare and was of the view that these elections were declared in the state without taking into consideration the situation on the ground.
It is learnt that Governor Satya Pal Malik has during his meetings with the leaders of these political parties told them that since the State is under the Governors rule since June 20 this year it is not right time for his administration to take a position on Article 35A or Article 370 in the given situation.
BJPs national secretary Ram Madhav had on Tuesday after meeting the Governor here said that his party is ready to contest these elections as it strongly believed this is vital towards empowering the people at grass root level. He appealed both the NC and the PDP to rethink their decisions of boycotting these elections.
He also took to micro-blogging site Twitter.com to take dig at both these parties by asking them why did not they boycott the elections to the Ladakh Hill Development Council, Kargil when Article 35A was being discussed in the SC. He said, We have decided to contest elections in the state, we consulted all the party leadership. @jkpdp & @JKNC_ are opportunist parties, they didnt boycott elections in Kargil when Article 35A was in SC. It is very unfortunate, they should rethink. Mr. Madhav hoped that the people will participate in these elections in huge numbers as We want to transfer the power to grass level.
The PDP while reacting to the BJP leaders remarks said that it was the saffron party which showed utter disregard to the elected representatives of the State and dishonoured democratic institution like legislative assembly in Jammu and Kashmir.
PDPs senior leader and former minister Syed Altaf Bukhari said, Now boasting about decentralization of powers to grassroots level through an electoral exercise that cant be held in an atmosphere of political uncertainty in Kashmir is preposterous and unreasonable proposition. He added that the objectives of devolution of powers cannot be achieved at a time when people of Jammu and Kashmir are fraught with efforts being made to muzzle their special political identity by fiddling with Article 35A and other rights guaranteed under the Constitution.
Mr. Bukhari alleged, After subverting the democratic process by showing scant regard for an elected government, BJP is now trying to scratch the wounded psyche of people by pushing them for untimely municipal and panchayat elections.
As the war of words continues, the BJPs spokesman in Kashmir Khalid Jehangir said here on Wednesday, The PDP and the NC should introspect rather than indulging in rhetoric. He accused the two parties of blackmailing the Centre over the issue of Article 35A. End it
Hurricane Florence may be more than 1,300 miles away, but USAA is putting thousands of San Antonio workers on the front lines to handle the expected deluge of claims over the weekend.
About 1 million of the San Antonio-based financial services companys customers lie along Florences path in Virginia and the Carolinas, though that estimate changes as the storm progresses, said Wayne Peacock, president of USAA Property & Casualty Group.
Around 5,000 San Antonio employees will be on hand to deal with claims over the weekend, Peacock said. USAA received more than 50,000 claims after Hurricane Harvey hit Houston and the Gulf Coast last year, according to figures provided by the company.
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USAA has shut down its operations from Virginia to South Carolina to allow employees there to evacuate. Calls normally handled by those workers will be rerouted to USAA teams in San Antonio, Tampa, Phoenix and Colorado Springs.
But the company expects to send in more than 100 adjusters to assess members property damage once the storm abates.
The company has also situated four mobile response units from Georgia to Virginia, though they could move depending on where damage needs to be assessed, Peacock said. USAA has a team of three in-house meteorologists tracking the storm, he said.
USAA had experimented with using drones and fixed-wing aircraft to take aerial footage of damage for use in the claims process prior to Harvey and expects to deploy that technology in Florences aftermath, Peacock said.
Joshua Fechter is a San Antonio-based staff writer covering retail and tourism. Read him on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | jfechter@express-news.net | Twitter: @JFreports
Hopdoddy Burger Bar is expanding its San Antonio presence with a second location expected to open soon on the North Side.
According to records filed with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, Hopdoddy will move into a space inside The Vineyard shopping center at 1301 N. Loop 1604 West. It plans to renovate a vacated building at an estimated cost of $700,000. Construction is expected to start in early November and end in March.
A Russian hacker accused of stealing information from thousands of personal computers has pleaded guilty to several federal charges stemming from 20 years of criminal activity.
Peter Yuryevich Levashov also know as Peter Severa, and Sergey Astakhov, 38, of St. Petersburg, Russia, admitted he operated the Kelihos botnet to grab log-in credentials, distribute bulk spam email, and install ransomware and other malicious software.
Investigators described a botnet as a network of computers infected with malicious software that allows a third party to control the entire computer network without the knowledge or consent of the computer owners.
During proceedings Wednesday before U.S. District Judge Robert N. Chatigny in Hartford, Levashov pleaded guilty to charges of causing intentional damage to a protected computer, conspiracy, wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. The charges carry a maximum total of 37 years in prison.
However both sides are allowed to argue for lesser terms. The defense contends Levashov should receive no more than eight years in prison while the prosecution says anywhere from 10 to 14 years is appropriate.
Levashov, who is being detained without bond, will next appear before Chatigny for sentencing on Sept. 6, 2019, at the request of his lawyer, Vadim A. Glozman of Chicago, Ill..
For over two decades, Peter Levashov operated botnets which enabled him to harvest personal information from infected computers, disseminate spam, and distribute malware used to facilitate multiple scams, said Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski, of the U.S. Justice Departments Criminal Division in Washington, D.C.. We are grateful to Spanish authorities for his previous arrest and extradition. This guilty plea demonstrates that the Department will collaborate with our international law enforcement partners to bring cybercriminals to justice, wherever they may be.
Levashov used the Peter Severa alias while trolling online, according to Brian Turner, the FBIs special agent in charge of their Connecticut headquarters.
Mr. Levashov used the Kelihos botnet to distribute thousands of spam e-mails, harvest log-in credentials, and install malicious software on computers around the world, added U.S. Attorney John Bull Durham. He also participated in online forums on which stolen identities, credit card information and cybercrime tools were traded and sold.
While Levashovs criminal activity was disrupting the lives of thousands of computer users, Durham said the defendant lived quite comfortably.
Since the late 1990s until his arrest in April, 2017, Levashov controlled and operated multiple botnets, including the Storm, Waledac and Kelihos botnets, investigators charged. Levashov disseminated spam and distributed other malware, such as banking Trojans and ransomware, and advertised the Kelihos botnet spam and malware services for sale.
The Kelihos botnet is believed to have infected 50,000 computers before it was dismantled on April 10, 2017.
Spanish authorities arrested Levashov in Barcelona on April 7, 2017, based on a criminal complaint and arrest warrant issued by Durhams office. Levashov was indicted 20 days later by a federal grand jury here and extradited in February.
"Wind blowing in favour of BJP, even stronger than in 2014. Oppn parties holding hands to save themselves from being blown away," Modi said.
Addressing party workers of five Lok Sabha constituencies via the NaMo app, Prime Minister Modi said the BJP's biggest strength is its party workers. (Photo: File)
New Delhi: The wind is blowing in the Bharatiya Janata Party's ( BJP) favour and opposition parties are having to hold on to each other to withstand its force, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Thursday while encouraging party workers to follow the mantra of 'Mera Booth Sabse Mazboot' (My polling booth strongest) to ensure victory in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
Addressing party workers of five Lok Sabha constituencies via the NaMo app, Prime Minister Modi said the BJP's biggest strength is its party workers. Their hard work has ensured the party's historic success and progress in a short span of four years, he added.
He attributed the party's success to its workers and their grip over their respective polling booths. "Mera Booth Sabse Mazboot (my polling booth, strongest)...this is the only mantra and this is our strength," he said in a video interaction.
Replying to a question on opposition parties stitching an alliance for the 2019 polls, PM Modi said he is confident that the BJP will win the 2019 elections. "The wind is blowing in favour of the BJP, even stronger than what it was in 2014. That's why opposition parties are holding on to each other's hands to save themselves from being blown away."
Glad to be interacting with BJP Karyakartas in five Parliamentary seats. #MeraBoothSabseMazboot https://t.co/5JJBP3SJaJ Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) September 13, 2018
The prime minister also urged party workers to continuously interact with voters of their respective constituencies and ensure that at least 20 families and youth are working with the party in every polling booth.
He was addressing workers from five constituencies -- Jaipur (Rural), Nawada, Ghaziabad, Hazaribagh, Arunachal West -- in Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand and Arunachal Pradesh.
PM Modi, who was nominated the BJP's prime ministerial candidate this day in 2013, said only in the BJP can an ordinary party worker go on to become its leader. He also asserted that someone else can also take his place tomorrow.
PM Modi lashed out at the Congress, calling it a one family party. He went on to say he felt pity for the dedicated party workers of the Congress. "Many capable and committed workers of the Congress were sacrificed for interests of one family," he said.
The opposition is resorting to lies in its campaign but today people in the country are awake while opposition is not ready to come out of its slumber, the prime minister said.
GREENWICH A Greenwich teenager pleaded guilty Thursday morning to a fatal hit-and-run collision that took the life of a Cos Cob man in 2016.
Andrew Schmidt, 19, accepted an offer made by a Superior Court judge that would give him one to three years in prison, as well as probation, in exchange for pleading guilty. Schmidt was facing a maximum sentence of 20 years behind bars for striking Edward Setterberg, 43, on East Putnam Avenue with a speeding Mercedes-Benz SUV.
Asked in court in Stamford how he pleaded to a charge of evading responsibility resulting in death, Schmidt said guilty in a barely audible tone.
He is due back in court for sentencing Nov. 28.
The terms of the guilty plea, as offered by Judge Gary White, will give Schmidt five years of probation in addition to the maximum three years incarceration.
Schmidt, wearing a long-sleeved T-shirt with a Vineyard Vines logo, entered the plea accompanied by his father, James Schmidt. He did not show emotion during the short court appearance.
The legal case against Schmidt has been a lengthy one at one point drawing the displeasure of a Superior Court judge last year who told prosecutors and Schmidts defense lawyer, Eugene Riccio, to pick up the pace.
On the night of April 17, 2016, Schmidt was behind the wheel of a 2006 Mercedes-Benz SUV after a day of riding ATVs on a farm in Armonk, N.Y. One teen told police she thought Schmidt had been smoking dabs a concentrated form of marijuana during the day, but she did not witness it. Schmidt was driving the Mercedes on East Putnam Avenue alongside a Honda with another group of teens in it. According to the affidavit on file at Superior Court, Schmidt kept swerving toward the Honda as a joke.
Authorities said Schmidt was speeding when a yellow light turned at Hillside Road. He hit the pedestrian, hurling him 130 feet as a result of the impact.
A passenger in the Honda said the driver of that car called Schmidt on a cell phone and told him you just killed someone, according to records. Schmidt kept driving, and a passenger in the Mercedes called another rider in the Honda and said, Keep driving. Dont call the police, according to the affidavit.
The teenagers in the Honda stopped and called 911, just as an off-duty Greenwich police officer was arriving at the scene. Setterberg was later pronounced dead at Greenwich Hospital.
Authorities went to Schmidts Round Hill Road residence the next day and found damage to the vehicle, a gold Mercedes-Benz ML500 with Georgia plates that belonged to his mother. The cars license plate was removed, and the front end was wrapped up with plastic bags and duct tape, according to the affidavit. The windshield was cracked. A lengthy investigation culminated in his arrest. Detectives said Schmidt claimed he had hit a deer the night before, according to court papers.
Setterberg was an ardent fisherman and outdoorsman who ran a home improvement company. He was out for a walk at the time of his death.
Schmidt was 17 at the time of the hit-and-run fatality, and eligible for juvenile status and the lesser penalties that come with it. Prosecutors insisted on trying him as an adult, with an evading-responsibility case that ruled out the youth-offender category, and a judge agreed.
Now 19, Schmidt is living with his father on Round Hill Road, and is not in school.
While Schmidt was awaiting trial on the hit-and-run charge, he was arrested in December 2017 for doing doughnuts in a vehicle, damaging a field near I-95 in Greenwich. His driving privileges were then suspended by court order.
At the court appearance Thursday, Judge John Blawie warned Schmidt about any misconduct while his case is pending.
You have to walk the straight and narrow between now and the sentencing date, Blawie said.
Blawie asked Schmidts father, James, how he was doing. James Schmidt responded, Hes doing fine.
The court ordered a presentencing report, which will influence the final decision made by Judge White in November.
States Attorney Richard Colangelo said he had notified Setterbergs family members about the guilty plea.
rmarchant@greenwichtime.com
STAMFORD A bench trial began Thursday for a man charged in a pedestrian accident that killed a Stamford High School student on her way to take the SAT exam in 2016.
Wilson Villa-Cabrera, 39, a painter, faces up to five years in jail if convicted of the felony charge of misconduct with a motor vehicle. Villa-Cabrera has been accused of hitting 18-year-old Karina Tinajero-Arreguin outside Stamford High on Nov. 5, 2016. Tinajero-Arreguin, a straight-A student, died a short time later at Stamford Hospital.
Sgt. Andrew Gallagher, supervisor of the Stamford Police Departments Traffic Unit Enforcement and commander of the Collision Analysis and Reconstruction Squad, testified Thursday that Villa-Cabrera told him he was on his way down Strawberry Hill Avenue, headed to the McDonalds on East Main Street to pick up two men and then to Greenwich, where they were painting a house.
Gallagher, who has investigated every fatal accident in Stamford for two decades, said Villa-Cabrera told him he could not stop in time when Tinajero-Arreguin crossed the street in front of his van.
Gallagher acknowledged Tinajero-Arreguin was jaywalking because there was no crosswalk in that area of Strawberry Hill Avenue. A crosswalk and flashing lights have since been added in response to the accident.
Gallagher said video footage from a nearby security camera contradicted Villa-Cabreras story.
Gallagher said the video, which was entered into evidence and played for Judge Richard Comerford, showed Villa-Cabrera did not hit his brakes before striking Tinajero-Arreguin and that the Stamford High was standing on the double-yellow line looking for a break in traffic when she was hit.
So she was not crossing in front of him and there was no evidence of any evasive actions taken to avoid hitting her, Gallagher said.
Crash investigator Jeffrey Booth told Comerford he determined Villa-Cabrera should have seen Tinajero-Arreguin from more than 400 feet up the street where she was standing on the clear morning. Booth also said a measurement of the road showed the distance between the double-yellow line and the curb was 22 feet, indicating there was enough room for Villa-Cabrera to avoid the accident.
Calculating his speed at 29.4 mph, Booth said Villa-Cabrera should have had 9.7 seconds to react to Tinajero-Arreguin and drive his van into the 22-foot width of the road to avoid striking the teen. Booth said the average reaction time for drivers is 1.5 seconds.
The trial is scheduled to continue on Tuesday.
jnickerson@stamfordadvocate.com
To the editor:
Yesterday I went to Town Hall and resigned from the Republican Party. I learned I could have done this online.
Republican leaders in Washington have turned their backs on values I believe in: reproductive choice, environmental protection, voters rights for everyone, immigration reform. They no longer listen to Republican moderates
So now, after 66 years, I am a Democrat.
Jo Ann Davidson
Westport
Vote McCabe for positive change
To the editor:
Its so easy for me to be a one (or two) issue voter. I typically just focus on the things that are most important to me personally. But the problems we have in Connecticut these days are so complicated that Ive decided to take a different approach this year.
On Nov. 6, I plan to vote for the person not just the issues and the person I am going to vote for is Michelle Lapine McCabe, who is running for the state Senate in the 28th District, which includes Fairfield, Newtown, Easton, and parts of Weston and Westport.
Im going to do that because she is the kind of person I want representing me in Hartford someone I feel I can trust to put in the hard work and then vote her conscience and her heart. Michelle is honest, intelligent, caring, hard-working and aware of just how serious and complex our current problems are. I doubt she will disappoint me.
Our current state senator, Tony Hwang, just doesnt fit that mold at all. When it comes to facing the issues squarely and working hard to find creative solutions to those problems (rather than just referring them to another impotent committee for review), Tony leaves a lot to be desired.
For my money, McCabe will prove a much better bet for positive change in November than casting another vote for the ineffective Hwang.
Sue Olsen
Fairfield
Hwang truly cares
To the Editor:
When I read the petty, irrelevant comments that people made about Sen. Tony Hwang, I was thoroughly disgusted. Tony Hwang doesnt need a slogan or catch phrase to precede his name. What he says he will do, he does to the best of his ability. Not only does the job get done, it gets done without any political mudslinging and he is always willing to reach across the aisle. He walks the walk and talks the talk without any negativity; he wholeheartedly cares about the people he represents.
The week before Christmas 2016, we received the horrendous, life- altering news that my husbands cancer had returned. One night we were sitting at home, and our doorbell rang. I was shocked to see Tony Hwang standing on our porch, offering not just condolences, but his help. He sincerely asked what we needed and if there was anything that he could do to help to please let him know. A year later I was diagnosed with cancer, and Tony Hwang was one of the first to call and ask what he could do for us. Tony puts his money where his mouth is when he preaches about kindness and his passionate support of the constituents of his district.
Connecticut is in serious fiscal trouble. The problems the residents of this state are facing are very real, and many are faced with the harsh reality of having to uproot and leave their home. In recent years, more and more people struggle to pay their bills. These are real issues that real people have to deal with; they dont need to listen to the petty name calling, finger pointing and lies. Tony Hwangs track record speaks for itself, and he will indubitably continue to fight for the people of Connecticut in a positive, uplifting manner when he is re-elected.
I commend Tony Hwang for the job hes done and we will never forget the kindness he bestowed upon us in our time of need. Theres no doubt he will continue to do absolutely all he can for the people he represents.
Patricia Lucas
A man accused of forcing young women into prostitution held them against their will in cheap hotel rooms in Beaumont, often depriving them of sleep or food for days, one of his alleged victims testified Wednesday.
On the witness stand in 252nd District Court, she recalled constant torment at the hands of Johnny Ray Matlock, who authorities say used aliases to secure multiple hotel rooms at a time for paid sex.
He had a gun on or near him at all times, she said, and at one point put the weapon against her and warned, "God can't save you now."
"I just had to do what I had to do," said the woman, who is not being identified in The Enterprise because of the nature of the crime. "He instilled so much fear in me. I didn't know what to do."
Matlock, 25, of Silsbee, is charged with continuous trafficking of persons for recruiting underage girls and women into prostitution, according to his March 1, 2017 indictment. If convicted, he faces 25 years to life in prison. Prosecutors say he is the first man to be indicted for human trafficking in Jefferson County.
Testimony wrapped up Wednesday after the woman, a law enforcement officer and a pair of human trafficking experts testified against Matlock, painting a picture of a man who had girls and women call him "daddy."
Closing arguments are set for today.
The Beaumont woman who said she was one of Matlock's victims said she thought human trafficking was a crime that happened in "big cities" and "movies." The 20-year-old said she didn't know things like this happened in Southeast Texas.
Members of the jury, 10 women and two men, sat with their arms crossed as others wiped away tears during the woman's testimony.
The case is being prosecuted by Kimberly Pipkin, assistant district attorney, and Kirsta Melton of the Texas Attorney General's Office, who was appointed in January 2016 to head the state's Human Trafficking and Transnational Organized Crime unit.
Matlock's attorney, Marvin Lewis, did not call any witnesses to the stand Wednesday. He declined to comment afterward.
The woman who testified against Matlock said she was 18 when she first met him at the Regency Inn and Suites on College Street.
Matlock is accused of trafficking at least four women, two of whom were underage, according to his indictment.
The witness said she was "homeless" and had "nowhere to go" when she met Matlock, saying that she had sex with him even though she did not want to. She said she had previously been raped as a girl and thought that "if someone wants it ... to let it happen."
Laurie Cook Heffron, an assistant professor at St. Edward's University and an expert in domestic violence, sexual assault and human trafficking, defined human trafficking as a "crime of exploitation," where one person made another person work for profit using either force, fraud or coercion.
For underage victims, it is not necessary to prove the force or coercion clause, according to the Department of Justice.
"Exploitation is the heart of the human trafficking crime," said Heffron, who was one of the witnesses on Wednesday.
The alleged victim in the case said Matlock asked her if she would agree to prostitute for him, saying that he needed money to pay for the hotel room. The witness said she "felt bad for him" because she knew what it was like to have nowhere to go.
The witness said she was "trying to help him out" and had never had sex for money before. But soon, she added, Matlock was posting nude images of her on Backpage.com, telling her how to pose and instructing her to make sure men leave money on the nightstand or table for him to collect later.
Backpage.com, which was shut down in April 2018, was a classified ads website like Craigslist with an "adult classified section" that included "escort services," according to Jessica Leal, a criminal intelligence analyst with the Office of the Attorney General.
The victim said she her online nickname was Delilah, like the "slut in the Bible," she said. "It was ironic."
She testified that she would text Matlock atthe beginning and end of sexual encounters, according to text messages shown in court, after which Matlock would come in to collect all of the money.
Matlock, who promised to protect the woman, also asked her to call him "daddy," she said.
When the witness told Matlock that she wanted to leave, she recalled, he "wasn't happy about it." While she said the details from the argument were fuzzy, she said she distinctly remembered "feeling a really bad sting on my face" after Matlock slapped her, knocking her over onto the hotel bed.
Heffron later said it was common for victims of trauma to have "recorded but fragmented" memories, recalling events in a way that is accurate, but not linear.
The witness said her recollection of the time with Matlock was difficult because "the bad over-weighs the little things," she said.
One day while smoking marijuana with Matlock, the woman said it occurred to her to use the hotel phone to call for help. Matlock had taken her cell phone, she said.
She called her son's grandmother for help because she was too scared to call the police. When an officer knocked on her door, the woman said her "stomach dropped."
"I didn't know what was going to happen," she said.
The woman testified that Matlock bought her food sometimes, but often wouldn't feed her. Because she saw customers at night, she said, she "rarely slept" and had to ask Matlock for permission to sleep.
The witness said she saw Matlock try to recruit other girls and women using social media, primarily Facebook, according to Special Agent Jennifer Doreck of the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, whose agency found social media messages in which Matlock referred to himself as "a pimp."
The case was investigated by the Beaumont Police Department, the ATF, the FBI and the Jefferson County District Attorney's Office.
Phoebe.Suy@BeaumontEnterprise.com
Twitter.com/PhoebeSuy
Brother of Kerala nun also questioned police inaction and said, 'Police have not done anything in the past 78 days.'
'Kerala government is not taking any action as they do not want to break the cordiality between the church and the authorities as elections are approaching,' brother of the Kerala nun said. (Photo: Twitter | ANI)
Kochi: Brother of the Kerala nun who has accused Jalandhar Roman Catholic priest of rape, on Thursday said that influential politicians are shielding and supporting Bishop Franco Mulakkal.
The rape survivors brother alleged that with eye on upcoming elections, the Kerala government is refraining from taking any action to break cordiality between the church and the authorities.
He also questioned police inaction in the case and said, Police have not done anything in the past 78 days.
Kerala government is not taking any action as they do not want to break the cordiality between the church and the authorities as elections are approaching. Influential politicians are supporting him, the brother of Kerala nun said.
The brother of the nun earlier alleged that a relative of the accused Bishop Franco Mulakkal and two other priests approached his friend and conveyed that they are willing to pay Rs 5 crore if the nun withdraws her complaint.
Read: Was offered Rs 5 crore to spare bishop in rape case: Kerala nun's brother
In her complaint lodged with Kottayam district police, the nun who is in her late 40s accused Bishop Franco Mulakkal of raping and having unnatural sex with her multiple times between 2014 and 2016.
Earlier this week, the nun wrote to the Vatican seeking justice. In her letter to The Apostolic Nuncio of India, Giambattista Diquattro an Ambassador to the Pope, she listed names of all the people she had asked for help, including the Pope himself. Nobody has bothered to help her.
The nun said she was writing the letter to the Vatican as victim of sexual abuse who is seeking justice.
From childhood we have been taught to believe that the Church is our mother. But in the light of my experience I am beginning to think that the Church is a stepmother to women and laity, the letter stated.
Also Read: Kerala nun abused by Jalandhar Bishop writes to Vatican seeking justice
Bishop Franco had always an eagles eye on few other MJ (Missionaries of Jesus) sisters as well. Whichever sister Bishop Franco felt attraction to, he tried to put them in his trap by force or taking advantage of their weaknesses.
Though Bishop Franco had sexually abused me several times, I could not reveal the full story to my Superior General or to her Councilors. I only told them repeatedly that the Bishop is taking many disciplinary actions through them just because I resisted to lie down with him. As they failed to understand even the seriousness of these words, I could not tell them more than this. And I had the fear that Bishop Franco may harm me with the support of my superiors (sic).
After public outrage and persistent protests by nuns, the Kerala police on Wednesday summoned Bishop Franco Mulakkal on September 19 for questioning him about his alleged involvement in the case.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, September 13) The Department of Justice (DOJ) on Thursday failed to get from a Makati court an arrest warrant against Senator Antonio Trillanes, after President Rodrigo Duterte voided his amnesty.
Instead, the Makati Regional Trial Court Branch 148 asked Trillanes to provide supplemental comments and a rejoinder to the DOJ's petition for an arrest warrant and a hold departure order against him, within 10 days after the hearing.
READ: Trillanes forms legal team for amnesty battle
The court also instructed the DOJ to reply within five days of receipt of these comments.
"The motion will then be considered submitted for resolution," Makati RTC 148 Spokesperson Mara Peralta said in a press briefing.
Trillanes' lawyer, Atty. Rey Robles, said they have yet to answer the factual issues in the motion since they raised the matters initially to the Supreme Court. The high court, however, ruled that the RTC where the motions were filed must address these.
Duterte had earlier assured that no arrest will be made until the courts produce a warrant against Trillanes, who is currently staying at the Senate.
The Makati court has not set a date for resolving the case. The Rules of Court state that a judge has 30 days to do so, but he can issue a resolution earlier.
"Given the immediate need to resolve the motion, it's up to the presiding judge to solve it in an earlier time," Peralta added.
A similar motion was filed at the Makati RTC Branch 150, the court which dismissed Trillanes' rebellion case.
The DOJ filed the motions in compliance with Duterte's Proclamation 572 which voided Trillanes' amnesty since August 31.
Ganesh idol is also classified based on the direction His tongue points, or His posture.
Thirty-two forms of Ganesha are mentioned frequently in devotional literature related to the Hindu god Ganesha (Ganapati). The Ganesha-centric scripture Mudgala Purana is the first to list them.
Interestingly, Lord Ganesha idols can be classified depending on his posture, characteristics, and even the position of his trunk.
Normally, Ganesha idols can be sitting, standing, dancing or reclining. While sitting and standing ones are mostly worshipped, the other two are usually kept at home purely for aesthetic purposes.
Ganesh idol is also classified based on the direction his tongue points. It is believed that the ones which have their proboscis facing the left are known for bliss and tranquility and are thus worshipped at home. Those who have their trunk to the right are known as Dakshinabhimukhi idols are are not usually kept at home as they are said to be active and need a separate set of rules of worship. Ganesha idols with a straight trunk or trunk up in the air are hard to find, but are considered special. The idol with the trunk of Lord Ganesha in the air represents a state where his Kundalini reached the peak. These idols are always good for any home and office.
Based on His form, Ganesh idols are of 32 types. Here are the various forms of Ganesha:
Lord Ganesha is worshipped in many forms. (Photo: Soumyabrata Gupta)
Bala Ganesha: He is childlike. Bala Ganesh has four arms and he is holding banana, mango, sugarcane and jackfruit in each hands. And he is holding his favorite Modaka in his trunk. Each of the items in his hands represents abundance and fertility.
Taruna Ganesha: He is is the youthful Ganesha and this Taruna Ganesha has eight arms. In each hand, he is holding modaka, noose, goad, wood apple, rose apple, tusk, some paddy and sugar cane. The red color further radiates the youthfulness of Taruna Ganesha.
Bhakti Ganesha: He looks all pleasant and shining like a full moon and is fully decorated with flowers from head to toe. He is holding a banana, mango, coconut and bowl of sweet in each of his four hands. Bhakti Ganesh is dear to his devotees and is always showering blessings on the devotees.
Vira Ganesha: The warrior, he is seen in his standing posture and with the 16 arms. In each hand, he holds weapons, symbolizing powers of mind.
Devotees at the GSB Seva Mandal Ganesh Pandal on the first day of the Ganesh festival in Mumbai. (Photo: PTI)
Shakthi Ganesha: The guardian and a protector, He has four hands. With one hand, he is blessing all the devotees and in the other three hands, he holds garland, noose and goad. Shakthi Ganesha has one of his Shakthis or wives, sitting on his knee.
Dvija Ganesha: Regarded as twice born and equivalent to Lord Brahma, He is worshiped for knowledge and wealth. This four-headed Ganesha has four hands, in which he holds a Kamandalu, Rudrakha, a staff and a leaf scripture.
Siddhi Ganesha: An epitome of intellect and success, He sits in relaxed pose, holding flowers, axe, mango and sugar cane in his four hands. With his trunk, he is holding his favorite Modaka sweet.
Ucchista Ganesha: He is known as the Lord of blessed offerings. One of his shakthis is sitting on his left thigh. He has six arms, each arm holding something unique. He is holding a veena, pomegranate, paddy, lotus and rudrakha in each hand.
Wadala, Ganesh mandir Marg idol. (Photo: Soumyabrata Gupta)
Vighna Ganesha: He is the Lord of removing obstacles. In this form, he appears similar to Lord Vishnu. He has a Shankhu and Chakra in two of his eight hands. In his other hands, holds a noose, goad, tusk, modaka, a bouquet of flowers, sugar cane, flower arrow and an axe.
Kshipra Ganesha: Easy to please, He is known to bless the devotees with what they need quickly. In his four hands, Kshipra Ganesha is holding noose, goad, broken tusk and spring of Kalpakavriksha.
Heramba Ganesha: The five-headed Heramba Ganesha is the protector of the weak. This is a very rare form of Ganesha and is seen riding on a lion. He has ten hands. He holds axe, hammer, noose, beads, broken tusk, garland, fruit and modaka in His hands.
Lakshmi Ganesha: Lakshmi Ganesha sits with both his wives, Siddhi and Buddhi, on his either thighs. Lakshmi Ganesha stands for achievement and wisdom. He has eight hands and holds parrot, pomegranate, sword, kamandalu, spring of Kalpakavriksha, noose and goad in his hands.
A Ganesh idol being taken to the marquee in Mumbai. (Photo: PTI)
Maha Ganesha: Maha Ganesha is the most commonly worshiped form of Lord Ganesha. He has ten hands and is holding broken tusk, pomegranate, blue lily, sugarcane, noose, lotus, chakra, mace, paddy and pot of gems in his hands.
Vijaya Ganesha: He bestows success on his devotees. In this form, he is seen riding his mouse and the mouse is depicted larger than normal. He has four arms and in each arm, he holds a mango, noose, goad and broken tusk.
Nritya Ganesha: He is the happy dancer. He is seen dancing under the Kalpakavriksha and holds a goad, noose, modaka and broken tusk in his four hands.
Urdhva Ganesha: Urdhva means elevated. In this form, Lord Ganesha is sitting in a tantric posture with one of his shakthis on his thigh. He has six hands and each hand holds a lotus, paddy, sugarcane, an arrow, broken tusk and blue lily.
Vashi, Sector 6 Ganesh idol. (Photo: Soumyabrata Gupta)
Ekakshara Ganesha: Ekakshara Ganesha is a three eyed, four armed form of Lord Ganesha. He is sitting in Padmasana pose on his vehicle, the rat. He holds a noose, goad a pomegranate in his hands and his one hand is showering blessings on devotees.
Varada Ganesha: Varada Ganesha is known to be the boon giver. One of his shakthis is sitting on his thighs. Like Lord Shiva, Varada Ganesha also has the third eye of wisdom and a crescent moon on his head. He holds a noose, goad, dish of honey in his hands and a pot of jewels in his trunk.
Tryakshara Ganesha: Tryakshara Ganesha represents the simple and elemental sound of OM. He has a noose, goad, mango and broken tusk in His four hands. And as usual, a modaka in his trunk.
Kshipra prasada Ganesha: In this form, Ganesha grants your wishes quickly and punishes your mistakes even faster. This six armed Ganesha is often seen sitting on a grass throne. He holds noose, goad, lotus, pomegranate, broken tusk and a small branch of kalpakavriksha in his hands.
Wadalacha Raja (Photo: Soumyabrata Gupta)
Haridra Ganesha: This calm faced form of Lord Ganesha appears seated on a royal throne. In his four hands, he holds broken tusk, modaka, noose and a goad. In this form, he is also seen wearing a bright golden gown-like vestment.
Ekadanta Ganesha: Lord Ganesha is known for his broken tusk. Ekadanta Ganesha is one of his forms based on this single tusk story. Compared to other forms, Ekadanta Ganeshas belly is quite large. In his four hands, he is holding an axe, modaka, beads and the broken tusk.
Shristi Ganesha: Shristi Ganesha is the happy Ganesha. His red color and looks in this form has the makings of an active Lord Ganesha. He has noose, goad, mango and broken tusk in his four hands.
Uddanda Ganesha: He is the enforcer of justice. One of his shakthis is seated on Uddanda Ganeshas thighs. However, this is an angry form of Ganesha. He holds a pot of gems, a blue lily, sugar cane, mace, lotus flower, sprig of paddy, pomegranate, noose, garland and his broken tusk in his ten hands.
Eco Friendly Ganesha Devotees of Sri Siddhivinayak Mandal Sakinaka carry a 21 feet Lord Ganeha Idol made out 75 kg Tissue paper and glue idol carry from Andheri to Sakinaka, Mumbai. (Photo: Mrugesh Bandiwadekar)
Rinamochana Ganesha: Rinamochana Ganesha is the liberator of guilt and bondage. He gives moksha to his devotees. He holds a noose, goad, rose apple and broken tusk in his four hands.
Dhuddhi Ganesha: Dhuddhi Ganesha makes the life of devotees clean and celebrated by passing on his spiritual views. Thereby helps them attain the sought after Moksha. In his four hands, he holds rudraksha, axe, broken tusk and a pot of precious gems.
Dwimukha Ganesha: Dwimukha Ganesha, as the name suggests, has two faces and can see in all directions. In his four hands, holds a noose to keep devotees close to him, a goad to encourage devotees on their way forward, broken tusk to represent self-sacrifice and a pot of jewels.
Trimukha Ganesha: Again, as the name says, Trimukha Ganesha has three faces. In this form, Ganesha is seen sitting on a golden lotus and has six hands. His hands are holding noose, goad, beads and a pot of nectar. With is other two hands, he gestures protection and blessings.
A priest offers prayers to Lord Ganesh at a community puja pandal on the occasion of Ganesh Chaturthi in Kolkata. (Photo: PTI)
Sinha Ganesha: Sinha Ganesha is the lord of strength and confidence. He rides on a lion and another roaring lion is seen in one of his eight hands. He also holds a kalpavriksha sprig, veena, a lotus, flower bouquet and a pot of jewels.
Yoga Ganesha: In this form, Lord Ganesha appears in the true form of a yogi. He has four hands and his legs are tied up in the yogic stance. His hands are holding yoga staff, sugar cane stalk, a noose and prayer beads.
Durga Ganesha: This form of Lord Ganesha is invincible. He is mighty and always victorious over darkness. In his eight hands, he is holding bow, arrow, noose, goad, prayer beads, broken tusk and a rose apple.
Sankatahara Ganesha: Sankatahara Ganesha is the banisher of sorrows. He sits on lotus flower and one of his shakthis is seen sitting on his left thigh. She is also holding a lotus in her hand. Sankatahara Ganesha holds noose, goad and a bowl of payasa in his hands. His main right hand postures a Varadha mudra.
At 2 a.m. Thursday, Michelle Baez and her daughter Anisya finished packing their family photos into their car. They moved belongings inside their Myrtle Beach, South Carolina home to higher levels. Then they left to catch a morning flight to San Antonio.
They drove to Charlotte, North Carolina, traveling west on the eastbound lanes that authorities reversed to speed traffic inland ahead of Hurricane Florence.
There were police at every intersection, Baez said, and all roads east were blocked. On the contraflow lanes, the signs were all backwards, and Im telling her (Anisya), normally if the signs are backwards, youre going the wrong way.
People started leaving South Carolina coast Tuesday and a mandatory evacuation has been issued for everyone there, Michelle Baez said after arriving at San Antonio International Airport. The two will stay with her parents here until theyre allowed to return.
RELATED: Wind and rain from Florence's leading edge lash Carolinas
In Myrtle Beach, everything is closing, said Anisya, who packed clothes and her Twilight books in the floral suitcase she was taking to her grandparents home.
Baez said she hasnt evacuated from Myrtle Beach in previous storms, but the projected direct hit on the coast and the mandatory evacuation order drove her to leave this time. Fear set in when a Red Cross official warned her to take pictures of birth certificates and other important documents, she said, driving home how serious the storm could be. Baez brought the documents with her on the flight but left the family photos in the car in Charlotte, where she hopes theyll stay dry.
Jazzy Jefferson left her dorm room in Greensboro, North Carolina around 2:30 a.m. Thursday to catch a flight to Atlanta, she said.
RELATED: Forecasters give update on rainfall predictions for S.A. area
The freshman at North Carolina A&T State University then flew from Atlanta to San Antonio, where her father was waiting to pick her up and drive her home to Dallas.
We couldnt find a flight to Dallas for under $1,200, she said. Classes at the university were cancelled as of noon Wednesday, and her parents were worried about her staying in Greensboro. The city is about 200 miles from the coast, but is still expected to see flooding from the storm.
Jefferson said the school expected to reopen Monday, but based on the forecast, I dont really see how thats going to happen.
She and Baez both said they dont have return flights booked yet, waiting instead to see how the storm plays out.
LTeitz@express-news.net | @LizTeitz
Family members of a man arrested Wednesday in the fatal stabbing of a 23-year-old woman in San Antonio were the first people to find the woman's body after the attack, according to court records.
The grisly discovery and the family's testimony led to Ulises Rodriguez's arrest in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, on a charge of murder in the death of Karla Cristina Ornelas, who was the mother of a young boy.
RELATED: Movie theater assault suspect among 30 arrested, indicted on child sex crime charges in August
Rodriguez has since been extradited to Bexar County, where he will be tried for his alleged crimes. He remains in the Bexar County Jail on a bond of more than $100,000. He also faces two misdemeanor charges of evading arrest.
According to his arrest affidavit, Rodriguez and Ornelas were arguing in a home on Castroville Road on Sept. 5. Rodriguez's step-father and brother were in the home and told the two to take the fight outside.
The screaming match continued, according to the affidavit. At one point Rodriguez held Ornelas by the neck and Ornelas screamed out for help, police said.
"Get him off me! Call the cops!" she said, according to the affidavit.
The step-father and brother went outside to check on the two of them, but they only found Rodriguez, who told them Ornelas had run away, authorities said. Surveillance footage showed Rodriguez running away from his family members after speaking with them, the affidavit says.
RELATED: No bail for former San Antonio-area teacher and principal charged in child porn case
Not trusting Rodriguez, the step-father went to investigate and found Ornelas moaning on the ground nearby, in the 3300 block of Colima Street. He called 911.
The affidavit says the step-father then rushed home to see if Rodriguez was there, but Rodriguez had fled.
Paramedics took Ornelas to University Hospital, where she was later pronounced dead.
According to police, Mexican authorities and officers with the Lone Star Fugitive Task Force later tracked down Rodriguez to Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, and arrested him.
Text "NEWS" to 77453 for breaking news alerts from mySA.com
Caleb Downs is a crime reporter for mySA.com. Read more of his stories here.| cdowns@mysa.com | Twitter: @calebjdowns
A Bexar County Sheriff's Office deputy was arrested, then fired Thursday after police said he drunkenly crashed into the back of an 18-wheeler on Interstate 35 in Selma.
The termination of Deputy Joseph Martinez, 27, came only after he had been disciplined by the sheriff's office four separate times since June 2017 in connection to two hazing incidents and two alleged assaults against inmates, for which he was criminally charged.
"I know it may seem incomprehensible to somebody who's not in this world," said Sheriff Javier Salazar, "but that's something that every major agency has to work with. We have that framework."
RELATED: Movie theater assault suspect among 30 arrested, indicted on child sex crime charges in August
According to a statement from the Selma Police Department, Martinez's most recent arrest occurred after he crashed into the back of the semi-truck at about 3 a.m. in the 14800 block of Interstate 35 North. His vehicle then smashed into the highway's center divider. Police said Martinez smelled of alcohol.
He was charged with drunken driving, a Class B misdemeanor, and booked into the Bexar County jail on an $800 bond after he was medically cleared.
Sheriff Javier Salazar said he personally visited Martinez, who was a member of the jail's Special Emergency Response Team, around noon at the Central Magistrate's Office to fire him.
According to Elizabeth Gonzalez, a spokeswoman for the sheriff's office, Martinez was hired by the sheriff's office in December 2014.
He has been on unpaid administrative leave since April, after the sheriff's office received four complaints against him alleging assault.
RELATED: Bexar County Sheriff's Office identifies deputies allegedly involved in hazing incident
His problems within the office, though, stem back to at least June 2017. Salazar said Martinez was involved in a hazing accident at a SERT party that month, and another in August. He was placed on administrative leave but returned to work "according to civil service rules."
In January, the sheriff's office's Public Integrity Unity started disciplinary proceedings after he was accused of assaulting an inmate, but soon after, the four additional complaints were filed against him, resulting in his second placement on administrative leave in April.
In May, he was charged with two counts of assault and two counts of official oppression in connection to two separate alleged assaults against inmates.
Salazar said he can't "act capriciously or arbitrarily" in firing a deputy, even after they commit multiple policy violations, due to a "framework of laws and civil service rules and a contract." He said he was able to act on Thursday because of the "course of conduct that began in 2017 and continues to this day."
"You're talking about somebody that since April hasn't been working here," Salazar said.
Martinez is the 19th deputy arrested in 2018. Salazar said the high number of arrests is due to his administration's proactive stance in rooting out the bad apples.
"We're taking a proactive stance," he said. "We're actively seeking it out. If you call it looking for trouble, that's what we're doing. We're out there looking for people that are breaking the law, breaking policies and we're going to hold them accountable to the extent that we can."
But Salazar also noted that he's working to form an Early Intervention Unit that will work to identify at risk deputies and help them in any way they can. For example, if the unit learns a deputy has a drinking problem, they may work with the deputy to get counseling before they are arrested for drunken driving or worse.
The Deputy Sheriff's Association of Bexar County has expressed concern about some of the programs proposal, Salazar said, prompting negotiations between the two organizations that delayed the unit's roll out.
Text "NEWS" to 77453 for breaking news alerts from mySA.com
Caleb Downs is a crime reporter for mySA.com. Read more of his stories here.| cdowns@mysa.com | Twitter: @calebjdowns
The driver accused of crashing into a VIA bus stop, injuring a pregnant woman and three others, asked for forgiveness while being taken to jail on Thursday.
Jose Alberto Garcia, 38, faces four charges of aggravated assault causing severe bodily injury. Police determined he had been driving 60 miles per hour in an area where the speed limit was 40, said police spokesperson Jennifer Rodriguez. His arrest affidavit also indicates he may have been intoxicated at the time of the crash.
"Please forgive me to the families I hurt," Garcia said while walking from the police station to the car that would take him to jail. "I love y'all, God bless y'all. Just know I didn't mean to hurt you at all."
RELATED: Doctors raced the clock to save mother injured at bus stop and deliver her baby
Police have previously said Garcia was speeding westbound on Culebra Road around 11:10 a.m. on August 28 when he lost control at the intersection with Zarzamora Street, swerved across the eastbound lanes and clipped a concrete embankment around the perimeter of VIA's No. 49533 bus stop, launching the car into the victims.
The vehicle hit Marcos Estrada, 33, Reicedo Concepcion, 53, Vanneta Georgia, 55, and Stephanie Athey, a 28-year-old woman who was eight months pregnant at the time of the crash. All four were hospitalized with serious injuries.
Despite her serious injuries that momentarily stopped her heart, Athey successfully gave birth to her son, Ethan, and both are now in good condition.
Read about how a San Antonio surgeon raced to save both mother and baby from injuries few survive on our premium site, ExpressNews.com.
"Our family is greatly appreciative of everyone's thoughts and prayers," read a statement from her family. "We would like to express our gratitude to the citizens and first responders who rendered aid at the scene. Special thanks goes to the team at University Hospital who have worked tirelessly to give Stephanie and baby Ethan a fighting chance."
RELATED: Child born after mother struck by vehicle at VIA bus stop is in critical condition, remains in NICU
After the crash, Garcia was released from the scene after passing field sobriety tests. But police later learned he tested positive for "several drug categories" while receiving treatment at the hospital. One of his passengers also told police that Garcia had been drinking an Olde English 800 while driving prior to the crash.
It is unclear if Garcia will face additional charges for drunken driving.
"These are complex cases," police spokesperson Jennifer Rodriguez said, citing numerous factors detectives look at when working a car crash.
Garcia said the collision was an "accident."
"I didn't do it on purpose," he said. "Please forgive me people."
Garcia's criminal record dates to 1997, when he was 17 years old, public records show. Since then, he's been arrested at least 18 times in connection with various crimes, including driving while intoxicated, assaulting a family member, theft, trespassing and possession of controlled substances.
Five of those cases were dismissed. He was convicted in the remaining 14.
A man who answered the phone at an address where Garcia occasionally lived said Garcia grew up in San Antonio and was currently unemployed.
If convicted on each count, Garcia faces up to 80 years in prison.
Text "NEWS" to 77453 for breaking news alerts from mySA.com
Staff writer Emilie Eaton contributed to this story. | Caleb Downs is a crime reporter for mySA.com. Read more of his stories here.| cdowns@mysa.com | Twitter: @calebjdowns
A Uvalde police officer was arrested Thursday by Texas Rangers on suspicion of sexual assault of a child.
Officer Laurance Martinez was fired by the city shortly after his arrest, according to a news release from the Uvalde Police Department.
RELATED: Driver accused of hospitalizing 4 in VIA bus stop crash asks for forgiveness after arrest
A high school student reported the allegations against Martinez to the Uvalde Consolidated ISD Police Department on Tuesday, Uvalde police said.
Officers contacted Uvalde police, who responded to the high school and gathered the initial information.
Uvalde Police Chief Daniel Rodriguez turned the investigation over to the Texas Rangers, since the investigation involved Martinez, according to the news release.
Two days later, Texas Rangers said they gathered enough evidence to issue a warrant and arrest Martinez.
If convicted, Martinez faces up to 20 years in prison.
A NASA official said this week that the space agency expects to leave footprints on the moon again in the late 2020s, nearly 60 years after we last touched the surface.
That may seem like a long time away, but Steven Clarke, NASA's deputy associate administrator for exploration, said Tuesday the plan is to have science and human exploration work together, with an eye on a future mission to Mars. Clarke presented the agency's plans for lunar missions Tuesday at a meeting of the Committee on Astrobiology and Planetary Science of National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine's Space Studies Board. The meeting is being held in California.
"We want to build on our extensive past experience," Clarke said. The U.S.'s last trip to the moon was in December 1972 with Apollo 17 astronauts Eugene Cernan, Ronald Evans and Harrison Schmitt.
Since taking office last year, President Donald Trump has pushed for the U.S. to return to the moon as a stepping stone toward Mars.
On the human side of things, Trump's $19.9 billion proposed budget for the next fiscal year tasks NASA with launching an uncrewed Orion flight by 2021, followed by a launch of Americans around the moon in 2023. It also would set aside $504.2 million in the coming year to begin working on the foundation on a $2.7 billion Lunar Orbital Platform-Gateway basically a mini-space station orbiting the moon where astronauts could live and work.
Clarke said the gateway should be fully functional by 2026. Human missions to the lunar surface are expected to come soon after.
But NASA's lunar exploration plan also includes robotic missions. Though the agency earlier this year abruptly canceled a lunar rover that was just a few years away from rocketing to the moon in search of water, it has asked commercial companies to submit their plans for new robotic missions.
NASA will select companies in December, Clarke said, and he expects those missions will begin in 2019 or 2020.
"We're looking at how this feeds forward to a Mars exploration mission -- not just a robotic mission, but human exploration as well," Clarke told the committee.
Alex Stuckey covers NASA and the environment for the Houston Chronicle. You can reach her at alex.stuckey@chron.com or Twitter.com/alexdstuckey.
The relatively small changes to its lineup, following last years overhauled iPhone X, were widely expected.
Apples new iPhone XS, pronounced ten S, has a 5.8-inch (14.7-cm) screen, and will be sold at a starting price of $999.
Apple Inc introduced its largest-ever iPhone and a watch that detects heart problems on Wednesday in an attempt to get customers to upgrade to more expensive devices in the face of stagnant global demand for smartphones.
The relatively small changes to its lineup, following last years overhauled iPhone X, were widely expected by investors and the companys shares ended down 1.2 percent at $221.07.
The strategy has been successful, helping Apples stock to rise more than 30 percent this year and making it the first publicly traded US company to hit a market value of more than $1 trillion.
Apples new iPhone XS, pronounced ten S, has a 5.8-inch (14.7-cm) screen, and will be sold at a starting price of $999. The XS Max, the largest iPhone to date and one of the biggest on the market, has a 6.5-inch (16.5-cm) screen, and will start selling at $1,099.
They have finally added a larger-screen phone so that they can directly compete with the Galaxy Note9 products, Gartner analyst Annette Zimmermann said at the event at Apples Silicon Valley headquarters, referring to rival Samsung Electronics which has led the trend toward big-screen phones.
The larger screen will be very important in China to turn around the trend there, because they have lost some share in the last few years, partly because of screen size, she added.
Apple also introduced a lower-cost 6.1-inch (15.5 cm) iPhone XR made of aluminum, at a starting price at $749.
The iPhone XS Maxs display size is 26 percent larger than the previous largest iPhone display, marking it the largest increase in screen size since 2014, wrote analyst Gene Munster of Loup Ventures in a note.
This years three top phones are all more expensive than last years models.
With two of them starting at $999 or higher in the United States, Apple appears to be taking advantage of a strong US economy, low unemployment, and rising household wealth. The median US household income rose for a third straight year in 2017 to the highest on record since 1967 by one measure, government data showed on Wednesday.
Looking for ways to lessen reliance on phones, which represent more than 60 percent its revenue, Apple opened its event by announcing the new Apple Watch Series 4 with edge-to-edge displays, like its latest phones, and they are more than 30 percent bigger than displays on current models.
It is positioning the new watch as a more comprehensive health device, able to take an electrocardiogram to detect an irregular heartbeat and start an emergency call automatically if it detects a user falling down, potentially appealing to older customers.
The US Food and Drug Administration said it worked with Apple to develop apps for the Apple Watch and has been taking steps to ease the regulatory pathway for companies seeking to create digital healthcare products.
As many as 6.1 million Americans have atrial fibrillation, a heart disease involving irregular heart rhythm for which the Watch could offer an early warning. That number is expected to double by 2050 as the population gets older, according to the American Heart Association.
This does have a lot of potential for patients, said Dr. Michael Valentine, president of the American College of Cardiology and a cardiologist at Central Health in Lynchburg, Virginia. Clinicians face patients every day with palpitations, rapid heart rates, and other symptoms, and the doctors want a more portable monitoring and recording system.
BMO Capital Markets analyst Joanne Wuensch added that physicians would be unlikely to make medical treatment based on data from the watch, though it could encourage patients to see cardiologists.
Healthcare technology analyst Ross Muken at Evercore said many companies were developing monitoring devices. This update really establishes the companys increasing efforts to push the watch as a serious medical device, he said of Apple.
Shares of fitness device rival Fitbit Inc fell 6.9 percent after the Series 4 announcement on Wednesday.
Apples event was held at the Steve Jobs Theater in its new circular headquarters in Cupertino, California, named after the companys co-founder who wowed the world with the first iPhone in 2007.
Executives made no mention of a wireless charging mat, or content deals for Apple TV, as some industry analysts had expected.
We all knew this was going to be a transitional but not transformational phone update, said Trip Miller, managing partner at hedge fund Gullane Capital, which owns Apple shares.
(Source)
Beijing made the request to the World Trade Organisation complaining about US anti-dumping methodologies. For Zhou Xiaochuan, former governor of the People's Bank of China, the main negative effect of duties will be market uncertainty, affecting investor confidence in China.
Beijing (AsiaNews/Agencies) Beijing is planning to impose trade sanctions worth around US$ 7 billion on US goods in retaliation for Washingtons failure to comply with a dispute ruling by the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in 2017 over the methodology it uses in anti-dumping investigations.
China has filed its request for authorisation to introduce the penalties. The WTOs dispute settlement body will rule on 21 September.
China and the US have been embroiled in a battle over anti-dumping duties at the WTO since 2013. The US has taken aim at Chinese government aid to exports, which make Chinese goods more competitive on foreign markets.
Chinas complaint centres on the methodologies adopted by the US Department of Commerce to calculate the scale of dumping involving Chinese products. The WTO asked Washington to make changes by August 2018, but this has not happened.
Beijings move is another chapter in the trade war between the two economic giants with both trying to impose duties on each other's exports.
Washington has already imposed levies on US$ 50 billion of Chinese goods and is ready to slap more tariffs on a further US$ 200 billion of goods.
US President Donald Trump last week threatened to impose more levies on an additional US$ 267 billion of Chinese goods, in practice all of Chinas exports to the US.
According to Zhou Xiaochuan, former governor of the People's Bank of China, the direct impact of the tariff war on the Chinese economy will "not be very serious". Economists have put the potential impact at 0.3 to 0.5 percentage points.
However, the unpredictability of the dispute and its impact on investor confidence in China are much more difficult to analyse, said Zhou.
According to the Wall Street Journal, US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin invited Chinese Deputy Prime Minister Liu He to resume trade negotiations in the coming weeks, after several attempts failed in the past few months.
Before we rush off to work, lets pause for a moment and think about how much some Americans earn per hour.
In a recent Labor Day column about the declining American work ethic, I wrote: Today, in the agricultural hub of Central California, farmers tell me theyre paying $30 per hour to pick tomatoes and $40 per hour to pick melons. On the coast, theyre paying $60 per hour to pick avocados. They still cant find enough workers.
Who knew this could be so controversial? You wouldnt believe the pushback Ive gotten in the last few days. There were many skeptics who doubted that wages were that high in agriculture.
They are. Ive interviewed farmers and farm workers, and both groups confirm it. Also, there have been articles about how tough it is for farmers and ranchers to find laborers, and how theyve had to increase wages to avoid losing the ones they already have.
Still, labor advocates had such a low opinion of growers that they doubted farm workers were so well-paid. Others had such a low opinion of immigrants, who make up the vast majority of the work force in agriculture, that they doubted the laborers deserved such wages.
So how much is someones time worth? The short answer: Whatever someone else is willing to pay for it.
Fine. But that rule suddenly doesnt apply to farm workers? Why not? What ugly vein of elitism did we just tap into?
Lets start in the basement. The federal minimum wage is a mere $7.25 per hour. But 29 states and the District of Columbia have higher minimum wages.
In California, the state minimum wage will on Jan. 1, 2019 go up to $12 per hour. Individual cities can set higher amounts; on July 1, 2018, the minimum wage will go up to $14.25 per hour in Los Angeles and $15 per hour in San Francisco.
Yet the market makes its own rules. Fast-food restaurants in this state cant find workers. Apparently, not a lot of young people want to flip burgers anymore. Employers are now offering $13-$16 per hour.
Its our own fault. We could have seen this coming. Americans have devalued work over the years to the point where many young people now consider it a waste of time.
At construction firms, dairy farms and landscape companies, the workforce is getting older. And when those elderly workers retire, not many young people are lining up to take their place.
What intrigues me most are those Americans who demand a pretty penny for their time. Not experience or expertise. Just time.
Do you have any idea what babysitters charge these days? A few years ago, my wife and I would get quoted $12 to $15 per hour or more if the babysitter had to watch more than one child.
Not long ago, we bought meals from a woman who did a brisk business cooking food for working families. A salmon dinner for four might cost $60. She charged not just for the food and cooking skill but for her time as well.
Thats key. Americans value their time immensely, and they expect you to value it, too.
About 10 years ago, here in Southern California, I needed a fence stained. A handyman, who happened to be a naturalized U.S. citizen from Europe, offered to do it for $75 per hour.
Need your car repaired? Take it to the dealer, and youll pay at least $95 per hour in labor costs.
The other day, I called a plumber to unclog a drain. It took him about 25 minutes to get his equipment in place, and five minutes to pop the drain. Those 30 minutes cost me $125.
Of course, I have lawyer friends who charge their clients as much as $400 or $500 per hour for their time.
And as someone who has been speaking professionally for 25 years, what do you think some people earn on the lecture circuit for an hour at a podium? It can often be in the tens of thousands of dollars.
All good. We believe that pro athletes, Hollywood stars and tech company CEOs should be able to earn as much as possible, because we think their time and talents are worth what the market allows.
But not farm workers. There, the rules are different? Why? Because we think this isnt skilled work, that anyone can do it?
That is a quaint perspective most often found in people whose only exposure to fruits and vegetables is at a farmers market.
Prove me wrong. Every farmer Ive ever interviewed has the same message for American workers: Step right up. Were hiring.
Not everybody at once. Take your time.
ruben@rubennavarrette.com
After the New York Times op-ed page published an anonymous Trump administration official praising themselves and others for trying to keep the powers of the presidency out of the actual presidents hands, I found myself nodding along to two kinds of essays about this inside-the-administration Resistance even though they were making superficially opposing points, one against resistance, one in favor of it.
The first sort of essay argued that by working to thwart a duly-elected president, the anti-Trumpers inside the administration arent saving democracy but subverting it and setting us up for a bigger crisis down the road.
Issues like free trade and foreign policy, where the anonymous op-ed writer vehemently disagrees with the president, were hotly debated and thrashed out publicly in the campaign, National Reviews Michael Brendan Dougherty pointed out, and this advisers side arguably lost the popular debate.
By contrast, the other kind of essay argued that because the presidencys powers are so sweeping, having a president as personally reckless and unfit as Donald Trump simply requires people around him to supply some unusual forms of resistance and constraint.
There are so few practical checks on the executive branchs ability to initiate force, wrote Zack Beauchamp in Vox, that letting an unstable executive have his way can court unacceptable risks like nuclear war on the Korean Peninsula, lets say.
Surely, wrote Quin Hillyer for the Washington Examiner, if a president rashly orders the assassination of foreign heads of state (contradicting federal law) or, Lord forbid, a tactical nuclear strike without ample justification, all Americans would want senior officials to slow things down rather than immediately implement those orders. One might say the same of Trumps obvious impulses toward politicizing his own Justice Department, firing Bob Mueller, and more.
The fact that I found both sets of essays compelling suggests that their arguments can be harmonized and I think they can, to some extent.
One might say that insofar as the officials resisting Trump are trying to prevent his temperamental unfitness from leading to some mass-casualty disaster or moral infamy, they are doing the country a great service. But insofar as they are just trying to prevent him implementing possibly misguided populist ideas, they are being presumptuously anti-democratic and should resign instead.
The trouble is that there is obviously a gray area between these two categories. And its in the nature of ideology to convince people that only their preferred policy ideas stand between the country and disaster.
So, for instance, in Bob Woodwards account of White House maneuvers, the example of James Mattis slow-walking a fleeting presidential desire to decapitate the Assad regime strikes me as the admirable sort of internal resistance.
But then the example of Gary Cohn stealing a letter off Trumps desk to prevent him from dissolving the U.S.-South Korean trade compact seems closer to an example of the anti-democratic vice because after all, Trump campaigned on renegotiating trade deals, didnt he? And yet Im sure Cohn justified himself, imagining the unraveling of the peninsular security arrangement and, eventually, a horrifying war.
Russia policy presents a similar gray area. Our nuclear arsenals and security commitments make it an area of existential danger where ignorance and rashness need to be restrained. But at the same time Trump explicitly campaigned on a Russian rapprochement so should we really cheer foreign policy hands who boast about frustrating that promise? But, on the other hand, Trumps personal behavior around Putin is, lets be frank, super weird, in ways that make internal resistance more defensible.
Such uncertainty means that sustaining the combination that Ive suggested yes to prudent resistance to rash behavior, no to ideological resistance to populist policy would require constant self-scrutiny among the people trying to manage this presidency from within.
And the most troubling thing about the anonymous op-ed apart from the dubious judgment that inspired its writing is that the author doesnt seem to recognize this.
An internal resistance that conflates those two missions may prevent certain disasters; let us hope it does. But it will not save the country or its party from populism; it will only make the next surge that much stronger, and ease the next Donald Trumps ascent.
The federal governments attempts to circumvent a court settlement governing the treatment of immigrant children in detention would, if successful, serve two purposes for the administration.
It would give cover because with hundreds of children still in detention and not reunited with their parents the administration has proven itself incompetent in reuniting all the children separated from parents as part of its zero-tolerance policies in a timely and humane manner. And it would allow the administration to continue to use detained children as pawns to punish asylum seekers from coming here in the first place.
The changes would end key portions of the Flores Settlement, a consent decree that has determined how the federal government has treated migrant children since 1997. That agreement has said that children must be held in the least restrictive environments as possible and that they not be held longer than 20 days. The changes would also limit to which relatives children are released.
The administration seeks a change that will allow it to hold children and their parents until their cases have been adjudicated. And this means the need for more detention facilities for unaccompanied children and for families.
The administration says its proposed changes which must undergo a 60-day public comment period will retain portions of the settlement that govern how humanely the children are treated. But it fails to recognize that detention with or without parents is itself a punitive measure with children whose brains are still forming. The aim is really to deter adults who come with their children.
There is no doubt that the administration is empowered to change the rules, but how and why will surely land the federal government back in court. Perhaps even into the Supreme Court.
Our fear is that, meanwhile, the administration will indefinitely detain children with or without parents to send a message to asylum seekers, who have every right to walk up to the U.S. border and ask for refuge. The administration says it fears that released families and children will not return for adjudication, but there are other means to ensure return.
The administration, after an outcry, had to pull back from its policy of outright separation of children from parents. Wed prefer it now spend its time adhering to asylum policies and reuniting children still separated from parents.
This regimen of punishment will not work and must stop.
I sit here wondering what have we really done in the 17 years since the tragedy on Sept. 11, 2001?
We went to war in Afghanistan then escalated to a second front in Iraq. We have killed radicalized Muslim soldiers and civilians and bombed their mud huts, but the extremists still exist. To date over 6,000 U.S. soldiers have lost their lives and over 52,000 U.S. soldiers have been injured. It has also cost you and me, the United States taxpayer over $7.6 trillion in defense and homeland security costs. And yet, the war(s) continue.
For the blood spilled and the money spent, what do we have to show for it? We still have soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as other Middle Eastern and African countries. For what? Is there actually a commitment to conquer the enemy as we did in World War II after Japans surprise attack on Pearl Harbor? What is our end game and what are the indicators that we have won the war and that our troops can come home? Or, are we to be content while our war makers continue to spill American blood and spend American money on Middle Eastern sand?
I welcome any of our D.C. lawmaker elites, executive branch gurus, and Pentagon prowlers to answer the questions I pose. If we dont have a good reason to be there now, why are we still there? If we dont have an absolute commitment to vanquish our enemy like we did in World War II, we should not have committed our troops overseas in the first place.
David Gay, Alamo Heights
Real proof
Re: In cahoots with Cruz? Your Turn, Sept. 9:
The writer thinks that the Express-News is favoring Ted Cruz over Beto ORourke because it published an article about ORourkes run-ins with the law years ago.
He then challenges the paper to publish a side-by-side list of each candidates stand on the issues theyre campaigning on to prove that they arent biased toward Cruz.
Were the Express-News do that, it would show for sure that they were in the tank for Cruz such a comparison would immediately send ORourkes campaign down in flames with the people of Texas!
AL Koppen, Fair Oaks Ranch
No free speech
Two things happened recently that gives a calibration point on President Donald Trump and his followers.
First, a senior official in the White House wrote a derogatory op-ed in the New York Times. He failed to sign it, but the Times published it anyway. The president went ballistic and urged the attorney general to find out who wrote it so he could be fired , or as he intimated, tried for treason.
Second, a young high schooler and his two buddies in Billings, Montana went to a Trump rally to be able to see the president firsthand. The young man was in the group situated immediately behind the president while the cameras ran. The kids facial expressions denoted less than approval of what was said. Soon, on live TV, a lady dressed in black eased into the group and removed the boy.
Apparently, free speech is not allowed in Trump circles. Get the man a copy of the Constitution and show him the First Amendment. His attitude displays a threat to our democratic republic.
Stan Grayson
Violence already
The president is predicting violence if the midterm elections go badly for him. Ive been sensing violence for two years; ever since he did that ugly imitation of a handicapped reporter; ever since he made that clip of himself pummeling a figure marked CNN; and Ill never forget his comment, punch that guy in the face, Ill pay the damages; and ever since he bragged about being able to grope women anytime he wanted to. And no one cared!
A Trumpian in Florida just won a primary and is now running against a black opponent. The Trumpian candidate made a comment that we shouldnt monkey this up. Forgive me if I assume that this is a deliberate act of violence.
Now the president says he is coming to Texas to campaign for another Trumpian. That means two hours of violent insults. No ideas, no lifting thoughts, just violent insults.
No, Mr. President, your candidacy and presidency have always been about violence. Mr. President, read the last chapter of Sen. John McCains book The Restless Wave. The chapter is called Regular Order. I realize that the term translates to you as violence but our founders called it democracy.
Bobby Riley
A treasure
Re: S.A. must empower families with more school options, Another View by Quincy Boyd, Sept. 9:
Ms. Boyd is a community treasure. She is following her passion. She uses her time, talents, treasure, training and thoughts to increase school choice options for families in San Antonio. Last October, she spent time with Top Scholars at Sam Houston High. Students were able to gain insights from her about the admissions process at Americas most selective colleges and universities. Today, the three seniors in the group she spoke to are freshmen at the University of Notre Dame, Wellesley College, and Austin College. These are great postsecondary options available to emerging leaders from low-income families.
Community investment is a key ingredient in responding to three questions she raises. Her daughters will likely attend a high school that prepares them for college. The girls will have a chance to demonstrate excellence in rigorous academic classes. They will have opportunities to lead, to create, to collaborate and to build their self-confidence. Ms. Boyd wants (and works so that) other families have those same opportunities.
Knowing that these values matter to parents throughout San Antonio, the opportunity exists to transform existing high schools to match these demands. Sam Houston High quietly for the moment is participating in this transformation. The day is coming when families on waiting lists will have the option of confidently enrolling their children in the Pride of the Eastside.
Jason D. Mims, Lt. Col., ret., U.S Army
As the outer bands of tropical storm Florence reach the outer banks of southeastern North Carolina, some coastal areas began to see big waves, flooding and winds up to 73 mph.
Many shared images of the storm's opening act in social media.
"The surf has breached the dunes on Ocean View Drive in Avon and Florence is just getting started," Jeff Hampton wrote on Twitter Thursday morning. Hampton also shared an image of the water overwhelming the road in the North Carolina beach town.
"Hurricane Florence already playing a big factor in the storm surge at North Topsail Beach," wrote Zach Lowder who shared an image from the North Carolina beach.
ALSO: Hurricane Florence's menacing eye churns in satellite imagery: 'Wow, looks totally angry'
While the hurricane has been downgraded to a Category 2 storm, the National Weather Service warns Florence is a monstrous storm with an area of high winds up to 80 mph stretching across more than 325 miles.
It's expected to hover over North Carolina and South Carolina and deliver torrential downpours of rain through at least Saturday.
ALSO: Hurricane Florence: These live webcams offer safe storm watching
The dangerous storm surge coupled with a high tide will cause dry areas near the coast to flood by rising waters moving inland from the shoreline.
Some areas could see a surge up to 13 feet above ground level.
In a dramatic U-turn the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) has banned the MDCs 19th anniversary and Nelson Chamisas inauguration as Peoples President of Zimbabwe that was slated for the 15th of September Saturday at Gwanzura.
On Monday, the police had given the greenlight to the opposition party to hold its 19th anniversary celebrations.
The ban follows a cholera outbreak which has so far claimed 21 lives with health officials at Glenview and Budirio clinics saying cholera cases have clocked 3000.
MDC spokesperson Jacob Mafume described the ban as a political move, informed by Zanu PFs fear of the citizens.
These illegal attempts by ZRP to cancel events on health grounds are an excuse for ZANU PFs fear of citizens. They clearly show that President Mnangagwa knows that he lost the election and is operating this country on the bases of martial law and perpetual state of emergency to protect himself from democracy, he said.
Mafume invalidated the ban on the back of cholera saying the epidemic is contained in specific areas.
The statement used Cholera as an excuse, although it is clear that this epidemic is currently limited to and contained within specific areas of Harare.
However, ZRP Senior Assistant Commissioner Charimba said the police has turned the red light on public gatherings to help in alleviating the spread of cholera which has reached alarming levels in the low density suburbs.
The ZRP wishes to inform members of the public that in light of the declaration of the state of emergency, the police in Harare will not allow any public gatherings.
The ZRP is appealing to the members of the public to take heed of this warning and corporate as this will assist in alleviating the continuous spread of cholera, said Charamba.
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by Melani Manel Perera
Exports are up by 29.5 per cent, imports by 13.5 per cent. Europe offers many opportunities for trade. For the president of the Sri Lanka-Italy Business Council, We have many investment opportunities in Europe and have to identify the avenues of renewable energy, E-commerce, medical tourism, research and development, and Technology.
Colombo (AsiaNews) The Sri Lanka-Italy Business Council (SLIBC) recently held its 19th annual general meeting in the Sri Lankan capital of Colombo. In his address, Italys ambassador to Sri Lanka, Paolo Andrea Bartorelli said that bilateral trade between the two countries has never been so good.
Italys chief diplomat in the island nation noted that the local economy was growing rapidly and that foreign investment, including from Italy, had increased significantly, creating new business opportunities.
Mr Bartorelli said that the Italian Embassy is fully behind cooperation and stronger bilateral relations. At the same time, he noted that A large number of Sri Lankans were living in Italy and this was a fine testimony to strengthen the relationship between the two nations.
Sri Lankans constitute the 12th largest non-EU community in Italy. According to the annual report on migration by the Italian Ministry of Labor and Social Policy, Sri Lankans in Italy numbered 109,968, 54 per cent of them men.
Most lived in the regions of Lombardy (30.7 per cent), Campania (14.4 per cent) and Veneto (12.2 per cent), working mostly in various services to the public (54.8 per cent) as well as hotels and restaurants (14.7 per cent).
According to Bartorelli, the growing flow of tourists between the two countries is also a sign of the close relationship between them. The number of Italians visiting Sri Lanka rose from 24,293 in 2016 to 31,428 in 2017.
In that same period, exports increased by 29.5 per cent, while imports grew by 13.5 per cent. In 2017 bilateral trade was positive: 34,275 million rupees (US$ 280,000).
Former SLIBC president Rajah Abeysinghe highlighted the growing trade but admitted that in 2017 investor and consumer confidence declined because of poor weather conditions.
Still, looking at the bright side, the SLIBCs current president, Sonali Liyanamanna, said, We have many investment opportunities in Europe and have to identify the avenues of renewable energy, E-commerce, medical tourism, research and development, and Technology.
Former cabinet minister, Professor Jonathan Moyo has continued his rant against President Emmerson Mnangagwa charging that he is an illegitimate leader who gained power through the assistance of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC), the army and the Constitutional Court. Said Moyo,
WHEN:
1. The Army steals the election for you;
2. #ZEC declares you winner of the
stolen poll with three different unverified results;
3. The ConCourt endorses #ZECs declaration of your known unknown result;
4. Your party performs far better than you:
YOU ARE ILLEGITIMATE!
Early this week, Jonathan Moyo released a statement trashing former First Lady, Grace Mugabe for her remarks praising Mnangagwa saying she is an inexperienced politician.
Professor has never hidden his disapproval of Mnangagwa even before the military coup that displaced former President Robert Mugabe from power.
Just before elections, he endorsed opposition presidential candidate, Nelson Chamisa coining a campaign against Mnangagwa called #LetsKwekweHim
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EcoCash has warned its agents to stop charging clients extra money during the processing of transactions.
In a statement released on its Twitter account, EcoCash warned agents against charging customers extra money for cash out services.
Do not be caught charging customers extra to Cash Out. It is prohibited and attracts serious penalties, reads part of the statement.
In October last year, former Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa urged the public to report overcharging agents to the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) or Econet.
The practice of charging extra to cash out started when cash shortages worsened.
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- President Muhammadu Buhari has been urged to name the weak and selfish politicians that dumped APC
- Sen Rabiu Kwankwaso, former Kano state governor who challenged the president to name the politicians recently defected from the ruling patry
- The president had alleged that former members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) who defected are weak and selfish politicians
Sen Rabiu Kwankwaso urged President Muhammadu Buhari to name the weak and selfish politicians that dumped the All Progressives Congress (APC).
The former Kano state governor and presidential aspirant on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) said this while reacting to Buhari's speech in which said the president said former members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) who defected are weak and selfish politicians.
Buhari was recently quoted as saying that: The weakest whose sense of expectation do not align with our vision have exited our party. We now have a party of strong and patriotic people who are ready to work for a strong Nigeria.
Vanguard reports that Kwankwasos spokesperson Hajia Binta Spikin challenged the president to state plainly the names of defectors he was referring to.
The president should have come plain so that we would know who exactly he was referring to. But my leader and the Rabiu Kwankwaso that I know is not weak because his achievements are there to speak for him, she declared.
READ ALSO: Ambode reportedly rallies Abuja for support after rejection by party leaders
Speaking on the achievement of his her principal, she said: What he has been able to achieve in Kano in four years alone defines him as a strong, visionary, compassionate leader who knows what he wants and how to get it.
He is the only leader that I know who has been able to put Kano on a sound footing and erect infrastructure projects over 6,000 of them between 2011 and 2015; they are there for you to touch, feel and use. A weak person cannot achieve that, she said.
He cannot be selfish too because he remains the only governor of Kano who did not collect the security vote. The mans cult-like followership is because he is strong and people know that he is not selfish, and he can deliver, she explained.
Legit.ng had reported that President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday, September 11, received expression of interest and nomination forms and reiterated his administrations determination to continue on the path of building a strong, virile and corrupt-free Nigeria.
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The president spoke after receiving the forms bought for him by the Nigeria Consolidation Ambassador Network (NCAN), at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
He observed that the All Progressives Congress (APC) would now be stronger as the weakest politicians had left the party.
News Nigeria Today: Will Senators, Lawmakers Defection from APC Change Power in 2019? | Legit.ng TV:
Source: Legit
- Buhari's administration is committed to new minimum wage, the presidency has said
- Presidential aide, Ita Enang, said this is why a committee was set up to address the issue
- He said the administration was also creating self-employment opportunities
The presidency has reassured workers of the commitment of President Muhammadu Buharis administration to an increase in the minimum wage.
Senator Ita Enang, the senior special assistant to the president on National Assembly matters (Senate), gave the assurance on the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) Forum in Abuja.
Enang spoke at the backdrop of alleged lack of commitment by the federal government to an upward review of the minimum wage, which has been N18,000 for over eight years.
He said: I want to assure you that the Buhari-led administration is very honest and committed to reviewing the salaries of workers. If he did not, he would not have set up a committee on minimum wage headed by a retired Head of the Civil Service of the Federation.
This is a sign of commitment, and this retired HoS is not an off-the-mill retired Head of the Civil Service of the Federation; the minister of labour is part of it. So, it shows the level of commitment, and it is not a committee of the Federal Executive Council; it is a presidential committee set up and inaugurated by the president.
READ ALSO: 2019: Ambode reportedly rallies Abuja for support after rejection by party leaders
The tripartite National Minimum Wage Committee, made up of 29 members drawn from organised labour, the federal and state governments, was inaugurated in May, 2017. Although the committee was given until September 1 to submit its report, it could not meet the deadline due to disagreement over the minimum wage figure.
On August 21, the Minister of Labour and Employment Chris Ngige blamed the delay on the inability of state governors to come up with an agreed figure.
Ngige, however, stated that the federal government through its Economic Management Team, was working with the governors to find a common ground. Until then, the minister said he could not tell when the new minimum wage would be implemented.
On Monday, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) through its president, Ayuba Wabba, said the government was frustrating the process. Wabba stated that the congress had summoned a meeting of its organs for next week to report the federal government and decide on the next line of action.
Enang also called on labour leaders to consider unemployed Nigerians in its demand for salary increment.
So, when we are talking about increase in salaries, I agree to it, but I think we should also factor along creating employment for those who are yet to have," he said.
He said that the federal government was already working in that direction by encouraging its agencies and parastatals to employ young and qualified Nigerians.
Enang stated that the government was also creating self-employment opportunities for enterprising youths through its social investment programmes. He added that the government was equally creating enabling environment in the agricultural and technological sectors for young Nigerians.
Legit.ng had reported that Comrade Ayuba Wabba, the president of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), has said that the national minimum wage committee was yet to submit its report to the president because it was yet to agree on a figure.
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Wabba also added that the failure of the federal government to come up with a figure to be agreed upon contributed to the delay of the new minimum wage.
Legit.ng gathered that Wabba in an interview said that while the committee has concluded its deliberation, the minister of labour, Senator Chris Ngige, told the committee that the federal government needed to consult before coming up with its own figure, a position he said negates the earlier agreement to work within its timeline.
Who should get higher salary - doctors or teachers? - on Legit.ng TV
Source: Legit.ng
- A PDP presidential aspirant, Rabiu Kwankwaso, has lambasted APC-led government
- He said that APC's change has brought hunger, unemployment to Nigerians
- The former governor of Kano said that he left the party for PDP when he realised that the much anticipated change by APC brought untold hardship to Nigerians
Former Kano state governor and presidential aspirant under the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso has disclosed that the change he and others who followed and supported President Muhammed Buhari envisaged in 2015 was the greatest mistake made.
New Telegraph reports that he said on Wednesday, September 12, while addressing the Niger state PDP faithful and supporters at the party state secretariat in Minna that the much talked about change only brought hunger, killings and unemployment.
READ ALSO: Vote buying: Youre suffering from multiple personality syndrome - Jonathan tells Oshiomhole
Legit.ng gathered that he said he defected to PDP when he realised that the much anticipated change by APC brought untold hardship to Nigerians.
He said: The 2015 change was a very big mistake; we sought for a change in 2015 and along the line, I realised the change only brought about more killings, hunger, underdevelopment, poverty and unemployment.
I will not support or remain in that type of change, that is why I am back to the PDP to change the change that has brought untold hardship on Nigerians.
Speaking on clamour for consensus by the party national executives, Kwankwaso said that he would not ascend to it but that whoever emerges after the primaries would get maximum support.
He further urged Nigerians to embrace and open their doors wide for the Kwankwasiya's group, adding that we are known for integrity and productivity.
Earlier, the former Governor of Kano state was in a closed door meeting with former Nigeria Military President, General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida.
The presidential aspirant who was heralded by a mammoth crowd adorned with the popular Kwankwansiya- red cap in Minna, the Niger state capital.
Kwankwaso who arrived Minna at about 1:10pm and followed by okada and Keke riders, left 3pm.
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Meanwhile, Legit.ng had previously reported that supporters of Senator Rabiu Musa Kwankwasos political group, Kwankwansiyya Movement in Nasarawa state, on Wednesday, August 8, joined their leader by dumping the APC for the PDP.
The supporters of Kwankwaso stormed the state secretariat of the PDP and declared their defection from the APC with symbolic burning of brooms.
The Kwankwassiya group in the state was led by Architect Aminu Dabo, who represented Senator Kwankwaso. Dabo said the return of Kwankwaso to the PDP was caused by political injustice and humiliation by fellow citizens.
News Nigeria Today: Who is Nigerias Smartest Politician? | - on Legit.ng TV
Source: Legit
- An Abuja court has mandated WAEC to produce ledger of Senator Ademola Adeleke's result
- Adeleke is PDP governorship candidate for September 22 election in Osun state
- The court also mandated WAEC to either confirm or deny Adeleke's result which he sat for in 1981
A Federal High Court sitting in Abuja has given an order mandating the West African Examination Council (WAEC), through its director general or any other designated officer of the council to depose to an affidavit over controversy surrounding O'level result of Senator Ademola Adeleke
Nigerian Tribune reports that the court asked WAEC to either confirm or deny that Adeleke who is the flagbearer of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the forthcoming gubernatorial election in Osun state, with candidate number 19645/149, sat for the Senior Secondary School Certificate Examination (SSCE) conducted by the council at Ede Muslim High School, Osun state in May/June 1981, within five days of being served the order.
READ ALSO: Policeman seen with a bottle of beer while in uniform arrested
Legit.ng gathered that the court also gave an order compelling WAEC through any of its any designated officers, to produce the ledger containing the results of all candidates that sat for the Senior Secondary School Certificate Examination conducted by the council at Ede Muslim High School, Osun state in May/June 1981, within five days of being served the order.
The court gave the order while ruling on an application filed by the duo of Wahab Adekunle Raheem and Adam Omosalewa Habeeb against Senator Ademola Nurudeen Adeleke and two others.
It was gathered that those joined as defendants in the suit are the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
The court furthr ordered WAEC to serve on all parties in the suit, the copies of the filed affidavit and ledger within five working days of filing same before the court.
The court also made an order abridging the time within which the defendants may enter an appearance and file processes to five days from the day of the service of the originating summons and also granted leave to the defendants to serve Senator Adeleke all originating summons and subsequent processes in the suit by substituted means by serving them on any officer or clerk at the office of the clerk of the Senate of the federal republic of Nigeria.
The court, however, refused to grant the order of Interim injunction restraining INEC from recognizing Senator Adeleke as PDPs candidate for the September 22 election in Osun state pending the hearing of the motion or retraining him from parading himself as the PDP candidate in the forthcoming election.
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Meanwhile, Legit.ng had previously reported that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) gubernatorial candidate for the Osun state election, Senator Ademola Adeleke and his rival in the last party's primary, Akin Ogunbiyi, reconciled and agreed to work together for the success of the party in the coming election.
It was reported that this was made possible by the PDP national campaign council for the Osun state gubernatorial election led by Senate president, Bukola Saraki, who announced the breakthrough in Abuja on Wednesday, September 5.
Were Ekiti Residents Paid to Vote? | - on Legit.ng TV
Source: Legit
- President Muhammadu Buhari is reportedly meeting with the APC national leader, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, over Governor Ambode's re-election controversy
- Tinubu is said to be against Ambode's re-election bid in 2019
- It was earlier reported that the governor had rallied Abuja for support after his rejection by party leaders in Lagos
President Muhammadu Buhari is currently in a closed door meeting with Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, a national leader of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) over the fate of Governor Akinwunmi Ambode of Lagos state who is seeking a second term in office.
Legit.ng gathered that a source in the presidency who spoke with Daily Independent said he is hopeful that the crisis between Tinubu and his estranged godson would be amicably resolved after the meeting with the president.
READ ALSO: Just in: IGP's anti-kidnapping unit rescues victim after his abductors demanded N20 million in Rivers
Meanwhile, Legit.ng had earlier reported that following his alleged rejection by the powers that be in Lagos state, Governor Akinwunmi Ambode, reportedly took new steps that could see him winning and retaining his position during the 2019 election.
It was reported that Ambode, who recently bought the nomination form of the All Progressives Congress (APC), has reached out to the presidency to intervene in the alleged friction between him and Asiwaju Bola Tinubu.
The report added that the governor was making the move as he battles to neutralize the Mandate Group, a political machine of his godfather.
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Ambode is currently battling for reelection against two powerful aspirants, Obafemi Hamzat, believed to have the support of some politicians from Abuja, and Babajide Sanwo-Olu, one of the appointees of the governor, who is said to have the backing of Tinubu and his Mandate Group.
Senator Kwankwaso Rabiu announces his Presidential Bid (Election 2019) | - on Legit.ng TV
Source: Legit
- Nigerian troops engaged Boko Haram terrorists in a gunfight in Borno
- The terrorists tried to attack a military formation
- The attack was however repelled by gallant soldiers
Damasak local government area of Borno state was under crossfire between Nigerian soldiers and Boko Haram fighters.
A competent military source told NAN that the military and the terrorists engaged in a heavy gun battle. He said that the insurgents stormed the town to attack a military formation in the evening but they met stiff resistance from troops.
Reacting, Brig.-Gen. Texas Chukwu, who confirmed the attack to NAN through text message, said the troops were dealing with the terrorists.
READ ALSO: Buhari committed to increasing minimum wage - Presidency
Chukwu said: "Troops of 145 Bn in Damasak, Borno State are engaging Boko Haram Terrorists who came to attack their location at about 6 p.m. this evening. Fierce battle is on going right now. The troops are dealing with the terrorists."
Meanwhile, in response to fresh attacks launched on troops bases by Boko Haram insurgents who aim to claim Nigerian territories, Chief of Army Staff (COAS) Lieutenant General Tukur Buratai has relocated the operational headquarters of Army Headquarters to Gudumbali in Guzamala local government area of Borno state, Vanguard reports.
A source said the Army chief who aims to get first-hand information of happenings in the theater of operations is visiting all formations, units and forward operations bases and holding durbars (meetings) with troops excluding their Commanders to know if there are challenges.
The idea is to get first-hand information from them about their welfare and other matters," a source said. This is a strategy employed by Buratai described as Rapid Fire Unscheduled Visit which means formations and units are not given prior signals that the COAS is visiting, hence troops in the region are red alert.
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The same source said: As part of confidence building measures, Lt. General Buratai is also having series of meetings with the locals and village heads of the several locations he is visiting and it is also aimed at finally breaking the nerve of Boko Haram.
He stopped in every village and assured the inhabitants of their safety. In all the units visited he personally instructed the armorers to open the arms store to enable him physically inspect the weapons including support weapons in their inventories.
This is to ascertain that they were very well equipped. Most of the weapons were also tested for serviceability. The unscheduled visits to the North East is to operational readiness of troops."
Boko Haram Kidnappings: Dapchi Protests Abduction of Their Daughters by Boko Haram - On Legit.ng TV
Source: Legit.ng
- The APC has described Governor Fayoses letter to the EFCC as diversionary
- The party claimed the Ekiti governor was planning to flee the country
- It accused the governor of embezzling public fund
The All Progressives Congress (APC) in Ekiti on Wednesday, September 12, described as suspicious and diversionary the offer by the outgoing governor, Ayodele Fayose, to voluntarily surrender himself to the EFCC on the day he would be vacating office.
The APC insisted that the outgoing governor was planning to seek safe landing to enable him run away from the country.
The party, through its publicity secretary, Taiwo Olatunbosun, questioned the rationale behind Fayoses request for the approval of N10 billion extra budget by the state House of Assembly less than one month to the expiration of his tenure.
READ ALSO: Buhari committed to increasing minimum wage - Presidency
This will certainly be at the expense of the welfare of the pensioners and workers who he will be abandoning in a state of penury and frustration due to months of unpaid salaries. Fayose and his cronies are recklessly looting the state treasury and they are smiling home with billions of Naira at the expense of Ekiti tax payers," the party said.
The party, which described Fayoses readiness to appear before the EFCC as a welcome development, however, warned that this may be a decoy "knowing Fayose is full of pranks and capable of playing tricks on the EFCC and other security agencies."
"The letter to the EFCC can be used by Fayose as a distraction and diversionary tactic to pave way for his escape from the country, thereby running away from justice. Fayoses promise to appear before the anti-graft agency on the handover day sounds too good to be true and highly suspicious
We therefore recommend that he be put under serious close surveillance since he is morally and duty bound to account for many of his recklessly corrupt practices that have made him billions of state money richer than the state itself.
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"No matter how smart Fayose thinks he is and no matter how fast he thinks he can run, the long arm of the law must catch up with him to refund our collective wealth and money for the benefit of all in our dear state, Ekiti," the party said.
Legit.ng had reported that Governor Ayodele Fayose has ordered the Ekiti House of Assembly to approve a supplementary Appropriation Bill of about N10 billion, a month to his handover.
This order has reportedly caused tension among the lawmakers, who allegedly described the bill as 'ridiculous
Governor Fayose Warns Nigerian Youths Ahead of 2019, Tells Them What to Do | Legit.ng TV
Source: Legit
- Governor Ambode reportedly sent associates to meet with APC national leader Asiwaju Bola Tinubu
- The APC leader reportedly made it clear that he could not ask any aspirant to step down for Ambode
- He said the party has made things easier for all aspirants to canvass votes directly from party members through a direct primary election
As report of a rift between Governor Akinwunmi Ambode and Asiwaju Bola Tinubu continues to grow, the national leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has reportedly given the nod for all aspirants to participate in the Lagos primary election.
Governor Ambode has declared his intention to run for a second term as governor of the state but faces competition from two formidable aspirants, Femi Hamzat and Babajide Sanwo-Olu.
Daily Sun reports that Ambode had deployed friends and associates to meet with Tinubu but the latter reportedly said he could not ask any aspirant to step down for him.
The source said: Asiwaju has made it clear to all of them (Ambodes emissaries) that hes a national leader and a father figure to all, he said theres no way he can ask other aspirants to step down for the governor when the party has made things easier for all to canvass votes directly from party members who will in turn decide who their candidate will be in a direct primary election.
READ ALSO: Dogara reportedly picks up PDP nomination form
Sanwo-Olu who seems to be the governors biggest competitor is reportedly bolstered by the support he has received.
He said: The truth is that I not in Ambodes shoes right now and what has been generated is a reflection of the fact that people have come to understand and know the kind of person that I am.
A whole lot of us had to redefine the Lagos project. This is not the forum where I will begin to roll out to you the very many firsts that people think were done by some other individuals, but there were other people behind them that brought out those ideas, policies and implementation plan.
There are so many firsts that I can begin to attribute to myself in the 11 years that I have had to do in the public service. Like I said, I have served three different governors and in three different ministries, served twice in the governors office, head the biggest agency of government.
So, the blueprint that we have been looking at since 1999 was put together by some of us. We are all friends, but it is politics.
Meanwhile, Legit.ng had earlier reported that following his alleged rejection by the powers that be in Lagos state, Governor Akinwunmi Ambode, reportedly took new steps that could see him winning and retaining his position during the 2019 election.
It was reported that Ambode, who recently bought the nomination form of the All Progressives Congress (APC), has reached out to the presidency to intervene in the alleged friction between him and Asiwaju Bola Tinubu.
The report added that the governor was making the move as he battles to neutralise the Mandate Group, a political machine of his godfather.
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Ambode is currently battling for reelection against two powerful aspirants, Obafemi Hamzat, believed to have the support of some politicians from Abuja, and Babajide Sanwo-Olu, one of the appointees of the governor, who is said to have the backing of Tinubu and his Mandate Group.
Senator Kwankwaso Rabiu announces his Presidential Bid (Election 2019) | - on Legit.ng TV
Source: Legit
by Sumon Corraya
Members had been threatened for some time by a local Muslim who wanted to take over land and houses. The women of the family were harassed by the attackers. The daughters of the Catholic are afraid to leave the house and are not going to school.
Jessore (AsiaNews) - A Catholic family from Jessore, in the diocese of Khulna, lives in fear of death and of suffering violent attacks. For some time Solomon Das, a 43-year-old fisherman residing in the village of Gilapol, and his family have received threats and intimidation for their faith.
His property and those of other Christians are coveted by Tariqul Islam Milon, a local Muslim wants to take hold of land and houses. In the end he chose the use of force to achieve his goals and last Saturday [September 8] sent a handful of thugs who devastated Solomon's home. Now the Catholic and his family members do not leave home for fear of new violence and his daughters are missing their classes in high school and university.
Solomon lives near the parish of Shimulia. He reports: "The Muslim had long tried to extort the house. I feel helpless. We are a humble family, we do not have big assets. Now I cannot go out to go to work ". "If I do not work - he adds desperately how will my family eat? My daughters do not go to school because it's not safe for them. Also during the attack, the attackers harassed the women in my family. Then they threatened us not to tell the police anything. My wife and my daughters are still traumatized".
Even Ratan Das, the Catholics brother-in-law who lives in the same house, is afraid. "I received death threats on Facebook. My wife and I fear for our life".
In the raid, the criminals devastated the building and destroyed the furniture. Then they stole the money, some gold jewelry and three cell phones. They desecrated the religious statues in the house and the image of Jesus. The same evening Solomon filed a complaint against 17 people. The next day the police arrested eight, but on Monday [September 10] they released them on bail. From there the death threats began.
Fr Dominic K. Halder, parish priest of the Catholic Church in Shimulia, is concerned about what happened. He asks for help for the persecuted faithful and for the police to do justice. He also sent a group to ascertain the conditions under which Catholics live.
- Governor Nyesom Wike has vowed to fight the EFCC with everything within the law
- The governor accused the EFCC of disrespecting the rule of law
- He added that his government cannot be cowed by what he described as the antics of the EFCC
Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers of state has vowed to fight what he desribed as the illegal actions of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). The governor said this after the anti-graft agency declared four of his officials wanted for alleged fraud.
The governor said he would counter the anti-graft agency with everything within the law and accused the EFCC of breaking the rule of law, Channels TV reports.
In a statement on Thursday, September 13, signed by the special assistant to the Rivers atate governor on electronic media, Simeon Nwakaudu, Wike said he cannot distract us by their political gimmicks and acts of illegality of the opposition party, APC, and the antigraft agency, EFCC.
READ ALSO: Dogara reportedly picks up PDP nomination form
He said: The EFCC can go ahead to declare the Rivers state governor wanted, but it must realise that nobody in the state will be intimidated by their display of impunity and disrespect for the rule of law.
We cannot be cowed by the antics of the EFCC. The Rivers state government remains resolute that it will fight the illegal actions of the EFCC within the ambit of the law.
They cannot distract us by their political gimmicks and acts of illegality. We are focused on the rule of law and we shall fight this reign of impunity within the ambits of the constitution."
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Legit.ng earlier reported that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) declared four officials of the Rivers state government wanted for alleged criminal conspiracy, laundering and misappropriation of N117 billion public fund and abuse of office.
The anti-graft agency on Wednesday, September 12, shared the pictures and names of the wanted Rivers state officials on its Facebook page.
The EFCC stage a walk against corruption - Legit.ng TV
Source: Legit.ng
- The EFCC has handed over some houses seized from some alleged corrupt Nigerians to government agencies
- The commission said the house will be used by the government
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) said it has handed over magnificent houses seized from some alleged corrupt Nigerians to government agencies.
The chairman if the EFCC, Ibrahim Magu, while speaking with journalists in Abuja on Wednesday, September 12, said the houses recovered from alleged looters have been handed over to government agencies for use.
Magu said some of the agencies which received the properties included: Voice of Nigeria, Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate, Presidential Initiative on the northeast and Voluntary Asset and Income Declaration Scheme.
READ ALSO: Social media heats up as Ezekwesili hints challenging Buhari in 2019 presidential election
In an effort to maximise and utilise some of the forfeited properties recovered by the commission, numerous government agencies have been allocated properties to be used as offices.
These magnificent properties are currently housing institutions such as VAIDS office under the ministry of finance, a unit from the defence headquarters, Voice of Nigeria, PINE and also PTAD. This, in the long run, will drastically reduce the cost of rent by institutions," Magu said.
The EFCC's chairman added that the commission had also recovered N35 billion and N4 billion for the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) and the Asset Management Company of Nigeria, respectively.
READ ALSO: Dogara reportedly picks up PDP nomination form
Tax liabilities of other institutions running into billions of naira have also been identified and the companies have agreed to pay. Between January and August 2018, the commission has secured 158 convictions and still counting while within the same period, we have recovered N106,516,222; $1,635,925; 629,193 and 25, 575," the EFCC scribe said.
Punch reports that one of the properties, a mansion located at 6, Ogun River Crescent, Maitama, had allegedly belonged to a former Chief of Defence Staff, Air Chief Marshal Alex Badeh (retd.), who is standing trial for alleged N3 billion fraud.
Another seized property, Briffina Hotel, Garki Area 1, was once owned by Dr Sani Teidi, a former director of Pension Accounts, Office of the Head of Civil Service of the Federation, who is standing trial before Justice Gabriel Kolawole of the Federal High Court, Abuja, for alleged N18.3 billion fraud.
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Meanwhile, Legit.ng previously reported that the EFCC had on Wednesday, September 12, disclosed that bank accounts will be monitored for suspicious transactions and warned banks to desist from being collaborators with shady politicians.
The commission noted that it would partner with the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to monitor campaign spending ahead of the 2019 general elections.
Legit.ng gathered Ibrahim Magu, the acting chairman of the commission, noted that the ambition is aimed at addressing the rising cases of vote-buying and improving governance.
BUSTED: Professional Hacker Nabbed Over Fraudulent Purchase of N28million Porshe | Legit.ng TV
Source: Legit
Ahead of the coming Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) primaries, about five presidential aspirants have reportedly made a safety plan in case they fail to clinch the presidential ticket of the party in 2019 general elections.
These presidential aspirants, according to Daily Trust, have obtained nomination forms through proxies.
The PDP has fixed September 30 for primary elections into the Senate and House of Representatives and presidential primary for October 5 and 6.
The five presidential aspirants are:
READ ALSO: Mimiko declares for 2019 presidency
1. Governor Aminu Tambuwal
Should he fail in his bid to clinch the presidential ticket of the PDP, reports say Governor Aminu Tambuwal would simply go back home and take over the gubernatorial ticket from Alhaji Mannir Daniya, who emerged as consensus gubernatorial candidate of the PDP in Sokoto.
Daniya who was the immediate past commissioner for local government in Sokoto state, according to analyst is in the race to stand in for Tambuwal, who recently defected to the PDP.
These presidential aspirants have reportedly obtained nomination forms through proxies
Source: Original
2. Senate President Bukola Saraki
The news outlet reports that secretary to the Kwara state government, Isiaka Gold, who is from the same senatorial zone with Saraki might hold the ticket in confidence and will relinquish it if Saraki fails to get the presidential ticket.
The report stated further that no famous politician has shown interest in the Kwara Central senatorial seat currently occupied by Saraki.
3. Governor Dankwambo of Gombe
Though the state commissioner of special duties, Alhaji Usman Ribadu, has picked a nomination form for the Gombe-north senatorial district seat, sources claim that in the event that Governor Ibrahim Hassan Dankwambo failed to clinch the presidential ticket, Ribadu will step down and hand over his ticket to the governor.
Ribadu and Dankwambo came from the same Gombe-North senatorial zone.
4. Senator Rabiu Kwankwaso
In the case of Senator Kwankwaso, a source revelaed to Daily Trust that he was confident that the senator is planning to fix somebody to front for him in case he lost his presidential bid.
I can confidently tell you that Kwankwaso is planning to fix another person to front for him. So far he has purchased form for Alhaji Abdullahi Sani Rogo for Kano South and anointed another person who will buy the form for him like he did in 2015."
Recall that then governor Kwankwaso picked the ticket for the APC presidential primary while his personal assistant Alhaji Abba Yusuf held the Senate ticket for him.
And when Kwankwaso lost the presidential bid to APC presidential candidate Muhammadu Buhari, Yusuf, a former commissioner of works, handed the senatorial ticket over to him.
5. Senator David Mark
The political calculation of the Benue south senatorial district, a stronghold of ex-Senate president David Mark has changed following his decision to vie for the presidency.
Among those jostling to take over the baton in the Senate are Comrade Patrick Abba Moro, a former minister of interior under the President Goodluck Jonathans regime.
According to the news outlet, Moro is a henchman of the ex-Senate president who could do just anything for Mark, including surrendering his senatorial ticket to his principal to run for the senate election for the sixth time.
Meanwhile, Legit.ng had reported that the speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, reportedly picked up the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) nomination form.
It was reported that Dogara picked up the form on Wednesday, September 12.
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Although he has not officially left the All Progressives Congress (APC), there has been report that the speaker has been making moves to join the PDP.
Nigeria Latest News: Here's What Saraki and Tambuwal's Defection Means for the APC | Legit.ng TV
Source: Legit
- The APC in Plateau is in deep pain over the death of Emmanuel Nanle, who was the director of press affairs to Governor Simon Lalong
- The ruling party referred to Nanle's death as a colossal loss
- Latep Dabang, the state party chairman, in his condolence speech said that late Nanle was one of the strongholds of the APC- led administration in the state
The Plateau chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC), has described the death of Emmanuel Nanle, the director of press affairs to Governor Simon Lalong as a colossal loss, the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports.
READ ALSO: FACT CHECK: Is Nigerias unemployment rate at all-time high as claimed by Atiku?
Latep Dabang, the state party chairman, said this in a statement on Thursday, September 13, in Jos, adding that the party received the news with grave sadness and rude shock.
Dabang said that the deceased was one of the strongholds of the APC- led administration in the state, hence would be greatly missed.
The APC is saddened by the sudden demise of Mr Nanle. He died when he is most needed. He was indeed very key and played strategic role to the successes achieved by the present regime in the state.
As a party, we commiserate with the relations, friends, wife, the entire family and the government and people of the state over this painful loss. Our prayers and thoughts are with all at this dark moment, he said.
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NAN reports that Nanle was appointed director of press in 2015, a position he held until his demise on Tuesday. The director died in an Indian hospital after a brief illness.
Earlier, Legit.ng had reported that Nanle, the director of press and public affairs to the governor of Plateau state, Simon Lalong had passed on.
Legit.ng gathered that Nanle died in the early hours of Wednesday, September 12, in an Indian hospital.
While sources within the Plateau state's Government House claimed he died of stroke, others said he had been suffering from colon cancer and enlargement of the large intestines.
Nigeria Latest News: Herdsmen Have Destroyed my Farm - Nigerian Investor in Plateau | Legit.ng TV
Source: Legit.ng News
- Former president Olusegun Obasanjo lamented recent poverty index which ranked Nigeria as one of the poorest countries in the world
- Obasanjo wondered why Nigeria with about 180 million population would be ranked above India which has 1.3billion population
- The former president, however, noted that Nigeria doesnt deserve its current stage of economy
Former president Olusegun Obasanjo on Wednesday, September 12, lamented the recent characterization of Nigeria as a country where the bulk of the worlds poverty stricken population dwells.
Daily Trust reports that Obasanjo said the unpleasant status the country has found itself, cant be separated from the poor handling of the economy by current leaders.
Legit.ng gathered that the former president made this known while addressing the Lagos state of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) executive members who visited him in Abeokuta, Ogun state.
READ ALSO: Tinubu reportedly seals Ambodes fate
According to him, As you rightly said, this is the hard time economically for all. It is for all of us, except the very few. Is this what you (Nigerians) want to have for another four years?
PDP cannot do it alone, ADC cannot do it alone. It must be collective efforts to get the right leadership for the country. Recently, the country was ranked as the most poorest country in the world.
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India is with population of 1.3billiom and Nigeria is about 180million. Yet, we still have the poorest citizens in the world. Nigeria doesnt deserve this and this is the honest truth.
Meanwhile, Legit.ng had reported that a former vice president, Atiku Abubakar, explained that former president Obasanjo, questioned him for supporting the restructuring of Nigeria back to the time they were both in power.
Atiku made his known when Pan-Yoruba socio-cultural group, Afenifere, led by Chief Ayo Adebanjo, hosted him in Lagos.
Atiku maintained that his commitment to restructuring was absolute and this position has once gotten him a query when he was a vice president.
Nigeria News 2018: Is Nigeria Truly the Poorest Country in The World? Omisore Speaks | Legit.ng TV:
Source: Legit
Olusegun Mimiko, the former governor of Ondo state, has announced his decision to contest the 2019 presidency on the platform of the Labour Party (LP).
The former governor made his official declaration at 10am on Thursday, September 13, at the party's headquarter.
Mimiko disclosed this in a series of tweets via his Twitter handle why he was running for presidency.
Read the tweets below:
Recall that in May 2018 the former governor left the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the Labour Party (LP) from which he had earlier defected while still in office in 2014.
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Mimiko dumped the Labour Party less than five months before the 2015 general elections, to the PDP.
The former governor revealed the two things Nigeria needs to sustain its unity. Mimiko was quoted as saying the two things needed by the country are perseverance and determination from the people.
Buhari to Contest for Presidency in 2019! on Legit.ng TV
Source: Legit Nigeria
- A senatorial aspirant in Niger state, Alhaji Shuaibu Gwada, has called on Nigerians to re-elect President Muhammadu Buhari in 2019
- Gwada listed not less than three reasons Nigerians should support the president in his rerun bid
- He said that the president has achieved much for the country in the areas of agriculture, economy, and security
Alhaji Shuaibu Gwada, a veteran journalist and All Progress Congress (APC) senatorial aspirant for Niger east district on Thursday, Wednesday 13, called on Nigerians to support the second term bid of President Muhammadu Buhari.
Gwada told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) that the president's leadership scorecard in the past three years was laudable.
READ ALSO: Buhari's position on Electoral Act Amendment bill is in order - Analyst
He said that the president had lived up to expectations in economic reforms having enhanced local content and food sufficiency.
You can agree with me that Nigeria is now self-reliant on their own food produce especially rice. This administration has saved many Nigerians from poisonous rice that were being dumped in the country after many years in the ship, Gwada said.
The APC chieftain, who said that he was in the race for the Senate to complement Buharis efforts in building new Nigeria, restated his call for Nigerias support.
Gwada said that President Buhari delivered on his promise of fighting corruption irrespective of some pockets of compromises by few people.
According to him, graft and indiscipline are now publicly seen and identified as crime and not a way of live unlike before. He lauded the president for degrading Boko haram in spite of few challenges.
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The Niger east Senatorial Aspirant urged Nigerians not to lose hope, saying that Buhari was determined to take the country to the promise land.
NAN reports that Buhari returned his nomination form to run for second term on Wednesday, September 12.
Meanwhile, Legit.ng reported that President Muhammadu Buhari had submitted his nomination and expression of interest forms to the APC at the national secretariat of the party in Abuja shortly after presiding over the federal executive council meeting on Wednesday, September 12.
It was reported earlier that President Buhari was expected at the APC national secretariat on Wednesday, September 12, to submit his nomination and expression of interest forms for the 2019 presidential election.
President Buhari on 2019 Presidential Election: Will You Vote For Him? | Legit.ng TV
Source: Legit.ng
The Department of State Services (DSS) has been ordered by a Federal High Court to pay the sum of N10.5 million as compensation to journalist, Jones Abiri, over his illegal detention for two years.
Justice Nnamdi Dimgba who gave the judgement on Thursday, September 13, stated that the DSS did not deny arresting and detaining him since July 2016, as well as deny him access to his doctors, family and friends.
The judge said that when Abiri was eventually charged to court, he was not charged with the crimes for which he was arrested.
READ ALSO: Mimiko declares presidential bid
According to the judge, the DSS acted outside the provisions of the law regarding the Terrorism Prevention Act, and therefore, ordered the agency to pay the sum.
Meanwhile, Legit.ng had reported that two years after he was arrested and detained without trial by the Department of State Services (DSS) for allegedly having links with militants in the Niger Delta region, Jones Abiri, has finally regained his freedom.
The journalist was released on Wednesday, August 16, after outcry by Nigerians and many international agencies.
Abiri who was reported to be the publisher and editor-in-chief of Weekly Source Newspaper was eventually granted bail by an Abuja court after he was charged to court following public outcry.
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Legit.ng had also reported that the presidency reacted to the continued detention without trial of Jones Abiri, an alleged journalist, arrested by the Department of State Services (DSS).
Street Gist: Who is Nigeria's greatest president ever? | Legit.ng TV.
Source: Legit
- Late Kofi Annan was buried on Thursday, September 13, in Accra, Ghana
- The burial of the late secretary-general of the United Nations (UN) is attended by his countrymen and world leaders
- Among those who are in attendance at the mournful occasion are Nigeria former president Olusegun Obasanjo and other world dignitaries
Late Kofi Annan was on Thursday, September 13, laid to rest in the capital of Ghana, Accra. Many have gathered in Accra to say their farewells, but millions more were there in spirit, grieving the loss of a remarkable leader and celebrating a life well lived.
African dignitaries trooping in for the funeral service of the late icon
Source: Depositphotos
Attendees at the burial ceremony of late Kofi Annan
Source: Depositphotos
Dignitaries at the burial ceremony of the late African icon
Source: Depositphotos
Ghanaians and Africans who came to pay their last respect to the deceased icon
Source: Depositphotos
Photo of large number of admirers of the late icon
Source: Depositphotos
Attendees at the funeral service of the late Kofi Annan
Source: Depositphotos
Venue of the burial ceremony of late Kofi Annan
Source: Original
Among those who are in attendance at the burial ceremony are the president of Ivory Coast and the leaders of Liberia, Namibia, Ethiopia, Niger, Zimbabwe, Germany and Mauritius.
Venue of the burial ceremony of late Kofi Annan
Source: Original
Massive banner of late Kofi Annan
Source: Original
Tight security at the burial ceremony of late Kofi Annan
Source: Original
Vehicles of dignitaries arriving at the venue of the burial ceremony
Source: Depositphotos
The current UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, in his speech shared one of the popular icon's saying; Guterres quoted him: Always remember you are never too young to lead and you are never too old to learn.
When Annan passed on, Guterres said of him: He provided people everywhere with a space for dialogue, a place for problem-solving and a path to a better world.
In these turbulent and trying times, he never stopped working to give life to the values of the United Nations Charter. His legacy will remain a true inspiration for all of us.
The deceased icon, while alive, had once said: To live is to choose. But to choose well, you must know who you are and what you stand for, where you want to go and why you want to get there.
Vehicle carrying the coffin of late Kofi Annan
Source: Original
One of the late icon's mourners, Fritz Kitcher, who worked in the human rights department of the UN in Geneva, said that he saw Annan rose through the ranks.
Earlier, Legit.ng had reported that former UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, is dead. Kofi Annan died at the age of 80 in the early hours of Saturday, August 18, in Switzerland.
Annan, who was born in Ghana in 1938, served as the seventh UN Secretary-General, from 1997 to 2006, and was the first to rise from within the ranks of the United Nations staff.
Top 4 Most Influential Nigerians in the World: Nigerians in Top Positions | Legit.ng TV
Source: Legit Newspaper
Today's meeting is a lead-up to a summit with the presidents of the 113 Bishops' Conferences of the world on 21-24 February 2019.
Vatican City (AsiaNews) Today's meeting between Pope Francis and top US bishops including Card Daniel DiNardo, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, and Card Sean Patrick O'Malley, archbishop of Boston starts a new cycle of papal action against abuses by priests (picture: meeting with US bishops during the US papal visit of 23 September 2015).
The audience with US bishops appears to be connected to developments following the Pennsylvania grand jury report that lists hundreds of clerymen involved in abuses and accuses the leaders of six dioceses of covering up allegations and interfering in investigations. Recently, the New York prosecutor has launched an investigation into the same events.
At the same time, the controversy caused Mgr Viganos dossier on Card Theodore McCarrick, the archbishop emeritus of Washingto who was forced to resign from the College of Cardinals, seems to have no end.
The pontiff, who in his Letter to the People of God of 20 August expressed sorrow and shame" for the abuses, noted that "no effort to beg pardon and to seek to repair the harm done will ever be sufficient. In light of this, he wants to begin the discussion with bishops conferences of the world.
The decision was taken at the meeting of the Council of Cardinal Advisers, who heard Card O'Malley, OFM Cap, speak about the work of the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors, whose 9th Plenary Assembly just ended.
The Pope convened the presidents of the 113 Bishops' Conferences of the world (plus three councils of Churches, eight assemblies of ordinaries, six patriarchal synods and six major archiepiscopal synods of Eastern rite) to a meeting to discuss the prevention of abuses of minors and vulnerable adults.
The meeting is set to take place at the Vatican from 21 to 24 February 2019. (FP)
- Security operatives have stormed the Asokoro area of Abuja where a man mounted a mast
- The man climbed the mast on Wednesday, September 12, insisting President Muhammadu Buhari resigns before he comes down
- The operatives who visited the area dispersed the large crowd of people who gathered to catch a glimpse of the man
A report by Daily Sun indicates that Nigerians who gathered to watch the man who mounted a mast in Abuja, protesting alleged bad leadership of President Muhammadu Buhari, were chased away by soldiers from operatives Guards Brigade, on Thursday, September 13.
The man, identified as Nurudeen Lliyasu, an undergraduate, mounted the 50-metre communication mast overlooking the Presidential Villa, on Wednesday, September 12.
The crowd, comprising motorists, passengers and other residents in the Nigerian capital, trooped to the location very early in the day to watch the man, who is occupying a strategic position on top of the mast.
READ ALSO: 2019: Mimiko declares presidential bid
According to the report, apart from the soldiers from Guards Brigade, police personnel and operatives of the DSS also took strategic positions around the mast.
The crowd that gathered at the Asokoro area behind the Presidential Villa was such that it took soldiers a herculean task to disperse those who refused to leave the location.
Lliyasu, who watched the crowd from his vantage position, took time to stand up to stretch his body before sitting down, not bothered by the security men in the area.
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Legit.ng had reported that a 28-year-old man, Nurudeen Lliyasu, climbed a telecommunication mast in Abuja, to protest the poor economy in the country.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the man was seen on top of the mast at about noon on Wednesday at AYA, Abuja.
NAN also reports that posters with different inscriptions were seen along the AYA road and at the foot of the mast, which read: 'Another hope betrayed battered, mutilated with collapsed economy.' Others include, inflation and hunger is killing Nigerians, unemployment continues unabated, and Nigeria is on the precipice of collapse among others.
Nigeria Election 2019: What are Bukola Sarakis chances against President Buhari? | Legit.ng TV
Source: Legit
- Amina Mohammed, the deputy secretary-general of the UN, has disclosed why she was called minister of dustbin in Nigeria
- Mohammed said some people did not see the real value of her office as minister of environment
- The mother of six also spoke about every of the 17 goals that make up the SDGs as her children
Amina Mohammed, the deputy secretary-general of the United Nations (UN), has disclosed that people call her dustbin lady when President Muhammadu Buhari appointed her as the minister of environment.
Daily Trust reports that Mohammed on Tuesday, September 11, disclosed that she was called that name because the real value was not attached to her office as minister of environment.
Legit.ng gathered that she made this known while speaking at the International Monetary and the UN working together conversation.
READ ALSO: Mimiko declares presidential bid
President Buhari appointed Mohammed in November 2015. She resigned from Nigerian Federal Executive Council on 24 February 2017 to assume office as the 5th deputy secretary general of the United Nations.
According to her, I have to tell you, when I went back to Nigeria as minister of environment, my state was saying, it was environment they gave you? that is the dustbin lady. They did not even get that environment was broader than just waste disposal.
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She said the UN and IMF must have better conversations on the demands of a growing economy, seeking ways to make growth better and inclusive.
The mother of six also spoke about every of the 17 goals that make up the SDGs as her children, saying all were equally important for the future of the world.
Meanwhile, Legit.ng had reported that Amina Mohammed said it was regrettable that Nigeria is not taking advantage of opportunities at the UN especially in terms of job openings for young graduates.
The deputy secretary-general of the UN at a cultural night organised by Nigerians working at the United Nations Systems.
She revealed that there were openings via the Junior Professional Officers (JPO) Programme, including internship for young graduates.
Buhari to Contest for Presidency in 2019! on Legit.ng TV:
Source: Legit Nigeria
- The APC says Speaker Yakubu Dogara has no political value, and his alleged defection is not a surprise
- Dogara did not formally announce his resignation from the ruling party or defection to the PDP before picking up his nomination and expression of interest forms
- The APC referred to the speaker as an Abuja politician, and said he would lose, even if given the partys ticket
The All Progressives Congress (APC) has reacted to the alleged defection of Speaker Yakubu Dogara to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP); saying that the lawmaker has no political value to be considered a loss.
In an interview with Premium Times on Thursday morning, September 13, the partys spokesperson, Yakubu Nabena, said: It is not a surprise to us, we already know that he has been working with the PDP.
READ ALSO: Aircraft mishap: FAAN reopens Abuja Airport runway, 6 hours after closure
Legit.ng notes that the publication had reported that the speaker had quietly purchased the forms to run on the platform of the major opposition party.
The development came just a day after the speaker assured his constituents, at a rally, that he would run for a fourth House term. However, Dogara did not disclose which partys platform he would run on, and no political partys logo was visible on the placards unfurled by his supporters at the gathering.
He also did not formally announce his resignation from the ruling party or defection to the PDP before picking up the form.
Nabena added that the APC would not expend much energy on the issue because it might not be worth it.
He said: He is not a loss to us. Even if we give him the ticket, he would lose on ground. He is not even on ground in the first place. Those kinds of people, we call them Abuja politicians. He is not a problem as far as I am concerned. Yakubu Dogara has no electoral value in the APC.
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Recall that Legit.ng previously reported that the speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, picked up the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) nomination form.
Dogara reportedly picked up the form on Wednesday, September 12.
Senators, lawmakers defect from APC - on Legit.ng TV:
Source: Legit
- Juliet Ibekaku-Nwagwu, an aide of President Buhari, is seeking to contest the Enugu West senatorial seat
- The seat is currently occupied by deputy Senate president Ike Ekweremadu
- Nwagwu is running on the platform of All Progressives Congress (APC)
Juliet Ibekaku-Nwagwu, the special assistant to the president on justice reform, and national coordinator, Open Government Partnership (OGP), has declared her intention to contest for the Enugu West senatorial seat.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the deputy Senate president, Ike Ekweremadu, who occupies the Enugu West seat at the Senate, is seeking re-election on the platform of the People Democratic Party (PDP).
Ibekaku-Nwagwu, who is contesting on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC), told newsmen in Enugu on Thursday, September 13, that she submitted her nomination form in Abuja on Wednesday.
READ ALSO: 2019: Tinubu reportedly seals Ambodes fate
According to her, the decision to vie for the position is in obedience to the clarion call by youths, women, men and other interest groups in the senatorial zone.
She said that her people had complained incessantly of the negative impact of Ekweremadus representation on the area.
In the 16 years of his representation, no meaningful infrastructural development can be equated to the quantum of funds that was purportedly expended as constituency funds on the zone," she alleged.
Ibekaku-Nwagwu said she accepted the call by her people from the five local government areas Aninri, Agwu, Ezeagu, Oji River and Udi - to fill the leadership vacuum.
My people are hard-working and from a senatorial zone that is endowed with natural resources; they deserve the best.
All they yearn for is the provision of the basic necessities of life that will create the enabling environment to bring out the best in them," the presidents aide said.
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Legit.ng earlier reported that the All Progressives Congress (APC) reacted to the alleged defection of Speaker Yakubu Dogara to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP); saying that the lawmaker has no political value to be considered a loss.
In an interview on Thursday morning, September 13, the partys spokesperson, Yakubu Nabena, said: It is not a surprise to us, we already know that he has been working with the PDP.
Senators, lawmakers defect from APC - on Legit.ng TV:
Source: Legit
An application seeking to stop the Nigerian Senate from compulsorily convening before September 25 has been dismissed by the Abuja Division of the Federal High Court, Premium Times reports.
The upper chambers led by Bukola Saraki, suspended plenary in July, shortly after Saraki defected from the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
The respondents in the suits include the Senate, the Senate president, his deputy, the Senate leader, his deputy, and the minority leader.
Others are the clerk of the Senate, the deputy Senate clerk, the attorney-general of the federation, inspector general of police and the State Security Service.
The applicants are Senator Isa Misau, representing Bauchi Central and Senator Rafiu Adebayo (Kwara South).
READ ALSO: Mimiko declares presidential bid
Legit.ng gathered that in separate applications, two senators loyal to Saraki asked the court to stop attempts by members of the APC and the federal government to impeach Saraki.
In one of the application, Adebayo asked the court to determine whether the Senate does not have the powers to determine its schedule of sittings as well as when to suspend or hold plenary.
The application regarding the prolonged detention was slated for hearing on September 13, during the last adjourned date.
At the opening of session on Thursday, a counsel to one of the defendants in the suit, Terhembe Abge, who represented the AGF, asked the court to strike out the case and award a cost of N10 million against the applicants. According to Agbe, the applicants, cannot drag the AGF to court and treat the matter with levity.
Another lawyer Keje Oluwole aligned with the application by Agbe and explained to the court that the applicants have a variety of lawyers and should therefore not have failed to appear in court, without any explanation.
The judge, Nnamdi Dimbga, initially hesitated to grant the application, since the applicants have always appeared in court, but obliged it, after further persuasion by the defendants.
As a result of the unexplained absence of the applicants, the matter is hereby struck out, Dimbga ruled.
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The judge had previously refused application by the same applicants to prevent other APC senators from proceeding with the planned suspension of Saraki till the case is determined in court.
The ruling would be seen as victory for the ruling APC.
Legit.ng previously reported that the National Assembly is unlikely to reconvene to consider the N243 billion virement for the 2019 General Elections.
The National Assembly is unlikely to reconvene because as at the time of filing this report, there has been no official communication about the plan from the clerk of the National Assembly, Mohammed Omolori.
The chairman, Independent National Electoral Commission(INEC), Prof. Mahmood Yakubu had on August 8 said the commission had been assured by the National Assembly leadership that the 2019 General Elections Budget of N242 billion may be considered for passage.
Nigeria Latest News: Here's What Saraki and Tambuwal's Defection Means for the APC | Legit.ng TV
Source: Legit.ng
- President Muhammadu Buhari's refusal to assent to the Electoral Act Amendment bill has been commended by a constitutional lawyer and political analyst
- The analyst, Wale Ogunade, says assenting to the bill the way it was presented to him would have caused more harm to the nation's polity
- The bill was passed by the National Assembly on July 24 and transmitted to the president on August 3
A constitutional lawyer and political analyst, Wale Ogunade, on Thursday, September 13, said that President Muhammadu Buharis refusal to assent to the Electoral Act Amendment Bill 2018 in the state it was presented to him was in order.
News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Oguntade said the president would have caused more harm to the nations polity if he had assented to the bill the way it was.
Legit.ng gathers that President Buhari, for the third time, has withheld assent to the Electoral Act Amendment Bill 2018, which was passed by the National Assembly on July 24, and transmitted to the president on August 3.
The presidents decision to withhold assent for the third time was made public on Monday, September 3.
READ ALSO: Jonah Jang has not abandoned his presidential ambition - Campaign team
Ogunade said: According to the presidency, the presidents refusal to assent to the Electoral bill was as a result of some lapses observed in the bill.
Such assent may cause more damage to our growing democracy than what it is trying to avert, which was why the presidency has made necessary inputs before sending the bill back to the National Assembly.
We hope the National Assembly will reconvene to consider and approve the necessary corrections to the amended Electoral Act, and send it back to Mr President within a short time."
He urged the National Assembly not to override the bill, but consider the observations noted by the presidency.
But again, if the assembly thinks otherwise, they can veto it, and of course pass it into law, but it cannot work because the situation is very dicey; if they pass the bill as it is, they may cause more harm to the nations democracy.
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According to him, this is because the bill does not adequately take care of electronic voting and INECs registration of more political parties.
I believe that the Assembly members know that re-working the bill will be good for their political careers, so, they will not veto it," he added.
Meanwhile, Legit.ng previously reported that President Muhammadu Buhari on Monday, March 12, in two separate letters addressed to the Senate president Bukola Saraki and speaker of the House of Representatives Yakubu Dogara, rejected the amendment to the Electoral Act.
The president gave three reasons for withholding assent to the Electoral Act Amendment bill which was passed by both chambers of the National Assembly intending to change the country's elections sequence.
What is working well and what needs improvement in Nigeria? on Legit.ng TV
Source: Legit.ng
- As Nigeria continues to witness the rainy season, flood disasters are beginning to manifest in different parts of the countries
- Niger has been affected as more than 100 communities in the state have been submerged
- The situation was caused by the overflow of the River Niger
More than 100 communities in Niger state have been submerged following the overflow of the River Niger, Channels Television reports.
According to the report, farmlands and houses have also been destroyed, leaving residents of the affected communities homeless.
In reaction, the Niger state governor, Abubakar Bello, has visited the communities with other members of the state executive to find ways of relocating the residents from the area. Thankfully, there were no casualties as at the time of this report.
READ ALSO: Why I was called minister of dustbin in Nigeria - Amina Mohammed
Last week, the Nigeria Hydrological Services Agency informed citizens that all indices that preceded the 2012 flood disaster were manifesting.
According to the agency, 12 states will experience floods on the axis of River Niger and they include: Kebbi, Niger, Kwara, Edo, Kogi, Anambra, Rivers, Bayelsa, Delta, Taraba, Benue and Adamawa.
Meanwhile, Adamawa State Emergency Management Agency (ADSEMA) said flood had killed 10 persons and displaced scores of others, following the recent heavy rainfall recorded in the state.
Muhammed Suleiman, the executive secretary of the agency, made the disclosure in an interview on Thursday, September 13, in Yola.
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Suleiman said that hundreds of domestic animals, including cattle, were also lost to the flood, adding that the deaths recorded were particularly from Yola South, Guyuk, Lamurde and Song local government areas of the state.
Victims of Lekki flood rendered homeless, jobless speak to Legit.ng TV
Source: Legit.ng
- The Ekiti state House of Assembly has approved the 10 billion naira supplementary budget request by Governor Ayodele Fayose
- Governor Fayose was said to have asked the lawmakers to pass the budget before he hands over government in a month's time
- The governor-elect, Kayode Fayemi, reportedly cautioned Fayose against illegal appropriation of public funds
Emerging reports claimed that the Ekiti state House of Assembly on Thursday, September 13, approved the N10 billion supplementary appropriation presented to it by the Governor, Ayodele Fayose.
At the closed-door sitting, Speaker Kola Oluwawole and 13 other lawmakers were said to have examined the proposal and passed it within an hour.
The Cable reports that journalists were chased out of the hallowed chamber before the commencement of the proceedings.
READ ALSO: Mimiko declares presidential bid
The appropriation bill forwarded to the House of Assembly on Wednesday, September 12, by Governor Fayose had generated anger with the governor elect, Kayode Fayemi as he threaten severe consequences for whoever took part in what he described as the fraudulent action.
It was learnt that the approval came exactly a month and three days to the end of Fayoses second governorship stint, with his predecessor Kayode Fayemi set to take over from him on October 16.
Meanwhile, Legit.ng had reported that Governor Ayodele Fayose ordered the Ekiti House of Assembly to approve a supplementary Appropriation Bill of about N10 billion, a month to his handover.
This order has reportedly caused tension among the lawmakers, who allegedly described the bill as 'ridiculous'.
The supplementary budget came at a time the controversy over the purchase of a 2018 Lexus Sport Utility Vehicle (SUV) as a "parting gift for the governor has not died down.
In a letter conveying the bill, Fayose urged the lawmakers to approve N9,926,527,772.86 to be spent before he steps down from power on October 16. What the N9.92 billion would be expended on was sketchy at the time of filing this report.
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In a related development, Ekiti state's governor-elect, Kayode Fayemi, called on Governor Ayodele Fayose to refrain from actions capable of plunging the state into further financial crisis through irregular and unconstitutional means.
The governor-elect, in a statement issued by the media director of his campaign organisation, Wole Olujujobi, said the consequences of illegal appropriation of public funds would be very grave for individuals who participated in any illegal act to defraud the state.
Fayemi counselled ministry officials and Assembly members against being used for illegal appropriation of public funds.
Were Ekiti Residents Paid to Vote? | - on Legit.ng TV:
Source: Legit.ng
- An election observer and monitoring group, YIAGA Africa, has raised the alarm over voters' inducement ahead of September 22 election in Osun state
- The group's project director, Cynthia Mbamalu, spoke on Thursday, September 13, at a media briefing on its pre-election observation findings and election observation
- She said that voters inducement through the distribution of money and gifts was visible in the state
The growing trend of voters inducement ahead of Saturday, September 22 governorship election in Osun is worrisome.
Legit.ng gathered that an election observer and monitoring group, the Youth Initiative for Advocacy, Growth and Advancement (YIAGA Africa), made the assertion on Thursday, September 13, in Osogbo, the state capital.
The group's project director, Cynthia Mbamalu, spoke at a media briefing on its pre-election observation findings and election observation.
READ ALSO: Oyo 2019: Lam Adesinas loyalists dump APC, defect to ADC
Mbamalu said the group, in its pre-election findings, observed that voters inducement through the distribution of money and gifts was visible in the state.
She said there was urgent need for all electoral actors to intensify campaign to discourage the act of voter bribery before and during the election.
Mbamalu, however, said political parties have the most role to play in curbing the trend of voters inducement and vote-buying.
She also urged political parties and their candidates to act within the ambit of the law and promote a positive political culture that would enhance peaceful election.
While urging the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) to sustain voter education, Mbamalu urged the National Orientation Agency (NOA) to invest in voter education as part of its mandate.
She advised electorate who have yet to collect their permanent voter cards to do so to enable them to perform their civil duty on the day of the election.
Besides, Mbamalu said the group, as a way of promoting electoral integrity, had trained 60 trainers and would be deployed to all the 30 local government areas of the state.
She said that the trainers would in turn train 500 Watching the Vote Polling Units observers and 32 roving observers.
Mbamalu said the groups watching the vote project would deployed the parallel Vote Tabulation methodology, which uses statistical principles, information and communication ytechnologies to provide systematic data on the quality of election day processes. (NAN)
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Meanwhile, Legit.ng had earlier reported that the governorship candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in Osun state, Senator Iyiola Omisore, has said that he would end eight years of All Progressive Congress (APC) administration in the state.
It was reported that the former governor of the state also promised an all inclusive government which he said would ultimately make life better for Osun people if elected the governor of the state in the September 22 election.
Governor Rauf Aregbesola interview: 'State of Osun' is correct (Exclusive) - on Legit.ng TV
Source: Legit
President Muhammadu Buhari, on Thursday, September 13, named Yusuf Magaji Bichi as the new director-general of the Department of State Services (DSS). The new boss is now to take over from Matthew Seiyeifa, who replaced sacked Lawal Daura.
Garba Shehu, the presidents spokesperson made the announcement in a statement.
Read Shehus full statement below:
President Muhammadu Buhari has approved with effect from the 14th of September, the appointment of Yusuf Magaji Bichi, as new Director-General of the State Security Service (SSS, popularly called DSS).
READ ALSO: 2019: Tinubu reportedly seals Ambodes fate
The appointee is a core Secret Service operative.
He attended Danbatta Secondary School, the Kano State College of Advanced Studies and the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria where he graduated with a degree in Political Science.
The new Director-General began his career in the security division of the Cabinet Office in Kano, from where he joined the defunct Nigerian Security Organisation (NSO), the precursor of the present SSS.
Mr Bichi has undergone training in intelligence processing analysis, agent handling recruitment and intelligence processing in the UK, as well as strategic training at the National Defence College.
The new SSS boss comes to the job with skills in intelligence gathering, research analysis, conflict management, general investigation, risk and vulnerability operations, counter intelligence and protective operation and human resources management.
In the course of his career, Mr Bichi has worked as the state Director of Security in Jigawa, Niger, Sokoto and Abia states.
He was at various times the Director, National Assembly Liaison, (National War College), Director at National Headquarters in the Directorate of Security Enforcement, Directorate of Operations, Directorate of Intelligence, Directorate of Inspection and Directorate of Administration and Finance.
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He also served as director at State Service Academy.
Mr Bichi is married and with children.
Legit.ng earlier reported that a former member of National Assembly, Ighoyota Amori, on Friday, August 10, advised security agencies to learn from the recent constitutional breach at the National Assembly by the Department of State Service (DSS) and the eventual sacking of Daura, saying it was lesson for being overzealous.
Amori, said this in Abuja adding that rather than professionalism, the incident demonstrated partisanship and abuse of power by DSS.
Nigeria Latest News: Why Yemi Osinbajo Terminated The Appointment Of Lawal Daura | Legit.ng TV
Source: Legit
For the Nobel Peace Laureate the ruling against Reuters reporter does not concern in any way the freedom of expression. "To have long-term security and stability we must be impartial on all sides". For the first time since the outbreak of violence, the Burmese government guarantees access to United Nations (UN) officials in Rakhine.
Naypyidaw (AsiaNews / Agencies) - The Burmese government "could have managed the situation better" in the western state of Rakhine. This is what democratic leader Aung San Suu Kyi affirms today regarding the violence that caused about 700 thousand Rohingya Muslims to flee to Bangladesh. The Burmese State Councilor spoke at the World Economic Forum on Asean countries, under way in Hanoi (Vietnam).
" There are of course ways in which, with hindsight, the situation could've been handled better - the Lady said on the last day of the economic summit - But we believe that in order to have long-term security and stability we have to be fair to all sides. We can't choose who should be protected by rule of law ".
Aung San Suu Kyi also spoke about the seven-year prison sentence handed down by the Burmese authorities against two Reuters reporters investigating the 10 Rohingya massacre. The Nobel Laureate excludes that the sentence, subject to harsh reactions from the international community, concerns freedom of expression.
" They were not jailed because they were journalists" but because "the court has decided that they had broken the Official Secrets Act", she said If we believe in the rule of law, they have every right to appeal the judgment and to point out why the judgement was wrong.
Meanwhile, for the first time since the outbreak of violence in Rakhine, the Burmese government has granted access to United Nations (UN) officials in the territories at the epicenter of the clashes. The UN had been waiting for permits since last June, when with Naypyidaw it had signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for assistance in the process of repatriation of refugees.
The teams of the Development Program (UNDP) and the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) started their first round of assessments yesterday. Aoife McDonnell, responsible for UNHRC reports, said the trial will last about two weeks and will reach 23 villages and three additional fractions in the municipalities of Maungdaw, Buthidaung and Rathedaung.
Poo-eating dung beetles worth a billion dollars a year to our economy, says researcher ABC Australia
US regulators reportedly rejected Wells Fargos plan to repay customers forced into unnecessary auto insurance products Business Insider
A Proposed Alternative to Corporate Governance and the Theory of Shareholder Primacy Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance and Financial Regulation. On Warrens Accountable Capitalism Act.
Weve waited a long time for this: Iowa Supreme Court to decide fate of Dakota Access pipeline Des Moines Register
From music to news, EU moves to protect online copyright Phys.org. Among other things, the report calls for automatic filters of uploaded content that would identify copyrighted material. What could go wrong?
Florence a Cat 3, But Wind Field Expands; Olivia Hits Hawaii Weather Underground
U.S. nuclear power plants prepare for Hurricane Florence Reuters
How FEMA uses Waffle Houses in disasters KHOU
Syraqistan
China?
India
African cities surge to top of global growth league FT
Venezuelas Is Doing Something It Hasnt Done Since The 90s OilPrice.com
New Cold War
Trump Transition
LEAKED VIDEO: Google Leaderships Dismayed Reaction to Trump Election Breitbart. Normally, I wouldnt link to a Breitbart video, but Google doesnt contest the authenticity.
George W. Bush to fundraise for GOP candidates Politico. And after liberal Democrats went to such trouble to rehabilitate him
Puerto Rico
Our Famously Free Press
Aaron Mate is a Beast! Ghion Journal
Health Care
The Crash Ten Years After
Class Warfare
Young blood could be the secret to long-lasting health: study New York Post (original).
Economists Should Stop Defending Milton Friedmans Pseudo-science Evonomics
Watery Heatwave Cooks the Gulf of Maine Earth Observatory
Antidote du jour (via):
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See yesterdays Links and Antidote du Jour here.
In the last year, we have had more and more current CalPERS employees contact us about disturbing issues they see on a day-to-day basis, including what they describe as widespread cronyism and featherbedding. While many of these reports are troubling, we have held off on posting on them due to not (yet) obtaining sufficient levels of verification.
However, these sources have regularly volunteered dim views of CEO Marcie Frost. For instance, one called Marcie exceptionally incompetent. These assessments by CalPERS employees strike at the heart of the defense made by some board members and Frosts external allies, that Frost is supposedly doing a fine job.
It is not difficult to identify examples of Frosts deficient leadership in her less than two year tenure as CEO. Consistent with the rising level of employees leaking to us, fiascoes also appear to be far more frequent than under her predecessor, Anne Stausboll.
Well start with how despite having worked as the head of Human Resources at Washingtons Department of Retirement Services, Frost has presided over a series of HR debacles. That suggests she either wasnt much of an HR manager or forgot most of what she learned.
In a second post today, we cover how Frost has sat pat while a critically important control function, Audit Services, has become crippled by understaffing, poor morale, and staff perceptions of cronyism in promotions.
Next week, well turn to IT and other operational issues, which were supposed strong areas for Frost, as a former IT manager, a self-proclaimed expert in lean management techniques, and the head of the processing side of Washingtons state pension system.
One incident, that of the alleged theft, alteration, and illegal dissemination of an employees personnel records, is so significant and also raises troubling issues, such as Matt Jacobs instructing the Information Technology department not to report the crime (hacking) as required, that we will discuss that matter in a stand-alone post.
Charles Asubonten Hiring, Defense, and Dismissal
Frosts effort to hire a new Chief Financial Officer was a multi-chapter debacle. The giant fund burned the first candidate Frost chose while using the services of search firm Heidrick & Struggles. Board member Richard Gillihan had not only accepted the offer but CalPERS had announced he was joining, only to have to go into Emily Litella Never mind mode a week later.
The reason? As we explained in April:
Before CalPERS announced Gillihans appointment, former board member JJ Jelincic pointed out that Gillihan had what is called a 1090 problem. California Government Code Section 1090 prohibits government officials from having a financial interest in any contract they made. Gillihan had been involved in the wage-setting for the CFO position, which meant in taking the job, he would have benefitted from his previous action. Even though CEO Marcie Frost and General Counsel Matt Jacobs initially waved off Jelincics warning, other lawyers confirmed his concerns, leading to further investigation of the issue. Gillihan decided he did not want the legal exposure and withdrew his acceptance.
This is worse than it looks. Gillihan had told CalHR of his intention to leave and had to grovel to be reinstated. Although Gillihan almost certainly could have landed another senior government job or lobbyist post, he was at real risk of suffering a period of unemployment thanks to Frosts and Jacobs cavalier attitude.
The next phase of this train wreck occurred when CalPERS brought the search in house and hired Asubonten. Without belaboring the point, it should be obvious that CalPERS did a grossly inadequate job of vetting. Our series documented many misrepresentations by Asubonten that could and should have been caught. Two examples: a ruling by a South African labour court showed that Asubonten had violated the terms of a separation agreement by lodging the suit and had gotten poor performance reviews for the last two years of a three and one half year posting. Asubonten also provided a phony reference, falsely presenting an individual who had been a mere colleague at one of his jobs as the CEO and his boss.
But the most stunning part is what happened next. Frost put her ego ahead of what was best for CalPERS.
It should have been obvious that having a perjurer1 in a senior role should be unacceptable from a risk management and behavioral vantage, and that understanding which if any of our charges were accurate should be her top priority.
But rather than decline to respond to press inquiries and launch an investigation of Asubonten, Frost took the selfish, reckless and amateurish step of trying to brazen the scandal out. She joined Asubonten, implicitly putting her name on everything he said, on a call with Pulitzer Prize winning reporter Mike Hiltzik of the Los Angeles Times. That did not go well.
Hiltziks article forced CalPERS into a retreat, with the pension system finally investigating Asubonten and dismissing him shortly thereafter.
Before we go onto the other incidents, it is key to understand that this fiasco alone raises major doubts about Frosts sense of priorities and her competence as a manager. She was apparently so loath to admit error and so deeply invested in Asubonten as a hire that she doubled down and did more damage to herself and CalPERS in the process. But even more serious is that if a reporter of Hiltziks stature had not taken interest in this story, CalPERS would have kept on a documented liar and perjurer in an executive position that, among other things, handled banking relations.
Failed Attempt to Hire an Unqualified Chief Actuary
Frost tried quickly to put her mark on CalPERS after joining on October 2, 2016, and this early move blew up on her. As we wrote in CalPERS Plans to Violate California Constitution, Pave Way for Hiring Under-Qualified Candidate, for Critically Important Job of Chief Actuary:
This Thursday, November 3, the California State Personnel Board is set to approve changes to the job description of CalPERS Chief Actuary that are depicted as minor but are anything but. We get to the CalPERS job description shortly, but as Purdues mathematics department describes the terrain: An actuary is a business professional who analyzes the financial consequences of risk. Actuaries use mathematics, statistics, and financial theory to study uncertain future events, especially those of concern to insurance and pension programs. The proposed changes both amount to a violation of the California Constitution by attempting to end the required role of the board in policy-making, and separately so far reducing the minimum qualifications for the job that they will be lower than that for the most junior actuaries now employed at CalPERS. Needless to say, that makes a mockery of the claim that CalPERS needs to dumb down the job description so severely to fill the post. CalPERS could promote someone from inside by relaxing the requirements less or not at all. One has to assume that the motivation for allowing a person who would be deemed to be grossly unqualified under current rules to be hired in the Chief Actuary is that the new CEO, Marcie Frost, has someone specific shed like to bring in. The fact that Frost herself does not have a college degree and certainly does not have the mathematical chops to evaluate an actuarys professional competence certainly looks like she is giving personal loyalty far too much weight in a role where analytical rigor and professionalism are of paramount importance.
We had a great deal more to say about the matter in that post and encouraged readers to contact journalists who might take up the story.
The next day, we got a message from CalPERS head of media relations, Brad Pacheco, saying that CalPERS was no longer pursuing the rule change. Our post discussed why it was reasonable to think that our post played a significant role in the reversal.
Rudderless Private Equity Department
Real Desrochers who left his post as Managing Investment Director of Private Equity in early April 2017, has yet to be replaced. Informed sources tell us that the members of the private equity department are demoralized.
Private equity, as CalPERS Chief Investment Officer Ted Eliopoulos has said with great regularity, is extremely important to CalPERS, since the giant fund believes that private equity is the only investment strategy that can be expected to exceed CalPERS return target.2 It is currently 8% of CalPERS asset allocation and represents more than half of total investment fees and costs, as well as the majority of total portfolio risk. It is too significant to go unmanaged for almost a year and a half.and yet that is precisely what has been going on, with no change on the horizon.
Culture of Cronyism
In our companion post today, we discuss how something is clearly very wrong in CalPERS audit department and why that matters. One of the complaints is that clearly undeserving candidates have been promoted. That is consistent with the reports we have received from current employees about widespread cronyism. Each paragraph is from a different individual, and each works in a different area of CalPERS:
The most senior people inside CalPERS are deathly afraid of outsiders. A bunch of CalPERS MDs are Sacramento local yokels and are concerned about the cultural misfit of bringing in talented outsiders who would have the power to disrupt their fiefdoms and shine light on the internal graft. The organization is run like a poorly operated militia everyone takes their marching orders from the next guy up the chain without ever questioning those orders for fear of rocking the boat. Loyalty is rewarded with promotions and special raises independent thought and hard work are not. There are employees who literally do nothing all day, collect a paycheck and one day a pension, and are stealing from the state of California taxpayer. The organization is so full of blight you would need external consultants to come in and have everyone interview for their jobs and prove they are actually working and possess some degree of competence.The organization is in dire need of strong independent external voices to fill these positions.especially the CIO. Ted and his predecessor Joe Dear (may he RIP) were grossly unqualified, embarassingly so. No other organization has done so little with so much, and its the grinding, illogical, short-sighted bureaucracy that is to blame. The atmosphere inside the PERS Office of Audit Services is absolutely horrendous with mismanagement. Many of us have gone to the union for help, and some are pushing for a group grievance on behalf of all of us against all managers. Besides having lost nearly a quarter of the staff on our public agency audit side, the nepotism and favoritism given to people who are not deserving or qualified makes it tough to deal with.
Well continue with Marcie Frosts rap sheet in our post on the red flag of the problems in the Audit Services teams.
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1 Asubonten provided false information on two forms signed under penalty of perjury: an employment application and a Form 700, a required disclosure of financial conflicts of interest.
2 Weve written at considerable length why this claim needs to be taken with a fistful of salt. A few of many reasons:
An alarming story that came over the transom is how CalPERS Office of Audit Services has been crippled by high levels of turnover and vacancies, poor morale, and most important, the loss of independence of the audit function.
I ran the key facts by law professor and white collar criminologist Bill Black. His reaction:
Yes, very bad. CalPERS top management is determined to do the wrong things and wants to improve the odds they can get away with it. That is the only reason, given the nature of its business, that the leaders would gut internal audit. Internal audit, like underwriting at a bank, is a great test of managers. If they are incompetent or sleazy (or both) they see audit and underwriting as cost centers. It they are competent and people of integrity, they see that great controls and underwriting are the core of investor (and bank) profitability and survival.
CalPERS apparently cares more about image management than protecting the pension system. Due to vacancies, many of which are long standing, Audit Services has only 55 employees, according to a recent organization chart. By contrast, the so-called Communications & Stakeholder Relations department has over 70 employees.
Recall that CalPERS has implemented poor risk management practices elsewhere. We described in 2016 how the the investment risk management team, a compliance function, reports to the Chief Investment Officer.
Anyone with an operating brain cell knows a staffer cannot oversee his boss, at least if career longevity is important to him. Having a control function housed inside the unit it supposed oversees is precisely the arrangement that led to $6.2 billion of trading losses in the JP Morgan London Whale scandal and the fake accounts abuses at Wells Fargo. And that is why the rest of Wall Street was shocked to hear that JP Morgan had such an obviously defective arrangement.
We gave this overview of the sorry state of the CalPERS audit function in our companion post today, quoting an insider:
The atmosphere inside the PERS Office of Audit Services is absolutely horrendous with mismanagement. Many of us have gone to the union for help, and some are pushing for a group grievance on behalf of all of us against all managers. Besides having lost nearly a quarter of the staff on our public agency audit side, the nepotism and favoritism given to people who are not deserving or qualified makes it tough to deal with.
Our Clive underscored why this matters:
You definitely do need good polices and procedures drawn up and in place to manage and control your system(s). But these alone are not sufficient. And you cannot tech your way to preventing insider-orchestrated harm. You need a robust and appropriately-resourced audit function to ensure it is adhered to. You also need a certain fear factor people need to know they are being supervised and their work will be checked both routinely and at random, not just through their line management organisation structure but with a completely ring-fenced and segregated inspection regime which does not report to just the CEO or the executive function but also has a dotted reporting line directly into to board. Anything less than this is all-too-amenable to suasion, internal (or external!) politics, favour-mongering and collusion. A UK example: Lloyds Bank operated several control frauds. In a rare show of seriousness, former executives were jailed for 11-15 years for one of the more serious scams Part of the go-go era prior to the global financial crisis was the systematic gutting of the audit function in that bank. And what little was left had to work within an organisational design which had the audit function report to the C-level directors of the profit centres. Little wonder, then, that the emaciated team of internal auditors heard no evil and saw no evil. Even if they had the time and wherewithal to follow up on suspicious activity, the top management would not let them speak any evil, either. It was textbook criminogenic. And CalPERS is moving in this exact same direction. The audit function is the last line of defence. If thats disbanded or weakened, its game over for CalPERS.
Here are the warning signs:
Ending the independence of the internal audit function. Matt Jacobs is running Audit Services and editing their reports. In an organization with proper controls, the audit function should report to the CEO and/or the Board. The CEO and the Board need to receive audit information, particularly internal audits, directly, and this responsibility is even more important when the CEO and board members are fiduciaries.
Audit Services has reported formally to the CalPERS legal department since at least May 2012. However, the story is more complicated than it appears. In 2011, Audit Services was granted a charter which included a clear and strong commitment to its independence. Thus even though unit may have been formally housed within the legal department, the commitment to independence meant as a matter of practice that the General Counsel did not control the substance of its work.
In keeping, members of the Audit Services confirmed that it had provided information directly to the CEO and Board under the tenure of the previous head of Audit Services, Margaret Juncker, who retired in mid 2015.
Perhaps we have missed it, but we have not been able to find any evidence of an official change in the status of the Audit Services unit in 2015. Audit Services staffers say that they are not aware of any policy document of that sort being discussed and approved at a board meeting. It appears that the new head of the operation, Beliz Chappuie, acceded to the demands of General Counsel Matt Jacobs to influence audit operations.
This change is particularly alarming because the choking of the information flow to the Board was never formally approved, nor was the reason for this change communicated to staff.
Another bizarre and troubling moves that undermines the effectiveness of the audit teams work is the blanket designation of work product as attorney-client privileged. This is perverse in the case of the public agency side, since audit findings are reviewed with employers like municipalities and school districts so they can comment on them and make corrections before the reports are made final. Any document shared with a third party cannot be attorney-client privileged. From one insider:
One thing that completely mystifies us is how all internal internal documents have been labeled as ACP (attorney-client privileged) whereas before it was common to share information with each other. So, for example, internal auditors who work on real estate matters cant view the workpapers of internal auditors who specialize in IT audits. I dont see it from managements perspective, but there have been internal audit reports with findings that, after the internal assistant division chief spoke with the program area chief they were reduced to discussion items. I tried to get the draft that showed this and final which shows they were removed, but wasnt able to for timing reasons. Along the same lines of our suspicion on internal documents becoming ACP, nearly all reports are filtered through the legal office. A senior colleague said that completely ruins our independence and objectivity if they rewrite any reports. Another thing that was changed to ACP is our administrative information its top secret for some reason. Say you want to request (via FOIA) a list of all projects: project number, project name, budgeted hours, actual hours, to see if how frequently overbudget our projects are, I can pretty much guarantee youd get just a grand total of the hours.
These changes have confused and demoralized staff. As one department member said:
All the audit reports go through the legal office and into attorney-client privilege before presentation to the Boards Risk & Audit Committee. This was not the case prior to the new chief assuming the position. In terms of internal transparency, we are concerned that board members either dont see the complete picture or the message is being filtered by the legal department. The line of reporting is an important consideration according to the IPPF Red Book Standards. This reporting change, whether or not it was significant, should have been communicated to staff, as Openness is one of our Core Values.
High and rising levels of job vacancies. As you can see from the organization charts below, the Audit Services unit was to have 65 employees in 2017 and 2018.1 This already seems light given that CalPERS has over 2000 pension plans, all of which should be audited periodically to prevent fraud and correct errors. Six positions were vacant as of the date of the 2017 chart and that rose to a whopping ten in 2018.
Downgrading and elimination of important functions. We will again turn the microphone over to Clive:
Did you see how theyd culled the entire designated Actuarial function in the Audit division? It used to be encompassed in the Real Assets & Actuarial Team but now you just have Real Estate (presumably the realty asset base) with Actuarial dying in a fire. It kind-a looks like that function moved into the so-called Pension team (some of the Program Auditor and Associates moved into that team) but without a designated responsibility for auditing Actuarial work. A pension fund that doesnt, specifically, by name, audit its Actuarial function? WTF? Theyve also lost the Asst. Division Chief (Young Hamilton), who presumably had a lot of experience in IT and with the actuaries, and not replaced that role. So theres less coverage in the senior management positions who are going to be more stretched as a result. Has the Audit function suddenly gained some big-yet-mysterious efficiency improvements which means theres less work to go round? Impossible. Theres no such thing as an automated audit.
High turnover. As you can see if you work through the charts below, a full 25% of the positions in the 2018 org chart are either vacant or have new incumbents. It looks like a lot of turnover for an employer like CalPERS with a good pension, excellent health insurance, reasonable pay, and theoretically low stress. One would expect to see almost no turnover in a job like that.
In addition to the issues Clive flagged immediately above, the organization structure has morphed in other ways, with a new team created under the Public Agency Reviews and considerable reshuffling of the people from the old teams who stayed on in 2018. One of the top level units, Real Assets, Actuarial, and IT Audits, was dissolved and the teams under it moved over to the Internal Audits and Consulting manager, which strongly suggests she is overextended.
As a management academic put it:
Youd expect the CalPERS audit group to change at the speed of glacial shift; its a job for life in what should be a boring department of (also what should be) a boring organization. Instead the year-over-year change looks more like a struggling startup. CalPERS looks like they systematically gutted their audit group.
Widespread concerns among staff about questionable credentials and experience. There are doubts among staff about the qualifications of certain incumbents, to the degree that it has damaged morale and led to many consulting with the union.
As we mentioned in our companion post today, when CalPERS was trying to change the job description for Chief Actuary to allow for someone to assume the role who was less qualified than many senior in-house actuaries, the members of that group made enough of a stink so as to force CalPERS to delay and then scuttle this plan. A similar rebellion may be brewing over doubts about the experience and qualification of certain team members and managers.
On the one hand, this crippling of the Audit Services unit may be the result of neglect, misguided cost-cutting, and General Counsel Matt Jacobs, who has no prior experience in a general counsels office, mistakenly prioritizing shielding CalPERS from Public Records act requests and even discovery over having a functioning audit department. On the other hand, this view may be way too charitable. As Clive pointed out:
The important thing to note is that, for an individual employee, when youre working within this shared culture and sense of ethics, it is very difficult impossible almost, certainly I didnt detect the erosion of morality in my bank until it was glaringly obvious to accurately determine where you are on the scale of corruption. Youre inevitably in some degree of denial (assuming you have a sense of personal responsibility and youre not an out-and-out sociopath) about what, exactly, youre in the midst of. We dont like wrongdoing, we dont like people who set out to exploit others, we dont like the image of an organisation which perpetrates those activities and we dont want to apply that image to ourselves. But by the time an organisation is in the terminal stages of this cycle, the dishonest element in the workforce are the ones who are coming out on top. They tend also to bring in more co-workers who are like them.
The fact that Marcie Frost is perfectly content to let Matt Jacobs disembowel a critical control function out of his warped sense of priorities is further evidence that she is out of her depth as the CEO of CalPERS. And in terms of integrity, Frost, with her resume misrepresentations confirmed by the Financial Times, shows that the CalPERS fish is rotting from the head.
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1 The charts show (65) under the name of Beliz Chappuie-Chief in 2017 and (66) in 201, which presumably refers to total staffing. But a count of the number of positions in 2018 shows only 65.
Yves here. Even though the revolving door is widely recognized to be a source of corruption (that is why some agencies have long cooling off periods before a regulator can join a company in the industry they regulated), the phenomenon is more talked about than documented. This post helps fill that gap and discussed possible remedies to regulatory capture.
By Haris Tabakovic, Researcher, Harvard Business School and Thomas Wollmann, Assistant Professor of Economics, University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Originally published at VoxEU
When public sector employees end up working for the private firms which they monitored, regulated, and even disciplined, a clear conflict of interest arises. However, little is known about the the scale and scope of this revolving door problem. This column presents evidence from patent examiners employed by the US Patent and Trademark Office, and shows that examiners grant considerably more patents to the firms that ultimately hire them, and that the most likely explanation is that examiners are captured. This leniency lowers the quality of patents coming out of the agency.
US government employees often find themselves in a peculiar situation which involves monitoring, regulating, and even disciplining the behaviour of firms whom they hope to later work for. In the pharmaceutical industry, for example, the safety of a new drug may be determined by a Food and Drug Administration employee who soon after joins the firm that developed it. In financial services, the penalty for fraud may be determined by a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) employee who is subsequently hired by the bank that perpetrated it. These cases pose clear conflicts of interest, but they are hardly unique. Workers move so frequently between agency and industry positions that they are said to pass through revolving doors as they move from public- to private-sector roles.
Long before draining the swamp became a campaign position of the current US administration, economists raised concerns that lax regulation might be exchanged for lucrative subsequent employment, resulting in agencies that serve the interests of industry over the very public they were designed to protect (Peltzman 1976, Stigler 1971). The scale and scope of the problem, though, was largely unknown, though this is starting to change.
Evidence From Examiners
In recent work (Tabakovic and Wollmann 2018), we study patent examiners employed by the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Examiners decide how much, if any, protection to grant inventors over their ideas by evaluating the claims made in their applications. The majority of these applications are filed by law firms specialising in intellectual property, many of whom frequently hire former examiners. Transitions from the USPTO to filing firms are hardly surprising turnover among government employees is high, and law firms house the jobs for which former examiners are best suited. They do, however, create an awkward situation. Many examiners wind up evaluating the applications of firms for whom they hope to work. Patents impact many dimensions of the economy ranging from investment (Budish et al. 2015) and labour income (Kline et al. 2017) to entrepreneurial activity (Farre-Mensa et al. 2017) and the rate of innovation (Moser 2005), so if examiners impartiality is compromised, it is a big problem.
What do the data indicate? First, examiners grant considerably more patents to the firms that ultimately hire them. This fact alone does not imply examiners are captured, but comparisons among the over one million applications rule some alternative explanations out. For example, the difference is not driven by whether some examiners are more generous overall or whether certain firms are, on average, more successful. Other factors suggest that examiners individual preferences for one firm over another, or one type of technology over another, do not drive these results. For example, one might worry that an examiner who is more enthusiastic about engines than semiconductors or cell phones will not only grant more engine-related patents but also tend to work at the firms who specialise in them. Yet, examiners assess only narrowly defined types of technology.
Figure 1 Examiners grant more patents to firms that hire them
Note: This figure plots the coefficients that result from regressing the probability that a patent application is successful on indicators for whether the examiner was hired by any filing firm, whether the filing firm hired any examiner, and whether the filing firm hired the examiner assessing the particular application. The left-most point reflects the constant term, which is added back to the coefficients for comparisons sake. The specifications include calendar year and patent class fixed effects, though the relative magnitude and significance of the main coefficient of interest the final one is robust to including examiner and firm fixed effects as well.
Source: Tabakovic and Wollmann (2018).
Second, when we plot the main effects over time, we find that the differences are much larger in periods when firms are frequently hiring. During the dot com bust or Great Recession, for example, the leniency that examiners extend future employers disappears. Coming out of these hiring troughs, examiner leniency reappears.
Third, we find leniency can be tied to factors determined priorto the examiners joining the USPTO. For example, we show that the geographic location of an examiners alma mater predicts where he or she will later work. We then show that examiners who leave the agency grant significantly more patents to this predictedset of firms. One might worry that this merely reflects home bias i.e. favourable treatment for firms close to areas where one grew up or attended school. However, the effect is completely absent among employees who stay at the agency.
Ultimately, this leniency lowers the quality of patents coming out of the agency, which we measure using citations. For example, patents granted to firms that later hire the examiner who assessed them received about 25% fewer citations, consistent with the idea that these firms applications are held to a lower standard.
Figure 2 Patents granted to subsequent employers are of lower quality
Note: This figure plots the coefficients that result from regressing the log of one plus the number of citations a patent receives on indicators for whether the examiner was hired by any filing firm, whether the filing firm hired any examiner, and whether the filing firm hired the examiner assessing the particular application. The left-most point reflects the constant term, which is added back to the coefficients for comparisons sake. The specifications include calendar year and patent class fixed effects, though the relative magnitude and significance of the main coefficient of interest the final one is robust to including examiner and firm fixed effects as well.
Source: Tabakovic and Wollmann (2018).
Policy Considerations
While these results raise doubts about examiner impartiality, they are silent on what policymakers should do about it. Hasty policy changes can have large, unintended consequences in these settings. Several options have been discussed.
Cant we simply ban examiners from joining law firms for a year or two after leaving, i.e. create a cooling off period similar to that which members of Congress or partners at US accounting firms face? This is unclear. Such post-employment restrictions can dissuade talented individuals from joining agencies in the first place, or deprive them of incentives to work hard and show off.
In fact, recent work by Kempf (2018) substantiates precisely that concern, albeit in a different setting. She studies credit analysts at US rating agencies, tying together data on how they graded various financial products and who later hired them. Prior work showed analysts biased ratings in the direction of their future employers (Cornaggia et al. 2016) a big problem, since inaccurate ratings may be partly to blame for the financial crisis. Kempf points out, though, that analysts who leave the agencies to join investment banks are much more accurate overall. Even more striking, as the probability that an analyst will be hired by an investment bank rises, their accuracy increases. Perhaps agencies need to permit some corruption to gain some competence. Its an unsavoury idea, but we live in an imperfect world.
What about monitoring examiner-attorney interactions and punishing the sort of quid pro quo exchanges that made former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich so famous?1Besides cost and privacy concerns, it is important to remember that regulatory capture requires no explicit agreements at all. Nothing in our data, for example, implies these were ever discussed. In fact, we think very rarely, if ever, does this happen. Industry norms are sufficient simply following the principle that one should not bite the hand that feeds it, so to speak, will suffice.
Couldnt we instead just blind the process, withholding the examiners identities from the firms? While some agencies might make this work, in most cases this is not practical. Frequent interactions are required. Regulated firms will eventually figure out who their regulator is.
These issues aside, it is also unclear how one agencys experience applies to anothers. For example, deHaan et al. (2015) find that private law firms defending companies targeted by the SEC hire prosecutors that are harsheroverall. The cause is unclear. Perhaps talent is showcased with toughness in the adversarial process of litigation, and defence firms hire the best litigators, or perhaps defence firms hire the prosecutors they simply do not want to face again. Equally provocative, the authors find that the opposite is true for SEC lawyers based in Washington, DC, at least where criminal investigations are concerned.
Future Research
In our view, revolving doors can present a serious problem, but policymakers need more guidance. Fortunately, as social networks offer increasingly comprehensive data on worker transitions and governments continue to experiment with post-agency employment restrictions, opportunities will arise frequently for careful academic research to contribute to the debate.
See original post for references
The new LaGuardia Airport will be one of the biggest American infrastructure projects of recent times. The catch? They must keep the existing airport 100% operational without descending into chaos and delays?
Thursdays from 8:30pm AEDT.
Professor John Ryan, an international soil scientist and a native of Carrigataha, Cahir, was chosen to receive the prestigious Justus von Liebig Award, the unofficial Nobel Prize of soil science and the highest accolade in the profession.
The Liebig Award is presented once every four years by the International Union of Soil Scientists and was presented to Dr. Ryan at the World Soils Congress in Rio de Janeiro in August.
The prize was instituted in 2006 in honor of Justus von Liebig, a German chemist who established the basic principles of plant nutrition in the mid 19th century.
The award recognises outstanding contributions in applied soil discoveries, techniques, inventions or materials that increase food security, improve environmental quality or conservation.
This is the fourth time the award has been given - the three previous recipients were US scientists.
Dr. Ryan is also to be honoured with the Presidential Award from the President of the American Society of Agronomy. The award ceremony will take place at the ASA Annual Meetings in Baltimore in November.
Dr Ryans 50-year career involved international agriculture, with professorial positions at the University of Arizona, The American University of Beirut, The University of Nebraska and the International Centre for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (in Aleppo, Syria).
He holds degrees from University College Dublin (B.Agr.Sc., Ph.D., D.Sc) and the University of Arizona (M.S.).
He has variously served as researcher, teacher, editor and administrator, and has published extensively in the area of soil science and plant nutrition, agronomy and education and development.
He has lectured extensively throughout the world including New Zealand, India, China, Canada and Israel in recent years, and has served on various international scientific committees.
Dr. Ryan has received numerous academic accolades in recognition of his achievements, including Fellow of the American Societies of Soil Science, Agronomy and Crop Science; the International Soil Science Award, the International Service in Agronomy Award; the International Service in Crop Science Award; the Distinguished Service in Soil Science Award; Fellow of the American Society for the Advancement of Science; the International Crop Nutrition Prize; International Plant Nutrition Institutes Science Award; and Honorary Member of the International Union of Soil Scientists.
He is also a Distinguished Alumnus of the University of Arizona.
Dr. Ryan had the distinction of delivering the Dr. Tom Walsh Centenary Lecture in Johnstown Castle, Wexford on World Soils Day in 2014, in recognition of one of Irelands premier soil scientists and the founder of Teagasc, the national agricultural research organisation.
Dr. Ryan is an active member of Probus Clonmel and the Cahir Social and Historical Society.
He was inducted into the Tipperary-Dublin Associations Hall of Fame in 2015 for his international academic contributions as a Tipperary native.
Though retired in Ireland, he continues to be active professionally in the international scene. In September 2017 he participated in the UCDs Golden Golden Jubilee celebrations for his graduating class of 1967.
Tipperary is normally associated with the blue and gold colours!
However at the September County Council meeting, it was instead the colours of green and blue to the fore as the members of Tipperary County Council approved its Green & Blue Infrastructure Masterplan Roadmap for Tipperary Waterways.
The Roadmap and its Action Plan were undertaken as part of the Councils participation in the EU INTERREG EUROPE part-funded SWARE project. The project, which involves organisations from five European countries, examined how improved management and sustainable use of the unique natural and built heritage along inland waterways could enhance sustainable and inclusive economic growth and social cohesion by attracting new green/blue investments and generating local jobs.
The Masterplan Roadmap is a strategic plan focusing on the two primary waterways in County Tipperary Lough Derg and River Suir as they extend through and influence large parts of the county. The objective of the study was to develop an integrated plan incorporating biodiversity, heritage, tourism, sport, leisure, communities and economy to provide a cooperative strategic plan for our countys waterways.
This Report identifies high level green and blue infrastructure assets and networks within the county, stated Cllr. Mattie Ryan, Cathaoirleach of Tipperary County Council. Cllr. Ryan continued, it is the intention that the Masterplan Roadmap will act as a portfolio of ideas for future projects/actions (ecological, infrastructure, education, community, research, promotional, etc.) which the Council, community groups and others can submit to future funding calls from various sources.
Ultimately, this Roadmap and the projects/actions which it contains will help to address environmental, social, economic and amenity needs within the county, said Cllr. Ryan.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg met with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Secretary of Defense James Mattis on Thursday (13 September 2018) to discuss NATOs continued adaptation, fairer burden-sharing within the Alliance, the implementation of the decisions taken at the NATO Summit in July and preparations for upcoming NATO ministerials.
During his visit, the Secretary General also met the Assistant to the President and National Security Advisor, Ambassador John Bolton.
Mr Stoltenberg met with members of the US Senate NATO Observer Group and of the Foreign Relations Committee, as well as Members of the House of Representatives. They discussed the importance of the Alliance to the security of the US, as well as current security challenges.
On Friday (14 September), the Secretary General will deliver a keynote speech at the Heritage Foundation on the value of NATO in the 21st century.
Lieutenant General Jan Broeks, Director General of the NATO International Military Staff visited Switzerland on 29-30 August 2018. During his visit, Lieutenant General Broeks met with Major General Meier, Chief of the Swiss Armed Forces Staff. He also took the opportunity to visit the Maison de la Paix and the International Committee of the Red Cross in Geneva.
Arriving in Zurich, Director General of the NATO International Staff, took the opportunity to meet with the Chief of the Swiss Armed Forces Staff, Major General Meier with whom he discussed the ongoing migrant crisis in Europe, the situation in the Western Balkans and NATOs role in the Fight Against Terrorism. Lieutenant General Broeks thanked Switzerland for its commitment and contributions to NATO and more specifically to the KFOR Mission. We are grateful to have such a valued partner. During the meeting, the Director General provided an update on the ongoing adaptation of the NATO Command Structure: NATO and Switzerland share some of the same security challenges which have required us to adapt to this changing environment. For NATO, this has translated into the review of our Command Structure to make sure we remain as alert, flexible and responsive as required.
The next day, Lieutenant General Broeks headed to Geneva for a visit of the Maison de la Paix and its associated Centres. Starting off at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP) focused on executive education that facilitates collaboration in support of peace, security and international cooperation the Director General had an interesting exchange with Colonel Bulhmann, the Head of the Regional Perspectives Programme. Lieutenant General Broeks acknowledged that NATO can and does benefit from the experience and knowledge of institutes like this one. The exchange of information improves our ability to take the right decisions about security at the right time. The General then headed over to the Geneva International Centre for the Humanitarian Demining (GICHD) who work to reduce the impact of mines, cluster munitions and other explosive hazards, in close partnership with mine action organisations and other human security actors. Lieutenant General Broeks last stop was at the Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF) where he highlighted that we are natural partners. Your organisation and NATO have the same objectives. We are both dedicated to improving the security of states and people within a framework of democratic governance, the rule of law and respect for human rights.
The trip ended with a meeting with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). Lieutenant General Broeks commended the vital work the ICRC is doing in conflict zones around the world, NATO and the ICRC share the same values, it is the basis for our cooperation. We consult on humanitarian issues, and coordinate how international humanitarian law is covered in NATO military training and exercises.
(Natural News) Turmeric is known for its vibrant color and distinct flavor. The spice has been used in a variety of cuisines and natural medicines for centuries. In fact, turmeric has been used medicinally for roughly 4,500 years. It is no surprise that this ancient herb still reigns supreme today. Even in a world awash with prescription medications and over-the-counter pills, Big Pharmas worst cocktails cannot even begin to touch upon the healing power of turmeric.
Turmeric has risen to fame for its host of health benefits; whether its fighting cancer, boosting mood, supporting healthy blood sugar levels or knocking out inflammation turmeric has it covered. Better still, as an herb, turmeric is far less likely to cause any of adverse effects so commonly associated with pharmaceuticals.
The healing power of turmeric cant be beat
Recent research has shown that turmeric exacts its anticancer effects all the way down to an atomic level. Researchers from the University of California at San Diego School of Medicine just published an astonishing study which examined the ways in which turmerics most active compound, curcumin, effected cancer cells.
Co-senior author Jack E. Dixon, Ph.D., Distinguished Professor of Pharmacology, Cellular and Molecular Medicine, Chemistry and Biochemistry at UC San Diego, stated that their findings provided proof of curcumins ability to suppress the formation of certain cancers through a unique pathway. Proteasome-addicted cancers, including triple-negative breast cancer and multiple myeloma, are some examples of the cancers that could be targeted with curcumin.
Earlier this year, Mike Adams, founder of Natural News and creator of Brighteon.com, reported on a shocking case study in which a woman successfully treated her stage-3 multiple myeloma with nothing but turmeric extract.
In other words, this woman eliminated all signs of cancer from her body by taking nothing more than a curcumin supplement made from turmeric root, the Health Ranger writes. Dieneke Ferguson, the woman in question, battled her cancer for years with unsuccessful rounds of chemotherapy and other pharma industry garbage. Five years after beginning curcumin supplementation, Ferguson is reportedly living a normal, healthy life, with virtually no trace of cancer to speak of.
The anticancer activity of turmeric is nothing to sneeze at, but there are many other benefits this treasured spice has to offer.
Other health benefits of turmeric
As Natural Health 365 reports, a study published in Phytotherapy Research compared turmeric to Prozac in the treatment of depression. The team of researchers were no doubt shocked to find that turmeric was just as effective at managing depression, and not a single patient taking turmeric complained of side effects.
Turmeric is clearly a medicinal powerhouse. The golden spice can even be of use to patients struggling with diabetes. As sources explain, Its incredible anti-inflammatory and antioxidant qualities thanks in large part to curcumin quell the systemic inflammation of oxidative stress that often creates disastrous complications for diabetics. And according to a 2009 study, curcumin works 400 times better than Metformin for both increasing glucose sensitivity.
Because of its potent anti-inflammatory capacity and strong antioxidant activity, the benefits of turmeric are virtually endless. It is just one of the many tools to keep in your herbal medicine arsenal. You can learn more about turmeric and other medicinal herbs, and the pitfalls of pharmaceuticals, at FoodCures.news.
Sources for this article include:
NaturalHealth365.com
PBS.org
by Mathias Hariyadi
Construction took eight years, made possible by fundraising by the bishop, Mgr Giulio Mencuccini. The new building can hold 2,000 people, four times the capacity of the old cathedral. Traditional Dayak ceremonies welcomed the bishops before the festive service.
Sanggau (AsiaNews) Some 15,000 Catholics travelled from different parts of the remote province of West Kalimantan to take part in the consecration of the new cathedral in Sanggau, which is dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
The festive Eucharistic celebration was held two days ago marking the end of construction. Everything started eight years ago with a fundraising campaign promoted by Mgr Giulio Mencuccini, bishop of Sanggau. With a capacity of about 2,000 people, the new building replaces the old cathedral, which could only accommodate 500.
Mgr Ignatius Suharyo, archbishop of Jakarta and president of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Indonesia (KWI), offered his blessing for the church.
The service was led by Mgr Mencuccini with the participation of 17 bishops, hundreds of priests, men and women religious and believers from the parishes of the diocese and other parts of the province.
The day before, Mgr Mencuccini led a day of retreat in the presence of several prominent members of the local Catholic community. The district chief, who was present alongside the bishop, provide some material for discussion.
Fr Bartolomius Pr, a parish priest, told AsiaNews that "2,000 people joined the event". One of issues discussed was the social commitment of Catholics in the Sanggau community. "In addition to being independent and impartial, people called on the Church to be integrated and involved in society, Fr Bartolomius said.
Some traditional ceremonies were held before the inauguration. Ethnic Dayak welcomed the 17 bishops by offering them a typical scarf, a symbol of courteous hospitality and socialisation.
They then asked Mgr Suharyo to perform the Pancung Buluh Muda, the breaking of a young bamboo cane. Outsiders carry out this symbolic gesture when they enter Dayak communities.
In his homily, Mgr Mencuccini called on those present "to become messengers of love and passion for others and be like a candle in the dark."
"Let us come to church and take home the spirit of tolerance and solidarity towards others", the bishop said by way of conclusion.
(Sr Maria Ludovika OSA contributed to the article. Photo credit: Sr Maria Ludovika and Ayong Bonaventura)
(Natural News) The recently appointed planetary protection officer of NASA has a big job. Lisa Pratt is in charge of the space agencys efforts to prevent biological material from contaminating a planets biosphere, an article in Space.com stated.
On one hand, Pratt must make sure there are no bacteria from Earth aboard U.S. spacecraft that can cause forward contamination to other planets. Otherwise, these could damage or destroy the biospheres of alien worlds.
At the same time, she also needs to prevent potential bioactive molecules in samples from extraterrestrial sources asteroids, comets, meteorites, and other planets from causing backward contamination on Earth. Such biological contaminants could trigger a deadly epidemic on Earth.
Pratt heads NASAs Office of Planetary Protection (OPP), which has recently focused its efforts on designing U.S. spacecraft to prevent biological contamination of plants, including our own. The office is reappraising its approach to protecting planets from contamination given its future plans to get samples from Mars.
The OPP is also worried about the increasing number of private sector groups that are exploring space without the stringent safety measures imposed by NASA. (Related: NASA developing technology to help find astronauts lost in space.)
Protecting Mars and its moons from terrestrial contamination
NASAs planetary protection policies will be put to the test by the Mars 2020 mission. The landing mission will get samples of the soil to take back to Earth for analysis.
Some of the samples might have been able to support life in the past. Others might be capable of hosting life in the present day. NASA believes it has to be extra cautious with bringing these samples into Earths biosphere.
There are also special regions on Mars that could support life, be it local bacteria or hardy ones from Earth. NASA had been avoiding those areas to avoid disrupting potential Martian microbes, but Pratt believes her agency needs to look harder for signs of life.
The U.S. agency is also concerned about Phobos and Deimos, the two moons of Mars. NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) have a joint mission to Phobos to collect samples. While the Japanese believe the mission is safe from the risk of contamination, independent researchers think that Phobos might be hosting Martian microbes that got there by riding materials kicked up by meteor impacts.
Commercial companies might not be sterilizing equipment in their rockets, nanosatellites
Pratt will also be dealing with commercial space companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin. These companies are working on rockets and spacecraft that could send their cargo and crew beyond the moon. However, they are not bound by the same rigorous rules as NASA when it comes to properly sterilizing their equipment.
SpaceX, for instance, recently launched a Tesla Roadster towards the general direction of Mars. This irresponsible publicity stunt led to a minor planetary protection crisis as the car had not been sterilized beforehand. There was a chance that it could hit Mars in the distant future and contaminate the Red Planet with terrestrial bacteria.
Another area of concern is nanosatellites, small satellites built from off-the-shelf parts that are growing more popular with interplanetary mission planners for their compact size and affordable cost. The problem with these small crafts is that their cheaper parts might not be able to handle standard sterilization measures for spacecraft, such as chemical treatment or oven baking processes.
Like the Roadster now orbiting the Sun, the nanosatellites could still have Earth microbes aboard them. Pratt is worried about these bacteria surviving space and reentry into the atmosphere of another planet, where they can ruin the local biosphere.
Cosmic.news has more articles about how we can discover the mysteries of the universe without littering space.
Sources include:
Space.com
BusinessInsider.com
(Natural News) Following Breitbarts bombshell release of a once-secret video that captured Google executives panicking after the Trump election victory, its now clear that Google is a dangerous left-wing techno-cult that is deliberately manipulating U.S. elections through fraudulent, illegal means.
Its time to arrest and prosecute Google executives for racketeering and fraud.
These individuals, who preside over a company with unrivaled influence over the flow of information, can be seen disparaging the motivations of Trump voters and plotting ways to use their vast resources to thwart the Trump agenda, reports Breitbart News:
Co-founder Sergey Brin can be heard comparing Trump supporters to fascists and extremists. Brin argues that like other extremists, Trump voters were motivated by boredom, which he says in the past led to fascism and communism. The Google co-founder then asks his company to consider what it can do to ensure a better quality of governance and decision-making.
In the bombshell video recording, Google co-founder Sergey Brin says the election of Trump conflicts with many of [Googles] values and vows to use the power and influence of Google to make sure such outcomes never occur again. See the full video which has been mirrored at Brighteon.com:
Brighteon.com/5834436164001
Google CFO Ruth Porat then promises that Google will use the great strength and resources and reach we have to continue to advance really important values, meaning they will commit election fraud to ensure that Democrats win all future elections.
Google has been carrying out its criminal racketeering and election fraud operations by:
1) Outright banning and de-platform conservative websites and video channels (via YouTube).
2) Shadow-banning conservative content.
3) De-monetizing conservative content while allowing progressive content to earn a steady revenue stream.
Dont forget that Googles Chairman Eric Schmidt also offered to fund, advise and recruit for Hillary Clinton, using the power of Google to meddle in the 2016 election. This was all made public in a series of damning leaked emails published by The Gateway Pundit and others.
Nearly every website that has worked to expose Googles election meddling, racketeering and fraud has been banned or heavily penalized by Google itself.
Google is a threat to democracy; its executives are dangerous, deranged cultists
Whats clear from all this is that Google is a serious threat to democracy. With Google determining what voices are allowed to be heard on the internet, the very bedrock of democratic societies open debate and discussion has been utterly destroyed.
Even more alarmingly, Google has plunged itself into a cult of left-wing lunacy, where its own executives espouse truly deranged ideas as fact such as the ludicrous idea that biological men can magically transform into women, or that men have periods. Nearly every Google executive believes these insanely idiotic libtard ideas. In fact, they claim that anyone who doesnt agree with the fairy tale of transgenderism is engaged in hate speech and must be banned or silenced.
Just like the other tech giants, Google declares anything it does like to be either fake news or Russian propaganda. Pro-Trump, pro-America or pro-liberty content is outright blacklisted by Google through the companys dishonest mind games that define facts as anything uttered by a progressive.
Because of Googles dominance, the internet is now ruled by insane libtard cultists who belong in an insane asylum, not in the boardrooms of tech giants.
I warned the world about Googles threat to democracy over a year ago
I saw this coming over a year ago, when I first posted the following podcast which has been banned by YouTube and Google. Its called To save America, we must defeat Google, and it lays out why Google is a threat to every civil society on the planet.
Hear this podcast at the following link on Brighteon.com, the YouTube alternative I launched to provide a platform for those who are being censored by YouTube and Google:
Brighteon.com/5814180303001
Heres the video announcing Googles blacklisting of Natural News, which was carried out so that Google could protect the profits of the evil pharmaceutical industry against people like me who teach natural health, longevity and self-care:
Brighteon.com/5834190702001
At the time, I was one of the few voices warning about the danger Google posed to America. Now, its obvious to everyone that Google is a clear and present threat to our constitutional Republic.
To save America, Google must be defeated, dismantled or dethroned from its position of power over online speech.
Google is a threat to human freedom, human innovation and the very future of human civilization.
See TechGiants.news for more coverage of the evil tech giants.
Artificial intelligence helps with the search for intelligence life by detecting an astonishing number of mysterious fast radio bursts from 3 billion light-years away.
AI hunting for aliens it sounds straight out of a science fiction movie. For astronomers, artificial intelligence paves the way for greater, more efficient methods in their operations, including the search for life outside of Earth.
Dozens Of Radio Bursts From A Mystery Source
According to SETI Institute, their researchers have used machine learning techniques to capture 72 new FRBs from the repeating FRB 121102 in a dwarf galaxy 3 billion light-years from Earth. FRB 121102 is the only known FRB to emit repeated pulses, as most just give off a single outburst.
Fast radio bursts or FRBs are bright flashes of radio emission that are thought to have come from distant galaxies. The nature of their source is still unknown. There are multiple theories on FRB origins, with some suggesting that they could be traces of technology used by intelligent life somewhere in the universe.
The search for FRBs is part of the institute's Breakthrough Listen project, which is an initiative led by the University of California, Berkeley, dedicated to look for signs of extraterrestrial life.
Machine Learning Boosts The Search For Intelligent Life
The most significant finding of the research, which has been accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal, is the potential of machine learning techniques in Breakthrough Listen's work.
"This work is exciting not just because it helps us understand the dynamic behavior of fast radio bursts in more detail, but also because of the promise it shows for using machine learning to detect signals missed by classical algorithms," Andrew Siemion, director of the Berkeley SETI Research Center and principal investigator for Breakthrough Listen, explains in a report from UC Berkeley.
In August 2017, the team observed FRB 121102 for a span of five hours with digital instrumentation. In the 400 TB of data from that period, the researchers found a total of 21 bursts. All were detected within an hour, suggesting the source alternates between quiet and frenzied activity.
By developing a new machine learning algorithm, lead author and UC Berkeley postdoctoral student Gerry Zhang and other researchers were able to comb over the same data from 2017 and find an additional 72 bursts that the classical approach missed. Specifically, the team trained an algorithm to identify the bursts found by the 2017 team and then used it on the dataset to find other similar bursts that weren't found back then.
"These results hint that there could be vast numbers of additional signals that our current algorithms are missing and clearly demonstrate the power of applying modern data analytics and AI tools to astronomical research," Bill Diamond, SETI Institute President and CEO, says. "Applying these techniques in the search for evidence of extraterrestrial technologies, or technosignatures, is incredibly compelling, together with addressing the tantalizing phenomena of FRBs."
A showdown over safety at the sinking and tilting Millennium Tower in San Francisco appeared to be averted Thursday as city building inspectors dialed back a threat to yellow tag the building as a safety hazard because of a cracked window.
That softened stance comes as new images of the interior walls appear to be cracking inside the 36th floor unit where a window suddenly failed over Labor Day weekend.
The latest clash began Wednesday, when top building inspection official Ron Tom expressed grave safety concerns over a cracked window in the tower in a letter to tower management and attorneys.
Tom went so far as to threaten to yellow tag the 58-story building as a potential hazard if all units were not inspected and safety barriers put in place by Friday to protect pedestrians from any falling glass.
We feel this precaution is justified in order to protect the public, Tom said of the letter on Thursday.
But he seemed satisfied about a commitment by owners to put up more scaffolding to protect pedestrians, saying it was a good step to avoid a yellow tag.
We dont want any incidents where we didnt take the proper action to secure that sidewalk if it should happen, Tom said.
Tom Miller, a lawyer for the Millennium Homeowners Association seemed relieved there apparently will be no yellow tag after all.
Were very hopeful that the city will not take that drastic measure, he said, adding he expects the city will sign off on a new plan to inspect and secure the cracked window.
The new effort involves accessing and taping off the damaged window from nearby windows. It comes after an observation drone crashed Saturday.
I understand the citys primary charge is safety of the public, Miller said, and I understand this represents a public safety issue, which I think we have now contained and responded to the city in the right way.
Meanwhile, new photos show cracks have opened up in the ceiling and between the wall and baseboards of Unit 36B.
Experts fear those cracks could be more evidence that an entire 58-story stack of windows may be coming apart from the building. Thats a threat city officials hope Millennium will take seriously.
Jerry Dodson, who lives in Millenniums 42nd floor, worries the buildings problems are outpacing the talks on how to fix them.
The building is going down and tilting and twisting, he said. So with all those three things going on, the building is not waiting to see how the mediation turns out.
A former teacher at La Jolla Country Day School (LJCDS) has been arrested for allegedly sexually assaulting a minor, police confirmed.
Jonathan Sammartino was arrested near San Jose on three felony counts of sexual misconduct with a minor, according to a statement released by the school.
San Diego Police Department Lt. Brent Williams said Sammartino is charged with one count of statutory rape and two counts involving sex acts with a minor. SDPD confirmed the charges were filed locally.
According to a statement from The Harker School in San Jose where Sammartino taught beginning this school year, he was arrested Tuesday based on "allegations of a sexual assault of a student under 18 years of age at his former school in San Diego."
Sammartino is on administrative leave during the investigation, the school said.
The Harker School said the charges weren't filed until last week, weeks after it completed a background check on Sammartino
Sammartino taught upper-level social science courses in LJCDS's Upper School (high school) from 2012 to 2016. He also lectured at UCSD, according to his staff bio on The Harker School's website.
LJCDS says it was notified of the incident Wednesday through the school's background check system and the incident was later confirmed by police.
Police have not confirmed if Sammartinos alleged victim or victims are current or former students of LJCDS and it is unknown exactly when and where the alleged crimes were reported.
SDPD is investigating the case.
Climate change has real effect on human and animals lives and a giant white polar bear sculpture in front of the Ferry Plaza Building is here to remind everyone of that.
The 35-foot tall "Long View Polar Bear" statue made from recycled car hoods was put on display as leaders and activists from around the world gather this week in San Francisco for the Global Climate Action Summit, and to send the message about carbon footprint and habitat loss.
Scientists blame global warming for the dwindling ice cover on the Arctic Ocean. Because the ice is shrinking, the bears are having a harder time catching food during their prime hunting time.
"Taking the 'Long View' is crucial to survival," said DKLA Design drafts, the art collective that produces one-of-a kind monuments.
"Animals disappear to make room for our cars. Turning wrecked cars into monumental animals visually reverses this process and impacts the consciousness of the viewer," the statement read.
The sculpture was debuted during this year's Burning Man Festival and it will tour the country with its environmental message, according to organizers.
While business leaders, elected officials and activists from around the world gather in San Francisco Thursday for the Global Climate Action Summit, indigenous activists rallied to call out California governor's "hypocrisy" on fossil fuel and call on the summit to not make profit-driven decisions.
Activists with Brown's Last Chance campaign have been voicing their concerns and pushing back on Gov. Jerry Brown's inaction on the state's fossil fuel extraction and oil drilling, the processes which activists say undercuts other climate progress the state has made.
Native Environmental Activist Tom Goldtooth speaks to NBC Bay Area at the Rise for Climate, Jobs, Justice event in San Francisco on Saturday, Sept. 8, 2018.
Native American leaders with It Takes Roots coalition and allies gathered in Jessie Square in the morning, holding up signs that read "Stand with communities, not corporation," and Carbon pricing is colonialism."
Brown, a Democrat, and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg spoke at a news conference on the first full day of the San Francisco summit that is partly a rebuke of the Trump administration.
The leaders said in an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times that thousands of cities, states and other groups remain committed to reducing global warming without Trump's support.
"I think he'll be remembered, on the path he's now? I don't know. Liar, criminal, fool," the governor said.
Trump announced last year that he was withdrawing from the landmark 2015 Paris climate accord. His administration is also pursuing policies that would boost methane emissions and roll back California's strict vehicle emissions standards.
Bloomberg and Brown said they calculate the country is within striking distance of the reduction in greenhouse gases previously promised by the U.S.
Asked about the hundreds of protesters outside the conference claiming the Brown could do more in California, the governor reiterated his ambitious goals for battling greenhouse gas emissions at all levels.
"I believe California has the most far reaching plan to deal with any emissions as well as oil consumption and production," Brown said.
Bloomberg then chimed in and compared the mostly indigenous protesters outside the summit to people who want to build the wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Quite a juxtaposition outside of the #GlobalClimateActionSummit. Hundreds of environmental activists protesting CAs use of fossil fuel production. More at 11am @nbcbayarea pic.twitter.com/VqoK7psGIv Pete Suratos (@PeteSuratosTV) September 13, 2018
.@MikeBloomberg compares indigenous protesters outside the Climate Summit to people who want to build a wall along the Mexico-U.S. border.
Protesters outside say they just want leaders attending the summit to not make profit-driven decisions. #GCAS2018 https://t.co/jKNB2oL3Ex pic.twitter.com/3xyOjSk4Dd Kiki Intarasuwan (@kintarasu) September 13, 2018
"We've got environmentalists protesting an environmental conference. It reminds me of people who want to build a wall along the Mexican border to keep people out from a country we go to for vacations. Something's crazy here," Bloomberg said.
Bloomberg said the same thing again later in the day when protesters interrupted his remarks with a chant "our air is not for sale." Demonstrators were then removed by security.
Two people were arrested at the rally outside Moscone Convention Center, according to San Francisco Police Department. Jiaspi Gomez, 19, of San Diego was arrested for trespassing and Chistopher Moulton, 29, of San Francisco, for Resisting, Obstructing or Delaying a Peace Officer; Refusing to Comply with a Lawful Order of a Peace Officer; Pedestrian in a Roadway, police said.
Ten people were escorted from inside the convention center but they were not arrested, according to SFPD.
Meanwhile, participants of the summit are expected pledge trillions of dollars in spending on cleaner energy and getting out of investments in fossil fuels, though a new United Nations report raises questions about how effective such promises have been.
That report says businesses and lower levels of government have the potential to cut enough greenhouse gases emissions to keep global warming below the danger point of another 2 degrees Fahrenheit (nearly 1 degree Celsius) from now. However, the same report says so far, 8,000 pledges from those groups haven't accomplished much.
Thousands of politicians and business leaders from around the world are expected at the two-day invitation-only summit at the Moscone Center, as well as peripheral events throughout the city. Summit spokesman Nick Nuttall said he is not aware of any U.S. government officials attending.
Messages to the U.S. Department of Interior, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Environmental Protection Agency were not returned.
The summit comes as the Carolinas along the eastern U.S. seaboard prepares for Hurricane Florence and 2018 is on pace to be the fourth hottest year on record globally. The eight warmest years in more than a century of record keeping have all been in the past 13 years.
Conference speakers include the mayors of Paris and San Francisco, actors Alec Baldwin and Harrison Ford, and primatologist Jane Goodall.
"For Gods sake, stop electing leaders who dont believe in science. Or even worse, pretend they dont believe in science for political self-interest," Ford said. "Never forget who youre fighting for."
The 2015 Paris agreement commits countries to set their own plans for cutting climate emissions.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned this week that the world must rapidly shift from dependence on fossil fuels to prevent "runaway climate change."
The Global Climate Action Summit included a report that 27 major cities around the world have seen emissions decrease over a five-year period and are now at least 10 percent lower than their peak.
The cities include Berlin, London, Los Angeles, New York, Paris and San Francisco. Together the cities include about 54 million people.
The report came from C40 Cities Climate Leadership, a group whose board is headed by philanthropist and former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg.
In a speech, he called the conference a way to broadcast that the U.S. is still committed to fighting global warming.
"Climate change is a global challenge and Washington ought to be leading from the front," Bloomberg said.
The cities include Berlin, London, Los Angeles, New York, Paris and San Francisco. Together the cities include about 54 million people.
The report came from C40 Cities Climate Leadership, a group whose board is headed by Bloomberg.
In a speech, he called the conference a way to broadcast that the U.S. is still committed to fighting global warming.
"Climate change is a global challenge and Washington ought to be leading from the front," Bloomberg said.
A ten second ad sponsored by an organization that publishes books and articles that deny the Holocaust, is running in a BART station and is stirring up controversy in San Francisco.
The Institute for Historical Review is an Orange County-based group that has drawn criticism from civil rights organizations. Articles on their web site include titles that praise Adolf Hitler and attack Holocaust survivors.
"Your gut reaction is, this is really awful and wrong," said Lafayette resident Alice Kennelly.
However, the ad running in the Montgomery BART station platform simply says "History Matters."
"It doesnt really give you that much information about what theyre trying to do or say," said Anna Bethke from Millbrae.
Not all riders agreed with BART on its decision to run an ad from a group that regularly publishes Holocaust deniers.
"There are certain things that are factual, and denying facts is not a platform, is not something that would want BART to provide a platform for," said San Francisco resident Rohit Kumar.
In a statement a spokesperson said the transit agency had to run the ad saying, "We are bound by law to carry the ads as written since they comply with free speech laws that allow advertisers to express a point of view without regard to viewpoint."
Since the backlash, BART has required the company to remove the Historical Reviews web address from the ad.
The head of the US Armed Forces in the Middle East says Tehran must be stopped and its attempts to "destabilize" the region. The Islamic Republic, number one enemy along with extremist groups. Among the Gulf countries, the divisions between Riyadh and Doha remain. The Saudis want to turn Qatar into an island.
Kuwait City (AsiaNews / Agencies) - Arab Gulf nations must put aside differences and divisions above all the clashes between Riyadh and Doha - to form a common front against Iran and its attempts to " destabilize "the region.
This was stated by General USA Joseph Votel, the central command camp in the Middle East, according to which the two main "threats" to regional security are concentrated in extremist groups and the Islamic Republic.
The military leader spoke at a conference held yesterday in Kuwait, which included representatives from Saudi Arabia and Qatar, nations long involved in a very hard diplomatic and commercial confrontation. Reasons for friction include relations between Doha and Iran, the main Shiite power in the region and the number one enemy of the Saudi Sunnis.
According to the US general it is "imperative" to enhance and integrate "our capabilities" to ensure better protection of "interests in terms of security", which "exceed" every other aspect. An invitation to set aside differences and divisions to form a common front. Among the main proponents of the proposal is Kuwait, which has long been working in agreement with Washington to "re-launch the alliance at the regional level" in an anti-Iranian key.
Meanwhile, Saudi official sources confirm the progress of the project initiated by Riyadh and intends to transform Qatar - a peninsula united with Saudi Arabia from a strip of land that acts as a border - into an island. "I look forward to the details of the development plan of the project linked to the island of Salwa" Saud Al-Qahtani, one of the most esteemed adviser of the Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (Mbs), said in recent days. He added that the "grandiose" plan will end up "changing the geography of the region".
Rumors thus confirm Riyadh's goal to dig a canal along the border (61 km in total) with Qatar, included in the "Salwa Project". Al-Qahtani, one of the great supporters of the project, did not want to provide more information on the start date and overall timeframe for the project.
Some unconfirmed sources speak of a pit - which will also become a tourist site, a military base and a site for the disposal of radioactive waste - 200 meters wide and 20 meters deep, for a total cost of 745 million dollars. And perhaps it will isolate Qatar even more from the rest of the Arabian peninsula.
A teacher at a San Jose school has been arrested for allegedly sexually assaulting a minor at a school where he used to teach in San Diego, police confirmed.
Jonathan Sammartino was arrested near San Jose on three felony counts of sexual misconduct with a minor, according to a statement released by The Harker School.
San Diego Police Department Lt. Brent Williams said Sammartino is charged with one count of statutory rape and two counts involving sex acts with a minor. SDPD confirmed the charges were filed locally.
Sammartino was arrested Tuesday based on "allegations of a sexual assault of a student under 18 years of age at his former school in San Diego," a statement from The Harker School said.
Sammartino is on administrative leave during the investigation, the school said.
The Harker School said the charges weren't filed until last week, weeks after it completed a background check on Sammartino
Sammartino taught upper-level social science courses in San Diego's La Jolla Country Day School (LJCDS) from 2012 to 2016. He also lectured at University of Califora San Diego, according to his staff bio on The Harker School's website.
LJCDS said it was notified of the incident Wednesday through the school's background check system and the incident was later confirmed by police.
Police have not confirmed if Sammartinos alleged victim or victims are current or former students of LJCDS and it is unknown exactly when and where the alleged crimes were reported.
San Diego police is investigating the case.
Dozens of healthcare workers rallied today outside of San Francisco's Laguna Honda Hospital, accusing the medical facility of creating unsafe conditions for both staff and patients by refusing to hire more workers.
The rally, organized by Service Employees International Union Local 1021, began around noon outside the hospital, located at 375 Laguna Honda Blvd.
According to union officials, the alleged employee shortage at the specialized nursing facility and rehabilitation center allegedly creates a "vicious cycle" in which patients' needs are not being met, resulting in patients taking out their frustration on staff, with some instances involving staff being physically and verbally abused.
"Our patients and their families expect to get better when they come to Laguna Honda Hospital," Theresa Rutherford, certified nursing assistant at the hospital and SEIU Local 1021's vice president of representation, said in a statement. "Instead they find their recovery put in jeopardy because of the short staffing."
According to union officials, certified nursing assistants are responsible on some shifts for providing care to nearly 30 patients, which is a ratio that results in poor patient care with greater risk for infection and bedsores.
"Our patients deserve better than this, and that's why we're calling on the hospital to address the problem of understaffing at this facility. This situation is compromising the care that Laguna Honda Hospital patients and residents need," registered nurse Elizabeth Saiz said in a statement.
"Inadequate levels of staffing are leading to greater patient falls and injuries. People are getting hurt. It's time the hospital administration starts paying attention and doing something about it."
Rutherford said, "Currently there are several staff on Worker's Comp and Disability as a result of unsafe staffing levels. Management has turned a blind eye to the situation and instead of coming up with a solution, they place the blame squarely at the feet of the employees. Several employees have been disciplined because of management's inability to effectively address safe staffing levels."
According to Rachael Kagan, spokeswoman for the San Francisco Public Health Department, which runs Laguna Honda Hospital, the facility is well staffed.
"We don't agree with the union's assessment. We certainly respect the union's right to express their opinion. The safety of our patients and staff is our top priority and Laguna Honda is no exception," she said.
SEIU Local 1021 spokesman Carlos Rivera said, "The workers out there today were championing something the communities want and that's a public health system that takes care of the disabled, mentally ill and elderly. San Francisco is able to do a better job to make sure that these people live in dignity and low staffing levels at this hospital are not going
to do it."
Following an outpouring of response from advocates, politicians and the media, organizers of a privately funded homeless encampment in San Jose say law enforcement officials have backed off on enforcing a 72-hour notice to vacate the camp.
Hope Village sits in an empty parking lot boxed off by Mineta San Jose International Airport, the Guadalupe River Creek and the state Employment Development Department on Ruff Drive and West Hedding Street. The collection of tents is surrounded by a fence and has a bathroom, solar power and a central gathering area.
Peter Miron-Conk, who co-founded Casa de Clara Catholic Worker, is among a small group of people who planned and constructed the camp, which opened on Saturday.
The organized dwelling had only been open for two days when it received a 72-hour notice from the California Highway Patrol, according to Miron-Conk.
Officer Ross Lee, spokesman for the CHP San Jose office, said the encampment was reported to the CHP on Monday because the site is on state property as a parking lot for the Employment Development Department.
Miron-Conk and other organizers began calling local politicians, media and finding contacts who could buy them time. He said the camp is currently negotiating with the city, county and the CHP to find them a safe place to relocate, but "there's no rapid action to get us out of here."
He added that CHP Capt. Ceto Ortiz has spoken to him and seems committed to a "peaceful resolution."
Lee confirmed today that despite the agency giving a verbal 72-hour notice to vacate earlier this week, "currently we do not have a planned sweep to go in and remove them."
Lee said the CHP is "in the process of seeing if we can come to another resolution by working with city, county and state officials to see if there's a more appropriate location for the encampment."
The camp has the capacity for about 25 tents and there are currently seven tenants. If negotiations are successful, Miron-Conk said the camp will think about accommodating more residents.
A majority of the people at Hope Village used to live in an encampment on Corie Court and Oakland Road. Miron-Conk met them while operating a mobile shower program, and discussed the project with them over the course of two months at a McDonald's on Oakland and Brokaw roads.
After searching for the right location, organizers settling on the state-owned land across from a defunct Santa Clara County traffic court building.
Residents who live at Hope Village cannot have substance abuse issues, serious mental health problems or a history of violent behavior. Miron-Conk said he wishes the camp could be inclusive of a larger population of homeless individuals, but said the camp wouldn't succeed against political and social pressure otherwise.
James, a 59-year-old resident at the camp, grew up in Pottsville, Pennsylvania, and moved to California to begin working. He's college-educated and said he has a small, but loving circle of friends.
"You must realize how very humble this is," James said, gesturing at his 8-by-8-feet tent, propped up on a wooden platform. "It is the minimum of the barest of common decency. It's not quite what I thought it would be, but look at the other side."
Since he first began living on the streets in 2013, he said he has seen tractors scoop up people's belongings in encampment sweeps and disabled, elderly individuals lose all of their possessions.
James said he became homeless on his own terms, but his story is atypical, and many others struggle with major health problems and injuries.
"It's very expensive to be poor," he said, describing having to buy every meal, being "chained" to libraries and restaurants to charge his phone and replace items that are either stolen or taken in sweeps.
James said Hope Village is a welcome respite from the creek-side paths and dirt patches he and others have lived on before.
Though San Jose is making progress in its affordable housing goals, Miron-Conk said a truly changed housing landscape is years away.
"It's not tolerable, we got tired of waiting," he said.
Ragan Henninger, deputy director of housing for the city, said the CHP has contacted Councilman Tam Nguyen's office to discuss the next step for Hope Village.
"From the department's perspective, we understand that the need is great and we know that there are people suffering on the street," Henninger said. "Traditionally stationed encampments are not a national best practice ... but that being said, we recognize that we need to find a solution that houses a greater quantity of people."
19 vehicles were reported broken into in Milton this past weekend.
According to police, from overnight Sunday into the early morning hours of Monday, 19 vehicles were broken into near East Milton, Massachusetts.
The areas affected included Saint Agatha's Road, Cabot Street, Hurlcroft Road, Pillon Road and Augusta Road.
Nearly all of the victims reported that they left their cars unlocked, police said.
None of the cars that were broken into sustained any damage or displayed any sign of forced entry.
Police urge everyone to participate in the "9PM ROUTINE," which includes locking your car doors, removing valuables from your car, closing and locking garage doors, locking home doors and turning exterior lights on.
Instead of a beach vacation to Bermuda, 2,000 cruise ship passengers got to tour Canada and Maine this week thanks to Hurricane Florence.
The Norwegian Dawn departed from Boston last Friday, and has made stops in Halifax and Sydney Nova Scotia, St. John New Brunswick, and Bar Harbor, Maine.
"It's not like we expected," said Russell Magowen, a cruise ship passenger from Mendon, Massachusetts, who was wearing a hat that said "Bermuda" as he toured downtown Bar Harbor Thursday. "That's where we were supposed to be."
His travel companion, Vicki McKinnon, is less than impressed with how the cruise line handled the whole ordeal.
"Because of the ports we had to go to, there was nothing to do," she said. "Today is the first day we're actually enjoying ourselves. In Halifax, we spent five hours in a bar watching the Patriots game. There was nothing to do."
Her friend Debi Gosler, from Worcester, Massachusetts, was upset to find out about the change in schedule at the last minute. She had packed her swimsuit and sandals not sweatshirts.
"It was cold [in Canada]," she said. "And this was our first cruise, and we were so excited."
They said they had hoped Norwegian Cruise Lines would offer them a refund or the chance to re-book their Bermuda trip and they're disappointed with how everything has been handled.
"I would have preferred if they said 'come see us in the spring,' not 'you have to go now,'" said Magowen.
Other passengers are going with the flow and making the most out of their unexpected destinations.
"I have no complaints," said Tracie Price, of Weymouth, Massachusetts. "It was a chance to see something different." Her husband Larry thinks they'll book a cruise to Bermuda in May.
Most passengers seemed to agree that this trip was better than a cruise headed toward a hurricane.
"It would have been a nightmare on that ship," said Price. "It would have been rocking and rolling, and there would have been a lot of sick people."
According to Bar Harbor Harbormaster Charlie Phippen, a change in cruise ship schedules is normal during hurricane season.
"Expect the unexpected," he said. "Be safe, do the smart thing. For some of these ships, that means re-route."
Phippen said at least one cruise ship has had to cancel a trip to Maine due to Hurricane Florence. The Grandeur of the Seas was supposed to bring 2,000 passengers to Portland this Sunday, with a stop in Bar Harbor on Monday. The ship is currently waiting in Florida for Florence to pass and has canceled the stops in Maine.
The Norwegian Dawn is scheduled to return to Boston Friday.
A contentious debate has emerged over prison policies, as the Vermont Department of Corrections readies a plan to send some inmates to a facility in Mississippi run by a for-profit company.
Opponents call the idea immoral, but the governor says it's simply the best option his administration has right now.
"We're anticipating the signing of a contract," Gov. Phil Scott, R-Vermont, said Wednesday of a plan to move more than 200 of Vermont's prison inmates to a facility in Tallahatchie, Mississippi, run by CoreCivic.
CoreCivic is a publicly traded company on the New York Stock Exchange, and was formerly known as the Corrections Corporation of America.
With prison space in Vermont tight, the state has been relying on out-of-state prison contracts for years, but a current deal with the state of Pennsylvania has been sharply criticized, after several inmate deaths.
The planned Mississippi move, though, is already controversial, even before the contract is signed.
The ACLU of Vermont recently criticized the pending deal, saying in a tweet that it's "disgraceful for Vermont taxpayer $$ to be lining the pockets of the private prison industry."
Gov. Scott had proposed investing in expansions to infrastructure here at home, adding a forensic facility, and new prison cells and beds, so out-of-state deals wouldnt be needed.
However, the idea did not gain traction in the legislature.
"My prerogative would be to house everyone here in Vermont," Gov. Scott told necn Wednesday. "But at this point in time, that's not feasible, so we have to make the best deal we can."
Gov. Scott's Democratic opponent in November, Christine Hallquist, said she wants to see Vermont's trend of prison population reductions continue.
Hallquist said in an interview with necn that she would like to see out-of-state prison contracts end through a combination of criminal justice reforms, new construction at home, approaches like non-prison sentences for low-level crimes, and even home confinement for certain offenses.
"America incarcerates its prison population at five times the rest of the world," Hallquist said of her belief that too many Vermonters are currently housed behind bars. "I think the idea of for-profitthe idea of putting people in prison for profitis uncivilized; its not something [corporations] should be making money from."
Gov. Scott argued that working with a for-profit prison company may actually give the Vermont Department of Corrections greater control over handling of its inmates than the state had with the Pennsylvania deal which Scott said was subject to Pennsylvania corrections policies.
"When you have a for-profit, you're able to make those contractual arrangements, so you make sure you have what you want for those offenders," Scott said. "We have to do what's best for the taxpayers, as well."
Amanda Gilchrist, a spokeswoman for the company Vermont has been negotiating with for the Mississippi move, CoreCivic, said in a written statement that CoreCivic is an experienced provider of quality correctional and reentry services, dedicated to helping keep communities safe, preparing inmates for life after prison, and saving taxpayers money.
Gilchrist said thousands of inmates housed in its facilities are enrolled in re-entry programs.
Meg McCarthy, whose husband is currently serving a lengthy prison sentence in Vermont, but who was previously housed in a corporate-run facility out-of-state, said she is deeply worried about the pending Mississippi dealand not just for her husband's sake.
"The corporations do cut corners," McCarthy claimed.
McCarthy predicted shipping inmates even farther from home than Pennsylvania will hurt their chances at positive reentry back into their communities.
"I feel strongly that a big part of keeping the rehabilitation going is to have people who care for them nearby and able to visit on a regular basis," McCarthy said.
Vermont corrections officials toured the Tallahatchie, Mississippi center run by CoreCivic as part of their research into the pending move.
Within 10 days of running, three ads for Democratic women running for the Illinois State Senate - in which they called for term limits for House Speaker Michael Madigan - have been pulled from airwaves.
It was an unusual step for the candidates, criticizing a member of their own party by name ahead of a general election, particularly one who leads a different chamber of the legislature. Though Madigan is leader of the Illinois House, Democratic insiders admit that his power impacts the Senate as well.
The candidates - Laura Ellman, Ann Gillespie and Bridget Fitzgerald - are each running for Republican-held districts in Chicago's suburbs that voted for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election, leading many to believe they may be among the most likely to turn blue in November.
But days after the ads began to air on cable television, sources said the Chicago Federation of Labor intervened, threatening to withhold nearly $5 million in campaign cash for Senate Democrats if the ads were not taken down. A spokesman for the Chicago Federation of Labor did not immediately respond to request for comment.
A spokesman for the Illinois Senate Democratic Victory Fund said Thursday that the ads were the candidates' introductory ads and they had new ads up and running beginning Tuesday.
Last year, the Senate agreed to a 10-year term limit for its leaders. Senate President John Cullerton has been Senate President since 2009, but the new guidelines apply to him beginning in January 2017 when the Senate agreed to the new term limits.
Live updates from the courtroom below.
The final jurors were selected Thursday in the high-profile murder trial of Chicago Police Officer Jason Van Dyke, though questions still loom over whether or not a jury will even be used.
The two jurors selected Thursday were a white male nuclear engineer in his 30s, and a woman in her 30s. The man said he had seen the dashcam video of Van Dyke shooting Laquan McDonald and said he thought the officer "went too far" but would be able to put that aside in the trial. The woman said she had not seen the video nor discussed the case with her friends.
The man was sworn in but the woman, selected 12th, was not. Five alternate jurors were also selected Thursday but not sworn in, completing the list as testimony was expected to begin Monday.
The defense team has not yet announced if they plan to seek a jury or a bench trial, which would leave the decision in Judge Vincent Gaughan's hands. The defense will have to make that choice by Friday, Gaughan said, giving defense attorney Dan Herbert one more day to decide which route he will choose.
Three women and two men were picked for the jury earlier this week, while four women and one man were seated Wednesday. Attorneys sparred over race during the selection process Wednesday, as just one African-American juror, a woman who has worked for FedEx for 24 years, was seated in the case.
Prosecutors accused Van Dyke's attorneys of trying to keep minorities off the jury, filing a motion arguing that the defense had illegally removed potential jurors on the basis of their race. Gaughan denied that motion.
Members of a pool of 200 potential jurors have faced a series of questions from attorneys and Gaughan in the process, after filling out questionnaires the previous week and returning this week for one-on-one interviews with Gaughan behind closed doors.
Hours after questioning began Monday, Van Dyke's defense team filed a change of venue motion asking to strike the current jury panel because prospective jurors had to pass protesters who held signs that said their client had been "guilty of racist murder."
This has not been a typical jury selection process as the larger-than-usual pool of potential jurors faces heightened scrutiny. Gaughan has not yet ruled on motions filed by Van Dyke's defense team aiming to move the trial outside of Cook County due to extensive news coverage of the shooting, a topic potential jurors were believed to be questioned on. The judge said he would rule on that once questioning of potential jurors was underway, but exact timing was not given.
Van Dyke is charged with murder in the shooting death of 17-year-old McDonald nearly four years ago.
Van Dyke was captured on dashcam video shooting McDonald 16 times the night of Oct. 20, 2014, on the city's Southwest Side. He was charged with six counts of first-degree murder in November 2015, and 16 counts of aggravated battery in March 2017.
Van Dyke entered a plea of not guilty. In August 2016, CPD Supt. Eddie Johnson recommended Van Dyke's firing to the Chicago Police Board, who granted a motion to halt the proceedings until the criminal case against Van Dyke was complete. He remains suspended from the department without pay.
11:48 a.m.: The 11th & 12th jurors have been selected in the Jason Van Dyke trial. But only the 11th juror, a white male, will be sworn in today because Judge Gaughan is giving defense attorney Dan Herbert one more day to decide if he will choose a bench trial or jury trial for his client
11:50 a.m.: Meantime, Judge Gaughan is moving forward with jury selection today, Attorneys will select the four jurors who serve as alternates.
12:53 p.m.: Three alternate jurors have been selected in Jason Van Dyke trial. Only one more needed and jury is complete. Testimony is expected to begin on Monday morning, unless defense attorneys decide tomorrow to change to a bench trial.
3:22 p.m.: Jury selection in Jason Van Dyke trial is complete. The final alternates were selected. Testimony will begin Monday
3:43 p.m.: In all, 54 potential jurors were questioned over 2 1/2 days. 12 jurors and 5 alternate jurors were selected. In the 12 are 8 females and 4 males. Among the alternates are 3 females and 2 males.
Cuba said Thursday the United States is continuing to withhold important information that could help in the investigation into mysterious incidents that have injured some two dozen Havana-based American diplomats, including some with brain damage, since late 2016.
After meeting with U.S. officials at the State Department, members of a team Cuba assembled to look into the incidents said their requests for patient records and other information had again been rebuffed and rejected anew Washington's assertions that the injuries were caused by targeted attacks.
"The Cuban side is completely unable to support the hypothesis of health attacks and brain damage as reported by the State Department," said Dr. Mitchell Valdes Sosa, chief of the group of Cuban scientists and physicians. "Nothing was presented that could add up to sustain such a thing."
The Cuban delegation renewed calls for the State Department to release to it specific medical records and other data about the victims in order for it to be studied.
It also repeated demands that Washington stop referring to the cause of the symptoms as "health attacks" in the absence of definitive proof and denounced reports citing U.S. officials as saying that investigators may be narrowing their suspicions about the cause and culprit behind them.
"The State Department has been treating theories as if they were facts," said Johana Tablada, a senior Cuban diplomat who led the team.
Thursday's meeting was held as American authorities search for answers into mysterious "health attacks" that began two years ago in Havana and amid growing frustration among national security agencies and members of Congress about the lack of answers on what and who caused the injuries.
Recent reports have suggested investigators are focusing on the possibility that some sort of microwave device may be responsible and that Russia, which has long had close ties with Cuba, is the leading suspect for the attacks.
The State Department, however, has denied that any conclusions had been drawn.
"We still don't know the cause, we still don't know what or who is responsible for health attacks that took place that affected our personnel in Cuba," spokeswoman Heather Nauert told reporters on Thursday.
NBC News, citing U.S. officials and others briefed on the investigation, reported this week that Russia is the main suspect in an investigation into the attacks that led to brain injuries in both Cuba and China.
That suspicion, they say, is backed up by evidence from communications intercepts amassed during a lengthy and ongoing investigation involving the FBI, the CIA and other U.S. agencies. But the evidence is not conclusive enough to put the blame on Moscow.
Nauert did not address a Cuban request for "a dispassionate examination of health reports of U.S. diplomats in Cuba according to the rules of science" but said the meeting would "involve private medical information that is coming forth from some of our people."
The Cubans, however, said no such information was shared beyond what was previously available in a published medical journal report, which they and others have found to be inconclusive
Those reports have raised protests from Cuba, which does not dispute the symptoms but insists there is no evidence to support any assertion that they were caused by premeditated attacks on its soil or that there is evidence to point too a perpetrator.
Cuba has repeatedly denounced the U.S. accusations as politically motivated and unproven and did so again on Thursday. "Stop using the word 'attack.'"
Twenty-five U.S. Embassy workers in Cuba, as well as one at the U.S. consulate in Guangzhou, China, have been affected by mysterious health incidents that began in the fall of 2016. The range of symptoms and diagnoses includes mild traumatic brain injury, also known as concussion.
The last case from Havana was confirmed in June. The U.S. said two embassy staffers were affected in a single occurrence in late May in a diplomatic residence at which both officers were present. Those were the first confirmed cases in Havana since August 2017.
Thursday's meeting was organized after Cuba complained that Washington has refused to share key details about the affected Americans' medical conditions. Sosa said the talks were a "productive and very cordial scientific meeting but we received no new information."
In classified briefings with congressional aides and lawmakers last week, the officials repeated that they had not come to any conclusions about what caused the injuries or who might be responsible for them, according to officials familiar with the meetings.
Initial speculation had centered on some type of sonic attack, owing to strange sounds heard by those affected. But an interim FBI report in January found no evidence that sound waves could have caused the damage.
More than one million people have been told to get out of the way of Hurricane Florence. Some headed through Connecticut as they escaped the storm.
This is the first time weve ever actually left. My wife kept saying its going to be a tough storm, said Ladwaun Edwards.
Edwards and his family stopped for a quick break at a rest area on Interstate 95 in Milford on Wednesday.
We were actually highly encouraged to evacuate. Thats why we did, said Kim Edwards.
They left their home in Jacksonville, North Carolina on Tuesday.
Its just north of Wilmington and could get pounded by Hurricane Florence.
As of 11 p.m. Wednesday night, Hurricane Florence was a Category 2. Chief Meteorologist Ryan Hanrahan rode along with the 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron of the US Air Force Reserve as they flew through the storm and collected valuable data.
They boarded up, taped up windows, pulled stuff from the yard, brought it into the garage, said Ladwaun Edwards.
At Bradley International Airport on Wednesday, passengers arrived from South Carolina after vacations were cut short.
We were evacuated. We were told we had to leave, said James Goddiess of Stonington. A little nerve-racking especially when they came and boarded up our rental house while we were still there.
This was the last Spirit flight from Myrtle Beach to Hartford thats planned for days.
Janet Wellington lives down there.
The scary thing is not knowing when we can go back, said Wellington.
And back in Milford, the Edwards are headed to Rhode Island to wait out the storm with family.
I think we made a good decision, said Kim Edwards.
The Myrtle Beach airport reports that all commercial flights will end Thursday morning.
Decisions on when flights will resume will be made after the hurricane makes landfall.
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Zafar-ul-Haq Raja Pervaiz Ashraf Raja Riaz Ahmad Rana Mashood Ahmad Khan Rana Mubashir Rana Muhammad Afzal Khan Rana Muhammad Arshad Rana Muhammad Iqbal Khan Rana Sanaullah Khan Rana Tanveer Hussain Rana Zahid Tauseef Rao Manzar Hayat Rasool Bux Palijo Rasul Bakhsh Rais Rauf Hassan Rauf Klasra Raza Ali Abidi Raza Haroon Raza Hayat Hiraj Raza Rumi Reema Khan Reham Khan Rehan Hashmi Rehana Leghari Rehman Azhar Rehman Malik Riaz Fatiana Riaz Khokhar Rizwan Asif Rizwan Azan Roedad Khan Romina Khurshid Alam Rubina Faisal Rubina Faisal Rubina Qaimkhani Rustam Shah Mehmand S K Niazi (Sardar Khan Niazi) Saad-ullah Jan Burq Saadia Afzaal Sabir Ali Baloch Sabir Shakir Sadaf Abdul Jabbar Sadaqat Ali Abbasi Sadiq Sanjrani Saeed Aasi Saeed Ajmal Saeed Ghani Saeed Naqvi Saeed Pervaiz Saeed Qazi Saeed Shafique Saeed Siddiqui Sahibzada Haji Muhammad Fazal Karim Sahibzada Hamid Raza Sahibzada Muhammad Amanat Rasul Sahir Lodhi Saif ur Rehman Chaudhry Saifan Khan Saira Afzal Tarar Sajid Hussain Malik Sajjad Mir Sajjad Mir Sajjad Saleem Sakhawat Naz Saleem Bukhari Saleem Mandviwalla Saleem Mandviwalla Saleem Safi Saleem Yazdani Saleem Zia Salmaan Taseer Salman Ahmad Salman Akram Raja Salman Ghani Salman Hassan Samar Minallah Sami Ibrahim Sami Ullah Khan Sami Yousafzai Samina Khawar Hayat Samiullah Khatir Samson Simon Sharaf Sana Bucha Sana Kevan Sana Mirza Sanam Marvi Sanaullah Haq Sanaullah Zehri Sangeeta Saqib Sherani Saqib Ul Islam Sarah Zaman Sardar Akhtar Mengal Sardar Ashraf Sardar Asif Ahmad Ali Sardar Attique Ahmed Khan Sardar Ayaz Sadiq Sardar Babar Khan Musakhel Sardar Imam Qaisrani Sardar Kamal Sardar Latif Ahmad Khosa Sardar Mehtab Ahmed Khan Abbasi Sardar Muhammad Jamal Khan Leghari Sardar Muhammad Yaqoob Khan Nasir Sardar Nabil Ahmad Khan Gabol Sardar Nadir Nabil Gabol (Sardar Nadir Nabil Khan Gabol) Sardar Sayab Khalid Sardar Usman Buzdar Sardar Zulfiqar Ali Khan Khosa Sarfraz Bugti Sarfraz Nawaz Sarmad Bashir Sartaj Aziz Sarwat Ejaz Qadri Sarwat valim Sassui Palijo Saulat Mirza Seemal Kamran Senator (R) Akram Zaki Senator Abbas Khan Afridi Senator Abdul Haseeb Khan Senator Abdul Nabi Bangash Senator Afrasiab Khattak Senator Barrister Muhammad Ali Saif Senator Dr. Abdul Malik Baloch Senator Dr.Khalid Mahmood Soomro Senator Faisal Javed Khan Senator Hafiz Hamdullah Senator Haji Ghulam Ali Senator Haji Muhammad Adeel Senator Ilyas Ahmed Bilour Senator Islamuddin Sheikh Senator Ismail Buledi Senator Jaffar Iqbal Senator Kamil Ali Agha Senator Lashkari Raisani Senator Malik Muhammad Rafique Rajwana Senator Maulana Abdul Ghafoor Haidri Senator Mir Hasil Bizenjo Senator Mir Mahabat Khan Marri Senator Mohsin Aziz Senator Moula Bakhsh Chandio Senator Muhammad Talha Mahmood Senator Najma Hameed Senator Raza Rabbani Senator Rubina Khalid Senator S.M Zafar Senator Saleem Saifullah Khan Senator Shibli Faraz Senator Tariq Azeem Senator Wasim Sajjad Senator Zahid Khan Shaan Shahid Shafqat Mahmood Shah Farman Shaharyar Khan Mahar Shaheen Sehbai Shahi Syed Shahid Hussain Bhutto Shahid Khan Afridi Shahid Khaqan Abbasi Shahid Lateef Shahnaz Wazir Ali Shahzad Chaudhry AVM (R) Shahzad Iqbal Shahzeb Khanzada Shakeel Farooqi Shakir Qureshi Shakir Solangi Shams-ul-Mulk Shamshad Ahmed Khan Sharjeel Inam Memon Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy Sharmila Farooqi Shashi Tharoor Shaukat Ali Yousafzai Shaukat Mehmood Basra Shaukat Paracha Shazia Marri Shazia Zeeshan Shehla Raza (Syeda Shehla Raza) Shehryar Khan Afridi Shehzad Roy Sheikh Aftab Ahmed Sheikh Imran Nazar Hosein Sheikh Rasheed Ahmad Sheikh Rohail Asghar Sheikh Waqas Akram Sher Afgan Niazi Sherry Rehman Shireen Mazari Shoaib Ahmed Shaikh Shoaib Ahmed Siddiqui Shoaib Malik Shuja Khanzada Siddiq-Al-Farooq Siddique Azhar Sikandar Hameed Lodhi. Siraj ul Haq Sofia Baidar Sohail Ahmed Sohail Anwar Siyal Sohail Sangi Sohail Shehzad Sohail Warraich Sophia Jamal Sumaira Mirza Sumera Malik Syed Adil Gillani Syed Akhunzada Chattan Syed Ali Haider Syed Ali Musa Gillani Syed Allauddin Syed Anwar Qadwai Syed Asif Hasnain Syed Bilal Qutab Syed Ehtesham Zameer Syed Ghazanfar Ali Syed Ghous Ali Shah Syed Haider Ali Shah Syed Hamid Saeed Kazmi Syed Javed Ali Shah Syed Khurshid Ahmed Shah Syed Muhammad Atif Hussain Syed Mujahid Ali Syed Mumtaz Alam Gillani Syed Munawwar Hasan Syed Murad Ali Shah Syed Mustafa Kamal Syed Nasir Ali Shah Syed Naveed Qamar Syed Nayyar Hussain Bukhari Syed Noor Syed Qaim Ali Shah Syed Sajjad Ali Shah Syed Sumsam Ali Shah Bukhari Syed Talat Hussain Syed Zaeem Hussain Qadri Syed Zafar Ali Shah Syed Zafar Ali Shah Syed Zahid Hussain Bukhari Syeda Abida Hussain Syeda Khanum Tayyaba Bukhari Syeda Marvi Rashdi Taher Shah (Eye to Eye) Tahir Hussain Mashhadi Tahir Rafi Tahir Rafique Butt Tahir Sarwar Mir Tahir-ul-Qadri Tahira Abdullah Tahira Aurangzeb Taj Haider Talal Akbar Bugti Tanveer Qaisar Shahid Tanveer Zamani Tariq Bashir Cheema Tariq Butt Tariq Chaudhry Tariq Fatemi Tariq Ismail Sagar Tariq Mahmood Chaudhry Tariq Mahmood Chaudhry Tariq Pirzada Tasneem Ahmar Tasneem Ahmed Qureshi Tasneem M. Noorani Tassaduq Hussain Jillani (CJ of Pakistan) Tauseef Ahmad Khan Tayyaba Zia Cheema Tehmina Daultana Umar Cheema Umar Cheema Umar Riaz Abbasi Umer Sharif Umm-e-Aiman Awan Usama Khamis Minhas Usman Dar Uzair Ahmed Khan Uzma Bukhari Vasay Chaudhry Veena Malik Vicky Baloch Wajahat Saeed Khan Wajid Shamsul Hasan Wakeel Anjum Waleed Iqbal Waqar Malik Waseem Abbas Waseem Aftab Waseem Akhtar Waseem Ali Khan Waseem Badami Wasi Shah Wasim Sajjad Wusatullah khan Yashfeen jamal Yasin Azad Yasin Malik Yasir Peerzada Yasmeen Rashid Yasmeen Rehman Younus Habib Warraich Yousaf Abbasi Yousaf Raza Gillani (Makhdoom ) Zafar Iqbal ZafarHilali (Zafar Ali Hilaly) Zafri Khan Zaheer Akhtat Bedri. Zahid Hussain Zahid Hussain Kazmi Zahid Ikram Rana Zahida Hina Zahoor Ahmed Dhareeja Zaid Hamid Zamurd Naqvi Zartaj Gul Zia Shahid Zubaida Jalal Khan Zubair Mahmood Hayat Zubair Rehman Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Zulfiqar Ahmed Cheema Zulfiqar Ahmed Rahat
Republican Bob Stefanowskis signature campaign proposal is his pledge to repeal the states income tax.
Heres why following through on that pledge, even in a modest way is difficult.
The income tax is Connecticuts largest single revenue source. It provides more than $9 billion to the state budget which is slated spend more than $19 billion in the next fiscal year.
Stefanowski said after last nights debate that trimming the cost of government is what he wants to do in the short term, but still pledged to cut the income tax.
"We're going to do it gradually over eight years. Which we've spoken about before, Stefanowski said. It's going to be tied to revenue triggers. We're not going to do anything in the first year, we're going to focus on cost. We're going to cut a billion dollars out of the discretionary part of the budget. We're going to call a fiscal state of emergency in Hartford."
While its of course possible that Stefanowski can find some, waste, fraud or abuse, as hes put it, or eliminate programs, on percentage of budget, those cuts would be minimal at best.
A cut of the income tax, in any way, could lead to massive tax hikes elsewhere. For instance, in order to make up half of the revenue the income tax brings in, Stefanowski could propose increasing the sales tax by more than double from 6.35 percent to 13.25 percent. That would bring in more than $4 billion. He could also eliminate 59 varying sales tax exemptions and tax credits that could total another $4 billion, which would just about make up the loss of the income tax.
However, the sales tax is a regressive form of taxation, meaning the less money you earn, the more a higher tax on goods impacts you as a consumer. The poor would be disproportionately hurt by such a move.
In addition, the political stars would have to align in order for the income tax cut to become reality. Democrats still control the State House of Representatives and maintain a tie in the State Senate. If they hold one or both chambers in the November election, that could throw cold water on the income tax elimination Stefanowski covets, because it would likely be dead on arrival in his first year as governor.
What to Know Federal and local authorities are investigating multiple cases of letters containing white powder that were mailed to facilities in CT.
The substance that prompted investigations into four white powder incidents in Hartford last week was baby powder.
A man is being questioned in connection with these incidents and remains in custody on unrelated charges.
Emergency crews responded after a letter containing a powdery substance was delivered to a local synagogue Wednesday and police believe it may be connected to a series of white powder scares in other Connecticut cities last week.
Middletown police and fire were called to the Adath Israel Synagogue on Broad Street for a letter with some kind of powder substance. More details were not immediately released.
The FBI has taken over the investigation.
The FBI, USPS, US Marshals Service, Connecticut State Police and local departments are investigating multiple incidents of letters containing white powder delivered to both government and non-government organizations last week. At least four of those incidents were in Hartford.
Last week the US Attorneys Office confirmed that investigators seized unmailed letters and stopped some letters from reaching the recipients, but also warned that letters were continuing to arrive at new locations.
Connecticut State Police said that no one who had contact with any of the white powder suffered any illness or injury. Anyone who receives a suspicious package is encouraged to call 911.
The U.S. Attorney's Office said 51-year-old Gary Gravelle, of New Haven, is being questioned in connection with these incidents. Gravelle was arrested on a supervised release violation unrelated to this case and is in custody. Officials said no charges have been filed in connection with the white powder incidents.
Gravelle is known to federal authorities. In 2013, he was sentenced in Bridgeport federal court to 70 months in prison for mailing threatening letters and he was released from federal prison in November 2015.
As Hurricane Florence moves closer to making landfall, a Milford woman working for the Red Cross is stationed at a shelter about 30 miles inland from Wilmington, N.C.
Susan Shaw got involved with the Red Cross shortly after Sandy slammed into the Connecticut shoreline six years ago.
I lost my home and began working on long-term recovery and ended up working with the Red Cross and eventually they hired me for disaster services, she told NBC Connecticut over the phone Thursday.
Shaw arrived Wednesday at an elementary school in Burgaw, North Carolina that is being turned into an emergency shelter.
On the drive down we saw traffic going the other way, away from this area, Shaw said. Stores were closing up and people were leaving but we were still able to get gas. We were still able to get some necessities for the shelter.
There arent any showers or cots at the shelter, Shaw said, just the bedding families could bring with them.
This is not the best of circumstance, this is an evacuation shelter, she said.
Shaw is joined by Red Cross staff and volunteers from across the United States.
The staff here at this elementary school have been here 24/7 preparing meals, hot meals, good meals, she said.
While Florence has weakened, it remains a massive hurricane that is still expected to bring a life-threatening storm surge and torrential downpours.
Right now what people are focused on is getting through today and seeing what happens tomorrow, Shaw said.
From her experience following Sandy, Shaw knows it is possible to rebuild after a catastrophic storm. It just takes some time.
Its persistence and patience, she said. Communities do recover.
The Red Cross shelter in Burgaw is already at capacity with 300 people staying there, but Shaw said they will not turn anyone away.
A Russian man considered to be one of the world's most notorious hackers has pleaded guilty to U.S. charges alleging he operated a network of devices used to steal computer credentials, distribute spam emails and install malicious software.
The Justice Department said 38-year-old Peter Levashov pleaded guilty Wednesday in federal court in Hartford, Connecticut to charges stemming from the Kelihos botnet operation, which authorities said infected at least 50,000 computers.
Levashov was arrested in April 2017 while vacationing in Spain. His arrest was one of a series in the last few years targeting Russian cybercriminals outside their homeland, which has no extradition agreement with the United States.
Federal officials have said Levashov was linked to a series of powerful botnets -- networks of hijacked computers -- to harvest email addresses, usernames and passwords.
For over two decades, Peter Levashov operated botnets which enabled him to harvest personal information from infected computers, disseminate spam, and distribute malware used to facilitate multiple scams, Assistant Attorney General Benczkowski said in a statement. We are grateful to Spanish authorities for his previous arrest and extradition. Todays guilty plea demonstrates that the Department will collaborate with our international law enforcement partners to bring cybercriminals to justice, wherever they may be.
Prosecutors said he also distributed bulk spam emails, malware and other malicious software.
Sentencing is scheduled for Sept. 6, 2019.
Tenants living at an apartment building in Hartford are questioning living conditions.
Barbara Ashvy lives inside a first-floor apartment at 183 Wethersfield Ave. with her husband and three children. She says her bathroom is full of mold and fungus.
I had trees going out of the walls. I had to stop my kids from going in the bathroom.
A social media post by a family friend with pictures showing what the family says are the current condition of the apartment caught the attention of Hartford city officials.
I never called the city. I went straight to Michelle. I called the super myself and said look at my bathroom! Ashvy told NBC Connecticut.
Barbara said Michelle, the building super and property manager, has not been responsive to her concerns. When asked about it, Michelle had no comment.
I told them multiple times about the ceiling leaking, they put the complaint in. Whatever going on in the apartment above me is causing my ceiling to grow trees and mushrooms and fungus, Ashvy said.
The social media post prompted a handful of Hartford city officials to respond Wednesday.
Darlene Robertson-Childs, a Hartford housing code enforcement supervisor, spoke with Ashvy at the scene.
We require all rental units to have a certificate of occupancy prior to renting. Shes been here six months, theres no way we woulda approved this apartment because the floors are not impervious to water, theres problems with the walls and a few violations I can see just looking at it, Robertson-Childs told NBC Connecticut.
City records show this isnt the first time the city has had issues with the building. Inspectors have investigated resident complaints going back to 2012.
We found mice in another unit in May. Robertson-Childs said the rodent issue was addressed at the time.
Ashvy said her family cant live like this and need the problems fixed.
She never contacted our department so we knew nothing about conditions in her unit, so were hearing about it for first time on social media, and were responding, Robertson-Childs said. She did exactly what shes supposed to do, but because of their neglect, shes in situation shes in.
Robertson-Childs added that the city was not aware of the issues, and if it had been reported, the buildings owner would have been cited.
NBC Connecticut spoke with one of the two owners of the building by phone, who said he wasnt aware of any of this and that hell speak to his building super to get her version of events and address the problem.
A past building owner said mold in the same apartment years ago was brought on by the lack of fans in the bathroom.
City officials said the property manager will be given time to fix the issues.
Two high school students in Old Saybrook have been arrested after police investigated a so-called shooter list.
A letter the police chief sent to parents, staff and students said they do not believe the students had any plans to harm students or staff, but there was an increased police presence at the school Thursday.
The letter said a student went to high school administrators Wednesday afternoon to report a safety concern about an alleged list of students, staff and others and school administrators took immediate action, ensuring all students were safe and contacting the school resource officer.
Police investigated and said two students did create a list of names at the beginning of the school year. Though it was not labeled as such, it was later referred to as a shooter list, according to the letter that Police Chief Michael Spera wrote.
Investigators did not find any evidence and said they do not believe the students had any plans to harm students or staff, but there was extra police presence at the high school Thursday.
A 17-year-old and a juvenile have been charged with breach of peace in the second degree and they were referred to juvenile court.
The 17-year-old was also charged with intimidation based on bigotry or bias.
The letter goes on to say that police reached out to every parent whose child was named on the list.
A woman who was struck by a car in a driveway on Oakwood Drive in Glastonbury this morning had died, according to police.
It appears that a vehicle that was backing out of a garage struck the elderly woman around 11 a.m., police said.
She was transported to a hospital and has died, according to police.
Police have not released the womans name.
Any witnesses are asked to call the Glastonbury Police Department traffic unit at 860-652-4291.
A series of gas explosions an official described as "Armageddon" ignited dozens of fires across three communities north of Boston, killed at least one person and forced entire neighborhoods in the Merrimack Valley to evacuate Thursday.
Authorities said Leonel Rondon, 18, of Lawrence, died after a chimney toppled by an exploding house crashed into his car. He was rushed to a Boston hospital but pronounced dead later in the evening. More than 20 others were treated for fire-related injuries.
Firefighters raced from one blaze to another, scrambling to fight flames engulfing homes in Andover, North Andover and Lawrence while utility crews rushed to shut off gas and electricity.
"I've been in the fire service for almost 39 years and I've never seen anything like this in my entire career," Andover Fire Chief Michael Mansfield said at a Thursday night news conference. "It looked like Armageddon, it really did. There were billows of smoke coming from Lawrence behind me. I could see plumes of smoke in front of me from Andover. It just looked like an absolute war zone. It's something I've never experienced in my fire service career and I hope I never experience it again."
The Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency suspected the explosions were caused by an "over-pressurization of a gas main" belonging to Columbia Gas of Massachusetts, which services the area, but officials who responded to the area were still investigating what happened.
"This is still a very active scene," Gov. Charlie Baker said. "There will be plenty of time later tonight, tomorrow morning and into the next day to do some of the work around determining exactly what happened and why."
Aerial footage of the area from NBC10 Boston's helicopter showed smoke billowing from several houses while firefighters battled massive flames at others, and some homes that appeared to have been torn apart by blasts.
In Lawrence, a man whose neighborhood was among dozens that erupted in fire said he ran into his basement to find that the room was glowing. Resident Ra Nam says he was in his yard when the smoke detector in his basement went off around 4:30 p.m. Thursday.
When he ran downstairs and saw the boiler was on fire, he quickly grabbed a fire extinguisher and put it out. Minutes later, Nam said he heard a loud boom come from his neighbor's house and the ground shook. Nam said a woman and two kids had made it out of the house, but the basement was on fire.
North Andover Selectman Phil Decologero said his entire neighborhood gathered in the street, afraid to enter their homes.
"It's definitely a scary situation at the moment," he said. "It's pretty severe."
Massachusetts State Police said some 70 fires, explosions or investigations of gas odor had been reported.
Andover officials said firefighters responded to 38 blazes across town.
Joseph Solomon, the police chief in nearby Methuen, said 20 to 25 homes were on fire in Lawrence. Solomon, who responded to Lawrence to help, said there were so many fires "you can't even see the sky."
Another 12 to 14 fires were reported in North Andover, Town Manager Andrew Maylor said.
State police urged all residents in the three towns with homes serviced by Columbia Gas to evacuate Thursday afternoon, snarling traffic and causing widespread confusion as residents and local officials struggled to understand what was happening.
Lawrence resident Bruce Razin was among the evacuees standing outside the Colonial Heights neighborhood near the city's high school trying to decide what to do next late Thursday.
Officials had cut power in the area and the streets were pitch black, save for emergency vehicle lights. Razin said he arrived just as residents were being evacuated, and immediately saw the house two doors down was leveled from an explosion.
"I couldn't imagine if that was my house," said Razin, who purchased his home nearly two years ago. "It's total destruction. I'd be completely devastated."
With a backpack filled with personal items he had hastily grabbed, he said he'd head to his mother's home a few towns over for the night.
Schools in all three communities were canceled for Friday, and some schools were being used as shelters for residents. The Red Cross of Massachusetts was helming relief efforts for evacuees. Officials said anyone looking to donate supplies, volunteer or make a monetary contribution can visit the redcross.org.
Andover residents who live on the North Reading side of town were allowed to return home shortly after midnight. Officials from all three towns said there is no timeframe yet for when other residents might be allowed to return to their homes.
"This has obviously been an incredibly difficult day," Gov. Baker said. "At this time I ask everyone to think of the family who lost a loved one today and to pray for everyone who has been injured."
By late Thursday, all of the fires had been doused but many areas remained silent and dark after residents fled and after power companies cut electricity to prevent further fires.
Many businesses closed as a precaution due to the fires, but McAloon's Liquors in North Andover was still open as of 8 p.m. Owner Bill Buco said he would stay open until police told him to close. There were long lines for essentials like water.
"My customers need service. They need water, they need milk, they need bread," he said.
Baker said state and local police would patrol the three communities overnight and officers were stationed at intersections directing traffic.
"My heart goes out to the families in Lawrence, Andover and North Andover who are trying to pick up the pieces after dozens of fires & gas explosions in the area," U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren said in a tweet Thursday. "Grateful to all our first responders working to help. Massachusetts is strong - we will recover & rebuild."
Hours after the explosions, Columbia Gas' parent company issued a brief statement saying its crews were still performing safety checks in the area.
"Our thoughts are with everyone affected by today's incident," Indiana-based NiSource said in a statement. "The first priority for our crews at the scene is to ensure the safety of our customers and the community."
Columbia had announced earlier Thursday that it would be upgrading gas lines in neighborhoods across the state, including the area where the explosions happened. It was not clear whether work was happening there Thursday, and a spokeswoman did not return calls.
Gov. Baker said he told the utility company that it must bring in additional resources and develop a safety plan for each of the communities.
Early Friday, the utility issued a statement saying its crews need to visit each of the 8,600 affected customers to shut off each gas meter and conduct a safety inspection.
"Additional support is being provided by crews from several affiliated Columbia Gas companies and other utilities," the statement said. "We expect this will be an extended restoration effort, and we will work tirelessly to restore service to the affected customers."
The blasts caused widespread disruption through the northeastern part of the state.
The MBTA suspended train service on the Haverhill line north of the North Wilmington Station. Friday's commuter rail service on the Haverhill line is scheduled to operate only between North Station and Reading Station. The agency said shuttle buses would be available at the Haverhill and Bradford stations to take passengers to the Anderson-Woburn Station on the Lowell commuter rail line.
The Amtrak Downeaster canceled several trains Thursday during the evening commute due to the fire department activity in the area.
All off-ramps on Interstate 495 from exits 41 through 45 were shut down Thursday and remained closed as of 6 a.m. Friday morning. Exit 45 reopened. On ramps remained open to allow for evacuations. The northbound and southbound ramp for Exit 45 on Interstate 93 was also closed Thursday and remained closed Friday morning, the Massachusetts Department of Transportation said.
"The @CityOfBoston is here for the people of Andover, North Andover, and Lawrence tonight," Boston Mayor Marty Walsh tweeted. "I thank all of our first responders, including @BostonFire & @bostonpolice who are working hard with many others to keep everyone safe."
Matt Corey is making his fourth run for an elected job in Washington. He previously ran uncompetitively against John Larson for the First Congressional District.
Corey says he feels 2018 is different because theres an opportunity for someone to work the presidents administration, unlike the past two years.
You need somebody down in Washington who can work with this administration, Corey said during an interview. We have lawyers down there that are supposed to litigate the cases of their constituents. Send a business guy down there, send somebody down there.
Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy is up for reelection following his first term in the US Senate. Murphy won after serving in Congress, representing Connecticuts Fifth Congressional District.
Corey is a Navy veteran with a small business background. Hes owned a window washing business for about three decades, and also previously owned an Irish bar in Hartford.
When asked why voters should take his campaign seriously, Corey says he more in common with Connecticut residents than Murphy.
I represent the small business owners and the working families.
Corey said he would review Trump policy ideas before simply being a rubber stamp, but urged that having a relationship with President Donald Trump would be an improvement.
Absolutely, because the biggest complaint we get from our congressional delegation, and I ran for office a few times before, is I cant get anything done because Im in the minority. Well, look, step aside. Let somebody down there who wants to work with this administration.
In the most recent Quinnipiac University Poll released on August 23, Murphy held a 59-31 percent lead over Corey, but most troubling for the Republican is that 67 percent of respondents needed more information on Corey to form an opinion, suggesting a high degree of anonymity to the electorate.
Corey is also trailing in fundraising by a staggering margin. Murphy, with the support of a national network of donors, has raised more than $13 million and has more than $8 million in cash on hand, while Corey has raised $31,000 and has about $7,000 left in his campaign account.
In order to make the race competitive, Corey says, We need to make this a national race.
Bob Stefanowski spent the hour long debate at the Garde Arts Center in New London doing his best to paint Democrat Ned Lamont as a surrogate of Connecticuts current unpopular governor.
The GOP nominee for governor mentioned the outgoing governor three minutes in to the first debate between the two major party candidates.
In Ned Lamont, its actually going to be worse, Stefanowski said. Hes going to try to deny it tonight but hes been on the radio saying hes going to raise taxes and out up tolls. Ladies and gentlemen, enough is enough.
On nearly every question posed by the panelists from the The Day of New London and WTNH, Stefanowski pivoted to either an attack on Dan Malloy, or a link between Malloy and Lamont.
He said, We need to do exactly the opposite of what Dan Malloy has been doing for the next eight years and Ned Lamont will just continue it.
Lamont, who is running for statewide office for the third time, pointed out that he attempted to defeat Malloy in the 2010 Democratic Primary. Many of Lamonts attacks on Stefanowski focused on the former corporate executives bold proposal to eliminate the states income tax.
Lamont quoted newspaper editorials that described Stefanowskis plan as, fantasy, and pie in the sky.
From a practical standpoint, Stefanowskis proposal comes at perhaps at the worst possible time for a revenue cut to state government. The income tax brings in more than $9 billion in revenue, roughly half of all of the states tax receipts.
Stefanowski said he intends to declare a, fiscal state of emergency, if elected governor, and said he thinks he can find five percent of waste, fraud, and abuse in state spending, which could make up for the lost revenue as a result of cutting the income tax either modestly or entirely.
I can take a billion dollars of cost out of this budget for the state of Connecticut. We can use that to fund a tax cut and that will increase revenues over the long run. The exact opposite of what Dan Malloys been doing which is raising the tax rate and the revenues are coming down, he said.
Lamont countered, saying, Again, no specifics, except for finding that line item for waste, fraud, and abuse.and that is just the type of political answer that has gotten this state into trouble over the last generation.
Stefanowski admitted following the debate that he does not have any specific line items targeted for where to trim or eliminate spending.
Some of Lamonts most potent attacks have to do with Stefanowskis lack of civic engagement in Connecticut. He lived in London for about a decade, and decided to run for governor in 2017, returning to his home state after a long absence.
You never got involved. You never even bothered to vote against Dan Malloy. You never even bothered to vote and now you parachute in and you say, I was a big shot at a bunch of companies that both needed enormous bailouts to get through. You got a tax plan that would create a $10 billion hole in our budget.
Lamont said the attacks against Malloy are ironic because, Bob wasnt even there to vote against him.
The two major party candidates for Connecticut governor are clashing over who is the better person to right the state's economy and reduce massive budget deficits.
Democrat Ned Lamont and Republican Bob Stefanowski met Wednesday night in their first debate of the campaign.
The two candidates - both of them businessmen who have never held elected office - each won their primary elections last month.
Stefanowski, of Madison, said he would lower taxes and emphasize fiscal discipline. Lamont, of Greenwich, said a proposal by Stefanowski to eliminate the state income tax would bankrupt the state.
Connecticut Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, a Democrat, is not seeking re-election.
The debate at the Garde Arts Center in New London was sponsored by The Day and WTNH-TV.
Uh-oh! It could be you, or it could be us, but there's no page here.
A North Texas woman is inspiring others by opening up about her cancer journey.
Allison Kuban was diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer on her 31st birthday and it's what she's doing now that may rewrite the cancer journey of countless others.
She and her husband Eric are just beginning their lives together.
They got married in April, exactly one year after Allison started to feel ill shortly after she arrived home from a trip to France.
"I thought I had a food allergy or just something that I caught after I came back from our trip to France," she said.
Instead, doctors found a tumor in her pancreas.
It is a rare form of cancer which affects one percent of all pancreatic cancer patients.
"I didn't know what to think. I didn't know where to start. I didn't know what to do," Allison said.
She started chemotherapy, but on her doctor's advice decided to do genetic testing of the tumor and when the results came back, she and her doctors were shocked.
"He did the testing and knew it was a needle in a haystack, but they actually called him and he said he was so excited because they never called him back but they did call and said they had found a mutated gene."
That discovery meant Allison could stop chemotherapy and enroll in a clinical trial of a drug designed to target the gene mutation, called RET fusion, causing her cancer.
Since she started the trial in January at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, the Kubans said the tumor has shrunk by 40 percent.
Allison no longer has to deal with the side effects of chemotherapy.
She is now on a new mission to inspire others to explore all treatment options and never give up hope.
"Miracles do happen. You have to hang on to the glimpse of hope, even if it's one percent. You never know, you might be the needle in the haystack that gets to be as lucky as I am."
You can follow Allison's journey here.
To learn more about pancreatic cancer clinical trials, click here.
The Los Angeles Staples Center is abuzz with the K-pop band BTS. "I love BTS!" yelled a group of girls.
BTS fans are lovingly called the BTS Army. Two hours before the Wednesday concert in LA, we met members of the Kaba Kids dance group performing the band's choreography while others chanted the names of BTS's seven members as they awaited the Love Yourself World Tour.
Samantha Johnson and Susan Brito, who are in the BTS Army, show the one thing that can increase your BTS fun at their concerts.
"So the fact that you're about to walk in there and see these guys, are you just about to freak out?" we asked BTS Army Samantha Johnson.
"Yeah! I'm actually a little bit in tears. This is my very first concert and I'm like super excited, definitely," she said with a laugh.
There is a global fandom surrounding the Bangtan Boys, whose followers take their dedication to a remarkable level.
A street away from the Staples Center, fans had been camped out for days with hopes of getting closer to the front of the stage using their general admission tickets.
"Okay, so you're here for the concert tomorrow. Where will you be sleeping tonight?" we asked fan Kori Bradford.
"On this cardboard box underneath her chair...I've never slept on a cardboard box before," she said with a laugh. "I will do anything for BTS."
Fellow BTS Army Sonia Castillo was sitting on the sidewalk not far away.
"I've been sitting here since Sunday," Castillo said.
We pointed out the obvious: "Last time I checked today is Wednesday, that's a long time."
"Ya, it's awhile," Castillo said.
To get a better understanding of why BTS is so successful, we spoke with award-winning music producer Patrick "j.Que" Smith.
"Biggest song I've ever written is 'Yeah' for Usher," Smith said while standing in his Sherman Oaks home surrounded by awards for his work in the music industry.
"Having someone that speaks to you, as opposed to speaks at you, is powerful. And these guys are doing a very good job of that," Smith said of BTS.
Smith said he has contributed to the sale of 40 million albums, and BTS stands out.
"Music's job is to move you," Smith said. "Their music moves you. Period. Their music moves you and I think everybody should be able to get a taste of that."
Music producer Patrick "J. Que" Smith, discusses why he thinks BTS's music has been so successful. He said music is a language of its own and BTS's music does the one thing music is supposed to do -- it moves people.
And even though most of BTS's lyrics are in Korean, their message of self-love is universal.
"They really encourage us to love ourselves for who we are," Bradford said.
"It's very meaningful, especially when you're going through a lot in your life," Johnson said. "They're so far away from me, but their songs are hitting me right in the heart."
"And they just kind of like make you feel good about yourself when you go to their concerts and when you listen to their music," Betsy Palma said.
Online, fans shared with us how BTS's music has helped them.
Omega wrote, "Now I'm trying to love myself a little bit more, all thanks to BTS."
And Mary said "I am 33, and when I recently experienced a miscarriage, it was their music that helped console me."
Maddi Jacobi, BTS Army and dancer with Kaba Kids, contributed this message for our story to provide a deeper understanding of why she and others truly love BTS.
NBC 5
Stories like these are just one example of why BTS is an international success.
So if you haven't listened to them yet, the BTS Army invites you to join their fandom with hopes you'll give their favorite seven guys a chance.
Fans Sumin Kwon, Izabelle Le and Maddi Jacobe share what they love about BTS.
Writer's note: If you are ready to sing along to BTS, online there are numerous videos with translations along with fan chants that can help you sing along and get involved in their songs. If you have any questions for BTS Army members, just use their hashtag #BTSARMY on social media and I've found they are delightful and willing to help guide you.
A construction worker was killed Thursday morning in a crash at a construction site in southern Dallas.
The driver of a red pickup was driving southbound when the truck hit the base of a highway sign that construction crews were trying to load onto an 18-wheeler with a crane, police said. It happened near W. Overton Road, close to U.S. Highway 67 and W. Kiest Boulevard. Lanes were closed but have since been reopened.
The metal structure hit a worker, killing him, police said.
The driver was taken into custody, police said.
No other information was available.
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A 58-year-old Fort Worth, Texas man has been found guilty of federal violations in the Eastern District of Texas, announced U.S. Attorney Joseph D. Brown Thursday.
Wayne Alan Watson was found guilty of three counts of armed bank robbery today by a jury following a three-day trial.
According to information presented in court, Watson robbed three credit unions in the Eastern District of Texas: the City Credit Union located in Gainesville, Texas, on Oct. 16, 2017; the Altra Federal Credit Union located in Tyler, Texas, on Dec. 1, 2017; and the Texoma Educators Federal Credit Union in Denison, Texas, on Dec. 19, 2017. In each of the robberies, Watson displayed a gun and by force, violence, and intimidation, robbed employees.
Additional robberies linked to Watson in Austin, Texas, and Wichita Falls, Texas, which occurred in January of 2018, led to his identification as the serial robber. A search warrant was executed at Watson's residence in Fort Worth on Feb. 13, 2018, where the vehicle used in two of the robberies, a 2015 red Volkswagen Jetta, was located, in addition to several articles of clothing Watson wore in each of the robberies.
Under federal statutes, Watson faces a maximum of 20 years in federal prison for each charge at sentencing.
Botham Shem Jean, the 26-year-old man killed in his apartment by a Dallas police officer who said she mistook his apartment for her own, was remembered Thursday as a devout Christian who loved to sing at church and always had time to help others.
"He was always in the service of others, even when it wasn't convenient for him," Alexis Stossel, a friend of Botham Jean from college said at his funeral in a suburban Dallas.
Tim Ryan, PwC senior partner and chairman, also spoke during the tribute portion of the service.
"Bo's positive spirit will not leave PwC," he said.
Ryan said a scholarship would be provided in Jean's memory.
Dallas mayor Mike Rawlings and Dallas Police Chief U. Renee Hall were in attendance at the funeral.
Jean's mother has said he was only a teenager when he presented a plan to evangelize his home country of St. Lucia. He came forward with a map of the small island nation, which he had sectioned off into pieces, and pointed to the communities he wanted to impact first.
"Botham did everything with passion...God gave me an angel," Allison Jean said at a prayer vigil last weekend.
According to court documents, Officer Amber Guyger, 30, said she mistook his apartment for her own and thought she encountered a burglar. Guyger was arrested Sunday for manslaughter and has since been released on bond.
Jean's slaying sparked protest and outrage, and became a flashpoint in an ongoing national conversation over issues of race and law enforcement. But under the lofted ceiling of Jean's church last weekend, the narrative centered on his life and legacy as attendees recalled memories of the man they knew as a passionate singer and caring friend.
Allison Jean said her son was about 8-years-old when he wanted to be baptized, but was denied by his father. Jean tried again a year later, again with no success. The third time he asked, Jean came with tears in his eyes.
Jean Family
"Botham said, 'Dad, I want to be baptized. I want to be a Christian,'" she recalled to the dozens of people seated in the blue pews.
She also remembered how Jean found his way from St. Lucia to Searcy, Arkansas, where he attended Harding University. There, he majored in accounting and information systems before graduating in 2016, the school said in a statement.
She told Jean to apply to the University of the West Indies, but also gave the OK to apply to Harding University, which was expensive. But Allison Jean said she later found the University of the West Indies never received an application from him.
Instead, Jean had his acceptance from Harding University and a proposal, saying the high price would be justified because he could receive an education while remaining within a religious community.
Todd Gentry, a minister at College Church of Christ in Searcy, Arkansas, has said Jean worked as his intern for three years.
"He cared about the Lord and he wanted you to care about the Lord," Gentry said. Jean, he said, made people feel important, whether it was with a cup of coffee or a conversation.
Jean had been living in Dallas and working at accounting and consulting firm PwC.
Co-worker Kerry Ray has said Jean lit up a room the moment he stepped in and described him as a selfless and caring man.
Jean leaves behind both of his parents, a sister and a brother.
Bos family loves him very much. He was a good son. He also had a church family, and a work family," said Minister Sammie Berry, who hired Jean as the worship leader at Dallas West Church of Christ.
Botham impacted everyone he knew, Berry said. He was so passionate about what he did, and everything was of excellence. If you knew him, you loved him. Thats the kind of impact he had on people.
Jean Shot, Killed
Jean was at home inside his apartment at the South Side Flats on Sept. 6 when, according to an arrest warrant affidavit, 30-year-old officer Amber Guyger entered his apartment believing it to be her own.
NBC 5 News
Officer Guyger, who lives in the apartment beneath Jean, was returning home after a 15-hour shift with the Dallas Police Department when she, according to the arrest warrant affidavit, parked on the wrong floor. That mistake then led Guyger to enter the building on the wrong floor -- each parking level corresponds to the level where each resident lives -- and consequently entered the wrong apartment.
The affidavit said that when Guyger approached what she thought was her front door, the force of pushing her key into the lock opened the door -- which was slightly ajar. After entering the darkened apartment, Guyger told investigators she saw a silhouette move through the room and, believing she was being robbed, drew her weapon. Guyger said she gave commands that were ignored before firing, striking Jean twice according to the Dallas County Medical Examiner's Office.
Only after beginning to provide first aid, while on the phone with 911, did Guyger realize she'd entered the wrong apartment, according to the affidavit.
Dallas Fire-Rescue paramedics arrived and transported Jean to an area hospital where he was pronounced dead.
Guyger was booked into Kaufman County Jail Sunday night. She has since bonded out.[[493194611,C]]
Attorney Lee Merritt, who is representing Jean's family, said the affidavit released by investigators earlier this week contradicts what neighbors said they heard that night.
"A witness heard pounding on the door prior to a gunshot, they heard someone, a woman's voice calling out 'let me in'. Shortly after that she heard gunshots followed by what she said was a booming male voice that she said 'oh my god why did you do that'," Merritt said.
Merritt added Jean had a red doormat outside his apartment door. "In fact, to ensure no one mistook his apartment the way this officer is claiming in this case, he went out and bought the biggest, brightest red rug and placed it right there at his doorstep."
Jean's name has made an impact on many as the story of his death in a shooting by a police officer has made worldwide headlines.
Guyger, who has been charged with manslaughter in the case, is free after posting bond. Dallas County District Attorney Faith Johnson said the case will be handed to a grand jury who will ultimately decide if manslaughter is the appropriate charge or if a more serious charge, such as murder, is warranted.
Jean grew up in the Caribbean island nation of St. Lucia before attending college in Arkansas. He graduated in 2016 from Harding University, where he often led campus religious services as a student. He had worked for accounting firm PwC since graduating.
NBC 5's Holley Ford contributed to this report.
Dallas is considering more powerful citizen oversight of police, which is along the lines of what demonstrators who interrupted a City Council meeting Wednesday demand.
Dallas already has a Citizen Police Review Board which only has power to hear discipline cases already investigated by police.
"I think there is consensus across the board that the current board needs to have more power," said Dr. Brian Williams, board chairman.
Williams is a medical doctor, appointed to the position by Mayor Mike Rawlings, and tasked with reform.
We are working to insure that the citizens have something that they can go to, to insure whatever happens, when theres a tragedy that occurs, that there is some transparency and accountability, Williams said.
A reform platform from the Next Generation Action Network calls among other things for a civilian board with the power to investigate police misconduct, subpoena witnesses, impose discipline and make police policy changes.
Dallas Police Chief U. Rene Hall came from Detroit, where police have been under civilian oversight since 1974. The Detroit board has power to review the police budget, approves police promotions and is the final authority on discipline.
Hall attended Wednesdays Dallas City Council meeting and spoke privately with some of the demonstrators afterward along with Mayor Rawlings.
Hall did not return a request for comment Thursday, but some of the demonstrators said she and Mayor Rawlings have been receptive to suggestions for reform.
Dr. Alex Del Carmen is a Tarleton State University Criminal Justice Professor who also serves as a court appointed monitor over police agencies. He has worked with New Orleans Police in the past and is currently responsible for internal affairs oversight of 15,000 officers in Puerto Rico.
Del Carmen said there are complications with citizen oversight.
I am certain a lot of police chiefs are listening to this and wondering what exactly their role is going to be if you give the community all of this authority and they have very little or none when it comes to disciplining an officer, Del Carmen said.
He said most cities have declined to surrender so much control to citizens. It may cause overlapping investigations where a citizen board attempts to force testimony from the same witnesses who are called by police and prosecutors.
It really and truly opens a Pandoras Box. I would be the last person in the Metroplex to oppose the idea of community involvement or transparency with policing in the community. But I think we have to be very careful as to how we implement that today, Del Carmen said.
Del Carmen said no Texas cities have granted complete oversight of police to citizens.
The City of Austin has a police monitor system and has researched alternatives.
Williams said his Dallas board is also reviewing options.
Were all interested in insuring that this process is fair and transparent. And whatever that end product is, were not there yet, Williams said.
The Dallas Police Review Board met on Tuesday, but did not have the current controversy over the death of Botham Jean by off duty officer Amber Guyger on the agenda for discussion.
No one seems to be able to find Joseph Mifsud, the Maltese academic at the center of the Russia investigation rocking Washington, but his legal woes are piling up on both sides of the Atlantic.
On Tuesday, an Italian court ordered the missing 58-year-old to hand back more than 49,000 euros ($56,700) in overpayments from the University Consortium of the Province of Agrigento, a Sicilian institution of higher learning where he once served as president.
But the 27-page judgment gave few clues as to Mifsud's current whereabouts, which have been the subject of increasingly intense and outlandish speculation.
"Residence unknown," is what the judgment gives as Mifsud's address. It details fruitless attempts by Italian authorities to find Mifsud at an apartment in Rome, his former campus and in London.
Mifsud, a once-obscure Maltese academic who holds a doctorate in comparative education, shot to international prominence after he was identified as the mysterious professor who told Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos that the Russians had "dirt" on Hillary Clinton in the form of "thousands of emails" during an April 2016 meeting in London.
Declassified memos authored by U.S. lawmakers show that it was this meeting that eventually triggered the FBI's counterintelligence investigation into potential coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign. That probe was later taken over by special counsel Robert Mueller, who on Friday scored his first sentencing of a Trump campaign aide when Papadopoulos was ordered to spend 14 days in prison for lying to the FBI about his contacts with Mifsud and others.
But while Papadopoulos and others have hit the media circuit to defend themselves in the court of public opinion, Mifsud has gone to ground.
Journalists have been unable to locate him. His former associates say they have no idea where he is. In a court filing in New York last week, the Democratic National Committee which is suing Mifsud, among many others, over the theft of thousands of emails by Russian hackers in the heat of the 2016 election said that the academic "is missing and may be deceased."
There was no hint of that in Tuesday's judgment, which was prepared in advance and handed down by the Court of Auditors in the Sicilian port city of Palermo. But if Mifsud had shown up in court, he might have saved himself some money: his two co-defendants got off on a technicality.
As Hurricane Florence threatened the U.S. East Coast with devastating storm surge and damaging winds, documents made public Tuesday showed that the Trump administration had recently moved nearly $10 million from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to the agency tasked with detaining and deporting undocumented immigrants.
The funds are detailed in a Transfer and Reprogramming Notifications report from the Department of Homeland Security dated Aug. 31. The documents show about $9.8 million dollars being removed from FEMAs 2018 fiscal year budget and given to DHSs Immigration and Customs Enforcement for enforcement and removal operations. The documents said the money would support the agencys detention beds and transportation and removal program.
The U.S. Secret Service was also listed as a recipient of the reallocated funds for protection of persons and facilities," and other agencies had money moved as well.
Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) provided the report to MSNBC's The Rachel Maddow Show Tuesday night. Merkley, who sits on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said the reallocation happened this summer.
DHS confirmed to The Rachel Maddow Show that the transfers were made, and a department spokesperson claimed the money did not come from any of our disaster response and recovery efforts. DHS said the account supports FEMA headquarters operational expenses and cannot be used for disaster response. It came in under budget for expenses including travel, training and office supplies and money was moved.
However, the documents show that millions of dollars were removed from FEMAs budget for Response and Recovery.
Transferring money between agencies is not out of the ordinary and within the authority for the administration. According to Sen. Patrick Leahy's office, Homeland Security notified Congress on June 30 that it would transfer $200 million from other agencies to ICE, including the funds from FEMA. Leahy, a Democrat who is vice chairman of the Appropriations Committee, said the transfer was approved by the subcommittee chairs and no Democrats signed off on it, the Associated Press reported.
But it is unusual, Merkley said, to see millions of dollars being taken from FEMA at the beginning of the Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from June through November.
I find it extraordinary, Merkley told Maddow.
DHS spokesperson Tyler Houlton further defended the department's actions on Twitter Wednesday, writing, "Under no circumstances was any disaster relief funding transferred from @fema to immigration enforcement efforts. This is a sorry attempt to push a false agenda at a time when the administration is focused on assisting millions on the East Coast facing a catastrophic disaster. ... DHS/FEMA stand fiscally and operationally ready to support current and future response and recovery needs."
Hurricane Florence was on a path Wednesday morning to slam into the United States. It was expected to blow ashore early Saturday and dump torrential rain onto the Carolinas.
"This storm is going to knock out power days into weeks. It's going to destroy infrastructure. It's going to destroy homes," said Jeff Byard of FEMA.
Byard added that the agency has all the resources it needs to react to the natural disaster.
Gov. Greg Abbott is raising the state's alert level ahead of tropical weather hitting the Gulf Coast this weekend and Texas Task Force One will be deployed, which includes members from the Denton Fire Department's swift water boat team.
Part of that team is just back from helping those who faced flooding in Galveston. With the ground already saturated along the Coast, more rain means more trouble.
Denton Firefighter Vance Bowden knows the routine by heart.
"You've got zippers you have to check," he said while looking over his safety gear.
But no matter how often he does it, he never skips a step.
"Make sure there's no holes at the bottom, water coming through," he added.
He and Captain Jared Hornback are prepping for their next deployment -- a potential tropical depression that may hit Houston and the Gulf Coast this weekend.
"Getting everything ready, I can't sleep, it's just, I'm ready to go," Bowden said. [[493061321,C]]
"Having your equipment ready, being prepared at a moment's notice because you never know quite exactly when the emergency is going to arise," Hornback said.
He and Bowden and their Denton Fire swift water boat team are part of Texas Task Force 1, based out of the Texas A&M Engineering Extension Service and deployed around the state for high water rescues in major disasters.
Moving water is just extremely, extremely dangerous, Bowden said.
Their biggest test came with Hurricane Harvey.
I think in one day we pulled out about 500 people just with two boats and the assistance of the military forces, Bowden said.
"When you're pulling people out of their flooded homes, knowing that they've lost almost everything and they're thanking you and hugging you, it can be very emotional," Hornback said.
These are memories and lessons that they'll carry with them into the next call of duty.
Texas Task Force One has a second crew deployed in North Carolina, prepared to deal with major damage like a building collapse from Hurricane Florence.
What to Know Danish Days
Sept. 14-16
Free
Go on and quibble with your best bud over what city truly "owns" fish tacos, and what town can claim to be the capital of date shakes, and which Golden State spot rocks the burgers above all others.
There are going to be profound and strictly observed differences of opinion on such matters, but when it comes to bleskiver, you and your friend are going to say the same place simultaneously: Solvang.
For while the doughy clouds of Danish-famous dessert-makery can and do pop up elsewhere, devouring one, two, or nine in the Danish Capital of America feels as right as a heap of powdered sugar settling into an bleskive's yummy crevices.
Solvang Danish Days are dancing through the middle of September, as is tradition, and if you're heading for the Santa Ynez Valley burg from Sept. 14 through 16, take note that bleskiver will play a starring role.
How central is this all-important role? There's an bleskiver Breakfast on Saturday, and again on Sunday, for seven bucks a person ($8 if you add Danish sausage).
Also? A cooking demonstration, focused on the fanciful orb-like pancake puff, will take place on Saturday and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., outside the Solvang Restaurnat.
Also? There's an bleskiver Eating Contest, on both the 15th and 16th, and, for sure, you can participate, if you're up for the chewy challenge. On Saturday, Raina Huang, a competitive-eating champion, will face down a big plate of pastries, along with anyone else who joins the free contest.
By the by, you have five minutes to down those dough balls. Five. Minutes.
Parades, concerts, magic shows, and Hans Christian Andersen sightings are also on the big-as-a-windmill schedule, so decide how you're going to approach Solvang Danish Days, then start dreaming of all the sweet 'skivery you're going to savor while visiting one of California's prettiest, most Euro-cool towns.
The California Supreme Court refused Wednesday to hear the case of a transient who is serving life in prison without the possibility of parole for the stabbing and beating deaths of an 89-year-old man and a 27-year-old woman in the senior citizen's Culver City home more than seven years ago.
Zackariah Lehnen was convicted in November 2015 of first-degree murder for the May 2011 killings of Lucien Bergez and Erica Escobar.
Jurors also found true the special circumstance allegation of multiple murders, along with an allegation that Lehnen used a knife during the commission of the crime.
In a May 30 ruling, a three-justice panel from California's 2nd District Court of Appeal rejected the defense's contention that the trial court erred when it admitted evidence of Lehnen's jailhouse confession to a police informant, in which the defendant admitted that he killed Bergez and Escobar.
"Given that Lehnen was confiding in someone whom he believed to be a friend when he confessed to the killings, his statements were voluntarily and free from compulsion," the appellate court panel found in its 20-page ruling.
The justices also rejected the defense's contention that jurors should have been instructed on the lesser offense of voluntary manslaughter involving Escobar's killing.
The panel found that Lehnen's jailhouse statements "showed that he brutally attacked Escobar shortly after meeting her because she refused to engage in sexual intercourse with him."
"The evidence further showed that, after Lehnen began the attack by hitting Escobar, he proceeded to repeatedly kick her face and body and stab her with a knife as she lay helpless on the floor," the justices found.
Escobar was found dead on the living room of Bergez's home, and Bergez was found dead in the kitchen on May 3, 2011. The two might have been killed as much as two days earlier, authorities said.
Lehnen had met Bergez in the neighborhood about a year earlier and had gone to his home on occasion to try to get work, Deputy District Attorney Keri Modder said after the verdict.
Escobar hadn't met Bergez before and was in the "wrong place" at the wrong time when she met Lehnen shortly before the attack, Modder said.
Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh says he would have shaken the hand of a school shooting victim's father during a break in last week's Senate hearing had he recognized him before being whisked away by security detail.
Kavanaugh's explanation for the encounter with Fred Guttenberg captured in an Associated Press photo that went viral on social media was among a 263-page response to written questions from senators on a range of issues including abortion, executive power and his personal finances.
Kavanaugh wrote that he assumed the man who approached him "and touched my arm" during a break at the Senate Judiciary Committee proceedings had been one of the many protesters in the hearing room. Guttenberg's 14-year-old daughter, Jaime, was among 17 people killed on Feb. 14 at Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida.
"It had been a chaotic morning," Kavanaugh wrote. "I unfortunately did not realize that the man was the father of a shooting victim from Parkland, Florida. Mr. Guttenberg has suffered an incalculable loss. If I had known who he was, I would have shaken his hand, talked to him, and expressed my sympathy. And I would have listened to him."
Kavanaugh's security detail ushered him out in a "split second," according to the judge's response to a written question from Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee. It was among 1,287 questions from senators, almost all from Democrats.
Pressed by Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., if he had asked police to intervene, Kavanaugh wrote, "No."
The flood of new documents before the Judiciary Committee met Thursday to consider Kavanaugh's confirmation, a vote that is expected to take place later this month. At the meeting, Republicans brushed aside a flurry of Democratic attempts to delay consideration of the nomination.
Blumenthal protested as soon as the hearing gaveled opened Thursday. He said the nomination will be "tainted" and "stained" by the unusual process for vetting the nominee.
"We lack the time. We lack the documents," he said, calling it a "badly broken process."
The committee's top Democrat, Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, sought a subpoena for documents from Kavanaugh's time as Bush's staff secretary. She said Thursday senators "should be able to see this record" and wondered, "What in Judge Kavanaugh's records are Republicans hiding?"
The Republicans have declined to pursue Kavanaugh's staff secretary documents, saying it would be too cumbersome. They rejected Feinstein's motion and several others, including motions to subpoena documents and witnesses and a motion to adjourn.
Feinstein said later that she's notified federal investigators about information she received "from an individual concerning the nomination," whom she didn't identify because the person "strongly requested confidentiality." She did not describe the information in any way.
Grassley set the panel's vote on President Donald Trump's nominee for Sept. 20. Republicans hope to confirm Kavanaugh by the start of the new court session Oct. 1.
Democrats are fighting Kavanaugh's nomination and decrying the process that Republicans used to compile his government records for review. Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., on Wednesday night released a new batch of committee confidential documents about Kavanaugh, repeating a tactic that could prompt a review from the Senate Ethics Committee.
The 28 new "committee confidential" documents from Booker are from Kavanaugh's time in the White House counsel's office during the George W. Bush administration and show his involvement in judicial nominations, including for some of the more controversial judges of the era.
Booker is being criticized by his GOP colleagues and outside groups for releasing the documents, which the Judiciary Committee is holding back on a confidential basis that makes them accessible only to senators. Last week, he released some documents that were later made public by the committee, but also others that weren't. Wednesday's disclosure brings the total to 75.
Booker said the documents about Kavanaugh's work "raise more serious and concerning questions" about his honesty during his testimony before the committee.
The documents show Kavanaugh's involvement in Bush's nomination of Charles Pickering to an appellate court in the South amid questions about his views on race relations. Kavanaugh had indicated he was not substantially involved in the nomination.
At the same time, the conservative group Judicial Watch delivered a letter Wednesday to the Senate Ethics Committee seeking an investigation. It says Booker violated Senate rules against disclosing confidential documents and could face Senate expulsion.
Booker "explicitly invited his expulsion from the Senate in his egregious violation of the rules and contempt for the rule of law and the Constitution," said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.
At issue has been the unprecedented process the Senate Judiciary Committee used for gathering documents on Kavanaugh, an appellate court judge who is President Donald Trump's nominee to replace retired Justice Anthony Kennedy on the court. The Senate is expected to vote on his confirmation by the end of the month.
The committee was hoping to quickly process Kavanaugh's unusually long paper trail and relied on Bush's lawyer, Bill Burck, to compile the documents, first estimated to be 900,000 pages from Kavanaugh's time in the counsel's office. Eventually, some 267,000 pages were made public and 174,000 were held as committee confidential.
Democrats have complained the process was a "sham," as Booker put it. It also excluded any documents Democrats wanted to see from Kavanaugh's time as Bush's staff secretary.
But Burck's team stood by the process, according to a letter to the committee Wednesday obtained by The Associated Press. They remain willing to review documents and consent to senators' requests for disclosure, "when appropriate," the letter said. Despite those commitments, the letter said one member of the committee has released more than 40 documents without consent, referring to Booker.
"Had we been consulted on these universally released documents, we would have consented to their public disclosure," the letter said.
White House spokesman Raj Shah said, "Despite the endless complaints from critics, the committee has received more material regarding Judge Kavanaugh's nomination than any nominee in history." He said senators have "more than enough information" to consider Kavanaugh's nomination.
Top Florida Republicans have been quick to say President Donald Trump is wrong about the death toll in Puerto Rico.
Trump ignited a political firestorm Thursday after tweeting without evidence that "3,000 people did not die" following Hurricane Maria. He called the death toll numbers a plot by Democrats to make him "look as bad as possible."
Florida Gov. Rick Scott said he disagreed with the president and that he has seen the "devastation firsthand."
Ron DeSantis, who won the GOP primary for governor with Trump's endorsement, also said the president is not correct. DeSantis spokesman Stephen Lawson said he did not believe that any loss of life "had been inflated."
Tens of thousands of Puerto Ricans fled the island after Maria and have relocated to Florida.
The big slosh has begun, and the consequences could be disastrous.
Hurricane Florence's leading edge battered the Carolina coast Thursday, bending trees and shooting frothy sea water over streets on the Outer Banks, as the hulking storm closed in with 100 mph (155 kph) winds for a drenching siege that could last all weekend. Tens of thousands were without power.
Forecasters said conditions will only get more lethal as the storm pushes ashore early Friday near the North Carolina-South Carolina line and makes its way slowly inland. Its surge of ocean water could cover all but a sliver of the Carolina coast under as much as 13 feet, and days of downpours could unload more than 3 feet of rain, touching off severe flooding.
Florence's winds weakened as it drew closer to land, dropping from a peak of 140 mph (225 kph) earlier in the week, and the hurricane was downgraded from a terrifying Category 4 to a 1.
But officials and forecasters urged residents in the storm's path to not be deceived by the category downgrade.
"Do not pay attention to the category. That's not the important thing," said NBC News' meteorologist Al Roker. "The storm surge this is the most dangerous part of the storm."
Flooding is the deadliest factor in hurricanes, both from storm surge and rain, and Florence is set to bring a lot when it makes landfall late Thursday or early Friday, NBC Connecticut meteorologist Kaitlyn McGrath said.
"You're talking about an enormous wall of water just pushing onshore," likely through multiple high tide cycles, she said, adding that the feet of rain set to fall inland will have a hard time draining.
"The National Weather Service has been referring to this as the storm of a lifetime for the Carolinas, and for good reason," McGrath said.
North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper warned: "Don't relax, don't get complacent. Stay on guard. This is a powerful storm that can kill. Today the threat becomes a reality."
More than 80,000 people were already without power as the storm approached, and more than 12,000 were in shelters. Another 400 people were in shelters in Virginia, where forecasts were less dire.
Forecasters said that given the storm's size and sluggish track, it could cause epic damage akin to what the Houston area saw during Hurricane Harvey just over a year ago, with floodwaters swamping homes and businesses and washing over industrial waste sites and hog-manure ponds.
"It truly is really about the whole size of this storm," National Hurricane Center Director Ken Graham said. "The larger and the slower the storm is, the greater the threat and the impact and we have that."
The hurricane was seen as a major test for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which was heavily criticized as sluggish and unprepared for Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico last year.
As Florence drew near, President Donald Trump tweeted that FEMA and first responders are "supplied and ready," and he disputed the official conclusion that nearly 3,000 people died in Puerto Rico, claiming the figure was a Democratic plot to make him look bad.
Airlines canceled over 1,400 flights through Saturday and counting, and some airports in the Carolinas virtually shut down. Schools and businesses closed as far south as Georgia. Home Depot and Lowe's activated emergency response centers and sent in around 1,100 trucks to get generators, trash bags and bottled water to stores before and after the storm.
Around midday, Spanish moss blew sideways in the trees as the winds increased in Wilmington, and floating docks bounced atop swells at Morehead City. Some of the few people still left in Nags Head on the Outer Banks took photos of angry waves topped with white froth. By early afternoon, utilities reported about 12,000 homes and businesses had lost power.
Wilmington resident Julie Terrell was plenty concerned after walking to breakfast past a row of shops fortified with boards, sandbags and hurricane shutters.
"On a scale of 1 to 10, I'm probably a 7" in terms of worry, she said. "Because it's Mother Nature. You can't predict."
More than 1.7 million people in the Carolinas and Virginia were warned to evacuate over the past few days, and the homes of about 10 million were under watches or warnings for the hurricane or tropical storm conditions.
Homeless after losing her job at Walmart three months ago, 25-year-old Brittany Jones went to a storm shelter at a high school near Raleigh. She said a hurricane has a way of bringing everyone to the same level.
"It doesn't matter how much money you have or how many generators you have if you can't get gas," she said. "Whether you have a house or not, when the storm comes it will bring everyone together. A storm can come and wipe your house out overnight."
Duke Energy Co. said Florence could knock out electricity to three-quarters of its 4 million customers in the Carolinas, and outages could last for weeks. Workers are being brought in from the Midwest and Florida to help in the storm's aftermath, it said.
At 12 a.m. EDT Friday the storm's eye was about 45 miles (70 kilometers) south-southwest of Morehead, City, North Carolina. The core was also about 50 miles (85 kilometers) east of Wilmington, North Carolina. The storm was moving to the northwest at 6 mph (9 kph).
Scientists said it is too soon to say what role, if any, global warming played in the storm. But previous research has shown that the strongest hurricanes are getting wetter, more intense and intensifying faster because of human-caused climate change.
Florence's weakening as it neared the coast created tension between some who left home and authorities who worried that the storm could still be deadly.
Frustrated after evacuating his beach home for a storm that was later downgraded, retired nurse Frederick Fisher grumbled in the lobby of a Wilmington hotel several miles inland.
"Against my better judgment, due to emotionalism, I evacuated," said Fisher, 74. "I've got four cats inside the house. If I can't get back in a week, after a while they might turn on each other or trash the place."
Authorities pushed back against any suggestion the storm's threat was exaggerated.
The police chief of a barrier island in Florence's bulls'-eye said he was asking for next-of-kin contact information from the few residents who refused to leave.
"I'm not going to put our personnel in harm's way, especially for people that we've already told to evacuate," Wrightsville Beach Police Chief Dan House said.
What to Know Democrats in New York will soon decide the winner of the long and sometimes nasty contest between Gov. Cuomo and opponent Cynthia Nixon
Hurricane Florence is still heading straight for the Carolinas and it has downgraded a bit, down to a Category 2, but will still be powerful
One of Hoboken's most popular bars is at the center of a criminal investigation
Thursday, Sept. 13, 2018
Happy Thursday! We know it sounds like a broken record, but keep the umbrella handy again today, some showers and isolated storms are expected. Highs will be in the upper 70s. As always, get the latest forecast at nbcnewyork.com/weather.
1. Nixon Hopes for Big Upset as Primary Battle With Cuomo Ends
It's primary day in New York.
Democrats will soon decide the winner of the long and sometimes nasty contest between Gov. Cuomo and activist and former "Sex and the City" star Cynthia Nixon.
The outcome of the Democratic primary will likely resonate around the nation.
Polls are open until 9 p.m.
Read more here.
2. Time Nearly Up: Hurricane Florence Closing in On Carolinas
Hurricane Florence is still heading straight for the Carolinas. It has downgraded a bit, down to a Category 2, but will still be powerful.
Forecasters said wind speeds have dropped from a high of 140 mph to 110 mph, and additional fluctuations and weakening were likely as it swirled toward land.
The National Hurricane Center's best guess was that Florence would blow ashore as early as Friday afternoon around the North Carolina-South Carolina line, then slog its rainy way westward with a potential for catastrophic inland flooding that could swamp homes, businesses and farm fields.
Read more here.
3. Popular Hoboken Bar Under Fire Amid Sex Crime Investigation
One of Hoboken's most popular bars is at the center of a criminal investigation.
Police say they're looking into a party over the weekend at the Hub bar after a woman was allegedly groped and assaulted there.
Graphic photos circulating on social media clearly show a partially nude woman sitting on a bar, her legs spread, with at least one man touching her. The party in question was heavily attended; promoters posted photos on Instagram of lines around the block to get into the club.
Its liquor license has also been suspended.
Read more here.
For the latest entertainment news and things to do, tune in to New York Live, Monday through Friday at 11:30 a.m. on NBC 4 New York.
What to Know Gov. Andrew Cuomo has thwarted Cynthia Nixon's attempt to become the latest insurgent liberal to knock off an establishment Democrat
Cuomo, who always led in the polls and outspent his rival more than 8 to 1, seldom mentioned Nixon by name during an often-nasty campaign
With registered Democrats outnumbering Republicans more than 2 to 1 in NY, Cuomo becomes the automatic front-runner in the general election
Gov. Andrew Cuomo easily beat back a primary challenge from activist and actress Cynthia Nixon on Thursday, thwarting her attempt to become the latest insurgent liberal to knock off an establishment Democrat.
Cuomo, who always led in the polls and outspent his rival more than 8 to 1, seldom mentioned Nixon by name during an often-nasty campaign, instead touting his experience, achievements in two terms as governor and his work to push back against President Donald Trump.
In his moment of victory, Cuomo was oddly silent, skipping his own election-night party in Manhattan to celebrate with family at the governor's mansion in Albany. He put out a tweet that said simply "Thank You New York." His campaign declined to issue a statement.
"It's New York's obligation to stand up and lead and lead against a lot of these changes in Washington that are totally opposite of who we are as New Yorkers and what we believe," he said earlier at his Westchester County polling place. "There is a divisiveness coming out of Washington that I think is cancerous to this nation."
Thursday's results were good across the board for Cuomo, whose preferred candidates for lieutenant governor and attorney general also survived contentious primaries. And despite Nixon's loss, liberals celebrated victories for several left-leaning challengers who ousted longtime legislative incumbents. Click here to track results live in NY's other primary races.
With registered Democrats outnumbering Republicans more than 2 to 1 in New York, Cuomo becomes the automatic front-runner in November's matchup with Republican Marc Molinaro and independent Mayor Stephanie Miner.
Nixon, a longtime education activist and actress best known for her Emmy-winning role as lawyer Miranda Hobbes on HBO's "Sex and the City," was counting on a boost from liberals looking to oust establishment politicians. She called herself a democratic socialist and pointed to recent congressional primary victories by New York's Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Massachusetts' Ayanna Pressley as evidence that underdog challengers can defy the odds.
When that didn't happen, Nixon thanked supporters and credited her campaign for helping to push Cuomo to the left and show that liberals have a shot at making big changes.
"Before we take our country back we have to take our party back," she said. "This is an incredible moment for progressives but it's not just a moment. It's a movement."
Cuomo, who won with about 65 percent of vote, secured endorsements from Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and even Nicki Minaj, and spent much of the race touting his own liberal accomplishments such as same-sex marriage, gun control and paid family leave. And he increasingly made the race about pushing back against Trump and other Republicans. At the same time, he dismissed Nixon as a naive dilettante and mocked her work as an actress.
"If it was all about name recognition," he said earlier this year, "then I'm hoping Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie and Billy Joel don't get into the race."
Despite the rhetoric, Cuomo took Nixon seriously, spending $8.5 million, largely on ads, in the final weeks of the campaign to answer attacks that he has not invested enough in New York City's beleaguered subway system and failed to deliver on upstate economic development promises.
There were indications that the 52-year-old Nixon's aggressive campaign pushed the incumbent governor to the left on several issues, including legalizing marijuana and addressing crumbling public housing in New York City.
"Cuomo is no idiot," said Fordham University political scientist Christina Greer. "The winds of change right now are with insurgent candidates and not necessarily with incumbents. ... He didn't just slightly pivot, he full-on leapt to the left."
While he may have won, Cuomo, a former U.S. housing secretary and son of the late Gov. Mario Cuomo, did not escape the primary unscathed.
During the campaign's only debate, Cuomo snuffed out speculation that he might run for president in 2020, pledging to serve a full four-year term if re-elected.
He was mocked for saying America "was never that great" during remarks criticizing Trump's "Make America Great Again" slogan.
He invited Clinton to a celebratory opening of the final span of the new Gov. Mario M. Cuomo Bridge over the Hudson - only to keep the bridge closed after engineers warned that pieces from the old, largely disassembled Tappan Zee Bridge could hit the new structure.
Cuomo claimed to have no knowledge of a Democratic Party mailer that questioned Nixon's support for Jewish people - despite Cuomo's control of the party and a recent $2.5 million contribution to its campaign operations. Cuomo's spokeswoman later acknowledged that two former aides volunteering on the campaign were behind the piece.
Nixon, who is raising two of her children in the Jewish faith, demanded an apology that never came.
In the Democratic primary for lieutenant governor, incumbent Kathy Hochul, a former congresswoman from Buffalo, defeated challenger Jumaane Williams, a New York City councilman who had promised if elected to serve as a check on Cuomo.
Cuomo's pick for attorney general, New York City Public Advocate Tish James, won a four-way Democratic primary.
Nixon now must decide whether she wants to run on the November ballot as a candidate for the third-party Working Families Party, thanks to a New York state law that allows candidates to run on multiple ballot lines. Early in the campaign, Nixon said she would stand aside if she lost the Democratic primary, but it remains to be seen whether the party can remove her name from the ballot.
What to Know 49 people, including an ex-vice detective and seven active-duty NYPD members, were indicted in a sweeping prostitution and gambling bust
Prosecutors allege a retired detective masterminded the multi-million-dollar scheme with the help of his wife
A spokesman for the NYPD said the arrests send a message "there is no place in the NYPD for criminal or unethical behavior"
A retired Vice detective and his wife allegedly were the masterminds behind an elaborate prostitution and gambling ring that had brothels in three counties and led to the indictments of more than four dozen people, including seven active-duty NYPD officers, the Queens district attorney's office said Thursday.
Ex-NYPD detective Ludwig Paz, of Queens, allegedly helmed the sweeping enterprise along with his wife, Arelis Peralta, who prosecutors say helped operate brothels in Queens, Brooklyn and Nassau counties and gambling rooms in beauty salons and other businesses throughout the city.
Seven active members of the NYPD, including detectives and a pair of sibling sergeants, are also named in the indictment for alleged various roles in the operation. Those include 43-year-old Brooklyn South Vice Detective Rene Samaniego, who allegedly helped Paz run both the gambling and prostitution operations and "outed" undercover detectives as they entered the brothels.
Sgt. Carlos Cruz, 41, and detective Giovanny Rojas Acosta, 40, are accused of giving Paz information on law enforcement activities related to prostitution to help him avoid detection. They, along with Paz, all face charges of enterprise corruption, according to the indictment.
Two brothers who are NYPD sergeants -- Cliff Nieves, 37, and Steven Nieves, 32 -- are accused of promoting prostitution and operating an invite-only "pop-up brothel" within another established brothel, the indictment says. Another cop, Giancarlo Raspanti, allegedly gave Paz confidential police information in exchange for discounted sex at a brothel. And yet another sergeant, Louis Failla, allegedly helped Paz get out of a jam following a brothel ride.
Prosecutors say a tip from an officer about gambling and prostitution issues within the department to the NYPD's Internal Affairs Bureau in 2015 launched the investigation. Queens District Attorney Richard Brown says over the course of the probe, investigators used wiretaps and surveillance, among other techniques, to map out the flow and players in the complicated enterprise.
At the top of that flow chart, Brown said, was Paz, who allegedly ran or helped run the day-to-day operations at seven of eight brothels. He also allegedly used his knowledge of NYPD Vice procedures to set up protocols for new prostitution clients. Knowing that detectives could not expose their genitals during their interactions with prostitutes, Paz allegedly required the new clients to undress and allow themselves to be fondled to pass the brothels security screening. The retired detective also allegedly used his contacts within the NYPD to thwart raids by paying for confidential police information, the indictment charges.
The brothels used online ads to attract customers and after passing the screenings, clients would be allowed to choose a prostitute and paid anywhere from $40 for 15 minutes of sexual activity up to $160 for a full hour, according to the indictment. And between August 2016 and September 2017, prosecutors say the prostitution ring took in more than $2 million.
At the same time, Brown said Paz and his wife allegedly profited from several illegal lottery businesses set up at a deli and beauty salon in Queens.
The bust also snared nearly three dozen civilians on various charges. The seven active NYPD members all pleaded not guilty at their arraignments Thursday; all of their attorneys declined comment. Paz's arraignment was still pending Thursday afternoon, and court officers said the rest of the dozens of arraignments would likely take place through the day Thursday into Friday.
Officials for the PBA, DEA and SBA unions representing officers, detectives and sergeants, did not have immediate comment on the arrests.
NYPD Commissioner James O'Neill praised the tipster who came forward and blasted the officers in a statement Thursday afternoon, saying, "Whenever officers betray trust by engaging in criminal behavior, they tarnish the shields they wear. The New Yorkers we serve will never tolerate this, and neither will this police department."
Brown echoed O'Neill's sentiment.
"The vast majority of NYPD police officers are honest and dedicated to enforcing and upholding the law. However, todays indictments of one former detective and seven current police officers of the NYPD dishonor the badge," Brown said. "The main culprit in this case - a retired detective - allegedly used his knowledge of the inner workings of the New York City Police Department to run a string of brothels in Queens, Brooklyn and Hempstead, Long Island. His alleged illegal enterprise also included using established lotteries to run illegal gambling in beauty salons and other locations in two boroughs. These operations stop today."
Reddit banned one of its largest communities dedicated to discussion of the Qanon fringe conspiracy theory on Wednesday, citing the subreddit's repeated violations of the network's content policy.
The community, called /r/GreatAwakening, had more than 71,000 subscribers making over 10,000 comments on average per day before it was banned, NBC News reported. A backup subreddit, /r/the_greatawakening, was also banned, along with 17 other Qanon focused communities, including r/BiblicalQ and r/Quincels.
The Qanon subreddits have been host to escalating threats of violence from proponents of the conspiracy theory despite repeated calls from the communitys moderators urging them to stop.
Qanon devotees falsely believe that President Donald Trump is secretly waging a war with special counsel Robert Mueller to take down a global pedophile ring led by Hollywood celebrities and the Democratic Party, most notably Hillary Clinton.
What to Know Nathan Matthias admitted he drunkenly fired a shotgun inside his Pennsylvania apartment because he feared there were clowns inside.
Matthias' attorney says his client wasn't trying to harm anyone but was reacting to "some type of hallucinatory event."
He faces up to 5 years in state prison after pleading guilty in July to discharging a firearm and to an unrelated drunken driving charge.
A Pennsylvania man who admitted he drunkenly fired a shotgun inside his apartment because he feared there were clowns inside could spend the next five years in prison.
Reading police didn't find anyone inside of 35-year-old Nathan Matthias' second-floor apartment, and say the shooting put his first-floor neighbor in danger. The Reading Eagle reports he was sentenced Monday to 22 months to five years in state prison after pleading guilty in July to discharging a firearm and to an unrelated drunken driving charge.
Police say they found Matthias clutching a shotgun outside his house, claiming he was trying to shoot two small clowns.
Matthias' attorney says his client wasn't trying to harm anyone but was reacting to "some type of hallucinatory event." Matthias took full responsibility and apologized.
What to Know A Philadelphia man was sentenced for secretly recording his girlfriend's two underage daughters in the bathroom.
Roger Wallach, 38, was sentenced to 20 years in prison and 20 years of supervised release.
Wallach used a hidden camera to record the two girls over a three-month span.
A Philadelphia man was sentenced to 240 months in federal prison for using a hidden camera to secretly record his girlfriends two underage daughters while they were using the bathroom.
On Aug. 17, 2017, Roger Wallach, 38, was having dinner with his girlfriend when she told him to give his two-month-old son a bath. After he left the room, the woman looked through Wallachs phone and came across several videos of her two daughters, ages 10 and 11, naked in the bathroom and showering.
In the videos, Wallach could be seen setting up a smart phone to record and then walking out of the bathroom, according to the criminal complaint.
The woman then confronted Wallach who began to cry and apologize, the criminal complaint states. She then contacted Philadelphia police and Wallach was arrested.
The secret recordings occurred over a three-month span.
Wallach pleaded guilty to nine counts of manufacturing and attempting to manufacture child pornography and one count of possession of child pornography.
After the guilty plea, Wallach admitted to hiding a spy watch in the bathroom which recorded the girls as they undressed and showered.
Wallach also used the webcam on his laptop to record them undressing and sent hundreds of sexually explicit images of the two girls.
In addition to his prison time, Wallach will also have to serve another 20 years of supervised release and undergo sex offender evaluation and treatment.
Child predators are among the worst type of criminals, U.S. Attorney William McSwain said. They prey on those whose very innocence makes them the most likely to be targeted. While the lengthy prison sentence and 20-year term of supervised release ordered today does not erase the defendants deplorable actions, it is a stern punishment that will help to protect some of societys most vulnerable victims.
Tucked inside The Patio on 101, a beachy but modern eatery on the corner of the bustling intersection at Pacific Coast Highway and Encinitas Boulevard, is a bar called Himmelbergs.
The bars namesake, Joey Himmelberg, is the reason American National Investment -- the company behind The Patio on 101 and other San Diego eateries -- chose to sponsor this years American Heart Association (AHA) Heart & Stroke Walk in San Diego on Saturday.
At the age of 48, Himmelberg suffered a heart attack while completing a 5K run. Despite making changes to his lifestyle, he passed away in his sleep in July 2016 from a second heart attack, according to the teams Heart and Stroke Walk page.
Regina Waldroup
Himmelbergs sudden passing was a huge loss to The Patio Group CEO Gina Champion-Cain and other members of the restaurant group who were close with the fun and charismatic surfer and involved member of the community.
They knew Himmelberg loved to surf at Encinitas Moonlight Beach, so creating a bar in his honor at their in-development The Patio on 101 restaurant seemed like the perfect fit.
"Its kind of like tying in Joey and the beach with the rest of Encinitas," said Hilary Rossi, The Patio on 101s Senior Vice President of Food and Beverage.
Rossi worked with local photographers to add colorful, vibrant surf imagery to Himmelberg's bar. There are pictures of his family, friends and even a portrait of the surf aficionado himself scattered on the walls.
Himmelbergs is one of two bars within The Patio on 101, the restaurant groups third venture into their community-centric, outdoor eateries. The first two are located in Pacific Beach and Mission Hills.
Gloria Bae
"A lot of our identity is being able to enjoy good food, good drinks, good company, outdoors," Rossi said.
When Rossi began to design The Patio on 101, it felt cavernous. She and the team opened up the 7,000 square-foot space to include three outdoor areas, one a lounge perfect for friends to enjoy sips of wine and charcuterie or pours of beer from the restaurants taps.
One of those beers is "Himmelbrew," concocted by Mission Brewery, an IPA -- Himmelbergs favorite.
This Saturday, the American National Investment team will commemorate their friend once more by walking in the American Heart Associations Heart & Stroke 5K.
Josie Pereira
The walk raises funds for awareness programs, supplies and treatment for the United States number one killer, heart disease, and number five killer, stroke. One in three American adults -- about 92 million people -- suffer from cardiovascular disease, according to the AHA.
Beyond Himmelberg, many members of the team have other reasons why they are walking on Saturday.
For Rossi, her mothers recent open-heart surgery moved her to be a part of the event. She hopes others will find reasons to be inspired to participate in the walk, too.
"We just want to see a lot of people come out and participate for an important cause that you dont realize is part of your life until it happens," Rossi said.
Survivors of cardiovascular disease will lead the Heart & Stroke Walk, which begins at 7:30 a.m. at the corner of 6th Street and Laurel in Bankers Hill and travels through Balboa Park and onto northbound state Route 163 before circling back towards the park.
For more information on the walk and to find a team, visit here.
The Patio on 101, located at 345 S Coast Hwy 101, is open Tuesday through Sunday and hosts happy hour each day from 3 to 5 p.m. and from 9 p.m. to close.
Gen. Robert Neller, commandant of the Marine Corps, spoke to the San Diego Military Advisory Council Wednesday morning.
Gen. Neller touched on a number of topics from the proposed Space Force to the war in Afghanistan.
Theres still risk out there, he said at the Navy Mine & Anti-Submarine Warfare Base. There are still those out there, as we commemorate 9/11 yesterday, the same people that did us harm on that day they're still there, some in different shapes or forms, but they're still there and we had that home game on 9/11. We don't want any home games.
Neller acknowledged the growing threat of Al Qaeda even as ISIS is in decline. He said one of their main priorities is getting the force ready to respond to changing threats, including cyberspace or space itself.
Neller also talked of his time in San Diego when he stationed at Camp Pendleton in 1977 and thanked military families for their sacrifices at home.
I can't change the fact that your husband missed anniversaries, birthdays, school recitals and I apologize for that, but that's part of this life, he said. I think part of family readiness is explaining hey, this is what this life is. There are parts about this that's just hard, let alone when you have to deal with casualties.
Seventeen years since the start of the war in Afghanistan, Neller says the goal is to make sure the Taliban understands it would be better to end the war politically instead of militarily. We're committed to support the Afghan government, he said. They've got elections coming up and the Taliban there is opportunity to reconcile. I think the Afghan people are tired of a war He said that every war has to end including the War in Afghanistan and he believes the U.S. and Afghanistan may be closer now to reconciliation.
Neller also visited MCAS Miramar Wednesday and is scheduled to be at Camp Pendleton Thursday.
It's looking like Hurricane Florence's effects won't hit D.C. after all. Maybe some of your weekend plans got switched up after all, the H Street Fest was rescheduled but there's still lots to do.
But first:
-- Nothing beats free. We've got you covered on fun, free and cheap things to do in Washington, D.C., Maryland and Northern Virginia.
-- Fall got you feeling festive? Check out these fall festivals across the D.C. area.
-- Outdoor movies don't end because summer does.
Here are our top picks for your weekend:
AFI Latin American Film Festival
Sept. 13 to Oct. 3, AFI Silver Theatre in Silver Spring
Catch some of the breakouts of Latin American, Spanish and Portuguese cinema, including crime drama "Birds of Passage," a documentary on Bolivian hip-hop artist Abraham Bojorquez, and a Latin take on Shakespeare's "Othello" titled "Pablo's World." The festival will also offer a number of screenings with special receptions, Q&A sessions and cocktail hours. See a full schedule on the theater's website. Tickets cost $15 for non-members, and there are $200 passes if you plan on attending many of the movies and events.
The Black Cat 25th Anniversary
Friday and Saturday, doors at 7 p.m., The Black Cat
Legendary punk venue The Black Cat is celebrating its 25th birthday with two nights of music. On Friday, Subhumans, Ocampo Ocampo & Watt, Ted Leo and more take the stage. Saturday's bands and artists include Ex Hex, Gray Matter, Hurry Up and Algiers.
Maryland Renaissance Festival
Weekends through Oct. 21, Crownsville, Maryland
Hear ye! Hear ye! Don your best 15th-century garb and grab a turkey leg at the Maryland Renaissance Festival. Performances, including jousting, music, science demos and Shakespeare, are plentiful. Check out the schedule in advance so you don't miss your favorite thing. Tickets are discounted through Sept. 9; they cost $19 for adults.
Sports and Sporting
Redskins
Sunday, 1 p.m. - Home opener versus the Colts
D.C. United
Sunday, 1 p.m. - Against the New York Red Bulls
Your Friday
Star Power: Inside the Michelin Guide
Friday, 11 a.m., Ripley Center
The chefs leading some of D.C.'s most respected and Michelin-starred restaurants, including Pineapple and Pearls, Plume, Sfoglina and Kinship, will talk with News4's own Eun Yang about the local dining scene.
Radical Inclusion and Tales from the Playa: Talks on Art, Inspiration, and the History of Burning Man
Friday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Smithsonian American Art Museum
Five original founders of Burning Man share their stories at this free, all-day examination of the festival's past, present and future. You can also catch short films, Q&As and panels. See the full schedule here.
Check out our first look at the Burning Man exhibit at the Renwick here:
Out of the Desert, Into DC: Renwick Opens Burning Man Exhibit
Your Saturday
Baltimore Seafood Festival
Saturday, 12 p.m. to 7 p.m., Canton Waterfront Park in Baltimore
Local restaurants will be slinging crab, with live music playing through the park. Tickets start at $15.
DC Wine Fest
Saturday, various sessions, Big Chief
Sip as much wine as you can, starting at $35.
Force of Nature Pop-Up Market
Saturday, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., Washington, D.C., REI Store
At this pop-up featuring female artisans and their businesses, you can browse local products while sipping coffee from La Colombe or boozy brunch beverages from Republic Restoratives.
Intro to Wilderness Backpacking
Saturday, 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., Rock Creek Park Nature Center
Learn the basics needed to head out on a wilderness backpacking trip, including how to choose equipment and how to plan your trip. Tickets start at $69.
Your Sunday
Sweat In Shaw
Sunday, 12 p.m. to 4 p.m., Shaw
Sweat out your Saturday night with three back-to-back fitness classes offered by studios including District Pilates, Yoga Shala, Off Road, Fuel, Reformation and more.
Profs & Pints: The Women of "Hamilton"
Sunday, 6 p.m., The Bier Baron Tavern
Marymount University assistant professor of history Cassandra Good will dive into the true histories of the women surrounding Alexander Hamilton. If you can't afford tickets to the musical's few remaining performances at the Kennedy Center, you may be able to scratch the itch with this $13.41 ticket.
2018 Wine Harvest Soiree
Sunday, 12 p.m. to 4 p.m., City Winery
The best wines offered by members of the Association of African American Vintners are coming to City Winery. Tickets start at $65.
La Fiesta del Barrio
Sunday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., 3166 Mt. Pleasant Street NW
For the La Clinica del Pueblo's 35th birthday, they are throwing a festival with dancing, music, art and activities. It's free to attend.
After rescuing 45 dogs and cats from a shelter in the path of Hurricane Florence, a local animal rescue group found themselves in a "ruff" situation when their van broke down 90 minutes into the 6-hour trip back home.
But thanks to the community, the rescue and all their pets made it back safely.
Lucky Dog Animal Rescue went to Florence, South Carolina, Wednesday to pick up 38 dogs and seven cats. On their way back to the D.C. area, their van broke down outside Fayetteville, North Carolina.
The staff and van full of pets were left stranded at a gas station on a sweltering 90-degree day. The shelter sent out an urgent message on their Facebook page, asking for help.
"EMERGENCY!!! NORTH CAROLINA SUPPORTERS. THE VAN IS BROKEN DOWN ON INTERSTATE 95. Exit 40. 911. We need help for the driver who is unloading the dogs to shade. EMERGENCY," the desperate post read.
The community quickly responded, and more than 55 people showed up to help unload the dogs, give them water and keep them cool. Lucky Dog says a van from Looney's K9 Rescue Transport, which is based in South Carolina, showed up and took the animals the rest of the way. A kindhearted citizen even paid to replace the group's broken alternator.
"Today, in the face of one of the worst storms the Carolinas have ever seen, 55 amazing people took time out of their own preparations to help our dogs and cats. We are truly LUCKY to have them in our lives," the shelter said in a news release Thursday.
The rescue group says all of the dogs that were brought back will be available for adoption this weekend at the PetSmart on Kentlands Boulevard in Gaithersburg, Maryland.
The 3-week-old kittens the group rescued from the shelter in South Carolina are too young to be adopted at this time, but the group says they should be available in about five weeks.
Fire crews are warning Canton, Massachusetts residents that a downed pole is causing heavy traffic Thursday.
According to the Canton Fire Department, the utility pole fell across Washington Street at Sullivan Way. The northbound lane is opening back up to traffic but the southbound lane remains closed and diverted.
It is unclear what caused the pole to fall, but an overnight storm did cause localized flooding across New England.
No injuries were immediately reported.
Crews are working to remove the pole.
A man accused of killing another man in 2014 was extradited to Boston from the Dominican Republic to face arraignment.
Police arrested 30-year-old Freidy Baez of Boston shortly before 3 p.m. on Wednesday. Boston Police Department officers in the Fugitive Unit responded to Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic, arresting Baez on an outstanding warrant for the murder of George Sanchez.
Baez allegedly stabbed Sanchez just after midnight on Sept. 21, 2014 in Bostons Mattapan neighborhood. Police say when they arrived at the scene, Sanchez was lying on the ground with multiple stab wounds. He was taken to Boston Medical Center where he later died.
Baez is expected to be arraigned at the Suffolk Superior Court. It is unclear if he has an attorney.
The New Hampshire Attorney Generals Office on Thursday announced the outcome of its year-long investigation into allegations of sexual assaults at St. Pauls School and said there will be no charges brought against the institution.
Attorney General Gordon MacDonald said the 14-month investigation focused on whether the school engaged in conduct constituting endangering the welfare of a child and obstructive government operations.
"This investigation was a very significant undertaking. By necessity, it involved increments and us taking it piece by piece," MacDonald said.
In the course of the investigation, MacDonald said thousands of pages of documents were inspected by his office and a grand jury. Numerous witnesses were also interviewed.
As a result of the investigation, the attorney general had the intention to seek indictments against the school but decided to resolve the matter without a criminal proceeding based on the New Hampshire child endangerment statute.
MacDonald said there will be no prosecution of St. Paul's School on the handling of the alleged abuse and instead, his office has signed a compliance agreement with the school to ensure comprehensive reform going forward.
"The agreement will assure a system of accountability, transparency, and oversight by this office," MacDonald said.
On the same day, a lawyer for a New Hampshire prep school graduate convicted in 2015 of sexually assaulting a classmate is arguing that his conviction for using a computer to lure the girl for sex should be tossed out because prosecutors failed to prove that was his intention.
The New Hampshire Supreme Court heard oral arguments Thursday on Owen Labrie's appeal of his conviction after a lower court judge denied his request for a new trial.
The 22-year-old Tunbridge, Vermont, man was acquitted of raping a 15-year-old classmate in 2014 as part of a game of sexual conquest at St. Paul's School in Concord. He was convicted of misdemeanor sexual assault and child endangerment, as well as the computer charge, a felony requiring him to register as a sex offender.
Prosecutors told the court Labrie's intentions were clear.
A former New England Mafia boss convicted of killing a nightclub owner in 1993 was sentenced to life behind bars on Thursday.
Eighty-five-year-old Francis Salemme, known as "Cadillac Frank,'' and his co-defendant, Paul Weadick, were found guilty in June of killing Steven DiSarro to keep him from talking to authorities. Salemme and Weadick have denied involvement in the killing.
Salemme was head of the New England family of La Cosa Nostra in the early 1990s.
DiSarro's body wasn't found until 2016, when authorities received a tip it was buried behind a building in Providence, Rhode Island.
U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling told reporters in June that Salemme's conviction ends a "long and dark chapter'' in Boston history.
"The last 25 years have been heartbreaking for us," the victim's family said in a statement. "We have waited a long time for answers and explanations for something unexplainable."
Jurors found Salemme guilty in DiSarro's slaying after four days of deliberations in a case that served as a flashback to the days when La Cosa Nostra was a force to be reckoned with in New England.
Weadick was also convicted of murder of a federal witness. Both of them face up to life in prison.
Steve Boozang, Salemme's attorney, said he was surprised by the verdict.
"He was hopeful and optimistic...," he said.
Boozang also said that Salemme's one time best friend Stephen "The Rifleman" Flemmi, the government's star witness in the trial, was not truthful on the stand.
"Flemmi is an absolute liar, but they're a tough set of facts and we thought we had overcome them but we didn't," he said.
He said the men will appeal.
Salemme had long been suspected in DiSarro's death, but wasn't charged until the nightclub owner's remains were dug up in 2016. The mill owner told the FBI about the remains after he was charged in a federal drug case.
Prosecutors said Salemme had DiSarro killed because Salemme feared the nightclub owner would cooperate with authorities investigating the mobster.
Flemmi told jurors that he happened upon the killing when he walked into the Salemme home looking for the mobster. Flemmi said he saw Salemme's son strangling DiSarro while Weadick held the nightclub owner's feet and Salemme stood by. Salemme's son died in 1995.
DiSarro's nightclub, The Channel, was under scrutiny at the time for the Salemmes' involvement in the business. Just before DiSarro's death, the FBI told him he was about to be indicted and should cooperate with the government against the Salemmes.
Lawyers for Salemme and Weadick accused Flemmi, who's serving a life sentence for killing 10 people, of lying to take down Salemme for a chance to get out of prison before he dies. Flemmi, who was notorious gangster James "Whitey" Bulger's partner, was also a key witness in Bulger's 2013 trial.
Salemme, who has admitted to a slew of other killings, once cooperated with the government after learning that Bulger and Flemmi had been informing the FBI behind his back. In exchange, the government cut his sentence for a 1999 racketeering conviction and he entered the witness protection program.
He was kicked out of witness protection in 2004 when he was charged with lying to investigators for suggesting another mobster killed DiSarro, but was later allowed back under government protection.
Salemme was living in Atlanta under the name Richard Parker when DiSarro's remains were found. He was arrested later that year in a Connecticut hotel with more than $28,000 in cash scattered in bags throughout the room.
Police say a 13-year-old student was stabbed by another student inside a middle school in Boston's Roslindale neighborhood on Thursday morning.
Boston police said the stabbing occurred just before 9:30 a.m. at 105 Cummins Highway.
Dan O'Brien, a spokesman for the Boston Public Schools, said the stabbing occurred inside the Washington Irving Middle School. He said it was an isolated incident between two students in a school bathroom.
The school's superintendent said the suspect is 14 years old and the victim 13.
O'Brien said police were called immediately following the incident and the stabbing victim was taken to an area hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
The student who allegedly stabbed the other student was arrested shortly afterward outside the school, O'Brien said.
Boston police remained at the school after the incident.
The school district said a "technical issue" caused several parents not to be notified of the stabbing. Because of the issue, the district said another robocall was sent out. Some parents were upset because they didn't receive a notification until four hours later.
"I was scared stiff that something happened to my daughter," said parent Maureen Serrano.
Jerniono McFadden was one of many parents who rushed to the school to take their kids out early.
"I'm still in shock about it," McFadden said. "It's a learning institution. A kid should feel as safe at a school as they would in their own home."
Interim Boston Superintendent Laura Perille said the school went on lockdown and those students who didn't leave early with their parents finished the school day.
Perille said Boston Public Schools have sent crisis counselors to the school, who are available for any students who want to speak to them.
"The counseling teams will be available on site and back again tomorrow morning for as long as needed," said Perille.
School officials also said an unarmed safety officer was on hand at the time of the stabbing.
While police remained at the school for the remainder of the day, many parents were left to ponder why a middle school student would stab a classmate.
"I always pray every day before I take my daughter because you never know. Its sad," said McFadden.
A provocative new idea is getting buzz on the Vermont side of Lake Champlain where a new group has formed to study what it would take to intentionally sink a passenger ferry in the lake.
Theres a lot to it, said Jonathan Eddy of the Waterfront Diving Center in Burlington, who wants to see a ferry known as The Champlain intentionally sunk.
Eddy told necn he has learned the Lake Champlain Transportation Company is considering retiring the ferry, while relying on other vessels to handle the crossing between Burlington, Vermont and Port Kent, New York.
The idea is in its very earliest stages, with research still underway into logistics, timeline, and cost. There is no specific location in the lake targeted for the sinking, but it would be near the Burlington waterfront, Eddy said.
Eddy said conversations have been going on for roughly a year, and one formal meeting has taken placewith representatives including the Army Corps of Engineers, the U.S. Coast Guard, the City of Burlington, the Vermont Division for Historic Preservation, and the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation.
This adds to the legacy of the lake, it doesnt detract from it, Eddy said of the idea to sink The Champlain. It would also help to generate tourism.
He pointed to tourism because so-called artificial reefs in the ocean are said to attract fish that boost recreational angling.
In the fresh water of Lake Champlain, divers already love exploring preserved shipwrecks, so Eddy predicts a sunken ferry would just add to that underwater playground and draw diving enthusiasts to Burlington.
The Lake Champlain Transportation Company declined to comment for this story at this point, saying things are just too preliminary right now. The company added that it is still looking into all that this idea would require.
Well certainly give the proposal rigorous review, said Billy Coster, the planning director for the Vermont Agency of Natural Resources.
Coster said while no formal permit applications have been received yet, the state would ensure any sinking would have to follow rules on protecting water quality, wildlife habitat, and public use.
Coster added that permits would require potential hazards like fuel, paint, and lubricants, to be fully removed from The Champlain. Eddy said glass, doors, wiring, engines, and other components would also have to be stripped before the ferry is thoroughly cleaned for a proposed sinking.
Theres also opportunities for public comment through that [permitting] process, Coster noted.
I have no interest in creating an environmental problem on Lake Champlain, Eddy said, adding the proponents of the ferrys sinking want to make sure it would be done correctly because they all care for the lakes health.
Eddy acknowledged he has a complex job ahead of him, but said he believes if the Champlain does leave service, she shouldnt be hacked apart and sold for scrap.
Rather, Eddy wants to see The Champlain stay in her namesake waters and used in a new way.
There is a status quo in the networking industry that is the enemy of innovation. The major hardware equipment makers collectively benefit by propagating the many layers of equipment and protocols. This deep state that exists within our innovation economy must be defeated to unleash the next wave of innovative networking, which will be software-based and ideally designed to support business applications and services.
One leader of the Networking Industrial Complex has a certified army of mercenaries that are compensated by unsuspecting enterprises to architect networks. These mercenaries attend training camps to be reprogrammed on a frequent basis. Examinations are held to ensure compliance. This entire system ensures that networking architectures, techniques and methods will not change. Its no wonder many executives of companies are handing the keys to IT and networking to third parties.
Watch AWS re:Invent 2016: Another Day, Another Billion Packets on YouTube and you will quickly get a sense of how networking architectures could be. Mercenaries will all understand rapidly how AWS VPCs have transformed networking with software. They will also realize there is no BGP, OSPF, IS-IS, MPLS, ACLs, or multi-cast. In fact, most of the mercenary routing and switching curriculum is simply not relevant.
Or watch Facebook, Petr Lapukhov Open/R The Joy of Packet Routing on YouTube and you will see another approach to networking that is innovative and new. Facebook also has introduced IPv6 ILA as an additional technique for routing packets. Both of these approaches are implemented in software.
If you want further evidence that innovation is possible, watch Keynote: Cloud Native Networking- Amin Vahdat, Fellow & Technical Lead For Networking, Google on YouTube. You will hear Google talk about how software drives their entire network in innovative ways.
All of these great companies have moved away from the tenets and beliefs of the Networking Industrial Complex. They have rejected the prospect that networking cant change. They have used software systems to augment white box hardware to create efficient, secure, simple networks that cost less and work better. The mercenaries of the deep state have not been able to penetrate or influence these companies who all think differently.
What about the rest of us? Networking, networkers and service providers exist to support a business. They need to be part of the narrative of corporate strategy. To accomplish this, we need to move faster, more securely, with much less cost. We need to become part of the solution, and not the problem. Many businesses are hoping to outsource networking just as they have server infrastructure. They dont view it as strategic. They dont understand it. Its expensive. It hasnt been identified as part of their competitive advantage.
Service providers can help their customers make their networks drive strategic competitive advantage and drive their own revenues by completely reimagining the networks role in the business. When thinking about how you can change your customers networking approach, keep in mind these points:
Rather than thinking of the network as a lot of cool routing and switching hardware as the Networking Industrial Complex mercenaries want think of the network as a smart enabler of business.
Todays hardware-based networks were built on a hodge-podge of different boxes that follow a routing model first developed in the 1990s. We didnt have the demand then for bandwidth-hungry business applications that we do today, like video streaming and conferencing, virtual desktop, cloud storage and others.
Tunnel-based overlays like IPsec, MPLS and VxLAN cost networks a bandwidth tax of anywhere between 5 percent and 40 percent of network bandwidth, making it difficult to handle network congestion.
In the 1990s, we also didnt have the complex and shifting cyber threat landscape that we do today, including botnets, DDoS attacks and other malware. In the hardware-centric models of old, security was bolted onto the network like an afterthought, through firewalls and complex access control lists.
Reimagining the network, and making it software-based, means focusing on the router. The traditional packet and flow router needs lots of overhead because it needs to route each packet as new. By making routing session-oriented making the network understand the language of sessions we can provide intelligent, native load balancing, security thats baked into the network, network control and analytics in a more dynamic manner to further support business growth.
Bold change is never easy, but were seeing a wave of companies bringing innovations that make the network simpler, more user-centric, and simply better at supporting business applications. Service providers would do well to understand how these new approaches are disrupting traditional networking and how they can adjust their capabilities to support it.
The first wave of SDN companies has come, and will soon fade. These companies converted known standard hardware and mercenary friendly functions to software used IETF standards to chain them together, and devops techniques for management. The deep state thinks these products will never outperform their hardware-based solutions.
Despite this resistance, smart service providers can buck the status quo and work with their customers to change their network architectures in a way that drives their business forward and makes the Networking Industrial Complex obsolete.
With deer hunting season set to begin Saturday, the outlook appears good for hunters.
Not so much for the deer.
The outlook is good because mild winters and abundant acorn crops over the past two years have made it easy on deer and challenging for hunters as harvest numbers have been low, said Andy LaBonte, a Wildlife Division biologist with the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection.
Its expected that acorn production will be lower this year due to gypsy moth infestation, so if pending weather conditions are favorable, harvest numbers this fall should increase from 2017.
Why does a successful deer-hunting season hinge on acorns?
In a nutshell, its because acorns are the prime source of food for white-tailed deer in fall and winter.
Twenty-four years of data show during years when acorns were abundant, hunter success was low. Thats because with fewer acorns, deer have to travel farther to browse for other foods in fields, orchards and suburban backyards.
Their movement, according to the 2017 Connecticut Deer Program Summary, increases their vulnerability to hunters.
On average, the acorn crop in Connecticut has been moderate most years, scarce about every five to six years and abundant every four years.
The best hunting opportunities are in the southwest corner of the state and many of the shoreline towns, especially for bow hunters, LaBonte said. Many landowners use the archery deer hunting season as a safe and effective means of reducing deer populations, especially in the more developed areas of the state where firearms hunting may not be feasible.
Last year in Fairfield County, 1,666 deer were harvested from private land, including 94 from Greenwichs backcountry. Fairfield County led the state with the highest number of deer harvests by bowhunters.
The 2018 fall archery hunting season for deer opens Saturday and extends to the end of December on private lands and state land bow-hunting only areas, and to the end of January on private lands in Deer Management 11 (Fairfield County) and 12 (southeast Connecticut).
State lands are also open to firearms hunting, with the archery season running from Sept. 15 to Nov. 13 and from Dec. 19 through the end of the month.
And, starting Oct. 1, archery deer hunting will be allowed on private lands on Sundays.
Each year, DEEP compiles an extensive report on the prior hunting season and Connecticuts deer population the Connecticut Deer Program Summary.
Heres a look at what DEEP wildlife biologists found from last years hunt of Connecticuts largest game animal.
Number of deer harvested
DEEP uses the word harvested, instead of killed.
Last years deer harvest was 12,080 deer or 13.3 percent more than the previous season when 10,662 deer were taken by hunters.
For the fifth consecutive year, more deer were taken down by bowhunters than by hunters with shotguns or rifles.
Deer harvest totals last year included 294 in Newtown, 197 in Ridgefield, 155 in Easton, 149 in New Milford, 100 in Danbury, 96 in Fairfield, 58 in Stamford, 53 in Torrington and seven in New Haven.
The bow harvest totaled 5,910; the shotgun/rifle harvest, 3,529.
Deer roadkill
Last year, 687 deer were killed in collisions with motor vehicles.
But the actual number of deer roadkill is likely, much higher. Its estimated the actual number of road kills in 2017 most unreported was 4,122.
Nearly 16 percent (106) of deer roadkills were in Fairfield County (Deer Management Zone 11).
Permits to hunt
Permits to hunt deer with shotguns and rifles have been steadily declining for several years. In 2017, archery permits, however, increased to a record high of 17,029.
The biggest increase came from permits allowing the use of revolvers to take down deer.
During the eighth year of authorizing the use of revolvers for deer hunting, 853 hunters took advantage of this opportunity, a 5.7 percent from 2016, according to the deer summary.
How many deer are there?
The most recent estimate for deer density in Fairfield County is 37.7 per square mile with the highest concentration of deer in north Greenwich and the Newtown/Bethel area.
Across Connecticut, bowhunters had a 34.7 percent success rate of bagging a deer, the highest among all deer hunters. The rate was nearly 40 percent in Fairfield County and 33 percent in New Haven County.
Deer predators seen by hunters
Hunters reported:
2,251 bear sightings in 100 towns in 2017 at a rate of one bear sighting in 27 days spent afield.
3,249 bobcat sightings in 151 towns at a rate of one bobcat sighting per 18.7 days afield.
11,025 coyote sightings in 159 towns at a rate of 5.5 days afield.
While not a predator of deer, hunters reported 79 moose sightings in 2017 in 29 towns at a rate of one moose for 458 hunter days afield.
Moose were observed in Barkhamsted, Canaan, Canton, Colebrook, Goshen, Granby, Hartland, Kent, Norfolk, Salisbury, Stafford and Union for six of the last 10 years.
Among the laws and regulations
By special legislation, the town of Westport has prohibited hunting within town borders.
No person shall engage in hunting while under the influence of intoxicating liquor or any drug, or both.
Hunting or shooting from a motor vehicle is prohibited. The use of all-terrain vehicles is prohibited on state land
Hunting or shooting from or across the traveled portion of any public roadway is prohibited. Shooting toward any person, building or domestic animal when within range is prohibited.
All private land archery hunters are required to carry a DEEP consent form signed by the landowner and dated for the current season.
The next Coffee with New Milford Mayor Pete Bass will be held Sept. 15 from 9:30 to 11 a.m. in the E. Paul Martin Meeting Room at Roger Sherman Town Hall, 10 Main St.
Residents are invited to come with ideas, questions or concerns, and general conversation.
For many years, a towering pink dinosaur greeted motorists along Route 6 just over the state line in Brewster, serving as a landmark outside of the Dinosaur Gift & Mineral Shoppe.
The statue was just as well known as the man who built it Ronald Januzzi, a noted Danbury mineralogist who inspired countless others to enter the field as amateurs and professionals alike. He died in March at the age of 88 and was honored last weekend.
They werent the most accurate looking but they really inspired people, said John Pawloski about the famous dinosaur sculptures.
Pawloski remembers visiting the museum whenever he could to see Januzzi and his collection.
Hes known Januzzi for 73 years and helped assemble an exhibit to honor his legacy at the Danbury Mineralogical Societys annual Gem, Jewelry and Mineral Show on Sept. 8 and Sept. 9 at New Milford High School.
Januzzi helped create the first show more than 65 years ago.
The exhibit included his mining helmet, photographs and documents.
He amassed a collection of tens of thousands of minerals during his decades-long career, dozens of which have been displayed at the American Museum of Natural History, the Smithsonian and the Peabody Museum.
He probably had the largest and finest collection of Connecticut minerals outside of a university or major museum," Pawloski said.
Januzzi specialized in Connecticut and New York minerals, and even found local Danburite. The mineral was first discovered in Danbury in the late 1830s, but the location was lost by the end of that century. Large quantities are in Russia and Mexico, but its hard to find it where it was first found.
Its probbaly been the Holy Grail for both of us, Pawloski said. Danbury is not the prettiest Danburite in the world but the original Danbury location is what makes it fascinating.
Januzzi did most of his mining in Branchville and at Brewsters Tilly Foster quarry at one time the deepest iron mine in the U.S.. He wrote guidebooks on the sites and became an expert on the area.
He made a tremendous contribution to the types of minerals found in both locations," Pawloski said.
Januzzi was also dedicated to preserving the history and the mines themselves, many of which were threatened by development.
Some of Januzzis samples are now at the Connecticut Museum of Mining and Mineral Science, where Pawloski is the director.
Pawloski credits Januzzi for getting him into the field.
During World War II, Pawloski and his mother lived with her sister on Elm Street in Danbury, just a few doors down from Januzzi, who was the son of Tony Januzzi a long-time Danbury barber. When Pawloski was 3, he would go to Januzzis house and watch him work.
Its where I developed my interest, Pawloski said. He was more or less my mentor for many, many years.
Pawloski started taking lessons from Januzzi when he was 6 and then joined the Danbury Mineralogical Society four years later, which Januzzi established as a teenager.
He exuded a passion and love for minerals and earth sciences, Pawloski said.
It wasnt just Pawloski who Januzzi inspired. Januzzi has encouraged countless mineralogists to take up the profession through his books, lectures, classes and especially museum shop.
Januzzi was known for teaching countless busloads of school children and scout troops at his shop about minerals and the hundreds of dinosaur tracks he collected from throughout the Connecticut valley.
The giant pink dinosaur out front did suffer some indignities over the years, as New York Times columnist William E. Geist chronicled in 1982: Serving for 27 years as the trademark of the Dinosaur Gift and Mineral Shoppe, day and night, whatever the weather, the fabric, wood and chicken wire dinosaur has been punched, kicked, lassoed, and shot at with a .38-caliber pistol, and was recently attacked repeatedly by a GMC Blazer.
As more corporate headquarters opened nearby and the area began to change, newcomers would sometimes ask Januzzi to knock down the duckbilled dino because they considered it tacky, which rankled Januzzis independent and imaginative streaks.
Januzzi sold the museum in the 1980s so he could move to Maine, where he started another museum.
Hes had a tremendous influence on hundreds and hundreds of mineral collectors in the region, Pawloski said.
Ted Johnson, a fellow mineral collector, was introduced to Januzzi in the mid-1970s after reading one of his books.
Johnson said he admires how Januzzi became an expert through his personal experience in the field and colleagues and then shared that information with others.
He was basically a self-educated educator, he said. He learned everything about the field of mineralogy on his own or with his affiliation with various universities and associations. He chose to share that knowledge with the world.
WASHINGTON The House going Republican-to-Democrat in the off-year election is old news Dog bites man, as we say in journalism. But the Senate also going Democratic? Definitely man bites dog.
Yet the cooler heads of politics in Washington say its entirely possible. Dems would have to run the table winning all 10 Democratic incumbent re-election contests in states that went for President Trump in 2016. And also they would have to pick off at least two seats from Republicans.
A few months ago, that seemed a tall order. Now? Not a slam dunk, but inside the realm of reasonable.
I hope when the smoke clears, well still have a majority, a downbeat Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Tuesday, according to the Washington Post.
If it happens, the reason why will hardly be a mystery. President Donald Trumps approval rating is low and going lower, while Democratic-voter motivation is gaining altitude.
Connecticuts Senate contest between Sen. Chris Murphy and GOP challenger Matthew Corey isnt exactly a bellwether. But the prospect of Democratic retaking of the Senate does beg the question of whats in it for Murphy, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, and bluish Connecticut?
Whether Republican or Democrat, the move up to chairman often is a game of musical chairs. It all depends not only on how senior the senator is, but the choices those ahead in the pecking order make.
Kind of like being a kid in the candy aisle if you chose Snickers, its unlikely Mom will also let you have Milky Way.
Murphy, Connecticuts junior senator and a longshot 2020 presidential contender, would love to be chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee or, heck, Senate Appropriations. Hes a relatively junior member, so ascension to No. 1 is not likely in the cards.
But he could become chairman of the Foreign Relations subcommittee with jurisdiction over Europe and regional security cooperation a good perch for robust resistance to Russia and Vladimir Putin. In the GOP senate, he is the subcommittees senior Democrat.
If Murphy wins musical chairs for the Appropriations military construction subcommittee chairmanship, expect the spigots to open for Electric Boat, Pratt & Whitney, Sikorsky and the multitude of military subcontractors in Connecticut. Its hard to imagine the gush being any greater than it is now under pro-military Trump. But you never know.
For Blumenthal, the states former attorney general and U.S. attorney, chairmanship of the Senate Judiciary Committee likely would be the dream job. But much like Murphy, Blumenthal has a long line of Democrats ahead of him and would have to be exceedingly fortunate in musical chairs to win any committee leadership post.
A more likely scenario for Blumenthal is chairmanship of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation subcommittee on consumer protection and product safety.
Blumenthals interest in these subjects borders on obsession, dating back to his 20 years as Connecticut attorney general. Whether its Takata air bags, faulty GM ignition switches or cracked and crumbling Connecticut home foundations laced with pyrrhotite, Blumenthal is out front in finger-pointing and legislative remedying. And, no surprise, he currently is the top Democrat on the Republican-led subcommittee.
Not all fun and Game
One footnote from the summer: Given whats been going on in Washington these days, you wouldnt think Rep. Jim Himes would be all that interested in a fantasy-land vacation.
But since he doubles as Good Dad to teenage daughters Emma and Linley, he authorized and appropriated a family vacation in Dubrovnik on the coast of Croatia.
Readers who are fans of Game of Thrones will recognize Dubrovnik as the backdrop for the mythic Kings Landing. The historic walled-in port city evidently didnt need much dolling up in order to double as the fortified stronghold of the Lannister family.
For those who have seen the series and are passionate about it, a visit to Dubrovnik will become a beautiful deja vu because of the way in which it was so well integrated into the setting of the series, was the description on the website kingslandingdubrovnik.com.
It was a big hit with the Himes teens, said Dad, noting his daughters over-the-top GOT fandom.
But the trip was not all pleasure and no business. Himes, a House Intel member, split off for a congressional trip to the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence in Estonia, which sits astride Russia.
(And President Trump, if youre reading this, think you could get that name changed to American English? After all, whos been paying NATOs bills all these years, right?)
dan@hearstdc.com
Liver cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death worldwide. Two different forms of primary liver cancer cover the majority of cases: About 10 to 20 percent of those affected develop a bile duct carcinoma within the liver (intrahepatic cholangiocellular carcinoma; ICC), the far higher proportion of liver cancers are hepatocellular carcinomas (HCC). In recent years, in particular, the number of patients with the highly invasive intrahepatic cholangiocellular carcinomas increased noticeably, although both tumor types show overlaps regarding their risk factors. A team of researchers led by Prof. Lars Zender from the University Hospital Tubingen and German Cancer Consortium (DKTK) now elegantly demonstrated that the surrounding cellular environment with its dying liver cells determines the path taken by tumor cells. The results will be published in the prestigious journal Nature on September 12, 2018.
While progress in early detection and treatment has led to a reduction in mortality for many other types of cancer, there has been a dramatic increase in mortality among patients who have cancer within the liver. Especially fatty liver, which is becoming increasingly common in western countries, now leads to chronically pre-damaged livers in many patients, which are a risk factor for liver cancer. Strikingly, patients with the same predisposition or liver damaging risk factors either develop hepatocellular carcinoma or intrahepatic cholangiocellular carcinoma.
Both cancers are different regarding their behavior and are also treated differently.
The microenvironment of cancer cells, and in particular, the special form of cell death occuring in this environment, proved to be decisive for the development of the respective type of cancer. The scientists showed that precursors of cancer cells in whose environment cells died by apoptosis, the classical cell death, developed into hepatocellular carcinoma. Precancerous cells, in whose environment cells died due to necroptosis, led to intrahepatic cholangiocellular carcinoma. In necroptosis, the cell membrane dissolves, and the cell content causes inflammation in the environment of the cancer cell, while in classical programmed cell death small vesicles are formed which are eliminated by the immune system.
The results could be verified both in mouse models and in human tissue samples. Cancer researcher Xin Wei Wang from the Laboratory of Human Carcinogenesis (Center for Cancer Research, National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, USA) contributed crucial human analysis data, and Oliver Bischof, a distinguished epigeneticists from the Institut Pasteur (Laboratory of Nuclear Organization and Oncogenesis) in Paris, unraveled how the microenvironment affects gene regulation in the cancer cell.
What do the findings mean for clinical practice? "Future research will have to investigate whether the direct cell environment affects not only the type of tumor development but also the therapy," says Professor Lars Zender. In the treatment of HCC with chemoembolization, it has already been observed that a part of the original liver cancer can turn into a bile duct carcinoma. This could be a reason why the cancer no longer responds to the original therapy. "We may be on the trail of a therapy resistance mechanism for liver cancer," explains the renowned oncologist and "we hope that the findings will inform novel therapeutic options in the future."
Fewer and fewer women die from breast cancer in recent years but, surprisingly, the decline is just as large in the age groups that are not screened. The decline is therefore due to better treatment and not screening for breast cancer.
This is shown by a major Danish-Norwegian study, Effect of organized mammography screening on breast cancer mortality: A population-based cohort study in Norway, which has just been published in the scientific journal International Journal of Cancer.
In the study, the researchers followed all Norwegian women aged 30-89 and identified those who developed breast cancer in the period 1987-2010, before subsequently comparing the number of deaths before and after the screening program was introduced.
As Associate Professor Henrik Stvring from Aarhus University, Denmark, notes, the result does not favour the breast cancer screening program. This conclusion can also be transferred directly to Denmark (and elsewhere), where all women aged 50-69 are offered mammography screening - which is an X-ray examination of the chest - every second year. The Danish screening program was progressively introduced from the early 1990s and was offered nationally to everyone from 2007, three years after the Norwegians, who have supplied data for the Danish-Norwegian research project.
"The important result is that we do not find a beneficial effect of breast cancer screening any longer. The original randomized trials examining breast cancer screening were conducted way back in the 1980s, and they showed an effect, but the fact is that the better the treatment methods become, the less benefit screening has," says Henrik Stvring, who is associate professor at the Department of Public Health with biostatistics and screening programmes as his particular areas of expertise.
Here he points towards one of the paradoxes of screening - the popular but erroneous belief that if breast cancer patients who have been screened 'live longer' than other breast cancer patients, then screening works. The problem is that with screening, medical doctors detect cancerous tumors earlier than they would otherwise have done, and thus move the point of diagnosis forward in time. But even if someone who has been screened lives longer as a patient, it is not certain that their life as a whole will be longer. It is important to account for this fact, and the new study shows that screening does not lead to women living longer overall - and this is the study's most important finding.
"The women who are invited to screening live longer because all breast cancer patients live longer, and they do so because we now have better drugs and more effective chemotherapy, and because we have cancer care pathways, which means the healthcare system reacts faster than it did a decade ago. But it does not appear that fewer women die of breast cancer as a result of mammography screening," says Henrik Stvring.
He also points out that it is not always beneficial for a woman to be diagnosed with a tiny cancerous growth of e.g. a millimeter in diameter at a mammography. Some of these small nodules are so slow-growing that the woman would have died a so-called natural death with undiagnosed cancer, if she had not been screened.
"Now what happens is these women are instead given a diagnosis which isn't going to make anyone happier. Such a breast cancer diagnosis both makes life more difficult and costs a lot of money, but does not ultimately make a difference. The problem is that we are not currently able to tell the difference between the small cancer tumors that will kill you and those that will not," says Henrik Stvring.
Here he addresses the issue of overdiagnosis which is a growing problem in all Western countries where the approach to medicine and examinations is extensive and where national screening programmes are prevalent. A problem that was last week discussed in Copenhagen, Denmark, where 450 researchers from thirty countries attended the Preventing Overdiagnosis 2018 conference.
Even though the research results challenge the current health policy in Denmark, Norway and the rest of the Western world, Henrik Stvring is not in the business of telling Danish politicians that they should stop the national screening program here and now:
"It's certainly not my task to decide how the research results should be used, but my suggestion would nonetheless be that we should get together and begin to investigate whether it would beneficial to do something other than screening and whether this could have a better effect. If a doctor could instead examine women's breasts with his or her hands, what is known as palpation, at regular intervals, then we would avoid much of the overdiagnosis," says Henrik Stvring.
The research results - more information
The study is a cohort study with follow-up of all Norwegian women aged 30-89 in the period 1987-2010.
Human papillomavirus (HPV) is widely known to cause nearly all cases of cervical cancer. However, you might not know that HPV also causes 70 percent of oropharyngeal cancer, a subset of head and neck cancers that affect the mouth, tongue, and tonsils. Although vaccines that protect against HPV infection are now available, they are not yet widespread, especially in men, nor do they address the large number of currently infected cancer patients.
Patients with head and neck cancer caused by HPV respond very differently to treatments than those whose cancer is associated with the consumption of tobacco products. The first group generally has better outcomes, with almost 80 percent of patients surviving longer than 5 years after diagnosis, compared to only 45-50 percent for patients with tobacco-related cancers.
To better understand what might cause these differences, a team of scientists led by Nevan J. Krogan, PhD, senior investigator at the Gladstone Institutes, is taking a unique approach by focusing on the cancer-causing virus. They recently mapped the interactions between all HPV proteins and human proteins for the first time. Their findings are published today in the journal Cancer Discovery.
"With our study, we identified several new protein interactions that were previously not known to cause cancer, expanding our knowledge of the oncogenic roles of the HPV virus" said Krogan, who is also a professor of cellular and molecular pharmacology at UC San Francisco (UCSF) and the director of the Quantitative Biosciences Institute (QBI) at UCSF. "The human proteins we found interacting with HPV are involved in both virus- and tobacco-related cancers, which means they could be potential targets for the development of new drugs or therapies."
A Complete Picture of Virus-Cancer Connections
Krogan and Manon Eckhardt, PhD, a postdoctoral scholar in his laboratory at Gladstone, developed an integrated strategy to identify all the interactions between HPV proteins and human proteins. First, using a method called mass spectrometry, they discovered a total of 137 interactions between HPV and human proteins.
Then, in collaboration with computational biologist Wei Zhang, PhD, in the laboratory of Trey Ideker, PhD, at UC San Diego School of Medicine, they looked at entire networks of each protein--rather than only individual proteins--to detect the most important players. They also compared their list of proteins with data from HPV-associated cancer samples published by The Cancer Genome Atlas project. This large consortium catalogued genetic mutations in tumors of various cancers.
"We integrated together these two sets of data to get a comprehensive look at potential cancer-causing interactions between HPV and head and neck cancers," said Krogan, who is co-director of the Cancer Cell Map Initiative. "This combined proteomic and genetic approach provided us with a systematic way to study the cellular mechanisms hijacked by virally induced cancers."
Common Pathways in HPV-Induced and Smoking-Related Cancers
By overlaying the protein interaction and genomics data, the scientists discovered that the HPV virus targets the same human proteins that are frequently mutated in smoking-related cancers. Interestingly, those proteins are not mutated in HPV-positive cancers.
For example, their findings reconfirmed a well-established interaction between the human protein p53 and an HPV protein called E6. In HPV-negative cancers (those related to smoking), p53 is mutated in nearly all cases. However, the same protein is rarely ever mutated in HPV-positive cancer patients.
"In both cases, when p53 is inactivated, it leads to cancer," explained Eckhardt, one of the first authors of the paper. "The difference is that the HPV virus finds a different way of attacking the same protein."
In smoking-related cancers, p53 is mutated, which causes the cancer. Instead, in HPV-positive cancers, the viral protein E6 interacts with p53 and inactivates it, resulting in the same cancer, but without the mutation. This suggests the establishment of the viral infection and the development of tumors share common pathways.
"We thought there must be more proteins that can cause cancer either by being mutated or hijacked by HPV, so we developed a new method to detect them," added Eckhardt. "Our study highlighted two interesting instances where the interaction of HPV and human proteins play a role in the development or invasiveness of the cancer."
Eckhardt showed that the HPV protein E1 interacts with the human protein KEAP1, which is often mutated in smoking-related cancers. In HPV-positive cancers, KEAP1 is not mutated. But, through its interaction with the protein E1, KEAP1 is inactivated, which helps cancer cells survive.
The researchers also found that the HPV protein L2, which is part of the virus's packaging, interacts with two human proteins called RNF20 and RNF40. They demonstrated that in HPV-positive cancers, this protein interaction increases the tumor's ability to spread and invade new parts of the body.
These results confirm that the HPV virus causes head and neck cancer by targeting the same proteins that go awry in response to smoking-induced mutations.
Connecting Cancer and Infectious Diseases
Krogan and his collaborators have shown that integrating HPV-human interaction with tumor genome data, and focusing on genes that are mutated in HPV-negative but not HPV-positive tumors, constitutes a powerful approach to identify proteins that serve as both viral targets and genetic drivers of cancer.
The scientists' work should lay the groundwork to find better therapeutic options for both HPV-negative and HPV-positive head and neck cancers. In addition, Krogan's long-term goal is to define a pipeline that will enable the study of many other virally induced cancers, including those linked to Hepatitis B and C, Epstein-Barr virus, and adenoviruses.
"Science can be siloed, and through these unbiased, holistic approaches we can start to find common pathways between different systems," said Krogan, who also leads the Host Pathogen Map Initiative, which aims to compare protein and genetic interactions across many pathogens and identify similarities. "Our work is helping connect the dots between cancer and infectious diseases in ways that have never been considered."
Perhaps no other population is as vulnerable during a hurricane as frail, older adults, especially those who are homebound or living in nursing homes. With Hurricane Florence predicted to slam the North Carolina coast Friday, health officials are already scrambling to keep older residents safe.
Seniors "are not only the most likely to die in hurricanes, but in wildfires and other disasters," said Dr. Karen DeSalvo, a New Orleans native who served as health commissioner in that city after Hurricane Katrina and went on to be named acting assistant secretary for health at the Department of Health and Human Services for the Obama administration. "The seniors always seem to bear a big brunt of the storms."
Older people may have a harder time evacuating because they don't have their own cars or are homebound, said Lauren Sauer, director of operations at the Johns Hopkins Office of Critical Event Preparedness and Response in Baltimore.
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, an analysis of 986 Louisiana residents who died showed the mean age of victims was 69 and nearly two-thirds were older than 65, DeSalvo said. The dead included 70 people who died in nursing facilities during the storm or just after the storm made landfall.
And last year, 12 residents overheated and died at a facility in Hollywood Hills, Fla., in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Irma, which knocked out the facility's air conditioning and the temperature climbed to over 95 degrees. The tragedy led Florida to pass legislation requiring nursing homes and assisted living facilities to have backup generators capable of keeping residents cool.
"Unfortunately, the best wake-up call is when a tragedy occurs," said Dara Lieberman, senior government relations manager at the Trust for America's Health, a nonprofit. "Hopefully, nursing facilities and emergency managers paid attention to the loss of life in the long-term care facility in Florida last year and realize the risks they face by not preparing. Every facility should have a plan."
Some studies suggest communities aren't much better prepared than in the past, however.
A 2018 study from the National Academy of Sciences found that "we are only marginally more prepared to evacuate vulnerable populations now than we were during Hurricane Katrina," Sauer said.
Deciding whether to stay or go can be more complicated than it sounds, said J.T. Clark of the Near Southwest Preparedness Alliance, a coalition of hospitals and other public health services in southwestern Virginia.
"There is a risk of moving people and there is a risk of staying in place, and you have to weigh those risks," Clark said.
Evacuations pose a number of dangers for fragile patients, some of whom may need oxygen or intravenous medications, said Sauer. She pointed to a 2017 study that found a sharp increase in mortality among nursing home residents who evacuated because of an emergency, compared with those who sheltered in place.
She noted that leaving a facility is only part of the challenge; it can be equally difficult to find a safe place prepared to house evacuated nursing home residents for days at a time, she said. Clark said that nursing homes once commonly assumed they could simply transfer their residents to local hospitals. But that can impair a hospital's ability to care for people who need emergency and urgent care, he said.
Many nursing homes in the Carolinas are evacuating residents to areas outside the storm's direct path.
South Carolina had evacuated 32 nursing homes and assisted-living facilities by Wednesday afternoon, said Randy Lee, president of the South Carolina Health Care Association.
On the Outer Banks of North Carolina, Sentara Healthcare evacuated 65 residents from a nursing home in Currituck to the company's medical centers in Hampton Roads, Va., spokesman Dale Gauding said.
Hurricane Florence poses risks beyond the coasts, however. Sentara also moved five intensive care patients out of a medical center on the Pasquotank River in Elizabeth City, N.C., because of the risk of flooding. Those patients also went to hospitals in Hampton Roads, Gauding said.
With Norfolk, Va., now expected to escape the brunt of the storm, the 88 residents at the Sentara Nursing Center there are sheltering in place, Gauding said.
Nursing homes in Charleston, S.C., complied with mandatory evacuation orders, said Kimberly Borts, director of communications and charitable giving for Bishop Gadsden retirement community on Charleston's James Island.
She said the facility conducts annual evacuation drills to continually improve its capability to safely relocate residents and coordinate with the company that provides ambulances.
However, Hurricane Florence's expected landfall caused a slight change in evacuation plans, which were to be completed by Monday, Borts said. The evacuation had to be delayed until Tuesday because the ambulances were diverted to Myrtle Beach, which remained in Hurricane Florence's sights.
As of Wednesday afternoon, New Hanover Regional Medical Center in Wilmington, N.C., was directly in the storm's path. But hospital officials view the building as strong enough to withstand the storm, said spokeswoman Carolyn Fisher. They were less confident about a building housing a skilled nursing facility in Pender County, N.C., whose residents are being moved away from the hurricane's projected course.
Senior citizens who live at home are also at risk, especially if they lose electricity.
More than 2.5 million Medicare recipients including 204,000 people in Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina rely on home ventilators, oxygen concentrators, intravenous infusion pumps and other electrically powered devices, according to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. The agency has created a tool called emPOWER 3.0 to help states check up on them.
Patients who lose electricity may need to go to their local emergency room to power their medical equipment, said Mary Blunt, senior vice president at Sentara Healthcare in Norfolk, Va., and interim president of Sentara Norfolk General Hospital. Patients with kidney failure also may need to receive dialysis at the ER if their regular dialysis center is closed, she said.
Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina will open emergency shelters for people with special medical needs. These facilities provide "limited support," but not medical care, for people with special needs, according to the South Carolina Emergency Management Division. Residents must bring an adult caregiver to remain with them at all times, according to the South Carolina agency.
Residents should register for these shelters in advance, said DeSalvo, who said that getting people to go can be difficult.
"People do not want to leave their homes," she said.
Bert Kilpatrick said she's not concerned about Hurricane Florence and was planning to stay in her house on Charleston's James Island, where she is just a stone's throw from the Stono River, a huge tidal estuary that runs to the Atlantic Ocean.
"I've been here since 1949. I'm used to these hurricanes," the 87-year-old said. "Me and my cat, Maybank, we're staying."
She even stayed during Hugo, a giant, Category 4 hurricane that devastated Charleston in September 1989. She worked at a downtown hospital then and was there when the storm hit; but her husband, who died recently, rode out Hugo in the house, which was undamaged except for one broken storm window.
Kilpatrick said that as far as she knows all of her nearby neighbors also were staying put. One of those, Patsy Cather, 75, said she and her husband, Joe, were planning to remain. "I'm staying here because he won't leave."
She said they might decide to leave later if the storm reports look worse for Charleston. "It's a no-win situation. You leave, you stay safe; but your home may be gone."
Databases and registries can help with another challenge: the aftermath of the storm.
"When the wind passes and the water starts going down, they really need to mine the data: Who has ambulatory challenges? Who's on chemotherapy? Who's got an opioid dependency?" DeSalvo said.
DeSalvo said she believes the states in the path of Hurricane Florence are in good hands.
"I think the good news is, for a state like South Carolina or North Carolina, they have strong, seasoned leadership in place who are capable of not only managing a complex logistical challenge, but who are good humans," she said. "It takes both."
KHN's coverage related to aging and improving care of older adults is supported in part by The John A. Hartford Foundation.
The Zimbabwe government has declared emergency in the capital city of Harare after 20 people died of cholera. According to the health minister Obediah Moyo, the state is grim with around 2,000 cases of cholera being reported across the country and the disease spreading fast.
Moyo said on the 11th of September (Tuesday) in a statement, We are declaring an emergency for Harare. This will enable us to contain the cholera, typhoid and whatever is going on, to get rid of the problem as quickly as possible. He was visiting the regions of the city that have been worst affected with the disease. According to Moyo broken sewers and poor disposal of the wastes have lead to contamination of the drinking water sources in Harare. This has led to the outbreak of the disease in the city. There have been burst sewers in highly populated regions of suburbs of Budiriro and Glenview. From there the disease has spread to four other provinces.
3d illustration of cholera pathogens. Image Credit: Christoph Burgstedt / Shutterstock
The government has closed the schools temporarily and also banned the sale of meat and fish in the affected regions to combat the outbreak. The government and the police are enforcing laws to stop urinating and defecating in public and is sending out text messages, verbal communication via audio and audio visual media to the general public to prevent spread of cholera and typhoid. People are being made aware of the signs and symptoms to look for and when they are to seek medical help. They are given tips on how to prevent cholera and typhoid infections.
Zimbabwe cholera outbreak update Play
The UNICEF at present is assisting the Zimbabwe government with resources to combat the outbreak. UNICEF Representative in Zimbabwe Mohamed Ayoya said in a statement, We have also alerted our regional offices and headquarters because we know this is a very serious issue, which will need quite huge investments to contain the outbreak. We are working very hard to help the government. Calvin Fambirai, head of Zimbabwe Doctors for Human Rights has urged the government to step up the condition of the waste disposal systems especially in the regions that are thickly populated to prevent the water bourne disease now and in the future. Fambirai said in a statement, The conditions that necessitate the spread of cholera and typhoid in Zimbabwe have not changed since the 2008 outbreak. They have worsened because there is no political will to tackle it. WHO spokesperson Christian Lindmeier said in a statement to Reuters, Partners are already there and are establishing a cholera treatment centre. WHO is preparing material for patients care as well and is mobilising cholera experts.
Cholera is a bacterial disease caused by fecal bacteria Vibrio cholerae. It is contracted by consuming food and water that has been contaminated with the bacteria from infected persons. Poor sanitation and hygiene is responsible for its spread. The disease is typically characterized by acute diarrheal illness which may lead to severe dehydration and may even be fatal. In 2008 over 4,000 people died of cholera in Zimbabwe says the World Health Organization. The disease is more common in developing nations and those that are densely populated and economically backward. Poor water treatment systems and poor sanitation and hygiene practices are conducive to spread of cholera among these populations.
Dr Matshidiso Moeti, the WHOs regional director for Africa called cholera a disease of inequity. He said, Its an ancient disease, which has been eliminated in many parts of the world. Every death from cholera is preventable. We have the knowhow and today countries have shown that they have the will to do whatever it takes to end cholera outbreaks by 2030.
The President of Zimbabwe in a tweet said, My thoughts & prayers are with those suffering from the cholera outbreak, and the loved ones of those we have lost. In order to contain the outbreak & mobilize resources we have declared a state of emergency in Harare, and are working closely with our international partners. I urge all residents of affected areas to exercise extra care with their hygiene & follow the instructions of the authorities as we seek to contain & overcome this outbreak. We are working tirelessly to control the situation and hope to communicate progress in due course.
DUSU Election Results Live: The ABVP, the student wing of the BJP, has bagged three posts, including that of the president, in the Delhi University Students Union (DUSU) elections. The NSUI, the student wing of the Congress, won only one seat. ABVP's Ankiv Basoya won the presidential post with a margin of 1,744 votes while party's candidate Shakti Singh was declared as the vice president after he won with a margin of 7,673 votes. NSUI's Akash Choudhary won the secretary's post while ABVP's Jyoti emerged victorious on the joint secretary post. Choudhary, the lone winning candiadte of the NSUI, alleged that fair elections were not conducted and data of seven EVMs were missing. The Chief Electoral Officer in Delhi clarified that the EVMs used in DUSU elections have not been issued by the Election Commission and it seems to have been procured privately. The counting had to be suspended for few hours following glitch in the EVMs but was resumed in the evening amid heavy police deployment. The NSUI demanded fresh polling, while the ABVP demanded resumption of counting. "There are only 8 candidates so how is it possible that votes were cast to a 10th candidate? All machines were fine till Wednesday. Police and administration are involved in this," Fairoz Khan, NSUI president, alleged. DUSU polls were held on Wednesday with a voter turnout of 44.46 per cent. Polling took place at 52 centres in the colleges. There were 23 candidates in the fray.
Stay tuned for LIVE updates:
Sep 13, 2018 22:02 (IST) ABVP Makes Comeback, Huge Setback for NSUI | The results are a setback for NSUI which had bagged the president and vice-president post in last years DUSU elections. The ABVP, which had won joint secretary and general secretary in 2017, has now made a comeback by wresting power from NSUI for the key posts of president and vice-president. Sep 13, 2018 21:43 (IST) Results Declared | ABVP wins the posts of president, vice-president and joint secretary, NSUI bags the secretarys post. ABVPs Ankiv Baisoya wins the post of president. ABVP candidates Shakti Singh and Jyoti Chaudhary win the post of vice-president and joint secretary respectively. NSUI's Akash Chaudhary wins the secretary's post. Sep 13, 2018 21:37 (IST) EVMs for DUSU polls not issued by EC, Says CEC | The chief electoral officer in Delhi on Thursday clarified that the EVMs used in Delhi University Students Union (DUSU) election have not been issued by the election commission. "With reference to captions being shown in some news channels regarding use of EVMs in the elections of DUSU, I am directed to inform that the EVMs in question are not of Election Commission as no such EVMs have been allotted/issued to DU by this office, a statement issued by the office of the chief electoral officer in Delhi said. The statement further said that the DU has procured these machines privately. It added that a detailed report in this regard will be sent subsequently. Sep 13, 2018 19:49 (IST) ABVP Leading in Three Posts | After 12 rounds of counting, the ABVP was leading in three posts- president (Ankiv Baisoya), vice president (Shakti Singh) and joint secretary (Jyoti Chaudhary).The NSUI was leading in the post of secretary (Akash Choudhary). Counting for the Delhi University Students Union polls resumed hours after it was suspended due to fault in EVMs leading to a uproar among the contending outfits. Sep 13, 2018 19:11 (IST) For the secretary post, in case the margin is less than 426, the result will not be announced and DUSU election committee will decide on re-counting for the two EVMs. However, if the vote margin between top two candidates for secretary post is more than 426 votes, results will be declared today itself, Times of India reported. Sep 13, 2018 19:04 (IST) ABVP Refutes NSUI's Allegations | Ashish Chauhan, national general secretary of ABVP refuted allegations levelled by NSUI in its statement. If madam @guptar is so confident of winning 3/4 posts in #DUSUElection2018, then why is her party stalling counting on these three posts. I am confident of @ABVPVoices win in all 4 post not 3/4 like NSUI incharge, Chauhan tweeted. The NSUI, had released a statement alleging that the counting on EVMs had no credibility. "NSUI was winning the DUSU election after six rounds when the EVMs magically started malfunctioning. One EVM showed votes on secretary post on ballot number 10 when there are only eight candidatess. EVM also showed zero votes for NSUI candidate," the statement read. If madam @guptar is so confident of winning 3/4 posts in #DUSUElection2018, then why is her party stalling counting on these three posts.
I am confident of @ABVPVoices win in all 4 post not 3/4 like NSUI incharge. https://t.co/1xUuwg9Tla Ashish Chauhan (@AshishSainram) September 13, 2018 Sep 13, 2018 18:42 (IST) National president of NSUI, Fairoz Khan said that all EVMs were working fine on Wednesday and alleged that the administration was involved in the malfuntioning of the EVMs . There are only 8 candidates, so how is it possible that votes were cast to a 10th candidate? All machines were fine yesterday. Police and administration are involved in this, Khan was quoted as saying by ANI. There are only 8 candidates, so how is it possible that votes were cast to a 10th candidate? All machines were fine yesterday. Police&administration are involved in this: Fairoz Khan, National President, NSUI on counting suspended after 6 EVMs stopped working in #DUSUElection2018 pic.twitter.com/kLqZumaLye ANI (@ANI) September 13, 2018 Sep 13, 2018 17:56 (IST) The ABVP had rubbished allegations of EVM tampering and termed it a 'juvenile technique'. When loss looks inevitable, clutching onto the excuse of tampered EVMs is an old and juvenile technique! ABVP urges both the organisations to not interrupt the counting and face the results gracefully, ABVP tweeted. When loss looks inevitable, clutching onto the excuse of tampered EVMs is an old and juvenile technique! ABVP urges both the organisations to not interrupt the counting and face the results gracefully. #DUSUElection2018 #ABVP4DUSU ABVP (@ABVPVoice) September 13, 2018 Sep 13, 2018 17:48 (IST) NSUI Issues Statement | The NSUI, meanwhile released a statement alleging that the counting on EVMs had no credibility. "NSUI was winning the DUSU election after six rounds when the EVMs magically started malfunctioning. One EVM showed votes on secretary post on ballot number 10 when there are only eight candidatess. EVM also showed zero votes for NSUI candidate. It is clear that any further counting on these EVMs has no credibility and we demand that our candidates are declared winners immediately," NSUI statement said. In its statement, the NSUI further said that they would not allow the fascist RSS-BJP to subvert the democratic mandate. Ruchi Gupta, national in-charge of the NSUI, who tweeted the statement, also demanded that NSUI candidates be declared winners. NSUI statement on the unprecedented and shameful episode of blatant EVM tampering in #DUSUElection2018 today. We demand that NSUI candidates who were leading should be declared winners, no credibility of the counting process now #DUSU2018 pic.twitter.com/VUNC7cTYc2 Ruchi Gupta (@guptar) September 13, 2018 Sep 13, 2018 17:38 (IST) Counting Resumes | "After elaborate discussions it was decided that the counting will be resumed today. All candidates have reached an agreement on this," an election officer for DUSU polls told PTI. "We had proposed rectification of the faulty EVMs and resumption of the counting but the students were not ready for it. It was decided to suspend counting in the afternoon," he added. In the initial trends, Congress-backed NSUI was leading for the president post, while BJP-affiliated ABVP was leading for the vice president's post. Sep 13, 2018 17:28 (IST) Counting, which was suspended, will resume from the seventh round. After six rounds of counting, supporters of different parties clashed over faulty EVMs and allegations of tampering. Sep 13, 2018 17:11 (IST) AAP leader Dilip Pandey, hit out at the Narendra Modi-led government's proposal of conducting simultaneous elections. He said that that those advocating for one nation one poll, were not able to conduct a students' union poll properly. His comments came after counting of votes for Delhi University Students Union (DUSU) polls was suspended due to fault in EVMs which led to chaos among students. " ,
"- @dilipkpandey (DUSU ) pic.twitter.com/zZFKT7s3pq AAP (@AamAadmiParty) September 13, 2018 Sep 13, 2018 17:02 (IST) Counting Expected to Resume Soon | Counting of votes which was suspended due to faulty EVMs is expected to resume in next half an hour, PTI reported. Sep 13, 2018 16:58 (IST) Delhi HC Makes Observation on JNU Student Body Polls | Meanwhile, the Delhi High Court remarked that pre-poll debates need not be limited to varsity elections in Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) and it should be taken beyond that, PTI reported. Justice Siddharth Mridul had posed the query to Congress leader and senior advocate Salman Khurshid on Monday during hearing of a JNU student's plea challenging cancellation of his candidature for the post of president in the upcoming students' union elections in the varsity. "Why should debates be limited to JNU elections only? You should take it beyond," the court had suggested to the Congress leader. Sep 13, 2018 16:51 (IST) Whenever Congress Leads, EVMs Malfunction, Says Surjewala | Congress leader Randeep Singh Surjewala, commenting on the faulty EVMs that led to the suspension of vote counting in the DUSU elections said, The country needs to think whether such EVMs can protect the democracy. Congress NSUI was leading and whenever Congress leads, EVMs malfunction. Sep 13, 2018 16:46 (IST) No Decision on Resumption of Counting | There was no update from the election committee on whether the counting would be resumed on Thursday or postponed to some other day, Hindustan Times reported. Sep 13, 2018 16:42 (IST) Fairoz Khan, the all India president of NSUI accused the ABVP of murdering democracy. EVM's are being misused in such a manner that NSUI candidates are getting zero votes and rest votes are being polled on the 10th number, where there are 8 Candidate names and no time as 10th number. ABVP has thus murdered Democracy today. #murderersofdemocracy, Khan said in a Tweet. EVM's are being misused in such a manner that NSUI candidates are getting zero votes and rest votes are being polled on the 10th number, where there are 8 Candidate names and no time as 10th number. ABVP has thus murdered Democracy today. #murderersofdemocracy pic.twitter.com/m1uHe02YCt Fairoz Khan (@Fairoz_JK) September 13, 2018 Sep 13, 2018 16:38 (IST) On Wednesday, ABVP tweeted photos of candidates and claimed that its panel had made a clean sweep in most colleges of Delhi University. Abvp panel clean sweep in most of the colleges of Delhi University, pic.twitter.com/blJP9jCqDD ABVP Delhi (@ABVPDelhi) September 12, 2018 Sep 13, 2018 16:25 (IST) NSUI Accuses ABVP of Sabotage | NSUI alleging sabotage by ABVP said, NSUI was leading the president and secretary post after 6 rounds. Then 6 EVMs started malfunctioning and EC wanted to set those aside. How is it that machines which were working till yesterday during polling are no longer working during counting? NSUI asked why Shakti Singh (ABVP vice-president candidate) was not disqualified after he went on a rampage with his goons in Zakir Hussain College. Why was no was action taken on the written complaint, the NSUI further asked. Sep 13, 2018 16:12 (IST) Ruchi Gupta, national in-charge of the NSUI, alleged that malfunctioning EVMs always seemed to favour BJP and its affiliates. In a tweet, she said, One EVM shows NO votes for NSUI candidate. Remarkable coincidence that malfunctioning EVMs always seem to favor BJP and its affiliates. One EVM shows NO votes for NSUI candidate. Remarkable coincidence that malfunctioning EVMs always seem to favor BJP and its affiliates Ruchi Gupta (@guptar) September 13, 2018 Sep 13, 2018 16:10 (IST) In the initial trends, Congress-backed NSUI was leading for the president post, while BJP-affiliated ABVP was leading for the vice president's post. Amid heavy police presence and some last-minute wooing of voters, DUSU polls were held on Wednesday with a voter turnout of 44.46 per cent. Polling took place at 52 centres in the colleges with 23 candidates in the fray. Sep 13, 2018 16:07 (IST) The counting for Delhi University Students Union (DUSU) elections was suspended midway on Thursday due to "faulty EVMs and the students' uproar over it", an university official told PTI. The counting was initially stopped for an hour when there were allegations of faulty EVMs, however, following objections by students the election officials decided to suspend the counting. "We had proposed rectification of the faulty EVMs and resumption of the counting but the students were not ready for it. It was decided to suspend counting. A fresh date for the counting will be announced soon," an election officer for DUSU polls was quoted as saying by PTI. Sep 13, 2018 15:57 (IST) The supporters of both the groups shouted slogans against the Delhi University (DU) administration and created a ruckus inside the counting centre. "A fresh date for the counting will be announced soon," an election officer for the DUSU polls said. Sep 13, 2018 15:54 (IST) ABVP Demands Counting be Resumed | Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad's (ABVP) Shakti Singh said, "Only one EVM was faulty and it can be repaired. We want the counting to be resumed. Since we were leading on all the seats, the other parties are demanding fresh elections." Sep 13, 2018 15:51 (IST) Counting Halted Because of 'Faulty EVMs' |The counting was initially stopped for an hour after the allegations of faulty EVMs surfaced. However, following objections by the students, the election officials decided to suspend the process. "The polls are being held at the behest of the central government. The EVMs were tampered with. We want fresh elections," Rocky Tuseed of the National Students' Union of India (NSUI) said. Sep 13, 2018 15:49 (IST) NSUI Wants Fresh Election, ABVP Demands Counting to be Resumed | The Congress-affiliated NSUI on Thursday demanded that fresh polling be held for the Delhi University Students' Union (DUSU) election, while the RSS's student wing, the ABVP, wanted the counting of votes, which has been suspended, to be resumed. The counting of votes for the DUSU polls was suspended midway on Thursday due to "faulty EVMs and the students' uproar over it". Sep 13, 2018 15:22 (IST) After much drama that dotted the counting, the process has finally been called-off for the day. Students were asked to "go home" as fresh dates for the counting would be announced soon. "Counting has been suspended due to faulty EVMs," DU official said. The ABVP has, however, been pressing to continue the counting. The security has been beefed up keeping in view the volatile situation. Sep 13, 2018 14:03 (IST) Security personnel stand guard as clashes broke out after the counting was suspended. Sep 13, 2018 14:00 (IST) NSUI are alleging that the EVMs have been tampered as Akash Choudhary, NSUI's candidate for secretary post, was leading by 2,200 votes at the end of round six. Just as the seventh round started, his lead was slashed to 300. Sep 13, 2018 13:57 (IST) Amid the clashes at the centre in Kingsway Camp after the counting was stopped due to technical error in EVMs, University Proctor and Election incharge have arrived. The counting has resumed again as ABVP and NSUI protested against the delay.
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SSC Recruitment 2018: Check application last date for constable post
SSC Recruitment 2018
New Delhi : The Staff Selection Commission (SSC) on Wednesday released a new notification about 54,953 vacancies the recruitment of constable posts in the Border Security Forces (BSF), Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB), Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), AR, National Investigation Agency (NIA) and Special Security Force (SSF) forces.
The candidates who wish to apply for the posts can do it via SSC official website. Last date to apply is September 17 by 5 pm.
Eligibility and Qualification:
To apply for the posts, candidates must have completed matriculation or should be a class 10th pass from a recognised Board or University.
Steps to apply for SSC Recruitment 2018:
Step 1: Log on to the official website- ssc.nic.in.
Step 2: Click on the link which reads- Constable Vacancies.
Step 3: Enter the required details and submit.
Step 4: Submit the application fee payable through SBI Challan/SBI Net Banking.
Step 5: Fill the form and take a print out of it for future reference.
Fees:
A nominal application fees of Rs 100 need to ve paid via SBI Challan/SBI Net Banking or by using Visa, Mastercard, or Maestro Card or Debit Card.
Age:
Candidates must note that applicants age should be between 18 and 23 years as on August 1, 2018. However, the upper age limit has been relaxed for SC, ST, OBC and ex-servicemen.
Special condition:
It must also be considered that candidates applying for the posts of Constable (GD) in CAPFs, NIA, SSF and Rifleman (GD) in Assam Rifles Examination will have to follow a two-step process. (i) One-Time Registration (ii) Filling of online Application Form.
Canberra : International human rights bodies urged Australia on Wednesday to end its military ties with Myanmar and impose sanctions on those responsible for "atrocities" committed against the Rohingyas.
Human Rights Watch (HRW), Amnesty International (AI), the Human Rights Law Center and the Australian Council for International Development made a joint statement calling on Canberra to assist in further prosecutions of those responsible for the crimes on the Muslim minority community.
"Those with blood on their hands, for the explosion of violence perpetrated by Myanmar's security forces against Rohingya villagers across northern Rakhine State, must be held to account," Diana Sayed, Crisis Campaigns Coordinator at Amnesty International Australia, said in the statement.
The four organisations urged Australia, a member of the UN Human Rights Council, to support the international call to refer the Rohingya case to the International Criminal Court as well as promote mechanisms to preserve evidence and assist in investigations for future prosecution.
A Rohingya insurgent group carried out a coordinated assault on border security posts in 2016, unleashing a violent response from the Myanmar army which led to an exodus of over 700,000 Rohingyas to Bangladesh.
Doctors Without Borders (MSF) estimates that at least 6,700 Rohingyas, including 730 children, have died in the military crackdown.
The Myanmar military has been accused of committing murders, rapes and arson against the Rohingyas in what a group of UN experts saw as evidence of "intentional genocide" and crimes against humanity "perpetrated on a massive scale", as indicated in its report.
The document, presented on August 27, will be delivered to the UN Human Rights Council at the end of the week, Efe news reported.
"Faced with such a damning report, there is no excuse for inaction," according to Elaine Pearson, Australia Director at Human Rights Watch.
Myanmar does not grant citizenship to the Rohingyas, considering them to be illegal Bengali immigrants, and for years has subjected them to all kinds of discrimination, including restrictions on freedom of movement.
Shanghai : The Shanghai Museum has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Sri Lanka Central Cultural Fund on a five-year archaeological cooperation programme.
Yang Zhigang, the curator of Shanghai Museum, said on Wednesday that the MOU was a comprehensive cultural exchange programme ranging from joint excavation, relic protection and museum exhibition to educational cooperation, Xinhua news agency reported.
The MOU was signed after the museum's archaeological team went to Sri Lanka to join a 40-day site excavation at the ruins of Allaippidy in the port city of Jaffna in August.
The archaeologists found some porcelain fragments dating back to the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127), which were transported from China.
"Sri Lanka is an important stop on the Maritime Silk Road. Chinese explorer Zheng He visited Sri Lanka in 1405 for the first time," Yang said, explaining why the museum made Sri Lanka the first station in its overseas joint archaeological research on the Maritime Silk Road.
He said Zheng He was the key figure for Shanghai Museum's overseas archaeological excavation. A stone tablet exhibited in the National Museum of Sri Lanka was proved to be left by Zheng He. Archaeologists from the museum hoped to find more evidence of Zheng He's fleet to Sri Lanka.
Yang said that the joint excavation in Jaffna will focus on the trade route and mode study of the Maritime Silk Road. "The two sides will hold joint exhibitions on archaeological findings and publish research papers in both Chinese and English," said the curator.
Beijing : Chinese State Councillor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi will travel to Vietnam and the Philippines in a bid to strengthen ties with the two countries, which have had maritime tensions with Beijing related to sovereignty over the South China Sea, it was announced here on Wednesday.
Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang said Wang would participate in the 11th round of bilateral dialogue between China and Vietnam and later travel to the Philippines on a tour which will begin on September 15 and continue until September 18, Xinhua news agency reported.Geng said ties with the two neighbours had improved in recent years, after earlier clashes about sovereignty over the Spratly and Paracel islands, claimed by Beijing as well as partially claimed by Manila, Hanoi and other regional governments."Since last year China-Vietnam relations are developing well, under the strategic guidance of our two leaders. Our across-the-border ties have deepened," Geng said."China is willing to work with Vietnam to elevate our strategic partnership to a new level and develop tangible benefits to our two peoples," he added.The spokesperson also highlighted the progress in ties with the Philippines since Rodrigo Duterte became the President, with Duterte visiting China in April and participating in the annual conference of the Boao Forum for Asia."The Philippines is a coordinating country for China-Asia relations," Geng said.
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Rome, Sep 12 (IANS/AKI) Italy's anti-migrant Interior Minister Matteo Salvini on Wednesday deplored the European Parliament's vote to punish Hungary's government led by far-right Premier Viktor Orban, calling the move "blackmail".
"Hungary won't give in to such blackmail and will continue to protect its borders," Salvini wrote on Facebook after the 448-197 vote by Euro MPs to sanction Hungary for flouting EU rules on democracy, civil rights and corruption.
"All my solidarity. No to sanctions and to trials of freely elected governments," read the post by Salvini, who is also Italy's Deputy Prime Minister.
Much of Orban's conservative European People's Party in the European Parliament which includes German Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats voted in favour of the motion to sanction Hungary over the rule of law.
Wednesday's vote is the first time the European Parliament has voted to take such action against a member state under EU rules.
Under Article 7 of the European Union treaty, breaching the bloc's founding principles can lead to the suspension of a member state's rights as a punitive measure.
--IANS/AKI
mr/
Strasbourg (France) : The European Parliament on Wednesday voted in favour of kick-starting disciplinary action against Hungary that could see some of the central European nation's voting rights restricted for failing to abide by the EU core values.
Prime Minister Viktor Orban's government has been accused of attacks on the media, minorities and the rule of law -- charges which he denies, the BBC reported.
More than two-thirds of MEPs backed the censure motion, the first such vote against a member state under EU rules. If also approved by national leaders, Hungary could face punitive measures.
Since coming to power, Orban's government has taken a hardline stance against immigration. It introduced a law which made it a criminal offence for lawyers and activists to help asylum seekers, under the banner of "facilitating illegal immigration".
But there have also been reports of pressure being put on the courts and the electoral system, and of widespread corruption.
Budapest and Brussels have been at loggerheads since Orban's government took measures to block migrant entries into the nation at a time when all EU member states were obligated to meet migrant quotas.
Orban's government has also been the target of sharp criticism for its perceived clampdown on civil liberties and his campaign against Hungarian-American billionaire philanthropist George Soros, whom the Prime Minister has accused of using NGOs and activist groups to orchestrate mass migration into Hungary.
In a video message to supporters on social media on Tuesday before taking part in a plenary debate at the Parliament, the nationalist-populist said he would defend the rights of Hungarians who did not want Hungary to become "an immigrant country".
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Rome, Sep 12 (IANS/AKI) Libya's UN-backed Premier Fayez al-Sarraj accused "foreign powers" of destabilizing the oil-rich country in an interview with Italy's Corriere della Sera newspaper on Wednesday.
"Serious and long-term solutions have not been found to solve very deep internal divisions," Sarraj told Corriere, urging the international community to heed Libya's call for more help to end the violent turmoil.
"We can't achieve this alone and need your assistance," he stated.
Terrorist groups in lawless Libya are seeking to undermine the country's stability by exploiting its weaknesses and the warfare allows human and arms traffickers and other criminal gangs to thrive, Sarraj said.
"But there are also foreign powers working against us for their own interests. We know that some militias are being secretly armed from abroad," Sarraj said.
"They know well (who they are). And they do not want a sovereign Libya," Sarraj stated. "Some neighbouring countries are capitalising on our internal chaos for their own gain."
Libya remains wracked by violence seven years after the NATO-backed ouster of its former dictator Moamer Gaddafi.
The UN brokered a fragile truce on September 4 after deadly militia clashes in Tripoli erupted in late August.
But less than a week later, four people died and 10 were injured on Monday in an attack at the Libyan National Oil Corp headquarters in the capital by suspected Islamic State jihadists.
In the Corriere interview, Sarraj warned against a military takeover of Tripoli and urged his key political rival, eastern military leader Khalifa Haftar, to work with his government "for common objectives and against unilateral initiatives".
Elections cannot be held until security is restored in Libya, Sarraj told Corriere - a view shared by the Italian government.
--IANS/AKI
mr/
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Rome, Sep 12 (IANS/AKI) Italy averted "many" deaths when its Diciotti coastguard vessel rescued 190 migrants from an overcrowded boat off Lampedusa in mid-August, Premier Giuseppe Conte told lawmakers on Wednesday.
The migrants were then stranded at sea for 10 days during a standoff with the European Union when Interior Minister Matteo Salvini stopped them disembarking in Sicily unless other states agreed to take them in.
"The evidence presented leads us to conclude that without the concrete and direct intervention of the Italian coastguard, many of these people would have perished," Conte told the Senate upper house of parliament.
Conte also accused Malta of "inertia" over the incident which began on August 15 morning when Libyan authorities alerted Maltese counterparts to the presence of the migrant boat in Malta's search and rescue area, south of Malta.
"Noticing the inertia of the Maltese authorities in their search and rescue area, the Italian coastguard's general command judged that it would probably be necessary to intervene and transfer all the boat's passengers to another vessel," Conte stated.
Thirteen of the rescued migrants were taken to Lampedusa because of serious medical conditions. But the remaining 177 were stuck in international waters for five days and spent a further five days aboard the Diciotti at the Sicilian port of Catania.
The standoff came to an end when Italy's Catholic Church, Ireland and Albania agreed to shelter most of the migrants.
"What has changed from the past is that Italy is no longer willing to indiscriminately welcome migrants, and to fuel - albeit involuntarily - human trafficking," Conte told the Senate.
Last month's Diciotti incident "was not an attractive page in European history", he said.
"Europe lost the opportunity to concretely uphold the principles of solidarity and responsibility (in managing migrant flows) that are constantly cited being among its fundamental values," he said.
--IANS/AKI
mr/
Jammu : The army has apprehended a Pakistani national who had crossed the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir's Poonch sector, defence sources said on Thursday.
The intruder has been identified as Umeer Yousaf, 23. He is a resident of Taral Khel in Poonch sector of Pakistan administered Kashmir.
The army personnel apprehended Yousaf late on Wednesday while he was roaming along the Ranghar Nala after crossing the LoC. He was later handed over to the police.
A tobacco pack, two identity cards and Rs 50 in Pakistani currency was recovered from him.
New Delhi : Rafale jets will power the Indian Air Force (IAF) to fight "grave threats" India faces from Pakistan and China, Air Chief Marshal B.S. Dhanoa said on Wednesday, strongly batting for the French-made fourth generation aircraft whose purchase has triggered allegations of financial irregularities.
The IAF chief said that by acquiring the French fighters, the IAF would also be able strengthen its depleting fleet of fighters at a time when India's neighbours were "not sitting idle" and continuously modernizing their air warfare capabilities.
Speaking at a seminar here, Air Chief Marshal Dhanoa said the Russian-made S-400 Triumf advanced air defence systems to be bought from Moscow would also enhance the capability of the air force.
"By providing the Rafale and the S-400 (anti-missile system), the government is strengthening the IAF to counter the shortfall of our depleting numbers of aircraft," he said.
"The hi-tech fighters like Rafale are needed because medium-tech fighters like Tejas alone cannot do."
He said the IAF was already down with only 31 squadrons from the sanctioned strength of 42. "Even when we do have 42 (squadrons), we will be below the combined strength of our two adversaries," he said, adding that the gap was being "partially fulfilled by getting the hi-tech aircraft.
"The question that is asked very often in public domain is why 42 squadrons when older aircraft like MiG-21s are being replaced by more capable aircraft.
"There are reasons (for that) because our neighbours are not sitting idle. Pakistan has upgraded F-16s and made them 4.5 generation as far as avionic electronics goes and is inducting JF-17 (from China) in large numbers.
"China is rapidly replacing its 2nd and 3rd generation fighters with 4th generation fighters and is developing 5th generation fighter which is likely to be deployed very soon."
He said very few countries were facing challenges like India, which is surrounded by "two nuclear-armed neighbours".
"We have to match neighbours Pakistan and China to tackle a two-front war. Intentions of our adversaries can change overnight. We need to match force level of our adversaries," he said.
The IAF chief's comments come a day after former Bharatiya Janata Party ministers Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie alleged Prime Minister Narendra Modi's "personal culpability" in the Rafale deal which they dubbed as the country's "biggest defence scam".
The procurement of 36 Rafale fighters from France's Dassault Aviation has come under fire from the Congress, alleging that the Modi government had compromised national security and bought the bombers at a higher price than what the UPA had negotiated with the French government.
Earlier this month, IAF Vice Chief Air Marshal S.B. Deo too endorsed the Rafale, saying the aircraft will give India "unprecedented combat capabilities".
United Nations : Turkey's Permanent Representative to the UN Feridun Sinirlioglu has voiced opposition to the looming offensive on Idlib, Syria, the last rebel-held stronghold in the war-torn country.
"President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has underlined the need to preserve the de-escalation area and called for an immediate and complete ceasefire in Idlib," Sinirlioglu told the Security Council meeting on Tuesday.
At a summit last week involving Russia, Iran and Turkey there was a major point of divergence on whether to launch an offensive on Idlib.
While Russia and Iran proposed the military option, Turkey, which backs some of the opposition groups in Idlib, opposed it.
"Our calls for an immediate ceasefire include all military operations and Turkey will continue to work on this basis," Xinhua quoted Sinirlioglu as saying.
Idlib is the only remaining one of the four de-escalation areas created by the Astana process initiated by the three countries in 2017 in Kazakhstan.
"In a complex place like Idlib, traditional counter-terrorism methods would not yield the desired results. On the contrary, they would create further suffering, alienate and radicalise more Syrians," Sinirlioglu said.
He also said a military assault on Idlib "would trigger a massive wave of refugees and tremendous security risks for Turkey, the rest of Europe and beyond".
The UN has warned that a military operation in Idlib is likely to put the lives of some three million people, including one million children, in jeopardy.
"Only a viable ceasefire would allow the creation of an environment to effectively fight terrorism," Sinirlioglu said.
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Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, September 13) Senator Antonio "Sonny" Trillanes IV's plan to leave the Senate may just have to wait a little longer.
This came after Trillanes on Thursday night said he received a warning of possible arrest once he steps outside the Senate building.
But President Rodrigo Duterte brushed aside such a scenario, saying he is "not interested" to arrest Trillanes, especially if there is still no arrest warrant from court.
Trillanes said his car was tailed by unidentified motorcycle-clad men, and that he was cautioned by the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) arresting units that he will be detained if ever he leaves the premises.
"Last night at kanina, lumabas ang aking sasakyan para magpa-gasolina. At eto ay sinundan ng mga motorsiklo, mga personnel," Trillanes told reporters.
[Translation: Last night and earlier, my car went out to refuel. It was then followed by some personnel in motorcycles.]
"Winarningan ako ng AFP arresting units na talagang huhulihin ako paglabas," he added. "Ang position (ko) is to remain here in the Senate."
[Translation: The AFP arresting units warned me that they will arrest me once I leave. So my position is to remain here in the Senate.]
Trillanes, who has been holed up in the Senate for more than a week now, earlier said he will try to leave the building "quietly."
Because of the warning, the former naval officer maintained he will not leave the Senate premises until the AFP issues a "categorical statement" to not arrest him. He said it would be "an open defiance" of the Supreme Court ruling if authorities arrest him without a warrant from a civilian court.
"For as long as walang categorical statement ang AFP na hindi nila ako aarestuhin (there is no categorical statement from the AFP that they will not arrest me) by virtue of that proclamation-- it's more prudent to stay here in the meantime," Trillanes bared.
Trillanes has been staying at the Senate since September 4 when President Rodrigo Duterte's Proclamation 572 was published in newspapers. This order declares Trillanes' amnesty void from the beginning and ordered the senator's arrest. Trillanes was advised by the Senate leadership and his lawyers to stay within Senate premises to avoid any possible arrest.
The Supreme Court has left it to the discretion of the Makati Regional Trial Court (RTC) if it would issue an alias warrant against Trillanes after the issued proclamation.
Branch 148 of the Makati RTC on Thursday deferred its decision on the matter and instead gave Trillanes 10 days to comment on the petition filed by the Justice Department for a warrant and hold departure order against him. Branch 150 is set to hear a similar request on Friday.
"Nobody is interested to arrest them. The military does not have the interest. I do not have the interest. He can stay there as a boarder," Duterte told reporters after presiding over a command conference on preparations for Typhoon Ompong's impact.
"The police -- sabi ko do not arrest until there is a warrant of arrest by the court," he added.
[Translation: I told the police not arrest until there is a warrant of arrest from the court.]
CNN Philippines' Cecille Lardizabal contributed to this report.
Dear Newsie Readers,
Newsie has now permanently ceased it's services as of Friday 20th December 2019.
Newsie has been an owner-funded operation since day one.
Coming up to three years old, while we still firmly believe Newsie has a place in the New Zealand media landscape, the cost in both time and money has become too burdensome for the owners to continue alongside other ventures.
With the current government looking to restructure public broadcasting, and seemingly supporting NZME buying a ring-fenced Stuff, the time seems right to call it a day.
Should it happen, the combination of NZME and Stuff will ensure New Zealands national media will die a death by a thousand opinion-based articles.
Newsie has always tried to stick to balanced news, to inform readers of the facts of a situation, amid being largely ignored by government. Hopefully, one day someone else will take up the challenge to fight the good fight.
The good news, however, is that there were no job losses as a result of Newsie closing. Thanks to careful structuring, everyone involved in Newsie will retain their current positions.
We hope you all have a happy Christmas and new year. Stay safe, and stay out of the news.
The team at Newsie
Anwar Ibrahim, in line to become Malaysia's next premier, blasted Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi's treatment of the Rohingya and called for formal talks on China's crackdown against its Muslim minority.
"I was appalled by the attitude of Suu Kyi these days," Anwar said in an interview with Bloomberg Television's Sophie Kamaruddin in Hong Kong. "Buddhists, Muslims, Christians all supported her. Why must she continue to be seen to be condoning crimes against the minority?"
The United Nations has said the treatment of Rohingya in Buddhist-majority Myanmar may amount to genocide, a finding that Suu Kyi's government has rejected. The crisis, which has seen more than 700,000 minority Muslims in Myanmar flee to Bangladesh, did not even make it onto the agenda of a meeting of Asian leaders in Nepal last month.
Anwar, who has an agreement to take over from Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad in a year or two, also spoke out about China's treatment of Turkic-speaking Uighurs. Multiple accounts have emerged of secretive "reeducation camps" that have detained tens of thousands to "upwards of 1 million" Uighurs, according to a UN committee's assessment.
While Malaysia's government raised the Uighur issue with China, officials in Beijing view it as an "internal issue," Anwar said. "This has gone out into the mainstream media as an issue, and I believe we should use a proper forum to start highlighting these issues and seek this understanding from the Chinese authorities."
Anwar's comments amount to one of the strongest condemnations of Muslim-minority abuse from any senior political leader in Asia. Regarding China in particular, governments in Muslim-majority countries from Saudi Arabia to Indonesia have been silent even as calls grow in the U.S. and Europe for China to stop the alleged human-rights abuses.
China officially denies problems in Xinjiang, a vast region the size of Alaska bordering Pakistan and Afghanistan that's home to some 10 million Uighurs. During a visit to Kuala Lumpur, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi reiterated support for Malaysia's new government while adding that China will not interfere in other countries' internal affairs. That echoes its warning against U.S. lawmakers who urged sanctions against senior Chinese officials.
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Asked why Muslim governments have largely been quiet on the Uighurs, Anwar said: "They're scared. Nobody wants to say anything."
China is the largest trading partner of Malaysia and many other countries around the world. Mahathir has taken an assertive stance toward Beijing, warning against "a new version of colonialism" while canceling billion-dollar projects backed by Chinese state companies.
Suu Kyi has faced widespread criticism for failing to protect press freedom or doing more to shield hundreds of thousands of minority Muslims. Her government has rejected the UN report calling for a genocide investigation, saying it undermined official efforts to bring about peace and national reconciliation.
The UN report "will only serve to create further divisions and mistrust in Rakhine State and the entire country," Myanmar's foreign ministry said in a statement.
Anwar's criticism of Suu Kyi is more personal. Both were among Asia's most famous political prisoners, locked up repeatedly by oppressive regimes. Anwar was released from jail only in May, after his coalition ended the six-decade rule of Barisan Nasional led by former Prime Minister Najib Razak.
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In 2012 Anwar's wife (and current Deputy Prime Minister) Wan Azizah Wan Ismail sent Suu Kyi a personal letter congratulating her for an election win and asking her to use her power to help the Rohingya.
"Your voice carries much weight and I beseech you to use that voice to care for the oppressed," Wan Azizah wrote, adding: "I look forward to your rise in Myanmar, so that the fate of all your citizens including the Rohingya improve."
On Wednesday in Hong Kong, Anwar said "disgust" might be a more appropriate for how he feels about Suu Kyi. He said she wasn't prepared to say "stop the killings."
"Aung San Suu Kyi is a real, real disappointment," he said.
Zaw Htay, a spokesman for Suu Kyi's government, couldn't immediately be contacted for a response. The Prime Minister's Office in Malaysia couldn't immediately comment.
- - -
Bloomberg's Anisah Shukry and Kyaw Thu contributed to this story.
NEW MILFORD The library renovation cleared another hurdle with the Board of Finances approval to appropriate up to $6.5 million for the project.
The project will most likely be included on the November ballot as a referendum, rather than decided on at a town meeting.
The Finance Board approved the appropriation Wednesday in a 5-1 vote with Steve Confortini opposing.
A town meeting is already scheduled for Sept. 26, but Mayor Pete Bass is expected to call a special Town Council meeting for Monday that would send the item to referendum. In that case, the town meeting would still happen on Sept. 26, but would be informational with no vote.
Councilman Paul Szymanski made the request Monday because he said generally just people involved with the project tend to come out for town meetings and a decision that will cost $6.5 million should be decided by as many residents as possible.
Its something we as a community need to rally around, he said. What better way than a townwide vote?
The last few big-ticket items were approved at town meetings and not referendums, including the $4 million for the turf field and $6 million for the roads bond.
Councilman Peter Mullen opposed the idea, saying it should be decided on at a town meeting. Generally, it is easier to pass items at a town meeting, and this project has been a long time coming, he said.
New Milford has not renovated its library since the 1970s. In that time, all but one other library in the state have been renovated.
Bethel completed a lengthy renovation in 2013, Ridgefield finished a $20 million upgrade in 2014, and New Fairfield renovated its library in 2015. Brookfield Library is revising its plans for a new building after its $14.7 million plan was rejected in February
This is New Milfords third attempt to renovate the library.
Were very pleased the project has gotten this far, said Joyce Hermonat, a member of the library board of trustees. Its the best one weve had in the 25 years since we started this.
Renovation plans were rejected in 2003 and 2008, largely due to the cost and the recession. The 2008 plan would have cost $21 million.
The current library project is expected to cost $8.5 million.
Finance Director Greg Osipow said he plans to bond the towns portion of the project.
Money from the trustees, a state grant and the Waste Management Fund are also being considered for covering the rest of the cost, said Walter OConnor, Finance Board chairman.
The Town Council has approved the overall design of the project.
The project would expand the library from 15,000 to 22,000 square feet. It would add a new facade and entrance to the 1977 addition, to help it fit better into the downtown aesthetic. The plan woud also make the library compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act and add meeting space.
The remodel includes using existing space, as well as constructing new space, adding a second floor with an outdoor terrace to the existing 1977 addition.
Under the plans, the childrens library would move to the 1977 section and the Goodwin House, freeing up the old library for an adult reading room. The childrens section would share a program room with the young adult section, which doesnt have its own space at the library now.
The mezzanine level would be used for more stacks and house the library staff. There would be a self-serve cafe on the first floor.
Throughout the approval process, dozens of residents have packed the meeting room to support the project, tout the benefits of the library and share the problems in the current space. The biggest complaints have been that there isnt enough room for the childrens and young adult sections or enough meeting space.
Tim Harkin was one of several speakers at the meeting Wednesday in support of the project.
The plan has been reworked and reworked, and I urge the Board of Finance to keep it moving forward, he said.
In Washington, opposition has been mounting to Saudi Arabia's ruinous role in Yemen's civil war. There is widespread outrage over grisly incidents in which civilians have died at the hands of a Saudi-led military coalition, including a missile strike last month that killed dozens of schoolchildren.
But the Trump administration is endorsing the coalition's apparent efforts to cut down on such deaths. On Wednesday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo "certified" to Congress that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates had shown "demonstrable actions" to limit casualties in their campaign against Yemen's Houthi rebels.
Pompeo was forced to make this declaration after Congress established a legal requirement earlier this year for the administration to answer for the conduct of the war in Yemen. Failing that, the United States would have to restrict its assistance to the Saudis, which includes refueling coalition aircraft operating against the Iran-backed Houthis.
The war in Yemen, as readers of this column know, is entering its fifth year, and it has exacted an immense humanitarian toll. In addition to innocents killed by airstrikes, a significant proportion of the country's population is suffering from hunger and malnutrition, exacerbated by the coalition's blockade of Yemeni ports. A recent U.N. report suggested all sides were probably guilty of war crimes in a conflict that has claimed some 10,000 lives already.
In a statement, Pompeo said the United States was intent on ending the war and delivering aid to a beleaguered nation. "The Trump administration has been clear that ending the conflict in Yemen is a national security priority," the statement read. "We will continue to work closely with the Saudi-led coalition to ensure Saudi Arabia and the UAE maintain support for U.N.-led efforts to end the civil war in Yemen."
But peace is nowhere on the horizon. The latest round of U.N.-brokered talks in Geneva ended in failure last week, and the Trump administration is far more focused on the supposed Iranian threat than the suffering of the Yemeni people. Pompeo and other Trump lieutenants, including U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, have sought to shift the focus to the Houthis' ability to fire missiles at Saudi Arabia - and place the onus on Iran to curb its behavior.
"Since taking office, President Trump has strengthened U.S. ties with Saudi Arabia and the UAE," noted my Washisngton Post colleague Missy Ryan. "While his administration has criticized the coalition periodically for its handling of the war, it has restored arms sales suspended under President Barack Obama and echoed gulf concerns about the Houthis' ties to Iran."
Leaders in both Saudi Arabia and the UAE are happy for Washington to push this line. "The Middle East is a complicated and dangerous place, but the UAE is absolutely clear about our vision of the region and the partners who share it," wrote the UAE's ambassador to Washington, Yousef al-Otaiba, in an op-ed for The Post. "While some hedge their bets with Iran, the UAE is fighting its most dangerous proxy. While others enable and encourage the extremists, the UAE stands with the United States on the front line to defeat them. It is difficult and deadly work, but the UAE, the United States and the international community are safer because of it."
Those same leaders have shown little sign of contrition over the war's conduct. On Wednesday, Saudi and Emirati forces renewed their siege of the crucial port city of Hodeida, which is still under Houthi control. But after a backlash over its indiscriminate airstrikes, the coalition has said it revised its rules of engagement, and Ryan reported that U.S. officials have been encouraged by that reaction.
Others aren't so sure. "It's a rubber stamp for Saudi Arabia," said Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., of Pompeo's decision.
"If you're keeping score at home, the US refuses to certify that Iran is complying with the nuclear deal, which the [U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency] says it is," tweeted the Economist's Gregg Carlstrom, "and certifies that the Saudi-led coalition is protecting civilians in Yemen, which the UN says it is not."
Trump administration officials who spoke to The Post believe that maintaining support for the Saudis and Emiratis allows the United States to have better oversight over how the war is fought. "It's an intense debate about what is a glaring problem about civilian casualties and whether we continue to work with the Saudis or whether we feel we have to put some distance" between Washington and the war effort, an administration official told my colleagues. "A lot of us also feel that things are going to get worse if we're not even involved."
But some lawmakers vehemently reject that view. "The ongoing civil war is exacerbating the humanitarian crisis and terrorist threat," wrote Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., and Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind., for The Post. "A major contributor to the devastation and chaos is the indiscriminate bombing campaign led by a coalition made up of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which receives refueling, intelligence and targeting support from the United States."
The senators, echoing a growing consensus among their colleagues, said it was a "moral imperative" to ensure the Saudi-led coalition "stops killing civilians."
Critics elsewhere point to the double standards framing the conflict. "Saudi Arabia does not deserve to be compared to Syria, whose leader seemingly did not hesitate to use chemical weapons against his people," wrote Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. "But further continuation of the war in Yemen will validate voices saying that Saudi Arabia is doing in Yemen what Syrian President Bashar Assad, the Russians and Iranians are doing in Syria."
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Tharoor writes about foreign affairs for The Washington Post. He previously was a senior editor and correspondent at Time magazine, based first in Hong Kong and later in New York.
California and Germany could have mostly or completely decarbonized their electricity if they have invested in nuclear power instead of solar and wind renewables.
If Germany did not begin a nuclear power phase-out in 2011, then they would still have 131 Terawatt hours from nuclear power.
Germany could have built forty-six 1.6 GW EPR reactors at the $12.5 billion per reactor cost of the U.K.s Hinkley Point C. This would be for the same spending that Germany has on solar and wind up to now and through 2025. Germany will have invested $580 billion in renewable energy and storage by 2025. This will not get Germany near 100% renewable. This will get Germany to 20% electricity from renewables.
Those forty-six EPRs operating at 90 percent capacity factor could be used to eliminate all coal, gas, and biomass electricity and the 150 terawatt-hours per year of wind and solar from its renewables investment. Germany could export 100 terawatt-hours of electricity to its neighbors (double 2017s actual exports). The last 133 terawatt-hours could power 45 million electric cars.
California could have kept San Onofre and Diablo Canyon nuclear reactors in service and kept large hydro dam and geothermal electricity production.
California could have built twenty South Korean OPR1000 reactors. These could have cost $5 billion per reactor which is more than double the cost of construction in South Korea.
California could be producing 200 terawatt-hours of clean electricity more than total in-state generation in 2016 and 97 percent of in-state generation in 2017.
Ontario has nearly carbon-free electricity
There are 14.2 million people in Ontario.
Nuclear power is key part of Ontario, Canadas nearly carbon-free electricity.
Nuclear reactors contributed 73.3 % of Ontarios total electrical power generated in-province.
98.1 % of Ontario-generated electricity was carbon-free.
Nuclear reactors contributed 74.8 % of Ontarios carbon-free electricity.
Quebec has 8.5 million people and also has almost carbon-free electricity. Quebec mostly generated power from hydro dams.
Quebec might build more dams so they can sell electricity to New York and other US states that are shutting down nuclear reactors.
When I travel, I am inclined to collect foodstuffs. I scour grocery stores looking for snacks and candy, and gather honeys and mustards from markets. A few years ago I hauled a gallon of olive oil back from Italy. These souvenirs inspire me on post-vacation days, keeping the glow going.
In July we traveled to southwestern France, where my good friend, culinary adventurer Kate Hill, lives on a small farm called Camont. As I settled into a familiar chair in the kitchen, watching Kate crack freshly gathered chickens' eggs for clafoutis, I was distracted by the sight of a large glass jar filled with a slightly rosy liquid, herbs and spices at the far end of the table. Kate, who had been traveling around Spain, introduced me to her own Catalan-style vermouth.
It is not a vermouth to mix into a Manhattan, wave over a martini or tip into a Negroni.
This is a spiced and boozy fortified wine - made to be sipped as an aperitif over ice, with a twist of orange peel. It is refreshing and complex, cozying up to cheese, olives, charcuterie and other salty snacks. Start making it now and not only will you be ready for holiday gift giving, you will also have a welcome tipple to take to your next gathering.
The recipe is flexible: an infusion of a base alcohol, citrus rind, sugar, spices and herbs added to wine. When Kate learned that some Spaniards use their local sherry as the base alcohol, she opted for Armagnac, since it's readily available in her part of the world. For my version, I chose a little of each: some sherry, some brandy.
The orange peel provides a prominent flavor note but is not floral in the least. Rather, it carries a slightly bitter edge, achieved by cooking strips of zest in a deeply bronzed sugar syrup. In testing, I added the brandy while that caramel was still warm - and had a moment of deep regret. The caramel broke, sticky and solidly attached to my wooden spoon, and looked impossible to fix. Fortunately, gradually warming the brandy, without boiling, eventually led to melting the caramel back into liquid form.
Kate had her own suggestions on spicing, and I followed her lead. Because the spices are added to the warmed, orange-scented brandy, they bloom right away, allowing me to tweak the flavors, adding a pinch of this and that, using my nose to guide me. This step is strictly personal, so if this recipe includes flavors that aren't in your cupboard or aren't your thing, use what appeals. Seeds and large chunks of spices (not ground cinnamon, but cinnamon sticks, for example) are preferred, which will help keep the liquid from turning opaque.
After an overnight infusion, I combined the brandy base - strained of the herbs and orange peel - with a white wine. Vinho verde is crisp and light. I think pinot grigio would work as well, as would a French chardonnay - nothing too complex, woody or floral, because the recipe benefits from a wine that is bright and snappy.
Patience is an underrated ingredient. I waited for my concoction to develop (at the back of a dark closet; Kate does not keep hers in the dark, but I'm a believer in less light for infusions). It was a long month, but now I am appreciating a souvenir of Gascony with every sip of vermouth.
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Recipe:
DIY Vermouth
SERVINGS: 25 servings (makes three 750-milliliter bottles)
OVERVIEW: You will need a 5-quart jar with a lid and a clean, empty 750-ml bottle.
Serve over ice with an orange twist as an accompaniment to green olives, Marcona almonds and orange wedges.
MAKE AHEAD: Though it may be sipped straight away, vermouth takes a month to fully meld flavors. The bottles can be stored for up to 3 months. Once opened, refrigerate for up to 1 month.
INGREDIENTS
1 navel orange
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup water
1 cup brandy
3 whole cloves
1/4 teaspoon coriander seeds
1/4 teaspoon green cardamom seeds (from the pods)
1/4 teaspoon whole pink peppercorns
1 whole star anise
1 small piece of a whole nutmeg
A few saffron threads
1/2 vanilla bean (split lengthwise)
1 cup fino sherry
2 bottles pinot grigio or vinho verde
STEPS
Use a vegetable peeler to remove strips of peel from the orange, leaving the white pith behind. (You can eat or juice the remaining orange.)
Combine the sugar and water in a medium saucepan over high heat. Swirl the pan - do not stir - and keep constant watch. Cook for 12 to 15 minutes; the resulting syrup will begin to turn a light amber color. Add the strips of orange peel, continuing to cook and swirl the pan as the syrup gets richly caramel-colored, for 6 to 8 minutes. Remove from the heat.
Add the brandy to the pan. The caramel syrup will seize, in what seems like a truly terrible moment. Return the pan to the stovetop and reduce the heat to medium-low. Cook for 10 to 15 minutes, stirring with a sturdy spoon as the caramel melts into the brandy. Do not let the brandy come to a boil.
Pour the warm brandy mixture into the jar, then add the cloves, coriander and cardamom seeds, pink peppercorns, star anise, nutmeg, saffron and vanilla bean. Cover/seal the jar. Once the mixture has cooled completely, add the sherry and close the jar again. Let this mixture steep overnight.
The next day, strain the infused brandy and sherry mixture through a fine-mesh strainer or a strainer lined with cheesecloth. Add the 2 bottles of wine, stir well, and, for efficiency, pour the DIY vermouth mixture back into the 2 empty wine bottles plus 1 additional empty bottle. Cork or twist the caps back on and place the bottles in a dark closet for 1 month.
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Barrow is a Washington, D.C. cookbook author.
MIDDLETOWN Local police and fire departments were called to a city synagogue Wednesday after a report of a powder-type substance in a letter, according to Middletown police.
Authorities are investigating the discovery at Congregation Adath Israel at 8 Broad St. and believe the occurrence to be related to white powder incidents in Hartford last week, police said. The suspect in the previous incidents is incarcerated and police said there is no threat to the public.
A female employee was opening the mail during the late afternoon and found white powder in one of the parcels and called authorities right away, synagogue President Jonathan Shapiro said Thursday morning. Everything seemed to be pretty consistent with the pattern of letters found last week in Hartford and Old Saybrook, he said.
We were told not to worry about it. It was sent for testing, and we're open for business as usual. I think if it was an isolated incident, and if we didn't have the assurance and reassurance (that it was part of a larger attack), I think everybody would feel differently about it, Shapiro said.
Gary Joseph Gravelle, 51, charged with a federal supervised released violation, was arrested Sept. 5 by New Britain police and the U.S. Marshals Service Violent Fugitive Task Force. He allegedly mailed letters to agencies and departments across the state.
Gravelle appeared that same day before U.S. Magistrate Judge Robert M. Spector in New Haven and was ordered detained, according to a federal release.
The FBI, U.S. Postal Inspection Service, U.S. Marshals Service, Connecticut State Police, Hartford Police Department and New Haven Police Department, in coordination with other federal, state and local law enforcement and emergency services agencies, are investigating several incidents involving letters containing white powder that were mailed to government facilities and non-governmental organizations in Connecticut and elsewhere in the country, according to U.S. Attorney John H. Durham.
According to statements made in court, Gravelle is under investigation for sending multiple threatening communications, and for mailing multiple letters containing white powder to several federal and state offices, and community organizations, this month, the federal release said.
It is alleged that many of these letters were mailed by an individual who has been in federal custody since his arrest, for alleged violations of his supervised release Sept. 5, Durham said.
A similar incident took place the morning of Sept. 7 at the Community Health Center in Old Saybrook. A CHC spokeswoman at the Middletown headquarters confirmed the company received the package.
Through the course of the overall investigation, investigators have seized unmailed letters, notified numerous potential recipients of letters, and successfully removed some letters from the mail stream prior to delivery. However, letters continue to arrive in various locations, according to the release.
Although the seized and retrieved letters have caused no illness or injuries to date, we strongly urge anyone who receives a suspicious letter or package not to handle it further, and immediately call 911. This will permit law enforcement and emergency services personnel to investigate the matter safely, Durham said.
State police officials from Troop H in Hartford went to the offices of the state Department of Education in the State Office Building at 450 Columbus Boulevard in Hartford Sept. 5 at 11 a.m. on a report of a suspicious package containing white powder, according to a press release from the state Department of Emergency Services & Public Protection.
Shortly afterward, both the State Police Emergency Services Unit and Bomb Squad, the FBI, state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection and Hartford police and fire departments responded, the release said.
No injuries were reported and at least two packages appeared to contain baby powder, according to the Associated Press.
Each delivered package contained an unknown white powdery substance and no one who has had contact with the substance has experienced illness or injury, the release said.
In July 2013, Gravelle was sentenced in federal court to 70 months in prison and three years of supervised release, for mailing numerous threatening letters. He was released in November 2015 and allegedly failed to comply with certain conditions of his supervised release, including failing to notify the U.S. Probation Office of a change of residence, and failing to comply with a mental health treatment requirement, the release said.
In 2013, officials said Gravelle, also known as Roland Prejean, sent more than 50 threatening letters in early September 2010, including one that caused an anthrax scare and another saying he had planted a hidden bomb on a remote timer inside the Thomaston Post Office.
The federal release from Gravelles 2013 sentencing said: According to court documents and statements made in court, in early September 2010, Prejean mailed a threatening letter to the Thomaston Post Office claiming that he had planted a hidden bomb on a remote timer in the Post Office.
The letter resulted in the evacuation of the Thomaston Post Office as well as the Thomaston Town Hall and a Thomaston public school, which were in the immediate vicinity of the post office. Bomb technicians from the Connecticut State Police Emergency Services Unit searched the post office for explosive or incendiary devices with negative results.
The FBI has taken over the Middletown investigation. Calls and emails to the FBI spokesperson were not immediately returned.
Managing Editor Cassandra Day can be reached at cassandra.day@hearstmediact.com or Twitter @cassandrasdis.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture will accept a third round of applications from eligible landowners who want to sell the development rights of properties along the Connecticut coast affected by Tropical Storm Irene and Superstorm Sandy, the USDA said in a news release.
Funds are available through USDAs Emergency Watershed Protection Floodplain Easements Program, or EWPP-FPE, managed by the Natural Resources Conservation Service, or NRCS.
Applications will be accepted through Oct. 10.
After seeing the success of the first two rounds in this area, the program has gained additional momentum, said NRCS State Conservationist Thomas L. Morgart.
There currently is a wait list with the names of 15 interested property owners. Through EWPP-FPE, NRCS has closed easements on 22 properties in coastal communities throughout the state, the release said.
Floodplain easements are a long-term solution for preventing future damage from flooding, said Morgart. This program will allow more people to apply for assistance and place more critical floodplain acres under easement.
NRCS buys the permanent easements on eligible lands and restores the area to natural conditions, the release said. A healthy floodplain enhances fish and wildlife habitat, water quality, flood water retention and ground water recharge while making it more resilient to flooding.
NRCS goal is to infill areas between existing easement properties, to implement more complete restoration plans and improve flood storage and provide more opportunities for flood mitigation, the release said.
Private lands and those owned by local and state governments damaged by Irene and Sandy are eligible if they are located in a floodplain that is in the FEMA AE Zone or higher.
The land must also meet one of the following criteria:
The land was damaged by flooding from Irene and Sandy.
It would contribute to the restoration of floodwater storage and flow, offer a way to control erosion or improve the practical management of the floodplain easement.
The land could be inundated or adversely affected because of a dam breach.
Easement compensation rates and ranking priorities vary by location and depend on where the land is in the floodplain and how it is used. Program easements are permanent.
Lands with structures such as homes are eligible for enrollment, as well as open or agricultural lands. NRCS will pay for the removal or demolition of the structure and enroll the remaining lot in a permanent easement.
Interested landowners should contact NRCS Coordinator Kristin Walker at 860-871-4033.
The outer bands of Hurricane Florence, a large and dangerous Category 2 storm, landed on the North Carolina coast Thursday morning. Winds were already gusting to 70 mph and sea water was surging ashore along the Outer Banks, washing over roads. It marks the beginning of a prolonged assault from wind and water, which - by the time it's over - is likely to bring devastating damage and flooding to millions of people in the Southeast.
Conditions will deteriorate through Thursday: Starting along the coast, winds will accelerate, the rain will intensify, and the angry, agitated ocean will surge ashore.
The storm's center is expected to make landfall Friday in southeast North Carolina, which will coincide with the most severe effects. Storm surge, the rise in seawater above normally dry land at the coast, could rise a story high. On top of that, a disastrous amount of rain - 20 inches, possibly even as many as 40 - is expected to fall.
Flooding from both the storm surge and rainfall could be "catastrophic," the National Hurricane Center warned.
This same zone will be hammered by winds gusting up to hurricane force for nearly a day while tropical-storm conditions could linger twice that long. These unforgiving winds will damage homes and buildings, down trees and knock out power.
Even though the storm's category fell from a 4 to a 2 Wednesday, forecasters stressed the category is only an evaluation of the storm's peak winds in a very narrow core near the center of the storm. The storm's size and area affected by hazardous winds have actually expanded, and the threat from storm surge and rain-induced flooding "have not changed" tweeted Rick Knabb, The Weather Channel's tropical weather expert and former Hurricane Center director.
"Put simply, Florence is a 'Category 5 #flood threat'," tweeted The Weather Channel."
Gradually, Friday through the weekend, the massive storm - containing a zone of tropical-storm-force winds nearly 400 miles wide - will drift inland, engulfing much of South Carolina and southern North Carolina. Widespread rainfall amounts could reach 6 to 12 inches, spurring flooding. Some of the storm's wind and rain could even creep into eastern Georgia.
Enough rain could fall to break North Carolina's record for a tropical storm - 24 inches - set near Wilmington during Hurricane Floyd in 1999, said Greg Carbin, chief of forecast operations at the Weather Service's national prediction center.
Flooding from heavy rains is the second-leading cause of fatalities in tropical storms and hurricanes that make landfall.
The rain threat may not stop in the Carolinas. By early next week, a weakened but soggy Florence may drop rain on already saturated Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Washington and Pennsylvania. These areas are vulnerable to flooding and downed trees after heavy rains this summer.
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Weather:
The Hurricane Center reported heavy rain bands with tropical-storm-force winds had arrived in the North Carolina Outer Banks.
A weather station on Cape Lookout, N.C. recently clocked a sustained wind of 55 mph and gust to 70 mph.
Social media video showed the seas rising at Hatteras Inlet on the Outer Banks.
As of 1 p.m. Thursday, Florence's top winds were 105 mph, and it was marching northwest at 10 mph, about 115 miles east-southeast of Wilmington, N.C., and 175 miles east-southeast of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
This wind speed fell slightly from the previous update, but the Hurricane Center said the storm's presentation on radar and satellite had "improved" and that slight strengthening was possible as the storm moved over some warmer waters through this evening.
The storm's forward motion has slowed 7 mph since Wednesday, which was predicted as the storm nears the coast. The slower motion will prolong effects from wind, rain and surge in the eastern Carolinas.
The Hurricane Center predicts the storm to maintain this strong Category 2 intensity until landfall, after which wind speeds will steadily decline.
Even as Florence's peak winds decreased Wednesday, the storm's wind field grew, the Hurricane Center said. Hurricane-force winds extend 80 miles from the center, while tropical-storm-force winds extend 195 miles outward. The storm's cloud field is about the size of four Ohios.
Hurricane warnings are in effect for the South Santee River in South Carolina to Duck, North Carolina, and Albemarle and Pamlico sounds. This includes Wilmington. A hurricane watch extends into the Charleston area. A tropical storm warning covers the area from north of Duck to the Virgina Tidewater area.
Because landfalling hurricanes commonly spawn twisters, a tornado watch was issued for eastern North Carolina through 9 p.m.
More than 10 million people are under watches and warnings, the Associated Press reported.
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Storm surge:
Like a bulldozer, the storm's winds and forward motion will push a tremendous amount of water onshore when it makes landfall. The storm surge could reach up to more than a story high, or 13 feet, if the maximum surge coincides with high tide.
The biggest surge should occur just to the north of where the eye of the storm comes ashore, which the Hurricane Center projects in southeastern North Carolina.
The surge will result in "large areas of deep inundation . . . enhanced by battering waves," the Weather Service said. It warned of likely "structural damage to buildings . . . with several potentially washing away," "flooded or washed-out coastal roads" and "major damage to marinas."
Storm surge warnings were issued from South Santee River in South Carolina to Duck, North Carolina. The Charleston area is under a storm surge watch.
The Hurricane Center projects the following surge heights above normally dry land, if the maximum surge coincides with high tide:
- Cape Fear to Cape Lookout, including the Neuse, Pamlico, Pungo and Bay Rivers: 9 to 13 feet;
- North Myrtle Beach to Cape Fear: 6 to 9 feet;
- Cape Lookout to Ocracoke Inlet: 6 to 9 feet;
- South Santee River to North Myrtle Beach: 4 to 6 feet;
- Ocracoke Inlet to Salvo, N.C.: 4 to 6 feet;
- Salvo to North Carolina/Virginia Border: 2 to 4 feet; and
- Edisto Beach to South Santee River: 2 to 4 feet.
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Rain:
Models agree that excessive amounts of rain will fall in southeastern North Carolina.
"Floodwaters may enter numerous structures, and some may become uninhabitable or washed away," the Weather Service warned.
Where exactly the zone of heaviest rain sets up as the storm meanders inland is more uncertain, but models suggest that it may concentrate in southern North Carolina and northern South Carolina through the weekend.
It has become likely that the storm will reverse course early next week and turn back north toward West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania, albeit significantly weakened.
The Hurricane Center forecasts the following rain amounts:
- Coastal North Carolina: 20 to 30 inches, isolated 40 inches.
- Remainder of South Carolina and North Carolina into southwest Virginia: 6 to 12 inches, isolated 24 inches
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Wind:
The strongest winds will occur where and when the storm makes landfall in a ring around the calm eye of the storm known as the eyewall. If the storm makes landfall as a Category 2, these winds will be damaging, sustained at up to 100 mph or so with higher gusts.
The zone where these intense winds occur will be narrow and they will last just a few hours, but the effects will probably be severe, similar to a tornado. The Hurricane Center describes the types of damage associated with Category 2 winds:
"Well-constructed frame homes could sustain major roof and siding damage. Many shallowly rooted trees will be snapped or uprooted and block numerous roads. Near-total power loss is expected with outages that could last from several days to weeks."
Outside this zone of destructive winds, damaging winds are still likely, even some distance inland from the coast, which would lead to minor structural damage, downed trees and widespread power outages.
A power outage model run at the University of Michigan projects that 3.2 million customers will be without electricity because of the storm, mostly in the eastern half of North Carolina.
Because the storm will slow it moves over the eastern Carolinas, these wind impacts will be magnified.
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Path projections:
While it is extremely likely that the eastern Carolinas will be hardest hit by the storm Thursday into Friday, the storm's direction becomes far less certain over the weekend and next week.
Models agree the storm should strike land between the North Carolina-South Carolina border and the North Carolina Outer Banks, and then track across South Carolina. But then they gradually diverge. While all simulations show the storm turning back to the north Sunday or Monday, exactly where that turns occurs is a big wild card.
The storm could track north through the Ohio Valley, the Appalachians or even closer to the Interstate 95 corridor. The specifics of the track early next week will have implications for where the heaviest rainfall occurs north of the Carolinas.
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The Washington Post's Joel Achenbach and Ann Gerhart contributed to this report.
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Video: As Hurricane Florence heads towards the Carolinas, it looks to be tracking a pattern further south than first expected. Capital Weather Gang's Angela Fritz explains what that could mean for the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic regions.(Joyce Koh/The Washington Post)
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NEW HAVEN After two hours of public testimony in which Board of Education members attempted to create a space for members of the community to address racial tensions while simultaneously trying to enforce rules, tension carried over into discussions of contracts and state law Wednesday.
Members of the public commenting at the meeting appeared to belong to three segments: those upset by comments made by the Rev. Boise Kimber two weeks prior regarding resources directed toward particular groups; organizers concerned with cuts made to educators and school-based programs while Superintendent of Schools Carol Birks continues to hire for central office vacancies; and New Haven Promise scholarship advocates galvanized by a proposed financial services contract which appears to have language that would make the scholarship program redundant.
At the last school board meeting, Kimber addressed the board asking for more services directed toward the black community.
The black community has not protested on not one move of anybody; we aint said nothing. Weve said nothing about you all having three (English learner) directors, he said at the time.
In a recently approved central office organizational chart, Birks created an English learner department in central office with one director and two supervisors.
State Rep. Juan Candelaria opened the public comment Wednesday by challenging Kimbers unfounded attacks.
When someone stands here in front of this board and attacks Latino educators and our community, suggesting we have enough, it is simply ludicrous, he said. It is an attempt to divide and conquer.
Other local Hispanic leaders followed, including the Rev. Abraham Hernandez who mentioned Kimbers reaction to the 2016 suspension of police department Assistant Chief Luiz Casanova as being a charge to Mayor Toni Harp to appoint acting Chief Anthony Campbell to the role and Alder Dolores Colon, who expressed disappointment in the school board for allowing Kimber to speak unchallenged.
Not all of the comments were split along ethnic lines: Hernandez, who called for the need to build bridges, not walls in the community, read a statement from Varick Memorial AME Zion Church Rev. Kelcy Steele claiming the community needs to lift one another up in criticism of Kimber.
After parent Rodney Williams said he disagrees with the Hispanic clergy criticizing Kimber, parent Maritza Baez challenged him for what she saw as an insinutation that the community should be scared of Kimber, which led to a tense exchange. Board of Education President Darnell Goldson cut in and called for a five-minute recess.
Kimber said he did not believe he said anything untoward, motioning to parent Sarah Miller and her concerns that the English learner department was creating highly-paid, centralized positions for services that would best be served at the classroom level.
I said why are there three directors and where do we fit in? Kimber said to a reporter before making his remarks. Where do other communities fit in to this schematic.
Kimber said he had to represent his community.
When the school board moved on to finances, Vice Chairman Jamell Cotto handed out a state statute mentioning that any program involving student data must include 16 clauses mentioned in the statute. A contract with the Weiss Institute, which was identified by Birks to conduct a financial analysis for the district free of charge, has not yet been approved, as board members said it mentions giving the Weiss Institute access to student data and does not include all 16 clauses; according to Cotto, the Weiss Institute has refused to change its contract.
Board members Joe Rodriguez and Ed Joyner said they would like to see the district continue with the Weiss Institute, but only for the financial services. Rodriguez proposed the school board should authorize Birks to negotiate a memorandum of understanding instead of approving the contract.
We do need to vote, in my estimation, on a measure that would give them the opportunity to come in and work with us on the financial analytics, Joyner said.
Harp said she also would like to see the Weiss Institute provide communications for the district, in addition to financial analytics, because for two years she believes positive stories about the district have not been communicated to the public.
Goldson asked Harp to break her proposal into two motions: the first to table the Weiss Institute contract and a second to allow Birks to negotiate an MOU. After the school board voted 4-3 to table the contract, it began debating the contract.
Joyner said he is unsure whether the state statute is being applied to all programs within the district; the issue first came up when the school board was discussing a contract with the Lexinome Project, a Yale University study of student saliva samples in an attempt to identify biological information about dyslexia.
After the meeting, Joyner said he could not say whether a data program at Career High School, called CT RISE, was subject to the same agreement. Cotto said the matter is being reviewed for all contracts.
After Goldson said he was disappointed that Board of Education staff presented them with a contract that did not include all 16 clauses mentioned in the state statute, Birks said she was tasked with finding a financial analyst and she found a firm to do it pro bono. She said she did not believe members of the school board, in meeting with the Weiss Institute, had brought up the state statute before Wednesdays meeting. She estimated the Weiss Institute was offering $300,000 of work for free.
This board is asking you to follow state law, Goldson said. Some people say dont look a gift horse in the mouth, Im saying look this gift horse in the stomach, because this could be a Trojan horse, he said.
Joyner said the Weiss Institute is highly respected.
Theres nothing suspicious about it at all, he said.
Recently, the Weiss Institutes parent organization Say Yes to Education ran into roadblocks in Greensboro, N.C., according to news station WFMY, as the community wrested control away from the national organziation for its scholarship program.
After back-and-forth between board members and Birks, at times apparently contentious between Goldson and Birks over what the superintendents responsibilities are and what has been asked of her, Harp mentioned the school board had spent 15 minutes debating something it had voted to table.
brian.zahn@hearstmediact.com
State and local police, along with help from observant citizens, captured a 25-year-old Massachusetts man wanted for carjacking a vehicle in New York state on Thursday.
At 7:40 a.m., State Police at Troop A in Southbury broadcasted a BOLO (be on the lookout) regarding a car jacking out of New York state.
The stolen vehicle was described as a red 2011 Nissan Sentra.
A cell phone ping placed the Nissan traveling on I-84 east in Connecticut, according a report from Trooper John McGeever.
At approximately 7:52 a.m., a car matching the description was seen by a state trooper heading east in Middlebury. The Nissan was seen getting off at Exit 17 and heading south on Rouite 63 into Watertown.
Watertown police were notified and the Nissan was located abandoned and running at Davis Street and Melrose Avenue in Watertown.
Troopers and Watertown police converged on the area and with the help of observant citizens, the subject was located on Davis Street Extension, McGeever said.
The suspect was identified as Felix Juner Maldonnado, of Worcester, Mass.
He was charged with reckless driving, operating a motor vehicle without a license, third-degree larceny, interfering with an officer and resisting.
Maldonnado was held on a $100,000 bond and will appear in Waterbury Superior Court on Thursday.
He will also face additional charges by New York police.
ANSONIA Members of the Ansonia Police Department have gotten themselves into a hairy situation.
During the month of November, officers will put down their razors and grow facial hair as they participate in the national No-Shave November initiative that raises money for cancer research.
Police Chief Kevin Hale is giving his officers the green light to grow mustaches to full-on beards throughout the month of November and even into December, all in the name of a good cause.
This is for No-Shave November, said Hale. We will be donating funds to the Connecticut Cancer Foundation. Each officer that grows facial hair will have to make a donation and try to collect other donations, as well.
According to its website, No-Shave November serves as a way to grow awareness by embracing our hair, which many cancer patients lose, and letting it grow wild and free.
The goal is to have participants donate the money they would typically spend on daily shaving and grooming to educate about cancer prevention, save lives and aid those fighting the battle.
The rules are simple: All participants have to do is grow a beard, cultivate a mustache, let those legs go natural or skip that waxing appointment for 30 days. Those who arent ready to get hairy are encouraged to support someone who is, by donating to the cause.
Hale said officers will be able to keep their facial hair throughout December, and will tie the fundraising effort into the departments annual Shop with a Cop event at Target, and possibly the annual Stuff-a-Jeep event which is staged before Christmas to ensure needy kids have some toys to open on Christmas Day.
But once the holidays are over, officers must be clean shaven by January 1, according to Hale.
And the always clean-shaven Hale said he plans to get in on the action, as well.
I wont try to grow a beard, I will grow a beard! Hale said.
Mayor David Cassetti, usually clean-shaven himself, applauded Hale and the police departments efforts to support a great cause.
Grow a Beard November is a great way of showing that we care about the issues facing cancer patients, Cassetti said. Many cancer patients lose their hair and this is a reminder that we take things for granted when we are healthy. Our Police Department takes a very proactive role in helping the community. This is another way of showing they care for others. We are extremely proud of the Ansonia Police Department and Chief Hale, and we commend them for their participation in this program.
According to the website, the No-Shave November initiative has been ongoing for several years, but back in 2009, the Hill family of Chicago decided to turn it into a fundraising effort in honor of their father, whom they lost to colon cancer. What the eight Hill children started on Facebook for a few followers to donate has since blossomed into a nationwide campaign that has raised more than $2 million to date. The goal is to continue raising money for cancer prevention, education and research, while getting closer to eradicating cancer one whisker at a time.
jean.sos@snet.net
No charges have been filed in the criminal investigation into whether Mark D'Amico and Katelyn McClure stole GoFundMe donations meant to help a homeless veteran, but D'Amico is currently dealing with the fallout of old charges that he didn't go to court to face.
D'Amico, 39, of Florence Township, was arrested Monday on a warrant for twice failing to appear in court on charges including driving with a suspended license out of Burlington County, according to a statement from Burlington City police. His bail was set at $500.01 and he has since been released.
But what police didn't say was that D'Amico also had a warrant for his arrest in Jersey City for repeatedly skipping bail on a charge for allegedly throwing things from a vehicle and damaging a woman's car in 2016.
According to a Jersey City official, he was released on his own recognizance on that charge following the recent Burlington arrest and ordered to appear in court in Hudson County on Sept. 26.
McClure, 28, and D'Amico started the GoFundMe campaign that went viral last fall after Johnny Bobbitt, 35, a homeless Philadelphia man, used his last $20 to get McClure gas when she was stuck on the side of the road.
But Bobbitt, homeless again and struggling with addiction, has sued them, accusing them of spending the money meant for him on travel and luxury items, including a BMW.
After he filed suit in August, his attorney said none of the $400,000 is left, and the couple's own attorney said Friday that he expects his clients will be indicted.
In this Nov. 2017, file photo, Johnny Bobbitt Jr., left, Kate McClure, right, and Mark D'Amico pose at a Citgo station in Philadelphia. (Elizabeth Robertson/The Philadelphia Inquirer via AP)
As for the 2016 incident in Jersey City, court documents hint that road rage may have been the root of the charge. Additional information about what happened was not available.
The criminal complaint -- originally filed in Superior Court but later downgraded to municipal court -- alleged D'Amico ripped three headrests off of seats in a Honda Odyssey and then threw them out the window, damaging the hood and windshield of a car being driven by a Jersey City woman.
It caused between $500 and $2,000 in damage, according to the charge.
Court records show that after an initial appearance, he failed to go to court at least three times in 2017 and 2018. Each time, he lost the bail money he had posted for a total of $1,100.
The most recent bail posted on June 5 -- $500 -- was forfeited when he missed a July court date, court records show.
Authorities have not commented on why D'Amico wasn't arrested on either warrant when authorities executed the search warrant Thursday at the home he and McClure share in Florence Township.
Despite his suspended license, he drove away from the home after the raid was over, Philly.com reported.
A spokesman for the Burlington County Prosecutor's Office declined to comment on the matter and Florence Police Chief Brian Boldizar did not immediately return a message left for him. He told Philly.com last week that he was unaware of any warrants for D'Amico and authorities usually check for warrants before executing a search warrant.
The couple has defended their actions in interviews, saying on "Megyn Kelly Today" that they spent as much as $250,000 on Bobbitt, buying him a trailer to stay in and a truck, but that he blew any cash they gave him on drugs.
Bobbitt admitted he struggles with addiction but said the couple, whom he previously believed were his friends, sold the trailer and the truck and left him homeless and hungry with nothing to show for it.
- Jersey Journal Reporter Terrence T. McDonald contributed to this story.
Rebecca Everett may be reached at reverett@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @rebeccajeverett. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
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Irene Hawn was sitting at home watching TV one night in September 2016 with her Samsung Galaxy S5 cellphone plugged in and charging on her lap.
A moment later, she was on fire.
With no warning, the phone exploded and caught fire, burning through her pants and underwear "while larger flames shot up from her lap, burning her chest and face," according to a lawsuit Hawn and her husband, William, have filed against Samsung and its subsidiaries.
The woman was left with severe injuries, including first-degree burns to her right hand, chest and pubic area and secondary infections of the burns. She underwent "extensive" skin grafting and was left with "severe scarring."
The Cumberland County couple accuses Samsung of negligence in inspection of its products and violation of New Jersey's Consumer Fraud Act. The suit also names AT&T, which sold the phone.
As the phone burned, Hawn pushed it off her lap, but could not remove her pants quickly enough to prevent further burns, which left her in "excruciating pain and shock," according to the suit, which was filed in New Jersey Superior Court.
Her husband, hearing his wife screaming, ran downstairs and grabbed the still-burning phone. He tossed it in the kitchen sink and ran water to douse the flames. He vomited after inhaling smoke from the burning device.
The phone, purchased new from an AT&T store in Vineland, was about a year old at the time, Hawn's attorney, Daniel Rosner, explained.
In addition to the physical injuries, the incident has had a significant emotional impact on his client, Rosner said.
"We all carry our cellphones in our pockets -- most people do -- you never think the battery is going to catch fire," he said.
Samsung made headlines a few years ago when battery fires and explosions led to recalls of its Galaxy Note 7 phones.
While there were no recalls for the Galaxy S5, an online search reveals a few claims of fires involving this model, including a pregnant woman who told a UK news outlet that she suffered burns to her hand when her phone exploded while charging.
Rosner wants to hear from others who have had similar problems with the Galaxy S5, whether it was a fire or the phone just getting extremely hot, and whether the problem was reported to Samsung or consumer safety groups.
"We'd like to know how much Samsung knew and when they knew it," Rosner said. He can be reached at 1-800-230-4750.
A spokesman for Samsung said the company does not comment on pending litigation.
Matt Gray may be reached at mgray@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @MattGraySJT. Find the South Jersey Times on Facebook. Have a tip? Tell us: nj.com/tips.
For decades, a 200-foot-long mural made of enameled steel served as a landmark for drivers at the intersection of routes 4 and 17 in Paramus. Some adored its colossal smears of red and blue. Others called it an eyesore.
Either way, starting in the 1960s, the 250-ton marvel of postwar expressionism from Polish artist Stefan Knapp stood as a bold splash of color on the facade of Alexander's department store. But after the retail giant went out of business in the early 1990s, the mural came down, too.
More than 15 years later, the mural sat in storage, disassembled into 280 panels.
The Stefan Knapp mural at Alexander's in Paramus served as a landmark for decades. The store closed in 1992 and the mural went into storage. In recent years, panels from the huge work of art were put up for display. But many who remember the bold scene are calling for the mural to be displayed again as a whole work. (Bergen Museum of Art and Science)
In 2015, panels from the mural were put on display for the first time in 17 years at the the Art Factory, an artists studio space at an old textile mill on Spruce Street in Paterson. A local congressman came to pay homage to the famous work. So did the granddaughter of the owner of Alexanders, along with those who treasured memories of Knapps work -- what the artist called a representation of his view from above as a pilot for Englands Royal Air Force in World War II.
But anyone who wanted to see the panels could only do so during special "art walk" events at the facility (the last one was in June), and not, like many of its admirers wished, as a whole work on the side of some other building.
Now, five of the mural's many panels are open for public viewing through at least the end of the month at Bergen Performing Arts Center in Englewood. Representatives from the Bergen Museum of Art and Science, which serves as a steward of the mural, are hosting a reception at BergenPAC's gallery on Thursday.
"These are sections of the mural that people get the kick out of most -- the signature panels," says Dorothy Nicklus, the vice president of the museum (which is not affiliated with the county government), meaning the space where Knapp, the artist, signed his name.
"A lot of people from Bergen County keep asking about them," Nicklus says of the panels. A handful were moved to the Englewood space from Paterson last month.
"It was meant to be enjoyed by the public," she says of the mural. "We thought this would be the perfect way to do it."
Nicklus says the museum is in the process of planning a documentary on Knapp and the mural, including its reception by the local community.
"So many people have a story," Nicklus says. "There isn't anyone who doesn't have a story about their relationship with going to the store, seeing the mural driving by."
When panels from the mural were last displayed in Paterson, David Garsia, general manager of the Art Factory, who grew up in Hawthorne, said he had a personal connection to the mural.
"It was a part of us," he said. "It was a part of our childhood."
George Farkas, owner of Alexander's, commissioned Knapp to create the mural after seeing his work at London's Heathrow Airport. In a juicy bit of art-world lore, Salvador Dali had been commissioned to create a piece of art for the facade of the Alexander's on 58th Street and Third Avenue in New York, but Farkas ended up going with Knapp's concept instead.
Knapps artwork was often known for its large scale. A Polish national and Siberian labor camp survivor who died in 1996, he was photographed for Life magazine in the 1960s wearing skis to traverse the surface of the expansive mural-in-progress in an airplane hangar. (He had previously worked as a ski instructor.)
The resulting work of expressionism, billed as the largest mural in the world, catered to an audience that didn't need to see the art up close to be aware of its presence -- Knapp's signature alone spans three of the 280 panels.
"Airline pilots used it as a marker to fly into LaGuardia," Nicklus says.
Cindy Farkas Glanzrock, Farkas' granddaughter, spoke in 2015 about restoring the mural panels to a public space.
"I would love to find a venue, maybe bring them to Manhattan ... and hopefully maybe find a developer that would be interested in placing them in a wonderful site, whether all as one piece or as separate pieces," she said.
Rep. Bill Pascrell, D-9th Dist., attended the display of the panels the same year.
"When I came out of the service ... my full-time teaching job was in Paramus so I drove by every day," he said.
Still, efforts to bring the mural back to a public space have been fraught with obstacles.
After Alexander's closed, Vornado Realty Trust, owner of the property, donated the mural to the Bergen Museum, receiving a tax deduction in return. The museum, which lacks a physical home, could not find a place to display the huge work of art, so the mural's panels stayed in storage in a public works garage in Carlstadt. But in 2015, the museum was warned that the panels would be put outside if they were not removed in 30 days.
In 1998, a crew from Paterson removed panels from the Alexander's mural in Paramus. Each measured 4 feet by 7 feet, 8 inches. The panels were stored in a Carlstadt public works garage. (Star-Ledger file photo)
When Garsia stepped forward to offer the Art Factory as a place to house and display the individual panels, William Roseman, who was then the mayor of Carlstadt, refused to let all of them go. Roseman retained at least 20 panels, saying that he wanted to make sure the museum would not sell the mural.
Roseman said he had helped to broker the deal with Vornado to donate the mural to the museum in 1998 in exchange for the company agreeing to foot the bill -- about $50,000, he said -- to ensure the panels remained intact when they were taken down.
Now that Roseman is no longer in office, Nicklus says the main obstacle to transporting the remaining panels has been recruiting someone who has truck capable of holding the art to do the work for free. Trucks were previously donated but they weren't the right size, she says.
"All it takes is one truck," she says, likely from someone who owns a marble or granite business.
Nicklus says it looks like the majority of Knapp's mural will remain in separate pieces at the Art Factory, where she anticipates it will be seen by the public again once renovations are made to the facility.
While small in scale, there is one key benefit about the Englewood gallery display, Nicklus says. Although it's only on a temporary basis, part of the mural is finally back in Bergen County.
A reception for the exhibit of the Alexander's mural panels starts at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 13 at BergenPAC, 30 N. Van Brunt St. in Englewood. The panels will be on display though the end of September; bergenpac.org or bergenmuseum.com
Amy Kuperinsky may be reached at akuperinsky@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @AmyKup or on Facebook.
"Get him out of here!" Judge Robert Becker shouted.
Anthony Kille, the defendant charged with the murder of former star wrestler Davontae Randall last month, had just flipped the middle finger, which immediately halted the second try for the 20-year-old's detention hearing.
Joe Warner, a freelance photographer on assignment for NJ Advance Media, had moved slightly to get a better view of Kille when the defendant flashed the obscene gesture.
After the judge said "get him out of here," sheriff's officers grabbed Kille and took him back to the holding area adjacent to the courtroom.
Attendees at the hearing could hear a sheriff's officer exclaim: "What's wrong with you? Why would you do that?"
Earlier in the hearing, Kille's new attorney said he had been assigned to the case after the defendant expressed he was not pleased with his representation.
At least 15 people were in attendance for the court proceeding, including Randall's girlfriend Felisha Daniels, who is pregnant with his child, and her mother Julia Anderson (who came up to New Jersey from North Carolina to get away from Hurricane Florence).
They were sitting behind Warner during the three-minute hearing.
Anderson said the whole group of friend and relatives was "shocked."
"I think it caught everyone off guard," she told a reporter outside the Gloucester County Superior Court building. "I felt it showed no remorse, it disrespected the family, the court," she said.
"It just made me really angry," Daniels said. "It was an 'F-this' attitude, while Davontae's whole family is there."
"I hope justice is served," she added.
The detention hearing was first adjourned last Thursday. It is now scheduled to take place on Tuesday at 11 a.m.
Joe Brandt can be reached at jbrandt@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JBrandt_NJ. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
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JERSEY CITY The Jersey City police lieutenant accused of kicking and dragging an innocent man set ablaze by a car crash in June 2017 wants a judge to dismiss all the charges he faces, saying there was "spillover prejudice" against him when a grand jury heard the allegations against him along with the charges against his three co-defendants.
The lieutenant, Keith Ludwig, also argues that his case should be separated from the other cops' cases because his defense is "truly antagonistic" to theirs and because they have argued in their legal briefs that he is not credible. This could cause prejudice to all the defendants, he argues.
Ludwig's requests come in a brief filed last week by his attorney, Anthony Iacullo, with the Hudson County Superior Court. The 23-year veteran of the Jersey City police force is charged with aggravated assault and official misconduct for his alleged actions on the night of the crash.
With Ludwig's Sept. 4 request for a dismissal, all four men facing charges in the case have now asked Judge Nesle A. Rodriguez to dismiss their indictments. Two of them, former cop MD Khan and Eric Kosinski, face a total of 18 counts, including attempted murder. Francisco Rodriguez is charged with four counts. They have all pleaded not guilty.
The case stems from a June 4, 2017 high-speed pursuit that started in Jersey City's Greenville section and ended six miles away on Tonnelle Avenue. Officers that night were pursuing Leo Pinkston when, on Tonnelle Avenue, Khan, Kosinki and Rodriguez shot at Pinkston's car. Pinskton crashed the car near North Street, causing an explosion involving a second car driven by Miguel Feliz-Rodriguez.
Following the crash, in a moment caught on video by an eyewitness, officers appeared to kick and drag Feliz-Rodriguez as he tried to extinguish the flames that had engulfed him. Some of Ludwig's and Khan's charges are related to that episode. The attempted murder charges stem from the officers shooting at Pinkston's car.
Lawyers for the four men have made similar arguments to Judge Rodriguez for why their indictments should be tossed, including that prosecutors withheld exculpatory evidence from the grand jury; that jurors received unclear instructions on the charges; and that the Hudson County Prosecutor's Office had a conflict of interest that should have precluded them from prosecuting the four men and, separately, Pinkston. Prosecutors charged Pinkston with eluding police, aggravated assault, aggravated assault by auto, and aggravated assault by eluding. He pleaded guilty to eluding in February.
Ludwig's brief argues that the charges he faces are "wholly unrelated" to the charges against the cops who shot at Pinkston's car and should not have been presented at the same time to the same grand jury.
"There are no allegations of a specific conspiracy, yet the state uses the potential 'blue line' prejudice to improperly obtain multiple indictments," the brief reads. "To hear days of testimony including multiple officers employing deadly force in a prolonged incident with an alleged criminal certainly serves to prejudice a jury and likely color its view of Ludwig's actions with an innocent person."
Khan's attorney, Daniel Welsh, argues in his brief that Khan and Ludwig were charged in Feliz-Rodriguez's beating "basically ... by way of process of elimination." Officers who gave statements to prosecutors did not identify the cops seen kicking the man, Welsh's brief says, so "it was assumed the officers allegedly assaulting (Feliz-Rodriguez) were Khan and Ludwig."
Asked to respond, Hudson County Prosecutor Esther Suarez referred to her previous statement, which said, "It is our position that this matter was handled appropriately and beyond that we have no further comment as it involves pending litigation."
Terrence T. McDonald may be reached at tmcdonald@jjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @terrencemcd. Find The Jersey Journal on Facebook.
Police were responding to a sexual assault Wednesday morning in Union City when a man shot himself in the head, an official from the Hudson County Prosecutor's Office confirmed.
The 57-year-old man, whose identity has not been released, killed himself inside his home on Bergenline Avenue near 21st Street at approximately 5:15 a.m., authorities said.
Police had responded to the apartment building on the report of a sexual assault that morning and were met by the alleged victim -- a juvenile female -- who directed them to suspect's second-floor apartment, HCPO spokesman Ray Worrall said.
There, they were "confronted" by the armed man, who then shot himself in the head. At some point during the confrontation, an officer used a taser on the man, although when the device was used is under investigation, Worrall said.
The man was pronounced dead at the scene.
Additional details on the alleged sex assault, as well as the age of the victim, were not provided.
The incident remains under investigation. Anyone with information is asked to contact the HCPO at 201-915-1345 or to leave an anonymous tip on the agency's official website.
JERSEY CITY Jersey City's council punted Wednesday night on the matter of the potential relocation of the Katyn monument, meaning voters will decide during a special election whether to overturn the council's June 13 ordinance that authorized moving the controversial statue.
The council was faced with a measure that would have repealed the June 13 ordinance. It failed after five members abstained from voting, leading to sharp criticism from members of the committee that formed to keep the statue at its longtime home at Exchange Place. One, Kristen Zadroga-Hart, said the council members who did note vote are cowards.
"They should have voted," Zadroga-Hart said.
Wednesday's action was the latest twist in the saga of the Katyn monument, which commemorates the 1940 massacre of over 20,000 Polish people by the Soviet Union. Mayor Steve Fulop wants to relocate the statue one block south to York Street, a plan that led to vocal objections by members of the Polish community in the region and abroad.
After the council approved Fulop's relocation plan on June 13, a group of residents that includes Zadroga-Hart collected enough signatures to force the council to reconsider. The council then had two options: adopt a measure repealing the June 13 ordinance or send the issue to voters via referendum.
The council's Wednesday vote was 3-0-5. The measure needed five affirmative votes to move forward. Council members Rich Boggiano, Michael Yun and James Solomon voted in favor of repealing the earlier ordinance. Council members Rolando Lavarro, Joyce Watterman, Daniel Rivera, Denise Ridley and Mira Prinz-Arey abstained from voting. Jermaine Robinson was absent.
None of the council members who abstained explained why they didn't vote no instead. Lavarro said he thinks a referendum will provide more "closure" than if the council had voted to overturn the ordinance itself.
"If the ordinance was repealed, there could still be further actions taken on part of the administration ... which would lead to litigation, which would lead to costs for the city that the city would have to bear as well in legal fees and other sorts of additional costs," he said. "So the referendum does provide closure in the sense that there will be final decision."
The committee that wants to keep that Katyn statue at Exchange Place has 10 days to rescind their petition. If it does not, the city then has 40 to 60 days to schedule a special election (the deadline has passed for getting the referendum on the November general election ballot). That means the special election could be scheduled for as early as Nov. 1.
Zadroga-Hart said the committee does not intend to rescind the petition.
Fulop wants the statue moved so business group Exchange Place Alliance can create a park where it stands (the statue and the land are city property). The mayor's plan is to create a second new park at York Street, the proposed new location for the monument.
City spokeswoman Kimberly Wallace-Scalcione said the administration is "on the same page as the council to let the voters decide." The total Exchange Place Alliance investment planned for the two parks is $2 million, she said.
"The mayor's personal opinion is that he thinks moving the statue 30 yards in exchange for a free park and a free $2 million donation to the city is a good thing for Jersey City, but he feels even more strongly that the public deciding is a good thing either way," Wallace-Scalcione said.
City Clerk Robert Byrne told the council at its Tuesday caucus that a special election would cost the city more than $200,000 minimum.
Elizabeth Cain, the Exchange Place Alliance executive director, declined to comment on Wednesday.
A separate measure that would have approved keeping the Katyn statue at Exchange Place was also defeated by a 3-0-5 vote. The vote tally was identical to the other Katyn-related measure.
Terrence T. McDonald may be reached at tmcdonald@jjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @terrencemcd. Find The Jersey Journal on Facebook.
JERSEY CITY -- The state Thursday worked to dispel assertions made by the defense that police officers charged in an off-duty jobs conspiracy weren't no shows but simply away from their posts.
The charges against retired Capt. Joe Ascolese and Lt. Kelly Chesler stem from off-duty traffic assignments in 2014 during the Pulaski Skyway closures. Ascolese was in charge of the operation and Chesler was his executive officer.
Both are charged with falsifying time sheets for Officer Michael Maietti, who has since decided to cooperate with the prosecution and will testify against the others at trial. Officer Joseph Widejko is also expected to testify that he was paid for no-show shifts. Widejko was not charged.
O'Neil is accused of working two no-show off-jobs, which were allegedly awarded to him to pay him back for shelling out $200 to pay for damage to a vehicle that was involved in an accident with a police motorcycle.
Jersey City entered into an agreement with the state Department of Transportation in which the police department would pay officers to fill the off-duty traffic control jobs and the DOT would reimburse the city. Thomas Mahoney supervised the office that processed the off-duty vouchers.
O'Neil's lawyer, Charles Sciarra, said the deal with the DOT required the JCPD to provide up to 55 officers and two emergency responders during the morning and evening rush hours. The JCPD was also to provide police vehicles needed and was to enforce temporary and permanent parking rules.
"No officer standing on one of these 52 posts needed a vehicle?" Sciarra asked Mahoney on Wednesday, referring to the number of posts eventually agreed upon by the JCPD and DOT.
"Correct," replied Mahoney.
But Hudson County Assistant Prosecutor Peter Stoma queried Mahoney under redirect questioning Thursday and worked to dispel the theory that the officers were off doing other duties related to the off-duty work.
Stoma asked Mahoney to go through a stack of the off-duty vouchers and asked "Have you seen any of those documents there in evidence as part of a roving patrol as part of Skyway Duty?"
Mahoney said "No sir."
"Was any pay voucher billed to the DOT that was described as a roving detail?" Stoma pressed.
"No," Mahoney replied.
Stoma also questioned Mahoney about Ascolese's duty as supervisor of the Skyway off-duty work.
The officers face 10 to 20 years in prison if convicted of the most serious charges.
JERSEY CITY -- The state rested Wednesday afternoon in the retrial of a 60-year-old Jersey City man accused of strangling his brother in the Van Reipen Avenue building where both lived.
Gangaram Maharaj is charged with killing Rajendra Maharaj, 62, in Rajendra's apartment. The body was discovered by their sister on Feb. 27, 2016. The first trial ended in a hung jury in April.
The defense is expected to present at least one witness before closing arguments. Maharaj took the stand in the first trial but it is not yet known whether he will testify during his retrial.
Maharaj, a retired pharmacist, faces 30 years to life if convicted of murder. DNA evidence and testimony from the medical examiner were key to the state's case in the first trial.
The retrial is before Hudson County Superior Court Judge Patrick Arre in the Hudson County Administration Building in Jersey City. The case is being prosecuted by Hudson County Assistant Prosecutor Najma Rana, while Maharaj is represented by defense attorney Peter Festa of Paterson.
The trial is set to resume Friday morning.
Inside Jersey's lineup of Top Doctors for 2018 is the largest of any New Jersey magazine and covers the entire state. (Click here to see the list.)
IJ's continuing partnership with Castle Connolly Medical Ltd., the gold standard for medical ratings research, provides consumers with the most authoritative and informed assessment of doctors in the region.
Castle Connolly has been helping consumers find independent, trusted information about quality health care for more than 20 years.
John K. Castle is CEO and chairman of Castle Harlan, and former chairman of New York Medical College, the nation's second largest private medical college. President and CEO John J. Connolly is past president of New York Medical College.
Castle Connolly also publishes the consumer guides "America's Top Doctors," "America's Top Doctors for Cancer," "Top Doctors: New York Metro Area," "The Best in Senior Living & Eldercare Options" and "The ABCs of HMOs."
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A 911 CALL AT 6:07 A.M., about an hour before dawn, set off a frantic search for a missing child on Oct. 13, 2015.
David "DJ" Creato, the young father of 3-year-old Brendan Creato, calmly told an emergency dispatcher that his son might have opened the door to their second-floor Haddon Township apartment overnight and wandered outside.
By 8:47 a.m., a police dog had discovered Brendan's lifeless body at a stream in a wooded area of Cooper River Park, more than half a mile from the family's Camden County residence.
Dressed only in pajamas and socks, despite temperatures in the 50s, the child's clothing and diaper were pulled down around his legs and he was draped face-down over a rock.
What followed, legal and forensic experts say, was a bungled investigation from start to finish. Mistakes made at the crime scene and at the morgue, they say, are the reasons DJ Creato, initially charged with first-degree murder and child endangerment in his son's mysterious death, was ultimately able to plead to a lesser charge of aggravated manslaughter.
Just as disturbing is the fact that not even three autopsies performed by pathologists from the state
Medical Examiner's Office could determine where and how Brendan died.
Prosecutors had alleged that the single father killed his son because his then-17-year-old girlfriend, Julia Stensky, continually harangued him in person and in dozens of online messages about the amount of time he was spending with Brendan and his continuing contact with the boy's mother, Samantha Denoto.
But Creato, who frequently expressed jealousy and worried about potential romantic rivals, repeatedly told Stensky that his son would always be in his life.
A weeks-long trial argued by the Camden County Prosecutor's Office ended in a deadlocked jury. The case, based on circumstantial evidence -- no DNA, no physical evidence, no eyewitness -- coupled with inconclusive findings from the three autopsies, resulted in a mistrial.
Then, just weeks before the start of a second trial, Creato was offered a plea bargain.
In the carefully scripted plea, the father admitted only to depriving his son of oxygen, providing no details or explanations as to how or why.
Rather than the 30 years to life that could have been his fate had he been convicted of murder, Creato, now 25, is serving 10 years for aggravated manslaughter and may be eligible for parole after serving just 8 years.
Meanwhile, Creato's family insists he is innocent and that he accepted the plea simply to avoid a second murder trial.
Inside Jersey provided a number of legal and forensic experts familiar with accounts of the case and the court proceedings with reports from the three autopsies conducted following Brendan's death.
None said the wrong person was convicted, but all agreed that the failure to follow death investigation protocol allowed doubt to prevail and weakened the prosecution's case.
LYNNE ABRAHAM, A LAWYER who served as a judge in the Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas for 11 years and as Philadelphia's district attorney for
19 years, describes the medical examiner investigations in the Creatocase as "a big screw-up."
She notes that none of the three MEs who performed the autopsies visited the active scene on the first day of the investigation.
"This was treated like a rescue," she says. "That colored how the scene was treated. There were a lot of people, equipment and personnel there. It was treated as an unfortunate accident, not a homicide.
"The scene is the most critical thing in a homicide. The site should have been tented and the body thoroughly examined right there, with hands covered with bags. You don't remove the body first."
Frank Jackson, a funeral director and certified death investigator, was the only medical examiner employee to visit the scene. But he did not conduct an independent investigation at the site, according to testimony at the trial.
Jackson, also a volunteer firefighter in Creato's hometown, was not scheduled to work as an investigator the day Brendan was reported missing. He stepped in because he was near the scene as a volunteer helping in the search.
"It's hard to say no when you are asked to step up and it's your hometown," Jackson says, adding that he is "not allowed" to talk about details of the case.
Abraham believes this was the most critical misstep in the investigation.
There is a set protocol that medicolegal death investigators should follow, she says, referencing the U.S. Justice Department publication, "Death Investigation: A Guide for the Scene Investigator."
It is based on the principle: "Every scene, every time."
But Jackson's skimpy scene notes (fewer than 200 words) document he did nothing more than observe detectives, then transport Brendan's bagged body
20 miles to the morgue of the regional medical examiner's office for Gloucester, Camden and Salem counties, led by medical examiner Gerald Feigin.
New Jersey law requires supervision of a body by a medical examiner at the scene of a suspicious death. And there is special emphasis on attending scenes relating to children up to 3 years old and cases involving unusual circumstances, such as a body positioned in a way that suggests there may have been a sexual assault.
Abraham believes the lack of a credible investigation by a medical examiner employee -- which would have included pages of notes, interviews, diagrams and photos from the scene -- set in motion subsequent problems with the case.
The failure to follow protocol may explain why there were three autopsies and how they could result in so little conclusive information, despite each eventually determining that the child died as a result of "homicidal violence."
Abraham, a partner in the New Jersey-based Archer law firm, says she has never encountered, as a judge or district attorney, a triple autopsy for one case. She also notes other problems with the investigation:
The boy's pajamas were not lab-tested.
This was a decision made by Patricia Taulane, now a retired captain of the Special Victims Unit of the Camden County Prosecutor's Office. During the trial, Taulane testified that the pajamas should have been tested, then reversed herself, saying they were not tested because they were wet.
Failure to use a rape kit.
While Abraham called the use of a rape kit during the investigation "a matter of thoroughness," the regional medical examiner, Feigin, said during the trial that he saw no reason to perform the rape tests because he saw no visible signs of external trauma.
But signs of trauma were found in the subsequent autopsies, conducted by medical examiners Charles Siebert and Andrew Falzon.
During the first autopsy, Feigin overlooked a bite mark inside Brendan's cheek, potentially a sign the child was struggling when he died. Feigin also missed tiny eye hemorrhages, indicating the possibility of strangulation or smothering.
Siebert, a medical examiner in Cape May, conducted the second autopsy two days after Feigin's, working as a contract pathologist for Gloucester County. He found a single hemorrhage, but missed the bite mark.
Falzon, the state medical examiner, discovered the bite mark and all of the petechial hemorrhages during the third autopsy of the child, which he conducted the day after Siebert's postmortem.
Falzon he initially listed the cause of death as "undetermined," though he believed it was suspicious, However, on the eve of jury selection, Falzon changed his finding to "homicidal violence."
He later testified that, at first, he believed the hemorrhages were not numerous enough to definitively show foul play.
Poor performance by the lead medical examiner during trial testimony.
Abraham faulted Feigin for being "flummoxed on the stand" during the trial, especially when defense lawyer Richard J. Fuschino Jr. pointed out that the medical examiner had testified while holding an incorrect crime scene report.
Underscoring Feigin's self-inflicted damage, assistant county prosecutors Christine Shah and Kevin Moran floated the idea of reducing the charges in a plea deal just after Feigin left the stand.
"That's the whole case," Abraham says of the medical examiner's testimony.
Feigin came to New Jersey in 1998 following problems with two cases he oversaw while with the Massachusetts medical examiner system, including the notorious Boston Nanny case. His error in this instance led a judge to immediately free the defendant, Louise Woodward, on time served, just 279 days, not the minimum 15 years he initially imposed.
And last year, Feigin and his office were sued for mishandling the investigation of a Winslow Township car accident in late 2015 during which a woman died and part of her severed hand was left at the scene. The family, which discovered the body part two days later when they went to the site to place a roadside memorial, charged Feigin and his office with "carelessness, recklessness and negligence."
Feigin was questioned about the Winslow accident during cross-examination in the Creato case. He blamed "miscommunication" for his office's failure to collect the woman's hand.
JUDY MELINEK, AN INDEPENDENT pathology consultant and forensics professor in California who often writes about medical examiners, calls the investigation of the Creato death scene "rudimentary," noting that a great deal of information is missing from the report.
"There is no description of the weather or ambient temperature. No body temperature is taken. There is no description of the lividity, rigidity and whether they are compatible with the found position.
"In child deaths, we usually request more information about the health of the child prior to death: symptoms of disease, medical records of recent visits to the pediatrician. It would be helpful to know when the child was allegedly last seen alive -- and where.
"These are basic death investigation questions and the report just doesn't address them," she says.
Kimberlee Sue Moran, director of forensics at Rutgers University-Camden, says she does not like how death scenes are investigated in New Jersey. Many times inquiries are conducted by law enforcement officials rather than certified death scene investigators working for the medical examiner's office.
While she believes some ME offices do a better job than others, Camden County does not make her list of top practitioners.
Moran is director of education for the New Jersey Association of Forensic Scientists and a member of the Crime Scene Investigation subcommittee of the National Forensic Science Standards Board.
In her opinion, law enforcement-led death scene investigations do not meet current professional standards. "Best practices for crime and death scene investigation exist and have for quite some time. It's no secret," she says. "Of course, implementing best practices takes time, and if truly done right, it takes funding."
But the stakes are too high to continue to ignore the consequences of subpar scene investigation, she says.
In the Creato case, the medical examiner's office was not notified until 20 minutes after the body was discovered. By then, law enforcement was already handling the case, even though state law mandates that a medical examiner supervise the inquiry at the scene of a suspicious death.
Instead, law enforcement removed the boy's body from the creek before 10 a.m. John Ellis, a detective with the Camden County Prosecutor's Office, lifted the child off the rock and passed him over to officials on the bank of the stream. Brendan's body was then placed in a body bag held by Detective Nick Villano, who performed the law enforcement investigation and took the only photos made at the scene.
The detectives then brought the body to another vehicle, driven by Jackson, Feigin's death scene investigator, who transported the toddler's remains to the morgue, about 18 miles -- a 30-minute drive -- away.
Feigin pronounced Brendan dead at the morgue and the first autopsy was performed about 1 p.m.
Kimberlee Sue Moran, the Rutgers' forensics expert, says she is not a fan of Feigin's work, having seen him conduct an examination about five years ago.
"I've observed dozens of autopsies by multiple MEs, both in the U.S. and the U.K., and the one autopsy by Feigin I observed bore no resemblance to anything I had seen before, nor since.The quality and thoroughness of the examination seemed questionable."
Without making a single incision, with no internal examination, with no microscopic examination of heart tissue, Feigin concluded the person on the table had died of cardiac arrest, she says.
While he carried on casual conversation with her, Feigin appeared to take no note of the hypodermic needle still stuck in the man, Moran says.
"There should be safeguards in place to ensure accountability for poor work.It really is a systems-wide issue that needs to be addressed," she says.
Moran's colleague at Rutgers, law professor J.C. Lore, bluntly faulted the crime scene investigation for most of the issues in the Creato case.
"We will never know whether evidence was lost," says Lore, a former defense lawyer. "However, we can be almost certain that the possibility played a role in the jurors' deliberations during the first trial. Protocol and procedures must be followed to achieve the right outcome, but also to avoid creating weaknesses in the prosecution's case."
Lore speculates that a murder conviction in a second trial was doubtful, considering the previous trial testimony and the missing crime scene information. This, he says, explains the prosecutors' plea offer on lesser charges.
Victor Weedn, a lawyer and former president of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, quit his post as New Jersey's top medical examiner in 2009, expressing disgust with the system.
After reviewing the three Creato autopsies for Inside Jersey, he dryly observed: "The second and third autopsies cannot make up for a poor autopsy in the first place."
Zhongxue Hua, interim acting medical examiner for Bergen County, says failure to follow protocols is at the heart of issues in the Creato case.
"If you short-cut corners, there will be questions. For instance, you always do a rape kit on first look. If you don't do it, you have no chance to redo it," Hua says. "Minimum standards were lacking here, but that's a statewide problem. Confusion only occurs if you don't go by the book. Going to court when you can't answer the cause of death is like gambling without money in your pocket."
Feigin did not respond to a request for comment.
A spokesman for Falzon, in the Attorney General's Office, also declined to comment.
A spokesperson for Gloucester County, which oversees the Gloucester, Camden, Salem Medical Examiner's Office, declined to comment on the specifics of this story but defended Feigin's work, saying there have been no issues or complaints during his tenure.
THE ISSUES RAISED CONCERNING death investigations and autopsies conducted in the Creato case are indicative of systemwide problems in the Office of the State Medical Examiner, which operates under the Office of the State Attorney General.
In a far-reaching investigation of New Jersey's ME system last year, New Jersey Advance Media found that "decades of neglect and underfunding has caused widespread dysfunction in death investigations." As a result, Gov. Phil Murphy has called for "wholesale reform," and a state Senate committee held a public hearing in January to address the problem.
State Sen. Joseph Vitale, D-Middlesex, who is leading an overhaul of the law that governs the state's Medical Examiner office, called the system as it exists "dysfunctional and disconnected."
Part of Vitale's legislative goal, he says, is to give the state medical examiner "final authority." The expanded power over county offices would cover hiring, including screening of ME candidates with "baggage."
When a reporter asked Falzon after the Senate hearing about issues with the medical examiner's system and problems with crime scene investigations, a communications representative or the Attorney General's office cut off the conversation.
Also under consideration by the state is moving jurisdiction of the medical examiner's office from the state Attorney General to the state health department, a move that Attorney General Gurbir Grewal says he supports.
ALL OF THIS COMES TOO LATE for the Creatos, however.
David Creato Sr. says he hopes scrutiny of the family's case leads to improvements in the medical examiner system.
Having lost a grandson to homicide and a son to prison, Creato Sr. says he's "gratefula senator is looking to change things."
"I don't know where Brendan was killed, how he was killed, how he got to the creek. They needed better evidence. The scene report was two sentences," he says.
All the unanswered questions leave him feeling hollow.
"I'm never going to be okay. I don't know if my child is a killer or not. I can say 90 percent he didn't do it, but not 100 percent he didn't do it -- because of the way they investigated."
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Here is a look at the Jets' Thursday injury report for Sunday's home opener against the Dolphins, plus what it means:
JETS
Did not practice: FS Marcus Maye (foot), OLB Josh Martin (concussion), OG Dakota Dozier (excused absence)
Limited participant: ILB Neville Hewitt (knee)
Notable full participant: WR Jermaine Kearse (abdomen)
DOLPHINS
Did not practice: RB Frank Gore (not injury related), OG Josh Sitton (shoulder)
Limited participant: LS John Denney (shoulder)
Notable full participant: WR DeVante Parker (broken finger)
WHAT IT MEANS
Maye, Martin, and Hewitt -- starter, starter, backup -- were the only Jets who didn't practice Wednesday. (The final injury report this week comes out Friday.) Maye and Martin didn't play in Monday night's season opener at the Lions. Hewitt got hurt in that game, but it looks like he is progressing toward playing this week. Dozier, a backup, was a healthy scratch for the opener.
Kearse was a full participant Thursday for the second straight day, after missing Monday night's game. So it looks like he will play against the Dolphins.
For the Dolphins, it looks like Parker will play this week, after missing the opener against the Titans. That is big for Miami. Parker hadn't fully participated in practice since Aug. 12, before Thursday. Parker was limited Wednesday.
Another starting Miami receiver, Danny Amendola, missed Wednesday's practice (not injury related), but returned fully on Thursday. Denney was limited for the second straight day Thursday. Sitton, a starter, also didn't practice Wednesday. So Sitton might miss this week's game, after starting against the Titans. Ted Larsen is listed as his backup.
Darryl Slater may be reached at dslater@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @DarrylSlater. Find NJ.com Jets on Facebook.
HOBOKEN -- The Hudson County Prosecutor's Office and Hoboken Police Department are investigating allegations of sex-related crimes at a popular bar, which now faces a potential revocation of its liquor license, officials said.
The Hub Hoboken, located across the street from the Hoboken train terminal, was closed yesterday after the city's Alcoholic Beverage Control Board hit its liquor license holder, Teak On The Hudson LLC, with 15 offenses, including multiple counts of allowing assault and lewd activity within the establishment.
A criminal investigation, meanwhile, is also underway, Hoboken Police Chief Ken Ferrante said, adding that he could not could not speak to details of the probe.
The criminal probe, which began Sunday, stems from an incident that allegedly occurred late Saturday night in which a partially naked woman had lewd sexual acts performed on her in front of a large crowd as champagne was poured on her. The incident was documented on social media.
The bar did not return a message seeking comment.
"At this time, because of the nature of the crimes being investigated, the Hudson County Prosecutor's Office is controlling all information being released about those crimes," said Hoboken Police Chief Ken Ferrante.
A HCPO spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Hoboken Mayor Ravi Bhalla, whose administration cracked down on the city's normally raucous LepreCon festivities earlier this year, issued a stern warning to the bar in a statement yesterday afternoon.
"This conduct will not be tolerated by my administration," Bhalla said. "We intend to fully prosecute any violations of The Hub's liquor license to the extent permitted by law."
The liquor license holder will have an opportunity to be heard by the ABC Board at its meeting next Thursday before a final ruling.
Police were posted outside of the bar as early as noon yesterday.
The college student charged along with her boyfriend with the slaying of their marijuana dealer in February of 2017 has been found guilty, the Monmouth County Prosecutor's Office said Wednesday.
Raquel Garajau, of Tinton Falls, and boyfriend Joseph Villani, conspired to kill 29-year-old Trupal Patel, prosecutors say. Garajua talked Villani through the process and planned how to clean up the murder afterward.
Prosecutors said Villani shot and killed Patel in his Ocean Township residence on Feb. 5, and dumped his body in Shark River Park. A park ranger found Patel with gunshot wounds to the head on Feb. 22.
Trupal Patel, 29, of Brick, was found dead in a Monmouth County park.
At the time of the murder, Garajau was a 20-year-old honors student at Brookdale Community College. Villani was 21.
Garajau was indicted in May 2017 and ordered to remain in jail until her trial.
During her trial, which started in July of this year and and included 35 witnesses, jurors saw cell phone records between Garajau and Villani from the night of the killing.
Garajau sent text messages reading:
"You need to clean the bullets."
"Take your time bleaching everything. The whole entire door and inside."
"Take that bag of stuff out cause I touched his phone.. We will throw that stuff in the ocean."
"Babe you need to move that car it's too important. Like ASAP. People will start noticing he's not answering."
While Villani moved the body, prosecutors said, Garajau told him to "Facetime me please when you are done," and "I love you."
An indictment showed text exchanges dating back to May 2016 where the pair talked about plans to kill Patel and sell his marijuana to others. Villani's best friend also told investigators he had spoken about robbing Patel in the past.
The jury found Garajau guilty on counts of murder, tampering with a witness and with physical evidence, armed robbery, theft, conspiracy to commit theft of marijuana, armed robbery and weapons charges.
She's scheduled to be sentenced in November and faces a minimum sentence of 30 years.
Villani is currently being detained at the Middlesex County Jail awaiting his trial.
Garajau's attorney, Robert Honeker, did not immediatly return a request for comment.
Paige Gross may be reached at pgross@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @By_paigegross
A woman who went on a bank robbery spree in Pennsylvania and New Jersey last year with an accomplice - once in which they dressed as nuns - was sentenced to 15 months in prison.
Swahilys Pedraza-Rodriguez, 20, of New Haven, Connecticut appeared in U.S. District Court in Newark Thursday, the U.S. Attorney's Office said.
On Wednesday, her partner, Melisa Aquino Arias, 24, of Passaic, was sentenced to 37 months in prison in the same court.
They each pleaded guilty earlier this year to three federal crimes, bank robbery, attempted bank robbery, attempted conspiracy to steal from a bank.
Over three months in late 2017, authorities say and court papers show, the two women donned elaborate clothing disguises in four crimes/
They only managed to get $2,900 in one crime.
The duo first wore nuns' habits at a Citizens Bank in Tannersville, Pennsylvania, on Aug. 28, 2017.
Federal authorities say Arias was the lookout as Pedraza-Rodriguez took out what appeared to be a gun and demanded money from a teller. But Arias signaled her partner that they should leave, and they did, without the cash.
On Sept. 20, 2017, they tried to pry open an ATM machine at a Keystone Bank in Scotrun, Pennsylvania. Arias drove - they both wore hijabs - and Pedraza-Rodriguez wielded the screwdriver, but she could not pry open the machine in the bank's drive-through.
Seven days later, they robbed a Spencer Savings Bank branch in Garfield of the $2,900. They asked a bank employee about opening an account, and then Arias, wearing a blue hijab, pulled out what appeared to be a black handgun.
And on Oct. 15, 2017, the women struck at the NVE Bank in Teaneck. But by then, investigators had a lot of information on their routine, and saturated the media and police with information about their spree.
In Teaneck, Arias wore an orange hijab and Pedraza-Rodriguez a black head covering. They again approached an employee about opening an account, but the employee was on to them, and the women knew it.
They fled the bank without cash and employees called police and provided a good description, leading to two Leonia police officers arresting them at gunpoint on Route 80 West.
Both women will be under federal supervision when they are freed from prison, and have to pay $2,900 in restitution to Spencer Savings Bank.
Kevin Shea may be reached at kshea@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter@kevintshea. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
One of two women who dressed like a nun during a bank robbery crime spree in New Jersey and Pennsylvania is going to federal prison for three years.
Melisa Aquino Arias, 24, of Passaic, was sentenced to 37 months in federal prison Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Newark, U.S. Attorney Craig Carpenito announced.
She pleaded guilty in June to three federal crimes, bank robbery, attempted bank robbery, attempted conspiracy to steal from a bank.
Her partner in crime, Swahilys Pedraza-Rodriguez, 20, of New Haven, Connecticut, pleaded guilty to the same crimes in April, and will be sentenced Thursday.
For several months in late 2017, authorities say and court papers show, the two women donned elaborate clothing disguises in four crimes, only one in which they actually escaped with cash.
They first wore nuns' habits at a Citizens Bank in Tannersville, Pennsylvania, on Aug. 28, 2017.
Federal authorities say Arias was the lookout as Pedraza-Rodriguez took out what appeared to be a gun and demanded money from a teller. But Arias signaled her partner that they should leave, and they did, without the cash.
On Sept. 20, 2017, they tried to pry open an ATM machine at a Keystone Bank in Scotrun, Pennsylvania. Arias drove - they both wore hijabs - and Pedraza-Rodriguez wielded the screwdriver, but she could not get into the machine in the drive-through lane.
On Sept. 27, 2017, they robbed a Spencer Savings Bank branch in Garfield of $2,900. They asked a bank employee about opening an account, and then Arias, wearing a blue hijab, pulled out what appeared to be a black handgun.
Pedraza-Rodriguez guarded the bank's manager during the holdup.
On Oct. 15, 2017, the women hit the NVE Bank in Teaneck. But by then, investigators had a lot of information on their routine, and saturated the media and police with information about them.
In Teaneck, Arias wore an orange hijab and Pedraza-Rodriguez a black head covering. They again approached an employee about opening an account, but the employee was on to them, and the robbers knew it.
They fled the bank without cash and employees called police and provided a good description, leading to two Leonia police officers arresting them at gunpoint on Route 80 West.
Kevin Shea may be reached at kshea@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter@kevintshea. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
A series of gas explosions caused fires at more than 20 homes across three communities north of Boston on Thursday, forcing entire neighborhoods to evacuate as crews scramble to douse the flames and shut off gas and electric lines in an attempt to prevent further damage.
Massachusetts State Police say troopers have been dispatched to Lawrence, Andover and North Andover to secure scenes and help traffic that has snarled roads as panicked residents attempt to flee their neighborhoods amid the afternoon rush hour.
Joseph Solomon, the police chief in nearby Methuen, said 20 to 25 homes were on fire in Lawrence. Solomon, who responded to Lawrence to help, said there are so many fires "you can't even see the sky."
The cause wasn't immediately clear. The Columbia Gas company had announced earlier Thursday that it would be upgrading gas lines in neighborhoods across the state, including the area where the explosions happened. It was not clear whether work was happening there Thursday, and a spokeswoman did not immediately comment.
Town officials in Andover are advising all residents and businesses to evacuate and to shut off their gas, if they know how to safely. The town of 35,000 residents is about 26 miles (40 kilometers) north of Boston near the New Hampshire border.
In neighboring North Andover, town Selectman Phil Decologero said that his entire neighborhood had gathered in the street, afraid to enter homes. He warned anyone with concerns to leave their houses and head to North Andover High School, which is being set up as a gathering point.
"It's definitely a scary situation at the moment," he said. "It's pretty severe."
Entire neighborhoods were being evacuated in Lawrence. City Councilor Marc Laplante said authorities were shutting off electric power and urging residents in the Colonial Heights neighborhood to head to Parthum elementary and middle schools.
"People need to get out of this area safely, and it's really difficult because the traffic right now is horrendous," he said.
The Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency said staff members were heading to Lawrence, Andover and North Andover, along with state fire investigators.
Fred Gattuso's opponents say he spouts racist rants online. He says they fabricated the posts. And that's just the beginning.
It's still months out, but the Carteret mayoral race in which Gattuso, the Republican challenger, is taking on long-time incumbent Dan Reiman -- a powerful Democrat in a predominantly blue county -- is already turning heads.
Last week, a group of local religious leaders said Gattuso should withdraw his candidacy, claiming he posted a series of racist, sexist and anti-Semitic comments on social media between 2009 and 2013.
Gattuso blasted his opponent and the event, denying the posts they referred to existed.
"Those posts were never there," Gattuso said, asserting that the images were doctored to make them look like they came from his social media accounts. Gattuso said his Twitter, Facebook and Instagram accounts have all been private since 2008.
During the Sept. 6 press conference, Carteret faith leaders from various religions and denominations spoke out against Gattuso and his alleged social media posts.
"Fred Gattuso should be ashamed of himself," Rabbi Azriel Brown, of the Jewish Community Center in Carteret, said in a statement. "I'd like to think that he just failed to adapt to the times, but his comments are so heinous, it is clear that he is filled with hate and vitriol, and sees nothing wrong with spewing his offensive comments and anger in public forums."
Brown, who has been in the Carteret community for 13 years, said he had never heard of or met Gattuso before he was asked to participate in the protest, but he had met Reiman several times. Reiman's administration "just finished a drainage system this summer," he said, that should help prevent flooding in the synagogue and surrounding areas.
"Fred (Gattuso) has a long, long history of racist comments and sexist slander," Reiman said. "They've called him 'Sick-in-the-head Fred' for a reason."
Screenshots of the alleged posts include derogatory comments directed at former President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama, as well as Muslims.
Gattuso blamed the Reiman campaign for what he said were a series of false statements and fabricated images.
"This is not just trying to knock me out of a campaign, they are trying to ruin my life," Gattuso said.
NJ Advance Media was unable to verify either camp's claims.
Reiman is running for his fifth term on promises to continue to attract business to the borough, create a ferry terminal to Manhattan, and finish construction on the Carteret Performing Arts and Events Center. Gattuso said he decided to run in order to create better schools and encourage more political representation throughout the borough.
The "Carteret General Democratic Organization" is credited with creating a website featuring photos of Gattuso alongside his alleged racist comments. The comments were first reported by an anonymous author in the Carteret Communicator, which appears to be a community news website where local achievements and events are featured.
It was unclear who runs the website, which was created in April, but whoever bought the domain paid to kept their name anonymous, according to records from GoDaddy.com.
"I have no idea who is behind the Carteret Communicator or who owns the domain," said Jon Salonis, who has been a public information officer for the borough since April.
Salonis sent out a press release prior to the faith leader conference and assisted in documenting Gattuso's alleged posts.
He maintains that the social media posts, some of which he described as "downright pornographic," came from Gattuso's accounts and were public, until just before the faith leader conference.
"They are not fabricated," Salonis said. "They are one-hundred percent real."
In an initial interview with NJ Advance Media, Salonis said he has no official role with the Reiman campaign. Reiman said Salonis was a media advisor and consultant for his campaign. Reiman's campaign hired Salonis' company, War Room Consulting, he said.
During a second interview with NJ Advance Media, Salonis clarified his role: "My company War Room Consulting does consulting with the campaign but I have no official role as an individual."
He said the LLC does not employ anyone but occasionally has interns to assist with operations. Incorporation documents acquired from the New Jersey Department of the Treasury list Salonis as the only owner.
Reiman has been mayor since he was elected at the age of 26. (Courtesy Jon Salonis)
In 2015, Salonis made news in Ocean County when he distributed screenshots of a township official's racist posts. The Asbury Park Press reported that Salonis operated the "Jersey Shore Insider," a regional Democratic Party website.
Borough Democratic Municipal Chairman Joseph Gasparro and two others filed a complaint in July with the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commision, claiming Gattuso used a GoFund Me account to fundraise, failed to disclose reports with the ELEC, and solicited cryptocurrencies, according to a My Central Jersey article. Gattuso denied any wrongdoing, saying the GoFund Me was legal and did not act as his main depository.
According to contribution metrics from the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission, Gattuso reported receiving no money for his 2018 mayoral race, while Reiman has received over $177,000. However, Gattuso said his team received about $3,000 for the primary race and his expenditure reports aren't due to the ELEC until Oct. 9.
According to the 2010 US Census, Carteret is home to about 23,966 people. The ethnic composition of the population is 32 percent Hispanic, 31 percent White, 20 percent Asian, and 14 percent Black. Reiman's annual salary is $116,355 according to payroll documents acquired through and open records request last year.
Carteret's elections will be on Nov. 6, with polls open from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m., according to the Municipal Clerk's office. Reiman won the Mayoral race four years ago, with 3,285 votes, against Republican challenger Kevin Urban, who received 682 votes.
Cassidy Grom may be reached at cgrom@njadvancemedia.com Follow her at @cassidygrom. Find NJ.com on Facebook.Have a tip? Tell us nj.com/tips
"It was a dark and stormy night."
That's the opening line of the 1830 novel "Paul Clifford" by Edward Bulwer Lytton. He is the English lord who inspired the Bulwer Lytton Fiction Contest in which writers aspire to assemble "the opening sentence of the worst of all possible novels."
could never compete for that prize. Sure, he's a plodding writer who managed the difficult task of making a book about the life of the late comedian John Belushi boring. But he writes non-fiction.
Or does he? Chris Christie doesn't seem to think so.
Our former governor took to Twitter earlier this week to respond to the accounts of his behavior in the most recent Woodward book, "Fear: Trump in the White House."
According to Woodward, Christie was among a group of campaign insiders who urged Trump to drop out of the 2016 presidential race after the offensive "Access Hollywood" tape was released a month before Election Day. (One pundit realized this would have little effect.)
The way Woodward tells it, Christie was "sitting in sweatpants and ball cap" at a crucial meeting at which he and others told The Donald he had to drop out and let vice-presidential candidate Mike Pence make the presidential run instead.
Woodward writes that Christie told Trump, "This is not about the campaign... That's over. This is about your brand. You've worked your entire life."
According to Woodward, Christie then pointed to "These kids" - Donald Jr. and Jared Kushner - and said, "You need to save the brand for them or the brand's finished."
Interesting if true. But is it?
"To be clear, a number of the statements attributed to me and from others to me in the Woodward book are incorrect," Christie Tweeted. "I would have been happy to correct them if Mr. Woodward or any member of his staff would have called me, as a person they were quoting, for standard fact checking."
The ex-Guv's got a point. Christie's nemesis in the book is former Breitbart executive Steve Bannon, a hard-core right-winger who emerged as Trump's key campaign adviser. In his Tweets, Christie refers to Woodward as Bannon's "stenographer."
That's a term that brings up an aspect of Woodward's books that I as a journalist find troubling.
Even if you're standing there with a notebook as politicians are speaking, it's difficult to get their exact words. A recorder is preferable, but Woodward makes it clear he doesn't rely on audio recordings. Instead he relied on the memories of the people he interviewed.
Memory is fallible, and subject to self-aggrandizement. It's hard to have a conversation with a bunch of guys in a bar without one at some point saying "So then I said to him ..." followed by something he almost certainly didn't say.
I personally am more in line with Bannon's way of looking at the world than Christie's. But now that Bannon knows how the election turned out, he's got every reason to exaggerate his role in convincing Trump to stay in the race.
What really bothers me about Woodward, however, is his trademark technique of employing novelistic detail too precise to be entirely accurate. That's a technique I could do without, no matter the author. When I read Barack Obama's 1995 book "Dreams from My Father," I was struck by his word-for-word recounting of long conversations he'd had years earlier. I wouldn't trust my own memory to reconstruct passages of more than a sentence. Why should I trust someone else's?
At that time, though, Obama was just a guy fresh out of law school trying to find his place in the world. Woodward is Washington's foremost chronicler of political events. Inside the Beltway, his books are treated with the same reverence accorded the Bible.
But when he ventured outside the Beltway, as he did with the Belushi biography "Wired," the result was a portrayal of a man unfamiliar to virtually everyone who knew him. Author Tanner Colby, who later researched the Woodward's stories about Belushi in detail, wrote in Slate that "When Wired came out, many of Belushi's friends and family denounced it as biased and riddled with factual errors."
I had some of the same questions with one aspect of his portrayal of Christie.
It's a minor detail, but did the governor really show up at Trump Tower in sweatpants? I've seen him hundreds of times, and he's always been well-dressed. Now that he's got a summer house near me, I see him around town. He wears shorts, not sweats.
Meanwhile there's a really good story out there about why Trump bounced Christie from the transition, a decision that led to the worst transition in recent presidential history.
I was hoping to read that in Woodward's book.
But I guess I'll have to wait for Christie's.
ALSO: Newark-born writer Jack Cashill has an excellent take on Woodward Newark-born writer Jack Cashill has an excellent take on Woodward at his site
Cashill, who has had the unfortunate task over the years of reading many Woodward books, details how the White House always seems to be "in chaos" whenever Woodward is writing about it:
In the first of the two books, The Agenda, Woodward detailed the chaotic run-up to the budget battle in Bill Clinton's first term. In fact, he used the word "chaos" repeatedly, even excessively:
The process "bordered on chaos." Clinton's schedule "was again chaos." Clinton pushed debate "to the point of chaos." The administration's first week "had been chaos." The meeting dissolved "into virtual chaos."
WASHINGTON -- U.S. Sen. Cory Booker told Senate Republicans to "bring it" when they objected to his release of once-confidential documents about Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
A conservative watchdog group has done just that.
Judicial Watch, which continues to file lawsuits regarding Hillary Clinton's private email server while fighting the ongoing investigation into whether President Donald Trump's campaign colluded with Russia, said Booker invited the Senate Ethics Committee to look at whether he violated the rules.
The request was made as Booker released a new batch of documents late Wednesday.
The organization requested that the ethics committee investigate Booker's actions in releasing batches of Kavanaugh documents that a Republican lawyer who has represented Trump administration officials initially placed off limits to the public.
Some of those documents were cleared for public consumption before Booker released them.
"Senator Booker, in an absurd invocation of 'Spartacus,' explicitly invited his expulsion from the Senate in his egregious violation of the rules and contempt for the rule of law and the Constitution," Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said. "Will the Senate assert the rule of law in the Booker case or allow mob rule to be the new standard?"
Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans, unwilling to let the National Archives undertake its traditional role and review the documents concerning a Supreme Court nominee, instead have allowed Bill Burck, a Republican lawyer who represents former President George W. Bush, to decide which papers should be released.
The National Archives, which said it wouldn't be able to finish reviewing Kavanaugh's records until the end of October, said the Senate Republicans' decision to rely instead on Burck "is something that has never happened before."
The documents that Booker has been releasing were labeled "committee confidential," meaning senators could see them but no one else could, and the lawmakers could not use them in questioning Kavanaugh.
"The American public has a right to see these documents and this rushed, sham process is not the way the Senate should be handling a nomination to such an important position," Booker said.
"I stand by my actions and will continue releasing so-called 'committee confidential' documents because it is important that the American people see this nominee's entire record. No effort to intimidate me into silence will keep me from doing my moral and constitutional duty."
Booker ignored the classification during his first cross-examination of the nominee, asking about Kavanaugh's use of the term "naked racial set-aside."
"These documents don't raise any kind of national security concerns -- they have only been deemed 'committee confidential' because a Republican political operative decided that these documents are things the American public doesn't deserve to see," Booker said.
Booker released another batch of documents on Wednesday that he said suggested that Kavanaugh misled the Judiciary Committee when he testified in 2006 that he had little involvement in the nomination of Judge Charles Pickering to the U.S. Court of Appeals.
Democrats initially had blocked Pickering's nomination after he pushed to reduce the sentence of someone who burned a cross in front of an interracial couple's home. Bush later used his recess power to bypass Senate confirmation and put Pickering on the appeals court.
"It's clear that Kavanaugh was far more involved than he previously claimed with the nomination of a controversial federal judge who once defended a state law banning interracial marriage and campaigned for an avowed segregationist," Booker said.
Jonathan D. Salant may be reached at jsalant@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JDSalant or on Facebook. Find NJ.com Politics on Facebook.
It is widely recognized that Denmark has a very generous welfare system. In spite of the fact that they are among the most heavily taxed folks on earth - a 56.5 percent marginal-tax rate that triggers at the $80,000 income level - their citizens consistently indicate they are extremely happy with their ample welfare system.
In exchange for high taxes, the Danes get a cradle-to-the grave safety net that includes free health care, university education, child-care costs and maid service for the elderly, if needed.
While some Danes feel that their too generous welfare system is undermining the country's work ethic, according to The New York Times, "even the country's conservative politicians are not suggesting get rid of it." Instead they are suggesting trimming the welfare rolls by implementing stricter reviews to make sure recipients are steered into jobs or education before they get comfortable on government benefits.
The linchpin of Denmark's welfare system is universalism, which is administratively simple and incredibly efficient - everyone contributes to the welfare state according to their ability to pay and then everyone has access to the support. Robert Errickson in The Scandinavian Model: Welfare States and Welfare Research writes, "global programs are preferred to selective ones; free or cheap education for all in publicly owned educational institutions with a standard sufficiently high to discourage the demand for private schooling; free or cheap health care on the same basis; child allowances for all families with children rather than income-tested aid for poor mothers; universal old-age pensions ...general housing policies rather than public housing."
Danes are concerned that moving from universalism to selectivity will increase inequality and further separate benefit recipients from the rest of Danish society, increasing stigmatization. For whatever reason, the Danes do not get overly hung-up as we do about the moral failures of the poor. They are more concerned with universal access than individual contributions (they realize that there are always going be a few folks who game the systems).
In the United States, many conservatives Republicans believe that "bad choices" are the universal explanation of poverty and there are too many "takers" who are not willing to work. While liberals may acknowledge that some folks "make bad choices," they see institutions as thwarting the realization of the American Dream for many regardless of how hard they are willing to work and how hard they try to extricate themselves from depths of poverty. Further they recognize that vast majority of those who don't work are not able to work.
Paul Krugman has written that in some Republican-controlled states, "punishing the poor has become a goal in itself, one worth pursuing even if it hurts rather than helps the state budget." The latest Republican strategy for cutting the benefits to the poor is the imposition of work requirements for Medicaid, food stamps and other programs. This action will result in low-income individuals and families being further squeezed. Those affected by the new work requirements will include those with poor health and many who are unable due to deficiencies to handle the daunting paper work required to be granted a federal work requirement waiver.
Historically New Jersey has not been one those states that has imposed harsh work requirements on Medicaid. We have always been a State that cares about the health of those who are hurting. I'm concerned that the Trump administration's capping of SALT, also known as State and Local Taxes, as an itemized deduction for federal income taxes, could alter our state's generosity.
Each and every day we are reminded about the crumbling state of our mass transit system, the lack of affordable housing, the rising cost of pre-school and higher education, the poor performance of many urban school districts, the growing opioid epidemic and the enormous pension deficit that we face. We can't provide for all of these needs by further increasing taxes nor should we not do it by implementing across-the-board "mean-spirited" spending cuts. What is the alternative? It's "mean-testing."
The governor needs to stop talking about providing free services across-the-board - we don't have the resources to do that. If you have the ability to pay something for a service then we should require you to do so. The Murphy administration needs to fully embrace "means-testing" to allocate both essential services and public employee benefits. If you earn above a certain amount annually you should pay a sliding fee for child care and community college tuition.
Likewise, public employees who earn more than a designated annual salary and want platinum health care would be required to pay more for than those with a gold plan (where the patient would pay 10% vs. 20% in a gold plan). Similarly, public employee who retire before the age of fifty and continue to work in the public sector would not be allowed to accumulate unlimited unused sick pay. Given the fiscal realities that New Jersey is facing a fairer approach is not to provide free services to all but rather to equitably balance the burden based on one's ability to pay.
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Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, September 13) Senator Antonio Trillanes IV is tapping more prominent names in the legal profession to help him win his amnesty cases before the Supreme Court and civilian courts.
The senator on Thursday revealed that some of the lawyers who will represent him are former Solicitor General Florin Hilbay, former University of the Philippines College of Law Dean Pacifico Agabin, and law professor Joselito Chan. They will be supported by Trillanes' chief legal counsel Reynaldo Robles.
Trillanes said the lawyers volunteered to represent him for the pending cases before the Supreme Court and two Makati Regional Trial Court branches regarding President Rodrigo Duterte's Proclamation No. 572, which voided the amnesty granted to him in 2011.
"I have talked to some of the best legal minds in the country who are willing to stand for the rule of law. They believe that if this illegal act would not be corrected, our country's democracy would be in peril," he said in a statement.
Makati RTC Branch 148 will hold a hearing on Thursday on the Justice Department's urgent motion for the court to issue an arrest warrant and hold departure order against the senator. Meanwhile, Makati RTC Branch 150 will hold a hearing on Friday.
"I put my trust in our courts that they will correct this executive overreach and adhere to the rule of law despite Duterte's twisting of laws just to achieve his aim of silencing his critics," Trillanes said.
The exercise is as old as the Republic, but the first thing you need to understand about redistricting is that hot-water cornbread is as ubiquitous in north Louisiana as etouffee is in the south, says Rick Gallot, the Ruston Democratic representat
Thirteen of Louisianas 20 traditional casinos have applied to handle sports wagering the other seven are expected to apply before the Jan. 1 deadline and the first applicants are close to being able to start booking bets on baseball, football
InterNations Survey: Expats Feel at Home in Mexico
Puerto Vallarta, Mexico - InterNations.org recently released the results of its 2018 Expat Insider Survey, which ranks the best countries for expat living.
Now in its fifth edition, Expat Insider is among the biggest surveys worldwide to inquire into the living situation and happiness of expatriates. In order to complete the survey, they asked 18,135 expats living in 187 countries a series of questions relating to their experiences living abroad.
InterNation's survey results have been broken down into several rankings and reports, like: Where do expats enjoy the best quality of living? Which countries are ideal for raising children? and Where can expats make the most of their budget?, among others.
Once again achieving noteworthy results in 2018, Mexico holds the top rank for multiple factors, scoring first for personal happiness, and second for leisure activities, ease of settling in, and cost of living.
La Vida Perfecta: Mexico and the Happiest Expats in the World
Perhaps it is due to the fact that nearly two out of five expats living in Mexico (39%) are retirees or that 20% have moved there mainly for a better quality of life (e.g. weather and climate) - in any case: expats in Mexico are the happiest in the world, with the country ranking 1st out of 68 for personal happiness. Ratings in the Expat Insider 2018 survey similarly point to a favorable climate and a wide range of leisure activities, with fewer than 1% of respondents giving these factors very negative reviews.
No Such Thing as a Stranger: Easy to Feel at Home
Settling in is not difficult for most expats in Mexico: only 6% report low satisfaction with feeling at home in the local culture, and 85% agree that it is easy to settle down. More than four in five expats (83%) also agree that getting used to the local culture is easy, with only 4% believing they will never feel at home in Mexico.
The Mexican population is ranked as the friendliest in the world, with an impressive 64% of the respondents saying that the local residents couldn't be any friendlier. More than half (56%) also say that the Mexicans' attitude towards foreign residents is very friendly, and with regard to finding friends, Mexico similarly tops the global charts.
The language barrier is also of minimal concern to expats, as 66% say learning the local language is easy, and as many as 96% already speak Spanish to some extent.
Not a Care in the World: Financial Benefits
If a high quality of life and the ease of settling in are not incentive enough, moving to Mexico as an expat has many benefits, including financial ones: Mexico ranks 2nd out of 68 in the Cost of Living Index and 3rd in the Personal Finance Index.
Only 11% of expats in Mexico say that their disposable household income is generally not enough to cover all their living expenses, while 17% think they have a lot more than what they need. Moreover, only 2% considered the cost of living a potential disadvantage before moving.
Mexico's fourth-place overall ranking was down one spot from last year's survey, but the same as it was in 2016. In fact, 88% of respondents said they were "generally satisfied" with living in Mexico.
In addition to Mexico, three other Latin American countries made the survey's list of the top 10 places for expats to live in 2018. Ecuador ranked highest in third place, Costa Rica took seventh, and Colombia came in ninth.
To learn more about InterNations' Expat Insider survey, and see more 2018 rankings, reports and infographics, please visit internations.org.
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ROCKLAND, Me. The man who took care of Robert Indiana in the last years of his life told a probate court hearing Wednesday that he was paid roughly $250,000 a year to tend to the aging artist, whose estate and legacy are now the subject of acrimony and lawsuits.
Under questioning by Margaret Minister, a lawyer representing the estate, the caretaker, Jamie L. Thomas, said he had been earning $1,000 a week in 2013 when he started taking care of Mr. Indiana, who lived alone on Vinalhaven, an island off the coast here, until his death in May at 89.
By 2016, Mr. Thomas said, Mr. Indiana had elevated his salary to $5,000 a week for round-the-clock work that included bringing the artist meals, taking care of his dog and getting him to bed. He was also granted Mr. Indianas power of attorney, a post that typically entails a full range of additional responsibilities.
Mr. Thomas went on to describe Mr. Indiana as a generous employer. He said that the artist had given him at least 118 pieces of art since 2010.
Two very large storm systems are threatening millions of people.
A super typhoon in Southeast Asia could affect 43 million people, starting in the Philippines. The powerful storm currently packing winds of up to 150 miles per hour (about 240 kilometers per hour) is on track to hit the northern Philippines on Friday before barreling toward Taiwan. It may threaten Hong Kong and mainland China over the weekend. Above, the typhoon hitting the Mariana Islands.
Meanwhile, the U.S. is bracing for Hurricane Florence. Three million people in North and South Carolina stand to lose power and could be without it for a very long time, the head of the regions main electric utility said. The storm is charging toward the Carolinas and is expected to make landfall early Friday.
Given the dangerous nature of the storm, weve made our Hurricane Florence coverage available to everyone. Well have live updates at nytimes.com.
When Pew asked Americans in 2015 what was needed to be considered middle class, they said it was necessary to have a secure job and the ability to save money.
There was less agreement as to whether it was important to own a home or take vacations. And in 2015 a college education was seen as less relevant to middle-class status than it was in 2012.
After the Great Recession, there was a big increase in the number of people who identified as being lower class, said Tom W. Smith of NORC at the University of Chicago, a public opinion research center.
This measure is at 9 percent, the highest ever, said Dr. Smith, who runs the organizations Center for the Study of Politics and Society.
That may have to do with political rhetoric, he added, in particular Donald J. Trumps slogan, Make America Great Again, which suggests that typical Americans are not well off.
[Read more: The Great Recession knocked them down. Only some got up again.]
The size of the nations middle class has remained fairly stable since 2011, according to Pew. Even so, the income gap between upper-income households and middle- and lower-income households has widened, and the median wealth of middle-income Americans fell by 28 percent from 2001 to 2013, Pew reported.
Painting an even darker picture, in 2016, the most recent data available, the median income of middle-class households was about the same as in 2000, Pew said, in part because of the Great Recession and an earlier recession in 2001. In addition, the wealth gaps between upper-income families and lower- and middle-income families in 2016 were at the highest levels recorded, Pew said.
Mr. Lobl, who acted as a liaison to the Jewish community when he worked for Mr. Cuomo, declined to comment.
It is common for such liaisons to draft talking points and other material for campaigns. In the emails, Mr. Lobl went on to suggest that the campaign mailing include a photograph of the governor with President Reuven Rivlin of Israel, which appeared on the front side of the flier. The email also includes mentions of the governors accomplishments on Jewish causes, which were also detailed on the flier.
In a statement, Lis Smith, a spokeswoman for Mr. Cuomos campaign, confirmed that Mr. Lobl had written the initial email that inspired the mailer, and that Mr. Schwartz, who was volunteering on the governors campaign, had approved it. But she said Mr. Schwartz had not noticed the false claims on the reverse side.
Larry Schwartz, who serves on our campaign in a volunteer capacity, was reviewing mail pieces in an ad hoc fashion, but he only saw the positive section of the mailer and never saw the negative section, Ms. Smith said. Had he seen it, it would have never gone out. We have said all along that the mailer was inappropriate and a mistake and have worked with the state party to change the approval process going forward to ensure this never happens again.
In a phone interview on Wednesday night, Mr. Schwartz said that he was very upset by the mailers, noting that he is Jewish.
And now, the politics of age. Hey, this is important. Grow up and pay attention.
Young, left-leaning candidates are revolting against older, traditional Democrats in primary elections around the country. Meanwhile, the best-known, most talked-about potential presidential candidates are Bernie Sanders, 77; Joe Biden, 75; and Elizabeth Warren, 69.
And in the House, where the top three Democratic leaders are in hailing range of 80, theres a certain, um, restlessness on the part of the young folks.
I dont care how good you are there is a generational gap, said Representative Jim Himes of Connecticut. Himes, 52, is the head of the New Democrat Coalition, a caucus of moderate party members. There are a trillion of these groups in the House, but I feel safe in saying that the New Democrat Coalition is more important than, say, the Cement Caucus or the Auto Care Caucus.
We have had political generation gaps before. Back in the day, student protesters yelled Never trust anybody over 30! The people who did the yelling are now in their 70s, and I dare say have a more expansive view. The current gap is much more polite. (The millennials are coming!) In the House, it seems pretty much confined to the Democratic side of the aisle.
Automatic Voter Registration
Probably the most effective approach to getting more voters to the polls is to register people automatically whenever they interact with a state agency like the Department of Motor Vehicles. Since Oregon took the lead in 2016 , 12 other states and the District of Columbia have passed or begun to implement the practice. Automatic registration in New York could add as many as two million new voters.
Automation also improves the accuracy of voter rolls, which reduces the likelihood of fraud as well as of big administrative missteps, like the purge of more than 100,000 New York City voters from the rolls ahead of the 2016 elections.
Same-Day Voter Registration
Another simple fix for a common problem. Seventeen states and the District of Columbia permit people to register and vote on the same day; all but two of those also permit registration on Election Day. In New York, first-time voters must be registered no fewer than 25 days before a general election. The deadline for voters who want to change their party affiliation to vote in a primary is also 25 days before the general election of the previous year.
Lawmakers could easily pass most of these reforms, as well as others to make voting easier, including pre-registering 16- and 17-year-olds; keeping polling places open longer, particularly upstate; designing clearer ballots and making important voter information available in more languages; providing better training for poll workers; and holding federal and state primaries on the same day.
But while bills have been introduced in Albany, theyve gone nowhere. Gov. Andrew Cuomo has given lip service to voting reform, but hes done almost nothing, with the exception of his decision earlier this year to restore voting rights to 35,000 New Yorkers on parole.
As long as Albany dithers, cities and localities have the power to enact many reforms themselves. New York City did that with its small-donor matching funds program, which has reduced the power of big money in city politics and opened the door to a much wider and more diverse slate of candidates.
Its true that when voting is easier, more people vote. But New Yorkers cant blame bad laws and self-interested lawmakers entirely for their failure to show up at the polls. Even states with more aggressive anti-voter laws have better turnout than New York. By all means, lets change our comically bad election laws. But all the reforms in the world mean nothing unless New Yorkers get out and vote.
Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter (@NYTOpinion).
However, if youre the type who needs the latest and greatest, Samsung recently released its new Galaxy Watch. The watch comes in three new finishes including the ever-popular rose gold. It has NFC and a heart-rate monitor and starts at $329.99. Since this model is brand-new and most outlets havent had the opportunity to test it yet, were not totally jumping on the bandwagon, but keep an eye out for more reviews to decide for yourself.
The jack-of-all-trades smartwatch
If youre looking for a smartwatch thats a mix of the above two and offers both form and function, look no further than the Fossil Q Explorist and Venture. Both have been chosen by the Wirecutter, the New York Times company that reviews products, as top Android smartwatch picks.
The Explorist is the bigger of the two and comes in six styles varying from a smoke stainless steel to one in navy leather. It also has three buttons, two of which are customizable: The middle button activates Google Assistant if you hold it down, and otherwise functions as a way to return to the default watch face (the Venture, on the other hand, has only this button). The Venture comes in 10 colors and styles. Both watches range in price from $179 to $193.
Both watches lack GPS and heart-rate sensors, so theyre not ideal for anyone looking for a smartwatch thats also a true fitness tracker (and, they have water resistance only up to one meter).
But, if youre here for fashion, its important to note this key point from the Wirecutter review: If neither of these watches suits your look, Fossil has released more than 300 types of these watches across 14 brands like DKNY, Diesel and Skagen. Last month, Fossil unveiled updated versions of both watches that address a lot of the downsides to its tried-and-true models. The new models do have NFC, GPS, a heart sensor, altimeter, accelerometer and gyroscope, and they reportedly can be used for swimming. Theyre also too new to have been tested by Wirecutter or other outlets, but these new watches range from $255 to $275 and are worth a look if you prefer the bleeding edge.
The smartwatch made for iPhone owners
No list is complete without a mention of the Apple Watch (or the just-announced Apple Watch Series 4). Equipped with GPS, altimeter, swim tracking, and a heart sensor, it comes in a cellular-enabled version. The Wirecutter recommends buying the Apple Watch Series 3 if youre an iPhone user whos serious about tracking your activity, but who also wants the best integration with your phone.
The Apple Watch ranges from $329 to $1,399 depending on the style you crave. We recommend the Apple Watch without LTE, since most of the time, youll have your phone with you anyway. If youre serious about your fitness, the Apple Watch Nike+ is also a good buy. It comes with exclusive Nike watch faces designed for running and special Nike bands that either ventilate well or dry quickly.
Julio V. Ruiz, a 71-year-old retired psychiatrist with a long history of participating in talks with the Cuban government, tried to ignore the persistent knocking at his door by two strangers when they showed up uninvited one afternoon last week.
The rapping on the door went on for 15 minutes. It was the F.B.I.
Everyone tells you not to speak to them and to call your lawyer, Dr. Ruiz said. But you get scared. I was measured in what I said, and gave them a brief history of Cuba going back to the 19th century.
At least five Cuban-Americans in Miami, including Dr. Ruiz, who have opposed a trade embargo with Cuba and promoted better relations with the communist government in Havana, said they received surprise visits in the past week from federal agents.
The law enforcement representatives were vague about their intentions, gave only their first names, and asked questions that seemed intended to learn about contacts with Cuban diplomats, Dr. Ruiz said.
Even by the standards of todays political culture, it was a startling image: the talking trains from the childrens television show Thomas & Friends, wearing Ku Klux Klan hoods.
That was what viewers of the National Rifle Associations online video channel saw as Dana Loesch, a spokeswoman for the gun rights group, took the show to task for diversifying its cast.
Theyve decided that the next stop is Virtue Town, Ms. Loesch said Friday on Relentless, the NRATV program that she hosts. She was responding to news that the childrens show was adding several female and international characters.
Gov. Gina Raimondo of Rhode Island defeated a liberal challenger in a Democratic primary election on Wednesday, according to The Associated Press, reasserting herself as the partys leader in a state where she has battled criticism from activists on the left and intransigence from old-guard lawmakers in her own camp.
Ms. Raimondo, 47, is expected to face a serious fight for re-election in November despite Rhode Islands Democratic lean and the difficult political climate for Republicans nationwide. Polls have consistently shown her vulnerable to defeat, though she and her allies believe it will be difficult for any Republican to escape the shadow of President Trump, who is fairly unpopular in the state.
She will face Allan Fung, the Republican mayor of Cranston who also ran against her four years ago in November.
Complicating matters for both parties, Joe Trillo, a former Republican state legislator who chaired Mr. Trumps campaign in Rhode Island, is also running for governor as an independent.
But Senate Democrats and Republicans who have taken a harder line on Russian interference said the executive order fell short and that only legislation could force tough action against Moscow. A sanctions bill passed last year forced the administration to enact two rounds of sanctions this year.
Something is better than nothing, but I doubt it will be a substitute for legislation, said Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, one of the leading Republican sanctions proponents.
Senators Marco Rubio, Republican of Florida, and Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland, have written a bill, the Deter Act, to impose mandatory sanctions on anyone who attacks the American election.
While the executive order would primarily target the people and entities that attack the election system, lawmakers said, the Senate legislation would have wider economic sanctions targeting financial institutions, oligarchs and others.
In an interview, Mr. Van Hollen said the executive order was merely a version of his legislation without the teeth.
The Russians need to know the response will be certain and severe, and the executive order provides neither of those key elements, he said. As I look at this, it seems aimed more at deterring congressional action on the Deter Act than deterring Putins interference in our elections.
Mr. Van Hollen predicted that if the measure got a vote on the Senate floor, it would pass with a comfortable bipartisan majority. But the challenge will be getting the bill to the floor.
WASHINGTON Since President Trump took office, residents of deep-blue Washington and the surrounding suburbs and activists from everywhere have found plenty of ways, some more creative than others, to express their anger at him. One reliable target has been the Trump International Hotel just down Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House.
Business owners and ethics lawyers have targeted the hotel with a steady series of lawsuits. Others have projected a steady flow of provocative messages including the less than subtle accusation Emoluments Welcome directly onto the buildings facade.
The latest attempt to protest the president by targeting the hotel came on Wednesday, just as Mr. Trump was getting ready to welcome Republican donors to the hotel. A group of citizens with the help of lawyers and the financial backing of Jerry Hirsch, an Arizona-based Republican and chairman of the Lodestar Foundation asked the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board of the District of Columbia to review whether the president met the citys good character test for holding a liquor license.
The original 27-page complaint was filed in June, and was festooned with footnotes that point to reports of ethical breaches though the complaint said the number of such lies is too long to list. As the summer passed, the complaint grew by dozens of pages as news surrounding the Trump White House unfolded.
We are working closely with our Mexican counterparts to confront rising border apprehension numbers specifically, a 38 percent increase in families this month alone directly and to ensure that those with legitimate claims have access to appropriate protections, Ms. Waldman said.
A spokesman for the Mexican Embassy did not immediately respond Wednesday to a request for comment.
The plan, which has been debated internally for months, is part of a broader push by the Trump administration to redirect billions in foreign assistance to other priorities. The administration has yet to spend nearly $3 billion in foreign aid, money allocated last year by Congress with broad bipartisan support. Hundreds of millions of dollars meant to help stabilize Syria and support Palestinian schools and hospitals has already been redirected.
While the administration has made several announcements about not spending on priorities Congress intended, it has mostly kept quiet about what it will do with the money. But it has long been frustrated that Congress provides billions for foreign aid while refusing to fund its immigration priorities. The money will be transferred from the State Department to the Department of Homeland Security, and then sent to Mexico.
Congress intended for this money to lift up communities dealing with crime, corruption and so many other challenges, not to expand this administrations deportation crusade, said Representative Eliot L. Engel of New York, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. I want answers about why the State Department thinks it can ignore Congress and dump more cash into deportation efforts. Until then, Ill do whatever I can to stop this.
The maneuver is the latest by the administration to reduce the number of immigrants crossing the southwestern border. The most prominent piece of the effort has been the zero tolerance policy to criminally prosecute any immigrant who enters the country without authorization. That led to the widely criticized practice of separating children from their parents at the border, which spurred a humanitarian and political crisis for Mr. Trump.
OTTAWA A Canadian court has spoken. But Doug Ford, Ontarios premier, says he knows better.
Mr. Ford, a combative right-wing politician who has often been compared to President Trump, wants to cut the Toronto City Council in half, saying the move would reduce costs and bureaucracy. Ontarios Superior Court, a trial-level court, on Monday declared the effort unconstitutional.
Mr. Ford fired back on Wednesday by calling an emergency session of the Ontario legislature to invoke a rarely used federal law that allows provinces and the federal government to override, through new legislation, judicial decisions and parts of Canadas constitution.
This is about preserving the will of the people, this is about preserving democracy, Mr. Ford told lawmakers.
His political opponents, as well as some political allies in his Progressive Conservative party, say he has gone too far.
BERLIN More than 3,600 children, most age 13 or younger, were sexually abused by Catholic clergy members over the past seven decades, a wide-ranging report has found.
The study, which was commissioned by the Roman Catholic Church bishops conference in Germany, found that at least 1,670 church workers had been involved in the abuse of 3,677 children. That is 4.4 percent of the clergy.
The study, conducted by researchers from three universities over more than four years, was an ambitious effort to understand the scale of the abuse and how it could have been systematically covered up for so many decades.
We are aware of the extent of the sexual abuse that is supported by the results of the study, said Bishop Stephan Ackermann of Trier. It is depressing and shameful.
BERLIN Germanys head of domestic intelligence was accused by lawmakers of playing down far-right violence by questioning the authenticity of a video showing a foreigner being chased during anti-immigrant protests.
Hans-Georg Maassen, who oversees the intelligence agency, had to explain his statements before two closed parliamentary committees on Wednesday as calls for his resignation intensified among politicians and pundits.
In an interview published Friday, Mr. Maassen directly contradicted Chancellor Angela Merkel when he said that he had no evidence for the widely reported hounding of dark-skinned bystanders during far-right protests in the eastern city of Chemnitz two weeks ago. The term hounding was used by the chancellor and the government spokesman to describe the events.
But Mr. Maassen said he had reason to believe that a widely circulated video clip which showed a white man chasing a darker-skinned young man down the street constituted targeted misinformation. When he was ordered by the government to provide evidence for his comments, Mr. Maassen changed his stance.
Apportioning blame occupies a cottage industry of analysts, ex-negotiators, lobbyists and partisans.
In fact, both sides have failed to pursue or engage meaningfully in peace talks since an Obama administration attempt to restart negotiations imploded in 2014. And both sides, early on, undermined what in retrospect was an extremely fragile achievement.
It was a right-wing Israeli extremist who massacred 29 Muslims in Hebron in 1994, setting off a first wave of bombings, and another who assassinated Mr. Rabin in 1995, gravely imperiling Oslo. It was Israel that halted agreed-upon withdrawals from occupied territory, leaving itself in full control of 60 percent of the West Bank. Israels unilateral withdrawal from Gaza was so abrupt that critics say it contributed to the Hamas takeover.
And Israel has expanded settlements, not only seizing more land but also demoralizing its Palestinian neighbors, said Daniel C. Kurtzer, a former American ambassador to Israel. On one side of the road is a Palestinian village, and on the other side is a brand-new Israeli town with red-roofed houses, swimming pools, greenery and trees, and on a commanding hill, he said.
But there is also much for the Palestinians to rue in their own decisions and actions.
Whatever the justification, Palestinian violence crippled the peace process and led to other lasting setbacks: Israels re-invasion of West Bank cities in 2002, when it destroyed much the authority had built, and its construction of a barrier wall that bred resentment, entrenched some land grabs, and in achieving the laudable goal of reducing terrorist attacks allowed Israelis to largely tune out the Palestinians and the occupation altogether.
In hindsight, many analysts say, it was a mistake for the Palestinians to let the Israelis defer talk of core issues of the conflict permanent borders, the fate of the Palestinian refugees and the Palestinian demand for a capital in Jerusalem until final-status talks. It was a mistake not to insist on an explicit clause in the interim agreements freezing further Israeli settlement expansion where the Palestinians envisaged their state. And it was a mistake for the Palestinians to bargain away recognition of the state of Israels right to exist, and a renunciation of violence, for little more than Israeli recognition of the Palestine Liberation Organization as the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people.
What they got, said Mr. Kurtzer, who remembers a sinking feeling evident on the faces of some Palestinians at the 1993 ceremony, was poorly negotiated.
Our guide to stand-up, improv and variety shows happening this weekend and in the week ahead, plus a Times Talks event.
THE BEST OF WOKE AF at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater East Village (Sept. 14, 9 p.m.). At Nicole Pasquales ongoing comedy series, performers wax poetic about the social issues they are passionate about to make the audience laugh. This installment is a special edition that invites past Woke AF participants back to the stage to do it all over again. Sydnee Washington, Aileen Clark, Peter Valenti, Anna Suzuki and Angel Yau will perform.
212-366-9231, east.ucbtheatre.com
BROOKLYN COMEDY FESTIVAL at various locations (Sept. 17-23). This festival, now in its sixth year, pays tribute to the embarrassment of riches that New York has to offer by way of comedy. The Brooklyn scene is especially vibrant, with a number of popular clubs peppered across the borough. In the coming week, nine of them will play host to live stand-up, film screenings, a panel with the creators of HBOs Animals and so much more.
bkcomedyfestival.com
No! No! No! Every generation of modernist artists has applied a firm negative to points championed by the previous generation. In the 1960s, when large parts of the world were still taken aback by the dance negations implied or stated by Martha Graham (no to frivolity or merely surface psychology), George Balanchine (no to most decor or costume excess), and Merce Cunningham (no to conventional musicality), the young rebels around the Judson Memorial Church in New York went further.
In a now-famous manifesto, the dancer-choreographer Yvonne Rainer wrote No to spectacle. No to virtuosity. No to transformations and magic and make-believe and 10 further noes. She, Trisha Brown, David Gordon and other dance experimentalists became associated with paring dance down to new essentials. Their influence has grown, both in New York and internationally; there are young and youngish choreographers today who seem inhibited by the Judson legacy, eager to keep earning their Judson qualifications.
Now the Museum of Modern Art presents Judson Dance Theater: The Work Is Never Done (Sept. 16-Feb. 3). By means of live performance, film, photography, sculpture, musical scores, poetry and archival materials, it will chart Judson Dance Theaters history. The filmmaker and multidisciplinary artist Charles Atlas will be a central link.
The exhibition is to feature several core Judson figures in successive waves: Yvonne Rainer (Sept. 16-23), Deborah Hay (Sept. 24- Oct. 7), David Gordon (Oct. 8-21), Lucinda Childs (Oct. 22-Nov. 4), Steve Paxton (Nov. 19-Dec. 16) and Trisha Brown (Dec. 17-Jan. 16). For those who missed the original Judson moment and who have experienced these artists in separate contexts, the MoMA show will be an opportunity to reassess and rethink history and to watch works, long unperformed, that once seemed to redefine dance: Do they still seem challenging and important? Performances, sometimes two or three a day, will be accompanied by historical film footage.
Our guide to dance performances happening this weekend and in the week ahead.
AIRBORNE FESTIVAL at the Manhattan Movement Arts Center (Sept. 15, 8 p.m.; Sept. 16, 2:30 p.m.). Robert Davidson was a much-loved dance artist and teacher who championed aerial expressive dance, which fuses elements of contemporary dance with equipment like low-flying trapezes to take the action aloft. Mr. Davidson died suddenly in 2016 and this years Airborne Festival is dedicated to his memory. A number of aerial artists from around the country, several influenced by Mr. Davidsons teachings, will perform.
877-987-6487, manhattanmovement.com
GABRI CHRISTA at the Theater Lab (Sept. 15 and Sept. 19-22, 8 p.m.). The choreographer and filmmaker Gabri Christa tells a very personal story in her new multimedia solo work, Magdalena, based on the life of her mother, who survived the bombing of her hometown in Holland during World War II, married a black man from Curacao and, later in life, began suffering from dementia. Through stories, dance and film, Ms. Christa creates a narrative that, as she describes it, is part family album, part story of love and race and a reckoning with the harrowing consequences of a devastating illness.
866-811-4111, www.theaterlabnyc.com
DANSPACE PROJECT AT TIMES SQUARE (Sept. 20-23, 6-10 p.m.). Starting on Thursday, Times Square Arts and Danspace Project present three site-specific contemporary dance works commissioned to remind us of the districts history as a generator of many types of performance. Beginning at 6 p.m. in Duffy Square, at the northern tip of Times Square, Laurie Berg presents Scape, which nods to the 1991 musical The Will Rogers Follies. At 7 p.m. in nearby Broadway Plaza at 44th Street, viewers will find Luciana Achugars New Mass Dance, a tribute to the New Dance Group, a collective that mixed left-wing politics and modern dance in the 1930s. At 8 p.m., back in Duffy Square, the breakdance collective Full Circle Souljahs traces the development of street dance from the 1970s to today.
danspaceproject.org
That spring, Chagall invited El Lissitzky, another native of Vitebsk and a former student of Yehuda Pen, to lead the graphic design workshop. Before that year, in Kiev, El Lissitzky was occupied mostly with illustrating Jewish books, but in 1919 he wholeheartedly embraced a Communist aesthetic, with new forms for a new society. Back in Vitebsk he produced abstract agitprop, like the classic poster Beat the Whites With the Red Wedge, or else a propaganda billboard for Vitebsks Committee to Combat Unemployment, seen here in a photograph, whose bold graphics of circles and rectangles were light-years from Chagalls soaring jumpers. The same new orientation came through in El Lissitzkys Prouns: abstract compositions of floating geometric shapes whose name was an acronym for project for the affirmation of the new.
By years end, Lissitzky had invited another abstract artist to join him Kasimir Malevich. Why did Malevich leave Moscow for a provincial town whose population was less than 100,000? He was starving in his unheated garret, and the offer of sustained employment far from the upheavals of the civil war would have been hard for him (and his pregnant wife) to refuse. Moreover, Malevich was turning away from painting by the late 1910s. He advocated for Suprematism, with its simple geometric forms in solid red and black, in his 1919 essay On New Systems in Art, which Lissitzkys students printed on the Vitebsk academys presses and circulated nationwide. And his lessons on abstract painting and spiritual and political regeneration became the academys hottest course.
The kids loved Malevich. They plastered the sides of Vitebsks buildings and streetcars with geometric forms, and started to wear black squares sewn on their jackets. They established a collective called Unovis, or Affirmers of the New Art, and designed posters, stage sets, and also practical materials for the revolution, such as a speakers rostrum in the form of a diagonal elevator, topped by a billboard shouting PROLETARIANS. Other professors, too, began to align their art with the new instructors, as this show proves through fascinating works by the lesser-known artist David Yakerson, born in Vitebsk. We meet him in this shows first gallery, where his illustrative watercolor of Red Guards marching past smoke stacks won Chagalls approval as decoration for Vitebsks celebrations of 1918. But by 1920 he was painting watercolors of circles, squares and triangles gliding through seas of gray.
Poor Chagall, once so encouraging of pedagogical diversity, found himself sidelined at his own academy. He left for Moscow in 1920, where he made sarcastic stage designs that poked at the Suprematist usurpers. (A composition for a drop curtain placed two floating blue circles alongside one of Chagalls signature goats.) But Lissitzky and Malevichs moment would fade quickly too. By 1922, the victorious Bolsheviks started meddling in the schools affairs and funding dried up. Malevich left for Petersburg, Lissitzky for Berlin and the Vitebsk academy quickly closed.
I saw this show in its initial presentation at the Pompidou, and although it looks great here in New York, it is smaller, for sensible reasons and frustrating ones. Sensible: Ms. Lampe has recalibrated the show as it migrated from the Pompidous unadorned spaces to the Jewish Museums Beaux-Arts mansion, and the elegant hang justifies a few abbreviations. Frustrating: thanks to a long-running restitution dispute, Russian state museums are prohibited from lending works of art to American exhibitions. (There are no such restrictions in Belarus, the last dictatorship in Europe, and this show includes little-seen works on paper from the small Vitebsk Regional Museum of Local History.) States put art to their own uses, and the Vitebsk students confidence in the social power of art looks unlikely to convince again. Still, not every art school needs goals as grand as nationwide revolution. Art school is also a place to dream together.
Five images by Diane Arbus that have never been seen before by the public will be exhibited at the David Zwirner Gallery in New York in November, inaugurating the gallerys new collaboration with the Fraenkel Gallery in San Francisco in representing the Arbus estate.
The photographs will appear as a part of the first complete presentation of Arbuss Untitled series, the last body of work she created before her death in 1971. Untitled is composed of 65 images made at residences for the developmentally disabled from 1969 to 1971. The exhibition will open on Nov. 2.
I feel this body of work is as radical now as it must have been in the early 70s, David Zwirner said in an interview on Wednesday. Theyre so personal. Theyre so difficult to look at to this day.
Theyre so warm, on the one hand, and so devastating, on the other, he added. The emotional range she expresses is extraordinary.
WEST NEW YORK, N.J. Two shrouded female figures rise from a sumptuous landscape of dark velvet and wax-dipped silk flowers. One is imperious in posture, the other turns away in stubborn resistance. Their tense standoff seems to charge the roiling swells and eddies of material between them.
This just-completed piece by Petah Coyne stretched across the artists expansive studio here during a late-summer visit one of her many extravagant and psychologically complex sculptures. Several Neo-Baroque chandeliers dangled from the ceiling, laden with wax flowers, taxidermy birds, religious statuary, tassels, bows and thickets of chicken wire coated with black sand. Silver peacocks, like ladies in waiting, were poised to be pressed into service on future works.
The new velvet work, Untitled #1379 (The Doctors Wife), has become the centerpiece of Ms. Coynes exhibition, Having Gone I Will Return, through Oct. 27 at Galerie Lelong & Co. Its her first solo show in New York in a decade.
No matter how much free time you have this weekend, we have TV recommendations for you. Come back every Friday for new suggestions on what to watch.
This Weekend I Have Four Hours, and Im Melancholy
Forever
When to watch: Starting Friday, on Amazon.
Fred Armisen and Maya Rudolph star as Oscar and June, a married couple whose routine has become so rigid its stultifying. Forever takes a few very surprising turns early on as it settles into a hazy exploration of the point and challenges of partnership. Watch the eight half-hour episodes in a row if at all possible; the narrative effect is cumulative.
Forever is occasionally funny, though more quirky than ha-ha-ha, but it is also quite sad. Its very comfortable around its characters loneliness, the slow despair of the devil you know choices and the alienation of midcentury houses that are so well maintained theyre more mausoleum than home.
Fiction podcasts have always felt one step behind the culture. The audio dramas great and unexpected resurgence in this decade, thanks to the rise of podcastings listen-whenever-and-wherever-you-like technology, has produced a cutting-edge genre that seems somehow suspended in time.
Maybe its because so many scripted podcasts have borrowed from old radio plays. Or maybe its because theyve so often leaned into genre storytelling, leaving social reality behind to build fantasy worlds and unravel mysteries. The experimental sandbox of the new form has produced sharp plots and intriguing aural soundscapes but few stories that seem to access something bigger than themselves.
The moment that changed, for me, came when I was white-knuckling the pole in a crowded subway car, piping the pilot of the politically charged dystopian fantasy Adventures in New America into my ears (the premiere is on Sept. 28). I began to sense the world developing in my head as more immediate than the human crush of my commute. I felt something similar a few days later, running down the street and listening to the first episode of The Horror of Dolores Roach (Oct. 17). Its a show with Sweeney Todd elements that also draws in threads about gentrification and racist policing, and it was so absorbing that I missed my turn by three blocks.
Adventures In New America created and written by the filmmaker Stephen Winter and his longtime collaborator Tristan Cowen, and produced by Night Vale Presents is set in a new nation formed after an unidentified cataclysmic event. New America is a lot like old America. Its brimming with bizarre patriotic displays. Its going through a poke bowl craze. Every social interaction brings a heady mix of performative wokeness and racist microaggression. Its kind of like America 2: More American. Or as Mr. Cowen puts it: The dystopian future is our present. Meanwhile, a mysterious new race has arrived, known in the show as Tetchy Terrorist Vampire Zombies from outer space. The zombies are both extremely racist and highly sensitive about their own identities the various supernatural labels attached to them in New America are, to their mind, not very P.C.
1. Rains from Hurricane Florence lashed the Carolina coast, with the storm growing in size and packing sustained winds of up to 100 miles an hour.
The National Hurricane Center said the storm was likely to maintain its intensity until the eye made landfall early Friday. The storm is forecast to crawl inland, drenching a wide area with extremely heavy rains, up to 40 inches in some parts.
The Times is providing unlimited access to coverage of the storm for all readers. Keep up with the latest here, and look at the full range of coverage here.
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Good morning.
Heres what you need to know:
Detention of migrant children skyrockets
Population levels at federally contracted shelters for young immigrants have shot up more than fivefold since last summer, to the highest level ever recorded, according to data obtained by The Times.
There were 12,800 migrant children in custody this month. Some of those who work in the shelter network say bottlenecks are straining both the children and the system that cares for them.
In a recent note to Congress, the White House said it intended to pay Mexico $20 million to deport as many as 17,000 people who are in that country illegally.
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SAN FRANCISCO They erected a mini oil rig, locked arms through oil drums and sat down on the street. Keep it in the ground, their banners read. No more fossil fuels, they chanted.
Protesters gathered at the Global Climate Action Summit on Thursday morning as mayors, ministers, environmentalists and corporate executives poured into the Moscone Center conference hall. By 9:30 a.m., only one entrance was open, and a long line spooled out at another entrance, tightly guarded by the police.
The message of the protesters, who were mostly peaceful, was mainly directed at the California governor, Jerry Brown, calling on him to stop oil drilling in the state and protect residents who live close to oil facilities.
Cesar Aguirre, 24, a community organizer from Kern County in central California, said his neighbors suffered the health effects of oil wells and refineries. They see the dirty air, he said. They know its getting hotter and hotter. They know whats causing it.
A cafe counter against one wall displays almond croissants and brownies behind a glass partition (the best brownies Ive had in Australia), and the espresso machine is constantly in use. The staff is young and Thai and queer and straight some speak very little English while some speak little-to-no Thai. This is an Australian cafe through the lens of modern-day downtown Sydney, which is now just as Asian as it is anything else.
Jarern Chai and Boon Cafe opened together in 2015, and are part of a local chain of businesses. In 1989, Amy Chanta opened a restaurant called Chat Thai in Darlinghurst. It did not last, but Ms. Chanta opened a new location in Haymarket in 1993 that gained a loyal following as one of the first restaurants in Sydneys now-booming Thai scene to offer fresh, uncompromising, non-Westernized cooking. Today, Ms. Chanta runs 11 businesses with her family.
Boon was spearheaded mainly by Palisa Anderson, Ms. Chantas daughter, who wanted to present food that spoke to her generation. On Boons daytime menu, the spicy Thai herbs and pork sausage come mixed into a plate of fusilli, and you can get your nahm prik makua the spicy eggplant relish from northern Thailand over brown rice or as a sourdough sandwich. This isnt fusion as much as it is the food of two fused cultures, one in which second- and third-generation Asian-Australian kids operate comfortably.
At night, the menu turns more exclusively toward Isaan, the region in northeastern Thailand that heavily relies on fermentation and chiles. With the move to more traditional cooking, nothing is dumbed down or purposefully altered for Western tastes quite the opposite. Theres something punk rock about this daytime playfulness matched with an evening menu that pulls zero punches. Many Thai-Australians revel in the uncompromising heat and aroma of the food of their heritage, and there is no lack of either at Boon.
Its been some time since I last visited the Anderson Valley, a bucolic sliver of coastal Mendocino County, where Pacific fogs glide through the towering California redwoods, playing cat and mouse with the rising sun.
It used to feel remote, a land of intrepid pioneers and self-sufficient individualists who were thrilled to be off the grid. The town of Boonville, in particular, cultivated a mythology of isolation, enhanced by the development in the 19th century of a local dialect, Boontling. It lives on both as artifact and tourist attraction, emphasizing the divide between locals and visitors.
The wines were often just as idiosyncratic, refusing to toe a line set by some other region or publication. The land and the climate were conducive to good pinot noir, and, by the early years of the 21st century, the valley had gained a reputation for a leaner, more balanced style than the powerful, jammy wines that were then fashionable.
A lot has changed in the Anderson Valley in the last 15 years. The region caught the eye of successful producers in other parts of California, and they have flocked en masse. Some simply buy grapes and transport them back to their bases to make wines. Some have planted or bought vineyards, while a few have gone so far as to establish winemaking facilities here.
Teenagers need freedom and independence
Look. We understand. Youre concerned about your childs well-being, and you want to be able to assure their safety at all times. However, you grew up without your parents having access to your location, and Id like to think you turned out okay, so let your kids have the same freedom. Sure, if your kid is constantly doing things that warrant surveillance, go ahead and surveil, but location-tracking for location-trackings sake is not a good thing for you, who will be constantly suspicious of your child, or for the kid, who will forever be trying to swindle you, even if they wouldnt have otherwise.
Aeddon, Providence
For the most part, I understand where parents are coming from. With full-time jobs and other responsibilities, it can be nerve wrecking to not know where your child is 24/7 however by using GPS to monitor their every movement, where does that leave room for trust and communication? Sure it can be very tempting and it can give the parent some relief, but at the end of the day, its an invasion of privacy and it could cause a rift between the child and parent.
Wilmarie, Providence, R.I.
My parents have never tracked my location. If they did I wouldnt talk to them anymore. That is a betrayal of trust in my eyes. It would just ruin our relationship completely. If you have to worry where your teen is going, then why let them go out? Or confront them about whatever you assume is going on. They are going to be adults soon, they should be treated like one.
ethan comet, horton
Personally, I wouldnt want my parent to track me every second of every day. But who would? I can understand why parents are so concerned about the well being of their child and their whereabouts but, they have to understand that they cant always protect us. They work. We go to school. Having a parent constantly watching your every move also causes a rift in a parent-child relationship. If a child feels like they are being smothered or that they arent trusted, they will push their parent away. That is the one thing a parent doesnt want. So why do they do it?
Jasmine Moran, Providence, R.I.
Have a conversation first
What makes a strong relationship between parents and their children is honesty, trust, and communication. Parents and teens should be able to sit down together and decide whether they would liked to be tracked or not. Some teens may feel safer knowing that parents can keep tabs on them. Others may feel as if their is a lack of trust between their parents and them. Parents should not track their teens unless it is what the teen perfers.
Paige, Rhode Island
My parents have used the Life360 app for about a year now. It enables them to see our familys phones battery percent and location. My parents started using this to track me during my sport seasons when I was on the field and not answering my phone. The app helped them pick me up at the correct locations at the right time. When my phone dies, my parents are all also able to locate me without me calling them. Although I believe this is a valid explanation for tracking me, I dont like having my parents constantly hover over me and have immediate access to my location. I believe it sometimes compromises my privacy, even though they are my family. This being said, tracking my location can be very useful during an emergency which outweighs all the annoying and frustration I may have with my parents tracking my location.
Sophia, Providence
The world is a dangerous place
Teens think that they can make the right decisions and can take care of themselves. But anything can happen. You could get kidnapped, killed, trafficked. I know that if something like that were to happen to me, I would be thankful for my parents tracking me. Honestly, most kids are worried about getting caught doing something bad, like being at a party, a concert or anything that they really werent supposed to do I would much rather get in trouble with my parents, than be in trouble with a kidnapper, where no one can find me.
Jazlyncomet, Hanover Horton high school
Doy Gorton grew up deep in the most Southern place on earth : the Mississippi Delta.
He was a child of privilege, attending segregated schools and escorting debutantes to the Old South ball wearing a Confederate uniform and sporting a sword. At the University of Mississippi in 1961, he pledged the fraternity founded by Robert E. Lee, which was fitting, as men on both sides of Mr. Gortons family fought for the South during the Civil War.
But the old order, which Mr. Gorton described as based on legal white supremacy and the plantation system, was collapsing. In 1962, James Meredith became the first African-American student to register at the University of Mississippi, and Mr. Gorton began organizing protests and events against segregation at school .
The Murphy bed offered a solution. Each morning, we wake up, pile pillows and blankets in the corner and push the bed up, where it slips into an upright frame so discreet that your eye slides right over it. Presto: The bedroom is transformed into a work space. At night, the contraption is flipped down again, the linen goes back on and we take advantage of a minor engineering marvel sacking out on a queen-size mattress that sits not on a bed, per se, but on a cantilever measuring 87.5 inches by 65.5 inches, a wall temporarily gone horizontal.
The 21st century is a golden age of convertible furniture and space-saving hacks: modular couches, bookshelves that collapse into dining tables, tiny houses whose every centimeter is exploited and optimized. The Murphy bed was the ur-hack. It was, in the words of one encyclopedia of inventions, pioneering in the field of motion furniture, the spiritual progenitor of sleeper sofas and La-Z-Boy recliners. The first mass-produced retractable beds date to the late 19th century. Sometime around 1900, William L. Murphy, a San Francisco entrepreneur, established the Murphy Wall Bed Company, a brand name that became a generic name. In the 1920s and 30s, Murphy beds proliferated, in a variety of models and designs beds that folded up on hinges or rotated back on pivots, beds that were concealed behind cabinets or sprang out of closets. The name William Murphy gave to the device in his original patent carried a whiff of magic: Disappearing Bed.
There was a time when Murphy beds signified a kind of deviance. They were associated with noir midcentury urban life, with fleabag hotels and S.R.O.s, with single men leading marginal, vaguely seedy lives. Think of Edward Hoppers Nighthawks: Surely that loner at the diner counter shuffled home to sleep, and smoke, on his foldaway bed. In 2018, though, the Murphy bed has been gentrified. Todays versions are designed for respectable marital homes and have price points to match. For a couple thousand bucks, you get more than a good piece of furniture. You get a nostalgia trip: a reminder, in an era dominated by alienating interactions with digital devices, of the tactile satisfactions of Machine Age technology. My bed has an ingenious system of pivots and pistons; it swings open with easy grace and claps closed with a pleasing thud. Even if I didnt need to take the bed out and stow it away every day, I might do so anyway, for kicks.
Whats more: Murphy beds are sexy. According to legend, Murphy invented his disappearing bed so he could receive a female visitor in his studio flat without scandalizing the neighbors. Today our moral code is more permissive, but the Murphy bed still carries an erotic charge. A regular old bed just sits there, inert, banal, a little sad. But a Murphy bed pops out of the wall boing! like the punch line to a dirty joke. It is an instant boudoir. You pull down your Murphy bed and a saucy question seems to hang in the air: Now what?
Of course, for the space-starved apartment dweller, hemmed in by low ceilings and swarming children, some things are sexier than sex. The real frisson comes when you move the Murphy bed in the other direction, tucking away the retractable legs, shoving it up into its frame. Ive repeated this routine every day for years, and the result never fails to produce a spasm of shock and delight. There, suddenly, improbably, is an expanse of bare floor that may measure only 100 square feet but seems somehow far larger. Its a magic trick indeed: Abracadabra, an empty room.
Re: The Everyman
Carvell Wallace profiled the actor Riz Ahmed, who has discovered how to excel beyond tidy genres.
I enjoyed reading this profile. Riz Ahmed is a worthy subject, and Carvell Wallace is a talented writer. I was taken aback, however, by a couple of the writers descriptions of events. He goes on a long riff about how people in the Metropolitan Museum of Arts lobby wouldnt recognize this slight South Asian man as the superstar he is. Immediately before this, the writer notes that he and Ahmed are sharing breakfast at a white cafe. I, a South Asian woman, happened to be seated next to them that day. Of course, I recognized Ahmed as soon as he arrived, but I waited until he was leaving to publicly laud him for his work. After he left, the two millennial women (one South Asian, the other East Asian) sitting next to me and my friend burst into squeals of delight. Not only did they recognize him but they were also megafans who had gone to several of his concerts as well as seen everything he had done. I think the writer was getting at the fact that white people wouldnt recognize Ahmed which is fine, but he might have made that clear. Anita Jain, Brooklyn
When it comes to the last presidential election, the past is still not over. That much is clear in American Chaos, a documentary whose maker caught a whiff of Donald J. Trumps early momentum and set out to interview some of his supporters in the months before Nov. 8, 2016.
That filmmaker, James D. Stern, was perplexed by a growing number of people backing Mr. Trump. Camera in hand, he spoke with Cuban immigrants in Florida, coal miners in West Virginia, a rancher in Arizona and others, at least one of whom said he twice voted for Barack Obama. Mr. Stern attended the Republican National Convention, and returned to Florida for election night.
In 2012, Julie Keith found a hidden letter in a box of Halloween decorations she bought at Kmart. The writer, Sun Yi, told of being imprisoned in a camp in Masanjia, China, where he and others were forced into slave labor. He asked the finder to help expose their plight. Ms. Keith, of Damascus, Ore., took it to The Oregonian newspaper, whose subsequent article was widely read around the world.
The journey of that letter, and the tale of Mr. Suns detention and torture, is recounted in Letter From Masanjia, a potent documentary that pushes the story still further after his release.
In 1985, on Christmas Eve, thieves broke into the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City and stole nearly 150 Mayan artifacts, including a jade burial mask. That robbery is reconstructed in Museo, Alonso Ruizpalacioss new film, but not quite in the usual based-on-a-true-story heist-movie manner. Slow-moving and grand, with lush music and elegant wide-screen compositions, it feels less like a thriller than a poetic, intermittently comic meditation on beauty, history and middle-class disaffection.
The crime is the work not of a gang of criminal geniuses, but of a pair of underachieving suburban 20-somethings Wilson (Leonardo Ortizgris), the narrator and sidekick, and Juan (Gael Garcia Bernal), the mastermind. They live in Satellite City, a modern development dominated by stark, brightly colored towers. Juan chafes under the disapproving authority of his father (Alfredo Castro), a doctor, and squabbles with his siblings. Hes obnoxious and thoughtless, the kind of guy who ruins Christmas by telling his little nieces and nephews where the presents are hidden.
Wilson, a nervous, sensitive fellow whose mustache somehow has the effect of undermining the machismo its meant to enhance, is a classic follower. He would absolutely jump off a bridge if Juan told him to, but hed have a lot of questions and hesitations before making the leap. Whats remarkable, at least at first, is how easy the caper turns out to be. In the absence of motion detectors or effective security cameras, all thats required is a modicum of stealth and coordination, and a priceless bundle of cultural patrimony vanishes into the night.
In recent years, Ms. Purser has become more comfortable with her identity. She came out as bisexual on Twitter in 2017. People were, on the whole, so supportive, which really meant a lot, she said. I like being known for who I am.
She channeled her earlier insecurities into Barb, an awkward outsider whose gruesome death in Season 1 of Stranger Things inspired a passionate response on social media. Im very glad people noticed I was really putting my heart and soul into that part, because I didnt know if I would ever get to play one again, Ms. Purser said of her screen debut. I was like, Id better do my very best, and I think it paid off.
That it did. She earned an Emmy nomination in 2017 for best guest actress in a drama. It was completely unexpected, said Ms. Purser, who was on a flight to Vancouver to shoot a recurring role on CWs cult-hit Archie Comics adaptation, Riverdale, when the nominations were announced. I landed and turned my phone off airplane mode, and all these congratulatory texts came flooding in. I went into complete shock I was shaking. I wanted to stand up and shout, I just got nominated for an Emmy, but I didnt. (The Emmy ultimately went to Alexis Bledel for The Handmaids Tale.)
The nomination was somewhat bittersweet, since Barb had already been killed off. Ms. Purser didnt initially know her character was going to die. My makeup artist said, We need you to come in and test out your death makeup, and I was like, Excuse me?
It took Ms. Purser time to absorb the shocking news: It was a bit heartbreaking, she said. Its like your first relationship even though you know it has to end, youre like: But what if it never happens again? What if I never date anybody else?
But there was a benefit to the characters exit. Barbs death was my favorite scene to shoot, Ms. Purser said. It was just me and Shawn Levy, the episodes director, on this incredible set they had built, and thats when it sunk in that acting was my job. I was doing the thing Id dreamed about for so long.
She hopes to extend that newfound feeling of belonging. As fun as it is to be the nerdy best friend, she said, Im capable of more than that, and I feel that I have emotions to share, and there are roles I can add something to. I just hope there are other people who are willing to take that chance on me and let me tell their stories.
Fiona visits him at the hospital before rendering a verdict. The encounter and the decision, and the asymmetries in the consequences for Adam (Fionn Whitehead, from Dunkirk) and Fiona, reverberate though the rest of the action.
The Children Act makes for a more wieldy movie than this years earlier On Chesil Beach, which Mr. McEwan also adapted from his own book, in that case relying on retaining rhythms and chronological jumps better suited to the page. Here, a beautifully internalized performance from Ms. Thompson and the various efforts to highlight the cinematic potential in Fionas anguish the climax plays out during a piano recital cant override the tidy ironies of Mr. McEwans design.
Anders may have quit the rat race, but he cant seem to stay away from the track. He goes to parties where he runs into Helene, and pursues awkward conversations with old friends who are less than delighted to be in his company. Helene has moved on to a new man (Bill Camp), which bothers Anders more than he would like to admit. He tries to maintain a semblance of paternal authority with his drifting, post-collegiate son, Preston (Thomas Mann), and indulges in some desperate adolescent behavior with another young man, Charlie (Charlie Tahan), who takes a lot of drugs.
Nobody seems to like Anders all that much, and he doesnt really care. He acts less like a man in free fall than like a guy whos got it all figured out, which has the effect of making him at once pitiable, infuriating and kind of mysterious. Maybe he is privy to some kind of esoteric knowledge. Or maybe hes just a shallow jerk embracing his true identity.
Since this is not American Beauty, Anderss privileged turmoil doesnt become a gaseous metaphor for a filmmakers half-baked sociological insights. The Land of Steady Habits is a Nicole Holofcener movie her first feature since Enough Said in 2013 (and her first ever without Catherine Keener in the cast) which is to say a funny, sweet-and-sour study in envy, cruelty, bad decision-making and forgiveness. Ms. Holofcener, for more than two decades one of the sharpest anatomists of upper-middle-class American life, is more interested in the idiosyncrasies of behavior and the texture of specific relationships than in easy generalities. So even though Anders and the people around him can be sorted into recognizable types (a fault, mostly of Mr. Thompsons book), they are also amusing and awful in ways that can feel disconcertingly real.
In Nazi Germany during World War II there were 25,000 people of color, many of whom were killed by their fellow Germans. I agree with the filmmaker Amma Asante that their stories should be told. But Ms. Asantes new film, Where Hands Touch, an attempt to tell one such story, is a gut-wrenching misfire.
The movie begins in 1944 in idyllic-looking Rudesheim, in the Rhine Valley. The areas residents of color included some people who were disparagingly called Rhineland bastards children fathered (supposedly) by French soldiers of African descent who occupied the Rhineland in the aftermath of World War I. Leyna (Amandla Stenberg), about to turn 17, is one of these children. Her single mom, played by Abbie Cornish, is, on one evening, panicked by a visit from the local Gestapo. (The actors playing these goons, who, like almost everyone else in the film speak in English with German accents, sound as if theyve watched too many episodes of Hogans Heroes.) The family moves to Berlin, which turns out not to be a great idea. The younger brother is required to join the Hitler Youth, and Leyna, expelled from school, is put to work in a factory with her mother.
No matter how much humiliation shes subjected to, Leyna is determined to assert her German identity. This trait is meant, I suppose, to make the viewer reflect on the James Baldwin quote that appears at the movies opening: There are days when you wonder what your role is in this country and what your future is in it. But the devices this movie constructs to connect to Baldwins thought are insufficient, to say the least.
Changes in Oregon Coast Tourism Promotions Include New Brand, Book
Published 09/13/2018 at 5:17 AM PDT
By Oregon Coast Beach Connection Staff
(Oregon Coast) One visitor center on the Oregon coast is making a major change and another tourism entity has just published its second book. (Above: Lincoln City at night).
Visit Tillamook Coast, the tourism organization representing Tillamook County, recently announced the publication of a second guidebook of activities and experiences to enjoy from Manzanita to Neskowin.
25 Family Adventures on Oregons Tillamook Coast, written by local author Brian Cameron, is for families who want to explore the outdoors together more often, as well as try activities and go places they might not have known were available in Tillamook County.
The pocket-sized, spiral-bound book can be purchased at Cloud & Leaf bookstore in Manzanita, and at the Tillamook Chamber of Commerce office on Main Street in Tillamook. It is also available online at www.tillamookcoast.com/books for $9.99 plus shipping; or stop by the tourism office at 4506 Third Street during the week, 9am to 5pm. For resellers, wholesale prices are available.
The first guidebook, 25 Hikes on Oregons Tillamook Coast, was published in fall of 2017. Written by hiking expert Adam Sawyer, its about to go to a second printing.
Locals have been our most frequent customers, purchasing multiple copies as gifts, said Nan Devlin, tourism director. I hope this family adventure guidebook encourages more exploration of the county, and gets people outdoors, unplugged from devices, and enjoying nature.
Two other guidebooks are planned for 2019, including 25 Cultural Experiences, and Best Places to View Wildlife.
The Lincoln City Visitor & Convention Bureau is excited to announce its new name, Explore Lincoln City. The DBA (Doing Business As) comes as part of Lincoln Citys new branding campaign, which launched in August.
This past year, the City of Lincoln City identified the need for a brand refresh. To help in this process, city staff enlisted the expertise of advertising agency Borders, Perrin, Norrander (BPN). Over the course of several months of research, planning and feedback sessions, BPN, along with city staff, helped to craft a new brand for the city. With it comes a new brand identity, strategy and guidelines that direct and unify the look, feel and voice of Lincoln City as a destination.
The end result is a brand that inspires guests to choose Lincoln City as the preferred Oregon coast destination. The logo, which was developed after several weeks of feedback sessions, is the cornerstone of the new branding. A playful octopus swimming in the ocean, the logo enforces Lincoln Citys brand positioning as The Unexpected, a destination full of surprises both big and small.
The name Explore Lincoln City aligns with the new brand tone as being confident, independent and proudly Oregonian. The new name comes as a welcome change from the previous name, the Visitor & Convention Bureau, which was viewed as too authoritative and unwelcoming. Additionally, the name brings Lincoln City up to industry standards with other Destination Management Organizations (DMOs) such as Travel Oregon, Visit Bend and Travel Salem.
Changing our organizations name takes us from sounding governmental and somewhat cold (Lincoln City Visitor and Convention Bureau) to delivering an invitation to get to know all the facets of our wonderful beach town (Explore Lincoln City), says Ed Dreistadt, Director of Explore Lincoln City. Im happy to put a more welcoming and accurate face on a city department whose job it is to invite guests to enjoy everything Lincoln City has to offer. Oregon Coast Lodgings in these areas - Where to eat - Maps - Virtual Tours
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New York voters head to the polls on Thursday as an unusual season of primaries, marked by surprise victories and insurgent candidacies, moves to an end. Voters will choose their partys nominees for governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general and the State Legislature and theres more intrigue than normal.
The intrigue starts at the top: Can Cynthia Nixon defy the polls and deprive Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of a third nomination?
The race for the Democratic nomination for attorney general in New York a contest to decide who will inherit ongoing lawsuits and inquiries into President Trump is a tossup, according to the polls.
Even the logistics are complicated. New York has a split primary system where federal primaries are held in June but state and local primaries occur in September. This years primary is on a Thursday, rather than a Tuesday, because of Rosh Hashana, the Jewish holiday, and the anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Finally, check your watches: In much of upstate New York, except for near Buffalo, polls do not open until noon; downstate, polls open at 6 a.m. All sites close at 9 p.m., according to the State Board of Elections.
As we sit here today, the reality is that a number of our uniformed members of various ranks tarnished the N.Y.P.D. shields that theyve worn, said the police commissioner, James P. ONeill, at a news conference on Thursday. Theyve ruined their own careers and reputations. More importantly, they have diminished the great work of tens of thousands of honest, honorable and ethical cops. And that should make every cop who has ever done this job angry.
In all, three sergeants, two detectives and two officers have been charged in the prostitution enterprise. Twenty-six civilians were also arrested, and at least 13 more are being sought. Officials said there are no expectations that other police officers will be arrested unless new information surfaces.
The man accused of being the groups ringleader, Ludwig Paz, 51, a former vice detective, used his knowledge of the workings of the Police Department to his advantage, prosecutors charged.
He knew that undercover officers investigating prostitution are not allowed to expose their genitals during their interactions with suspects, and so he made a rule to check new customers of the brothels: He insisted that the men undress and allow themselves to be fondled to pass the brothels security screening, the Queens district attorneys office, which is prosecuting the officers and dozens of civilians, said.
The evidence in this case is overwhelming, Bradley Chain, the senior assistant district attorney on the case, said at the officers arraignment on Thursday in State Supreme Court in Queens. There are thousands of hours of surveillance.
For years its been an amazing artists community intermingling with a lot of firefighters, said Geoff Feder, 44, a blacksmith, sculptor, knifemaker and Manhattan native who moved to Peekskill in 2004.
Credit... Gregg Vigliotti for The New York Times
John Wilcock, a British journalist and travel writer who played a major role in the emergence of the alternative press at The Village Voice, The East Village Other and the Underground Press Syndicate, died on Thursday at a care facility in Ojai, Calif. He was 91.
He died after several strokes, said his biographer, Ethan Persoff.
In the 1960s and early 70s, a freewheeling age of psychedelic drugs and antiwar protests, Mr. Wilcock led two lives. He was both the author of many $5 a day travel books and a driving force behind underground publications that, spurning traditional journalism, attacked political, social and cultural norms with bawdy language and comic-book imagery, all of it financed by sexually explicit advertising.
In a 1973 profile, The New York Times called Mr. Wilcock an influential man nobody knows, an oracle of the nitty-gritty of inexpensive, traditional tourism and an apostle and chronicler of the radical underground although, the article noted, he looked a bit too scruffy for a best-selling travel writer and far too straight for an underground celebrity.
Mr. Wilcock had worked for news organizations in Britain, Canada and the United States, including The Times, and was the first news editor of The Village Voice before he helped found The East Village Other in 1965. The paper was named for Carl Jungs definition of the other as one who is outside society.
Marin Mazzie, a sought-after musical-theater actress whose Broadway work earned her three Tony Award nominations in six years, died on Thursday at her home in Manhattan. She was 57.
Her husband, the actor Jason Danieley, said the cause was ovarian cancer, a disease she had spoken about often since receiving her diagnosis in 2015.
Ms. Mazzies impressive Broadway career spanned three decades, beginning with her debut as a replacement player in the original production of Big River in 1985. Her breakout role was as Clara in Passion, the 1994 musical by Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine, for which she was nominated for a Tony as best featured actress in a musical. (The show itself was named best musical.)
Her next two Broadway appearances also brought her Tony nominations, both for best actress in a musical. One, in 1998, was for her performance as the stifled Mother in Ragtime. The other, in 2000, was for a role that was in some ways the polar opposite of Mother: the female lead in the 1999 revival of Kiss Me, Kate, the Cole Porter show about a troupe of actors performing a musical version of Shakespeares The Taming of the Shrew.
Yet they are still d amaging. They contain nicotine and are addictive. They have the potential to increase diabetes and lung disease, impair brain development and encourage other forms of drug addiction, as John Ross of Harvard Medical School explains. The worst thing about e-cigarettes is that they appeal to young people who otherwise probably wouldnt have taken up smoking.
This isnt an easy area for regulators to get right. Cracking down too aggressively on e-cigarettes may lead to more smoking including among the young. Going too easy on e-cigarettes may create a new generation of nicotine addicts.
So far, the F.D.A. has erred on the side of going too easy. Yesterdays action helps correct the balance, but its only the first step.
Related: In The Verge, Rachel Becker argues that e-cigarettes may end up being banned if manufacturers dont figure out how to reduce youth usage. In The New Yorker, Jia Tolentino writes, The potential public-health benefit of the e-cigarette is being eclipsed by the unsettling prospect of a generation of children who may really love to vape.
Yes, but what about voter suppression? Rolling Stones Jamil Smith and Slates Jamelle Bouie both had thought-provoking criticisms of Barack Obamas recent return to the political stage.
Justice Kennedy also acted as a brake on the more hard-edge positions of those to his right with whom he basically agreed. For example, deep in Justice Scalias lengthy opinion for a 5-to-4 majority in the landmark Second Amendment case District of Columbia v. Heller were a few sentences suggesting that the constitutional right to individual gun ownership that the court was establishing did contain some limits. Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited, Justice Scalia wrote, adding that nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions of the possession of firearms. He then listed several examples of longstanding prohibitions, including gun possession by people convicted of felonies and prohibitions on carrying guns in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings. (One of those longstanding prohibitions for schools has proved short-lived .)
Was this language, different in tone from the rest of the opinion and structured almost as a by the way, the price for Justice Kennedys vote? I cant prove it, but I thought so at the time, and still do. Circumstantial proof lies in the courts failure for the past decade to take up another Second Amendment case, despite Justice Thomass repeated charge that the court is turning the Second Amendment into a constitutional orphan. While it takes only four votes for the court to accept a case for decision, four justices who are committed to an outcome on a hot-button topic want to be able to count to five before taking the plunge. Was the gridlock because of uncertainty about whether Justice Kennedy was all in on the Second Amendment, as Judge Kavanaugh appears to be? A grant of a new Second Amendment appeal after the new justice takes his seat would prove my theory.
The courts conservatives were not the only ones who had to modify their behavior to take account of Justice Kennedy. It often seemed to me that the courts liberals treated him with kid gloves, signing on to opinions that they knew were weakly reasoned in order to keep him on their team, however briefly, and out of the conservatives clutches. The most recent example was last terms Masterpiece Cakeshop case, in which Justices Breyer and Kagan joined Justice Kennedys completely unpersuasive conclusion that a few nasty words about religion uttered by one or maybe two members of Colorados Civil Rights Commission turned the baker who wouldnt bake a wedding cake for a same-sex couple into a victim of religious discrimination by the state.
I guess I see the logic of Justices Breyer and Kagan bolstering Justice Kennedy and providing some insulation for him from Justices Gorsuch and Thomas, who indicated in concurring opinions that they would have ruled for the baker on more far-reaching grounds, not dependent on the supposed facts of this particular case. But did Justices Breyer and Kagan really think the multipart, multi-actor proceedings were so infected by religious hostility that the business owner who discriminated against a gay couple was actually himself the victim of discrimination? Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in a dissenting opinion that Justice Sotomayor joined, argued convincingly that in no way do the comments by one or two members of one of the four decision-making entities considering this case justify reversing the judgment below. Justices Breyers and Kagans support didnt matter in the end anyway: Justice Kennedy had the votes he needed from Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Alito and Gorsuch, along with a partial concurrence by Justice Thomas. The final vote was 7 to 2.
What will the Supreme Court look like when neither side has to walk on eggs to win the favor of the one in the middle? It will be a more conservative court, for sure, and maybe a more honest one. Justices may feel more free to say what they really think, and the public will ultimately judge the result by expressing itself in electoral politics. History does not stop in 2018.
Ill leave the last word to Justice Kennedy. Many have remarked on the conservative turn he took during his final term on the court. There was no case in which he joined the liberal justices to make a 5-to-4 majority. One of his final opinions was an opinion concurring in the 5-to-4 decision that upheld the Trump administrations Muslim travel ban. Only four paragraphs long, it was the opinion of a weary man. It was also, I think, the product of someone who, while fully aware of the troubling optics of a divided court engaging in such sweeping deference to executive authority, lacked the energy to fight his way through to the other side. His final words might, I hope, be given a strategic place somewhere at the court, perhaps in a desk drawer where a future Justice Kavanaugh might come upon them as he starts his new job.
This is what Justice Kennedy wrote: An anxious world must know that our government remains committed always to the liberties the Constitution seeks to preserve and protect, so that freedom extends outward, and lasts.
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A Google spokeswoman told me that the controversial effort code-named Dragonfly is exploratory, and that Google is not close to launching a search product in China. Whats most interesting is that much of the outrage about the possibility seems to be coming from Google employees who have registered strong objections, rather than from outside.
For those who dont know the history, Google began operating in China in 2000 and in 2005 the Microsoft tech leader Kai-Fu Lee was hired as the head of Google China. By 2009 Google controlled more than 36 percent of the market share and served hundreds of millions of mainland Chinese users.
It offered a truncated version of a search product, which included this disclaimer at the bottom of the page: Some results have been withheld because of the government restrictions. Googles justification for being there was that bringing more information to the information-starved Chinese was a good thing.
At least Chinese users knew what they were missing, Nicole Wong, a former top Google lawyer, recently explained to me on my podcast.
The hope was that more information could help loosen the governments stranglehold. That did not happen.
By 2010, Google was fed up with increasing repression and intrusions into its systems by Chinese-government-backed hackers. After a prolonged debate, Google withdrew to Hong Kong with a noncensored offering and was effectively out of the larger Chinese market. Our objection is to those forces of totalitarianism, Mr. Brin said at the time. He also wrote on his Google Plus page that the primary threat by far to internet freedom is government filtering of political dissent. This rejection of censorship was a bold stance, setting Google apart from other companies, like Apple, that had compromised with the Chinese government in order to do business there.
Fast forward to today, when Google is being falsely accused of censoring speech in the United States, when what it is really doing is mulling a return to censorship in China.
The proposed land swap has been lurking in the background since the early days of Kosovos independence. But it has gone nowhere in part because the United States and the European Union have adamantly opposed it. True to form, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany recently said that the territorial integrity of the states of the Western Balkans has been established and is inviolable. Backing up Ms. Merkel, dozens of prominent scholars and policymakers on both sides of the Atlantic have signed an open letter condemning the proposal and imploring the United States and the European Union to oppose a return to ethnification of polities and frontiers.
But there are signs that some Western officials are warming up to the idea. John Bolton, President Trumps national security adviser, hinted as much last month: Our policy, the U.S. policy, is that if the two parties can work it out between themselves and reach agreement, we dont exclude territorial adjustments, he said. Mr. Bolton is thinking clearly, at least on this front. As long as both the Serbian and Kosovar governments agree to the deal and can secure sufficient political backing among their publics and legislatures the United States and the European Union should support it.
Of Kosovos population of almost two million, roughly 90 percent are ethnic Albanian and some 6 percent are estimated to be ethnic Serb. Reliable numbers are hard to come by, but around half of Kosovos Serbs high estimates reach 70,000 live in northern Kosovo, where they make up some 90 percent of the population. Because of its Serb majority, northern Kosovo (about 10 percent of the countrys territory) has been part of the country in name only since independence. Serbia has continued to hold political and economic sway there, leaving Kosovars with a sizable chunk of their country that has no interest in belonging to an independent Kosovo.
Serbias Presevo Valley is reportedly home to some 60,000 ethnic Albanians and is comparable in size to northern Kosovo. How much of this area Serbia might transfer to Kosovo is unclear. Nonetheless, trading northern Kosovo for at least some portion of the Presevo Valley would broadly preserve Serbias and Kosovos current territorial size and population.
To the Editor:
Your Sept. 9 editorial A Grim Endgame Looms in Syria was right about whats at stake as President Bashar al-Assads forces launch a bloody offensive on the last rebel stronghold in Syria. A humanitarian disaster looms. A United Nations official is predicting the biggest loss of life of the 21st century, leaving thousands with nowhere to go.
But the editorial overlooked another troubling development: Mr. Assads allies in the attack are backed by the United States. New reports suggest that the Y.P.G., a terrorist group operating from Syria that has received arms and aid paid for by American taxpayers, has forged an alliance with Mr. Assad and is sending troops as part of a deal brokered in July to help him recapture Idlib from the rebels.
The alliance has grown deeper since senior leaders of the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces, spearheaded by the Y.P.G., held formal talks with the Syrian regime to carve out a place for themselves in the new Syria.
Y.P.G. is the Syrian affiliate of the Kurdistan Workers Party ( P.K.K .), which has led a violent campaign of terrorism inside Turkey for more than three decades. Turkey, the United States and the European Union have designated the P.K.K. a terrorist organization .
Provided there is sufficient evidence to support an indictment of President Trump and there are many indications that there is the special counsel, Robert Mueller, who is investigating possible Russian interference in the 2016 election, and prosecutors from the United States Attorneys Office for the Southern District of New York, who are investigating payments to my client, Stormy Daniels, and Karen McDougal, should present their evidence to grand juries. Those jurors, citizens of our communities, should then determine whether the evidence supports an indictment of Mr. Trump.
The fact that Mr. Trump is a sitting president should not derail a process that applies to all Americans, regardless of stature or station. He would still have the post-indictment relief available to all citizens, including the ability to challenge the constitutionality of the indictment. Some also argue that indicting the president would critically impair his ability to lead the country. But this is a White House already engulfed in chaos and daily distractions. And if the House were to initiate impeachment proceedings, it is hard to see how that process would be any less distracting than a criminal indictment.
Support for indicting a sitting president can be found in the Supreme Courts 1997 unanimous decision in Clinton v. Jones, holding that a sitting president has no immunity from civil litigation in federal court from acts done before taking office and unrelated to duties as president. That decision later famously led to President Bill Clintons sworn deposition testimony, which in turn served as the basis for impeachment charges.
On the other side of the argument, Assistant Attorney General Randolph D. Moss wrote a memorandum opinion in 2000 analyzing the constitutionality of indicting a sitting president. This followed a 1973 analysis by Assistant Attorney General Robert G. Dixon Jr. that examined the same issue in connection with the Watergate scandal. Both concluded that the Constitution makes a sitting president immune from indictment.
But other constitutional scholars have reached the opposite conclusion. Ronald Rotunda, who was part of the Watergate investigative team and served as an adviser to Kenneth Starr when he was the independent counsel investigating President Clinton, concluded in 1998: It is proper, constitutional and legal for a federal grand jury to indict a sitting president for serious criminal acts that are not part of, and are contrary to, the presidents official duties. In this country, no one, even President Clinton, is above the law. Mr. Starr himself said this week that he believes the Constitution allows for the indictment of a sitting president.
Hooker told me that after the men left the house, The militia sent folks down to talk to my mother. She said: Why are you shooting the victims? Why dont you shoot the aggressors? A militiaman responded: We cant do that. How can we do that?
This is how you do it, said Hookers mother, turning a musket on the men. Hooker told me that her mother had been to Tuskegee Institute and that a boyfriend at the time was a militiaman who had told her that women should learn self-defense. He had taught her many of the things he knew, including how to shoot.
When Hookers mother turned the gun on the white men, the militiaman yelled at her, You have to get these children to a safe place! She replied, I had a safe place!
People think that the horror of Americas racial history is an unfortunate episode among ancestors, but it is not. The civil rights movement was only 50 years ago. The Tulsa riot was less than 100 years ago. People alive today still carry that weight, still manage that trauma, still hide those scars.
American history is full of stories of black people doing precisely what America says it wants of its citizens being creative, enterprising and industrious, being self-respecting and self-sufficient only to have white people destroy what theyve built, impede their progress and erase their wealth. And those are not far-off stories: Those are also the stories of the living.
I look at it this way: Dr. Hookers life has overlapped with that of my grandparents, my parents, my kids and me. So, too, must the lives of some of the men who destroyed this black neighborhood, the ones who burst into the small white and green Hooker house looking to loot precious things.
What impact did this have on Hooker and those she influenced? What impact did it have on the rioters and those they influenced? History doesnt stay stuck in the time that it happens. That is only where it is born, after which it is alive and moving with us through time and space.
Aside from the obvious paranoia these utterances betray, they also provide an opportunity, as the nation copes with a seeming onslaught of disasters from wildfires in the West to floods in the Midwest and East, to look at our definition of disaster. Mr. Trump seems to define it as an event in a specific moment. If you died later because of the long-term effects of a hurricane, for instance, then to his way of thinking, your death should not be counted in the toll.
Im glad he gave an honest account of his thinking about the boundaries of disaster, because how we count these deaths and measure the economic impact of calamities shapes the way we budget for future ones. It also determines how credit or blame is assigned to elected officials charged with preparing for and managing disasters.
Defining a disaster as an event has a history extending to the 1960s, when federal funds were spent to model the social impact of a nuclear attack. To do this, Civil Defense officials commissioned studies of proxies of an attack, like earthquakes, tornadoes and hurricanes, all disasters that affect multiple systems with limited warning. They wanted to understand the immediate post-attack consequences would society survive, or would people panic and society quickly descend into chaos? The focus was on the event itself, the nuclear blast. What led up to it and what its long-term effects would be were irrelevant.
Social science disaster research was born from this funding. Over the decades, it evolved into a multidisciplinary endeavor that has told us a lot about human behavior in disasters. (And its not what those Civil Defense officials in the 1960s expected. People dont panic. They are resilient. They help one another.)
By the 1990s there was an emerging consensus that the historical background and long-term aftereffects of disasters were just as important, if not more so, than the event itself, because a disaster is really an interconnected chain of occurrences.
The losers in this equation: Turkey, already groaning under the pressure of millions of Syrian refugees and a crumbling economy; Israel, whose repeated strikes against Iranian targets in Syria have dented but not denied Tehrans ambitions; Europe, which could face yet another refugee crisis even as the effects of the last are felt in the resurgence of the far right; and the Syrian people, terrorized witnesses to the marriage of wickedness and indifference.
And then theres the United States, where two administrations have now allowed the Syrian crisis to become depressing testimony to the worthlessness of our word, the fickleness of our friendship and hollowness of our values. Donald Trump, loudly billing himself as Barack Obamas opposite in every respect, has effectively adopted his predecessors worst foreign policy mistake.
At least the Obama administration could privately justify a weak Syria policy as being consonant with their desire to strike a nuclear deal with Iran. Trumps Syria policy lacks that dubious coherence: It seems to have no broader rationale other than the presidents knee-jerk isolationism, his deference to Vladimir Putin, his apparent belief that the only vital U.S. interest in Syria is the defeat of ISIS, and his occasional need to look tough by ordering minimally effective airstrikes.
Even John Boltons latest threat to hit Assad harder if he uses chemical weapons in Idlib doesnt rise to the level of meaningful policy. Punishing the use of chemical weapons without exacting a devastating price on the user is just the sort of feckless gesture the national security adviser would gleefully have mocked when he was out of government.
What would be a serious policy? Trump warned in a tweet! that Assad must not recklessly attack Idlib Province. Such an attack should be the administrations red line, regardless of whether the Syrian regime uses chemical weapons. If Assad crosses it, the U.S. can destroy everything that remains of the Syrian Air Force and crater the runways Iran uses to supply its own forces in Syria. If Assad continues to move, his presidential palaces should be next.
As Harrington grew older, he tired of the dank self-righteousness and sharp-elbowed polemical style of left sectarianism. How one argues, Harrington came to understand, was as important as what one argued. Writing in 1962 in Dissent, where he was now an editor, he warned radical elders not to react too hastily when they heard students in the nascent New Left espousing naive or wrongheaded views about, say, the Castro regime in Cuba. Those views must be faced and changed, he wrote, but the persuasion must come from someone who is actually involved in changing the status quo and has a sympathy for the genuine and good emotions which are just behind the bad theories.
Famously and unfortunately, within a few months, Harrington proceeded to ignore his own better instincts, denouncing the founders of the new campus group Students for a Democratic Society for espousing what he regarded as insufficiently anti-Communist views (a fair criticism of the group in the later 1960s, when I was a member, but way off the mark in 1962). He almost immediately regretted the blunder, but the damage had been done. As he wrote a quarter-century later, he had been guilty of rude insensitivity to young people struggling to define a new identity, and of treating fledgling radicals trying out their own ideas for the first time as if they were hardened faction fighters.
Politics of the Possible vs. Politics of Pretend Combat
Few of todays new D.S.A. members, three decades after Harringtons death, are hardened faction fighters. They have been described as nondenominational socialists, in search of a political community of like-minded activists, more concerned with practical results than ancient political feuds, all of which is to their credit.
But, like their predecessors in previous radical generations, including the young Michael Harrington, some will be drawn, at least for a time, to whatever policy and doctrine seems to promise the greatest personal sense of moral purity. There are newly organized caucuses within D.S.A. that seek to push the organization further leftward, in directions antithetical to the Harrington tradition. Indeed, in some quarters of D.S.A., Harringtonite has become a term of abuse, used to demean people who emphasize practicality and compromise.
Amid all the promising signs of growth, youth, energy and imagination, the old familiar tensions between a politics of the possible and a politics of pretend combat on the plains of destiny have re-emerged.
Kendal Fisher has lived in Harlem since he arrived in New York nine years ago, having spent much of that time in a large rental complex in Manhattanville.
Mr. Fisher, 34, stayed there for six years, with his monthly rent rising to around $1,650. I lived in a studio, he said. It was all I could afford, and it was all I needed.
That changed over time. He often had guests sleeping on the couch, infringing on his privacy. And he adopted Seven, an energetic miniature schnauzer. I felt the dog needed more space to run around, he said. In a studio, shes running in a circle.
His salary grew, and last spring he decided to upgrade to a one-bedroom. Mr. Fisher, a graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University, wanted to move a bit farther south, to shorten his commute to Midtown, where he works as an executive assistant. Most of all, he craved some creature comforts namely, a washer-dryer and central air-conditioning.
With the windows open at the Cobble Hill House, the sound of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, which the new condo building overlooks, is delicately put a constant roar.
But close the triple-glazed, parlor-style windows and the condo units at 78 Amity Street, at the corner of Hicks Street, transform into quiet, light-filled spacious homes with fantastic East River views, just beyond the expressway.
Incredible, right? said Deborah Rieders, a broker at the Corcoran Group, who is marketing the property. The firm launched sales this week for the 27-unit building, which includes one- to three-bedroom homes priced between $725,000 to $3.675 million.
Developed by Vega Management, the 5-story brick building was designed by CWB Architects and the interior designs were done by the Meshberg Group.
All over the world, sea turtles are swallowing bits of plastic floating in the ocean, mistaking them for tasty jellyfish, or just unable to avoid the debris that surrounds them.
Now, a new study out of Australia is trying to catalog the damage.
While some sea turtles have been found to have swallowed hundreds of bits of plastic, just 14 pieces significantly increases their risk of death, according to the study, published Thursday in Scientific Reports.
Young sea turtles are most vulnerable, the study found, because they drift with currents where the floating debris also accumulate, and because they are less choosy than adults about what they will eat.
Worldwide, more than half of all sea turtles from all seven species have eaten plastic debris, estimated Britta Denise Hardesty, the papers senior author and a principal research scientist with the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization in Tasmania. It doesnt matter where you are, you will find plastic, she said.
Amid wild rumors in Russia that a NASA astronaut deliberately drilled a hole in a Russian spacecraft docked to the International Space Station, the space agencies of the two countries released a joint statement on Thursday saying that a leak last month was being investigated and that they would refrain from further comment.
The leak, which was less than one-tenth of an inch wide, was first detected on Aug. 29. It posed no immediate threat to the crew aboard the station, and Russian astronauts quickly patched it with tape.
But the stories in Russian news media and statements by Dmitry Rogozin, general director of Roscomos, seemed to suggest a need to reaffirm cooperation between Earths most active space-faring powers, who jointly manage the orbiting station.
Initially, officials suggested that a micrometeorite had pierced the spacecraft. But last week, Mr. Rogozin raised the possibility of sabotage.
When the Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson was in his early 20s, his father Elias Hjorleifsson, an aspiring artist who worked as a cook on commercial fishing boats in Iceland and stepmother had a child, a baby girl they named Victoria Eliasdottir. Eliasson spent most summers with them in Reykjavik, during which he was often relied upon to babysit his new sister. At first, he resented it. Victoria was quite demanding, he says with a laugh. But it was a very bonding experience. I remember it now as a luxury of simplicity. One year, for three to five months, I had two things to achieve: complete my application for art school and prevent my sister from being hungry and crying.
Eliasson, 51, went on to attend the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts and now makes work at once theoretical and highly accessible that explores our plastic perceptions of reality and often features mesmerizing bands of colored light. In 2003, he famously installed a shining hemisphere of reflected monofrequency lamps in the Turbine Hall at Tate Modern, under which museumgoers laid out as if sun drunk at the beach. This past June, he inaugurated his first full-scale building, a fortress of bricks and arched windows that appears to rise from the harbor in Vejle, Denmark. The artist travels often, but his primary studio, with four stories and 40,000 square feet, is located in a converted brewery in Berlins stylish Prenzlauer Berg neighborhood.
Cagayan (CNN Philippines, September 13) Residents in Sta. Ana, Cagayan, north of Luzon, are thoroughly preparing for the landfall of Typhoon Ompong (international name Mangkhut) in the province.
As of Thursday morning, weather is sunny and skies are clear, but officials warned it is the proverbial calm before the storm.
The storm is expected to get stronger and slower while it is over water, meaning the typhoon could gain strength. It is the first province that will feel the wrath of what could be the strongest typhoon to hit the country this year.
The typhoon is expected to make landfall in Northern Cagayan on Saturday morning. As early as Thursday, residents are starting to protect their houses and other properties.
Residents were seen sealing the windows and gates of their homes with plywood to secure against potential huge waves and heavy flooding. Some fisherfolk were also spotted moving their boats to safer ground as the typhoon nears.
The Cagayan Provincial Government has also pre-emptively evacuated those who are living in coastlines and riverbanks to make sure they're safe from the threat of storm surges, which may inundate homes in low-lying areas.
All mayors and barangay captains were also advised to stay with their respective constituents even at the height of the typhoon's wrath.
Classes in private and public schools in all levels have been suspended, while work in the private sector and government offices may be suspended on Friday.
Cagayan Governor Manuel Mamba also appealed to residents to always help and assist each other in these challenging times.
From Cagayan Valley, Ompong's impact is expected to be felt in Ilocos Region as the typhoon moves further westward.
At least three Ilocos Norte coastal towns Pagudpud, Bangui, and Burgos are directly in the storm's way.
Several heavy construction equipment are on standby at the Ilocos Norte Capitol for emergency response. There are also dumptrucks to be used to transport residents during evacuation and for debris removal post-onslaught.
The local government also prepared bulldozers and excavators to clear roads in the event of massive landslides.
As of Thursday morning, Ompong has gained speed as it moves closer to Northern Luzon, while provinces in the eastern section of the country are expected to experience its effects, weather officials said.
CNN Philippines senior correspondent David Santos contributed to this report.
First there was self-checkout. Then Amazons cashier-free Go stores. Now theres pay when you feel like it we trust you.
At Drug Store, a narrow, black-and-white-tiled store that opened Wednesday in Manhattans Tribeca neighborhood, there is no cashier or checkout counter. Anyone can walk in, grab a $10.83 activated-charcoal drink and leave.
But the beverages, typically sold online by the case by Dirty Lemon, a start-up that runs the store, are not free. Dirty Lemon has made a bet that customers will pay the same way they order its pricey lemon-flavored drinks for home delivery: by sending the company a text message.
In the store, customers are expected to text Dirty Lemon to say they have grabbed something. A representative will then text back with a link to enter their credit card information, adding, Let us know if you need anything else.
SAN FRANCISCO Mark Zuckerberg began the year by promising to make Facebook safer from election interference around the world. He has spent most of the rest of the year apologizing for not recognizing the problem earlier.
On Wednesday, Mr. Zuckerberg, Facebooks chief executive, published a roughly 3,300-word blog post cataloging all the steps the company has taken.
In 2016, we were not prepared for the coordinated information operations we now regularly face, he wrote, alluding to Russian interference in the American presidential election. But we have learned a lot since then and have developed sophisticated systems that combine technology and people to prevent election interference on our services.
Today, Facebook is better prepared for these kinds of attacks, he added.
The unusual post is an answer of sorts to Facebooks controversy-ridden last 18 months and reflects how Mr. Zuckerberg has staked his reputation on reducing the disinformation, divisive messages and false news that have spread on the site. While the chief executive often takes to his personal Facebook page to write short notes about the company, he said this month that he would publish pieces looking more in depth at issues facing it, starting with a post about securing elections worldwide.
His largest known philanthropic contribution to date was $33 million in scholarships to support the education of undocumented students who graduated from high school in the United States. Earlier this month, he made his first major political contribution, putting $10 million into a bipartisan political action committee to support military veterans running for Congress.
Other tech founders have come to see philanthropy as a major part of their legacy. Bill Gates, a founder of Microsoft, committed the vast majority of his assets to the foundation he started with his wife, Melinda. Facebooks Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla, said they would give 99 percent of their Facebook shares, valued at around $45 billion at the time of their 2015 announcement, to philanthropic work. Other tech leaders, including Paul Allen of Microsoft, Larry Ellison of Oracle and Brian Chesky of Airbnb, have signed the Giving Pledge, vowing to give away at least half of their wealth either during their lifetime or in their will.
Mr. Bezos said the new education effort would build and run a national nonprofit network of free Montessori-inspired preschools.
Im excited about that because it will give us the opportunity to learn, invent, and improve, he wrote. Well use the same set of principles that have driven Amazon. Most important among those will be genuine, intense customer obsession. The child will be the customer. Mr. Bezos went to Montessori schools and has said it developed his sense of exploration and focus.
We learn behaviors of what it looks like to leave, said Michael Suswal, Standard Cognitions co-founder and chief operating officer. Trajectory, gaze and speed are especially useful for detecting theft, he said, adding, If theyre going to steal, their gait is larger, and theyre looking at the door.
Once the system decides it has detected potential theft behavior, a store attendant will get a text and walk over for a polite conversation, Mr. Suswal said.
Predicting theft requires a lot of data about shoppers, much of which does not exist yet or at least no one is willing to give it to us, he said.
So a few days before Standard Market opened, Standard Cognition hired 100 actors to shop there for four hours. In Japan, the team has worked with a convenience store chain, whose name it has not disclosed, in a very useful data collection effort.
Standard Cognition said that unlike facial recognition, it did not collect biometric information, a possibility that has troubled privacy experts watching the technology evolve.
The growth of cashierless technology could hurt the American labor force; there are nearly five million retail sales workers in America. But as Mr. Suswal has pitched Standard Cognitions technology, he said, he has found that most shop owners are not looking to replace workers. Instead, they want their workers wandering the stores more, in hopes of luring shoppers back into brick-and-mortar retail.
They all talk about new services, making shopping more fun, making it worthwhile to shop offline, Mr. Suswal said.
Its a small difference, but its striking in historical context. Republicans have almost always done better among likely voters than registered voters, and in recent midterm elections the gap has been particularly significant perhaps as much as five or six points.
Democrats might have some additional upside, too. They lead by four points in the tossups among registered voters who say theyre almost certain to vote.
Many pollsters use a simple likely-voter model limited to this group. In our turnout modeling, we give everyone at least some chance of voting because, in the past, many people who said they wouldnt vote ultimately showed up. And there are some people who say they will vote who stay home. Either way, its another indicator.
Democrats have the wind at their back
The overall national political environment, which seems to favor the Democrats, does appear to be filtering down to the battleground districts. President Trump has a 42 percent approval rating on average in our seven tossup districts , about seven points beneath the 49 percent he won across the districts in 2016. You could roughly extrapolate that to a 39 percent approval rating nationwide, which is pretty close to recent national surveys.
In the generic ballot which asks people whether they intend to vote for a Democrat or a Republican for Congress Democrats have a three-point lead in these districts. Its a modest advantage, but its also impressive for seven districts that voted for Mr. Trump by five points.
Republican incumbents dont look strong
Republican incumbents havent fallen behind in most of the races weve polled, but their position doesnt look too impressive, either.
In the tossup districts, only two Republicans Andy Barr in Kentucky, who led by one point with 47 percent in Kentuckys Sixth, and Dave Brat, who led by three points with 47 percent in Virginias Seventh have held more than 45 percent of the vote.
Local governments worked alongside private developers to essentially steal land from black folks through various legal mechanisms. Until the 1950s, Hilton Head Island was where African-American children could grow up without seeing a white face for their entire life. Today, it is a playground for mostly white and wealthy people.
It was around this time that Americas coastlines became highly coveted and desirable places to live and vacation. Thats really the story of postwar America: The middle class is growing, real-estate growth and development is a major engine of the economy, but its at the expense of African-American communities.
How did these communities manage the dangers of frequent hurricanes?
People in coastal areas 100 years ago lived much more in harmony with these volatile, mercurial environments. First of all, the areas were sparsely populated, which makes sense because they were highly prone to storms that caused substantial damage.
The folks who lived there had a better understanding of natures limits. In the 20th century, the Army Corps of Engineers, federal programs and agencies, local governments, as well as private developers came in. They thought that coastal areas could be stabilized and made suitable for large-scale development.
That has really led to the point where not only do these areas continue to be subject to massive storms, but the sheer number of people who are living in these areas is mind-boggling, given how vulnerable they are.
Once these federal agencies came in, what did they do?
Bridges and causeways were built right up to the oceans door and, all of a sudden, Americans were flocking to the sea to build second homes. Suddenly, African-Americans are in the cross hairs of this growth industry. Many of the decisions that were being made were similar to the decisions that were being made in the cities with urban renewal, where black neighborhoods were the ones being demolished and cleared out.
Similarly, decisions were often being made by the Army Corps of Engineers and local officials that would literally eat away at black-owned land. There were communities whose acreage was washed-out to sea, as a result of erosion that was directly caused by the engineering decisions that were being made by public officials in the interest of facilitating commerce and growing the economy. Again, growing the economy at the expense of vulnerable populations.
Two days earlier, Cardinal Donald Wuerl, the archbishop of Washington since 2006, had written to the priests of his diocese to say that he might soon be stepping down as well. Cardinal Wuerl, once seen as a model in handling abuse cases, drew criticism after revelations that he had allowed priests accused of sexually abusing children to remain in ministry when he was the bishop of Pittsburgh.
Those cases were included in a grand jury report last month in Pennsylvania that detailed accounts of abuse of more than 1,000 children by more than 300 priests that were covered up for decades. Cardinal Wuerl said in his letter that he would discuss his resignation with the pope in Rome.
Bishop Bransfield is a close associate of the former Cardinal Theodore E. McCarrick, who resigned from the College of Cardinals in July after allegations that he had molested an altar boy decades ago and had coerced adult seminary students to sleep in his bed. He denies the allegations.
Leaders of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops were in Rome on Thursday to discuss the crisis with the pope. The meeting was prompted by revelations that Cardinal McCarrick had been made the archbishop of Washington and elevated to cardinal despite repeated warnings over many years that he had abused seminary students.
One of the four Americans in the meeting was Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, the archbishop of Houston-Galveston and the president of the conference. He went into the meeting dogged by news reports that he had kept a priest in ministry in his own archdiocese despite pleas from a woman who said the priest had abused her as a young girl. A man told the archdiocese last month that he had been abused by the same priest, and on Tuesday, the priest was arrested on child abuse charges.
Emmanuel DSouza, a nurse practitioner in Dayton, Ohio, who emigrated from India in 2004, said he has noticed a growing and thriving Indian population in his area.
Now when you go to the grocery store at 5 or 6 in the evening, you see a lot of Indian people, buying vegetables after work, said Mr. DSouza.
He said he saw fewer Indian people when he bought his house in 2009 than he does today. Now he counted at least four temples and two mosques, and said there are two Indian specialty grocery stores. Mr. DSouza, 41, who is Catholic, also sees Indians in church on Sundays.
The data also suggests a political pattern among states with large percentages of foreign-born residents. Of the 15 states with the highest concentration of immigrants, all but three Florida, Texas and Arizona voted for Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential race. Many of the states with low and moderate concentrations of foreign-born people voted for Mr. Trump, Mr. Frey found.
In those low-concentration states, foreign-born populations tended to be more educated than the native-born. In Ohio, for example, 43 percent of the foreign-born population is college educated, compared with just 27 percent of American-born Ohioans. About 43 percent of the foreign-born population is from Asia, far more than the 20 percent from Latin America.
The same can be true in states with large immigrant populations. About 15 percent of the population of Maryland last year was foreign-born. Of those people, 42 percent had college degrees, compared with 39 percent of American-born Marylanders.
Chao Wu, a data scientist in Columbia, Maryland, who came from China in 2003, said he had long known about Asian graduate students in the United States, because he had been one. But it wasnt until he started running for a seat on his countys board of education that he noticed the richness and variation in the population.
Acknowledging that the separation of migrant families along the southwest border may have compromised their right to seek asylum, the federal government has agreed to allow a second chance for up to 1,000 migrants who had been facing deportation.
In a settlement announced Thursday, lawyers for the government said that parents whose children were taken from them under the administrations zero-tolerance border enforcement policy will again be able to make a case for asylum. They can also remain in the United States while their children pursue their own asylum cases.
Lawyers for immigrants challenging the thousands of family separations carried out along the border this spring had argued that losing their children had left parents too distraught to adequately make a case for asylum status. The asylum process can be grueling, often requiring lengthy interviews and documentary evidence. As a result, the lawyers said, many of the parents claims had been speedily denied.
Its an implicit recognition that they did wrong by these families in denying them meaningful access to the asylum system, and that wrong is now going to be made right, said Simon Y. Sandoval-Moshenberg, legal director of the Immigrant Advocacy Program at the Legal Aid Justice Center, who represented the plaintiffs.
[For the latest forecasts and storm news, read our live briefing.]
CAROLINA BEACH, N.C. Skippy Winner, an 84-year-old retired sea captain, has stayed put for every storm here since Hurricane Hazel leveled much of this barrier island town in 1954. He rattled off those storms gone by: Donna, Diana, Hugo, Fran, Floyd and too many noreasters to count.
Im gonna be just fine, so let er blow, Mr. Winner said on Wednesday as he prepared to remain inside his cramped living room, which was bathed in the silver light of the TV screen. The Weather Channel played on mute. He was shirtless, with a camouflage ball cap, wrinkled khaki shorts and a medical alert necklace he knows might not do him much good.
There is a stubborn breed of hurricane holdouts who routinely aggravate and ignore emergency officials as they beg coastal residents to pack up and leave as storms approach. Every hurricane, from Katrina to Ike to Harvey, has had its share many of them cranky, independent-minded contrarians like David Carl (Skippy) Winner Jr., the latest in a long line of Carolina Beach seamen.
The authorities, who have already spent days trying to warn people in Hurricane Florences path of the potential severity of the huge Category 2 storm, issued some of their most strident pleas yet on Wednesday for people to get out of harms way.
North Carolinas coastal communities began feeling the wrath of Hurricane Florence on Thursday, a storm that could be the worst to hit the region in a generation. The assault of wind and rain is expected to last through the weekend and well into next week.
The storm is packing powerful winds of up to 90 miles per hour as it approaches the coast, driving a storm surge that could reach 11 feet in places. Inland residents are bracing for rainfall that is being forecast in feet, not inches, with the potential for catastrophic flash flooding.
Here are the latest developments:
The center of the storm was about 30 miles east of Wilmington, N.C., at 4 a.m. Friday, with tropical-storm-force winds spreading across the Outer Banks and the southeastern coast of North Carolina. The National Hurricane Center said the storm, which has begun to slow and is now a Category 1 hurricane, was likely to maintain its intensity until its eye made landfall early Friday.
The cloud coverage from the storm, an indication of its size, is as large as the Carolinas.
The storm is forecast to crawl inland, drenching a wide area with extremely heavy rains 20, 30 or even 40 inches of rainfall are predicted in some spots on the Carolina coast. Places as far inland as Charlotte, about 150 miles from the coast, could receive more than 10 inches of rain. Learn more about why slow-moving hurricanes are so dangerous.
For the latest updates on Hurricane Florence, read our Friday live briefing here.
GREENVILLE, N.C. Hurricane Florence made landfall Friday in its brutish slow-motion collision with the Carolina coasts, with beach towns cowering under lashing rain and storm surge. Onshore wind gusts reached 90 miles an hour.
At the same time, residents and emergency personnel throughout inland North and South Carolina were working under the grim assumption that the Category 1 storms pounding of the coastline would be only the first powerful punch in a fight that could go many rounds and last for many days. It will play out not only among stilted beach cottages and seaside resorts, but also in workaday towns and cities much farther west.
This may be the first time weve experienced such a two-punch from these kind of conditions, said South Carolinas governor, Henry McMaster, at a news conference on Thursday, speaking about evacuations along the coast as well as the possibility of rain-triggered landslides in the mountains.
Florence is proving to be a lumbering giant, with cloud cover as large as the Carolinas themselves. If, as expected, it dawdles over the region, the storm could drop rainfall of 20, 30 or even 40 inches in some areas. Anxiety is especially high over the fate of all of that water, which will have to go somewhere.
Annie Wilson, 73, was home alone in her third-floor apartment in south Lawrence when she smelled smoke. She opened her back door and smoke poured into the house. She ran out the front, and her parakeets flew away as she tried to rescue them.
Fire quickly consumed the building. Ms. Wilson said she lost everything, including her husbands ashes, which were in an urn, all her family photographs and all her clothes.
It was just crazy, said Jessica Wilson, 43, Ms. Wilsons daughter-in-law. People were walking in the street with bags, kids were crying, there were sirens all over the place.
In the long hours after the fires, sections of the communities turned dark and silent, with power turned off and people told to leave. More than 18,000 customers were without electricity at one point on Thursday night. Long lines of traffic jammed the roads out of some towns. Traffic was crammed, too, near roads to shelters that were opened to those left homeless. Some exits off the major interstate highways were closed, and officials said the areas schools would be shuttered on Friday.
Thousands of people were left to sort out what to do. Some people said they were told to leave only if they smelled gas; others said they were told to leave regardless. Residents said they were uncertain whether to stay or go, and when they might return. What we need folks to do is that if its happening in your home, you have a funny smell, just evacuate, come out to the street, Mayor Dan Rivera of Lawrence told WBZ-TV.
The worst part, said Maria Santana, who was at home in Lawrence when she smelled gas, was that the explosions came without warning and that no one in authority seemed to have any idea of what was happening. A school not far from her home that her children and grandchildren had attended was damaged, she said.
A gunman in Bakersfield, Calif., went on a killing spree through the city on Wednesday night, fatally shooting five people including his wife and stealing a vehicle before being confronted by a sheriffs deputy and killing himself, the authorities said.
The series of shootings in Bakersfield about 115 miles north of Los Angeles began around 5:20 p.m. and unfolded in about 15 minutes, Sheriff Donny Youngblood of Kern County said at a news conference late Wednesday.
The authorities did not immediately release the names of the victims or the gunman.
Obviously theres some type of situation that caused the husband to be extremely upset, he said.
He added later: Were trying to find the connection. Obviously these are not random shootings.
The events began to unfold when the suspect, who was armed with a handgun, and his wife entered a trucking business, Sheriff Youngblood said. They confronted a man at the business; the husband shot and killed the man, and then turned and shot his wife, the sheriff said.
WASHINGTON The senior Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee referred information involving Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh, President Trumps nominee to the Supreme Court, to federal investigators on Thursday, but the senator declined to make public what the matter involved.
Two officials familiar with the matter say the incident involved possible sexual misconduct between Judge Kavanaugh and a woman when they were both in high school. They spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to discuss the matter.
The statement by Senator Dianne Feinstein of California came a week before the Judiciary Committee is to vote on his nomination. I have received information from an individual concerning the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, Ms. Feinstein said in a statement. That individual strongly requested confidentiality, declined to come forward or press the matter further, and I have honored that decision. I have, however, referred the matter to federal investigative authorities.
The information came in July in a letter, which was first sent to the office of Representative Anna Eshoo, Democrat of California, and accuses the judge of sexual misconduct toward the letters author, a person familiar with the letter confirmed.
Good Thursday morning. Here are some of the stories making news in Washington and politics today.
The Food and Drug Administration put electronic cigarette makers on notice to prove they can keep their devices away from minors. [Read the story]
A year after Puerto Rico, the Trump administration is preparing for a test of its ability to do better during Hurricane Florence. [Read the story]
Gov. Gina Raimondo of Rhode Island defeated a liberal challenger in a Democratic primary election, but she remains vulnerable in November. [Read the story]
Lawmakers dismissed a new White House effort to punish foreign election meddling as inadequate. [Read the story]
Hi. Welcome to On Politics, your guide to the day in national politics. Im Lisa Lerer, your host. If you live in New York, you have until 9 p.m. to vote in the primary. Find your polling station here, and see live results here tonight.
[Get On Politics delivered to your inbox.]
As I wrote on Day 1 of On Politics, we wont be all-Trump-all-the-time, obsessing over each bit of noise. But sometimes, the president will say or do something that is worthy of deeper review.
Today is that day.
As emergency responders braced for Hurricane Florence, President Trump decided to spend time disputing the death toll from another catastrophic storm.
Mr. Trump stated (on Twitter, naturally) that 6 to 18 people died from Hurricane Maria last year, rejecting the Puerto Rican government analysis that the storm killed nearly 3,000. He blamed Democrats for padding the death toll in order to make me look as bad as possible.
Currently, lobbyists representing foreign commercial interests register only with Congress, which requests minimal information, while those who represent foreign principals working for the benefit of foreign governments or political parties register with the Justice Department. The dual disclosure regimes create a huge gray area because in many countries, including Russia and Ukraine, the line between commercial and government interests is heavily blurred.
Mr. Grassleys bill would also give the Justice Department more authority to demand information from lobbyists without resorting to a grand jury subpoena. Although the measure appears stalled for the moment, Christopher DeLacy, a Washington lawyer who has studied the FARA law, said its a fairly safe bet that Congress is eventually going to take some sort of action.
Unless his criminal charges are resolved through plea negotiations, Mr. Manaforts coming trial will be the most public test of the law in recent history.
Coming on the heels of his conviction on financial fraud charges, the trial in federal court in the District of Columbia was set to examine charges that Mr. Manafort was the hidden hand behind a multiyear campaign to portray Viktor F. Yanukovych and the political forces behind him in Ukraine all allies of President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia as pro-Western backers of democratic and economic reforms. Mr. Manafort was paid more than $60 million by Ukrainian oligarchs to help orchestrate Mr. Yanukovychs rise to Ukraines presidency and to maintain his grip on power for four years, before he was toppled and fled to Russia.
Prosecutors intended to show that Mr. Manafort hired lobbyists who met with members of Congress; helped organize meetings between top Ukrainian and American government officials, including a 2010 meeting in Washington between Mr. Yanukovych and President Barack Obama; and promoted the placement of articles and interviews in major American newspapers, including The New York Times.
The Manafort scandal already has touched a bevy of well-known lobbyists, lawyers and politicians who were paid millions to help him promote his Ukrainian clients. They include: Gregory B. Craig, Mr. Obamas former White House counsel; Vin Weber, a Republican former congressman from Minnesota; Tony Podesta, a Washington lobbyist whose brother, John D. Podesta, headed Hillary Clintons 2016 presidential campaign; and Romano Prodi, a former prime minister of Italy. Several cases have been referred to federal prosecutors in New York.
WASHINGTON In July, President Trumps Council of Economic Advisers declared that the countrys five-decade war on poverty was largely over and called it a success.
On Wednesday, the Census Bureau released its 2017 annual report on the poor that offered a stark counterpoint, suggesting that the national recovery has bypassed many of the 40 million to 45 million Americans estimated to be living below the federal poverty level.
While median household income rose 1.8 percent last year, the national poverty rate remained stubbornly high at 12.3 percent. That was just a slight decrease from the previous years level of 12.7 percent, according to the federal governments most comprehensive annual gauge of economic hardship.
The supplemental poverty measure for 2017, widely regarded by economists as more accurate, was even higher, 13.9 percent in 2017, essentially unchanged from the year before. That is an improvement from the recent high of 16 percent recorded in 2013. But economists and advocates for poor people say the relatively modest gains over the last few years are fragile, endangered by the Trump administrations policies and vulnerable to a long-overdue economic downturn.
WASHINGTON When a suspected hit man for Russian intelligence arrived in Florida about four years ago, F.B.I. surveillance teams were alarmed.
The man approached the home of one of the C.I.A.s most important informants, a fellow Russian, who had been secretly resettled along the sunny coast. The suspected hit man also traveled to another city where one of the informants relatives lived, raising even more concerns that the Kremlin had authorized revenge on American soil.
At F.B.I. headquarters, some agents voiced concern that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, himself a former intelligence officer known to reserve scorn for defectors from their ranks, had sent an assassin to kill one he viewed as a turncoat. Others said he would not be so brazen as to kill a former Russian spy on American soil.
Ultimately, the Russian defector and his family remained safe. But after the poisoning in March of Sergei V. Skripal, a former Russian intelligence officer living in Britain, and his daughter, American intelligence officials have begun to reassess the danger facing former spies living in the United States, according to current and former American intelligence officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss classified operations.
Tell me about your family and coming to Concord.
UNHCR, the United Nations Refugee Agency, sent us to Concord in November 2007, my mom and dad and me, and we decided to stay. We had seen too much violence, and New Hampshire was peaceful. My father had been an engineer in Afghanistan, and here he got a job as a laborer. My mother was studying English. I was 16 and had zero English. I was helping my parents, going to Concord High School, studying English and working at Walmart and Goodwill. A friend brought me English dictionaries and I sat down every night and studied the vocabulary so I could communicate. I couldnt make a sentence, but I could use my vocabulary.
How did you meet your husband?
It was a prearranged marriage, through my mom and dad. I went home [to Afghanistan] in 2012 to get married. In 2013 I became a U.S. citizen. In January 2014 he came to the United States.
Had you known him before?
No.
Did that bother you?
Being a teenager and living in the U.S. with all this freedom, I had some concerns. I was debating with my mom. I said, Mom, Im still young. I dont want to get married til Im 30 or 35. I want to get my education first. I wanted to be a police officer or a lawyer, but [mom won and] I got married. I came back pregnant with my first child and went to school for business. My two-year degree took me five years; I was also working at Walmart and the campus library and taking night classes. My husband became a citizen last year and has a job here now. This was the first time he could vote, and he was able to vote for his wife.
Did you feel unwelcome here, even before Mr. Patten began his overt campaign against immigrants?
The community was good to us, but the problem was younger people at high school. I was older than others in my class and didnt speak English, and I didnt have friends to welcome me or introduce me or give me guidance. They didnt want to have anything to do with me. I would just say to people now, when you see someone juggling things and trying to fit into the community, they should step in and not hold themselves back.
Mr. Patten questioned your ability to be a state legislator and a mother at the same time. What did you think of that line of attack?
I said, I can do it! Being a mother and working two jobs and going to school its almost the same as being a state rep. I have support from my mom, who is willing to watch my children. That was her endorsement. She said, I will watch the kids. Go for it!
How did you respond to it?
I dont really respond to those comments. Just to say, women are capable. I was at college, worked two jobs, raised kids, helped out with my parents and am pregnant I have faced many situations.
ACCRA, Ghana Kofi Annans fellow Ghanaians finally got their moment to bid farewell to the Nobel laureate on Thursday, in an elaborate state funeral for the first black African to ever lead the United Nations.
Nearly four weeks after Mr. Annan died suddenly at age 80, thousands gathered in the capital, Accra, a mix of chiefs in traditional dress gathered under ceremonial umbrellas alongside clerics, diplomats, politicians and family members.
My love, you are now back home where you started your long journey, Nane Annan, Mr. Annans widow, told the crowd. She said that her husband had challenged us all to work for a better world right where we are.
KABUL, Afghanistan An American aid project in Afghanistan that was billed as the worlds biggest program ever designed purely for female empowerment has been a failure and a waste of taxpayers money, the head of a government watchdog agency has charged.
The project by the United States Agency for International Development, which was named Promote, was originally budgeted at $280 million and was supposed to help 75,000 Afghan women get jobs, promotions, apprenticeships and internships.
Three years later, one of the few concrete results cited in a study of the project released on Thursday by the Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction was the promotion of 55 women to better jobs. But the report said it was unclear whether the program could even be credited for those promotions.
We cant find any good data that theyre helping any women, said John L. Sopko, the head of the watchdog agency, which was established by Congress to monitor American spending in Afghanistan.
HANOI, Vietnam Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmars civilian leader, on Thursday sidestepped widespread accusations that her countrys military had unleashed ethnic cleansing on Rohingya Muslims, a campaign so brutal that the United Nations has recommended that top commanders be tried for genocide.
There are, of course, ways in which, with hindsight, we might think that the situation could have been handled better, but we believe that for the sake of long-term stability and security, we have to be fair to all sides, Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi said in a rare appearance at an international forum, in Hanoi, the Vietnamese capital.
Since August of last year, more than 700,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled to neighboring Bangladesh amid a frenzy of executions, rapes and village burnings in the north of Rakhine State in Myanmar. International human rights groups have extensively documented the way Myanmars military organized the bloodshed, in which at least 10,000 people were killed, according to a United Nations estimate.
But Ms. Aung San Suu Kyi declined to criticize what she delicately referred to as the military aspect in her talk at the World Economic Forum on Asean. Instead, she chastised the international community for not focusing on violence carried out by armed Rohingya militants against members of other ethnic and religious groups in Rakhine.
I would understand the reaction if we came to China to provoke, but that is not the case, Mr. Veit said. We came there to have a dialogue. That is what theater is about.
Chen Qiwen, a social media editor who watched the second, partly censored performance of the play the next night in Beijing, said he was not surprised that An Enemy of the People had set Chinese officials on edge. Under Xi Jinping, the strongman Communist Party leader, censorship and control of culture has reached new extremes.
To me, it was not surprising at all that they canceled the oncoming performances in Nanjing, Mr. Chen said by telephone.
He said the Beijing performance had been his best drama viewing experience this year, not only because of the quality of the drama, but also the ridiculousness and absurdity that has been revealed through the interaction of what happened on and off stage, and the resemblance between the story and this countrys reality.
The Schaubuhne company has performed in China many times before, and Ibsens plays and their liberal themes have gone through periods of wild popularity in China especially during the May Fourth Movement in the early 20th century. But this particular drama would seem to have plenty of potential to unnerve Chinese censors, and embolden their critics.
An Enemy of the People is about a small-town doctor in Norway who discovers the public baths are contaminated. He tries to reveal the scandal, but is run out of the town for threatening its tourist business.
The plays themes of pollution, corruption and a tame, muted news media have clear resonance in many countries, not just China. Productions in the United States have jumped since the election of President Trump, who has used the phrase enemy of the people to describe many journalists.
MANILA Thousands of people in the path of a powerful typhoon began evacuating their homes in the northern Philippines on Thursday as officials scrambled to prepare for what could be a devastating storm.
Typhoon Mangkhut, with winds measuring up to 173 miles an hour, is expected to make landfall on Saturday in northern Luzon, the countrys largest and most populous island. The region is home to four million people.
The Philippines civil defense chief, Ricardo Jalad, briefed top officials, including President Rodrigo Duterte, and said that government agencies were positioning emergency response teams, food, equipment and medical supplies in the areas likely to be affected.
HONG KONG The Philippines braced Thursday for the onslaught of Super Typhoon Mangkhut, whose 150-mile-an-hour winds were on a path for a direct hit at the countrys largest and most populous island.
The military and the police in northern Luzon were placed on red alert barring all troops from going on leave so they could respond to emergencies in communities expected to bear the brunt of the typhoon, which packed the wind power of a Category 5 hurricane.
The typhoon appeared likely to strike an area considered the breadbasket of the Philippines, raising fears of significant damage to the agricultural sector, which has already been reeling from a series of typhoons that destroyed crops, livestock and fisheries.
The storm could bring ruinous rain to central Luzon, home to the countrys agricultural land, warned Richard Gordon, a senator and the chairman of the Philippine Red Cross. The typhoon is coming at the start of the corn and rice harvest, and farmers were urged to bring in as much of their crops as they could to minimize the damage.
PARIS One of the ugliest unsolved crimes of Frances long-ago, quasi-colonial war in Algeria was finally laid to rest on Thursday, as President Emmanuel Macron recognized that the French Army had tortured and killed a youthful antiwar intellectual in 1957.
The death in custody of Maurice Audin, a 25-year-old mathematician, has for decades been a symbol of the French Armys brutality during the Algerian War, much as the My Lai massacre became for the United States war in Vietnam. But unlike My Lai, which led to prosecutions, the Audin affair was never investigated.
There have been books, films and furtive late-life declarations by aging officers, but the mystery has never been solved. And until now, France had never admitted that it used torture in Algeria.
For 61 years, Mr. Audins widow, Josette, has battled the French state to have her husbands killing recognized as the murderous work of military torturers during a critical phase of the Algerian War.
MADRID The Spanish Parliament voted on Thursday to exhume the remains of Francisco Franco, the former dictator, from the underground basilica that he had built near Madrid, intensifying a debate over his legacy that continues 43 years after his death.
The vote paves the way for the body to be moved before the end of the year, but it will not end disagreements about Francos place in history, nor will it resolve the question of what to do with his burial site, known as the Valley of the Fallen.
Franco had the site built, in part with forced labor, to honor those who fell for God and Spain in the Spanish Civil War, and it became one of Europes largest mass graves, with the remains of at least 33,000 people. Most had fought for Franco in the war, which lasted from 1936 to 1939, but the monument also contains the bones of many of his Republican opponents, dumped there in anonymity.
The United States has always regarded the court warily, fearing that it would be used against American troops as a way to subvert Washingtons foreign policy decisions. President Bill Clinton signed the 1998 Rome treaty establishing the court, despite noting its significant flaws.
Congress never ratified the treaty, but former Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama at times gave the court at least tacit support. The Bush administration endorsed its investigation into atrocities in Sudan. The Obama administration provided intelligence and Mr. Obama personally encouraged other countries to cooperate with it.
While two-thirds of the worlds nations are members of the court, that coalition has been tested recently. Burundi withdrew last year although Burundian officials still face possible prosecution for crimes committed while it was a member. And President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines announced plans this year to quit the court amid an investigation into allegations that officials committed mass murder and crimes against humanity during a narcotics crackdown.
Several African nations have at times threatened to quit. And President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, which was never a member of the court, withdrew his signature from the treaty when the court announced it would investigate Moscows military involvement in Ukraine and possible war crimes in Georgia.
The court is vulnerable, said Carsten Stahn, an international law professor at Leiden University here. Bolton is using that vulnerability to attack.
Mr. Bolton has fiercely opposed the court since its inception and his remarks represented a warning to the court over its apparent intention to investigate war crimes in Afghanistan, including the torture and abuse of prisoners by C.I.A. officers. Though Congress has documented many of those abuses, nobody has been prosecuted.
A few months ago, Elon Musk was held up as the poster child for successful social media management. He attracted a third of a million likes and 90,000 tweets with a few mentions about flamethrowers and zombies, creating a massive buzz online. He used social media to negotiate permission for his Boring Company's tunnelling venture, introduced the Falcon Heavy with aplomb and even sold a few flamethrowers on the side. He has ten times as many followers (22 million) than the brand he is most closely associated with - Tesla has about 2.5 million.
Personalities can be powerful branding tools
Am considering taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured. Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 7, 2018
Hitching a personality to your brand
Thin line separating celebrity and notoriety
Then a group of boys found themselves stuck in a cave in Thailand. Elon Musk offered a solution which was turned down. He then proceeded to call one of the heroic rescuers involved in extracting the children a paedophile, broadcasting the claim to all 22 million of his followers and the rest of the world. Just like that, public opinion swung the other way.Most recently, he impulsively tweeted that he was considering taking Tesla private, then abruptly took the deal off the table.The Elon Musk conversation cloud, that once praised his genius and innovative thinking is now recasting him as mercurial and unstable, even calling for him to step away from the brand Musk is not the only one who found himself embroiled in twitter spats. MiWay CEO Rene Otto found himself embroiled in a twitter war after commenting on the controversialbook whereas Adam Catzavelos effectively bankrupted his family's business after a racist video he shot went viral.Personalities can be powerful branding tools. 25% of all social media conversations about electric cars involve Tesla and Elon Musk, even though they are a much smaller brand than the likes of BMW that leads a mere 10% of the conversation. His personal twitter handle has more followers than Ford, Chrysler and ChevroletSteve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg and Cheryl Sandberg all achieved celebrity status and added clout to their companies' social media presence. But once you hitch a personality to your brand, their actions (good or bad) are nearly impossible to uncouple from their business.Using a personality to tell a brand's story can be effective. Consumers tend to care more about the company and its successes and are more likely to engage with its content. But if youfollow that strategy, you run the risk of that personality (and their negative actions)the story. Sponsorships can be withdrawn when an influencer or celebrity's image takes a nosedive, but it is much harder to remove an employee, board member or founder.And does the goodwill that a positive brand representative generates extend beyond the lifetime of that individual? Think of Steve Jobs and the Apple corporation. Although their stocks are doing well, Jobs(for all intents and purposes) Apple. After his passing, the company seems to have been unmoored, their products uninspired, their brand equity diminishing. As competent as management may be, they aren't media darlings.There are many companies eager to turn their C-suite into celebrities, leveraging charisma to catapult the brand into the public eye. But there is a thin line separating celebrity and notoriety. Every company representative needs to understand how their online presence can both promotegravely injure their brand.Rene Otto did not mean to offend Afrikaners when he was commenting on a topical book he had read; Elon Musk probably didn't think his casual tweet would be seen as deceiving shareholders. If you are going the route of building personal brands within your organisation, you have to invest in sensitivity and communications training and set clear rules and guidelines for personal posting.Your thought leaders think that there is a distinction between their private and professional opinions; social media does not. It's time for companies to rethink who and how their employees can talk about their jobs there is a lot to gain, but a lot to lose.
VATICAN CITY It was not the warmest of Vatican welcomes.
Amid a spiraling sexual abuse crisis that has threatened the pontificate of Pope Francis, Americas top Roman Catholic prelates met with the pontiff on Thursday. They were seeking a robust investigation into how Vatican officials permitted one of Americas top bishops, former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, to climb the hierarchy despite apparently knowing of allegations of his sexual misconduct.
But before the Americans could enter the popes private office, the church revealed that an investigation had in fact begun just perhaps not the one they were expecting.
While a Vatican statement announcing the noon meeting began by listing the American delegation, including the secretary general of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, Msgr. Brian Bransfield, it concluded with the revelation that Francis had accepted the resignation of the monsignors cousin, Bishop Michael J. Bransfield of West Virginia.
The pope, the statement said, has named a temporary administrator for the Wheeling-Charleston Diocese, Archbishop William E. Lori. Archbishop Lori promptly declared in his own statement that Francis had instructed him to conduct an investigation into allegations of sexual harassment of adults against Bishop Bransfield.
It was Mr. Keyess behavior toward young women that resulted in measures being taken to insulate them from his advances, according to interviews. That is why he was curbed from the Wall Street Journals opinion section, which he frequented to make common cause with its conservatives, in November 2013, according to several Journal employees, including four who said he propositioned them.
The sections deputy editor at the time, Bret Stephens now a columnist for The New York Times said he gave Mr. Keyes a dressing-down, calling him a disgrace to men and a disgrace as a Jew, and barred him from the office without an appointment.
Mr. Keyes sent email messages to several Journal employees apologizing for being less than gentlemanly, as he put it in at least two of the emails.
One of those employees, Kate Havard, was an intern. Mr. Keyes, in late-night text messages, dangled the possibility of having her work for him and asked her to come to his apartment then to discuss it. When she declined, the texts show, Mr. Keyes said he would have to find someone else for the assignment.
Another former Journal writer said that Mr. Keyes had attacked her, pushing her down on his bed and ripping her tights, after luring her to his apartment in November 2012. He started trying to take off his clothes, while trying to keep me on the bed with one arm, she said, speaking on condition of anonymity because she is looking for work and fears that being identified as a victim could harm her prospects.
In late 2014, Mr. Keyes was reined in again, this time at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a conservative policy group in Washington, according to four workers there, after he made several unwelcome advances to two young female employees, one of whom had been assigned to coordinate his appearance at an event hosted by the organization.
When the two women complained, the foundation imposed a new policy restricting visitors from roaming the offices freely, according to two people who worked there at the time. The foundation confirmed that it had put in place strict policies and best practices that reflect zero tolerance for harassment or any form of inappropriate behavior.
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo had a decisive win against Cynthia Nixon on Thursday in the Democratic primary in New York, the only state in the nation that held separate state and federal primary elections in this tumultuous political year. And though it was status quo at the top, with the lieutenant governor Kathy Hochul also prevailing, other challengers benefited from the progressive wave sweeping national politics. Heres a look at some critical races: Read more
Cynthia Nixon, the actress and education activist, had attracted attention for her candidacy against Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, running an aggressive campaign that some have credited for pushing Mr. Cuomo to the left. Her challenge, which, according to public polls taken in the race, seemed to be insurmountable: The governor had the benefits of incumbency, the state Democratic Party apparatus and an overwhelming fund-raising advantage. He had spent more than $21.4 million and was pouring nearly $500,000 per day into the race as of late August.
The sudden resignation of Eric T. Schneiderman, after he was accused of violence against several romantic partners, left a vacancy that four Democrats were vying to fill. Polls suggested that three of the four candidates Representative Sean Patrick Maloney; Letitia James, the New York City public advocate; and Zephyr Teachout, a law professor had the best chance of representing the party in November. Ms. James would be the first black woman elected to statewide office in New York, as would Leecia Eve, a Verizon executive and a former aide to Hillary Clinton.
Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul, Mr. Cuomos running mate, was fending off an energetic challenge from Jumaane D. Williams, a city councilman from Brooklyn. The race is normally an afterthought to the governors race, but polls showed Ms. Hochul, who won the post in 2014, leading Mr. Williams by a much smaller margin than Mr. Cuomo leads Ms. Nixon.
In the State Senate, a number of races were being closely watched, including those involving incumbents who had belonged to the so-called Independent Democratic Conference, a group of breakaway Democratic senators who had had a power-sharing agreement with Republicans. Under pressure from Mr. Cuomo, the group disbanded in April and returned to the chambers mainstream Democrats. Still, dozens of anti-Trump resistance groups backed a slate of candidates who were mounting energetic challenges to the renegade senators, arguing that their deal with Republicans had prevented a raft of progressive bills from becoming law.
Read more about todays most important races.
Our poll result is about what was expected. But remember: Its just one poll, and we talked to only 500 people. Each candidates total could easily be five points different if we polled everyone in the district. And having a small sample is only one possible source of error.
Can a Democrat prevail in deep red Kansas? We made 17066 calls, and 500 people spoke to us.
This survey was conducted by The New York Times Upshot and Siena College.
Hey, Im Alex Burns, a politics correspondent for The Times. Ill give you the latest reporting and intel on the midterms and take your questions from the campaign trail.
Its generally best to look at a single poll in the context of other polls:
Mr. Davis was the Democratic nominee for governor in 2014, and he carried this district while losing statewide to the incumbent Republican, Sam Brownback.
Mr. Davis, who faced no primary opposition, has emphasized his community ties and willingness to work across the aisle. A lawyer, he served in the Kansas State House from 2002 to 2015.
Mr. Watkins, a newcomer to politics who has spent much of his adult life outside Kansas, prevailed in a seven-way Republican primary over more established candidates, some of whom criticized his skimpy voting record and reliance on a PAC financed by his father.
This district includes most of eastern Kansas except for the core of the Kansas City metropolitan area. Like the rest of the state, it is strongly Republican-leaning, but the retirement of the incumbent, with no obvious G.O.P. successor, and a strong Democratic candidate have thrown the outcome into doubt.
is the former minority leader in the State House. 37% favorable rating; 27% unfavorable; 36% dont know
Each dot shows one of the 17066 calls we made.
If sampling error were the only type of error in a poll, we would expect candidates who trail by one point in a poll of 500 people to win about two out of every five races. But this probably understates the total error by a factor of two .
One reason were doing these surveys live is so you can see the uncertainty for yourself.
As we reach more people, our poll will become more stable and the margin of sampling error will shrink. The changes in the timeline below reflect that sampling error, not real changes in the race.
Our turnout model Theres a big question on top of the standard margin of error in a poll: Who is going to vote? Its a particularly challenging question this year, since special elections have shown Democrats voting in large numbers. To estimate the likely electorate, we combine what people say about how likely they are to vote with information about how often they have voted in the past. In previous races, this approach has been more accurate than simply taking people at their word. But there are many other ways to do it. Assumptions about who is going to vote may be particularly important in this race. Our poll under different turnout scenarios Who will vote? Est. turnout Our poll result People who say they are almost certain to vote, and no one else 217k Davis +2 The types of people who voted in 2014 221k Watkins +2 Our estimate 228k Davis +1 People whose voting history suggests they will vote, regardless of what they say 232k Davis +1 People who say they will vote, adjusted for past levels of truthfulness 242k Davis +1 The types of people who voted in 2016 277k Watkins +2 Every active registered voter 400k Davis +6 In these scenarios, higher turnout tends to be better for Democrats.
The types of people we reached Even if we got turnout exactly right, the margin of error wouldnt capture all of the error in a poll. The simplest version assumes we have a perfect random sample of the voting population. We do not. People who respond to surveys are almost always too old, too white, too educated and too politically engaged to accurately represent everyone. How successful we were in reaching different kinds of voters Called Inter-
viewed Success
rate Our
responses Goal 18 to 29 1 2 6 3 5 8 1 in 22 12% 8% 30 to 64 8 0 5 6 2 5 3 1 in 32 51% 57% 65 and older 4 0 0 7 1 8 9 1 in 21 38% 35% Male 5 4 7 3 2 3 2 1 in 24 46% 47% Female 7 8 5 5 2 6 8 1 in 29 54% 53% White 1 1 3 0 6 4 2 2 1 in 27 84% 85% Nonwhite 8 5 2 3 0 1 in 28 6% 6% Cell 9 6 8 6 3 3 0 1 in 29 66% Landline 3 6 4 2 1 7 0 1 in 21 34% Pollsters compensate by giving more weight to respondents from under-represented groups. Here, were weighting by age, party registration, gender, likelihood of voting, race, education and region, mainly using data from voting records files compiled by L2, a nonpartisan voter file vendor. But weighting works only if you weight by the right categories and you know what the composition of the electorate will be. In 2016, many pollsters didnt weight by education and overestimated Hillary Clintons standing as a result. Here are other common ways to weight a poll: Our poll under different weighting schemes Our poll result Weight using census data instead of voting records, like most public polls Davis +7 Dont weight by party registration, like most public polls Davis +7 Dont weight by education, like many polls in 2016 Davis +4 Our estimate Davis +1 Just because one candidate leads in all of these different weighting scenarios doesnt mean much by itself. They dont represent the full range of possible weighting scenarios, let alone the full range of possible election results.
The release of crime statistics in South Africa always triggers great angst among ordinary citizens, and obfuscation on the part of the South African authorities. This year was no exception.
Author supplied
We have lost the UN norm of policing which says one policeman to 220 citizens. One police officer is now looking at almost double that.
The question of police numbers
Targeted approach
Inequality
makes property crime more attractive and profitable;
drives frustration, hostility and hopelessness; and,
undermines trust, community engagement and the functioning of social and institutional structures.
Where to from here
In their latest release of crime statistics , the South African Police Service seem to have tried to downplay crime rate increases (and exaggerate crime rate decreases), by using the wrong population estimates . The police incorrectly used the June 2018 population estimates in their analysis of the 2017/18 crime rates. This is not the first time they have made this kind of bungle But their motivation is clear. Applying the correct population estimates suggests that the country saw the biggest per capita annual murder rate increase since 1994. Last years figures suggested that the murder rate had stabilised . But these were unfounded, as the murder rate has now risen to 36 per 100,000. The last time it was this high was in 2009. The increase is cause for serious concern.Even the new minister of police Bheki Cele expressed shock at the numbers, describing South Africa as being close to a war zone. He admitted that the countrys police force dropped the ball.A logical response might be that there is a need for more policing. According to Cele:But this isnt the answer. A sensible response to South Africas rising crime rates would be twofold: a problem-solving approach that would require a close analysis of whats causing crime to rise in a given area. Then theyd need to devise a plan that takes into account all the contributory factors and involves everyone affected in addressing it.And, secondly, the countrys leaders must address inequality. South Africa is a highly unequal society. It has one of the highest gini-co-efficients (a measure of inequality) in the world. Research shows that inequality and crime go hand in hand Police leaders reported that their staff numbers have gone down by 10,000 since 2010. They argued that they had 62,000 fewer police than were needed.Police agencies all over the world often claim that, to reduce crime, they need bigger budgets and more officers. But the evidence that these two things automatically lead to more effective crime prevention is far from clear.Take the issue of police numbers. Short-term and extreme spikes in police numbers (such as in response to terrorist threats) do seem to reduce crime. But a review of a number of studies on the relationship between policing levels and crime rates suggested that the impact of more police is generally small. The paper also noted that part of the problem was that there have been few rigorous experiments on, for example, extra police resources being allocated randomly.Bigger budgets also have mixed outcomes. This is because, very often, a significant proportion of spending on police is ineffectual. Police resources often arent targeted, even though theres evidence that doing so produces good results This isnt hard to do: crime is highly concentrated in hot spots that are often surprisingly small and quite stable over time. With the right focus, resources could be directed to these areas. But mostly they arent What works best is a problem-solving approach . This involves focusing narrowly on understanding specific crime problems in specific places, and using not only police but drawing on the knowledge and resources of all parties, including other government departments and local communities.For example, particular factors might be contributing to a spike in robberies in a particular area. These could include a large cohort of bored young people in the community, paths that are fertile ground for attacks because they are dark and overgrown, or unlit parks near a derelict building.More police patrols wouldnt necessarily be the best solution. The underlying problems would need to be addressed. This might include creating a partnership between property owners, the agencies in charge of parks and lighting administration, schools and parents, and the communities that use the spaces.One concern with a targeted approach is that crime is simply pushed elsewhere. But evidence suggests that the displacement effect is usually limited and that, in fact, nearby areas often enjoy a diffusion of benefits Theres a more fundamental problem that needs to be solved on a national scale before South Africas crime levels can be reduced: inequality.Research shows that inequality is arguably the single best predictor of whether a country will experience high or low levels of crime and violence. InequalitySouth Africa is one of the most unequal countries in the world Murder levels nationally have been at about this level or higher (above 30 per 100,000, which is considered very high by global standards) since at least the 1970s . High levels of violence are not a matter of police resources. They are a structural feature of this society.This is not to say that the police are blameless. Among other things they should be doing more to solve cases . But addressing the key drivers of crime and violence requires that South Africa builds a much larger social partnership. It has no hope of becoming a fundamentally less violent country until it becomes a more equal one.This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article
They are known as McRefugees or McSleepers, homeless or lonely people in Hong Kong who spend their nights at 24h McDonalds restaurants, and their number is apparently growing at an alarming rate.
Hong Kong is notorious for its obscenely expensive housing market and the inhumane cage-like dwellings that some of the islands inhabitants are forced to sleep in. Some of these housing units lack basic amenities like running water and private toilets, not to mention air conditioning, so its no wonder that some people prefer to spend their nights at 24/7 McDonalds restaurants. There were around 256 such McRefugees in Hong Kong in 2015, but data released earlier this year shows that their number has grown by 50% in the last three years and is predicted to keep on growing.
Photo: thank_you/Pixabay
According to a study by a local branch of Junior Chamber International, most McSleepers own or rent small apartments in Hong Kong, but their living conditions pale in comparison to what a McDonalds offers. The majority of those interviewed in the study also claimed to have stable jobs, but could not even dream of upgrading their apartments on their salaries. They are often referred to as the working poor.
But while poverty is the main cause of the McRefugee phenomenon in Hong Kong, its definitely no the only one. Some people prefer to sleep in a McDonalds fast-food restaurant because theyre lonely, or to escape family conflicts.
I used to sleep at my home but finding out that I can sleep here its quite lively, with the young people playing around here and others like me, 62-year-old Auntie Chan told the South China Morning Post.
Wong Hung, associate professor in social work at Chinese University, claims that while the outrageous price of housing pushed people into McDonalds restaurants, it was loneliness that kept them there.
So far, authorities have generally ignored McRefugees, despite several NGOs urging the government to invest in affordable housing and subsidized shelters, but as the phenomenon becomes more widespread, they may have no choice but to acknowledge the problem, and hopefully try to fix it. Compared to other, poorer communities, Hong Kong actually has the financial resources to tackle the issue.
According to the aforementioned study, the hundreds of interviewed McRefugees frequent 84 of the 110 McDonalds restaurants in the city that stay open all night long, with the most popular location a venue in Tsuen Wan district acting as a home for 30 of them.
Hong Kong is one of the worlds most unequal places in terms of wealth distribution, with one in five people living in poverty, according to government data.
Can you imagine needing to have your appendix removed just to be able to live in your city? Thats exactly what the residents of Villa Las Estrellas, a small Chilean settlement in Antarctica, are required to do in order to live there long-term.
To be able to comprehend such a bizarre requirement, you first need to know a few things about Villa Las Estrellas. In short, this place is probably the closest you can get to experiencing life on another planet. Its located so far away from human civilization and weather conditions are so extreme that would-be residents must pass a very thorough psychological exam in order to prove that they can live here for a long period of time. In winter time, the whole place is buried under several meters of snow and the hours of daylight are replaced with a few minutes of twilight. The average temperature is -2.3 degrees Celsius, but they can drop to -47 in winter months, making it nearly impossible to even set foot outside the container-like houses.
Photo: SnowSwan/Wikimedia Commons (Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported)
Villa Las Estrellas is currently home to over 80 inhabitants, mainly members of the Chilean air force and their families, with everyone over the age of six missing their appendix. The requirement to have the potentially-problematic organ surgically removed is a precaution. Because this icy town is located on the remote King George Island, 120 km off the coast of Antarctica, with the nearest surgical hospital over 1,000 km away, removing residents appendix lowers the risk of an emergency evacuation.
Villa Las Estrellas actually has its own hospital, but its manned by a general practitioner who cant handle emergency surgeries, and with winds here blowing with speeds of up to 200 km/h, hail and other extreme meteorological phenomena, taking off in a Hercules C-130 military plane on a gravel runway can be quite difficult.
Photo: Chikomario/Wikimedia Commons (Public Domain)
We must be prepared to keep a person alive two or three days, the time it usually takes an airplane to take off from here, Sergio Cubillos, the commander of the military airbase, told EFE. For this same reason, becoming pregnant in Villa Las Estrellas is not forbidden, but discouraged.
So why would anyone live in a place like this? Well, Villa Las Estrellas was founded in 1984, during the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, as a way to consolidate Chiles presence in what was then called the Chilean Antarctic. Families have been living there ever since, and Chile remains one of only two countries the other being Argentina to settle entire families in Antarctica. The other 24 countries present on the frozen continent only operate temporary research and military bases.
Nowadays, families who decide to move to Villa Las Estrellas and have their appendix removed even children over the age of 6 choose to do so primarily for monetary gain. The Chilean government offers considerable financial incentives o settlers willing to spend a few years in this remote community, and some find them hard to resist.
Despite the obvious hardships of living on a remote island just off the coast of Antarctica and having to give their appendix to do so, most of the residents of Villa Las Estrellas manage to find a silver lining.
Family life in Antarctica is very calm and pleasant because we spend much more time together than before, journalist Macarena Villarreal, mother of two, and wife of a military man, told EFE.
World News Media Congress 2019 to be held in Scotland
Glasgow, Scotland will host the 71st World News Media Congress, the 26th World Editors Forum and the Third Women in News Summit from 1-3 June 2019.
The events will take place at Glasgow's Scottish Event Campus, which is situated on the north bank of the River Clyde.
The World News Media Congress is the annual meeting of news executives, including publishers, editors, and owners of newspapers from all over the world.
Jean-Francois Bonnete
EVINS Communications toasts Bonnete Consulting Incorporated, which bills itself as a specialty wine/spirits brand builder. It will manage media initiatives nationwide for BCI and select brands including Trois Rivieres Rhums from Martinique, newly launched Liberation de Paris wines from France, and Mauritius-based New Grove Rum. BCIs services include brand and category analytics, brand positioning, commercial and trade launches, strategic management, industry relations, marketing and program planning.
Bullfrog + Baum is agency for Canyon Ranch. The firm will develop and execute strategic PR, while also helping to drive global exposure for the brand in the luxury wellness space. B+Baum will handle national and regional media relationships, events and strategic brand partnerships, and programming development. Canyon Ranch operates wellness destinations in Tucson, Arizona and Lenox, Massachusetts, as well as the worlds largest day spa at The Venetian and The Palazzo hotels in Las Vegas. It also operates 22 Canyon Ranch at Sea wellness facilities onboard luxury cruise ships.
The Pollack PR Marketing Group has been hired by substance abuse prevention education organization D.A.R.E. America to work on the nationwide launch of its opioid and prescription drug abuse prevention lessons for schools and communities across the country. Pollack will conduct widespread local and regional media relations to drive awareness of the new program. It will also execute a thought leadership program to support D.A.R.E. Americas educational effort and bring national attention to the urgent issue of opioid abuse. The agency has presented a strategy that we believe will not only reach our constituents, but also the community leaders and influencers in local government, health and educationwho all can make a difference in preventing this national crisis, said D.A.R.E. America COO Richard Mahan.
The Republic of Somalilands Ministry of Foreign Affairs has renewed its pact with Glover Park Group to advise the East African territory on communications and government relations matters.
The WPP unit will provide government relations and strategic communications counsel in regards to improving Somalilands bilateral relations with the United States, according to Foreign Agents Registration Act documents filed in September.
The pact renews GPGs work for the Somaliland government, who hired the agency last year to act as an advisory on communications and government relations matters.
Somaliland, which declared its independence and split from Somalia after a 1991 civil war, maintains a democratically-elected government and functions as an autonomous region with its own currency and army. However, while the territory maintains informal relations with the United Nations and European Union as well as countries like the United States, it remains unrecognized internationally as a sovereign state.
The campaign, which began on September 1 and continues until the end of November, brings GPG a $22,000-per-month fee.
Fianna Fail TD for Offaly Barry Cowen says the Government needs to refocus its efforts at attracting new investment into the Midlands.
Deputy Cowen made the comments after addressing a meeting of Tullamore Chamber of Commerce where he set out his priorities for the area.
Deputy Cowen said, Retaining existing and attracting new businesses into Tullamore is a key priority of mine. Key to achieving this is implementing a competitive commercial rates rebate system to help new businesses to become established in the community and to also assist those which are struggling financially. The current rates system is cumbersome and needs to be reworked."
The IDA also needs to be refocused to help bring new investment into towns such as Tullamore. Over 50% of all IDA site visits went to the Greater Dublin Area in 2017. Its perfectly clear that investment has been focused on large urban areas under Fine Gael. This needs to change if towns such as Tullamore are to thrive in the years ahead," he added.
Deputy Cowen also welcomed the recent purchase of Coens and Texas sites. I worked extensively to ensure these sites were brought back into use and Im sure that the potential for these two sites to revitalize the core of Tullamore will be realised with the cooperation of Offaly County Council," he stated.
"We also need to see sufficient availability of affordable housing in Tullamore if the town is to attract new investment. The Government needs to promote the construction of affordable housing. The housing crisis doesnt just affect Dublin, it is impacting on communities all over Ireland. It will be impossible to attract large multinational companies to set up in Tullamore if there is no affordable housing available for their employees," Cowen claimed.
I also want to see additional investment in transport infrastructure such as road and rail. A recent report carried out by the National Oversight and Audit Commission (NOAC) found that almost 70% of regional roads have serious structural and surface defects. This has led to serious safety concerns for road users and increased maintenance costs to motorists."
Fianna Fail is also proposing to establish a Regeneration Transition Fund to be financed by ring-fencing the annual proceeds of the Solid Carbon Tax."
"This ring-fenced fund should be used to attract new industries into areas which have suffered economic decline as a result of initiatives taken to combat climate change. This would be beneficial for Offaly as the fund would help replace jobs lost as a result of the diversification of Bord na Mona operations," Cowen concluded.
The Defence Forces has launched the second of this year's General Service Recruitment Campaigns for the Permanent Defence Force (PDF).
"The current recruitment competition is an opportunity for young people to serve their country in both the army and naval service. New recruits will receive first class training in weapons handling, military tactics, team work and physical fitness. On completion of their induction training our personnel will have opportunities to serve Ireland both domestically and on overseas missions, undergo leadership training and choose from a broad spectrum of educational opportunities," said the Defence Forces.
On completion of an initial 17 weeks followed by a further 12 weeks training respectively, the Defence Forces said newly qualified 3 star Privates and their Naval Service equivalent, can expect minimum gross annual earnings of 27,000 (inclusive of military service allowance).
Chief of Staff, Vice Admiral Mark Mellett DSM, said: "A career in the Defence Forces is an opportunity to serve Ireland, at home and internationally. It is a rewarding career that is an opportunity to serve Ireland and to receive world class training and education that will stand to you for the rest of your life. We hope to attract young men and women who want make a difference and to have an impact on the world.
The current competition is for General Service in the Army and Naval Service and is open until Sunday 7th October. Applicants can apply online.
The Defence Forces are seeking to induct approximately 700 people across the Army, Air Corps and Naval Service this year through both of the General Service recruitment competitions, as well as Apprenticeships and Cadetships.
Check out the video below.
The Midland Weather Channel has issued a severe weather warning as Hurricane Helene continues its track towards Ireland.
Meteorologist Cathal Nolan told the Offaly Express, "having assessed the latest weather models and based on my own numerical calculations it looks increasingly likely that hurricane Helene will make landfall in Ireland at some point between 14:00 on Monday and 02:00 on Tuesday next."
"Currently, Helene is 2000km southwest of the Azores and remains a category 1 hurricane, with sustained winds of 130kph and gusts in excess of 170 kph," he continued.
"Helene is weakening, however, and should continue to do so as it crosses the cooler waters of the North Atlantic before impacting Ireland through next Monday/Tuesday," Nolan added.
The latest guidance suggests that the strongest winds will occur along the south and west coasts, where gusts could exceed 130-140 kph.
"Overland gusts of between 110-120 are possible. The storm itself is still some time away and therefore its exact track and intensity remain difficult to pin down," Cathal explained.
"Helene has taken a very similar track to that of Ophelia last year, which is extremely unusual for an Atlantic hurricane," Nolan told us.
"My concern at present is that the storm could deepen during its approach to Ireland, transforming from a Post Tropical Cyclone into a very powerful Atlantic Storm, which would potentially increase the winds along the west and south coast given the storms angle and interaction with the jet stream," he concluded
Whats an eSIM?
The term 'eSIM' is an amalgamation of the words "electronic" and "SIM," simply referring to an electronic, non-replaceable variant of a traditional SIM card. The e-SIM stays on the device and cannot be physically pulled out like the traditional SIM slots. It's more compact in size and can be used in variety of devices including smartphones. An eSIM will make it easier to take advantage of the dual-SIM capabilities and swap out a second number if you change jobs or carriers. This technology means that thinner and smaller devices can connect to a mobile network. If the eSIM is used on a wearable such as an Apple Watch or a computing device, it is easy to get your service provider to replicate your phone number on the secondary device.
How eSIM technology works?
Note that to use two different carriers, your iPhone must be unlocked. If a CDMA-based carrier (such as Verizon or Sprint in the US) provides your first SIM, then your second SIM will not support CDMA.
How to use eSIM?
To use the eSIM you will have to activate your cellular plan with a QR code provided by your carrier. You can store more than one eSIM in your device, but can only use one at a time.
Google Pixel 2 was the first smartphone to come with e-SIM support
Note that Google Pixel 2 was the first smartphone to come with e-SIM support. However, the e-SIM version of the phone was only available on the US.
Apple to partner Airtel, Reliance Jio for eSIM support in India
Telecom operators Airtel and Reliance Jio offer eSIM support and will be able to provide connectivity for the newly launched iPhones. The telcos have already been supporting eSIM for Apple Watch 3 in India.
Arrest warrant issued against Chandrababu Naidu in connection with Babli project agitation
India
oi-Vikas SV
Hyderabad, Sep 13: A Maharashtra Court has issued an arrest warrant against Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu and 15 others in connection with the 2010 Babli project agitation.
The Dharmabad first class judicial magistrate court directed the police to produce Naidu and the other leaders before the bench on September 21, reports.
Naidu and others, then in the opposition in the united Andhra Pradesh, had been arrested and lodged in a jail in Pune in connection with the agitation staged by them near the Babli project site in Maharashtra, opposing it on ground that it would affect the people downstream.
Besides Naidu, state Water Resources Minister Devineni Umamaheswara Rao and Social Welfare Minister N Anand Babu, former MLA G Kamalakar (who subsequently joined the TRS) were among the Telugu Desam Party workers booked in the case, said a report.
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Story first published: Friday, September 14, 2018, 0:49 [IST]
Congress allegation on reduction of strength of defence forces wrong: Government
India
oi-Vicky Nanjappa
New Delhi, Sep 13: The Central government lashed out at Congress party for its allegation that government is looking to cut 1.5 lakh jobs in Indian Army. Top government sources told OneIndia, " It is extremely unfortunate that the Congress Party has once again hurled today unfounded allegations against the Government and shedding crocodile tears for the brave men and women who defend the country. Worse, by itself admitting that its allegations are based on unconfirmed media reports, the Congress has unwittingly admitted that it continues its politically motivated and unsuccessful smear campaign to tarnish the Government's image".
Clarifying that Centre has no proposal to reduce the strength of defence forces as Congress has claimed, the senior government sources said that, " Government has taken specific and decisive steps to translate into action its commitment to ensuring the country's defence and security. The Government also attaches the highest priority to modernise our Armed Forces and ensuring their preparedness in accordance with the emerging challenges, and strategic and technological imperatives."
Lean mean Indian Army: 1,50,000 troops to be cut
Attacking Congress Party regarding economic agenda, the government sources said that, " Congress Party has also enunciated a new economic theory today which brands the tax collected for welfare of the poor, the farmers, the youth and the women as "" (income). The collection of taxes into and their expenditure from the Consolidated Fund of India is according to the provisions of the Constitution of India. It is mischievous to term the tax revenue as ""."
Regarding cost incurred for PM Modi's Yoga video, government sources clarified that " No expenditure was incurred on the fitness video posted by the Prime Minister, it was filmed in house and no procurement was done for the video. The Congress's stand exposes its inability to see the welcome the message for health and well-being received at the hands of the common people".
Regarding expenditure on PM's foreign trips, government sources said that they are 'significantly lower than the arbitrary figure sought to be pushed by the Congress in its effort to spread lies and create confusion." Launching a scathing attack on the grand old party, government sources said, " By flogging these dead horses, the Congress Party has revealed the political desperation of a drowning man to clutch at a straw. As a responsible democratic entity, the least it could do is to refrain from misusing mass media for rumour mongering and abusing democracy."
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Story first published: Thursday, September 13, 2018, 7:53 [IST]
DUSU Election Result 2018: ABVP wins president, VP, NSUI post of secretary
India
oi-Vikas SV
New Delhi, Sep 13: In the Delhi University Students' Union (DUSU) election, Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad's (ABVP) Ankiv Basoya, Shakti Singh and Jyoti Choudhary won the posts of president, vice president and joint secretary, respectively. NSUI's candidate Akash Choudhary has won the post of secretary.
Amid uproar over faulty EVMs during the Delhi University Students' Union (DUSU) election, the counting had to be stopped for some time. It later resumed and results were declared.
{image-06-1436170665-st-stephencollege.jpg www.oneindia.com}
"EVMs haven't been issued/allotted to Delhi University by this office. It was also confirmed from State Election Commission that no such machines have been given by them too. It seems that Delhi University has procured these machines privately," said Election Officer Manoj Kumar, as per an ANI report.
Earlier today, the Congress-affiliated NSUI demanded that fresh polling be held for the Delhi University Students' Union (DUSU) election, while the RSS's student wing, the ABVP, wanted the counting of votes, which has been suspended, to be resumed.
DUSU election officer confirmed that the counting for the polls to four DUSU posts, which was held on Wednesday, was suspended after four EVMs were found to be faulty. He further cited the students' protest over the issue at the counting centre as the reason behind poll panel's decision to suspend counting.
The supporters of both the groups shouted slogans against the Delhi University (DU) administration and created a ruckus inside the counting centre. "A fresh date for the counting will be announced soon," an election officer for the DUSU polls said.
OneIndia News with PTI inputs
'Vijay Mallya was given free passage by Arun Jaitley', says Rahul Gandhi
India
oi-Madhuri Adnal
New Delhi, Sep 13: Absconding businessman Vijay Mallya's claim that he had a "meeting" with Finance Minister Arun Jaitley before leaving for London has created a political controversy. Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Thursday that the finance minister Arun Jaitley colluded with Vijay Mallya running away from the country.
Speaking at the press conference, Gandhi said,''Vijay Mallya said yesterday that he met Arun Jaitley ji in the Parliament before leaving. Arun Jaitley writes blogs on all meetings but I don't know why there was no blog by him on this meeting. He(FM)said that he spoke only a few words to him (Vijay Mallya), which is a lie.''
He also said,''Finance Minister talks to an absconder, absconder tells him that he is going to London. Finance Minister doesn't tell CBI, ED or police. Why? The arrest notice was changed to informed notice. This can be done only by the one who controls CBI.''
Gandhi said,''The Finance Minister has colluded in a criminal running away from the country.''
Gandhi said that the government has been lying about everything - Rafale deal, Vijay Mallya's escape. He further said that Vijay Mallya was given a free passage out of the country by the Finance Minister.
''Even if he (Mallya) caught up with you in the corridor why did you not tell the CBI, ED that he's going to flee, catch him? This is clearly a collusion, there is definitely a deal. Finance Minister should clearly say what transpired and he should resign,'' Gandhi also said.
Claiming that Congress has proof of Jaitley and Mallya meeting, Punia said that he had informed the media of Jaitley-Mallya meeting. "They have been quiet for one and a half year. Jaitley has addressed the Parliament ever since but he never mentioned the meeting (however small). This is breach of trust. There is CCTV footage of the two meeting. If proven wrong I will quit politics, or Jaitley ji should quit," said Punia.
Earlier, Union Minister Dharmendra Pradhan defended his cabinet colleague and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley saying absconding businessman Vijay Mallya took 'undue advantage of the FM's presence in Parliament corridor'.
He said: "He (Mallya)had taken undue advantage of his (FM)presence in Parliament corridor. It's a lie&violation of decorum. Who used to go to parties in Goa? Who used to be his guests abroad? It should be found out. Jo unke beneficiaries hain ,chor machaye shor...Won't let him go, as long as Narendra Modi is PM, however strong might the fugitive be, he'll be brought back."
No respite: Petrol price very close to hitting century in Delhi: Check new rates in metro cities
Fuel price is an economic policy, wont interfere says Delhi HC
India
oi-Madhuri Adnal
New Delhi, Sep 13: Daily change in fuel prices was a "economic policy decision" of the central government and the courts must remain away from it, the Delhi High Court said Wednesday.
A bench of Chief Justice Rajendra Menon and Justice V K Rao made it clear it was not inclined to interfere with the government's decision, saying "there are larger economic issues" involved.
AIADMK flays Centre on fuel price rise; CM says state may cut tax
"It is an economic policy matter of the government. There are larger economic issues. The courts must remain away from it. Government may do it (fix a fair price). We cannot issue a mandamus (direction) to them to do it," the court said.
The bench was hearing a PIL by Delhi-based designer, Puja Mahajan, challenging the daily rise in fuel rates and seeking a direction to the Centre to fix a fair price for petrol and diesel by treating them as essential commodities.
The petition, filed through advocate A Maitri, also claimed that Mahajan''s representation to the central government on the issue has not yet been decided.
The court, thereafter, directed the central government to decide the representation within four weeks and listed the matter for hearing on November 16.
The petition has alleged that the government had "indirectly given implied consent" to oil marketing companies (OMCs) to hike petrol and diesel prices at their own "whims and fancies".
It has claimed that the implied consent was evident from the lack of revision in fuel prices for around 22 days in the run-up to the Karnataka Assembly polls.
Fuel price hike: Mamata govt cuts petrol, diesel prices by 1 rupee per litre
The petition has also alleged that the government was spreading "misleading information" by connecting the rising fuel prices here with the global increase in the rate of crude oil as the cost of petrol and diesel did not go down when crude was cheaper.
The petitioner has also said that in July, she had moved a similar plea, which the court had disposed of by asking the Centre to treat it as a representation and take a decision.
However, since the government had not taken a decision till date on her representation, she filed the present petition, the plea has said.
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Story first published: Thursday, September 13, 2018, 6:49 [IST]
J&K panchayat polls: Cong accuses Centre of causing confusion
India
oi-Madhuri Adnal
Srinagar, Sep 13: The Congress's Jammu and Kashmir unit Wednesday accused the Centre and the state government of creating "uncertainty" over the panchayat and local bodies polls, saying it will decide on participation once the "confusing" is cleared.
The elections in the state is scheduled to be held from next month.
The Jammu and Kashmir Pradesh Congress Committee (JKPCC) would send a team to New Delhi to brief the party leadership on the issue, Congress state unit president G A Mir said at a press conference here.
Despite big players pulling out, civic polls in J&K as per schedule
He said the team of senior state leaders will also hold deliberations on whether to participate in the polls.
"There is a lot of confusion over the issue of conduct of these elections. Both the Centre and the state government have created the confusion. There is no clarity on part of both of them.
"The stand of the state government on the issue seems to be fluctuating with every passing hour," he said.
Mir said the party had raised certain questions on the issue when it met Jammu and Kashmir Governor Satya Pal Malik and it seemed the government was only "testing waters" and not serious on the issue.
"We have called on the governor twice in the last 10 days. Yesterday, also we met him. We had raised certain question on the preparations for these polls, but the concerns have not been addressed. The polls were announced without taking anyone onboard. It seems that the government is only testing the waters," he said.
The JKPCC president said the party is minutely watching the situation and wants the Centre and the state government to clear their stand on whether to conduct these polls or not.
J&K municipal polls may be held on non-party lines
"They have themselves created an uncertainty here. We want them to clear the confusion and come out with their stand on whether to conduct the polls or not.
"The state administration should put up a credible person before the people and ensure them that it is ready for the polls. Once the confusion is cleared, the Congress party will take a decision on whether to participate," he said.
On whether the situation was conducive or not for conducting the polls, Mir said, "Even a blind person will tell you that the situation is not fit for elections in Jammu and Kashmir right now".
To a question of the announcement of boycott of the polls by the the National Conference and the PDP over the issue of legal challenge to the Constitution's Article 35A, he said every party in entitled to its opinion, but "linking the panchayat and local bodies polls with the hearing on the article in the Supreme Court by the government is wrong".
This creates apprehensions in the minds of people, Mir said.
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Story first published: Thursday, September 13, 2018, 6:58 [IST]
BJP-ruled states slashes petrol, diesel rates further: New price to come into effect from today
Karnataka is Indias suicide capital
India
oi-Vicky Nanjappa
New Delhi, Sep 13: A new research on suicide trends in India suggests that Karnataka is the suicide capital of India. In 2016, Karnataka recorded an average 30.7 suicides per 1,00,000 population.
Tripura comes second on this list with 30.3. In states like Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh it was 29.8 and 25 respectively. In Telangana the study showed that suicides stood at 22.4, while in West Bengal it was 23.6.
On this World suicide prevention day let us promise to live and let live
A study prepared by a consortium of researchers and published in Lancet shows that in 2016, 2,30,00 suicides were recorded as compared to the 1,64,400 din 1990.
In the case of Karnataka, the numbers are 36 per 1,00,000 in men and 23.5 for women.
In the case of women suicides in the world, 37 per cent are Indians. Among the men, Indians account for 24 per cent suicides across the world.
Mumbai: Body of 22-year-old IIT student found in hotel room
The paper says that the higher suicide death rates are observed among women. Married women account for the highest proportion of suicide deaths among women in India. The paper adds, "marriage is known to be less protective against suicide for women because of arranged and early marriage, young motherhood, low social status, domestic violence and economic dependence."
Vijay Mallya has applied for another route to stay in the UK, says lawyer
'Incredible': Vijay Mallya goes on Twitter rant after being declared bankrupt
Mallya meeting Jaitley is absolutely shocking says Kejriwal
India
oi-Madhuri Adnal
New Delhi, Sep 13: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal described as "absolutely shocking" the revelation by fugitive liquor baron Vijay Mallya that he met Finance Minister Arun Jaitley before leaving India.
In a series of tweets, Kejriwal asked, "Why did the finance minister hide this information till now?"
"Absolutely shocking,"
Mallya's allegations 'serious', Jaitley should step down: Rahul Gandhi
"PM Modi meets Neerav Modi before he flees the country. FM meets Vijay Mallya before he flees India. What transpired in these meetings? People want to know (sic)," Kejriwal said.
The 62-year-old former Kingfisher Airlines boss told reporters in London that he met the minister and offered to settle with the banks.
"I left India because I had a scheduled meeting in Geneva. Before leaving I met the finance minister and offered to settle (the issue with the banks), Mallya said, without naming the minister.
Mallya backtracks after saying he met Arun Jaitley before leaving India
Jaitley rubbished Mallya's statement, saying he never gave him an appointment since 2014 but the liquor baron misused his position as Rajya Sabha MP to accost him in Parliament.
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Story first published: Thursday, September 13, 2018, 7:05 [IST]
Nun rape: Missionaries of Jesus sets up panel, to probe conspiracy angle
India
oi-Vicky Nanjappa
New Delhi, Sep 13: Expressing doubts over the authenticity of the rape complaint filed by the nuns against Bishop Franco Mulakkal, the Missionaries of Jesus Congregation has decided to probe the matter. They feel that this is a conspiracy to defame the missionary.
In a press release, the body said that the commission would also probe the source of revenue of the protesting nuns.
Bishop repeatedly raped nun says police, summon him on Sep 19
They further said that the nuns appear to be protesting under the influence of some external influence. While alleging that several suspicious people had visited the convent in the past few months, they also said in a statement that an innocent soul cannot be crucified on the basis of such allegations.
Meanwhile the Kerala police have asked Bishop Franco Mullakal to appear before the investigating team on September 19, Inspector General of police Vijay Sakhare said on Wednesday.
The decision to summon the clergyman was taken after a meeting chaired by Sakhare, IG (Ernakulam range), which was also attended by Kottayam District Superintendent of Police Harisankar and Vaikom Deputy Superintendent of Police K Subhash amid mounting pressure on police to initiate action against Mullakal.
Rape-accused bishop Franco Mulakkal cries foul, says those against the church are using nuns
The nun had recently sought the urgent intervention of the Vatican for justice and demanded the bishop's removal as the head of the Jalandhar diocese, questioning why the church was "closing its eyes to the truth" when she mustered the courage to make public her sufferings.
In a scathing letter to the Vatican that was made available to the media Tuesday, the nun also asked will the Church be able to give back what she has lost. She alleged that Bishop Franco Mulakkal was using "political and money power" to bury the case against him.
She had accused the clergyman of sexually assaulting her repeatedly between 2014 and 2016.
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Story first published: Thursday, September 13, 2018, 6:25 [IST]
Security forces get go ahead to shoot down drones on International Border
Bike's fuel tank explodes in Punjab; rider injured, reason of the explosion yet to be ascertained
Rinkle murder case cracked, 3 contract killers held
India
oi-Madhuri Adnal
Jalandhar, Sep 13: The counter-intelligence wing of the Punjab Police on Wednesday claimed to have arrested three alleged contract killers in connection with Ludhiana's infamous Rinkle murder case.
Police also recovered two sophisticated illegal pistols along with live cartridges and two cars used in the crime, Counter-Intelligence Wing's Assistant Inspector General, HPS Khakh, said in an official release.
The accused, who belong to Doaba's Sheru gang, were identified as Gurmeet Singh (36), Manmeet Singh (26) and Bhupinder Singh (34).
Woman killed by father, brother in case of honour killing
Jagdeep Singh Rinkle (22) was beaten to death at his house in Ludhiana on July 20. Khakh said Sheru's gang, led by Satnam Singh, along with Bhupinder, Gurmeet, Manmeet, Monu Kaul and Gurpreet Singh, was allegedly involved in the contract killings and robberies.
Police said they had the information that the accused were conspiring to target an agency for loot purpose and moving towards Bhogpur town in a white car from Tanda town of Hoshiarpur.
The officer said the information was timely-shared with Navjot Singh Mahal, SSP, Jalandhar (rural), and a joint team of the counter-intelligence wing and SHO Bhogpur was formed to nab the gangsters on Tuesday.
Three members of the gang were arrested, while other managed to flee away from the spot, police said. Apart from the weapons, police also recovered a car which was used in the murder
Khakh informed that Jatinder Pal Singh Sunny, son of the Ludhiana municipal councillor, had allegedly hired these gangsters for the murder of Rinkle. Sunny had surrendered before the police two days after Rinkle's murder.
Giving the details of the case, Khakh said the murder was committed to settle personal rivalry. He said Sunny, who was in good terms with gang head Sukhi Dherowalia, had struck a deal with him to eliminate Rinkle, he added.
"Following the deal, Sukhi and his accomplices Bhupinder, Gurmeet, Manmeet, Monu Kaul and Gurpreet Singh, Vishal, Deepu reached Ludhiana in a car and met Sunny who booked two rooms in a hotel for them.," he said.
Delhi: Man arrested for killing wife
Sunny and Budhu associates stayed overnight in the hotel. On the next morning, they took breakfast and Sunny left the hotel in a car and came back with rods and other sharp-edged weapons, he said.
"Around 10 am, all left the hotel to attack Rinkle. Two associates of Sunny riding on a bike, joined them in the way and barged in Rinkle's house. Sunny hit hard on Rinkle head with an iron rod, following which he fell unconscious. But he continued hitting his head," he said.
They fled away from the spot. He said further investigations into the case were going on, he added.
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Story first published: Thursday, September 13, 2018, 10:05 [IST]
Saridon among 327 combination drugs banned
India
oi-Vicky Nanjappa
New Delhi, Sep 13: The Union Health Ministry has banned the sale and distribution of 328 fixed dose combination of drugs. The bans came into effect immediately. Six other drugs have been restricted.
Among those drugs to be affected are painkiller Saridon, combination diabetes drug Gluconorm, antibiotic Lupidiclox and Taxim AZ which is an antibacterial cream.
Chemists strike on September 28
The government had banned 344 FDCs on March 10 2016, but the same was contested by the manufacturers. On December 15 2017, the Supreme Court had asked for the matter to be examined by the Drug Technical Advisory Board.
The board concluded in its report that there was no therapeutic justification for the ingredients in the FDCs and these could be a risk to the people. The board went on to recommend a ban.
Access to essential medicines a problem in India, says a study
In the case of the six other FDCs, the board recommended restricted manufacture and sale subject to certain conditions. The SC on the other hand ruled that the government could not use the board to prohibit 15 of the 344 drugs in the original list as they have been manufactured in India since before 1988. Due to this several popular syrups, painkillers and cold medication with sales amounting to over Rs 740 annually were exempted. The court however told the ministry it could still look into the safety of these 15 drugs by initiating fresh investigation, if it wanted to ban them.
Drugs that have been banned
Saridon
Pandem
Gluconorm PG
Taxim AZ
Drugs that escaped the ban:
Phensedyl Cough Linctus
D-Cold Total
Corex
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Story first published: Thursday, September 13, 2018, 9:00 [IST]
Pakistan Zindabad slogan: Bail plea of student activist rejected,court says she may abscond
Slain activist Jindan never sought security says top cop
India
oi-Madhuri Adnal
New Delhi, Sep 13: Himachal Pradesh police chief Sita Ram Mardi on Wednesday claimed that activist Kedar Singh Jindan, who was killed last Friday, had never sought police protection as he never felt any threat to his life.
Jindan's family members have claimed that he was killed and then the body was crushed under a jeep to make it look like an accident. They demanded a CBI inquiry into the matter.
Gauri Lankesh's killers prepared hit-list in Devnagri script
According to police the autopsy report indicated that it was case of murder.
On Wednesday, DGP Sita Ram Mardi said, "Jindan had met me in my Shimla office but never felt any threat to his life nor he demanded any security."
The DGP accompanied by Sirmour Superintendent of Police Rohit Malpani told reporters that a Special Investigative Team (SIT) has been constituted to investigate the case and it was doing a good job.
Shiv Sena activist arrest for alleged rape
Police have arrested three people in the connection of his killing.
Jindan had unsuccessfully contested Himachal Pradesh Assembly elections thrice on BSP and NCP tickets from Shillai seat.
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Story first published: Thursday, September 13, 2018, 11:02 [IST]
Why is Congress unhappy when country's stature is being raised globally: BJP
Why is Congress unhappy when Trumps visit will raise countrys stature globally
'Sometimes it feels Kingfisher Airlines wasn't owned by Mallya but by Gandhi family in proxy': BJP
India
oi-Madhuri Adnal
New Delhi, Sep 13: After Congress latched onto Vijay Mallya 'meeting' Arun Jaitley, the BJP hit back by accusing Rahul Gandhi of 'using black money'.
BJP, in a press conference, upped the ante in the ongoing Mallya-Jaitley controversy and said that Congress chief Rahul Gandhi has "gone on back-foot over Kingfisher Airlines."
Addressing the media, BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra said, "Sometimes it seems the Airlines wasn't owned by Mallya but by Gandhi family in proxy. Benefits that Gandhi family got out of Kingfisher Airlines via business class upgradation, free tickets etc is in public domain."
He went on to claim that the BJP had proof that the Gandhi family was helping Vijay Mallya with 'sweet' deals.
He added that people out on bail shouldn't be questioning 'people who are innocent'.
Meanwhile, his colleague RS Prasad wondered if Mallya and Rahul Gandhi were 'working in tandem'.
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Story first published: Thursday, September 13, 2018, 14:24 [IST]
Suspected Hizbul terrorist arrested from Kanpur
India
oi-Vikas SV
Kanpur, Sep 13: The Uttar Pradesh Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) on Thursday arrested a person who is said to have links with terrorist organisation Hizbul Mujahideen from Kanpur, reported news agency ANI.
"ATS has arrested a Hizbul Mujahideen terrorist from Kanpur. He apparently had plans to attack on occasion of Ganesh Chaturthi. During questioning he told us that he had gone for training to Kashmir in April 2017. He is of Indian nationality and is a literate person," OP Singh, DGP, told ANI.
The suspected terrorist was arrested in Kanpur after ATS launched a stealth operation to track his movements. Acting on a tip-off, the ATS pinned down his location and managed to make the arrest. It is being seen as a major achievement as subsequent interrogation could reveal vital information.
In June, two over-ground workers of Hizbul Mujahideen were arrested and a live grenade was recovered from them in Jammu and Kashmir's Anantnag district. Police investigation later revealed that they were assisting terrorist Hamad Khan in Tral area. They were involved in the grenade attack at Goriwan Chowk in the Bijbehara area on May 23 this year in which 10 civilians were injured.
[Hizbul's new terrorists: Guns, girlfriends and an excuse called Jihad]
In July, the Hizbul Mujahideen released photographs of 35 new recruits. The outfit sent out a message that recruitments continue unabated into the outfit and more and more youth are willing to pick up the gun.
The case of a mysterious Look out Circular and how Vijay Mallya fled India for London
India
oi-Vicky Nanjappa
New Delhi, Sep 13: There was a storm created on Wednesday after fugitive businessman and former liquor baron, Vijay Mallya said that he had met with Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley before leaving the country.
The charge was immediately denied, following which Mallya backtracked and said that there was no formal meeting.
The question is how did Mallya leave the country in the first place. It may be recalled that there was a total mix up or confusion regarding his look out circular issued before he left the country in 2016.
Mallya backtracks after saying he met Arun Jaitley before leaving India
The Supreme Court was recently told that Mallya had left India for London on March 2 2016, the day the Debt Recovery Tribunal was to hear a matter in which a directive to stall payment of money from Diageo was sought.
The other big question is how did he manage to fly out when there was a look out circular issued against him in October 2016?
The LOC was issued by the Central Bureau of Investigation which has also questioned him on two occasions.
I learn from my sources that the Lookout Notice issued by CBI for Mallya was modified from Block Departure to Report Departure on October 24, 2015 on orders from someone in MoF. Who? Subramanian Swamy (@Swamy39) September 12, 2018
When a look out circular is issued against a person he is not supposed to leave the country without the permission of the investigating agency. In this case, Mallya being a Rajya Sabha member should have sought leave of absence from the House before leaving. This procedure was followed.
As per the records he was present in the Rajya Sabha a day prior to him leaving the country. The big question now is how did all this miss the eye of the CBI or even the immigration department had a copy of the circular.
Nature changed:
Following the incident, the CBI came under immense pressure. It was then found that the nature of the Look out Circular was changed within one month of it being issued. As per the original LOC issued in October, he was to be detained by the airport authorities if was trying to leave the country.
However with the changed nature of the LOC it meant that the authorities had to merely provide information about his travel plans.
Will Mallya be extradited to India? Verdict out on December 10
In a lookout circular issued on 16 October 2015, CBI said if Mallya tries to leave the country, he should be detained at the exit point. In November, the agency asked for a revised circular where it asked the Bureau of Immigration to inform CBI about his departure and travel plans.
Officials had said then that Mallya travelled abroad in October and returned in November. He made two trips in the first and last weeks of December and another in January, besides the recent trip reportedly to London on 2 March.
The lookout circular depends on the issuing authority and, unless they ask Bureau of Immigration to detain a person or to stop him from boarding a plane, no action is taken.
After the CBI changed the lookout notice, the Bureau of Immigration did not make any attempt to stop him from travelling abroad, and every time he did, the agency was duly informed about it. When asked why CBI did not seek to impound his passport, it was said Mallya had been cooperating in the investigation by presenting himself for questioning, as and when required, and also providing documents sought by the agency. And since Mallya had been cooperating, there was no reason to stop him from travelling abroad, they said.
What the law states:
According to a Supreme Court judgement, passport of a person can only be impounded when he has been chargesheeted or a trial is pending against him. Mallya had appeared for questioning three times since the lookout notice was issued, once in Delhi and twice in Mumbai between 9 and 12 December 2015.
While the CBI tracked his movement, it however did not interfere as he had always returned to India.
Viral video: UP man held in sedition case after facebook post celebrating Pak win in T20 match
Akhilesh may even convert to get Muslim votes: UP minister
UP govt decides to release Bhim Army chief 'Ravan' from jail
India
pti-PTI
Lucknow, Sep 13: The Uttar Pradesh government has decided to release Bhim Army chief Chandrashekhar who is detained under the National Security Act (NSA) in connection with the 2017 Saharanpur violence.
Chandrashekhar, also known as Ravan, was arrested in June 2017 in connection with the May 5 clashes in which one person was killed and 16 others were injured at Shabbirpur village in Saharanpur.
On November 2, 2017, the Allahabad High Court had granted bail to Chandrashekhar.
However, a day before his release, he was booked under the NSA, thus preventing his release. Under the NSA, he was to be detained till November 1.
"After going through the representation of Chandrashekhar's mother, it has been decided to release him early. He had to be in jail till November 1," a spokesperson of the Home Department said Thursday.
[Bhim Army stages protest in Delhi against NSA on Azad]
The NSA was invoked against Chandrashekhar and five others in the case. While three people were released earlier, Chandrashekhar, Sonu and Shiv Kumar are still in jail.
Sonu and Shiv Kumar will also be released early, the spokesman said, adding that the district magistrate of Saharanpur has been directed "to release them".
PTI
VHP to hold meeting with Hindu saints for next course on Ram Temple after October 2
India
oi-Vinod Kumar Shukla
New Delhi, Sep 13: As decided by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) that if no headway is made on the issue of construction Ram Temple in Ayodhya by September 2018, the organisation may plan to devise a new strategy for it. So the steering committee of Hindu Saints known as Ucchadhikar Samiti will meet in Delhi/National Capital Region (NCR) after October 2 2018 to take a call after chief justice of India Dipak Misra retires. However, it may be shifted to Lucknow if chief of Ramjanmabhoomi Nyas Mahant Nritya Gopal Das does not keep well.
Vishwa Hindu spokesperson Vinod Bansal told One India that Sant Samaj was quite hopeful that the matter will be resolved before Chief Justice Dipak Mishra retires as day-to-day hearing was ordered. The Central government has completed four-and-half years but uncertainty still prevails. Sant Samaj cannot leave the matter to linger on forever.
VHP secretary general to meet leaders, workers to discuss road map for organisations' programme
Bansal said that the matter was unnecessary being dragged in the court for long in such a situation devising a new action plan for the construction of a Ram temple in Ayodhya remains the only option and becomes necessary. There has been a big letdown on the issue for the VHP leadership as court verdict on construction of Ram Temple is not visible anytime soon. So the Sant Samaj has decided to come out a new plan which will be discussed after October 2, 2018.
VHP was hoping that the outgoing chief justice of India would take a final call on the matter before retiring. For the CJI, October 2, 2018 is the last day in the office and now it is unlikely that anything is going to happen in the court on the issue. In the meantime there had been many developments when the three judge bench headed by the chief justice hearing the case took a call if a five-judge bench should consider whether a mosque is integral to Islam as it was decided by the Supreme Court itself in 1994 and actual title dispute will be heard later.
VHP to organise all India protests if government acquires Hindu shrines
Sources said that Ucchadhikar Samiti meeting will be a full house. All the Sant Samaj, VHP top brass and RSS functionary who has been entrusted with the responsibility to look after the Ram Janmabhoomi matter will be present in the meeting.
Not only in the agenda of the VHP but construction of Ram Temple has been in the agenda of the RSS and the BJP. So much so that Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Aadityanath visited Ayodhya many times after taking over as the chief minister of the state. The VHP has been trying for legislation passed by Parliament to facilitate construction of Ram Temple.
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Story first published: Thursday, September 13, 2018, 9:54 [IST]
China: 9 killed as man goes on stabbing spree after ramming car into crowd
International
oi-Madhuri Adnal
Beijing, Sep 13: Nine people were killed and 46 others injured when a man drove his SUV into a crowd and later went on a stabbing spree in China's Hunan province on Wednesday evening. The attack took place as people had gathered in a square by the river in Hengdong county.
The driver, Yang Zanyun, 54, first ploughed through the people with his vehicle and later got out of it and went on a rampage attacking people with a knife. Nine people were killed and 46 others were injured, state-run Global Times reported. Yang was detained by the police, who said he has a criminal record and has been jailed several times.
4 stabbed to death, one critically injured in London
Knife attacks by disgruntled people in public places and schools to highlight their grievances periodically occur in China.
Several bystanders posted graphic video footage shortly after the incident on Chinese social media. In the videos, dozens of people can be seen lying on the ground, some in pools of blood, while panicked crowds and emergency services personnel gather around them, Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported.
Local media reports quoted a restaurant manager in the vicinity of the attack as saying that he saw a red Land Rover suddenly ploughing through a crowd of people at a high speed after 7 pm.
Dutch police: 2 dead, 3 hurt in stabbings in Maastricht
A large number of mostly elderly people were dancing or walking in the square after dinner, at that time. Many fell to the ground after they were hit by the speeding SUV. Uyghur militants from Xinjiang from the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) have also in the past attacked crowds with speeding cars.
Mallya backtracks after saying he met Arun Jaitley before leaving India
International
oi-Vicky Nanjappa
London, Sep 13: Fugitive businessman and former liquor baron, Vijay Mallya kicked up a storm when he claimed on Wednesday that he had met Union Finance Minister, Arun Jaitley before fleeing to London. Hours later, he however backtracked and said that there was no formal meeting.
Mallya clarified that there was no formal meeting with Jaitley. " I happened to meet Jaitley in Parliament and told him that I was leaving for London. I said I want to settle with the banks and would he please facilitate these discussions. I did not have any formal meeting scheduled with him."
Will Mallya be extradited to India? Verdict out on December 10
The clarification came hours after Jaitley said that he had not granted any formal appointment to Mallya. In fact Mallya had misused access as an MP to accost him in a corridor in Parliament to claim he had made an offer of settlement for outstanding loans, Jaitley had said.
Earlier Mallya had said that he met Jaitley and repeated his offer to settle the loans. This provided the opposition some fodder to target Jaitley and the Congress said that the revelations were an embarrassment to the government. When Mallya was asked about Rahul Gandhi's statements that he had been allowed to flee, he said that he was not tipped off by anyone.
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Story first published: Thursday, September 13, 2018, 6:08 [IST]
Vijay Mallya has applied for another route to stay in the UK, says lawyer
Will Mallya be extradited to India? Verdict out on December 10
International
oi-Madhuri Adnal
London, Sep 12: Fugitive businessman Vijay Mallya on Wednesday claimed that he had met Finance Minister Arun Jaitley before leaving India. What is, however, not clear is how many days before fleeing the country did Mallya meet Jaitley. It is also being debated weather Mallya met Jaitley in India or in Geneva.
Mallya earlier today appeared before a London court for a hearing in his extradition case, during which the judge reviewed a video of the Mumbai jail cell prepared by Indian authorities for the embattled liquor tycoon. The judge has reserved verdict for December 10.
When asked if he has convinced the Court the he has the means to pay what he said he will, Mallya said,''Obviously, that is why a settlement offer has been made. The hearing is on 18th September.''
During the hearing, prosecution lawyer told the Westminster Magistrates' Court in London, "What Vijay Mallya's Kingfisher internally knew was totally different from what it was telling the banks. Kingfisher Airlines misrepresented facts about performance when applying for loans."
Outside the court, Mallya, as per news agency ANI, said, "I met the finance minster to settle matters before I left. The banks had filed objections to my settlement letters..I obviously don't agree with what the prosecution is alleging. Let the Court decide."
Mallya also said that he felt like a scapegoat, adding that his conscience is clear.
#WATCH "I met the Finance Minister before I left, repeated my offer to settle with the banks", says Vijay Mallya outside London's Westminster Magistrates' Court pic.twitter.com/5wvLYItPQf ANI (@ANI) September 12, 2018
Also Read | New floor, fresh paint, renovated bathroom at cell where India hopes to lodge Vijay Mallya
The 62-year-old former Kingfisher Airlines boss, who has been on bail on an extradition warrant since his arrest in UK last April, is fighting extradition to India on charges of fraud and money laundering amounting to around Rs. 9,000 crores.
At the previous hearing in July in the Westminster Magistrates' Court in, Judge Emma Arbuthnot had asked the Indian authorities to submit a "step by step video" of the Barrack 12 of Arthur Road Jail for "the avoidance of doubt" over the availability of natural light in the cell where the businessman is expected to be detained pre-trial, during trial and in the event he is convicted by the Indian courts.
The extradition trial, which opened at the London court on 4 December last year, is aimed at laying out a prima facie case of fraud against Mallya.
Mallya's defence team has deposed a series of expert witnesses to claim he had no "fraudulent" intentions and that he is unlikely to get a fair trial in India.
Diwali 2021: How to perform Lakshmi puja at home, puja samagri, vidhi and shubh muhurat
Man arrested for raping minor in Delhi
New Delhi
oi-Madhuri Adnal
New Delhi, Sep 13: A man was arrested on Wednesday for allegedly raping a class 6 student in Gautam Buddh Nagar's Dankaur area, police said.
The girl had gone to feed her cow near her house when the accused, from the same village, allegedly raped her Tuesday, they said.
Woman killed by father, brother in case of honour killing
"He raped the girl and threatened her of dire consequences if is she revealed the incident to anyone," a police official said.
The girl, however, narrated her ordeal to her brother who approached the Dankaur police station where an FIR was lodged under the Indian Penal Code Section 376 for rape and under the Prevention of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act.
Based on the inputs from the victim, the police started the search of the accused, who was on the run. Action on a tip-off, the accused was held in the wee hours Wednesday from his house, the official said.
Woman tries to abduct partner from 'Previous Birth'
He has been remanded to judicial custody, the police said.
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Story first published: Thursday, September 13, 2018, 9:26 [IST]
Hostage crisis at power utility ends
Patna
oi-Madhuri Adnal
Patna, Sep 13: The three-day-long hostage crisis involving employees of the Bharatiya Rail Bijlee Company Ltd (BRBCL) and their family members in Bihar's Aurangabad has come to an end, officials said.
The impasse was resolved during a meeting on Tuesday evening, where it was decided that BRBCL would supply power to villages till the South Bihar Power Distribution Company Ltd (SBPDCL) provides electricity connection.
"The deadlock has been resolved," Aurangabad District Magistrate Rahul Ranjan Mahiwal told PTI, but refused to elaborate on the issue.
Representatives of Aurangabad district administration, BRBCL and the villagers who held around 150 of its employees and their family members hostage since Sunday, demanding restoration of power in their villages, attended the meeting.
The 1,000-MW power plant located in Aurangabad is a joint venture between the NTPC and the railways.
Employees of power utility held hostage by villagers
When contacted, Nabinagar Circle Officer Rakesh Kumar said, "An agreement has been reached between villagers and the BRBCL management, under which power supply to the villages will be restored until SBPDCL gives electricity connection to villagers."
Vishwanath Chandan, NTPC Public Relations Manager, told PTI, "The BRBCL management has taken the decision on humanitarian grounds. The issue will be permanently settled with the help of local administration in a time-bound manner."
The decision has been taken keeping in mind the larger interest of everyone, he said.
A senior NTPC official, requesting anonymity, said BRBCL was "under pressure" to supply power to villages, and SBPDCL has given an assurance that it would settle the issue permanently within a month on a priority basis.
On Monday, the BRBCL management lodged an FIR stating that the villagers pelted stones, burnt tyres at the main gate of the township and cut supplies of essential commodities such as milk, vegetables and medicines by not allowing anyone to enter or exit.
BRBCL sources have alleged that villagers used to pilfer electricity generated by the utility from underground cables for over seven years, but it was snapped three days ago following a short circuit.
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Story first published: Thursday, September 13, 2018, 11:32 [IST]
Laxman Pai, Opalesque Asia:
The United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged a hedge fund adviser and his investment advisory firm with illegally profiting from a scheme to drive down the price of San Diego-based Ligand Pharmaceuticals, reaping more than $1.3 million of gains for the adviser and the hedge fund.
According to a press release from the federal government agency, the complaint charges that Gregory Lemelson and Massachusetts-based Lemelson Capital Management LLC issued false information about Ligand after Lemelson took a short position in Ligand in May 2014 on behalf of The Amvona Fund, a hedge fund he advised and partly owned. Short-sellers profit when the price of stock declines.
The SEC's complaint said that Ligand's stock lost more than one-third of its value during the course of Lemelson's alleged scheme. After establishing his short position, the complaint charges that Lemelson made a series of false statements to shake investor confidence in Ligand, lower its stock price, and increase the value of his position.
The SEC's complaint charges Lemelson and Lemelson Capital Management with fraud and seeks to have them return allegedly ill-gotten gains with interest and pay monetary penalties. The complaint names the Amvona Fund as a relief defendant and seeks to have it return gains it obtained as a result of Lemelson and his firm's alleged misconduct.
Lemelson responds to SEC charges
Rev. Fr. Emmanuel Lemelson......................
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Opalesque Industry Update - Richmond Global Compass Capital, LP, the first-ever sustainability focused global multi-asset fund employing machine learning to extract material metrics in Environment, Social, and Governance, is now officially open to outside investment. Compass' general partners have invested over $20 million as part of the fund's seed capital and seek to raise $500 million. Founded in June 2016, the firm is led by Peter Kellner and a team of experts in international sustainability, global macro investing, data science and risk management with proven track records at firms such as 3G Capital, Verde Fund, Richmond Global Ventures, Endeavor and Goldman Sachs. Advisors to the firm are: Professor Dan Esty, Yale Law School; Dr. Erik Allen, MIT & Rho A.I.; Bill Drayton, Founder & CEO, Ashoka; and Professor George Serafeim, Harvard Business School. "As a society, we are creating a world where more positive impact means better economics," said George Serafeim, Harvard Business School Professor and RGC Advisor. "Understanding sustainability as a critical megatrend has become a corporate and national imperative - and investors increasingly want to know which companies and nations are leading the charge to bring ESG (environmental, social, and governance) factors into their business and sovereign strategies," observes Yale Professor and RGC Advisor Dan Esty. "In the last decade, sustainable investing has come a long way. Over the next 30 years, $30 trillion will be passed down from baby boomers to Generation X to Millennials with 84% of Millennials interested in Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Investments. Unfortunately, existing investment opportunities have not adapted to demand and existing ESG products leave alpha on the table. Compass is dedicated to the positive impact of ESG investments on performance and profitability," said Founder Peter Kellner. While most existing ESG strategies are private and single-asset focused or long-only equity funds, Compass seeks to achieve its investment objective by assessing investment and trading opportunities across global asset classes such as equities, credit, currencies, rates and commodities and allocating capital to strategies believed to offer the most attractive risk-adjusted returns. Artificial intelligence identifies material ESG datasets to integrate into fundamental analyses of a given corporate or sovereign asset class. The Compass Fund Founders' Shares ended its first year of trading in May 2018, returning 12.95% net against the HFRX HF Index benchmark of 2.88%. Its second fiscal year to date returned 2.78% v. 0.11% for the HFRX HF Index. It also outperformed the longest equities bull run in history, as well as bonds. It is now officially open to outside investment as a global multi-asset ESG Fund aiming to deliver a new level of return and sustainability benefits. As further evidence of Compass' passion for sustainability, Chairman & CEO Peter Kellner recently published a paper on capitalism's critical role in fighting climate change highlighting the dire social, environmental, and economic consequences of inaction as well as the abundant rewards if great investors with trillions in assets behind them lead a capitalistic course correction. Chief Investment Officer Decio Nascimento is in the first cohort of the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board Fundamentals of Sustainability Accounting (FSA) Credential and all members of the firm's Investment Team hold the FSA Credential. As signatories of the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investing (UN PRI), Compass is committed to responsible investments with the goal of enhancing returns, managing risks, and ultimately benefitting the environment and society as a whole.
Opalesque Industry Update - The Chartered Alternative Investment Analyst (CAIA) Association, the global leader in alternative investment education, today announced the newest member of its Board of Directors: Anthony Cowell, Head of Asset Management for KPMG in the Cayman Islands. "We could not be more pleased to be adding Tony to CAIA's board," said William J. Kelly, CEO of CAIA. "My colleagues and I have come to know him through both his work with KPMG and in his role as a key leader in the Cayman Alternative Investment Summit. Tony is a tireless advocate for education and among the most knowledgeable people working in alternatives today." In addition to Mr. Cowell's role as Head of Asset Management for KPMG in the Cayman Islands, he is a member of the firm's Global Alternative Investments Leadership Team. His clients include some of the world's largest asset managers and alternative investment platforms, as well as independent hedge funds, private equity structures and institutional investment portfolios. "I am a big believer in CAIA's mission and know firsthand what an impact well-constructed educational programs can have on the alternatives industry," said Mr. Cowell. "I am very excited to be joining the CAIA Board and look forward to working closer with my new colleagues to further CAIA's efforts and reach." Mr. Cowell is Editorial Chair at the Cayman Alternative Investment Summit (CAIS), one of the world's leading educational gatherings for industry participants and is a featured speaker at a number of other industry conferences and an author of thought leadership pieces across the asset management spectrum. An active member of his community, Mr. Cowell is Head of Citizenship for KPMG in the Cayman Islands and is a founding board member of Literacy Is for Everyone, an independent charitable organization created to improve literacy in the Cayman Islands. "Education is clearly one of Tony's passions, and his ideas and leadership will no doubt prove invaluable as we further the mission of CAIA," added Valerie J. Sill, CFA, CAIA and Chair of CAIA's Board of Directors. The CAIA Association offers the only credential focused on the alternative investment space and has become the global benchmark for alternative investment education. The CAIA Charter, an educational designation uniquely designed for individuals specializing in institutional-quality alternative investments, is granted upon successful completion of two levels of qualifying exams combined with relevant professional experience and joining the Association membership. The Association now supports 30 global Chapters in financial centers in Europe, Asia-Pacific and North America, as well as a Virtual Chapter that brings together Members from far-flung locations in more than 60 countries. CAIA sponsors more than 250 educational and networking events each year and has 61 academic and association partnerships in the Americas, EMEA, and the Asia Pacific region. In 2018 alone, CAIA has announced two important new initiatives: the launch of the Chartered Alternative Data Analyst Institute, which will focus on the future of investment analysis and decision making in an increasingly digitized financial services world; and an innovative pilot program with the CFA Institute that will allow a select number of CFA members to move directly to Level II of the rigorous CAIA exam program.
Global Low Code Development Platform Market 2025 | Industry Crucial Players - AgilePoint, Bizagi Appian Corporation, Caspio, Inc., Mendix, OutSystems, MatsSoft Inc., Salesforce.com, Inc., Microsoft Corporation Google Inc.
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Low code development platform have the capability to build and deploy applications seamlessly with a minimum of hand-coding, minimal upfront investment in setup, training, and deployment. Furthermore, low code development platforms offer an exceptional communication mechanism to support business and IT stakeholders, thus ensuring better software quality and more effective business results. Moreover, the market for app development has outgrown the information and communication technologies market in the past few years, and its growth is estimated to accelerate in the future. Several factors influencing growth of the global low code development platform market have been analyzed by Market Research Report Search Engine (MRRSE) and propounded in a report titled Low Code Development Platform Market Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2017 2025.FREE | Request Sample Copy is Available @Low-code platforms have the capability to resolve delivery-speed problems more cost effectively, with improved performance and at greater scale, than traditional development methods. Currently, vendors are more focused on aiding organizations of all sizes with an aim to drive business creativity by rapidly transforming ideas into advanced and secure Omni channel applications.Low Code Development Platform Market: Scope of the ReportThe report is a comprehensive study of factors influencing growth of the global low code development platform market. The report comprises of information related to analysis of global low code development platform market with respect to market size forecast over foreseeable future. Future performance of the market, security services, key market players and growth opportunities in global low code development platform market have been included in this report. It is mirror of the information related to most-creditable and go-to forecast of the market. To evaluate future performance and scope of the market micro- and macroeconomic factors such as trends, market drivers, restraints, and opportunities have been analyzed.A systematic process has been followed to cater readers with unified understanding of performance of the market. Vital segmentation of the report ranging from executive summary to competitive landscape deliver readers to leverage through market insights. Executive summary delivers market information in the form of market size in terms of value and volume with respect to market segments. A dashboard view of prominent players operating in the global market and individual company profiles in the global market will be beneficial for readers and clients to identify lucrative opportunities in the global market.Access Complete Report With TOC and Company Profiles @Low Code Development Platform Market: Research MethodologyAn all-inclusive methodology supported by comprehensive research based on comprehensive study of different market areas have been considered to evaluate market size and future recital of the market. Primary and secondary research has been carried out to meet the vital insights mentioned in the report. Seasoned market analysts, studies and surveys of leading players operating in the global market has been analyzed and is served under primary research. Robust study of paid sources, industry databases and trade journals have been covered under secondary research.With the analyzed geographies, tracking of all market segments metrics, a market attractiveness analysis has been evaluated, which is complementary to vital insights mentioned in the report. This approach towards research provide readers with most conceivable and valid forecast of global low code development platform market.Inquire for Detail Facts and Figures @About (MRRSE)Market Research Reports Search Engine (MRRSE) is an industry-leading database of Market Research Reports. MRRSE is driven by a stellar team of research experts and advisors trained to offer objective advice. Our sophisticated search algorithm returns results based on the report title, geographical region, publisher, or other keywords.MRRSE partners exclusively with leading global publishers to provide clients single-point access to top-of-the-line market research. MRRSEs repository is updated every day to keep its clients ahead of the next new trend in market research, be it competitive intelligence, product or service trends or strategic consulting.Contact UsState Tower90, State StreetSuite 700Albany, NY - 12207(United States) Telephone: +1-518-730-0559Email: sales@mrrse.comWebsite:
Epilepsy Diagnosis & Treatment Market 2018 Business Overview, Recent Developments with Top Industry Shapers Pfizer, Abbott, UCB Pharma, Novartis & Sanofi S.A.
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Epilepsy is a neurological disorder affecting the central nervous system. In this medical condition, the brain exhibits abnormal activity, which results in periods of unusual behavior or seizures and sometimes, loss of awareness. Temporary confusion, anxiety, uncontrollable jerking movements of the arms and legs, and others are some of the common symptoms of the disease. Increasing prevalence of epilepsy is a major driver for the market. According to a report by the World Health Organization (2018), about 50 million people across the world are estimated to suffer from epilepsy, making it one of the most common neurological diseases. In addition, the report states that the total number of people aged 65 or more is projected to increase from 524 million in 2010 to approximately 1.5 billion by 2050. Increasing number of reported head trauma cases, growing geriatric population, and rising healthcare expenditures are estimated to boost the market growth. However, factors such as high cost of therapeutic surgeries, low per capita healthcare expenditure, and lack of awareness for the disease in emerging economies are estimated to restrain the market growth, during the forecast period. The global epilepsy diagnosis and treatment market is expected to grow at an approximate CAGR of 6.3% during the forecast period.Request a Sample Report with Current Market Overview @Epilepsy Diagnosis & Treatment Market: Top PlayersPfizer, Inc. (U.S.), Johnson & Johnson Services, Inc. (U.S.), UCB Pharma Ltd. (U.K), Abbott (U.S.), GlaxoSmithKline plc (U.K), Novartis International AG (Switzerland), Sanofi S.A. (France), Shire (Republic of Ireland), Medtronic (U.S.), NeuroWave Systems Inc. (U.S.), Natus Medical Incorporated. (U.S.), Siemens Ltd. (Germany), and others.Global Epilepsy Diagnosis & Treatment Market: SegmentationThe global epilepsy diagnosis and treatment market is segmented on the basis of type, diagnosis, treatment, and end-user. On the basis of type, the market is segmented into idiopathic, cryptogenic, symptomatic, and others. On the basis of diagnosis, the market is segmented into neurological exam, blood test, imaging, and others. The imaging segment is sub-segmented into electroencephalogram, computerized tomography, magnetic resonance imaging, positron emission tomography, and others. On the basis of treatment, the market is segmented into medication, surgery, brain stimulation, and others. The medication segment is sub-segmented into acetazolamide, carbamazepine, clobazam, and others. The surgery segment is sub-segmented into hemispherectomy, corpus callosotomy, resection surgery, and others. The resection surgery segment is further segmented into temporal lobectomy, lesionectomy, and others. The brain stimulation segment is sub-segmented into deep brain stimulation, responsive neurostimulation, and others. On the basis of end-user, the market is segmented into hospitals & clinics, diagnostic centers, and others.Get Instant Discount @Global Epilepsy Diagnosis & Treatment Market: Regional AnalysisThe Americas dominate the global epilepsy diagnosis and treatment market owing to a well-developed healthcare sector, a huge patient population, and increasing number of head trauma cases. According to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention in 2017, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) was a major cause for disability and deaths within the U.S. and was responsible for approximately 30% of all deaths from injuries.Europe is the second largest market for epilepsy diagnosis and treatment, which is followed by Asia Pacific. Availability of funds for research, along with the presence of a well-developed healthcare sector and government support, is expected to drive the market growth within the Europe region.Followed by Europe, Asia Pacific region is projected to be the fastest growing region for the global epilepsy diagnosis and treatment market. Presence of developing economies, such as India and China, which have a developing healthcare sector, fuels the market growth within the region. According to the Indian Brand Equity Foundation in 2017, Indian healthcare sector was estimated to grow at a fast pace and reach USD 280 billion by 2020.The Middle East & Africa has the least share in the global epilepsy diagnosis and treatment market due to low per capita healthcare expenditures, lack of awareness for the disease, and stringent government policies, especially in the African region. Majority of the market share within this region is held by the Middle East. This can be attributed to the presence of a well-developed healthcare sector and huge healthcare expenditure due to the presence of the developed economies within the regional boundaries.Major Table of Content for Epilepsy Diagnosis & Treatment Market:1. Report Prologue2. Market Introduction2.1 Definition2.2 Scope Of The Study2.2.1 Research Objective2.2.2 Assumptions2.2.3 Limitations3. Research Methodology3.1 Introduction3.2 Primary Research3.3 Secondary Research3.4 Market Size Estimation4. Market Dynamics4.1 Drivers4.2 Restrains4.3 Opportunities4.4 Challenges4.5 Macroeconomic Indicators4.6 Technology Trends & AssessmentTOC Continued.!Need more Information Ask to Our ExpertsAbout US:Market Research Future (MRFR), enable customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.Contact Us:Market Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune 411028Maharashtra, IndiaPhone: +1 646 845 9312Email: sales@marketresearchfuture.com
Instrument Transformer Market 2024 Top Key Player ABB, GE, Siemens, Crompton Greaves, Amran Inc, ITL, Weidmann, Raychem RPG, Meramec, ITEC
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The Instrument Transformer market dynamics, forces, companies and trends have been determined after conducting a detailed study of the industry for this newly released research report now available with Market Study Report.Instrument Transformer market size will exceed USD 7 billion by 2024, as reported in the latest study.Rising demand for electricity owing to rapid urbanization across the globe have instigated concerns pertaining to grid stability, which in turn will drive the instrument transformer market size. Ongoing urban migration adhered by rising infrastructural investments will further complement the deployment of effective monitoring and control T&D systems. Sustainable economic proliferation along with revamping lifestyles have led to an exponential rise in the peak load demand for energy. Hence, accruing energy demand across the globe subject to the ongoing economic and social reformation will appreciable augment the industry outlook.Get Sample Copy of This Research Report:France instrument transformer industry size is set to exceed USD 100 million by 2024. Stringent regulatory reforms pertaining to emissions coupled with rapid technological transitions to sustain an energy efficient grid infrastructure will comprehensively thrust the business. Inclination towards clean energy adhered by rising investments across the renewable sector will further escalate the product penetration across the country. In 2017, the French government has led forward its plan to invest over USD 20 billion toward its energy transition plan. The framework lays grounds for a segregated investment mechanism catering towards energy efficiency, renewable integration and cleaner vehicle development.Rising rural electrification demand across Asia Pacific & Africa supported by accruing investments by financial institutions including the World Bank, and Asian Development Bank (ADB) will foster the market size. Re-structuring of electrical grids across war affected nations including Iraq, Syria, and Sudan will further boost the industry growth. In addition, large scale grid integration of sustainable energy sources coupled with rapid expansion of T&D networks to sustain security of supply concerns will further proliferate the industry expansion. In 2017, the World Bank declared an investment worth USD 4 million towards expansion of an effective grid infrastructure across the Pacific Island.The U.S. instrument transformer market is projected to witness sustainable growth owing to rising demand for the upgradation of existing grid infrastructure along with rapid expansion of effective T&D networks. The transformer industry across the nation has witnessed significant upsurge on account of favorable regulatory reforms pertaining to energy efficiency and grid stability. Ongoing trends subject to the adoption of sustainable technologies along with briskly advancing monitoring & control technologies will further embellish the business outlook.Get Discount on This Research Report:Table of Contents:Chapter 1 Methodology and Scope1.1 Methodology1.1.1. Initial data exploration1.1.2. Statistical model and forecast1.1.3. Industry insights and validation1.1.4. Market definition & forecast parameters1.2 Data sources1.2.1. Primary1.2.2. SecondaryChapter 2 Executive Summary2.1 Instrument transformer industry 3600 synopsis, 2013 20242.1.1. Business trends2.1.2. Product trends2.1.3. Winding trends2.1.4. Installation trends2.1.5. Cooling trends2.1.6. Insulation trends2.1.7. Phase trends2.1.8. Rating trends2.1.9. Mounting trends2.1.10 Application trends2.1.11 Regional trendsChapter 3 Instrument Transformer Industry Insights3.1 Industry segmentation3.2 Industry landscape, 2013 - 20243.3 Industry ecosystem analysis3.3.1. Vendor matrix3.4 Import and export landscape3.4.1. Electrical Transformers3.5 Price trend analysis3.6 Innovation and technology landscape3.7 Regulatory landscape3.7.1. U.S.3.7.2. Europe3.7.3. China3.7.4. India3.8 Historic trends3.9 Life cycle cost analysis (Transformer)3.10. Transformer capital investment landscape3.10.1 No maintenanceRelated Reports: -Europe Electrical Switches Market by Manufacturers, Countries, Type and Application, Forecast to 2023In electrical engineering, an electrical switch is an electrical component that can "make" or "break" an electrical circuit, interrupting the current or diverting it from one conductor to another. The mechanism of a switch removes or restores the conducting path in a circuit when it is operated. It may be operated manually, for example, a light switch.About Us:Marketstudyreport.com allows you to manage and control all corporate research purchases to consolidate billing and vendor management. You can eliminate duplicate purchases and customize your content and license management.Contact Us:Market Study Report4 North Main Street,Selbyville, Delaware 19975USAPhone: 1-302-273-0910US Toll Free: 1-866-764-2150Email: sales@marketstudyreport.comWeb site:Blog:
Gas Pipeline Infrastructure Market 2024 Global Industry Top Key Players : Europipe, Gazprom, Enbridge, Snam Rete, APA Group, Saipem, Perusahaan Gas Negara
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MarketStudyReport.com Adds New Gas Pipeline Infrastructure Market 2017 2024 research report providing information and data By Application, By Operation, Industry Analysis, Regional Outlook, Growth Potential, Trends, Competitive Market Share & Forecast spreading across 245 Pages with table and figures in it.Gas Pipeline Infrastructure Market Research Report for the period of 2017-2024 that shows the growth of the market is rising at a Steady CAGR to 2024.Global Gas Pipeline Infrastructure Market size is set to exceed USD 2 trillion by 2024. Growing discoveries of unconventional reserves coupled with increasing number of gas fired power generation stations across the globe will drive the gas pipeline infrastructure market size. In 2016, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) published that shale production in the country surpassed 15.2 trillion cubic meter (tcm) in 2015 experiencing over 1.7 tcm year on year increase.Request a sample of this premium report at:Italy gas pipeline infrastructure market is projected to surpass cumulative installation of 300 ?000 km by 2024. Rising investments to develop transmission links to cross border transactions through offshore routes will complement the business growth. In 2016, Saipem entered into an agreement with Trans Adriatic Pipeline AG to develop 105 km of 36? offshore gas pipeline between coastlines of Italy and Albania.Rising energy demand across the developing economies owing to evolving substructure and rapid urbanization will foster the gas pipeline infrastructure market share. Increasing development has resulted in exponential growth of cross border exports and imports through pipeline networks. In 2016, the EIA reported that natural gas pipelines exports from Russia and Norway to Europe were raised by 16% in the last three quarters of 2015 when compared with 2014 level.Upsurge in the need to enhance the international natural gas trade to suffice the energy demand and generation targets will positively drive the transmission gas pipeline infrastructure market. In 2016, Spectra Energy and TransCanada awarded contract to combinedly build, own and operate the new pipeline from Texas to Tuxpan, Mexico. The aim of the USD 3.6 billion worth 270-km pipeline plan is to successfully supply the U.S. shale to power plants in Mexico by 2018.Increase in production of unconventional resources coupled with strict government norms toward adoption of low emission fuel will embellish the U.S. gas pipeline infrastructure market. Ongoing expansion of existing pipeline networks favored by increasing demand for exports will further complement the industry outlook. In 2017, the EIA published that natural gas production is expected to hold around 40% of the total energy production by 2020.Algeria gas pipeline infrastructure market is predicted to grow over 6% by 2024. Substantial administration funding for extension of the national transmission and distribution networks will augment the industry growth. In 2016, the Algerian government owned O&G company, Sonatrach announced to invest USD 3.2 billion over four years to enhance the pipeline capacity.Request a discount on standard prices of this premium report at:Growing number of connected end users coupled with positive outlook toward hydrocarbons trade with nearby nations will propel the onshore gas pipeline infrastructure market. Regional governments have introduced targets and schemes to expand the existing network to reach customer base. In 2015, the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources (MENR), Turkey underlined a strategic plan with an objective to add at least two more countries to the list of pipeline natural gas importing nations by 2019.Key players across the gas pipeline infrastructure market includes Europipe, Gazprom, Enbridge, Snam Rete, APA Group, Saipem, Perusahaan Gas Negara, GAIL India, Engas, and National Oilwell Varco.Table of Content:Chapter 1. Methodology and ScopeChapter 2. Executive SummaryChapter 3. Gas Pipeline Infrastructure Industry InsightsChapter 4. Gas Pipeline Infrastructure Market, By ApplicationChapter 5. Gas Pipeline Infrastructure Market, By OperationChapter 6. Gas Pipeline Infrastructure Market, By RegionChapter 7. Company ProfilesFor More Details about this report:Related Report:United States Gas Pipeline Infrastructure Market Report 2017In this report, the United States Gas Pipeline Infrastructure market is valued at USD XX million in 2016 and is expected to reach USD XX million by the end of 2022, growing at a CAGR of XX% between 2016 and 2022.About Us:Marketstudyreport.com allows you to manage and control all corporate research purchases to consolidate billing and vendor management. You can eliminate duplicate purchases and customize your content and license management.Contact Us:Market Study Report4 North Main Street,Selbyville, Delaware 19975USAPhone: 1-302-273-0910US Toll Free: 1-866-764-2150Email: sales@marketstudyreport.comWebsite:Blog:
Healthcare Information Governance Solution (IGS) Market 2018 Booming Healthcare Industry by 16.7% CAGR till 2027 with Most Demanding Players Dell Inc., HP Autonomy, IBM, Symantec Corporation, Google, Amazon, Microsoft Etc.
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The "Worldwide Healthcare Information Governance Solution (IGS) Market Research Report 2018" is The Most Recent Analysis Which Helps the User to Build Successful Business Methodologies.Global Healthcare Information Governance Solution (IGS) Market- OverviewHealthcare information governance solution enables effective management of healthcare information. It involves processing, controlling, and retrievals of information in a suitable format when required.Information governance enables an organization to become adaptive and responsive to the changing demands of the market demands. One of the major goals of the information governance in healthcare is to centralize the fragmented data so as to increase its accessibility, thereby, relaxing the work flow.For Detailed Reading Visit @Global Healthcare Information Governance Solution (IGS) Market- Growth and AnalysisFactors such as growing stringency of regulations, rising noncompliance costs, and advancements in the processing power are driving the healthcare information governance solution (IGS) marketOn the other hand, high costs for the information governance systems, cultures of secrecy, and traditional organization structures may restrain the market growth during the forecast period.The global healthcare information governance solution (IGS) market is growing with a sound pace. According to a recent study report published by the Market Research Future, the global healthcare information governance solution (IGS) market is booming and expected to gain prominence over the forecast period.The market is projected to demonstrate a sound growth by 2027, surpassing its previous growth records in terms of value with a striking CAGR during the anticipated period (2017 2027).Global Healthcare Information Governance Solution (IGS) Market- Leading PlayersDell Inc.HP AutonomyIBMSymantec CorporationGoogleAmazonMicrosoftHewlett Packard Enterprise Development LPnThrive, IncVeritas Technologies LLCInformation Governance Solutions, LLC.FTI Technology LLCiDiscovery Solutions, Inc.For Exclusive Sample Copy Visit @Global Healthcare Information Governance Solution (IGS) Market- Competitive AnalysisCharacterized by the presence of several well-established and small players, the global healthcare information governance solution (IGS) Market appears to be highly competitive and fragmented.International players are expanding their footprint in the developing economy, making it difficult for regional vendors to compete with them, especially in terms of features such as product portfolios, quality, and pricing.The market is witnessing intensified competition which is expected to get more intensified further during the forecast period. The intense competition prevalent in the market dictates the consolidation among marketers.Major Points form Table of Content of Global Healthcare Information Governance Solution (IGS) MarketChapter 1. Report PrologueChapter 2. Market Introduction2.1 Definition2.2 Scope of the Study2.2.1 Research Objective2.2.2 Assumptions2.2.3 LimitationsChapter 3. Research Methodology3.1 Introduction3.2 Primary Research3.3 Secondary Research3.4 Market Size Estimation..To ContinuedAvail Attractive Discount @About US:Market Research Future (MRFR), enable customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.Contact Us:Market Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, IndiaPhone: +1 646 845 9312Email: sales@marketresearchfuture.com
Airport Security Market 2024: Global Analysis of Key Players Thales Group, American Science and Engineering, Inc, Westminster Group PLC, Axis Communications
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Market Study Report adds global Airport Security market report that gives meticulous investigation of current scenario of the market size, share, demand, growth, trends, companies active in the industry and forecasts for the coming years.Airport Security Market is set to exceed USD 16 billion by 2024; according to a new research report.High penetration of these solutions is due to the demand for advanced security systems such as biometrics in identity and access monitoring, contactless entryway checkpoints, x-ray scanners, and thermal cameras. Conventional security measures employ invasive procedures and protocols such as physical checks and body pat-downs which are highly uncomfortable. To boost passenger convenience, airport security market vendors are investing in R&D activities for the development of technologies such as x-ray scanners. In high-risk settings, preventive measures are required over reactive technologies. In such cases, it is essential to track and forecast security threats in contrast to taking measures to fix the issues after their occurrence.Request a sample of this premium Research Report at:The rising penetration of smart technologies and IoT in airports is fueling the demand for airport security market. These include technologies such as remote check-ins, sensor equipment, e-gates, RFID baggage reconciliation systems, etc. A major portion of the data is collected in real-time and stored in large central databases. The presence of security issues in such cases can leave the data vulnerable to attacks from internal and external parties. Wireless tracking technologies, for instance, can allow a hacker to utilize triangular algorithms or Received Signal Strength Indication (RSSI) Information to track the location of the Wi-Fi end-point user and unearth historical data such as the route taken by the users, purchasing data, etc.The airport surveillance system market is anticipated to exhibit substantial growth during the forecast time-period. These systems are required to be functional at all times and sense multiple movements occurring at varying ranges. Additionally, these systems are supposed to function effectively in intense environmental conditions such as fog and storms and capture images in reduced visibility settings. The advent of 4K cameras and video units has revolutionized the airport security market owing to their sharper and improved image quality and provide coverage for a wider area.The North America airport security market is anticipated to dominate in terms of revenue in the following years. This is mainly attributed to the high emphasis of the U.S government on security measures such as surveillance cameras and cyber security solutions. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has launched the testing of 3D checkpoint scanning technology at the Phoenix Sky Harbor and the Logan International Airport. The computed tomography screening equipment improves the threat detection capabilities by providing a more through 3D image of the screened cargo.Some of the players operating in the global airport security market include Thales Group, American Science and Engineering, Inc, Westminster Group PLC, Axis Communications, Scanna MSC Ltd., Bosch Security Systems, RedXDefense LLC, Fisher Research Laboratory, Hitachi Ltd, OSI Systems, Inc., and MilliVision Technologies. Companies are increasingly entering into long term partnerships with airports for the testing and deployment of their technologies. For instance, Izmir International Airport has entered into an agreement with Tyco Security Products for the provision of unified security solutions such as access control, location monitoring, and intrusion tracking.Request a discount on standard prices of this premium report at:Table of Content:Chapter 1. Methodology and Scope1.1. Methodology1.1.1. Initial data exploration1.1.2. Statistical model and forecast1.1.3. Industry insights and validation1.1.4. Definition and forecast parameters1.2. Data Sources1.2.1. Primary1.2.2. SecondaryChapter 2. Executive Summary2.1. Airport Security industry 3600 synopses, 2013 - 20242.1.1. Business trends2.1.2. Regional trends2.1.3. Technology trendsChapter 3. Airport Security Industry Insights3.1. Industry segmentation3.2. Industry landscape, 2013 - 20243.3. Industry ecosystem analysis3.3.1. Vendor matrix3.4. Technology & innovation landscape3.4.1. Screening lanes3.4.2. CT scanners3.4.3. Automated document authentication3.5. Regulatory landscape3.5.1. Liquids Rule3.5.2. Regulation (EU) 2015/19983.6. Industry impact forces3.6.1. Growth drivers3.6.1.1. High risks associated with the terrorist attacks in the U.S3.6.1.2. Advent of new regulations associated with the security needs in Europe3.6.1.3. Airport construction and upgrade activities in Asia Pacific3.6.2. Industry pitfalls & challenges3.6.2.1. Budget constraints3.6.2.2. Airport cybersecurity threats3.7. Growth Potential Analysis3.8. Porter's analysis3.9. Competitive landscape, 20163.9.1. Strategy dashboard3.10. PESTEL analysisFor More Details about this report:About Us:Marketstudyreport.com allows you to manage and control all corporate research purchases to consolidate billing and vendor management. 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Intelligent Virtual Assistants Market 2026 Top Key players by: Apple Inc., Microsoft Corporation, Google, Nuance Communications, IBM Corporation, Oracle Corporation and IntelliResponse Systems Inc.
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PolarisMarketResearch.com added Intelligent Virtual Assistants Market Report provides an analytical assessment of the prime challenges faced by this Market currently and in the coming years, which helps Market participants in understanding the problems they may face while operating in this Market over a longer period of time.According to a new research published by Polaris Market Research, the Intelligent Virtual Assistant market is anticipated to reach over USD 21,523.6 million by 2026. In 2017, the BFSI segment dominated the global market, in terms of revenue. North America is expected to be the leading contributor to the global market revenue during the forecast period.The growing need to improve customer service, streamline enterprise communication, and increase productivity has boosted the adoption of intelligent virtual assistants. The rising penetration of mobile devices, and integration of virtual assistants with smart home appliances further support the growth of this market. Additionally, the increasing demand of intelligent virtual assistants from small and medium enterprises has supported market growth over the years. Increasing investments by vendors in technological advancements coupled with growing need to improve customer experience would accelerate the adoption of intelligent virtual assistants. However, lack of awareness is expected to hinder market growth. Growing demand from emerging economies is expected to provide numerous growth opportunities in the coming years.Sample copy of this Report @request-for-free-sampleThe use of digital assistants and bots is expected to increase in the coming years. Computer programs in the form of bots simulate conversation with users through chat windows and voice calls. They have the ability to perform a number of different automated tasks such as scheduling meetings, managing finances, and others. They also assist in successful use of unified communication tools. These bots could be used as an automated attendant monitoring the interactions and offering instructions to users.Intelligent virtual assistants are gradually replacing traditional interactive voice response systems. Use of intelligent virtual assistants is proving effective by enhancing customer and brand experience, and providing a consumer-friendly environment. The virtual assistants also offer a platform for convenient communication within businesses through voice, text, and other channels.Make an Inquiry for purchasing this Report @North America generated the highest revenue in the market in 2017, and is expected to lead the global market throughout the forecast period. The presence of established telecom and cloud infrastructure in this region, and growing trend of BYOD drive the market growth in the region. The growing demand of mobile devices, and technological advancements further support market growth in the region. Asia-Pacific is expected to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period owing to growing demand of virtual assistant technologies in the developing countries of the region.Top Key Player:Apple Inc.Microsoft CorporationGoogleNuance CommunicationsIBM CorporationOracle CorporationIntelliResponse Systems Inc.Speaktoit Inc.CodeBaby CorporationNext IT CorporationIntel Corporationand Clara Labs among others.The end-users in intelligent virtual assistant market include healthcare, education, retail, BFSI, government, and others. In 2017, the BFSI segment accounted for the highest market share owing to increasing need to offer enhanced customer services, and improve productivity. The demand for intelligent virtual assistants has increased from organizations operating in this sector to improve workforce collaboration, client interaction, and reduce costs.Browse Full Report @About us Polaris Market ResearchPolaris Market Research is a global market research and consulting company. We provide unmatched quality of offerings to our clients present globally. The company specializes in providing exceptional market intelligence and in-depth business research services for our clientele spread across different enterprises. We at Polaris are obliged to serve our diverse customer base present across the industries of healthcare, technology, semi-conductors and chemicals among various other industries present around the world. We strive to provide our customers with updated information on innovative technologies, high growth markets, emerging business environments and latest business-centric applications, thereby helping them always to make informed decisions and leverage new opportunities.We mainly focus on aiding our customers with substantial competitive intelligence, helping them to secure a competitive advantage in the market and accomplish sustainable growth in different market domains. 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Global Blue Biotechnology Market is expected to grow at CAGR 11.3% between 2018-2025 | Sheer Analytics and Insights
Global Blue Biotechnology Market is expected to grow at CAGR 11.3% between 2018-2025
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Global Blue Biotechnology market in terms of revenue is expected to grow at 11.3% CAGR between 2018 to 2025 as per new market research report titled Global Blue Biotechnology Market (by product type- pharma, biofuels, food, enzymes, biopolymers, and others. By application-vaccine development, drug finding, genomics, and others. By end-user-pharmaceutical companies, biotechnology companies, research organization, health care center, and others) Global industry analysis, size, share, growth, trends, and forecast, 2018 2025, by Sheer Analytics & Insights Pvt. Ltd.The blue biotechnology market is growing rapidly and it is mostly used in the healthcare and pharmaceutical sector. The products of blue biotechnology is also used for different types of treatment such as bones, antiviral, and wounds, and uncontaminated among others. Therefore, in the coming years it is estimated the global blue biotechnology will witness a upsurge in the market.Read Full Report @Moreover, the blue biotechnology market is creating ample opportunities in the field of sea monitoring. The market growth is also getting influenced globally by the research and development as the key players as they are manufacturing new kinds of products that consist of drug finding and enzymes. Recently, the major factors that are highly inducing the growth of the global blue biotechnology are the rapid development of new aquatic technologies that was used to monitor the sea atmosphere which was coupled with the surge of algae-derived bioenergy development and the high demand of marine renewable energy.A considerable growth has been witnessed in the terms of research in the blue biotechnology segment. Currently, a team of biologists and researchers from the NYU Abu Dhabi has collaborated with the UAE University for conducting some of the researchers that will allow them to grow food-producing and the critical algae under conditions that were thought to be inhabitable for these kind of micro-organisms. According to the lead researcher, Weiqi Fu, Ph.D., Research Scientist, NYU Abu Dhabi, With this technology, algae can be grown in photo-bioreactors at a higher density and a faster pace, reducing cost and speeding up production.Download report sample @In addition to this, the huge number of blue biotechnology products in the regions of North America is making them the holder of largest market share in the blue biotechnology market. Moreover, the market growth is augmenting in the countries such as France, Germany, U.S., and in Italy as the focus on marine technology for the research and development of new drugs have increased. The continuous growth in the marine-based organisms such as algae, and bacteria in countries such as Chile, Brazil is increasing the demand for the blue biotechnology products in the regions of Africa and Middle East. Europe is the second largest market of blue biotechnology owing to their high demand for the marine products in this region. In the Asia Pacific region, China has a stable growth in the market of blue biotechnology as in India there is less application of this market.The market research reports that is published by Sheer Analytics & Insights on Global blue biotechnology market, it has been segmented based on the product type, end-user, and application. Based on product type the market is segmented by biofuels, biopolymers, pharma, enzymes, and food. Based on their application it is segmented into drug finding, vaccine development, genomics, and others. There are also various other end-users who uses the blue biotechnology that consists of biotechnology companies, heath care centre, pharmaceutical companies, research organizations, and others. Moreover, the market is also segmented geographically into Middle East & Africa, North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Latin America.Request a report brochure @Marine ingredient product was launched by Marinova such as Maritech fucoidan. This product is used to boost the immune cells and for reduction of the allergic responses. However, the latest studies have shown that this product also have the capacity to kill cancer cells directly and thus is expected that it will drive the blue biotechnology market in the foreseeable period.The major companies in GlobalBlue Biotechnology market are as follows, Aker Biomarine, GeoMarine Biotechnologies, GlycoMar, New England Biolabs, Pml Application Ltd., Sea Run Holdings, Inc., Shell Marine Products, and Samudra Biopharma Private Limited among others.Global Blue Biotechnology Market: By Product Type Pharma Biofuels Food Enzymes Biopolymers OthersGlobal Blue Biotechnology Market: By Application Vaccine development Drug finding Genomics OthersGlobal Blue BiotechnologyMarket: By End- User Pharmaceutical companies Biotechnology companies Research organization Healthcare Centre OthersGlobal Blue Biotechnology Market: By GeographyNorth America U.S. Canada MexicoEurope U.K. France Germany Italy Rest of EuropeAsia Pacific India China Japan Rest of Asia PacificMiddle East and Africa South Africa Rest of the Middle East and AfricaLatin America Brazil Rest of Latin AmericaTable of content:1 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY, ASSUMPTIONS AND ACRONYMS2 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY2.1 GLOBAL BLUE BIOTECHNOLOGY MARKET3 GLOBAL BLUE BIOTECHNOLOGY MARKET-MARKET OVERVIEW3.1 INTRODUCTION3.1.1 GLOBAL BLUE BIOTECHNOLOGY MARKET REVENUE FORECAST AND POTENTIAL ADDRESSABLE MARKET3.1.2 GLOBAL BLUE BIOTECHNOLOGY MARKET SNAPSHOT4 GLOBAL BLUE BIOTECHNOLOGY MARKET OVERVIEW- BYPRODUCT TYPE4.1 INTRODUCTION4.1.1 GLOBAL BLUE BIOTECHNOLOGY MARKET REVENUE FORECAST AND POTENTIAL ADDRESSABLE MARKET- BY PRODUCT TYPE4.1.1.1 PHARMA4.1.1.2 BIOFUELS4.1.1.3 FOOD4.1.1.4 ENZYMES4.1.1.5 BIOPOLYMERS4.1.1.6 OTHERS5 GLOBAL BLUE BIOTECHNOLOGY MARKET ANALYSIS AND FORECAST, BY APPLICATION5.1 INTRODUCTION5.1.1 GLOBAL BLUE BIOTECHNOLOGY MARKET REVENUE FORECAST AND POTENTIAL ADDRESSABLE MARKET- BY APPLICATION5.1.1.1 VACCINE DEVELOPMENT5.1.1.2 GENOMICS5.1.1.3 DRUG FINDING5.1.1.4 OTHERS6 GLOBAL BLUE BIOTECHNOLOGY MARKET ANALYSIS AND FORECAST, BY END- USER6.1 INTRODUCTION6.1.1 GLOBAL BLUE BIOTECHNOLOGY MARKET REVENUE FORECAST AND POTENTIAL ADDRESSABLE MARKET- BY END- USER6.1.1.1 PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANIES6.1.1.2 BIOTECHNOLOGY COMPANIES6.1.1.3 RESEARCH ORGANIZATION6.1.1.4 HEALTHCARE SECTOR7 GLOBAL BLUE BIOTECHNOLOGY MARKETREVENUE FORECAST AND POTENTIAL ADDRESSABLE MARKET, BY REGION7.1 INTRODUCTIO7.2 KEY TAKEWAYS8 NORTH AMERICABLUE BIOTECHNOLOGY MARKET REVENUE FORECAST AND POTENTIAL ADDRESSABLE MARKET8.1 MARKET DYNAMICS8.1.1 DRIVERS8.1.2 RESTRAINTS8.1.3 OPPORTUNITIES8.2 NORTH AMERICA BLUE BIOTECHNOLOGY MARKET ANALYSIS- BYPRODUCT TYPE8.3 NORTH AMERICA BLUE BIOTECHNOLOGY MARKET ANALYSIS- BY APPLICATION8.4 NORTH AMERICA BLUE BIOTECHNOLOGY MARKET ANALYSIS- BY END- USER8.5 U.S.8.6 CANADA8.7 MEXICO9 EUROPEBLUE BIOTECHNOLOGY MARKET REVENUE FORECAST AND POTENTIAL ADDRESSABLE MARKET9.1 MARKET DYNAMICS9.1.1 DRIVERS9.1.2 RESTRAINTS9.1.3 OPPORTUNITIES9.2 EUROPE BLUE BIOTECHNOLOGY MARKET ANALYSIS- BY PRODUCT TYPE9.3 EUROPE BLUE BIOTECHNOLOGY MARKET ANALYSIS- BY APPLICATION9.4 EUROPE BLUE BIOTECHNOLOGY MARKET ANALYSIS- BY END- USER9.5 U.K.9.6 FRANCE9.7 GERMANY9.8 ITALY9.9 SPAIN9.10 REST OF EUROPE10 ASIA PACIFICBLUE BIOTECHNOLOGY MARKET REVENUE FORECAST AND POTENTIAL ADDRESSABLE MARKET10.1 MARKET DYNAMICS10.1.1 DRIVERS10.1.2 RESTRAINTS10.1.3 OPPORTUNITIES10.2 ASIA PACIFICBLUE BIOTECHNOLOGY MARKET ANALYSIS- BY PRODUCT TYPE10.3 ASIA PACIFIC BLUE BIOTECHNOLOGY MARKET ANALYSIS- BY APPLICATION10.4 ASIA PACIFICBLUE BIOTECHNOLOGY MARKET ANALYSIS- BY END- USER10.5 INDIA10.6 CHINA10.7 JAPAN10.8 REST OF ASIA PACIFIC11 MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA(MEA) BLUE BIOTECHNOLOGY MARKET REVENUE FORECAST AND POTENTIAL ADDRESSABLE MARKET11.1 MARKET DYNAMICS11.1.1 DRIVERS11.1.2 RESTRAINTS11.1.3 OPPORTUNITIES11.2 MEA BLUE BIOTECHNOLOGY MARKET ANALYSIS- BY PRODUCT TYPE11.3 MEA BLUE BIOTECHNOLOGY MARKET ANALYSIS- BY APPLICATION11.4 MEA BLUE BIOTECHNOLOGY MARKET ANALYSIS- BY END- USER11.5 SOUTH AFRICA11.6 REST OF MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA12 LATIN AMERICABLUE BIOTECHNOLOGY MARKET REVENUE FORECAST AND POTENTIAL ADDRESSABLE MARKET12.1 MARKET DYNAMICS12.1.1 DRIVERS12.1.2 RESTRAINTS12.1.3 OPPORTUNITIES12.2 LATIN AMERICA BLUE BIOTECHNOLOGY MARKET ANALYSIS- BY PRODUCT TYPE12.3 LATIN AMERICA BLUE BIOTECHNOLOGY MARKET ANALYSIS- BYAPPLICATION12.4 LATIN AMERICA BLUE BIOTECHNOLOGY MARKET ANALYSIS- BYEND- USER12.5 BRAZIL12.6 REST OF LATIN AMERICA13 COMPETATIVE LANDSCAPE13.1 GLOBAL BLUE BIOTECHNOLOGY MARKET-COMPANY MARKET SHARE ANALYSIS14 COMPANY PROFILES: (REVENUE, PRODUCTS/BRAND OFFERINGS, COMPANY HIGHLIGHTS)14.1 AKER BIOMARINE14.2 CELLGEN BIOLOGICALS PVT LTD.14.3 DONALD DANFORTH PLANT SCIENCE CENTER14.4 GEOMARINE BIOTECHNOLOGIES14.5 GLYCOMAR14.6 MARINOVA14.7 NURTURE AQUA TECHNOLOGY PVT.14.8 NEW ENGLAND BIOLABS14.9 PICES14.10 PML APPLICATION LTD.14.11 SEA RUN HOLDINGS, INC14.12 SHELL MARINE PRODUCTS14.13 SANOSIL BIOTECH14.14 SAMUDRA BIOPHARMA PRIVATE LIMITEDImportant Tables and Figures:LIST OF TABLESTABLE 1 GLOBAL BLUE BIOTECHNOLOGY MARKET SIZE, 2017-2025 (USD MN)TABLE 2 GLOBAL BLUE BIOTECHNOLOGY MARKET, BYPRODUCT TYPETABLE 3 GLOBAL BLUE BIOTECHNOLOGY MARKET, BY APPLICATIONTABLE 4 GLOBAL BLUE BIOTECHNOLOGY MARKET, BYEND- USERTABLE 5 NORTH AMERICA BLUE BIOTECHNOLOGY MARKET SIZE, 2017-2025 (USD MN)TABLE 6 NORTH AMERICA BLUE BIOTECHNOLOGY MARKET, BYPRODUCT TYPETABLE 7 NORTH AMERICA BLUE BIOTECHNOLOGY MARKET, BY APPLICATIONTABLE 8 NORTH AMERICA BLUE BIOTECHNOLOGY MARKET, BYEND- USERTABLE 9 EUROPE BLUE BIOTECHNOLOGY MARKET SIZE, 2017-2025 (USD MN)TABLE 10 EUROPE BLUE BIOTECHNOLOGY MARKET, BYPRODUCT TYPETABLE 11 EUROPE BLUE BIOTECHNOLOGY MARKET, BY APPLICATIONTABLE 12 EUROPE BLUE BIOTECHNOLOGY MARKET, BYEND- USERTABLE 13 ASIA-PACIFIC BLUE BIOTECHNOLOGY MARKET SIZE, 2017-2025 (USD MN)TABLE 14 ASIA-PACIFIC BLUE BIOTECHNOLOGY MARKET, BYPRODUCT TYPETABLE 15 ASIA-PACIFIC BLUE BIOTECHNOLOGY MARKET, BY APPLICATIONTABLE 16 ASIA-PACIFIC BLUE BIOTECHNOLOGY MARKET, BYEND- USERTABLE 17 MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA BLUE BIOTECHNOLOGYMARKET SIZE, 2017-2025(USD MN)TABLE 18 MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA BLUE BIOTECHNOLOGY MARKET, BYPRODUCT TYPETABLE 19 MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA BLUE BIOTECHNOLOGY MARKET, BY APPLICATIONTABLE 20 MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICA BLUE BIOTECHNOLOGY MARKET, BYEND- USERTABLE 21 LATIN AMERICA BLUE BIOTECHNOLOGYMARKET SIZE, 2017-2025 (USD MN)TABLE 22 LATIN AMERICA BLUE BIOTECHNOLOGY MARKET, BYPRODUCT TYPETABLE 23 LATIN AMERICA BLUE BIOTECHNOLOGY MARKET, BY APPLICATIONTABLE 24 LATIN AMERICA BLUE BIOTECHNOLOGY MARKET, BYEND- USERLIST OF FIGURESFIGURE 1 MARKET SEGMENTFIGURE 2 MARKET INTEGRATED ECOSYSTEMFIGURE 3 TOP-DOWN APPROACHFIGURE 4 BOTTOM-UP APPROACHFIGURE 5 NORTH AMERICA BLUE BIOTECHNOLOGY MARKET SNAPSHOTFIGURE 6 EUROPE BLUE BIOTECHNOLOGY MARKET SNAPSHOTFIGURE 7 ASIA-PACIFIC BLUE BIOTECHNOLOGYMARKET SNAPSHOTFIGURE8 MIDDLE EAST AND AFRICABLUE BIOTECHNOLOGY MARKET SNAPSHOTFIGURE9 LATIN AMERICA BLUE BIOTECHNOLOGY MARKET SNAPSHOTSheer Analytics and Insights Pvt. Ltd. is among the leading market research organizations providing the best B2B researches on various niches. Currently servicing 2000+ clients worldwide, our analysts and marketing team are continually tracking global markets having high growth prospect.Sheer Analytics and Insights Pvt. Ltd.Registered office:RDB Boulevard,8th Floor,Plot K 1,Sector 5, Block EP and GP,Kolkata 700091, India.Contact Number: +913346009199Email Address: sales@sheeranalyticsandinsights.com
Industrial Eye Protection Market 2024 Key Players 3M, Avon-ISI, Honeywell, Bolle Safety, MSA Safety, Ansell Healthcare Products, Teijin Fibers and Kimberly Clark
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Industrial Eye Protection Market size is estimated to exceed USD 2.5 billion by 2024; according to a new research report by Global Market Insights, Inc.Positive outlook towards occupational safety in oil & gas, chemicals, mining and construction industry will propel industrial eye protection market growth. Prevention from chemicals, heat & optical radiation are the key properties enhancing product demand.Request sample copy of this report @Increasing employer awareness pertaining to work safety will support the industrial eye protection demand. For instance, OSHA has implemented safety standards for several end-use industries to prevent the injuries at workplace.Construction application was worth over USD 310 million in 2016. Increasing government spending on building tunnels, dams, roads, and bridges globally will drive the growth. China is projected to be among the major contributor. China construction spending was over USD 730 billion in 2016.CR-39 lenses will witness gains at 3% up to 2024. High optical quality compared to glass along with comparatively less manufacturing cost has driven industry growth in this segment. Entrance of trivex as an ultra-light, thin and high impact resistant lenses will open new avenues in the industry.Browse key industry insights spread across 270 pages with 227 market data tables & 11 figures & charts from the report, Industrial Eye Protection Market Size By Material (Polycarbonate, CR-39, Trivex, Glass), By Product (Safety Spectacles [Prescribed, Non-Prescribed], Safety Goggles, Welding Shields, Face Shields), By Application (Construction, Oil & Gas, Chemicals, Mining, Pharmaceutical, Food, Transportation, Firefighting) Industry Analysis Report, Regional Outlook (U.S, Canada, Germany, UK, France, Italy, Spain, Russia, China, India, Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Indonesia, Australia, Taiwan, Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Saudi Arabia, UAE, South Africa), Growth Potential, Price Trends, Competitive Market Share & Forecast, 2017 2024 in detail along with the table of contents:High profit margins due to increasing product penetration will fuel the industry growth. However, inability to expand business in untapped regions due to non-standardized safety regulations will restrain the industrial eye protection market growth.Safety spectacles was valued over USD 770 million in 2016. Technological advancement including anti-glare, anti-scratch and UVA/UVB protective products will support the industry demand.Safety goggles will generate revenue over USD 970 million by 2024. Rising product penetration in pharmaceutical laboratories and research centers will create new opportunities for the business growth.Face shields will witness growth over 4% up to 2024. Manufacturing and construction industry expansion in developing countries will support the industry demand. Superior protection against chemical splash and blood borne pathogens has enhanced the product demand.Make an inquiry for purchasing this report @Europe industrial eye protection market was more than 70 million units in 2016. Favorable socio-economic factors accompanied by increasing manufacturing facilities will drive the demand. Strong presence of the key manufacturers in this region will propel the industry growth. Changing lifestyle along with increasing awareness regarding worker safety has encouraged the product penetration.North America industrial eye protection market will witness gains at 3.2% up to 2024. High prevalence for employee safety along with stringent government regulations are the key factors supporting the business growth. As per NIOSH, about 2000 workers in U.S. sustain workplace eye injury per day, that requires medical treatment.Global industrial eye protection market share is moderately consolidated due to presence of few industry players holding major industry share. Major key players inculde 3M, Bolle Safety, Honeywell, MCR Safety, Egde, MSA Safety, Encon Safety, Ergodyne and Gateway Safety. Mergers, acquisitions, new product launches and supply agreements are the key strategies adopted by the major players.About Global Market Insights:Global Market Insights, Inc., headquartered in Delaware, U.S., is a global market research and consulting service provider; offering syndicated and custom research reports along with growth consulting services. Our business intelligence and industry research reports offer clients with penetrative insights and actionable market data specially designed and presented to aid strategic decision making. These exhaustive reports are designed via a proprietary research methodology and are available for key industries such as chemicals, advanced materials, technology, renewable energy and biotechnology.Contact Us:Arun HegdeCorporate Sales, USAGlobal Market Insights, Inc.Phone:1-302-846-7766Toll Free: 1-888-689-0688Email: sales@gminsights.comWeb:
Polyethylene Wax Market 2018-2024 | key players Honeywell, BASF, Westlake Chemical, SCG, Mitsui Chemicals America, Inc., The Lubrizol Corporation, Kerax Limited, Micro Powders, Inc. and Innospec Inc.
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Escalating coatings industry across the globe is a prominent factor propelling the overall (PE) polyethylene wax market by 2024. The overall coatings business generated revenue more than USD 90 billion in 2016 and is likely to mark USD 150 billion, with estimated gains close to 5% CAGR over the estimated period. The product addition on the coating material enhances its properties including heat & chemical resistance, thermal stability, friction coefficient, electrical insulation, rheology and gloss.Request for a sample copy of this report @In addition, coatings used in textiles, furniture, plastic products, wood products, containerboards, automotive, metals and electronics products are generally blended with the product. Therefore, fervent growth in automotive, electronics and construction industry will subsequently boost industry growth by 2024, as these industries essentially require coatings. Polyethylene Wax Market size is likely to surpass USD 370 million by 2024; according to a new research report by Global Market Insights, Inc.PE wax market share is positively influence by inclining product applications in PVC manufacturing. It is widely used in the PVC production process to upscale its features such as molding complexity and resistance against chemicals, abrasion & heat. The global PVC manufacturing process will expand at more than 3% CAGR by 2024 for its widespread applications in the construction industry. Furthermore, polyethylene wax market is driven by broad applications printing inks industry. The product is used in printing inks formulation process to upgrade its friction coefficient and gloss. In addition, the global printing inks industry revenue was close to USD 15 billion in 2015 and shall exceed USD 23 billion by 2024, with growth close to 5% in the due course. Therefore, increasing demand of printing inks in commercial applications as newspapers, promotional catalogues and brochures will positively influence the business growth in the near future.Fischer-tropsch (FT) wax is a product alternative for various applications including printing inks and adhesives owing to its similar features. In addition, major raw material utilized in the industry is ethylene, which is a crude oil derivate. Therefore, the polyethylene wax market price trends follow similar price dynamics. Thus, stiff substitute threat laid by FT along with wavering crude oil price trends may hamper the global industry size in coming years. Considering the physical form of the product, powders are estimated to lead the overall market by 2024. They feature better anti-sticking properties in PVC melts, better rub & scratch resistance and high viscosity modification when used as hotmelt adhesives.Browse Complete Report Summary @Plastics additives and lubricants was one of the major global PE wax market share contributor in 2016 and is forecast to observe prominent gains in the coming years. Increasing product applications as a slip agent, mold release agent, resin modifier and dispersant in the plastic processing industry will positively boost the overall size during the estimated timeframe. The product has also been used in the plastic applications in order to enhance its impact strength and flexural modulus. Escalating global plastic demand on account of its widespread applications across automotive and electronics industry will substantially boost the overall industry size.In 2016, Asia Pacific accounted for more than 30% of overall polyethylene wax market volume. Improving consumer lifestyle dynamics, booming construction sector and escalating automobile sales in China, Japan and India are the chief factors stimulating the regional industry size. North America contributed over 20% of the overall PE wax market share in 2016. Uplifting construction spending along with robust packaging industry in the U.S. are the prime regional growth prospects.In 2016, the overall PE wax market was consolidated as the major participants contributed over 50% market share. Some key business contributors are Honeywell International, BASF SE, Clariant AG, Innospec Inc, Westlake Chemical, Arya Chem, WIWAX, SCG Chemicals, Mitsui Chemicals, Synergy Additives, Lubrizol Corporation, Micro Powders and Kerax Limited.Partial Chapter of the Table of ContentChapter 2. Executive Summary2.1. Polyethylene wax industry 360 synopsis, 2013 20242.1.1. Polyethylene Wax Market Business trends2.1.2. Form by application trends2.1.3. Application trends2.1.4. Regional trendsMake an inquiry for purchasing this report @Chapter 3. Polyethylene Wax Industry Insights3.1. Industry segmentation3.2. Industry size and forecast, 2013 20243.3. Industry ecosystem analysis3.3.1. Vendor matrix3.3.2. Distributor channel analysis3.4. Industry impact forces3.4.1. Growth drivers3.4.1.1. Increasing product demand in PVC production3.4.1.2. Robust growth in coatings industry3.4.1.3. Elevating product demand from printing inks3.4.2. Industry pitfalls & challenges3.4.2.1. Unstable raw material price trends3.4.2.2. Substitute threat from Fischer-Tropsch (FT)3.5. Regulatory trends3.5.1. U.S.3.5.2. Europe3.5.3. China3.6. Pricing analysis3.6.1. Cost structure analysis3.6.2. Pricing by form3.6.3. Pricing by region3.7. Innovation & sustainability3.8. Growth potential analysis3.8.1. Patent landscape3.9. Porters analysis3.10. Competitive landscape, 20163.10.1. Strategy dashboard3.11. PESTEL analysisAbout Global Market Insights:Global Market Insights, Inc., headquartered in Delaware, U.S., is a global market research and consulting service provider; offering syndicated and custom research reports along with growth consulting services. Our business intelligence and industry research reports offer clients with penetrative insights and actionable market data specially designed and presented to aid strategic decision making. These exhaustive reports are designed via a proprietary research methodology and are available for key industries such as chemicals, advanced materials, technology, renewable energy and biotechnology.Contact Us:Arun HegdeCorporate Sales, USAGlobal Market Insights, Inc.Phone:1-302-846-7766Toll Free: 1-888-689-0688Email: sales@gminsights.comWeb:
Galleria announces holiday hours The Walden Galleria Mall has recently announced special hours of operation, as well as new initiatives for this holiday season....
COVID briefing discusses concern of rising cases, many who are still vaccine-hesitant Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz does not know what else he can do to convince people to get vaccinated. Its...
St. Marks Episcopal Church to hold food drive St. Marks Episcopal Church is asking for the communitys help for a large food collection drive. The food drive is...
Submarine Hospitality, owners of Ava Gene's and Tusk, are partnering with London-based hotel group The Hoxton to open a new restaurant and two bars in Old Town-Chinatown, the hotel announced Thursday.
The project was the talk of last night's Feast Portland kick-off party: Johnny Leach, last seen running the kitchen at the short-lived modern Mexican restaurant Chalino, will reprise that role at La Neta, an all-day "Mexican-inspired" restaurant anchoring the food and beverage program at The Hoxton.
Leach, who spent time at top New York City restaurants before returning to Oregon in 2014, plans to feature seasonal Northwest produce at La Neta. The restaurant will join other Portland-area restaurants including Xico and Little Conejo with its own in-house masa program for tortillas and more, created through a collaboration with heirloom corn distributor Masienda.
On the roof, new rooftop taqueria Tope will feature "the street food of Mexico City" alongside a mezcal-focused cocktail list. In the basement, Submarine is planning a subterranean cocktail bar with a menu of "sharable American-Chinese classics" such as kung pao chicken, beef and broccoli and egg rolls, all made with seasonal ingredients, that nods to the surrounding Chinatown neighborhood. Cocktails for all three projects were created by Submarine Bar Director Collin Nicholas.
Ceviche from chef Johnny Leach's previous project, Chalino (now home to Smallwares). Leach will run a new restaurant from Portland's Submarine Hospitality at The Hoxton, a new hotel in Old Town-Chinatown.
Opening in the East Burnside building formerly dubbed The Grove, The Hoxton Portland is the second North American hotel for the London-based company, coming hard on the heels of a Williamsburg, Brooklyn location. The hotel's first location opened in London's Shoreditch neighborhood in 2006. Plans call for future hotels in Los Angeles, Chicago, and London.
Look for the Portland hotel to open next month at 15 N.W. Fourth Ave. More information at thehoxton.com.
-- Michael Russell
Opioid powerhouse Purdue Pharma lied to the Oregon State Board of Pharmacy and targeted senior citizens, claims a lawsuit filed Thursday by the Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum.
Rosenblum's office filed a notice June 27 in a first step toward suing the Oxycontin manufacturer over what the state says are 10 years of violations of a state settlement. The notice demanded Purdue abide by the terms of a 2007 settlement or Oregon would sue.
Thursday the state asked for more than $1 million and a prohibition against Purdue marketing opioids toward senior citizens in Oregon. The lawsuit claims the company distributed publications and partnered with industry-funded advocacy organizations in Oregon with untrue and misleading claims, trained its sales force to minimize the harms of Oxycontin, and targeted senior citizens and people with disabilities.
"Ten years later, it is clear Purdue has flouted the judgment and ignored the severe federal penalties," the lawsuit says.
Dwight Holton, former federal prosecutor and CEO of substance abuse and suicide prevention nonprofit Lines for Life, said the move is a major step in holding opioid companies accountable.
Holton said he has been disappointed at a lack of cooperation in ways to stem the opioid epidemic. He said this lawsuit could push Purdue to be better partners.
"My hope is that this action will help establish some accountability and bring them to the table to help solve this," Holton said. "They ought to be helping us and they haven't been."
Purdue contests this characterization. Spokesman Robert Josephson said that the company shares Oregon's concerns about the opioid crisis and wants to work together to address the crisis.
"We vigorously deny the state's allegations," Josephson said in a statement. "The state claims Purdue acted improperly by communicating with prescribers about scientific and medical information that FDA has expressly considered and continues to approve. We believe it is inappropriate for the state to substitute its judgment for the judgment of the regulatory, scientific and medical experts at FDA. We look forward to presenting our substantial defenses regarding this lawsuit."
Oregon is part of coordinated efforts across states to hold opioid companies accountable and recoup some money to pay for addiction treatment. This latest lawsuit, though, is not part of that effort.
Oregon is possibly the first state to cite the Elderly Persons and Persons with Disabilities Abuse Prevention Act to say Purdue targeted senior citizens. The evidence includes The Oregonian/OregonLive's reporting that in 2015, for every 100,000 seniors in Oregon nearly 700 people 65 and older were sent to the hospital because of opioids.
The suit says opioids can increase the risk of falls, fractures and deaths in older people. It also claims the company targeted long-term care facilities and urged doctors to prescribe opioids at higher dosages than was safe for people over 65.
The lawsuit also claims that every year when Purdue renewed its application to sell Oxycontin in Oregon with the state pharmacy board, it lied about whether it had been subject to state and federal punishment.
Purdue has had to pay fines, and some high-level executives have been charged with felonies for how the company marketed and sold Oxycontin.
Most states recognize the opioid epidemic as a public health crisis. Gov. Kate Brown signed an executive order earlier this year calling it a state priority.
The Oregon Department of Justice has released nearly $4 million from settlements to fight the opioid epidemic, including $760,000 to Oregon Health & Science University announced Thursday to fund a library of evidence-based practices to prevent and treat opioid abuse.
This lawsuit comes as Oregon opioid-related deaths begin to spike. Public health officials reported earlier this year that it appears fentanyl a extraordinarily strong opioid that is common among people who can no longer access prescribed opioids has moved into the state. Jackson County saw a 70 percent increase in opioid overdose deaths in just the first quarter of the year.
Meanwhile, Purdue company eliminated 350 people from its sales team and said publicly that it plans to move away from OxyContin promotion and pivot toward research on cancer-ending drugs. The company also ended a "speakers program" that payed doctors and others to promote the drug -- a tactic that also drew considerable litigation. The move is part of a process started in February to distance itself from the opioid epidemic, which killed more than 35,000 people in 2016, according to federal health data.
-- Molly Harbarger
mharbarger@oregonian.com
503-294-5923
@MollyHarbarger
By Bandy X. Lee, Yale University
(THE CONVERSATION) Bob Woodward's new book, "Fear," describes a "nervous breakdown of Trump's presidency." Earlier this year, Michael Wolff's "Fire and Fury" offered a similar portrayal.
Now, an op-ed in The New York Times by an anonymous "senior White House official" describes how deeply the troubles in this administration run and what effort is requiredto protect the nation.
None of this is a surprise to those of us who, 18 months ago, put together our own public service book, "The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President."
My focus as the volume's editor was on Trump's dangerousness because of my area of expertise in violence prevention. Approaching violence as a public health issue, I have consulted with governments and international organizations, in addition to 20 years of engaging in the individual assessment and treatment of violent offenders.
The book proceeded from an ethics conference I held at Yale, my home institution. At that meeting, my psychiatrist colleagues and I discussed balancing two essential duties of our profession. First is the duty to speak responsibly about public officials, especially as outlined in "the Goldwater rule," which requires that we refrain from diagnosing without a personal examination and without authorization. Second is our responsibility to protect public health and safety, or our "duty to warn" in cases of danger, which usually supersedes other rules.
Our conclusion was overwhelmingly that our responsibility to society and its safety, as outlined in our ethical guidelines, overrode any etiquette owed to a public figure. That decision led to the collection of essays in the book, which includes some of the most prominent thinkers of the field including Robert J. Lifton, Judith Herman, Philip Zimbardo and two dozen others. That decision was controversial among some members of our field.
We already know a great deal about Trump's mental state based on the voluminous information he has given through his tweets and his responses to real situations in real time. Now, this week's credible reports support the concerns we articulated in the book beyond any doubt.
These reports are also consistent with the account I received from two White House staff members who called me in October 2017 because the president was behaving in a manner that "scared" them, and they believed he was "unraveling". They were calling because of the book I edited.
Once I confirmed that they did not perceive the situation as an imminent danger, I referred them to the emergency room, in order not to be bound by confidentiality rules that would apply if I engaged with them as a treating physician. That would have compromised my role of educating the public.
The psychology behind the chaos
The author of the New York Times op-ed makes clear that the conflict in the White House is not about Trump's ideology.
The problem, the author sees, is the lack of "any discernible first principles that guide his decision making . his impulsiveness [that] results in half-baked, ill-informed and occasionally reckless decisions that have to be walked back, and there being literally no telling whether he might change his mind from one minute to the next."
These are obviously psychological symptoms reflective of emotional compulsion, impulsivity, poor concentration, narcissism and recklessness. They are identical to those that Woodward describes in numerous examples, which he writes were met with the "stealthy machinations used by those in Trump's inner sanctum to try to control his impulses and prevent disasters."
They are also consistent with the course we foresaw early in Trump's presidency, which concerned us enough to outline it in our book. We tried to warn that his condition was worse than it appeared, would grow worse over time and would eventually become uncontainable.
What we observed were signs of mental instability - signs that would eventually play out not only in the White House, as these accounts report, but in domestic situations andin the geopolitical sphere.
There is a strong connection between immediate dangerousness - the likelihood of waging a war or launching nuclear weapons - and extended societal dangerousness - policies that force separation of children from families or the restructuring of global relations in a way that would destabilize the world.
Getting worse
My current concern is that we are already witnessing a further unraveling of the president's mental state, especially as the frequency of his lying increases and the fervor of his rallies intensifies.
I am concerned that his mental challenges could cause him to take unpredictable and potentially extreme and dangerous measures to distract from his legal problems.
Mental health professionals have standard procedures for evaluating dangerousness. More than a personal interview, violence potential is best assessed through past history and a structured checklist of a person's characteristics.
These characteristics include a history of cruelty to animals or other people, risk taking, behavior suggesting loss of control or impulsivity, narcissistic personality and current mental instability. Also of concern are noncompliance or unwillingness to undergo tests or treatment, access to weapons, poor relationship with significant other or spouse, seeing oneself as a victim, lack of compassion or empathy, and lack of concern over consequences of harmful acts.
The Woodward book and the New York Times op-ed confirm many of these characteristics. The rest have been evident in Trump's behavior outside the White House and prior to his tenure.
That the president has met not just some but all these criteria should be reason for alarm.
Other ways in which a president could be dangerous are through cognitive symptoms or lapses, since functions such as reasoning, memory, attention, language and learning are critical to the duties of a president. He has exhibited signs of decline here, too.
Furthermore, when someone displays a propensity for large-scale violence, such as by advocating violence against protesters or immigrant families, calling perpetrators of violence such as white supremacists "very fine people" or showing oneself vulnerable to manipulation by hostile foreign powers, then these things can promote a much more widespread culture of violence.
The president has already shown an alarming escalation of irrational behavior during times of distress. Others have observed him to be "unstable," "losing a step" and "unraveling." He is likely to enter such a state again.
Violent acts are not random events. They are end products of a long process that follow recognizable patterns. As mental health experts, we make predictions in terms of unacceptable levels of probability rather than on the basis of what is certain to happen.
Trump's impairment is a familiar pattern to a violence expert such as myself, but given his level of severity, one does not need to be a specialist to know that he is dangerous.
What next?
I believe Woodward's book and the revelations in the New York Times op-ed have placed great pressure on the president. We are now entering a period when the stresses of the presidency could accelerate because of the advancing special counsel's investigations.
The degree of Trump's denial and resistance to the unfolding revelations, as expressed in a recent Fox interview, are telling of his fragility.
From my observations of the president over extended time via his public presentations, direct thoughts through tweets and accounts of his close associates, I believe that the question is not whether he will look for distractions, but how soon and to what degree.
At least several thousands of mental health professionals who are members of the National Coalition of Concerned Mental Health Experts share the view that the nuclear launch codes should not be in the hands of someone who exhibits such levels of mental instability.
Just as suspicion of crime should lead to an investigation, the severity of impairment that we see should lead to an evaluation, preferably with the president's consent.
Mental impairment should be evaluated independently from criminal investigations, using medical criteria and standardized measures. A sitting president may be immune to indictments, but he is subject to the law, which is strict about public safety and the right to treatment when an individual poses a danger to the public because of mental instability. In the case of danger, the patient does not have the right to refuse, nor does the physician have the right not to take the person as a patient.
This evaluation may have been delayed, but it is still not too late. And mental health professionals have extensive experience assessing, restraining and treating individuals much like Trump - it is almost routine.
-- Bandy X. Lee, Yale University
(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.)
In The Oregonian's Sept. 9 article, "Washington tries to woo Oregon back to Interstate Bridge," I didn't see any mention of the $1.5 million study of an ultra high-speed ground transportation service that would provide one-hour travel times between Vancouver, British Columbia, Seattle and Portland. It's just getting started and will evaluate three ultra high-speed technologies: steel wheels on a steel rail, Maglev and hyperloop. How would it get to a station in Rose Quarter? Or would it stop at a station in Vancouver, Washington? The Oregon Department of Transportation has contributed to the funding for this study and will be involved. Certainly, any renewed effort to deal with the Columbia River Crossing problem must take this possible ultra high-speed -- 250 mph is the goal -- project into account. Its likely cost would be several billions of dollars. The report from this study is scheduled to be delivered in mid 2019. Those likely to be impacted by such a project need to tune in now.
Jerry Schneider, Southeast Portland
Nearly 100 doctors, veterinarians and scientists have called upon wildlife officials to ban the use of M-44s, controversial spring-loaded devices filled with sodium cyanide used to control predators.
In a petition submitted Thursday, also signed by a number of people who have survived encounters with the devices, Brooks Fahy, executive director of the Eugene-based wildlife advocacy group Predator Defense, urged the U.S Department of Agriculture to outlaw the use of M-44s in Oregon.
"This is vital public safety issue," Fahy said in a statement.
M-44s, sometimes referred to as "cyanide bombs," are small traps consisting of a stake, which is driven into the ground, a spring and a canister loaded with the powdered poison. Once they're set, the traps resemble sprinkler heads. When triggered, the M-44 ejects a cloud of cyanide meant to kill coyotes, wild dogs or foxes.
The problem, Fahy says, is the indiscriminate nature of the devices.
That fact was laid bare in March 2017 when an Idaho boy, Canyon Mansfield, and his dog Kasey went on their daily walk up the hill behind their Pocatello home. The pair happened upon an M-44 and in a flash of white powder, Kasey was killed and Mansfield was injured.
"I've said it's only a matter of time until a child is killed," Oregon U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio said in a news conference in Washington, D.C. later that year "And we came awfully, awfully close in this instance, and it is still only a matter of time unless we get these things out of the environment."
Around the same time Mansfield was injured, a protected wolf in northeast Oregon was killed by an M-44. Fahy said that thousands of other animals, both wild and domestic, have been inadvertently injured or killed by the devices.
In the petition, Fahy asked the state to "cease all use, including authorization for use, by all parties of M-44 explosive cyanide devices on all lands in Oregon, and immediately remove all M-44s currently deployed in Oregon."
Asked for comment, a spokeswoman for the U.S Department of Agriculture said the agency "understands the public's concern regarding the use of M-44s and is committed to the safe and responsible use of these devices," but did not address the petition directly.
-- Kale Williams
kwilliams@oregonian.com
503-294-4048
Firing a Springfield police officer who refused to sign an agreement barring her from saying or writing anything negative about the department or the city violated her First Amendment right to free speech, a federal appeals panel found.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals sent the case back to a federal judge in Eugene to determine whether the city of Springfield is liable for the police chief's decision to restrict Officer Thelma Barone.
The chief offered Barone a "last-chance agreement" after she was suspended: She could return to work only if she didn't criticize police, the city or its staff in writing or in her speech.
The appellate panel said the restriction was too broad, essentially prohibiting the officer from criticizing any city service -- water quality or taxes, for instance.
The ruling also raised the question of whether a general Springfield police order -- saying officers "shall not publicly criticize or ridicule'' the department, its policies or its members -- also violates their First Amendment rights.
The 9th Circuit, though, said it wouldn't specifically address that issue because the general policy wasn't part of the appeal.
Lawyers for Springfield police and the city argued that the speech restriction is necessary to maintain "the effective and efficient operation of the police department'' and safeguard the public's opinion of police.
But 9th Circuit Judge Milan D. Smith Jr. characterized the agreement the chief presented to Barone as as the "poster child'' of "overt viewpoint discrimination,'' a term the U.S. Supreme Court often uses to identify a government policy that favors a particular point of view.
While a department may run more efficiently if the public holds a positive view of it and preventing any negative speech helps protect that positive image, "maintaining efficiency through 'avoidance of accountability' and limiting 'inquiry into its practices by the public' is not an acceptable justification in a democratic society,'' Smith wrote in the ruling.
Barone's lawyer Andy Lewinter said the ruling should send a message to all public employers. "You can't require your employees to relinquish their First Amendment rights as a condition of employment,'' he said.
Barone, a native of Mexico who served as a Springfield police officer for nearly 13 years and as the department's bridge to the Latino community, said her firing was devastating, but she wasn't about to give up her rights to question police practices if a community member raised concerns.
"Being an immigrant, I so appreciate the freedom in this country,'' she told The Oregonian/OregonLive. "They were taking that away from me. I was wondering, 'Where are we? Are we still in the USA?'''
Barone, 61, loved her job but believes it would be too difficult to return to it now. She's completing studies for a master's degree in social work. She said she hopes the ruling will help safeguard other officers and spur the Springfield police to encourage officers to "speak up,'' and address community complaints, not try to bury them.
Steven Kraemer, an attorney who represented Springfield, said he was disappointed in the ruling, "especially because the chief had allowed Ms. Barone to make modifications to the agreement.''
Barone, who served as a police multicultural liaison, faced two internal investigations in 2014: She was accused of allowing some students on a tour of the department to take photos of restricted areas and not following through on a call to a sergeant about a reported crime, according to court records.
Barone remained on the job during the investigations but was placed on administrative leave a week after speaking at a Springfield City Club event. At the event, someone asked her if she was aware of increased complaints about racial profiling by police, and she responded that "she had heard such complaints."
She was suspended without pay for two weeks in July 2015 for allegations of untruthfulness in the internal investigations. Then-Chief Tim Doney asked her to sign the "last-chance" agreement before returning to work, but Barone refused because she said it would bar her from reporting on racial profiling or discrimination complaints.
The chief gave Barone a slightly amended agreement to sign that said she could report those complaints but otherwise had to remain mum, and not say anything negative about the city or department.
Barone refused to sign the amended agreement and was fired by Doney on Aug. 12, 2015. "I didn't think it changed much of anything,'' she said.
"The amended Agreement restrained Barone's speech as a private citizen on matters of public concern, and Appellees have not presented justifications sufficient to warrant'' such broad restrictions, the court ruled.
Last year, U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken granted summary judgment to the Springfield police and city, dismissing all of Barone's claims. Doney is no longer chief of Springfield police, but now is chief of Talent police.
The 9th Circuit agreed with Aiken that Barone hadn't faced retaliation for her comments at Springfield's City Club, finding she spoke as a public employee whose speech was not protected by the First Amendment at that time.
But the court found Aiken was wrong in dismissing Barone's claim that the "last-chance'' agreement quashed her free speech.
-- Maxine Bernstein
mbernstein@oregonian.com
503-221-8212
@maxoregonian
Oregon wildlife officials say they'll begin searching the Clackamas County wilderness early Thursday for the cougar they believe killed a missing hiker earlier this week in the area.
A small crew from the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Wildlife Services, along with dogs and mules, will be used to traverse steep and rugged terrain near the Hunchback Trail in the Mount Hood National Forest in Welches, where the remains of 55-year-old Diana Bober were discovered Monday. The trail is a narrow ridge with sections that have steep drops on either side and scarce phone and radio service.
Authorities believe this is Oregon's first fatal attack by a wild cougar. The last time a cougar killed a person in Oregon was in 2013, when an animal keeper at a Sherwood-area large cat sanctuary was mauled while cleaning an enclosure. Also in the Pacific Northwest, a cougar in Washington killed one mountain biker and seriously injured another in May.
Although Bober's injuries appear to have been caused by a cougar, authorities were still waiting Wednesday for testing results of DNA samples sent to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Forensic Lab in Ashland for confirmation that it was a mountain lion. They hope to have the results by the end of the week.
Crews hunting for the cougar suspected in the Gresham woman's death will kill any they encounter in the area and compare that large cat's DNA to the samples being tested at the lab, according to Brian Wolfer, a state fish and wildlife department spokesman.
"We really don't have a way that we could capture and hold a cougar and wait for test results to come back, especially in that terrain. That's just not an option for us," Wolfer said.
The plan is not to kill a large number of cougars "indiscriminately," he said, but to focus search efforts in the area where the attack occurred and hope it's part of the territory where the mountain lion suspected in the killing roams.
"We're going to do the best we can to make sure we get the correct cougar," he said.
Cougars are territorial and typically travel alone, Wolfer said. Male cougars can roam from 50 to 150 square miles and females from 15 to 50 square miles, which could overlap with their male counterparts, Wolfer said.
Rainy weather contributed in the cougar search being delayed to Thursday, he said. It would have made it difficult for dogs to pick up the scent of any cougars. Crews spent the day coordinating with the county sheriff's office to establish communication lines and iron out logistics with other agencies, Wolfer said.
Bober was reported missing by out-of-state relatives on Sept. 7. They told Gresham police they hadn't heard from her since Aug. 29. Her family described her as an avid hiker who frequented the Mount Hood and the Columbia River Gorge area. She grew up in Texas and lived in Las Vegas and Los Angeles before moving to Oregon. She was self-employed as an intuitive counselor and once played Texas Hold 'Em professionally while living in Nevada.
Bober's car was found Saturday at the Zigzag Ranger Station, about 17 miles east of Sandy. She was discovered by search and rescue crews two days later two miles from the ranger station off the Hunchback Trail, which has since been closed to the public as a precaution.
Bober's sister told The Oregonian/OregonLive on Tuesday that authorities told her the hiker appeared to have fought her attacker before she died.
Oregon has 6,600 cougars, Wolfer said. The state wildlife department receives about 400 complaints a year of cougars hurting livestock or threatening the safety of people or pets, he said. Attacks on people are rare.
Everton Bailey Jr.
ebailey@oregonian.com
503-221-8343; @EvertonBailey
Twelve Oregon Air National Guardsmen flew to the East Coast Wednesday afternoon so they'll be in position to help with disaster assistance after Hurricane Florence passes through, Guard officials say.
The dozen members of the 125th Special Tactics Squadron are at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, waiting for the monster storm to pass through. They brought all kinds of gear, including inflatable Zodiac boats, all-terrain vehicles and mini-bikes to aid in their operations.
After the hurricane passes, the airmen are prepared to conduct rescue operations as well as reestablish air fields that may have been rendered inoperable by the heavy winds and rain.
Col. Todd Hofford, vice commander of the fighter wing unit, said the mission to the other end of the country is part of the Guard's mission to serve. "We have a very elite group of special operations forces that include Air Force combat controllers and pararescuemen that have a unique skill set in this time of need," he said in a statement.
Dover is about 350 miles Northeast of the projected edge of Florence's path. The Oregon Special Tactics personnel flew there from Portland on a California Air National Guard C-130 Hercules aircraft.
-- Betsy Hammond
WASHINGTON President Donald Trump drew widespread rebukes Thursday including from several fellow Republicans after falsely claiming that the number of deaths attributable to Hurricane Maria had been inflated by Democrats to "make me look as bad as possible."
In morning tweets, Trump took issue with the findings of a sweeping report released last month by George Washington University that estimated there were 2,975 "excess deaths" in the six months after the storm made landfall in Puerto Rico in September 2017.
Trump said on Twitter that "they had anywhere from 6 to 18 deaths" when he visited the island about two weeks after the storm.
"As time went by it did not go up by much," Trump wrote. "Then, a long time later, they started to report really large numbers, like 3000. ... This was done by the Democrats in order to make me look as bad as possible when I was successfully raising Billions of Dollars to help rebuild Puerto Rico. If a person died for any reason, like old age, just add them onto the list. Bad politics. I love Puerto Rico!"
Trump's tweets which came as a highly dangerous Hurricane Florence churned toward the Carolinas misrepresented the nature of the study and were harshly criticized by Democrats in Congress, as well as by some Republicans.
Rep. Ileana Ros Lehtinen, R-Fla., told reporters she believes the figure of nearly 3,000 is sound.
"What kind of mind twists that statistic into 'Oh, fake news is trying to hurt my image,'" she said. "How can you be so self-centered and try to distort the truth so much? It's mind boggling."
3000 people did not die in the two hurricanes that hit Puerto Rico. When I left the Island, AFTER the storm had hit, they had anywhere from 6 to 18 deaths. As time went by it did not go up by much. Then, a long time later, they started to report really large numbers, like 3000... Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 13, 2018
.....This was done by the Democrats in order to make me look as bad as possible when I was successfully raising Billions of Dollars to help rebuild Puerto Rico. If a person died for any reason, like old age, just add them onto the list. Bad politics. I love Puerto Rico! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 13, 2018
Florida Gov. Rick Scott, a Republican whose Senate bid has been endorsed by Trump, said in a tweet that he disagreed with the president, relaying that "an independent study said thousands were lost" and that he had been to Puerto Rico seven times and "saw the devastation firsthand."
In a statement, Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., the ranking Democrat on the Homeland Security Committee, called on Trump to "resign at once."
"The fact that the President will not take responsibility for his Administration's failures and will not even recognize that thousands have perished shows us, once again, that he is not fit to serve as our President," Thompson said.
San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz, who publicly pleaded with Trump for a stronger response to the storm, also blasted the president.
"President Trump's statement, questioning the deaths in Puerto Rico, shows a lack of respect for our reality and our pain," she said in a statement. "He simply is unable to grasp the human suffering that his neglect and lack of sensibility have caused us. 3000 people died on his watch and his inability to grasp that makes him dangerous."
During a news conference on Capitol Hill later Thursday morning, House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin, avoided directly criticizing Trump but said he had no reason to dispute the study's findings.
"This was a function of a devastating storm hitting an isolated island, and that is really no one's fault," Ryan said. "The casualties mounted for a long time, and I have no reason to dispute those numbers."
Carlos Santos-Burgoa, the principal investigator of the GWU study and a professor in the Department of Global Health, said Friday afternoon that he and his colleagues were unbiased in their work and received no political pressure from Democrats or anyone else to come up with a high estimate of storm-related deaths.
"We stand by the science underlying our study. It is rigorous. It's state of the art. We collected the data from the official sources. Everything can be validated," Santos-Burgoa told The Washington Post. "We didn't receive any pressure from anybody to go this way or that way. We wouldn't do it. We are professionals of public health."
In his tweets, Trump thoroughly mischaracterized how the GWU researchers came up with the figure of 2,975 excess deaths. They did not, contrary to the president's claim, attribute any specific individual's death to Hurricane Maria. Given the methodology, there was not an opportunity to misclassify someone who died from old age, as Trump suggested.
Rather, the GWU study looked at the number of deaths from September 2017 to February 2018 and compared that total to what would have been expected based on historical patterns. They factored in many variables, including the departure of hundreds of thousands of island residents in the aftermath of Maria.
A clear pattern emerged from the analysis: The mortality rate spiked in the months after the storm, particularly in the poorest areas of Puerto Rico, and among elderly males.
The unusually high death rate never completely reached the normal level even after six months, the researchers found a sign of Puerto Rico's continued struggle to deal with the effects of the hurricane.
Had the GWU researchers done what Trump claimed they did attributing any death to Maria the six-month death toll from the hurricane would have been 16,608.
The study's methodology was designed to overcome the lack of information contained in death certificates of people who died in Puerto Rico during those six months. This approach also captured the human health consequences of the island's devastation, which included power outages lasting for months, disease outbreaks, water insecurity and a lack of adequate health care.
The researchers have acknowledged the limitation of this kind of statistical study. They did not knock on doors or learn the individual stories of who died, and when, and why. That kind of in-depth investigation would be worthy, the GWU researchers said.
The government of Puerto Rico has accepted the 2,975 figure as the official death toll from Maria. For much of the past year, officials had acknowledged only 64 deaths from the storm.
Santos-Burgoa said he'd like to do a follow-up study that focuses on "cause-specific" mortality. He said the researchers are actively seeking funding for such work.
"We need a phase where we go more granular, more in detail, and we have to go and reconstruct what actually happened," he said. Such research could help limit the death tolls from future disasters, he said.
The president's tweets come on the heels of a new Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation poll in which Puerto Ricans gave low marks to Trump, along with the federal and local governments, for last year's response to Maria. Eighty percent said Trump had done either a poor or fair job responding.
Survey findings support the widespread nature of deaths related to the storm, with about 1 in 5 Puerto Rico residents saying a close friend or family member died either from injuries caused by the storm or because they were unable to get sufficient water, food or medical care in the months afterward.
Earlier this week, Trump hailed his administration's response to Maria as "an incredible, unsung success."
It was "one of the best jobs that's ever been done with respect to what this is all about," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office as he was receiving a briefing on Hurricane Florence.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency itself has acknowledged that it was ill-prepared for the storm.
Asked why Trump seems unable to admit shortcomings, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said that he thinks "the president sees every attack on him as sort of undercutting his legitimacy."
"I don't think it's bad to say we could've done better in Puerto Rico," said Graham, a frequent Trump ally. "I don't think you want to declare a success when people die. The point is, 'Did you do everything you could do within reason?' I don't know the answer to that question. There's always mistakes in every hurricane."
Aside from the claims made in Trump's latest tweets, many lawmakers said Thursday that they were troubled by the continuing debate over the response to Maria at a time when officials should be focused on Florence.
"We should all be focused on what's about to happen in the Carolinas and not be politicizing this issue of hurricane and hurricane relief," said Rep. Carlos Curbelo (R-Fla.). "It's always difficult to respond to a natural disaster and certainly on an island like Puerto Rico that was evident. ... A lot of lessons to be learned."
Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., told reporters he found the back and forth over Maria "kind of odd" given the seriousness of Florence.
"We should be talking about what's happening in North Carolina and the folks that are preparing for a terrible storm," he said.
Trump's tweets about Maria were part of a spate of others from the president on Thursday morning. Some warned of the dangers of Florence, while others attacked the FBI and touted the strong economy under his watch.
The Washington Post
Jeremy Christian, the 36-year-old man accused of fatally stabbing two MAX train passengers, used a short court appearance Thursday to seemingly criticize the media and the perception that he's a white supremacist.
When Multnomah County Circuit Judge Katharine von Ter Stegge asked Christian if he understood that his current attorney had a conflict of interest in representing him, Christian responded yes.
It would be kind of like a conflict of voting for Bernie Sanders makes you not a white supremacist, correct?" he said. "That would be the ethical obligation of the media to report.
According to Christian's Facebook page, he supported Bernie Sanders in Sanders' 2016 presidential run. Christian also wrote that after the primary he couldn't bring himself to vote for Trump.
Jeremy Christian appears in court 4 Gallery: Jeremy Christian appears in court
Witnesses reported that moments before the May 2017 MAX stabbings, Christian yelled at two African American teenage girls -- one who was wearing a hijab -- to "Go home. We need American here!"
Four weeks before that, he attended a "March for Free Speech" on 82nd Avenue and was seen and heard casting Nazi salutes and yelling "Die Muslims!" while wrapped in a Revolutionary War-era American flag.
Christian has been charged with aggravated murder in the stabbing deaths of Ricky Best, 53, and Taliesin Namkai-Meche, 23.
But he appeared in court Thursday on a different charge -- that he assaulted a black inmate, Aundre Dupree Mills, on July 29 while in jail awaiting trial for the stabbings. The hearing was called so Christian could switch attorneys.
Christian said he understood that Gregory Scholl, one of the defense attorneys in his MAX stabbing case, couldnt represent him in the inmate assault case because Scholls public defense firm has a conflict of interest.
Court records show that another attorney from Scholls firm had in the past represented Mills, who was brought to jail after he allegedly knocked down a fence with his car at Gabriel Park and allegedly tried to spit on an officer.
Christian was vocal about wanting to go to trial to fight the charges that he assaulted Mills.
Weve got a prison snitch thats making stuff up on other people, Christian said.
Christian said he also wants that trial to be separate from his aggravated murder trial.
Christians new attorney in the assault case is Portland lawyer Scott Niebling. Scholl and attorney Dean Smith are still representing Christian in the MAX stabbings case.
Christian spoke loudly and clearly throughout the hearing. He had shaved his head. One of his hands also remained cuffed to a chain around his waist as a security measure. Deputies also moved a metal water pitcher from the table in front of Christian before he arrived in the room.
-- Aimee Green
The Oregon Court of Appeals on Wednesday threw out the misdemeanor conviction of a man caught peeing next to a building in downtown Portland, saying he was prosecuted under a frequently used state law that shouldn't apply to public urination.
The ruling could have a sweeping effect by preventing district attorney's offices across the state from using Oregon's "offensive littering" law to charge people who urinate in public spaces.
It appears people now can legally relieve themselves where they want -- unless they step foot into the city limits of municipalities that outlaw public urination with their own local ordinances. Portland has several laws that could apply but they weren't used in the case reviewed by the Appeals Court.
Public urination is a widespread livability issue no matter the size of the city. In 2016, Newport police put out a warning on Facebook, reminding people: "It is illegal to empty your bladder in an area that is not specifically designated for such activity." The post suggests that people "invest in adult diapers" if they don't think they can abide by the rules.
In 2011, the Portland Water Bureau drained 7.8 million gallons from a Mount Tabor reservoir after a 21-year-old man urinated into it.
Wednesday's ruling was based on an appeal by 36-year-old Ryan Charles Corcilius, who had just pulled into downtown Portland after driving up from California in 2015 as part of a cross-country road trip, according to the Appeals Court summary of the case.
By the time he got to Portland and parked, it was already an 'emergency' for him to use a restroom, the Appeals Court wrote.
Corcilius asked a gas station attendant to use the bathroom but was told it wasnt open to the public. He then went into a Subway sandwich shop and was told the restroom was for paying customers only and he'd have to wait in a long line to make a purchase first, the summary states.
He began to panic because of the intense pressure of having to urinate, the Appeals Court wrote. He found a spot that he believed was secluded and urinated on the side of a building.
A private security guard hired by local businesses to enforce livability laws spotted Corcilius and called police, who cited Corcilius for misdemeanor offensive littering.
Corcilius couldn't be reached for comment for this story.
Defense attorney Joseph DeBin argued that Corcilius couldnt be convicted of offensive littering because it outlaws discarding or depositing any rubbish, trash, garbage, debris or other refuse on public property or other peoples properties, but it doesnt specifically outlaw urine. Legislators would have written urine into the law if they had wanted to include it, DeBin said.
Multnomah County Circuit Judge Stephen Bushong disagreed and declined to dismiss the case before trial. A jury found Corcilius guilty.
The Appeals Court reversed his conviction. In a majority opinion, the court wrote that urine isnt specifically mentioned in the states offensive littering law. Whats more, its not "discarded" or "deposited" from the body, the ruling said.
One discharges urine, rather than discarding it, it said.
Brent Weisberg, a spokesman for the Multnomah County District Attorney's Office, said his office knows of no other state law they could use to prosecute urinating in public.
The Legislature could take action to expand the offensive littering law by adding that it applies to public urination.
In a survey of the state's larger cities, many have ordinances that prohibit public urination to some extent -- including Portland, Gresham, Beaverton, Lake Oswego, Bend, Eugene and Salem. Many dont criminalize the act, but do impose fines.
Under Portland city code, people who urinate in public could conceivably be prosecuted for misdemeanor indecent exposure -- if members of the opposite sex could see their genitalia at the time.
Otherwise, city code forbids urinating in any park or pedestrian plaza -- punishable with a fine but no criminal conviction. But its unclear if a pedestrian plaza covers all sidewalks, parking lots and other areas visible to the public within the city.
A three-judge panel made the appeals ruling. Judges Darleen Ortega and David Schuman formed the majority and Judge Erika Hadlock dissented. Read the majority and dissenting opinions here.
-- Aimee Green
A former office manager and bookkeeper for a La Grande urologist is accused of embezzling about $1 million from the medical practice and then impersonating an IRS official in an effort to conceal the scheme.
Anndrea D. Jacobs, 47, of La Grande made her first appearance in U.S. District Court in Portland after her arrest Thursday morning on a 15-count indictment.
She entered not guilty pleas to four counts of wire fraud, five counts of filing false tax returns, four counts of aiding in the preparation of a false tax document, impersonation of a U.S. employee and aggravated identity theft.
She was released on conditions, pending a trial tentatively set for March 4.
The alleged fraud occurred from January 2011 through December 2015.
Jacobs, who controlled the medical practice's books, records and finances, is accused of writing checks to herself from the business' Sterling Bank account, using money from the business to pay her personal credit card bills, using the business' credit cards for personal purchases and diverting payment checks to the medical practice into her own bank accounts, according to the indictment.
For example, on Nov. 29, 2013, she transferred $12,426 from the medical practice's bank account to her Cabela Club Visa account, the government alleges.
She's also accused of applying for multiple loans on behalf of the doctor and medical practice without their knowledge, falsifying the practice's business records and presenting her boss with falsified bank and property tax statements. The indictment didn't name the medical practice.
Jacobs, according to the government, convinced her boss to give her a limited power of attorney, which she used to divert all the doctor's IRS communications to her address and phone number.
Meanwhile, she assured IRS agents that she was working to correct the physician's tax filings and then posed as an IRS taxpayer advocate with a fake name, purporting to assist her boss with his tax collection issues, the indictment says.
She used the fake name "Linda Gibson,'' set up a phone number and voicemail account for her made-up IRS official and gave her boss a fake IRS tax case number, according to the government.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Donna Maddux told the court that she had concerns Jacobs was engaged in potential health care fraud since 2015 and had under-reported her assets to pretrial service officers. The prosecutor signaled she may ask that additional conditions be placed on Jacobs while she's out of custody pending trial.
Investigators suspect there may be other alleged victims in this case and ask anyone with information to contact the IRS criminal investigative unit in La Grande, at 541-706-5712.
-- Maxine Bernstein
mbernstein@oregonian.com
503-221-8212
@maxoregonian
For sale: A never-used building replete with bathrooms, showers, laundry and kitchen facilities bought by the city of Portland for a homeless camp.
Cost: Whatever you'll pay.
The need to auction off the 2,400-square-foot modular building that no one seems to want is the latest hiccup facing Portland officials after their attempts in 2016 and 2017 to find a permanent location for homeless camp Right 2 Dream Too. The City Council approved the auction Wednesday.
City officials bought the building for $216,175 in 2016 in anticipation of a city-endorsed move of the homeless camp from Old Town to the Central Eastside. Before the move could happen, however, the state Land Use Board of Appeals struck down the new location as a zoning violation, leaving the city with no use for the 100 feet by 24 feet "communal space" building. Right 2 Dream Too has since moved to a property near the Moda Center.
The city Office of Management and Finance, which owns the modular building, asked other city bureaus if they'd take it, but received no interest. Same for "a number of non-profit agencies," according to the resolution authorizing the auction. The building is now sitting in storage in four pieces in Aumsville, a town outside Salem.
Council members adopted the auction resolution 4-0, with Mayor Ted Wheeler absent at a conference in California, instructing the city to seek "the best price" possible.
If all goes to plan, the auction will begin Thursday and go for 30 days, said David O'Longaigh, the city facilities services manager.
-- Gordon R. Friedman
The Oregon Supreme Court on Thursday ordered Portland criminal defense lawyer Gary B. Bertoni suspended from practicing law for a year and a half, citing "a pattern of disregard for the interests of his clients.''
The state's high court issued its opinion after Bertoni appealed a February 2017 sanction a one-year license suspension by a state disciplinary board's trial panel.
The panel found Bertoni failed to preserve client property, keep clients informed and improperly retained client funds after three separate complaints. It cited Bertoni's "extraordinary repetition of negligence.''
Bertoni, 67, appealed to the Oregon Supreme Court, arguing that his misconduct warranted only a reprimand or at most a suspension of no longer than 30 days. His lawyer, Kevin Sali, argued that Bertoni's errors were largely due to negligence.
The state bar, in its response, defended its action and argued for a harsher penalty, a two-year suspension, citing Bertoni's failure to communicate adequately with imprisoned clients, properly handle their money or refund unearned fees.
The bar argued that Bertoni's repeated violations showed a disregard for his clients' interests that warranted a substantial sanction.
The Supreme Court agreed but didn't find a two-year suspension warranted.
Read the ruling
In its determination of an 18-month suspension, the Supreme Court considered Bertoni's substantial experience, that he committed numerous violations and that the affected clients were vulnerable victims, "which makes his failure to keep them reasonably informed all the more egregious.''
It further found that while some of Bertoni's violations were due to negligence, many were done with his clear knowledge -- including his refusal to refund a $3,000 trial fee to the grandmother of a client who never went to trial, his failure to respond to another client about the status of the case and his failure to provide a third client with sufficient information to make an informed decision about the transfer of her case to another lawyer.
The Supreme Court also noted that Bertoni had been sanctioned by the bar in the past for some of the same types of violations.
The violations at issue "are not an isolated occurrence,'' but part of "a pattern of disregard for the interests of his clients that warrants an enhanced sanction,'' the court wrote.
The court noted only one mitigating factor for Bertoni: that he was experiencing serious financial and tax problems causing significant stress during the period of his violations.
The court ordered Bertoni's suspension to begin in 60 days.
The ruling follows Bertoni's sentencing in federal court last month for failing to pay employment taxes. Bertoni was sentenced to five years of probation, three months of home detention on weekends and 500 hours of community service for failing to pay employment taxes. He also was ordered to pay $181,898.21 in restitution to the Internal Revenue Service.
Two other complaints involving Bertoni are pending review or under investigation by the bar.
In 2012, the trial panel suspended Bertoni's license for 150 days for mismanaging client money. In 2011, the Multnomah County District Attorney's Office declined to prosecute Bertoni for allegedly falsifying business records to cover his use of client money, saying the statute of limitations had expired.
-- Maxine Bernstein
mbernstein@oregonian.com
503-221-8212
@maxoregonian
Updated 4:30 p.m.
WASHINGTON -- Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Thursday she has notified federal investigators about information she received -- and won't disclose publicly -- concerning Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
The California Democrat said in a statement that she "received information from an individual concerning the nomination." She said the person "strongly requested confidentiality, declined to come forward or press the matter further, and I have honored that decision."
The Judiciary Committee, which has finished confirmation hearings for Kavanagh, is scheduled to vote next Thursday on whether to recommend that Kavanaugh's nomination be confirmed by the full Senate.
President Trump's Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, listens to a question during a confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Thursday, Sept. 6, 2018.
Feinstein's statement that she has "referred the matter to federal investigative authorities" jolted Capitol Hill and threatens to disrupt what has been a steady path toward confirmation for Kavanaugh by Republicans eager to see the conservative judge on the court.
The FBI confirmed that it received the information Wednesday evening and included it in Kavanaugh's background file, which is maintained as part of his nomination. The agency said that is its standard process.
A Senate Democratic aide and another person familiar with the matter said it referred to an incident that occurred while Kavanaugh was high-school age. The two spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to discuss the matter.
The details of the alleged incident and the identity of the person who provided the information were unclear.
Feinstein declined to answer questions outside the hearing room, and other senators' offices largely deferred to the ranking member. Democratic senators on the panel met privately Wednesday evening and discussed the information, according to two Senate aides who were not authorized to discuss the situation publicly but spoke on condition of anonymity.
The White House questioned the timing of Feinstein's move, calling it an "11th hour attempt to delay his confirmation."
"Throughout his confirmation process, Judge Kavanaugh has had 65 meetings with senators -- including with Senator Feinstein -- sat through over 30 hours of testimony, addressed over 2,000 questions in a public setting and additional questions in a confidential session. Not until the eve of his confirmation has Sen. Feinstein or anyone raised the specter of new 'information' about him," said Kerri Kupec, a White House spokesperson.
Kupec added that the FBI has vetted Kavanaugh "thoroughly and repeatedly" during his career in government and the judiciary.
Democrats don't have the votes to block Kavanaugh's nomination, if Republicans hold unified, but are fighting it and decrying the process that Republicans used to compile his government records for review.
At the committee Thursday, Republicans brushed aside a flurry of Democratic attempts to delay the consideration of Kavanaugh or subpoena more documents about his past work, sticking with a schedule that could see him confirmed by Oct. 1.
Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut protested that the nomination will be "tainted" and "stained" by the unusual process for vetting the nominee.
"We lack the time. We lack the documents." He called it a "badly broken process."
Feinstein had sought a subpoena for documents from Kavanaugh's time as Bush's staff secretary. She said senators "should be able to see this record" and wondered, "What in Judge Kavanaugh's records are Republicans hiding?"
The Republicans have declined to pursue Kavanaugh's staff secretary documents, saying it would be too cumbersome. They rejected Feinstein's motion and several others, including motions to subpoena documents and witnesses and a motion to adjourn.
Chairman Chuck Grassley set the panel's vote on Kavanaugh for Sept. 20.
New documents released ahead of Thursday's hearing included Kavanaugh's 263-page written response to questions from senators, along with dozens of files from the judge's work in the George W. Bush White House that had been available to senators only on a "committee confidential basis." Democratic Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey made the Bush documents public.
Among the details in the new written responses, Kavanaugh says he would have shaken the hand of a school shooting victim's father during a break in last week's Senate hearing had he recognized him before being whisked away by security detail.
The 28 new "committee confidential" documents released by Booker, meanwhile, are from Kavanaugh's time in the White House counsel's office during the George W. Bush administration and deal with his work on judicial nominations.
The documents show Kavanaugh's involvement in Bush's nomination of Charles Pickering to an appellate court in the South as Pickering faced questions about his views on race relations. Kavanaugh had indicated in 2006 testimony that he was not substantially involved in the nomination.
In releasing a new batch of committee confidential documents about Kavanaugh, Booker, the New Jersey Democrat, was repeating a tactic that could prompt a review from the Senate Ethics Committee.
Booker is being criticized by his GOP colleagues and outside groups for releasing the documents. Last week, he released some documents that were later made public by the committee, but also others that weren't. Wednesday's disclosure brings the total to 75.
The conservative group Judicial Watch delivered a letter Wednesday to the Senate Ethics Committee seeking an investigation. It says Booker violated Senate rules against disclosing confidential documents and could face Senate expulsion.
Booker has welcomed the fight. He says the documents about Kavanaugh's work "raise more serious and concerning questions" about his honesty during his testimony before the committee.
At issue has been the unprecedented process the Senate Judiciary Committee used for gathering documents on Kavanaugh, an appellate court judge who is President Donald Trump's nominee to replace retired Justice Anthony Kennedy on the court.
-- Lisa Mascaro
Blueberry is a a gray and brindle good girl who is missing.
The pit bull terrier was stolen, along with another pup, from her home in Banks in November.
Since then, the other dog was found in May, wandering near Southwest 90th Avenue and Oak Street in Tigard. The dog was microchipped, which the person who found the dog used to return the dog to the owner.
But Blueberry is still missing. She is 11/2 years old and has white markings on her chest and paws.
Deputies are asking that anyone with information about Blueberry to call the non-emergency dispatch phone number at 503-629-0111.
Ken Wright and David Adelsheim are ringing the village church bells to warn Willamette Valley wineries about a pair of threats: colleagues who are losing sight of the value of the Willamette Valley name and outsiders looking to exploit it. They've proposed significant wine labeling reforms to attack these problems, and they have the clout of the Willamette Valley Wineries Association behind them. How this fight plays out may well decide what the Willamette Valley looks like for decades to come.
The battleground is the Willamette Valley American Viticultural Area, or AVA, one of 242 grape growing regions in the United States officially recognized by the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau for quality, reputation and unique geological and climate characteristics. Wright, the owner of Ken Wright Cellars in Carlton and Adelsheim, the founder of Adelsheim Winery in Newberg, aim to protect that reputation.
A growing number of wineries are leaving the Willamette Valley name off their labels. Instead, they list the name of their sub-area, an area within the Willamette Valley designation where winery and vineyard owners decided their patch of land merited its own recognition. Willamette Valley sub-areas include Chehalem Mountains, Dundee Hills, Eola-Amity Hills, McMinnville, Ribbon Ridge and Yamhill-Carlton.
Erica Landon, co-owner of Walter Scott Wines and Board President of the Willamette Valley Wineries Association, says her recent observations indicate the number of wineries leaving Willamette Valley off their labels in favor of their sub-area might exceed 90 percent.
"Consumers are very interested in the origin of the wine and the integrity of labeling," Landon says. "The Willamette Valley is known for high-quality wine all over the world, and by omitting it from our labels, we aren't giving the consumer the specific context of where the sub-AVAs are located."
Wright concurs with this assessment, noting "people in China don't know where Ribbon Ridge is, but they sure know where the Willamette Valley is located."
Wines from the Chehalem Mountains, Yamhill-Carlton and Eola-Hills sub-AVAs.
Adelsheim proposes requiring wineries to list the words "Willamette Valley" on their label if they also include their sub-area. For example, a bottle of Dundee Hills pinot noir would have to have "Willamette Valley" listed somewhere on the front or back label.
The benefits of this "conjunctive labeling" were demonstrated in a recent study at Sonoma State University. After Sonoma County wineries were required to include "Sonoma County" on the label in addition to any Sonoma sub-area, the study's authors found a significant increase in consumer awareness of both the Sonoma County area and its sub-areas. "In other words," Landon says, "it's a win-win for everyone."
Due to widespread support from its members, the Willamette Valley Wineries Association voted on Sept. 5 to advance the conjunctive labeling proposal to the Oregon State Legislature's legal counsel for further refinement. If the proposed bill passes and is signed by the governor, operational details will be worked out by the Oregon Liquor Control Commission. Adelsheim expects the process to take three years.
The other problem facing the Willamette Valley is the inevitable arrival of what Wright calls "bad actors" anxious to capitalize on the Willamette Valley name. What can these modern-day wine "bandits" exploit and how can they be thwarted?
According to Wright, large sections of the Willamette Valley Viticultural area, particularly the valley floor, aren't suitable for growing premium wine grapes. It's feared companies interested only in the bottom line will grow grapes there, make inferior wines and put the valuable "Willamette Valley" name on their labels.
Wines that meet the requirements are labeled Willamette Valley, wines that do not may be labeled Oregon.
Another avenue of exploitation is the numbers game. According to OLCC rules, if a wine has a viticultural area on the label, 95 percent of its grapes have to come from that area. If the label identifies a grape variety, with a few exceptions, the wine must contain at least 90 percent of that grape.
I asked Adelsheim if that meant a winemaker could make a wine that is 90 percent Willamette Valley pinot noir, 5 percent Willamette Valley syrah and 5 percent Southern Oregon pinot noir and still call it "Willamette Valley pinot noir." "Worse," Adelsheim replied, "they could use just 85 percent Chehalem Mountains pinot noir, 10 percent syrah from somewhere else in the Willamette Valley and 5 percent pinot noir from the Rogue Valley and still call it Willamette Valley pinot noir."
It is rare to find a bottle of Willamette Valley pinot noir that isn't 100 percent as advertised. Future interlopers, however, might be willing to take advantage of these regulations. At recent town hall meetings, several attendees raised the specter of a California winery they suspect is making a wine with fruit from other parts of Oregon while suggesting a Willamette Valley origin on its label.
As the second town hall wrapped up, Adelsheim sounded the alarm. "We are opening the floodgates to people who want to make $15 pinot noir and say, 'This is Willamette Valley.' But it won't taste like what we created."
Even If "bad actors" never take the Willamette Valley stage, Wright believes accurate labeling is still a worthy goal. "I travel quite a bit," Wright says. "And I hear a lot from consumers about honesty and integrity, particularly the younger wine drinkers. This 100 percent proposal captures that."
A second Willamette Valley Wineries Association proposal aims at "truth in labeling." It requires any pinot noir or chardonnay listing the Willamette Valley or one of its sub-areas on the label to be 100 percent pinot noir or chardonnay and 100 percent from the Willamette Valley. There will be a 1 percent allowance for accidents that might occur in the vineyard or winery, but that's it. This proposal raised quite a ruckus from Portland to Grants Pass.
Most of the objections centered on fairness. Several Southern Oregon vineyard owners have contracts to sell grapes to Willamette Valley wineries, and they are concerned the 100 percent rule will have a significant impact on their business. Several Willamette Valley winemakers, like Barnaby Tuttle of Portland's Teutonic Wine Company, objected to singling out pinot noir and chardonnay, suggesting all the grapes in the Willamette Valley should be covered by the rule.
Barnaby Tuttle of Teutonic Wine Co. explains his concerns about a truth-in-wine-labeling proposal. (Photo: Ross Maloof)
Chad Stock of Minimus Wines in Carlton argued that if "bad actors" are to be effectively deterred, perhaps the Willamette Valley Wineries Association should require wineries to list all their ingredients on the label. That way anyone looking to make inexpensive Willamette Valley wine by using things like powdered tannins and flavor enzymes would be flushed out.
After much discussion, the association decided to conduct further research to identify other wine varieties that might be included and how to implement the 100 percent rule without economically damaging wineries and vineyard owners.
Wright, Adelsheim and the association admit these proposals aren't a panacea for the problems they face: They are merely the first step. Given the passion and determination present in the town hall meetings, I have no doubt Willamette Valley winemakers will shore up their defenses and, to paraphrase a line from Yul Brynner's character in "The Magnificent 7," show those "bad actors" a thing or two about the price of pinot.
Michael Alberty writes about wine for The Oregonian/OregonLive. He can be reached at mallberty0@gmail.com. To read more of his coverage, go to oregonlive.com/wine.
Goose Creek, SC (29445)
Today
Rain. Low near 50F. Winds N at 15 to 25 mph. Chance of rain 90%. Rainfall near a half an inch. Higher wind gusts possible..
Tonight
Rain. Low near 50F. Winds N at 15 to 25 mph. Chance of rain 90%. Rainfall near a half an inch. Higher wind gusts possible.
Mid Michigan College and MiWorks will host a community-focused job fair from 12:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. Friday, Sept. 21 on Mid's Mount Pleasant Campus.
This event is free, open to the public, and features many local employers who are interested in hiring local residents. J. Ranck Electric, J.E. Johnson, MidMichigan Health, Saint Gobain, Whelan Security, Alro Steel and more local employers are planning to attend.
"Our Job Fair is a convenient opportunity for employers to interview and hire local workers, and for job seekers to connect with companies who need their skills. Employers from a variety of industries are planning to attend and are looking for candidates at all skill levels. Job seekers should dress for success and bring several copies of their updated resume," said Scott Govitz, associate vice president of Workforce & Economic Development at Mid.
Employers who attend benefit from networking opportunities, access to a large pool of applicants, and the opportunity to build awareness of their company among Mid Michigan College students, the hosts stated. Employers wishing to have a presence at the event should register at www.midmich.edu/jobfair.
For more information about Mid's Job Fair, visit www.midmich.edu/jobfair or contact Annette Sturdavant at asturdavant@midmich.edu or 989-386-6614.
From the journey of protons racing through the world's largest particle collider in Europe to up-close views of the early universe, and the nearly mile-deep descent to an underground experiment in South Dakota, a new planetarium show is designed to immerse audiences in the manifold search for what is called dark matter.
"Phantom of the Universe" is now playing in the Delta College Planetarium in Bay City. It showcases the exploration of dark matter, an invisible part of the universe that could make up more than 25 percent of its mass and has yet to be observed directly.
The show reveals the first hints of its existence through the eyes of Fritz Zwicky, the scientist who coined the term "dark matter." It describes the choreography witnessed by Vera Rubin in the Andromeda Galaxy and then plummets deep underground to see the most sensitive dark matter detector on Earth, housed in a former gold mine.
From there, it journeys across space and time to the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland, speeding alongside particles before they collide in visually stunning explosions of light and sound, while learning how scientists around the world are collaborating to track down the constituents of dark matter.
"Without dark matter, our own Milky Way galaxy would fly apart and the Universe would look very different," says Mike Murray, astronomer and manager of the planetarium. "Researchers around the world are trying to understand this cosmic glue we call dark matter. It composes more of the universe than ordinary matter and yet we're still trying to understand what it actually is," Murray said.
The new program will also help showcase the new capabilities of the Dome360 Theatre after its major upgrade in August. "The theater now features Digistar 6, a space simulator system that can take us anywhere in the universe with amazing detail and vivid colors," Murray said.
"Phantom of the Universe" will play at the Delta College Planetarium at 3:30 p.m. Saturdays through Oct. 27. Every show includes a live interactive tour of the current night sky as recreated in the digital dome theater and features hot topics from the world of space exploration.
Tickets go on sale at the planetarium one hour before show time.
Visitors are encouraged to arrive at least 15 minutes before show time. Tickets are $7 for adults and $5 for students, children 3 to 18, seniors and military.
The Delta College Planetarium and Learning Center is located in downtown Bay City at 100 Center Ave. For more information go to www.delta.edu/planet or call 989-667-2260.
Michigan Artists All-State Juried Exhibition will open Thursday, Sept. 20 in the Rowley and Tabor galleries of Studio 23, 901 N. Water St., Bay City.
A reception is set for 5 to 7 p.m. Sept. 20. Awards totaling $2,500 will be presented.
This10-week exhibit showcases the works of 54 artists from across the state. Nick Reszetar, artist, teacher and curator, juried the exhibit and will select the award winners before the reception.
"In a regional show such as this, it is important that I bring together a rich variety of what is being made among the entries from our region. Even though this show has no specific theme, I look for work that utilizes both form and content in a deep exploration of the process of art-making," Reszetar said. "This exhibit will be good mix of diversity found in art-making, from the abstract to the representational, the formal to the conceptual, and the landscape to the figurative."
The exhibition is part of a two-year cycle of exhibits that started last year with the 50 Artists of the Great Lakes Bay Exhibition. These two exhibits have now become alternating biennial opportunities for artists in this region and Michigan.
Valerie Allen, curator of Studio 23, said, "Artists from our Great Lakes Bay Region and Michigan release valuable creative energy through exhibit opportunities such as MI Artists All-State Juried Exhibition. That energy is contagious, and it is always a thrill to see our gallery audience interact with the art and artists."
In conjunction with this exhibit, Studio 23 will host a luncheon for Reszetar on the day after the opening reception. The luncheon is scheduled for 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Friday, Sept. 21. Attendees can bring their own brown bag lunch, or lunch can be ordered in advance for $10 by calling Studio 23 at 989-894-2323.
The Rev. Leonard and Marion Newman opened up their log cabins and wooden structures on their North Stark Road property every June for more than a decade, celebrating the state Log Cabin Day with visitors.
The 230-acre property in Midland includes the Newmans' retirement home as well as a log cabin rebuilt from hand hewn logs almost 150 years old.
The Newmans are both deceased, but their daughters want to share with the public one last time the cabins and property their parents so loved.
The property at 3373 N. Stark Road in Midland home to log cabins, a tractor shed and a pond will be open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. both Friday and Saturday for an estate sale. Many of the antiques furnishings, books and tools that the Newmans decorated their cabins with will be for sale. People are welcome to come out and walk the property as well.
"It's bittersweet," said daughter Ruth Newman, who lives with her husband in Walled Lake. "We're dismantling everything, rearranging everything for purpose of the sale."
Leonard Newman originally built a small barnwood cabin on the property so he and his brother would have a warm place to have lunch when they were hunting.
Newman, pastor of St. Paul's Lutheran Church in Sanford, loved the outdoors and carpentry, Ruth said.
Although not living on the property yet, he would go on to build a tractor shed and dig a pond, having fun feeding fish and watching turtles.
Then, in about 1970, Newman built the "100 year old" log house made entirely from hand hewn logs from a cabin near Gladwin, originally owned by David Smalley.
Smalley was discharged from the Army in 1867, after having fought in the Civil War, according to the Newman family, who said Smalley enlisted at the age of 15, having lied about his age in his eagerness to serve his country.
Smalley built a two-story cabin on an 80-acre homestead on Colonville Road, which stayed in the Smalley family until his great-grandson sold the cabin to Newman. Newman dismantled the cabin and used the century-old logs to build a one-story cabin with a loft on his Midland property.
If only those logs could talk.
The last occupant of the Colonville Road cabin said at one time it was the hideout of John A. Smalley, a notorious Michigan train and bank robber of the 1890s. Smalley reportedly died in a hail of gunfire from a sheriff's posse Aug. 25, 1895, in McBain where he is buried.
The Newmans, who had five daughters and one son, moved onto their North Stark Road property in 1988 when Leonard used oak logs from the property to build the couple's retirement home. The house features birch logs on some of the ceilings.
Helen said she has fond memories of the property, and especially the "100 year old," as the family called it.
"It was always a fun place," Helen recalled. "It was just there for the enjoyment of it. We would take our dinner out there. It had a wood stove and we would heat our dinner there. We would sit on the porch, which faces the pond and enjoy the pond."
Nearly 15 months after Saint-Gobains site plan for a $25 million investment was approved by the Beaverton City Council, the company broke ground this week.
Were happy to see this project get on its feet, said Beaverton City Manager Heath Kaplan.
Saint-Gobain is the citys largest employer. The expansion and increased jobs further secure their footing.
According to company officials, the plastics manufacturer foresees hiring 60 new employees, adding to the current workforce of about 200. The company has a track record of hiring more than they first project and city officials are hoping that is true this time around.
The expansion at 3901 Terry Diane St. will add an additional 74,000 square feet for manufacturing space to its existing 61,250 square-foot business. It also proposed adding 13,500 square feet for office space.The expansion project will increase development and manufacture capacity for Single Use Systems, the components and assemblies used in the manufacturing of life-saving drugs and vaccines. It is expected to be completed by December 2019.
The plastics company purchased several acres of private property adjacent to the existing complex, some which needed to be annexed into the city from Tobacco Township, and consumed an additional five acres in the industrial park.
Due to the companys expected taxing of the citys infrastructure, city officials applied for and received a $1.6 million Federal Economic Development Administration grant.
We are so thankful for Saint-Gobains continued investment in the city, said Beaverton Mayor Ray Nau. This is an exciting time for Beaverton.
Before it was Saint-Gobain, Patter Products formed at the Diane Street location in 1977. Saint-Gobain later purchased the business. In 1990, Saint-Gobain acquired the Norton Performance Plastics Corp. The purchase of Norton reportedly paved Saint-Gobain's entry into the plastics segment.
The site expansion will allow potential employees to experience the positive impact they can have by manufacturing products that save lives around the world, said Beaverton Saint-Gobain Plant Manager Sue Shay. From competitive salaries to strong training offerings for continued growth, potential employees will be able to experience how fulfilling a career in manufacturing can be.
To learn more about career opportunities at Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics Beaverton location, visit: https://www.saint-gobain-northamerica.com/careers and type Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics into the keyword search bar.
We have become completely numb to our forever war in Afghanistan. It is the longest war in American history, and it barely makes the front pages anymoredespite the fact that the Taliban is getting stronger by the day.
In just one week last month, the Taliban killed 200 Afghan soldiers and police; the Taliban is now openly active in 70 percent of Afghanistan, far more than when the majority of American and NATO combat troops left in 2014 https://t.co/9NpyAIS8fApic.twitter.com/WUvgqmeLat CBS Evening News (@CBSEveningNews) September 12, 2018
Tuesday marked the 17th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. You can enlist in the army at age 17. Which means that babies born after the September 11th tragedy can now fight in the war launched in its name. If that doesn't break your brain even a little bit, your brain is already broken.
As of July 27, 2018, 2,372 American military members have died in Afghanistan. Another 20,320 have been wounded. Civilian deaths are notoriously difficult to track, especially since our military is loath to admit their failures on this front, but a rough estimate pegs the total civilian deaths in Afghanistan at over 31,000. And for what? What is the mission in Afghanistan? Why are we still there?
Well, The Washington Post covered the Marines' new depressing mission earlier this year: taking back territory we previously won. Per WaPo:
The air campaign, paired with additional U.S. military advising, has helped stop the disintegration of security, but it has meant sending U.S. troops back to regions where they once engaged in direct combat with the Taliban during a surge in 2009.
Trump has promised repeatedly that the United States will win in Afghanistan, but what that means is unclear. U.S. commanders say that the most likely path to declaring victory is reaching a political settlement with the Taliban. But the insurgents had control or influence in 56 percent of Afghanistan's 407 districts as of last fall, according to a U.S. military assessment. In fall 2016, the government controlled 72 percent.
A 17-year-old enlisting in the fight against the Taliban is doing so to literally repeat the battles of the past. Afghanistan is the picture of how the military industrial complex exchanges blood for dollars, as the thousands of lives lost have largely been in the name of $1 trillion funneled into the pockets of those funding the conflict (the Veteran's Administration has spent $54.2 billion, otherwise, the rest of that trillion-dollar chunk has gone towards war efforts). Defense contractors like Lockheed Martin and Raytheon have seen their stock prices rise by over 800% since the war began. As I wrote on this year's anniversary of 9/11, that infamous day is perhaps the greatest thing to ever happen to the business of defense contractors. We are performing human sacrifice at the altar of the almighty dollar, and we have become dangerously numb to it. Not to mention, we are almost certainly creating more enemies than we kill with each day we fight these aimless wars.
State Department figures on terror attacks suggest not only that the War on Terror hasn't worked but that it may have exacerbated terror attacks.
Note the sharp rise in terror attacks shortly after the invasion of Iraq: pic.twitter.com/oB2fx2wX1K Ken Klippenstein (@kenklippenstein) September 11, 2018
This is how empires fall. They spread themselves thin by launching imperialist wars in the name of nothing other than imperialist goals which enrich a select few at the expense of the many. Our founding fathers created a civilian government with a civilian commander-in-chief because they wanted to create a check on the military. Given that Barack Obama and George W. Bush each conducted a fairly similar foreign policy, its safe to say that we have eschewed that power, and have handed control of the military over to the generals and the defense contractors who build their weapons. There is a depressing disconnect between those who fight our wars and those who coordinate them. Per United States Army Veteran Joe Quinn in the New York Times:
In Afghanistan, after an Afghan police officer demanded money from me at gunpoint to get through a checkpoint, I learned of the Kabul governments widespread corruption. I learned that spending $68 billion on Afghan forces doesnt buy the essential ingredients of a fighting force: loyalty, courage and integrity. I learned that most generals would always ask for more money, more troops, more time and more war. Its like asking Tom Brady what he wants to do on Sunday.
I learned that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. For the past 17 years in Afghanistan, weve tried everything: a light footprint, a big footprint, conventional war, counterinsurgency, counter-corruption, surges, drawdowns.
Our American national character punishes those who give up. Giving up is viewed as the height of weakness, because the supposition is that there is nothing Americans cant do. Giving up is supposedly failure, but what do our efforts in Afghanistan point to anything other than abject failure? We have lost thousands of American lives to a mission that the Marines admit is now a repetition of one we already fought. We say that our goal is a political agreement with the Taliban, but they have yet to come to the table for that discussion, and with their recent gains, they have little incentive to acquiesce to our demands.
Giving up on the war in Afghanistan is the only logical choice at this point, yet it is a pipe dream. We have a president who loves conflict and who is willing to hand unilateral control over to generals, who always ask for more money, more troops, more time and more war. It seems more likely that we will spend another 17 years in Afghanistan than not. This lede from Jeff Schogol in his piece titled, Afghanistan, 17 Years Later: This Is What Winning Looks Like in Task & Purpose is gutting:
The distance between Resolute Support headquarters and the Afghan presidential palace in Kabul cant be more than 50 feet, yet it is too dangerous to walk across the street from one to the other.
Some of this is on usthe citizens who are supposed to be stewarding this government. Congress has authority to rein in this endless war, and despite broad majorities of us who are in favor of them doing so, its not an effective issue to campaign on at all. Our reverence for the troops simply does not extend to the ballot box. The backlog at the VA that may have killed up to 307,000 veterans is not an issue that decided many votes of those not directly connected to the military. The 17-year war in Afghanistan is not something that motivates us to punish legislators for refusing to do their sworn duty. As much as we complain about how financial interests like the military industrial complex have invaded our politics, at the end of the day, politicians need our votes, and we have not exercised that powerchoosing instead to embrace the same kind of apathy that led to the downfall of countless empires before us.
Jacob Weindling is a staff writer for Paste politics. Follow him on Twitter at @Jakeweindling.
The development of ancient beer has long been known to have been tied to the birth of civilization and ancient agriculture, but as it turns out, beer may have been even more instrumental than many historians already believe. According to new findings by Stanford University archaeologists, beer may have even predated other forms of cultivated cereal grains, which would be a portentous finding. It would suggest that the desire to continue brewing beer could be a big part of the reason that these cereal grains were domesticated in the first place, and that widespread beer might even predate widespread bread.
As described in a lengthy article on phys.org, the Stanford team led by Li Liu, a professor of Chinese archaeology, has been conducting research in a cave in what is now Israel. There, in 13,000-year-old stone mortars found in the Raqefet Cave, theyve discovered evidence of extensive beer production by the Natufian people, a group of hunter-gatherers in the eastern Mediterranean.
This accounts for the oldest record of man-made alcohol in the world, said Liu in the Journal of Archaeological Science. This discovery indicates that making alcohol was not necessarily a result of agricultural surplus production, but it was developed for ritual purposes and spiritual needs, at least to some extent, prior to agriculture.
Therefore, it must be assumed that the Natufian people essentially were gathering wild grains when they first discovered how to transform those grains into beer. Researchers theorize that they first did this for special occasions such as ritual feasts that venerated the dead, but you know how it goes with beereventually, you develop a taste for it. It follows that the agricultural domestication of some of those beer-friendly grains may have then taken place to provide a steady stream of beer for other occasions.
We did not set out to find alcohol in the stone mortars, but just wanted to investigate what plant foods people may have consumed because very little data was available in the archaeological record, Liu said.
Of course, the beer consumed by the Natufian people would bear little similarity to a modern India pale ale. These beers would likely have been made of multiple grains at once and been a concoction like porridge or thin gruel, according to the researchers, which would likely have packed a mild alcoholic punch thanks to fermentation achieved via wild yeast that are present in the air almost everywhere on Earth. In this way, its funny to think that the same types of brettanomyces (wild yeast) now prized by modern artisanal craft brewers may have had a hand in this 13,000-year-old beer production.
Now that the wraps have been taken off Apples newest flagship phones, the only natural thing is to compare them to the best phone Android currently has to offer: Samsungs Galaxy Note 9. (Sorry Pixel fans, youre going to have to wait until Googles new phone lands on October 9.) This year, Apple has not one but two $1,000-plus phablet phones, with the smaller screen clocking in at the same 5.8 inches as last years iPhone X, and the larger measuring a gaudy 6.5 inches.
But Samsungs latest handset doesnt start at a thousand bucks for nothingit has the best specs and displays you can get in any Android handset anywhere. So lets see how it stacks up to Apples newest four-figure-plus phones:
iPhone XS and XS Max vs Galaxy Note 9: Design and dimensions
Apple
The Note 9 isnt a small phone. Its bezels are ever-so-slightly bigger than the Note 8, and while its forehead and chin are slimmed, theyre still quite a bit bigger than they are on either on Apples new iPhones:
iPhone XS: 143.6 x 70.9 x 7.7 mm
143.6 x 70.9 x 7.7 mm iPhone XS Max: 157.5 x 77.4 x 7.7mm
157.5 x 77.4 x 7.7mm Galaxy Note 9: 161.9 x 76.4 x 8.8mm
All three phones use the newer 18:9 ratio to keep the size down, and even though it leads the pack in height by several millimeters, the Note 9 is still surprisingly pocketable. And it doesnt have a display notch like so many of its peers. But Apples design has spawned a great many imitators for a reason: Its one of the best looking phones youve ever seen.
iPhone XS and XS Max vs Samsung Galaxy Note 9: Display
Apple
Before the iPhone XS Max arrived, the Note 9 laid claim to being the biggest (if not also most expensive) phone you can buy. Thats not the case anymore, as the iPhone bests the Note 9 by a tenth of an an inch. The iPhone XS Max has a whopping 6.5-inch screen, making it Apples largest phone ever by a wide margin, nearly three-quarters of an inch. The specs:
iPhone XS: 5.8-inch OLED, 1125 x 2436, 458ppi
5.8-inch OLED, 1125 x 2436, 458ppi iPhone XS Max: 6.5-inch OLED, 1242 x 2688, 458 ppi
6.5-inch OLED, 1242 x 2688, 458 ppi Galaxy Note 9: 6.4-inch OLED, 1440 x 2960, 516ppi
While the screen on the iPhone X may be bigger, Samsung has a higher resolution and pixel density. However, all three are well within the realm of what youd call retina, so its going to be tough to discern much of a difference when it comes to image quality. The proof will be in the color accuracy and brightness, where Samsung often excels.
iPhone XS and XS Max vs Galaxy Note 9: Performance
Christopher Hebert/IDG
As always, Apple and Samsung have fitted their latest phones with the best possible silicon:
iPhone XS and XS Max: A12 Bionic
A12 Bionic Galaxy Note 9: Snapdragon 845
We already know that the Snapdragon 845 brings first-class speeds and tremendous power efficiency that lets the Note 9 easily last a full day. However, we dont know anything about the A12 Bionic other than what Apple has told us, which is typically bombastic: The Apple-designed A12 Bionic, the smartest and most powerful chip in a smartphone, features the first 7-nanometer chip ever in a smartphone that delivers industry-leading performance in a more power-efficient design. The A11 is already a great chip so even if the A12 brings just moderate improvements, itll be a winner.
iPhone XS and XS Max vs Samsung Galaxy Note 9: Battery
Apple doesnt divulge the capacity of its batteries, so we wont know exactly whats inside its new phones until iFixit gets its hands on one and tears it down. But we can surmise a little from what Apple has told us:
iPhone XS: Lasts 30 minutes longer than the iPhone X iPhone XS Max: Lasts 1.5 hours longer than the iPhone X Galaxy Note 9: 4,000mAh
The Note 9s 4,000 mAh battery is an absolute workhorse, easily powering through all but the heaviest usage days. Apples estimates are kind of pointless, but we do know that the iPhone X had no problem lasting a full day and then some. If the iPhone XS and XS Max last even longer, thats all gravy.
iPhone XS and XS Max vs Samsung Galaxy Note 9: Storage
Christopher Hebert/IDG
The internal storage arms race is officially in full swing. We may have been complaining just a few short years ago about the paltry 16GB of storage in the entry-level iPhone, but those days are gone, and now the iPhones has more storage than some laptops. In fact, all three phones offer a top tier 512GB option, which should be more than enough for anyone:
iPhone XS: 64GB/256GB/512GB
64GB/256GB/512GB iPhone XS Max: 64GB/256GB/512GB
64GB/256GB/512GB Galaxy Note 9: 128GB/512GB
The Galaxy Note 9 also offers a slot for an microSD card, which will let you add an addition 512GB of storage.
iPhone XS and XS Max vs Samsung Galaxy Note 9: Rear camera
Apple
One of the surprising aspects of the Galaxy Note 9 was that Samsung didnt really upgrade its camera much at all. Hardware-wise, its identical to the Galaxy S9+, and the new features are fairly minimal. Similarly, Apple hasnt done all that much to improve its camera hardware either:
iPhone XS/XS Max: Dual 12MP wide-angle (f/1.8) and telephoto cameras (f/2.4), dual optical image stabilization, 2x optical zoom
Dual 12MP wide-angle (f/1.8) and telephoto cameras (f/2.4), dual optical image stabilization, 2x optical zoom Galaxy Note 9: Dual 12MP wide-angle (f/1.5-2.4) and telephoto cameras (f/2.4), dual optical image stabilization, 2x optical zoom
So, yeah, the cameras are very similar in terms of printed specsbut there are notable differences once you dig further. The Note 9 offers something called Dual Aperture, which means you can manually switch between the f/1.5 and f/2.4 aperture. The iPhones offer no such mechanism. Apple has upped the pixel size in its sensor to 1.4m, the same thats in the Note 9.
All three phones offer portrait modes with the ability to adjust the depth of field after youve taken a shot. Both cameras record 4K video at 60fps, but the Note 9 also offers super-slow-motion video recording at 960fps while the iPhone tops out at 240fps.
iPhone XS and XS Max vs Samsung Galaxy Note 9: Biometrics
Christopher Hebert/IDG
The iPhone dumped the home button last year, and this year shows that theres no going back. All of the new iPhone models (including the cheaper iPhone XR) are equipped with Apples True Depth camera for Face ID unlocking. Apple also says the system is faster at recognizing faces than it was on the iPhone X.
Samsung offers numerous biometric unlocking options on the Note 9, but its facial unlocking, called Intelligent Scan, isnt quite as accurate or secure as it is on the iPhone. It uses the front camera to combine 2D face and iris scanning, and it can have issues at certain angles and in bright light. Samsung also offers a traditional fingerprint scanner on the rear of the phone.
iPhone XS and XS Max vs Samsung Galaxy Note 9: Price
As you already know, these phones dont come cheap. After Apple shocked the world with a $999 starting price for the iPhone X last year, Samsung crossed into four-figure territory with the Note 9. And Apple continued the trend by pushing its prices even higher:
iPhone XS: $999/$1,149/$1,349
$999/$1,149/$1,349 iPhone XS Max: $1,099/$1,249/$1,449
$1,099/$1,249/$1,449 Galaxy Note 9: $1,000/$1,250
So now Apple now has six iPhone models that cost more than a thousand dollars. But thats probably not going to stop them from flying off shelves.
Good Thursday Morning, Fellow Seekers.
We thought the 2018 campaign for governor had gotten a little sleepy in the days since the traditional kick off of fall campaign season over the Labor Day weekend.
Never mind. It's so back on again.
In an email blast to campaign reporters on Wednesday, Republican hopeful Scott Wagner kicked Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf in the shins for apparently bailing out on a Sept. 12 town hall event in scenic Mauch Chunk, Pa., that had been on the books since August.
Through a spokesman, Wagner pronounced the move "gutless."
Not to be outdone, Wolf's campaign accused Wagner of wanting to "strip health care from Pennsylvanians suffering from the opioid epidemic," and released a snippet of video that it said supported that claim.
That position, the campaign maintained was "despicable."
And so it goes.
First up, that town hall.
Remember that Genesis song "Misunderstanding?"
Yeah, like that.
Screenshots of a Facebook event invite show the Sept. 12 event at the Mauch Chunk Opera House advertised as a "Governor Tom Wolf Town Hall Meeting."
The event was actually one of those "Cabinet in Your Community" meetings the administration has been regularly holding across the state. The invite was later clarified as a "Governor Tom Wolf Cabinet Town Hall Meeting."
An advisory for the event released by the administration's press office showed the scheduled list of attendees at the 11:00 a.m. event included Department of Corrections Secretary John Wetzel, Department of Labor and Industry Secretary Jerry Oleksiak, Department of Community and Economic Development Secretary Dennis Davin, and Department of Conservation and Natural Resources Secretary Cindy Dunn.
Despite that preponderance of officialdom, Wagner's campaign spokesman Andrew Romeo charged that "[Wolf] won't agree to a legitimate debate schedule, he won't talk to the media and now he is turning his back on the people of Pennsylvania."
"Cancelling a town hall that had been advertised since August is a gutless move, and furthers the point that Tom Wolf cannot defend his tax hiking record and agenda to Pennsylvanians," Romeo continued.
Wagner and running-mate Jeffrey Bartos have held a series of town halls across the state this summer, providing no shortage of viral video moments.
Wolf's public schedule had him attending a 10 a.m. ribbon-cutting at Harmony Biosciences' headquarters in Plymouth Meeting, Montgomery County. Even at Star Trek speeds, it seems unlikely that Wolf would have been able to get from the ribbon-cutting to the town hall event in time.
The debate over public access has been something of a thing between the two camps this campaign season. Wolf's press office forwarded PennLive a map of the governor's perambulations across the state.
Administration spokesman J.J. Abbott said the Facebook invite advertising the event as a town hall with Wolf was "initially created with a misunderstanding by the venue," and that the event had always been intended as a "Cabinet in Your Community" forum.
"It clearly was not created by an official representing the governor," and the Wagner camp's "suggestion ... is false."
Now about that opioids video:
The eight-second clip released by Wolf's campaign shows Wagner telling a crowd during a primary season campaign forum that he supports rolling back the Medicaid-expansion authorized under Obamacare. That expansion has provided coverage for people fighting opioid addiction.
Regardez:
The clip came in response to Wagner's appearance in York on Wednesday, where the Republican rolled out a six-page plan to fight opioid abuse, The York Daily Record reported.
Wagner has suggested proposals to fight opioid addiction, though some of them are not entirely new and echo existing steps already taken by state government.
The tentpole of that plan, a planned Nov. 27, 2018 summit (held before he even gets sworn-in) involving key stakeholders, for instance, has been floating around since the spring primary campaign.
Some of Wagner's other proposals include increasing the number of treatment beds; suing pharmaceutical companies and expanding drug courts, steps the state has already undertaken or explored.
Wagner also proposed rolling back the state's existing moratorium on capital punishment and increasing criminal penalties for drug dealers.
If elected Wagner would "deny treatment to those suffering from opioid addiction," Wolf's campaign spokeswoman Beth Melena said. "Scott Wagner is the very worst of Harrisburg. He would rather give handouts to insurance companies than help people suffering from substance use disorder get the treatment they need. It's despicable that Scott Wagner would put big insurance ahead of the health of Pennsylvanians."
Yep, it's definitely back on again.
The war on the opioid epidemic is taking prisoners, and the latest are four doctors arrested in Montgomery County, accused of illegally prescribing opioids, the DA there says.
"These doctors were engaged in criminal activity making them no better than the dealer on the street corner," Montgomery County District attorney Kevin Steele was quoted by 6ABC in Philly as saying at a press conference Wednesday.
The doctors charged and in custody are:
Lawrence I. Miller, 48, who has a medical office in Lansdale and lives in Warminster, Pa.
Joseph F. Cipriano, 56, with a medical office out of his home in Norristown.
Brian C. Keeley, 61, with a medical office in Ambler and lives in Philadelphia.
Joseph M. Rybicki, 59, with a medical office in Lower Moreland Township and lives in Haddonfield, N.J.
Details from 6ABC:
Steele says Dr. Lawrence Miller's practice became a virtual opioid-clearinghouse for addicts and drug traffickers.
In fact, Steele says nine of Miller's patients died of drug overdoses.
Meanwhile, Cipriano is accused of over-prescribing drugs like Oxycodone and Adderall to several of his female patients, including doling out those prescriptions in exchange for nude photos, videos, and sexual favors.
Steele vowed authorities aren't done searching for doctors trafficking in prescription opioids, saying:
"There will be more. We are actively investigating other physicians that come to our attention. And they come to our attention primarily through tips."
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There was no doubt where the federal prosecutors stood on this case of a man using a hidden bathroom camera to record his girlfriend's two young daughters undressing and using the restroom:
As NBC-10 in Philly reports, U.S. Attorney William McSwain said, "Child predators are among the worst type of criminals. They prey on those whose very innocence makes them the most likely to be targeted."
He was talking about the case of Roger Wallach, 38, of Philadelphia, who pleaded guilty for setting up a smart phone to record his girlfriend's two daughters, ages 10 and 11, naked in the bathroom and showering.
As NBC-10 reports, Wallach admitted to hiding a "spy watch" in the bathroom which recorded the girls as they undressed and showered.
Wallach also used the webcam on his laptop to record them undressing and sent hundreds of sexually explicit images of the two girls.
He pleaded guilty to nine counts of manufacturing and attempting to manufacture child pornography and one count of possession of child pornography.
And this week, he was sentenced to 20 years (240 months) in federal prison. Wallach will also have to serve another 20 years of supervised release and undergo sex offender evaluation and treatment.
All this after the girls' mother - his girlfriend - discovered several videos of her two daughters naked in their bathroom on Wallach's phone back in Aug. 2017.
The mom contacted police immediately.
If you're lucky today you might encounter a sweet gesture.
Hershey Co. employees will be fanning out across central Pennsylvania hoping to "melt the distance between people."
Employees will be handing out Hershey's Milk Chocolate Bars at several locations including the High Pointe Commons in Swatara Township as part of Milton S. Hershey's birthday celebration.
Today is the chocolate magnet's 161st birthday. Obviously there is a deep marketing mission behind the day but also a message.
The company said the small act of kindness is designed to create "positive connections and bring communities closer together." It calls the initiative "Heartwarming the World."
"We've all experienced this growing disconnect. We often see our neighbors every day without even knowing their names," said Chuck Raup, vice president/general manager chocolate, The Hershey Company, in a press statement. "We know it's the simple things that can bring us together. That is why we are beginning to break down the walls between us and warm-up our neighborhoods, one bar at a time."
On Wednesday, Hershey Co. employees were each given T-shirts, bags and a dozen chocolate bars during an employee function.
The company also released a video showcasing students at Big Spring High School in Newville, handing out candy to make the school friendlier to new students.
Hershey Co. continues to gobble up acquisitions as it announced Wednesday it plans to purchase Pirate's Booty cheese puffs from B&G Foods Inc.
The $420 million deal will add Pirate Brands snacks such as Smart Puffs and Original Tings to Hershey's lineup.
In recent years the company has snatched up niche companies in an effort to diversify and take advantage of consumers' growing appetite for less sugary snacks.
Last year, Hershey acquired SkinnyPop popcorn maker Amplify Snack Brands in a $1.6 billion deal. Hershey's portfolio also includes Krave jerky and a line of Reese's pretzel and nut mixes.
Hershey said Pirate Brands will operate within Amplify in Austin, Texas. It called Pirate Booty one of the fastest growing brands in the cheese puffs category with retail sales up over 8 percent year over year.
Earlier this year, Hershey lost a bid to buy Nestle SA's American Line to Luxemborg-based Ferrero.
More than 150 years ago, Der Harrisburg Maennerchor was founded as a men's club, designed to celebrate German heritage.
Now the city's oldest social club at 221 North St. is embarking on a new future. Starting Jan. 1, women will be welcome as members.
Members voted Wednesday night in a standing room-only meeting to change the club's constitution and bylaws to admit women as full members.
"Everything is woven together. We all try and work together to get stuff done," said Barry Dobb, the club's president.
Der Maennerchor has been around since 1867 and was originally formed as a German men's choral society. The clubs were founded mostly in the northeastern part of the country in the 1800s when a wave of German immigrants arrived in the United States.
Today, dues-paying members gather for drinks and food along with games of pool and darts. They also participate in community outreach, and over the years have donated hundreds of thousands of dollars from games of chance to groups such as the Salvation Army, Public Schools Foundation and the American Cancer Society.
Women have always been permitted within the club as guests, and membership in the club's ladies auxiliary tops off at more than 300 women.
Several years ago, members talked about admitting women but at the time a vote failed, Dobb said, adding the topic has been simmering ever since.
"We are always looking for ways to rejuvenate and bring new life to the place. After 150 years we don't want to see the place disappear or go away," Dobb said.
"We want to continue to survive and thrive and give to the community and be there for another 150 years," he added.
Ladies auxiliary president Julie McKenzie said the auxiliary would have continued to support the club even if the vote hadn't passed.
Even so, she said the transition started before Wednesday's vote with the auxiliary invited over the past year to participate in committees to help plan events.
"They set a good example to other club members about how the female members should be treated as equals, even before the vote came up," she said.
McKenzie emphasized it will be business as usual at the club and the only thing that will change is women can be part of the board and help run the club.
"I think in this day and age it's just something that's needed as well as women have always wanted to become an integral part of running the club and keep it viable for years to come. I think they just wanted to contribute," McKenzie said.
Over the next few months she said members and auxiliary plan to work together to make the transition seamless, she added.
HOUSTON -- As U.S. Catholic leaders head to the Vatican to meet with Pope Francis about a growing church abuse crisis, the cardinal leading the delegation has been accused by two people of not doing enough to stop a priest who was arrested this week on sexual abuse charges.
The two people told The Associated Press that they reported the priest and met with Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston. One of them says she was promised in a meeting with DiNardo, several years after she first reported abuse, that the priest would be removed from any contact with children, only to discover that the priest remained in active ministry at another parish 70 miles away.
FILE - In this Nov. 15, 2016, file photo, Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston, the newly-elected president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, speaks at a news conference at the USCCB's annual fall meeting in Baltimore.
The priest, Manuel LaRosa-Lopez, was arrested Tuesday by police in Conroe, Texas.
Both people who spoke to the AP are cooperating with police.
The priest's arrest and allegations that DiNardo kept an abusive priest around children cast a shadow over a Thursday summit at the Vatican between Pope Francis and American bishops and cardinals. DiNardo is leading the delegation, putting him in the position of having to fend off abuse allegations in his own diocese while at the same time calling on the pope to get tougher on clergy abuse.
In addition to his responsibilities in Houston, DiNardo is head of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, a position that has made him a prominent figure in the church's response to a new wave of allegations that Catholic leaders covered up sexual abuse. He has been outspoken in his calls for Pope Francis to investigate ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who was removed from his post in July after a credible accusation that he groped a teenager.
DiNardo himself is now facing criticism for his role in handling a priest accused of abusing children.
LaRosa-Lopez, 60, is accused of fondling both people when they were teenagers and he was a priest at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Conroe. He is charged with four counts of indecency with a child. Each count carries a maximum possible sentence of 20 years in prison.
LaRosa-Lopez is now the pastor at St. John Fisher Catholic Church in Richmond while also serving as the archdiocese's episcopal vicar for Hispanics.
The archdiocese issued a statement Wednesday confirming that both people had come forward to report abuse by LaRosa-Lopez, one of them in 2001. The archdiocese said it reported both allegations to the state Child Protective Services, and said it was unaware of any other "allegations of inappropriate conduct involving minors" against the priest. A spokesman for CPS on Wednesday declined to comment, citing confidentiality of the reports. LaRosa-Lopez did not immediately return a phone message left Wednesday.
"To anyone affected by any form of abuse by anyone who represents the Church, the Archdiocese deeply regrets such a fundamental violation of trust, and commits itself to eliminating such unacceptable actions," the archdiocese said.
Both accusers who say they went to DiNardo are now in their 30s. The Associated Press typically does not identify victims in sexual abuse cases, and both people asked that their names be withheld.
One was flown by the church from the West Coast to Houston to meet with DiNardo and the victims' assistance coordinator for the archdiocese. They met at the archdiocese on the afternoon of Aug. 10, just as he was taking on a greater role nationally in responding to the McCarrick saga.
The man wrote down notes from the meeting quickly after leaving, and shared a copy of the notes with AP.
"Cardinal seemed dismissive of situation," the notes read. He also wrote down what he says is a quote from DiNardo: "You should have told us sooner."
"It was a dismissive tone," he recalled. "In the back of my head, I was thinking about his comment. I was so mad afterward."
Both said they had believed their cases would be too old to prosecute under statute of limitations laws. But the Texas Legislature in 2007 removed the statute of limitations for indecency with a child cases. Montgomery County prosecutors say that change means their cases remain eligible to be prosecuted now.
The group Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, has called for the Texas attorney general to investigate the Houston archdiocese and others for whether they covered up sexual abuse in their ranks.
"DiNardo needs to come clean on what he knows," said Michael Norris, a member of SNAP.
READ MORE: Pa. House speaker calls window for sex-abuse lawsuits 'a compromise'
Both victims say they were teenagers when LaRosa-Lopez tried to befriend them over a period before initiating physical contact.
The male victim said he became interested as a teenager in joining the clergy and going to seminary. He started to attend Mass and got to know LaRosa-Lopez.
Eventually, he got a job where he worked nights at Sacred Heart as an assistant.
He remembered LaRosa-Lopez being known as "touchy-feely," and that the priest's contact with him became more physical over time: first touching on the arm, then hugging, then a kiss on the cheek.
One night, he said, the priest showed him pictures of young seminarians that "he had a lot of fun with," and tried to take the teenager's clothes off and put his hands down his pants. He pushed back and quickly left the residence. He said he reported the incident to church authorities last year. The archdiocese said Wednesday it was "formally presented" with the allegation in August.
The female accuser said LaRosa-Lopez befriended her during her weekly confession at Sacred Heart. "He basically was my only friend," she said.
The female victim declined to detail what LaRosa-Lopez did, saying only that he touched her inappropriately shortly before Easter, after she had turned 16.
She says her father found out what had happened and the family reported it to the church. Church officials told her that LaRosa-Lopez would be moved.
The archdiocese confirmed Wednesday that LaRosa-Lopez was re-assigned in 2001 to another church, St. Francis de Sales, and then moved in 2004 to St. John Fisher, his current assignment. It would not confirm he was moved due to an abuse complaint.
She eventually resumed going to her church with LaRosa-Lopez transferred to a new location.
But in 2010, she saw a copy of the archdiocese's internal newsletter, which announced LaRosa-Lopez's appointment as vicar of Hispanic ministry. She thought there was a chance DiNardo didn't know about her complaint because it had predated his time in Houston.
She contacted the church and started to meet with a therapist paid for by the archdiocese. Eventually, she met with DiNardo and other top clergy in the diocese. She says they told her that after she had come forward, LaRosa-Lopez was sent to a hospital for psychiatric treatment twice and that would no longer be allowed to work with children.
Then LaRosa-Lopez was brought in for about 10 minutes, she confronted him about the abuse and he apologized.
She says she later discovered that LaRosa-Lopez remained at St. John Fisher, in the presence of children.
Of DiNardo, the woman said, "I'm tired of all of his empty words."
"If he's going to go meet with the Pope and pretend that all of this is OK and his diocese is clean, I can't stand it," she said. "I can't be quiet."
The Associated Press asked Tuesday to interview DiNardo and other top leaders at the archdiocese. It also submitted a list of questions about both victims' allegations.
A spokesman for the archdiocese declined the interview requests or to address specific allegations about what DiNardo told the victims.
LaRosa-Lopez was not present at Mass in St. John Fisher on Saturday night or Sunday. A reporter who visited both days saw that a parking spot, marked with a sign reserving the space for "Father Manuel," was empty.
Parishioners were told on Sunday morning Mass that LaRosa-Lopez was "at a retreat."
--
Nomaan Merchant of the Associated Press wrote this story.
A woman who bragged on Facebook about running over cats with a vehicle last month has been arrested.
Vasfije "Vas" Cain, of Hopatcong, N.J., posted on Aug. 22 that as she and her son were driving, they ran over three cats.
Justice For Dogs Network posted a screenshot of the status, which has since been deleted.
Hopatcong police addressed the arrest on Facebook Tuesday after multiple people reported her posts.
The page shared her status in which she wrote "maybe people should keep there (sic) cats at there (sic) house and not on the street so proud of him Eliminating the cat population."
Other township residents who saw her post immediately called for her arrest.
Justice For Dogs Network, a pet advocacy group, posted various screenshots of Cain's Facebook posts before they were removed from Cain's page.
Township police said the posts discovered last month, and the investigation, was turned over to Animal Control Officer Gianna Dimatteo.
Cain now faces charges of hitting a domestic animal and failing to report the incident.
Hopatcong police did not immediately respond to a request to comment on the arrest Wednesday.
This post was updated at 3:13 p.m. to add a statement from the current Bishop of the Harrisburg Diocese, Ronald Gainer.
Dauphin County District Attorney Fran Chardo says that after "a full investigation," his office has found no basis to conclude that Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades, the former bishop of the Roman Catholic Church's Harrisburg Diocese, ever engaged in "a criminal or otherwise improper relationship" with a now-deceased Dauphin County man identified by investigators as "J.T."
Chardo's office confirmed to PennLive last week that it had received a complaint against Rhoades.
The complaint had come into diocesan offices here from a cousin of the purported victim. The diocese then referred it to the district attorney.
Chardo, in his announcement this morning, stated he believes the original report was the result of an honest, mistaken recollection. But he also complained about its surfacing in the press while the investigation was in midstream.
"This has been a case of a public airing of mere speculation of impropriety with no foundation," Chardo stated.
"In this case, the leaking of what turned out to be an unfounded report did unnecessary harm. This has done a disservice to actual victims of sexual abuse. It has also caused significant and unnecessary harm to Bishop Rhoades.
"We encourage reports of any suspicion of the abuse of a child to law enforcement and ChildLine," Chardo continued. "But once reports are made... they should be fully investigated without public speculation about guilt...
"Here, we found no evidence of wrongdoing. We now regard this case as closed."
The back story:
According to Chardo's release, the original referral alleged that Rhoades travelled to Puerto Rico with J.T. twice and South America once when the man was about 13 or 14 years old.
The cousin had no direct knowledge of any sexual or other unlawful acts, but he did think the conduct he remembered was odd, so he felt compelled to report it to the diocese.
A check of records of Rhoades' service in Harrisburg, interviews with Rhoades and with the purported victim's family subsequently showed that Rhoades' first contact with J.T. occurred in 1990 when J.T. was a 19-year-old inmate in the Dauphin County Prison.
Rhoades had been asked by J.T.'s mother to offer him spiritual guidance, Chardo said, and Rhoades, then serving at St. Francis of Assisi Parish in Harrisburg, did so.
That relationship developed to the point where Rhoades appeared at a court proceeding for J.T. in early 1990 and told a judge that, if released, J.T. would be welcome to do his community service work at the parish.
J.T. was paroled on April 6, 1990 according to county prison records.
Later in that year, Rhoades and another friend were planning to take a trip to Puerto Rico.
J.T., according to Chardo's investigators, learned about the trip and asked if he could join the trip so that he could visit his grandmother there, and Rhoades agreed.
It was not clear from Chardo's report who paid J.T.'s way.
In interviews with investigators, both Rhoades and the second man, who now lives in England with his family, stated that there was no sexual or intimate contact between any of them during the trip.
J.T.'s mother confirmed the trip to Puerto Rico occurred when her son was in his twenties. She also told investigators, Chardo said, that she never had any indication of sexual contact between her son and Rhoades.
When J.T. died in October 1996, Rhoades presided at his funeral mass at the request of J.T.'s parents.
Chardo said Rhoades and J.T.'s family fully cooperated in the investigation.
Chardo said he has concluded the trip to Puerto Rico was the only time Rhoades travelled with J.T., and that "all of Rhoades' contact with J.T. was in the context of pastoral care and arose out of the recognized tradition of prison ministry.
"No witness has alleged observing any criminal or improper conduct by Bishop Rhoades with respect to J.T."
Rhoades, a Lebanon native, was bishop in Harrisburg from 2004 to 2009. He currently serves as bishop of the Diocese of Fort Wayne / South Bend in Indiana.
Diocesan officials there and in Harrisburg released statements Thursday saying they appreciated "the swift and thorough investigation into the unsubstantiated allegation" against Rhoades.
"While it's important that allegations be brought forward... the result of this investigation underscores the importance of allowing appropriate authorities to determine credibility of accusations before the reputation of any individual is impugned in the court of public opinion," the Fort Wayne / South Bend church's statement read.
The Indiana diocese also noted that Rhoades expressed his gratitude for the support he has received from parishioners during the past week.
In Harrisburg, Bishop Ronald Gainer said he too, was pleased that Rhoades was cleared of any wrongdoing.
"With that being said," Gainer added, "our hearts and prayers remain with the survivors of child sexual abuse and we would encourage anyone who has been abused to contact PA Childline or law enforcement."
The toll-free ChildLine number is 800-932-0313.
Despite Hurricane Florence preparing to make landfall along the Carolina coast, weather at several popular beach locations will be decent enough for a visit.
Going into the water, however, might not be a good idea.
High surf advisories are in effect for beaches all beaches in New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland.
The advisories for beaches in New Jersey and Delaware are in effect until 6 p.m. Friday, and the advisory for beaches in Maryland is in effect until 8 a.m. Saturday.
The risk for rip currents on those beaches is also high.
READ MORE: "You are taking the ocean and raising it:' Explaining the meaning of storm surge
A high surf advisory means that high surf will affect beaches, produce localized beach erosion, and dangerous swimming conditions.
Here's a look at the forecast for some popular areas along the coast:
Ocean City, Md.
Friday:
Saturday:
Sunday:
Monday:
Ocean City emergency management officials are continuing to monitor Hurricane Florence, which is now showing a southern... Posted by Town of Ocean City - Government on Wednesday, September 12, 2018
Rehoboth Beach, Del.
Friday:
Saturday:
Sunday:
Monday:
This is an important message regarding Hurricane Florence. This highly intense major hurricane is projected to reach the... Posted by City of Rehoboth Beach, Delaware on Wednesday, September 12, 2018
Cape May, N.J.
Some flights have already been canceled or postponed as Hurricane Florence makes its approach on the Carolina coast, but passengers won't begin to see the full impact of the storm on their travel until tomorrow.
At the Harrisburg International Airport Wednesday, the only canceled flights are Allegiant flights to Myrtle Beach, said HIA spokesman Scott Miller said.
But with roughly 4,000 passengers in and out of HIA daily, a lot of people could be delayed here in the coming days, depending on the path of the storm and how long it sticks around.
"The big thing tomorrow will be flights to Charlotte and Atlanta," Miller said. American Airlines operates a big hub in Charlotte, and Delta flies into Atlanta, both of which fly to and from HIA. "It's still a little too early to tell."
And the fact that Florence is a potentially a slow-moving hurricane and may stick around for a few days could make the travel headaches even worse, and "a couple million people could be impacted by this."
Most airlines have put out travel advisories, giving passengers the ability to change their flight to a different date without cost.
"For the next four or five days, everyone should make sure to check with their airlines," Miller advises.
Customer service at the airlines will likely be busy, so he advises being patient and using airline apps and websites to check and change flights.
A number of factors go into whether a flight is canceled, and it's the airlines that make those decisions on a flight-by-flight basis. They look at the wind and rain to whether or not the roads and airports are even open due to the hurricane.
If the conditions are too bad, airlines cancel flights so as to not put passengers or crew members in danger.
On average, HIA has a dozen flights daily during the week and five on the weekends to and from Charlotte. Those passengers can check the status of their flights through HIA or American Airlines.
Around the country, more than 1,000 flights have already been canceled ahead of the hurricane, CNN is reporting.
Around the region:
At the Pittsburgh International Airport, officials are advising travelers to keep an eye on their flight status, particularly on flights to the southeastern U.S. coast and the Caribbean.
The only canceled flights now at Pittsburgh are to and from Raleigh-Durham on American Airlines and Charleston on Allegiant.
At the Philadelphia International Airport, it's a similar story with American Airlines to and from Raleigh/Durham, Wilmington and Charleston being canceled.
And at the Baltimore/Washington International Airport, a handful of flights have canceled flights, including those to Raleigh/Durham.
Attorney Jonathan Goldstein didn't sugar-coat it as he stood before a Commonwealth Court panel Thursday.
"The political branches of Pennsylvania have made a savage mess of the budgeting process," he said. "Only the court can bring some order."
But can it, and will it?
That was the cloud hovering in the courtroom as the judges heard arguments by Goldstein on one side and attorneys for Gov. Tom Wolf, the Legislature and state Treasurer Joe Torsella on the other.
Goldstein represents political activist Matthew Brouillette, Dauphin County businessman Ben Lewis and state Rep. Jim Christiana, R-Beaver County, who are seeking court intervention in the state's budgeting process. The three claim Wolf and the Legislature have violated constitutional provisions requiring the passage and implementation of balanced budgets, most recently in 2016-17 and 2017-18.
Instead, the state has been operating with unbalanced budgets and consistently running deficits, they contend. "They are borrowing and spending in a way that violates the law of the state," Goldstein said.
On Thursday, he asked the court to intervene. "There is no standard by which (the governor and Legislature) can be held to account. Only the court can set that standard."
Several judges expressed doubts that they even have the legal authority to wade into the dispute. "Hasn't the budgeting process been fully address by the Pennsylvania Constitution?" President Judge Mary Hannah Leavitt asked. "We can't add to that."
Judge Ellen Ceisler questioned whether Goldstein's clients even have legal standing to bring the case. "If we don't have standing, who does?" Goldstein replied. "The people of Pennsylvania enacted a constitution to protect them from being spent into penury without their permission."
Wolf's attorney, Senior Deputy Attorney General Keli Neary, argued for dismissal of the case. The claims by Goldstein's clients regarding the 2016-17 and 2017-18 budgets are moot because those spending plans have come and gone, she said.
Wolf followed the constitution's requirements and submitted budget proposals that were balanced, Neary insisted. When Leavitt asked whether the court has the authority to intervene in the fiscal dealing of the executive and legislative branches, Neary's reply was "no."
Leavitt observed that perhaps the only legal remedy for those upset with the state's budgeting process "is to elect new representatives and new senators."
"Yes," said Mark Seiberling, the attorney for Senate President Pro Tempore Joseph Scarnati and Senate Majority Leader Jake Corman.
Matthew Pilsner, the lawyer for House Speaker Mike Turzai, argued the suit must be dismissed because the lawmakers are shielded by legislative immunity.
Torsella's attorney, Christopher Craig, insisted repeatedly that the state hasn't been spending money it doesn't have or running itself into the red. "Expenditures have never exceeded what was budgeted," Craig said. "It is a (budget) process that still works. Not pretty, but it still works."
Regardless of how the Commonwealth Court rules, it is expected the state Supreme Court will become the final arbiter of the dispute.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, September 13) Two provincial jail guards and an inmate died in an ambush at around 9 a.m. Thursday in Barangay Kalunasan, Cebu City.
The three were on board a jail transport vehicle en-route to a court hearing when four assailants riding two motorcycles peppered them with bullets.
The police have identified the jail guards as Joel Teves and Bernie Bayotas, and the inmate as Jerryfer Perigrino.
Several gunshot wounds killed the three instantaneously. Bullet holes were also seen on the jail transport vehicle . The incident happened just less than a kilometer away from the Provincial Jail or the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center (CPDRC).
Initial police investigation showed that Perigrino was among those in possession of illegal drugs during the recent greyhound operation at the CPDRC.
CPDRC Warden Reynaldo Valmoria said that the two jail guards were facing the Capitol's Committee on Discipline for alleged lapses in the entry of illegal drugs into the jail facility.
The CPDRC is a jail facility operated by the Cebu Provincial Government and not the BJMP.
Cebu Governor Hilario Davide III, who went to the crime scene, said he wants an in-depth investigation on the incident. He said a review of the security details will be done following the ambush.
Meanwhile, two CCTV cameras of Barangay Kalunasan which shows the exit roads and vicinity around the CPDRC were mysteriously shut down from 1:00 a.m. until after the ambush incident around 9:30 a.m.
The CCTVs were connected wirelessly to the barangay hall. Barangay officials were clueless as to why the cameras went off and who turned it back on again after the ambush incident.
The last time the cameras went off was during the latest greyhound operation at the CPDRC last week led by the Regional Police Office.
A total 404 students are graduating from the Imperial School of Business & Science (ISBS) next week Monday September 17th in various disciplines at the levels of Degree, Diploma and Certificate.
The school, which started as Damelin College and later rebranded to ISBS will churn out graduates in the fields of Association of Accounting Technicians (AAT); Business Management; Finance and Banking; Marketing; Human Resources Management; Advertising; Advertising and Public Relations Management; Marketing Management and Travel and Tourism.
The Schools PR rep told Botswana Guardian in an interview Wednesday that the school will be producing the first-Degree graduates from ISBS this year. Thus far they have had only graduates in Diploma level and certificates.
ISBS, which is chaired by Santosh Kumar Sharma and Nidheesh Sharma as Operations Director, started operations in Game City n 2003 and registered with the then Botswana Training Authority (BOTA). In 2011 it registered with Tertiary Education Council (TEC) and relocated to its own campus in Gaborones Main Mall
The Gaborone campus was extended in 2013 and the Institute was rebranded to ISBS and in the same year began offering Degrees programmes. ISBS prides itself as the leading institution in the tertiary quality education which is doing its best to be a pillar of national development by making significant strides in the field of education, said the schools spokesperson.
The tertiary school is adding to the countrys vision 2036: sustainable economic development, by having 404 graduates which amongst them would be joining the corporate world while others are striving to be aspiring entrepreneurs, said the PR rep, One Gothang.
Among its highlights, ISBS was awarded the top 3 best private colleges status by Human Resource Development Council (HRDC) in 2018 and is among the first institutions to be accredited by Botswana Qualifications Authority (BQA) under the new legislation. ISBS was awarded best upcoming institution in 2016.
An area middle school is the latest to temporarily close due to suspected mold.
Susquenita School District Superintendent Kent Smith said today that a mold-like substance was found in three classrooms within one wing of the Susquenita Middle School.
And like what happened in other school districts last month, weather was the big problem.
"We had sweating pipe is what it was," Smith said. "They were sweating because of the amount of humidity."
Middle school students were dismissed at 8:45 a.m. today, and the school will be closed on Friday, according to a note to parents on the school district's Facebook page. Classes will still remain in session at the elementary and high schools.
The district will be conducting air-quality testing in all of its buildings as a precaution and is performing mold remediation in the affected area of the middle school.
The ceiling tiles have been pulled to allow the pipes to dry out, and those pipes are being disinfected, Kent said. The old tiles will be replaced with ventilated ones.
While humidity was a factor, heat wasn't in this case. The building has a new HVAC unit, he said.
Smith expects to have the air-quality-testing results by Friday afternoon and said the middle school should be open once again on Monday.
Several schools around the state got a late start to the school year with a double whammy of heat and mold.
Teens across the country are using e-cigarettes, and U.S. health officials are worried.
The Food and Drug Administration is warning e-cigarette companies and the public about the "epidemic of addiction" occurring in minors, that appears to be driven by flavored products, the AP reports.
The FDA cited recent data showing there is a rise in the underage use of e-cigarette devices such as Juul, Vuse and more.
Just last year, FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb said e-cigarettes could be helpful to ween adult smokers off cigarettes, due to the varying levels of nicotine available in products.
Gottlieb went on to say that he did not predict the now visible epidemic in underage smokers.
"The disturbing and accelerating trajectory of use we're seeing in youth and the resulting path to addiction must end," Gottlieb said. The FDA will now look into ways they can curb the use of e-cigarettes in teens.
From the AP:
E-cigarettes are vapor-emitting devices that have grown into a multi-billion dollar industry in the U.S. despite little research on their long-term effects, including whether they are helpful in helping smokers quit. They're generally considered a less dangerous alternative to regular cigarettes. But health officials have warned nicotine in e-cigarettes is harmful to developing brains.
They typically contain nicotine, and sometimes flavorings like fruit, mint or chocolate.
Health advocates have worried about the popularity of vaping products among kids and the potential impact on smoking rates in the future. A government-commissioned report in January found "substantial evidence" that young people who use e-cigarettes are more likely to try cigarettes.
Under regulations developed by the Obama administration, manufacturers were supposed to submit most products for review by August 2018. But last year Gottlieb delayed the deadline until 2022, saying both the agency and industry needed more time to prepare.
The decision was criticized by anti-smoking advocates who say e-cigarette makers are targeting kids with candy flavors and marketing that portrays their products as flashy, hand-held gadgets.
Under Wednesday's announcement, the five largest e-cigarette manufacturers will have 60 days to produce plans to stop underage use of their products. The companies sell Vuse, Blu, Juul, MarkTen XL, and Logic e-cigarette brands, which account for 97 percent of U.S. e-cigarette sales, according to FDA.
If the plans fall short, the FDA could block sales of the products by enforcing a requirement that companies provide detailed design and health data about their products before marketing them. The FDA's delay on that requirement has allowed the industry to flourish with little oversight. But it's not clear how quickly the decision could be reversed.
The FDA also announced 1,300 warning letters and fines to online and traditional stores that have illegally sold Juul and other e-cigarettes to minors. Regulators said it was the largest coordinated crackdown in the agency's history.
The FDA is in the process of rolling out a sweeping anti-smoking initiative designed to make it easier for smokers to quit by cutting the nicotine levels in regular cigarettes. As part of that plan, Gottlieb has suggested some smokers could be directed toward alternative products that deliver nicotine without the carcinogens of cigarettes. Those products could include e-cigarettes, though the FDA has not given any company permission to advertise its device as a quit-smoking aid.
Will Pennsylvania's new, more liberal fireworks law blow up in the Legislature's face and demolish the state's entire revenue bill in the process?
Commonwealth Court holds the match to light that fuse, if it so chooses.
The judges will make their decision based, in part, on arguments they heard Thursday morning in a courtroom on the fifth floor of the Pennsylvania Judicial Center in Harrisburg.
At issue is a multi-pronged effort by Phantom and Sky King, established fireworks sellers with brick and mortar stores, to kill the new law that was enacted last year.
That measure repealed a 1939 law banning state residents from possessing heavy-duty fireworks, such as rockets and Roman candles. Pennsylvanians now can buy all those types of blasters from the established stores and from vendors who peddle the explosives from temporary tents set up in parking lots.
Therein lies the dispute.
Kevin McKeon, the attorney for Sky King and Phantom, told the state judges his clients are now faced with unfair and possibly unsafe competition from the tent-bound vendors. It costs his clients millions of dollars to build fireworks-safe stores, while the tenters can pitch their businesses in parking lots for a pittance with fewer safety provisions, he said.
Before the new law took effect this year, Sky King and Phantom stores, which are located along the state's fringes, were allowed to sell high-powered fireworks only to out-of-staters.
The question before the state judges is whether the dispute over the fireworks law can be addressed with surgical precision or must be attacked with an axe.
McKeon is claiming the Legislature violated the "single subject provision" of the state constitution when it included the new fireworks law in Act 43 of 2017, the state's tax and revenue legislation.
By law, all subjects of a single state law must be germane to one another. McKeon argued that the fireworks provisions, which include safety regulations for the tent businesses, violate the single-subject tenet because those matters have nothing to do with taxes and revenue.
Therefore, he said, Commonwealth Court must void Act 43 in its entirety if it decides the single subject requirement was violated when the fireworks measure was inserted. Such a decision would throw the state government into financial chaos.
McKeon also argued the Legislature didn't follow the law in repealing the 1939 fireworks statute because it never published the terms of the law that was being scrapped.
"For people who like fireworks this law is the equivalent of the repeal of Prohibition," McKeon said. "It's a big deal. And it appeared in a tax bill."
Karl Myers, attorney for House Speaker Mike Turzai, and Matthew Haverstick, representing Senate President Pro Tem Joseph Scarnati, countered that Act 43 and the fireworks provisions are completely kosher.
Safety concerns about the tent businesses were addressed when the Legislature required the tenters to follow 2006 safety guidelines set by the National Fire Protection Association, Myers argued. The lawmakers chose the 2006 rules because the NFPA's 2017 regulations don't adequately address tent-bound fireworks shops, he said.
Haverstick insisted Act 43's inclusion of the fireworks law - which once was a stand-alone measure - doesn't violate the single-subject rule because the fireworks law created a new revenue stream for the state. The fact that safety standards and other measures are addressed as well doesn't invalidate its status as a tax statute that appropriately meshes with Act 43, he contended.
The safety provisions are in there because "the Legislature wasn't trying to expand sales (of fireworks) so people in Pennsylvania could blow their fingers off," Haverstick said.
Nor, he said, did lawmakers have to reiterate the entire 1939 law in detail when they replaced it. "It's enough to say, 'That's out. This is in'," he said.
Myers said the Phantom and Sky King challenge is something of a "mystery." He questioned whether they have legal standing to mount it because they aren't suffering any harm since the new law enables them to sell more products to more people.
"They're not aggrieved by the statute. They very much benefit from the statute," Myers said.
"We wouldn't be here if we didn't think Act 43 hurts us more than it helps us," McKeon countered. His clients "put a lot of money into their buildings," he said. "It costs almost nothing to put up one of these tents. And they can put up a tent near any of our stores."
We have a state bird, a state dog, a state insect, a state song and even a state beverage but there's something missing from that line-up of state symbols that an area lawmaker wants to add: a state gemstone.
Rep. Tom Mehaffie, R-Dauphin County, wants to make amethyst the jewel that is associated with Pennsylvania.
Mehaffie on Tuesday began circulating a memo to his House colleagues seeking support for his proposed legislation that would designate this purple variety of quartz as Pennsylvania's official gemstone.
Aside from the mineral deposits of amethyst found in the southeastern counties of Lancaster, Chester and Delaware, his memo states this particular gemstone holds other significance to the state: It is the primary jewel in the crown of Miss Pennsylvania.
Mehaffie said a constituent, Ceylon Leitzel, a jeweler with stores in Hershey and Lebanon, asked him to introduce legislation to make Pennsylvania the second state (after South Carolina) to declare amethyst as its official state gemstone.
Leitzel, a longtime member of the 112-year-old Pennsylvania Jewelers Association, said jewelers were under the impression that a law was passed years ago giving this recognition to amethyst, which is the focal point of the Miss Pennsylvania crown.
Katie Schreckengast of Palmyra, the 2017 Miss Pennsylvania, said when she wore the tiara, the keystone-shaped amethyst at the front of the crown,"was a big talking point among people I met while wearing it. It truly is beautiful!"
The state's jewelers, including Leitzel, donated all of the precious gems - the gold, the diamonds, all 92 carats of amethyst -- that adorn the crown currently worn by Miss Pennsylvania, Kayla Repasky of Gettysburg. The crown, commissioned by the state's jewelers association, was hand made by a Pennsylvania jeweler in 1984.
Given those connections, and with the state's official state plant being the pinkish purple Penngift Crownvetch, and the request by a constituent on behalf of the state's jewelers, Mehaffie said, "I thought it was the right thing to do."
It's true that more states have official gemstones than don't. Florida has the moonstone. Kentucky, the freshwater pearl. New Mexico, turquoise. Alaska has jade, to name a few.
Associating a particular gemstone or any other symbol as an organized cultural expression of a state began organically, said Charles Kupfer, associate professor of American Studies and History at Penn State Harrisburg.
Over time, the needle turned from the state symbols originating from organized folklore popularly held by a state to ideas that grew out of a class civics project or a push by a particular special interest group, he said. In some cases, it was states looking at what their neighboring states were doing along these lines.
"So a lot of it has to with history, culture and things that make people feel a certain sense of identity and pride and the others are a matter of keeping up with the Joneses," Kupfer said.
Peter Heaney, a mineralogy professor at Penn State University Park, likes amethyst. In fact, he said he has a table filled with this variety of quartz, which is purple in color because of the small amount of iron impurities it contains. Still, Heaney initially was flabbergasted to learn of Mehaffie's proposal.
Penn State minerology professor Peter Heaney displays amethyst in his left hand and celestine in his right. Both are minerals that state lawmakers want to make state symbols.
He said a couple of years ago he worked hard on an effort -- unsuccessful thus far -- being led by Rep. Tina Pickett, R-Bradford County, to get celestine declared the state mineral.
"Celestine was actually discovered, the mineral was first discovered in Pennsylvania. The discovery goes back to the 1790s," he said. "Celestine occurs in really beautiful crystals in parts of Pennsylvania, so I really think it has a better claim to being the state mineral."
After it was pointed out that Mehaffie was seeking to declare amethyst the state gemstone and not the state mineral, Heaney said he felt that was a good compromise.
Some states, believe it or not, have both an official mineral and an official gemstone so Pennsylvania wouldn't be rocking the boat if both Pickett's and this effort were successful.
Mehaffie, who is finishing up his first two-year term in office, was unaware of Pickett's effort to name a state mineral. Further, he said he has no interest in competing with her for naming rights to an official component of a rock.
He was just enchanted by the beauty of the amethyst in the Miss Pennsylvania crown that Leitzel allowed him to see up close.
"When you see how much of this jewel is throughout the crown and having it mined here. It's just a gorgeous jewel. It really is," Mehaffie said.
Leitzel said the amethyst in the crown speaks of Pennsylvania in many ways to him and other jewelers despite the fact that it was mined in Brazil. Given that Pennsylvania is in the minority of states without an official gemstone, he said, "it makes common sense."
Mehaffie said he knows there are more pressing issues before the Legislature. He also knows the Legislature has only a few voting days scheduled in the current legislative session before it ends. But he said it's worth giving it a shot to see where the proposal goes.
"It is important to my constituent and that's why it was introduced. We'll move forward on it as we should," he said. "If this gets pushed to the backburner for now, I'm fine with that. Next year when I'm re-elected, I'll push forward with this again."
*This story was updated to indicate that crownvetch is the official state plant.
Music community steps up to help one of their own battling cancer
Giuliano Cameroni at Rocklands beams up The Smile
Swiss climber Giuliano Cameroni reports about The Smile at Rocklands, South Africa, a boulder problem he freed at 8C which he believes is 'a contender for one of the best problems in the world'.
Finding a King Line isnt easy. Discovering one right in the heart of one of the world's most famous bouldering areas is even more unlikely. Perhaps this is why The Smile at Rocklands is so special. The boulder is located, somewhat incredibly, just above the Pakhuis climbers campsite and was freed this summer by ace Swiss climber Giuliano Cameroni. The name of the problem stems from the natural smile formed by the holds, but also perhaps from the 21-year-olds reaction when he freed the highball in mid-July.
THE SMILE by Giuliano Cameroni
I found this amazing wall two years ago with Sam Ometz. The rock is perfect and the crux holds design an emoji on the wall, with a small crimp for the mouth and two rounded slopers for the eyes.
I tried it for the first time this season, but the first session went super bad and I couldnt do any of the hard moves. So I moved on, psyched to climb on other boulders.
After a few weeks I went back with good conditions and surprisingly the crux moves felt way better than before! I needed two more days to do the hardest move (a dynamic lock-off from the crimp to the right eye) and four more to send the whole boulder.
During the last week it became a real mental battle, because I kept falling off the last move which revolves around a delicate friction-dependent sloper. When I finally stuck the lip I was overcome by immense joy: the battle was over and the boulder was done!
I feel that I improved a lot from this experience, and that the boulder itself taught me a lot about climbing in general. A few months later Im still psyched to have done what I consider a contender for one of the best problems in the world! Now its time to move on, other projects await!
Cameroni thanks S.C.A.R.P.A. , prana, FrictionLabs and Peter Bouldering for the support
Link: Instagram Giuliano Cameroni
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New Jersey Democratic Sen. Cory Booker isnt letting up in his ongoing effort to bring transparency to Brett Kavanaughs confirmation process.
The Democratic senator released more committee confidential documents on Wednesday exposing that Kavanaugh lied during a Senate Judiciary Committee testimony. The new emails released by the Senator bring the total number of released documents to 75.
According to a news release from Bookers office, The emails reveal that Kavanaughs involvement in the [controversial federal judge Charles Pickerings] nomination was significant and far-reaching, calling into question how truthful he was in 2006 testimony he gave to the Senate Judiciary Committee, in which he seemed to indicate he wasnt substantively involved in the Pickering nomination.
Sen. Booker said, These latest documents raise more serious and concerning questions about Judge Kavanaughs honesty before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Its clear that Kavanaugh was far more involved than he previously claimed with the nomination of a controversial federal judge who once defended a state law banning interracial marriage and campaigned for an avowed segregationist.
The Democratic senator added that the newly released documents show that Kavanaugh misled the Senate Judiciary Committee during his prior testimony, which is a grave and worrisome prospect given the fact that Judge Kavanaugh is up for a lifetime appointment to our nations highest court with the potential to change American law for decades to come.
Republicans dont want the American people to see these documents
The Republicans, watching the Trump presidency unravel and smelling a midterm disaster in November, are rushing to confirm Kavanaugh. Thats why they are moving to cover up the judges past.
As Sen. Booker said, Its unacceptable that Republicans have chosen to shroud Kavanaughs record in secrecy and keep a significant portion of his background roughly 90 percent hidden from public view.
Luckily, Democratic senators like Cory Booker are fighting to expose this dangerous Supreme Court nominee before its too late.
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The Republican freakout will only grow as Fox News released polls of the Senate races in Missouri, North Dakota, Indiana, Tennessee, and Arizona, and each race is within the margin of error.
Here are the numbers in Arizona:
Here is how the Senate race looks in Tennessee:
The race in Indiana is tight as well:
In North Dakota, Republicans are doing what they expected:
Missouri is also a nail-biter:
These Polls Are Encouraging For Democrats And Depressing For Republicans
These Senate contests are all being held in states that Trump won by double digits in 2016. Republicans have been targeting the Democratic-held seats in North Dakota, Indiana, and Missouri since Trump took office. The Senate race in Tennessee was expected to be a Republican walkover, but it has proven to be a real challenge after Democrats chose a popular former governor as their nominee.
If Republicans cant flip any of the Democratic-held seats, and they lose even one of the open currently held Republican seats, their Senate majority will be in danger.
The message from these polls is that the battle for the Senate is tight. The fight for control of the Senate could be closer than the fight for the House. Democrats may have a real shot at taking back the Senate. Republicans are underperforming in states that Trump won easily.
The Senate is in play, which is why every Democratic voter needs to get energized and ready to use their vote to show Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell the door in less than two months.
For more discussion about this story join our Rachel Maddow and MSNBC group.
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It was bad enough that the Trump administration took $10 million from FEMA to fund migrant detention camps especially as climate change generates stronger storms like the one were seeing barrel toward the Carolinas.
But Rachel Maddow revealed on Wednesday that its actually much worse than that. The administration didnt just take money from FEMA; they took nearly three times more $29 million out of the U.S. Coast Guard to fund increased ICE detention operations.
The Coast Guard, of course, is the branch of the U.S. armed forces that is often on the front lines when it comes to rescuing people caught in a devastating natural disaster.
Just ahead of hurricane season, Trump thought it would be a smart move to take money and resources from them and hand it over to ICE, his pet government agency.
Video:
Rachel Maddow said FEMA isnt the only key agency Trump has taken money from ahead of hurricane season. #ctl #p2 #HurricaneFlorence #maddow pic.twitter.com/xbMFCrJcLV PoliticusUSA (@politicususa) September 13, 2018
Maddow said:
Tonight, we can report that its not just FEMA thats being tapped for the Trump administrations ICE programs instead. Theyre not just taking money from FEMA. According to this document from the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Homeland Security is also taking tens of millions of dollars from the Coast Guard to instead give to ICE for immigrant detention. Just over $29 million taken from the Coast Guard, targeted by the Trump administration to be transferred instead to ICE for immigrant detention. $29 million from the Coast Guard. Triple what they took from FEMA.
Trump cares more about riling up his base than saving American lives
At a time when natural disasters (hurricanes, floods, fires) are getting stronger due to climate change and undocumented immigration is falling (and has been for years), this president is taking money from FEMA and giving it to ICE.
Sadly, this is the kind of disastrous policymaking that should be expected when the president of the United States is the human embodiment of a YouTube comment section. Facts on the ground dont matter. Not even human lives matter.
To Trump, the only thing thats important is carrying out a bigoted agenda that riles up his base even if its completely untethered to reality. Even if it costs lives.
So while American cities drown in the aftermath of increasingly dangerous and deadly storms, Donald Trump is not using government money to save you; hes using it to lock up children.
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Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, promised Wednesday to launch investigations into Trump-Russia money laundering if Democrats win the House of Representatives this fall.
According to The Hill, The top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee says he plans to not only reignite a full-blown Russia probe if the House flips in November, but he will also prioritize investigating the Trump Organizations ties to Russia.
There was one issue we were not allowed to look at and the Senate hasnt been either that concerns me a great deal and that is the issue of whether Russians were laundering money through the Trump Organization and [if] that is the leverage they have over the president, Rep. Schiff told The Hill.
Someone needs to determine whether those allegations are true or they are not, he added. That certainly would be a priority for me.
Schiffs pledge is part of a larger strategy on the part of Democrats in 2018. Instead of running explicitly in favor of impeachment, they are running as the only party willing to deal with the rampant corruption Trump has brought into the White House.
Democrats are ready to drain the swamp
If voters Republican or Democrat care about restoring decency in the nations capital, they will replace GOP lawmakers with candidates who will hold this president accountable.
As former President Barack Obama said last week, It should not be Democratic or Republican, it should not be partisan to say that we dont pressure the Department of Justice or the FBI to use the criminal justice system as a cudgel to punish our political opponents. Or to explicitly call for the attorney general to protect members of own party from prosecution because elections happen to be coming up.
Fighting a lawless administration is not a partisan idea. Wanting to restore the values and norms that make this country great is not a radical concept. Acting as a check on an unhinged, corrupt president is a responsibility that lawmakers must fulfill, not a political choice.
On Wednesday, Adam Schiff showed that this is exactly what his party plans to do if voters choose to restore sanity to their government in November.
Donald Trump may have run on draining the swamp during the 2016 presidential campaign, but Democrats plan to fulfill that promise if they win control of Congress in 2018.
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Throughout his career in politics, Donald Trumps rhetoric and actions toward immigrants have been nothing short of disgusting.
Whether its kicking off his campaign by calling Mexican immigrants rapists or his more recent border policy of separating children sometimes babies from their parents, Trump has successfully used immigration as a wedge to divide the country and boost his own political fortunes.
According to a new report, though, Trump has no problem using foreigners so long as it benefits his financial bottom line.
According to a Buzzfeed News report, The Trump International Beach Resort in Sunny Isles Beach, Florida, has sought permission to hire 37 temporary foreign workers to work as seasonal housekeepers and servers, according to records posted by the Department of Labor this week.
These workers are just a few of the hundreds that Trump businesses or brands have hired since he launched his campaign in June 2015.
This news comes on the same day The New York Times reported that the population levels at federally contracted shelters for migrant children have quietly shot up more than fivefold since last summer reaching a total of 12,800 this month.
Thats the highest level of detained migrant children in history, according to the Times.
Contrast this with the news from Buzzfeed:
Trump campaigned on a promise to defend US jobs and to tighten US immigration policies, and his administration has taken a number of actions designed to protect American jobs. Yet since he launched his presidential campaign in June 2015, businesses owned by Trump or bearing his name have sought to hire more than 570 foreign guest workers, including more than 280 for Mar-a-Lago, the luxurious resort he owns in Palm Beach, Florida.
The guest worker requests, which are subject to approval by the Department of Labor, would allow the club to employ 15 housekeepers, 16 waiters, and 6 assistant food and beverage servers via H-2 visas from December 2018 through early September 2019. The positions pay at least $11.00, $12.66, and $10.34 per hour, respectively, with the possibility of additional earnings from tips and overtime.
Trump is fine with foreigners if they advance his personal interests
It doesnt take a genius to know that the center of Trumps universe is himself. He says and does whatever he can to advance his own interests whether its financially or politically.
This is why, in the same breath, he can denigrate immigrants coming to the United States and then turn around and hire hundreds of foreigners for cheap to staff his ritzy resorts.
All of this may seem inconsistent, but its not. In both cases, Donald Trump is boosting the only person he cares about: himself.
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Late Show host Stephen Colbert said Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas is running scared from his opponent Rep. Beto ORourke. As evidence, he cited that fact that Cruz bought ads that would be shown during ORourkes Wednesday evening interview on Colberts show.
Colbert knocks scared Ted Cruz for buying ads during Beto ORourkes appearance on the Late Show
Colbert knocks 'scared' Ted Cruz for buying ads during Beto O'Rourke's appearance on the 'Late Show' https://t.co/ATPEBmvRSo Raw Story (@RawStory) September 13, 2018
Even before ORourke made an appearance Colbert slammed Cruz in his opening monologue.
Beto is running in Texas against incumbent senator, and man whose campaign staff is definitely watching this show right now, Ted Cruz, Colbert said.
Colbert also ridiculed Cruz for begging the increasingly unpopular President Donald Trump to help him campaign even though they have had a public feud for years.
You know its bad when you need backup from a man with a 36% approval rating, Colbert joked. Their backup plan is a celebrity endorsement from the herpes virus.
Heres how scared Ted Cruz is of Beto ORourke, Colbert explained. He bought ads on my show tonight to counter his interview.
During his appearance, ORourke drew a stark contrast between himself and his opponent. When Colbert asked him about Trumps favorite campaign promise a border wall with Mexico he replied very simply.
We dont need a wall, ORourke told Colbert.
Since ORourke represents the border city of El Paso in Congress he should know. He insisted that El Paso is one of the safest cities in the United States of America.
And thats not all. He said that it is safe BECAUSE of immigrants, not despite the large immigrant population.
El Paso is safe because it is a city of immigrants and because we treat one another with respect and dignity, the Congressman said.
Colbert then asked him about border security and the DREAMers, and he said:
Republican senior Sen. John Cornyn and I worked on a bill to improve border security by investing in our ports of entry. So facilitating more legitimate trade and travel and having a better idea of who and what is coming in to our country. We dont need walls. We can have smart security solutions.
And we can free DREAMers from the fear of deportation by making them U.S. Citizens today so they can contribute to their maximum capacity, to their full potential. And we can move forward in that manner of making sure that were secure, and making sure that we live up to our values and our ideals. And Texas, the defining border state and immigration experience, we should lead on that.
Betos appearance on The Late Show made clear why Cruz is running scared. He should be, because there is a very real chance he will lose this election in what would be the biggest political upset of the year.
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) U.S. President Donald Trumps former campaign chairman Paul Manafort has tentatively agreed to a plea deal with Special Counsel Robert Mueller that would avoid his going on trial next week, ABC News reported on Thursday.
The deal is expected to be announced in a Washington courtroom on Friday, but it remains unclear whether Manafort has also agreed to cooperate with prosecutors, ABC said, citing three unnamed sources with knowledge of the discussions.
Manafort lawyer Kevin Downing and Mueller spokesman Peter Carr declined to comment on the ABC report.
Jury selection is scheduled to begin on Monday in Manaforts second trial in federal court in Washington on charges including conspiring to launder money, conspiring to defraud the United States, failing to register as a foreign agent and witness tampering.
Manafort was convicted last month at trial in Alexandria, Virginia, of charges including bank and tax fraud. The prosecutions of Manafort arose from Muellers investigation into Russias role in the 2016 U.S. election and whether Trumps campaign colluded with Moscow to help him win. Trump has denied colluding with the Russians and the Russians have denied interfering.
(Reporting by Eric Beech; Editing by Mohammad Zargham and Grant McCool)
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The people of Puerto Rico are responding to Trumps claims that 3,000 people didnt die in Hurricane Maria by calling the president worthless and crazy.
Video:
CNNs Bill Weir said:
I spent time this morning with one very personal story. If you remember our coverage from a year ago, you remember Miguel and Deanna. Their home had nearly been completely crushed by a falling detention line. They said good-bye to each other, this couple of 50 years of marriage. But they survived. Miguel had half a vial of insulin in a powerless refrigerator. The V.A. Saw the report and got him insulin. But a few months later the stress, the fumes from the generator, Miguel passed away on their 50th anniversary. I went to check on his widow Deanna to see how she is doing. She told me FEMA sent her a check for $1700 but it was in her husbands name so she gave it back. They offered 20 reimburse her for the funeral, and she denied it. Theres no profit motive.
Shes most emotional about the fact that the V.A. Gave her husband of 50 years a military honor at his funeral. They gave her the flag. She teared up when she talked about that because ultimately thats all she wanted, was the respect deserved to a Vietnam veteran. And read I read her president trumps tweet today, she said how could he say something like that? How could he doubt that so many people died? Its there, everyone knows it. He has no respect for peoples emotions. Hes worthless. Hes crazy.
And these are words from a woman very soft-spoken, abuela, a grandmother who Im sure does not say these things lightly but for her, its not about getting her husbands name on the official death toll, which it isnt. Miguel, you could argue, should be on that list. It should be 2976 if we include him, but that doesnt matter to her. All she wants is a little bit of compassion, a little bit of empathy, a little bit of respect for a Vietnam veteran.
Trumps big lie about the Puerto Rico death toll only confirms his worthlessness
Worthless and crazy are two of the best terms that can be used to describe this president. He is worthless because he does nothing for the American people, and he is crazy because he denies basic facts and does not subscribe to reality. Trump is trying to use the same tactics as president that he used to build his brand and self-created mythology.
The problem is that a president cant create their own mythology. The job is public. The American people see and feel what is happening. Trump cant make thousands of deaths vanish in Puerto Rico, just like he cant pretend away the fact that his tariffs are killing American jobs, or that he has hasnt brought manufacturing back.
America needs a president, not a worthless crazy who is trying to convince the people that his fantasy life is real.
For more discussion about this story join our Rachel Maddow and MSNBC group.
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CNN is reporting this morning that six people have been killed in the Bakersfield, California area during an overnight shooting rampage.
Sheriffs deputies from Kern County responded to reports of shots fired at a trucking company near Highway 58 and Weedpatch Highway, at 5:20 p.m.
A gunman in southern California killed five people, including his wife, before turning the gun on himself as a sheriff's deputy closed in Wednesday. https://t.co/ABHqYZDNv1 NBCWashington (@nbcwashington) September 13, 2018
What they found there was the beginning of a multiple murder that took place over multiple locations, deputies said.
Sheriff Donny Youngblood of Kern County said he does not know the reason behind the shootings at this time.
Youngblood did say that the shootings started when the now-deceased suspect entered the trucking company with his wife.
The suspect then reportedly confronted a man he knew at the trucking company location, and then shot and killed the man, and then turned the gun on his wife, and shot and killed her also.
Youngblood said he described the events as they are believed to have happened based on his investigation of the incident so far.
After the initial two murders, another man reportedly entered the business, saw what had happened, and fled the scene while the suspect began shooting at him. The suspect chased the second man out of the trucking business and around to the front of another business called Bear Mountain Sports. There he was able to catch up to him, so he shot and killed the second man also, Youngblood disclosed.
The suspect then left the initial murder scenes and drove his vehicle to a residence on Breckenridge Road, where he confronted two men, before shooting and killing them also.
The suspect then went to Fillmore Avenue, where he hijacked a car which had a woman and child in it. The Sheriff said that the woman and child were unharmed and they were able to escape to safety.
The shooter then reportedly drove to Edison Highway, where he was seen by a sheriffs deputy, at which time the suspect drove into a parking lot. When he was approached by the deputy, the suspect put the gun to his chest and shot and killed himself
When asked about the length of time from the first shooting at the trucking business until the suspect killed himself, Youngblood said, I think it was a very short amount of time, about 10 or 15 minutes.
Youngblood also said that his department has interviewed more than 30 people so far during the investigation and five search warrants have been served. Only one weapon had been recovered by the time of the sheriffs press conference.
In his only commentary concerning the case, Youngblood said:
Six people lost their lives in a very short period of time. This is highly unusual. This is the new normal, if you look across the country, these types of shootings.
This was the largest mass murder in California since the San Bernardino shooting in December of 2015 which killed 14 people.
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One thing Donald Trump has done is to normalize craziness in the White House. We have come to expect some type of off-the-wall statement or behavior on the part of the president nearly every day. We are no longer surprised or shocked at scandals, because they have become the norm during Trumps presidency.
For example, the Stormy Daniels story of illicit sex and hush money payoffs used to be a big deal and capture major headlines. Now it is ho-hum because we have become so desensitized to scandal. But it actually is a big deal, as her attorney Michael Avenatti keeps trying to remind us. It actually isnt normal for a president to have paid off so many women with whom he had extramarital affairs. And we really should be shocked.
Congratulations @ stormydaniels on your amazing new book Full Disclosure http://www.stormybook.com . I am excited for the world to learn who you really are and the truth about your incredible story. # Hero # TeamStormy
Congratulations @stormydaniels on your amazing new book Full Disclosure https://t.co/KbDHHY7KaT. I am excited for the world to learn who you really are and the truth about your incredible story. #Hero #TeamStormy pic.twitter.com/nKstg500hC Michael Avenatti (@MichaelAvenatti) September 12, 2018
Yesterday Daniels went on television and announced that she like so many other people who have had dealings with Donald Trump is coming out with a new tell-all book. It is called Full Disclosure and she says it will include all the steamy details of her affair with the president.
The first question I have is this: do we really want to know those details?
I guess Daniels and her publisher believe that we do, because she is being paid good money to tell her story. (The exact amount has not been disclosed.)
Daniels of course is the porn star and film producer who sued President Donald Trump trying to get out of the contract she signed in which she promised to stay silent about her alleged sexual encounter with Trump.
Everybody knows that a lot of the 60 Minutes interview was cut down for time and there are things that I said in my interview that I really wanted people to know that are very important to me that I didnt get to say, Daniels said Wednesday on ABCs The View.
I was like, Im going to write everything and include it, and people can think what they want about me. But at least its the truth, Daniels added.
Daniels also said when she heard that Trumps personal attorney Michael Cohen testified that Trump had directed him to make the $130,000 payment, she began to cry. She said:
That news was like a punch in the gut. I was so overwhelmed I just broke down into sobs, because I didnt realize how much pressure I had felt. You know, people call me all kinds of names and who cares, but to be called a liar, and people not believe me for months and months. It was like so, yes! Vindicated! I felt like all this weight came off my shoulders.
Cohen told federal judge that he had paid Daniels $130,000 for signing the non-disclosure agreement 11 days before the 2016 presidential election in which Trump was elected. In August, Cohen pleaded guilty to eight criminal charges that arose from the payment. Trumps former fixer also admitted he made the payment on behalf of Trump to keep the affair secret so it would not influence the election.
According to Daniels her book will go on sale October 2nd.
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Washington, D.C. is a city of distractions, and Donald Trump knows that every time he posts an outrageous tweet that all attention will be focused on that instead of on something that is more important.
There have been many distractions in Washington over the past few weeks, so a major story has been ignored when it should have still been making headlines.
Yesterday the New York Times reported that the number of migrant children being held in custody by the U.S. government is now at its highest level ever, but these children are being ignored. They should not be ignored.
To her credit, Nancy Pelosi has recently reminded the media of the gravity of the situation, as she called the administrations policy toward migrant children inhumane.
According to government data obtained by the Times there are currently 12,800 children being detained in federal custody right now, the highest number ever. In May of 2017 there were just 2,400 migrant children in federal custody.
There seem to be numerous reasons that so many children are still in the baby jails as they are called. According to the government it is not because more children are being arrested or taken from their parents right now, but is because fewer children are being released from custody.
Laws require that unaccompanied children be placed with sponsors who meet certain requirements. Historically, children have been released to the custody of parents or extended family members upon entering the U.S., but that has changed under Trump.
Now the Trump administration has a new rule that began in June requiring sponsors of detained children to first be fingerprinted. Unless this occurs, they cannot pick up children. Fingerprint information of course is then shared with immigration officials.
Since many family members who want to be sponsors do not have proper legal documentation, they generally are reluctant to be fingerprinted because this would risk their deportation.
So the answer is to just keep the migrant children in jail indefinitely.
After the Times report, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released a statement saying;
The number of unaccompanied alien children apprehended are a symptom of the larger problem, namely a broken immigration system, and HHS has a rigorous system for vetting sponsors out of concern for childrens safety.
Because children who enter the country illegally are at high risk for exploitation by traffickers and smugglers, the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) at HHS Administration for Children and Families maintains high standards for vetting childrens sponsors for the safety and well-being of the child.
Demographic and other factors affecting how long children remain in care fluctuate over time, but ORR consistently acts to ensure sponsors are screened appropriately for the protection of children.
Earlier this month President Trump announced plans to withdraw from a court agreement that puts strict limits on the U.S. governments detention of migrant children. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi at the time said:
This is another inhumane assault on families and children. Its a wrong decision that he madeI completely disagree with what the president has done.
Many other people also disagree with what Trump is doing to migrant children, but he doesnt care, because he has learned that the more cruel he is, the more his base of political supporters approves of his actions. Hopefully the nightmare of the Trump presidency will be over soon.
Under the so-called name deal signed on June 17 in the village of Pespa on the Greek-Macedonian border, Macedonia agreed to change its name while Greece agreed to lift its long-standing veto on Macedonias NATO and EU integration. In July, NATO leaders agreed to invite Macedonia to begin accession talks to join the alliance. On September 30, Macedonia will hold a referendum asking its citizens: "Do you support EU and NATO membership by accepting the agreement between Macedonia and Greece?"
On September 17, U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis accused Russia of attempting to influence the upcoming vote. More on that in the section on Macedonia's political parties.
An article published on August 8 by the Russian state news agency RIA Novosti claimed that VMRO-DPMNE, the former Macedonian ruling party that is now the countrys largest opposition party, is boycotting the referendum. However, VMRO-DPMNE leader Hristijan Mickoski recently said that the party would not tell people to boycott the referendum.
The Russian state media agency claimed the party signed a memorandum to cooperate on a referendum boycott. While 30 Macedonia political parties, groups and individuals signed such a memorandum, VMRO-DPMNE did not.
The official stance of VMRO-DPMNE regarding the referendum is we have no position. It is not our job to tell the people if and how they should vote, Mickoski said during a recent rally.
At the latest VMRO-DPMNE meeting, convened Tuesday, September 11, the party leadership did not deliver any definite decision on the referendum.
A source in VMRO-DPMNE partys leadership, who asked not to be identified, did confirm to Polygraph.info that around 100,000 members would refrain from voting.
Of about 330,000 strong party membership, we expect that around 100,000 would boycott the referendum. This quiet boycott is organized by the pro-Russian currents within the ranks of our party and from outside groups and forces paid by the Russians, the source who leads one of the factions inside the party that is against the boycott.
The source, who asked not to be identified, is leading one of the factions inside the party that are against the boycott, and confirmed that the party did not sign an agreement, as RIA Novosti claimed.
Vladimir Petreski, a Skopje-based fact checking editor and political analyst, said VMRO-DPMNE cannot afford the image of publicly calling for a boycott of the referendum.
That will be seen as undemocratic move, not respecting European values, Petreski told Polygraph.info.
Once the countrys ruling party, VMRO-DPMNE, which stands for Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization-Democratic Party for Macedonian National Unity, is Macedonias leading opposition party. While in power, it played on pro-Russian sentiments, and Moscow sought to use it in its campaign to stop NATO expansion into the Balkans.
Russia and Macedonias Political Parties
After Nikola Gruevski was replaced as VMRO-DPMNE leader he is now awaiting trial on charges of embezzlement the partys new pro-Western leadership openly expressed support for Macedonias NATO and EU aspirations.
Ultimately, VMRO-DMPNE lost the Kremlins favor. This led Moscow to create a pro-Russian party of extreme nationalists and ex-police officers, a scheme well known all over Europe: if you cannot get the support of an established party, create a puppet one, Petreski said.
Petreski was referring to United Macedonia, an irrelevant political group that embraces and welcomes Russian influence in the country. While the party borrowed its name from the ruling United Russia and includes extreme nationalists and ex-police officials, its leader claims it has not received any funds from Russia.
According to Britains Guardian, United Macedonia leader Janko Bachev is a fringe politician, and a Russian flag flies from the balcony of the partys offices. The newspaper quoted him as claiming he has not received any funds from Russia.
On his visit to Macedonia on September 17, Mattis told reporters traveling with him to the Macedonian capital he had "no doubt" Moscow has been funding pro-Russian groups to defeat a referendum to change the Balkan country's name.
"They have transferred money and they are also conducting broader influence campaigns,'' Mattis said. "We ought to leave the Macedonian people to make up their own minds.''
In June, Polygraph.info reported a key figure in the Kremlins efforts to influence Macedonia, Leonid Savin, provided training for 50 members of the United Macedonia party. Savin is listed as chief editor of two agencies, including Katehon, a Web site funded by Konstantin Malofeev, a Russian businessman sanctioned by the U.S. for support of operations in Russian-occupied Crimea.
The Russian factor played a crucial role in both Greece and Macedonia in undermining the name agreement and preventing the country from becoming NATO member. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Wes Mitchell warned about this during Congressional testimony days after the deal was sealed.
At the beginning of July, Greece expelled two Russian diplomats and banned two others from entering the country, saying they were threats to national security. According to the Greek authorities, they tried to bribe top government and Orthodox Church officials to foment violent protests against the name deal in Thessaloniki and other cities in northern Greece.
The Macedonian government has allotted over $1.5 million (U.S. dollars) for the upcoming referendum campaign, and these funds have been distributed to the political parties represented in the countrys parliament. However, the parliamentary representatives who oppose the agreement with Greece refused to campaign and returned their share of the money, or 41 percent of the originally allotted sum.
(Editor's Note: This fact check, originally published September 13, is updated with comments by the U.S. defense secretary on his visit to Skojpe, Macedonia September 17. The addition does not change the fact check, but adds context to this article).
On September 11, 2018, Russias embassy in London tweeted comments from a RIA Novosti interview with Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Oleg Syromolotov, who said that Russia, Turkey, and Iran have achieved progress in Syria. He claimed that Syria has been preserved as an independent state and that the ISIS war machine is in ashes.
While it is true that Bashar al-Assad remains in power, many of Syrias important cities lay in ruins from Russian and regime bombardment or that of the U.S.-led coalition. Aleppo is a prime example.The once thriving city has been largely destroyed by regime and Russian air strikes and artillery attacks. Raqqa, once the de facto capital of the so-called Islamic State (IS), was almost completely destroyed by U.S. and coalition air strikes. Numerous photos show how many of Syrias cities have been laid to waste after years of civil war.CNN reported in March that government reconstruction was almost non-existent in cities where fighting had stopped.
And while Syrias government and Russia have begun a push to oust rebels from Idlib Province, al-Assad still lacks control over large swathes of Syrian territory. Turkey has been closely involved with the rebels in the Idlib region and maintains a military presence in northern Syria, controlling areas near the Turkish border.
A significant portion of Syrias north and east is controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), largely organized around the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD). The Kurds declared autonomy in their regions at the start of the Syrian revolution and thus the government, while negotiating with the rebels, does not control that territory. Earlier this year, an attempt to by pro-government forces capture some of this territory with the help of Russian mercenaries from the so-called Wagner group led to lethal air and artillery strikes from U.S. forces stationed with the SDF.
The Assad regime remains reliant on Russia and Iran, both militarily and financially, for survival. Even as far back as 2014 it was largely dependent on Iranian financial aid. The regime has also had trouble finding people to fight for it. The governments so-called Syrian Arab Army is mostly a mixture of various militias, bolstered by Hezbollah militias from neighboring Lebanon, along with Iranian-organized Shiite militias from countries like Iraq and even Afghanistan, as well as fighters from a Russian paramilitary company.
IS has been largely defeated in Syria, but it was pushed out mainly by the Syrian Democratic Forces with the help of the U.S. and its coalition. The Pentagon claimed earlier in the year that Islamic State was making something of a comeback in Syria. Even Russias Defense Ministry recognized an escalation by IS groups in some places, after a devastating attack by Islamic State fighters in August on the regime-held town of Suwayda.
Charleston, SC (29403)
Today
Rain and wind. Low 49F. Winds N at 20 to 30 mph. Chance of rain 100%. Rainfall near a half an inch. Higher wind gusts possible..
Tonight
Rain and wind. Low 49F. Winds N at 20 to 30 mph. Chance of rain 100%. Rainfall near a half an inch. Higher wind gusts possible.
WILMINGTON, N.C. This seaside town stuck in the direct path of Hurricane Florence is bracing for a dangerous, potentially deadly swell of rising water from the area's beaches and historic riverfront.
The surge of ocean water could top off at 13 feet above ground level in some areas, along with up to 30 inches of rain that would shatter rainfall records and almost certainly cause catastrophic flooding.
"It's quite frightening," said Steven Pfaff, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Wilmington.
Florence is expected to make a direct strike on Wilmington sometime Friday and, because the storm is moving slowly, could pour rain on the area through the weekend, Pfaff said. The storm is the first of this magnitude to strike Wilmington in two decades.
Recalling the worst elements of other historic storms that have struck Wilmington, Florence is something like a worst-case scenario.
Its rainfall is projected to top the 19.06 inches dropped by the infamous Hurricane Floyd in 1999. And the storm surge could be even worse than the 12 feet of rising ocean water in 1996 caused by Hurricane Fran, one of the most destructive storms in Wilmington's history.
New Hanover County starting Tuesday ordered mandatory evacuations along the area's coast. The University of North Carolina Wilmington also ordered its students and faculty to leave.
As the winds picked up late Thursday morning, a few pubs were still open downtown.
A couple dozen gathered at the Barbary Coast dive on Front Street. You could smell liquor and cigarette smoke from the street. A lone beagle stared out the bar's open front door, frowning.
At the century-old Murchison building near Chestnut Street, owner Brian Ballard said he was going to ride out the storm at his Pour Taproom.
He points to the building's old bank vault, secured by three inches of hardened steel. Inside, he has a cot for himself and a cage for Finley, his Russian hamster.
"I figured the safest place in Wilmington is a safe," he said.
Others took a walk by the Cape River. As Florence began to spit rain past noon, several gulls loomed over the water in an eerie swoop.
The river's rising tide rapped the banks of Riverfront Park.
By 4 p.m. the winds had picked up at the abandoned marinas near Wrightsville Beach outside Wilmington. The gusts rocked tall blades of sea grass. Boat owners, apparently all gone, left their vessels tied up.
A crowd gathered near the empty Dockside restaurant as the rain spitting from gray clouds turned to showers.
The bar was closed, so people brought their own packs of Modelo and Bud Light.
They watched the bay water rise nearly overtop the docks of the finger piers. A few birds chirped from nearby trees, but didnt leave their nests.
Expecting a direct hit, the city on Wednesday closed its lone bridge to the beach. By Thursday evenings wind and rain, it was clear that Florence had readied its siege.
This story will be updated
South Carolina and North Carolina are about to be thrashed by a hurricane bigger than the two states combined.
Amid predictions of disastrous damage and widespread flooding to come, Hurricane Florence is expected to stall off the coast of North Carolina into Friday near the states' border but still throwing out a wide circle of powerful winds and pummeling rain.
But there was some good news late Wednesday night. Florence continued to weaken but was still considered a dangerous Category 2 storm with winds at 110 mph, down from 140 mph, as it approached the coast a few hundred miles off Myrtle Beach.
More than 10 million people were under hurricane warnings or watches in the Carolinas and Virginia, while Georgia declared a state of emergency as well.
The storm, the first major hurricane of the 2018 season, is expected to drift south to make landfall below Myrtle Beach by Saturday, maybe still as a hurricane, before rapidly weakening as it moves across the state.
Forecasters stressed the danger associated with Florence, comparing it to Hurricane Hugo in 1989.
"The threat to life from storm surge and rainfall will not diminish, and these impacts will cover a large area regardless of exactly where the center of Florence moves," National Hurricane Center specialist Stacy Stewart said Wednesday.
"This one really scares me," Hurricane Center Director Ken Graham said.
Late Wednesday, Florence's tropical storm force winds extended nearly 200 miles. Its hurricane force winds extended 70 miles.
Rain predictions varied. The official Hurricane Center outlook called for anywhere from 5 to 20 inches of rain across South Carolina and anywhere from 20 to 40 inches across North Carolina.
The storm surge could be as high as 4 feet near Charleston, as much as 6 feet in Myrtle Beach and as much as 13 feet in North Carolina.
No coastal city, including Charleston, is considered out of the woods for possible landfall.
In Charleston, the Interstate 26 lane reversal for evacuations is scheduled to end Thursday night when tropical storm-force winds arrive.
Across both states, most stores and businesses had closed while gasoline and other supplies were getting scarce. Residents and vacationers were taking South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster's advice to leave the coast and low-lying areas.
David Williams, who lives in the Charlotte area, spent the week securing vacation homes and boats on the Grand Strand. Two years ago, Williams, 60, rode out Hurricane Matthew on his 72-foot vessel. But the powerful Florence wasnt worth wrangling with, he said.
Williams docked the boat at a marina off the Intracoastal Waterway, which separates Grand Strand beach communities from the mainland.
Everythings deserted anyway, he said. And its going to get a little hairy. ... Im going inland."
The National Hurricane Center and S.C. Climate Office forecasters continued to indicate the storm might well stall "near the coast" of North Carolina or northern South Carolina until Saturday. Under that scenario it would drift toward Orangeburg by Sunday morning, weakening to a tropical storm before falling apart.
At least some computer model runs appeared to be falling into that consensus.
But one of the main computer model runs continued to suggest that after stalling near landfall, the storm will drift down along the South Carolina coastline as far as Charleston or Savannah over the weekend maybe as still a hurricane.
Such a southward drift has never happened before in recorded hurricanes on the Southeast coast.
Meteorologist Bob Henson, with the private company Weather Underground, and Charleston-based meteorologist Shea Gibson, of the private company WeatherFlow, said the storm's winds would be expected to ease as it drifted but couldn't say yet how much.
"It would be a huge mistake to consider Florence less of a threat on such a track. Unusual tracks with big storms often produce unusual outcomes," Henson said.
Either way, "Its gonna be a lousy weekend here," Charleston Mayor John Tecklenburg said Wednesday. He urged people to get out of the city.
In South Carolina, hurricane warnings extended as far south as the Santee River near McClellanville and hurricane watches as far south as Edisto Beach.
A warning means hurricane conditions are expected within 36 hours; a watch means they could occur within 48 hours.
Officials stressed common sense was the best route in the face of an unpredictable, possibly fatal event.
"You can take control of your destiny by getting out of the way of this storm," Mount Pleasant Mayor Will Haynie said.
Charleston Police Chief Luther Reynolds said the more people out of the city, the safer emergency responders will be.
"We are a resilient community. We are going to recover from whatever comes ... but, the safest thing to protect human life is to evacuate now," Reynolds said.
Henson, of Weather Underground, said that Florence should be considered a historic storm.
"Its strength, size, and potentially unorthodox track all point to outcomes that may lie outside historical experience," he said.
The winds and worst of the surge are most likely to arrive Thursday evening in Charleston, but the first of it could be felt as early as Thursday morning.
Andrew Knapp and Hannah Alani contributed to this report.
At 11 p.m. Thursday, Hurricane Florence had weakened to Category 1 hurricane with 90 mph winds off the North Carolina coast.
The storm continued creeping at 6 mph to the northwest. Federal forecasters expected it to turn overnight to move more westward then begin to crawl down the coast toward the South Carolina-North Carolina border, where earlier forecasts suggested it would move inland on Friday.
But federal meteorologists couldn't rule out that Florence might make landfall farther south. Three computer models still indicated the storm would straddle the South Carolina coastline before turning in closer to Charleston.
"While that is not shown by the official forecast, it cannot yet be ruled out as a possibility," said National Hurricane Center specialist Robbie Berg.
Florence was 50 miles south of Morehead City and 60 miles east southeast of Wilmington. Its wind field continued to span 80 miles at hurricane force and 195 miles at tropical storm force.
The North Carolina coast was getting hammered. A wind instrument at Fort Macon, in Atlantic Beach outside Morehead City, was registering 77 mph winds and gusts near 100 mph, according to Charleston-based meteorologist Shea Gibson, of the private companyWeatherFlow.
The National Weather Service reported a storm surge of 10 feet in the Neuse River near New Bern.
A flare-up of thunderstorms before 7 p.m. Thursday, stirred by the warmer waters of the Gulf Stream, had meteorologists watching to see if the already dangerous storm regained any strength, but the 8 p.m. National Hurricane Center advisory kept its winds at 100 mph, a Category 2 hurricane.
Earlier, tropical storm warnings were issued for Charleston, Berkeley and Dorchester counties Thursday afternoon.
A warning means those conditions can be expected within 36 hours. Tropical storm winds are 39 mph or stronger. The Weather Service office in Charleston called for 35 to 45 mph by Friday morning, with gusts up to 55 mph.
The main threat for most of South Carolina continues to be flooding rains as the storm moves across at least the upper portions of the state on Saturday and Sunday, as well as river flooding later in the week.
Bands of torrential rain associated with #Florence are expected to move into the Charleston tri-county area Friday, peaking Friday night into Saturday. @NWSWPC has that area outlined in a Slight to Moderate risk for excessive rainfall. #scwx #chswx pic.twitter.com/lXR2aNRCM9 NWS Charleston, SC (@NWSCharlestonSC) September 13, 2018
The area of greatest concern for river flooding will be the Pee Dee River basin, said Alvin Taylor, S.C. Department of Natural Resources director.
"It will have the greatest rainfall over the shortest period of time," he said. That plus downstream flow from North Carolina could cause problems, as the Little Pee Dee and Lumber rivers did after Hurricane Matthew in 2016, when inland Horry County towns flooded.
The Great Pee Dee "takes a lot of water from a lot of different rivers. It is the most vulnerable," Taylor said. After that, the Catawba and then the Edisto River basins are priorities. But he said that may change once the rain starts falling, as his agency will get real-time information.
"At the end of the day, it depends on how much rain falls in one particular area," Taylor said.
On Thursday afternoon, the Hurricane Center advisory estimated the Pee Dee region in the northeastern part of South Carolina could see anywhere from 20 to 40 inches of downpour. The rest of the state could see anywhere from 6 to 12 inches.
The hurricane was 100 miles east southeast of Wilmington, North Carolina, and 155 miles east of Myrtle Beach. It had lost a little more strength but was still a Category 2 storm capable of extensive damage.
At 5 p.m. Florence had slowed to a crawl and maybe stalled, an expected development.
The storm was forecast to stall off North Carolina near the South Carolina border, raking the coast before making landfall. The area of uncertainty for landfall still extended over most of the South Carolina coast because the storm could drift south before coming in.
The Hurricane Center forecast track called for Florence to diminish to a tropical storm by early Saturday after landfall, said Hurricane Center specialist Stacy Stewart.
"After landfall occurs, rapid weaning of the stronger inner-core wind field is expected to due land interaction and Florence's slow forward speed," Stewart said.
"However, intense rain bands are expected to develop over the Atlantic waters and keep moving along the coast and inland, likely producing strong wind gusts through Saturday night," he said.
For the Charleston area, once winds hits 40 mph medical services will be off the road or responding only to serious calls. At 50 mph, the vehicles get off the road no matter how serious the call might be.
"If you are frail or you need medical attention, the best thing to do is to not be in the area where the storm is," said Charleston County EMS Director David Abrams. "Be in a place where you can get the services you are accustomed to, for the health and safety of you and your family."
As of Thursday afternoon, there were no plans to close the Ravenel Bridge between Mount Pleasant and Charleston. Isle of Palms doubled police and fire staff on-duty. Mount Pleasant put police on 12-hour shifts.
Charleston Mayor John Tecklenburg cautioned that while Florence had lessened in intensity, it remains a dangerous storm.
Its been kind of a roller coaster ride, hasnt it? Tecklenburg said.
The Weather Service in Charleston on Thursday morning called for:
The possibility of tropical storm force winds and/or wind gusts up to 45 to 50 mph over parts of Charleston and Berkeley Counties as early as late Friday morning.
Conditions should gradually deteriorate in regards to showers and a few thunderstorms over the tri-county area Friday afternoon.
Rain around 2.5 inches nudges into the area from the north Friday.
Biggest effect of the storm Saturday into Sunday, rain 2.5 to 3 inches.
More than 10 million people were under hurricane warnings or watches in the Carolinas and Virginia, while Georgia declared a state of emergency as well.
In South Carolina, hurricane warnings extended as far south as the Santee River near McClellanville and hurricane watches as far south as Edisto Beach.
"Aircraft and satellite wind data show that Florence is a large hurricane. Life-threatening storm surge, heavy rainfall, and damaging wind will cover a large area regardless of exactly where the center of Florence moves," said Hurricane Center specialist Daniel Brown.
In Berkeley County, the Charleston area county maybe closest to the threat from the storm's winds and rain, the middle school shelter in Moncks Corner still had plenty of room at midday Thursday. But flooding rains were a concern. Most low-lying tracts of the county were underwater during the historic flood in 2015.
Michelle Ivey brought her six children to the shelter for their safety because she lives in the French Quarter Creek community, where some residents had to be airlifted to safety after a sudden rise in the flood waters swamped homes.
"Rain floods the front yard already," she said.
In the shelter too was rural Cordesville resident Alberta Gadsden, who said she came as soon as it opened and was thankful to be there. When it comes to flooding, her community scares her these days.
In 2016, Hurricane Matthew dumped enough rain to significantly flood Cordesville and put a bridge out of commission that residents rely on to get to and from the community.
You couldnt get out, Gadsden said. It took us three days to get out to Moncks Corner.
Meteorologist Jeff Masters, with the private company Weather Underground, said that on Thursday night "Florence will put on the brakes and screech to a halt as the steering currents collapse."
On Friday and beyond, he said, "Slight changes in the balance between these (air pressure currents) guiding the hurricane will make a huge difference in where the hurricane makes landfall. This makes the exact landfall location difficult to predict accurately."
Rain predictions varied. The official Hurricane Center outlook called for anywhere from 5 to 20 inches of rain across South Carolina and anywhere from 20 to 40 inches across North Carolina.
The storm surge could be as high as 4 feet near Charleston, as much as 6 feet in Myrtle Beach and as much as 13 feet in North Carolina.
David, Slade, Andrew Knapp, Seanna Adcox, Paul Bowers and Greg Yee contributed to this report.
As forecasts showed Hurricane Florence shifting toward South Carolina's coast, some Charleston area residents hatched last-minute plans to evacuate Wednesday as authorities warned that time to leave was running out.
Officials said an estimated 300,000 South Carolinians had fled their homes by Wednesday, following an evacuation order by Gov. Henry McMaster, which affects residents along the coast from Edisto Beach to the North Carolina state line. The evacuation formally began Tuesday afternoon with the reversal of eastbound Interstate 26, between Columbia and Charleston, and U.S. Highway 501 out of Myrtle Beach.
As the storm outlook for South Carolina worsened, Charleston officials urged residents to heed the evacuation order, citing concerns of heavy rainfall and flooding that could persist through the weekend.
"If you live in a low-lying area that has flooded in the past three years, now is the time to evacuate," Charleston Assistant Fire Chief Joey Roberts said. "This may be worse than what weve seen before."
The storm is projected to make landfall Saturday near Myrtle Beach, then could drift down the coast as far as Charleston or Savannah over the weekend, so some locals wondered where to safely evacuate.
"Go wherever youre comfortable, go wherever youd like to go," whether that's a hotel or a friend or relative's home, McMaster said. "The thing to do is to get away from the storm."
A James Island man who only provided his name as Desbrown said he considered evacuating to Charlotte, where he and his family could stay with relatives, but he said it didn't make sense to drive in the direction of the storm. He said his wife worried about the hurricane's path, but they are choosing to hunker down at home.
Desbrown said his neighbors also planned to stay.
"My community is here, everyone is here, so I'm gonna stay put," he said.
As of 4 p.m., S.C. Department of Transportation traffic counts showed that 21,062 cars and trucks had headed west on the east and westbound lanes of I-26 in the Harleyville area Wednesday, about 45 percent more than the 14,501 vehicles on that stretch during an average day.
Officials said lane reversals will end Thursday. The evacuation process will stop at 6 p.m. on I-26 and noon on U.S. Highway 501.
Along Folly Road on James Island, boarded-up businesses and gas pump nozzles wrapped in yellow "out of service" bags signaled that people were preparing as the storm neared.
At a gas station, James Island resident Donna Tracy stopped to fill her tires before evacuating with her cat to a hotel in Augusta, Georgia.
Following several consecutive days of monitoring unpredictable forecasts, Tracy said her preparation for the hurricane has been more emotional than anything. She has vacillated between leaving and riding out the storm.
"Its hard on your nerves, she said.
Outside James Island Town Hall, Kerri Hetzler and her two daughters waited for a truck to deliver that location's last pile of sand for sandbags.
Hetzler booked a hotel in Columbia days in advance in preparation for a just in case scenario. She said her family planned to load the car up with their two dogs and guinea pig and leave Wednesday.
"We've got trees all around our home so I don't wanna take any chances with that," she said. "And then who knows with the flooding?"
ST. PAUL At the beginning of the Minnesota State Fair, hog farmer Wanda Patsche is volunteering at the swine barn exhibit, where a visitor can pet piglets, see different varieties of hogs like the Chester White, and pick up a free paper headband with pig ears.
One of the things on Patsches mind as she talks to fairgoers: the economic plight of farmers.
"Being a hog farmer right now, its hard," she says. "Its really hard."
Patsche raises more than 4,000 pigs a year in Welcome in Martin County. Retaliatory tariffs Mexico and China have placed on U.S. pork products are hurting farmers like her who depend heavily on export markets. Shes getting less than $100 a pig today. That covers the cost of the piglet and the grain needed to help it reach market size, but little else.
"Were probably losing $30 to $40 a head. Weve got to get the tariff situation figured out for our country," she says. "We can go a little while, but if its extended, were going to see farmers going out of business."
A $12 billion agricultural bailout the Trump administration announced recently might provide some relief, but most farmers, it seems, would rather get a good price for their crops than take a federal check. For now, Patsche is cheerfully encouraging state fairgoers to buy pork, even as she feels battered by the trade war.
"Were really very proud of what we do, we love growing food for people, and Im just like, open those markets up for us, let us do what we do best," she says.
Cheering Trumps moves
President Trump handily won Minnesotas farm country in 2016 and he still has a lot of support there. Farmer Lorn Wallin is hanging out by the fairs milking parlor in a bright red "Make America Great Again" T-shirt. He says Trump is already helping farmers by rolling back regulations that affect them. And hes cheering the Trump administrations trade moves.
"I hope that they stand their ground," he says. "That probably isnt what youd expect to hear out of a farmer." Wallin says when this trade war is over, farmers will be better for it.
Ness, a medical writer from Rochester, had always felt drawn to Italy. On her third trip, as she explored a small village in wine country, she walked into a restaurant and was enchanted first by a delicious dessert, then by the man who made it.
Vincenzo Giangiordano, who ran the restaurant in Chianti at the time, feels the same.
"He always says fate brought us together," Ness said. "But I say it was the chocolate cake."
The pair met when only two weeks remained of her six-month trip -- but they kept in touch.
A year later, they reconnected. Shortly after that, they were married and living in a small village (of about 250 people) in Italy.
"Its a really great love story," Ness said. "I cant hardly believe its mine."
Food connected the two initially, and in "Love in a Tuscan Kitchen: Savoring Life through the Romance, Recipes, and Traditions of Italy," the couples story is punctuated with cooking. Recipes for pasta, soups, and traditional desserts dot Ness manuscript, which was published in March of this year.
There are 38 traditional recipes in the book, most of which come from Giangiordanos cookbooks. However, his mothers cooking also features prominently.
{{tncms-inline content="3 fresh lemons (medium size)
30 ounces heavy cream (around 1 quart)
3/4 cup sugar
(Note: A food thermometer is needed for this recipe.)
Place the heavy cream and sugar in a medium saucepan and slowly warm over low to medium heat until the cream reaches a temperature of 167 degrees Fahrenheit. Take off the heat and let cool slightly until the mixture reaches a temperature of 149 degrees.
While the mixture is cooling, zest the lemons and squeeze the juice into a small bowl. When zesting the lemon, take off all of the outer yellow peel, down to the white pith.
Once the cream reaches 149 degrees, stir in the lemon juice and lemon zest.
Pour the lemon cream into individual glass parfait dishes (the cream should fit in about 8-10 parfait dishes that are at least 4 ounces each). Let cool slightly (20 minutes). Place parfait glasses covered in plastic wrap in refrigerator.
The cream will set up and be ready to eat in 4-6 hours. This is best prepared the day before you plan to serve it. It can be stored in the refrigerator for 4-5 days.
Recipe note: The lemon cream pairs well with fresh berries.
" id="d3594d25-bb44-4087-b88f-87201bdefcd6" style-type="refer" title="Lemon Cream Recipe" type="relcontent"}}
"It took me years to get those (recipes)," Ness said. "Your mom is hard to pin down. But shes a good cook."
Giangiordano, who began cooking in 1989 and ran his own restaurant for seven years, had worked in five-star restaurants and specialized in pasta and sauces from all over the country.
Now he works for Pescara and Terza, making fresh pasta every day and pastries once or twice a week.
"Tiramisu is from Italy, its a classic recipe," Giangiordano said. "In Italy, every recipe has a story."
To tie in the stories behind their cooking, hell demonstrate recipes from "Love in a Tuscan Kitchen" at two locations this Saturday -- the Farmers Market and Dwell Locals Oktoberfest and Fall Market.
{{tncms-inline content="“Love in a Tuscan Kitchen: Savoring Life Through the Romance, Recipes, and Traditions of Italy” is available at Dwell Local or on Amazon.com.
" id="07d6d24e-3ed7-439d-94ae-6e85cdcd3fd4" style-type="fact" title="Read it yourself" type="relcontent"}}
"Well be cooking all day," Ness said. "One of our favorite things to do is go to the Farmers Market and pick out fresh things for the week. Its really like the traditions in Italy."
Most importantly, Ness hopes the book will teach people to explore the things (and places, and people) that could bring them happiness.
"Take a chance when you feel something in your gut," she said. "Or in your heart."
Maybe in that order.
{{tncms-inline content="What
Tasting at the Farmers Market - using fresh ingredients, Giangiordano and Ness will make Panzanella, Apple Fennel Salad and Pecorino Cheese Soffiato with Pear Wine Jam from the book.
When
8-11 a.m., Saturday, Sept. 15
Where
Downtown Farmers Market, 4th St. SE and 4th Ave. SE, Rochester
What
Oktoberfest & Fall Market - Giangiordano and Ness will talk about the book and bring some items for tasting during the event.
When
Oktoberfest takes place from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 15
Where
Dwell Local, 602 7th St. NW, Rochester
" id="d2c1ea92-61d5-44ed-a8b0-7756e46ab1fe" style-type="fact" title="If You Go" type="relcontent"}}
What Tasting at the Farmers Market - using fresh ingredients, Giangiordano and Ness will make Panzanella, Apple Fennel Salad and Pecorino Cheese Soffiato with Pear Wine Jam from the book. When 8-11 a.m., Saturday, Sept. 15 Where Downtown Farmers Market, 4th St. SE and 4th Ave. SE, Rochester What Oktoberfest & Fall Market - Giangiordano and Ness will talk about the book and bring some items for tasting during the event. When Oktoberfest takes place from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 15 Where Dwell Local, 602 7th St. NW, Rochester
Last September, when the first terrible surge started, we mourned the 21 people who COVID-19 had killed since landing on our island in March 2 Read more
Gov. Eddie Calvo announced this afternoon he has transmitted a letter to President Donald Trump, highlighting his intention to request for a major disaster declaration for Guam, which may provide a wide range of federal assistance programs for individuals and public infrastructure.
The governor also asked the U.S. Department of the Interior to assist in working with the Federated States of Micronesia government to help displaced FSM citizens who are in Guam's secondary post-typhoon shelters. A majority of about 300 in the shelters are FSM citizens, the governor wrote to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke.
We are reaching out to you for help today because FSM nationals residing on Guam do not qualify for assistance from the United States federal government, Calvo said.
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Preliminary damage assessments in the wake of Typhoon Mangkhut are underway. Government of Guam agencies are working to gather information regarding what damage their agency faced during and after the storm, and what their shortfalls are as a result of the storm.
The PDAs from all agencies would serve as supporting documents for when Calvo does submit the request. This is estimated to be in about two weeks or less. Joint assessments will be completed with Guam Homeland Security/Office of Civil Defense, along with the Federal Emergency Management Agency representatives who will be going around to villages where major damage was incurred, the governor's office stated in a news release.
I am committed to returning our island to normalcy. I am also committed to working with federal partner agencies, to see where additional aid is available, Calvo stated. We know that recovery starts at the local level. Our people have done all they can to get back on their feet. Although Guam is and has been extremely resilient, it is now time to reach out for assistance, in whatever form that is.
What can we do to help?
That was the main question to generate input during a roundtable discussion on Tuesday about school safety efforts following a number of school shootings, including the Parkland, Florida school shooting in February that claimed the lives of 17 people and injured others.
State Sens. John Rafferty, R-44, of Collegeville, and Tom McGarrigle, R-26, of Springfield in Delaware County, hosted the Senate Majority Policy Committee, chaired by Sen. David G. Argall, R-29 (Schuylkill/Berks). In addition, Rep. Becky Corbin, R-155, of East Brandywine, and Sen. Andrew Dinniman, D-19, of West Whiteland, attended the roundtable held at the Downingtown administration building.
Downingtown schools Superintendent Emilie Lonardi and Coatesville schools Superintendent Cathy Taschner agreed that personnel are among the most important factors in keeping the students safe.
Nothing substitutes for personnel, Lonardi said, whether they are safety personnel or mental health personnel.
Lonardi added that there needs to be a core subject in school where students learn about mental health and wellness to help students have strong mental health, despite what happens in life. Heather Carr, a school psychologist at Downingtown, noted that there needs to be support in schools and programs in which students are taught about social interactive skills and coping skills.
Taschner echoed that educators need the time during the school day to talk to students about mental health to prevent incidents from occurring. Carr asked if educators were prepared for lock-down situations and Taschner noted that while school officials have drills, nationally, teachers may be unprepared.
I dont know if anyone is prepared for: lock the building down. I dont think anybody is and its changed the school experience of children and staff, Taschner said. We prepare teachers to teach. We dont prepare them to be security experts. We dont prepare them to be trained police officers or emergency personnel. We do our best.
Lionville Middle School Principal Jonathan Ross said the shortage of teachers is an impending crisis nationwide which may be caused by the stress of testing and academic achievement, in addition to the idea of keeping kids safe by fending off intruders.
Upper Uwchlan Township Police Department Chief John DeMarco noted that one of the issues that prevents communication is that his officers cannot legally be informed of an incident that occurred at the high school, in another town, involving a student who lives in Upper Uwchlan because of privacy laws that protect minors. He said it goes both ways and school district officials will not be informed of an incident that occurred where the minor resides.
There should be some type of level that we can secure to provide the school district that type of interaction and say (for example) we responded to the home three times over the weekend and they assaulted someone, but because they are a juvenile, the law is very restrictive, DeMarco said.
Theres some hope though.
Ross noticed that students have informed adults and police of threats that were posted online. He said that students deserve credit for reporting such incidents. Lionville students reported to police a threat made against another student that was posted on social media last December and the Uwchlan Police Department handled the matter.
They stepped up and did the right thing, Ross said.
Assistant Superintendent of Downingtown Robert Reed, Chief Security Officer Tim Hubbard and Downingtown school board President Jane Bertone noted that the students have created a culture where they feel comfortable reporting matters to school officials and the School Resource Officer.
Shawn McGlinchey, vice president of risk management of Krapf Bus Companies, suggested including school bus drivers at some level because they are among the first and last people to interact with students during the school day.
In the 1990s, a hostile foreign power meddled in our presidential election. There were serious questions about whether one partys candidate the beneficiary was complicit in the meddling, or at least looked the other way while it was going on. The candidate fiercely resisted the appointment of a special prosecutor, then known as an independent counsel, to investigate. Finally, amid only moderate media interest and public concern, it all faded away.
The country doing the meddling, of course, was China, and the presidential candidate was Bill Clinton, who was already in the White House and seeking re-election in 1996.
Looking back on press accounts from the era, its striking how brazen a number of the players were as they went about the task of funneling illegal foreign donations to the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee. The names have been mostly forgotten now Charlie Trie, John Huang, Johnny Chung but the record remains.
Chung, for example, who was born in Taiwan and became a U.S. citizen, was a prolific Democratic fundraiser. Between 1994 and 1996, he gave $366,000 to the DNC and visited the Clinton White House more than 50 times.
In 1995, Chung gave a $50,000 check to first lady Hillary Clintons chief of staff at an event on the White House grounds. His memorable explanation: I see the White House is like a subway you have to put in coins to open the gates.
In May 1999, Chung testified before the House Government Oversight Committee. He said that in 1996, during the Clinton re-election campaign, he met with the head of Chinese military intelligence in the basement of a restaurant in Hong Kong. We really like your president. We hope to see him re-elected, the Chinese spy, Gen. Ji Shengde, told Chung, according to Chungs testimony. Gen. Ji continued: I will give you 300,000 U.S. dollars. You can give it to the president and the Democratic Party.
Chungs testimony has provided investigators the first direct link between a senior Chinese government official and illicit foreign contributions that were funneled into Clintons 1996 re-election effort, the Los Angeles Times reported. It is the strongest evidence in two years of federal investigation that the highest levels of the Chinese government sought to influence the U.S. election process.
In the great tradition of shady operators, Chung ended up taking a lot of the money for himself. But some of the cash from the head of Chinese military intelligence that is, the Peoples Liberation Army made its way into the Clinton re-election campaign and other Democratic efforts.
Earlier, Chung had testified before a grand jury that he had also contributed money that came from another officer in the Peoples Liberation Army and from the son of Chinas top military commander. Chung pleaded guilty to bank fraud, tax evasion and conspiracy in connection with some of his illegal contributions. He was sentenced to probation.
Then there was Charlie Trie, who raised $1.2 million in foreign money for the Clinton legal defense fund and the DNC. In March 1996, Trie dropped off a donation of $460,000 at the Washington offices of the defense fund, with some of the money in sequentially numbered money orders made out in the same handwriting. He visited the White House 22 times. He pleaded guilty to violating federal election laws and was sentenced to probation.
There was also John Huang, the Democratic fundraiser who raised more than a $1.5 million from illegal foreign sources. He visited the White House 78 times. Huang was an agent for James Riady, an Indonesian businessman with extensive ties to China. The Senate Governmental Affairs Committee found that Riady had a long-term relationship with a Chinese intelligence agency. He pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations and was sentenced to probation, plus a multimillion-dollar fine.
As the news came out in the year after the election with Clinton safely back in the White House there were calls for an independent counsel to investigate. (The old independent counsel law was still in effect then.) Then-attorney general Janet Reno steadfastly refused. The Justice Department dawdled for months, and the investigation never reached the level it would have reached had an independent counsel been appointed. Republicans complained and complained, but Reno would not budge.
The scandal was news at the time; indeed, some print outlets, like the Los Angeles Times, led the way in uncovering it. The story received far less coverage on television, where several news outlets appeared distinctly uninterested. Overall, it would probably be fair to call the coverage moderate-to-restrained.
The rhetoric was restrained, too. To use one measure, it did not lead to widespread use of the word treason in the public discussion of President Clinton.
There is simply no comparison between the political conversation about the Clinton foreign influence scandal in the 1990s and todays conversation about the Trump-Russia affair. Of course, the circumstances and facts are different, but it seems reasonable to say that for whatever reason, Washington is far more upset about Russias attempt to influence the election in 2016 than it was about Chinas attempt to do the same 20 years earlier.
(Byron York is chief political correspondent for The Washington Examiner.)
The November elections just exploded.
Well, sort of.
Actually, that was the reverberations from a methane gas pipeline explosion in western Pennsylvania rolling across the Commonwealth. It was heard loud and clear hundreds of miles away. In Middletown. And Edgmont. And across Chester County.
The explosion occurred in Beaver County, near Aliquippa, Pa. A home, two garages and several vehicles were destroyed by the resultant fireball.
Luckily, no injuries were reported.
The pipeline is operated by Texas-based Energy Transfer Partners. They say the blast was a result of earth movement, stemming from recent heavy rains.
ETP is the parent company of Sunoco Logistics, which is constructing the controversial Mariner East 2 pipeline that will crisscross the state, delivering hundreds of thousands of barrels of volatile gases every day from the states Marcellus Shale regions to a facility in Marcus Hook.
In the process, it will traverse 11 miles of western Delaware County, and about 23 miles through the heart of Chester County. The route takes it past elementary schools, senior centers and libraries.
It has sparked fierce opposition in the community.
Naturally, opponents took note of the Aliquippa blast, pointing out it took place in a fairly rural area and wondering what might have happened if it had occurred in densely populated neighborhoods, much like the areas where the pipeline will travel here in the eastern part of the state.
It did not take long for the explosion in Aliquippa to be noted here.
Two Republican legislators quickly announced they were calling for an immediate halt to construction on the nearly completed Mariner East 2 project until Sunoco Logistics can properly investigate the blast in western Pa. and insure the safety of residents here.
State Rep. Chris Quinn, R-168 of Middletown, and Sen. Tom McGarrigle, R-26 of Springfield, both called for an immediate halt to construction.
I believe that Energy Transfer Corp. should halt construction of the Mariner East 2 pipeline until the cause of the explosion of its pipeline in Beaver County is investigated, and the safety of our residents can be assured, McGarrigle said.
In addition to causing great concerns among residents in the early morning hours, the Beaver County blast destroyed one home, prompted the evacuation of up to 30 others, forced the cancellation of class at nearby schools, shut down an interstate highway, and caused power lines to fall on nearby roads, McGarrigle said. Although there have been no reported injuries, this was a significant incident.
While we have highly skilled workers in our area, and this project is creating good jobs for them, everyone agrees that safety must come first. Therefore, I believe a pause in local pipeline work is the most prudent course of action, McGarrigle said.
Quinn offered much the same words of caution.
Todays pipeline explosion in Beaver County was a graphic illustration of my worst fears and the fears of many local residents related to the construction of the Mariner East pipeline, the state rep said.
While I am relieved to know that no injuries occurred, I also realize that this area of Beaver County is far less dense than the pipeline corridor in Delaware County. A similar incident in my district could be even more destructive and have a greater human toll.
Therefore, I am calling for an immediate halt to all pipeline construction activities. This pipeline should not be built until the real and legitimate safety and environmental concerns raised by myself and local residents have been fully addressed.
It is the responsibility of Sunoco Logistics and Energy Transfer Partners to prove that the tragedy that happened today in Beaver County including the evacuation of residents and closure of a school could never happen in our community. If they are unable to do so, then this pipeline should not be built. Public safety must be the top priority.
Both Quinn and McGarrigle are running for re-election. Quinn is facing Democrat Kristin Seale. McGarrigle is opposed by the Democratic mayor of Swarthmore, Tim Kearney.
And the Democrats and pipeline foes wasted no time in pointing out that both men were early supporters of the project.
It has been the paradox of this project since it was first unveiled several years ago. Its proponents note the jobs and economic potential, one they proclaim could elevate Marcus Hook to one of the energy hubs of the entire Northeast U.S. Its foes doubt the economic boon heralded by Sunoco, say most of the product being shipped is actually destined for overseas markets, and more importantly question the wisdom of the routing of the pipeline. That route takes it through densely populated residential neighborhoods.
Yesterdays blast also offers the stark reality of the potential devastation of a pipeline disaster, especially when it runs through your back yard.
It also is a harrowing reminder of the one question no one seems to want to answer.
What if?
Well, a tiny version of what If occurred yesterday in western Pennsylvania.
And it was heard loud and clear.
Competition for Power Lines Green Weenie Award this week is the most intense it has ever been. This week the climatistas are holding a climate hootenanny in San Francisco call the Global Climate Action Summit, whose carbon footprint remains unstated as of the moment. And in the same week that Gov. Jerry Brown, the summits host, signed into law a King Canute-style bill requiring California to get 100 percent of its electricity from non-carbon sources by 2045, we discover that the climatistas arent happy with Brown. At all. Theyre attacking him for the sin of not plunging California immediately into the dark ages, with this billboard downtown (I drove by it on the way to the San Francisco airport yesterday):
Heres the bill of particulars, as reported in the Chronicle:
Activists point to 20,000 new oil and gas exploration permits issued on Browns watch, including 238 for offshore state waters. Thousands of other state and federal offshore leases that predate Browns administration remain on the books. Consumer Watchdog and other groups also point out that Brown has taken $9.8 million in fossil fuel industry money for his various campaigns, causes and initiatives since he began running for governor in 2009. . . About 800 environmental groups, including Friends of the Earth, Californians Against Fracking, Breast Cancer Action and Physicians for Social Responsibility Los Angeles, have signed on in support of the Browns Last Chance website campaign. It calls on the governor to commit the state to a policy of no new fossil fuels and real action on climate change and healthier communities.
My very favorite of the story is this bit about Greenpeace official Annie Leonard meeting with Brown:
Leonard says Brown has been willing to talk. The two had a 2-hour sit-down in April to go over their differences, but she said that there are no answers he gave us that will satisfy us.
Thats because these crazy people cant be satisfied. You know youre nuts when even Jerry Brown is defective. Im just going to think of them as Jerrys Kids.
Meanwhile, the heavy-lidded John Kerry is obviously competing for a Green Weenie with his suggestion this week that Donald Trump be sued in court for the lives lost to climate change. Of course, the plaintiffs will have to stand in line at the courthouse behind the people killed by ending net neutrality, and the people who are going to die because of Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who is apparently now the Thanos of jurisprudencea true Marvel indeed.
Honorable mention, however, goes to the Washington Post, for this phone-it-in editorial that is lazy even by the low standards of editorial page writing:
Another hurricane is about to batter our coast. Trump is complicit. . . . Yet when it comes to extreme weather, Mr. Trump is complicit. He plays down humans role in increasing the risks, and he continues to dismantle efforts to address those risks.
If only Trump had remained in the toothless Paris Accord, and agreed to shovel $100 billion a year in bribes to developing nations, Im sure Hurricane Florence wouldnt have formed. Sophisticates in the media used to scoff at the Rev. Pat Robertson praying for a hurricane to pass by Virginia Beach, but fail to recognize that believing that diplomatic totems such as the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Climate Accord will change the climate requires an even bigger leap of faith than the Rev. Robertson ever needed. At least Robertson has an omnipotent God with a track record of miracles to beseech.
Reminder: which nation has reduced greenhouse gas emissions the most over the last decade? Yes, that would be the United States. Which nation is likely to reduce emissions the most over the next ten years, no matter what Trump does? Yupmost likely the United States again. (Emissions in Germany and some other European countries are actually rising again.) The climatistas really need to get a grip. In the meantime, well send them all some Green Weenies to hold on to.
Someone leaked to Breitbart an hour-long video of an all hands Google meeting that was held just after the 2016 election. The video features Googles co-founder, Sergei Brin, its CEO, Sundar Pichai, and numerous other high-ranking Googlers speaking in turn about the elections tragic outcome. It is stunning.
All of the speakers express grief over Donald Trumps election. All of the speakers assume that every Google employee is a Democrat and is stunned and horrified that Hillary Clintonthe worst and most corrupt presidential candidate in modern historylost. There is much discussion about what Google can do to reverse the benighted world-wide tide exemplified by Brexit and Trumps election. The insane doctrine of white privilege rears its head.
You really have to see it to believe it. Having suffered through the hour-long cri de curOK, to be fair, there is a huge element of schadenfreude, too, and you will relish much of ityou probably will have several reactions: 1) These people may have certain valuable technical skills, but they arent very bright and are unusually lacking in self-awareness. 2) It is remarkable that they can achieve such an extraordinary monoculture in an organization with thousands of employees. It must require vigorous enforcement of right-think. 3) It is easy to see how these uniformly left-wing robots/people seamlessly transitioned into Resisting the duly elected Trump administration.
Here is the video, then a final comment:
The question is what to do about the left-wing tech monopolies of Silicon Valley. Start conservative companies and platforms to compete with them? Break them up under the Sherman Act? Turn them into regulated public utilities, with public employee-level salaries and no stock options? Those are all possibilities. After watching the video, you no doubt will be ready to take action.
UPDATE: Google put out a statement in response to the uproar over this video:
At a regularly scheduled all hands meeting, some Google employees and executives expressed their own personal views in the aftermath of a long and divisive election season. For over 20 years, everyone at Google has been able to freely express their opinions at these meetings. Nothing was said at that meeting, or any other meeting, to suggest that any political bias ever influences the way we build or operate our products. To the contrary, our products are built for everyone, and we design them with extraordinary care to be a trustworthy source of information for everyone, without regard to political viewpoint.
Thats the usual leftist line: Sure, we are all liberals here, but trust us! It doesnt influence how we do our work. The problem is that the video includes extensive discussion of how we can prevent future anomalies like Trumps election and Brexit.
A reader and frequent correspondent offers a pungent take on Googles election angst:
Gag me with a spoon. I worked for very large corporations most of my life. Of course, there is a strong element of conformity but with respect to achieving success of the business, nothing else! I also had experience in a tech start-up post early stage. Very smart high level people. And NOTHING remotely like the fatuous, risible self importance displayed by these punchable a**holes. They give conformity, groupthink and limousine liberal goo-goo right-think a bad name. But all you need to know is this, openly proclaimed: they have 10,000 immigrant employees! A world of tech-coolies! Crush them.
Also this:
And what is it with their values? WTF? Are they a cult? Do they think theyre an eleemosynary institution? When I hear one of these smarmy T-shirt wearing fakes nattering on about their Googler valuesI release the safety on my Browning.
And finallythanks, Rush!
In a previous post, I reproduced a letter that Rep. Mark Meadows sent to Rod Rosenstein about the FBIs anti-Trump media leak strategy. Meadows cited, among things, an April 10, 2017 text in which Peter Strozk told Lisa Page, I had literally just gone to find this phone to tell you I want to talk to you about media leak strategy with DOJ before you go.
Recognizing the explosive nature of this email, Aitan Goelman, an attorney for Strzok, has offered an innocent explanation. He insists that the term media leak strategy in Mr. Strzoks text refers to a Department-wide initiative to detect and stop leaks to the media. In other words, according to Strzoks mouthpiece, the FBI man and his lover were working to prevent leaks, not to produce them.
But how does Goelman explain the other text Meadows cites in his letter to Rosenstein the one sent two days later in which Strzok congratulates Lisa Page on news that two derogatory stories about Carter Page are about to appear in the press? Clearly, Strzok and his mistress were on a mission to leak anti-Trump stories.
Another text message between Strzok and Page that has just come to light makes this even more plain. This text, obtained by indefatigable Sara Carter, shows that, in the spring of 2017 when Strzok and Page were discussing their media leak strategy, Strzok was in contact with reporters at the New York Times and Washington Post regarding stories they published about the FBIs investigation into alleged collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign. Strzok specifically mentioned two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times writer Michael Schmidt in a text message to Page.
The newly revealed text message is revealing at multiple levels and even amusing in a no honor among thieves sort of way.
Strzok told Page that apparently [the] Times is angry with us about the WP [Washington Post] scoop and earlier discussion we had about the Schmidt piece that had so many inaccuracies. He continued, Too much to detail here, but I told Mike [Kortan] and Andy [McCabe] they need to understand we were absolutely dealing in good faith with them.
In other words, (1) the Times and the Post were competing for the scoops Strzok was doling out as part of his media leak strategy, (2) Strzoks information was full of inaccuracies, and (3) top FBI officials Mike Kortan (the former FBI assistant director for public affairs) and Andrew McCabe were part of the media leak strategy team.
So much for the notion that Strzoks media leak strategy was about preventing leaks.
The Washington Post story in question the one the New York Times was upset about being scooped on apparently was an April 11, 2017 article headlined FBI Obtained FISA warrant to monitor former Trump advisor Carter Page. It contained detailed information about the FBI obtaining a secret court order to monitor Page in October 2016.
The story was written by Ellen Nakashima, Devlin Barrett, and Adam Entous. It refers to unnamed U.S. law enforcement and other U.S. officials who told The Washington Post that the FBI and Department of Justice obtained the warrant on Page after convincing a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance court judge that there was probable cause to believe Page was acting as an agent of a foreign power.
The unnamed law enforcement and other U.S. officials apparently included Strzok and McCabe. McCabes leaks to Devlin Barrett, one of the authors of the Posts April 11 story, on other matters are at the heart of findings by the DOJs inspector general that McCabe was not truthful with federal investigators.
In its April 11 article the Post declared that the FISA warrant on Page is the clearest evidence so far that the FBI had reason to believe during the 2016 presidential campaign that a Trump associate was in touch with Russian agents. In reality, the FISA warrant was obtained using a fabricated dossier, and Carter Page appears never to have engaged in wrongdoing.
But the media leak strategy was never about reality. It was about appearances creating the appearance that there was something to the Russia collusion story, so as to (1) damage President Trumps standing and legitimacy and (2) create pressure for prosecution.
The strategy succeeded, though it took additional leaking from James Comey to reach pay dirt.
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Increasing proliferation of products from the banking software industry, and rising demand for technologically advanced information technology based security systems, has resulted in widespread adoption of anti-money laundering software worldwide. Revenues from the anti-money laundering software market are estimated to grow at a high CAGR of 12.1% through 2026. These insights have been taken from the report titled Anti-Money Laundering Software Market Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends and Forecast 2017 2026 added recently to the vast repository of Market Research Reports Search Engine (MRRSE).FREE | Request Sample Copy is Available @ https://www.mrrse.com/sample/4298 Owing to increasingly sophisticated techniques used for money laundering, key market players are focusing on developing on-premise and cloud-based anti-money laundering software with visualization tools. This makes the money inspection processes more time effective and efficient in its functions. A large number of financial institutions worldwide, particularly retail banking companies are investing heavily in the market due to the rapid rate of technological advances that comply with anti-money laundering regulations.The need for real-time monitoring of transactions along with features such as blacklist screening and customer profiling are driving the demand for transactional monitoring solutions, to gain maximum market traction for the foreseeable future. Stringent money laundering regulations in Canada and the US, are expected to contribute towards the growth of the anti-money laundering software market in North America.Anti-Money Laundering Software Market: Report SummaryThe report conveys regional and global level analysis and forecasts for the anti-money laundering software market, through 2026. Essential dynamics, drivers, constraints, and opportunities such as laws and policies, social, political, and technological factors impacting the development and demand for anti-money laundering software have been extensively examined in the report.Access Complete Report With TOC and Company Profiles @ https://www.mrrse.com/anti-money-laundering-software-market An in-depth value chain analysis on the anti-money laundering software market is given in the report. In addition, the Porters Five Forces model have been used for helping the readers achieve better understanding of the competitive scenario among eminent and new market players. A market attractiveness analysis, where applications have been benchmarked on their market size, general attractiveness, and growth rate, has also been provided in the report.Anti-Money Laundering Software Market: Research ApproachElaborate discussions, in-depth telephonic and face-to-face interviews, and expert panel reviews conducted with numerous key industry experts and opinion leaders have helped in the compilation of this report. Extensive primary and secondary research methodologies have been used, which provided authentic intelligence on the anti-money laundering software market. Primary research represents most of the research efforts, which has been further validated with extensive secondary research and expert panels.Leading companies and emerging players in the anti-money laundering software market have been reviewed. Press releases, annual reports, and other associated documents and databases have been used for extracting intelligence on the competitor landscape and the overall scenario of the anti-money laundering software market. The research approach employed has been proven to be highly successful, and effective to harness precise intelligence on the market data, and recognizing unexplored business opportunities for industry participants.Inquire for Detail Facts and Figures @ https://www.mrrse.com/enquiry/4298 About (MRRSE)Market Research Reports Search Engine (MRRSE) is an industry-leading database of Market Research Reports. MRRSE is driven by a stellar team of research experts and advisors trained to offer objective advice. Our sophisticated search algorithm returns results based on the report title, geographical region, publisher, or other keywords. MRRSE partners exclusively with leading global publishers to provide clients single-point access to top-of-the-line market research. MRRSEs repository is updated every day to keep its clients ahead of the next new trend in market research, be it competitive intelligence, product or service trends or strategic consulting.
PR-Inside.com: 2018-09-13 08:01:01
PRESS RELEASE
13 September 2018, at 09:00 a.m.
eQ Asset Management raised a record 175 million euros for its latest Northern European private equity fund eQ PE X North at final closing on 6 September 2018. A final closing was also held on the same date for eQs second secondary fund eQ PE SF II with 135 million euros of committed capital. Both funds first closings were held in January 2018.
eQ PE X North is a fund of funds investing in private equity funds targeting Northern European small and mid-sized unlisted companies. The fund will consist of approximately ten underlying funds through which investments will be widely diversified in different sectors, geographies and stages of development. The underlying investee companies are all profitable, operationally stable businesses with positive cash flows. The fund will invest both in primary and secondary funds.
eQ PE SF II is eQs second secondary fund which has the same focus as eQ PE X North, but investing only in funds available in secondary markets.
Staffan Jafs, Head of Private Equity at eQ comments:
Demand for our European fund has been strong. Investors in Finland, and globally, are increasing their allocation weights in alternatives. A significant share of our investors are so called program investors for whom eQ is building their private equity portfolios systematically. The majority of our investors are Finnish institutions and family offices. In addition to that, over 10% of commitments in eQ PE X North were raised from international clients.
The private equity team of eQ is one of the most experienced in the Nordics with a direct access to also funds raising commitments fast to full capacity. eQ PE X North has already made a commitment to one new fund and through eQ PE SF II it has exposure to 47 investee companies.
We continue our new product launches: eQ Private Credit II will hold its first closing in October 2018 and our next private equity fund investing in North America will open for first closing in January 2019
Helsinki 13 September 2018
eQ Asset Management Ltd
For additional information:
Staffan Jafs, Head of Private Equity, eQ Asset Management Ltd
+358 (9) 6817 8736, staffan.jafs@eQ.fi
eQ Group is a Finnish group of companies specialising in asset management and corporate finance business. eQ Asset Management offers a wide range of asset management services (including private equity funds and real estate asset management) for institutions and individuals. The assets managed by the Group total approximately EUR 8.9 billion. Advium Corporate Finance, which is part of the Group, offers services related to mergers and acquisitions, real estate transactions and equity capital markets.
More information about the Group is available on our website at www.eQ.fi.
According to Goldstein Research, global Nano chemotherapy market is expected to reach USD 3.5 billion by 2024, growing at a CAGR of 7.45% over the forecast period 2016-2024. The fact that the presence of bioavailability-improved Nanoscale particles and molecules in order to make drug delivery focuses on maximizing bioavailability both at specific places in the body and over a period of time is driving the growth of the market
Global Nano Chemotherapy Market
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According to Goldstein Research, global Nano chemotherapy market is expected to reach USD 3.5 billion by 2024, growing at a CAGR of 7.45% over the forecast period 2016-2024. The fact that the presence of bioavailability-improved Nanoscale particles and molecules in order to make drug delivery focuses on maximizing bioavailability both at specific places in the body and over a period of time is driving the growth of the market. Global Nano chemotherapy market is largely dominated North America with a market share of 40.12% in 2016which is closely followed by Europe market size growing at fastest CAGR of 8.49% over the forecast period. Countries such as Denmark, France, Australia, Belgium, Norway, US, Ireland and South Korea hold the opportunities in Nano chemotherapy market owing to the highest cancer rate for men and women.Browse Full Report:Market SegmentationOn the basis of our in-depth analysis, Global Nano chemotherapy Market can be segmented as follows:By Type Medicine Therapy Approved Drugs (Depocyte, Doxil) Pipeline Products (MM-302, Thermodox, etc.) Physical Therapy OtherBy Application Cardiovascular Diseases Cancer Therapy Diabetes Treatment Rheumatoid Arthritis OthersBy End Users Hospitals Clinics Others (Cancer Research Institutes)By Region North America Nano chemotherapy Market Analysis, 2016-2024 Europe Nano chemotherapy Market Analysis, 2016-2024 Middle East And Africa Nano chemotherapy Market Analysis, 2016-2024 Latin America Nano chemotherapy Market Analysis, 2016-2024 Asia Pacific Nano chemotherapy Market Analysis, 2016-2024 Rest Of The World Nano chemotherapy Market Analysis, 2016-2024Get More Information About Nano chemotherapy MarketGlobal Nano chemotherapy Market Outlook 2024 contains a detailed overview of the global Nano chemotherapy market. On the basis of our in-depth analysis, the market can be segmented in terms of market segmentation by type, application, end user and geography.The Global Nano chemotherapy Market Report highlights the competitive outlook of major global players that includes the business strategies, product portfolio, revenue distribution, financial analysis, R&D activities, and investments. The in-depth analysis of Nano chemotherapy market report will help the clients to assess their business strategies as per the competitive environment in the market space.Download Exclusive Sample Report:Major players of the global Nano chemotherapy market discussed in the report are Ablynx, AMAG, Amgen, Celgene, CytImmune, Cornerstone, Delpor, Ensysce, MagForce, Merrimack, Nanotherapeutics, Nanobiotix, Nanospectra, Spectrum Pharmaceuticals, Tarveda, etc.Further, Global Nano chemotherapy Market Report encompasses the major trends & growth opportunities, market dynamics, and other growth factors. The Nano chemotherapy Market outlook also comprises of key challenges for the market players, risk analysis, SWOT Analysis, USP Analysis, BPS analysis, and Market Attractiveness. The report also includes the expert analysis which provides a complete overview of the market post analysis of the economic, political, environmental & social factors of each region and country.Browse Similar Report:
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2059 W. Irving Park Road, Chicago, IL, 60618Exclusive PR7325709423
CHICAGOCoffee Joint, a coffee shop located in North Center, hosted an anniversary event to celebrate being in business for one year. The event had about 75 guests took place on September 9th from 12:00pm-3:00pm at their storefront location at 2059 W. Irving Park Road. Guests could try some of Coffee Joints delicious coffee, tea, and sandwiches as well as have the opportunity to tour the space. Additionally, there was childrens activities including face painting, balloon twisters, and a bouncy castle. Guests could also enter to win, through social media posts, a $50 gift card via raffle.Co-founders and brothers Andris and Gato Balodis grew up in Latvia and have always had a passion for coffee. I think that coffee is a great connector of people and can bring people together from anywhere in the world, said Gato. The two brothers opened Coffee Joint with the hopes of bringing the culture of Latvia to the United States. In fact, Coffee Joint is the only Latvian-inspired coffee shop in Chicago. They also feature sandwiches and pastries from a local bakery, as well as a kids menu. Some of our coffee drinks favorite include: Marshmallow Latte-yummy homemade toasted marshmallow Vietnamese Coffee- our recipe with Espresso and sweetened condensed milk Affogato- double Espresso shot over vanilla ice creamI remember growing up in Latvia and drinking coffee almost every day. Coming to America, I noticed how many coffee chains exist in this market and the high demand for coffee. Its embedded in peoples daily routine, said Co-founder, Andris Balodis. I believe that if someone is going to drink coffee every day, he or she should drink nothing but the best quality. And that is what we try and achieve at Coffee Joint." About Coffee JointCoffee Joint was launched in 2017 by bothers, Andris and Gato Balodis. It is located at 2059 W. Irving Park Road in North Center and is dedicated to producing foods and drinks of the highest quality. Coffee Joint works with local dairy suppliers and bakeries to source the freshest ingredients and foods for their customers. They offer a range of hot and cold drinks, as well as, sandwiches, pastries, and even have a kids menu. Their local partners include Metropolis Coffee Company, West Town Bakery, Hour Bakery & Care, and Stella Grey Bloom. For all press inquiries, please contact Lyndsay Goldstein at Lyndsay@ exclusivepr.biz or at (732-570-9423)# # #
PR-Inside.com: 2018-09-13 07:17:01
Novartis International AG / Novartis real-world evidence confirms efficacy and safety benefits of Cosentyx in daily life for psoriasis patients . Processed and transmitted by Nasdaq Corporate Solutions. The issuer is solely responsible for the content of this announcement.
Real-world evidence confirms Cosentyx efficacy and safety consistent with previously reported clinical studies[1]-[4]
Novartis presents a large program of real-world evidence at the 27th European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology (EADV) Congress, adding to the robust body of clinical data supporting the use of Cosentyx in moderate-to-severe psoriasis[1]-[4]
Cosentyx 5-year data in psoriasis from a Phase III study were presented in 2017[5], proving long term efficacy and sustained safety of Cosentyx and the importance of IL-17A inhibition - the cornerstone cytokine in the treatment of psoriasis[6]-[8]
- Novartis, a leader in immuno-dermatology, announced today new data from multiple real-world sources in moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis, which confirm Cosentyx(secukinumab) efficacy and safety in clinical practice is comparable to previously reported clinical studies[1]-[4]. Real-world evidence also confirmed the additional benefits of Cosentyx with PROSPECT, the largest prospective real-world analysis on Cosentyx to date, demonstrating a pronounced improvement in quality of life in a real-world setting (59% of patients at 24 weeks experience no or little impact of their skin disease on their quality of life)[1]. Cosentyx is the first and only fully-human treatment that specifically inhibits IL-17A. A large program of real-world evidence was presented for the first time at the 27European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology (EADV) Congress in Paris, France.Additional real-world data presented at EADV showed that 87% of bio-naive psoriasis patients remain on Cosentyx at 12 months, further supporting the use of Cosentyx in real-world settings[2]."Novartis commitment to well-designed Phase-IV studies and other real world evidence is providing dermatologists around the world with an opportunity to see how psoriasis treatments respond in everyday clinical practice," said Dr. Kim Papp, Dermatologist and Principal Investigator of the PURE Study, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. "As a clinician and researcher, I find it exciting and rewarding to contribute to this growing volume of real world evidence on Cosentyx.""For both psoriasis patients and doctors, these data confirm that Cosentyx clinical data profile translates into real-world benefits," said Dr. Richard G.B. Langley MD, RPC(C), Professor of Dermatology and Director of Research, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. "In the everyday management of psoriasis, this provides added reassurance that with Cosentyx, patients achieve and maintain high levels of skin clearance and improved quality of life."At EADV 2017, Novartis presented 5-year data from the Phase III SCULPTURE study reinforcing Cosentyx long term skin clearance and safety[5]. Cosentyx is the first and only fully human IL-17A inhibitor to show sustained skin clearance rates at 5 years in Phase III in psoriasis[9]. Landmark data show that PASI 90 and PASI 100 response rates were nearly 100% maintained with Cosentyx from Year 1 to Year 5 in patients with moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis[5]."This large program of real-world evidence adds to the robust body of clinical data supporting the use of Cosentyx for psoriasis," said Eric Hughes, Global Development Unit Head, Immunology, Hepatology and Dermatology. "As a leader in immuno-dermatology, we are reimagining the lives of psoriasis patients by providing doctors with the best evidence possible, including in real-world settings."These data add to the growing body of evidence showing the unique position of Cosentyx as the first and only fully-human IL-17A inhibitor[5]. To date, Cosentyx has been prescribed to more than 160,000 patients worldwide[10].The clinical Phase III program has demonstrated long-term efficacy and a proven safety profile of Cosentyx to treat moderate-to-severe psoriasis[5], psoriatic arthritis (PsA)[11] and ankylosing spondylitis (AS)[12]. In May, Novartis announced its plan to initiate the ARROW trial to assess the mechanistic superiority of direct IL-17A inhibition (Cosentyx) over IL-23 inhibition (Tremfya*) as the 100study with Cosentyx[13],[14].These findings are from analysis of real-world data from 2 non-interventional studies and 2 registries across multiple countries: Data from the Canadian patient support program XPOSE (3,020 patients with moderate-to-severe psoriasis) were analysed for the patients where efficacy data was reported by a physician (192 patients)[2]; PROSPECT is the largest real-world study of Cosentyx in psoriasis, involving 2,002 patients in Germany (905 patients followed up for 24 weeks to date)[1]; CORRONAis an independently run registry of patients with psoriasis from the United States (306 patients initiated Cosentyx at enrollment, with effectiveness data available to date for 118 patients for 6 months, and 56 patients for 12 months)[4]; and PURE a prospective, international, observational, two cohort registry of adult patients with moderate-to-severe chronic plaque psoriasis in Latin America and Canada (397 patients, with efficacy data available to date for 124 patients for 12 months, and 59 patients for 18 months)[3].Real-world evidence (RWE) is clinical evidence based upon data taken from a variety of sources in daily life, outside of the clinical trial setting. RWE helps to bridge the gap in knowledge that exists between clinical trials and clinical practice, making it an important complement to long-term data from clinical trials.Cosentyx is the first and only fully-human biologic that specifically inhibits interleukin-17A (IL-17A), a cornerstone cytokine involved in the inflammation and development of psoriasis, AS, and PsA[6]-[8]. IL-17A is produced by both IL-23 dependent and IL-23 independent pathways, by various cells from both the innate immune system (which can be triggered by mechanical stress) and the adaptive immune system[15]. By acting directly on IL-17A, Cosentyx inhibits this cornerstone cytokine irrespective of where the IL-17A comes from[6]. Cosentyx has been used by more than 160,000 patients worldwide across all indications and is used in many countries as first-line therapy in biologic-naive patients[10].Cosentyx has a broad head-to-head study program that includes FIXTURE, CLEAR, CLARITY, SURPASS and EXCEED clinical superiority trials[16]-[20]. In May 2018, Novartis announced its plan to initiate the ARROW trial to assess the mechanistic superiority of direct IL-17A inhibition (Cosentyx) over IL-23 inhibition (Tremfya*) in treating recalcitrant plaques resistant to ustekinumab[13]. This study is the 100trial with Cosentyx in the last 10 years, adding to the wealth of data[14]. The clinical Phase III program of Cosentyx has demonstrated long term efficacy and a proven safety profile of Cosentyx to treat moderate-to-severe psoriasis[5], PsA[11] and AS[12].This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements can generally be identified by words such as "potential," "can," "will," "plan," "expect," "anticipate," "look forward," "believe," "committed," "investigational," "pipeline," "launch," or similar terms, or by express or implied discussions regarding potential marketing approvals, new indications or labeling for the investigational or approved products described in this press release, or regarding potential future revenues from such products. You should not place undue reliance on these statements. Such forward-looking statements are based on our current beliefs and expectations regarding future events, and are subject to significant known and unknown risks and uncertainties. Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or should underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual results may vary materially from those set forth in the forward-looking statements. There can be no guarantee that the investigational or approved products described in this press release will be submitted or approved for sale or for any additional indications or labeling in any market, or at any particular time. Nor can there be any guarantee that such products will be commercially successful in the future. In particular, our expectations regarding such products could be affected by, among other things, the uncertainties inherent in research and development, including clinical trial results and additional analysis of existing clinical data; regulatory actions or delays or government regulation generally; global trends toward health care cost containment, including government, payor and general public pricing and reimbursement pressures; our ability to obtain or maintain proprietary intellectual property protection; the particular prescribing preferences of physicians and patients; general political and economic conditions; safety, quality or manufacturing issues; potential or actual data security and data privacy breaches, or disruptions of our information technology systems, and other risks and factors referred to in Novartis AG's current Form 20-F on file with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Novartis is providing the information in this press release as of this date and does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statements contained in this press release as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.Novartis is reimagining medicine to improve and extend people's lives. As a leading global medicines company, we use innovative science and digital technologies to create transformative treatments in areas of great medical need. In our quest to find new medicines, we consistently rank among the world's top companies investing in research and development. Novartis products reach nearly 1 billion people globally and we are finding innovative ways to expand access to our latest treatments. About 125 000 people of more than 140 nationalities work at Novartis around the world. Find out more atNovartis is on Twitter. Sign up to follow @Novartis atFor Novartis multimedia content, please visitFor questions about the site or required registration, please contact*Tremfyais a registered trademark of Janssen Biotech, Inc.
References
[1] Thaci D et al. Secukinumab real-world effectiveness data on plaque psoriasis treatment in Germany corroborate pivotal clinical trial results: Analysis of the first 2,000 subjects enrolled in the PROSPECT study. Presented as eposter P1994 at 27th EADV Congress 2018. 12th September 2018.
[2] Ho V et al. Secukinumab demonstrates improvement of disease activity in Canadian psoriasis patients in a real world setting. Presented as eposter P2083 at 27th EADV Congress 2018. 12th September 2018.
[3] Papp K et al. Secukinumab-Treated Patients in the PURE Registry (Patients with moderate to severe chronic plaqUe psoRiasis) in Latin AmErica and Canada-18 Month Follow-Up Data. Presented as eposter P1970 at 27th EADV Congress 2018. 12th September 2018.
[4] Bagel J et al. Secukinumab clinical and patient-reported outcomes after 1 year of follow-up: Real-world analyses from the Corrona Psoriasis Registry. Presented as eposter P1850 at 27th EADV Congress 2018. 12th September 2018.
[5] Bissonnette, R., Luger, T., Thaci, D., Toth, D., Lacombe, A., Xia, S., Mazur, R., Patekar, M., Charef, P., Milutinovic, M., Leonardi, C. and Mrowietz, U. Secukinumab Demonstrates High Sustained Efficacy and a Favorable Safety Profile in Patients with Moderate to Severe Psoriasis through 5 Years of Treatment (SCULPTURE Extension Study). J Eur Acad Dermatol Venereol. 2018.
[6] Smith JA et al. Review: The Interleukin 23/Interleukin 17 Axis in Spondyloarthritis Pathogenesis: Th17 and Beyond. Arthritis Rheumatol. 2014;66:231-41.
[7] Nestle FO et al. Mechanisms of disease psoriasis. N Eng J Med. 2009;361:496-509.
[8] Girolomoni G et al. Psoriasis: rationale for targeting interleukin-17. Br J Dermatol. 2012;167:717-24.
[9] EU Cosentyx Summary of Product Characteristics. Novartis Europharm Limited. Available at: http://www.ema.europa.eu/ema/index.jsp?curl=pages/medicines/human/medicines/003729/human_med_001832.jsp&mid=WC0b01ac058001d124 . Last accessed September 2018.
[10] Novartis, data on file.
[11] Mease PJ et al. Secukinumab Provides Sustained Improvements in the Signs and Symptoms of Active Psoriatic Arthritis through 3 Years: Efficacy and Safety Results from a Phase 3 Trial. Presented at the American College of Rheumatology 2016. Presentation number 961.
[12] Braun J et al. Secukinumab demonstrates low radiographic progression and sustained efficacy through 4 years in patients with active ankylosing spondylitis. Late breaking abstract presented at the 2017 ACR/ARHP Annual Meeting, San Diego, USA. 7th November 2017
[13] Comparison of Secukinumab Versus Guselkumab in Clearing Psoriatic Plaques Refractory to Ustekinumab (ARROW). Available at https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03553823 . Last accessed September 2018.
[14] Clinicaltrials.gov. Active trials include all those that are listed as recruiting, active but not recruiting, enrolling by invitation and not yet recruiting and completed. This list excludes all trials listed as suspended, terminated and withdrawn.
[15] Schett G et al. Enthesitis: from pathophysiology to treatment. Nat Rev Rheumatol. 2017 Nov 21;3(12):731-741.
[16] Langley RG et al. Secukinumab in Plaque Psoriasis - Results of Two Phase 3 Trials. N Engl J Med 2014;371:326-38.
[17] Blauvelt A et al. Secukinumab is superior to ustekinumab in clearing skin of subjects with moderate-to-severe plaque psoriasis up to 1 year: Results from the CLEAR study. J Am Acad Dermatol. 2017 Jan;76(1):60-69.
[18] Bagel J et al. Secukinumab is Superior to Ustekinumab in Clearing Skin of Patients with Moderate to Severe Plaque Psoriasis: CLARITY, a Randomized, Controlled, Phase 3b Trial. Presented as poster 98 at The Winter Clinical Dermatology Conference - Hawaii. January 13, 2018.
[19] Effect of Secukinumab on Radiographic Progression in Ankylosing Spondylitis as compared to GP2017 (Adalimumab Biosimilar) (SURPASS). Available at: https://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03259074 . Last accessed September 2018.
[20] Efficacy of Secukinumab Compared to Adalimumab in Patients With Psoriatic Arthritis (EXCEED 1). Available at: https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02745080. Last accessed September 2018.
# # #
Eric Althoff Novartis Global Media Relations +41 61 324 7999 (direct) +41 79 593 4202 (mobile) eric.althoff@novartis.com Friedrich von Heyl Novartis Global Pharma Communications +41 61 324 8984 (direct) +41 79 749 0286 (mobile) friedrich.vonheyl@novartis.com
Central North America Samir Shah +41 61 324 7944 Richard Pulik +1 212 830 2448 Pierre-Michel Bringer +41 61 324 1065 Cory Twining +1 212 830 2417 Thomas Hungerbuehler +41 61 324 8425 Isabella Zinck +41 61 324 7188
Central media line: +41 61 324 2200E-mail: media.relations@novartis.com Central investor relations line: +41 61 324 7944E-mail: investor.relations@novartis.com
Singapore Property Market
PR-Inside.com: 2018-09-13 12:17:30
Press Information
Goldstein Research
99 Wall Street, Suite No:- 527
Steve blade
Global Sales Manager
6465687747
email
https://www.goldsteinresearch.com/
# 439 Words
99 Wall Street, Suite No:- 527Global Sales Manager6465687747
According to Goldstein Research, Singapore property market is expected to reach USD 124.6 billion by 2024 from USD 70.4 billion in 2016, growing at a CAGR of 7.3% over the forecast period 2016-2024. The growing foreign investment in the country in across various industries tends to drive the growth of the Singapore property market. Singapore property market segmentation has been done on the basis of property type, ownership type, investor type, and geography. Based on property type, residential apartments segment accounted for the largest market share of more than 68% in 2016. Singapore property market is likely to experience imbalances in demand and supply across various sectors. These factors will continue to add the pressure on occupancy and rents. Demand for new residential properties perked up in 2016, with sales rising by 7% to more than 7,900 units from about 7,400 units in 2015.Browse Full Report:Market SegmentationOn the basis of our in-depth analysis, Singapore Property Market can be segmented as follows:By Property Type Residential Land Apartment Hotel Industrial Office RetailBy Ownership Type Buy RentalBy Investor Type Equity / Institutional funds Private Unlisted companies REITs / Listed companies Occupier Unknown Cross-BorderSingapore Property Market Outlook 2024 contains a detailed overview of the Singapore property market. On the basis of our in-depth analysis, the market can be segmented in terms of market segmentation by property type, ownership type & investor type.The Singapore Property Market Report highlights the competitive outlook of major Singapore players that includes the business strategies, product portfolio, revenue distribution, financial analysis, R&D activities, and investments. The in-depth analysis of the property market report will help the clients to assess their business strategies as per the competitive environment in the market space.Download Exclusive Sample Report:Major players of the Singapore property market discussed in the report are: City Developments Limited, EL Development Pte Ltd, Far East Organization, Frasers Centrepoint Limited, GuocoLand (Singapore) Pte Ltd, Kingsford Development Pte Ltd, MCC Land (Singapore) Pte Ltd, Qingjian Realty (South Pacific) Group Pte Ltd, SimLian Group Limited, Tuan Sing Holdings Limited, ACT Holdings Pte Ltd, Allgreen Properties Limited, AscendasPte Ltd, BBR Holdings (S) Ltd, Bonvest Holdings Limited, CapitaLand Limited, Bukit Sembawang Estates Limited, United Industrial Corporation Limited,etc.Further, Singapore Property Market Report encompasses the major trends & growth opportunities, market dynamics, and other growth factors. The Property Market outlook also comprises of key challenges for the market players, risk analysis, SWOT Analysis, USP Analysis, BPS analysis, and Market Attractiveness. The report also includes the expert analysis which provides a complete overview of the market post analysis of the economic, political, environmental & social factors of each region and country.
PR-Inside.com: 2018-09-13 07:03:03
ASKER, NORWAY (13 September 2018) - TGS is pleased to announce Jaan, a fully harmonized 3D multi-client project in the southern portion of the MSGBC Basin from northern Senegal, through The Gambia and the AGC zone, into Guinea-Bissau down to the Guinea transform fault. This project will consist of 11,135 km of new acquisition complemented by the reprocessing and full pre-stack merging of existing multi-client 3D. The new data will be acquired using modern triple source broadband acquisition. Once complete, the final depth migrated volume will be over 28,300 km and will completely capture the prospective paleo-shelf edge trend from the shallow to the deep.
This investment is being undertaken by TGS as operator and majority investor together with PGS and GeoPartners. Data will be acquired using the BGP Prospector seismic vessel and acquisition will commence early Q4 2018. Data processing will be performed by TGS using its Clari-Fi(TM) broadband technology.
"The Jaan project will further cement TGS' position as the leading provider of seismic data in this rapidly emerging basin. This further expansion in the MSGBC basin confirms TGS' continued commitment to the Northwest Africa Atlantic Margin data, where TGS already has over 50,000 km of 2D data and over 17,000 km of 3D data," commented Kristian Johansen, CEO, TGS.
This survey is supported by industry funding.
Company Summary
TGS-NOPEC Geophysical Company (TGS) provides multi-client geoscience data to oil and gas Exploration and Production companies worldwide. In addition to extensive global geophysical and geological data libraries that include multi-client seismic data, magnetic and gravity data, digital well logs, production data and directional surveys, TGS also offers advanced processing and imaging services, interpretation products, and data integration solutions.
For more information visit TGS online at www.tgs.com.
Forward-looking statements and contact information
All statements in this press release other than statements of historical fact are forward-looking statements, which are subject to a number of risks, uncertainties and assumptions that are difficult to predict, and are based upon assumptions as to future events that may not prove accurate. These factors include TGS' reliance on a cyclical industry and principal customers, TGS' ability to continue to expand markets for licensing of data, and TGS' ability to acquire and process data products at costs commensurate with profitability. Actual results may differ materially from those expected or projected in the forward-looking statements. TGS undertakes no responsibility or obligation to update or alter forward-looking statements for any reason.
TGS-NOPEC Geophysical Company ASA is listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange (OSLO:TGS).
TGS sponsored American Depositary Shares trade on the U.S. over-the-counter market under the symbol "TGSGY".
For additional information about this press release please contact:
Sven Brre Larsen
Chief Financial Officer
Tel: +47 90 94 36 73
Email: sven.larsen@tgs.com
Will Ashby
SVP Investor Relations, HR & Communication
Tel: +1 713 860 2184
Email: will.ashby@tgs.com
This information is subject of the disclosure requirements acc. to 5-12 vphl (Norwegian Securities Trading Act)
This announcement is distributed by Nasdaq Corporate Solutions on behalf of Nasdaq Corporate Solutions clients.
The issuer of this announcement warrants that they are solely responsible for the content, accuracy and originality of the information contained therein.
Source: TGS via Globenewswire
Graham Weeks, a Septuagenarian Englishman in this interview with PREMIUM TIMES reveals why his passion is seeing an end to the traumatising insurgency ravaging the North-east. The pharmacist turned activist has continued to push for the return of the abducted Chibok and Dapchi schoolgirls in far away Britain. In this interview, he mulls the cause of the insurgency and possible solutions to end the bloodletting.
Excerpts:
PREMIUM TIMES: Tell us a bit about yourself
Weeks: I an a 72 years old Englishman from Yorkshire. I graduated from the University of London, School of Pharmacy in 1967. I studied Theology and Missions at All Nations Christian College 1967-69.
In 1970, I came to Vom Christian Hospital in the then Benue-Plateau State to be a pharmacist there. My wife was pregnant with the first of our four children, the eldest three were born at Vom.
In 1971 we studied Hausa in Kano. On my return to the hospital, I was hospital chaplain as well as pharmacist. In 1974-5 we lived in Borno, south of Gwoza where I was principal of the Bible School training local evangelists and supervising Nigerians from the Plateau working as missionaries in Borno, especially in the Gwoza hills where the people had before colonisation, a safe haven from Kanuri jihad.
Then we lived in Plateau at Langang, Daffo and Jos. My main work was translating Christian books into Hausa and training church leaders to use these in Theoliogcal Education by Extension. I travelled all over Plateau State.
By the time we left in 1982, our Church of Christ in Nations had the largest such programme in the world with over 2000 students. I was ordained in this church in 1977. From 1980 I was in charge of the churchs Hausa School teaching the language to expatriates new to the country. I worked with a Hausa colleague who was a convert from Islam.
In all my time in Nigeria it was a country at peace with no threat to personal safety. There was little civil disturbance due to Islam and we were on leave in England during the Maitatsine troubles. Before we left Nigeria in 1982 I was also working with a Yoruba Christian in Kano importing, wholesaling and retailing Christian books.
PREMIUM TIMES: Then after that?
Weeks: Returning to England we lived in London. I returned to my profession of pharmacy and served as an elder of our church, International Presbyterian Church, Ealing. From 1986 I became involved in local politics because the local government was promoting the social acceptability of homosexuality aka gay rights.
This led to me joining the Conservative Party and IN 1990 -98 I was an elected a councillor of the London Borough of Ealing. This was done as unpaid spare time work. My speciality was social services. After I lost my seat on the council in 1998, I resigned from the Conservative Part as they no longer opposed homosexuality as they had done under Lady Thatcher.
I have preached regularly at the Heathrow Immigration Removal Centre for the last eight years, where my captive congregation of detainees are mainly African, the majority being from the south of Nigeria. I have retired from community pharmacy for six years. I have been married 49 years and have six grandchildren.
PREMIUM TIMES: How will you assess the insurgency that has ravaged Nigeria in the past few years?
Weeks: Lets go back a bit. In 1900, the colonisation of Northern Nigeria by the British brought Pax Brittanica. Jihad and slave raiding stopped. The British ruled the north with a handful of expatriate colonial officers by indirect rule through the Emirs.
This consolidated Muslim rule in some areas that were not Muslim like the south of Bauchi State. It enabled the peaceful spread of Islam. Christian missions were prohibited from the North except in areas like the Plateau which had resisted the Fulani jihad.
The south had had Christian missions and education during the 19th century under British rule but the north was left with Islam and resisted Western education even when imposed in small measure by the British.
Rulers did not send their sons to school but the slave sons were sent. This disparity in education and the British favouring southerners in the civil administration of the North was a factor in the situation that led to civil was with Biafra in 1966.
Now let me answer your question. The present insurgency started with Boko Haram in Borno. They appeared to be violent Sallafists determined to be rid of all Western and Christian influence and they do not mind killing Muslims who do not hold to their exclusive interpretation of Islam. Most Nigerians in the North have lived lived together peacefully for over a century.
The rise of post 9/11 Islamism has changed everything. The second wave of insurgency has come from the Fulani. At first this was reported as herdsmen versus farmers. But why? Herdsmen had peacefully migrated for a century and more. Why the violence? In the British Parliament, it was blamed on climate change. Nonsense. It was become apparent that this is a return to the old Fulani jihad.
Islam is a religion of peace. That is a phrase coined by (George) Bush and (Tony) Blair to prevent anti-Muslim civil disturbances in their countries where the Muslim minority is on the whole peaceful. But Islam is at war with the non-Islamic world.
That rule can if needed (will) be established by force. That is the explanation for terrorism worldwide and the Fulani jihad resuming in the Middle Belt. Politicians will not call it so for that is said to be inflammatory language. But it is a truth which hurts. Nigeria has to face the consequences.
PREMIUM TIMES: What do you think could have been done differently to curb insurgency and contain the surging humanitarian crisis?
Weeks: Nigeria has always been reluctant to seek outside help. The number one nation in Africa is proud. It does not ask for help when things go wrong. There could have been requests for assistance from other countries, governments and NGOs.
I have no solutions to offer ordinary Nigerians except that they vote for politicians who promise to do something realistic to stop the killings like withdrawing the army from the Middle Belt and replacing with an expanded armed police force under local state control. Also let communities have drones to guard their security and spot infiltrators at night.
I am fearful of more violence next year with the elections coming.
PREMIUM TIMES: Why are you passionate about the plight of the Chibok, Dapchi school girls?
Weeks: I am a Christian. I stand with my Nigerian brothers and sisters persecuted by Islamists. Chibok is like a Christian island in Borno. That is why their girls were taken. One Dapchi girl who will not convert to Islam is the only one still in captivity. Boko Harma wants all traces of Christianity removed. I stand with the suffering Christians.
PREMIUM TIMES: What are some of the measures you have taken to attract global attention to their plight?
Weeks: I am very active in social media and have demonstrated twice outside the Nigerian High Commission in London. I was the only Englishman among Nigerians demonstrating outside your High Commission in London last month, demonstrating with Nigerians about the killings in the Middle Belt. I support Christian groups in UK campaigning on behalf of suffering Christians in Nigeria and worldwide.
PREMIUM TIMES: What other strategies do you think other like minded persons like you can embark on the assist these traumatised girls and their families?
Weeks: Show support for Nigerian Christians and their plight in the media here who report little about Nigeria and are scared to criticise anything to do with Islam. Inform our political leaders here. Pray without ceasing.
U.S. President Donald Trump claimed on Thursday that the death toll from hurricanes that lashed Puerto Rico in 2017 was cooked up by opposition Democrats to hurt him politically.
Mr Trump responded on Twitter to a study commissioned by the Puerto Rican government that estimated the death toll connected to Maria at 2,975.
The study examined mortality in the hurricane and six months afterwards.
Mr Trump said 3,000 people did not die in Maria and Irma, another powerful storm that last year clipped the U.S. territory, whose residents are U.S. citizens.
The president went to Puerto Rico after Maria hit on September 20, 2017 to observe recovery efforts.
When I left the Island, AFTER the storm had hit, they had anywhere from 6 to 18 deaths, Mr Trump said on Twitter.
As time went by it did not go up by much. Then, a long time later, they started to report really large numbers, like 3000.
He added that the new, much higher death toll was done by the Democrats in order to make me look as bad as possible when I was successfully raising Billions of dollars to help rebuild Puerto Rico.
He suggested that people who died from old age were added to the storms death toll. Bad politics. I love Puerto Rico!
The study was conducted by George Washington University in an attempt to gauge the lingering, indirect effects Maria had on mortality.
It looked at the total number of deaths from September 2017 through February 2018, comparing the number with typical death rates.(dpa/NAN)
MTN Nigeria is steadily, but unconsciously, erecting for itself a notorious reputation for romancing with controversy. It might be a leader in the telecoms sector today (in terms of subscriber base), but since berthing in Nigerias shores in 2001, courting controversy has become its second nature.
In less than two decades of operations, MTNs recurring brushes with the regulatory authorities casts it in a negative frame. Its latest sanction by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) for regulatory infractions as well as its being accused by the Attorney General of the Federation of tax evasion only confirms, like the leopard, it never changes its spots.
Those outside looking in may be hoodwinked into believing the narrative that CBNs decision a fortnight ago to wield the big stick against MTN along with four of the countrys top banks was a witch-hunt.
Some analysts have cited CBNs decision as another manifestation of the rising arbitrary behaviour of policy, regulatory and law enforcement authorities contributing to the countrys failing economic health.
Coming on the heels of the second quarter 2018 gross domestic product (GDP report by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the witch-hunt narrative sounds a sexy argument.
The report, which showed the economy declining further by 0.45 per cent points, from about 1.95 percent in the first quarter, to about 1.5 percent, identified the communications sector as the main driver of the modest growth.
Telecoms sector accounted for 11 of the 11.8 per cent GDP growth in the second quarter.
Some analysts say CBNs sanctions on MTN, a leading player and major employer in the sector, will slow down investment and ultimately dissuade foreign direct investments (FDIs) to the entire economy.
Others see a tinge of blackmail in the argument. True, MTN is a major player in the telecoms sector. True, it has created jobs for many Nigerians, but that should not be a license for lawlessness.
MTNs penchant for disobeying established rules of engagement, abuse of laid down procedures, or deliberate subversion of regulatory directives could as much be adversarial to the economy.
Where a leading player see itself above the law and engage in below the line activities, because of what it thinks it has contributed, could be injurious to the economy.
Per second billing controversy
May 16, 2001, MTN launched out as the first GSM network to make a call ahead of ECONET (now Airtel), which got the operational license first from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC).
But, Nigerians would still recall MTN claimed per second billing was impossible for subscribers, despite evidence to the contrary in other climes, including South Africa, where MTN comes from.
Not even NCCs repeated regulatory directives on the issue could sway MTN from its position. For over three years, MTN creamed off huge profits from the excess costs by millions of its subscribers in per minute calls.
On December 1, 2003 Globacom, Nigerias premier indigenous telecoms firm, came with a different promise. Globacoms roll out of Glo-Mobile on August 22, 2003 changed the narrative and gave MTN a reality check.
With Globacoms per second billing, MTN lost a sizable chunk of its subscriber base. Globacoms per second billing stirred ECONET to join on November 26, 2003.
To save its rapidly depleting subscriber base, MTN was compelled to, grudgingly, introduce per second billing it said was technologically impossible a few years earlier.
Clearly, MTN never had Nigeria interest at heart from the get go. Its belief appears to be, in business, the end justifies the means, irrespective of whose ox is gored.
Unregistered subscriber SIM controversy
In 2013, the NCC directed all operators in the Nigerian telecoms sector to disconnect from their networks all unregistered subscriber identity module (SIM) cards on or before July 1 of that year.
The penalty was well known to operators. NCC cautioned operators against the risk of failing to comply.
Every SIM card not disconnected before the deadline attracted a fine of N200,000, pursuant to Regulations 19 and 20, Section 15(2) of the Registration of Subscribers Regulations, Act 2011.
For over two years, MTN ignored the regulatory directives. In October 2015, NCC slammed a N1.04 trillion (about $5.2 billion) fine on MTN for failure to disconnect 5.1 million unregistered subscribers SIM cards from its network.
Shortly after the fine was announced, MTN stirred another controversy, claiming it got a 35 per cent reduction from the NCC.
The Commission denied, confirming that 25 per cent was actually granted, with MTN expected to pay N780 billion, and not N647 billion.
Regardless, at the expiration of the deadline on November 15, 2015, MTN failed to pay up, compelling the NCC to extend the deadline to December 31, 2015.
Yet, no dice, except another controversy about an alleged bribe to a senior presidency official who allegedly facilitated the reduction in the fine.
Although the official accused of receiving the bribe denied any involvement in the allegation, the presidency approved a massive cut in the fine from N780 billion to only N330 billion, fueling suspicion.
To date, apart from the initial N50 billion paid in February 2016, and perhaps two additional tranches out of six, MTN has only paid only half of the total fine.
Promise deferred on shares listing
MTN is believed to have also used a bait to convince the Presidency to approve the cut in its fine. The firm promised to enlist its shares in the Nigerians Stock Exchange (NSE), just as it has done in the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) in its South Africa country home.
The NSE listing would have given Nigerians opportunity to buy stakes in the company as a demonstration of MTNs genuine interest and commitment to the growth of the Nigerian economy.
However, over two years since the promise was made, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) confirmed recently MTN was yet to file any application requesting the beginning of the initial public offer (IPO) process.
Attempt to frustrate fine
To frustrate the enforcement of the fine, MTN began secret moves to transfer funds from its accounts in about 21 commercial banks. But, a ruling by the Federal High Court in Lagos in a case filed by the office of the AGF stopped the move before it went far.
In its 2015 financial statement, MTN Group published massive losses in its operations during the year, citing declining performance in the Nigeria subsidiary based on the regulatory sanctions.
Billions repatriated abroad
Same year, PREMIUM TIMES uncovered how MTN had been funneling billions of Naira abroad through complicated and obnoxious transfer pricing schemes to deny Nigeria its fair share of tax revenues.
The report showed MTN was shipping the billions to two of its overseas affiliates in tax havens MTN Dubai and MTN International in Mauritius.
For instance, in 2013 alone, MTN Group set aside about N11.4 billion from MTN Nigeria to pay to MTN Dubai.
Details revealed MTN made the questionable transfers without the official authority of the National Office for Technology Acquisition & Promotion (NOTAP) responsible for authorizing such transfers.
Even when the agreement MTN had with NOTAP on the issue expired in 2010, the company continued to make illegal transfers abroad.
In total, reports said MTN may have wired about N90.2 billion out of Nigeria in management fees alone since arriving the country in 2001.
Apart from transfer pricing, MTN was equally accused of creating artificial operating costs in its operations to swindle Nigeria of more billions by under-declaring its profits for tax purposes.
Senate, CBN probe irregular CCIs
In 2016, the Senate Committee on Banks, Insurance and Other Financial Institutions probed how MTN, between 2006 and 2016, allegedly repatriated illegally about $13.9billion from Nigeria after side-stepping the due process for issuing Certificates of Capital Importation (CCIs) within 24 hours of conversion.
On August 29 this year, the CBN came out with the report of its March 2018 investigations on the matter.
The report indicted MTN and the four banks (Standard Chartered Bank, Stanbic-IBTC, Citibank, and Diamond Bank) for being complicit in alleged remittance of foreign exchange using irregular CCIs issued on behalf of some of its offshore investors.
The CBN spokesperson, Isaac Okorafor, said the transactions violated the Foreign Exchange (Monitoring and Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 1995 and the Foreign Exchange Manual, 2006.
Consequently, the CBN sanctioned MTN and the four banks. While the banks were asked to refund a total of N5.87 billion (Standard Chartered N2.4 billion; Stanbic IBTC N1.89billion; Citibank N1.27billion and Diamond Bank N250 million), MTN was to return about $8.134 billion (about N2.5 trillion) to the CBN.
Mr Okorafor said Standard Chartered repatriated about $3.45 billion; Stanbic IBTC $2.63 billion; Citibank $1.77billion and Diamond Bank $348.9million.
Besides, the office of the AGF also accused MTN of illegally converting about $399.6million of its shareholders loan to preference shares (interest free loan) and repatriating along the $8.134billion.
The CBN said between 2001 (when MTN commenced operations in Nigeria) and 2006, shareholders invested about $402.59million in the telecoms firm through foreign currency cash transfers and equipment importation using the four banks.
Further details were that although about $59.44million of the investment was as shareholders loan and $343.15million as equity, MTNs financial statements for the year ended December 31, 2007 captured $399.6million as shareholders loan and $2.996million as equity investment.
Although the transactions were in accordance with the shareholders agreement, the CBN said they not only contrary to the CCIs issued by the banks, they also constituted a rendition of false returns.
Following MTNs request through Standard Chartered Bank for regulatory approval to convert the shareholders loan to preference shares, the CBN said an approval-in-principle was granted on November 13, 2007.
The final approval was subject to MTN implementing its November 08, 2007 board resolution and submission of documentary evidence of compliance to the director of the CBNs Trade and Exchange Department.
Also, MTN was not to remit any interest or principal repayment to shareholders from the date of the loan to the date they were converted to preference shares.
Following MTNs failure to meet the conditions, CBN withheld issuance of a final approval to the companys request.
But, MTN still went ahead to convert the shareholders loan to preference shares, with Standard Charted issuing new CCIs, which facilitated the repatriation of $8.134billion between 2007 and 2015.
The CBN said three CCIs were issued outside the regulatory 24 hours without its approval.
Contrary to CBNs foreign exchange manual requiring CCIs transfers based on customers instructions to a bank of its choice along with the transaction history, Standard Chartered proceeded to give confirmation to Citibank and Diamond Bank, rather than transfer the CCIs to them as required by law.
Role of the banks
The CBN said Standard Chartered equally failed to issue a letter of indemnity to the CBN against double remittance in respect of 10 CCIs transferred to it by Diamond Bank and Citibank as required under law.
For Stanbic IBTC, the CBN accused it of receiving eight of the CCIs totaling $377.2million to repatriate $929.05million as proceeds of divestment valued at $42.7million.
The CBN also accused Stanbic IBTC of falsely reporting 35 CCIs worth $313.7million inappropriately as other purchases in its returns for February 2008, instead of capital importation.
Besides, Stanbic IBTC also illegally issued eight CCIs of $58.36million of foreign exchange sourced locally as shareholders loan. About $905,260.20 dividends was repatriated on the CCIs issued based on locally sourced capital.
CitiBank allegedly issued seven CCIs of about $42.13million, which were subsequently transferred to Standard Chartered at MTNs request on February 6, 2006.
The CBN said four of the irregularly re-issued CCIs by the bank outside the 24 hours period as capital imported as cash contravened the law.
The bank also purchased $535million based on photocopies of Form A provided by Standard Chartered.
For Diamond Bank, the CBN said it issued three CCIs outside the regulatory 24 hours in favour of Dantata Investment for $5million without converting the foreign exchange received into Naira as required by law, and allowing about $102.55million to be repatriated out of the country.
Central bank of Nigeria building
CBN said a review of the CCIs also showed no Form M was opened as evidence of the utilization of the FX for the importation of goods (as Not valid for FX) into the country.
Again, Diamond Bank remitted about $348.9millionas dividend to MTN offshore corporate shareholders without any documentary evidence of the audited account of the company to justify the payment of the dividend declared and paid by the company in violation of the law.
About $352.2million was issued by the bank on behalf of Standard Chartered and Stanbic IBTC for various CCIs issued to MTN.
Regardless, Standard Chartered, on December 10, 2009, described its issuance of all the CCIs as an unintended omission.
On May 25, 2018, CBNs Committee of Governors met with the four banks managements and MTN representatives who claimed they did nothing wrong to deserve the sanctions.
To shoe fair hearing, the committee gave them seven days to come forward with documentary evidence to back their positions. After the deadline, the CBN said another 21 days was given without any response, before the August 29 sanctions were announced.
The UN on Thursday paid final respects to former Secretary-General Kofi Annan as the late Ghanaian diplomat is laid to rest on Thursday in Ghana.
The current UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, in his remarks at the funeral of his predecessor, played glowing tributes to Annan, who died on August 18, at the age of 80 years.
The News Agency of Nigeria reports that the UN General Assembly would hold a commemorative meeting to pay tribute to the former Secretary-General on Friday, at the UN headquarters in New York.
Statements, a minute of silence, and traditional African cultural performance, are expected to be made in honour of the seventh UN scribe.
Kofi Annan was both one-of-a-kind and one of us. He was an exceptional global leader.
He was also someone virtually anyone in the world could see themselves in: those on the far reaching of poverty or by, conflict and despair who found in him an ally; the junior UN staffers following in his footsteps; the young person to whom he said until his dying breath always remember, you are never too young to lead and we are never too old to learn.
Like few in our time, Kofi Annan would bring people together, put them at ease, and unite them towards a common goal for our common humanity.
There is an old joke: The art of diplomacy is to say nothing especially when you are speaking! Kofi Annan could say everything, sometimes without uttering a word.
It came from the dignity and the moral conviction and the humanity that was so deep in him.
He had that gentle voice, that lilt that made people smile and think of music. But his words were tough and wise.
And sometimes the graver a situation, the lower that voice would get.We would lean in to listen. And the world would lean in. And we were rewarded by his wisdom, Guterres said.
The UN chief said Kofi Annan was courageous, speaking truth to power while subjecting himself to intense self-scrutiny.
Pointing to his time at the helm of the UN, Mr Guterres said Mr Annan had an almost mystical sense of the role of the UN as a force for good in a world of ills.
He pioneered new ideas and initiatives, including the Millennium Development Goals and the landmark reforms in his report, In Larger Freedom .
He opened the doors of the UN, bringing the Organization close to the worlds people and engaging new partners in protecting the environment, defending human rights and combating HIV and AIDS and other killer diseases.
Kofi Annan was the UN and the United Nation was him, he said.
Mr Guterres said now that he occupied the office Annan once held, he is continually inspired by his integrity, dynamism and dedication.
To him, indifference was the worlds worst poison. Even after finishing his term as Secretary-General, he never stopped battling on the front-lines of diplomacy.
He helped to case post-election tensions in Kenya, gave his all to find a political solution to the brutal war in Syria and set out a path for ensuring justice and rights for the Rohingya people of Myanmar.
Kofi straddled many worlds. North and South, East and West. But he found his surest anchor in his African roots and identity.
The great Nelson Mandela, accustomed to being called Madiba, had his own nickname for Kofi, and called him my leader. This was no jest. Kofi was our leader, too, Mr Guterres stressed.
The UN chief said Mr Annan is gone now and he would be missed immensely but that his words and wise counsel remain.
Please carry on, I hear him saying. You know what to do: Take care of each other. Take care of our planet. Recognise the humanity in all people.
And support the United Nations the place where we can all come together to solve problems and build a better future for all.
Mr Guterres concluded: As we face the headwinds of our troubled and turbulent times, let us always be inspired by the legacy of Kofi Annan and guided by the knowledge that he will continue speaking to us, urging us on towards the goals to which he dedicated his life and truly moved our world.
Born in Kamasi, Ghana, on April 8, 1938, Mr Annan was the seventh Secretary-General of the UN, after Egyptian diplomat, Boutrous Boutrous-Ghali exit in December 1996, and served as for two consecutive five-year terms, from January 1997 to December 2006.
(NAN)
The Abuja division of the Federal High Court has described the two years detention of journalist Jones Abiri as outright conviction and ordered government to pay N10 million in damages to Mr Abiri.
Mr Abiri was arrested in August 2016 and detained for two years till his lawyers, led by human rights activist, Femi Falana filed a fundamental suit against the Federal government.
Following outcry by various human rights agencies and the media, Mr Abiri was arraigned on militancy at a magistrate court in Abuja.
Speaking at a judgement on Mr Abiris fundamental rights suit at the Abuja Division of the Federal High Court on Thursday the judge, Nnamdi Dimgba, said the federal government had no right to detain Mr Abiri after taking his statement in 2016.
Having taken his statement, the applicant should have been arraigned, Mr Dimgba ruled.
The judge said the federal governments submission that Mr Abiri was detained in national security was baseless.
According to the judge, the federal government should have filled the suit against the defendant and asked the court to refuse him bail, so that the court will use its discretion in determining whether Mr Abiri should be granted bail on not
The court therefore declared Mr Abiris detention illegal and an abuse of his fundamental rights.
The All Progressives Congress said on Thursday that it was not disturbed by the effective defection of Speaker Yakubu Dogara to the Peoples Democratic Party, saying the top lawmaker has no political value to be considered a loss.
We have read your report online that he has picked up PDP nomination form, APC spokesperson Yekini Nabena told PREMIUM TIMES by telephone Thursday morning, hours after the newspaper broke the news that the speaker had quietly purchased form to run on the platform of the major opposition party. It is not a surprise to us, we already know that he has been working with the PDP.
Our report Wednesday night was based on insider details supplied by both the speakers associates and top officials at the PDP national secretariat in Abuja. Several media outlets started running follow-on stories that confirmed the development shortly thereafter.
The news came a day after Mr Dogara assured his constituents at a rally in Abuja that he would run for a fourth House term, but he did not disclose under which party and no political party logo was visible on the placards unfurled by his supporters at the gathering.
Mr Dogara did not formally announce his resignation from the APC or defection to the PDP before picking up the form, an arrangement that some political observers told PREMIUM TIMES Thursday morning was rather unusual for a high-profile politician of his status.
We now have to be patient and see what exactly informed his decision to take such a high-profile move in such a low-profile manner, said political analyst Shola Olubanjo.
Mr Dogara has long been expected to leave the APC like scores of federal lawmakers who were locked in bitter and prolonged political rivalry with their governors across the country. More than 50 senators and representatives defected to opposition parties at the height of the wave in July, an exercise that proportionately benefited the PDP.
Senate President Bukola Saraki also defected at the time, a decision that seriously angered the APC and exposed him to impeachment and removal threats.
Although both the party and President Muhammadu Buhari dismissed Mr Sarakis defection as inconsequential and that it was, in fact, a desirable result of a deliberate strategy aimed at driving out corrupt elements within its ranks the party still threatened to sue the former Kwara State governor for a slew of anti-party offences.
Mr Nabena said the APC would not expend much energy on Mr Dogara because it might not be worth it.
He is not a loss to us. Even if we give him the ticket he would lose on ground. He is not even on ground in the first place, Mr Nabena said. Those kinds of people we call them Abuja politicians.
He is not a problem as far as I am concerned. Yakubu Dogara has no electoral value in the APC, the spokesperson emphasised.
A spokesperson for the speaker, Turaki Hassan, declined PREMIUM TIMES requests for a reaction to Mr Nabenas charges Thursday morning.
Mr Dogaras exit would be celebrated by supporters of Governor Mohammed Abubakar in Bauchi State, with whom the speaker has been having political confrontation for about two years.
Although Bauchi heavily leans towards the APC, the top lawmaker is expected to easily retain his seat, spurred by unique demography of his Bogoro/Dass/Tafawa Balewa Federal Constituency, which has a high population of Christians in a Muslim-majority state.
Despite the order for a substituted service of contempt proceedings on Senate President, Bukola Saraki, over the suspension of a senator, Ovie Omo-Agege, the senator has approached the court with another application.
Mr Omo-Agege wants the court to allow him serve Mr Saraki and the National Assembly with Form 49 by placing the notice of court in the media.
The form contains an order for the respondents to explain why they should not be sent to prison for alleged contempt of court
Following his suspension by the Senate for 90 days in April, Mr Omo-Agege approached the court with an application to nullify his suspension.
The Delta State senator also asked the court to invalidate the investigation carried out by the Senate Ethics and Privileges Committee, which resulted in his suspension.
Although the court partially refused the request for the invalidation of the Senates investigation and Mr Omo-Ageges punishment, the judge, Nnamdi Dimgba, said the suspension was wrongly carried out by the National Assembly.
In a ruling on May 10, Mr Dimgba ordered the Senate to reinstate Mr Omo-Agege and ensure the full payment of his entitlements.
After the order, Mr Omo-Ageges lawyer, Alex Izinyon, explained that they served the respondents with copies of the courts decision and expected that his client will be called back and his salaries promptly paid.
He however noted that Mr Omo-Agege has not been paid since he was asked to resume office.
Mr Izinyon, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, then asked the court to invoke Form 48, which borders on alleged contempt of court.
He also prayed the court to allow him serve Form 49 on the respondents.
Deputy Senate President, Senator Ovie Omo-Agege, Delta-APC. [Photo credit: THISDAYLIVE]
At the opening of session on Thursday, Mr Izinyon explained that his client was still unable to serve the respondent, despite the June 28 court order for substituted service of the contempt proceedings on the respondents.
He therefore asked the court to allow them serve the respondents through the media.
The court adjourned until September 25 to rule on the application.
Eleven persons have been confirmed killed during an attack on a viewing centre in Zamfara State in the early hours of Thursday.
Viewing centres are private places were people gather to watch sports, movies and others after paying a little sum of money. They are common across Nigeria.
Although the police said six corpses were recovered, spokesperson to the state governor, Ibrahim Dosara, confirmed to PREMIUM TIMES in a telephone interview that 11 persons died.
Eleven (persons were) killed and 21 wounded in (the incident at) Badarawa in Shinkafi Local Government Area of Zamfara State, Mr Dosara said.
Investigation revealed that it was bandits that did the killings. More investigations are going on, he said.
The wounded have been taken to the Shinkafi General Hospital this morning, the victims have been hospitalised and committees from the villages where the incident happened are around to support the families of those who were wounded, Mr Dosara said.
Confirming the incident, however, the police said six persons were killed in the attack and 10 others injured.
Police spokesperson in the state, Mohammed Shehu, who confirmed the attack in a statement, said upon receiving a distress call from the area, police and military officers were mobilised to the area.
According to him, the officers engaged the bandits and forced them to flee into the forest.
On 13th September, 2018 at about 0015hrs, the Command received a distress call of an ongoing attack at a Badarawa Village Square in Shinkafi LGA.
Simultaneously, our tactical teams comprising PMF/CTU in conjunction with the military mobilised to the scene and engaged the bandits who fled into the forest.
While profiling the scene and its environs, six (6) corpses were discovered and ten (10) injured persons who were bleeding profusely were rushed to the hospital for stabilisation.
Preliminary investigation has disclosed the footpath of the bandits which has been subjected to extensive bush combing, that will lead to the arrest of the culprits.
Meanwhile, there is an established tactical pin down point at entrance and exit of the community.
Nigerian police force used to illustrate the story
He vowed the police will fish out the attackers.
Zamfara has witnessed the killing of hundreds of people in the past year by armed bandits. Although the killings have reduced since a large military offensive, mainly by the army and air force, was deployed in the state; Thursdays incident shows the bandits are still able to attack at will.
President Muhammadu Buhari has named a new head for the State Security Service (SSS).
The new director-general is Yusuf Magaji Bichi, Mr Buharis spokesperson, Garba Shehu, said in a statement.
The new head replaces Matthew Seiyeifa, who has been operating in acting capacity since Lawal Daura was dismissed.
Read Mr Shehus full statement below.
President Muhammadu Buhari has approved with effect from the 14th of September, the appointment of Yusuf Magaji Bichi, as new Director-General of the State Security Service (SSS, popularly called DSS).
The appointee is a core Secret Service operative.
He attended Danbatta Secondary School, the Kano State College of Advanced Studies and the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria where he graduated with a degree in Political Science.
The new Director-General began his career in the security division of the Cabinet Office in Kano, from where he joined the defunct Nigerian Security Organisation (NSO), the precursor of the present SSS.
Mr. Bichi has undergone training in intelligence processing analysis, agent handling recruitment and intelligence processing in the UK, as well as strategic training at the National Defence College.
The new SSS boss comes to the job with skills in intelligence gathering, research analysis, conflict management, general investigation, risk and vulnerability operations, counter intelligence and protective operation and human resources management.
In the course of his career, Mr. Bichi has worked as the State Director of Security in Jigawa, Niger, Sokoto and Abia States.
SSS DG Yusuf Bichi
He was at various times the Director, National Assembly Liaison, (National War College), Director at National Headquarters in the Directorate of Security Enforcement, Directorate of Operations, Directorate of Intelligence, Directorate of Inspection and Directorate of Administration and Finance.
He also served as Director at State Service Academy.
Mr Bichi is married and with children.
Some elder statesmen from the south and parts of central Nigeria have condemned the removal of Matthew Seiyefa as the Director-General of the State Security Service by President Muhammadu Buhari.
The leaders said Mr Buharis action has further shown that he does not believe in a united Nigeria in which state duties are conducted with fairness and equity.
Mr Seiyefa was replaced by Yusuf Bichi from Kano State Thursday night. He will take office on Friday, the presidency said in a statement announcing the changes.
Mr Seiyefa, from Bayelsa State in the oil-rich Niger-Delta, was appointed on August 7 by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo. Mr Osinbajo, who was acting-president at the time, took the decision as part of a disciplinary action against Lawal Daura, who was accused of organising organising an SSS siege to the National Assembly without approval from the presidency.
Mr Seiyefas appointment was widely hailed by rights activists and pro-democracy campaigners who largely saw him as fitting for the position based on his antecedent in service.
Although he was due to retire next year, there have been strong indications that Mr Buhari was keen on removing him from office in order to appoint someone he feels more comfortable with ahead of 2019 elections.
PREMIUM TIMES reported that Mr Seiyefa was pressured into subservience by Mr Buharis Chief of Staff Abba Kyari. Mr Kyari overruled some personnel and administrative changes made by Mr Seiyefa shortly after assuming office, despite strong protest from the top spy chief.
Mr Seiyefa was the most-senior official at the SSS when Mr Osinbajo asked him to lead, a development that was widely celebrated at the agencys headquarters in Abuja and field offices across the country.
It was not immediately clear whether he would be asked to return to his previous position at the SSS training school or be compulsorily retired when Mr Bichi assumes office Friday.
Mr Buharis action has drawn criticism from leaders in the southern parts of the country, who condemned the president for being too quick to undo the laudable appointment made by Mr Osinbajo, which also placed a southerner in the top national security position for the first time since Mr Buhari assumed office in May 2015.
The leaders in their statement said Mr Buhari has dismantled all precedents that engendered a united Nigeria in order to satisfy his sectional inclinations.
They said Mr Bichi has retired from service but was only brought back because six most-senior officials at the SSS who should have led the agency based on hierarchy are all southerners.
Mr Buhari has been accused of glaring lopsidedness in his appointments, especially into security and law enforcement agencies. He often pushes back against this claim by pointing to some appointments he made from the south.
Read the full statement as sent to PREMIUM TIMES bellow:
Appointment of new DG-DSS: Buharis vote-of-no-confidence in One Nigeria.
The outright disregard for the conditions precedent for a united Nigeria and an inclusive country which President Buhari has become well known for was taken to a new height this evening with the removal of the Acting DG of DSS,Mr Matthew Seiyefa and replacement with Mr Yusuf Magaji Bichi from Kano.
The I-dont-care and in-your-face attitude of the President in restoring Nigeria security architecture to the provocative situation of having 16 out of 17 service chiefs from his corner of the country is a clear demonstration of the fact that Nigeria for General Muhammadu Buhari is no more than his section of Nigeria and the resources and the constitutionally mandatory votes from other sections of the country.
New SSS DG Yusuf Bichi
Since 1960,Nigeria has never had a leader more sectional ,narrow,parochial ,and tribalistic like the current President who went on a global stage to divide Nigeria into 97 % and 5%.
We have looked critically at the profiles of the Acting DG who was removed and the one Buhari just appointed and it is crystal clear that Bichi does not come with any experience close to that of Seiyefa.
The only qualification for this appointment is therefore only the rabid nepotism of the President which has seen him always masking personal and sectional interest as national interest.
Besides, Bichi is an out-of-the -system man drafted by Mr Lawan Daura in the days of his nepotism rule at the DSS.
The next six most senior persons in line of succession at the DSS after Seiyefa are from our findings are all southerners which may explain why the President picked a man who already retired from the DSS to lead because of ethnic affinity.
That the President went ahead to deep himself further into the cocoon of ethnic irredentism in making this insensitive appointment shows clearly that he does not care a hoot about the unity ,cohesion and oneness of Nigeria.
We reject this appointment and we do not shy in telling Mr President that he no longer pretends that the country is one under him.
In the last few days, there have been fears coming from the international community about the dangers that would come the way of Nigeria if Mr President returns for another term.
With his latest action,we add that the country is not safe in the remainder of his first term.
Lastly we ask Mr President: Are we still one county?
Chief E.K Clark.
SOUTH SOUTH
Chief Ayo Adebanjo
SOUTH WEST
Chief John Nwodo.
SOUTH EAST
Mr Bitrus Pogu
MIDDLE BELT.
The Commissioner of Police in Imo, Dasuki Galadanchi, said in Owerri that the command has arrested two suspects involved in the killing of a Reverend Father, Jude Egbom.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that, until his death, Mr Egbom was the parish priest of St Patrick Catholic Church Amucha in Njaba Local Government Area of the state.
It will be recalled that the hoodlums barged into a salon in Nkwere council where the priest was barbing his hair and killed him on Sept. 10.
The commissioner, who paraded the suspects on Thursday, gave their names as Chigozie Uzoukwu and Peter Boniface.
Also, Mr Galadanchi paraded two other suspects who stole a corpse from O-Jesus Mortuary, Akabo and demanded for N5 million ransom.
He explained that the criminals were arrested in a forest in Mbaitoli LGA on September 12, after keeping the corpse for many days.
The names of the suspects were given as Chukwudi Chukwu and Bethel Ibe.
In their separate reactions, Bethel Ibe, a commercial driver said he was lured into kidnapping by his friends.
He said they decided to steal the corpse to raise money for what he called a mega business.
His co-suspect, Chukwudi Chukwu, said he was an ex-mortuary attendant and was sacked by management of O-Jesus mortuary.
He said based on his experience in mortuary business, he was able to steal the corpse. (NAN)
The Controller General of Prisons, Ahmed Jafaru, has presented commendation letters to six prison officers who foiled escape of two inmates of the Enugu Maximum Security Prisons on May 5.
Emeka Monday, Public Relations Officer of the Nigeria Prison Service, Enugu State Command, made the disclosure in a statement in Enugu on Thursday.
Mr Monday recalled that two inmates with minor offence who evaded custody on May 5 were recaptured by the six officers.
He listed the gallant officers as Theophilius Martins, Ezekiel Yohanna, Christopher Nwaforenyi, Philip Nnamani, Nwadinobi Nwoke and Emmanuel Igwe.
The command spokesperson said that the Controller of Prisons in Enugu Command, Ndubuisi Ogbodo presented the commendation letters to the officers on behalf of the controller general.
He said that Jafaru encouraged other officers to always be committed to their duties as there was reward for excellence in the service.
A prisons inspector, Theophelius Martins, who spoke on behalf of the recipients, thanked the CGP for the recognition accorded them and pledged their commitment to the service.
(NAN)
Many Boko Haram fighters were killed by Nigerian troops in Damasak on Thursday, army spokesperson Texas Chukwu said.
Mr Chukwu, who said the terrorists came to attack the military formation at 6 p.m. were outmatched by the superior firepower of Nigerian soldiers.
The troops engaged and subdued the terrorists following a superior fire power of troops in DAMASAK.
The troops aggressive posture, tactics and marksmanship resulted in neutralising many Boko Haram terrorists, he said.
The statement discredited an online report alleging the capturing of Damasak by Boko Haram terrorists.
Mr Chukwu, the Director of army public relations said:
Nigerian Army wishes to state categorically that the claim is not only untrue but capable of misleading members of the general public and the world at large.
In the said story, the report stated inter alia, that Damasak is the location of 134 Battalion. The Nigerian Army wishes to state that there was no such battalion in Damasak.
The Nigerian Army earlier released a statement that troops of 145 Battalion in Damasak, Borno State, are engaging Boko Haram terrorists who came to attack their location at about 6 p.m on 12 September, 2018.
The statement also stated that fierce battle is ongoing right now and the troops are dealing with the terrorists.
Consequently, the Nigerian Army wishes to state that the fight against Boko Haram terrorists in the North Eastern parts of the the country is yielding positive result.
The Nigerian Army, therefore, advised members of the public, particularly residents of the affected areas, to go about their legitimate businesses and disregard the said report.
The Nigerian Army will continue to protect lives and property of citizens at all times.
The Nigerian Army also call on the media to always exercise caution, verify facts as well as balance their reports before rushing to the press to avoid misinforming the public on sensitive issues, Mr Chukwu. (NAN)
(CNN) Two people have been diagnosed with monkeypox in Britain in apparently unrelated cases, Public Health England (PHE) have confirmed.
Both patients are believed to have contracted the disease in Nigeria before traveling to England, and were diagnosed days apart. There is no known UK link between the two patients, PHE said Tuesday.
The second patient is being treated in a specialist infectious disease unit at Royal Liverpool University Hospital, after being transferred from Blackpool Victoria Hospital.
It comes after a Nigerian resident was diagnosed with the disease in Cornwall last week. The infection had never previously been diagnosed in the United Kingdom, PHE said.
Monkeypox is a rare viral infection that typically only leads to mild illness and does not spread easily between people, PHE said. Its symptoms include fever, muscle aches and rash. People usually recover within a few weeks, though it can lead to serious illness in some cases.
PHE said they were contacting a number of people who may have been in contact with the patients, including fellow passengers who traveled with the initial patient on their flight from Nigeria.
"It is very unusual to see two cases in such a relatively short space of time. We are working hard to contact individuals, including healthcare workers, that might have come into contact with the individual to provide information and health advice," Nick Phin, the deputy director of the National Infection Service at PHE, said in a statement.
"We know that in September 2017, Nigeria experienced a large sustained outbreak of monkeypox," he added. "It is likely that monkeypox continues to circulate in Nigeria and could, therefore, affect travelers who are returning from this part of the world."
As many as one in ten cases of the disease in Africa result in death, according to the United States' Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The disease requires two people to be in close contact in order to be passed between them.
Mike Beadsworth, clinical director of the Tropical and Infectious Diseases Unit at the Liverpool hospital, said in a statement that there was "currently no risk to other staff, patients or visitors," and urged people to continue to only visit emergency rooms if their cases are serious.
"The patient is being cared for on our specialist infectious and tropical diseases unit, by highly trained staff who are experienced in dealing with a variety of infectious diseases," he said.
This story was first published on CNN.com, "Monkeypox: First cases of rare infection diagnosed in UK."
NEW DELHI (PTI): The Union cabinet Wednesday approved a memorandum of understanding between India and South Africa on cooperation for exploration and uses of the outer space for peaceful purposes, an official statement said.
The MoU is one of the three pacts signed between India and South Africa in Johannesburg on July 26 during the 10th BRICS Summit.
The cooperation under this MoU encompasses areas like remote-sensing of the Earth, satellite communication and satellite-based navigation, space science and planetary exploration, use of spacecraft, launch vehicles, space systems and ground systems.
This MoU envisages to plan and implement joint space projects of mutual benefit and interest, establishment, operation and maintenance of ground stations for supporting space activities, sharing of satellite data, results of experiments, and scientific and technological information.
The cabinet also approved another MoU between India and Brunei on cooperation in the operation of telemetry tracking and telecommand station for satellite and launch vehicles, and for cooperation in the field of space research, science and applications.
The MoU was signed in New Delhi on July 19.
The pact will enable India to continue to operate, maintain and augment its ground station meant for supporting India's launch vehicle and satellite missions.
"This will also help India to share its experience and expertise in space activities through training of officials and students from Brunei Darussalam on space technology applications," another official statement stated.
Ahead of 2019 general elections, the Director National Youths Service Corps (NYSC), Community Development Service and Special Projects, Yusuf Steve, has warned corps members to be wary of politicians.
He said the corps members should resist attempt by politicians to use them to perpetrate electoral malpractices during the planned exercise.
Mr Steve gave the warning on Thursday while addressing the 2018 Adamawa/Taraba Batch B Stream 11 Corps Members at Damare Camp near Yola.
He said corps members that would work as INEC Ad-Hoc staff for the 2019 general elections must discharge their assignment properly.
Be wary of allowing yourself to be used for political advancement of any politician; you are not supposed to show political activism.
Some of you will be used as ad-hoc staff for election and you are expected to go into this with high level of integrity.
Discharge yourself creditably well in a manner that the corporate image of the NYSC will not be dented, Mr Steve said.
He reiterated the commitment of the scheme to corps members security and welfare but added that the scheme would be more through in the supervision of their social activities due to recent the drowning of some corps members in Taraba that went for picnic.
There will be more invasion of your privacy; you now need to take permission for your social activities.
All social activities must be permitted officially and all travels must have approval.
Earlier, the Adamawa Coordinator of NYSC, Abubakar Mohammed, said 1,558 corps members were registered in the camp, made up of 1,010 for Adamawa and 548 for Taraba.
Mr Mohammed said that activities were going on smoothly in the camp, including steady water and electricity supply.
I am pleased to report that these corps members have displayed high level of discipline and impressive moral standard in their interactions with one another and camp officials.
This is largely because from the onset, we are able to instil in them the basic tenets of the NYSC, Mr Mohammed said.
(NAN)
A 40-year-old lecturer, Aremu Olufemi, was on Thursday docked before an Iyaganku Chief Magistrates Court in Ibadan, over alleged sodomy (unnatural sexual intercourse) with one of his students.
Besides, Mr Olufemi of Olugbode St., Odo-Ona, Ibadan, is being tried for an attempt to receive a cell phone as gratification for the award of marks to his students.
The prosecutor, Matthew Ojeah, told the court that the lecturer on August 6, at about 8:30p.m., indecently assaulted one Jamiu Lateef, 27, an HND1 student.
The accused is a lecturer at the College of Agriculture, Moore Plantation, Apata, Ibadan,
Mr Ojeah said the accused allegedly massaged the manhood of Mr Lateef at SW9/ 717, Olugbode Street, Odo-Ona, Ibadan.
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He alleged that the accused asked his students to buy him an Infinix Hotnote IV phone as gratification for the award of marks to them.
According to the prosecutor, Mr Olufemi coaxed the students through one Ganiyat Adedeji to buy him an Infinix Hotnote cell phone for upgrade of their marks in Agriculture Engineering.
Ojeah said the offences contravened Section 98 (1) and 217 of the Criminal Code, Cap 38, Vol. II, Laws of Oyo State, 2000.
The accused however pleaded not guilty to the charges.
J.A. Apo, counsel to the accused, urged the court to grant his client bail in most liberal terms.
The Chief Magistrate, Jejelola Ogunbona, granted the accused bail in the sum of N50,000 with one surety in like sum.
Mrs Ogunbona adjourned the case until October 19 for mention. (NAN)
The African Democratic Congress (ADC) has adopted direct primaries for nomination of its candidates for the 2019 general elections.
This was disclosed to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Thursday by the Chairman of ADC in Enugu State, Stella Chukwuma.
The chairman said it was a collective decision of the partys National Working Committee (NWC) to adopt the system.
According to Mrs Chukwuma, the party chose direct primaries because it is a grassroots party where everyone is a major stakeholder and has the right to make major decisions for the party.
The founding fathers of ADC have recognised this and decided not to impose candidates but give everyone a level playing ground, she said.
She disclosed that the party had slated September 25 and 27 for the conduct of primaries for state and National Assemblies across the federation.
The chairman said it also set aside October 2 and 6 for the conduct of the partys gubernatorial and presidential primaries.
Mrs Chukwuma said the door of the party was still open to intending members and candidates alike.
She advised party loyalists to shun any form of violence before, during and after primaries and the general elections adding that they should avoid all forms of altercations with the opposition parties.
(NAN)
The Citizens Advocacy for Social and Economic Rights has finalised plans to institute a class action against the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) for its failure to investigate the certificate forgery allegations against the finance minister, Kemi Adeosun.
Frank Tietie, the executive director of the group, told PREMIUM TIMES on Thursday that the class action was aimed at securing a court order to compel the ICPC to begin investigations into the allegations against Ms Adeosun.
Weve put our papers together, were ready, we are making an application for an order of mandamus upon ICPC to prosecute, we are also joining the Attorney General of the Federation and NYSC, Mr Tietie, a human rights lawyer, said.
We needed to make it a class action, let it not be that only me because in this era where people think that anything you do to challenge government is because you want to be settled.
Last month, the group issued a seven-day notice to the ICPC demanding an investigation into the allegations that Ms Adeosun falsified her National Youth Service Corps exemption certificate.
It also demanded an investigation into what it described as the collusion of silence by NYSC officials.
The notice came more than a month after PREMIUM TIMES exposed how Ms Adeosun skipped the mandatory one year National Youth Service Corps scheme and forged a certificate that showed she had been exempted from participation.
A period of more than 4 weeks has passed and the Honourable Minister has neither given a plausible response nor has she resigned her position in preparation for possible prosecution, read the groups notice to the ICPC dated August 13.
Also, following the report of forgery by the Honourable Minister, in the last 4 weeks, the officials of the NYSC have maintained an unpatriotic silence that is of a highly worrisome and criminal dimension.
This is utterly embarrassing to many Nigerians, including my humble self who hold with sacrosanctity the NYSC programme that has caused many Nigerians, including me, to hazard our lives through many dangers, sufferings, pains and death.
The revelation about how Ms Adeosun allegedly forged her NYSC exemption certificate elicited a public outrage from Nigerians, with the Human and Environmental Development Agenda, a nongovernmental organisation, .petitioning the police inspector general demanding an investigation into the claims against the minister
Last month, another nongovernmental organisation, the Social Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) sued the NYSC over its failure to disclose details of the certificate paraded by the minister. The group had earlier made a freedom of information request to the NYSC which the agency refused to honour.
So far, the only response from the government on the scandal is a short statement by the NYSC on July 9 saying it would investigate the claims.
On August 6, Lai Mohammed, the information minister, said the appropriate agency is still investigating the allegations against Ms Adeosun and the president will only act at the end of that.
A call for action
Mr Tietie said the class action suit against the ICPC is an action to save the NYSC certificate from uselessness.
There has been no response, so the presumption is that PREMIUM TIMES is correct and if PREMIUM TIMES is correct, what it means is that the NYSC certificate is now useless, Mr Tietie said.
Its just a journey. Whether they prosecute her or they dont prosecute her, we will ultimately get an order to say that it (NYSC certificate) is no longer useful, they should either set aside the provision that makes it compulsory or ensure that Kemi Adeosun is investigated.
And if she is indicted, she should return all her salaries and all the things she received as the honourable minister of finance.
In July, the ICPC successfully prosecuted a staff in the Office of the Auditor General of the Federation for forging his Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN) certificate. James Lebi-Ayodele was convicted by an FCT High Court and sentenced to two years in prison without an option of fine.
Mr Tietie said the law setting up the ICPC and other investigative agencies does not require them to receive a petition before they can act.
If you look at the law setting up the police, ICPC and the EFCC, they are supposed to be proactive they are supposed to, on their own, go and take up cases that are notorious or public knowledge and prosecute them, they dont need to wait for anybody to write a petition to them, he said.
In the case of ICPC, I told them that they should have done it because based on the provisions of the ICPC Act, I cited the law, that they should have on their own gone to prosecute the woman.
The ICPC is not even responding because it believes there is no petition to it yet. We are saying that you dont need a petition, there are certain facts that are called notorious facts which the court takes judicial notice of, which every public institution takes judicial notice of.
This is a notorious fact, it is in the public domain, they ought to have investigated and concluded their investigation in not less than 48 hours, maximum seven days.
Despite the public outrage that greeted the certificate forgery scandal, Mr Tietie said the response to his groups call for action has been unimpressive.
On Wednesday, the advocacy group, Enough Is Enough Nigeria joined the call for more citizens to join the class action.
67 days after @PremiumTimesng broke the story of #KemiCertificateForgery, @MBuhari is still waiting for the outcome of the investigation of an undisclosed agency. How long is too long?#AdeosunGate pic.twitter.com/pEVNpPVfaX EiE Nigeria (@EiENigeria) September 12, 2018
So many people expressed support but without wanting their names to be put on the paper, said Mr Tietie.
Those who joined were mainly lawyers from across the country, the northern and the southern part of the country and then south-south and then few individuals, maybe they dont really understand the concept of class action.
A lawyer who was arrested and taken away by police officers outside the Federal High Court in Lagos on Wednesday has said he was abducted to prevent him from appearing in a 100 million suit he filed against the police.
Olukoya Ogungbeje, known for representing the alleged billionaire kidnapper, Chukwudumeme Onwuamadike (popularly known as Evans), was arrested as he was about to enter the court premises and whisked away.
The lawyer later told PREMIUM TIMES he was held for over four hours at the State Criminal Investigation Department, Panti, in Yaba.
Mr Ogungbejes client, Ibrahim Kabiru, had also been arrested by the police at the court premises days ago while waiting to appear in a fundamental rights enforcement suit he filed against the police.
The police said Mr Ogungbeje was arrested on the grounds that he was not qualified to represent Mr Kabiru because the latter had transferred his brief to another lawyer, Wole Smith.
Mr Ogungbeje said he had secured a 200 million judgment sum against the police for the extra judicial killing of Mr Kabirus brother, Waheed.
PREMIUM TIMES learnt that Waheed was arrested and detained by the police during a raid in the Ikorodu area in November 2015. He has not been seen ever since.
Messrs Ogungbeje and Kabiru are also appearing as plaintiffs in a suit against the police for the forceful abduction and detention of Mr Kabiru.
Joined as respondents are the Inspector General of Police; the Nigeria Police Force; the Commissioner of Police, Lagos State; Yetunde Longe, Deputy Commissioner of Police, Panti; Effiong Asuquo, O/C legal, Panti; and Mr Smith, a senior advocate of Nigeria.
In the affidavit in support of the suit, Mr Kabiru claimed he was arrested and tortured solely because the police and its agents abhorred his decision to maintain Mr Ogungbeje as his lawyer.
Mr Kabiru accused Mr Smith of using agents of the Nigeria Police Force to harass him because he never appointed him as his lawyer and that the documents tendered in court to that effect were falsified.
He said Mr Smith was working with the police to ensure that the judgment against the Force is not enforced.
We were about to get an order absolute to declare the respondents judgement debtors when the sixth respondent Wole Smith showed up with an application for change of counsel claiming that I had given the brief to him.
I never appointed the sixth respondent as my counsel. The second applicant has been my counsel from the beginning of the case against the IGP and remains my counsel.
When contacted, Mr Smith told PREMIUM TIMES he was out of the country and all enquiries be directed to his chamber.
Mr Kabiru said he was released on September 7 only after Mr Ogungbeje wrote a petition to the Assistant Inspector General of Police Zone II.
The judgment in the matter was delivered by Mohammed Idris who awarded the sum of 200 million to the family of Waheed Kabiru to be paid by the Nigerian Police Force.
The police are still holding former Director-General of the State Security Service Lawal Daura without charges 37 days after he was first taken into custody following his dismissal by then-Acting President Yemi Osinbajo.
Human rights advocates who spoke with PREMIUM TIMES on the plight of the former top spy chief decried his prolonged detention and criticised the police for yet again flouting the Nigerian Constitution.
August 7 , moments after Mr Daura was arrested on, moments after Mr Osinbajo relieved him of the top national security position on allegations of corruption, insubordination, abuse of office and breach of trust.
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Mr Daura was fired hours after SSS operatives laid a siege to the Nigerian parliament, a widely condemned act he reportedly ordered without prior clearance from the Nigerian presidency or other higher offices. The SSS is an agency under the Office of the National Security Adviser, which is controlled by the president
Mr Osinbajo ordered Mr Dauras detention to pave way for an easy probe of his possible transgressions. The police initially moved him to a property for interrogation, but PREMIUM TIMES later learnt that the former spy chief was tentatively released two days later, amidst heavy surveillance on his movement.
His freedom was, however, short-lived, as the police after a day returned him into custody, where has has remained ever since without trial.
Inspector-General Ibrahim Idris disclosed in a preliminary report about the National Assembly siege to Mr Osinbajo that Mr Daura was being kept at a facility in Garki, Abuja. But it remained unclear where he remained at the same location, or he had been moved after the report was made public.
A top security source who has met Mr Daura since his ordeal began, however, says he is being held at a security guest house in Abuja but is allowed to entertain guests including family members.
Police spokesperson Jimoh Moshood did not return PREMIUM TIMES requests for comments about why Mr Daura has not been charged to court or whether there is a court order that allowed police to keep him without arraignment.
There is no doubt that any detention of a Nigerian beyond 48 hours is wrong, especially if the person has not been taken him to court, rights lawyer Mark Jacobs told PREMIUM TIMES, Thursday morning. There is no basis on which he should be kept in detention beyond 48 hours.
The Nigerian constitution forbids keeping citizens in custody without trial. The Administration of Criminal Justice Act allows a judge to order remand for a maximum fourteen days, but it must be renewed by prosecuting authorities if a suspect must be kept beyond that window.
But the Nigerian law enforcement agencies have continued to flout these provisions, a culture that has worsened perception of Nigerias respect for rule of law, said another lawyer Nana Nwachukwu.
The Nigerian state cannot go rogue, Ms Nwachukwu told PREMIUM TIMES by telephone, Thursday morning. Everything they have done so far is illegal.
The lawyer said President Muhammadu Buhari must be held responsible for the gross violations of rights by security agencies, all of whom he has absolute control over.
She further expressed suspicion about the prolonged detention of Mr Daura, saying it points to the possibility of a serious conspiracy by the Buhari administration.
There is a deeper conspiracy as to why he has been kept out of sight and quiet, Ms Nwachukwu said. He was not even allowed to say anything to defend himself and we are not sure he has a lawyer because we do not know who is representing him in this matter.
We also cannot say he could be facing court martial since he is a civilian and not in the military, she added. Clearly, his full fundamental rights, which he is entitled to, are being violated.
Mr Daura, 65, was appointed to lead the SSS by Mr Buhari in July 2015. His appointment was widely criticised because he had been retired from service only a few years earlier, concerns the president ignored at the time.
His tenure was marred by regular acts of impunity, including prolonged detention of citizens without trial, frequent clampdowns on public institutions and disregard for accountability and the rule of law.
His exit was widely celebrated by rights activists and pro-democracy campaigners who accused him of leaving a dreaded legacy, one which even his successor subtly distanced himself and promised to correct.
Hunter Becomes Hunted
Jones Abiri, a Nigerian journalist in Bayelsa State, was detained for two years by Mr Daura without trial. He regained freedom mid-August, about a week after Mr Daura was disgraced out of office.
The first repudiation of Mr Buharis recent claim that national security trumps the rule of law came on Thursday morning when a federal court in Abuja awarded Mr Abiri N10 million in damages against the Nigerian government.
The court ruled that the SSS had no powers to keep the journalist in custody after taking his statement, saying detention of any citizen on national security bases must first be sanctioned by a court and not by executive fiat.
The SSS claimed since Mr Abiri was detained in July 2016 that its action was to protect national security, although the journalist was later charged with threats to blow up an oil facility unless they paid a ransom.
We know Lawal Daura was brutal and he implemented enforced disappearances, Ms Nwachukwu said. But holding him without trial would only worsen the case of enforced disappearances.
Mr Jacobs take on Mr Dauras reign at the SSS also mirrored Ms Nwachukwus.
You see, we are in a regime that says the rule of law should give way to national security and he belonged to that regime, Mr Jacobs said, referring to Mr Buharis recent controversial comment.
Now, the hunter has become the hunted. As wrong as it is, one is tempted to say let him have a taste of his own coffee.
Personally, if I were in the position, I would have asked that he should be detained with the former National Security Adviser Sambo Dasuki. Let them be exchanges notes, Mr Jacobs said.
Mr Daura held Mr Dasuki and Shiite leader Ibrahim El-Zakzaky in detention since 2015. Although he arraigned them in court on criminal charges, several court orders admitting them bail were disregarded by the SSS.
Attorney-General Abubakar Malami recently justified Mr Dauras action, saying Mr Dasuki will remain perpetually in custody notwithstanding the number of times federal courts order his release.
But in the end, impunity must not be allowed to continue in a democratic society, the lawyer said. Lawal Daura should either be charged or be released immediately.
Zakari Kazuare, the Director General, National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), on Thursday, warned corps members against crime despite his agencys failure to inform Nigerians of its findings in a case of certificate forgery levelled against a serving minister.
PREMIUM TIMES had reported how the finance minister, Kemi Adeosun, skipped the mandatory one year youth service and went ahead to procure a forged NYSC discharge certificate.
The minister is yet to respond to the findings, over 60 days after the scandal was unearthed.
The NYSC, apart from a vague release saying the minister applied for a discharge certificate and that it is investigating is yet to inform Nigerians of its findings weeks after.
The presidency, through its spokesperson, Garba Shehu, a few days ago also said it is still investigating the matter and would take appropriate actions if the minister is found guilty.
Mr Shehu also said he did not know when investigations will be concluded.
Meanwhile, while Nigerians continue to chide the government over its unwillingness to act decisively, the Citizens Advocacy for Social and Economic Rights has finalised plans to institute a class action against the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) for its failure to investigate the matter.
The Attorney-Gemeral and the NYSC are also to be linked in the suit. The group had earlier given the ICPC a seven day notice to investigate the matter. The ICPC ignored the notice.
On Thursday, the DG said at the NYSC Permanent Orientation Camp, Iseyin, Oyo State, that it was important for corps members to observe all rules and laws regulating the scheme.
My dear children in the service of nation building, there is no better time for you than now to make the difference; the nation expects so much from you, and you cannot afford to let us all down at this critical period.
Do not take undue advantage of the opportunity that would come your way during next years general elections to perpetrate criminal activities, he said.
Mr Kazaure said that laws of the land would be invoked on any corps member who acted in contravention of laid down rules.
He also warned the corps members against unauthorised journey during the service year, as it sometimes resulted in avoidable death and injuries.
We the managers of this noble scheme are always at a great loss whenever we lose patriotic corps member to avoidable and needless circumstances, he said.
Earlier, the states NYSC Coordinator, Ifeoma Anidobi, said the state needed more hostel accommodation to cater for the growing population of corps members who attend the orientation programme.
She also appealed for more operational vehicles for better coordination and movement of members.
The Charge dAffaires of the Chinese embassy in Nigeria, Lin Jing, has said that the bilateral relation between Nigeria and China has no political strings attached to it.
He said this at a round-table dialogue organised by the Centre for China Studies (CCS) in Abuja on Thursday.
Mr Ling explained that the relationship between China and Africa as a whole is aimed at building a win-win cooperation. He emphasised the need for mutual respect and equal consultation between both parties as he said the Chinese government rejects the cold-war mentality and power politics.
I need to say that there is no attachment of political strings to assistance rendered by China. There is also no seeking of selfish political interest whatsoever.
China is not Africas Father Christmas. What we want to do is to build a win-win cooperation. Our cooperation is mutually beneficial. We always consider our relationship over interest and China ready to work with each African country to enable sustainable development, he said.
The diplomat also said China will launch several initiatives in Nigeria in the next three years. The initiatives are, industrial promotion, infrastructural connectivity, peace and security, people-to-people ties, healthcare facilities, among others.
According to him, the Chinese government is willing to establish 10 workshops to create vocational training. A China-Africa cooperation centre (in Nigeria), several scholarships and training alternatives.
The chairman of the dialogue, Shehu Sani, who appreciated the relationship between China and Nigeria, stressed the need for a stronger economic cooperation.
While describing China as Africas longest reliable friend, he said the China-Africa relations should not just be about loans.
Other areas should be explored. For instance, security cooperation. That is, having China support Africa at the UN Security Summit, he said.
The dialogue was themed, the outcome of the 2018 Beijing Summit of the Forum On China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) and how it can be synegised with the economic recovery and growth plan to drive sustainable and inclusive development.
It comes barely two weeks after President Muhammadu Buhari participated in the 7th Summit of FOCAC in Beijing where the Chinese President Xi Jinping had pledged to provide $60 billion to finance Africas development over the next three years.
The dialogue had in attendance, the Deputy Permanent Representatives of Nigeria to the United Nations, Usman Sarki, representatives of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corpoation, National Defence College and several academics.
A Shariah court on Thursday rejected an application for divorce after the husband swore an oath that he had not divorced his wife, contrary to her claims.
The woman, Hajara Ibrahim, had dragged Albashir Ibrahim before the court sitting at Magajin Gari in Kaduna State, complaining that despite divorcing her, he would not allow her to leave his house.
My husband divorced me when we had a misunderstanding but refused to let me leave. So I want to court to intervene, she said.
After listening to the womans complaint, the judge, Dahiru Lawal, asked Mr Ibrahim if it was true that he had divorced his wife.
I heard what she said sir, but I didnt divorce her and Im ready to swear in the court that I didnt , he responded.
The judge therefore asked him to step forward and swear on oath.
I swear to my creator that I didnt divorce her and if I did or told anybody that I divorced, her may Gods anger be on me, he said.
After the oath, the judge explained that an argument between couples over divorce requires the husband to take an oath, adding that if he denies divorcing his wife and there are no witness to present a contrary evidence, the husbands words would be taken.
So, based on his oath and for denying divorcing you, I rule that you should return to your matrimonial home and live in peace with your husband, the judge told the wife.
The Adamawa Police Command has urged riverine communities in the state to relocate before September 15 to avoid impending flood.
The command in a statement on Thursday by the Acting Public Relations Officer, Habibu Musa, said the call became necessary as neighbouring Cameroon Republic would release excess water from Lagdo Dam.
The command urged the affected communities to cooperate with security personnel and other emergency workers while relocating to safer areas.
The Adamawa State Police Command wishes to inform communities in riverine areas prone to flooding, to vacate for safety before Saturday Sept. 15, as Cameroon Republic plans to release water from Lagdo Dam which may result in flooding of riverine communities.
The command, therefore, warned those living within the flood prone areas to evacuate and relocate to safer areas and also to cooperate with security personnel and other emergency response agencies.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that River Benue with source from Cameroon passes through Fufore, Yola North, Yola South, Numan, Girei, Lamurde and Demsa Local Government Areas of Adamawa.
(NAN)
LOWER MAKEFIELD >> Iraq War veteran Captain Adrian (Sykes) Saguil of Lower Makefield will serve as honorary grand marshal when this year's Veterans Day Parade steps off in Lower Makefield. The parade begins at 1 p.m. on Satruday, Nov. 6 at Edgewood Road and Long Acre Lane, marches west on Edgewood before concluding at Veterans Square Park at Edgewood and...
Traders at Sheikh Mahmud Gumi Market have distanced themselves from a faction of their market association which denied involvement in the purchase of the All Progressives Congress Congress (APC) nomination form for Governor Nasir El-Rufai.
The Sheikh Mahmud Gumi Market Association on September 10 was announced as joining four other groups to buy the form for the governor.
The other groups are Petroleum Tankers Driver (PTD), National Association of Road Transport Workers (NARTO), and Katsina and Daura Peoples Association based in Kaduna.
However, a parallel group of the Gumi market Kaduna Market Traders Association announced it was not part of the market group that joined in buying the form.
In a statement by the groups leaders, Falalu Maidoya, Gafai Boska and Thomas Yakubu, made available to journalists in Kaduna, the group said its members were not in support of the gesture and should not be connected to it.
But in another statement signed by its chairman, Ibrahim Daudawa, the Traders of Sheikh Mahmud Gummi Market in Kaduna on Thursday discredited the statement of dissociation and described the group that issued it as fraudulent.
Our attention has been drawn to false reports by a fraudulent organisation known as Kaduna Market Traders Association disassociating itself from those that purchased the APC Nomination Form for Governor Nasir El-Rufai on September, 10.
The purported association is fake and a criminal invention of some frustrated politicians who are enemies of peace and unity of Kaduna State.
Furthermore, the three signatories, (Alhaji Falalu Musa Maidoya, Alhaji Gafai Boska and Mr. Thomas Yakubu) are also fake identities and a mischievous invention of some frustrated politicians.
We challenge these individuals, to unveil themselves and not drag our names and association into their gutter politicking. We have also reported the matter to security agencies to fish out the criminal imposters, the Thursday statement said.
Earlier, Mr El-Rufai while accepting the form at Government House Kaduna, expressed surprise at the gesture of those who purchased it.
According to him, he did not have the money for the nomination form for his reelection bid when the amount was announced.
He said the money in his bank account was not close to the amount.
I dont have N20 million also to buy my form. The money I have in the bank is not close to that amount. I have only one account in GTB . Except I sell my house will I be able to raise that that amount, he said.
The development mirrored two at the national level whereby different groups bought party nomination forms for President Muhammadu Buhari (APC) and Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party.
Massive flooding has destroyed more than 175 houses, rendered at least 3,000 people homeless in Cross River State, according to John Inaku, Director-General of State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA).
Mr Inaku gave the update on flood situation in the state on Thursday in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Calabar, the state capital.
Mr Inaku, who said that the flood had seriously affected the victims, also said most of them had since relocated to upper lands for safety.
He, however, said no life had been lost in the menace, but disclosed that the flood started in the state in July.
According to him, most of the victims are living along the water channels while others in swampy areas.
He said the agency had embarked on aggressive campaign, to sensitise residents in the state on the need to stop dumping refuse on drainage and building along water channels.
He explained that the flood had affected residents in Boki, Ogoja, Yala, Calabar Municipality, Calabar South and other local government areas in the state.
Cross River has always been affected by flood during the raining season. Currently, we have over 175 houses destroyed and as a result, over 3,000 persons have been displaced.
This menace has greatly affected farming activities, especially in Boki, Yala and a few others areas.
We are looking at NEMA and other corporate organisations to come in and assist the victims, he said.
He listed the flooded areas in Calabar to include, Muritala Mohammed Highway, Ebito, Murray, Target and Nelson Mandela, Atu, Yellow Duke, Parliamentary, Efiote roundabout and Mayne Avenue streets.
He appealed to the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) to assist the state with relief materials for the victims.
(NAN)
Juliet Ibekaku-Nwagwu, the Special Assistant to the President on Justice Reform, and National Coordinator, Open Government Partnership (OGP), has declared her intention to contest for the Enugu West Senatorial Seat.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, who occupies the Enugu West seat at the senate, is seeking re-election on the platform of the People Democratic Party (PDP).
Mrs Ibekaku-Nwagwu, who is contesting on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC), told journalists in Enugu on Thursday that she submitted her nomination form in Abuja on Wednesday.
According to her, the decision to vie for the position is in obedience to the clarion call by youth, women, men and other interest groups in the senatorial zone.
She said that her people had complained incessantly of the negative impact of Mr Ekweremadus representation on the area.
In the 16 years of his representation, no meaningful infrastructural development can be equated to the quantum of funds that was purportedly expended as constituency funds on the zone, she alleged.
Mrs Ibekaku-Nwagwu said she accepted the call by her people from the five local government areas Aninri, Agwu, Ezeagu, Oji River and Udi to fill the leadership vacuum.
My people are hard-working and from a senatorial zone that is endowed with natural resources; they deserve the best.
All they yearn for is the provision of the basic necessities of life that will create the enabling environment to bring out the best in them, the presidents aide said. (NAN)
The controversially removed deputy governor of Imo State, Eze Madumere, has submitted his nomination form to contest the governorship seat of Imo on the platform of the governing party, APC.
Mr Madumere was controversially removed from the office by Imo lawmakers, a matter which is in court and is yet to be resolved.
Observers believe the lawmakers removed him mainly for his insistence to succeed Mr Okorocha, against the governors wish.
Messrs Madumere and Okorocha lead different factions of the APC in Imo.
The submission of Mr Madumeres nomination form was confirmed by his spokesperson, Uche Onwuchekwa, in a statement sent to PREMIUM TIMES.
Read the full statement below.
It has been jubilation among numerous supporters of the Deputy Governor of Imo State and a frontline contender for Imo Governorship seat, Eze Madumere, as he submitted expression of interest and nomination forms today at the All Progressives Congress National Secretariat.
Mr Madumere who arrived All Progressives Congress National Secretariat, Abuja, at 11:30 a.m., was received by the Director, Organising, All progressives Congress, Abubakar Kari, who also received Imo number two citizens forms.
Speaking to the journalists, he said he was the APC National Secretariat to submit his expression of interest and nomination form to contest Imo Governorship election on the ground that he wants to provide good governance and true leadership to the people of Imo State.
He however called on the general public not to dwell so much on the oppressive treatment being meted out to him including the impeachment plots against him but should be judged by his wealth of experience, competence and leadership style.
He added that with vast availability of human and natural resources, the state is least expected to be at the lowest layer of performing states in terms of development, promising he has the administrative astuteness to the political and socio-economic fortune of the State around.
While averring that he has been contributing his quota towards the development of the state, tacitly bringing to bear his effort and values so far, he added they may not have been enough because he was not in charge.
He therefore called for the support of all Imolites, assuring them of a leadership that will make them find fulfillment and restore their dignity.
His words: Believe me, it has been a long, long walk in search of true governance and true leadership to the good people of Imo State. I have spent 25 years in this business, humbly and loyally offering my best pieces of advice to lead our people through a progressive path. My best may not have been good enough because I was not in charge.
However, I have no regret threading this path because Gods ways are not our ways and His thoughts are not our thoughts. The time to change the narrative in my dear state for the better is now.
I believe with my cognate experience in corporate world, public sector and equipped with needed competence, I will turn around the political and socio-economic fortune of my people.
I have already laid down the foundation on the things we shall set out to achieve, captured in my seven point agenda, which will be unveiled in few days.
I am not in the governorship race because I have been treated unjustly by anyone. No. Not at all! Do not pity me for the onslaught here and there, including impeachment plots for standing for justice, equity, fair play and good governance. Please do not feel for me over unwarranted humiliations for standing with the people and saying no to oppressive policies.
As an astute administrator and experienced noble politician, I believe that with vast human and natural resources in the state, we do not have any business being at the lowest layer in the comity of states. We shall not only make eloquent promises; we shall make promises that we can keep. I say so because I have integrity; and leadership without integrity is fraud.
So, I will be entering into a social contract with my people. I shall be appealing to the members of our great party, first to give me a chance; and then to the entire good people of Imo to join me in the journey of grace, where we shall all find fulfilments and our dignity restored.
The police command in Enugu State on Thursday, said the recent sit-at-home order by the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) should be disregarded and urged residents to go about their normal businesses.
The Commissioner of police in the state, Mohammed Danmallam, said this in Enugu on Thursday during the meeting he held with the 17 local government chairmen in the state.
The commissioner made the plea against the backdrop of the September 14 sit-at-home order across the South-East states by IPOB.
NAN gathered that IPOB had earlier written to various unions and associations in the state, including council areas, to shut down businesses and other activities.
The group has also posted notice of the sit-at-home order in strategic locations across the state.
Mr Danmallam said, The command is appealing that you use your good offices to help encourage residents of your areas to come out as usual to do their various businesses without fear of intimidation or molestation and not to succumb to any threat of sit at home by any faceless group.
The peace and security in the state cannot be compromised, as nobody or group of persons whether known or faceless, will be allowed to threaten the existing peace and security.
However, the command and other sister security agencies are on the trail of those in this habit of putting fear and panic in the minds of law abiding citizens with a view to arresting and bringing them to book.
He commended the local government chairmen for maintaining peace and security in their respective domains and solicited their cooperation, before and after the controversial order.
I will seek your further co-operation to ensure that business activities as well as other activities take place before, during and after September 14 in your domain.
The command is assuring you that security operatives are already on ground to ensure that members of the public go about their normal lawful businesses.
NAN reports that the Federal High Court in Abuja on September 21, 2017 gave judicial backing to the executive order of President Muhammadu Buhari, outlawing the IPOB and declared its activities as acts of terrorism and illegality.
(NAN
The Police in Abia have warned residents of the state not to engage in illegal gathering during the period of the sit-at-home order by the Independent People of Biafra (IPOB).
The police gave the warning in a statement signed by its spokesperson, Geoffrey Ogbonna, a superintendent of police, in Umuahia, the state capital, on Thursday.
Mr Ogbonna further advised the people not to engage security operatives in any confrontation to avert any unfortunate scene.
He said, The people of Abia are advised against illegal gathering and acting or conducting themselves in such a tumultuous manner that may cause fear in the neighbourhood.
He also admonished the people not to embark on any activity that could threaten or disturb the peace or breach of the relevant laws of the land, stressing that law is not a respecter of anybody.
The police image maker further urged the people to refrain from engaging in any acts that could destabilise the prevailing law and order in the state.
The statement came ahead of the September 14 sit-at-home order by IPOB declared a terrorist group by the federal government on the heel of its activities in 2017.
Mr Ogbonna advised law abiding residents of the state to go about their lawful activities and to cooperate with law enforcement agents in their efforts to keeping the peace.
He further urged parents, community leaders and religious bodies to restrain their children and youths from being used by the outlawed group to foment trouble or violence.
He said the command had enjoyed cooperation from well-meaning and prominent indigenes, including traditional rulers and called on all and sundry to sustain the prevailing peace and order in the state.
NAN reports that security agencies in the state, including the Police, Army, Navy and Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) staged a show of force in major streets of Umuahia on Wednesday.
The exercise was to assure residents of their readiness to provide adequate for lives and property in the state.
(NAN)
The All Progressives Congress (APC) in Ekiti on Wednesday described as suspicious and diversionary the offer by the outgoing governor, Ayodele Fayose, to voluntarily surrender himself to the EFCC on the day he would be vacating office.
The APC insisted that the outgoing governor was planning to seek safe landing to enable him run away from the country.
The party, through its Publicity Secretary, Taiwo Olatunbosun, questioned the rationale behind Mr Fayoses request for the approval of N10 billion extra budget by the state House of Assembly less than one month to the expiration of his tenure.
This will certainly be at the expense of the welfare of the pensioners and workers who he will be abandoning in a state of penury and frustration due to months of unpaid salaries
Fayose and his cronies are recklessly looting the state treasury and they are smiling home with billions of Naira at the expense of Ekiti tax payers, the party said.
The party, which described Mr Fayoses readiness to appear before the EFCC as a welcome development, however, warned that this may be a decoy knowing Fayose is full of pranks and capable of playing tricks on the EFCC and other security agencies.
The letter to the EFCC can be used by Fayose as a distraction and diversionary tactic to pave way for his escape from the country, thereby running away from justice.
Fayoses promise to appear before the anti-graft agency on the handover day sounds too good to be true and highly suspicious
We therefore recommend that he be put under serious close surveillance since he is morally and duty bound to account for many of his recklessly corrupt practices that have made him billions of state money richer than the state itself
No matter how smart Fayose thinks he is and no matter how fast he thinks he can run, the long arm of the law must catch up with him to refund our collective wealth and money for the benefit of all in our dear state, Ekiti, the party said. (NAN)
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Osun State have knocked themselves over the recent announcement of the release of N16.6 billion from Paris Club refund to the state.
The PDP candidate for the September 22 governorship election, Ademola Adeleke, warned the state government against alleged plot to divert the money to fund the emergence of Gboyega Oyetola, the partys candidate.
Mr Adeleke, while speaking at a press conference in Osogbo on Wednesday, said the fund is meant for the payment of workers salary arrears and pensions and gratuities in the state.
Let me make it abundantly clear that the criminal diversion of this latest release will be resisted. The government officials who are directly or remotely connected with the application of this new release must ensure workers salaries, pensions and arrears are paid without further delay.
We warn that any attempt to divert the fund for bogus contractor payments or for any electoral purposes will be resisted by our people. Every kobo from the refund must go to the settlement of outstanding salaries and employment of workers.
If anything contrary is done in the handling of the fund, we will ensure full recovery of the last kobo once our government is voted into office. All those involved in such criminal diversion of the Paris Club refund or any other funds meant for the welfare of the workers and pensioners will be pursued, arrested and prosecuted, he said.
However, responding to the allegation, the state commissioner of information, Adelani Baderinwa, told PREMIUM TIMES that the PDP cannot dictate for the state.
I dont know his concern about that, let him face his problem and not try to meddle into what is not.
Also, Kunle Oyatomi, director of publicity and strategy, Osun APC, denied that there was plan for government to divert any fund.
Government had set aside substantial amount of money to pay part of arrears of workers salary. Aregbesola had last Monday released the lump sum of N19.801 Billion to settle four months arrears of salary and 2016 leave allowance of all workers in the state. Aregbesola has performed credibly well to be applauded for his achievements.
Mr Oyatomi advised the PDP candidate to stop spreading falsehood to confuse the people in the state.
Similar funds running into several billions of naira have been released to Osun State Government in the past starting with the bailout funds. However, workers and pensioners continue to wallow in 34 months of unpaid hardship.
The outgoing governor, Rauf Aregbesola, on Tuesday released N19.8 billion to pay four months arrears salary, an action which many believe was geared towards the election.
Three lecturers at the Lagos State University (LASU) may be sacked anytime from now over cases of alleged sexual harassment of their students.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) learnt in Lagos on Thursday that the governing council of the institution has concluded investigations into the matter.
NAN learnt that the sacking of the randy teachers would be announced after the next meeting of the council, slated for next month.
An authoritative source familiar with the development, revealed the identities of the lecturers in an interview with the NAN education correspondent.
The lecturers are from the Departments of Chemistry and Economics, while the third is from the LASU College of Medicine (LASUCOM) at Ikeja.
The source told NAN that two of the teachers allegedly told two female students, who they had been `eyeing to come and re-sit papers on a Saturday with intent to take sexual advantage of the students.
The source said that the students, however, reported the issue to the universitys security department, which reportedly advised them to play along with the teachers in a bid to catch them red-handed.
According to the source, the LASUCOM lecturer, similarly, directed two female medical students to buy an injection, which he allegedly ended up using on the students to sedate them and take advantage of them sexually.
Reacting to the allegation, the LASUCOM lecturer, (name withheld), told NAN that the accusation of sexual harassment against him was the handiwork of mischief makers.
He, however, did not elaborate but confirmed that the LASU panel invited him to answer questions on unethical conduct, arising from a medical prescription he gave to students.
On their part, the two other accused lecturers, declined to make comments when NAN correspondent took them up on the matter.
NAN source also revealed that council would similarly, decide the fate of three executive members of the LASU Chapter of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, accused of stealing a confidential document and committing other offences.
When contacted, the Chairman of the LASU Governing Council, Adebayo Ninalowo, declined to comment on the raging problem between the unionists and the university, directing NAN to the institutions Corporate Affairs Unit for comments on the matter.
The spokesman for the university, Ademola Adekoya, however, confirmed the cases as revealed by NAN sources.
He said that the recommendations of the panel would be ratified by the council in its sitting next month.
Mr Adekoya described the issues, especially those relating to sexual harassment and stealing of official documents as regrettable, restating the determination of the LASU authorities to sanitize the system.
He described cases of misconduct as unacceptable to the university, saying that the institution had zero tolerance to such cases.
The panel is ongoing. The joint committee of senate and council is already sitting and would make its recommendations to the governing council.
Whatever they recommend would be considered by the governing council in its sitting next month and the decision of the council would be final, the spokesman said.
Also, the Registrar of the university, Olayinka Amuni, told NAN that the punishment for sexual assault by a staff once established, was outright dismissal.
Once we are able to establish that a staff engaged in an illegal relationship with any student, the person is dismissed from the system because it is the height of academic irresponsibility.
We are an institution guided by rules and regulations and once we have an official report or an allegation of someone indulging in sexual harassment, the first thing we do is to issue query to the person.
The query is to get information from the person whether indeed, that really happened or not.
We would examine whatever response you give with the evidence before us and if the evidence is not genuine, we wont push further.
But if we can find element of truth in what is before us, the matter is sent to disciplinary committee and the sanction for such activity is dismissal, Amuni said. (NAN)
After filing an application against the Nigerian Police in court for inviting him, a former minister of aviation, Femi Fani-Kayode, has asked the court to dismiss the suit.
Mr Fani-Kayode had filed a suit at the Federal High Court in Abuja questioning his invitation by the Nigerian police on alleged conspiracy, criminal defamation and inciting publication.
In the opening of session in court on Thursday, the counsel to Mr Fani-Kayode, Rapheal Oyewole, told the court that the applicant had filed for a withdrawal of the suit.
The matter was adjourned for today, we the applicants filed a notice of discontinuance for this case, we wish to discontinue the matter, Mr Oyewole said.
Responding, the police counsel, Ike Ikpeazu, said this matter would have been better resolved outside without involving the court. He also demanded an apology from Mr Fani-Kayode.
What they have done is tantamount to climbing the mountain to call somebody a thief, you will only have to go back to the same place to apologise, Mr Ikpeazu said.
Giving his ruling, the judge, Nmandi Dimgba said since both parties agreed that the matter be withdrawn, the case was hereby struck out.
Mr Dimba acknowledged both parties for resolving the matter outside the court and noted that he believed Mr Fani-Kayode would not have been abused if he had presented himself before the police.
The politician has been amongst top critics of President Muhammadu Buhari and his political party, the All Progressives Congress.
One of Mr Fani-Kayodes pieces for which he was invited is a late March series about Mr Buharis enablers whom he castigated as useful idiots and Slaves.
The Osun State Government says it has released N19.8 billion for the settlement of salary and pension arrears owed all categories of workers in the state.
Bola Oyebamiji, the state Commissioner for Finance, announced this at a news conference on Thursday in Osogbo, the state capital.
Mr Oyebamiji said the governor gave the directive following consultations with labour leaders and other stakeholders.
He explained that the money would be used for the payment of August salaries, backlog of the salaries and pensions for September to December 2015, in addition to leave bonuses.
The commissioner said part of the amount was the N16.6 billion Paris Club refund received from the federal government while the additional N3 billion came from other sources.
He commended the workers for their sacrifice, resilience and unflinching support to the present administration in the state as well as their dedication to duty in the last seven years.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the governments action is on the heels of the September 22 governorship election in the state.
(NAN)
The Lagos State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on Thursday said it would welcome Governor Akinwunmi Ambode into its fold, if he decided to dump the All Progressives Congress (APC).
The Publicity Secretary of the party, Taofeek Gani, stated this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos.
Mr Gani spoke following reports that Jide Sanwo-Olu, a former Commissioner for Training and Establishments in the state, had been adopted by the APC leaders to succeed Mr Ambode.
The APC chairman in Lagos State, Tunde Balogun, had told journalists on Wednesday that the governorship ticket of the party was open to all aspirants.
A former Commissioner for Works, Obafemi Hamzat, is another aspirant seeking the job of Mr Ambode with Mr Sanwo-Olu.
All the aspirants have since obtained and submitted their nomination forms.
The PDP spokesman said the party would be glad to receive Mr Ambode into its fold if he decided to leave APC for whatever reason.
Mr Gani said: Any forward-looking party would not have rejected its main opponent joining it, especially a big personality like Ambode.
We are ready to welcome him (Ambode) to our party, if he decides to join for any reason. We are very ready to accept him, if he decides to join us.
You see PDP is a party for all, so far value will be added. We cannot turn down our opponents, especially a big personality like Ambode.
Therefore, he is welcome. His joining us will definitely add value and boost our chances to win the state.
He said the party would accord him all the rights and privileges with the existing members to realise his political ambitions.
NAN reports Deji Doherty and Jimi Agbaje are among those who have picked the PDP nomination forms for the governorship ticket.
(NAN)
The Ekiti State House of Assembly on Thursday approved the N10 billion supplementary budget requested by outgoing governor, Ayo Fayose, under curious circumstance.
About 14 lawmakers, led by the Speaker of the house, Kola Oluwawole, reportedly arrived the assembly complex at about 12 noon and sat for about one hour within which the appropriation bill went through the first, second and third readings after a brief reference to the house committee on appropriation.
Journalists, who came to cover the bills consideration, were however, not allowed in the chambers.
The Clerk of the house, Tola Esan, and two legislative officers were also part of the procedures in the passage of the bill.
The lawmakers who are all PDP members include Kola Oluwawole, Sina Animasaun, Samuel Omotoso, Samuel Jeje, Tope Fasanmi, Dayo Akinleye and Wale Onigiobi.
Others are Dare Pelemo, Cecilia Dada, Musa Arogundade, Sanya Aladeyelu, Olayode Omotoso, Dele Fajemilehin, and Olanrewaju Olayanju.
But members who are of the All Progressives Congress, have rejected the passage of the N10 billion supplementary budget.
The APC lawmakers led by the Minority Leader, Gboyega Aribisogan, (Ikole 1), described the action as a ploy by Fayose to legitimise fraud which will be resisted through legal and constitutional means.
The APC lawmakers and some members are not in support of the bill because it has been discovered that the outgoing governor wanted to use the House to legitimise fraud, Mr Aribisogan said.
The proposed Appropriation Bill is the handiwork of Governor Fayose and his cronies to cover up massive fraud in some Ministries, Department and Agencies (MDAs).
The Appropriation Bill is not meant to improve the lives of our people in the state but to cover up some unapproved spending of the Governor. It is a fraudulent Bill to cover fraudulent spending. Thats why the governor wanted the bill to be passed without proper scrutiny.
The Appropriation Committee did not sit on the Bill. The Bill was back dated to August 30 to give an impression that the Appropriation Committee had since been deliberating on the Bill.
It is ridiculous to hear that a government that has less that 32 days wants to spend N10 billion. The governor is yet to tell us how he had managed the finances of this state.
We have not been told the position of the state IGR, but the executive wanted us to pass a budget. We shall resist this latest attempt by Fayose to further plunge Ekiti state into financial mess.
The media aide to Mr Fayose, Lere Olayinka, had defended the supplementary budget, saying it was meant to ensure the completion of ongoing projects in the state.
He also said the issues raised by the opposition on the procedure of passing the bill was not relevant as it is the assembly that had the powers to determine its procedures for the passage of any bill including the appropriation bill in question.
End.
Gov. Cuomo awards UB epidemiologist funding for breast cancer research
$359,000 grant will allow Jo Freudenheim and collaborators to examine the role of the microbiome in breast cancer
BUFFALO, N.Y. A University at Buffalo epidemiologist is among nine scientists from across New York State awarded funding for breast cancer research as part of an initiative of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo.
Jo Freudenheim, UB Distinguished Professor and chair of epidemiology and environmental health in UBs School of Public Health and Health Professions, was awarded $359,024 through the governors Get Screened, No Excuses initiative, aimed at increasing public awareness and availability of resources for breast cancer screening and treatment.
Cuomo announced nearly $3 million in breast cancer research grants on Wednesday.
Breast cancer affects thousands of people across this state and in order to provide New Yorkers with the best care, these investments will support the brilliant minds studying, teaching and researching at our colleges, universities and medical schools, he said.
Freudenheim, PhD, was among seven researchers awarded Peter T. Rowley Breast Cancer Scientific Research Projects funding totaling $2.4 million. Two other researchers received Patricia S. Brown Breast Cancer Risk Reduction Education Research Projects funding totaling just over $500,000. The state Department of Health approved the researchers funding proposals.
The grant will allow us to examine the role of the microbiome in breast cancer, Freudenheim said.
Freudenheims project collaborators include Michael Buck, associate professor of biochemistry in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences; Yijun Sun, associate professor of bioinformatics in the Jacobs School; Robert Genco, SUNY Distinguished Professor of oral biology, periodontics and microbiology, School of Dental Medicine; and Meeghan Lautner, clinical assistant professor of surgery in the Jacobs School and a physician with UBMD Surgery.
Breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer and the second-leading cause of cancer death among women in New York State, according to the governors office. Each year, over 15,000 women in New York State are newly diagnosed with breast cancer, and approximately 2,500 die from the disease. Screening for breast cancer can increase the likelihood of identifying cancer at an early stage when treatment is most successful.
Campus News
Students from Beijings Capital Normal University to performn at UB
Students from Capital Normal University in Beijing will perform at UB on Sept. 17.
UBNOW STAFF
It is one of the highlights of the Confucius Institutes cultural programming.
Students from the colleges of Music and Fine Arts at Capital Normal University (CNU) in Beijing, China, will present Dance of Youth: Charm of China, a showcase of Chinese arts and culture, at 7 p.m. Sept. 17 in the Drama Theater in the Center for the Arts, North Campus.
The program features music and dance pieces in a variety of traditional and contemporary styles, including selections from the Peking Operas The Battle of Mount Dingjun.
Dance of Youth: Charm of China is presented in partnership with UBs Confucius Institute. The event is free and open to the public.
Capital Normal University has sent many touring groups to UB throughout the years of our partnership, says Zhiqiang Liu, associate professor of economics and director of UBs Confucius Institute. The talented CNU students always present a fantastic performance for our Buffalo audience. It is one of the highlights of the Confucius Institutes cultural programming.
In addition to their performance at the CFA, the touring students will present two abbreviated programs of their show on Sept. 18 at City Honors School and Elmwood Franklin School.
Both schools have been designated as Confucius Classrooms affiliated with UBs Confucius Institute, which makes them eligible for annual grant funding provided by Confucius Institute headquarters in China.
Now in its ninth year, the UB Confucius Institute supports China-related teaching, research and artistic production at UB, Chinese language instruction at UB and in local schools, and cultural events that foster a better understanding of Chinese traditions and contemporary culture in the community.
The performance by students from Capital Normal University is the first in a two-week series of events sponsored by the UB Confucius Institute leading up to Confucius Institute Day on Sept. 30.
For the New World Order, a world government is just the beginning. Once in place they can engage their plan to exterminate 80% of the world's population, while enabling the "elites" to live forever with the aid of advanced technology. For the first time, crusading filmmaker ALEX JONES reveals their secret plan for humanity's extermination: Operation ENDGAME.
Jones chronicles the history of the global elite's bloody rise to power and reveals how they have funded dictators and financed the bloodiest warscreating order out of chaos to pave the way for the first true world empire.
Watch as Jones and his team track the elusive Bilderberg Group to Ottawa and Istanbul to document their secret summits, allowing you to witness global kingpins setting the world's agenda and instigating World War III.
to Ottawa and Istanbul to document their secret summits, allowing you to witness global kingpins setting the world's agenda and instigating World War III. Learn about the formation of the North America transportation control grid, which will end U.S. sovereignty forever.
Discover how the practitioners of the pseudo-science eugenics have taken control of governments worldwide as a means to carry out depopulation.
View the progress of the coming collapse of the United States and the formation of the North American Union.
Never before has a documentary assembled all the pieces of the globalists' dark agenda. Endgame's compelling look at past atrocities committed by those attempting to steer the future delivers information that the controlling media has meticulously censored for over 60 years. It fully reveals the elite's program to dominate the earth and carry out the wicked plan in all of human history.
Endgame is not conspiracy theory, it is documented fact in the elite's own words.
Carinata oilseed fuel replaces 30 percent of petroleum jet fuel for San Francisco-to-Zurich biojet flight on Sept. 14
SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Agrisoma Biosciences Inc., a Canadian agri-tech company that sells Carinata seeds used to produce aviation biojet fuel, will partner with United Airlines and World Energy on Agrisoma's second international commercial flight powered by biojet fuel made from Carinata seed oil. The nonstop San Francisco-to-Zurich flight on a Boeing 787 departs on Sept. 14 at 2:10 p.m. from San Francisco International Airport and arrives Sept. 15 at 10:10 a.m. at Zurich Airport (aka Kloten Airport).
The biojet fuel made from Carinata and refined by World Energy's Paramount facility replaces 30 percent of the petroleum jet fuel needed for the flight.
"This flight is another milestone for the aviation industry's move toward low-carbon fuels," said Steve Fabijanski, founder, CEO and president of Agrisoma. "At 11 hours, it is the longest transatlantic biojet flight undertaken to date, and, with the fuel-efficient Boeing 787, represents the lowest carbon footprint commercial flight across the Atlantic. It is our second international biojet flight powered by Carinata, but there are more to come."
Earlier this year, Agrisoma, Australia's Qantas Airways and World Energy partnered on a transpacific flight from Los Angeles to Melbourne that used biojet fuel produced from Carinata.
Agrisoma has commercial agreements across the global aviation industry to supply Carinata for a low-carbon fuel that is chemically identical to conventional, petroleum-derived jet fuel. Agrisoma has Carinata growers in place throughout the Americas and Australia, where Carinata is grown as a second crop to complement existing crop production, delivering additional on-farm income and soil health benefits.
Carinata Biojet fuel is made by harvesting tons of Carinata crop, crushing the grain to recover the oil and refining that oil into jet fuel.
Production of biofuel from Carinata seeds yields both biofuel and, as a byproduct, high-protein animal feed. Stems and leaves from the crop are returned to the field to enrich the soil for subsequent crops. Carinata is the first oilseed to be certified sustainable by the Roundtable on Sustainable Biomaterials (RSB), the independent global standard and certification program for sustainable biofuels.
Photos and graphics to accompany this announcement can be downloaded at this link: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/owrzownkurepcq4/AAAEso_1M2sV-tkJ-8p3xUFwa?dl=0
About Agrisoma
Agrisoma Biosciences Inc. is an agricultural company based in Gatineau, Quebec, that has commercialized Carinata, a non-food oilseed crop designed for sustainable production of biofuels. Agrisoma uses advanced crop improvement technologies to provide superior Carinata seed varieties to growers. For further information, visit www.agrisoma.com.
Media contact:
Agrisoma
Michele Wells, President, Wells Communications
[email protected], +303-417-0696 (USA)
SOURCE Agrisoma Biosciences Inc.
Related Links
https://agrisoma.com
ST. JOSEPH, Mo., Sept. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Following a five-month campaign, drivers and mechanics at Apple Bus in St. Joseph, Missouri voted overwhelmingly to join Teamsters Local 955 on Tuesday, Sept. 11.
"Our goal was to be ready to file for an election on the first day of school, and that's exactly what we did," Local 955 President Jerry Wood said. "We even had a worker who was so dedicated to voting yes that she made time to vote even though she was on her way to pick up her baby from the hospital. I'd especially like to thank First Student Shop Steward Stacey Arbuckle and everyone who was a part of the organizing campaign. We couldn't have done it without them."
One of the Teamsters who was a part of the organizing campaign was Woods' mother, Jenny Agee, a retired Teamster with 40 years of service. Agee has been involved with Local 955 for a long time, but she said this was the first time she got this heavily involved in an organizing campaign.
"I've been the official gopher out here as long as I can remember if it needed to get done and I was around, it got done," Agee said. "Still, this was really eye-opening. The issues the workers face, all of things you need to do, the things you take for granted as a union member I learned a lot, and it was a lot of fun working on this campaign with my son."
Founded in 1903, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters represents 1.4 million hardworking men and women throughout the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico. Visit www.teamster.org for more information. Follow us on Twitter @Teamsters and "like" us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/teamsters.
Contact:
Galen Munroe, (202) 624-6911
[email protected]
SOURCE Teamsters Local 955
Related Links
http://www.teamster.org
SANTA MONICA, Calif., Sept. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Auritec Pharmaceuticals Inc. ("Auritec"), a drug delivery company, and Oak Crest Institute of Science ("Oak Crest"), a not-for-profit research institute had collaborated for more than a decade under a series of agreements that defined the relationship. Over the course of the collaboration, the parties developed broad intellectual property in the fields of sustained-release drug delivery and co-drugs/pro-drugs. Although the parties ended their collaboration in July 2016, their rights and obligations continued to be governed by existing agreements. However, Oak Crest's post-rupture conduct was considered by Auritec to be in violation of these agreements. Auritec requested arbitration of this dispute.
The Final Award was issued as JAMS Arbitration no. 1210033656 and later confirmed by the Superior Court of the State of California County of Los Angeles on July 27, 2018. The arbitration confirmed that all intellectual property in the field of drug delivery that was a product or result of the Auritec-Oak Crest collaboration is the exclusive property of Auritec. The judgment confirms that, "Oak Crest has no right, going forward, to use any Subject IP beyond pure research without Auritec's consent." In addition to monetary damages, Oak Crest was ordered to "forthwith" assign the collaborative patents and patent applications to Auritec.
"We are extremely pleased with the outcome of this arbitration. The ruling confirms our position that Auritec Pharmaceuticals is the exclusive owner of the various drug delivery technologies that are a product or result of the Auritec-Oak Crest collaboration. We are committed to developing and commercializing these innovative drug formulations," said Dr. Thomas Smith, CEO of Auritec Pharmaceuticals.
About Auritec Pharmaceuticals, Inc.:
Auritec is a privately held clinical stage drug delivery company with offices in Santa Monica, CA and a laboratory in Pasadena, CA. The company was founded in 2002 by Thomas J. Smith MD, the developer of the Vitrasert ganciclovir intravitreal implant which was approved by the FDA in 1995. Since its incorporation, Auritec has been continuously funded by the National Institutes of Health, and has active programs in infectious diseases, autoimmune diseases, gynecology, cardiovascular disorders, pain management, and psychotic disorders. Auritec owns three drug delivery technologies Versa, Plexis and Co-drugs/Pro-drugs. The Versa and Plexis are covered by broad intellectual protection, and have demonstrated sustained-release drug delivery profiles for a broad range of molecules in vitro, and in animals and human trials.
For further information, please contact Sarjan Shah, Director of Product and Business Development at [email protected].
SOURCE Auritec Pharmaceuticals
Related Links
http://www.auritecpharma.com/
"We are pleased that all of the Atlantic provinces selected CannTrust as a trusted retail partner. Our portfolio strategy has been well received with provincial boards and has resulted in listings across all brands. The momentum will only grow as we begin to share our quality products with Canadians across the country in October," says Brad Rogers, President, CannTrust.
Beginning October 17, Canadians from coast-to-coast will have access to CannTrust's quality, standardized cannabis products grown in the company's Niagara, Ontario perpetual harvest facility, which is setting new industry standards for product excellence and cost effectiveness. CannTrust's recreational brands will be available in a broad range of formats including dried flower, pre-rolled joints, oil and capsules.
CannTrust is investing in future innovation with significant investments and advances in nanotechnology that will enable the Company to produce cannabis-infused beverages that are neutral in taste, and clear as water. This proprietary technology will further accelerate CannTrust's dominance in this emerging area within Canadian and global markets.
This week, CannTrust announced plans for an exclusive partnership with Breakthru Beverage Group the largest Canadian beverage alcohol broker of premium spirits, wine and beer brands. Breakthru will establish a cannabis-focused sales brokerage company to represent CannTrust's specialty products to Canadian adult consumers.
About CannTrust
Since its inception in 2014, CannTrust has led the Canadian market in producing a standardized product.
As a federally regulated licensed producer, CannTrust brings more than 40 years of pharmacy and healthcare experience to the medical cannabis industry. CannTrust currently operates the recently completed 250,000 sq. ft. Phase One redevelopment of its 450,000 sq. ft. Niagara Perpetual Harvest Facility. The 200,000 sq. ft. Phase Two redevelopment is expected to be operational in the third quarter and the projected 600,000 sq. ft. greenhouse expansion has begun and is fully funded. The industry's broadest product portfolio is prepared and packaged at the 60,000 sq. ft. manufacturing centre of excellence in Vaughan, Ontario.
CannTrust is committed to research and innovation, as well as contributing to the growing body of evidence-based research regarding the use and efficacy of cannabis. Our product development teams along with our exclusive global pharma partner, Apotex Inc., are diligently innovating and developing products that will make it easier for patients to use medical cannabis. We support ongoing patient education about medical cannabis and have a compassionate use program to support patients with financial needs.
For more information, please visit: www.CannTrust.ca.
Forward Looking Statements
This press release contains "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable Canadian securities legislation which are based upon CannTrust's current internal expectations, estimates, projections, assumptions and beliefs and views of future events. Forward-looking information can be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "expect", "likely", "may", "will", "should", "intend", "anticipate", "potential", "proposed", "estimate" and other similar words, including negative and grammatical variations thereof, or statements that certain events or conditions "may", "would" or "will" happen, or by discussions of strategy.
The forward-looking information in this news release is based upon the expectations, estimates, projections, assumptions and views of future events which management believes to be reasonable in the circumstances, including those relating to: the completion of the Breakthru transaction and the timing, including the purchase of common shares, and the use of proceeds therefrom, as well as the resulting business relationship between Breakthru and CannTrust; and, future product offerings of CannTrust. Forward-looking statements necessarily involve known and unknown risks, including, without limitation, risks associated with: satisfaction of all closing conditions of the Breakthru transaction; general economic conditions; adverse industry events; loss of markets; future legislative and regulatory developments; inability to access sufficient capital from internal and external sources, and/or inability to access sufficient capital on favourable terms; the cannabis industry in Canada generally; the ability of CannTrust to implement its business strategies; competition; crop failure; and other risks.
Any forward-looking information speaks only as of the date on which it is made, and, except as required by law, CannTrust does not undertake any obligation to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. New factors emerge from time to time, and it is not possible for CannTrust to predict all such factors. When considering these forward-looking statements, readers should keep in mind the risk factors and other cautionary statements in CannTrust's Annual Information Form dated March 29, 2018 (the "AIF") and filed with the applicable Canadian securities regulatory authorities on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. The risk factors and other factors noted in the AIF could cause actual events or results to differ materially from those described in any forward-looking information.
The TSX does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
Copyright 2017 CannTrust Holdings Inc.
SOURCE CannTrust Holdings Inc.
Related Links
www.canntrust.ca
HAMILTON, Bermuda, Sept. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, the United States Bartenders' Guild (USBG) announced Chicago's Carley Gaskin as the North American Winner of the 12th Annual "Most Imaginative Bartender" Competition presented by BOMBAY SAPPHIRE gin. The finale took place at the home of BOMBAY SAPPHIRE gin in England where the top 16 finalists put their creative skills to the test and presented their most artfully crafted cocktails. After careful deliberation, Gaskin and her innovative recipe, "Geb's Reviver" made with INGREDIENTS was crowned the most imaginative. In addition to taking home the title and a cash award, Gaskin will also become GQ Magazine's official "Bartender in Residence," where she will collaborate on a series of cocktail videos, act as the in-house cocktail expert throughout the year, and partner with a chef from Bon App's "Hot Ten" list for America's Best New Restaurants in 2018 to create specialty cocktail pairings.
"Each year, USBG and BOMBAY SAPPHIRE provide a platform for emerging bartending talent across North America to showcase their inner-creativity. It's incredible to see how bartenders use BOMBAY SAPPHIRE as a canvas to transform cocktails into works of art. Versatility is at the heart of what makes BOMBAY SAPPHIRE a conduit for bartenders to unleash their creativity because of its balanced profile. Carley demonstrated an extraordinary level of artistry in this year's competition, and we are thrilled to celebrate her as the 12th annual winner of the USBG'S Most Imaginative Bartender competition. I look forward to seeing how she will stir creativity and inspire his/her peers to propel their creative capabilities to new heights," says Tom Spaven, North American Brand Director for BOMBAY SAPPHIRE gin.
Over the last five months, the USBG'S Most Imaginative Bartender Competition traveled across 30 North American cities to identify the top 16 finalists 14 from the U.S., two from Canada with the most innovative cocktail creations. Gaskin joins an illustrious roster of former program winners who are raising the industry's artistic standards.
Prior to the England finale, the 16 finalists met for the first time at the annual trade festival, Tales of the Cocktail, where they completed the first finale challenge, "The On-Air" challenge, which tested the caliber of their presentation skills in front of a live camera and audience. As the competition made its way to England, the esteemed panel of judges, including BOMBAY SAPPHIRE Global Ambassador Raj Nagra, USBG Southwest Regional Vice President and Phoenix beverage consultant Kim Hassarud, and acclaimed Austin mixologist and winner of the 2015 USBG Most Imaginative Bartender Competition Justin Lavenue, witnessed each finalist's boundary-pushing craft in the three final challenges that tested their creativity and ingenuity:
Laverstoke Botanical Challenge: For the very first time in the competition's history, a challenge was held at the BOMBAY SAPPHIRE BREEAM-certified Laverstoke Mill Distillery in Hampshire, England, where finalists were assigned one of the 10 vapour-infused natural botanicals that make up BOMBAY SAPPHIRE gin. Finalists were tasked with creating an avant-garde recipe that celebrated the botanical's country of origin and its unique flavor.
16 Final Presentations: The second challenge had each of the 16 finalists present an original BOMBAY SAPPHIRE cocktail, which illustrated the fusion between art and mixology. The judges then narrowed the competition down to the top six contestants who advanced to the final stage.
Guest Shift: The top six bartenders were tasked with designing a bespoke cocktail menu at a top London bar, having only one day to source local ingredients in order to batch and prepare three different gin-forward recipes.
As the competition came to a close, the finalists celebrated at a private gala dinner at The Gherkin, where Gaskin was announced the 2018 USBG Most Imaginative Bartender. Gaskin looked back at her journey stating, "Taking part in each stage of the competition over the past five months has been a lifechanging experience, and it's exciting to be recognized for my passion and craft among so many of my talented peers. The Most Imaginative Bartender Competition pushes us to produce our very best by putting an emphasis on cocktail artistry, and I'm honored to join a roster of awe-inspiring bartenders across the continent."
Geb's Reviver
1.5 oz Bombay Sapphire Gin
.75 oz pineapple lemon oleo
.5 oz lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon Matcha powder
Topped with pineapple, carrot, Bombay Sapphire foam
Garnished with dehydrated rhubarb & carrot powder
Press Contacts:
Kristin Brice Steph Shirvell Senior Account Executive Account Executive Nike Communications Nike Communications 646-654-3409 646-654-3447 [email protected] [email protected]
About the USBG
The United States Bartenders' Guild is an organization of beverage service professionals dedicated to the continued refinement of our craft. Such refinement is achieved through advanced product education; original hand-crafted cocktail competitions; and aggressive involvement with other professionals in the beverage industry throughout the country and internationally. It is our intention, desire and main focus to become the most skilled, knowledgeable and professional group of bartenders in the industry. Above all, the United States Bartenders' Guild supports and promotes well-informed, responsible consumption of alcoholic beverages.
ABOUT BOMBAY SAPPHIRE
BOMBAY SAPPHIRE is the world's number one premium gin by volume and value. BOMBAY SAPPHIRE is created with a unique combination of ten sustainably sourced botanicals from around the globe. The brand's signature distillation process known as vapour infusion is showcased at the BREEAM award-winning Laverstoke Mill Distillery in Hampshire, England. The vapour infusion process skillfully captures the natural flavors of the botanicals which results in the gin's fresh, bright taste. Awarded a double gold medal in the 2017 San Francisco World Spirits Competition, BOMBAY SAPPHIRE is consistently recognized for crafting the finest quality gin. For more information, please explore www.bombaysapphire.com.
The BOMBAY SAPPHIRE brand is part of the portfolio of Bacardi Limited, headquartered in Hamilton, Bermuda. Bacardi Limited refers to the Bacardi group of companies, including Bacardi International Limited.
BE BRILLIANT AND INSPIRED. DRINK RESPONSIBLY!
Facebook.com / bombaysapphire
Instagram.com/bombaysapphireus
2018. BOMBAY SAPPHIRE AND ITS TRADE DRESS ARE TRADEMARKS.
SOURCE BOMBAY SAPPHIRE
Related Links
http://www.bombaysapphire.com
STERLING, Ill., Sept. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Millions of Americans are living with chronic pain, and unfortunately it's contributing to the scary trend of rapidly increasing opioid addictions and deaths. In honor of September being National Pain Awareness Month, therapeutic at-home massager manufacturer Wahl, has partnered with board-certified family medicine physician Dr. Shilpi Agarwal to offer some natural pain relief options that are both inexpensive and extremely effective.
At-home therapeutic massage with the new Wahl Heated Deep Knead Massage Wrap is a natural pain relief option to help combat the opioid crisis.
"Each day more than 100 people die from opioid overdose and the victims are not who you may suspect them to be," explains Dr. Shilpi. "They often start out using medications prescribed by a doctor for an injury or chronic issue, but the debilitating and frustrating effects of pain often lead to the misuse of these medications."
Dr. Shilpi's advice is for physicians and patients to look to non-pharmacologic alternatives, including the following:
1. Massage: Massage is a technique and medical treatment for pain and muscle injury that has been used long before medications were developed. Massage increases blood flow to inflamed tissue, helps stimulate recovery and provides localized pain relief without side effects. These benefits can be achieved conveniently at home with Wahl's newest therapeutic massager, the Heated Deep Knead Massage Wrap. This new massager is unique to the market and offers differences such as:
Unique shiatsu nodes at varying heights simulate the sensation of real fingers kneading at different pressures. The closest competitor has only four total nodes of the same height while Wahl offers six nodes of varying heights.
The nodes have a dual rotation, meaning their circular motion can be programmed to massage in either a clockwise or counterclockwise direction.
Deep and even coil heating can be added to further enhance the massage, similar to the deep warmth of a heating pad.
Soft and flexible hand grips allow you to pull the wrap tighter for added pressure, and can be positioned to most any part of the body including the lower back and legs, or wherever you need the most relief.
2. Turmeric: A potent anti-inflammatory, you can now find Turmeric in many places, even some unexpected ones. Turmeric is a root that looks similar to ginger, but it is orange inside. It has several healing properties and can be taken in both capsule and raw form. The anti-inflammatory nature of Turmeric aids in joint pain, muscle aches, and wound healing. The yellow colored powder can be found in Indian, Thai and other South Asian cuisine. If you're not a fan of the taste, add it to a fruit and protein smoothie and you'll barely taste it or consider a capsule.
3. Deep breathing or meditation: Meditation and breathing are powerful mechanisms for pain management. While it might not seem like it on the surface, learning to meditate has powerful and remarkable qualities. Meditation doesn't have to be challenging and you can go at your own pace. Try an app like Headspace, it is free for the first 10 days and easy to follow. What this helps you with is refocusing your energy not on pain, but on a deeper level to relax and feel uplifted. Similarly, deep breathing is also emphasized during many meditation sessions because becoming aware of your breathing helps manage pain and provides you a way to handle it without medication.
4. Acupuncture: The National Institute of Health (NIH) has reviewed several studies and suggests that acupuncture works well on chronic pain, particularly back and neck pain and osteoarthritis pain. Acupuncture is the practice of applying pressure, very fine/thin needles and sometimes heat to specific areas of the body to improve pain, trigger healing, and also help release endorphins that can improve pain.
The new Wahl Heated Deep Knead Massage Wrap is available at select retailers nationwide, or at WahlUSA.com.
About Wahl Home Products
Wahl Home Products is a division of Wahl Clipper Corporation a worldwide leader in the manufacturing of products for the consumer personal care, animal grooming and professional beauty and barber salon trade. Based in Sterling, Ill., the company is celebrating its 99th anniversary this year. For more information, visit WahlUSA.com.
SOURCE Wahl
Related Links
https://www.wahlusa.com
RUSTON, La., Sept. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Elaine Douglas DeBerry, RN, MSN is recognized by Continental Who's Who as a Pinnacle Lifetime Member in the field of Nursing in recognition of her role as a Retired Nurse at Elisha Ministries.
Established by two Christian women who desired to see the lives of those mentally challenged changed; Elisha Ministries has served the residents of Louisiana for over fifteen years. The organization is committed "to assisting and proving community resources, emotional, physical and spiritual support to the residents." On a mission to save lives, the organization is devoted to providing assistance implementing, "character redevelopment, commitment to lasting change, and enhancement of citizenship."
With over forty-two years of experience in the field of Nursing, Elaine Douglas DeBerry has established herself as a prominent professional in the field. Throughout her career, DeBerry has attained extensive expertise in the areas of mental health. With a strong desire for the field of Nursing, when asked her advice to newcomers in the industry, DeBerry states "It's a good field to be of service in and there is always a need." Attributing her success to her satisfaction and contentment for assisting clients, DeBerry has provided exceptional service to her clients.
In an effort to further enhance her professional development, DeBerry was the recipient of the AARP Retired Teacher Association and an avid member of the NAACP. DeBerry's husband, Dr. Clyde E. DeBerry, was instrumental in the Civil Rights movement alongside Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Charitable to various organizations, DeBerry is a supporter of the Alzheimer's Association.
Early in her career, DeBerry started at Youngstown University and then transferred to the University of Wisconsin (Oshkosh) in 1976 where she attained her Registered Nursing certification. Thereafter, DeBerry attended Northwestern University of Shreveport where she obtained her Master of Science in Nursing degree in 1992.
DeBerry dedicates this recognition in loving memory of her beloved husband, Dr. Clyde E. DeBerry.
When not working, DeBerry enjoys traveling and meeting new people.
For more information, please visit http://www.elishaministriesnela.org/
CONTACT: Katherine Green, 516-825-5634, [email protected]
SOURCE Continental Who's Who
Related Links
http://www.continentalwhoswho.com
SAN DIEGO, Sept. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Flowmon Networks (www.flowmon.com), a leader in advanced network monitoring and security solutions, announced today its US expansion with the opening of its office in downtown San Diego, Calif., and the appointment of industry veteran Tim Hays as Sales Director for North America. The office will provide more localized assistance with sales, support and business partnerships as the company continues its steady growth. Flowmon enables enterprises and service providers to manage the performance of their network resources and services and secure them against modern cyber threats.
"Demand in the US marketplace for high-performance network monitoring has seen tremendous growth over the last few years, driven largely by changing infrastructure and adoption of hybrid data center architectures and cloud-based services," said Mirek Kren, Flowmon Network's Chief Revenue Officer. "We are excited about the opportunities in the US market, and we look forward to better serving organizations through our West Coast office under the expert direction of Tim and an experienced sales and support organization."
Hays brings a wealth of experience ranging from technical to managerial. He formerly served in the US and Canada channel management for GE Digital, responsible for go-to-market strategy, channel planning, delivery, and technical training. Prior to GE Digital, he was the sales/architect lead for the West at Ixia where he was responsible for executing solution architecture plans and developing sales strategies. He also served previously as a senior sales engineer for the US for Gigamon.
"Organizations must be able to see into network traffic to actively understand performance issues and security events," said Hays, Director of Sales for North America. "Flowmon Networks has a proven ability to cure network blindness and bring deep levels of understanding."
Flowmon is a network monitoring and security solution utilizing analysis of Enriched Flow Data, a unique combination of flow data, application visibility and performance metrics in one solution. It is a high-performance tool suitable for monitoring of physical, virtual and hybrid environments, supporting even 100G networks. With Flowmon, customers all around the world ensure business continuity via fast troubleshooting of operational issues and detect cyber threats bypassing traditional security.
About Flowmon Networks
Flowmon Networks empowers businesses to manage and secure their computer networks confidently. Through high-performance network monitoring technology and lean-forward behavior analytics, IT pros worldwide benefit from absolute network traffic visibility to enhance network and application performance and deal with modern cyber threats. The world's largest businesses, internet service providers, government entities and small and midsize companies have come to rely on Flowmon solutions to take control over their networks, keep order and overcome uncertainty. With solutions recognized by Gartner, Flowmon Networks is one of the fastest-growing companies in its industry. For more information: 866-750-FLOW (3569).
SOURCE Flowmon Networks
Related Links
http://www.flowmon.com
CSE: HUGE
OTC: FSDDF
FRA: 0K9
TORONTO, Sept. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ - FSD Pharma Inc. ("FSD" or the "Company") (CSE: HUGE) (OTC: FSDDF) (FRA: 0K9) is pleased to announce that it intends to launch a strategic partnership into the Jamaican cannabis market as part of its plan to expand internationally. FSD has signed a Letter of Intent ("LOI") effective September 10, 2018 with JJAMACANN Inc. ("JJAMACANN") to form a joint venture operating as FSD Jamaica ("FSD Jamaica"). FSD Jamaica expects to partner locally with Nature's Purest Limited ("NPL"), a Jamaican corporation with a cultivation license and existing operations in Jamaica.
"We are excited to be working with a world-class and knowledgeable team of local experts and entrepreneurs with extensive cannabis cultivation experience. Jamaica has historically produced some of the best cannabis over the past 50 years. FSD Jamaica intends to take advantage of the ideal climate and soil conditions on the NPL property and surrounding area to produce the highest quality cannabis, hemp and cannabinoid products possible. FSD Jamaica is well-positioned to bring Jamaican branded, world class medical and recreational products to market by 2019," said Anthony Durkacz, Director of FSD.
As part of the LOI, FSD Jamaica will establish an experimental centre for the development of cannabis and cannabinoid ("CBD") genetics suitable to cultivate in Jamaica with the intent to create a genetics and seed bank of innovative cannabis and hemp products for the Jamaican market and the Canadian market where permitted.
"NPL was the second company to be granted a cultivation license in Jamaica. It is located in the beautiful mountains of Ulster Springs Trelawny and the property is fed by crystal clear spring water surrounded by many agricultural crops and experienced workers. The combined genetics library of FSD Jamaica and NPL will allow for the breeding of high THC & CBD plants that will be cultivated using medical grade extraction processes. This strategic partnership compliments FSD's business model of producing the highest quality medical grade product at scale," continued Mr. Durkacz.
About FSD Pharma (CSE: HUGE) (OTC: FSDDF) (FRA: 0K9)
FSD Pharma through its wholly-owned subsidiary FV Pharma, is a licensed producer of marijuana under the Access to Cannabis for Medical Purposes Regulations (ACMPR) having received its cultivation license on October 13, 2017. Headquartered at the former Kraft plant in Cobourg, Ontario, approximately an hour's drive from Toronto, FV Pharma management's mission is to transform the facility into the largest hydroponic indoor cannabis facility in the world. FV Pharma intends to target all legal aspects of the cannabis industry, including cultivation, processing, manufacturing, extracts and research and development.
Forward-Looking Information
Certain statements contained in this press release constitute forward-looking information. These statements relate to future events or future performance. The use of any of the words "could", "intend", "expect", "believe", "will", "projected", "estimated" and similar expressions and statements relating to matters that are not historical facts are intended to identify forward-looking information and are based on the Corporation's current belief or assumptions as to the outcome and timing of such future events. Actual future results may differ materially. In particular, this release contains forward-looking information relating to the development of the Corporation's indoor cannabis facility and its business goals and objectives. The forward-looking information contained in this press release is made as of the date hereof, and the Corporation is not obligated to update or revise any forward-looking information, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required by applicable securities laws. Because of the risks, uncertainties and assumptions contained herein, investors should not place undue reliance on forward looking-information. The foregoing statements expressly qualify any forward-looking information contained herein.
Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its regulation services provider accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
SOURCE FSD Pharma Inc.
New Members will collaborate and contribute to development of
Responsible Cannabis Framework
SAINT JOHN, NB, Sept. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ - Momentum continues to build for the establishment of a Responsible Cannabis Framework as eight more organizations join the Global Cannabis Partnership (GCP), in its newly opened Member category.
The GCP welcomes Cannabis OneFive Inc., Emblem Corp., Grant Thornton LLP Canada, HEXO Corp., Maricann Group Inc., Organigram Inc., Sundial Growers Inc. and Zenabis as its newest Members.
"We expect membership to expand as more and more stakeholders recognize the necessity of social responsibility policies and programs and want to be at the table to collaborate," says Kim Wilson, Executive Director of the GCP. "Adding more members to the Partnership will provide further insight, expertise and knowledge sharing as we set standards and guidelines for compliance and best practices that will make a real difference."
The Member category open to government agencies, licensed producers, national associations, industry partners and community groups from the global cannabis industry broadens participation in the GCP beyond the cohort of Founding Members.
The Partnership is under the executive direction of CSR expert Kim Wilson, whose appointment was announced on September 5. The GCP is the first of its kind in the growing global cannabis industry and mirrors successful initiatives in many other industry sectors, such as alcohol, gaming, pharmaceuticals, forestry and others. Not an advocacy or lobby group, the GCP is a partnership of like-minded organizations who want to raise the bar with respect to social responsibility for the cannabis industry.
Founding Members of the GCP were announced on June 12, 2018 at the World Cannabis Congress and represent a cross-section of organizations that play or will play a role in the legal, adult-use recreational cannabis supply chain. A full list of Founding Members and Members can be found at globalcannabispartnership.com.
For information about joining the Partnership, contact Kim Wilson, Executive Director of the GCP at 506.646.9960 or [email protected].
About the Global Cannabis Partnership:
Founded by Revolution Strategy, the Global Cannabis Partnership is a collaboration of leaders in the government-sanctioned, adult-use recreational cannabis industry. With representation from government, private-sector and affiliate organizations, the GCP is creating an international standard for the safe and responsible production, distribution and consumption of legal recreational cannabis. One of its first activities will be to create a Responsible Cannabis Framework, to shape the face of social responsibility in the recreational cannabis industry. For more information, visit globalcannabispartnership.com.
New GCP Member Quotes:
Cannabis OneFive:
"At C15, our mission is to raise the quality and compliance bar for the cannabis sector and all its derivative products in the years to come," says Sean Samuel, Vice President of Sales and Marketing at CannabisOneFive. "We believe that a global community of cannabis stakeholders is a crucial component to accomplishing this shared vision. C15 looks forward to working with the founding, current and future members of the GCP to assist in developing a responsible framework for best practices in a compliance-driven sector."
Emblem:
"As we build a new cannabis industry to support the legalization of Canada's adult-use market, it's critical that licensed producers, regulators and affiliated organizations come together to lead the way on social responsibility and ensure that we are all held accountable to the highest standards of marketing and selling cannabis," says Adam Saperia, Chief Strategy Officer at Emblem. "This is a strategic initiative that will help provide the industry the social license to operate in the long term. Emblem is committed to working with industry partners both in Canada and globally to shape policy on promoting the responsible use of cannabis in a way that is collaborative, credible and effective. We have the opportunity to create a meaningful CSR platform that positively impacts consumers on a global scale."
Grant Thornton LLP Canada:
"Being a member of the Global Cannabis Partnership connects Grant Thornton to like-minded industry leaders whose objective is to develop and establish a responsible cannabis framework," say Trisha LeBlanc, Partner at Grant Thornton LLP Canada. "We are pleased to be involved in setting cannabis standards and understand the responsibility, given that Canada will be the first G7 country to legalize cannabis."
HEXO:
"As we launch the Canadian adult-use cannabis industry it is important to demonstrate to the world that we can be responsible to our physical and social environment while providing world-class products to consumers," says Terry Lake, Vice President of Corporate Social Responsibility at HEXO. "This aligns with HEXO's vision to be a global leader in cannabis and the Global Cannabis Partnership is an excellent vehicle to do just that".
Maricann:
"Being amongst some of the first cannabis licenses issued, Maricann Inc has always prided itself in offering safe, reliable, medical grade products to consumers," says Ben Ward, CEO of Maricann. "Joining the Global Cannabis Partnership allows us to connect with other like-minded industry professionals to ensure the longevity and integrity of this burgeoning industry. This partnership is emblematic of our ongoing commitment to global initiatives that hold the wellbeing of our consumers, our patients and the environment as a top priority."
Organigram:
"We're thrilled to contribute to this vibrant partnership, as the goals of the GCP perfectly align with our own," says Ray Gracewood, Chief Commercial Officer at Organigram. "Setting global standards for safe, responsible production, distribution and consumption will even the playing field for producers, help facilitate easier conversations among nations and help share learnings on harm reduction. It's a win-win."
Sundial:
"Sundial is excited to join the Global Cannabis Partnership at the development stage of the adult-use cannabis market and we look forward to contributing positively to a safe and responsible industry that Canadians can trust," says Claire Buffone-Blair, Director of Communications and Stakeholder Relations at Sundial.
Zenabis:
"Our product, people and community are the focus behind everything we do at Zenabis," says Karen Parent, Chief Quality and Compliance Officer at Zenabis. "Because we actively engage in patient education, physician counselling and building public awareness about cannabis and cannabis derivatives, Corporate Social Responsibility is integrated into our business model. Being part of the GCP is a logical extension of our social responsibility efforts and we're thrilled this initiative is being led out of New Brunswick. The Responsible Cannabis Framework will be a vital consideration in our operating procedures moving forward."
Additional New GCP Member Information:
Cannabis OneFive (C15) is a Canadian-based technology partner of Veeva Systems Inc., a U.S. $14B leader in cloud-based software for the global life-sciences industry. C15 has configured the Veeva QualityOne cloud application for the Canadian cannabis sector, which is globally compliant with FDA CFR Part 11, EU GMP Annex 11 and Health Canada.
Emblem, through its wholly-owned subsidiary Emblem Cannabis Corporation, is a fully integrated licensed producer and distributor of medical cannabis and cannabis derivatives in Canada under the Access to Cannabis for Medical Purposes Regulations (ACMPR). Emblem's state-of-the-art indoor cannabis cultivation facility and research and development laboratory is located in Paris, Ontario. Led by an experienced management team of healthcare executives, accomplished marketing professionals and cannabis experts, Emblem is focused on driving shareholder value through product innovation, brand relevance and access to patient and consumer channels. Emblem is also the parent company of GrowWise Health Limited, one of Canada's leading cannabis education services.
Grant Thornton LLP Canada is a leading Canadian accounting and advisory firm providing audit, tax and advisory services to private and public organizations. It helps dynamic organizations unlock their potential for growth by providing meaningful, actionable advice through a broad range of services. Together with the Quebec firm Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton LLP, Grant Thornton in Canada has approximately 4,000 people in offices across the country. Grant Thornton LLP is a Canadian member of Grant Thornton International Ltd, whose member and correspondent firms operate in over 100 countries worldwide.
HEXO creates and distributes innovative, easy-to-use and easy-to-understand products to serve the Canadian cannabis market. One of the country's lowest-cost producers, HEXO is rapidly increasing its production capacity in the lead up to the adult-use cannabis market. The Company currently operates with over 310,000 sq. ft. of production capacity with construction on another 1,000,000 sq. ft. expansion set to be complete by year end. HEXO will serve the adult-use market under the HEXO brand, while continuing to serve its medical cannabis clients through the well-known Hydropothecary brand.
Maricann was founded in 2013 in Langton, Ontario and is a federally licensed cannabis producer serving thousands of patients. It is currently expanding its cultivation, extraction, analytics and production facilities to elevate offerings and prepare for growth into the adult-use cannabis market in Canada, and ultimately into mature and developing cannabis markets worldwide. With dedication to quality, integrity, authenticity, approachability and innovation, it strives to exceed expectations and industry standards.
Organigram is a licensed producer of cannabis and cannabis-derived products in Canada. Organigram is focused on producing the highest-quality, indoor-grown cannabis for patients and adult recreational consumers in Canada, as well as developing international business partnerships to extend the company's global footprint. In anticipation of the legal adult-use recreational cannabis in Canada, Organigram has developed a portfolio of brands including The Edison Cannabis Company, Ankr Organics and Trailer Park Buds.
Sundial is a privately held, Alberta-based licensed cannabis producer. Sundial believes in health, happiness and personal well-being, cultivating cannabis for modern consumers people who want a natural alternative that fits seamlessly into today's active, healthy lifestyles. Its focus is on producing consistent, quality cannabis that customers can trust. Sundial currently operates a 31,000 square foot production facility in Rocky View, AB, and has two purpose-built production facilities in various stages of completion and licensing. By 2019, it expects to be one of the leading cannabis companies in Canada with a projected production of over 120 million grams of dry cannabis and the ability to process over 30 million grams of cannabis extracts.
Zenabis is a privately-held, cannabis company with one of the largest, federally licensed indoor medical cultivation footprints in Canada. Zenabis currently operates two licensed production facilities in Surrey, British Columbia and Atholville, New Brunswick, with a third coming shortly in Nova Scotia. These facilities encompass 660,000 square feet of indoor pharmaceutical grade cannabis production space across Canada. Zenabis' operations are strategically positioned on Canada's coasts, facilitating national distribution and access to international markets. Zenabis is currently working towards globally recognized EU GMP (Good Manufacturing Practice) certifications.
SOURCE Global Cannabis Partnership
Related Links
https://www.globalcannabispartnership.com/
https://www.civilized.life/
SINGAPORE, Sept. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- In Mind Cloud Pte Ltd, an independent provider of innovative manufacturing sales platforms, today announced the official launch of their solution "Manufacturing X" during their "Manufacturing Sales Solutions" roadshow in Taipei, Taiwan.
Driven by increased global competition and constant technological progress, the current wave of customer centricity, innovation and digitization is putting enormous pressure on manufacturing businesses.
"Manufacturing X -- The True Manufacturing Sales Platform" is In Mind Cloud's solution to the challenges, which manufacturers are facing today and tomorrow.
Based on the SAP Cloud Platform their solution is deeply integrated into manufacturing processes and front-end sales operations to realize competitive advantages for In Mind Cloud's customers. The benefits of the platform include a significantly reduced time to market for manufacturing products and engineering solutions, enablement of true mass customization and countering the commoditization of products along with a constant learning and improving to stay ahead of competition.
"Manufacturing X" comprises of five applications, namely "Sales Management" which is offering predictable conversions from prospect to quote to production, "Sales Simplification" guaranteeing to estimate an 80% manufacturing-ready quote within minutes, "Sales Optimization" accomplishing the perfect offer balancing requirements and profit, "Engineering Sales" enabling to provide 100% custom solutions at the lowest possible cost and "Sales Portal" which serves to extend the business model into spare parts and consumables.
Dr. Christian Cuske, CEO of In Mind Cloud explains, "We are extremely proud to present our true manufacturing sales platform 'Manufacturing X' for the very first time. Our customers from large and small manufacturers around the globe are under immense pressure of increased customer expectations. The market demands mass customized or even engineered manufacturing solutions at the best price, in the shortest time span possible. Our customers are consciously aware that generic CRM solutions can't fulfill their requirements, as their sales is uniquely built around CPQ (Configure Price Quote) or rather Configure, Cost, Quote and Production processes and driven by calculation models and engineering data. We have built 'Manufacturing X' for manufacturers to strike the right balance between accurate and dynamic costing, competitive pricing and profitability, and we are bringing all these values together in one unique platform."
The company has chosen Taipei, Taiwan as strategic location to first launch their "Manufacturing X" platform, emphasizing on their expansion plans for Asia. Aside from the exclusive showcase of the platform, guests of the "Manufacturing Sales Solutions" roadshow can expect to learn more about the digitalization of manufacturing sales and the impact of the customer experience on the industry during presentations and a panel discussion.
About In Mind Cloud:
In Mind Cloud (www.inmindcloud.com) is an independent provider of innovative manufacturing sales platforms with the vision to make the sales successful and profitable for manufacturing and engineering industries. Their solution "Manufacturing X" turns CRM and CPQ into a true manufacturing sales platform. Based on the SAP Cloud Platform their solution is deeply integrated into manufacturing processes and front-end sales operations. Headquartered in Singapore, Asia, In Mind Cloud is operating globally through its sales office in Europe and a high-value partner network.
For more information:
Sabine Kempe, [email protected], +65 6908 4350, SGT
For additional information visit www.inmindcloud.com
SOURCE In Mind Cloud Pte Ltd
Related Links
http://www.inmindcloud.com
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Sept. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Integrated Cannabis Company, Inc. (CSE: ICAN) (OTCQB: ICNAF) (ICAN.CN) (the "Company" or "Integrated Cannabis"), is pleased to announce the completion of a market ready Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC)-infused spray product and the required licensure for manufacturing of the product in Colorado.
Over the past ten months the Company has engaged and worked with contractors, consultants and various state and municipal regulators in order to successfully gain licensing and approvals for facilities that manufacture CBD- and THC-infused products in the State of Colorado.
The THC product employs the same nanotechnology used to enhance the CBD-infused X-SPRAYS, resulting in higher bioavailability and faster uptake versus capsules or powder. The Company continues to enhance the flavor profiles in order to find an optimal formula.
"We are pleased to be adding THC products to our proprietary line of sprays and plan to launch via distribution in Colorado beginning in Q4 and shall pursue other legal markets thereafter," said Mr. John Knapp, CEO of Integrated Cannabis.
To best demonstrate the Company's activities in the Manufacturer of Infused Products (MIP) area, a chronological outline follows:
Completed the build out of a commercial kitchen adjacent to a licensed Medical and Recreational extraction lab
Completed Process Validation with the Colorado Marijuana Enforcement Division (MED)
Secured a high-quality CBD source from a supplier with Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) Registration Certificate and Colorado Hemp License
Received Shelf Stability approval to sell X-SPRAYS CBD formulation in Denver
Received approval to sell CBD formulated products throughout all of Colorado
Secured a high-quality THC source from a duly licensed Colorado Medical and Recreational extraction lab
Received approval to sell THC formulated products throughout most of Colorado only awaiting approval for City of Denver
only awaiting approval for Submitted Shelf Stability application to sell X-SPRAYS THC formulation in Denver
About Integrated Cannabis Company
Integrated Cannabis Company, Inc. is comprised of dedicated scientists and product engineers who are passionate about health and creating health and lifestyle products utilizing advanced delivery systems and formulations. For more information, please visit the company's website at: www.x-sprays.com.
ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD
"John Knapp"
Chief Executive Officer
The CSE does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Market Regulator (as that term is defined in the policies of the Canadian Securities Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. The Canadian Securities Exchange has not in any way passed upon the merits of the proposed transaction and has neither approved nor disapproved the contents of this press release.
This news release may include forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties. All statements within, other than statements of historical fact, are to be considered forward looking. Although the Company believes the expectations expressed in such forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results or developments may differ materially from those in forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements include market prices, exploitation and exploration successes, continued availability of capital and financing, and general economic, market or business conditions. There can be no assurances that such statements will prove accurate and, therefore, readers are advised to rely on their own evaluation of such uncertainties. We do not assume any obligation to update any forward-looking statements except as required under the applicable laws.
For further information, please contact:
Eugene Beukman
Email: [email protected]
Jason Miller
+1-778-403-3358
SOURCE Integrated Cannabis Company, Inc.
Related Links
http://www.x-sprays.com
HOUSTON, Sept. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Johnnie T. Melia Moving & Storage has been named one of the top three moving companies in Houston by Three Best Rated for the second straight year. The distinction is awarded based on a rigorous 50-Point Inspection that takes Johnnie T. Melia Moving & Storage's reputation, history, complaints, ratings, customer satisfaction, credibility, and overall excellence into account. Brandon Melia, President, believes the distinction is a nod to the family-owned business' nearly fifty-year unblemished track record, as well as the integrity and dedication of employees.
"Our movers go through a rigorous interview process before being hand-picked to become part of our corporate family. We collectively take pride in providing Houstonians with the ultimate worry-free moving experience," said Melia.
According to multiple industry lifetime achievement awards for excellence in moving and packing services, it would seem Houston agrees. For Melia, high customer service ratings and his movers' damage rate of well under one percent aren't anything other than just another day at the office.
"Every single day the goal is to provide our customers with moving services they can be confident in and that give them peace of mind," said Melia. "That is how we measure success."
About Johnnie T. Melia Moving & Storage
An accredited BBB business since 1982, Johnnie T. Melia Moving & Storage has an excellent reputation throughout the greater Houston area and all of Texas. Located at 2527 Fairway Park Dr. in Houston, the company offers moving services throughout the Houston area, including Katy, Sugar Land, The Woodlands, Conroe, Cypress, Humble, Kingwood and Spring. For more information, call Brandon Melia at (713) 683-8585 or visit http://www.jtmeliamoving.com/.
Media Contact Information:
Beth Guide
281-389-5117
[email protected]
SOURCE Johnnie T. Melia Moving & Storage
Related Links
http://www.jtmeliamoving.com
Young Chef Candidates must select an assistant to train and compete with, and will have 2 hours and 35 minutes to cook and plate 10 tasting size portions of the dish; Commis candidates will have 90 minutes. Candidates must develop a unique recipe based on the featured protein, lamb loin saddle provided by Pure Bred Lamb.
Esteemed chefs and founders of ment'or, Daniel Boulud, Thomas Keller and Jerome Bocuse will host the event along with a jury consisting of Paul Bartolotta, Justin Cogley, Gerard Craft, Olivier Dubreuil, Chris Hastings, Tim Hollingsworth, Michelle Karr-Ueoka, Gavin Kaysen, Roland Passot, Mathew Peters, Francis Reynard, Rich Rosendale, Curtis Stone, and Philip Tessier.
Ment'or Chairman, Chef Daniel Boulud comments, "The Young Chef and Commis competition provides young cooks with an incomparable platform to showcase their skills, passion and creativity. They are given the opportunity to demonstrate their talents and master their work. Our goal at ment'or is to guide them to become the next generation of great chefs in America."
Krystyn Navarro, the winner of the first-ever Young Chef Competition in 2014, shared, "Competing in the Ment'or Young Chef Competition was a turning point for me; up until that point, I hadn't yet found my voice and identity as a chef. The opportunity to be part of the Young Chef Competition provided me with not only an incredible platform to refine my technique, but to find my voice and inspiration."
Establishing a platform for young American chefs to succeed is at the heart of ment'or's mission. Offering exposure to some of the world's most prestigious chefs, The Young Chef (28 years of age and younger) and Commis (21 years of age and younger) competitions recognize and promote talented young cooks in a competitive environment. Winners are offered the incredible opportunity to travel to Lyon, France and support Team USA at the 2019 Bocuse d'Or Finale in January.
Ment'or has selected 7 young chefs and 5 commis candidates to compete in this year's competition, taking place at the University of Las Vegas, Nevada's Hospitality Hall. The competition begins at 8:30AM, concluding at 3:45pm, with an awards ceremony following immediately afterward.
The 2018 Young Chef candidates are:
Mac Buben , Bistro Bis & Woodward Table in Washington, D.C.
, Bistro Bis & Woodward Table in Evan Burgess , Boka in Chicago, IL
, Boka in Ian Cairns , Lukshon and Fathers Office in Los Angeles, CA
, Lukshon and Fathers Office in Jakub Czyszczon , Senia in Honolulu, HI
, Senia in Suellen Drummond , Deauxave in Boston, MA
, Deauxave in Ryan Peters , Fish Nor Fowl in Pittsburgh, PA
, Fish Nor Fowl in Jordan Sanchez , Garrison at The Fairmont Hotel in Austin, TX
The 2018 Commis candidates are:
Amber Baden , Bar Boulud in Boston, MA
, Bar Boulud in Hans Ernst , Spoon and Stable in Minneapolis, MN
, Spoon and Stable in Sean Koenig , The French Laundry in Yountville, CA
, The French Laundry in Michael Sansom , Ad Hoc in Yountville, CA
, Ad Hoc in Christian Wieczorek , The Culinary Institute of America Student in Hyde Park, NY
The competition will be conducted in front of a live audience and is made possible by: All-Clad, Bridor, Nordaq Fresh, Pure Bred Lamb, and Steelite. For more details, visit www.mentorbkb.org/youngchefs2018/
For more information about the ment'or BKB Foundation, visit http://www.mentorbkb.org/ or follow the organization on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.
The ment'or BKB Foundation is a nonprofit organization that aims to inspire excellence in young culinary professionals and preserve the traditions and quality of classic cuisine in America. Ment'or is led by a Board of Directors including Chefs Daniel Boulud, Thomas Keller and Jerome Bocuse, as well as an esteemed Culinary Council of over 40 renowned chefs nationwide who act as mentors for young chefs, serve in an advisory capacity to the organization and participate in fundraising events. Educational grants are offered to young professionals through the Mentor Grant Program for Continuing Education which has awarded more than $1.2 Million since 2014. Our Young Chef and Commis Competitions for young cooks provide further opportunity to advance their careers in the culinary world. Ment'or is also responsible for recruiting, training and financially supporting the promising young American chefs who compete on behalf of the United States in the prestigious Bocuse d'Or competition, held in Lyon France, every two years. For the first time in history, Team USA 2017 won the coveted Gold Medal at the Bocuse d'Or.
Visit: www.mentorbkb.org
SOURCE mentor BKB Foundation
Related Links
http://www.mentorbkb.org
| BY Ricki Green |
FINCH has announced the signing of celebrated director and visual artist Toby Pike for representation in the APAC region.
Pike began his directing career as one half of Toby and Pete, the award winning visual arts collective that created TVCs, music videos, motion graphics, art installations, and interactive experiences for the likes of Flume, Brian Eno & Karl Hyde, and Chet Faker, as well as esteemed brands such as Google, Lexus, Coke, PepsiCo, Netflix, Star Wars, Canon.
FINCH and Pike kicked off the partnership with the mind bending visuals for Australian electronic icons Pnaus 2018 Changa Tour. Working closely with FINCH sister company Nakatomi, Pike directed and art directed the forty-five minute long psychedelic trip that has entertained concert goers around the nation.
Says Corey Esse, EP and managing director, FINCH: Toby has been in the building for a few months now and after spending time with him and doing a project together we worked out that Tobys talents are the perfect match for FINCH. Toby combines stunning visuals with high end post production. We are really excited to have him on board.
For enquiries please contact Corey Esse at corey@finchcompany.com or go to finchcompany.com to check him out.
WASHINGTON, Va., Sept. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Just two years after launching their culinary bible to the top DC area restaurants, the Paris-based Michelin Guide awarded The Inn at Little Washington three Michelin stars, the first and only restaurant in the DC region to secure the top honor.
"Receiving three stars from the Michelin Guide during the celebration of our 40th anniversary is the best birthday present anyone could get. In our industry, it's like winning an Olympic gold medal, a Nobel prize and the lottery all in one," said Chef/Proprietor Patrick O'Connell. "I thank Michelin for this wonderful acknowledgment of our team's efforts and I extend my congratulations to all of my fellow chefs in Washington, DC who have been recognized by the esteemed Michelin Guide for their hard work and talent."
The Michelin Guide was first established 118 years ago as an incentive for motorists to drive from region to region as a way to sell more tires. A one-star rating is defined as a very good restaurant in its category, two stars is worth a detour, and three stars is defined as "exceptional cuisine, worth a special journey." Restaurants are reviewed by anonymous inspectors who base their reviews on product quality, preparation and flavors, the chef's personality as revealed through his or her cuisine, value for money, and consistency over time and across the entire menu.
Patrick O'Connell received the good news from Michael Ellis, the international director of the Michelin Guide, and made the announcement to the Inn staff of 148 shortly thereafter. A small crowd gathered in the town square of the rural village of Little Washington (pop. 133), including the Major of Washington, to celebrate this historic moment.
A self-taught chef, also known as the Pope of American Cuisine, O'Connell opened his restaurant on January 28, 1978 in the midst of a blizzard, with a staff of just three people. It didn't take long before one of DC's food critics took notice and wrote a review that set history in motion. Since then, the humble building which began as a gas station is now a Forbes 5 Star, AAA 5 Diamond, Relais & Chateaux hotel and a mecca for lovers of food, wine and romance.
About The Inn at Little Washington:
The Inn at Little Washington is located in the historic village of Washington, Virginia in the shadow of the Blue Ridge Mountains, 67 miles west of the nation's capital. A Relais & Chateaux property, The Inn has been a culinary destination since Chef and Proprietor Patrick O'Connell converted a former garage in 1978 into a world-acclaimed destination. Among its many accolades, The Inn and Chef O'Connell have received five James Beard Awards, including Best Restaurant in America and Best Chef in the US. The Inn was also named the #1 restaurant in the 2017 Washington Post Fall Dining Guide and it is the longest tenured Forbes 5 Star restaurant in America. Follow us on Facebook & Instagram @innatlittlewash or for more information, go to: www.theinnatlittlewashington.com
Contact:
Annette Larkin
[email protected]
540-675-5228
SOURCE The Inn at Little Washington
Related Links
http://www.theinnatlittlewashington.com
"We [Namibia] are aware that the implementation of our NDC presents several challenges, particularly in terms of financial and technological resources. We know we cannot tackle these challenges alone and that we need coordinated and concerted efforts of all our partners. It is for this reason that Namibia has joined the NDC Partnership and we believe that it will be a valuable partnership to assist us in attracting transformative projects to achieve our NDC targets and contribute to the overall goals outlined in the Paris Agreement," said the Honorable Bernadette Jagger, Deputy Minister of Namibia's Ministry of Environment and Tourism.
In its NDC, Namibia committed to ambitious mitigation and adaptation targets. In mitigation, Namibia committed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 89 percent by 2030 through climate smart agriculture, reducing deforestation and renewable energy. Namibia is also highly vulnerable to climate impacts: half of Namibia's population relies on subsistence agriculture, and water insecurity is a serious threat to the welfare of the Namibian people and its economy. To reduce this vulnerability, Namibia seeks a diversity of solutions, including improving water security, preventing desertification and increasing resilience to flooding, to name a few. To achieve these goals, Namibia has embraced the NDC Partnership's integrated planning process to strengthen coordination, resource mobilization and transparency on NDC implementation.
Several members of the NDC Partnership have already pledged support to Namibia through the Partnership Plan, including the African Development Bank, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the French Development Agency (AfD), the European Commission, the Federal Republic of Germany (through GIZ and KfW), the United Nations Development Programme, the World Bank and World Resources Institute. Strong interest has also been expressed from several banks, including the Namibia Development Bank and NedBank, in investing in climate smart projects. A growing community of development partners, private sector and government institutions is quickly assembling behind an urgent call for action to address climate impacts to achieve global climate goals.
"According to the recent publication on the State of the World's Food Insecurity launched 11 September 2018, hunger is on the rise thanks in part to extreme climate events. Therefore, now more than ever we need to accelerate and scale up actions to strengthen the resilience and adaptive capacity of food systems and people's livelihoods through national commitments like NDCs to cope with the impacts," said Resident Representative Farayi Zimudzi of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
The NDC Partnership is a global coalition of countries and institutions committed to transformational climate action, co-chaired by the Federal Republic of Germany and the Kingdom of Morocco. The Partnership has grown to 83 member countries, 19 institutional members and seven associate members since its launch in November 2016. Namibia was one of the first countries in Africa to join the NDC Partnership and formalized its request for technical assistance in March 2018. The NDC Partnership is supporting more than 30 developing countries to enhance and implement their NDCs through technical assistance; capacity building; knowledge sharing and access to finance. Members give specific support to one another to strengthen policy frameworks; mainstream climate actions into national, sectoral and sub-national plans; develop budgeting and investment plans; share knowledge and resources and build more robust monitoring and reporting systems in line with country-driven requests.
SOURCE NDC Partnership
Related Links
http://www.ndcpartnership.org
The LDCE will recruit high-potential and established principal investigators (PIs) who aim to pursue cutting-edge research in diabetes, diabetic complications, and related metabolic disorders. The PIs will receive five-year sponsored appointments at the IBRI, subsidized by Lilly, and faculty appointments at IU School of Medicine. Each appointed PI will pursue their area of research with full academic freedom. Lilly will provide opportunities for close collaborations, including access to drug discovery tools and expertise, to allow faculty to rapidly explore the translational potential of their research. The LDCE will also serve as a bridge between academia and industry by providing opportunities for interaction, training, and mentoring across the IBRI, Lilly, and IU School of Medicine.
"Building on Lilly's nearly 100 years of heritage of diabetes research, we seek to spearhead innovative research right here at home in Indiana," said Ruth Gimeno, Ph.D., vice president of diabetes and complications at Lilly. "Lilly is excited to join forces with the IBRI and IU School of Medicine on this important initiative to advance diabetes research for the millions who are suffering from this chronic disease."
Diabetes is a chronic disease that occurs when the body does not properly produce or use the hormone insulin. Approximately 30 million Americans1 and an estimated 425 million adults worldwide have diabetes.2 Type 2 diabetes is the most common type globally, accounting for an estimated 90 to 95 percent of all diabetes cases in the United States alone.1 More than 695,000 people in Indiana, or 12.9 percent of the adult population, have diabetes.3
"The Lilly Diabetes Center of Excellence is a prime example of why the IBRI was created to foster industry and academic collaboration on research that will ultimately benefit patients and significantly improve human health," said Rainer Fischer, Ph.D., chief executive officer and chief scientific and innovation officer of the IBRI. "This new center aligns the extensive diabetes research already underway at Lilly, IU School of Medicine and at the IBRI to find new collaborative ways to slow, if not eventually cure diabetes, which afflicts hundreds of millions worldwide."
"Diabetes is a complex problem that requires a diverse range of expertise and approaches," said Raghu G. Mirmira, M.D., Ph.D., director of the IU School of Medicine Center for Diabetes and Metabolic Diseases. "We look forward to collaborating with the talented researchers this center will undoubtedly attract and expect that this partnership will ultimately lead to important advances in the prevention and treatment of diabetes."
"The IBRI's Regenerative Medicine and Metabolic Biology group, which focuses extensively on diabetes research in the area of beta cell regeneration, will become part of the new center to help take this work to the next level," said Robert Considine, Ph.D., professor of medicine at IU School of Medicine and director of the IBRI's Diabetes Center. Considine will also continue to serve as associate director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded diabetes center at IU School of Medicine, where he has been part of the faculty since 1997. Interested candidates should go to the IBRI Careers website: https://www.indianabiosciences.org/careers/.
About Eli Lilly and Company
Lilly is a global healthcare leader that unites caring with discovery to make life better for people around the world. We were founded more than a century ago by a man committed to creating high-quality medicines that meet real needs, and today we remain true to that mission in all our work. Across the globe, Lilly employees work to discover and bring life-changing medicines to those who need them, improve the understanding and management of disease, and give back to communities through philanthropy and volunteerism. To learn more about Lilly, please visit us at www.lilly.com and www.lilly.com/newsroom/social-channels. P-LLY
About Indiana Bioscience Research Institute
The Indiana Biosciences Research Institute is an independent, nonprofit discovery science and applied research institute currently focused on innovation targeting cardio-metabolic diseases, diabetes and poor nutrition. Inspired by the state and Indiana's leading life sciences companies, research universities and philanthropic community, the IBRI is building a world-class organization of researchers, innovators and entrepreneurs that will catalyze scientific discovery and its application, resulting in improved health outcomes for patients. For more information about the IBRI and donation or collaboration opportunities, please visit www.indianabiosciences.org.
About Indiana University School of Medicine
Indiana University School of Medicine is one of the nation's premier medical schools and is a leader and innovator in medical education, research and clinical care. The country's largest medical school, IU School of Medicine educates more than 1,600 medical and graduate degree students on nine campuses in Indiana, and its faculty holds more than $300 million in research grants and contracts, to advance the School's missions and promote life sciences. For more information, please visit http://medicine.iu.edu.
1. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. National Diabetes Statistics Report, 2017. Atlanta, GA: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S. Dept
of Health and Human Services; 2017. 2. International Diabetes Federation. IDF Diabetes Atlas, 8th edn. Brussels, Belgium: International Diabetes Federation, 2017. http://www.diabetesatlas.org. 3. American Diabetes Association. The Burden of Diabetes by State. http://main.diabetes.org/dorg/PDFs/Advocacy/burden-of-diabetes/indiana.pdf
SOURCE Eli Lilly and Company
Related Links
http://www.lilly.com
WASHINGTON, Sept. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The 50th anniversary of the Fair Housing Act, declining African-American homeownership, gentrification, and creative solutions were top of mind for many of the 10,000 people attending the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation's 48th Annual Legislative Conference in Washington, D.C., including Realtors and NAR Advocacy staff.
NAR's Federal Political Coordinators are leveraging this Annual Legislative Conference, or ALC, as an opportunity to network with their Member of Congress, industry professionals and other small business owners. This specially-selected group of 535 Realtors serve as the voice and face of real estate to federal lawmakers and play a pivotal role in Realtor' outreach. They work closely with Members of Congress and the Congressional Black Caucus, along with NAR's D.C.-based lobbyists and regulatory staff to advance shared goals for the African-American community. In past years, NAR has joined hundreds of other organizations and businesses to sponsor conference activities and events.
"This year, as we recognize the 50th anniversary the Fair Housing Act, the National Association of Realtors remains committed to working with groups like the Congressional Black Caucus and the Department of Housing and Urban Development to advance policies that remove barriers to African-American homeownership in the United States. That includes a collaborative partnership, from both the private and public sectors, to ensure the Fair Housing Act is serving its core purpose as intended by Congress," National Association of Realtors President Elizabeth Mendenhall, a sixth-generation Realtor from Columbia, Missouri and CEO of RE/MAX Boone Realty, said.
Just two years after the Fair Housing Act was passed, the African-American homeownership rate sat at 41.6%. Today, African-American homeownership remains at 41.6%, the lowest rate among all racial groups. For this reason, NAR is committed to working with NAREB, the Urban Institute and other partners to remove barriers to and encourage African-American homeownership.
"Not only is Fair Housing integral to the ethical commitment of our members, as outlined in the Realtor Code of Ethics, it is critical to our ability to serve our customers, clients and the community. Realtors look forward to continuing to work to ensure affordable and sustainable housing opportunities are available for Americans in every corner of this country," Mendenhall continued.
The impact of civil and social movements over the last 50 years has played a major role in changing the trajectory of American history. This year's ALC theme, "The Dream Still Demands," focused on the influence and legacy of these moments, while uplifting present-day champions in the fight for racial equality, justice and freedom in all arenas, including housing.
NAR's diversity partner, the National Association of Real Estate Brokers, co-hosted this year's session, titled "50-year Journey: The Fair Housing Act to the Current State of Housing in Black America." Moderated by Realtor and NAREB president Jeffrey Hick, the two-hour session featured keynote speaker Richard Rothstein, the Economic Policy Institute's Distinguished Fellow and author of The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America. Panelists included Mark Alston, a Realtor and Chairman of the NAREB's Public Affairs Committee.
NAR's Federal Political Coordinators involved in today's events included Erin Brown of New Jersey; Sharon Middlebrooks of Texas; Nykea Pippion of Illinois; Chandra Patterson of Virginia; Ron Mazier of Louisiana; and Gwen Wynn of Maryland. These Realtors coordinate with Representatives Donald Payne, Eddie Bernice Johnson, Bobby Rush, Bobby Scott, Cedric Richmond and Elijah Cummings, respectively.
The National Association of Realtors, "The Voice for Real Estate," is America's largest trade association, representing 1.3 million members involved in all aspects of the residential and commercial real estate industries.
Information about NAR is available at www.nar.realtor. This and other news releases are posted in the "News, Blogs and Videos" tab on the website.
SOURCE National Association of Realtors
Related Links
http://www.realtor.org
HOUSTON, Sept. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Patrons of VIP Spa, located in Albuquerque, New Mexico, are being asked by public health officials to get tested for HIV, Hepatitis B, and Hepatitis C.
Clients are particularly urged to seek out testing if they underwent an injection-related procedure between May and June 2018.
STDcheck.com will extend free testing to all who have visited VIP Spa. All that is required is that customers call STDcheck.com and inform a representative that they were a patron of VIP Spa in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The caller will then receive free and confidential testing for HIV, Hepatitis B, and Hepatitis C.
Among VIP Spa's injection-related procedures is the infamous "Vampire Facial." This facial requires a needle to come in direct contact with the patient's blood, which is extracted from the body, and then re-injected into the face.
"The risk of infection using blood products is greater than using sterile injectables," states New York City-based plastic surgeon Michelle Copeland, M.D. "It's not a closed syringe, so there is a risk when transferring the product from one tube to another."
The New Mexico Department of Health has commented on how alarmed they were at the storage, handling, and disposing process which VIP Spa had in place for procedural needles.
"There is a common misconception that STDs are only transmitted through sexual activities. This is simply not the case. STDs like HIV and Hepatitis can be contracted by coming into contact with any bodily fluids. STDcheck.com hopes that spa clients everywhere will take this chance to educate themselves on the dangers of contracting STDs through unsanitized or untested beauty trends," said Fiyazz Pirani, founder and CEO of STDcheck.com.
The NMDOH shut down VIP Spa soon after a spa client reported an infection.
"There could still be other spas that are putting clients at risk. If you feel that you have been affected by unsafe needle use, STDcheck.com encourages you to get tested for blood-borne infections, including specific STDs," said Pirani.
STDcheck.com is a direct to consumer lab testing company that offers 100% confidential STD testing, with over 4,500 Testing Centers Nationwide. Those that test positive with STDcheck.com are eligible for an over the phone doctor consultation, where the patient is then able to be prescribed medication.
Media Contact:
Lauren Crain
Website - STDcheck.com
Email - [email protected]
Phone - 832-251-7221
SOURCE STDcheck.com
Related Links
http://www.STDcheck.com
WASHINGTON, Sept. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The timeshare industry, the American Resort Development Association (ARDA) and ARDA Resort Owners' Coalition (ARDAROC), have united to stop the misconduct of those deceiving timeshare owners into paying for illusory timeshare exit services through fraudulent means. Recently, the Supreme Court of Tennessee disbarred attorney Judson Wheeler Phillips, founder of the Castle Law Group, on a myriad of charges relating to consumer fraud complaints. In the past few weeks, Castle Law Group has ceased business operations following federal lawsuits brought by developers against Castle Law Group and those acting in concert with the firm. In another matter prosecuted by Wyndham Destinations (NYSE:WYND) against American Consumer Credit (ACC), among the largest timeshare exit companies, the pursuit of ACC, its principal, Dana Micaleff and its attorney, Michael Saracco, Esq. resulted in ACC filing bankruptcy on September 7, 2018.
In Phillips' case, the Tennessee Supreme Court disbarred Phillips after reviewing upwards of 18 client complaints, many of which made similar allegations of fraud, highlighting a pattern and practice of misconduct. In its ruling, the Tennessee Supreme Court found that Phillips "poses a threat of substantial harm to the public." Central to the series of complaints were allegations that Phillips and his business partners misled and/or defrauded consumers by taking exorbitant fees from timeshare owners for purported timeshare exit or cancellation services based upon fraudulent and misleading representations.
The ACC case is based on various legal theories, some of which are founded in federal law, known as the "Lanham Act." The case remains pending against Micaleff, individually, and Saracco, individually, although an automatic stay has been issued relative to ACC in the U.S. District Court action as a result of the bankruptcy filing. That, however, has not deterred the prosecution of the case. As of today, there is a motion pending against Micaleff and Saracco to punish them for, among other things, failing to appear for a deposition.
"The constant pressure that our member companies, owners and federal and state agencies are putting on disreputable timeshare exit companies has again produced a positive result for the consumer," said Robert Clements, ARDA Vice President of Regulatory Affairs. "Seeing two significant actions against these companies sends a very clear message to others trying to take advantage of timeshare owners: You won't get away with it." Clements continued, "If you feel you have been unfairly taken advantage of or defrauded by a timeshare exit company, please contact your state Attorney General, local law enforcement or the ARDAROC Consumer Support Team at 18559391515."
In addition to ARDA's advocacy efforts that support stricter laws, enforcement measures and tougher penalties on offenders, ARDA created a Joint Investigative / Enforcement Taskforce last fall to minimize fraud in the secondary market.
"A top priority for our industry and owners, and for law enforcement and other agencies, is to protect consumers from dishonest individuals or companies trying to take advantage of them," said ARDAROC Chairman Ken McKelvey. "These actions send a strong signal to criminals that fraud and deceptive activities will not be tolerated by our industry and it tells consumers that we take the actions of these individuals very seriously."
"We are committed to protecting our owners to ensure they aren't taken advantage of," said Michael Brown, President and CEO of Wyndham Destinations. "Through our partnership with ARDA, ARDAROC and regulatory and enforcement agencies, we support consumer protection legislation and law enforcement's efforts in cases like these. We encourage our owners to reach out to us or ARDA for participation in legitimate available programs in order to avoid becoming victims of timeshare exit company scams."
Nearly two years ago, Diamond Resorts implemented an aggressive litigation strategy in pursuit of third party exit companies for their nefarious and unlawful conduct in an effort to protect the interest of their members who were promised outcomes that could not be legally accomplished. In tandem, Diamond Resorts also pursued those unethical law firms, such as Castle Law Group, which were assisting these timeshare exit companies in their illegal business practices. To date, these efforts culminated in approximately 12 lawsuits prosecuted by Diamond Resorts throughout the country, six of which have already resulted in broad injunctions against the defendants, while the others remain pending.
Senior litigation counsel, Bud Bennington, of the law firm Shutts & Bowen LLP, counsel for Diamond Resorts in the Castle Law Group litigation in the U.S. District Court in Nashville, Tennessee, and, counsel for Wyndham Destinations in the ACC matter pending in the U.S. District Court, for the Southern District of Florida, commented that "the various timeshare companies, their law firms, ARDA and ARDAROC have undertaken a relentless effort to arrest the nefarious and unlawful conduct of the multiple timeshare exit companies around the world and the unethical lawyers that assist them in the perpetration of their deceptive practices."
ARDA and ARDA-ROC continue to pursue and support appropriate timeshare resale and transfer legislation in an effort to protect owners against fraudulent timeshare schemes. For more information about the timeshare secondary market including resales, visit the ARDAROC Timeshare Resale Resource Center at www.ardaroc.org/resales.
About ARDA
The American Resort Development Association (ARDA) is the Washington D.C.based professional association representing the vacation ownership and resort development industries. Established in 1969, ARDA today has over 600 members ranging from privately held firms to publicly traded companies and international corporations with expertise in shared ownership interests in leisure real estate. The membership also includes timeshare owner associations (HOAs), resort management companies, and owners through the ARDA Resort Owners Coalition (ARDAROC). For more information, visit www.arda.org or ARDA's consumer website at www.VacationBetter.org.
About ARDAROC
The ARDA Resort Owners' Coalition (ARDAROC) is a nonprofit entity funded by individual timeshare owner's voluntary contributions, dedicated to preserving, protecting, and enhancing vacation ownership. ARDAROC is an alliance of owners, developers, and managers who are committed to advocating for local, state, and federal policies that enable the vacation ownership industry to thrive. For more information, visit http://www.ardaroc.org.
SOURCE ARDA; ARDA-ROC; Wyndham Destinations
TALLAHASSEE, Fla., Sept. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- On September 12, 2018, Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, M.D., released a statement declaring youth electronic cigarette use an epidemic. The FDA also announced it issued more than 1,300 warning letters and fines to retailers, including requests to the top five e-cigarette manufacturers JUUL, Vuse, MarkTen, blu and Logic for thorough plans to address the widespread youth use of e-cigarettes within 60 days. The organization will also be investigating these brands' marketing and sales practices as they relate to this dramatic increase in youth e-cigarette use.
According to newly released 2018 Florida Youth Tobacco Survey (FYTS) data, e-cigarette use among Florida youth spiked dramatically in just one year:1
The youth (11-17) rate of current e-cigarette use increased 60.2 percent from 9.8 percent in 2017 to 15.7 percent in 2018.*
More than one in three Florida high school students have tried e-cigarettes, and nearly one in four reported current use.
high school students have tried e-cigarettes, and nearly one in four reported current use. Current use of e-cigarettes among Florida middle school students increased 44.4 percent, from 5.4 percent in 2017 to 7.8 percent in 2018.
The continued experimentation with these products among Florida youth is troubling. Many e-cigarettes contain nicotine, which is shown to disrupt the formation of brain circuits that control attention, learning, and susceptibility to addiction.2 Tobacco use and addiction most often begin during youth and young adulthood;3,4 in fact, nearly nine out of 10 conventional cigarette smokers start by age 18.5 Preventing nicotine addiction among young people is critical to ending tobacco use overall.6
In its statement, the FDA acknowledged that the biggest trend in youth e-cigarette use seems to be among cartridge-based e-cigarettes, like the JUUL. Tobacco Free Florida has previously identified this particular product as a threat to our youth and has taken steps to educate Floridians about this dangerous trend, including launching a digital marketing effort to parents and youth. Tobacco Free Florida also developed an educational blog post to provide Floridians with further information, which can be found at the following link: tobaccofreeflorida.com/JUUL.
The FDA is considering policy changes to help combat this issue, especially concerning flavored e-cigarettes. E-cigarettes are available in fruit and candy flavors, which are especially enticing to youth as they mask the harsh taste of nicotine, a toxic chemical.7 According to the 2016 Surgeon General's Report on e-cigarette use among youth and young adults, flavors were the leading reason for youth use of e-cigarettes.8
"Tobacco Free Florida supports the FDA's action to protect our youth against nicotine addiction," said Lacoadia Burkes, Interim Bureau Chief of Tobacco Free Florida. "We have also identified this troubling trend and will continue to take steps to educate the public and end youth use of nicotine. The FDA's ability to reduce availability online and at the point of sale is a particularly potent tool that would have great benefit."
In its statement, the FDA recognizes that e-cigarettes may pose health risks, including possibly releasing chemicals at higher levels than conventional cigarettes. It is important to note that e-cigarettes are not a smoking cessation method approved by the FDA. There are seven FDA-approved cessation aids and medications that are proven safe and effective when used as directed.9
Tobacco Free Florida offers free, proven-effective tools and services to help Florida residents quit tobacco use through its Quit Your Way program. For more information, visit tobaccofreeflorida.com/quityourway or call 1-877-U-CAN-NOW (1-877-822-6669).
About the Florida Department of Health
The department, nationally accredited by the Public Health Accreditation Board, works to protect, promote and improve the health of all people in Florida through integrated state, county and community efforts.
Follow us on Twitter at @HealthyFla and on Facebook. For more information about the Florida Department of Health please visit www.FloridaHealth.gov.
About Tobacco Free Florida
The department's Tobacco Free Florida campaign is a statewide cessation and prevention campaign funded by Florida's tobacco settlement fund. Since the program began in 2007, more than 188,000 Floridians have successfully quit using one of Tobacco Free Florida's free tools and services. There are now approximately 451,000 fewer adult smokers in Florida than there was 10 years ago, and the state has saved $17.7 billion in health care costs. To learn more about Tobacco Free Florida's Quit Your Way services, visit www.tobaccofreeflorida.com or follow the campaign on Facebook at www.facebook.com/TobaccoFreeFlorida or on Twitter at www.twitter.com/tobaccofreefla.
1 Florida Youth Tobacco Survey (FYTS), Florida Department of Health, Bureau of Epidemiology, 2018.
2 England, L. et al. Nicotine and the Developing Human: A Neglected Element of the E -cigarette Debate. Am J Prev Med. 2015 Mar 7.
3 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Preventing Tobacco Use Among Young People: A Report of the Surgeon General. Atlanta: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Office on Smoking and Health, 1994 [accessed 2015 Oct 14].
4 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Preventing Tobacco Use Among Youth and Young Adults: A Report of the Surgeon General. Atlanta: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Office on Smoking and Health, 2012 [accessed 2015 Oct 14].
5 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Preventing Tobacco Use Among Youth and Young Adults: A Report of the Surgeon General. Atlanta: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Office on Smoking and Health, 2012 [accessed 2015 Oct 14].
6 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The Health Consequences of Smoking50 Years of Progress: A Report of the Surgeon General. Atlanta: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Office on Smoking and Health, 2014
7 Kostygina, G, Glantz, S, & Ling, PM, "Tobacco industry use of flavours to recruit new users of little cigars and cigarillos," Tobacco Control 25(1):66-74, January 2016.
8U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. E-Cigarette Use Among Youth and Young Adults. A Report of the Surgeon General. Atlanta, GA: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, Office on Smoking and Health, 2016.
9 "Five Keys for Quitting Smoking." Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, n.d. Web.
SOURCE Tobacco Free Florida
Related Links
http://www.tobaccofreeflorida.com
The City Hall event marks the start of a month-long Lennon Bus residency and featured remarks by student activists, a group sing-a-long of Give Peace a Chance and Imagine led by Rockaway Beach rock band Blac Rabbit, and fun creative activities for the many students in attendance from NYC schools the Lennon Bus has visited in recent years.
"John would be very proud to know that this project encourages young people everywhere to embrace their creativity and share their ideas for peace. I am so happy to be celebrating its 21st year," said Yoko Ono.
The Lennon Bus streamed the Bed-In so fans around the world could come together with those at City Hall to inspire student activism in honor of John Lennon and Yoko Ono's legendary non-violent protests in support of world peace.
About the event Ringo Starr added, "What a great way to have peace, love and music 'Come Together' and honor John's life."
"Wake-up, dream big, and Come Together!" said Jeff Bridges. "Together with Sleep Club, I was so proud to be part of this event. I'm amazed to see what people can get done when they dream big and turn those dreams into reality. John and Yoko dreamed big and the Lennon Bus is a great example of making dreams come true."
Throughout the month, the Lennon Bus will be making stops at schools across the City, working with a new Lennon Bus curriculum titled, "Come Together," developed in association with ed-tech start-up Nearpod, to engage students in conversation and creative activities around topics including peace, empathy, immigration and activism.
"After years of partnering with Lennon Bus in its educational mission with schools across the U.S., OWC is proud to continue to support the expansion of the John Lennon message," expressed Founder and CEO of OWC, Larry O'Connor.
"John Lennon's genius and commitment to peace is an inspiration to me and billions of people around the globe, and I am so proud to welcome the John Lennon Educational Tour Bus Bed-In at City Hall this year," said Speaker of NYC Council Corey Johnson. "Now more than ever, it is crucially important that we instill creativity and a desire for peace in our youth. It is my hope that people everywhere will give activism a chance, and in so doing keep this city, this country, and the world moving forward towards a peaceful future a future I'd like to imagine."
The NYC initiative has been produced in association with the Lennon Bus' Presenting Sponsor, OWC, with the support of Congressman Joe Crowley, Mayor Bill de Blasio, Speaker of the NYC Council Corey Johnson, City Council Members Daniel Dromm, Robert Holden, Francisco Moya, Karen Koslowitz, Paul Vallone, Rory Lancman, Mark Levine, Stephen Levin, Donovan Richards, Jimmy Van Bramer and Barry Grodenchik and State Assembly Members Mike DenDekker and Joe Lentol Partners include Sleep Club, Nearpod, Adobe, Yamaha, the Mayor's Office, the NYC Council, the Department of Cultural Affairs, the NY State Assembly, Securematics, Sonic Wall and Ruckus Networks.
ABOUT THE JOHN LENNON EDUCATIONAL TOUR BUS
The John Lennon Educational Tour Bus presented by OWC is a non-profit state-of-the-art mobile Pro Audio and HD video recording facility that provides hands-on experiences for students of all ages. Now in its 21st year, the Lennon Bus features the latest audio and video technology, gear and products. The Lennon Bus travels across the U.S. and Canada year-round, providing free tours and workshops at schools, retailers, festivals, and at major industry conferences. To see where the bus will be next, visit http://www.lennonbus.org/schedule.
The John Lennon Educational Tour Bus presented by OWC is made possible by Yoko Ono Lennon and the following sponsors and contributors: Other World Computing, Apple, Inc., Canon U.S.A., Inc., Adobe, Nearpod, Yamaha, Securematics, Neutrik, The NAMM Foundation, Ruckus Networks, SonicWall, Avid, Audio-Technica, Genelec, K&M Stands, Sonnet Technologies, Focusrite, SSL, NewTek, Reflecmedia, Viprinet, Baker & McKenzie, Litepanels, Clear-Com, Anton/Bauer, AJA, Copperpeace, Applied Acoustics Systems, Mobile Roadie, McDSP, Native Instruments, IK Multimedia, Noise Industries, JDI, iZotope, Mad Mimi, Ableton, Mackie, Guitar Player, Bass Player, Electronic Musician, Keyboard Magazine, SKB, and LiveU.
ABOUT OTHER WORLD COMPUTING
Other World Computing (OWC) was founded by Larry O'Connor when he was 14 years old in 1988. OWC is dedicated to helping tech enthusiasts and industry professionals do more and reach higher. Our trusted storage, connectivity, software and expansion solutions enable creative professionals, producers, educators and government entities to get the most out of their technology investments, protect valuable digital assets and expand their hardware's capabilities to keep up with the demands and evolution of their work. OWC features an award-winning technical support team that is on hand 24/7 as well as an unparalleled library of step-by-step installation and support videos. In everything we do at OWC, we believe in making a better world where technology inspires imagination and everything is possible.
ABOUT SLEEP CLUB
Sleep Club, is a wellness destination / brand at the intersection where a healthy sleep life fuels an inspired awake life. With original content, curated information, products and inspiration all designed to promote a healthy awake life. Headquartered in Los Angeles, Sleep Club can be found at www.joinsleepclub.com.
PRESS CONTACT
Kristen Kehlet
High10 Media
[email protected]
SOURCE The John Lennon Educational Tour Bus
Invited media will be paired with companies whose national and global footprint in research and development interest them the most. The media will leave with exclusive content and expert contacts for future editorials, video, blogs, etc.
1901 Group built its first Enterprise IT Operations Center in the VTCRC in Blacksburg, VA and has achieved FedRAMP authorization, ISO9001 certification, and CMMI Level 3 appraisals. The Center provides 24x7 enterprise managed services, cyber security, Agile software development and cloud migration, helping customers improve IT performance through the use of process and technology automation.
"1901 Group looks forward to meeting with media and discussing our IT service delivery model based on the development of enterprise IT factories. Blacksburg and surrounding rural areas provide access to premium talent with a great quality of life," said Sonu Singh, CEO of 1901 Group. "Our Enterprise IT Operations Center in Blacksburg has exceeded our expectations. We've built a culture that values hard work, risk taking, and a bias toward action to change how Federal government thinks about IT."
For questions or to inquire about a press pass please submit press credentials to Melissa Vidmar, Business Development & Communications Manager, at [email protected]. Additional details may be found at www.vtcrc.com/events/2018vipmediaday.
About 1901 Group, LLC
1901 Group is a leading FedRAMP authorized managed services provider in the public sector market and delivers innovative IT solutions by leveraging our Enterprise IT Operations Center to provide 24x7 support of end users, complex IT infrastructure environments, and mission critical systems. We deliver cloud, cyber security, and enterprise scale managed services to transition customers from traditional on-premise IT infrastructure and support models to hybrid cloud solutions that improve performance and reduce costs. We proudly support customers that span federal, state, and local governments, including law enforcement and criminal justice agencies. Customers benefit from our 24x7 Cloud Factory with FedRAMP authorization, ISO9001 certification, and CMMI Level 3 appraisals. Visit our newsroom and simplify IT with 1901 Group.
About the Virginia Tech Corporate Research Center
Established in 1985, the 230-acre Virginia Tech Corporate Research Center (VTCRC) boasts more than 33 buildings with over 3,000 employees and is home to more than 180 research, technology and support companies. The VTCRC is owned and managed by the Virginia Tech Foundation, a 501 (c)(3) nonprofit non-stock corporation established in 1948. The VTCRC strives to develop a growing, prestigious research park for high-technology companies and in collaboration with the university, advance the research, educational and technology transfer missions of Virginia Tech. www.vtcrc.com.
Tweet: @1901Group to Participate in First-Ever VIP Media Day at Virginia Tech Corporate Research Center https://bit.ly/2OUPh7S
Media Contact:
Patricia Long
Senior Director, Marketing Communications
1901 Group
571.392.7233 (o) 703.615.4906 (m)
[email protected]901group.com
SOURCE 1901 Group, LLC
Related Links
www.1901group.com
| BY Ricki Green |
In his first interview since returning to Australia to head up 72andSunny, Micah Walker sat down with Nathan Lennon and Dave Gibson to record the latest episode of the popular podcast, The Creative Relay.
Passing the baton on to Walker was an easy decision for his two former creative team members, who are now the creators and owners of Hawkes Brewing Co. Like Lennon and Gibson, Walker has worked in Australia, Europe and the US, and has also launched his own product outside of advertising.
But despite this common ground, Lennon explains there was a more fundamental reason for the boys to choose Micah as their guest.
Says Lennon: Micah was our ECD at Mojo, so even though were mates and weve worked closely together, he still remains a bit of a mystery to us.
In his revealing interview, Walker reflects on his motivations for pushing himself towards new challenges throughout his career.
Says Walker: If you get to a point where the day to day victories arent enough, then make a change. Its kind of why I left and also why I came back.
Having worked with some of the greats of advertising around the world, Walker offers a fascinating insight into the importance of culture within an agency and how he hopes to shape 72andSunny, Sydney.
Says Walker: I wanted to come back to a place where I could make a significant difference. With 72, theres a mission, but no blueprint. So how we get there is totally up to us.
For Dan Higson, creator of the podcast and producer at Smith & Western, Walkers chat with Lennon and Gibson is one of his favourites of the series.
Says Higson: We were so lucky to get Micah so soon after his return to Australia. He obviously knows a lot about the local industry, but still brings a fresh perspective to how he wants to do things.
For host Paul Dunne, Walker touches on some themes uncovered in previous episodes.
Says Dunne: I think Micahs advice to young creatives in this episode is expressed brilliantly. He reminds us again of how important it is to make work that has your own fingerprints on it.
As an automotive industry veteran, DelGrosso brings significant leadership and operational expertise to Adient. DelGrosso currently serves as president and CEO at automotive supplier Chassix. From 2012 to 2015, he served as president and CEO at Henniges Automotive. Prior to that, DelGrosso spent five years at TRW Automotive, where he last served as vice president and general manager for the company's global braking and suspension operations. Prior to joining TRW Automotive, DelGrosso spent more than 20 years at Lear Corporation in a variety of operational roles, the last being president and chief operating officer.
"After conducting an extensive search that resulted in an impressive slate of candidates, the Board is pleased to appoint Douglas DelGrosso as Adient's president and CEO. He brings the right vision, leadership experience and operational expertise needed to drive Adient's transformation forward," said John Barth, interim chairman of the board. "In addition, we acknowledge the positive contributions made by Fritz Henderson, who has served as interim CEO since June, which helped stabilize the business and accelerate operational improvements."
"I am honored to join Adient and accept the board's appointment," DelGrosso said. "This is a tremendous opportunity given the company's leading market position, diverse product offerings and energized employees. I look forward to working closely with the team as we execute our transformation plan, driving improved profitability, cash flow and returns for our shareholders."
About Adient:
Adient is a global leader in automotive seating. With 85,000 employees operating 238 manufacturing/assembly plants in 34 countries worldwide, we produce and deliver automotive seating for all vehicle classes and all major OEMs. From complete seating systems to individual components, our expertise spans every step of the automotive seat making process. Our integrated, in-house skills allow us to take our products from research and design all the way to engineering and manufacturing and into more than 25 million vehicles every year. For more information on Adient, please visit adient.com.
ADNT-FN
SOURCE Adient plc
Related Links
http://www.adient.com
Short Escapes are two- to four-night adventures in iconic destinations that can be booked as stand-alone getaways or as add-ons to other vacation plans. Combining visits to must-see attractions with hands-on activities and opportunities to discover hidden gems, these itineraries are founded on enriching, authentic experiences and bolstered by signature Disney storytelling, VIP service and special access. The expert services of two knowledgeable Disney-trained Adventure Guides ensure guests enjoy a once-in-a-lifetime vacation from start to finish.
From hassle-free planning to premier accommodations to private tours and interactive activities, the new Short Escape itineraries offer endless opportunities for families to soak in every moment in these incredible cities.
Best of Boston Past and Present
Treasured American history and spirited contemporary culture come to life during a diverse line-up of experiences in Boston on the new four-day, three-night Short Escape itinerary.
Throughout the trip, guests are immersed in the city's legendary stories. During a privately guided tour along the Freedom Trail, a 2.5-mile route teeming with historical locales, families follow 18th-century costumed guides back in time as they are regaled with thrilling tales from the American Revolution. A private, after-hours tour of the Old North Church places travelers in the famed footsteps of Paul Revere, while another special after-hours visit to the Boston Tea Party Ships & Museum concludes with a private dinner steeped in the city's storied roots.
Other family-friendly excursions and activities include rowing along the Charles River, biking the city on a private sightseeing tour, exploring the grounds of Harvard Yard and indulging at a private New England clambake on Thompson Island.
The new Boston Short Escape is available on select dates in May through October 2019.
Bucket List Getaway in London
Adventures by Disney guests will revel in the royal treatment with VIP experiences in one of the world's most iconic cities during the new three-day, two-night Short Escape in London. This bucket list getaway can be booked as a stand-alone vacation or as a pre-cruise add-on to Disney Cruise Line sailings out of nearby Dover, England.
The itinerary is filled with exceptional experiences, including a once-in-a-lifetime, private viewing of the royal Crown Jewels led by the Tower of London's Jewel House Warden; a private, high-speed thrill ride in a boat along the River Thames; and a privately guided tour of Westminster Abbey, the revered site of royal coronations and weddings. Families will also witness the time-honored tradition of the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace and an unforgettable dinner show.
The new London Short Escape is available on select dates in July, August and September 2019.
City Highlights and Outdoor Recreation in Vancouver
Active adventures and culinary delights await on the new three-day, two-night Short Escape itinerary in Vancouver. This trip can be booked as a stand-alone vacation or as the perfect complement to a Disney Cruise Line Alaska voyage.
Exciting outdoor activities offer unparalleled vantage points of the city's lush natural surroundings. At Grouse Mountain, adventurers soar over treetops on a thrilling ziplining excursion after a scenic gondola ride to the mountain peak. A privately guided tour at Capilano Suspension Bridge Park offers breathtaking views from 110 feet above the forest floor, while a morning bike ride through Stanley Park provides a leisurely look at one of North America's largest parks.
On the first night, Junior Adventurers embark on a special scavenger hunt expedition with their Adventure Guides, while adults unwind with beer and wine flights at a local tasting room. During a "foodie" walking tour of Granville Island's famous Public Market the next day, travelers will get a taste of the city's thriving culinary scene as they sample local cheeses, charcuterie, freshly baked breads, indulgent desserts and more.
The trip also features early access to Grouse Mountain's resident grizzly bear habitat, where guests can observe bears up-close and enjoy a special breakfast with amazing views, plus photo-worthy encounters with lively lumberjacks, birds of prey and towering totem poles.
The new Vancouver Short Escape is available on select dates in May through September 2019.
More Big Adventures on Short Escapes
Returning in 2019 are Adventures by Disney's popular Short Escapes to New York City, San Francisco, Southern California, Wyoming, Barcelona and Rome. Highlights of these spectacular itineraries include exclusive visits to Good Morning America in New York City; private, after-hours tours of the Vatican Museums and Sistine Chapel in Rome; and behind-the-scenes access at Disneyland Resort in California.
Like all Adventures by Disney vacations, Short Escape packages include all accommodations, tickets and admissions, transportation within the destination, luggage handling, snacks and most meals, and the services of two dedicated Adventure Guides.
Bookings for new 2019 Short Escape vacations open to the public on Sept. 20, 2018. To learn more about Adventures by Disney or to book a vacation, visit adventuresbydisney.com, call 1-800-543-0865 or contact a travel agent.
ABOUT ADVENTURES BY DISNEY
Adventures by Disney provides immersive, hassle-free group guided vacation experiences to destinations on six continents. Families traveling with Adventures by Disney receive exceptional service while taking part in extraordinary experiences at locations including: the South African plains, the great cities of Europe, Costa Rica's rich rainforest, the ruins of Pompeii and Machu Picchu, Australia's Outback, the Great Wall of China and some of America's most iconic destinations.
Adventures by Disney has been recognized by numerous travel organizations for its excellence in family tourism. In Cruise Critic's 2016 & 2017 Editors' Picks, Adventures by Disney river cruises were honored as the Best River Cruise Line for Families. It was also voted Top "Adventure" Tour Operator in the Travel Weekly 2016 Readers Choice Awards, and has garnered many other excellence awards over the past decade.
Offering Disney-trained Adventure Guides on each trip, engaging activities, VIP experiences and personal touches throughout, Adventures by Disney vacations are crafted to excite and delight everyone. Visit AdventuresByDisney.com to learn more.
SOURCE Adventures by Disney
Related Links
https://www.adventuresbydisney.com
BOCA RATON, Fla., Sept. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- AE Industrial Partners, LP ("AEI"), a leading private equity investor in aerospace and defense, power generation, and specialty industrial companies, announced that it has acquired Gryphon Technologies LC ("Gryphon Technologies"), a leading defense engineering and technical services firm. AEI will combine Gryphon Technologies with CDI Government Services, Inc. ("CDI Government Services"), a fully-owned subsidiary of CDI Corp. ("CDI"). Terms of the transaction, which closed today, were not disclosed. CDI is a portfolio company of AEI.
Gryphon Technologies, headquartered in Washington, DC, is a premier professional and engineering services provider specializing in defense systems and integration, naval architecture and marine engineering, program management, test and evaluation, cybersecurity and logistics. For over 20 years, the Company has designed, integrated, maintained, and upgraded state-of-the-art systems for the Department of Defense. Founded in 1997, the Company has over 600 employees and 26 locations.
"The opportunity to partner with AEI given its expertise in the defense industry will help further accelerate our growth," said P.J. Braden, Founder and CEO of Gryphon Technologies. "Combining our company with CDI Government Services will expand our team and capabilities, allowing us to better serve our existing customers, as well as reach new customers. I look forward to working closely with AEI and CDI Government Services' team."
"We are excited to partner with P.J. Braden and Gryphon Technologies given its strong customer relationships, unique engineering expertise, highly skilled workforce, and stellar reputation," said David Rowe, Managing Partner of AEI. "We have a strong history partnering with founder-owned businesses and believe our unique operating expertise will allow us to further support the combined companies' growth."
"By combining Gryphon Technologies with CDI Government Services, we are strengthening the strategic importance and expanding the services offerings of both companies," said Kirk Konert, Principal of AEI. "The combination creates a differentiated platform to continue to support our existing customers' missions."
Kirkland & Ellis LLP served as legal advisor and PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP served as financial advisor to AE Industrial Partners. Venable LLP served as legal advisor and SunTrust Robinson Humphrey Inc. served as financial advisor to Gryphon Technologies.
About Gryphon Technologies, LC
Gryphon Technologies is a premier engineering and technical services firm headquartered in Washington, DC and specializes in defense systems and integration, naval architecture and marine engineering, program management, test and evaluation, and logistics. For more information, visit www.gryphonlc.com.
About CDI Government Services
CDI Government Services, operating through its CDI Marine Company, LLC and CDI-M&T Company, LLC subsidiaries, provides ship design, naval engineering, aviation engineering, and professional services to the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security, and prime contractors who serve government agencies. For more information, visit https://www.cdicorp.com/engineering/government-services/
About AE Industrial Partners
AE Industrial Partners is a private equity firm with more than $2.7 billion of assets under management specializing in control investments in aerospace and defense, power generation, and specialty industrial businesses. AEI invests in market-leading companies that can benefit from its deep operating experience, industry knowledge, and relationships. Learn more at www.aeroequity.com.
CONTACT:
Blicksilver Public Relations
Jennifer Hurson
(845) 507-0571
[email protected]
Carol Makovich
(203) 622-4781
[email protected]
SOURCE AE Industrial Partners
Related Links
http://www.aeroequity.com
DALLAS, September 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --
Alternet Systems, Inc. (USOTC: ALYI) today announced a new corporate website designed to communicate the latest updates to the company's business. The updates have in part contributed to the company's recent singing of a $1 million order announced last week.
Alternet's new management came on board last year in conjunction with the acquisition of an energy storage technology company. In reaction to the company's first year of operation, management has updated the business to notably include expanding its development of innovative energy storage solutions well beyond lithium. The race for solving the global energy storage shortage problem is not necessarily about using lithium more efficiently or taping into a yet undiscovered new source of lithium. Any limitation on the availability of lithium is a separate issue and one convenient for commodity brokers that use a limited supply story, and an alleged demand to drive up lithium commodity prices.
Alternet has re-centered its strategy on finding innovative solutions to energy storage shortages, and those innovative solutions do not necessarily need to come from lithium-Ion based technology. The company is exploring a variety of energy storage research and development initiatives.
Graphene, for instance, has long been seen a subject of research for future energy needs. Other alternatives being researched include fuel cells, photosynthesis, solid state technologies, sodium-ion, solar, foam, aluminum graphite, and sand. Most of these are safer and more abundant than lithium.
Lithium is arguably central to the most currently viable energy storage solutions, but it is far from being the long-term best solution. Better materials in more abundant supply exist and just need to catch up to the research and development head start that lithium, for the time being, enjoys.
You can learn more on the company's new website about its expansion beyond lithium centric energy storage solutions in addition to its projects to advance energy storage technology through inclusion into electric vehicle projects and military application projects:
http://www.AlternetSystemsInc.com
Learn more about ReVolt Electric Motorbikes: http://www.revoltmotorbikes.com
Disclaimer/Safe Harbor: This news release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Securities Litigation Reform Act. The statements reflect the Company's current views with respect to future events that involve risks and uncertainties. Among others, these risks include the expectation that any of the companies mentioned herein will achieve significant sales, the failure to meet schedule or performance requirements of the companies' contracts, the companies' liquidity position, the companies' ability to obtain new contracts, the emergence of competitors with greater financial resources and the impact of competitive pricing. In the light of these uncertainties, the forward-looking events referred to in this release might not occur.
Alternet Systems, Inc. Contact:
Randell Torno
[email protected]
+1-800-713-0297
https://www.otc-alyi.com/contact/
SOURCE Alternet Systems, Inc.
DUBLIN, Sept. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- amg International GmbH (amg), a wholly owned subsidiary of Dublin, Ireland based Q3 Medical Devices Limited (Q3), announced that several clinical cases were performed in Europe with ARCHIMEDES, its new fully biodegradable biliary/pancreatic stent. The ARCHIMEDES biodegradable stent is deployed in the same manner as its traditional plastic counterpart, however, as a biodegradable implant it has the added benefit of eliminating the secondary implant removal procedure that the estimated 1.5 million annually placed plastic stents require. The biodegradable nature of the ARCHIMEDES stent allows patients to avoid the cost and complications associated with traditional plastic stents.
The ARCHIMEDES Biodegradable Biliary/Pancreatic Stent is currently the first and only, fully biodegradable stent approved for placement in obstructed biliary or pancreatic ducts in the world. While biliary and pancreatic duct stents are typically made of plastic or metal, amg's ARCHIMEDES stent is made of a combination of dissolving materials permitting different rates of degradation depending on the clinical indication. The ARCHIMEDES stent is designed to completely degrade via hydrolysis in approximately 12 days, 20, days or 11 weeks, depending on its composition. The stent is designed to maintain duct patency, without occlusion as it degrades, due to its patented design. Occlusion is a common problem with traditional stents and according to literature, may occur up to 30% of the time.
The first European clinical cases were completed across five sites in Spain, Italy, and Finland. In Spain, cases were performed by Dr. Manuel Perez-Miranda at the Hospital Universitario Rio Hortega in Valladolid, Spain and by Dr. Miguel Angel Simon Marco and Dr. Julio Ducons Garcia at the Hospitals Quironsalud Zaragoza in Zaragoza, Spain. In Italy several cases were completed in Milan by Dr. Andrea Anderloni and Dr. Alessandro Repici at Humanitas University and by Dr. Francesco Di Matteo at the Campus Biomedico di Romo in Rome. The initial cases in Finland were performed by Dr. Leena Kylanpaa and her team at the Meilahti Tower Hospital in Helsinki.
The cases varied showing the versatility of the ARCHIMEDES, ranging from prophylactic placement alongside a traditional metal biliary stent as a bridge to surgery for a patient with a large mass in the lower bile duct to serial placement for a patient in order to effectively drain the common bile duct following stone removal, and also to maintain patency of a choledochal stenosis following the removal of metal stent that had migrated into the duodenum.
"It's not just about saving money, though the ARCHIMEDES does that," said Dr. Kylanpaa, "it's also about the saving of the patient's time and that of the doctor's that is equally important [SIC] by not having to bring the patient back for the removal of the stent."
Dr. Alessandro Repici remarked, "This innovative, cutting-edge technology has the potential to resolve many unmet needs in the field of benign/malignant conditions."
"The initial clinical cases completed across Europe by these renowned physicians really showed the versatility and potential benefit of the ARCHIMEDES biodegradable stent across a wide variety of case types," said Eric K. Mangiardi, President and CEO of Q3 Medical Devices Limited. "Our goal in the development of the ARCHIMEDES Biodegradable Stent, as well as the other bioresorbable products in our portfolio, is to provide doctors with a revolutionary tool to truly help their patients while potentially minimizing known complications with the existing technology."
If you would like more information, please contact Eric K. Mangiardi at [email protected].
About Q3 Medical Devices Ltd.
Q3 Medical Devices Ltd. is an Ireland based holding company with multiple global operations in Germany, China, & the United States along with strong global partnerships, and an ever growing strategic investor base, including China Pioneer Pharma Holdings Limited listed on the Hong Kong Exchange and Boill Holding Group, Shanghai China. The holding and its companies are focused on the development, manufacturing and distribution of its novel bioresorbable, micro invasive, drug delivery, and core products platforms for interventional cardiology, peripheral vascular, and non-vascular diseases.
Q3 Medical Devices Ltd. was formed by a global group of entrepreneurs, manufactures, distributors, industry doctors, and investors, focused on the development and acquisition of medical device businesses with annual revenues between 1-10 Million. The acquisitions are targeted in areas that expand the groups manufacturing base and capabilities, grow its distribution channel and accelerate its products offering, focusing on the minimally invasive treatment of patients with cardiology, peripheral vascular and non-vascular diseases.
For further information, visit http://www.q3medical.com/.
Forward Looking Statements
This announcement includes "forward-looking statements" which incorporate all statements other than statements of historical facts, including, without limitation, those regarding the Group's financial position, business strategy, plans and objectives of management for future operations (including development plans and objectives relating to the Group's products and services), and any statements preceded by, followed by or that include forward-looking terminology such as the words "targets", "believes", "estimates", "expects", "aims", "intends", "will", "can", "may", "anticipates", "would", "should", "could" or similar expressions or the negative thereof. Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other important factors beyond the Group's control that could cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the Group to be materially different from future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Such forward-looking statements are based on numerous assumptions regarding the Groups present and future business strategies and the environment in which the Group will operate in the future. Among the important factors that could cause the Group's actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements include those relating to Q3 Medical's & QualiMed's funding requirements, regulatory approvals, clinical trials, reliance on third parties, intellectual property, key personnel and other factors. These forward-looking statements are valid at the date of this announcement. The Group expressly disclaims any obligation or undertaking to disseminate any updates or revisions to any forward-looking statements contained in this announcement to reflect any change in the Group's expectations with regard thereto or any change in events, conditions or circumstances on which any such statements are based. As a result of these factors, readers are cautioned not to rely on any forward-looking statement.
Contact: Eric K. Mangiardi, President & CEO, Q3 Medical Devices Limited
Email: [email protected]
Phone: +353867827296
SOURCE Q3 Medical Devices Limited
Related Links
http://www.q3medical.com
ENGLEWOOD, Colo., Sept. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Ampio Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NYSE MKT: AMPE) today announced a basic science manuscript entitled "Clinically relevant re-differentiation of fibroblast-like chondrocytes into functional chondrocytes by the low molecular weight fraction of human serum albumin," authored by Melissa Hausburg, PhD; Elizabeth Frederick, PhD; Patrick McNair, MD, John Schwappach, MD, Kaysie L. Banton, MD, Michael Roshon, MD-PhD, Mark J. Lieser, MD, David L. Acuna, MD, Rahul R. Banerjee, MD, David Bar-Or, MD was accepted for publication in Clinical and Experimental Rheumatology. This is the 11th peer-reviewed publication that explores how multiple, interrelated, molecular mechanisms work synergistically to provide patients severely afflicted by Osteoarthritis of the knee (OAK) not only with near-term pain relief and improved function but also in vitro evidence of potentially disease-modifying regeneration of cartilage.
Dr. David Bar-Or, a member of Ampio's Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) and senior author, explains "This paper provides preliminary evidence that Ampion may trigger and support new cartilage growth in joints affected by Osteoarthritis (OA). As OA develops, the cells that make up cartilage, chondrocytes, begin to malfunction, contributing to cartilage breakdown. If the malfunctioning chondrocytes re-started normal function, the breakdown of existing cartilage would cease, and new cartilage may form, contributing to increased joint function".
Dr. Bar-Or continues, "In the work reported in this manuscript, we treated malfunctioning chondrocytes in vitro multiple times with Ampion over a period of either one or two weeks. We show that Ampion treatment of chondrocytes suppresses the production of IL-6, a pro-inflammatory cytokine associated with OA progression. Furthermore, Ampion induced critical cartilage proteins, SOX9, COL2, and aggrecan, which support functional chondrocytes. In cartilage, aggrecan bound to glycosaminoglycans enables cartilage to bear high compressive loads, and we were able to ascertain that newly formed aggrecan was integrated into a matrix with increased glycosaminoglycans in chondrocytes treated with Ampion.
Ampion, a derivative of human serum albumin, has also been shown to be extremely safe. There have been no adverse drug-related side effects reported in multiple clinical trials. In addition to the beneficial effects on pain and function in OAK patients, there is preliminary evidence that Ampion treatment may delay the time for total knee replacement in patients with OA and may prevent post-traumatic OA, acting as a disease-modifying agent when used after traumatic joint injury. Since all joints can be affected by acute injury to the articular cartilage, these data support prophylactic intra-articular treatment with Ampion following traumatic injury for OA prevention."
A link to the full manuscript will be made available when it is published online.
Regulatory Exclusivity and IP protection:
The Company believes that Ampion, a low molecular weight fraction of human serum albumin with anti-inflammatory properties, will be identified as a "reference product" upon FDA approval of their BLA. Reference products are granted twelve years of exclusivity under the PHS Act, 42 U.S.C. 262(k)(7). Specifically, FDA is not permitted to approve an application for a biosimilar or interchangeable product until 12 years after the date of the first licensure of the reference product. The existing Ampion portfolio has patent coverage in all major jurisdictions throughout the world (U.S., Europe, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Eurasia, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Israel, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, South Africa) for pharmaceutical compositions and methods of treating a range of conditions. The portfolio includes 125 issued patents and 85 pending applications throughout seven primary patent families having expiration dates that extend to 2035.
About Osteoarthritis
Osteoarthritis (OA) is an incurable and progressive disorder of the joints involving degradation of the intra-articular cartilage, joint lining, ligaments, and bone. The incidence of developing osteoarthritis of the knee over a lifetime is approximately 45%. As this disease is associated with age, obesity, and diabetes this number will continue to grow. Certain risk factors in conjunction with natural wear and tear lead to the breakdown of cartilage. Osteoarthritis is caused by inflammation of the soft tissue and bony structures of the joint, which worsens over time and leads to progressive thinning of articular cartilage. Other symptoms include narrowing of the joint space, synovial membrane thickening, osteophyte formation and increased density of subchondral bone.
About Ampio Pharmaceuticals
Ampio Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is a development stage biopharmaceutical company primarily focused on the development of therapies to treat prevalent inflammatory conditions for which there are limited treatment options. We are developing compounds that decrease inflammation by (i) inhibiting specific pro-inflammatory compounds by affecting specific pathways at the protein expression and at the transcription level; (ii) activating specific phosphatase or depletion of the available phosphate needed for the inflammation process; and (iii) decreasing vascular permeability.
Forward-Looking Statements
Ampio's statements in this press release that are not historical fact, and that relate to future plans or events, are forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements can be identified by the use of words such as "believe," "expect," "plan," "anticipate," and similar expressions. These forward-looking statements include statements regarding Ampio's expectations with respect to Ampion and its classification, as well as those associated with regulatory approvals and other FDA decisions, the Biological License Application (BLA), the ability of Ampio to enter into partnering arrangements, clinical trials and decisions and changes in business conditions and similar events, all of which are inherently subject to various risks and uncertainties. The risks and uncertainties involved include those detailed from time to time in Ampio's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including without limitation, under Ampio's Annual Report on Form 10-K and other documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Ampio undertakes no obligation to revise or update these forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
Company Contact
Tom Chilcott
Chief Financial Officer
Phone: (720) 437-6500
[email protected]
SOURCE Ampio Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
Related Links
http://www.ampiopharma.com
KANSAS CITY, Mo., Sept. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The Angel Capital Association released today the Angel Funders Report, a new study of angel group investments. The ACA report provides an initial picture on angel groups' investments, the startups they support and the factors that lead to business and investor success. The goal is to build the most comprehensive and actionable database on angel investing. These insights are important because angels provide 90% of equity capital to startups - $25B in 70,000 companies every year, yet few detailed data reports are available.
This strategic ACA initiative will reveal additional insights and highlight key trends in future reports. The pilot launch begins to compile data for long term analysis and future reports will encompass a much larger set of angel organizations, answering questions like:
Is there a minimum number of angel investors in a round to ensure a successful exit?
What are the average revenues of a company to attract VC investment and/or corporate acquisition?
What do different startup CEO demographics mean for investment and company/investor success?
"This new ACA research initiative will increase what we know about angel investors, who they are, why and how they invest, what businesses they invest in, what kinds of returns performance they experience and what practices can improve outcomes," said Tony Shipley, vice chairman of the ACA board.
The Angel Funders Report is based on data from 26 angel groups across the United States and covers investments in 2017. The participating angel groups have a range of investment activity levels and structures, meaning that many of the statistics in the report fit the larger population of angel organizations. The data includes overall metrics of the pilot groups' investments and the companies they invested in. The data initiative was led by Rick Timmins of the Central Texas Angel Network, Steve Flaim of Tech Coast Angels and Tony Shipley of Queen City Angels.
The data provides the intelligence for angels to make decisions based on experience and fact and gives entrepreneurs and the startup ecosystem insights into angels' decision making. The insights in the initial report demonstrate that many variables influence angel groups and their investments. Key findings of the Angel Funders Report include:
Angels invest beyond their local markets: Angel groups in this report invested not only in the 17 US states where they are based, but also in companies in an additional 21 US states (total of 36), one Canadian province and Israel .
Angel groups in this report invested not only in the 17 US states where they are based, but also in companies in an additional 21 US states (total of 36), one Canadian province and . Working together is essential: Syndication is vital for startups and angel groups. 74% of the deals were syndicated with other angel groups and/or VCs.
Syndication is vital for startups and angel groups. 74% of the deals were syndicated with other angel groups and/or VCs. Angel backed companies have more female CEOs: 21% of funded companies had a woman CEO. This is a favorable comparison to VC-backed companies, which academic reports conclude only 2%-5% of such companies were led by females.
21% of funded companies had a woman CEO. This is a favorable comparison to VC-backed companies, which academic reports conclude only 2%-5% of such companies were led by females. One size does not fit all: Angels use a variety of investment structures. Most investments were in equity deals, but nearly 36% of rounds were in convertible notes or SAFEs - simple agreement for future equity.
Angels use a variety of investment structures. Most investments were in equity deals, but nearly 36% of rounds were in convertible notes or SAFEs - simple agreement for future equity. Angels invest in a variety of industries: Angels invest in a variety of industries, although more than two-thirds of the deals in Tech and Life Science fields. Many other industries received angel investments.
Access the full report at https://www.angelcapitalassociation.org/angel-funders-report/. The Angel Funders Report is the first in an ongoing series from the Angel Capital Association developed to provide in-depth data on angel investment activities.
About the Angel Capital Association (ACA)
The Angel Capital Association (ACA) is the professional association of angel investors across North America and offers education, best practices, data, public policy advocacy, and significant benefits and resources to its membership of more than 13,000 accredited investors, who invest individually or through its 250 angel groups, accredited platforms, and family offices. www.angelcapitalassociation.org
Contact:
Emily Angold, Marketing Manager for Angel Capital Association
913-894-4700 x3
[email protected]
SOURCE Angel Capital Association
Related Links
https://www.angelcapitalassociation.org
SAN MATEO, Calif., Sept. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Applitools (applitools.com/), the leader in Application Visual Management, today announced the world's first UI Version Control system, empowering developers, test automation engineers, and product managers to view the entire history of their web and mobile application user interfaces (UI) to understand what's changed, when, and by whom. This lets R&D and product teams more intelligently guide app development by providing a visual record of which features have worked, and which haven't, across the entire history of the app.
In addition, Applitools UI Version Control system automatically runs visual tests as part of a GitHub build process. By performing visual validations for GitHub pull requests, it prevents visual bugs from escaping into production apps.
"Applitools' new UI Version Control system gives us insight into the UI changes in our software and the underlying code changes," comments Nicholas Blair, Engineering Manager at Sonatype. "With full visibility into what changed in the UI, why it changed, and who changed it, we are able to release faster, more often, and with high confidence."
To get started with Applitools, sign up for a free Applitools Eyes account at (https://applitools.com/landing/free-account-qa).
Prior to Applitools UI Version Control system, developers had to build an earlier version of an app to see how it previously looked. This process could take hours if not days, distracting product teams from delivering new functionality and negatively impacting customer churn and revenue.
"We were amazed that, with so many businesses driving the bulk of their revenue through web and mobile apps, there wasn't a way for product teams to track the visual evolution of the UIs. So we built one," said Adam Carmi, co-founder and CTO of Applitools. "UI version control lets product teams build smarter by capturing the entire visual history of their apps, so they have a record of what's been improved -- and what should be rolled back if the need arises. UI version control provides mission critical knowledge to help businesses manage the challenges linked to digital transformation."
For a full video tutorial of Applitools new UI version control from our CTO Adam Carmi go here: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEk2_Hnw1MY)
Applitools UI version control works just like source code version control that developers are already familiar with. Visual baseline branches can be merged in the same way that code changes are merged. For each branch in a GitHub project repository, users can see the history of all their test baselines, compare them to prior baseline versions, and if necessary, revert to an earlier version. They can then reject and/or revert to any baseline modified by accident or by design.
Applitools UI Version Control is now immediately available to all Applitools customers. If you are interested in talking to an automated visual testing expert please contact us (https://applitools.com/contact).
About Applitools
Applitools is the creator of Application Visual Management (AVM) to help companies release, test and monitor flawless mobile, web, and native apps in a fully automated way. Founded in 2013, Applitools uses sophisticated AI-powered image processing technology to ensure that an application appears correctly and functions properly on all mobile devices, browsers, operating systems, and screen sizes. Applitools has customers from a range of verticals, including Fortune 100 companies in software, banking, online retail, insurance, and pharmaceuticals. Applitools is headquartered in San Mateo, California, with an R&D center in Tel Aviv, Israel. For more information, please visit applitools.com.
Media Contact:
Jeremy Douglas
Catapult PR-IR
303-581-7760, ext. 16
[email protected]
SOURCE Applitools
Related Links
http://applitools.com
CHICAGO and NASHVILLE, Tenn., Sept. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Mars Petcare US, Inc. ("Mars Petcare") and Arbor Investments (together with its affiliates, "Arbor") announced that they have entered into an agreement under which Arbor will acquire Mars Petcare's U.S.-based Exclusive Brands (EB) business. The agreement includes the division of Mars Petcare that produces private label pet food products for a variety of U.S. customers through five manufacturing plants in Orangeburg, S.C.; Washington Court House, Ohio; Miami, Okla.; Clinton, Okla. and San Bernardino, Calif. The deal is expected to close by the end of the year, and is subject to certain customary closing conditions and certain approvals, including, among others, customary regulatory approvals.
"Exiting the private label business in the U.S. allows Mars Petcare US to focus on growing its branded portfolio, including iconic favorites such as PEDIGREE, IAMS, GREENIES, and others," said Mark Johnson, regional president, Mars Petcare North America. "The private label business has played an important role for us over the past 12 years driving scale and growth. As our focus has evolved, this sale gives Arbor the opportunity to further develop this business in the vibrant petcare category."
Commenting on the transaction, Arbor Partner Chris Harned stated, "As investors in growth and innovation, we are thrilled to have been selected by Mars to partner with CEO Chris Hamilton and his team to lead EB into an exciting future. With an efficient and nationwide factory network, a loyal and experienced group of employees and a high-quality customer base, we look forward to playing an active role in the growing pet industry."
"Pet has been a priority for us," said Arbor Senior Operating Partner Tim Fallon. "As we look to leverage Chris Harned's successful prior investments in Meow Mix and Freshpet, EB provides us with a proven platform for both internal and acquisition-driven growth opportunities."
BofA Merrill Lynch is acting as financial advisor and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP is acting as legal advisor to Mars, Incorporated. Kirkland & Ellis is acting as legal advisor for Arbor Investments.
About Arbor Investments
Founded in 1999 with offices in Chicago and New York, Arbor Investments is a specialized private equity firm that focuses exclusively on acquiring premier companies in the food, beverage and related industries. To date, the firm has acquired or invested in over 55 food & beverage companies in North America.
About Mars Petcare
Mars Petcare is the world's leading pet nutrition and health care business. A BETTER WORLD FOR PETS is the vision statement held by Mars Petcare as we believe that pets make our lives better and that pet ownership brings joy and benefits which should be accessible to everyone. In the United States, Mars Petcare food brands include PEDIGREE, IAMS, ROYAL CANIN, GREENIES, CESAR, NUTRO and SHEBA. Veterinary practices include BANFIELD and BLUE PEARL. Specialty brands include WISDOM PANEL Canine DNA Tests and WHISTLE GPS Pet Tracker. The company's WALTHAM Centre for Pet Nutrition is a leading scientific authority on pet nutrition and wellbeing. Mars Petcare has more than 37,000 Associates worldwide. For more information about Mars Petcare's vision: A BETTER WORLD FOR PETS, visit www.bettercitiesforpets.com.
SOURCE Mars Petcare
Aria Hotels (www.ariahotels.gr), the renowned collection of boutique hotels and holiday residences around Greece, has announced its expansion into Spain, joining forces with local entrepreneur Ignacio Moreno de los Rios, who will be the CEO of Aria Hotels Spain. Since 2012, Aria has been building a diverse portfolio of 25 boutique hotels and villas throughout Greece and the Greek islands based on providing a wholly authentic hospitality experience. The properties are often of historic importance in lesser-known island and mainland destinations and include unique locations such as a winery, a converted windmill, and a house with its own olive press. From its new offices in Madrid, Aria will now be applying its established philosophy to properties across Spain and plans to announce its first opening in the months ahead.
(Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/743812/Aria_Hotels_Athermigo.jpg )
Commenting on the announcement Makis Pantazatos, Chief Executive Officer of Aria Hotels, stated, "Today's discerning travellers want to experience the most authentic taste of their destination. This means unspoilt hotels or villas in equally unspoilt locations with a distinctive style and atmosphere. This is the formula we have created very successfully in Greece - from wine tourism in Crete, to aristocratic living in Santorini, to a writers' escape in the Peloponnese - or an escape to the mountain wonderland of Epirus. Every holiday destination at Aria is beautifully different and beautifully individual. Spain is also extremely popular with tourists from around the world and we aim to apply this niche market philosophy in the Iberian Peninsula with its vast coastlines, plains, islands and landscapes.
"Greece and Spain share the attributes of mature tourism markets," added Ignacio Moreno de los Rios. "Arias success in Greece confirms that there is still scope in developed markets for well-conceived, original concepts. Travel based on immersion with the local environment and culture is a welcome alternative to mass-market holidays. Aria Hotels Spain intends to stand out in this sector providing a collection of small properties offering unquestionable comfort in locations that enrich the traveller's life."
The World Travel & Tourism Council's 'Travel & Tourism Economic Impact 2018 - Spain' report forecasts travel and tourism in Spain to rise consistently over the next ten years, attracting annual capital investment of 26.5bn by 2028, by which time Spain is expected to host over 120 million tourists each year.
About Aria Hotels:
Aria Hotels is a family-owned boutique hotel and villas company that offers holidaymakers authentic Greek hospitality and the ultimate in simple, effortless charm. The company has several hotels and villas, all in exceptional destinations: Crete (Chania, Heraklion and Lassithi), Cyclades (Kimolos, Serifos, Milos, Santorini), Epirus (Metsovo & Zagori) and Athens. They are chosen to appeal to the discerning traveller looking for a secret hideaway in Greece.
Each hotel has been selected for its architectural merit, and its contribution to the preservation of local heritage. Outstanding quality in service and accommodation are the core of the Aria Hotels experience.
For further information about Aria Hotels, please enter the official website:
www.ariahotels.gr, as well as the social media Facebook , Instagram , LinkedIn and Twitter.
Contact info
Aria Hotels Spain
CEO - Ignacio Moreno de los Rios
[email protected]
+34-670-607-227
C/ Alejandro Rodriguez, 32
Madrid 28039
+34-91-431-9236
[email protected]
www.ariahotels.gr
SOURCE Aria Hotels
| BY Ricki Green |
Paralympian Curtis McGrath, who lost both his legs in a blast in Afghanistan and an eight year old boy unexpectedly diagnosed with a brain tumour are featured in a powerful new video via Foto Media, reminding all Australians they can help save lives.
The Gold Coast Hospital Foundation has launched the video to show that simply making a donation is just like being there in the hospital and treating those most in need.
It coincides with the launch of Scrub Up September, a Gold Coast Hospital Foundation initiative where individuals, schools, businesses and community groups don their medical hat scrubs, which are provided, to raise funds to improve medical services in the region.
Says Kim Sutton, CEO, The Gold Coast Hospital Foundation: We tried to capture how important the publics generosity is by showing everyday people walking in the shoes of doctors and nurses.
In the video a young girl is pumping an oxygen mask, a boy is attending to a patients drip, a couple is delivering devastating news crippling a family to their knees and a young woman is operating on a patient.
This is how powerful a donation can be, it is just like being there in the operating theatre because those donations enable us to help deliver better health outcomes to patients and families.
McGrath said its not until you end up in hospital that you fully comprehend how many people you rely on to help you survive and better your health.
Says McGrath: When youre admitted to hospital you are at your worst, you are relying on others, so many others, and its only then you realise how important medical staff and our health services are.
This is why Ive come on as an ambassador with the Gold Coast Hospital Foundation because life can change in an instant, like it did for me, and you never know when you, or someone you love, will end up in hospital.
This is why its so important to be part of Scrub Up September and raise money for services you may just need in the future.
LAGOS, Nigeria, Sept. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Boeing [NYSE: BA] and Air Peace of Nigeria today announced a new order for ten 737 MAX 8 airplanes during a signing ceremony in Lagos.
Air Peace already operates Boeing 737s between major cities in Central and West Africa. The airline, which recently added Boeing 777s to its fleet, is looking to soon launch its international flight operations.
"We are excited to add the 737 MAX to our fleet as we expand our network to offer more destinations and serve more passengers," said Allen Onyema, Chairman and CEO, Air Peace Limited. "The fuel efficiency and superior operating economics of the 737 MAX will ensure that the aircraft will play a major role in growing our business in the years to come."
The 737 MAX 8 is part of a family of airplanes that offer 130 to 230 seats and the ability to fly up to 3,850 nautical miles (7,130 kilometers). With improvements such as the CFM International LEAP-1B engine and Advanced Technology winglets, the 737 MAX will help Air Peace save more than 20 percent on fuel costs compared to its current single-aisle airplanes.
The MAX 8, in particular, offers airlines 13 more seats than its closest competitor, seven percent lower costs for each of those seats, and 300 miles more range. The operating advantages, along with the popular Boeing Sky Interior, explain why carriers have been choosing to fly the MAX in Africa.
"Africa is a growing market for commercial airplanes and we are proud that airlines like Air Peace are selecting Boeing aircraft to be part of that growth," said Ihssane Mounir, senior vice president of Commercial Sales & Marketing for The Boeing Company. "This order reflects the strong demand that we are seeing for the 737 MAX as airlines choose the airplane's superior performance and reliability."
The 737 MAX is the fastest-selling airplane in Boeing history, accumulating more than 4,700 orders from 102 customers worldwide.
Contact:
Saffana Michael
Boeing Commercial Airplanes
+9 7150-4590651
[email protected]
Photo and caption will be available here: http://boeing.mediaroom.com
SOURCE Boeing
Related Links
http://www.boeing.com
ANAHEIM, Calif., Sept. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Boeing [NYSE: BA] today awarded a $3 million grant to the George W. Bush Institute's Global Leadership Impact Center. The grant, part of a previously announced $10 million donation to the Institute, will support women's empowerment and global leadership programs aimed at promoting education, healthcare and economic opportunity for women around the world.
"Important contributions from women throughout generations have made the world as well as our business stronger," said Boeing Chairman, President and CEO Dennis Muilenburg. "We value the unique viewpoints and experiences women bring to the table and believe in the importance of empowering themboth within our company and across the globe. Through innovative programs like WE Lead and the First Ladies Initiative, Boeing's partnership with the Bush Institute will help inspire and encourage more women to take on leadership roles."
Boeing's contribution, which was announced at the company's 2018 Global Women in Leadership Conference, will support programs like WE Lead and the First Ladies Initiative. WE Lead engages women leaders in the Middle East, North Africa and Afghanistan who share a common vision of advancing peaceful, prosperous societies through the expansion of economic opportunity for all. The First Ladies Initiative engages and supports first ladies from around the world as they use their unique platforms to improve lives in their countries.
"The inclusion of women in all aspects of society strengthens and improves the stability of their countries," said First Lady Laura Bush. "At the Bush Institute, we recognize that a good future for our world depends on women, so our global leadership work is designed to support women and girls by improving access to education, health care, and economic opportunity. George and I are grateful that Boeing has partnered with the Bush Institute to make this important work possible."
This latest investment builds upon Boeing's long-standing support of women's empowerment and women in STEM. In 2017 alone, Boeing and the Boeing Charitable Trust partnered with more than 120 STEM organizations and contributed nearly $18 million toward community initiatives that helped inspire an estimated 700,000 young women in STEM. Over the past six years, Boeing and the Boeing Charitable Trust have contributed more than $100 million toward community initiatives that have impacted an estimated 4.3 million young women around the world.
About The Boeing Company
Through purposeful investments, employee engagement and thoughtful advocacy efforts, Boeing and its employees support innovative partnerships and programs that align with the company's strategic objectives, create value and help build better communities worldwide. Boeing's efforts are focused on improving access to globally competitive learning, contributing to workforce and skills development, and supporting our military and veteran communities.
Chicago-based Boeing is the world's largest aerospace company and leading manufacturer of commercial jetliners and defense, space and security systems. A top U.S. exporter, the company supports airlines and U.S. and allied government customers in more than 150 countries.
See how Boeing is making a difference for Our Future, Our Heroes and Our Homes by visiting the 2018 Boeing Global Engagement Portfolio at Boeing.com/community.
Engage with us on social @Boeing with #BoeingInspires.
About The Bush Institute
Housed within the George W. Bush Presidential Center, the George W. Bush Institute is an action-oriented, nonpartisan policy organization with the mission of developing leaders, advancing policy, and taking action to solve today's most pressing challenges. Through three Impact Centers Domestic Excellence, Global Leadership, and an Engagement Agenda the Bush Institute delivers measurable results that save and improve lives. To learn more, visit www.BushCenter.org.
Contact
Jason Capeheart
Boeing Communications
Office: +1 312-544-2568
[email protected]
SOURCE Boeing
Related Links
http://www.boeing.com
PLANO, Texas, Sept. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Boeing [NYSE: BA] has won a contract award from the U.S. Navy to update the courseware and software for the Navy's P-8A Poseidon training system.
Under the four-year, $194 million agreement, Boeing will upgrade devices at three locations for the U.S. Navy and the Royal Australian Air Force to reflect the latest configuration of the Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft.
"With increasing demand for realistic training that is concurrent and affordable, the P-8A training system gives pilots, air crews and maintainers the most immersive environment at a fraction of the cost to train in a P-8A," said Pat Walsh, vice president of U.S. Navy & Marine Corps Services for Boeing Global Services and retired Admiral. "Boeing is proud to provide a high-fidelity experience that offers a seamless transition from classroom to aircraft."
Boeing developed the comprehensive P-8A training system to provide training for both pilots and aircrews. The aircrew training solution includes courseware, classrooms, part-task trainers and full-fidelity simulators for both pilot and mission crew. The maintenance training solution includes courseware, classrooms, hardware and virtual maintenance simulators to support all U.S. Navy maintenance certifications. The P-8A training system allows operators to train and prepare for missions while reducing flight hours for the aircraft, as well as fuel costs associated with in-flight training.
Operating as one of Boeing's three business units, Global Services is headquartered in the Dallas area. For more information, visit www.boeing.com/services.
Contact
Jessica Carlton
Communications
Office: +1 256-937-5692
Mobile: +1 256-603-7137
[email protected]
SOURCE Boeing
Related Links
http://www.boeing.com
AUBURN HILLS, Mich., Sept. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- BorgWarner Inc. (NYSE: BWA) will host an Investor Day for members of the investment community at its Propulsion Technical Center in Auburn Hills, Michigan on Tuesday, September 18, 2018.
The event will include presentations by Fred Lissalde, President and Chief Executive Officer, and other members of the senior leadership team. During the event, company executives will share the company's growth strategy, vision and extensive product portfolio for combustion, hybrid and electric vehicle propulsion.
Date: September 18, 2018
Time: 11:00am 4:00pm (EDT)
Location: BorgWarner Propulsion Technical Center in Auburn Hills, Michigan
If you are unable to attend the event in person, you can access the live webcast at http://www.borgwarner.com/en/Investors/default.aspx
Presentation materials will be posted to the company's website at approximately 7:00am (EDT).
If you have questions, please contact [email protected] or 248-754-0872.
About BorgWarner
BorgWarner Inc. (NYSE: BWA) is a global product leader in clean and efficient technology solutions for combustion, hybrid and electric vehicles. With manufacturing and technical facilities in 66 locations in 18 countries, the company employs approximately 29,000 worldwide. For more information, please visit borgwarner.com.
SOURCE BorgWarner
Related Links
http://www.borgwarner.com
NEW YORK, Sept. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- BRG Capital Advisors, LLC (BRGCA) is pleased to announce that Ravi Bhagavan will lead the firm's Technology Investment Banking practice based in Los Angeles. He will be responsible for the expansion of BRG Capital Advisors' M&A capabilities.
Bhagavan has more than 18 years of experience working with companies through mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, private equity and debt financings, and strategic partnerships in the technology and telecommunications industries. He brings strong domain knowledge and over $6 billion value of transaction experience in cloud and SaaS, data analytics, artificial intelligence/machine learning, IT consulting, managed services and telecom network services.
"I am pleased to join BRG Capital Advisors as they expand into Los Angeles," said Bhagavan. "BRGCA is a highly innovative firm, and building out technology M&A capabilities is a natural extension of the core Technology practice."
"Ravi brings a wealth of transaction experience through M&A and capital placements," said Brian Shaughnessy, CEO of BRGCA. "We are excited to have a talented and strategic banker as the anchor in our expansion into Los Angeles."
Bhagavan received an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, an MS in industrial engineering from the University at Buffalo and a bachelor of technology in mechanical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Madras. He is a Registered Representative holding FINRA designations Series 24, 62, 63 and 79.
About BRG Capital Advisors, LLC
BRG Capital Advisors (www.BRGCA.com) is a US-registered broker-dealer and member of FINRA and SIPC. Its seasoned investment bankers have worked on a wide variety of transactions for financial institutions and corporate clients. BRGCA is an affiliate of Berkeley Research Group, LLC.
SOURCE BRG Capital Advisors, LLC
Related Links
http://www.brgca.com
About Mike Minihan, Partner, BX3 Capital
Mike joins BX3 Capital after more than 20 years as an international tax attorney and entrepreneur. He has seen virtually every aspect of international taxation, having worked for the Internal Revenue Service, in private industry, and for Big Four public accounting and tax consultancies KPMG and PwC. Mike was a founding partner of WTP Advisors, a boutique international tax consulting firm that specialized in assisting the world's largest companies with the thorniest of tax structuring and compliance issues. Over the years, Mike has also founded or co-founded several other tax-focused start-up ventures. After the successful sale of WTP in 2014, Mike joined the International Income Tax practice of Ryan, LLC, a specialized tax service firm, where he stayed until his early retirement, at the age of 47. Mike has been drawn from retirement, pulled by the astounding potential of the exciting technological revolution that is blockchain.
Mike holds both a BBA (Finance) and a JD from Pace University, and an LLM in Taxation from New York University. He is admitted to practice law in New York and Connecticut, with admission pending in the District of Columbia. His entrepreneurial feats were chronicled in Fortune's "David vs. Goliath" segment, and he has been a frequently used source by the Wall Street Journal on matters related to international taxation. He has written numerous articles and lectured copiously on taxation issues, and has also served as a visiting professor at Fairfield University's Dolan School of Business.
"It's a truly exciting time to be involved in blockchain and cryptocurrency projects, and I am eager to provide my knowledge of best practices in entrepreneurship, business and regulatory matters to clients, and to the future of the industry at large," says Minihan.
About Jay Arcata, VP Client Operations, BX3 Capital
A versatile attorney and business advisor, Jay joins BX3 after having spent the past several years as a partner at Halloran Sage, one of the largest and most respected law firms in Connecticut. While at Halloran, Jay was a business litigator and general counsel to a broad spectrum of businesses, providing sound, unfiltered advice in a wide variety of matters. In addition, Jay founded and served as chair of the firm's Cybersecurity, Data Privacy and Technology practice group, where he guided businesses through complex and evolving regulatory hurdles and provided key insights into emerging technologies, including blockchain and smart contracts.
Jay joined BX3 because he is an ardent believer in the transformative power of blockchain.
Jay has spoken and been published extensively in the areas of cybersecurity, data privacy and emerging technologies and has been called upon by numerous television and media outlets to share his insights and knowledge in this area. Throughout his legal career, has been consistently recognized as a Super Lawyer and was named as one of the Connecticut Law Tribune's New Leaders in the Law in 2016. He was also named to the Hartford Business Journal's "40 Under 40" in 2012.
"I am excited to apply my legal experience, business acumen and knowledge base to shape the future of BX3 and its clients," says Arcata.
"We are extraordinarily fortunate to welcome the talents, expertise, business acumen and industry insights that both Mike and Jay bring to BX3 Capital," says Asman.
About BX3 Capital
We are passionate professionals with decades of combined experience in banking, marketing, accounting, finance, tax, and law, and use our expertise to provide the necessary tools and framework to turn ideas into successful businesses in the blockchain and cryptocurrency space. We believe that the disruption that blockchain technology enables will inevitably lead to increased pushback from regulatory bodies as they see bad actors and noncompliant parties continue to take advantage of the decentralized, pseudonymous nature of the industry. We exclusively work with clients and partners who reflect our core principles of collaboration, ethics, and transparency. BX3 Capital is headquartered in New York, NY.
Media Contact: Anne Talbot, 646-853-7435, [email protected]
SOURCE BX3 Capital
Related Links
http://www.bx3.io
FRANKFURT, Germany, Sept. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Chassis Brakes International and MANN+HUMMEL have signed a strategic partnership agreement to develop brake systems with an add-on particle filter to reduce particulate emissions from passenger-car brakes.
Vehicle traffic is regarded as one of the primary sources of particle-based air pollution in cities and originates from internal combustion engine exhaust emissions, as well as from mechanically produced particulates from tires and brakes.
President and General Manager OE at MANN+HUMMEL Kai Knickmann noted that although brake emissions aren't regulated, the two companies are committed to seriously addressing this topic in the near future.
Knickmann said, "The robust housing of a filter fitted close to the brake caliper will prevent particle emissions directly at the source from which brake dust passes into the ambient air and will be capable of reducing particulate emissions by up to 80 percent."
Bernd Schemer, Chassis Brakes International global vice president of Sales, Engineering and Project Management, said the system will be available for cars equipped with internal combustion engines, as well as for hybrid and electric vehicles.
Schemer noted, "Joining MANN+HUMMEL's global expertise in filtration systems with Chassis Brakes' long-standing experience in foundation brakes is the key to successfully developing such a systems solution."
MANN+HUMMEL's brake-dust particle filters are compact, recyclable and are designed to have no impact on overall brake performance, according to Knickmann.
In addition, the new system solution under development will:
take up no additional space,
not consume energy (passive system),
be customizable by color, brand identification and shape, and
be easy to maintain based on normal brake-system service intervals.
Chassis Brakes Global CEO Dr.Thomas Wuensche pointed out that Chassis Brakes International is dedicated to developing cleaner and more environmentally friendly braking solutions such as its disc brake ZOHe AST (Active ShapeTechnology), an innovation supporting the reduction of CO2 emissions, and its Smart Brake System Solution which will eliminate the use of hydraulic fluids.
"We believe that our cooperation with MANN+HUMMEL will help us to foster innovations to provide cleaner braking solutions to our customers," Wuensche said.
Both companies have manufacturing and development facilities able to serve customers around the world.
About MANN+HUMMEL
MANN+HUMMEL is a leading global expert for filtration solutions. The company group with its headquarters in Ludwigsburg, Germany, develops solutions for motor cars, industrial applications, clean air in interior spaces and the sustainable use of water.
In 2017 the group achieved sales of approx. 3.9 billion euros worldwide with more than 20,000 employees at more than 80 locations. The products manufactured by the group include air cleaner systems, intake manifold systems, liquid filter systems, plastic components, filter media, cabin filters, industrial filters and membrane filters.
More information is available at www.mann-hummel.com
About Chassis Brakes International
Headquartered in Eindhoven, Netherlands, Chassis Brakes International is one of the world's largest producers of disc brakes, drum brakes, electro-mechanical parking brakes and rotors for passenger cars and light commercial vehicles.
The company benefits from expertise gained through more than 90 years in the foundation brakes industry under a variety of banners. Since June 2012, the group has been part of KPS Capital Partners, LP portfolio companies.
Chassis Brakes International has a global footprint with operations in Europe, Asia, India, South Africa and the Americas. It employs 5,200 people in 16 countries at 12 manufacturing sites and 11 engineering centers or sales offices.
More information is available at www.chassisbrakes.com.
SOURCE Chassis Brakes International
Related Links
http://www.chassisbrakes.com
BEIJING, Sept. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Cheetah Mobile Inc. (NYSE: CMCM) ("Cheetah Mobile" or the "Company"), a leading mobile internet company with a strong global vision, today announced that the Company's board of directors approved a share repurchase program whereby the Company may purchase its American depositary shares ("ADSs") with an aggregate value of up to US$100 million over the next 12-month period.
Mr. Sheng Fu, Cheetah Mobile's Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer, stated, "The board's decision to purchase Cheetah Mobile's ADSs reflects our belief that buying back our own shares is a good investment for the Company. Cheetah Mobile continues to generate substantial earnings and free cash flow. Driven by our mobile utility products business in the domestic market, and our mobile game operations, we expect our total revenues to recover its growth trend in the second half of 2018. In addition, our AI technology business has made solid progress, which has positioned us well in the post-mobile era. We are confident in the long-term outlook for our business."
The repurchases may be made from time to time on the open market at prevailing market prices, in privately negotiated transactions, in block trades and/or through other legally permissible means. The timing and extent of any purchases will depend on market conditions, the trading price of the Company's ADSs and other factors, subject to applicable rules and regulations. The Company expects to implement this share repurchase program in a manner consistent with market conditions and in the best interests of the Company's shareholders. The Company's board of directors will review the share repurchase program periodically, and may authorize adjustments of its terms and size accordingly. The Company plans to use its available cash balance to fund repurchases made under this program.
About Cheetah Mobile Inc.
Cheetah Mobile is a leading mobile Internet company with strong global vision. It has attracted hundreds of millions of monthly active users through its mobile utility products such as Clean Master and Cheetah Keyboard, casual games such as Piano Tiles 2, and live streaming product Live.me. The Company provides its advertising customers, which include direct advertisers and mobile advertising networks through which advertisers place their advertisements, with direct access to highly targeted mobile users and global promotional channels. The Company also provides value-added services to its mobile application users through the sale of in-app virtual items on selected mobile products and games. Cheetah Mobile is committed to leveraging its cutting-edge artificial intelligence technologies to power its products and make the world smarter. It has been listed on the New York Stock Exchange since May 2014.
Safe Harbor Statement
This press release contains forward-looking statements. These statements, including management quotes and business outlook, constitute forward-looking statements under the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements can be identified by terminology such as "will," "expects," "anticipates," "future," "intends," "plans," "believes," "estimates" and similar statements. Such statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties. A number of factors could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements, including but are not limited to the following: Cheetah Mobile's growth strategies; Cheetah Mobile's ability to retain and increase its user base and expand its product and service offerings; Cheetah Mobile's ability to monetize its platform; Cheetah Mobile's future business development, financial condition and results of operations; competition with companies in a number of industries including internet companies that provide online marketing services and internet value-added services; expected changes in Cheetah Mobile's revenues and certain cost or expense items; and general economic and business condition globally and in China. Further information regarding these and other risks is included in Cheetah Mobile's filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Cheetah Mobile does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statement as a result of new information, future events or otherwise, except as required under applicable law.
Investor Relations Contact
Cheetah Mobile Inc.
Helen Jing Zhu
Tel: +86 10 6292 7779 ext. 1600
Email: [email protected]
ICR Inc.
Jack Wang
Tel: +1 (646) 417-5395
Email: [email protected]
SOURCE Cheetah Mobile
This year Consulting surveyed more than 300 firms and over 10,000 consultants. The annual survey evaluates participating companies on six employment satisfaction categories including client engagement, career development, and culture. Thirty firms were recognized in this year's rankings.
"We are honored to be recognized again as an employer of choice by Consulting Magazine. From the inception of our firm, we have believed if you take care of people, everything else will take care of itself," said CEO Kevin McQueen. "We are proud of the immense talent across our organization and the incredible service they provide our clients. We continue to pour energy into talent development and strengthen our culture."
These rankings continue to cement CapTech as a top employer of consulting talent, having received similar recent awards from Forbes and The Washington Post. The firm also ranked on the Inc. 5000 list of America's fastest growing companies for the 12th time in August 2018. View our listing and the complete rankings on Consulting Magazine's website.
About CapTech: For over 20 years, CapTech partnered some of the world's most successful companies pioneering custom solutions that bridge the gap between business and technology. We are a national IT management consulting firm that collaborates with clients to design, develop, and manage technical and digital solutions that delight customers, drive insights, and meet strategic objectives. We have a passion for driving innovation and growth for our clients. Headquartered in Richmond, Virginia, CapTech has locations in Atlanta, Baltimore, Charlotte, Chicago, Columbus (Ohio), Denver, Orlando, Philadelphia, and Washington D.C.
Contact: Emily Krause
[email protected]
804-545-8733
SOURCE CapTech
Related Links
http://www.captechconsulting.com
| BY Lynchy |
Ogilvy has appointed Joschka Wolf as Customer Experience (CX) Creative Director in Singapore. This newly created position will see Wolf leading the creative direction for the agencys Digital Transformation capability which helps brands to focus their operations, marketing, and digital touchpoints on the customer journey to achieve business results.
Creativity today is leaps and bounds beyond the traditional creative department of years past. Today our vision of creativity is diversified and includes specialists in all forms be it social, customer experience or technology to name a few. So it was only a matter of time before we appointed a dedicated lead creative for our CX team which has seen rapidly rising demand for their expertise and very healthy growth in recent years. Were eager for our clients to see how Joschka weaves together creativity with qualitative research, deep data, and technology to deliver sophisticated digital experiences for brands, said Chris Riley, Group Chairman, Ogilvy Singapore.
In this role, Wolf (pictured) will lead the team to apply data and technology in creative ways that will accelerate brands digital transformation and create superior experiences for customers across all digital platforms. Working as a catalyst between data-driven user experience (UX), technology and creativity, Wolf will report to Tom Voirol, Head of Customer Experience and Commerce, and Melvyn Lim, Co-Chief Creative Officer, both at Ogilvy Singapore.
Wolf said, I am thrilled to be in a new market with Ogilvy at a time of great transformation for our brand and industry. I love to experiment with the latest in technology, emotionalise data, and always aiming towards creating relevant, delightful and outstanding products, to make customer journeys remarkable, to make brands matter.
Prior to his recent move to Singapore, Wolf spent seven years at Ogilvy in Frankfurt, Germany, where he led teams designing responsive interfaces for platforms and web applications. His portfolio includes re-defining the banking experience for INGs re-launch that reached nine million people and serving as the UI/UX lead for NESCAFE Dolce Gustos global CRM program.
PALM BEACH, Florida, September 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --
MarketNewsUpdates.com News Commentary
Consumers today interested in Cannabis Based and CBD infused products are being greeted by an explosion of new product innovations that can be purchased through many different individual products ranging from healthcare & medical products, pet products, beverage and edibles products and good ole fashion marijuana. According to a new report released today by the Brightfield Group, the hemp-derived CBD market alone will reach sales of $22 billion by 2022, outpacing cannabis sales, and surging from $591 million in 2018 -- that's a five-year CAGR of 132 percent. In some areas of the U.S. and Canada, natural organic food stores are expecting to not be able to keep cannabis based and CBD on the shelves and CBD can now even be found at massage spas, gyms, and through an growing number of direct sellers. But where the large-scale growth is expected over the next five years could actually be through mass market retailers. Active cannabis companies in the markets this week include Integrated Cannabis Company, Inc. (CSE:ICAN) (OTC:ICNAF), Namaste Technologies Inc. (OTC:NXTTF) (TSX-V:N), Friday Night Inc. (CSE:TGIF) (OTC:TGIFF), Ascent Industries Corp. (CSE:ASNT) (OTC:PGTMF), International Cannabrands Inc. (CSE:JUJU-A) (OTC:GEATF).
Integrated Cannabis Company, Inc. (CSE:ICAN) (OTCQB:ICNAF) BREAKING NEWS: Integrated Cannabis Company is pleased to announce the completion of a market ready Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC)-infused spray product and the required licensure for manufacturing of the product in Colorado.
Over the past ten months the Company has engaged and worked with contractors, consultants and various state and municipal regulators in order to successfully gain licensing and approvals for facilities that manufacture CBD- and THC-infused products in the State of Colorado.
The THC product employs the same nanotechnology used to enhance the CBD-infused X-SPRAYS, resulting in higher bioavailability and faster uptake versus capsules or powder. The Company continues to enhance the flavor profiles in order to find an optimal formula.
"We are pleased to be adding THC products to our proprietary line of sprays and plan to launch via distribution in Colorado beginning in Q4 and shall pursue other legal markets thereafter," said Mr. John Knapp, CEO of Integrated Cannabis.
To best demonstrate the Company's activities in the Manufacturer of Infused Products (MIP) area, a chronological outline follows:
Completed the build out of a commercial kitchen adjacent to a licensed Medical and Recreational extraction lab
Completed Process Validation with the Colorado Marijuana Enforcement Division (MED)
Secured a high-quality CBD source from a supplier with Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) Registration Certificate and Colorado Hemp License
Received Shelf Stability approval to sell X-SPRAYS CBD formulation in Denver
Received approval to sell CBD formulated products throughout all of Colorado
Secured a high-quality THC source from a duly licensed Colorado Medical and Recreational extraction lab
Received approval to sell THC formulated products throughout most of Colorado - only awaiting approval for City of Denver
Submitted Shelf Stability application to sell X-SPRAYS THC formulation in Denver
Read this and more news for ICAN at http://www.marketnewsupdates.com/news/ican.html
Other recent developments in the cannabis industry include:
Friday Night Inc. (CSE:TGIF.CN) (OTCQB:TGIFF) recently announced record sales for the month of July from its subsidiaries in Nevada. Alternative Medicine Association ("AMA") and Infused MFG ("Infused") reported combined sales in July of $1.6M CAD, a 362 percent increase over July 2017. This record month of sales comes at the same time the company celebrates its first year anniversary. AMA's cannabis flower sales contributed 35 percent, while sales of concentrates generated 65 percent of AMA's revenues. Infused's line of CBD products contributed 85 percent of sales, while 15 percent relates to its expanding hemp-based line. Sold in State-licensed dispensaries and retailers, AMA and Infused products continue to see increased sales and market share.
Ascent Industries Corp. (CSE:ASNT.CN) (OTC:PGTMF) recently announced that through its wholly-owned subsidiary, Agrima Botanicals, the Company has entered into a supply agreement with the Ontario Cannabis Retail Corporation, operating as the Ontario Cannabis Store ("OCS"), to supply branded cannabis products to the adult-use market in the Province of Ontario. Under the terms of the agreement, Ascent will initially supply cannabis products for the OCS's online sales network, and will later supply Ontario's private retailers, once the Province implements an approved framework. In addition, Ascent recently signed an initial small-scale supply agreement with the British Columbia Liquor Distribution Branch. Ascent continues to be engaged in advanced discussions with other provincial liquor boards and emerging private retail operators.
International Cannabrands Inc. (CSE:JUJU-A.CN) (OTC:GEATF) earlier this month, the company announced it is closing on its strategic investment in Riotus SODO LLC, an operating unit of Riotus LLC ("Riotus"). Riotus provides its investors with an opportunity to capture value from facility and operations expansion, financing and consulting to the cannabis industry. Riotus has strategic relationships in a number of important markets. The Company has chosen to invest US$600,000 to acquire 25% of Riotus SODO LLC, a limited liability company formed under the laws of Delaware. Riotus SODO has partnered with Solstice Holdings Inc., a leading brand and distribution company in Washington State.
Namaste Technologies Inc. (TSX-V:N.V) (OTCQB:NXTTF) on Wednesday announced that the Company's wholly-owned subsidiary, Namaste Bahamas Inc. ("Namaste Bahamas"), has signed a distribution agreement (the "Distribution Agreement") with BlueSky Biologicals Inc. ("BlueSky"); a private British Columbia company; whereby Namaste Bahamas will distribute BlueSky's full-spectrum, hemp-derived cannabidiol ("CBD") products in its UK and European marketplace. The UK has classified CBD as a food supplement, as such, Namaste has been focused on building a carefully curated CBD supply chain for its UK platform. Namaste's launch of CBD sales in the UK and EU are the first steps of the Company's initiative to leverage its platform, technology and consumer databases to enter into cannabis consumable sales in the UK and EU. In Canada, CBD is regulated under the Access to Cannabis for Medical Purposes Regulations ("ACMPR") program, which restricts non-ACMPR vendors from selling it. CBD is a type of cannabinoid which is present in both cannabis and industrial hemp. Most CBD products outside of Canada are produced using industrial hemp, which is naturally high in CBD and low in delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol ("THC").
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MUKWONAGO, Wis., Sept. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Cimbria Consulting today announced its new partnership with Engiso, a Danish engineered solutions firm specializing in the V-MAG multipurpose Neodyme magnet series and industrial products for extreme environments. The partnership aims to advance market adoption of Engiso's high-value engineered solutions for wind power, telecommunications, maritime, oil and gas, and defense sectors in the United States. Engiso is already a preferred provider of engineered solutions for a number of Fortune Global 500 clients in wind energy and maritime shipping.
Cimbria Consulting
Engiso's engineered solutions are manufactured to meet stringent performance standards and can be implemented as a turn-key solution for existing businesses, processes or systems. The company requires rigorous testing and high-level design to track, record and prove product performance for its customers. With over 2 million deployed solutions sold, Engiso has consistently reduced costs, optimized worker health and safety, and generated sizable productivity gains for multinational corporations.
"We are excited to participate in the current wave of disruption happening in the U.S. as companies seek data-driven and engineered industrial products to optimize their competitiveness," said Kent Pedersen, Managing Partner of Engiso LLC. "By partnering with Cimbria Consulting, we are connecting with expert leaders in transatlantic market expansion to unlock value in new and creative ways in America."
"Engiso manufactures some of the most reliable, durable, and functional engineered solutions in the world, which makes the Danish company a perfect fit for growing American industrials looking for next-generation solutions," stated Noah J. Sabich, Partner and Senior Advisor at Cimbria Consulting. "Cimbria Consulting's new partnership with Engiso will aim to accelerate the company's expansion in the U.S. to deliver actionable results and growth paths."
Scandinavia's Growth Opportunities in the U.S.
There is a broad trend throughout U.S. companies to adopt engineered products that can swiftly generate additional margins and efficiency. Promising engineered innovations like Engiso's lower operating costs, improve safety management, and offer durability in challenging work and weather conditions. Moreover, there is a large niche in U.S. industrial markets for Scandinavian engineering expertise molded by the punishing environmental conditions of Northern Europe. For Scandinavian companies wanting to acculturate into American markets, it is recommended to partner with U.S.-based subject-matter experts to facilitate the transition.
About Engiso, LLC: Engiso is a Danish-founded engineered solutions company specializing in its V-MAG series of high powered neodymium magnets and industrial products for extreme environments. The company is comprised of advanced engineers, project managers, and consultants shaped by the demands of the Nordic offshore and onshore wind energy sectors. The firm offers many types of manufactured solutions - transferable to wind power, telecommunications, maritime, oil and gas, and defense markets - that can be easily deployed into a current business, system or process. Engiso is based in Esbjerg, Denmark and Mukwonago, Wisconsin.
About Cimbria Consulting, LLC: Cimbria Consulting an independently managed affiliate company of private equity firm Cimbria Capital is a management, scientific, and technical consultancy based in Houston, Texas and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The firm offers pragmatic consulting services to capture economic value for enterprises in agribusiness, renewable energy, and water technology.
For more information on Engiso or Cimbria Consulting, please visit www.engiso.com, www.cimbria-consulting.com, or contact Noah Sabich at [email protected], Kent Pedersen at [email protected]
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Engiso, LLC
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Cimbria Consulting, LLC
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Engiso, LLC
Cimbria Consulting, LLC
SOURCE Cimbria Consulting
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BLAINVILLE, QC, Sept. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ - Duchesnay Inc., a pharmaceutical company specializing in women's health, announced today that it will present a poster on the topic of ospemifene at the 2018 Annual Meeting of the North American Menopause Society (NAMS) in San Diego.
The abstract titled: Randomized, Double-blind, Placebo-controlled Multicenter Study to Evaluate Vulvar Health from Photograph Images Taken at Investigative Sites of Consenting Subjects Participating in the Efficacy and Safety of Ospemifene in Patients with Moderate to Severe Vaginal Dryness, a Symptom of Vulvovaginal Atrophy (VVA) due to Menopause, will be presented as a poster presentation on October 4, 2018, from 6:00 to 7:00 p.m. PST.
This poster will include new data related to the use of ospemifene in menopausal women with moderate to severe vaginal dryness, a symptom of vulvovaginal atrophy (VVA), a part of the genitourinary syndrome of menopause (GSM). Duchesnay is currently seeking marketing authorization for this additional indication for ospemifene and this new safety and efficacy data is currently under evaluation by the United States Food and Drug Administration.
"We are proud to share new data on ospemifene for the treatment of vaginal dryness, a frequent and most bothersome symptom of VVA, which is a component of the genitourinary syndrome of menopause," said Graziella Soulban, Senior Director of Medical Affairs at Duchesnay. "This data, based on visual vulvovaginal evaluations, enhances the understanding of how ospemifene can improve vulvovaginal health in post-menopausal women."
About Duchesnay
Duchesnay is a specialty pharmaceutical company with a long-standing commitment to women's health. The company focuses on filling the void in terms of scientific research and education and on developing pharmacological solutions that are safe and effective for use during pregnancy and breastfeeding. Duchesnay also commercializes a broad portfolio of products to offer safe and effective therapeutic options that meet the health and quality of life needs of women and their family members at various stages of their lives. For more information, visit www.DuchesnayUSA.com.
SOURCE Duchesnay inc.
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"Bryan is a thoughtful and accomplished young leader," says Jahnke. "His business savvy, financial acumen, and insightful, 'big picture' sensibility are complemented by a keen, strategic mind. Bryan consistently cuts through the risks and opportunities presented by changing business circumstances to offer well-reasoned recommendations that lead Elkay to favorable outcomes. We are proud to add Bryan to our senior leadership ranks."
Bryan joined Elkay in October 2009. In October 2011, Bryan was promoted to Corporate Planning/Reporting Manager where he was accountable for facilitating and administering the budgeting and financial forecasting process, developing and maintaining Elkay's cost and profitability application, and overseeing the financial reporting function. In January 2013, Bryan was promoted to Finance Director, with full responsibility for all financial planning, forecasting, reporting, and analytics for all Elkay's company reporting units, including all management reporting.
Bryan graduated from Northeastern Illinois University with a Bachelor of Science in Accounting. He earned his CPA certification in 2008. He is currently completing his MBA at the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business.
About Elkay
Since 1920, Elkay has been making innovative products and delivering excellent, domestic customer care. Headquartered in Oak Brook, Illinois, Elkay expanded its commercial offerings over four decades ago, and today delivers world-class sinks, faucets, foodservice fixtures, water coolers, drinking fountains and award-winning rapid bottle filling stations. Elkay Interior Systems provides turnkey design and build interiors for retail and foodservice environments across the globe. Additionally, Elkay Wood Products is one of America's leading cabinetmakers with eight brands in the marketplace. Like your family, the Elkay family has values and traditions that endure; for almost a century, Elkay has been an American-owned and operated company, providing thousands of jobs that support our families and communities.
For additional information, visit Elkay.com.
Media Contact:
Linda Carlisle
[email protected]
SOURCE Elkay
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http://Elkay.com
SANTA CRUZ, Calif., Sept. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The following is authored by Jenna K. Kelly, J.D., a co-founder of SpeakUp4.com a safe harbor social media platform where people can make their case in the public square, with sources, science, and art. She has over 25 years of experience in media, technology, and law.
Jenna K. Kelly, J.D. has over 25 yrs. experience in media, technology, and law. A co-founder of SpeakUp4.com, Kelly is a USPTO patent holder for the underlying technology, the Peerdash platform.
In 1765, the English Crown imposed a tax on the information highway of its time paper and by 1775, our nation was at war over 'no taxation without representation'. Fast forward to 2018, and once again our European cousins seek to control the information highway, except now it's the internet, and the taxation is about to be codified. The question is, will our ideas once again be subject to a foreign power, or will we develop new solutions to maintain our sovereignty?
When the Stamp Act was passed in 1765, Colonists were exasperated with the British taxation of everyday goods. Billed as the cost of their "defense", Colonists saw officers seated in the lap of luxury, while they themselves struggled to build a nation from scratch. To quiet their unruly subjects, the British Parliament came up with the not-so-brilliant idea to tax the means of mind, instead of production. From legal documents and newspapers, to playing cards and dice, all had to be made with British products, purchased at a premium. This was the spark that assembled the Sons of Liberty and planted the seeds of the American Revolution.
On Wednesday, the EU took a first step in reclaiming our errant colony, leveraging a similar fiscal duty, and, in a similar folly, claiming ownership of our intellectual freedom. The final amendments to The Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market passed review and will now go ahead to a final vote at the EU in January 2019.
Often referred to as Articles 11 and 13, this directive is a Gordian knot of corporate responsibilities and government control that will have a profound effect on America's online freedoms. Article 11 is often called the "link tax"; while 13 is referred to as the "upload filter" mandate. The first basically requires platforms to pay news organizations; and the second essentially limits who can disseminate and opine on art and information.
Under Article 11, platforms must pay for links to their sites, however, exemptions to this 'link tax' are as vague as they are biased. Simple links and search engine results are not infringement, nor is a user sharing a news story to social media; however, curation and social media platforms may be liable absent automated payment systems.
Under Article 13, platforms are required to remove content that infringes copyright, and to inspect all content before it is uploaded for infringement. To automate this requires advanced AI capabilities in order to scale, mostly out of reach today. To wrap your mind around the difficulty, Facebook's newest machine learning product, Rosetta, can 'read' words on images, but cannot understand their context without human input. To pose it as a hypothetical how does a program decide what image is a parody, a meme, or protected political commentary?
Until these systems are fully developed, social media companies will continue tracking keywords and people, while employing hordes of semi-skilled legal teams and leveraging nonprofit organizations to parse liability. So, while Google and Microsoft are free to carry on with a minimum expenditure, and Facebook and Twitter will have to make some creative adjustments to their business model, new technologies and start-ups could face the biggest barriers to entry we've seen since the railroads.
As an example, under Articles 11 and 13, an online platform that allows a user to organize content, or tell a story with art and sources, must either keep that content private, or provide extensive automation for copyright management. Absent this, the platform could be subject to a lawsuit. This nuance not only compounds the barrier to entry but has a chilling effect on speech as well it limits who can contextualize information outside of official channels, making truth both subjective and compulsory.
This should scare every American, especially when read in conjunction with the E.U. Code of Conduct signed by American technology companies in May 2016. This voluntary agreement created a fiscal duty for tech companies to remove offensive content as defined by the EU from their platforms. As we question the political bias of big tech in our own country, there are bigger questions we should be asking: When we're on social media, whose laws are we following? Where does the allegiance of big tech lie? Are they willing to create a space for a complimentary market? And finally, Is there still a safe harbor online for American conversations?
If we cannot answer these questions, secure in our rights as citizens, it's time for a national conversation that doesn't obfuscate the real issues. Our security and our future depend upon our First Amendment, and entrenched technologies threaten our sovereignty. Now is the time new solutions need to be considered.
_______
Jenna K. Kelly, J.D. has over 25 yrs. experience in media, technology, and law. A co-founder of SpeakUp4.com, Kelly is a USPTO patent holder for the underlying technology, the Peerdash platform. Kelly initially developed the platform as CEO of Surfdash, Inc. for secure environments but decided our freedoms were worth more than government contracts. SpeakUp4.com is now open for Free Speech. For more information about our mission, please visit our Press Kit.
Contact: Craig Richardson, [email protected]
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The E.U. seeks to take control of the Internet.
On Wednesday, the EU took a first step in reclaiming our errant colony, leveraging a similar fiscal duty, and, in a similar folly, claiming ownership of our intellectual freedom.
americas-cherished-first-amendment.png
America's cherished First Amendment is under attack by giant tech companies kowtowing to E.U. Internet regulations.
Beginning in 2016, we saw the rise of the term 'hate speech' in our online conversations, and starting in 2017, we started seeing a heavy increase in censorship. What we need to realize is that this is not a Left/Right issue, it's an EU issue, and their terms of service reflect those responsibilities.
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Jenna Kelly, J.D.
Jenna K. Kelly, J.D. has over 25 yrs. experience in media, technology, and law. A co-founder of SpeakUp4.com, Kelly is a USPTO patent holder for the underlying technology, the Peerdash platform.
speakup4-com-is-a-safe-harbor.png
SpeakUp4.com is a safe harbor where people can make their case in the public square, with sources, science, and art.
SpeakUp4.com is a safe harbor where people can make their case in the public square, with sources, science, and art. Users can share content to Facebook or Twitter or optimize with social links and SEO. By providing this technology to host content and conversation in context, the goal is to lessen ad hominem attacks witnessed on other sites and online in general.
Related Links
www.speakup4.com
https://app.speakup4.com/dashboard/n5apae9wv7#board/dmv5jodne7
Related Video
https://vimeo.com/289725190
SOURCE SpeakUp4.com
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OKLAHOMA CITY, Sept. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- As Hurricane Florence nears the coastline and is expected to make landfall by Fri., Sep. 14, Feed the Children is working diligently with corporate partners and local agencies to allocate shipments of food, water and disaster relief supplies for those who will be affected by the impending storm.
The Category 2 storm, which includes catastrophic flooding, has forced mandatory evacuations across the eastern seaboard affecting approximately 1.5 million people. More than a dozen shipments of supplies totaling approximately 355,000 pounds from Feed the Children are already on their way to help residents in North and South Carolina as well as Virginia. The nonprofit is working hand-in-hand with local agencies such as Operation Compassion, Convoy of Hope, Mankind United to Save African Children, Harbor Light Worship Ministries, Reach Out American International, 21 Reasons to Give, Christian Appalachian Project and Midwest Food Bank-Bloomington to help with outreach efforts.
Many long-time partners such as StarKist, Energizer, BNRG, Treehouse Private Brands, FitJoy Nutrition, White Wave and Frito-Lay have donated supplies in addition to their support to help displaced residents.
Affected residents will receive products such as:
Ready to eat food, soups and snacks
Beverages
Paper goods
Cleaning supplies
Cereal
Flashlights
Batteries
"We are very dedicated to making sure the residents affected by Florence have the food and supplies they need to survive this potentially life-threatening storm," said John Ricketts, Director of Disaster Services at Feed the Children. "We are working with our partners on the ground to distribute supplies. We are calling on communities and partners across the U.S to help our neighbors in their time of need."
While many partners are stepping forward to provide support, residents still need materials such as work gloves, cleaning supplies and water. You can help by giving monetary donations to help fulfill needs such as these.
Feed the Children is accepting monetary donations to assist those affected by Hurricane Florence. Visit feedthechildren.org/hurricaneflorence to join our efforts.
About Feed the Children
Established in 1979, Feed the Children exists to defeat childhood hunger. It is one of the largest U.S.-based charities and serves those in need in the U.S. and in 10 countries around the world. It provides food, education initiatives, essentials and disaster response. It operates five distribution centers located in Oklahoma, Indiana, California, Tennessee and Pennsylvania.
In fiscal year 2017, Feed the Children distributed 79.8 million pounds of food and essentials to children and families in the U.S. Internationally, it provided nutritious food or other benefits to 1,080,000 children, empowered 291,000 parents to make better decisions for their children, and positively impacted more than 1,200 communities and schools in 10 countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean. It is accredited by GuideStar Exchange and the BBB Wise Giving Alliance.
Visit feedthechildren.org for more information.
SOURCE Feed the Children
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Canadian Business unveils 30th annual list of Canada's Fastest-Growing Companies
TORONTO, Sept. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ - Fiix has secured a spot on the 2018 Growth 500 list, an annual ranking of Canada's Fastest-Growing Companies. The listformerly known as the PROFIT 500is produced by Canadian Business, and ranks the country's most successful businesses on five-year revenue growth.
Fiix, a Toronto-based maintenance and asset management software provider, is driving digital transformation in the maintenance industry by partnering with customers to help them increase productivity and decrease costs by moving from pen and paper to software solutions. The company ranked 63rd on the Growth 500 list, thanks to exponential revenue growth of more than 1,250% over the past five years.
"The companies on the 2018 Growth 500 are truly remarkable. Demonstrating foresight, innovation and smart management, their stories serve as a primer for how to build a successful entrepreneurial business today," says Deborah Aarts, Growth 500 program manager. "As we celebrate 30 years of the Canada's Fastest-Growing Companies program, it's encouraging to see that entrepreneurship is healthier than ever in this country."
"We are incredibly excited to be on the 2018 Growth 500 ranking. In the past few years, digital technology has gone from a 'nice to have' to a 'need to have' in the maintenance industry, and Fiix has been at the forefront of that transformation," says James Novak, CEO of Fiix. "Our focus has always been on partnering with our customers through every step of their digitization journey and our growth comes as a result of their success. Being included on Growth 500 alongside so many other great Canadian businesses is an absolute honour."
In relatively short order, Fiix has become a high-growth success story in Toronto's booming tech landscape. In the past six months alone, the company has secured $12 Million in Series B funding, been listed as one of Canada's fastest-growing ICT companies, and been certified as a Great Place to Work.
About Fiix
Fiix Inc. creates easy-to-use, intelligent maintenance management software that empowers businesses to organize their maintenance departments and turn data into actionable insights. Its innovative, multi-tenant cloud-based CMMS mobilizes the maintenance workforce with an unparalleled mobile experience and seamlessly interfaces with enterprise software to connect your entire organizationrevolutionizing how thousands of companies worldwide schedule, organize, and track maintenance.
Learn more at www.fiixsoftware.com
About the Growth 500
For 30 years, the Growth 500 has been Canada's most respectable and influential ranking of entrepreneurial achievement. Ranking Canada's Fastest-Growing Companies by five-year revenue growth, the Growth 500formerly known as the PROFIT 500profiles the country's most successful growing businesses. The Growth 500 is produced by Canadian Business. Winners are profiled in a special Growth 500 print issue of Canadian Business (packaged with the October issue of Maclean's magazine) and online at Growth500.ca and CanadianBusiness.com. For more information on the ranking, visit Growth500.ca.
About Canadian Business
Founded in 1928, Canadian Business is the longest-serving and most-trusted business publication in the country. It is the country's premier media brand for executives and senior business leaders. It fuels the success of Canada's business elite with a focus on the things that matter most: leadership, innovation, business strategy and management tactics. Learn more at CanadianBusiness.com
SOURCE Fiix Inc.
Canadian Business unveils 30th annual list of Canada's Fastest-Growing Companies, ranking Fleet Complete at No. 221.
TORONTO, Sept. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ - Canadian Business and Maclean's today ranked Fleet Complete No. 221 on the 30th annual Growth 500, the definitive ranking of Canada's Fastest-Growing Companies. Fleet Complete's rank represented a leap of 142 spots this year from No. 363 in 2017. This is the company's 10th anniversary of being featured on the Canada's Fastest-Growing Companies list.
Fleet Complete celebrates 10th year as Growth 500 company. (CNW Group/Fleet Complete)
Produced by Canada's premier business and current affairs media brands, the Growth 500 ranks Canadian businesses on five-year revenue growth. Fleet Complete made the list with five-year revenue growth of 321%.
"The companies on the 2018 Growth 500 are truly remarkable. Demonstrating foresight, innovation and smart management, their stories serve as a primer for how to build a successful entrepreneurial business today," says Deborah Aarts, Growth 500 program manager. "As we celebrate 30 years of the Canada's Fastest-Growing Companies program, it's encouraging to see that entrepreneurship is healthier than ever in this country."
"We at Fleet Complete are very honoured to be on the Growth 500 ranking for 10 consecutive years," says Fleet Complete's CEO, Tony Lourakis. "Our company has been undergoing tremendous growth in the past year, expanding our business frontiers at an accelerated rate. This achievement reflects the strength of our product and the dedication of our team. I'm very excited about the upcoming year, as we launch new products like Vision in our international markets."
In July this year, Fleet Complete was also featured on the Branham300 Top Performing Technology Companies list for the 10th year in a row. Berg Insights ranks Fleet Complete 9th in the Americas according to the number of active subscribers. Globally, the company has approximately 500,000 active units and continues to be a partner of choice for OEMs, such as General Motors and Phillips Connect Technologies.
Growth 500 winners are profiled in a special print issue of Canadian Business published with Maclean's magazine and online at CanadianBusiness.com and Growth500.ca.
Visit Fleet Complete: fleetcomplete.com
Like us on Facebook: @FleetComplete
Follow us on Twitter: @fleetcomplete
About the Growth 500
For 30 years, the Growth 500 has been Canada's most respectable and influential ranking of entrepreneurial achievement. Ranking Canada's Fastest-Growing Companies by five-year revenue growth, the Growth 500formerly known as the PROFIT 500profiles the country's most successful growing businesses. The Growth 500 is produced by Canadian Business. Winners are profiled in a special Growth 500 print issue of Canadian Business (packaged with the October issue of Maclean's magazine) and online at Growth500.ca and CanadianBusiness.com. For more information on the ranking, visit Growth500.ca.
About Canadian Business
Founded in 1928, Canadian Business is the longest-serving and most-trusted business publication in the country. It is the country's premier media brand for executives and senior business leaders. It fuels the success of Canada's business elite with a focus on the things that matter most: leadership, innovation, business strategy and management tactics. Learn more at CanadianBusiness.com.
About Fleet Complete
Fleet Complete is a leading global provider of connected vehicle technology, delivering mission-critical fleet, asset and mobile workforce management solutions. The company is servicing approximately 500,000 subscribers and over 30,000 businesses in Canada, the U.S., Mexico, Australia, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxemburg, Austria, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. It maintains key distribution partnerships with AT&T in the U.S., TELUS in Canada, Telstra in Australia, and Deutsche Telekom (T-Mobile) in multiple European countries. It remains one of the fastest-growing companies globally, having won numerous awards for innovation and growth. For more information, please visit fleetcomplete.com
SOURCE Fleet Complete
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DETROIT and NEW YORK, Sept. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Former Detroit Lions Linebacker, DeAndre Levy, his wife, Desire Vincent Levy, and popular Detroit-based apparel brand, Detroit Hustles Harder, are proud to announce their partnership for the third edition of the cause-related t-shirt line, Our Issue.
Our Issue is an apparel line that pairs activism and accountability for catalytic change. Created in 2016, the Our Issue initiative was designed out of the idea that a society free of sexual assault and domestic violence is not just a women's issue, it is our collective issue.
Our Issue DHH Logo DeAndre Levy in front of Our Issue Mural
Running September 14th 22nd in Detroit, this year's Murals in the Market Festival named by Smithsonian as one of the top mural festivals in the world will feature a special edition artist t-shirt of the 2017 Our Issue Mural by Sydney G. James and AskewOne. All proceeds from shirts will benefit Enough SAID, Wayne County SAFE, and the SASHA Center to support the ongoing effort of investigating the backlog of rape kits in Detroit and providing direct services and care to survivors. All proceeds will be matched up to $25,000.
"OUR ISSUE is dedicated to the multitude of women I know and love, and the ones that I don't know that have the unfortunate experience of sexual violence," said DeAndre. "As men, and as a society, we owe them more and need to take ownership of the role we play in supporting the culture that makes excuses for rape, harassment, and all forms of violence against women and girls."
"As a survivor myself, I am thankful to and for the brave Detroit leaders like the SASHA Center, Wayne County SAFE, and Enough SAID that commit their time, energy, and resources to providing services for victims, advocate for policy, and affirm the voices and experiences of survivors every day," said Desire. "They are heroes amongst us."
To purchase Our Issue apparel, please visit:
https://divisionstreetboutique.com/collections/our-issue
To make a donation to Our Issue:
https://www.crowdrise.com/our-issue
Media Contact:
W&W Public Relations
Syreta Oglesby / [email protected]
201-658-3711
SOURCE Our Issue
FRANKFURT, Germany, Sept. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- FRA/ds-rap In August 2018, Frankfurt Airport (FRA) welcomed some 6.8 million passengers an increase of 8.1 percent year-on-year. Since the beginning of 2018, FRA has achieved growth of 8.7 percent, with European routes continuing to drive passenger traffic. In the reporting month, aircraft movements climbed by 8.0 percent to 46,389 take-offs and landings, while accumulated maximum take-off weights (MTOWs) rose by 5.5 percent to about 2.9 million metric tons. With 182,589 metric tons (up 0.8 percent), cargo (airfreight + airmail) almost reached the same level as last year.
The airports in Fraport's international portfolio continued their growth path in August 2018. Ljubljana Airport (LJU) in Slovenia recorded an increase of 3.1 percent to 202,423 passengers. Fraport's two Brazilian airports in Fortaleza (FOR) and Porto Alegre (POA) reported combined traffic growth of 4.6 percent to about 1.2 million passengers. The Group's 14 Greek airports achieved overall positive growth of 6.6 percent to some 5.4 million passengers in August 2018. Fraport Greece's fastest growing airports included Corfu (CFO) with 704,741 passengers and Kos (KGS) with 538,382 passengers both recording a 12.2 percent gain while traffic at Mytilene Airport (MJT) on the island of Lesbos jumped by 11.6 percent to 71,636 passengers.
Lima Airport (LIM) in Peru saw traffic increase by 6.6 percent to about 2.1 million passengers. Bulgaria's Twin Star airports of Varna (VAR) and Burgas (BOJ) registered combined growth of 5.8 percent to nearly 1.4 million passengers. Traffic at Antalya Airport (AYT) on the Turkish Riviera surged by 14.7 percent to about 4.9 million passengers. Hanover Airport (HAJ) closed the reporting period with 667,084 passengers (up 8.1 percent). Traffic also advanced at Pulkovo Airport (LED) in St. Petersburg, Russia, and Xi'an Airport (XIY) in China where almost 2.1 million travelers (up 11.6 percent) and some 4.2 million passengers (up 8.8 percent) were served, respectively.
Print-quality photos of Fraport AG and Frankfurt Airport are available for free downloading via the photo library on the Fraport Web site. For TV news and information broadcasting purposes only, we also offer free footage material for downloading. If you wish to meet a member of our Media Relations team when at Frankfurt Airport, please do not hesitate to contact us. Our contact details are available here.
Fraport Traffic Figures
August 2018
Fraport Group Airports1
August 2018
Year to Date (YTD) 2018
Fraport Passengers Cargo* Movements Passengers Cargo Movements Fully-consolidated airports share (%) Month % Month % Month % YTD % YTD % YTD % FRA Frankfurt Germany 100.00 6,798,055 8.1 179,902 0.8 46,389 8.0 46,343,945 8.7 1,428,158 -1.1 340,098 8.3 LJU Ljubljana Slovenia 100.00 202,423 3.1 915 -11.6 3,451 1.7 1,232,529 10.3 8,019 5.0 23,970 4.3 Fraport Brasil 100.00 1,245,813 4.6 7,398 47.4 12,332 10.4 9,535,558 4.6 55,051 48.1 91,386 5.1 FOR Fortaleza Brazil 100.00 524,295 7.2 3,861 26.9 5,263 22.4 4,127,550 4.9 28,550 22.5 37,192 7.3 POA Porto Alegre Brazil 100.00 721,518 2.7 3,537 78.9 7,069 2.9 5,408,008 4.4 26,501 91.0 54,194 3.6 Fraport Regional Airports of Greece A+B 73.40 5,409,953 6.6 690 44.7 42,367 6.1 21,400,274 9.0 5,314 12.2 174,041 7.4 Fraport Regional Airports of Greece A 73.40 2,827,413 6.4 509 39.2 21,176 4.9 11,845,201 7.6 3,966 9.0 93,019 6.1 CFU Kerkyra (Corfu) Greece 73.40 704,741 12.2 32 n.a. 5,162 13.3 2,492,170 16.2 135 > 100.0 19,353 19.9 CHQ Chania (Crete) Greece 73.40 489,679 -2.3 41 0.0 3,028 -0.6 2,183,365 -1.1 301 -8.1 13,850 -2.3 EFL Kefalonia Greece 73.40 174,815 11.3 0 n.a. 1,621 14.6 581,245 20.8 1 -63.4 5,346 19.7 KVA Kavala Greece 73.40 67,385 8.3 8 -43.5 561 1.4 311,975 36.6 57 -26.9 3,136 23.3 PVK Aktion/Preveza Greece 73.40 129,510 1.3 0 n.a. 1,134 4.4 433,275 2.8 0 n.a. 3,976 2.3 SKG Thessaloniki Greece 73.40 839,748 7.6 428 38.1 6,843 1.1 4,474,253 4.8 3,469 7.4 37,573 0.8 ZTH Zakynthos Greece 73.40 421,535 5.2 0 n.a. 2,827 2.4 1,368,918 9.2 4 > 100.0 9,785 6.4 Fraport Regional Airports of Greece B 73.40 2,582,540 6.7 181 62.8 21,191 7.2 9,555,073 10.7 1,348 22.9 81,022 8.9 JMK Mykonos Greece 73.40 328,202 10.2 15 n.a. 4,164 1.9 1,067,365 13.6 68 > 100.0 13,712 8.0 JSI Skiathos Greece 73.40 119,178 6.2 0 n.a. 1,055 -2.0 350,253 5.1 0 n.a. 3,237 -1.5 JTR Santorini (Thira) Greece 73.40 379,698 9.2 17 n.a. 3,535 14.2 1,597,797 16.2 118 > 100.0 14,406 17.8 KGS Kos Greece 73.40 538,382 12.2 36 > 100.0 3,706 15.2 1,896,804 16.3 185 44.2 14,187 17.3 MJT Mytilene (Lesvos) Greece 73.40 71,636 11.6 30 9.3 816 21.4 325,135 5.5 254 0.2 3,854 -2.3 RHO Rhodes Greece 73.40 1,056,599 2.6 59 13.1 6,895 3.2 3,983,785 6.5 539 23.5 27,423 5.2 SMI Samos Greece 73.40 88,845 1.2 23 -15.3 1,020 9.1 333,934 11.4 184 -8.1 4,203 2.1 LIM Lima Peru2 70.01 2,060,930 6.6 24,102 -6.1 16,905 2.0 14,695,541 8.8 180,065 4.7 128,788 5.3 Fraport Twin Star 60.00 1,383,868 5.8 630 -62.9 9,116 6.8 4,472,463 13.5 5,664 -47.6 32,007 11.5 BOJ Burgas Bulgaria 60.00 911,407 5.4 618 -63.4 5,859 6.7 2,720,755 9.7 5,590 -47.5 18,727 7.9 VAR Varna Bulgaria 60.00 472,461 6.4 12 21.9 3,257 7.1 1,751,708 19.8 74 -56.7 13,280 17.0
At equity consolidated airports2
AYT Antalya Turkey 51.00 4,924,825 14.7 n.a. n.a. 26,824 13.9 22,017,848 22.5 n.a. n.a. 127,915 20.6 HAJ Hannover Germany 30.00 667,084 8.1 1,036 -5.6 7,555 2.3 4,153,185 8.2 10,843 -0.3 52,266 2.6 LED St. Petersburg Russia 25.00 2,099,021 11.6 n.a. n.a. 16,368 5.4 12,153,915 11.1 n.a. n.a. 110,530 8.5 XIY Xi'an China 24.50 4,152,303 8.8 27,108 25.8 29,261 3.3 29,728,658 7.9 186,625 13.2 218,422 3.7
Frankfurt Airport3
August 2018 Month % YTD 2018 % Passengers 6,798,610 8.1 46,346,722 8.7 Cargo (freight & mail) 182,589 0.8 1,455,260 -0.7 Aircraft movements 46,389 8.0 340,098 8.3 MTOW (in metric tons)4 2,872,329 5.5 20,997,386 5.5 PAX/PAX-flight5 155.4 -0.3 145.5 0.2 Seat load factor (%) 83.9
79.6
Punctuality rate (%) 66.6
67.6
Frankfurt Airport PAX share %6 PAX share %6 Regional Split Month YTD Continental 63.8 11.5 64.3 12.5 Germany 9.6 7.0 10.7 4.8 Europe (excl. GER) 54.2 12.3 53.6 14.2 Western Europe 44.6 11.5 44.5 13.9 Eastern Europe 9.6 15.9 9.1 15.7 Intercontinental 36.2 2.6 35.7 2.4 Africa 4.4 13.4 4.3 10.8 Middle East 5.4 2.7 5.3 2.5 North America 14.2 2.7 12.7 2.8 Central & South Amer. 2.6 2.5 3.3 0.6 Far East 9.6 -2.1 10.2 -0.7 Australia 0.0 n.a. 0.0 n.a.
Definitions: 1 According to ACI definition: Passengers: commercial traffic only (arr+dep+transit counted once), Cargo: commercial and non-commercial traffic (arr+dep excluding transit, in metric tons), Movements: commercial and non-commercial traffic (arr+dep); 2 Preliminary figures; 3 Commercial and non-commercial traffic: Passengers (arr+dep+transit counted once, incl. general aviation), Cargo (arr+dep+transit counted once, in metric tons), Movements (arr+dep); 4 Inbound traffic only; 5 Scheduled and charter traffic; 6 absolute change vs. previous year in % ; *Cargo = Freight + mail
Fraport AG
Maria Linden Telephone: +49-69-690-70557 Corporate Communications E-mail: [email protected] Media Relations Internet: www.fraport.com 60547 Frankfurt, Germany Facebook: www.facebook.com/FrankfurtAirport
For further information about Fraport AG please click here.
SOURCE Fraport AG
(CNN) The United States has expressed concern over China's "worsening crackdown" on minority Muslim groups in the far western province of Xinjiang, amid allegations of widespread human rights abuses.
Rights groups have accused Beijing of the systematic mass detention of tens of thousands of ethnic Uyghurs and other Muslims in political re-education camps without being charged or tried.
The allegations have prompted a growing international outcry and calls for sanctions to be imposed on senior Chinese officials.
On Tuesday, U.S. State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert said the U.S. government was "deeply troubled" by the crackdown, saying there were "credible reports" of thousands being detained in detention centers since April 2017.
"Some of those disproportionate controls on ethnic minorities -- expressions of their cultural and also their religious entities -- have the potential also to incite radicalization and the recruitment of violence," she told reporters during a press briefing.
Asked whether or not the U.S. was considering economic sanctions against Chinese officials accused of overseeing the policies, Nauert acknowledged the State Department had received a letter from members of Congress on the issue, but declined to discuss details of any potential government action.
"We have a lot of tools at our disposal," she told reporters. "I'm not going to get ahead of any potential activity that the US Government may take. It's the old standard line on sanctions, that we're not going to preview any sanctions that may or may not happen."
In August, a bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers called for Chinese officials involved in alleged human rights violations in Xinjiang to be sanctioned under the Global Magnitsky Act -- the 2012 law originally designed to freeze the assets of certain Russian government officials and businessmen accused of human rights violations.
"The detention of as many as a million or more Uyghurs and other predominately Muslim ethnic minorities in 'political reeducation' centers or camps requires a tough, targeted, and global response," they said in a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesman Geng Shuang said Monday the measures in Xinjiang were necessary to "crack down on ethnic separatist activities and (violence) and terrorist crimes."
"I want to say that Xinjiang is enjoying overall social stability, sound economic development, and harmonious co-existence of different ethnic groups," he said at his daily press briefing.
'Disturbing'
Nauert's comments follow the release of a new Human Rights Watch (HRW) Monday detailing allegations of indefinite, arbitrary detention.
Speaking to former Xinjiang residents HRW claimed Muslim ethnic minorities were detained for anything as small as "using foreign communication tools such as WhatsApp."
"The detainees in political education camps are held without any due process rights -- neither charged nor put on trial -- and have no access to lawyers and family," the report said.
In the camps, the report alleged detainees were forced to repeat slogans praising the Chinese Communist Party and President Xi Jinping, as well as singing patriotic songs.
"If they resist, or officials deem they have failed their lessons, they are punished. They may be subjected to solitary confinement, not be allowed to eat for a certain period, or required to stand for 24-hour periods, among other punishments," said HRW researcher Maya Wang.
On Monday, the new United Nations Human Rights chief Michelle Bachelet became the latest high profile international figure to speak out against alleged human rights abuses in Xinjiang.
Calling the allegations against China "deeply disturbing," Bachelet said Beijing had to allow access to the region for impartial observers.
"In light of these reports, we would request the Government to permit access for the (UN) to all regions of China, and trust we will embark on discussion of these issues," she said.
History of oppression
It isn't the first time the Chinese government has been accused of oppressing minorities in Xinjiang or other parts of the country.
Like Tibet, Xinjiang -- which has a history of independent rule and largely non-Han Chinese population -- has always been viewed with some suspicion by the authorities in Beijing, fearful it could become a hotbed of separatist, or in its case, Islamist organizing.
In May, Chinese state media said more than a million local Chinese Communist officials were being sent to live with local families in Xinjiang. The Uyghurs were forced to welcome officials into their homes, where they were subjected to "political education."
One month later, in a submission to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, the Germany-based Uyghur Congress (WUC) said an estimated one million Uyghurs were in political indoctrination camps as of July.
But the Chinese government strongly denied the figures, saying there was no mass imprisonment or "arbitrary detention."
"Xinjiang citizens including the Uyghurs enjoy equal freedoms and rights," Hu Lianhe, a spokesman for China's United Front Work Department, told the UN panel.
This story was first published on CNN.com, "United States 'deeply troubled' by alleged Chinese crackdown in Xinjiang."
LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) A Florida bank robbery suspect tracked down at an interstate rest stop in Kentucky was killed in a late-night exchange of gunfire that left a sheriffs deputy critically wounded, authorities said Wednesday.
The deputy, 28-year-old Jaime Morales, underwent a second surgery following the confrontation late Tuesday at a rest area along Interstate 75 in Scott County, just north of Lexington Kentuckys second-largest city.
The fugitive, 57-year-old Edward Reynolds, died at the rest stop, Kentucky State Police Trooper Bernie Napier said. The Sarasota County Sheriffs Office said it had obtained an arrest warrant for Reynolds on Tuesday in connection with a July bank robbery.
The FBI said that Reynolds was suspected to have been involved in a series of bank robberies, including robberies earlier this year in Cape Coral.
Morales was shot once while teaming with other Scott County deputies and Georgetown police officers in assisting the U.S. Marshals Service in apprehending the fugitive, Scott County Sheriff Tony Hampton said Wednesday. With two interstates running through the county in Kentuckys bluegrass region, its law enforcement officers face the potential for anything to come through, the sheriff said.
Law enforcement, in general, is a dangerous career, Hampton told reporters outside the sheriffs office in Georgetown. It doesnt matter how big or small the community youre in.
Morales previously served as a Marine and has been with the Scott County sheriffs office for two and a half years, Hampton said. He described Morales as an outstanding deputy who carries a lot of qualifications that you want to see in a deputy sheriff.
The sheriff said he had been at the critically wounded deputys bedside and other deputies were posted at the Lexington hospital with Morales family.
I told him I loved him and that we all loved him, and that well be with him and hes going to get through this, Hampton said.
Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin and Attorney General Andy Beshear were among state leaders who sent their thoughts and prayers through Twitter to the deputy.
Kentucky State Police released few details Wednesday about the shooting, saying the investigation is ongoing.
Mike Cervasi, who lives near the rest area, told the Lexington Herald-Leader that he and his fiancee, Christy Tucker, were in their house late Tuesday when they heard multiple guns fired at the same time, lasting for a few seconds. When Cervasi began listening to the police scanner, he said he heard officers in panic asking for EMS stat, the newspaper reported.
Reynolds was wanted in Florida on a charge of robbery with a firearm in connection with a July 25 bank robbery in Sarasota County. According to an affidavit, Reynolds demanded $100, $50 and $20 bills as he lifted his shirt and showed the teller a gun in his waistband. He fled in a convertible, authorities said.
Reynolds also was positively identified recently as a suspect in bank robberies earlier this year in Cape Coral, the affidavit said.
CHICAGO, Sept. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Golub Capital recently announced that, as Administrative Agent, Sole Lead Arranger and Sole Bookrunner, it provided a $75 million GOLD facility to support the acquisition of Amazing Lash Studio by WellBiz Brands, Inc. ("WellBiz Brands" or "the Company"). GOLD financings are Golub Capital One-Loan Debt facilities.
WellBiz Brands is one of the largest health and wellness companies in the United States, managing three franchise brands - Fitness Together, Elements Massage and FIT36 - with a combined 400 locations nationally. The acquisition of Amazing Lash Studio, the largest global eyelash extension franchise, adds one of the fastest growing franchise brands to the WellBiz Brands portfolio and further expands the Company's broad line of health and wellness offerings.
In addition to supporting the acquisition of Amazing Lash Studio, the GOLD facility from Golub Capital also provides significant capital to support the Company's ongoing growth initiatives.
"WellBiz Brands and Golub Capital have shared values of long term partnership and a commitment to excellence, which was evident while working on this deal," said Craig Palmer, Principal at Golub Capital. "We are thrilled to support WellBiz Brands and look forward to a lasting collaboration."
"We were looking for a solution that not only allowed us to execute our current acquisition, but also gave us flexibility for the future growth of WellBiz Brands," said Joe Luongo, Executive Chairman of WellBiz Brands. "The Golub Capital team's core retail sector expertise, flawless professionalism and flexible one-stop financing solution gave us the certainty that Golub Capital was the ideal long-term partner to support us."
About Golub Capital Middle Market Lending
Golub Capital's Middle Market Lending group provides financing for middle market, private equity-backed transactions with hold positions of up to $600 million and is an arranger of credit facilities up to $1 billion. Golub Capital's award-winning team strives to establish long-term, win-win partnerships by providing dependable, fast and creative solutions that meet private equity sponsors' and portfolio companies' needs.
Golub Capital is a nationally recognized credit asset manager with over $25 billion of capital under management. For over 20 years, Golub Capital has provided credit to help medium-sized U.S. businesses grow. The firm's award-winning Middle Market Lending business provides financing for middle market companies and their private equity sponsors. Golub Capital's credit expertise also forms the foundation of its Late Stage Lending and Broadly Syndicated Loan businesses. Golub Capital has worked hard to build a reputation as a fast, reliable provider of compelling financing solutions, and we believe this has inspired repeat clients and investors. Today, the firm has over 350 employees with lending offices in Chicago, New York and San Francisco. For more information, please visit golubcapital.com.
About WellBiz Brands, Inc.
WellBiz Brands, Inc. is the manager of three health and wellness franchise brands: Elements Massage, FIT36 and Fitness Together. Headquartered in Englewood, Colorado, WellBiz Brands, has over 400 combined U.S. locations across the three brands. Through the WellBiz Brands support staff, the brands strive to uphold these core values: fun, ownership, respect, passion, and integrity. These core values embody all that is important for each brand - from franchise owners to clients - to lead healthy, balanced lives. All three brands offer unique franchise opportunities for entrepreneurs from all walks of life and various investment levels, with a fresh focus on recurring revenue models.
About Amazing Lash Studio
Amazing Lash Studio was founded in 2010 with a vision to be the leading provider of eyelash extensions. Amazing Lash Studios apply semi-permanent eyelash extensions with a proprietary, patented process to the clients' own lashes, replicating the curve and size of natural lashes. The concept began franchising in 2013 and to date has 200 open studios in 33 states and 714 Regional Developer Units awarded. In 2018, Amazing Lash Studio earned the rank of #5 on Entrepreneur Magazine's Top New Franchises and #260 on the Inc. 500 in its inaugural year. For additional information, visit AmazingLashStudio.com.
SOURCE Golub Capital
Related Links
http://www.golubcapital.com
"Every little girl dreams of being a princess one day and we are so happy to be a part of making Sharlin's wish come true," says Rafael Toro, Director of Public Relations of Goya Foods. "Through Goya Gives, we are able to make meaningful contributions and a difference in the lives who need it the most."
Make-A-Wish creates life-changing wishes for children with critical illnesses. Sharlin, diagnosed with a critical heart condition, declared that her one true wish was to celebrate this significant moment in her life, consistent with her Mexican culture, with her closest friends and family. Sharlin's heart condition has presented many struggles for her, but she has faced them with courage and a positive attitude. When Sharlin's mother, Maricruz, was told Sharlin's wish for a Quinceanera would be granted, she began to cry tears of joy.
The evening began with Sharlin and her family arriving to Perona Farms in a horse-drawn carriage, greeted by over 75 guests including friends, family, Make-A-Wish staff, volunteers, and friends from Goya. Through their partnership, Goya provided financial support of Sharlin's wish to cover costs of the celebration, in addition to working with community partners and securing a fully-donated dress and custom fitting for Sharlin from Arecia's Creations in Weehawkin, designing and printing event invitations, and providing volunteers to assist in the successful execution of the event.
"How proud are we to call Goya a partner as we celebrate Sharlin on this special night," shared Tom Weatherall, President & CEO of Make-A-Wish New Jersey. "They have continued to go above and beyond in their commitment to making Sharlin's wish a life-changing experience, giving hope, strength and joy to a child when she needs it most."
In addition to the horse-drawn carriage, the evening included a special dance with her father, traditional ceremonies, food, music, dancing, and a celebration of Sharlin.
Goya Gives is a national initiative committed to promoting and supporting the overall well-being of the community through social responsibility, environmental initiatives and company values.
For more information on Goya Gives, please visit, goya.com and for more on Make-A-Wish New Jersey, visit nj.wish.org.
About GOYA
Founded in 1936, Goya Foods, Inc. is America's largest Hispanic-owned food company, and has established itself as the leader in Latin American food and condiments. Goya manufactures, packages, and distributes over 2,500 high-quality food products from Spain, the Caribbean, Mexico, Central and South America. Goya products have their roots in the culinary traditions of Hispanic communities around the world. The combination of authentic ingredients, robust seasonings and convenient preparation makes Goya products ideal for every taste and every table. For more information on Goya Foods, please visit www.goya.com.
ABOUT MAKE-A-WISH
Make-A-Wish creates life-changing wishes for children with critical illnesses. We seek to bring every eligible child's wish to life because a wish is an integral part of a child's treatment journey. Research shows children who have wishes granted can build the physical and emotional strength they need to fight their illness. Headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona, Make-A-Wish is the world's leading children's wish-granting organization, serving children in every community in the United States and in more than 50 countries worldwide. Together, generous donors, supporters, staff and more than 35,000 volunteers across the U.S., grant a wish every 34 minutes, on average, somewhere in the country. Since 1980, Make-A-Wish has granted more than 300,000 wishes to children in the U.S. and its territories; more than 15,400 in 2017 alone.
Contact: MAKE-A-WISH NEW JERSEY
Michael Dominick, Director of Communications
[email protected] / 215-272-5032
GOYA
Natalie J. Maniscalco
RETRO Media NYC
[email protected] / 845-659-6506
Make-A-Wish
New Jersey
Samuel & Josephine Plumeri
Wishing Place
1384 Perrineville Road
Monroe Township, NJ 08831
SOURCE Goya Foods
Inspiration came from not only Milton Hershey, who believed chocolate can bring people together, but also from others who are using Hershey's Milk Chocolate Bars to create positive connections and bring their communities closer together. Kind acts can be found in all corners of the country, and Hershey's uncovered these special stories and partnered with the individuals who are making a difference:
In Long Grove, IA , a 93 year-old man named Bob Williams has made it his mission to greet neighbors with a Hershey's Milk Chocolate Bar for more than two decades. Whether he's standing in line at the convenience store or stopping by the bank, Williams knows that just the act of sharing chocolate can bridge the distance and make people feel good. To date, he has given out nearly 6,000 XL Hershey's Milk Chocolate Bars to his community.
, a 93 year-old man named has made it his mission to greet neighbors with a Milk Chocolate Bar for more than two decades. Whether he's standing in line at the convenience store or stopping by the bank, Williams knows that just the act of sharing chocolate can bridge the distance and make people feel good. To date, he has given out nearly 6,000 XL Milk Chocolate Bars to his community. In New Brunswick, NJ , a best friend duo wanted to bring a few smiles to their fellow peers at the start of the new semester. To do so, they stocked up on Hershey's Milk Chocolate Bars, attached notes and gave them out around campus. Now, the pair Mustafa Hussain and Ahmad Atieh are known for their simple gestures that bring people just a little bit closer through Hershey 's Milk Chocolate Bars.
, a best friend duo wanted to bring a few smiles to their fellow peers at the start of the new semester. To do so, they stocked up on Milk Chocolate Bars, attached notes and gave them out around campus. Now, the pair and are known for their simple gestures that bring people just a little bit closer through 's Milk Chocolate Bars. In Newville, PA , the student council at Big Spring High School banded together to hand out chocolate Kisses during finals last semester. This year, the students welcomed new faces with Hershey's Milk Chocolate Bars , inspiring others to partake in their own random acts of kindness at the start of a new school year.
, the student council at Big banded together to hand out chocolate during finals last semester. This year, the students welcomed new faces with , inspiring others to partake in their own random acts of kindness at the start of a new school year. In Brooklyn Park, MN , the Brooklyn Park Police Department shared Hershey's Milk Chocolate Bars to bring cheer to their community. Officers have continued to provide recipients with exciting surprises to show community members just how paying it forward can impact a town.
"When we discovered these stories, we were reminded of what Milton Hershey knew long ago that we could bring people closer together through the simple gift of our chocolate," said Chuck Raup, vice president/general manager chocolate, The Hershey Company. "By the end of the day, our employees will have shared thousands of chocolate bars. Our actions on this day will pay homage to our founder, Milton Hershey and people like Bob Williams that allow us to melt the distance between us."
OUR MISSION
Nearly every neighborhood in America has been experiencing a growing disconnect, creating a cooling effect among Americans. In fact, Pew Research Center surveys suggest that every year, Americans connect less with their neighbors. Armed with a dozen Hershey's Milk Chocolate Bars, Hershey employees will start to spark positivity across the country and bring a little warmth back to our communities.
"We've all experienced this growing disconnect. We often see our neighbors every day without even knowing their names," Raup said. "We know it's the simple things that can bring us together. That is why we are beginning to break down the walls between us and warm-up our neighborhoods, one bar at a time."
Today is a new chapter in Hershey's legacy. Hershey's is not only committed to warming hearts, but continuing to inspire others with the same simple act of giving a chocolate bar to melt the distance between us, each and every day. Beginning September 14, a new campaign will make its way to the world, offering inspiration through stories like Mr. Williams from Iowa and the student council of Big Springs High School reminding everyone that a chocolate bar brings a smile to nearly everyone's face.
In honor of the man who founded The Hershey Company and brought us the Hershey's Milk Chocolate Bar, the company has created the "Heartwarming Project," an initiative dedicated to helping kids and families build meaningful social connections.
"It's clear the world needs chocolate now, more than ever. So we're warming hearts with a simple smile, hello and, of course, chocolate." Raup said.
About The Hershey Company
The Hershey Company, headquartered in Hershey, Pa., is an industry leading snacks company known for bringing goodness to the world through its iconic brands, remarkable people and enduring commitment to help children in need. Hershey has approximately 17,000 employees around the world who work every day to deliver delicious, quality products. The company has more than 80 brands around the world that drive more than $7.5 billion in annual revenues, including such iconic brand names as Hershey's, Reese's, Kit Kat, Jolly Rancher, Ice Breakers and SkinnyPop.
For more than 120 years, Hershey has been committed to operating fairly, ethically and sustainably. Hershey founder, Milton Hershey, created the Milton Hershey School in 1909 and since then the company has focused on giving underserved children the skills and support they need to be successful. Today, the company continues this social purpose through 'Nourishing Minds,' a global initiative that provides basic nutrition to help children learn and grow.
To learn more -
Visit: www.thehersheycompany.com
Follow: http://www.twitter.com/hersheycompany
https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-hershey-company?trk=top_nav_home
http://www.facebook.com/hersheycompany
http://www.youtube.com/hersheycompany
http://www.instagram.com/hersheycompany
SOURCE The Hershey Company
Theory Wellness, a small batch cultivator and processor from Massachusetts and a client of Hippo Packaging, will be the first to market with the new packaging system.
"Duallok is the top-of-the-line folding carton, so we held off our product launch until the system completed certification and was ready to go," said Nick Friedman, CFO, Theory Wellness. "We think this packaging will have a big impact on our sales, and we love the fact that we are the first to market."
The package consists of a tray and sleeve that cleverly locks and provides a reliable barrier to entry by children, but is easily opened by adults. Uses include vape cartridges, disposable pens, pre-rolls, syringes, edibles, and more. Duallok packaging can be tailored to fit a wide range of products in the cannabis space.
Duallok is a patented packaging solution developed by Burgopak, a leading packaging design agency with over 200 million units sold worldwide. Burgopak awarded Hippo Premium Packaging a premier distributorship with authority to offer the new compliant packaging solution to customers throughout the United States.
Kary Radestock, Co-Founder and CEO of Hippo Premium Packaging, said that this new packaging system will help brands stand out in the increasingly competitive legal marijuana marketplace.
"Most purchasing decisions are made at the point of sale," she said. "Once a consumer picks up your package, they will make an immediate, sometimes subconscious decision about whether or not they will trust your brand. Accordingly, one of the greatest challenges for cannabis businesses is to package their products in a distinctive manner that generates interest and also meets child safety regulations."
"Now we can give our clients a custom-designed Duallok packaging system that is attractive, luxurious, and affordable," she added. "This is the perfect packaging solution for companies that want an upscale look that attracts attention on store shelves and elevates the brand's image."
Duallok meets 16 CFR 1700 guidelines for child-resistant packaging.
For information on how Duallok can help solve compliance and packaging challenges, improve brands, and stimulate sales, contact Hippo Premium Packaging at 619-269-0939, or visit: www.hippopackaging.com.
About Hippo:
Hippo Premium Packaging combines the services of a full-service advertising agency with the resources and expertise of a packaging company to build powerful brands, enhance customer loyalties, and help companies sell more of their products.
Connect:
Facebook: facebook.com/hippopackaging
Twitter: @HippoPackaging
Instagram: instagram.com/hippopackaging
Pinterest: pinterest.com/hippopackaging
YouTube: youtu.be/DMC5D5dLW-4
Website: www.hippopackaging.com
Media:
[email protected]
SOURCE Hippo Premium Packaging
Related Links
http://www.hippopackaging.com
IRVING, Texas, Sept. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Caris Life Sciences, a leading innovator in molecular science focused on fulfilling the promise of precision medicine, today announced that the HonorHealth Research Institute has joined Caris' Precision Oncology Alliance (POA), joining other leading cancer centers to develop standards of care and best practices for the application of tumor profiling, making cancer treatment more precise and effective.
"HonorHealth Research Institute is dedicated to providing individualized patient care, which perfectly aligns with the mission of the POA," said W. Michael Korn, M.D., Chief Medical Officer at Caris Life Sciences. "We are particularly pleased to welcome HonorHealth Research Institute to the POA because the system has worked so tirelessly to serve the cancer community in Scottsdale and Phoenix, which is an area that many of Caris' employees call home."
The POA, which consists of 25 academic, hospital and community-based cancer institutions, including seven NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Centers, is broadening patient access to precision medicine tools and establishing evidence-based standards for tumor profiling and molecular testing in oncology. The POA will leverage Caris' comprehensive genomic profiling plus (CGP+) tumor profiling service, Caris Molecular Intelligence, to identify therapy options and clinical trial opportunities based on the unique molecular characteristics of a patient's tumor.
"We are excited to join the Precision Oncology Alliance as we continue to develop strategies for personalizing treatment for patients with cancer," said Michael S Gordon, M.D., Medical Director for Oncology Clinical Trials at the HonorHealth Research Institute. "Tumor profiling and personalized medicine is the evolving standard of care for oncology patients. We look forward to working with the institutions that are a part of the POA to expand our collective knowledge in this area."
Caris Molecular Intelligence assesses DNA, RNA and proteins to reveal a molecular profile to guide more precise and individualized treatment decisions. Based on the unique molecular characteristics of an individual patient's cancer, the results help inform treatment decisions by identifying therapies that have the potential to be most effective and to rule out those that are less likely to work.
About Caris Life Sciences
Caris Life Sciences is a leading innovator in molecular science focused on fulfilling the promise of precision medicine through quality and innovation, and the world's leading immunotherapy diagnostic expert. Caris Molecular Intelligence, the company's Comprehensive Genomic Profiling Plus (CGP+) molecular testing service, assesses DNA, RNA and proteins, including microsatellite instability (MSI), tumor mutational burden (TMB) and PD-L1, to reveal a molecular blueprint to guide more precise and personalized treatment decisions. Caris' profiling services are routinely covered by third-party payors, including CMS for Medicare patients. The ADAPT Biotargeting System, the company's revolutionary and unbiased profiling platform, is currently being utilized for drug target identification, therapeutic discovery and development, fixed tissue-based companion diagnostics, blood-based cancer screening and biomarker identification. Headquartered in Irving, Texas, Caris Life Sciences offers services throughout the U.S., Europe, Asia and other international markets. To learn more, please visit www.CarisLifeSciences.com.
About the Precision Oncology Alliance
The Precision Oncology Alliance (POA) was established by Caris Life Sciences to promote the study and appropriate use of molecular testing in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer. The POA consists of 25 leading cancer centers, including seven NCI-Designated Cancer Centers, that have demonstrated a commitment to precision medicine and work collaboratively toward a common goal: to advance tumor profiling and establish standards of care for molecular testing in oncology. The POA has produced more than five peer-reviewed manuscripts and presented over 40 posters at industry conferences.
Media Inquiries:
The Ruth Group
Kirsten Thomas
[email protected]
+1-508-280-6592
SOURCE Caris Life Sciences
Related Links
http://www.carislifesciences.com
"We are delighted to have Mr. Lester Holt serve as the Opening Convocation speaker, particularly during this season when the need for journalism is so important in our society," says President Wayne A. I. Frederick . "Mr. Holt's vast experience reporting the news in a fair and balanced manner has set him as an example for times like these."
Howard University's Opening Convocation is a time-honored tradition that officially signals the beginning of the academic year. Holt's address will welcome the Class of 2022 and acknowledge recent achievements of the university.
Holt is the first African-American to serve as the solo anchor of a weekday evening newscast on any major network. He was named "NBC Nightly News" anchor in June 2015 after eight years as anchor of "NBC Nightly News" weekend editions and 12 years as co-anchor of "Weekend TODAY." Holt also leads NBC News' special reports, breaking news, primetime political coverage, and anchors "Dateline NBC," which soon begins its 27th season.
Holt joined NBC News in 2000 and is known for his outstanding work in the field, reporting and anchoring from breaking news events across the globe. He is currently on the ground in North Carolina leading NBC News' coverage of Hurricane Florence and its aftermath. Holt was selected to moderate the first presidential debate of 2016, notably the most-watched debate in American history. In January 2017, he traveled with President Obama on the Commander in Chief's final trip aboard Air Force One, for an in-depth interview in Chicago. Later that year, he spoke with President Trump days after the president fired FBI Director James Comey in an interview that continues to be frequently cited to this day.
Holt's work has been recognized with numerous honors, including multiple Emmy Awards and a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism award. In June, the Los Angeles Press Club honored Holt with the Joseph M. Quinn Lifetime Achievement Award. In April 2016, Holt received several notable designations, including TIME's 100 Most Influential People list, The Hollywood Reporter's Most Powerful People in New York list and "Journalist of the Year" by the National Association of Black Journalists.
Media Contact: Alonda Thomas, [email protected]
SOURCE Howard University
Related Links
http://www.howard.edu
Dr. Gentile is a telehealth industry veteran, who previously served as Vice President of Product and has been instrumental in developing Ieso's clinical programs, research, and strategic relationships. In her new role, she will also assume leadership for US clinical operations and quality, provider recruitment and training, and play a key role in business and product development activities.
"We are very excited to have such a talented member of the Ieso team expand her leadership role," said Dan Clark, CEO and President of Ieso Digital Health. "Dr. Gentile is a rare blend of expert clinician, management professional and patient advocate. Clinical excellence is at the heart of Ieso, and she brings outstanding clinical credentials and industry experience that will help us accelerate our expansion across the US."
Dr. Gentile is a highly accomplished Clinical Psychologist with extensive experience in clinical program development, training and research. Dr. Gentile holds a Masters of Health Care Management from Brandeis University, a Doctorate from William James College, and completed a fellowship in Metabolic and Genetic Psychology at Boston Children's Hospital and Harvard Medical School. She maintains appointments with Harvard Medical School and the Department of Psychiatry at Boston Children's Hospital where she is an attending psychologist.
"What's exciting to me as a clinician, is that Ieso can see the quality level of every intervention in an episode of care," says Dr. Gentile. "This enables an unprecedented level of support to providers, helping them be the best they can be while delivering industry-leading clinical results and outcomes. I'm thrilled to advance the Ieso mission of defeating mental illness."
Prior to joining Ieso, Dr. Gentile was the Director of Behavioral Health at American Well where she was instrumental in creating one of the first national online therapy programs.
About Ieso Digital Health
Established in 2002, Ieso Digital Health aims to defeat mental illness through clinical research, data science and industry leading technology, including artificial intelligence that improves the performance of its therapists. With global headquarters in Cambridge, England and US headquarters in Dallas, Texas, the Ieso online Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) platform improves access to care while achieving recovery rates that surpass traditional face-to-face outpatient therapy. Visit us at www.iesohealth.com.
SOURCE Ieso Digital Health
Related Links
http://iesohealth.com/en-us
SUNNYVALE, Calif., Sept. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Illumio today announced that it has been named to the third annual Forbes Cloud 100, the definitive list of the top 100 private cloud companies in the world, published by Forbes in collaboration with Bessemer Venture Partners and Salesforce Ventures.
"We just kept coming back to the idea that it shouldn't be so hard to prevent the spread of breaches inside cloud environments and data centers, and as technologists we had the opportunity to solve it so we did," said PJ Kirner, CTO and co-founder of Illumio. "Our micro-segmentation technology provides organizations with an agile, cloud-first solution that secures the most mission-critical applications. This recognition is further validation of Illumio's industry-leading cloud-based approach to segmentation."
"For the past three years, the Cloud 100 list has identified the top cloud companies that are reshaping their respective industries," said Alex Konrad, Forbes editor of The Cloud 100. "I am consistently impressed by the caliber of companies honored on the Cloud 100 list. It is an exciting time to be a cloud company and founder."
As part of the rigorous selection process for the Forbes 2018 Cloud 100, Bessemer Venture Partners received of submissions from the top cloud startups. The Forbes Cloud 100 judging panel, including top public cloud company CEOs who select, score and rank the top 100 cloud companies from all over the world. The evaluation process involved four factors: market leadership (35%), estimated valuation (30%), operating metrics (20%), and people & culture (15%).
"All of the twenty-five cloud IPOs and major cloud acquisitions over the past three years have been prior members of the Cloud 100, and we absolutely expect that the dominant public cloud companies of the future will also come from this list," said Byron Deeter, a top cloud investor and partner at Bessemer Venture Partners. "The 2018 Cloud 100 represents well over $135B in private shareholder value an astonishing figure that reminds us yet again of the power of the cloud. The way we do business will be dramatically different as a result of these companies and I am honored to celebrate the remarkable accomplishments of the founders and teams behind each company on the 2018 Cloud 100."
With 300 percent year-over-year bookings growth and international expansion in Europe and Asia Pacific to support customer growth, Illumio has consistently attracted recognition for its industry leadership. In addition to the Cloud 100, Illumio has received multiple industry accolades in 2018, including the Morgan Stanley CTO Innovation Award and the SIIA CODiE Best Network Security Solution Award. Illumio was also recently named to the CNBC Disruptor 50 list for the second year in a row and recognized as one of the Bay Area's Best Places to Work by the San Francisco Business Times and Silicon Valley Business Journal.
The Forbes 2018 Cloud 100 and 20 Rising Stars lists are published online at www.forbes.com/cloud100 and will appear in the September 2018 issue of Forbes magazine.
About Illumio
Illumio, the leader in micro-segmentation, prevents the spread of breaches inside data center and cloud environments. Enterprises such as Morgan Stanley, BNP Paribas, Salesforce, and Oracle NetSuite use Illumio to reduce cyber risk and achieve regulatory compliance. The Illumio Adaptive Security Platform uniquely protects critical information with real-time application dependency and vulnerability mapping coupled with micro-segmentation that works across any data center, public cloud, or hybrid cloud deployment on bare-metal, virtual machines, and containers. For more information, visit www.illumio.com/what-we-do or follow us @Illumio.
Media and Analyst Contact
[email protected]
SOURCE Illumio
Related Links
http://www.illumio.com
COLUMBUS, Ohio, Sept. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Intergeneration Month is a time to connect generations, and Lisa Cini, renowned senior living expert and multigenerational household enthusiast, documents what it took to make a four-generation home work in her book Hive: The Simple Guide to Multigenerational Living How Our Family Makes it Work.
For Cini, this special month is every month. "I knew we could make this work with a combination of home design modifications and a few simple ground rules to make everyone feel they have rights, personal space and responsibilities in our multigenerational household," says Cini. "What began as an experiment has exceeded all our expectations as a success."
Hive recounts Cini's personal experiences growing up with family members of all ages: "Seeing everyone in the family always pitching in to help each other out, seeing multiple generations together, this was all normal for me, so in the back of my mind I always had a Master Plan." Her home today consists of herself and her husband, their children, her parents, plus an actual beehive, chickens, bunnies and a dog. Her grandmother with Alzheimer's a fourth generation who lived in their family hive for four years, recently passed, a loss they all feel deeply.
Cini's mission is to both challenge and assure families considering such a multigenerational arrangement that not only is it do-able, but there is an opportunity for all family members to benefit. In comparing her own household to what she observed watching the bees in the family hive, Cini writes, ". . . the more I watch these bees, the more I'm convinced that we, and they, have an awful lot more in common than our passion for honey."
Lisa Cini is an award-winning senior living designer and the author of BOOM: The Baby Boomers Guide to Leveraging Technology, so that you can Preserve Your Independent Lifestyle & Thrive (soon to be released), The Future is Here: Senior Living Re-imagined, and Hive, which describes her family's multi-generational social experiment (four generations living under the same roof in her own home). Lisa's web site BestLivingTech.com offers technology products that help seniors live independent lives.
SOURCE Lisa Cini
Related Links
http://BestLivingTech.com
"When it comes to decorating your home, it's all about making it your own. Small touches can make big impressions, and that's where the new Yankee Candle collection comes in," says Nancy Sacco, director of brand marketing, Yankee Candle Company. "The beautifully crafted collection features a sophisticated mix of fragrances, and it's also functional. The lids double as an attractive accessory that nestles right under the candle."
The Yankee Candle Elevation Collection with Platform Lid includes unique fragrances, such as Velvet Woods, a blend of earthy notes, warm amber and fruit blossoms, adorned with watercolor illustrations and pantone colors that complement any room in the home. The collection features a line of fragrances for everyday use and fall-inspired fragrances. Yankee Candle will be launching a line of fragrances for the holiday season at a later date.
The Yankee Candle Elevation Collection with Platform Lid price is available in small, medium and large sizes and contain multiple wicks to allow for an even burn. The candles are priced at $9.99, $19.99 and $24.99 respectively. The new collection is available for purchase now at Yankee Candle retail locations, YankeeCandle.com and select specialty retailers.
Below is a full list of fragrances.
Citrus Grove
A breath of bright lemon zest rounded with soft woods undertones, pine and a hint of eucalyptus.
Coastal Cypress
A refreshing swirl of fresh air passing through the coastal pines and nuzzling against inland iris and orchid.
Dark Berries
A rich and addictive fruity potion with lusciously ripe blackberries and sheer peony.
Evening Star
A cozy blend of baby rose and jasmine that's comforting and promising as a wish upon an evening star.
Ginger Pumpkin
A spicy and surprising harvest in which nutmeg and ginger are wrapped in the rich and sweet notes of pumpkin and caramel.
Harvest Walk
A Fall dayfilled with bright sun on birch, red oak and eucalyptus with a dash of sandalwood.
Magnolia & Lily
The wonderful scent of supple magnolia blooms, fully opened and tinged with citrus.
Pear & Tea Leaf
A fragrance to relax withsmooth chai tea with notes of ginger, apple and fresh pear.
Sheer Linen
Your favorite spot right by an open windowlinen sheers dancing in the breeze and welcoming in fresh morning air.
Shore Breeze
Wander along the dunes in the warm sunshine with sweet beach blossoms and a kiss of salt in the air.
Sweet Nectar Blossom
Sweet vanilla mingles with creamy coconut and delicate lilybright and uplifting.
Velvet Woods
A stroll through rich woods teeming with exotic interludes of warm amber and a hint of sweet fruit blossoms.
To learn more about Yankee Candle and its new collection, visit www.yankeecandle.com, the brand's Instagram (@YankeeCandle) and Pinterest (TheYankeeCandle) pages, or join the conversation on Facebook at facebook.com/YankeeCandle or on Twitter (@theyankeecandle).
About The Yankee Candle Company, Inc.
The Yankee Candle Company, Inc. is a leading designer, manufacturer, wholesaler and retailer of premium scented candles. Yankee Candle has over a 40-year history of offering distinctive products and marketing them as affordable luxuries and consumable gifts. The company is a wholly owned subsidiary of Newell Brands and sells its products through a North American wholesale customer network of approximately 35,000 store locations, more than 500 Company owned and operated retail stores, direct mail catalogs, and its Internet website www.yankeecandle.com. Outside of North America, the Company sells its products primarily through its subsidiary, Yankee Candle Company (Europe), Ltd., which has an international wholesale customer network.
About Newell Brands
Newell Brands (NYSE: NWL) is a leading global consumer goods company with a strong portfolio of well-known brands, including Paper Mate, Sharpie, Dymo, EXPO, Parker, Elmer's, Coleman, Jostens, Marmot, Oster, Sunbeam, FoodSaver, Mr. Coffee, Rubbermaid Commercial Products, Graco, Baby Jogger, NUK, Calphalon, Rubbermaid, Contigo, First Alert, and Yankee Candle. For hundreds of millions of consumers, Newell Brands makes life better every day, where they live, learn, work and play.
SOURCE Yankee Candle
Related Links
http://www.yankeecandle.com
BOSTON, Sept. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The ten John Hancock closed-end funds listed below announced today that each fund's Annual Meeting of Shareholders ("Annual Meeting") will be held on February 7, 2019, at 2:00 p.m., Eastern Time, at the offices of the funds, 197 Clarendon Street, Boston, Massachusetts 02116:
John Hancock Financial Opportunities Fund (NYSE: BTO)
John Hancock Hedged Equity & Income Fund (NYSE: HEQ)
John Hancock Income Securities Trust (NYSE: JHS)
John Hancock Investors Trust (NYSE: JHI)
John Hancock Preferred Income Fund (NYSE: HPI)
John Hancock Preferred Income Fund II (NYSE: HPF)
John Hancock Preferred Income Fund III (NYSE: HPS)
John Hancock Premium Dividend Fund (NYSE: PDT)
John Hancock Tax-Advantaged Dividend Income Fund (NYSE: HTD)
John Hancock Tax-Advantaged Global Shareholder Yield Fund (NYSE: HTY)
Shareholders of record of each fund as of the close of business on November 12, 2018 are entitled to notice of, and to vote at, the Annual Meeting and at any adjournment thereof. The notice for the Annual Meeting will be mailed to shareholders on or about December 6, 2018. At the Annual Meeting, shareholders of the funds will be asked to elect Trustees of the funds.
Statements in this press release that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements as defined by the United States securities laws. You should exercise caution in interpreting and relying on forward-looking statements because they are subject to uncertainties and other factors which are, in some cases, beyond a fund's control and could cause actual results to differ materially from those set forth in the forward-looking statements.
An investor should consider each fund's investment objectives, risks, charges and expenses carefully before investing.
About John Hancock Investments
John Hancock Investments provides asset management services to individuals and institutions through a unique manager-of-managers approach. A wealth management business of John Hancock Financial, we managed more than $154.2 billion in assets as of June 30, 2018, across mutual funds, college savings plans, and retirement plans.
About John Hancock Financial and Manulife Financial
John Hancock Financial is a division of Manulife Financial, a leading Canada-based financial services group with principal operations in Asia, Canada and the United States. Operating as Manulife Financial in Canada and Asia, and primarily as John Hancock in the United States, the Company offers clients a diverse range of financial protection products and wealth management services through its extensive network of employees, agents and distribution partners. Funds under management by Manulife Financial and its subsidiaries were C$1.1 trillion (US $849 billion) as of June 30, 2018. Manulife Financial Corporation trades as 'MFC' on the TSX, NYSE and PSE, and under '945' on the SEHK. Manulife Financial can be found on the Internet at manulife.com.
The John Hancock unit, through its insurance companies, comprises one of the largest life insurers in the United States. John Hancock offers and administers a broad range of financial products, including life insurance, annuities, fixed products, mutual funds, 401(k) plans, college savings, and other forms of business insurance. Additional information about John Hancock may be found at johnhancock.com.
SOURCE John Hancock Investments
The signature Dutch Oven is a beautiful, versatile, polished stainless steel cooking vessel that can seamlessly go from stove to table. Designed with a thick copper base for superior heat conduction, it easily sautes, braises, slow cooks, roasts, and more. The matching hammered bi-ply copper lid creates a classic look and seals to retain moisture, heat and nutrients. It can accommodate generous portions of risotto, soup, up to four chicken breasts and a 4 lb. chuck roast, making it the perfect one-pot meal companion for a family.
"Cooking with Lagostina lets me express my Italian spirit in every meal," said Giada De Laurentiis. "I've been a longtime fan of the brand, and was thrilled to collaborate with them on the new Giada Dutch Oven. It cooks my recipes as beautifully as it presents them."
Both known for creating memorable family moments in the kitchen, De Laurentiis and Lagostina designed a cookware staple that can bring consumers together for a meal at an affordable price. The 4 Qt. Stainless Steel Dutch Oven will be available in mid-September 2018 and will retail for $49.99 at retailers nationwide.
"We couldn't be more excited to partner with Giada to create this Dutch Oven, which perfectly translates our shared heritage and style, allowing Lagostina's consumers to celebrate the true essence of 'Sunday Dinner' by creating their own memorable mealtime moments," said Jennifer Lucas, Director Cookware at Groupe SEB.
More information about Lagostina's collaboration with Giada De Laurentiis is available on LagostinaUSA.com/Giada. Cooking enthusiasts can use #LagostinaSundayDinner and follow @LagostinaUSA on Facebook and Instagram.
About Lagostina
Creative spirits and people with strength of character have made the Lagostina story an extraordinary saga. Since 1901, Lagostina's core values of impeccable Italian craftsmanship, high-quality materials, technological innovation, and elegant design have endured. A passion for the art of cooking mixed with an undisputable industrial fiber are the base on which the company established its savoir-faire and built its success. Today, as Italy's preferred premium cookware brand, Lagostina continues to stand behind these core values with a lifetime guarantee. Each piece of Lagostina cookware represents quintessential Italian culturecelebration of food, life, family and friends - of memorable gatherings around the table; of spirited conversation. Cooking is an art that is meant to be shared. Originating from Italy, Lagostina is a manufacturer of premium stainless steel cookware and flatware. Lagostina USA is headquartered in Parsippany, NJ and is a division of Groupe SEB USA. For more information, visit LagostinaUSA.com or follow the brand on social media at Facebook.com/LagostinaUSA or Instagram.com/LagostinaUSA.
SOURCE Lagostina
Related Links
https://www.lagostinausa.com
PHILADELPHIA, Sept. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- LBC Credit Partners ("LBC"), a leading provider of financing solutions to middle market companies, provided senior secured credit facilities to support the acquisition and subsequent recapitalization of Liberty Party Rental by CE Rental, Inc. ("CE Rental"), a portfolio company of Dubin Clark & Company, Inc. ("Dubin Clark").
LBC served as Agent and Sole Lead Arranger for the senior secured credit facilities.
CE Rental, founded in 1952 and headquartered in Raleigh, North Carolina, is a leading special event rental company that provides a wide variety of event rental equipment including tents, linens, fine china, flatware, dinnerware, tables and chairs and more. Since being acquired by Dubin Clark in February 2017, CE Rental expanded its geographic footprint and product offering through the acquisitions of Skyline Tent Company (Charlottesville, Virginia and Charleston, South Carolina), Capital Party Rentals (Dulles, Virginia), Festive Fare Rentals (Charlottesville, Virginia) and locations in Raleigh and Charlotte, North Carolina.
Based in Nashville, Tennessee, Liberty Party Rental has built an award-winning reputation for exceptional customer service, featuring a veteran team with 150+ years of collective special events industry experience. Liberty Party Rental is known for introducing innovative new rental products and offering an extensive inventory of china, tables, chairs, tents, linens, dance floors, bars and catering equipment. The acquisition of Liberty Party Rental further expands upon CE Rental's growth throughout the Southeast.
Dubin Clark, founded in 1984 and headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, has a long history of investing in middle-market buyouts and building businesses in partnership with the management of their portfolio companies. Dubin Clark seeks control equity investments in business services, niche manufacturing, and specialty rental businesses with EBITDA of $2 million to $10 million (smaller for add-on investments).
About LBC Credit Partners
LBC Credit Partners is a leading provider of middle market financing solutions including senior term, unitranche, second lien, junior secured and mezzanine debt and equity co-investments supporting sponsored and non-sponsored transactions. With over $3 billion* of capital commitments, LBC has made investments in companies located throughout North America across a wide range of industries and is committed to a long-term approach to debt investing. LBC is headquartered in Philadelphia, with offices in Chicago, New York and Los Angeles. To learn more, visit www.lbccredit.com.
*Information as March 31, 2018
MEDIA CONTACT:
Lisa Rubano-Volansky
Tel (724) 979-4293
Email: [email protected]
SOURCE LBC Credit Partners
Related Links
http://www.lbccredit.com
SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The OpenDaylight Project, the leading open source platform for programmable, software-defined networks, today announced its ninth release, OpenDaylight Fluorine. The latest version brings major advancements for solution providers through key enhancements to the platform, including simplified packaging to speed solution development and enhanced capabilities for key use cases.
"Fluorine is one of the most streamlined releases to date for OpenDaylight, delivering a core set of mature components needed for most major use cases in a 'managed release' for easy consumption by commercial and in-house solution providers, as well as by downstream projects such as ONAP and OpenStack," said Phil Robb, vice president, Operations, Networking, and Orchestration, The Linux Foundation. "In addition, the release includes critical updates to clustering and service assurance to improve scalability, security and reliability to support our large end user deployments - including solutions from Cornell University, Globo.com, Orange, Tencent, and others using all OpenDaylight to further their open networking initiatives."
OpenDaylight is also seeing ongoing industry momentum as more users deploy the platform to realize the power of open SDN/NFV. For example, Globo.com, a leading internet-related services and platforms company based in Brazil, is using OpenDaylight as their primary SDN controller platform. A new case study details the benefits the company is seeing from using OpenDaylight to deploy ACLs on virtual switches. FRINX has demonstrated customer success stories with its OpenDaylight Distribution together with SoftBank and China Telecom BRI while Red Hat's new functional release in Red Hat OpenStack Platform (OSP) version 13 also features OpenDaylight.
OpenDaylight's latest release includes new features important for cloud and edge environments, service function chaining, WAN connectivity, and optical transport. More details on what's new in OpenDaylight Fluorine are outlined below.
Enhanced Functionality for Key SDN Use Cases
WAN Connectivity. Fluorine includes an extremely mature and robust BGP stack, with improvements in BGPCEP and BGP/MPLS multicast support, making OpenDaylight a clear leader in SD-WAN innovation.
Fluorine includes an extremely mature and robust BGP stack, with improvements in BGPCEP and BGP/MPLS multicast support, making OpenDaylight a clear leader in SD-WAN innovation. Optical Transport. Work on optical transport, including the TransportPCE project, has been nurtured within OpenDaylight for some time. Fluorine formally releases Transport PCE for the first time, as a component of the managed release. In addition, Fluorine provides a new reference implementation for OpenROADM-based optical infrastructures control.
Work on optical transport, including the TransportPCE project, has been nurtured within OpenDaylight for some time. Fluorine formally releases Transport PCE for the first time, as a component of the managed release. In addition, Fluorine provides a new reference implementation for OpenROADM-based optical infrastructures control. Cloud/edge Computing. Several new features were added to further enhance support for network virtualization within cloud and edge computing environments. This includes improved IPv6 support, support for both stateful and stateless security groups, and SR-IOV hardware offload for OVS. Much of this work has been developed for OpenStack environments, and is now being leveraged to integrate ODL with the ContainerOrchestration Engine for Kubernetes environments.
Several new features were added to further enhance support for network virtualization within cloud and edge computing environments. This includes improved IPv6 support, support for both stateful and stateless security groups, and SR-IOV hardware offload for OVS. Much of this work has been developed for OpenStack environments, and is now being leveraged to integrate ODL with the ContainerOrchestration Engine for Kubernetes environments. Service Function Chaining (SFC). Updates to SFC accelerate delivery of services like network slicing, now supported by OpenvSwitch (OVS), allowing for improved adoption of SFC in the marketplace.
Increased Stability and Reliability
The OpenDaylight Fluorine release brings improvements in stability and scale, including complex bug fixes and enhancements to OpenDaylight infrastructure clustering capability. In addition, the new managed release process facilitates more thorough integration testing of the mature components, ensuring that release as a whole operates seamlessly.
Continued Cross-Community Integration
OpenDaylight continued its deep engagement with other open source projects and standards bodies such as OpenStack, OPNFV, Kubernetes, and ONAP. Notably, ODL code is integrated into OPNFV's CI/CD toolchain, which slashes the time it takes the OPNFV community to provide feedback to ODL contributors from months to days.
Looking Ahead
The OpenDaylight project is hosting a Developer Forum in Amsterdam from September 23-24, in advance of the next platform release, Neon. The Neon release is expected in early 2019. Additional information and registration details can be found here.
About the Linux Foundation
The Linux Foundation is the organization of choice for the world's top developers and companies to build ecosystems that accelerate open technology development and commercial adoption. Together with the worldwide open source community, it is solving the hardest technology problems by creating the largest shared technology investment in history. Founded in 2000, The Linux Foundation today provides tools, training and events to scale any open source project, which together deliver an economic impact not achievable by any one company. More information can be found at www.linuxfoundation.org.
The Linux Foundation has registered trademarks and uses trademarks. For a list of trademarks of The Linux Foundation, please see our trademark usage page: https://www.linuxfoundation.org/trademark-usage. Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.
Additional Resources
Media Contact
Jill Lovato
The Linux Foundation
[email protected]
SOURCE OpenDaylight Project
IRVING, Texas, Sept. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- In its first activation since joining the American Red Cross Disaster Responder program, 7-Eleven, Inc. is raising money to support the relief agency's efforts as Hurricane Florence bears down on the Carolina coast.
The convenience retailer is inviting customers to add $1 to their purchase at participating 7-Eleven stores nationwide or donate online at https://www.7-eleven.com/hurricane-relief.
Through its 7-Eleven Cares Foundation, 7-Eleven joined the American Red Cross Disaster Responder program earlier this year. Members of the program include leading corporations that donate a minimum of $250,000 annually to provide the highest level of support to American Red Cross preparedness and relief efforts. Year-round support from 7-Eleven helps ensure the Red Cross can act immediately when disasters occur.
"7-Eleven is a 24/7 business, and the customers and neighborhoods we serve count on us to be open and stocked with the products they need most," said Chris Tanco, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of 7-Eleven, Inc. "That is especially true when disaster strikes. 7-Eleven's stores in the Carolinas and Virginia will strive to be the last to close and first to open to assist people in impacted areas. Likewise, the world looks to the American Red Cross to respond and provide help to people impacted by disasters as quickly as possible. We understand preparedness, and contributions such as ours are critical to their success."
The National Weather Service is calling Hurricane Florence "the storm of a lifetime." In preparation, 7-Eleven stores in and near the hurricane evacuation areas brought in extra truckloads of supplies to help residents.
In the past five years (2012-2017), 7-Eleven has provided more than $700,000 in domestic and international support, helping the Red Cross respond to disasters such as hurricanes along the coast, tornadoes in Texas, wildfires in the West and earthquakes overseas. The company has also provided emergency product donations.
"Ongoing financial support from 7-Eleven and other members of the Disaster Responder Program helps create a reliable funding base for disaster relief services, providing food, shelter, emotional support and other essential assistance," said Red Cross Chief Development Officer Don Herring. "Money donated by the public and members of our Disaster Responder Program is essential to our ability to assist disaster survivors and support the first responders and volunteers who work tirelessly at the scene of a disaster."
The Red Cross responds to nearly 64,000 disasters annually nationwide, including home fires, hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, tornadoes and wildfires. Red Cross services are provided to any person in need at no cost.
To make a gift to American Red Cross Disaster Relief, visit https://www.7-eleven.com/hurricane-relief, donate at participating 7-Eleven stores nationwide, visit www.redcross.org, call 1-800-REDCROSS or text REDCROSS to 90999. Donations to Disaster Relief enable the Red Cross to people and communities prepare for, respond to and recover from disasters big and small. To learn more about becoming a Red Cross volunteer, visit www.redcross.org/volunteer.
About 7-Eleven, Inc.
7Eleven, Inc. is the premier name and largest chain in the convenience-retailing industry. Based in Irving, Texas, 7Eleven operates, franchises and/or licenses more than 67,000 stores in 17 countries, including 11,800 in North America. Known for its iconic brands such as Slurpee, Big Bite and Big Gulp, 7-Eleven has expanded into high-quality salads, side dishes, cut fruit and protein boxes, as well as pizza, chicken wings, cheeseburgers and hot chicken sandwiches. 7-Eleven offers customers industry-leading private brand products under the 7-Select brand including healthy options, decadent treats and everyday favorites, at an outstanding value. Customers also count on 7-Eleven for bill payments, self-service lockers and other convenient services. Find out more online at www.7-Eleven.com, via the 7Rewards customer loyalty platform on the 7-Eleven mobile app, or on social media at Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
About the American Red Cross
The American Red Cross shelters, feeds and provides emotional support to victims of disasters; supplies about 40 percent of the nation's blood; teaches skills that save lives; provides international humanitarian aid; and supports military members and their families. The Red Cross is a not-for-profit organization that depends on volunteers and the generosity of the American public to perform its mission. For more information, please visit redcross.org or visit us on Twitter at @RedCrossDFW.
SOURCE 7-Eleven, Inc.
Related Links
http://www.7-eleven.com
NEW YORK, Sept. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, new-to-market brand Lux & Nyx (http://www.luxandnyx.com), debuted their collection of to-die-for handbags and functional backpacks. Each bag by the luxury designer is attentively handcrafted from start to finish by a family-owned artisan shop with 20+ years of experience. Purposely choosing to produce small batches of each product to ensure "limited edition" quality and exclusivity. The brand uses gold plated hardware for locks, latches and buckles which elegantly stand out in any crowd, along with their specialty material called Freedom Fiber leather. With the new collection being perfect for work, play, and fitness, Lux & Nyx is gearing up to corner the luxury lifestyle market at an unmatched speed.
Lux & Nyx: The Zoe Lux & Nyx: The Zoe
The brand's elegant product selection includes crossbody bags, bucket handbags, duffels, satchels, totes and the coveted crown jewel of their collection, the extremely functional Zoe Backpack. The Zoe is the world's most functional, luxurious backpack that was launched and funded by popular demand via a Kickstarter campaign that exceeded its fundraising goal of 25K to produce the product. The Zoe backpack delivers un-compromised attention to detail with over eighteen compartments to fit all your everyday necessities. Separate compartments for shoes, clothes and laptop are just the beginning of all this bag has to offer. A beautiful external water bottle holder, luggage strap, and key holder are functions that you can't deny. Did we mention the utility strap that can hold your yoga mat, umbrella or tripod? "The little black dress of all bags" is elegant enough to be worn with work attire for an easy transition from the boardroom to lifestyle activities. It's a must for the modern women that wants to go places.
Lux & Nyx (pronounced 'Lucks and Nix') is from the Greek words for "Light and Night." The brand represents a transitional period, whether it's a physical change in time or an analogy for life changes. The company specializes in products created with Freedom Fiber leathers, a functional material developed with cutting-edge technology. It is primarily made of fine microfiber bundles that gives the end product a similar amino structure as genuine leather without using leather, but it moves and breathes like leather. Freedom Fiber has the following qualities:
Soft to the Touch
Luxurious Texture
Superior Durability
Easy To Care For And Maintain
Water/Dust-resistant
Breathable and Permeable
"At our core, I believe luxury is not exclusive of being eco or ethical. With this in mind, I sourced the finest quality products and am ecstatic at the look and feel of our bags using the Freedom Fiber leather," states Lisa Hu, CEO of Lux & Nyx. "Today's woman is forced to wear a million hats all within an 18 to 24 hour period. We eliminate the need for them to have to carry a million bags while going through those oh so common day-to-day changes. I can confidently say that we nailed it with The Zoe Backpack for functionality, along with our other bags for days when you simply do not need to carry as much."
Lux & Nyx is not solely focused on sustainability, but also believes that companies should have a strong social responsibility to give back while selling luxury products. With this in mind, a portion of proceeds from the sale of each bag contributes to their goal of building 101 schools. The first project, titled Love to Langa, is a 501(c) non-for-profit, to build a School in Langa Township, South Africa. #GoodsWithHeart.
For more information on Lux & Nyx, media inquiries, stylist pulls or interview requests please contact [email protected] or call 1.877.841.7244.
ABOUT LUX & NYX
The Lux & Nyx brand supports the woman on the rise. The company has a solid goal to create products for jetsetters who demand style and functionality to support their daily needs. The brand firmly believes in quality and a handcrafted attention to detail in order to produce their luxury high-end bags. All Lux & Nyx products are made with durable and eco-considerate material. For more information visit www.luxandnyx.com.
Media Contact: Monique Tatum
BPM-PR Firm
[email protected]
877.841.7244
SOURCE Lux & Nyx
Related Links
http://www.luxandnyx.com
Drawing on the Japanese heritage and expertise of the company, maker of pioneering water and housing products, LIXIL developed the system behind this remarkable tub to offer an indulgent feeling of a deep soak while requiring less water. Whether you seek to relieve sore muscles or simply wash away the day, the gentle shoulder massage from the Aqua Moment waterfall system provides the sensation of being fully submerged in water without requiring an oversized tub.
"Today's health-conscious consumers continue to seek new ways to enjoy wellness amenities and 'spa-like' experiences from the comfort and privacy of their own homes," said Katty Pien, chief marketing officer, LIXIL Americas. "With its unique waterfall shoulder bath and premium hydrotherapy features, the Aqua Moment Drop-In Airbath with Waterfall from DXV is the ideal way to bring the calming and rejuvenating experience of a natural hot spring to the luxury home bathroom."
As a curtain of warm water cascades over the shoulders, a chromatherapy system adds a cycle of eight rich, soothing colors of light to the bathing pool. Designed to complement the massage effect of the waterfall and provide deeply relaxing, full-sensory enjoyment, the tub's airbath system features 360-degree air jets offering a choice of classic, high-pressure and deep massage settings. Leaning back against the waterfall's comfortable headrest, the user can let go and unwind as an inline heated air blower keeps the water pleasurably warm for the duration of the Aqua Moment experience.
Unlike standalone hydrotherapy tubs, the Aqua Moment features a convenient drop-in design, providing greater flexibility to suit bathrooms of all sizes. The tub features a sleek, zero-edge profile for a clean look and highlights a minimalist design with contoured lumbar support for the bather's comfort.
The Aqua Moment also incorporates the exclusive, permanent EverClean Airbath 360 system, which prevents mold and mildew from forming in the air bath's circulatory system. This technology helps to keep the pipes cleaner than other tubs, offering a more hygienic experience.
The Aqua Moment Drop-In Airbath with Waterfall from DXV is available at kitchen and bath showrooms nationwide. List price is $7,000. To learn more, visit dxv.com or call (800) 227-2734.
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Nora DePalma, O'Reilly DePalma
For LIXIL Americas - American Standard, DXV, GROHE
(770) 772-4726
[email protected]
ABOUT LIXIL
LIXIL makes pioneering water and housing products that solve everyday, real-life challenges, making better homes a reality for everyone, everywhere. Drawing on our Japanese heritage, we create world-leading technology and innovate to make high quality products that transform homes. But the LIXIL difference is how we do this; through meaningful design, an entrepreneurial spirit, a dedication to improving accessibility for all, and responsible business growth. Our approach comes to life through industry leading brands, including LIXIL, GROHE, American Standard, INAX, and TOSTEM, as well as specialty brands such as DXV. Over 70,000 colleagues operating in 150 countries are proud to make products that touch the lives of more than a billion people every day.
LIXIL is part of the LIXIL Group Corporation (TSE Code: 5938), the listed holding company for LIXIL's portfolio of businesses.
Learn more at www.lixil.com, facebook.com/lixilgroup and www.linkedin.com/company/lixil-group.
Aqua Moment is a trademark of LIXIL Corporation.
EverClean is a registered trademark of AS America, Inc.
SOURCE DXV
Related Links
http://www.dxv.com
SAN ANTONIO, Sept. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- A lawsuit was filed last night against Pasha Mediterranean Grill, LLC on behalf of nine individuals sickened in the Salmonella outbreak. All nine individuals ate at the Pasha Mediterranean Grill located on Wurzbach Road in San Antonio. The nine plaintiffs are represented by Marler Clark, the nation's leading food safety law firm, and Hill Law Firm, a respected San Antonio firm.
The nine plaintiffs, ranging from 13 to 49 years of age, consumed food at Pasha Mediterranean Grill on August 31, 2018. Three days later, they all began experiencing symptoms including severe diarrhea, nausea, fatigue, and fever. Each individual sought medical attention for Salmonella, with treatment ranging from ER visits, antibiotics to hospitalization. To date, they are all still experiencing symptoms.
On September 6, 2018, the San Antonio Metropolitan Health District announced an investigation into a potential foodborne illness cluster of as many as 300 people at Pasha's Mediterranean Grill. To date, there are 14 confirmed Salmonella cases with 12 hospitalizations. The investigation is still ongoing.
"We have been contacted by former clients, colleagues, personal friends, and a wide array of people affected by this terrible outbreak. Some of our clients spent days in the hospital due to their illness. Since our firm has been involved in outbreak cases for the past decade and we are located in San Antonio, we are perfectly positioned to best help these victims," stated Justin Hill, lead attorney of the first Pasha case filed and owner of Hill Law Firm.
Marler Clark, The Food Safety Law Firm, is the nation's leading law firm representing victims of Salmonella outbreaks. The Salmonella lawyers of Marler Clark have represented thousands of victims of Salmonella and other foodborne illness outbreaks and have recovered over $650 million for clients. Marler Clark is the only law firm in the nation with a practice focused exclusively on foodborne illness litigation. Our Salmonella lawyers have litigated Salmonella cases stemming from outbreaks traced to a variety of foods, such as cantaloupe, tomatoes, ground turkey, salami, sprouts, cereal, peanut butter, and food served in restaurants. The law firm has brought Salmonella lawsuits against such companies as Cargill, ConAgra, Peanut Corporation of America, Sheetz, Taco Bell, Subway and Wal-Mart. If you or a family member became ill with a Salmonella infection, including Reactive Arthritis or Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), after consuming food and you're interested in pursuing a legal claim, contact the Marler Clark Salmonella attorneys for a free case evaluation.
SOURCE Marler Clark, The Food Safety Law Firm
Related Links
http://www.marlerclark.com
ANN ARBOR, Mich., Sept. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- For Mi Padrino, fourteen weeks of hard work as part of the Desai Accelerator's Summer 2018 cohort culminated yesterday in being awarded Best Pitch and earning a $10,000 cash prize at the Desai Accelerator Demo Day. An online application that makes the planning and paying for Hispanic events, such as quinceaneras, weddings and baptisms, easy and effective, Mi Padrino offers planning resources, personal event pages and crowdfunding features tailored to the Hispanic communitya population that has been underserved until now.
"The support we've gotten from Desai has been a blessing," said Kim Gamez, CEO and founder of Mi Padrino. "Along the way, my team and I have benefited from having all of Desai's resources at our fingertips, from mentors we could be honest with and interns who could bring a fresh perspective to our projects, to new solutions and ideas inspired by the other entrepreneurs in our cohort. Winning this prize will help us continue to grow our amazing tech team right here in Ann Arbor."
This year's $10,000 award, sponsored by Consumers Energy, marks the first time a cash prize has ever been offered at a Desai Accelerator Demo Day. The six startups in the Desai Summer 2018 cohort presented in front of a panel of judges comprised of Alison Todak, managing director of Cahoots; Dana Thompson, founding director of Michigan Law's Entrepreneurship Clinic; and Tamara Faber-Doty, vice president of information technology at Consumers Energy.
"Consumers Energy is Michigan's largest energy provider, but it was founded as a startup more than 130 years ago. We know firsthand the impact one entrepreneur with a vision can have," said Tamara Faber-Doty, Consumers Energy's vice president of information technology. "By supporting the promising companies coming out of Desaiand the bright minds leading themwe're building on our legacy of innovation and community service while supporting the future of Michigan startups."
Of the six startups in the cohort, half are led or founded by women, and two-thirds are founded by University of Michigan students or alumni. In addition to Mi Padrino, the cohort included:
Fluity (formerly Arbor Automation), which offers an automated software service for rapid manufacturing. Today, machine shops spend countless hours bidding on new contracts and reprogramming machine tools. Fluity eliminates this bottleneck through automated processing of jobs into production-ready formats, and by simulating those jobs to provide precise, turn-key quotes based on actual metrics, not guesswork. With Fluity, shops can quote confidently and immediately enter production when they sign a contract.
Canopy, a web application that helps people talk about, make and share their end-of-life healthcare decisions with loved ones and medical providers through an advance care directive. By supporting both individuals and healthcare systems through advance care planning services and legal documentation, Canopy provides value across the healthcare ecosystem.
Cheddur, a mobile and web platform that brings safety, accountability and legitimacy to the cryptocurrency ecosystem. Beginners use it to discover, learn about and get started with any cryptocurrency in a fun and easy way. Experts use it to share their wisdom, knowledge and experience in exchange for cold, hard cash. And crypto companies use it to grow their communities by connecting with new users and investors.
Jottful, a SaaS solution that reimagines website ownership for the 4.6 million mom-and-pop small businesses that need an effective and modern website to be competitive but have been left behind by agencies that cost too much and do-it-yourself software they find daunting to use. Jottful delivers mobile-responsive websites that are as easy to update as typing an email. With Jottful, every small business can benefit from an effective and affordable online presence, without all the hassle.
Movatic, a software platform that makes mobility hardware shareable. On the Movatic app, users can find, rent and pay for different mobility servicesand the app's back-end allows for these services to be managed, pricing to be set, hardware to be maintained and customers to be supported.
This year's program also featured a newly expanded staff of University of Michigan interns, who completed more than 70 technology, business and design projects for the entrepreneurs in the program.
"Each cohort that comes through our doors raises the bar of excellence for the one coming in nextand this summer's group is no exception," said Angela Kujava, managing director of the Desai Accelerator. "Our startups have worked incredibly hard to get to where they are today, and we're proud to support them as they drive toward hitting their first $1 million in funding and/or revenue."
A joint venture between the University of Michigan's Ross School's Samuel Zell & Robert H. Lurie Institute for Entrepreneurial Studies and the College of Engineering's Center for Entrepreneurship, the Desai Accelerator nurtures ventures as they reach the critical phase between early-stage development and the point at which they seek external investors. The accelerator provides each company with a $25,000 investment, support from mentors and access to interns, as well as office space in downtown Ann Arbor.
Since its launch in 2015, funding and support for the accelerator has been provided by the Desai Sethi (DS) Family Foundation, the Davidson Foundation, the Wadhams family and the Michigan Economic Development Corporation (MEDC). Alumni companies include Ash and Erie, which won an investment from Mark Cuban after appearing on "Shark Tank"; MySwimPro, named 2016 Apple Watch App of the Year; and Companion, which was featured on Apple's "Planet of the Apps" and received a $1 million investment from Lightspeed Venture Partners.
Applications for the 2019 cohort will open in December. Visit http://desaiaccelerator.umich.edu/ for more information.
About the Samuel Zell & Robert H. Lurie Institute for Entrepreneurial Studies
The Institute and its Center for Venture Capital and Private Equity Finance bring together an impactful combination of deep-seated knowledge, enriching experiences and strategic opportunities from the front lines of entrepreneurship and alternative investment. Students' learning experiences are further enhanced through internships, entrepreneurial clubs, business competitions and campus-wide events that foster valuable networking and engage the business community. The Institute's five student-led investment funds, with over $9M under management, immerse students in the entrepreneurial business sourcing, assessment and investment process. Founding Zell Lurie advisory board members include Samuel Zell, chairman of Equity Group Investments, and Eugene Applebaum, founder of Arbor Drugs Inc. For more information, visit the Institute's website at www.zli.umich.edu.
About the Center for Entrepreneurship
The Center for Entrepreneurship (CFE), part of the College of Engineering at the University of Michigan, provides academic programs, commercialization training and broad support resources for students, faculty and community members. Among its many initiatives, CFE co-developed and co-teaches the undergraduate Program in Entrepreneurship, the Master of Entrepreneurship and the National Science Foundation I-Corps program for faculty research commercialization. CFE co-manages the TechArb student startup incubator and provides overall support to Michigan's economic development efforts. Its teaching philosophy focuses on experiential learning with an emphasis on the development of an entrepreneurial mindset, with resources such as structured venture incubation programs, global access to both internal and external advisors, mentorship, talent and funding. CFE's mission is to ensure support for entrepreneurs from discovery through venture creation, and to enhance and expand an appreciation for entrepreneurial thinking for its students. For more information, please visit cfe.umich.edu/.
About Consumers Energy
Consumers Energy is Michigan's largest energy provider, providing natural gas and/or electricity to 6.7 million of the state's 10 million residents in all 68 Lower Peninsula counties.
SOURCE The Zell Lurie Institute
Related Links
http://www.zli.bus.umich.edu
Across the United States, Canada, Brazil and Colombia, employees volunteered at service projects to support cancer patients and their families, children's health and wellbeing, food security, childhood literacy, community members living with disabilities and more.
"Changing Tomorrow Day is a tangible way Astellas employees can demonstrate our core value of improving patients' lives," said Percival Barretto-Ko, president of Astellas Americas. "We are honored to have the opportunity to support the work of dedicated community organizations whose sole mission is to address critical areas of patient need."
Activities in the Chicago area took place at nine different project locations to benefit 11 nonprofit organizations, including American Cancer Society, Muscular Dystrophy Association and Lurie Children's Hospital. In Canada, more than 60 employees volunteered with Kits for a Cause and Wish of a Lifetime Canada to create more than 600 care packages. In Brazil and Colombia, nearly 150 employees volunteered at Associacao Casa Madre Teodora dos Idosos and Fundacion Sanar, respectively, to create and hand out kits to seniors and caregivers and paint, assemble and organize storage in the kitchen. These activities exemplify Astellas Americas' collective commitment toward improving the lives of our patients and helping prepare communities today for what can happen tomorrow.
"Through the support of Astellas employee volunteers, our organization is better equipped to support cancer patients through treatment and recovery," said, Beth Thompson, American Cancer Society. "In our second year of partnering with Astellas for Changing Tomorrow Day, we couldn't be more thrilled to build on our joint progress in the fight against cancer."
Changing Tomorrow Day is a series of company-sponsored volunteer events for Astellas employees to volunteer with local nonprofit organizations and make a positive, measurable impact in the community. Over the last four years, Astellas supported more than 55 non-profit organizations across the Americas as part of Changing Tomorrow Day and on a global basis, last year the company supported nearly 225 locations in approximately 25 countries.
To extend impact throughout the year, Astellas Americas employees volunteer by taking advantage of a company-sponsored benefit of five paid days off annually to volunteer at a charitable organization of their choice. Astellas employees in the Americas have donated more than 110,000 hours of their time since 2009 to volunteer in their communities.
About Astellas
Astellas is a pharmaceutical company dedicated to improving the health of people around the world through the provision of innovative and reliable pharmaceutical products. For more information on Astellas, please visit our website at www.astellas.us. You can also follow us on Twitter at @AstellasUS, Facebook at www.facebook.com/AstellasUS or LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/company/astellas-pharma.
SOURCE Astellas
Related Links
https://www.astellas.us
VANCOUVER, Sept. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ - Namaste Technologies Inc. ("Namaste" or the "Company") (TSXV: N) (FRANKFURT: M5BQ) (OTCMKTS: NXTTF) is pleased to announce that the Company's wholly-owned subsidiary, Namaste Bahamas Inc. ("Namaste Bahamas"), has signed a Binding Terms Sheet ("Terms Sheet") to acquire all of the issued and outstanding shares of UK-Based AF Trading Ltd. (operating as "Access Fulfillment" or "accessfulfilment.com"). Access Fulfillment operates a 30,000 square-foot distribution facility in the UK and holds a Wholesale Distribution Authorization (Human) License issued by the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency ("MHRA") which allows Access Fulfillment to distribute pharmaceutical products throughout the UK. The acquisition of Access Fulfillment is the first step in Namaste developing its future medical cannabis distribution platform in the UK, which represents a much larger customer base than that of its Canadian operations. The Company intends to launch a platform similar to its Canadian wholly-owned subsidiary Cannmart Inc. ("Cannmart") within the UK market to help monetize on its database of over 500,000 customers.
Prior to July 2018, the UK prohibited the use of medical cannabis. Since that time, the UK Home Secretary has announced that licensed clinicians will now be able to legally prescribe cannabis-derived medicines to patients, as an alternative to prescription drugs. As medical cannabis legalization in the UK progresses, Namaste believes this acquisition will provide the Company with the first-mover advantage in the UK market, which will enable them to implement a fully integrated platform and sales funnel based on Namaste's current Cannmart business model. Namaste is focused on creating the largest global platform for everything cannabis and in developing innovative technology. The acquisition of Access Fulfillment and its license with MHRA provides Namaste with the necessary infrastructure to capitalize on a market where it maintains a strong market presence.
Key Terms
Namaste will acquire all issued and outstanding shares of Access Fulfillment for US $5 million .
. Payment to Access Fulfillment will be 50% in cash and 50% in Namaste common stock shares.
No capital raise will be required.
Access Fulfillment's management will sign consulting agreements for operations and business development.
Access Fulfillment's management will sign non-compete agreements.
Access Fulfillment will operate as Namaste's exclusive distribution center for CBD and cannabis products in the UK.
The acquisition of Access Fulfillment will be subject to approval by the Toronto Venture Exchange ("TSXV" or the "Exchange").
Both parties will have 30 days to complete and sign definitive documents required to complete the transaction.
Namaste has been selling cannabis ancillary products in the UK for over 4 years and maintains a database of over 500,000 consumers during which period Access Fulfillment has undertaken all distribution of cannabis vaporizers and accessories on behalf of Namaste. Through the acquisition, Namaste anticipates a significant reduction of its costs as related to fulfillment of its vaporizer and accessories in the UK and EU markets. The Company maintains a strong working relationship with Access Fulfillment's management team and believes the launch of cannabis sales through the distribution center represents a high growth opportunity, subject to approval by the MHRA.
The Company plans to submit its revolutionary telemedicine application and patient acquisition tool, NamasteMD ("NamasteMD" or "NamasteMD.com") to the Apple and Google Play stores, which will allow Namaste to leverage its telemedicine application to acquire medical patients through online consultations in the UK. By acquiring Access Fulfillment, launching NamasteMD and developing supply relationships with domestic cultivators, Namaste will have the infrastructure it needs to launch CBD and cannabis products into its marketplace in the UK, subject to approval by MHRA and other any applicable regulatory bodies.
Namaste has established itself as a global leader in cannabis e-commerce and technology. The company has incorporated revolutionary technology platforms like NamasteMD as well as its proprietary machine learning applications through the Company's wholly-owned subsidiary, Findify AB ("Findify.io"). The Company recently launched the first AI-driven cannabis journaling app, My Uppy Cannabis Journal ("My Uppy"), which is available internationally through the Apple store and on Android devices. These platforms allow Namaste to create a highly personalized experience for every user which helps optimize conversion rates and increase revenue.
By acquiring Access Fulfillment, Namaste will enter into a market much larger than Canada, where it maintains a history of customer service excellence, strong revenue and brand loyalty. Additionally, having the ability to acquire patients through a telemedicine app and distribute cannabis products through Access Fulfillment's facility represents a unique opportunity to leverage a significant market. With access to over 500,000 users in its UK database, the Company is well positioned as a global platform for all things cannabis.
Further to the announcement related to the Terms Sheet, Namaste would like to announce the success of its Shareholder Pledge Party (the "Pledge Party"), which brought together over 800 investors and 200 media influencers at New City Gas in Montreal the night of Wednesday September 12th, 2018. The event, which was for Company shareholders who participated in a voluntary 90-day pledge to hold their shares was an incredible success. The Pledge Party was the first party of its kind and featured celebrity performances and Namaste's various strategic partners who sponsored the event. Namaste would like to take the opportunity to thank its sponsors and reinforce its position with each partner, who had the opportunity to speak to shareholders and the media as outlined below.
Bonify Inc.
On August 22nd, 2018, Namaste signed a supply agreement with Manitoba-based ACMPR Licensed producer, Bonify Inc. ("Bonify"). Under the terms of the Supply Agreement, Namaste will purchase bulk cannabis products through Cannmart. Bonify operates a large-scale cultivation facility and will expand capacity to over 350,000 square-foot to help accommodate Namaste's growth trajectory. Namaste will work with Bonify to develop private-label strains of cannabis for the medical and recreational markets as well as in offering the full selection of Bonify products.
Bonify will be a strong supply partner for Namaste as they understand the Company's vision and have significant capacity to support Namaste's growing patient network. The Agreement with Bonify will ensure supply availability for Namaste during a period going into recreational legalization where many producers anticipate a supply shortage.
Inolife R&D Inc.
On May 23rd, 2018, the Company signed a definitive agreement with Inolife R&D Inc. ("Inolife"), whereby Namaste was granted exclusive rights to the commercialization of Inolife's innovative needle-free technology for applications of medical cannabis, in accordance with Health Canada regulations. Namaste intends to produce medical cannabis oil through its partnership with Infinite Labz Inc. ("Infinite Labz") and to specifically formulate oil for use with Inolife's injector technology. The Company believes that needle-free injection of cannabis oils could prove to be one of the most effective means of dosing through a painless device, with a fast absorption rate. Namaste will work with Inolife's management team to develop standardized production procedures for oil production, and for testing or studies required to commercialize the technology for applications of medical cannabis in accordance with federal regulations.
Blissco Cannabis Corp Inc.
On July 18th, 2018, Namaste signed an e-commerce and technology services agreement with BlissCo Cannabis Corp Inc. ("BlissCo") (CNSX: BLIS) (FRA: GQ4B:GR), whereby Namaste will provide services including access to Namaste's technology platforms, software integrations and e-commerce services, including those powered by Namaste's e-commerce artificial intelligence (AI) platform, Findify.io. Under the terms of this Agreement, Namaste will leverage its proprietary technology platforms to develop an innovative online marketplace in partnership with BlissCo to enhance BlissCo's patient experience. BlissCo is a Canadian licensed producer and distributor of high-quality medical cannabis that operates an Access to Cannabis for Medical Purposes Regulations ("ACMPR") cultivation facility based in Langley, BC.
Pineapple Express Delivery Inc.
On June 13th, 2018, Namaste signed a Subscription Agreement to acquire 15% of the share capital of Pineapple Express Delivery Inc. ("Pineapple Express") for CAD $1,000,000. Pineapple Express has secured a Courier Services Agreement with Ample Organics, Canada's leading seed-to-sale software platform, for same-day cannabis delivery. Pineapple Express has developed a same-day delivery service for medical cannabis and expects to expand across Canada. Pineapple Express' management team have a proven track record of launching cross-country same-day delivery services, having sold a previous same-day delivery venture to Just Eat Canada. Namaste will integrate Pineapple Express into its platform with Cannmart offer another added value service for its patients.
YPB Group Ltd.
On June 27th, 2018, Namaste signed a Master Services Agreement with YPB Group Ltd. ("YPB")(ASX: YPB), an Australian based product verification and customer engagement company. Namaste has identified the need for its global customers to have confidence in the products they are purchasing, and for vendors to have access to granular data on their end-users. As such, Namaste plans to introduce YPB's solutions across its network of manufacturers and to Canadian Licensed Producers to bring certainty of authenticity and supply chain transparency to the entire legal cannabis industry globally. This coalition furthers Namaste's agenda in providing leading technology platforms for its global marketplace and in enhancing the user's experience for its customers.
Shatterizer Inc.
On May 18th, 2018, Namaste signed an exclusive international distribution agreement with Shatterizer Inc. ("Shatterizer" or "Shatterizer.com"), whereby Namaste will retain exclusive rights to sell Shatterizer's innovative line of cannabis concentrate vaporizers in international markets. Namaste is also pleased to announce that the Company will be working with Shatterizer to launch a pod-based vaporizer system for the Canadian recreational market. The Company, through its wholly-owned subsidiary Infinite Labz Inc. ("Infinite Labz"), will produce cannabis oil and provide filling and distribution for Shatterizer's upcoming pod-based concentrate vaporizer system. Namaste is focused on leveraging its expertise in vaporizer technology within Canada, in an attempt to capitalize on what it anticipates being a significant market for concentrate pens and pre-filled cartridges in both the recreational and medical cannabis markets.
Famous Brandz Inc.
Famous Brandz represents several celebrity brands of smoking products including Cheech & Chong: Up In Smoke, Trailer Park Boys, Jay and Silent Bob, and Snoop Dogg's exclusive glass line - SNOOP POUNDS. Namaste maintains a strong relationship with Famous Brandz as it offers its unique offering of high quality smoking accessories. Strong brands and collaborations are at the core of Famous Brandz business. Its founders have over 20 years of experience in the smoking accessories industry and have come together to deliver the strongest and most well-known brands to the market. Working with top celebrities and film studios, Famous Brandz offers the largest array of mainstream smoking products.
Management Commentary
Sean Dollinger, President and CEO of Namaste comments: "We are very pleased to announce the Terms sheet with Access Fulfillment, which represents a very strategic transaction for Namaste in expanding Cannmart's model into our international markets. We've worked with Access Fulfillment for many years and have the utmost confidence in their operation and management team. We're looking forward to securing supply agreements in the UK and in eventually facilitating the import of medical cannabis products into the UK market through Access Fulfillments' facility. We've done business in the UK for many years and our UK assets including Everyonedoesit.co.uk and NamasteVapes.co.uk maintain strong brand loyalty and drive significant revenue. By acquiring Access Fulfillment, we will leverage our technology and user base to introduce medical cannabis sales within our platform subject to further progress on UK's cannabis legalization.
We were overwhelmed by the support from our shareholders at the Pledge Party. The event was of epic proportion and is something myself and hopefully our shareholders will remember. The Share Pledge brought together investors who pledged to hold their shares for a 90-day period. The event was sponsored by many of our partners who bring great value to the Company. I'd like to take the opportunity to thank all of our shareholders, large and small for without them we would not be where we are today. We believe that every customer counts and that every shareholder counts. Thank you, from the bottom of our hearts to all shareholders, management and employees who truly make this Company great."
About Namaste Technologies Inc.
Namaste Technologies is Your Everything Cannabis Store. Namaste operates the largest global cannabis e-commerce platform with over 30 websites in 20+ countries under various brands. Namaste's product offering through its subsidiaries includes vaporizers, glassware, accessories, CBD products, and the company will soon be selling medical cannabis in the Canadian market, subject to approval by Health Canada.
Namaste has developed and acquired innovative technology platforms including NamasteMD.com, Canada's first Health Canada compliant telemedicine application, and in May 2018 the Company acquired a leading e-commerce AI and Machine Learning Company, Findify AB. Findify uses artificial intelligence algorithms to optimize and personalize a consumer's on-site buying experience. Namaste is focused on leveraging its cutting-edge technology to enhance the user experience throughout its platforms. Namaste will continue to develop and acquire innovative technologies which will provide value to the Company and to its shareholders as well as to the broader cannabis market.
On behalf of the Board of Directors
"Sean Dollinger"
Chief Executive Officer
Direct: +1 604-355-6100
Email: [email protected]
Further information on the Company and its products can be accessed through the links below:
NamasteTechnologies.com
NamasteMD.com
NamasteVapes.ca
Everyonedoesit.ca
FORWARD-LOOKING INFORMATION This press release contains forward-looking information based on current expectations. These statements should not be read as guarantees of future performance or results. Such statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from those implied by such statements. Although such statements are based on management's reasonable assumptions, Namaste assumes no responsibility to update or revise forward-looking information to reflect new events or circumstances unless required by law. Although the Company believes that the expectations and assumptions on which the forward-looking statements are based are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on the forward-looking statements because the Company can give no assurance that they will prove to be correct. Since forward-looking statements address future events and conditions, by their very nature they involve inherent risks and uncertainties. These statements speak only as of the date of this press release. Actual results could differ materially from those currently anticipated due to a number of factors and risks including various risk factors discussed in the Company's disclosure documents which can be found under the Company's profile on www.sedar.com. This press release contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended and such forward-looking statements are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The TSXV has neither reviewed nor approved the contents of this press release.
SOURCE Namaste Technologies Inc.
PUNE, India, September 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --
According to the new market research report "Network Packet Broker Market by Bandwidth (1 and 10 Gbps, 40 Gbps, 100 Gbps), End User (Enterprises (Large, Small and Medium-Sized), Service Providers, Government Organizations), and Geography - Global Forecast to 2023", published by MarketsandMarkets, the market is expected to reach USD 849.4 million by 2023 from USD 585.4 million in 2018, at a CAGR of 7.73% between 2018 and 2023. The growth of the network packet broker market is attributed to the need for simplified data center management and automation, high demand for cloud services, and surge in internet multimedia content and web applications. The rising trend of bare-metal switches and growing bandwidth requirements in data centers are the key growth opportunities for the players in the network packet broker market. However, the presence of self-reliant enhanced servers inhibits the growth of the network packet broker market.
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For more Insights on this report, Speak to Our Analyst:
https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/speaktoanalyst.asp?id=229957221
1 and 10 Gbps bandwidth NPBs to hold largest share of market in 2018
During the current times, the adoption of 1Gbps bandwidth NPBs are declining, relegated to low-bandwidth applications and legacy devices. The most common type of NPBs now is 10Gbps. 10Gbps network packet brokers capture traffic from access switch uplinks and aggregation/core switches, which usually run at a speed of 10Gbps and higher. 1 and 10Gbps bandwidth network packet brokers are widely adopted across various sectors such as enterprises, telecoms, government organizations, and other service providers. Currently, network packet brokers with high bandwidth are gaining a lot of traction in the market. As a result, the prices for 1 and 10 Gbps NPBs have been declining, which drives the adoption of these NPBs for the optimum network development. It is owing to these factors, the market for 1- and 10-Gbps network packet brokers is expected to hold the largest market share in 2018.
Browse in-depth TOC on "Network Packet Broker Market"
34 - Tables
40 - Figures
114 - Pages
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"Enterprises to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period."
Enterprises mostly rely on network traffic analyzer solutions to optimize their network infrastructure on a daily basis. Enterprises spend huge amounts of money on network resources to keep their network up and running all the time. This takes up a major portion of their time, leaving them with no time to form new strategies for the efficient use of network resource. Network packet brokers provide an effective way to manage and analyze the entire network, centralize, virtualize, and provide real-time applications and bandwidth management of the network to deliver critical business applications at a high speed. It is owing to these factors that the enterprises segment is expected to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period.
North America to hold largest size of network packet broker market by 2023
North America holds the largest market share, and the similar trend is likely to continue in the near future owing to the increasing IT capacity requirements and rising adoption of new data center technologies. The market in the US is expected to experience a high traction as a significant number of organizations are likely to opt for cloud services to save their upfront cost of building new data centers for business continuity. Also, the US is the home for global cloud service providers, as well as for the companies, such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft (US), that provide data center infrastructure. Moreover, key companies in the network packet broker market that account for more than half of the revenue are based in the US.
https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/network-packet-broker-market-229957221.html
Gigamon (US), NetScout Systems, Inc. (NetScout) (US), Ixia (US), VIAVI Solutions, Inc. (Viavi Solutions) (US), APCON, Inc. (APCON) (US), Garland Technology (US), Cisco Systems, Inc. (Cisco) (US), Broadcom Inc. (Broadcom) (US), Juniper Networks, Inc. (Juniper Networks) (US), Big Switch Networks, Inc. (Big Switch Networks) (US), Zenoss Inc. (Zenoss) (US) are the major players in the network packet broker market. Other key companies, including innovators and start-ups in the network packet broker market, are Network Critical (UK), Corvil (Ireland), CALIENT Technologies, Inc. (CALIENT) (US), Netgear Inc. (Netgear) (US), and Motadata (US).
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Our 850 fulltime analyst and SMEs at MarketsandMarkets are tracking global high growth markets following the "Growth Engagement Model - GEM". The GEM aims at proactive collaboration with the clients to identify new opportunities, identify most important customers, write "Attack, avoid and defend" strategies, identify sources of incremental revenues for both the company and its competitors. MarketsandMarkets now coming up with 1,500 MicroQuadrants (Positioning top players across leaders, emerging companies, innovators, strategic players) annually in high growth emerging segments. MarketsandMarkets is determined to benefit more than 10,000 companies this year for their revenue planning and help them take their innovations/disruptions early to the market by providing them research ahead of the curve.
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SOURCE MarketsandMarkets
DETROIT, Sept. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --
$50 million commitment from Kresge puts education at the center of community revitalization efforts in the Livernois-McNichols district; largest-ever philanthropic investment into a single Detroit neighborhood.
commitment from Kresge puts education at the center of community revitalization efforts in the Livernois-McNichols district; largest-ever philanthropic investment into a single neighborhood. P-20 campus at Marygrove brings together exemplary early childhood, pre-K-12, post-secondary and graduate education in "cradle-to-career" continuum. One of few programs in the nation.
brings together exemplary early childhood, pre-K-12, post-secondary and graduate education in "cradle-to-career" continuum. One of few programs in the nation. Partnership to serve roughly 1,000 Detroit children at full capacity in 2029; ninth grade begins 2019, kindergarten and pre-K in 2020.
children at full capacity in 2029; ninth grade begins 2019, kindergarten and pre-K in 2020. New DPSCD K-12 program is in collaboration with the U-M School of Education; innovative approach to preparing newly certified teachers modeled on residency for medical doctors.
New early childhood center to be built on campus, to open 2020 (also to house kindergarten).
Starfish, DPSCD and the U-M SOE will co-design the early childhood education curriculum, catered to the whole-child and family servicing to children ages birth through 5.
Former Bates Academy and portions of Liberal Arts Building to be renovated for student and faculty use.
Early childhood center to use "hub and spoke" model to support existing early childhood facilities in area.
P-20 partnership builds on 90-year legacy of Marygrove College .
Organizations gathered at the Marygrove College campus today to announce a new cradle-to-career educational partnership including a state-of-the-art early childhood education center, a new K-12 school and the introduction of an innovative teacher education training modeled after hospital residency programs.
The P-20 Partnership one of the first in the nation is backed with a $50 million commitment from The Kresge Foundation, marking the largest philanthropic investment in history into a Detroit neighborhood. The investment places education at the center of community revitalization efforts in the Livernois-McNichols district in northwest Detroit.
In addition to construction of a new early childhood education center, the Kresge commitment will renovate the former Bates Academy (originally Immaculata High School) on the Marygrove campus to house the K-12 school and will renovate space within the college's Liberal Arts Building for student and faculty use.
This landmark cradle-to-career educational campus which will offer pre-K through graduate school studies with wrap-around services and community programs is being jointly developed through a partnership including Kresge, the University of Michigan School of Education (U-M SOE), Detroit Public Schools Community District (DPSCD), the Marygrove Conservancy, Marygrove College, Starfish Family Services, IFF and the Detroit Collaborative Design Center of the University of Detroit Mercy.
At full capacity, the new state-of-the-art early childhood education center (operated by Starfish) and the K-12 school (operated by DPSCD) are projected to serve more than 1,000 Detroit children and their families, primarily focused on the surrounding neighborhoods in the Livernois-McNichols district.
The campus will also offer degree and professional certifications for teacher education students of the U-M SOE and graduate students of Marygrove College, respectively. A new teacher "residency program," offered by U-M SOE will place undergraduate and graduate student teachers at the DPSCD school. When they complete their degrees, they will work at the school as supervised resident teachers in an innovative program modeled after the way doctors are trained.
The first phase of the campus will include a ninth-grade pilot program to open in 2019, followed by the opening of the early childhood education center and kindergarten in fall 2020. Successive grades will be added each year, and by 2029, all grades will be offered, alongside undergraduate and graduate studies and professional development courses and certifications.
"Community development isn't just happening in downtown and Midtown, and it isn't just about bricks and mortar," said Kresge President and CEO Rip Rapson. "This is community development that invests in people, in the social fabric that makes neighborhoods unique. That's what the future of this campus represents."
Duggan Applauds Leaders for Investing in Detroit Neighborhoods
Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan joined leaders from each of the partnering organizations for the public announcement, where they outlined their collaborative vision for the campus. The collective group shared how they will engage the community to bring the vision to life, as well as what this investment means for the surrounding Livernois-McNichols district and the city of Detroit's continued revitalization.
The P-20 campus announcement comes at a significant time for the northwest Detroit community, following major municipal and philanthropic commitments to the area in recent years. It also follows the announcement last year by the 90-year-old Marygrove College that it would cease its undergraduate offerings due to burgeoning debt and falling enrollment.
Leading up to and through that decision, The Kresge Foundation, a long-time supporter of Marygrove College, invested $16 million to help stabilize it, restructure debt, finance academic and campus operations, cushion faculty, staff and student transitions and support the college's shift to graduate-level education. Kresge then partnered with the college's founders and sponsors the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (IHM) to create the Marygrove Conservancy to steward the campus and its mission. The conservancy immediately began to explore partnerships that could preserve the campus and its historic role as an educational anchor in the city.
"Not long ago, we were faced with the prospect of this incredible campus going dark, which would have been a terrible setback to the revitalization that is taking place in this area of our city," said Mayor Duggan. "Instead, today we are celebrating a new beginning and a bright future at Marygrove, thanks to The Kresge Foundation, DPSCD, the University of Michigan and all the partners in this effort. We owe them all a great deal of appreciation for recognizing the importance this campus has to our city and to the community."
Duggan praised the P-20 partnership as an example of how the public and private sectors are coming together to provide outstanding educational options for Detroit families.
"A high-quality educational system beginning with early childhood education is essential to keeping the families in the city here and for attracting new families."
Kresge Invites Partners to Support P-20 Model
The P-20 campus at Marygrove College is a new approach to economic development centered on educating children and will serve as a model for urban communities around the country.
Following Marygrove College's restructuring, the foundation supported the leadership of Marygrove College; the school's founders and sponsors, the IHM Sisters; and the newly formed Marygrove Conservancy on the possibility of a consortium of educational institutions coming together to create a P-20 campus model. Similar campuses exist around the country the Penn Alexander School in Pennsylvania, for example but none involve early childhood services through graduate level education housed on one campus.
Rapson said that the foundation's $50 million investment in the campus and its work to help engage serious partners in the P-20 concept is on par with lead funding commitments made previously by the foundation to the Detroit RiverFront Conservancy, the revitalization of Midtown, in the creation of M-1 RAIL, and in the "Grand Bargain," which helped bring Detroit out of municipal bankruptcy in 2014.
"Kresge is extremely proud to announce a partnership that puts education at the center of all other revitalization work being done in this community," said Rapson. "We're pleased to collaborate with all of our community partners who have come together to create a new model of neighborhood revitalization centered around investment in education right here in the heart of northwest Detroit."
"We believe this community is among the most promising in the city today. With this new P-20 concept, it will become one of the most promising in the country," Rapson said. "This campus represents a diverse group of stakeholders, neighbors, faith-based groups, and educators who all believe in the future of this neighborhood."
Early Childhood Education Center
Echoing the importance of providing a great start for the city's youngest learners, the P-20 partners announced they will break ground on an early childhood education center on the Marygrove campus in 2019 and open the center the following year.
Still in the pre-development phase and seeking community input, Starfish, DPSCD and the U-M SOE and Marygrove College will co-design the curriculum for the program. The partners outlined their vision for a facility designed to provide full-day, full-year early childhood education services to children ages birth through 5, catered to the whole-child and family.
Starfish has a rich history in the city, serving thousands of metro Detroit children for 55 years.
"It's essential to support children from birth through higher education," said Starfish Family Services CEO Ann Kalass. "The P-20 campus will be an opportunity to show how Detroit is putting young children and families first. Having the opportunity to integrate early childhood learning into a long-term higher education and career path with the DPS Community District and the University of Michigan's School of Education is remarkable. We're excited to partner with all of these world-class institutions to create a model that guarantees the best possible educational outcomes for Detroit's children."
Led by the Detroit Collaborative Design Center with the support of IFF, existing early childhood education providers in the vicinity are being engaged to collectively develop a set of whole-child and whole-family support principles to envision the early childhood center as a resource for families and other early childhood centers throughout the surrounding area.
K-12 Model Learning Programs
Following the phase-one ninth grade class initiation in 2019, DPSCD plans to open a kindergarten and 10th grade class in 2020, followed by the addition of another primary and secondary class annually. By 2029, all primary and high school grade classrooms will be staffed and filled; neighborhood families will have priority enrollment.
DPSCD and U-M SOE are jointly developing the K-8 and 9-12 curriculum for the schools that DPSCD will operate. Kresge will fund renovations and updates of the district's former Bates Academy school building, on the southeast corner of the campus, to house the majority of the 1,000 primary and secondary students.
"The cradle to college model demonstrates that DPSCD can simultaneously rebuild the district and introduce innovation," said Dr. Nikolai P. Vitti, superintendent. "The magnitude of this partnership is priceless in that it expands the city's portfolio of high-demand, unique traditional public school options and develops a much-needed teacher pipeline with one of the top universities in the country."
Vitti added the teacher-training component has the potential to attract college students to the teaching profession, retain teachers who otherwise leave the profession in large numbers and improve district enrollment.
"The School Board and I have been laser focused on restoring the credibility of traditional public school education so Detroit residents can send their children to the school in their neighborhood," he said. "To achieve this, we need to establish a district that retains its best teachers and develops the next generation of dedicated teachers while supporting them in the best facilities, so each child receives a high-quality education. Detroit cannot restore its potential without a high-functioning traditional education system. Investments and partnerships such as these signal that DPSCD is on the rise and will, once again, be the preferred educational choice of its residents."
The P-20 model has the potential to help the entire DPSCD system as it aligns with the district's core goals of improving enrollment; improving student achievement, attendance, test scores, graduation rates and college-completion; and teacher development, retention and attraction.
"This school will not be isolated from the rest of the DPSCD system," Vitti added. "The innovations developed here will be shared and replicated across the system for the betterment of the entire district."
Cutting-edge U-M Teacher Training
University of Michigan President Dr. Mark Schlissel and U-M SOE Dean Dr. Elizabeth Moje outlined their vision for a teacher training school on the Marygrove campus that will be modeled after medical teaching residencies.
According to Moje, after completing teaching education studies, new teachers will remain alongside veteran educators in primary and secondary classrooms for three additional years to continue their training while helping newer student teachers learn the profession.
"For too long, universities have been largely separated from the pre-K to 12 settings for which they are educating new professionals," Moje said. "This is an opportunity for the School of Education to not only provide impactful teacher training, but to also create programs that teach children using evidence-based instructional practices carried out by exceptional leaders. We're excited to develop teachers who are prepared to serve their students in any and every learning environment, and to create a model for preparation that honors the complex work of teaching and the need for strong communities of practice."
The innovative approach through the P-20 model will allow U-M, and other higher education institutions across the country that may replicate this concept, to improve its own practice while contributing to primary and secondary educational settings
Other U-M schools and colleges will join the collaboration as the school and wrap-around services develop. Early partners include: College of Engineering; Stephen M. Ross School of Business; A. Alfred Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning; School of Social Work; School of Nursing; and, School of Dentistry.
"The University of Michigan was founded in Detroit in 1817, and we share a wonderful history and an equally significant future," Schlissel said. "This new partnership is founded in our belief that a brighter future will emerge through the creation of different kinds of educational opportunities, and new knowledge, in ways that we could not do alone. It further builds on our School of Education's longstanding partnerships in conducting research and working in concert with educators in Detroit."
Marygrove College Proud to Continue Educational Legacy
Dr. Elizabeth Burns, president of Marygrove College a college alumna who also attended kindergarten at Marygrove shared her deep satisfaction that the college's legacy as a teacher and social justice training center, combined with deep ties to the surrounding community, will continue.
"This innovative college has been dedicated to education for more than 90 years and will remain a site for education in the city of Detroit," she said. "One of the college's pillars is a commitment to remain an anchor institution in this Detroit neighborhood and an institutional leader in the city of Detroit. The P-20 model ensures we continue that mission. We're excited for the future of this campus and the impact this model will have on the city of Detroit's rebirth."
Sister Jane Herb, IHM president and Marygrove Conservancy chair, also thanked each partner for their investment in Marygrove College, the Livernois-McNichols district and the children and families of northwest Detroit.
"Every program and partner on this campus has a single goal: educating children. We are all responsible and accountable for that result," Herb said. "We all know Detroit is the place for innovation in education. As the city reinvests itself, we need to reinvent the way the city brings opportunities to its youngest residents."
"This initiative is anchored in community development, but not by investing in just bricks and mortar, but investing in children," she added. "We're proud to be home to this national model for investing in children and teachers as a way to transform a neighborhood right on the campus of Marygrove College."
A community meeting will be held on October 15, 2018, from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. in the Marygrove College Main Dining Hall to gain input from local residents as the P-20 campus model is being developed. For more details, call 313-993-1037. Community members will have additional opportunities to engage in the planning process during existing block club meetings, existing community council and association meetings, and stakeholder group meetings as well as two additional community-wide meetings, dates to be announced.
Photos of the Marygrove College campus and a partnership graphic can be downloaded by visiting Tinyurl.com/MarygrovePics.
About The Kresge Foundation
The Kresge Foundation was founded in 1924 to promote human progress. Today, Kresge fulfills that mission by building and strengthening pathways to opportunity for low-income people in America's cities, seeking to dismantle structural and systemic barriers to equality and justice. Using a full array of grant, loan, and other investment tools, Kresge invests more than $160 million annually to foster economic and social change. For more information visit kresge.org.
About Detroit Public Schools Community District
Detroit Public Schools Community District (DPSCD) is the state's largest public education system. It is governed by a locally-elected, seven-member board with Dr. Nikolai Vitti serving as superintendent. The District's mission is to provide every student with a beneficial and rightful educational experience, preparing students to be career and college ready, and qualified to compete in the global market. The District has 106 schools and educates 50,000 children. For more information, visit www.detroitk12.org.
About the University of Michigan School of Education
The University of Michigan School of Education is a top-ranked, public school of education located in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The school's two-fold mission is 1) to study and improve education practice, policy, and the contexts of teaching and learning in the service of constructing a just and equitable society and 2) to prepare a diverse group of education practitioners, policy-makers, and researchers who will contribute to building equitable and just educational opportunities. Since its founding in 1921, faculty members and students have been at the forefront of educational change through their research contributions, instructional activities, community engagement, and collaborative involvement with the education profession.
Visit www.soe.umich.edu.
About Marygrove College
Established in the city of Detroit in 1927, Marygrove College is an independent Catholic graduate institution sponsored by the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (IHM) and guided by the values of human dignity; community; social justice; ecological justice; excellence; innovation; and diversity. The campus is situated on 53 wooded acres at 8425 W. McNichols Rd., Detroit, MI 48221. Visit www.marygrove.edu.
About Starfish Family Services
Founded in 1963, Starfish Family Services (Starfish) is a private, nonprofit human service agency, recognized as a champion for children and families who face barriers like poverty and mental health challenges and who often live in neighborhoods with limited access to educational, health, and economic opportunities. Serving over 4,000 children and their families annually, our mission is strengthening families to create brighter futures for children. We provide high-quality programs and support services that focus on early childhood development, behavioral health wellness, and empowered families. Through our family-centric, integrated approach, we build trusting relationships with parents and caregivers to connect them to the right resources at the right time and help them achieve their family-driven goals. For more information, please visit us at www.starfishfamilyservices.org.
About IFF
IFF is a mission-driven lender, real estate consultant, and developer that helps communities thrive by creating opportunities for low-income populations and individuals with disabilities. Since 1988, IFF has provided $879 million in flexible, affordable financing to nonprofits serving a variety of sectors affordable housing, health care, education, community development, and more. These investments have leveraged $2.5 billion and impacted communities by creating more than 6,000 child care slots, 47,000 charter school seats, 277,000 new patient visits, 9,000 units of affordable housing, and 69,000 full- or part-time jobs. Visit www.iff.org.
About Detroit Collaborative Design Center
The Detroit Collaborative Design Center (DCDC) is a multi-disciplinary, nonprofit architecture and urban design firm at the University of Detroit Mercy School of Architecture dedicated to creating sustainable spaces and communities through quality design and the collaborative process. Since 1994, the DCDC has worked with over 100 Detroit nonprofit organizations, community groups, and philanthropic foundations towards fulfilling its mission.
Visit www.dcdc-udm.org.
SOURCE The Kresge Foundation
Related Links
https://kresge.org
Among its 12 calls to action to individuals, legislatures, researchers and technology designers, the manifesto encourages the public to demand and institutions to create new mechanisms to harness collective intelligence to improve the quality of lawmaking as well as more research on what works to build a global movement for participatory democracy.
The CrowdLaw Manifesto emerged from a collaborative effort of 20 international experts and CrowdLaw community members. At a convening held earlier this year by The GovLab at The Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center in Italy, government leaders, academics, NGOs, and technologists formulated the CrowdLaw Manifesto to detail the initiative's foundational principles and to encourage greater implementation of CrowdLaw practices to improve governance through 21st century technology and tools.
Beth Simone Noveck, professor in the Department of Technology, Culture and Society at NYU Tandon and director of The GovLab, explained the timely significance of the CrowdLaw Manifesto as governments around the globe face greater public distrust and threats to democracy.
"This manifesto shares what we see as the future of governing, which moves beyond viewing public opinion and petitions as the main form of civic engagement," Noveck said. "Technology enables us to collectively ask and answer how we should redesign our governing practices to solve the complex policy challenges of the 21st century at local, national, and global levels. We ask citizens throughout the world to join us as signatories to this manifesto and thereby encourage democracy to put down strong roots in communities everywhere."
The global embrace of CrowdLaw principles is demonstrated by international launches planned for the Crowd Law Manifesto: at Reworks Agora in Agora, Greece the birthplace of democracy on September 16, and at Nesta's Designing Collective Intelligence event in London on September 17.
More than 30 organizations and 80 individuals working on citizen engagement and democracy worldwide have already signed the manifesto. Signatories include
Madrid City Council
Sabine Romon , chief smart city officer, General Secretariat, Paris City Council
, chief smart city officer, General Secretariat, Paris City Council Ben Kallos , New York City Council member, District 5 (Upper East Side, Roosevelt Island , East Midtown, East Harlem), New York City Council
, New York City Council member, District 5 (Upper East Side, , East Midtown, East Harlem), New York City Council Audrey Tang , digital minister of Taiwan
, digital minister of Raffaele Lillo , chief data officer, Digital Transformation Team, Government of Italy
, chief data officer, Digital Transformation Team, Government of Mukelani Dimba, civil society co-chair, Open Government Partnership
"The successes of the CrowdLaw concept and its remarkably rapid adoption across the world by citizens seeking to affect change exemplify the powerful force that academia can exert when working in concert with government and citizens," said NYU Tandon Dean Jelena Kovacevic. "On behalf of the NYU Tandon School of Engineering, I proudly sign the CrowdLaw Manifesto and congratulate The GovLab and its collaborators for creating these digital tools and momentum for good government."
"One of the most urgent debates of our time is about the exact role that these new technologies can and should play in our societies and particularly in our public decision-making processes," said Victoria Alsina, research professor in the Department of Technology, Culture and Society at NYU Tandon and coordinator of the CrowdLaw Initiative at The GovLab. "By exploiting technology to engage a broader and more diverse constituency in the lawmaking process, CrowdLaw has the potential to enhance the quality of lawmaking practices and to transform fundamentally the source of authority undergirding the legislative process."
In July 2018, the GovLab debuted the CrowdLaw Catalog as an online platform to bring together real-world examples of CrowdLaw projects from 39 countries. With over 100 cases of public participatory lawmaking listed, the online portal aims to help civic leaders create new projects or bolster existing ones, and encourages users to continue adding more CrowdLaw cases to increase research and evaluation of these practices.
To complement its work on CrowdLaw, The GovLab at NYU Tandon together with NYU's Institute for Public Knowledge is launching a lecture series, "The Future of Democracy."
Drafters and signatories of the CrowdLaw Manifesto explained its importance in spreading democracy:
"CrowdLaw is an exciting new concept that seeks to encourage deep citizen engagement throughout each phase of law and policy-making processes. Instead of passive participation in public governance through democratic rituals such as voting every four or five years. CrowdLaw innovations enable active citizenship continuously. I believe this can be an essential part of the arsenal for pushing back against the retreat of democracy that seems to have become a defining feature of politics globally." Mukelani Dimba, co-chair, Open Government Partnership
"Democratic governance institutions need to experiment and adapt if they are to harness rapid technological change rather than be overwhelmed by it. CrowdLaw provides just that sort of innovation by delivering with a wide range of tools that elected officials can use to engage citizens in policy-making processes. The Design4Democracy.org coalition a growing group of democracy and human rights organizations, which NDI supports is committed to ensuring the technology industry embraces democracy as a core design principle. CrowdLaw is a shining example, the embodiment of this philosophy." Scott Hubli, director of governance programs, NDI
"In a time of major threats to democracy, such as populism, technological manipulation, and greater complexity, CrowdLaw is the most interesting and inspiring idea I've ever heard on how we can improve the quality of our laws and public decisions, and save democracy." Josep Lluis Marti, vice-rector and associate professor, Pompeu Fabra University
"I have signed it. You have all my good wishes and support. I think this is a good idea and needs to be expanded." Sam Pitroda, chairman, Pitroda Group, and former advisor to the prime minister of India on public information, infrastructure and innovation
To learn more about CrowdLaw, visit crowd.law or contact [email protected]. To sign the CrowdLaw Manifesto, visit http://manifesto.crowd.law.
About The Governance Lab
The Governance Lab's mission is to improve people's lives by changing the way we govern. Our goal at The GovLab is to strengthen the ability of institutions including but not limited to governments and people to work more openly, collaboratively, effectively, and legitimately to make better decisions and solve public problems. We believe that increased availability and use of data, new ways to leverage the capacity, intelligence, and expertise of people in the problem-solving process, combined with new advances in technology and science, can transform governance. We approach each challenge and opportunity in an interdisciplinary, collaborative way, irrespective of the problem, sector, geography, and level of government. For more information, visit thegovlab.org.
About the New York University Tandon School of Engineering
The NYU Tandon School of Engineering dates to 1854, the founding date for both the New York University School of Civil Engineering and Architecture and the Brooklyn Collegiate and Polytechnic Institute (widely known as Brooklyn Poly). A January 2014 merger created a comprehensive school of education and research in engineering and applied sciences, rooted in a tradition of invention and entrepreneurship and dedicated to furthering technology in service to society. In addition to its main location in Brooklyn, NYU Tandon collaborates with other schools within NYU, one of the country's foremost private research universities, and is closely connected to engineering programs at NYU Abu Dhabi and NYU Shanghai. It operates Future Labs focused on start-up businesses in downtown Manhattan and Brooklyn and an award-winning online graduate program. For more information, visit http://engineering.nyu.edu.
www.facebook.com/nyutandon
@NYUTandon
SOURCE NYU Tandon School of Engineering
Related Links
https://engineering.nyu.edu
One-Minute Videos on the Theme "Stand Up For Peace"! Span 38 Countries
Now is Your Chance to Identify the Next Generation of Filmmaking Talent
NEW YORK, Sept. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The International Academy of Television Arts & Sciences and JCS International announced today that entries for the 2018 JCS International Young Creatives Award competition are now online for viewing and public voting. The initiative, launched last year, is designed to discover, recognize, and foster young talent from around the world while creating a global conversation around peace.
The competition is open to global entrants between the ages of 18 and 29. Videos entered this year around the theme Stand Up for Peace! span 38 countries. Online voting, available from September 12 to 19 on the International Academy's website (https://www.iemmys.tv/youngcreatives.aspx) will determine the finalists for the competition.
A blue-ribbon panel of accomplished jurors will determine the three winners at the end of September.
"We are proud to be raising awareness about peace and celebrating the amazing work of young creatives from around the world," said Michal Grayevsky, President of JCS International. "We encourage everyone to go watch the videos and vote."
The three winners will be announced on October 3, 2018 and will be flown to New York to receive their award at the International Emmy World Television Festival on November 17, 2018. They will also attend the International Emmy Awards Gala on November 19.
More information and to watch the winning 2017 films, go to https://www.iemmys.tv/youngcreatives.aspx
About JCS International
JCS International, a Ronald S. Lauder Company, is a global media company headquartered in New York City. Founded in 1979, JCS pioneered the one-stop shop concept, offering full-service production capabilities, from conception to execution, all under one roof. For decades, JCSI has brought together media outlets from around the world and helped them fulfill their mission. Now, JCSI is creating a unique new media platform for young companies, entrepreneurs and creative talent, helping its partners realize their potential and scale.
Media Contact: Michal Grayevsky, [email protected]
SOURCE JCS International
NASHVILLE, Tenn., Sept. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- OnlineSchoolsCenter.com has recently released their list of the Top 20 Online Accounting Degree Programs for 2018, a detailed index of the finest online schools offering degree programs of this nature.
You may view the list, along with a description of the benefits of each institution, by clicking the link below:
https://www.onlineschoolscenter.com/top-20-online-accounting-degree-programs/
For students who are mathematically-minded, an accounting degree is one of the most applicable and useful degree programs that they could choose from. Climbing the ladder within this particular field gives students the opportunity to work as financial managers and leaders within the business industry and its various platforms and environments. Accounting programs educate and train students in the most up-to-date and state-of-the-art techniques with which to improve the financial stability of the organization, business, or agency they work for.
According to lead researcher/writer, Rowan Jones, "An associate's degree is one of the most prudent credentials an individual can earn. The job security alone is an incredibly encouraging factor that allows students the benefit of contributing to any type of industry that generates wealth."
Top 20 Online Accounting Degree Programs for 2018:
Colorado State University-Global Campus, Greenwood Village, CO
University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL
Clarion University, Clarion, PA
Auburn University, Auburn, AL
Western Governors University, Salt Lake City, UT
Pennsylvania State University World Campus, College, PA
Liberty University, Lynchburg, VA
Purdue University Global, West Lafayette, IN
Northeastern University, Boston, MA
Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA
University of Minnesota Crookston, Crookston, MN
Florida Institute of Technology, Melbourne, FL
Touro University Worldwide, Los Alamitos, CA
Regis University, Denver, CO
Indiana Wesleyan University, Marion, IN
Georgia Southwestern State University, Americus, GA
California Baptist University, Riverside, CA
Thomas Edison State University, Trenton, NJ
Dickinson State University, Dickinson, ND
Bemidji State University, Bemidji, MN
These Top 20 Online Accounting Degree Programs for 2018 were chosen for several factors that put them ahead of other online graduate programs, due to the: nature of the coursework, degree of thoroughness and complexity of the curriculum, 100% online availability, sufficient financial aid availability, and an education that give students more than just classroom experience.
The editors of OnlineSchoolsCenter.com collect the most important and relevant data about colleges, universities, and campus facilities from various highly respected sources and offer them in a simple format that is easy to understand. In developing this list, OnlineSchoolsCenter.com chose not to list the schools in an ordered way, but instead highlighted twenty of the very best programs, all of which have their own unique strengths.
Contact:
Rowan Jones
Researcher/Writer
OnlineSchoolsCenter.com
Email: [email protected]
Cell: (931) 636-4286
SOURCE OnlineSchoolsCenter.com
Related Links
https://www.onlineschoolscenter.com
WASHINGTON, Sept. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- In an effort to protect the rights of communities nationwide, over 60 local officials from across the country sent a letter to Congress today opposing a farm bill provision that takes away local governments' authority to restrict hazardous pesticides. The signatories are urging the farm bill conference committee to reject a "poison pill" rider that will preempt local governments, making the entire legislation unacceptable.
Section 9101 of the House version of the farm bill will institute federal preemption of local pesticide policies, a move that will overturn a decades-old Supreme Court decision and prevent communities from adopting protective laws that meet the needs of their residents or unique local environment.
The letter urges the conference committee to reach an agreement on a final 2018 farm bill that does not include this rider. It was signed by over 60 local officials in 39 communities from 15 different states, ranging from North Miami, FL to South Euclid, OH, West Hollywood, CA and Maui, HI. The County Council of Montgomery County, MD, which passed a landmark policy on toxic pesticides, also sent a letter to the farm bill conference committee.
"The pesticide industry's attempts to stymie a national grassroots movement against their toxic products is only serving to elevate the voices of local leaders that have seen their communities successfully transition to safer land care practices, in many cases organic land management," said Drew Toher, Community Resource and Policy Director with Beyond Pesticides. "The farm bill's preemption provision represents an unacceptable federal overreach into community parks, playing fields, and natural spaces."
Mayor Ethan Strimling of Portland, ME, said, "At a time when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has failed to act, and follow sound science on toxic pesticides like bee-killing neonicotinoids or the probable carcinogen glyphosate, it is critically important that local governments retain the right to protect their citizens and environment."
"The Farm Bill should not be a tool for stripping city and county officials of their ability to protect their citizens from pesticides," said Jason Davidson, Friends of the Earth's Food and Agriculture Campaign Associate.
CONTACT: Drew Toher
[email protected], 202-543-5450
SOURCE Beyond Pesticides
Related Links
http://www.beyondpesticides.org
OLOMOUC, Czech Republic, September 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --
Researchers from the Centre of the Region Hana for Biotechnological and Agricultural Research (CRH) in Olomouc, together with colleagues from the University of Nottingham, and the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology in Dresden, have made another significant step in exploring plant structure and development using light sheet fluorescence microscopy. From the traditional model plant - Arabidopsis thaliana, they advanced to a much larger alfalfa, which can be observed in its natural state for up to several days. Unique experiences have been summarized in an article for the prestigious journal Nature Plants, which outlined also the perspectives of the method to the world. In the future, they intend to use it for other crops, especially barley. Obtained information is crucial, for example, for increasing plant yields or resistance to adverse environmental conditions, including drought or disease.
The stepping stone of this research were detailed protocols for long-term and gentle exploration of plants with high-resolution using commercially available laser microscopes, which CRH scientists published three years ago in Nature Protocols, attracting considerable interest in the scientific community. Subsequently, researchers have decided to develop and modify the technique for long-term and gentle exploration of plants so that they can capture objects larger than Arabidopsis, such as alfalfa embryos and plants developing from them.
"We have succeeded in further improvement of the only method that can be used to visualize living plants at different levels from intracellular to the whole plants. The fact that we have advanced to alfalfa from Arabidopsis is a great milestone. We can watch the plant development from several hours to several days. We can observe not only its development but also its interactions with external environment and microbes in defined and strictly controlled conditions. We will get much better explanations to a range of biological and biotechnological questions," said Jozef Samaj, head of Olomouc research group.
According to his colleague and a co-author Miroslav Ovecka, the transfer of the method from the model plant to alfalfa was technically quite complex. "We use a commercially available microscopic system, so we had to take into account its technical parameters. It was important to prepare conditions for long-term plant cultivation. The plant in the microscope receives fresh nutrients in a sterile environment, is supplied with the air and exposed to the normal light/dark illumination cycle. The results are not affected by secondary stress caused by microscopy itself. The significant shift in the scientific field brought about by this method lies in the fact that there has not yet been a system approach that would evaluate alfalfa at such a level. We have also described technological difficulties that other research groups often face, and suggested a way how this progressive method could be used for developmental studies for any type of plant objects. Also from this point of view, the article is unique. We are presenting new perspectives to the scientific community based on obtained results," explained Ovecka.
Olomouc scientists intend to continue to improve the methodology and adapt it for possible use in barley within project "Plants as a means of sustainable global development" under Operational Program for Research, Development and Education. Thanks to a paper in a prestigious journal, they will be able to present the progress in this technique and its possible applications in plant research at even more conferences and professional seminars. CRH brings together scientific teams from Palacky University and Olomouc worksites of the Institute of Experimental Botany of Academy of Sciences of Czech Republic, and the Crop Research Institute.
You can find more here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41477-018-0238-2
Media Contact:
Jozef Samaj
Professor of Botany
CRH | Palacky University Olomouc
Slechtitelu 27 | 78371 Olomouc | Czech Republic
+420-585-634 978 | +420-585-634-975
[email protected]
SOURCE Palacky University Olomouc
LOS ANGELES, Sept. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Paragon, the leading blockchain technology platform focused on bringing transparency to the cannabis industry, announces the official opening of the first cannabis industry co-working space in Los Angeles, ParagonSpace. Located in the heart of Hollywood, between Sunset Boulevard and Tamarind Avenue (1461 Tamarind Ave.), ParagonSpace officially opened its doors in September 2018.
Cannabis industry influencers and celebrities, including Matt Barnes, Chanel West Coast, Enzo Amore as well as press and company partners helped kick-off the opening with an exclusive VIP launch event at the 4,300 sq. foot space. Attendees had an exclusive first-look at ParagonSpace while enjoying drinks, hors d'oeuvres by Valerie Archer of Elevated Chefs, a live DJ, gift bags as well as products and technology on display from a number of partners and friends of Paragon including Dank City, Atlas Edibles, Magic Pipe, Lowell Herb Co, Green Helix, Stone Road, Aurora Elixirs, Kiskanu, Levo Oil, and Stoney Delivery to name a few.
"We understand the difficulties many companies face by being a part of the cannabis industry, which is why we have created ParagonSpace," said Jessica VerSteeg, CEO of Paragon. "Within our community, entrepreneurs and businesses can collaborate, network and build in a safe, high-tech, affordable co-working space catered to those working in cannabis. By opening up to all verticals of the cannabis industry, whether you're a manufacturer, creative agency, law firm or freelancer, ParagonSpace brings together all businesses that add to LA's success in the market. We look forward to welcoming new Paragonians and helping the industry grow together and create a sense of community."
Los Angeles is projected to become the largest legal retail cannabis market in the United States, with thousands of companies on the ground and even more to come. With close proximity to the freeway, Vine St and plenty of street parking, the building is easily accessible to locals, commuters or visitors from out of town. With ParagonSpace's affordable memberships, businesses are able to maintain lower costs without worrying about property rentals, permits or utilities and access the priceless mentorship and networking from other experts in the cannabis industry.
ParagonSpace features flex desks, private offices, conference rooms, a lounge, green outdoor yard and will be hosting workshops, panels, and partner events on a monthly basis. Within the Paragon community members have amazing opportunities to find clients, services, resources and investors to support the growth of their company. Memberships are openly available to the public, however business sign-ups will be prioritized for those in the Cannabis space, along with blockchain, tech, and creative industries. Memberships range from as low as $449 to as high as $3,000 per month, depending on package selected. Day passes are also available for just $30 a day to anyone in the cannabis industry who may be visiting the LA area or want to check out the space.
Companies interested in membership information, pricing details or reserving desks and private office space can visit this link.
About Paragon
Paragon seeks to pull the cannabis community from marginalized to mainstream by building blockchain into every step of the cannabis industry and working toward full legalization. Our strength lies in the unique blockchain/cannabis connection that uses smart contracts. We believe in blockchain, and we believe in the benefits of cannabis. More uses of cannabis are coming to light, and we want to accelerate that process. We believe cannabis is good for individuals and good for countries. We are passionate about moving forward in an ethical, morally responsible, and legal way. To learn more about Paragon, visit https://paragoncoin.com/ or follow us at https://twitter.com/paragoncoin.
SOURCE Paragon
Related Links
https://paragoncoin.com/
NEW YORK, Sept. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The Maggie Flanigan Studio ( http://www.maggieflaniganstudio.com/ ) is currently signing on new students for its celebrated Fall Meisner Intensive. The nine-week acting program offers students the first third of first year Meisner Technique in 18 classes, running from October 9th until December 14th. Classes are taught two days a week, on Tuesdays and Fridays. Admission is based on an interview.
This particular Fall Meisner Intensive is best suited for:
Meisner Intensive - Maggie Flanigan Studio - Call (917) 789-1599 - Meisner Intensive Fall 2018 Begins The Best Meisner Intensive Training Program Begins - Maggie Flanigan Studio - The Best Meisner Fall Intensive Fall Begins October 10th - Call (917) 789-1599
Actors new to NYC who are both curious about the Meisner technique and serious actor training in general. The class offers clarity and advice for those looking to NYC as the beginning chapter in their pursuit of an actor's life.
Those who have always wanted to pursue professional, intensive training but have not had the opportunity or the free time during the summer, when Meisner intensives are usually offered.
Individuals whose schedules are better suited to two-day-a-week training rather than three.
Students interested in beginning a two-year Meisner program but wish to get a sense of the work during the fall before fully committing.
The nine-week acting program is also a perfect match for the following applicants:
Students who have completed or are currently enrolled in an undergraduate program, and who understand the intense, immersive training needed to perfect the acting craft.
Actors who thrive in small studio classes; especially classes with other students who are utterly committed to honing their craft.
Ambitious actors who want to spend an autumn season learning about the art of acting, and the hard work that goes into illuminating the human condition from the most highly regarded acting studio in NYC.
Pure Meisner technique is difficult to find in the city. Since most programs push enrollment numbers, and often offer only a watered down version of Meisner's technique, many aspiring actors waste a great deal of time and money. The Maggie Flanigan Studio is not only dedicated to preserving Meisner training as originally created by Sanford Meisner, but also providing students with an MFA caliber training experience.
"What is Meisner, and what does it offer? Basically, it gets at the core of acting itself: the ability to do truthfully under imaginary circumstances, consistently. Most actors simply indicate they pretend. But really good actors learn to create organic, vivid human behavior. And that's what we teach our students," said Executive Director and Head of Acting, Charlie Sandlan.
Testimonials about the Maggie Flanigan Studio experience from actors, directors and former students speak for themselves:
"Maggie Flanigan is uncompromising, her instincts as a teacher are razor sharp. She doesn't miss a beat." Sam Rockwell, Actor.
"Maggie Flanigan has been one of the most important people in my artistic life. I want to work with Maggie trained actors. As an actor myself, she is my first source. I do not say this lightly, if you are serious about acting, and willing to work very hard, then go to Maggie." Stephen Adly Guirgis, Actor/Director/Screenwriter/Playwright
"I had taken a lot of acting classes and worked with a lot of acting teachers before I came to this studio. I can say without a doubt that the faculty and staff are beyond exceptional." Nabil Traboulsi, Studio Alumnus.
"Before I came to the Maggie Flanigan Studio, I genuinely attempted this career without seeking proper training. I didn't have an ounce of confidence. I couldn't tell you why I wanted to be an actor. Having just finished this program, I'm a different person, and this is a whole new career." Claire Ganshert, Studio Alumnus.
About Maggie Flanigan Studio
Located in the heart of New York City, Maggie Flanigan Studio was founded in 2001 to teach the Meisner technique of acting. Maggie Flanigan trained in Meisner with William Esper and served with distinction as an MFA acting instructor at Rutgers University for 18 years. New York City's "Home for the Serious Actor" is currently lead by Charlie Sandlan, who guides an exceptional faculty in teaching the next generation of aspiring actors. Learn more at: http://www.maggieflaniganstudio.com/actingprograms/.
Contact:
Charlie Sandlan
Executive Director & Head Of Acting
Maggie Flanigan Studio
153 W 27th St #803
New York, New York 10001
+1 917-789-1599
[email protected]
Related Links:
https://plus.google.com/+MaggieFlaniganStudioIncNewYork
SOURCE Maggie Flanigan Studio
Related Links
http://www.maggieflaniganstudio.com
PHILADELPHIA, Sept. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The family of 24-year-old Emily Fredricks, who was killed as she biked to work in Center City last November, is transforming their grief into significant action, as a result of a landmark $6 million-plus settlement agreement in Emily's name, to help make Philadelphia's streets safer for bicyclists.
Emily, a cautious, helmet-wearing cyclist, was struck and killed by a trash truck operated by Gold Medal Environmental while riding her bicycle in the intersection of 11th and Spruce Streets. The driver, who was making a right turn at that intersection, told police at the scene that he never saw her.
Emily's family, who live in East Brunswick, N.J., was determined to make sure that what happened to their daughter, an aspiring top-shelf chef, could not happen again to another bicyclist in Philadelphia. Working collaboratively with trial attorneys Larry Bendesky and Robert W. Zimmerman, from Saltz Mongeluzzi Barrett & Bendesky, P.C., Stuart Leon, the city's leading bicycle lawyer, and Zachary S. Leon, of Stuart Leon Bicycle Crash Law, they developed an innovative plan to not just reach an acceptable settlement, but create a partnership for positive change and enhanced public safety. After several months of negotiations with Gold Medal's lead attorney, Theodore M. Schaer, of Zarwin Baum DeVito Kaplan Schaer Toddy P.C., the settlement was reached. Significantly, it was all accomplished without what could have been protracted litigation with an uncertain outcome.
"Philadelphia's citizens will directly benefit from this settlement that could only be achieved through the cooperation of all parties and determination to do the right thing by Emily," said Mr. Bendesky.
The highlights of the agreement include:
$6 million in compensatory damages paid to Emily's estate.
in compensatory damages paid to Emily's estate. In addition, and in Emily's name, Gold Medal will fund a $125,000 contribution in five annual $25,000 installments - to local organizations committed to improving the safety of Philadelphia roads. The Fredricks family and company representatives will jointly determine the recipients.
contribution in five annual installments - to local organizations committed to improving the safety of Philadelphia roads. The Fredricks family and company representatives will jointly determine the recipients. Gold Medal, since the incident under new ownership-management, enhancing its truck driver safety program, under the direction of a highly qualified independent highway safety expert, and including a new training curriculum on urban vehicle operations, rigorous obstacle course instruction at its new, advanced training facility, and intensive behind-the-wheel interactions with bicyclists.
Emily's parents will meet and speak with the company's drivers and management about the vital importance of driving safely and the consequences of failing to do so.
Drivers are also now eligible, under a new incentive program, for significant salary bonuses that reward accident-free driving.
Mr. Zimmerman, of SMBB, added, "The Fredricks family made clear from the outset that justice for Emily had to translate into safer streets for everyone, whether they traveled by bike, by car, or on foot."
Richard and Laura Fredricks, Emily's parents, said they also think Emily would be proud of what has been accomplished. "We live everyday heartbroken over the loss of our precious daughter, searching for some way to see some good result from her passing. With this agreement, we feel lives can and will be saved by making Philadelphia's streets safer for bicyclists, as well drivers truck and car and also pedestrians."
Mr. Leon, a renowned bicycle attorney and safety advocate, said he is honored to be part of this "enlightened, far-reaching agreement where the parties stayed focused on the goal of creating a safer environment for cyclists, vehicles, and all others that share the streets of Philadelphia."
He added, "We are grateful to the Fredricks family for displaying an immense degree of dedication, courage and compassion that I feel certain will make a big difference for bicyclists and motorists in our city for generations to come. I also commend my co-counsel from Saltz Mongeluzzi, Mr. Schaer and Gold Medal's new ownership and management team."
SOURCE Saltz Mongeluzzi
AUSTIN, Texas, Sept. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- In 2008, The Dark Knight was the highest grossing movie, Low by Flo Rida topped the charts and in a UCLA dorm room, Austin-based SpareFoot was created. Since then, SpareFoot has grown to become a leading online marketplace for consumers to find and book self-storage.
The winning team shows off the first place trophy
In honor of the company's 10th anniversary, SpareFoot has invested $20,000 back into the Austin community. Through an internal nomination process, ten local nonprofits were selected to participate in a six-round trivia competition with questions all about the year 2008. SpareFoot employees formed teams with members of each non-profit to help them emerge victorious. Participating organizations, include:
OutYouth Open Door Preschool Travis Audubon Society CASA of Travis County Refugee Services of Texas B.I.G. Love Cancer Care Services Minis & Friends Wags Hope & Healing CISV ATX/SA Dell Children's Hospital.
"Community service has always been a priority at SpareFoot, and we are lucky to have the opportunity to give back to a city that has given us so much. We are grateful to be able to connect with local organizations and strengthen the Austin community." - Chuck Gordon, CEO.
Click to Tweet: [email protected] donates $20,000 to 10 local nonprofits. #ATXtech Read more: http://bit.ly/2COBmPB
After a raucous competition, Austin Minis and Friends emerged the winner of the $10,000 grand prize. The other nine participating nonprofits received a divided $10,000.
"We are honored to have been selected to participate with SpareFoot in such a big event. With our winnings, we plan to build two customized sheds so that we will no longer have to cancel weekend visits due to rainy weather. These winnings will solve our rain problem and we are still in awe." - Deborah Davis, Board Member and Volunteer.
Before each visit, Minis and Friends washes and grooms each working mini, a process that takes two hours to prepare for a visit. The new, custom sheds will ease visit preparation and help keep the minis dry for a visit.
"In 2017, we had to cancel 11 visits because of being rained out. The little horse therapists (a.k.a minis) think that if the ground gets wet and muddy, it is spa day! For us, it's sadness because we have to disappoint children and seniors with requesting a rain date," Davis adds.
Additionally, Minis and Friends will be able to publish the 2nd edition of the new Mighty Mini Readers, which provide information about all the minis and the organization. The readers also include children's activities, and pictures of the working horses. The readers will be passed out during visits at kid shelters, hospitals and assisted living homes.
In 2017, SpareFoot was named to the Top Company Cultures list by Entrepreneur Magazine and has been named a Top Employer by the Austin American-Statesman 5 years in a row. In January 2018, the company moved its headquarters to University Park. SpareFoot was named one of Austin's Coolest Companies by AustinInno in July 2018.
To learn more about the culture and benefits of working at SpareFoot, visit the SpareFoot jobs page.
About SpareFoot
SpareFoot was founded by Chuck Gordon and Mario Feghali from their dorm room at UCLA and has grown to become a leading online marketplace for consumers to find and book self-storage. SpareFoot offers consumers the ability to find storage facilities, compare deals, and book seamlessly across more than 12,000 facilities in the U.S. on SpareFoot.com and SelfStorage.com. The company was founded in 2008 and is headquartered in Austin, Texas.
About Minis and Friends
Minis and Friends is a group of caring people and horse lovers dedicated to sharing the love and spirit of miniature horses to those who need special, tender care. The organization's unique programs tailor activities for children with disabilities, at-risk youth, individuals in transition, and elder adults to improve their motor skills, ability to connect, tactile response, use of senses and spirits through interaction with miniature horses.
SOURCE SpareFoot
Related Links
http://www.sparefoot.com
PORT WASHINGTON, N.Y., Sept. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Systemax Inc. (NYSE: SYX) today announced that Larry Reinhold, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Tex Clark, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, will be presenting at the Sidoti & Company's Fall 2018 Conference in New York City at 12:55 p.m. ET (9:55 a.m. PT) on Thursday, September 27, 2018.
For more information and registration, please visit the conference website. Investors attending the conference who wish to meet with Mr. Reinhold and Mr. Clark should notify their Sidoti representative.
A live broadcast and replay of the presentation will be made available to the public via audio webcast, which can be accessed by visiting the investor relations section of Systemax's corporate website. The webcast will be archived for thirty days.
About Systemax Inc.
Systemax Inc. (www.systemax.com), through its operating subsidiaries, is a provider of industrial products in North America, going to market through a system of branded e-Commerce websites and relationship marketers. The Company's primary brand is Global Industrial (www.globalindustrial.com).
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward looking statements within the meaning of that term in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 (Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934). Additional written or oral forward looking statements may be made by the Company from time to time in filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission or otherwise. Statements contained in this press release that are not historical facts are forward looking statements made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, and are based on management's estimates, assumptions and projections and are not guarantees of future performance. The Company assumes no obligation to update these statements. Forward looking statements may include, but are not limited to, projections or estimates of revenue, income or loss, exit costs, cash flow needs and capital expenditures, statements regarding future operations, expansion or restructuring plans, including our exit from and winding down of our sold NATG operations, financing needs, compliance with financial covenants in loan agreements, plans relating to products or services of the Company, assessments of materiality, predictions of future events and the effects of pending and possible litigation, as well as assumptions relating to the foregoing. In addition, when used in this release, the words "anticipates," "believes," "estimates," "expects," "intends," and "plans" and variations thereof and similar expressions are intended to identify forward looking statements.
Other factors that may affect our future results of operations and financial condition include, but are not limited to, unanticipated developments in any one or more of the following areas, as well as other factors which may be detailed from time to time in our Securities and Exchange Commission filings: risks involved with e-commerce, including possible loss of business and customer dissatisfaction if outages or other computer-related problems should preclude customer access to our products and services; the Company's management information systems and other technology platforms supporting our sales, procurement and other operations are critical to our operations and disruptions or delays have occurred and could occur in the future, and if not timely addressed would have a material adverse effect on us; we could suffer a data security breach due to our e-commerce and data storage systems being hacked by those seeking to steal Company information, vendor, employee or customer personal information, or due to employee error, resulting in disruption to our operations, loss of information and privacy, legal claims and adverse material impact on our reputation and business; meeting credit card industry compliance standards in order to maintain our ability to accept credit cards; technological change has had and can continue to have a material effect on our product mix and results of operations; general economic conditions will continue to impact our business; extreme weather conditions could disrupt our product supply chain and our ability to ship or receive products, which would adversely impact sales; our international operations are subject to risks such as fluctuations in currency rates and foreign regulatory requirements, and our operations are subject to the impact of newly enacted US and foreign tariffs, and political uncertainty; and managing various inventory risks, such as being unable to profitably resell excess or obsolete inventory and/or the loss of product return rights and price protection from our vendors.
Investor/Media Contacts:
Mike Smargiassi
The Plunkett Group
212-739-6729
[email protected]
SOURCE Systemax Inc.
Related Links
http://www.systemax.com
ATLANTA, Sept. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Teamsters Union-represented Coca-Cola workers and their union representatives joined an international delegation of Coca-Cola [NYSE: KO] workers today to protest Coke's Human Rights Forum at the company's global headquarters in Atlanta. Coke workers and their representatives protested the company's ongoing human rights violations around the world.
The action was organized by the International Union of Food Workers (IUF), a global union federation of which the Teamsters Union is a member. It is part of the escalating campaign against Coca-Cola that includes a global coalition of over 100 trade unions with members at Coca-Cola in 32 countries.
The IUF also held its own alternative human rights conference at Georgia State University today. Coke workers from Indonesia, the Philippines and the United States testified about how Coke is failing to respect workers' human rights and failing to remedy abuses:
In Indonesia , Coke's bottler, Coca-Cola Amatil, is systematically attacking workers who are attempting to organize independent democratic unions.
, Coke's bottler, Coca-Cola Amatil, is systematically attacking workers who are attempting to organize independent democratic unions. In the Philippines , Coke's bottler, Coca-Cola FEMSA, unlawfully terminated over 600 workers and hired third-party "delivery partners" that systematically pay workers 5 percent to 34 percent below the legal minimum wage.
, Coke's bottler, Coca-Cola FEMSA, unlawfully terminated over 600 workers and hired third-party "delivery partners" that systematically pay workers 5 percent to 34 percent below the legal minimum wage. In the United States , Coke's largest privately-held bottler, Coca-Cola United, recently left workers in Mobile, Ala. , with no decision but to strike after the company demanded that new workers receive $6 to $8 less per hour than current employees.
, Coke's largest privately-held bottler, Coca-Cola United, recently left workers in , with no decision but to strike after the company demanded that new workers receive to less per hour than current employees. In West Virginia , workers at the Coca-Cola Bottling Co. are trying to bargain a new contract, but the employer is demanding that employees pay higher health care premiums, deductibles and out-of-pocket maximums, even though the company's health care costs have actually decreased over the past several years. The company is also refusing to consider the workers' proposal that they be moved into a union health care plan that could save the company half a million dollars.
"Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., in his final speech before being assassinated, called out Coca-Cola for its discriminatory practices," said Ben Speight, Organizing Director of Teamsters Local 728 in Atlanta. "It is disgraceful that 50 years later, Coca-Cola is still causing workers so much pain."
"The IUF has repeatedly informed Coca-Cola of its bottlers' ongoing violations, but Coca-Cola has failed to take any meaningful action. Coke's systematic failures make it complicit in these abuses, and an abuser in its own right," said Sue Longley, General Secretary of the International Union of Food Workers. "Coca-Cola's leadership, including CEO James Quincy and its human resource team of Jennifer Mann and Brent Wilson, need to stop holding sham human rights conferences and take immediate action to protect the human rights of their own workers."
"It is outrageous that Coca-Cola is using human rights to promote the company's brand, even though it is intimidating, harassing and underpaying workers all over the world," said Dennis Hart, Teamsters Brewery and Soft Drink Conference Vice President.
To read more about Coca-Cola's human rights abuses in Haiti, Indonesia, Ireland, the Philippines and the United States, see IUF's website.
Founded in 1903, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters represents 1.4 million hardworking men and women throughout the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico. Visit www.teamster.org for more information. Follow us on Twitter @Teamsters and "like" us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/teamsters.
Contact:
Ben Speight, (404) 604-6762
SOURCE International Brotherhood of Teamsters
Related Links
http://www.teamster.org
The essay describes how The Economist has been committed to classical 19 th -century liberal values from the very beginning: "In September 1843 James Wilson, a hatmaker from Scotland, founded this newspaper. His purpose was simple: to champion free trade, free markets and limited government."
It explains how these liberal values have helped modern societies thrive: "The core liberal causes of individual freedom, free trade and free markets have been the most powerful engine for creating prosperity in all history. Liberalism's respect for diverse opinions and ways of life has whittled away much prejudice: against religious and ethnic minorities, against the proposition that girls and boys should have an equal opportunity to attend school, against same-sex sex, against single parents."
And yet, the essay and editorial argue, 175 years after The Economist's founding, liberalism is in trouble. "Europe and America are in the throes of a popular rebellion against liberal elites, who are seen as self-serving and unableor unwillingto solve the problems of ordinary people," the editorial says. "Elsewhere a 25-year shift towards democracy and open markets has gone into reverse, even as China, soon to be the world's largest economy, shows that dictatorships can thrive."
They point out how liberalism began as a restless, agitating world view. Yet over the past few decades, as liberals have become comfortable with power, they have lost their hunger for reform.
In six parts, the essay sets out how liberalism must change. "The social contract and geopolitical norms that underpin liberal democracies and the world order that sustains them were not built for this century. Geography and technology have produced new concentrations of economic power to tackle. The developed and the developing world alike need fresh ideas for the design of better welfare states and tax systems. The rights of people to move from one country to another need to be redefined. American apathy and China's rise require a rethinking of the world ordernot least because the huge gains that free trade has provided must be preserved."
Both the essay and the editorial end with a call to arms. The liberal values The Economist has long championed are still the best route to prosperity and freedom in the 21st century. Liberals need to shake themselves out of their torpor and rediscover their reforming zeal.
"The Economistat 175: How to reinvent liberalism for the 21st century" essay is part of the The Economist's Open Future initiative. Launched in April 2018, Open Future is focused on creating a global conversation with the newspaper's critics and supporters on the future of classical liberal values to deal with the challenges of the 21st century. The Open Future hub has featured commentary, debate and interviews involving The Economist's editorial staff and a huge range of outside contributors, including: Angelina Jolie, Tony Blair, Jordan Peterson, Margot Wallstrom, Madeleine Albright, Laura Bates, Francis Fukuyama and Lawrence Summers. The online hub includes commissioned opinion pieces, explainers, articles, interviews, podcasts, videos, debates, essay series and book excerpts. The Economist has also hosted online debates, film and essay competitions, and conversations on social-media platforms. The Open Future Festival will take place on September 15th in Hong Kong, London and New York and be live-streamed globally.
"The Economist at 175: How to reinvent liberalism for the 21st century" essay: https://econ.st/2MtIu3D
"The Economist at 175: A manifesto" cover lead article: https://econ.st/2NJuneS
To read more about the Open Future initiative, please visit: https://www.economist.com/openfuture
To join the Open Future Festival taking place on Saturday, 15th September, remotely, please follow this live link: https://openfuturefestival.live/
About The Economist (www.economist.com) With a growing global audience and a reputation for insightful analysis and perspective on every aspect of world events, The Economist is one of the most widely recognised and well-read current affairs publications in the world. In addition to the weekly print and digital editions and website, The Economist publishes Espresso, a daily news app, Global Business Review, a bilingual English-Chinese product and Economist VR, a virtual-reality app. Economist Radio produces several podcasts a week and Economist Films produces short- and long-form video. The Economist maintains robust social communities on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Snapchat, LINE, Medium and other social networks. A recipient of many editorial and marketing awards, The Economist was named the most trusted news source by the 2017 Trusting News Project Report.
SOURCE The Economist
Related Links
https://www.economist.com
MONTVALE, N.J., Sept. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The PhD Project, an award-winning program to increase diversity in management, has announced the 2018 inductees into The PhD Project Hall of Fame. They are: Dr. Mary Gilly, Senior Associate Dean and Professor of Marketing at the Paul Merage School of Business, University of California, Irvine; Dr. Miles Davis, President of Linfield College; Dr. Quinetta Roberson, Fred J. Springer Endowed Chair in Business Leadership, School of Business at Villanova University.
The PhD Project established the Hall of Fame in 2011 to recognize a select few who have inspired many. These individuals have sustained an unwavering commitment to The PhD Project's mission and their positive leadership has resulted in significant encouragement and impact within The Project's network of minority business doctoral students and faculty.
"We are pleased to present the 2018 inductees to The PhD Project Hall of Fame. Since our inception, these individuals have served The Project as presenters, mentors and advisors," said Bernard J. Milano, President of The PhD Project and the KPMG Foundation, the founder, lead funder and administrator of The Project. "They have put forth great effort to create diversity in academia and ultimately, the business world."
Dr. Mary C. Gilly is Senior Associate Dean and Professor of Marketing at the Paul Merage School of Business, University of California, Irvine. She received her BA from Trinity University in San Antonio, TX, her MBA from Southern Methodist University and her PhD from University of Houston. Dr. Gilly's research addresses consumer behavior issues using a multi-method approach. Her research appears in premier journals, including the Journal of Consumer Research, the Journal of Marketing, the Journal of Service Research, the Journal of Business Research and the Journal of Retailing. She is the recipient of the 2011 Williams-Qualls-Spratlen (WQS) Multicultural Mentoring Award of Excellence from the American Marketing Association Foundation for her work with doctoral students.
Dr. Miles Davis is the president of Linfield College. Previously, he was the dean of the Harry F. Byrd, Jr. School of Business and the George Edward Durell Chair of Management at Shenandoah University. He also was the founding director of the Institute of Entrepreneurship at Shenandoah University. Dr. Davis is an active scholar and has published scholarly articles on the intersection of entrepreneurship and faith based practices. He has been presented with the "Silver Good Citizenship Medal" from the Sons of the American Revolution and recognized as being a "Drum Major for Justice" by the United Covenant Churches of Christ.
Dr. Quinetta M. Roberson is the Fred J. Springer Endowed Chair in Business Leadership in the School of Business at Villanova University. Prior to her current position, she was an Associate Professor of Human Resource Studies at Cornell University. Her research appears in the field's top journals, and she was an Associate Editor at Journal of Applied Psychology from 2008-2014. She received her BS from University of Delaware, MBA from University of Pittsburgh, and PhD from University of Maryland. She is a Fellow in the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP) and currently serves as Vice President/Program Chair of the Academy of Management (AOM).
The PhD Project, founded by the KPMG Foundation in 1994 and became a separate 501c(3) in 2005, recruits minority professionals from business into doctoral programs in all business disciplines. Since its inception, The PhD Project has been responsible for the increase in the number of minority business professors from 294 to 1,470. Further, 270 minorities are currently enrolled in doctoral programs, and will take a place at the front of the classroom over the next few years. The Project attacks the root cause of minority under-representation in corporate jobs: historically, very few minority college students study business as an entree to a corporate career. Diversifying the faculty attracts more minorities to study business and better prepares all students to function in a diverse workforce.
The PhD Project 2018 Hall of Fame's inductees will be honored at the organization's annual conference in November. A new class of inductees is selected annually, with supporters of The PhD Project and the public invited to submit nominations for each year's class.
The PhD Project has received ongoing support from its sponsoring companies, participating universities and organizations. The sponsors who are founding organizations, in addition to the KPMG Foundation, are the Graduate Management Admission Council and AACSB International. Other leading corporations, foundations and associations funding The Project include: AICPA Foundation, DiversityInc, Dixon Hughes Goodman LLP, American Marketing Association, Rockwell Collins, John Deere Foundation, California State University System, Lincoln Financial Group, Academy of Management, American Accounting Association, City University of New York System, Aerotek, NASBA, Thrivent Financial, American Express Foundation, Fidelity Investments, Bentley University, LinkedIn and over 300 Participating Universities.
Lisa King
646-234-5080
[email protected]
SOURCE The PhD Project
SUGAR LAND, Texas, Sept. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Trecora Resources (NYSE: TREC), a leading provider of high purity specialty hydrocarbons and waxes, today announced its upcoming conference schedule:
Singular Research Midwestern Values Conference
Location: Dallas
Date and Time: Thursday, September 20, 2018 at 9:00 a.m. CT ( 10:00 a.m. ET )
* Sami Ahmad , CFO, will be available for one-on-one meetings throughout the day.
Location: Dallas Date and Time: Thursday, September 20, 2018 at 9:00 a.m. CT ( ) * , CFO, will be available for one-on-one meetings throughout the day. Sidoti & Company Fall 2018 Conference
Location: New York City
Date and Time: Thursday, September 27, 2018 at 10:55 a.m. ET.
*Simon Upfill-Brown, CEO, will be available for one-on-one meetings throughout the day.
Investors interested in scheduling a meeting should contact their Singular or Sidoti representative.
There will be audio-only live webcasts for the following two conferences with replays available for 90 days. The slides that accompany webcasts will be available on the Company's website: www.trecora.com. To listen to these webcasts please click on the links below:
Singular Research Midwestern Values Conference http://www.singularresearch.com/
Sidoti & Company Fall 2018 Conference http://www.investorcalendar.com/event/37490
About Trecora Resources (TREC)
TREC owns and operates a facility located in southeast Texas, just north of Beaumont, which specializes in high purity hydrocarbons and other petrochemical manufacturing. TREC also owns and operates a leading manufacturer of specialty polyethylene waxes and provider of custom processing services located in the heart of the Petrochemical complex in Pasadena, Texas. In addition, the Company is the original developer and a 33.4% owner of Al Masane Al Kobra Mining Co., a Saudi Arabian joint stock company.
Investor Relations Contact:
Jean Marie Young
The Piacente Group, Inc.
212-481-2050
[email protected]
SOURCE Trecora Resources
Related Links
http://www.trecora.com
WEST HAVEN, Conn., Sept. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- For the ninth year in a row, the University of New Haven has been ranked a top-tier university by U.S. News & World Report in its annual "Best Colleges" rankings. The University was also ranked in the publication's "best value" list of regional colleges in the north.
"Our continued improvement in this influential ranking is fueled by our high-achieving students who are driven to excel, and by our devoted faculty members, who continue to create innovative learning opportunities that challenge our students," said President Steven H. Kaplan. "We are proud to be recognized as a destination school where talented and determined students take charge of their learning," added President Kaplan.
In the 2019 edition, the University is ranked number 93 in the North region, which is one rank higher than its ranking in the previous year. Also, as part of the comprehensive rankings, the University's Tagliatela College of Engineering is again rated in the top third in its category. The University's College of Business, for the second year in a row, was ranked among the top 60 percent of more than 500 ranked business schools across the country.
For the first time in several years, the ranking's methodology was changed. Most notably, a new category measuring "social mobility" was added, which aims to factor a school's success at graduating Pell Grant recipients. This metric comprises five percent of the overall ranking.
This fall, the University, which last month was again recognized by The Princeton Review in its annual college rankings, welcomed its second-largest incoming class in its nearly 100-year history.
About the University of New Haven
The University of New Haven, founded on the Yale campus in 1920, is a private, coeducational university situated on the coast of southern New England. It's a diverse and vibrant community of more than 7,000 students, with campuses around the country and around the world.
Within its colleges and schools, students immerse themselves in a transformative, career-focused education across the liberal arts and sciences, fine arts, business, engineering, public safety and public service. More than 100 academic programs are offered, all grounded in a long-standing commitment to collaborative, interdisciplinary, project-based learning. Further information is available at http://www.newhaven.edu/.
SOURCE University of New Haven
Related Links
http://www.newhaven.edu
NASHVILLE, Tenn., Sept. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Vanderbilt Law School has created a first-of-its kind online program for non-lawyers. V-Legal is a series of three online courses designed to help executives and managers gain fluency in the legal principles, language and processes business leaders need to understand. Professionals who earn the V-Legal certificate will learn to "think like a lawyer" when making decisions for their businesses or organizations, gaining skills that may have an immediate impact on their job performance and career advancement.
Vanderbilt Law School
V-Legal was created in partnership with iLaw, a BARBRI company. iLaw partners with law schools to develop online law programs designed for lawyers and non-lawyers; it provides market research, instructional design, and student-recruitment. iLaw-BARBRI provides a full range of services that support law schools, including data analytics, remote learning, and bar preparation.
V-Legal responds to growing demand by non-lawyer professionals for legal knowledge. As legal regulation increases in all areas of business, executives and managers at all levels face a growing need to understand legal principles and how the law works. V-Legal introduces core legal concepts in an engaging, accessible way, making it an excellent, low-cost educational investment that provides long-term career benefits.
"V-Legal leverages the nationally renowned expertise of Vanderbilt Law faculty to help today's business leaders successfully navigate business challenges in an increasingly global legal environment," said Vanderbilt Law Dean Chris Guthrie. "Vanderbilt is excited to provide this unique opportunity to business-minded professionals who can use this extra foundation in law to improve their decision making and advance in their careers."
V-Legal includes three courses:
The Architecture of American Law,
The Language of the Law: How Lawyers Think , and
, and The Content of American Law.
Courses are taught by three award-winning members of the Vanderbilt Law faculty Christopher Serkin, Suzanna Sherry, and Ingrid Wuerth.
Professionals in both the for-profit and non-profit sectors including those working in healthcare, real estate, human resources, finance, and technology will benefit from the V-Legal Executive Certificate from Vanderbilt Law.
Courses are self-paced and designed to be taken in sequence. V-Legal includes helpful knowledge checks and assessments to allow participants to monitor their progress. Course modules remain available online to allow participants to review the material or even retake courses to refresh their understanding of legal concepts.
Participants earn the V-Legal Executive Certificate to certify mastery of important legal concepts.
You can enroll or find more information at VLegalVanderbilt.com
About Vanderbilt Law School: A perennial top 20 school, Vanderbilt Law School has trained students to become leading lawyers, business people, and political figures around the country and world for 140 years. It is known for its commitment to high-quality teaching and training as well as its cutting-edge legal research.
MEDIA CONTACT:
Megan Ablondi
[email protected]m
(214) 932-0915
www.ilawventures.com
SOURCE Vanderbilt Law School
Related Links
http://VLegalVanderbilt.com
PALM BEACH, Fla., Sept. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- After aligning over 50 dental practices with DSO's and Private Equity Firms over the summer Viper Equity Partners is expanding its marketing efforts into the dental space. David Branch a Principal at Viper explained their focus to become the key facilitator of deals in bringing the dental community and DSO's together. "We see the problem many DSO's are facing finding good practices to acquire. We are the solution and we want to help expedite this exciting consolidation in the dental industry," stated Branch.
Founded in 2009 by a group of Business and Financial professionals Viper uses its extensive marketing system to identify medical practices that meet specific criteria. Once identified their team meets with the practice owners who are interested in selling, growing or joining a platform. After contracted the departmentalized Viper Teams conduct extensive due diligence on the practice, develop a Business summary and Confidential Information Memorandum then take the practice to the market targeting specific buyers they work with.
Viper is skilled at helping the Doctors understand the process. They feel the key is as much about valuation as it is about matching the parties that will work well together. Viper stays in the process until closing and considers themselves an asset to the process. "Our perfect scenario is to work directly with a PE Firm or existing DSO and go find them exactly what they are looking for in a practice," stated Branch. "If a firm says we want 8 offices with x in revenue, x in EBITDA and no debt for example and we want them all in Texas then we go to work and find them." Viper normally is working with over 40 practices at any given time in as many as 40 states.
Viper likes the space they have created for themselves. Their deal range is between two and seventy million dollars. In dental they focus on practices with one to four offices with between two to five million in gross revenue. Presently they are in a growth mode to meet the needs of their partners.
Viper Equity Partners is also on the fore front of what they feel will be the next big push, Plastic Surgery and Med Spas. They already have marquis plastic surgery offices under contract in the North East, South Florida and Chicago markets. "Plastic surgery is our baby and we know it will be the next big wave. We have a book of offices now ready to start new verticals with over forty-five million in revenue and a tied back EBITDA of twenty-two million," stated David Branch.
If you would like to talk about what options are available for your practice or are a Private Equity firm looking to work with Viper on your projects, contact them today. [email protected]
Viper Equity Partners Bringing the Healthcare Community and Private Equity Together
SOURCE Viper Equity Partners of Palm Beach
LEE'S SUMMIT, Mo., Sept. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Viracor Eurofins announced the addition of a new cytomegalovirus (CMV) gene sequencing assay for resistance to letermovir, the most recent FDA-approved CMV antiviral for use in adult Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplant (HSCT) patients. While there has been no resistance identified in treatment-naive patients, clinical trials have shown resistance can develop in UL56 after exposure for some HSCT patients. Laboratory testing is recommended to quickly confirm the occurrence of resistance, as treatment modification based solely on clinical suspicion may result in added toxicity and increased time and complexity in patient management, if resistance is present in the patient.
CMV is a common virus that affects more than half of adults by the age of 40 years, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. While a healthy immune system is able to defend against CMV reactivation, CMV infections are a major cause of morbidity and mortality among immunocompromised and transplant patients. Viracor's CMV drug resistance testing options equip healthcare providers with critical information when patients fail to respond to antivirals during prophylaxis or treatment.
The newest assay, CMV Resistance: Letermovir, became available in May 2018 as a standalone test, or as a complete panel with the other CMV drugs as CMV Resistance: Letermovir, Ganciclovir, Foscarnet, Cidofovir. Viracor also offers a CMV resistance test for UL54 and UL97, for ganciclovir, foscarnet and cidofovir.
These new assays add to Viracor's menu of CMV testing options that help physicians across the continuum of care for immunocompromised patients with CMV. This includes PCR testing designed with dual gene targets to reduce false negative results, and a T Cell immunity Panel that was launched in 2017. Viracor's CMV T Cell Immunity Panel uniquely evaluates CD4 and CD8 cells, with fast result turnaround time. Both CD4 and CD8 T cell responses are vital components of CMV immune control. Unlike many laboratories that are limited in the types of specimens they can process for testing, Viracor has validated and accepts 19 different specimen types for CMV Quantitative PCR testing, giving healthcare providers more options in complex or difficult cases.
Please visit the Viracor website for more information on CMV Resistance: Letermovir, Ganciclovir, Foscarnet, Cidofovir, CMV Quantitative Real-time PCR, CMV T-Cell Immunity Panel, and Viracor's accepted specimen types.
About Viracor Eurofins
With over 30 years of specialized expertise in infectious disease, immunology and allergy testing for immunocompromised and critical patients, Viracor Eurofins is committed to helping medical professionals, transplant teams, reference laboratories and biopharmaceutical companies get results faster, when it matters most. Viracor is passionate about delivering value to its clients by providing timely, actionable information, never losing sight of the connection between the testing it performs and the patients it ultimately serves.
Viracor is a 100 percent subsidiary of Eurofins Scientific (EUFI.PA), the global leader in bio-analytical testing, and one of the world leaders in genomic services. For more information, please visit www.eurofins.com and www.viracor-eurofins.com.
About Eurofins a global leader in bio-analysis
Eurofins Scientific through its subsidiaries (hereinafter sometimes "Eurofins" or "the Group") believes it is a scientific leader in food, environment and pharmaceutical products testing and in agroscience CRO services. It is also one of the independent market leaders in certain testing and laboratory services for genomics, discovery pharmacology, forensics, CDMO, advanced material sciences and for supporting clinical studies. In addition, Eurofins is one of the emerging players in specialty clinical diagnostic testing in Europe and the USA. With over 38,000 staff in more than 400 laboratories across 44 countries, Eurofins offers a portfolio of over 150,000 analytical methods for evaluating the safety, identity, composition, authenticity, origin and purity of biological substances and products, as well as for innovative clinical diagnostic. The Group objective is to provide its customers with high-quality services, accurate results on time and expert advice by its highly qualified staff.
Eurofins is committed to pursuing its dynamic growth strategy by expanding both its technology portfolio and its geographic reach. Through R&D and acquisitions, the Group draws on the latest developments in the field of biotechnology and analytical chemistry to offer its clients unique analytical solutions and the most comprehensive range of testing methods.
As one of the most innovative and quality oriented international players in its industry, Eurofins is ideally positioned to support its clients' increasingly stringent quality and safety standards and the expanding demands of regulatory authorities around the world.
The shares of Eurofins Scientific are listed on the Euronext Paris Stock Exchange (ISIN FR0000038259, Reuters EUFI.PA, Bloomberg ERF FP).
SOURCE Viracor Eurofins
Related Links
http://www.viracor-eurofins.com
SILICON SLOPES, Utah, Sept. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Workfront, the first modern work management application platform, has been named to the Forbes 2018 Cloud 100, the definitive list of the top 100 private cloud companies in the world, for the third consecutive year. Forbes develops the list in partnership with Bessemer Venture Partners.
The Forbes Cloud 100 recognizes the world's top private companies leading the cloud technology revolution. With advancements in software, cloud security, and platform development, these organizations are defining the future across industries and sectors. The Forbes evaluation process involved four factors: market leadership, estimated valuation, operating metrics, and people & culture.
"For the past three years, the Cloud 100 list has identified the top cloud companies that are reshaping their respective industries," said Alex Konrad, Forbes editor of The Cloud 100. "I am consistently impressed by the caliber of companies honored on the Cloud 100 list. It is an exciting time to be a cloud company and founder."
"Workfront is helping business leaders transform the way work gets done," said Alex Shootman, CEO of Workfront. "Workfront's recognition in the Forbes Cloud 100 is a direct reflection both of our customers' achievements and the dedication of our people, creating innovative solutions and a unique culture that is the foundation for our long-term leadership."
With great opportunities, top-ranked benefits, and an employee-focused company culture, Workfront attracts the brightest minds in the industry: passionate people who work hard and value cooperation and creativity. The company is among Deloitte's Technology Fast 500 and was recently named one of Utah's Best Companies to Work For the fifth consecutive time. Workfront has been ranked in Utah Business Magazine's Fast 50 for ten years. To find out how to join the Workfront team, visit www.workfront.com/careers.
About Workfront
Workfront is the first modern work management application platform that connects enterprise work, collaboration, and digital content into an Operational System of Record (OSR). Workfront has helped thousands of companies successfully transform their businesses into modern enterprises that increase revenue, improve customer experiences, and eliminate cost, including BT, Cisco Systems, Comcast, Fender Musical Instruments Corporation, Fossil Group, TSB, and Trek. To learn more about how Workfront makes work matter, visit www.workfront.com.
Contact: Shelbi Gomez
[email protected]
801-477-9813
SOURCE Workfront
Related Links
https://www.workfront.com
SANTA BARBARA, California, September 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ --
An IREM Industry Partner, Yardi's multifaceted conference participation includes presentation on artificial intelligence's implications for property management
Yardi will be a major presence at the Institute of Real Estate Management's 2018 Global Summit, taking place Sept. 26-29 in Hollywood, Fla. The summit is a forum for commercial and multifamily property and asset managers to network and learn about asset management trends, best practices and new technology.
(Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/737275/Yardi_Logo.jpg )
On Sept. 28, from 11 a.m. - 12:15 p.m., Matt Eggers, vice president of Yardi Energy, will present Artificial Intelligence: New Frontiers in Energy Management and Cost Reduction, a discussion of the potential AI holds for reducing energy consumption and lowering maintenance costs, among other benefits.
"We look forward to engaging with our real estate management colleagues and introducing them to solutions that simplify business for all property types and sizes," Eggers said. "It's fitting that IREM describes the conference as 'the ultimate networking and education conference experience' because Yardi has exciting new technology solutions to share, including Yardi Elevate, the Yardi Smart Energy Suite and Yardi Breeze. Attendees are encouraged to visit our booth, talk with our experts and see for themselves."
Yardi is a Global Summit sponsor, exhibitor (Booths #101 and #102) and IREM Industry Partner. The company is also the exclusive sponsor of the gala dinner on Sept. 29 celebrating the inauguration of 2018-2019 IREM president, Donald B. Wilkerson, CPM.
Connect with us at the 2018 IREM Global Summit or learn more about attending the event.
About Yardi
Yardi develops and supports industry-leading asset, investment and property management software for all types and sizes of real estate companies. Established in 1984, Yardi is based in Santa Barbara, Calif., and serves clients worldwide. For more information on how Yardi is Energized for Tomorrow, visit yardi.com.
SOURCE Yardi
Chennai, Sep 13 : Ganesh Chaturthi was celebrated across Tamil Nadu on Thursday with people offering prayers to idols of the elephant-headed Hindu god.
People also thronged Vijayaka/Ganesha temples where special prayers were conducted.
The aroma of 'kozhakattai', a rice flour and jaggery dumpling, wafted through many of the kitchen windows. After offering prayers on the occasion, neighbours and friends got together to share the sweet treat.
Roadside vendors did brisk business even on Thursday morning, selling Vinayaka idols, flowers and holy arugam grass.
Public celebrations were also held in most parts of the state capital with huge Ganesh idols placed inside decorative marquees.
Los Angeles, Sep 13 : Actor Mel Gibson's attorneys have accused the producer of American-Irish drama film "The Professor and the Madman" of seeking to swindle Irelands tax authorities.
Gibson is engaged in a legal battle with producer Voltage Pictures over the film, which tells the dark origin story of the Oxford English Dictionary, reports variety.com.
The director, Farhad Safinia, first accused Voltage in July of trying to inflate expenses on the film, which would result in a larger tax rebate from the Irish government.
Gibson, who co-produced and starred in the film as lexicographer James Murray, filed an answer to a cross-complaint on Wednesday, in which he joined in the accusation.
Gibson's attorneys have alleged that producer Zev Foreman offered a $1.3 million fee to Safinia, on the condition that Safinia then rebate $1 million to Voltage under the guise of buying a literary property.
"Mr. Foreman also indicated he had perpetrated similar fraudulent transactions in connection with Voltage's production of films in the State of Louisiana to obtain tax credits there," Gibson's attorneys stated.
The filing states that Warren Dern, Safinia's lawyer, asked Foreman for a letter from a recognised law firm stating that such an arrangement would be legal. No such letter was provided.
Safinia previously said that he rejected the deal. The new filing also asserts that Voltage made a similar offer to Vicki Christianson, the Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer of Gibson's company, Icon Productions. She also rejected it, the attorneys state.
Voltage's attorney, Jeremiah Reynolds, previously said that the tax scam allegation was fabricated. Voltage declined to comment on the latest claims.
New Delhi, Sep 13 : Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Thursday demanded Finance Minister Arun Jaitely's resignation after accusing him of colluding with fugitive businessman Vijay Mallya "and giving him a free passage" to flee the country.
Addressing the media at the Congress headquarters here, Gandhi asked why the Minister did not inform the investigating agencies about Mallya's plans to leave India.
"There is a clear-cut collusion. He (Jaitley) should have confessed (about the meeting) and he should resign," said Gandhi.
At the media conference, party MP P.L. Punia claimed to give an eyewitness account of the meeting between Jaitley and Mallya in the Central Hall of Parliament before the businessman fled the country on March 2, 2016.
"The Finance Minister talks to an absconder (Mallya) and the absconder tells the Finance Minister that I am going to London. The Finance Minister neither told the CBI, the ED or the police, why?
"He was given a free passage to leave the country by the Finance Minister," said Gandhi and alleged that the logistics of Mallya going out of the country were discussed at the meeting.
"The Finance Minister has colluded with a criminal."
Punia claimed the meeting between Jaitley and Mallya lasted 15-20 minutes and alleged that Mallya took Jaitley's permission after holding consultations with him about his planned flight abroad.
"The meeting happened on March 1, 2016, a day after the Union budget was presented. In the Central Hall, initially Mallya and Jaitley were standing and were talking intently. Then they moved to the benches in the Central Hall and were seated and talking," said Punia.
"Later, on March 3 morning, news appeared that Mallya left the country on March 2. My first reaction was that I had seen them together in Central Hall a day earlier," said Punia.
The MP said he had referred about the meeting in his interactions with the media.
"I am surprised that for last two and a half years, the Finance Minister never referred to this meeting. It was not a short meeting but a formal meeting. There is CCTV facility in Parliament and their meeting can be verified from the footages.
"It is very clear that Mallya took his (Jaitley's) permission after holding consultations. It is our charge and inference that he (Mallya) went with his (Jaitley's) concurrence.
"It is a serious issue. Either he (Jaitley) quits politics or I will quit," said Punia.
Ridiculing Jaitley, Gandhi said: "Yesterday Jaitley said Mallya had approached him informally. He writes long blogs, but forgot to write about this in any of his blogs."
He also questioned why Jaitley did not inform the CBI, ED or the police that Mallya had told him about his plans to go to London.
"Our first question is an absconder tells the Finance Minister that I am going to London and the Finance Minister doesn't refer it to CBI, ED or the police.
"Our second question is there was a lookout notice against Mallya which was diluted to an inform notice. Who changed it? This can be done only by one who controls the CBI," he alleged.
He also demanded to know if the decision was taken by Jaitley himself or the "order came from the top".
Referring to Jaitley claiming that his meeting with Mallya was in the corridor of the Central Hall of Parliament, Gandhi demanded to know why Jaitley did not tell the CBI about this.
"The Prime Minister takes the decisions and Jaitley listens to him. Did he (Jaitley) allow him to flee or the order was from the top?"
On a question if the meeting was a coincidence, Gandhi replied: "How can it be a coincidence? The Finance Minister is responsible for taking action against economic offenders.
"It is clear-cut collusion, the Finance Minister has colluded with a criminal running away from the country. He was told by the criminal that he is going to run away but the Finance Minister did nothing. He has colluded with the criminal. whatever we can do we will do," said Gandhi, adding that the "government is lying on Rafale, they are lying on Mallya".
Moscow, Sep 13 : Two men accused of a nerve agent attack on former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in the UK claimed on Thursday that they visited the city where the assault took place as tourists and not to poison the pair.
The men, named Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, told the Kremlin-backed RT network that they made a brief trip to Salisbury because "our friends had been suggesting for a long time that we visit this wonderful town" and mentioned the city's historic cathedral.
They said they returned to London from the city within an hour and had nothing to do with the attack on Skripals, who were poisoned when the men were in Salisbury on March 4.
British prosecutors said last week they had "sufficient evidence" to charge the two Russian nationals in connection with the incident. Prosecutors say the Skripals came into contact with Novichok, a military-grade nerve agent.
The UK has described them as agents of Russia's military intelligence service, the GRU.
The two men said they had visited England purely to see tourist sites such as Stonehenge. "We came there on March 2, then went to a railway station to see the timetable," Petrov said, according to RT. "We arrived in Salisbury on March 3 and tried to walk through the town, but we lasted for only half an hour because it was covered in snow."
The two men denied having Novichok or any poison with them. They said they were not GRU agents, instead they were in the fitness industry.
On Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said "there was nothing criminal about them and that they were civilians".
Skripal and his daughter fell critically ill but recovered after weeks of intensive care in hospital. Their current whereabouts were being kept secret, the BBC reported.
The UK police linked the attack to a separate Novichok poisoning on June 30, when a couple, Dawn Sturgess and Charlie Rowley, fell ill at a house in Amesbury.
Asked about nerve agent Novichok, the men denied having it with them and also denied carrying the modified Nina Ricci perfume bottle which, UK investigators say, contained the substance.
"Is it silly for decent lads to have women's perfume? The customs are checking everything, they would have questions as to why men have women's perfume in their luggage. We didn't have it," Boshirov said.
New Delhi, Sep 13 : Former Fortis Healthcare promoter Shivinder Mohan Singh has urged the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) to allow withdrawal of his case filed against older brother Malvinder Mohan Singh as per the wishes of their mother.
"... the mother of Petitioner No. 2 (Shivinder) and Respondent No. 2 (Malvinder) has requested both her sons to engage in mediation led by family elders... to settle inter se the issues between them," the withdrawal petition filed on Wednesday said.
Shivinder Singh had this month filed a suit in NCLT, a quasi-judicial body for corporate governance, alleging "oppression and mismanagement" in their joint businesses against Malvinder and former Religare Group CEO Sunil Godhwani.
"... out of respect for their mother, the parties have already started mediation and as per the request of the mediators to constructively progress the mediation, the petitioners wish to withdraw the captioned petition," read the NCLT filing.
On September 4, Shivinder, his wife Aditi and their company Shivi Holdings filed a case in the NCLT against Malvinder and Godhwani, alleging mismanagement of RHC Holdings, including embezzlement of funds and forgery, which led the group into a debt trap.
Shivinder had claimed that the collective, ongoing actions of Malvinder and Godhwani had led to a systematic undermining of the interests of the companies and their shareholders as also the committed and loyal employees of the group.
The Singh brothers, who have equal stakes in RHC Holdings, have lost their control of Fortis Healthcare and Religare Enterprises after lenders converted pledged shares.
New Delhi, Sep 13 : State-run Punjab National Bank (PNB) has put 21 non-performing assets (NPAs), or bad loan accounts, on sale to recover over Rs 1,320 crore with the e-bidding auction process slated later this month.
PNB said in a notification earlier this week that its Stressed Assets Targeted Resolution Action (SASTRA) Division has put on sale these 21 accounts which cumulatively owe the bank Rs 1,320.19 crore.
"We intend to place these accounts for sale to ARCs (asset reconstruction companies) /NBFCs (non-banking finance companies)/other banks/FIs (financial institutions) etc, on terms and conditions stipulated in the bank's policy, in line with the regulatory guidelines," PNB said.
A PNB spokesperson said on Thursday that "the submission of financial bids will be only through e-auction which will take place on the bank's portal on September 20."
The bank's NPA accounts up for sale include Moser Baer Solar with outstanding of Rs 233.06 crore, Divine Alloys & Power Co (Rs 200.87 crore), Divine Vidyut (Rs 132.66 crore), Chincholi Sugar & Bio Industries (Rs 114.42 crore), Arshiya Northern FTWZ Ltd Rs (96.70 crore), Birla Surya (Rs 73.58 crore) Shri Saikrupa Sugar & Allied Industries (Rs 63.35 crore) and Raja Forgings & Gears Ltd (Rs 59.73 crore).
Among the other major defaulters listed are Templeton Foods (Rs 53.17 crore), Rathi Ispat (Rs 45.48 crore) and Jain Overseas (Rs 33.41 crore).
Lucknow, Sep 13 : The Uttar Pradesh unit of the Congress on Thursday accused BJP supporters of vandalising statues of former Prime Ministers from the Congress across the state.
Congress state unit Spokesman Onkarnath Singh said that Bharatiya Janata Party workers had tried to deface a statue of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi at Maidagin square in Varanasi, the parliamentary constituency of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, but were prevented by Congressmen.
"Frustrated over the expose of their dealings with bank frauds and absconders, the Bharatiya Janata Party is now targeting the statues of late Congress leaders," Singh alleged.
He claimed that district authorities were hand in glove with ruling party workers and tried to conceal the vandalism by BJP cadres by maintaining that the statue was being removed for beautification of the square.
The BJP workers are still pressurising the District Magistrate of Varanasi on the issue but Congressmen will not allow this to happen, the Congress leader said.
Singh said that a statue of late Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri at Mughalsarai in Chandauli district was smeared with cow dung on Wednesday night. "We strongly condemn it and demand that the state government crack down on unscrupulous elements involved in the incident," he added.
Grzegorz Chmielak, Partner and Head of Valuation & Advisory at Knight Frank Poland has been appointed as Head of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) Valuation & Advisory. The Polish expert was appointed as the new Head at the recommendation of the European Valuation Board at Knight Frank.
Grzegorz Chmi...
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Deka Immobilien has instructed real estate advisory firm Savills to lease another seven office buildings: Atrium One, Helion, Luminar, MatchPoint A and B as well as Mokotowska Square in Warsaw, and Andersia Tower in Poznan. In addition, Savills will continue to act as an exclusive leasing agent for Grzybowska Park,
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The Sydney premiership winning jockey Brenton Avdulla has settled his off the plan investment apartment acquisition in Little Bay's latest development.
Having paid $720,000 on the launch of the Illume complex in 2015, the Melbourne-born jockey has quickly found a tenant on its recent completion.
Avdulla's leased the two bedroom unit at $750 a week, reflecting a strong 5.5% yield.
The apartment spans 100 square metres with wrap around balcony has views across Little Bay to the water.
It is in the same complex where three of the Rabbitoh Burgess brothers, Luke Sam and Tom also bought off the plan apartments.
Returning from a successful stint in Japan, the 27 year old Avdulla has had his best year in the saddle to date, being one of the youngest jockey's to get to 1000 career wins.
Avdulla recently sold his four bedroom Zetland home for $2.01 million after paying $1.85 million two years ago.
The three storey home with split level design home was among a handful of terraces in the award-winning ARC development designed by Tonkin Zulaikha Greer in 2003.
Joe Recep and Martin Farah at NG Farah Coogee sold the property.
He retains a townhouse in Pagewood where he paid $1,788,000 for a three storey townhouse on the former Electrolux manufacturing plant estate.
Avdulla's first Sydney purchase, when he was in his late teens, was near the track. His one bedroom Kensington apartment, cost $445,000.
The star jockey will be a shoo-in for a ride in the Everest next month.
Last year he rode star sprinter Chataqua to fourth place.
This article first appeared in The Daily Telegraph.
U.S. Top 10 Most Intimate Appliances Brands 2018 "We see major potential for appliance brands to leverage some of the brand intimacy archetypes such as fulfillment and ritual to create stronger emotional bonds with consumers," stated Mario Natarelli, managing partner at MBLM.
The appliances industry ranked second to last in MBLMs Brand Intimacy 2018 Report, which is the largest study of brands based on emotions. The top three in the industry were Samsung Appliances, KitchenAid and LG Appliances. The remaining brands in the Top 10 for the appliances industry were: Dyson, GE Appliances, Maytag, Whirlpool, Frigidaire, Kenmore and Bosch.
Brand Intimacy is defined as a new paradigm that leverages and strengthens the emotional bonds between a person and a brand. MBLMs study again revealed that top intimate brands in the U.S. surpassed the top brands in the Fortune 500 and S&P indices in revenue and profit over the past 10 years.
Though appliances are getting smarter it looks like they have a steep road to climb to winning the hearts of consumers, stated Mario Natarelli, managing partner at MBLM. We see major potential for appliance brands to leverage some of the brand intimacy archetypes such as fulfillment and ritual to create stronger emotional bonds with consumers.
Other notable appliances findings in MBLMs Brand Intimacy 2018 Report include:
The appliances industry ranked #14 out of the 15 industries surveyed, with an average Brand Intimacy Quotient of 11.8, which was well below the cross-industry average of 27.1
Fulfillment, which is related to exceeding expectations and providing superior service or quality, was the most dominant archetype in the category, and Samsung Appliances was the top-performing brand for fulfillment
GE Appliances was the top brand for nostalgia, the archetype associated with warm, poignant feelings of the past
Samsung Appliances was also the top brand in the category overall and ranked #1 for both men and women, as well as for millennials and users over 35
To view the appliances industry findings, please click here. The full Brand Intimacy 2018 Report and the Ranking Tool can be found here.
This years report contains the most comprehensive rankings of brands based on emotion, analyzing the responses of 6,000 consumers and 54,000 brand evaluations across 15 industries in the U.S., Mexico and UAE. MBLMs reports and interactive Brand Ranking Tool showcase the performance of almost 400 brands, revealing the characteristics and intensity of the consumer bonds.
Methodology
During 2017, MBLM conducted an online quantitative survey among 6,000 consumers in the United States (3,000), Mexico (2,000), and the United Arab Emirates (1,000). Participants were respondents who were screened for age (i.e. 18 to 64 years of age) and annual household income ($35,000 or more) in the U.S. and socioeconomic levels in Mexico and the UAE (A, B, and C socioeconomic levels). Quotas were established to ensure that the sample mirrored census data for age, gender, income/socioeconomic level, and region. The survey was designed primarily to understand the extent to which consumers have relationships with brands and the strength of those relationships, from fairly detached to highly intimate. It is important to note that this study provides more than a mere ranking of brand performance and was specifically designed to provide prescriptive guidance to marketers. We modeled data from a total of 54,000 brand evaluations to quantify the mechanisms that drive intimacy. Through factor analysis, structural equation modeling, and other sophisticated analytic techniques, the research allows marketers to better understand which levers need to be pulled to build intimacy between brands and consumers.
About MBLM: MBLM has invented a new marketing paradigm, Brand Intimacy, delivering expertise and offerings across three areas of focus: Agency, Lab and Platform. With offices in seven countries, our multidisciplinary teams help clients build stronger bonds and deliver optimized marketing outcomes and returns for the long term. To learn more about how we can help you create and sustain ultimate brand relationships, visit mblm.com.
Growth 500 2018 "Through the hard work of our employees and leadership team we're experiencing significant growth while we continue to innovate with digital services and solutions, as well as continuing to lead the way in Drupal development," says Appnovation CEO Arnold Leung.
Canadian Business and Macleans today ranked Appnovation No. 105 on the 30th annual Growth 500, the definitive ranking of Canadas Fastest-Growing Companies. Produced by Canadas premier business and current affairs media brands, the Growth 500 ranks Canadian businesses on five-year revenue growth. Growth 500 winners are profiled in a special print issue of Canadian Business published with Macleans magazine and online at CanadianBusiness.com and Growth500.ca.
Appnovation made the 2018 Growth 500 list with five-year revenue growth of 859%.
The companies on the 2018 Growth 500 are truly remarkable. Demonstrating foresight, innovation and smart management, their stories serve as a primer for how to build a successful entrepreneurial business today, says Deborah Aarts, Growth 500 program manager. As we celebrate 30 years of the Canadas Fastest-Growing Companies program, its encouraging to see that entrepreneurship is healthier than ever in this country.
Were very proud to be featured on this list for the fifth consecutive year," says Appnovation CEO Arnold Leung. "Through the hard work of our employees and leadership team we're experiencing significant growth while we continue to innovate with digital services and solutions, as well as continuing to lead the way in Drupal development."
The announcement of the Growth 500 ranking comes right on the heels of Appnovation HK receiving the Atlassian Partner of the Year 2018: Rising Star Award, and being named top 20 on the Business in Vancouver 2018 Fastest Growing Companies.
About the Growth 500
For 30 years, the Growth 500 has been Canadas most respectable and influential ranking of entrepreneurial achievement. Ranking Canadas Fastest-Growing Companies by five-year revenue growth, the Growth 500formerly known as the PROFIT 500profiles the countrys most successful growing businesses. The Growth 500 is produced by Canadian Business. Winners are profiled in a special Growth 500 print issue of Canadian Business (packaged with the October issue of Macleans magazine) and online at Growth500.ca and CanadianBusiness.com. For more information on the ranking, visit Growth500.ca.
About Canadian Business
Founded in 1928, Canadian Business is the longest-serving and most-trusted business publication in the country. It is the country's premier media brand for executives and senior business leaders. It fuels the success of Canada's business elite with a focus on the things that matter most: leadership, innovation, business strategy and management tactics. Learn more at CanadianBusiness.com.
About Appnovation
Appnovation is a global Digital Solutions and Managed Services provider, delivering strategy, application development and enterprise integration on leading open technologies. Appnovations in-house experts strategize, build, and deploy high-performing, secure digital experiences across many industries, while also offering a wide range of creative capabilities, with 24/7 support and maintenance.
The firm boasts an impressive, cross-industry client roster ranging from Start-Ups to Fortune 500, government entities, nonprofit organizations and beyond. Since its inception in 2007, Appnovation has worked with hundreds of clients, delivering thousands of projects, achieving international recognition for development, innovations, and business success.
Open Digital Delivered. Visit appnovation.com today.
Media Contact:
Vanessa Burley
Appnovation
vanessa(at)appnovation.com
http://www.appnovation.com
Arcadia Data, provider of the first visual analytics and BI software native to Hadoop and cloud, today announced the results of an Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG) technical review of the Arcadia Data flagship product, Arcadia Enterprise. The review shows that for real-world dashboards each consisting of several visuals, the Arcadia Data native BI technology offered up to 88 times performance improvement compared to a typical configuration of an external BI tool connected to Hadoop.
Companies struggle to generate value and insights from large-scale Hadoop and cloud-based data lakes. The challenge arises because of attempts to shoehorn legacy BI tools into place next to their data lakes, by using data extracts in Tableau or cubes in MicroStrategy to increase performance, for example. This is inefficient and error-prone because of the manual effort required to take data from the data lake into the BI platform, which slows down time-to-insight while increasing costs. Movement of big data requires summarization at the expense of detailed analysis, reducing depth of insight. Alternatively, connecting legacy BI tools directly to Hadoop or cloud data lakes reduces dashboard responsiveness as user concurrency grows, reducing the value of data lakes by limiting the number of users. This report shows that organizations can leverage Arcadia Enterprise to accelerate BI-style dashboards for modern data platforms, alleviating both performance and user concurrency concerns at scale to enable faster and deeper insights for more users.
Now, more than ever, it is imperative that business users access their organizations data and perform analysis quickly, said Priyank Patel, co-founder and chief product officer, Arcadia Data. To enable this consumerization of data, organizations are turning to modern BI tools that were built natively for architectures like data lakes so they can speed up time-to-insight. These test results show that Arcadia Enterprise accelerates dashboards at scale, enabling a large number of concurrent business users to easily analyze vast amounts of data. It is clear we have built a solution that brings BI to the data, instead of the opposite.
The benchmark focused on how Arcadia Enterprise improves dashboard and query response times at various levels of user concurrency. ESG examined how performance scaled with a native architecture that is, without the data duplication required in the extra tiers of in-memory BI servers or external data marts. The testing was performed on a 7-node Amazon EC2 cluster on a data set including an 8-billion row table and was designed to test how much Arcadia Data analytical views could accelerate workloads run on a modern data platform. ESG assessed and validated the following effort and results:
Arcadia Data identified 3 types of real-world dashboards (basic, intermediate, and advanced) along with the typical queries associated with those dashboards, for a total of 38 different queries.
Arcadia Data set up two analytics environments on the same infrastructure. One environment represented the baseline of a configuration typical of external BI tools connecting to Hadoop, and the other used Arcadia Enterprise.
A workload simulator was run against varying levels of simulated user concurrency on each of the environments one at a time, to show how they scale as the user load grows.
Arcadia Enterprise showed performance improvements of up to 88x for mean visual load time versus the baseline configuration.
Arcadia Enterprise continued to scale gracefully at nearly 100 concurrent sessions. In contrast, the baseline configuration could not deliver responsiveness in a reasonable time frame at concurrencies as low as 10.
"While fast BI performance has always been an important capability for large analytical environments, it is even more important today to fulfill self-service demands in big data deployments," said Kerry Dolan, Sr. IT validation analyst, Enterprise Strategy Group. "We are pleased with the results of our the technical review of Arcadia Enterprise performance, which validates the power of native BI technologies running on modern data platforms like Hadoop and cloud-based architectures."
Learn more about the ESG Technical Review results and how Arcadia Data sets up users for accessible BI on big data, here.
See Arcadia Enterprise in action by registering for a live demo or view this video of Arcadia Enterprise Feature Highlights.
About Arcadia Data
Arcadia Data provides the first visual analytics and BI platform native to big data that delivers the scale, performance, and agility business users need to discover and productionize real-time insights. Its flagship product, Arcadia Enterprise, was built from inception to run natively within big data platforms, in the cloud and/or on-premises, to streamline the self-service analytics process on data in Apache Hadoop, Apache Spark, Apache Kafka, and Apache Solr. It enables real-time, high-definition insights in use cases like data lakes, cybersecurity, connected IoT devices, and customer intelligence. Arcadia Enterprise is deployed by some of the worlds leading brands, including Procter & Gamble, Nokia, Royal Bank of Canada, Kaiser Permanente, HPE, and Neustar. To learn more, follow @ArcadiaData or visit http://www.arcadiadata.com.
Press Contact:
Stacey Burbach
Email: stacey(at)arcadiadata(dot)com
Our goal is 100% customer satisfaction. Stuart will help us achieve this as a best-in-class product and solution provider on the West Coast.
What happens when the best special event supplier in northern California joins forces with the top special event clearspan tent company in the United States?
The answer is special event magic. Planners and producers now have a nationwide source for innovative products and services previously unavailable from a single source. The combined company will deliver to the West Coast all the latest structure technology, branding, and custom, engineered solutions along with more than 100,000 square feet of under-the-tent inventory.
Arena Group CEO, Greg Lawless, and Stuart Event Rentals President, Michael Berman, announced on September 5, 2018, that Stuart Event Rentals has joined the Arena Group to provide a West Coast operations center to complement their existing operations in the Midwest and East Coast. Both local events and national projects will benefit from the country-wide inventory base, as well as increased access to trained and skilled labor. Michael Berman and Andrew Sutton will continue in their current roles at Stuart Event Rentals to further develop West Coast business and ensure continuity for current clients and staff.
Arena CEO, Greg Lawless, commented: Delivering to clients the best experience possible with quality products and five-star service will always be Arenas focus. Our goal is 100% customer satisfaction. Stuart will help us achieve this as a best-in-class product and solution provider on the West Coast. Michael and Andrew have grown up in this industry and understand the needs and expectations of its customers, he added. The Arena Group is looking forward to many years of business development and market growth through the leadership and contributions of these two well-known industry veterans.
Stuart President, Michael Berman, added, In an industry strongly burdened by private equity ownership managing for short-term, bottom-line results, Arena/Stuart clients will benefit from a long-term investment in products, people, and innovative event services. We are very excited to provide both our clients and team members a home they can count on instead of worrying about who will own their equipment solutions provider when their event occurs.
Stuart Event Rentals, located in the San Francisco Bay Area, has been providing premium event rentals to corporate, social and non-profit events for generations. Spanning four continents, the Arena Group provides exceptional special event experiences to its client base through their large inventory of clearspan tenting, flooring, tables and chairs, kitchen equipment, and HVAC, as well as custom, in-house design and manufacturing capabilities and some of the most cutting edge and innovative under-the-tent product lines available.
AREAA, the Asian American Real Estate Association of America, will hold their Fourth Annual East Meets West Real Estate Connect conference on September 26, 2018, at The New Yorker. Every year, East Meets West shines with an array of prestigious speakers, a fast-paced, interesting itinerary and great networking opportunities.
"East Meets West was created to serve as a starting point for foreigners looking for real estate advice to engage with local experts in the industry. It has since evolved into an all-day event loaded with real estate professionals ranging from developers, owner/operators, investors, lenders, and service providers, mingling with attendees eager to learn," says Dorian Lam, President, Board of Directors, Asian Real Estate Association of America (AREAA) NY Manhattan Chapter.
This years four keynote speakers, highly regarded professionals in their respective fields, are John Catsimatidis, Chairman and CEO of Red Apple Group; Streeteasys General Manager Susan Daimler; Adam Spies, Chairman and CEO of Cushman and Wakefield, and Jonathan Miller, President and CEO of Miller Samuel.
"More speakers not to be missed include Jessica Millet, an expert on Opportunity Zones, who will give the latest updates on the new tax program, Blockchain consultant Debbie Hoffman, and Compass Chief Evangelist Leonard Steinberg. Developers play a big role at this year's East Meets West as well, with three sessions filled with developers and even a development case study, says Dorian Lam.
This year, the event will be broken down into eight sessions, each covering a contemporary, highly relevant topic both in commercial and residential real estate. Highlights include a session on residential new development, the changing real estate landscape, foreign lending, and business expansion.
Here is a full overview of this years panels:
Residential Panels
Residential Panel 1: Business Expansion - What investments to your business actually work?
Speakers include Tyler Whitman (Triplemint), Russ Putterman (KW), Tony Oakley (Compass), and Teddy Baxter (Douglas Elliman).
Residential Panel 2: Foreign Lending (New Policies and Programs)
Speakers include Charles Ruffin (Emigrant), Henry Shih (Citi), and Yihou Han (Sterling).
Residential Panel 3: Tech Tools You Should Know
Speakers include David Friedman (Wealthx), Alyssa Soto Brody (Compass), Parish Pradhan (RealAgentz), and Noah Rosenblatt (Urbandigs).
Residential Panel 4: Condo New Developments - What Developers Want
Speakers include Sam Suzuki (Suzuki Capital), Anna Zarro (AnnaZarro), and Leonard Steinberg (Compass).
Commercial Panels
Commercial Panel 1: State of the Market
Speakers include Ari Shalam (RWN), Richard Siu (F&T), Patrick Li (TH Real Estate), Johnny Din (Cycamore Capital), and Jessica Millet (Duval & Stachenfeld).
Commercial Panel 2: Developers Panel
Speakers include Daren Hornig (Hornig Capital), Eric Brody (Wonderworks), George Xu (Century Development), and Ronald Chua (China Overseas America).
Commercial Panel 3: Capital Markets
Speakers include George Bernakis (Industrial Bank of China), Leon Wang (Acore Capital), Jason Yuen (Greystone), and Jerry Tang.
Commercial Panel 4: Development Case Studies
Speakers include Margaret Lee (Youngwoo & Associates), David Amirian (Amirian Group), Ray Gu (Anbang International), and Robert Gladstone (Madison Equities).
With such a vast variety of topics, guests and panelists alike will be able to learn, grow, and leave with a better sense of todays real estate reality. East Meets Wests Slogan, Real Estate Gets Real, sums up this purpose perfectly.
About AREAA
The Asian Real Estate Association of America (AREAA) is a nonprofit professional trade organization dedicated to promoting sustainable homeownership opportunities in Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) communities. AREAA creates a powerful national voice for housing and real estate professionals that serve this dynamic market. AREAAs membership represents a broad array of real estate, mortgage, and housing-related professionals that serve the diverse AAPI market. AREAA is the only trade association dedicated to representing the interests of the entire Asian real estate market nationwide.
Cerner names Asymmetrik Ltd. and Mile Two LLC as finalists in Cerners Code App Challenge, a national competition honoring innovative new healthcare apps.
Asymmetrik and Mile Twos app, Cardiac Consultant, is a user-friendly tool which helps doctors educate patients about their individual risk for heart disease and stroke. Tragically, heart attacks, strokes and other heart diseases account for 1 in 3 deaths overall in the United States. However, many of these deaths can be prevented with better patient education and engagement, and thats where Asymmetrik and Mile Two hope to make a difference.
The visual design developed by Mile Two (specialists in human factors research and cognitive engineering) and refined by Asymmetrik (a leader in software and analytics) focuses on making patient data easy to understand, setting it apart from existing risk calculators. Patients can interact with Cardiac Consultant to see how factors such as age and family history combine with their lifestyle choices to affect heart health. The app connects patients to their personal health data located in Cerners electronic health record system. The tool uses SMART on FHIR, a modern healthcare IT standard which allows healthcare systems to exchange data seamlessly and securely.
Being named a finalist in Cerners Code App Challenge showcases Asymmetrik's ability to deliver FHIR-based solutions for hospitals with engaging user experience and intuitive design. In October, Asymmetrik and Mile Two will present the app at Cerner's Health Conference in Kansas City, where thousands of attendees will vote on the final winner of the challenge. Additionally, Asymmetrik will present the app at HL7s App Roundtable in Washington DC at the end of September.
About Asymmetrik Ltd.: Asymmetrik Ltd. (http://www.asymmetrik.com) is a Maryland-based company whose digital healthcare solutions create a positive impact for both patients and health systems. Our user-centered design approach promotes greater accessibility and can dramatically improve patient and physician satisfaction. Using our extensive expertise in systems interoperability, data analytics and UX optimization, we help hospitals and health systems improve the cost and quality of care.
About Mile Two: Mile Two (http://www.miletwo.us) is an Ohio-based software development company that applies expertise in human performance, user experience design, and cognitive systems engineering to develop user-centric solutions for government and commercial clients.
Athens Medical Group (AMG) runs eight ultramodern hospitals in Greece, seven in the Athens Metropolitan Area and one in Thessaloniki, Northern Greece. AMG cooperates with an extensive nationwide network of 390 diagnostic centers, eight haemodialysis units and a growing network of official associate centers throughout Greece. A multinational company, it operates Medsana clinics, four modern and specialized diagnostic centers in Romania, which also have presence, through affiliate companies, in North Africa, the Balkan area, Russia and the Former Soviet Union countries.
Joining Clinerions Patient Network Explorer platform will bring more innovative treatments to the patients of Athens Medical Centers hospitals and clinics, and give their physicians more options in treating their patients. The group will also gain more exposure to global clinical trials run by international pharmaceutical companies and contract research organizations.
Drug developers working on innovative treatments will now benefit from access to new geographies and clinics with strong therapeutic focus.
Dr. Vassili G. Apostolopoulos, CEO of Athens Medical Group, commented: A key aspect of our strategic planning is to constantly contribute to healthcare scientific and technological progress, always in favor of the patient.
This is a great partnership for Clinerion and we are happy to gain the great support of the entire Athens Medical Group! says Ian Rentsch, CEO of Clinerion. The level of ability and expertise brought by the physicians of Athens Medical Group will be a great benefit to clinical researchers using Clinerions Patient Network Explorer to support clinical research.
About Clinerion
Clinerion website: http://www.clinerion.com
Clinerions Patient Network Explorer: http://www.clinerion.com/index/OverviewOurSolutions/ClinerionPatientNetworkExplorer
For more information, please contact:
Le Vin Chin
Director, Head of Marketing and Communications
Clinerion Ltd
Margarethenstrasse 47, 4053 Basel, Switzerland
Tel.: +41 61 865 60 54
media@clinerion.com
About Athens Medical Group:
Athens Medical Group website: http://www.athensmedicalgroup.com/
Athens Medical Center website: http://www.iatriko.gr/en/athens-medical-center
For more information, please contact:
Savvas Karagiannis
Communications Manager, Business Development Division
58 Kifissias Avenue, 151 25, Marousi, Athens, Greece
Tel. +30 210 6862521
s.karagiannis@iatriko.gr
Atlantic Healthcare plc (Atlantic Healthcare or Company), a specialist pharmaceutical company focused on developing and commercializing gastrointestinal therapeutics, has secured acceptance of Camligo as the name for the Companys first candidate product.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and European Medicines Agency (EMA), have accepted Camligo as the proprietary brand name for alicaforsen enema, which is currently undergoing a pivotal Phase 3 trial in the treatment of orphan-designated pouchitis.
Pouchitis is a rare and serious form of Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD), which is believed to impact the lives of approximately 200,000 patients in the U.S and Europe. There is no approved treatment for pouchitis, hence there remains a significant unmet clinical need.
In May 2017 Atlantic Healthcare initiated the rolling submission of its New Drug Application (NDA) with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and filed its non-clinical package for alicaforsen to treat pouchitis.
John Temperato, U.S. President and COO at Atlantic Healthcare said: We are acutely aware of the unmet needs of pouchitis patients and the debilitating effects the disease can have on their quality of life. Now this brand name has been agreed with the U.S. and European regulatory authorities, we have met another critical milestone towards Camligo (alicaforsen) enema being available as a treatment for these patients.
Toby Wilson Waterworth, CEO at Atlantic Healthcare said: We look forward to announcing the results of the Phase 3 trial in the first quarter of 2019 and being able to complete regulatory submissions for Camligo with the FDA and EMA. Following approval Camligo would be the first and only approved treatment for pouchitis. In the meantime, we continue to broaden the commercial potential and develop the pipeline of alicaforsen products for the treatment of ulcerative colitis, Crohns disease and other inflammatory diseases.
For more information about Camligo (alicaforsen) enema for pouchitis and the alicaforsen pipeline please see http://www.atlantichc.com/camligo.
For information please contact:
Atlantic Healthcare
Toby Wilson Waterworth (CEO)
+44 1799 512 055
Adam Michael (Head of Communications)
+44 1799 512 055
+44 777 588 1813
adam.michael(at)atlantichc(dot)com
U.S. Investor Relations and Media
Lazar Partners
Fern Lazar / David Carey
+1 212-867-1762
atlantic.healthcare(at)lazarpartners(dot)com
European Investor Relations and Media
Consilium Strategic Communications
Mary-Jane Elliott / Matthew Neal
+44 20 3709 5700
atlantichealthcare(at)consilium-comms(dot)com
NOTES TO EDITORS
About Atlantic Healthcare plc (http://www.atlantichc.com)
Atlantic Healthcare is a specialist pharmaceutical company focused on developing and commercializing gastrointestinal therapeutics, which address unmet patient needs and rare diseases. The Company owns the exclusive worldwide rights to alicaforsen, a promising new drug for the treatment of inflammation. Its most advanced development program alicaforsen enema - is undergoing a pivotal Phase 3 trial for pouchitis. In addition, work is ongoing to develop and deepen the pipeline for alicaforsen with treatments for additional gastrointestinal (GI) indications.
Atlantic Healthcare has a highly committed investor base and is led by an experienced international Board and Leadership Team, with deep roots and a proven track record in the pharmaceutical industry. Fundraising to date includes 1.9m through SBRI funding awarded by Innovate UK, the UK Government's innovation agency (http://www.innovateuk.gov.uk). In Q1 2016 the Company closed a $24m round led by LDC (the private equity division of Lloyd's Banking Group) with new and existing investors.
About Pouchitis
Pouchitis is an inflammatory disease of the pouch. The pouch is an artificial rectum, which is created surgically following removal of the colon (colectomy). Indications for removal of the colon include ulcerative colitis, colon cancer and FAP (familial adenomatous polyposis, a pre-cancerous condition). However, pouchitis is predominantly associated with pouches formed in patients with a prior diagnosis of ulcerative colitis.
Like ulcerative colitis, pouchitis is a progressive disease characterised by inflammation, ulceration and increasingly uncontrolled, frequent and urgent emptying of the bowel (up to 10-20 times a day and night), with a corresponding reduction in quality of life.
For information about prevalence, treatment and the unmet needs of pouchitis patients please see http://www.atlantichc.com/inflammatory-bowel-disease.
About Camligo (alicaforsen) enema
Camligo alicaforsen enema formulation is currently in a pivotal Phase 3 trial agreed with U.S., Canadian and European regulatory agencies in patients with active pouchitis. The trial has completed enrollment of 138 patients to approximately 40 trial centers across the U.S., Canada, Europe, and Israel, and is expected to report preliminary data in Q1 2019.
Trials have shown Camligo (alicaforsen) enema to be a safe, well tolerated and effective treatment, which delivers a durable response for pouchitis patients.
About the Camligo name
Commenting on the name, the US Food and Drug Association (FDA) concluded that it is conditionally acceptable.
The European Medicine Agency (EMA) said: The Name Review Group (NRG) and The Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) have no objections to the invented name Camligo. It should be noted, the (invented) name review is valid, at the present point in time, which does not prohibit the possibility of objections being raised at any time prior or after the granting of the marketing authorization.
The Camligo trademark has been registered in the UK and is pending in Europe and the U.S..
About Alicaforsen
Alicaforsen is a novel antisense drug. It is a pipeline in a drug, with the potential to establish a new class of therapy for the treatment of multiple inflammatory gastrointestinal disorders.
For further reading: http://www.atlantichc.com/published-papers
Paul Colucci, Esq. and Anthony Sanfratello, J.D. Mr. Colucci and Mr. Sanfratello's wealth of legal knowledge, talent as litigators, and active involvement in Westchester and Rockland County communities make them a huge asset to us, and more importantly, to our clients.
Brown, Gaujean, Kraus & Sastow, PLLC (BGKS), a full-service law firm in White Plains is pleased to announce two new additions to the firm.
Paul Colucci has been named partner in the firms health care practice group and will focus on medical-malpractice defense. Mr. Colucci has more than twenty years of litigation experience, chiefly as counsel for the health care professions. Mr. Coluccis courtroom presence and affinity for the medicine earned him the trust of his clients and colleagues early in his career, and he has since tried a multitude of cases in both New York State and Federal courts, encompassing all five boroughs as well as Long Island and the Hudson Valley. Mr. Colucci has also represented the interests of insureds at the appellate level, having successfully argued appeals in both the First and Second Departments.
Prior to joining BGKS, Mr. Colucci served as an attorney at David S. Klausner, PLLC, and Kaufman Borgeest & Ryan, LLP. Admitted to the New York State Bar and United States District Court, Eastern District of New York, Mr. Colucci has lectured at local events for medical professionals and insurers, and has published Recent Developments in Medicine and the Law, for the Tort Trial & Insurance Practice Law Journal. He received his B.A. from St. Lawrence University and his J.D. from Albany Law School of Union University.
Anthony Sanfratello has been named associate attorney at BGKS (awaiting bar admission), where he will focus on both transactional and litigation matters with a focus on health care law, contract law, business and real estate transactions and commercial litigation. Prior to joining BGKS, Mr. Sanfratello attended Elisabeth Haub School of Law at Pace University, where he graduated Cum Laude in 2018. During law school, Mr. Sanfratello was an active member of Pace Law Review and many other law societies. Through his internships during law school, Mr. Sanfratello had the opportunity to work in the in-house legal departments of both a publicly traded corporation, as well as a rapidly growing start-up company. Prior to law school, Mr. Sanfratello attended Quinnipiac University where he graduated with a B.S. in Finance.
Were extremely pleased to have Mr. Colucci and Mr. Sanfratello join our roster of talented attorneys, commented Max Gaujean, founding managing partner of the firm. Their wealth of legal knowledge, talent as litigators, and active involvement in Westchester and Rockland County communities make them a huge asset to us, and more importantly, to our clients."
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About Brown, Gaujean, Kraus & Sastow, PLLC
Brown, Gaujean, Kraus & Sastow, PLLC (BGKS) is a legal professional limited liability corporation serving clients throughout New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. BGKS represents individuals, physicians and their group practices, corporations and municipalities in all matters involving general litigation, administrative proceedings, medical malpractice, health law, business and real estate transactions. A firm with a proven track record of success, BGKS attorneys are consistently top-rated by Martindale-Hubbell and the firm was honored as a U.S. News & World Report Best Law Firm in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018. For more information, visit http://www.BGKSlaw.com.
The New Castle Store features an expanded seasonal department, a drive-thru lumber yard, a farm and ranch department, and a designated contractor service center.
Pittsburgh-based Busy Beaver will open its newest store located at 2640 Ellwood Road in New Castle, PA 16101 on September 14, 2018. This location is the third new store that has opened for the neighborhood home improvement retailer this year.
Similar to Busy Beavers new Grove City and Greenville, PA locations that opened earlier in 2018, the 40,000 sq. ft. New Castle Store features an expanded seasonal department, a drive-thru lumber yard, a farm and ranch department, and a designated contractor service center. The New Castle Busy Beaver store brings approximately 15 new full-time and 10-15 part-time jobs to the region.
Busy Beaver first opened in 1962 when the company started with a few lumberyards in the Pittsburgh area. It now has 21 locations and more than 350 employees across Western Pennsylvania, Eastern Ohio and Northern West Virginia.
Joe Kallen, chief executive officer and majority owner of Busy Beaver since 2013, has revitalized the brand by growing the chain from 14 to 21 stores. Under Kallens leadership, Busy Beaver has also renovated half of its original stores. In 2015, it joined the True-Value co-op to better serve customers and support growth.
Kallen is passionate about training all Busy Beaver employees to deliver on the brands promise of legendary customer service. Hes committed to ensuring that customers can find what they need and get knowledgeable help each time they visit. Kallen and the team have built a customer-centric culture across the entire company, where true teamwork is in action every day, and employees inspire one another to meet their goals. The result is a positive experience and strong relationships for both customers and employees.
On Saturday, September 22, the New Castle location will also host a Grand Opening event with family-friendly activities, giveaways and events. Activities include:
Shenango High School Band performs at 8:45am
First 100 customers in line at 9am will receive a $50 Busy Beaver gift card
Board Cutting Ceremony begins at 9am
Participate in the Store Scavenger Hunt for a chance to win some great prizes
Kids activities from 10am 2pm including a bounce house, make your own sand art creation, caramel apple bar, balloon animals & face painting by Dragonfly Balloons
Pittsburgh Zoo and PPG Aquarium hosts animal visits from 10am-Noon
Y-103 Classic Rock radio broadcast from 10am-noon, chance to win prizes
Learn about fire safety with the Shenango Township Fire Department
Donate to Make-A-Wish for a chance to win a FREE pressure washer
For more details, visit http://www.busybeaver.com/.
About Busy Beaver:
Busy Beaver was founded in 1962 with three lumber yards located in Clairton, Verona and Carnegie, PA. The company quickly expanded and began opening full-line home improvement centers throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Currently, Busy Beaver operates 20 stores in three states, Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia; and employs more than 350 people. As of September 2013, Busy Beaver has been operating under new, local ownership. The company is committed to providing legendary customer service and a customer-centric in-store experience at each of its neighborhood home improvement centers.
Web: http://www.busybeaver.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BusyBeaverHomeImprovement
Twitter: @getbusybeaver
Chad Benson I look forward to working with Mike and the ACT Holdings management team to help facilitate our next phase of growth.
Account Control Technology Holdings, Inc. (ACT Holdings), a national leader in delivering debt recovery and business process outsourcing solutions, welcomes Chad Benson as the Chief Operating Officer (COO). Benson joins the executive leadership at ACT Holdings to drive results as the company continues to build and invest in its future growth. Benson officially joined ACT Holdings effective, September 4, 2018.
Im thrilled to have someone with Chads background and experience join the ACT Holdings team, says Mike Meyer, CEO of ACT Holdings. I have great respect for him, his leadership capabilities and operational experience and I look forward to leveraging his skill set across all the ACT Holdings clients and verticals we service. Chad is an incredible addition to our senior leadership team and will help us continue to provide outstanding service to our clients and grow our business.
As the COO, Benson will be responsible for operations and data analytics for all ACT Holdings companies: Convergent Outsourcing, Inc., Convergent Revenue Cycle Management, Inc., Convergent Healthcare Recoveries, Inc. and Account Control Technology, Inc. He will oversee day-to-day operations, including strategy creation and building employee alignment with client and company goals. Benson has more than 20 years of leadership experience in financial services and technology, specializing in growth management, capital planning, operational and customer lifecycle management.
Most recently, Benson served as the Chief Executive Officer at CBE Companies, a global provider of outsourced call center solutions with more than 1300 employees and five locations. Prior to joining CBE Companies, Benson directed and managed a multimillion division at Capital One where he consistently sought to drive profit and process optimization, ensured all operational goals and metrics were achieved while cultivating credible and trusted partnerships with employees and clients.
I am excited to join such a passionate group at ACT Holdings who are dedicated to delivering innovative BPO and accounts receivable management solutions, states Benson. I look forward to working with Mike and the ACT Holdings management team to help facilitate our next phase of growth.
About Account Control Technology Holdings, Inc. (ACT Holdings)
Account Control Technology Holdings, Inc. provides comprehensive business process outsourcing and financial services to diverse industries. Our companies partner with clients to help them run the business behind their operations so they can focus on what they do best whether its serving customers, educating students, caring for patients, or keeping communities moving forward. ACT Holdings companies include Convergent Outsourcing, Inc., Convergent Revenue Cycle Management, Inc., Convergent Healthcare Recoveries, Inc. and Account Control Technology, Inc. with locations across the US and offshore. For more information, visit http://www.accountcontrolholdings.com.
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When it came to finding the right technology solution, GovSense proved they can not only meet our current needs, but will be with us every step of the way as we grow well into the future.
GovSense, a leading cloud-based GRP software solution provider for state and local government, announced that the City of Decatur, Georgia has chosen the companys unified software system for permitting, planning, inspections and code enforcement automation due to its online portal capabilities, secure cloud technology and ease of use.
Providing citizens with online permitting options has been a goal for the City of Decaturs Design, Environment and Construction (DEC) Division since its formation in 2013. The Division required a software solution that enables contractors and citizens to submit plans electronically so City staff can review and respond to these applications online, accelerating processes and increasing accuracy. To fully support the Citys comprehensive e-Permitting Program, the GovSense planning, inspections and code enforcement software modules were also selected.
Gary McTall, GovSense co-founder, explained why having a robust technology solution that enables online permitting, application submittal and tracking is key. GovSense provides an easy, powerful and fast system that will grow with the City. Decatur is paving the way for greater transparency and stronger relationships with its constituents, and were excited to be a part of their success, McTall said. Through our cloud-based solution, citizens will see an immediate positive impact on the level of service delivery from their City.
The DEC surveyed more than 15 companies that provide electronic permitting services and conducted six presentations with selected vendors. The interview panel consisted of staff from different departments, DEC customers, including frequent builder applicants, Technology Committee members and the DEC Division itself. After completion of the interviews, the panel concluded that GovSense will provide the best value, the best technology and the best customer experience for the City of Decatur and its customers.
John Maximuk, Design, Environment and Construction Director at the City of Decatur, explained the importance of choosing a software system that completely supports their e-Permitting Program. The benefits of online submittals include reduced travel time and cost, decreased printing costs and greater transparency into project status, Maximuk stated. When it came to finding the right technology solution, GovSense proved they can not only meet our current needs, but will be with us every step of the way as we grow well into the future.
GovSense helps local governments gain a 360 view of their jurisdictions, saving time and money from improved efficiencies, complete transparency and streamlined operations. The company recently launched a revitalized website at http://www.GovSense.com.
About GovSense
GovSense built the first unified, true-cloud solution designed specifically for local government. GovSense empowers jurisdictions with flexible, easy-to-use software that enables collaboration in finance and accounting, budgeting, utility billing, fund and project management, economic development, asset management, GIS, inspections and enforcement, planning, and permitting and licensing. In addition, the companys implementation approach is driven by business processes, not technology. GovSense utilizes an implementation methodology that results in rapid time to value for all jurisdictions, regardless of what challenges specific departments face. The company delivers user-friendly software solutions tailored to jurisdictions requirements in weeks and months, not months or years.
For more information, visit http://www.govsense.com.
Pictured: Marcelina Pascual, Area Director for Club Z! Tutoring of Severn "Club Z! tutoring programs are extremely effective in raising grades and test scores, because we create customized learning plans based on each childs specific needs and goals, and we follow the same curriculum as our local schools."
Club Z! Tutoring of Severn, MD, proudly serving families in Severn, Severna Park, Arnold, Millersville, Glen Burnie, Hanover, Odenton, Maryland City, Russett, and Fort Meade, is celebrating its official grand opening with special offers, including FREE SAT or ACT test preparation services and FREE homework help. Local families are encouraged to like and follow the Club Z! Tutoring of Severn Facebook page to participate in all of its grand opening special offers and promotions, or call (410) 846-6550 to register.
Club Z! Tutoring of Severn offers in-home and online tutoring for all subjects, including SAT and ACT test preparation and study skills development. In addition, Club Z! Tutoring of Severn has services and programs to support students of all ages, from Kindergarten readiness through college admissions counseling. Club Z! services are also available year-round, with everything from test prep classes to summer reading camps available during the summer months.
Club Z! is the nations largest in-home and online tutoring and test prep organization, with more than 450 offices in North America. Club Z! Tutoring of Severn is owned and operated by Mrs. Collette Pascual, an experienced Maryland teacher. Mrs. Pascual credits a desire to help local students and their families achieve their educational goals as a primary reason for choosing to open a Club Z! office in Severn, stating:
I know that our local families will be extremely happy with the quality of services offered by Club Z!, and the truly unique educational experience we can offer their children. Club Z! tutoring programs are extremely effective in raising grades and test scores, because we create customized learning plans based on each childs specific needs and goals, and we follow the same curriculum as our local schools. But we also have several enrichment programs, from SAT and ACT test prep to study skills development, or even learning a foreign language.
Club Z! Tutoring of Severn tutors are all highly qualified, professional educators who are passionate about education. In addition, all Club Z! tutors are thoroughly screened and background checked prior to hire, and students are carefully matched to a Club Z! tutor using the companys proven Z! Tutor Match process. The Z! Tutor Match is based on academic qualifications, personality traits, and other factors that help foster student success. Club Z! even offers a 100% satisfaction Z! Guarantee backing their tutor match.
To celebrate its official grand opening, Club Z! Tutoring of Severn is offering local families free online homework help, and free SAT and ACT test prep services, now through August 31, 2018. The free test prep services include diagnostic testing and 30 days of access to their extremely popular Z Prep! Score Booster study program. The Score Booster provides students with in-depth diagnostic results for the SAT and ACT, as well as access to hundreds of study modules designed to help increase SAT and ACT test scores. Adds Mrs. Pascual:
We are very excited to let local families to try our Z Prep! Score Booster during our grand opening celebration, because it has proven to be a real game-changer for our college-bound students. The real-time score reporting and video modules from expert test prep tutors play a major role in our track record of success. In fact, our SAT students see an average improvement of 200 points, while our ACT students average gains of 4-5 points after completing our Ivy test prep program.
Families are encouraged to like and follow Club Z! of Severn @ClubZofSevern on Facebook, or call (410) 846-6550 to take advantage of the free tutoring and test prep, as well as all of the other exciting grand opening promotions, now through the end of August.
The doctors told Braden, and his mother, Amy Oliver, that there was little more they could do and the prognosis was Grim. Not to give up on her son's life the mother and son chose another option: a cancer protocol from Trill Alternatives, Boulder, CO, using THC/CBD and THCa.
At 16 years old, Braden Stevenson received a diagnosis of osteosarcoma, a malignant bone cancer, and immediately underwent surgery to amputate his leg and start chemotherapy. The medical test came in 6 months later on November 20, 2017; the cancer nodules moved to his lungs and increased to 40 and varied in size up to 8 mm. The doctors told Braden, and his mother, Amy Oliver, that there was little more they could do and the prognosis was grim. Not to give up on her son's life the mother and son chose another option: a cancer protocol from Trill Alternatives, Boulder, CO, using THC/CBD and THCa.
"The doctors said there was nothing more they could do for my son, said Amy Oliver, Brandons mother, I was aware of CBDs but did not know how they can help a child with cancer.
David Threlfall, the founder of Trill Alternatives, reached out and explained how Cannabis works in the body to create cell death or apoptosis.
Together we worked on a health plan for Braden based on our lifestyle and Trill Alternatives cancer program that has shown great results, said Threfall
Trills custom plan is using high doses of CBD (no High) and THC. The CBD cuts the high from THC and is a proactive way to build up a tolerance to THC. The first thing I always do with new clients is to educate them on how THC and CBD will affect them, and we start slowly with low doses of THC to figure out someone's tolerance levels, and up the dose as their tolerance levels rise, said Threlfall. We know what is working once we get their medical tests results back and in Braden's case, it worked very well." (See attached test results)
On June 26, 2018, Braden and his family received the next round of test results. The cancerous nodules in Bradens lungs decreased from forty to three, from 8 mm to 3mm. "There is no doubt that without David's education and Trill's sponsorship that the medical tests would tell a different story. Braden is eager to start school again," Amy Oliver said.
A laboratory study of cannabidiol (CBD) in human glioma cells showed that when given along with chemotherapy, CBD may make chemotherapy more effective and increase cancer cell death without harming normal cells. Studies in mouse models of cancer showed that CBD together with delta-9-THC might make chemotherapy such as temozolomide more effective.
Trill Alternatives brought in several different CBD brands only to find that most have fillers or additives and spotty results. The quality was missing; We had to create our own CBD pill called, Trill Pills, a patented lipid-based extraction process using no fillers or synthetic ingredients. They come in 3 doses 10 mg 25mg and 50 mg.
David Threlfalls interest in the medical side of cannabis stems from losing his mother to lung cancer. Trill Alternatives is one of the first dispensaries to open in Colorado, in 2010. For a free consultation call, 720-287-0645 or visit http://www.trillalternatives.com. Trill Alternative, 1527 Pearl Street, Suite B. Boulder. Trill Evolutions, 5550 Joliet Street, Denver
September is National Childhood Awareness Month. Families, caregivers, charities and research groups across the United States observe September as Childhood Cancer Awareness Month. In the U.S., 15,780 children under the age of 21 receive a cancer diagnosis every year; approximately 1/4 of them will not survive the disease. A diagnosis turns the lives of the entire family upside down. The objective of Childhood Cancer Awareness Month is to put a spotlight on the types of cancer that affect children, survivorship issues, and importantly to help raise funds for research and family support
See Attachments: Three (3) Medical Records
Contact: David Threlfall (Founder, Trill Alternatives) 303-809-9723 david.trillboulder@gmail.com
Amy Oliver (Braden Stevensons mother) aoliver1116@yahoo.com
The first time I heard "Midnight" performed was by an international, award-winning choir and orchestra, and it was completely overwhelming. Add iconic guest artists I grew up admiring -- and the chance to perform it live for the first time -- and this easily became my greatest musical achievement."
Composer/Songwriter/Producer Kitt Wakeley releases epic orchestral album debut, Midnight in Macedonia, featuring the internationally renowned Macedonian Choir, the Macedonian Philharmonic Orchestra (Oleg Kondratenko, Conductor), and legendary special guest artists, it was announced today. Midnight in Macedonia is an emotional journey and musical-fusion joy ride that includes the lush strings, French horns and low brass found in dramatic cinema, as well as a diverse serving of ear candy treats, including electronica, pop, rock and piano. The album is Wakeleys tip of the hat to the iconic scores from epic blockbusters he grew up with, including Superman, The Godfather, Star Wars, and Rocky. Special guest artists and production all-stars include legendary drummer Kenny Aronoff (Bon Jovi, Paul McCartney), guitar wizards Paige Harwell, Neal Taylor (Tears for Fears, Tina Turner) and Daniel Uribe, amazing bass player Tim Herndon, three-time GRAMMY-winning engineer/mixer/co-producer Tre Nagella, and mastering engineer genius Kevin Lively. In its global live concert debut, Wakeley will perform Midnight in Macedonia with the Oklahoma City Philharmonic & Choir (Kris Markes, general manager), with Oklahoma native Timothy Long, Music Director of Opera at the Eastman School of Music, Conducting, November 15, 2018, at the Chevy Bricktown Event Center in Oklahoma City.
To listen to Midnight in Macedonia, visit:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/midnight-in-macedonia/1402547050.
This was my first time writing a full-length orchestral body of work, so it was three years in the making, said Wakeley, who wrote, played piano and keyboard and co-produced the album. You know something might have great potential but then you hear it for the first time being performed by an international, award-winning choir and orchestra, it becomes totally overwhelming. Then add iconic guest artists you grew up admiring, and the chance to perform it live for the first time in your home state, and it all makes Midnight in Macedonia the greatest experience and achievement of my music career.
With a fearless, unapologetic approach to life and career, Kitt has developed a reputation in the industry for being able to create and capture an emotional melody for any setting, whether he is writing and producing for himself, other artists, TV, film or trailers. A key to his success has been his ability to work across multiple genres, specifically pop, rock and electronica. With that flexibility comes one constant:
I always have two goals when I approach a project: 1) Take the listener on an emotional journey and 2) Appeal to as many senses as possible. Sometimes I'm in the mood to write an energetic rock or electronica tune, other days it's an orchestral piece, a simple piano line or the need to smash it all into one. Why not? There's no rule that says I can't mix an orchestra with electronica, guitar and rock drums.
Midnight Struck Recently:
My best friend was getting married, so I decided to write a song for both of them, which ended up being the first orchestral piece Id ever written and recorded, said Wakeley. When I sent them the finished piece, my friend, who is not an emotional guy at all, called me in tears and asked if they could use it for the bridal march down the aisle. I was so honored that the song connected with them so deeply and the reaction from all the attendees was overwhelming. So, I decided an orchestral album was going to be my new challenge. I worked very hard and had the opportunity to have some amazing collaborators and the rest, as they say, is history.
Wakeley has released numerous full-length rock, pop and EDM albums over the years, including AudioKaoz, a hard rock electronica album, which he produced with three-time GRAMMY-winner Tre Nagella. Brian "Big Bass" Gardner, known for projects with Michael Jackson, Motley Crue, Eminem, Travis Barker and Dr. Dre, mastered the album, which peaked at #2 for independent artists per Music Box, Music X-Ray and Sound Exchange.
Music Education
The first time Wakeley performed in front of a live audience in high school with his band, Limited Edition, he knew music had to be a part of his life. Wakeley also credits his mother for his success, who ensured he was at every practice and concert. She was my number one supporter, never missed a performance and was always cheering me on, said the composer.
After graduating high school, Wakeley earned a BA with a double major from East Central University where his band at the time played its first paid gig for $100 and all the free beer and pizza they could consume. The pay didnt matter because you couldnt put a price tag on the euphoria we felt after that performance, says Wakeley, who then went on to earn an MA from the University of Oklahoma in Norman, OK.
Personal/Causes:
Wakeley and his wife, Melissa, without whose love, support and respect he could not keep making music, have been married for almost 10 years. They have a blended family of three daughters and one son who are, thankfully, taking the world by storm via college and career. After having to endure the shock, pain, devastation and road to recovery when one of their daughters, at age 22, spiraled into substance abuse, they established a residential treatment center in Oklahoma. The center, called Vizown (which represents Youre Own Vision), specializes in dual diagnosis treatment for men and women. For more information, visit http://www.vizown.com. The couple continues to be committed to raising awareness about the nationwide substance abuse and mental health crisis in the U.S.
To purchase tickets for Midnight in Macedonia LIVE! visit: https://www.ticketstorm.com/e/21762/t/.
At more than 50 events during the course of the week, hundreds of experts on Internet security and cybercrime from government, business and science will be sharing their knowledge, discussing the latest developments and pitching new innovative ideas. Together with around 4000 visitors, they will be looking for solutions to one of the biggest challenges in our modern, digital world: how do we ensure a safe cyber future?
For various reasons, cyber security has been featuring in the headlines increasingly frequently. Our digital security expressly requires innovative solutions based on international cooperation between countries and their cyber professionals. An important issue here is the current lack of cyber security professionals with which governments, businesses and knowledge organizations are having to contend. Both developing and motivating this cyber security talent as well as working together on innovative security solutions are key themes during this 3rd edition of Cyber Security Week.
As an international data hub and digital entry point to Europe, the Netherlands plays an important role when it comes to tackling these threats and optimally guaranteeing the cyber security of our critical infrastructure.
Saskia Bruines, Deputy Mayor for Education, Knowledge Economy and International Affairs in the Municipality of The Hague:
Technological developments are continuing apace and the current shortage of talent will increase if we fail to take action as a society. For that reason, public authorities, educational institutions and businesses need to join forces to train, attract and retain more talent. That is why it is important to teach children digital skills from an early age. From primary school to university, educating cyber talent has to be high on the agenda. We want everyone to participate so we can all work together to create a safe society.
Program
The parties participating in Cyber Security Week include CIPRE, Incident Response and representatives from numerous security clusters from the UK, Ireland, Germany, Israel, US, Canada, India and Japan. Many big and small companies specializing in cyber security will also be present. Together they will offer a wide range of interactive cyber games, challenges, presentations, workshops and showcases.
The first week of October will also see the start of the Alert Online Campaign and One Conference (October 2-3), all in the context of European Cyber Security Month.
During CIPRE (October 2-4), international cyber experts will meet to share knowledge about protecting our critical infrastructure.
On October 4-5, there will be training sessions, practical workshops and network meetings of the American Incident Response Community.
On October 4-5, the Fokker Terminal in The Hague will be the venue for the CSW Congress & Expo. The Congress comprises a matchmaking-program, an Access to Capital event, an Access to Talent event, an SME Cyber Awareness Event and dozens of other workshops, sessions and keynotes relating to cyber security.
During the CSW Expo, national and international organisations will present their innovative cyber security solutions.
Visitors
Cyber Security Week is expected to attract around 4000 visitors.
These include:
Cyber security professionals from 70 countries
Dutch SMEs which recognize cyber security as a risk for their business and are looking for solutions.
Start-ups/scale-ups and investors meeting each other during the Access to Capital event.
Students and young professionals who will be offered a targeted program during the Access to Talent event.
Cyber Security Week is an initiative of The Hague Security Delta (HSD), a network of companies, public authorities and knowledge organizations working together on knowledge development and innovations in the field of security. The Cyber Security Week is being funded by the city of The Hague.
More information about the program is available at: http://www.cybersecurityweek.nl
If you have any additional questions, please contact:
Cyber Security Week
Press officer Jan van der Vlugt
coordination(at)cybersecurityweek(dot)nl
+31 (0) 6 10 92 39 92
The Hague Security Delta
Communications manager Chantal de Niet
chantal.deniet(at)thehaguesecuritydelta(dot)com
+31 (0)70 204 51 80 / +31 (0)6 20 44 18 30
Municipality of The Hague
Press officer: Paula Anastacio Palaio
paula.palaio(at)denhaag(dot)nl
+31 (0)6 52 51 39 65
Appendices
Last week, Daniel Berardini of CW Commercial Real Estate brokered the sale of a 1.37 acre parcel improved by a 3,050-square-foot retail building net leased to Friendlys Restaurant in Danbury, Connecticut. The transaction was off-market and the purchase price was not disclosed. The seller was a private real estate group headquartered in New York, New York and the buying entity was a joint venture between a family-owned real estate investment company headquartered in Quincy, Massachusetts and a privately held development company based in Southport, Connecticut. Bernardini was the sole broker in the deal.
Dimensional Insight was the only vendor that talked about data governance and how to achieve that using CMS numbers. In addition, Dimensional Insight had the most turnkey solution with our MEDITECH EHR and the dashboard was the easiest on the eyes.
Dimensional Insight, the maker of Diver Platform, a data management and analytics solution, today announces the successful partnership with Puerto Ricos Doctors Center Hospital in deploying Diver Platform. Doctors Center Hospital is a 650-bed, four-hospital system headquartered in Manati, Puerto Rico, about 30 miles west of San Juan. The hospital has already been able to gain important insights from its Diver deployment, including better understanding its patient census during Hurricane Maria.
Doctors Center Hospital is now using Diver across the organization to provide its executives with access to key metrics to make improvements in clinical, financial, and operational areas. The hospital wanted not only the ability to view data in a more user-friendly way, but it also needed access to governed data to ensure that stakeholders were all looking at the same data in the same way. Following an extensive search for a healthcare analytics solution, Doctors Center Hospital implemented Diver Platform.
Dimensional Insight was the only vendor that talked about data governance and how to achieve that using CMS numbers, says Pedro Rios-Mercado, IT director at Doctors Center Hospital. In addition, Dimensional Insight had the most turnkey solution with our MEDITECH EHR and the dashboard was the easiest on the eyes.
Doctors Center Hospital first implemented an executive dashboard that tracks key KPIs that the hospitals president looks at every day. The organizations KPIs are provided through Measure Factory, which is an add-on to Diver. They are based on CMS rules but are also customizable and provide a standardized way that all departments across the hospital can look at data. The metrics include the census at each facility, the number of admissions, the number of discharges, readmissions, average length of stay, and other quality metrics.
Shortly after Doctors Center Hospital got its Diver executive dashboard up and running, Puerto Rico was impacted by Hurricane Maria. Within a few days of the hurricane, Doctors Center Hospital found it had an influx of patients, but limited staff to help them, as the staff members couldnt get to work. The Diver dashboard, however, was able to provide some insight by providing patient census numbers in each area of the hospital. This allowed the hospital to staff according to the areas of most pressing need.
Doctors Center Hospital has since implemented a dashboard to track throughput in each of its four EDs. This means the organization will be even more prepared should another storm hit in the future.
In addition, the hospital has been able to see some other quick results from its Diver implementation. For example, through the dashboard, executives noticed that one of its hospital was admitting patients to the hospital from the ED at a rate that was one-fourth that of the other hospitals. That prompted an investigation, and the hospital found the facility wasnt using doctor consults as much as the other hospitals were. Although the facility still has room for improvement, it has since doubled its admission rate from the ED and has improved its daily census.
Dr. Carlos Blanco, president of Doctors Center Hospital says, As president of a four-hospital system, I need to keep abreast of the daily operations to maximize the resources needed for my business. The dashboard has been instrumental in allowing the daily overview needed to manage this complex operation, and it gives me immediate access to the kind of detailed information needed to run the operation.
To learn more about how Doctors Center Hospital is using Diver, visit: https://www.dimins.com/case-studies/doctors-center-hospital/.
About Dimensional Insight
Dimensional Insight is a leading provider of analytics and data management solutions, offering a complete portfolio of capabilities ranging from data integration and modeling to sophisticated reporting, analytics, and dashboards. Founded in 1989, Dimensional Insight has thousands of customer organizations worldwide. Dimensional Insights Diver Platform consistently ranks as a top performing analytics platform by customers and industry analysts in its core market segments including healthcare, manufacturing, and beverage alcohol. For more information, please visit https://www.dimins.com.
Traditional Brazilian Food The best way to experience a new culture is by partaking in the same activities locals perform every day - and what better way than literally enjoying the local flavors? Combined with a walking tour full of history, culture and color, traveler gains an intimate appreciation of the destination.
Brazil is a vastly little-known hotspot for food and wine enthusiasts. Especially for those who like to travel and experience regional cuisine abroad. A trip to Brazil is a chance to become inspired by traditional Brazilian culinary as it represents the world coming together in a delicious blend of Portuguese, Japanese and African influence. Every region evokes a unique taste, texture and overall ensemble of readily available produce.
One way to get a taste of Brazil is on a guided food tour. SouthAmerica.travel, a travel company which arranges fully custom trips throughout South America, just launched the Ultimate Brazil Food & Wine Tour, combining four of their favorite Brazilian gourmet destinations into one delicious package. Dine on unique dishes which have captured international attention for their homegrown, yet exotic, ingredients and flavors. Learn how to utilize integral Brazilian elements in professionally led cooking classes. Then, quench your thirst with a glass of Brazilian wine.
SouthAmerica.travel C.E.O. Juergen Keller explains: The best way to experience a new culture is by partaking in the same activities locals perform every day - and what better way than literally enjoying the local flavors? Combined with a walking tour full of history, culture and color, traveler gains an intimate appreciation of the destination.
The multi-day Brazil Food & Wine Tour invites travelers to partake in a multi-day exploration of the senses. Begin in the marvelous Rio de Janeiro, a port city beckoning travelers with its sprawling white-sand beaches, lush mountains, lively festivals, and friendly Cariocas. Enjoy breathtaking views from Sugarloaf Mountain and a romantic evening sampling some of the best Brazilian wine and cheese atop a spacious veranda in the hills of Santa Teresa.
Next, explore the bustling street markets, bars and restaurants which make up the interior of the city. Sample delicious street food including pao de queijo (Brazilian cheese bread), exotic Amazonian fruits, Brazilian chopp (draft beer), authentic caipirinhas together with a bit of meat: picanha (slices of beef), caixinha (drumstick-shaped chicken pastel) or bacalhau (bites of cod)! Throughout this food-city tour, visit some of the highlights of Rio, including the Carioca Aqueduct and the world-famous Escadaria Selaron steps, designed by the Chilean-born artist Jorge Selaron.
On the final day in Rio, find out why locals say the best views of Rio are from the top! as you board the historic cogwheel train to the top of Corcovado Mountain. Upon arrival, observe the enormity of the Christ the Redeemer statue, as well as views of Copacabana, Ipanema, Sugarloaf, Maracana and the Tijuca forest. In the evening, learn a mixture of traditional Brazilian recipes, ingredients and techniques in one colorful Brazilian cooking class.
After Rio, visit Belo Horizonte, a city bristling with cozy restaurants and vibrant markets which showcase the best tastes of Minas Gerais. Follow a trusted local guide around the Mercado Central (Central Market), a massive, indoor market favored both by tourists and locals for its large ensemble of spices, aromas and flavors. After exploring the extensive market stalls, visit the Popes Square, Liberdade Square, the Art Palace and the Pampulha region. Then, learn cooking techniques partial to Belo Horizonte in another cooking class held by a professional Brazilian chef.
Last, but certainly not least, transfer to Sao Paulo. Cover the main city highlights, including the Mercado Municipal. This public market is full of diverse aromas, colors and flavors. While here, dine like the locals and enjoy famous Minas cheese sandwiches or a codfish pastry, both well-known meals by locals in the market.
Your experience finishes with something special! Travel to Sao Roque, Brazils Wine Country. Visit two local wineries for private tours and tastings of white and red varieties of Brazilian wine. Reminisce about the journey, the path that brought you here. This is a glass you deserve. The memories will anchor to these aromas and wines. Reflect on your adventure as you sit and share the best laughs with your friends once again.
This new trip from SouthAmerica.travel can be easily combined with an adventuresome Rio de Janeiro & Amazon Rainforest Tour, which features the highlights of Rio de Janeiro and Manaus. Or, simply add on a stay at one of the best Brazil Amazon Lodges and immerse yourself in the worlds largest tropical rainforest.
SouthAmerica.travel has been arranging Brazil Tours for over 18 years and the Ultimate Brazil Food & Wine tour gives food connoisseurs and amateurs alike a flavorful introduction to Brazil, combining three popular destinations with hidden gems and classes in the local cuisine. All of SouthAmerica.travels tours can be customized any way you see fit. The local guides, private tours, superior accommodations and flexibility in travel planning make for an extraordinary travel experience.
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About Us: SouthAmerica.travel is a tour operator specialized in custom South America tour planning for travelers worldwide from its offices in Seattle, Lima, Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro and Stuttgart. We are online and have local phone numbers in 88 countries. We offer 4-star & 5-star South America tours to Brazil, Peru, Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay, and more. Licensed and bonded in the U.S., SouthAmerica.travel has been sharing its love of South America travel since 1999 and is proud of its A+ rating by the Better Business Bureau and ASTA affiliation. SouthAmerica.travel - Our name is our passion
Follow SouthAmerica.travel:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SouthAmericaDotTravel
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/southamerica-travel
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/southamericadottravel/?hl=en
Rich Thau, President of Engagious, moderates a focus group of "persuadable" voters in Canton, OH. Based on recent history, this group of voters will likely sway the midterm results. So, this was a great opportunity to gauge how the critical issues of the day will be impacting their mindset come Election Day in November.
Customer insights and message testing consultancy Engagious recently conducted a two-hour focus group of persuadable voters to understand these voters opinions and perceptions on the most significant issues leading up to the national midterm elections, and how these opinions shape their voting decisions.
Persuadable voters are those who voted for one major partys candidate in the 2012 presidential election, then switched and voted for the other major partys candidate in the 2016 presidential election (e.g., Obama-Trump or Romney-Clinton). This relatively recent classification of voters has played a critical role in determining the results of the last three presidential elections.
In conjunction with powerhouse media and news organization, Axios, Engagious conducted the focus group, which comprised of a cross-section of voters in Canton, Ohio. Canton was selected due to its relatively high number of persuadable voters, and Ohio being a key swing state for national elections. Five women and seven men participated in the session, ranging in age from 20 70 years old. All said they were extremely likely to vote in November. Rich Thau, President of Engagious, moderated the session.
(Download a detailed summary report here.)
Key findings include:
Voters split on if America is moving in the right direction with Romney-Clinton voters much more skeptical about where the country is heading versus Obama-Trump voters
Majority of voters want to see more women in office but it wasnt a decisive issue for them
Majority are not motivated by the notion of sending a message to President Trump with their vote in November
Majority agreed that President Trump has failed in his promise to drain the swamp
Majority of voters are not feeling the affects of booming economy
In hindsight, few voters would change how they voted in 2016
Alexi McCammond, Axios Political Midterms Reporter, traveled to Canton, Ohio to observe the focus group session in real time.
Engagious focus group of six Obama-Trump voters and six Romney-Clinton voters enabled us to learn more about what swing voters were thinking in 2016, and how they feel about the current administration, said McCammond. Turns out they're not too happy, and their dissatisfaction could benefit Democrats in the 2018 midterm elections.
Read key takeaways and analysis from Axios here: Change voters still want change: the lesson of an Ohio focus group and watch Axios highlights from the focus group here.
Engagious Rich Thau, who moderated the session, commented, Based on recent history, this group of voters will likely sway the midterm results. So, this was a great opportunity to gauge how the critical issues of the day will be impacting their mindset come Election Day in November.
Additional coverage, including the uncut recordings of the focus group sessions and a detailed summary report, can be found at here.
About Engagious
Engagious is a customer insights and messaging consultancy. We fuse research, science, and storytelling to help you craft and refine your high-stakes messaging and communications. Applying behavioral science principles and qualitative research findings, we uncover what your customers, stakeholders or audiences are thinking, what persuades and compels them to take action, and what doesnt.
Since 2002, presidential campaigns, corporations, trade associations, advocacy groups, and think tanks have relied on our expertise for their high-stakes messaging. Our team has conducted groundbreaking research in media, public policy, technology, consumer products, renewable energy, and more. Learn more at http://www.engagious.com.
Facial plastic surgeon Dr. Marcelo Antunes has joined The Piazza Center in Austin, where he and Dr. Rocco Piazza provide a full range of surgical and nonsurgical procedures.
The Piazza Center recently welcomed double board-certified facial plastic surgeon Dr. Marcelo Antunes to its Austin practice, where patients now have access to one of the few surgeons in the area devoted solely to aesthetic and reconstructive facial plastic surgery.
"Dr. Antunes is an ideal fit for our team," says Dr. Rocco Piazza, who opened The Piazza Center in 2010. "He is one of the nation's leading facial plastic surgeons and shares my practice philosophy that nothing is more important than the well-being of our patients."
Dr. Piazza, a board-certified plastic surgeon specializing in cosmetic breast surgery and body contouring procedures, says Dr. Antunes' focus on facial procedures further enhances The Piazza Center's standing as one of the premier plastic surgery practices not only in Austin, but throughout the Southwest.
A native of Brazil, Dr. Antunes moved to the United States to pursue his medical education. His training includes a prestigious residency in Otorhinolaryngology -- Head and Neck Surgery at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, where he served as chief resident during his final year. He also completed a facial plastic surgery fellowship under Dr. Vito Quatela, a past president of the American Academy of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery.
Dr. Antunes comes to Austin from the Atlanta, GA, area, where he practiced after completing his fellowship training. He met Dr. Piazza five years ago and discovered they shared the same practice philosophy and core values.
"We deeply care about our patients' outcomes and their experience," Dr. Antunes says. "We came to realize that practicing together made complete sense because we could create a 'one-stop-shop' for people seeking aesthetic and reconstructive care."
Dr. Antunes says it's difficult to pinpoint a specific procedure that he most enjoys performing, but he's highly regarded nationally for his rhinoplasty and facelift results. In Austin, he'll perform all facial procedures.
"Rhinoplasty and face and neck lifts are not only challenging from a technical standpoint but can also make such an amazing difference for the patient's quality of life," Dr. Antunes says. "Every patient is different, and each procedure needs to be individualized based on the patient's anatomy and cosmetic goals."
Dr. Antunes chose to specialize in facial plastic surgery because of the many ways he can help people who are self-conscious about their appearances or who have functional issues that impede the quality of their lives.
"This field includes everything from reconstruction of congenital malformations, trauma, or skin cancers to functional and cosmetic nasal and facial surgery," he says.
Since arriving in Austin, Dr. Antunes says he and his family have enjoyed becoming familiar with the city and surrounding area, especially Town Lake.
"Any time I'm there, or even just passing by over the bridge, I gain a sense of peace and tranquility."
The Piazza Centers recently re-designed website provides information on the practices advanced skin care treatments in addition to its offerings of surgical and nonsurgical aesthetic procedures.
Rocco C. Piazza, M.D., FACS, and Marcelo Antunes, M.D. FACS, of The Piazza Center (http://www.thepiazzacenter.com) offer the most advanced procedures available to meet a wide range of cosmetic needs. Dr. Piazza graduated summa cum laude from Baylor University and then attended University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. Dr. Piazza completed his plastic surgery training at the Grand Rapids Medical Education and Research Center in Michigan under 20 board-certified plastic surgeons, including the world-renowned breast surgeon Dr. Dennis C. Hammond. This diverse training experience gave him wide exposure to many different surgical techniques in trauma reconstruction and breast and body contouring. Dr. Antunes is a double board-certified and fellowship-trained facial plastic surgeon. He completed a residency at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. Both Dr. Piazza and Dr. Antunes are Fellows of the American College of Surgeons. Dr. Piazza is a member of the Spokespersons Network of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, representing the prestigious group by providing the media with information on a broad range of plastic surgery topics. Dr. Piazza, Dr. Antunes, and their staff are committed to healthy eating and are advocates for exercise. They have created a comfortable practice environment focused on anti-aging skin care, nonsurgical facial rejuvenation with injectables (JUVEDERM, Restylane, and Sculptra Aesthetic) for volume restoration, and reconstructive and aesthetic surgery.
Injectables for facial rejuvenation are a rapdicly growing corner of the health care The public has become used to the idea that modern medicine offers a growing number of treatments that can safely and effectively improve their appearance.
A September 5 article on TheStreet reports on comments by Allergan head Brent Saunders regarding the entrance of international rivals to one of the pharmaceutical giants most successful products. The response comes a day after analysts from Goldman Sachs said that the hugely commanding market share of Botox, the best known injectable for facial rejuvenation, might be somewhat vulnerable to new players in the field. Beverly Hills based plastic surgeon Payam Jarrah-Nejad, M.D., F.I.C.S., F.A.C.S., better known to his patients as Dr. J, says that the public has become used to the idea that modern medicine offers a growing number of treatments that can safely and effectively improve their appearance, so it makes sense that more manufacturers are trying to enter a growing market.
Dr. J notes that, while a surgical facelift remains the gold standard for long-term facial rejuvenation, products like Botox and facial filler Juvederm really can make a significant difference, although its important to note that regular touch-ups are required to maintain their impact over a long-term period. The important thing, says the doctor, is that negative beliefs about patients who receive plastic surgery and cosmetic treatment are rapidly becoming a thing of the past. He says that the increasing number of options has helped to improve the standing of cosmetic procedures as many patients who might have hesitated about obtaining a surgical procedure feel more comfortable coming in for the kind of treatment that can be performed during lunchtime and which involves minimal downtime.
The plastic surgeon notes that, on occasion, some patients may start coming in for an injectable procedure and then, realizing the potential behind other treatments, might decide that its finally time to seriously consider the rhinoplasty (nose job), liposuction, or breast augmentation theyve long had in the back of their minds. Thats especially the case when they start looking at the outcomes former patients have benefitted from, says Dr. J.
While a variety of practitioners who are not medical doctors are legally allowed to provide injectable treatments, getting this kind of procedure from an expert plastic surgeon has a number of benefits, both in terms of results and safety, says Dr. J. He notes that the fact that he is double board certified by both the American Board of Plastic Surgery and the American Board of Surgery means that he has the skill and knowledge to deal with just about anything that may come up during any kind of procedure. Moreover, the aesthetic sense of a first-rate plastic surgeon can often result in the kind of results that can truly delight a patient. In some cases, he notes, patients can actually use injectables as a means to maximize the results of a successful plastic surgery.
Readers who would like to learn more about Dr. Js qualifications as a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon, or call his office at (310) 228-3151.
Mary-Olga Lovett, Senior Vice President of global law firm Greenberg Traurig, LLP, has been named to the Houston Business Journals 2018 list of Women Who Mean Business in Houston.
Lovett is one of only six lawyers earning recognition in the Outstanding Leaders in Law category. The publication selected 56 women in various business categories.
We are very proud of Mos continued development as a lawyer, a businessperson and a leader, and of her commitment to serving our clients, said Richard A. Rosenbaum, Executive Chairman of Greenberg Traurig. It is great to see this recognition of her special passion for both womens issues and the excellence and cultural values of our robust Houston and other Texas offices--Texas is one of our most important growth markets.
I am incredibly honored to receive this distinction among so many strong leaders in Houston, Lovett said. And Im so proud of the women and men of GT for supporting programs Greenberg Traurig has implemented to further the careers of our talented group of women attorneys. Im excited to see our firm continue its critical focus on recruiting, mentoring retaining, and advancing women lawyers.
A member of the firms Executive Committee, Lovett also is a founding member of Greenberg Traurigs Womens Business Forum. Lovett has been trying lawsuits for nearly 25 years, and her practice covers a broad range of business and intellectual property litigation in state and federal courts across the country. She has led multiple workshops focused on mentoring and exploring the work of women in male-dominated environments, with a special emphasis on developing women as first-chair trial lawyers.
In 2017, Lovett was selected Best in Patent by Euromoney Legal Media Group for its Americas Women in Business Law Awards. In 2016 and 2018, Super Lawyers magazine named her to its lists of Top 100 Lawyers in Houston and Top 50 Women Lawyers in Texas, and in 2016, as one of the Top 100 Lawyers in Texas.
Now in its third year, the Houston Business Journals Women Who Mean Business Award recognizes the citys most successful female business leaders in for-profit and nonprofit industries. Three judges select and review nominees based on career achievements, contribution to the company and city success, community involvement, and leadership. A full list of honorees can be found at this link. The women will be honored during an awards reception at the Hilton Americas Hotel on Oct. 18 and will be featured in a special section of the publications Oct. 19 issue.
About Greenberg Traurig Texas: Greenberg Traurig has more than 125 attorneys in Texas, serving clients from offices in Austin, Dallas, and Houston.
About Greenberg Traurig: Greenberg Traurig, LLP (GT) has more than 2,000 attorneys in 38 offices in the United States, Latin America, Europe, Asia and the Middle East. GT has been recognized for its philanthropic giving, was named the largest firm in the U.S. by Law360 in 2017, and is among the Top 20 on the 2017 Am Law Global 100. Web: http://www.gtlaw.com Twitter: @GT_Law.
IBTS has been involved in recovery after almost every major natural disaster in the United States for the past several decades.
The Institute for Building Technology and Safety (IBTS), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, is making a number of its natural disaster response and recovery experts available to the media in light of the impending landfall of Hurricane Florence.
With almost 100 years of combined experience, in roles ranging from local elected official to administrator of federal programs, the IBTS team offers a wealth of knowledge stemming from projects that include the rebuild of Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina, the New York Build-it-Back program following Hurricane Sandy, floods in Oklahoma, wind events in Kansas and Texas, Florida and Colorado. Members of the team also performed pro bono work in Puerto Rico. IBTS has been involved in recovery after almost every major natural disaster in the United States for the past several decades.
These experts have also prepared a quick tip-sheet for local governments, available online.
The Experts
Claire Collins Program Director, Federal and State Programs - FEMA
Cell: 571.528.0885 | Email: ccollins(at)ibts.org
Ms. Collins has more than 12 years of experience providing management and oversight to declared disaster and emergency service programs at the local, state and federal government level. She has led a city and several counties in Virginia as local government manager for more than 22 years and member of elected county Board of Supervisors for six years. During her tenure in local government, she oversaw local disasters, administered Community Block Development Grant (CDBG) improvement projects, and leveraged external funding and private partnerships to complete planned community infrastructure and capital projects. Her first-hand experience in working declared disasters for 1996 flooding, Derecho, and Hurricane Sandy includes disaster planning, response and recovery, performing public information, shelter management, local and preliminary damage assessments, public assistance project assistance and write-ups, justification, and closeout. She currently oversees the IBTS FEMA Temporary Transportable Housing Unit program operations in providing assistance and advisory services, including response to Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, as well as ancillary projects to improve the health, safety and welfare of temporary disaster survivor housing.
Nicholas E. Foster Management Consultant
Cell: 832-612-0874 | Email: nfoster(at)ibts.org
Mr. Foster has over 12 years of experience with the implementation and administration of Federal Grants and Construction Contracts with emphasis on CDBG and federally declared disasters. He is familiar with all aspects of CDBG including: labor compliance issues such as Davis Bacon, project eligibility, grant applications, real property acquisition, environmental review and construction management. Mr. Foster assisted in the training, coordination, and implementation of several federally funded programs for Louisiana, Texas and Illinois. He has reviewed and edited contract documents for specific federal language related to federal labor standards for various projects.
Scott Myers CDBG-DR Senior Area Specialist
Cell: 405.630.8013 | Email: smysers(at)ibts.org
Mr. Myers served as the Director of Programs for the Oklahoma State CDBG program with an annual appropriation of $12.5 million and the states CDBG-DR program of over $93 million. He also oversaw the Neighborhood Stabilization (NSP 1 and 3) programs ($21.8 Million allocation); the Community Development Block Grant-Stimulus program ($4 Million allocation), and the state appropriated Rural Economic Action Plan (REAP) grant program ($9.8 Million allocation). Mr. Myers acted as lead for the application submission under the competitive National Disaster Resiliency Competition (NDRC) program by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). He has also served as a CDBG-DR Program Manager in Cleveland County, Oklahoma and for the State of South Carolina.
Michael Spletto Corporate Disaster Recovery Executive
Cell: 225-573-4354 | Email: mspletto(at)ibts.org
Mr. Spletto brings 30 years of experience in the field of community development and administration of federal grants. He has extensive knowledge of CDBG, CDBG-DR, FEMA and HOME programs. Mr. Spletto has played a key role in many of the largest disaster recovery programs in the country and delivered numerous training sessions related to CDBG, CDBG-DR, HOME, lead-based paint, NEPA and HUD 24 CFR Part 58 requirements, Section 504, labor standards, HUD compliance monitoring, HQS, strategic planning, and other housing related topics. He has worked for local and State governments for nearly 20 years and provided disaster recovery consulting services for over 10 years. Mr. Spletto assisted in the oversight or management of over $20 Billion in HUD disaster funding.
Educational Opportunities Online
To help jurisdictions learn more about disaster mitigation and recovery, IBTS has created an online resource called OnHAND (http://www.ibtsonhand.org). The site features resources ranging from how to create a disaster-preparedness plan, to communications best practices during an event, to navigating CDBG-DR processes.
Users can fast-track to the most relevant content for their needs by selecting their location, type of peril, phase (before, during, or after a disaster) and role. The content has been developed by IBTS subject matter experts, with contributions from organizations such as the National Association of Counties (NACo). Learn more at http://www.ibtsonhand.org.
About IBTS
IBTS is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization committed to helping communities through quality services that reduce risk, enhance public safety, and improve quality of life. IBTS is headquartered in Ashburn, Virginia with branch offices across the country. IBTSs work is guided by a Board of Directors made up of government officials appointed by five of the most highly respected, grassroots, state and local governmental associations, including the Council of State Governments (CSG), International City/County Management Association (ICMA), National Association of Counties (NACo), National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center), and National League of Cities (NLC).
ICC will be exhibiting at the AUSA expo in Washington, D.C. October 8 through 10.
Interstate Connecting Components (ICC), a division of Heilind Mil-Aero and a leading distributor of military and aerospace connectors, connector accessories, electromechanical products and sensors worldwide, will be exhibiting at this years AUSA show. Organized by the Association of the United States Army, the event is the largest land warfare exposition and professional development forum in North America.
At the expo, ICC will showcase a variety of products designed for military-aerospace applications. The exhibit will include both standard and contemporary technologies from leading interconnect manufacturers like Amphenol Aerospace, HARTING, SOURIAU and TE Connectivity.
ICC supports customers across the United States and internationally in nearly every military and aerospace platform. We are thrilled to be exhibiting at AUSA for the second year in a row, said Scott Jacobs, Vice President, Interstate Connecting Components. Weve been providing interconnect solutions to leading defense contractors for many years, and look forward to showcasing our diverse selection of new and standard interconnect technologies to those attending the exhibit.
Interstate Connecting Components serves the United States Army and its subcontractors supporting Army programs. It will have representatives at booth #9248 for the duration of the exhibit, which will be held October 8 through 10 at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C.
About Interstate Connecting Components (ICC)
A division of Heilind Electronics, North Americas largest interconnect distributor, Interstate Connecting Components (http://www.connecticc.com) is an AS9100D-certified value-added distributor for the entire spectrum of electronic connectors, fiber optic connectors, backshells, tools, identification solutions and connector contacts. ICC specializes in the military-aerospace market and offers T'DA 2-day assembly on D38999, M28840 and many other MIL-SPEC connector lines from leading manufacturers like Amphenol Aerospace, Conesys and Glenair. Follow ICC on Facebook at facebook.com/connecticc and on Twitter at twitter.com/connecticc.
SEMAs yearly list honors the up and coming leaders in the automotive aftermarket sector including those who are already making their mark with innovative ideas and bright visions of the future within the industry.
Medina, OH: Edwin A. Sisson, Attorney at Law LLC., a leading patent/trademark firm, announces Jeffrey Banyas has been included in the Specialty Equipment Market Associations 2018 35 Under 35 list naming the young business leaders of tomorrow.
SEMAs yearly list honors the up and coming leaders in the automotive aftermarket sector including those who are already making their mark with innovative ideas and bright visions of the future within the industry.
Banyas, a 2010 graduate of the University of Akron School of Law, has been with the Sisson firm for almost eight years. As a Patent and Trademark Attorney, he advises customers on all aspects of their intellectual assets.
A former racecar driver, Banyas has always had a deep connection and passion for auto racing and is touched by the prestigious selection.
Receiving this recognition from SEMA is a huge honor, Banyas said. The high performance and automotive aftermarkets have been a life-long passion for me. I love having the opportunity to serve all of our customers, but it takes on extra meaning when I can work with customers in an industry that is near and dear to my heart.
Honorees must be nominated by their peers, and SEMA searches in all industry segments for worthy recipients. Traits like entrepreneurship, commitment, innovation, insight, integrity, responsibility, involvement and overall success within the marketplace determine who is selected by SEMA.
To have the industrys largest trade association recognize me as one of their emerging young leaders reinforces my personal commitment to our customers, the firm, and the automotive aftermarket in general, said Banyas.
Working with a firm like Edwin A. Sisson, Attorney at Law has given Banyas the opportunity to make a name for himself in the automotive aftermarket industry. The firm has a strong reputation for its commitment and understanding of its customers intellectual property needs and his colleagues recognize Banyas' impactful efforts.
The firm hires for passion and trains for skill. Over the past eight years Jeffrey has demonstrated the wisdom of that practice time and time again, said Edwin A. Sisson, owner of the firm.
This award is a testimony to the passion Jeffrey puts into his work and how he treats his customers. He has clearly earned the respect, not only of his customers but the industry. I can hardly wait to see what he does in the next few years.
Banyas said he is encouraged and inspired daily by his loving family and knows he owes a big part of this honor to them as well as his firm for their continued commitment to his work.
I cannot thank Ed Sisson, our Firm, my family, and especially my wife Julianne enough for their encouragement and support. Without it, I would not be able to provide the high level of care to our customers that is needed to receive such an award.
About Edwin A. Sisson, Attorney at Law LLC
Edwin A. Sisson, Attorney at Law LLC provides a myriad of legal services tailored to help clients secure, protect, and monetize their intellectual property assets. The Sisson firms experience, training, and infrastructure allow them to stay ahead of the demands of a fast-paced global business environment. For more information, visit https://www.sissoniplaw.com/
Read the full SEMA "35 under 35" list at the link below.
https://www.sema.org/sema-news/2018/09/35-under-35
Members from River City Bank attended the Guest Chef Dinner at Plates Cafe on September 6, 2018, to celebrate the graduation of 12 women from the Saint Johns Program for Real Change. Saint Johns directly impacts the lives of women and children desperate for change, and we are excited to partner with an organization that helps the community thrive one life at a time, said Shawn Kelly Devlin, Chairman of the Board of the Kelly Foundation and of River City Bank.
The Kelly Foundation awarded $83,000 to Saint Johns Program for Reach Change, an organization that operates the largest shelter for women and children experiencing homelessness in the Sacramento region. The donation will go towards the Bridge the Gap campaign which was developed to keep the red doors of Saint Johns open after the County of Sacramento decided not to renew its 15-year contract. The Kelly Foundations contribution will provide 638 nights of comprehensive services for families at Saint Johns including housing, drug and alcohol counseling, parenting education, healthy relationship training and childcare. The funds will also help women who are enrolled in the program develop habits and professional skills that can equip them to seek employment and become more self-reliant.
Saint Johns directly impacts the lives of women and children desperate for change, and we are excited to partner with an organization that helps the community thrive one life at a time, said Shawn Kelly Devlin, Chairman of the Board of the Kelly Foundation and of River City Bank. Were confident this donation will support families in need to become self-sufficient after experiencing such challenging circumstances.
TWEET THIS: Kelly Foundation and #Sacramento based @RiverCityBank donate $83,000 to Saint Johns Program for Real Change to improve the lives of women and children experiencing homelessness. #business #banking
We are proud to support the women and children of the Saint Johns Program for Real Change and respect their ambition to better their lives after undergoing detrimental situations, said Steve Fleming, President and CEO of River City Bank. Following a significant change in the programs funding stream, we understand the urgent need to step in and bridge the gap. Were excited to see the continued success of the program and the effect it has on bettering individuals in our community.
After a recent expansion in 2017, Saint Johns now serves up to 270 women and children daily with a waitlist of more than 500. Members receive extensive education, counseling and training to help lead them to a future of success both personally and professionally. In addition, the finest chefs from the Sacramento area partner with Plates Cafe each month to provide a one-of-a-kind gourmet meal in support of the women and children served at Saint Johns Program for Real Change. In early September, the Guest Chefs Dinner event celebrated the graduation of 12 women who completed the Employment Training Program and are now fully employed.
Saint Johns Program for Real Change is deeply grateful to the Kelly Foundation team. Not only have they supported our women and children consistently over the past six years, but their added support this year has ensured that our red doors remain open to women and children who want to change their lives, said Michelle Steeb, CEO of Saint Johns Program for Real Change. We appreciate the Kelly Foundation and River City Bank for believing and investing in women and children who choose to permanently escape the cycle of poverty and dependence.
The Kelly Foundation supports health and human services, education, culture, environment and civic improvement through its funding. Each year, the Foundation provides approximately $400,000 in grants to organizations that support the Sacramento region. Since merging with the RCB Foundation in 2009, the Kelly Foundation, of which River City Bank remains a major contributor, focuses on giving back to the greater Sacramento region through charitable donations.
For more information about the Kelly Foundation, please visit KellyFoundationSacramento.org. For more information about Saint Johns Program for Real Change, visit SaintJohnsProgram.org.
About the Kelly Foundation
The Kelly Broadcasting Companys KCRA-TV (Sacramento-Stockton-Modest, CA) went on the air on Sept. 5, 1955, and the owners of the Kelly Broadcasting Company established the Kelly Foundation in December 1988 as a formal vehicle for structuring charitable contributions. The Kelly family sold KCRA-TV in 1999 and have continued the Kelly Foundation ever since. In 2009, the River City Bank Foundation merged with the Kelly Foundation, and some executives of the Bank currently serve on the Foundations Board. Jon S. Kelly founded River City Bank and continues to support the Bank. His daughter, Shawn Kelly Devlin, currently serves as President and Chairman of the Board. The Kelly Foundation is an expression of the importance the Kelly family places on being a good neighbor and citizen in regions where they do business. For more information on the Kelly Foundation, please visit KellyFoundationSacramento.org or call (916) 978-4892.
About Saint Johns Program for Real Change.
Since 1985 Saint Johns Program for Real Change has provided more than 30,000 homeless women and children with the essential tools to rise above their circumstances and make REAL, transformative change in their lives. Operating the largest shelter in the Sacramento Region, Saint Johns Program is the one focused exclusively on women and childrenthe most vulnerable and rapidly growing segment of the homeless population in our region and nationwide. Dedicated to the eradication of homelessness, this 18-month comprehensive program includes mental health therapy, alcohol and drug counseling, parenting education, high school diploma preparation and attainment, budgeting classes, healthy relationship training and a proprietary Employment Training Program. Accommodating over 700 clients and their children each year with three levels of increasingly independent housing, 96% of Saint Johns Employment Training Program graduates secure unsubsidized employment, a crucial step in their journeys to self-sustainability.
About River City Bank
Recently named one of Sacramento Business Journals 50 Fastest Growing Companies for the second consecutive year, River City Bank is the Sacramento regions premier business bank with assets of $2.0 billion. River City Bank offers a comprehensive suite of banking services, including loans, deposits and cash management tools to the business, consumer and commercial real estate sectors. With tailored, executive-level service and a Five Star Superior financial rating from the nations leading independent bank-rating firm, Bauer Financial, River City Bank redefines the banking experience and every touch point that surrounds it. River City Bank is the largest, independent, locally-owned bank in the Sacramento region with an office in the San Francisco Bay Area and a presence in Southern California. For additional information, please visit http://www.rivercitybank.com or call (916) 567-2600. Member FDIC. Equal Housing Lender.
LifeLearn, Inc., a company devoted to building and mobilizing knowledge in the animal health industry, was honored today to make the Growth 500 ranking of Canada's Fastest-Growing Companies for a fourth consecutive year.
Formerly known as the PROFIT 500, the annual Growth 500 list is the definitive ranking of Canada's Fastest-Growing Companies. Published in a special Growth 500 print issue of Canadian Business (included with the October issue of Maclean's magazine) and online at Growth500.ca and CanadianBusiness.com, the Growth 500 ranks Canadian businesses by their five-year revenue growth.
"Making the Growth 500 for a fourth year in a row is an honor and testament to the ingenuity and drive of the entire LifeLearn team," says Randy Valpy, President and CEO of LifeLearn.
Given LifeLearn's core commitment to provide new and innovative solutions to veterinary teams and animal health companies, Valpy believes the company's forward-looking strength will help maintain LifeLearn's growth momentum in the future.
"As we get set to celebrate our 25th year in business next year, we're driven by the concept of knowledge leadership to optimize veterinary practices and improve pet healthcare outcomes. Today, we continue our focus on growing our unique LifeLearn ECOsystem-a comprehensive suite of integrated technology solutions for the animal healthcare marketplace-and on building a workplace culture that values and fosters personal growth alongside our corporate success," says Valpy.
"The companies on the 2018 Growth 500 are truly remarkable," says Deborah Aarts, Growth 500 editor and program manager. "Demonstrating foresight, innovation and smart management, their stories serve as a primer for how to build a successful entrepreneurial business today. As we celebrate 30 years of the Canada's Fastest-Growing Companies program, it's encouraging to see that entrepreneurship is healthier than ever in this country."
About the Growth 500
For 30 years, the Growth 500 ranking of Canada's Fastest-Growing Companies has been Canada's most respected and influential ranking of entrepreneurial achievement. Developed by PROFIT and now published in a special Growth 500 print issue of Canadian Business (packaged with the October issue of Maclean's magazine) and online at Growth500.ca and CanadianBusiness.com, the Growth 500 ranks Canadian companies on five-year revenue growth. For more information on the ranking, visit Growth500.ca.
About Canadian Business
Founded in 1928, Canadian Business is the longest-serving and most-trusted business publication in the country. It is the country's premier media brand for executives and senior business leaders. It fuels the success of Canada's business elite with a focus on the things that matter most: leadership, innovation, business strategy and management tactics. Learn more at CanadianBusiness.com.
About LifeLearn Animal Health
Founded in 1994, LifeLearn, Inc. is a Guelph-based technology company dedicated to helping animal health organizations realize the value of knowledge by building and delivering solutions that advance animal health worldwide. LifeLearn's Animal Health ECOsystem is a comprehensive suite of custom digital solutions-products and services designed to specifically help veterinary teams and animal health companies better educate and communicate with clients, and ultimately optimize their business.
Lo Village & Elsz Perform at NWNB X NB - NYFW In the short two years the group has been releasing music, Lo Village has burst onto the scene catching not only the attention of fans across the world, but that of key industry players as well.
Maryland R&B/Hip Hop trio Lo Village set to perform at NY FASHION WEEK during NORBLACK NORWHITE X NO BORDERS AREA CODES.
NORBLACK NORWHITE partners with NO BORDERS to present a 4-day pop up event series. Presenting new apparel collections curated with a heavy POC line up of designers & artists from across the world, the mission of the pop up shop series is to open the window to the worlds the shops are inspired by. The event will be held at the A/D/O in Brooklyn, NY and aims to curate and showcase over 30 artists & brands from India, Toronto, NY, LA & the Middle East. Lo Village will be the main showcase performance during the weekends pop up.
About Lo Village
Lo Village is a Hip-Hop/R&B group from Gaithersburg, MD, comprised of MCs Kane and Charles Tyler, and R&B powerhouse Ama. Rebel Music Collective founded the group in 2011, but as they sought to further develop their sound, Ama joined as Lo Villages lead vocalist to give the group a unique R&B twist. Lo Village's debut project, Last Summer was released in September of 2016, followed by their sophomore EP For the Birds in 2017. Both projects were met with great reception, with coverage from several Spotify playlist and various blogs including RapNation, Elevator Magazine, 2dopeboyz and Daily Chiefers. The group has accumulated nearly 2 Million streams on Spotify alone. Lo Village recently released the first singles from their third project in late August, with a video premier on Notion Magazine and are anticipating the projects full release later this month.
About NORBLACK NORWHITE
NORBLACK NORWHITE's philosophies develop from paying respect to the past, questioning the present and creating for the future. Raised in Toronto, Mriga Kapadiya and Amrit Kumar moved to India in 2009 to explore their Indian roots. Traveling across the country they were exposed to the many disappearing art forms and artisan communities. NBNW was born out of a desire to re-interpret these ancient practices of textile design, while bringing together their worlds by mashing up their love for Michael Jackson, 90's R n B and all things old and gold.
Having been featured in Wallpaper*, Asos, Fader, Fashion Television, I-D Magazine, Vogue India and Vogue Italy, they were also selected by Frida Gianinni (Ex - Creative Director of Gucci) as her favorite young designers from India for the Grazia Young Fashion Awards in 2012.
About NO BORDERS
No Borders is a concept store that focuses on diversity in fashion culture and art. Their collections have been carefully curated by its founder and Creative Director Kanika Karvinkop.
No Borders aims at sharing stories of different cultures through the works of artists and designers from all around the world, whose unique voice and craftsmanship tell a very compelling story.
SOURCE Rebel Music Collective
Were pleased to be recognized as a leading Canadian technology company, with an aggressive growth strategy. Were working ambitiously to bring innovative and cost-effective network performance management solutions to businesses facing the growing challenge of network complexity.
Martello Technologies Group (Martello) (TSXV: MTLO), a provider of network performance management solutions for real-time communications that recently commenced trading on the TSX Venture Exchange (TSXV), announced today its No. 28 ranking on the 30th annual Growth 500. The Growth 500 is the definitive ranking of Canadas Fastest-Growing Companies by Canadian Business and Macleans and Martello is proud to be one of the top Ottawa-based companies on the list. Produced by Canadas premier business and current affairs media brands, the Growth 500 ranks Canadian businesses on five-year revenue growth.
Martello made the 2018 Growth 500 list with five-year revenue growth of 2,231%. This is the second year in a row that Martello has made this prestigious list. The Company climbed 20 spots from No. 48 in 2017 which reflects the aggressive moves it has made as a key player within the growing software defined networking and Unified Communications (UC) markets. Martello offers a cost-effective SD-WAN solution built for unified communications performance.
This accolade underscores Martellos commitment to delivering cost effective and innovative SD-WAN products that allow its global clients in more than 150 countries, to stay connected 24/7, while detecting and resolving UC performance issues such as poor voice quality, before the users experience is impacted.
The companies on the 2018 Growth 500 are truly remarkable. Demonstrating foresight, innovation and smart management, their stories serve as a primer for how to build a successful entrepreneurial business today, says Deborah Aarts, Growth 500 program manager. As we celebrate 30 years of the Canadas Fastest-Growing Companies program, its encouraging to see that entrepreneurship is healthier than ever in this country.
Martello is proud to be named once again to the Growth 500, said John Proctor, president and CEO of Martello. Were pleased to be recognized as a leading Canadian technology company, with an aggressive growth strategy. Were working ambitiously to bring innovative and cost-effective network performance management solutions to businesses facing the growing challenge of network complexity.
This is the latest recognition for Martello in 2018, with the company receiving the INTERNET TELEPHONY SD-WAN Product of the Year Award in August and debuting on the Branham300 listing of Canadas top ICT (Information and Communications Technology) companies in June. Martello went public with a TSXV listing on September 12th, following the closure of an oversubscribed $7.5 million private placement. The companys ambitious growth plans include future merger and acquisition activity, an area in which the company has a positive track record. In December 2017, Martello merged with SD-WAN player Elfiq Networks.
About the Growth 500
For 30 years, the Growth 500 has been Canadas most respectable and influential ranking of entrepreneurial achievement. Ranking Canadas Fastest-Growing Companies by five-year revenue growth, the Growth 500formerly known as the PROFIT 500profiles the countrys most successful growing businesses. The Growth 500 is produced by Canadian Business. Winners are profiled in a special Growth 500 print issue of Canadian Business (packaged with the October issue of Macleans magazine) and online at Growth500.ca and CanadianBusiness.com. For more information on the ranking, visit Growth500.ca.
About Canadian Business
Founded in 1928, Canadian Business is the longest-serving and most-trusted business publication in the country. It is the country's premier media brand for executives and senior business leaders. It fuels the success of Canada's business elite with a focus on the things that matter most: leadership, innovation, business strategy and management tactics. Learn more at CanadianBusiness.com.
About Martello
Martello Technologies Group Inc. (TSXV: MTLO) delivers confidence in network performance. Our solutions manage and optimize the performance of real-time services on cloud and enterprise networks and include network performance management software and SD-WAN technology. Over the top (OTT) service providers and enterprises around the world rely on Martellos technology to deliver better service quality and a reliable user experience. Designed for real-time communications such as voice and video, Martellos solutions detect, identify and address network performance problems BEFORE service quality is impacted. Martello Technologies Group is a public company headquartered in Ottawa, Canada with offices in Montreal, New York and Paris, France. Learn more at http://www.martellotech.com.
Business owners will soon have access to extensive online information regarding how to transform their companies -- and all for free -- thanks to an up-and-coming website by business expert and Titan Strategic Partners Managing Partner Michael Giuffrida.
Version 1.0 of Giuffridas website received double the traffic than initially anticipated. As a result, he is working on Version 2.0 of the website, which should be available in early October. In addition, the premium section of the website, which originally was going to require payment, will be completely free. In fact, the website already has some of this content live for free today.
On the site, located at https://michael-giuffrida.com/, visitors can explore the various methods that Titan has successfully used to improve the performance of businesses of all sizes, thus maximizing their bottom lines. For instance, visitors can learn more about how to improve in the areas of lead generation, sales engines, gross margins, and employee utilization. The website also offers guidance in building a strong corporate culture, asset optimization, process flow improvement, and compensation plans.
When it comes to lead generation, readers can specifically learn about inbound marketing, where companies draw prospective customers to them versus having to pursue them through traditional methods for generating leads, such as cold calling. In addition, website visitors can discover how to increase their margins simply by overhauling their compensation plans or taking a second look at their particular approaches to order processing.
Giuffrida and the remainder of the team at Titan possess decades of experience with improving and building organizations ranging from startups to established businesses and struggling companies. Therefore, by applying the principles outlined on Michael Giuffridas website, readers can improve their chances of making their businesses stronger and more profitable. They can also boost their reputations, becoming top-choice employers in their particular industries long term.
Hawaii Micro Shelters Milgard Windows Our manufacturing team worked quickly to build the windows and deliver them to the Big Island in time to create micro shelters for those in need, said Jeff Cain, Regional Sales Manager at Milgard Windows & Doors.
Milgard Windows & Doors partnered with HPM Building Supply to quickly manufacture 200 windows for a micro shelter project aiding Big Island residents forced to evacuate their homes due to the volcanic eruption.
The eruption of the Kilauea volcano that began in May 2018 on the Big Island of Hawaii destroyed 706 homes in total and forced more than 2,000 people to evacuate the area. Temporary structures were needed to provide housing for those displaced from their homes.
HPM Building Supply reached out to us for help in expediting the production of over 200 Style Line Series vinyl windows, said Jeff Cain, Regional Sales Manager at Milgard Windows & Doors. Our manufacturing team worked quickly to build the windows and deliver them to the Big Island in time to create micro shelters for those in need.
Twenty micro shelters were quickly constructed with the support of many business partners and building volunteers. The shelters are now part of the HOPE Services project, located on an eight-acre parcel of land behind the Sacred Heart Church off of Pahoa Village Road.
About Milgard Windows & Doors
Milgard Windows & Doors, a Masco company based in Tacoma, Washington, offers a full line of vinyl, wood, fiberglass and aluminum windows and patio doors for builders, dealers and homeowners, backed by a Full Lifetime Warranty, including parts and labor. The company has been recognized as Builders Choice for vinyl and fiberglass windows in the Western United States, in a yearly survey sponsored by Hanley-Wood Inc., publishers of BUILDER Magazine. Milgard is the highest online rated window and patio door brand, as measured by the 2017 NRS consumer sentiment study conducted by MetrixLab and commissioned by Masco. Milgard has approximately 3,800 dealer locations nationwide. For more information, visit milgard.com or call 1.800.MILGARD.
About Masco Corporation
Masco Corporation (NYSE: MAS), parent company of Milgard Windows & Doors, is a global leader in the design, manufacture and distribution of branded home improvement and building products. Our portfolio of industry-leading brands includes Behr paint; Delta and Hansgrohe faucets, bath and shower fixtures; KraftMaid and Merillat cabinets; Milgard windows and doors; Kichler decorative and outdoor lighting; and Hot Spring spas. We leverage our powerful brands across product categories, sales channels and geographies to create value for our customers and shareholders. For more information about Masco Corporation, visit Masco.com.
Ross Schriftman, author, screenwriter and producer of the book and film, My Million Dollar Mom, is proud to announce the availability of the My Million Dollar Mom Presentation in a Box program for community events and continuing education initiatives. Schriftman and a team of professionals have developed the program with the goals of raising awareness about dementia; encouraging and guiding people in their planning for long term care needs; and giving courage and hope to families with loved ones who are living with various forms of dementia, including Alzheimers disease.
Schriftmans book is the story of his mom, Shirley, the lessons of caring for one another that she instilled in him, and the challenges he faced caring for her at the end of her life when she had Alzheimers. The 32 minute film is a drama inspired by the true story. It addresses the difficult choices we face between career and family needs when a loved one is ill.
The Presentation in a Box program is now available for events at caring communities, religious organizations, educational institutions and professional organizations in the fields of law, medicine and finance, with opportunities for continuing education credits as well. Syllabuses specific to various professions are being developed.
The box, which comes in physical and electronic formats, contains the film, the book, an organizer and host guide, participant discussion pamphlets, brain health ideas, and a planning checklist. Audiences will be able to view the film, then have a discussion with questions designed specific for family care givers, those living with dementia, professional care givers, doctors and other health care providers, financial planners, insurance agents, lawyers, accountants, advocates and government officials.
We plan to assist as many people as possible in achieving a better understanding of the various dynamics of dementia and dementia care so that we all can do a better job of helping those living with these conditions, said Schriftman. For more information about the program visit https://www.mymilliondollarmom.com/program.cfm. A form requesting details can be submitted to My Million Dollar Mom LLC programs. Schriftman and his team will then follow up with specifics including pricing and the availability of Schriftman as a speaker for an event.
The My Million Dollar Mom Educational Advisory members are:
Kevin Jameson, DrHC, President - Dementia Society of America
Dr. Jeannine Forest, Through the Forrest, Advisor Dementia Society of America
Marcy Shoemaker, Psychologist and Director of Marketing Abramson Center
Dr. Patricia White, PhD, RN, CSCM, President and CEO - Integrity In-Home Care
Vince Phillips, President and Continuing Education Director Phillips Associates
Rachel Wiley, Founder and Owner Day by Day Home Therapy
Eric Sierka, President and Owner BrightStar Care Franchisee
Michael Ellenbogen, Advocate
Tom Brophy, Advocate
William Brams, President Harvest Advisers Financial Services
Marge Jacoby, Retired Director of Community Relations Brandywine Living community
Michelle Seitzer, Writer, Editor and Elder Care Specialist
Nancy Ann Kelly Financial Services Specialist Mass Mutual
I am incredibly grateful to our Educational Advisory Group for their time, expertise and encouragement in the development of this important program, Schriftman said. I thank them for helping me honor the memory of my mom, in my efforts to help others. She would want me to do this, as her life was about helping her family, her friends and her community.
Information about scheduled events is available by contacting Ross Schriftman. Interviews with Mr. Schriftman are also available.
About My Million Dollar Mom:
Based on the book of the same name by Ross Schriftman, My Million Dollar Mom is a film about a loving mother who is diagnosed with Alzheimer's and the devoted son who steps forward to care for her.
Schriftmans production company is working with the Dementia Society of America in an effort to promote awareness about dementia. The Presentation in a Box program includes a screening of the film, followed by an audience discussion about the issues surrounding Alzheimers and other forms of dementia. Schriftmans ultimate goal is to release the film to a worldwide audience.
This film is directed by Kevin Hackenberg, who began his career working on the M. Night Shyamalan films The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable. He went on to establish the production company Get-Kinetic in 2003 in Philadelphia, where he and his staff create visual content for clients as varied as Temple University and NBC10 in Philadelphia.
The cast includes Pete Postiglione, portraying Ross Schriftman. Postiglione is a Philadelphia native who has appeared in film and television shows such as Silver Linings Playbook and The West Wing and was nominated for an Emmy for hosting Dig Philly which is produced by NBC/Universal. Also featured is Susan Moses, portraying Shirley Schrftman, Ross mother. Moses has appeared in the movie Invincible and played Schmittys mother in Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia. She has been a guest host on QVC and taught voice and movement at the University of Miami.
For information about the film visit http://www.mymilliondollarmom.com, http://www.facebook.com/mymilliondollarmom or contact Ross Schriftman at mymilliondollarmom(at)gmail.com.
"Men need to know there are many prostate cancer treatment options available that can significantly extend their life and to actually improve the quality of the years they have left.
For Immediate Release:
Contact: Rick Eberle | http://www.rickeberleagency.com
1-516-729-6872 | rick [AT] rickeberleagency.com
Dr. David Samadi Comments on Raised Risk of Suicide for Men Diagnosed with Prostate Cancer
Renowned Prostate Cancer Surgeon and Urologic Oncologist On Why Men Need To Know The Many Treatment Options Available to Improve Quality of Life
During National Prostate Health Month - for men, receiving a diagnosis of prostate cancer can be anxiety-provoking and upsetting. For some of these men, hearing this information may be so distressing as to trigger thoughts of suicide. This news is from a recent study finding that men are at an elevated risk of suicide following a prostate cancer diagnosis. But Manhattan based Prostate Cancer Surgeon and Urologic Oncologist Dr. David Samadi is taking a more compassionate approach to help those diagnosed, and is stressing the importance of this approach to the medical community at large.
This is especially concerning and disheartening to me as a urologist who deals with men diagnosed with prostate cancer, exclaimed Dr. Samadi. No physician wants to hear that any man would want to take his life after a cancer diagnosis. Men need to know there are many prostate cancer treatment options available that can significantly extend their life and to actually improve the quality of the years they have left.
The study was a meta-analysis of 8 observational studies that included over 1.2 million men with prostate cancer who were compared to over 800,000 men who did not have prostate cancer. From this analysis, researchers found that men during the first year after receiving a prostate cancer diagnosis had an overall 2-fold increased risk of committing suicide. The risk was more pronounced among men older than 75 years of age at diagnosis.
The study was able to conclude that once a man was past one year of their diagnosis, the risk of suicide was reduced, explained Dr. Samadi. It was during the initial weeks and months right after being diagnosed, that were the most risky for men. Apparently, it was the initial shock and probably unexpectedness of hearing this news that escalated contemplation of taking their life.
Another interesting finding from the study was that 51% of men aged 75 years or older at diagnosis had a higher risk of suicide than men without prostate cancer. Men who were 66 years or younger at the time of their diagnosis of prostate cancer had a lower suicide risk of 37%. It was also noted that men receiving hormonal therapy had a significant 80% increased risk of suicide when compared to men without prostate cancer. For men undergoing curative treatment for prostate cancer, their risk of suicide was much lower at only an 11% increased risk.
This is not the first study to analyze suicide risk among men diagnosed with prostate cancer, explained Dr. Samadi. Past studies have also found this same risk of suicide, particularly within the first few weeks after the diagnosis. These studies are always a wakeup call to me as a urologist. When I have to be the bearer of bad news of delivering a prostate cancer diagnosis to a man, I need to be thinking about the possibility of that man considering suicide as a way out.
Dr. Samadi went on to explain, It can be a traumatic experience for anyone to hear they have cancer, similar to post-traumatic stress. For men, feelings of intense anxiety, uncertainty, confusion, helplessness, and fear of losing control over their life, is a lot to deal with. Men normally like to feel and be in control. Physicians need to consider that the cancer diagnosis itself is usually not the sole cause of suicide. There are almost always other factors in a mans life such as mental illness or financial or relationship stresses that are also at play.
One of the most important sources of emotional support for men receiving a prostate cancer diagnosis is their physician. Dr. Samadi emphasizes that physicians who use a compassionate approach based on communication and careful explanation of their condition can help ease worries men will have.
This is why I am supporter of prostate cancer support groups for men, he says. Men who have prostate cancer know what men newly diagnosed are going through. The advice and hope they offer is invaluable. No man should ever feel alone as they go through their diagnosis, treatment and recovery.
Patients newly diagnosed with prostate cancer can contact world renowned prostate cancer surgeon and urologic oncologist, Dr. David Samadi. For a free phone consultation and to learn more about prostate cancer risk, CALL 1- 212-365-5000
For More Information on Dr. David Samadi, VISIT:
http://www.Samadimd.com
Facebook.com/DrDavidSamadi
Twitter: @DrDavidSamadi
Instagram: @DrDavidSamadi
For Press Inquiries, CONTACT: Rick [AT] RickEberleagency.com
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NCPDP
NCPDP announced today that its NCPDP eRx Validation Suite is now available to test and ensure correct implementation of the NCPDP SCRIPT Standard Version 2017071 ahead of the January 1, 2020, implementation timeline. NCPDPs SCRIPT Version 2017071 includes important functionality and transactions identified by the industry as vital enhancements in improving patient safety, clinical decision-making, and business and administrative efficiencies for all stakeholders and for the ultimate benefit of patients and healthcare providers.
Among the enhancements in SCRIPT v2017071 are:
Support for the electronic transmission of compound information, including ingredients and their quantities.
Support for both veterinarian and non-veterinarian prescribers.
Support for the reporting of allergies and adverse events.
Support for the sending of laboratory testing dates and values.
Directions for use now allow 1,000 characters and are included in the Sig element of SigText.
Support for the inclusion of IV administration information, wound care information, and MTM services for specialty.
Support for grouping of multiple prescriptions allowing for items like multiple dispensing and administration locations (such as school and home), injectable or IV medication, and associated supplies.
Support for including diabetic supply information on a new prescription.
Support for the sending of facility specific hours of administration for long-term care medication orders.
Prescribers can choose when and if they want to receive the RxFill notification message based on the medication and the patient.
The medication history response transaction has been enhanced to return data from Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (PDMP) administrators.
Enhancements to digital signatures, as required for the electronic prescribing of controlled substance medications.
Support for flavoring and the number of packages in which the medication is dispensed.
Support for the manufacturer name, lot number and expiration date of the product.
SCRIPT Version 2017071 also contains electronic prior authorization (ePA) transactions, as well as transactions for new prescription requests, transfers, and Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS) request and response.
NCPDPs SCRIPT Standard supports a tremendous breadth of functionality to improve administrative efficiencies and patient care, said Lee Ann Stember, President and CEO of NCPDP. Implemented fully, SCRIPT gives providers actionable clinical data, within their existing workflows, for better informed clinical decision-making for the ultimate benefit of patients.
Access the NCPDP eRx Validation Suite at: https://ncpdp.nist.gov/ncpdp-tool/#/home?d=2017.
NCPDP has planned educational programming to help EHR and ePrescribing system vendors and other health information technology professionals plan for and maximize functionality of SCRIPT v2017071 within their product enhancements and implementations:
Webinar: What is XML and How is it Used in ePrescribing? September 18, 2018, 12:00 p.m. 1:30 p.m. ET. Learn more about how NCPDPs SCRIPT Standard is developed and how Extensible Markup Language, or XML, is used in ePrescribing standards.
Webinar: The Next SCRIPT Version: What is Changing, What to Expect, and What to Do About It September 25, 2018, 12:00 p.m. 1:00 p.m. ET. Regardless of where your organization is in its planning, bring your questions and attend this webinar dedicated to getting you on the path to a successful implementation.
One-Day Educational Event: NCPDPs 2018 Educational Summit on SCRIPT, November 6, 2018, in Charlotte, North Carolina. Learn about NCPDPs SCRIPT Version 2017071 from a diverse group of experts handpicked by NCPDP, as you plan your implementation and rollout. Attend the full-day event to: get to know SCRIPT v2017071 in a comprehensive overview session; immerse yourself in deep dive sessions on targeted transactions; learn about whats next for SCRIPT; and engage in interactive question and answer opportunities with a panel of experts.
Register for the 2018 Educational Summit on SCRIPT by October 5, 2018, to take advantage of the Early Bird registration rate.
About NCPDP
Founded in 1977, NCPDP is a not-for-profit, ANSI-accredited, Standards Development Organization with more than 1,500 members representing virtually every sector of the pharmacy services industry. Our diverse membership provides leadership and healthcare business solutions through education and standards, created using the consensus building process. NCPDP has been named in federal legislation, including HIPAA, MMA, and HITECH. NCPDP members have created standards such as the Telecommunication Standard and Batch Standard, the SCRIPT Standard for ePrescribing, the Manufacturers Rebate Standard and more to improve communication within the pharmacy industry. Our data products include dataQ, a robust database of information on more than 80,000 pharmacies, resQ, an industry pharmacy credentialing resource, and HCIdea, an innovative prescriber database that provides continually updated information on more than 2.5 million prescribers. NCPDP's RxReconn is a legislative tracking product for real-time monitoring of pharmacy-related state and national legislative and regulatory activity. For more information about NCPDP Standards, Data Services, Products, Educational Programs and Work Group meetings, go online at http://www.ncpdp.org or call 480.477.1000.
GuideSpark, the leader in employee communication, today announced that co-founder and VP of Solutions Joe Larocque and Nebraska Medicines Director of Total Rewards Laurie Willburn will present at the American Society for Healthcare Human Resources Administration annual conference, at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center in Pittsburgh from Sept. 15 to Sept. 18, 2018. The presentation, Achieving Program Adoption Across a Diverse Workforce at Nebraska Medicine, will take place on Sunday, Sept. 16, 2018 from 1 to 2 p.m. EDT. GuideSpark employee communication solutions will also be demonstrated at Booth No. 1028 in the conference exhibition hall.
Larocque and Willburn will share how an innovative employee communication strategy drove employee engagement and program adoption when Nebraska Medicine transitioned from traditional health benefits to consumer-driven plans. Willburn and her team used a marketing-style communication campaign powered by GuideSpark Communicate Cloud to surpass HSA enrollment and contribution goals. In the session, Willburn will detail how the campaign led 80 percent of Nebraska Medicines employees to adopt the new HSA results they expected would take 3 to 5 years to achieve. Attendees will gain insight into Nebraska Medicines winning communications approach, which included a multi-week campaign, multi-channel message delivery, consumer-grade content experiences, and clear calls-to-action.
To learn more about Nebraskas success engaging with their diverse workforce, click here.
Hampton Inn & Suites Chandler, AZ Mobile access is important to us. We have two offices and our CFO can log onto PVNG and work wherever she is. Plus, if we have a heavy snow day we can work from our homes.
Aptech Computer Systems announced that Oliver Companies, Inc. upgraded its back office financial processes to PVNG Enterprise Accounting. Oliver Companies converted from Aptechs Profitvue hotel accounting software to web-based PVNG to enable mobile system access to company financials and property performance reports. Oliver Companies is based in Duluth, MN. It operates 18 properties across eight states that fly flags from Hilton, IHG, Choice and others. Aptech is the leading provider of hospitality business intelligence, budgeting and forecasting, and enterprise hotel accounting software systems. Click here for more on Aptechs products and services.
Oliver Companies upgraded its accounting platform to Aptechs PVNG because it is a flexible, online enterprise solution that lets our team oversee operations while traveling, said Nicole Murphy, Oliver Companies assistant controller. Mobile access is important to us. We have two offices and our CFO can log onto PVNG and work wherever she is. Plus, if we have a heavy snow day we can work from our homes. Murphy noted that Olivers conversion to PVNG went well. Aptechs team helped us build processes for our 18 properties to share a standard format. Our full-service conference properties have slightly different requirements than our limited service hotels. PVNG hotel accounting software handles them all very well.
PVNG provides an easy to navigate architecture. Its robust functionality emerged from Aptechs legacy application, Profitvue, used by thousands of hotel accounting professionals. PVNG supports one property or a large multi-brand, multi-property portfolio. It uses the most current technology platform and incorporates AP, GL, AR, Statistics, Financials, and a Bank Reconciliation, all with familiar browser navigation. PVNG also makes it simple to become 11th Edition compliant by implementing its packaged chart of accounts and financial statements.
PVNG is easy to use because each field is clearly marked so we get our work done faster, Murphy said. The systems processes are self-explanatory and intuitive. We just started a new accountant; he learned the system quickly and got started right away. Oliver Companies also uses Aptechs Execuvue Business Intelligence System. PVNG automatically uploads property data to our Execuvue system nightly so we have same-day information on property performance to help us manage better.
System upgrades evolve effortlessly because PVNG is web-based and hosted at Aptechs secure data center. I am pleased with how responsive Aptech has been with our conversion, Murphy said. We had functionality requests to make the system fit Olivers operations. Aptech made the changes quickly. Aptech values its customers, like Oliver Companies, and this shows by listening to our requests and implementing them to make our operation smoother.
About Aptech Computer Systems, Inc.
Aptech Computer Systems, Inc., based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is the only provider of a fully integrated enterprise accounting, business intelligence and planning ecosystem to the hospitality industry. All of its clients are companies like yours, which own or manage hotels. Its solutions help customers at both the corporate and property levels understand their financial and operational data for faster goal achievement.
The company is renowned for introducing business intelligence into the hotel industry, and offers a solid resource of hospitality professionals. Aptech is an IBM Software Value Plus partner and Premier Solution Provider, as well as a Prophix Premier Business Partner.
Incorporated in 1970, Aptechs state-of-the-art back office, true business intelligence and enterprise planning solutions are 100% hotel specific. Solutions include PVNG, Execuvue and Targetvue. Clients comprise over 3,500 properties - including large chains, multiple-property management companies and single-site hotels. Execuvue is registered to Aptech Computer Systems, Inc. All other trademarks are owned by their respective holders. For more information please visit http://www.aptech-inc.com.
The Natural Products Expo East is THE place to see the newest products and trends this fall. Whether you are looking for the latest in health and wellness products, natural skincare, natural and organic supplements for both people and pets, Expo East connects you to the people behind the products, introduces you to industry experts in the classroom, and showcases only the best products the natural and organic industry has to offer. PhytoLogica by Salus Nutraceuticals will be exhibiting at Expo East this week showcasing their Physician-Grade Full Spectrum Hemp CBD product line and introducing their Veterinarian-Formulated Animal Health Hemp product line, PhytoPaws.
PhytoLogica is the leading and most trusted brand of Physician-Grade, Full Spectrum Hemp CBD products developed and distributed by Salus Nutraceuticals. PhytoLogica products are made from a unique cultivar of Industrial Hemp organically grown in Colorado, USA and naturally very potent in Cannabidiol (CBD). PhytoLogica uses proprietary and patent-pending technologies to create their full spectrum hemp softgels, tinctures and topical balms which are vastly superior to competing hemp products. They use Supercritical Co2 extraction combined with proprietary chromotography purification methods to remove any and all impurities along with the ability to remove remaining traces of THC without disturbing any of the plant molecules. The company also offers patent-pending water soluble nanotechnology for maximum bioavailability in their softgels. Salus Nutraceuticals is dedicated in providing natural health solutions by producing the highest quality hemp-based products with therapeutic potencies and maximum bioavailability delivering real results.
PhytoPaws, Animal Health Hemp CBD product line, will be introduced and launched at Natural Products Expo East making a big splash in the animal health supplement market. PhytoPaws products were formulated by a world- renown veterinarian using the same highest quality of hemp as the human line, PhytoLogica, nothing but the very best for our most beloved animal companions. PhytoPaws comes in a 250mg and 500mg Hemp extract tincture and 2mg soft chew Hemp Treats for Dogs.
Heather Atwell, President of Salus Nutraceuticals, will be attending the Natural Products Expo East and will be at their booth with her team to meet and greet. We are driven by a passion and dedicated in providing the very best safe and non-toxic natural health solutions that produce life changing results for all, Ms. Atwell said. Salus Nutraceuticals will be exhibiting and showcasing their PhytoLogica and PhytoPaws human and animal health product brands at booth #3833 in the Supplements section.
Anyone who wishes to find out more about PhytoLogica and PhytoPaws is encouraged to make use of the following contact details: call (800) 961-9550 or email support@phytologica.com. You can also visit us online at phytologica.com.
Im excited to fine-tune a training program that fits the style of every broker. This means it wont be a one-size-fits-all philosophy, bur rather something that can be adapted to who our brokers are and what they need." - Natalie Kelly
Representatives of Realogics Sothebys International Realty (RSIR) announced today the appointment of Natalie Kelly to Director of Education, overseeing approximately 230 licensed brokers across five branch offices.
Our entire executive team is thrilled to welcome Natalie Kelly to our firm as Director of Education, said Stacia Smith, Chief Sales Officer & Designated Broker, RSIR. We are committed to investing in our brokers and their growth as we continue to propel our company forward and set the bar for the exceptional within our industry.
Kelly brings to RSIR over fifteen years of expertise in the real estate industry, which has provided her a unique perspective regarding what brokers truly need and how to adapt programs and provide support accordingly. She worked in various capacities, from accounting and technology to marketing and office management before transitioning into a training position where she began writing courses and became certified to teach clock hour courses. Her true passion lies in helping brokers learn and grow through a tailored approach that encompasses webinars, small groups, one-on-one sessions, larger classes and beyond.
Im excited to fine-tune a training program that fits the style of every broker. This means it wont be a one-size-fits-all philosophy, bur rather something that can be adapted to who our brokers are and what they need, said Kelly. Im going to spend the next few weeks immersing myself in the company culture and getting to know our brokers so that I can effectively help drive things forward.
According to Trendgraphix research, RSIR continues to maintain the greatest average production per broker amongst the top ten largest brands in the NWMLS and delivered more than $1.7 billion in sales volume in Washington for the trailing 12 months as of August 2018. RSIR leadership is decidedly focused on corporate culture and expanding their suite of broker-centric support. With this appointment and the recent completion of an expansion to its Eastside Gateway Branch in Kirkland and Belltown corporate headquarters in Seattle, the firm is further positioning itself for sustained growth across the Puget Sound region.
We look forward to what Natalie will bring to the company as she begins to work within all five of our branch offices, added Smith. We are excited for what the future holds!
About Realogics Sothebys International Realty (http://www.RSIR.com) - Artfully uniting extraordinary homes with extraordinary lives, Realogics Sothebys International Realty is a leading global sales and marketing brokerage firm in the Pacific Northwest. Recognized by the Puget Sound Business Journal amongst the fastest-growing private companies in Washington State for 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016 with branches in downtown Seattle, Bainbridge Island, Kirkland, Issaquah and Madison Park. For the second year in a row, Lifestory Research has awarded Sothebys International Realty the acknowledgement as Most Trusted Residential Real Estate Brand according to a survey of consumers.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Photos of principals, real estate branch offices and additional market statistics are available upon request.
#MusicTogether With MDIIO, our students will learn to use a platform that is exponentially more functional than anything else available in the market, said J. Anthony Allen, CEO of Slam Academy.
MDIIO.com, a rapidly expanding engagement marketplace and social community for songwriters and music professionals, is now the workflow platform of choice at Slam Academy, the Minneapolis-based school for multimedia music recording.
The new partnership will see Slam Academy students and instructors leverage the extensive benefits of Mdiio including access to its global marketplace.
As of September 1, 2018 Slam teachers will use MDIIO as the tool that manages daily workflow in their music composing, producing and recording curricula, and students will learn to understand and employ its many robust features, features not previously available in other systems.
With MDIIOs powerful asset-management services students can store work tapes and finished songs; track syncs, cuts and splits amongst teams; and apply more than 90 points of metadata to every copyright, for ease of pitching their music to sync and placement projects. Collaborate with peers and manage syncs, splits, etc.
Each Slam student will receive 12-month complimentary access to the premium features of MDIIO. Those include MDIIOs search and match services, real-time alerts and monitoring. Additionally, students will have access to MDIIOs exclusive project placement opportunities. Songistry, which developed MDIIO, will also fund an annual student grant program.
With MDIIO, our students will learn to use a platform that is exponentially more functional than anything else available in the market, said J. Anthony Allen, CEO of Slam Academy. Offering the next generation of industry professionals that level of expertise reinforces our reputation for immersive, internationally relevant education in all aspects of music production.
MDIIO is a S-a-a-S (Software-as-a-Service) engagement marketplace and collaboration-networking site. It empowers songwriters to collaborate effectively, and to market and monetize their leading-edge original music with licenses for TV, film, commercials, streaming media and other projects.
We designed MDIIO workflows and features to be the first social network, collaboration, engagement marketplace designed specifically for the music industry, supporting everyone within the music value chain. Were thrilled to be selected to support Slams vision of delivering greater value to their student body and creating opportunities through the Mdiio marketplace.
About Songistry
Songistry launched its MDIIO platform early 2018, which was conceived by internationally acclaimed songwriter and music producer, Justin Gray (John Legend, Mariah Carey, Joss Stone). MDIIO was created so songwriters can quickly upload and search their songs in a database that lets them manage all aspects of their daily workflow and also pitch music effectively to opportunities. The powerful software-as-a-service site is also a global online community for networking and collaboration between songwriters, project holders (TV, film, ad agencies) and interested entities that include music publishers, labels and streaming services. Songistry is based in Edmonton, Los Angeles, and Chicago. http://www.mdiio.com
About Slam Academy
Slam Academy was founded in Minneapolis in 2012, by a group of producers and DJs. It provides fast-paced, high quality and affordable educational experiences in the digital arts, including music production, music theory, DJ-ing, sound design, and more. Its instructors are leading industry professionals and training is offered on-campus and online. https://www.slamacademy.com
For more information contact:
Songistry Media Relations
Emily Moore
emoore (at) mdiio (dot) com
855-452-6101
Slam Academy Media Relations
Mary Hoskins
mary (at) slamacademy (dot) com
(612) 315-5474
Jason Bray | SpendHQ Jason is a seasoned technology leader, with a proven track record of delivering large-scale technology initiatives that directly impact the customer experience.
SpendHQ, the leading Software as a Service (SaaS) spend analysis solution for procurement and sourcing leaders, announced today that it has hired technology leader Jason Bray as chief technology officer. Jason will be responsible for scaling the technology strategy and development that delivers actionable procurement insights for over 250 clients worldwide.
Im thrilled to announce the addition of Jason Bray to our executive team to focus on scaling and continuing to develop our SaaS spend analysis solution, SpendHQ, said Tom Beaty, CEO and founder of SpendHQ. Jason is a seasoned technology leader, with a proven track record of delivering large-scale technology initiatives that directly impact the customer experience. He will bring a fresh perspective to the many complex data challenges that procurement and sourcing leaders face today and will be a critical asset to SpendHQ and Insight Sourcing Groups technology innovations.
As chief technology officer, Jason Bray will be responsible for overseeing the technical vision and product roadmap for SpendHQ. Prior to joining SpendHQ, Jason was responsible for leading the technological development for leading companies such as IgnitionOne, Cardlytics Inc., and Bottomline Technologies. Most recently, he was responsible for the enhancement and development of a marketing and sales platform, leading over 180 engineers and developers as chief technology officer at IgnitionOne. Jason has a passion for finding innovative ways to utilize new technology advancements to streamline data processing and deliver world-class solutions. As SpendHQs new CTO, Jason brings a wealth of expertise that will support SpendHQs mission to remain the industrys most intuitive and easy-to-use spend analysis solution.
The world of technology continues to evolve, unlocking endless opportunities for organizations to explore new ways data can be consumed to deliver secure and reliable data-driven products, said Jason Bray, chief technology officer of SpendHQ. Organizations are adopting technology to automate processes, bringing significant bottom-line benefits by allowing greater productivity, visibility and cost-efficiency. I see tremendous opportunity for SpendHQ to capitalize on its position in the market to become the de facto leader in spend visibility, and I'm excited to join its highly talented team to bring new energy that accelerates SpendHQ growth.
SpendHQ has experienced continued growth and momentum, adding 15 new clients in the first half of 2018 with over 42 percent revenue growth compared to the same period last year. Backed by a heritage of over 5,000 strategic sourcing projects completed by parent company Insight Sourcing Group, SpendHQ is well equipped to provide unparalleled sourcing insights for over 250 global clients. SpendHQs spend analytics solution was recently recognized for innovation and industry impact by the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) and was named the Best Big Data Reporting & Analytics Solution and Best Data Visualization Technology Solution at the 2018 CODiE Awards.
Jason Bray Bio
Jason Bray is an experienced technology and product development leader, with over 20 years of experience overseeing the technological development for leading companies such as IgnitionOne, Cardlytics Inc., and Bottomline Technologies. Jason is adept at helping organizations scale and grow to meet market demands while driving operating efficiencies within the organization.
About SpendHQ
SpendHQ is a spend analysis solution that provides rapid, accurate and detailed visibility into enterprise spend data. This full-service Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) spend analytics solution delivers actionable insight for sourcing and procurement professionals. With SpendHQ as your command center, you give procurement leaders inside your organization the power to impact the bottom line.
Recognized for innovation and industry impact in the procurement space, SpendHQ was named to the 2015 Red Herring Global 100 list and named the Best Big Data Reporting & Analytics Solution and Best Data Visualization Technology Solution at the 2018 SIIA CODiE Awards. With SpendHQ at their fingertips, clients ranging from Fortune 500s to mid-market companies are finally able to see their enterprise spend clearly and drive savings confidently.
As a subsidiary of Insight Sourcing Group, SpendHQ is built by industry leaders with unmatched sourcing knowledge. Inc. magazine has ranked Insight Sourcing Group among the fastest-growing private companies in America every year since 2008. In 2017, Insight Sourcing Group was also named the #1 Boutique Consulting Firm in the U.S. by Vault.com. To learn more about SpendHQs spend analysis solution and start taking control of enterprise spend data, request a custom spend analytics demo today.
Stay up to date with all things procurement by visiting SpendHQs procurement blog and by following on LinkedIn.
The Cruise Web Receives Excellence Award from Holland America Line "We are honored to be the recipient of Worlds Leading Cruise Lines Excellence Award for the US Eastern Region. We value our partnership with Holland America and look forward to continued success together" said Karolina Shenton, Vice President of The Cruise Web.
The Cruise Web recently received the Eastern Region Excellence Award from Holland America Line at the 2018 Worlds Leading Cruise Lines Excellence Awards. The event was hosted by Carnival Corporation, which includes Holland America Line, Princess Cruises and Carnival Cruise Line, and recognized the top travel agencies in North America.
The Eastern Region Excellence Award recognizes The Cruise Webs commitment to matching clients with their ideal Holland America Line cruise, and for the ongoing assistance provided to those clients throughout the entire vacation planning process.
We are honored to be the recipient of Worlds Leading Cruise Lines Excellence Award for the US Eastern Region. We value our partnership with Holland America and look forward to continued success together, said Karolina Shenton, Vice President of The Cruise Web, who accepted the award on behalf of The Cruise Web at the Carnival Corporation event.
The Cruise Webs experienced cruise consultants make cruise planning stress-free and fun with a hands-on, personalized consulting process that considers individual client needs. To experience this award-winning cruise planning for yourself, please call 1-800-377-9383 to speak with one of our expert cruise consultants.
About The Cruise Web
The Cruise Web is a cruise travel agency utilizing a personal consultative approach to travel advising. For over two decades, The Cruise Web has matched travelers with their ideal cruise vacation, removing the stress from vacation planning. Serving clients all over the world, The Cruise Web provides the best value for travelers time and money. Contact The Cruise Web today at 1-800-377-9383 (toll-free) or 001-240-487-0155 (international), and visit The Cruise Web online at CruiseWeb.com for the best cruise specials.
Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Consuelo Maria Callahan, LLM, JD, has joined the Western University of Health Sciences Board of Trustees.
Callahan has served on the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals since 2003. She was nominated by President George W. Bush and confirmed unanimously by the Senate. She previously served on Californias Court of Appeal, Third Appellate District, and on the San Joaquin County Superior Court. Prior to becoming a judge, Callahan worked as a deputy district attorney, supervising district attorney and deputy city attorney.
I am thrilled to welcome the Hon. Consuelo Callahan to the board, said WesternU Board of Trustees Chairman Richard Bond, DO 82, DrPH. Her vast experience in government and the judiciary will be a tremendous asset to our board and the University.
Callahan served on the University of the Pacific Board of Regents with WesternU Board of Trustees member Tony L. Chan, PharmD, for nine years. Chan introduced her to WesternU and she enjoyed visiting the campus.
I was impressed with the University the strategic plan and the ethos of the University in providing health care in a humanistic way, Callahan said.
She does not have a health sciences background but is experienced in governance, having served on several boards, and is a strong supporter of education and the opportunities it provides.
Education is a great equalizer, Callahan said. It has always been important to me that education is accessible to people to allow them to realize their potential. I want other people to have the opportunities that I had because I think they have given me the opportunity to be successful in my profession and also give back to my community.
Callahan graduated from Stanford University with a bachelors degree in Honors English. She earned her Juris Doctor (JD) degree from the McGeorge School of Law at University of the Pacific and her Master of Laws (LLM) degree from the University of Virginia School of Law.
I went into the legal profession because I saw law as something that was powerful, Callahan said. The rule of law is something very unique to our American society, and people trained in law have a great opportunity to help other people to advocate for justice. And it appealed to me from that standpoint.
I feel that while we can always improve on our justice system and always improve access to justice, I am of the belief that we have the best system of laws in the world and I think we provide the best access and due process to people, she added. I am a big believer in the rule of law.
Callahan has traveled abroad to share her knowledge with lawyers and judges in India and Albania. She is also active in the American Inns of Court, an association of lawyers, judges and other legal professionals from all levels and backgrounds that fosters professionalism and mentorship and advances the highest levels of integrity, ethics and civility. The Judge Consuelo M. Callahan American Inn of Court is named in her honor.
I am not only very involved in my profession, I am committed to higher education, educating lawyers and judges and performing community service, Callahan said.
Callahan is an exceptional jurist because of her intelligence, integrity and commitment to justice, Chan said. She brings these same qualities along with extensive experience in board governance to the position of WesternU Trustee. She is a leader but also a listener that is respected by her peers for her ability to make wise and sound decisions, he said.
Judge Callahan will bring a diverse perspective and energy to our board that will strengthen our already strong board, Chan said . Those that know Judge Callahan describe her as collegial and committed as well as an individual that always makes a difference. With the many demands that Judge Callahan has upon her schedule, we are extremely honored that she has chosen to join our board and participate in the next exciting chapter of WesternUs history and journey of providing excellence in education for health care professionals.
Taking on the Miller Fabrication Solutions name is just the start as we continue to help enable OEMs to focus on their own product innovation.
Miller Welding & Machine Company (MWM), a strategic metal fabrication partner for innovative original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), is rebranding to Miller Fabrication Solutions, effective immediately. This new identity better represents the core competencies of the company as it moved into its third generation of family leadership in January of this year.
As a company, weve progressed significantly since our early days as a welding and machine shop, said Eric D. Miller, president of Miller Fabrication Solutions. Today we offer a number of value-added and metal manufacturing solutions to effectively serve as a strategic partner for our OEM customers within the construction, oil and gas, mining, material handling, and other equipment-heavy industries. Taking on the Miller Fabrication Solutions name is just the start as we continue to help enable OEMs to focus on their own product innovation.
In keeping with its strategic direction, Miller consistently incorporates the latest in technology and equipment to carry out its zero-defect, high-quality mission. The company is currently undertaking efforts to enhance its overall customer experience.
The Miller Fabrication Solutions rebranding initiative includes the full roll-out of a redesigned website, new logo, brochure, and other marketing and sales materials. The process is expected to be completed in Q1 2019.
Miller began operations in a 2,400 square-foot garage 55 years ago, with David R. Miller providing metal manufacturing services along with his brother, Lawrence, while his wife, Sara, managed the bookkeeping. From those humble beginnings, the company has grown into a single-source strategic partner for innovative OEMs with a global presence. Miller employs approximately 400 people throughout the Western Pennsylvania region across three plants, and ranks within the top 10 employers in Jefferson County. Recently, the company was named among the countrys top ten fabricators in The Fabricator Magazines 2018 Fab 40 list.
About Miller Fabrication Solutions
Established in 1963, Miller Fabrication Solutions is the strategic fabrication partner for innovative OEMs. Miller delivers high-quality metal parts and assemblies through its extensive value-added and manufacturing solutions. With a core focus on utilizing modern technology and robotic automation coupled with lean processes, the Miller Customer Experience works to ensure that your complex project measures are exceeded now and well into the future. Learn how you can transform your metal manufacturing processes by scheduling a consultation today.
TRAXXALL Technologies, expert providers of an innovative aircraft maintenance tracking and inventory management system, today announced that it has been named in Canadian Business annual Startup 50 for a second consecutive year.
Ranking Canadas Top New Growth Companies by two-year revenue growth, the Startup 50 profiles the fastest growing startups in the country. It is published in a special Growth 500 print issue of Canadian Business and online at CanadianBusiness.com.
This year, TRAXXALL placed 24th on the Startup 50 with revenue growth of 688% (for two-year period ending 12/31/17). Last year, TRAXXALL placed 32nd.
We are very pleased to have moved to the 24th spot on the Startup 50, says Mark Steinbeck, President, TRAXXALL. This honor is testament to the confidence that our clients have placed in us and to the hard work of our entire team. On behalf of TRAXXALL, I would also like to congratulate the other 49 companies that share the 2018 Startup 50 with us.
About TRAXXALL Technologies
TRAXXALL delivers the most innovative aircraft maintenance tracking and inventory management system on the market today. Founded by established maintenance tracking experts, TRAXXALL is headquartered in Montreal, Canada, with offices in Jacksonville, FL and London, UK. For more information, please visit http://www.traxxall.com.
About the Startup 50
Ranking Canadas Top New Growth Companies by two-year revenue growth, the Startup 50 profiles the fastest-growing startups in the country. It is a companion list to the Growth 500 ranking of Canadas Fastest-Growing Companies, which has, for 30 years, been Canadas most respectable and influential ranking of entrepreneurial achievement. Both the Startup 50 and Growth 500 are published in a special issue of Canadian Business published with Macleans magazine and at CanadianBusiness.com. For more information on the ranking visit Growth500.ca or CanadianBusiness.com.
About Canadian Business
Founded in 1928, Canadian Business is the longest-serving and most-trusted business publication in the country. It is the country's premier media brand for executives and senior business leaders. It fuels the success of Canada's business elite with a focus on the things that matter most: leadership, innovation, business strategy and management tactics. Learn more at CanadianBusiness.com.
Media Contact: Mark Lowe, PRagmatic Communications.
mark(dot)lowe(at)pragcom(dot)com / (514) 576-2519
CRISPR I always think that tools and research should be made readily available to everyone in the scientific community who can benefit, says Qi. If we want our science to help people and solve these issues, we need to make tools accessible to everyone and collaborate as much as possible.
UMD Assistant Professor Yiping Qi in the Department of Plant Science and Landscape Architecture received a $1.1 million Plant Genome Research Program Early Career Award from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to continue his unique work developing tools for researchers to perfect CRISPR and apply these technologies to gene regulation in a variety of worldwide crop systems.
Qis work, specifically using the rice genome as a test platform, is providing practical tools to enhance gene editing technologies like CRISPR and improve the specificity of genetic cuts that are made, ensuring the integrity of the entire genome. Tools from Qis lab are currently used by researchers in more than 36 countries around the world and counting, with the ultimate goal of advancing plant and crop yields and helping to feed a rapidly growing global population. They have the ability to turn genes up and down as opposed to just on and off, which is very practical for crop productivity and sustainability. Continued development of these tools will not only aid basic research, but allow scientists to seek novel solutions to global challenges such as devastating plant diseases, economical bioenergy production, sustainable agriculture, and climate change.
CRISPR technologies are revolutionizing biology, agriculture, and medicine. CRISPR can be thought of as molecular scissors that cuts DNA so that the piece related to a certain trait can be be removed, replaced, or edited, says Qi. We dont just test different kinds of these scissors in our lab, but we have to think about how the DNA goes back together, what else is altered, and whether we are turning a gene on, off, up, or down. All of those specifics arent inherent in the scissors themselves and need specific tools and testing to accomplish. That is what we do.
The concept of gene editing is not a new one, and has been accomplished with cross-breeding since humans first cultivated plants for agricultural purposes. However, given the increasing population, food security is a growing concern, and new emerging issues are arising for crop and food production. There is a need to feed a projected population of 9.6 billion people by 2050 with little to no new agricultural land, meaning that yields for major crops need to be improved in other ways. CRISPR, as a new precision breeding technology, will enable scientists and breeders alike to do the same things done with traditional cross-breeding programs in a much shorter amount of time to account for new issues like disease resistance, pests, heat, drought, and other major concerns of a changing climate and growing population.
Rice is a very important global crop, and we have the entire genome sequenced, so it is a great crop to study and develop tools that can be applied to other major crops, explains Qi. Currently, efficient tools that target up-regulating or down-regulating a certain gene or simultaneously regulating many genes arent available to the plant biology community. But simultaneous up-regulation of genes in human somatic cells, for example, resulted a genome reprogramming technology that was recognized with a Nobel Prize in 2012. Developing tools to reprogram plant genomes should help open the door to a lot of discoveries and translational research in agriculture. Thats why NSF is so excited about this work.
With this grant, even though Qi is working directly with rice to improve crop traits and yields, his work is focused primarily on developing and disseminating the tools and technologies necessary for researchers around the world to directly apply to all kinds of crops. Tools are made available to researchers through a public repository called Addgene.
I always think that tools and research should be made readily available to everyone in the scientific community who can benefit, says Qi. If we want our science to help people and solve these issues, we need to make tools accessible to everyone and collaborate as much as possible.
To this effect, Qi has been an advocate in the scientific community, publishing multiple scientific papers over the last few years related to gene regulation tools (e.g., Plant Physiology, Nature Plants, Molecular Plant) and frequently attending talks and meetings to further promote his research. Not only did he just return from the NSF awardee meeting in early September for this new grant where he gave a talk on the existing tools they have developed for the research community, but he was in Budapest the same week giving multiple talks on plant genome editing, both to public and academic audiences.
Nowadays, I travel for invited talks on a monthly basis to promote plant genome editing and transcriptional regulation technologies, says Qi. It is important that people know what technologies like CRISPR can and cant do, and that audiences of all types are educated on the importance of this work. I think people [at NSF] are excited to see that my lab, thanks to the new funding, will further develop gene regulation tools by repurposing CRISPR systems from genome editing to gene regulation. This is an exciting new development for the field that has a lot of applications for serious global issues.
(CNN) A 9-year-old Australian girl who refused to stand during the country's national anthem out of respect for the nation's Indigenous population has been attacked by prominent politicians, who called for her to be kicked out of school.
Harper Nielsen, who lives in the state of Queensland, told CNN affiliate Nine News she sat during her country's national anthem because she believed it was disrespectful to Indigenous Australians.
The anthem, titled "Advance Australia Fair," contains the line "Australians all let us rejoice, for we are young and free."
"(But) when it says Advance Australia Fair, it means advance the white people," the 9-year-old student told Nine News.
"And when it says 'we are young' it completely disregards the indigenous Australians who were here before us for 50,000 years."
Australia's indigenous population represents about 2% of the total population but has a lower life expectancy and twice the infant mortality rate than the rest of the country.
Controversial right-wing senator Pauline Hanson said Australian schools were "brainwashing" children and called for Nielsen to be "taken out" of her school in a video statement posted on social media.
"It's about who we are as a nation, it's part of us ... Here we have a kid who's been brainwashed and I'll tell you what, I'd give her a kick up the backside," she said in the video, Wednesday.
"This kid is headed down the wrong path and I blame the parents for encouraging this."
Former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott told Sydney-based radio station 2GB the girl should "follow the rules."
"It's just a sign of good manners and courtesy to stand for the national anthem," the former leader said Tuesday. Abbott was appointed as special envoy on indigenous affairs under new Prime Minister Scott Morrison in August.
Queensland Liberal National politician Jarrod Bleijie, the state's shadow minister for Education, said Nielsen was a "brat."
"Shame on her parents for using her as a political pawn. Stop the silly protest and stand and sing proudly your National Anthem," Bleijie said on Twitter, adding that sitting during the anthem disrespected Australian veterans.
The politician said Nielsen should be suspended if she continued to sit during the anthem.
Mark Nielsen, her father, told Nine News his daughter was "very brave," adding he had met with the school's principal but no agreement had been reached.
In a statement, the Queensland Department of Education said the school had never suggested Nielsen would be expelled or suspended for refusing to stand during the anthem.
In fact, the school had tried to be respectful of her wishes by providing alternatives, such as not singing along.
"Kenmore South State School is an inclusive and tolerant school which supports the diverse points of view of all students and families," the department's statement said.
This story was first published on CNN.com, "Australia: Politicians attack nine-year-old for not standing during anthem."
As students from coast to coast prepare for the fall semester, Varo Money, Inc., the all-mobile banking startup that aims to helps its customers get ahead financially, has released the results of its State of the Uni Survey.
The survey of more than 1,000 college-educated U.S. adults age 18+, conducted by Propeller Insights on behalf of Varo Money in August of 2018, compared the outlook of American college graduates with those still pursuing degrees. The survey determined that those still in college are more optimistic about the value of their degree than those who have already graduated, that the appeal of the Ivy Leagues has more to do with prestige than quality of education, and that millennials are more money-minded than past generations.
Millennials are more pragmatic than we think
The majority of college-educated millennials are pursuing their passion, but still worry about their financial future:
The majority (62%) prioritize doing something they love over making good money
But 86% of those currently enrolled say it does matter that their degree lead to a good job
Just 14% are willing to be starving artists for more than five years
A full three-quarters say they will give up on their passion and get a real job by age 40 if things dont pan out
This is far more pragmatic than older generations: 35% of baby boomers and 44% of seniors said they didnt ever give up pursuing their passion.
Our generation is facing an unprecedented set of financial challenges. For 25-34 years olds, home ownership is decreasing, income is stagnant, and debt has almost tripled since 1977. Growing up as millennials, weve been taught that money doesnt buy happiness and that we should pursue passions over paychecks. While thats incredibly inspiring, its often in direct conflict with the realities were facing as a generation, said Emily Brauer Gill, director of Brand & Communications at Varo Money. At Varo, we know that peoples sense of self-worth is closely tied to their relationship with money, and we believe every person deserves respect from their banking institution for the hard work they're doing to get ahead."
The degree might not be worth the debt
Two-thirds (66%) of college-educated Americans took out some form of student loans college graduates these days end up with an average of more than $37,000 in student loan debt and the vast majority (85%) will be paying them off without help from their parents.
More than two-thirds (70%) of Gen Xers (35-54 years old) are still paying off their student loans. Of these, 34% will be paying them off for another 5-10 years; 21% will be paying them off for another 10-20 years; and 16% will be paying them off for 20+ years.
Is the degree worth the debt? Close to 40% of college graduates say no.
Meanwhile, 80% of students currently in college feel that their degree will be worth the debt.
...but the summer abroad might be
The vast majority (83%) of college-educated Americans feel that students should have a job while theyre in college, and about the same number (80%) worked while pursuing their degree.
A majority (61%) of American college students already have credit card debt, and, for all their future pragmatism, are willing to rack up even more to live well while in school. Top reasons include:
To gain financial independence from parents 43%
To travel 33%
To shop 29%
To purchase interview attire 29%
To have a nice apartment 25%
To party 18%
Back-to-school shopping is not one of the things that college students are willing to splurge on, however a majority (69%) plan to spend less than $500 getting ready to go back to school, and another 18% hope to spend less than $100.
Ivy Leaguers get a leg-up
Three-quarters (75%) of college-educated Americans under 55 would have preferred to attend an Ivy League university, if given the opportunity. Fourteen percent of men and 13% of women said they would have preferred to go Ivy League in order to meet and marry someone with high earning potential, but the top reasons have more to do with prestige and post-graduation employment than quality of education:
Increased odds of landing a job post-graduation 36%
Increased post-graduation earning potential 35%
The prestige 27%
Better quality of education 24%
Amazing on-campus resources 22%
Thirty-five percent of college-educated Americans admit that they are more impressed with people who have attended Ivy League universities, and about the same number (36%) would be more likely to hire someone with an Ivy League degree if making a hiring decision. This is truer of younger Americans than older ones 43% of college graduates under 55 would give Ivy Leaguers preferential treatment compared to just 15% of those 55+.
About Varo Money
Varo Money, Inc. (Varo) combines mobile technology with a social mission to provide access to no-cost premium bank accounts through better service and automated savings tools. We believe everyone has a right to high-quality banking at no cost regardless of net worth. In addition to premium banking products offered through The Bancorp Bank, Varo provides tech-first features to budget, track, and save money as a way to help people manage their money more easily. Varo serves customers without being tied to a branch and embraces technology to provide helpful banking relationships. Based in San Francisco and Utah and privately held, Varo has raised $79M to date, led by Warburg Pincus. Varo Personal Loan and Varo Backup Line are offered by Varo Money, Inc., under state licenses, subject to application approval. For more information, please visit http://www.varomoney.com and follow Varo on Instagram @varomoney, Facebook @varomoney or Twitter @varomoney.
Varo Bank Accounts are provided by The Bancorp Bank, Member FDIC. Deposits are FDIC-insured up to $250,000 through The Bancorp Bank.
Veteran business executive Bob Sutton wants to help businesspeople navigate the complexities of what he calls hoods, or organisations that can create synergies and help one achieve more than one could on ones own. In Leadership in the Hood: Talking About Leadership Application and Management Issues in Organisations (published by Balboa Press AU), Sutton offers insights and direction to readers to help them become the leaders they were meant to be. The book is available for purchase at: https://www.amazon.com/Leadership-Hood-Application-Management-Organisations/dp/1504313755/.
A hood is an apt metaphor as it suggests that organisations arent always simple and nice, says Sutton. Theyre compiled of teams that should be working in synchronicity, with direction, and in harmony for the benefit of stakeholders.
The book features lessons that cover how to optimize management strategies and enhance leadership skills. Sutton assures all executives that while acquiring the confidence and know-how to lead with success is difficult, it is ultimately rewarding. Readers can expect to learn how to:
make individual team members better at what they do;
eliminate dysfunction that can hurt operating results;
back up your business vision with strategy; and
empower people to operate within clear boundaries.
Leadership in the Hood
By Bob Sutton
Softcover | 6 x 9 in | 138 pages | ISBN 9781504313759
E-Book | 138 pages | ISBN 9781504313766
Available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble
About the Author
Bob Sutton, a native of Sydney, Australia, has been a senior executive with Goodyear, Kmart and Tyre & Auto Service Australia. He has also served in general manager roles in retail and wholesale divisions, including marketing, purchasing, merchandising, store network development, sales and operations and property. Sutton studied business strategy, marketing and management at the Pacific Dunlop Limited executive program in Hong Kong, The Melbourne Business School and Deakin University. Hes retired and a skipper and leading crew for volunteer Marine Rescue NSW on the Tuggerah lakes, New South Wales, Australia. He is married to Sue and has a wonderful family.
Balboa Press Australia is a division of Hay House, Inc., a leading provider in publishing products that specialise in self-help and the mind, body and spirit genre. Through an alliance with indie book publishing leader Author Solutions, LLC, authors benefit from the leadership of Hay House Publishing and the speed-to-market advantages of the Author Solutions self-publishing model. For more information or to start publishing today, visit balboapress.com.au/ or call 1800 050 315. For the latest, follow @balboapress on Twitter and Like us at facebook.com/BalboaPress.
Viktoriia Peterson, an artist and Ukrainian immigrant currently living in Wyoming, has completed her book Lisa and the Bears: an endearing tale celebrating the innocence of children and the beauty of nature.
Peterson shares, An American family with a five-year-old girl goes on a vacation to Yellowstone National Park. One morning, the girl is playing with a beach ball, and it gets lost in the river. As she jumps in after the ball, she is swept away in the river. A big distance down the river, she gets out, climbs up the river bank, and meets her new friend, a bear, who she thinks is a dog.
Published by New York City-based Page Publishing, Viktoriia Petersons book is an entertaining story for young, independent readers.
Readers who wish to experience this charming work can purchase Lisa and the Bears at bookstores everywhere, or online at the Apple iTunes store, Amazon, Google Play, or Barnes and Noble.
For additional information or media inquiries, contact Page Publishing at 866-315-2708.
About Page Publishing:
Page Publishing is a traditional New York-based, full-service publishing house that handles all the intricacies involved in publishing its authors books, including distribution in the worlds largest retail outlets and royalty generation. Page Publishing knows that authors need to be free to create - not overwhelmed with logistics like eBook conversion, establishing wholesale accounts, insurance, shipping, taxes, and the like. Its roster of accomplished authors and publishing professionals allows writers to leave behind these complex and time-consuming issues to focus on their passion: writing and creating. Learn more at http://www.pagepublishing.com.
"The average telecommute jobseeker is over 40 years of age with a minimum of a bachelor's degree and at least five years of experience working remotely, so it's no surprise that the best jobs of 2018 reflect many diverse, mid-level career specialties," said Laura Spawn, Virtual Vocations CEO Past News Releases RSS Virtual Vocations Names the Top 10...
Virtual Vocations Celebrates 2018...
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In their latest report, Virtual Vocations proves that jobs which can be performed offsite, away from a centralized company headquarters, appeal to professionals in numerous areas of expertise.
"The average telecommute jobseeker is over 40 years of age with a minimum of a bachelor's degree and at least five years of experience working remotely, so it's no surprise that the best jobs of 2018 reflect many diverse, mid-level career specialties," said Laura Spawn, Virtual Vocations CEO.
To generate their list of the Top 20 Telecommute Jobs of 2018, Virtual Vocations examined their mid-year company data through June 30, 2018 as well as salary and job growth data compiled by research bodies like PayScale and the U.S. Department of Labors Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
From their company data, Virtual Vocations determined the most popular job industries for which their website members seek telecommute jobs, then identified which telecommute jobs are most prevalent within those fields. The company also found that each of the following Top Telecommute Jobs for 2018 will experience job growth through at least 2026:
1. Software Developer
2. Sales Representative
3. Nurse
4. Account Manager
5. Instructional Designer
6. Consultant
7. Project Manager
8. Interpreter
9. Manager
10. Customer Service Representative
11. Teacher
12. Marketing Manager
13. Writer
14. Business Analyst
15. Fundraiser
16. Speech-Language Pathologist
17. Quality Assurance Specialist
18. Researcher
19. Recruiter
20. Finance Manager
Additionally, the report identified trends in seasonal hiring. Jobseekers can expect a boom in seasonal hiring through the end of 2018, according to Virtual Vocations.
Employers have begun filling seasonal telecommute jobs especially in career fields like customer service, sales, marketing, and travel. Seasonal workers, who typically work a particular job for six months or less per year, are in high demand by retail trade companies in need of additional staff to mitigate a surge in end-of-year business leading up to the busy holiday shopping season.
"Seasonal telecommute jobs are a great fit for anyone interested in job flexibility while earning supplemental income during a traditionally expensive time of year," said Spawn. Virtual Vocations' CEO continued, "Seasonal telecommute jobs can also serve as a stepping stone for professionals who have been interested in working from home but are hesitant to make the switch to a full-time, year-round remote job."
For more information about the Top 20 Telecommute Jobs of 2018 list, please visit https://www.virtualvocations.com/blog/telecommuting-job-search-help/top-20-telecommute-jobs-of-2018/ or contact Kimberly Back at kim(at)virtualvocations(dot)com.
About Virtual Vocations
Virtual Vocations, Inc. has assisted over half a million individuals in their search for flexible, telecommute jobs. The company is dedicated to bringing jobseekers expertly researched leads that offer some form of telecommuting or virtual work. Virtual Vocations is a private, family-owned, and 100% virtual company incorporated in Tucson, Arizona.
Kimberly Back
Content Division Manager, Virtual Vocations, Inc.
kim(at)virtualvocations(dot)com
Virtual VocationsAll telecommute jobs. All in one place.
According to NCIC data, 651,226 people were reported missing in 2017. These include aging populations, veterans, college-aged students, tribal and minority groups, and the nations adults and children with physical, mental and developmental disabilities. - Helen Connelly, NCJTC
On Thursday, Biometrica Systems, Inc., a Las Vegas-based technology company that tracks crime and criminals, and the Washington, D.C.-area-based National Criminal Justice Training Center (NCJTC), announced a collaborative series on different aspects of public safety, emergency response, and investigations with a focus on missing persons to commemorate Missing & Unidentified Persons Conference (MUPC) month, traditionally held each September.
According to NCIC (National Crime Information Center) data, 651,226 people were reported missing in 2017, said Helen Connelly, the Washington Office Program Administrator at the NCJTC of Fox Valley Technical College. While media attention often focuses on victims of stranger abductions and kidnappings, the truth is that only a small fraction of reported cases involve these circumstances. Many missing person reports involve individuals who wander off, run away, and are homeless or at-risk due to different stressors. They are aging populations, veterans and active service members, college-aged students, tribal and minority groups, and the nations adults and children with physical, mental and developmental disabilities, which make them more at risk for injury or harm.
With the annual MUPC event skipping a year, in preparation for its big move to Las Vegas next September for its 12th edition, we and the NCJTC thought it was important to still focus attention on missing persons, public safety, and mass casualty events in some way this month, said Biometrica CEO Wyly Wade.
From our perspective, this series by experts in the field made sense at several levels. First, were a Vegas-based company and its almost one year since the horrific events of Oct. 1, 2017. Two, this has been a landmark year for missing person legislation at the federal and state levels, and the recognition of a need for resources, including data, education, and the building of a larger, more networked response community. Were hoping this series helps with that, as it ties directly into the heart of what our community is all about. At a personal level, as another Arizonan, I hope, somewhere, Sen. McCain is looking down and approving of what were trying to do. After all, he was very invested in this.
A little over six months ago, on Feb. 26, 2018, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Ashlynne Mike AMBER Alert in Indian Country Act, following bipartisan legislation introduced in the Senate by Sens. John McCain and Heidi Heitkamp, and sponsored in the House by Congressman Andy Biggs, to expand the AMBER Alert child abduction-warning system to Native American reservations. The Act made clear they were eligible for Department of Justice grants that help assemble AMBER Alert systems for law enforcement agencies.
Talking about its passage, Sen. McCain had stated, In 2016, the Navajo community was devastated by the abduction and murder of 11-year old Ashlynne Mike. In that high profile case, authorities did not issue an AMBER Alert for Ashlynne until the day after family members reported her abduction. We must do more to ensure Native American tribes have the resources they need to quickly issue AMBER Alerts and give abduction victims the best possible chance to survive.
On April 13, President Trump signed the Ashlynne Mike AMBER Alert in Indian Country Act into law.
Three other at-risk missing communities have received legislative focus this year. On March 28, Wisconsin became the first state to officially create a Green Alert system for when a veteran with a known physical or mental health condition went missing. The Corey Adams Searchlight Act was named for a Milwaukee Air Force Veteran who died last year after going missing for 18 days.
On July 1, Virginias Ashanti Alert, officially known as the Virginia Critically Missing Adult Alert Program, went into effect. Named for 19-year-old Virginian, Ashanti Billie, who was found murdered in Charlotte, North Carolina, last year, the alert is to be used when an adult between the ages of 18-65 is missing, believed to have been abducted, and is determined to be in critical danger by law enforcement.
And in Washington, another bipartisan legislative effort saw HB 2951 go into effect this summer. It requires the Washington State Patrol (WSP) to work with tribal law enforcement and the state Governors Office of Indian Affairs to conduct a study, by June 19, 2019, on how to increase state criminal justice resources for reporting and identifying missing Native American women in the state.
Its very difficult for me to understand that there are barriers to prevent us from finding a 12-year-old girl, said State Rep. Gina Mosbrucker, the bills sponsor, during a recent NCJTC event on Using Risk Mitigation Ecosystems in the Search for Missing Persons. Hopefully, we can serve as a model and learn from other states so that we can do it across the nation. This is not a Washington only problem. This is a problem across the nation. Its our job as legislators to be the voice of the people, and the people that I serve are also on the reservation.
Chris Boyer, the Executive Director and COO of NASAR, the National Association For Search And Rescue, which has co-sponsored the MUPC with the NCJTC since 2015, said the conference was the only national event that provided experience-based education focused on response to homicides, suicides, and mass fatality events; searching and recovering missing and unidentified persons and unidentified remains; managing mass fatalities and family assistance centers; the return of personal effects and repatriation of remains; serving victims with special needs; and recognizing the critical role all first responders play in the search for the missing.
This series, Boyer added, aims to distill some of that experience into four in-depth pieces to provide our community at large with a birds eye view of what goes into different parts of that response.
The four-part series, each by experts in different aspects of public safety, emergency response and investigations, will be featured from mid-September to Oct. 1 on Biometricas website (http://www.biometrica.com) and distributed to the law enforcement, intelligence, other first responder and criminal justice community across the NCJTC network. Here is a quick backgrounder on the series and featured experts:
-- Chris Young on Urban Search and Rescue: In addition to his duties with the Contra Costa County Sheriffs Search and Rescue team and the Town of Danville, Mr. Young is the Chair of BASARC, the Bay Area Search and Rescue Council, Inc. and one the countrys preeminent authorities on Search and Rescue.
-- Colin McNally on Forensic Imaging, Age-progression Renderings, and Facial Reconstruction and Cold Cases: Mr. McNally is Supervisor of the Forensic Imaging Unit at NCMEC, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.
-- NCJTCs Derek VanLuchene and Nadia Eley, JD, on Missing Person Investigations, Human Trafficking and At-Risk Communities: Mr. VanLuchene is a Project Coordinator for the AMBER Alert Training and Technical Assistance Program (AATTAP) with a focus on AATTAP's Child Abduction Response Team (CART) program (including in native communities). Mr. VanLuchene spent 18 years as a Montana Law Enforcement Officer working for both the Conrad Police Department and the Montana Division of Criminal Investigation. Ms. Eley is the 2019 MUPC conference coordinator. She has been with the NCJTC 10 years, with a focus on coordinating training and technical assistance and special projects.
-- Jeffrey Muller on the Investigation of Mass Casualty Incidents and Terrorism: Mr. Muller is the President of strategic security group MGI. He previously served 21 years as a Supervisory Special Agent of the FBI, where he co-founded the Bureaus Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate. He also developed and founded INTERPOLs Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear and Explosives (CBRNE) Directorate, and chaired the United Nations Critical Infrastructure Protection, Tourism Security and Cyber Security Working Group, comprised of 34 UN agencies.
About NCJTC
For more than 25 years, the National Criminal Justice Training Center (NCJTC.org) of Fox Valley Technical College (http://www.fvtc.edu), has served as a national leader offering training and technical assistance to professionals and organizations in the law enforcement and criminal justice fields. Many of their training programs are offered through grants and cooperative agreements with the U.S. Department of Justice.
For more information:
Nadia Eley (eley(at)fvtc.edu, 202-971-7205)
Helen Connelly (connelly(at)fvtc.edu, 202-971-7206)
About Biometrica
Biometrica Systems, Inc. is a Nevada-based technology company that creates software and systems with the intention of minimizing criminality. We have the countrys largest private multi-jurisdictional, 100% law enforcement verified database of arrests, attached to near real-time Facial Recognition, and a range of other biometric-enabled tools including private, encrypted information networks and incident management software.
We work with and support the work of federal, state and local law enforcement, other first responders, criminal justice professionals (including nonprofits working in education, research and training), intelligence agencies, private investigators, process servers, and private sector security and surveillance teams. We are committed to doing our part in building better quality arrest and conviction data and more transparent access to that data.
Private Investigator License # 1295 [Nevada PILB]
For more information: media(at)biometrica.com
Francesca Cavallo and Elena Favilli, creators of Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls, were named PW Star Watch Superstars at a party at Marquee New York in Manhattan on September 12.
"It's an incredible honor to receive such a prestigious award, coming, as we have, from such an unusual path," Favilli said in her acceptance address. "During this journey, we had many moments of fear, despair, profound self-doubt. But we welcomed those moments as part of the conquest of something bigger."
Cavallo added: "When we got started, it was just the two of us.... Now we have the privilege of working with a team of 20 wildly talented individuals.... And of course, thank you to our incredible readers. You inspire us to keep writing and keep finding ways to bring you beautiful stories, and to continue to elevate the voices of women wherever they live."
Favilli and Cavallo made crowdfunding history in 2016 by raising more than $1.2 million from close to 25,000 backers in 75 countries in a combined Kickstarter and Indiegogo InDemand book ordering campaign for their illustrated childrens book. The book, which they published and distributed themselves through their childrens media start-up, Timbuktu Labs, stayed in the top 10 of the New York Times bestsellers list for 42 weeks, and in just under two years, combined print sales of the original Rebel Girls volume and a sequel have surpassed three million copies.
"We are delighted to once again host a program that honors the people who are publishings future," said Jim Milliot, editorial director of Publishers Weekly.
The Star Watch event was attended by roughly 300 members of the publishing community, according to PW marketing and events director Bryan Kinney, eclipsing last year's crowd of more than 200 book business insiders. The event marked the fourth anniversary of the PW Star Watch program.
As a consequence of the success of the Rebel Girls books and the demand for them, Favilli and Cavallo have grown Timbuktu Labs from a two-person operation and brought in 17 additional full-time employees, and have added offices in New York City and London. Rights have been licensed in more than 45 languages and 70 countriesand the latter number continues to grow.
As part of winning the award, Cavallo and Favilli will travel to the Frankfurt Book Fair in Germanyone of many countries where their books are in storesthis October. The trip to the fair is underwritten by FBF, partners with PW in the Star Watch program.
Adam Miller, 49, is the new CEO of Joseph-Beth Booksellers, which has three bookstores in Lexington and Crestview Hills, Kentucky and in Cincinnati, Ohio and three hospital outlets, at the Cleveland Clinic, the Jewish Hospital and the Christ Hospitals in Cincinnati. He takes over from Mark Wilson, who left the company last week after 12 years in the job.
Miller comes to bookselling from Ricoh, where he was v-p, retail industry strategy for a little more than a year; his most extensive retail experience was with Lane Bryant, where he served in various roles, ending up as v-p of stores and operations. Millers Linked In page describes him as a retail visionary, cx strategist (customer experience strategist), loyalty expert, change agent, and omnichannelevangelist.
Miller told the Lexington Herald-Tribune that he would like to expand the chain into further smaller locations similar to those in the hospitals. He also said he plans to elevate the brand and will be working to enhance the online and mobile shopping experience. He also implied the company will use focus on using social media market directly to customers.
As for the existing stores, he had nothing but praise. We have some of the best booksellers in the industry working for Joseph-Beth, Miller told the newspaper. They have always been very strong with the in-store experience. He did suggest that the company might expand into hosting more on-site, paid-for events, such as book-themed childrens birthday parties.
[Miller is] is a proven strategic business leader with deep understanding and passion for customer experience and leading winning teams by example, said Robert Langley, owner and chairman of Joseph-Beth, in a statement. Adam is exactly what Joseph-Beth needs to enter its next chapter in creating personalized customer experience and brand growth.
A number of publishers, most of them university presses, are taking Target Corporation to task for redacting certain key words in the product descriptions of their books. They say the Minneapolis-based chain retailer has scrubbed certain words from their descriptions, including transgender, queer, and even the term Nazi.
While some of the redacted product descriptions were corrected by Wednesday morning, a number of publishers say their product descriptions currently contain asterisks instead of key words.
PW reached out to Targets public relations department several times about the glitch but, as of press time, had received no response.
Heather Gernenz, publicity manager at the University of Illinois Press, said Cael Keegan, the author of the November release Lana and Lilly Wachowski, alerted the press on Monday that the word transgender had been replaced in three places by asterisks in the product description on Target.com. The book is about transgender siblings,
Gernenz requested online that the description be corrected. And, although the product description for the paperback edition of the title was quickly changed, Gernenz had to make a second request before the description for the hardcover edition was updated by Wednesday morning.
Publishers told PW that Target.com has fixed some initially-altered product descriptions. But several books having to do with LGBTQ issues continue to feature redacted words, such as We Make It Better: The LGBTQ Community and their Positive Contributions to Society (Mango, Oct.) by Eric Rosswood and Kathleen Archambeau; and Trans: A Quick and Quirky Account of Gender Variability (Univ. of Calif. Press, Jan.) by Jack Halberstam.
Titles with LGBTQ themes are not the only ones being affected on Target.com, either. Some publishers told PW that their books about Nazi Germany also contain redactions. For example, Adolf Hitlers last name along with the term "Nazi," have been scrubbed from the product description of World War II: The illustrated Story of the Second World War by John Burns (Classic Illustrated Comics, 2015).
As it happens, Target has redacted words from book product descriptions before. In late December, Nina Packebush tweeted about the fact that the word queer had been removed from the product description of her YA novel, Girls Like Me (Bedazzled Ink, 2017), about a pregnant teen who identifies as pansexual.
Packebush told PW on Wednesday that a Target representative had responded to her complaint by explaining that the company regarded the word queer as a slur, and thus removed it from the description. After pressure from Packebush, her publisher, and others, the word was put back into the product description by January 6. Subsequently, however, Target replaced the word queer with trans. The change, Packebush points out, leaves the site with an inaccurate reference to the books protagonist.
According to Ohio State University Press director Tony Sanfilippo, Targets move might be a well-meaning policy gone awry. I understand that they might want to avoid controversy. But if they want to keep Nazis off their site, or Nazi-themed products out of their search results, there are ways of doing that that dont censor. If you cant say 'Nazi,' you cant stop Nazis. And if you cant search for books about the trans community and trans issues, your search engine and your corporate philosophy are morally flawed."
However, before the war started relations between Tanzania and Uganda had already been strained for years.
After Amin seized power in a military coup in 1971, the Tanzanian leader Julius Nyerere offered sanctuary to Ugandas ousted president, Milton Obote. Obote was joined by 20,000 refugees fleeing Uganda fearing persecution by Amin.
After the October 1978 incident Amin blamed Nyerere for backing and arming his enemies and declared a state of war against Tanzania, and sent troops to invade and annex part of the Kagera region of Tanzania, which Amin claimed belonged to Uganda.
Tanzania president Julius Nyerere couldnt just sit and watch as Amin forces attempted to march to Dar es Salaam, the place of peace, could he?
Nyerere mobilized the Tanzania Peoples Defence Force and launched a fierce counterattack. In a few weeks, the Tanzanian army was expanded from less than 40,000 troops to over 100,000 including members of the police, prison services, national service, and the militia.
The Tanzanian troops were joined by several anti-Amin groups consisting of Ugandan exiles, who at a conference in Moshi (Moshi Conference) had united as the Uganda National Liberation Army (UNLA).
These included Kikosi Maalum commanded by Tito Okello and David Oyite Ojok, FRONASA commanded by Yoweri Museveni, and Save Uganda Movement commanded by Akena pOjok, William Omaria, and Ateker Ejalu.
Ill-equipped indiscipline and demoralized even with the help of Libyan forces and a token force of Palestinian volunteers, Uganda forces were no match to Tanzanians.
After a brief decisive battle of Lukuya the Libyan forces quickly fell into disarray and offered little resistance, allowing the Tanzanians and the UNLF to then proceed to Kampala where they liberated the city and brought to an end the bloody reign of Idi Amin.
After being overthrown, Amin fled to Libya temporarily and then to Saudi Arabia where he lived the rest of his life in exile until his death in 2003.
That is the long and short of the UgandaTanzania War of 19781979, at least according to historical accounts.
New information has however, emerged that as much as Amins blotted ego played a central role in fueling the war he was not entirely responsible in starting the war rather an innocent bar fight was what sparked the whole war.
On the evening of October 9, 1978, one Ugandan soldier stationed at Mutukula military camp near the border sneaked into Tanzania for a drink.
At the bar, a quarrel started and he was roughed up by Tanzanian civilians. He later returned to Uganda disappointed.
Ready for revenge, the soldier picked his gun from his station near Sango Bay the following morning and went back to Tanzania alone, with intent to kill.
Luckily, people saw him and ran for their lives. But still filled with anger, the soldier shot in the Tanzanian territory; but no one was hurt.
He then returned to his base and reported the matter to his commander, Lt Byansi who in turn communicated to his superior, battalion commander in Kampala Lt Col Juma Oka of the Malire Mechanised Specialised Reconnaissance Regime at Lubiri.
Instead of informing his superiors, Lt Col Oka, aka Butabika (mental case), ordered Lt Byansi to immediately attack the Tanzanian territory as reinforcement came from Kampala. This is according to former Uganda Army officer UO 824, Lt Muzamir Amule, who was a friend of Lt Byansi.
The new account therefore suggests that it was Okas rush action and lack of self-restraint and diplomacy that sparked off the war. In fact, by the time Amin was informed, war equipment from Lubiri in Kampala had already advanced as far as Mutukula.
Why would any sensible commander reinforce his troops at the Mutukula border with soldiers from Kampala? says Amule, who was stationed at Masaka Barracks as reported by Ugandas Daily Monitor.
In his book Cross to the Gun, Maj Gen Bernard Rwehururu, who has since long died, mentions Lt Amule as good tank commander and driver in the Uganda Army by 1979.
In his book Sowing the Mustard Seed, while commenting on Uganda invading Tanzania in 1978 on page 92, President Museveni writes:
Hopelessly, out of his depth, Amin was always fond of doing and saying outrageous thingshe appears to have thought that by invading Tanzania, he was teaching president Nyerere a lesson! Nyerere said Amins attack had given Tanzanians the cause (sababu), and they had the will (nia) and the means (uwezo) to fight him.
Then a Staff Sergeant in the Artillery Regiment, Kasirye Gwanga, then 27, fought that war.
The funny part is that a lot of people have come up with so many stories about that war. But the war was started by the brother-in-law of Lt Col Juma Oka, aka Juma Butabika, Brig Gwanga says.
One night, soldiers decided to cross over to Tanzania for a drink. In the process, they met Tanzanian soldiers and they had a fight and the Tanzanians beat the hell out of these ones [Ugandan soldiers].
After these [Ugandan soldiers] had been beaten up, they ran back to their camp in Uganda and got their Armed Personnel Carriers. They went back, now for war. When the Tanzanians saw these armed vehicles, they took to their heels.
And when they [Tanzanian forces] ran, they sent a message to Dar es Salaam, saying they had been attacked. Because there had been tension between Uganda and Tanzania, they sent a company [more than 100 soldiers].
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As Paul Manafort's second criminal trial looms, the former chairman of President Donald Trump's campaign is reportedly in talks with the special counsel Robert Mueller about a possible plea deal before things kick off.
But regardless of what Manafort ultimately chooses, Justice Department veterans say it's a high-risk gamble that could very well end with him spending the rest of his life in jail.
Mueller's office charged Manafort in two separate indictments as part of its investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. Manafort pleaded not guilty in both, and he was convicted in his first trial earlier this summer on eight counts of tax fraud, bank fraud, and failure to report foreign bank accounts. He faces a possible decade in prison.
In the second case, brought in Washington, DC, Manafort has been charged with illegal lobbying, conspiracy, obstruction of justice, and money laundering.
Patrick Cotter, a former federal prosecutor who was part of the team that convicted the Gambino family boss John Gotti, said Manafort has "great incentive" to consider a plea deal to save himself the expense and minimize the additional years he would face in prison if he's convicted in the second trial.
Legal experts say the best option for Manafort would be for him to plead guilty to some charges and agree to cooperate with prosecutors. That way, he would be guaranteed a more lenient sentence.
But based on his aggressive defense strategy so far, as well as his lawyers' public comments, it's unlikely Manafort would agree to such a deal.
Earlier this summer, for instance, Manafort's lead defense attorney Kevin Downing said there was "no chance" his client would flip on the president.
The comment suggests Manafort is betting hard on getting a pardon from Trump, who has repeatedly complained about how unfairly Manafort is being treated.
If Manafort agreed to cooperate with federal prosecutors, it would likely throw a wrench into any possibility of securing a pardon.
That leaves three options.
Door number one: Plead guilty, but dont cooperate
Manafort could potentially pursue a plea deal that allows him to admit to some charges, but without an agreement to cooperate. That option, crucially, would leave the door open to a presidential pardon.
He would also get some time knocked off his sentence if he chose this option. Federal sentencing guidelines state that defendants get one point off their sentencing calculation which results in a reduced sentence if they plead guilty in time to save the government the effort of preparing for a case and trying it.
The problem in Manafort's case, however, is that the trial will begin in a few days. Jury selection is set to start on Monday, and opening arguments are scheduled for September 24. That means prosecutors have already spent all the time and money they were going to in order to prepare for the case.
"If the government agrees to a plea deal without cooperation now, they save nothing in terms of time, money, or resources," Cotter said. "The only way they'd agree to a deal that involves dismissing some charges and asking for a lesser sentence is if it involves a cooperation agreement."
If Manafort had decided to pursue a plea deal as recently as last month, immediately after he was convicted in the first trial, experts say he would have had a realistic shot at securing a deal without having to cooperate. Now, they say it's too late.
That leaves two other options, neither of which bode well for the former Trump campaign chairman.
Door number 2: Eat the indictment
If Manafort chooses to go to trial, he could take one of two paths. The first would involve him pleading guilty to all the charges against him as soon as the trial begins, a tactic known as "eating the indictment."
In that case, Manafort would "throw himself to the mercy of the court," said Jeffrey Cramer, a longtime former federal prosecutor in Chicago. "Then, prosecutors can argue all they want for Manafort's sentence, but it's ultimately up to the judge to weigh two opposing views on what that sentence should be."
If Manafort chose that route, it would send a clear message to the White House that he was still in Trump's corner. The judge overseeing the case would also likely show him some leniency because he would have admitted his guilt.
"And hopefully, the sentence Manafort would get would run concurrent to the sentence from his first trial," meaning that both sentences would be carried out at the same time, Cramer said. "If they run consecutive, however, now Manafort goes from looking at 10 years to maybe 15 or 16 years in prison."
If Manafort were to choose this option, it would also force him to detail the specifics of his alleged criminal activity. That possibility would likely rattle the White House, because the Washington, DC, case against Manafort is more deeply linked to collusion and Manafort's time on the Trump campaign than the first case against him, which primarily centered around Manafort's financial crimes before he joined the campaign.
Door number three: Tough it out and go to trial
The last option is for Manafort to stick it out and go to trial.
This is the riskiest path for the former Trump campaign chairman for a few reasons.
The first speaks to Mueller's track record so far in the Russia investigation. Out of the seven US persons charged in the probe, six have pleaded guilty, and one Manafort was convicted following a trial.
"The evidence is there," Cramer said. "These are not bogus charges. If Manafort goes to trial, that would likely be like a slow, drawn out guilty plea, given the evidence Mueller has and the way Manafort's first trial went."
Cotter agreed.
"From everything I can tell about this case and what's been made public, as well as what we saw in his first trial, the government has very, very little chance of not getting a conviction if this second trial goes forward," he said.
A second trial would also put a bigger dent in Manafort's finances, which took a hit when he decided to move forward with the first trial instead of striking a plea deal, like his former business associate Rick Gates did.
That said, there are two potential upsides to Manafort going to trial.
The first is that if Manafort is convicted, he may not be convicted on all the charges. In his first trial, for instance, Manafort was charged with 18 counts but convicted on just eight because one juror held out on the other ten charges.
"The best thing for Manafort to do is plead guilty and cooperate," Cotter said, "but if he doesn't do that, he should shoot his shot and take this thing to trial. He might get lucky like he did in the Virginia case. So his lawyer may tell him to roll the dice and fight it."
The second upside is that, like the previous two options, Manafort would be leaving the door to a presidential pardon wide open if he goes to trial.
He may even up his chances in this case, experts said, because the stress of going through the whole public process would elicit a stronger response from the president, who frequently accuses the special counsel of going on a politically motivated fishing expedition to undermine his presidency.
"The one thing I'd say to him if I were his lawyer is that you don't have any good choices left," Cotter said. "There are no good choices, there are just differing levels of bad choices at this point in his life."
Cramer echoed that view.
As 1.7 million people on the US's East Coast prepare for Hurricane Florence's arrival, another stronger storm is set to lash Southeast Asia.
Super Typhoon Mangkhut, considered the strongest storm so far this season, is expected to make landfall in the Philippines before advancing to southern China, Vietnam, and Laos.
The map below, published by the Philippines' meteorological authority on Thursday morning, shows the typhoon's predicted path over the next few days. Typhoon Mangkhut is also known as Typhoon Ompong in the Philippines.
The northern Philippines, southern China, Vietnam, and northern Laos are directly in the typhoon's predicted path.
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As of 4 p.m. local time, Mangkhut was carrying maximum sustained winds of 127 mph and gusts sudden, short increases of wind speed of 158 mph, according to the Philippines' meteorological authority.
Its sustained wind speeds make the typhoon the equivalent to a Category 3 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale, which is used to measure storms in the Atlantic and northern Pacific oceans.
Brandon Miller, CNN's meteorologist, said on Thursday that Mangkhut was expected to be "bigger, stronger, and more dangerous" than Florence, though the comparative damage of the two storms depends on what they hit.
"Any land hit directly would see more significant and destructive impacts from the Super Typhoon due to its size and intensity," he added.
However, because the US's East Coast has more and costlier infrastructure than Southeast Asia, Florence is likely to cause more damage to property. At least two nuclear power plants are directly in Florence's predicted path.
"But Mangkhut presents a more serious threat to life considering it will hit with stronger winds, over a larger area, and have higher storm surge," Miller added.
Mangkhut tore through the Marshall Islands and US territory Guam earlier this week. The typhoon left parts of Guam without electricity, as well as knocked down power poles, destroyed houses, uprooted trees, and flooded large areas, the local Pacific Daily Newsreported.
Eddie Calvo, the governor of Guam, a US territory, has asked President Donald Trump to send federal aid to help restore the island.
Evacuations and stockpiling
The Philippines is poised to get hit first. Officials in the island nation have started evacuating thousands of people, closing down schools, and preparing bulldozers for landslides, the Associated Press reported.
Food prices in Hong Kong, which is preparing for heavy rainfall and storms from Typhoon Mangkhut, have gone up as residents started stockpiling, the South China Morning Post reported.
Shopkeepers have also started putting sandbags in front of their stores to prevent water from getting in.
Southeast Asia is also expecting the arrival of Tropical Storm Barijat, which as of Thursday morning was moving across the western Pacific Ocean with a wind speed of 35 mph, according to Cyclocane.
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The gold dealership firm on Wednesday, September 12, was asked by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to shut down with immediate effect in the trading of gold until further notice.
In a leaked letter dated September 7, 2018, which was signed by the Deputy Director General of SEC, Paul Ababio said that the SEC hereby directs Menzgold Company Ltd to shut down immediately the business of trading in gold collectables with guaranteed returns to clients which constitutes, in essence, dealing in securities with neither the necessary license nor disclosure authorised by the SEC.
The letter added that no new contracts should be created, and all advertising of the investment business halted with immediate effect.
The letter caused panic and many customers stormed their premises to withdraw their deposits.
Many celebrities including Zylofon Medias Stonebwoy, Kumi Guitar and Benedicta Gafah have weighed in on the issue, calling Ghanaians to keep calm.
The latest star to weigh in is Sarkodie, and he is in to support because he believes Nana Appiah Mensah, the owner of Menzgold, is on a mission to make Ghana a better one.
He tweeted early Thursday saying NAM1 genuinely cares about the country and even though he doesnt know the ins and outs of the saga, he thinks the Nam1 mission is for a better Ghana.
Chief among these primary opportunities is the countrys Smart City Scheme which has caught the eye of developers, policy experts, investors and city planners across the world says Kfir Rusin, the host of the Africa Property Investment (API) Summit (www.APIevents.com), the continents largest property investment and development conference taking place on the 20 and 21 September 2018 in Johannesburg, South Africa.
We have more than 600 delegates from 35 countries attending this year, and more than 50 delegates from Mauritius alone, which is proof that it has become a prime hub for investment in Africa and also provides unique opportunities.
While the definition of what is a smart city varies depending on geography and policy, in Mauritius case a Smart City can be described as: A concept of urban development focused on improving the quality of life of city dwellers by making the city more attractive, adaptable, efficient and resilient to change, using new technologies that rely on an ecosystem of objects and services.
In comparison to other smart city projects a Mauritian Smart City is a privately funded new project and not a redevelopment of an existing city or neighbourhood says Olivier Desvaux de Marigny of Medine, whose Uniciti Smart City sits on 350 hectares, and is particularly geared towards higher education.
Officially launched in 2015, the scheme currently consists of ten focused cities, which have attracted an estimated $3,5 Billion in investment. The rapid advancement of the cities from concept to investment are of significant interest to international and regional investors and developers seeking to use the Mauritius smart city concept as a blueprint for Africa future developments, comments Rusin.
And while the scheme launched just three years ago, many of the developers started to create their mixed-use developments on their own sites in the early 2000s due to the need to diversify from sugar-based dependency for the major land-owning groups.
As Desvaux de Marigny points out, The termination of the sugar protocol in the cane industry left sugar estates with no choice but to diversify. And with a land bank of 10 000 Ha, in the case of Medine, the diversification strategy through real estate projects represented an opportunity. (The sugar protocol for decades, ensured that sugar produced by ACP (Africa, Caribbean and the Pacific) countries had access on the European market quota free and at a guaranteed price.)
To provide insights into these cities and the countrys real estate investment opportunities, this years API Summit has launched the Mauritius Forum, which will cover how these smart cities are transforming the country and share what lessons have been learnt so far with the Summits pan-African and international audience.
With four of the countrys premier smart city developers Novaterra (Beau Plan) Medine Group (Uniciti), ENL (Moka City) and Omnicanes (Mon Tresor) and the Mauritian Economic Development Boards Sachin Mohabeer in attendance and numerous stakeholders presenting and participating in key panel sessions at the summit the event will provide detail for the investors and developers to consider these attractive investments.
Providing the platform for the cities to share their experiences and challenges, as well as the policy drivers behind such a large-scale scheme is critical as many privately funded developers have allocated more than $100 Billion across the continent for greenfield cities, according to the latest research conducted by Pan African property research firm Estate intel.
As Rusin says, As a vehicle for investment and development into African property; Mauritius continues to grow, and these benefits will be unpacked in detail, with a core component of this years forum being focused on the live, work and play lifestyle these forward-thinking developments are planning to achieve.
And while lifestyle and technology aspects of these cities include open data platforms - which make use of ubiquitous urban sensing technologies and big data analytics for efficient functioning of the cities the key to these cities is that they are driven by demand and designed to uplift the lives of all residents, transients whether locals or foreigners.
As Desvaux de Marigny says, The GDP per capita is lower in Mauritius compared to other markets around the world where developments of a similar scope are happening. Therefore, the development of the smart cities needs to adapt to the purchasing power of its potential citizens. But while the cities modern look, convenience and better quality of life are attractive selling points the cities are an extension of the smart and nimble economic development policies employed by the government to attract and retain investment says Novaterras Joel Couve de Murville. The Cities are a strategic decision to encourage investment but within a sustainable framework. Beyond the tourism industry, Mauritian lands are one of the main assets of the island.
To safeguard the islands natural appeal and develop sustainably and not haphazardly is a key outcome of the scheme adds Medines Development Manager Desvaux de Marigny, The guidelines and requirements promote a better urban planning, which will bring an orderly organisation in cities, which until now were being developed without proper master planning.
As Samuel de Gersigny, Director of Moka Smart City comments, Mauritian Smart Cities follow a unique model: they are the result of an ambitious economic development programme aimed at consolidating the Mauritian international business and financial hub by creating ideal conditions for working, living and spurring investment.
And while the economic benefits are clear they allow for direct ownership; creating cities from a clean slate provides significant benefits adds Samuel de Gersigny. Mauritian Cities suffer from a lack of real urban planning which resulted in congestion problems within the country. Well planned developments, such as what were trying to achieve at Moka, will benefit all. With more than 15,000 residents already residing in the Moka Smart City, the redevelopment of the mixed-use initial plan to certified fully-fledged smart city is proving to be successful.
With billions in investment already, the Smart Cities of Mauritius will be a central topic of interest for many regional, international and smart investors expects Rusin. The cities and the professionals driving them will be of major interest to our delegates from a technical, technological and networking perspective, but also from a policy standpoint how the right incentives are critical to attracting sustainable investment into these mega projects. We believe this is fundamental to the development of other such cities in Africa, and I believe the number of speakers and delegates from across Africa will find these topics transformative.
Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Africa Property Investment (API) Summit & Expo.
Contact: Murray Anderson Phone: +27 11 250 2260 | +27 71 890 77 39 Email: murray@apievents.com
About API Events
The Africa Property Investment Summit & Expo (API) (www.APIevents.com) is Africas largest and most premier real estate event. It connects the most influential local and international Africa property stakeholders, driving investment and development into a wide range of real estate and infrastructure projects and developments across the continent.
API Events deliver Africas most renowned events in real estate investment and development. Our events across the continent have become the ultimate meeting places for Africas property market to learn, network and most importantly to do deals. The company also hosts the API Awards these prestigious awards provide a platform for distinguished developers, suppliers and owners in the African real estate industry, to showcase their best projects and services. Other services provided by API Events include training programmes and the recently launched Skyline Magazine.
Lila scooped the Gerard Sekoto Award for Self-Titled, a series of self-portraits related to her name, Philiswa, which means be healed. The artist used her name to explore the nuances of language, meaning and experiences of individualism as recognisable or familiar to collective frameworks of culture, mainly in isiXhosa.
The Gerard Sekoto Award for the most promising artist is sponsored by the French Embassy, Alliance Franciase and French Institute. It is only available to a South African artist who has previously entered the LAtelier Awards and who has demonstrated continual improvement in their art-making.
The three Merit Awards winners this year were Gillian Abe of Uganda (Seat of Honour), Henry Obeng of Ghana (Recycle Frame 2) and Kirsten Eksteen of South Africa (Patterns and Pattern Body) respectively.
These three artists, along with overall winner Marguerite Kirsten, Carli Bassin (SA) (Shaped), Lemmeze Davids (SA) (Thank you for my lunch), Christiaan Kritzinger (SA) (Meltdown: new aesthetics in old landscapes), Ayo Akinwande (Nigeria) (Shrine), Lodewyk Barkhuizen (SA) (Hat disguised as map), and Sikelele Damane (SA) (Toyi, Toyi, Act 1) were selected as the Top 10 finalists for 2018.
The Absa LAtelier awards has become a touchstone for the concerns consuming young people on the continent. Works referencing hair styles as a form of expression, identity and a site of contestation were prominent in previous years and remained important to a number of this years entrants, such as Nonkululeko Sibande, Lebohang Motaung (both from South Africa) and Darlyne Komukama (Uganda).
Some artworks offered insights into the particular conditions and contexts from the artists countries of origin constant power outages in Lagos, Nigeria, accounted for the unexpected metaphor between electricity generators and religious shrines by Ayo Akinwande, for example. Pressing political issues regarding land ownership in South Africa surfaced in works by Vianca Malan, Mhlonishwa Chiliza, Karla Nixon and Ciara Struwig, while forced removals and land ownership were mirrored in Bya'bazzukulu (For Grandchildren) by Donald Wasswa.
Challenging fixed gender roles was again a prominent theme, as seen in the work of Mzoxolo Mayongo and Matimu Lloyd Maluleke. These artworks affirm not only the dominance of sociopolitical discourse, but the artists perceptions that contemporary practice is irretrievably tied to addressing them.
Absa LAtelier has been shining a light on promising young African artists work for over 33 years. Not only do the awards identify bright young talent but they provide a solid foundation for the further growth of these artists potential, giving them the opportunity to step into the spotlight on the world stage.
By highlighting the work of new artists from the African continent, Absa LAtelier proves that they are committed to taking work from where it may have been unknown, in the dark, and presenting it to a global audience bringing it to light. This essence reflects the 2019 LAtelier theme, Give Art Light, which was unveiled at the Awards gala evening on Wednesday, 12 September 2018.
Dr Paul Bayliss, Absa Art and Museum Curator, says this idea is also in line with the ethos of Absas new Africanacity identity. Bringing to light the best art on the continent, lighting up the careers of artists from all over Africa, putting the spotlight firmly on African artists for more than three decades, and investing in Africas creative economy for this length of time, all represent the spirit of Africanacity. These are the physical manifestations of the inspirational Africanacity idea in action, he says.
The Absa LAtelier art competition is jointly sponsored by Absa and the South African National Association for the Visual Arts (SANAVA), and is one of the longest-running and most prestigious visual arts competitions on the African continent. It was established in South Africa 33 years ago, but in recent years has been expanded to include a number of other African countries in order to reach more young artists and further the unparalleled opportunities it affords those who participate in the competition.
The LAtelier Awards embrace emerging artists from our continent. This competition has become the voice and lens through which we experience and access various societies, and has rendered the borders between our country and the rest of Africa, porous, says Avitha Sooful, president of SANAVA.
This year was the first time that the awards were extended to include Nigeria and Namibia. The newcomers really shone, with a vast number of outstanding pieces catching the eye of the adjudicators, who appreciated their interpretation of the contemporary with the African visual art context.
A total of 12 countries now participate in the competition which, aside from Nigeria and Namibia, include South Africa, Botswana, Ghana, Zambia, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Mauritius, Seychelles and Mozambique.
Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Absa Group Limited.
For more information please contact:
Zintle Letlaka Absa Media Relations 011 350 4481 071 371 9224 Zintle.letlaka@absa.co.za prmedia@absa.africa
About Absa Group
Absa Group Limited (previously Barclays Africa Group) (www.Absa.africa) is listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange and is one of Africas largest diversified financial services groups.
Absa Group offers an integrated set of products and services across personal and business banking, corporate and investment banking, wealth and investment management and insurance.
Absa Group has a presence in 12 countries in Africa, with approximately 42 000 employees.
The Groups registered head office is in Johannesburg, South Africa, and it owns majority stakes in banks in Botswana, Ghana, Kenya, Mauritius, Mozambique, Seychelles, South Africa (Absa Bank), Tanzania (Barclays Bank Tanzania and National Bank of Commerce), Uganda and Zambia. The Group also has representative offices in Namibia and Nigeria, as well as insurance operations in Botswana, Kenya, Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania and Zambia.
Tuko.co.ke reported that Ben Momanyi was in the company of ex-Nyamira senator, Okong'o Mong'are and a few other friends made orders at Winds Park hotel in Kisii town to take part in the album launch of a local musician weeks to the August 2017 polls when he incurred the bill.
Noted for his philanthropic gestures, the law maker reportedly ordered for drinks as they made merry through the night amounting to a whopping KSh 33,000.
As if he wanted to pay the bills at the end of their merry making, Momanyi reportedly asked his Personal Assistant to authenticate the hotel receipts and bills.
However, the lawmaker pretended to have received an urgent call and excused himself and never returned.
As if it was all planned, Tuko.co.ke again reported that those accompanying the MP, including his aides also disappeared leaving the waitress, only identified as Zipporah to shoulder the burden.
Apparently, over a year on, the lawmaker has not paid the hotel bill. The news website said efforts to get a response from the legislator were futile as calls and text messages went unanswered.
As soon as they are brought out of their natural environment to the surface of the earth, the snailfish rapidly melts.
According to odditycentral.com, the squishy fish were discovered during an international expedition to explore the depths of the Atacama Trench, one of the deepest parts of the Pacific Ocean, located near the coast of Peru.
The news website reported that researchers lowered special cameras to a depth of approximately 7,500 meters, where temperatures are just above freezing and pressures are far higher than any human could survive.
However, these extreme conditions at the bottom of the Atacama Trench were very congenial for three new fish species currently known as the pink, purple and blue Atacama snailfish.
READ ALSO: Bragging MP vanishes into thin air without paying 30k hotel bill
A researcher at Newcastle University, Thomas Linley is quoted as saying: There is something about the snailfish (fish of the family Liparidae) that allows them to adapt to living very deep. Beyond the reach of other fish they are free of competitors and predators. As the footage clearly shows, there are lots of invertebrate prey down there, and the snailfish are the top predator. They seem to be quite active and look very well-fed.
Another intriguing feature of the snailfish is that despite the bad conditions at the bottom of the sea, they were specially created to withstand them.
This new species of fish melts rapidly when brought to the surface
Reports say the hardest parts of their body are the teeth and the tiny bones in their inner ears as well as a squishy, gelatinous mass that can withstand the immense pressures of the deep sea.
Having been used to the harsh condition in the sea, the snailfish are not able to survive on the surface of the earth.
The members of the committee and its terms of reference have not been revealed. However, it is expected that the committee will resolve the impasse between the Auditor General and the Board Chair, Professor Edward Dua Agyeman.
READ ALSO: Ghanaians troop to Menzgold for deposits after SEC letter leaks
Mr Domelevo accused the Board chair of manipulating procurement processes and unlawful circulation of audit findings among other things as the basis for his request for a presidential intervention.
In his petition, he said he received a complaint from a prospective vendor that his firm was stopped from submitting proposals.
Photo: The Canadian Press In this image from video made available Wednesday Sept. 12, 2018, Harvey Weinstein, right, with Melissa Thompson as they sit side-by-side in front of her laptop computer during what was supposed to be a business presentation in 2011.
A video of Harvey Weinstein aired on television Wednesday showing him boldly propositioning a woman who later accused him of rape and repeatedly touching her and stroking her arm and back during what was supposed to have been a business meeting.
Melissa Thompson, who sued Weinstein in June, said she made the recording, shown by Sky News, while demonstrating video technology for the movie mogul-turned-#MeToo villain at his New York City office in 2011.
Weinstein is seen on the video rejecting a handshake from Thompson and then hugging her instead and rubbing her back.
He then caresses her shoulder as they sit side-by-side in front of her laptop computer.
At one point he tells her: "Let me have a little part of you. Can you give it to me?"
After quickly agreeing to use the technology to promote his movies, Thompson said Weinstein put his hand up her dress.
The video, which only captures the two from the waist up, doesn't show Weinstein's hands at that point, but does show Thompson reacting with discomfort and telling Weinstein, "That's too high. That's too high."
It also shows her joking about his advances, saying that "data is hot."
Sky News aired only portions of the video. Thompson's lawyers declined to share it with The Associated Press.
Weinstein's lawyer said the full video "demonstrates that there is nothing forceful" and shows "casual, if not awkward, flirting from both parties."
"Anything short of that is intended to make Mr. Weinstein appear inappropriate and even exploitative," lawyer Ben Brafman said. "It was produced by Ms. Thompson to bolster her position in a civil lawsuit seeking money. This is a further attempt to publicly disgrace Mr. Weinstein for financial gain and we will not stand for it. Facts do matter."
In an interview with Sky News, Thompson said Weinstein's behaviour was distracting and she struggled to stay "on script" with the product pitch. She said his affect changed from the start of the meeting, that his eyes had darkened and he "looked like a predator."
Thompson said she later met Weinstein at a nearby hotel bar, where she said she expected to close the technology deal. She said Weinstein led her to a hotel room and raped her.
Along the way, she said, he rebuffed her attempts to fight or get away.
"If I would try to fight myself away from him, he would then move around to where he could block me in somewhere, and he's a big individual," Thompson told Sky News. "I constantly felt trapped, no matter where I turned."
Weinstein has been charged in New York with sexually assaulting three women. Thompson is not among them.
He served four years of a seven-year sentence for a 1.4bn fraud at Swiss bank UBS and released in 2015.
During his trial at Southwark Crown Court in 2012, he had denied the charges, which related to the period between October 2008 and September 2011.
READ MORE: Kweku Adoboli to be deported September 18
He had told the jury his senior managers were aware of his actions and encouraged him to take risks.
But the jury was told he lost the money in "unprotected, unhedged, incautious and reckless" trades.
At the funeral on Thursday, Annan's widow, Nane Maria, led hundreds of mourners, including world leaders past and present, traditional rulers and global royalty, and called her husband an "extraordinary" person who had a "joy of life".
"My love, you are now back home where you started your long journey. But may your wisdom and compassion continue to guide us, wherever we are," she said at the state funeral.
The event was also attended by world leaders including: current head of the world body, Antonio Gutteres, Zimbabwe's President Emmerson Mnangagwa, Alassane Ouattara of Ivory Coast, George Weah of Liberia, Hage Geingob of Namibia, Mahamadou Issoufou of Niger, former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo, among others.
Also, a former head of state of Germany led the German delegation to the event with Switzerland and Finland sending former heads of state.
Many Ghanaians described him as a father-figure and a source of national pride.
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has paid a befitting tribute to the former UN chief.
He said the late diplomat brought dignity and honour to Ghanaians.
He stated that "Kofi Annan was an ardent believer in the capacity of the Ghanaian and African to chart his or her own course onto the path of progress and prosperity."
Ghanaians who visited the Accra International Conference Centre hoping to see Annan's face for the last time as they paid their last respects, were left saddened by the turn of events.
They wondered why organisers did not open the casket to allow those of them who never had the opportunity to see the man alive, do so before he is buried.
Deputy Information Minister Pius Enam Hadzide has explained why the mortal remains of the former UN General Secretary was covered.
He said the wish was to have a modest funeral.
He stated that it's not a major problem for the government to cover the casket though the death and burial is a state funeral.
"There are high-profile funerals that Ive attended that Ive seen the casket covered even in this country and, so, its not a major problem; the important thing is that you see the family sitting in state, and, so, the man Kofi Annan himself is a modest person, and, so, he doesnt want a lot of flamboyance around the funeral with a lot of frills.
"Yes, this is a state funeral, we admit, but even as we give him a befitting state funeral, we think that it is still important that we respect his wishes of keeping it a little modest, a little soft and so far, its been very good," he revealed.
READ ALSO: Mortal remains of Kofi Annan leaves Geneva for Accra
On Wednesday, 12 September, dignitaries including recognised groups, chiefs, Members of Parliament and Ministers of State, world leaders, will have their turn to pay their last respects to the former UN boss.
Dignitaries from around the world met at the Accra International Conference Centre to pay their last respect to Kofi, a man of honour.
The funeral saw a host of tributes and biography being read to tell who Kofi Annan was. In the background were dirge songs played via a flute by the Ghana military.
One of such performers, however, caught the eye for a distinguished way of playing the flute.
An average flute player will probably blow the air from their mouths to give that soothing sound. Not this guy.
The Ghanaian military guy who was on a shift system with a college in playing the flute did what youve never seen before.
It was earlier planned for Adoboli to be deported on September 10.
Adoboli was convicted by the UK authorities in 2012 and he is currently being held by Scotland Yard authorities.
He served four years of a seven-year sentence for a 1.4bn fraud at Swiss bank UBS and released in 2015.
READ MORE: Ghanaian fraudster Kweku Adoboli to be deported September 10
During his trial at Southwark Crown Court in 2012, he had denied the charges, which related to the period between October 2008 and September 2011.
He had told the jury his senior managers were aware of his actions and encouraged him to take risks.
But the jury was told he lost the money in "unprotected, unhedged, incautious and reckless" trades.
Earlier, the judge, Justice Keith told him when he was sentenced: "Whatever the verdict of the jury, you would forever have been known as the man responsible for the largest trading loss in British banking history."
He lost lan appeal against deportation in 2016 and had wanted to take a judicial review to the Supreme Court about the Home Office's request to deport him.
Adoboli's MP, Hannah Bardell, and 113 other MPs and MSPs have written to the prime minister and home secretary to demand they intervene to stop Adobolis deportation.
In a letter, he said "If Mr Adoboli were deported, he will be removed from the country he has called home since the age of 12, taken away from the close relationships he has formed here and returned to a country he has not lived in from the age of four and lacks familiarity with."
"The recent comment by former home secretary, Amber Rudd MP, that the Home Office has become too concerned with policy and strategy and sometimes loses sight of the individual is apt in this case and we are sure no one in the cabinet wishes to have another Windrush Generation scandal on their hands anytime soon.
READ MORE: Kweku Adoboli supporters launch appeal to fight deportation
Adoboli appealed to Sajid Javid and Theresa May to "show some compassion" and intervene.
In a statement, the Minority described the former United Nations General Secretary as one of the greatest Ghanaians and Africans of all time.
The statement, signed by Minority leader, Haruna Iddrisu and ranking member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Samuel Okudzeto Ablakwa, suggested that the Foreign Affairs building be named Kofi Annan House.
While we commend the Government, Chiefs and people of Ghana for the grace, solemnity and dignity with which the send-off for the Busumuru and former Nobel Prize Laureate has proceeded thus far, the Minority wishes to appeal to His Excellency President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to consider naming the building which houses Ghanas Ministry for Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration after the illustrious Kofi Annan, sections of the statement read.
It added: If this appeal is acceded to, what it does mean is that Ghanas Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration will be located in Kofi Annan House just as the Office of the President is located in Jubilee House.
Though this development will be novel in the Ghanaian context, it is not new in international relations.
The late Kofi Annan died over three weeks ago at age 80 whiles staying in Switzerland with his family.
His burial service will be held on Thursday at the Accra International Conference Centre, before he is finally laid to rest at the Military Cemetery in Osu.
Meanwhile, the Crops Research Institute of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) is also spearheading a move to name a new breed of sweet potato after former UN Secretary-General.
He said the late diplomat brought dignity and honour to Ghanaians.
This, he said, at the final funeral rites of the Nobel Peace Laureate at the Accra International Conference Centre.
CHECK OUT HIS FULL TRIBUTE BELOW
Charming, cosmopolitan, consensus-builder, elegant, eloquent, gentle-mannered, modest, polyglot, proud African, peacemaker, quintessential diplomat, these words are still inadequate to capture the fullness of the personality of Kofi Annan, one of the truly iconic figures of modern times.
Even though he was my senior, we were good friends for most of my adult life. His father, H.R Annan, was one of the stalwarts of the Danquah-Dombo-Busia political tradition, serving as the Ashanti Regional Minister under Prime Minister Dr. Kofi Abrefa Busias Progress Party Government of the 2nd Republic. Although he never openly acknowledged, in my presence, his attachment to the tradition, his advocacy of human rights, respect for the rule of law and the principle of democratic accountability was the very essence of that tradition.
Highly admired Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan was the first from sub-Saharan Africa to occupy this exalted office, which made him the worlds top diplomat. He brought considerable renown to our country by this position and by his conduct and comportment in the global arena. Indeed, the outpouring of tributes from the world over is an accurate measure of the man, a man who gave his life to making peace where there was conflict, to defending the voiceless who were powerless, to promoting virtue where there was evil.
Despite the unjustified attacks on him, trying to fix him with responsibility for the genocides in Rwanda and Srebrenica, when he was Head of UN Peace Operations, he never lost his moral compass, as he showed, when he stood up to the might of the United States of America, when she was embarking on her ill-fated intervention in Iraq. Kofi Annans epic, but unavailing effort to establish the supremacy of international law over the actions of even the worlds greatest power, won him the admiration of all right-thinking persons. He has been vindicated by history.
I recollect with fondness, that eventful day of Friday, 11th August 2006, when, as Foreign Minister, at the time Ghana occupied one of the non-permanent seats on the UN Security Council, I chaired the meeting of the Council which took the decision that halted Israels incursions into Lebanon by voting Security Council Resolution 1701. Seated to my immediate right, when that vote was taken, was my compatriot, Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan. What a proud day it was for me and for Ghana.
Kofi Annan was an ardent believer in the capacity of the Ghanaian and African to chart his or her own course onto the path of progress and prosperity. He found the vision of a Ghana Beyond Aid, indeed of an Africa Beyond Aid, very appealing. Undoubtedly, he excelled in the various undertakings of his life, leaving in his trail most pleasant memories. His was a life well-lived.
He gave me sensitive, deeply appreciated advice when I became President of the Republic. The last time I saw him was when he came to my office, at Jubilee House, on Friday, 10th March, to inform me, much to my discomfiture, that he could no longer continue to serve as Chancellor of Ghanas premier university, the University of Ghana, Legon, since he had served the two-terms permitted by the statutes of the University. I bemoaned my ill-luck, even though, as life would have it, the University has found in Mary Chinery-Hesse, his old and trusted friend, a worthy successor.
I am wholly humbled by the opportunity given to me, by the Grace of God and the generosity of the Ghanaian people, to decree, as President of the Republic, most fittingly, a state funeral in his honour.
Some people love spicy food, others will devour a plate full of a simple meal made with only tomatoes and onions acting as spice.
Others love their meat medium rare while others wont take a bite off a meat bone if its not well-done, all these go to show that just like different ingredients and recipe make different meals humans too have different tastes and preferences which influence how they view and interact with the rest of the world.
Almost all the 196 countries in the world today have a national dish of some sorts that they cherish and devour in equal measure; the same applies to Ghana.
Here are nine mouth mothering dishes from Ghana you should try at least once before you die.
Jollof rice
Originally from Senegal, Jollof is a pot dish of rice prepared with tomato sauce and served with meat or fish.
The rice soaks up the juicy flavours and turns orange when cooking, and is a national favourite that can be found in most restaurants or dished out by street vendors at affordable prices.
Jollof is so delicious that no one wants one country to claim its sole right and as a result, the dish normally stirs plenty of juicy debate online with different nationalities from West Africa all claiming the sole rights of the dish.
Waakye
Waakye (pronounced wa-chayy) is another Ghanaian delicious dish that will leave you licking your fingers.
It is made from rice and beans and was originally a Northern dish, but it can now be found almost everywhere on the streets of Accra.
You can enjoy Waakye with other sides such as fried plantain, garri (grated cassava), spaghetti and avocado.
Banku and tilapia
Ghanaians generally love fish and tilapia in particularly.
When you see fish being grilled on the streets of Accra it is most likely to be tilapia, a delicacy among Ghanaians, who spice then grill the succulent freshwater fish.
It goes hand in hand with banku, a Southern mix of fermented corn and cassava dough, and very hot pepper, diced tomatoes and onions.
Red-red
This is one of the Ghanaian dishes that doesnt use a lot of spice because the main taste comes from the ingredients its served with.
Red-red is a filling traditional dish that consists of cowpea beans boiled to make a broth, served with palm oil and soft, fried plantains.
It can also be dished up with garri to make it even heartier.
Fufu and goat light soup
Fufu is a staple food across West Africa but in Ghana, it is made by pounding a mixture of boiled cassava and plantains into a soft sticky paste to go along with aromatic and spicy tomato soup.
Tuo Zaafi
Tuo Zaafi is similar to banku, although it is quite soft and less sticky, and is made by cooking corn dough and adding a little cassava.
What distinguishes Tuo Zaafi and makes it a popular meal nationwide is the nutritious and rare herbs used in making the accompanying soup, including dawadawa and ayoyo leaves.
Palm nut soup (Abe Nkwan)
Palm nut soup is a rich soup made from fresh palm nuts that is loved not just in Ghana but West Africa; Nigerians even have their own version which they call Banga soup.
The nuts are boiled, pounded to extract the juice from the nuts meat, the process is without a doubt daunting but the end result is worth every drop of sweat.
Palm nut soup can be eaten with Omutuo (rice balls) or Kokonte.
Boiled yam or plantain with Kontomire stew
The highly nutritious Kontomire stew is made from boiled tender cocoyam leaves, salted fish and boiled eggs, and goes perfectly with boiled yams, plantains and avocado.
Kelewele
No list of traditional Ghanaian foods would be complete without mentioning this savoury side dish.
Kelewele is an instant favourite among anyone who tries it, even those who arent big fans of peppery food.
It is made by frying soft plantains that have been soaked in a medley of peppers, ginger and garlic.
The deputy secretary-general of the United Nations (UN), Amina Mohammed, said the current state of Nigeria's debt profile is worrying, and poured out international concerns on the growing debt level in Africa.
She said Nigeria is now back to high-level deb, emphasising on how it took the former Minister of Finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala years to negotiate with the Paris Club.
She stated while speaking at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the UN Working Together Conversation with the IMF Chief, Christine Lagarde.
The former Minister of Environment in Nigeria questioned how Africa wants to grow its economy with massive debt. She called for an overall conversation on how to grow the African economy and bring about stability.
As I was coming up from the New York some of the concern we have coming from China recently, the report we have is that the debt we have was really big... having experienced what it was for Ngozi (Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala) to get the debt relief and how it took few years to convince people.
We are now back again, in my country, the level of debt is worrying, but it is happening all over, for Africa, if that is the way we want to go, we need to sit down and have a better conversation about all the asks of a growing economy; that needs to be inclusive."
ALSO READ: Nigeria dismisses talk of a possible takeover of its economy by China over the bilateral loan
At the wake of the 2018 Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, international communities and economists across the world expressed worry over massive Chinese loan on the African soil. They believed that Chinese loans are burying some countries in massive debt.
But President Muhammadu Buhari and other African leaders swiftly denied engaging in "debt trap" diplomacy adding that Africa needs debt-funded infrastructure development.
On Wednesday, Nigerian government also has dismissed insinuations of the possible takeover of the economy by the Chinese government if it defaults on loan terms.
The country's debt management office explained that Chinese loans are cheaper compared to other international bodies and agencies. It added that loans from China Exim constituted just one of the sources of multilateral and bilateral loans accessed by Nigeria and represented only about 8.5% of the countrys external debt as of June 30, 2018.
Mourners dressed in traditional black and red attire filled the main hall of the Accra Conference Centre, which sits about 4,000 people and others watched the funeral proceedings on a giant screen in an auditorium just outside the hall.
The former queen of the Netherlands, Princess Beatrix, and her daughter-in-law Princess Mabel, who were close friends of Annan, were among the mourners.
As the funeral proceeding went on, millions of mourners worldwide followed the proceeding online and kept sending their condolences.
Speaking at the funeral, current UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres said Annan was an exceptional leader who saw the UN as a force for good.
"As we face the headwinds of our troubled and turbulent times, let us always be inspired by the legacy of Kofi Annan," Mr Guterres said.
"Our world needs it now more than ever," he added.
Ghana's President Nana Akufo-Addo described Annan as "one of the truly iconic figures of modern times".
"The outpouring of tributes from the world over is an accurate measure of the man, a man who gave his life to making peace where there was conflict, to defending the voiceless who were powerless, to promoting virtue where there was evil," he said.
The Anglican bishop of Annan's home city of Kumasi in central Ghana, the Most Reverend Daniel Sarfo, said Annan had fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.
"Today history is being made in Ghana. One of our illustrious sons is lying here.
"But we are grateful that God used him over the years to work for humanity, for peace. Today, as he lies here, he has finished his work."
Annan's nephew Kojo Amoo-Gottfried read a eulogy, describing how he had led a hunger strike in his secondary school to protest against the quality of food in the dining hall.
Annans widow, Swedish lawyer and artist Nane Maria Annan gave a moving tribute and described how her husband was always excited to return home.
She thanked Ghana for giving the world such an extraordinary man.
"His legacy would live on through his foundation and through all of us," she concluded.
Annan was the UN secretary-general from 1997 to 2006, the first black African to hold the world's top diplomatic post.
He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2001 for helping to revitalise the international body, during a period that coincided with the Iraq War and the HIV/Aids pandemic.
Photo: The Canadian Press Police patrol past boarded up shops along the boardwalk in Myrtle Beach, S.C., Thursday.
The outer bands of wind and rain from a weakened but still deadly Hurricane Florence began lashing North Carolina on Thursday as the monster storm moved in for an extended stay along the Southeastern coast, promising to drench the homes of as many as 10 million people with immense amounts of rain.
Florence's top sustained wind speeds dropped from a high of 225 km/h to 175 km/h early Thursday . That reduced Florence from a Category 4 to a Category 2 hurricane, but forecasters warned that the widening storm and its likelihood of lingering around the coast day after day after day will bring surging ocean water and torrential rain.
"It truly is really about the whole size of this storm," National Hurricane Center Director Ken Graham said. "The larger and the slower the storm is, the greater the threat and the impact -- and we have that."
As of 8 a.m. EDT it was centred about 275 kilometres east-southeast of Wilmington, N.C., and about 355 km east-southeast of Myrtle Beach, moving northwest at 20 km/h. Hurricane-force winds were blowing 130 km from its centre, and tropical-storm-force winds reached up to 315 km from the eye.
The hurricane centre's best estimate was that Florence's eye would blow ashore as early as early Friday around the North Carolina-South Carolina line. Then, it will likely hover along the coast Saturday, pushing up to four metres of storm surge and dumping water on both states. The forecast calls for as much as 102 centimetres of rain over seven days along the coast, with the deluge continuing even as the centre of the storm slogs away over the Appalachian Mountains.
The result: catastrophic inland flooding that could swamp homes, businesses, farm fields and industrial sites.
About 5.25 million people live in areas under hurricane warnings or watches, and 4.9 million more live in places covered by tropical storm warnings or watches, the National Weather Service said.
Weather Underground meteorology director Jeff Masters said Florence eventually could strike as a Category 1 with winds less than 160 km/h, but that's still enough to cause at least $1 billion in damage. Water kills more people in hurricanes than wind, and the rain and storm surge will make Florence extremely dangerous.
President Donald Trump both touted the government's readiness and urged people to get out of the way. "Don't play games with it. It's a big one," he said at the White House.
Omowale will lead Andela Nigeria ensuring that the organisation continue to advance its objectives of developing Africas future technology leaders.
Everything Ive done before now feels like a preparation for this role, says Omowale, and Im excited to join this wonderful team of highly motivated individuals who are investing their skills and effort into advancing opportunity and potential in Nigeria and the continent at large.
We're in great hands, excited Seni Sulyman, Andelas Vice President of Global Operations and previous Country Director, Nigeria, said.
Excited to hand over leadership of Andela Nigeria to Omowale, a formidable leader who will take us to the next level. One of the most fulfilling aspects of leadership is having a Successor who is more qualified and capable than you."
Omowale David-Ashiru's experience and background
Prior Andela, she worked at Accenture, where she grew to become a seasoned Management Consultant and Certified Project Manager.
She later transitioned into entrepreneurship, launching a fashion retail company, which she managed for eight years. Her experience managing complex projects for global technology and financial services companies, combined with her entrepreneurial mindset, makes Omowale the right leader for Andela Nigeria.
Omowale obtained a First Class B.Sc. in Economics from the University of Ibadan in 1998.
Osinbajo according to Punch said this at a conference tagged: Harnessing Demographic Dividend for Sustainable Development in Nigeria: The Role of Religious Leaders, by the United Nations Population Fund in Abuja.
The VP also said that the President Muhammadu Buhari's adinistration had introduced various intervention programmes to empower women and youths in order to reduce unemployment and poverty, Punch reports.
Highlighting the intervention programs of the present administration, Osinbajo said about 400,000 Nigerians were currently benefiting from the Conditional Cash Transfer Scheme adding that no fewer than 9.2 million children were being fed daily under the FG's school feeding programme.
Moreover, the VP added that it is now the duty of heads of families to prioritise the education and health of their dependents.
This government is committed and determined to take the country out of the current challenges, therefore, religious leaders must play their roles because no real progress will take place without their involvement.
They have a strong voice and they have a responsibility to hold government accountable to ensure resources go round and meet the needs of the people''.
The West African Examinations Council, WAEC has warned candidates writing the November/December edition of its exams to beware of fraudsters who share questions on social media platforms to deceive them.
The Head of Public Affairs, WAEC, Mr Demianus Ojijeogu cautioned the candidates in a statement released in Abuja on Thursday, September 13, 2018.
Ojijeogwu said the fraudsters are posting WAEC past questions on social media and claiming that they are the papers to be written by candidates.
WAEC also shared the message on its Twitter handle asking the candidates to ignore the purported questions.
The statement reads:
The attention of WAEC has been drawn to the activities of fraudsters that are capable of jeopardising the performance of gullible candidates in the ongoing WASSCE for Private Candidates, 2018-Second Series in Nigeria.
The council has observed with dismay that past questions are being posted via WhatsApp and criminal websites by fraudulent individuals, which they claim are that of yet to be written papers.
For instance, the question paper for Principles of Cost Accounting that was written in Sierra Leone and Gambia on Thursday (today) are being circulated by these criminally-minded elements
The paper is circulated for candidates in Nigeria as Financial Accounting, slated for tomorrow (Friday).
The guild's leadership and some veteran actors were able to secure the sum after a visit to the Senate President, Abubakar Bukola Saraki.
In a statement by the guild, the Senate President made the donation on Wednesday, September 12, 2018.
During the guild's visit to Saraki, Rollas had briefed the Senate President about the necessity of setting up of the AGN foundation with the sole mandate of generating a Five Hundred Million Naira endowment (N500m) fund for ailing actors.
Rollas also said the AGN intends to use the foundation to give back to the fans and community at large by engaging in community development project.
Rollas said: Veterans who have contributed to the development of the industry most times do not have anything to fall back on after so long number of years of service.
ALSO READ: AGN responds to Ernest Asuzu's claim that they abandoned him
"Some move on to other businesses or sectors while some faces varnish with time.
"In the recent past the guild have lost prominent veteran actors to serious illnesses due to certain medical conditions which could have been averted if there was a medium or platform set aside to harness the strength of the association to fund medical treatment of our own or a source for funding from philanthropist or Nigerians to help rescue their legends."
Emeka Rollas calls for a united AGN
On Tuesday, August 21, 2017, a Peace and Reconciliation Conference was held to end the existing enmity between Ibinabo Fiberesima and Emeka Ike.
An open election was also conducted, electing Emeka Rollas as the new National Actor Guilds of Nigeria President after he polled 42 votes against Emeka Ike's 12.
Adesiyan made this known in an Instagram post on Thursday, September 13, 2018.
ALSO READ: Funke Adesiyan to Contest in 2015 Election
In her Instagram post, the actress stressed that she has an unflinching desire to serve the people of Oyo State and will not retreat or surrender until women and youths have desired representation.
Funke's eyes have been on theIbadan South-East constituency seat at the Oyo state House of Assembly.
Read her words here
"By the grace of God and the support of my people, I have picked the Expression of Interest form to contest The State House of Assembly in the forthcoming 2019 election under the platform of our Great Party APC.
Mine is an unflinching desire to serve my people. We shall not retreat nor surrender till our women and youths have desired representation.
Saraki made the remarks on Wednesday, September 12, 2018 during a courtesy visit by the leadership of the Actors Guild of Nigeria and top movie practitioners.
"This is a decent industry...it's my belief that if duly supported Nollywood will not only be number one in the world but will create job opportunities, increase the country's GDP and reduce poverty," Saraki said.
Saraki praised Nollywood stars while telling actors that included Segun Arinze, Zik Zulu Okafor, Binta Ayo Mogaji, Ebele Okaro and Chiwetalu Agu that the thespians have shown great capacity in nation building.
ALSO READ: AGN gets N5 million to support ailing members
Saraki wants to change how actors are viewed
Saraki said he would like to change the way movie practitioners are viewed in Nigeria saying the industry will create jobs if supported.
He said, Let me thank the president for bringing us together. You have made a lot of us very proud. You have worked hard to support our government. You have shown truly that we have great capacity.
"Anywhere else in the world being surrounded by the stars I am seeing here, any politician would not let the opportunity slip away. Because we dont recognize your talent and the kind of people we have, I would like to change that not because of you but because the country needs it.
" The economy will not grow by chance. But, it's my belief that if duly supported Nollywood will not only be number one in the world but will create job opportunities, increase the country's GDP and reduce poverty, among several other advantages. Hollywood is great today because the American government supported and funded the industry. Same can be possible for Nollywood."
Movie practitioners in Nigeria have enjoyed so much patronage from politicians in the last eight years.
The practitioners formed part of the team that promoted and campaigned for ex-President Goodluck Jonathan during his second term bid.
Olajide, 38, whose address was not provided, is facing a two-count charge of fraud and impersonation.
The Police Prosecutor, Sgrt Adegeshin Famuyiwa, told the court that the accused committed the offences on April 30 at No 1 Agunbiade close, Oke-Ota, Ikorodu.
Famuyiwa said the accused fraudulently obtained the money from the complainants on the pertence that he would register them for the 2018 General Certificate of Examination (GCE), a representation he knew was false.
The accused fraudulently collected N30,000 each from Olukoya Adekunle, Olayiwa Itunu, Adeola, Ogunleye and N20,000 from Adeshina Kaosarat without registering them for GCE, said.
According to the prosecutor, the offences contravened Sections 314 (1),(3) and 78(b) of Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2015.
The accused, however, pleaded not guilty to the charges.
According to reports, she experiences the strange bleeding at least three times a day.
The Linda Ikeji's Blog (LIB) confirms that the youngster who was not named has been taken to the Quy Hoa National Leprosy Dermatology Hospital for treatment.
It is believed that she has a condition identified as hematidrosis.
"It is characterised by blood oozing from skin. The bleeding is due to the rupture of the very small blood vessels of the skin.
"The cause of hematidrosis is not well known, but factors include increased vascular pressure, inflammation of the vessels of the skin, bleeding disorders, menstruation and high blood pressure.
"Fear and intense emotional stress could also play a role in the cause of the disease, and symptoms may occur spontaneously or after emotional stress.
"Treatment is a challenge. We may use vitamin C, antidepressants and propranolol but results are undefined.
"Hematidrosis does not affect lifespan but can cause discomfort and fear. It can also cause stigma in social situations and so reduce quality of life," says Vu Tuan Anh, the hospital director at the Quy Hoa National Leprosy Dermatology Hospital.
According to the complainant, her experiences with the clergyman since bearing her first child for him has been quite sour.
Deborah alleged that her husband married her using a false prophecy. This was gathered in a report by Punch News.
My lord, he promised to assist me but later told me that God said both of us should become one through marriage.
I believed the prophesy because I thought it was truly Gods voice and we got married after a few weeks.
Again, he prophesied that my mother should resign from her place of work and relocate to our matrimonial apartment.
He said God would kill her if she didnt obey the purported Gods voice and my mother yielded to the prophecy because she too believed him as a man of God.
He began showing his true colour immediately I got pregnant, maltreating me, became less concerned about my well-being and brutalised me.
I passed through hell during the pregnancy of the only child of the marriage.
His parents too nagged and beat me, and even extended the hatred to my mother by treating her as a slave.
The worse he did was that I caught him sleeping with his blood sister and threatened to deal with me if I expose him.
I couldnt believe my eyes until I read text message conversations between him and his sister on his cell phone which confirmed what I saw.
My relationship with him in the last one and half years was not friendly and his ways of life didnt prove him to be a man of God.
I pray the court to separate us because I cant cope anymore with the marriage because of his devilish ways of life, Deborah Olusola told the court.
At the Idi-Ogungun Customary Court, the defendant had no problem with his wife's request for divorce.
Son of a Tutu
However, a Nigerian cross dresser (or more popularly, a drag queen), born Olajide Salami in East London, England, the only boy and first child of Nigerian parents, from Lagos, Nigeria wants to perform at gay pride in Nigeria.
According to his September 9, 2018 interview with BBC Africa, her Dad was Muslim till he passed in 2017 and his Mum is what he calls, an ultra-fundamentalist Christian.
He was born in the late 60s according to his column for Qx Magazine. He lived in Nigeria from the mid 70s from age 8 to the end of the 80s when he was 21 and grew up idolising David Bowie, Dick Emery, Danny LaRue and Boy George.
In the early 90s, moved to America after completing his NYSC, before settling back in London in 2003. He provided for his family by working in American Finance.
In 2011, he won the drag idol. His alter ego is called Tutu whose character is that of a middle-aged Nigerian woman that draws energy from the sun.
Tutu considers herself a woman a good Christian woman who likes knocking on Jehovahs Witness doors to scare the bejesus out of them.
ALSO READ: How new Nigerian media is supporting the movement
Who is a drag queen or cross dresser?
A man who dresses like a woman. Usually, those attributes also means a man who acts and conducts himself in ways that hide his original gender.
A popular drag queen in Nigeria is internet sensation, .
Salami is a key figure in the multicultural London drag scene.
Her early beginnings
She told The BBC that she started dragging at the 7 or 8 after waiting for her parents to go to work before raiding her mothers closet it made his mates laugh.
When her father found out that she was dragging, he tried to beat her so she wouldnt become one of those, but she was saved by an aunt.
She didnt understand it then, but she states that you cannot beat dragging out of anybody.
Despite making decent living, working on a six-figure salary, living in one of the best buildings in New York, she claimed she hated her life the infamy of 9/11 offered her an out.
She was meant to be at the Twin Towers that day. Knowing that she hadnt lived, she gave up her job and moved to London.
Her opinion on Nigerias anti-LGBTQ+ attitude
In her September 9, 2018 interview with The BBC, she thinks being a Nigerian drag queen is unique because there arent much like her.
She however acknowledges that, it also can be fraught with danger because some Nigerians still feel that being gay or a drag queen is alien to their culture.
She continues, (They feel) that its something some of their children have picked up from their proximity to western culture its a lie! We are as gay as any other country.
In January 2014, reacting to Nigerias prohibition of same-sex association, Tutu told Qx Magazine that, firstly, I feel a deep sadness as it is horrific yet significant leap forward for hate.
She continues, We could be on the cusp of a Salem-type-witch-hunts of LGBTI people and second, (I feel) an overwhelming sense of helplessness. Now I have the fire in my belly and want to do all I can to help.
She also feels that Nigerias anti-LGBTQ attitude is a result of finding a way to tolerate tribal proliferation and each other, but finding a common ground to channel the hate toward.
ALSO READ: Nigerian Police only arrest gay men on the mainland
On her familys attitude
She says, they have learned to deal with it since he can live without family, but not without himself.
Despite being the first child and only boy, which means responsibility in Nigeria, she feels it is patriarchal and only wants to be a drag queen.
Photo: The Canadian Press
President Donald Trump is rejecting the widely accepted death toll in Puerto Rico from Hurricane Maria, claiming without citing evidence that "3,000 people did not die." Trump called the count a move by Democrats to make him look bad.
Trump tweeted Thursday as Hurricane Florence bears down on the Carolinas. He said: "When I left the Island, AFTER the storm had hit, they had anywhere from 6 to 18 deaths. As time went by it did not go up by much. Then, a long time later, they started to report really large numbers, like 3000..."
Puerto Rico's governor raised the U.S. territory's official death toll from Hurricane Maria from 64 to 2,975 after an independent study found the number of people who succumbed in the aftermath had been severely undercounted.
The red carpet kicked off by 2pm despite the pouring rain and our red carpet hosts were Moses Akerele of MTV Shuga and Awoniyi Aadedolapo, Style blogger and fashion retailer. The gala show featured two shows afternoon and evening catwalk shows featuring over 24 designers. The hosts for the day were Ebonylife TVs Tomike Alayande and Bright Okere.
True to NSFDW culture, the most creative designers are selected by a panel of judges, this year panel of judges were Chidera Muoka (Editor-in-Chief, Guardian Life), Akin Faminu (Mens Style Blogger/Fashion Influencer), Diipo Ayo Adeusi (Style Consultant), Sharon Ojong (Creative Director). Jane Michael Ekanem (Fashion Entrepreneur/Stylist), Adebayo Oke Lawal (Creative Director, Orange Culture) and Maryanne Alabi (International Fashion Consultant/Stylist) who were present at both shows.This year, the most creative designer whose designs were outstanding and captivated the audience went to Agwemel Collection by Elizabeth Agwe. Elizabeth will showcase her exquisite pieces at African Fashion Week Houston in October. The Menswear designer of the year was awarded to FAMS Nigeria who stayed true to this years theme, Fashion and The Millennial. He received a brand new computerised sewing machine from our brand partner Zinsu technology and will also be showcasing at AFWH in October.
Womenswear Designer of the year was awarded to Modhan, who used crotchet for all her beautiful designs. She also went home with a brand new computerised sewing machine and will be showcasing at The Glitz Africa Fashion Week in Ghana and will also enjoy a one week advance fashion training with our partner Joyce Ababio College of Fashion in Ghana. The best fashion school of the year was awarded to Makadel Fashion School. The school will go on to showcase later this year in Swahili at the Swahili Fashion Week in Kenya.
Maki Oh posted the invite to her show called 'Buka Special' which was inspired by the many buka restaurants that are dotted throughout Lagos, offering our favourite local delicacies. Perhaps it as a foreshadowing of Maki intending to give us all of our faves in one collection. According to Vogue magazine, Osakwe drew inspiration from, 'hand-packaged street food for the knotting and wrapping techniques that cinched traditional caftans in the most flattering places.'
Maki didn't stray far from her hand-dyed adire prints which have now become somewhat of a signature yet brought a playful and sensual flair to the age old fabric.
Vogue magazine were in attendance and waxed lyrical about Maki Oh's return to form. Writing about the show, Chioma Nnadi wrote:
There are more foodies working in fashion than youd think. Maki Oh designer Amaka Osakwe is one of them. The inspiration for her latest collection came from hanging out at hole-in-the-wall joints known as bukas in Lagos, Nigeria, Osakwes hometown. Theyre usually run by women. And there is a funny saying that the women who are sweating the most make the best food! she said cackling.
Osakwe often uses her collections to reexamine the notion of sensuality and the nuances of the female formvulnerable and strong. She drew inspiration from hand-packaged street food for the knotting and wrapping techniques that cinched traditional caftans in the most flattering places. There was a welcome sense of lightness injected to the clothing, and tank dresses were trimmed with transparent mesh. Her tees were also spliced with mesh panels and featured graphics that were quite literally swiped from the menu. Those prices were on a chalkboard yesterday, she said.
See the countries where Nigerian Languages can actually come in handy.
Due to many reasons trans-atlantic slave trade, cattle grazing, immigration small communities have grown in other countries where some Nigerian languages are actually spoken.
Ghana- Hausa
The Hausa are the largest ethnic group in West Africa with native speakers higher than any other language in sub-Saharan Africa, estimated at 22 million. They are originally from Hausaland in Nigeria, straddling the border between Nigeria and Niger. The Hausa people are nomadic in nature and began settling in the Northeastern part of Ghana over 500 years ago. However, due to trade expansions in the 18th century and the Fulani holy wars in the 19th century, the rate of immigration increased.
Soon enough, a Hausa community began in Ghana. The Hausa of Ghana are virtually all Muslim so the mannerisms and cultures of Islam is common in their community. Their presence in the Northeastern part of Ghana (and northern Cameroon) is emphasised by the radio broadcasts in Hausa to cater to the Hausa speakers. If you have a knowledge of Hausa and find yourself in that area, it will help to make the locals warm up to you. Here's all you need to know about a trip from Nigeria to Ghana.
Equatorial Guinea- Igbo
The Igbo people are one of the largest ethnic groups in Africa as native speakers are estimated at 24 million. In Equatorial Guinea, Igbo is recognised as a minority tribe with about 53,000 speakers. In Cameroon however, there are an estimated 105,000 Igbo speakers in the country.
The Igbo "Red Eboe" people were also a huge part of the formation of Jamaica and its language due the large influx of Igbo Slaves during the slave trade. Hence, you are very likely to find the Red Igbos of Jamaica. Since most of Equatorial Guinea speak Spanish, maybe a knowledge of Igbo will help you navigate the country.
Republic of Benin and Togo- Yoruba
Though one of the most widespread languages, it has 20 million estimated speakers across Africa, according to Buzz Nigeria. Outside Nigeria, you can find large yoruba-speaking communities in Togo and Benin Republic. Smaller communities can be found in Sierra Leone, Liberia and other African countries.
According to a report by Sahara Reporters, Ilyasu climbed a mast with the approval number AB0099 belonging to Airtel Nigeria, located a few metres away from the Presidential Villa on Wednesday, September 12, 2018.
Before he climbed the mast, he had distributed a flyer to explain his grievances, saying that he was ready to sacrifice his life for the country to get better.
"I am on hunger strike to protest and register my grievances on the condition of the country; I will remain here for the next seven days and I do not mind if I die here.
"If my dying on this mast will change the economy of this country, then I choose to die for others to live a good life," he said on Wednesday.
Despite the efforts of security officials to get him down the mast, Ilyasu vowed not to descend until President Buhari resigned from the office and dropped his second term ambition.
However, 24 hours after he climbed the mast, Ilyasu descended from it at 11:25am on Thursday, September 13, after he reached an agreement with security officials to allow him talk to the media.
Buhari does not deserve 2nd term - Ilyasu
Ilyasu said he embarked on the protest to fight against presidential impunity and the willingness of Nigerians to accept President Buhari's misrule.
He said Buhari does not deserve another four years in office and should easily be replaced by one of his oponents in the 2019 presidential election.
He said, "My name is Nura Ilyasu. I am 28 years old. What I did is within the purview of the law. My human right is to protest peacefully and I never threatened my life or any other person
"What we are going through in this country is not from God. Some microscopic-view individuals hijacked all that God endowed Nigeria with for decent life, and we can't continue like this.
"I climbed up for seven days hunger strike to protest the incompetence and cluelessness, to protest presidential impunity and general docility displayed by the masses. We can't continue like this.
"Other competent candidates are there; even Saraki, Atiku, Kwankwaso, Tambuwal, Dankwambo and others. At least one of these (men) will make a good President.
"I don't believe General Buhari deserves another four-year term in Nigeria because the pervasive hunger and poverty in Nigeria is inexplicable."
The president, at the inauguration, said the projects were aimed at checking flooding and gully menace at Akpene Eket and its environs.
Mr Okechukwu Enelamah, Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, represented the president at the occasion.
Buhari noted that the projects were parts of the 26 Federal Government ecological intervention projects for the second quarter as approved on 10th April, 2017.
He expressed optimism that the projects would bring huge relief to the communities threatened by ecological challenges.
The four projects are located at Etim Inyang Etuk Street, Marina Street, Afiigh Iwaad Street and Parkins street in the community.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), reports that the projects were executed by the Federal Government through the Ecological Fund Office (EFO) in the office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation.
Buhari restated the commitment of his administration in ensuring that no part of the country would suffer any neglect owing to its geographical location or political consideration.
The age-long problem of gully erosion in this part of the country cannot be overemphasised.
I therefore implore the communities to cherish these laudable projects by preventing indiscriminate dumping of refuse in the drainage, he said.
The State Commissioner for Environment, Dr Iniobong Essien, commended the Federal Government for the projects.
He said that the projects were in line with the dreams of Gov. Udom Emmanuel of Akwa Ibom to tackle menace of erosion in the state.
He added that the state had yearned for the presence of the Federal Government in terms of projects.
The commissioner disclosed that the state was going through erosion and ecological challenges in all its 31 local government areas, documenting over 1,000 erosion and ecological sites across the states.
We have prioritised them in other of importance, impact and severity of the ecological sites, he said.
He advised the communities not to use the completed projects as dumping sites, reminding them that ;ots of infrastructure have gone bad because of lack of poor maintenance culture.
My sincere hope is that in the execution of these projects, a special mention should be made about the maintenance and founds allocated for the purpose while somebody should follow the time line for such maintenance, he said.
He appealed to the Federal Government to involve the state in the implementation, planning and execution of such projects.
Dr Habiba Lawal, Permanent Secretary Ecological Fund Office, said the projects were awarded by Ecological Fund Office Tender Board (EFOTB), 2017 and completed in seven months.
These projects were initiated through a request for an urgent intervention from the community forwarded to (EFOTB) to arrest the continuous flooding and erosion menace in Akpene Eket town, she said.
Lawal said the timely completion of the projects was made possible through the efforts of the project contractor and consultant, who worked tirelessly to meet completion deadline.
Chief Inin Ekanem, the Village Head of Akpene Eket thanked the Federal Government for the projects.
The coalition had noted that the gesture from the Consolidation Ambassador Network (NCAN) had particularly violated Section 91(9) of the Act.
But, Malam Gidado Ibrahim, BCOs Director of Communications and Strategy, said in a statement in Abuja that the criticism was laughable.
According to him, the president has not contravened any provisions of the Electoral Act.
The statement issued on behalf of APC presidential aspirants by Dr SKC Ogbonnia, Chief Charles Udeogaranya and Alhaji Mumakai Unagha, criticising the president for accepting the forms bought for him was mischievous and miscalculated, he said.
Ibrahim, therefore, urged Nigerians to ignore the outburst by the APC aspirants, describing it as the ranting of anti-democratic elements in the countrys political space.
The Buhari Campaign Organisation wishes to ask Nigerians, and indeed, the teeming supporters of Buhari not to be distracted by the purported group of the APC presidential aspirants.
The President Buhari we know and who Nigerians know further and better is highly law-abiding and always wishes to act in accordance with all provisions of the extant laws of the country.
Buhari is not known to be going zigzag or cutting corners in any matter. Rather, he is highly straightforward and upright in his private or official conduct.
Section 91 (9) of the Electoral Act 2010 (as amended) relied by the aggrieved persons states that an individual or other entity shall not donate more than N1 million to any candidate.
It is imperative to note that the APC has yet to select its presidential candidate for the 2019 presidential election; Buhari is still an aspirant.
He was, however, offered presidential nomination form and not any cash worth over N1 million, Ibrahim said.
On the call for the countrys restructuring, Ibrahim urged Nigerians not to be gullible, adding that advocates of restructuring had ulterior motive not in tandem with national interest.
He said those advocating for the restructuring were mostly politicians who had the opportunity to improve the fortunes of the country but decided to squander it instead.
President Buhari is already restructuring by halting unnecessary stealing of the nations patrimony, preparing to re-issue oil blocs to capable developers, especially to people from that region suffering from environmental degradation.
The president is irked by the wide gap between the rich and the poor and he is determined to narrow that gap at all cost, Ibrahim said.
He assured Nigerians that Buhari would ensure that the right things were done irrespective of their consequences to his aspiration.
Ibrahim said that the president had vowed to conduct the 2019 general elections in line with the rule of law.
According to him, the mounting suspicious against the presidents readiness to ensure a free, fair and credible election should be extinguished.
It is noteworthy that Buhari is going into the 2019 elections as an incumbent enjoying the support of a lot more governors, senators, House of Representatives members, House of Assembly members and local government chairmen.
Equally, the odds are no more stacked up against the president as he will see to true free and fair elections as witnessed in elections conducted in the last three years.
Abiri, publisher of the Weekly Source, a newspaper based in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, was arrested in 2016 for allegedly being the leader of the joint revolutionary council of the Joint Niger Delta Liberation Force, a separatist group and was alleged to have planned to bomb oil installations.
He was detained by the DSS for two years, and a recent public outcry eventually forced the agency to arraign him at a Magistrates' Court in Abuja.
In a fundamental suit filed against the Federal Government, Abiri argued that the detention violated his rights.
While ruling on the application on Thursday, September 13, 2018, Justice Nnamdi Dimgba said the Federal Government had no right to detain Abiri after taking his statement two years ago.
"Having taken his statement, the applicant should have been arraigned," he said.
He said Abiri should have been promptly arraigned two years ago and dismissed the government's submission that the journalist was held as a matter of national security, and declared that his detention was illegal and an abuse of his fundamental rights.
The Commissioner of police in the state, Mr Mohammed Danmallam, said this in Enugu on Thursday during the meeting he held with the 17 local government chairmen in the state.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the commissioner made the plea against the backdrop of the Sept. 14 sit-at-home order across the South-East states by IPOB.
NAN gathered that IPOB had earlier written to various unions and associations in the state, including council areas, to shut down businesses and other activities.
The group has also posted notice of the sit-at-home order in strategic locations across the state.
Danmallam said, the command is appealing that you use your good offices to help encourage residents of your areas to come out as usual to do their various businesses without fear of intimidation or molestation and not to succumb to any threat of sit at home by any faceless group.
The peace and security in the state cannot be compromised, as nobody or group of persons whether known or faceless, will be allowed to threaten the existing peace and security.
However, the command and other sister security agencies are on the trail of those in this habit of putting fear and panic in the minds of law abiding citizens with a view to arresting and bringing them to book.
He commended the local government chairmen for maintaining peace and security in their respective domains and solicited their cooperation, before and after the controversial order.
I will seek your further co-operation to ensure that business activities as well as other activities take place before, during and after Sept. 14 in your domain.
The command is assuring you that security operatives are already on ground to ensure that members of the public go about their normal lawful businesses.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the budget was passed at plenary on Thursday by a unanimous decision of the 14 members who were in attendance.
Speaking with newsmen after the sitting, the Chairman of the House Committee on Information , Dr Samuel Omotosho, said the budget was to capture unforeseen expenses of government.
He said the bill went through first and second readings as well as committee review before its passage.
Omotosho denied speculations that the budget was to defraud the state, alleging that the governor-elect, Dr Kayode Fayemi, also did the same a month before he left office during his first term.
But the All Progressives Congress (APC) caucus in the assembly has rejected the passage of the supplementary budget.
The APC lawmakers led by the Minority Leader, Gboyega Aribisogan, described the action as a ploy by the governor to legitimise fraud.
The APC lawmakers and some members are not in support of the bill because it has been discovered that the outgoing governor wanted to use the House to legitimise fraud.
The proposed Appropriation Bill is the handiwork of Gov. Fayose and his cronies to cover up massive fraud in some Ministries, Department and Agencies (MDAs).
The Appropriation Bill is not meant to improve the lives of our people in the state but to cover up some unapproved spending of the governor.
Inaku gave the update on flood situation in the state on Thursday in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Calabar.
Inaku, who said that the flood had seriously affected the victims, also told NAN that most of them had since relocated to upper lands for safety.
He, however, said that no life had been lost in the menace,but disclosed that the flood started in the state in July.
According to him, most of the victims are living along the water channels while others in swampy areas.
He said that the agency had embarked on aggressive campaign, to sensitise residents in the state on the need to stop dumping refuse on drainage and building along water channels.
He explained that the flood had affected residents in Boki, Ogoja, Yala, Calabar Municipality, Calabar South and other local government areas in the state.
Cross River has always been affected by flood during the raining season. Currently, we have over 175 houses destroyed and as a result, over 3,000 persons have been displaced.
This menace has greatly affected farming activities, especially in Boki, Yala and a few others areas.
We are looking at NEMA and other corporate organisations to come in and assist the victims, he said.
He listed the flooded areas in Calabar to include, Muritala Mohammed Highway, Ebito, Murray, Target and Nelson Mandela, Atu, Yellow Duke, Parliamentary, Efiote roundabout and Mayne Avenue streets.
Photo: CTV Ibrahim Ali
More details have emerged about the man accused of murdering a teenage girl in Burnaby.
The death of 13-year-old Marissa Shen shocked the community in July 2017.
Police found her dead in a park just 90 minutes after her mother reported her missing.
Ibrahim Ali, 28, has been charged with first-degree murder.
CTV reports Ali arrived in Canada with relatives in early 2017 as a Syrian refugee. He was sponsored by the St. Andrews-Wesley United Church in Vancouver.
A church spokesperson said their hearts go out to the Shen family.
Our prayers also to the Ali family. We know that like many refugee families, they have endured their own suffering and loss, and that this tragedy is made all the more complex by the trials they have faced.
Ali was a permanent resident, had a job and no previous criminal record. A friend described him as a calm, respectful and normal guy.
Family of Ali live close by the restaurant where Shen was last seen.
Police released a video showing the teen going into a Tim Hortons on McKay Avenue six hours before her body was found.
Investigators believe Shens death was a random act.
- with files from CTV Vancouver.
Alhaji Ibrahim Inga, Director General of the state Emergency Management Agency (NSEMA) disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Minna on Wednesday.
He said the communities located around Zungeru Hydro Power Station were submerged following the release of water from Shiroro dam.
Inga said that farmlands and houses were also affected, adding that the displaced persons have been evacuated to Central Primary School Zungeru.
This water is flowing from Shiroro hydroelectric power station as a result of the spillage ongoing into the villages.
We have communicated to the management of Shiroro hydroelectric Power Station to reduce the level of their spilling to enable the people return to their homes, he said.
He said that the agency was taking inventory of the affected persons to ensure that they were free from diseases.
Sen. Ita Enang, the Senior Special Assistant (SSA) to the President on National Assembly Matters (Senate) gave the assurance in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja.
Enang spoke in response to alleged lack of commitment by the Federal Government to an upward review of the minimum wage, which has been N18, 000 for over eight years.
I want to assure you that the Buhari-led administration is very honest and committed to reviewing the salaries of workers.
If he was not, he would not have set up a committee on minimum wage headed by a retired Head of the Civil Service of the Federation. This is a sign of commitment, the Minister of Labour is part of it.
So, it shows the level of commitment, and it is not a committee of the Federal Executive Council, it is a presidential committee set up and inaugurated by the president.
The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) through its President, Mr Ayuba Wabba, had on Monday accused the Federal Government of frustrating the implementation of the new minimum wage.
Wabba stated that the congress had summoned a meeting of its organs next week to decide on the next line of action.
Enang, however, urged NLC to consider unemployed Nigerians in its demand for salary increment.
The workers and labour should include all those who are qualified to be employed but are not yet employed.
So, when we are talking about increase in the salaries of workers, let us also make allowance for new people to be employed.
That is; thinking about those you and I have trained who have graduated, who out of frustration sometimes act and behave in a manner which they ought not to, and sometimes take to social media to harass the government and you.
Sometimes, they even revolt against you in the house because they do not have what to do.
So, when we are talking about increase in salaries, I agree to it, but I think we should also factor along creating employment for those who are yet to have.
The presidential aide said the Federal Government was already working towards achieving that by encouraging its agencies and parastatals to employ young and qualified Nigerians.
Enang stated that the government was also creating self-employment opportunities for enterprising youths through its social investment programme.
He said the government was equally creating the enabling environment in the agricultural and technological sectors for young Nigerians.
NAN reports that the tripartite National Minimum Wage Committee, made up of 29 members drawn from organised labour and the federal and state governments, was inaugurated in May, 2017.
Although the committee was given till Sept. 1 to submit its report, it could not meet the deadline due to disagreement over the minimum wage figure.
On Aug. 21, The Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr Chris Ngige, however, blamed the delay on the inability of state governors to agree on a figure.
According to the minister, the Federal Government through its Economic Management Team, is working with the governors to find a common ground
Masari made the pledge in Abuja on Thursday while answering questions from State House correspondents after a closed-door meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa.
According to him, the people of Katsina are 100 per cent behind the president and they will continue to support him even after the elections of 2019.
We expect based on figures coming out of the registered voters to give him nothing less than 70 to 80 per cent.
We dont have the figures now because they have completed additional registration, we are not talking about the last exercise that led to the election of 2015 and in 2015 he got almost 1.5 million votes from Katsina state.
So we expect by 2019 we will be able to give him additional one million making it not less than 2.5 million votes.
On the proposed Electoral Offence Commission, the governor stated that the Commission when operational would help to sanitise and make the elections more credible.
Masari, who also spoke on whether states should adopt direct or indirect primaries, said there was nothing contentious about the matter as the constitution of the governing All Progressives Congress (APC) was very clear about it.
He stated that already the issue had been settled as three states out of the 36 states had opted for the direct primaries.
He said: It is not a hot cake. First of all, let me say from all the states that we have read and heard, Lagos, Kano and Niger are the only states that have opted for direct primaries in a country of 36 states plus FCT.
I think it shouldnt be contentious issue. In fact the constitution of the party is very clear, there is nothing contentious in this.
The constitution of the party recognises direct, consensus and indirect primaries,
It has been rumoured that Sanwo-Olu is the preferred candidate of the powers that be in Lagosand that he is only months away from being crowned Governor of Lagos.
Here are 7 things you should know about Sanwo-Olu:
1. Babajide Sanwo-Olu is 53 years of age.
2. Sanwo-Olu was a renown banker before politics and a life in public office came calling.
Between 1994 and 1997, he served as Treasurer at former Lead Merchant Bank Plc.
Sanwo-Olu was also Head, Foreign Money market and Deputy General Manager at United Bank for Africa (UBA).
Sanwo-Olu was also Deputy General Manager, Divisional Head, at First Inland Bank, Plc (now First City Monument Bank).
3. Sanwo-Olu was Chairman of Baywatch Group Limited a multifaceted company with interests in construction, property development and human capital development; First Class Group Limited, a cooling, power and maintenance solutions provider, among others.
4. Sanwo-Olu is a graduate of the University of Lagos. He holds a B.Sc and an MBA in Surveying from the University of Lagos.
Sanwo-Olu attended the Kennedy School of Government, USA; the London Business School as well as the Lagos Business School (LBS).
5. In 2003, then Deputy Governor, Femi Pedro appointed Sanwo-olu his Special Adviser on Corporate Matters.
Sanwo-Olu would later become acting
In 2007, as the Tinubu era wound to a close, Sanwo-Olu was appointed Commissioner for Commerce and Industry.
Between 2007 and 2015, Sanwo-Olu served as Babatunde Fasholas Commissioner for Establishments, Training and Pensions.
6. Sanwo-Olu is an Associate member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel Management (CIPM) and fellow of the Nigeria Institute of Training and Development (NITAD).
He has won several awards, which include the symbol of excellence award from the Civic Enlightenment Association of Nigeria, a gold mentor award from the National Association of Nigeria Nurses & Midwives (NANNM), a platinum award from the Lagos State Public Service Club and the 2009 best in human capital development award from the Industrial Training Fund (ITF).
Such is the groundswell of opposition against him at the moment.
And much of that opposition is coming from within his own party, the APC. All of Ambodes current travails are self-inflicted.
Not even can save him right now, one source said of Ambodes September to forget.
Like everyone already knows, Ambode has fallen out with Tinubu who stuck out a neck for him to get his first term. Tinubu isnt pleased that Ambode went about the task of dismantling and rolling back a few contracts once he took over the reins in 2015, the grapevine says.
The Lagos Waste Managing Authority (LAWMA) and PSP operators were also shown the door by Ambode in preference for Visionscapea so called smart waste company that has only compounded the waste problem in an over-populated city.
Tinubu is also not pleased that Ambode isnt following the Lagos masterplan that was put together by Tinubu and his eggheads between 1999 and 2007.
But beyond Tinubu, the 57 local councils in Lagos have all but rejected Ambode. And because council chairmen wield enormous grassroot influence and answer to Tinubu who controls the patronage network in Lagos, camp Ambode has been understandably jittery.
Not only is Jide Sanwo-Olu the anointed candidate of godfather Tinubu, the council chairmen have been mandated to deliver him for the APC during the primaries and during next years general elections. It is little wonder that these chairmen purchased the N22.5million nomination form for Sanwo-Olu and declared to the media that Ambodes reign is over.
During one late night peace meeting convened by the Oba of Lagos to save Ambode and ensure he gets the second term ticket, the powerful council chairmen told the traditional ruler off and rudely asked him to mind his business.
Beyond biting the hand that fed him, Ambode hasnt really posted a stellar performance as governor, given the states enormous resources, humongous internally generated revenue and sizeable allocation from the center.
Lagos currently boasts some of the worst road surfaces in the country, there is so much fanfare about big projects that are never completed, articulated trucks have been parked on major roads for a year with the governor looking so powerless in the face of all the gridlock, clogged drainage channels have remained that way to compound the citys flood problems, inner city roads have virtually collapsed, Lagos is back to being filthy and smelly, there is little innovation from Alausa to solve the citys perennial traffic woes, bedlam and chaos; and area boys (otherwise called street urchins) have been having a field day extorting commercial motorists with not a soul to challenge them.
The lawlessness in Lagos, which was on the verge of extinction during the Babatunde Fashola era, has all but returned.
But maybe Ambode needs more time to sort out the citys many challenges. Maybe Tinubu should really stop choosing his successors and let the electorate and party delegates decide for themselves for once. Maybe Tinubus overbearing influence in Lagos helps no governor and leaves them confused. But Ambode hasnt helped his own cause with his below par performance either.
The groundswell of public opinion tilts toward his replacement because he has impressed only but a few. When Fashola fell out with Tinubu and was almost denied a second term by Bourdillon, the people stood by him because he was performing. At the time, Tinubu knew better than to mess with the peoples choice. Ambode is neither pleasing his godfather nor getting the people behind himall of which leaves him in a precarious position.
Lagos is a special state thanks to its sheer population and premier economic status. It deserves a governor who isn't as tone deaf as Ambode, who thinks on his feet, who is innovative and who fixes problems as they arise. Ambode goes to sleep until the problems become mountains he can no longer fix.
Should he brave the odds, ride the storm from Bourdillon and somehow manages to nick the second term ticket on the APC platform, Ambode should spend the first few weeks of his new term assembling a better team and promising himself not to be as disastrous and ineffectual as hes been in his first term.
Reports had emerged on Wednesday, September 12, 2018, that the Speaker had picked up the nomination form of the PDP to contest re-election in the 2019 general elections. The report raised eyebrows as the Speaker is yet to officially withdraw his membership of the APC.
His rumoured defection follows the recent wave of defections that hit the APC and saw three state governors and dozens of lawmakers, including Senate President, Bukola Saraki, dump the party with many joining the ranks of the PDP.
In response to Dogara's rumoured defection to the PDP, the APC's acting National Publicity Secretary, Yekini Nabena, said the party is not surprised as the Speaker has long been suspected to be working with the PDP.
He told Premium Times that the party is unbothered by Dogara's action because he doesn't have any electoral value that'll help them in the 2019 general elections.
He said, "It is not a surprise to us, we already know that he has been working with the PDP. He is not a loss to us. Even if we give him the ticket he would lose on ground. He is not even on ground in the first place.
"Those kinds of people we call them Abuja politicians. He is not a problem as far as I am concerned. Yakubu Dogara has no electoral value in the APC."
He expressed the opinion in Ibadan on Wednesday while receiving Danjuma Ibrahim, the Assistant Inspector-General of Police in charge of Zone II in his office.
The News Agency of Nigeria(NAN) reports that the governorship election in Osun State will hold on Sept. 22.
Ajimobi said that Oyetola would win the election, judging by the exemplary performance of the incumbent administration under Gov. Rauf Aregbesola.
We are confident that the APC will win the Sept. 22 election because of the exemplary performance of the incumbent administration in Osun State. One should have no doubt that the APC will retain Osun State, he said.
The governor, who described Ibrahim as an intelligent officer, expressed confidence that the leadership of the police in the zone was well grounded and competent to ensure a peaceful election.
He assured the police authority of the state governments readiness to assist the zone in ensuring a successful governorship election in Osun State.
AIG Danjuma Ibrahim is one of the most intelligent officers I have ever met and I can easily predict that he will get to the peak of his career soon.
It is very apparent, though, that APC will win easily because ours is the only party that is on ground and accepted by the people.
We are quite sure that the coming Osun election is going to be free and fair, and we shall provide necessary support towards this, he said.
Earlier, Ibrahim commended the governor for restoring peace and security to the state through the combined efforts of security agencies, which he said had spurred socio-economic growth.
He appealed to the governor to extend the assistance to the police command by refurbishing operational vehicles, provision of Armoured Personnel Carriers and other logistic supports to the zonal command.
You already know that policing is not easy, especially when you consider the logistics that must be put in place to achieve success. The zonal command needs operational vehicles to assist our operation.
On the coming Osun State governorship elections, we can assure you that we have more than enough personnel ready for the assignment.
We will do everything humanly possible to ward off intruders that might want to sneak in and wreck havoc on the election day. We know Osun State to be peaceful, but we do not want to leave anything to chance.
Instead, the 4th most powerful public official in the land has been coy about his future political plans, hes been playing irritating games and dithering when he should be sure-footed, and hes come across as annoyingly confused.
On Tuesday, September 11, 2018, Dogara said he had made up his mind not to seek elective position until a group of supporters stormed his Abuja home to ask him to change his mind.
The voice of the people is the voice of God; even though I had been considering not running this time around, now that my people have called upon me to do so, I feel compelled to heed their call, Dogara said.
It was the oldest political lie in the book and no one believed Dogara when he uttered them.
On Wednesday, September 12, 2018, camp Dogara was on the verge of picking up his PDP nomination form for a return to the House of Representatives, to represent the people of Bogoro/Dass/Tafawa Balewa in the lower legislative chamber.
Its 4pm of Thursday, September 13 and Dogara is yet to pick up his PDP nomination form or announce his formal defection to the PDP.
Never has a politician been more confused, annoyingly cunning and all over the place.
Dogara has always belonged in the PDP and everyone knew he was returning there the moment he announced the defection of 36 Reps from the APC to the PDP on July 24, 2018.
The invitation was extended to the incumbent governor by the party's Publicity Secretary, Taofeek Gani, in a recent interview.
Gani, in the interview, said the PDP is more than willing to accept Ambode if he decides to leave the All Progressive Congress, APC.
Despite the obvious fact that Ambode has picked up a nomination and expression of interest forms at the National Secretariat of the APC in Abuja, the PDP promises accord him all the rights and privileges with the existing members to realise his political ambitions.
Already, Deji Doherty and Jimi Agbaje have picked the PDP nomination forms for the governorship ticket in PDP.
ALSO READ: Ambode may not get that 2nd term ticket
Here's exactly what PDP spokesman said about Ambode
Gani said that the PDP would be glad to receive Ambode into its fold if he decided to leave APC for whatever reason.
Gani said, Any forward-looking party would not have rejected its main opponent joining it, especially a big personality like Ambode.
We are ready to welcome him (Ambode) to our party if he decides to join for any reason. We are very ready to accept him if he decides to join us.
You see PDP is a party for all, so far value will be added. We cannot turn down our opponents, especially a big personality like Ambode.
Therefore, he is welcome. His joining us will definitely add value and boost our chances to win the state.
A handful of opposition is coming from within Ambode's own party, the APC. All of Ambodes current travails are self-inflicted.
While speaking during an interview on Channels Television on Monday, Septemeber 10, 2018, Moghalu had said he's ready to debate the president, as well as the presidential candidate of the People's Democratic Party (PDP).
He has now further reitrated his demand and dared the president again to stop hiding from Nigerians and discuss his achievements and policies with the citizens of the country.
Moghalu, a former deputy governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), said he won't accept to debate Vice President Yemi Osinbajo in light of rumours that he's been appointed to represent the president in debates.
The presidential candidate urged Nigerians to stop accepting the president's evasion tactics and take to the streets to demand that he appears in a presidential debate with him and other candidates.
He said, "I am calling on President Buhari, I'm challenging President Buhari to a debate. And when I say President Buhari, I mean President Buhari. I do not mean Vice President Osinbajo. Osinbajo should debate the vice presidential candidates.
"President Buhari cannot continue to hide from the Nigerian public. It has become the track record of his governance that he's not able to face Nigerians and explain to them his government and its policies. We only hear President Buhari talking to Nigerians from London or China, or from Germany. This is one clear demonstration of leadership failure when a leader cannot communicate with his citizens.
"I have read and seen that the APC has appointed Osinbajo to represent Muhammadu Buhari in debates. This is a fraud and I want it to be on record that it's a political fraud and Nigerian citizens should not accept it. We must hold President Buhari accountable, we elected him as president, not Osinbajo.
"Osinbajo cannot represent Buhari in a debate about the performance of Buhari's government. Buhari is not incapacitated; if he's incapacitated, he should tell us.
"Where in the civilised world does a president send his vice president to represent him in debates? Only in Nigeria and Nigerians are taking this type of thing. People should rise up in the streets and demand Buhari come out and face me and other presidential candidates in a debate.
"I'm throwing the gauntlet to him. I'm throwing the gauntlet to the PDP candidate - whoever the PDP candidate will be - I'm challenging the two of them to a debate."
Moghalu was recently elected the flag bearer of the Young Progressive Party (YPP) at the party's national convention at International Conference Centre, Abuja, on September 8, 2018.
How I'll revive Nigeria's economy - Moghalu
During a previous interview this week, Moghalu said Nigeria's economy is in shambles because the current leadership lacks the vision to conceptualise a coherent policy and execute it.
He said, "I offer something different, something bold, something new. The economy will be managed in a very different way when I become president of this country.
"You see, the secret of the success of the economy is economic philosophy. If you cannot conceptualise it, you cannot execute it. Nigeria's economy is just ad-hocism, writ large. One policy today, one policy tomorrow, there's no coherence or vision.
"I'm saying that the fundamental aspects of this country are not functioning properly and that is why poverty is so high.
"What I'll do differently. You manage the economy with a vision and there are three things that will make Nigeria's economy function very well and once I get into office as president, I'll begin to make sure those things are in place.
"Number one, property rights. Number two, innovation. Number three, capital. That's how a capitalist economy functions. Well, none of those three things exist in the Nigerian economy. How can the economy function well?"
In response to Randy McConnells letter of Sept. 5, Oil Patch Kid Speaks.
Not everyone opposed to the pipeline or aspects of it is a tree hugger, support the greens or is totally against oil and its benefits.
I worked in Fort McMurray for several years, understanding how important this industry is for our economy, but at the same time I witnessed a lot of negative consequences, both social impacts and environmental.
Any time someone opposed speaks up, a certain aspect of the oil industry responds with comments like: Did you get to walk to work today? Go back to B.C. or Join Greenpeace.
I did in fact take a bus to work every morning.
The social abnormalities witnessed amongst coworkers were appalling, many in a zombie-like state. When you approach the work site, the land is completely destroyed, and no amount of reclamation will ever fix that. The water is black and thick in the tailings ponds, and the smell ... well, I have been told that is the smell of money.
Anyone who has worked up there would agree with this description, but it is all overlooked because they are making the big bucks.
We need oil, lots of it. We also need social and environmental responsibility.
The reality is, defending the oil industry is important to these people. It can force people to bully, lie, and manipulate the facts to protect their livelihoods, while others' are destroyed.
Curtis Scott
The economist is currently seeking to run for the governor of Delta state under the All Progressive Congress, APC.
Utomi made his new political move known when he submitted his nomination and expression of interest forms at the National Secretariat of the APC in Abuja.
I am a witness to crushing poverty - Pat Utomi
Pat Utomi has expressed that he was a witness to crushing poverty as young boy growing up in Delta state.
In a chat with journalist on why he intends to run for the seat of the governor of Delta state, the economist said, "If you have a conscience and you watch a people live a fate worse than death, then your spirit must be on the verge of being broken. However, I stand today to say that all hope is not lost.
Continuing, he said, "Being a witness to crushing poverty lived by people across a small pond from oil production platforms, and being a witness and also a recipient of complaints from various quarters that family members continue to die untimely due to accidents triggered by the hardly motorable state of Delta roads leaves me with a feeling of despondency.
Delta State receives very huge allocations from the federation account, yet extreme poverty exists in the state. Little of these fiscal transfers from the federation account that enter the state circulate in the state.
In Delta State, my conscience kills me some more with the death from avoidable causes of every man, woman or child, due partly to poor healthcare in the State.
ALSO READ: Utomi tasks youth on voting rights
Studies show that the monies enter state coffers and bolt out. If the velocity of the money is such that it touches a few more people even briefly, prosperity will visit many presently poor and it will consolidate with the thriving few.
Our youths are not the leaders of tomorrow, but of today, and they are our future. They will be appointed to play key roles in our administration, he said.
Pat Utomi offers to assist EFCC in anti-corruption campaign
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, says Prof. Pat Utomi, has sought its collaboration to promote governments anti-corruption campaign in the private sector.
The aspirant of the People's Democratic Party (PDP) made this call while meeting with members of the party's Edo State chapter in Benin, on Wednesday, September 12, 2018.
He said the current government has turned Nigeria into a divided nation and called for a leader that can unite Nigerians and understands the country's problems.
He said, "The country has never been so divided as it is today; we need to unite this country and in uniting the country, we must have a President that speaks for Nigerians.
"We must have a President with whom everybody will have a sense of belonging. We must have a President that you all feel is representing you. We must have a President and a government where Edo State has its key role on the table, where things are done with equity.
"It is time for us to unite and to do that, we must move away from electing a President based on sentiments. We have done it many times. It has not worked.
"Countries that have grown did not grow by chance. Countries that have grown did not grow by trial and error. They had a leader that understood what the issues were."
Saraki dumped President Muhammadu Buhari's All Progressives' Congress (APC) for the PDP two months ago and has been making consultations across the country since he declared to run against him for president.
Saraki to battle Atiku, Tambuwal, others for PDP's ticket
To clinch the party's ticket to contest in the 2019 presidential election, Saraki has to beat other aspirants including former vice president, Atiku Abubakar; Sokoto State governor, Aminu Tambuwal; Gombe State Governor, Ibrahim Dankwambo; and former governors including Sule Lamido, Ahmed Makarfi, Attahiru Bafarawa, Jonah Jang and Rabiu Kwankwaso.
Jiri Ovcacek, spokesman for the pro-Israeli President Milos Zeman, told AFP that the Czech House would shelter government institutions including the foreign ministry's Czech Centre, the trade agency CzechTrade and tourism agency CzechTourism.
"The Czech House in Jerusalem will be ceremonially opened by Mr President during his visit to Israel in November," he said.
Zeman, a 73-year-old veteran leftwinger with anti-Muslim views, promoted the embassy move even before US President Donald Trump moved the US embassy to Jerusalem on May 14.
Trump's move infuriated Palestinians and intensified protests on the Gaza border, with many dozens killed in clashes with Israeli forces that day.
Trump's move also ruptured generations of international consensus that Jerusalem's status should be settled as part of a two-state peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians.
In May, the Czech Republic reopened its honorary consulate in Jerusalem following its closure in 2016 due to the death of the honorary consul.
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The officers added that the two suspects had swallowed the drugs with the aim of trafficking them.
Escorts
Ms Judith Otieno Odote and Mr Boaz Ouma were also arrested after they were suspected of being Ms Nyaguthies and Mr Oduors escorts.
Police said the four will be arraigned on Friday once investigations are complete.
Last month, Interior Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiangi warned foreign drug dealers residing in Kenya that their days were numbered.
Mules
Speaking during a meeting with regional security heads at the School of Government in Kabete, Dr Matiangi said dealers were using Kenyan women and girls as mules.
Drug dealers have come to Nairobi and they have confused our girls, he said.
They live with them and when police come to arrest them (drug dealers), they claim they are married to a Kenyan. Marriage cannot be by word of mouth or by correspondence or by pretense. Marriage has to be proved in law.
DCI Update
A man with Down syndrome wants to access his KiwiSaver funds early so he can travel while hes still in good health.
Tim Fairhall, 39, has made an appeal to Parliament to have access to the funds before he hits official retirement age.
Its unfortunate that I cant do anything within the law as it stands now.
He argues that Down syndrome makes him age faster than most people, so he may not live as long as other New Zealanders.
But his funds will likely be inaccessible for the remainder of 2018, with a review of retirement income policies to be expected by next year.
Commerce Minister Kris Faafoi told RadioLIVE that funds can only be released early for those with a terminal illness or who have a serious financial hardship.
Its unfortunate that I cant do anything within the law as it stands now, Mr Faafoi said.
However, Mr Fairhalls case has highlighted an issue that the Commerce Minister will be looking into, for the sake of others who could be in the same situation.
Were hoping to show people were a compassionate Government but I think we need to make sure we measure twice and cut once.
Mr Fairhall's mother enrolled him in KiwiSaver 10 years ago in anticipation for his retirement in his 40s, the NZ Herald reports.
Listen to the full interview with Chris Faafoi above.
Morning Talk with Mark Sainsbury, 9am - 12pm Weekdays and streaming live on 'rova' channel 9 - available on Android and iPhone.
RadioLIVE.
EUROPE: Rock Rail and Aberdeen Standard Investments have announced a joint venture to target the rolling stock leasing market in continental Europe and Scandinavia.
Photo: Contributed
Annual Tim Hortons Smile Cookies are back to help raise funds for Vernon Jubilee Hospital Foundation.
The tasty treats will be available from September 17 23 across all locations in Vernon and Armstrong.
You can get a smile and give a smile for just one dollar.
All proceeds from the sale of Smile Cookies in the Vernon and Armstrong locations will go towards OPERATION: Surgical Care for Life and help improve the lives of North Okanagan residents with a new operating room and surgical equipment.
Its incredible to see how much comes from the community year after year from such a simple, but impactful campaign such as the Smile Cookies, says Lisa Westermark, VJH Foundation Executive Director. We are so grateful to receive this incredible support from Tim Hortons and local owners Dan and Jamie Currie.
Since 2003, local Smile Cookies have raised $309,000 for vital equipment and upgrades to Vernon Jubilee Hospital.
The Smile Cookie program originated in Ontario in 1996 and has since expanded across Canada helping a variety of childrens charities, hospitals and community programs.
ITALY: An eight-year framework agreement for the supply of between 50 and 120 high-capacity double-deck electric multiple-units was signed by Hitachi Rail Italy and Lombardia regional operator FNM on September 12.
PJSC VimpelCom, operating under the Beeline brand, is replacing its legacy pay-TV service to reach more devices and more customers. Beeline customers are now able to access hundreds of live channels, video-on-demand and catch-up TV through a new set-top box, as well as on connected TVs and mobile handsets, through a single user experience.Beeline TV offers a highly targeted viewing experience and easy content discovery across multiple content types. Customers can also pause and seamlessly pick up watching from the same point on another device.The Kaltura TV Platform gives PJSC VimpelCom options for monetisation with multiple payment and pay-per-view options, including in-app purchases and micro-subscriptions.This new service is a great example of the fixed-mobile convergence strategy and ongoing digital transformation across VEON, helping deliver even better services to customers, said George Held, chief digital officer at PJSC VimpelCom. Kaltura was chosen because of their proven track record in helping top operators deliver a transformative TV service. The joint expertise and knowledge of the teams at VEON, PJSC VimpelCom and Kaltura has enabled us to launch an extremely complex product, covering 11 different time zones across Russia very quickly.Shay David, Kaltura co-founder, president and GM of Kalturas Media and Telecom business unit, added: PJSC VimpelCom is a digital company with a strong vision and a desire to give its customers the ultimate TV experience. We share their vision, which is why our partnership works so well. We are honoured to be powering the Beeline TV service. We look forward to continuing our collaboration.
Australian detective drama Mystery Road is heading for BBC Four following a content deal with all3media International.
Based on Ivan Sens feature film and produced by Bunya Productions for ABC Australia, the six-part drama stars Aaron Pedersen as detective Jay Swan.Swan is sent to the remote outback town of Patterson for what he thinks will be a simple investigation into the disappearance of two young jackaroos. Partnered with tough local cop Emma James (Judy Davis), their investigation gradually unpeels the layers of the town.Mystery Road is set in a uniquely stark and beautiful landscape and features a cast of some of the best acting talent around. Were thrilled to be bringing this compelling and visually stunning drama to BBC viewers said Sue Deeks, BBC head of programme acquisition.Caroline Stephenson, SVP at EMEA North at all3media international added: Mystery Road is a perfect show for BBC Four its distinct Outback setting and Australian Noir approach to the crime genre will be relished by the channels discerning drama audience.Written by Michaeley OBrien (Underbelly) and directed by Rachel Perkins (Redfern Now, Jasper Jones), Mystery Road is produced by David Jowsey and Greer Simpson. Sally Riley and Ivan Sen are executive producers.Mystery Road will air weekly as a double bill on BBC Four from 22 September.
White House aides and other top Republicans are giving up on their efforts to keep the president on message to rescue the GOP this fall.
This past week I asked a friend at the White House about how the president was holding up against the onslaught of media attacks. "They didn't even deliver a glancing blow," was the response. It wasn't for a lack of trying.
Has any president in modern times been the target of such a Blitzkrieg of orchestrated assaults -- from John McCain's funeral turned anti-Trump scrum to Bob Woodward's discredited new book trashing the president to the media infatuation with the anonymous New York Times op-ed by a disgruntled federal employee who hates President Trump.
Here we go again. Trump is (for the umpteenth time) characterized as dangerous, deranged, delusional, infantile, racist and amoral. But Trump is like Muhammad Ali playing rope-a-dope while George Foreman (the media) is flailing away and punching himself out. The only people who pay attention to the anti-Trump screeds are already frothing at the mouth with Trump hatred. What is the point?
After all this time the "resistance" movement is still utterly clueless about Trump, his followers and the appeal of his "America First" agenda. Just why is he "deranged"? Because he is overturning trade deals, pulling the United States out of anti-America climate change treaties, building a wall to keep out undesirables, cutting taxes, slashing regulation and insisting that Europe pay it's fair share of NATO's costs.
Well, yes. Guilty as charged. When dismayed reporters ask me why he is doing all these things that are so offensive to the chattering class, my response is almost always the same: "Um, because this is what he promised voters he was going to do. Weren't you paying attention?"
Voters sure were. It turns out Americans outside the beltway weren't so enthralled with the New World Order or the anemic Obama economic program that is being dismantled.
And what is the result of all this "chaos" and "mayhem" in the White House that the media is in such a frenzy about? Well, as we learned last week, we now have the lowest number of American workers on unemployment insurance since Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, the biggest manufacturing boom in 14 years, the lowest black unemployment rate ever recorded, and an economy that is growing at 4.4 percent this quarter, on top of 4.2 percent growth last quarter.
The surging Trump economy is arguably the news story of the decade and yet it is covered, if at all, as a ho-hum yawner.
The first rule of journalism is: Never bury the lead. The media does this every day.
Perhaps that is because the press corps and their economist sources are having a devil of a time explaining how a "deranged" president has been able to turbocharge the economy so decisively.
The only story line that The New York Times could conjure up -- and I'm not making this up -- is that Trump is riding an Obama wave. Sure. And Tony Eason is responsible for Tom Brady's Hall of Fame performances. This "Obama effect" might be semi-plausible except for the fact that every policy Trump implements reverses President Obama's policy.
It is a virtual guarantee that when the economy does start to slow down (alas, booms don't last forever), The New York Times will gleefully shout: Aha, Donald Trump's economic policies are a failure!
Yes, there is a bit of chaos and disorder at the White House. Yes, some of the characters that Trump has hired had no business being anywhere near 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. By contrast, Obama had an orderly and statesmanlike White House, and he hired a cadre of highly respected and well-intended people. Yet all of this still produced the worst recovery from a recession since the Great Depression.
The other day I was on a panel with media reporters and I suggested in all seriousness that Donald Trump deserves the 2018 Nobel Prize in Economics. My fellow panelists almost visibly popped a vein in their heads. They ranted and raved about how stupid and dangerous Trump's policies are. Just who is deranged in this picture?
COPYRIGHT 2018 CREATORS.COM
President Trumps hardball play on tariffs and sanctions against foreign bad actors has created divisions among Republicans, with many in farming communities feeling unfairly leveraged. But one congressman who has been heavily involved in efforts to protect information technology said the tactic offers the best chance at creating lasting change if used carefully.
When you get a deal, you [have] to take it and turn off the tariffs as fast as they were turned on, California Rep. Darrell Issa said Wednesday. Long-term tariffs always, always hurt countries. Speaking at an event hosted by RealClearPolitics on revitalizing American industries, with a focus on intellectual property, Issa added that if the president wanted Congress approval to sanction countries such as China over IP theft, the issue would have bipartisan support.
A CNBC report earlier this year estimated that Chinese theft costs the U.S. between $225 billion and $600 billion each year. Trump imposed $50 billion in tariffs earlier this year on Chinese goods to try and pressure that nation into an agreement on intellectual property.
The RCP event came just as Trump authorized sanctions over attempted election meddling. Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats said the executive order directs intelligence agencies to assess whether an individual, entity or country has interfered in a U.S. election and to turn the information over to the attorney general and Department of Homeland Security. We have seen signs of [meddling] not just [from] Russia, but from Chinapotentially from Iran and even North Korea, said Coats on a call with reporters. So the others do incorporate -- it's more than Russia here that we're looking at.
Beyond issues on the international stage, Issa said that technology companies are facing problems here at home, particularly those in the sharing economy such as Uber and Airbnb. He said that traditional cab and hotel companies are pushing back because they know they cant compete. This kind of innovation doesnt happen in stodgy old monopolies, he said.
The issue of access to the sharing economy and innovation overall remains a problem for many in non-urban areas. Rep. Doug Collins, also speaking at the RCP event, said hes seen the divide in his own district, which includes both suburban Atlanta and rural areas.
Its now come to the point that theres digital districts, the Republican lawmaker said. While he believes that access to the internet is a necessity, he cautioned against calling it a right. Collins is also skeptical about putting the responsibility for shared broadband in the hands of the government and encouraged people to consider non-governmental ways of bringing greater access to the internet.
With two congressmen as keynote speakers, the pending midterm races were not far from the conversation Wednesday. Both men expressed cautious optimism in their partys chances in November but acknowledged maintaining a GOP majority will be a tough fight. Issa already announced his plans to retire next year and said that hes skeptical about whether Republicans will be able to hold on to his seat despite having an excellent candidate in Diane Harkey. My district is one of those districts that will be a swing district as its currently designed, he said.
And Collins, who has hopes of becoming chairman of the House Judiciary Committee next year, said he thinks the Republicans will keep the majority. He added, however, that its going to be tighter moving forward.
PORTLAND, Maine -- Exceptional dangers require exceptional and sometimes unusual responses.
This was the spirit animating the volunteers at a phone bank Tuesday night in Portland. They were asking citizens to urge their state's popular Republican senator, Susan Collins, to oppose the confirmation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.
And if they found a sympathizer, they took an additional and, for some, a controversial step: Asking for a commitment to contribute to a fund that would be activated against Collins' re-election, whose term is up in 2020, if she voted for Kavanaugh.
The campaign is spearheaded by Mainers for Accountable Leadership and Maine People's Alliance, and it has outraged Collins, a consensus seeker who issued an unusually sharp retort: "Attempts at bribery or extortion will not influence my vote at all."
The organizers were unapologetic. "The idea of Susan Collins attacking an effort by 35,000 small-dollar donors as bribery is politics at its worse," Marie Follayttar Smith, the Accountable Leadership group's co-director, said in a statement. "We absolutely have the right to prepare to unseat her given everything Judge Kavanaugh would do on the Supreme Court to make life worse for Maine women."
For those who might be understandably troubled about money's electoral power being wielded so openly, there is this irony: Kavanaugh himself is, as the legal scholar Richard Hasen wrote recently in Slate, "deeply skeptical of even the most basic campaign-finance limits."
It is one of a host of ways in which Kavanaugh would likely push the Supreme Court well to the right of where it is since he would replace Justice Anthony Kennedy, a more moderate conservative. That is a central reason why his nomination has generated such passionate resistance. Nan Aron, the president of the Alliance for Justice and a liberal veteran of confirmation battles, echoed the view of many on her side. "The level of engagement is the greatest I have seen since the Bork nomination," she said, referring to the successful derailing of Robert Bork's 1987 appointment to the court.
For the activists here and many around the country, the fears around Kavanaugh's nomination begin with abortion rights. But the catalogue is much more extensive, reflecting the broad array of concerns of the activists mobilizing against him.
Ben Gaines worried that Kavanaugh would look for ways to side with President Trump in a dispute over special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation. Dini Merz has the same apprehension, and also mentioned Kavanaugh's views on "corporate power" and "religion and its role" in American life.
Follayttar Smith spoke of the likelihood Kavanaugh would roll back environmental regulations and the Affordable Care Act. Susie Crimmins saw him as "dismantling government in its role of protecting the marginalized." Louise Lora Somlyo felt that Kavanaugh had not been candid in his testimony before the Senate.
More broadly, there is a belief that the would-be justice is primarily a partisan and an ideologue. "He's a political animal to the core -- and I say that as a political animal," said Gaines, who worked for many Democrats around the country.
Collins is an unusual Republican who has, by turns, gratified and infuriated liberals in her state. Alicia Barnes, a Navy veteran, said Collins "had our backs" during the campaign by LGBTQ groups to end the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy; Follayttar Smith spoke of the appreciation across the state for Collins' vote to defend the Affordable Care Act.
But Collins' later vote for the Republican tax cut was a reminder of how often she has been loyal to her party's leadership, and Bill Nemitz, a veteran columnist for the Portland Press-Herald, wrote a passionate column last weekend suggesting a vote for Kavanaugh would be a breaking point.
With Senate Democrats now sharply questioning whether Kavanaugh has been misleading (or worse) in his testimony, Collins would have a path to oppose him, and she has said that if he had not been "truthful, then obviously that would be a major problem for me."
But there is a larger issue of hypocrisy that incites aversion to Kavanaugh. Repeatedly, Republican presidential candidates promise (usually indirectly, but, in Trump's case, directly) that they will nominate justices who would challenge Roe v. Wade and, more generally, toe a conservative line.
Once they are nominated however, these would-be justices pretend not to hold the views they hold. And when skeptics point out their obvious evasions, defenders denounce these objections as purely partisan.
The affable Collins is now confronting the backlash to this long history of double-speak.
(c) 2018, Washington Post Writers Group
Last week saw significant advances in the U.S-India defense relationship. U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, accompanied by Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Joseph Dunford, traveled to India to meet with their counterparts, Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj and Defense Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, in what was dubbed the two-plus-two summit. The leaders signed landmark agreements meant to further cooperation between the states in their efforts to promote regional stability.
The U.S-India security relationship is underpinned by a strong foundation of shared interests and ideologies. Both countries are invested in the stability of Indias region -- they want to rein in Pakistan, stabilize Afghanistan, and halt the spread of Chinas influence -- and the two nations democratic institutions offer a normative basis for deeper collaboration.
However, Indias relationships with opponents of the United States may act as a roadblock to future collaboration. The Trump administrations challenge will be to determine how to balance its partnership with India with policies that target Washingtons own opponents. Fortunately, Indias foreign policy may be useful to the United States in its pursuit of other regional goals and could be considered a means to ends that are advantageous for both states.
The Trump administration clearly values Indias role on the global stage and is committed to growing its partners influence. Secretary Pompeo put it succinctly when he said [w]e fully support Indias rise. General Dunford expanded on the sentiment, stating India is one of our premier security partners and an important and influential global leader.
It is encouraging that Trump is not ignoring presidential precedent when it comes to India. Presidents George Bush and Barack Obama made relations with New Delhi a high priority during their administrations and passed landmark security agreements with India that were instrumental in building the partnership to where it is now. The United States has become India second-largest arms supplier with a total of $15 billion over the past 10 years.
Indias Cold War-era wariness toward the United States is fading, enabling deeper collaboration in the security partnership. During last weeks summit, the officials signed the Communications Compatibility and Security Agreement. The accord, which had stalled for years over Indian concerns about overexposure to the U.S. military, grants India access to U.S. network communications and sharing which would enhance security cooperation between their militaries. The senior officials also agreed to hold joint exercises between their air forces, armies, and navies on the eastern coast of India in 2019.
Tangled relations
However, some of Indias historic relationships are at odds with American interests. Two prime examples are Russia and Iran. Russia has been a close partner of Indias for decades, though the relationship has come under strain in recent years as New Delhi and Washington have grown closer. Indeed, India plans to buy five Russian S-400 Triumf missile air defense systems -- a purchase that could violate U.S. sanctions on arms purchases from Moscow. This issue was not resolved during last weeks meeting, as India has not finalized the sale and the Washington has not decided to grant New Delhi an exemption to proceed with the final steps of the acquisition. However, there is a way the situation could turn to Washingtons favor, if India considers purchasing American-made alternatives to the Russian system instead.
Substituting Indias reliance on Russian weapons with American-made systems would be an easy transition, given New Delhis recent purchases of U.S. defense technologies. India recently finalized the purchase of 24 multi-role MH-60 Romeo choppers from Sikorsky-Lockheed Martin to detect, track, and hunt enemy submarines. New Delhi also approved a $1 billion acquisition of Raytheons National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System-II missile defense shield. India was one of the first international buyers to purchase the P-8 Poseidon naval surveillance aircraft.
India is also looking for future domestic-foreign partnerships with U.S. defense companies to supply 111 naval utility helicopters to replace an aging fleet of Alouette, Cheetah, and Chetak choppers. Some contenders include Tata Advanced Systems (TASL) and Bell Helicopters Bell 429, as well as TASL and Lockheed Martins customized S-76D. The United States should take advantage of arms sales to India as a way to deepen cooperation and prevent Russia from exerting influence over a valuable partner.
A navigable obstacle
Indias partnership with Iran may prove more complicated for the United States to navigate, given the pairs co-dependent relationship in oil supply. Tehran is New Delhis third-largest oil supplier, and India is Irans second-largest oil buyer, after China. Past rounds of U.S. sanctions have not deterred the relationship; a spokesman for Indias Foreign Ministry stated [w]e do share a very strong, very good relationship, we are in touch with [Iran] on several issues including on the fallout of the U.S. withdrawal from [the nuclear deal].
However, New Delhis relationship with Tehran can help the United States meet other objectives. India is a large investor in the construction of Irans Chabahar port, which it plans to make operational by 2019. This port would give India better access to Afghanistan, potentially creating a path for New Delhi to become more involved in Kabuls security and stability -- a goal that the United States has had for its relationship with India for years. The port could also provide Afghanistan with an alternate trade corridor that reduces its dependence on Pakistan. It may ultimately be in Washingtons favor to grant India a waiver to finish building the Iranian port in order to address other regional security concerns.
The U.S.-India security relationship is on a steady rise. As wariness in India toward a deeper partnership with America recedes, the bigger obstacle will be New Delhis relationships with opponents of the United States. However, these connections could present more opportunities for Washington to deepen its partnership with India and encourage New Delhi to play a more active role in bolstering the regions stability. The Trump administration will need to reassess its international priorities and how they may compete with one another. Ultimately, the administrations commitments to India are sound investments, and the U.S.-India security partnership could have a lasting impact on global power alignments.
Rathna K. Muralidharan is a program director at the Lexington Institute with a focus on global security and regional politics. You can follow her at @RathnaKM and the Lexington Institute @LextNextDC. Read her full biography here. The views expressed are the author's own.
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As the nation celebrates Ganesh Chaturthi, B-Town gears up to mark the festival with fervour. The stars are taking to their social media handles to share their share of joy and celebration. Veteran actor Anupam Kher took to social media to unveil a video from 'MAGICAL' Shree Ganesh Temple in Entebbe, Uganda. In the video, the devotees can be seen celebrating the sacred festival with playing drums and chanting 'Ganpati Bappa Morya.' "This is MAGICAL. Shree Ganesh Temple in Entebbe, Uganda celebrates #GaneshUtsav with the chants of #GanpatiBappaMorya. Listen to the sound of drums and the expressions on the faces of the people who are playing them. #GanpatiBappaMorya #VibesAndEnergy," he wrote.
This is MAGICAL !!!! Shree Ganesh Temple in Entebbe, Uganda celebrates #GaneshUtsav with the chants of #GanpatiBappaMorya. Listen to the sound of drums and the expressions on the faces of the people who are playing them. #GanpatiBappaMorya #MoryaRaBappaMoryaRe pic.twitter.com/80Eawtpkh6 Anupam Kher (@AnupamPKher) September 12, 2018
Diva Madhuri Dixit too took to Twitter to wish her fans, writing, "Modaks, family gatherings, dance, music... Everything about #GaneshChaturthi makes me happy. I wish this festive season brings you all countless blessings!
#GanpatiBappaMorya."
Varun Dhawan and Anushka Sharma, who are on a promotional spree for their upcoming movie 'Sui Dhaaga- Made in India', also celebrated the festival with an eco-friendly idol of Ganapati.
The 'Jab Tak Hai Jaan' star also unveiled the making video of the idol and wrote, "Celebrating this auspicious occasion with a beautiful eco-friendly Bappa made with Dhaaga #GaneshChaturthi @varundvn."
Celebrating this auspicious occasion with a beautiful eco-friendly Bappa made with Dhaaga #GaneshChaturthi @Varun_dvn pic.twitter.com/AQOLK7je7e Anushka Sharma (@AnushkaSharma) September 13, 2018
Salman Khan's sister Arpita Khan Sharma also shared some 'behind the scenes' videos of the Ganpati decor on Instagram.
Sonam Kapoor Ahuja also celebrated 'one of her favourite times of the year. Taking to Twitter, the actor posted a picture with Ganesh idol, writing, "Ganesh Chaturthi is one of my favourite times of the year. I love the week-long festivities and coming together of friends and families! Wishing all of you a wonderful Ganesh Chaturthi."
Sushmita Sen took to Twitter to wish her fans on auspicious occasion, writing, "Happpyyyyy Birthday Lord Ganesha!!! A blessed & fortunate #ganeshchaturthi to everyone I love you guys & wish you every happiness always!! #duggadugga."
The Hindu festival is dedicated to the Lord of new beginnings, Ganesha. The celebration is marked with the installation of the deity's idol at home and at elaborate pandals. The 10-day festival ends with the final immersion - also called the Visarjan - of an idol of Lord Ganesha.
Celebrated with great fame in India, especially in Maharashtra, unique efforts have been made in different cities.
-ANI
By Elizabeth Kwiatkowski, 09/13/2018
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Elizabeth Kwiatkowski is Associate Editor of Reality TV World and has been covering the reality TV genre for more than a decade.
's Jenna Cooper is firmly denying she ever cheated on or used Jordan Kimball to advance her career, and says she's taking legal action.Jenna and Jordan got engaged on 's fifth season, but he broke up with her just one day after the finale aired due to a series of leaked text messages appearing to show Jenna was romantically involved with another man all summer long and had been dating Jordan just for money and fame."I want to start by saying those texts were completely fabricated, and I never sent them to anyone," Jenna captioned a photo of herself on Instagram in which she looked somber.Not only did the woman appearing to be Jenna bash Jordan in the messages obtained by Reality Steve spoiler blogger Steve Carbone by saying she's better than him and doesn't even like Jordan -- nevermind love him -- but she also wrote some graphic sexual things to this unidentified man."I did not cheat on Jordan, and I have nothing to hide. I have been extremely open and vulnerable throughout this whole process. I was looking for love, and I found it. I was excited to share this journey with all of you," Jenna continued in her denial on Instagram."I am hurt by these fake texts, and that anyone would believe this story so quickly without proof. I have an attorney helping me investigate this hurtful and fraudulent attack on my character. We are evaluating all legal remedies available to punish those responsible."Prior to releasing this statement on Instagram, Jenna told People, "I am aware of the allegations being made against me and they are simply untrue. I am choosing to focus on my relationship right now. Thank you for respecting my privacy at this time."In the screenshots Carbone posted on his blog, Jenna allegedly wrote to the man from North Carolina, her hometown, that she was "so excited" to see him and things were going to get "real kinky" that night.She also told the man that she loved him.The following morning, Jenna allegedly wrote to the man: "Good morning, handsome! I wanted to say sorry. Don't be mad at me or anything crazy. I know you're upset about this week's episodes but I told you yesterday and I keep telling you that this is all for my business. You know how much I need the money. Me and Jordan aren't together for real. I don't even like him let alone love him.""I'm better than him and once I'm able to, I'll break it off for good and make up some story to make him look bad if it'll make you feel better. He means nothing to me and never has," she continued."None of the other guys I go out with mean anything. All for work and networking. You're the only one I need in my life. The only guy who interests me. I need you to love me and always be there for me. I'm gonna call you. You still love me?!!!"Carbone said he verified the text messages had derived from Jenna's phone number and the fitness and fashion blogger is "a complete fraud.""I know my Jenna, and I read those texts and in my heart, I know it's her," Jordan admitted to People. "She was saying she didn't do it, but hinting towards the fact that there's a possibility that it happened. In all reality, I don't expect her to own it."Jordan has said the situation makes him " sick to [his] stomach ," as he was sincerely in love with Jenna and looking forward to their June 2019 wedding.Interested in more news? Join our Bachelor in Paradise Facebook Group
By Elizabeth Kwiatkowski, 09/13/2018
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Elizabeth Kwiatkowski is Associate Editor of Reality TV World and has been covering the reality TV genre for more than a decade.
's Jordan Kimball has confirmed his split from Jenna Cooper in light of her alleged affair and apparent proof she's faking their relationship to get ahead in her career."I deal with unreasonable circumstances reasonably and have come to terms with a decision to remove myself from the relationship, it breaks my heart to think, feel and fall for this," Jordan wrote on Instagram Wednesday.Reality Steve spoiler blogger Steve Carbone posted screenshots of text messages on Tuesday apparently between Jenna and a man with whom she had been romantically involved while dating Jordan on 5, and during one conversation, Jenna allegedly insisted she's faking her relationship with Jordan for fame and money.Not only did the woman appearing to be Jenna bash Jordan in the messages by saying she's better than him and she doesn't even like Jordan -- nevermind love him -- but she also wrote some graphic sexual things to this man.After releasing a statement about how sick the text messages made him feel, Jordan confirmed on Wednesday that he's calling off his engagement to Jenna and breaking up with her."To think, to feel, to fall. These emotions interact with experiences and people, when you find a person you think about them, you feel when they feel and sometimes you fall. When you're in love with even the experiences you've had with them it's something to respect," Jordan captioned a black-and-white modeling photo of himself on Instagram."Being careless with someone that you give your heart to and reach milestones with isn't sensible no matter what the terms may be. I have not had an easy life and having struggles allows me to grab onto tough times and discard them from my path. I deal with unreasonable circumstances reasonably and have come to terms with a decision to remove myself from the relationship, it breaks my heart to think, feel and fall for this."Jordan concluded, "It's dropped me. Fumbling emotions and being understanding is not easy. I'll be taking time to pursue my inner peace and she will always have me to talk to, if you've reached out to me, allow me time. Thank you to those that have."In the screenshots obtained by Carbone, the woman appearing to be Jenna wrote to the unidentified man from North Carolina, her hometown, that she was "so excited" to see him and things were going to get "real kinky" that night. She also told the man that she loved him.The following morning, Jenna allegedly wrote to the man: "Good morning, handsome! I wanted to say sorry. Don't be mad at me or anything crazy. I know you're upset about this week's episodes but I told you yesterday and I keep telling you that this is all for my business. You know how much I need the money. Me and Jordan aren't together for real. I don't even like him let alone love him.""I'm better than him and once I'm able to, I'll break it off for good and make up some story to make him look bad if it'll make you feel better. He means nothing to me and never has," she continued."None of the other guys I go out with mean anything. All for work and networking. You're the only one I need in my life. The only guy who interests me. I need you to love me and always be there for me. I'm gonna call you. You still love me?!!!"Jenna has denied ever sending such messages, as she told People in a statement earlier this week, "I am aware of the allegations being made against me and they are simply untrue. I am choosing to focus on my relationship right now. Thank you for respecting my privacy at this time."Jordan, however, had told the magazine, "I know my Jenna, and I read those texts and in my heart, I know it's her. She was saying she didn't do it, but hinting towards the fact that there's a possibility that it happened. In all reality, I don't expect her to own it."Jordan was getting ready to marry Jenna on June 9, 2019, and in the meantime, he was planning an engagement party for next month.Interested in more news? Join our Bachelor in Paradise Facebook Group
By Elizabeth Kwiatkowski, 09/13/2018
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Elizabeth Kwiatkowski is Associate Editor of Reality TV World and has been covering the reality TV genre for more than a decade.
Athens, GA (30605)
Today
Cloudy skies this evening will become partly cloudy after midnight. Low 39F. Winds NNE at 5 to 10 mph..
Tonight
Cloudy skies this evening will become partly cloudy after midnight. Low 39F. Winds NNE at 5 to 10 mph.
Hurricane Florence and damaging winds are hundreds of miles south of Connecticut in the Atlantic Ocean, but the storms impact is being felt here, in a manner of speaking.
The phones have been ringing off the hook all morning, Ed Ingalls, president of CT Home Generator Systems of Newington, said Wednesday. Its pretty remarkable.
Ingalls business sells and installs standby home generators that are used to power residences when electricity is lost. He said the nonstop television coverage of Florence has been good for his business and even though the storm is nowhere near Connecticut, homeowners from across the state have been calling the company to inquire about getting generators installed.
Its like they see it on the Weather Channel and decide they better take care of this before the next storm comes to Connecticut, Ingalls said.
The distribution center at CT Home Generator Systems normally is filled from floor to ceiling with the Generac- and Kohler-brand generators the company sells. But on Wednesday afternoon, the center had fewer than a dozen generators.
Ingalls said one customers even bought one of the generators right off the showroom floor.
It was the right size and he wanted it installed by Friday, Ingalls said.
More for you Experts urge boaters to take precautions in face of severe weather
CT Home Generator Systems has another $150,000 worth of generators on back order from manufacturers, he said, and expects to get in a new shipment within the next few days. Under normal weather conditions, Ingalls estimated that his business sells and installs 30 to 35 standby home generators per month.
Ingalls, who also owns Newington Electric, launched CT Home Generator Systems in the aftermath of the 2011 pre-Halloween snow storm that dumped between one foot and two feet of snow on the state and left more than 830,000 Connecticut residents without power, some for as long as 10 days.
Ingalls father started Newington Electric 60 years ago and the electrical contracting business had always installed emergency electric generators. But a combination of factors convinced Ingalls to create CT Home Generator Systems as a separate division.
One factor was a dramatic drop in the cost of the generators. Ingalls said the price of the units has been cut in half over the past decade.
It used to be that only businesses and commercial operations could afford to do it, he said.
But as major national companies such as Generac, Kohler and Briggs & Stratton saw potential in providing back-up power options for homes, competition began driving down prices , Ingalls said.
Even with the decrease in price, the cost of installing a standby home generator isnt for the faint of heart, even with financing available.
CT Home Generator Systems sells and installs an automatic standby unit for about $6,000. The automatic standby generators run on propane or natural gas and begin operating the minute the power in your home goes off, according to Ingalls.
The company installs manual-start portable generators for about $1,500. But the units run on gasoline, which Ingalls said is sometimes difficult to obtain during widespread and extended power outages and require pressing a few buttons and turning a few switches in order to begin operating.
CT Home Generator Systems wires both types of generators into a homes existing electrical system, eliminating the need run new wiring, he said.
luther.turmelle@hearstmediact.com
FALLS VILLAGE Music Mountain continues its 89th season with two first time guests. The American String Quartet offers a program featuring Haydn, Shostakovich, and Dvorak on Sunday, Sept. 16 at 3 p.m. The Roxy Coss Quintet, an inspiring jazz ensemble with a soulful, unique and progressive sound, plays their original compositions on Saturday, Sept. 15 at 6:30 p.m. Concerts are scheduled through Sept. 23.
The highly lauded American String Quartet makes their first Music Mountain appearance on Sunday afternoon. The program will include Haydn: String Quartet in G Major, Op. 76 #1; Shostakovich: String Quartet #3 in F Major, Op. 73; and Dvorak: Piano Quintet in A Major, Op. 81. The German newspaper, Darmstadter Echo noted, from this combination of individual brilliance and ensemble perfection emerges one of the best quartets of our time. And the Los Angeles Times stated their performance was a comprehensive display of ensemble mastery, of passion, precision and interpretive smarts in near perfect synchrony.
Internationally recognized as one of the worlds finest quartets, the American String Quartet has spent decades honing the luxurious sound for which it is famous. The quartet will celebrate its 45th anniversary in 2019, and, in its years of touring, has performed in all 50 states and has appeared in the most important concert halls worldwide. The groups presentations of the complete quartets of Beethoven, Schubert, Schoenberg, Bartok, and Mozart have won widespread critical acclaim, and their MusicMasters Complete Mozart String Quartets, performed on a matched quartet set of instruments by Stradivarius, are widely considered to have set the standard for this repertoire.
The quartets 2017-18 season features a major project together with the National Book Award-winning author Phil Klay and the poet Tom Sleigh in a groundbreaking program combining music and readings that examines the effects of war on people, their hearts, and their minds. In 2016-17, the Quartet collaborated with the renowned author Salman Rushdie to premiere a new work for narrator and quartet by the film composer Paul Cantelon built around Rushdies novel The Enchantress of Florence. These wildly imaginative projects cement the American String Quartets reputation as one of the most adventurous and fearless string quartets performing today.
Music Mountain welcomes first time guest, the Roxy Coss Quintet on Saturday evening. The progressive jazz ensemble includes saxophonist Roxy Coss, along with guitarist Alex Wintz, pianist Miki Yamanaka, bassist Rick Rosato and drummer Jimmy Macbride. The ensemble was just selected by a jury panel as winner of the inaugural Emerging Artists Project in New York City.
Musician, composer, bandleader, recording artist, educator and activist Roxy Coss has become one of the most unique and innovative Saxophonists on the scene, a definitional voice of the Millennial Movement in Jazz. Originally from Seattle, and a fixture on the New York scene for the past ten years, her band, the Roxy Coss Quintet, appears frequently around New York City, and tours nationally. Coss is the founder, president, and executive director of Women In Jazz Organization, a collective of professional jazz musicians who identify as women, gender neutral or non-binary. The organization sheds light on a growing awareness within the jazz community on the subjects of sexism and gender equality.
Music Mountain is in Falls Village on Music Mountain Road, where a short scenic drive will bring you to Gordon Hall atop Music Mountain. Free parking and picnic facilities are available. Regularly scheduled Chamber Music Concerts are $35. Twilight Series Concerts are $30.
Children ages 5 to 18 are admitted free when accompanied by a ticket holder. Saturday evening Twilight Concerts are at 6:30 p.m. Sunday afternoon Chamber Music concerts are at 3 p.m. Discounts apply through participating organizations. For a complete summer schedule, special ticket prices, and to download a ticket order form.
Visit musicmountain.org or call 860-824-7126.
Chairperson of Communist Party of Nepal (CPN), Pushpa Kamal Dahal 'Prachanda' on Thursday said that the peace process of Nepal is the new model for the world.
During the meeting with a delegation of the High Peace Council (HPC) of Afghanistan, Chairperson Dahal said that Nepal has given a positive message after concluding the peace process. The Afghan delegation is in Kathmandu to study the model of Nepal's peace process.
On the occasion, the former Prime Minister Dahal said that the people have gained various achievements including the republic, federalism, secularism and inclusion through the peace process.
According to Dahal's Secretariat, the delegation also held discussion about the policy adopted by Nepal in the peace process. Deputy Chair of HPC and Former Minister, Dr Habiba Sarabi said that that the peace process in Afghanistan has moved forward. She asserted that Nepal's peace process is an example for the world and the delegation visited Nepal to learn from it.
The Afghan delegation had also inquired about the source of arms supply during Nepal's armed conflict, the situation of arms with former People's Liberation Army (PLA) and its management, and activities of Peace and Reconstruction Ministry established to facilitate the activities related to the peace process.
-ANI
It was on one of the gloomy August days, of which we had so many this year, that I visited Bella Alpacas Farm Sanctuary in New Milford.
The animals were a bit depressed (as was I) by the weather, so they were in hiding. I thought there would be more alpacas, was my first thought when owner Sal Apicella brought me over to an outdoor pen with a few male alpacas, a pot-belly pig, two chickens and a sheep that had been adopted by the alpacas as a friend.
On nicer days, the animals roam around everywhere, Apicella told me, gesturing to expansive fields behind him.
But then he brought me to the female area and decided to lure them out with some ground corn. Suddenly, like a clown car, more than a dozen lady alpacas came sauntering out of their barn, fighting for feed and examining their new guest. Unafraid, they looked right at me, seeming to smile with their bottom buck teeth jutting out.
The male and female alpacas are kept in separate areas to keep them from breeding all year round; alpacas do not have a mating season. They do breed the alpacas once in a while for the beauty of having a baby around. In all, Apicella and his wife, Judy, have 28 alpacas on their farm.
Bella Alpacas has an unassuming entrance off a residential road. On the property is Apicellas home that he shares with his wife and teenaged son Nico, a few houses he rents out to tenants and a loft above the male alpaca pen that is available to rent for weekend getaways. Apicella, dressed in sweat pants and rubber boots, walked me through the natural, unmanicured property and explained in his Italian accent how it came to be.
Apicella grew up in Italy and spent much of his time as a boy on his grandparents vineyard surrounded by farm animals. In 1999 he moved to New York City to help his father run his restaurant and to study English at Columbia University. He planned on going back to Italy eventually, but then he met Judy. They got married, had a son and made a home in the Hells Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan. But it was not right the life for them.
I was brought up very country, Apicella said. I never really fit in in New York City. It was almost torture. The energy drove me crazy.
The Apicellas bought the farm in 2006 and meant for it to be a weekend home. Eventually, they decided to have some animals and rescued two pigs, two alpacas and two sheep.
We were somewhat city folks. We knew a little bit, but it was a big learning process, Apicella said.
The couple started learning about all the areas alpacas in need of homes as farm owners found themselves not being able to put in the work to care for them. The Apicellas rescue the alpacas and either keep them on their farm or find other safe homes. Apicella estimates they have rescued about 200 alpacas so far.
Alpacas, Apicella said, are very sweet, docile animals. They make friends for life (as the males have with the sheep) and they dont have many defenses against predators. Apicella only lets guests spend alone time with them once he feels comfortable with the people. He and Judy are very protective and doting over their herd, feeding them only organic feed and filtered water, and treating them mostly with Chinese herbs and acupuncture.
All of the Apicellas animals are kept as pets. Judy comes down into the farm every morning to rub the pot belly pigs pot belly. Once she was under the weather and missed a morning, so the pig went to the house and knocked on the front door looking for her. None of the animals are used for meat.
Our chickens die of old age, Apicella said.
They do, however, sheer the alpacas and make products from their wool, including their most popular item: socks. Alpaca wool is 100 percent hypoallergenic and is suitable for three season socks worn throughout fall, winter and spring. He travels to Westport, Fairfield and Litchfield selling alpaca goods and Judys herbal creams and lotions at farmers markets.
They turned the farm into a bed and breakfast in 2008, allowing guests to stay on the property, enjoy the animals and take yoga classes from Judy, a certified yoga instructor and herbologist who teaches at Kent Prep. It was actually too successful. Apicella said they got so busy with the bed and breakfast, that it was taking away from the peaceful and relaxed lifestyle they wanted. About two years ago, they cut back and decided to offer one loft for weekend getaways at $215 per night. Their success has not diminished; Apicella said they are typically booked four months in advance. They also do Sunday tours for $25.
Lidia Ryan
The loft where guests stay isnt much to see from the outside; its a plain shingled structure decorated with TripAdvisor accolades. Like the rest of the farm, its no-frills, authentic farm living. The interior, however, is a clean wooden loft with a peaked ceiling and chic country decor, including a large knit alpaca tapestry above the bed. Theres a bookshelf, a dining table, a couch and a porch overlooking the farm. What guests wont find there is cable or Internet (though they do have DVDs).
We do not have cable or WiFi, and were very proud of that. We have realized since 2007, how many couples have come out and thanked us for having no distractions. They actually talked to each other and read a book, Apicella said.
Most of the guests that stay at Bella Alpacas are city people from New York or Boston looking for an escape to nature.
You can see the guests change within 24 hours, Apicella said. They come in high heels and by the second day they are in boots.
Guests explore the New Milford area and go hiking and kayaking or check out the vineyards and the Elephants Trunk Flea Market down the road, but for the most part its about interacting with the animals.
Towards the end of our tour, I noticed a white alpaca staring out at me through the inside of a glass door, so I asked to go see him. Apicella walked me over to a third pen where a few of the Apicellas special needs alpacas stay. These are animals who have small deformities or ailments, so they are kept together and play in a smaller, closed off area instead of running out in the large fields with the others.
As I was heading out, the sun started peeking through the clouds for the first time in days and I left in good spirits knowing the alpacas, like me, would spend the rest of the day basking in the warmth.
Lidia Ryan is a freelance writer.
NEW HAVEN- A computer hacker used personal information he stole from school employees which he used to file 122 tax returns seeking refunds totaling $596,897/
Daniel Adekunle Ojo, 34, a Nigerian national residing in North Carolina was sentenced to 32 months in federal prison Thursday morning by U.S. District Judge Jeffrey A. Meyer. Additionally the judge ordered him to repay $36,926 to the IRS.
Ojo pleaded guilty on June 21 to separate charges of wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. He has been in custody since Aug. 3 when he was arrested in Durham, N.C., according to U.S. Attorney John Bull Durham.
Durham said Ojo entered the U.S. using a visitors visa on May 23, 2016 and never left. The visa expired on June 8, 2016 but Ojo remained here, married and fathered a child..
Assistant U.S. Public Defender Tracy Hayes told the judge Ojo was going through some tough times. Both he and his wife were unemployed and their car was stolen. The defense lawyer downplayed his role in the phising scheme.
But Assistant U.S. Attorney Sarala V. Nagala countered that his actions allowed others involved in the scheme to still have access to the victims personal information and could use it over and over again for nefarious purposes.
Victims were forced to hire credit monitoring service, repair their credit reports and freeze their ability to obtain credit for a period of time.
Who knows how long this event will follow me or the long term implications of my identity (theft) will be affected by this persons actions, a Glastonbury victim wrote the court. .
Investigators became aware of the scheme in February, 2017, when a Glastonbury school employee received an email claiming to be from the executive assistant to the assistant superintendent requesting the 2016 wage and tax statements for all of the systems employees.
The recipient complied and sent the personal W-2 information for all 1,600 employees to the email address. That American On Line address was created that same month. The recipient was later terminated by the school system.
A short time later 122 federal 1040 tax returns in the names of some of the employees were filed electronically with the IRS. Together the returns sought $596,897 in refunds. However only six were processed resulted in $36,926 in fraudulent obtained refunds which were electronically deposited in bank accounts created for the scheme.
A federal investigation was begun and found that a gmail account used by Ojo contained six W-2 forms created for Glastonbury school employees as well as their personal information.
Members of the FBIs cybercrime unit in New Haven uncovered additional information on a similar scheme that victimized employees of Grotons public schools and those working for the Bloomington Independent School District in Minnesota.
In Groton, an employee received a request from what appeared to be the school systems superintendent. The employee then sent tax and wage information on 1,300 employees to the email address. The IRS then received 66 tax returns supposedly from those employees seeking refunds totaling $364,188. However none of those refunds were paid.
Assisting the FBI in the probe were agents from the IRS Criminal Investigation unit and Durham, N.C. police.
TORRINGTON Federal legislation aimed at helping communities that are beset by the opioid epidemic to gain more oversight over addiction services is expected to be approved by the Senate this week.
U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., met with addiction experts this week at the McCall Center for Behavioral Health to discuss the status of the legislation.
In attendance were members of the Litchfield County Opiate Taskforce, Maria Countant Skinner, executive director of the McCall Center, and legislators, including Rep. Michelle Cook, R-Torrington.
The group has been extraordinarily valuable in helping to craft legislation, Blumenthal said in a phone interview.
They emphasized the importance of guidelines for sober houses and the problems that occur in Torrington and across the country, Blumenthal said.
The legislation, Senate Bill 2678, would, in part, direct federal mental health services to provide information about best practices for operating sober houses and other addiction services.
There would be more treatment and counseling services. It would raise the quality and availability of sober houses, Blumenthal noted. Passage of the bill would provide $1.5 billion to state governments to help implement the regulations.
U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., sponsored the bill in April along with Blumenthal and three other senators. While introducing the bill Kaine told his colleagues why oversight of sober houses is so important.
There have been deaths at recovery residences due to the lack of trained professionals and standards, Kaine said.
This will have a very important national effect, Blumenthal said Tuesday. It can do tremendous good.
State legislation that was passed in February is intended to protect people in treatment, and requires sober homes to be prepared to care for those people as they learn to live without drugs. HB 5149, An Act Concerning Sober Living Homes, was initially submitted by Cook. The bill allows sober homes to voluntarily register with the state Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services, while preventing residences that do not do so from (advertising) or (holding) itself out as a sober living home in the state, according to the bill.
To maintain its registration, any sober home occupied by someone diagnosed with an opioid use disorder would be required to keep an opioid antagonist, such as naloxone, on site, and train all residents in its use.
There are more than 1,500 sober homes in Connecticut, and about 50 in Torrington alone, Cook said in an interview Thursday. We have to ensure that people are protected. Mr. Blumenthal is looking for a national standard, based on what weve done here.
We want to make sure that people going through this process are getting what they need, and right now theyre not, Cook said. A person leaves treatment after 30 days, and theyre not always prepared, or getting the support they need. If theyre in a treatment facility, what does its oversight look like? Are there curfews? How are they being house? How does insurance play into it?
The opioid crisis is not going away, and having protections in place and developing standards on what a sober home is, what it provides, is important, Cook said. We define sober home on a state level, but it needs to be clearly defined on a national level.
In February, the state legislature approved a bill requiring the people running sober homes in Connecticut to receive training to use naloxone to treat a person who has overdosed.
Coutant Skinner, who talked with Blumenthal Tuesday, said the federal legislation will make an impact on a national level.
The legislation, from a federal perspective is a much larger opioid bill, a package of many bills, she said. For McCall (center), a productive piece of the discussion Tuesday was that we had great representation of people who are managing sober homes, or who have lived in several sober homes, and they talked about how to make them better. Were moving this in a positive direction.
There was also some discussion on non-addictive medication and alternative pain strategies to help people stop using opioids, Skinner said.
There are established, best practices to manage pain that dont come in pill form, she said. And finally, people were talking globally. We realize we need not to think so small. (The opioid epidemic) is so far reaching. Theres not one law thats a magic bullet, that will be sweeping and fix everything. Overall the discussion was very productive.
The Port of Rotterdam, Europe's biggest shipping port, warned companies on both sides of the Channel that they aren't doing enough to prepare for Britain's exit from the European Union, as it plans a test of its facilities to make sure it's ready for the worst.
"If the companies don't prepare, then we will be in deep trouble," Mark Dijk, the Port of Rotterdam's external affairs manager, said on a vessel trip through the facility on Tuesday. The port itself, which handles more than 465 million tons of shipments a year, is ramping up with additional digital infrastructure and more customs officials, but business needs to do more to get ready for the additional administrative burdens that Brexit will bring, he said.
While a transition agreement would keep the current customs rules in place until the end of 2020, when the U.K. leaves the EU for good, it will become a so-called third country as far as trade is concerned, meaning customs clearance will be required for all EU-U.K. trade. There also will be additional inspections of food, plants and live animals, as well as other paperwork and delays.
Brexit also will change the types of merchandise that Rotterdam can handle. Horses, for example, will have to find a new route as there is no facilities for the inspections that will probably become necessary.
The Dutch Foreign Ministry said last week that only 18 percent of companies in the Netherlands are doing enough to get ready for Brexit. For more than 40 percent of Dutch firms that do business with the U.K., filling out import and export forms, and other customs regulations, will be a new thing, according to Rotterdam Port Chief Executive Officer Allard Castelein.
Britain is one of the Netherlands' biggest trading partners, and the Rotterdam port is also important for the rest of Europe with its market of more than 500 million people. The port handles about 40 million tons of shipments between the Netherlands and Britain a year, about 8 percent of its total annual throughput, including fresh flowers and food bound for U.K. supermarkets.
The U.K. and the EU are struggling to secure a divorce deal, leaving companies and government bodies in limbo on how the future relationship will look. While the outlines of an agreement on the future EU-U.K. relationship may be included along with the divorce deal expected in November, a formal trade accord won't be hammered out until after Britain leaves the bloc.
The Rotterdam port aims to address capacity problems brought on by Brexit with the help of digital infrastructure, and is exploring its limited options for gaining additional space. It plans a dry-run around November to check its Brexit preparations.
The customs authority is recruiting for more than 900 new positions to help handle the extra paperwork that will be required. It expects 10,500 more ships to have extra customs requirements, based on current U.K.-Dutch trade.
For companies, these customs formalities will require time and manpower.
With the U.K. a so-called third country after Brexit, companies will need customs declarations for every shipment, said Roel van 't Veld, Brexit coordinator of the Dutch customs authority. About 35,000 of the more than 80,000 Dutch companies that do business with the U.K. have never dealt with the paperwork involved in trading outside the EU, he said.
"Probably the biggest worry at this stage is that those 35,000 companies need to be aware that you have to do customs declarations for each and every shipment," Van 't Veld said. "If you just drive to the ferry, you will not be allowed on the ferry."
In most cases, the post-Brexit customs regime will mean nine documents are needed for shipments to or from the U.K., compared with the current two, Van 't Veld said. "Politically, there is a lot of uncertainty; for us, professionally, there is a lot of certainty," he said, referring to the increased paperwork.
British consumers might lose out on the freshest food, as required food inspections delay shipments.
"That there will be congestion, no doubt," said Annika Hult, North Sea trade director for Stena Line, one of the world's leading ferry operators, which transports trucks carrying fruit, plants and vegetables for British supermarkets. "To what extent? Very difficult to say," she said.
Liesbeth Kooijman, head of import inspection at the Dutch Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority, said her department is recruiting additional staff to handle the increased inspections because of Brexit, including for live animals. But some might have to change course, such as horse owners.
While the authority is responsible for supplying enough inspectors, the inspection facilities are out of its hands. Once the U.K. exits the EU, horses would need to be flown in via one of the Netherlands' airports, Kooijman said.
Something funny happened this week. Bob Stefanowski, the Republican candidate for governor, asked for money.
Thats not the funny part. The funny part is Stefanowski mocking other Republican candidates, particularly former frontrunner Mark Boughton, for using public financing. Stefanowski made lots of hay from the fact that he poured millions of his own dollars into his outsider campaign.
This is a crucial moment for the campaign, and we just cant afford to be off the airwaves, wrote his wife, Amy, according to Hearst Media Connecticut. That is why Im personally asking you to make a donation to help us with this. Meeting this $10,000 goal means staying on the air and reaching 100,000 voters with our winning message.
I dont mean funny ha-ha, as you can see. I mean funny weird. Isnt it strange that a former executive for big firms like GE and UBS is asking for nickels and dimes? The way he treated Boughton, I would have expected Stefanowski to easily find ten grand between the couch cushions.
You could say this doesnt matter. After all, asking for money is like breathing oxygen in politics, whether you add your own cash to the kitty or not. Id otherwise agree except for one thing: Stefanowski isnt a normal candidate.
Hes a TV candidate.
That means hes not willing, or able, to do what successful politicians normally do to win their partys primary for governor. He didnt knock on doors. He didnt press the flesh. He didnt court donors. He didnt build a base of power. He didnt, during the state GOP convention, stay up all night honing his message and horse trading with delegates. He didnt do much, or any, of these things.
Instead, he bought ads.
Loads of ads, in fact, all purchased long before other Republican candidates started buying air time. And he bought them on TV stations beloved of Republicans, particularly Connecticuts Fox affiliate, WTIC. While they rage-watched the latest self-made scandal coming out of the Donald Trump White House, Stefanowski delivered a message considered gospel truth among Republicans.
The income tax is the problem.
The income tax is not the problem, it has never been the problem, but it has become the problem to many Connecticut Republicans thanks to the upside-down and sealed-off logic of conservative media. (WTIC isnt conservative media but Fox News certainly is.) If only there were a man fearless and strong enough to take out the income tax, a man who knows full well that state government must be run like a business, a man who says what needs to be said, political correctness be damned then wages would rise, firms would come back, and growth would be explosive.
Thats pretty much Stefanowskis message.
Its nonsense.
To be sure, its been approved by Arthur Laffer himself. But Laffers theories are decades old. They have long been discredited. Few mainstream economists remain who take his Reaganomics seriously. The only people who believe Reaganomics works are people on TV. In this way, Stefanowski the TV candidate is completely at home.
None of this is to say that being the TV candidate wont win the governors race. I mean, it could work. To be sure, being a TV candidate worked for President Trump.
But Stefanowski is no Trump, and Connecticuts media is not what you find in Washington and New York. Trump was and is willing to say anything to get attention, and national media was and is willing (though less so these days) to report whatever Trump says to get attention. Correct me if Im wrong but Stefanowski isnt and hasnt been going to those lengths. If he has been, it hasnt been working, because our news media isnt playing along.
So, unlike Trump, Stefanowski cant rely on free media. Hell have to buy it, a ton of it, in order to compete adequately with with Democratic candidate Ned Lamont who really did do what successful candidates normally do to win their partys primary for governor.
That might not be an obstacle for a millionaire buying ads left and right. Then again, perhaps Stefanowski is telling us something. Why ask for nickels and dimes when youve been paying millions? It could be that Stefanowski doubts he can win. Why spend the money if its not worth it?
John Stoehr is the publisher of the Editorial Board, a newsletter about politics. He lives in Westville.
A Cambodian coalition of NGOs dedicated to raising public awareness about the risks associated with dams on the Mekong River said Thursday that it will boycott a regional stakeholder forum for two proposed hydropower projects in Laos because its concerns were ignored by the organizing body.
The Mekong River Commission (MRC)a regional body established by Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand to cooperate on development of the key waterwayis holding the Sept. 20-21 forum to share information on the Pak Lay project as well as updates and discussions on a joint action plan for the Pak Beng hydropower project and other topics on an agenda that highly involves stakeholders interest.
The MRC has said it will support open and inclusive participation from stakeholders from communities, non-governmental organizations, civil society organizations, academia, and the private sector at the gathering in the Lao capital Vientiane.
On Thursday, the Cambodia Mekong Alliance (CMA) consisting of 52 NGOs, said it will not take part in the forum after its request to convey concerns over the potential impacts of the Pak Lay and Pak Beng dams on the Mekong River in Laos to the MRCs representative body in Cambodia was ignored.
CMA representative Leang Bunleap told RFAs Khmer Service that the Cambodia Mekong Commissions failure to respond to his coalitions request shows that the MRC only pays lip service to creating an all-inclusive consultative process on dam development.
There was no response to our request, he said.
The forum will be held and the planned construction [on the Pak Lay and Pak Beng dams] will proceed anyway, so we decided not to take part in the forum.
The CMA and other groups have warned that the Pak Lay, Pak Beng, and other dams in Laos will negatively impact the environment and the livelihood of river communities throughout the region.
The CMAs decision not to attend the forum comes weeks after the Save the Mekong coalition of NGOs and community-based groups said it will boycott the prior consultation process for the Pak Lay dam, noting that serious and outstanding concerns regarding each of the mainstream dams that have undergone the process to datethe Xayaburi, Don Sahong, and Pak Beng damsremain unresolved.
The group said that requests for information about the projects impact expressed during their prior consultations were not formally addressed, including calls for the extension of the consultation periods.
It also cited a seven-year study issued in February, indicating that a series of dams on the Mekongs mainstream and tributaries poses threats to the regions ecological health, economic vitality, and food security.
Prior consultation is a required procedure under the 1995 Mekong Agreement by Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand to establish the MRC. It allows member nations to jointly review proposed dam projects on the Mekong mainstream with the aim of reaching an agreement on whether the project should proceed and under what conditions.
The MRCs Joint Committee Working Group decided to begin a six-month prior consultation process for the Pak Lay dam on Aug. 8a day after the Lao government announced a suspension of new dam projects and independent investigations of existing ones, following the collapse of an auxiliary dam at the U.S. $1 billion Xe Pian Xe Namnoy hydropower project in Champasak province.
The July 23 disaster caused severe flooding that claimed the lives of at least 40 villagers, according to official figures, and displaced thousands of others who are living in temporary camps.
Concerns over Lao dams
Phoy Vanna, a villager who lives near Cambodias border with Laos in Stung Treng province, told RFA Thursday that he was concerned about the potential impact from the Don Sahong dam, which is now about 60 percent complete.
I am so worried that something like what happened with the Xe Pian Xe Namnoy dam could occur, he said of the Don Sahong, which is located about one mile from the border in Laos.
If there is a dam collapse, there will be a significant impact and I demand that [the authorities take] full responsibility if that happens.
A villager from Sieng Pang districts Sekong commune in Stung Treng, who was affected by flooding from the Xe Pian Xe Namnoy dam collapse, told RFA on condition of anonymity that residents have no confidence in local authorities to discuss compensation for damages with the Lao government.
I have received no assistance, the villager said, adding that victims are going hungry and their rice crops remain under water.
Despite a recent order by the Lao government to halt new dam investments, the developers of the Pak Lay and Pak Beng hydropower projects told RFA last month that they are pressing ahead with construction plans because they have not been ordered by provincial authorities to stop their work.
A series of 11 large hydropower dams on the Mekongs lower mainstream and roughly 120 tributary dams are planned for 2040. The 770-megawatt Pak Lay hydropower project in northwestern Laos Xayaburi province would be the fourth dam on the lower Mekong mainstream, after the Xayburi, Don Sahong, and Pak Beng dams.
Reported by RFAs Khmer Service. Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.
Authorities in the eastern Chinese province of Jiangsu have canceled three scheduled performances of a 19th century play by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen that depicts a middle-class hero battling vested corporate interests and local government corruption.
The touring production of Ibsen's "An Enemy of the People" by Berlin's Schaubuhne theater was staged from Sept. 6-8 at the National Center for the Performing Arts in Beijing.
But the company announced on its website that a subsequent performance scheduled in Jiangsu's provincial capital Nanjing for Thursday and Friday had been canceled.
An employee taking calls on the ticket hotline for the Jiangsu Theater in Nanjing on Thursday confirmed that the performances had been canceled, but denied that it was for political reasons.
"This is due to a malfunction with the stage," the employee said. "There is no way for the performance to go ahead. That's why it was canceled."
However, the play touches on a number of themes that could be considered politically sensitive by the ruling Chinese Communist Party, including a bid by a corrupt local government to cover up pollution of the city's water supply.
According to an English program note, the protagonist "Stockmann insists on transparency and intends to go public on the matter" when he discovers that the city's water supply has been contaminated by bacteria.
After the local mayor tries to muzzle Stockmann and prevent him going to the press with his concerns, his father-in-law weighs in on behalf of the local moneyed classes.
"For him, the affair has long since ceased to be about the polluted health spa, his target is society as a whole," the program note says.
The local newspaper sides with town officials, but Stockmann insists on continuing to speak out. By the end of the play, he and his family have been forcibly evicted, and his wife has lost her job, echoing the treatment of some outspoken Chinese activists and petitioners at the hands of the authorities.
Censors 'nervous'
Nanjing resident and long-time petitioner of the government Yang Shuxiu said government censors have become very nervous under the administration of President Xi Jinping.
"Of course they won't say [the real reason for the cancellation]," Yang said. "So many things have become sensitive now; the authorities can't tolerate even the slightest wind shaking the grasses. They are getting nervous even before people have done anything."
Beijing-based artist Wang Peng agreed, saying that controls on cultural expression are getting tighter and tighter under Xi.
"Of course they are targeting artists, because artists are supposed to reflect reality around them and their impressions of it, or even attack it," Wang said. "Now it seems as if they want us to do a U-turn, so that only works that fit in with the national ideology are allowed to be seen."
Beijing political commentator and veteran democracy activist Zha Jianguo said he wasn't surprised by the move either.
"If artistic works in mainland China ... touch on anything remotely political, or shine a light on certain [unwelcome] truths ... then they are less and less likely to be performed," Zha said.
"Controls on public expression and ideology are extremely strict in mainland China right now."
Online activist Wang Fazhan said he thought it ridiculous that a 19th century play could be shut down.
"It's totally ridiculous, that a play that is so canonical could be denied permission to be performed by censors," Wang told RFA. "It just shows how censorship is getting worse and worse."
"They only want people to see things they want them to see. Any instructive ideas will be banned during the censorship process."
Sensitive themes
The play's themes of press manipulation, official corruption and pollution may have touched a raw nerve in China, where more than three decades of breakneck economic growth have left people living in a seriously degraded environment, amid growing public protests among the country's middle classes and farming communities alike.
Activists say China has an exemplary set of environmental protection laws, but that environmental officials lack the power to impose it on powerful vested interests at the local level.
The forcible eviction and job losses of the family in the play, which comes after Stockmann stands up to the local ruling elite, may also have struck a chord.
Earlier this month, authorities in the southern province of Guangdong evicted the sister of prominent democracy activist Li Biyun and beat her siblings after they tried to prevent her home from being demolished, in the latest in a wave of forced evictions targeting peaceful critics of the government and their families in recent years.
Family members of dissidents have also repeatedly complained in interviews with RFA of police harassment of their landlords and employers, often leaving them with no income and no secure place to live.
Reported by Wen Yuqing for RFA's Cantonese Service, and by Yang Fan for the Mandarin Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
Chinese medical workers transfer an injured person in a hospital after a man drove into a crowded public square in Hengdong, central China's Hunan province, Sept. 12, 2018.
At least nine people have died and dozens more are injured following a driving and stabbing attack on pedestrians by a driver in the central Chinese province of Hunan, state media reported on Thursday.
"At 19:35 on Sept. 12, a malicious case of intentional driving occurred in Lijiang Square, Hengdong county," state broadcaster CCTV reported.
A man surnamed Yang has been detained on suspicion of carrying out the attack, which killed nine people and injured 46, it cited Hengdong county officials as saying.
"Three of them were seriously injured. The injured were taken to the hospital for treatment," the report said, adding that investigations are ongoing.
Video clips from the scene showed people lying on the floor of a square with emergency lights flashing around them, and people with bleeding and traumatic injuries.
A still photo sent to RFA showed a man in a blue shirt lying in pools of blood on the ground, as staff readied a stretcher nearby.
Another clip appeared to show crowds running away from the site of the attack, across a broad city square.
Media reports later identified the attacker as Hengdong county resident Yang Zanyun, 54, who had a long history of criminal convictions related to drugs and gambling, according to a 2017 Hengdong County People's Court indictment against him, a copy of which was shown to RFA.
A local journalist who gave only his surname Chen said the authorities had quickly clamped down on any independent reporting of the incident, and media outlets had relied exclusively on syndicated copy issued by government propaganda departments.
"There are only a few local media organizations in Hunan anyway, and they're not likely to get involved in this incident, because they'll get a call from higher up," Chen said.
"Everything we have reported is based on the propaganda department and police department copy," he said. "Also, we lack access to the details of what actually happened."
Repeat offender
Lawyer Chen Keyun said the main suspect had been sentenced a number of times, each time for a short period, which is unusual in the case of repeat offenders.
"He served very short sentences every time, almost as if they were trying to show that justice was being done," Chen said. "That's really not normal."
"This is a systemic problem, and nothing is ever done according to the law," he said. "We need to look at whether or not there were miscarriages of justice involved."
Experts have blamed growing social tensions, a widening gap between rich and poor, and associated mental health problems for a wave of recent attacks in public places, many of which have targeted young children with knives.
Two pupils at an elementary school in Shanghai died in June after a stabbing attack by a man who said he had "lost all hope," and wanted revenge on society, state media reported at the time.
In July, police detained a man who they said was slightly injured after setting off a small explosive device near the U.S. Embassy in Beijing. No one else was injured in the incident.
Reported by Wong Siu-san and Wen Yuqing for RFA's Cantonese Service, and by the Mandarin Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
Myanmar State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi on Thursday said her government could have done better managing the Rohingya Muslim crisis in Rakhine state, but defended the sentencing of two Reuters reporters handed seven-year jail terms earlier this month for possessing documents related to the massacre of 10 Rohingya men and boys.
She largely sidestepped the accusations from the United Nations, rights groups, and other members of the international community that the Myanmar army campaign against the Rohingya amounts to ethnic cleansing or genocide. The brutal crackdown and her repeated defense of the military have tarnished Aung San Suu Kyis reputation as a Nobel laureate and an Asian democracy icon.
There are, of course, ways in which we with hindsight might think that the situation could have been handled better, but we believe that for the sake of long-term stability and security we have to be fair to all sides, Aung San Suu Kyi said at the World Economic Forum on ASEAN in Vietnams capital Hanoi.
The rule of law must apply to everybody, she said. We cannot choose and pick who should be protected by the rule of law.
Differentiating the military aspects of the crisis from the political ones, she said the government must take responsibility for the political aspects.
Myanmar security forces carried out a violent crackdown on the Rohingya in northern Rakhine in response to deadly attacks in August 2017 by a Muslim militant group on police stations and an army base. The campaign, which included indiscriminate killings, torture, rape, and arson, drove more than 700,000 members of the minority group to Bangladesh.
Last month, the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar, working under a mandate from the U.N.-backed Human Rights Council, said that Myanmars commander-in-chief, Senior-General Min Aung Hlaing, and five other generals should be referred to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague to be prosecuted for genocide against the Rohingya.
Many of these violations undoubtedly amount to the gravest crimes under international law, said the report issued on Aug. 27.
Miscarriage of justice?
The two Reuters journalists, Kyaw Soe Oo and Wa Lone, were found guilty on Sept. 3 of breaching a law on state secrets, though the a witness for the prosecution testified that a senior police official ordered another officer to hand them confidential documents to set up the pair during their reporting on the killing of Rohingya villagers by the security forces.
On Tuesday, U.S. Vice President Mike Pence called on Myanmar to reverse the ruling and immediately release the two.
When asked about her response to appeals for the reporters release, Aung San Suu Kyi said that critics of the ruling should point out any miscarriages of justice.
The case has been held in open court, and all the hearings have been open to everybody who wished to go to attend them, she said. And if anybody feels that there has been a miscarriage of justice, I would like them to point it out.
I would like them to read the judgment and point out where theres been a miscarriage of justice, she said.
She also noted that the summary of the judgment against the reporters dealt only with the Official Secrets Act and not with freedom of expression, and added that the reporters could appeal their sentences under due process of law.
When asked if she as a democratic leader felt comfortable with journalists being jailed, Aung San Suu Kyi said the Reuters reporters were not jailed because they are journalists.
They were jailed because the court has decided that they had broken the Official Secrets Act, she said. So if we believe in the rule of law, they have every right to appeal the judgment and to point out why the judgment is wrong, if they consider it wrong.
'Deluded misrepresentation of the facts'
Rights group reacted with strong rebukes of Aung San Suu Kyi for her comments at the forum.
Aung San Suu Kyi once again got it all wrong when she spoke about the Reuters journalists' verdict in Hanoi, said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director at New York-based Human Rights Watch.
She fails to understand that real 'rule of law' means respect for evidence presented in court, actions brought based on clearly defined and proportionate laws, and independence of the judiciary from influence by the government or security forces, he said. On all these counts, the trial of the Reuters journalists failed the test.
Minar Pimple, senior director of global operations at London-based Amnesty International, called the comments a disgraceful attempt by Aung San Suu Kyi to defend the indefensible.
To say that this case had nothing to do with freedom of expression and that Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo were not jailed for being journalists is a deluded misrepresentation of the facts, he said in a statement issued Thursday.
These two men were convicted under a draconian, colonial-era law that was deliberately misused to halt their investigations into the appalling atrocities that took place in Rakhine state, he said. From start to finish, the case was nothing more than a brazen attack on freedom of expression and independent journalism in Myanmar.
U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley also took aim at Aung San Suu Kyi for her statements.
First in denial about the abuse the Burmese military placed on the Rohingya, now justifying the imprisonment of the two Reuters reporters who reported on the ethnic cleansing. Unbelievable, she tweeted on Thursday.
Derek Mitchell, a former U.S. ambassador to Myanmar who worked closely with Aung San Suu Kyi during the country's emergence from military rule, took her to task for her rule of law comments.
Rule of law is not just a process he told RFA. It's not just having a judge on a bench, prosecutors, a defense attorney, and laws. If that's the definition, then Burma has always had rule of law, even when under military rule.
What the country needs is not what is essentially rule by law, but justice, said Mitchell, president of the National Democratic Institute in Washington. I wish she would start talking in those terms. Without justice there will be no peace and no democracy, and everything she has worked for over the past 30 years will have come to naught."
The United Nations has been ramping up pressure on Myanmar to hold accountable military officials responsible for what it has called the ethnic cleansing of and genocide against Rohingya Muslims in northern Rakhine state. Security forces stand accused of committing atrocities against the minority group and driving more than 800,000 of them out of the country and into Bangladesh during two crackdowns that began in October 2016 and August 2017.
In late August, an investigation team appointed by the U.N. Human Rights Council said top military commanders in Myanmar should be investigated and prosecuted for the gravest crimes committed against civilians under international law, including genocide, in Rakhine, Kachin, and Shan states.
On Sept. 7, The Hague-based International Criminal Court (ICC) decided that it has jurisdiction to investigate and possibly prosecute the crime against humanity of deportation of the Rohingya to Bangladesh. Myanmar, however, maintains that the ICC has no say because the country is not a party to the Rome Statute which created the international tribunal. Immediately following the courts decision, rights groups called on the U.N. Security Council to refer the situation in Myanmar to the ICC to investigate all atrocity crimes committed in the country.
And on Monday, U.N. human rights chief Michelle Bachelet called for a new "mechanism" to prepare criminal indictments for atrocities, including murder, torture, and rape, committed against the Rohingya.
In the meantime, Myanmar State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi, who also serves as foreign affairs minister, plans to skip the U.N. General Assembly session beginning next week in New York, as she did last year. Myint Tun, permanent secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, discussed Myanmars participation in the upcoming U.N. General Assembly session with reporter Wai Mar Tun of RFAs Myanmar Service. The following is an edited version of their conversation.
RFA: Who will attend the U.N. General Assembly as Myanmar representatives?
Myint Tun: A delegation led by Kyaw Tint Swe, minister of the State Counselors Office, and Kyaw Tin, minister of the Ministry of International Cooperation, will attend. The General Assembly's regular session usually lasts three months, but the Myanmar delegation will attend the plenary session and several important sideline meetings. The other committee members will stay until the session ends. The Myanmar delegation will leave for New York next week and will be there for about 10 days.
RFA: Aung San Suu Kyi attended U.N. General Assemblies in the past when she was an opposition leader, but now she is a state leader. Do you think she should attend this years Assembly to talk about Myanmars situation?
Myint Tun: State counselors, presidents, and prime ministers usually attend only high-level panels. This one is just an annual General Assembly. Thats why she isnt attending, but rather is sending a delegation.
RFA: How will you respond if another delegate or some countries complain about the Rakhine issue or put pressure on Myanmar?
Myint Tun: Myanmars stance is to work with U.N. organizations, including the Security Council. The Myanmar delegation will declare this stance at the General Assembly as well. We will also work together with our ally countries [and] explain to them the developments in Rakhine state that we have been working on, such as the rapid assessment surveys that have begun today. Myanmars permanent representative to the United Nations will talk about this at the U.N. Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva as well.
RFA: The international community often talks about satellite photos of the destruction of Muslim villages in Rakhine state. What will you say about this at the Assembly?
Myint Tun: The U.N.s fact-finding mission submitted a report about it a few weeks ago. Myanmar has already announced our stance on this as well. We will also announce our stance at the Assembly.
RFA: What if someone brings up the issue of the possible prosecution of Myanmars top military generals at the ICC?
Myint Tun: We are not a party to the Rome Statute, and we dont accept that the ICC has brought Myanmar under its jurisdiction. If someone brings up the ICC issue during the U.N. Assembly, we will explain our stance and defend it.
RFA: Myanmar says Bangladesh has ignored its demands to provide documents and work with it to begin repatriating Rohingya refugees who fled from northern Rakhine state, while Bangladesh has blamed Myanmar for the delays. How will the Myanmar delegation explain this situation to international leaders at the Assembly?
Myint Tun: We will work with Bangladesh according to the agreement that both countries signed in November 2017. Bangladesh will have an election [later this year], and everybody knows that the refugee repatriation issue is being used to gain political advantage. Despite any blaming or accusations by Bangladesh, we will keep working on this issue.
RFA: How are the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the U.N.s refugee agency (UNHCR) conducting the rapid assessment surveys that began today in Rakhine state?
Myint Tun: They asked us for permission to visit 31 village tracts, but Myanmar has allowed them to visit 12 village groups in 23 village tracts. They requested permission to visit three additional villages, and we granted it. The UNDP and UNHCR will conduct their surveys freely by asking villagers about their social situation, education, health care, work, and the difficulties they face. The U.N. groups will also discuss with villagers how to live together peacefully with people who are returning from Bangladesh and their job opportunities. The U.N. agencies will create working plans based on the results of their surveys. The Myanmar government is allowing the U.N. agencies to travel freely and will support them and provide help and security as needed.
Reported by Wai Mar Tun for RFAs Myanmar Service. Translated by Khet Mar. Written in English by Roseanne Gerin.
The Dalai Lama is scheduled to meet on Friday in the Netherlands with a group of Western Buddhists who say they were sexually abused by their religious teachers, RFAs Tibetan Service has learned.
The group of 12 had sent a petition to the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader on Monday requesting the meeting, which will take place following the Dalai Lamas arrival in Rotterdam from Malmo, Sweden, on Sept. 14.
Members of the group include students from Austria, Australia, Belgium, France, the Netherlands, and the United States, RFAs sources said, adding that five Tibetan lamas were named in the groups complaint.
Sex scandals involving several Tibetan lamas teaching in the West, including Sogyal Rinpoche of the Rigpa organization and Sakyong Mipham of Shambhala International, have surfaced in the news in recent months.
An independent investigation into the allegations made against Sogyal released its report last week, upholding many of the accusations made against him.
The meeting with the 83-year Dalai Lama comes as the Roman Catholic Church faces a major crisis of its own in dealing with victims of clergy abuse in the United States, Europe, and elsewhere.
Reported and translated by RFAs Tibetan Service. Written in English by Richard Finney.
Nearly 3,000 children from a Uyghur-populated county in northwestern Chinas Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR) whose parents have been taken to political re-education camps are being held in so-called Little Angel Schools, where they take classes, Uyghur sources said.
Beginning in April 2017, Uyghurs accused of harboring strong religious or politically incorrect views have been detained in camps throughout the XUAR, where members of the mostly Muslim ethnic group have long complained of pervasive discrimination, religious repression, and cultural suppression under rule from Beijing.
The children left without guardians after their parents were detained have meanwhile been sent to live in overcrowded facilities in the region which they are not free to leave, sources say.
Speaking in a recent phone interview with RFAs Uyghur Service, the ruling Chinese Communist Party Secretary for Hotan prefectures Keriye county said that about 2,000 children ages 4 to 14 are now being held in one five-story county school, with another 300 to 500 held in a four-story school in Keriyes Yengibagh town.
"They are called Little Angels Schools," he said.
One school was built over a year ago, and the second one was completed four months ago, as the first school became too overcrowded, the official said.
Children held in the Little Angels Schools range in age from 8 to 13 or 14, and are served at the school in Yengibagh by a kindergarten, primary school, and middle school, he said.
Both schools are surrounded by walls topped with barbed wire and are located near police stations whose officers patrol the walls to provide security, the official said.
From what I have seen, the children look relaxed and happy, the official said, adding, They look just like children who still have their parents with them.
They are not allowed to go out, though, because their safety is important.
Some of them are very young, and as they are not all in their own district, there is a chance they could get lost. There arent enough staff members available to follow every child, he said.
U.S. 'deeply troubled'
On Tuesday, U.S. State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert said the US government was "deeply troubled" by the crackdown on Uyghurs in Xinjiang, adding that credible reports indicate that individuals sent by Chinese authorities to detention centers since April 2017 numbers at least in the hundreds of thousands, and possibly millions.
"Some of those disproportionate controls on ethnic minoritiesexpressions of their cultural and also their religious entitieshave the potential also to incite radicalization and the recruitment of violence," she told reporters during a news briefing.
The official warned that indiscriminate and disproportionate controls on ethnic minorities expressions of their cultural and religious identities have the potential to incite radicalization and recruitment to violence.
A group of U.S. lawmakers, in a recent letter, asked President Donald Trumps administration to swiftly act to sanction Chinese government officials and entities complicit in or directing the ongoing human rights crisis in Xinjiang.
The detention of as many as a million or more Uyghurs and other predominately Muslim ethnic minorities in political re-education centers or camps requires a tough, targeted, and global response, lawmakers Marco Rubio and Chris Smith, who lead the bipartisan Congressional-Executive Commission on China, said in a joint statement.
'It is not mistreatment'
The position of China's central government authorities has evolved from denying that large numbers of Uyghurs have been incarcerated in camps to disputing that the facilities are political re-education camps.
Li Xiaojun, director for publicity at the Bureau of Human Rights Affairs of the State Council Information Office told reporters in Geneva on Thursday that China was not mistreating Muslims in Xinjiang, but educating them to prevent extremism.
"It is not mistreatment," said "What China is doing is to establish professional training centers, educational centers," Li was quoted by Reuters news agency as saying.
"To put it straight, its like vocational training ... like your children go to vocational training schools to get better skills and better jobs after graduation."
Adrian Zenz, a lecturer in social research methods at the Germany-based European School of Culture and Theology, has said some 1.1 million people are or have been detained in the re-education camps, which equates to 10 to11 percent of the adult Muslim population of the region.
Reported by Shohret Hoshur for RFAs Uyghur Service. Translated by the Uyghur Service. Written in English by Richard Finney.
British, French, Italian, and German jets have simulated flight interceptions over Western Europe as part of NATO maneuvers to deter Russian planes from entering alliance airspace.
The NATO drills on September 12 came at the same time that Russia was showing off its most sophisticated air-defense system as it practiced fighting off a mock attack during military maneuvers of its own, the largest it has ever conducted.
The activity comes amid persistently high tensions between Russia and the West over Moscow's actions in Ukraine and Syria and its alleged interference in elections in the United States and European countries.
In the NATO drills, fighter pilots from alliance members simulated the interception of a Belgian military transport plane en route to Spain. Visual inspections were made by flying off the wings at speeds of 900 kilometers an hour.
NATO has some 60 jets regularly on alert to defend its airspace. A record 870 interceptions were recorded of Russian aircraft in the Baltic region in 2016.
"NATO is relevant. This is not theoretical," Spanish Air Force Lieutenant General Ruben Garcia Servert said aboard the Belgian plane.
As he spoke, Italian Eurofighters flew close to the cockpit to simulate interceptions, later joined by British Typhoons and French Mirages.
The European members of NATO are looking to display their commitments to their defense in the face of criticism by U.S. President Donald Trump that alliance members are not contributing enough financially to the alliance.
The Western alliance is currently negotiating an agreement that would have each member's air force defend any other's airspace under a "single sky" concept.
Currently, each country defends its own airspace, although other members help defend the airspace of the Baltic states, which do not have enough fighter jets of their own.
NATO is planning to hold its biggest maneuvers in 16 years when it conducts the Trident Juncture drills in Norway in October and November.
The drills will feature more than 40,000 troops, including some from non-NATO members Finland and Sweden.
Meanwhile, Russia is conducting massive military exercises across its central and eastern regions, weeklong war games the Defense Ministry said would involve some 300,000 personnel -- twice as many as the biggest Soviet maneuvers of the Cold War era.
Russian President Vladimir Putin inspected the drills in eastern Siberia on September 13 and insisted that they were not targeted at any country.
"Russia is a peaceful nation," Putin said at a firing range in the Chita region. "We do not and cannot have any aggressive plans," he added.
On September 12, the war games involved Russia's newest S-400 surface-to-air defense system, which NATO considers a threat to its aircraft.
Moscow last year signed a contract to sell the S-400 system to Turkey, angering NATO and particularly the United States, which threatened to suspend delivery of its F-35 stealth aircraft to Ankara.
The drills simulated a "massive missile attack" by an "unnamed enemy," military official Sergei Tikhonov said.
The exercises, which also involve Chinese and Mongolian soldiers, will run through September 17.
With reporting by Reuters and AFP
Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic says any deal with neighboring Kosovo to settle their long-standing disputes would need to include a guarantee of membership from the European Union.
"If we ever reach an agreement [with Kosovo], Serbia would need to get clear guarantees that it would become an EU member state in 2025," Vucic told Reuters in an interview published on September 13.
The EU has said that normalizing bilateral ties between Serbia and its former province is a key condition to move both countries toward EU membership.
Serbia lost control over Kosovo in 1999 after NATO bombed to stop the killing and expulsion of Albanians by Serb forces during a two-year counterinsurgency war.
Kosovo declared independence in 2008 and has been recognized by more than 100 countries, but not by Serbia.
The two sides in 2013 committed to EU-mediated talks to resolve their differences, but little progress has been made.
Vucic on September 8 said during a trip to northern Kosovo that he would be willing to continue talks with Kosovar officials but warned it will be difficult to reach a deal that could normalize relations.
"I will do my best [to reach the agreement], but it is a long road full of thorns and problems ahead," Vucic said.
The Serbian leader's two-day visit to Kosovo came one day after a meeting between Vucic and Kosovar President Hashim Thaci was canceled after Vucic refused to meet.
Vucic told Reuters it could take up to 10 years for the two sides to reach an agreement because of all their differences.
"Sometimes I smile when I hear how people simplify things and say that the deal comes down to a line -- I will give you three villages and I will get six villages [in return]," he said.
He was referring to suggestions by some leaders of a possible land swap, whereby Serbia gave up areas with a majority ethnic Albanian population in return for Kosovar territory with a majority Serb population.
"If we were ever to reach a deal, it would have to be an overall deal that would include not only relations between us and the Albanians in Kosovo, but it would also have to include a resolution of our EU path and further economic progress," he said.
"Right now, we don't know where our borders are," Vucic said.
"No one in the region should be afraid of any agreement between Serbs and Albanians in Kosovo. The region will be more stable, stronger and economically more attractive," he said.
Although some EU and U.S. officials have said they support the exchange of territories, Germany and many analysts have said it is a bad idea that could renew old ethnic hostilities throughout the Balkans.
With reporting by Reuters
BRUSSELS --The European Union's General Court has upheld the bloc's sanctions regime against Russian bank and energy companies over Russia's involvement in the crisis in Ukraine.
"The General Court of the EU upholds restrictive measures adopted by the Council against a number of Russian banks and oil and gas companies in connection with the crisis in Ukraine," the court said in September 13 statement.
Energy giants Rosneft and Gazprom Neft, as well as the banks DenizBank, PSC Prominvestbank, Sberbank, and Vnesheconombank had sought to annul the sanctions imposed on them by the EU in 2014 as a response to Russia's illegal annexation of Crimea and its support for separatists fighting in eastern Ukraine, where the conflict has killed more than 10,300 people in the last four years.
The EU sanctions restrict the access of the Russian banks and gas companies to some financial transactions and certain sensitive goods and technologies, as well as to capital markets in the EU, and prohibit the provision of services required for certain oil transactions.
The court said that the "stated objective of the contested acts is to increase the costs of Russia's actions to undermine Ukraine's territorial integrity, sovereignty, and independence, and to promote a peaceful settlement of the crisis", and that "this objective is consistent with the objective of maintaining peace and international security."
With reporting by Reuters
BRUSSELS -- The European Union has extended by another six months visa bans and asset freeze against 155 Russian and Ukrainian individuals, as well as 44 companies, for undermining or threatening the independence of Ukraine.
"An assessment of the situation did not justify a change in the sanctions regime," The EU council said in a statement issued on September 13.
The list of sanctioned individuals includes the Donetsk separatist leader Aleksandr Zakharchenko who was killed in an explosion in the eastern city on August 31.
It also includes a deceased member of the Russian Duma, Iosif Kobzon.
EU sources told RFE/RL that both were likely to be de-listed at a later stage but that the bloc wanted to ensure that their potential assets held in the EU aren't passed over to someone else when they are removed from the list.
The sanctions were first imposed in March 2014 over Russia's actions in eastern Ukraine and its seizure and illegal annexation of Ukraine's Crimea Peninsula. They have been renewed every six months since then. They have been now extended until March 15.
Russia's actions in eastern Ukraine and its support for separatists in a conflict that has killed more than 10,300 people since April 2014, has heightened tensions with the West.
With reporting by Reuters
BRUSSELS -- The European Parliament has approved the opening of negotiations with the European Council on visa liberalization for citizens of Kosovo.
A total of 420 EU lawmakers voted in favor on September 13, while 186 voted against and 22 abstained.
Kosovo remains the only country in the Western Balkans whose citizens still need a visa to travel to the EU.
Officials from EU member states are set to discuss the issue for the first time on September 17. Sources close to the talks told RFE/RL that especially France and the Netherlands are reluctant to grant the council the negotiating mandate.
Once the two EU institutions manage to reach a deal on the visa waiver, Kosovar citizens will be able to enter the EU without a visa for 90 days in any 180-day period if they hold a biometric passport.
The waiver applies to all EU countries apart from Britain and Ireland but includes non-EU states such as Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland.
The European Commission confirmed in July that Kosovo had fulfilled all the benchmarks required for its citizens to qualify for visa-free travel within Europe's Schengen Area, and the European Parliaments Civil Liberties Committee last month backed opening the talks with the council.
The requirements included a strengthened record in the fight against corruption and organized crime, as well as the ratification of a border demarcation agreement with Montenegro, which occurred in March.
Visas were abolished for the citizens of Macedonia, Montenegro, and Serbia in 2009 and for Albania and Bosnia-Herzegovina in 2010.
Four people, including a woman, have died after drinking bootleg alcohol in the Iranian city of Karaj, west of the capital, a judiciary official has said.
Nearly 40 people have been hospitalized, Karaj prosecutor Reza Shahkarami was quoted as saying on September 13 by the semiofficial ISNA news agency.
He said the poisonings, which happened on September 11, were under investigation.
"Twelve people had been transferred to hospital. Within hours, the number of those hospitalized increased to 39," Shahkarami said.
Since the 1979 revolution, alcohol has been banned in Iran and punishable by floggings and cash fines.
Yet, many Iranians drink foreign and homemade alcoholic beverages that are available on the black market.
In recent years, several cases of fatal alcohol poisoning have been reported.
Since 2014, Iran has opened treatment centers for alcoholics.
With reporting by RFE/RL's Radio Farda, ISNA, and Fars
Kosovo's government has approved a draft law to gradually transform the countrys security forces.
Rustem Berisha, minister of the Kosovo Security Force (KSF), told a September 13 cabinet meeting that the proposed law determines the competences, organization, and functioning of the KSF as a multiethnic, professional force, protecting the territorial integrity of the interests of Kosovo citizens."
Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj said that any step to transform the KSF will be done in line with our strategic partners in NATO, especially the U.S."
Kosovo has long sought to turn the countrys security forces into a national army, despite bitter opposition from Serbia and from the ethnic Serb minority in the northern part of the country. The plan has also failed to win support from Kosovo's Western partners.
The U.S. Embassy in Kosovo said it was "not consulted on the timing of this announcement and will have to analyze the draft laws to understand their purpose and effect."
It also said that its recent efforts have been concentrated on normalizing relations between Kosovo and Serbia, which it considers the most important step for progress in the near future."
Kosovos ethnic Albanian majority declared independence from Serbia in 2008, but Belgrade, backed by Russia, refuses to recognize Kosovo as a state.
In a statement e-mailed to RFE/RL, a NATO official said that any change in the structure, mandate, and mission of the KSF will require constitutional amendments, adding that the alliance supports the development of the force under its current mandate.
Lawmaker Igor Simic of the Serbian List that represents Kosovar Serbs warned that the party will reject any plan to form a Kosovar army.
The only legal military formation in Kosovo, according to United Nations Security Council Resolution 1244, is KFOR, the NATO-led peacekeeping mission in the country, Simic said.
Ahead of the governments decision, Kosovar President Hashim Thaci welcomed the idea of creating a national army, but only in partnership with NATO and the country's allies.
I think that proceeding with the issue today is the wrong moment because we do not need to send such a message to our allies, he also said.
A year ago, Thaci withdrew draft legislation on creating a national army that required approval from Kosovo's ethnic minorities, following international pressure.
At that time, Kosovo's ethnic Serbs said they wouldn't back the change.
Washington and the Western alliance warned that they would reduce military cooperation if Kosovo converted its lightly armed, NATO-trained security forces into a regular army without changing the constitution and consulting all groups.
With reporting by AP and Balkan Insight
Paul Manafort, U.S. President Donald Trump's former campaign chairman, has tentatively agreed to a plea deal with Special Counsel Robert Mueller that would eliminate the need for a second trial, U.S. media are reporting.
ABC News reported on September 13 that the deal, if finalized, would be announced in Washington on September 14.
The report said it was not yet clear whether Manafort had agreed to cooperate with prosecutors or only agreed to plead guilty to some or all of the charges against him.
Reuters cited a source as saying a plea deal was "close but not there yet."
Jury selection in Manafort's trial in the District of Columbia is scheduled to begin on September 17, but opening statements are due to start a week later.
Manafort, a longtime lobbyist, faces charges of failing to register as a foreign agent for his work on behalf of Moscow-friendly politicians in Ukraine, among other criminal charges.
The second trial, if eventually held, would come about a month after a jury in Virginia convicted Manafort on eight felony counts of filing false tax returns, failing to report offshore bank accounts, and bank fraud. The jury deadlocked on 10 other counts.
Mueller's investigation has resulted in charges against at least 32 people, including Trump's first national security adviser, Michael Flynn. The investigation also led to guilty plea by Trump's longtime personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, in a case brought by the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan.
George Papadopoulos, a low-level adviser to Trumps 2016 election campaign, was on September 7 sentenced to 14 days in prison for lying to federal agents.
He was the first person to plead guilty to charges brought by Mueller, whose prosecutors sought a six-month sentence for him.
Based on reporting by ABC, Reuters, and NBC
European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini on September 13 urged Macedonians to vote in this months referendum on changing the countrys name, saying they "hold the key to the future" of their country.
Mogherini was the latest in a line of Western officials to visit Skopje ahead of the September 30 referendum that could clear the way for the former Yugoslav republic's accession to the EU and NATO.
The vote will seek approval of a June agreement with Greece to change Macedonia's name to the Republic of North Macedonia, ending a decades-long dispute between the two neighbors.
"The doors of the EU are open for you," Mogherini said following talks with Prime Minister Zoran Zaev.
"Together we can achieve a lot, for all of our people, for our prosperity, for our security, for our stability, she added. You have an historic opportunity in your hands."
Earlier in the day in the Macedonian capital, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Wess Mitchell offered "heartfelt and profound" support to Macedonia, insisting that the final decision lies with voters.
The United States also has a stake in the Western Balkans, of seeing stability and prosperity in a very important region," Mitchell said after meeting with Foreign Minister Nikola Dimitrov.
Addressing the European Parliament in Strasbourg, Zaev said Macedonians were ready to grasp its "historic moment" and change its name, but he conceded that it "will be not an easy decision" for Macedonians.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis will embark September 16 on a trip to Skopje to "show U.S. support for Macedonia during NATO accession and continued U.S. commitment to peace and security in the region," according to the Defense Department.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and U.S. Senator Ron Johnson, who sits on a Senate subcommittee overseeing European and regional security, have also visited the city in recent days.
With reporting by AP
Two men accused by London of poisoning former spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter with a military-grade nerve agent have told Russia's state-funded RT television station they visited the British city of Salisbury in March as tourists.
The two men, who looked similar to the pictures of the suspects released by Britain on September 5, denied having played any role in the murder attempt.
"Our friends had been suggesting for a long time that we visit this wonderful town," one of the men said of Salisbury in a short clip of the interview played by RT on September 13.
"Maybe we did [approach] Skripal's house, but we don't know where is it located," one of the two men claimed.
British Prime Minister Theresa May's spokesman called the interview "an insult to the public's intelligence," saying it was full of "lies and blatant fabrications."
And Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt tweeted, Time to stop the fake TV shows the world has found Russia out on this.
British officials have accused the suspects of smuggling the Soviet-designed nerve agent Novichok into Britain in a fake perfume bottle and smearing some of the substance on the front door of Sergei Skripal's home in Salisbury, where the former intelligence officer settled after being sent to the West in a Cold War-style spy swap in 2010.
The attack left Skripal, 67, and his daughter Yulia, 34, in critical condition, but both have recovered after weeks in the hospital.
The men interviewed by RT denied carrying the fake women's perfume bottle with them.
"Isn't it silly for decent lads to have women's perfume?" one of the two men was quoted as saying by the Kremlin-funded RT.
"The customs are checking everything, they would have questions as to why men have women's perfume in their luggage. We didn't have it."
They also said they stayed less than one hour in Salisbury due to poor weather.
"We went there to see Stonehenge, Old Sarum, but we couldn't do it because there was muddy slush everywhere," one of the two men said, referring to local landmarks.
In the statement, the British government said the interview reflected more "obfuscation and lies" by Moscow.
"The government is clear these men are officers of the Russian military intelligence service -- the GRU -- who used a devastatingly toxic, illegal chemical weapon on the streets of our country," it said in a statement.
"We have repeatedly asked Russia to account for what happened in Salisbury in March," the statement said. "Today -- just as we have seen throughout -- they have responded with obfuscation and lies."
The RT interview was aired a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin said his country had identified the men Britain suspects of poisoning Skripal and his daughter, but claimed they were civilians.
"They are civilians, of course," Putin said on September 12, contradicting the British government's assertion that they were officers of Russia's military intelligence agency, known as the GRU.
Following Putin's declaration, May's spokesman said that Britain's attempts to get an explanation from Moscow over the poisoning had always been met with "obfuscation and lies."
The two suspects are GRU officers, the spokesman reiterated, adding, "The government has exposed the role of the GRU, its operatives, and its methods, this position is supported by our international allies."
Last week, British authorities announced that they had charged two Russian men, identified as Aleksandr Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, with carrying out the poisoning on March 4.
British Home Secretary Sajid Javid said on September 9 that Britain will catch the two men and bring them to prosecution if they ever step out of Russia.
Calling the poisoning a "sickening and despicable" attack, Javid said it was "unequivocally, crystal-clear this was the act of the Russian state -- two Russian nationals sent to Britain with the sole purpose of carrying out a reckless assassination attempt."
The poisoning led Britain, the United States, the European Union, and others to carry out a series of diplomatic expulsions and financial sanctions against Moscow.
It has further damaged already severely strained relations between Russia and the West and has been a cause for solidarity at a time when Western officials accuse Moscow of seeking to cause rifts in relations between Western countries.
With reporting by AP, AFP and Reuters
In going public as the Russian men accused by London of carrying out deadly poisonings on English soil, Ruslan Boshirov and Aleksandr Petrov both expressed and generated disbelief at the same time.
Their first public appearance, a September 12 interview with the Kremlin-funded RT channel, contained a few head-scratchers.
Famous Cathedral?
While the two admitted that they were in Salisbury, England -- where former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, were found unconscious on a park bench on March 4 -- they gave a somewhat unconventional answer for making the effort to visit.
Their reason for traveling a quarter of the way across the globe to see Salisbury? To see the southern English town's cathedral.
"Our friends recommended a long time ago that we visit that wonderful city," the man identifying himself as Petrov told RT. Boshirov added that the two wanted to see the "famous" cathedral's 123-meter spire and clock.
It was a suggestion that many on social media, including Intercept investigative reporter Ryan Gallagher, weren't buying:
Some, like Telegraph Russia correspondent Alec Luhn, responded in all seriousness, noting London's allegation that the two men are officers with Russia's military intelligence agency:
And others, like freelance journalist Ned Donovan, mocked the statement with a string of mocking and satirical comments such as this:
John Glen, a conservative member of parliamen from Salisbury itself, chimed in on Twitter:
Former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt called the two out on their travel claim:
The cathedral itself, to be fair, defended its honor.
Russians Who Never Saw Slush?
Boshirov and Petrov went on to explain that they had also expected to visit other nearby attractions, but their plans were thwarted.
"Of course, we went there to see Stonehenge, Old Sarum, but we couldnt do it because there was muddy slush everywhere," they told RT. "The town was covered by this slush. We got wet, took the nearest train and came back [to London]."
Doubt was soon cast.
CCTV footage of what appear to be the two walking in Salisbury on the day of the poisoning show little signs of slush or snow, as Max Seddon, Moscow correspondent for The Financial Times, pointed out on Twitter.
Author and journalist Guy Walters did note there was snow in the area, but wondered why that would have deterred the two, offering photographic evidence of a Salisbury man dealing with the natural phenomenon:
Walters also highlighted that the weather conditions apparently did not deter the two from walking an even greater distance to the Srkipal home, which they said in the interview that they might have approached.
Carrying Perfume?
"Isn't it silly for decent lads to have womens perfume?" Boshirov asked, addressing the allegations that the two had carried a Soviet-produced nerve agent allegedly used in the Skripal poisonings in a Nina Ricci perfume box, and smeared some of the contents on the front door of Sergei Skripal's Salisbury home.
"The customs are checking everything. They would have questions as to why men have womens perfume in their luggage. We didnt have it."
Telegraph correspondent Luhn was brief in response:
Sports Research?
The two suspects portrayed themselves as businessmen who work in sports nutrition and often travel together around Europe, having once spent New Year's in Switzerland.
"We examine the market, look if there is something new some biologically active additives, amino acids, vitamins, microelements .... We pick up the most necessary, come here and decide how to deliver the new products from this market here.
That, too, raised eyebrows, including those of James Longman, a correspondent with the U.S. network ABC.
WASHINGTON -- A top U.S. Republican lawmaker has called for more to be done to punish Russia for its aggressive acts in Syria, Ukraine, and elsewhere, as pressure grows in Congress to move more forcefully against Moscow.
The September 13 comments by Representative Ed Royce (Republican-California) came one day after President Donald Trumps administration unveiled new measures aimed at strengthening election security, ahead of midterm congressional elections in November. The measure set up the potential for sanctions on foreign countries or people who interfere in U.S. voting.
But congressional Republicans and Democrats have joined a push for more concrete actions against the Kremlin, a push that has contrasted with some of Trumps past calls for a more conciliatory policy toward Russia.
New bipartisan legislation introduced in August -- titled the Defending American Security From Kremlin Aggression Act of 2018 -- proposes new sanctions and other punitive measures, going beyond those imposed last year in legislation that Congress passed nearly unanimously, over Trumps objections.
Among other things, the bill would impose sanctions on any Russian energy transactions, prohibit licenses for U.S. citizens and companies hoping to engage in Russian oil projects, and also curtail Russias ability to issue new sovereign debt.
Prospects for the bill are uncertain, particularly with lawmakers gearing up to campaign ahead of the midterm elections.
At a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on September 13, Royce said he thought the Trump administration had not been doing enough.
"We cannot expect Vladimir Putin and his corrupt associates to change their behavior in Syria, Ukraine, or anywhere else until we prove we will hold them to account," he said. "Those still engaged in significant business with designated Russian individuals and entities need to pay a price.
Several lawmakers pressed sanctions officials from the State and Treasury departments on whether the Trump administration could do more not only against Russia, but also Iran and North Korea.
Manisha Singh, an assistant secretary of state for economic and business affairs, estimated that sanctions have cost Russia "tens of billions of dollars."
Other lawmakers, including Democrat Thomas Suozzi, pointed to Russian aircraft manufacturer Sukhoi, pressing Assistant Treasury Secretary Marshall Billingslea on why the administration wasnt targeting the company, which makes fighters jets and passenger planes.
Billingslea also said officials will aggressively enforce the sanctions that the Trump administration recently announced it was reimposing on Iran. Earlier this year, Trump said he would roll back the landmark 2015 nuclear agreement against Tehran.
The United States has joined the European Union in condemning plans by Russia-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine to hold "elections," calling them "phony procedures" that undermine peace efforts in the region.
"The United States condemns the announcement of a plan to conduct 'elections' in the so-called 'Donetsk and Luhansk Peoples Republics,'" State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said in a statement on September 12.
"Given the continued control of these territories by the Russian Federation, genuine elections are inconceivable, and grossly contravene Russia's commitments under the Minsk agreements," she added, referring to September 2014 and February 2015 pacts aimed at resolving the conflict.
She said that by "engineering phony procedures," Moscow was exhibiting "its disregard for international norms and is undermining efforts to achieve peace in eastern Ukraine."
On September 8, EU foreign-policy chief Federica Mogherini also criticized the plan and called on Moscow to use its influence to stop the planned November 11 vote from taking place.
Ukraine's Foreign Ministry also decried the announcement by the separatist officials in the Donbas region.
"If fake 'early elections' are conducted, their outcome will be legally void, they will not create any legal consequences, and will not be recognized by Ukraine or the global community," the ministry said in a statement on September 7.
The separatists have vowed to hold elections to choose the region's parliament and a new leader.
Donetsk separatist leader Aleksandr Zakharchenko was assassinated by a bomb blast in a city cafe on August 31. Denis Pushilin, the chairman of the "people's council" was selected as the acting head until the November 11 vote to select a new leader.
More than 10,300 people have been killed in fighting in eastern Ukraine since April 2014 in the conflict, which erupted as Russia fomented separatism after Moscow-friendly President Viktor Yanukovych was pushed from power by huge pro-European protests in Kyiv.
Russia's actions in eastern Ukraine and its seizure and annexation of Ukraine's Crimea Peninsula led the United States and EU to impose sanctions against Moscow and has heightened tensions between Russia and the West.
The United States has "likely" surpassed Russia and Saudi Arabia to become the world's largest producer of crude oil, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) says.
The EIA on September 12 said that based on preliminary data and estimates, U.S. crude-oil output in February exceeded that of Saudi Arabia for the first time in more than two decades.
It added that the United States in June and August surpassed Russia in production for the first time since February 1999.
The EIA said it expected that U.S. crude output will continue to outpace Russia and Saudi Arabia for the remainder of this year and through 2019.
"U.S. crude-oil production, particularly from light, sweet crude-oil grades, has rapidly increased since 2011," it said in its Short-Term Energy Outlook.
"Much of the recent growth has occurred in areas such as the Permian region in western Texas and eastern New Mexico, the Federal Offshore Gulf of Mexico, and the Bakken region in North Dakota and Montana," it added.
The EIA estimated that U.S. crude production will average 10.7 million barrels a day in 2018, up from 9.4 million barrels a day in 2017, and that it will average 11.5 million barrels a day in 2019.
A decline in oil prices midway through 2014 led to U.S. producers to cut back on output. But after world prices increased in early 2016, it said, investment and production began to ramp up.
Russian and Saudi production rates have remained relatively steady in recent years, the report said.
The last time the United States was the world's production leader was in 1973.
Washington may follow through on threats to impose sanctions over the construction of an underwater natural-gas pipeline between Russia and Germany, U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry has said.
Speaking on September 13 alongside Russian Energy Minister Aleksandr Novak in Moscow, Perry also called on Russia to be a responsible supplier and to stop using its resources for influence and disruption.
The Nord Stream 2 project aims to double the capacity of an already existing pipeline to 110 billion cubic meters per year -- more than one-quarter of the European Union's gas consumption.
The 1,230-kilometer link would deliver natural gas directly to Germany under the Baltic Sea, circumventing the traditional route through Ukraine.
Asked during a joint news conference with his Russian counterpart whether the United States might impose punitive measures against Nord Stream 2 and other projects, Perry said, "Yes."
Minister Novak and I both agree that getting to that point of sanctions is not where we want to go, he added.
SPECIAL REPORT: Nord Stream 2 And Why It's So Contentious (click to view)
Perry declined to specify what level of progress on Nord Stream 2 could trigger sanctions.
The United States, Poland, the Baltic states, and several other EU countries have expressed concern about the project, which would avoid existing gas pipelines through Ukraine and increase Europe's energy dependence on Russia.
U.S. President Donald Trump last year signed a law giving him the right to sanction companies involved in Nord Stream 2, which is led by Russian gas giant Gazprom, along with other European investors.
The Kremlin said the move was economically motivated and an attempt to promote U.S. liquefied natural gas in Europe.
In Moscow, Perry said the gas link will "create a new choke point at a shallow depth vulnerable to disruption."
The United States supports "the desire of Europeans to minimize their dependence on a single energy supplier" and supports increased competition, he added.
Novak said Moscow shared the view that "energy cannot be a tool to exercise pressure and that consumers should be able to choose the suppliers."
"We are concerned with the statements made and with the general position with regard to future sanctions against a very competitive project which is in the interests of European consumers," he added.
With reporting by AP and Bloomberg
Acapulco officials continue to monitor beaches due to mar de fondo
Acapulco, Guerrero State officials in Guerrero continue monitoring beaches as mar de fondo or sea bottom, continues to pose risks.
Waves in excess of four meters have been recorded along the states popular beaches, creating an alert for both beachgoers and fishermen. Civil Protection began monitoring the beaches Monday with the beginning of the swells, which creates sea bottom, caused by passing storms.
For several days, the intense tidal waves have also prevented nearly 550 local fishermen and divers from entering the port of Acapulco. Due to the high waves and strong currents, no one is permitted to enter the water.
Enrique Dominguez Dominguez, head of the Department of Maritime Signaling of the Harbor Masters Office reported that There is the sea bottom with waves in a southwest direction with a height of six to eight feet. We had to partially restrict landing on the island of La Roqueta.
Oscar Fausto Samayoa, head of Pescadores y Buzos in Acapulco said We have not been able to work due to the sea bottom. We have all our boats stranded on the beach, adding We already have a week that 550 families have not been able to fish. Im asking for temporary employment for the 550 families.
The harbor captain says that the alert remains in place due to strong waves and reminds the maritime and tourism community to take precautions. Dominguez says The sea bottom is ongoing, therefore the maritime security officers continue warning the population to take precautionary measures in this regard.
The alert for the effects of the sea bottom extend from Jalisco to Chiapas due to the large waves and strong current generated by the phenomenon. Mar de fondo or sea bottom is the movement of waves that spreads outside the area where it has been generated, reaching far away places. Around Mexico, mar de fondo tends to occur as heavy storms pass regions.
Borges defense team requesting additional time to collect evidence
Nezahualcoyotl, Mexico The defense team of Roberto Borge are requesting an additional two month extension in order to collect evidence in his defense.
Borge, who remains in a federal prison of the state of Mexico, sent the letter of request to the judge in Nezahualcoyotl.
A judge in the Federal Criminal Justice Center in Ciudad Nezahualcoyotl scheduled the hearing for the extension request for 4:00 p.m. today, where his lawyers will explain the reasons why they need more time to present evidence.
The PGR has charged the ex-Quintana Roo governor with having committed operations with illicit proceeds.
Mexico and Russia agree to eliminate tourist visas
Mexico City, Mexico Mexicos president-elect says that after a meeting with Russian officials, visa requirements between both countries will be eliminated.
Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and Viktor Koronelli, Russian ambassador to Mexico, have made public their agreement to eliminate visas that Lopez Obrador says, will double the amount of Russian tourists to the country, and in particular, to Riviera Maya.
From January to July of this year, more than 25,000 Russian tourists arrived via the Cancun International Airport. Lopez Obrador says that by eliminating the visa process between both countries, it will double the flow of tourists to Mexico, especially to Riviera Maya.
The announcement was made by the future Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Marcelo Ebrard, at a press conference in Mexico City.
It highlights the progress of the agreement for the visa, that is, it is about achieving as a priority in the first months of 2019, an agreement between both countries so that the visa is not necessary as it is today. This has already been achieved at a diplomatic level, but it has to be achieved at the level of citizens, he explained.
As part of the economic relationship, Russia will increase the number of investments in Mexico, especially in the automotive area. In coming days, Lopez Obrador says he will travel to Monterrey to inaugurate a new Russian company.
He stressed that for today, Mexico is Russias most important trading partner in Latin America. The elimination of the visa for both countries is expected to begin in early 2019.
He also stealed a vehicle before being confronted by a sheriffs deputy and killing himself. The authorities did not immediately release the names of the victims or the gunman. Were trying to find the connection. Obviously these are not random shootings, Sheriff Donny Youngblood of Kern County said at a news conference. Wednesdays incident happened when the man went with his wife to a trucking company in Bakersfield, California. He shot and killed a man and then turned his gun on his spouse, killing her. He then chased another man from the trucking company. He proceeded to flee the area and went to a nearby residence where he shot and killed two more people. So there were not random shootings.
Police recovered a pistol at the scene. Authorities were interviewing about 30 witnesses. The motive and what the gunmans relationship was to the victims is unclear at this time. Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood offered a sobering assessment of Wednesdays carnage, telling reporters: This is the new normal, if you look across the country.Six people lost their lives in a very short period of time.
[SYDNEY] Women in high positions must change the system so that every girl and woman can experience equality of opportunity, says Nazhat Shameem Khan, Permanent Representative of Fiji to the UN in Geneva and the countrys ambassador to Switzerland.
Born in Suva to migrant parents of Indian descent, she has had a stellar career as a lawyer, a judge and a diplomat. In every position she worked to remove the barriers girls and women face, be it making the office of Fijis director of public prosecutions more inclusive or getting the Gender Action Plan passed as chief negotiator for Fijis presidency of the 23rd annual Conference of Parties (COP23) of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
As women leaders, it is our job to look at the system and see how it works in practice for a woman Nazhat Shameem Khan, Permanent Representative of Fiji to the UN in Geneva and the countrys ambassador to Switzerland
She spoke to SciDev.Net about her sheltered childhood, her struggle to get a job despite having a law degree from Cambridge University, her experience with gender and racial bias as an Indo-Fijian woman and harassment and bullying at the workplace.
From Suva Grammar school to Cambridge University and the UN, your achievements have been remarkable. What inspired and motivated you through this journey?
I was one of four daughters and my parents really couldnt see anything that their daughters couldnt achieve if they put their minds to it. I think that was a motivating factor in my upbringing. I was fortunate to go to a good school which had children from all over the world, and that made me realise the dangers of becoming insular.
Secondly, reading was a passion in my family. I read fiction, immersed in this world of imagination. While my father read philosophy and history, my mother, who was a school teacher, read self-improvement books for teachers. This constant intellectual stimulation helped me understand that there is a whole world to be explored, that life is an adventure, and that each of us has a role to play in it.
Thirdly, my choice of studying law at the university was very motivating. I discovered very early that law is not just a profession but is also an instrument for social change. If as a lawyer you dont strengthen society by creating better mechanisms for access to justice then you are not a good lawyer.
Lastly, I accepted the position at the UN because the timing was perfect, and it fitted in with what I liked to do. It gave me the opportunity to translate international human rights, norms and values to the landscape in Fiji.
What obstacles did you face in your legal career, which in the 1980s was a very male-dominated profession? How did you overcome them?
In 1983 when I returned to Fiji, I thought that I would be able to choose a job that I wanted. But I faced gender bias and racial discrimination as a woman and because of my Indo-Fijian background. One time, I was told frankly that there are vacancies but they were being reserved for non-Indian origin. Another, I was subjected to questions about my intentions to get married and have children. At one interview, I was asked if I had a boyfriend.
I chose prosecution because the director of public prosecutions (DPP) office was the only place that offered me a job. It was a wakeup call for me that ultimately no matter how educated or capable you might be, the impact of racism and sexism and the intersectionality of discrimination would be to really exclude you from discovering your own potential.
How did you overcome the cultural, institutional and legal challenges that make women, especially in developing countries, feel disempowered?
I have to say that these barriers are inherent and never disappear. It is a work in progress. As the first woman employee in the DPPs office I had to constantly prove myself and overcome barriers, including harassment and bullying. So, when I became the Director of Public Prosecutions, I said to myself that this is a chance to remove the inherent biases within the system. On my watch, I didnt want another woman to go through what I had experienced. By the time I left the directorship in 1999, we had managed to have 50 per cent women staff simply by removing the discriminations in the system such as changing the way we interview people and improving the promotion process to ensure that when someone goes on maternity leave they are not going to be at a disadvantage.
As women leaders, it is our job to look at the system and see how it works in practice for a woman. I think understanding that discrimination translates itself into stereotypical thinking, which then creates the barriers that we have to deal with. This is the conversation that we have to have more of and certainly we are having that more here in the Human Rights Council.
You were the chief negotiator for Fiji's presidency of COP23. Is there a need for more effective representation of women in climate action and climate governance?
One of the most important outcomes of COP23, of which Fiji is really proud, was the Gender Action Plan. It is designed for individual countries to bring more women to climate negotiations and to ensure internally that they train and support the capacity of women to be climate negotiators. For example, the `Solar Mamas programme in Fiji, a collaboration with the Barefoot College in India, is a wonderful example of gender empowerment, renewables and climate action.
The other good outcome of the work that climate change transformation has done in the Pacific is that in many patriarchal societies women are now having a say in adaptation programmes. Cultures are being modified because we now need to consult with women and children. This business about substantive equality is an unexpected outcome of how we respond to climate change. I find this to be the silver lining in the cloud of climate change.
What is it like to be a diplomat? How do you balance the demands of work and family?
A diplomats work is round-the-clock. It also involves a lot of travelling across continents. It is full on, but I wont have it any other way. A really important part of a diplomats job is personal relationships. I think a diplomat has to be an outgoing person, but I have to say that this did not come naturally to me. I had been a judge for 10 years and as a judge one has to do exactly the opposite. I really had to learn to be an extrovert.
I have been fortunate to have complete support from my husband, who has recently retired as CEO of Vodafone Fiji and joined me in Geneva. I couldnt have done any of this without his support. He would drop everything and attend to a sick child when I was in court. Now our daughter is a lawyer and our son is an engineer in the UK.
I would say that nothing is impossible. If you really believe passionately in something, immediately set down the steps to reach that goal. There will be a million people who will tell you that you cant do it, you shouldnt do it, or you should stay at home. If you want to stay at home, be the best homemaker that you can be.
Dont be discouraged and dont desist from doing what you think you can do best. If you follow the path of determination, you will get there. When you reach your goal, never forget what it was like when you were a young girl starting off on this journey. You should say to yourself that you are going to make sure to change the system so that every girl and every woman can experience an equality of opportunity which you did not have.
This piece was produced by SciDev.Nets Asia & Pacific desk.
Treating bacterial infections with antibiotics often kills intestinal flora, leading to diarrhea and inflammation of the gut. Often it is bacteria known as Clostridium difficile which are responsible; they proliferate when the normal microbiome is killed by antibiotics. A working group headed by Professor Dr. Dr. Klaus Aktories of the Institute of Experimental and Clinical Pharmacology at the University of Freiburg, collaborating with Professor Dr. Andreas Schlosser of the Rudolf Virchow Center in Wurzburg, has shown how the microbes' poisonous proteins penetrate intestinal cells. The results of their study are published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Clostridium difficile produces toxins in the gut which get into cells in the intestinal mucosal surface, disrupting their barrier function. Researchers have long known how these toxins affect cells. They transfer sugar to switch proteins, rendering them inactive. This leads to disintegration and death of the cell. But it was not known how the relatively large proteins in the toxins were able to enter the host cell. It was only known that the bacterial toxins bind with the surface of intestinal cells and enter via tiny pores from blister-like structures in the cytoplasm called vesicles.
As the working group has shown, further up-take of the toxins depends on the protein TRiC. It is responsible for folding proteins -- which occur as long chains of amino acids in the cell -- giving them their three-dimensional structure. The researchers found that TRiC also plays an essential role in folding bacterial toxins, which are transferred through the cell membrane as long chains and, once inside, have to be re-folded. When the researchers blocked TRiC with an inhibitor or switched it off genetically, poisoning of the cell did not occur.
The effect of other bacterial toxins which can transmit sugars is also dependent on TRiC. These latest findings may help researchers find active agents to combat the toxins.
A beetle that tricks bees into carrying it into their nests where it can live off their pollen, nectar and eggs adapts its deceptions to local hosts, according to research by Leslie Saul-Gershenz, a graduate student in entomology at UC Davis.
Aggregations of the larvae of Meloe franciscanus beetles lure male digger bees (genus Habropoda) with chemical signals that mimic female sex pheromones. The larvae, also known as triungulins, attach themselves to males, transfer to female bees during copulation and hitch a ride back to the nest, where they feed on bee eggs and provisions and emerge as adult beetles the following winter.
The beetles parasitize related but geographically separate species of bees, Habropoda pallida from California's Mojave Desert and H. miserabilis from the coastal dunes of Oregon. Saul-Gershenz wanted to know more about how the beetles adapt to their hosts.
"Male bees of both species were more attracted to local parasite larvae than larvae from the distant locale because the larvae tailored their pheromone-mimicking blends to the pheromones of their local hosts," Saul-Gershenz said. "Additionally, the larval aggregation adapted their perching height at each location to the patrolling height of local male bees."
Rapid evolution by local adaptation
The study represents a fascinating case study of relatively rapid evolution via local adaptation of a parasite species to different hosts, said co-author Jocelyn Millar, distinguished professor in the Departments of Entomology and of Chemistry at UC Riverside. Other collaborators included J. Steven McElfresh of UC Riverside and Neal Williams of UC Davis.
Insects are particularly reliant on chemical signals -- their sense of smell -- to locate mates of their own species. There are a number of examples of predators and parasites tapping into, mimicking or otherwise exploiting these signals. At the same time, as signals evolve, they help to establish reproductive isolation of closely related species from each other. In this case, the parasites' chemical signals are diverging along with their host species.
Despite their freeloading lifestyle, Meloe blister beetles have turned out to be engaging research subjects, said Saul-Gershenz,.
"The larvae cooperate with their siblings for a brief period; they mimic the pheromone of their hosts; they are locally adapted to different hosts both chemically and behaviorally; and their emergence times are plastic across their geographic range. It has been fantastic to unravel this species' puzzle," she said.
Saul-Gershenz is now an associate director of research at the Wild Energy Initiative, UC Davis John Muir Institute of the Environment. She plans to continue exploring chemical communication signals in parasites, predators and prey.
The research was funded by a Sean and Anne Duffey and Hugh and Geraldine Dingle Research Fellowship, the Community Foundation's Desert Legacy Fund, California Desert Research, Disney Wildlife Conservation Fund, and UC Davis Department of Entomology and Nematology fellowships.
In the future, today's electronic storage technology may be superseded by devices based on tiny magnetic structures. These individual magnetic regions correspond to bits and need to be as small as possible and capable of rapid switching. In order to better understand the underlying physics and to optimize the components, various techniques can be used to visualize the magnetization behavior. Scientists at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) in Germany have now refined an electron microscope-based technique that makes it possible not only to capture static images of these components but also to film the high-speed switching processes. They have also employed a specialized signal processing technology that suppresses image noise.
"This provides us with an excellent opportunity to investigate magnetization in small devices," Daniel Schonke of the JGU Institute of Physics explained. The research was carried out in cooperation with Surface Concept GmbH and the results have been published in the journal Review of Scientific Instruments.
Scanning electron microscopy with polarization analysis is a lab-based technique for imaging magnetic structures. Compared with optical methods, it has the advantage of high spatial resolution. The main disadvantage is the time it takes to acquire an image in order to achieve a good signal-to-noise ratio. However, the time required to measure the periodically excited and therefore periodically changing magnetic signal can be shortened by using a digital phase-sensitive rectifier that only detects signals of the same frequency as the excitation.
Such signal processing requires measurements to be time-resolved. The instrumentation developed by the scientists at JGU provides a time resolution of better than 2 nanoseconds. As a result, the technique can be employed to investigate high-speed magnetic switching processes. It also makes it possible to both capture images and select individual images at a defined point in time within the entire excitation phase.
New technique compares favorably with more complex imaging techniques
This development means the technique is now comparable with the much more complex imaging techniques used at large accelerator facilities and opens up the possibility of investigating the magnetization dynamics of small magnetic components in the laboratory.
The research was carried out within the framework of the Collaborative Research Center CRC/Transregio 173 "Spin+X: Spin in its collective environment," which is based at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz and TU Kaiserslautern and financed by the German Research Foundation (DFG). The CRC/TRR involves interdisciplinary teams of researchers from the fields of chemistry, physics, mechanical engineering, and process engineering, who undertake research into magnetic effects with a view to converting these into applications. The primary focus is on the phenomenon of spin. Physicists use this term to refer to the intrinsic angular momentum of a quantum particle, such as an electron or proton. This underlies many magnetic effects.
The development of the novel technique results from the successful and close collaboration of the researchers with the company Surface Concept GmbH, a spin-off of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz.
There are two main treatments for stroke caused by a clot in a blood vessel in the brain. One treatment, mechanical thrombectomy, involves pulling the clot out with a specialized catheter that is inserted into the artery in the groin and guided by imaging to the clot. This procedure is only performed at hospitals that specialize in these techniques. The other treatment, which is more widely accessible, involves giving a patient a clot-busting drug that helps the body dissolve the clot.
Quick decision making on which treatment is best for which patient is critical because the clot deprives brain cells of oxygen causing them to die. For physicians, knowing which patients will benefit the most from the clot-buster Alteplase (also known as tPA) just got easier.
University of Calgary scientists with the Hotchkiss Brain Institute at the Cumming School of Medicine (CSM) have discovered that clots have different compositions and depending on where they are located in the brain, administering tPA can be almost as effective as thrombectomy given sufficient time.
"We've known that, when administered quickly, tPA can be effective in stroke, but until now, we didn't realize how effective it can be and we didn't understand the specific reasons why it works better in some cases than others," says Dr. Bijoy Menon, MD, associate professor in the departments of Clinical Neurosciences, Radiology and Community Health Sciences at the CSM. "Our findings show that some clots are permeable, which allows the tPA to penetrate the blockage and dissolve it. We saw that within two hours, greater than 50 per cent of permeable blockages had dissolved."
The UCalgary study led out of the Foothills Medical Centre is the largest of its kind to date, involving nearly 600 patients at 12 medical centres in five countries (Canada, the Czech Republic, South Korea, Spain and Turkey). The findings are published in JAMA.
"Despite earlier research on the benefit of using tPA, we know there is still some reluctance in the medical community to use it. These findings should provide physicians with definitive evidence on the value of giving patients tPA as soon as they've confirmed the stroke is due to a clot," says Dr. Andrew Demchuk, MD, professor in the departments of Clinical Neurosciences and Radiology. "It's critical that anyone showing symptoms of a stroke be given a CT-angiogram as soon as possible to confirm the blockage. The scan will guide whether tPA is likely to dissolve the clot and may inform whether the patient also needs thrombectomy."
A CT-angiogram (computer tomography scan) is a common noninvasive diagnostic tool that allows physicians to see images of the blood vessels in the brain. Researchers found that clots in the carotid artery of the brain do not respond to tPA, and for these patients, thrombectomy is required.
"Strokes happen at anytime, anywhere. Knowing who needs thrombectomy can help physicians make better decisions on how to prioritize patient transfers to specialized centres for this procedure," says Menon. "Data gathered in Europe showed that up to one-third of hospital transfers aren't necessary."
"Stroke is an important health care problem and one of the leading causes of death and disability worldwide," says Dr. Brian H. Rowe, scientific director, Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Institute of Circulatory and Respiratory Health, which supported this study. "Through continued scientific research, important discoveries like this one will improve our ability to match patients with the most effective treatment for this particular injury. This will help speed up recovery times, reduce the associated impacts such as paralysis, and it will improve patient outcomes and ultimately save lives."
Drs. Menon and Demchuk add that for the science community these findings will help researchers better design studies that target dissolving the clot with new clot busting drugs or combination treatments.
Led by the Hotchkiss Brain Institute, Brain and Mental Health is one of six strategic research themes guiding the university towards its Eyes High goals. The strategy provides a unifying direction for brain and mental health research at the university and positions researchers to unlock new discoveries and treatments for brain health in our community.
More than 50 years of internal conflict in Colombia have left behind roughly 8 million victims, including 220,000 dead. Now the country is in the midst of a tenuous ceasefire, thanks to a November 2016 peace treaty between the Colombian government and the largest group of rebels, formerly known as Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC). The second largest group of guerrillas, the Ejercito de Liberacion Nacional (ELN), is also interested in putting an end to the fighting. As a result, Colombia's 2018 elections were its most peaceful in decades.
If the peace holds, the end of the decades-long conflict would promise many political and socio-economic benefits for the South American nation. Unfortunately, the conflict's end may also create new threats to the natural environment according to a paper, led by Alejandro Salazar from Purdue University, published today in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment (FiEE).
"The peace agreement is of course good for the country," says co-author Daniel Ruiz Carrascal, an adjunct researcher at Columbia University's International Research Institute for Climate and Society and associate professor at EIA University in Colombia. "But in the aftermath of this conflict, we expect to see an increase in the degradation of pristine environments."
Governments tend to focus on social and economic growth after a war ends, while environmental protections fall by the wayside. In their paper, Ruiz-Carrascal and his colleagues from many institutions outline the threats to Colombia's ecosystems, and suggest ways to avoid the worst of the damage.
"The decisions made at this crucial moment in time will likely reverberate through the lives of present and future Colombian generations," they write, "and have ecological, climatic and biogeochemical consequences with global implications."
Triple Threats to Colombia's Biodiversity
Colombia is the world's second most biodiverse country. Its terrain -- which varies from Amazonian rainforests to cloud forests, open savannas, and mountainous terrain in the Andes -- supports about 10 percent of all the planet's species, including hundreds of animals that are found nowhere else on Earth.
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In some areas, the conflict unintentionally preserved habitats for the 51,000 different types of plants and animals in Colombia. Because FARC tended to inhabit rural and forested areas, it drove a mass migration to the cities. As a result, large forested areas remained unharmed during the armed conflict. The forests thrived, and even reconquered abandoned farmlands.
Now, somewhat paradoxically, the more stable socio-political conditions that could come along with peace are putting those untouched environments at risk. The threats could come in three forms:
1. Deforestation
Deforestation isn't a new problem for Colombia. The country loses more than 2,300 square kilometers (888 square miles) of forest per year to rangeland, farmland, mining operations, and more. Forest loss may even be getting worse since the signing of the peace agreement.
"Sadly, we've seen a significant increase in the deforestation rates of pristine, remote areas that used to be controlled by the FARC rebels," says Ruiz-Carrascal. Colombia's forest loss rates are even starting to surpass those of Brazil, previously the record-holder in South America, he says. "It's starting to affect places that have the highest biodiversity levels in Colombia."
2. Climate Change
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While no area of the planet will be left untouched by climate change, mountain ecosystems are particularly vulnerable to rising global temperatures.
High up in the Andes, Colombia's glaciers are shrinking. This could put drinking water supplies in jeopardy for communities in the mountains and the foothills. Rising temperatures also spell trouble for isolated mountain ecosystems, forcing Andean species to move higher and higher up the mountains in pursuit of cold conditions. Eventually, they'll have nowhere left to go.
"Colombia has many endemic species that cannot be found elsewhere in the world," says Ruiz-Carrascal. "If they disappear, they could become extinct."
Colombia is already witnessing a significant increase in temperatures, and its future looks hotter and drier. By the 2050s, the average temperatures could increase by 3 to 4 degrees Celsius. At the same time, climate models predict precipitation will decline in some areas. This could impair crop productivity and the ecosystem's capacity to store carbon, as well as injure Colombia's natural ecosystems.
3. Mining
Mining -- for minerals such as gold and emeralds -- is an important driver of the Colombian economy, and it's expected to continue growing in the future.
With mining can come a slew of environmental problems. Forests may be clear cut to make way for mining equipment and roads, and mountains leveled. Illegal mining activities convert drinking water into sulfuric acid and cyanide-contaminated runoff. They leave behind massive piles of waste rock, and tailings that can leak mercury and other toxic metals into the environment.
"On top of deforestation rates that are surpassing what has been taking place in Latin America, you have global warming, and you have these titles that allow the mining companies to explore and exploit our natural resources," says Ruiz-Carrascal. "It's going to be a very critical issue in the decades to come."
Protecting Colombia's Natural Areas
Colombia's biodiversity provides food, timber, and medicine for the local people. It draws in tourists, and helps to moderate the water supply and absorb carbon. Through a number of international policies, Colombia has committed to protecting this biodiversity and slashing carbon emissions. By 2020, the country hopes to achieve a net deforestation rate of zero, with new seedlings replacing trees that get chopped down. By 2030, Colombia aims to cut its carbon emissions to 20 percent below the business-as-usual projections. Whether it meets these goals will depend on how rural areas are developed, managed, and conserved, the authors write.
To help protect biodiversity, Ruiz-Carrascal and his colleagues suggest the government could prioritize development in non-forested regions. These areas already cover half of the country.
The group also calls for more extensive and continuous monitoring of the climate, water levels, species distribution, and more. Several institutions and organizations are already collecting this type of data independently. Ruiz-Carrascal and his colleagues are launching a network called PEACE, the Plataforma de Estudios y Analisis sobre Colombia y sus Ecosistemas (Platform for Studies and Analysis of Colombia and its Ecosystems), to share monitoring information across institutions. They will combine satellite information with on-the-ground data, and use remote sensing technologies in difficult-to-reach places to track how ecosystems are responding to climate and land-use changes. So far, a few local branches of the Colombian government -- including the Alexander von Humboldt Biological Resources Research Institute -- have signed on, as have researchers in other nations, including the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry in Germany.
At the same time, the FiEE paper also calls on scientists to engage more with policymakers, victims of the conflict, and even former FARC rebels. "We need to sit with these people and show them what we know. We need to show them the basic science behind climate change, the basic science behind deforestation," says Ruiz-Carrascal. With more information, he reasons, people and policymakers will be better equipped to make decisions that help to avoid negative environmental impacts.
Colombia faces many challenges going forward. But these challenges also present an opportunity to shift to a more green economy. Sustainable development that preserves biodiversity would also help to protect Colombians against drought and flood, and to secure food and energy into the future.
With improved monitoring, science-based decision-making, climate policy implementation, and natural resource protection, "this peace transition could not only improve the quality of life for millions of people," the authors write, "but serve as a historic example of how a society can end a war without endangering its own environment and ecosystems."
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The Securities and Exchange Commission charged a hedge fund adviser and his investment advisory firm with illegally profiting from a scheme to drive down the price of San Diego-based Ligand Pharmaceuticals Inc., reaping more than $1.3 million of gains for the adviser and the hedge fund.
The SEC's complaint charges that Gregory Lemelson and Massachusetts-based Lemelson Capital Management LLC issued false information about Ligand after Lemelson took a short position in Ligand in May 2014 on behalf of The Amvona Fund, a hedge fund he advised and partly owned. Short-sellers profit when the price of stock declines. According to the SEC's complaint, Ligand's stock lost more than one-third of its value during the course of Lemelson's alleged scheme. After establishing his short position, the complaint charges that Lemelson made a series of false statements to shake investor confidence in Ligand, lower its stock price, and increase the value of his position.
The SEC's complaint, filed in federal court in Massachusetts, alleges that Lemelson used written reports, interviews, and social media to spread untrue claims, including that Ligand was "teetering on the brink of bankruptcy" and that Ligand's investor relations firm agreed with his view that its flagship Hepatitis C drug, Promacta, was going to become obsolete. Lemelson also allegedly misled investors by citing a European doctor's negative views on the same Ligand drug without revealing the doctor was Amvona's largest investor and had a significant financial interest in seeing Ligand's stock price decline.
The SEC's complaint charges Lemelson and Lemelson Capital Management with violating the anti-fraud provisions of Section 10(b) of the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5 thereunder, as well as violating Section 206(4) of the Investment Advisers Act of 1941 and Rule 206(4)-8 thereunder, and seeks to have them return allegedly ill-gotten gains with interest and pay monetary penalties. The complaint names the Amvona Fund as a relief defendant and seeks to have it return gains it obtained as a result of Lemelson and his firm's alleged misconduct.
The SEC's investigation was conducted by Virginia Rosado Desilets, Sonia Torrico, and Jennifer Clark, and supervised by David A. Becker. The SEC's litigation will be led by Marc Jones and Al Day.
San Francisco has given the managers of the sinking Millennium Tower until the end of the week to comply with a number of safety measures, as officials search for the reason a window on the high-rises 36th floor cracked Sept. 2. Failure to meet the deadline could result in the tower being yellow-tagged, which could limit access to the building until its deemed safe.
In a searing letter sent Wednesday to the buildings manager and attorneys for the homeowners association, the Department of Building Inspection cited uncertainties about the performance of the buildings glass curtain wall and ordered Millennium management to:
Install an overhead protection system around the entire perimeter of the 58-story building to prevent glass or other debris from showering down on the sidewalk and street below. Deadline: no later than 3 p.m. Thursday.
Repair a broken window-washing crane that will allow inspectors to evaluate the window from the outside. Deadline: 3 p.m. Friday.
Survey all of the units of the building to determine if other windows have cracked or if additional damage has occurred to the buildings facade. The city also wants Millennium to confirm that no other complaints of cracked windows have been filed by homeowners. Deadline: 3 p.m. Friday.
Failure to meet the deadlines, the department said, will result in a yellow tag of the building, which will restrict and/or limit access to the building in order to protect public safety.
The department also wants to know when the cracked window will be taped from the exterior as an added safety measure, when the window will be replaced and when the department can expect Millenniums complete forensic analysis.
Rachel Miller, a lawyer representing the towers management, said in an email they would cooperate with the requests.
We have connected with the city attorneys office this afternoon and the city attorney is going to work with DBI on these requests, Miller said. They will get back to us (Thursday) with a further explanation of what is going to be required.
The buildings management, its attorneys and its experts are fully cooperating with the DBIs request, she said. Their focus is the safety of its residents and of the public at large.
Millennium management turned over a preliminary report on the crack to the department Friday afternoon. The assessment determined only that the issue required a more comprehensive evaluation.
The fact that this piece of glass may have failed due to the building tilt may be a localized defect or potentially be more widespread, the report said. Further investigation of the building exterior is required to understand and assess the issue. Since it opened in 2009, Millennium Tower has sunk by around 18 inches and tilted to one side.
The assessment, conducted by the engineering firm Allana Buick & Bers, painted a starkly different picture of the problem than Millennium management, which emailed the towers residents last Thursday to say that the crack was an isolated issue.
That email also mentioned previous window breaks at the tower, which experts determined were unrelated to the building settlement. Architects said windows can at times crack because of changes in temperature, defects in the glass and manufacturing problems.
The department also took Millenniums managers to task for not being more communicative about the crack and their efforts to find the cause.
DBI holds building and public safety paramount and are gravely concerned by your lack of immediate action since the cracked glazing issue was brought to your attention, about 10 days ago, on Sept. 2. The department learned about the crack two days later following a reporters inquiry.
The department said it continues to be frustrated with the communication with the towers managers over a variety of issues.
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We often do not find out information about the building until we first receive calls about an issue from the media or read them in a news report, the department said in its letter Wednesday.
The crack has kindled anxieties that it could be symptomatic of deeper problems with the building. The heavy, concrete tower rests on more than 900 friction piles from 60 to 91 feet long driven into the dense material underneath fill dumped into the bay more than a century ago. Those piles do not reach down to bedrock, some 200 feet down.
The towers developer, Millennium Partners, has accused the Transbay Joint Powers Authority of pumping out millions of gallons of groundwater during the construction of the Transbay Transit Center next door to the tower. That pumping softened the soil where Millenniums piles were driven, causing the building to sink and tilt, the developer claims.
The joint powers authority has argued that the towers developer should have used so-called end-bearing piles that can be drilled into the deeper bedrock.
Department of Building Inspection spokeswoman Lily Madjus said the departments letter on Wednesday was a followup to another letter sent Monday. While Millennium management and their attorneys confirmed they received the letter, they did not provide the detailed response the department was seeking.
This is our third request to you for detailed information specific dates and next steps on how you will address this issue and have yet to be provided with the important information, the departments Wednesday letter said.
The building is safe for occupancy. Theres not immediate hazard to property owners, as far as reviews have gone, Madjus said. This letter, along with the letter sent Monday, reiterates our concerns of (managements) immediate actions to address the issue in unit 36B, and provide us with adequate information about whats going on in the building.
Dominic Fracassa is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: dfracassa@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @dominicfracassa
The worlds beleaguered climate takes center stage in San Francisco on Wednesday as thousands of activists, scientists, business leaders, entertainers and politicians from more than 100 nations gather for a three-day summit on global warming.
Heres what you need to know:
How did it come about?
The Global Climate Action Summit, at Moscone Center South, was organized by Gov. Jerry Brown as a public rebuke of President Trump, who decided last year to drop out of the Paris climate agreement, a landmark deal ratified by 170 nations, including the United States under President Barack Obama. The United Nations was seeking to hold an international event to maintain momentum on climate action.
It is the first time a state has sponsored an event in support of the Paris Agreement, which Trump bashed as a bad deal for the United States.
What is the history between Brown and Trump on this issue?
Brown has served as a leading foil to Trump on climate change. The bad blood between the two men boiled to the surface Tuesday when Brown blasted a White House proposal to weaken regulations of the heat-trapping gas methane.
That is insane, Brown said at a climate discussion at the Palace Hotel in downtown San Francisco in advance of the summit. It borders on criminality.
Is it personal?
Not necessarily. Brown has advanced policies on global warming during his nearly eight years in office, well before Trump who has called climate change a hoax became president in January 2017.
What is the summits main goal?
To inspire a global commitment on regional and local levels to cut carbon emissions. The bottom-up effort is an attempt to fill the vacuum in climate action left by national governments, including the United States, that are coming up short on the emissions-reduction targets pledged in Paris.
The progress of local and regional governments, as well as national governments, will continue to be assessed at future climate summits. The next is Dec. 3-14 in Katowice, Poland.
Who will be there?
Roughly 4,500 people. Among the biggest names are former Vice President Al Gore former U.S. Secretaries of State George Shultz and John Kerry and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
Also, musician Dave Matthews, actor Harrison Ford, astronaut Mae Jemison, San Francisco Mayor London Breed and mayors and governors from across the nation, and policymakers from countries around the world, including China, Brazil and Germany.
Meteorologists, hurricane and storm specialists, sustainable investment brokers, health care executives and business leaders will participate in panel discussions.
No one from the Trump administration is expected to attend.
What will summit attendees be doing?
Representatives from cities, states and regional governments as well as businesses will share ideas on what can be done to reduce carbon emissions and setting goals for local action.
Discussion will include construction of energy-efficient buildings, reduction of greenhouse-gas producing waste, investments in climate-friendly businesses, greening transportation infrastructure, and sequestration of carbon in forests and on farms.
Can I go?
Most of the panels during the summit, which ends Friday, are by invitation only and require accreditation. The public can view the panel discussions live on:
YouTube at https://bit.ly/2wJFQRe
Facebook at facebook.com/GlobalClimateActionSummit/
Twitter at https://twitter.com/gcas2018
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But is there anything I can attend?
Hundreds of affiliate panels, workshops, art exhibits and other special events sponsored by environmental groups, and academic and public agencies are scheduled in the Bay Area this week. The events open to the public include:
Coal + Ice Photography Exhibition. More than 40 photographers and videographers highlight the consequences of fossil fuel use. Open daily through Sept. 23 at the Festival Pavilion, Fort Mason Center, 2 Marina Blvd., San Francisco.
San Francisco Green Film Festival. Includes films about wildfires in California, vanishing islands in the Pacific, melting Arctic tundra and the receding forests of the Amazon. Showings are at various times through Sept. 14 at the Castro Theatre, 429 Castro St., San Francisco.
California Carbon Fest 2018. The Carbon Institute has brought together an international team of specialists to discuss forest carbon sequestration and other climate change issues. Open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. through Sept. 13 at UC Berkeleys Blue Oak Ranch Reserve, 16070 Mount Hamilton Road, San Jose.
Find a calendar of affiliate events at https://bit.ly/2OczmBQ .
How about protests?
Thousands marched Saturday along Market Street , and hundreds of protesters on Monday demanded that local and indigenous protest representatives be heard.
Others are planned. For example, Rise Against Climate Capitalism: Peaceful March & Mass Action is scheduled for 7 a.m., Thursday, Jessie Square, 736 Mission St.
Why would someone protest the fight against climate change?
Some environmentalists and justice groups are angry that Brown and others have not done enough to fight climate change in the face of increasing numbers of heat waves, drought and raging wildfires and other manifestations of global warming.
Peter Fimrite and
Kurtis Alexander
The state Supreme Court cleared the way Wednesday for San Francisco to seek disciplinary action against a group of police officers who exchanged racist, sexist and homophobic text messages in 2011 and 2012 calling African Americans monkeys and encouraging the killing of half-breeds, among other slurs.
The texts, which surfaced publicly in 2015, prompted the district attorneys office to re-examine thousands of criminal cases the officers have handled. As many as nine officers, who have been on paid leave since December 2015, could be fired if the Police Commission finds serious misconduct.
Federal agents discovered the messages in 2012 during a corruption investigation of veteran plainclothes Sgt. Ian Furminger, who had exchanged thousands of texts with his fellow officers. A jury convicted Furminger in December 2014 on federal charges of taking thousands of dollars in cash that police had found while searching drug dealers and their homes.
He and Officer Edmond Robles, convicted of similar charges, were each sentenced to more than three years in prison, and a third officer, Reynaldo Vargas, who pleaded guilty and testified for the prosecution, got a one-year sentence. Robles and Vargas were implicated in the texting case.
The texts disparaged racial minorities, women and gays. One proclaimed White power, and Furminger, according to a court filing, wrote that cross-burning lowers blood pressure!
The Police Department learned abut the messages from federal prosecutors in December 2012 but did not disclose them publicly until March 2015, leading then-Police Chief Greg Suhr to announce that he would fire nine of the officers and take disciplinary action against others.
Superior Court Judge Ernest Goldsmith halted the proceedings in December 2015 and ruled that Suhr and his staff should have begun those proceedings by December 2013. Goldsmith said a state law, the Peace Officers Bill of Rights, set a firm one-year deadline for taking disciplinary action against officers after police officials learn of their alleged misconduct.
But the First District Court of Appeal reinstated the disciplinary proceedings in May and said the one-year deadline had been suspended, in this case because of the federal criminal investigation, which ended only with the December 2014 jury verdict.
The court said federal prosecutors had directed the Police Department to keep its records confidential during the investigation. The head of the police Internal Affairs Division, Lt. Jerome DeFelippo, testified that a federal prosecutor had threatened him with criminal charges if he released the records while the case against Furminger and his colleagues was pending, the court said.
Allowing the disciplinary proceedings strikes a proper balance between officers right to fair treatment and the publics need to maintain trust in the Police Department, Justice Martin Jenkins said in the 3-0 ruling. He said the messages displayed unacceptable prejudice against members of the communities SFPD is sworn to protect.
Lawyers for the officers asked the state Supreme Court to take up the case, arguing that their rights were violated by the departments failure to file disciplinary charges before the one-year deadline. The court unanimously denied review Wednesday and left the appellate ruling in place as a standard for trial courts throughout the state.
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City Attorney Dennis Herrera, whose office argued for the disciplinary proceedings, said the court recognized that the Police Department can and should investigate and prosecute corrupt officers before moving on to police misconduct revealed during the investigation. Officers accused of misconduct dont get a free pass just because their texts came to light during a corruption investigation.
Michael Rains, a lawyer for the officers, said the court was allowing police agencies to play games with the one-year statute of limitations... Its bad for society and its bad for officers who are under investigation that long.
The case is Daugherty vs. San Francisco, S249886.
Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter:@BobEgelko
Rejecting a 2015 state law, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday that California cannot charge railroads a $45-per-car fee for carrying crude oil, gasoline and other hazardous materials into the state to help pay for cleanup costs resulting from environmental accidents.
The fee, part of a companion bill to the state budget, was intended to raise up to $10 million a year to pay for state and local emergency-response programs for spills of hazardous substances. But the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said federal law allows states to charge such fees only if they are fair, and this fee applies only to railroads and not to trucks, which carry about the same amount of potentially dangerous substances into the state.
Because the fees authorized by (the state law) favor trucking companies over railroads, they are not fair, Judge William Fletcher said in the ruling, which upheld a 2016 decision by a San Francisco federal judge that halted enforcement of the fees.
One member of the three-judge panel, Sandra Ikuta, reached the same result but contended federal law does not allow states to regulate railroad rates, fairly or otherwise.
The 2015 law, SB84, imposed $45 fees on rail cars containing any of 25 substances, including diesel fuel, chlorine, ethanol, methanol and toluene as well as crude oil and gasoline. The nations two largest rail carriers, BNSF and Union Pacific, challenged SB84 in a lawsuit.
The court said spills from railroad cars are far less frequent than trucking spills but can be much larger in scale. For example, a 1991 Union Pacific derailment in Dunsmuir (Siskiyou County) poured 19,000 gallons of gasoline into the Sacramento River, killing fish and vegetation for 40 miles and causing widespread local health problems. A lawsuit against the railroad was settled for $38 million.
The state imposed fees on both trucking companies and railroads for hazardous shipments from 1991 to 1995 to fund an earlier version of the emergency-response program, and considered but rejected a similar approach in the 2015 law, Fletcher said.
Fletcher rejected the railroads argument that federal law prohibited all state fees on railroads, noting that a 1994 federal law allows state or local governments to impose levies for transporting hazardous substances if the fee is fair and used for a purpose relating to transporting hazardous material.
Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Check the water shortage status of your area, plus see reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts.
But he agreed with the railroads that it was unfair to single them out for a payment for each shipment. California charges a $100 licensing fee, and a $75-per-year renewal, for trucks carrying hazardous material, but those amounts are trivial in comparison to the per-rail-car fee hazardous material shipments under SB84, Fletcher said.
Californias fire and rescue chief, Kim Zagaris, said Thursday that the state has been able to fund all 12 of its hazardous-response units so far, despite the court setbacks, and will work with the Legislature on long-term funding.
BNSF Railway said the ruling supported its view that SB84 put California railroads at a competitive disadvantage with other surface transportation providers and created a state-sponsored incentive for trucks to carry hazardous products.
Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @BobEgelko
GERALD HERBERT/AP
President Trumps dumped the Iranian nuclear deal and the Paris climate change pact. Hes mocked NATO, cozied up to Vladimir Putin and praised North Koreas dictator. Its a confusing mix, worsened by insider accounts of the presidents ill-informed, madcap style.
Into this foggy mess comes national security adviser John Bolton, essentially Trumps brains on foreign policy. In a speech this week he had a chance to clarify strategies, showcase themes and rank priorities. Instead he went on a tear about one of his favorite targets: the International Criminal Court.
SUNDAY
Blue recruiting: Volunteer recruitment fair for NorCalBlueWave Alliance, Indivisible Sausalito, Indivisible Marin, Swing Left Marin, Sister District Marin and Novato Stands United. Sign-ups for actions in Marin and nearby red areas. 3-5:30 p.m., San Rafael Community Center, 1618 B St. RSVP and more information here.
MONDAY
BART candidates forum: Brian Larkin, Janice Li, Jonathan Lyens and Melanie Nutter, candidates for the BART District Eight seat in San Francisco, take part in a forum sponsored by San Francisco Transit Riders. 6-8 p.m., 795 Folsom St., San Francisco. More information is here.
MONDAY-TUESDAY
Constitution conference: Two-day conference on the 231st anniversary of the U.S. Constitution, focusing on the past, present and future of constitutional rights, freedoms, citizenship, democracy, equality and justice. Free. 9:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. both days at the Paul Leonard Library and Cesar Chavez Student Center at San Francisco State University, 1600 Holloway Ave. More information is here.
TUESDAY
DeRay Mckesson: Black Lives Matter activist and Pod Save the People podcast host talks about his new book, On the Other Side of Freedom: The Case for Hope. $35 for non-Commonwealth Club members, $10 for students. 6:30-7:45 p.m., Marines Memorial Theater, 609 Sutter St., San Francisco. More information is here.
Berkeley City Council candidates: The League of Women voters hosts a forum for the candidates for Berkeley City Council in District One, Mary Behm-Steinberg, Rashi Kesarwani, Igor Tregub and Margot Schueler. 7-8 p.m., Berkeley City College, 2050 Center St. More information is here.
WEDNESDAY
Berkeley City Council candidates: The League of Women Voters hosts a forum for candidates for Berkeley City Council in Districts Four, Seven and Eight. 6:30-9 p.m., Berkeley City College, 2050 Center St. More information is here.
THURSDAY
Albany candidates: League of Women Voters hosts a forum for Albany candidates for public office. 7-9 p.m., 1000 San Pablo Ave., Albany. More information is here.
Midterm run: Run 4 All Women sponsors a 4K run/walk to raise money and awareness for candidates trying to flip Congress. 6-8 p.m. at the Assembly, 449 14th St., San Francisco. More information is here.
Interracial sisterhood: A discussion on building interracial sisterhood in progressive politics, sponsored by Racy Conversations. 5:30-8:30 p.m., Year Up Bay Area, 80 Sutter St., San Francisco. More information is here.
FRIDAY
East Bay candidates: Candidates for the Peralta Community College District board in areas Three and Five, Oakland City Council District Six and Oakland city auditor take part in a forum sponsored by the League of Women Voters. 6-9 p.m., Oakland City Hall, 1 Frank Ogawa Plaza. More information is here.
Changing Georgia: Nse Ufot, executive director of the New Georgia Project, talks about strategies to get more people of color, young people and unmarried women to the polls. Free. 6-8 p.m. at Hustle, 343 Sansome St., Suite 600, San Francisco. More information is here.
SATURDAY
Race and medicine: Panel discussion on the impact of race in medicine. Sponsored by the African American Community Health Advisory Committee and the African American Library Advisory Committee. 2-4 p.m., San Mateo Public Library, 55 West Third Ave. More information is here.
SEPT. 24
S.F. Politics 101: An introduction to the citys politics. Speakers include state Sen. Scott Wiener, Joel Engardio, Jessica Ho and David Latt. Sponsored by United Democratic Club. Free. 6-8 p.m., Ortega Branch Library, 3223 Ortega St., San Francisco. More information is here.
SEPT. 25
Berkeley school board candidates: The League of Women Voters holds a forum for Berkeley school board candidates Ka'Dijah Brown, Julie Sinai, Ty Alper, Abdur Sikder, Dru Howard and Norma Harrison. 7:30-8:45 p.m., Berkeley City College, 2050 Center St. More information is here.
Lieutenant governor candidates: Eleni Kounalakis and Ed Hernandez, candidates for lieutenant governor, take part in a forum on higher education issues. The lieutenant governor is a University of California regent and California State University trustee. Free. 4:30-7 p.m., 110 Embarcadero, San Francisco. More information is here.
Oakland D4 candidates: Forum for City Council and school board candidates in Oaklands District Four. 6:30-8:30 p.m., Allendale Recreation Center, 3711 Suter St. More information is here.
Get out the vote: Register to vote, learn about legislation affecting local communities and network with social justice advocates. Sponsored by Building Opportunities for Self-Sufficiency. 11 a.m.-2 p.m., Oakland City Hall, 1 Frank Ogawa Plaza. More information is here.
Progressive take on midterms: A look at midterm candidates and state ballot measures from the progressive perspective, with 48 Hills founder Tim Redmond and Bill Honigman, organizer for Progressive Democrats of America. 7-9 p.m., San Francisco Unitarian-Universalist Center chapel, 1187 Franklin St. More information is here.
Truth decay: RAND Corp. CEO Michael Rich discusses truth decay the diminishing role of facts and analysis in American public life, at the Commonwealth Club. $35 nonmembers, $10 students. 6:30-7:30 p.m., 110 Embarcadero, San Francisco. More information is here.
SEPT. 26
Berkeley rent board candidates: Candidates for Berkeley Rent Stabilization Board take part in a forum, sponsored by the League of Women Voters. 7-9 p.m., Berkeley City College, 2050 Center St. More information is here.
D6 supervisor candidates: Matt Haney, Christine Johnson and Sonja Trauss, candidates for San Francisco supervisor in District Six, take part in a forum in the race to lead the innovation district. Sponsored by sf.citi. 6-8:30 p.m. at Lyft, 185 Berry St. fifth floor. More information is here.
SEPT. 27
Iran and Trump: Covering Iran in the age of Trump: a conversation with reporter Melissa Etehad of the Los Angeles Times, moderated by San Francisco State journalism Professor Venise Wagner. 12:30-2 p.m., Room 587 of the Humanities Building, San Francisco State University, 1600 Holloway Ave. More information is here.
SEPT. 28
Speaker training: Non-Profit Housing Association sponsors speakers training for people who want to advocate for state Proposition 1, a $4 billion affordable housing bond measure, and Proposition 2, to increase allowable spending on housing homeless people. 2-4 p.m., San Francisco location to be announced. More information is here.
Federalism issues: Ed DuMont, solicitor general of California, and Lawrence VanDyke, solicitor general of Nevada, discuss cases before the Supreme Court and the federal courts that center on state vs. federal rights. Sponsored by Federalist Society. $15 for nonmembers, free for students. 6-7 p.m., Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher law firm, 555 Mission St., Suite 3000, San Francisco. More information is here.
SEPT. 29
Tech politics: Candidates for statewide and Bay Area offices invited to discuss issues of importance to Silicon Valley and the technology industry. Sponsored by Royce Law LLC. Noon-4 p.m., Mission Bay Conference Center at UCSF, 1675 Owens St., San Francisco. More information is here.
D6 supervisor candidates: Matt Haney, Christine Johnson and Sonja Trauss, candidates for San Francisco supervisor in District Six, take part in a forum moderated by Chronicle columnist Heather Knight. 9:30-11:30 a.m., Childrens Creativity Museum Theater, 221 Fourth St., San Francisco. More information is here.
SEPT. 30
Preventing nuclear war: Free forum marking 50th anniversary of Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty features ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern and anti-nuclear activists Jacqueline Cabasso and Marylia Kelley. Sponsored by San Francisco Public Library and Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament. 1 p.m., Main Public Librarys Koret Auditorium, 100 Larkin St., San Francisco. More information is here.
OCT. 2
Assembly candidates forum: Jovanka Beckles and Buffy Wicks, candidates in Assembly District 15 in the East Bay, participate in a League of Women Voters forum. 7-8:30 p.m., Berkeley City College, 2050 Center St. More information is here.
The Browns and California: Journalist Miriam Pawel, author of The Browns of California: The Family Dynasty That Transformed a State and Shaped a Nation, discusses Pat Brown, Jerry Brown and the modern history of the state, at the Commonwealth Club. $20 for nonmembers, $7 for students. 6-7:15 p.m., 110 Embarcadero, San Francisco. More information is here.
OCT. 4
State ballot measures: League of Women Voters hosts a pros-and-cons session on the measures on Californias November ballot. 6:30-9 p.m., Berkeley City College, 2050 Center St. More information is here.
Francis Fukuyama: Political scientist and author Francis Fukuyama discusses identity politics. Sponsored by the Commonwealth Club. $25 for nonmembers, $10 for students. 6:30-7:30 p.m., 110 Embarcadero, San Francisco. More information is here.
OCT. 5
Oakland mayoral forum: Ten candidates for Oakland mayor take part in a forum sponsored by the League of Women Voters. 7-8:30 p.m. in the City Council chambers, 1 Frank Ogawa Plaza, Oakland. More information is here.
Barbara Lee: Forum with Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, celebrating her 20th anniversary in Congress. Sponsored by the Commonwealth Club. $30 for nonmembers, $10 for students. 6:30-7:30 p.m., 110 Embarcadero, San Francisco. More information is here.
OCT. 5-6
Women and Spirit of the New Deal: Authors, scholars, historians and activists gather at UC Berkeley to examine womens contributions to the New Deal and their growing role in political leadership today. Full conference schedule is here. Registration and more information is here.
OCT. 9
Emeryville candidates: League of Women Voters hosts a forum for Emeryville City Council and school board candidates. 7-9 p.m., City Council chambers, 1333 Park Ave. More information is here.
OCT. 11
Danica Roem: Virginia House of Delegates member Danica Roem, the first openly transgender member of a state legislature, discusses her career and life story. Sponsored by Jewish Community Center of San Francisco. $10. 7 p.m., 3200 California St., San Francisco. More information is here.
Left, Right and Center: A rollicking examination of national issues, with panelists Ana Marie Cox, host of With Friends Like These; Washington Post columnist Megan McArdle; and Business Insider senior editor Josh Barro. Sponsored by Inforum and NPR member station KCRW. $35, $10 for students. 7-8 p.m., 110 Embarcadero, San Francisco. More information is here.
Postcarding: A postcarding event encourage voters to turn out for progressive legislative candidates. 6-8 p.m., Richmond Republic Draught House, 642 Clement St., San Francisco. More information is here.
OCT. 14
D4 supervisor forum: Candidates for supervisor in San Francisco District Four take part in a forum sponsored by the Outer Sunset/Parkside Residents Association. 6-8:30 p.m., Lawton Alternative School, Lawton Street between 30th and 31st avenues, San Francisco. More information is here.
OCT. 16
D4 supervisor forum: Candidates for San Francisco supervisorial District Four participate in a forum sponsored by the Outer Sunset/Parkside Residents Association. 6-8:30 p.m., Ortega Branch Library, 3223 Ortega St., San Francisco. More information is here.
OCT. 18
Hacking politics: Keynote address for weekend conference on how the political system is being hacked. Sponsored by UC Berkeley Center for New Media, SFMOMAs Public Knowledge Initiative, the UC Berkeley School of Journalism and Boalt School of Law. Free. 6 p.m., Phyllis Wattis Theater, SFMOMA, 151 Third St., San Francisco. More information is here. Symposium runs from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Oct. 19 at 310 Banatao Auditorium, Sutardja Dai Hall, UC Berkeley. More information is here.
Berkeley voter information: UC Berkeleys Science Policy Group hosts a voter information night, focuses on state ballot initiatives. 5:30-8:30 p.m., Anthony Hall, UC Berkeley. More information is here.
OCT. 20
Race and politics: Panel discussion on the impact of race in politics. Sponsored by the African American Community Health Advisory Committee and the African American Library Advisory Committee. 2-4 p.m., San Mateo Public Library, 55 West Third Ave. More information is here.
OCT. 23
Rick Wilson: Republican strategist and Daily Beast columnist discusses dark politics in the age of Trump. Sponsored by the Commonwealth Club. $30 for nonmembers, $10 for students. Noon-1 p.m., 110 Embarcadero, San Francisco. More information is here.
OCT. 25
Max Boot: Council on Foreign Relations senior fellow and Washington Post columnist discusses his book The Corrosion of Conservatism: Why I Left the Right at the Commonwealth Club. $25 for nonmembers, $10 for students. Noon-1 p.m., 110 Embarcadero, San Francisco. More information is here.
OCT. 26
Julian Castro: Former Housing and Urban Development secretary and former mayor of San Antonio, Texas, speaks at the Commonwealth Club. $30 for nonmembers, $10 for students. Noon-1 p.m., 110 Embarcadero, San Francisco. More information is here.
NOV. 7
Jeffrey Rosen: Scholar and author examines constitutional questions and the post-Anthony Kennedy Supreme Court. Sponsored by Commonwealth Club. $25 for nonmembers, $10 for students. 6:30-7:30 p.m., 110 Embarcadero, San Francisco. More information is here.
NOV. 8
Susan Rice: Former President Barack Obamas national security adviser and U.N. ambassador discusses U.S. foreign policy priorities and national security interests. Sponsored by the World Affairs Council. $40 for nonmembers, $10 for students. 6:30-7:30 p.m., Marines Memorial Theater, 609 Sutter St., San Francisco. More information is here.
To list an event, email Politics Editor Trapper Byrne at tbyrne@sfchronicle
Sen. Dianne Feinstein sent information she received about Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh to federal investigators, she said Thursday, even as she refused to reveal details about the tip.
The California Democrat said in a statement that she had received information from an individual concerning the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. The person supplying the information strongly requested confidentiality, declined to come forward or press the matter further, and I have honored that decision, she said.
I have, however, referred the matter to federal investigative authorities, Feinstein said.
According to the Intercept, an online news organization that broke the story Wednesday night, the information came in a letter that describes an incident involving Kavanaugh and a woman while they were in high school.
Kavanaugh, 53, attended Georgetown Preparatory School, a male-only Catholic high school outside Washington, D.C.
The story also said the woman named in the letter is being represented by Debra Katz, a Washington attorney who works with victims of sexual misconduct.
Now Playing: Brett Kavanaugh Ducks Questions on Trump Pardon President Donald Trump's second Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, Kavanaugh declined several questions from Democratic senators regarding the limits of presidential power. Asked by Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA) whether he thought a sitting president can be required to respond to a subpoena, Brett Kavanaugh, SCOTUS nominee, via NBC News Earlier in his career, Kavanaugh was asked by Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) if President Trump had a right to pardon himself. Brett Kavanaugh, SCOTUS nominee, via NBC News Kavanaugh was also asked about a comment he made in 1998 in which he stated presidents could fire prosecutors at will. Brett Kavanaugh, SCOTUS nominee, via NBC News Brett Kavanaugh, SCOTUS nominee, via NBC News Video: Wibbitz
Feinstein reportedly received the letter from Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Palo Alto, after it was relayed from someone affiliated with Stanford University.
Feinstein is the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee. The panel held a four-day confirmation hearing on Kavanaughs nomination last week, at which Democrats raised questions about the political and legal background of the federal appeals court judge.
The White House dismissed speculation regarding the letter as an attempt by Democrats to derail Kavanaughs confirmation to the high court, which could come as soon as this month.
Not until the eve of his confirmation has Senator Feinstein or anyone raised the specter of new information about Kavanaugh, said White House spokeswoman Kerri Kupec. She said Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, the Senate Democratic leader, promised to oppose Judge Kavanaughs nomination with everything I have, and it appears he is delivering with this 11th-hour attempt to delay his confirmation.
Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, a Democratic member of the Judiciary Committee, said the information Feinstein received had been sent to the FBI.
The Washington Post cited someone it described as being familiar with the case as saying the FBI does not intend to start a criminal investigation. Instead, the agency has passed the material to the White House as an update to Kavanaugh's background check, the person said.
On Thursday, the GOP majority on the Judiciary Committee rejected attempts by Feinstein and other Democrats to delay a vote to send Kavanaughs nomination to the Senate floor for approval.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., protested what he called a rush to judgment on Kavanaugh, arguing that the nomination will be tainted.
We lack the time. We lack the documents, he said.
Feinstein asked the committee to subpoena documents from Kavanaughs years as staff secretary to then-President George W. Bush, saying senators should be able to see this record.
But committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, brushed aside the Democratic complaints and set Thursday as the date for the committees vote on Kavanaughs nomination.
That would set the stage for a vote by the full Senate that could put Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court in time for the Oct. 1 opening of its session.
Sen. Grassley is aware of Sen. Feinsteins referral, said Taylor Foy, a spokesman for Grassley. He has not seen the letter in question and is respecting the request for confidentiality. Theres no plan to change the committees consideration of Judge Kavanaughs nomination.
John Wildermuth is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jwildermuth@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @jfwildermuth
MODESTO Gavin Newsom spoke for 10 minutes at a Central Valley campaign stop Wednesday and barely mentioned himself or his candidacy for governor.
Thats unusual, coming less than two months before election day. But with a big lead in the polls, Newsom is treating his Republican opponent, John Cox, as little more than an annoyance. Instead, hes on a weeklong bus tour of the state and stopping mainly in Republican-held congressional districts, pumping up Democratic candidates central to the partys hopes of winning the House in November.
Newsom has never seemed comfortable with the retail end of politics. From his days as a San Francisco supervisor and then mayor, and into his current job as lieutenant governor, one of the raps against him was that he could talk policy for hours but was less adept at building alliances that could make those ideas reality.
So the Newsom bus tour is partly a way to pile up favors. Hes giving Democrats running in smaller media markets priceless exposure in the outsized spotlight that follows him.
The value of other favors is easier to measure: Newsom has promised to raise $1 million for Democrats running for the House and Legislature.
Now Playing: Central Valley House candidate T.J. Cox talks about campaigning with gubernatorial candidate Gavin Newsom in the Central Valley Video: SFChronicle
At a stop Wednesday in Modesto, it was Anna Caballero and Josh Harders turn. Caballero is in the Assembly and is trying to jump over to the state Senate. Harder hopes to unseat GOP Rep. Jeff Denham of Turlock (Stanislaus County) in one of the most competitive congressional races in the state.
Its not about me, Newsom told a crowd of about 100 people at Harder headquarters. Being governor without having Anna in (Sacramento) wont mean as much to me. Being governor and not having someone like Josh providing that oversight and advocacy (in Washington) doesnt mean as much to me.
It was largely the same refrain earlier in the day in Fresno, where Newsom was talking up state Senate hopeful Melissa Hurtado and T.J. Cox, who is running an uphill race against Republican Rep. David Valadao of Hanford (Kings County).
Of course, Newsom expects that the help hes giving to lesser-known Democrats will eventually be repaid.
Gavin Newsom is someone who by all accounts plays for the long term. So this would come under the heading of relationship building, said Thomas Holyoke, a political science professor at California State University Fresno.
It could help him in Sacramento, Holyoke said. And if hes going to run for something else, say president, in eight years, you want to make friends in as many places as possible.
Standing next to Newsom, however, comes with risk in the Central Valley. Hes the gay-marriage-pioneering, pro-marijuana-legalization, gun-control-supporting, Tesla-driving former mayor of San Francisco. The valley is home to some of Californias reddest districts. It is far from Newsom country.
John Cox outpolled him in the June primary in both Fresno and Stanislaus counties, the ones Newsom visited Wednesday. Newsom also lost there in his 2014 re-election race to Republican Ron Nehring, and voters in the counties opposed his pet initiatives in 2016 Proposition 64, which legalized recreational use of marijuana, and Proposition 63, requiring background checks for ammunition purchases.
Yalonda M. James / The Chronicle
And a decade ago, they overwhelmingly backed a ballot measure to outlaw same-sex marriage, the cause that Newsom pioneered as mayor.
Hes a very scary version of Jerry Brown, said Mike Der Manouel, chair of the Lincoln Club of Fresno and prominent Central Valley conservative. I dont see how many people in the valley are going to have something in common with a San Francisco socialite.
Fred Vanderhoof, who chairs the Fresno County Republican Party, said Newsoms policies are frightening to a lot of people, especially his support for Medicare for all the single-payer model of health care that is rapidly gaining momentum among progressive Democrats.
If Gavin Newsom does win, youll see a large number of people move out of the state, Vanderhoof said. We already feel like were being taxed to death.
But voters in the Central Valley districts where Newsom stopped Wednesday dont vote reflexively Republican. Democrats have won five of the last 11 statewide and federal races dating back to 2012 in the district that Harder is running in, and seven of the last 11 where T.J. Cox is campaigning, according to the nonpartisan California Target Book, which analyzes congressional and legislative races.
Being seen there with Newsom isnt going to hurt these candidates, said Darry Sragow, a longtime Democratic strategist who is now the publisher of California Target Book. The people who are against him there are already against him. Its not going to get any bigger. It may even bring a few more Democrats out to vote.
Now Playing: Jennifer Siebel Newsom, wife of Gavin Newsom, introduces state senate candidate Anna Caballero Wednesday in Modesto-in Spanish Video: SFChronicle
Harder was happy to have Newsom stand with him, even though Denham frequently mocks his Democratic opponent as a Bay Area liberal because he lived there for seven months while working for a venture capital firm. The Republican congressman, Harder retorts, started his career in the Bay Area by running for the Salinas City Council in 1998.
Harder said he appreciated the attention Newsom is devoting to a part of the state that often feels overlooked by its wealthier coastal cousins.
This isnt the first time (Newsom) has been here as part of this campaign. Ive seen him come back again and again and again, Harder told his supporters Wednesday. That commitment is exactly what were expecting to see in Sacramento to an area like ours that has a lot of needs.
Yalonda M. James / The Chronicle
T.J. Cox said Central Valley voters will care less about Newsoms positions on guns or cannabis or same-sex marriage than what he intends to do economically.
Voters here are more about kitchen table issues, when you get right down to it, he said.
So instead of stuffing his speech with the policy proposals and statistics hes so fond of, Newsom kept it simple.
We are living in the richest and the poorest state in America. How can that possibly be in an economy as robust as ours? he asked in Modesto. He said the 134,000 poor souls living on the street in California are the ultimate manifestation of our failure. (Those are) people who need us to bend down on one knee and lift them up.
Republicans point out that such poverty has persisted through eight years of Democratic rule in Sacramento. Noting a U.S. Census Bureau study finding that California has the nations highest poverty rate, John Cox tweeted Wednesday, And @GavinNewsom, it happened on your watch.
After hearing him in Fresno, retired laborer Humberto Gomez gave Newsom points for at least showing up.
Most people from San Francisco and L.A. only drive by us on (Interstate) 5 or (Highway) 99, Gomez said. Not too many stop to see whats going on here.
Joe Garofoli is The San Francisco Chronicles senior political writer. Email: jgarofoli@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @joegarofoli
Kate Campecino-Wong was the pastry chef at Mourad when she, her husband, James Wong, and their friend Clement Hsu began pining for kaya toast, toasted white bread slathered in coconut jam.
The Philippines-born Campecino-Wong ate kaya toast when living with her parents in Bangkok; the other two encountered it in their travels through Southeast Asia. The three cooks, who met each other cooking at Atelier Crenn, decided they had to reverse-engineer the dish, a six-month project that evolved into Breadbelly, a cafe and pastry shop they are opening in the Richmond District this fall.
This year, it seems, a generation of pastry chefs in their 30s and 40s, like the Breadbelly trio, are coming of age. Theyre leaving the high-end restaurants they came up in their collective resumes read like A Night of 1,000 Michelin Stars to seek funding, throw pop-ups or deliver pastry boxes to people who message them through social media.
The pastries that Breadbelly, La Chinoiserie, Stonemill Matcha, Oyatsuya and Baker Doe are baking demonstrate that both the chefs and their customers are as familiar with Chinese, Japanese and Filipino sweets as they are kouign amanns. In erasing the lines between their personal and professional experience, theyre redefining a pastry scene that is already one of the countrys best.
Scott Strazzante / The Chronicle
Some of this generation of pastry chefs such as Stonemill Matchas Mikiko Yui and Junko Schwesig, who prepares a weekly California-Japanese dessert tasting called Oyatsuya were born outside this country and trained in San Francisco. Yui and Schwesig, in fact, who both moved here from Japan, spent time at the Progress, the former as co-pastry chef with longtime mentor Nicole Krasinski and the latter as a line cook under Stuart Brioza.
There, they cooked Californian. Yui, whose black-sesame angel food cake and yuzu meringue tart with matcha crust have been a source of some awe, calls her food for Stonemill Matcha more personal. I always liked Western-style desserts when I was little, she said. Now I appreciate the simplicity of Japanese pastry. It was so natural for me to combine the two.
Liz Hafalia / The Chronicle
Other cooks, like La Chinoiseries Joyce Tang, were Bay Area born and raised. Tang, another career changer who attended classes at San Francisco Cooking School and ended up moving to Spain for four months to intern at the wildly experimental El Celler de Can Roca, says she was inspired by the Asian-inflected pastry shops she saw in Japan and France.
But, there was also a desire to rethink the Cantonese sweets she grew up eating. Ive grown up my whole life eating Chinese pastries, the stuff you get in the hot-pink boxes, but theyve always been cheaper pastries, she says, then clarifies, Not that theyre any worse in terms of techniques, but theyve been marketed toward the lower end.
The name La Chinoiserie spoke to her two culinary polestars, France and China. Their twinned influence expresses itself most clearly in her green onion croissant, a barely contained bouffant of golden pastry that is remarkable not just for its airy interior green flecks of scallion trapped in the web of translucent dough but for the fact that it contains multiple taste memories at once: scallion pancakes, Neighbor Bakeshops butter croissants, northern Chinese da bing coated in sesame seeds, the scallion twists at New Hollywood Bakery in Chinatown.
Tang now bakes custom cakes and cookies, but she sells her pastries on weekends through Coloso Cafe and a branch of Equator Cafe in Oakland as well as Grand Coffee in San Francisco.
Scott Strazzante / The Chronicle
Breadbellys three cooks have lived, worked and traveled all over. Campecino-Wong, 34, says she was a latecomer to cooking. She moved to the United States as a civil engineer but was drawn to cooking school by Food Network shows and San Franciscos collective food consciousness.
The internship that culminated her schooling was at Atelier Crenn, where she met Wong, then the sous-chef, and Hsu, assistant to pastry chef Juan Contreras. She moved to Aziza and RN74, Wong to AQ and In Situ. My husband and I had been trying to figure out what we wanted to do to work together, and Clem was fresh from traveling from Asia, and he was also looking to progress in the industry, she says.
The kaya toast experiment set them on six months of experimenting and planning, which resulted in a bakery box that they still market several times a week, as well as a series of pop-ups. The bake sales theyve been holding at Andytown Coffee Roastery (on Taraval at 30th Avenue) in August and September, advertised over Instagram, sell out within a few hours: toasted Japanese milk bread with plump squiggles of kaya, or pandan-coconut jam; buckwheat cookies with chocolate chips and caramelized buckwheat; ham and cheese ensaymada made with brioche dough and capped with a shag rug of grated pecorino.
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In some respects whats happening now is no different from the accomplished pastry scenes that have emerged in Tokyo, Seoul and Taipei, Taiwan. These cities have already sent Taiwanese and Korean pastry shops like 85C and Paris Baguette to the Bay Area, though these multinational chains are, frankly, baking at a more mass-market level.
What feels particular to the Bay Area about Breadbelly, Stonemill Matcha, Oyatsuya and La Chinoiserie is the chefs technical precision theyre competing, after all, with nationally known shops like Tartine Bakery and B Patisserie.
At the same time, Campecino-Wong says that Breadbelly has gained new respect for traditional Asian baking techniques. Their experiments in re-creating a flaky Taiwanese beef bun incited months of study, learning how to brush melted lard over the dough and fold it so it forms many croissant-like layers. They learned the hard way that the only way to achieve the right effect was to bake it in the stone oven at Sababa in San Francisco, where they held a few pop-ups. Now theyre struggling to re-create it in a more conventional oven.
Whether these new pastry shops constitute a movement is debatable. Yui simply notes that all the owners of these new businesses are roughly the same age and reflect the fact that there are more Asian American cooks in professional kitchens than a decade ago.
The new class of pastry chefs Baker Doe: Weekly deliveries for Asian-inspired croissants. For information on how to order, see Instagram (@bakerdoe.sf). Breadbelly: Cafe at 1408 Clement St., San Francisco, is slated to open in late fall, breadbellysf.com. For information about pop-ups and delivery boxes, check Instagram (@breadbellysf). La Chinoiserie: Information on stores and times at www.lachinoiserie.us or Instagram (@chinoiseriebakeshop). Oyatsuya:Weekly, reservations-only dessert tastings in the Mission District. Sign up for alerts at www.oyatsuyasf.com. Stonemill Matcha: 561 Valencia St., San Francisco, 415-796-3876, stonemillmatcha.com. Open 8 a.m.-6 p.m. daily. See More Collapse
I think its just a generation, she says. We learned to cook at about the same time, and now were ready to do something in our style.
Jonathan Kauffman is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: jkauffman@sfchronicle.com. Twitter/Instagram: @jonkauffman
Six surfers from the Bay Area food and wine world, all friends or acquaintances, park their cars along Highway 1 to survey the swell at an under-the-radar spot just south of Pacificas Linda Mar Beach. Some fun little corners all along the break, observes Zachary Dorman, 39, hospitality director of SingleThread, Healdsburgs Michelin two-star restaurant and inn. To translate: The conditions are decent, but not for the faint of heart. (Theyll earn their sunnier, mellower second surf at Linda Mar later in the morning.)
The weather for this late-August dawn patrol is gray and misty, with a chilly south wind.
Its the kind of weather only a surfer would get out of bed for, says Matt Licklider, proprietor of Lioco Wine in Healdsburg. Even though prime Bay Area surfing season is still four to six weeks out, the guys seem delighted to be up early, some of them only able to catch a few hours of sleep after last nights dinner service.
Northern California surfers seem to be more meteorologically inclined than most, due in large part to the cold water and fickle elements. In the days before the handy Surfline app, surfers would awkwardly triangulate weather data hoping for perfect conditions: a draining tide, an offshore wind and a long-period swell the latter characteristic of larger, more perfect-peeling waves.
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The topic of weather is doubly captivating for this small faction of surfers, since the raw materials of their profession are at the mercy of atmospheric conditions. Seeing food seasonality through the lens of the ocean is really interesting, says Jason Alexander, restaurant and wine director of State Bird Provisions and the Progress in San Francisco.
For example, as the weather starts to cool in the Central Valley or the first Sierra snowfall occurs (both usually in October), winds start blowing offshore in the Bay Area. This phenomenon produces the best surfing days of the year air currents blowing from land to ocean brace the face of the waves, making them smooth and glassy and also signals a particularly celebratory time for our region: the grape harvest.
But even more reliable than a farmers almanacs worth of meteorological trends is the unpredictable nature of Bay Area weather. Until you get to the ocean, you dont really know what youre going to see, explains Alexander, 44, a Hawaii native who recently enjoyed a fun morning surfing waist- to knee-high peelers at Ocean Beach (a.k.a. OB) even though the forecast had predicted conditions opposite. Out of curiosity, you still go out to see what the oceans doing.
Brian Feulner / Special to The Chronicle
You could say the ocean has well acclimated these particular surfers to the element of surprise; as such, theyre presumably more adaptable to sudden changes in the high-stakes food-and-wine industry. For Licklider, 48, whose early point-break exploits at Topanga and Surfrider beaches in Malibu emerged from a youth spent guerrilla-skateboarding empty backyard pools, surfing directly correlates to his work as a vintner. He crafts minimalist, European-style wines using grapes from small, family-owned vineyards in cooler climates and more interesting soils.
The Northern California ocean is aggressive, but Im not matching its vigor. Im just trying to find the cleanest line, says Licklider, who now frequents Salmon Creek in Bodega Bay, an exposed OB lite beach break about a 45-minute drive from Healdsburg.
I can see this in our approach to winemaking. Its not about chasing down the best vineyard sites or making the biggest kill in terms of sales. Its more about finding the efficiencies of wine production and trying to work with as much integrity as possible.
Matt Kosoy, owner of Half Moon Bays Rosalind Bakery, appreciates the soulful, experiential nature of both surfing and bread-baking, as they are paradoxical to his former life as a software developer for large-corporation marketing websites what he calls Cool Brand X or Cool Brand Y.
Working on the internet is mind-numbing, says Kosoy, 39, whose hands-on sourdough mastery he honed the skillful juxtaposition between a brittle crust and gooey interior while apprenticing for Dave Muller at Outerlands was in some ways a rebellion against tech. His daring surf style on weird-shaped boards that go very, very fast is a testament to the courage and focus required for a midcareer pivot from the cybernated new world to the artisanship of the old world.
Brian Feulner / Special to The Chronicle
For most surfers, a standard pre-surf routine commences: Pull on wetsuit (minimum 4/3 millimeter thickness for these cold waters). Wax board (dont overdo it). Stretch (lunges, supine twists, arm circles).
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Scott Clark, chef-owner of Dads Luncheonette, the Half Moon Bay eatery located inside a charmingly kitschy red train caboose, doubles the effectiveness of these ritualistic moments by meditating on things that bring joy like pizza, he says, adding that the practice lessens any anxiety that may naturally occur when a mere mortal, however skilled on a surfboard, is about to submit to a force of nature like the ocean. Or a babys smile. (His daughter, Frost, is almost 3 years old; her arrival in late 2015 was the reason Clark, 32, abandoned the demanding fine-dining track he had been chef de cuisine at Saison to pursue Dads, a classic mom-and-pop, with his partner in life and business, Alexis Liu.)
In the challenging restaurant biz, moments of zen have been known to come from more hedonistic pursuits. Surfing is such a departure from those other things, says Clark, who took up surfing a few years ago after a friend put him through a rough initiation at OB. Since then, hes been trying to maximize wave time as elegantly as possible by carving sensual lines and curves on a custom 7-foot, 11-inch Furrow single-fin triplane hull.
For as much movement as is involved in surfing, its actually one of the most grounding things I do.
Similarly, SingleThread chef de cuisine Aaron Koseba seeks equanimity from his ocean adventures, which include spearfishing, freediving and foraging for seaweed (nori, feather boa) or mollusks (limpits, mussels).
The hum of the ocean reminds me a lot of the kitchen, says Koseba, 33, who started surfing while living in Sao Paulo in 2006. Theres a certain calm, from a whirring fan or the sound of the burners firing, thats akin to sitting out on your board in the ocean, moving with the water. (The topic is very dear to Koseba, who has published his poetic musings on the oceans restorative effects in volume 2 of the Japanese photography journal Terasu.)
For all the ties that bind these surfers, the strongest is their mutual reverence for the vastness and power of the briny deep and its easy ability to put the human experience, on a surfboard or otherwise, into perspective. Youre you, says Alexander, tucking his 5-foot-6 Mystic Hulls spoon under his arm, looking toward the clouded horizon. But thats the ocean.
Leilani Marie Labong is a San Francisco freelance writer and The Chronicle's contributing home editor. Email: food@sfchronicle.com. Instagram: @leilanimarielabong.
If a New York company has its way, there will be more than a thousand new campgrounds in California next year each with only one campsite.
The company, Tentrr, installs standardized glamping campsites on remote, private land, including ranches and family farms, that might otherwise go unused. Its designed to appeal to campers looking for a more private experience than you typically find at established campgrounds in state and national parks.
Launched in 2016, Tentrr has more than 500 sites in the U.S. most are in the Northeast and just opened its first 10 in California in August. Because of Californias wealth of undeveloped private land and because seasons are less of a consideration DAgostino said the company hopes to find between 600 and 1,000 landowners in the state in 2019 who want to make extra cash renting remote sites to solitude-seeking travelers.
The sharing economy is becoming more and more of a force in the world, says Michael DAgostino, Tentrrs founder. And why cant we reinvent the infrastructure of how people enjoy the great outdoors by redistributing it to local landowners, who then can now participate in the economics of outdoor discovery and adventure?
Its unclear how many Tentrr campsites could be coming to the San Francisco Bay Area it would be based on who applies to host a site and is approved. On a map with the locations of landowners who applied during August (but have not been vetted or accepted yet), more than 20 were in the region, ranging from Napa and Sonoma counties to Santa Cruz County. Each potential site needs to have a wow factor water features, stunning views and natural beauty and be located near other potential activities, DAgostino says.
Mary Esch / Associated Press
Among the sites already operating in Northern California are one on a family-owned, 850-acre cattle and grain ranch in Paso Robles wine country; a landing on a 60-acre ranch overlooking the Russian River Valley in Sonoma; and a campsite in the woods of the Sierra foothills in Nevada County. Some sites are suited for two campers, while others are large enough for families or groups.
Landowners apply online to host a campsite and, if the site is approved, they pay Tentrr $1,500 to install a fully-equipped campsite, including a platform, a canvas expedition tent, a combination picnic table and storage unit, a fire pit, wood stove and a camp toilet, playfully called the Tentrr Loo. (Landowners keep 80 percent of the camping fee.) According to the companys online application site, potential campsites should be about 10 acres to assure privacy, and be accessible by car.
There are other companies focused on booking glamping sites (which has become the catch-all phrase for lodging that is quirky, unorthodox or remote), including Glamping Hub, which lists 35,000 sites globally. That service, however, is more akin to Airbnb in that it is a third-party booking platform and doesnt create or own any of the lodging it lists.
We have complete sway over what our marketplace is, DAgostino says. Whereas you or I could put an empty refrigerator box out on the corner of Main and Fifth Street and rent it out on Airbnb, we take a little bit of a different approach where we carefully design these things. Theyre standardized.
Its the same experience whether in Napa or in the Adirondacks, he says. Among the variations in the experience are the extras that camp keepers can offer (and charge for), nearby or on the land, from bottles of wine and firewood to kayaking and fly fishing.
While Tentrr follows a similar shared-economy model to Airbnb, Uber and Lyft, the company made a point of avoiding some of the regulation gaps that became issues for those companies, including liability, vetting of both landowners and campers for safety concerns, and registering with local authorities where necessary. Each site is insured for $2 million in general commercial liability, DAgostino says. Most homeowners insurance doesnt cover you for commercial activity.
Although the company does not get involved with ensuring that landowners declare that money with tax officials, he says, It is regular income, and we expect that people will follow the respective tax codes in their town, state, municipality.
Asked about the use of fire pits and wood stoves in parts of the state that are desperately dry, a spokeswoman for the company said Tentrr follows each countys changing conditions for open flames and notes it on the campsites page. Each campsite also is equipped with a fire extinguisher.
Some aspects of the standardized experience might not be for everyone.
The intentional remoteness equates to a lack of plumbing and shower and toilet facilities that are rustic. Campsites are equipped with a sun shower, essentially a large bag of water (heated by the sun) that hangs from a tree limb; and a toilet that is a portable wooden box with a toilet seat on top and a bucket inside.
Originally we were just going to have a trowel and instructions on how to dig a 6-inch hole, DAgostino says. The landowners objected to that.
Instead, the loo contains a single-use bag with a gelling agent developed by NASA that breaks down the waste and odors quickly and is landfill-safe. DAgostino says the loo is surprisingly popular, based on customer feedback, although campers should be prepared to have some flexibility about privacy if it rains.
Tentrr Loo aside, DAgostino says he believes theres room for enormous growth, if only because there are 8.7 million privately owned residential properties of 10 acres or more in the United States.
We see a huge potential in California. Everywhere people would currently go to enjoy the great outdoors is a great opportunity for us, he says. I think theres a lot of opportunity for surplus demand around the national parks where people can still visit the park, but have a lovely place to stay just outside.
The companys shoot-for-the-moon goal, he says, is to have 60,000 campsites in the country in the next four to five years. A shocking number of people are very interested in having a turnkey glamping business.
For more information on booking with Tentrr, visit the companys website or download the mobile app.
Spud Hilton is an editor of Travel. Email: shilton@sfchronicle.com. Twitter and Instagram: @spudhilton
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In a car youre always
in a compartment,
wrote Robert M. Pirsig in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, a 1974 philosophical treatise in the guise of a cross-country motorcycle travelogue. And because youre used to it you dont realize that through that car window everything you see is just more TV.
The windshield is another screen, a barrier separating us from our surroundings, Pirsig argues. To look through it is to passively consume an image of reality while remaining insulated from that reality. How else can you explain dozing off in a car zooming along the highway at 70 mph?
Well up Pirsigs ante. Even riding a motorcycle, which he champions in his book, is just more passive sitting. For a more present and mindful traveling experience, you really need to hop on a bike and grind out the miles under your own power. Especially for lovers of our Golden State, bicycle travel is the way to know it, and love it, more deeply.
We recently completed a 12-day, 850-mile bike tour, from Davis north to Mount Shasta and then south down the coast to Santa Rosa. We do about one of these big rides each year, and this year we wanted to spend as much time outdoors, in the saddle, as possible. We packed everything into two panniers on the racks of our aluminum and steel road bikes, and stayed in motels rather than camping to lighten the supply load. Biking at an average pace of 10 mph, exposed to wind and weather, offered us plenty of time to think about why we would choose to travel this way.
Cars and airplanes effectively shrink the world, smoothing the friction of travel. You step into a machine, it whirs and roars for a short period of time, and then you step out somewhere else.
But sometimes, you want to feel the vastness of the world, the joy of discovery, the sense of accomplishment that follows the experience of friction. The distance between, say, San Francisco and Santa Rosa is unremarkable by car, a quick blur once youve passed the Golden Gate. But by bicycle, its an adventure.
Bicyclists touch the world in a way other travelers dont. All five senses give contour and texture to what might otherwise be a straight, smooth line. You gain more intimate knowledge muscle memory of a place others know mainly by freeway off-ramps.
As we pedaled over the dry hills of eastern Shasta County, the citrus, herbal and syrupy aromas of chaparral came to us as refreshing as a glass of lemonade. When your max speed is about 20 mph, you can pick out the myriad hues that make our hills golden, from the tawny stalk of a blade of grass to its iridescent, near-white tip. Coasting past the farms in Anderson Valley, we absorbed the rococo flamboyance of songbirds, the panicked outbursts of wild turkeys, the uncannily human sound of a sheep sneezing.
Todd Trumbull
On a map, California is an embrace of mountains protecting the Central Valley. On a bike, that Central Valley the first day of our trip becomes a day of flat, straight pace-lining, buffeted by tailwinds as strong as the guiding hand of a parent. The Sierra foothills dangle on the horizon for a long time. Finally reaching them at Lake Oroville is like turning the page in an atlas. Feeling the climbs in your legs when youve been plotting them on maps for months is a kind of synesthesia or deja vu: Its like youre riding inside the map.
Our first day in the mountains was the epitome of everything we love about bike touring. After a second breakfast of prime rib hash at Scooters Cafe in Oroville, the Feather River Canyon unfolded before us like a mighty gash in the earth streaked with rust-colored canyon walls, verdant conifers and slate-gray stream wending along the valley floor. When cross-country trains took this route, it was legendary for its beauty. The passenger trains are gone now, but we still heard the echo of mile-long freight trains rumbling through the canyon far below. After the heat of the Central Valley, the air in the canyon was crisp and breezy, and the friendly tailwind returned, pushing us just enough so that we could race the locomotive.
In conversations along the way, car travelers (and one overly concerned Plumas County sheriffs deputy) seemed amazed that we were able to ride through the canyon. Be careful, they said, as if motorists werent our greatest concern.
Indeed, bike touring looks daunting if youve never done it. But if youre comfortable commuting by bike or cruising around a park, you can probably cover 10 miles in a day without issue. The trick is to start slow and short and grow from there. On our first overnight bike trip, years ago, we stopped just over the Golden Gate Bridge in Marin. It was a small start, but it got us hooked.
Reaching the coast at Arcata on the eighth day of our 850-mile trip was a milestone moment. After a week of inland heat, the cool sea breezes came as a welcome respite. It also marked the point where we were transitioned to a route we already knew from a bike trip years before. From that point on, we stitched new discoveries in with old favorites. Our radius of whats possible by bike had expanded by one more increment.
Riding south over the next three days, the two of us wheeled in sync like factory gears, wordlessly mirroring each others cadences and steering adjustments. By this point we were in the rhythm of the ride, waking up early even before our alarms. When you sleep in a different town each night, being on the bike begins to feel like home.
By Day 11 the landmarks Avenue of the Giants, the Boonville General Store, the vineyards of West Dry Creek Road in Healdsburg grew more familiar.
At the end of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Pirsigs narrator and son ride a route similar to ours, following the Mendocino coast south and cutting inland toward Santa Rosa. He celebrates their return to civilization, even as the road grows wider and fuller now, swelling with cars and trucks and buses full of people.
These were our home roads, but they felt strange, unfathomable. We wondered, how do we ratchet our brains back up to this pace of life? But soon enough our minds return to default, like clicking back into a trusty gear.
After adding hundreds of new miles to our personal maps of California, we were deepening the grooves of routes and routines already traced. Thats what bike touring over successive trips in a place you love can do: With each pedal revolution, you draw your own California cartography.
A Holocaust denial group has paid BART $6,400 to display an ad at two BART stations in San Francisco that read: History matters.
The advertiser is the Institute for Historical Review, based in Fountain Valley in Orange County, and is listed by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate group.
The SPLCs website calls the group once a prominent voice in extremist circles. It says the groups past conferences have been networking opportunities for neo-Nazis and anti-Semites such as David Irving, and a now-defunct publication it produced denied facts about concentration camps and the Diary of Anne Frank.
People took to social media to denounce the ad, which BART spokeswoman Alicia Trost said the agency initially sought to reject and does not endorse.
Tweets called BART hurt for cash and normalizing anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial by allowing the ad.
The history matters ad is on display through the end of September at Montgomery and Powell St. station platforms, on digital displays in all-caps red block text.
Institute director Mark Weber denied that the organization promotes hate. He said the ad is intended to warn people to learn from the United Statess recent record of war as President Trump deploys more troops to the Middle East.
The ad is pretty unobjectionable, Weber said. The original submission to BART featured a website link, which the final edition on the platform does not show.
Trost said that the agency rejected the version with the website because the content on the webpage could be viewed as hate speech.
The agencys legal team determined that the revised version, with just history matters superimposed over a globe and the groups name, was valid under prior First Amendment rulings.
Free speech court rulings reinforce the fact that BART cannot reject the ads as they are currently written, Trost said. Nor can we reject the ads based on the group purchasing the ad.
Trost said that BART does not endorse the ads.
Gwendolyn Wu is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: gwendolyn.wu@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @gwendolynawu
BRUSSELS The European Union wants to shake up the way internet companies handle media, e-books, digital music, news articles and other content posted online by better protecting the rights of the authors and creators.
EU lawmakers voted to back a report that has proved controversial and seen celebrities weigh in. Paul McCartney recently wrote an open letter to the lawmakers to encourage them to back the new rules, while Wyclef Jean has publicly opposed it.
Among other things, the report calls for automatic filters of uploaded content that would identify copyrighted material. To give the new system teeth, it would also make online publishing sites liable for copyright infringement.
German lawmaker Axel Voss, who chaperoned the report through the assembly, said the vote is a good sign for the creative industries in Europe. The changes must still be endorsed by EU member states.
Media companies and publishers say the changes would help them get paid for their work. But opponents say they are too hard to put into effect, and might lead to filtering or even greater control over the internet.
They also fear that the new rules would effectively ban parodies and viral internet memes that are often based on or inspired by existing songs or movies or other content.
Voss said the text contains provisions to ensure that copyright law can be respected without limiting freedom of expression. Wikipedia and open-source software repositories would not be affected.
The lawmaker said that smaller aggregators would also be excluded from the rules.
I am convinced that once the dust has settled, the internet will be as free as it is today, creators and journalists will be earning a fairer share of the revenues generated by their works, and we will be wondering what all the fuss was about, he said.
The European Magazine Media Association praised the move as a great day for the independent press and for democracy, saying it would modernize the rules without stifling online competition.
But the Computer and Communications Industry Association said it would undermine free expression online and access to information.
McCartney and other musicians back the proposal, saying it would help them earn money that otherwise would have gone to the dominant tech companies.
But others like Jean have rejected it, saying that working with internet companies is a bigger financial opportunity than threat for musical artists. World Wide Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee and Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales have said that the changes would lead to automated surveillance and control of internet users.
Some also worry about the cost and reliability of automated filters. Google has spent more than $100 million on Content ID, its copyright management system for YouTube, which has more than 400 hours of content uploaded every minute. But many users complain that the system is inaccurate.
Lorne Cook and Kelvin Chan are Associated Press writers.
BRUSSELS European authorities are planning to slap internet companies like Google, Twitter and Facebook with big fines if they dont take down extremist content within one hour.
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker said in a speech Wednesday that the commission is proposing the new rules as part of efforts to step up the blocs security.
He said that removing material within an hour is important because its the critical window in which the greatest damage is done.
The EUs executive body said propaganda that prepares, incites or glorifies acts of terrorism must be taken offline. Content would be flagged by national authorities, who would issue removal orders to the internet companies hosting it. Those companies would be given one hour to delete it.
The proposal, which still needs approval from European Union lawmakers and member states, would be a departure for the EU, which until now has allowed online companies to a take a voluntary approach to battling extremist content. The one-hour rule was among a series of recommendations the commission made in March to fight the spread of extremist content online.
Under the proposal, internet companies would have to take measures, including installing automated systems, to prevent content from being re-uploaded after being removed the first time. Companies that fail to comply would face fines of up to 4 percent of their annual global turnover.
For Mountain Views Google, which owns San Brunos YouTube, that could amount to as much as $4.4 billion, based on parent company Alphabets $110.9 billion in revenue for 2017.
We share the European Commissions desire to react rapidly to terrorist content, Google said, adding that it wants to keep violent extremism off its sites. We welcome the focus the Commission is bringing to this and well continue to engage closely with them, member states and law enforcement on this crucial issue.
Facebook said there is no place for terrorism on its social network.
Weve made significant strides finding and removing terrorist propaganda quickly and at scale, but we know we can do more, the Menlo Park company said.
HORNSTRANDIR, Iceland The passenger boat arrives at the bottom of Veidileysufjordur, a short inlet with a long name, to drop off backpackers for a multi-day trek. A weather-beaten group thats completed the trip waits to board, eager to get back to a part of Iceland where they can reconnect with the world over Wi-Fi.
By boat, that will take about a half-hour. No roads lead to the Nordic countrys northernmost peninsula, a rugged glacial horn that reaches for the Arctic Circle. Making a phone call requires walking up a mountain for a cell signal so weak, clouds seem capable of blocking it.
But internet service soon could be reaching the Hornstrandir Nature Reserve, one of the last digital-free frontiers in what might be the worlds most-wired nation. The possibility has most hikers, park rangers and summer residents worried that email, news and social media will destroy a way of life that depends on the absence of all three.
We see a growing appreciation for the lack of online connection, Environment Agency of Iceland ranger Vesteinn Runarsson, who patrols the peninsulas southern end on his own. Looking to the future, we want to keep Hornstrandir special in that way.
The area has long resisted cell towers, but commercial initiatives could take the decision out of Icelanders hands and push Hornstrandir across the digital divide.
Companies such as Elon Musks SpaceX are racing to deliver high-speed internet service to every inch of the world by putting thousands of small satellites into low Earth orbit. Their success would have global implications, bringing the benefits and downsides of internet communication to places that are off the grid because of poverty or war, or where internet access is reserved for the wealthy.
Thats also true for sparsely populated communities and far-flung destinations in Canada, Russia, Alaska and elsewhere in the vast Arctic region, where broadband service generally is prohibitively expensive. Yet in Iceland, the prospect of constant connectivity has called up an old debate on whether Hornstrandirs wilderness should stay unwired.
Despite or because of its remoteness, Iceland ranks first on a U.N. index comparing nations by information technology use, with roughly 98 percent of the population using the internet. Among adults, 93 percent report having Facebook accounts and two-thirds are Snapchat users, according to pollster MMR.
Many people who live in northwestern Iceland or visit as outdoor enthusiasts want Hornstrandirs 220 square miles, which accounts for 0.6 percent of Icelands land mass, to be declared a digital-free zone. The idea hasnt coalesced into a petition or formal campaign, so what it would require or prohibit hasnt been fleshed out.
The last full-time resident of the rugged area moved away in 1952 it never was an easy place to farm but many descendants have turned family farmsteads into summer getaways.
Alexander Gudmundsson, who vacations in the home where his great-grandmother grew up, doesnt have to look far down the family tree to see the effect of digital devices: his teenage daughter refused to come to Hornstrandir this summer because it would mean not having online access.
But once the kids are here, all they do is play outside, Gudmundsson said.
Northwest Icelands representative in parliament is less sentimental about the value of isolation. Since her election last year, Halla Signy Kristjansdottir has urged the Ministry of Transport to fund cell towers for the safety of sailors and travelers whose mobile devices currently are useless in and near Hornstrandir.
I dont see anything romantic about lying on the ground with a broken thigh bone and no cell phone signal, Kristjansdottir said in an interview.
In a written response to the lawmaker, Minister of Transport Sigurdur Ingi Johannsson noted that huts along the hiking trails are equipped with radiophones for emergencies. He defended the absence of digital connectivity in Hornstrandir as a factor in advancing (a) visitors experience.
Police and rescue workers have suggested creating an illustrated map that marks the mountain summits with the strongest signals.
The Environment Agency of Iceland estimates that 3,000 people trek through Hornstrandir every summer, moving from one fjord to the next. Some are rewarded with sightings of the arctic fox, Icelands only native land mammal. The few structures abandoned farm houses and a decommissioned U.S. Air Force radar station were abandoned decades ago.
When the Associated Press visited in August, the travelers interviewed there unanimously favored making the reserve a digital-free zone, though their notions of what that meant varied.
If phones worked here, I am sure many people would go as far as carrying battery packs to charge their devices, said Mikko Ronkkonen, a hiker from Finland who had just completed an eight-day trip.
When Runarsson, who works as a police officer during the winter, wanted to ask the ferry captain about the next arrival, he took a short cairn-marked trail to the higher ground known locally as Telephone Mountain.
He walked in circles, as if searching for something on the ground. One bar. Two bars, he murmured with his eyes fixed on his phone. The bars quickly disappeared as the mountain shrugged off the faint signal.
Maybe the clouds are interfering, Runarsson said without a hint of frustration. No phone calls today, I guess.
Egill Bjarnason is an Associated Press writer.
This article, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos unveils new $2 billion Day One charitable fund, originally appeared on CNET.com.
Amazon CEO and founder Jeff Bezos on Thursday announced the charitable Bezos Day One Fund, making good on his long-awaited plans to start giving away more of his massive fortune.
The fund will focus on two main areas: the Day 1 Families Fund will give money to existing nonprofits that help homeless families, while the Day 1 Academies Fund will create a new network of top-tier preschools in low-income communities. Bezos said the academies fund will create an organization to directly operate the new schools. Also, the homeless initiative builds on Amazon's current support of Mary's Place, a Seattle homeless shelter nonprofit.
Bezos first requested on Twitter ideas for philanthropies in June 2017. A year later, he offered an update, saying he'd announce his giving plans by the end of the summer.
"It fills me with gratitude and optimism to be part of a species so bent on self-improvement," he wrote Thursday in a four-part message on Twitter.
The Day One name references one of Bezos' most well-known concepts, which he mentioned in his first investor letter in 1997. The company's headquarters is also called the Day 1 building. The idea generally means to maintain a startup-like energy of growth and innovation. He describes "Day 2" as "stasis," followed by "irrelevance" and "decline."
Despite being the world's richest person, Bezos hasn't been a major player in philanthropy. He's faced increasing pressure to change that situation, especially because his total wealth has skyrocketed thanks to his 16 percent stake in Amazon.
His fortune is now so gigantic, it's difficult to fully describe. He's worth $164 billion, $66 billion more than the second richest person, Bill Gates, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. As Amazon's shares have surged this year, Bezos' worth has risen by $64.7 billion year to date -- and it's only September. That's more than the total wealth of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, the world's sixth richest person.
With Bezos still leading Amazon and only 54 years old, some argue that he still has plenty of time to start giving.
But Bezos' lack of major giving so far has made him a target for criticism about corporate greed, with US Sen. Bernie Sanders deriding Amazon's treatment of its warehouse workers while Bezos has amassed a huge fortune. Even after Bezos' pledge Thursday, many took to social media to criticize what they saw as a minor giving when compared to his total wealth and questioned why Amazon a few months ago fought against a new tax in Seattle that would have raised money to help the homeless.
Additionally, several of Bezos' ultra-wealthy peers are well on their way to donating large chunks of their wealth, including Zuckerberg, who's 20 years younger than Amazon's chief.
Gates created the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to give away billions of dollars, and Zuckerberg and his wife started the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. Warren Buffett has donated large portions of his money to the Gates Foundation, as well.
"Among these tech titans, Mark Zuckerberg has been unusual in hitting philanthropy early on. And more commonly people focus on building their career and focus on philanthropy later," David Callahan, founder and editor of Inside Philanthropy, a digital media site covering charitable giving, said in an interview last month.
"It's not easy to give away a lot of money smartly," Callahan continued, "and a lot of these people who want to give away money well would rather delay giving until they have the time to do it."
Callahan noted that Gates started Microsoft in 1975, but didn't turn to large-scale giving until the late '90s.
Although nearly all of Bezos' wealth comes from his 16 percent stake in Amazon, it could still make a huge impact when he starts giving more of it away.
Since his tweet last June, Bezos made one donation that garnered plenty of headlines, giving $33 million in January for college scholarships to so-called "Dreamers," undocumented immigrants who came to the US as children. Earlier this month, he and his wife, MacKenzie, donated $10 million to a nonpartisan fund that works to get military veterans elected, which was his first major political donation.
He's previously made donations for health research, science and immigration, according to Inside Philanthropy, including gifts to the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. In 2011, Bezos and his wife donated $15 million to Princeton University, their alma mater, to create the Bezos Center for Neural Circuit Dynamics, which develops new techniques to study brain function.
Bezos also sells about $1 billion in Amazon stock every year, but uses that money to fund his private space exploration company Blue Origin.
At a rare public-speaking appearance on Thursday night at the Economic Club of Washington, DC, Bezos provided a few more details about his new giving, saying he plans to hire an executive team for the preschool network soon.
"I don't know how much of it I'll give away. I'll also invest a lot in Blue Origin," he told the crowd about his huge fortune. "I'm going to give away a lot of money in a non-profit model, but I'm also going to invest a lot of money in Blue Origin."
Bezos' parents run the Bezos Family Foundation, which regularly donates to causes including medical research and education.
Amazon, too, has started to step up its charitable work in its hometown of Seattle, after generally steering clear of such work in the past. It's worked with Mary's Place, providing the nonprofit with a permanent homeless shelter in one of Amazon's buildings. In 2013, it also started AmazonSmile, which donates a portion of retail sales to charity.
First published Sept. 13, 8:10 a.m. PT.
Updated, at 8:38 a.m. PT and 7:41 p.m. PT: Adds more information throughout and details from Economic Club talk.
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The official story goes something like this:
Rapper Tupac Shakur was coming back from seeing Mike Tyson's bout at the MGM Grand in Vegas on September 7, 1996. At 11:15 PM, Tupac and producer Suge Knight, who was driving, pulled up to Flamingo Road and Koval Lane. A white Cadillac pulled up alongside them and fired at Pac, hitting him four times.
Despite researchers' best efforts, J50's condition doesn't seem to be improving. And they're thinking of taking more dramatic steps to help her.
The 3 and 1/2-year-old orca is the youngest member of the southern resident pods, and has been ailing for more than a month, with signs of "peanut head," a depression at the base of her skull that can indicate severe fat loss and malnutrition. As of September, she remains 20 percent underweight, and still shows signs of emaciation.
Last month, researchers finally began to understand what might be behind it: A fecal sample from her and her mother showed a moderate level of Contracaecum, a parasite that can harm a weakened or emaciated whale.
But after attempting to give J50 -- also known as Scarlett -- a double dose of medication, leading researchers to believe that the second dose hadn't succeeded, researchers are considering more invasive measures.
"NOAA Fisheries and our partners have been exploring and taking action to save J50 because of her importance as a contributing member of this population, and particularly to J Pod," The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said in their latest update.
The move does not come easily. Treating Scarlett has been a challenge, both in terms of diagnosis and caring for her. Given that she's a wild orca, researchers can't just run tests to see what's wrong with her.
RELATED: Struggles abound in trying to treat sick orca calf, but researchers aren't giving up
Historically speaking, there is no direct precedent for caring for J50 the way researchers have been. Scarlett remains emaciated, but is still with her family, meaning researchers could do more harm than good if they separate her for treatment.
They also cannot simply provide food for the struggling orca population. Beyond using feeding trials to provide vitamins or medication, researchers can't risk disturbing the pod or the ecosystem by making her dependent on food.
SEE ALSO: Researchers attempt treatment for Scarlett via antibiotic administration and salmon release:
Even more in-depth testing to reveal more about how Scarlett got infected has proved challenging. When researchers collect fecal matter to test, they can often only deduce that the sample came from one of a few members of the pod. Sometimes, as was the case in mid-August, they're able to use genetic testing to figure out who it came from; in that case they posited that the sample likely came from J50's mother, J16, who was also infected with Cotracaecum.
"This sample showed evidence of parasitic worms," NOAA tweeted out at the time. "Since J16 catches fish that she then shares with J50, the veterinary team prioritized treating J50 with a dewormer, following antibiotics."
But given that their other methods don't seem to be working, NOAA believes it might be time to finally take more drastic measures. But because "the public has a stake in the J50 response and the recovery of southern resident killer whales" they want to engage with the public about what exactly they should do.
RELATED: Southern resident population has dropped 25 percent in the 21st century
"We want to know what people in the region think about this effort and potential steps so we are holding two public meetings in Washington State to hear the public's views," NOAA said.
The meetings will be:
- Saturday, Sept. 15, at 7 p.m. in Friday Harbor at Friday Harbor High School
- Sunday, Sept. 16, at 1 p.m. in Seattle at University of Washington, Haggett Hall Cascade Room
Researchers are especially concerned as population of the southern resident has dipped to just 75 in a census earlier this year. Scarlett was one of 11 orca calves to be born between 2014 and 2016, and one of only six to survive.
Now, an international team with many partners is racing to help her.
Following J35's 1,000-mile, 17-day swim with the body of her calf who died shortly after being born, there has been increased attention to the challenges the local orca population faces. Among the biggest priorities: scarce salmon prey, vessel traffic and noise, and contaminants.
SeattlePI reporter Zosha Millman can be reached at zoshamillman@seattlepi.com. Follow Zosha on Twitter at @zosham. Find more from Zosha here on her author page.
WASHINGTON In July, President Trumps Council of Economic Advisers declared that the countrys five-decade war on poverty was largely over and called it a success.
On Wednesday, the Census Bureau released its 2017 annual report on the poor that offered a stark counterpoint, suggesting that the national recovery has bypassed many of the 40 million to 45 million Americans estimated to be living below the federal poverty level.
While median household income rose 1.8 percent last year, the national poverty rate remained stubbornly high at 12.3 percent. That was just a slight decrease from the previous years level of 12.7 percent, according to the federal governments most comprehensive annual gauge of economic hardship.
The supplemental poverty measure for 2017, widely regarded by economists as more accurate, was even higher, 13.9 percent in 2017, essentially unchanged from the year before. That is an improvement from the recent high of 16 percent recorded in 2013. But economists and advocates for poor people say the relatively modest gains over the last few years are fragile, endangered by the Trump administrations policies and vulnerable to a long-overdue economic downturn.
If this is the best we can do, it isnt good, said Timothy Smeeding, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who studies poverty.
Things really tapered off this year, after a serious drop in previous years, he said. In terms of the boom, the party has lasted a long time, a lot longer than we thought, but not everybody is getting invited people who are working several jobs, taking jobs without benefits, kids who are growing up in poverty. The fruits of the recovery are not being spread around evenly.
The report comes as the Trump administration seeks to curtail safety net programs, in part by playing down the severity of poverty in the country. The White House, bolstering its case for program cuts and new work requirements for recipients of federal aid, has gone so far as to question the validity of the governments traditional calculations for poverty.
Trump has pressed Congress and his Cabinet to impose strict new work requirements on recipients of Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, moves that could strip some beneficiaries of their benefits.
Glenn Thrush is a New York Times writer.
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. A federal judge on Wednesday ordered five former residents of a ramshackle New Mexico compound to remain jailed amid accusations that a woman in the group declared herself a prophet while her partner helped train children for potential attacks on schools, law enforcement agencies and other institutions.
The ruling came a day after a federal grand jury indicted the group on firearms and conspiracy charges, which stemmed from accusations that Jany Leveille, who is originally from Haiti, had been living in the country illegally and that the others had conspired to provide her with firearms and ammunition. The four others charged in the case are Siraj Ibn Wahhaj, 40; his sisters Hujrah Wahhaj, 37, and Subhanah Wahhaj, 35; and his brother-in-law Lucas Morton, 40.
Even though hundreds of children separated from their families after crossing the border have been released under court order, the overall number of migrant children under detention has exploded to the highest ever recorded a significant counternarrative to the Trump administrations efforts to reduce the number of families illegally coming to the United States.
Population levels at federally contracted shelters for migrant children have quietly shot up more than fivefold since last summer, according to data obtained by The New York Times, reaching a total of 12,800 this month. There were 2,400 such children in custody in May 2017.
The huge increases, which have placed the federal shelter system near capacity, are due not to an influx of children entering the country, but a reduction in the number being released to live with families and other sponsors, the data collected by the Department of Health and Human Services suggests. Some of those who work in the migrant shelter network say the bottleneck is straining both the children and the system that cares for them.
Most of the children crossed the border alone, without their parents. Many are teenagers from Central America, and they are housed in a system of more than 100 shelters across the United States, with the highest concentration near the southwest border.
The new data was reported to members of Congress, who shared it with The Times. It shows that despite the Trump administrations efforts to discourage Central American migrants, roughly the same number of children are crossing the border as in years past. The big difference, said those familiar with the shelter system, is that red tape and fear brought on by stricter immigration enforcement have discouraged relatives and family friends from coming forward to sponsor children.
Shelter capacities have hovered close to 90 percent since at least May, compared to about 30 percent a year ago. Any new surge in border crossings, which could happen at any time, could quickly overwhelm the system, operators say.
The closer they get to 100 percent, the less ability they will have to address anything unforeseen, said Mark Greenberg, who oversaw the care of migrant children for the Health and Human Services Department under President Barack Obama. Even if theres not a sudden influx, they will be running out of capacity soon unless something changes.
The administration appeared to move to address that on Tuesday, when it announced it will triple the size of a temporary tent city in Tornillo, Texas, to house up to 3,800 children through the end of the year. Immigrant advocates and members of Congress reacted to the news with distress, because conditions are comparatively harsh in such large overflow facilities, compared with traditional shelters.
Facilities like the one in Tornillo are also more expensive to operate, according to Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, the ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations subcommittee that funds the shelter program. She said such facilities cost about $750 per child per day, or three times the amount of a typical shelter.
You are flying in the face of child welfare, and were doing it by design, DeLauro said. You drive up the cost and you prolong the trauma on these children.
Federal authorities said they were dealing with high levels of illegal border crossings and requests for asylum. The number of unaccompanied alien children apprehended are a symptom of the larger issue of a broken immigration system, Evelyn Stauffer, press secretary for the Department of Health and Human Services, said in a statement. That is why HHS joins the president in calling on Congress to address this broken system and the pull factors that have led to increasing numbers at the U.S. border.
The system for sheltering migrant children came under scrutiny this summer, when more than 2,500 children who were separated from their parents were housed in federally contracted shelters under the Trump administrations zero tolerance border enforcement policy. But those children were only a fraction of the total number of children who are currently detained.
Historically, children categorized as unaccompanied have been placed with sponsors, such as parents already in the United States, extended family members or family friends, as soon as the sponsors can be vetted by federal authorities. But the new data shows that the placement process has slowed significantly. Monthly releases have plummeted by about two-thirds since last year.
The delays in vetting sponsors relate, in part, to changes the Trump administration has made in how the process works. In June, the authorities announced that potential sponsors and other adult members of their households would have to submit fingerprints, and that the data would be shared with immigration authorities.
Traditionally, most sponsors have been unauthorized themselves, and therefore are wary of risking deportation by stepping forward to claim sponsorship of a child. Even those who are willing to become sponsors have had to wait months to be fingerprinted and otherwise reviewed.
Federal officials say their vetting procedures are designed to safeguard the children in their care.
Children who enter the country illegally are at high risk for exploitation by traffickers and smugglers, Stauffer said in her statement.
But the longer children are detained, the more anxious and depressed they are likely to become, according to Greenberg, who oversaw the program under Obama. When that happens, children may try to harm themselves or escape, and can become violent with the staff and with one another, he said.
Stories of such behavior have emerged through reporting in recent months as the shelter system has faced intense criticism by members of Congress and the public.
Being in congregate care for an extended period of time is not a good thing. It increases the likelihood of things going wrong, Greenberg said.
The administration funneled children who were separated from their parents into the shelter system this summer under the earlier policy, without any apparent collaboration with the officials who oversee the shelter program.
The separated children injected a new degree of chaos into the facilities, according to several shelter operators, who spoke anonymously because they are barred by the government from speaking to the news media. The children were younger and more traumatized than those the shelters were used to dealing with, and they arrived without a plan for when they could be released or to whom.
But the system had already been overwhelmed for months, operators said, as children continued to flow in while fewer were being discharged.
The shelter system has overflowed before. In 2014, when unaccompanied children flooded across the border in unprecedented numbers, a lack of shelter space led to a backup of children at the border in what authorities referred to at the time as a humanitarian crisis.
Since then, new facilities have been constructed or arranged by contract and they are now nearing capacity.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Cannabis connoisseurs, this bud's for you.
Adolphus A. Busch V, great-great-grandson of the late founder of Anheuser-Busch announced today the launch of his eponymous cannabis brand, ABV Cannabis Company.
The company has just released a line of disposable vaporizer pens, filled with CO2-extracted cannabis oil derived from "environment-friendly, greenhouse-grown cannabis." ABV also plans to launch cannabis flower products in the near future.
Related: Researchers Believe Legal Marijuana Could Hurt Beer Sales
Says Busch, 27, Growing up I always knew I wanted to work in the family business, creating quality and affordable products that appealed to a variety of consumers."
But cannabis products were not exactly what he envisioned.
After graduating from Colorado State University, Mr. Busch returned home to St. Louis and applied for an entry-level job at Anheuser-Busch. After being turned away by the company, he headed back west to Colorado and worked in various positions within the cannabis industry. It was there that he took various positions in sales, technology, compliance, marketing, and product development.
The crash course in all things cannabis caused him to alter his vision for his future. "Once I saw all the incredible benefits that cannabis could bring to people and the immense opportunity presented by the cannabis industry, I knew I could take all I learned from my pioneering family heritage and create a new legacy for myself in the cannabis space, he says.
No word yet on whether he plans to take the family business in the same direction as Constellation Brands, the beer giant that recently invested $4 billion in Canadian cannabis company Canopy Growth. But it does make one wonder if Anheuser-Busch is getting closer to being Anheuser-Kush.
Related: One of the World's Biggest Wine-and-Beer Makers Has Made a Huge Move Into Cannabis
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The 65-year-old man who was beaten by a woman wielding a metal cane last week has died and police say the fatal blows came during an argument over a slice of pizza.
The San Francisco Medical Examiners office identified the victim as Harvey Grosser, of San Francisco. His death is now being investigated as a homicide, said Mark Powning, an investigator for the medical examiner.
President Trump on Thursday falsely accused Democrats of inflating the death toll from Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico last year, rejecting that governments assessment that the storm had claimed nearly 3,000 lives.
Trump said that the toll was only six to 18 dead after his visit following the storm but that was at a time when the estimate of fatalities was changing. It rose to 34 in the hours after the president left the island. Trump on Thursday said Democrats padded the death toll by including, for example, a person who died of old age in order to make me look as bad as possible.
William Melvin Edwards Jr., an alleged gang member, has been charged with conspiracy and murder in the shooting death of Taison Calderon-Lopez June 1 in North Richmond, according to the Contra Costa County district attorney.
Sheriff's deputies responded to an address in the 500 block of Grove Avenue at 6:28 a.m. on report of a shooting and found Calderon-Lopez suffering from gunshot wounds. He was transported to a hospital and pronounced dead.
Prosecutors say that Edwards drove a rented Jeep to Calderon-Lopez's home, and waited near the victim's work truck for roughly 52 minutes. Once the victim came out, Edwards allegedly shot him four times in the chest then ran back to the jeep and drove away.
It was a case of mistaken identity, however, according to the district attorney.
Calderon-Lopez had been mistaken for a witness in an attempted murder case that investigators were building against suspects Darjon Hicks and Jermaine Hicks Sr., two uncharged coconspirators that are allegedly members of the same gang as Edwards.
Sometime between Aug. 23 and Aug. 26, Edwards learned that he was suspected of the homicide and allegedly attempted to obtain false identification for the purpose of leaving the state to avoid arrest, prosecutors said.
Edwards has been charged with murder and enhancements for lying in wait, committing a murder to further the activities of a street gang, intentional discharge of a firearm and street terrorism -- which carries a potential life sentence. He's also charged with conspiracy to commit a murder.
He's scheduled for arraignment Sept. 18 in Richmond, according to Scott Alonso, a spokesman for the district attorney.
Edwards is reportedly a past employee of the Contra Costa County Office of the Public Defender, but that agency did not immediately respond to a request for confirmation.
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Technology giant AT&T has announced it will launch mobile Fifth Generation technology in San Francisco and San Jose starting early next year.
The technology, also known as 5G, translates to possibly faster wireless internet for residents in the two Bay Area cities.
Earlier this year, AT&T announced that it would roll out 5G in other large U.S. cities such as Charlotte, Oklahoma City, Dallas, Atlanta and Waco, Texas starting sometime this year. AT&T has added Austin, Houston, Jacksonville, New Orleans and San Antonio to that list.
The company initially said that it was deliberately launching the technology in a "mix of big and mid-sized cities," because "all Americans should have next-gen connectivity to avoid a new digital divide."
In addition to the rollout in early 2019 in San Jose and San Francisco, other U.S. cities where AT&T plans to launch mobile 5G in 2019 include Las Vegas, San Diego, Orlando, Nashville and Los Angeles.
"We're at the dawn of something new that will define the next decade and generation of connectivity," Andre Fuetsch, AT&T Communications' chief technology officer, said in a statement.
"Future smart factories and retailers, self-driving cars, untethered virtual augmented realities, and other yet to be discovered experiences will grow up on tomorrow's 5G networks. Much like 4G introduced the world to the gig economy, mobile 5G will jumpstart the next wave of unforeseen innovation," he said.
In order to build the mobile, nationwide 5G network, AT&T has selected mobile companies Ericsson, Nokia and Samsung as its technology suppliers.
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SAN FRANCISCO (BCN)
The California Supreme Court cleared the way Wednesday for disciplinary charges to proceed against nine San Francisco police officers accused of sending racist, sexist, homophobic and anti-Semitic text messages in 2011 and 2012.
The court declined without comment to grant the nine officers' appeal for review of a state Court of Appeal ruling that allowed the San Francisco police chief to pursue the charges before the city's Police Commission.
The state high court's denial of a hearing, issued at its San Francisco headquarters, leaves the May 30 Court of Appeal ruling as the final decision in the case.
The text messages between former Sgt. Ian Furminger and the nine officers were discovered in 2012 during the federal prosecution of Furminger on charges related to the theft of money and property from drug suspects. Furminger was convicted of four counts in federal court on Dec. 5, 2014.
The existence of the messages became publicly known and caused an outcry when federal prosecutors included examples of some of them in a brief in March 2015 opposing Furminger's bid for bail during his appeal. The messages included references to "half-breed kids," a "monkey" and "white power."
Then-Chief Greg Suhr filed the disciplinary charges with the commission in April 2015, saying that he recommended firing seven officers and lesser discipline against two others.
The officers -- including Rain Daugherty and eight others who chose to remain anonymous -- claimed in a lawsuit that the chief's action violated one-year deadline in a state law.
The law, entitled the Public Safety Officers Procedural Bill of Rights Act, requires disciplinary charges to be filed within one year of the appropriate investigators' discovery of the alleged misconduct.
A Superior Court judge agreed with the officers, but the Court of Appeal overturned that ruling and reinstated the charges.
The appeals court said the statute of limitations wasn't violated because the administrative unit of the Police Department's Internal Affairs Division didn't receive the messages from federal prosecutors until Dec. 8, 2014, soon after Furminger was convicted. The administrative unit investigates misconduct allegations.
Although investigators from the division's criminal unit aided federal prosecutors, they were sworn to secrecy and walled off from the administrative unit, the appeals court said.
City Attorney Dennis Herrera said, "The court made the right decision. Police should not have to compromise a criminal case in order to discipline officers accused of appalling behavior, like these text messages revealing prejudice against the very communities our officers are sworn to protect."
"Now these officers can answer to the Police Commission," Herrera said.
Michael Rains, a lawyer for one of the anonymous officers, said, "This is a bad decision legally, and from a pragmatic and public policy perspective.
Rains said the now-final Court of Appeal ruling "will permit police and sheriffs' departments to play word games in order to drag out internal affairs investigations of police for more than a year before concluding them.
"The public doesn't want their cops responding to life and death situations while they are preoccupied with an investigation that has dragged on for months or years, and may result in loss of their livelihood," the attorney said.
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A Hawaiian Airlines flight was diverted this morning to Oakland International Airport about an hour after it departed San Jose for Hawaii, airlines officials said.
Hawaiian Airlines Flight 43 departed Mineta San Jose International Airport shortly after 9 a.m.
ALSO: San Francisco warns Uber, lyft riders of attackers posing as drivers
About an hour later a cockpit gauge indicated a possible discrepancy in the distribution of fuel between various fuel tanks on the Boeing 767 aircraft.
Airlines officials said no fuel was lost but to be cautious the crew turned back and landed in Oakland so the plane could be inspected.
The plane landed safely and the 230 passengers and 10 crew members got off.
The plane left Oakland International Airport at 3:04 p.m. Pacific time.
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SAN FRANCISCO (BCN)
Dozens of healthcare workers rallied today outside of San Francisco's Laguna Honda Hospital, accusing the medical facility of creating unsafe conditions for both staff and patients by refusing to hire more workers.
The rally, organized by Service Employees International Union Local 1021, began around noon outside the hospital, located at 375 Laguna Honda Blvd.
According to union officials, the alleged employee shortage at the specialized nursing facility and rehabilitation center allegedly creates a "vicious cycle" in which patients' needs are not being met, resulting in patients taking out their frustration on staff, with some instances involving staff being physically and verbally abused.
"Our patients and their families expect to get better when they come to Laguna Honda Hospital," Theresa Rutherford, certified nursing assistant at the hospital and SEIU Local 1021's vice president of representation, said in a statement. "Instead they find their recovery put in jeopardy because of the short staffing."
According to union officials, certified nursing assistants are responsible on some shifts for providing care to nearly 30 patients, which is a ratio that results in poor patient care with greater risk for infection and bedsores.
"Our patients deserve better than this, and that's why we're calling on the hospital to address the problem of understaffing at this facility. This situation is compromising the care that Laguna Honda Hospital patients and residents need," registered nurse Elizabeth Saiz said in a statement.
"Inadequate levels of staffing are leading to greater patient falls and injuries. People are getting hurt. It's time the hospital administration starts paying attention and doing something about it."
Rutherford said, "Currently there are several staff on Worker's Comp and Disability as a result of unsafe staffing levels. Management has turned a blind eye to the situation and instead of coming up with a solution, they place the blame squarely at the feet of the employees. Several employees have been disciplined because of management's inability to effectively address safe staffing levels."
According to Rachael Kagan, spokeswoman for the San Francisco Public Health Department, which runs Laguna Honda Hospital, the facility is well staffed.
"We don't agree with the union's assessment. We certainly respect the union's right to express their opinion. The safety of our patients and staff is our top priority and Laguna Honda is no exception," she said.
SEIU Local 1021 spokesman Carlos Rivera said, "The workers out there today were championing something the communities want and that's a public health system that takes care of the disabled, mentally ill and elderly. San Francisco is able to do a better job to make sure that these people live in dignity and low staffing levels at this hospital are not going to do it."
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A suspect accused of killing a 64-year-old man at his home in Concord in July was arrested last month in the small town of Bandon, Oregon, where police say he remains in the custody of Coos County Jail.
Michael Downie was discovered by friends who were checking on him at his home in the 1200 block of Pine Creek Way around 9:30 p.m. on July 27.
Investigators identified Terrance Boyd Dixon, 55, as a suspect in the killing and a warrant was issued for his arrest.
Dixon turned himself in to the Bandon Police Department on Aug. 14. He has not yet been extradited to California, according to Coos County jail records.
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SAN FRANCISCO (BCN)
A Los Angeles limousine company has sued Uber Technologies Inc. in federal court in San Francisco for unfair competition, alleging that the ride-booking company saves up to $500 million per year and hurts its rivals by failing to classify its drivers as employees.
Diva Limousine Ltd. argues in the suit filed on Monday that the ride-booking company is violating California labor and insurance laws by classifying its drivers as independent contractors rather than employees.
The alleged misclassification enables Uber to save the costs of paying drivers minimum wage, overtime, expenses and other benefits, amounting to a savings of up to $500 million per year for rides in California, the lawsuit said.
The suit asks for an injunction under California's Unfair Competition Law and triple financial damages under the state's Unfair Practices Act, which prohibits businesses from providing services below cost for the purpose of harming competitors.
"Uber prices its rides below cost for the purpose of injuring competitors," the lawsuit claims.
The company's "investors understand that Uber's purpose is to create a behemoth that counts customers in the millions and drives enough competitors out of the market that they will later be able to charge higher prices in the long run," the lawsuit alleges.
The lawsuit seeks to be certified as a class action on behalf of all transportation companies such as limousine firms that arrange rides in advance for California passengers and treat their drivers as employees.
A spokesman for San Francisco-based Uber did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The company has contended since its founding nine years ago that its drivers are independent contractors who value the flexibility of that status.
Two attorneys for Diva, Ashley Keller and Warren Postman, said they believe the case will contribute to resolving the long-running dispute about whether Uber drivers are employees or independent contractors.
"We think we filed a very important lawsuit. This case may be a very good vehicle for the court to apply the test of who is an employee under California law," Keller said.
The lawsuit cites an April 30 decision in which the California Supreme Court narrowed the definition of an independent contractor.
The state high court said California workers must meet all of three standards in order to be classified as independent contractors.
The three criteria are that workers are "free from the control and direction" of the hiring company; perform work that is "outside the usual course of the hiring entity's business"; and are customarily engaged in an independently established occupation or business.
Although the lawsuit's claims are based on California law, it was filed in federal court because some companies in the proposed class are out-of-state and make ride arrangements for their clients with associated companies within California, the attorneys said.
Uber has stated it had 148,000 active drivers in California at the end of 2017, the lawsuit said.
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SAN FRANCISCO (BCN)
A 66-year-old San Francisco Municipal Railway bus driver remains in critical condition after an early Monday morning crash in the city's Marina District, Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital spokesman Brent Andrews said today.
The Muni bus driver, who has worked for the agency for 38 years, was rushed to the hospital following the 5:40 a.m. crash in the 2300 block of Lombard Street.
Two passengers, both women aged 25 and 56, were also taken to the hospital with minor injuries, according to police.
The crash occurred when the 28-19th Avenue bus was traveling east on Lombard Street and it crossed the median and went into the westbound lanes and then struck a parked car, a tree and a building.
The building, a dry cleaning business, only sustained minor damage because the bus did not make contact directly with the building, instead striking its awning and sign. The bus also struck a parking meter that then went through the storefront, according to officials with the city's Department of Building Inspection.
Muni officials and police continue to investigate what may have caused the crash.
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SAN FRANCISCO (BCN)
Hundreds of protesters took over an intersection of downtown San Francisco this morning to denounce what they say is Gov. Jerry Brown's inaction on climate change as he attends the Global Climate Action Summit in the city this week.
As part of the action, dozens of protesters linked arms, effectively blocking the entrance to the summit at the Moscone Center at Third and Howard streets.
The protesters are made up of a coalition of several environmental groups from all over the planet, as well as Bay Area-based organizations. They're calling on global leaders to speed up the transition from fossil fuels toward renewable energy.
According to Kassie Siegel, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity, a way to reduce emissions globally is for Brown to phase out oil and gas drilling in California, which she says would result in other states and countries following suit.
"He's in there patting himself on the back, claiming climate action leadership, but climate leaders don't drill. California is still one of the country's top oil-producing states," Siegel said.
Siegel said since taking office, Brown has approved 21,000 new oil wells and that "most are in communities of color that are already burdened by pollution."
She said, "We're out here asking him to show true climate leadership by protecting Californians, not the oil industry ... When you're in a hole, the first thing to do is to stop digging."
The climate summit, which began Wednesday and goes through Friday, involves leaders from across the world discussing ways to reduce global emissions by 2020, goals outlined in the 2015 Paris Agreement.
Kitzia Esteva, an organizer with the Bay Area-based organization Just Cause Causa Justa, said her group is seeking to end environmental racism, which impacts everything from housing to immigration.
Esteva said examples of that in the Bay Area include Richmond, home to the Chevron oil refinery, and San Francisco's Hunters Point neighborhood, where soil testing was falsified to cover up radiation from the former U.S. Navy shipyard there.
"To us it's all interconnected and we're defending our right to be part of the real solution to this crisis and to stop with the lies about how capitalist solutions can even fix anything," she said.
"We know the people inside the summit are actually talking about how they're going to profit from our suffering, instead of thinking about how they're going to implement the kind of actions that we need to take on," Esteva said.
"You can't have real solutions that don't consider the real communities that suffer the consequences of their false solutions. We're out here to say that 'cap and trade' is not a real solution," said Doria Robinson, spokeswoman for the Richmond Our Power Coalition.
Cap and trade is an approach used by many governments, locally and globally, which provides economic incentives for companies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
"Cap and trade hurts communities in places like Richmond, who will get the brunt of the excessive emissions that that scheme allows," Robinson said.
"I feel the like the whole cap and trade thing is a scam, I'm not sure if it will ultimately reduce emissions. I feel like we really should be focusing on emission-reducing solutions led by communities so that the consequences of what we choose to move forward on have been thought through and vetted," she said.
"When you look at the fires, the droughts, the hurricanes that are coming at us heavily, they're not coincidences," Robinson said. "We need aggressive solutions to address the climate crisis we're in and that's not it."
During this morning's action, officers arrested two people outside the Moscone Center, police said.
Officers arrested Jiaspi Gomez, 19, of San Diego, on suspicion of obstruction of an officer, refusing to comply with a lawful order and being a pedestrian in a roadway. Officers also arrested San Francisco resident Christopher Moulton, 29, on suspicion of trespassing.
Both were issued citations and then released, police said.
In addition to the arrests, ten others were escorted from the Moscone Center.
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The East Bay Community Law Center said today that it is seeking to convince Alameda County officials to eliminate administrative fees for people who are convicted of crimes.
The law center, a Berkeley-based legal services provider that serves low-income residents in the county, says Alameda County will become only the second county in the U.S. to eliminate such fees if it takes that step.
The issue will be discussed at the Board of Supervisors' Public Protection Committee meeting at the county administration building at 1221 Oak St. in Oakland at 10 a.m. on Thursday.
East Bay Community Law Center staff attorney and clinical supervisor Brandon Greene said today that if the committee votes on Thursday in favor of eliminating the administrative fees the matter will go to the Board of Supervisors in October for final approval.
The law center says the Probation Department, Office of the Alameda County Public Defender and the Sheriff's Office assess what it describes as "insurmountable fees" on people who are convicted of criminal offenses.
As an example, it says defendants in Alameda County are charged probation supervision fees of up to $90 per month and pre-charge investigation report costs of $710.
The law center alleges in a news release that "criminal justice fees in Alameda County are causing high pain for families and low gain for local county government."
Greene said, "This is not only a fiscal and good governance issue but also a racial justice issue" because the fees disproportionately affect black people, who he said are frequently stopped by the police and "are overburdened by housing costs, lower-than-average wages and the disastrous impacts of gentrification."
He said, "This confluence of issues results in the most marginalized communities being the ones most impacted by court-ordered debt that they cannot afford to pay."
Theresa Zhen, another staff attorney and clinical supervisor at the center, said, "The East Bay Community Law Center has represented countless individuals who want a clean start but are unable to get out from underneath the pile of debt imposed by criminal justice administration fees."
Zhen said, "A repeal of fees and discharge of outstanding debt would be an important step towards true debt-free justice in Alameda County."
Sheriff's spokesman Sgt. Ray Kelly said today that his office won't support the proposal to eliminate the fees "unless some alternative can be approved by the county to fund the programs we facilitate."
Kelly said, "We already charge very minimal service fees as compared to other counties."
The law center says that in 2016 Alameda County eliminated juvenile fees and fines, which led to the passage of a bill that made California the first state in the country to eliminate court fees and fines for juveniles.
The law center says its current campaign would eliminate adult fines and fees in Alameda County.
The center says it also has convened a statewide coalition to end adult criminal justice fees throughout California.
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Following an outpouring of response from advocates, politicians and the media, organizers of a privately funded homeless encampment in San Jose say law enforcement officials have backed off on enforcing a 72-hour notice to vacate the camp.
Hope Village sits in an empty parking lot boxed off by Mineta San Jose International Airport, the Guadalupe River Creek and the state Employment Development Department on Ruff Drive and West Hedding Street. The collection of tents is surrounded by a fence and has a bathroom, solar power and a central gathering area.
Peter Miron-Conk, who co-founded Casa de Clara Catholic Worker, is among a small group of people who planned and constructed the camp, which opened on Saturday.
The organized dwelling had only been open for two days when it received a 72-hour notice from the California Highway Patrol, according to Miron-Conk.
Officer Ross Lee, spokesman for the CHP San Jose office, said the encampment was reported to the CHP on Monday because the site is on state property as a parking lot for the Employment Development Department.
Lee confirmed today that despite the agency giving a verbal 72-hour notice to vacate earlier this week, "currently we do not have a planned sweep to go in and remove them."
Lee said the CHP is "in the process of seeing if we can come to another resolution by working with city, county and state officials to see if there's a more appropriate location for the encampment."
Vallejo police admitted that they made a mistake by not responding quickly enough to a call that two young children were in danger of falling Tuesday from the second story of a building.
Police received the call at about 7 p.m. about the situation in the 300 block of Virginia Street, Lt. Jason Potts said.
"First and foremost we are grateful the children were not injured," Potts said.
The children were as young as 2 years old. Potts said the call was not properly prioritized.
Police are currently investigating how and why the response was slow and police will make the necessary changes to procedures and protocols so that it doesn't happen again.
Potts also said officers will be following up with the parents of the children.
An Oakland man's right leg was amputated Wednesday after his motorcycle collided with a SUV west of Petaluma, according to the California Highway Patrol.
Andrew Irby, 31, crossed two solid yellow lines in an attempt to pass two vehicles on eastbound Bodega Avenue west of Thompson Lane around 2 p.m., CHP Officer Kimberly Lemons said.
Irby's motorcycle struck the left side of a 2013 Ford C-Max hybrid wagon that was making a left turn into a driveway. He suffered major injuries and his right leg was amputated at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital, Lemons said.
The driver of the Ford was not injured, and there were no indications either driver was impaired. Based on witness statements, excessive speed is considered a factor in the crash, Lemons said.
The 152-acre Irving Fire burning at Samuel P. Taylor State Park northwest of Lagunitas in Marin County is 90 percent contained as of this morning, county fire officials said.
Crews are removing or extinguishing burning material near the fire control lines and monitoring hot spots today.
Marin County Fire Department officials said the cause of the fire is believed to be a power line that fell on the Ridge Trail on the south side of Mount Barnabe.
PG&E spokeswoman Deanna Contreras said Wednesday the utility company is working with Cal Fire and the county Fire Department to learn more about the preliminary finding.
The first smoke from the fire was reported between 7 and 7:30 p.m. Monday, Marin County fire spokeswoman Laine Hendricks said.
An underground utility vault fire in San Francisco this morning has been extinguished, fire officials said.
The San Francisco Fire Department reported the fire on Twitter at 9:47 a.m. and said it was in a vault in the area of Spear and Folsom streets.
Spear Street was closed and a shelter-in-place order was issued for 2 Folsom St., fire officials said.
The fire department said at 10:38 a.m. that the fire was extinguished and firefighters were working with PG&E to confirm all hazards from the incident were mitigated.
Firefighters put out a fire that burned in the attic of a home in Saratoga on Wednesday night, according to the Santa Clara County Fire Department.
The blaze was reported at 10:27 p.m. at a single-story home in the 13500 block of Old Tree Way.
Crews arrived and found that the residents of the home had gotten out safely and that flames were in the attic.
Firefighters were able to extinguish the fire within 20 minutes and contained it to the attic, although the roof and interior ceilings sustained extensive damage, county fire officials said.
Crews had to work through a large amount of insulation in the attic to make sure no hot spots sparked the fire up again.
No firefighters were injured while battling the blaze. The cause of the fire is under investigation.
The owner of a septic waste hauling company was sentenced Wednesday for dumping raw human waste into a manhole in Rohnert Park, according to the Sonoma County District Attorney's Office.
Sonoma County Superior Court Judge Robert LaForge sentenced Carlos Chavez, 64, of Petaluma, to one year in Sonoma County Jail and three years' probation, District Attorney Jill Ravitch said.
He was convicted of felony theft of utility services and misdemeanor advertising for construction work without a contractor's license, Ravitch said.
Chavez, owner of Carlos' Petaluma/Novato Septic Service, also was fined $30,700, and he may be ordered to pay $353,977 to the city of Santa Rosa and $15,576 to Rohnert Park during an October restitution hearing for causing harm to the sewer systems, prosecutors said.
The investigation by Santa Rosa police in December 2017 and January of this year determined Chavez dumped septic waste into a manhole at 1742 E. Cotati Ave. in Rohnert Park, causing that city's sewer system to back up and overflow with "grit," prosecutors said.
Santa Rosa police arrested a man Wednesday for allegedly stabbing a man in the neck last week.
The Sept. 6 stabbing on Railroad Avenue near the Prince Memorial Greenway involved two homeless men during a dispute about property. The male suspect was last seen riding a yellow and red women's bike, and the victim suffered injuries that were not life-threatening, police said.
An officer recognized the suspect, Damon John Walker, 47, in the 2000 block of Apollo Way around 10:15 a.m. Wednesday, police said.
Walker fled on a bicycle and jumped over fences in the area of Sebastopol Road and Lombardi Lane. He was captured in an open field on the campus of Lawrence Cook Middle School, which was locked down during the search, police said.
Walker was booked into Sonoma County Jail on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon, police said.
A Rohnert Park man was arrested Wednesday after he was twice found sleeping behind the wheel of his vehicle, according to the city's Department of Public Safety.
Ritesh Prasad, 39, was reported asleep in his vehicle in the middle of Snyder Lane near Lawrence E. Jones Middle School at 5154 Snyder Lane around 9:15 a.m., Cmdr. Aaron Johnson said.
Public safety officers responded and were advised the car moved and was now stopped about a quarter-mile away near the Rohnert Park Expressway intersection, Johnson said.
Officers found Prasad asleep with his foot on the brake and the car in drive. A long line of cars was stopped behind the vehicle, and an officer parked his patrol car in front of it to keep Prasad from suddenly taking off, Johnson said.
Prasad was determined to be under the influence of a drug, and he was booked into Sonoma County Jail on suspicion of DUI. He has since posted bail and is out of custody, Johnson said.
Tens of thousands of people are expected at the eighth annual Bay Area Pet Fair this weekend at the Alameda County Fairgrounds in Pleasanton.
The event is the largest pet adoption event in North America and aims to save the lives of animals by clearing out Bay Area shelters.
Attendees can pick from more than 2,000 adoptable animals from more than 80 animal shelters and rescues.
The event starts at 10 a.m. and ends at 5 p.m. each day at the fairgrounds at 4501 Pleasanton Ave.
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A 19-month-old girl who died after she was inadvertently left in a car by a family member in Moraga has been identified as Lily Aracic of Oakland, according to the Contra Costa County coroner's office.
Police and firefighters responded to a medical call in the first block of Hardie Drive around 3:50 p.m. Tuesday.
The dispatcher reported that there was someone screaming and crying on the other end of the line. Police arriving at the scene found the child to be unresponsive, not breathing and began rescue-breathing until paramedics with the Moraga-Orinda Fire District could take over.
The girl was transported to John Muir Medical Center in Walnut Creek and pronounced dead.
Investigators believe the child was accidentally left in the vehicle by a family member who immediately called for help after finding the decedent. At the time, the temperature outside was roughly 80 degrees.
The East Bay Community Law Center said that it is seeking to convince Alameda County officials to eliminate administrative fees for people who are convicted of crimes.
Officials with the center made the announcement Wednesday.
The law center, a Berkeley-based legal services provider that serves low-income residents in the county, says Alameda County will become only the second county in the U.S. to eliminate such fees if it takes that step.
The issue will be discussed at 10 a.m. today at the Board of Supervisors' Public Protection Committee meeting at the county administration building at 1221 Oak St. in Oakland.
East Bay Community Law Center staff attorney and clinical supervisor Brandon Greene said Wednesday that if the committee votes today in favor of eliminating the administrative fees the matter will go to the Board of Supervisors in October for final approval.
The law center says the Probation Department, Office of the Alameda County Public Defender and the Sheriff's Office assess what it describes as "insurmountable fees" on people who are convicted of criminal offenses.
A Los Angeles limousine company has sued Uber Technologies Inc. in federal court in San Francisco for unfair competition, alleging that the ride-booking company saves up to $500 million per year and hurts its rivals by failing to classify its drivers as employees.
Diva Limousine Ltd. argues in the suit filed on Monday that the ride-booking company is violating California labor and insurance laws by classifying its drivers as independent contractors rather than employees.
The alleged misclassification enables Uber to save the costs of paying drivers minimum wage, overtime, expenses and other benefits, amounting to a savings of up to $500 million per year for rides in California, the lawsuit said.
The suit asks for an injunction under California's Unfair Competition Law and triple financial damages under the state's Unfair Practices Act, which prohibits businesses from providing services below cost for the purpose of harming competitors.
"Uber prices its rides below cost for the purpose of injuring competitors," the lawsuit claims.
A man was arrested on suspicion of firing gunshots at his home and prompting a lockdown at a school in Monterey, police said.
Police responded to several reports of shots fired at an apartment complex in the 100 block of Helvic Avenue at 2:33 p.m. Friday and contained the area where the suspect was located.
A police resource officer at the lower-grade campus of Bay View Academy, which is located nearby, notified administrators and initiated a lockdown.
A hostage negotiator responded to the suspect's apartment and 50 minutes later, 60-year-old Daniel Piggott agreed to exit his apartment and surrender to police custody for a mental health evaluation.
The 152-acre Irving Fire in Marin County was 80 percent contained as of 2 p.m. Wednesday, the Marin County Fire Department said.
Investigators said the vegetation fire near the east border of Samuel P. Taylor State Park northeast of Lagunitas was caused by a downed power line at the base of the south side of Mount Barnabe around the Ridge Trail. It was reported around 7 p.m. Monday.
The fire's forward progress has been stopped and air support has been released from the fire, fire officials said.
Technology giant AT&T has announced it will launch mobile Fifth Generation technology in San Francisco and San Jose starting early next year.
The technology, also known as 5G, translates to possibly faster wireless internet for residents in the two Bay Area cities.
Earlier this year, AT&T announced that it would roll out 5G in other large U.S. cities such as Charlotte, Oklahoma City, Dallas, Atlanta and Waco, Texas starting sometime this year. AT&T has added Austin, Houston, Jacksonville, New Orleans and San Antonio to that list.
The company initially said that it was deliberately launching the technology in a "mix of big and mid-sized cities," because "all Americans should have next-gen connectivity to avoid a new digital divide."
In addition to the rollout in early 2019 in San Jose and San Francisco, other U.S. cities where AT&T plans to launch mobile 5G in 2019 include Las Vegas, San Diego, Orlando, Nashville and Los Angeles.
Copyright 2018 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited.
SAN FRANCISCO (BCN)
A federal appeals court in San Francisco today struck down a California law imposing a fee on railroads transporting oil and other hazardous materials.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the fee was preempted by a federal commerce law.
In addition, the court said the fee was not protected by a separate federal hazardous materials law that allows some "equitable" fees. The court said the California fee wasn't fair because it was imposed on railroads but not on trucks.
The law was enacted by the state Legislature in 2013 and went into effect in June 2016, but was blocked later that year by a preliminary injunction issued by a federal district judge in San Francisco.
The measure was challenged by two railroads, BNSF Railway Co. and Union Pacific Railway Co.
The fee was $45 per railway car loaded with oil or hazardous materials, and was intended to help pay for emergency responses in cases of spills.
Copyright 2018 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited.
Hilcos plan, which also would require City Council approval, is to demolish the shuttered power plant and complete environmental remediation of the 70-acre site along Interstate 55, Pulaski Road and the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal by mid-2019. In its place, Hilco wants to construct what it says would become the largest available warehouse space in the city, which the developer wants to open by early 2020.
Currently, some workers get temporarily laid off during the slow winter months and lose their health insurance for a few months. Petrea, 41, who has worked at Hyatt for eight years, says she gets laid off January and February, and though her health insurance continues for three months after the layoff it also doesnt kick in again for three months after she is reinstated in March. That means she doesnt have health insurance in April and May.
The first Mariano's opened in 2010 in Arlington Heights, bringing a new model to the rapidly changing grocery landscape in Chicago. Marianos positioned itself as a relatively affordable version of an upscale grocer, with a focus on in-store restaurants and prepared foods. The chain grew quickly after Dominicks went out of business in 2014, buying numerous former stores of the defunct chain. Today, there are 44 Marianos stores.
The federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is handing two Illinois organizations $389,216 this year, down from nearly $1.8 million distributed to five Illinois groups last year, the agency announced Wednesday. One of the largest groups that got grant money for navigators in the past, the United Way of Metro Chicago, wont get any money this time around.
To mark the announcement, United said it would operate a flight from San Francisco to Zurich on Friday using 16,000 gallons of biofuel or about 30 percent of the fuel required along with conventional jet fuel. It will be the longest transatlantic flight operated by a U.S. airline powered by significant amounts of biofuel, United said.
Homes in the Hamptons are known for their beach appeal, extravagant price tags, and intriguing backstories.
And then theres the Bioscleave House in East Hampton, NY. More sculpture than home, this experimental space is on the market for $2.5 million.
While you ponder the home's exterior paint job, here are five fun facts about this eccentric design.
1. Who built it
Avant-garde artists Madeline Gins and Arakawa designed the structure known as the Life-Span Extending Villa based on their philosophical belief of reversible destiny. Instead of making life (through a house) cozy and comfortable, the theory goes, create an off-balance environment that challenges the mind and body, which will keep you forever young.
Its immoral that people have to die, Gins told the New York Times. Moral or not, both artists have died since the building of the home. So, while extending your life span sounds nice, the theory is dubious.
The structure features undulating floors made of rammed earth, loud paint colors, oddly placed windows, and no interior doors. Not even on the bathrooms or bedrooms.
2. History of the home
In the late 1990s, the artists were commissioned to add an extension to a small Hamptons home that would explore their reversible destiny theory, according to the Times. The homeowner eventually abandoned the project over mounting costs. A group of professors formed an LLC to purchase the house and finish the extension.
The home reportedly cost more than $2 million to build, even after Arakawa and Gins secured hundreds of thousands of dollars in donated labor and materials.
3. Whats inside
Sitting on an acre of land are two connected structures, which measure 3,400 square feet and have four bedrooms, 2.5 baths, a studio, a traditional living room with fireplace, a sunken kitchen, and a raised dining platform.
The playful interior spaces resemble a playground with earthen mounds in the flooring, off-kilter placement of windows, and a kaleidoscope of paint colors. Poles are placed throughout the uneven floors to grab for balance.
Poles help you gain your balance on the uneven floors. realtor.com
Sunken kitchen realtor.com
Bathroom with no door realtor.com
Bedroom with no door realtor.com
4. Who has lived in the Bioscleave House?
Thus far, the house promising immortality hasn't tempted any mortal buyers.
As far as we can tell, no one has actually lived in the Bioscleave House since its completion in 2008. The property has bounced on and off the market over the years, including in 2011 when it was listed for $4 million.
5. Reversible destiny did go global
While this house is a one-of-a-kind in the United States, the artists completed other projects that are currently being used in Japan. They include a "reversible destiny" park with similarly uneven ground, a maze, and disorienting spaces. The popular tourist spot opened in 1995. (Take note: Helmets are available. Bones have been broken.)
There's also an apartment building in Tokyo with many of the same features of the Hamptons home. The artists also produced artwork, books, and an exhibit at the Guggenheim Soho museum.
Jose B. DosSantos of Brown Harris Stevens holds the listing.
The post Can Architecture Cheat Death? 5 Crucial Facts About the Bioscleave House appeared first on Real Estate News & Insights | realtor.com.
Kham / AFP / Getty Images
HANOI Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmars civilian leader, on Thursday sidestepped widespread accusations that her countrys military had unleashed ethnic cleansing on Rohingya Muslims, a campaign so brutal that the United Nations has recommended that top commanders be tried for genocide.
There are, of course, ways in which, with hindsight, we might think that the situation could have been handled better, but we believe that for the sake of long-term stability and security, we have to be fair to all sides, Suu Kyi said in a rare appearance at an international forum, in Hanoi, the Vietnamese capital.
Associated Press
MOSCOW The two Russian men spun an unlikely tale of hapless tourists defeated by grim British weather: They traveled more than 1,000 miles to see Englands famed Salisbury Cathedral but were turned back by slush and snow, then returned the next day and spent two hours exploring the beautiful city.
British officials had a more sinister explanation: Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov were highly trained military intelligence agents sent by the Kremlin to Salisbury to smear a deadly nerve agent on the front door of a former Russian spy.
CAPE TOWN, South Africa As gunshots ring out in one of South Africas most dangerous neighborhoods, a new technology detects the guns location and immediately alerts police.
South Africa is the first country outside the United States to implement the shotspotter audio technology, which is also being used to fight wildlife poaching on the other end of the country in Kruger National Park.
The technologys use in Cape Towns notoriously violent Cape Flats area has contributed for the first time this year to a conviction in a gang shooting. Police hope more will follow.
About 13 percent of gunshots are reported by the public. Now we respond to every single incident, very rapidly, said City of Cape Town Alderman J.P. Smith, who instituted the technology in the Manenberg and Hanover Park neighborhoods in 2016. Its accurate to between 2 meters and 10 meters (6 feet to 33 feet) of where the shot was fired.
The recovery of illegal guns has jumped five-fold in the areas where the shotspotter is used, Smith said. The technology also provides accurate data about gun violence.
The technology operates by acoustic sensors which are placed throughout a neighborhood and Cape Town plans to expand its use from the current 3 square miles to 7 square miles.
South Africa has one of the highest rates of murder in the world. On Tuesday, police announced that the rate was up about 7 percent, with 20,336 people murdered between April 2017 and March, compared to 19,016 in the previous year. Many were linked to gang violence in Western Cape province, whose capital is Cape Town.
The national homicide rate of 34 per 100,000 people spikes in parts of the Cape Flats to up to 250 per 100,000, according to the University of Cape Town.
The Cape Flats violence has its roots in apartheid policy, said Simon Howell of the nonprofit African Policing Civilian Oversight Forum. When colored people (South African term for people of mixed race) were forcibly evicted from their areas and dumped in the Cape Flats, people lost all their social ties that used to form an identity.
Gangs evolved from that treatment of the mixed-race population during white-minority rule, say experts.
Violence begets violence, said University of Cape Town criminologist Guy Lamb. Since 1994 weve had high levels of unemployment, poverty, inequality, and these dynamics have fed into the high violent crime rate.
Lamb lamented the fact that the national police force is not using the new technology.
Howell, however, questioned it as an effective response to Cape Flats gun violence.
It has its role to play, but unfortunately in South Africa policing is our primary response and that is never going to solve the issue, he said.
One Manenberg resident, Shakier Adams, explained what life is like on the Cape Flats:
Growing up, you are literally caught in crossfire on a daily basis. You have to be careful who you speak to, where you go, whoever you associate yourself with.
Neil Shaw is an Associated Press writer.
MADRID The Spanish Parliament voted Thursday to exhume the remains of former dictator Francisco Franco from the underground basilica that he had built near Madrid, intensifying a debate over his legacy that continues 43 years after his death.
The vote paves the way for the body to be moved before the end of the year, but it will not end disagreements about Francos place in history, nor will it resolve the question of what to do with his burial site, known as the Valley of the Fallen.
Franco had the site built, in part with forced labor, to honor those who fell for God and Spain in the Spanish Civil War, and it became one of Europes largest mass graves, with the remains of at least 33,000 people. Most had fought for Franco in the war, which lasted from 1936 to 1939, but the monument also contains the bones of many of his Republican opponents, dumped there in anonymity.
There is neither respect, nor honor, nor justice, nor peace, nor concord as long as the remains of Franco are kept in the same place as the victims, Carmen Calvo, the deputy prime minister, said in Parliament before the vote. A dictator cannot be exalted: that is the summary of this debate.
Parliament approved the exhumation, 172-2, with 164 abstentions, and the two who voted against were reported to have done so in error. The two main center-right opposition parties refused to take part in the vote, and the conservative Popular Party plans to appeal the decision before the Constitutional Court.
Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, a socialist, promised the exhumation soon after becoming prime minister in early June, having ousted Mariano Rajoy and his Popular Party from power in an unexpected vote of no confidence in Parliament. It is not clear where Francos body would be reburied.
The debate also has heightened public interest in the Valley, which welcomed more than 60,000 visitors in August, a monthly record. Among them were people who came to pay homage to the dictator and to give a fascist salute before his tomb.
A small association called Movement for Spain has called on citizens to protest the exhumation. The group is headed by Pilar Gutierrez, whose father was a government minister under Franco.
On the other hand, a few hundred people have gathered weekly in central Madrid to urge the new government to give greater recognition to the victims of Franco, in accordance with the Law of Historical Memory that was approved in 2007, under a previous socialist government.
Sanchez has promised to revive the law, which had been deprived of state funding under Rajoys conservative government. One of the measures main goals is to help finance the opening of more than 2,000 mass graves across Spain, which date from the civil war.
Raphael Minder is a New York Times writer.
2. Attention Stephanie Izard fans: Her curated street festival, Fulton Market Harvest Fest, takes over the neighborhood this weekend. Snack on bites from some of Chicagos favorite restaurants, like Cherry Circle Room, City Mouse and Urbanbelly, or check out cooking demos and classes from local and celebrity chefs. Other activities include face painting and hula hooping for kids, plus live music to wiggle to as you sip on craft brews, so bring the family even the furry ones for an afternoon of food and fun. General admission $30. 5:30-10 p.m. Friday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Saturday, 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sunday. West Fulton Market between North Halsted Street and North Peoria Street. fultonmarketharvestfest.com
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y.--- A Staten Island man is one of seven reputed Hells Angels bikers arrested after a rival bike member from the Pagans was shot during a melee Monday in Virginia, authorities said.
Dominick J. Eadicicco, 48, is charged with malicious wounding and firearm use in the commission of a felony, according to the Augusta sheriff's office.
Eadicicco is currently being held without bail at the Middle River Regional Jail in Verona, Va.
Authorities said two Pagans were injured during the altercation that broke out at a hotel parking lot at around 3 a.m. Monday. One of the bikers was shot, and is in serious but stable condition, according to The News Virginian.
Eadicicco is one of five Hells Angels charged in the shooting, but the sheriff's office is still investigating to pinpoint the shooter, said Lt. Aaron LeVeck.
"We're still working to put the pieces together to determine the exact shooter," he said.
Nathaniel A. Villaman, 27, East Brunswick, N.J., Joseph Anthony Paturzo, 52, the Bronx, Richard E. West, 52, Baldwin, N.Y. and Anthony Vincent Milan, 28, of East Elmhurst, N.Y, were also charged with malicious wounding and use of a firearm in the commission of a felony, said the lieutenant.
Queens residents Andy Thongthawath, 27, and Buster Domingo, 69, were charged with possession of a schedule I or II drug, and possessing a firearm while in possession of a schedule I or schedule II drug.
An estimated 3,000 people died after the devastating Hurricane Maria ravaged Puerto Rico last year. Large swaths of the island were without power for months. FEMA was short thousands of workers and underestimated how much food and supplies were needed in the recovery, according to a federal government report.
But in the eyes of President Donald Trump, the government's response was a raging success - and one he touted this week as a monstrous hurricane pinwheeled toward the Carolinas.
"We got A Pluses for our recent hurricane work in Texas and Florida (and did an unappreciated great job in Puerto Rico, even though an inaccessible island with very poor electricity and a totally incompetent Mayor of San Juan)," he wrote Wednesday on Twitter.
It's a frequent tactic of the president - elevate a widely perceived failure or mistake and defend it as a great triumph while attacking his critics. His detractors say it is shameless and sometimes comical gaslighting; supporters say he is just a master marketer who uses hyperbole and always shows strength.
"You just never give an inch or admit any mistake in public," said Sam Nunberg, a former aide describing Trump's mind-set.
Inside the administration, firing James Comey as FBI director in May 2017 is widely perceived as an original sin that spun a cascade of other problems for the White House - including the creation of a special counsel's investigation that has tormented the president and includes an obstruction-of-justice inquiry. He was repeatedly counseled against the firing by top aides such as former chief of staff Reince Priebus, White House counsel Donald McGahn and former White House strategist Stephen Bannon, who have since faced hours of questioning over Trump's actions as part of the special counsel Robert Mueller III's probe.
But rather than show any signs of regret, the president has instead championed Comey's firing, both publicly and privately, as a smart decision.
"I did a great service to the people in firing him!" Trump tweeted this summer.
Trump faced withering criticism, even from supporters, for standing on a podium in Helsinki in July and cozying up to Russian President Vladimir Putin while seeming to question U.S. intelligence agencies' findings that Moscow interfered in the 2016 election and entertaining the idea of letting Russian law enforcement officials question American citizens.
But to hear Trump tell it these days, it was one of his finest hours.
"One of my best meetings ever was with Vladimir Putin," he said earlier this month, before attacking the "fakers," or his short-term for the "fake news media."
This week, he has repeatedly brought up Bob Woodward's book "Fear" - continuously calling attention to a portrayal of his White House as incompetent and veering toward a breakdown. Trump says the book is a "scam" and that his White House is a "smooth running machine."
Aides say that Trump's tendency to focus on and defend his perceived failures is fueled by a mix of potent factors. He obsesses over negative news coverage sometimes long after the topic has changed. He often marvels that he can make the cable news chyrons change. And he is constantly selling himself - regardless of who is in front of him and no matter the topic.
Sometimes, he is trying to preempt criticism that he knows is likely to revive itself, like before this week's hurricane. And he tells senior aides that his supporters will believe his version of events.
It leads to awkward encounters and surreal situations for those around him. His comments this week on the administration's handling of the recovery effort in Puerto Rico following last year's hurricane quickly morphed from a defense of how a difficult situation was handled to a declaration that it couldn't have gone better.
It was "one of the best jobs that's ever been done with respect to what this is all about," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Tuesday.
It was a statement that drew immediate condemnations and questions about how Trump could characterize the recovery effort as such a success especially on the heels of a study that estimated there were nearly 3,000 excess deaths in Puerto Rico due to the hurricane.
"You know there are no A-pluses in disaster recovery. That letter doesn't exist," said Marc Ferzan, who led recovery in New Jersey after Superstorm Sandy and is now a consultant.
Trump also broods over perceived mistakes, even if he won't admit they are missteps. He has repeatedly brought up to aides his decision to endorse Roy Moore in the Senate race in Alabama last year. Moore lost after The Washington Post reported on allegations that he pursued and sexually assaulted teenage girls when he was in his 30s.
"The president asks me all the time, 'Why did Roy Moore lose?' " Mick Mulvaney, his budget director, recently said at a New York fundraiser.
He has also complained that aides publicly admitted mistakes earlier this year over their handling of allegations that former White House staff secretary Rob Porter was emotionally and physically abusive toward his two ex-wives. "You should have never apologized," he told a group of communications aides, according to two people. "You don't ever apologize."
Trump observers and critics said that the president's refusal to admit mistakes and to go a step further and declare them smart moves has long been part of how he operates.
"One of his great strengths is that he lives in his own reality distortion field - there is this narrative going on all the time in his head about how successful he is, how great he is - one of the things that allows him to plow ahead after he makes mistakes," said Timothy O'Brien, a longtime Trump biographer.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- More than 100 members of the NYPD, FDNY and city's Office of Emergency Management are arriving in the Carolinas to aid residents in the direct path of Hurricane Florence.
An 18-person water-rescue team has been deployed to join an 80-member-task force assembled earlier in the week, in addition to six canines.
Safe travels to the 18 additional @NYPDSpecialops members who are headed to North Carolina to provide emergency relief for #HurricaneFlorence! Equipped with 4 Zodiac boats, 2 Jon boats, and outboard motors; this specially-trained water rescue team is ready to help those in need. pic.twitter.com/xZet5MUrGH NYPD NEWS (@NYPDnews) September 13, 2018
The first group was deployed to Kinston, N.C., from the NYC Emergency Management warehouse in Brooklyn, according to a New York Post report.
18 additional @fema NY-Task Force 1 members are being deployed as a water rescue team to #NorthCarolina to assist in the #Hurricane #Florence response. The team with swift water rescue capabilities will join the over 80 team members already deployed. Stay Safe! pic.twitter.com/wdxRiivjMY NYPD Special Ops (@NYPDSpecialops) September 13, 2018
The rescue squad is part of the Urban Search and Rescue New York Task Force One, which operates under FEMA. Additional rescue gear hauled south Thursday included six boats, according to the video posted Thursday to the NYPD News Twitter account.
"As a person who lives in NC and used to be a NYCe'r. Thank you. Stay safe!" wrote one commenter.
"God speed and stay safe yourselves!" wrote another.
Winds along the coast were estimated at more than 74 miles per hour, as of Thursday afternoon, with rainfall ranging from five to 20 inches -- from Virginia to South Carolina -- over the course of the storm, according to the National Hurricane Center.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Police officials said Wednesday that cross traffic will be closed Saturday along the route of the Black Heritage Family Day parade.
In years past, traffic was allowed at cross streets of the parade, which runs down Vanderbilt Avenue in the Park Hill section of Clifton to Tappen Park in Stapleton, according to a media release from organizers.
They did not return a request for comment Wednesday night. The theme of Black Family Heritage Day will be "Collaborating in Unity, A Movement, Not A Moment," according to the media release.
The road closures are part of the ongoing effort from the borough's police brass to increase safety at parades and other large public events.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- A repeat felon from New Dorp, who years ago earned the moniker "The Incredible Hulk Bandit" for donning a mask of the comic-book superhero during two robberies, is headed back upstate for the fifth time.
Richard Ramos, 54, has been sentenced to up to eight years in prison for two recent burglaries.
According to a criminal complaint, the defendant broke into Staten Island Animal Hospital at 640 Willowbrook Road, Willowbrook, at about 3:40 a.m. on Jan. 31.
He rummaged through drawers, then fled when he couldn't find anything, the complaint said.
Ramos was arrested and later pleaded guilty in state Supreme Court, St. George, to third-degree burglary, the top charge against him.
He also pleaded guilty to the same charge with respect to another incident. That file was sealed.
Ramos was sentenced Tuesday to two to four years in prison on each case.
The sentences will run consecutively, meaning he'll spend a minimum of four years up to a maximum of eight years behind bars.
Ramos, who was garbed in tan institutional scrubs, declined to make a statement before the sentences were imposed.
The defendant has served four prior prison stints dating to 2001, online records of the state Department of Corrections and Community Supervision show.
One sentence, imposed in September 2004, was for three years for attempted robbery.
That case stemmed from heists at a New Dorp deli and Burger King in August 2003.
Ramos wore an Incredible Hulk mask on his face and a black bag over his hand and claimed to have a gun in those incidents, the Advance reported.
The defendant snatched a total of $1,000 but was arrested the next day, said the report.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Fighting fires is hard enough, but a veteran smoke eater's job became even more dangerous when he was hurt after slipping and falling on trash while battling a blaze inside Macy's at the Staten Island Mall two years ago, a lawsuit alleges.
Richard Kane was "seriously injured" when he was upended "due to an accumulation of rubbish and/or waste" on the premises on May 14, 2016, alleges a civil complaint.
Filed in state Supreme Court, St. George, the suit seeks unspecified monetary damages from Macy's.
The complaint alleges Macy's failed to comply with various statutes and ordinances contained within the city's Administrative Code, Building Code, Fire Code, and Rules & Regulations.
Most of those statutes require a premises owner to maintain the building, including elevators and other devices, in a safe condition and to keep piping, machinery and duct work accessible for inspection.
The suit doesn't specify Kane's injuries or say where in the building the incident occurred.
At the time, authorities told the Advance the Fire Department evacuated Macy's after receiving reports of smoke coming from the elevator room.
An FDNY spokesman said then that about 45 firefighters from eight fire units responded to the New Springville department store at around 2:20 p.m.
"There was a motor that was smoking in the elevator room," the Advance quoted the spokesman as saying. "Firefighters evacuated the store as a precaution."
Kane's lawyer, Steve Fils-Aime of the Manhattan firm Sullivan Papain Block McGrath & Cannavo, could not immediately be reached for comment.
A Macy's spokeswoman said the company doesn't comment on pending litigation.
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We get a bad rap because there are some people that do take advantage of this system, he said, but this is a source of income, and my personal brand is also my business. When a brand reaches out to work together, I make a call about whether or not I want to work with them. With this experience, I thought I was supporting a local chef and his new menu I didnt know that FCB was an ad agency, they didnt disclose that but at the end we find out were actually promoting Glad? Influencers work with so many brands, and it takes weeks to decide if we eventually pursue a professional relationship. But Im supposed to decide after a dinner with a contract I didnt have time to read that Im going to sign away my likeness for a project I didnt consent to? This was questionably ethical and put a bad taste in my mouth.
The Commonwealth Bank's insurance arm has for the first time admitted to publishing misleading advertising that would have left customers thinking they were covered for heart attacks, when this was not necessarily the case.
The royal commission into financial misconduct also heard the bank convinced the corporate watchdog to soften its language in a media release about the ads to remove an admission of wrongdoing. Its penalty for the misleading ads was a fraction of the maximum fine it could have faced.
CommInsure executive general manager Helen Troup. Credit:Eddie Jim
Senior counsel assisting the commission, Rowena Orr QC, on Thursday morning continued to grill CBA's CommInsure business over its reliance on outdated heart attack definitions to knock back some insurance claims until 2016.
Ms Orr took CommInsure executive general manager Helen Troup to four different online advertisements and brochures about CommInsure's trauma policies. Ms Troup accepted that each of the ads was misleading because consumers would have thought they were covered for heart attacks. In fact, the policies provided cover only for severe heart attacks.
Life insurance giant TAL hired a private investigator to follow, film and photograph a mentally ill former nurse as she bushwalked and swam at a public pool, as it tried to build a case to cancel her income protection insurance payments, the Hayne royal commission has heard.
TAL's decision to mount surveillance of the nurse, the commission heard, followed years battling her claim for insurance benefits after she suffered work-related anxiety and depression. During that fight it falsely accused her of misrepresentation and threatened her with legal action.
The royal commission heard how the decision to hire a private investigator was made by a case manager without any approval process or safeguards, and resulted in detailed records and observations being made about her behaviour, clothing and activities.
The nurse's displays of affection towards her partner, such as kissing and holding hands, were also recorded, the royal commission heard.
Apple's ability to keep growing in Australia and beyond as a trillion-dollar company has been questioned in recent times. Now, we finally have a sense of how the iPhone-making colossus plans to pull it off.
The world's most valuable company appears to be making two key bets: Higher prices (and dazzling new features) for the latest models of its flagship product, the iPhone. And a significant re-positioning of the Apple Watch as a full-fledged health monitor that could appeal to a new and potentially lucrative customer segment - the elderly.
Apple announced its annual updates to the iPhone on Thursday morning Australian time before a large audience (that included Fairfax Media) at the Steve Jobs Theater on its sprawling campus in northern California.
It unveiled three new versions of the iconic handset, including an iPhone Xs Max, which was described by Apple chief executive Tim Cook as "the most advanced smartphone in the world".
There is also a new Hotel Indigo in Adelaide by the InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG).
Marriott also opened two Four Points by Sheraton hotels in Docklands Melbourne and Broadway in Sydney.
These include the Marriott International, the W Brisbane, the under-development W Sydney, the St Regis, Melbourne, and the proposed Ritz-Carlton at The Star casino in Sydney.
The luxury hotel sector is one of the busiest with a range of new brands opening or under construction across the country.
Bruce Ryde, vice president luxury brand management for Marriott International Asia Pacific, said at the opening of the W Brisbane, that demand is high for luxe hotels with international visitors and a rising domestic market.
''There has not been a lot of growth in the high-end market in Australia for at least 15 years, but the market has turned the corner and with rising demand it offers a value proposition for the operators,'' Mr Ryde said.
''We are relaunching the W brand back to Australia as our research has shown there is demand. It is a strong brand in Asia and as visitation rises from there to Australia, we see a market for the hotels.''
Mr Ryde said Marriott is prepared to enter what others may see as difficult cities, with the opening of the Ritz-Carlton in Perth. There is also the proposed, very high-end St Regis brand in Melbourne, which is seen as the ''right market''.
''There may be some short-term fluctuations as supply comes on, but as inbound tourism from China to Australia increases, luxury hotels can be sustained,'' Mr Ryde said.
NSW Fair Trading is taking action against Android Enjoyed in the NSW Supreme Court after hundreds of consumer complaints and after the retailer topped the complaints register five times.
Android Enjoyed is a Hong Kong-based e-commerce business that sells electronic goods, including mobile phones, tablets and cameras.
Debra Mesiti struggled for weeks to get a refund from Android Enjoyed after ordering a tablet that was never delivered. Credit:Luis Enrique Ascui
NSW Minister for Better Regulation Matt Kean said Fair Trading had started injunction proceedings against Android Enjoyed's parent company Digital Marketing and Solutions Pty Ltd and its director Yuen Ho Wong.
Fair Trading is alleging the business failed to repair defective goods, provide refunds for defective or damaged goods or goods not fit for purpose, and failed to supply goods in a reasonable time or at all, Mr Kean said.
The federal government is seeking urgent legal advice on a landmark court decision to grant a casual truck driver annual leave, as an industry lobby group warned employers could be left with a back-pay bill of up to $8 billion.
Labour hire company Workpac had been expected to challenge last month's Federal Court ruling that Queensland truck driver Paul Skene was entitled to be paid accrued annual leave because he worked regular, predictable hours. This was despite him being paid casual loadings in lieu of those entitlements.
Minister for Jobs, Industrial Relations and Women Kelly O'Dwyer is seeking legal advice on the broader implications of the ruling. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen
However, it failed to pursue High Court action by Thursday's deadline, leaving businesses that employ casual workers in limbo and sparking warnings of insolvencies and job losses.
Minister for Jobs and Industrial Relations Kelly ODwyer told Fairfax Media on Thursday she was seeking legal advice on the broader implications of the ruling.
We are not, I should add, at Ipsento, which is one of Chicago's best coffee shops. Instead, we are sitting across from each other in one of those snug, well-cushioned booths at a diner (that will remain unnamed). You know, the kind of establishment that serves limitless coffee in thick, heavy mugs. On the side is an abundance of creamer cups, way more than any one person would ever need, along with a tall shaker of sugar.
Immersed in the fake blood and real sweat of the Australian Ballets all-new Spartacus, dancer-turned star choreographer Lucas Jervies sees echoes of the Thracian gladiators rebellion against the Roman Empire everywhere.
Its hard not to, he says, when the US President attacks the media and the judiciary on a near-daily basis, and an accidental parliamentarian raises the spectre of the "final solution" in his maiden speech in Canberra.
"If we were going to retell this story in 2018, we couldn't just focus on ancient Rome, we had to speak to totalitarian regimes across history," he says during a break from intense rehearsals that have seen the predominantly male ensemble, led by Kevin Jackson's eponymous hero, immersed in hand-to-hand combat training under the guidance of fight director Nigel Poulton (The Bourne Legacy).
To that end, Jervies with set and costume designer Jerome Kaplan have drawn visual inspiration from the Third Reich and North Korea, as well as Stalins Soviet Union.
At least that is how it should work. But cast it and perform it so Shylock is impotent and lamentable, and what do you have? A comedy-drama with the drama expunged and the quality of the comedy somewhat strained.
Shylock always seems to have gate-crashed The Merchant of Venice, a play named for Antonio, who has all the three-dimensionality of a selfie taken by a bigot. Infinitely more interesting than anyone else capering about the stage, Shylock could have stepped out of a later Shakespeare work into this earlier one, and in the process he does his best to confound the idea that it's even a comedy. Despite the smallness of the role (360 lines of impassioned verse or sentences of prose), he is the only character blessed with some semblance of complexity, and his pathetic submission to the court's judgment at the end of Act IV, apart when he is present he towers over the play.
Shylock's demented desire for a pound of Antonio's flesh (with all its anti-Semitic type-casting implications) makes him the supposed villain of this comedy. But for whom, exactly, are we supposed to cheering? Portia? She is willing to accept an airheaded, money-grubbing playboy to share her vision of long-term connubial bliss. Good luck with that.
Director David Lawrence has cast Peter Daube as Shylock, and Daube's interpretation lacks intensity and density. He delivers his withering lines about Antonio as though discussing an apple with a bruise. Later, when Jessica, his spiteful daughter, has not only eloped, she has done so with a Christian and a large share of Shylock's loot, he is about as cross as a school teacher presented with shoddy homework. Daube is at his best delivering the "Hath not a Jew eyes?" speech in Act III (the poignancy of which would have been more potent 420 years ago); elsewhere he is merely petulant, when a deeper fury is required.
With a lightweight Shylock the play becomes all froth, the trial scene apart. Obviously Portia comes closest to being a worthy foil, and Patrick Griffin is a friskier Portia than some more coy portrayals. I prefer this version of her, which makes it more credible that she could, in fact, fall for the frightful Bassanio (Cameron Moore). In this all-male cast Lawrence opts to extract wafer-thin drag-queen gags from Will Alexander as Nerissa and from Jade Daniels as an Amazon Jessica, able to pick up her pint-sized lover Lorenzo (Patrick Carroll) like a doll.
Mercifully, we canter briskly through the tedious casket scenes, with Jason Te Kara playing the Prince of Morocco to the hilt of his sabre, and Chris Huntly-Turner ensuring the Prince of Aragon is the text's "blinking idiot". Asalemo Tofete has similar fun with Launcelot Gobbo, the servant who swaps masters as readily as rugby league players swap teams. By contrast Act V really just a coda that should be breezed through as rapidly as possibly is drawn out well beyond its welcome.
Although the use of music here is not as effective as in Pop-up Globe's concurrent The Comedy of Errors, it works well enough to justify Lorenzo's sudden burst of lyricism when he rightly observes: "The man that hath no music in himself,/Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,/Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils" Now how did Shakespeare know about modern Australian politicians?
But if you see only one show at Pop-up Globe, make it Macbeth.
Set in a future where war has destroyed most of North America, the remaining cities are filthy, crowded and ruled over by Judges who have the right to apprehend, pass sentence and (if needed) execute criminals on the spot. When the toughest of them all, Judge Dredd (Karl Urban) responds to a call in an apartment building hes going to need everything he has to survive.
Blade Runner
In a dark, gritty and perpetually rainy future city, Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) is a Blade Runner, a cop whose job it is to hunt down artificial humans who have somehow made it to earth from their off-world homes. But what happens when he starts to fall for one of the replicants he is supposed to kill? A classic of the genre that challenges the idea of what it means to be alive.
Men in Black
Not too far into the future, bit definitely on a very different Earth, a secret government agency is keeping the existence of aliens a secret. And theyre busy because even though most people havent noticed, theres visitors from other planets everywhere! Great fun with Will Smith, Tommy Lee Jones as our resident guardians of galactic peace. And dont forget to check out the sequels too!
Breakout role: Arnold Schwarzenegger in The Terminator.
Terminator
In the movie that shot Arnold Schwarzenegger into mega-stardom, he is a robotic assassin sent back in time to kill a young boy who will one day grow up to save the planet from a machine takeover. Bleak and action packed, The Terminator somehow manages to show how humanity at its darkest hour can produce its finest moments.
Edge of Tomorrow
In a scenario that will be instantly familiar to any gamer, Tom Cruise plays an army major caught in the middle of a war between aliens and Earth who discovers he can respawn when he dies, popping up at the start of the same day but with memories of what went wrong. Can he learn enough to save the planet or will it just be the worst day of his life, forever?
Elysium
Its 2154 and while the rich live long comfortable lives on an orbiting city, the majority of Earths inhabitants are virtual slaves, struggling for what little food and medicine they can afford. When a poor thief (Matt Damon) is told he has just days to live, his only hope is to break into the floating city and steal the medicines that will save him. Even if he has to start a war in the process.
Riveting story: Bruce Willis in Looper.
Looper
When time travel becomes possible, a crime syndicate immediately starts using it to send murder victims into the past where a Looper can safely kill them and erase their future selves from the planet without a trace. But when a Loopers victim is his future self, all hell breaks loose. Bruce Willis is in excellent form here navigating a complex but riveting jigsaw of a story.
Snowpiercer
Climate change has left the world in a new ice age, with the last of humanity aboard one enormous train travelling around the world on a huge circular track. The rich are at the front, the poor at the back and life, such as it is, goes on. Until one man (Chris Evans) leads an attack on First Class in a war to rebalance the wealth. Action galore here with a very cool (pun intended) surprise at the end.
Futureworld
Based on the 1970s movie Westworld (which inspired the current TV series), Futureworld returns us to the theme park where life-like robots are programmed to serve guests and indulge their every whim, even if that means dying. But like anything with a spark of life, the robots dont like that idea and turn the fun park into a living hell to stay alive.
Want to take a look into the future? Head over to Stan now and take a look at these and more science fiction films now!
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Florianopolis, Brazil: A proposal to create a whale sanctuary in the South Atlantic has been defeated at a meeting in Brazil of the International Whaling Commission, amid a clash between countries that think whales can be hunted sustainably and others that want more conservation measures.
Opponents of the plan argued the science didn't support the case for a sanctuary and said that it wasn't necessary because no commercial whaling is occurring in the South Atlantic.
A proposal to create a whale sanctuary in the South Atlantic has been defeated at a meeting of the IWC. Credit:AP
The measure received support from 39 countries at the meeting in Florianopolis on Tuesday with 25 opposed - falling short of the three-quarters majority to pass.
Countries such as Brazil, which proposed the measure, said it would have addressed threats to the mammals beyond whaling.
Most of us know our children aren't getting as much exercise as they need. Recent guidelines issued by the UK's Department of Health recommend that all children from the age of five to adolescence take at least one hour of moderate to vigorous exercise every day.
Exercise improves both cognitive function and well-being. Credit:John Shakespeare
Both parents and schools need to address this issue urgently - and when we do, our children will benefit in a number of ways.
First, exercise improves both cognitive function and well-being. Naomi Brooks and colleagues at Stirling University, in Scotland, have studied the effects of an innovative programme dubbed the "Daily Mile". Created in 2012 by head teacher Elaine Wylie at St Ninian's Primary School in Stirling, this simple programme - requiring primary schoolchildren to take 15 minutes of self-paced aerobic exercise outdoors during every school day - has now been adopted by more than 3500 primary schools in more than 30 countries.
Brooks and her team compared children who'd participated in the Daily Mile for seven months with pupils in a school that hadn't adopted it. They found those in the Daily Mile showed increased verbal memory, attention, alertness and well-being. In another study, they recorded similar benefits for more than 7000 children after a single 15-minute session.
Firefighters have extinguished a blaze that caused the partial closure of a Fyshwick street on Thursday morning.
ACT Fire and Rescue southside commander Craig Perks said the fire at Seven Miles Coffee Roasters had been contained to a roasting oven using an extinguisher.
Firefighters outside Seven Miles Coffee Roasters in Fyshwick on Thursday morning. Credit:Karleen Minney
"You could see the smoke billowing out when we got here, but they've done a good job containing it and there was no structural damage or injuries," he said.
Three pumpers, an aerial appliance, breathing apparatus vehicle, HAZMAT unit and commander attended the scene just after 8am.
Describing himself as a boat person Sir Frank Lowy has used the 15th annual address of the think tank he founded in his familys name, the Lowy Institute, to call for the nation to reject the insularity that is sweeping western politics and embrace immigration, innovation and infrastructure.
When I established the institute, I made it very clear that it would not be a platform for my own opinions, he said last night in a speech introduced by the former foreign minister, Julie Bishop.
Australian democracy needs to be nurtured with care, says the shopping centre magnate. Credit:Nic Walker
I have kept that commitment. Until now.
In the speech Sir Frank described his memories of being a child refugee at the end of World War II.
On Thursday, 28 years to the day after Colleen's disappearance, the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal said there was no fresh evidence in Evelyn's case and Clinton's case could not be examined in isolation. It said fresh evidence did not include evidence that was or could have been "brought forward" at the time of a previous trial, even if the rules of evidence at that time prevented it being admitted in evidence and the rules had since changed so that it could be used in a new trial. This was a key point of contention between the parties. Outside court, Evelyn's aunt Michelle Jarrett, said the decision was a "kick in the guts" and "we're going to keep fighting". Clinton's nephew, Marbuck Duroux, yelled in anguish outside court: "What do we want? Justice. What have we got? F--- all." He left a series of handprints in white clay on the glass outside the Law Courts building in Sydney.
NSW Chief Justice Tom Bathurst, who heard the application with Justice Clifton Hoeben and Justice Lucy McCallum, said the court "recognises that this conclusion does deprive the families of the three children and the Bowraville community of the closure which they justifiably seek" but "the court in fulfilment of its duty is obliged to give effect to the terms of the statute as it has construed them". He said the court acknowledged that the deaths of each of the children "were tragedies for their families and the Bowraville community, and we recognise the distress that the deaths of those children and the subsequent investigations and proceedings have caused the families involved". Evelyn Greenup's aunt, Michelle Jarrett. Credit:Janie Barrett "We know that the grief and loss remains fresh in your minds," Chief Justice Bathurst said. He also said the court "was not required to form, and has not formed, any view as to the guilt of the [suspect] ... in respect of any of the deaths".
It has been a long road for the families. Former NSW attorney-general Gabrielle Upton announced in May 2016 that she would apply to the court for a retrial, saying "the court must be satisfied that the evidence is fresh, compelling and that a retrial is in the interests of justice". The application was heard in November 2017, when Mark Speakman had taken the reins as Attorney-General. He said on Thursday he would "carefully consider the judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeal over the coming days" and "seek legal advice about the prospects of a special leave application to the High Court". "I will continue to ensure that the families are supported and kept closely informed about any developments in this matter," Mr Speakman said. David Shoebridge, a Greens MP in the NSW upper house who has campaigned for justice alongside the families, said Parliament should commit to changing the state's double jeopardy laws "so that justice can be served". Attorney General Mark Speakman, with Member for Oxley Melinda Pavey and Minister for Aborigional Affairs Sarah Mitchell, addresses the media on the Bowraville case on Thursday. Credit:AAP
In 2015 the NSW Parliament rejected a simple change to the law on double jeopardy that would have greatly assisted in achieving justice," Mr Shoebridge said. The legal change we presented in 2015 was to change the definition of 'fresh evidence' and it was the courts narrow interpretation of the existing definition that saw the case dismissed today." A former South Australian director of public prosecutions, Wendy Abraham, QC, appeared in court on Mr Speakman's behalf in the Court of Criminal Appeal to argue for a retrial. Family and supporters of the victims leave court. Credit:AAP Ms Abraham told the court the suspect, who was then 25, was the only person who had been near all of the victims the last time they were seen alive. All of the children had been involved in incidents where sleeping people had their pants pulled down in the middle of the night.
"The victims are of different ages, but that's not where the similarity arises. The similarity is how these events occurred," Ms Abraham said. The court heard there was evidence the suspect displayed "sexual interest" in the first victim, Colleen, at a party on September 13, 1990, the night before she disappeared. "At various times during the night she was seen to be talking to [the suspect]," Ms Abraham said. "There is evidence capable of establishing that [he] ... was putting pressure on her, in effect, to have sex with him." Ms Abraham said Colleen and her 15-year-old friend had slept in the man's caravan several weeks before her disappearance, and the pair woke up to find the man in bed with them. Colleen later told her friend he had been "mauling" her through the night, pulling her pants down.
Three weeks after Colleen disappeared, Evelyn went missing following another party on the same road. The man had been seen standing in a hallway outside the bedroom where the four-year-old was sleeping with her mother. The next morning, Evelyn's mother awoke to discover her pants had been pulled down and her daughter was gone. The final victim, Clinton, disappeared in the early hours of February 1, 1991, after sleeping in the man's caravan with his girlfriend Kelly after a party on January 31. Kelly woke early in the morning to find the man, who had also been in the van, and her boyfriend were gone. Family and friends of the three Bowraville victims march to NSW Parliament House in May 2016 demanding a new trial. Credit:Janie Barrett Clinton's shoes and socks - which witnesses said he wore everywhere - remained near the bed, and her pants and underwear had been removed and "folded at the other end of the caravan, under the clothes of the accused". Clinton's body was later found with damage to his jaw consistent with a "king hit".
Ms Abraham said one explanation was Clinton woke up and was hit when he saw what happened to his girlfriend. "We say the pattern is the people they were with. In respect to Clinton ... there was a sexual activity in relation to Kelly," Ms Abraham said. Ms Abraham said there was evidence Kelly had asked "or told" Clinton not to leave her alone with the suspect and "he said he would not". Justice McCallum characterised the alleged pattern set out by Ms Abraham during the hearing as "sexual interest in people who are asleep". The court also heard there was evidence from four police informants about alleged admissions made by the accused.
For goodness sake Malcolm, stop worrying about Peter Dutton's eligibility to sit in Parliament. At the first opportunity, not only he, but all his Liberal cohort will be tossed out. - William Franken, Rose Bay John Hewson says the foreign media has approached him with the questions: "What did Malcolm do wrong ? Why did he have to be replaced ?" ("Morrison undermined by Dutton", September 13). This question was asked by Opposition Leader Bill Shorten but there is no answer. My answer is this was necessary because Dutton has the "vaulting ambition" of Macbeth. As Morrison cannot, I hope Dutton's electorate will get rid of this politician who is unsuitable to serve. - Mainak Gupta, Croydon Park I nominate John Hewson for prime minister - the only one talking sense. - Vicki Zvargulis, Corrimal Bill Shorten asks "Why did they sack Malcolm Turnbull as PM?"
Probably the same reason Labor sacked Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard. - Peter Langer, Manly Despite the strong Christian thread that runs through the leadership of the Morrison government, it seems the Old Testament's call for "an eye for an eye" prevails. - John Bailey, Canterbury Can the government stoop any lower ("Call to 'lift the tone' of politics", September 13)? It's time to reboot. Leave the gutter and act with integrity following the Ministerial Code of Conduct. The people, your employers, deserve and expect better. - Cecile Hunt, Paddington I am fed up with the constant bickering, allegations and innuendos in Parliament. I would like those involved to have an island holiday in Nauru. They should stay there until they settle their differences. - Bea Hodgson, Gerringong
Note to Morrison: I care about the constitution and I vote. - Keith Russell, Mayfield West Singing the praises of young anthem protester Some of our current and ex-politicians want to use their bullying tactics outside Parliament ("'Kick up the backside': schoolgirl slammed over anthem protest", smh.com.au September 12). However, they are not picking on someone their own size; a 9-year-old girl they have targeted because she refuses to stand at school when Advance Australia Fair is played in assembly because she thinks the lyrics marginalise Indigenous people.
Just as singing the national anthem at the cinema before each movie began was ditched years ago, perhaps it's time to do the same at our schools. Do we actually need a national anthem today? - Con Vaitsas, Ashbury Go girl. Just glad we didn't end up with the sheep thief. - Tom Erickson, Chatswood I haven't sung the hypocritical national anthem for years and, from now on, like Harper Nielsen, I won't stand. Australia is not fair, doesn't share, isn't young, nor free, nature's gifts are being destroyed (for example, the Great Barrier Reef, wildlife habits) and we are renowned for racism and cruelty. Harper's critics are the nastiest bunch of un-Australians. - Vacy Vlazna, Collaroy
Harper is right. Advance Australia Fair is a shocker; the tune is uninspiring, the country is not young, we are not all immigrants and girt by sea is laughable. - Anne Cooper, Stanmore Politically aware high school students were refusing to stand up for God save the Queen in the late 1960s in South Australian rural picture theatres, Senator Hanson .- Sue Dyer, Downer (ACT) I admire the young student who refuses to stand for the national anthem. I refuse to sing it because it so hypocritical. - Nola Huggett, Coogee Conscientious outrage about national anthems is nonsense and has nothing to do with free speech. National anthems are expressions of pride in one's country and respect for its people. Our schools are multi-national, so the issue is easily resolved. Recognise, respect and honour this diversity by using a different anthem at each assembly. Celebrate the egalitarian nature of our schools. - Lyndsay McAuliffe, Epping
We Are Australian is a great song and would make a good national anthem, much better than the current dirge with its archaic lyrics. We could appease the traditionalists by adding a second verse containing the word "girt". - Gerd Hollander, Bilgola Plateau Smart move Having lived in the area for 50 years, I did enjoy reading Brian Pearn's send up of the Shire ("Another way to build the Ramsay Centre vision", September 13). He forgot to mention the necessity of having an up-to-date passport and visa to cross Tom Uglys Bridge. - Josephine Piper, Miranda
Brian Pearn's vision for the Shire University is inspired and would be a welcome addition to the intellectual fabric of the area. Paul Gallen is nearing the end of his NRL career and would be an excellent choice as the foundation vice-chancellor. - Max Redmayne, Russell Lea Alan Jones was found to have defamed the Wagners. Credit:AAP Silence is gold Poor Alan Jones stating he "is restrained" in what he can say after his court case ("'Profound personal hurt and harm'", September 13). I'll believe it when I don't hear it. - Judy Finch, Cedar Party More signs of spring
I woke this morning to find a baby brush-tail possum in the mouth of my terrier (Letters, September 13). I screamed, the possum escaped, the terrier is recovering. Is this a sign of anything? - Virginia Rundle, Rose Bay West Sarah Benmayor, perhaps ring-tailed possums don't like oranges. - Stephen Manns, Woollahra Sky-high cost of road to airport While airlines, taxi operators and the public at large complain bitterly about excessive charges for access to Sydney Airport, the state government will spend $2.6 billion on a new freeway to the airport and $170 million in compensation to use some of its land for that freeway ("Taxpayers to foot $2.6b motorway bill", September 13).
What is the airport's contribution to this largesse? - Dennis O'Brien, Longueville The NSW government can find $2.6 billion to fund a road to the airport, adding financial value to WestConnex, but rail users continue to be slugged with a sizeable premium to catch a train there. So much for encouraging the use of public transport in Sydney. - Doug Walker, Baulkham Hills Are we compensating the airport for building better access to it? - Todd Hillsley, Homebush Did I get this right. We, the taxpayers, are giving Sydney Airport millions so that we, the taxpayers, can construct a motorway to service the airport? Wonder how much they will give me to allow them to seal my road? - Mitch McTavish, Cootamundra Many hopeless cases
Gabrielle Upton "hopeless"? I thought she was there as an expression of the government's contempt for the environment. - Warren Straker, Leichhardt Powering through Thank you for the best news of the day ("Powerhouse fate not yet sealed", September 13). My family has enjoyed some inspiring visits to the Powerhouse Museum with our 15 grandchildren. The Powerhouse makes a spectacular venue for special corporate dinners. Utilise more. Think of other great cities of the world. They each have significant and meaningful museums. I am proud of our Powerhouse: the heritage building alone warrants keeping. - Judith Halnan, Seaforth
Tune in, switch off As someone who has gone to our children's, and now our grandchildren's, speech nights and school and ballet concerts for many, many years, I can assure John Mizon that most of those phone-focused parents are not fixated but escaping from the mind-numbing boredom of such events, apart from those few golden moments when their little darlings make their dazzling appearance (Letters, September 13). In pre-digital times, my husband resorted to hiding a mini-radio in his shirt pocket, linked discretely to earphones. - Anne Ring, Coogee My beef about mobile phones is it's now virtually compulsory to own one of the damn things. So many online forms nowadays make mandatory demands to supply a mobile number with no concession to us trogs who don't see mobile phones as a way of life. Grrr. - David Thomson, Port Macquarie Faith in the system
Gabi Duigu is right, there should be religious instruction in schools but about the belief systems of world religions (Letters, September 13). Instruction in any one religion is indoctrination and has no place in education where the main aim is to equip individuals to think for themselves. - Barry Spooner, Minnamurra Yes, religious communities should be "free to operate in accordance with their defining beliefs" when they are carrying out purely religious functions, but when they carry out social functions, such as education and aged care, highly subsidised by the state, they should be bound by the employment laws of the state with no exemptions. - John Challis, Elizabeth Bay Drawing on stereotypes Your correspondents say it would be racism to depict Serena Williams as being other than black (Letters, September 13). That means the racism in the cartoon is evident in the depiction of Naomi Osaka. The "only victim" in this cartoon is portrayed as a white blonde woman, not a player of Japanese and Haitian background.
So we have a baddie with exaggerated features that are reminiscent of antiquated stereotypical cartoons of African-Americans and a goodie who looks northern European. And you wonder why people think it is racist. - Isobel Page, Hornsby Heights Pillars don't stack up It appears that the four pillars of our banking system are made from low-grade marble ("CBA admits it ignored heart attack warning for profit", September 13). - Norm Neill, Darlinghurst Women in Parliament
By refusing to substantiate her allegations of bullying, intimidation, harassment and a lack of integrity on the part of unnamed parliamentary colleagues, departing Liberal MP, Julia Banks, has surely succeeded in smearing every federal politician by leaving open the suspicion that they might be guilty of such behaviour ("Julia Banks rejects calls to name and shame her bullies, calls for quotas", smh.com.au, September 13). Where I come from, the rule has always been to "put-up or shut-up". As to her nonsensical claim that "only gender quotas will work in politics, not targets because you cannot tie political office to salaries and incentives as you can in business", Ms Banks seems conveniently ready to ignore the fact that political candidates are selected by party preselection committees, which are subject to defined rules and processes, just as businesses are. - John Richardson, Wallagoot Given all the weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth over the lack of female representation in Parliament why not invoke a simple solution and require each electorate to return a male and a female representative? - Peter Skinner, Beecroft Making a bad call
While taking any job to supplement my freelance work in 2007, I found myself at one such insurance call centre (Letters, September 13). To say it felt like a scene from that excellent film The Boiler Room was an understatement. A bell would go off whenever someone made a sale, there was a league table on our monitors detailing who was leading the sales charge, and daily incentives to push the 'consultants' to sell more. I lasted less than a week at this place, and removed my headphones, walked out and took a shower the minute I walked through the door when I got home. - Ross Mabbutt, Stanmore Premier advice
My interest with these architectural forms began in Chicago, with researching queer histories and communities in the city, Fake said. So much has happened, but it also seems so transitory things came and went. I started by drawing buildings that remembered those spaces. And, theres some power in redesigning these spaces. Not for the sake of nostalgia, but for the idea that there can be lineage.
The sister of Manly Sea Eagles player Dylan Walker has been cleared of the manslaughter over the death of her partner at a South Sydney home this year.
Jade Walker, 31, was charged over the death of Gilbert Caetano at his Brighton Le Sands home on May 20.
Manly Sea Eagles player Dylan Walker with his sister Jade Walker.
The 51-year-old father was found unconscious by police inside the General Holmes Drive property he shared with his parents at 1.10am.
Police said they were responding to an alleged "domestic violence-related incident" and that officers and then paramedics attempted first aid, however Mr Caetano died at the scene.
Member for Eden-Monaro Mike Kelly has sent a strongly worded message to the people responsible for an anti-Semitic attack on his Queanbeyan office, telling them he won't be intimidated.
A staff member arrived for work at Dr Kelly's office in Monaro Street on Wednesday morning to find that pork had been thrown at the door.
Pork pieces that were thrown at Member for Eden Monaro Dr Mike Kelly's electorate office in Queanbeyan early on Wednesday morning.
It is the latest in a series of attacks on the Labor politician, an outspoken supporter of Israel whose wife is Jewish.
A neo-Nazi sticker carrying the words "Antipodean resistance" was also placed on his Bega electorate office window early in September.
The Brisbane Mater Mothers' Public Hospital is investigating the death of a woman who died just days after being sent home after giving birth.
It's understood she was discharged from hospital last month and had suffered a suspected blood clot after having a caesarean delivery.
Mater Health Chief Executive Officer Sean Hubbard confirmed on Thursday the woman's death was being investigated but gave no further details.
"As would be the case with any unexpected clinical outcome, Mater will conduct a thorough and detailed review into the care and treatment provided while she was at Mater," he said in a statement.
"The case has also been referred to the coroner."
Taxi fares in Victoria will not rise, but messy cab users have been put on notice after the state's pricing regulator ruled that grubby passengers could be slugged with a cleaning fee.
The Essential Services Commission has ruled that taxi operators cannot increase their maximum fares for passengers who hail a ride from a taxi rank or the street. Taxi operators had been pushing for an increase for "unbooked" fares.
Taxi drivers have protested against Victorian government measures in the past. The fare freeze is likely to anger them too. Credit:Jason South
Marcus Crudden, the commission's director of price monitoring and regulation, said a fare increase could make people think twice about using taxis.
In the context of all the changes underway in the industry, and noting taxis can already lower their fares as a way of attracting more passengers, the commission decided to leave maximum fares unchanged for now, Mr Crudden said.
Mirka Mora will be honoured with a state memorial. Credit:Martin Jones
The State Memorial for much loved artist Mirka Mora will be a celebration rather than a formal occasion, say organisers.
Julia Zemiro will host the public service at the Palais Theatre, billed as "a celebration of Mirka's bold, brave and colourful life" on September 25 at 2pm and Kate Ceberano is tipped to sing.
The death of Mora on August 27, aged 90, prompted thousands of tributes from Victorians who hailed her as a woman who had transformed Melbourne with her wit, creativity and warmth.
A Government notice said the Palais, which holds nearly 3000 people was a short stroll from Mirka Lane named in honour of the artist and Tolarno, the restaurant opened by Mirka and her husband Georges and home to one of Mirkas treasured murals.
Police have charged a 31-year-old man with murder after the body of a Doubleview woman was found in a bush grave south-east of Perth on Thursday.
Julie Anne Cooper, 55, was last seen on August 17 when she told her family she would be out of contact for about two weeks.
Police are appealing for help after Julie Anne Cooper's remains were found in a bush grave in Ashendon. Credit:WA Police
On September 5 police issued a missing persons report after Ms Cooper failed to make contact with her family.
Detectives spent Thursday morning scouring bushland in Ashendon and believed the female remains uncovered were those of Ms Cooper's.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has been overruled after the NSW Liberals defied his push for a female candidate to run in the Sydney seat of Wentworth and instead backed former ambassador to Israel Dave Sharma.
Mr Sharma, who was Australia's youngest ambassador, will contest the blue ribbon seat for the Liberals in next month's byelection after winning a tough preselection battle that stretched late into Thursday night.
Just after 1am on Friday, Mr Sharma emerged as the winner. He easily beat Mr Morrison's pick, Katherine O'Regan, who was knocked out in an early round of voting.
The final candidates were Mr Sharma, the party's former deputy state director Richard Shields and former Wentworth MP Peter King.
On Wednesday he said May had enormous virtues and was a fantastically dutiful prime minister, a phrase that might be heard as faint praise, though Mogg is such an odd character that he might actually have meant it to be lavish. He just wanted her to change her policy on Brexit, he said. Thats all. Mogg is the chairman of the European Research Group, aka Brexiter central. Brexiters desperately dont want Mays proposed Brexit, known as the "Chequers plan", because they dont see it as a severe enough break from the continent. It will bind the UK to elements of the common market, in order to protect trade and industry, while losing influence on its rules. Theresa May has clung on for more than two years in Australian terms, three quarters of a Turnbull, four-fifths of a Rudd, or 1.1 Abbotts.
And there are signs from Brussels that Chequers might be acceptable to them, with a few tweaks. Chief EU negotiator Michel Barnier said on Monday a Brexit deal was possible within six or eight weeks. Thats why the rebels are getting noisier. Time is running out before Mays Brexit is the one they get (assuming it can pass the British Parliament). Most of them have already quit Cabinet or were never in it. So the biggest weapon they can wave is the threat of a leadership contest. The European Research Group met on Tuesday night (minus Mogg) and openly discussed how to get rid of May. There were around 50 MPs present. One told ITV political editor Robert Peston that virtually the only topic of conversation for 40/50 minutes was how best do we get rid of her? Jacob Rees-Mogg, Conservative MP, and Boris Johnson, former foreign secretary. Credit:Bloomberg Comments at the meeting included everyone I know says she has to go, shes a disaster and this cant go on.
It was really, really detailed discussion of the mechanics of how best you game the leadership election rules. And zero dissent. No-one in a room of 50 Tory MPs even raised a squeak of objection. It was truly mind-blowing. You felt the ground opening up under your feet. Loading The next day May remained suspended above it, like a cartoon character over the edge of a cliff. She may be about to fall.
But, more likely, this is where the metaphor fails because the Brexiters havent got the numbers. Unlike in Australia, if you dont have the numbers you cant fake it 'til you make it. Unless May resigns of her own accord the rebels need 48 of the Conservatives 316 MPs to write a letter requesting a leadership contest to the chairman of the partys so-called 1922 committee (named after a small Tory dining club created after the 1922 election). British Prime Minister Theresa dances with children during a visit to the ID Mkhize High School in Gugulethu, Cape Town, South Africa. Credit:AP There has not been a leadership contest, so there are not (yet) 48 Conservative MPs willing to write that letter (yet). May is likely to go into next months party conference bruised, battered, and still Prime Minister.
This, on the face of it, is surprising. May is the leader of a party that lost its parliamentary majority last year because she called a snap election intended to crush an unpopular, radical and divided Labour, then fronted an astonishingly inept campaign. She is pushing a plan for Brexit that is hugely unpopular with her parliamentary colleagues, party members and the country (a recent poll found more than half of Britons dont like it, another third dont know what they think of it, and less than a fifth approve of it). Only 25 per cent of Britons view May herself favourably. The front page of The Sun revealed that former foreign secretary Boris Johnson had separated from his wife of 25 years Nevertheless, she persists.
For a start, she is blessed with Jeremy Corbyn in opposition, whose polling is also heavily negative after a summer failing to deal with Labour's anti-Semitism crisis. Mays main internal rival, Boris Johnson, had the end of his marriage splashed across the newspapers last week, and a series of columns he wrote attacking Mays Brexit plan were undermined by his crass use of a suicide vest metaphor. Anyway, Johnsons ambitions are a sideshow. Enough of his colleagues harbour doubts about his talents and temperament to make him unable to take the job by force. The big game is Brexit. A leadership contest or parliamentary rejection of Chequers by the Brexiters would mean either a big delay to Brexit or a no-deal Brexit, which would mean widespread chaos. An internal police report this week predicted food and medicine shortages would lead to theft and robbery. Only the most rabid Brexiters want to be responsible for that. A leadership contest could also mean an election, as moderate Conservatives may refuse to support a hard Brexiter government. And an election might mean a Labour prime minister.
Looking anxious and sweaty, the two Russians accused of carrying out the first chemical-weapon attack in Europe since World War II insisted they were just simple tourists eager to see an ancient English cathedral.
Even the Russian state TV interviewer who quizzed Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov seemed sceptical that a love of Gothic architecture drew them to make two visits to the city of Salisbury on the same weekend that a former spy, Sergei Skripal, fell victim to the nerve-agent poisoning. The cathedral is famous throughout the world for its tall spire and old clock, insisted Boshirov.
Ruslan Boshirov and Alexander Petrov during the bizarre interview. Credit:RT
"It's up there with Monty Python," said Chris Bryant, an opposition Labour Party lawmaker and chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Russia, after the Kremlin-funded RT TV posted the 25-minute clip on Thursday. "It's almost as if they are sticking two fingers up at the UK."
The men appeared on screen a day after President Vladimir Putin had urged them to come forward, saying they were civilians and "there's nothing unusual or criminal" in their behaviour. British officials dismissed their claims and said the UK stood by allegations that the men were officers of Russia's GRU military intelligence and that the poison attack was approved at the highest levels of the Russian government.
PHILIPSBURG, Sint Maarten The House of Parliament will sit in a Central Committee meeting on Thursday, September 13, 2018.
The Central Committee meeting is scheduled for 14.00 hrs in the General Assembly Chamber of the House at Wilhelminastraat #1 in Philipsburg.
The agenda points are:
1. Advice regarding the installation and composition of the Permanent and Ad hoc Committees of Parliament
2. Advice regarding the installation and composition of the Committees of the Latin American Parliament (Parlatino)
Members of the public are invited to the House of Parliament to attend parliamentary deliberations.
The House of Parliament is located across from the Court House in Philipsburg.
The parliamentary session will be carried live on St. Maarten Cable TV Channel 115, via SXM GOV radio FM 107.9, via Pearl Radio FM 98.1, the audio via the Internet www.sxmparliament.org, www.pearlfmradio.com and Parliaments Facebook page: Parliament of Sint Maarten.
The journey from rock bottom to seeing the light is one we've seen before, and "Path to Redemption" doesn't break the mold, relying on melodrama and stereotypes to get us where we're going. The hardest thing for Louis to do is let his guard down, let go of his ego and ask for help in a humble way. It could be Jesus Christ or anything spiritual that happens to show up on the day you're ready to let it all go. It just happened to be Billy Graham for Louis.
Georgetown, SC (29440)
Today
Periods of rain. Low near 50F. Winds N at 15 to 25 mph. Chance of rain 90%. Rainfall near a half an inch. Higher wind gusts possible..
Tonight
Periods of rain. Low near 50F. Winds N at 15 to 25 mph. Chance of rain 90%. Rainfall near a half an inch. Higher wind gusts possible.
Charleston, SC (29403)
Today
Rain. Becoming windy for the afternoon. High around 55F. Winds N at 20 to 30 mph. Chance of rain 90%. Rainfall near a quarter of an inch. Winds could occasionally gust over 40 mph..
Tonight
Windy at times with rain likely. Low 51F. Winds N at 20 to 30 mph. Chance of rain 90%. Rainfall around a half an inch. Winds could occasionally gust over 40 mph.
Charleston, SC (29403)
Today
Rain and wind. Low near 50F. Winds N at 20 to 30 mph. Chance of rain 100%. Rainfall possibly over one inch. Winds could occasionally gust over 40 mph..
Tonight
Rain and wind. Low near 50F. Winds N at 20 to 30 mph. Chance of rain 100%. Rainfall possibly over one inch. Winds could occasionally gust over 40 mph.
LONGUEUIL, Quebec As Canada prepares to send astronaut David Saint-Jacques into space in December, a fellow future space flyer is teaching the next generation how to get to the International Space Station.
Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen is the supervisor for the 2017 class of astronaut candidates, who are expected to eventually exit low Earth orbit for missions to the moon and perhaps even to Mars, if NASA predictions of today hold.
While journalists jostled for position here to speak to Saint-Jacques one last time before he goes into space, Hansen quietly began the support role he will play during Expedition 58/59. That includes acting as a spokesperson for the astronaut corps, picking up information to relay to Saint-Jacques and also being there for Saint-Jacques' wife and three children close friends of the Hansen family themselves. [What It's Like to Become a NASA Astronaut: 10 Surprising Facts]
All that is on top of Hansen's normal responsibilities, chief of which is supervising these new astronaut candidates. Before they get into space, the 11 Americans and two Canadians need to pass basic astronaut training, a process that is so complex that a typical candidate needs two years to finish the work. The astronauts must master an array of basic space skills: spacewalking, geology, speaking Russian, piloting T-38 jets and learning space station operations, just to name a few examples.
While all astronauts fall under the jurisdiction of the chief astronaut at NASA Johnson Space Center (right now, that person is space shuttle veteran Patrick Forrester), Hansen is the point person for all of the astronaut candidates managing schedules, negotiating training facility time and answering any questions or concerns the new employees might have.
"The buck stops with me. If we get to the end and they don't have the training they need, I'll be the one answering the questions about why was that not completed," Hansen said here at Canadian Space Agency headquarters during media activities for Saint-Jacques' flight in December.
"Some people call me the 'den mother' in that role," he added. "It's absolutely just taking care of them. I make sure they understand what's expected of them. I make sure when they have questions, that I get them answers."
While NASA does its best to provide mentorship and support for its new recruits, the training program does occasionally lose people. In late August, astronaut candidate Robb Kulin quit the corps making him the first astronaut-in-training to resign in 50 years, since John Llewellyn did so in 1967, according to Space.com partner collectSPACE. In a statement to reporters at the time, NASA spokesperson Brandi Dean said Kulin left for personal reasons; due to privacy laws, the agency cannot discuss why.
Each astronaut candidate training class must go through two years of rigorous training, including time in the wilderness. Here, three members of the 2013 class consult a chart. From left: Tyler (Nick) Hague, Andrew Morgan and Nicole A. Mann. (Image credit: NASA)
'Blind leading the blind'
Hansen, a former fighter pilot, and medical doctor Saint-Jacques have both been waiting in line for a spaceflight since they were selected as astronauts in 2009. Canada makes small contributions to the space station, mainly through robotics. Because space station flight assignments are based on the size of each country's contributions, and usually about 12 people go to work on the station every year, this means any Canadians need to wait a long time.
Saint-Jacques' wait has been nine years. Hansen's time on the ground could easily be a dozen years or more. But Hansen was an easy choice to lead the newest astronauts, despite the fact he hasn't flown yet, Forrester said in a brief interview in Baikonur, Kazakhstan, in June, because Hansen is a person of high integrity.
"When Pat asked me if I would be willing to do it, I said absolutely, yes. I felt it was a compliment that he had that faith in me," Hansen said.
The 2017 astronaut candidate class, shortly after selection. In August 2018, candidate Robb Kulin (seen at far left) resigned from training for undisclosed personal reasons. (Image credit: NASA)
Hansen added he feels he is well-suited for the role because he cares that the astronaut candidates get the best experience they can during their first few years of training. He doesn't work alone, either; he includes flown astronauts as mentors for the newest trainees and also works with a team of schedulers to make sure everyone gets the time they need at the facilities. An additional challenge, Hansen said, is that operations must come first the priority for these facilities goes to crews in training for future missions, as well as people doing troubleshooting for the crew already on the space station.
Since world-famous Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield retired in 2013, Canada's corps has been entirely comprised of rookies. This is a situation that last happened in October 1984, when Marc Garneau was the first Canadian ever to fly into space on shuttle mission STS-41G. He came from a group of several Canadians selected for astronaut training just the year before.
Canada chose two new astronaut candidates in 2017 to train alongside NASA's class. Hansen joked that he and Saint-Jacques are "kind of the blind leading the blind" because the much older astronauts are still unflown. "So [we] benefit from that culture of being all together at Johnson. We actually can contribute a lot more to the space program by being part of that team," Hansen added.
Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.
The show follows Ms. Joan Jett Blakk as she sets off on her journey to run for President of the United States, beginning in 1992 Chicago at the height of the AIDS crisis. Joan and the newly formed Queer Nation Chicago have big goals in mind, and she sets off on a journey to drag queer politics out of the closet and into a future where all are visible. Conceived and directed by Landau, it will star McCraney.
An artist's impression of the Herschel Space Observatory with its observations of star formation in the Rosette Nebula in the background.
Adam Hadhazy, writer and editor for The Kavli Foundation, contributed this article to Space.com's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.
From serendipitous camping trips to forging international consensus on big-budget observatories, the 2018 Kavli Prize laureate discusses her personal and professional journey into the field of astrochemistry.
NOT ALL OF SPACE IS SUCH A BARREN PLACE. Galaxies are chock-full of dusty clouds containing rich stews of molecules, ranging from simple hydrogen gas to complex organic substances critical for life's development. Grasping how all these cosmic ingredients intermix in the forming of stars and planets has been the life's work of Ewine van Dishoeck.
A chemist by training, van Dishoeck soon turned her eyes to the cosmos. She pioneered many advances in the emergent field of astrochemistry, harnessing the latest telescopes to reveal and describe the contents of vast star-bearing clouds. In parallel, van Dishoeck pursued laboratory experiments and quantum calculations on terra firma to understand the breakdown of cosmic molecules by starlight, as well as the conditions under which new molecules stack together like Lego bricks. [8 Baffling Astronomy Mysteries]
Astrochemist Ewine van Dishoeck, winner of the 2018 Kavli Prize in Astrophysics. (Image credit: Copyright Henrik Sandsjo/Leiden University)
"For her combined contributions to observational, theoretical, and laboratory astrochemistry, elucidating the life cycle of interstellar clouds and the formation of stars and planets," van Dishoeck received the 2018 Kavli Prize in Astrophysics. She is only the second laureate in any field to have been distinguished as a sole recipient of the prize over its history.
To learn more about her breakthrough career in astrochemistry and what's next for the field, The Kavli Foundation spoke with van Dishoeck from her office at Leiden Observatory at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands, just prior to her attending a staff barbeque. Van Dishoeck is a Professor of Molecular Astrophysics and the President-Elect of the International Astronomical Union (IAU).
The following is an edited transcript of the roundtable discussion. Van Dishoeck has been provided the opportunity to amend or edit her remarks.
THE KAVLI FOUNDATION: What does astrochemistry tell us about ourselves and the universe we live in?
EWINE VAN DISHOECK: The overall story told by astrochemistry is, what is our origin? Where do we come from, how were we built? How did our planet and sun form? That ultimately leads us to try to discover the basic building blocks for the sun, the Earth, and us. It's like Legos we want to know what pieces were in the Lego building set for our solar system.
The most basic building blocks are of course the chemical elements, but how these elements combine to create bigger building blocks molecules in space is crucial for understanding how everything else came to be.
TKF: You and other researchers have now identified more than 200 of these molecular building blocks in space. How has the field evolved over the course of your career?
EVD: In the 1970s, we started finding that very unusual molecules, such as ions and radicals, are relatively abundant in space. These molecules are missing or have unpaired electrons. On Earth, they don't persist for long because they quickly react with any other matter they meet. But because space is so empty, ions and radicals can live for tens of thousands of years before bumping into anything.
Now, we are moving toward identifying the molecules present in the very heart of the regions where new stars and planets are forming, right at this very moment. We are getting past spotting isolated ions and radicals to more saturated molecules. These include organic [carbon-containing] molecules in the simplest forms, like methanol. From that basic methanol building block, you can build up to molecules like glycolaldehyde, which is a sugar, and ethylene glycol. Both of these are "prebiotic" molecules, meaning they are required for the eventual formation of molecules of life.
Where the astrochemistry field is moving next is away from taking an inventory of molecules and toward trying to understand how these different molecules are formed. We're also trying to understand why we might find greater amounts of certain molecules in particular cosmic regions versus other kinds of molecules.
In 2017, the ALMA Observatory detected traces of methyl chloride, also known as Freon-40, in the young star system IRAS 16293-2422. (Image credit: B. Saxton (NRAO/AUI/NSF); NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA)
TKF: What you just said makes me think of an analogy: Astrochemistry is now less about finding new molecules in space sort of like zoologists seeking out new animals in the jungle. The field is now more about the "ecology" of how those molecular animals interact, and why there are so many of a certain kind over here in space, but so few over there, and so on.
EVD: That's a good analogy! As we are getting into understanding the physics and the chemistry of how stars and planets form, a significant part is figuring out why some molecules are abundant in certain interstellar regions, but are "extinct," just like animals might be, in other regions.
If we continue your metaphor, there are indeed many interesting interactions between molecules that can be likened to animal ecology. For instance, temperature is a controlling factor in the behavior and interactions of molecules in space, which likewise affects animals' activity and where they live, and so on.
TKF: Returning to the building blocks idea, how does the building-up process in astrochemistry work, exactly?
EVD: An important concept in building molecules in space is one we know from everyday life here on Earth, called phase transitions. That's when a solid melts into a liquid, or a liquid evaporates into gas, and so on.
Now in space, every molecule has its own "snow line," which is the division between a gas phase and a solid phase. So, for example, water has a snow line, where it goes from water gas to water ice. I should point out that liquid forms of elements and molecules cannot exist in space because there is too little pressure; water can be liquid on Earth because of the pressure from the planet's atmosphere.
Back to the snow lines, we are now discovering that they play a very important role in planet formation, controlling a lot of the chemistry. One of the most important Lego building blocks, so to speak, that we've found is carbon monoxide. We're familiar with carbon monoxide on Earth because it is produced in combustion, for instance. My colleagues and I have demonstrated in the laboratory at Leiden that carbon monoxide is the starting point for making many more complex organics out in space. Carbon monoxide freezing out from a gas to a solid phase is a crucial first step to then adding Lego building blocks of hydrogen. Doing so lets you keep building bigger and bigger molecules like formaldehyde [CH 2 O], then methanol, on to glycolaldehyde as we discussed, or you can even go to more complex molecules like glycerol [C 3 H 8 O 3 ].
That's just one example, but it gives you a sense of how a building-up process plays out in astrochemistry.
TKF: You just mentioned your lab at the Leiden Observatory, the Sackler Laboratory for Astrophysics, which I understand has a distinction as the first-ever astrophysics lab. How did it come to be and what have you achieved there?
EVD: That's right. Mayo Greenberg, a pioneering astrochemist, started the lab in the 1970s and it was really the first of its kind for astrophysics in the world. He retired and then I kept the lab going. I eventually became director of this laboratory in the early 1990s and stayed so until around 2004, when a colleague assumed leadership. I still collaborate and run experiments there.
What we have succeeded in achieving in the lab are the extreme conditions of space: Its coldness and its radiation. We can reproduce the temperatures in space down to 10 kelvin [minus 442 degrees Fahrenheit; minus 260 degrees Celsius], which is just a tiny bit above absolute zero. We also can recreate the intense ultraviolet radiation in starlight that molecules are subject to in regions of new star formation. [Star Quiz: Test Your Stellar Smarts]
Where we fail, however, is in reproducing the emptiness of space, the vacuum. We consider an ultra-high vacuum in the lab to have on the order of 108 to 1010 [a hundred million to ten billion] particles per cubic centimeter. What astronomers call a dense cloud, where star and planet formation happen, has only about 104, or about 10,000 particles per cubic centimeter. That means a dense cloud in space is still a million times emptier than the best we can do in the lab!
But this ultimately works to our advantage. In the extreme vacuum of space, the chemistry we're interested in understanding moves very, very slowly. That simply won't do in the lab, where we cannot wait for 10,000 or 100,000 years for the molecules to bump into each other and interact. Instead, we need to be able to do the reaction in a day to learn anything on the time scales of a human science career. So we speed everything up and can translate what we see in the lab to the far longer time scales in space.
TKF: In addition to the lab work, over your career, you have used an array of telescopes to study molecules in space. Which instruments were essential to your research and why?
EVD: New instruments have been crucial during my whole career. Astronomy is really driven by observations. Having ever-more powerful telescopes in new wavelengths of light is like looking at the universe with different eyes.
To give you an example, in the late 1980s, I came back to the Netherlands when the country was heavily involved in the Infrared Space Observatory, or ISO, a mission led by the European Space Agency [ESA]. I felt very fortunate that somebody else had done the hard work for 20 years to make that telescope into a reality and I could happily use it! ISO was very important because it opened up the infrared spectrum where we could see all these spectral signatures, like chemical fingerprints, of ices including water, which play major roles in star and planet formation and in water's case, is of course critical for life. That was a great time.
The next very significant mission was the Herschel Space Observatory, which I personally got involved with as a graduate student back in 1982. From the chemistry side, it was clear that Herschel was a prime mission for interstellar molecules, and in particular to "follow the water trail." But first, we needed to make the science case to ESA. I went to the U.S. for a number of years and got in similar discussions there, where I helped make the science case for Herschel to U.S. funding agencies. It was all a big push until the mission was finally approved in the late 1990s. Then it still took 10 years to build and launch, but we finally got our first data in late 2009. So from 1982 to 2009 that was a long run! [Photos: Herschel Space Observatory's Amazing Infrared Images]
TKF: When and where did your loves for space and chemistry take root?
EVD: My main love was always for molecules. That started in high school with a very good chemistry teacher. A lot depends on really good teachers, and I don't think people always realize how important that is. I only realized when I got to college that physics was just as much fun as chemistry.
An artist's concept of the snow line in the star TW Hydrae showing water ice covered dust grains in the inner disc (blue) and carbon monoxide ice covered grains in the outer disc green). The transition from blue to green marks the carbon monoxide snow line. The snow helps grains of dust to adhere to each other, which is essential to the formation of planets and comets. (Image credit: B. Saxton & A. Angelich/NRAO/AUI/NSF/ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO))
TKF: What academic path did you take to ultimately become an astrochemist?
EVD: At Leiden University, I did my Master's in chemistry and was convinced that I wanted to continue with theoretical quantum chemistry. But the professor in that field at Leiden had died. So I started to look around for other options. I really didn't know much about astronomy at that time. It was my then-boyfriend and current husband, Tim, who had just heard a set of lectures on the interstellar medium, and Tim said to me, "You know, there are also molecules in space!" [Laughter]
I started looking into the possibility of doing a thesis on molecules in space. I went from one professor to the other. A colleague in Amsterdam told me that to really get into the field of astrochemistry, I had to go to Harvard to work with Professor Alexander Dalgarno. As it happened, in the summer of 1979, Tim and I were traveling in Canada to attend a General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union in Montreal. We found out that satellite meetings were being held before the General Assembly, and one of them was actually happening in this specific park where Tim and I were camping. The idea we had was, "Well, maybe we should take this opportunity and go see this Professor Dalgarno already!"
Of course, we had all this camping gear and clothing, but I had one clean skirt with me that I put on. Tim drove me to the satellite meeting, we found my colleague from Amsterdam, and he said, "Oh, good, I will introduce you to Professor Dalgarno." The professor took me outside, we talked for five minutes, he asked me what I had done, what my astrochemistry skillset was, and then he said, "Sounds interesting; why don't you come and work for me?" That was obviously a pivotal moment.
That's how it all got started. I've never regretted one moment since.
TKF: Were there other pivotal moments, perhaps early in your childhood that set you on the path to being a scientist?
EVD: Actually, yes. I was about 13 years old and my father had just had arranged a sabbatical in San Diego, California. I took leave of my high school in the Netherlands, where we had mostly received lessons in Latin and Greek and of course some mathematics. But we had nothing yet in terms of chemistry or physics, and biology didn't start until at least one or two years later.
At the junior high school in San Diego, I decided to study topics that were very different. I took Spanish, for example. There was also the possibility to do science. I had a very good teacher, who was an African American female, which at the time, in 1968, was quite unusual. She was just very inspirational. She had experiments, she had questions, and she really managed to draw me into science.
TKF: Now looking ahead to the promise of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), which opened several years ago and is among the most ambitious and expensive ground-based astronomy projects ever implemented. Astrophysicist Reinhard Genzel credits you with helping forge the international consensus behind this observatory. How did you make the case for ALMA?
EVD: ALMA has been an amazing success as the premiere observatory in this special range of millimeter and submillimeter light that is an important window for observing molecules in space. Today, ALMA consists of 66 radio telescopes with 7- and 12-meter configurations that stretch across a high-altitude plain in Chile. It was a very long road to get to where we are now!
ALMA is the result of the dreams of many thousands of people. I was one of two members from the European side on the U.S. Science Advisory Committee for ALMA. I knew the North American science community well from my six years working in the U.S. The two sides, as well as Japan, had very different concepts for ALMA. The Europeans were thinking about a telescope that could be used for deep, very-early-universe chemistry, while the North Americans were thinking much more about large-scale, high-resolution imaging; one group was talking about building eight-meter telescopes, the other about 15-meter telescopes. [Meet ALMA: Amazing Photos from Giant Radio Telescope]
So I was one of the people that helped bring those two arguments together. I said, "If you build a much bigger array, actually we all win." The plan became to bring a larger number of telescopes together in one array, rather than separate arrays, which are not as powerful. And that's what happened. We set the tone of working together on this fantastic project rather than being competitors.
TKF: What new frontiers is ALMA opening in astrochemistry?
EVD: The big jump that we're making with ALMA is in spatial resolution. Imagine looking at a city from above. The first Google Earth images were very poor you could hardly see anything; a city was a big blob. Since then, the images have been getting sharper and sharper as spatial resolution has improved with the cameras onboard satellites. Nowadays you can see the canals [in Dutch cities], the streets, even individual houses. You can really see how the whole city is put together.
The same thing is happening now with the birthplaces of planets, which are these tiny disks around young stars. Those disks are a hundred to a thousand times smaller than the clouds we've looked at previously where stars are born. With ALMA, we're zooming into the regions where new stars and planets are forming. Those are really the relevant scales to understand how those processes work. And ALMA, uniquely, has the spectroscopic capabilities to detect and study a very wide range of molecules involved in those processes. ALMA is a fantastic step forward from anything we've had before.
TKF: The new telescopes you have gotten to use over the span of your career have proven extraordinary. At the same time, we're still limited as to what we can see in the cosmos. When you think ahead to future generations of telescopes, what is it you most hope to see?
EVD: The next step in our research is the James Webb Space Telescope [JWST], set to launch in 2021. With JWST, I'm really looking forward to seeing organic molecules and water on even smaller scales, and in different parts of the planet-forming zones, than is possible with ALMA.
But ALMA will be essential for our research for a long time to come another 30 to 50 years. There's still so much we need to discover with ALMA. However, ALMA can't help us study the very inner part of a planet-forming disk, on the scale of where our Earth formed, just a short distance from the sun. The gas in the disk is much warmer there, and the infrared light it emits can be captured by an instrument that my colleagues and I have helped implement for JWST.
JWST is the final mission that I've worked on. Again, it was by chance that I got involved, but I was in a good position with my American partners and colleagues to help. A number of us from the European and U.S. sides came together and said, "Hey, we want to make this instrument happen and we can do it in a 50/50 partnership."
TKF: Given your work on the building blocks that make up stars and planets, does the cosmos seem amenable or even conducive to life?
EVD: I always say that I provide the building blocks, and then it's up to biology and chemistry to tell the rest of the story! [Laughter] Ultimately, it matters what kind of life we are talking about. Are we talking about just the most primitive, unicellular life that we know arose quickly on Earth? Given all the ingredients that we have available, there's no reason why that could not arise on any of the billions of exoplanets that we now know are orbiting billions of other stars.
Going to the next steps of multicellular and ultimately intelligent life, we understand very little yet how that emerges from simpler life. But I think it's safe to say given the level of complexity, it is less likely that that will arise as often as, say, microbes. [10 Exoplanets That Could Host Alien Life]
TKF: How will the field of astrochemistry help us answer the question of whether there is alien life in the universe?
EVD: Studying the chemistry of exoplanet atmospheres is what will help us answer this question. We will be finding many potentially Earth-like exoplanets. The next step will be to look for spectral fingerprints, which I mentioned earlier, in the planets' atmospheres. In those fingerprints, we will specifically be looking for "biomolecules," or combinations of molecules that could indicate the presence of some form of life. That means not just water, but oxygen, ozone, methane and more.
Our current telescopes can just barely detect those fingerprints in exoplanets' atmospheres. That's why we're building the next generation of giant ground-based telescopes, like the Extremely Large Telescope, which will have a mirror that is about three times as big as anything around today. I'm involved in making the science case for that and other new instruments, and biosignatures are really one of the top goals. That's the exciting direction where astrochemistry will go.
Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. This version of the article published on Space.com.
The Apollo 11 mission patch on astronaut Buzz Aldrin's spacesuit. Aldrin wore the suit (and patch) on the surface of the moon on July 20, 1969, almost 50 years ago.
WASHINGTON, DC The Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum will commemorate the 50th anniversary of NASA's Apollo 11 mission with a week-long "First Moon Landing Celebration" in July 2019.
Museum officials on Wednesday (Sept. 12) announced the celebration and plans for a series of events and exhibits to lead up to the anniversary beginning in October. The Smithsonian includes in its collection the spacecraft, spacesuits and much of the equipment that astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins used to achieve the first lunar landing on July 20, 1969.
"We see the Apollo 50th anniversary as an opportunity to introduce a whole new generation to what happened during our lifetimes," said Valerie Neal, space history department chair at the National Air and Space Museum. "The majority of our visitors now were born after 1969. They know the story secondhand, but they don't have that visceral experience of it." [Apollo 11 Moon Landing Pictures]
"We're hoping to use this occasion to spark that kind of excitement and start thinking about what can we do in the 21st century that is comparable, whether we do it in space or we do it here on Earth," Neal told collectSPACE.com.
The Smithsonian's five-day First Moon Landing Celebration is scheduled for July 16 through 20, 2019, such that it coincides with the 50th anniversaries of the Apollo 11 launch, lunar landing and moonwalk. Details will be announced at a later date, but activities are planned for inside the museum and on the National Mall in Washington, DC.
Exhibited for decades in the National Air and Space Museum's Apollo to the Moon gallery, Buzz Aldrin's Apollo 11 spacesuit rests in the conservation hangar at the museum's northern Virginia annex, the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center. Aldrin's spacesuit will remain off-display as Neil Armstrong's suit is returned to the National Air and Space Museum after 13 years off public display. (Image credit: collectSPACE.com)
Between Earth and the moon
Prior to the Apollo 11 celebration, the National Air and Space Museum will join others in the nation's capital to commemorate the first Apollo missions to launch astronauts into space and to the moon.
On Thursday, Oct. 11, the 50th anniversary of the launch of Apollo 7, the museum will host officials from the U.S. Mint to reveal the obverse, or "heads-side," design for the Mint's Apollo 11 50th Anniversary commemorative coins to be issued in January. Following the direction of Congress, the Mint held a contest to design the face of the 2019 curved coin, which will be struck in gold, silver and clad metal.
Proceeds from the coins will benefit the Astronaut Scholarship Foundation, the Astronauts Memorial Foundation and the Smithsonian the latter to support the National Air and Space Museum's "Destination Moon" gallery opening in 2022.
On Friday, Dec. 7, the museum, together with NASA, will host historians, writers and journalists to consider the current state of the field of space history.
The Apollo Dialogues workshop will consider paths for future scholarship using the 50th anniversary of the moon landing as an opportunity "to reflect on what we know about the Apollo era and its legacies, what we still need to learn and how we may best record and interpret the significance of spaceflight in society today and into the future."
Then on Tuesday, Dec. 11, the National Air and Space Museum will hold an event celebrating Apollo 8, the first mission to send humans to orbit the moon 50 years ago. "The Spirit of Apollo," to be held at National Cathedral, will explore the "spiritual meaning of exploration and global unity" in the 1968 mission's Christmas Eve broadcast, during which the crew Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and Bill Anders famously read the opening lines of Genesis from the bible.
Lovell is scheduled to attend the event, which will also include National Air and Space Museum director Ellen Stofan and NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine. Additional speakers and further details, including free tickets for the public, will be available on the museum's website later this year. [Gallery: Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum]
Apollo 11 commander Neil Armstrong's extravehicular activity (EVA) gloves worn during humanity's first moonwalk, as seen on Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2018 in the conservation hangar at the National Air and Space Museums northern Virginia annex, the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center. (Image credit: collectSPACE.com)
Destination Moon
Over the next ten months, the Smithsonian's touring exhibition "Destination Moon: The Apollo 11 Mission" will continue on its four-city tour, which began in 2017.
The exhibit, which features more than 20 artifacts from the first moon landing mission, including the Apollo 11 command module "Columbia," recently concluded its engagement at the Saint Louis Science Center in Missouri, following its premiere at Space Center Houston in Texas. On Sept. 29, "Destination Moon" will open at the Senator John Heinz History Center in Pittsburgh, Pennylvania.
Then, beginning in March, the historic spacecraft and related displays will move to Seattle. The Museum of Flight will host "Destination Moon: The Apollo 11 Mission" through the 50th anniversary in July.
"There are all of these debates about reinterpreting Apollo and all these questions have to be grounded in some material, unalterable physical truth. That's the role of the museum," said Allan Needell, a space history curator at the National Air and Space Museum. "Not to engineer the interpretations, but to make sure that anyone who wants to ground what they are thinking, has some ground truth to base their thinking on."
"Not to say that the entire story is one of hardware and physical things, but it is a key part," Needell told collectSPACE.com.
To that end, the National Air and Space Museum will return Neil Armstrong's Apollo 11 spacesuit to public display for the first time in 13 years as part of the First Moon Landing Celebration in July. The exhibit concludes an extensive conservation effort funded by thousands of public donations through Kickstarter.
Both the spacesuit and Apollo 11 command module will be featured exhibits in the museum's new "Destination Moon" gallery when it opens in four years.
The museum is planning additional talks and events in celebration of the Apollo program's 50th anniversary to be announced at a later date. For those who cannot make it to Washington, DC, the Smithsonian Channel will air on television a six-hour series, "Apollo's Moon Shot," featuring video from the National Air and Space Museum, and then on July 20, 2019, a one-hour special, "The Day We Walked on the Moon," focusing on the historic Apollo 11 mission.
See more photos of Apollo 11 artifacts in the Smithsonian's collection at collectSPACE.
Follow collectSPACE.com on Facebook and on Twitter at @collectSPACE. Copyright 2018 collectSPACE.com. All rights reserved.
Space Station astronauts repaired a minor leak in the Soyuz MS-09 spacecraft (left) on Aug. 30, 2018. A 2-millimeter hole in the orbital module, shown here, caused a slight pressure drop inside the orbiting laboratory.
Two weeks after astronauts and cosmonauts repaired an air leak at the International Space Station, investigators are still trying to figure out how the tiny hole got there.
According to a new joint statement from NASA and Roscosmos, Russia's federal space agency, Roscosmos Director Dmitry Rogozin invited NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine to meet in a teleconference on Wednesday (Sept. 12) to discuss the investigation.
"As part of their discussion, Dmitry Rogozin informed his American counterpart about Roscosmos' decision to establish a Roscosmos-led commission to investigate the cause of the leak in the Soyuz (MS-09/55S) spacecraft currently docked to the station," NASA and Roscosmos officials said in the statement. [Russia's Manned Soyuz Space Capsule Explained (Infographic)]
Expedition 56 crewmembers located the 2-millimeter (0.08 inches) hole in the orbital compartment of the Soyuz on Aug. 30, shortly after ground controllers noted a slight drop in pressure on the Russian side of the space station. After astronauts plugged the hole with a combination of gauze, epoxy and heavy-duty tape, pressure inside the orbiting laboratory returned to normal.
While NASA and Roscosmos haven't determined the cause of the leak, Rogozin initially speculated that a micrometeoroid could be responsible. However, Rogozin later said that the hole appears to have been human-made, as if an engineer with "a faltering hand" drilled the hole either accidentally or deliberately.
"The administrator and the general director noted speculations circulating in the media regarding the possible cause of the incident and agreed on deferring any preliminary conclusions and providing any explanations until the final investigation has been completed," NASA and Roscosmos officials said in their joint statement.
Earlier this week, NASA astronaut Drew Feustel, commander of Expedition 56, shot down the idea that one of the station's six crewmembers could have intentionally caused the leak in an act of in-orbit sabotage. "I can unequivocally say that the crew had nothing do with this," Feustel told reporters during a space-to-ground interview. Bridenstine and Rogozin "acknowledged the entire crew is dedicated to the safe operation of the station and all docked spacecraft to ensure mission success," the statement said.
Bridenstine and Rogozin will have their first face-to-face meeting at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan next month, when NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin will launch to the International Space Station in the Soyuz MS-10 spacecraft, according to the statement. The Soyuz MS-09, where the mysterious leak was found, is scheduled to return to Earth in December with NASA astronaut Serena Aunon-Chancellor, Russian cosmonaut Sergey Prokopyev and European Space Agency astronaut Alexander Gerst.
Email Hanneke Weitering at hweitering@space.com or follow her @hannekescience. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.
The crew of Apollo 17 snapped this image of Earth in daylight against the background of space as they travelled toward the moon in 1972. After its publication, the photograph became iconic and was nicknamed "The Blue Marble."
Two conservation scientists have published an editorial in the prestigious scientific journal Nature today (Sept. 13) calling for more space on Earth to be set aside for wildlife. But what does that mean for space exploration, and what does our history in space teach us about the wisdom of such an effort?
Space exploration and the environmental movement have long been intertwined, with the latter galvanized by space-based imagery like the Apollo 17 crew's Blue Marble photo of the full Earth disk and the Voyager mission's Pale Blue Dot image of Earth taken across 4 billion miles (6 billion kilometers) of our solar system.
Before space exploration began, "there was no perception of Earth as a single entity and certainly no context for it in space," Lisa Ruth Rand, a historian of science, technology and the environment who is currently the American Historical Association and NASA fellow in space history, told Space.com. [Wild! Scientists Are Watching Baby Turtles from Space]
"That was revolutionary at the time," she said of the sentiments inspired by the Blue Marble image. "Not only are we alone in space in this hostile, barren void, but also we are all in it together," she said.
Now, the view of Earth from orbit has become commonplace, but space is still changing the way we think about Earth. Over the past two decades, as exoplanet studies have blossomed, the connection has taken on a new spin as we identify more and more worlds around other stars but still find ourselves liking Earth best. That's true closer to home as well, where even as we continue to learn about the worlds around us, we fail to find life, much less vibrant, complex ecosystems.
"This is a wonderland," John Rummel, a senior scientist at the SETI Institute and a former planetary protection officer at NASA, told Space.com of Earth. "We have been ignorant about the things that we have been doing to the Earth's biosphere and it is much more complex and amazingly interdependent than anything we're likely to see in this solar system."
Can we build a biosphere?
The new editorial calls for meeting the goals that governments around the world have already agreed upon at a 2010 conference, of protecting at least 17 percent of land and 10 percent of ocean areas by 2020 goals that humans currently fall far short on, at just 14.7 and 3.6 percent, respectively.
But those targets may not be what we need to keep Earth's ecosystems functioning, some planetary scientists fear. "Now we are talking about a bioengineered world, we are not talking about a planet anymore; we are talking about a national park on a planetary level and it's not a biosphere anymore," Nathalie Cabrol, an astrobiologist at the SETI Institute, told Space.com. "We are going to create an artificial bubble when what we had was a beautifully working natural system."
Cordoning off land and seas to manage all the creatures around us isn't so different from building the type of artificial biospheres would-be explorers have dreamed up for other planets and moons. The similarity could mean that space endeavors offer lessons for managing life here on Earth but those lessons may not be as encouraging as we might wish.
"I think in understanding how to build an artificial biosphere and make it work we will provide more information about how to keep this one going," Rummel said. That said, there won't be an easy solution. "Even at best, any biosphere that we could construct for centuries to come is going to be a mere shadow of what we have every day on the Earth," he said. [NASA's Best Earth-from-Space Photos by Astronauts (Gallery)]
And even without ever having laid a brick or planted a seed on another world, humans have dipped their toes in the world of biosphere construction. Perhaps the most enthusiastic experiment came in 1991, when a crew of eight stepped foot inside a facility dubbed Biosphere 2 (Biosphere 1 being Earth, of course) in the middle of the Arizona desert.
The two-year experiment was meant to be a self-sustaining miniature replica of Earth with 3,800 species, but while all eight crewmembers survived, it was a troubled experience. One crewmember briefly left the biosphere for emergency medical care. Sweet potatoes thrived so much better than most crops in the high carbon levels that crewmembers' skin picked up a faint orange sheen from eating so many of them. A whopping 40 percent of the species humans had carried with them went extinct.
"It didn't turn out well for a majority of the species including the humans that were living there," Rand said. "Ultimately, there's a lot of challenges to creating life in microcosm elsewhere, even here."
She used the term "hellish" to describe a video of life in the facility, which was overrun by invasive ants and cockroaches and bereft of species crewmembers had wanted to retain. One of the first to go was the honeybees, which unbeknown to the humans who built the biosphere, couldn't see in most of the facility. They were found dead, clustered near an emergency exit, the only place where the biosphere's glass let in the ultraviolet light bees use to navigate, Rand said.
"Even this seemingly very controlled experiment still had problems with biodiversity," Rand said. That's a powerful lesson the history of this sort of endeavor can offer about the limitations of our power to build ecosystems ourselves. "If we can take advantage of what's already here and work with nature instead of trying to recreate it somewhere else, we have a much greater chance of success," she said.
We can't run away from our problems
While space offers a new perspective on Earth and its problems, space scientists cautioned against the common viewpoint that other planets can offer refuge if Earth becomes untenable for human existence.
That's the wrong approach, according to some. "We are not going to fix any of the problems that we have on Earth by going to Mars," Cabrol said. "If we are not capable of understanding our problems here on Earth," she said, "we are just going to transfer this mentality onto another planet." (Rand added that such projects would almost certainly perpetuate the same power relationships and inequities that have shaped terrestrial societies for millennia.) [The BFR: SpaceX's Mars-Colonization Architecture in Images]
And fleeing is particularly risky given how grim life on another planet is likely to be for the foreseeable future. "Maybe what Mars is going to give us is a consciousness of how beautiful, precious, fragile Earth is." Cabrol said. "We should not use planetary exploration as an escape."
That isn't to say there's nothing space can offer us when it comes to solving our problems, Cabrol said. She said that one of the gifts of planetary exploration is that it puts new challenges in our path and forces us to solve them promptly, creatively and often remotely. That's the sort of skill with obvious implications for life on a fast-changing Earth.
And if we continue to lose biodiversity here on Earth, space exploration may slip out of reach, Rummel said, as species losses ripple through food webs and cause accelerating change. "The very basis of the economies and support systems on the Earth that allow us to envision going elsewhere with both robots and people, those are the things that are in jeopardy." He points to the host of ecosystem services we rely on without blinking an eye, from insects that pollinate crops to plants that filter air and soil that retains stormwater.
The same is true of climate change, which is raising temperatures and strengthening storms around the world. NASA satellites have spent the week monitoring Hurricane Florence and a host of other tropical storms that will leave death and destruction in their wakes and one of which has also delayed a cargo launch to the International Space Station. Last year's hurricanes Irma and Harvey damaged Kennedy Space Center and shuttered Johnson Space Center.
But biodiversity loss and climate change are both massive, incremental, depressing problems precisely the sort of challenge humans hate to tackle. "Innovation is sexy and fixing things that already exist that can be repaired is not," Rand said. "It's much more fun and glitzy to imagine trying to build something new in a new place."
But here, the history of space exploration may be able to offer a more productive mindset, despite the temptation of looking to the next horizon and the next mission. NASA has a long track record of extending missions and reprogramming damaged telescopes or robots already at work. Perhaps those examples, coupled with the nitty-gritty data and big-picture views that the agency offers of our home planet, can teach us to embrace a culture of conservation.
Email Meghan Bartels at mbartels@space.com or follow her @meghanbartels. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.
The Ice, Cloud and land Elevation Satellite-2, or ICESat-2, is NASA's most technologically advanced ice-monitoring spacecraft to date. Capable of measuring changes in ice thickness, forest growth and cloud height down to 0.02 inches (0.4 millimeters) every year the thickness of a No. 2 pencil, according to NASA ICESat-2 offers scientists an unprecedented view of Earth's changing systems, especially at its poles.
"Watching and understanding how it [ice] is changing helps us understand why its changing," said Waleed Abdalati, a geographer at the University of Colorado in Boulder and a concept designer of ICESat-2. In turn, the information will sharpen environmental-prediction models and help scientists better forecast rising sea levels and climate shifts because of melting ice.
ICESat-2 was manufactured by Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems in Dulles, Virginia, and constructed at NASA Goddard Space Center in Washington, D.C. At 12.5 feet (3.81 meters) tall and with a base measuring 8.2 feet by 6.2 feet (2.5 by 1.9 m about the size of a small camper trailer), ICESat-2 is one of the largest satellites built at Goddard, according to Donya Douglas-Bradshaw, instrument manager at Goddard.
After 10 years and multiple re-scheduled launch dates, the satellite is scheduled to take-off aboard a Delta II rocket on Sept. 15, 2018, from the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
Science objectives and rationales
ICESat-2 will set off with four primary objectives:
Measure changing mass on ice sheets and glaciers from around the world.
Measure how much ice melt from Greenland and Antarctica contributes to rising sea levels . Ice melt in Antarctica, for example, has accelerated over the past five years. "We know that there's going to be some sea level rise," said Peter Neff, a glaciologist at the University of Washington in Seattle, but scientists don't know how much or how soon.
. Ice melt in Antarctica, for example, has accelerated over the past five years. "We know that there's going to be some sea level rise," said Peter Neff, a glaciologist at the University of Washington in Seattle, but scientists don't know how much or how soon. Estimate the thickness of sea ice in the Arctic and monitor any changes. Scientists know how much sea ice area in the Arctic has changed since 1980. But satellites like ICESat-2 help determine changes in sea ice thickness. A decrease in sea ice thickness could exacerbate ocean warming by allowing more light to reach the ocean's surface and increase water temperature.
Scientists know how much sea ice area in the Arctic has changed since 1980. But satellites like ICESat-2 help determine changes in sea ice thickness. A decrease in sea ice thickness could exacerbate ocean warming by allowing more light to reach the ocean's surface and increase water temperature. Measure forest height to calculate the amount of carbon stored in plants. Plants stash carbon as food and use it to grow. That stored carbon can't contribute to warming the climate or acidifying oceans.
The data ICESat-2 will collect builds upon 15 years of data started by its predecessor, ICESat, which was in space from 2003 to 2010. ICESat-2 was first proposed in 2008, but construction didnt begin until 2010, with an estimated launch date in 2015. Between ice satellites, NASA used its airborne Operation IceBridge to continue monitoring crucial areas of ice from 2009 until now.
ATLAS - ICESat-2's scientific powerhouse
ICESat-2 was a $1.056 billion project, Richard Slonaker, the ICESat-2 program executive in Washington, DC, said during a media teleconference. Much of that money went toward developing a single, high-tech instrument dubbed the Advanced Topographic Laser Altimeter System, or ATLAS. The instrument basically works like a stopwatch: It shoots a laser down to Earth and times how long it takes for the light to hit the surface and come back. The shorter the time, the higher the elevation of whatever the light hit.
But that simple explanation belies the instrument's sophistication. ATLAS fires a single green (532 nanometers) laser beam into a diffractor that breaks the beam into six rays, coupled as three pairs. At Earth's surface, these lasers form a line. Each laser in a pair sits 295 feet (90 meters) apart, and each pair of lasers lies 2.1 miles (3.3 kilometers) from one another.
This design allows ICESat-2 to calculate the slope of a surface, which, if not accounted for, could appear as changes in elevation a problem NASA discovered with ICESat's single-laser system, GLAS. ATLAS is also equipped with a back-up laser in case of malfunctions.
ATLAS shoots 10,000 laser pulses every second, with each pulse containing about 300 trillion photons. Only about a dozen photons return to the satellite, where they bounce off a 2.6-foot (0.8 meter) reflective beryllium mirror into a sensor. The sensor stops the "stopwatch" and measures the photons' travel time to within 1-billionth of a second. This timing is matched with the satellite's location determined by an onboard GPS system and a Star Tracker that observes nearby constellations to figure the spacecraft's orientation and determines what object on Earth was measured
"To put this in perspective, in the half-second it takes a person to blink, ICESat-2 will collect 5,000 elevation measurements in each of its six beams," said Tom Wagner, ICESat-2's program scientist at NASA headquarters in Washington, D.C. And each of those measurements is 28 inches (71 centimeters) apart.
Moving in an orbit that goes from pole to pole, ICESat-2 traverses 1,387 different orbital paths every 91 days. Consequently, the spacecraft will provide data for every season of the year.
At launch, the satellite was scheduled to operate for three years, but much of its 3,482 lbs. (1,580 kilograms) is fuel that, if desired, can extend ICESat-2's mission to seven years.
STAMFORD As the hurricane season hits its stride, with a major storm pummeling the southern East Coast, maritime managers and harbormasters across the region are urging boat owners to take bad weather seriously.
Depending on its track, Connecticut could face the remnants of Hurricane Florence, but no matter where the storm proceeds, officials say it should be a reminder for boaters to take steps to ensure property and lives are safe.
"Were asking residents not to be complacent," said Ted Jankowski, Stamfords public safety director who spent part of this week meeting with the Army Corps of Engineers at the citys hurricane barrier to prepare for the storm.
Florence, a Category 2 hurricane, is expected to produce catastrophic inland rainfall flooding, life-threatening storm surge and destructive winds this weekend in the Carolinas, according to the National Weather Service.
Jankowski does not expect Stamford to be hit hard by the storm, but warned for boaters and residents to remain vigilant.
"We could be in a dire situation very quickly," he said.
Greenwich Harbormaster Ian Macmillan assembled a safety checklist for boaters after consulting with other harbormasters and experts in the region.
"Recreational boaters, I want to give them something to think about. Hopefully, it will stimulate some thought," Macmillan said. "Especially, due to the fact that one of the most powerful hurricanes ever recorded is bearing down on us."
Heavy-weather preparations should be routine regardless if "a major hurricane is in the news, he said.
"These actions should be practiced as a standard, since unnamed and unpredicted storms can also cause significant damage, he said.
Peter Manion, general manager of Hinckley Yacht Services in Stamford, said about 12 people contacted him this week about removing their boats, but all of them changed their mind when the Connecticut forecast improved.
After a pleasant weekend with sunny skies and temperatures around 80 degrees, there is only a 50 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms on Tuesday and Wednesday in Stamford.
Ahead of the curve
Calm before the storm Greenwich Harbormaster Ian Macmillan offers the following tips for boaters to prepare for major storms: Remove anything from your boat that can catch wind and become airborne, including flags and radar reflectors. Rig a storm bridle (secondary bridle) tied around your mast or primary winches. Attach a storm line or bridle to the bow cleat. Attachment should be verified prior to a storm. Remove and stow anchors. Anchors, especially plow anchors, can act like knives in rough seas and cut mooring bridles. Leave your boat unlocked, batteries charged and on, keys in ignition. Check your bilge and pumps. Keep a flashlight handy. Make sure that chocks have no rough edges that can cause chafe, and make sure cleats are securely fastened to the deck. During rough seas little can be done to prevent a bridle from chafing on a burred chock. You may use chafing gear with some liquid soap to lubricate. Prior to hurricane conditions, attempt to have boat hauled out or relocated to a sheltered harbor. When in a dock or slip, keep lines from being too tight. Be sure to have fenders between your boat and your neighbor's boat, as well as the dock. See More Collapse
Capt. Michael Bagley, director of marine operations for Soundwaters in Stamford, said the organization will remove all of its boats from the water next week.
He advised other boaters to do the same as hurricane season ramps up. The Atlantic hurricane season lasts until Nov. 30 with the greatest threats to Connecticut between mid-August and mid-October.
"I hope some folks look at it and say, Im going to get ahead of the curve," he said.
Bagley urges boaters to have a plan to move their vessels in the days before a major storm is expected.
Bagley said those whose boats remain in the water should protect them by removing sails, adding dock lines and chafing gear, among other mitigation tactics.
Manion said emergency plans often depend on the size and cost of the boat.
"It depends on how much they got invested in their toy," he said. "If its a $1 million toy, youre going to have a plan."
Some boaters have a way of taking unnecessary risks, local marina workers say. At the Harbor Point Marina in New Haven, manager Mark Hampson has seen plenty of boaters who are over-confident and under-prepared for serious weather.
"I remember one time, the forecast said wed get storms from 2 to 3 p.m. This one guy, he went out at 1:30," Hampson recalled. The man damaged his boat in heavy seas, and was not wearing a life jacket when he returned.
"Foolhardy," Hampson noted.
Frank Gulia, a manager at the Cedar Marina in Bridgeport, said he always offers casual safety reminders to people when hes out on the docks.
"Hows your batteries? Hows your radio? Do you have your flares?" Gulia will ask when chatting with boaters.
"Its a conversation we try to have. You can get people to think without lecturing them.
The U.S. Coast Guard warns boaters of the extreme weather that often occurs during the fall.
"Always keep an eye on the forecast, keep your safety gear intact and file a float plan let a friend or spouse know where youre going and when youll be back," said Petty Officer Hunter Medley, a Coast Guard spokesman. "Be especially aware of the weather be cognizant of how the weather can change pretty quickly this time of year."
STAMFORD City lawmakers want to change the leaf-pickup ordinance to stop Mayor David Martins plan to require bagging when collection begins in six weeks.
Despite a warning from Martin that the change will be unenforceable, the Board of Representatives voted 19-9 to publish the amended ordinance, which would allow residents a choice pile loose leaves at the edge of their property, which has been the practice for decades, or bag them.
The ordinance now requires only that the city collect leaves each fall. It does not specify a method.
The vote Wednesday night triggered a public hearing, which has been scheduled for 7 p.m. Sept. 27. Because a large number of residents are expected to speak, the hearing will be held in the boards legislative chambers on the fourth floor of the Stamford Government Center. Following the hearing, representatives will vote on whether to pass the amended ordinance.
But it appears Martins office is moving ahead with the bagged-leaf program. Libby Carlson, special assistant to the mayor, said Thursday that informational materials are being prepared so they can be sent to residents by Oct. 1.
This time frame will give homeowners enough time to learn about the program before the leaves start falling, Carlson said in an email. Unfortunately, we cannot wait until after the public hearing. We need to move now in order to give residents time.
But time is why representatives want residents to have options this fall. Their reasons are spelled out in the proposed amendment, which says property owners are not prepared to shift to bagging after 40 years of curbside collection, and it imposes an undue financial and physical burden on many of our most vulnerable residents.
Autumn nightmare
During Wednesdays special board meeting, Martin addressed representatives before they voted, saying the city can no longer collect loose leaves, which he called an operational nightmare that puts the city at risk for violating state environmental regulations.
If the 40-member board passes the proposed amendment signed by 22 of them the city cannot carry it out, Martin said.
This ordinance will be unenforceable because we dont have the money, the mayor said. We have to pull the trigger now.
Stamford is one of the few municipalities in the area that still collects loose leaves, he told the board.
Loose-leaf collection involves 100 city and seasonal employees, 60 pieces of equipment, and 4,000 hours of overtime, for a total cost of about $660,000, Martin said. Leaves end up in the street, where they clog storm drains and get washed into Long Island Sound, a violation of state environmental law for which the city can be fined, he said.
This ordinance (amendment) will set us on a path of more conflict and legal challenges, Martin said.
Camels back
Despite that, he reiterated that the reason he is imposing the bag requirement now is because the board in May cut $1.4 million from his 2018-19 budget-increase request, forcing him to find savings in places he did not anticipate.
Martin said he originally budgeted for loose-leaf pickup, but is switching to bags because he thinks it will save $200,000. He has considered switching before but never devised a bag program, said the mayor, now in his second term.
The budget cut was the straw that broke the camels back, but the camel was already heavily loaded because loose-leaf pickup is such a costly undertaking, Martin said.
More Information Votes from Board of Representatives special meeting on amended leaf-pickup ordinance Yes Marc Aquila, D-17 Mary Fedeli, R-17 Anzelmo Graziosi, R-13 Steven Kolenberg, R-16 Alice Liebson, D-11 Bob Lion, D-19 Diane Lutz, D-14 Dennis Mahoney, R-20 Raven Matherne, D-19 Marion McGarry, D-12 J.R. McMullen, R-18 Lindsey Miller, D-7 Mavina Moore, D-10 Eric Morson, D-13 Charles Pia Jr., R-18 Rodney Pratt, D-9 Matthew Quinones, D-16 Nina Sherwood, D-8 Annie Summerville, D-6 No Megan Cottrell, D-4 Virgil de la Cruz, D-2 Monica Di Costanzo, D-7 Philip Giordano, D-10 Jonathan Jacobson, D-12 Benjamin Lee, D-15 Bradley Michelson, R-1 Susan Nabel, D-20 David Watkins, R-1 Excused Robert Roqueta, D-4 Absent Terry Adams, D-3 Elise Coleman, D-3 Gloria DePina, D-5 Anabel Figueroa, D-8 Denis Patterson, D-6 Tom Pendell, D-15 Ines Saftic, D-2 Tony Spadaccini, R-14 Jeffrey Stella, D-9 Lila Wallace, D-5 John Zelinsky, D-11 See More Collapse
Rep. J.R. McMullen, R-18, one of the board members who proposed the amendment, said some people in his district bagged their leaves last year.
They got collected, McMullen said. So this is not so much an option for two ways to collect leaves. This is how weve been doing it.
Rep. Steven Kolenberg, R-16, said hes been inundated with calls and emails from constituents, many of them seniors.
The problem is the sudden and hurried implementation of this program, Kolenberg said. If we are going to do it, lets come up with a cohesive program that we can all support.
Rep. Philip Giordano, D-10, said he lives in a co-op building where residents have bagged their leaves for 24 years.
Its easier, environmentally better, and less trouble because loose leaves land in the street, making it difficult to walk and drive, Giordano said.
No deal
Martin offered a compromise, telling representatives he can perhaps do one round of loose-leaf pickup and a second round of bagged-leaf pickup this fall, but only if they help him raise revenue. Next month, he will bring a number of fee-hike requests before the board, Martin said, asking representatives to consider supporting them in good faith.
But 19 representatives voted to move the amendment forward. Nine opposed, one was excused, and 11 were absent, which is not unusual for special meetings because they are called on short notice.
If the board passes the amended ordinance on Sept. 27, the mayor has 10 days to sign it, according to the city code. If the mayor decides to veto, the board has 40 days to vote on whether to override him. An override requires that two-thirds of the 40 members agree, meaning 27 votes.
City Rep. Nina Sherwood, D-8, said its unreasonable to impose a change that requires significant effort and expense from residents so soon before leaf collection begins. Sherwood said she recently appeared in a WCBS-TV News segment that compared Stamford with New Rochelle, N.Y., a city of 80,000 in Westchester County, where City Manager Charles Strome explained that residents received 10 months notice before a bagging program was started.
Officials held several meetings with landscapers and sent repeated notices to residents, Strome told CBS-TV. The key, he said, was getting the political support for it ... because thats always difficult, but advance notice and plenty of notice and information.
Stamford must do that, Sherwood said.
We need to work together, she said. To rush it like this isnt fair.
acarella@stamfordadvocate.com; 203-964-2296.
Every startup founder dreams of launching the next Airbnb, SpaceX or Uber. The glamour of these $1 billion+ valued startups motivates countless founders to chase after that coveted unicorn status with their own valuations.
However, the obvious question few can anwer is, How exactly is a startup valued?
Valuing a publicly traded company is very straightforward. Its market capitalization (or market cap) is simply the number of shares outstanding multiplied by current share price. The share price itself depends on known strengths of the company and market forces, and is therefore, seldom way off the mark.
However, the value of a (rarely profit-making) startup is not at all easy to calculate. In fact, it is at best, an estimate. In layperson language, you could take it to be the sum total of all the resources, intellectual capital, technology, brand value and financial assets that the startup brings to the table.
Very often, startups valuations far exceed the sum of their parts, and theres no universally accepted formula that you can use. VCs, for example, start with the amount they want to exit with and go on to factor in the expected ROI, the amount they invest, the stockholding percentages they can negotiate with the founders to arrive at whats called the pre-money valuation. Thats just one method, though. There are a ton of widely used methods to arrive at a startups pre-money valuation.
That brings us to the next logical question for founders -- Whats pre-money valuation and why should I care?
Pre-money valuation is essentially how you value your business. It is the value youll quote to a potential venture capitalist or other funding source to get funding for your business. The higher (and more accurate) your valuation, the better is your capacity to attract funding. Unfortunately, research from CB Insights shows that the chances of the average startup hitting a billion dollars in valuation is less than one percent.
So what, you ask? Even if your startup doesnt become the next unicorn in the Startups Hall of Fame, theres no stopping you from getting a strong valuation from your investors. All you need to do is mind these seven things before your next pitch to a potential investor.
Related: How a High Valuation Can Run Your Business Into the Ground
1. Paying customers who actually use the product.
Be it a search engine, a social network or even a dating app, every user loves a free-to-use service. However, most investors arent so thrilled about freebies. Not a single one of the top five US startups is a free-to-use service. Each one has paying customers.
Pinterest, which is a free-to-use social media network, comes in at number seven, but that too has its own clear revenue model. Even though the platform is free for members to use, it has customers who pay good money to advertise their products to Pinterests members, thus ensuring a steady revenue model.
No matter how potentially world-changing your idea might be, you need customers who pick up the tab for the work that you do. Thats the first thing that draws in discerning investors.
2. Traction: Where are you going and how fast are you getting there?
How long has it been since you founded your startup? How fast have you been growing relative to your competition? Where does the company seem to be headed in the next 12 to 24 months? These are all valid questions investors expect answers for when they evaluate a startup. Am ideal candidate for investment is a fast-growing startup in the initial stages of its lifecycle with a growth curve waiting to happen.
Some startups to hit a billion-dollar valuation remarkably fast. Scooter startup Bird hit the $1 billion mark 1.25 years after being founded; its valuation grew by mind boggling numbers in a matter of months. Valued at $400 million in March 2018, it nearly tripled in valuation in under three months!
Related: Business Valuation Is Not Just A Number, It's A Story
3. Profitability: Show me the money!
Anyone can show a lot of revenue by burning through a ton of funding. Discounts, sales and freebies are easy ways to reel in the buyers and grow your revenues. However, simply focusing on revenues with nary a thought about margins, profitability or cash flows is a shortcut to startup disaster, as many failed ecommerce businesses have repeatedly demonstrated.
Africas first unicorn startup Jumia showed us that its possible to focus on ROI and profitability even in an intensely revenue-oriented industry like ecommerce. Instead of focusing on just conversion optimization, Jumia targeted revenue optimization through a strategy of aggressive retargeting ads. The results were stupendous. From a 57 percent ROAS (Return On Ad Spend) in Egypt to 120 percent in Nigeria, Jumias is the largest ecommerce player in all of Africa.
4. Brand value
As a new entity, consumers first need to be aware of a startup to use its products or services. Brand awareness and recall are critical to the success of any startup. However, not all brand value comes from spending big marketing dollars. A lot of it can come from word of mouth, PR and other sources.
SpaceX, currently valued between $20 and $25 billion, has outpaced revenue growth year on year. Its true that SpaceX has pushed new boundaries in terms of low cost satellite launches, giving established players a run for their money. But the outsized valuation the company enjoys is in no small part to the halo effect the SpaceX brand enjoys from its founder Elon Musks personality cult.
Related: 12 Amazing Facts About Elon Musk's SpaceX
5. Frequency of capital infusion
Consumers are not the only people with a fear of missing out (FOMO). When investors see a startup thats received funding multiple times in the past, their interest is sparked. Clearly the startups earlier investors had faith that it would do well; letting a chance to invest in it go by might be a missed opportunity.
And thats how money follows money in the startup world.
While the amount of funds raised by a startup can be a factor of its founders ability to pitch and close a deal, a startups past funding is often the prime motivator for new funding to come in. Ask any founder -- its toughest to get early investors to believe in your vision and offer seed capital. Once the company has started off and proved itself, subsequent rounds come in on the basis of previous funding rounds and buzz about the company in the investor community.
6. Competition and maturity of market
First mover advantage may sound fabulous to a copycat business but it can be terrifying to the startup taking those first steps. When companies enter a new market or develop a market through a novel business concept, founders have two tasks ahead of them. First convince investors and then convince the consumer that their business idea is fabulous.
On the flipside, entering a mature market thats crowded with established players means a startup is another me-too and its potential for growth will be limited. Funding will reflect this harsh reality.
However, if youre a disruptor like Warby Parker, you have nothing to worry about. Warby Parker pulled off three compelling feats with consummate ease. Not only did it create the very first ecommerce business with a vertically integrated supply chain, it also dared to carve a niche for itself in the eyewear market that was monopolized by Italian giant Luxottica. Better still, Warby Parker even managed to raise $215 million at a valuation of $1.2 billion in just five years.
Related: For Warby Parker, Free Glasses Equals Clear Company Vision
7. Understanding of business model
Finally, the amount of funds you raise and the strength of your valuation, boils down to the business you are in and how strong a grip you have on making it work. Hindsight is always 20/20, its taking a sound decision in the moment that makes all the difference.
Take Facebook for example. In its original avatar, Mark Zuckerberg and his co-founders spent considerable amounts of time and effort on getting advertisers for their site. Thankfully, Facebook did not become yet another publisher site for one-size-fits-all advertising. Instead, Facebook eventually realized that the companys real value lay in their rich user data and gigantic user base that they monetized later to spectacular results.
No matter how big or small your business. As long as you know the mantra that makes your project sing, you can count on investors jumping in and joining the chorus!
Related:
7 Factors That Influence Startup Valuations
Entrepreneur Elevator Pitch Season 3 Episode 1: 'Is She Pitching Us?'
Why Valuing Your Business Can Enhance Its Value
Copyright 2018 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved
Ghost the Musical: This musical adaptation of the 1990 film follows the aftermath of Sam's murder, as he tries to protect his beloved Molly from an unknown threat. Through Oct. 14 at Theatre at the Center, 1040 N. Ridge Road; 219-836-3255 and www.theatreatthecenter.com
America's senior citizens -- a fast-growing demographic accounting for 15 percent of the countrys population including our mothers, brothers, aunts and grandfathers -- are in significant danger.
Not only are seniors among our most vulnerable populations amid rising housing and healthcare costs, but their health and well-being is also deteriorating rapidly. Specific pain syndromes become more common with each passing year. As with most other demographics, physicians have been prescribing opioids to alleviate seniors pain for decades. And, like every other demographic, seniors risk becoming addicted to these dangerous, even deadly, opioids.
The opioid epidemic is well-documented but a safer alternative to these opioids is not. As Ive done in many face-to-face interactions in my capacity as the founder of a pioneering marijuana topicals brand, Im writing to encourage my elders to try cannabis as a potential replacement to their synthetic opioids. Cannabis is non-toxic, less addictive and a completely natural alternative painkiller that is medically proven to relieve pain.
It helps when I tell my senior friends that a new, first-of-its-kind peer-reviewed study recently found that medical cannabis therapy can significantly reduce chronic pain in patients age 65 and older without adverse effects. In fact after six months, more than 18 percent of the studys nearly 3,000 patients surveyed had either stopped using opioids or reduced their dosage.
Even with this important research, I know this is a big ask for many seniors. For most of their lives they have been told marijuana is a life-ruining gateway drug. But times have changed, my senior citizen friends, and thankfully so has science and the prevailing medical opinions of some of the worlds most discerning health authorities.
Related: Why Are Opioid Painkillers Legal But Marijuana Isn't?
Why seniors should consider cannabis instead of opioids.
Lets start with some basics: There is no good evidence supporting the hypothesis of marijuana as a gateway drug. Conversely, extensive recent research suggests that marijuana might be an anti-gateway drug -- or an exit drug, if you will. Well talk more about that shortly.
The lingering stigma surrounding cannabis use goes far beyond the gateway theory. Nonetheless, we are moving beyond prohibition-era misinformation to embrace a fact-based relationship with marijuana as medicine. And while Pew research tells us the silent generation is the only adult American demographic that doesnt support marijuana legalization, they are also Americas fastest-growing population of new cannabis users, according to The New Yorker.
It helps, too, that modern cannabis use goes significantly deeper than smoking pot. Some consume marijuana via vaporizers and infused edibles, some of which are mind-altering and some of which arent, depending on the products cannabinoid content. But many others apply marijuana topicals (lotions, oils, salves and creams) directly on their skin, a nonpsychoactive application that is especially useful for localized relief in joints, muscles and specific problem areas (back, hands, etc).
And I get it, senior friends: Seeing cannabis as a medicine might go against every fiber of your being. But please keep reading.
Lets now address the primary issue of the pain that threatens to ruin your quality of life, the pain that first drove you to your physicians office, the pain that was the symptom for your most recent opioid prescription. Can cannabis help with this pain?
In many cases, the answer is yes. Study after study tells us the use of marijuana for chronic pain, neuropathic pain and spasticity due to multiple sclerosis is supported by high quality evidence like this Harvard-led review, which published those exact findings.
Related: The Opioid Crisis Is Forcing Open Minds About the Lifesaving Potential of Medical Marijuana
Perhaps more convincingly, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine released one of the most comprehensive studies on marijuanas therapeutic potential and found conclusive or substantial evidence that cannabis or cannabinoids are effective: for the treatment for chronic pain in adults; antiemetics in the treatment of chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting; and for improving patient-reported multiple sclerosis spasticity symptoms.
Both of those studies echoed the encouraging findings of a landmark review published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2015, noting the moderate-quality evidence to support the use of cannabinoids for the treatment of chronic pain and spasticity.
Clear evidence cannabis is safe for the elderly.
So yes, todays most trusted research suggests cannabis can help with your pain -- but how does this research relate to a senior citizens mind and body? Well, that peer-reviewed study I mentioned earlier, which was written by researchers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and the Cannabis Clinical Research Institute at Soroka University Medical Center and published this year in The European Journal of Internal Medicine, says marijuana is a powerful, safe and effective pain medicine for aging populations, too.
As the researchers wrote: Cannabis therapy is safe and efficacious for elderly patients who are seeking to address cancer symptoms, Parkinson's disease, post-traumatic stress disorder, ulcerative colitis, Crohn's disease, multiple sclerosis and other medical issues.
According to Professor Victor Novack, M.D., professor of medicine in the BGU Faculty of Health Sciences and head of the Soroka Cannabis Clinical Research Institute: "While older patients represent a large and growing population of medical cannabis users, few studies have addressed how it affects this particular group, which also suffers from dementia, frequent falls, mobility problems, and hearing and visual impairments. After monitoring patients 65 and older for six months, we found medical cannabis treatment significantly relieves pain and improves quality of life for seniors with minimal side effects reported."
So cannabis is a legitimate painkiller for our aging population, too -- and this is where the exit drug theory comes from. Research published in the Journal of Pain found that cannabis use was associated with 64 percent lower opioid use in patients with chronic pain.
More research published in journal Health Affairs found that the use of prescription drugs for which marijuana could serve as a clinical alternative fell significantly, once a medical marijuana law was implemented. Another study published in the Journal of Health Economics found that access to medical cannabis reduced opioid-related death rates. And yet another study published earlier this year in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that, Medical cannabis policies may be one mechanism that can encourage lower prescription opioid use and serve as a harm abatement tool in the opioid crisis.
Suddenly the exit drug theory is picking up legitimacy and momentum, made all the more meaningful in light of the brand new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data telling us that more than 49,000 Americans died from opioid overdoses in 2017, a 4.1 fold increase from 2002 numbers.
President Donald Trump last year declared the opioid crisis a public health emergency, falling short of his promise to declare it a national emergency. But other public officials are speaking to the dangerous and deadly opioid crisis, including former Rhode Island congressman Patrick Kennedy, who was a member of President Trump's Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis. This is no longer an opioid crisis, said Kennedy. This is a moral crisis . . . we know how to answer this problem, but we can't get around our own prejudices.
I agree wholeheartedly with Kennedy, who has long been one of Americas most vocal opponents of cannabis legalization. We do know how to answer this problem, and we cant get around our own prejudices -- though the alternative hes referencing is medication-assisted therapies, and the alternative Im referencing is medical cannabis.
So, to Americas treasured senior citizens, Ill leave you all with this: Dont listen to me. Listen to todays most trusted and vetted science, which is telling you that, at worst, a physician-OKd regimine of cannabis wont hurt you -- and at best, it might even save your life.
Related:
A Plea to Our Elders: Consider Medical Marijuana Before Opioids
Exclusive: Former MTV and Conde Nast Exec Takes Cannabis CEO Role
The Evolving Cannabis Market Offers Limitless Opportunities
Copyright 2018 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved
BRUSSELS - European lawmakers voted Wednesday to initiate sanctions proceedings against the Hungarian government for what they said was backsliding on democracy, an extraordinary censure for a nation that was once a beacon of post-Communist transformation.
The measure, which required a two-thirds supermajority of the European Parliament to pass, declared there was a "clear risk of serious breach" of European values by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. It was the first step in a process that could ultimately strip Hungary of its voice in decision-making in the European Union.
The decision creates head winds for Orban's ambitious quest to remake the continent in his model of "illiberal democracy" - a bloc that would be closer to Russia, less open to migration, and less concerned about independent judiciaries, a free press and minority rights.
The vote on the proceedings, known as Article 7 after a provision in the EU treaties, was welcomed by Orban's increasingly besieged foes inside Hungary, who saw it as their final hope to preserve democratic values at home, and his critics across Europe.
"The alt-right in Europe is trying to undermine this European Union," Guy Verhofstadt, a Belgian member of the European Parliament, said ahead of the final tally. "And it is, in fact, trying to take over European politics from within."
Despite the vote's symbolism, however, it is probably too late for Orban's critics to succeed in blocking Hungary's EU voting rights or win major concessions from him. Orban has teamed up with Poland, another EU country that has been slapped for rule-of-law problems, to protect each other against punitive measures targeting either nation that require the unanimous vote of all 28 EU countries.
The gravity of the measure was reflected in the supermajority necessary to pass it onward to EU for further study. It passed with 448 lawmakers in favor, 197 against.
Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto called the vote the "petty revenge of pro-immigration politicians" and said Hungary would fight it.
Orban on Tuesday castigated European lawmakers in a fiery speech at the parliamentary chambers in Strasbourg, France, saying, "Hungary is going to be condemned because the Hungarian people have decided that this country is not going to be a country of migrants."
He said Europe had no right to interfere in the actions of a sovereign government.
"Hungary will not accede to this blackmailing. Hungary will protect its borders, stop illegal migration," he said, "and if needed we will stand up to you."
Orban, who has been elected four times and now presides over what is effectively a one-party state, has been a thorn in the side of EU leaders since he came back to office in 2010. He cracked down on media freedoms, rewrote laws to favor his center-right Fidesz party and has blasted Brussels for allowing a wave of more than 1 million migrants into Europe in 2015.
When Orban began consolidating power after his 2010 election victory, he was largely the only leader in the EU promoting what he calls his "illiberal" platform. Since then, far-right politicians have gained ground across the continent, including in Italy, where they are in government, and in Sweden, where an anti-immigrant party won its best result to date in elections on Sunday.
Along the way, Orban has been shielded by his alliance with fellow center-right European leaders as part of the European People's Party, an arrangement that gives them control of the European Parliament and, other leaders have said, more sway over his moves at home.
The partnership has created increasing uneasiness as leaders who portray themselves as defenders of liberal European values, including German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, have found themselves covering for Orban as he cracks down on civil society and the free press.
Wednesday's vote was the first sign of a split, with 115 lawmakers from that party voting against Hungary and only 57 defending it. Manfred Weber, the German leader of the European People's Party and an influential voice in the debate, said Tuesday night he had had enough.
"The values of the European Union are not negotiable for us," Weber said. "We had enough dialogue."
The vote in Strasbourg was closely watched in Hungary by the people and institutions that have been the targets of increasingly repressive moves by Orban's government.
The vote was seen as a possible last chance to put a brake on Orban's most illiberal behavior, which has included criminalizing the work of nongovernmental organizations that assist refugees and an attempt to oust a renowned university.
"If there isn't a clear signal from the European Parliament, then we have a very tough few months ahead of us," said Marta Pardavi, co-chair of the Budapest-based Hungarian Helsinki Committee, who traveled to Brussels last week to lobby lawmakers to vote for the sanctions.
"I told them, 'Right now, I am sitting with you talking. But six months down the line, I might be sitting with you in prison.' I think that was important for them to hear," she said.
Pardavi's organization, which advocates on behalf of refugees and other marginalized groups, is among those that could be punished under legislation passed in June that makes it illegal for individuals or groups to help undocumented immigrants gain asylum.
Also watching the vote carefully were professors, students and administrators at Central European University, a U.S.- and Hungarian-accredited institution in Budapest. It could be forced into exile in the coming months, the culmination of a year-and-a-half campaign by the government to discredit it.
Michael Ignatieff, the university's president, said the vote could be a key moment in determining whether the university gets to stay. It was also, he said, a critical choice for conservative leaders across Europe who have advocated for CEU but who had, at least until Wednesday, also sought to avoid alienating Orban.
"European conservatism has a very honorable tradition of supporting the rule of law and academic freedom," said Ignatieff, a human rights scholar and former Canadian politician. "This is when European conservatism defines itself."
- - -
Witte reported from Budapest. The Washington Post's Quentin Aries in Brussels contributed to this report.
My father passed away in 1974, and, if he came back to life, hed be bewildered by the high-tech world of 2018. An old-school guy who saw World War II as the best years of his life, hed tell you things were better during the good old days.
But hed be wrong. During my lifetime, its been two steps forward (computers, cable TV, medicine, and civil, gay, animal and womens rights) and one step back (evangelical Christianity, rap music, terrorism and the burgeoning crazy on the Right). On balance, life has improved faster than its deteriorated.
For example, old guys love saying, They dont build cars like they used to. Theyre right; todays cars are better. They require little maintenance and start every morning, no matter how bad the weather. In the old days, I never had a car make it past 100,000 miles, and they all needed constant attention. Nowadays, my Toyota has been running great for 165,000 miles with barely any maintenance. And the classic cars are overrated: For every 56 Corvette or 55 Thunderbird, theres a 59 Buick Electra or 59 Cadillac ugly, finned monstrosities so gaudy a pimp would be embarrassed to own one.
Classic cars have nowhere to plug in an iPhone for its GPS. Ask yourself this: When was the last time you had to ask for directions or got lost driving somewhere? Pretty much every road in the country, paved or not, has been mapped. When I have my driveway plowed after it snows, it probably shows up in Google Maps. Meanwhile, this same iPhone provides thousands of songs for my listening pleasure wherever Im going.
Apple Inc. may be the greatest miracle of the 21st century. Not only has the iPhone obsoleted my iPod (which was the greatest musical advance since the piano), but the apps written for it are amazing from filming video and identifying almost every song ever recorded just by sampling a few notes (Shazam), to finding the best moussaka within a 10-mile radius (Urban Spoon) and playing World of Warcraft.
Admittedly, its a step back that you can be killed by drivers texting or talking on their phones. And you can be sued by sleazy, rapacious personal-injury lawyers who advertise (i.e., ambulance chase) on cable TV, just for running over a pedestrian whos texting while hes crossing an intersection. (Its debatable whether squashing one of those self-absorbed twits or their lawyers is a step back or forward.)
Written communication has also improved. You can text on your phone, expand it into an email, then print it out on paper and mail it as a letter in an envelope. Just dont make it too long, or no one will read it. Our president has made not reading great again, and fewer and fewer Americans will read anything longer than a couple paragraphs. (The best place to hide something secret from a Millennial would be inside a library book.)
In the good old days, you had to get off the couch to manually click through seven grainy channels on a 19-inch, black-and-white TV that cost a small fortune. Today, you can choose from 300 channels on a reasonably priced, 60-inch UHD TV, using a remote control that does everything, including almost literally stopping time with its Pause button. I have seven remotes in my man cave, including one for my air conditioner, so I dont work up a sweat, which would be counterproductive when I need to cool off.
When was the last time you stood in a long line in some banks rat maze, holding a check you needed to cash? The lines are gone, and you seldom need to go inside anymore, because you can do most banking online or with your ATM card. (Due to computerization, bank tellers will soon join blacksmiths and whale harpooners in the history books, to be followed closely by cab drivers and supermarket cashiers.)
And when was the last time you paid for film or for out-of-focus vacation prints? Digital cameras and iPhones have made film photography largely obsolete, and competent photographers take great pictures with their phones. I couldnt take a good photograph with a $48,000 Hasselblad DSLR and Ansel Adams whispering advice in my ear; however, I can at least delete the blurry photos in my phone without paying for them.
As we baby boomers head for nursing homes and assisted-living facilities, medical science is keeping us functioning longer and better. I wear hearing aids, orthotics and progressive trifocals. I also have a pacemaker in my chest and a defibrillator to keep my heart pumping. In many situations that had once been fatal, I cant die, even if I want to Im like the Bionic Man, if the Bionic Man were old, burnt-out and decrepit.
There are drugs for nearly every ailment you can think of, plus many youve never heard of, which I suspect may have been discovered by drug companies just so theyd have more things to medicate. The step back with all these pharmaceuticals is the endless airing of TV commercials featuring their side effects from cholesterol meds that may cause strokes or anal leakage to antidepressants that ironically pose the risk of depression and suicide.
Some of us senior citizens are concerned about the side effects of the huge step back represented by the election of a fascistic, congenital liar as president in 2016. The greatness in his MAGA slogan is thus far reminiscent of the good old days of the Nixon years, but worse. Absent a couple of steps forward (in 2018 and 2020), the degeneration of the presidency, combined with the fecklessness of a Republican Congress, will make it harder for future generations to ever refer to 2018 as the good old days.
Greenwich native Mark Drought (markdrought4@gmail.com) is an editor at a Stamford IT firm and was an adjunct English professor at the University of Connecticut-Stamford.
The nation's chief energy regulator is moving to reassert control of his agenda amid criticism that his agency is mired in political turmoil.
Kevin McIntyre, who leads the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, said the thorny issue of grid resilience is at the top of his priorities list, along with an examination of how pipelines are approved and a look at a 40-year old law designed to promote renewable energy.
That may be easier said than done as the agency, which is split on party lines, waits for President Donald Trump to fill a newly vacant seat and as speculation builds over what role, if any, the commission may play in an administration plan to bail out money-losing coal and nuclear plants. Even the specter of partisanship could cause problems for the agency, which is tasked with approving multibillion-dollar natural gas projects and overseeing wholesale power markets.
"The appearance of politicization will yield more protests and litigation from everyone," said Nora Mead Brownell, a former commissioner and co-founder of ESPY Energy Solutions. "Once you interject politics, you interject a degree of uncertainty that will drive away capital and drive up the cost of capital."
Usually regarded as politically independent, the agency is already under scrutiny after McIntyre's chief of staff, Anthony Pugliese, gave an interview to right-wing news outlet Breitbart. Later, Pugliese told an industry conference the agency is helping the administration identify "critical" coal and nuclear power plants, a key step in the White House's plan to keep those facilities online. That prompted Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., to question the commission's impartiality.
"We believe this action would violate the requirement that FERC remain a neutral and unbiased decisionmaker," they wrote.
McIntyre defended Pugliese in a letter to the lawmakers and in a podcast posted to the agency's website Tuesday. In addition to downplaying concerns about Pugliese, McIntyre credited his chief of staff with helping to expedite reviews of liquefied natural gas permits. The commission last month announced environmental review deadlines for 12 LNG export projects, a crucial step before companies can begin construction of the multibillion-dollar terminals.
A bigger issue for McIntyre might be the approval of new gas pipelines, as the commission has been split on the extent to which climate change should be factored into their decisions. In addition, legal challenges to proposed projects have become more sophisticated and have successfully delayed pipelines.
"Assuming the commission flips back to the Democrats at some point, FERC could become an impassable roadblock for new infrastructure if the Commission applies a climate test to every project," said Ethan Bellamy, an analyst at Robert W Baird & Co. "Therefore, industry needs to push for a full Commission as soon as possible, and drive hard to get any new interstate projects certificated before 2020."
Regardless of the agency's political make-up, some former commissioners insist that its protocols will ensure the agency's future independence.
"Not only is there an open and transparent record that has to be fully available to any party, but any party can take them to court and appeal their decisions and challenge whether or not they made them based on the record," said Jon Wellinghoff, who chaired the agency from 2009 to 2013. "There is a complete administrative and legal check to ensure that their process is open, transparent and fair."
And the agency says it's not unusual for commissioners to hold differences of opinion on policy matters, which only improves the decision-making process.
After a break in August, the agency is set to resume its regular monthly meetings on Sept. 20.
The administration's renewed attempt to save unprofitable power plants from closure could be the most pressing issue facing the commission in the near term.
The expected nomination of Energy Department staffer Bernard McNamee, who was involved in the earlier ill-fated coal bailout, to fill the vacant spot on the commission could give the administration a key ally and further increase concerns the agency is becoming politicized.
The dark comedy follows Patty (Debby Ryan), who for years has been bullied, ignored, and underestimated by those around her because of her weight. But now that she finds herself suddenly thin, Patty is out for payback against anyone who has ever made her feel bad about herself.
Bob Stefanowski, the Republican candidate who didnt apply for the states public financing system, shamed his Republican competitors for using it and spent millions of his own money on an expensive pre-primary television campaign, may be running out of money.
In a plea to potential contributors, his wife said Stefanowskis newest ad could be pulled off the air if he doesnt raise $10,000 by Monday night.
This is a crucial moment for the campaign, and we just cant afford to be off the airwaves, Amy Stefanowski wrote. That is why Im personally asking you to make a donation to help us with this. Meeting this $10,000 goal means staying on the air and reaching 100,000 voters with our winning message.
Stefanowski spent nearly $200,000 since August 27 on television ads. They are slated to stop running by September 14, a Hearst Connecticut Media review of the campaigns spending on WTNH, WFSB and Fox 61 showed. Stefanowski has not advertised on NBC since the primary.
Bob is prepared to put in as much as it takes to win, Kendall Marr, the campaigns spokesman, said.
Stefanowskis pre-primary campaign relied heavily on TV advertisements, which began airing long before any of his competitors and gave him name recognition that helped him secure a victory. Running as a political outsider, he skipped the convention process, which also means he may have bypassed many of the typical donors.
According to his most recent campaign finance report, Stefanowski has loaned his campaign $2.3 million and raised about $600,000 more. But as of August 9, the most recent available report, his campaign had just $116,927 on hand and roughly $75,000 in unpaid expenses.
Unless he picks up the pace on fundraising or is prepared to dip further into his personal coffers, the drought could put Stefanowski at a financial disadvantage against Democrat Ned Lamont, a telecommunications magnate and multimillionaire from Greenwich, who is funding his own campaign.
Outside help
Though Stefanowski said repeatedly that he would be funding his own campaign, outside groups are already stepping up.
A $1,000-a-plate luncheon is scheduled for Wednesday at the famed Belle Haven Club in Greenwich, said Ed Dadakis, former Greenwich Republican Town Committee chairman. Republican National Committeewoman Leora Levy, who lives in Greenwich, is one of the organizers, and is also organizing a second fundraiser for Stefanowski this week.
In addition, the Republican Governors Association has invested in the race through a Political Action Committee supporting Stefanowski called Change PAC.
Were not worried, said Jon Thompson, spokesman for the association. I think its a team effort between the campaign and the Republican Governors Association. At the end of the day, hes going to have enough money when you factor in all efforts.
Ronald Schurin, an associate professor of political science at the University of Connecticut, said that Stefanowskis financial woes combined with a lack of name recognition could be detrimental.
Stefanowski is not well known, Schurin said. Only a minority of Republicans actually voted in their partys primary and he got only 29 percent of them. So for him, especially, not to be out on the air between now and the end of September when an impression of him will be formed ... its a big disadvantage, especially against Lamont who is already better known.
Lamont spent about $2.6 million on his primary campaign to beat Bridgeport Mayor Joe Ganim. But he spent ten times that, a combined $26 million, on his 2006 U.S. Senate campaign and his 2010 campaign for governor, which he lost to Gov. Dannel P. Malloy.
Staff writer Ken Dixon contributed to this report.
kkrasselt@hearstmediact.com
T hey may not be much cop with computers at British Airways, but theyre finally sorting their famous pension crisis.
Having for decades endured jibes for being a pension deficit with an airline attached, BA has been steadily filling the black hole left by its generous defined benefit schemes. More importantly, the recent upturn of bond yields has also helped to narrow the gap between the size of the investment pot and the promise to pay its employees into their old age.
Now, the deficit in one of its schemes has been reduced to a level where it makes sense for it to offload 4.4 billion of its liabilities to Legal & General.
The move works for everyone: BA no longer has to worry about funding this group of pensioners, and L&G gets a big boost to its investment firepower and efficiencies of scale.
The UK benefits, too. Though 4.4 billion may sound like a big pot, its nothing compared with L&Gs 60 billion-plus of annuity funds.
Having a bigger pool of long term funding means L&G can invest in bigger, more socially useful projects, from toll roads to much-needed urban regeneration schemes, while still retaining the crucial diversity of risk in its portfolio. For individual company funds even big ones like BAs to retain such diversity, its investments are inevitably smaller and make less of an impact.
Pension buy-ins are nothing new L&G has been doing them for more than 25 years but todays for BA is the biggest ever.
Thats no coincidence: when deficits are too high, companies like L&G demand a big price to take on the risk. As the hole gets smaller, a sweet spot is reached where the price falls low enough for the deal to make sense. Many big firms are now getting their funds into that attractive position. Last month, L&G said it was offering quotes for 20 billion of deals similar to BAs.
It wont win all that competitors such as Rothesay and Aviva will be fighting for the work, too but pension trustees are forming a queue, and thats good for everyone.
FCA jolly is a bad joke for bankers
For the armies of bankers, fund managers and insurers spending their days ploughing through compliance dumped on them by the FCA, our revelations about the City regulators African drumming awayday come as a very bad joke.
The implications of Mifid II are still causing headaches for most firms, while thousands of London bankers had their summer holidays tarnished by the September 1 start date for new initial margin regulation.
Hard-working folk in the City and Canary Wharf, who ultimately pay for the FCAs jollies, can only dream of having time for such luxuries.
I nsurer Legal & General has clinched the biggest bulk annuity deal to date after taking on responsibility for 22,000 British Airways pensioners.
The 4.4 billion arrangement will cover about 60% of the Airways Pension Schemes payouts to ex-workers and relieve pressure on BA owner IAG, which was previously responsible for the payouts.
The second-largest deal was also by L&G, when it insured 3 billion for the ICI pension funds in 2014.
The FTSE 100 insurer has now clinched 5.3 billion worth of UK pension transfers this year, putting it first above Pension Insurance Corporation, with 3.3 billion worth.
T ransport for London on Thursday unveiled audacious plans to debut in the rental flats market with 3000 homes that could allow tenants to live above tube stations.
The capitals transport authority told the Evening Standard it has identified 10 sites (see box below) where it wants to create properties above existing and future stations and car parks, or on vacant land.
It has hired property agent Savills to find a joint-venture partner, likely to be a property developer or an investment fund, for the project. As part of any deal, the transport body would take a 49% stake and the investor 51%.
The move would create a long-term rental income stream for TfL, which has a near-1 billion debt pile and has faced a catalogue of headwinds that have put its finances under pressure.
It is struggling after a government grant worth 700 million a year was axed, passenger numbers fell and a partial fares freeze was introduced by Mayor Sadiq Khan.
On top of that, Crossrails delay will mean TfL has to wait another year until it gets revenues from the new Elizabeth Line.
Graeme Craig, director of commercial development at TfL, said: We are one of Londons largest landowners and our sites are in the best-connected parts of the capital. Build-to-rent provides us with an unrivalled opportunity to deliver affordable homes at pace while also generating money to plough back into the transport network.
TfL has previously sold land and is developing homes in partnership with housebuilders. It has plans for thousands more private home sales in London. However, this is its first move into the rental market, and would provide it with a longer-term income.
At least 40% of the rental homes will be affordable, it added.
TfL is looking to secure a partner by the end of March 2019. Subject to planning consent, it hopes to start construction by 2020-21.
The new partnership company will establish individual property firms for individual sites which will appoint builders and management operators.
The transport operator joins a raft of investors that have entered the private rental market, attracted by huge tenant demand from Londoners who cant afford to buy, and steady rents.
Legal & General recently bought a build-to-rent site in Woolwich and Invesco Real Estate has agreed to forward-fund a project in Hounslow.
Sites up for grabs
Nine Elms
Southall
Woolwich
Canning Town
Arnos Grove
Cockfosters
Hounslow West
Kennington
Newbury Park
I n 1833 Sir John Soane lobbied Parliament to turn his house and collections in Lincolns Inn Fields into a museum for the benefit of the public. He also bequeathed 30,000 to secure his creations future. It was a controversial move, and in its early years few people came. Fortunately, taste caught up with Soanes theatrical displays, and more than 130,000 visitors come each year to marvel at our collection and step into the mind of an 18th-century architect.
Like all museums, we pay attention to visitor numbers, considered a key performance indicator for our sector alongside donations, sponsorship and outreach. But attendance can fluctuate. When numbers decline for national museums, it is greeted as if foreshadowing the death of civilisation. Yet the numbers remain high more than half the British public visited a museum last year, a substantial vote of confidence in what the museum sector is doing.
There comes a point, however, when growing numbers become counter-productive and we need to find better criteria for judging performance. Attendance numbers cannot be easily monetised: in London admission to national museums like the Soane is free. Instead, we should focus on museums educational and outreach programmes, which engender social well-being.
Museums today are stepping into the gap in the school curriculum where the arts have been marginalised. At the Soane we have a series of after-school programmes for children from seven to 18, introducing young people to the idea that architecture or engineering could be a future career as well as making them aware of the built environment. We are also developing a new project for people living with dementia, in collaboration with Holborn Community Association. It promises to enhance the well-being of people living with cognitive issues as well as their carers (often their spouses). The demand for such programmes will only grow in the coming years.
Most museums today address contemporary issues, and their programmes, like ours, are run by dedicated colleagues working with slender resources. But we are not jettisoning our core responsibilities for our buildings and collections. It is our responsibility to strike the right balance so that we hand over these important national assets to the next generation in as good or, preferably, better condition than we found them.
Sir John Soane wanted his house and collections to be kept as nearly as possible as he left them at his death in 1837. But there has also been a firm conviction that we are not simply a static, house museum. Instead, the Soane was, and is, a vital centre for education, enjoyment and inspiration. Robust visitor numbers are an important component in judging how any museum succeeds, but they should be taken with a grain of salt.
Y OUR Learn to Live Campaign highlights a very important problem. In 2017, a record 68.5 million people were forcibly displaced around the world. Efforts to help them often focus on the urgent questions of food, water, sanitation and drinking water. Unfortunately, as your coverage highlights, this means children and young people miss out on education.
Education in refugee camps is limited at best and often non-existent. And even outside camps, young refugees may still be unable to continue their school or university education in their new homes. For a country torn apart by war, like Syria, this may mean an under-educated generation, with repercussions long into the future.
Building peace, and rebuilding nations, requires educated people. When millions of children grow up with little education, they often feel they lack a stake in the world, sowing the seeds of future conflict and terrorism. Better education for the millions of people fleeing war and persecution benefits us all.
The UK is well respected for the significant financial contribution it makes to helping refugees. But we need to put more effort into education initiatives. For example, there are often teachers already living in refugee camps. Giving them resources to teach the next generation could be an extremely cost-effective use of UK aid money, and a very practical way of encouraging peace.
Thangam Debbonaire
Labour MP and chair of all All-party Parliamentary Group on Refugees
EDITOR'S REPLY
Dear Thangam
Food, water and shelter those are the bases of Maslows hierarchy of needs for a person who has been displaced. But if that is all we can do in the face of a refugee situation, we are failing not just those people who have been displaced but the next generation of the world.
Not providing those children with a path to educations, jobs and opportunities creates a restless and bitter generation with, as you say, repercussions into the future.
Of the many things we can finance in a refugee or war situation, education is the one that does immediately bear fruit. But it should be a core principle to produce a generation with aspirations and capabilities beyond just the basics of living.
And the London students who are communicating with those in war zones will grow up with a wider sense of responsibility to the world.
We are delighted that you have lent your voice to this campaign and hope many in Parliament will follow you.
Joy Lo Dico, Executive Editor (Projects)
Be careful what you wish for with any Canada plus plus deal
This week has seen a crescendo of calls by hard Brexiteers that Britain should opt for a Canada plus plus deal with the EU post-Brexit. As the British people have great affection for Canada, this slogan may produce a sense of reassurance and trust.
As usual, the truth is rather different from what it is cracked up to be. The EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) took more than seven years to negotiate and has more than 1,000 pages of exclusions, which would limit the benefits of a similar model for Britain. It gives minimal access to financial services, a crucial sector for the British economy. It also gives minimal access to agricultural products, which are at least included in the Chequers proposal.
How many of those who invoke CETA so freely have actually read it and its exclusions?
Nicholas Maclean
British board member, Canada-UK Council
Give us answers on NHS post-Brexit
If the news of medical stockpiling after Brexit represents a national scandal, Health Secretary Matt Hancocks admission that taxpayers will have to pay for it is depressing [Taxpayers will help fund drug airlift under no-deal Brexit, September 6]. The Leave campaign partly won the referendum because the charlatans in charge promised 350 million a week for the NHS. Nobody mentioned the possibility that medicines would have to be emergency-airlifted to hospitals.
Weve spent too long in limbo. Its time to get some answers: will Brexit give us more or less access to medicines and clinical trials? Will it attract more or fewer EU doctors and nurses to staff to our NHS? Improve our national health or jeopardise it? Its time to give the people a final say on whether to go ahead with Brexit.#
Eloise Todd
CEO, Best for Britain
Falklands defence force plan is crazy
I agree with your editorial on September 10 that Brexiteers idea of a rapid reaction force to defend the Falklands is patently absurd. Firstly, it sends mixed messages when we are trying to do a trade deal with Argentina and Transport for London is apparently preparing a bid to run the Buenos Aires metro. Secondly, following years of neglect, Argentina has no military presence. And finally, the countrys economy is on the brink and it is having to go cap in hand to the IMF for a bailout.
When I lived in Buenos Aires the previous hard Left government regularly used the Falklands issue as a distraction to rally the ill-informed. Now it would appear that Tory MPs are using the same playbook of jingoism in order to distract from a lack of a plan for Brexit and the Northern Irish border.
Chris Key
Our leaders can do more on Windrush
In April 2018 I launched a petition which more than 180,000 people signed and caught media attention that helped to get justice for the children of the Windrush Generation and others from the Commonwealth wanting to be recognised as British.
Six months on, although there is some progress the Government is planning to introduce a cap on all compensation claims, despite the fact that it has not considered any interim or hardship fund.
It is only right that the Government should have a compensation scheme which recognises and values all emotional and monetary loss and its impact on family life on a case by case basis. Any civil court will consider this commensurate with the suffering and treatment by the Government in denying Windrush children their rights as British citizens.
I have launched a new petition which I hope all parliamentarians across all the political parties will advocate again for the Windrush Generation and their children to get the compensation scheme they deserve. Otherwise there will be numerous legal actions in the courts which the tax payer and the victims of this major tragedy will lose out with additional suffering and trauma.
Also, like all good writing that focuses on a living city, the stories Hopper tells drift through currents of change and echo with the awareness of erasure and loss. She studs the table of contents enumerating the books 30 non-chronological vignettes with asterisks denoting each spot that no longer exists, including Reckless Records, Earwax and Edmar Polish Grocery, which she writes later is decrepit, Polish, and smells like only old grocery stores smell a little mildew, a little grandma cologne, and the musk of coriander. Her tone bristles with well-placed judgment against the people and phenomena she believes have altered the city for the worst, declaring in her authors note that Wicker Parks level of disgusting has ratcheted skyward since this was first written, even as she admits to being an unwitting participant in a wave of gentrification that has since subsumed the area.
Danish fashion is on the ascent.
Copenhagen Fashion Week is becoming an increasingly important part of the fashion calendar, and Danish brands like Ganni, Stine Goya and Saks Potts have garnered a strong following among the style set.
But long before those brands shot to blogger-hyped status, there was By Malene Birger.
Founded in 2003 by Malene Birger (who had previously co-founded Day Birger et Mikkelsen in 1997) the brand was one of the original Danish labels that exported Scandi cool to international shores. Fast-forward 15 years and the label now has 400 stockists and makes a healthy 20 million revenue in half a year; its one of the most established labels on the peninsula.
By Malene Birger SS19 / By Malene Birger
The brand recently appointed Mathilde Torp Mader as its creative director, someone spearheading a mission to modernise the label and bring it to an international audience. She joins the company from Mulberry, where she spent five years heading up the womenswear division after stints at Marni and Sonia Rykiel.
The Central St Martins alumni showcased her first collection for By Malene Birger at AW18, back in February, bringing a fashion-focused twist to the brands signature aesthetic of grown-up, pared-back simplicity.
I wanted to make it a bit more polished and a bit more sharp, with cleaner lines, she says. Now its slightly more fitted but still with an ease of movement that makes you feel comfortable. In doing so, her aim is to give the brand a younger, more fashion-forward aesthetic, while ensuring it remains ageless and inclusive. Id like to think we dont have an age defined idea, she says. I want it to feel like a gang of inclusiveness where it doesnt really matter if youre 22 or 72, the collection is broad enough that you can shop it.
By Malene Birger SS19 / By Malene Birger
Shes based in London, where the brand recently opened a large design studio. Its literally just for my head and my sanity, she explains. I cant be in Copenhagen all the time. But its also because theres loads of talent in London and I want to be able to tap into that as well.
The London studio also serves the purpose of ensuring the brand continues to create pieces that speak to an international audience, at a time when By Malene Birger is on a mission to expand its global reach. They currently have a Marylebone flagship, which theyre planning to renovate (we really want to make it feel really fresh, more contemporary), and are sold via retailers like Net-a-Porter, Harvey Nichols and Flannels, but a UK store roll out is in the pipeline.
However, despite their new London presence and focus, By Malene Birger will continue to show at Copenhagen Fashion week. I mean for us it makes no sense not to be here because we are Danish, our heritage is Danish, Im Danish.
I think that Im really blessed in the sense that Ive arrived when everyone else has done all the hard work, people like Ganni and all these people in the last couple of years has been creating all this attention and Ive literally just kind of joined in the slip stream of that, she says, modestly. They have really done an amazing job.
It was all-embracing female empowerment which characterised the Spring/Summer 19 show at Copenhagen Fashion Week in August; an exhibition where a respected feminist writer in her eighties sat front row alongside a twenty-something influencer to see super feminine sequinned dresses and utilitarian knitwear paired with running trainers and punky hole-strewn leggings. For me thats exactly what its about, I want that broad appeal, says Torp Mader. I think our product should be the same why wouldnt a bag appeal to women of all ages? So I hope that we can create this sense of inclusiveness, and empowerment, and self-confidence with our products.
While age might not divide their consumers, taste can be clearly delineated by geographical location. You can literally sit down and map out the collection by region, she says. For example a jacket thats a fitted, boxy shape and a bit short will sell really well in the south of Europe, then something more floaty and easy to wear will sell much better in northern Europe.
A stroll around Copenhagen during its ever-burgeoning fashion week corroborates this - the streets are awash with pink silk, colourful suiting and sequins. The only perceptible trend it seems is a collective swerving of anything too clingy, or overly sexy; Copenhagens chicest cycle the city in billowing dresses and baggy suits, the epitome of laid-back elegance.
By Malene Birger
To be quite covered up is very Danish, confirms Mader. I think its because for Danish women, their sexuality is more about their presence and less about their body. For them its about looking pretty obviously, but making sure you feel comfortable so you can just be yourself.
Is the notion of Scandinavian minimalism outdated, I suggest? Yes, I think so. A lot of people say everything Scandinavian is in black and white, but we like colours just as much as anyone, its just about how you put them together whether it looks more Scandinavian or southern European.
London Fashion Week designer Julien Macdonald believes the reason so many celebrities love his clothes is because he makes outfits to suit all women.
Macdonald says the appeal of his designs is that they are not the preserve of size-zero models. And despite working with some of the biggest names in music, acting and modelling designing dresses for Jennifer Lopez, Beyonce, Rihanna, Naomi Campbell and Dame Shirley Bassey his latest collection will be available at affordable prices , after he teamed up with retailers Matalan and Debenhams.
He told the Standard: A lot of designers dress a certain kind of woman and if you dont fit in the bracket of that woman, you actually dont become part of that brand. Whereas my brand is ageless and its sizeless, my clothes go up from a size six to a size 24-30.
You see them on obviously tiny models but the reality of the customers is completely different and people come here with all different shapes and sizes, from all different backgrounds, and we love making clothes for everybody.
Fashion should be available for everybody.
Macdonald, 47, worked for Karl Lagerfeld at Chanel before becoming chief designer at Givenchy, and then starting his own fashion house. He was made an OBE in 2006. He is now preparing to showcase his latest collection at London Fashion Week on Saturday. He said the decision to ban fur from the London catwalks this year was an amazing thing.
If fashion wants to get serious about it they need to take the initiative to the big cities, like Milan where lots of designers use fur, and to America, because that is where the fur markets are It needs everybody to support it. I think the start is getting people talking.
Meanwhile designer Michael Halpern is looking forward to his fourth LFW show on Saturday. Halpern, 30, known for his glitzy sequined designs, grew up in New York and studied there and at Central Saint Martins in London. He set up his own brand in Hoxton Street and makes all of his clothes in the UK.
He said: I fell in love with London and made incredible friends.
Working here is very different to the US where it is a little bit more about business and the bottom lines. Whereas in the UK young talent and young designers are treated the same as the more established designers. There is an even playing field for everyone.
British Fashion Council boss Caroline Rush today hailed the growth of the countrys fashion industry, as its value to the UK economy rose to a record 32 billion.
The BFC chief executive said the increase came from online retail and some growth in manufacturing, while UK designers were going from strength to strength globally. It comes despite challenging times on the high street.
Ms Rush spoke to the Evening Standard ahead of London Fashion Week, where more than 80 leading designers will present their spring/summer 2019 collections.
It will be the first major fashion week to go fur free when it begins tomorrow, with Victoria Beckham and Alexa Chung making their debuts on the LFW schedule over the weekend. Previously Beckham showed her collection in New York, and Chung has presented her eponymous label off schedule.
Referring to the BFC figures, Ms Rush said: We are delighted our sector continues to grow. Obviously we see many challenging headlines around retail and the fashion industry, but the stats for last year are still demonstrating growth both in terms of contribution to GDP as well as increases in jobs, which of course is great for the economy.
We are seeing a little bit of growth in manufacturing, although what you see in the headlines is that retail is challenging. But clearly there are some parts of the sector that continue to grow and employ people. Then our designer businesses are going from strength to strength as they build global businesses.
Im sure a lot of that comes from online as that continues to be one of the key drivers for growth. And just the way consumers engage with brands.
Last year the fashion industry contributed 32.3 billion to UK GDP, a 5.4 per cent increase on 2016. The growth is higher than the figure for the UK economy as a whole. Fashion remains a major UK employer, with 890,000 jobs supported across the industry, making it almost as big as the financial sector.
W hen Emilia Wickstead arrived in London at the age of 18, she instantly felt a sigh of relief. The award-winning fashion designer grew up in New Zealand and moved to Milan at 14, but the day she arrived in the British capital, she knew she was at home. I remember thinking I felt free again, she recalls, from her West London studio.
I felt very different growing up in Milan: it was quite a restricting culture for a young girl. I came to London and felt I could just be myself again - which meant getting lost in the citys charm, grandeur and heritage. This inspired her classical style: at 24, Wickstead launched her own business with 5,000 given to her by her boyfriend (now husband), Daniel Gargiulo, and held showings of her made-to-measure pieces for family and friends in her living room.
Later, she opened a store in Belgravia and quickly became a go-to for sophisticated occasion wear and understated elegance after Samantha Cameron wore one of her blue dresses at Downing Street in 2010. Now, she is fashion royalty, enjoying faithful patronage from the Duchesses of Cambridge and Sussex and stocking in global retailers including Net-A-Porter, Harrods and Selfridges.
Her flagship store on Londons Sloane Street opened in 2014 and she lives in West London with her husband, five-year-old daughter, Mercedes Amalia, and three-year-old son, Gilberto.
Define Londons culture?
In London there are so many cultures in the city. You dont feel like youre the odd one out: you feel part of a much bigger, exciting picture of lots of different cultures. Its not one world or one mentality: there are so many different things going on we have the cream-of-the-cream of exhibitions, we have extraordinary museums, whether theyre small photographic studios or the Tate Britain.
Its such a juxtaposition of so many different sites and such a feast for the eyes. Were so lucky. You really can be whoever you want to be, you can dress however you want, you can think whatever you want, and I really felt all of those things when I came to London.
What would you say makes it so unique?
I lived in New York for a year but I have always felt so much more connected with London. Whenever I go to New York or Paris for work, I always come back to London and feel this lightness and this calmness.
I dont know if its just because its my home, but I feel like the parks really create that. We have these big incredible parks - Hampstead Heath, Holland Park, and Hyde Park - and its just extraordinary that you can be in all of these locations and have all of this greenery. I find that that brings a bit of calm to living in a flat: being able to step out into a park or a London square. It creates this element of calm to a very hustling-bustling, busy city.
How has that London culture influenced your work?
Fashion is always known for being innovative and creative and skipping to our own beat, and I think that best describes how it made me feel being a young girl moving to London. I always wanted to go to Central Saint Martins: all of the great British fashion designers in those days had gone there. Our teachers taught us to take in the culture around us and not necessarily to just study what you saw in a book. They made you go out there and be inspired by what you would saw in the city.
Daniel Hambury/@stellapicsltd
I remember one project was purely based on The Thames and I discovered this whole area of London Id never been to - that was the first time Id gone over the Thames and gone to Battersea, and its a whole new world over there. Im also constantly inspired by this heritage that we have.
Im a big fan of Mary Poppins and Peter Pan and I think were so lucky to have all these enchanting old stories from that bygone era. All the chimneys and the fireplaces of London are so charming - I get lost in these worlds and theyve really inspired me. Mayfair is one of my favourite areas of London because of its grandeur: for London Fashion Week this year were showing at one of my favourite auction houses, Phillips, on Berkeley Square.
How has that heritage inspired your work?
I love the art of dressing up and here in London we do it so well. We dress up for occasions, and if you look at that bygone era of how little children dressed, I think you see that here with little smock dresses and little Peter Pan collars. I love that entire world: thats what inspires me every day and thats how I dress my children.
The art of entertaining - a lot of that comes from grand reception rooms and retiring to the library. Whenever you watch a documentary its always about coming to London to entertain or to go to parties - thats very much part of our culture. For a lot of people who live in the countryside, thats exactly what they come up here to do, to be inspired.
More than 200 languages are spoken in London how do you attempt to make your work accessible to as many people as possible?
One of the big parts of my brand is that we started the business with bespoke and made-to-measure. Thats still a big part of the business. Its kind of like a bygone-era way to start a business these days: its the same as it was in London before ready-to-wear: youd go and make your clothes and youd have one-on-one with a designer where you would buy your clothing.
Emilia Wickstead / Daniel Hambury/@stellapicsltd
Its the same thing really that I sought to do: Im getting to know my customer and Im making clothing as personal as it could possibly be. Im understanding cultural needs, Im understanding where cultures need to be more modest, or where they dont need to be. I get to really show self-expression during Fashion Week and show my voice and my world, and then I also get to understand all the different cultural needs when I have that bespoke service and that one-on-one with customers in my Sloane Street store. Its really unique and I feel really proud of it.
What are your favourite cultural hotspots?
At the moment I love just walking. It doesnt get dark until late so I love walking around London and looking in peoples windows. My aunt used to live here when I was 16 and my mother would send me over to just come to London and get inspired. Ever since I was 16 thats what I used to do - just go out in the evenings and walk around and aspire to greater things and dream of what I wanted my life to be like.
Whats Londons culture like for bringing up children?
Whats wonderful about London is theres so much to absorb as a child without having to think Oh my goodness, what am I going to do with my kids all day? All of the wholesome elements of the city, I think its important to enjoy all of those: we go on the bus, we still use the telephone boxes, we post letters in the post-box, we go on the boats on the Serpentine and feed the ducks.
Y oung musicians from some of the poorest parts of the capital will be given the chance to learn from the London Symphony Orchestra and then potentially join its ranks, in a project launched by Sir Simon Rattle.
The LSO East London Academy aims to find future musical stars from 10 boroughs, including Hackney and Tower Hamlets, who would otherwise be put off by the high cost of training. Sir Simon, who left his role at the Berlin Philharmonic this year to come to London where he is LSO music director, said: Our education work is world famous and rightly admired and copied. But we want to go much further.
We know there is so much talent on our doorstep. We see these young people through our work every day in schools and the wider community. But they face some of the biggest social and financial barriers to realising their ambitions, and we want our programmes to constantly evolve to meet the challenge of being truly Londons Symphony Orchestra.
The academy will open next year at LSOs education centre at St Lukes in Old Street offering free training to musicians aged between 11 and 18. Its first year will focus on 20 string players who will have masterclasses with LSO musicians, before 20 woodwind, brass and percussion players join the year after.
Arts picks of the week: 10th-16th September 1 /5 Arts picks of the week: 10th-16th September The Woods Lesley Sharp plays a woman trapped in a cabin in the woods.
Royal Court Theatre, SW1W. Until Oct 20; royalcourttheatre.com Manuel Harlan The Village Nadia Fall directs the first show in her opening season.
Theatre Royal Stratford East, E15. Until Oct 7; stratfordeast.com Adrian Lourie Foxfinder Iwan Rheon aka Ramsay Bolton from Game of Thrones stars.
Ambassadors Theatre, WC2H. Until Jan 5
Buy tickets for Foxfinder with GO London Shaun Webb The Clock A chance to see Christian Marclays famous 24 hour installation.
Tate Modern, SE1. Sep 14 Jan 20; tate.org.uk PA Natalia Osipova One of the biggest stars in dance performs at Sadlers Wells.
Sadlers Wells, EC1R. Sep 12-16; sadlerswells.com Nikolai Gulakov
James Thomas, head of Hackney Music Service, which is involved in the scheme, said it will enable access to free, high-level training, advice and guidance for musicians from diverse cultural backgrounds and from lower-income families. It fills a much-needed gap in provision for gifted and talented students for whom a similar option would be financially prohibitive.
Tacita Dean: Landscape, Royal Academy - In pictures
Tacita Dean, Four, Five, Six, Seven and Nine Leaf Clover Collection
Courtesy the artist; Frith Street Gallery, London and Marian Goodman Gallery, New York/Paris. Photo: AugustAAn Garza
T ime to dig out your glad rags and put on your best show-watching face as London Fashion Week returns for its second 2018 instalment.
The annual fashion extravaganza starts on Friday September 14 and runs until the following Tuesday.
Naturally, the bustling fashion crowds need to refresh and refuel and Londons bar and restaurant scene have delivered once again with a vast range of activities and specially-designed menus.
Weve rounded up the very best of what the capital's food and drink has to offer.
The May Fair Hotel
Raise a glass: the Donna, Petula and Thelma
The May Fair Hotel is serving up all kinds of goodies for LFW three to be precise. To celebrate the annual fashion event, it's joined forces with designer Emilia Wickstead for a selection of cocktails. The drinks in the Emilia Collection are named after the designers famous dresses, which are hugely popular with the likes of the Duchess of Cambridge and Samantha Cameron. The Thelma is built out of pisco, St Germain, apple, honey and prosecco, whereas the Petula is filled with tequila, lychee liqueur, apple and lime. The final drink in the cluster is the Donna and it's one for gin-lovers. It features pomegranate liqueur, elderflower, lemon with a splash of Moet Rose. On arrival, look out for the hotel's beautifully crafted window display, which was dressed by Wickstead herself.
Emilia Wickstead AW18 at London Fashion Week 1 /13 Emilia Wickstead AW18 at London Fashion Week Emilia Wickstead AW18 Emilia Wickstead AW18 AFP/Getty Images Emilia Wickstead AW18 AFP/Getty Images Emilia Wickstead AW18 AFP/Getty Images Emilia Wickstead AW18 AFP/Getty Images Emilia Wickstead AW18 AFP/Getty Images Emilia Wickstead AW18 Emilia Wickstead AW18 AFP/Getty Images Emilia Wickstead AW18 Emilia Wickstead AW18 AFP/Getty Images Emilia Wickstead AW18 Emilia Wickstead AW18 AFP/Getty Images Emilia Wickstead AW18 AFP/Getty Images Emilia Wickstead AW18 AFP/Getty Images Emilia Wickstead AW18 AFP/Getty Images Emilia Wickstead AW18 AFP/Getty Images Emilia Wickstead AW18 AFP/Getty Images
London EDITION
Arty: Bird's famous for her colourful pastel prints / Jessica Bird
This well-to-do Fitzrovia hotel is getting creative for LFW. It's hosting fashion illustrator Jessica Bird, who will be on-hand with the pastels, creating portraits for guests to take home. Her famous vibrant chalk drawings have been previously used to capture key looks from the runway, for brands such as Delpozo, and Huishan Zhang. Bird will be in The Lobby Bar of the hotel every night of London Fashion Week from 6pm till 8pm. Each painting session will last around 15 minutes, so if our calculations are correct, that's around eight prints a night.
10 Berners St, W1T 3NP, marriott.com
Isabel
Start the day right: Isabel's new breakfast menu
Mayfairs all-day dining haunt, Isabel, is launching an exclusive breakfast menu for the week that is specifically designed for those planning to grab a bite before a show. The brand new menu will feature the restaurants signature freshly baked and deliciously moreish South American arepas. All the favourite egg dishes will be on there too (Florentine, Benedict, you name it), as well as it's own take on avo toast, which will come with almonds and cayenne on an arepa. A selection of brekkie cocktails and smoothies will be available too. All in all, the perfect pit stop to fuel up before a long day of fashionable activities.
26 Albemarle St, W1S 4HY, isabelw1.london
Bluebird Chelsea
Frozen goods: The dessert modelled after the quirky PEZ Daisy shoe
Award-winning footwear brand Camilla Elphick has teamed up with this Chelsea haunt for a special dessert menu, centred around ice cream and shoes. The puds incorporate details from Elphick's summer 2018 collection. A dark chocolate fondant with bright orange heels and edible flowers will resemble her quirky PEZ Daisy shoe, whereas the black sesame ice cream and blackberry sorbet covered in edible glitter will pay homage to her Silver Lining Boots. Likewise, her Heart & Sole sneakers will have an edible tribute, in the form of a red heart ice cream sandwich.
350 King's Rd, SW3 5UU, bluebird-restaurant.co.uk
South Place Hotel
The fashionable line up: South Place Hotel will launch new LFW cocktails
No Fashion Week would be complete without some extra cocktails. The team at South Place Hotel have launched an exclusive new range of drinks for the annual fashion extravaganza and all the names are inspired by the industry. The specially-designed beverages on offer include a pepperminty House of Oaxaca, a deliciously fruity Lady Marmalade, a popcorn-infused Pop Fashion and a zesty Pisco and Gabbana. The drinks may be creative, but theyll set you back 12.50 a pop. Good thing Fashion Week only comes around twice a year.
3 South Pl, EC2M 2AF, southplacehotel.com
Cantina Laredo
Mexico meets LFW: The South Place Hotel
This lively bar on St Martins Lane is bringing Mexico to London Fashion Week with its limited edition A/W Collection cocktail menu. It features powerhouse drinks including the Paloma Poncho, a twist on the classic Paloma, the Frida Fashionsta, with gin and lychee liqueur, and the Avoant-Gard with tequila and avocado. The new additions will be available from September 14-18 during cocktail hour, which runs from 7-9pm.
10 Upper St Martin's Ln, WC2H 9FB, cantinalaredo.co.uk
Sheraton Grand London Park Lane
Sweet treats: The hat-themed afternoon tea
The swish Mayfair spot has teamed up with the worlds oldest hat shop Lock & Co for an unique afternoon tea with pastries taking inspiration from recognisable headwear. Guests can tuck into treats such as The Bowler (a caramelised chocolate mousse), the Fedora (a mandarin jelly, chocolate mousse and red velvet biscuit), and the Top Hat (a carrot cake sponge with mascarpone and lime cream). Afternoon tea classics including the Victoria sponge and scones will also be available.
Spring
Fashionable dining: Spring at Somerset House / Amber Rowlands
Vogues former food editor and Petersham Nurseries' chef Skye Gyngell will host a lunchtime menu at the restaurant located in the new wing of Somerset House. Spring will offer a 20 lunch featuring a cucamelon salad with heritage tomatoes and tea-smoked trout as well as a rose geranium blackcurrant ripple ice cream for dessert. Since opening, the restaurant has stayed rooted in the fashion industry by hosting a number of brand launches, such as the 'Don't Be A Waster' sustainable t-shirt campaign with Chanel, Mulberry and Gucci.
M any say that appearing on Love Island is the best way to pour yourself a cup of ambition, so its fitting that last years winner Amber Davies is taking to the stage in Dolly Parton musical 9 to 5.
Davies joins the cast alongside Louise Redknapp, Brian Conley and Natalie McQueen to star in 9 to 5 the Musical at the Savoy Theatre in the West End.
The musical is based on the 1980 film, in which three office workmates team up to try and overcome their sexist and egotistical boss. It was originally produced on Broadway in 2009.
The production marks Davies West End debut. She trained in musical theatre prior to winning the Love Island crown alongside now ex Kem Cetinay, gaining a diploma from Urdang Academy in 2016.
London's best autumn theatre 1 /21 London's best autumn theatre Twelfth Night October 2 - November 17, Young Vic Measure for Measure September 28 - November 24, Donmar Warehouse Company September 26 - December 22, Gielgud Theatre
Buy tickets with GO London Dan Kennedy Sylvia September 3-22, Old Vic Theatre
Buy tickets with GO London Manuel Harlan I'm Not Running From October 2, National Theatre Pinter at the Pinter From September 6, Harold Pinter Theatre Getty Images The Wild Duck October 15 - December 1, Almeida Theatre PA Hadestown November 2 - January 26, National Theatre The Woods September 5 - October 20, Royal Court Theatre The Village September 7 - October 6, Theatre Royal Stratford East
Buy tickets with GO London Getty Images Wise Children October 8 - November 10, Old Vic Theatre
Buy tickets with GO London Misty September 8 - October 20, Trafalgar Studios
Buy tickets with GO London Helen Murray A Very Very Very Dark Matter October 12 - January 6, Bridge Theatre Dave Benett Heathers September 3 - November 24, Theatre Royal Haymarket
Buy tickets with GO London Pamela Raith Holy Sh!t September 5 - October 6, Kiln Theatre Photo by Mark Douet An Adventure September 6 - October 20, Bush Theatre I and You October 18 - November 24, Hampstead Theatre Caroline, or Change November 20 - February 9, Playhouse Theatre
Buy tickets with GO London Marc Brenner The Malady of Death October 3-6, Barbican Centre I'm a Phoenix, B**** October 3-20, Battersea Arts Centre A Small Place November 8 - December 1, Gate Theatre
Redknapp recently starred as Sally Bowles in the national tour of Cabaret, following her 2016 stint on Strictly where she reached the final. McQueen is currently starring in Kinky Boots, whilst Conleys stage credits include Hairspray, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Me and My Girl.
O ne Friday night last November, panic engulfed Oxford Circus. The pop star Olly Murs tweeted to his eight million followers: Fuck everyone get out of Selfridge now gun shots!! The far-Right campaigner Tommy Robinson jumped in with the message: looks like another jihad attack in London. Armed police were deployed; a section of the West End was evacuated. But there were no guns and no terrorists only a scuffle between two men on the Tube platform. In the stampede, nine people sustained injuries and were taken to hospital.
How do we account for this? William Davies, who teaches political economy and sociology at Goldsmiths, seeks to answer this in his latest book, an attempt to dissect our age of apocalyptic anxieties and post-truth politics, when feelings, pains and nerves are coming to organise the world around us.
Having taken on neoliberalism and the happiness industry in his previous studies, Davies describes how the Enlightenment project of elevating reason above feeling has run aground. Today we seem to place more trust in emotion and instinct than careful assessment.
When it comes to knowledge we prioritise speed over quality (its been shown that lies travel faster on Twitter than established facts). There are no facts, just trends and feelings and the truth is increasingly defined by audience-engagement levels, social media algorithms and nervy markets. Statistics not only bore the public, but provoke anger on the part of those who disagree with them.
How did this happen? Part of the problem, Davies reckons, is that objective indicators of progress such as GDP have long concealed the depth of inequality in society. In America, half the population has experienced no real income growth for 40 years. But one of the most intriguing sections of the book describes how physical deterioration (pain, ageing and chronic illness) provokes a desire for a type of political rule that casts experts and technocrats aside. Davies believes the rise in contemporary nationalism is linked to pain and puts forward a theory that drug addicts and Brexit voters exhibit similar behaviours. Better to be the perpetrator of harm than always be the victim, even if it is harm to oneself.
At times, Nervous States is so dense and dystopian its like Black Mirror without the jokes. The author mounts a slightly terrifying case against the libertarian ambitions of Silicon Valleys Napoleonic high-tech entrepreneurs, arguing that what they share with fascism is an insistence on fixing problems immediately, and not bothering to debate them first.
W hen she was 15 years old, Gwendoline Christie would frequently skip school to head up to London.
Shed get the train from Worthing, West Sussex where she lived with her mother, a housewife, and dad, a salesman and make her way to the stalls in Kensington Market, obsessing over the beguiling selections of nightlife pieces on display at Hyper Hyper. Shed sit and sketch mannequins at the V&A. Hours would be whiled away browsing the rails at Vivienne Westwood. Back home, shed test herself by covering the credits of fashion magazines to see if she had learned who designed what and why. Discovering Alexander McQueen, she says, was earth-shattering, it just felt like so many of the things I loved coming together and exploding.
To Christie, from a young age, fashion represented part of a wider life plan. It was a combination of wanting to escape the unpleasant narrative that was being applied to me at school, where I was bullied terribly, she says, and loving the transportative nature of the arts. It was about not wanting to live a prescriptive life.
FENDI cape dress, 6,700 (fendi.com)
Christie had heard the word unconventional applied to herself so many times, from such a young age, that she adopted a sink or swim attitude to fitting in. She developed ideas about beauty every bit as armour-plated as the uniform shes sported for the past six years as Brienne of Tarth: the character who first turned her into one of the truly iconic faces of the 2010s in Game of Thrones (although at the mention of the word icon, she blurts, Pfffft! Bollocks! and mimes Lol with two hands shaping the Ls, her mouth forming the O).
You either think Im unconventional and theres no place for me and therefore I should disappear, she says, or you think good, Im happy to be on the outside. Because if this is the small-minded, mean, uncompassionate viewpoint of the inside, then I dont want to be there. Im happy out here with all the other leftovers, who show love and support for each other. All of the inconsistencies, complexities and ugly parts whatever that might mean can exist and beauty can be made out of it. Thats what I want beauty to be.
Christie says she wept for two hours solid when she took off Briennes armour for the last time, filming her final scenes of the last season earlier this year. The battle for Westeros will end in early 2019. It truly was the most incredible thing that happened to me, she says.
GARETH PUGH jacket and trousers, both custom order. MAX MARA shoes, as before
The triumph of Brienne of Tarth was, she says, both professional and personal. I know how generic it sounds but it just was, in every sense of the word, incredible that that part should come along, made for me in a way that none of my friends wouldve identified for a second. They saw all of the fighting, the physicality, the fact that it was a character who was constantly being described as ugly. None of the people who knew me could understand why I would want to play that part. When the book of Christie is finally written, this will be her Damascene moment. I had to cut my hair, change my body, strip off my make-up. This is not the person I have presented to the world at all. She graduated, in that moment, to the woman she always wanted to become.
Christie decided on her future very early on as a child: When I discovered film, I couldnt get close enough to the screen. I wanted to climb in. She concedes there is a link between becoming an actress and running away from yourself: Oh, its that, 100 per cent. Its so much easier to be other people. And its always in putting on the mask that you reveal yourself. Its however people find it easiest to breathe. And thats how I find it easiest.
What has happened since has astonished her. Just because she always wanted to blow it up from the inside doesnt mean she expected to. She has now been part of two defining franchises of the decade, first as Brienne, then as Captain Phasma in Star Wars. At her first Star Wars Comic-Con, she found herself in a green room beside Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher. I try to be gracious in these moments, she nods, but Im an idiot, so you do just internally scream and dissolve on the floor and cant really cope and go bright red. Of the late Fisher, she says her mind was so fast and so hysterically funny that she would set up a joke, you would laugh, then she would push it further you would laugh even more and then shed push it further again and youd laugh so much that you thought your eyes were going to fall out.
CHARLES JEFFREY LOVERBOY coat, 850, exclusively at Dover Street Market (020 7518 0680)
Extraordinary things keep happening to Christie. There was the moment Dame Diana Rigg came up to her at an airport lounge and said how excited she was to be working with her. Just being around her was an absolute masterclass. Shes a sensational performer but shes a sensational person, too. We had dinner, we walked around together, we went shopping, bought hats, went in antique shops and then we had an amazing, juicy, salacious, hilarious dinner together. Obviously I want to know every detail. Obviously I can tell you not a single one of them.
There was also the time when Kate Moss spotted her at a Miu Miu party in 2012, and suggested she give her agent a call. She was a year into her relevatory role on Thrones. The supermodel took Christie over with her when she established her own agency. She told me recently, I just knew it would work, she notes, still slightly flabbergasted by the turn of events. With pleasing circularity, Christie is currently one of the faces of Miu Miu in its arrestingly Warhol-esque ad campaign. These things are wild to me, she says, quietly.
Christie lives in London with Giles Deacon, 49, her partner of five years. Of course she would end up with a couturier. I dont think Ill ever stop being in awe of my partners colossal talent, she says. As a designer and as a human being. I mean it. I dont ever talk about him. But I really mean that. She has been keeping an occasional memoir of the astonishing experiences that have traced her past decade. I dont [write] every day, because Im doing my best to be present in so many of the extraordinary things that have happened. Shes tried to stop taking photographs, to obsessively document life from one steps remove, for the benefit of others. Its too easy to retreat into, How am I going to frame this? How am I going to capture it? Im doing my best just to have those experiences and writing a few things to come back to.
Marc Jacobs Faux Fur coat 732; hat, 350 (marcjacobs.com). Max Mara shoes 435 (maxmara.com)
There are no plans, as yet, to publish. These are for personal use. But shes picturing the future scene already. I can dress as Barbara Cartland, on a chaise, with my seven Pomeranians no, Pekingese, like Mrs Pumphrey in All Creatures Great and Small me, in bri-nylon, lounging with a duchess satin slipper and a warm glass of white wine, Tuesday, 4pm. That sounds perfect to me.
Photographs by David Bailey
"Barack and I have always believed in the power of storytelling to inspire us, to make us think differently about the world around us, and to help us open our minds and hearts to others," Michelle Obama said in a press release about the Netflix deal back in May. She said Netflix "is a natural fit for the kinds of stories we want to share, and we look forward to starting this exciting new partnership."
T he mood right now is strong, with women in charge and not afraid to speak up, says Sam McKnight of this seasons changing landscape.
Hes not wrong. Its a sensibility that has been captured on the catwalks for autumn/winter. A bold, directional creativity. A challenging new look for both fashion and beauty.
And why not? Theres a collective feeling in the wider cultural zeitgeist that the way we choose to adorn our faces or style our hair, far from being a fluff or frivolity, fundamentally affects how the world sees us and how we feel within it. Our hair can be our armour or our weapon. For me, changing hair or make-up is a subliminal expression of confidence and control. I want to harness these transformative powers, says McKnight. In reference to this season specifically: There is a bolder, stronger feel to hair. We are moving away from the very natural toward looks that are more stylised and statement.
McKenna is The Muse of the ES Magazine Fashion Editon
And who better to play muse to McKnights bold new vision than model McKenna Hellam. The 18-year-old, who hails from Atlanta, Georgia, has stormed the catwalks and racked up countless editorials since her September 2016 New York debut (all thanks to an accelerated programme at high school that allowed her to graduate two years earlier than her peers).
McKenna is strong and versatile, says McKnight. Her earthy, almost androgynous beauty harks back to the Hollywood movie starlets of the Seventies, yet she looks like no one else and has her own very unique energy and style. Thats extremely appealing right now. We couldnt agree more.
Knot now
Turn bad hair days good by spraying a texturiser on hair mid-length and at the ends before tying a lofty pony on top of your head. Twist the tail into a knot, leaving a few ends free before teasing out a few flyaways and tendrils at the hairline for added charm.
Curl cool
Embrace your natural texture and come as you are. Accentuate and revive a natural wave where it has become frizzy or flat by gently wrapping it around the barrel of a tong the same size as your natural curls for a second or two, says McKnight.
Using GHD Soft Curl Tong, 120 (ghdhair.com) CHLOE shirt, 900; dress, 2,700 (chloe.com). NECTAR NECTAR earrings, 37 (nectarnectar.com). Necklace, models own
Pony club
A glossy tail never gets old and is easily upgraded with grosgrain ribbon to suit your outfit of choice. Blow-dry hair smooth using a round bristle brush to encourage shine and seal the cuticles, says McKnight. Spray Hair by Sam McKnight Modern Hairspray liberally before tying your hair into a low pony at the nape of the neck and adding a length of ribbon.
Using HAIR BY SAM McKNIGHT Modern Hairspray, 22 (sammcknight.com). MASON PEARSON Junior hairbrush, 74 (masonpearson.com) ZIMMERMANN dress, 1,570 (zimmermannwear.com)
On the up
Aim high: sometimes bigger is better. To backcomb brilliantly, prep blow-dried strands with Hair by Sam McKnight Easy-Up Do before taking slim sections and placing a comb one third up the hair length. Push the comb down toward the roots three to four times. Once your entire head is done, use a soft bristle brush to sweep hair gently back into shape.
HAIR BY SAM McKNIGHT Easy-Up Do Texture Spray, 25 (sammcknight.com). GIVENCHY dress, 2,692 (givenchy.com). MISSOMA earrings, as before
Oh beehive
For a fresh, modern take on retro volume, keep your hairs natural texture rather than blowing it out, suggests Sam McKnight. Consider adding a side-sweep across the forehead and keeping the hair lengths down as well.
LOUIS VUITTON dress, 4,100 (louisvuitton.com). MISSOMA earrings, 49 (missoma.com)
Photographs by Agata Pospieszynska
Hair by Sam Mcknight
Beauty Director Rose Beer
Styled by Bay Garnett
Model: McKenna Hellam at IMG. Make-up by Polly Osmond using Lancome;
Nails by Robbie Tomkins using Lancome, all at Premier Hair and Make-up.
A s Andre Leon Talleys long-awaited biopic hits screens, its time to brush up on your fashion documentaries. Here are seven of the best...
The Gospel According to Andre
American Vogues famously flamboyant raconteur and editor-at-large Andre Leon Talley takes centre stage in a poignant and reflective portrait, with a stellar line-up of talking heads, including Tom Ford, Whoopi Goldberg and Fran Lebowitz. Do you know how much I wish my grandmother had been alive to see this? Talley asks, holding a copy of the March 2009 issue, graced by Michelle Obama. This moving documentary traces his life from Americas segregated South to the top of Conde Nasts masthead via his Studio 54 years hanging with Andy Warhol.
In cinemas 28 Sep
Larger Than Life: The Kevyn Aucoin Story
Before the contouring Kardashians, there was make-up maestro Kevyn Aucoin. His book Face Forward, in which he transformed celebrities of the moment into icons (Winona as Liz Taylor! Calista Flockhart as Audrey! Gwynnie as James Dean!), was the bible for beauty-obsessed kids in the Nineties. An outre premise but the results were stellar. This rich and illuminating doc explores the man behind the makeovers and goes behind the glamour to cover issues of homophobia, sexual identity and celebrity culture.
McQueen
This emotional and compelling film pays tribute to one of the fashion worlds true mavericks. Although McQueens story has been highly publicised the working-class East End boy who grew up dreaming of dresses, trained on Savile Row and went on to disrupt the fashion world with his darkly romantic, visionary designs the film divides his life into tapes named after his most iconic collections, laced with candid interviews with family and friends. Along with some surprising insights (who knew he was obsessed with Sinead OConnor?), its the archive catwalk footage that thrills most from Shalom Harlow being spray-painted by two robotic arms to a swirling Kate Moss hologram. Stunning.
Amazon Prime (amazon.co.uk)
LAmour Fou
An intimate and moving love story lies at the core of this elegant film, the decades-long romance between the fashion legend Yves Saint Laurent and his partner, Pierre Berge. The narrative is built around a 2009 Christies auction of the couples art collection, which included works by Manet, Picasso and Matisse, art deco furniture and Roman antiquities amassed over their 50-year relationship. Impossibly poignant.
Unzipped
Mario Testino/Hachette Filipacch
When it was released in 1995, Unzipped was ahead of its time. A candid behind-the-scenes portrait of the hilarious, larger-than-life designer Isaac Mizrahi as he prepares for his fall 1994 collection, it captures a pre-social-media fashion industry in all its raw glory. This is a feast of fashion nostalgia, boasting an all-star roll call of your favourite supers Cindy, Kate and Naomi sharing intimate (and often hysterical) backstage moments. See Linda E moaning about foot cramp: You dont CAAARE! So major.
Available on DVD (amazon.co.uk)
Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel
Conde Nast via Getty Images
I wasnt a fashion editor, I was the one and only fashion editor! Just one of the classic lines from this vivid and entertaining portrait of the quote-machine queen of Harpers Bazaar and Vogue. It features rare archival footage, splashy magazine spreads and contributions from Calvin Klein, Diane von Furstenberg and Manolo Blahnik all punctuated with Vreelands glorious dictates, whether its wear violet velvet mittens with everything or wash your hair in champagne. Divine, as DV might say.
Dries
This beautiful film charts a year in the life of the notoriously private and enigmatic Dries Van Noten. German filmmaker Reiner Holzemer follows the designer as he brings to life four collections. There are also glimpses of his formative years, emerging from fashion school as part of the Antwerp Six with Ann Demeulemeester, Dirk Bikkembergs, Walter Van Beirendonck, Dirk Van Saene and Marina Yee in the early Eighties and storming London Fashion Week with them in 1986. Plus theres a look inside the dreamy, flower-filled home he shares with his partner, Patrick Vangheluwe.
Valentino: The Last Emperor
Alamy Stock Photo
T his week, Hindus around the world will be celebrating Ganesh Chaturthi which marks the birth of Lord Ganesha.
To commemorate the festivity, traditions will range from prayers to immersing an idol of Lord Ganesha in water.
Ganesh Chaturthi is celebrated throughout India, especially in the states of Maharashtra, Karnataka, Goa, Telangana, Gujarat and Chhattisgarh.
Here's everything you need to know about Ganesh Chaturthi, including dates and traditions:
What is Ganesh Chaturthi?
Ganesh Chaturthi celebrates the birth of Lord Ganesha, the god of wisdom, prosperity and good fortune.
Celebrated on Shukla Chaturthi of the Hindu Month of Bhadra (between August and September), people bring idols of Lord Ganesha into their homes and worship him there.
In Hindu mythology, the elephant-headed son of Lord Shiva and Goddess Parvati is considered 'Vigana Harta' (the one who removes obstacles) and 'Buddhi Pradaayaka' (one who grants intelligence).
When is Ganesh Chaturthi?
This year, Ganesh Chaturthi falls on 13 September.
Festivities last from between one day and 11 days, depending on the place and tradition.
How is Ganesh Chaturthi celebrated?
Idols of Lord Ganesha are traditionally installed in homes and temples.
During Ganesh Chaturthi, Hindus perform 'Pran Pratishtha,' by which idols are consecrated - permeated with the deity's spirit.
Hindus will then worship Lord Ganesha in a 16-step ritual known as 'Shodashopachara puja.'
Offerings may also be made to Lord Ganesha, including coconut, sweet pudding and red flowers.
Hymns continue for 10 days and on the eleventh day, the idol is immersed in a sea or river.
In Mumbai alone, around 150,000 statues are immersed annually.
Another popular tradition on the first day is to avoid looking at the moon and pray to God to give you spiritual strength.
This practice originates from a story in Hindu belief which says that Lord Ganesha once put a curse on Moon God Chandra for taunting him about his looks.
D isturbing CCTV footage shows the moment a suspected motorbike mugger targeted a lone woman moments before he allegedly grabbed her by the neck and ripped off her 10,000 ring.
Footage taken minutes before the terrifying robbery appears to show a man climbing off his motorbike and follow the woman down the road on a Saturday evening in Westminster.
Shortly after, the 27-year-old was grabbed by the neck and had her 10,000 engagement ring ripped from her finger by the man, according to police.
A second victim allegedly had her watch pulled from her wrist by the same suspects in Kensington about half an hour later.
The first victim was walking in Moscow Road at about 7.35pm when two men approached her on a motorbike.
Police want to speak to two suspects
One of the men jumped off the bike and followed her along St Petersburg Place before grabbing her around the neck and ripping the ring from her finger.
This engagement ring worth 10,000 was stolen in Westminster / Met Police
Both suspects made off towards Bayswater Road on the bike, police said.
The victim, who police say was left extremely shaken by the attack, said the engagement ring had sentimental value and described it as a three stone Blue Nile diamond, platinum ring.
Less than half an hour later, two men on a motorbike approached a 45-year-old woman in Melbury Road, Kensington, at around 8pm.
One of the men got off the bike and grabbed the woman from behind to steal her 200 watch, which has a square silver and white face with a black strap and white stitching, police said.
They then made off north in Melbury Road towards Holland Park on the bike, according to the Met.
Police are now hunting for the suspects and have released an image of two men who they would like to speak to in connection with the robberies on June 19.
The driver of the motorbike is described as a black male, wore a black crash helmet, a white t-shirt with blue jeans and green trainers.
The suspect who allegedly stole the ring and watch was wearing black clothing and a black crash helmet, police said.
Detective Constable Dan Jones, from Met Polices Westminster Serious Crime Unit urged anyone with information to get in touch.
He said: These men targeted and attacked two women in an attempt to snatch their belongings, which both had sentimental value.
The attack has left these two women extremely shaken. If you saw anything or know who these two males are, please get in touch.
T he boyfriend of Westminster terror attack victim Andreea Cristea told today how he considered jumping into the River Thames during a frantic effort to try and save his girlfriend.
Andrei Burnaz, 31, was sightseeing with his partner when extremist Khalid Masood struck, driving along the pavement and striking pedestrians indiscriminately last March 22.
The Romanian national said he heard screaming and then felt a burning sensation on my left foot as Masoods car went passed.
He then realised Ms Cristea, who had been stood next to him, was no longer there. A witness described how she had been flung 10 feet in the air before landing in the river.
Wiping away tears, Mr Burnaz described running to a police officer to say his girlfriend was missing.
Westminster attack inquest shown CCTV footage of Romanian tourist Andreea Cristea
"I turned back to the spot in the middle of the bridge and I started again to look around for her. I tried to call her on her phone. Her phone started ringing. I found her phone and glasses covered in blood."
He added: "For a couple of minutes because nobody did not do anything about this so I thought maybe it would be better to jump in the river to search for her, but I didn't."
Mr Burnaz told police he believed his girlfriend had been knocked into the river, and he then saw boat crews making efforts to retrieve her body.
A van driver who witnessed the Westminster terror attack described the scene of carnage after Masood deliberately mowed down pedestrians on the bridge.
Victim Andreea Cristea
Michael Brown was one of the first people to call 999 after the attack, telling the operator he had seen Ms Cristea being flung into the Thames.
In the harrowing call for help, Mr Brown cried out oh God as he described seeing at least 20 people lying injured on the ground and desperate efforts to rescue Ms Cristea from the water.
It was carnage, he told the inquest at the Old Bailey this morning.
There were a lot of people lying down injured, a lot of people screaming.
He said he had been driving across the bridge when he heard a loud bang, then he saw the car driven by Islamic extremist Masood and striking pedestrians.
Mr Brown saw Mr Cristea being hit, telling the court: She had flown about ten feet in the air, and as she came down she went straight in the River Thames.
The driver stopped on the bridge and began screaming and shouting at boats, to alert them to Ms Cristeas body in the water. He said she was lying face down and her head appeared to be surrounded by blood.
Im trying to get some attention from a boat, he said in the 999 call. Theyre gonna fish her out.
He added: We have got at least 20 odd people who have been run over on the pavement. Major incident, major incident, major, major. Oh God.
Mr Brown said he went to try to help some of the injured people, and then saw doctors and nurses from the nearby St Thomas Hospital rushing on to the bridge to assist.
Ms Cristea, an interior designer on holiday in London with her boyfriend, was pulled from the river by a passing boat. She was taken to hospital but died two weeks later on April 6.
Masood also ran down and killed US tourist Kurt Cochran, 54, retired window cleaner Leslie Rhodes, 75, and mother-of-two Aysha Frade, 44.
He then crashed his car into the fence at Parliament and stabbed to death PC Keith Palmer, 48, in the grounds of the Palaces of Westminster, before being shot dead by armed police.
T he family of a young father killed in a motorcycle accident have spoken of their heartbreak.
Restaurant manager Adrian Cheung, 25, lost control of his Yamaha bike and ploughed into a metal cycle stand as he rode to work along Kentish Town Road just before 5pm on Friday.
Family and friends, including his fiancee Adelina Hodosan who was with the couples seven-month-old son Oliver, gathered there afterwards to lay flowers in memory of Mr Cheung.
In a Facebook post Ms Hodosan, 20, wrote: You were the love of my life and will always be. You gave me the most beautiful gift, our son Oliver, and I have to be strong for him. I love you more than anything. And life isnt fair at all, takes you away when youre the happiest person. Rest in peace my love.
Adrian Cheung with his fiancee Adelina Hodosan and their son Oliver
Mr Cheung was a manager at Kami Japanese restaurant in Kentish Town, less than a mile from where the crash happened.
He was born in Hong Kong and moved to London in 2002 with his parents and two brothers, attending Highams Park School in north-east London.
His brother Steven, 28, an airline pilot, rushed back to London after receiving news of the crash on a layover in Slovenia. He told the Standard: He was the best dad. He worked 70 to 80 hours a week to support his family.
B ritain will not pay its 39billion divorce bill if a Brexit deal is refused, Dominic Raab has insisted as he stepped up pressure on Brussels to accept the Chequers plan.
The Brexit Secretarys tough talking comes after Prime Minister Theresa May made clear that without a deal the UKs position changes on the exit settlement.
Ramping up the pressure further on the bloc, Mr Raab said there is no deal without the whole deal ahead of his crunch talks with Michel Barnier later on Thursday.
Writing in the Daily Telegraph, he said the Government wanted to reach a good agreement, but added: "It will require our EU friends to match the ambition and pragmatism we have demonstrated.
"If that doesn't happen, the UK will manage the challenges of no-deal, so we make a success of Brexit."
Britain's Secretary for Exiting the European Union Dominic Raab / REUTERS
The Brexit Secretary also accused people who warned about shortages of food and medicines after a no-deal withdrawal of "scaremongering".
Everything you need to know about Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab
His remarks came as the Government prepared to release a raft of technical papers expected to focus on how a no deal Brexit would impact on things like mobile roaming charges.
They also follow reports that Brexiteers launched a fresh bid to topple Mrs May unless she abandons the Chequers strategy. The plot emerged from a meeting of the European Research Group (ERG).
Britain's Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union Dominic Raab, right, and EU chief Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier speak prior to a meeting at EU headquarters / AP
ERG chair Jacob Rees-Mogg earlier described the proposal as a dying duck in a thunderstorm in an interview with Channel 4 News.
The move to release a fresh raft of technical Brexit papers comes amid speculation leaving the EU without a solid agreement could see the return of levies for using mobile devices on the continent.
Theresa May earlier said the UK's position would change on the settlement if a deal was not reached / PA
The pro-Europe Best for Britain campaign said the re-imposition of roaming charges could cost business people visiting the EU up to 778 a month.
Other areas covered by the documents will include the impact of a no deal scenario on standards relating to the environment and vehicles.
EU will show 'loyalty' to Ireland in Brexit border debate
The papers will be published after a special meeting of the Cabinet focused on how a no deal outcome could be handled.
Mr Raab, who will hold talks with EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier in Brussels on Friday, said: "With six months to go until the UK leaves the European Union, we are stepping up our 'no deal' preparations so that Britain can continue to flourish, regardless of the outcome of negotiations.
It comes after Boris Johnson, centre, launched a fresh attack on Mrs May's Brexit plan / Getty Images
"These technical notices are part and parcel of our sensible, pragmatic approach to preparing for all outcomes.
"Getting a deal with the European Union is still by far and away the most likely outcome, and I will continue to champion our Chequers proposals with Michel Barnier as the best way of securing the deep and special partnership we want with the EU."
Liberal Democrat MP and Best for Britain supporter Layla Moran said: "The cost of a hard Brexit on British travellers is becoming abundantly clear.
C hildren from the Calais Jungle camp now living in the UK will be granted a new right to remain by the Home Office.
Home Secretary Sajid Javid will grant certain youngsters a new status to give them continued access to study, work and the NHS until they can apply for citizenship in ten years time.
This new Calais leave status will be seen as a clear attempt by Mr Javid to cast off the damaging hostile environment image presided over by Theresa May when she was Home Secretary.
A Government source said today: It strengthens the right to stay of children pulled from the camps in Calais in 2016.
More than 750 unaccompanied children were brought to the UK from the makeshift camp after severe criticism that the Government was not doing enough to provide refuge.
Home Secretary Sajid Javid / PA
Around 550 went to live with family already residing in the UK.
Over the past two years the majority of the children were given the right to remain in the UK under existing international protections such as asylum, humanitarian protection and refugee status.
However a small group fell through this gap.
The Government has now stepped in to create a new form of leave to regularise their status and protect their rights in the future.
After ten years they can apply for British citizenship.
A source said: Some of those children did not qualify for international protection under current rules. To ensure all these children can stay here, we are bringing forward a new form of leave.
Unaccompanied children from the French port town camp included Syrian and Afghani nationals.
They were brought to the UK after outcry from MPs that the Home Office should allow them to reunite with their families.
The camp was demolished by the French authorities in 2016.
Mr Javid was set to make the announcement in the House of Commons on Thursday morning and will roll out the new status this Autumn.
It came as a former Home Office mandarin today took aim at Mrs Mays target to cut immigration to below 100,000, claiming it is out of reach.
Sir David Normington, the former permanent secretary of the Home Office, said: If you are going to have a target it would be better that you set one that is achievable to begin with, and that what we dont have is one that is out of reach.
I really do think that for the moment a target which is below 100,000, which is what they have always said, is out of reach.
Labour also want to abandon the 100,000 target.
Today Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott announced that the party would also end the need for non-EU migrant families to prove they have an income of 18,600 to move to the UK.
Campaigners claim tens of thousands of families have been separated because of the income requirement, with a 2017 Supreme Court ruling saying it had caused hardship and has an impact couples children.
Family members and loved ones are discriminated against. Non-EU migrants are treated worse, including those from the Commonwealth, Ms Abbott said in a speech in Westminster taking aim at Mrs Mays hostile environment strategy against immigrants.
If we want the brightest and the best to come here we will need to offer the full benefits of a family life. Otherwise they will simply be attracted to other countries, she said.
Mrs May introduced new rules on spouse visas in 2012 when she was Home Secretary so that non-EU citizens applying to join a husband, wife, partner or fiance in the UK must have a combined income or savings of 18,600 a year. An extra 3,800 is required for a first child, and 2,400 for each subsequent child.
B ank of England governor Mark Carney spelled out to Cabinet urgent preparations for the dangers of crashing out of the European Union without a deal.
The governor, who has warned privately of potentially dire economic consequences of a no-deal Brexit, was called in to a special Cabinet session on emergency measures that would be taken if EU talks break down.
He arrived at No 10 by a rear entrance amid speculation he had been smuggled into the weekly meeting.
Official sources said he would be taking part in a section of the three-hour meeting to outline preparatory work that the Bank was doing.
Mr Carney has countered Theresa May's claim that 'no Brexit deal is better than a bad deal' / PA
Mr Carney, who this week was appointed for a further term at the helm to cover the post-Brexit period, made plain last month that he regards no-deal as a perilous outcome for Britain.
Asked in August if it would be a disaster, the understated governor said: It is highly undesirable.
In contrast with the Prime Ministers claim that no deal is better than a bad deal, he said the very possibility of it was uncomfortably high at this point and was something that should only happen by accident as it was against the interests of both the EU and UK.
Todays Cabinet was meant to send a strong signal to the EU that Mrs May was willing to forfeit an agreement on future trade and relations with the EU if necessary rather than be pushed around.
What happens in the event of a No Deal Brexit?
It was also supposed to reassure businesses and consumers that plans were in place to prevent gridlock and shortages if current arrangements were rendered invalid.
It emerged that Transport Secretary Chris Grayling has asked other EU governments in a private letter to make side-deals with the UK in order to continue existing air service and road transport arrangements.
He wrote that these were needed as soon as possible in the interests of public safety.
His letter earned a private rebuke from EU negotiator Michel Barnier for trying to bypass the official talks.
The Government trumpeted a success from talks with the mobile phone industry that should prevent roaming charges being hiked for Britons after Brexit.
Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab said two companies Vodafone and Three have pledged not to hit phone users with massive bill increases when they travel in Europe, and called on other firms to follow their lead.
But there was bad news for motorists who may need a new international licence to hire or drive cars in the EU in the event of no deal.
T he impact of a no-deal Brexit could be as catastrophic as the financial crisis with house prices plummeting by a third, Mark Carney has warned ministers.
The Bank of England governor briefed Theresa May and senior ministers on his planning for a cliff edge split with the EU at a special Cabinet meeting.
He warned that house prices could tumble by as much as 35 per cent over three years in the worst case scenario, it was reported following the talks on Thursday.
Mr Carneys bleak prognosis came as France said it could halt flights and Eurostar trains from the UK if there was no agreement in March 2019.
The Bank of England declined to comment on Mr Carney's briefing to ministers, but his advice reflects the findings of the Bank's latest annual "stress test" of the UK financial system in November.
What happens in the event of a No Deal Brexit?
This warned of a 33 per cent fall in house prices in a worst case scenario.
France's Europe minister Nathalie Loiseau, who is in London for talks with Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab, warned Paris could halt major transport links with the UK in the absence of a Brexit deal.
Prime Minister Theresa May arrives at Downing Street in London, Britain / EPA
Speaking at the Chatham House international affairs think tank, she said EU member states were working on measures to ensure there was not "chaos" after Britain leaves on March 29.
Asked whether, in the event of a no-deal Brexit, it was a "real possibility" Eurostar trains from London could be rejected and planes leaving Britain turned back, she said: "The consequences of a no-deal which you mentioned are correct.
Governor of the Bank of England Dr Mark Carney leaves Downing Street following a Cabinet meeting / PA
"If we do nothing and if we reach no agreement, this is what would happen, among other examples."
She added: "This is the reason why we need to prepare for a no-deal because we cannot wake up on March 30 and say to our fellow citizens and to our businesses 'we thought it would not happen so we are not ready'."
Downing Street sought to play down her remarks, saying preparations were in hand to deal with "all possible scenarios" after Britain leaves the EU on March 29 2019.
"It is in everybody's interests for that not to happen," the Prime Minister's official spokesman said.
What is the Chequers Deal?
Following the three-and-a-half hour meeting of the Cabinet, the spokesman said ministers remained confident of securing an agreement, but had agreed to "ramp up" their no-deal planning.
"As a responsible Government, we need to plan for every eventuality. The Cabinet agreed that no-deal remains an unlikely but possible scenario in six months' time," the spokesman said.
Mr Raab said they were putting in place measures to manage the risks in the event of no-deal, but acknowledged there would be some "disruption" if there was no agreement.
"We need to be honest about this. In the event of a no-deal scenario, which is not what we want, we would face short-term risks and short-term disruption," he told BBC News.
The warning came as the Government released its latest tranche of 28 technical papers on the no-deal preparations.
They include advice to motorists that they may need to obtain an International Driving Permit to continue driving on the other side of the Channel if the EU refuses to recognise UK licences.
The book is a heartfelt, at times heartbreaking tale that, in the end, is much more about Sarah than the health care system. The book does not mention that very few children have benefited from expanded access to adult lungs. Of 24 children under 12 who have been granted "exceptions" and been wait-listed for adult lungs, only one besides Sarah wound up getting the organ from an adult, according to data from the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network, which sets allocation policy.
S ir Vince Cable today reveals he is sneaking Tory MPs into his office for chats about potential defections to the Liberal Democrats.
In an interview with the Evening Standard, the Lib-Dem leader said conversations were ongoing with four or five Conservative MPs unhappy with the direction their party is taking.
None were yet ready to switch parties, but he predicted several would if Jacob Rees-Mogg or Boris Johnson take over as Tory leader.
About four or five Conservatives have had that kind of conversation, he said.
People are putting out feelers. Good relations are being established but the conditions are not right yet.
Sir Vince predicted several Conservative MPs would switch parties if Jacob Rees-Mogg or Boris Johnson, centre, take over as Tory leader / Getty Images
About 20 Labour MPs were also waiting to see where Brexit leads before deciding whether to defect, form a new party or go independent.
Approaching his second, and possibly last, party conference as leader, Sir Vince, 75, also:
Revealed plans to overhaul immigration, including new rules getting asylum seekers into work while their claims are processed.
Accused Jeremy Corbyn of surrounding himself with thuggish aides.
Branded new centre parties such as Renew as naive and hopeless for competing against the Lib Dems.
Asked if he had achieved as much progress as leader as he had hoped, Sir Vince said: No. Not as much as Id hoped.
Despite this, he was optimistic, especially about the prospect of a second EU referendum. The political climate is looking better.
Amid rumours his party could rename itself the New Liberal Democrats, he confirmed there were serious discussions on rebranding, and if someone had a better idea than the two words Liberal Democrat then Im open to that.
On Labour, he said Corbynites had brought more nastiness into politics. I dont think hes a nasty person but hes surrounded himself with some pretty thuggish individuals.
On Labour: Sir Vince said Corbynites had brought 'nastiness' into politics / Getty/Dan Kitwood
His message to new centre ground parties is blunt: There isnt room. Youve seen what happened with Renew in Wandsworth and Kensington, theyre hopeless but they are absorbing some supporters, some funders who could be making common cause with us.
On immigration, Sir Vince said the Lib Dems would treat international students as assets, with management transferred from the Home Office to the Education Department.
The Liberal Democrats have just 12 MPs (compared with 57 in 2010) and Sir Vince has set his sights on overtaking the 35-strong Scottish Nationalist Party in terms of Parliamentary seats at the next general election.
He said it was massively frustrating to watch the Scots ask two questions a week at Prime Ministers Questions while he got one question every four weeks.
A week ago, Sir Vince announced he intends to retire once Brexit is settled.
B adger culling has been given the go-ahead in 10 new areas as part of new Government plans to curb the spread of tuberculosis (TB).
More than 40,000 badgers are to be culled as part of the plans, campaigners say.
The new sites which have been given the green light are said to be areas that are of high risk of tuberculosis in cattle, the Government announced.
Culling has also been given the go-ahead in Cumbria to tackle a pocket of infection, although the area has previously had a low risk of the disease.
A protesters in a badger costume holds a sign during a demonstration against Badger culling in 2014 / PA Archive/PA Images
Culling is now taking place in 32 areas across 10 counties - Devon, Cornwall, Dorset, Gloucestershire, Herefordshire, Cheshire, Somerset, Wiltshire, Staffordshire and Cumbria.
It comes as data published by the Government shows the rate of TB in cattle has halved in the first two cull areas since the programme began.
Campaigners have argued the new licenses could see over 40,000 badgers killed.
Badger Trust said: It is with great sadness that we announce a major extension of the badger cull that could result in 40,892 badgers being killed by the end of 2018.
In Gloucestershire, the incidence of TB has fallen from 10.4 per cent before culling started to 5.6 per cent in the fourth year of the cull, while in Somerset it has dropped from 24 per cent to 12 per cent, the data shows.
Ministers have also announced they are opening a new round of applications for grants to vaccinate badgers for TB in "edge" zones around the high risk areas.
Farming minister George Eustice said: "Today's figures showing reductions in TB cases in Somerset and Gloucestershire are evidence that our strategy for dealing with this slow moving, insidious disease is delivering results.
"Bovine TB remains one of the greatest animal health threats to the UK.
"There is no single measure that will provide an easy answer which is why we are committed to pursuing a wide range of interventions to protect the future of our dairy and beef industries and eradicate the disease within 20 years.
"No-one wants to be culling badgers forever so the progress reported today is encouraging."
George Eustice, Minister for Agriculture, Food and Fisheries / PA Wire/PA Images
National Farmers' Union vice president Stuart Roberts welcomed the news that data from the original cull areas showed a fall in TB incidence.
He said: "More than 33,000 cattle were slaughtered last year in England because of this devastating disease and more than 3,800 farms that had previously been clear of the disease were affected by it.
"We must have every option available to us to tackle BTB (Bovine TB) - including cattle testing, cattle movement restrictions, biosecurity advice, vaccination and control of the disease in wildlife."
But the Wildlife Trusts accused the Government of "forging ahead with another year of ineffective and expensive badger culling" without waiting for the outcome of a review.
Ellie Brodie, senior policy manager, said: "The badger cull is a dangerous distraction from addressing the main route of bTB transmission in cattle which is between cattle.
"We're calling on the Government to invest in medicine, not marksmen.
"The costs of killing badgers are much higher than vaccinating them - it costs 496.51 to kill a badger compared with 82 to vaccinate a badger."
Adam Grogan, head of the RSPCA's wildlife department, said: "We're appalled that the Government's inhumane and ill-considered bTB policy has been ramped up even further.
"Official data from 2016 demonstrates the pointlessness of culling badgers, with only 0.05% (46) of 994 culled badger carcasses tested found to be carrying the disease."
He also criticised the move to extend the cull into Cumbria, where he claimed poor cattle testing and movement policies had meant cattle imported from Northern Ireland had brought TB into the area, and where the culling could make the situation worse.
S ecurity minister Ben Wallace today launched a withering attack on sharp-suited lawyers, accountants and other professionals littering our streets with dirty money.
He also warned estate agents that they must raise the alarm if wealthy foreigners seek to buy expensive homes in London with cash.
Mr Wallace said the National Crime Agency was stepping up the number of targeted cases against wealthy individuals from Russia after the Salisbury Novichok attack and other countries.
Britain wanted to send a message to dodgy tycoons that it was cracking down on the laundering of dirty money in London.
Security Minister Ben Wallace announced a crack down on the laundering of dirty money in London / PA Archive/PA Images
But it is also about going after facilitators, those who allow those crooks to enjoy their money in London, Mr Wallace told MPs.
We must ensure that we deal with them all, not just the far-distant crime baron, but the smart, perhaps sharp-suited individuals who think they are just helping and not really engaged, but who in fact are absolutely corrupting our system, littering our streets with dirty money.
Mr Wallace, who is also minister for economic crime, said that in some cases by the time illicitly-gained fortunes reached London the money had been cleaned in other countries.
He added: People have bought houses with cash, and somehow some estate agents have not thought that that is remotely suspicious. There is an obligation, a legal obligation, on them to report these issues.
Funnily enough, when we follow up on those cash purchases, they are, more often than not, a dodgy purchase.
Under the Governments Suspicious Activity Reports regime, professionals have a duty to tell the authorities as soon as they know or suspect that a person is engaged in money laundering.
In a debate on the Wiltshire poisonings in the Commons yesterday, Mr Wallace also said that a series of measures were introduced in the Criminal Finances Act 2017, including asset-freezing orders and unexplained wealth orders.
He was speaking a week after Scotland Yard identified two men, using the names Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, as suspects in the attempted murder of former Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia.
The head of Russian channel RT said she spent yesterday evening with the suspects and a report was coming soon.
J ohn Lewis boss Sir Charlie Mayfield could be forgiven for reflecting ruefully on the lyrics of the Queen anthem selected for its latest TV ad.
For this morning it really must feel that Britains favourite department store chain is, in the words of the great Freddie Mercury, caught in a landslide, no escape from reality.
Todays loss for the department store side of the business (so rare that no one at John Lewis was today able to recall when it last happened) is collateral damage for the carnage laying waste to weaker retailers on the high street.
John Lewiss never knowingly undersold pledge is a fearsome weapon in its defence of market share. But when it means having to match the blizzard of discounts and promotions from desperate rivals such as House of Fraser and Debenhams, it also becomes dangerously self-harming. John Lewiss profit margin has been wiped out by retails race to the bottom in the most competitive market in decades.
But there are many reasons why John Lewis will see this storm out.
For starters it is simply a better business selling better products from better stores than most of its direct rivals.
Second, it has the cash machine that is its sister firm Waitrose to keep the parent business in the black just.
Third, John Lewis has one huge advantage over most of its competitors: its partnership structure. Unlike fickle shareholders, John Lewiss 83,000 partners will mostly stay loyal.
D owning Street has accused Russia of "lies and blatant fabrications" following the television interview with the two Salisbury poisoning suspects.
Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov sparked ridicule by claiming they only went to Salisbury to "visit the wonderful town" as tourists.
The Prime Minister's official spokesman said on Thursday: "The lies and blatant fabrications in this interview given to a Russian-state sponsored TV station are an insult to public's intelligence.
"More importantly, they are deeply offensive to the victims and loved ones of this horrific attack. Sadly, it is what we have come to expect.
Suspects in Skripal poisoning claim they went to Salisbury to 'visit cathedral'
"An illegal chemical weapon has been used on the streets of this country. We have seen four people left seriously ill in hospital and an innocent woman has died. Russia has responded with contempt."
Novichok suspects Alexander Petrov (left) and Ruslan Boshirov / PA
The spokesman added that police had set out very clearly the evidence against the two suspects, who were charged last week.
He continued: "They are wanted men and we have taken steps to ensure that they are apprehended and brought to justice in the UK if they ever again set foot outside Russia."
A Met Police CCTV still of suspects Ruslan Boshirov and Alexander Petrov in Salisbury in March / Met Police
In an interview with Russian channel RT, the men confirmed they were in Salisbury before the Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, fell critically ill from ingesting nerve agent Novichok.
"Yeah that's us," Petrov said. "Our friends had been suggesting for a long time that we visit this wonderful town.
"Theres the famous Salisbury Cathedral, famous not only in Europe but in the whole world. Its famous for its 123-metre spire, its famous for its clock, one of the first-ever created in the world that is still working."
Former Russian spy Mr Skripal and his daughter were poisoned in March.
T he UK may lose access to protections against space debris if the event of a "no-deal" Brexit scenario.
The Government has warned that we may be more at risk from space junk as we will lose access to the EU's shared programme for automatic tracking of satellites and chunks of waste, drifting around above our atmosphere.
This EU Space Surveillance and Tracking Programme (EUSST) warns the UK space agency about collisions with satellites and gives us re-entry warnings, for when satellites and debris are about to fall out of orbit.
EUSST monitors the following: Conjunction Analysis (i.e. Collision Avoidance); Fragmentation Analysis (i.e. the analysis of in-orbit fragmentations from space vehicles, as well as the information about the fragmentation); and Re-Entry warnings (i.e. satellites or debris coming back to earth on a scheduled or unscheduled basis).
The EUSST was set up in 2014 to protect "Space Architecture" from collisions from debris, and to warn against satellites crashing into one another.
"If the UK leaves the EU in March 2019 with no agreement in place, the UK will not be eligible to participate in the EU Space Surveillance and Tracking programme," the Government guidance said.
"UK organisations will not therefore be able to contribute to providing services to the EU Space Surveillance and Tracking, to participate in the scientific and technical groups to develop the programme further or be able to receive grant funding to pay for UK involvement."
the ESA's uropean Space Agency (ESA), the Soyuz rocket launched one of the first ESA's first Galileo Sentinel satellites into orbit in 2012 from the European Spaceport in French Guiana. / Getty/ESA/S Corvaja
The UK would not be taking part in its own project to manage objects in orbit, but we would still receive tracking data from the US, the report added.
Many have taken the news as a "ridiculous" jibe at Brexiteers.
Under the technical notice we could also lose access to the Galileo sat-nav project, and our researches may be restricted from using the Copernicus project, which uses an armada of satellite "Sentinels" to collect data on weather, climate change and marine environments.
Galileo, or the Global Navigation Satellite System (GSNS) is currently being built with the aim of giving Europeans access to sat-nav without having to rely on the Russian, American and Chinese systems.
"In the unlikely event that the UK leaves the EU with no deal in place, the UK will no longer have access to Public Regulated Service," said the government's technical notice, released today.
The Public Regulated Services, which government agencies use in emergencies, will not be available after a no-deal Brexit, but consumers will still be free to use sat-nav provided by Galileo.
The government said in preparation of this scenario, it will "invest 92 million from the Brexit readiness fund on an 18-month programme to design a UK Global Navigation Satellite System. This will inform the decision to create an independent system as an alternative to Galileo."
Ministers added in their statement: "A scenario in which the UK leaves the EU without agreement remains unlikely given the mutual interests of the UK and the EU in securing a negotiated outcome.
"Negotiations are progressing well and both we and the EU continue to work hard to seek a positive deal. However, its our duty as a responsible government to prepare for all eventualities, including no deal, until we can be certain of the outcome of those negotiations."
Theresa May approved a 100m project to compete with Galileo in August.
A British Airways flight from London to Calgary had to make an emergency landing at a remote Canadian airport after pilots reported smoke in the cockpit.
The Boeing 787 Dreamliner landed "safely" in Iqaluit Airport in Nunavut where at least one passenger was reportedly treated by medics.
The passenger flight landed in temperatures of around 1C at 7.20pm local time (11.20pm BST) after taking off from Heathrow at 6.30pm on Wednesday.
Canadian media said the planes pilots wore oxygen masks as they diverted to the airport on Baffin Island. British Airways said the landing was a precaution after a "possible technical issue".
The flight was diverted after smoke was reported in the cockpit five hours into the journey / REUTERS
Aviation journalist Tom Podolec tweeted: "Burning smell/fumes in cockpit. Pilots wore oxygen masks. A passenger had a sore arm; treated by medics."
Firefighters and emergency services were waiting in the snow at the airport, which is equipped to receive international flights after the opening of a 9,000-square-foot terminal last year.
Nunatsiaq News reported that the some 200 passengers were taken to hotels on school buses before boarding a replacement aircraft to Calgary in the morning.
Emergency personnel board British Airways Flight BA103 from London to Calgary / REUTERS
A British Airways spokesperson said: The aircraft landed safely. Our highly trained flight crew diverted the aircraft as a precaution after a possible technical issue.
"We're very sorry that our customers have been inconvenienced and delayed. Our cabin crew have been looking after them and we'll get them on to their final destination as quickly as we can.
British Airways Flight BA103 from London to Calgary is seen on the tarmac in Iqaluit / REUTERS
U S president Donald Trump has made a stunning claim that 3,000 people did not die in last year's Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico.
As Hurricane Florence bears down on the US, Mr Trump argued without evidence that the number was wrong and called it a plot by Democrats to make him look bad.
A study last month found 2,975 people died within six months of Maria, which struck in September.
The president tweeted on Thursday: 3000 people did not die in the two hurricanes that hit Puerto Rico. When I left the Island, AFTER the storm had hit, they had anywhere from 6 to 18 deaths. As time went by it did not go up by much. Then, a long time later, they started to report really large numbers, like 3000...
.....This was done by the Democrats in order to make me look as bad as possible when I was successfully raising Billions of Dollars to help rebuild Puerto Rico. If a person died for any reason, like old age, just add them onto the list. Bad politics. I love Puerto Rico!
The president's tweets drew the ire of Carmen Yulin Cruz, mayor of San Juan. She was a sharp critic of Mr Trump after Hurricane Maria.
She wrote on Twitter: "This is what denial following neglect looks like: Mr Pres in the real world people died on your watch. YOUR LACK OF RESPECT IS APPALLING!"
The mayor, who has previously feuded with Mr Trump, continued in a series of posts: "Mr President no matter how much you try your true colors come shining thru. Unfortunately you just cant help it. You just cant get it.
"Mr Trump you can try and bully us with your tweets BUT WE KNOW OUR LIVES MATTER. You will never take away our self respect. Shame on you!
"Simply put: delusional, paranoid, and unhinged from any sense of reality. Trump is so vain he thinks this is about him. NO IT IS NOT."
Donald Trump walks past hurricane wreckage in Puerto Rico last year (Reuters) / REUTERS
With Hurricane Florence about to hit the Carolinas, the Trump administration is under pressure after facing severe criticism for its handling of Maria.
Ysamar Figueroa, carrying her son Saniel, looks at the damage in Canovanas, Puerto Rico, after Hurricane Maria last year / Reuters
Mr Trump this week defended his efforts in Puerto Rico, to widespread criticism. He called it an "incredible, unsung success".
Guajataca dam cracks after Hurricane Maria
Puerto Rico's governor, Ricardo Rossello, last month raised the official Maria death toll from 64 to 2,975. An independent study had found the number of people who succumbed in the sweltering aftermath had been severely undercounted.
The 2,975 estimate was made by researchers at George Washington University. The study said the original estimates were so low because doctors on the island had not been trained to properly classify deaths after a natural disaster.
T his immersive video reveals what nine feet of storm surge would look like in US towns as Hurricane Florence bears down on them.
Life-threatening storm surge flooding of up to 13 feet has been forecast for some areas with the storm about to hit North and South Carolina .
The Weather Channel has produced a clip which shows what the flooding will actually look like and how dangerous it would be to get caught in it.
It shows that storm surge at three feet, which is forecast across the region, is enough to knock you off your feet and even sweep away vehicles.
The clip shows the devastating effects of nine feet of storm surge, which is forecast in some places / The Weather Channel
Florence is also due to bring water rises of up to six feet, which the video shows could carry large objects and act like a battering ram on buildings.
The clip then shows the devastating impact of storm surge at nine feet, with one-storey buildings entirely submerged.
Hurricane Florence - In pictures 1 /70 Hurricane Florence - In pictures Lt. Keith Ramsey with the Pender County Sheriff's Office walks out to a boat while taking part in rescue operations in Burgaw, North Carolina AP U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to members of the media prior to a Marine One departure at the South Lawn of the White House September 19, 2018 in Washington Getty Images Local residents walk along the edge of a collapsed road that ran atop Patricia Lake's dam after it collapsed in the aftermath of Hurricane Florence, in Boiling Spring Lakes, North Carolina Reuters Teresa Nance is licked by her dog as she returns to dry land after checking on her home flooded by Hurricane Florence Getty Images US President Donald Trump greets residents with prepared meals in New Bern, North Carolina AFP/Getty Images Flood waters from Hurricane Florence surrounds two hog houses and it's lagoon near Kinston, N.C AP Jovani Quintano and Carlos Gomez (L-R) walk through a flooded neighborhoom after heavy rains brought on by Hurricane Florence on September 19, 2018 in Lumberton, North Carolina. Getty Images US President Donald Trump walks with officials in Conway, South Carolina AFP/Getty Images Old tree stumps that used to be at the bottom of Patricia Lake are revealed after it emptied when its dam collapsed in the aftermath of Hurricane Florence, in Boiling Spring Lakes, North Carolina, U.S Reuters Water from the flooded Waccamaw River surrounds a house in the aftermath of Hurricane Florence now downgraded to a tropical depression in Conway, South Carolina, U.S. Reuters Dustin Mock navigates a flooded street as flood waters rise in the aftermath of Hurricane Florence now downgraded to a tropical depression in Conway, South Carolina, U.S. Reuters Jose Perez-Santiago, left, and Rosemary Acevedo-Gonzalez, walk with their daughter Jordalis, 2, after retrieving her clothing upon returning to their home for the first time since it was flooded in the aftermath of Hurricane Florence in Spring Lake, North Carolina AP Flood waters from hurricane Florence inundate the town of Engelhard, N.C. AP A downed tree rests on a house during the passing of Hurricane Florence in the town of Wilson, North Carolina REUTERS A member of the US Army walks in water while rescuing people during the passing of Hurricane Florence in the town of New Bern REUTERS A downed tree is pictured as Hurricane Florence comes ashore on Wilmington, North Carolina REUTERS Volunteers from the Civilian Crisis Response Team help rescue three children from their flooded home in James City, Getty Images A downed tree blocks a local street during the passing of Hurricane Florence the town of New Bern, North Carolina REUTERS Waves slam the Oceana Pier & Pier House Restaurant in Atlantic Beach AP Shianne Coleman (L) gets a hand from friend Austin Gremmel as they walk in flooded streets as the Neuse River begins to flood its banks during Hurricane Florence Getty Images High winds and storm surge from Hurricane Florence hits Swansboro North Carolina. AP Russ Lewis looks for shells along the beach as Hurricane Florence approaches Myrtle Beach, South Carolina AP Michael Nelson floats in a boat made from a metal tub and fishing floats after the Neuse River went over its banks and flooded his street during Hurricane Florence in New Bern, North Carolina Getty Images Volunteers from the Civilian Crisis Response Team help rescue three children from their flooded home in James City, Getty Images Jamie Thompson walks through flooded sections of East Front Street near Union Point Park in New Bern, North Carolina AP Portions of a boat dock and boardwalk are destroyed by powerful wind and waves as Hurricane Florence Getty Images People walk on a local street as water from Neuse River starts flooding houses upon Hurricane Florence coming ashore in New Bern, North Carolina Reuters Newlyweds Kathryn and Anthony Palmisano stand on the steps of the Charleston City Market in a deserted downtown in Charleston, South Carolina. Getty Images Doug Lewis and Chris Williams use plywood with the words 'Looters will be shot' to cover the windows of Knuckleheads bar as they try to protect the business ahead of the arrival of Hurricane Florence Getty Images Body surfer Andrew Vanotteren crashes into waves from Hurricane Florence AP Members of law enforcement work with the National Guard to direct traffic onto U.S. Highway 501 as Hurricane Florence approaches the East Coast AP A message is posted on a boarded up building before the arrival of Hurricane Florence on Oak Island, North Carolina Reuters People and pets evacuate ahead of the forecasted landfall of Hurricane Florence and seek shelter at Burgaw Middle School in Burgaw, North Carolina EPA Lisa Evers of Oak Island carries clothing to her car while evacuating her house ahead of the arrival of Hurricane Florence in Oak Island, North Carolina Reuters Brady Osborne ties freshly filled sandbags, in Virginia Beach, Va., as Hurricane Florence moves towards the eastern shore. AP Sand bags surround homes on North Topsail Beach, North Carolina. as Hurricane Florence threatens the coast AP This US Navy photo shows a Sailor as he heaves line during a heavy weather mooring evolution in preparation for Hurricane Florence AFP/Getty Images Sam Bedford, left, and Miller Richey move trash bins from the Isle of Palms Marina on the Isle of Palms, South Carolina. AP People wait before departure on an evacuation bus ahead of the arrival of Hurricane Florence in Wilmington, North Carolina Reuters The bread shelves are bare in a grocery store as people stock up on food ahead of the arrival of Hurricane Florence Getty Images Mark Lewis, left, conservator, and Alisa Reynolds, associate registrar, secure the painting "The Shoppers" by William James Glackens at the Chrysler Museum of Art AP A boat is docked partially in the road as workers pull boats from the water in Wanchese Harbor in Wanchese, N.C. as Hurricane Florence approaches the coast of the Carolina AP Marge Brown, 65, says goodbye to her father, George Brown, 90, before he is evacuated from a healthcare home in Morehead City, N.C., as Hurricane Florence approaches the east coast. "I'd like to stay and see what happens. I'm 90 plus," said Brown, a WWII veteran who says he's survived a plane crash and severe burns from a laboratory fire where he once worked. AP U.S. Marine recruits at Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island prepare to evacuate ahead of Hurricane Florence at Parris Island, South Carolina Reuters People evacuate ahead of the forecasted landfall of Hurricane Florence as they seek shelter at Emma B. Trask Middle School in Wilmington, North Carolina EPA People queue for shelters during the night ahead of the forecasted landfall of Hurricane Florence EPA People line up to enter a hurricane shelter at Trask Middle School in Wilmington, North Carolina AFP/Getty Images People evacuate ahead of the forecasted landfall of Hurricane Florence as they seek shelter at Emma B. Trask Middle School in Wilmington, North Carolina, USA EPA Up to a million people have been ordered to evacuate ahead of Hurricane Florence AFP/Getty Images People look on as water floods King Street in Old Town Alexandria, Virginia, September 11, 2018, where sandbags are being distributed to businesses and residents in preparation before more rain arrives from Hurricane Florence AFP/Getty Images Chuck Ledford (L), watches Looney-Tunes with his daughter Misty as they evacuate ahead of the forecasted landfall of Hurricane Florence as they seek shelter at Emma B. Trask Middle School in Wilmington, North Carolina EPA People line up to enter a hurricane shelter at Trask Middle School in North Carolina on September 11, 2018 AFP/Getty Images A woman holds her dog as she waits to enter a hurricane shelter at Trask Middle School in Wilmington, North Carolina AFP/Getty Images Two women sit with their dogs as they wait to enter a hurricane shelter at Trask Middle School in wilmington, North Carolina AFP/Getty Images South Carolina state troopers work with D.O.T. employees at an access ramp to I-26 Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2018, in Columbia AP Families seek shelter during the night ahead of the forecasted landfall of Hurricane Florence EPA A woman closes her eyes in reaction to the line at the shelter EPA Kevin Orth loads sandbags into cars on Milford Street as he helps residents prepare for Hurricane Florence AP Hurricane Florence is seen from the International Space Station as it churns in the Atlantic Ocean towards the east coast of the US Reuters A beachfront home is boarded up ahead of Hurricane Florence, at Holden Beach, North Carolina Reuters An NOAA chart shows the predicted path of Tropical Storm Florence as she develops into a Major Hurricane over the coming seven days. NOAA Jim Craig, David Burke and Chris Rayner load generators as people buy supplies at The Home Depot on Monday. AP Customers line up to buy propane at Socastee Hardware store, ahead of the arrival of Hurricane Florence in Myrtle. Reuters Larry Pierson, from the Isle of Palms, S.C., purchases bottled water from the Harris Teeter grocery store on the Isle of Palms. AP Residents of the Isle of Palms, S.C., fill sand bags at the Isle of Palms municipal lot where the city was giving away free sand in preparation for Hurricane Florence. AP People shop at the Harris Teeter, filling up on water and supplies. AP Brian Franklin prepares more generators for sale as people buy supplies at The Home Depo. AP U.S. Airmen from the South Carolina Air National Guard and 169th Fighter Wing prepare to deploy to support rescue efforts. Reuters Chris Rayner helps customers load their cars as they buy supplies at The Home Depot. AP Walker Townsend, at left, from the Isle of Palms, S.C., fills a sand bag while Dalton Trout. AP
There are very few places that are safe when the water rises this high, explains presenter Ryan Davidson.
So please, follow the advice of your local officials and heed the evacuation warnings.
Hurricane Florence has been downgraded to a Category 2 storm but is still considered an extremely dangerous and life-threatening storm, US officials said.
Faced with new forecasts that showed a more southerly threat, Georgia's governor joined his counterparts in Virginia and North and South Carolina in declaring a state of emergency, and some residents who had thought they were safely out of range boarded up their homes.
Footage of Hurricane Florence captured from space
A Malian migrant dubbed "spider-man" after rescuing a young boy dangling from a balcony in Paris has been made a French citizen.
Video footage of Mamoudou Gassama, a 22-year-old migrant, saving the life of the child went viral in May.
An official decree announced his citizenship on Wednesday, saying: This act of great bravery exemplifies the values which help unite our national community, such as courage, selflessness, altruism and taking care of the most vulnerable.
After rescuing the child, Mr Gassama met with President Macron who promised that he would be given legal papers and offered him a role in the fire service.
He was awarded with a medal along with a French residency permit before his citizenship request was fast-tracked.
Mr Gassama was pictured with a group of new recruits in July / Pompiers de Paris
The young man had legal papers to legally stay initially, where he arrived in Europe after crossing the Mediterranean after a long, rough stay in Libya.
However he said he wanted to join his older brother in France who has been there for decades.
One is not permitted to hit ones spouse or a stranger; such actions are defined as the crime of assault, the paper states. Nor should one be permitted to hit a small and more vulnerable child. Hitting a child elicits precisely the feelings one does not want to generate in a child: distress, anger, fear, shame, and disgust. Studies show that children who are hit identify with the aggressor and are more likely to become hitters themselves, that is, bullies and future abusers of their own children and partners.
A young boy is making a remarkable recovery after a meat skewer impaled his skull but just missed his brain in what doctors called a one in a million accident.
Xavier Cunningham, 10, from Missouri, was attacked by wasps and fell from a tree house before the skewer penetrated his skull from his face to the back of his head.
His horrified mother attempted to comfort the boy who was screaming Im dying, mum as he was rushed to hospital following the horrific freak accident.
Miraculously the skewer missed the boys brain, spinal cord and major blood vessels, but had he landed fractions of an inch to either side he may have been killed.
Xavier is now recovering and getting back on his feet in Kansas following surgery to remove the foot-long skewer embedded from his cheekbone to the back of his neck.
Medics described it as a "one in a million" accident / AFP/Getty Images
The youngster was treated at University of Kansas Hospital, where endovascular neurosurgery director Koji Ebersole evaluated the shocking wound.
"You couldn't draw it up any better," Ebersole said. "It was one in a million for it to pass 5 or 6 inches through the front of the face to the back and not have hit these things."
There was no active bleeding, allowing the hospital time to get personnel in place for a removal surgery on Sunday morning that was complicated by the fact that the skewer was not round.
Because it was square, with sharp edges, it would have to come out perfectly straight. Twisting it could cause additional severe injury, Ebersole said.
"Miraculous" would be an appropriate word to describe what happened, Ebersole added.
"I have not seen anything passed to that depth in a situation that was survivable, let alone one where we think the recovery will be near complete if not complete," he said.
H undreds of thousands of bottles of water languished on an abandoned airport runway in Puerto Rico while the island faced severe shortages in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, it has emerged.
The huge supply was shown sitting on tarmac at Jose Aponte de la Torre Airport in aerial photographs posted to Facebook by Abdiel Santana, who works United Forces of Rapid Action agency of the Puerto Rico Police.
Mr Santana told CBS News that he first saw thousands of boxes stacked there a year ago, and took the photographs because he is angry they are still there.
"Believe it or not...nearly a million boxes of water that were never delivered to the people of P.R. during the emergency of Hurricane Maria," Mr Santana posted on Facebook in Spanish. "Is there someone that can explain this?"
The huge water supply was ordered into the island by the Federal Emergency Management Agency but went unused for months / Abdiel Santana/Facebook
The pictures were posted the same day that US President Donald Trump said his administration got "A pluses" in their response to Hurricane Maria.
Maria, a Category 4 hurricane, brought winds of 155 miles per hour to the Caribbean island on September 20, 2017, resulting in an official death toll of 64.
However a government-commissioned study by George Washington University published last month found that 2,975 people died within six months of the storm amid widespread shortages of clean drinking water, medical care, food and power.
More than a million people were without drinkable water by October, and forced to use sources such as rivers or springs instead.
The storm caused severe flooding that crippled the island's infrastructure / AFP/Getty Images
Officials are now trying to find out how the bottles went unused, and the spotlight has fallen on the island's Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
Marty Bahamonde, director of disaster operations at FEMA, confirmed to CBS that the agency imported the water, however it is not yet clear exactly what happened next.
Buzzfeed News reports that a FEMA spokesperson claims it found after the delivery that it had a surplus supply of water, and signed the shipment over to to a different government agency, the General Services Administration (GSA).
Ottmar Chavez, the administrator of Puerto Rico's General Services Administration, said the bottles were transferred to the GSA in May 2018.
Mr Chavez, who was not yet head of the agency at the time, said the GSA subsequently received complaints that the water smelled and tasted bad, leading some to believe it had spoiled by being left for months on the runway in the sun.
Hurricane Maria - In pictures 1 /34 Hurricane Maria - In pictures Trees are ripped out in a car park in San Juan, Puerto Rico AFP/Getty Images An uprooted tree covers a small house in the village of Viard - Petit Bourg, near Pointe-a-Pitre AFP/Getty Images A man and his daughter flee from the rain on a beach in San Juan, Puerto Ric AFP/Getty Images Islanders board up windows of a business in Puerto Rico AFP/Getty Images Powerful winds and rains of hurricane Maria battering the city of Petit-Bourg on the French overseas Caribbean island of Guadeloupe AFP/Getty Images Rocks swept by strong waves onto a road in Le Carbet, on the French Caribbean island of Martinique, after it was hit by Hurricane Maria AFP/Getty Images Hurricane Maria which bore down menacingly on the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico on Tuesday after devastating the tiny island nation of Dominica and Hurricane Jose (top) are both seen in the Atlantic Ocean Reuters Refugees are seen at the Roberto Clemente Coliseum refuge in San Juan, Puerto Rico AFP/Getty Images Five U.S. Navy vessels maneuver around Hurricane Maria before eventually returning to assist the U.S. Virgin Islands, in the Caribbean Sea REUTERS Storm damage to a tool shed/dog house, caused by Hurricane Maria in Bouillante, Guadeloupe AP A lady holds her rosary as she takes part in a prayer circle at a makeshift at the Juan Ponce de Leon Elementary School before the arrival of Hurricane Mari, in Humacao, Puerto Rico, AP Shoppers at a Wal Mart load up on supplies in preparation for a direct hit from Hurricane Maria in San Juan, Puerto Rico Getty Images People stand next to debris at a restaurant in Le Carbet, on the French Caribbean island of Martinique, after it was hit by Hurricane Maria AFP/Getty Images People clear debris in Saint-Pierre, on the French Caribbean island of Martinique, after it was hit by Hurricane Maria AFP/Getty Images A motorist drives on the flooded waterfront in Fort-de-France, on the French Caribbean island of Martinique, after it was hit by Hurricane Maria AFP/Getty Images A man walks in a flooded street after the passage of Hurricane Maria in Pointe-a-Pitre, Guadeloupe island Reuters A man looks at a fallen tree as he walks along a street after the passage of Hurricane Maria in Pointe-a-Pitre, Guadeloupe island Reuters A man removes a branch in a flooded street after the passage of Hurricane Maria in Pointe-a-Pitre, Guadeloupe island Reuters Shopping carts are seen in a flooded parking after the passage of Hurricane Maria on the outskirts of Pointe-a-Pitre, Guadeloupe island Reuters A flooded street in Pointe-a-Pitre after the powerful winds and rain of hurricane Maria battered the French overseas Caribbean island of Guadeloupe AFP/Getty Images Hurricane Maria approaching the Leeward Islands, as the hurricane intensified into a "potentially catastrophic" category five storm and continued on a collision course with British overseas territories already battered by Irma NOAA/PA Hurricane Maria flattened homes in Dominica Members of the Guadeloupe Adapted Military Service Regiment gather detritus on 18 September 18, 2017, as they clean Sandy Ground on the French Caribbean island of Saint-Martin, after it was hit by Hurricane Irma, and in order to limit the risk of flooding and projectiles as Hurricane Maria approaches the Caribbean AFP/Getty Images Members of the Guadeloupe Adapted Military Service Regiment gather detritus on 18 September 18, 2017, as they clean Sandy Ground on the French Caribbean island of Saint-Martin, after it was hit by Hurricane Irma, and in order to limit the risk of flooding and projectiles as Hurricane Maria approaches the Caribbean AFP/Getty Images 40 Commando Assault Engineers boarding up windows at Road Town Police Station in preparation for Storm Maria on the British Virgin Islands EPA Prefet de Guadeloupe People board up windows in Dominica AFP/Getty Images Women in Dominica prepare for Hurricane Maria AP Army soldiers wait with their belongings on a beach for transport on a Navy landing craft while evacuating in advance of Hurricane Maria Reuters Crewmen brace themselves from the propeller wash of a Marine Corps MV-22B Osprey departing the aboard the USS Kearsarge as U.S. military continues to evacuate from the U.S. Virgin Islands in advance of Hurricane Maria Reuters Category 3 hurricane: Soldiers board a Navy landing craft during an evacuation in advance of Hurricane Maria Reuters Soldiers wait on a beach for a Navy landing craft as their unit evacuates in advance of Hurricane Maria Reuters Hurricane Maria makes landfall in Puerto Rico in Fajardo AFP/Getty Images Winds lash the coastal city of Fajardo in Puerto Rico as Hurricane Maria arrives AFP/Getty Images
Mr Santana's photographs have been shared 19,000 times and Puerto Ricans commented on the Facebook post to voice their outrage.
T he world is in danger of sleepwalking into a repeat of the near financial meltdown of 2008, Gordon Brown has said.
The former prime minister insisted dangers had increased because the world is now "leaderless".
Mr Brown said a "severe awakening" will be needed to avoid a future crisis as he warned of what may be to come.
Asked about the risks of a repeat of the economic collapse of a decade ago, Mr Brown said: "We are in danger of sleepwalking into a future crisis."
Speaking to the Guardian, he added: "There is going to have to be a severe awakening to the escalation of risks, but we are in a leaderless world."
Mr Brown, who was prime minister during the onset of the 2008 financial crisis which helped destroy his premiership in the 2010 general election, said the international co-ordination shown then would be impossible now.
He said: "The cooperation that was seen in 2008 would not be possible in a post-2018 crisis both in terms of central banks and governments working together.
"We would have a blame-sharing exercise rather than solving the problem.
"In the next crisis a breakdown of trust in the financial sector would be mirrored by breakdown in trust between governments.
"There wouldn't be the same willingness to cooperate but rather a tendency to blame each other for what's gone wrong.
"Countries have retreated into nationalist silos and that has brought us protectionism and populism.
"Countries are at war with each other on trade, climate change and nuclear proliferation."
Mr Brown said that the trade war US president Donald Trump has launched against China would be a major obstacle to any international co-operation in a future crisis.
He said: "Trump's protectionism is the biggest barrier to building international cooperation."
The former PM admitted that Labour should have been tougher on the City in the boom years leading up to the 2008 near meltdown.
He said: "Yes, we did not know what was going on in some of the institutions, some of it illegal, and which was being covered up."
He added: "The penalties for wrong-doing have not been increased sufficiently.
D aniel Radcliffe has admitted that he never felt cool playing the iconic role of Harry Potter growing up.
The 29-year-old, who was cast at the age of 11, opened up on taking on the role in the films inspiring by J.K Rowling's books at such a young age.
The Kill Your Darlings actor said: "I never as a kid - you know when you're just insecure at that age - I never felt cool at any point playing that character.
"And sort of these things go like 'No!'... people thought that was pretty cool! It's nice, yeah."
Since wrapping up his role in the beloved franchise Radcliffe has gone on to pursue a number of projects, including Swiss Army Man and Imperium.
Moving On: Radcliffe has done a number of project since Harry Potter / PA
Despite the roaring success of Harry Potter, Grint told how he lives a pretty normal life but meets some interesting characters.
He said: Thats the nature of Potter. It does appeal to the outcasts of society, they see something in it they can kind of relate to.
Grint, who portrayed lovable best friend of Radcliffes Potter and Emma Watsons Hermione Granger, admitted that he is happy to shed his warm image and move onto darker projects such as such as Daniel Glass in Sick Note and Inspector Crome in upcoming series The ABC Murders.
K atie Price has reportedly been banned from picking up her children Jett and Bunny from school after allegedly hurling abuse at her ex Kieran Haylers new girlfriend.
Reports claim that Price has been advised to stay away from the school gates after shouting are you enjoying f****** my husband? at her estranged third husbands new partner Michelle Pentecost.
A source told The Sun: "About a month ago, Katie shouted at Michelle, Kieran's new girlfriend, at the school gates.
Katie shouted [] and some of the parents who were there were really shocked. Some of them went to the head teacher and asked them to ban her from the gates.
The school politely suggested that Katie stay away and get someone else to pick up Bunny and Jett from now on to avoid any further incidents. She was fuming about it but there's not much she can do about it.
Standard Online has contacted representatives for Price for comment.
Estranged: Katie Price and third husband Kieran Hayler are divorcing / Ian West/PA
Price, 40, shares five-year-old son Jett and daughter Bunny, four, with Hayler and was recently blasted for being absent on their first day of school after partying in Majorca with Alex Adderson.
Last week, Hayler posted an adorable picture of the siblings standing next to each other before going off to school, with Bunny wearing her green uniform for the first time.
Hayler captioned the snap: Back to school!!!! So proud of my 2 gorgeous children, both brave and looking forward to their school year.
Bunnys first day and so proud of jett being there to support her as she went into her classroom.
Volunteer opportunities at local organizations
Weber Human Services is looking for people who can help Northern Utah nonprofits. For more information on volunteer opportunities or to post an opportunity for your organization, call 801-625-3777 or 801-778-6897. If you are interested in volunteering and do not see what interests you please call us as we have many more opportunities available and will help you find what interests you and best uses your skills. If your organization is in need of volunteers, please give us a call. The Ogden Nature Center, a 152-acre nonprofit nature preserve, is always looking for volunteers to ...
Youre in the big hospital waiting room, youre OK, but when theyre going to take me into the little room, I know why youre going to take me for, she said. To tell me what I didnt want to know. When they take you into that little room, you know why.
The Park District, created in 1934 to replace local park boards, had its headquarters in offices built for the Century of Progress Exposition before moving to Soldier Field. After more than 50 years at the lakefront stadium, parks officials said the building was too expensive to maintain and renovate. Architectural fans hoped the building, designed by Park District engineers and the famed Chicago firm of Holabird & Root, could be saved, but in 2001, the district packed up and moved to the Time-Life Building.
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The proposed order is substantially similar to the draft Madigan and Emanuel released for public comment in July, though it includes changes related to the publication of data on police practices, the departments efforts to improve the way it deals with people in crisis and other areas. The proposal also reflects a deal Emanuel and Madigan struck to get past an impasse over whether or not cops would have to document instances when they point guns at people.
Premier Viorica Dancila said on Thursday that she asked EU Commissioner for Agriculture Phil Hogan to make sure the European Commission provides full technical and financial support for the mitigation of the dire consequences of the African swine fever outbreak on Romanian agriculture.
"I presented to Mr. Commissioner the situation created by the bout of African swine fever, which has economic and financial, but also social effects. In this context, we asked Mr. EU Commissioner to make sure that the European Commission provides full technical and financial support to reduce the devastating impact the African swine fever has had on Romanian agriculture," Dancila said at the Victoria Palace, during joint statements with Commissioner Phil Hogan.
The prime minister emphasized that European assistance is of key importance to Romania, given the high share of agriculture in the Romanian economy."Suffice to mention that statistical data shows that agriculture has made a substantial contribution to Romania's economic growth," Dancila said.The prime minister said that at the meeting with Phil Hogan she also presented the projects envisaged by the government for the modernization of Romanian agriculture."In the first place, I presented Mr. Commissioner a series of actions taken at government level with a view to developing a competitive agriculture. I explained that this is the first time that farm subsidies have been duly allocated. We discussed the program for the rehabilitation of the main irrigation infrastructure According to the government program, we plan having 2 million hectares of irrigated farmland in two years. We also presented the measures to develop the national anti-hail system," Dancila said.The head of the government also discussed with the European official Romania's major goals for its term at the Presidency of the Council of the European Union and reaffirmed the importance our country attaches to the cohesion of the European project."In this respect, the common agricultural policy along with the cohesion policy plays an important role in generating economic growth and economic and social convergence. In this context, we reiterated Romania's position on the main topics covered by the Common Agricultural Policy. We are in favor of continuing the convergence of direct payments, which will help reduce differences between the direct subsidies in Eastern member states and Western European countries. At the same time, we consider that a more recent eligible surface should be used in calculating the subsidy, specifically figures from 2018, not 2016. We support maintaining an adequate level of the Common Agricultural Policy budget, as reducing it risks deepening the development gaps among the regions, as well as among member states. We want funding allocated to rural development to increase. We consider that the 16 percent cut and the intention to increase the national co-financing rate will seriously affect the development of mountain areas, disadvantaged areas, ecological agriculture, climate and environmental measures, investment in innovation and knowledge development," Dancila explained.She said that Romania opposes plans for the compulsory capping of agricultural subsidies.''Such a measure would seriously affect large, competitive farms, but medium-sized ones too, without really contributing to the restructuring of uncompetitive farms. Our proposal is to leave it to member states to decide on whether to cap or redistribute payments, with a 25-30 percent increase for large farms. We further support the continuation of the application of payment schemes for young farmers and small farms with coupled support, as well as a simplified policy aimed at cutting red-tape. I am convinced that together we will be able to continue at national level the good cooperation we had at European level, and I trust that Mr. EU Commissioner will have an objective approach regarding Romania," Dancila concluded.
The balance of payments' current account recorded a 4.811 bln euro deficit January through July 2018, up 15.59pct as compared to the similar period of 2017, a release by the National bank of Romania (BNR) sent to AGERPRES on Thursday, informs.
In the same period of the last year, the current account deficit parked at 4.162 bln euro.
According to BNR, the goods' balance in structure saw a deficit higher by 999 million euro, the services' balance recorded a surplus smaller by 255 million euro, the primary incomes' balance registered a deficit down by 820 million euro, and the secondary incomes' balance saw a deficit smaller by 215 million euro.From January to July 2018, the total external debt grew by 4.105 billion euro. In structure, the long-term external debt counted for 66.959 bln euro at 31 July 2018 (68.6pct of the external debt's total), down 2.4pct against 31 December 2017. The short-term external debt parked on 31 July 2018 at 30.623 bln euro (31.4pct of the external debt's total), up 23.2pct against 31 December 2017.
Firefighters Day is of particular relevance not only from a historical perspective, but also because it offers the opportunity to take a journey into the life and activity of those who have made a profession of faith from saving people, President Klaus Iohannis said on Thursday.
"We are celebrating today, on the occasion of the Romanian Firefighters Day, the heroic act of military firefighters, led by Captain Pavel Zaganescu in the fight on Spirii Hill against the Ottoman troops, during the 1848 Revolution. This moment of bravery and patriotism in the history of Romania has an even greater emotional weight this year that marks the 100th anniversary of the Greater Union. The glorious tradition of firefighters, the honor and abnegation that characterize you are fundamental landmarks and examples to be followed for the new generations. Through the professionalism that you prove, you permanently act to protect the lives of citizens at risk, faced by calamities or disasters," reads a message from the President on the occasion of the Romanian Firefighters Day, presented by Mihai Somordolea, State Advisor, Department of National Security - Secretary of the Country's Supreme Defense Council, at the ceremony organized on this occasion in the Constitution Square.
The President has shown that firefighters have the responsibility to continue to further act in a decisive manner to protect the community, the citizen and life, as a supreme value."Romanians hold you dear and place great confidence in you, because of the spirit of sacrifice that you prove in the performance of the public service. This day that is dedicated to you is of particular relevance not only from a historical perspective, but also because it gives us the opportunity to take a journey into the life and activity of those who are permanently on duty and who have made a profession of faith from saving people," reads the message of the head of state.
Justice Minister Tudorel Toader on Thursday said he discussed with the Venice Commission delegation about the draft laws for the amendment of the Criminal Code and the Criminal Procedure Code.
"Talks were carried out on the draft laws for the amendment of the Criminal Code and the Criminal Procedure Code. It is certainly the Justice Ministry's contribution as regards the transposition of the Constitutional Court's decisions - the acceptance decisions, the interpretive decisions - and also for the consolidation of the presumption of innocence and extended powers of confiscation. This is how you know that the draft projects were sent through the Government, were sent in Parliament, Parliament added other legislative solutions as well and now they were adopted. The draft laws are with the Constitutional Court, that will debate them on 17 September," the minister at the seat of the Justice Ministry.
He added that he explained to the Venice Commission some of the adopted solutions, and on 16 and 17 October, he will participate, as full member, in this body's plenary session.A delegation of the Venice Commission is in Bucharest, Thursday through Friday, so as to ready an opinion concerning the recent amendments brought to the Criminal Code and the Criminal Procedure Code by Parliament.The opinion was requested by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.
The speech concerning the State of the Union, made by President of the European Commission, Jean Claude Juncker, "strengthens the need for consensus around Romania's Presidency of the Council of the European Union", the Minister Delegate for European Affairs, Victor Negrescu declared on Wednesday in a press release.
"We appreciate the constant commitment, of both Mr. Juncker personally, highlighted with this occasion, and the entire European Commission, for achieving a more efficient Union in obtaining concrete results for all European citizens", the Minister-Delegate said.
According to the quoted source, this approach "is in concordance with the vision and objectives that Romania aims to promote during its Presidency of the EU Council in the first half of next year.""We fully share the vision according to which we need a united, strong Europe, one of solidarity. For Romania, as a member state which will soon exercise its Presidency of the EU Council, included, the unity of member states represents an essential premise in both managing internal and external challenges, as well as shaping the future of the European Union in such a manner that will answer its citizens' expectations," underlined the Minister-Delegate for European Affairs, Victor Negrescu.The Minister-Delegate reiterated the support for the vision of the European Commission's President that focuses on interconnection, on eliminating East-West and North-South divisions and all existing barriers, in order to create a unitary space, of growth, competitiveness and cohesion at the level of the entire Union.According to Negrescu, Romania welcomes the Commission's intention of using the context of the European elections next year and of the informal European Summit that Romania will be hosting in Sibiu, to continue implementing decisions and measures that will prove to the citizens the Union's capacity of fulfilling its commitments towards them.The quoted document says that in the perspective of the Presidency of the European Union Council, Romania "supports a citizen-oriented, cohesion-correlated policy, an elementary value of the European construction" and "is ready to assume its role as an impartial mediator and to manage the agenda of the EU Council in a manner that will facilitate consensus."
European Commissioner for Agriculture Phil Hogan said that the European Commission is considering granting financial support to help Romanian farmers affected by African swine fever.
Talking about the African swine fever, we both announced our perspectives and impressions of how this disease has evolved. In terms of detecting the disease, the fact that we detected over 800 outbreaks shows that the detection system in Romania is working well. In order to be able to eradicate in a timely manner and to maintain the current situation, we have discussed what other financial, sanitary and other similar measures can be taken to maintain the situation at a good point. Considering that over 75pct of pigs at household level are in Romania, these are measures that are very difficult to implement and take. And, of course, besides control, supervision and intervention, we also think of financial measures to help farmers in these situations, so as to go over these moments. The Government has recently notified the European Commission to be able to implement biosecurity measures as easily as possible so that disease eradication is as early as possible. When we get more details in the next few days, we will be able to look very carefully at Romania's request and we will know exactly what measures we can take to help Romania, Phil Hogan said in joint statements held on Thursday at Victoria Palace, together with Prime Minister Viorica Dancila.
The European official said that the 2-million euro amount has already been allocated from the Commission for the "sanitary veterinary aid part."We are now looking at the rural development program to see how we can help farmers (...) in this case, said Hogan.He added that he also discussed with the Romanian prime minister about the cap for the direct redistribution payments and direct payments for small and medium-sized farms.We welcome any positive idea that can come to help us keep small and medium-sized farmers in business. Through the EIB and other European investment funds, we will try to help in this regard. Later we will give you some details about this financial aid scheme, Hogan said.The European Commissioner also thanked the Bucharest Government for its support for the Common Agricultural Policy and in particular for the financing side.The European official has highlighted the financial impact of Britain's exit from the EU and the outlook for the future EU budget in this context.For Romania and the traditional policies it adheres to, we have succeeded, at a very reasonable level, in maintaining the level of funding (...) especially for the first pillar for Romania. You have rightly noticed the 16pct reduction [of the rural development budget] that can still be negotiated in the next few months with the other prime ministers. Commissioner Cretu has done a very good job in terms of raising the funds for Romania on the other side, of the cohesion, Hogan said.He said that he also discussed with the Romanian prime minister about the "food chain and unfair practices, which are now under debate in the European Parliament".
The shootout began around 5:05 p.m. when Cicero police tried to stop a car in the 3900 block of South Cicero Avenue, Chlada said. The driver sped off but the officers boxed in his car on the southbound Cicero exit of the Stevenson. The driver got out and fired several rounds at two officers, then ran north on Cicero and fired at another officer chasing him, Chlada said.
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said on Wednesday that after the talks with the Bucharest authorities, they agreed on a number of topics aimed at bilateral cooperation within the EU, but "not on all points, such as Schengen."
"We do not agree on all points, such as Schengen, but it is true that we agree on many other issues. Firstly, the EU: the European project is very important, a powerful market in which all nations should work together and we strive together in order to be able to provide collective security for all its citizens. Also during the Romanian Presidency [of the EU Council, e.n.], discussions will focus on Brexit, on migration, and I think that the Romanian Presidency will be remembered for many reasons, but one of the most important will be the budget for the next five years, the project for the next five years. So Romania will put its marks in this respect for the next five years, its legacy will be very clear. I fully trust the Romanian Presidency and the Netherlands will always work constructively with Romania when problems arise," said Mark Rutte at Victoria Palace, in joint statements with the Romanian Prime Minister Viorica Dancila.
The Dutch prime minister said talks also focused on bilateral and economic relations."Of course, I am a bit jealous of Romania's situation and of the challenges that Romania has at the moment and, of course, the increase in trade between Romania and the Netherlands is 15pct, much more even than Romania's 7pct economic growth, reaching a value of more than 5 billion euro. The Netherlands and Romania will again organise a new business forum in the spring of 2019," Rutte said.He added that another topic tackled was cooperation in the field of defence."We certainly did not focus only on economic cooperation, but we have very good cooperation in the field of defence. For example, we cooperate very well with Romania in the military field, especially within NATO, and, of course, the military mobility Romania has proved in this regard has been all for the good of both nations. Therefore, a strong bilateral relationship, a very good cooperation within the EU and a very strong cooperation within NATO. I am looking forward to our future together!," Mark Rutte further said.
President Klaus Iohannis welcomed a delegation of the European Commission for Democracy through Law of the Council of Europe, the Venice Commission in short, at the Cotroceni Presidential Palace on Thursday, with the members of this body mentioning that the commission's opinion on the amendments to Romania's Criminal Code and the Code of Criminal Procedure is to be adopted at a plenary session on October 19-20, according to a statement from the Presidential Administration.
The Venice Commission delegation and President Iohannis praised the commission for its technical expertise as well as the importance of its views expressed both on Romania's justice legislation and on the Criminal Code and the Code of Criminal Procedure.
Iohannis reiterated the main issues raised by the new form of the criminal legislation as voted by Parliament.
"In this context, the President of Romania has shown that the amendments to the criminal codes diminish predictability and unbalance the judiciary, as one of the effects envisaged is to benefit politicians implicated in criminal cases. President Klaus Iohannis argued that destroying legislative coherence is unacceptable. He stressed that the amendments proposed by the current parliamentary majority risk compromising the efforts of late to strengthen the judiciary," the Presidential Administration showed.
Iohannis pointed out that the involvement and support of the Venice Commission's experts is meant to help Romania get modern and efficient legislation.
The meeting took place during the preparation of the commission's opinion on the recent amendments to the Criminal Code and the Code of Criminal Procedure passed by the Romanian Parliament. In this case, the Venice Commission was notified by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.
On the witness stand, Rudd went through various points the state made in its case against him. He insisted he could not have killed Noreen by hitting her over the head with a blunt object because of an injury to his arm from an earlier auto accident. He also asserted he knew nothing beforehand about the large sum of money he would receive upon Noreens death, and further claimed he gave most of that money to Noreens mother.
I would be hesitant to put these questions in front of 12 laypeople. If you do that, you have to hope they understand the law as it was explained to them, veteran defense attorney Joseph Lopez said Thursday. When its a question of law, you usually want a judge to hear the case. Ideally, that strips all of the emotion from the case and just makes it about what the law says.
I can think of no better person at this point in time to lead our city. On day one, she will bring a fresh voice and ideas, free from the reins of a longstanding broken political system, to create lasting change for our city, Castro said in a statement. Susana understands Chicago. She is Chicago. No one is more qualified or has a more compassionate understanding of the struggles that so many residents and families face.
If anyone doubted that the top level of the intelligence agencies in Washington have dedicated themselves to ousting President Donald Trump, the past two weeks should have demonstrated precisely how such a plan of action is being executed. First came the leaked accounts of chaos in the Trump Administration derived from the Bob Woodward book Fear: Trump in the White House.
Then a New York Times op-ed entitled I am part of the resistance inside the Trump administration written by one Anonymous who claimed to be a senior official in the White House, exploded on the scene, describing how top officials were deliberately sabotaging Trumps policies to protect the country.
Finally, another another op-ed Why so many former intelligence officers are speaking out by former CIA Acting Director John McLaughlin appeared, providing a rationale for intelligence officers to speak up against the White House.
There has been considerable chatter in the media regarding the Woodward book and the Anonymous op-ed, but relatively little concerning McLaughlin, who arguably has made the most serious case for pushback against Donald Trump from within the intelligence community. To sum up the op-ed, McLaughlin wrote that many former intelligence officers are beginning to speak out against the foreign policy of the Trump Administration because Americas institutions are being seriously damaged by an extraordinarily unprecedented context of threats emerging from both inside and outside the country due to a presidents dangerous behavior.
McLaughlin claims that failure to warn is the ultimate sin in the intelligence world and that is precisely why he and his colleagues now speak out. In particular, and perhaps inevitably, he cites the refus[al] to combat a well-documented covert foreign attack on U.S. elections in the process weakening efforts by others to do so and encouraging Russia to keep it up.
McLaughlin also addresses the issue of the credibility of the intelligence community after Trump, i.e. will the public and many policymakers henceforth believe that the national security team is in fact politically biased, tainting the judgments that it makes when delivering its intelligence product. He argues somewhat evasively and not altogether clearly that we have to hope most people will understand why we reject silence: Its because this is a threat that we cannot combat silently, as we have been able to do with foreign threats overseas and out of the publics eye.
McLaughlin is praising himself and friends as constituting some kind of loyal opposition consisting of the good guys driven to protect American values and American institutions from Trump and his deplorables. His argument is carefully framed but ultimately self-serving. Witness his own career as Deputy Director of CIA under George Tenet, who famously sat in the United Nations sagaciously nodding to validate the argument that Saddam Hussein threatened the world with weapons of mass destruction and terrorist support. It was all a lie, leading to Americas greatest foreign policy disaster and McLaughlin was complicit. Did he ever apologize for what he did? No. He was also around when the CIA was renditioning people by snatching them off the streets and sending them to foreign lands to be tortured. Did he ever consider how that damaged Americas rule of law? And then there were the torture prisons. Again, silence from the suddenly-found-Jesus John McLaughlin.
And since that time, where was McLaughlins conscience when Barack Obama was sitting down with his intelligence advisor John Brennan and making up lists of American citizens to be killed by drone? Or planning the destruction of Libya? Apparently, the only threats that matter are those presumably generated by Donald Trump, who is particularly reviled because he has spoken of bettering relations with Russia. And when McLaughlin inevitably cites the threat from Moscow, he ignores the fact that the United States has been arming Ukraine while at the same time conducting military exercises right on Russias border. It has also been sanctioning Russians and Persona Non Grataing its diplomats regularly to punish it under Trump, making the bilateral relationship the worst it has been since the end of the Cold War. So where is the coddling of Moscow?
And McLaughlin is also wrong about the timing and substance of the intelligence officers speaking out. John Brennan, Michael Morell, Michael Hayden, James Woolsey and James Clapper all have been actively trying to discredit Trump since before he was nominated. Several of them have claimed absurdly that the president is a Russian spy, also suggested in some comments made by McLaughlin himself in July, including that Trump is an intelligence recruiters dream. So, it all would appear to be less a response to policies than it is a personal vendetta by a number of politicized senior officers who were lined up behind Hillary Clinton with hopes of being personally rewarded after her election.
Finally, though McLaughlin is claiming to support former intelligence officers who bravely speak out when the United States is threatened, he completely ignores a whole lot of them who have been doing just that for many years. They are sometimes labeled whistleblowers or dissidents, but McLaughlin probably considers them to be the lowest of the low. The whistleblowers and their allies have been calling for an end to the warfare surveillance state, which McLaughlin helped create and which he is still sustaining through his fearmongering, Russophobia being the wedge issue that drives both him and his patriotic friends. Introspection is apparently not McLaughlins strong suit, but he perhaps should pause and think for a second whether he and they are doing the American people any favors by their setting the stage for yet another war in their zeal to bring down Donald Trump.
On every anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani is cycled through various talking head news formats to recount the events of the fateful day seventeen years ago. Giulianis veracity about the events of 9/11 had plenty of doubters just after the attacks. However, given Giulianis declaration on NBCs Meet the Press on August 19, 2018 that truth isnt truth, Giulianis lies about both the Trump administration and 9/11 should be considered holistically as coming from a corrupt liar.
Giuliani replaced John Dowd, a seasoned Washington attorney, as Donald Trumps personal lawyer in March 2018. Dowd resigned after becoming frustrated over Trumps constant lying, a bugbear for any attorney attempting to prepare a client for a legal proceeding. In Giuliani, however, Trump discovered a fellow dissembler of the truth.
Giuliani was the perfect mayor of New York to preside over interfering with the largest crime scene in American history, namely, the rubble of the World Trade Center complex. Giulianis failure to embrace the truth started much earlier in his government career.
In 2007, Giulianis presidential campaign released a television ad about the release of American hostages by Iran on Ronald Reagans Inauguration Day January 20, 1981. In the ad, Giuliani said, I remember back to the 1970s and the early 1980s. Iranian mullahs took American hostages, and they held the American hostages for 444 days. And they released the American hostages in one hour, and that should tell us a lot about these Islamic terrorists that were facing. The one hour in which they released them was the one hour in which Ronald Reagan was taking the oath of office as president of the United States. The best way you deal with dictators, the best way you deal with tyrants and terrorists, you stand up to them. You dont back down. Im Rudy Giuliani, and I approve this message.
For those who were investigating the roles of George H. W. Bush, William Casey, Robert Gates, and others engaged in treasonous negotiations with the Iranian mullahs in 1980 to ensure the hostages remained in Tehran until after the November 1980 election between Reagan and President Jimmy Carter, Giuliani's campaign spot had an unexpected side effect.
A March 16, 1981, memo written by then-unconfirmed Associate Attorney General Giuliani to the Acting Criminal Division chief John Keeney, which was titled "CIA Referral Alleged Foreign Government Interference With 1980 Presidential Election," suggests that the CIA referred to the Justice Department evidence that there was criminal activity involving a foreign power in the 1980 presidential election. That foreign power was the Islamic Republic of Iran.
That criminal activity became known as the Reagan-Bush campaign's "October Surprise." Keeney and Giuliani agree to draft a letter from Deputy Attorney General Edward C. Schmults to the CIA to ask for a full report on the criminal referral that would be available to Justice personnel on a strict need-to-know basis. The Attorney General at the time of the Giuliani memo was William French Smith. His special assistant to handle read that as bury the Reagan-Bush campaigns pre-election conspiracy with Iran was John G. Roberts, the current Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.
Like Trump, Giuliani, had significant connections to organized crime. Giuliani was hailed as the man who took down the five Mafia crime families in New York, while serving as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. Just because Giuliani helped break up the Genovese, Gambino, Lucchese, Colombo, and Bonanno families, does not mean he had a clean slate when it came to close ties with organized crime. In 2007, The New York Daily News obtained a copy of a 140-page confidential internal Giuliani-for-President dossier that detailed pitfalls foreseen by the campaign. Giuliani merely sold out the Italian crime families and handed protection by the U.S. Attorneys Office to Jewish mob bosses like Gideon Chern. This syndicate, based mostly in Brooklyn, is officially referred to as the Eurasian Mafia by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It is unofficially called the Kosher Nostra by federal agents and New York police financial crime detectives who have probed the syndicates significant connections to the Trump Organization.
The 1980s was the heyday for Trump's connections with the mob. Trump admitted to having mob-controlled construction contractors "pour the concrete" for his various buildings. Trump's Atlantic City casino and sporting operations were also heavily influenced by mobsters. By the end of the 1980s Trump was dealing less with the Gambinos and Genoveses and more with Russian-Jewish mobsters, many of whom had recently arrived in New York from Odessa, Leningrad, Kishniev, Kiev, and Moscow. These were the individuals who were afforded protection by Giuliani when he was U.S. Attorney in Manhattan.
As mayor of New York, Giuliani not only presided over the quick removal of World Trade Center debris from the ground zero crime scene, but also interfered in an FBI investigation of five Israeli suspects arrested in New Jersey in the afternoon of September 11, 2001. The Israelis, all connected to Israeli intelligence, were believed by the FBI and Central Intelligence Agency to have been connected with the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. Jerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert interceded twice with his good friend Giuliani to have the Israelis released from detention. It mattered not to Giuliani that the five Israelis were of high interest to the governments terrorism investigation and that they were housed in one of the most highly restrictive prison settings possible, the Administrative Maximum Special Housing Unit (ADMAX SHU) of the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in Brooklyn. During their first two weeks of detention, the FBI prohibited the Israeli Consul-General in New York from meeting with the Israelis. Prayer books and a bible given to the Israelis by a rabbi were inspected by FBI agents and prison guards for coded messages. Yet, amid all this U.S. intelligence interest in the Israelis, Giuliani took it upon himself to negotiate with Olmert their eventual exfiltration to Israel.
After 9/11, Giuliani could not speak a single sentence without mentioning 9/11 in some context. After stepping down as mayor of New York and becoming a chief of the Bracewell & Giuliani law firm, Giuliani discovered there was good money in grifting donations meant for the families of victims of the destruction of the World Trade Center. Giuliani became the trustee for the Twin Towers Fund, established to accept philanthropic donations for the families of New York and New York-New Jersey police, fire fighters, and emergency medical workers killed in the 9/11 attacks. Rather than maintain the money in a risk-free account, Giuliani invested much of it in his three favorite companies: Halliburton, General Electric, and the insurance firm Conseco, which came out of Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2003 after being bailed out by GE Capital, a subsidiary of General Electric. Unfortunately for Giuliani, the New York firefighters, who were subjected to insults and pay and benefit cuts from Giuliani as mayor, caught wind of Giuliani's gambling with their money on the stock market.
Upon becoming Trumps personal lawyer, Giuliani took a leave of absence from another dodgy law firm, Greenberg-Traurig. The firm had been where convicted Republican Party lobbyist Jack Abramoff once hung his shingle.
On every September 11 anniversary, Giuliani falls into his tedious 9/11 refrain as the besieged Americas mayor. After Giuliani spits out 9/11, just append it with his other comment, truth isnt truth.
This is a scoop to bring the US biological warfare effort back into the spotlight. On Sept. 11, Russian media reported that the Richard Lugar Center for Public Health Research laboratory, a research facility for high-level biohazard agents located near Tbilisi, Georgia, has used human beings for conducting biological experiments.
Former Minister of State Security of Georgia Igor Giorgadze said about it during a news conference in Moscow, urging US President Donald Trump to launch an investigation. He has lists of Georgians who died of hepatitis after undergoing treatment in the facility in 2015 and 2016. Many passed away on the same day. The declassified documents contain neither the indication of the causes of deaths nor real names of the deceased. According to him, the secret lab run by the US military was established during the tenure of former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili. The viruses could spread to neighboring countries, including Russia, Igor Giorgadze warned.
The laboratorys work is tightly under wraps. Only US personnel with security clearance have access to it. These people are accorded diplomatic immunity under the 2002 US-Georgia Agreement on defense cooperation.
Eurasia Review reported that in 2014 the Lugar Center was equipped with a special plant for breeding insects to enable launching the Sand Fly project in Georgia and the Caucasus. In 2014-2015 years, the bites of sand flies such as Phlebotomins caused a fever. According to the source, today the Pentagon has a great interest to the study of Tularemia, also known as the fever of rabbits, which is also equated with biological weapons. Distributors of such a disease can be mites and rodents.
It makes remember the statement made by Nikolai Patrushev, Head of Russia's Security Council, in 2015. He warned about the threat stemming from biological weapons laboratories that operate on the territories of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). He specifically mentioned the Richard G. Lugar Center in Georgia.
The US has bio laboratories in 25 countries across the world, including the post-Soviet space. They are funded by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA). Foreign inspectors are denied access to them. It should be noted that independent journalist investigations have been made public to confirm the fact that the US military conducts secret research to pose a threat to environment and population. Jeffrey Silverman, an American journalist who has lived in Georgia for many years, is sure the Richard Lugar Center, as well as other labs, is involved in secret activities to create biological weapons. Georgia and Ukraine have been recently hit by mysterious disease outbreaks, with livestock killed and human lives endangered. The US military operates the Central Reference Laboratory in Kazakhstan since 2016. There have public protests against the facility.
In 2013 a Chinese Air Force Colonel Dai Xu accused the US government of creating a new strain of bird flu now afflicting parts of China as a biological warfare attack. According to him, the American military released the H7N9 bird flu virus into China in an act of biological warfare. It has been reported that the source of Ebola virus in West Africa were US bio-warfare labs.
Russian experts do not exclude the possibility of using a stink-bug by the US military as a biological weapon. A couple of years ago, mosquitoes with Zika virus have been spotted in Russia and South Ossetia to cause outbreaks of human and animal flu.
The US activities violate the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), a legally binding treaty that outlaws biological arms. It effectively prohibits the development, production, acquisition, transfer, retention, stockpiling and use of biological and toxin weapons and is a key element in the international communitys efforts to address the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. In force since 1975, the convention has 181 states-parties today. The BWC reaffirms the 1925 Geneva Protocol, which prohibits the biological weapons use. In 1969, US President Richard Nixon formally ended all offensive aspects of the US biological warfare program. In 1975, the US ratified both the 1925 Geneva Protocol and the BWC.
Negotiations on an internationally binding verification protocol, which would include on-site inspections by an independent authority to the BWC, took place between 1995 and 2001. The US did not sign up. Its refusal to become a party to the verification mechanisms makes any attempt to enhance the effectiveness of the BWC doomed. A Review Conference is held every five years to discuss the conventions operation and implementation. The last one, which convened in November 2016, was a frustration with minimal agreement on the final document and no substantive program of work to do before the next event takes place in 2021. There is little hope the BWC will ever be strengthened to have teeth. With no verification mechanism, the US military bio-warfare labs will always be a matter of concern. The issue is serious enough to be included into global security architecture. The UN General Assembly is the right place to raise it. Its 73rd session will open on September 18.
I think that has to be pursued. I think people have to look at why that occurred and why that wasnt addressed in the fashion it was not addressed. It took about 16 months for the allegations from the parents to be investigated, and that happened after the administration changed, McCarthy said in a reference to Vallas departure from CPS. You know, theres a pattern in government here that weve seen over and over here again and that goes against legitimacy. Im finding just how entrenched the Chicago Way is in this city, and it has to change. People do not trust government for this precise reason.
Auckland motorists have expressed mixed emotions about forking out more than $13 million in the first month of the new Regional Fuel Tax.
The 11.5c a litre tax was added to petrol prices at the start of July to fund transport projects and is expected to raise $1.5 billion in the next decade.
Auckland Council says the money collected has been put towards upgrading rural roads, safety cameras at dangerous intersections and public transport projects.
Auckland motorists RNZ News spoke to today had mixed reactions to the news that the fuel tax had tallied $13.2 million in its first month.
Liam Manson - who lives in Tauranga but works in Auckland construction - says the fuel tax was hitting motorists hard.
"It seems like it's a little bit excessive. I mean they take enough of our money with tax, so why do they have to tax fuel even more? It's kind of ridiculous. I work hard for my money and I'd like to see some of it go towards me instead of fuel."
He says the extra cost meant his money did not go as far as it had done in the past at the fuel pump.
"It's crazy. Especially for people who are travelling long distances like myself. If the company's not paying for it, it's coming out of your pocket and it's making a hell of a dent in it. Fifty dollars worth of fuel is nowhere near what I get now."
Petrol prices have topped $2.40 a litre in some parts of Auckland and Waiuku man Henry Cowie says those living at the southern end of Auckland were getting a raw deal.
"It's an extra $40 a week because we have to come so far from Waiuku all the way into the city so it's certainly making a big difference to our weekly income.
Henry says poor public transport meant driving into the city, and forking out more for fuel, was his only option.
"I would have thought that maybe they would show us a bit of mercy and say seeing as you live so far out, you can be exempt from some of the tax that the rest of the motorists are paying just because there's a lack of proper public transport."
Gemma Edwards, a student living in Mt Eden, says she isn't too badly affected by the fuel tax because she didn't use her car much, but even she had noticed a difference at the pump.
She says if the council put the tax towards public transport, it would soften the blow.
"If they're going to invest that money into Auckland's transport system I'm happy with that, because at the moment it's atrocious. I used to live on the North Shore and now I live in the city so it doesn't bother me as much because transport in the city is easier but for the shore, it was a nightmare."
Papakura man Caleb Brown says he thought the new tax was fair.
"I use all the roads so I should be paying for that and in Auckland we need more infrastructure. We don't have enough, and if it's going to cost more it's something that has to happen."
AA spokesman Barney Irvine says if motorists did not start seeing the benefits of the fuel tax, they would become more and more frustrated.
"All of this is asking a lot of motorists. Not only are they looking at a regional fuel tax, they're also looking at a hike in the national fuel tax of four cents a litre from next month, and on top of that we're seeing record-high fuel prices. So the onus is really on the council and government to deliver benefits."
Barney says the big question about fuel tax was whether fuel companies were passing on the cost of the tax in Auckland alone - or spreading it to other regions.
Bay of Plenty
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UPDATED 4.02PM: A truck driver is in critical condition after a crash on Cambridge Road in the Waikato District.
Police attended a crash on Cambridge Road today at 1.45pm involving a truck which had rolled after colliding with a car.
This crash occurred between Parallel Road and Lamb Street, says a police spokesperson.
"The driver of the truck is in a critical condition in hospital.
"No one else has been injured. The road is closed and will be for at least another three hours.
"There will be diversions in place, so motorists are asked to follow these and delay their journey if possible."
The Police Serious Crash Unit and the Commercial Vehicle Safety Team are investigating.
EARLIER:
Cambridge Road in the Waikato District is closed after a truck rolled.
It happened just before 1:30pm between Parallel Road and Lamb Street, says a police spokesperson.
"The sole occupant of the truck is currently trapped - their injury status is not yet confirmed.
"There is a possible chemical leak from the truck, which is being dealt with by Fire and Emergency NZ."
Police are at cordons until the all clear is given from FENZ.
Hawke's Bay
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The Tauranga-based Caci clinic will be joining in with more than half of the Caci clinic franchise network in implementing a new policy which sees victims of family violence receive paid leave.
Effective immediately, the move comes eight months prior to the roll out of the Victims Protection Bill legislation.
The Caci franchise network collectively has over 400 team members, 388 of whom are women. Most of the businesss customers are also women.
Starting with the companys head office, staff who are victims of family violence will receive 10 days paid leave as part of a wider family violence policy.
Caci clinics sister company, Skinsmiths, will also adopt the policy later this year in the UK where there is currently no similar legislation.
Tauranga clinic owner Toni Johnson says with the new policy it shows our staff and their families that we are 100 percent in support of the policy and they will know that there is always some available to assist them if needed.
New Zealand, unfortunately has a very high rate of family violence. Being in a predominantly female industry, its very important to stand up and help our team and customers deal with the issue of family violence.
The workplace can often be one of the only safe places that victims of family violence can access support. I want everyone to know that we are on board with the policy and want to ensure our staff are happy, safe and cared for, says Toni.
While family violence victims are not all women, and not all aggressors are me, the statistics show that women are overwhelmingly on the receiving end of harm. One in three women will experience physical and/or sexual violence inflicted by a partner in their lifetime.
Were committed to being part of the solution, not a spectator. As an employer in a business predominantly made up of women, this is an important issue to step into, not away from, says Anna Campbell, Cacis Global CEO.
Anna Campbell has been championing family violence support for a number of years in the business community and led the first female ambassador for White Ribbon, a charity which aims to end mens violence toward women, Campbell continues to advocate for action by businesses on the issue.
Domestic violence can have devastating effects both at home and in the workplace and we believe that businesses shouldnt wait for such policies to be in law in order to take action, says Anna.
Whether its and home or in the workplace, providing our people with a safe environment where they can get the help they need following any experience of family violence is a fundamental right. Were here to support them through the most difficult of circumstances.
Paid leave is only part of the support we are offering. Education and confidentiality are essential, so as part of our policy, were also investing in a comprehensive training programme that will educate our team members on how to recognise the signs of domestic violence, arm them with the knowledge of how to support a victim or user of family violence and where to refer them to help.
After seven years of lobbing, Green MP Jan Logies proposed legislation of giving victims of domestic violence 10 paid days of leave was successfully passed in July and the Victims Protection Bill will be in effect in New Zealand from April 2019.
Cacis family violence policy addresses the core elements of the Victims Protection Bill to provide the best possible support to its team members. Ten days of paid leave can be used for medical and support appointments, legal proceedings and any other support activities, while the allowance of team members to request short or long-term changes to working arrangements is a possibility for employees too.
The business is also committed to confidentiality; records will remain private and leave will be shown as normal pay. It will also have the right to refuse paying a salary into an unnamed bank account.
White Ribbon campaign manager Rob McCann praises Anna for offering its employees the opportunity to take paid time off work to take care of themselves, which is crucial in these circumstances.
We know that Anna Campbell and her team have been working on developing the right policy for some time and towards becoming White Ribbon accredited. We really applaud the businesss commitment to supporting those employees experiencing any form of family violence.
New Zealand has one of the highest rates of domestic violence in the developed world. One in three women in NZ will experience domestic violence and one in six men will experience sexual violence. Even more alarming, almost 80 percent of these cases go unreported as so few victims are willing to discuss the issue.
At the same time, the billionaire Pritzker has been able to more than match the wealthy Rauners ability to deliver blistering campaign messages to voters a significant key to the Republicans success four years ago while the Democrat has used his vast cash resources to rebuild the party infrastructure in the way Rauner did for Republicans four years ago.
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In today's forecast we are expecting a fine day with westerlies easing in the evening.
It's a three-clothing layer day today with a high of 19 and an overnight low of 8 degrees. Humidity is 69 per cent.
High tide is at 10am and low tide is at 4.10pm (Tay Street times). There's a sea swell of .4m with a sea temperature of 14 degrees. Sunset tonight is at 6.01pm.
If you're going fishing the next best fish bite time is between 8 and 10am.
On this day in NZ history in 1938 the Social Security Act was passed. The cornerstone of the first Labour governments welfare programme, the Social Security Act overhauled the pension system and extended benefits for families, invalids and the unemployed.
In world history on this day in 1812 Napoleon Bonapartes invasion of Russia reached its climax as his Grande Armee entered Moscowonly to find the enemy capital deserted and burning, set afire by the few Russians who remained.
In 1814 Francis Scott Key wrote the words to the Star Spangled Banner as he waited aboard a British launch in Chesapeake Bay for the outcome of the British assault on Fort McHenry during the War of 1812.
In 1960 Iraq, Iran, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia formed OPEC. In 1984 Joe Kittinger, a former USAF fighter pilot during the Vietnam War, became the first person to pilot a gas balloon solo across the Atlantic Ocean.
Today is the birthday of Baron Friedrich von Humboldt, German naturalist and explorer who made the first isothermic and isobaric maps. Born in 1769, he once said "Devoted from my earliest youth to the study of nature, feeling with enthusiasm the wild beauties of a country guarded by mountains and shaded by ancient forests, I experienced in my travels, enjoyments which have amply compensated for the privations inseparable from a laborious and often agitated life".
For activities and events, please check out our What's on page.
Have a great day!
For a third straight year, the prestigious Aotearoa Maori Titles will be staged along the striking Taranaki coastline and this years edition of the event will be supported by new principal sponsor Bayleys Real Estate.
The event takes place on Saturday and Sunday of Labour Weekend with the primary location being Waitara.
For the past two years, Kehu Butler (Mnt) has claimed the Open Mens Division title. This year, Butler has gone on to win the World Surf League (WSL) Australasian Pro Junior Series, the first Kiwi to do so since Maz Quinn in 1996.
In doing so, Butler gained qualification into the WSL World Junior Championships being held in China in January.
Butler leads the way for a number of top young Maori surfers that are beginning their international campaigns.
They include New Zealand representatives Raiha Ensor and Elin Tawharu, both of Mount Maunganui who are in Japan at present set to compete at the International Surfing Association (ISA) World Surfing Games) starting Sunday.
Elliot Paerata Reid (Piha) is another Maori surfer on a hot streak, posting a second, third and ninth in the three QS1000 events held in Indonesia in the past month.
On top of that, leading male surfer on the World Qualifying Series, Ricardo Christie (Gis), sits in 17th overall as he chases requalification onto the World Tour.
The rise of Maori talent will now be supported by the partnership with Bayleys Real Estate which will help grow the Maori Titles.
Kei te harikoa a Bayleys Tu Whenua ki te tu hei kaitautoko whakaingoa mo te Aoteroa Maori Titles ki Waitara. Ko ta matou tumanako ki te tautoko me awhi nga mahi pai o nga tangata katoa e whakataetae ana mo te eke ngaru.
(Bayleys Tu Whenua is so pleased to be the named sponsor of the Aotearoa Maori Surfing Titles at Waitara. We really want to support and embrace the outstanding efforts of all those who will compete in this surfing competition).
On top of the immense talent within New Zealands top surfers, the Bayleys Real Estate Aotearoa Maori Titles offers up an opportunity for Maori surfers to take part in a relaxed event, meet other surfers from around our coastline and connect with the Maori community an aspect of the event that is equal if not more important than the titles themselves.
Waitara Bar Boardriders club member and New Zealand surfing legend Jason Matthews reignited the event in 2016 and is looking forward to this years edition working hard in the background to get things underway.
Naumai haere mai ki Taranaki ano. The Waitara Bar Board Riders Club again welcome our esteemed guests to mounga Taranaki. In addition to the surfing, we will have another evening for whanau with a fun sports evening followed by a wananga in our wharenui Te Ika Roa a Maui. Once again, our home will become your home. Mauri ora exclaimed Matthews.
The Maori Titles bring together surfers from around the country for a weekend filled with culture, fun and of course a surfing competition. Manuhiri nationwide will look to topple the strong iwi of Ngati Ranginui who claimed the Iwi of Origin in 2017.
On top of the premier Open Mens and Womens divisions, the Maori Titles includes nine additional divisions with junior and senior age groups as well as longboard and stand up paddleboard divisions. For the first time this year, an Amateur Division has been included to encourage those surfers that have never competed before to give the event a go and join in on the fun.
The powhiri will be held at 6pm on Friday evening at Owae Marae, Waitara to welcome all manuhiri. Surfing action at the event will get underway from 8am on Saturday morning subject to conditions.
The poroporoake will take place on Sunday afternoon at Owae Marae.
Please see below for defending champions from the 2017 Aotearoa Maori Titles presented by Evitan Events.
Open Mens Division - Kehu Butler (Ngai Te Rangi)
Open Womens Division - Zhana Hutchieson (Te Atiawa)
Under 18 Boys Division - Kehu Butler (Ngai Te Rangi)
Under 18 Girls Division - Zhana Hutchieson (Te Atiawa)
Under 16 Boys Division Josef Jungwirth (Ngati Ranginui)
Under 14 Boys Division - Jayden Willoughby (Nga Puhi)
Over 35 Mens Division Khan Butler (Ngai Te Rangi)
Over 45 Mens Division Pipi Ngaia (Te Atiawa)
Longboard Division - Jamie Andrews (Te Atiawa)
Stand Up Paddleboard Division - Geoff Pardoe (Ngati Porou)
Amateur Patrick Kilmister (Te Atiawa)
Syracuse, NY -- An Onondaga County detective testified that she wasn't getting far with suspected murderer Pande "Pete" Trifunovski in the disappearance of his wife.
The suspect did not appear to like having a woman interview him, at one point calling one of her questions "stupid," lead investigator Detective Laura Collins testified.
Trifunovski, 68, was a possible suspect at this point, but authorities needed his cooperation to find out what happened to his missing wife, Snezana "Suzie" Trifunovski, 62.
Eventually, Detective Rafal Dobrowolski entered the room at sheriff's headquarters downtown.
A fellow Eastern European, Dobrowolski broke briefly into his native Polish to build a rapport with Trifunovski, who was from Macedonia.
He needed "pravda," Dobrowolski told the suspect. That means "truth," he said, in several Eastern European languages.
The two men talked for a period of time, building rapport. Dobrowolski slowly got closer to asking hard questions about what happened.
When the detective did, Trifunovski confessed to beating his wife to death and hiding her body in a storage unit, authorities said.
Trifunovski signed a confession, which was presented in court today.
But defense lawyer Ken Moynihan called into question the legality of the confession, noting that Trifunovski had prolonged interactions with police before waiving his Constitutional rights and had asked if he could continue talking to police later.
Moynihan asked Dobrowolski today about statements on the videotaped interview suggesting that Trifunovski wanted a break.
The detective acknowledged that Trifunovski had asked if they could continue the interview the next day. Trifunovski also said he was "numb," Dobrowolski said.
But the detective added that Trifunovski had expressed the fact that he could stop talking if he wanted to. And despite his hesitations, Trifunovski kept going, the detective said.
If Trifunovski had stopped talking or asked for a lawyer, the interview would have ended, the detective added.
Dobrowolski was the last in a series of detectives who testified about the arrest of Trifunovski after his wife went missing in January 2018.
Authorities caught up to Trifunovski after he returned to the couple's Lysander home, along the Seneca River near Route 31.
By that point, he had killed his wife and hidden her body in a storage unit, authorities have said.
But at the time, police only knew that she was missing after co-workers called, concerned.
To police, Trifunovski appeared nervous and described a dysfunctional marriage, but said nothing initially that implicated him in her disappearance.
Deputy Brian Engelbrecht testified that he remembered responding to a domestic incident at the house 12 years before.
And when he spoke to Trifunovski in this case, he noticed blood on the suspect's hand. Trifunovski admitted that the couple had gotten into a fight the night before, but said they later went to bed. The two slept in different rooms and basically lived separate lives, he indicated.
Detective Jeffrey Passino testified that he noticed what appeared to be blood on the driver's door of a vehicle in the driveway.
Eventually, Trifunovski agreed to come downtown to answer more questions. Once in sheriff's headquarters, a 12-hour interrogation -- with many breaks -- commenced.
County Court Judge Stephen Dougherty said he'll watch the whole thing to help determine whether Trifunovski's confession will stand.
After Trifunovski confessed, the lead investigator Collins testified that she returned to make the official arrest.
Trifunovski faces up to 25 years to life in prison if convicted of murder. His trial is scheduled for December. He remains jailed.
SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- A federal agency that regulates the stock market imposed a hefty fine on a Syracuse-based independent broker-dealer, accusing its employee of offering bad advice that caused customers to lose 90 percent of their investments.
Cadaret, Grant is one of the largest privately owned independent broker-dealers in the country and is based in Syracuse. It has more than 930 registered representatives and more than 500 branches in 27 states.
The firm was fined $513,194. A broker, a vice president and president Arthur Grant were each fined, according to Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm did not admit or deny the allegations but agreed to pay the fine, according to the agency.
In a separate action, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, fined the firm $800,000 for failing to supervise its employees better and having too few supervisors in place, according to Financial Planning.
The SEC penalized the firm not only for the bad advice, which its report says occurred due to incompetence, but also for failing to adequately supervise brokers, many of whom work from home offices across the country.
The bad advice for customers was to invest in what are supposed to be single-day assets used by sophisticated traders, according to the SEC.
The firm instructed customers to hold the assets for several months or more than a year, despite warnings that the product had wide fluctuations in value on a daily basis and should not be used except for certain, short-term trades, according to the SEC.
The brokers believed incorrectly that the assets' value would go up with increases in the current price of crude oil, according to the SEC. In fact, the assets were based on an index of crude oil futures, which varies widely day to day, the agency said.
Arthur Grant, the firm's former president and CEO, declined to comment, through a spokesman. He was fined $100,000 and agreed to a 12-month suspension from his supervisory duties.
A senior vice president, Beda Lee Johnson, was fined $75,000 and put on a 12-month suspension from supervising, as well.
One broker, Eugene Long, 47, of Pennsylvania, advised at least 30 clients to invest in the money-losing assets. He apparently also invested in the same assets with his own money and suffered losses along with his customers, according to the SEC.
Long sold more of the assets than any other broker and was the only broker fined. He was ordered to pay $250,000.
"Long read the prospectus only briefly, however, and at the time he made the recommendations, he did not fully understand the complexity of the product," according to SEC filings.
And any commission Long might have made from the sales -- $1,300 -- was erased due to other costs the firm apparently placed on the transactions, according to the SEC.
Customers lost more than $350,000 due to the bad advice, which brokers gave to customers beginning in 2015. The fines will go to reimburse the customers, plus interest.
The customers lost, on average, 90 percent of their investments due to the firm's advice, according to the SEC.
On average, the assets comprised 3 to 4 percent of the customers' portfolios, according to the SEC.
In a statement, the company said it no longer sells that particular type of asset to its clients and has made steps to prevent the situation.
"Many of the allegations in these cases relate to conduct that occurred several years ago, and we have already taken significant steps to address the issues discussed in the SEC and FINRA matters to ensure they do not occur again," spokeswoman Megan Grant Ruddy said.
The company has also hired a consultant to help it deal with its supervisor issues.
The company failed to adequately supervise its representatives, according to the SEC.
At least 300 brokers across the country were assigned to a single home-office supervisor, and brokers were not adequately trained in when to offer the assets -- called leveraged oil-linked exchange-traded notes -- to customers, according to the SEC.
Earlier this year, Atria Wealth Solutions, a New York City-based wealth management solutions company, acquired Cadaret Grant. The firm has more than $23 billion in assets under administration.
A broker-dealer is a brokerage firm that buys and sells securities on its own account as a principal before selling the securities to customers.
The firm, founded in 1985 by Mac Cadaret and Art Grant, is headquartered at One Lincoln Center in downtown Syracuse. Cadaret died in 1999.
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Albany, N.Y. -- The Public Service Commission and Charter Communications are holding what both say are "productive" talks over the commission's order booting New York's largest cable company out of the state.
On Monday, Commission Chairman John Rhodes granted an extension, from Sept. 10 to Oct. 10, of the deadline for Charter to seek a rehearing of the commission's July 27 order requiring the company to leave the state within six months.
Rhodes also approved the company's request to extend the deadline, from Oct. 9 to Nov. 8, for Charter to file a plan for the transition of its Spectrum cable television, high-speed internet and telephone service in New York to one or more other providers.
In granting the extensions, Rhodes cited the "productive dialogue" that the commission's staff at the Department of Public Service is having with Charter.
In its July order, the commission said Charter had repeatedly failed to meet its obligation to expand its broadband network to unserved and underserved rural areas of the state - a requirement that was a condition of the commission's 2016 approval of Charter's acquisition of Time Warner Cable's network in New York.
Charter has vowed to fight, in court if necessary, the commission's order booting it out of the state. It says it has met its network build-out requirements -- if new customer hook-ups in New York City are counted.
But the company has said it would like to avoid a long legal battle with the commission and would prefer to work out their differences through negotiations.
In its request for an extension of the deadlines, Charter said it and the Department of Public Service "have been involved over the past few weeks in productive dialogue" regarding the July order.
"As part of that dialogue, Charter has been assembling additional information regarding broadband deployment efforts in New York for the department's and the commission's review," it said. "A further extension would allow additional time for discussions between Charter and the department before the initiation by Charter of additional commission or court proceedings."
As part of the discussions, Charter agreed to stop airing advertisements that touted its broadband expansion in the state but that the commission considered false and misleading.
"We have granted Charter's request for an extension of 30 days to the numerous deadlines approaching, contingent on the company's continued compliance with the Public Service Law, commitment to not run any false or misleading advertisements and continued engagement with the department to address outstanding regulatory issues," James Denn, the Department of Public Service spokesman, said in a statement.
Charter spokesman Andrew Russell said the company was "pleased with these extensions as we continue our dialogue with the PSC."
Editor's note: Advance/Newhouse Partnership, which has an ownership stake in Charter Communications Inc., is part of Advance Publications, owner of Advance Local. Advance Local owns Syracuse.com, NYUP.com and The Post-Standard.
Contact Rick Moriarty anytime: Email | Twitter | Facebook | 315-470-3148
"It had been a chaotic morning," Kavanaugh wrote. "I unfortunately did not realize that the man was the father of a shooting victim from Parkland, Florida. Mr. Guttenberg has suffered an incalculable loss. If I had known who he was, I would have shaken his hand, talked to him, and expressed my sympathy. And I would have listened to him."
Four years after a financial crisis made the community fear for the future of the Everson Museum of Art, the museum is back on a stable financial and artistic footing. On Saturday, a gala launches a yearlong celebration of the 50-year-old I.M. Pei building that, itself, is a work of art.
The milestone gives us an opportunity to recognize the Everson as a cornerstone of Syracuse's cultural life, a contributor to downtown's energy and the region's economy, and a building that both embodied its time and defied conventional notions of what a museum should look like.
"This is the architecture of today as art history will eventually record it," wrote architecture critic Ada Louise Huxtable in the New York Times after the museum opened in October 1968. "It does not try to be pretty, or classical, or decorative, or evocative, or palatable to the cautious. It does its own thing."
View of spiral staircase at the Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse.
"Most important of all," Huxtable continued, "it is a clear demonstration of the dramatic oneness of contemporary art and architecture."
The building, made of poured concrete, consists of four cantilevered boxes arranged around a center atrium. The interlocking spaces are connected by bridges and lit by strategically placed windows. A massive, yet graceful spiral staircase connects the atrium to the galleries above. The buildings are arranged on the museum's large outdoor plaza like a sculpture.
Inside, the museum houses 10,000 pieces of art, including several important contemporary artists, a world-renowned ceramics collection, one of the world's biggest collections of video art, and a Gilbert Stuart portrait of George Washington bought with community donations to celebrate the American Bicentennial.
The financial crisis in 2014 led to a reappraisal of the museum's direction and an injection of new leadership. Under Executive Director Elizabeth Dunbar, gone are large traveling exhibitions that cost a lot and earned little. The museum is curating traveling exhibits for other museums, creating a stream of income. Ceramics are once again a major focus with the addition of a new curator. In summer, the plaza comes alive with food trucks and movies projected on the side of the building.
The museum paid off its debt and has balanced its budget for three years running. State grants and matching donations paid for renovations to the auditorium. Bit by bit, the Everson is catching up with deferred maintenance to its challenging building.
That brings us back to the yearlong birthday party for Pei's structure/sculpture. There will be lectures, exhibits, tours and many more opportunities for the you to become acquainted -- or reacquainted - with an artistic and architectural asset that is, once again, ascendant.
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New York voters will go to the polls today to vote in a primary election for state and local candidates, topped by a Democratic Party battle for governor between Andrew Cuomo and Cynthia Nixon.
Here's information about how, when and where you can vote, and who you will find on the ballot:
When do I vote? Polls will be open from noon to 9 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 13. The hours are reduced compared to general elections, when New York polls open at 6 a.m.
In New York City and the counties of Dutchess, Erie, Nassau, Orange, Putnam, Rockland, Suffolk and Westchester, polls will be open from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Why are we voting on a Thursday? New York lawmakers changed the date because the 2018 primary election would have been on the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks and the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah.
New York is required by statute to hold its state and local primary election on the first Tuesday after the second Monday in September.
Who's on the ballot? Democratic candidates for governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general will headline the statewide ballot.
In Central New York, Democratic voters will choose between state Sen. David Valesky, D-Oneida, and primary challenger Rachel May, of Syracuse.
In Syracuse, voters will choose a Democratic candidate for Syracuse City Court judge from among Ann Magnarelli, Felicia Pitts-Davis and Shadia Tadros. The Working Families and Independence Party lines will also be decided in the judge's race.
Local primary races for sheriff, town justice, highway superintendent and town clerk are among those that will be decided in Cayuga, Oswego and Madison counties.
Who can vote? Only registered voters in a political party can vote in that party's primary election. A person's party enrollment is determined as of October 2017. The one exception is the Reform Party, which allows voters who are not enrolled in a political party to vote in its elections.
Where do I vote? Registered voters in New York state can look up their polling places on the state Board of Elections website or call their county board of elections:
Onondaga County: 435-8683
Oswego County: 349-8350
Cayuga County: 253-1285
Wayne County: 946-7400
What about absentee ballots? Absentee ballots were available to registered voters who are physically unable or will not be in their home county to vote on Election Day.
The deadline to apply for an absentee ballot by mail was Sept. 6. The deadline to fill out an absentee ballot in person at the county board of elections was 5 p.m. Sept. 12.
Onondaga County will still accept absentee ballots, on a case-by-case basis, from those who visit the Board of Elections before noon today.
What if I'm not permitted to vote at a polling place? If your name does not appear in the book of registered voters, but you believe you are eligible to vote, you can ask for an affidavit ballot. After the election, election officials will check their records to determine if you were eligible to vote. Your vote will be counted if they determine you were eligible.
What you can't wear when voting
Any voter wearing a candidate's name on their clothing will be asked to cover up or remove the clothing before being issued a ballot.
How do I find results?
Syracuse.com will have live coverage as the results are tabulated after polls close at 9 p.m. today.
More election coverage
Contact Mark Weiner: Email | Twitter | Facebook | 571-970-3751
The city of Syracuse is one of the 10 poorest places in the United States, according to data released today by the U.S. Census Bureau.
Syracuse's estimated 2017 poverty rate tied for 9th place with Bloomington, Indiana and Dearborn, Michigan. Syracuse is keeping company at the top of the list with the poorest cities in Ohio, Michigan and New Jersey.
In 2017, 32.4 percent of the population of Syracuse lived below the poverty level. That is not a dramatic change from the 2016 rate of 32.1 percent.
But success in other parts of the country has bumped Syracuse up an unfortunate list.
Just 145 miles east, the poverty rate in the city of Albany decreased from 32.5 in 2016 to 29.3 in 2017. Albany fell from No. 10 in 2016 to No. 25 in 2017.
The federal government considers a family of four to be living below the poverty line with an annual salary of $24,944.
The median annual salary in Syracuse was $35,568 in 2017, records show. That is far below the national median annual salary of $60,336.
The new data shows Syracuse has been left behind as the nation's poverty rate declined in 2017 for the third consecutive year.
About 12.3 percent of Americans lived in poverty in 2017, down 2.5 percentage points from 2015, according to the Census Bureau.
In New York, 14.1 percent of state residents lived in poverty last year, down 0.6 percentage points from 2016.
Syracuse had the highest poverty among cities over 65,000 population in New York state. Rochester was close behind, but not statistically different - with 32.3 percent of people living in poverty. Eighteen percent of New York City residents live in poverty.
The new data also showed:
Children continue to suffer
The Hispanic population is growing and falling even further into poverty. The number of Syracuse residents who identified as Hispanic increased from about 11,800 to 12,800 over one year.
About 41 percent of black residents
Thirteen percent of residents with a bachelor's degree or higher live in poverty despite their degree.
The estimated population of Syracuse decreased from 129,849 to 128,677, records show.
How will new mayor address problem?
Syracuse Mayor Ben Walsh said he is eager to dig into the new Census data.
Walsh said his administration has identified two priority areas - housing stability and digital inclusion - as critical issues that need to be addressed to reduce poverty. He said 25 percent of residents move more than one time per year.
Syracuse also has plans to acquire street lights that will be used to develop a low-power wide area network for WiFi, Walsh said.
Ultimately, Walsh said, he views economic development as the key to reducing poverty.
Sharon Owens, Syracuse's deputy mayor who helps oversee the city's anti-poverty initiative, said officials have focused on trying to address the conditions that result from poverty while also developing long-term plans to reduce the city's chronic poverty problem.
Owens said the city is working with programs like P-Tech in Syracuse schools to prepare a workforce for new industry and help stop the cycle of generational poverty.
Syracuse nonprofits also were among those in 16 communities to share $25 million this year from the state's Empire State Poverty Reduction Initiative to reduce such long-term poverty.
Owens said the money will help fund projects such as a financial literacy initiative, giving poor people better skills in managing their money.
Syracuse also will look at other cities such as Albany to see what kinds of programs work in helping to reduce poverty, Owens said. But she said it's a problem that could take years to solve.
"It didn't take us overnight to get into poverty, and it's not going to take us overnight to get out," Owens said.
How did Albany improve?
Pedro Perez, the former executive director of My Brother's and Sister's Keeper, explained a few ways city government and non-profit groups worked throughout 2017 to help people into jobs in Albany.
For example, the City of Albany Poverty Reduction Initiative offered state grants to non-profits, but only if they presented a letter from a company that promised to at least interview people who came through the training programs.
That led to jobs in a furniture warehouse, a data processing center and others, he said.
Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan and her staff held town hall meetings in neighborhoods to hear from residents about the high costs of child care, transportation and the so-called "cliff effect" that happens when social services are removed before a new salary can cover the costs.
"That created an opportunity for citizens to recognize the city was on their side," Perez said.
Mark Weiner contributed to this report.
U.S. cities with highest poverty rates 2017
Rank City State Rate 1 Flint Michigan 38.9 2 Gary Indiana 36.3 3 Camden New Jersey 35.7 4 Passaic New Jersey 35 5 Youngstown Ohio 34.9 6 Detroit Michigan 34.5 7 Cleveland Ohio 33.1 8 College Station Texas 32.7 9 Bloomington Indiana 32.4 9 Dearborn Michigan 32.4 9 Syracuse New York 32.4
Source: U.S. Census Bureau
Syracuse's poverty rate among Hispanics surged last year, reaching the point where almost two out of every three Hispanic residents in the city lived below the poverty line, according to a new report from the U.S. Census Bureau.
About 58 percent of Syracuse's Hispanic population lived in poverty in 2017, the Census numbers show, compared to 40.5 percent in 2016.
The spike comes as Syracuse's overall poverty rate - now 9th worst in the nation - remained essentially unchanged from the previous year as poverty in New York and the rest of the nation continued to decline.
A Census Bureau expert said Syracuse stood out nationally when it comes to poverty among Hispanics.
"This is inconsistent with trends we've seen for the nation as well as New York," said Ashley Edwards, chief of the Census Poverty Statistics Branch.
In New York, the poverty rate among Hispanics declined from 24.2 percent in 2016 to 21.8 percent last year, Edwards said.
In the United States, the poverty rate among Hispanics declined from 21 percent in 2016 to 19.4 percent last year.
The federal government considers a family of four to be living below the poverty line with an annual income of $24,944.
Syracuse Mayor Ben Walsh said the rise in Hispanic poverty is "particularly troubling" but he said city officials do not know what might have contributed to the latest increase.
One possible factor behind the surge is an influx of people who moved to the city from Puerto Rico last year in the wake of Hurricane Maria, Census experts said.
About 500 people moved to Syracuse from Puerto Rico after the Sept. 20 hurricane, according to the Spanish Action League in Syracuse, a human service agency. Syracuse City School District officials say 90 new students enrolled in city schools after moving from Puerto Rico.
That influx of 500 people from Puerto Rico would account for at least half of the increase in the city's Hispanic population, which grew by more than 1,000 from 11,781 in 2016 to 12,799 last year, according to the Census Bureau.
The new data shows 7,429 Syracuse Hispanics lived below the poverty line last year, up from 4,774 in 2016.
Jan Vink, an associate with the Cornell Program on Applied Demographics, said the change is statistically significant and it's likely the influx of new residents from Puerto Rico played a role as they arrived in the city without an immediate source of income.
"Of course, you need to be worried by that ranking," Vink said of the Hispanic poverty rate. But he cautioned against reading too much from the data, which tends to fluctuate from year to year.
For example, the Census Bureau counts college students living off-campus in its survey to determine the poverty rate. In a city such as Syracuse with a relatively high population of college students, that can make the poverty rate look worse.
Vink said a better measure is to look at poverty among families.
The 2017 data showed two-thirds of Hispanic families in Syracuse had a female head of household without a spouse, compared to about half of Hispanic families that had a female head of household without a spouse in 2016. Vink said that difference could simply be a statistical anomaly rather than a trend.
What's clear is that poverty among minorities in Syracuse has been a chronic problem.
While 58 percent of Syracuse's Hispanic population lived in poverty in 2017, the rate was 41 percent for blacks and 25 percent for whites, according to the Census data.
A 2015 study by a Rutgers University professor found Syracuse has the nation's highest rate of extreme poverty concentrated among blacks and Hispanics.
Sharon Owens, Syracuse's deputy mayor who oversees the city's anti-poverty initiative, said she had no immediate explanation for why the poverty rate has spiked among Hispanics.
Owens said the city wants to treat the conditions that result from poverty in the short-term, and ultimately help break the cycle of generational poverty through economic development.
"Frankly, the bottom line of poverty is it's a financial condition," Owens said. "We're working hard to address the condition of life in the city. But we're also working hard to move the needle forward to create economic empowerment in the city."
Contact Mark Weiner: Email | Twitter | Facebook | 571-970-3751
Baldwinsville, N.Y. - Jeff Rogers is fermenting his own garlic.
He's got a special appliance for the job, a 28-day process that relies on the allium's sugars and acids to turn the cloves into something dark and soft and rich with molasses-like flavors.
"It's sweet and savory," said Rogers, who is opening Angry Garlic restaurant in Baldwinsville on Sept. 21. "In the restaurant industry, they call it 'black gold.'"
That black garlic - and garlic prepared five other ways - is all over the menu at the restaurant at 29 Oswego St. in the village.
There's black garlic shrimp scampi ($17.50) and black garlic spread on a burger ($11). The chicken salad wrap ($9) comes with roasted garlic spread. The pasta aglio e olio ($13) starts with fresh garlic and tomatoes tossed in olive oil. The garlic in the mac & cheese ($12) is smoked. The Seneca burger ($10.50) and some other sandwiches are dressed with garlic aioli. Long-stem artichokes ($9) are sauteed with garlic, parsley and lemon juice and served over a baguette.
Yes, there's a 40-clove roasted chicken ($15). Yes, garlic bread comes with main entrees.
"All of us are garlic lovers," Rogers said of his family, who've helped him come up with the concept and menu for the restaurant. The tomato soup is his wife's recipe. The meatballs come from mom's cookbook.
Plus, he noted, New York is a garlic state. It ranks fifth in overall garlic production, according to Cornell Cooperative Extension. Rogers grows garlic at his home, and he's interested in seeing if he can eventually grow it on the restaurant's roof. For now, he's getting the bulbs from four local farms.
Rogers took over the space on Oswego Street in May. The building's history dates back to 1832, when it was the Seneca Hotel. Over the decades two separate fires damaged the hotel. By the 1920s, the part with the current bar was a soda fountain. Most recently, it was the Office Bar & Grill, which closed earlier this year.
Rogers spent the summer renovating the space, refinishing most of the woodwork and floors, adding a 22-tap system, redoing the bathrooms.
He calls the menu "all-American." Rogers says he's hired two head chefs, though he declined to name them before the restaurant opens.
Shared plates include garlic meatballs ($9), loaded garlic fries ($8.50), and garlic bites ($8) - garlicky and fried risotto balls. He's offering five salads and five burgers, six types of wings, fish tacos ($12) and Angry vodka riggies ($16). Other sections include house-made flatbreads and a kids' menu.
Gluten-free options are available. And diners who aren't so wild about garlic will find options, too. Many items can be made without the garlic flavors, he said.
Still, he expects to go through hundreds of heads of garlic each week.
Angry Garlic will be open daily for lunch and dinner. Sundays will include a brunch menu.
Copper Pig BBQ & Taproom in Auburn will close on Sept. 29, the owners announced on Facebook on Wednesday.
Dawn and Marc Schulz wrote they are closing to concentrate on Prison City Pub & Brewery and an expansion of their brewing capacity.
"We have had an amazing 2.5 years here and have tons of great memories," the Facebook message read. "As our other businesses grow, we realize that the brewery (and new brewery...hard wink) require our full attention and resources."
The Copper Pig opened at 10 E. Genesee St. in 2016. It featured "low and slow" wood-fired smoking method for barbecue, Southern-style cuisine and American comfort food.
Jane Marmaduke Woodman reviewed the restaurant in October 2016:
"Our substantial pile of pulled pork was chunky and had a good flavor, especially with bits of the crusty exterior. This was not the stringy, flaccid pulled pork we've seen elsewhere but a dish that retained the full character of the roast from which it came. The regular sauce and the mustard sauce were both stellar with this part of the plate.
"However, the little 3-rib rack was the most amazing selection. Slow smoked after a St. Louis spice rub, these were so meaty and well-cooked that the thick layer of meat almost seemed fluffy. Of all the meats we tried, this was the best."
Wednesday's Facebook message indicated the space would continue to operate as a restaurant, though no other details were provided. "Thank you for all of your support & look for announcements from the new owners of the space," the message read.
Copper Pig customers with gift certificates are asked to use them before the Sept. 29 closing or stop by to receive a refund.
Prison City opened in 2014 and has won national recognition for its beer. This summer, its Mass Riot IPA won sixth place in a blind tasting of India Pale Ales from across the United States and Canada. The competition was held by Paste, an online magazine. Two years ago, Prison City won first place in a similar competition.
NORTH SYRACUSE, NY - Cicero North Syracuse High School juniors Hailey Hooser and Lauren Brown said they were puzzled and upset when their school skipped its traditional moment of silence for 9/11 victims on Tuesday.
Every year since the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, the school has held a moment of silence during the morning announcements at the high school. This year, the school skipped the moment of silence.
CNS High School Principal William LaClair told Syracuse.com | The Post Standard Thursday that there "was no reason why" the moment was skipped and it wasn't meant to disrespect anyone.
The principal said social media texts that say he told students that the time for remembering what happened on Sept. 11, 2001 was over for the school are not true.
He also denied rumors spreading among parents and students that the moment of silence was dropped to avoid offending Muslim students. "That is not true,'' he said.
Some students and parents said they are outraged at the decision not to mark 9/11.
"I was really upset, and most of all very confused,'' said Hooser, who added she thinks it's important to talk about and remember the horrors of 9/11 every year.
"I just can't figure out what's different about this year than any other year in the past," she said. "It's just not right."
Parent Stephanie Warner said she was brokenhearted when her high school and junior high student told her there were no moment of silence.
"As Americans, we are seriously offended,'' she said. "What is this teaching our children? We don't take the time to pay respect to the people who lost their lives senselessly."
The principal said he has listened to the students' feedback, and the moment of silence will be reinstated next year.
Laurie Cook, a spokeswoman for the North Syracuse school district, said it was up to each individual principal to decide whether or not to have the traditional moment of silence this year.
Elementary school principals appear to have observed the tradition, while junior high students and high school students said the moment of silence didn't take place at their schools.
Many students "are upset that we didn't take any time out of our day to have a moment of silence for all the people who lost their lives,'' said Adriana Calabria, a junior. "Our video announcements are five minutes long. We should have time for a couple minutes of silence for the fallen ones."
Brown said she doesn't understand why the decision was made. "A lot of students feel a sense of disrespect," she said.
Some students said teachers did not address 9/11 at all during history class this year but the district said that decision was left up to the teachers.
Throughout the county, many high schools held moments of silences. Jamesville-DeWitt, West Genesee, Liverpool, Lafayette and Baldwinsville confirmed holding moments of silence during morning announcements. Many also said in-depth discussions were held in class.
Students said that didn't happen at CNS this year.
When contacted by Syracuse.com | The Post-Standard, the district Wednesday issued a statement.
"
Individual principals and teachers plan building - and classroom-specific events, recognizing that their student populations are unique and that all students are individuals,'' the statement said.
N
orth Syracuse Central School District Superintendent Annette Speach said in the statement that the district recognizes and remembers 911, Pearl Harbor and other events.
"We strive to be sensitive to the impact that the events have had on each student and staff member while encouraging open dialogue and public remembrances,'' she said. "Our individual populations are free to pay tribute in their own ways."
Senior Kristen Ritchie she and her friends also were upset.
"I'm disgusted at how they didn't include the moment of silence,'' she said.
Statement issued by the North Syracuse School District
On September 11, 2001, the world was dramatically changed when terrorists attacked the United States with airplanes in four separate incidents - two in New York City, one in Washington, D.C. and one in Pennsylvania. The North Syracuse Central School District will forever remember that devastating day and the tragic events that took the lives of so many US citizens and changed us all. On this historic day, along with others that dramatically impacted our country we encourage our staff to appropriately discuss the significance with their students and remember, or learn about the lives lost.
Individual principals and teachers plan building- and classroom-specific events, recognizing that their student populations are unique and that all students are individuals.
North Syracuse Central School District Superintendent Annette Speach said, "As a district, we recognize and remember the tragedies of 9/11, Pearl Harbor and other events that have shaped our nation. We strive to be sensitive to the impact that the events have had on each student and staff member while encouraging open dialogue and public remembrances. Our individual populations are free to pay tribute in their own ways. Some principals discussed 9/11 on their morning announcements and many classes throughout the district had thoughtful discussions. We absolutely promote our staff and students to use their own thoughtful ways of remembering."
ANTWERP -- A man charged with burglary and Tased by police as he resisted arrest Saturday was driving a pickup truck registered to Assemblywoman Addie A.E. Jenne, D-Theresa while allegedly committing a crime.
Ms. Jenne confirmed on Wednesday that a red truck parked outside the house of Nathan J. McElhone belongs to her. After information was sent to the Times that the truck had been seen parked in Ms. Jenne's driveway, the assemblywoman confirmed it is her truck.
State police charged Mr. McElhone, 43, of 111 Main St., with two felonies after state police said they found stolen items in a vehicle parked outside his Main Street driveway.
"A close friend of mine was arrested early Saturday morning in the town of Antwerp," she wrote in a statement to the Times. "The allegations are very serious, and his case is now before the courts. I have no further comment about the charges as his case moves through the legal process."
Mr. McElhone has been jailed since the incident, first on $30,000 bail. That was reduced to $5,000 on Tuesday, according to jail records, but as of 5:30 p.m. Wednesday he remained in custody.
Jenne represents the 116th Assembly District, a seat she as held since first elected in 2008. She is seeking re-election.
The 116th District includes parts of Jefferson and St. Lawrence counties along the St. Lawrence River. She chairs the Assembly's Task Force on Food, Farm and Nutrition Policy.
Ryne Martin, Ms. Jenne's spokesman, declined to comment why Mr. McElhone was driving Ms. Jenne's truck and he would not explain the nature of their relationship.
"I have nothing beyond the statement at this time," he wrote in an email to the Times.
Ms. Jenne is running for reelection in the Nov. 6 election. She's running against City Councilman Mark C. Walczyk, a Republican also running on the Conservative, Independence and Reform Party lines.
In a statement, Mr. Walczyk said the incident involving the assemblywoman "is a distraction from the real issues of this campaign."
"I think it's important to talk about real issues like taxes, jobs and how we are going to rebuild our region's economy," he said.
At about 3:45 a.m. Saturday, state police responded to a report of burglary at a garage at 37230 Route 11 in the town.
During the investigation, troopers were told by the complainant that Mr. McElhone may have been involved in the burglary, state police said.
When troopers arrived, they observed a vehicle in front of his residence with the stolen items taken from the complainant's garage, state police said.
During his arrest, he allegedly refused to comply with verbal commands and resisted arrest.
Troopers had to use a Taser when he continued to be combative, they said. He was eventually taken into custody and transported to the Watertown state police station for processing.
The charges against Mr. McElhone are third-degree burglary and fourth-degree grand larceny, which are both felonies, resisting arrest, a misdemeanor, and second-degree harassment, a violation.
In 1999, McElhone was one of three men found in a room at Longway's Motel, Routes 342 and 37, in possession of nearly 2 pounds of marijuana. He pleaded guilty to second-degree criminal possession of marijuana and was sentenced to 270 days in jail.
In the 1999 case an informant's tip led police to the motel room where they found $3,700 in cash and two "big bags" of marijuana, police said at the time.
New York -- Seven New York City police officers were arrested on Wednesday in connection with a prostitution and gambling ring.
Three sergeants, two detectives and two officers were arrested, according to the New York Daily News. Charges against the seven officers include enterprise corruption, promoting prostitution and official misconduct.
All seven have been suspended for 30 days without pay. Two other detectives were placed on modified duty in connection with the case and are expected to face departmental charges.
The arrests ended a three-year investigation. Over 40 civilians were also being sought or were already in custody in connection with the probe, according to The New York Times.
The police involved allegedly provided protection for the activities of an illegal gambling and prostitution ring in Sunset Park, Brooklyn and along Roosevelt Avenue in Queens, according to the Times. Residents and officials have often complained about brothels in the area operating out of local homes, spas and bars.
The arrested officers would allegedly alert leaders of the ring about upcoming raids and search warrants, the News said. On some occasions, prostitutes were ordered to massage and have sex with the cops in exchange for their help.
Police sent dozens of undercover officers to locations where the ring was thought to operate and conducted over 300 hours of surveillance, according to the Times. Investigators also collected physical evidence and obtained warrants to intercept officers' electronic communications.
"Today, those who swore an oath and then betrayed it have felt the consequences of that infidelity," Police Commissioner James P. O'Neill said in a statement, according to the Times. "The people of this department are rightly held to the highest standard and should they fail to meet it, the penalty will be swift and severe."
O'Neill said the arrests send a clear message that criminal or unethical behavior has no place in the city's police department, according to the Times.
According to the New York Post, the officers and charges include:
Sgt. Carlos Cruz, enterprise corruption
Sgt. Louis Failla, official misconduct
Sgt. Cliff Nieves, promoting prostitution
Officer Steven Nieves, promoting prostitution
Officer Giancarlo Raspanti, official misconduct
Detective Gionanny Rojas-Acosta, enterprise corruption
Detective Rene Samaniego, enterprise corruption
Detectives Manuel Rodriguez and Rafael Vega were placed on administrative duty for unspecified violations of department rules, the Times said.
All of the officers caught up in the investigation were stripped of their guns and badges.
Contact Kevin Tampone anytime: Email | Twitter | Google + | 315-282-8598
Jeff Fager, the executive producer of the flagship CBS news program "60 Minutes," has left the network.
His exit follows articles by Ronan Farrow in the New Yorker that included accusations that Fager inappropriately touched employees, and a report by The Washington Post's Erik Wemple that Fager tolerated years of alleged abusive conduct by a senior producer.
"This action today is not directly related to the allegations surfaced in press reports, which continue to be investigated independently," CBS News President David Rhodes said in a memo. "However, he violated company policy and it is our commitment to uphold those policies at every level."
It is unclear what specific company policy the memo refers to.
Fager said in a separate statement that the allegations in the New Yorker are "false" and that the decision by CBS was unrelated.
"They terminated my contract early because I sent a text message to one of our own CBS reporters demanding that she be fair in covering the story. My language was harsh and, despite the fact that journalists receive harsh demands for fairness all the time, CBS did not like it," Fager said." One such note should not result in termination after 36 years, but it did."
Jericka Duncan, the reporter to whom Fager sent the message, revealed the contents of the text during Wednesday's edition of "CBS Evening News."
"If you repeat these false accusations without any of your own reporting to back them up, you will be responsible for harming me. Be careful," Fager wrote, according to Duncan. "There are people who lost their jobs trying to harm me and if you pass on these damaging claims without your own reporting to back them up that will become a serious problem."
Fager, a former CBS News chairman, has also been accused of dissuading employees from reporting incidents to human resources. He told Wemple at The Post, "I have never discouraged anyone from going to HR."
The departure comes at a time of intense public scrutiny of CBS, including the recent resignation of its CEO, Leslie Moonves, once among the most powerful and well-compensated media executives.
Several weeks ago, CBS brought in outside law firms to conduct investigations following an initial New Yorker article largely focused on misconduct allegations against Moonves. The report also included anonymous accounts from former employees that Fager inappropriately touched employees at company parties.
A second New Yorker article published Sunday included more allegations against Moonves of sexual assault, harassment and intimidation. A former CBS intern, Sarah Johansen, also told Farrow that Fager groped her at a work party. "I really felt like this was one of the most sexist places I've ever worked," she said.
Moonves said in a statement that "untrue allegations from decades ago are now being made against me that are not consistent with who I am."
Fager became a decorated journalist during his 36 years at CBS News, and just last year wrote a book chronicling the history of the venerated program "60 Minutes" to mark its 50th anniversary.
An executive producer of "CBS Evening News with Dan Rather" in the late 1990s, Fager took over the same role at "60 Minutes" before becoming chairman of CBS News in 2011. He returned as full-time executive producer at "60 Minutes" in 2015, and this fall would have marked his 15th as chief of the news magazine program.
Quinnipiac University has rescinded Fager's Fred Friendly First Amendment Award, which he received in June, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
Bill Owens will manage "60 Minutes" as the company searches for a replacement, Rhodes said in his memo, adding the interim CEO of CBS, Joe Ianniello, "is in full support of the decision and the transition to come."
Moonves is expected to receive millions from a settlement with the CBS board. According to a company statement, Moonves and the company would be making a $20 million donation, taken from Moonves' severance, "to one or more organizations that support the #MeToo movement and equality for women in the workplace."
In November 2017, CBS News dropped Charlie Rose following a Post investigation detailing allegations of unwanted sexual advances toward women. Rose had been a co-anchor since 2012 on "CBS This Morning" and a contributing correspondent on "60 Minutes."
"Despite Charlie's important journalistic contribution to our news division, there is absolutely nothing more important, in this or any organization, than ensuring a safe, professional workplace - a supportive environment where people feel they can do their best work," Rhodes said in a memo last year. "We need to be such a place."
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Apple on Wednesday unveiled three new iPhones at an event held in the Steve Jobs Theatre on its Cupertino, California, campus. Along with the iPhone Xs, iPhone Xs Max and iPhone XR, Apple introduced the Apple Watch 4.
Our mission started with personalizing technology for the desktop, CEO Tim Cook told the audience, and its now personalizing it for every aspect of our lives.
Apple aims to put the customer at the center of everything we do, he added. The iPhone X is the No. 1 smartphone in the world, and has an amazing 98 percent customer satisfaction [rating].
The Apple Watch is not only the No. 1 smartwatch in the world, its the No. 1 watch, Cook noted. Period.
Apple Watch Series 4
All three new X series iPhones come with 64 GB, 256 GB or 512 GB of storage.
The XR starts at US$750, the Xs at $1,000, and the Xs Max at $1,100.
The XR can be preordered starting Oct. 19, and it will begin shipping on Oct. 26.
The Xs and Xs Max can be preordered starting Friday and will begin shipping Sept. 21.
The New iPhones
Screens in all the new iPhones extend top to bottom and edge to edge, allowing Apple to use a smaller form factor. The screens are rounded at the edges.
The Xs and Xs Max have a Super Retina screen, and the XR an LCD display, which Phil Schiller, Apples SVP of worldwide marketing, called the most advanced LCD display ever in a smartphone.
A D V E R T I S E M E N T
Apple SVP Phil Schiller introduces iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max.
All three have cases that are water and dust resistant, to IP 68 for the Xs and Xs Max, and IP 67 for the XR.
If you hang by the pool and drop the iPhone Xs into the water, Schiller said, get it out, rinse it, let it dry, and youll be fine. We tested it in orange juice tea, wine and even beer.
All three have 12-MP rear cameras with portrait mode, depth control, portrait lighting, Smart HDR, adjustable bokeh, and 4K video up to 60fps. The Xs and Xs Max have two of these cameras, and the XR has one.
All three also have a 7-MP TrueDepth front camera with the same features as the rear cameras except for video capability.
Youre going to be blown away with the photos you can take with the iPhone Xs camera, Schiller said. The Xs and Xs Max have one 12-MP wide-angle camera and one 12-MP telephoto camera in the rear, both with optics image stabilization.
The phones run on a 7nm A12 Bionic System on a Chip, with next-generation neural engine dedicated neural network hardware.
The SoCs image signal processor, working in conjunction with the CPU, automatically sets exposure, white balance, focus, and other photographic features.
The Smart HDR feature takes a four-frame buffer for each shot and merges them into one perfect photo. It also lets users shoot photos while facing the sun.
The HDR screen is key, said Gerritt Schneeman, senior research analyst at IHS Markit.
A D V E R T I S E M E N T
Its a premium feature [that] plays into a key aspect of Apples existing UX focus camera experience, he told TechNewsWorld.
The new cameras sound capabilities also drew praise.
We can use stereo rewinding on the iPhone, noted Todd Howard, game director at Bethesda Game Studios, when demonstrating Blades, the new Elder Scrolls game coming to iOS this fall.
This experience used to be available only on consoles in the living room, he said.
The stereo audio recording offered in the new iPhones enhances existing content and is clearly different than before, observed Schneeman.
Content creation and consumption is getting richer on these new devices, Schneeman remarked. The competition is not following along with this as quickly, if at all.
The new iPhones have a longer battery life than their predecessors, and have a dual SIM card capability, using eSIM.
The dual SIM capability is a smart move and needs to be done, said Ramon Llamas, a research director at IDC.
Theyre responding to the Chinese market and the needs of the enterprise market here in the United States, he told TechNewsWorld.
The Bionic SoC and Neural Engine
The bionic SoC runs Core ML apps up to nine times faster, with one-tenth the power consumption, said Kaiann Drance, senior director of iPhone product marketing.
It also enables augmented reality experiences, she noted. Apples developer system has been building AR apps with ARKit 2 and iOS 12.
The A12 has an 8-core machine learning engine with a smart compute system that can analyze neural network data and figure out on the fly whether to run it on the CPU, GPU or the neural engine, Schiller said. It can process 5 trillion operations a second.
Incremental Improvements
The newest iPhones are iterative upgrades, and in the case of the XR, an upgrade/downgrade over the iPhone X, said Ken Hyers, research director at Strategy Analytics.
Apple SVP Phil Schiller reveals the iPhone XR, which features an all-screen glass and aluminum design in six new color finishes.
None of the upgrades are earth-shattering improvements, but for someone with an iPhone 7 Plus or 8 Plus whos looking to move on after a year or two, these improvements may be enough to get them into the store and part with the better part of a thousand dollars or more, Hyers told TechNewsWorld.
The specs are good, noted IDCs Llamas. I think theyre pushing in the right direction with the XS and Xs Max.
However, the differentiation among the three new models is unclear, he pointed out.
It used to be that when you went to get an iPhone, the only issue was how much memory you wanted, Llamas said. Now you have the XR thats between the size of the S and the S Max. If you go for a 128-GB XR, youre only a couple of hundred dollars away from the entry-level Xs, and now you have to figure in not just the memory, but also the screen size and various other features as well.
Why it matters: Smaller companies like Plex have a lot to gain from going to the Cloud, but they rely on the infrastructure of others to make it viable. If you can't knock down prices and keep maintenance costs down, you're forced into some hard decisions, which is what happened today.
The company behind the Plex Media Server will be retiring its Plex Cloud service after not being able to appropriately address the existing technical issues and business model.
During its short, two-year, existence, Plex Cloud was plagued by technical issues, which had already led the company to disable the creation of new servers back in February 2018, due to "challenges with performance, quality, and overall user experience inherent with cloud provider integrations". After much deliberation, the company has deemed the service too costly to maintain and has decided to shut it down: "We've made the difficult decision to shut down the Plex Cloud service on November 30th, 2018," said the company in an email to its users.
Plex Cloud is part of the Plex Pass subscription service (Plex itself is free), and provides streaming content functionality for media you stored on cloud storage services such as Google Drive, Dropbox or OneDrive. This way you needn't keep a powered-on device in your home to stream content and use uploaded media directly from these services. It was easy for customers and, theoretically, for Plex.
However, Plex explained, "we havent found a solution capable of delivering a truly first class Plex experience to Plex Cloud users at a reasonable cost". Which sounds a perfectly legitimate and upfront way of saying it was too expensive to maintain.
The infrastructure behind it was a bit complex, we understand. 3rd party integration allowed files to 'stream' from a cloud storage provider to Plex's own servers, which would then transcode/stream the content to the user's device. This was a costly model for Plex that ended up diverting too many resources. Ultimately, what Plex needs is a 'Hail Mary' pass from the likes of Amazon, but right now it will trigger a change in direction for the media server company.
If you need to know what happens to your service on November 30th, Plex has set up a FAQ for you.
Something to look forward to: No earth-shattering update, but a cool set of new features that will leave current HomePod owners feeling a bit more confident about their purchase. HomePod still feels like a product without a direction, but at least you can talk a lot more with Siri now.
During today's presentation at the Steve Jobs Theater, the least illustrious of the Apple family devices, the HomePod smart speaker, did not receive a hardware refresh to wow Apple fans. Instead it's been injected with a slew of new features to improve its standing in your home.
While it will hardly cause a riot at the local Apple store, current owners will be pleased to hear that their pricey $349 speaker will now be able to dial and receive calls for you, carry out music searches based on lyrics and even set up multiple timers. It'll also find your iPhone if you left it under a pile of clothes.
Topping the list of new features on the HomePod is the ability to perform / receive phone calls, and even inquiring about missed calls just by asking Siri. You can order Siri to dial out to a contact (or spell out a phone number), or to answer the phone. If you happen to miss a call, just ask Siri who it was.
Lyrics-based music search is also a big deal for those who can't live without music. Just ask Siri to "play the song that goes..." and you're off (Apple Music required, obviously). Multiple Timers and iPhone detection features are OK, but these are the kind of features that could've met the original launch instead of a later update which, to us, shows that Apple isn't really big on smart speakers. One of the biggest changes coming to the HomePod is support for Spanish (American and European), as well as Canadian French, as command languages.
Finally, Apple deemed it useful to extend the full set of Siri Shortcuts (i.e. batch commands) on your iPhone to your HomePod. This means that any Shortcuts can be activated directly from the 'pod.
In the end, HomePod continues to be a bit of an outlier in Apple's portfolio of otherwise well-thought-out, elegant products.
A hot potato: Is the 3.5mm headphone jack in phones going the way of the dinosaurs? After including the long-used port on the excellent OnePlus 6 handset, weve now got confirmation that the highly anticipated successor, the OnePlus 6T, will ditch it.
The news comes from a TechRadar interview with OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei. "When we started OnePlus, we set out to make the best possible smartphone, but making a great phone doesn't mean putting every component available into the device," he said. "You've got to make decisions that optimize the user experience, and understand that at times things that provide user value can also add friction."
Pei added that 59 percent of the OnePlus community already owned wireless headphones earlier this yeara figure thats likely to have increased following the launch of OnePlus Bullets Wireless earphones. He admits that ditching the jack two years ago, which is when Apple first removed the port from its handsets starting with the iPhone 7, would have brought much more negative feedback.
Just as Apple did in 2016, Pei emphasized that the removal of the jack will bring benefits by allowing more space inside the phone for extra techpossibly a reference to the larger battery that the OnePlus 6T is expected to feature. While he wouldnt reveal any specifics, Pei did say that the difference would be "substantial enough for users to realize."
The news will still disappoint many who are eagerly waiting for the OnePlus 6T. A leak last week showed the phones teardrop-style notch and triple camera setup, and the company later confirmed that it would feature an in-display fingerprint sensor. Its also suspected to follow the OnePlus tradition of being hundreds of dollars cheaper than most flagshipssomething many will appreciate in light of the new, expensive iPhone XS and XS Max. OnePlus is also including a 3.5mm to USB Type-C adapter in the box; a feature Apple has decided to drop.
While OnePlus has joined Google, Apple, Sony, and others in dropping the headphone jack from its flagships, Samsung remains a dedicated fan of the 3.5mm portbut for how much longer?
Big quote: "The purpose of the submission is to seek action by the ICO that will protect individuals from wide-scale and systemic breaches of the data protection regime by Google and others in the industry. It is supported by the accompanying statement of Dr Johnny Ryan ('the Ryan Report')."
Other than a man using provisions set forth by Europes new General Data Protection Regulation only to find he has spent over $10,000 in two years on FIFA microtransactions, the GDPR has not been stirring up a lot of dust. That might be about to change with a filing alleging that Google and other adtech firms are violating the rules set forth in the new regulation.
On Wednesday, Brave filed a complaint with UK and Irish regulators over potential GDPR violations. The company, which develops the privacy-focused Brave browser, alleges that Google and others are auctioning user data and that the information not only contains sensitive details such as sexuality, ethnicity, and political opinions, but also that it is not secured correctly.
There is a massive and systematic data breach at the heart of the behavioral advertising industry, Braves chief policy officer Johnny Ryan told Reuters. Despite the two-year lead-in period before the GDPR, adtech companies have failed to comply.
[This] is likely to have far-reaching and dramatic consequences, which may change our fundamental relationship with the Internet.
The filing claims that this information is sometimes distributed to hundreds of companies without the users knowledge and then ad space is auctioned off based on that data. Its called real-time bidding and is facilitated through two channels OpenRTB, which is used by most companies in the behavioral advertising industry, and Authorized Buyers, which is run by Google.
The complaint specifically cites violations of the GDPRs requirements for personal information to be processed such that it is secure against accidental loss and unlawful processing.
[Google and others are guilty of] wide-scale and systematic breaches of the data protection regime, said the filing.
If the newly formed European Data Protection Board, which is responsible for enforcing GDPR violations, finds in favor of the plaintiffs, it could mean a massive fine for Google. Under the regulation, a company can be fined up to 4 percent of its global turnover.
Google claims that it has already employed several strong privacy protection measures in cooperation with European regulators. It says it is committed to complying with the GDPR.
At the very least, the complaint is going to serve as a test case for the Data Protection Board. However, depending on what the board finds, it could have implications that according to plaintiff attorney Ravi Naik, is likely to have far-reaching and dramatic consequences, which may change our fundamental relationship with the Internet.
Johnny Ryan's report on the issue on Brave's website provides an in-depth look and the issues prompting the filing.
Zimbabwe declares a state of emergency after at least 20 people from the capital city of Harare died from cholera in the past week.
As of this writing, the number of people who have been infected by the disease has now climbed to 2,000.
State Of Emergency
"The city of Harare, they're the big problem," Obadiah Moyo, the city's health minister, stated on Tuesday, Sept. 11. "This whole problem is a result of blocked sewers. And these were reported and were never repaired for at least two months."
He also told reporters during the press conference that the city has already started efforts to control the outbreak. City officials are in the process of repairing blocked sewers in order to prevent further contamination.
Harare has also decommissioned boreholes and closed wells in affected suburbs. Schools have also been suspended in several areas across the city.
Cholera is a bacterial disease that is spread when a fecal matter comes into contact with drinking water and food. People infected with this disease will experience diarrhea, vomiting, muscle cramps, rapid heart rate, and low blood pressure.
In more serious cases, patients with cholera might develop acute renal failure, severe electrolyte imbalance, severe dehydration, or coma. However, with proper care and antibiotics, chances of patients dying from cholera is low.
Mr. Moyo hopes that declaring a state of emergency will help the local government contain the cholera outbreak, which has also already spread in the provinces of Masvingo and Manicaland.
Cholera Outbreak In Zimbabwe
Small outbreaks of cholera happen more frequently in Zimbabwe. Last month, the city of Gweru also experienced an outbreak that killed three people.
However, the most serious outbreak of cholera that the country had experienced in the recent years happened between 2008 and 2009 when 98,000 people got sick and more than 4,200 people died.
The current economic situation in Zimbabwe has contributed to the frequency of cholera outbreaks in the country. The illness spread a lot easier with more people coming into the city to look for work and live in ramshackle. The sewer system becomes overburden by the overpopulation.
The government said that they are doing everything that they can to control the cholera outbreak in the country even if they are hindered by the economic crisis. The opposition, meanwhile, is criticizing the current administration for mismanagement.
In 2016, the United States recorded 14 cases of cholera. No deaths were reported.
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More than seven years after the disappearance of Brusly High School teacher Sylviane Finck Lozada, authorities now allege her husband is respo
ExxonMobil's facility on Scenic Highway. Teachers and representatives from Together Baton Rouge have asked the East Baton Rouge Parish assessor to add several hundred million dollars worth of capital improvements to ExxonMobils property tax assessments, alleging the oil and gas giant is being under-assessed for its 2018 bill.
More than seven years after the disappearance of Brusly High School teacher Sylviane Finck Lozada, authorities now allege her husband is responsible for her death.
The East Baton Rouge Sheriff's Office on Thursday filed an arrest warrant for Oscar Alberto Lozada, 43, on a count of second-degree murder.
Investigators believe he killed his wife before leaving the country in 2011 with their young daughter. According to the warrant, neither has returned to the U.S. and authorities say they lost contact with the man two years ago.
The warrant says investigators found blood in the garage of the couple's home in at least nine spots, including three walls and the ceiling. All the samples were identified as Sylviane Lozada's blood, the warrant says.
"The blood on the ceiling is consistent with wet blood traveling through the air and striking the ceiling," the warrant says. "This would have been done with enough force to propel the blood vertically to impact the ceiling."
Deputies got calls on missing teacher, husband Records show the relationship between a missing Brusly High School teacher and her husband had been strained in the past.
Investigators have still not located the body of Sylviane Lozada, a Belgian citizen who lived in Baton Rouge with her husband and child; however, deputies note that no one has heard from her or seen her since July 5, 2011.
"Sylviane was a devoted mother and daughter who would not have abandoned her daughter and family," the warrant says. "Sylviane spoke to her mother daily (in Belgium) because of her mother's declining health."
It was not immediately clear what happened in the case to bring about the new arrest warrant. The evidence presented in the document seems to have been years old.
Sheriff's spokeswoman Casey Rayborn Hicks declined to comment on any details of the case Thursday, but said they hope to release more information soon.
Even without specific updates or an arrest made, Brusly High School Principal Walt Lemoine said the latest news brings a sense of hope to their community. He said teachers were buzzing with the news on Thursday.
"Just the fact that something came up today, that means they're still working," Lemoine said. "Possibly, there could be some closure."
Sylviane Lozada, who taught French and Spanish at Brusly High for more than a decade, was reported missing in July 2011. Her disappearance coincided with her husband and young daughter leaving the country for South America. Despite tickets to return to the U.S. from Oscar Lozada's home country of Venezuela, the man and girl have never reentered the U.S., the warrant says.
Brusly teachers to pray for woman Brusly High School teachers plan to gather for a faculty-only prayer vigil on Tuesday in remembrance of their missing colleague.
The warrant details three incidents in which Oscar Lozada is accused of violence against his wife in the two years before her disappearance. In July 2009, deputies spoke to the family at a hospital where Oscar Lozada admitted he "snapped" during an argument and struck his wife, the warrant says. In the second incident more than a year later, Sylviane Lozada called deputies to their home because her husband was throwing and breaking items. Then in December 2010, deputies found Sylviane Lozada in the hospital for an injury she said her husband caused, but asked authorities to not contact him because "that would make matters worse," the warrant says. He was never arrested in any of these incidents.
Few details about the investigation had been previously released to the public, despite local and international attention though officials have consistently said foul play was suspected.
Family members last heard from Sylviane Lozada on July 5, 2011, when she called her mother in Belgium, the warrant says. The following morning, Oscar Lozada purchased two round trip tickets to Caracas, Venezuela.
That same day, July 6, 2011, Oscar Lozada and their 4-year-old daughter went to Lowe's Home Improvement, video surveillance shows, where he bought 15 bags of concrete mix and nine 5-gallon buckets with lids and luggage locks, the warrant says. The following day, he returned to Lowe's and purchased six large plastic bins.
Records reveal Lozada case details In the days after Sylviane Finck Lozada disappeared in July 2011, detectives seized several items from the Brusly High School teachers home,
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Also on July 7, 2011, Oscar Lozada texted his boss saying he would be out of work for two to three week for surgery, the warrant says. He also initially told the Sheriff's Office in 2011 that he went to Venezuela for medical reasons.
Then, on July 8, 2011, Oscar Lozada asked three friends to load up a small U-Haul truck with contents from his family's home and put them in a specific storage facility, the warrant says. Those individuals told investigators there was no sign of Sylviane Lozada at the home at that time, except for her vehicle parked outside.
"In his haste to leave town, Oscar gave one of the cooperating witnesses his vehicle, a Nissan Xterra," the warrant says. A previously filed court document says he asked the friend to sell it and send him the proceeds.
On July 9, 2011, at 10:06 a.m., Oscar Lozada and his daughter boarded a flight to Dallas. At 2:05 p.m., they boarded a flight to Caracas, Venezuela, the warrant says.
Two days later, he deleted his Facebook account and left a voice message on a neighbor's phone, saying he was out of town with both his wife and daughter. Investigators confirmed that only Oscar Lozada and his daughter used their passports to leave the country. Since July 2011, there has been no financial activity on Sylviane Lozada's bank account or credit card, the warrant says.
Teacher planned divorce The Brusly High School teacher reported missing more than two weeks ago was planning on leaving her husband, a friend and coworker said.
East Baton Rouge Parish sheriffs investigators wrote in the warrant that they had been in contact with Oscar Lozada after his wife's disappearance through telephone calls and emails. He initially told detectives he did not know her whereabouts and that he noticed her missing when he returned returned from the store, the warrant says.
He also told authorities he would return with their daughter to Baton Rouge to meet with detectives about the case. Twice investigators bought plane tickets for such a trip, but they never boarded the flights, the warrant says.
Investigators lost contact with him in 2016.
Oscar Lozada had not been publicly named a suspect in the case before Thursday, but investigators did question his behavior in the time before and after her disappearance.
Authorities were never able to find the buckets or bags of concrete mix he bought days before leaving the country. They were unable to locate any area where he might have utilized the materials, like a new construction site, the warrant says.
The Lozadas had been married for six years before the disappearance. A friend told The Advocate in 2011 that Sylviane Lozada had planned to file for divorce.
It was not clear Thursday if the Sheriff's Office had a plan to arrest Oscar Lozada. Venezuela's constitution prohibits the extradition of Venezuelan nationals, like Oscar Lozada. He is both a citizen of the U.S. and Venezuela, the warrant says. The couple's daughter, Angelina, is a U.S. citizen.
Sylviane Lozada's close friend Linda Hooper-Bui, an associate professor in environmental sciences at LSU, responded to the news Thursday, saying her focus is solely on Angelina, and the girl's safety, happiness and success in life.
"I want Angelina to know that Sylvianes family loves her and is waiting for her with open arms," Hooper-Bui wrote in an email. "Angelina has so many people in Baton Rouge who love her and want to help her progress to be the best she can be in life. I loved her mother deeply and I love her deeply."
Hooper-Bui said that as far as she knows, Angelina is safe.
Lemoine said Sylviane Lozada's memory continues to live on through a college scholarship Brusly High School awards yearly in her name, as well a garden dedicated to her on the school's property.
"She was tough, demanding, but she wanted the best for her students," Lemoine said. "She made you better."
Advocate staff reporter Joe Gyan Jr. contributed to this report.
That is to say nothing of the new predator. A monster movie at its core, "The Predator" mostly will be judged on how intriguing its main creature is, and the Upgrade is a scary version of reptilian hominid we have come to know and fear initially. Sure, he's huge, and angry, and pretty much impervious to bullets. But, then, so were all the other predators before him. This one is just a little bigger and angrier, and while it's neat to see another addition to the "Predator" universe, the payoff here doesn't exactly feel like it was worth the decade-long wait.
Louisiana's bid to increase the number of students pursuing careers in science, technology, engineering and math is getting a $300,000 boost.
The fields, known by the acronym STEM, were the subject of a day-long conference on Sept. 7 that brought together state lawmakers, education and business leaders.
One of the highlights of the gathering was the announcement of the new aid by Chris Broadwater, vice-president for workforce policy in the Louisiana Community and Technical College System.
Broadwater, a former state lawmaker from Hammond, said Thursday part of the $300,000 will be used for regional marketing aimed at students considering STEM fields.
The advertisements would spell out STEM programs offered at nearby colleges, jobs available when students finish the requirements and what those jobs pay.
Broadwater said most STEM jobs offer starting salaries of $44,000 to $58,000 per year.
The injection of new dollars is a joint project by LCTCS and the state Department of Education.
The source of the funding is federal aid, known as Perkins funds that are often used to promote career and technical education for high school students.
Monty Sullivan, president of LCTCS and state Superintendent of Education John White came up with the idea.
What the state spends now on STEM is unclear.
It is supported by a variety of funding sources, including the Minimum Foundation Program that provides basic state aid for public schools as well as funds that finance supplemental courses and career development.
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Last week's gathering was an outgrowth of the LaStem Advisory Council, which was created to increase the number of students pursuing careers in engineering, digital media and other areas, especially by women.
Louisiana pushing to make STEM more pronounced among students Despite daunting hurdles, Louisiana is trying to make a big leap in the number of students who pursue careers in science, technology, engineer
Sen. Sharon Hewitt, R-Slidell, who sponsored the 2017 legislation that set up the council, said part of the $300,000 could be used to offer grants in robotics and other areas.
"This summit was intended to help everyone see the big picture, get everyone excited and on the same page," Hewitt said. "There is a lot of different things that we could do with the money."
Hewitt echoed Broadwater's comments about using a regional approach to spark interest among students in science and other fields.
The new push would would be an expansion of what the state already does.
The LCTCS website lctcs.edu includes a page on STEM that says "Louisiana's Workforce Needs Strong Women Like You."
It includes information on STEM-related jobs, what they pay and a form for students to get information on programs and careers at nearby colleges.
About 500 people attended the meeting.
The 29-member council is crafting a statewide STEM plan, including career opportunities.
It also makes recommendations to the Legislature.
"It is such a bipartisan issue," Hewitt said of last week's gathering. "It crosses all demographics. People are excited. They are excited about the opportunities."
In this Dec. 22, 2017, file photo President Donald Trump signs into law a $1.5 trillion tax overhaul package in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington. New rules floated by the Trump administration lay out what kinds of businesses can take a 20 percent deduction against income taxes under the new tax law. With the proposed rules issued Wednesday, Aug. 8, 2018, the Treasury Department and the IRS had worked for six months to bring clarity to Congress' blueprint.
Mayor LaToya Cantrell and the Human Relations Commission are identifying low-hanging fruit to expand access at City Hall, including creating some gender-neutral bathrooms and better accommodating non-English speakers and people with disabilities.
At the inaugural meeting of the commissions recently appointed advisory committee on Sept. 11, the commissions executive director Vincenzo Pasquantonio outlined a list of priorities and ideas the commission plans to tackle, from better language access to supporting people seeking citizenship.
Pasquantonio said the administration is working to identify bathrooms and other facilities at City Hall to earmark for renovations to support all genders and people with disabilities.
The commission also is reviewing documents at the Department of Safety & Permits that could also be made available in Spanish and Vietnamese and assessing a larger language access report to track those kinds of improvements at City Hall.
The way to eat a big elephant is one bite at a time, Pasquantonio told the committee. We want to do the real serious stuff in addition to the low-hanging fruit.
Pasquantonio said he hopes to be able to move the Equity New Orleans initiative which former Mayor Mitch Landrieu revealed in 2017 and is supported by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and the Foundation for Louisiana under the commissions wing, effectively building an office for more equitable systems in city government and elsewhere.
Mayor Mitch Landrieu unveils 'equity strategy' in bid for more just government Building on past initiatives to stamp out disparities in New Orleans, Mayor Mitch Landrieu on Thursday unveiled a new strategy to foster racia
In June, Cantrell announced that the commission would enlist a LGBT Task Force to generate policy recommendations from the citys LGBT community, but that specific task force has not yet been formed. Members of the advisory committee, representing a broad spectrum of local social justice and civil rights groups, were appointed later that month.
Cantrell aims to rely on the committee to help draft a range of inclusive and equity-driven policies at City Hall, expanding the commissions role at City Hall compared to its function under the Landrieu administration.
Among the advisory committees 17 members are former ACLU of Louisiana director Marjorie Esman, Nathalie Faulk with BreakOUT!, and Deon Haywood with Women with a Vision.
The Human Relations Commission will have a meaningful role in my administration, and the Advisory Committee will be a vital part of that work, Cantrell said in an August statement announcing the committees lineup. The Committee includes people who have actively served the Commission in the past and new voices who have been in the trenches getting results for our people.
Barry Smith wakes up at 5:30 a.m. and clocks in at 6 with the New Orleans Department of Sanitation. For the last year and three months, hes worked as a hopper, bouncing from the back of the truck to do the work most people ignore, or dont see, he says. When you can actually see, physically, what we go through everyday, its tremendous, he tells Gambit. We clean everything that needs to be cleaned up in this city Were doing a service no one else wants to do.
That could mean clearing debris and emptying trash cans across the city or picking up mattresses and sofas and dead animals. He puts up with the frequent feelings of embarrassment or humiliation he feels on the back of the truck when people turn their noses he likes his job, and hes good at it, and he feels a sense of accomplishment, and immense gratitude, knowing he was able to come home from 13 years in prison to earn a living while others often arent as lucky.
But the $11 and change he earns an hour isnt enough to support his wife and two children while the costs of housing and living continue to rise, and he doesnt want to leave New Orleans.
At end of the month I dont have savings. I have to start from square one, he says. You look at the increase in rent, mortgages, cars, car insurance. The things I really want to do for my wife and kids, I cant. It belittles you as a man to not be able to support your family in the way you want to support them.
A block party in front of City Hall Sept. 13 offered a belated chance to celebrate an administration that has largely committed to raising municipal wages and ensuring people like Smith can return to the workforce after their incarceration.
But it also was a reminder to city officials nearly six months after their inauguration about their commitment to the plans sponsored by a host of community groups and civil rights organizations, as well as a bulk of the council members themselves while campaigning.
That plan from Step Up Louisiana calls for a $15 municipal minimum wage, policies that ensure equal pay for equal work, and a ban the box measure that prevents employers from asking about an applicants criminal history.
An ordinance introduced by District C Councilmember Kristin Gisleson Palmer would prevent applications for city positions from asking applicants about their criminal history, and criminal background checks wouldnt be performed until after an interview is conducted. Applicants would be considered for employment opportunities based on the merits of their skills and experience, not weighed against their criminal history, according to the ordinance.
It updates rules from 2013 by extending them to employers receiving grants or under city contracts or cooperative endeavor agreements, and establishes "fair chance" hiring practices throughout city government.
When it comes to ban the box, you only have to pay once, she told the crowd Sept. 12. We have to make sure after people have already paid their debt to society, they can come out and get a job and be a citizen in every sense of that word.
Council President Jason William says the box inclusion on job applications is adding insult to injury, adding another obstacle to you having been gone, from being able to provide for your family and be an asset to your community.
Now youre saying we want to make it extra hard for you to be employed and work a hard days work. Thats a problem, he said. That is bad for the growth of the New Orleans economy, the growth of the economy of the state, and frankly, its immoral. Its immoral you pay what you are told to pay yet you still have to wear the scarlet letter F on your chest when all youre trying to do is make a days work.
The New Orleans City Councils Governmental Affairs Committee is scheduled to take up Palmers ban the box ordinance Sept. 27; several councilmembers said they anticipate it passing unanimously.
But workers also argue that banning the box doesnt guarantee that a formerly incarcerated person is able to earn enough to support themselves or a family once they return to work in a city with a growing cost of living. I fight every day, week to week, to make ends meet, Smith told the crowd. Theyre not meeting.
Toinette Johnson, who works with the citys Department of Public Works, also loves her job but doesnt want to leave New Orleans; her $417 a week isnt enough to cut the cost of living in it.
I take care of the city, but the citys not taking care of me, she told the crowd. I should be able to afford to stay in the city.
Johnson, who went on strike last month with several Public Works employees, explained in a column published on NOLA.com that workers are often sent out without proper protection for their ears and eyes nor with adequate training to handle equipment. Johnson also said with dozens of open positions in the department, employees often ride without a crew to block traffic while theyre working in the street.
The state still is tied to the federal minimum wage of $7.25. Several attempts by state legislators to raise the statewide minimum wage have failed this past legislative session, New Orleans state Rep. Joe Bouie pitched a $15 minimum wage, which was rejected in committee, and even a modest raise up to $8 (up to $8.50 in 2020) was rejected by the state Senate after it squeaked out of committee.
City officials passed an hourly living wage ordinance in 2015, which applies to employees under contractors working with the city. But workers pointed to loopholes and outright failures to honor those wages.
While being in and out of homelessness, Keiron Jordan has worked for eight years in trash collection hired through a temp service used by garbage companies contracted with the city. He told Gambit that the service cuts him a day rate but doesnt rely on hourly pay, despite city rules.
Even when Im home, Im a check away from being on the streets, he said. I love doing what I do, Im good at it, I just think we should be paid better. I cant afford to miss a day at all.
David Mannella, who was arrested Tuesday on an accusation of sexual battery, has resigned from the board that governs Slidell Memorial Hospital, a position he had held since 2009.
He also resigned Wednesday from the St. Tammany Parish Planning & Zoning Commission, of which he was the chairman.
Parish President Pat Brister had asked Mannella on Tuesday to step down from all his public positions.
State Sen. Sharon Hewitt, who is chairwoman of the appointing authority that names commissioners to the board of St. Tammany Parish Hospital Services District 2, said she received Mannella's letter of resignation Wednesday.
She had called for him to step down on Tuesday, following news that he had been arrested.
I have received Mr. Mannellas letter of resignation and will initiate the process of filling his position immediately," Hewitt said in a statement. "We are ready to move forward and intend to have a replacement appointed within the next 90 days."
Details on applying for the position will be provided through the media and public notices, she said. A nominating committee will review submissions and conduct interviews with qualified applicants, and the appointing authority will select the top candidate.
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Mannella, 58, was vice chairman of the hospital board.
Mannella is accused of sexually assaulting a 22-year-old woman while he was walking her to her car outside his home in French Branch, a subdivision near Slidell, where his wife had been hosting a meeting for a women's service organization.
The Slidell Memorial Hospital board held an emergency meeting at noon Wednesday to call on Mannella to resign. Hewitt's announcement came shortly before 2 p.m.
The hospital released a statement Wednesday morning to explain its position on Mannella.
"Slidell Memorial Hospital is in the business of healing. Our first priority is caring for our community. Every member of the SMH team owes our community trust, respect and integrity," the statement said.
"In our initial statement yesterday after learning of these serious charges, we focused on answering the questions about Mr. Mannellas involvement with SMH. We regret our initial statement did not reflect how serious(ly) we take these allegations, or how deep our concern is for the victim and her family."
The statement concluded: "We will continue to work to support a safe environment for our team members, patients, their families and the community at large. We stand with all victims of violence and will continue to show support to community causes that do so."
A St. Tammany Parish property owner whose use of his land was restricted by the federal government to protect an endangered frog species said Thursday he is fighting a radical injustice and hopes the U.S. Supreme Court will agree with him.
Edward Poitevent, one of the owners of a 1,500-acre tract near Pearl River, said the government gave him no warning and stymied his attempts to understand its rationale when it designated his land as a critical habitat for the dusky gopher frog. The designation, he said, has cost him millions in potential earnings.
The Supreme Court has agreed to hear his appeal on Oct. 1, after two lower courts sided with the government.
"If this decision is not reversed, the federal government will be able to take anybody's land for any reason," Poitevent said during a press conference in New Orleans.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service made the designation of the land in 2012 even though the dusky gopher frog, an endangered species, hasn't been seen in St. Tammany Parish since at least 1965.
Currently, only a few dozen of the frogs remain, confined to a few small areas in Mississippi. Environmentalists and the government have argued that if the frogs are to make a comeback, they will need seasonal ponds found in St. Tammany in order to reproduce.
The case has drawn interest from a number of disparate entities on both sides. The attorneys general of more than a dozen states have filed amicus briefs siding with the land owners, arguing that the Fish and Wildlife Service overstepped its bounds when it designated the land as critical habitat.
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Meanwhile, some other landowners, environmental-law experts, economists and former leaders of the Department of the Interior have jumped in on the government's side, arguing that the designation is based on science and has good precedent.
Permitting the government to limit the way such land can be used is in the public interest and can even result in an increase in its value, they said.
All across the country landowners choose to work with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to protect endangered wildlife while still keeping their lands in business," said Collette Adkins, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity. The center has intervened in the suit on behalf of the government.
I just don't understand why the owners of the St. Tammany lands seem dead-set on dooming this endangered frog to extinction, Adkins said.
Mark Miller, an attorney with the Pacific Legal Foundation, said the case is not aimed at all aspects of the Endangered Species Act, the law that provides the federal government with the ability to restrict Poitevents land uses.
"We all support the Endangered Species Act," Miller said. "We don't fight the government; we fight government overreach.
While the critical-habitat designation does not prevent Poitevent from developing the land, which is under long-term lease to a timber company until 2043, it creates more hurdles to development. Poitevent also argues that major changes to the land will need to be made in order for it to support the frog.
He said that for the frog to inhabit his property, the current loblolly pine forest there would have to be cut down and the land replanted with longleaf pine trees, which would take years to mature.
The Supreme Court's decision in the case could hinge on whether nominee Brett Kavanaugh is confirmed by the Senate in time for him to hear the case on Oct. 1, the first day of the court's new session.
Speeding motorists and others who violate Madisonville's traffic laws will pay higher fines under a rewritten traffic ordinance the town council adopted Wednesday.
Speeders will now pay as much as $250 when they are caught, or as much as $350 if they speed through a school zone. Other traffic fines also have been increased to at least $200.
Madisonville Police Chief Barney Tyrney said speeding on the two state highways that run through town has been a problem for years, and he vowed to do something about it when he was appointed to the post in February.
Madisonville police officers have written hundreds of speeding tickets per month since then, compared to only dozens monthly in previous years.
Tyrney said the new fines are not excessive, but that they should send a message about how serious the town is in its efforts to eliminate the problem. Tyrney also proposed raising the towns traffic fines, which were among the lowest in the parish before the recent council vote.
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In other council business, members authorized Mayor Jean Pelloat to apply for a federal Wallop-Breaux grant to rebuild the towns boat launch at the end of Lake Road. If the grant is awarded, it will fund 65 percent of the $344,770 project, and the town will be responsible for the other 35 percent.
The council also authorized Pelloat to apply for state grant to fund 50 percent of a $180,000 project to build a pavilion at Madisonville Town Park.
Pelloat also was authorized to enter into an agreement with the Louisiana State Fire Marshals Office to review all commercial building plans to ensure that they comply with state construction codes. The service will be provided at no cost to the town.
At the beginning of the meeting, Pelloat introduced Alicia Watts as the new Town Clerk. Watts succeeds Joyce Core, who died last year. Wayne Morlier has held the position on a temporary basis since then.
Tulane University will require all new students to study racial diversity as part of the undergraduate curriculum, another step by the Uptown institution to address issues of race on campus.
Officials added the new requirement to the universitys curriculum this fall, along with another course on global perspectives. New students must take both courses in order to graduate.
The moves were announced Wednesday.
The curriculum changes the universitys first in a dozen years follow several recent episodes in which minority students complained of harassment by their white peers. In 2015, some Tulane students posted racist comments on an anonymous social media app. In years since then, Hispanic, African-American and other minority students have said they felt unwelcome on the mostly white campus.
Following the social media posts, Tulane President Mike Fitts convened a commission on race and university values that eventually recommended the curriculum changes.
The new requirement "is one of the most positive changes to occur at Tulane in the past 20 years, said Rebecca Mark, a commission member, professor of English and director of Tulanes Center for Academic Equity, which serves non-traditional and minority students. Now, every student will have to think about issues of privilege, equity, social justice and inclusion."
Although Tulane's minority enrollment has ticked up in the past three years amid changes to some of its recruiting practices, fewer than a quarter of its roughly 13,600 students are people of color.
The new courses are aimed at helping white students embrace their minority peers and to help prevent the kinds of problems that have dogged Tulane in recent years.
In 2015, racist comments were allegedly posted by Tulane students on Yik Yak, a social media platform that allows its users to make anonymous posts that others in the same geographic area can see.
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The following year, some members of Kappa Alpha fraternity erected a wall of sandbags around the fraternitys house on Audubon Street and upon them painted the words, Make America Great Again and Trump, political speech that offended some other groups on campus.
Student protesters told The Advocate that anti-minority, anti-Muslim and anti-gay sentiments began to increase on Tulanes campus after Donald Trump was elected president.
After students complained about the Yik Yak incident, Fitts, who was appointed president in 2014, convened a commission to study the issue of racial unrest. The curriculum change is just one of several moves that body has recommended in the years since then. Others include recruiting more professors and staff members of color and creating new rules for reporting discrimination on campus.
Under the new requirement, incoming students must take a course that focuses 60 percent of its content on diversity or inclusion in the U.S. and another that focuses the same amount of content on historical, cultural and societal knowledge of an area outside of the U.S.
Students will be allowed to pick from more than 50 courses Tulane already offers and several it plans to offer that meet those requirements, such as critical race theory, introduction to gender and sexuality studies, and introduction to African-American history. Students must take the courses by the end of their sophomore year.
The classes are the first additions to Tulanes core curriculum since 2006, when the university began requiring its students to perform public-service projects in New Orleans after the city was devastated by Hurricane Katrina.
This idea (of the new course requirements) quickly became a priority and was approved by Newcomb-Tulane College faculty with strong support, said Lisa Molix, a commission member and psychology professor.
She said professors understood that students should take classes that help them "grow to see human diversity, not as a threat, but as a resource and opportunity.
Melbourne Express, Friday, September 14, 2018
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Pressure is mounting on the government to include public hearings and increased protections for witnesses in its recently announced review into ACT Health.
The Australian Medical Association has warned problems will continue to fester unless ACT Health is able to be scrutinised publicly.
ACT Health Minister Meegan Fitzharris, who announced the independent review on Monday. Credit:Dion Georgopoulos
The association has called for Health Minister Meegan Fitzharris to release the terms of reference of the review and clarify the legal basis it proposes to hold the review.
Ms Fitzharris announced the independent review on Monday after months of mounting pressure over a litany of issues and failures around governance and bullying within ACT Health.
Her paintings closely mimic a photographic reality, but Hammond seems not drawn to delete warts and all of the scenes to which she bears witness. A lovely painting at the show titled Moon depicts the traces of a faint moon cast against a pink, glowing evening sky. It immediately brings to mind parallels with the work of the 19th-century German romantic landscape painter Caspar David Friedrich, where I would anticipate seeing heavily clad figures staring into infinity or the work of Australian painters such as David Davies or Arthur Streeton celebrating the majesty of nature. Instead, in Hammonds small painting, we catch the outlines of telegraph poles and power lines that remind us that the moon rises not only over the spirit of God in nature but also over suburbia.
Kirrily Hammond employs the language of high romanticism with touches of the sublime to tackle the subject matter of the suburban reality. Working in oils on small panels of copper plate, she creates gem-like tableaux, which shimmer on the gallery walls and that have attracted an appreciative Canberra audience with the exhibition virtually selling out on the opening night.
Hammond works on a small, rather than miniature scale, with the largest copper panels measuring 20 centimetres by 24.2cm and the rest 12x9cm. This forces the viewer into an intimate engagement with the work instead of allowing for a contemplative distance. If part of her exhibition tugs towards Friedrich and that European tradition of the sublime, the rest looks to a source closer to home, that of Clarice Beckett.
Beckett was a tonal painter who was attracted to the ideas of Max Meldrum. She spent much of her time nursing her parents at their home in Beaumaris in bayside suburban Melbourne. Popular legend has it that the only time she had to paint was at dawn or at dusk when she would set off with her painting trolley to record the mists and fogs of Beaumaris with traffic struggling through the gloom.
Hammond in a painting such as Gloam arrives at a formula very similar to that of Beckett, wherein a misty twilight in a suburban street scene with the tall verticals of the telegraph poles, car headlights fight to illuminate the small arc of light. The use of an archaic word for the title further heightens connotations of something belonging to the past.
Hammond has been exhibiting for over two decades and has established a reputation as an artist who manages to transfigure a common everyday reality into something that has been touched with a bit of magic.
He claims a number of allegations against Low are part of a politically motivated campaign by the present Malaysian government. Most amusingly, his lawyer writes his client does not court publicity in any respect. We wonder whats changed since Low would party with Paris Hilton in Saint-Tropez, splash $42 million to buy Jay Z and Beyonces 76th-floor penthouse New York apartment, and appear on Hollywood red carpets with heavyweight film producers? Could it be the criminal charges filed against Low at the end of August? Much ado about Upton
Environment Minister Gabrielle Upton has quite a reputation: for hiding from stakeholder meetings (who could blame her), turning up at the office at 11am after a lengthy stint in the gym, scrutinising which of her staff has had the most to drink on the Christmas bar tab. What she doesnt seem to be able to do is make even the simplest decisions. Environment Minister Gabrielle Upton, pictured here in 2015, has sat on one decision for 351 days. Credit:Simone De Peak Dont take it from us, shes only 337 days late to decide whether to extend heritage orders to a couple of buildings at the Varroville Homestead near Campbelltown. How long could it possibly take to make a decision? The law says it should take a fortnight.
The poor burghers of Varroville have been waiting since last September! We should only hope she hasnt forgotten about it. It was only last week Upton, who is also the Local Government Minister, appeared to forget the name of the chief executive of Parramatta City Council. Its Mark Stapleton, as Office of Local Government boss Timothy Hurst helpfully reminded Upton during last weeks Budget estimates. Uptons office told us she is well aware of the issues at Parramatta City Council.
Just not the name of the chief executive under investigation. Gallery whispers and a fight at The Lodge On Monday, CBD brought you the mystery of Australian Insider and ggii.info, the surprise and surprisingly unproductive Canberra Press Gallery entrant that disappeared earlier this year after failing to pay the bills. Intrigue in the Canberra Press Gallery, pictured, with the exit of Australian Insider and ggii.info. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen (We also reported on the press gallery journalist who appeared with Dame Joan Sutherland in the Donizetti opera Lucia di Lammermoor. We can now confirm a second journalist was once in the chorus line of Carmen at Her Majestys Theatre in Melbourne.)
At the helm of ggii.info was Roger Hausmann, a Swiss-Australian businessman who had a long association with another press gallery outfit, Keating Media. Meanwhile, Australian Insider is Jethro Lyo (grandly described as the editor-in-chief/founder of the one-man operation). We have since been reminded of an incident at then prime minister Malcolm Turnbulls very last Christmas drinks at The Lodge in December, when, for reasons unknown, Hausmann and Lyo, who shared an office in Parliament, had one almighty row. While Turnbull spoke, his then deputy chief-of staff Clive Mathieson watched on as Lyo and Hausmann quarrelled, eventually pushing each other out of view. Their former office in Parliament is now home to News.com.au while the News Corp Australia bureau is renovated for Sky News Australias imminent arrival.
The Herald Sun and the Daily Telegraph, with the help of Senate president Scott Ryan, have been granted ageing but exceptional bureaus that overlook the Senate chamber. The Australian has been banished to Old Parliament House. A drink with Bill, just $5000 Congratulations are in order for lobbyist David Miles, who scooped a curry night with Prime Minister Scott Morrison (dinner at Kirribilli House cooked by the man himself) at Wednesday's Midwinter Ball charity auction. Corporate advisor John Connolly won the bidding on the charity auction for a drink with Bill Shorten, pictured here with Scott Morrison at Wednesday's Midwinter Ball. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen
Assessing how moderate or intolerant Indonesia is towards its minorities is more difficult to assess than it might first appear. For example, a number of well-regarded non-government organisations annually compile figures on acts of religious intolerance. One such NGO, Setara Institute, recorded 201 breaches of religious freedom across Indonesia in 2017, most of which were directed at Christian, Buddhist, Hindu and Confucian minorities. Viewed in isolation, this is a significant number.
Meilianas story shone a spotlight on Indonesias draconian blasphemy laws and more broadly on how the nation treats its minorities. For a country that presents itself to the world as a moderate Muslim-majority democracy that respects diversity and enjoins religious and ethnic harmony, Indonesia has faced increasing criticism for rising intolerance and sectarianism. Human rights advocates argued that the violent reaction to Meilianas mosque complaint and her subsequent jailing are inseparable from the fact that she is from a double minority: Sino-Indonesians comprise less than 4 per cent of the nation and Buddhists less than 2 per cent. The Chinese have long been targets of social unrest, particularly from the majority Muslim community.
Meiliana, a 44-year-old Buddhist mother of Chinese descent, sat crying in disbelief in a North Sumatra court in late August. The judges had just sentenced her to 18 months jail for blasphemy because she complained to a neighbor in 2016 about the ear-splitting volume of amplified calls to prayer from a nearby mosque. Her complaint had sparked violent backlash from local Muslim groups, who had stoned her home, forcing her and her family to flee to another city. They also attacked and seriously damaged twelve Buddhist temples in the area. The same court that sentenced her showed leniency to eight attackers arrested by police, giving them jail terms of just 1-2 months.
What these records do show is that incidents of religious intolerance have declined steadily over the past decade. This is also supported by public opinion surveys conducted between 2010 and 2016 that reveal intolerance toward religious minorities fell nationally over the last six years, though the influential Muslim middle-classes were becoming less tolerant of non-Muslims.
But sheer numbers alone may not capture the conditions of life for minorities, be they religious, ethnic or sexual. For instance, anti-gay and transgender sentiment has become commonplace in mainstream discourse over the past three years. So far, only a handful of cases have involved police action, with the most notorious being the public caning of two gay men in Aceh under that provinces sharia law code earlier this year. But gay and transgender Indonesians now feel vulnerable to community disapproval or outing and fear ostracism or worse for their sexual orientation.
Another case that has had deep reverberations across minority communities is that of the former governor of Jakarta, Basuki Tjahaja Purnomo (Ahok), who was Christian Chinese. In 2016, Ahok was accused of insulting the Quran, sparking massive street and social media protests against him. A good deal of the anti-Ahok campaigning had racist and sectarian overtones. Although approval for Ahoks achievements as governor exceeded 70 per cent, only 43 per cent of Jakartans voted for him in the April 2017 election, many citing religious reasons. Shortly after the election he, like Meiliana, was found guilty of blasphemy and jailed for two years. The Ahok case was a setback for minority politicians and officials as it bolstered campaigns to limit high office to those who shared the same religion and ethnicity of the local majority. It also drove home the perils for any minority leader commenting upon Islamic issues.
The broader question here is how inclusive is Indonesia? The nations motto is Unity in Diversity and its constitution enshrines a wide array of civil rights, including those relating to religion and ethnicity. Indonesians are proud of what they see as their acceptance of difference. But as with many nations in the world, including Australia, Indonesias tolerance of minorities fluctuates and is increasingly contested within the broader community. Governments are under pressure to restrict minority rights and opportunities, and to serve majoritarian agendas.
Indeed, politics is one of the main obstacles to improving Indonesias treatment of vulnerable minorities. President Joko Widodo and many of his ministers are pluralists and well-disposed to ensuring minority rights. But they are wary of the power of Islamist groups to turn religion into a weapon against them. For example, Widodo refuses to publicly condemn either the Ahok or Meiliana blasphemy verdicts for fear of being accused of failing to defend Islam, even though palace sources concede he disapproves.
A Nigerian man has been charged with defrauding victims of almost $3 million through an alleged romance, identification and business scam he was running from inside Sydney's Villawood Detention Centre.
Police will allege that Fisayo Oluwafemi, 43, was the kingpin of a four-person strong crime syndicate that has defrauded various small business owners, identity theft victims and would-be lovers since the start of the year.
Police say that Mr Oluwafemi ran the scam from inside the immigration detention facility by using 16 mobile phones.
Fisayo Oluwafemi is arrested by police on Thursday morning. Credit:NSW Police
The syndicate's various activities allegedly involved romance scams, sending emails pretending to be from accounts payable, stealing identities and the fraudulent sale of products.
The Queensland farmer whose strawberries were embedded with needles in an apparent sabotage attempt is "devastated", the fruit growers' peak body says.
Angela Stevenson posted this photo of the contaminated strawberry she found on Wednesday night. Credit:Facebook/Angela Stevenson
Queensland Strawberry Growers industry development officer Jennifer Rowling said the farmer had stopped all production of the fruit in response to the urgent product recall issued on Wednesday.
"Hes going through hell, its an awful situation to be in," Ms Rowling said.
"It's going to be a tough time for him financially with his business, but what effect that is long-term ... hopefully that won't be too bad."
This road was blocked off after a four-wheel-drive clipped several parked cars and then flipped. Credit:Chris Hopkins
A manhunt is under way for the driver of a four-wheel-drive that ploughed into several parked cars and then landed on its roof on a quiet suburban street in Melbourne's east.
Residents of Warburton Road in Canterbury woke on Friday morning to find a number of parked cars damaged and a black 4WD on its roof in the middle of the street.
Police believe the car crashed into a number of parked cars about 5.20am before the driver, and possibly passengers, fled on foot.
Warburton Road resident Mary Johnson said her family's small Peugeot, which had been parked on the street, was badly damaged.
A speeding, drunken motorist who was described as driving like a "bolt of lightning moments before he hit and killed a woman and her daughter has been jailed for 13 years.
Thomas Charles Adamson argued separately with his girlfriend and parents on August 9 last year, but despite his emotional state and having spent the hours beforehand drinking beer, he got into his Holden Commodore and sped along the South Gippsland Highway.
Ma Li Dai (L) and Xinyu Yuan (R).
About 7.20pm he crashed into a car driven by Ma Li Dai, who was leaving a parent-teacher night at Lighthouse Christian College in Cranbourne with her 14-year-old daughter, Xinyu Yuan, and killed them both.
Experts believe Adamson was driving between 155km/h and 165km/h before he hit the brakes the highway was a 100km/h zone at the time and had a blood alcohol reading of between 0.120 and 0.165, at least twice the legal limit.
Brown sued the police department in June and accused officers of using excessive force and targeting him because he's black. A group of officers swarmed on him at a Walgreens parking lot because he didn't immediately remove his hands from his pockets. Brown was standing with the officers waiting for a citation for parking in a disabled spot early on Jan. 26.
A car has split in two during a police chase in Perth's northern suburbs.
The pursuit came to a crashing end in Malaga just before noon, near the intersection of Harlond Avenue and Beach Road.
The crash involved a BMW sedan which collided into several vehicles.
Police say the BMW crossed the median strip, hit a grass tree before crashing into a Hyundai sedan on the opposite side of the road.
Developers who build first and ask for permission later should be slugged an extra fee to stop others exploiting the loophole in the development application process, an ACT parliamentary inquiry has heard.
Under the current laws, you can apply to have an illegal structure approved for the same price as an ordinary development application.
Currently you can apply to have an illegal structure approved for the same price as an ordinary development application. Credit:AFR
But a Legislative Assembly committee running the ruler over the ACT's flawed development application processes has been told retrospective approvals were being used to bypass scrutiny from neighbours.
The Inner South Canberra Community Council told the committee retrospective approvals seemed to be routinely granted, even when "questionable" claims were made by applicants that they were ignorant of the requirements.
A Liberal politician was booted from a parliamentary inquiry into a controversial new jobs code being introduced by the Barr government, after a heated exchange with the ACT secretary of the CFMEU.
The new procurement package would force companies tendering for ACT government work to undergo an audit to prove they paid their workers correctly, and comply with a local jobs code which could compel them to give union membership forms to new starters.
However the bill has to be probed by an ACT Legislative Assembly committee before it is voted on next month.
Unions and business groups fronted the inquiry on Wednesday, with the ideological divide between Labor and the Liberals fuelling fiery exchanges between witnesses and members.
Unions ACT boss Alex White said the code was necessary because wage theft had become a business model in many industries, with companies choosing to take the risk of ripping off workers because their chances of being caught were low.
During my life, I have seen the world as it is, not as it should be. If I am forced to define myself, I would say Im an idealistic pragmatist.
As a child I learned what it meant to be persecuted. But even then I knew there was good in the world. I saw my mother share our meagre food supplies with neighbours. I saw her risk her life, and mine, to practise our religion. As a boy I stood at the doorway of our hiding place in Budapest and watched Russian troops fight house by house to liberate the city and rescue us from certain death.
The act of migration is an act of ambition, imagination and bravery, says Frank Lowy. Credit:Daniel Munoz
I was aware that Britain and the United States were forces for good in the world. They were beacons of freedom and democracy at a time when my life and Western civilisation itself was at grave risk.
For seven decades, the cornerstone of Australias strategy has been our relationship with the US. Our alliance has increased our influence and strengthened our reputation. And we have always paid our dues.
Malcolm and Lucy Turnbull have joined John Howard by weighing in to the Wentworth preselection battle and urging Australia's former ambassador to Israel Dave Sharma to stay in the race, putting them at odds with the Prime Minister.
The Turnbulls have thrown their support behind Mr Sharma, calling him from New York to tell him to stay in the preselection race, despite Scott Morrison insisting that a woman contest the seat of Wentworth.
Malcolm and Lucy Turnbull have told David Sharma they will support his preselection. Credit:Andrew Meares
Mr Turnbull told Mr Sharma that he should contest the preselection on Thursday night and he would have the former Wentworth MP's full support during the campaign.
The Turnbulls' intervention follows former prime minister and party elder in Mr Howard telling Mr Sharma that he should not withdraw from the Liberal preselection battle on Thursday night.
Former foreign minister Julie Bishop has increased pressure on Peter Dutton to refer himself to the High Court, saying there is a "need for clarity" around whether the Home Affairs Minister was invalidly elected to Parliament.
Asked whether she agreed with former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull that Mr Dutton's future should be determined by the High Court, Ms Bishop said she wanted "clarity around the standing of all members of Parliament".
Fairfax Media revealed on Thursday that Mr Turnbull had been texting and calling former colleagues from New York urging them to cross the floor and vote with Labor to have Mr Dutton sent to the court - a move that could potentially threaten the government's majority in the House of Representatives.
Former deputy Liberal leader Julie Bishop says MPs have an obligation to clear up doubts about their eligibility. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen
Former deputy prime minister Barnaby Joyce accused Mr Turnbull of running "an active campaign to try and remove us as the government. Boy, that is bitterly disappointing".
Asked if there was "wrecking and sniping going on", Mr Joyce said "I think that would be a fair comment''.
"Why is Malcolm doing this? I don't know but it's not looking good. He's got a legacy, a good legacy, and he shouldn't, basically, impugn it," Mr Joyce said.
The form of madness that ousted Malcolm Turnbull as prime minister has exposed many psychoses in the Liberal Party, but not the least is the partys problem with women. The coup was not specifically about gender, but it was conspicuous that while more women stayed loyal to Mr Turnbull, the plotters who rallied around Peter Dutton were overwhelmingly men from the partys conservative faction.
In the weeks since the coup, female Liberal MPs including Julia Banks and Lucy Gichuhi have been unusually outspoken in complaining about bullying at the hands of these male MPs although the details of who said what remain unclear.
The party also tarnished its image by pushing aside the leadership aspirations of Julie Bishop, deputy leader and the most influential woman in the party room. She has said she has witnessed appalling behaviour in Parliament and remarked with heavy irony that the party seemed unable to find a woman who had the qualifications to be leader.
Julia Banks (left) and Julie Bishop during question time on Thursday. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen
Prime Minister Scott Morrison has acknowledged the problem. The under-representation of women wastes talent and is out of step with the community and increasingly the business world.
Australia's new Trade Minister Simon Birmingham will fly into a $US500 billion global trade firestorm at the G20 in Argentina, warning his US and Chinese counterparts not to further "inflame" tensions when he meets them for the first time on Friday.
The escalating trade dispute is threatening to derail the global economic recovery, by hammering business confidence and driving up costs for consumers.
US President Donald Trump rattled markets after threatening to add tariffs of between 10 and 25 per cent to another $US267 billion worth of technology, clothing and manufacturing products imported from China last week, on top of $US200 billion that is planned and $US50 billion already in force.
Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment Simon Birmingham Credit:Alex Ellinghausen
Senator Birmingham said "global challenges could be overcome" but Australia would look to go around the conflict and ramp up negotiations with the European Union and India as a buffer to any trade fallout between the two superpowers.
A senior policy adviser who said he could not work in NSW Environment Minister Gabrielle Upton's "toxic" office received workers' compensation for stress.
A government source has confirmed that Paul Terrett, a former local government adviser in Ms Upton's office, received compensation after he left the office late last year suffering severe stress.
Ms Upton's office was described as a "toxic environment" with contempt for bureaucrats in a complaint sent by Mr Terrett to the Premier's office.
Gabrielle Upton's senior policy adviser received a compensation claim after he left her office suffering stress. Credit:Peter Rae
In his complaint, sent to the Premier's chief of staff Sarah Cruickshank, the long-term public servant complained about the "stress and pressure of working in such a toxic environment".
A heritage group has criticised plans for a new Collins Street park, saying the proposed open space is far smaller and less functional than the larger plaza that was once on the site.
The park which many Age readers on Thursday also criticised as little more than a glorified "foyer" for the development it accompanies is being built on Collins Street as part of a $1 billion project by property fund CBUS.
An artist's impression of a new park to be built at the corner of Market Street and Collins Street
National Mutual's modernist offices once stood on the site, but were demolished in 2015. The 1965 tower was known in its later years as the Sun Corp building.
The tower featured a sizeable north-facing plaza, built as part of a 1960s agreement with the city council to provide open space for CBD office workers.
In many places, the cold and snow can feel unbearable during the winter months. While sunny and warm cities like San Diego have average temperatures above 60 degrees Fahrenheit in January, the average temperature in New York during the same month is a cold 39 degrees. And in January, Chicagoans experience average temperatures as low as 18 degrees. However, there are cities around the world where the word freezing is an understatement and temperatures above 50 degrees F are only a wish. We checked out locations where subzero temperatures during the winter are the norm and annual average temperatures rarely rise above 40 degrees F. To determine the coldest temperatures, we gathered weather data from Accuweather The Weather Channel and the Norwegian Meteorological Institute among many others. Plenty of cities in Russia and Canada are known for their bone-chilling temperatures, but we highlighted cities that show just how chilly the world can really get. (Aaliyah Gibson, The Active Times)
London: Female journalists are facing a "relentless" barrage of attacks and harassment, with nearly a third considering leaving the profession as a result, media support organisations have warned.
More than half of women in media have suffered work-related abuse, threats or physical attacks in the past year, found a survey by the International Women's Media Foundation (IWMF) and TrollBusters, which supports reporters being harassed.
Sexual assault Credit:Dominic Lorrimer/Fairfax Media
"Female journalists are dealing with harassment on a daily basis," said Elisa Lees Munoz, executive director of the US-based IWMF, which promotes women journalists.
"It is almost generally accepted as part of their everyday work environment."
Berlin: German Chancellor Angela Merkel condemned xenophobic attacks and the use of Nazi slogans in a robust speech to Parliament on Wednesday after the most violent far-right demonstrations in decades exposed deep divisions in the country.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel delivers her speech during a plenary session of the Bundestag on Wednesday. Credit:AP
In an unusually rowdy session in the Bundestag later, far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) deputies stormed out after a Social Democrat (SPD) accused them of being "unsavoury" right-wing radicals.
MPs of the Alternative for Germany and faction leader Alexander Gauland, centre, walk out. Credit:AP
Protests by right-wing militants in the eastern city of Chemnitz two weeks ago after the fatal stabbing of a German blamed on two migrants have reignited a fierce debate about Merkel's 2015 decision to let in more than a million refugees.
American Automakers Losing Ground in a Shrinking Chinese Market
Washington DC September 11, 2018; The AIADA newsletter reported that American carmakers are losing ground in a shrinking Chinese market, and their problems are mostly tied to a lack of competitiveness rather than the trade war, an industry body said.
According to Bloomberg, the market share of U.S. brands fell to 10.7 percent in the first eight months of 2018 from 12.2 percent a year earlier, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers.
The drop was caused by companies including Ford Motor Co. not refreshing their lineups in a timely manner, Xu Haidong, the associations assistant secretary general, said Tuesday. /p>
While a slowing economy is weighing on the Chinese car demand, Xu said that the trade war has had a limited impact on the market. There are no anti-American sentiments or boycotting of U.S. brands by Chinas car buyers, he said at a media conference in Beijing.
Read more here.
Dianne Feinstein at the Kavanaugh hearings. Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Senator Dianne Feinstein of California says she has turned over to federal investigators a secret letter about Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, which she had reportedly been withholding from other Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Officials close to the matter told the New York Times the letter details possible sexual misconduct between Kavanaugh and a woman that took place while they were both in high school.
Feinstein, the senior Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said in a Thursday statement: I have received information from an individual concerning the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. That individual strongly requested confidentiality, declined to come forward or press the matter further, and I have honored that decision. I have, however, referred the matter to federal investigative authorities.
The information Feinstein refers to in her statement reportedly came from a letter sent to Democratic representative Anna Eshoo of California. Eshoos office passed the letter to Feinstein over the summer. The Times notes that the letter reportedly contains an allegation of sexual misconduct against Kavanaugh.
Feinstein, who has been active in the Kavanaugh hearings, only informed the other Democratic members of the Judiciary Committee of the letter and allegation on Wednesday one week before the committee is set to vote on Kavanaughs nomination. The Times reports that several committee members urged her to take the matter to the FBI.
Eshoos office declined to comment on the letter to HuffPost, saying that it came from a constituent and is therefore considered casework and wont be made public. But on Thursday, the White House decried news of the letter as an attempt to delay the confirmation. Throughout his confirmation process, Judge Kavanaugh has had 65 meetings with senators including with Senator Feinstein sat through over 30 hours of testimony, addressed over 2,000 questions in a public setting and additional questions in a confidential session, White House spokeswoman Kerri Kupec said.
Not until the eve of his confirmation has Senator Feinstein or anyone raised the specter of new information about him, Kupec added, per the Times. Senator Schumer promised to oppose Judge Kavanaughs nomination with everything I have, and it appears he is delivering with this 11th hour attempt to delay his confirmation.
BuzzFeed News believes that it knows the identity of the woman who is the subject of the letter. The outlet said it reached out to her last week and that she declined to comment. However, BuzzFeed News also reports that a lawyer believed to be representing the woman acclaimed #MeToo attorney Debra Katz was spotted leaving Capitol Hill on Wednesday shortly after the Intercept broke news of the letter. Katz declined to comment or confirm whether she was representing the woman. Theres nothing to say, she told BuzzFeed News on Wednesday.
Luxury brands know that they have to appeal to the next generation of customers. Sometimes its through creating youthful, trendier designs; other times its by sticking to what they know best, but presenting it in a highly modern way. Hermes opted for the latter with its latest immersive event, Carre Club. The traveling pop-up, which opens to the public in New York City today, will hit the road globally with stops in Toronto (later this month), Singapore (October), and Los Angeles and Milan (both in November.)
As conceived by artistic director Bali Barret, the space feels like a particularly chic members-only social club except that everyone can join and there are artists everywhere. Upon entering, guests receive membership cards at a front desk manned by staff clad in scarf-printed jumpsuits. (You know how Hermes feels about scarves.) From there, theyll receive a speedy portrait by Cyrille Diatkine, one of many young artists who were brought on for the project.
In another corner, guests will find French-German artist Edouard Baribeaud, who colors the detailed drawing of his first scarf with different variations. In another, Virginie Jamin improvises illustrations around her existing designs. Alice Shirley, who creates realistic animal drawings among stylized natural settings, will discuss her approach, while the the team of Ugo Gattoni and Jean-Simon Roch will create and animate drawings of a character named Mino. And in the center of the space, Octave Marsal and Theo de Gueltzl will create live charcoal drawings of organic shapes on an elaborate, hand-cranked machine.
Need a break from all the art? Try the Carre-ok, a sealed studio lined in scarves thatll accommodate four people for a karaoke session. A cafe in the back serves coffee and sandwiches, while a retro photo booth offers guests a chance to listen to stories about the scarves (and serve as a convenient photo backdrop.) And of course, theres a shop where you can buy the brands silky creations, including custom pieces created solely for the pop-up. Scroll ahead to see photos from the space as well as some of the exclusive designs.
Hermes Carre Club, 459 West 14th; Open September 13 to 16.
"60 Minutes" Executive Producer Jeff Fager poses for a photo at the "60 Minutes" offices, in New York.In this Sept. 12, 2017. Fager, who was named in reports about tolerating an abusive workplace at CBS, stepped down on Sept. 12, 2018. (Richard Drew/AP)
60 Minutes Chief Fager out at CBS
NEW YORK CBS News fired 60 Minutes top executive Jeff Fager on Sept. 12, who has been under investigation following reports that he groped women at parties and tolerated an abusive workplace.
The network news president, David Rhodes, said Fagers firing was not directly related to the allegations against him, but because he violated company policy. Fager said it was because of a text message he sent to a CBS News reporter who was covering the story about him.
My language was harsh and, despite the fact that journalists receive harsh demands for fairness all the time, CBS did not like it, Fager said.
The investigation into Fager by an outside law firm is not complete. Fager has denied charges made by former CBS employees in the New Yorker magazine of personal misbehavior at parties and not disciplining people under him who had misconduct issues.
Fager said he would not have thought that one note would have resulted in a dismissal after 36 years at the network, but it did. CBS had no immediate comment on his characterization of the action.
60 Minutes is the most popular and powerful network news broadcast on television, and Fager is only the second person to lead it during its 50 years of history. He was appointed in 2004 to succeed founding executive Don Hewitt.
He worked to modernize the broadcast and uphold its standards during a changing of the guard from the shows original cast of figures like Mike Wallace, Morley Safer, and Andy Rooney.
His firing came only three days after the CBS Corp. board ousted the companys chief executive, Leslie Moonves, who was charged with sexual misconduct in the same New Yorker articles.
Fager and Rhodes had worked for several years as a team when Fager was appointed CBS News chairman by Moonves. Rhodes was then brought in as news president, taking over full management of the news division when Fager went back to solely running 60 Minutes.
Fagers second in command at 60 Minutes, Bill Owens, will run the show while a search is conducted for a permanent replacement, Rhodes said. The show debuts a new season on Sept. 30.
By David Bauder
Journalists attend a press conference of 19th CCP National Congress at the Great Hall of the People on October 17, 2017 in Beijing, China. The 19th CPC National Congress will be held in Beijing from Oct 18 to 24. (VCG/VCG via Getty Images)
A Close Up Look at How the Chinese Regime Censors the Media
Over twenty mainland reporters spoke with Hong Kong media about their experiences
Its well known that China enjoys very little freedom of the press. Based on the 2018 index from Reporters Without Borders, China is ranked 176 out of 180 countries listed.
Hong Kongs Initium Media interviewed 23 Chinese reporters on different beats from around the country about their professional experiences. To protect the journalists identities, each was assigned a number that was used in the report.
Number 1, who has worked as a journalist for six years, described the increasing severity of censorship: In the beginning I would get a notice on a report two or three days after Id published it, or I would be informed when doing field work. Back then, I would still do the work because there was still a chance that the story could be published. Nowadays, theres no chance, so I dont even bother.
According to the reporter, there are only two types of media in China: the state news that receives instructions from the central authorities, and media that rewrite news from the state mouthpieces.
Current censorship guidelines are not that there are certain things you cant report on, said Number 3, but that you are not allowed to report on hot-button social issues at all. Actually, the censors specify which subjects you are permitted to work on, and what content you should include.
Journalist Number 5 explained the censors lexicon of sensitive words: There is a function in the system that can check your report against the list of sensitive words and determine whether your writing is up to standard or not. Nobody knows how large the list is. [The search] finds sensitive words constantly and have to keep revising the article until [it no longer] registers an alert.
Some media organizations are allowed more leeway than others, as a veteran journalist described: Once I received some information about military officers who had colluded with a real estate company and embezzled several billion yuan [several hundreds of millions of dollars]. My superior said that we cant report on this matter, but that we could forward it to Caixin, which is the only media that is given some amount of freedom to run sensitive topics. Caixin didnt report it until now, but it happened six months ago.
After a Didi Chuxing [rideshare] driver raped and killed a 21-year-old flight attendant who was his passenger on May 5 in Zhengzhou, we cooperated with the local reporting office and made a set of in-depth reports with solid data. I saw the deputy chief editor approve the copy, but the next day, this report appeared neither in print nor online. I was told that the chief editor deleted the article without making any comment. Reporter Number 10 said.
Number 12 talked about Dying to Survive, a 2018 comedy that based on the real-life story of leukemia patient Lu Yong. The movie attracted lots of attention since the day of its release. But on the fourth day, we received a notice that nobody should report on this film. We even got an exclusive interview with the director, but couldnt use it.
Dying to Survive tells of how Lu Yong smuggled cheap, effective, but technically illegal medicine from India for himself and over 1,000 other cancer patients after he had sold all his properties for the legal and expensive medicine. Lu was arrested in Jan. 2015. The incident highlighted the poor quality of Chinas domestically produced pharmaceuticals.
All the reporters mentioned the forced closing of their medias social media accounts. According to Tencent, which owns Weibo and WeChat, it closed more than 99,000 accounts in the first 130 days of this year.
The Chinese Communist Party has imposed many regulations on the media, particularly focusing on cyberspace and social media platforms, as well as traditional news reporting.
In 2015, Chinas rubber-stamp legislature, the National Peoples Congress, passed a national security law defining the concept of cyberspace sovereignty. The next year, a cybersecurity law forced foreign enterprises operating in China to house their data in the country and make it accessible to the CCP regime.
Adults Arrested as 3-Year-Old Girl Hands Bag of Marijuana to Cops
A routine traffic stop turned unusual for state troopers, as a 3-year-old passenger handed them a bag containing marijuana and drug-related items.
Troopers pulled over a car on Sept. 6 at an occupant-safety checkpoint in Albany County, upstate New York, according to the New York Post, citing state police.
The toddler in the back seat did not appear to be in a proper child safety restraint, police said. They reportedly also observed that the adult occupants of the car, 26-year-old driver Scott Hill and the little girls 33-year-old mother Megan Karl, had made some suspicious movements.
When the pair of occupants rolled down the windows, police said they could smell burning marijuana.
Read More Missing Oregon Hiker Found Dead Likely Killed by Cougar: Officials
One trooper interviewed Hill, while another went to check on the little girl, who helpfully pulled out some hidden contraband.
The little girl reached under the front seat and retrieved a zippered pouch, state police said in a press release. She opened it and held it up so the trooper could see the contents.
The pouch contained a bag of marijuana, as well as a metal grinding device and smoking pipe, which police said contained remnants of the drug.
Troopers also found an ashtray in the front seat containing marijuana cigarette butts, according to police.
The press release noted that Hill was the owner of the drugs and paraphernalia.
The girls mother as well as Hill were both arrested and charged with child endangerment.
Police said Hill was also charged with unlawful possession of marijuana.
It is reported that the girl was taken into the care of relatives, and notification about the incident has been provided to child protective services.
Air Force Moves Fighter Jets Out of Virginia Ahead of Hurricane Florence
The U.S. Air Force has moved fighter jets out of Virginia ahead of Hurricane Florences forecasted landfall on Sept. 15.
Two squadrons of F-22 Raptor fighter jets flew from Langley Air Force Base in Norfolk, Virginia, to Ohio on Sept. 11.
Storm surges could severely damage the runway at Langley, according to weather reports, prompting the evacuation.
The jets were moved to Rickenbacker Air National Guard Base in Lockbourne, the Air Force said in a statement.
We have facilities here that can withstand hurricane-level winds, but theres no reason to risk any damage to our F-22 fleet, Col. Jason Hinds, 1st Fighter Wing commander, told WVEC.
Other Aircraft Moved
In addition to the F-22s, the Air Force planned to move some Northrop T-38 Talon jets, which are typically used for training, and some UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters were secured at Felker Army Air Field in Newport News, Virginia.
Air Force officers are keeping an eye on the hurricane forecast and dont know yet how long the fighters will remain in Ohio.
It really depends. If that hurricane sits over the coast or sits over the Carolinas and Virginia area, who knows how much rain could fall, Lt. Col. Nicholas Sigler told WSYX. We want to make sure that the airfield is safe for us to return.
A spokesperson for the Air Force declined to identify the exact number of jets moved out of Virginia, citing national security reasons.
Military Bases Evacuated
Among the hundreds of thousands of Americans who have evacuated ahead of Florence are tens of thousands of troops, their families, and recruits, reported Military.com.
The following bases have been evacuated: Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island, South Carolina; Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort, South Carolina; Joint Base Charleston, South Carolina; Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Virginia; Naval Air Station Oceana-Dam Neck Annex, Virginia.
Also, Marines and sailors at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina were told they could evacuate but that evacuation was not mandatory.
And at least five bases were on high alert but had not issued any evacuation orders yet; those were Shaw Air Force Base and Fort Jackson in South Carolina; Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point and Fort Bragg in North Carolina; and Joint Expeditionary Base Fort Story in Virginia.
A number of scheduled graduation ceremonies across all the bases were partially canceled and/or relocated.
From NTD.tv
Cans of water manufactured by Anheuser-Busch will be provided in disaster relief efforts ahead of Hurricane Florence. (Courtesy of Anheuser-Busch)
Anheuser-Busch Sending 300,000 Cans of Water for Hurricane Disaster Relief
A Georgia brewery that produces Budweiser beer is poised to deliver over 300,000 cans of drinking water to help possible victims of Hurricane Florence.
The Red Cross and local wholesalers asked the Anheuser-Busch facility in Cartersville to help prepare communities threatened by the torrential rain and flooding that Florence is likely to bring when it makes landfall, according to a news release.
The South Carolina National Guard, along with the American Red Cross and local partners will distribute the six truckloads of water Anheuser-Busch said it will be providing to assist in disaster efforts.
This is not the first time the Cartersville facility has paused beer production in order to can drinking water. The company said it has a long-standing tradition of providing emergency drinking water and supplies for disaster relief efforts in partnership with the American Red Cross.
The news came the same day Anheuser-Busch announced that its brewery in Fort Collins, Colorado, would also be prepared to shift gears and can drinking water.
For the last 30 years, we have been working with the American Red Cross and our wholesaler partners to provide clean, safe drinking water for communities hit by natural disasters, said Michel Doukeris, CEO of Anheuser-Busch, according to a news release.
Doukeris added that earlier this year the company had made plans to expand operations at the Colorado brewery and that doubling our production capacity to produce more drinking water for disaster relief would help our fellow Americans in times of need.
American Red Cross Chief Operating Officer Cliff Holtz commented on years of collaboration with the beer producer, saying that the two have worked together for over three decades to help provide clean, safe drinking water for communities hit by natural disasters, totaling more than 79 million cans of water to help people in need.
Hurricane Florence Forecasts
According to some forecasts, Florence is predicted to slow down and stall off the coast of North and South Carolina before moving around off the shore on Sept. 14, Sept. 15, and Sept. 16.
Then the storm is slated to affect Georgia, Tennessee, Virginia, Alabama, and Kentucky before moving north, according to the National Hurricane Centers forecasting model.
As Hurricane #Florence makes landfall or tries to very slowly the rainfall will add up quickly across the Carolinas but also Virginia I'd bet on maximum totals > 30" in many counties forecast totals from the adjacent states near landfall around 17 trillion gallons. pic.twitter.com/xcfio0u1fA Ryan Maue | weathermodels.com (@RyanMaue) September 13, 2018
The National Hurricane Center (NHC) said that between 20 and 30 inches of rain could fall in some areas.
U.S. weather officials said Florence weakened to a Category 2 storm, but the storm, according to NASA in a blog post on Sept. 12, is still more than 400 miles in diameter.
Emergency Declarations
Emergency declarations were in force in North and South Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia.
Emergency preparations included activating more than 2,700 National Guard troops, stockpiling food, setting up shelters, switching traffic patterns so major roads led away from shore, and securing 16 nuclear power reactors in the Carolinas and Virginia.
The U.S. Coast Guard said it closed the ports of Wilmington and Moorehead City in North Carolina and restricted port operations in Charleston, South Carolina. All seven of North Carolinas ferry routes were shut down.
Utility officials have warned that widespread power outages are likely and that it could take weeks to restore electricity.
In all, an estimated 10 million people live in areas expected to be placed under a hurricane or storm advisory, according to the U.S. Weather Prediction Center.
More than 1 million people have been ordered to evacuate the coastlines of the Carolinas and Virginia.
Reuters contributed to this report.
At-Risk Nuclear Power Plants on Path of Potentially Catastrophic Hurricane Florence
Two at-risk nuclear power plants located directly in Hurricane Florences path of destruction are among the sixteen plants in Virginia and the Carolinas that are bracing for impact.
The time to prepare is almost over, North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper told a morning news conference on Sept. 12. Disaster is at the doorstep and its coming in.
Hurricane Florence is expected to hit the U.S. East Coast on Sept. 14, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) has warned, with a life-threatening storm surge now highly likely along portions of the coastlines of South Carolina and North Carolina.
The two nuclear power plants directly in the path of Florence are the Brunswick Nuclear Plant, located about 30 miles south of Wilmington, and the Shearon Harris Nuclear Plant in the town of New Hill. Both are in North Carolina.
#HurricaneFlorence
Infrastructure Concerns:
At least 6 nuclear plants at risk
9 primary steel mills in storm path
EPA monitoring 9 toxic waste cleanup sites near Carolinas
Flooding concerns w/ hog manure pits, coal ash dumps
Duke Energy operates 24+ coal ash pits pic.twitter.com/PIbEqfziZu Fox News Research (@FoxNewsResearch) September 12, 2018
The design of the Brunswick plants reactors is identical to those in Fukushima, Japan, which leaked radioactive waste in 2011 after an earthquake and tsunami-caused flooding.
The fallout from Fukushima led U.S. regulators to mandate a number of upgrades to American nuclear plants in order to avoid a similar disaster.
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission said on Sept. 12, that additional inspectors would be dispatched to plants in North and South Carolina, according to Fox News.
The commission also stated that it would activate its regional incident response center in Atlanta and monitor the situation round-the-clock.
Catastrophic Flash Flooding
Besides inundating the coast with wind-driven storm surges of seawater as high as 13 feet along the Carolina coast, Florence could dump 20 to 30 inches of rain, with up to 40 inches in parts of North Carolina, the NHC said.
Life-threatening, catastrophic flash flooding and prolonged significant river flooding are likely over portions of the Carolinas and the southern and central Appalachians late this week and into next week, the NHC stated, with Florence expected to slow down as it approaches the coast and moves inland.
He told Reuters on Sept. 11, that both power plants were preparing for the hurricane by securing any loose material that could get dislodged by high winds. They also have prepared backup generators to ensure enough fuel to keep producing power.Duke Energy spokesman Ryan Mosier said earlier this week that operators of the two plants would begin shutting down the plants at least two hours before the hurricane hits.
They were safe then. They are even safer now, said Kathryn Green, a Duke spokeswoman, referring to the post-Fukushima improvements. We have backups for backups for backups.
Emergency Declarations
Emergency declarations were in force in North and South Carolina, Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia.
Emergency preparations included activating more than 2,700 National Guard troops, stockpiling food, setting up shelters, switching traffic patterns so major roads led away from shore, and securing 16 nuclear power reactors in the Carolinas and Virginia.
The U.S. Coast Guard said it closed the ports of Wilmington and Moorehead City in North Carolina and restricted port operations in Charleston, South Carolina. All seven of North Carolinas ferry routes were shut down.
Utility officials have warned that widespread power outages are likely and that it could take weeks to restore electricity.
The center of Florence, no longer classified as a major hurricane but still posing a grave threat to life and property, is expected to strike North Carolinas southern coast on Sept. 14, then drift southwest before moving inland on Sept. 15, according to the NHC.
Its maximum sustained winds were clocked on Sept. 13, at 110 mph after it was downgraded to a Category 2 on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale.
But the NHC also said tropical storm-force winds extended outward up to 195 miles from its center, leaving a swathe of the U.S. eastern seaboard vulnerable, much of it low-lying and stretching from Georgia north through the Carolinas into Virginia.
In all, an estimated 10 million people live in areas expected to be placed under a hurricane or storm advisory, according to the U.S. Weather Prediction Center.
More than one million people had been ordered to evacuate the coastlines of the Carolinas and Virginia.
Reuters contributed to this report
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Ontario Premier Doug Ford during question period at the Ontario Legislature in Toronto on Sept. 12, 2018. (The Canadian Press/Chris Young)
Canada in Brief, Sept 13-19
Council-cutting plan is about preserving democracy, Ford says
Protesters heckled Ontario Premier Doug Ford in the legislature on Sept. 12 as he defended his decision to push through a bill slashing Toronto city council nearly in half just days after a judge found the legislation unconstitutional.
Shouts erupted from the public gallery as Ford argued he was protecting democracy by invoking a constitutional provision to override the court decision, which found his plan to cut the size of the citys council in the middle of an election violated candidates and voters freedom of expression rights.
This is about preserving the will of the people, this is about preserving democracy, he said during question period.
The premier maintains cutting Toronto city council to 25 seats from 47 is necessary to streamline decision-making and save taxpayer money.
The government is also seeking a stay of the courts ruling as it appeals the judges decision.
Brian Mulroney urges Ottawa to make a deal on NAFTA
Brian Mulroney says Canada needs to put a little more water in its milk if it expects to make a new NAFTA deal with a hard-bargaining U.S. president.
Mulroney, the former prime minister widely considered the father of NAFTA, held court Sept. 11 in Ottawa on the fate of the intercontinental trade pact as talks to modernize the deal resumed in Washington.
Overall, he said, he believes Canada is handling the talks well. But he said if the federal government wants to make a deal, it better start dealingparticularly on the issue of access to Canadian markets for U.S. dairy producers, a critical issue for President Donald Trump.
Trans Mountain a frustrating process for Alberta: Notley
Alberta Premier Rachel Notley says the challenges facing the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion shows her province can do everything by the book and still get shortchanged.
At the opening of Suncors new Fort Hills oilsands extraction site on Sept. 10, Notley said the recent Federal Court of Appeal decision quashing the expansion project has provoked frustration and anger in Alberta, but her government will continue to fight to get it built.
She said without it, the ongoing pipeline bottlenecks will continue to cost Canada $40 million a day in a discounted price for oil.
Last man to emerge from NS mine disaster dies at 95
The last man to emerge from a shattered Nova Scotia mine 60 years ago has died. Herb Pepperdine was 95 years old when he passed away Friday in Springhill, N.S.
His obituary says Pepperdine mined coal all his life and spent eight days trapped in the Springhill mine after an underground convulsion on Oct. 23, 1958.
Pepperdine was among 174 men underground when North Americas deepest coal mine was jolted by a resounding boom, trapping them and killing 75. He and his group of 12 were rescued after six days.
With files from The Canadian Press
China Aims to Augment 50 Cent Army, Train Cadres on Publishing Favorable Online Content
The Chinese regime is amping up its monitoring of the internet with a new strategy: creating its own online buzz.
The strategy involves cadres of people who would open social-media accounts and publish internet content to shape public opinion directly, Chen Yixin, the head of the Chinese Communist Partys Political and Legal Affairs Commission (PLAC), said at a Sept. 4 meeting with senior officials. PLAC controls Chinas security apparatus.
Utilize the PLACs advantage in resources to set up subjects and create hot topics, Chen said, about training professional writers in the PLAC system who possess internet thinking.
The writers should be able to create attractive headlines that get netizens to click right away, and jump on any major event to influence public opinion and spread propaganda immediatelyto take the initiative to help the Party by sharing the burden, he added.
Chinas internet monitoring and censorship apparatus, spanning different agencies, is notorious for deleting any content that is deemed inappropriate by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), even arresting and punishing those who express dissent against the Party. However, this is the first time the PLAC has publicly announced working in the realm of manufacturing internet speech.
The Party hires citizens to write posts that praise the Partys policies or admonish those who disagree, known as the 50 cent army, as they are paid a putative 50 cents per post. But Chen said that the 50 cent army isnt enough.
Their numbers are not enough while the quality is weak, so they are like a group of straggling soldiers, was the conclusion from the meeting, according to state media reports. Instead, Party members should cultivate talented writers who can draw millions of followers for their Weibo accounts. According to a 2015 online survey of 50 cent workers hired by the Chinese regime, there are roughly 10 million college-age students who participate in online posting for the Party.
The Chinese regime has intensified its control over the internet, as Party leaders look to tighten their grip on a huge and diverse online cultural scene popular with Chinas youth. Everything from video parodies to viral memes and dissident speech has come under Chinas censorship.
Internet platforms hire their own staff to censor information, such as the 1,000 people hired by Weibo, an equivalent to Twitter, to report harmful content.
The Partys intensified fervor over controlling public opinion also comes at a time when the leadership is trying to quell criticism of the Partys aggressively nationalistic propaganda. Some outspoken Chinese, including academics, have blamed the propaganda for increasing international scrutiny and pressure on China.
In August, the Party convened a two-day meeting on propaganda and ideology that was attended by officials from major state media outlets and the internet regulator. Chinese leader Xi Jinping gave a speech in which he sought to assure the attendees that the Partys propaganda efforts were correct.
Xi said the Partys propaganda policies since 2012when he came to powerhave upheld Marxism and socialism with Chinese characteristics. Future propaganda efforts needed to be put front and center, according to state-run media Xinhua.
Uphold a clean and righteous internet space, the report cited Xi as saying.
Reuters contributed to this report.
Chinese vice chairman Wang Qishan during a diplomatic meeting at the Zhongnanhai Leadership Compound in Beijing on March 23, 2018. (Parker Song/AFP/Getty Images)
China Invites Top US Bankers to Advise on Relations, Meet With Vice Chairman Wang Qishan
China has invited the United States top bankers to a gathering in Beijing to discuss relations between the two countries, amid an impasse with President Donald Trump on trade issues and tariffs.
According to the Financial Times, a roundtable will be held in Beijing on Sept. 16. It will be co-chaired by Zhou Xiaochuan, a former chief of the Peoples Bank of China (PBoC), and John Thornton, chairman of the Barrick Gold Corp. and a former Goldman Sachs executive.
The Chinese invited representatives from Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, and Blackstone to attend the ChinaU.S. Financial Roundtable forum. Citing the short notice, former U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Hank Paulson has declined the invitation, while Jonathan Jon Gray, president and COO of Blackstone Group, and John Waldron, co-head of Goldman Sachs Investment Banking Division (IBD), have confirmed their attendance.
The U.S. bankers received their invitations from Fang Xinghai, vice-chairman of China Securities Regulatory Commission. Fang had been tasked with the goal of defusing ChinaU.S. trade tensions, before the United States imposed a 25 percent tariff on $50 billion worth of Chinese imports.
Before the meeting, the U.S. delegation will meet with Wang Qishan, Chinas vice chairman and an important political ally of Chinese leader Xi Jinping, the FT reported.
Those of us in the financial industries of both countries realize that we have an obligation to help improve U.S.China relations, the FT reported, citing a person involved in the roundtable discussions. This relationship is too important to be wrecked by a few people.
Representatives from the Chinese side will include PBoC head Yi Gang, banking and insurance regulator Guo Shuqing, and Liao Min, a vice minister of finance.
The ChinaU.S. Financial Roundtable is Beijings newest move following Trumps announcement that the United States was planning on imposing punitive tariffs on all $500 billion of Chinese imports. Chinese authorities aim to hold the roundtable forum every six months, to discuss potential economic and financial reforms.
Its also the first time that Wang, an experienced negotiator and statesman, has involved himself directly in the trade war, though the nature of his participation in the forum as well as what approach he plans to take are uncertain. In 1995, Wang was head of the China Construction Bank. He helped to set up Chinas first investment bank, the China International Capital Corporation, as a joint venture with U.S. investment bank Morgan Stanley.
In 2008, Wang led the Chinese delegation at the ChinaU.S. Strategic Economic Dialogue, which was held on a half-year basis, while he was vice premier. Since 2009, Wang helmed the Chinese side at the updated dialoguethe U.S.China Strategic and Economic Dialogueuntil 2016. The S&ED is an annual meeting and focuses on bilaterial cooperation.
According to statistical data from the U.S. Department of Commerce, in 2017 the United States imported $505.6 billion of goods from China, and exported $130.4 billion, making a trade deficit is $375.2 billion in Beijings favor.
To date, both the United States and China have imposed punitive tariffs on $50 billion worth of trade goods from the other side. Trumps administration is prepared to levy tariffs on another $200 billion of Chinese imports as early as this week.
On Sept. 7, Trump said he was floating the idea of additional tariffs on $267 billion worth, or the entirety, of Chinese goods exported to the United States.
A farmer feeds pigs at a backyard farm on the outskirts of Harbin City, Heilongjiang Province, China, on September 5, 2018. (Hallie Gu/Reuters)
Chinas Small Farmers Pose Huge Challenge in Swine Fever Battle
HARBIN, ChinaEven after 14 outbreaks of African swine fever across China in just over a month, pig farmer Wang Wu does not believe the threat to his livelihood is real.
I heard about the African swine fever thing. But then people said it was just rumor. It was fake news, said Wang, who raises about 60 pigs in a village near Harbin, capital of Chinas northeastern Heilongjiang Province.
In any case, the disease was only present in the south, added Wang. In fact, the first outbreak was reported in Shenyang, also in the northeast. And Harbin is only 311 miles from Russia, where African swine fever (ASF) has been spreading for years.
To meet the countrys demand for pork and after raising tariffs to 70 percent on U.S. pork, China has been buying pork from Russia. But Russia has been affected by ASF since its initial outbreak in 2007 and has culled more than 2 million pigs since then, according to agriculture market research firm Pig Progress.
The farmers lack of awareness of the virus highlights the scale of the challenge Beijing faces in controlling the highly contagious disease, which has spread rapidly among the worlds largest hog herd since it was first detected in early August.
There is no vaccine for ASF and mortality rates can be as high as 100 percent. The virus is also hardy, surviving for months in pork, feed, or swill. It is not harmful to humans.
In an effort to check the spread of the virus, authorities have banned the transport of live hogs from and through affected areas, sending prices in some regions soaring.
But while industrialized pig producers in China have locked down their farms, cancelling leave for staff who live onsite, reducing feed deliveries and outside visitors who risk spreading the virus to their pigs, many small pig farmers interviewed by Reuters in the past week have done nothing to keep the disease at bay.
That is likely a major reason for the number of outbreaks on farms of a similar size to Wangs, say experts.
You have to know what the risks are, said an animal health expert at one of Chinas biggest pig producers. If a small farmer isnt aware, he cant manage those risks.
NOT BEING INFORMED
Farmers producing fewer than 500 pigs a year accounted for 42 percent of Chinas production in 2016, according to a research report from Rabobank. In eastern Anhui Province, which has reported the most cases to date, there are still few large farms compared with other regions, said Pan Chenjun, senior analyst at the bank.
The rapid spread of the disease in recent weeks raises questions about how Chinese authorities have handled the outbreak.
The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs did not respond to a fax seeking comment on the issue.
Wang, who raises his pigs in open pens and buys feed from door-to-door salesmen, did not require any disinfecting on a recent visit by Reuters reporters, a standard measure for preventing the spread of disease on farms.
Another farmer near Harbin, 65-year-old Zhang Chao, also knew little of the swine fever outbreaks. Local authorities recently supplied several bottles of disinfectant to his farm of several dozen pigs, said Zhang, and asked him and his wife to carry out thorough disinfection. But the couple did not know why. Perhaps the authorities did not explain the importance of disinfecting and how it prevents the spread of ASF.
I am just a small pig farmer. What difference does it make if I know about it or not? What can I do? asked Zhang.
CONSOLIDATION OPPORTUNITY?
Bigger farmers appear better informed. At a farm with 400 sows on the outskirts of Beijing, owner Ma said she had attended a government meeting on the disease several weeks ago. She declined to give her full name.
An official poster on her farm wall showed pictures of symptoms to watch out for, and described measures to prevent its spread.
Those included preventing pigs from coming into contact with infected feed, meat products and equipment, and raising pigs far from areas with wild boars.
This disease is really terrifying, said Mas farm technician Wang Liang. For ourselves, we make sure we disinfect everything when we arrive, and the less contact with outsiders the better.
Reaching and educating Chinas millions of backyard farmers in remote regions, including many operating under the governments radar, may be an impossible task, said experts.
Theyll go to the affected regions first but they dont have so much manpower. They cant cover everywhere immediately, said Pan at Rabobank.
African swine fever may also push Beijing to shut down more small farms and further promote large players with a better grasp of biosecurity and the resources to invest in such systems, said industry participants, a push already under way.
My clients are still expanding, said a Shanghai-based farm management consultant who advises large producers in China. They think this will be a good opportunity.
By Dominique Patton & Hallie Gu
Former U.S. intelligence contractor Edward Snowden speaks during an interview in Hong Kong on Jan. 1, 2013. (The Guardian via Getty Images)
UK Surveillance Program Leaked by Snowden Violated Rights, Court Says
BRUSSELSBritish intelligence services breached peoples basic right to privacy with a mass surveillance operation that was brought to light by the whistleblower Edward Snowden in 2013, the European Court of Human Rights ruled on Sept. 13.
Judges sitting in Strasbourg, France, said GCHQs bulk interception of online communications was untargeted and criticized spy bosses for failing to provide sufficient safeguards when handling peoples personal data.
The landmark ruling was the courts first on the UKs mass surveillance programs, which attracted a high level of criticism after Snowden, a former U.S. National Security Agency contractor, leaked their existence in 2013.
Todays European Court #surveillance judgment is a major victory for everyones rights and freedoms. It shows that there is and should be a limit to the extent that states can spy on their citizens.https://t.co/yzDdLquTIt pic.twitter.com/dvoSbQSsW6 Liberty (@libertyhq) September 13, 2018
Human-rights judges were asked to assess whether Britains practices relating to bulk interception of communications, intelligence sharing with foreign governments, and obtaining of data from service providers were legal.
In the judgment, they said that the regime of bulk interception didnt in itself violate human-rights laws, but that the safeguards attached to it werent sufficiently robust to provide adequate guarantees against abuse. The court also found that the system for obtaining communications data from service providers breached human-rights laws, but concluded the way the UK shares digital intelligence with foreign governments is legal.
It ruled on the case after claims were brought by a coalition of 14 leading groups in the field of human rights and privacy including Amnesty International, Liberty, and Big Brother Watch. They argued the population scale surveillance revealed by Snowdens leak infringed peoples rights to privacy, which are protected by Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
In its judgment, the ECHR said: While the court does not doubt that related communications data is an essential tool for the intelligence services in the fight against terrorism and serious crime, it does not consider that the authorities have struck a fair balance between the competing public and private interests by exempting it in its entirety from the safeguards applicable to the searching and examining of content.
Reacting to the decision, Snowden said: For five long years, governments have denied that global mass surveillance violates your rights. And for five long years, we have chased them through the doors of every court. Today, we won.
The UKs surveillance programs included Tempora, a computer system that stored data from all internet traffic; Karma Police, which recorded a browsing profile for all internet users; and Black Hole, a digital library of more than a trillion pieces of data including search histories, emails, and instant messages.
This is a major victory for the rights and freedom of people in the UK. It shows that there isand should bea limit to the extent that states can spy on their citizens, said Megan Goulding, a lawyer for Liberty.
Our government has built a surveillance regime more extreme than that of any other democratic nation, abandoning the very rights and freedoms that terrorists want to attack. It can and must give us an effective, targeted system that protects our safety, data security and fundamental rights.
The judgment concerned the legality of actions taken by the British state, under now-defunct security rules known as the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA).
Following the Snowden revelations, the rules were replaced in November 2016 by the Investigatory Powers Act, a new law that effectively puts mass surveillance powers on a statutory footing.
The Investigatory Powers Act 2016 replaced large parts of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, which was the subject of this challenge, explained a UK government spokesperson.
This includes the introduction of a double lock which requires warrants for the use of these powers to be authorized by a Secretary of State and approved by a judge.
The spokesperson added that an investigatory powers commissioner has also been created to provide oversight of how surveillance is used.
The government will give careful consideration to the courts findings.
Heavy Rains Hit Maui as Olivia Approaches Hawaii
HONOLULUMaui was hit with heavy rain and powerful winds on Sept. 12, as a gradually weakening tropical storm neared Hawaii, with forecasters predicting Tropical Storm Olivia could dump 5 to 10 inches of rain. Some places could get as much as 15 inches.
The downpours started before dawn on Maui and the northern part of the Big Island, said National Weather Service meteorologist Melissa Dye. No rainfall totals were yet available.
Maui Mayor Alan Arakawa urged residents to store drinking water and warned that they should plan for power outages, landslides, high surf, fallen trees, and flooded roads.
Nature has a real funny way of not giving us advance notice, Arakawa said.
The Central Pacific Hurricane Center said Olivia was about 25 miles east of Kahului on the island of Maui and packing 45 mph winds on the morning of Sept. 12. It was about 115 miles east of the states capital city of Honolulu on Oahu.
There was steady rain and fog outside Maui County Councilwoman Yuki Lei Sugimuras home on the slopes of Haleakala mountain.
This is more rain than we had with Lane, she said, referring to the hurricane that passed close to Hawaii last month.
Sugimura was bracing for more rainfall and possibly strong winds.
Were counting our blessings now. Were waiting. Were just watching, she said. We expect more. Its not over yet.
There were sustained winds of 20 to 30 mph on Maui, Dye said. The storm, which was a hurricane earlier in the week, has been slowly losing power as it nears the state.
Tropical storm warnings were canceled overnight for the Big Island and Kauai, but remain in place for Oahu, Maui and small islands surrounding Maui.
A flash flood warning was issued for Molokai island, and a wind gust of 51 mph was recorded at the airport on the island of Lanai. The storm was later expected to impact Honolulu and other parts of Oahu, where Dye said some showers were falling.
Schools, courts and government offices were closed in Maui County in preparation for the storm.
Scott Zaffram, a senior response official with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said emergency teams and supplies were ready on Maui.
The National Guard has mobilized personnel and trucks to the east side of Maui, said Herman Andaya, administrator of the countys emergency management agency.
Hawaiian Airlines canceled flights by its commuter airline, Ohana by Hawaiian.
The owner of the only hardware store in the small town of Hana on the east side of Maui said he was determined to stay open so residents could buy tarps, screws or other supplies for their homes.
I think its important for us to try to stay open as much as possible, without jeopardizing the well-being of our staff, said Neil Hasegawa, owner of Hasegawa General Store.
Despite steady rain overnight, he opened the store normally at 7 a.m. The store lost electricity about a half-hour later and needed to use backup generators, he said.
Residents were bracing for the community with a population of 1,200 people to take the brunt of the storm, Hasegawa said. But he was feeling relieved the rain wasnt as hard as he feared.
Its way better than I expected, he said. Were not out of the woods yet Im hoping it seems like its going to keep going north.
Hana is a popular day-trip destination for travelers staying in Mauis resort towns. But Hasegawa urged people who dont need to be in Hana to stay away because they could become trapped and take up limited shelter space.
People were mostly staying off the roads, Hasegawa said. The state Department of Transportation said crews cleared a landslide on Hana Highway and reported there were some fallen trees.
Visitors Aaron Huston and his girlfriend Selena Palamides werent letting Olivia spoil their Maui vacation.
The Seattle couple stocked their hotel room mini-fridge with munchies and bottled water, just in case we cant go out, Huston said.
It sucks but theres nothing we can do about it, Huston said. Its better than Seattle rain.
Public schools on the Big Island, Oahu and Kauai will be open.
Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell said his citys offices will be open as usual. City buses also will be running normally unless winds exceed 40 mph.
We dont want to overreact and tell everyone to stay home when maybe its not going to be as bad, said Caldwell.
On Oahu, Nakoa Ching prepared for the storm with a hurricane kit, food, and stoves and had friends with generators.
We cleaned up all the loose material, put (it) in the sheds and stuff but we didnt go buy and invest in plywood or anything like that. It is what it is, you know, Ching said.
By Jennifer Sinco Kelleher and Audrey Mcavoy
Hurricane Florence Grows in Size but Winds Weaken, Conditions Still Life-Threatening
Downgraded to Category 2 Storm
WILMINGTON, North CarolinaHurricane Florence, growing in size despite its weakening winds on Sept. 12, crept closer to the U.S. East Coast as disaster mobilizations expanded south from the Carolinas into Georgia to counter the threat of deadly high seas and calamitous floods.
The center of Florence, no longer classified as a major hurricane but still posing a grave threat to life and property, is expected to strike North Carolinas southern coast on Sept. 14, then drift southwest along the shoreline before moving inland on Saturday, according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami.
The storms maximum sustained winds were clocked late on Wednesday night at 110 miles per hour, down from a peak of 140 mph a day earlier, before Florence was downgraded to a Category 3, then a Category 2, on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale of wind strength.
While Florence has weakened below major hurricane intensity, the wind field of the hurricane continues to grow in size, the NHC said in its latest bulletin.
A long stretch of the U.S. Eastern Seaboard remained vulnerable to hurricane and tropical storm conditions, from Georgia north through the Carolinas into Virginia. And Florence remained capable of unleashing rain-fueled catastrophic flooding of rivers and low-lying areas across a wide region.
The time to prepare is almost over, North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper told a morning news conference. Disaster is at the doorstep and its coming in.
Given the rarity of the magnitude of #Florence's storm surge forecast, it can be hard to grasp what that might look like or the impacts it could have on your community. We ask that you heed evacuation orders for your area if issued by local authorities. Time is running short! pic.twitter.com/Tg6wQnJMvK NHC_Surge (@NHC_Surge) September 12, 2018
Besides inundating the coast with wind-driven storm surges of seawater as high as 13 feet (4 meters) along the Carolina coast, Florence could dump 20 to 30 inches (51-76 cm) of rain, with up to 40 inches in parts of North Carolina, the NHC said.
Downpours and flooding would be especially severe, lasting for days, if the storm stalls over land. Heavy rains were forecast to extend into the Appalachians, affecting parts of Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky and West Virginia.
Tens of thousands of homes and businesses could be flooded in North Carolina alone, Governor Cooper warned.
Here are the 11 PM EDT Key Messages for Hurricane #Florence. Latest information available at https://t.co/tW4KeFW0gB pic.twitter.com/Qckto38JyW National Hurricane Center (@NHC_Atlantic) September 13, 2018
Georgia Governor Nathan Deal, concerned the storm would bring devastation south, issued an emergency declaration for all 159 counties in his state. Similar declarations were made earlier in North and South Carolina, Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia.
More than 1 million have been ordered to evacuate the coastlines of the Carolinas and Virginia.
Millions in Harms Way
An estimated 10 million people live in areas expected to be placed under a hurricane or storm advisory, said Marc Chenard of the U.S. Weather Prediction Center.
The first tropical storm-force winds were forecast to hit the coast on Thursday.
Emergency preparations in the region included activating over 2,700 National Guard troops, stockpiling food, setting up shelters, switching traffic patterns so major roads led away from shore, and securing 16 nuclear power reactors in the Carolinas and Virginia.
Utility officials have warned that widespread power outages are likely and that it could take weeks to restore electricity.
Wilmington, North Carolina, just north of where Florence appeared headed for shore, grew empty and quiet on Wednesday.
Im not approaching Florence from fear or panic, said Brad Corpening, 35, who planned to ride out the storm in his boarded-up delicatessen in Wilmington. Its going to happen. We just need to figure out how to make it through.
Officials in New Hanover County, which includes Wilmington, have stockpiled enough food and water for 60,000 people for four days, along with more than 28,000 tarps. Shelters in the city were filling and some people were being bused inland to Raleigh, even though some residents there were told they might have to evacuate because of flooding.
Its going to be bad, said Woody White, a county commissioner. But no matter how bad its going to be, it will pass and our job will be to rebuild this community together.
By Ernest Scheyder
Hurricane Florence Is a Horrific Nightmare to Predict, Says Forecaster
One weather forecaster says Hurricane Florence is a nightmare to predict.
This is a horrific nightmare storm from a meteorological perspective, University of Georgia meteorology professor Marshall Shepherd told The Associated Press. Weve just never seen anything like this. This is just a strange bird.
According to some forecasts, Florence is predicted to slow down and stall off the coast of North and South Carolina before moving around off the shore on Sept. 14, Sept. 15, and Sept. 16. Then the storm is slated to affect Georgia, Tennessee, Virginia, Alabama, and Kentucky before moving north, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Centers forecasting model.
The NHC said that between 20 and 30 inches of rain could fall in some areas. If the storm lingers longer, more rain will fall, according to forecasters.
For a meandering storm, the biggest concernas we saw with Harveyis the huge amount of rainfall, said Chris Landsea, chief of tropical analysis and forecast branch at the National Hurricane Center. Hes referring to Hurricane Harvey, which inundated some parts of southern Texas with 60 inches of rain in 2017.
Ryan Maue, a meteorologist for Weathermodels.com, tweeted that the rainfall will add up quickly across the Carolinas but also Virginia after Florence hits the region. Id bet on maximum totals > 30 in many counties forecast totals from the adjacent states near landfall around 17 trillion gallons, he added.
As Hurricane #Florence makes landfall or tries to very slowly the rainfall will add up quickly across the Carolinas but also Virginia I'd bet on maximum totals > 30" in many counties forecast totals from the adjacent states near landfall around 17 trillion gallons. pic.twitter.com/xcfio0u1fA Ryan Maue | weathermodels.com (@RyanMaue) September 13, 2018
U.S. weather officials said Florence weakened to a Category 2 storm, but the storm, according to NASA in a blog post on Sept. 12, is still more than 400 miles in diameter.
Florence core winds dropping but the storms strong wind is spreading out, Eye trying to reform, A big dangerous widespread storm. Its here where Saffir-Simpson may not be best measure of storms true power, tweeted Weatherbell.com meteorologist Joe Bastardi.
Florence core winds dropping but the storms strong wind is spreading out, Eye trying to reform, A big dangerous widespread storm. Its here where Saffir Simpson may not be best measure of storms true power Joe Bastardi (@BigJoeBastardi) September 13, 2018
Hes referring to the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale, which measures the strength of hurricanes in categories. A Category 2 hurricane has 111 mph to 129 mph winds.
It certainly is a challenge forecasting precise impacts when its exact track wont be known until a day in advance, Landsea told AP.
Its going to coming roaring up to the coast Thursday night and say Im not sure I really want to do this and Ill just take a tour of the coast and decide where I want to go inland,' said Jeff Masters, who is the meteorology director of the private Weather Underground website, AP reported.
The satellite presentation of Florence has changed little overnight with the eye waxing and waning in infrared imagery, according to the NHCs discussion of the hurricane.
It added: As mentioned in the previous discussion, it appears that some southern shear has caused the degradation of the inner core. The global models suggest that this shear will relax today while Florence moves over warm waters, however, given the current storm structure, little overall change in strength is anticipated as Florence approaches the coast.
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Indiana Teen Charged in Suffocation Deaths of His 2 Siblings
VERSAILLES, Ind.A 14-year-old Indiana boy charged in the suffocation deaths of his two young siblings told investigators that he killed them so that they wouldnt have to live in the hell that he did, prosecutors allege.
Ripley County Prosecutor Richard Hertel said Wednesday that the teen was arrested last week on juvenile charges of murder in the May 2017 killing of his 23-month-old half sister, Desiree McCartney, and the killing two months later of his 11-month-old stepbrother, Nathaniel Ritz, at their home in Osgood, a rural community about 60 miles southeast of Indianapolis.
In a probable cause affidavit filed in court, authorities say the teen, who was 13 at the time of the deaths, told investigators that he used a towel to suffocate his half sister and a blanket to kill his stepbrother.
Hertel said the teen was advised of the charges he faces at a Monday court hearing, after which the judge said hed rule on whether the teen is competent to stand trial before deciding whether to grant prosecutors request that he be tried as an adult.
The boy, who is being held at a juvenile center, was charged following a State Police investigation that Hertel said is ongoing.
According to the affidavit, the teen told investigators who questioned him about his siblings deaths that he had a conversation with God about them, but he could not talk about it because he had promised God he wouldnt tell anyone.
Under further questioning, the teen began talking about saving Desiree and Nathaniel from hell and the chains of fire, it states. He then added that he didnt want them to have to live in the hell that he did, before going on to describe how he suffocated the children.
When asked what that hell was, the boy replied chores, before asking investigators if theyd seen the list of daily chores he had to complete, the affidavit states.
According to the affidavit, the teens grandmother told investigators that when she asked him why he killed his siblings, he replied that he didnt want them to be treated the way he had been. She said he also described how hed firmly held the towel and blanket over their heads to suffocate them.
An uncle told investigators that the day before Nathaniel Ritzs death, the teen told him that Ritzs father had bloodied the teens nose.
Hertel said the teens motivations remain unclear, but that doctors who will examine him may be able to shed light on them.
In my time here, which has been 19 years, Im not sure that Ive seen anything quite as disturbing and as final as something like this, he said during a news conference in Versailles, the county seat.
The prosecutor said that shortly before the teens half-sisters death, the boy squeezed a kitten so hard its insides came out, telling relatives it had scratched him.
Hertel said the suspects father is currently in prison and that he believes the boys mother is cooperating with the investigation.
Neighbor Becky Horn told WLWT-TV that the childrens deaths stunned the small community.
Our whole street, we were in tears for weeks over this, Horn said.
Firearms are shown for sale at the AO Sword gun store in El Cajon, Calif., on Jan. 5, 2016. (Mike Blake/Reuters)
Judge Strikes Down 95-Year-Old California Ban on Storefront Handgun Ads
A federal judge has struck down a 95-year-old California law banning firearms dealers from placing ads for handguns or images of handguns on their storefronts.
In a decision made public on Sept. 11, U.S. District Judge Troy Nunley in Sacramento, the states capital, said the law was unconstitutional on its face because it violated dealers commercial speech rights under the First Amendment.
State officials said allowing the ads could spur people with impulsive personality traits to buy more handguns, and the law advanced Californias interests in reducing handgun crime and handgun suicides.
But Nunley found the law too narrow, saying dealers could still use print or radio ads or even display large neon signs trumpeting GUNS GUNS GUNS. It was also too broad, by restricting speech to all adults regardless of their personality traits, he ruled.
The government may not restrict speech that persuades adults, who are neither criminals nor suffer from mental illness, from purchasing a legal and constitutionally-protected product, merely because it distrusts their personality trait and the decisions that personality trait may lead them to make later down the road, the judge wrote.
Nunley was appointed by former U.S. President Barack Obama.
The office of California Attorney General Xavier Becerra had defended the law, which is part of the states penal code.
Officials from the attorney general did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Sept. 12.
Nunleys decision is a victory for Tracy Rifle and Pistol, Ten Percent Firearms, and other dealers that said the law infringed their right to display truthful, non-misleading handgun ads, or risk fines or license revocations.
It reaffirms the trend in the law that the Supreme Court has been very clear on, that government cannot restrict truthful advertising because it fears that law-abiding citizens will make decisions it doesnt approve of, Brad Benbrook, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said in an interview on Sept. 12.
By Jonathan Stempel
Let the Wheel Do the Work: A Talk With Master Potter Guy Wolff
"The responsibility was that you followed your path, and hopefully it was a truthful path.
Connecticut is known for at least several things: When thinking of the Nutmeg State, Mystic Seaport, Yale University, and the luxury of Greenwich may immediately come to mind. But its also worth recalling that the state is home to one of the worlds great potters.
If you have a passion for pottery, or are generally savvy with clay and crafts, its likely youve heard of Guy Wolff. A master potter whose work has been featured on Martha Stewarts titular television series and in her magazine, Martha Stewart Living, and purchased by celebrity patrons like Steve Jobs and the David Rockefeller, Wolff is a longtime resident of Connecticut, and has been making pottery in Litchfield County for many years.
In addition to his wildly popular flower pots, he makes ceramic bowls and other vessels informed by his knowledge of English and early American pottery.
I met with Wolff at his home in Bantam, a bucolic borough of Litchfield, nestled in the green hills of western Connecticut.
I told him I was interested in learning about his life and craft, so, naturally, he began at the beginning.
Born in 1950, Wolff began his potters apprenticeship in 1966, at the age of 16. He attributes his choice to pursue pottery to the fact that he didnt have very good eyes for reading and writing, and preferred to work with his hands.
I grew up in the middle of some pretty amazing things, said Wolff, referencing a childhood and adolescence suffused with inspiration.
Wolffs father, Robert Jay Wolff, an abstract expressionist, co-founded the Chicago School of Design, an American revival of the German Bauhaus art movement. Additionally, Wolffs uncle, Marcel Breuer, a Bauhaus-trained architect, was the designer of the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City. Wolff was also submersed in the arts in his longtime home of western Connecticut.
This part of Connecticut had a really amazing art community back in the day, he said. All the people who were in the arts back thenthe whole communityeverybody was sort of excited about what everybody else was going to do. The responsibility was that you followed your path, and hopefully it was a truthful path.
I grew up in the golden age of people involved in that kind of search.
From the Flower Pot Guy to Iconic Potter
In 1971 Wolff opened his first shop, and in the decade that followed he mainly sold giftwares. By the mid 80s flower pots were in high demand, and between 1988 and 1998 Wolff says he got adopted as the guy for making flower pots in America.
Wolffs popularity snowballed: It got very big It went from being Litchfield Countys potter to Connecticuts potter to New Englands potter to Americas potter to iconic potter to all these ridiculous things. The phrases kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger.
Wolff reckons that his popularity peaked in 1999, after nearly a decade of support by Martha Stewart.
At the same time he was both making pots and training potters from around the world through his now-disbanded company, G. Wolff and Co.
Its been a crazy ride, I can tell you, he said.
I asked Wolff what, if anything, inspired him the most about pottery. His answer was surprisingly complex, and revealed that the craft is more nuanced than it first appears.
Everything in the arts has a beginning, and then you make a gesture, and then from that gesture you respond to that gesture, and then theres a leave taking, he said.
If youre talking about art, film, sculpture, potteryanythingits sort of how you get from one place to the other. The ride in between is whats so exciting In pottery, its all about the vitality of motion. Potters have to learn a shape.
For people who like throwing, he says, the process of crafting pottery on a wheel, for them its all-consuming. Its very much like sport or dance for some people.
One might think that the process of throwing and creating a similar piece over and over might be too monotonous to form a passion, but, as Wolff notes, nothing is further from the truth.
People come in [to my shop] and say, Youre making the same pot over and over. How can you stand it? But its a little bit like asking somebody when theyre doing the waltz step if they were thinking about one-two-three, one-two-three How could they stand it? But when youre flowing with the motion of the work it takes you. Its the same with anything you love. The vehicle youre supposed to be riding in disappears in the action of doing. It lays you open for doing the magic.
You let the wheel do the work, he said.
This article was first published on Humanity.
Man Accused of Swiping Homeless Heros GoFundMe Cash Arrested on Unrelated Warrant
A New Jersey man being investigated for allegedly stealing the money in a GoFundMe account set up to help a homeless vet was arrested for warrants unrelated to the fundraising controversy, police said.
Mark DAmico and girlfriend Katelyn McClure face a lawsuit and criminal investigation for allegedly misappropriating a portion of the over $400,000 they raised on GoFundMe for homeless man Johnny Bobbitt.
Bobbitt was hailed a hero when he spent his last $20 to help the stranded motorist McClure put gas in her car. She posted the story on social media and it went viral.
Police in Florence Township said DAmico was picked up on Sept. 10, on charges that had nothing to do with the Bobbitt fundraiser. Deputies did not reveal the nature of the charges, but KYW-TV said it was related to a traffic stop.
Mark DAmico was taken into custody last night at his residence at 9:20 p.m. for outstanding warrants. Mr. DAmico was processed for the warrants and was transported to Burlington County Jail, Florence police said in a Facebook post.
THE OUTSTANDING WARRANTS FOR MR. DAMICOS ARREST WERE UNRELATED TO THE GOFUNDME INVESTIGATION.
DAmico was subsequently released after posting $500 bail.
Indictment Expected
DAmico and McClure will probably face criminal charges, according to their lawyer.
Attorney Ernest Badway wrote in a letter that came to light on Sept. 10, that his firm would no longer be representing Mark DAmico and Katelyn McClure, NBC reported.
(Since) it is expected that one or both of the defendants will likely be indicted, my firm and I will no longer be able to continue our representation of them in this matter, Badway wrote, according to the report.
Burlington County Prosecutor Scott Coffina last week confirmed that a criminal investigation into the couple had been launched.
Coffina said in a statement, Due to the enormous public interest in this matter, I am confirming that a search warrant was executed early this morning by the Burlington County Prosecutors Office and the Florence Township Police Department at the residence of Mark DAmico and Katelyn McClure in connection with a criminal investigation into the Johnny Bobbitt matter.
No charges have been brought against DAmico or McClure.
Badway has declined to comment on the case and it is unclear whether he will represent the two if the case moves to criminal proceedings.
Feel-Good Story Turned Sour
The couple raised over $400,000 for Johnny Bobbitt after he used his last $20 to help McClure when her car ran out of gas and she became stranded near an I-95 exit ramp in Philadelphia.
But what initially was a feel-good story that went viral on social media and led to TV appearances, eventually turned sour amid accusations the couple was withholding the money from Bobbitt.
The homeless military veteran and former paramedic brought a suit against the couple.
Read More Homeless Man Will Get His Full $400,000 Says GoFundMe
Lawyers representing Bobbitt said he had received about $75,000, while Badway claimed his clients had turned over about $200,000.
Last week Badway said that none of the $400,000 remains.
Johnny Will Be Made Whole
Online fundraising site GoFundMe announced on Sept. 6, that Bobbitt would get all the money from the online campaign.
The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that Bobby Whithorne, director of North America communications for GoFundMe, said in a statement: Johnny will be made whole, and were committing that hell get the balance of the funds that he has not yet received or benefited from. GoFundMes goal has always been to ensure Johnny gets [the] support he deserves.
GoFundMe will also refund donors too, waiving a 30-day restriction that would have applied to the 10-month-old campaign.
This is an extremely rare situation, and we are working with law enforcement officials to get Johnny the money raised on his behalf, which means the 30-day policy does not apply in this case, Whithorne said in a statement issued on Sept. 6, reported the Inquirer.
What Happened to the Money?
The couple denies allegations of mismanagement, saying they were reluctant to give Bobbitt such a large sum of money out of fear he would buy drugs.
According to the New York Post, Bobbitts lawyer, Jacqueline Promislo, said the couple started spending the money right after they deposited the online donations meant for Bobbitt into their bank account last fall.
Read More GoFundMe Couple Likely to Face Criminal Charges in $400,000 Money Feud
They went on shopping sprees, Promislo said. [Bobbitt] tells me they had a Louis Vuitton bag and Chanel sunglasses, a new iPhone 10.
Investigators executed a search warrant on Sept. 6 at the home of DAmico and McClure, and could be seen removing a black BMW on the back of a flatbed truck.
From what I can see, the GoFundMe account raised $402,000 and GoFundMe charged a fee of approximately $30,000, Bobbitts lawyer Chris Fallon told CNN on Aug. 25. Mark DAmico and Katelyn McClure gave Johnny about $75,000. There should be close to another $300,000 available to Johnny.
McClure said on the GoFundMe page that the money would be used to buy Bobbitt a house and truck, and the rest would be placed in two trustsone that would let him collect a small salary each year and another for his retirement.
Promislo said that it will be possible to say what happened to the money only once an investigation has run its course.
Until we have a forensic accountant go through it, I cant say that they spent his money, said Promislo. But now that they say there is no money, where did it go?
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Man Arrested After Allegedly Ramming Police Car
A man was arrested on Sept. 10, after allegedly ramming a police car with his vehicle while trying to escape from officers who were investigating possible burglaries in the parking lot of Tanforan Mall in San Bruno, police said.
Donjuan Goode, a 27-year-old El Cerrito resident, was arrested on suspicion of felony evasion, felony assault, possession of an embezzled vehicle, and identity theft.
Goode has allegedly seen casing vehicles for possible burglaries with a female suspect in the parking lot of the mall around 6:30 p.m. on Sept. 10.
After locating the suspects vehicle, officers tried to stop it but Goode allegedly rammed the police car head-on, according to police.
Neither police nor the suspects were injured in the collision.
The suspects then fled on foot through the parking lot but officers eventually caught them. After searching the suspects, the car, and their hotel room, officers found numerous stolen IDs and credit cards, police said.
Goode was booked into county jail while the female suspect, a 32-year-old woman from Oakland, was released pending further investigation.
Police are currently investigating the case and ask anyone with information to contact the San Bruno Police Department at (650) 616-7100 or sbpdtipline@sanbruno.ca.gov. Tips can be anonymous.
By Nuria Marquez
Millions of Bottles of Water Never Got to Maria Victims
When the people of Puerto Rico were suffering after being slammed by Hurricane Maria in 2017, the U.S. government rushed emergency supplies to the battered island.
But not all of that aid reached the people who needed it.
A photograph taken by a Puerto Rican police agency worker seems to show that while thousands of people were suffering in remote villages, millions of bottles of water sat cooking in the sun on an airport runway in a region that had been hit particularly hard by the storm.
Aunque usted no lo crea casi un millon de cajas de agua que nunca fueron entregadas al pueblo d P.R., ante la emergencia del huracan Maria. Habra alguien que pueda explicar esto? Posted by Abdiel Santana on Tuesday, September 11, 2018
Abdiel Santana of the United Forces Rapid Action police agency said he first saw bottles sitting on an airport runway in Ceiba, Puerto Rico, last October, CBS reported.
Santana published pictures of the pallets of water bottles, covered by blue tarps, sitting on a runway, on Facebook. CBS reporter David Begnaud claims he interviewed Santana and in a video posted on Sept. 11, said Santana was angry, upset, and mad that the water was still there.
Anger is not an unreasonable response.
Puerto Ricos governor, Ricardo Rossello, raised the death toll from Hurricane Maria to 2,975, making the storm the deadliest in U.S. history. Gov. Rossello based the number on an estimate made by the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University (pdf).
CBS reporter David Begnaud posted, The water was kept in an area that was pretty hard-hit during the storm and could have used all the water they could have gotten.
What Went Wrong?
Not surprisingly, no one wants to take responsibility for the wasted water, or for the harm it might have averted.
According to CBS, Marty Bahamonde, director of disaster operations at the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) confirms that FEMA delivered water to the island but cannot confirm that the agency left the water in question on the runway.
David Begnaud claims that he called FEMA and was told that FEMA had delivered those specific water bottles to Puerto Rico last year. Once delivered, the water bottles were reportedly turned over to the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) in Puerto Rico.
A GSA representative reportedly told TheBlaze that GSA was neither assigned nor responsible for the distribution of water bottles to hurricane victims. Additionally, GSA did not procure water for FEMA during the referenced event [Hurricane Maria].
Water Wasted
Carlos Mercader, the executive director of the Puerto Rico Federal Affairs Administration, released a statement in which he blamed FEMA for letting the water go to waste.
In the statement Mercader claims, The water bottles currently in Ceiba were not delivered to the Government of Puerto Rico to give out during an emergency since it was under FEMAs custody and it wasnt until April 2018 that the Government was notified that it was excess inventory that could be requested.
Mercader states that GSA requested the water on April 17 of this year, and received permission to distribute it on April 26.
The Puerto Rican government started picking up and distributing the water on May 30, the statement claims, but people who received the water complained that it smelled and tasted foul.
Read More Puerto Rico Officials Investigated for Corruption During Hurricane Relief
In the statement, Mercader claims the Puerto Rican government took possession of 732 pallets of water, out of a total of about 20,000.
Based on normal packing methods, there would be about 72 cases per pallet of 24 bottles, or 1,728 bottles per pallet. If the total shipment had indeed been 20,000 cases, that would have been millions of gallons of water wasted.
From NTD.tv
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Communisms Destruction of Civilized Debate
An in-depth look at Communist policies that have destroyed civilized debate
One, to get better weather. It was always 90 degrees and my vendors would be wilting and my musicians would be fainting, she said. Also, we moved it to try and get the schools more involved. And we have succeeded in that, especially the east side of Aurora schools are coming on board. Peace Jam is a wonderful school group and they are going to take over the Kids Eco-Village, the big tent with many different themes of environmentalism like water, air, efficient houses. So it has worked to get the schools more involved. The Scouts are going to be there as well. I think its going to be a good time for the GreenFest.
Missing Oregon Hiker Found Dead Likely Killed by Cougar: Officials
A female hiker who went missing in Oregon before being found dead was likely killed by a cougar, officials said this week.
Diana Bober, 55, was last seen on Aug. 29. Her body was discovered on Sept. 10, along the Hunchback Trail in the Mt. Hood National Forest.
The Clackamas County Sheriffs Office said that the sheriff and other officials believe Bober was killed by a cougar. If correct, it would be the first time in state history that a human was attacked by a cougar in the wild. A woman was killed by a cougar in Oregon in 2013 but that death occurred at the WildCat Haven sanctuary near Sherwood.
Hiker likely killed in Oregon's first fatal cougar attack https://t.co/5neZdfAv8h BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) September 12, 2018
Every Indication Points to Cougar Attack
Brian Wolfer, Oregon Dept. of Fish & Wildlifes watershed manager, said at a press conference on Sept. 11 that DNA test results are expected back soon, but that every indication points to a cougar killing Bober.
An autopsy determined the wounds found on Bober were caused by a large animal, the sheriff said.
Because this is an unprecedented event in Oregon we dont believe that the threat to the public thats posed by cougars is any greater today than it was yesterday, Wolfer said, reported KVAL. However, we dont know and cant quantify the threat that this particular animal may pose to the public.
An estimated 6,600 cougars live in Oregon, and are known to prey on livestock and pets but practically never approach humans.
UPDATE: The Clackamas County Sheriffs Office is able to confirm that the body of Diana Bober was recovered yesterday off the Hunchback Trail, Welches OR. She went missing on August 29th.
Was hiking alone.
Family says shes an avid hiker.
Knew Mt. Hood well. pic.twitter.com/d5Umi1RdAG Eileen Park (@EileenParkTV) September 11, 2018
Hunt for Cougar Begins
A search for the cougar that is believed to have killed Bober was set to commence on Sept. 13, with extensive groundwork laid on Sept. 12.
Wolfer told Fox 12 that remote communications were installed in the area since theres no cell or radio service, while trees were cleared so mules could be utilized to move people and equipment in.
The area where Bober died is several hours away on foot from parking. Hounds were brought in to track the scent of the cougar. Cougars roam widely, with males having a territory of up to 150 miles.
Any cougar that is found will be killed and DNA testing will be conducted to try to confirm if they caught the right one, Wolfer said.
We really dont have a way that we can capture and hold a cougar and wait for test results to come back, and especially in that terrain, thats just not an option for us, Wolfer said.
We are not looking to kill an indiscriminate number of cougars, we are really focused on targeting the area of the attack and then as we need to, we can expand out from there.
From NTD.tv
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A protestor waves EU flags in front of the Houses of Parliament in London on Sept. 4. (AP Photo/Frank Augstein)
No-Deal Brexit? Britain Sets out the Damage for Consumers and Business
LONDONBritain will publish advice to businesses and the public on Thursday about how to cope with the disruption that exiting the European Union without a divorce deal would cause to everything from mobile phone roaming charges to vehicle standards.
Recent signals from Brussels have buoyed hopes that the United Kingdom and the EU can agree and approve a proper divorce agreement before the UK leaves on March 29, though the sides are still divided on about one fifth of the detail of a deal.
But many business chiefs and investors fear politics could scupper a deal, thrusting the worlds fifth largest economy into a so called no-deal Brexit that they say would weaken the West, spook financial markets and silt up the arteries of trade.
Britain has stepped up planning for the effects of such a departure and on Thursday afternoon will publish 28 technical notices on the impact on areas including customs and borders, competition, fisheries and aviation.
Brexit minister Dominic Raab said a no-deal Brexit was unlikely, but that the United Kingdom would manage the challenges and eventually flourish.
With six months to go until the UK leaves the European Union, we are stepping up our no deal preparations so that Britain can continue to flourish, regardless of the outcome of negotiations, Raab said.
These technical notices are part and parcel of our sensible, pragmatic approach to preparing for all outcomes.
Both sides need an agreement to keep trade flowing between the worlds biggest trading bloc and the United Kingdom, home to one of the worlds top two financial capitals.
Getting a deal with the European Union is still by far and away the most likely outcome, Raab said.
But the other 27 members of the EU combined have about five times the economic might of Britain. They also have a strong incentive to deny the UK a deal so attractive it might encourage others to follow the British example.
Deal or No Deal?
As May tries to clinch a deal with Brussels, she is facing rebels in her Conservative Party who say they will vote down any deal that fails to deliver a sharp break with the EU.
Raab, speaking to BBC radio, said he did not believe Mays government would lose a vote in parliament on the deal.
Michel Barnier, the EUs chief negotiator, said on Monday that a Brexit deal was possible within six or eight weeks if negotiators were realistic in their demands.
Last month, the government published 25 technical papers out of a total of more than 80, which detailed how tariffs, financial services, state aid and pharmaceuticals would operate if Britain departs without a divorce deal.
Ever since the shock 2016 Brexit vote, major companies have been planning for Brexit, but chief executives say the scale of disruption from a disorderly Brexit is such that it is hard to prepare for.
Profit at Britains biggest department stores group, John Lewis Partnership, was wiped out in the first half as it was forced to match discounting by its struggling rivals on a fiercely competitive high street.
With the level of uncertainty facing consumers and the economy, in part due to ongoing Brexit negotiations, forecasting is particularly difficult, John Lewis said.
Brexiteers accept there is likely to be some short-term economic pain but say Britain will thrive in the longer term if cut loose from what they see as a doomed experiment in German-dominated unity and excessive debt-funded welfare spending.
Opponents of Brexit fear leaving the bloc will torpedo what remains of Britains global influence, further undermine its reputation as a haven for investment and hurt the economy for years to come.
A lawsuit filed against PG&E Co. for alleged releases of dioxin from stored utility poles into San Francisco Bay and Humboldt Bay has been settled. (Tim Foster/Unsplash)
PG&E Agrees to Settlement to Reduce Dioxin Runoff into Bays, Waterways
An eight-year-old lawsuit filed against PG&E Co. for alleged releases of dioxin from stored utility poles into San Francisco Bay and Humboldt Bay has been settled, according to the environmental group that filed the lawsuit.
The Ecological Rights Foundation, based in Garberville (Humboldt County), alleged in its 2010 lawsuit that dioxin, a chemical that causes cancer and birth defects, was carried by stormwater runoff from treated wooden utility poles, sawdust, and wood waste into the two bays.
The settlement was signed by U.S. District Judge Richard Seeborg in San Francisco on Sept. 7 and announced by the foundation on Sept. 10.
Under the agreement that will remain in effect through 2026, PG&E will identify storage yards containing treated poles and will test and implement technologies for reducing dioxin runoff to levels that pose lower risk to human health and wildlife.
The technologies could include storage improvements, such as covering poles or keeping them indoors, improvements in stormwater treatment, and possibly the use of different materials, such as cement or steel, for utility poles, according to foundation attorney Fredric Evenson.
Evenson said, Dioxins are among the most toxic chemicals known to science.
This has been a hard-fought legal battle, but in the end PG&E now appears to understand that dioxin has no business in our bay, and will now take meaningful action to benefit San Francisco Bays wildlife and residents who eat locally caught seafood, he said.
The settlement specifies that PG&E does not admit to any wrongdoing.
Because environmental stewardship is a guiding principle at PG&E, we are pleased to have reached an agreement with the Ecological Rights Foundation to perform environmental testing on new stormwater treatment methods of PG&Es treated wood pole storage areas, the utility said in a statement.
Northern California waterways may benefit from any enhancements to existing power pole storage practices and stormwater treatment technologies PG&E adopts as a result of the testing, PG&E said.
The wooden poles are treated with pentachlorophenol, a preservative that creates dioxin when it is manufactured. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has banned the preservative for all uses except on utility poles, and its website states it is extremely toxic when ingested by humans.
The foundations lawsuit alleged PG&E stored its utility poles in up to 31 locations in the Bay Area and northern coastal California, including two sites each in Oakland, Hayward, and San Jose and one each in Daly City, San Carlos, Milpitas, Cupertino, Concord, Livermore, and Vacaville.
The lawsuit also alleged the dioxin pollution ran into rivers and creeks as well as the two bays.
At the time of the settlement, the foundation had been allowed to do preliminary fact gathering at two storage yards in Hayward and Oakland near San Francisco Bay and two Eureka sites near Humboldt Bay and found treated poles at those locations, Evenson said.
Under the agreement, PG&E will identify which of the other sites also contain poles and debris treated with the preservative. The agreement will also apply to any other waterways affected, Evenson said.
Seeborg dismissed the lawsuit in 2015, but it was reinstated in 2017 by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which said the Ecological Rights Foundation had the right to sue under the federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act.
The 1976 law allows citizens lawsuits against entities that handle hazardous waste in a way that endangers human health or the environment.
By Julia Cheever
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban hold a joint news conference in Budapest, Hungary, on Jan. 3, 2018. (Bernadett Szabo/Reuters)
Poland Says It Will Block Any EU Sanctions Against Hungary
WARSAWPoland, the biggest former communist country in the European Union, said it will oppose any sanctions imposed by the bloc on fellow member Hungary, accused of floating EU rules on democracy.
Every country has its sovereign right to make internal reforms it deems appropriate, Polands foreign ministry said in a statement late on Sept. 12.
Actions aimed against member states serve only deepening divides in the EU, increasing citizens current lack of confidence to European institutions.
The European Parliament voted on Sept. 12, to sanction Hungary for neglecting norms on democracy, civil rights and corruption in a first bid to launch the punitive process of the EU treatys Article 7.
Since sweeping to power in 2010, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, once a campaigner against Hungarys SovietCommunist overlords, has used his parliamentary majority to pressure courts, media, and non-government groups.
He has also led opposition to German Chancellor Angela Merkel and others who want Europe to take in more Muslim refugees.
Police Call for Reporting Non-Crime Hate Incidents Doused in British Irony
Britains hate speech laws are already controversial, with critics saying they are stifling free speech and pulling resources from investigating real crimes.
So when one police force went a step further and asked people to start reporting non-crime hate incidentsit didnt go well.
South Yorkshire Police were plugging a new campaign Hate Hurts on Sept. 9, trying to recruit evidence of crimes against the countrys hate laws.
But they decided to take it to another level, tweeting, In addition to reporting hate crime, please report non-crime hate incidents, which can include things like offensive or insulting comments, online, in person or in writing.
The notion of non-crime hate incidents quickly gained traction, but not in the way they intended.
Social media users quickly piled in, swamping the social media thread with criticism, comparisons to Orwells 1984, and hefty doses of British irony.
I'd suggest a copy of this for all officers. Oh, and watch Minority Report. You could probably just lock a good 25% of the public away now and call it crime prevention: just don't use racial profiling to decide who. That would be a hate crime. pic.twitter.com/AZCnrS6P6U Jo Kneale (@AngelKneale) September 10, 2018
Some reported their non-hate crimes.
My ex girlfriend hates me, wrote one Twitter use. Like really hates me. Can you have her sent to jail please?
Some offered their confessions.
Can I turn myself in please, I have participated in non-crime hate incident, at approx 18:00 on or around the 11th September 2018 I prevented my wife buying peas at Asda as I hate them.
SoSouth Yorkshire Police are now investigating Thought Crimes?
No absolutely thats not Troubling at All pic.twitter.com/X8x7hkHBUZ You Got Moxie (@AR_EL_ES_3) September 11, 2018
South Yorkshire Police then explained their position in a further Tweet: While non-crime hate incidents may not be criminal offences, they can feel that way to those affected & can sometimes escalate to crimes taking place.
But the criticism continued to pile up, with scant support of the police position.
Theres a fine-line between fighting true abuse and creating a dystopian society based on fear and informants, wrote one Twitter user. This is on the wrong side of that line. Youre a police department: investigate crimes, not hurt feelings.
Robbery, burglary and muggings in South Yorkshire are up 39% in the 18 months to March 2018, compared to the prior 18 months. Fantastic use of resources here though. Via @HomeDefence_UK Chasm (@ruledbythieves) September 11, 2018
South Yorkshire suffered the highest rise in violent crime of any region in the country last year, up by 62 per cent.
Robbery, burglary and muggings in South Yorkshire are up 39 per cent in the 18 months to March 2018, compared to the prior 18 months, wrote one user. Fantastic use of resources here though.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) arrives at a news conference at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, on July 10, 2018. (Alex Edelman/Getty Images)
Son of Bernie Sanders Loses New Hampshire Congressional Primary
Levi Sanders, the son of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) who touted similar policy positions to his fathers during his congressional campaign, lost his bid for one of New Hampshires two U.S. House seats on Sept. 11.
Sanders, 49, lost by a wide margin, finishing seventh in a field of 11 Democratic primary candidates. According to BallotPedia, Sanders had garnered 1,141 votes by the time of writing, while the winner, Chris Pappas, had 26,875 votes.
Sanders, who had much less name recognition than his father, had been widely seen as an underdog in the race, particularly since his father had declined to endorse him, saying that his family doesnt believe in dynastic politics. However, in a statement earlier this year, Bernie Sanders did offer support to his son, adding that he was proud.
Levi has spent his life in public service to low-income and working families, and I am very proud of all that he has done. Levi is running his own campaign in his own way, Bernie Sanders said.
He added that Levi supports far-left socialist policies such as implementing a $15 an hour minimum wage, Medicare for all, and higher taxes for the wealthy.
On the day of the vote, the younger Sanders lamented his partys current political stance on Twitter.
Vote for me in the # NHPrimary today. The DNC platform is not progressive enough. You cant take blue collar workers for granted weve got to listen to the socioeconomic concerns of the working class, he wrote.
Aside from not receiving an endorsement from his father, the younger Sanders only managed to raise just under $40,000 for his political bid, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Meanwhile, Pappas raised about $823,289 for his campaign.
Sanders had previously attempted to separate himself from his family. Im not a clone of my father, he said in an August profile with The New York Times.
Supervisor Committee to Consider Ending Criminal Justice Fees
The East Bay Community Law Center said on Sept. 12 that it is seeking to convince Alameda County officials to eliminate administrative fees for people who are convicted of crimes.
The law center, a Berkeley-based legal services provider that serves low-income residents in the county, says Alameda County will become only the second county in the U.S. to eliminate such fees if it takes that step.
The issue will be discussed at the board of supervisors Public Protection Committee meeting at the county administration building at 1221 Oak St. in Oakland at 10 a.m. on Sept. 13.
East Bay Community Law Center staff attorney and Clinical Supervisor Brandon Greene said on Sept. 12 that if the committee votes on Sept. 13 in favor of eliminating the administrative fees the matter will go to the board of supervisors in October for final approval.
The law center says the Probation Department, Office of the Alameda County Public Defender and the Sheriffs Office assess what it describes as insurmountable fees on people who are convicted of criminal offenses.
As an example, it says defendants in Alameda County are charged probation supervision fees of up to $90 per month and pre-charge investigation report costs of $710.
The law center alleges in a news release that criminal justice fees in Alameda County are causing high pain for families and low gain for local county government.
Greene said, This is not only a fiscal and good governance issue but also a racial justice issue because the fees disproportionately affect black people, who he said are frequently stopped by the police and are overburdened by housing costs, lower-than-average wages, and the disastrous
impacts of gentrification.
He said, This confluence of issues results in the most marginalized communities being the ones most impacted by court-ordered debt that they cannot afford to pay.
Theresa Zhen, another staff attorney and clinical supervisor at the center, said, The East Bay Community Law Center has represented countless individuals who want a clean start but are unable to get out from underneath the pile of debt imposed by criminal justice administration fees.
Zhen said, A repeal of fees and discharge of outstanding debt would be an important step towards true debt-free justice in Alameda County.
Sheriffs spokesman Sgt. Ray Kelly said on Sept. 12 that his office wont support the proposal to eliminate the fees unless some alternative can be approved by the county to fund the programs we facilitate.
Kelly said, We already charge very minimal service fees as compared to other counties.
The law center said that in 2016 Alameda County eliminated juvenile fees and fines, which led to the passage of a bill that made California the first state in the country to eliminate court fees and fines for juveniles.
The law center said its current campaign would eliminate adult fines and fees in Alameda County.
The center said it has also convened a statewide coalition to end adult criminal justice fees throughout California.
By Jeff Shuttleworth
Texas Man Wounded by His Own Shotgun Shell Boobytrap
A Texas man was wounded after booby-trapping his home with shotgun shells, according to the local sheriffs office.
Police encountered a disoriented 73-year-old man with what appeared to be gunshot wounds outside a house in in Tomball, northwest of Houston on Sept. 11.
According to Harris County Sheriffs Office, the man was erratic, yelling out Theres danger in the home, theres danger in the home.
A deputy went into the house to investigate.
Upon entry into one of the doorways, he encountered some sort of discharge, Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez told reporters on the scene.
That discharge was later determined to be a shotgun shells modified into a boobytrap.
Booby-Trapping Your Home is Against the Law
A SWAT team was called in, and dismantled explosive devices rigged at the entrances and windows of the house.
The SWAT teams own explosions could be heard as they disarmed the devices.
Harris County Senior Deputy Thomas Gilliland told the Chronicle, Evidently, he had encountered a lot of people trying to break into his house or had broken into his house. He took it up on himself to right his home with explosive devices which were small metal-like objects containing a shotgun shell.
The man found outside the house was taken to hospital, suffering from two non-life threatening gunshot-like wounds, Gilliland told reporters in a statement.
The deputy who set off the booby trap was okay but did receive an injury from fragments from the discharge.
Police said that they would meet with the district attorneys office to determine any charges to file against the man in the house.
Booby-trapping ones home is against the law in the state of Texas. To rig your home any way that will deter people from breaking into your home, Gilliland said, according to the Chronicle.
Time Nearly Up: Fierce Hurricane Florence Aims at Southeast
MYRTLE BEACH, S.C.Time is running short to flee Hurricane Florence, a monster of a storm zeroing in on the Southeastern coast with more than 10 million people in its potentially devastating sights.
Florences top sustained wind speeds dropped from a high of 140 mph (225 kph) to 110 mph (175 kph) as its outer rain bands approached the North Carolina coast early Thursday, reducing the storm from Category 4 to Category 2, but forecasters warned that the enormous wind field has been growing larger, raising the risk of the ocean surging on to land.
Do you want to get hit with a train or do you want to get hit with a cement truck? said Jeff Byard, an administrator with the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
As of 5 a.m. EDT it was centered about 205 miles (325 kilometers) east-southeast of Wilmington, North Carolina and about 250 miles (450 kilometers) east-southeast of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, moving northwest at 15 mph (24 kph).
The National Hurricane Centers best guess was that Florences eye would blow ashore as early as Friday afternoon around the North Carolina-South Carolina line. Then, it will likely hover along the coast Saturday, pushing up to 13 feet (nearly 4 meters) of storm surge and dumping 20 to 30 inches (50 to 75 centimeters) of rain on both states, before slogging over the Appalachian Mountains.
The result: catastrophic inland flooding that could swamp homes, businesses, farm fields and industrial sites.
About 5.25 million people live in areas under hurricane warnings or watches, and 4.9 million more live in places covered by tropical storm warnings or watches, the National Weather Service said.
Dont play games with it
Weather Underground meteorology director Jeff Masters said Florence eventually could strike as a Category 1 with winds less than 100 mph (160 kph), but thats still enough to cause at least $1 billion in damage. Water kills more people in hurricanes than wind, and the rain and storm surge will make Florence extremely dangerous.
President Donald Trump both touted the governments readiness and urged people to get out of the way. Dont play games with it. Its a big one, he said at the White House.
Its unclear exactly how many people fled, but more than 1.7 million people in the Carolinas and Virginia were warned to clear out. Airlines canceled nearly 1,000 flights and counting. Home Depot and Lowes activated emergency response centers to get generators, trash bags and bottled water to stores before and after the storm. The two hardware chains said they sent in a total of around 1,100 trucks.
Duke Energy, the nations No. 2 power company, said Florence could knock out electricity to three-quarters of its 4 million customers in the Carolinas, and outages could last for weeks. Workers are being brought in from the Midwest and Florida to help in the storms aftermath, it said.
Boarding up his home in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, Chris Pennington watched the forecasts and tried to decide when to leave.
In 12 or 18 hours, they may be saying different things all over again, he said.
Computer models of exactly what the storm might do varied, adding to the uncertainty. Reacting to the possibility of a more southerly track, Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal declared an emergency but did not immediately order any evacuations.
We hope to have something left when we get home
I ask all Georgians to join me in praying for the safety of our people and all those in the path of Hurricane Florence, Deal said.
In Virginia, where about 245,000 residents were ordered to evacuate low-lying areas, officials urged them to stay in safer locations despite forecast changes showing Florences path largely missing the state.
With their entire neighborhood evacuated in Wilmington, North Carolina, David and Janelle Garrigus planned to ride out Florence at their daughters one-bedroom apartment in Charlotte. Unsure of what they might find when they return home, the couple went shopping for a recreational vehicle.
Were just trying to plan for the future here, not having a house for an extended period of time, David Garrigus said.
Melody Rawson evacuated her first-floor apartment in Myrtle Beach and arrived at Atlanta Motor Speedway in Hampton, Georgia, to camp for free with three other adults, her disabled son, two dogs and a pet bird.
We hope to have something left when we get home, she said. Three other Southern raceways also opened campgrounds to evacuees.
Forecasters worried the storms damage will be all the worse if it lingers on the coast. The trend is exceptionally bad news, said University of Miami hurricane researcher Brian McNoldy, since it smears a landfall out over hundreds of miles of coastline, most notably the storm surge.
With South Carolinas beach towns now more in the bulls-eye because of the shifting forecast, Ohio vacationers Chris and Nicole Roland put off their departure from North Myrtle Beach to get the maximum amount of time on the sand. Most other beachgoers were long gone.
Its been really nice, Nicole Roland said. Also, a little creepy. You feel like you should have already left.
]
Trump Is Right to Declassify FISA Documents, but Political Process Is Complex
Commentary
During a Feb. 7, 2018, interview on Fox & Friends, investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson commented on revelations about ongoing abuses of the FISA court:
The surveillance abuses that we are now seeing are tied into a pattern of 10 to 20 years of bad actors in the intelligence community that have been presenting bad evidence to the FISA court to obtain illegal warrants or warrants that would not otherwise be granted.
The reason they didnt want Donald Trumpits not so much his political positions and how much they hate himhe was the one guy, that once elected, they feared would come in there and peer at what theyve been doing the past 10 to 20 years. Its bigger than the 2016 election.
As one who has herself been subjected to intelligence community surveillance, Attkissons warning merits attention. It would also help explain the incredible resistance we have witnessed regarding the declassification of materials from the Department of Justice (DOJ).
The protection of classified material is crucial to national security and concerns about that should be taken seriously. Of long-standing focus with regard to the declassification process has been the protection of sources and methods. This was explicitly noted by White House chief legal counsel Don McGahn in a cover letter upon release of the House intelligence committee memo:
Though the circumstances leading to the declassification through this process are extraordinary, the Executive Branch stands ready to work with Congress to accommodate oversight requests consistent with the applicable standards and processes, including the need to protect intelligence sources and methods.
McGahn is correct in his stated concerns. But what happens when sources are fictitiously created, using improper or even illegal methods that hide behind classified designations as a means to prevent detection.
We know from the FISA application to spy on Trump campaign adviser Carter Page that both the controversial Steele dossier, which alleged collusion between Trump and Russia, and media reporting were used as sources. It appears that individuals within the FBI may have been the underlying sources for the some of that very same media reporting. Concerns about unauthorized leaks were raised by the DOJs internal inspector general in a recent report:
We have profound concerns about the volume and extent of unauthorized media contacts by FBI personnel that we have uncovered during our review, the report says.
Against this backdrop, White House lawyers are reportedly reviewing documents for possible declassification. The Carter Page FISA application and communications of high-ranking DOJ official Bruce Ohr with the FBI both are repeatedly mentioned as targets for declassification.
Just as in the declassification of the House Intelligence memo, the question of sources and methods also comes into play in the Page FISA. Officials are reportedly weighing the merits of wholesale declassification versus partial redactions.
The Daily Caller reported that Emmett Flood, who is reportedly leading the review process, and his colleagues within the counsels office are generally opposed to declassification, out of the concern for the precedent it would set, as well as any unintended consequences of making the information public.
There is an underlying reason why Flood is handling this process. McGahn recused his entire staff last summer from working on matters related to the Russia investigation. The decision was apparently made as the result of the significant involvement both he and members of his staff had in the Michael Flynn case and the firing of former FBI Director James Comey. In what feels like a strategic move by special counsel Robert Muellers team, McGahn reportedly met with them for at least 30 hours of questioning.
McGahns involvement in the House Intelligence memo review technically originated from Gang of Eight Congressional oversight, through a request from House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.). The current request for declassification of documents is originating from members of the House, thus likely providing a legal delineation for McGahn.
Underneath all of this lies a basic struggle: An entrenched bureaucracy or so-called deep state that appears openly in opposition to President Donald Trump and his backers within Congress.
As a result, theres been increasing clamor for declassification of multiple documents. While its true that the president holds the constitutional power to do so, practical considerations almost certainly intrude on the process.
There are political ramifications should a declassification request be refused. Trump might be forced to fire that individual for insubordination, turning what had been a declassification process suddenly into a political firestorm.
Additionally, there is a secondary issue of precedentone that originates with the requesting source. One concern is that members of Congress might demand declassification of intelligence documents from the executive branch in the future.
Politicization of the entire classification process becomes a real risk.
There is also an issue of timing. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh is nearing confirmation with a vote just weeks away. Imagine the questions he will face should the declassification occur before his confirmation. There may be some horse-trading taking place on this very issue. Midterm elections are also probably part of the calculus.
Another concern relates to the issue raised in the Attkisson interview. If declassification takes place and highlights ongoing abuses of the FISA court, what transpires next? Do past cases then require review, and if so, how far back does one go?
In many respects, we find ourselves in uncharted territory and a level of uncertainty reigns.
Trump wants to see documents declassified. Some members of Congress have been calling for the same. Meanwhile, the DOJ appears adamantly opposed and members of the presidents own legal counsel and staff appear to be in oppositionat least in certain matters of precedent and rightly held concerns regarding the law of unintended consequence.
Why Declassification Is Needed
Personally, Im in favor of sunlight but its worth noting that external considerations exist. The declassification process is likely not as simple in practical terms as it may appear. If it was, Trump probably would have ordered a declassification of the Page FISA before the traditional 60-day quiet period leading into the midterm elections.
Some have raised a possible outcome I tend to agree with. The use of Part I, Section 1.7 of Executive Order 13526, which governs classification processes:
Sec. 1.7. Classification Prohibitions and Limitations. (a) In no case shall information be classified, continue to be maintained as classified, or fail to be declassified in order to:
(1) conceal violations of law, inefficiency, or administrative error;
(2) prevent embarrassment to a person, organization, or agency;
(3) restrain competition; or
(4) prevent or delay the release of information that does not require protection in the interest of the national security.
Items 1, 2 and 4 all likely apply but declassification appears most likely to occur under item 1 and/or 2.
Newly released texts from Dec. 15, 2016, between then-FBI Agent Peter Strzok and his mistress, then-FBI counsel Lisa Page, both of whom worked on the FBIs counterintelligence investigation against Trump, provide a relevant example of applicability.
In the first text, Page notes a pending article from the New York Times; Oh, remind me to tell you tomorrow about the times doing a story about the rnc hacks. Strzok responds; And more than they already did? I told you Quinn told me they pulling out all the stops on some story
Strzok then describes potential sources for leaks to the media; Think our sisters have begun leaking like mad. Scorned and worried, and political, theyre kicking into overdrive. He finishes with this; And we need to talk more about putting C reporting in our submission. Theyre going to declassify all of it
Page responds; I know. But theyre going to declassify their stuff, how do we withhold.
Strzok, appearing to acknowledge her concerns, texted: We will get extraordinary questions. What we did what were doing. Just want to ensure everyone is good with it and has thought thru all implications.
Sisters may refer to one of the other 17 intelligence agencies; C is almost certainly classified.
Submission may refer to materials included in FISA renewals on Carter Page, which was renewed a few weeks after this particular conversation on Jan. 12, 2017.
Although this is just one example among many, the newly released texts appear to illustrate how the intelligence community was able to shelter itself behind classified information. It may finally be time to see that shelter removed.
Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
The extra parcels are along the north side of Weston. The 1.4-acre site endorsed by the park board this week was once a parking lot for a medical building across from the former Copley, which is also abandoned. Park officials pointed out that in that sense, developing the park will be similar to whats being done along Palace Street, on the near West Side behind the Northgate Shopping Center turning a parking lot into a park.
(L) Lisa Page, former legal counsel to former FBI Director Andrew McCabe, arrives on Capitol Hill on July 16, 2018. (Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images) (R) FBI Deputy Assistant Director Peter Strzok testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington on July 12, 2018. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)
Trump Slams Strzok, Page as Disaster for FBI and DOJ Over Media-Leak Texts
President Donald Trump criticized former FBI Deputy Assistant Director Peter Strzok and his mistress, former FBI attorney Lisa Page, on Sept. 13 as an embarrassment to the FBI and DOJ, after newly leaked text messages between the two showed that government officials were leaking like mad to damage the president.
After Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) revealed in a letter that Strzok and Page had discussed a media-leak strategy, a new batch of communications between Strzok and Page was selectively leaked to Fox News and investigative reporter Sara Carter. A spokesman for Meadows didnt respond to a request from The Epoch Times for the full text of the communications or the context of the exchange between Strzok and Page.
More text messages between former FBI employees Peter Strzok and Lisa Page are a disaster and embarrassment to the FBI & DOJ. This should never have happened but we are learning more and more by the hour. Others were leaking like mad in order to get the President! Trump wrote on Twitter.
One exchange, dated Dec. 15, 2016, shows that Strzok and Page were intimately familiar with an upcoming New York Times article.
Oh, remind me to tell you tomorrow about the times doing a story about the rnc [sic] hacks, Page wrote to Strzok.
And more than they already did? I told you Quinn told me they pulling out all the stops on some story. Strzok replied.
The rnc acronym refers to Republican National Committee, the times refers to The New York Times, and Quinn is likely Richard Quinn, who headed the FBIs Media and Investigative Publicity Section in the Office of Public Affairs until last November.
Think our sisters have begun leaking like mad. Scorned and worried, and political, theyre kicking into overdrive, Strzok wrote in a follow-up message.
By sisters, Strzok likely referred to any of the other intelligence agencies in the Intelligence Community.
On the day the texts were sent, news outlets cited American intelligence officials in reporting that Russian President Vladimir Putin was personally involved in a cyber attack on the U.S. election and gave the go-ahead to carry out the operation.
Less than a week prior to the texts, The New York Times cited senior administration officials to report that U.S. intelligence agencies had concluded that Russia interfered in the election to harm Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton and promote Trump.
The Department of Justice (DOJ) received new Strzok-Page messages from the DOJ inspector general and forwarded the batch to Congress in mid-August, according to a DOJ spokesperson.
The FBI fired Strzok in August. Page left the bureau in May.
Strzok was the lead agent in two of the biggest investigations in the United States in the run-up to the 2016 election: the probe of Clintons use of an unauthorized private email server to conduct government business and the counterintelligence probe into allegations of collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign.
Strzok and Page worked on special counsel Robert Muellers team once it took over the Russia investigation. Mueller removed Strzok from the investigation after seeing texts where Strzok expressed intense bias against Trump and in favor of Clinton.
US Government Seeks to Help Small-Business Workers Save for Retirement
CHICAGOCarrot or stick?
Both approaches have advocates when it comes to a critical retirement security goal: getting more workers at small businesses to save for retirement.
The carrot strategy calls for making it easier for small employers to offer 401(k) accounts to workers by reducing cost and administrative burden. The stick is a possible requirement that small employers who do not offer their own plans allow workers to contribute to government-sponsored Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs).
A growing number of states have been tackling the small-business coverage problem by creating these auto-IRA plans and the stick is rather small. In most cases, employers above a certain size are required to set up automatic payroll deduction for workers. Employers are not required to make matching contributions or to administer the plans.
But President Donald Trump announced his support recently for the carrota concept known as open multiple-employer plans, or MEPs. Trump signed an executive order late last month directing the government to consider ways to liberalize rules governing these retirement plans, which already enjoy bipartisan backing in Congress and strong support from the financial services industry.
The executive order also directs the U.S. Department of Treasury to review the formulas to determine how much retirees must withdraw from tax-deferred accounts annually, with an eye toward letting them keep more of their savings longer.
What exactly constitutes a small business varies depending on industry and other factors, with some definitions capping the number of employees at 1,500 and others at just 10.
So what is an open MEP, and why might we need them?
Data shows that workers at small businesses are far less likely to be offered a 401(k) plan than their counterparts at larger companies. Just 28 percent of U.S. firms with fewer than 10 employees offered workers a plan in 2012, according to research by the Social Security Administration. The coverage numbers were higher for companies with 25 to 49 workers (63 percent) and those with 50 to 99 workers (73 percent). By comparison, 87 percent of firms with 100 or more workers offered their workers a 401(k) plan.
At present, MEPs can be offered only to companies in the same industry or profession; the executive order directs the U.S. Department of Labor and the U.S. Treasury to issue new rules making it easier for small businesses from diverse industries to join open MEPs.
The open-MEP idea has been gaining bipartisan support in Congressit is a key component of the proposed Retirement Enhancement and Savings Act (RESA).
Basically, we will be trying to find policy ideas that will help make joining a 401(k) plan a more attractive proposition for small employers, to the ultimate benefit to their employees, Preston Rutledge, assistant secretary of labor for the Employee Benefits Security Administration, told reporters on a recent conference call.
Major business organizations representing the financial services industry have been pushing open MEPs aggressively, in part as the alternative approach to the state-sponsored plans, which they view as inferior to the 401(k) plans they operate for employers. And the Trump administration backed them up. Last year, it successfully promoted legislation that reversed an earlier Labor Department rule that established guidelines for state and local governments to set up the plans.
Carrot and stick both have their place in boosting the availability of retirement plans at small firms, argues John Scott, director of retirement savings at the Pew Charitable Trusts. These are complementary ideas, he said in an interview. He views the state auto IRA plans as good starter accounts for workers. Oregon was the first out the gate with a plan and eight other statesincluding California and Illinoisare getting ready to launch.
The plans enroll workers by default unless they opt out. Initial contribution levels range from 3 to 5 percent, with contributions invested in low-cost target date funds. But they lack some of the most attractive features offered by large employers plans, such as matching contributions and higher annual contribution limits. This year, you can contribute $5,500 to an IRA ($6,500 if you are age 50 or older), but the contribution limit for employees to 401(k) accounts is $18,500.
Tweaking Required Distributions
The executive order also calls for a review of the formulas used to determine the amount of required minimum distributions (RMDs) from tax-deferred retirement accounts. When you reach age 70 1/2, a certain amount of your tax-deferred savings in IRAs and most 401(k) accounts must be drawn down every year under the RMD rules. And younger people need may need to take RMDs on inherited IRAs.
Missing an RMD leaves you on the hook for an onerous 50 percent tax penalty, plus interest, on the amounts you failed to draw on time. Income taxes must be paid on the withdrawn funds, and RMDs also can trigger additional taxes on Social Security income and even high-income Medicare premium surcharges.
The order directs the U.S. Treasury to consider whether the tables should be revised in light of rising longevity (the life expectancy tables were last revised in 2002).
Some proposals for reform of RMDs would go further than reviewing the longevity assumptions. This week, Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives called for the elimination of RMDs from accounts with $50,000 or less as part of a broader set of tax cuts billed as Tax Reform 2.0.
The opinions expressed here are those of Mark Miller, a columnist for Reuters.
Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi speaks in New York on Sept. 5, 2018. Uber is aiming to boost driver and passenger safety in an effort to rebuild trust in the brand. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
Uber the Latest Tech Giant Expanding in Toronto
CEO Dara Khosrowshahi fixing companys bad reputation
Toronto as a tech hub keeps getting bigger. Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi announced the ride-sharing company would be investing over $200 million in the next five years as it opens a new engineering office in 2019.
Microsoft and Intel also unveiled plans to expand in Toronto this week. Canadas largest city has a growing reputation as a tech hot spot. There is a confluence of universities breeding talent in the TorontoWaterloo corridor and big tech companies seek to tap it in the search to find qualified workers.
Ubers headcount will grow to more than 500 in the next few years. Khosrowshahi attended an event at the MaRS Discovery District innovation hub on Sept. 13. It was his first visit to Toronto.
At Uber, we recognize Canadas commitment to innovation and the vibrancy of Torontos tech ecosystem, he said in a statement. We want to support the innovation coming out of this great, diverse region.
Ubers engineering office will focus on the back-end infrastructure that will support product offerings like Jump bike and e-scooter rentals. Also in the works is a way of sharing the cost of a trip for passengers traveling along similar routes called Express Pool.
Uber has also been testing self-driving vehicles in Toronto, but the cars have not been picking up passengers. The San Francisco-based firm opened its Advanced Technologies Group Research & Development Centre in Toronto in May 2017, which has focused on self-driving vehicles.
One black eye Uber is trying to put behind it is the death of a pedestrian caused by one of its self-driving cars in Arizona.
Building best-in-class self-driving technology will take time, and safety is our priority every step of the way, the company said in a Sept. 13 release. It is teaming up with Toyota to build self-driving cars.
Uber also has a food delivery business in Toronto called Uber Eats.
Khosrowshahi, an Iranian-American, was previously CEO of Expedia before taking over from embattled founder and CEO Travis Kalanick in August 2017. He has been dealing with scandals and bad press, but in a bid to improve the companys reputation, he has made safety the first priorityfor passengers and drivers.
In an interview with the Associated Press, Khosrowshahi said the company has to show a path to profitability, but is also looking at going public in late 2019.
With files from The Canadian Press
Update: Bomb Threat Under Investigation, No Threat to Public
Sheriffs officials said deputies have found no evidence of a bomb or any behaviors suggesting someone was going to carry out a bombing at a convenience store this evening in Half Moon Bay.
Someone called the sheriffs office at 5:15 p.m. on Sept. 11, to report a threat at the 7-Eleven store at 196 San Mateo Road.
Sheriffs spokeswoman Detective Rosemerry Blankswade said the investigation is still ongoing to determine how credible the threat was but there is no threat to the public.
By Keith Burbank
US Lawmakers Urge Export Restrictions to Penalize China for Xinjiang Abuses
BEIJINGTwo U.S. lawmakers are urging the extension of tougher American export restrictions to prevent sales of equipment that could be used in Chinas massive security clampdown targeting the Xinjiang regions native mostly Uyghur Muslim population.
Senator Marco Rubio and Representative Chris Smith want foreign entities, including businesses, research institutions, government and private organizations, and individuals seen as profiting from the clampdown to be added to a watch list, the two Republicans, among the staunchest critics of China in the U.S. Congress, said in a letter on Sept. 12 to Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross.
U.S. companies should not be assisting in the expansion of Chinas systems for surveillance, detection, and detention, or be complicit in what are gross violations of internationally recognized human rights occurring daily in Xinjiang, the letter said.
Dozens of Chinese companies are already on the Commerce Departments Entity List, though none with an explicit, direct link to the oppression in Xinjiang. The U.S. has long maintained restrictions on the export of crime control and detection equipment to China.
Entities on the list are under export administration regulations requiring them to obtain a license if they seek to export, re-export, or transfer items.
The letter cites Anthony Christino, director of the Commerce Department Bureau of Industry and Security, Foreign Policy Division, who stated in recent testimony before the Congressional-Executive Commission on China that it was evaluating whether there is sufficient evidence to justify additional end-user restrictions.
It said the commission was awaiting an update as to the status and anticipated timeline of this interagency process, but said the government should err on the side of caution.
Given the national integration of Chinas state security apparatus, we believe there should also be a presumption of denial for any sale of technology or equipment that would make a direct and significant contribution to the police surveillance and detection system, the letter said.
No specific entities were named in the letter, which is the latest sign that the detentions are raising concerns among foreign leaders, governments, activist groups, media outlets, and private citizens.
Over recent years, Xinjiang has been transformed into a vast security state, packed with police stations, street cameras, and security checkpoints at which electronic identity cards are scanned. Travel restrictions prevent free movement or even the opportunity to visit friends and relatives in nearby towns.
The measures target members of the Uyghur, Kazakh, and other Muslim minority groups, with the regions ethnically Chinese residents largely exempted.
In addition, monitoring groups say as many as 1 million Muslims have been sent to a system of internment camps, also known as re-education centers, where they are locked up for months without trial and forced to undergo political indoctrination and renounce Islam and traditional culture.
China has denied operating the system of camps, despite extensive documentation from those interned and relatives, and other evidence such as satellite photos and government documents.
The Sept. 12 letter follows one last month from U.S. lawmakers, including Rubio and Smith, addressed to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, calling for measures to address the ongoing human rights crisis in Xinjiang.
The letter singled out Xinjiangs top leader, Chen Quanguo and other officials seen as behind the clampdown, saying they should be sanctioned under the Global Magnitsky Act that allows the U.S. government to place travel and financial restrictions on individuals anywhere in the worldgiven credible proof of their role in human rights violations or corruption.
That letter also mentioned two companies that could be sanctioned under a separate executive order, Hikvision and Dahua Technology, both of which make video surveillance technology used extensively throughout Xinjiang to track residents and restrict their movements.
Asked on Sept. 11 about the possibility of sanctions, State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said the United States has a lot of tools at our disposal but mentioned no details.
Its the old standard line on sanctions, that were not going to preview any sanctions that may or may not happen, Nauert told reporters.
Also on Sept. 12, Australias opposition Labor Party issued a statement saying it was deeply concerned by continuing reports of the mass detention of Chinas minority Uyghur population and other violations of human rights, citing questions brought by members of the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination in Geneva last week.
That followed a statement by the Australian National Imams Council condemning the treatment of Uyghurs as inhumane and unbearable and urging action from the Australian government.
Muslim activists in Bangladesh, meanwhile, marched through the capital chanting slogans and carrying signs demanding China stop religious persecution of Uyghurs.
By Christopher Bodeen
A billboard in central Denver in April 2017 placed by Smart Colorado, an advocacy group that raises awareness on the risks that marijuana poses to youth. (The Canadian Press/Joe Mahoney)
We Are Seeing the Ill Effects of Pot Legalization, Says Colorado Police Officer
Four years on, legalization of recreational marijuana in Colorado has brought its own set of problems
As legalization of recreational marijuana forges ahead in Canada, a U.S. law enforcement officer says making the drug legal is not such a good idea if Colorado is anything to go by.
Marijuana was legalized in Colorado in January 2014, and the consequences across the state have been negative with no upside, says Ernie Martinez, a command officer with the Denver Metro Police Department for 35 years and director-at-large for the National Narcotics Officers Associations Coalition.
Weve had a bevy of different issues since legalization. It has not been a good thing, he said.
Because of the acceptability, affordability, and availability paradigm, weve seen increases in burglaries of dispensaries, burglaries of houses, robberies, home invasion robberies, aggravated assaults, and also the possession of marijuana for people under 21. Thats across the state.
Cases of people driving while high have risen too, as have addiction rates.
Weve had increased addiction rates simply because of the accessibility, the affordability, as well as the potency of the THC [marijuanas main psychoactive agent] in smokable marijuana, he said.
The year after legalization, use among Coloradans aged 12 to 17 spiked and then dropped back to pre-legalization levels, according to data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health. The legal age for anyone to use or possess marijuana in the state is 21.
Among adults, however, cannabis use increased significantly, from 17 percent in 20132014 to 20 percent in 20142015.
Colorado and Washington were the first two U.S. states to vote to legalize cannabis for recreational purposes. Nine other states have followed suit, although the federal government still deems it illegal.
Marijuana becomes legal in Canada on Oct. 17, making it the first G7 country to do so and the second in the world after Uruguay where cannabis use is legal nationwide.
One of the main reasons Ottawa has given for the move is to weaken the criminal role in the market. But legalization hasnt had that result in Colorado, according to Martinez.
The illegal black market has mushroomed, he said. Legalization hasnt taken away the black marketin fact its increased, as we (law enforcement) predicted, he said.
Martinez said new crime patterns such as massive illegal grow operations have appeared since legalization and police dont have the resources to keep up with them all.
We have so many different rental buildings, condominiums, and townhomes across the state that are rented in blocksfive to six to seven at a timeand they are utilized by either pseudo or full-blown organized crime to have illegal grows of 1,000 plants on up, he said.
Legalization has, however, brought a boost to the states economy. The industry reached $683 million in sales in 2014, the first year pot was legal, and soared to $1.26 billion in 2017, according to data from the Colorado Department of Revenue.
But Martinez is still not convinced legalization was a good move.
Its an all-encompassing problem and an all-encompassing venture to want to legalize this all for the almighty dollar, and at what cost to society does that occur?
As of June 2017, there were 491 retail marijuana stores in Colorado compared to 392 Starbucks and 208 McDonalds, according to the Rocky Mountain High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Report.
Across the state, 68 percent of jurisdictions have banned medical and recreational marijuana businesses.
Very concerned
Andrew Prokop, the mayor of Taber in Alberta, has heard of the situation in Colorado and says he worries something similar could happen here.
Overall, as a council we are very concerned about [legalization in Canada], he said, noting the rise in criminal activity in Colorado since legalization, with law enforcement spending roughly 15 percent more time on drug investigations, as well as a doubling of traffic fatalities compared to previously.
Theyre having to lay out tax dollar costs to try to deal with this, he said.
What makes us think we in Alberta or Canada are going to be any different than whats going on in Colorado?
Last November, Taber town council tried but failed to stop legalization by submitting a motion at the annual meeting of the Alberta Urban Municipalities Association asking the association to lobby Ottawa to repeal the Cannabis Act.
On Sept. 11, Halifax regional council voted for a full ban on smoking or vaping any substanceincluding tobacco, marijuana, and medical marijuanaon all municipal property except for designated smoking areas.
Richmond city council in B.C. stated their opposition to legalization in a letter to the provincial and federal governments in October 2017. And in Ontario last month, the mayors of three municipalities said they will choose to opt out of having a marijuana retail store in their communities.
Richmond Hill Mayor David Barrow has indicated that over 1,000 residents have signed a petition asking that no marijuana stores be opened in the municipality.
The concern with the community is the fact that it will be seen to be an acceptable thing to do, and most parents dont want their children to be thinking that thats the case, he said in an interview with CTV.
Use among youth is also a concern for Prokop, who notes medical studies showing that marijuana use can damage brain development in those aged between 12 and 24. The minimum age for use in Canada after legalization is 19.
Were all just trying to do whats best for our own individual municipalities and province, and weve got some serious concerns about whats likely to happen going forward, he said.
Martinezs advice to Canada is to go slow. Do whats good for society.
The fact is, were seeing the ill effects of [legalization]. No matter if people think that Colorado has a very highly regulated frameworkits regulated to a degree that it can bebut at the same time theres so many deficiencies that point to the truth of the matter and the truth of whats good for society.
Were Not Agents, Alleged Russian Assassins Claim on State-Controlled TV
Britain has accused the 2 men of a failed hit on turncoat ex-KGB colonel Skripal
Two men accused by the British government of being Russian spies who used a military-grade poison to try to kill a turncoat ex-KGB colonel and his daughter in the English city of Salisbury have gone on Russian television to say they were merely tourists.
The suspects, Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, believed by Scotland Yard to be aliases used by members of Russias GRU military intelligence service, broke their silence to speak with an interviewer for Russian state-funded news channel RT on Sept. 13. The men said their real names are indeed Petrov and Boshirov, and that they visited Salisbury to see its famous cathedral.
RT interview with the two men accused by British police of Salisbury poisoning coming out pic.twitter.com/7sqByxc1ZL Andrew Roth (@Andrew__Roth) September 13, 2018
Our friends had been suggesting for a long time that we visit this wonderful town, Petrov said.
Salisbury, a wonderful town? asked the interviewer, RTs editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan, with an apparent note of incredulity in her voice.
Yes, insisted Boshirov.
Theres the famous Salisbury cathedral, he said, famous not only in Europe, but in the whole world. Its famous for its 123-meter (404 feet) spire. Its famous for its clock, one of the first ever created in the world.
The interview was immediately denounced as a farce in the UK, according to the British tabloid The Mirror.
Putin Prefaces Tell-All Interviews
Anticipation of the public appearance of the two suspected state assassins was whipped up by none other than Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Speaking on Sept. 12 at an economic conference in Russias far eastern city of Vladivostok, Putin said the two suspects had been found and insisted that they dont work for the military.
We know who these people are, we have found them, Putin said. I hope they will turn up themselves and tell everything. This would be best for everyone. There is nothing special there, nothing criminal, I assure you.
Putin also gave assurances the two suspected Russian GRU military intelligence officers arent state agents and hinted that they would soon appear on television to tell all.
Of course they are civilians, Putin replied to a question by the moderator. He then called on the men to come forward.
They should go to some media outlet. I hope they will come forward and tell about themselves.
Sure, to my studio on Saturday, the moderator replied, setting the stage for what may have been the start of a carefully rehearsed set of interviews.
The case bears similarities to the 2006 assassination on British soil of former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko. His suspected killers, Andrey Lugovoy and Dmitry Kovtun, were paraded in Russian media as they forcefully denied any involvement.
Ex-KGB agent Lugovoy, now a national celebrity and politician, fought extradition attempts by Scotland Yard for the murder of Litvinenko, who was poisoned in a similar fashion to the Skripals.
Lugovoy met with Mark Campbell of the Times of London for an in-person interview shortly after the attempt on Skripals life in March.
I said to my wife, Here we go, its starting again. Now, everyones calling me, making a comparison with me, Lugovoy said.
He then dismissed the suggestion that Putin, who once famously warned that Russian traitors would kick the bucket wherever they fled, had anything to do with the assassination attempt on Skripal as crazy.
Putins suggestion that the alleged state assassins might break cover to take part in a similar public expose caused Russian media to react with immediate glee.
Within minutes, Putins remarks became top news on Russian TV, which called them simply sensational, according to the BBC.
Full of Admiration
A talk show on the state-controlled Channel One speculated whether the fallout from the accusations, discredited by Putins revelations, would force British Prime Minister Theresa May to resign in embarrassment.
A commentator on state-run Rossiya 1 television was enthusiastically applauded by a studio audience after admitting to being full of admiration for how Vladimir Putin is doing it.
Kremlin media also revealed that one of the suspects, Petrov, might appear on television next week to make a public statement.
You honestly look very tense, Simonyan said to the two men during the interview.
And how would you look after all of that? Petrov responded, before Boshirov said the British investigation ruined their lives.
When your life is turned upside down, you dont know what to do and where to go. Were afraid of going out, we fear for ourselves, our lives and lives of our loved ones, Boshirov said.
Diplomatic Fallout
Britain and more than two dozen other countries expelled a total of 150 Russians working under diplomatic cover after the Skripals were poisoned. Russia retaliated by kicking out a similar number of envoys.
May said the use of a chemical weapon on British soil was carried out by officers of the GRU intelligence service and was almost certainly approved at a senior level of the Russian state. Scotland Yard published a series of surveillance images allegedly showing the two suspects in action.
The two were caught on camera at various points of their weekend trip to the UK, including on March 4, about a mile from Skripals house, where the chemical toxin was sprayed on his door.
Later that same day, Skripal and his daughter were found unconscious on a park bench, seriously ill from having come in contact with the toxin.
The alleged assassination attempt caused Skripal and his daughter to be hospitalized and resulted in the death of Dawn Sturgess, a British mother of three.
The toxic nerve agent also left two other BritonsSturgesss boyfriend, Charlie Rowley, and police officer Nick Baileysuffering from the effects of the exotic poison.
Britain has charged Boshirov and Petrov in absentia with the Novichok poisoning.
Allies of Britain issued a joint statement pledging to join Mays campaign against the Russian GRU spy agency.
We have full confidence in the British assessment that the two suspects were officers from the Russian military intelligence service, also known as the GRU, and that this operation was almost certainly approved at a senior government level, the statement issued by Canada, France, Germany, and the United States says.
Moscow has vehemently denied any claims that it had anything to do with the attack and, to discredit the accusations, has conducted multiple disinformation campaigns, according to British authorities, of which the interview with the two suspects on Russian-controlled television may be another example.
With Weak Economy and High Taxes, Greek Businesses Find Ways to Cheat Taxman
ATHENSIts just like in the film The Matrix: You can choose either the blue pill or the red pill.
Thats how 34-year-old small business owner Dimitris Hatzipetrou describes making ethical choices in business.
If you choose to go by the book, you can change your mind and take the other pill anytime you want. But once you choose the use of unlawful tactics to do business, you can never go back, said Hatzipetrou, who operates Le Petit Village, a small yet popular cafe in the heart of Athens.
Its like you are tasting a sweet drink that you dont want to stop drinking.
Hatzipetrou said he has never broken the law or avoided paying taxes himself. However, with the high taxes and fees that businesses are required to pay in an unstable financial situation like this, he can see why many see cheating as their only option.
Sometimes, I tend to believe that the Greek government lets businesses, or even individuals, cheat so they can blame them later and get them to pay the fine.
According to the research and policy institute didaNEOsis, tax evasion occurs more often in Greece than in other developed countries.
Earlier this month, the government launched an investigation into tax evasion among businesses operating on the islands in the Ionian Sea in the westernmost part of the country. The findings showed that more than 60 percent of businesses are involved in tax fraud, and over 80 percent are evading required payments to the social security administration of the Ministry of Labor.
In one case, in the island city of Zakynthos, a business that had officially shut down in 2011 was found to be continuing operation in private to avoid paying taxes and fees. On Kefalonia, 14 of the 25 catering businesses audited were found to be infringing the laws. Further north, on the island of Corfu, eight of the nine businesses investigated werent operating legally.
Cant Afford It
According to PricewaterhouseCoopers, tax rates in Greece are among the highest in Europe. There are many other fees that businesses are required to pay as well.
Business tax stands at 29 percent, and VAT, a consumption tax charged in Europe, is up to 24 percent, although Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said this month the rates will be lowered in phases.
On top of the taxes, businesses are required to pay thousands of euros in different fees and contributions, such as social security payments, charged to both companies and employees, and a 500 euro ($580) fee for owning a business in a city with a population of over 200,000.
Greeks have to deal with high income and property taxes as well, all chipping away at the money that they can bring home at the end of the day.
Styliani Lamperi, a 29-year-old graphic designer, said she worked a full-time job as a graphic designer from 2010 to 2012, but her hiring was never made official so her employer could pay less to the government.
She asked me if I wanted to get 100 euros more than the average pay, because she would rather give it to me than give double the amount in taxes, she recalled.
She was younger back then and needed the extra money more than the benefits, so she immediately said yes, and they shook hands. No contracts, no benefits.
Lamperi said she understands why her employer made the offer. I would be costly to them. I can understand why a company would avoid hiring someone.
Elias, a 25-year-old journalist, who asked to keep his last name private, has been working for one of the few remaining Greek newspapers, and also as a freelance correspondent for UK newspapers. On paper, however, Elias has been unemployed since 2014.
If I had walked the legal path, I would have registered a company and paid taxes. But, to be honest, I cant afford it, he said.
I make 1,000 euros a month, which is 12,000 euros a year. Giving almost 70 percent of my income to the government is, simply put, suicidal. So, I choose to not abide by the law.
Needle in Strawberry Sends Young Man to Hospital
Authorities Suspect Foul Play
A Queensland man posted on Facebook that his friend had swallowed half a sewing needle after eating a strawberry from Woolworths on Sept. 9.
Joshua Gane said that he and his friend Hoani van Dorp had bought a punnet of Berry Obsession strawberries from the Woolworths in Strathpine Centre.
When Van Dorp bit through the strawberry, he found that he had swallowed half a sewing needle.
The pair then checked the other strawberries and found a sewing needle inside another one.
Following the horrific find, the friends went to the ER as Van Dorp was suffering from severe abdominal pain, Gane explained in his post.
Gane made the Facebook post while they were at the ER at 12:52 p.m. local time.
On the same day, Gane received a phone call from the Strathpine Woolworths store manager telling him that a recall of the product had been issued for the store. The store also contacted the supplier, the police, and the health and safety authorities.
They are also contacting the supplier, the police and health and safety, Gane stated. They suspect it is foul play, but unsure whether it was via the supplier, Woolworths, or a customer.
As a precaution, Queensland Healths chief health officer, Jeanette Young, advised people in the states of Queensland, Victoria, and NSW on Sept. 12 to throw out their strawberries that were bought early last week, the Herald Sun reported.
If someone were to swallow a sewing needle, it could get caught up in their gut, Young told the newspaper.
Officials Give Warning, Launch Investigation
After the Facebook post, the police launched an investigation on Sept. 9.
According to the Herald Sun, health officials and police said on Sept. 12 that three punnets of strawberries from Queensland and Victoria had been found to have needles in themone from Queensland and two from Victoria.
Authorities said that the contaminated strawberriesbranded Berrylicious and Berry Obsessioncame from two farms located next to each other in south-east Queensland. The two brands can be found in Woolworths and potentially other stores.
Queensland Acting Chief Superintendent Terry Lawrence said on Sept. 12 that the police were in contact with the farm operators and Woolworths representatives, and that they believed that the offender contaminated the stock intentionally.
[Its been done] obviously to injure somebody, he said.
Police from both Queensland and Victoria are now investigating across three states to find the people responsible, the ABC reported.
Detective Acting Chief Superintendent Terry Lawrence told media that while the Strawberry Growers Association said they believed that disgruntled ex-employee may be responsible for the needles, police are not agreeing with that at all at this point in time.
Our investigation is still open, were not going to get into speculation.
Were keeping a very open mind as to where this may have occurred somewhere between the actual growing of the strawberry through to the end of the production line, including even further through to distribution and going onto the shelves, he said.
Police are currently interviewing what could end up being around 100 staff from the two affected farms, the ABC reported.
Copycat Cases
This recommendation came about after the fourth case of contamination came about in Gatton, west of Brisbane. Authorities are saying that this is a copycat case.
Angela Stevenson, a mother of two, bought Berry Obsession strawberries from Woolworths in Gladstone on Sept. 11, ABC reported.
She had already sent her nine-year-old to school with uncut strawberries, but when cutting more strawberries for her 12-month-old at home, she found a needle.
I was just cutting up some fruit in the morning for my 12-month-old and hit something hard and pulled it back and there was a needle embedded in it, Stevenson told the ABC.
Stevenson immediately called her sons school and told them to stop her son from eating the strawberries.
It wasnt five minutes later they rang back and said it was too late, hed actually bitten into it.
Luckily hed pulled it back out of his mouth, Stevenson said. And told the teacher there was a needle in his strawberry.
Stevenson felt thankful that she didnt just pull the head off and give it to her 12-month-old completely whole.
Authorities said on Sept. 13 that they believe that they had mitigated enough risk for customers to buy strawberries again, as all stock had been replaced.
Isolated Incidents, but Check Before Eating
Strawberries Australias industry development officer Jennifer Rowling told the ABC that the industry is devastated by this incident and its distressing to think that someones done something like this.
She said that with the affected products having been taken off the shelves, the public can now feel safe eating strawberries, adding that the incidents. She said that people can chop them in half if they remained concerned about the presence of needles.
Lawrence also encouraged people to check strawberries before they are consumed.
Just cut them up, have a look, its not going to destroy it, he said. It makes it difficult because you might need to dispose of them earlier, but just cut them up for safetys sake.
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French President Emmanuel Macron's government called the European Parliament vote censuring Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban as a first step in the fight against "illiberals" in the region.
Attempting to frame the vote in the context of the May 2019 European parliamentary elections, France said it presented a choice of "values" for the Old Continent's future. Macron has sought to take the lead in fighting nationalists including Hungary's Orban and Italy's Matteo Salvini. He has called himself their "main opponent."
EU lawmakers voted on Wednesday for Orban's government to face possible sanctions for eroding democratic standards. The 448-to-197 vote came after Orban's years of assault on civil liberties, judicial independence, educational freedom and media plurality. In his third consecutive term as Hungary's leader, he has boasted about creating an "illiberal" state, thumbed his nose at the EU and helped thwart deeper European integration.
Macron's Republic On The Move is "delighted that the EU lawmakers heard our call" to fight nationalists, Christophe Castaner, party leader and a close ally of the president, said in statement.
A French presidential aide said Wednesday's vote will contribute to the "regrouping" of European political entities around common values, while not going so far as to say it would bolster the "alliance" that Macron is seeking to build. The 40-year-old leader wants to create a pan-European, trans-party political group of "progressive" politics against nationalists.
The vote to censure Orban is a very "strong signal" against the bloc's rising nationalism, Macron's aide said. EU lawmakers who abstained, including some members of France's opposition Republicans party, showed "complacency" toward Orban's regime, the official said.
The vote showed deep "fractures" within the conservative EPP, the official said. The EPP is the biggest political group in the EU and holds a great deal of sway over the European Commission, the executive arm of the EU.
"EPP tearing itself apart, incapable of adopting a clear position in a debate that is thought essential," Castaner said.
The vote also underlined the strains in Italy's coalition government, with the populist Five Star party voting to censure Orban while the far-right, anti-migrant Lega party of Salvini voting against the measure, the official said. The French leader's aide welcomed Five Star's choice, saying it showed that the fight against nationalism transcends political groups.
Europe's unity behind a "progressive" ideology is "fundamental" in the current global climate, with the rise of Europe's nationalists and in the face of President Donald Trump's policies, the official said.
In this journey, we learned its crummy circumstances, but every time we got to a bad point, we got a break, Ted Yee said. We heard a nugget of information, there was a supporter who came out of nowhere, there was a professional who did their job. It just makes you grateful that as crappy as the situation is, we actually wound up being pretty darn lucky and we wanted to say thanks on this 10th anniversary.
WASHINGTON - As President Donald Trump's former campaign chairman Paul Manafort discusses a possible plea deal, he may finally succumb to the intense pressure brought by prosecutors to cooperate and the long odds of emerging unscathed from a second trial scheduled to begin later this month.
Since his conviction in a Virginia federal courtroom in August, the 69-year-old political consultant has been engaged in off-and-on plea negotiations with special counsel Robert Mueller III, according to people familiar with the matter.
At first blush, there is not a great deal at stake for either side - prosecutors have already won a hefty conviction against Manafort, and for him, a plea deal now may not shave much off his prison time. He has yet to be sentenced in the first case, but lawyers say he could get roughly seven to 10 years under federal guidelines.
Manafort now faces trial in the District of Columbia on seven charges, including failure to register as a lobbyist for a foreign country, and attempting to tamper with witnesses in that case.
Manafort's behavior has led some law enforcement officials to suspect he is secretly counting on a pardon from President Trump, his former boss, according to people familiar with the internal discussions who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
Trump has refused to talk about whether he has considered a pardon for Manafort, but he has repeatedly defended his former campaign lieutenant and has already issued pardons in a handful of cases against high-profile Republicans.
Patrick Cotter, a former federal prosecutor now in private practice in Chicago, said the possibility of a pardon is the best explanation for Manafort's decisions.
"If it wasn't for the possibility of a pardon, it would be insane for him not to cut a deal at this point," said Cotter. "He's already guaranteed to go to prison for years, he's got little reasonable chance of winning in D.C., it's incredibly expensive, and there's no benefit to him (in going to trial). And he's in the enviable position that, even after a conviction, if he's willing to tell the truth, the government is still interested in talking to him. That's pretty rare."
People familiar with the plea talks said Manafort has been unwilling so far to cooperate with Mueller by providing any new information or testimony in the ongoing investigation into whether Trump associates may have conspired with the Kremlin to influence the outcome of the 2016 election.
A spokesman for the special counsel declined to comment, as did a spokesman for Manafort.
A guilty plea without such cooperation is a much less attractive proposal for Mueller's team, but legal analysts say both sides still have plenty to gain from a plea deal, even without cooperation.
"Manafort's leverage in trying to extract any kind of beneficial treatment from the prosecutors will all but disappear if he doesn't jump at the opportunity to reach a deal before the next trial begins," said Robert Mintz, a former federal prosecutor now in private practice.
By pleading, Manafort would also duck the cost of paying his legal team to represent him over a weeks-long trial. For complex white-collar cases like Manafort's, the tab for such a trial could be $1 million or more.
Some white collar defendants will choose to go to trial in part because it keeps them free on bail until the case is resolved. Even that incentive has been removed for Manafort. He was ordered to jail in June, after prosecutors said he attempted to tamper with witness testimony in the upcoming case.
For prosecutors, the rewards of a possible guilty plea are different. Every trial poses at least some risk , and a plea would eliminate that. Even a deal without cooperation would still be a public win for prosecutors.
"Manafort would have to admit in open court to having willfully engaged in criminal conduct," Mintz said. "That will typically be fairly detailed and it would certainly put to rest once and for all the notion that Manafort is an innocent person who has simply been caught up in the larger political maelstrom. That benefit to prosecutors - a clear-cut victory with a clear admission of guilt by Manafort - would be tremendous."
Since he was first indicted in late 2017, Manafort has given every indication he planned to fight the charges to the bitter end. Even when his business partner, Rick Gates, took a plea and testified against him, Manafort fought the case alone.
Last month, he was convicted in Virginia of eight counts, including bank fraud and tax charges.
After that verdict, Trump heaped praise on Manafort, comparing him favorably to the president's former personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, who pleaded guilty in an unrelated case and implicated Trump.
"I feel very badly for Paul Manafort and his wonderful family," Trump tweeted. "'Justice' took a 12 year old tax case, among other things, applied tremendous pressure on him and, unlike Michael Cohen, he refused to 'break' - make up stories in order to get a 'deal.' Such respect for a brave man!"
WASHINGTON - Lawmakers blasted the Trump administration on Wednesday for standing by the conduct of its Persian Gulf allies in Yemen's civil war, saying a new U.S. endorsement overlooked attacks on civilians and other actions that have deepened a humanitarian crisis.
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., said the decision, in a new report submitted to Congress earlier in the day, to formally back the actions of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to protect civilians and facilitate humanitarian aid for Yemenis defied those countries' record.
"The Saudi-led coalition's indiscriminate bombing campaigns are taking scores of innocent lives and compounding the humanitarian situation in Yemen," Shaheen, who co-authored the legislative measure requiring the new report, said in a statement. "The coalition clearly hasn't met these goals and it is evident that the administration is deliberately sidestepping congressional oversight."
The Democrats' condemnation of the decision by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo highlights the high stakes of the administration's handling of the conflict in Yemen, where the Pentagon has supported a Saudi-led coalition that has battled Houthi rebels since 2015.
Formally certifying the coalition's actions in Yemen allows the Trump administration to continue aerial refueling of Saudi and UAE jets as they conduct air raids against the Houthis.
The certification question has crystallized the Trump administration's quandary in Yemen, where two successive U.S. administrations have grappled with how to assist allies contend with Iranian-backed militias while addressing concerns about civilian harm.
In certifying that the coalition is taking "demonstrable actions" to reduce harm to noncombatants and mitigate humanitarian need, the administration has come down clearly on the side of its gulf allies, expressing reservations about the plight of noncombatants but emphasizing positive steps by partner countries.
"We will continue to work closely with the Saudi-led coalition to ensure Saudi Arabia and the UAE maintain support for U.N.-led efforts to end the civil war in Yemen," allow aid deliveries and protect civilians, Pompeo said in a statement.
The UAE's embassy in Washington, in a message on Twitter, said the decision affirms its "commitment to reducing the risk of harm to civilians and civilian infrastructure in Yemen."
The decision follows a debate within the Trump administration about whether to publicly endorse the gulf nations' management of the war. Opposition to their conduct and to U.S. support for the coalition has grown in recent weeks amid airstrikes killing dozens of Yemeni children.
The conflict has exacerbated hunger and disease in what was already the Arab world's poorest country, and some critics accuse the coalition of contributing to suffering by making it more difficult to import needed food and medicine.
In a memo submitted to Congress, the State Department said U.S. military support to the coalition advanced U.S. goals related to counterterrorism and combating Iran. Houthi missile attacks, enabled by Iran, had threatened U.S. citizens in Saudi Arabia, it said.
The memo listed measures the United States had taken to help improve coalition air operations, including training on targeting procedures and the laws of war, but said that "recent civilian casualty incidents indicate insufficient implementation of reforms and targeting practices."
The administration also said the coalition had taken steps to reduce delays in imports of humanitarian and commercial goods and made "urgent and good-faith efforts" to end the war.
In a separate statement, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis went further than Pompeo, saying the gulf partners were "making every effort to reduce the risk of civilian casualties and collateral damage to civilian infrastructure resulting from their military operations to end the civil war in Yemen."
If the administration had decided it could not attest to the coalition's actions, it would almost certainly have used a waiver to allow military aid to continue.
Aid groups criticized the certification decision. Scott Paul, humanitarian policy lead for Oxfam America, said last month was the deadliest month of the war, including an Aug. 9 attack in which a Saudi jet struck a bus full of children.
"With Secretary Pompeo's certification, the State Department demonstrated that it is blindly supporting military operations in Yemen without any allegiance to facts, moral code or humanitarian law," he said.
The coalition initially described the bus as a "valid military target." But an investigation later concluded it was a mistake and those responsible would be held to account.
- - -
The Washington Post's John Hudson and Karen DeYoung contributed to this report.
In 2017, less than half of women business owners expected their revenue to increase over the year ahead. But in 2018, it seems their confidence has increased alongside the amount of money they expect to bring in, according to a new Bank of America study.
This year, close to six in 10 female business owners expected their revenue to rise over the next 12 months, up 14 percentage points from 2017 results. And although women trailed men when it came to how many expected a revenue bump, that year-to-year rate of increase was where women came out on top. Male business owners saw just a 10-percentage point spike between 2017 and 2018.
Were making progress, said Sharon Miller, head of small business at Bank of America, in an interview with Entrepreneur. Were a force to be reckoned with. Indeed, between 2002 and 2012, the number of women-owned businesses increased at a rate more than twice the national average, according to an analysis by the National Womens Business Council.
Results from the Bank of America study also suggest women business owners saw growth when it came to how many plan to grow their business over the next five years (56 percent, up 2 percentage points from 2017). As for hiring practices? About two in 10 plan to hire more employees over the next 12 months, also up 2 percentage points from last year.
In the study, women business owners were delineated as making between $100,000 and $5 million in annual revenue and having between two and 99 employees. Sole proprietors were not included.
Its always interesting for me to look at data that lends itself towards women-owned businesses with more than one employee, said Theia Smith, founding executive director of the Womens Entrepreneurship Initiative (WEI) in Atlanta. Whenever I see that data, I kind of perk up because its a different landscape. Indeed, in 2014 -- the last year for which data is readily available -- 90 percent of women-owned businesses had no employees other than the business owner herself, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
It also just points out the importance of how transformational it can be for a woman to [go] from being a solopreneur to being a job creator, said Smith.
If youre looking to increase revenue and grow your business this year, heres what to keep in mind.
Get specific on growth goals.
Its important to delineate your goal for growth with a timeline, concrete numbers and specifics on what it is you want to accomplish.
For instance, nailing down how much funding you need to reach your goal -- and what exactly you plan to do with every dollar -- will help you get organized, visualize the future of your company and convincingly sell your idea, whether youre speaking to venture capitalists in a West Coast office or acquaintances at a networking event. You need to be able to do that without batting a lash, said Smith.
Network with intention.
While were on specificity: Practice clearly and concisely articulating what your business is about and what it does in a way that anyone can understand. Try it in front of a mirror, with an older relative and a child. When you speak to a potential connection, its important they understand you, but theres more to it than that. They need to be able to easily repeat it to someone else who may be of benefit to you, said Smith.
And when you are networking, try doing it with intention: Be as authentic as you can, and instead of simply making an ask, show the other person -- whether theyre an investor, supporter or potential team member -- the value you can offer them in exchange for their involvement. Make it clear that their decision to invest time, energy or money with you is a case for making money. And never underestimate the power of face-to-face engagement, said Smith -- often, a key to growing your business is showing up and simply being present in the right room.
Related: How to Be a Confident Badass at Work (and Silence That Little Voice in Your Head)
Seek out mentorship moments.
Make use of a teachable moment, a moment that can help guide your business growth. Mentorship moments can often come from a peer, said Smith, and you can often pull the guidance you need from one another. Dont let your businesss growth be stunted by the idea that you need to have one mentor who fits a certain mold. Instead, try making it your mission to nurture the authentic relationships that come your way -- including people who are at the same stage in their business -- and prioritize learning from each other.
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Copyright 2018 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved
We tell people they can call 911 or go to the emergency room where an evaluation can be done as well as schedule outpatient therapy, she said. As a case worker I see this issue every day and we need to be more open to prevention there is no single cause to suicide, but in most cases, the victim believes their stressors have exceeded their coping procedures.
Millington has a post office in the main part of town on the south side of the river. The city has no door to door delivery, so people pick their mail up at the post office which is fine for the bulk of the town, but an incredible inconvenience for the one subdivision on the north side of the river, right next to the closed bridge. They have to drive up to the Millbrook Bridge, back to town and back home again just to pick up their mail.
A Morgan County sheriffs deputy was injured Thursday while assisting at the scene of an accident on Interstate 72 near Alexander.
According to Illinois State Police, a truck pulling a livestock trailer was going east on the interstate about 7:23 a.m. when a sport utility vehicle in front of it slowed because of a previous crash.
AURORA Members of the Madison County TRIAD attended the Illinois TRIAD Conference in Aurora, Illinois earlier this week as an opportunity in sharing best practices in the interest of better serving communities.
During the Sept. 11-12 conference, Sheriff John D. Lakin, of the Madison County Sheriffs Office and others from the department were recognized for their work in creating TRIAD. Two members of the Madison County TRIAD were recognized for their efforts in working with TRIAD and serving their communities. Members in attendance networked with other local and regional TRIAD representatives of their respective communities.
EDWARDSVILLE A Madison County Board committee Wednesday voted down a proposal for members of the Information Technology Department to travel to Las Vegas for training in cybersecurity after members discussed possible misuse of county credit cards and circumventing county policies.
Citing problems with the way the department handled its expenses, Finance Committee Chairwoman Lisa Ciampoli said the training is good, but the department departed from county policy by failing to bring the expense before the proper committees.
She said the expenses for the upcoming trip were divided in two, one account of $2,700 for each of two attendees. She said the total for each attendee was less than $5,000 but the two combined would add up to more than $5,400, which requires Finance Committee approval.
After the meeting, she said she spoke to IT Director Rob Dorman about a previous miscue in submitting expenses, but he failed again for an upcoming training session for him and his staff member, Joe Jones. The committee voted 5-1 against the allowance for the upcoming trip to Las Vegas.
Voting to deny the expense were members Tom McRae, David Michael, Phil Chapman, Robert Pollard and Ciampoli. Committee member Don Moore voted in favor. Larry Trucano was absent. Without a recommendation from the committee, the proposal will not be considered by the full county board next week.
The discussion of the IT Departments travel came as a part of a Finance Committee meeting centered on, in part, discussion of the annual audit of the countys $142 million in fund balances. Scott Weber of Scheffel Boyle made the presentation.
Dorman said the way he submitted the expense for the upcoming meeting was a mistake. He submitted the spending request to the Purchasing Department after receiving approval from County Board Chairman Kurt Prenzler. He said that, without the trip to Las Vegas, the countys cybersecurity would suffer.
Auditor Rick Faccin also weighed in against Dormans travel spending. He said that, on an April trip to Chicago, Dorman and Jones drove in separate personal cars, rather than a county car assigned to the department. The two men could have traveled in one car, he said.
They traveled in two two cars and submitted reimbursement of $1,253 each, but they could have save $873 had they traveled in one car.
The cost of the trip for both men was a total of $7,500. Faccin said in that case, too, the expense request was split in two, at $2,595 each, apparently to circumvent the countys spending policy. The policy also requires travel at the least possible cost, he noted.
The county auditor also noted there was a purchase on the county credit card at the Monadnock Tobacco Shop in Chicago. He said that there was no receipt submitted, so a member of his staff checked with the shop and found the purchase included roll your own tobacco pouches.
Once the cigar store error was detected, Dorman reversed the purchase on the county card, Faccin said.
Faccin also said the county did not receive any certificate of professional development to indicate Dorman attended and passed the training. There was one on file for Jones, however, he said.
There may be an innocent excuse for the absence of the certificate that Mr. Dorman can provide. However, if the absence of the certificate means Mr. Dorman either was not qualified to received professional credit, or worse, did not actually attend the training sessions at this extremely expensive conference, this rises to a much more serious level of concern, Faccin wrote in a letter to the committee.
Asked for comment on Faccins comments, Dorman said he is colorblind and used the county credit card, rather than his own.
County Board Member Phil Chapman of Highland also weighed in on accrued vacation time and other accrued time off. He noted that he is a former federal government employee who had to obey strict rules on accumulating time off. He said people tend to take all their accrued vacation when they leave. The total cost for vacation time not taken is $112,000, according to the County Auditors Office.
He said those policies are supposed to be in force for the county, but, still it seems to be a problem. Im very concerned about this. I think we should be enforcing those policies, he said.
Reach reporter Sanford Schmidt at 618-208-6449.
Yes, there was a photo of officers carrying out a body in a black bag. But on closer inspection, its obvious the squad cars didnt even resemble those from the APD. In fact, Snopes.com, the fact-checking web site, blasted this story from the so-called New York Herald as bogus, outing the body in the photo as that of a man whose headless body was found in Mississippi.
5 hours ago
Profit plummets at Buffett's company on investment gains
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) Warren Buffett's company reported a third-quarter profit that was roughly one-third the amount of last year's because of much smaller paper gains on the value of its investments, but most of its businesses continue to recover from the effects of the pandemic. Berkshire Hathaway Inc.
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There have been over 300 million guest arrivals in Airbnb listings to-date. Negative incidents are extremely rare. We apologize to Stefanie that her stay with the host did not live up to her expectations, and we made sure to refund her after the reservation was cancelled, Breit said in the statement. (We then) offered to assist her in finding a suitable alternative accommodation (which Stefanie declined). We work hard to help make sure guests have great experiences using Airbnb and want to make it right when things don't go as expected.
Moss was taken to a local hospital for treatment and remains in stable condition. He is scheduled to appear in the Maybrook courthouse in Maywood at 9 a.m. Friday for a bond hearing on charges of felony robbery and aggravated kidnapping, according to the release. No details were provided regarding what occurred inside the restaurant prior to the officers arrival.
Andrew Principal Bob Nolting, issued a statement Thursday saying, Our hearts go out to the family and friends of Dan Jarski. He is a valued member of the Andrew High School community. We have reached out in support of his family and the search efforts. Our hope is that Dan is found safe and reunited with his family.
During a dedication ceremony, current fire department Chief Kevin Szewczyk credited Krizik with having led this department to where we are today, noting that many Chicago-area residents might not be familiar with Posen, but that its well known in the fire service because its training program has produced firefighters employed by departments throughout the metro area.
Meanwhile, Bluemer and the countys Land Use staff is in the process of creating a solar guide to be used as a tool to share with the public to provide a better understanding of the overall concept of solar energy, the different types, the technology involved, as well as the permitting process, requirements, and property tax information.
Nation warned of more downpours
NATIONWIDE: Thailand, especially its western regions where officials are making historic huge discharges of water from the brimming Sri Nakarin dam, will be further hit by downpours triggered by Tropical storm Barijat in the South China Sea and Typhoon Mangkhut near the Philippines from today (Sept 13) until next Tuesday (Sept 18).
weather
By Bangkok Post
Thursday 13 September 2018, 09:20AM
Tropical storm Bajirat (near top left) and super-typhoon Mangkhut, aimed directly at the Philippines and Hong Kong, will bring torrential rain to Thailand through the weekend. Graphic via earth.nullschool.net
Both storms are moving westward, with Barijat expected to whip Hong Kong and Hainan while Mangkhut is predicted to make landfall in southern China, the Meteorological Department warned yesterday (Sept 12).
These weather systems will dump more rain on Thailand which has already been soaked by a month of rainfall, battled flash floods in dozens of provinces and fretted over dangerously high levels of water in reservoirs.
The impact of Barijat, with wind speeds near its centre measured at 70 km/h yesterday, will be felt first when it hits Hong Kong and Hainan today and tomorrow (Sept 14), the department said.
Rainfall during this period will be intensified by a stronger southwest monsoon in the Andaman Sea, which will also cause higher waves in the upper part of the Gulf of Thailand.
The country will then be faced with the effect of Mangkhut until next Tuesday, the department added.
The typhoon is expected to make its way past Luzon Island in northern Philippines and Taiwan this weekend before hitting southern China between Sunday (Sept 16) and next Tuesday.
Its arrival in the upper South China Sea will make the southwest monsoon stronger. A result, the department said, is more rainfall, and heavy downpours in some areas, especially regions which directly face the monsoon in the western part of the South and the Central Plains as well as the East.
Provinces prone to mountain run-off, flash floods and mudslides were told to stay alert.
Officials in Kanchanaburi, which is located in the west of the Central Plains, are closely monitoring the situation.
Measures to reduce levels of water in its two major dams are being implemented to ensure they have more room for a next bout of rainfall.
The Sri Nakarin dam, which sits on the Kwai Yai River in Sri Sawat district, can now hold only 1,458 million cubic metres of water as the reservoir was at 91.7% of its capacity, said dam director Prasoet Inthap.
With a continual inflow of water, officials need to increase its discharge rate from 28 to 32mn cu/m a day, the highest amount since the dam began operating 37 years ago, officials said.
They will switch to the new discharge rate tomorrow and continue it until the end of this month.
Another major dam, the Vajiralongkorn, in Thong Pha Phum district, is releasing more water to the Kwai Noi River after its water level reached 95% of capacity. Up to 58mn cu/m of water will be discharged every day until Sept 30.
Riverside communities located downstream were told to brace for the overflow.
Muang district, which is where the Kwai Noi and the Kwai Yai rivers merge and become the Mae Klong River, is expected to be inundated.
When water levels in the first two rivers increase, officials need to closely watch the Mae Klong, which further runs to Ratchaburi and Samut Songkhram provinces before pouring into the Gulf of Thailand.
Elsewhere, pre-dawn heavy rainfall yesterday sparked flash flooding in the Rong Kluea border market in Sa Kaeos Aranyaprathet district in the East and parts of Amnat Charoens Muang district in the North East.
Residents living near Amnat Chaoren Hospital blamed encroachment on a kaem ling (monkey cheek) water retention area near the hospital for slow flood drainage.
Read original styory here.
Phuket lifeguard deal probed for corruption
PHUKET: Region 8 Police have confirmed they are investigating a complaint of alleged corruption involving a company being suspiciously awarded a government contract to provide lifeguards on Phukets beaches.
corruptiontourismmarineSafetypolice
By The Phuket News
Thursday 13 September 2018, 05:37PM
Region 8 Police Investigator Lt Col Monsak Srisuwan confirmed the news while questioning witnesses at Kamala Police Station yesterday (Sept 12). Photo: The Phuket News
Region 8 Police Investigator Lt Col Monsak Srisuwan confirmed the news while questioning witnesses at Kamala Police Station yesterday (Sept 12).
Col Monsak explained that the investigation follows an anonymous complaint formally filed with Region 8 Police on May 30 under the name Khon Rak Thong Tin (People who love this location).
The complaint was formally recognised and responded to in writing by Region 8 Police Chief, Included this case considered and approved by Pol Col Sathapon Phatrat, of the Chief Investigation and Detective Management Division at Region 8 Police, on May 31," he said.
Col Monsak said that at this stage, by law, he was unable to publicly reveal the parties under investigation from the complaint.
However, he did explain that the complaint focussed on how a company had managed to be awarded a government contract to provide lifeguards despite the company not having the resources to provide what the government tender required.
The Phuket News understands that one of the parties under investigation was key figure in awarding the contract.
So far by the evidence we have obtained during our investigation it appears that the accusations against the parties are true, Col Monsak told The Phuket News yesterday.
It does appear to be a case of corruption in Phuket. However, some of the details we have learned from our investigation we are not able to reveal yet, he added.
Col Monsak also confirmed to The Phuket News that the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) will be informed of specific details from the investigation.
Some of the information we have learned by questioning extra witnesses will be sent to the NACC in Bangkok this week, Col Monsak said.
Phuket is the top tourism destination of our country, Col Monsak noted. If allow non-effective, unqualified lifeguards, it will harm our countrys tourism industry.
I expect that the government sees tourism safety with qualified lifeguard as a priority, Col Monsak added.
Phuket lottery ticket thief charged for additional crimes
PHUKET: Police have confirmed today that a 20-year-old woman from Songkla who was arrested on Tuesday for stealing more than B30,000 of lottery tickets has since been charged for five further cases of theft.
crimepolicetransport
By The Phuket News
Thursday 13 September 2018, 11:43AM
Ladtiyakorn Saengdam, 20, from Songkla has been caught on CCTV carrying out other thefts. Photo: Screengrab from CCTV via Phuket City Police
Speaking to The Phuket News today (Sept 13), Lt Wipawan Watnangentanong of the Phuket City Police, said The lady arrested for the theft of the lottery tickets was Ladtiyakorn Saengdam, 20, from Songkla province.
She was arrested in Wichit on Tuesday (Sept 11) and officers seized from her an iPad, two gold necklaces worth around B8,000, two Samsung tablets and 379 stolen lottery tickets, she said.
However, officers have also discovered that Ladtiyakorn also carried out another five thefts in Phuket City last month and this month.
In each case she would go into a shop acting like she was interested in buying something. She would then steal items and make her getaway on a motorbike. We have CCTV footage as evidence.
In addition to the lottery ticket theft charge, Ladtiyakorn has now been charged with five cases of theft using a getaway vehicle. She is currently being held at the Phuket Provincial Court while she is awaiting trial, Lt Wipawan added.
On Tuesday, Phuket City Police confirmed that they had arrested a suspect for stealing more than B30,000 of lottery tickets for the draw to be held this Sunday (Sept 16).
Lt Wipawan told The Phuket News Thai-language sister newspaper Khao Phuket on Tuesday that police had apprehended the suspect, but at the time she was reticent to release details about the case.
Lt Wipawan said police were first notified of the stolen lottery tickets last Tuesday (Sept 4), when registered lottery ticket vendor Keattisak Tirajamorn 70, who operates a small shop in front of his house on Bangkok Rd in Phuket Town, reported the theft to police at 5:20pm that day. (See story here.)
Phuket monkey mass sterilisation Round 2 begins!
PHUKET: Cages have been put in place at Rang Hill and Toh Sae Hill in Phuket Town to catch more monkeys for sterilisation as Round 2 of the wild monkey mass-sterilisation campaign begins.
animalsenvironment
By Chutharat Plerin
Thursday 13 September 2018, 01:21PM
A total of 250 monkeys will be rounded up from Rang Hill and Toh Sae Hill in Phuket Town and sterilised. Photo: PR Dept
A total of 250 monkeys will be rounded up from Rang Hill and Toh Sae Hill in Phuket Town and sterilised. Photo: PR Dept
A total of 250 monkeys will be rounded up from Rang Hill and Toh Sae Hill in Phuket Town and sterilised. Photo: PR Dept
A total of 250 monkeys will be rounded up from Rang Hill and Toh Sae Hill in Phuket Town and sterilised. Photo: PR Dept
A total of 250 monkeys will be rounded up from Rang Hill and Toh Sae Hill in Phuket Town and sterilised. Photo: PR Dept
The large cages, which allow monkeys plenty of space to roam around inside, were put in place yesterday (Sept 12), Director of the Khao Phra Thaew Natural and Wildlife Education Centre Pongchart Chouehorm, explained today.
A total of 250 monkeys will be captured and taken to be sterilised at the Phuket Mueang District meeting hall on Narisorn rd, starting tomorrow (Sept 14), he said.
Afterwards, the monkeys will be released back into the wild where they were captured, he added.
Mr Pongchart noted that his team met with local residents in the Soi Tah Jeen area in Rassada on the east side of Phuket Town, last week, where monkeys were rounded up, sterilised and released back into the wild in Round 1 of the campaign.
The feedback was positive, Mr Pongchart said, adding that the residents there were becoming more aware of not dumping waste where wild monkeys could get to it, which prevented the wild monkeys from becoming increasingly dependent on residents for providing a food source.
All of the people understood this well and were responding to it, he said.
Under the monkey mass-sterilisation campaigns initial foray, Hundreds of monkeys were removed from areas where residents complained that they had become a nuisance and were presenting a health threat, with entire troupes moved to Koh Thanan (see story here) and Koh Payu (see story here) , both small islands off Pa Khlok.
However, many of the monkeys were released back into areas where they were already living as residents had approved for the wild troupes to stay (see story here).
Vachira Phuket Hospital reveals angry relative lashed out, struck nurse
PHUKET: The management board of Vachira Phuket Hospital yesterday confirmed with CCTV footage that an angry elder relative of a patient lashed out and struck a nurse at the hospital for not allowing him to enter the emergency ward where some patients lay comatose and others were receiving urgent medical care.
healthviolence
By Eakkapop Thongtub
Thursday 13 September 2018, 11:05AM
The hospital CCTV footage clearly showed the man hitting the nurse across the face with the back of his hand. Image: CCTV / Vachira Phuket Hospital
Leading a press conference at the hospital yesterday afternoon (Sept 12) was Vachira Hospital Deputy Director Dr Wirasak Lothongkham, accompanied by his administrator team and nurses who witnessed the incident.
The news broke online as the incident unfolded on Tuesday night with a video posted of the angry mans tirade of verbal abuse, punctuated with obscene language. The video garnered more than 200,000 views overnight. (See story here.)
Dr Wirasak explained yesterday that the man, who he did not name, arrived at Vachira, the leading government hospital on the island, with several family members, one of whom, a 35-year-old woman, was admitted for urgent medical treatment.
Dr Wirasak did not specify the relationship between the 35-year-old woman patient and the angry man, who by looks is old enough to be her father.
However, he explained, The womans relatives told the nurses that several of them were drinking together when suddenly the woman started experiencing bad symptoms, and they brought her to the hospital. The nurse helped the woman by giving her a preliminary examination and then took her into the emergency room.
The nurse also let the woman be registered with a gold card so that the emergency medical treatment would be provided free under the government healthcare system, Dr Wirasak explained.
When relatives came back (to the in front of the emergency room) after registering the woman (for the gold card), they asked to enter the emergency room but the nurse didnt allow them because there were too many of them, he said.
But the man in the video did not agree and he kept asking to go into the room, and the nurse kept explaining that there were already too many people in the emergency treatment room. Four of them were comatose and there were patients on assisted breathing.
In light of this, the nurse did not allow the relatives to go inside the emergency room. She explained that in such circumstances the doctors and medical staff only allowed relatives in the emergency room if they needed more information about the patient, or if the patient was in a coma and needed close care, Dr Wirasak said.
This angered the man, who began verbally abusing the nurse and even struck the nurse across the face with a backhand, he explained, after showing the press CCTV footage of the incident.
This part of the altercation did not become viral news because it was recorded on the hospital CCTV, and was not recorded by bystanders mobile phones, Dr Wirasak noted.
After he hit the nurse, she did not respond, but instead stayed behind the desk at the work station, he said.
The man then walked behind the partition and grabbed her chair as if he was going to hit her with it, but the other relatives prevented him from doing so and led him away, he added.
That is when the nurse called the police, Dr Wirasak said.
The hospital has given the the nurse three days leave to recover from the incident, Dr Wirasak noted.
For this nurse, there has been no history of complaints from patients, he added.
Regardless, the hospital management will continue to investigate the root cause of the altercation, Dr Wirasak said.
From the evidence received from everyone involved so far, this seems to have been the result of a breakdown in communication between the staff and the patients relative, Dr Wirasak added.
The hospital will receive any complaints about staff in order to prevent similar incidents happening in the future, and we will work find ways to reduce the stress of those waiting while relatives receive medical treatment, he said.
But please, if there is any impoliteness in the hospital, please file a complaint with us so we can work on avoiding any such instances, and avoid any further violence, Dr Wirasak said.
Dr Wirasak made no mention of whether police would be involved in any further action over the incident.
Woman gets bail after sedition interrogation
BANGKOK: The Criminal Court has granted bail to a woman who allegedly distributed T-shirts promoting a movement aimed at overthrowing the current governing regime.
crimepolitics
By Bangkok Post
Thursday 13 September 2018, 08:48AM
Wannapa Khamphiphot, who was arrested last week for selling T-shirts with a so-called Thai Federation icon (inset), was interrogated at the feared 11th Military Circle. Photo: Pornprom Satrabhaya
The court last night (Sept 12) released Wannapa Khamphiphot, a 30-year-old motorcycle taxi driver, on a B200,000 surety.
Last Thursday (Sept 6), authorities arrested Ms Wannapa at her house in Samut Prakan province for distributing black T-shirts with the logo of the pro-federation republic group calling itself The Thai Federation.
She was taken to the 11th Military Circle in Bangkoks Dusit district for questioning before being handed over to the Crime Suppression Division (CSD) for further investigation.
Police have charged her for violating the constitution and sedition as well as an act of running an illegal organisation.
According to police, Ms Wannapa received the T-shirts from her mother Somphit Sombathom, who is a member of the movement and is still at large in Laos. Up to 60 T-shirts had been distributed by Ms Wannapa and about 400 T-shirts in her possession were seized.
Ms Wannapa denied the charge, arguing she was ordered by her mother to send the T-shirts to people while she did not realise the meaning of the controversial logo on the shirts, said Phawini Chumsi, Ms Wannapas lawyer from the Thai Lawyers for Human Rights Centre.
According to the CSD, three other suspects, including a man named Kritsana Asasu, were earlier arrested by authorities for their alleged involvement in the movement.
Police told the court that the movement acts against the National Council for Peace and Order and has the objective of overthrowing the current political regime of the country to a federated republic.
The military regime has kept a close watch on anti-government groups which planned to stir disorder since 2014. Two years later, the Thai Federation idea emerged on social media. It was believed that people behind the movement were in Laos, some European countries and the United States.
Meanwhile, former Pheu Thai MPs and red-shirt co-leaders have denied an accusation that their pro-Thaksin group is linked with an illegal movement.
Kokaew Pikunthong, a former Pheu Thai MP who co-leads the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship, admitted yesterday that some suspects behind the sedition movement might have joined the UDD to call for democracy in the past, but now they cant be called UDD supporters.
He viewed the claim of an alleged connection between the UDD and the Thai Federation idea, which is aimed at dividing the country into states, as an attempt to discredit the red shirts because it opposes the military government.
The UDDs stance was clear from the beginning a fight for democracy with the King as head of the nation, Mr Kokaew insisted. Were still here to call for democracy, he said.
Read original story here.
Another stellar defensive effort sends Milbank Area into state Class 11A championship
VERMILLION Milbank Area waited 12 years to play another football game in the DakotaDome. The Bulldogs wont have to wait near as long for another one.
While governmental bodies need partnerships with non-profit, public and private sector stakeholders in the fight against inequity, Cook County government has a unique responsibility to reduce inequity by ensuring policies and fiscal decisions consistently meet the needs of all residents, especially residents who are often marginalized and excluded from decision-making tables, according to the draft.
Fifty-seven per cent of Toronto-area voters say they strongly agree it is increasingly difficult to own a home in the region and 38 per cent say housing affordability is among their top three issues going into next months municipal election.
Concern about the high cost of housing is disproportionately affecting women, millennials and renters, according to an Ipsos poll released Wednesday.
Mortgages and rents are affecting how much residents save for retirement and their childrens education and impacting whether they have one or more children, says the research for the home builders association and the Toronto Real Estate Board (TREB).
The poll indicates that residents worry about the cost of housing is on par with crime and infrastructure, both of which ranked in the top three election issues with 39 per cent of respondents. Among nine issues on the poll question, only property taxes registered as a greater concern among the top three with 45 per cent of those polled.
High profile areas such as transit, social services, traffic and parks all polled lower among the 1,503 residents.
This isnt just about putting a roof over peoples heads. This is impacting broad elements of peoples lives, said Justin Sherwood of the Building and Land Development Association (BILD).
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The poll is intended to put housing issues front and centre in the election, and the social implications are the key takeaway, he said.
Forty per cent of respondents indicated housing costs were affecting their retirement savings; 34 per cent said it was stopping them from making major purchases or taking vacations; and a quarter of residents said they couldnt afford to buy a home.
A further 12 per cent said housing costs were affecting savings for their childrens education, and 11 per cent said it affected their decision to have a child.
People are putting off having children... These are significant life decisions that are being impacted: saving for retirement, if they will be able to retire; trying to make decisions about maybe supporting a family member, said Sherwood.
What do you think?
Renters, millennials and women were the most concerned with housing costs. Sixty-two per cent of Toronto-area renters a group that represents about a third of households in the region put the price of shelter among their top three issues compared to 26 per cent of homeowners. Forty-three per cent of women cited housing as a top issue versus 32 per cent of men.
Among millennials adults under age 35 48 per cent cited housing as a top concern, compared to 42 per cent of those 35 to 54 years old and 25 per cent of respondents over 55.
Across the board, 41 per cent of poll respondents expressed concern over young peoples ability to afford housing.
This whole thing about housing and people being concerned about affordability, I think it cuts across all demographic groups, said the real estate boards Von Palmer.
It all brings it back to theres an inadequate choice, theres not enough supply (of housing). We have to start looking at zoning rules to allow for more of that missing middle type housing semis, rows, multi-units, clustered town homes we dont have enough of that. From an affordability point of view thats a concern, said Palmer.
BILD and the real estate board say that, while they pushed the same issues in the June provincial election, theres a significant role for municipal policy-makers, too.
A lot of things that need to happen to bring in more supply has to happen at the municipal level, said Palmer. When push comes to shove and you look at the real issues that need to be tackled like zoning rules or taxation at the local level property tax, red tape these are all locally driven even though it flows from provincial legislation. Ultimately implementation happens at the local level.
Builders are struggling with bureaucracy that slows down their ability to bring new housing on the market, said Sherwood.
Municipalities can find ways to cut red tape, he said.
The Toronto region needs about 50,000 homes annually to meet the demand, said Sherwood.
Last year we were able to build 38,000. Were consistently short, he said.
The online Ipsos poll between Aug. 20 and 23 is considered accurate within 2.9 per cent 19 times out of 20.
CALGARYChantal Chagnon, a Cree social justice activist, has seen first-hand how Albertas climate has changed rapidly, and she said its affecting Indigenous ways of life.
And shes not alone in her assessment.
According to multiple experts and activists, resource extraction and pollution have drastically altered the provinces waterways and forests, putting a strain on Indigenous practices, such as hunting, fishing and trapping.
Chagnon pointed to southern Albertas 2013 flooding as evidence that natural disasters affect Indigenous communities particularly hard.
Siksika is still recovering from the flood its crazy, Chagnon said. They still have damaged buildings up in Morley because of the flood, they still have buildings that have black mould in them.
Were seeing this polarization of our weather patterns around the globe and its definitely reflected in (Alberta) in a big way, she added.
According to academics and activists, climate change and Albertas ongoing reliance on resource extraction threaten physical, cultural and spiritual ways of life in Indigenous communities. This reality has led to a chorus of voices saying Canadians should view environmental issues as social justice matters.
The people who are most at risk or most vulnerable, and are on the front lines of climate change, are generally those who have not contributed in any substantial way to large-scale carbon emissions, said Ashlee Cunsolo, the director of the Labrador Institute of Memorial University.
Cunsolo has researched the impacts of climate change on Inuit communities, drawing from knowledge held by Inuit elders in northern regions of Newfoundland and Labrador.
Even subtle alterations to climate and environment can drastically alter daily lives in Indigenous communities, said Cunsolo.
This is one of those mass inequities globally right now, she added, noting that in some northern regions of the globe, average temperatures have increased by more than 2 C, despite the international communitys goal to slow global warming.
For Inuit, this extreme increase in average temperatures has made travel conditions unusually unsafe.
In the last few years in particular, more people are either going through the ice or getting stranded or stuck in storms, Cunsolo said. Before, (ice) would freeze up and it would stay cold and frozen. Now, were getting cold, warm, cold, rain, cold. Its all over the place and it creates unusual conditions.
She added that poor ice conditions prevent Inuit from going out on the land to hunt and gather food a sign that climate change deeply affects Inuit ways of life.
As a result, Inuit communities have to cope with grief and loss in addition to grappling with diminished access to their food supply, Cunsolo said.
Were putting a tremendous amount of burden on certain humans on this planet, even though they were not the ones who caused the situation in the first place.
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In Alberta, Jessica Cardinal, who is Metis from Kikino and sits on the steering committee for the advocacy group, Indigenous Climate Action, voiced concerns about resource extraction in the province.
She listed logging in the boreal forest as one development that threatens Indigenous lifestyles.
Forests sustain complete ecosystems. Thats where all the animals live, where all the good berries are, where the medicines are, because the trees protect what is in there, Cardinal said.
Cardinal said that many northern Alberta Indigenous communities rely on wildlife like moose, deer and rabbit, but when forests are clear-cut, those food sources disappear.
In addition to supporting plants and animals, trees supply many Indigenous communities with vitamins and minerals through their sap.
Part of the traditional ways of living includes tapping trees, so you can tap trees for the different juices they have. Cardinal said. (Sap) is one of the things that Indigenous peoples use to sustain themselves.
Rapid industrialization and colonialism have continuously threatened Indigenous ways of living, Cardinal said.
We still need places in the bush where we can go and connect to the land.
She added that Albertas Indigenous communities are fighting to protect the land by connecting to traditional knowledge despite what she says are Canadas efforts to erase Indigenous knowledge.
Cardinal also urged non-Indigenous Albertans, particularly those living in Edmonton and Calgary, to recognize that ongoing resource development and climate change impact them as well.
If you live your life in a city, you dont really understand how rapid the industrialization is, how much forest is being cleared daily up north in the boreal forest, she said.
Cardinal added, What happens to the water outside of Calgary, affects Calgary, so that needs to be continuously highlighted if we dont, as a society, start taking better care of our land and water, everybody is affected.
The Keepers of the Athabasca is a group run by Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities devoted to protecting the water and watershed lands of the Athabasca River Basin.
One of the groups leaders, Jule Asterisk, said Indigenous communities are the hardest-hit by climate and environment shifts because climate change is so much more noticeable when youre actually not just living close to the land, but depend on the land.
Although the public often turns to climate scientists to learn about climate change and environmental degradation, Asterisk said that Indigenous peoples also hold relevant expertise.
People in the city would notice an extreme climate event, of course, like a flood or fire, but they wouldnt notice the little subtle changes, Asterisk said, adding Indigenous peoples in Alberta pick up on minor fluctuations in the Athabasca.
It wasnt just climate scientists who were noticing these changes, Asterisk said. Its also people who were close to the land because they work with the land, and also because they have spiritual and emotional connections to their traditional territories.
Chagnon agrees.
She said Indigenous peoples feel the effects of industrialization, including mining and oil and gas directly.
This is our home. Where are we going to go if we pollute all of our waters? If we pollute all of our land? Were not going to have anything to drink or any food to eat for future generations, Chagnon said.
And the devastating impacts have already encroached on Indigenous lifestyles, Chagnon said.
A lot of our traditional hunting and trapping and fishing lines are unusable, whether its because the animals have gone away because of the amount of noise, or the sheer pollution, Chagnon said. Or simply because once you do catch an animal, it is so sick with cancer and the amount of toxins in its system that we cant eat it.
Thats all it takes to strip Indigenous communities of their traditional ways of life, she added, before explaining that environmental degradation also has psychological and spiritual consequences.
Our responsibility is to the land, so when the land is devastated the way it has been, it takes a lot out of us, Chagnon said. We cant go to those traditional places where we would pray or ceremonially hunt because they arent left.
While Indigenous activists and community members combat climate change every day, Chagnon said Canadians also need to step up their efforts.
(Indigenous peoples) are the stewards of the lands, were the ones who protect the land, and we will keep going back to the land, Chagnon said.
Environmentalism and reconciliation go hand-in-hand and thats something that we really need to address not only as a community, but as a province, and definitely as a country, she said.
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EDMONTONConversion therapy, a controversial practice said to be used by some religious groups in Alberta, could be coming to an end if a piece of legislation being developed passes later this fall.
NDP MLA for Edmonton-Castle Downs, Nicole Goehring, said Wednesday that shes been developing the legislation since LGBTQ+ and faith-based communities have asked her to bring it forward.
Weve heard from the community that its happening still and its happening in Alberta, she said during an interview.
Conversion therapy is used to try and change how a person identifies in their gender or sexual orientation. There is no scientific evidence that the practice is effective.
Pam Rocker has been working with individuals who have experienced conversion therapy for ten years and said probably a month doesnt go by where I dont talk to somebody whos been severely affected by it.
Shes the director of Affirming Connections, a group that seeks to work with faith-based communities looking to strengthen their ties to LGBTQ2S+ communities and she called the legislation critical.
This is an intervention for people who I would call a vulnerable population, she said. This is the only narrative they hear: that theyre wrong, they will be alone forever, theyre gonna go to hell, all of those things for (conversion therapy).
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Nova Scotias Liberal government to ban conversion therapy for LGBTQ youth
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Conversion therapy is an underground phenomenon in Alberta and often goes under-reported, said Rocker. She added that the practice seeks to shame a person who identifies in an adverse way to their faith-based community and often that shame persists even when theyre out of the situation.
They feel shamed for having gone through it and they feel like others might see them in a different way, she said. The fact that its sort of under the table shows that its something that would be really controversial and so more and more churches are being more subversive about it but they are still very much alive.
Through her work, she said shes come across countless individuals whove experienced conversion therapy and many of them are emotionally wounded from it. By banning the use of conversion therapy, lives would be saved, she said.
This is a right now issue, this is the 2018 issue and its a critical life and death issue, said Rocker.
A 2017 online workbook accessible via the Lutheran Church-Canadas website includes a letter written by Glenn Schaeffer, President of the Alberta-British Columbia District, to Minister of Education David Eggen outlining his support for conversion therapy.
Calling it psychological reparative therapy Schaeffer said it could provide more constructive approaches to providing students with a safe and caring learning environment.
He also dismissed individuals who identify as transgender or with a sexual orientation outside of heterosexual.
A persons gonads, along with all other bodily organs, as well as his or her personality, brain, and intellect do not originate in blind chance but are lovingly and deliberately created by God, he wrote.
The letter was written in response to the Alberta governments school guidelines for creating learning environments that respect diverse sexual orientations, gender identities and gender expressions.
The church expressed concern that if Lutheran schools did not use the guidelines that they wouldnt continue to get public funding or the government would force the schools to comply.
Schaeffer was not available for comment on Wednesday but Eggen said in an emailed statement that we will ensure that every student is safe, welcome and cared for at school no matter their gender identity or sexual orientation.
I have been very clear: every school that accepts public money is expected to obey the law when it comes to providing safe and caring learning environments for students, he said
Minister of Health Sarah Hoffman will be part of the further development for the piece of legislation as well and said in a statement that she believes conversion therapy to be a discriminatory, harmful and hateful practice.
I want to hear from those in the LGBTQ2+ community and invite them to continue writing to me on this important issue, she said.
Read more about:
Warner Bros. reportedly is parting ways with its present Man of Steel, Henry Cavill.
Cavill, the British actor who has played Superman in three critically underwhelming films since 2013, will surrender the red-and-blue costume, the Hollywood Reporter was the first to report Wednesday, while noting that neither Cavill nor the studio had confirmed the exit. The Washington Post has put in requests for confirmation as well.
Variety, meanwhile, reported that Cavills future as Superman in the DC Extended Universe is cloudy, as Warner Bros. shifts its attention to developing a Supergirl movie.
This news would not be a surprise, of course. Once upon a development phase, as shepherded by director Zack Snyder, Cavills Superman and Ben Afflecks Batman were going to be cornerstones of the DCEU essentially Warner Bros. s version of Robert Downey Jr.s Iron Man and Chris Evans Captain America.
Have your say
But as Man of Steel (2013), Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) and last years Justice League have come in for critical strafing and below-expectation box office, Warner Bros. has signalled that it will no longer bet on projects centred on Cavill or Affleck as its leading superheroes.
Domestically, none of Cavills DCEU films has topped $340 million at the box office. The most successful DCEU release in North America as box-office champ and cultural phenomenon remains last years Wonder Woman ($412.6 million).
Patty Jenkins hit is helping pave a way forward for Warner Bros. s superheroes; her sequel Wonder Woman 1984 is due out next year.
Meanwhile, the studio is also betting on the popularity of Harley Quinn, who was played by Margot Robbie in Suicide Squad, according to the trades. The Harley spinoff Birds of Prey is reportedly a priority.
WB/DC does still have hopes for Aquaman starring Jason Momoa, Amber Heard and Nicole Kidman due out this Christmas. None of Aquamans fellow Justice League members, including Cavill and Affleck, are mentioned in the credits.
The studio also has Shazam! due out next April, and according to the trades, Warner Bros. was not able to work out a Cavill/Superman cameo for that film.
Additionally at Warner/DC, Todd Phillips is continuing his Joker film project with Joaquin Phoenix in the lead role.
Warner Bros. has also shifted its focus toward producing a Supergirl origin story, says the Hollywood Reporter.
A mustachioed Cavill, meanwhile, is finding better critical and commercial success in another action franchise, opposite Tom Cruise in the current Paramount smash Mission: Impossible Fallout. The film, which scores an 86 on Metacritic.com and a 97 per cent fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, has grossed $735 million on a $178 million production budget.
Cavill is the third actor to prominently play DCs live-action Superman on the big screen since Christopher Reeve reinvigorated the role in the 70s.
The Predator
Starring Boyd Holbrook, Olivia Munn, Jacob Tremblay, Keegan-Michael Key, Trevante Rhodes, Thomas Jane, Alfie Allen, Augusto Aguilera and Sterling K. Brown. Directed by Shane Black. Opens Friday at major theatres. 107 minutes. 18A
Did you not see the new Predator? Its evolving! one character says to another midway through the splatterfest that is The Predator, the avowed sequel (really a reboot) to a sci-fi character and story that six previous movies have failed to kill.
The line is an inside joke by Shane Black, the films director and primary screenwriter, and its one that all who voluntarily go to see this movie, fresh from its TIFF Midnight Madness world premiere, will get and enjoy. Black loads up his films with ironic meta-references, as seen in the likes of Iron Man 3, The Nice Guys and Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.
And the Predator is indeed evolving, away from the almost mute and solo extraterrestrial warrior of franchise original Predator in 1987. Back then, it all got down to just a battle of wits in the jungle between Arnold Schwarzenegger and a foe he memorably called one ugly motherf--ker.
Still as bug-faced beastly as ever, these Predator E.T.s now hunt in packs they even have Predator dogs to help them and they communicate with each other. Their presence on Earth is part of a plan so mwah-hah-hah diabolical, its almost worth applauding: global warming is steadily heating up the Earth to a temperature thats bad for humans but great for Predators, so the invaders might as well hasten the process and extract some human spinal cords while they prepare to move in.
Natch, we humans arent going to let this happen without a fight, but its debatable whether were sending our best into the fray. Arnolds nowhere in sight, not even for a cameo, so well have to make do with a Dirty Half Dozen of bantering psychopaths: violent ex-soldiers played with varying degrees of hilarity by Keegan-Michael Key, Trevante Rhodes (Moonlight), Thomas Jane, Alfie Allen and Augusto Aguilera.
Theyll be joined, and ultimately led by, an ex-army ranger sniper named Quinn McKenna, played by Boyd Holbrook, whom we meet at the outset in a set-up filched from Cowboys & Aliens. He discovers and makes off with advanced Predator weapons and armour following a crash-landing and shootout in the Mexican jungle. He also finds himself inside a shady U.S. government research facility run by a snarly guy (Sterling K. Brown) who knows all about the Predators and their not-so-sneaky plans to take over Earth.
Soon the action will shift to a generic American suburb, courtesy of Vancouver, where the film was shot.
Theres not much room for women in this testosteronal tussle, but Black and co-screenwriter Fred Dekker (The Monster Squad) find a little elbow room for one: Dr. Casey Bracket (Olivia Munn), an evolutionary biologist whom we know is smart because she picks a lock with a paper clip in about two seconds flat.
The movie pays big-time homage to 1980s cinema, including an action score that sounds like something Spielberg would have thrown away. And speaking of Spielberg, theres a Spielbergian lad named Rory, played by Hollywoods go-to kid Jacob Tremblay, who adds some precociousness to the moments in between shots and splatters.
Rory is McKennas son, a brainiac on the autism spectrum who naturally gets involved, first as a troublemaker when he steals his dads Predator helmet and goes Halloween trick-or-treating in a scene that nods to E.T.
Rory might have an idea or two about how to stop the Predators from treating the Earth as their new playground. My lips are sealed, except to say I preferred the Predator when he was a lot less chatty and a lot more scary.
HALIFAXOver the next six years, Habitat for Humanity plans to build its largest affordable housing development in Canada in the Halifax area.
After a public hearing at its meeting Wednesday night, the municipalitys Halifax and West Community Council voted unanimously in favour of a development agreement for whats tentatively called Habitat Way.
The development will create a new subdivision off Drysdale Rd. in Spryfield on land donated to Habit for Humanity near a cluster of the non-profit organizations past builds. A new street, lined with town homes and a four-storey multi-unit building will circle around a half-acre park.
When its all done, there will be 78 affordable homes, ranging in size from one-bedroom to three-bedroom units.
Weve done a number of other large housing developments across the country, but this will be the biggest of those, Habitat for Humanity Nova Scotia CEO Stephen Doane said in an interview Thursday.
During Habitats presentation Wednesday night, project manager Kevin Riles of KWR Approvals called the project an affordable master plan community.
Its a game changer for the organization and for affordable housing in HRM and Nova Scotia, Riles said.
Its got town homes, its got condominium town homes, its got apartments and condos, so its a nice mixture. Were looking for diversity.
Doane said all of the town homes and the condominiums in the multi-unit building will follow the usual Habitat for Humanity process where families are selected on the basis of need, their ability to repay a no-down-payment, no-interest mortgage and their commitment to volunteer 500 hours of sweat equity toward their home and community.
The apartments in the multi-unit building will be rented to low-income people using a formula called rent-geared-to-income, meaning theyll pay no more than 30 per cent of their income in rent.
Doane said the multi-unit building would be the last constructed, and hes hoping to break ground as soon as possible on the town homes.
Id like to start right away, but Im kind of at the whim of the weather this late in the construction season, Doane said.
The development comes at a crucial time in the municipality, where more than 22,000 households, or 13.7 per cent, are in need of affordable housing, according to the most recent census numbers from 2016.
Its such an opportunity for the families, Doane said.
It gives them the opportunity for their kids to have a better place to live, close to schools, and they tend to just be better off after it goes through.
Doane said Habitat for Humanity receives about 150 applications annually, and there are many families in the queue for new homes.
Our family services co-ordinator will be very busy over the next couple years, he said.
Area Councillor Stephen Adams said Wednesday night he supports the development 100 per cent.
This is, in my mind, the true definition of affordable housing, he said.
And I love their mantra: Its a hand up, not a hand out.
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HALIFAXA Nova Scotia man is facing more than 10 charges after police say they seized a large amount of drugs and weapons from a home in Colchester County.
At about 6 p.m. on Tuesday, members of the Colchester RCMP, Colchester integrated street crime unit (SCEU), Colchester general investigation section, and local officers of Criminal Intelligence Service of Nova Scotia (CISNS) searched a home on Onslow Mountain Rd. in Onslow Mountain.
As a result, a quantity of drugs including cocaine, methamphetamine and cannabis marijuana was seized.
A loaded .22 calibre AR-15 assault rifle, brass knuckles and a stun gun were also taken by police, along with a side-by-side/ATV and an SUV.
Six people were in the home at the time of the search, including a 4-year-old boy who was safely removed.
A 29-year-old man from Onslow Mountain is facing the following charges: trafficking of cocaine, possession of cocaine, marijuana and methamphetamine for the purpose of trafficking, production of cannabis marijuana, three counts of possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose, unauthorized possession of a firearm, two counts of unauthorized possession of a prohibited device, unsafe storage of a firearm, unauthorized possession of a weapon in a motor vehicle, and possession of a weapon obtained by the commission of an offence.
The man was released from custody on conditions and is scheduled to appear in Truro provincial court on Nov. 28.
The investigation is ongoing.
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Its the third leading cause of death among children ages 10 to 24, according to the National Alliance for Mental Illness. Ninety percent of those who committed suicide had an underlying mental illness, according to the organizations website. Fifty percent of all lifetime cases of mental illness begin by age 14 and 75 percent begin by age 24, the website said.
Dr. Antoon Leenaars recalls a patient who saw the same train pass by her kitchen window each day as she sank deeper into depression. Eventually, she jumped in front of it.
This woman would see this train and see this train. Every day, she was reminded of this method, said Leenaars, a Windsor-based psychologist known for his research on suicide. And the more fixated someone is on a particular means of death, he said, the more likely they are to act.
If they fundamentally focus on just one method, you know the lethality is higher, he said. Theyre mentally constricted and they dont think of alternatives.
Leenaars said people considering suicide will fixate on just about anything they consider a near-certain means of death. It could be a bridge or a cliff but for dozens of people across the country each year, they choose trains.
Over the past decade, more than 1,200 people have been struck and killed on railway systems in Canada. At least two transit agencies, the Toronto regions Metrolinx and the Montreal regions Exo, have estimated how many of those deaths are suicides: between 70 to 80 per cent.
Agencies created for the sole purpose of ferrying people from place to place by rail have been thrust onto the front lines of a mental-health crisis. And while its taken decades for them to fully embrace this role, they are now some of the most important organizations around when it comes to saving the lives of people driven to desperation in Canadas urban centres.
Safety barriers are a common proposal to prevent suicides, but the automated devices have largely been dismissed by officials for reasons of cost and feasibility. Increasingly, transit agencies are pairing up with mental-health professionals to create plans, train staff and establish systems to actively prevent people from using the tracks to end their lives.
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Still, getting ordinary workers to act as first responders is a significant challenge.
When we were first developing our program, we found that those who are trained to be helpful in their disciplines were afraid of the issue of suicide, said Richard Ramsay of LivingWorks, a Calgary-based organization that helped develop the suicide-prevention curriculum now used in Calgary, Toronto and Vancouver.
They had all kinds of issues. Why they wouldnt approach somebody (that) if they talked about it, it would cause it.
Trainees are taught to look for warning signs. Those could include someone standing on a platform without boarding as train after train passes by. Another example would be someone wandering too close to the edge, perhaps stepping on the warning stripes, seemingly testing the area.
Usually, a transit officer can intervene simply by striking up a conversation. But sometimes they arrive too late and the job changes from crisis counsellor to paramedic.
If someone is really determined to end their life, they feel its a quick way and instantaneous, which isnt always the case. If the train is going slow enough coming into the station, theres more chance of being injured than there is of death, said Chief Special Const. Jim Babe, who patrols the O-Train system in Ottawa with 46 of his colleagues. All of his officers carry tourniquets, which can be wrapped tightly around limbs to stem blood loss in the event someone is hit by a train.
Despite the chances for verbal or medical intervention, transit workers often struggle with a feeling of helplessness. Suicide deaths are intentional, and employees fears theres very little they can do to stop someone who is truly determined.
Ive been involved in a few, and yes, they definitely stick with you for a while, said Tony Rebelo, president of CUPE 7000, a union representing transit workers in Vancouver. For folks who want to end their lives, theyre going to do it one way or another, whether being on transit or other means.
For some, like Toronto Transit Commission driver Kevin Freeman, its the reminder that someone else made the decision that helps them get through the day. A man jumped in front of a train he was driving in June 2008, just six months after Freeman finished his training.
As horrible as that sounds, thats how most of us deal with it. That person has decided to do it. Unfortunately, Im in the wrong place at the wrong time, Freeman said.
But despite the doubts and the pain, efforts have only increased. Training has become standardized across multiple cities. Transit agencies now have crisis call-boxes at platforms and on trains themselves. Its common to see a combination of patrols and surveillance cameras being used to detect people who may be in crisis.
Breaking from well-established tradition across the country, one agency has chosen to fight stigma by being completely frank about deaths on its tracks.
Anne Marie Aikins, spokeswoman for Metrolinx, said that whereas other agencies continue to use terms like medical emergency and track-level impact to inform passengers of suicides, her organization has started using the s-word.
(Previously), they were kind of talking euphemisms, Aikins said. Now we say, Theres a fatality on your line ... Well say its a suicide. Someone tragically ended their life that day. Riders have a lot more compassion for whats going on at that moment.
Even the federally regulated agencies that have traditionally been more concerned about the general category of trespass on the tracks are now recognizing the increasing concern of suicides. In November 2017, the Railway Association of Canada which represents Canadian Pacific Railway, Canadian National Railway and numerous other companies began funding a suicide prevention strategy for the first time in its history.
The group tasked with developing that strategy, Operation Lifesaver, plans to launch a Canada-wide campaign in 2019. To harmonize its efforts, Operation Lifesaver is in negotiations with another group developing telephone number, text message and online messenger services in order to provide a single point of contact for crisis intervention on the tracks.
Roberta Fox, chief technology adviser at Crisis Services Canada, said the project is in its pilot phase, with trackside crisis intervention services currently being tested in Calgary, Toronto, Brampton, Mississauga and Nanaimo, B.C.
Though the service has already been used 11,000 times, the cross-Canada railway crisis line is still in its infancy. The biggest challenge is figuring out how to precisely locate those who call for help. Often, the only point of contact will be the cellphone that sent the text, online message or call.
At best, current technology can only identify your cell tower location unless a user decides to switch on and share their GPS co-ordinates. Fox hopes that by partnering with police dispatch, many of whom are upgrading 911 technology to detect caller locations, that the service will be able to pinpoint the location of those experiencing distress. So far she has managed to sign up 208 dispatch centres across the country.
But that technology is not expected to be in place until 2021. Until then, Crisis Services Canada is relying on a series of crisis intervention signs placed along rail lines, each associated with a number that identifies its location, as a means of finding those in distress.
Our first night, we had an 11-year-old girl from Toronto whose life was saved from a Calgary-based support person via chat, Fox said. Since then, weve had over 141 active rescues where somebody was saved in the suicide process.
But despite the best efforts of agencies across the country, there will still be suicide deaths on railway tracks. Leenaars, the mental-health professional, remembers how surprised he was by the suicide of a friend during his teenage years. Quite simply, he said, some people dont want to be helped.
You can throw out lifebuoys to people, but theres always somebody whos not going to grab it. With trains, you can put up fences, put up cameras, but if someone was really constricted and bent on it, they will find a spot and they will jump, Leenaars said.
I was not able. I didnt know my friend was going to kill himself in Grade 11. But I think its true, Ive helped, or tried to help, a large number of people.
Crisis Services Canadas suicide prevention hotline can be reached at 1-833-456-4566.
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SASKATOON NAFTA talks between Canada and the U.S. are at a critical juncture as the U.S. continues to push for greater access to Canadian dairy markets and cultural industries while Canada insists on a robust independent rules-based trade system.
Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland told reporters late Wednesday she is not returning to Washington until next week but has dispatched Canadas lead negotiator Steve Verheul and Canada's ambassador to the U.S. David MacNaughton to probe issues at a technical level with their American counterparts.
She said she still believes a three-way Canada-U.S.-Mexico deal is achievable even though U.S. President Donald Trump says he is prepared to put his bilateral agreement with Mexico before Congress for approval without Canadas sign-on by Sept. 30.
Freeland denied her absence from the table for the rest of the week means the political ministers are at a stalemate. But she stressed that in such a complicated negotiation nothing is done until everything is done.
Freeland briefed caucus on the talks, and later she and the Liberal governments team of negotiators including senior PMO aides met behind closed doors with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for an hour and a half.
Freeland continued talks by phone with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer in the afternoon and in the evening Freeland again met with the prime minister.
Trudeau, who did not take questions from reporters, told caucus his negotiators were still looking for a deal that will strengthen our economy, that will create jobs and opportunities for Canadians and we will not sign an unfavourable deal, wed prefer to not sign a deal.
Canadas premiers have until now lined up behind Trudeaus approach.
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But Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe said after meeting Trudeau that he had concerns about such talk.
We cannot move forward with a bad deal, Moe told reporters, but Im not certain we can move forward with no deal either.
Moe said his province sends 55 per cent of its exports to the U.S. and buys 85 per cent of its imports from Americans, and questioned how trade would move forward in the absence of a deal. Im not sure no deal isnt a bad deal, he said.
A senior Canadian official, speaking on background, denied the talks were at a stalemate, saying things remain fluid.
Trudeaus approach to the NAFTA talks appears to have the full backing of his caucus. MPs gave both Trudeau and Freeland standing ovations.
But on gun violence, its less clear there is any unanimity.
Former Toronto police chief Bill Blair, the newly named minister of border security and organized crime reduction who is to study the implications of a handgun ban and to recommend effective measures to combat gun violence, acknowledged there are concerns in caucus.
Blair said police officers have asked the government to legislate gun markings, a move that would bring Canada into compliance with a UN treaty, but one the government has repeatedly delayed. Gunmakers and owners argue it would increase the cost of firearm production at no real gain in public safety.
Police argue that regulations requiring Canadian-made firearms to carry a CA mark would help trace guns used in crimes.
Blair said he has heard their complaints but has not decided the best way forward, and said any list of options would likely include anti-poverty and anti-gang measures. He hopes to bring forward recommendations by years end.
Adam Vaughan, MP for SpadinaFort York, said in an interview that he believes there is enough support in caucus to finally enact a handgun ban.
Guns, particularly hand guns in urban environments are just too bloody dangerous, he said.
As for the political price paid by the party in the past when it attempted stricter gun control, Vaughan was blunt.
I think the consequences of listening to the gun lobby have been measured in human life in our city streets this summer and it is unconscionable not to take action against handguns, he said. That means stronger border controls, more restrictions and banning handguns in this country.
Trudeau did not mention gun violence in his open remarks to caucus, choosing instead to rally his troops by taking shots at the Conservatives for opposing measures to counter climate change and accusing them of having absolutely no plan to grow our economy.
The populists of the right offer no concrete solutions to the real problems that concern Canadians, he said.
Trudeau drew another contrast, without naming Ontario Premier Doug Ford or federal Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer, who has backed Fords use of a constitutional override to push forward a bill to limit the size of Toronto city council
Our government will always defend the rights of Canadians and always respect the Charter Of Rights And Freedoms, he said to rousing cheers from the caucus.
But the Conservatives have new ammunition with which to attack the Liberals next year, after Wednesdays condemnation by the federal ethics commissioner of cabinet minister Dominic Leblanc. Leblanc was found to have violated ethics rules when he gave a surf clam licence to a company that was connected to his wifes cousin.
Leblanc, who said he accepted without reservation the ethics watchdogs report (which comes with no penalty), is the third top cabinet member of Trudeaus government to run afoul of ethics rules.
The other two were Finance Minister Bill Morneau for failing to disclose his ownership of a French villa through a holding company, and Trudeau himself, for his Christmas vacation on the Aga Khans private island.
OTTAWASaskatchewan MP Erin Weir will seek the federal NDP nomination in his Regina riding, even though party leader Jagmeet Singh has slammed the door on his efforts to return to the New Democrats in the wake of a harassment investigation.
In an interview with the Star, Weir challenged Singh not to approve his nomination if party members in Regina-Lewvan choose him as their candidate in the 2019 election.
Singh informed Weir last week that he was not welcome back to the NDP caucus and that he would not be allowed to run for the party, stating in a letter that he isnt confident the Regina MP wouldnt repeat his harassing behaviour.
What Mr. Singh is saying in effect is he does not trust more than 2,000 NDP members in Regina-Lewvan to make the right decision, Weir said Thursday. Its the local membership who should be able to decide.
Speaking in Surrey, B.C. Thursday, Singh brushed aside Weirs intention to seek the nomination, and pointed out the NDP has a vetting process for candidates that come forward to try and run for the party in their home ridings. A party spokesperson told the Star this process includes an examination of personal, political and legal history, and that no candidate can run without the approval of the NDPs national direcotor and executive officers.
He can run as an independent, Singh said. We had a fair process, I made a decision, and Im sticking to it.
Weir is nonetheless continuing to push to return to the NDP fold as his former colleagues finished their three-day meeting in B.C. to strategize for the fall session of Parliament and next years general election. Weir said he believes he is best placed to win Regina-Lewvan again for the NDP, and that his main concern is to hold gains the party made in the province, where it won three seats in the 2015 election.
A group of 67 former NDP MLAs and MPs from Saskatchewan has also voiced concerns over Singhs handling of Weirs situation and called for his reinstatement as an NDP MP though Singh told reporters Wednesday that he will not be intimidated into compromising workplace safety by people of a position of privilege.
The controversy surrounding Weir began in February, when Singh suspended Weir from caucus after Quebec MP Christine Moore accused him of harassing unnamed women in an email to party colleagues. The party hired Ottawa lawyer Michelle Flaherty to investigate the claims, and Singh announced in May that Flaherty concluded three allegations of sexual harassment and one allegation of harassment were sustained.
Singh said at the time that Weirs public statements in which he questioned the investigation and the motivations of one of his complainants showed he was unwilling to take responsibility for his actions. Singh said Weir did not recognize non-verbal signs in social situations, and that his behaviour resulted in significant negative impacts for the complainants. He added that when Weir was told his advances were unwanted, he stopped.
Weir, meanwhile, has maintained he was treated unfairly. On Thursday, he called Flaherty a relatively activist investigator who took a broad view of harassment, and reiterated that he was found to have done nothing more than stand too close to people and speak to them for longer than they wanted. He said he has since taken measures Singh suggested, including apologizing and completing sensitivity training, and questioned why the party leader feels his reinstatement could affect workplace safety for NDP staff.
While Flahertys report is confidential, a letter from Weirs sensitivity trainer provided to the Star by a former Saskatchewan cabinet minister who is publicly defending Weir says the report characterized Weirs objectionable behaviour as being on the less serious end of the spectrum.
Mr. Singhs rhetoric about an unsafe workplace is totally disconnected from the investigators actual findings, Weir said.
Its been a series of mistakes and bad decisions from Mr. Singh.
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SASKATOONCanada will try to meet a Sept. 30 deadline to reach a North American free trade pact, but Prime Minister Justin Trudeau suggested Thursday the most recent timeline set by the U.S. may not be met as NAFTA talks continue.
We have seen various deadlines put forward as markers to work for, said Trudeau. Were going to continue to work toward the right deal for Canadians, a good deal for Canadians, and well do the work needed and try and get there as quick as we can but were going to make sure were doing what is necessary to get the right deal for Canadians.
Trudeau said meanwhile the government will also move quickly to advance legislation to implement the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership. The Americans withdrew from that wide-ranging deal after Donald Trump became president, prompting the remaining 11 nations to work toward a revised pact without the U.S. The countries that signed on are: Canada, Mexico, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Australia, Brunei and Vietnam.
The government will bring the bill on the new trade treaty which contains concessions on things like dairy that the U.S. is seeking at the NAFTA table to the Commons for second reading debate which will then send it on to a parliamentary committee for in-depth study, even as NAFTA talks continue.
Trudeau said it will bring Canadian goods to new markets, and new customers and create jobs and growth in Canada.
Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland and senior PMO officials will travel again to Washington next week, but Freeland told reporters here she is constantly communicating with Trumps trade representative Robert Lighthizer by phone and email.
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Trudeau tells the Liberal caucus we will not sign an unfavourable deal on NAFTA
Trudeau dismissed any suggestion that Freeland had irritated the White House in the course of the talks, or by attending a panel entitled Taking on the tyrant at an event in Toronto.
He hailed her handling of the negotiations and said the government is working in a diligent and focused way to get a good deal.
He has repeatedly said he would rather not sign a deal than sign one that would be bad for Canadas economy over the long run, but some like Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe have questioned the wisdom of that assertion.
Sources say key sticking points remain. The U.S. wants greater access to Canadas dairy market and cultural industries, while Canada insists any trade pact must have independent binational dispute resolution mechanisms. For its part, the U.S. wants disputes settled in domestic courts.
Freeland has won praise from many of her fellow MPs after their return from their ridings; she got a standing ovation at the caucus retreat.
Federal Liberals left the caucus retreat in Saskatoon in a buoyant mood even as the shadow of unfinished NAFTA talks hung over their preparliamentary gathering.
People are telling me they like the governments approach on NAFTA and Hang in there. Dont be bullied, said International Trade Minister Jim Carr.
The meeting here was part strategy session, part pep rally, with Trudeau sharpening his message ahead of the 2019 election year.
He said the government will not prorogue or bring in a new throne speech, but will continue to enact the agenda it was elected on and focus on delivering real change to middle-class Canadians, not the same old flawed plan that the Conservatives are offering.
However he is drawing a clearer line between Canadas conservatives and populists on the right.
He attacked the Conservatives for having no plan for the economy and of playing politics with peoples anxieties and fears by exaggeration.
Worst of all theyd rather use the politics of division for quick electoral gains than to find ways to bring people together to bring a better future.
Trudeau said his government will introduce this fall pay equity legislation to ensure women get equal pay for work of equal value in federally regulated sectors.
And he stood firm in the face of growing provincial opposition to his carbon pricing plan, saying that the time is long since past to start fighting climate change.
Ontario and Saskatchewan are challenging in the courts the Liberal promise to enact a federal carbon tax (which would return money to the provinces). Trudeau turned aside questions about a possible growing divide between east and west, saying Canadians expect his government to act, in the face of more extreme floods, hurricanes and wildfires he said are linked to global warming.
If a province is unwilling to do what is necessary the federal government will act, said Trudeau.
The Liberal party says its 2019 election planning is well underway. Party officials say while it might seem as if Conservatives are out-fundraising the Liberals, the Conservatives have spent more money to collect those donations and so the parties are actually on a more level playing field than it appears.
So far the party has completed nominations in about 26 ridings, however party officials say most Liberal MPs are running again.
Trudeau praised the 25 Toronto MPs of his caucus for issuing a statement against Doug Fords use of a constitutional override clause to cut Toronto city council, but again said he wont weigh in on the debate on the size of the council, saying it is not a role the federal government needs to take on.
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SASKATOONLiberal members of Parliament from Toronto unanimously condemned Thursday Premier Doug Fords decision to use the constitutional override clause to cut Toronto city council.
In a statement obtained by the Star, all 25 federal MPs from the city of Toronto called on all provincial MPPs to defeat Fords legislation tabled Wednesday at Queens Park, calling the premiers resort to s. 33 the notwithstanding clause never before invoked by Ontario heavy-handed and disrespectful.
We believe MPPs elected in Toronto have a responsibility to defend the city, its democratic institutions, and the rights of citizens to a free and fair municipal election. The people of Toronto deserve nothing less.
They quoted Prime Minister Justin Trudeaus declaration that the Liberal party will always defend the Charter and said but this is not a partisan issue noting former prime minister Brian Mulroney, premiers and municipal leaders of all political stripes have denounced Fords triggering of the notwithstanding clause. The correct response to a court decision one disagrees with is to appeal.
The statement the first of its kind is signed The Toronto Liberal MPs and it includes several high-profile cabinet ministers such as Finance Minister Bill Morneau, Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland, Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Carolyn Bennett, Minister of Science and Sport Kirsty Duncan, and Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Ahmed Hussen.
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It says that the elected representatives of the city want to assure the people of Toronto that we understand and respect the critical role that city hall and local democracy play in building the communities in which we live.
However Trudeau has already ruled out intervening in the dispute.
Julie Dabrusin, MP for Toronto-Danforth and a spokesperson for the caucus, told the Star that the caucus statement by 25 federal Liberal MPs saying that a strong Toronto is part of a strong Canada, when you have all of us imploring our MPPs in Queens Park to do whats right, that is a strong signal. She said the Toronto caucus is satisfied with Trudeaus decision not to intervene.
What we have right now is a constitutional process with people sitting in Queens Park with the ability to vote this down, and that is the proper process for showing how our democratic institutions work, Dabrusin said in an interview. And in addition, the provincial government is free to appeal that decision. They have the tools that they need to go forward without having to invoke this clause.
Speaking in Winnipeg Tuesday, Trudeau said: Were disappointed by the provincial government in Ontarios choice to invoke the notwithstanding clause, but I wont be weighing in on the debate on how big Toronto municipal council should be, he said.
I will trust that Ontarians will reflect whether or not the provincial government made the right decision on overriding the Charter of Rights and Freedoms on this issue, said Trudeau, who met with Toronto Mayor John Tory on the topic Monday.
On Thursday afternoon, federal NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh issued a statement saying his party will call for an emergency meeting to gather input from expert witnesses and discuss ways of working together with the provinces to protect the rights of Canadians.
Our caucus is deeply troubled by Ontario Premier Doug Fords use of the notwithstanding clause. He is using the clause to suspend democratic rights in what appears to be a personal and petty vendetta against the City of Toronto, the statement said.
Correction Sept. 13, 2018: This article was edited from a previous version that mistakenly said 24 members of Parliament from Toronto condemned Premier Doug Fords decision to use the notwithstanding clause. In fact, all 25 MPs from Toronto unanimously condemned Fords decision. Incorrect information was provided to the Star.
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CALGARYThe city is scrapping plans to explore four public spaces where Calgarians would have been allowed to smoke pot after cannabis is legalized this fall.
After overwhelmingly negative public feedback, Calgarians will be allowed to light up only in private residences under the citys strict regulations come Oct. 17.
The proposed spots all in Calgarys Ward 9 were announced in August, after Ward 9 Councillor Gian-Carlo Carra said he wanted to gauge public opinion on the spaces. He was the only councillor who asked to examine the possibility of putting sites in his ward.
The proposed sites were all in green spaces: two in Inglewood and one each in Ogden and Bridgeland.
Carra said at the time that he was interested in the possibility of spaces in his ward because its an oxymoron to create a situation where people might have no legal spaces to consume a legal substance. Calgarys Cannabis Consumption Bylaw forbids consuming cannabis in public, leaving a dilemma for condo- or apartment-dwellers where property management companies or condo boards may ban smoking cannabis.
Experts have also pointed out that people who may live in precarious housing situations or who use the citys shelter system could be vulnerable to being fined for consuming cannabis in public.
But public feedback about the pot parks, Carra said Wednesday, was largely negative. Out of about 1,800 people who gave their opinions on the sites, a solid three-quarters opposed setting them up.
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Carra said he ultimately agreed that it was an issue to concentrate public cannabis use to just a handful of city spaces.
This really is only going to work if theres a diffuse network of these things and you dont concentrate them, he said.
Between the valid concerns with the individual sites that were raised and the fact that these sites would be taking on the brunt for the entire city, it really became an untenable situation.
The city has been collecting feedback on the Ward 9 spaces for two weeks. If Carra had chosen to continue the process, the next step would have been a public hearing in council and a vote on whether to set up the designated cannabis spots.
Council originally approved a process for examining and approving the sites in June. Calgary cannabis legalization project lead Matt Zabloski said other city councillors can still come forward to ask about setting up spaces in their communities. But even if they make the request, with legalization just five weeks away, the public cannabis areas wouldnt be set up by Oct. 17.
Bridgeland-Riverside Community Association president Brian Beck said that at a town hall meeting on the topic in his neighbourhood, basically everyone in the room was there to oppose it.
Some people had put up signs in Murdoch Park urging residents to say no, and a petition against the idea also circulated in the community.
Those actions were separate from the community association, but Beck said it was a challenge to navigate the reactions to setting up public consumption spaces only in Ward 9.
It was a bit of a frustration for us, he said. Why it led up to this moment in time where it was like, Wow, Im the only one is a fair question.
Carra said that while he thinks stopping the process is the right decision, he still has concerns about barriers some may face to legally consume cannabis in Calgary.
This is a real message to everyone that rolling out legalization of cannabis without the opportunity for cafes or lounges is a deeply problematic situation, he said.
Not having a legal space to use a legal substance sort of shoves us into a grey zone.
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Some 400 demonstrators chanted, clapped and held signs with messages like Stop Doug the thug and Our city! We decide! outside city hall Wednesday to protest Premier Doug Fords efforts to revive a bill slashing Toronto city council nearly in half.
For more than two hours, they chanted slogans like The people united will never be defeated and Hey hey, ho ho, Doug Ford has got to go and cheered on a stream of NDP and Liberal speakers.
Its clearly his attempt to get his revenge on councillors that he considers his enemies, said Ruth Gillings, 71, a retired University of Toronto manager .
Demonstrators were incensed by Fords use of the notwithstanding clause to override a court decision which had found his plan to cut city council during an election campaign violated the Charter right of freedom of expression.
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Former premier Bill Davis speaks out against Doug Fords use of the notwithstanding clause
Gillings said the power of judges to have the final say in legal disputes is worth respecting. Theyre not elected because if there were elected, they couldnt be impartial, she said.
Some demonstrators held signs calling on Ford to respect the court decision, saying, Notwiththinking and Courts protect against abuse of power.
Several demonstrators called on Attorney General Caroline Mulroney to stand up for the courts, and noted that her father, former prime minister Brian Mulroney, spoke out this week against Fords use of the notwithstanding clause to override the court decision.
Listen to your father! He is right! read one sign. Get on it Caroline, another sign said.
Retired board of health worker Lee Zaslofsky, 74, was one of many protestors who thought Mulroney should have stood up to Ford and defended the court decision.
Im opposed to what Doug Ford is doing, Zaslofsky said. I think its the equivalent of a proclamation of dictatorship.
Waving a Canadian flag and chanting loudly was Conrad Oliver, 19, a University of Toronto political science student.
I am surprised it has come to this, Oliver said.
Musician Barry Peters, 61, said he thinks Ford is using his powers as premier to settle old beefs from his days on Toronto city council.
I think Doug Ford is a disgrace to this province, Peters said. Hes a bully Its nothing but a personal vendetta.
Zaslofsky said he suspects Ford is using Toronto to send a message to other communities not to oppose him.
I think Doug Ford is trying to make a point, Zaslofsky said. Hes the boss. You do what he says or he crushes you. The other cities will look at this and say, Oh boy, he stops at nothing.
Mary-Ann Leonowicz, 50, said Ford is jeopardizing next months Toronto city election.
I feel like hes attacking Toronto, she said, arguing that Torontos city council needs to grow, not contract.
This city is growing, she said. Its not dying.
Joan McDonald, 76, said that Ford is acting as if the laws dont matter to him.
Hes doing exactly what I knew that he would do, she said. Hes just feels that hes above the law.
Her husband Barrett McDonald, 80, agreed, saying that the courts must be defended.
Once the courts start getting pushed around, were in very big trouble as a democracy.
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Ester Reiter lived through discrimination as a Jew in Cold War America, marched to protest the Vietnam War with two babies in tow, and visited a mass grave in a southern Poland forest where her grandparents, aunts and uncles were likely murdered in the Holocaust.
When she woke up on Wednesday morning, the 77-year-old didnt hesitate to stand up for what she says is another great injustice the Ontario government passing legislation that a judge ruled violates the Constitution.
She cancelled her recorder quartet practice and made her way to Queens Park.
You cant let them get away with these dirty deeds without witnessing the thing, said Reiter of the Progressive Conservative government invoking the notwithstanding clause to ram through cuts to Toronto city council in the middle of a municipal election campaign. This is outrageous. Its like shredding everything I care about.
Read more:
Raucous debate underway Thursday morning at Queens Park over notwithstanding clause
Fords legislation to cut Toronto council passes first reading as protests rock the Ontario legislature
Twenty-five Toronto MPs urge rejection of Fords plan to use the notwithstanding clause
Within minutes of grabbing a spot in the legislature and watching others make noise as question period began, Reiter and the rest of the audience were told to leave. She refused, and made it known why.
I am 77-and-a-half years old and I hate the destruction of democracy, Reiter yelled from the balcony as opposition MPPs below clapped in support.
Two security guards intervened and escorting Reiter out of Queens Park. She later told the Star the only reason she didnt try to stay longer was not out of fear of being criminally charged, but because she was concerned that if her wrists were handcuffed behind her back it would injure her shoulder.
Why do I care about having a record? said Reiter, a retired professor of womens studies at York University.
She wasnt arrested or charged, nor were two other protesters who were also escorted out, according to Toronto police.
The last time Reiter was at Queens Park was in 1996, when she went to protest the Progressive Conservative government of then-premier Mike Harris. She was kicked out of the legislature that day, too.
How I honour my identity as a Jew is to get my ass out and protect everybody, to protect the rights and freedoms of everybody and really try to struggle against any injustice, she said.
Reiters Brooklyn accent hints at her past. Her parents immigrated to New York City from Eastern Europe in the 1920s. When Reiter was on born Jan. 13, 1941, her mother and father were struggling to find out what had happened to their own parents, brothers and sisters, who were still overseas during the Second World War. They would later discover that almost the entire family was murdered in the Holocaust.
I didnt live through that hell, but I inherited my parents grief and the understanding you dont fight (injustice) for yourself. You fight it for everybody, Reiter said. She still remembers her mother mourning her little sister, who had been trying to escape to the United States but never made it.
Reiter would eventually move to Winnipeg with her two boys in 1968, and then later to Toronto to get her PhD in sociology at the University of Toronto, driven to make a difference.
I ask myself, what can I do to make sure what happened to my people doesnt happen to other people to make sure my voice is there saying, No, no, no, it isnt right?
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Toronto police are asking for the publics help in identifying and finding a man who allegedly sexually assaulted a woman at Kennedy subway station.
Police released security camera images Wednesday of the man implicated in the investigation.
As reported on Sept. 1, a 40-year-old unconscious woman was lying on the ground outside the station when a man approached her. He began to sexually assault her as numerous people walked by.
A witness tried to intervene by yelling at the man, police said in a press release. Shortly after, the man walked away.
The suspect is described as 60 with pale white skin and a large build, six-foot-two and short, white hair. He was last seen wearing a black T-shirt, casual pants, brown leather belt and a fedora-style beige-white hat.
The security photo release by police, which shows the suspect wearing a baseball cap, was taken at a different time and is intended to help the public identify him, police said.
Anyone with information is asked to contact police at 416-808-7474 or Crime Stoppers anonymously at 416-222-TIPS (8477).
It is the final chapter in a constitutional challenge that changed provincial legislation and gives new hope to single parents caring for children with disabilities.
An Ontario court judge has awarded Brampton single mother Robyn Coates monthly payments of $518.14 in child support for her disabled adult son for the rest of his life.
The support ruling, released by Justice William Sullivan last week, stems from a precedent-setting decision in July 2017 that prompted the provincial government to change the law and opened the door for unmarried mothers and fathers caring for adult children with disabilities to claim support from estranged parents.
Justice Sullivan really honoured Josh. He listened to my testimony and he really cared, Coates said, referring to her son, Joshua, 23.
Adult children unable to leave the care of a parent for illness or any other reason are also eligible to claim support under the amendment to Ontarios Family Law Act passed last December.
Previously, only adult children still in school or whose parents had been married and divorced were eligible for support, a situation Coates successfully argued discriminates against those born to parents who were never married.
I am excited to know that many parents will read about our case and get a glimpse into the struggles that both Josh and I face on a daily basis, Coates said of the court action she launched in January 2016.
Joshua, who was born with a rare genetic abnormality, reads and writes at the Grade 2 level, suffers from numerous psychiatric and physical health problems and will require supervision and financial support for the rest of his life, the court heard.
Since he turned 18, he has received Ontario Disability Support Program payments as well as funding from Developmental Services Ontario and Brampton Caledon Community Living.
But Coates, an educational resource worker for students with special needs in the Dufferin-Peel Catholic School Board, said these public support programs dont cover Joshuas extra medical and recreation expenses that can cost up to $1,400 a month. She wanted his father, Wayne Watson, to pay about half, or $800.
Watson, who never lived with Coates and has been married for more than 20 years to another woman, with whom he has two other children, says he is glad the legal wrangling is over.
Its been one dark cloud that has been hanging over my head, he said in an interview this week. It is what it is. Its what the law requires.
Watson paid various amounts of court-ordered child support when Joshua was a minor, but argued he was not legally bound to support his son beyond age 18 because social assistance is available for adults.
Watson was paying about $800 a month before the Sept. 4 ruling by Justice Sullivan, of the Ontario Court of Justice. Although Coates was initially disappointed the judge reduced this amount by almost $300 a month, she said she feels the ruling was fair and compassionate.
Coates is particularly pleased Sullivan said Watson has to share the cost of a personal trainer for Joshua to help him manage his health and weight problems.
(Joshua) has few interests and/or activities in his life that he can point to as achievements and his weightlifting and interests at the YMCA are an area that has helped him feel good about himself as a unique person with a skill in his own right, Sullivan wrote in his ruling.
Coates is happy the judge also acknowledged her need for respite and help to pay someone to look after Joshua while she takes a break.
The support for family caregivers, such as Ms Coates, must be a recognized cost to be equitably shared by the parties and a recognized need by our society at large, Sullivan ruled.
Coatess lawyer Robert Shawyer, who handled the constitutional case pro-bono, also praised Sullivans ruling.
He got it right, he said.
Previously under Ontarios Family Law Act, which governs unmarried parents, adult children were eligible for child support only if they are in school full-time.
But under the federal Divorce Act, an adult child who is unable to live independently due to disability, illness or other causes is also eligible for support as long as they need it.
Sullivans 2017 constitutional ruling, which adopted the federal Divorce Act wording for the case, meant Joshua was eligible for child support from Watson.
Since Ontario changed the law, Alberta is the only province where adult children of unmarried parents are still only eligible for child support if they are in school full-time.
A guideline released by the Toronto public school board to help alleviate confusion among parents over controversial changes to the sex-ed curriculum makes it clear teachers can still address critically important topics.
In a letter sent out Wednesday, the board said it compared the repealed modernized 2015 Health and Physical Education Curriculum with the reissued 2010 curriculum, which contains sex-ed material from 1998. While the wording may be different, and expectations may differ depending on grade, the current curriculum still contains key issues, explained John Malloy, director of education at the Toronto District School Board.
Topics such as online safety, bullying, consent, respecting, understanding and honouring diverse families of students that may identify as (LGBTQ) all of these points are part of, in some way, the reissued 2010 curriculum, said Malloy in an interview. Clarity is important when theres a very significant issue on the table. And by providing that clarity we hope we can support teachers to serve students, we can support parents to understand what were teaching, and how were teaching, and we will continue to work through any conflicts that may emerge.
The guide says religious accommodations will be made for parents if theyre concerned about part of the curriculum, but not if it involves human rights issues such as gender identity and sexual orientation. The TDSB is also providing resources to teachers and principals on how to deliver the curriculum, as ordered by the Ministry of Education, while creating an environment thats safe and inclusive for students.
Read more:
Consultations on school curriculum will be about more than just sex ed, Ford promises
Health-care professionals speak out against changing Ontarios sex-ed curriculum
Families to launch human rights case over outdated sex-ed curriculum
The idea for a parent guide surfaced because the TDSB received numerous calls and emails in recent weeks from concerned parents over what children would be taught, after the Progressive Conservatives repealed the curriculum for elementary students. Teachers were directed to use the reissued curriculum, while the province holds public consultations, set to begin this month.
Premier Doug Fords curriculum rollback generated intense backlash. Both the Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario (ETFO) and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association filed applications with the Ontario Superior Court of Justice to halt the rollback, arguing, in part, that the reissued curriculum discriminates against LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer) members. Those matters will be heard jointly by the Divisional Court in late November. In addition, a Human Rights Tribunal case has been launched by six families of LGBTQ youth, who say the outdated lessons make no mention of gender, consent or same-sex relationships.
The events of recent weeks prompted the board to release the online guide for parents, which breaks down the differences by grade. Its believed to be the first board in the province to issue such a guide.
Were simply helping people understand what the 2010 curriculum actually says, explained Malloy, adding teachers are expected to use it.
Parents may believe that certain topics are not permitted in that curriculum. And were trying to communicate that if you actually read through the curriculum ... many of the topics of concern are still present.
There are some issues no longer covered in the current curriculum, he noted. For instance, some discussion about sexual activity is delayed until high school. But, he said, there may not be as many differences as our parents may have thought.
In some cases, topics are now covered under prompts for instance, if a student brings up an issue as opposed to expectations, but they remain in the curriculum. Malloy believes part of the confusion is because the 2015 curriculum explicitly outlines very clear expectations, whereas the 2010 is less explicit.
Joy Lachica, president of the Elementary Teachers of Toronto, which is the Toronto local of ETFO, applauds the boards valiant job in trying to educate parents and make sense of the chaos of recent weeks. And she has no doubt the board, which she calls extremely progressive, will encourage the discussion of modern-day topics and create safe spaces for all students. But she maintains there are key issues missing from the current curriculum.
This (current curriculum) silences anything that has to do with different families. Thats the piece, the invisibility of (LGBTQ+) students and families and members, (and it) creates an isolation for those students and a safety issue.
Im concerned about us accepting the 2010 refresh. Its incomplete ... And it doesnt inform instruction that keeps our students safe. It doesnt include consent. And it doesnt include all the elements that have to do with anti-bullying, anti-cyber bullying and healthy relationships. All the things that children need to learn incrementally.
Sex-ed: 2010 versus 2015
Here are some examples of whats in the reissued 2010 curriculum, which contains sex-ed material from 1998, that is currently in use, compared with the previous 2015 curriculum:
Grade 1:
2010: Identify major parts of the body by their proper name.
2015: Identify body parts, including genitalia such as penis, testicles, vagina, vulva using correct terminology.
Grade 2:
2010: Distinguish the similarities between themselves and others, in terms of body size or gender. (This used to be taught in Grade 1, in the 2015 curriculum.)
2015: Outline basic stages of human development such as infant, child, adolescent, adult, older adult and related bodily changes, and identify factors that are important for healthy growth and living throughout life.
Grade 4:
2010: Describe the four stages of human development infancy, childhood, adolescence, and adulthood and identify the physical, interpersonal, and emotional changes appropriate to their current stage.
2015: Describe the physical changes that occur in males and females at puberty growth of body hair, breast development, changes in voice and body size, production of body odour, skin changes and the emotional and social impacts that may result from these changes.
Grade 7:
2010: Explain the male and female reproductive systems as they relate to fertilization.
2015: Explain the importance of having a shared understanding with a partner about the following: Delaying sexual activity until they are older for example, choosing to abstain from any genital contact; choosing to abstain from having vaginal or anal intercourse; choosing to abstain from having oral-genital contact the reasons for not engaging in sexual activity; the concept of consent and how consent is communicated.
Source: The TDSB Guide to the Revised Ontario Health and Physical Education Curriculum
DURHAMThe region has always had an ambivalent relationship with the provincial Greenbelt.
When the idea was first proposed back in the early 2000s, Durham was one of the few governments to speak out against the idea.
That seemingly hasnt changed, as regional council, during a recent meeting of its committee of the whole, voted against a motion from Aurora that calls on the province to expand the Greenbelt.
The popularity of the Greenbelt isnt in doubt, as Premier Doug Ford found out in the spring after meeting with a group of developers. At the meeting, he said he would open up the area for development. Almost immediately, he took back his comments.
One of the reasons for the retreat was swift and visceral public condemnation. Among those heard were party MPPs, who faced criticism from residents about developing in the Greenbelt.
Rod Phillips, the MPP for Ajax and the minister of the environment, conservation and parks, said the Greenbelt is a permanent feature of the GTA. That doesnt mean we cant look at some areas. Its a permanent fixture and a good one. I think the Greenbelt is a reality now.
The Greenbelt absolutely needs to be protected, Phillips added.
We have to look at areas where it might need to be expanded, he said, pointing to the headwaters of Carruthers Creek.
The Aurora motion strongly urged the province to expand the Greenbelt to include whitebelt lands near the Greenbelt.
Whitebelt lands are those that are beyond a municipalitys urban area, but not in the Greenbelt. The area is called an inner ring and those lands could be open for development.
During the regional debate, Oshawa Coun. John Aker opposed the Aurora motion, saying, This area has high house prices because there are no affordable units.
He said with immigration and migration throughout Canada, more housing options will be needed unless we want houses that cost $1 million or $1.5 million and our children living in apartments.
Were a younger region and we have to provide housing for our children, he added.
Ajax Mayor Steve Parish disagreed, saying Akers figures are entirely wrong.
About 250,000 people come to Canada each year, not just the GTA, Parish said.
This motion is asking for two things. Maintaining and growing the Greenbelt and protecting appropriate whitebelt lands in the inner ring.
Parish said of Fords comments to developers he walked that back within four hours. Why? Because the Greenbelt is extremely popular with people. Its not because hes a tree hugger.
But, he knows thats a third rail you dont touch or youll get electrocuted, Parish added.
A report by former Toronto mayor David Crombie placed a high priority on protecting water features, such as the headwaters of Carruthers Creek.
The previous Liberal government didnt do that and it was a major oversight of the last government, Parish said.
This Region, I hope, will support good planning.
Ajax has opposed any urban development near the Carruthers Creek headwaters. The lands, in northeast Pickering, are in the whitebelt and development there could cause flooding downstream, which is in Ajax. Pickering officials support development in the headwaters.
He said studies have shown that an imminent lack of land for housing is wrong.
Beyond 2041, with the present boundaries of the GTHA, theres sufficient land, Parish said. You can scaremonger this, but reality is reality. I cant overemphasize the popularity of the Greenbelt. Its important for Durham Region and its important for the GTHA.
Clarington Mayor Adrian Foster said Clarington supports whitebelt lands put into the Greenbelt.
Whats not appropriate is what the last government did and pull out a Sharpie and mark up a map. People want urban separators maintained, Foster said, noting Clarington residents like the separation between Courtice and Bowmanville and between Bowmanville and Newcastle.
Parish is absolutely correct on what people want, Foster said.
Pickering Councillor Kevin Ashe said, This is the third or fourth time this council has dealt with whitebelt issues.
He said a study of the Carruthers Creek headwaters is underway and its premature to make a decision.
Planning Commissioner Brian Bridgeman said his departments consistent position is to wait for the study to be completed and then make a decision.
Ashe added, I disagree with the Clarington and Ajax mayors. Were doing the process of what whitebelt lands to protect.
Approving the motion would mean throwing away one million in taxpayers dollars, Ashe said.
Scugog Mayor Tom Rowett said the Greenbelt is the number one issue with delegations at Scugog council.
With about 95 per cent of Scugog in the Greenbelt, the municipality is handcuffed on attracting development.
I cant support this. We need flexibility. We need sustainability, Rowett said. We need flexibility, not for sprawl, but for financial flexibility.
Whitby Councillor Derrick Gleed said, Theres an old saying be careful what youre asking for. I dont think anyone is against the Greenbelt.
He said the Aurora motion wasnt clear. It has nothing to do with support or lack of support for the Greenbelt.
Toronto police have arrested and charged a man with robbing 11 gas stations in Toronto and Peel Region.
The robberies took place between Aug. 14 and Sept. 7, according to a police press release. Initially the man used a knife against victims, but later committed eight robberies while armed with an air pistol.
When he went into the targeted gas stations, he demanded money and in several instances, held his weapon to a victims head or stomach.
It is unclear if anyone was hurt or how much money the suspect got away with.
After each hit, the man escaped in a stolen white Dodge Caravan.
Toronto police say Peel Regional Police identified the man and on Sept. 7, officers from 23 Division located the man in the stolen vehicle.
Chanvir Fangura, 25, of Mississauga was arrested and faces 32 charges, including robbery with a firearm, theft over $500 and possession of property obtained by crime.
He appeared in court at Old City Hall.
Bianca Bharti is a breaking news reporter, working out of the Star's radio room in Toronto. Follow her on Twitter: @biancabharti
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Dont feel bad for the 100 Scarborough kids in Sistema Torontos music programs, now that Ontarios new government has taken the charitys $500,000 provincial support away.
Feel bad for 30 other Scarborough children who would be in the program this fall, supporters say, if the Progressive Conservatives hadnt decided to rescind a grant the former Liberal regime said was approved.
The charity expected a steady source of funds for the first time; instead, Sistema executive director Christie Gray and Scarborough-Guildwood MPP Mitzie Hunter were at St. Martin de Porres Catholic School assuring children the program will continue.
More people are going to help us, Gray told a group in the school library Monday.
Were going to figure out a way to make it happen. We promise, OK?
Hunter, a Liberal MPP, told them the funding problem would be fixed. We want you to learn and have fun.
Privately, though, she said she feels the program is threatened.
Martin de Porres is blocks from the site of the infamous Danzig St. mass shooting. Hunter said positive pathways must be built to address roots of violence in the community.
Theres a demonstrated need in Kingston-Galloway for programs like Sistema. More communities need programs like this.
She said she could see and prove the programs benefits, yet the PC government said Sistema didnt meet grant criteria an impulsive decision it should revisit, Hunter said.
If not, they know theyre hurting kids and limiting their potential. Thats shameful.
Earlier, children getting 10 hours with Sistema over four days a week said they love their instruments and would be sad to see the program end.
Ive seen on the news the funding got cut and I still believe they deserve it. Its like a promise, said Joyce Teodoro, 10, who now plays the cello. There should be Sistema in every single school.
Her mother, Sherile Red, said two years in Sistema helped get the formally shy Joyce into gifted classes.
Its like a cocoon becoming a butterfly, she said. Instead of the kids just staying in the house watching TV, at least theyre improving themselves through music.
Michelle Khan said her daughter, Brooklyn, has become more of a team player since joining. Music lessons are expensive, Khan argued, and we give so much to people who dont need it, but Sistemas a program for our future.
Doris Abohndem, mother of two girls in the program. said they love music. Ever since they got into it, theyre focused.
Believing that cutting off its grant wasnt fair, Abohndem wrote to Premier Doug Ford. The premier wrote back on Aug. 27, saying Ontario Tourism, Culture and Sport Minister Sylvia Jones, or her staff, would respond to Abohndem. She said they havent.
Richard Clark, a spokesperson for Jones, has told Metroland Media Sistema wasnt eligible for funds, and suggested the Liberals were to blame for the disappointment.
Sistema directors say ministry staff evaluated the program before the grant was announced in May, and havent explained the new governments decision. Clark couldnt be reached to clarify why the grant was dropped.
Visiting with Hunter was John McKay, Scarborough-Guildwoods MP, who acknowledged the program wasnt a federal issue but he wanted to support it anyway, because the decision struck me as exceedingly short-sighted.
Founded in 2011, Sistema teaches 175 other students in North York and Parkdale. Until last fall, Military Trail Public School was the charitys second Scarborough learning centre, but funding was scarce, so Military Trail students learn at Martin de Porres.
Sistema wants to serve many Scarborough schools, not two, because theres a huge demand, said Gray, pausing near a bulletin board where children had posted personal goals: to be a doctor, a vet, an illustrator, and to make it to Level 6 in my swimming class.
Thats part of Sistemas work too, she said.
Were using music as a tool for social advancement, especially for kids in low-income areas.
York Regional police officer Remo Romano has been sentenced to eight months in jail after he was tried for the third time for dangerous driving causing death.
Family members, friends and co-workers of both the deceased and the officer packed a downtown Toronto courtroom where Superior Court Justice Brian OMarra delivered his reasons for sentencing. The 47-year-old detective constable, who has been on administrative duties, was released on bail pending appeal from the Court of Appeal, said William MacKenzie, his trial lawyer, who added that the verdict and sentence will be appealed.
Romanos first trial resulted in a hung jury. The second trial resulted in an acquittal. The Crown successfully appealed and a third trial was ordered and resulted in a finding of guilt.
Read more:
Third trial ordered for York cop previously acquitted of dangerous driving causing death
On Feb. 12, 2014, Romano was on-duty and driving at a speed substantially over the posted speed limit when he struck and killed 18-year-old Natasha Carla Abogado as she crossed St. Clair Ave. E. at 8 p.m. Court heard he was travelling 115 kilometres per hour in a 60-km zone, trying to catch up to other members of a surveillance team investigating property crimes.
The Crown was seeking a 12-month jail term. The defence argued a non-custodial disposition was warranted.
The judge disagreed and said a jail sentence was required in light of all the mitigating and aggravating factors in this tragic case.
However, the judge said he found the Crowns suggested range was excessive. The prosecution argued Romano had not demonstrated remorse a position rejected by the judge.
OMarra said he arrived at the eight-month term because of the genuine remorse expressed by Mr. Romano and the diminished need for general deterrence.
We are extremely disappointed in the jail sentence, MacKenzie said. Its been our position all along that PC Romano was in the attempted-good-faith performance of his duties at the time of this tragic accident.
The impact that this case will have on front line officers and first responders will be significant.
The father of five remains on administrative duties pending the final outcome of the appeal, a York Regional Police spokeswoman wrote in email.
Premier Doug Ford left the city in limbo on Wednesday when he invoked the controversial notwithstanding clause in a new bill to cut the number of Toronto city councillors. City hall, candidates for council and the city clerks office must now wait for Queens Park to pass Bill 31 before they can resume planning for the rapidly approaching municipal election.
We have hit a tipping point, city clerk Ulli Watkiss told council Thursday morning, adding it is becoming virtually impossible for us to carry out the Oct. 22 election.
Unless theres an emergency reading of Bill 31 over the weekend which Ford is trying to make happen the earliest the bill is likely to be passed is Sept. 24. Why the delay? Passing the bill earlier would mean MPPs would have to miss the International Plowing Match and Rural Expo.
Almost every year, Queens Park decides near-unanimously to take a break so MPPs can attend the International Plowing Match and Rural Expo. Skipping the event, where the leaders mount tractors and plow fields for the media cameras, would be unpopular with all four parties.
So, why is a plowing match prolonging the chaos over Fords use of the notwithstanding clause?
Heres everything you need to know, starting with the basics:
What is the International Plowing Match?
If you do know the basics about farming, a plowing match is pretty much what youd think it would be: a competition over who has the best plowing technique.
Farmers compete at a number of smaller events across Ontario in order to qualify for the annual International Plowing Match and Rural Expo, a massive five-day agricultural event held at a different Ontario farm each year.
Its all organized by the Ontario Plowmens Association, a group thats existed since 1910.
We generally attract 80, 000 plus people through the five days of the IPM and the tourism industry figures put the economic impact at about $25- to $27-million range for the whole community, said spokesperson Richard Vivian.
This years event will be in Chatham-Kent, a town of 102,042 between London and Windsor, from Sept. 18 to Sept. 22.
The town is going all out for the celebration of agriculture, which Chatham-Kent Mayor Randy Hope said is a $3-billion industry for the municipality.
We get everyone coming down from the premier to the prime minister, Hope said, adding he understands what Toronto is going through, since Chatham-Kent itself saw a massive cut to municipal representation with amalgamation in 1998.
We went from 240 elected officials to 18, he said.
OK, but whats plowing?
Its fine if you didnt know the basics. Farmers plow a field by cutting the top layer of soil and turning it over, typically by pulling large metal blades behind a tractor or horse. Plowing loosens the soil, helps organic matter decompose and allows farmers to plant their crops and apply fertilizer.
Its a crucial step that can make or break your crop.
Freshly plowed fields are distinctive for having long, straight lines of turned-over soil called furrows, which look a bit like corrugated cardboard. Furrows are a big deal for the plowing match farmers are judged on their quality.
Whats the plowing competition all about?
Plowing is more than just running through soil. The competition has strict criteria when it comes to judging.
Theyre looking at things like straightness of the furrow, theres conformity, uniformity, distinctness, said Vivian. Farmers dont just roll up in their John Deere (tractors) and drive across a field people train for this competition, according to Vivian.
The scoring card available on the website says the firmness of the furrows are also tested by having a judge step on them; a furrow that collapses loses points.
Is the event more than just plowing?
Its far more than plowing! Theres performers and live music, dancers, displays, demonstrations and educational opportunities.
Its about understanding what agriculture is all about, where the food is growing from, the technology that is applied to agriculture, said Hope. Its not just about the international plowing match, its about understanding culture, cultural diversity in our communities.
According to the events website, theres a rodeo, auctions and, this year, several planned Guinness World Record attempts, including for the largest egg and spoon race and the largest sugar cube structure. One of the big draws is seeing whos crowned the Ontario Queen of the Furrow.
Queen of the Furrow?
The Queen of the Furrow competition may seem like a beauty pageant, but it depends on contestants farming abilities, including how well they can handle a tractor.
Young women compete on their agricultural know-how and skills. Theres also an interview and public speeches in front of visitors.
Contestants are selected by their regions to compete at the International Plowing Match, Vivian explained. There, judges will follow them around for three days. Im sure not every second of every day, its spread out over three days.
Once the field has been cut down to the top five contestants, each do an impromptu speech, and a winner is announced.
Theyre basically an ambassador for agriculture and the OPA throughout Ontario, said Vivian. It gives them a platform.
Past winners have received scholarships, and even a car to use for the year.
So what are a bunch of politicians doing there?
Here's a glimpse at what the 2018 International Plowing Match and Rural Expo has to offer. It runs Sept. 18 to 22 in Chatham-Kent, Ontario. Thanks to @BNR_MediaGroup for its great work on this commercial.
The short answer is theyre there because agriculture is a big deal for much of Ontario.
Theyre also there to try their hand at the plowing itself. In the past, one of the main media events for the festival has seen party leaders compete against each other often in tractors that match their party colours.
Andrea Horwath has won a number of years, including last year, said NDP representative Andrew Schwab, who said he expects her to defend her crown this year.
Political expert Duff Conacher, adjunct professor of law at the University of Ottawa, said its an important chance for politicians to reach rural constituents.
Its kind of a central place (for) politicians to show that theyre concerned about rural issues, Conacher said. Because its such a big event. It is a tradition for the leaders to be there and take their shot for a photo opp. Those are the political reasons to do it and clearly theyre showing consensus on that.
Is this worth delaying important legislation that determines Torontos election process?
It depends on who you ask. Some say that the importance of the event for politicians to connect to rural constituents makes it worth it.
Schwab said NDP members show up to the match in good numbers and he doesnt expect this year will be any different.
Honestly this is a really popular event, MPPs from all parties show up, Schwab said. The government decided not to have (the vote) set that week so that members could attend the plowing match, which should give you a good indication of how popular it is.
Conacher agreed the event is non-partisan, but he said most people dont realize the impact delaying the bill will have on the citys elections.
People dont understand how difficult it is to run an election successfully because they just see the result on election day, Conacher said. First of all, the clerks office has to know whether its a 47-seat or 25-seat election, then figure out where to put polling stations based on the different boundaries of the wards, and then also figure out voting lists for each polling station so that people go to the right one.
Any delay on this vote is going to create more havoc for the Toronto city election.
With files from Alexandra Jones and Bianca Bharti
Premila DSa is a breaking news reporter, working out of the Stars radio room in Toronto. Follow her on Twitter: @premila_dsa
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Toronto will go to the Supreme Court if necessary to fight Premier Doug Ford and his unprecedented use of the notwithstanding clause to cut the size of city council during an election campaign.
Councillors voted 26-10 Thursday to instruct the city lawyer to exhaust all avenues to defeat the provincial legislation. The move came after city clerk Ulli Watkiss told council that uncertainty over whether there will be 25 or 47 wards has her at a tipping point, unsure if she can still organize a legal vote on Oct. 22.
Councillor Josh Matlow said they know it will be an uphill battle to overturn Fords legislation to impose 25 wards on Toronto, and his use of the notwithstanding clause to override a Superior Court ruling that the midelection cut is unconstitutional.
In confidential advice to council viewed by the Star, city solicitor Wendy Walberg warned the politicians they have limited options to fight Ontario wielding the notwithstanding clause.
The odds are against us, Matlow said after the emergency council meeting called in response to tabling of the new bill at Queens Park on Wednesday. But when a premier like Doug Ford uses the notwithstanding clause to get his way, then we need to in principle challenge the decision ... even bringing it to the Supreme Court of Canada if necessary.
With support from other major Canadian cities, council is also calling on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to use a long-dormant federal power to quash provincial legislation, even though Trudeau has said he has no plans to intervene in Torontos electoral crisis. Councillor Joe Mihevc argued Ottawa should use the final trump card against Ford, saying the federal government has an obligation to act.
To prevent future provincial interventions, Toronto wants the federal government to allow it to develop a city charter, likely requiring a constitutional amendment, that would give cities authority over municipal elections, how council is structured, planning decisions and other local issues.
Never again should the premier of Ontario be able to act like a dictator, Matlow said.
Mayor John Tory supported the motions, saying, I firmly believe you dont make a bad law better by overriding the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Toronto will get legal support in court from other cities, the leaders of which are astonished and upset by the way Ontario is treating Toronto, Edmonton Mayor Don Iveson told the Star.
There's a fundamental issue of democracy at stake here about local representation, its legitimacy and I think Canadians are rallying behind that, said Iveson, chair of the big city mayors caucus of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities.
A yet-to-be determined number of cities will seek intervener status to support Toronto in any court actions to fight the province, said Iveson, who is calling on Trudeau to call a summit of municipal, provincial and federal leaders to help make cities an equal partner without changing the constitution.
Earlier Thursday, the city clerk said Fords unilateral move to cut council, announced in late July, and the ensuing court battle are creating havoc with her election preparations.
Two sets of voter information cards are ready to be mailed, one set for each scenario, but many uncertainties remain, including who can legally campaign now and if there is enough time to hold advance voting for people who wont be in Toronto on Oct. 22.
We have hit a tipping point and both (ward number) scenarios are becoming virtually impossible for us to carry out, Watkiss told council, adding she has retained her own legal counsel to guide her actions because she has responsibilities under provincial legislation to conduct a legal election.
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One of the questions she will be asking her lawyer is whether she can push back the voting day, Watkiss said, adding she feels advance voting is necessary to make the election valid.
Watkisss department has faced headache after headache since Ford, a former one-term Toronto councillor, moved to cut the number of wards from a planned 47 to 25 matching provincial and federal riding boundaries in an election that started May 1.
The city, candidates and others challenged the resulting legislation in court and won with a judge deciding that the bill, which was launched after some people had been campaigning for months in the 47-ward system, was unconstitutional.
The Ford government is fighting back with a new version of the bill that includes the notwithstanding clause, plus an appeal of the ruling and a bid to put on hold the judges order that a 47-ward election be held.
At Queens Park, Municipal Affairs Minister Steve Clark says he has all the confidence in the world that well be able to have an Oct. 22 election.
I want to make it very clear Im very confident that we can work through the election issues with the clerks office, Clark told reporters Thursday.
Weve had open communications with them throughout this. Our governments priorities are clear: we want an efficient and an effective 25-councillor government moving forward, he said, insisting there is no plan for an alternative to Oct. 22 as election day.
Attorney General Caroline Mulroney stressed the provincial government understands the urgency.
This is exactly why weve recalled the legislature to pass this new piece of legislation so we can ensure certainty about the rules, she said.
In the confidential advice to councillors, Walberg outlined the citys significant challenges.
Although the Supreme Court has previously ruled the notwithstanding clause cannot be used in retroactive or retrospective manner, the advice reads, the facts surrounding Bill 31 are significantly different than those in that case.
The solicitor noted that there are other legal arguments, that if successful, would not be covered by the notwithstanding clause, including that the legislation violates unwritten constitutional principles of democracy and the rule of law. In Superior Court, Justice Edward Belobaba did not accept that the legislation violated unwritten principles, but did not make a specific ruling on that basis.
It therefore remains open to the city to continue to argue in respect of Bill 31 or on any appeal brought by the province that the province clearly crossed the line of these unwritten constitutional principles of democracy and the rule of law in enacting Bill 31, the advice says. It notes, however, that those would be novel issues and would be argued without precedent in case law.
Not all councillors are up for a fight with their former colleague Ford.
Councillor Jim Karygiannis told reporters at the lunch break that the 25-ward election should proceed.
I think this is a job-preservation exercise of some councillors because they know they wont be able to get re-elected, in a 25-ward race that will pit incumbents against incumbents, said Karygiannis who would run against veteran councillor Norm Kelly if the smaller council model prevails.
Lets get it over and done with. We know that (Ford) is going to invoke the (notwithstanding) clause. What is the problem here? Lets move on.
Councillors opposed to the city lawyer exhausting all legal avenues were John Campbell, Justin Di Ciano, Frank Di Giorgio, Michael Ford, Stephen Holyday, Jim Karygiannis, Miganoush Megardichian, Denzil Minnan-Wong, Frances Nunziata and Cesar Palacio.
Councillors absent were Jon Burnside, Josh Colle, Vincent Crisanti, Michelle Holland, Norm Kelly, Giorgio Mammoliti, James Pasternak, David Shiner and Michael Thompson.
With files from Jennifer Pagliaro and Robert Benzie
David Rider is the Star's City Hall bureau chief and a reporter covering Toronto politics. Follow him on Twitter: @dmrider
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DALLASFriends and family on Thursday remembered a man gunned down by a Dallas police officer as a deeply religious 26-year-old accountant who loved to sing and had confided to his uncle that he might one day want to be prime minister of his native Caribbean island country of St. Lucia.
Those speaking at the service for Botham Jean at a suburban Dallas church mostly focused on the qualities of the caring man who always had time to help others. Some also spoke about the shocking way Jean, who was black, died fatally shot on Sept. 6 by the white officer who said she mistook his apartment for her own.
Our prince royal was snatched from us by the quick-to-trigger finger of one trained to protect and serve. Perhaps the good that might overcome this violent, heinous act will be that those who are trained to serve and protect will serve love and peace and not violence and bullets, Jeans uncle, Ignatius Jean, said to applause.
Dallas mayor Mike Rawlings and Dallas Police Chief U. Renee Hall were among those who attended the hymn-filled funeral. Jean, who grew up on St. Lucia, attended college at Harding University in Searcy, Arkansas, so he could remain within a religious community while getting his education.
At Harding he majored in accounting and information systems and graduated in 2016. He then went to work at the accounting and consulting firm PwC in Dallas.
Botham aimed high in his pursuit of excellence in everything, said Tommy Bush, who served as a mentor to him while he was in college.
He said that what was unexpected was the tremendous blessing and growth he experienced from knowing Jean. I was supposed to be mentoring him, he said.
Those gathered at the funeral recalled Jean helping those on St. Lucia, from working with orphans to singing with people who just needed a friend.
He was always in service of others, even when it wasnt convenient for him, said Alexis Stossel, a friend of Jean.
Stossel called him the biggest extroverted accountant youd ever find, adding that she knows hes now in heaven, bouncing around, singing at the top of his lungs.
Bertrum Jean, Botham Jeans father, thanked so many who have rallied around us and been there to support us. There are so many in the U.S. that have shown tremendous love to this boy, he said.
Jeans slaying sparked protest and outrage, and has become a flashpoint in a national debate over shootings of black men by police.
Officer Amber Guyger, 30, was arrested Sunday for manslaughter and has since been released on bond. An Dallas police affidavit released Friday says officers recovered two bullet casings, a police backpack and vest and 10.4 grams of marijuana from Jeans apartment after the shooting. Lee Merritt, Jeans familys attorney, said the affidavit showed police began searching for evidence to discredit Jean immediately after the shooting.
Its looking specifically for drug paraphernalia, Merritt said of the search. They immediately began looking to smear him.
After the funeral, area religious leaders expressed their outrage at the killing. Sammie Berry, an elder and pulpit minister at Jeans church, says the family cannot rest until justice is served and Guyger is punished to the fullest extent of the law. He described Jeans death as a tragedy that could have been avoided and said the group wants to know why Guyger has not been fired.
He says they cannot let Bo become another statistic.
BEIJINGThe death toll has risen to 11 with another 44 people hospitalized after a man allegedly drove an SUV deliberately into a crowd in central China before jumping out and attacking victims with a dagger and shovel, local authorities said Thursday.
The Hengyang city government said the suspect in the case had previous convictions for crimes including drug trafficking, theft and assault and, acting alone, had sought to get revenge on society.
That appeared to rule out terrorism, although vehicles have previously been used in attacks blamed on militant Muslim separatists from the Uighur ethnic minority group.
Police identified the suspect as 54-year-old Yang Zanyun from Hengyangs Hengdong county in the largely agricultural province of Hunan.
Tuesday nights attack happened in a public square where Chinese typically gather to dance in groups or enjoy the cool evening breezes. The SUV apparently appeared without warning, jumping the curb before plowing into the crowd.
China has experienced violent attacks in public places in recent years, including bombings and arson of buses and buildings.
Occasionally, the attacks are attributed to militant separatists, though such incidents have become less common in recent years amid a stifling security crackdown.
In 2013, an SUV plowed through a crowd in front of Beijings Forbidden City before crashing and catching fire, killing five, including the vehicles three occupants. Police blamed the attack on Uighur extremists inspired by jihadi ideology.
More commonly though, the motivation is identified as mental illness, alienation from society or a desire to settle scores.
Chinese law restricts the sale and possession of firearms, and mass attacks are generally carried out with knives or homemade explosives. Many of those incidents have occurred at schools, including several in 2010 in which nearly 20 children were killed, prompting a response from top government officials and leading many schools to beef up security.
However, in June, a man used a kitchen knife to attack three boys and a mother near a school in Shanghai, killing two of the children. Last year, police said a man set off an explosion at the front gate of a kindergarten in eastern China, which struck as relatives gathered to pick up their children at the end of the day, killing eight people.
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VATICAN CITYPope Francis accepted the resignation of a U.S. bishop Thursday and authorized an investigation into allegations he sexually harassed adults, adding awkward drama to an audience with U.S. church leaders over the abuse and coverup scandal roiling the Catholic Church.
The resignation of West Virginia Bishop Michael Bransfield was announced just as the four-member U.S. delegation was sitting down with Francis in his private study in the Apostolic Palace. Among the four was Bransfields cousin, Monsignor Brian Bransfield, secretary-general of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
The bishop had been investigated for an alleged groping incident in 2007 and was implicated in court testimony in 2012 in an infamous Philadelphia priestly sex abuse case. He strongly denied ever abusing anyone and the diocese said it had disproved the claims. He continued with his ministry until he offered to retire, as required, when he turned 75 last week.
The Vatican said Francis accepted his resignation Thursday and appointed Baltimore Archbishop William Lori to take over Bransfields Wheeling-Charleston diocese temporarily. Lori said in a statement that Francis had also instructed him to conduct an investigation into allegations of sexual harassment of adults against Bishop Bransfield.
No details of the allegations were revealed and his diocese said it had no idea where Bransfield was after the Vatican ordered him to live outside the diocese.
Lori set up a hotline for potential victims to call, said the Vatican had instructed him to make the investigation public, and vowed to conduct a thorough study into what he said were troubling claims against Bransfield, who was a major fundraiser for the Vatican via the Pennsylvania-based Papal Foundation.
The revelation was the latest twist in an incredible turn of events in the U.S. church that began with the June 20 announcement that one of the most prestigious U.S. cardinals, Theodore McCarrick, had been accused of groping a teenage altar boy in the 1970s.
Francis removed McCarrick as a cardinal in July after a U.S. church investigation found the allegation credible. After news broke of the investigation, several former seminarians and priests came forward to report that they, too, had been abused or harassed by McCarrick as adults.
The McCarrick affair coupled with revelations in the Pennsylvania grand jury report detailing decades of abuse and coverup in six dioceses has fuelled outrage among the rank-and-file faithful who had trusted church leaders to reform themselves after the abuse scandal first erupted in Boston in 2002.
Outrage has also been directed at Francis and the Vatican and has fuelled conservative criticism of Francis pontificate.
The head of the U.S. bishops conference, Houston Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, had requested the papal audience last month following revelations that McCarrick had risen through church ranks even though the allegations of sexual misconduct were known in U.S. and Vatican circles.
DiNardo requested a full-fledged Vatican investigation into the McCarrick affair, and said he also wanted answers to allegations that a string of Vatican officials knew of McCarricks misdeeds since 2000, but turned a blind eye.
A statement issued by DiNardo after the papal audience made no mention of his request for a Vatican investigation. It said that the Americans briefed the pope on the laceration that abuse has caused and that we look forward to actively continuing our discernment together identifying the most effective next steps.
The statement also made no mention of the Bransfield investigation. McCarrick was a co-consecrator when Bishop Bransfield was ordained a bishop in 2005 and the two were active in the Papal Foundation, the big U.S. fundraising organization that McCarrick co-founded and which has funneled millions of dollars to the Vatican over the years.
Bransfield was president when the foundation was thrown into disarray last year over a revolt by its lay donors. They were incensed that the cardinals who run the foundation had agreed to a $25 million request from the Vatican to bail out a troubled Rome hospital. Under pressure, the cardinals pulled the plug on the funding mid-way through.
Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston spokesperson Tim Bishop said Thursday he couldnt answer questions about Bransfields whereabouts or whether he has an attorney.
The Holy See has instructed him to live outside the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston, Bishop said. I have no idea of his whereabouts.
West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey said he planned a close review of the latest allegations against Bransfield, which he called disturbing.
Joe Akers, a Catholic in West Viriginia, said the allegations are a little unsettling.
I really dont know what to think, said Akers, an electrician from Elkview. It says youre innocent until proven guilty, and the other allegations again him were proven false. Id say wait until you see what they find.
Thats the way it is. Gods in control, so he will sort it out.
The Vatican hasnt responded to allegations by its former ambassador to the U.S., Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, that Francis effectively rehabilitated McCarrick from sanctions imposed by Pope Benedict XVI over allegations McCarrick would routinely invite seminarians to his beach house and into his bed.
Francis has, however, responded to the overall scandal with a series of initiatives aimed at trying to convince the faithful that he gets it and is prepared to take measures to put an end to what he has called the culture of coverup in the church.
On the eve of the U.S. audience, Francis announced he was summoning the presidents of bishops conferences around the world to a February summit to discuss prevention measures and protection of minors and vulnerable adults.
The surprise announcement was largely dismissed as a belated damage control effort by victims advocates. Church historians questioned why such an urgent problem was being scheduled for discussion six months from now with the very bishops who are blamed for much of the scandal.
Where are the laity and others who might provide both new and uncomplicit voices and insights into the process? asked Margaret Susan Thompson, associate professor of history at Syracuse University.
Even DiNardos own record on protecting children has now come into question. On the eve of his audience with Francis, The Associated Press reported that two victims in Houston had accused him of not doing enough to stop a priest who was arrested this week on sexual abuse charges.
The archdiocese issued a statement Wednesday confirming that both alleged victims had come forward to report abuse by the priest, the Rev. Manuel LaRosa-Lopez, one of them in 2001.
The delegation of U.S. bishops announced no plans to speak to the media after their audience.
MOSCOWThe two Russian men charged in Britain with poisoning a former Russian spy with a deadly nerve agent appeared on Kremlin-funded television on Thursday, denying their involvement in the attack and saying that their appearance in the English city of Salisbury was merely an incredible, fatal coincidence.
Ruslan Boshirov and Alexander Petrov made their first public appearance in an interview with the RT channel, saying that they had visited Salisbury as tourists to see its famous cathedral.
Our friends have been suggesting for a long time that we visit this wonderful town, Petrov said, while Boshirov added that they specifically wanted to see the cathedrals famous spire and clock.
Britain last week charged Boshirov and Petrov in absentia, alleging they were agents of Russias military intelligence agency known as the GRU who were dispatched to Salisbury, about 2 hours drive southwest of London, to poison former Russian agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia with the nerve agent Novichok.
British police have released CCTV footage and photographs showing the two men walking in Skripals neighbourhood on March 4, the day of the attack. They were also pictured visiting the city a day earlier. Britain said the attack was almost certainly approved at a senior level of the Russian state, an allegation that Moscow has vehemently denied.
Both men on Thursday denied that they are GRU agents or that they were in possession of the Soviet-made Novichok nerve agent.
The whole situation is an incredible, fatal coincidence, and thats that, Petrov said. What is our fault?
They claimed they did not know who Skripal was or where he lived.
Both men looked composed during the interview, and confidently recited details about Salisburys tourist attractions, including the height of the cathedrals spire.
The two men, who appeared to be around 40, said they worked in the nutrient supplements business. They denied that they carried a bottle of womens perfume where British authorities found traces of Novichok.
The customs are checking everything, Boshirov said. They would have questions as to why men have womens perfume in their luggage. We didnt have it.
The British government on Thursday issued a statement after the interview was released, reiterating their claim that Russian authorities were lying about the case.
The government is clear these men are officers of the Russian military intelligence service the GRU who used a devastatingly toxic, illegal chemical weapon on the streets of our country, the statement said. We have repeatedly asked Russia to account for what happened in Salisbury in March. Today just as we have seen throughout they have responded with obfuscation and lies.
Replying to the interviewers question why the pair went to Salisbury for two days in a row, Boshirov said that when they first got to the town it was snowy and they got wet up to the knee so they decided to take the train back the following day.
When asked to reveal personal details about themselves or explain why they were sharing a hotel room or taking trips together, Boshirov said: Lets not pry into our private lives.
Boshirov did not react to the interviewers request to show the pictures they took on that trip, only saying that he found Salisbury Cathedral very beautiful.
Petrov and Boshirov spoke at length at how depressed and scared they have been after they found themselves in the spotlight, saying that the publicity has made their lives a nightmare.
If the real perpetrations are found, I hope at least they (the British) will apologize to us, Petrov said.
The mens surprise public appearance Thursday came a day after Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Russian authorities know the identities of the two men, but insisted that they are civilians and there is nothing criminal about them. He called on them to contact the media.
Petrov said he heard Putins statement on the radio and decided to contact RTs editor-in-chief.
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Jill Lawless contributed to this report from London.
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So after three decades of sex abuse scandals in the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Francis has finally summoned more than 100 bishops from around the world to a meeting in Rome in February to discuss protecting minors.
The way to do that should be clear by now.
The church must establish a zero tolerance policy which would take away bishops leeway in how to deal with priests who have abused children, the handicapped and seminarians.
And it should agree to to open church archives so that predator priests and those who covered up for them will be unmasked.
If those steps are not taken, it will be both deplorable and dangerous, a sign the church is not willing to take tough actions to prevent abuse.
Indeed, the call for the unprecedented meeting actually comes in the shadow of a church-commissioned study that was leaked this month. It told the tale of the abuse of thousands of German children over decades by more than a thousand clergymen.
And that study came only weeks after a grand jury in Pennsylvania found that church had covered up the abuse of more than 1,000 minors, some as young as 7, by some 300 priests over 70 years.
Those scandals, of course, come after others in the U.S. (most notably Boston), Canada, Ireland, England, Austria, Germany, Belgium, France, Austria, Chile and the Philippines.
While Francis has shown some signs that he will take action against abusive priests, the lack of urgency he was, after all, elected in 2013 is worrisome.
Its commendable, for example, that in February Pope Francis instated a new commission for the protection of minors. But it must be remembered that some members quit an earlier commission in frustration at the Vaticans reluctance to implement recommended changes.
It was also heartening that the Pope released a letter in August that admitted that by failing to establish a zero tolerance policy and a system of accountability for both perpetrators and those who covered up the crimes, the church had shown no care for the little ones.
Its high time the church stopped vacillating on this issue. Pope Francis must act unequivocally to right past wrongs and prevent future ones. He need not wait until February to do so.
Ford stands defiant, Sept. 11
I am outraged at Doug Fords plan to use the notwithstanding clause to circumvent democracy and the law.
What right does Ford have to ignore a court ruling? What right does he have to disregard the law because it doesnt suit his whims? And to say that he will use it again in the future? How is this in any way acceptable or even legal? Something has to be done. We cannot just let Doug Ford act like some sort of dictator in what is supposed to be a democracy.
What about all the Conservative MPPs who are going along with this and who support Ford as he ignores the rule of law, democracy and even decency? Some of them have a fair amount of political and government experience and yet they do nothing. Are they more concerned about their jobs than about the people of this province they are supposed to serve?
Charlene Groh, Toronto
I want to protest in the strongest possible terms the use of the notwithstanding clause to set aside a court decision regarding changing the size of Toronto city council.
I say to Premier Ford and his majority caucus in the name of democracy and in the name of decency, stop your foolhardy behaviour. Think about the interests of the citizens of this province, and bring your individual instincts for fair play into focus before you act like trained seals in an unfortunate sideshow, and bring our democratic tent down around all our ears. Please.
Frank Petruzella, North Bay
I look forward to some future political debate, when we are choosing the successor to Doug Ford, when someone confronts Caroline Mulroney or any other sitting Ontario Conservative MPP who supports Doug Fords trampling of our charter rights by exclaiming, as Brian Mulroney did to John Turner in 1984, No. . . . you had an option.
Don Cameron, Toronto
If any majority government can invoke Section 33 to protect unconstitutional legislation of any type, on any matter of what value is Canadas Charter of Rights and Freedoms between elections?
Jean-Pierre Boutros, Toronto
I find Doug Fords lack of respect for the law very troubling. Also troubling is the support of his caucus on this issue.
It is very obvious: Doug Fords number 1 priority is Doug Ford, not the people of Ontario.
Lillian Shery, Toronto
This has to be stopped right now. If the bill passes in the legislature, the lieutenant-governor should break precedent and refuse to give royal assent. This would provoke a constitutional crisis forcing a reluctant federal government to take action to get the notwithstanding clause removed or substantially modified.
Helen Riley, Toronto
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To use the words of Mr. Ford, I find it very scary that the Conservatives are prepared to invoke this clause on an issue like this. I find it very disturbing that Mr. Ford has threatened that he is prepared to use this for other laws should they be deemed unconstitutional.
Please do not violate my rights and those of my family as citizens of this province and country. I am proud to call Canada my home and I value the rights that I have under the charter, which is why I feel compelled to speak out.
Kristine Savage, Etobicoke
It now falls upon right-minded members of the PC party to stop the slide of Ontario into ill-considered power grabs that will debase our great province.
I.I.Dewji, Toronto
Now that the courts have ruled Premier Fords anti-democracy Bill 5 to be unconstitutional, will Lt.-Gov. Elizabeth Dowdeswell give her royal rubber stamp to Premier Fords election meddling?
Or, notwithstanding the notwithstanding clause, will she stand up for Canadas Constitution?
She has a choice.
Ron Brown, Toronto
Today I have suggested to the Office of the Lieutenant-Governor that Her Honour the Honourable Elizabeth Dowdeswell not give immediate and pro forma assent to a bill that invokes the notwithstanding clause to override the reasoned ruling of Superior Court Justice Edward Belobaba.
All democratically minded citizens of Ontario should do the same.
Greg Taylor, Brighton, Ont.
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The North American Free Trade talks are at an impasse. Washington is insistent on winning concessions that Ottawa has so far refused to make. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said again Wednesday that he wont sign an unfavourable deal.
Will he keep that promise? Can he keep it?
And what does he mean by unfavourable?
The NAFTA renegotiations were initially characterized by Canada as a way to modernize the 24-year-old pact. It was generally assumed in those innocent days that U.S. President Donald Trump would focus most of his demands on Mexico and largely leave Canada alone.
In order to prevent Trump from carrying through with his threat to tear up the pact, Ottawa mounted a sophisticated campaign to convince U.S. national and state legislators that NAFTA served American interests.
In this, the Canadians were largely successful.
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But by reminding the Americans how key NAFTA is to their economy, Ottawa highlighted something else: The free trade agreement is even more important to Canadas. When Trump eventually turned his baleful gaze northward, he kept that firmly in mind.
Using the age-old strategy of divide and conquer, American negotiators outmanoeuvred the Canadians by striking a separate deal with Mexico. Then they offered to let Ottawa sign onto this deal on a take-it-or-leave-it basis.
If Canada acceded, its autoworkers would gain the same protection from low-wage Mexican operations that the Americans won.
But Canada would also have to cross what Trudeau had called his red lines.
First, it would have to agree to a so-called sunset clause that sets a time limit for the pact (Ottawa quickly did that).
Second, it would have to give up the chapter 19 dispute-resolution system that exists in the current NAFTA.
Third, it would have to either eliminate or significantly change the supply management system that protects Canadian dairy farmers.
Somewhere along the line, the Americans also resurrected their long-standing demand that Canada stop protecting its cultural industries.
As well, they called on Ottawa to concede to an array of patent and intellectual property demands that, among other things, would make the delivery of a national pharmacare plan more expensive and difficult.
In the background, Trump threatened to impose ruinous tariffs on Canadian-made autos and auto parts entering the U.S. if Ottawa didnt comply.
This week, Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland left the talks to brief the prime minister in person. Thats usually a sign that important political decisions are in the offing.
The prime minister has long said that no deal is better than a bad deal and that he wont sign a renewed NAFTA pact unless its good for Canada. What Trumps ultimatum presents him with, it seems, is a mixed deal which, while potentially good for Canadian auto workers, otherwise falls woefully short.
Will he sign on anyway?
He need not do so. Regardless of NAFTA, trade will continue between Canada and the U.S. In most cases, this trade will be either tariff-free or subject to minimal tariffs set by the World Trade Organization.
Trumps threat to impose 25 per cent tariffs on autos, which would hurt U.S. workers as much as Canadian ones, may come to naught.
In theory, Ottawa could begin to reorient the economy away from the existing system of continental integration created by NAFTA.
Politically, given Trumps unpopularity in Canada, a decision to confront the U.S. presidents NAFTA demands might work out well for the Liberals.
But abandoning even a fatally flawed NAFTA carries great risk. Does Trudeau have the nerve to take that risk and defy Trump? Does any Canadian political leader?
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VANCOUVERTeeth marks behind J-50s dorsal fin are a constant reminder that the southern resident orca had to fight for her life even at birth, when a relative acting as midwife pulled her out of her mother tail first.
Four years later, J-50, also known as Scarlet, is still the baby of her family. But they could lose her soon.
Emaciated to the point of developing peanut head syndrome, in which normally round parts of the head turn sunken and concave, J-50s situation is so dire that authorities are considering a number of emergency measures. Those range from taking blood samples to transporting her to a pool on land if she strands or becomes separated from her family.
Her death would be a devastating loss for her mother and siblings, said Deborah Giles, a conservation biologist with the University of Washington who has followed the southern resident orcas for more than a decade.
She struggled to even be born, she said. To think this animal has been struggling for as long as she has, I think the family recognizes that. They keep quite close to her.
The joint Canadian and American team tasked with saving J-50 this summer says the whale has become so weak in recent sightings that a veterinarian team may need to jump into the water with her in order to provide hands-on treatment.
It could become the most involved whale rescue attempted since 2002, when veterinarians successfully captured, treated and released the northern resident killer whale A-73, known as Springer.
Researchers agree that taking J-50 away from her pod could cause trauma to the whales, especially her immediate family. On the other hand, her death would also send them into grieving, much like a human family would mourn the death of a child.
It is elitist to think humans are the only ones who have these emotions, said Giles. Orcas form strong family bonds, and adults often stay with their mothers for life.
She is the youngest, she is the baby of the family right now. The family would definitely feel it, she said.
Throughout J-50s life, researchers have observed her close connection to her mother and older siblings, especially her big brother, J-26. The 27-year-old is one of the biggest orcas in the Salish Sea.
Nonetheless, he seems to pay special attention to his tiny, youngest sister, said Giles. Researchers see them swimming beside each other all the time, she said.
She is often nestled in there, beside him.
Her mother, J-16, and two older sisters are never far away.
Thanks to her familys support, J50, while small for her age, has grown into a tenacious individual, said Giles. She recalled one summer when researchers saw her breach 40 times in a row, throwing her body up and out of the water repeatedly in what appeared to be a joyous display of fun.
These days, J-50 has only been able to manage a few tail slaps.
J-50 in many ways represents the southern resident orcas future. She was one of 11 southern resident orcas born between 2014 and 2016 in what researchers dubbed the baby boom. The string of births gave observers hope that the critically endangered population was on the rebound.
But of the 11 calves born during the baby boom, only six, including J-50, are still alive today. And she is on deaths doorstep.
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The core group of veterinarians, researchers and government officials met Monday to discuss next steps for their joint effort to save J-50.
If the struggling orca grew too lethargic to fight the current and was separated from her pod, the rescue team would jump into action, said Dr. Joseph Gaydos. He is one of a handful of marine mammal veterinarians who have been part of the rescue effort for J-50 this past summer.
If she were so sick that she couldnt keep up with her family, that would tell us: Hey, this is the end game. We got nothing to lose by trying, said the veterinarian with the SeaDoc Society in Eastsound, Wash.
He and Giles saw J-50 last Friday, when Gaydos tried and failed to administer dewormer via dart to the whale.
It was striking to me how thin she was, he said.
Other researchers said in previous interviews they have never seen a whale this skinny survive for this long.
The decision to capture J-50 ultimately rests with Canadian and American authorities: the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, respectively.
If authorities rehabilitated J-50 in a pen away from her pod, the ultimate goal would be to reunite her with her family, said Chris Yates, NOAAs assistant regional administrator for protective resources on the west coast.
Gaydos explained how a rescue could play out. If authorities give the go-ahead, the rescue team would likely put the four-year-old whale in a stretcher, use a crane to transport her to a boat and then move her to either a net pen or a pool on land.
The veterinary team could also take a blood sample from J-50 and conduct other tests before releasing her, depending on the diagnosis, said Gaydos.
He emphasized that under no circumstances would the veterinary team capture J-50 if she were still with her pod. A traumatizing event like that could send her mother into a tailspin, he said.
Drone footage from the whale research organization Sealife R3 shows J-16 has already become skinnier in recent weeks. She may be staying behind to help J-50 and thereby losing opportunities to forage, Gaydos explained.
Jpod is one of three family groups that make up the critically endangered southern resident killer whales, which only has 75 individuals left. One of its members, J-35, made headlines this summer when she carried her dead newborns body around for weeks in a profound display of grief. The southern resident orcas are threatened by vessel noise, toxins and a lack of food.
NOAA spokesperson Jim Milbury was not able to immediately confirm whether the veterinary team has the permits necessary to conduct blood tests or get into the water with J-50 and put hands on her. All the treatments administered so far, including two doses of antibiotics, have been delivered from a boat.
But the veterinarian team is ready to take emergency measures if J-50 strands, said Dr. Martin Haulena, head veterinarian at the Vancouver Aquarium.
If she strands up on a beach, then we switch gears immediately, Haulena said in a previous interview.
Gaydos said the team is on high alert, as J-50 doesnt look like she will survive much longer without human intervention. But shes certainly fighting for her life, he said.
Her spirit is pretty darn strong. Every time we see her, were surprised. Shes a fighter.
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VANCOUVERThe Coalition of Progressive Electors is calling for Jean Swanson to be included in Vancouvers upcoming mayoral debates, despite the fact that she is running with the party for city council.
According to COPEs Anne Roberts, who is also vying for a position on council, it was her idea to have a party designated mayor.
This is an exceptional election with so many parties and so many significant forces that dont have a mayor, she said in a phone interview. We need those voices.
A designated mayor for each party would represent the views of the groups without a mayoral candidate, Roberts added. That way, the party platforms can properly be represented.
And its happened before, Roberts argued.
In 2014 for instance, Green council candidate Adriane Carr participated in a forum run by the Metro Vancouver Alliance along with mayoral candidates Gregor Robertson of Vision Vancouver, Kirk LaPointe of the Non-Partisan Association and Meena Wong of COPE.
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Both the Green Party of Vancouver and OneCity Vancouver have council candidates but are not running mayoral candidates. Meanwhile, several current councillors will not be running, which means there will be new faces in city hall after Oct. 20.
If you exclude the Greens or COPE, youre excluding some pretty significant things, Roberts said. We are polling in second place as far as parties go.
Shortly after COPE put out its call on Wednesday morning, independent mayoral candidate Kennedy Stewart tweeted his support to open up the debates to left-of-centre party OneCity and Green Party candidates as well.
The election is unique, he said in an email statement, with diverse parties and independent candidates having a real shot at winning seats on council.
We also have strict new spending limits that make it harder to pay to get information out, he explained. So its important these events give time to all points of view and help voters make an informed decision.
Over the past few months leading up to the election, there has been much discussion about the need for a unity mayor or a progressive alliance. Stewarts comments come two days before nominations officially close for candidates.
Swanson has been a staple of the left-of-centre party and is celebrated for her history of anti-poverty advocacy. She was arrested and served time for protesting the TransMountain pipeline last month.
Both Swanson and COPE are backing a four-year rent freeze, along with a mansion tax on luxury homes to raise funds for public housing. In addition, their platform is calling for a move toward free transit, particularly for those with incomes below $50,000 a year.
In a phone interview late Wednesday afternoon, Swanson said the move would give voters the ability to understand what the real alternatives are and hear where parties without mayoral candidates are coming from.
It would give a good perspective on what we really need to make the city affordable, she explained. We have the most doable program which is best especially for the lower half of income earners.
The Vancouver civic election is on Oct. 20.
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PORT ALICE, B.C.A retired pulp mill worker has been identified as the victim of a mail bomb attack in the tiny village of Port Alice on Vancouver Island.
The Mounties say they are investigating a targeted blast that went off when the victim opened a mail package at his home Tuesday.
Cathy Anderson says her neighbour Roger Nepper, who has lived in Port Alice for more than 30 years, suffered injuries to his hands in the explosion.
She says she saw Nepper holding one of his injured hands when he climbed into a neighbours vehicle to be taken to the local health clinic.
Deputy Mayor Bruce Lloyd says Nepper is in his mid 60s and is known in the community of about 800 people as a former local boxing coach.
Neppers family could not be reached for comment.
The RCMP has not identified who was injured but say the victim received serious but non life-threatening injuries and was taken to hospital.
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VANCOUVERSurrey RCMP is requesting the publics assistance to find a missing family of four, including two children.
The Andersons were reported missing to police by another family member at approximately 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, according to a news release. But the family was last seen on Sunday and last spoken with on Monday evening at 9 p.m.
Their vehicle a 2002 tan-coloured Toyota Sienna minivan with the Alberta license plate BGZ2221 was last seen on video surveillance leaving the parking garage of their residence in Surrey at 2 p.m. on Tuesday, the release noted.
They have not been seen or heard from since, the release says.
The Andersons have been known to frequent Minoru Park in Richmond, and investigators believe they could possibly be driving to Alberta.
Sheldon Anderson, the father, is a 43-year-old white man, approximately five feet 10 inches tall and 190 pounds with dirty blond hair and blue eyes.
Nona Anderson, the mother, is a 45-year-old white woman, approximately five feet nine inches tall, with a medium build and long blond hair.
Chanel Anderson, the elder daughter, is a 13-year-old white girl, approximately five feet tall, with a thin build and long blond hair.
Mariah Anderson, the youngest daughter, is a 10-year-old white girl, approximately four feet tall, with a thin build and long blond hair.
Anyone with information on the whereabouts of the Anderson family is asked to contact Surrey RCMP at 604-599-0502 or Crime Stoppers if they wish to remain anonymous.
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A: Families. I enjoy working with families, including those starting families or extending them. But the most unique part that I love about being a real estate agent is that I get to work with my family to help other families. My dad and brother work together with me on photos and listing media, while my children sometimes will come with me on appointments to help with showings. I can go to my wife always for another opinion, and of course, my mom has been and will be my biggest fan.
ALTON Beloved to many, Alton Dragway opened in 1958 and, for 14 years, entertained thousands of spectators, particularly Mike Storey of Alton, who grew up next to the track.
Now 65, Storey has self-published what he hopes will be the first of two or three books about the dragway, Sunday Sunday Sunday: Vol. I Growing up with a Drag Strip in My Back Yard.
It took four months to write it, and I have enough for second and third books, Storey said. I took a lot of my personal stuff and ran out of pages. There is stuff in here no one else knows. Its a history book written ahead of time.
The title comes from a radio advertising campaign created by Jan Gabriel, for which he came up with attention-getting, Sunday, Sunday, Sunday. Gabriel eventually changed the announcement to: Saturday Night, Saturday Night, Under the Lights. Storey said Gabriel cut two tapes a week to advertise the raceway on a St. Louis radio station.
Storey began writing the book to coordinate with a once-planned celebration of the 60th anniversary of Alton Dragways opening that he wanted to hold in July, he said. He put the plan on hold after some people raised concerns about the July heat.
Nonetheless, Storey pressed on with the book.
Storey will be at the Jacksonville Area Cruise Nite Associations annual Cruise Nite and Car Show on Saturday in Jacksonvilles Community Park, selling Sunday Sunday Sunday for $30. People also may place orders through his Alton Dragway Facebook page, or by sending a check for $36 (includes $6 shipping) to: Mike Storey, P.O. Box 112, Cottage Hills, IL 62018.
The book already has proved more popular than even Storey expected.
Ive sold books to people from California, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Florida and Arkansas, he said. They grew up in Alton and attended the races.
Storey also invites people to contact him via Facebook with their stories, memorabilia and photos of the dragway that he could use in the next volume or volumes.
The first hefty volume has 358 pages, with 71 color photos of race cars, numerous black and white pictures of the track, people and racers including wheelstanders, Little Red Wagon and, Hurst Hemi Under Glass, that cruised around the quarter-mile track on their rear wheels. The cars engines had been moved to the rear to facilitate the wheelie stunts.
There also will be line illustrations and cartoons, reproductions of old advertisements, race results, numerous old Telegraph newspaper articles and other writeups in the book.
Drag racer Garland Tyler of Wood River first had come up with the idea for a dragway in the Alton area.
He was a mechanic with a race car but had no place to race, Storey said, noting that the closest tracks at the time were in St. Charles County and Cahokia.
Convinced, Storeys late father, John, provided the 60 acres for the track near the family home along Fosterburg Road at Wonderland Drive, now the site of Enchanted Village mobile home park. His partners, Milton Fat Kingston and Allen Tite, put up the money to build the facility.
Dad had bought the farm in 1956 and was going to build a subdivision, Storey said.
He bypassed those plans, with Helmkamp Construction beginning to build the track in March 1958, 1 mile north of Illinois Route 140. It had 1,320 feet of racetrack and an equal amount of space in the shut-off area. My father was a guy who said people pay to come race, people pay to watch the race and pay to eat hamburgers and drink Pepsi.
A rainy spring pushed back the dragways opening from July 5-6 to July 13, 1958, with the grand opening held on July 26-27. Winners of the first races were Norm Rexing, Wayne Artega and Art Badgley.
Storey said the most famous run at the track was Chris Karamasines race on April 24, 1960, that reportedly exceeded 200 mph disputed by many but with more than 10,000 spectators. The track was not sanctioned by the National Hot Rod Association, so the groups ban on using nitro fuel did not apply, allowing dragsters to log high speeds.
Aside from the wheelstanders, there also were funny cars to amuse the 1960s families in attendance. The stock, factory race cars wheelbases were altered, with fuel injectors and blowers added, also removing seats, windows and other unneeded fixtures. One amusing vehicle was the Shower Power, a vehicle fabricated from a bathtub and dubbed, The Worlds Fastest Bathtub.
Adding to the fun, the Coca Cola Cavalcade of Stars had eight funny cars to entertain, and there were daredevil shows and tractor pulls as deviations from racing.
The trio of owners also installed a go-kart track they operated for about 1 years.
So many people were getting hurt, they couldnt get insurance, forcing the men to close the track, Storey said. During the dragways tenure, there was one death of an 18-year-old man in a 1968 crash, Storey said.
The dragway closed Oct. 1, 1972, with Badgleys son, Kenny, winning the last race a fitting end after his father won the inaugural race in 1958, Storey said.
The partners closed the dragway for several reasons, mainly because his father was busy developing subdivisions in the Alton area and had lost interest in the track, Storey said. After the raceway closed, the elder Storey benefitted from the remaining infrastructure to establish Storeyland Mobile Home Park, which preceded Enchanted Village.
It was engineered so, if it ever failed, it could be a subdivision, Storey said of the dragways infrastructure.
John Storey died in 2003.
Linda N. Weller can be reached at 618-208-6450 or on Twitter @Linda_Weller.
ALTON Two issues drew a crowd to City Council Chambers Wednesday, with some people leaving disappointed, and others hopeful officials will heed their concerns.
Regarding the first group, early on in the City Council meeting, a public hearing reconvened from the Aug. 22 session regarding the city annexing 286 acres west of Fosterburg Road, west of the citys public works building and north past Harris Lane and I-255 with more residents of the area saying they were opposed.
This second round lasted 20 minutes.
Rene Butler, attorney for Foster Township, reiterated the boards objection to the annexation, as she had said on Aug. 22. Todd Clark, a Foster Township resident, said he is opposed to Alton moving its boundaries into the area because it would affect his way of life, including drawing commercial development. Building up the area by Fosterburg Road and I-255 would increase flooding, he said.
A home is an expensive thing, one of the most expensive things someone buys, Clark said. One of the important things is where it is, and where it is not. It is not in Alton, he said of his house. I dont want to live under the rules of Alton. I want to live under the rules of Foster Township. I like my lifestyle out there.
Foster Township Trustee Amy Elik was another of the four people who previously spoke against the annexation and she returned to question, and oppose, the proposal. Elik said putting in utilities would be costly for the city of Alton and questioned why an annexation plan that has been in the works for more than 10 years is coming up now.
This is a sewer to nowhere, other departments could use this money, she said.
Ken Sherer, president of the Illinois Boots and Saddle Club, 3043 Harris Lane, said he fears if the city of Alton annexes the nearby land and it is developed, neighbors will complain about the noise from horse-related events at the club.
Weve had that property for more than 50 years and are totally against it, Sherer said. I am afraid the same thing is going to happen to us as Godfrey Speedway. Neighbors will complain and try to run us out of the area. I want this to be there for my grandchildren and their grandchildren.
Mark Vantrease, another Foster Township property owner, echoed Clarks sentiments. We enjoy living out in the rural area. He listed instances of Altons ordinances and garbage pickup practices that would infringe on his lifestyle, such as open burning, shooting firearms, limit on number of chickens and having to buy a license and natural front yards with tall greenery.
The Council later unanimously approved a resolution allowing the city to sign the annexation agreement with property owner Larry Manns; an amendment to the agreement that deletes reference to a time element; then approved the contract in ordinance form after suspending the rules to expedite the matter.
Corporation Counselor Jim Schrempf said the matter needed hurrying because Illinois American Water needed to add the property to their application before the Illinois Commerce Commission for the agency to approve its purchase of Altons sewer system and sewer treatment plant. If the sale goes through, with the annexation in place, Schrempf said Monday that Illinois American would pay for engineering and installing the sewer system on Manns property.
Schrempf said Manns has told officials he has no immediate plans to develop the property once it is annexed into the city as a M-2 (general industrial) zone.
The second issue that drew three speakers in opposition was an ordinance allowing Alton to vacate the 127 feet of Easton Street, south of the citys right-of-way on East Fourth Street. Officials said previously that the proposed vacation is so Marquette Catholic High School students can more safely cross Easton to the schools STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) Center to the west in the former Millers Mutual building, 111 E. Fourth St.
The Rev. Amy Brooks of neighboring, 1st Unitarian Church, said no one consulted with the church about the proposed street closure, and that she and the congregation only learned of the plans from a Telegraph article. She said closing that portion of the street would be a hardship for members of the church who are elderly or have disabilities.
It impacts parking in the area, which already is at a premium, and affects vehicles carrying people with equipment such as wheelchairs, to the sidewalk, Brooks said.
Phillip Embree of Alton, a member of the churchs board of trustees, said closing the street portion creates a hardship for our members with mobility issues, it makes parking and walking an undue hardship. We are not a congregation of idiots, if we were notified, we would remember it. This is not a bustling metropolitan thoroughfare, and these are not elementary students.
Church Treasurer Robin Crane said the sidewalk off Easton leads to the only one of four entries to the church that does not have stairs. We need access from Easton Street, it is not just for the elderly people with problems. There are young parents with children who have difficulty with steps.
We need some kind of accommodation that meets the needs of both the congregation and school, Crane said.
Todd Adamitis, chief operating officer at Simmons, Hanly Conroy and a Giant City Properties LLC owner, said he would meet with representatives from 1st Unitarian to work out a compromise. Giant City owns the former Millers building.
While aldermen OKd the ordinance on Aug. 22 after suspending the rules to expedite the process, they agreed to lay over the second vote on the ordinance until the next meeting on Sept. 26. The panel votes to approve resolutions and ordinances that its members passed under a rules suspension at the previous meeting.
Reach Linda N. Weller at 618-208-6450 or on Twitter @Linda_Weller
CARBONDALE Kathy Raney, Recovery Services Coordinator with Centerstones Health Home program, was recently awarded the Carleen Cross Award at the Region Five 22nd annual Recovery Conference on Aug. 9 at John A. Logan College.
Ive heard so many stories about Carleen Cross, about what she has done to stomp out stigma of mental health and get recovery strategies out to so many people, said Raney, who has not only attended the conference for the past seven years, but has also encouraged Centerstone client participation. Ive known her to be an amazing inspiration to a lot of people.
Raney has served on the Recovery Conference Planning Committee for several years.
The award was created in 2012 to recognize Carleen for her commitment, compassion, and leadership in the mental health community. Carleen passed away from cancer in 2011. Since 2012, the Recovery Conference Committee has honored an individual who displays outstanding leadership and advocacy for mental health and is active in the recovery movement in the Region Five South area, including the following counties: Crawford, Jasper, Richland, Edwards, Clay, Clinton, Wayne, White, Wabash, Saline, Marion, Jefferson, Jackson, Franklin, Williamson, Massac, Johnson, Union, Pope, Fayette, Perry, Pulaski, Washington, Hardin, Hamilton, and Alexander.
I engage our clients to be a part of the Planning Committee also. I promote that the Recovery Conference is their conference, Raney said. I have gained so much by attending the conference each year, because I get to watch those receiving services become empowered by the speakers and activities and truly own the conference.
Raney was nominated by Johanna Wichmann, health home clinical manager for Centerstone.
When I entered this field about six years ago to work on an Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) team at Centerstone, Kathy showed me the ropes and helped train me. Through her, I learned how to provide compassion and hope to the people I worked with, Wichmann said. I watched Kathy grow in her own recovery while also helping so many others on their journey. Kathy has been helping people for more than 25 years and still has the energy, understanding, and compassion to make a difference in the lives of everyone she encounters.
Wichmann emphasized that Raney meets people where they are and offers them hope.
Kathys compassion lies in her hope for others and her understanding that a life with mental illnesses is not a life that people choose, Wichmann said. Her compassion shows best in her desire to help people be the best they can be and knowing that the best they can be is defined by them not by us as service providers.
The one most important thing someone working in the mental health field is to meet those receiving services where they are and utilize their level of learning while guiding them in their recovery and wellness, Raney said. I am motivated by my own struggles, believing in recovery, guiding others, and watching our clients grow and achieve their goals.
Raney has worked with Centerstone and its legacy organizations for a quarter of a century.
I have worked very hard to become the person and employee that I want to be. I have had a lot of struggles, been a single mother, had issues with my wellness, and I have jumped at every opportunity to educate myself and be the person that I am today. I had no idea that I was receiving the award. I knew that I was going where I wanted to go with my own recovery and engaging people receiving services in their recovery but didnt feel that I was at Carleens level, yet, Raney said. I didnt realize I was going to receive award until I was asked to come up to the stage. I felt so blessed, excited, surprised and having a hard time believing the award was mine. Receiving the award was a goal of mine to obtain in the next five years.
Wichmann said she is motivated by Raney and her work in the ACT program. ACT is an integrated, self-contained, evidence-based treatment program based on an intensive, multidisciplinary, team-based community treatment using home and community visits as the primary mode of intervention. ACT is designed to prevent institutionalization, jail or hospital, or homelessness. The multidisciplinary team works collaboratively with the person served and family members. The ACT team includes a team leader, a psychiatrist, a registered nurse, a rehab specialist, a vocational specialist, and an addictions specialist.
Kathy worked on our ACT team from her start with this agency more than 25 years ago. This is a very intensive and difficult to engage population, one that most people burn out on long before 25 years. Not only did Kathy stick with it, but she worked with many of the same clients from day one to her last day on the ACT team in March of 2018 (when Raney was promoted to Recovery Services Coordinator), Wichmann said. We have one client in that program who Kathy was with the day she went to the hospital to have her first child Kathy said goodbye to this same client, whose son is now in his twenties, when she left the program last spring.
Continuing to hold hope for and see potential in the same individuals for this many years, despite their setbacks and seemingly lack of progress, can be one of the hardest things in this job. But Kathy continued to believe in those clients and recognized that even tiny progress is still progress.
In recognition of Illinoiss 200th anniversary, Morgan County court officials are sponsoring this month a display of historic court documents.
Circuit Clerk Amy Sipes and Assistant States Attorney Craig Miller have collected information that tells the story of a personal debt collection case, a murder trial that resulted in the countys only carried-out sentence of capital punishment, and Abraham Lincolns involvement in an 1854 civil suit.
Sipes received a letter from Justice Rita Garman in July 2017 saying that the Illinois Supreme Court Historic Preservation Commission was seeking to identify important and historic cases from each of the states 102 counties to commemorate the states 200th anniversary.
The request was daunting because you dont know by a name what would be interesting about a particular case, Sipes said. I knew I had some interesting cases in my office safe, so I just went through those cases and selected three that I felt were important.
After choosing the cases, Sipes asked Miller, then-president of the Morgan County Bar Association, for assistance on how to present the cases.
Miller formed a committee of bar association members to decide how the cases would be displayed.
The display will feature original court files, newspaper clippings and a ticket from the 1926 public hanging of a convicted murderer.
The display case containing the historic items will be in the courthouses first-floor hallway outside the treasurers office beginning at 8:30 a.m. Sept. 21 to coincide with Jacksonville Middle Schools historic walking tour.
I appreciate the cooperation that I received from the bar association and the Jacksonville Public Library, Sipes said. I wouldnt have been able to pull the display together without their help.
Greg Olson can be reached at 217-245-6121, ext. 1224, or on Twitter @JCNews_Greg.
The Illinois Farm Bureau, in partnership with the Farm Service Agency and the Illinois Farmer Veterans Alliance, will host Veterans in Agriculture Planning for Success.
The three one-day seminars are aimed at helping military veterans enter agricultural fields post-service.
The Southern Illinois University Board of Trustees today approved Tim Schoenecker, PhD, as dean of the Southern Illinois University Edwardsville School of Business, and Steve Huffstutler as associate vice chancellor for information technology and chief information officer (CIO) for the SIUE campus, during its regularly scheduled meeting on the Edwardsville campus.
An associate professor of management and marketing in the School, Schoenecker was named interim dean in May 2016, succeeding John Navin.
Schoenecker has provided significant service to the School as a collaborative leader. He, in close partnership with faculty and staff, has contributed to the Schools growth and celebrated its accounting and business programs 2017 reaccreditation by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), a hallmark of excellence earned by less than five percent of the worlds business schools.
Under Schoeneckers leadership, the School has progressed its strategic plan by boosting enrollment, continuing its tradition of internships and global engagement, building faculty resources and maintaining its momentum in development and alumni relations.
Schoenecker joined the SIUE faculty in fall 1992 in the Department of Management and Marketing. His teaching interests are in the areas of strategic management and entrepreneurship. His research interests are primarily in the areas of corporate governance and top management teams. Prior to being named associate dean, he served as a consultant for both large and small businesses in the St. Louis area.
Also serving as an interim leader since spring 2015, Huffstutler succeeded Jennifer Vandever and led a staff of more than 100 professionals in support of the Universitys technology service, systems, and infrastructure, including academic and administrative systems, telephony, networking and support services. He has managed a $10.5 million annual budget and led Information Technology Services (ITS) through a 17 percent budget reduction. Moreover, he and his team created more than $800,000 in cost savings by collaborating with SIU Carbondale to create shared software and system contracts in addition to renegotiating existing vendor contracts.
Huffstutler has served SIUE in various capacities since 1992. Prior to his interim appointment, Huffstutler served as director of Academic and Client Support Services, acting director of Academic Computing, and manager, senior specialist and coordinator of the Faculty Technology Center. He has also served as a technology consultant for the Illinois Board of Higher Educations Middle-Level Teacher Preparation Consortium through its Teacher Quality Enhancement Grant.
Southern Illinois University Edwardsville provides students with a high quality, affordable education that prepares them for successful careers and lives of purpose. Built on the foundation of a broad-based liberal education, and enhanced by hands-on research and real-world experiences, the academic preparation SIUE students receive equips them to thrive in the global marketplace and make our communities better places to live. Situated on 2,660 acres of beautiful woodland atop the bluffs overlooking the natural beauty of the Mississippi Rivers rich bottomland and only a short drive from downtown St. Louis, the SIUE campus is home to a diverse student body of more than 13,000.
During the focus group meetings, the pair will ask attendees about the districts strengths, the issues the district is facing, characteristics of a new superintendent and what the firm can do to ensure the search is successful, Barnes said. Anyone who cannot attend the focus group meetings can fill out an online survey or pick up a survey from a district school, he said.
War always goes for the infrastructure: take out the bridges, cut off the electricity and water supplies. All that used to be done with artillery, tanks and bombs.
Going forward, it will be done by computers: Cyberwar.
Every day the early skirmishes the tryout phase, if you will are taking place. There are tens of thousands of probes of U.S. infrastructure by potential enemies, known and unknown, state and non-state. A few get through the defenses.
Jeremy Samide, chief executive officer of Stealthcare, a company that seeks to improve cyberdefenses for a diverse set of U.S. companies, sees the cyber battlefield starkly. He says the threat is very real; and he puts the threat of serious attack at 83 percent.
As Samide looks out across the United States from his base in Cleveland, he sees probes, the term of art for incoming cyberattacks, like an endless rain of arrows. Some, he says, will get through and the infrastructure is always at risk.
Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats issued a warning in July that the alarms for our digital infrastructure are blinking. He compared the situation to that in the country before the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The situation, he told the Hudson Institute in a speech, is critical. Coats singled out Russia as the most active of the probers of U.S. infrastructure.
Samide says probing can come from anywhere and Russia may be the most active of the cyber adventurers.
A common scenario, he says, is that the electric grid is target one. But considerable devastation could come from attacking banking, communications, transportation or water supply.
Retired Army Gen. David Petraeus, a former director of the CIA and current chairman of KKR Global Institute, in an article co-authored with Kiran Sridhar and published in Politico on Sept. 5, urges the creation of a new government agency devoted to cybersecurity.
Samide and others endorse this and worry that the government has much vital material spread across many agencies and not coordinated. Behind Petraeuss thinking is one of the lessons of 9/11: Government departments arent good at sharing information.
Conventional wisdom has it that the electric grid is super-vulnerable. But Politicos cybersecurity reporter David Perera, who consulted experts on the feasibility of taking down the grid, somewhat demurs. In a Politico article, he concluded that the kind of national blackout often theorized isnt possible because of the complexity of the engineering in the grid and its diversity.
The difficulty, according to Perera, is for the intruder to drill down into the computer-managed engineering systems of the grid and attack the programmable controllers, also known as industrial control systems the devices that run things, like moving load, closing down a power plant or shutting off the fuel supply. They are automations brain.
Pereras article has been read by some as getting the utilities off the hook. But it doesnt do that: Pereras piece is not only well-researched and argued but also warns against complacency and ignoring the threat.
John Savage, emeritus professor of computer science at Brown University, says, I perceive that the risk to all business is not changing very much. But to utilities, it is rising because it appears to be a new front in (Russian President Vladimir) Putins campaign to threaten Western interests. While I doubt that he would seek a direct conflict with us, he certainly is interested in making us uncomfortable. If he miscalculates, the consequences could be very serious.
Samide warns against believing that all probes are equal in intent and purpose. He says there are various levels of probing from surveillance (checking on your operation) to reconnaissance (modeling your operation before a possible attack). Actual attacks, ranging from the political to the purely criminal, include ransomware attacks or the increasing cryptojacking in which a hacker hijacks a targets processing power in order to mine cryptocurrency on the hackers behalf.
The threats are global and increasingly the attribution the source of the attack concealed. Other tactics, according to Samide, include misdirection: a classic espionage technique for diverting attention from the real aim of the attack.
The existential question is if cyberwar goes from low-grade to high-intensity, can we cope? And how effective are our countermeasures?
Todays skirmishes are harbingers of the warfighting of the future.
Llewellyn King is executive producer and host of White House Chronicle on PBS. His email is llewellynking1@gmail.com. He wrote this for InsideSources.com.
Mengo Hospital wasfounded in 1897 in Kampala, and is the oldest hospital in Uganda. It currentlyserves as an urban community hospital that provides modern medical care. MengoHospital provides comprehensive care including radiology, obstetrics,dentistry, orthopedics, and surgery. Additionally, Mengo Hospital providescritical training and education to health professionals through its variousprograms in midwifery and nursing, health sciences, and laboratory technology. MengoHospital also has a dedicated research and development team that works to findnew solutions to health issues in Uganda.
The 'hatred' between Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and BJP Rajya Sabha MP Subramanian Swamy is no secret. Swamy, whom Jaitley thinks is a "motormouth" according to his close aides, never wastes an opportunity to take a dig at his party colleague. Not surprisingly, fugitive baron Vijay Mallya is the latest launchpad for Swamy to fire his freshly-loaded ammunition against the finance minister.
The BJP has found itself on the defensive after Mallya stated he had met Jaitley in the corridors of Parliament before leaving India in March 2016. Adding more fuel to the fire is Swamy who retweeted his own tweet from June 2018 on Wednesday. The tweet said, "Mallya could not escape from India because of a strong Look Out Notice for him at airports. He then came to Delhi and met someone who was powerful enough to change the Notice from blocking his departure to just reporting his departure. Who was that person who dilute this LON?"
Mallya could not escape from India because of a strong Look Out Notice for him at airports. He then came to Delhi and met someone who was powerful enough to change the Notice from blocking his departure to just reporting his departure. Who was that person who dilute this LON? Subramanian Swamy (@Swamy39) June 12, 2018
On Thursday, he further asked: I learn from my sources that the Lookout Notice issued by CBI for Mallya was modified from Block Departure to Report Departure on October 24, 2015 on orders from someone in MoF. Who?
I learn from my sources that the Lookout Notice issued by CBI for Mallya was modified from Block Departure to Report Departure on October 24, 2015 on orders from someone in MoF. Who? Subramanian Swamy (@Swamy39) September 12, 2018
Notably, five months later, Mallya, who owes more than Rs 9,000 crore to Indian banks, flew out of the country in March 2016.
With the opposition now baying for Jaitley's blood, there's more voice for Swamy than Jaitley at the moment, until the BJP devices a strategy to find its way out of the issue.
Earlier in January, Swamy had praised Manmohan Singh's tenure as the finance minister and denounced the practise of handing over the finance portfolio to lawyers. "After seeing Mr P Chidambaram and Mr Arun Jaitley, we should have moratorium on having lawyers as the finance minister," he said, adding, "Everybody knows what I think about Arun Jaitley. If you want to improve economy, then you must know difference between macroeconomics and microeconomics."
When asked whether he could persuade Jaitley to abolish income tax at the same event, Swamy said: "I have to persuade Arun Jaitley to resign and go, and not to persuade him to abolish Income Tax which he will never do."
In 2016, Swamy had created headlines after he issued a veiled threat on Twitter, in an obvious attack against Jaitley. People giving me unasked for advice of discipline and restraint dont realise that if I disregard discipline there would be a bloodbath, he had tweeted. This was after Jaitley had urged him to restrain and maintain discipline as Swamy attacked the then Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Subramanian.
The adage that failures can teach many lessons seems quite...
India has not been able to secure membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group because of China's veto, a senior Trump Administration official said on Thursday, asserting that the US will continue to advocate for New Delhi's membership in the elite grouping as it meets all the criteria.
India has been seeking entry into the 48-member elite nuclear club, which controls trade in nuclear energy technologies and equipment, but China has repeatedly stonewalled its bid.
While India, which is backed by the US and a number of western countries has garnered the support of a majority of the group's members, China has stuck to its stand that new members should sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), making India's entry difficult as the group is guided by the consensus principle. India is not a signatory to the NPT.
"Nuclear Suppliers Group is a consensus-based organisation. India has not been able to secure membership as a result of opposition from China," Alice Wells, the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia, told a Washington audience.
"We have deemed that we're not going to limit our own cooperation with India based on a Chinese veto. Of course, we moved ahead with a STA-1 authorisation and we certainly believe that India meets all of the qualifications of the Nuclear Suppliers Group and will continue to actively advocate on behalf of India's membership, Wells said in response to a question.
Wells said by granting Strategic Trade Authorisation (STA-1) status, the US has placed India in the inner circle of America's closest allies.
"It reflects just the intimacy of the strategic partnership," she said, in response to a question at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a top American think tank.
The senior State Department official hoped that the nuclear deal with India would finally see the light of the day with its 10th anniversary approaching.
"With Westinghouse coming out of bankruptcy, we now have an opportunity to cross the finish line to really culminate in what was this historic process that began a decade ago to be able to have one of our premier companies provide some of the safest and cleanest fuel that will benefit tens of millions of Indian citizens," she said.
"It's a really another exciting chapter that hopefully we can close. Certainly, we will be supporting Westinghouse as it continues its conversations with India," she said.
Then US president George W. Bush had signed the legislation on the Indo-US nuclear deal, approved by the US Congress, into law on October 8, 2008.
After their slugfest over the Rafale deal, the ruling BJP and the opposition Congress are involved in a bitter war of words over fugitive businessman Vijay Mallya's claims that he had met Finance Minister Arun Jaitley before he fled to England. Hitting back at Congress chief Rahul Gandhi's demand for Jaitley's resignation, the BJP on Thursday said his party and the previous government were indeed the benefactors and even beneficiaries of Mallya's business.
BJP played old news videos of then prime minister Manmohan Singh talking about if the government would help Kingfisher Airlines come out of the economic distress.
The BJP held two press conferences during the day to attack Rahul Gandhi and the previous UPA government for their alleged links with Mallya.
This exposes Congress' lies about bailing out Vijay Mallya-owned Kingfisher Airlines, Railways Minister Piyush Goyal said addressing a press meet at the BJP headquarters. He was referring to the 2011 news videos of the then UPA government offering help to Kingfisher Airlines to come out of difficulties.
This shows the propensity with which the Congress continues to cover their lies... It was a conspiracy including the then PM (Manmohan Singh) and civil aviation minister Vayalar Ravi, Goyal alleged.
Goyal rubbished Congress' allegations that Jaitley met Mallya and helped him escape, saying that it was after pressure from the Modi government to recover money that Mallya fled the country.
On allegations of changing the lookout notice, Goyal said it was done by the investigating agencies. It shows they were independent and not misused by the government, he said.
They should tell us one instance of favour in giving loan or government bailing out Mallya. Instead, it was a conspiracy between Mallya and Rahul Gandhi as to how many times businessman's companies were bailed out. We have given free hand to to investigating agencies, the senior BJP leaded added.
However, it was not just the Congress which has raised doubts over Mallya's actions before leaving the country, even senior BJP leader and Rajya Sabha MP Subramaniam Swamy have pointed fingers to the ministry of finance over allegedly helping the businessman escape.
Goyal downplayed Swamy's allegations saying there was no basis to those questions.
Earlier, BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra had alleged that Rahul Gandhi was on the back foot over Kingfisher Airlines. Sometimes it seems the airlines wasn't owned by Mallya but by Gandhi family in proxy. Benefits that Gandhi family got out of Kingfisher Airlines via business class upgradation, free tickets etc are in public domain, Patra had said.
But WGN reported that a chase that involved Illinois State Police eventually went down Lake Shore Drive and ended near the beach where the suspects car was abandoned in a parking lot. One of the suspects tried to hide in the lake, but was taken into custody, and a second suspect was also arrested, WGN reported.
Even as Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Wednesday evening issued a clarification on his meeting with fugitive Vijay Mallya before the latter fled India, a political storm has erupted over the issue.
Mallya had claimed outside a court in London that he had met Jaitley before leaving India in March 2016. Jaitley responded that Mallya's claims were factually false as the encounter happened in Parliament when the liquor baron was a Rajya Sabha MP and was not a formal meeting.
Given Vijay Mallyas extremely serious allegations in London today, the PM should immediately order an independent probe into the matter. Arun Jaitley should step down as FInance Minister while this probe is underway. Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) September 12, 2018
Congress chief Rahul Gandhi led his party's charge, labelling the allegations by Mallya as extremely serious in a tweet. He wrote, Given Vijay Mallyas extremely serious allegations in London today, the PM should immediately order an independent probe into the matter. Arun Jaitley should step down as FInance Minister while this probe is underway.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, a strident critic of the Narendra Modi government, posted a number of tweets on the Mallya-Jaitley issue, including asking why Jaitley had hid this information until now. Kejriwal also asked who had issued instructions to change a lookout notice issued against Mallya, which helped the businessman flee India. The CPI(M) also raised the Mallya-Jaitley issue via Twitter, declaring, Skeletons have started tumbling out of the Modi govt's cupboards!
I learn from my sources that the Lookout Notice issued by CBI for Mallya was modified from Block Departure to Report Departure on October 24, 2015 on orders from someone in MoF. Who? Subramanian Swamy (@Swamy39) September 12, 2018
Interestingly, BJP Rajya Sabha MP Subramanian Swamy, for long perceived to be a rival of Jaitley, tweeted about Mallya's claims on Wednesday night and appeared to be pointing fingers at the finance minister by claiming the lookout notice against Mallya was modified on instructions from someone in the MoF; MoF is the acronym for Ministry of Finance.
Swamy tweeted, I learn from my sources that the Lookout Notice issued by CBI for Mallya was modified from Block Departure to Report Departure on October 24, 2015 on orders from someone in MoF. Who?
(With agency inputs)
At an all party meeting on Thursday, various politicians of Jammu and Kashmir demanded the shifting of additional solicitor general of India Tushar Mehta from Article 35 A case in the Supreme Court.
This was stated by former chief minister and National Conference vice president Omar Abdullah after the conclusion of the meeting at NC patron Farooq Abdullah's residence in Srinagar.
During the hearing on the case in the top court on August 31, Mehta, who represents the state, had toed the line of the Central government that certain aspects of the Article needed to be debated
"It can't be denied that there is an aspect of gender discrimination in it (Article 35A),'' Mehta had said.
Omar said the meeting was called to discuss the prevailing security and political situation in the state.
All the leaders in unison claimed that the additional solicitor general has crossed his brief,'' he said. ''Even the state government has accepted this.''
He said all the participants agreed that Mehta should be taken off the case when it comes up for hearing in January.
Omar said Mehta was sent to defend the article 35 A case as he was representing state government and not the Central government.
He said the lawyers who defended the case earlier must be brought back to defend the case.
He said the political leaders will write to the government that first there should be elections in the state so that an elected government can defend the case in the court.
The state is under governors rule and we dont know the position of the Central government on Article 35 A,'' he said. ''We have apprehensions regarding the defence of the case in Supreme Court. We demand that the case not be proceeded until J&K has an elected government.
About the boycott of civic polls by NC, Omar said his party had not asked people to boycott.
If the government thinks without the participation of two major parties (NC and PDP) any election is worth, let them go ahead, he said.
The PDP didn't participate in the meeting. Its spokesman Fayaz Mir said they were not informed about the agenda of the meeting.
Allegations by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee that there was a conspiracy behind the cancellation of her trip to the recent World Hindu Congress at Chicago has triggered another controversy even as the ministry of external affairs has denied any role in the incident.
Banerjee was supposed to address the World Hindu Congress to mark the 125th anniversary of the historic speech by Swami Vivekananda at the World's Parliament of Religions in Chicago. However, at the last moment, Banerjee's trip was cancelled due to unknown reasons.
The MEA clarified that it had not received any letter from the West Bengal government related to granting of approval for Banerjee to attend the World Hindu Congress. The MEA's statement confirms Banerjee herself cancelled the trip.
Interestingly, it is yet unclear what role the MEA had to play in Banerjee attending a programme organised by a Hindu organisation in a foreign country. Any politician or resident of India would require permission from the MEA and the state government if they would like to visit Pakistan and China. For political leaders, similar approval is required if they would like to hold political or business-level dialogues with any foreign countries.
RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat addressing the World Hindu Congress in Chicago | PTI
Banerjee's itinerary for the Chicago visit did not mention any meetings with political leaders in the US or business talks. As a result, it was not necessary for Banerjee to seek permission from the Central government.
While visiting the Ramakrishna Mission headquarters at the Belur Mutt at Howrah district on September 11, Banerjee did not hide her emotions and said the cancellation of her visit to the World Hindu Congress was nothing less than a big conspiracy. Banerjee did not specify who was behind the conspiracy against her.
Trinamool Congress sources said Banerjee was to attend the World Hindu Congress after being invited by an organisation allied to the Ramakrishna Mission in Chicago.
"I think the BJP put huge pressure on the Ramakrishna Mission to cancel the invitation sent to the chief minister verbally," said a Trinamool leader.
Banerjee, it was learnt, did not get any written confirmation on her invitation to the World Hindu Congress till the last hour, following which she cancelled her visit to Chicago.
A similar incident happened during Banerjee's proposed trip to China where Chinese leaders did not confirm to her about holding a proposed political-level dialogue. Interestingly, Banerjee expressed her dismay in the presence of Ramakrishna Mission authorities at the Belur Mutt.
The World Hindu Congress gathering was also attended by RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat and it was not clear whether Banerjee was eager to share space with Bhagwat in Chicago. So the question emerges, did she decide to back out of the World Hindu Congress, knowing Bhagwat would attend the same function?
The Ramakrishna Mission did not comment on the issue, stating it did not want to be dragged into any kind of controversy.
However, leaving aside the bitter experiences associated with cancelled visits to China and then Chicago, Banerjee plans to leave for Frankfurt on Sunday and would stay there for five days before flying to Milan in Italy. The purpose of Banerjee's visit this time is to bring small-scale entrepreneurs to West Bengal, instead of targeting heavy industries, as has been done in the past.
Turning up the heat on Finance Minister Arun Jaitley over economic fugitive Vijay Mallya's claims that he had met him before leaving for London, Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Thursday accused him of colluding with the businessman, giving him a free passage out of India, and demanded that he should resign from government.
Gandhi also charged that contrary to Jaitley's claims that Mallya had paced up to him in the corridors of Parliament and said something briefly to him, the pair had a proper meeting of around 15-20 minutes in the Central Hall of Parliament on March 1, 2016, which was just two days before the businessman flew off to London.
It is an open-and-shut case. An economic offender, before running off to London, talks to the finance minister in Parliament House for 15-20 minutes. The finance minister lies, says no, he caught me in the corridor, and told me that he is going to London. Even if he caught you in the corridor and told you he is going to London, why did you not tell the CBI and the ED that he is going to run away, put him in jail, Gandhi told a press conference at the AICC headquarters.
Gandhi also asked why the arrest notice on Mallya was turned into an informed notice. And, bringing Prime Minister Narendra Modi into the picture, he said, In the government, it is the prime minister who decides everything. Arun Jaitleyji listens to him. So clearly, Arun Jaitleyji should tell us if he let the criminal run away from India, or if the order came from Modiji.
Calling it is a case of clear-cut collusion, and alleging that some deal was struck, Gandhi demanded that Jaitley should resign as finance minister.
Meanwhile, AICC General Secretary P.L. Punia, who is also a Rajya Sabha MP, said he was witness to the meeting between Jaitley and Mallya in Parliament on March 1. He refuted Jaitley's claim that it was a brief exchange of words, with Mallya catching up with him in the corridors of Parliament. He said the two met for around 15-20 minutes in the Central Hall of Parliament, and they had a proper discussion.
They were standing in a corner and talking. And they were engrossed in an intense discussion. After five to seven minutes, they sat on a bench in the Central Hall, and continued talking, Punia said. The Congress leader said he was witness to the meeting as he was present in the Central Hall at that time.
Vijay Mallya, in that session, came to Parliament only on March 1. He had come only to meet Arun Jaitleyji. After that, on March 3, when it came out in the newspapers that he left for London on March 2, my immediate reaction was he had met Arun Jaitleyji only two days ago. After that I mentioned it in all my media bytes and debates, without exception. I mentioned that just two days back Vijay Mallya had met Arun Jaitleyji, Punia said.
He said that it was clear that Mallya, before leaving for London, had come to Parliament to consult Jaitley on the issue.
Triggering a controversy, Mumbai Congress chief Sanjay Nirupam on September 12 called Narendra Modi anpadh gawar or 'illiterate', while criticising the state government's decision to screen a short film on the prime minister's life at schools in Maharashtra.
His comment drew sharp reaction from BJP leaders with the party's Maharashtra unit spokesperson Shaina NC calling Nirupam "mentally deranged."
"The decision to screen the film forcibly is wrong. Children should be kept away from politics. What will students learn from watching a film on an uneducated and illiterate person like Modi," the Congress leader told a news channel.
"Children and people do not know how many degrees the prime minister holds," he said.
Later, asked by reporters about his choice of words, Nirupam said the ruling party need not object to each and every word, and "in democracy the prime minister is not god".
Reacting to Nirupam's remarks, Shaina NC tweeted, "Yet another abnoxious comment by a mentally deranged @sanjaynirupam . May be he forgets that @narendramodi is elected by 125 cr Indians who aren't "unpad or gavar".@INCIndia is devoid of ideology and relevant questions. Sure citizens will give a befitting reply in 2019 (sic).
Anil Shirole, a BJP MP from Maharashtra tweeted, "PM is not a representative of one party, he is the Prime Minister of the Country and it's people. @sanjaynirupam by insulting our PM you have insulted and disrespected the office, the country and the constitution drafted by Dr.Babasaheb Ambedkar ji (sic).
The Zilla Parishad (ZP) schools in Maharashtra have been asked to screen a short film on Modi next week, a directive which has drawn criticism from Opposition.
A government official said that ZP schools were asked to screen the short film "Chalo Jeete Hai" on September 18 as it has a "social message" and would inspire students.
The 32-minute film "Chalo Jeete Hai" directed by Mangesh Hadawale and presented by Aanand L Rai and Mahaveer Jain, is based on the early life of Modi.
Opposition Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) have slammed the BJP-led dispensation over the decision.
Vice president Venkaiah Naidu will embark on a three-nation tour to Central Europe from September 14 to 20. The three countriesSerbia, Malta and Romaniaare growing economies and India is keen to boost relations with these nations.
He will be accompanied by a delegation that includes Union minister of state for finance Shiv Pratap Shukla and three Rajya Sabha MPsPrasanna Acharya, Saroj Pandey and Vijila SatyanandLok Sabha MP Raghav Lakhanpal and senior government officials. Though India has good relations with all three countries, the diplomatic outreach towards them has been rather ignored.
For instance, this will be the first high level visit to Serbia ever since the break up of Yugoslavia. This, even though Yogoslavia was the co-founder of the Non-Aligned Movement with India. Naidu will address a special session of parliament, in the same building where the announcement of NAM was first made. Serbia announced an unconditional and open visa policy for Indians last year. For short trips, Indians do not require a visa at all. Naidu, who will be in Serbia from September 14 to 16, will also interact with the tiny diaspora of 100 people.
Malta, which Naidu will visit on the second leg of the trip from September 16 to 18, had extended much help to India during the evacuation of its nationals from Libya from 2011 to 2014. Diplomatic ties are now only getting energised with the Mediterranean nation, which has a strategic geography at the cross roads of North Africa and Europe. India opened up a High Commission in Malta only last year. Malta, too, has a small diaspora of 700 people.
Romania forms the last leg of Naidu's tour from September 18 to 20. His visit will mark the 70th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two nations. Romania is rich in bauxite, an ore India is deficient in.
The high level visit aims at upping diplomatic relations and making economic overtures to these countries. Although these countries' main trade ties are with western Europe, the India growth story is an attractive one. The Cabinet has just cleared a pact for tourism exchange between Malta and India, which is likely to be inked during Naidu's visit.
After a long silence, Myanmar's Aung San Suu Kyi has finally spoken about the arrest of the two Reuters journalists. She has, in effect, defended the jailing of the two journalists by saying that their jailing had nothing to do with freedom of expression.
Suu Kyi made her comments at the World Economic Forum on ASEAN in Hanoi in response to a question from the forum moderator who asked whether she felt comfortable about the reporters being jailed.
Suu Kyi said: They were not jailed because they were journalists, they were jailed because... the court has decided that they have broken the Official Secrets Act.
She also said that the two can appeal their seven-year sentence. The journalists, Wa Lone, 32, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 28, were found guilty on official secrets charges and sentenced earlier this month in a landmark case seen as a test of progress towards democracy in Myanmar.
The arrests had prompted international outporuing of support. They were investigating the killing of Rohingya villagers by security forces t the time of their arrest. The two maintained their innocence and have claimed that they were set up by the police.
I wonder whether very many people have actually read the summary of the judgement which had nothing to do with freedom of expression at all, it had to do with an Official Secrets Act, Suu Kyi said.
If we believe in the rule of law, they have every right to appeal the judgment and to point out why the judgement was wrong.
When asked to comment on the calls to release the journalists, Suu Kyi responded by asking if the critics felt there had been a miscarriage of justice.
The case has been held in open court and all the hearings have been open to everybody who wished to go and attend them and if anybody feels there has been a miscarraige of justice I would like them to point it out, she said.
Earlier, Suu Kyi had also said that her government could have handled the Rohingya situation better. There are of course ways in which we, with hindsight, might think that the situation could have been handled better, Suu Kyi said. But we believe that for the sake of long-term stability and security we have to be fair to all sides...We cannot choose and pick who should be protected by the rule of law.
About 7,00,000 Rohingya Muslims fled Rakhine after security forces led a brutal crackdown in Myanmar's Rakhine state in response to attacks by the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army.
Cynthia Vargas, communications director for Lake County States Attorney Michael Nerheim, said the charge of misusing charitable funds is a Class 2 felony that carries a potential term of three to seven years in the Illinois Department of Corrections. The charges of wire fraud and forgery are Class 3 felonies and each is punishable by a term of two to five years in prison, she said.
New Delhi, Sep 13 (PTI) Public companies will no longer require government approval for paying salaries beyond a certain threshold to their managerial personnel, according to a communication.
Easing the norms, the Corporate Affairs Ministry has amended provisions under Companies Act, 2013 in this regard. This will be applicable for public companies and not private companies.
Under the Companies Act, 2013, there are public as well as private companies. Generally, those having more than 200 members are classified as public companies and they have to follow stricter corporate governance norms.
There are more than 70,000 public companies, as per official data.
The approval of the "central government shall no longer be required for the payment of remuneration to managerial personnel (in excess of 11 per cent of the net profit of a company)," the ministry said in a release Thursday.
Now, such payments can be approved by a company's shareholders through a special resolution.
In case a company has defaulted in payment of dues to any bank, financial institution or non-convertible debenture holders, approval of the entity concerned would be required before the remuneration proposal is put up to the shareholders.
The ministry said the move is in pursuance of the policy of minimum government-maximum governance and providing ease of doing business to the law-abiding corporates of this country.
"With the issue of the notification, all pending applications submitted to the Ministry for approval of proposals for payment of managerial remuneration in excess of the limits laid down, would automatically abate and companies are free to obtain requisite approvals for those proposals, from the shareholders within one year," the release said. PTI VRN RAM ANU
New Delhi, Sep 13 (PTI) Allegations flew thick and fast Thursday between the Congress and the BJP over the Vijay Mallya affair -- Rahul Gandhi accused the finance minister of lying to hide the "free passage" he allegedly gave to the defaulter aviation tycoon to flee to London, while the ruling party counter-claimed the Gandhi family tried to salvage the sinking Kingfisher Airlines with a "sweet deal".
At a hurriedly-called press conference, Gandhi presented what he called "proof" in the form of party leader P L Punia, who claimed to have seen Arun Jaitley having "an elaborate 15-20 minute meeting" with Mallya on March 1, 2016, a day before the businessman left India.
For its part, the BJP lined up party big guns with counter-allegations about how Mallya was helped by the UPA regime to keep his debt-ridden aviation venture afloat.
"Mr Vijay Mallya was given free passage out of the country by the finance minister and the finance minister has clearly said the criminal told him that he is going to run away. Well, why did you let him run away? Why did you not stop him because you were colluding with him?" Gandhi alleged and challenged Jaitley to get CCTV footage of March 1.
While the opposition party demanded immediate resignation of Jaitley and an independent probe into the whole affair, the BJP alleged it was the previous UPA government that gave a "sweet deal" to Mallya as if it was the Gandhi family that proxy-owned the airline.
Kingfisher ultimately had to be grounded in October 2012 under a burden of over Rs 9,000 crore of unpaid loans and several other liabilities including defaults on employee salaries and other payments.
In the political war of words, maverick BJP leader Subramanian Swamy also got into fray. He raised questions on how the lookout notice against the absconding businessman got diluted that eventually allowed him to flee the country.
Adding further fodder to the opposition's charges, former Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi told NDTV it was a "big coincidence" that Mallya left India on the same day a consortium of banks moved to recover their unpaid debt and it was possible that someone could have "tipped him off".
The 62-year-old Mallya, who was once listed on Forbes' list of billionaires and was famously known as 'King of Good Times' owing to his flashy lifestyle, said in London Wednesday he was not "tipped off" by anyone and he had "happened to meet" Jaitley in Parliament -- a statement seen as a dilution from his earlier "innocent statement" that he had met the finance minister before leaving India and had told him about his settlement offer for banks.
Seeking to shift the blame, the BJP leaders including top union ministers alleged many Congress leaders had tried to save Mallya and his sinking business empire.
Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman told PTI the Congress was raking up the issue to deflect attention from the UPA government's "cronyism and favouritism" and the demand for Jaitley's resignation over a "brief conversation" with Mallya was motivated.
Jaitley has rebutted Mallya's claim as "factually false" saying he never had any structured meeting with him and it was a brief conversation which Mallya forced on him by misusing his privileges as a Rajya Sabha member at that time.
Joining BJP's counter-offensive, Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad asked whether Gandhi and Mallya were "working in tandem" and claimed the liquor baron had allegedly benefitted from bank facilities during the UPA government.
Railway Minister Piyush Goyal said Mallya was a criminal and his words could not be taken seriously and it was Gandhi who should resign from all posts. He alleged banks were pressured by the UPA regime to sanction loans to Mallya due to the Gandhi family's "relations" with him.
Joining the chorus, activist Shehzad Poonawalla, who often supports the ruling party in thrashing the Congress, claimed Gandhi had met PNB fraud accused Nirav Modi at a plush hotel in the national capital in 2013, a charge denied by the opposition party.
Gandhi, who had last night also sought Jaitley's resignation after Mallya dropped his bombshell of the sensational claim, alleged the finance minister had "colluded with the criminal" and allowed him to escape from the country.
"Mr Jaitley is lying, the government is lying on Rafale and the government is lying on Vijay Mallya. A meeting was held with Mr Arun Jaitley and Vijay Mallya. The logistics of Mr Mallya leaving the country were discussed in that meeting," Gandhi told reporters.
"The criminal had told him, 'I am going to run away to London'. The finance minister has accepted publicly that he has been told by a criminal that he is going to run away and the finance minister has not done anything, has not informed the CBI, and has not informed the ED. What does that mean? It means, he is colluding with the criminal. Straightforward," Gandhi said.
The BJP hit back with equal ferocity, with its spokesperson Sambit Patra, flashing a bunch of documents at a press conference and telling reporters there is a series of letters between the RBI and main lender SBI that show "how the previous dispensation under Sonia Gandhi was biased, partial and kept all norms and regulations at bay to give a sweet deal to Kingfisher."
"Sometimes it seems the airline was not owned by Mallya, but by the Gandhi family in proxy," Patra said. PTI VIT TDS KR NAB SKC ASK JTR
BJ
BJ
Lucknow, Sep 13 (PTI) Faced with flood-like situation in some parts of Uttar Pradesh, throwing normal life out of gear, heavy rains in the state have a silver lining with the state's kharif sowing showing encouraging results, though pulse production might be a little worrisome.
With heavy rains in most parts of the state, kharif sowing has been most encouraging this year and the sowing area in the state has registered an increase of about 2.16 per cent as compared to the previous year, UP Agriculture Minister Surya Pratap Shahi said Thursday.
Though paddy sowing in the state has remained at 59.78 lakh hectares like the previous year, there has been an increase of 2.85 per cent in the area on which 'makka, jwar, bajra' and other such foodgrains have been sown, the minister told PTI.
The area of pulses sowing like 'urad, moong and arhar' has registered a marked increase of 12.40 per cent but the sustainability of the standing crop in continued inclement weather is a cause of worry, the minister said.
"For a good pulse crop, which is grown largely in the Bundelkhand region among others, it is time that weather clears up fast," he stressed.
The area under groundnut, soyabean and til (sesame) cultivation has also registered a rise by 5.99 per cent, he said.
In 2017, kharif was sown on 92.10 lakh hectares and this time it has been on 94.09 lakh hectares, Shahi said.
Kharif sowing had taken off on a slow note with the monsoon setting off a little late this season, but this has largely been undone with the good wet spell. PTI SAB SMI ANS
Mumbai, Sep 13 (PTI) Filmmaker Rajkumar Hirani revealed he shot additional portions for "Sanju", his biographical drama on Sanjay Dutt, to create empathy for the actor after people "hated" him in test screenings.
Hirani said the initial edit featured the actor's story as it was and thus was not liked by people.
"During the shoot I felt 'What am I doing, I'm going wrong.' In fact, when the first edit was ready and we screened for people, they hated him. They said we don't like this man, we don't want to watch him," he said.
"Because I wanted to do a true story, I didn't create any empathy towards him. I said lets not create empathy and show (him) as he is. But later I understood that he is our hero, we need some empathy for him," the director added.
Hirani said he had to add a certain scene in the film to create empathy for its lead character, which was not there earlier.
"The scene where he tries to kill himself after the verdict is out; which he had mentioned to me but we didn't put in the film, I shot it later. It was not in the original script. I thought through this some empathy will come...
"The initial test reactions were like 'naah we don't like this guy...' Every film is a journey. Some things work and some don't. I still see flaws in the film but you try your best and hope your best is good enough."
The director was in conversation with writer Anjum Rajabali at Indian Film and TV Directors Association's (IFTDA) special masterclass on Wednesday.
Hirani said Dutt's story was so vast, anyone could have picked an event of his life and made a standalone film. The director feels filmmaker Anurag Kashyap, for instance, would have made a great "Sanju".
"Everyone view the story through their own perspective. Someone would've made 'Sanju' only on the chapter of how he acquired the gun, destroyed it, and then the case. It could have been a film of it's own. But I thought everyone knew this. The father-son equation interested me more.
"I was blown away by 'Black Friday'. If Anurag would have heard the story, he may have been attracted to the gun angle and would have made that story. He would have made a great film with that."
The "3 Idiots" director is aware of the criticism that film never questions Dutt's intentions as each time it was either with good intentions that the bad choices were made or he was victim of certain pressure.
But Hirani says he is critical of Dutt's actions, though he believes the actor could be flawed but always harmless.
"He goes and sleeps with his best friend's girlfriend but there isn't any reason. Their friendship was almost jeopardised... The other scene where he puts the commode seat on a girl he wants to marry, I am not defending that! It's a terrible action.
"My perception of Sanju was that he has done so many weird things but he is not a bad man... I felt he had an innocence, he is naughty but he doesn't harm anyone. He didn't pick up the gun, scared people or fired a shot. He made a mistake," he added.
The director once again dismissed the criticism that he has "whitewashed" Dutt's life.
"We made a commentary about certain section of the media and the term 'whitewashed' came into play. Everywhere I go people say I have whitewashed him but I haven't. A journalist asked me, why did you whitewash Sanju and I asked what was Sanju's crime?
"I am not defending the man but myself and the film. He kept a gun, destroyed it too, lied to his father and was arrested. I showed it all, his drug phase and the way he treated people. So where have I whitewashed?" Hirani asked. PTI JUR RB
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Mumbai, Sep 13 (PTI) Rhea Chakraborty has opted out of "Satellite Shankar", starring Sooraj Pancholi, owing to date issues.
She was rumoured to play a journalist in the film, according to a press release.
"Rhea and I were in talks regarding the film but due to her date issues, she couldn't be part of the film. She is a talented actor and I look forward to working with her in future," co-producer Murad Khetani said in a statement.
Rhea has seen success with "Mere Dad Ki Maruti". She also featured "Bank Chor" and "Dobaraa". Her next release is Mahesh Bhatt-produced "Jalebi". PTI KKP RDS BK
BK
Islamabad, Sep 13 (PTI) The Pakistan government will turn the palatial PM House here into a campus of a top postgraduate institute as part of the plans to utilise official buildings for public use, the education minister said Thursday.
Prime Minister Imran Khan last month said he will not stay in the PM House and moved into his military secretary's three-bedroom house.
He has also said that governors will not stay in Governor House as part of his government's efforts to cut down on costs.
Minister for Education Shafqat Mehmood said the land on which Prime Minister House is presently situated will be made into a postgraduate institute.
The public was fed up of the previous governments' "royal" ways of living, the minister was quoted as saying by Geo News.
It is important that government officials live in a way that does not waste public money, he said.
According to the education minister, the annual expenditure of PM House was Rs 470 million.
Therefore, it has been decided that the PM House will be turned into a top-level educational institution, Mehmood said.
He added that the land behind PM House will also be used productively.
Speaking about reconstruction of other official buildings, Mehmood said Governor House in Lahore will be used as a museum and art gallery, while park on the premises will be opened for public.
The Punjab House in Murree will be turned into a tourist complex, while the Governor House in Karachi and the one in Balochistan will be used as museums, he said. PTI AKJ AKJ
Colombo, Sep 13 (PTI) Fifteen Sri Lankan police officers are currently training in India under a programme fully-funded by the Indian government, the Indian High Commission here said on Thursday.
The Sri Lankan police officers are participating in a comprehensive training programme on road safety and traffic management at the Institute of Road Traffic Education (IRTE) in Faridabad, Haryana.
The 15 officers, ranging from ranks of chief inspector of police, inspector of police, sub-inspector of police, and police sergeant, are participating in the programme.
"The government of India provided complimentary travel and accommodation, as a gesture of strengthening people-to-people contact between India and Sri Lanka," a release by the mission said.
Several other training programmes such as crime scene management and CCTV analysis, expert testimony on criminal trial, forensic science, cyber forensics, and a seminar on financial crime, have been organised by India for Sri Lanka's police personnel this year. PTI CORR KUN
KUN
Tsugol (Russia), Sep 13 (AFP)President Vladimir Putin on Thursday visited Russia's largest-ever military drills in eastern Siberia, where he said Moscow planned to strengthen the country's armed forces.
Russia has said the Vostok-2018 exercises involve nearly 300,000 troops and all types of military equipment, as well as the participation of the Chinese and Mongolian armies.
Putin praised the "mastery" of the Russian army and its "capacity to face down potential threats" after watching the drills at the Tsugol military training ground near the borders with Mongolia and China.
Some 25,000 soldiers, 7,000 vehicles as well as 250 helicopters and planes took part in the simulated aerial and ground attack from an "undefined" enemy.
"Out duty to our country is to be ready to defend our sovereignty, our security and our national interests and, if we must, to support our allies," the president said following a huge military parade after the manoeuvres.
"This is why we will continue to strengthen our armed forces, to provide them with cutting edge arms and equipment and develop our international military partnerships," he said.
"Russia is a peaceful country. We do not have and we cannot have any plans for aggression".
The exercises in the far east continue until September 17.
Russia has said the drills are purely defensive in nature but NATO has condemned them as a rehearsal for "large-scale conflict."
According to the Russian army, 87 observers from 59 countries were present for the Russian-Chinese exercises. (AFP)
RUP
RUP
Seoul, Sep 13 (AFP) North Korea is "willing to denuclearise" and the US is prepared to end hostile relations, President Moon Jae-in said Thursday as he struck an upbeat tone ahead of his third meeting with Kim Jong Un next week.
The summit will be the third between the leaders of North and South Korea this year and comes as talks between Washington and Pyongyang over dismantling the North's nuclear arsenal have stalled.
Moon conceded there was a "blockage" and both sides needed to compromise to make progress on the controversial subject.
"North Korea is willing to denuclearise and therefore willing to discard existing nuclear weapons... and the US is willing to end hostile relations with the North and provide security guarantees," Moon said.
"But there is a blockage as both sides are demanding each other to act first and I think they will be able to find a point of compromise."
Moon, who helped broker the June summit between Kim and US President Donald Trump and has called for a follow-up meeting between the two sides, added South Korea would help mediate contacts between Washington and Pyongyang to "speed up the denuclearisation process".
Trump and Kim Jong Un pledged to denuclearise the Korean peninsula at their historic Singapore meeting.
However, no details were agreed, and Washington and Pyongyang have sparred since over what that means and how it will be achieved. Last month, Trump abruptly cancelled a planned visit by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to Pyongyang.
The new US envoy for the North, Stephen Biegun, said in August Kim had promised "final, fully verified denuclearisation" at the Singapore summit.
But Pyongyang has slammed Washington for its "gangster-like" demands for complete, verifiable and irreversible disarmament.
South Korea's Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha said Thursday that making progress on denuclearisation talks with North Korea is a "daily concern".
"Getting traction on the denuclearisation and peace process that is very much now in motion -- it's a daily concern to get movement on this," she told a regional economic forum in the Vietnamese capital Hanoi.
Speaking on the sidelines of the forum, Kang called for "openness" from the North about their weapons programme and added a second Trump-Kim summit should deliver "concrete" results.
"A second summit has to be something that really significantly moves the agenda forward," she added.
The White House said earlier this week Trump had received a "very positive" letter from Kim seeking a follow-up meeting, since adding it is in the process of coordinating a possible second meeting between the two leaders.
South Korean national security advisor Chung Eui-yong said Thursday Moon and Kim will discuss "more in-depth and detailed ways to achieve denuclearisation".
The two Koreas will be holding a closed working-level meeting on Friday to discuss the logistics of next week's summit, an official at the South's presidential office said. (AFP) ZH
ZH
Hanoi, Sep 13 (AFP)Myanmar's Aung San Suu Kyi on Thursday robustly defended the jailing of two Reuters journalists who were reporting on the Rohingya crisis, as she hit back at global criticism of a trial widely seen as an attempt to muzzle the free press.
The country's de facto leader acknowledged that the brutal crackdown on the Muslim minority -- which the United Nations has cast as "genocide" -- could have been "handled better", but insisted the two reporters had been treated fairly.
"They were not jailed because they were journalists" but because "the court has decided that they had broken the Official Secrets Act", she said.
Wa Lone, 32, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 28, were each imprisoned for seven years last week for breaching the country's hardline Official Secrets Act while reporting on atrocities committed during the military crackdown in Rakhine state.
Suu Kyi, once garlanded as a global rights champion, has come under intense pressure to use her moral authority inside Myanmar to defend the pair.
Challenging critics of the verdict -- including the UN, rights groups who once lionised her, and the US Vice President -- to "point out" where there has been a miscarriage of justice, Suu Kyi said the case upheld the rule of law.
"The case was held in open court... I don't think anybody has bothered to read the summary of the judge," she said during a discussion at the World Economic Forum, adding the pair still had the right to appeal.
Her comments drew an indignant response from rights groups who have urged the Nobel Laureate to press for a presidential pardon for the reporters.
"Open courts are designed to shed light on the justice process," said Sean Bain of the International Commission of Jurists.
"Sadly in this case we've seen both institutional and individual failings to hold up the principles of rule of law and human rights."
Army-led "clearance operations" that started last August drove 700,000 Rohingya into Bangladesh, carrying with them widespread accounts of atrocities -- rape, murder and arson -- by Myanmar police and troops.
The ferocity of that crackdown has thrust Myanmar into a firestorm of criticism as Western goodwill evaporates towards a country ruled by a ruthless junta until 2015.
A UN fact-finding panel has called for Myanmar army chief Min Aung Hlaing and several other top generals to be prosecuted for genocide.
The International Criminal Court has said it has jurisdiction to open an investigation, even though Myanmar is not a member of the tribunal.
Suu Kyi, who has bristled at foreign criticism of her country, on Thursday softened her defence of the crackdown against "terrorists" from the Muslim minority.
"There are of course ways (in) which, in hindsight, the situation could have been handled better," she said.
But she also appeared to turn responsibility onto neighbouring Bangladesh for failing to start the repatriation of the nearly one million-strong Rohingya refugee community to Myanmar.
Bangladesh "was not ready" to start repatriation of the Rohingya in January as agreed under a deal between the two countries, she said.
Yet Myanmar does not want its Rohingya, denying them citizenship while the Buddhist-majority public falsely label them "Bengali" interlopers.
Rohingya refugees refuse to return to Myanmar without guarantees of safety, restitution for lost lands and citizenship.
The jailing of the Reuters reporters has sent a chill through Myanmar's nascent media scene.
The pair denied the charges, insisting they were set up while exposing the extrajudicial killing of 10 Rohingya Muslims in the village of Inn Din in September last year.
This week, the UN rights office accused Myanmar of "waging a campaign against journalists".
It decried the use of the courts and the law by the "government and military in what constitutes a political campaign against independent journalism".
A UN panel is set to release the second part of its report into the atrocities over the coming days.
Myanmar will come under international spotlight again on September 25 when the UN General Assembly convenes in New York.
Local media have reported that Suu Kyi will not be attending the New York meeting.(AFP)
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RUP
New Delhi, Sep 13 (PTI) Following are the top foreign stories at 1700 hours:
FGN4US-NSG-INDIA
India meets all qualifications to be member of NSG: US
Washington: India has not been able to secure membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group because of China's veto, a senior Trump Administration official said Thursday asserting that the US will continue to advocate for New Delhi's membership in the elite grouping as it meets all the criteria. By Lalit K Jha
FGN26 PAK-SAEED-JUD
Pak SC allows JuD and FIF to continue their activities
Islamabad: Pakistan's Supreme Court has allowed Mumbai attack mastermind Hafiz Saeed's Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) and Falah-i-Insaniyat Foundation (FIF) to continue their activities in the country. By Sajjad Hussain
FGN22 US-CHABAHAR
US reviewing India's Chabahar port development says official
Washington: The Trump administration, which is determined to impose fresh set of sanctions on Iran and countries and entities engaged in business with Tehran, is currently reviewing India's development of the strategically important Chabahar port in the Islamic Republic, a senior government official has said.By Lalit K Jha
FGN14 PAK-INDIAN-FISHERMEN
Pak arrests 18 Indian fishermen
Karachi: Pakistan authorities have arrested 18 Indian fishermen for allegedly fishing in the country's territorial waters, an official said.
FGN11 US-PAK-NUCLEAR
Suspending aid to Pakistan not done lightly: US
Washington: The US' decision to suspend military aid to nuclear-armed Pakistan was not taken lightly as the Trump administration was concerned that the country's atomic weapons could fall into the hands of terrorists, National Security Adviser John Bolton has said.
FGN2 TRUMP-ELECTION-SANCTIONS
Will not tolerate any form of foreign meddling in US elections: Trump
Washington: The United States will not tolerate any form of foreign interference in its elections, President Donald Trump said Wednesday after signing an executive order that initiates actions, including sanctions, against foreign entities who meddle or even attempt to interfere in American polls. By Lalit K Jha
FGN10 US-LD SHOOTING
Gunman kills five people in California, then himself: police
Los Angeles: A man went on a shooting rampage California on Wednesday, killing five people including his wife, before taking his own life, a police spokesman told AFP. (AFP)
FGN25 POPE-BISHOPS-ABUSE
US bishops to meet pope amid crisis in confidence over abuse
Vatican City: A delegation of US Catholic cardinals and bishops is to meet Thursday with Pope Francis amid a crisis of confidence in church leadership following new sex abuse and cover-up revelations that have also implicated Francis himself.(AP)
FGN19 CHINA-US-LD TRADE
China says Washington asked to resume talks on tariff fight
Beijing: Washington has invited Beijing to hold new talks on their escalating tariff dispute, the Chinese foreign ministry said Thursday, ahead of a decision by President Donald Trump on whether to raise duties on USD 200 billion of Chinese imports. (AP)
RUP
RUP
Hanoi, Sep 13 (AFP) Myanmar's de facto leader Aung San Suu Kyi said Thursday that two Reuters journalists jailed for investigating a massacre in Rakhine state were not convicted because they were journalists but because they broke the law.
Wa Lone, 32, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 28, were each imprisoned for seven years last week for breaching the country's hardline Official Secrets Act while reporting atrocities committed during the military crackdown in Rakhine.
The sentence prompted a storm of global outcry as an assault on freedom of speech, while erstwhile rights champion Suu Kyi came under intense pressure for failing to speak up for the pair.
She broke her silence on the issue on Thursday during a discussion at the World Economic Forum, robustly defending the court's decision to jail the duo.
"They were not jailed because they were journalists" but because "the court has decided that they had broken the Official Secrets Act", she said in her first direct comments on the issue.
Challenging critics of the verdict -- including the United Nations, rights groups who once lionised her and the US Vice President -- to "point out" where there has been a miscarriage of justice, Suu Kyi said the case upheld the rule of law.
"The case was held in open court... I don't think anybody has bothered to read the summary of the judge," she added.
Army-led "clearance operations" last August drove 700,000 Rohingya into Bangladesh, carrying with them widespread accounts of atrocities -- rape, murder and arson -- by Myanmar police and troops.
The Reuters reporters had denied the charges, insisting they were set up while exposing the extrajudicial killing of 10 Rohingya Muslims in the village of Inn Din in September last year.
This week, the UN rights office accused Myanmar of "waging a campaign against journalists".
It decried "the instrumentalisation of the law and of the courts by the government and military in what constitutes a political campaign against independent journalism".
Suu Kyi, who has so far bristled at foreign criticism of her country and defended the crackdown against "terrorists" from the Muslim minority, also addressed the army's handling of the crisis.
"There are of course ways (in) which, in hindsight, the situation could have been handled better," she said in rare comments on the crackdown.
Myanmar has come under intense diplomatic pressure in recent weeks, with the UN rights office singling out its powerful military chief for his role forcing the Rohingya from the country.
The stateless Rohingya are denied citizenship in Myanmar and widely reviled in the Buddhist-majority country. (AFP) RCJ
Moscow, Sep 13 (PTI) External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj arrived here Thursday on a two-day visit to co-chair a key bilateral meeting and talks with the Russian leadership to boost the "special privileged strategic partnership."
Swaraj, who visiting Russia for the third time in 11 months, had a brief stopover in Ashgabat en route to Moscow during which she held discussions with her Turkmenistan counterpart Rashid Meredov on issues of bilateral interest.
The minister will attend the 23rd India-Russia Inter-Governmental Commission on Technical and Economic Cooperation (IRIGC-TEC) which is co-chaired by her and the Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Yuri Borisov.
The IRIGC-TEC is a standing body which annually meets and reviews ongoing activities of bilateral cooperation in the fields of bilateral trade and investment, science and technology, culture and other issues of mutual interest.
The Commission, after taking stock of bilateral cooperation in various fields, will provide policy recommendations and directions in the concerned fields, the Ministry of External Affairs said in a statement.
"Maintaining the momentum of high-level exchanges," Ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar tweeted on the minister's third visit to Russia in 11 months.
The last meeting of the Commission was held in New Delhi in December 2017.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin met for an informal summit in the Black Sea coastal city of Sochi in May during which the two leaders upgraded the traditionally close India-Russia relationship to a "special privileged strategic partnership."
The two leaders also met on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit in Johannesburg in June. PTI AKJ AKJ
London, Sep 13 (PTI) The UK government Thursday dismissed as "obfuscation and lies" the claim of the two Russians accused of carrying out a deadly nerve agent attack in the country on a former Russian spy and his daughter that they were merely civilian tourists.
The men, named as Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov, told Russian government backed RT channel that they travelled to the English town of Salisbury purely to see tourist sites such as Stonehenge, which is about 16 kilometres from Salisbury.
On Wednesday Russian President Vladimir Putin said "there is nothing criminal about them", calling the two men caught on security cameras in the UK "civilians".
The duo are accused by the UK of trying to kill Russian ex-spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in March. The two fell critically ill but recovered after weeks of intensive care in hospital. Their current whereabouts are being kept secret.
Reacting to the statements of the two Russians, a government spokesperson reiterated that the duo were officers of Russian military intelligence.
"The government is clear these men are officers of the Russian military intelligence service -- the GRU -- who used a devastatingly toxic, illegal chemical weapon on the streets of our country," the spokesperson said in a statement.
"We have repeatedly asked Russia to account for what happened in Salisbury in March. Today -- just as we have seen throughout -- they have responded with obfuscation and lies."
During the TV interview, two men displayed a detailed knowledge of Salisbury cathedral, noting its 123-metre spire and clock, the "first of its kind anywhere in the world."
They claimed to have had nothing to do with the attack on Skripal and his daughter. They might have been spotted in the same street as the Skripals' house, they said, but they had no idea the Skripals lived there.
British prosecutors said last week they had "sufficient evidence" to charge the two Russians with attempted murder and conspiracy to murder in connection with the attack on March 4. Prosecutors say the Skripals came into contact with Novichok, a military-grade nerve agent.
UK police are linking the attack to a separate Novichok poisoning on June 30, when Dawn Sturgess and Charlie Rowley fell ill at a house in Amesbury, about 13 kilometres away. While Dawn died later, her partner Charlie survived.
Britain is not applying to Russia for the extradition of the two men as Russian does not extradite its own nationals. However, prosecutors have obtained a European Arrest Warrant and police have asked Interpol to issue arrest warrants too.
Russia has repeatedly denied any involvement in the Salisbury attack. PTI AKJ AKJ
Patna, Sep 13 (PTI) RJD supremo Lalu Prasad's son Tej Pratap Yadav Thursday dismissed speculations that he has distanced himself from the party due to "family strife" and because he was "overshadowed" by younger brother Tejashwi, alleging attempts were being made to drive a wage between "Krishna and Balram".
The mercurial RJD leader, who had been away from the public eye for some time and whose absence at a meeting of top party leaders here earlier this week triggered fresh speculations of trouble within the Yadav family, was speaking to a regional news channel outside his residence in the state capital.
"I had gone to Mathura on a pilgrimage and fallen ill. Upon return, I spent my time recuperating and that is the only reason why I was not present at the meeting. Otherwise all people know that I do attend all RJD functions," the state's former health minister said.
Tej Pratap's comments came after remarks by some ruling JD(U) leaders that his absence at the party meet on Tuesday at the residence of his mother and former chief minister Rabri Devi indicated a family strife.
Moreover, the BJP, another constituent of the ruling NDA in Bihar, has been repeatedly alleging that the RJD supremo betrayed Hindu traditions by declaring his younger son as his political heir instead of the elder one.
He dubbed these speculations and remarks as his rival parties' attempts to manufacture a division in his family. "Attempts are being made to drive a wedge between Krishna and Balram," said the former minister, who appeared before the camera with his forehead typically smeared with ash.
The mischief-mongers need to remember that Krishna was armed with the Sudarshan Chakra which they all will be slain with, he added.
About reports that he was trying to chart a separate political course, he asserted, "I only believe in following the path of my father and party supremo Lalu Prasad."
Likening his father to socialist leader Jayaprakash Narayan, Tej Pratap said Bihar had witnessed a JP movement in the 1970s and now, it is going to witness an LP (abbreviation for Lalu Prasad) movement. PTI NAC SNS TIR
TIR
Kolkata, Sep 13 (PTI) Following are PTI's top stories
from the eastern region at 9 pm.
STORIES ON THE WIRE:
CAL 3 BH-TEJPRATAP
Attempt to drive wedge between Krishna, Balram: Tej
Pratap on 'differences' with brother
Patna: RJD supremo Lalu Prasad's son Tej Pratap Yadav
Thursday dismissed speculations that he has distanced himself
from the party due to "family strife" and because he was
"overshadowed" by younger brother Tejashwi, alleging attempts
were being made to drive a wage between "Krishna and Balram".
CAL 4 OD-ROUT-ALLEGATIONS
Day after expulsion from BJD, Rout meets Baijayant
Panda; attacks Odisha CM
Bhubaneswar: A day after he was expelled from the BJD,
senior lawmaker Damodar Rout Thursday met former party leader
Baijayant Panda and launched a scathing attack on Chief
Minister Naveen Patnaik, saying he has been getting rid of
Biju Patnaik's loyalists one after another.
CES 5 JH-MAOIST-SURRENDERS
Top Maoist leader surrenders
Medininagar: A top Maoist leader wanted by the police
in three states and carrying a reward of Rs 25 lakh on his
head surrendered before senior officials here Thursday, police
said.
CES 6 AR-RIJIJU LD POLICE
Security in NE has improved considerably : Khandu
Itanagar: Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Pema Khandu
on Thursday said the security situation in the North East has
improved considerably due to development initiatives by the
Centre.
CES 7 WB-SCIENCE-VARDHAN
Vardhan asks scientists to think a little out of box
Kolkata: Union Minister Harsh Vardhan Thursday said
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has set the vision to put India
in the bracket of three top scientifically advanced nations by
2030.
CES 8 WB-BRIDGE REPORT
Preliminary report on Majherhat bridge collapse
tomorrow : Mamata
Kolkata: The preliminary report on the Majherhat
bridge collapse by the probe committee will be submitted
tomorrow, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee
said on Thursday.
CES 9 BH-POL-PAPPU
Pappu Yadav's party to contest next LS polls with
'like minded parties'
Patna: Madhepura MP Rajesh Ranjan alias Pappu Yadav
Thursday announced that his fledgling Jan Adhikar Party (JAP)
will contest the upcoming parliamentary elections in alliance
with the "like minded parties".
CES 13 BH-CABINET
Bihar cabinet approves scheme to give Rs 1 lakh
interim relief to mob violence victim
Patna: The Bihar government on Thursday approved a
scheme for providing interim relief of Rs one lakh to those
affected by mob violence besides speedy trial of such
cases. PTI
RG RG
New Delhi, Sep 13 (PTI) Stepping up his attack on Arun Jaitley for allegedly meeting Vijay Mallya before he fled to the UK, Congress president Rahul Gandhi today accused the finance minister of colluding with a "criminal" and not informing the probe agencies, despite having information about the liquor baron's plan to leave the country.
Speaking at a press conference, Gandhi also trained his guns on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, asking, "Why did Jaitley allow Mallya to escape, or was it an order from the prime minister?"
"This is a clear-cut case of collusion. There is some deal between them. Finance Minister Jaitley must resign and this should be investigated," he said.
Senior Congress leader P L Punia said on March 1, 2016, when he was in the Central Hall of Parliament, he had seen Jaitley and Mallya talking "discretely".
"On March 3, we heard from the media that he (Mallya) fled the country on March 2. I have clearly stated about this in each of my interview with the media. There are CCTV cameras, we can all see that for proof. If I am wrong, I will resign from politics," Punia said.
He added that the meeting between Jaitley and Mallya lasted for 15-20 minutes.
Gandhi wondered that when the "absconder" had informed the finance minister about leaving the country, why did he not notify it to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) or Enforcement Directorate (ED).
The Congress president accused Jaitley and the government of lying on the issue. PTI SKC ASK RC
Jammu, Sep 13 (PTI) A Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) terrorist was killed and eight security personnel, including a DSP, were injured Thursday in an encounter in Jammu and Kashmir's Reasi district, police said.
Security forces during a cordon and search operation, zeroed in on a location near a house in the district's Kakriyal area, and trapped the terrorists, officials said.
The encounter broke out as the security forces, comprising CRPF, police and Army personnel, closed in on the terrorists, they said.
Security forces used drones and choppers in the operation, which was launched Wednesday to track three JeM militants, the officials said.
One of the terrorists was killed and eight security personnel, including Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Mohan Lal, were injured. They were hospitalised, police said.
Five CRPF personnel and three policemen were injured during the operation, they said.
They were admitted to the Narayana hospital in Katra.
The cordon and search operation to track down the JeM terrorists was launched in the Jhajjar Kotli forest belts in Jammu and Reasi district Wednesday, the officials said. PTI AB ANB
ANB
(Eds: Updating toll, adding more details, background)
Jammu, Sep 13 (PTI) Two Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) terrorist were killed and eight security personnel, including a DSP, injured Thursday in an encounter in Jammu and Kashmir's Reasi district, police said.
Security forces, during a cordon and search operation, zeroed in on a location near a house in the district's Kakriyal area, and surrounded the terrorists, officials said.
The encounter broke out as the security forces, comprising CRPF, police and Army personnel, closed in on them, they said.
Security forces used drones and choppers in the operation, which was launched Wednesday to track three JeM militants, aged between 18 and 22 years, the officials said.
Two terrorists were killed and eight security personnel, including Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Mohan Lal, injured, police said.
Five CRPF personnel and three policemen were injured during the operation, they said.
They were admitted to the Narayana hospital in Katra.
The cordon and search operation to track down the JeM terrorists was launched in the Jhajjar-Kotli forest belt in Jammu and Reasi district after the militants fired on security personnel on the Jammu-Srinagar National Highway on Wednesday, the officials said.
The militants after the incident had fled into the forest belt of which Kakriyal is a part.
During the operation, security agencies were informed by a villager that the militants had taken food and clothes and left his house on Wednesday night, a senior police official said.
Speaking to reporters, the villager said, "They came to my house at 8 pm and demanded clothes to change from their(combat) dress. They demanded food. They ate biscuits and drank water and left around 9.10 pm."
The terrorists also demanded a vehicle, but "we told them, we do not have one," the villager said, adding that they were asked to switch-off their mobile phones.
The official said the family immediately informed the police after the terrorists left.
The CRPF, the police and the army along with personnel from other security agencies are combing the area, he said.
The official said areas and check posts along the Jammu-Srinagar national highway are on alert.
More checkpoints have been created and vehicles are being searched and passengers frisked, he said.
"The Jhajjar Kotli forests and adjoining areas have been put under a massive cordon," the official said.
Traffic movement on the highway, between Nagrota and Jhajjar Kotli, has been suspended and schools in the area have been closed for the day. PTI AB ANB
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Police said Greenlee entered a GMC Envoy outside of the home where the argument occurred and began to drive recklessly, striking three people, including a child under the age of 2, his grandmother, described as being in her 40s, and the childs uncle, who is in his 20s.
New Delhi, Sep 13 (PTI) The BJP on Thursday defended Finance Minister Arun Jaitley as Congress president Rahul Gandhi sought his resignation over his alleged meeting with Vijay Mallya, saying the fugitive businessman was a criminal and his words could not be taken seriously.
At a press conference, Union minister Piyush Goyal asked Gandhi to resign, claiming that due to his family's "relations" with Mallya, banks were pressured by the previous United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government to sanction loans to the fugitive businessman, violating all norms.
"Rahul Gandhi should answer what were the relations between his family and Mallya," Goyal said, adding that the now-defunct Kingfisher Airlines was given loans bypassing all norms, laws and regulations.
Gandhi should resign from all the posts he held, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader said.
Mallya, he asserted, had no credibility as he was under the "glare of law" and was a criminal. He could not be taken seriously, Goyal said.
The fugitive liquor baron had yesterday claimed in London that he had met Jaitley before fleeing to the UK.
Refuting Mallya's claim, Jaitley had said he had never given him an appointment since 2014, but he used his privilege as a Member of Parliament to accost him once in Parliament. PTI JTR KR RC
New Delhi, Sep 13 (PTI) The Congress accused Thursday the Narendra Modi-led NDA government of taking no action against fugitive liquor baron Vijay Mallya, accused of Rs 9,000-crore bank fraud, despite registration of an FIR by the CBI in July 2015.
Congress chief spokesperson Randeep Surjewala asked who got the CBI "lookout notice" of October 16, 2015 changed for detaining Mallya to merely an "inform notice" on November 23, 2015.
He alleged a consortium of 17 banks led by the SBI moved the debt recovery tribunal for action against Mallya on February 28, 2016 but it was advised to move the Supreme Court. By the time court was moved he had already escaped, the Congress leader said.
"Who directed the banks to not to act and delay filing of the case in the Supreme Court, until March 5, 2016, so that Mallya can escape on March 2, 2016," he asked.
"Why did Finance Minister Arun Jaitley meet and discuss the loan default of Rs 9,000 crore with Vijay Mallya in Parliament? Is it legally, ethically and morally correct on part of Jaitley to hold such discussions with an economic offender against whom banks have filed a case," Surjewala asked.
The Congress leader said Mallya admitted to informing Jaitley that he was leaving for London but despite knowing about Mallya's intention of escaping "why did Jaitley not tell CBI/ED/SFIO/External Affairs Ministry to detain and arrest Mallya? Was he being tipped to escape?"
Surjewala also asked why the Narendra Modi-led government had permitted Mallya to receive millions of dollars in India and abroad from Diageo.
He alleged that a sum of USD 300 million was paid to him by Diageo which bought many of his companies.
"How did the Modi government permit Vijay Mallya to receive millions of dollars in India and abroad from Diageo? Is it not correct that Diageo paid a sum of USD 40 million to Mallya as part of agreement dated February 25, 2016 and USD 58 million to him in two tranches of South African Breweries," Surjewala questioned.
"Is it also not correct that Diageo paid USD 141 million to Standard Chartered Bank on a loan taken by Mallya's UB Group Company and USD 42 million on a loan taken by his United Breweries Overseas Ltd? Why couldn't the Rs 9,000 crore owed to Indian banks then be recovered," he asked.
He posed a set of six questions to the government asking why was no action taken against Mallya for the bank fraud, despite registration of an FIR by the CBI.
Refuting Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad's claim that party chief Rahul Gandhi had met Mallya, Surjewala said, "Unfortunately, an arrogant law minister spends more time in the BJP office than in the Law ministry."
"The prime minister went to London multiple times, does it mean that he was going there to support Mallya? Ravi Shankar Prasad Ji and his family have gone there multiple times. Were they being hosted by Mallya," he asked.
He claimed almost all Union ministers had gone there multiple times and asked if it meant that all of them had gone there to meet Vijay Mallya.
The Congress leader alleged, "Till date, the Modi government has not moved for the extradition of Lalit Modi. Is he not an Indian fugitive? Does it not mean that the prime minister is protecting him? For three years, neither have you sought deportation nor sought his extradition." PTI SKC AAR
New Delhi, Sep 13 (PTI) Union minister K J Alphons will Friday inaugurate the the country's first tribal circuit project connecting 13 tourism sites in Chhattisgarh. The project is being implemented under the Tourism Ministry's Swadesh Darshan scheme launched in 2014-15 for development of thematic circuits in the country in a planned and prioritised manner.
Alphons, the Minister of State for Tourism, will inaugurate the first tribal circuit project in Gangrel, Chhattisgarh, Friday, an official statement said.
The circuit connects Jashpur, Kunkuri, Mainpat, Kamleshpur, Maheshpur, Kurdar, Sarodadadar, Gangrel, Kondagaon, Nathiya Nawagaon, Jagdalpur, Chitrakoot, and Tirthgarh in Chhattisgarh.
The Tourism Ministry had sanctioned Rs. 99.21 crore for the project in February 2016.
The government had decided to include Chhattisgarh in the scheme under tribal circuit theme "with an objective to acknowledge the sovereignty of tribes and to promote the rich and diverse primitive assets in the state", the statement said.
Chhattisgarh is known for its exceptional scenic beauty and rich cultural heritage. Tribes make up over one-third of the state population. The tribes in the state have retained their culture and traditions for centuries.
"Major components sanctioned under the project include eco log huts, craft haats, souvenir shops, open amphitheatre, tribal interpretation centres, workshop centres, tourist amenities centres, viewpoints, nature trails, solar illuminations etc," the statement said.
These components will improve the existing tourist facilities, enhance the overall tourist experience and help in getting more visitors which in return will increase job opportunities in the area, it said.
"Development of tribes and tribal culture is one of the prime area of focus for the Tourism Ministry. It is carrying out an array of activities for development and promotion of tourism in the tribal region," the statement read.
Under the tribal circuit theme of the scheme, the ministry has sanctioned four projects to Nagaland, Telangana and Chhattisgarh for Rs. 381.37 crore.
So far, the Tourism Ministry has sanctioned 74 projects worth Rs. 5997.47 crore to 31 states and Union Territories under the Swadesh Darshan scheme, the statement said.
Thirty projects/major components of these projects are expected to be completed this year, it said. PTI GVS TIR
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Mumbai, Sep 13 (PTI) A Tanzanian national has been apprehended at the airport here for allegedly trying to smuggle out 6 kgs of drugs, an official said Thursday.
I A Shabani, who was supposed to travel to Muscat, was apprehended by CISF personnel at about 2 am, he said.
Security personnel intercepted him on the basis of suspicion as he was about to enter the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International (CSMI) Airport here and took him for detailed frisking.
"About six kilograms of Ephedrine, a stimulant category drug, was recovered in the form of crystalline shape from the bag of the man who holds a Tanzanian passport. He was handed over to anti-narcotics sleuths," the official said. PTI NES IJT
Lucknow, Sep 13 (PTI) Hindus and Muslims in Jalaun district of Uttar Pradesh have transcended communal barriers to help the local administration in relocating some religious structures which had held up building of a flyover for 14 long years.
In all, two temples, seven mazaars (tombs) and a mosque have been relocated, while a portion of a boundary wall of a dargah (the grave of a revered religious figure) was removed to facilitate construction of the flyover.
Superintendent of Police, Jalaun, Dr Aravind Chaturvedi, told PTI Thursday, "On the Kanpur-Jhansi National Highway, the stretch between 242-km landmark and 244-km landmark is called Kalpi Khand. The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) had to construct a 1.5 km long flyover for smooth movement of traffic".
"But the NHAI faced a grave problem when it had to lay a service road (almost 5.5 metres wide on either side of the flyover) before they commenced the main construction in Jalaun, 220 kms from the state capital Lucknow" he said.
"It was on one of these stretches of service road (from Kanpur to Jalaun) that there were two temples, seven mazaars and one mosque, leading to the problem which existed for almost 14 years," the SP said.
The current district administration and police machinery held a number of rounds of meetings with the stakeholders --both Hindus and Muslims.
"It was then agreed by all that for development, these religious structures have to be relocated. The task was undertaken on September 8," he said.
"A Shiva temple has been relocated, while the sanctum sanctorum of a Durga temple will be shifted along with the idol as soon as the new temple is ready. The area where the new temple will come up has also been identified," he said.
Chaturvedi said that in the past 5-6 years, more than 100 persons, mostly school-going children, have lost their lives in accidents, which had occurred on this patch.
"Apart from this, seven mazaars have been relocated. One mosque was also relocated," the SP said, adding the entire work was done under "Operation Sahyog".
It was also agreed upon that a very old mazaar, which falls outside the ambit of the service road, should remain intact.
Currently, the NHAI is doing some beautification work of the Durga temple and the centuries-old mazaar, the SP said.
When contacted, District Magistrate of Jalaun, Mannan Akhtar, told PTI, "The shifting of the religious structures located on the Kanpur-Jhansi National Highway was undertaken on September 8 and completed that day itself. There was cooperation by majority of the people."
"Till now the Kanpur-Jhansi National highway was virtually single-lane for the past 14 years," the district magistrate said.
Akhtar said the dialogue process with all stakeholders took almost 5-6 months and a number of meetings and back channel talks were held with them to resolve the matter amicably.
"We made everyone agree on this," he said. PTI NAV SMI
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Srinagar, Sep 13 (PTI) The National Conference (NC) on Thursday called an all-party meeting here to discuss the legal challenge to Article 35A and the political and security situation in Jammu and Kashmir.
It comes a day after the state administration clarified that the panchayat and urban local body (ULB) elections will be held as per schedule, notwithstanding the boycott announced by the NC and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
The meeting was called by NC president Farooq Abdullah at his residence in Gupkar area of the city.
The NC president invited political leaders of various parties in the valley to discuss the legal challenge to Article 35A and political and security situation in the state, among other issues, party vice-president Omar Abdullah said.
"The NC president also wanted to listen to their views. He also told them the reasons for the party's boycott and took their views on what needs to be done in the future," he told reporters at a hurriedly called press conference.
Omar said the leaders who attended the meeting agreed that it was totally wrong on part of Additional Solicitor General (ASG) of India Tushar Mehta, who is representing Jammu and Kashmir in the Supreme Court, to accept that there is an aspect of gender discrimination in Article 35A.
The apex court is hearing petitions challenging the constitutional validity of Article 35A, which grants special privileges and rights to the "permanent residents" of Jammu and Kashmir.
"It was totally wrong that he (Mehta) went outside the brief given to him by the state government. He was not sent to the SC to talk about his personal views or about the opinion of any political party. He was not even a representative of the Centre," Omar said.
"As he (Mehta) went outside his brief, we have lost trust in him and all the leaders have demanded that Mehta be immediately pulled out of the case and the lawyer who defended the case before him should be brought back, he added.
The former chief minister said the hearing on Article 35A should be deferred till an elected government is in place in the state.
"The state is right now under the Centre's rule. Call it Governor's rule or whatever, but it is the government of India which runs it. Unfortunately, even as all the parties here, including the NC, have demanded that the Centre clears its stand on Article 35A, it has not (done so). So, we do not even know what sort of defence the Centre will put up on the day of the hearing of the case in the SC in January next year," he said.
"Keeping this in mind, all the leaders agreed that we tell the Centre and the SC to defer the case till (assembly) elections take place in the state and a new government is in place. It will be the responsibility of the new government to defend Article 35A in the SC," he said.
Asked whether the mainstream and separatist parties are on the same page over Article 35A, Omar said every citizen of the state is of the view that Article 35A should be protected.
Omar also said the Centre had made a mistake by linking the panchayat and ULB elections with the hearing on Article 35A.
His comments came in the backdrop of the Centre seeking to postpone the hearing on Article 35A till January as the multi-phased elections will go on till December.
"It is their own mistake. It was the Centre which linked the polls with Article 35A. The Centre opened this chapter. You ask us why we contested the (LAHDC) Kargil elections. If the Centre would have linked the Kargil elections with this, we would not have contested those elections also," Omar said.
Speaking about the government's plans to go ahead with the elections, irrespective of the boycott announcement by the NC and the PDP, he said, it is their call.
"The last three chief ministers of the state belonged to the two parties that are not participating in these elections. The NC has a footprint in all the regions of the state. The PDP has its own importance. If you think that the elections carry any meaning without the participation of these two parties, then go ahead, we have no objection," he said.
"Neither have we asked people to boycott the polls, nor we are running a boycott campaign. We only said that we will not contest these elections. Rest, if someone wants to contest the polls or does not want to, it is up to them," he clarified.
Congress leader Taj Mohiuddin, CPI(M) leader M Y Tarigami and former minister G H Mir attended the meeting. However, the PDP stayed away.
Some independent legislators and the BJP also did not attend the meeting.
A leader of former chief minister Mehbooba Mufti-led PDP said the party skipped the meeting because its agenda "was not conveyed" to them. PTI SSB DIV
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Gorakhpur (UP), Sep 13 (PTI) A group of lawyers allegedly beat up a fellow advocate Thursday in Maharajganj for taking up a case involving a madrasa even as a local bar association expelled him and another colleague over the same issue.
The civil court bar association of Maharajganj district said it has ended the membership of the two lawyers for lifetime for giving legal help those accused of preventing children from singing the national anthem at the madrasa on Independence Day.
The bar association has also sent an application to the district judge for cancellation of the space allotted to both the advocates, the association president said.
No case has been lodged so far but one of the two lawyers said he will approach the police for registration of an FIR on Friday.
On August 15, a cleric, Mohammad Junaid Ansari, who was not a staff member of Madrasa Arabia Ahle Girls College, situated in Badago area under Kolhui police station, prevented students from singing the national anthem after the flag-hoisting by madrasa principal Faizlurrehman.
After a video of the incident went viral on the social media, police arrested him and two other persons under Section 124-A ( Sedition ), 153B (imputations, assertions prejudicial to national integrity), Prevention of Insult to National Honour Act 1971, Criminal Law Amendment Act and IT Act.
Protesting over the incident, the bar association of Maharajganj had decided that no advocate of the district will give legal aid to the accused.
"The decision was taken at a bar association meeting on August 18 for not giving legal aid to the accused, but two lawyers Manoj Singh and Mainuddin Ansari went against the decision for which their membership has been ended for lifetime," said Jagdish Patel, the president of the civil bar association, Maharajganj.
"A copy of the action against them has been sent to the Uttar Pradesh Bar association. An application has been sent to the district judge for the cancellation of allotment of sitting place of the two in the court campus," Patel said.
He, however, did not respond to questions regarding the beating up one of the lawyers by a mob.
Reacting to the bar association decision, Advocate Manoj Singh said everyone has the right to get legal aid and by representing the accused, he was doing his duty.
"It is a fundamental right of a person to get legal aid and I was just doing my duty. When a Pakistani terrorist Ajmal Kasab could get legal aid, why couldn't they?" Singh said.
He, however, said he was not informed about the bar association decision on not giving legal aid to the accused in the said case.
Singh also claimed that a group of lawyers beat up Ansari for providing legal aid to an accused in the case.
"I was working inside the court so they (the lawyers) were not able to touch me but they have beaten Mainuddin Ansari for giving legal aid to another accused in the case. On Friday, after identifying all the lawyers, I will lodge an FIR," he said. PTI CORR ABN CK
New Delhi, Sep 13 (PTI) People from various parts of India come to Delhi in hope of employment and a better future, leading to an "unplanned urban sprawl", Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said in Seoul on Thursday while terming it as a challenge.
Speaking at the International Conference on Urban Regeneration in South Korea's Seoul city, Kejriwal said it is high time this sprawl be revamped with a human face.
"The challenge Delhi faces is that people from various parts of India have tendency to come to the capital city in hope of employment and a better future.
"This has led to an unplanned urban sprawl and it is high time that this be revamped with a human face," the CM was quoted as saying in an official statement.
He said everybody has a right to lead life with dignity and therefore governments must ensure rights of people living in unplanned colonies.
According to the statement, Kejriwal, who along with Health Minister Satyendra Jain is currently in Seoul, also praised the Delhi Metro, saying it has emerged as a very successful mode of public transport over the last 15 years and it is known for its "professionalism and efficiency".
In the past, the chief minister had slammed the Centre over hike in metro fares, claiming it would "kill" the Delhi Metro.
Kejriwal said one of the biggest challenges faced by Delhi and its adjoining areas is air pollution.
"Latest studies show that more than 70 per cent air pollution in Delhi is caused by factors for which the city itself is not responsible," he said.
Delhi also faces a serious solid waste management challenge, he said, adding that he will be happy to suggest the civic bodies to learn the Seoul model of disposal and management of solid waste, he said.
"Delhi is also seriously working on water conservation and management, since in summer months it faces water scarcity as it is dependant on neighbouring states for water," the statement said.
According to the statement, Kejriwal said his government seeks to have cooperation in waste water management and water conservation, since the water demand of a growing city like Delhi will always keep increasing given the scale of its expansion and population influx on a regular basis. PTI BUN DPB
Jammu, Sept 13 (PTI) A massive cordon and search operation to track down three suspected Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorists, who fired at security personnel on the Jammu-Srinagar Highway, entered the second day on Thursday in Jhajjar Kotli forest belts.
A villager told security forces that the three militants entered his house Wednesday night and demanded clothes and food before fleeing.
Panic gripped Jammu and its neighbouring areas after the three terrorists escaped into a forest between Jhajar Kotli and Nagrota on the outskirts of the city.
"The cordon and search operation is going on for the second consecutive day today. Army, CRPF, police and other security agencies are combing the area to track down the terrorists", a senior police officer said.
The entire Jammu-Srinagar Highway has been put on alert with additional checkpoints set up , he said.
"Jhajjar Kotli forests and adjoining areas have been put under massive cordon", he said.
"We came to know that terrorists entered the house of a local. We are verifying the details", the officer said.
A villager from the area told security forces that around 8 PM the three armed militants carrying haversacks and three rifles entered his house, changed clothes, took biscuits and water and left.
"They came to the house at 8 PM. They demanded clothes for changing their (combat) dress. They demanded food. They changed dress, ate biscuits and drank water and left around 9 pm", the villager told reporters.
The terrorists asked the family to arrange a vehicle for their journey to Kashmir Valley and also asked them to switch off their phones.
"Militants were pressing us to provide them a vehicle. We told them we do not have a vehicle. They (terrorists) told us they will pay for arranging the vehicle for Kashmir," he said.
As soon as the terrorists left, the family informed police.
Traffic on the highway between Nagrota-Jhajjar Kotli has been suspended after the terrorists infiltrated. Schools in the area have also been closed for the day.
Police personnel, posted at a check post on the highway around 0800 hours Wednesday morning, signalled a truck to stop, but it sped away, Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), Jammu, Vivek Gupta, had said.
The truck was intercepted by a police team after a chase and the militants fired on them from the vehicle before fleeing, he said.However, the driver and the conductor of the truck were taken into custody, the SSP said.
Gupta said an AK assault rifle and three magazines were seized from the truck during a search. PTI AB DV
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There are numerous times when our department is backing up Lake Forest and Libertyville where we have been first in on incidents in their communities, Harlow said. This will have a domino effect: it will have an increase in response times with less personnel.
Jaipur, Sep 13 (PTI) South Western Army commander Lieutenant General Cherish Mathson Thursday said Rajasthan has the potential of developing "battlefield tourism" as the state's history is replete with historic battles which form an integral part of its heritage and culture.
He said there were many people ready for this kind of tourism if the right infrastructure was developed to facilitate the same.
The Army commander was addressing a session on 'Battlefield Tourism' at the 7th annual convention of the Indian Heritage Hotels Association (IHHA) in Rajasthan's Bharatpur city.
He said in order to promote battlefield tourism, firstly, it
should be recognised as a sub-genre or sub-category of tourism, a release by the Association said.
Mathson said battlefield areas need to be made accessible to people by building infrastructure like hotels, transportation and other facilities.
He also suggested that this unique form of tourism be started as a pilot project in the desert state.
The South Western Army commander also touched upon the importance of Haldighati and Chittorgarh which have witnessed historic battles, the release added.
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New Delhi, Sep 13 (PTI) The Delhi BJP termed Thursday the victory of ABVP candidates in the Delhi University Students' Union (DUSU) elections as the victory of youth in the country, even as the AAP and the Congress held EVMs responsible for their defeat.
BJP leader and Union minister J P Nadda congratulated ABVP's winning candidates and said students' power is the "strength of the nation".
Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari said the ABVP has showed the BJP will also win the 2019 Lok Sabha polls under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
"The victory of the ABVP is the victory of each youth in the country. The government has implemented schemes like the Skill India programme for better future of the youth. The BJP will form the next government under the leadership of Narendra Modi," Tiwari said.
Delhi Congress chief Ajay Maken said the NSUI performed well in the DUSU polls and it would have won more seats had the EVMs not been "tampered" with.
"Our candidate won by 6,000 votes on the post of secretary in DUSU polls. Our candidates were leading in counting when the EVMs malfunctioned. We would have won more seats if the EVMS were not tampered with," Maken claimed.
Earlier in the day, AAP convener (Delhi) Gopal Rai also alleged EVM tampering and said, "If the EVMs cannot ensure fair elections in DUSU, how will the Election Commission ensure fail polls in the country."
He said the AAP's student union CYSS had an alliance with the All India Students Association (AISA) but failed to open its account in the election. PTI VIT AAR
Raipur, Sep 13 (PTI) The Congress in Chhattisgarh may field local candidates to contest the crucial seats being held by the ruling BJP in the naxal-affected Bastar region, a party leader said Thursday.
The party's victory in all the 12 seats of Bastar, one of the worst Maoist-affected areas of India, will be important to ensure a Congress government in the BJP-ruled state, he said.
Elections for the 90 assembly constituencies in Chhattisgarh are scheduled to be held this year-end.
The Congress is weighing all probable candidature for the 12 seats of Bastar, of which 11 (Bijapur, Dantewara, Konta, Chitrakot, Bastar, Narainpur, Kondagaon, Keshkal, Kanker, Bhanupratappur, Antagarh) are reserved for scheduled tribes and one (Jagdalpur constituency) is unreserved, the party leader said.
The Congress has eight MLAs from the region in the Chhattisgarh Assembly whereas the ruling BJP has four.
"The Congress is not leaving any stone unturned to ensure its victory in Chhattisgarh. Winning all the 12 seats in Bastar will be advantageous for us.
"We are in the process of scanning its candidates for the poll and those with high chances of winning and those with good local connect may be given preference while finalising the names," another senior party leader from the state said.
In an interview to PTI last month, senior Congress leader T S Singh Deo had said that not all sitting legislators may get tickets to contest the upcoming assembly polls in Chhattisgarh.
The Congress is out of power since 2003 and its chief Rahul Gandhi is keen on revival of the party in the state.
Chief Minister Raman Singh has already started a mass-contact program to ensure his victory for the fourth time.
The Congress lost to the BJP in the 2013 elections as it could secure only 39 assembly seats out of the 90.
The ruling BJP got 49 seats and one each was won by the Bahujan Samaj Party and by an Independent candidate. PTI AKV AKV ANB
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New Delhi, Sep 13 (PTI) The counting for Delhi University Students Union (DUSU) elections was suspended midway Thursday due to "faulty EVMs and the students' uproar over it", an university official said.
The counting was initially stopped for an hour when there were allegations of faulty EVMs, however, following objections by students the election officials decided to suspend the counting.
"We had proposed rectification of the faulty EVMs and resumption of the counting but the students were not ready for it. It was decided to suspend counting. A fresh date for the counting will be announced soon," an election officer for DUSU polls said.
In the initial trends, Congress-backed NSUI was leading for the president post, while BJP-affiliated ABVP was leading for the vice president's post.
Amid heavy police presence and some last-minute wooing of voters, DUSU polls were held yesterday with a voter turnout of 44.46 per cent.
Polling took place at 52 centres in the colleges. There are as many as 23 candidates in the fray. PTI SLB GJS GJS IND
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New Delhi, Sep 13 (PTI) The Supreme Court Thursday dismissed a petition seeking a direction to the Centre not to proceed with the recommendation of the apex court Collegium on the appointment of a lawyer as a judge of the Allahabad High Court.
A bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justice D Y Chandrachud said there was "no merit" in the plea which was also "not justiciable".
"The Collegium has submitted its recommendation. It is a constitutional process. In the midst of a constitutional process, this petition is not maintainable," the bench told advocate Asok Pande, who has filed the plea.
When Pande claimed that there were allegations against the lawyer whose name has been recommended by the Collegium and an FIR was also lodged against him and some others, the bench said "you have said in your petition that the FIR has been quashed".
"There is no merit in the petition. It is not justiciable," the bench said while dismissing the plea.
The petitioner had sought a direction to the Union Ministry of Law not to proceed to appoint the lawyer as a judge of the Allahabad High Court in compliance of the Collegium's recommendation last month.
He had also sought quashing of the recommendation besides a probe by either the CBI or a special investigation team (SIT) into the FIR lodged at Allahabad under various sections of the Indian Penal Code, including cheating and forgery.
He alleged in the plea that between 2002 to 2007, an agricultural institute had filed 24 writ petitions before the Allahabad High Court and five pleas before the apex court in the name of dead and non-existent persons.
The plea claimed that the high court had ordered its registrar to lodge an FIR in the case in which the lawyer, whose name has been recommended by the Collegium, was also named. It alleged that before the FIR was lodged, the lawyer's name was recommended for appointment as judge in the high court but it was not processed later.
The petition said that the lawyer had filed a plea in the high court seeking quashing of the FIR against him, which was allowed by the court.
After quashing of the FIR against him, the apex court Collegium recommended his name for appointment as a judge in the high court on the ground that the state of Uttar Pradesh has not challenged the order quashing lodging of the case, the plea has claimed. PTI ABA MNL SJK RKS ARC
Kochi, Sep 13 (PTI) The Kerala High Court Thursday
expressed satisfaction over the police investigation in the case of alleged rape of a nun by a Roman Catholic bishop.
A division bench comprising Chief Justice Hrishikesh Roy
and A K Jayasankaran Nambiar was considering three separate petitions alleging that the police investigation in the case against Jalandhar diocese Bishop Franco Mulakkal was "ineffective".
One petitioner has sought a CBI probe into the case.
Asking the petitioners to have some patience as shown by the nun in the case, the bench said the petitions would be
considered after interrogation of the bishop by the Investigation Team on September 19.
It then posted the case for September 24.
On September 10, the court had sought to know the steps taken by the state government to ensure the safety and
security of the nun.
During the hearing Thursday, the bench observed that if a hasty investigation was conducted, the accused would be allowed to go scot-free.
Noting that the issue should not be precipitated, it pointed out that there was nothing alarming in the
investigation by the state police.
The alleged incident took place some years back and it
was quite natural that the probe was taking time, it said.
Earlier, Director General of Prosecution handed over the
report of investigation to the court in a sealed cover.
The police informed the high court that sufficient protection would be provided to the nun.
The arrest of the bishop can be made only after his
interrogation, they said.
The police further submitted that there were
contradictions in the statements of the victim, witnesses and
the bishop, and therefore, the priest needed to interrogated
further.
The Kerala Police had Wednesday summoned the bishop to appear before it on September 19 in connection with the probe amid mounting pressure for action against him and continuing protests.
Inspector General of police Vijay Sakhare, who reviewed
the investigation into the case, had said the delay in
completing the investigation was due to "contradictions" in
the statements given by the victim, witnesses and the
accused.
The Kerala government has made it clear that it stood with the protesting nuns and there was no need for them to be anxious, reiterating that the investigation was going on in
the "right direction".
The nun had accused the clergyman of sexually assaulting her repeatedly between 2014 and 2016.
PTI CORR TGB ROH SRY
Amid turmoil in Cong, Shah asks KTK unit 'not to create
confusion'
Bengaluru, Sep 13 (PTI) Amid bickering in the Congress
in Karnataka casting a cloud on its coalition government with
the JDS, BJP chief Amit Shah has asked the saffron party state
unit "not to create any confusion" and instead stick to
playing the role of the opposition sincerely.
Rejecting charges by Congress leaders that the BJP was
trying to topple the coalition government, the party's
Karnataka unit chief B S Yeddyurappa said "there is no need to
doubt our motives."
BJP MLAs have been instructed not to give statements
on the current political developments pertaining to turmoil in
the Congress, he said.
"BJP national president Amit Shah, with whom I spoke
today, has instructed us not to create any confusion. We
should not give any statements about the political
developments taking place in the state.
Instead, we should stick to playing the role of
opposition sincerely," Yeddyurappa added.
Shah's advice to the party unit comes amid
allegations that BJP was trying to take advantage of the
internal tussle in the Congress and poach on its MLAs to
unseat the government.
Some senior congress leaders have blamed the BJP for
the recent discontent in their party.
The Jarkiholi brothers--municipal administration
minister Ramesh and his MLA brother Satish--are locked in a
turf war with another minister D K Shivakumar, casting a
shadow over the coalition government.
The siblings are upset over Shivakumar allegedly
trying to challenge their supremacy in Belagavi
district through MLA Laxmi Hebbalkar.
The tussle has spilled into the open with the
brothers assertion about the support of eight MLAs and that
they were in touch with the BJP fuelling speculation
about the stability of the H D Kumaraswamy government.
The brothers, whose dissident activities have caused
trouble to the three-month old Congress-JDS coalition, have
camped in Bengaluru meeting senior party leaders.
Asked about the flurry of activities at his residence
since this morning with BJP MLAs making a beeline, Yeddyurappa
clarified that the legislators came only to greet him on the
occasion of Lord Ganesha festival.
Some senior congress leaders have accused the BJP of
trying to poach on their MLAs to come to power.
They have reportedly warned BJP that they would not
keep quiet if BJP tried to destabilise the government.
When asked about a Congress leader claiming that at
least 10 BJP MLAs were in touch with them, Yeddyurappa said,
"Why just 10 MLAs? Let them be in touch with all the 104
MLAs." PTI GMS BN
BN BN
Noida (UP), Sep 13 (PTI) Not obeying traffic rules proved costly for three men who were arrested Thursday by Noida Police only to find out later that they were notorious robbers involved in several chain and mobile snatching cases in the national capital region (NCR).
Ankit Kumar, Rohit Kumar and Ashish Muni were held by Phase 3 police team during a routine checking at around 12.30 am in Sector 66, a senior police official said.
"They were triple-riding a motorcycle on a wrong lane when the policemen intercepted them near a T-point while they were coming from Mamura in Sector 66," Superintendent of Police Arun Kumar Singh said.
"During checking, the police team recovered as many as 11 stolen mobile phones from their possession and Rs 1,200 of stolen money," Singh told reporters.
Knives were also seized from them while the motorcycle was impounded, he said.
He said the three are residents of adjoining Ghaziabad and were not "much educated" and have confessed to getting into crime to "have a luxurious life".
"When quizzed, Ankit said he works as a helper, Rohit works as a a painter while Ashish was studying. Ashish told police that he had joined the other two for the first time to rob a motorcycle. The same motorcycle was used by them in robberies, chain and mobile snatching cases in Noida, Ghaziabad, and Delhi," the SP said.
A case against them has been registered under the relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Arms Act, he said.
The three have been remanded in judicial custody, he added. PTI KIS
DPB
New Delhi, Sep 13 (PTI) A man was killed and another injured after a fire broke out at a godown in north Delhi's Mori Gate, police said Thursday.
The deceased was identified as Rajender (40) and the injured was identified as Yogesh (24), they said.
Police said the incident took place on Wednesday night.
A call about the fire was received at 8:50 pm. Immediately, four fire tenders were rushed to the spot. The fire was brought under control by 10 pm, said a Delhi Fire Service official.
A fire broke out on the ground floor of the godown where the victims were engaged in welding work, said Nupur Prasad, Deputy Commissioner of Police (north).
The godown houses automobile spare parts.
Both the victims where rushed to a nearby hospital where Rajendra succumbed to injuries while Yogesh is being treated for burn injuries and is currently under observation, she said.
The owner of godown, Yogesh, has been arrested in connection with the incident and a case has been lodged. Further investigation is underway. PTI AMP GJS DV
DV
SpiceJet's Delhi-Kabul freighter service to start from October
Mumbai, Sep 13 (PTI) Budget carrier SpiceJet Thursday
announced the launch of its Delhi-Kabul freighter service from
October 15 and signing of a pact with the Afghanistan Chamber
of Commerce and Industries (ACCI) for transporting fresh
fruit, dry fruits, carpets and other commodities from Kabul to
India.
Under the pact, aimed at promoting trade for the
war-ravaged country through the Indo-Afghan air corridor,
SpiceJet plans to transport 1,500 tons of cargo every month,
the airline said in a release.
The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed by
SpiceJet chief project officer Manjiv Singh and ACCI chief
executive officer Atiqullah Nusrat along with senior adviser
for banking and financial Affairs to the President of
Afghanistan Ajmal Ahmady, the airline said.
"In collaboration with ACCI and with the support of
Afghan government, SpiceJet will transport fresh fruits and
dry fruits, carpets and other commodities from Kabul to India
at government-subsidised competitive prices," the release
said.
SpiceJet would be transporting these commodities from
Kabul using its freighter aircraft to Indian metro cities and
through its pan-India passenger flight network would be
distributing it to 47 cities in India, the airline said.
The two nations have opened up two direct air cargo
routes - New Delhi-Kabul and Mumbai-Kabul. Since their launch,
more than 100 flights have been conducted between the two
countries and transported 2,500 tonnes of goods.
The collaborations comes days after the Gurugram-based
no-frills airline announced launch of dedicated air cargo
service under the brand name SpiceXpress from September 18.
To begin with the air cargo operations will cover
Delhi, Bengaluru, Guwahati, Hong Kong, Kabul and Amritsar.
The airline has already inducted one freighter -- a
Boeing 737-700 -- in the fleet to commence cargo services. It
plans to expand cargo fleet to four freighters during the
current fiscal year.
SpiceJet currently offers cargo capacity which is
about 500 tonne per day on its passenger aircraft fleet of 36
Boeing and 22 Q400s operating across 47 domestic and 7
international destinations.
With the launch of the dedicated freighter service
this capacity would go up to 900 tonnes a day in a phased
manner with the addition of four freighters by March 2019, the
airline said.
Following the induction of freighters, the airline is
all set to strengthen its footprint with seamless air cargo
connectivity across India, Asia and Europe, it said. PTI RAM
IAS
KRK KRK
SRE SRE
We took them to court and lost because there were no standards or provisions in the code to be used as a defense for engaging them, Saher said. So now, if there are any changes or new operations, these provisions will provide the necessary standards and let the village properly regulate and review operations.
Teenagers today post every aspect of their lives on social media. From a selfie on a night out with friends to the ups and downs of their relationship status, there is nothing they won't share.
This obsession with social media might seem harmless, if a little irritating, but there is a darker side to sharing your life online.
Experts say posting personal information on platforms such as Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn can potentially compromise your security, leave you vulnerable to fraudsters, damage your job prospects, and even get you in trouble with the law.
Rich pickings: Experts say posting personal information on platforms such as Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn can potentially compromise your security
'It's so important to be selective about what you post on social media,' advises Christian Mancier, a partner at Gorvins solicitors and a specialist in data protection.
'For example, posting that it's your 21st birthday today could allow people to work out your date of birth a frequent security question which someone may use to bypass security while trying to impersonate you.'
This, he says, could let crooks do anything, from using your personal details to apply for credit to impersonating you on a dating website.
Jodie Gilbert, head of digital safety at Barclays bank, agrees. 'Through social media, it has never been easier for fraudsters to gather the key pieces of information required to steal someone's identity,' she says.
'So it is vital to think before you post, and to carry out regular check-ups of your social media accounts to prevent that information from falling into the wrong hands.'
Here, with the help of leading experts, we reveal the vital steps your children and grandchildren should be taking to protect themselves tips you'd be wise to follow as well.
FRIENDS SHOULD MEAN FRIENDS
DO scale down your 'friends' list just to real friends, says Dr Kevin Curran, professor of cyber security at Ulster University.
'And be careful about which applications you grant permission to extract information from your profile,' he warns.
DON'T approve a friend whom you don't know, adds Dr Curran: 'If unsure, send them a message to clarify how it is you know them. Always check how long they have been on the site. Scam profiles are generally created in the recent past.'
DO make sure you check your privacy and security settings periodically. Social media companies have a tendency to put your settings back to default which can be much less secure when they carry out updates or redesigns of their websites or apps.
DO think carefully about who could read what you write before you post. Is it appropriate for public or friends only?
DO stay alert to what is being posted about you, and how far-reaching these posts can be, says Nick Shaw, a manager at cyber security firm Norton.
React quickly if one of your contacts posts personal information about you even if they mean well and ask that they take it down. Keeping tabs on what friends and family post is often the forgotten 'weak link'.
Jodie Gilbert at Barclays, says: 'Speak to friends or family if they're posting content about you that you're not happy with.'
Simple things such as wishing a happy birthday will reveal to fraudsters your date and month of birth, and they could use external search tools to find out the year.
DO ensure that your social media connections are who they say they are. You may receive a request to link up from someone you know, but it could be a fraudster posing as them. Try to confirm their identity offline, if you can.
SORT OUT YOUR SETTINGS
DO set the privacy and security settings so you can control who sees what you post. Often the default social media settings won't provide anywhere as much protection as customised options.
'This will help manage information shared by others, such as when tagged in a potentially embarrassing picture, before it reaches your contacts,' says Nick Shaw at Norton.
DO check if the social network you're using has encrypted chat and, if so, use it, advises John Mason, cyber security expert at TheBestVPN.
'End-to-end encrypted chat means anyone intercepting your communication can't read what it says,' he says.
DO remember to log out before you turn off the computer when accessing social media away from home, such as in a hotel. Merely closing the window you're using won't automatically log you out.
DON'T log into your banking app or other websites containing personal information when using public wi-fi. You never know what the owner of that wi-fi is recording.
DO be careful what you participate in online. A friend may message you to take part in a survey or quiz, but you could be inadvertently sharing your details.
'These can be used by others to gain access to your information,' says John Mason.
DO vary your passwords. A quarter of people have shared a password with a partner, so update them regularly and keep them safe.
'Use a strong password which is a mix of upper and lower-case letters, numbers and special characters such as !@%*,' says Christian Mancier at Gorvins. 'The longer the password the more secure it will be.'
It's also best to use different passwords for different social media sites.
NEVER INSULT YOUR BOSS
DO be aware of the dangers of posting flashy photos on social media of a lifestyle that contradicts what you are saying on your tax return. HMRC probes social media accounts to look for anomalies. Quite a few people have been caught out that way.
DO be aware that future employers could trawl through your social media accounts.
A recent survey from reed.co.uk found that 43 per cent of recruiters check digital profiles often.
'In psychology, the online disinhibition effect refers to the way people behave on the internet with less restraint than in real-world situations,' says Dr Kevin Curran at Ulster University.
'People tend to say and do things in cyberspace that they would not in a face-to-face world.'
So pictures of you passed out on a pavement after a heavy night's drinking may not inspire confidence with a current or future employer.
DON'T say anything negative about a current or former employer on your social media pages. Employers will reasonably assume that if you treat your current or former boss this way, you will do the same to them in the future.
DO remember that once something has been uploaded to the internet, it is nigh-on impossible to erase fully, says Mollie Powles, marketing manager for Browser Media, a digital marketing agency based in Essex. As a result, it's usually the negative activity or Twitter blunders that spread like wildfire, with catastrophic effects for yourself or your company.
DO make sure are using the correct privacy settings on social media websites before applying for a job. A quick check will ensure that any private material is only available to view by friends or connections.
DO some cleaning up, too. Is there anything on social media you would not want reading back to you in an interview?
KEEP HOLIDAY SNAPS PRIVATE
DON'T give away your location online, says Peter Turner, consumer security expert at Avast Software.
'Turn off location services on your devices and browsers when you aren't using them,' he adds.
'The simple act of sharing a photo on a social network profile could inadvertently give away your location or that of a family member.'
The same risk applies to checking in with various apps and using some public wi-fi hotspots. Burglars can easily search Facebook or Twitter for targeted keywords, or see who has checked into airport lounges on apps such as Foursquare.
DO check the settings for each app on your phone to ensure that location tracking is turned off for every individual one.
This includes the camera on your smartphone, so that your images aren't tagged with your whereabouts.
DON'T post messages showing you are on holiday or away from home.
'Aside from the risk of burglary, this may actually invalidate your home insurance as you are alerting people to the fact your home is unoccupied,' says data protection lawyer Christian Mancier.
DO be careful how you use activity monitoring apps such as Strava, which are popular with cyclists and runners so they can keep track of their performance.
Enable the privacy setting that hides your start and end location so people can't locate your house, says Christian Mancier.
'Very expensive bikes have been stolen by thieves working out where cyclists live. Applications such as public Strava profiles, which show the route someone has just cycled right from their front door, may raise that risk so its important to use privacy settings, he adds.
DON'T post pictures of expensive new jewellery, computers or any new purchases. It is tantamount to advertising that you have something to steal.
DO check to see if any types of information can be viewed by anyone with access to a particular site. For example, Facebook typically shows details including your name, profile picture, cover photo and gender to anyone who views your page. You may want to leave these fields blank if you can.
DON'T use usernames that include your full name, date of birth or any personal information. The same applies when you create a password it's just too easy for criminals to guess.
DON'T BE TRICKED BY DATING SCAMS
DON'T share personal information such as your full name, date of birth and home address with a stranger as you may not know what they'll do with it.
Be extremely careful sharing personal details online, even with people you know you may end up sending information to a fraudster pretending to be them.
DON'T use personal information when selecting usernames on dating sites 'Janice from Birmingham' risks revealing too much publicly.
DO use trusted dating websites and resist being lured away from communicating with your potential date via social media rather than through the website.
DON'T be tricked into handing over money to someone you meet online. Some crooks devote months to grooming their victims and making them believe that they are in a genuine relationship.
Often they say they are based abroad so that the victim never gets to meet the person face-to-face. Behind the fake online profile of the person the victim believes they are talking to, there's often a gang of criminals working behind the scenes.
In 2017, 3,557 romance scams were reported to Action Fraud, the crime monitoring body an average of ten reports a day.
This amount equates to 11,500 per victim. Those who fall victim to these frauds are almost twice as likely to be women 63 per cent of them than men (37 per cent).
Imagine sitting down at your desk in the morning and thinking I wonder if Barclays will actually go bust today, or maybe Lloyds will?
A decade ago that was what we were doing at This is Money.
It seems almost inconceivable now as if it was a weird vivid dream but whenever I am asked to cast my mind back to the financial crisis thats what I think of.
The collapse of Lehman Brothers a decade ago saw workers in its London office leaving with their belongings, but it as banks such as Barclays, Lloyds, Halifax and RBS that worried Britons
Throughout many of those days we genuinely thought something that we could never imagine happening was about to: one of Britains biggest banks would go bust.
There will be plenty of minds being cast back a decade over the next few days, as Saturday 15 September marks ten years from the day Lehman Brothers filed for bankruptcy.
Allowing Lehman to fall could have taught banks the lesson that they could not rely on someone stepping in to rescue them, but unfortunately it spectacularly backfired.
The credit crunch that began in 2007, was already a financial crisis by that point, but things really stepped up a gear as we discovered that Lehman was not a player that could be allowed to fail with limited consequences elsewhere.
Instead things snowballed and panic set in, with a system so interlinked and messed up on toxic finance that no one was considered safe.
And so British savers found themselves mulling over whether Lloyds, Halifax, Barclays, or RBS would follow Northern Rock and close their doors.
Ultimately, all were rescued in some way and savers didnt lose their cash, but the chain of events the financial crisis triggered is still costing us dear now.
Nations saddled with debt from bailing out banks have had to cut back. In the UK, that has been a contributing factor in everything from potholes failing to be fixed, to train fares rising, benefits being cut, university tuition fees rocketing, and policing and the health service suffering.
And, of course, there is the base rate, which only just made it above 0.5 per cent last month.
The FTSE All Share UK stock market had already fallen substantially from its October 2007 peak by September 2008 and then continued to decline, but if you had invested as the financial crisis raged you would have made plenty of money by now
Nonetheless, many of the looks back at a decade ago that are being sent into us are also focusing on how people could have made money.
The investment industry is keen to point out statistics such as Hargreaves Lansdowns that 10,000 invested in the FTSE All-Share on the eve of Lehmans collapse would now be worth 21,350, with dividends reinvested.
There would have been even more money to be made for those who bought in as the stock market was really tanking in early 2009.
The problem is though, how many of us would have done this?
As many times as you are advised to be greedy when others are fearful, its a difficult line to follow when youre worried the financial system might collapse.
I wish Id invested any money I had when the stock market was down 30 to 40 per cent during the financial crisis, but I didnt.
I wonder if I will be brave enough next time.
Fans of cheap tracker funds could lose out by shunning actively-managed funds entirely, new research suggests.
A 'passive only' approach to investing comes with pitfalls, and it is best to use a mixture of tracker funds that simply clone market performance and active ones that try to beat it, says the study.
The dangers of limiting your portfolio to trackers include getting locked into poorly-performing shares - especially after profit warnings - and shares that tend to move largely in step together, according to the report from finance firm Royal London.
Passive vs active: Fans of cheap tracker funds could lose out by shunning actively-managed funds entirely
Why do many investors prefer tracker funds?
Tracker funds have soared in popularity over the past few decades because they are a cheap and easy way for ordinary investors to get exposure to stock markets, and other assets like bonds and commodities. Read our guide here.
Active funds are run by managers who pick investments more selectively with the aim of outdoing the market. However, active funds still often underperform despite charging a lot more.
Royal London says it endorses the use of trackers and invests a chunk of its members' money in passive funds in markets where it doesn't think active investing can add value.
It says active investment has faced an 'entirely justified challenge' from passive investors, and sharply criticises the practice of 'closet tracking'.
'Many asset managers running active funds have simply failed to deliver the additional performance to justify their higher charges, particularly on a consistent basis,' says the Royal London report.
Is your fund a 'closet tracker'? How to find out if you're paying an active fund manager just to hug a benchmark index. Read our guide here.
'In the worst cases, so-called active investors have been charging higher fees for active management but then quietly investing in a way that largely matches an index (so-called 'closet tracking'), resulting in the worst of all worlds for investors active fees for passive performance.'
The firm adds that fierce competition between tracker fund providers has driven down their charges, making them even more attractive to investors.
Royal London nevertheless argues that individual investors are best off using a mixture of passive and active funds.
It also warns that there are wider economic risks if passive investing becomes too dominant, which also affect ordinary investors indirectly.
How popular are passive funds? Investors have moved from active to passive funds in droves since 2000, and passive funds accounted for nearly half of all assets under management by 2017
What pitfalls do investors face if they only use trackers?
1) Getting locked into failing stocks
'Passive funds are unable to sell stocks in the benchmark. When a company issues a profit warning or significantly misses on earnings an active manager is able to sell out of their position,' says the report.
'Whilst there is little systematic evidence on this point, there is an old stock market adage that profit warnings "come in threes" one is often followed by more over a period of time.'
Having money in actively managed funds as well as trackers can benefit investors in these scenarios.
Active managers have a clear advantage over passive funds because they can dump such stocks at the first sign of trouble, while passive investors have to follow the share all the way to the bottom.
2) Lack of diversity in investments
Investors using trackers can't diversify by investing outside the indices they follow, and could see greater volatility as a result, especially as shares within an index tend to move in tandem.
'Those who invest passively in all of the shares in a benchmark are locked in to that basket of investments through the ups and downs of the economic cycle,' says the report.
'The evidence suggests that stocks in an index have a tendency to move together, and the investor has no option to invest outside the index or pick stocks which may be less correlated with each other.
'Having the freedom to invest actively allows the investor to diversify and reduce the risk that his or her investments experience a rollercoaster of returns.'
UK and North America: Percentage of passive funds which outperformed the benchmark of actively invested funds over a rolling three-year basis and in each of three consecutive years
3) Bond tracker funds are biased towards companies that borrow the most
Passive funds can track any market where there is a benchmark to follow, so this includes corporate bonds where companies borrow money from investors as well as stock markets.
'There are reasons to think that passively tracking indices of corporate bonds could lead to under-performance. The reason for this is the way in which indices of corporate bonds are constructed,' says the report.
'Just as share indices are weighted by the size of companies, fixed income indices are generally weighted towards companies that issue the most debt.
'This biases fixed income indices towards higher leveraged companies. There is strong empirical evidence suggesting that investing in leveraged companies results in underperformance.
'Why would one want to invest in an index product that, by definition, has additional exposure to companies that issue the most debt?'
Royal London compiled the charts below to show how shares of firms with low amounts of debt have significantly outperformed those of more heavily indebted companies.
Trading trends: Performance of shares of high leverage (heavily indebted) and low leverage (holding little debt) firms since 1999
What are the wider problems if everyone uses trackers to invest?
1) Passive funds don't invest in start-ups
New and growing firms would find it harder to raise money if passive investment became dominant, because the more investors track indices the less cash is earmarked for promising up-and-comers.
'At present there is a market for Initial Public Offerings (IPOs) where active investors are able to efficiently allocate capital and act as price setters.
'In the absence of active management who would allocate this capital and how would the market go about any rational price discovery?
'Private equity may be able to fill some of the gaps but would be unlikely to assist with funding equity in the scale required by a Facebook, Alibaba or Aramco.'
2) It's harder to keep companies on their toes
Tracker funds compete on price because they can't on performance, so they will spend less money on researching companies and holding them to account.
They also can't threaten to sell shares if a company is underperforming because they have to hold all those in an index.
'As passive investing grows, engagement with management may become less of a priority with a predominantly price sensitive client base, which could act to the detriment of the overall quality of corporate governance,' says the report.
'After all, passive funds buy a stock because of its inclusion in an index and not because of their view on underlying fundamentals or company management.
'Without investors engaging with companies, holding managers to account and using the ultimate sanction of selling shares if necessary, the pressure on managers will be reduced and performance is likely to suffer as a result.'
When should investors consider using active funds?
Royal London suggests investors should look at using active funds for corporate bonds and where research can add value such as the income, small cap and sustainable sectors.
Piers Hillier, chief investment office at Royal London Asset Management, says: 'There has been a flood of money into passive funds in the last decade as active managers have struggled to demonstrate that their higher charges deliver consistent value for money, and there is no doubt that passive investment forms a valuable part of any investment mix.
'But there would be dangers both to individuals and to the economy if the benefits of active management were to be lost completely and the dash for passive investment continued unabated.
'Individuals would have less choice and would be forced to follow the ups and downs of the stock market, whilst business start-ups would find it harder to raise money.
'More worrying still, without active managers holding their feet to the fire, the managers of British industry would face less challenge and may fail to maximise the potential of their businesses.
'When investing client money the right judgment is to look for targeted areas where simply following the market does not deliver the best result, and it is important that such active investment continues to be an important part of the UK investment landscape going forward.'
The top 10 best-performing investment funds in the decade since Lehman went bust is dominated by small companies players.
Tech, biotech and Japanese funds make up the rest of the list, which you can find below. The best performer was Legg Mason Japan Equity, up 720 per cent, and the average growth across the whole top 10 was 516 per cent.
By comparison, the FTSE 100 has returned 109 per cent since September 2008.
FundExpert.co.uk boss Brian Dennehy, who compiled the top 10 list, admits he wouldn't have predicted any of these sectors would fare so well when Lehman Brothers collapsed, marking one of the most fraught moments of the financial crisis.
Top 10 since Lehman: Fund performance between 15 September 2008 and 4 September 2018 (Source FundExpert.co.uk)
'September 2008 was a very uncomfortable time for investors generally, and those sitting at the heart of the investment business, as I was,' he says.
'I certainly wouldnt have thrown my money, or that of my clients, into UK smaller companies at that time, though I am ordinarily a smaller company enthusiast.
'After all this is typically the highest risk area of the stock market, and most illiquid. And bank lending was drying up, a big problem for smaller businesses.
'Nor would I have invested into technology funds. I, and our clients, had successfully sidestepped this one from 1999, after which they fell nigh on 90 per cent.
'Japan? It was still a long way down from its high in 1989, and although I had tickled with Japan funds, I had no great inclination to invest in Japan in September 2008.'
Dennehy says the value of knowing the top 10 funds since the Lehman bust is very limited as it relies on hindsight.
'The answer is to have a process to select funds which you can apply at any time, whatever the condition of the market,' he says.
Lehman Brothers goes bust: Infamous collapse on 15 September 2018 marks one of the most fraught moments of the financial crisis.
He floats a different approach: buy the three top performing funds of the last six months from the universe of UK stock market funds all companies, equity income, and smaller companies - then review them every six months, and switch into the latest ones with the best growth or 'momentum' in the prior six months.
At the time of the Lehman's collapse, the three top performing UK funds in the six month run-up to 15 September 2008 were Royal London UK Mid-Cap Growth, Barclays UK Equity Income, and Investec UK Special Situations - none of which made the eventual top 10 best performers.
But Dennehy says the Dynamic UK Portfolio created from swapping funds every six months in the way described above would have returned 388 per cent over the past decade, which compares favourably to the average of the top 10 funds.
'The lesson? Have a clear and repeatable investing process. Make sure there is prolonged evidence of success. Apply it with discipline. Make more money!' he concludes.
British Airways has struck a deal to have 4.4billion worth of its historic pension liabilities insured by Legal and General.
The deal has been secured to give investors of large FTSE 100 listed firms like British Airways reassurance about the issue of their hefty pension obligations to former staff.
Nearly 22,000 pensioners who have worked for British Airways will now have their pensions managed by Legal & General.
Deal: British Airways has struck a deal to have 4.4billion worth of its historic pension liabilities insured by Legal and General
The airline-sponsored pension scheme said the Legal & General deal will cover about 60 per cent of all pensioner liabilities.
For some time, British Airways has been trying to get rid of its image as a company weighed down by the impact of its historic pension schemes.
In December, British Airways, which is owned by the International Consolidated Airlines Group, announced it had reached an agreement with unions to close its final salary pension scheme and replace it with a new one this year.
Many final salary schemes offered by companies in the past have been closed in favour of cheaper alternative schemes.
What is a final salary pension scheme? A final salary pension scheme is a type of defined benefit pension scheme offered by employers. The benefits received at retirement are based on earnings and length of membership in the scheme. The cost of running final salary pension schemes can be very expensive which is why many companies have phased them out in favour of alternative, cheaper, schemes.
Today's deal between Legal & General and British Airways is the biggest ever bulk annuity deal.
Legal & General, which was founded in 1836, reported 500million of pension risk transfer sales in the first half of 2018, with the British Airways annuity deal boosting year-to-date sales to 5.3billion.
The bulk annuity market in the UK has been growing as an increasing number of companies pass their pension schemes on to insurers.
Nigel Wilson, chief executive of Legal & General, hailed the contract win and said there are more transactions set to be announced in the next few months.
Laura Mason, chief executive of Legal & General's retirement institutional division, added: 'We are proud to have delivered this groundbreaking transaction, the largest bulk annuity transaction completed in the UK market.
'This is a great example of Legal & General delivering for UK companies and their pension members, enabling pension schemes to provide security to their pensioners in retirement.'
Record: Today's deal between Legal & General and British Airways is the biggest ever bulk annuity deal
Speaking to This is Money, James Mullins, Head of Risk Transfer at Hymans Robertson, said: 'Old final salary pension schemes, like the British Airways sponsored Airways Pension Scheme, have trustees who are responsible for managing the pensions promised to former employees.
'There is a growing trend for these pension schemes to pay to insure these pension promises with specialist insurance companies, like Legal & General, rather than trying to manage the commitments themselves.
What is a bulk annuity? Millions of people have them but probably couldn't explain what they are. Annuities are sold by insurance companies to provide you with an annual income in your retirement when you cash in your pension pot. Bulk annuities are bought by firms that run final salary pension schemes to provide an income for their workers who retire.
'This means that the responsibility for managing pension promises is moving from trustees to insurance companies.
'Indeed, Hymans Robertson expects that more than 18 billion of pension scheme promises will be insured in this way during 2018 and this amount will grow year on year in the future.'
Paul DeDath, insurance analyst at Shore Capital, said: 'If the number and size of deals completed in the first half was a little light of expectations, L&G has now delivered on the promise of a bumper second half.'
British Airways has some of the biggest pension obligations in corporate Britain, with nearly 24billion of assets in the two previous schemes at the end of last year.
Shares in British Airways are down 0.92 per cent or 5.70p to 612.90p, while Legal & General's share price is up 0.52 per cent or 1.30p to 252.20p.
Morrisons heralded its best sales growth in almost a decade as customers flocked to snap up British produce.
Defying retail gloom and threats posed by budget German rivals Lidl and Aldi, the supermarket smashed expectations in the six months to August 5 in a transformation led by chief executive David Potts.
Former shop assistant Potts, 61, put the strong figures down to demand for its British products, which make up two-thirds of Morrisons sales.
Morrisons chief executive Dave Potts credited the supermarkets strong figures with demand for its British products, which make up two-thirds of Morrisons sales
Produce such as Squeaky Cheese, Yorkshires answer to halloumi, and Plumgarths sausages from Kendal in Cumbria helped drive sales 6.3 per cent higher in the second quarter, the best performance for nine years.
In the first six months of the year, same-store sales rose 4.9 per cent. Exceptional costs of 61million took the shine off as Morrisons profits endured a 29 per cent hit, falling to 200million.
The latest figures come amid a period of stiff competition in the grocery sector. Sainsburys and Asda are preparing to join forces in a 14billion merger while Tesco is launching a discount chain Jacks to take on Aldi and Lidl.
Potts said Morrisons latest figures showed the supermarket did not need to be a behemoth to enjoy success.
It has almost 500 stores across the UK compared to Tesco, which has 3,435, and Sainsburys, which has 1,423. Asda has 635 supermarkets.
From the shop floor to the boardroom David Potts was 14 when he got his first job at a greengrocer
He left school at 16 after failing all five O-levels
Potts got a job as a shelfstacker at Tesco in 1973
Aged 24, he became Tescos youngest store manager
He eventually ran Tesco in Ireland and then Asia
He left in 2011 after failing to land the top job
In March 2015 he became chief executive of Morrisons
The supermarkets shares are up 30 per cent since he joined
Now 61, Potts has two sons Dan and George and a partner, Jane
He said: We enjoy the cut and thrust of the UK grocery market and are getting used to competing successfully against bigger scale. Weve demonstrated that scale is not the defining feature for supermarket retailing.
The supermarket rewarded investors by paying out a special dividend of 2p per share and hiked its ordinary interim dividend by 11.4 per cent to 1.85p per share.
The payout takes Morrisons total interim dividend to 3.85p, which is 132 per cent higher than a year earlier.
Since joining in 2015, Potts has led a transformation at the retailer, returning it to growth, driving down debt from 2.8billion to 929million and delivering a 57 per cent increase in shareholder returns.
He has teamed up with McColls and Amazon and put parcel collection units and Timpson key-cutting and phone repair services in stores.
Analysts said the tie-ups have turbo-charged its revenues.
Morrisons now sells around 10,000 products through Amazon Fresh, which allows customers to order their food shopping and have it delivered within an hour.
It has also revived the Safeway brand at McColls after buying the supermarket in 2004.
It now sells Safeway ready meals and fresh products at 1,300 McColls stores.
AJ Bell analyst Russ Mould questioned how long Morrisons winning streak could continue.
It has 10.4 per cent of the market compared with Tesco, the leader, which has 27.4 per cent.
If the Sainsburys and Asda deal gets the all-clear, the group will have a combined share of more than 30 per cent.
At present the business is clearly on a roll, but the big question is for how long this can last, Mould said.
Should Sainsburys get clearance from the competition authorities to merge with Asda, Morrisons would suddenly look much weaker. That may prompt Morrisons to seriously think about a tie-up with Co-op.
Principality Building Society has been named the best mortgage lender in Britain for customer service, with First Direct and Nationwide coming in joint second.
A Which? survey of more than 3,500 customers looked at customer service, the mortgage application process and value for money.
It found Principality BS achieved a customer score of 80 per cent and nine in 10 customers said they did not experience any problems with their mortgage.
The survey looked at customer service, the mortgage application process and value for money
The building society was rated five stars for flexibility of payments on its mortgage, and 97 per cent of customers were satisfied with their mortgage.
First Direct and Nationwide both scored 77 per cent to come in joint second. Virgin Money came fourth with a score of 76 per cent, Coventry claimed fifth place with 75 per cent and Skipton received a score of 73 per cent to come sixth.
Kensington came at the bottom of this year's table, with a customer score of just 56 per cent. The lender received two stars on value for money and Which? found that two thirds of customers were paying the standard variable rate on their mortgage.
However, Kensington specialises in lending to people with bad credit ratings or complex circumstances, so its rates are higher due to the increased level of risk it takes on.
A statement from the lender said: 'We continue to work on simplifying our business and enhancing the customer experience. Where customers are dissatisfied with their mortgage, we work closely with them to resolve any concerns.
'We take complaints from our customers seriously and have a dedicated team committed to resolving them as soon as possible.'
WHICH'S BEST MORTGAGE LENDERS Rank Provider Customer score 1 Principality 80% 2 First Direct 77% 3 Nationwide 77% 4 Virgin Money 76% 5 Coventry Building Society 75% 6 Skipton 73% 7 Chelsea Building Society 72% 8 Halifax 71% 9 Yorkshire Building Society 71% 10 NatWest 70% 11 HSBC 70% 12 TSB 70% 13 Santander 70% 14 Leeds Building Society 70% 15 AA Mortgages 68% 16 Barclays 68% 17 Lloyds Bank 66% 18 Yorkshire Bank 65% 19 Clydesdale Bank 63% 20 The Co-operative/Platform 62% 21 Royal Bank of Scotland 62% 22 Accord Mortgages 61% 23 Kensington 56%
Accord Mortgages, the intermediary-only arm of the YBS Group, also gave a disappointing performance, with the second-worst customer score of 61 per cent. One in seven of the customers were dissatisfied with their mortgage.
A spokesman from Accord said: 'We always welcome feedback and actively seek it on every case we do. Were therefore surprised by these figures as our own independently conducted research shows 86 per cent of Accord customers say they are satisfied with the service they receive.
'We will continue to work hard to provide the best possible service to our intermediaries and their customers.'
Scandal hit TSB came 12th in the rankings, above Santander and Barclays, with an overall customer satisfaction score of 70 per cent.
To figure out the overall satisfaction score, Which? also asked customers to rate their providers on ease of online access, and clarity of statements.
Gareth Shaw, Which? money expert, said: 'Choosing the right mortgage for you will probably be one of the biggest financial decisions you ever make.
'It's essential that you pick the right provider for your specific needs and these Which? Recommended Providers are all highly rated by their customers for quality of service and value for money.'
Mortgage broker Andrew Montlake, of London-based broker Coreco, added: 'When left to navigate the thousands of mortgage products on offer without a helping hand, it can often come down to just rate which is the cheapest deal?
'But this can end up costing customers far more than they should be spending both in money and time.
'When a broker recommends a deal we look at the overall cost of the loan, whether it's the right deal and also if it's the right lender for you because we understand how each lender works, how quickly they can solve potential issues and how easy they are to deal with.
'Customer satisfaction is too often left at the bottom of the priority heap when choosing a mortgage, but when it's the biggest financial commitment most people ever make, it pays to get this right.'
Steelworkers who may have been mis-sold pensions face a new threat from scammers after a data leak.
Fraudsters pretending to be from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) are contacting former clients of controversial advice firm Active Wealth claiming to offer help getting compensation for mis-selling.
It is believed personal information including national insurance numbers and birth dates of former clients of Active Wealth was handed to another entity.
Fraudsters pretending to be from the Financial Conduct Authority are contacting steelworkers who were former clients of controversial advice firm Active Wealth
The FCA is investigating, and the breach has been reported to the Information Commissioner's Office.
Active Wealth suspended pension transfer business last year after concerns were raised over advice to British Steel workers. It has since gone into liquidation.
How vultures stuck Tata Steel closed the heavily indebted British Steel Pension Scheme (BSPS) in 2017, saying it would push the firm into insolvency. Of 122,000 members, more than 80,000 switched to a scheme set up by Tata. Another 17,000 stuck with BSPS while it was closed and fell into the pensions lifeboat. Both are set to leave most of their members worse off. The remaining 25,000 members either defaulted into the Pension Protection Fund or transferred to new schemes. A parliamentary inquiry said: 'Reputable local independent financial advisers were overwhelmed by demand. The circumstances surrounding BSPS created perfect conditions for vultures to take advantage.'
In a warning to customers, the FCA said: 'The fraudsters may tell you some of your personal information, such as your date of birth or national insurance number, to give the impression that the communication is genuine.
'You may also be told you are entitled to a sum of money, and that the FCA needs your bank account details to make the payment.'
An FCA spokesman declined to give details about the third-party believed to have handed over the information, or say if it was a hacking attack.
It is the latest threat to steelworkers after they were targeted by pension sharks.
Chaos erupted after Tata Steel decided to close the heavily indebted British Steel Pension Scheme last year.
Its more than 120,000 members had to decide whether to stay with the scheme, join a new scheme set up by Tata or transfer out to a personal plan.
Pension sharks charging sky-high fees flooded into steel heartlands in Port Talbot, Wales, to encourage workers to transfer retirement pots.
Bongo fury: Some 400 FCA staff attended an African drumming workshop
The City watchdog has been attacked by its own workers after sending 400 of them on an African drumming workshop.
The session, at the QEII centre in London, saw Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) staff taught drumming to understand 'the power of group energy'.
It is thought to have cost thousands of pounds and enraged staff who would rather have worked.
One employee said the session, part of the FCA's annual meeting, was 'an egregious waste of money'.
Another told the Evening Standard: 'There are worse ways of earning a living, I grant you, but it is money just squandered, just p****d up the wall.
'This is funding from money that has come from fees we charge banks pensions, credit cards, insurance, bank accounts and mortgages have paid for [it].'
The FCA said: 'We include short, motivational exercises to promote team building. The FCA will be closely reviewing all future events of this type.'
A: Yes, I was involved in a lot of activities at Stevenson. I was in Peer Helpers. I played the violin in the orchestra and I also started a small, freelance makeup artist business. But I felt a personal connection to the (prevention) cause because I had an extended family member who dealt with a substance abuse problem, in particular, alcoholism. Even when you can legally consume alcohol, I could see how it can adversely affect and change the outcome of someones life. I felt like I had it in my power to make a difference by working on prevention efforts in the community.
Donald Trump has accused Wall Street banker Jamie Dimon of lacking the intelligence to be US president amid a ferocious spat between the two men.
Trump hit out at Dimon after an attack from the JP Morgan boss this week.
The president said: 'The problem with banker Jamie Dimon running for president is that he doesn't have the aptitude or 'smarts', and is a poor public speaker, and nervous mess otherwise he is wonderful.
JP Morgan boss Jamie Dimon was recorded claiming he could be a better commander in chief than Donald Trump
I've made a lot of bankers, and others, look much smarter than they are with my great economic policy!'
On Wednesday Dimon was recorded in New York saying: 'I think I could beat Trump.
'I'm as tough as he is, I'm smarter than he is.
'I would be fine. He could punch me all he wants, it wouldn't work with me. I'd fight right back.'
He later retracted the comments and insisted he did not want to be president.
Minneapolis-St. Paul, September 12, 2018 - Law firm Gordon, Arata, Montgomery, Barnett, McCollam, Duplantis & Eagan, LLC is up and running on 3E in the Cloud from Thomson Reuters Elite - powered by Microsoft Azure. While the new service offers many benefits including premium cloud security as well as power and load flexibility disaster recovery stands above all other benefits for this firm, headquartered in New Orleans.
Gordon Arata felt the pain of disaster recovery after Hurricane Katrina, and the challenges of a business forced to function from a headquarters damaged from the tremendous storm. Today, we are in full hurricane season, but our firm is confident we can support client needs regardless of weather challenges, because 3E in the Cloud keeps our business data secure and accessible no matter where we need to conduct business, said Ray LoCicero, firm administrator for Gordon Arata Montgomery Barnett.
3E in the Cloud provides end-to-end business management, leveraging Microsoft Azure security and analytics services, which enable 3E customers to always be tech current through Microsofts ongoing security testing and systems upgrades.
The Microsoft Azure platform offers cloud confidence with nearly unlimited scale, 24/7 monitoring, security rigor and innovation opportunities unmatched in the industry. By leveraging Microsoft Power BI and Azure platform services, the 3E in the Cloud platform becomes the first of its kind to give law firms both greater efficiencies across all business processes and the ability to stay up to speed with faster deployments of new technology and scale to meet client demands, explained Eric Sugden, Elite chief technology officer. As Gordon Arata weathers this years hurricane season, their adoption of 3E in the Cloud also ensures their clients will experience seamless business support.
Cloud adoption has been rapid as it offers organizations agility to compete and velocity to transform their business through greater efficiencies and productivity, said Stacy Trackey Meagher, vice president, Microsoft Enterprise. Our Thomson Reuters relationship supports legal professionals needs for secure access to business information. 3E in the Cloud leverages Microsoft Azure to ensure legal professionals have the best solutions for workflow, reporting and analytics, as well as the confidence to protect their organization and their customers information.
Thomson Reuters Elite is the leading global provider of innovative business management solutions that enable law firms and professional services organizations to streamline operations, maximize efficiency, and increase visibility into all aspects of their businesses. Elite is focused on enabling firms of all sizes and locations to meet their true potential and provide the best service for their clients. 3E from Thomson Reuters Elite offers an end-to-end enterprise business management solution that allows law firms and professional services organizations to run all operational aspects of their business
Gordon Arata Montgomery Barnett
Gordon, Arata, Montgomery, Barnett, McCollam, Duplantis & Eagan, LLP has attorneys in offices in New Orleans, Lafayette and Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Houston, Texas. Whether in litigation or transactions or dealing with regulators, the Firms lawyers serve clients locally, regionally, and nationally and provide services across a wide range of industries aligned with the Firms offices along the Gulf Coast. The Firm is committed to achieving the best possible results and to fostering relationships with clients.
Thomson Reuters
Thomson Reuters is the worlds leading source of news and information for professional markets. Our customers rely on us to deliver the intelligence, technology and expertise they need to find trusted answers. The business has operated in more than 100 countries for more than 100 years. Thomson Reuters shares are listed on the Toronto and New York Stock Exchanges. For more information, visit www.thomsonreuters.com.
CONTACT
Gretchen DeSutter
Thomson Reuters
Corporate Communications
612-226-5087
Gretchen.desutter@thomsonreuters.com
Nabors Industries Ltd. engages in the provision of platform work over and drilling rigs. It operates through the following segments: U.S. Drilling, Canada Drilling, International Drilling, Drilling Solutions, and Rig Technologies. The U.S. Drilling segment includes land drilling activities in the lower 48 states and Alaska, as well as offshore operations in the Gulf of Mexico. The Canada segment consists of land-based drilling rigs in Canada. The International segment focuses in maintaining a footprint in the oil and gas market, most notably in Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Argentina, Colombia, Kazakhstan, and Venezuela. The Drilling Solutions segment offers drilling technologies, such as patented steering systems and rig instrumentation software systems that enhance drilling performance and wellbore placement. The Rig Technologies segment comprises Canrig, which manufactures and sells top drives, catwalks, wrenches, drawworks, and drilling related equipment, such as robotic systems and downhole tools. The company was founded by Clair Nabors in 1952 and is headquartered in Hamilton, Bermuda.
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Hornbeck Offshore Services, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, provides marine transportation, subsea installation, and accommodation support services to exploration and production, oilfield service, offshore construction, and the United States military customers. It operates offshore supply vessels (OSVs), multi-purpose support vessels (MPSVs), and a shore-based facility to provide logistics support and specialty services to the offshore oil and gas exploration and production industry, primarily Gulf of Mexico in the U.S., Latin America, and internationally. Its fleet of U.S.-flagged OSVs and MPSVs support deep-well, deepwater, and ultra-deepwater activities of the offshore oil and gas industry, such as oil and gas exploration, field development, production, construction, installation, well-stimulation, and other enhanced oil recovery, as well as inspection, repair, and maintenance services. The company also provides vessel management services, including crewing, daily operational management, and maintenance activities for other vessels owners. As of December 31, 2018, it owned and operated 66 OSVs and 8 MPSVs. Hornbeck Offshore Services, Inc. was founded in 1997 and is headquartered in Covington, Louisiana.
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The Aztec Dancers will be doing the main performance, he said. Al Jewer will play the Native flute and Hugo Gutierrez and WAYCO will perform world music with guitar, charango, percussion and wind instruments.If you only see one thing at this or any pow wow, Schranz said, make sure its the grand entry. It starts at 1 p.m. each day and last about 45 minutes. The dancers come in first followed by flags and presentations, he said.
My first hope would be that they see they can make a difference and that when they see trash it bugs them enough to do something about it and when they are out walking and see a bottle sitting on the edge of the sidewalk, they care enough to pick it up, Smith said. That, to me, is a win.
ALBANY Fourteen Red Cross volunteers from the Capital Region shipped out to the Carolinas and Virginia on Tuesday, while four more from the Albany area boarded airplanes Wednesday to reach areas in the path of Hurricane Florence before the storm hits.
Kevin Coffey of Saratoga Springs is assigned to help with fundraising, while Bob Fitzgerald of Rouses Point, Clinton County, will be ensuring mental health services are available to disaster victims. Julia Richards of Delmar was deployed to Virginia to help organize shelters.
Meanwhile, Jose Santiago from Kerhonkson, Ulster County, landed in Lewisburg, N.C., after six hours of flights and layovers, to prep the National Guard armory for 125 evacuees. Hes an expert in mass feeding and care. Previously he has helped victims of the 2018 Massachusetts blizzard, and last year set up shelters after Hurricane Harvey in Houston and spent three weeks cleaning up Hurricane Irmas Florida devastation. He also said he had a close call in Puerto Rico in 2017 bringing aid to Hurricane Maria victims.
The roads are so narrow that trucks had trouble getting up the mountains with water, food and medicine after the hurricane, so I made the drive but the road was so slippery and full of debris, the vehicle slid to the edge of the mountainside, said Santiago, a former ambulance driver. If there hadnt been a pile of dirt at the edge of the roadside to stop the skid, we would all have been dead. But I love volunteering."
When the hurricane changes its path, our volunteers are always ready to make quick changes; weve had volunteers headed to the airport to go to North Carolina who may get a call redirecting them to get on a plane to go to South Carolina, said Kimmy Venter, Eastern New York Region of the American Red Cross spokesperson.
Loudonville photographer Mike Tripodi is another volunteer who got 10 p.m. phone call Monday from the Red Cross asking him to go to Richmond, Va. instead of South Carolina. The Red Cross calls his assignment disability integration. He makes sure evacuee shelters are accessible, from beds to bathrooms, to disabled evacuees and also prepared for those with mental health challenges.
Tripodi brings a unique empathy to the job.
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I dont mind sharing with readers that I am on the autism spectrum, Tripodi said by phone from Richmond. Environments overloaded with stimuli, like a shelter full of evacuees, can be difficult for autistic people. But we can help decrease the stress by offering shelters noise cancelling headphones and weighted blankets for the cots or beds. The pressure of the blanket has a calming impact.
Two hours after his feet hit the airport tarmac, Tripodi was in a van gathering shelter supplies. His team of volunteers fanned out across the state to assess shelters in Lynchburg and Roanoke and other inland cities. They checked for basic Americans with Disability Act compliance, looking at whether doorways were wide enough for wheelchairs and ramps were at building entrances. If not, Tripodi can contact a vendor who will bring in portable ramps.
Volunteer recruitment coordinator Lauren Whitman, a paid staffer from Troy, originally planned to go to Richmond to set up the technology-loaded situation room to track the locations and assignments of volunteers. But she was suddenly diverted to Raleigh, N.C.
Well keep track of where our volunteers are staying, whether its at a shelter or a hotel, as well as tracking event-based volunteers, the locals who show up to offer their help when their community is impacted by disaster, Whitman said. Last year, after Hurricanes Harvey and Irma, we had 70,000 event-based volunteers fill out online applications.
Waterford
A Waterford chemical plant is part of a $3.1 billion merger transaction announced Thursday with two conglomerates and an investment group from South Korea.
MPM Holdings Inc, which owns the Momentive Performance Materials silicone plant on Route 32 where about 1,000 people work, will be acquired by the investment group, SJL Partners; KCC Corp., a Seoul-based chemicals company; and Wonik WnC Corp., a Seoul maker of quartz and ceramic products for the semiconductor industry.
With about two dozen manufacturing facilities globally, MPM is the third-largest maker of silicones, resins, and adhesives in the world. KCC currently ranks fifth, and the combined entity would become the second-largest in that sector.
"The transaction will not only allow our silicones and quartz businesses to benefit from KCC and Wonik's industry expertise but will also further enhance Momentive's global leadership position by expanding our portfolio of products, broadening our geographic reach and strengthening our financial position," said Jack Boss, CEO of Momentive Perfomance Materials.
"There are no planned changes at Waterford as a result of this transaction and we expect the transaction to result in growth and job creation," according to a company statement.
Expected to close in the first half of 2019, the transaction is being supported by an undisclosed amount of new debt.
The deal also includes "the assumption of net debt, pension and (post-employment benefit) liabilities," according to a company press release. MPM has about 5,200 workers worldwide.
The merger has already been approved by the boards of directors for Momentive and its stockholders, as well as the boards of KCC, Wonik, and the SJL's investment committee, according to the release.
Momentive shareholders will be paid $32.50 for each share of the company. The company is privately held among several hedge funds with billionaire owners.
There were about 48.1 million outstanding shares in MPM Holdings in August, according to filings with the federal Securities and Exchange Commission. So those shares would be worth about $1.5 billion under the merger agreement.
However, a Westchester County law firm also announced Thursday that is is investigating "potential claims" against MPM and its board of directors for "breach of fiduciary duty concerning the proposed acquisition of the company."
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Rowley Law represents shareholders nationwide in "class actions and derivative lawsuits in complex corporate litigation," according to a statement by partner Shane Rawley, who declined further comment.
An MPM company spokesman declined comment on the law firm's announcement.
The MPM stock price has been climbing steadily since February 2017, when a 105-day strike by about 700 unionized workers at the Waterford plant was settled. At that time, shares were valued at about $10, according to Yahoo Finance.
The stock price had climbed to $20 by early 2018, and hit $30 by May 2018.
News of the potential merger appeared in an English-language South Korean newspaper on Aug. 1., with KCC officials quoted in the Korean JoongAng Daily saying that no decisions had been made. The stock price climbed to $40 by mid-August, and peaked at $42 on Wednesday morning.
Bu the stock dropped sharply that afternoon, settling at $32.50 at the end of the day. A joint press release on the agreement and the MPM stock buyout price of $32.50 was issued 1:17 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time Thursday morning, according to Business Wire, an online public relations service.
Brewers in the Capital Region are embracing the trend of sour beers. Toeing the line between mistakenly produced vinegar and delightfully cheek-puckering brews, the popularity of sour beer is the grown-up version of sucking on tart candies that make eyes water with aggressive acidity before giving way to sweet pleasure.
Sour beer is done in an old style, tracing roots back to Flemish red ales, Belgian farmhouse ales and lambics and the Berliner weisse. Using naturally occurring bacteria, the style of sour beer is more broadly characterized as wild- or mixed-fermentation beer, sometimes aged in barrels or allowed to further ferment in bottles. The beer is typically not pasteurized like other commercially produced beers. "That whole style of beer, that philosophy of beer, has grown in American brewing," said David Gardell, a brewer and owner of The Ruck, a craft beer-focused bar in Troy. Over the past year, the number of tap lines at The Ruck dedicated to sours has grown from three to eight of the 33 lines, he said.
That growing popularity will be the focus of Saturday's Fall Fermentation Fest at Common Roots Brewing Company in South Glens Falls. This is the second year for the beer festival, which Common Roots co-owner and head brewer Christian Weber said started unexpectedly. "We called it a 'fest' but didn't have the intention of a festival," he said, referring to the surprise of 400 people showing up last year when he debuted a new sour beer and invited a few like-minded brewers to offer some of their sour beers, as well.
This year's festival will include 20 breweries from around New York and the Northeast in a typical beer fest format focused on what Weber called "the wild side of beer." Food will be available for purchase from the City Beer Hall and YesFolk Tonics, of Troy, will be serving non-alcoholic fermented tonics, water kefirs and kombuchas. The Fall Fermentation Fest is different from other festivals, said Weber, because, "this beer festival is very specific. I think there are a lot of really great beer fests and nothing against clean-cultured beer, but we wanted to celebrate sours and wild fermentation."
That clean culture he referred to is the general term for beer that uses yeast that was controlled and grown in sterile environments, creating a certain flavor profile that leads to IPAs, stouts, bocks and lagers. With "wild beers," the initial brew of the beer (called wort, before it is fermented and becomes beer) is left in a large stainless steel pan called a coolship to be spontaneously inoculated with the yeast and bacteria that exists in the air, or is mix-fermented with those wild yeasts and controlled yeast from a laboratory.
Several regional breweries have experimented in the wild and sour genre: Rare Form Brewing Company in Troy produces Sour in the Sage and Family Tree Sour Brown; Brown's Brewing Company in Troy has a Wild Ale Series of seven different sour ales; Great Flats Brewing in Schenectady makes a cranberry lime sour, while Shmaltz Brewing Company in Clifton Park has long been known nationally as the maker of Funky Jewbelation, a sour barrel-aged beer. Druther's Brewing Company, with locations in Saratoga Springs, Albany and Schenectady, was one of the first breweries in the area to regularly produce a sour style known as gose (pronounced GOES'-uh) that uses lactobacillus and pediococcus yeasts, producing a salty-sour and light lemon flavor. Other wild sour beers occur when brettanomyces, a natural bacteria, inoculates the wort and creates a "funk" in the beer, sometimes affectionately referred to as "horse blanket." (Deliciously, of course.)
Gardell describes some of the flavors of sour and wild beers as "9-volt battery to the tongue," and "jowl-shocking," but says that it is nearly impossible to produce wild- or mixed-fermented beers with the same results each time. Brewers he speaks to say that microbes in sour beers are like children in a household. "At any time, one child might have more of an impact than the others."
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Weber is debuting the new version of his Rooted series of beer, which is fermented in his coolship, a piece of equipment not in common use by breweries in the region. The beer is released twice a year and is different each time based on the natural environment and terroir (flavors derived from natural factors unique to an area of origin) present at time of brewing and inoculation. The beer is aged in barrels and in bottles before release, and is available only at the Common Roots brewery. Weber expected most bottles (in 375 milliliter and 1.5 liter sizes) will be bought during the Fall Fermentation Festival. The beer, said Weber, is made with all New York state raw materials
Weber called his line of wild-fermented beer, which also includes the Branch series of blended barrel-aged beer and Representation of Wild Things, which is made in collaboration with other breweries and restaurants, as "super selfish of me," to produce but "one of the most innovative things we do." Wild and sour beers have a higher chance of spoiling and becoming undrinkable, take more space to produce and age and more time to perfect, and "don't pay the bills like IPAs do," Weber said. Common Roots produces 5,000 barrels of beer a year but is expanding its facilities to produce more wild and sour beers.
Deanna Fox is a food and agriculture journalist. @DeannaNFox, foxonfood.com
A notice of public hearing sign outside the former Las Palmas Mexican restaurant on Ogden Avenue notifies passerby there is a request pending with the city for issuance of conditional use for a car wash on the property. The request also seeks a drive-thru setback variance, major arterial setback variance, monument sign setback variance, landscape perimeter variance and other variances for the business. According to the citys planning and zoning website, Wash-U car wash will seek at the Sept. 19 meeting of the Naperville Planning and Zoning Commission.
COHOES Two 911 calls made last year by the wife of Cohoes Mayor Shawn M. Morse confirm that she told a dispatcher she had been a victim of domestic violence and that her husband had grabbed her by the throat during a violent encounter at their city residence.
"What's going on there?" a dispatcher asked Brenda Morse, who called 911 on the morning of Nov. 10.
"I guess you could say domestic violence," Morse answered, her voice trembling with emotion.
The first call, which was made from a cell phone and relayed to a dispatcher in neighboring Rensselaer County, was disconnected. Moments later, when Morse dialed 911 a second time, she told the same dispatcher that police had yet to arrive at her residence and that "my husband is the mayor of the city."
"They're probably calling him because he smashed my phone, so I have no phone to get ahold of anyone," Morse said in the recording, which was obtained this week by the Times Union.
The female dispatcher, who had tried unsuccessfully to transfer Morse to a dispatcher in Albany County, asked her what had happened.
"We got into a fight and he I have cuts on me because he pulled me by my throat to the ground because I went to grab my daughter's cell phone," Morse said before the call was disconnected a second time.
The recordings call into question statements Shawn Morse made last year in the wake of the incident, including his claim that his wife did not tell a dispatcher he had assaulted her or that she had sustained any injuries.
During a series of interviews with the Times Union a day after the incident, Morse said his wife had been setting up a new phone and mistakenly dialed 911. He also noted that under state law the recordings of her call to a dispatcher could not be made public.
At the time, the Times Union had reported information from a police report that indicated Brenda Morse had told a dispatcher that her husband had snatched her phone from her hand and smashed it when she dialed 911.
The report also noted that Brenda Morse had used a "911-only" mobile phone and told the dispatchers that her husband, "the mayor of Cohoes ... grabbed her by the throat and threw her to the ground, has scratches all over her and there's one child in (t)he residence."
That police record, as Shawn Morse later noted, had two inaccuracies: The phone Brenda Morse used to call 911 belonged to her youngest daughter, but it was only capable of dialing 911 because it had been disabled. Also, the couple's youngest daughter was not at the residence at the time Brenda Morse called 911, but the dispatcher had mistakenly assumed the daughter was present when Brenda Morse said she was using her daughter's phone.
Still, the calls confirm that Brenda Morse accused her husband of roughing her up.
"My wife never got hurt," Morse told the Times Union last November. "The 911 call (report) was riddled with inaccuracies. ... I never hit my wife in my entire life. ... Nobody got hurt. Nobody hit each other."
In response to questions about the incident on Thursday, Morse's attorney Joseph Ahearn provided copies of text messages that he said Brenda Morse sent to a friend of her husband's three days later, claiming the physical abuse never happened.
"I just wanted to embarrass him so he could feel the same pain I felt by him putting (their daughter in juvenile detention)," the text message reads. "Shawn has never put his hands on me, he's never hit me or choked me, he didn't break my phone, I just felt by saying those things it would embarrass him, I never thought I would hear him say he has to resign over this, I just can't believe what has happened."
According to a person familiar with the law enforcement investigation that ensued, Brenda Morse told investigators during a series of interviews that her husband had put her up to writing the text, which she said was sent to Michael Conners, the Albany County comptroller who is a close friend of Shawn Morse's.
She also sent a similar text to Cohoes assistant police Chief Thomas Ross. She told the investigators that her husband sat next to her and told her what to write in the text messages, and reminded her that his career as an elected official was in jeopardy if she didn't do it.
"The matter was referred to the New York State Police and the Albany County district attorney's office, who would have reviewed the 911 recording and interviewed Mrs. Morse," Ahearn said. "More than ten months later, no charges have been filed against Mr. Morse. Mr. Morse denies ever striking his wife."
Brenda Morse declined to comment for this story.
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The couple are estranged. Brenda Morse discontinued a divorce proceeding she filed against her husband earlier this year in Albany County, but has recently retained a new attorney to revive the case.
The day after the November incident, Shawn Morse had what appeared to be a scratch on his left cheek near his eye when he attended an afternoon ceremony dedicating the Cohoes Veterans Memorial Park on Columbia Street.
Ross, the Cohoes acting police chief at the time, confirmed later that day that two patrol officers and a sergeant responded to Morse's residence for a 911 call. He said that Morse was not there when they arrived. A police captain, Todd Pucci, who is the mayor's close friend and also the public safety commissioner in the village of Altamont, also went to the residence and spoke to Morse.
Ross said Pucci did not take note of any injuries to Brenda Morse, and there were no signs of damage to the residence.
Pucci "said that everything on the (dispatcher's) report was discounted," Ross said. "No scratches, no choking. There was a little scratch on Shawn's face under the eye."
Ross, at the time, did not note that a domestic incident report filled out by one of the responding officers noted that Brenda Morse told police it wasn't the only time her husband had assaulted her, according to law enforcement sources briefed on the investigation.
When contacted a day after the November incident, Shawn Morse denied that his face was scratched, and he asked a reporter how he would know that. "I certainly don't have no scratches on my face," he said. When told the Times Union had photographed him during the park dedication ceremony, Morse still denied he had a scratch on his face.
He also vehemently denied there was any physical contact between him and his wife.
"My family's issues are none of your business," Morse said at the time. "My wife never said that I choked her."
"Nobody got hurt, everything is good," Ross said last year. "Unless I'm being hoodwinked, it looks clean. ... Because of it being the mayor, you want to do it right and you want to go by the numbers."
Two days later, under pressure from the Albany County district attorney's office, Cohoes police turned the case over to the State Police. Investigators with that agency later interviewed Morse and used a search warrant to seize his mobile phone.
No charges have been filed against Morse in connection with the incident, which the district attorney's office said remains under investigation.
"If there was any credibility to Brenda Morse's 911 call law enforcement would have arrested Shawn 10 months ago," Ahearn said.
ALBANY Its been over three years in the making, but Albany County has officially expanded its ban on foam-based products.
Albany County Executive Daniel McCoy on Wednesday signed Local Law L, which expands the ban on polystyrene products to include prohibiting their use for all food service throughout the county. An initial version of the ban, enacted in 2014, affected chain food establishments only.
Stores and restaurants in Albany County using plastic foam products for takeout or coffee will have to switch to recyclable or compostable materials or face fines. The law will take effect six months after it's sent to the Secretary of State.
To further his goal of making Albany County the greenest county in the State of New York, McCoy also issued an executive order that ensures county government also abides by the law. That means vendors the county contracts with for food at places like the county nursing home and jail will have to provide items in compostable or recyclable material.
When I talk to business owners, I say, 'We should be on the same playing field as you. We should lead by example,' McCoy said. This is one step going forward to making sure that were going to have the same policies as everyone else.
Judith Enck, a former regional administrator with the federal Environmental Protection Agency, applauded the county's efforts and encouraged other localities to follow suit.
"This is one of the most serious environmental issues facing the planet," she said. "It's an ocean issue, it's a solid waste issue, it's also a climate change issue because this is made from petroleum products it's made from fracked gas and oil."
Local activists and residents in Albany County had tried to expand the ban last year with a similar measure, but it was defeated by the legislature.
It was that Energizer Bunny attitude that helped make the expansion a reality, said William Reinhart, a a Democratic legislator from Slingerlands.
The volunteers, the citizens you guys have amazing renewable energy, he said during a news conference at the Albany County Office Building on State Street.
Peter Iwanowicz, executive director of the Environmental Advocates of New York, credited the success of the law passing the second time around on the legislature listening to the people.
One of the big hurdles is the last legislative session, the legislators listened to the polluters and not the people, he said. With a new legislature, and a new focus and new people-centered leadership, they listened to the people ... and that was really the pivotal thing that got us across the finish line.
While last years proposal was defeated, the county Legislature this year approved the law 23-13, with three absentees, in August.
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Paul Tick, a county resident who has supported the ban from its inception by Albany Legislator Chris Higgins more than three years ago, said volunteers and activists faced an uphill battle due to a strong showing from the chemical industry.
We had to battle the misinformation that they were promulgating, including trying to make people afraid that this ban was going to hurt their business when there is zero evidence that any small business has ever gone under because of a Styrofoam ban, Tick said.
Having cleared this hurdle, theres still more that can be done.
Elected officials and advocates alike point to additional measures on the horizon, such as banning single-use plastic bags and straws.
Focusing on solid waste management as well as energy consumption can help further Albanys pursuit of being clean and green, Reinhart said.
We have to look at things as a whole system, he said to McCoy during the news conference. I, and the other legislators here, are anxious to work with you, Dan, to do that and come up with a truly green strategy that will make us the leaders of not only New York state, but perhaps even further.
ALBANY The El Fortin Conde de Mirasol was built on Vieques, the small and picture-pretty Puerto Rican island, in 1845. The fort walls have withstood every hurricane and cannonball hurled at it for the next 173 years. Dark stone walls more than a foot thick surround a big ivory-colored building with green wooden shuttered windows that contain a museum and conference room. Even last year's Hurricane Maria, America's most deadly storm in a century (an estimated 2,975 dead), left the fort walls and buildings unscathed.
Now, Amsterdam and Albany nonprofit Centro Civico and Hudson Valley Community College students plan to build a solar array inside the historic fort in hopes of giving Vieques' 9,350 residents electricity after a storm knocks down power lines.
"Studies showed that people died after Maria because their medicines required refrigeration and they went bad because there was no way to keep them cold. There was no way to power oxygen tanks," said Centro Civico's Jose Rossy-Millan, who also chairs the Council of Latino Service Providers. "There will be refrigerators at the fort the public can use. They can go to the fort to recharge batteries and generators, plug in computers."
Puerto Ricans also died from drinking impure water after Maria blasted apart water treatment plants and other infrastructure. Centro Civico Executive Director Ladan Alomar is raising funds to build a water filtration system next to the rear wall of the fort (the other side faces the ocean). The system is designed to purify 2,500 gallons of contaminated water daily. A 10,000 gallon underground tank will be attached to it.
"That is enough for every Vieques resident to take home one gallon of clean water each day," Rossy said.
Hudson Valley Community College students in the photovoltaic (solar powered) systems program volunteered to go to Vieques and install the solar panels on the museum's flat roof and next to the museum's eastern wall.
One small challenge immediately presented itself: the fort seemed designed for 19th-century-sized bodies rather than robust 21st century humans. When four Albany engineers flew down to examine the roof, only two were thin enough to squeeze through the 12-inch wide portal to the rooftop.
When the students fly there to build the array, a Methodist church retreat that has beds, bathrooms and kitchen space for 54 has offered to house them.
Hudson Valley Community College Associate Dean Richard Bennett oversees the photovoltaic program as part of his responsibilities as supervisor of continuing education and workforce development.
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"Hurricane Maria and Irma destroyed photovoltaic system training centers in Puerto Rico and Florida so we absorbed many of the students from those programs into our classes," Bennett said. "Since November 2017, we've been figuring out the logistics of getting the materials to Vieques. No starting date has been set but we're hoping to start building the array in 2018."
Rossy visited Vieques just two months ago and found that many roads are still washed out and closed. Electric and cellphone service is still spotty in some neighborhoods.
To help the island's residents communicate even when cellphone towers are knocked down, Centro Civico raised the money to send four satellite phones equipped with WiFi hotspots to be stored at the fort. Rossy said there is now a ham radio station inside the fort that is part of a network established by a Puerto Rican pastor who's a ham radio enthusiast.
The NY Capital Region for Vieques launched a crowdfunding campaign on Wednesday for the solar and water purifying projects. This is just one of Centro Civico's initiatives. Other programs include health education, literacy and language courses, arts promotion and low income housing aid. Rossy and Alomar unveiled the solar array plans Wednesday night at St. John's Lutheran Church to an enthusiastic crowd. Tables were decorated with small Puerto Rican flags and the stage was flanked by an American flag and Puerto Rican flag.
"We want to steer away from the politics surrounding the Hurricane Maria response because we welcome everyone's support regardless of their views," Rossy said. "Our focus is on saving lives in the 2018 hurricane season."
ALBANY In New York state, it often costs more to buy something using a credit card than it does using cash or check though you might not know it. Depending on the outcome of a case that went before the state's highest court Wednesday, that could change.
Current state business law grounded in federal law forbids businesses from imposing surcharges on customers who elect to pay with a credit card; violators can be charged with a misdemeanor. To get around the law, the merchants can advertise the credit card price as the standard rate, and give cash and check customers a discount.
Merchants challenged the constitutionality of the state law in federal court, claiming it violates their First Amendment right to advertise and mark products with a single sticker price and their right to mention that there will be an additional cost for credit card purchases.
The legal action made it to the U.S. Supreme Court, which vacated the case and sent it back to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Manhattan. The Second Circuit, in turn, asked the state Court of Appeals to issue an opinion, which led to the arguments Wednesday at the high court.
Judith Vale, an assistant solicitor general arguing on behalf of the state, said the legislative history of the law makes it clear lawmakers were trying to stop merchants from posting a single low price and putting customers into possible "true bait-and-switch" fraud or other perils.
"There were multiple congressional hearings on this," she told the court. "It is clear that Congress was legitimately concerned about consumer protection."
Joshua Matz, an attorney representing Expressions, a hair salon in the Town of Vestal, Broome County, reminded the Court of Appeals that the state attorney general's office and district attorneys around the state enforce the law criminally.
"This is a law that criminalizes speech that does truthfully convey the price of the good or service," Matz said.
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"If this court were to hold that having dual pricing is a crime in the state of New York, it would turn tens of hundreds of thousands of New York merchants currently engaged into commerce into (people committing) misdemeanors."
Associate Judge Jenny Rivera asked Matz what speech his clients want to make if they do not fear criminal repercussions.
"My client wants to say that, 'We'll cut your hair for 10 bucks and if you pay with a credit card it's going to be $10.30,'" Matz said. "It's truthful, it's clear."
The court is expected to issue its decision within the next two months.
COHOES Common Council President Christopher Briggs says he became worried that a recent request by the Lofts at Harmony Mills to add millions more onto its tax break package would be controversial.
So to educate himself on the Cohoes Industrial Development Agency, the entity that provides the tax relief, Briggs read its bylaws and discovered something he did not previously know: City residency is required to serve on the IDA board, and two of its five members do not live in Cohoes.
Michael Jacobson is the city's economic development director, but no longer lives in the city. And Marie Stark is an accountant in Cohoes, but also is not a city resident.
The realization has temporarily postponed a public hearing on Harmony Mills' request for tax relief on $22 million worth of improvements to the apartment complex, but city officials say there is a legal mechanism that will allow more than two years worth of IDA votes to remain valid.
The state Authorities Budget Office, after being alerted to the Cohoes snafu by the Times Union, said any past approvals that involve the three still-sitting board members are likely legal.
Meanwhile, Briggs plans on objecting to the IDA extending Harmony Mills' payment in lieu of taxes or PILOT agreements. But he insists his personal opinion did not influence the alarm he sounded over the IDA's two non-resident members noting that the improper appointments show he and the Common Council were negligent in their duty to know who should, and shouldn't, represent the city's economic development arm.
"If I have to throw the flag, I'll throw the flag," Briggs said. "I was expressing my role as the president of the Common Council. I will never, ever relegate my duty."
Briggs continued, "I believe the council should pick independent individuals to be on the IDA to hear the facts. I don't want to influence anyone on the board."
The Common Council is still wrestling with how many board members the IDA should have now that it is down to the minimum number allowed. Mayor Shawn Morse, who is paid an extra $15,000 a year to be the IDA's executive director, wanted Jacobson and Stark to remain on the board, but deferred to the council after members raised concerns about the legality of the appointments.
"It really to me was a trivial issue," Morse said.
Next week, the IDA will likely set a new public hearing date for Harmony Mills, whose owner Uri Kaufman is requesting an estimated $1 million in sales and mortgage recording tax breaks, in addition to a 10-year extension on his PILOT agreements. The original agreements, made more than a decade ago, assisted Kaufman's limited liability companies in refurbishing one of the Spindle City's largest vacated factories.
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The extension of the PILOT would push its expiration to 2038.
The developer wants to make Harmony Mills more upscale, proposing to put in a rooftop seating area that would look out over the Mohawk River, as well as constructing a better fitness center and a movie room. Kaufman's applications to the IDA also said he would split up larger apartments into additional smaller units.
Jacobson said it is unusual for a developer to request tax breaks for a project that has already been completed. But he cheered the prospect of more money being invested in the city's development.
Kaufman is also fronting a restaurant that would lease space from the city in the first floor of Cohoes Music Hall. Jacobson said he proposed the idea to Kaufman when the developer mentioned opening up a restaurant in Harmony Mills, and said the deal which would bring the city $30,000 a year in rent has nothing to do with Kaufman's request for tax breaks at his apartment complex.
"Personally, I'm for keeping the momentum in this small city going," Jacobson said, adding "Uri is not getting favors from us."
ALBANY On Sept. 7, 2014, after a night of drinking, State University of Potsdam freshman Benjamin Haug returned to his dorm and ran into a woman he knew from high school.
They ended up in bed. And ultimately, Haug ended up expelled from SUNY Potsdam.
Following a hearing at which the woman did not testify, the college determined Haug violated its policy against sexual misconduct. The code requires the school's students to give affirmative consent to sexual activity identified as "spoken words or behavior that indicates, without doubt to either party, a mutual agreement to participate."
On Thursday, the case went to the state's highest court, which now must delve into the murky details of a late night encounter between students on a college campus in St. Lawrence County.
Depending on how the Court of Appeals rules, judges could decide the college was justified to remove Haug or affirm a lower court decision that found the evidence for his expulsion was insufficient.
Assistant Solicitor General Brian Ginsberg, representing the college, argued sufficient cause existed to support the decision to expel Haug. Ginsberg noted Haug texted the female student the next day after he learned of a "rape alert" at the college. Haug wanted to know whether it was her filing a complaint against him, Ginsberg said.
"To be sure, we are not asking this court to say that the college has to turn a blind eye to the hearsay nature of the evidence," Ginsberg said. "The college is free to draw negative inferences from the complainant's failure to appear, free to give her statements less weight. But what the college is not free to do is disregard reliable evidence such as was presented here."
Haug's lawyer, Lloyd Grandy, told the court that the serious nature of a sexual assault allegation should require the highest standards of evidence.
"We have a 'he said,' 'she said,' 'they said,' " Grandy said.
Haug, 22, and his parents were in attendance. The ex-student, who is from Malone, now lives in the Buffalo area.
A summary of the case from court papers described the sequence of events as follows:
After the two students ran into one another on Sept. 7, 2014, the female student invited Haug to her room where they had sex. She soon afterward reported to campus police that she had been sexually assaulted. The female student "didn't want any evidence collected" or Haug "to be necessarily in trouble," according to a campus police officer who testified at the hearing.
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The female student told the officer she "froze" and did not tell Haug "no" and "didn't have any gesture saying that it wasn't welcome." She refused to identify Haug to the officer. An anonymous tipster later identified him.
A college official, Annette Robbins, contacted the female student, who told Robbins she had been "making out" with Haug on a bed. She said Haug suggested they have sex, she removed her shirt, Haug removed his clothes and they had sex. The female student said she "froze" and "let things happen."
The female student did not appear at the SUNY Potsdam hearing for Haug. He did appear as did Rollins.
The school hearing board found Haug guilty of sexual misconduct and recommended he be suspended for the remainder of the semester. Haug appealed and the school's appellate board not only ruled against him but recommended his penalty be upgraded to expulsion, which SUNY Potsdam's president imposed.
The Appellate Division of state Supreme Court's Third Department, based in Albany, reversed that decision in the 3-2 ruling and ordered the records sealed. That sent the matter to the Court of Appeals.
It is expected to rule within six to eight weeks.
The outer bands of Hurricane Florence, a large and dangerous Category 2 storm, landed on the North Carolina coast Thursday morning. Winds were already gusting to 70 mph and sea water was surging ashore along the Outer Banks, washing over roads. It marks the beginning of a prolonged assault from wind and water, which - by the time it's over - is likely to bring devastating damage and flooding to millions of people in the Southeast.
Conditions will deteriorate through Thursday: Starting along the coast, winds will accelerate, the rain will intensify, and the angry, agitated ocean will surge ashore.
The storm's center is expected to make landfall Friday in southeast North Carolina, which will coincide with the most severe effects. Storm surge, the rise in seawater above normally dry land at the coast, could rise a story high. On top of that, a disastrous amount of rain - 20 inches, possibly even as many as 40 - is expected to fall.
Flooding from both the storm surge and rainfall could be "catastrophic," the National Hurricane Center warned.
This same zone will be hammered by winds gusting up to hurricane force for nearly a day while tropical-storm conditions could linger twice that long. These unforgiving winds will damage homes and buildings, down trees and knock out power.
Even though the storm's category fell from a 4 to a 2 Wednesday, forecasters stressed the category is only an evaluation of the storm's peak winds in a very narrow core near the center of the storm. The storm's size and area affected by hazardous winds have actually expanded, and the threat from storm surge and rain-induced flooding "have not changed" tweeted Rick Knabb, The Weather Channel's tropical weather expert and former Hurricane Center director.
"Put simply, Florence is a 'Category 5 #flood threat'," tweeted The Weather Channel."
Gradually, Friday through the weekend, the massive storm - containing a zone of tropical-storm-force winds nearly 400 miles wide - will drift inland, engulfing much of South Carolina and southern North Carolina. Widespread rainfall amounts could reach 6 to 12 inches, spurring flooding. Some of the storm's wind and rain could even creep into eastern Georgia.
Enough rain could fall to break North Carolina's record for a tropical storm - 24 inches - set near Wilmington during Hurricane Floyd in 1999, said Greg Carbin, chief of forecast operations at the Weather Service's national prediction center.
Flooding from heavy rains is the second-leading cause of fatalities in tropical storms and hurricanes that make landfall.
The rain threat may not stop in the Carolinas. By early next week, a weakened but soggy Florence may drop rain on already saturated Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Washington and Pennsylvania. These areas are vulnerable to flooding and downed trees after heavy rains this summer.
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Weather:
The Hurricane Center reported heavy rain bands with tropical-storm-force winds had arrived in the North Carolina Outer Banks.
A weather station on Cape Lookout, N.C. recently clocked a sustained wind of 55 mph and gust to 70 mph.
Social media video showed the seas rising at Hatteras Inlet on the Outer Banks.
As of 1 p.m. Thursday, Florence's top winds were 105 mph, and it was marching northwest at 10 mph, about 115 miles east-southeast of Wilmington, N.C., and 175 miles east-southeast of Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
This wind speed fell slightly from the previous update, but the Hurricane Center said the storm's presentation on radar and satellite had "improved" and that slight strengthening was possible as the storm moved over some warmer waters through this evening.
The storm's forward motion has slowed 7 mph since Wednesday, which was predicted as the storm nears the coast. The slower motion will prolong effects from wind, rain and surge in the eastern Carolinas.
The Hurricane Center predicts the storm to maintain this strong Category 2 intensity until landfall, after which wind speeds will steadily decline.
Even as Florence's peak winds decreased Wednesday, the storm's wind field grew, the Hurricane Center said. Hurricane-force winds extend 80 miles from the center, while tropical-storm-force winds extend 195 miles outward. The storm's cloud field is about the size of four Ohios.
Hurricane warnings are in effect for the South Santee River in South Carolina to Duck, North Carolina, and Albemarle and Pamlico sounds. This includes Wilmington. A hurricane watch extends into the Charleston area. A tropical storm warning covers the area from north of Duck to the Virgina Tidewater area.
Because landfalling hurricanes commonly spawn twisters, a tornado watch was issued for eastern North Carolina through 9 p.m.
More than 10 million people are under watches and warnings, the Associated Press reported.
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Storm surge:
Like a bulldozer, the storm's winds and forward motion will push a tremendous amount of water onshore when it makes landfall. The storm surge could reach up to more than a story high, or 13 feet, if the maximum surge coincides with high tide.
The biggest surge should occur just to the north of where the eye of the storm comes ashore, which the Hurricane Center projects in southeastern North Carolina.
The surge will result in "large areas of deep inundation . . . enhanced by battering waves," the Weather Service said. It warned of likely "structural damage to buildings . . . with several potentially washing away," "flooded or washed-out coastal roads" and "major damage to marinas."
Storm surge warnings were issued from South Santee River in South Carolina to Duck, North Carolina. The Charleston area is under a storm surge watch.
The Hurricane Center projects the following surge heights above normally dry land, if the maximum surge coincides with high tide:
- Cape Fear to Cape Lookout, including the Neuse, Pamlico, Pungo and Bay Rivers: 9 to 13 feet;
- North Myrtle Beach to Cape Fear: 6 to 9 feet;
- Cape Lookout to Ocracoke Inlet: 6 to 9 feet;
- South Santee River to North Myrtle Beach: 4 to 6 feet;
- Ocracoke Inlet to Salvo, N.C.: 4 to 6 feet;
- Salvo to North Carolina/Virginia Border: 2 to 4 feet; and
- Edisto Beach to South Santee River: 2 to 4 feet.
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Rain:
Models agree that excessive amounts of rain will fall in southeastern North Carolina.
"Floodwaters may enter numerous structures, and some may become uninhabitable or washed away," the Weather Service warned.
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Where exactly the zone of heaviest rain sets up as the storm meanders inland is more uncertain, but models suggest that it may concentrate in southern North Carolina and northern South Carolina through the weekend.
It has become likely that the storm will reverse course early next week and turn back north toward West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania, albeit significantly weakened.
The Hurricane Center forecasts the following rain amounts:
- Coastal North Carolina: 20 to 30 inches, isolated 40 inches.
- Remainder of South Carolina and North Carolina into southwest Virginia: 6 to 12 inches, isolated 24 inches
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Wind:
The strongest winds will occur where and when the storm makes landfall in a ring around the calm eye of the storm known as the eyewall. If the storm makes landfall as a Category 2, these winds will be damaging, sustained at up to 100 mph or so with higher gusts.
The zone where these intense winds occur will be narrow and they will last just a few hours, but the effects will probably be severe, similar to a tornado. The Hurricane Center describes the types of damage associated with Category 2 winds:
"Well-constructed frame homes could sustain major roof and siding damage. Many shallowly rooted trees will be snapped or uprooted and block numerous roads. Near-total power loss is expected with outages that could last from several days to weeks."
Outside this zone of destructive winds, damaging winds are still likely, even some distance inland from the coast, which would lead to minor structural damage, downed trees and widespread power outages.
A power outage model run at the University of Michigan projects that 3.2 million customers will be without electricity because of the storm, mostly in the eastern half of North Carolina.
Because the storm will slow it moves over the eastern Carolinas, these wind impacts will be magnified.
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Path projections:
While it is extremely likely that the eastern Carolinas will be hardest hit by the storm Thursday into Friday, the storm's direction becomes far less certain over the weekend and next week.
Models agree the storm should strike land between the North Carolina-South Carolina border and the North Carolina Outer Banks, and then track across South Carolina. But then they gradually diverge. While all simulations show the storm turning back to the north Sunday or Monday, exactly where that turns occurs is a big wild card.
The storm could track north through the Ohio Valley, the Appalachians or even closer to the Interstate 95 corridor. The specifics of the track early next week will have implications for where the heaviest rainfall occurs north of the Carolinas.
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The Washington Post's Joel Achenbach and Ann Gerhart contributed to this report.
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Video: As Hurricane Florence heads towards the Carolinas, it looks to be tracking a pattern further south than first expected. Capital Weather Gang's Angela Fritz explains what that could mean for the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic regions.(Joyce Koh/The Washington Post)
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ALBANY It looks like New York may dodge Hurricane Florence's wrath on Thursday, which will be good for voter turnout on Primary Day.
In the Capital Region and throughout most of upstate, polls are open noon-9 p.m. (In New York City and Nassau, Suffolk, Westchester, Rockland, Orange, Putnam and Erie counties, they open at 6 a.m.)
Visit your local Board of Elections site to find your polling place.
Here are the big races to watch on Thursday evening on timesunion.com:
Cuomo vs. Nixon
Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a second-term Democrat, will face off with actress and activist Cynthia Nixon on Thursday.
Cuomo is leading his left-flank opponent in the polls and spending, though 2018 has brought some surprising victories for insurgent progressive candidates, and polling has proven pretty unreliable in predicting outcomes in such races.
The governor has the endorsements of the state's major newspapers and powerful labor unions, while Nixon has won the backing of the influential Working Families Party.
The candidates traded jabs at their only debate, held last month and hosted by CBS.
Lt. Governor race
Kathy Hochul, a former congresswoman from Western New York, was first elected as Cuomo's running mate in 2014. While the governor and the lieutenant governor run together in the November general election, they run separately in the Democratic primary. Although the position is relatively powerless except for its being next in line to the governorship this year's race has created intriguing political possibilities.
Hochul is facing a left-flank challenge from Jumaane Williams, a third-term New York City Councilman from Brooklyn. If Williams were to beat Hochul on Thursday and Cuomo also wins his primary it would put two adversaries at the top of the Democratic ticket in November.
Four-way AG race
The Democratic nomination for attorney general wasn't expected to be up for grabs this year, but a four-way race emerged after two-term incumbent Eric Schneiderman resigned the post in May, following an explosive report in The New Yorker that included allegations he physically abused multiple women. He has denied elements of the article.
The field includes New York City Public Advocates Letitia "Tish" James, U.S. Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, former gubernatorial candidate Zephyr Teachout and corporate attorney Leecia Eve.
All of the candidates have pledged to serve as an independent force against corruption and emphasized their opposition to President Donald J. Trump's policies.
James, who won the support of the Democratic Party establishment at their statewide convention in May, is backed by Cuomo. Teachout was an early supporter of Nixon.
The Reform Party, which was launched in 2014 as the Stop Common Core Party, opened up its attorney general primary to all unaffiliated voters in New York. The candidates are Nancy Sliwa, a practicing attorney and wife of the party chairman; Mike Diederich, a civil rights attorney; and Christopher Garvey, who was the Libertarian candidate for AG in 2006.
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Legislative seats
In the Capital Region, Democrats Tistrya Houghtling and Don Boyajian are squaring off to take on Republican incumbent Jake Ashby in the 107th Assembly District, which includes parts of Washington, Rensselaer and Columbia counties.
Patrick Vincent and Robert Smullen are competing for the Republican and Conservative nominations in the race to replace retiring Republican Marc Butler in his central New York Assembly district, which includes Fulton County.
In the Hudson Valley, there is a multi-candidate Democratic primary for the seat of Assemblyman Frank Skartados, an Ulster County Democrat who died in April.
Progressive Democratic activists across the state and beyond have their eyes set on the primary challenges to former members of the state Senate's Independent Democratic Conference, who rejoined the main party conference in April after working for more than seven years in tandem with the Senate Republicans.
The most interesting of these races are in New York City, with serious challenges to former IDC leader Jeff Klein as well as his former breakaway conference members Marisol Alcantara, Jesse Hamilton, Tony Avella and Jose Peralta.
Sen. Simcha Felder, a Brooklyn Democrat who supports Republican control of the chamber, is also facing a primary.
In the final days of the campaign season, a lot of attention has been paid on the personal narrative of Julia Salazar, who is trying to wrest the Democratic nomination away from Brooklyn incumbent Martin Dilan.
SARATOGA No one at Town Hall seems to know where Ian Murray lives.
Assessment records show his only home in Saratoga is on Coveville Road. But it's also clear he doesn't live there. The grass is overgrown and the next door neighbor John, who wouldn't give his last name, said he hasn't seen anyone there in a few weeks. And when John does see people, they are there renovating the house, not living there.
Where Murray lives wouldn't matter if it wasn't for the fact that he is the chair of the town's planning board.
"I don't know where he lives," Supervisor Tom Wood said. "But it's his intent, clearly, to move back to the town. It appears he is doing the right thing."
Murray's legal address, the one on file with the Saratoga County Board of Elections and the one typed on the building permit for the Coveville Road house, is at his place of business, Brookside Nursery in Ballston Spa.
His out-of-town residency has some calling for Murray to either step down or be ousted by the town board. Residents say that since he apparently does not live in town he is disqualified from serving on the town board and is in violation of the state's Public Officers Law, which requires residency in the municipality to which you are appointed and serve.
"I don't understand Supervisor Wood and the town board's stand that it is OK for the chairman of the planning board not to live in the Town of Saratoga," said Paul Murphy. "New York state law is crystal clear that you need to live in town to hold such a senior position in the town. We have elected Supervisor Wood and the town councilmen to uphold and enforce our laws in a reasonable manner. It is also troubling that the town council have known that Mr. Murray has not been a town resident and have kept that fact a secret from the community. Our elected officials should abide by the law."
John Cashin, another resident, called the support Murray receives from the town board and other town officials "the height of arrogance and cronyism."
"What message does this send to the general public when our elected officials blatantly disobey the law to protect their friends," Cashin said. "Who in government can we trust if the laws of the state only apply to the governed and not the government."
The state Department of State confirmed that members of town planning boards are local officers who must comply with the residency requirements in state law. Lee Park, spokesman for DOS, said that the town would have to adopt a local law to bypass or "broaden the area wherein a planning board member can reside."
"At this point in time we don't have a law like that," Wood said. "We will have discussion about that in the future."
Cashin said Murray hasn't been living in town for nearly two years. He points to the sale of Murray's Haas Road home in November 2016, which Saratoga County records confirm. A check of assessment records show that Murray did not own any property in the town in 2017. The building permit on the Coveville Road home is dated June 1, 2018.
Murray did not return multiple phone calls from the Times Union asking him to comment about his residency.
Wood said he doesn't know how long Murray has been gone from town. He said the move was prompted by a divorce, which Wood said is none of his business. He also said that to remove Murray, in whom he has full confidence, would require a court order.
"We are aware of it and fully up to speed," Wood said. "But because it's his intent to move back, we don't see it as necessary. We see it as living in Florida during the winter time. We wouldn't throw him off the board for moving out short-term."
Gil Albert, the town's building inspector who issued the permit for Coveville Road, said that he thinks Murray should stay in place too. He's been on the planning board for more than 15 years and believes Murray to be a valuable member.
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"No way in heck should he step down," Albert said. "Ian is one of the good guys. He's 100 percent for the town. He's had some personal problems. Not living in town doesn't concern me."
Albert said he didn't know where Murray lives either.
Alicia Farone said it's not about Murray, whom she called a dedicated board member. She says it's about the law.
"This is about the town following a state law which requires residency before and during an appointed term of office," Farone said. "These positions on land use boards are critically important as regional towns are seeing huge growth and development."
Residents point to the proposed Witt Construction subdivision known as Cedar Bluff, which is now before the planning board. That 31-home development, which will clear much of a forest on a ridge above Saratoga Lake, is considered by some to be flirting with ecological disaster. They want to ensure that Murray, who has done landscaping for Witt on a Brown Road home in Stillwater and met with Witt privately on Cedar Bluff project, is above board.
Wood said he is.
"Ian is an upstanding, ethical individual," the supervisor said. "I have full faith in Ian."
Cashin is not so sure. He, along with other residents including Tom Yannios, said they will launch a legal battle to force Murray out.
"It appears that the only way to force the town to obey the law is for private citizens to take on the expensive process of suing the town," said Cashin who estimates the cost will be upwards of $20,000. "We are contemplating doing that."
Mr. Chencinskis decision to ambush, assault and rob an innocent man of more than $50,000 has indeed earned him every minute of the 17-year sentence handed down by Judge Miller, Berlin said in the release. This sentence sends the message that this type of brazen behavior will not be tolerated in DuPage County and will carry significant consequences.
GLOVERSVILLE Two teenagers and a 20-year-old were arrested Sunday in connection with an armed robbery, police said.
Vittorio Barnett, 18, Trey Feldle, 20, and Kye Shelton, 18, were charged with robbery and criminal possession of a firearm, both felonies, police said in a press release Thursday.
ALBANY The Reform Party is giving New York's 2.6 million independent voters a chance to participate in the primary process on Thursday.
The fringe third party, which was created by Republicans in 2014 and has 1,882 members across the state, took the rare step this summer of opening up its three-way primary for attorney general to voters who aren't enrolled in a party. Primary eligibility is set by the parties in New York, and all of the other parties limit access to enrolled members.
In 2017, the Reform Party opened up its local municipal primaries to unaffiliated voters, including in Rensselaer and Schenectady counties.
An unaffiliated voter in Wilton struggled to successfully vote in Reform Party's primary for attorney general, shortly after polls opened at noon.
She was initially turned away by poll workers, who were unfamiliar with the exception made by the Reform Party. After a few minutes of conversation with a supervisor at the polling site, the voter was given a primary ballot.
A second voter in the precinct didn't have any problems obtaining her Reform Party primary ballot.
Poll workers in Saratoga County receive a two-hour training and are required to pass a test in order to administer elections, according to the county Board of Elections. A training was offered to regular poll workers in May, shortly before the Reform Party announced its intentions, and another training was provided in August.
An unaffiliated voter at the Van Antwerp Middle School in Niskayuna successfully cast a ballot without incident around 3 p.m. He was the 12th voter in the Reform Party primary at the site and since there are only 13 Reform voters in all of Schenectady County, it appears some independent voters are taking advantage of their right to vote.
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The candidates competing for the party's AG nomination are Nancy Sliwa, a practicing attorney and wife of the party chairman, Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa; Mike Diederich, a civil rights attorney; and Christopher Garvey, who was the Libertarian candidate for AG in 2006.
Curtis Sliwa tried to recruit former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara to run as the party's candidate, but he declined their nomination.
Voters are also able to write in any candidate of their choice.
David.Lombardo@timesunion.com - 518.454.5427 - @poozer87
Frank Lloyd Wright fans are dizzy with excitement over the fact that a famous spiral-shaped house he designed in Phoenix has rolled its way onto the market for $12.95 million. Seriously, this place not only boasts this starchitect's hands-on pedigree, but its winding shape was a prelude to Wright's (and America's) most famous spiral edifice of all: the Guggenheim Museum in New York.
This home isn't just any old FLW home, but one he designed for his son, David Wright, who lived there with his wife, Gladys, after its construction was completed in 1952. The 2,553-square-foot property features three bedrooms and four baths on 5.58 acres, offering sweeping views of Camelback Mountain. There's also a 360-square-foot guesthouse.
All of which sounds dreamy ... but before you rustle up $13 million and head to Phoenix, there are a few things you should know about this house.
What it's really like to live in a spiral house
Fine, it's a one-of-a-kind beauty. But have you ever considered what it might be like to actually live in a spiral house?
First, let's consider the upsides. Can't do stairs? You're in luck, this place offers elevation without the risks of falling down a flight and breaking a hip. It's the very definition of wheelchair-accessible ... and if you're a kid, you can ride a skateboard from top to bottom, no sweat.
But there are some very real downsides to this curvy design, too.
"Frank Lloyd Wright houses are impressive pieces of architectural art, but they do come with unique challenges," says William Fastow with TTR Sothebys International Realty. "For one, the ability to choose your own furnishings and art can be difficult in a FLW home, because the layout, materials, and flow of the space is so specific."
"The huge negative here is that it will be difficult to decorate and furnish with any existing or non-custom pieces," agrees Drew Henry of Design Dudes. "You would have to get a lot of custom pieces made to fit the curve of the main walls."
Luckily, Wright not only designed homes, but also decorated and designed his spaces with custom and built-in furniture. For example, "This Phoenix home, like many of his residential properties, includes built-in sofa seating," says Fastow. The listing says the home also comes with a dining table and chairs, as well as reproductions of Wright's signature ''March Balloons'' carpet in the living room.
The living room comes with a reproduction of his "March Balloons" carpet. realtor.com
That's great if you like this stuff ... not so great if you don't.
"FLW seating tends to be low to the floor, monolithic in shape, and feature vibrant colors associated with the Southwest, like yellows, burnt reds and oranges reminiscent of the desert landscape," Fastow continues. "That's a very specific set of design features to have to decorate around."
In other words, if you're the type who likes to completely own a space and decorate however you see fit, in this home you'd be butting heads and clashing wills with Wright's almighty aesthetic. Good luck with that.
The surprising downsides of owning a Frank Lloyd Wright home
The kitchen realtor.com
"When you own a FLW home, you are buying into a complete and comprehensive aesthetic that has limited opportunities for imprinting your own individual style and feel onto the home," Fastow concludes. "Owning a FLW home is literally buying a piece of art that you live in. You dont add flowers to a Picasso or paint jewelry onto the Mona Lisa. The house is what it is, and the interior aesthetic will only ever truly work as it was designed."
Furthermore, brace yourself for a ton of visitors.
"I think another negative is living in a space that is so iconic," Henry adds. "You would have to prepare for photoshoot requests and such from fans of the structure."
The exterior at night realtor.com
As such, the seller might not have as easy a time unloading the property as one might think.
"The market for Frank Lloyd Wright homes has contracted in the last few years," Fastow explains. "Though he has many followers, the limitations of his work means that only a few high-net worth individuals who are passionate about architecture or want a trophy home are in the market for such a unique property. My guess is that this [asking price] is a soft number with a lot of flexibility for the right buyer."
"The potential downside of this home is that as beautiful as it is, it is truly unique, and these kinds of homes do not appeal to a wide audience of buyers," agrees real estate agent Cara Ameer. "That being said, it is only takes one buyerand people in this price point often want something that no one else has." This place certainly fits that bill.
The post This Frank Lloyd Wright 'Spiral House' Is Cool, but Contains a Nasty Surprise appeared first on Real Estate News & Insights | realtor.com.
The Jack & Jill Childrens Foundation supported by Bank of Ireland have launched the Up the Hill for Jack & Jill fundraiser 2018 which runs from 7th to 14th October. Sean OBrien, Leinster and Ireland rugby player got behind the Jack & Jill team in asking people throughout Ireland to climb a hill to raise money for home nursing and respite care for sick children. This endorsement from Sean is shining a light on the important work the charity does in local communities and the hill that Jack & Jill families climb every day in caring for their sick child. Registration is now open for Up the Hill for Jack & Jill at www.jackandjill.ie/upthehill at a cost of 16 which funds 1 hour of home nursing care for a sick child.
The fundraising campaign involves 6 organised hill walking events taking place in locations around the country on Sunday 7th October. These include Coomhola Ballylickey Cork, Croaghlin Maas Rock Killybegs Donegal, Castlecomer Discovery Park Kilkenny, Slievenamon in Tipperary, Hill of Uisneach Westmeath and Carrigbyrne Hill in Wexford.
The Slievenamon walk will take place on 7th October. The group will gather at 10.45 to walk up the hill at 11am. The distance to be covered is 5km which will take about 2 and a half hours. Meeting place is Kilcash follow brown summit signs/parking available and point of contact for the walk is Biddy ODwyer. Contact her on 0876410352 for more details.
There are currently nine children in the care of Jack & Jill in Tipperary and since the charity was founded in 1997 it has helped 55 children in the county.
People can also register to create their own local Up the Hill mini event during the first week in October. The Do It Yourself (DIY) option is open for people to identify their own hill or challenge. That could be organising a group of family and friends to walk up a big or small hill locally, getting on the treadmill in the gym or undertaking whatever hill is meaningful to them.
Up the Hill is part of Jack & Jills first ever Awareness Week - #jackandjillweek running from Sunday 7th to Saturday 14th October, an important time in the charitys calendar with the aim of building awareness and understanding about the work the charity does in communities all over the country and the hill that Jack & Jill families climb every day caring for their child. A full programme of activities and events are planned with more details over the coming weeks and during #jackandjillweek.
Speaking at the launch, Carmel Doyle, Interim CEO Jack & Jill said; Up the Hill for Jack & Jill is all about getting the local community out to show their support for the 355 families under our wing in towns and villages in every county in Ireland. We are asking people to go up the hill to fetch a pail of home nursing hours for sick children in their local community. We also want to acknowledge our carer community of families and nurses and the daily hill they climb in looking after a sick child at home, and what it means to get a gentle push of support. It is very timely that we are launching this is during Palliative Care week #pallcareweek.
[September 12, 2018] SecureCircle Announces Asia Pacific Distributor, NetBridge Technologies
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Sept. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- SecureCircle, a provider of always-on, opt-out cybersecurity data protection, today announced that Taiwan-based NetBridge Technologies will serve as its Asia Pacific distributor. NetBridge, which provides network, storage, and security solutions for businesses, has signed on to distribute SecureCircle's enterprise security product. "With daily security breaches, cybersecurity remains a major concern for enterprises around the world," said Jeff Capone, SecureCircle co-founder and CEO. "Unfortunately, traditional approaches are no longer effective in today's cloud-first environment, and it's critical for companies to have access to new technologies specifically designed for a Zero Trust world. Our partnership with NetBridge is an important step in expanding our reach and bringing new, cutting-edge technology to the Asia Pacific region so businesses can protect one of their most valuable assets data." NetBridge will use SecureCircle technology to provide data security to its customers, helping protect their valuable data from both internal and external threats, no matter what format it takes or how the data gets shared. In addition to its distributor role, NetBridge is also a customer, using SecureCircle to protect its own unstructured data and that of its customers. NetBridge will distribute SecureCircle technology to companies inall types of enterprises, including healthcare, finance, manufacturing, media and government agencies.
"SecureCircle is an ideal partner, offering a unique solution to address the realities of data security in enterprises today," said Eric Hsu, NetBridge general manager. "We haven't seen anything else in the market that comes close to SecureCircle in providing the best in security as well as usability. In fact, we were so impressed by SecureCircle's technology that we became a customer as well as a distributor." For details or questions, contact Eric Hsu at support@netbridgetech.com.tw or SecureCircle at info@securecircle.com.
About NetBridge Technologies
NetBridge Technologies is a professional value-add distributor specializing in network infrastructure, storage, Internet of Things (IoT) and cybersecurity solutions. Based in Taiwan, NetBridge also services the Asia Pacific region, with partnerships in Indonesia, Malaysia and Hong Kong. Learn more at NetBridgeTech.com.tw. About SecureCircle
SecureCircle offers the first opt-out data protection for solving today's cybersecurity challenges in a Zero Trust world. Its patent-pending technology transparently prevents breaches and data loss by protecting sensitive data by default and allowing organizations to ensure the security, visibility and control of unstructured data from internal and external threats, regardless of location. Headquartered in Mountain View, Calif., SecureCircle helps organizations in healthcare, finance, manufacturing, pharmaceutical, media and government meet challenging data security and compliance requirements. Learn more at SecureCircle.com or follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn. Press Contact:
Brooks Wallace, Hollywood Agency
brooks@hollywoodagency.com
(781) 749-0077 View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/securecircle-announces-asia-pacific-distributor-netbridge-technologies-300711756.html SOURCE SecureCircle
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[September 12, 2018] TYAN Exhibits Artificial Intelligence and Deep Learning Optimized Server Platforms at GTC Japan 2018
TYAN GPU-optimized server platforms powered by NVIDIA Tesla V100 32GB and P4 GPU accelerators are designed for Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, and Deep Neural Networks TOKYO, Sept. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- TYAN, an industry-leading server platform design manufacturer and a MiTAC Computing Technology Corporation subsidiary, is showcasing AI-powered server platforms including NVIDIA Tesla V100 PCIe 32GB, P4 PCIe and V100 SXM2 GPU accelerators at the GPU Technology Conference (GTC) Japan, Grand Prince Hotel New Takanawa from September 13-14. "AI is transforming every industry by enabling more accurate decisions to be made based on the massive amounts of data being collected. TYAN's leading portfolio of GPU server platforms are based on the latest NVIDIA Tesla technology and are optimized o provide customers faster overall performance, greater efficiency, and lower energy and per-unit cost computation for the AI revolution," said Danny Hsu, Vice President of MiTAC Computing Technology Corporation's TYAN Business Unit.
Featuring maximum performance and system density, TYAN Thunder HX TA88-B7107 takes full advantage of NVIDIA NVLink technology and supports eight NVIDIA Tesla V100 SXM2 32GB GPUs packed within a 2U server enclosure. With four outstanding PCIe x16 slots available for high-speed networking and 24 DIMM slots supporting up to 3TB of system memory, the Thunder HX TA88-B7107 is the GPU server platform with the highest performance for popular Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning applications. TYAN also offers GPU servers with support for NVIDIA Tesla V100 32GB and Tesla P4 GPU accelerators in standard PCIe form factor. This includes a pair of 4U server systems - the Thunder HX FT77D-B7109 with support for up to eight Tesla V100 32GB or sixteen Tesla P4 GPUs for massively parallel workloads such as scientific computing and large-scale facial recognition, and the Thunder HX FA77-B7119 with support for up to ten Tesla V100 32GB or twenty Tesla P4 GPUs within a single server enclosure and is ideal for AI training and inferencing applications.
The Thunder HX FT48T-B7105 is a pedestal workstation platform that supports up to five Tesla V100 32GB or ten Tesla P4 GPU cards. This high-end workstation gives maximum I/O to the professional power users, and is a great platform for 3D rendering and image processing. The Intel Xeon Scalable Processor-based Thunder HX GA88-B5631 and AMD EPYC 7000 processor-based Transport HX GA88-B8021 both feature support for up to four NVIDIA Tesla V100 32GB GPU cards within a 1U server and are the highest density of AI training GPU servers available on the market. Both platforms offer an outstanding PCIe x16 slot next to the GPU cards to accommodate high-speed networking adapters up to 100Gb/s such as EDR InfiniBand or 100 Gigabit Ethernet. These platforms are ideal for Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Deep Neural Network workloads. In addition, the Transport GA88-B8021 can optionally deploy up to six Tesla P4 GPU accelerators for AI inferencing applications. Photo - https://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20180906/2229959-1 SOURCE TYAN
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[September 13, 2018] Tera Ventures Announces First Closing for Tera Ventures Fund II, Plans Final Close of 55 Million Seed Stage Fund in the Coming Months
Today, Tera Ventures announces the first close of 21 Million in their second fund. The fund aims to invest in 25 - 30 seed-stage technology startups located in key tech hubs in Estonia, (including eligible e-residents), Finland, Denmark, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Sweden and the Czech Republic. The target fund size is 55 Million with a substantial amount already committed to the 2nd close which is expected in the coming months. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180912005780/en/ Tera Ventures Announces First Closing for Tera Ventures Fund II, Plans Final Close of 55 Million Seed Stage Fund in the Coming Months (Photo: Business Wire) Tera Ventures has offices in Estonia, Finland, and California and will continue investing in born global startups ready to thrive in international markets. Initial check sizes will be between 200K - 1.5 Million per company with significant follow-on funding for select investments. Fund II is vertical agnostic seeking digital startups creating network effects, applying machine learning, and other enabling technologies which will become the infrastructure of our future lives. Tera Ventures Fund I has a number of notable investments including GrabCAD, Cleveron, and Monese which just announced a Series B round. Tera Ventures was founded in 2016 by Andrus Oks, Stanislav Ivanov, and James McDougall. Andrus and Stanislav have entrepreneurial backgrounds and have collectively managed three early-stage funds with nine exits, creating over 150 million in enterprise value to date. James has extensive operational experience as CEO and Managing Director for several early-stage, private and public companies where he has fundraised over 250 million from an extensive global network of investors. Complementing the team are California-based Venture Partner, Erik Anderson, who cultivated multiple cohorts of early-stage startup teams at Techstars in London and later Wise Guys in Tallinn, and Operating Partner, Martin Hendre, who has extensive institutional equity investor and asset management company management experience. "We are committed to offering founder-friendly terms and assisting our investments with our global network of investors, industry veterans and experts. We believe this will enable our entrepreneurs the right foundation to compete on world stage and attract top-tier partners and venture capital in key markets in Europe, US and Asia to ensure the realization oftheir vision." Says Andrus Oks, Founding Partner.
Limited Partners of Tera Ventures second fund include The European Investment Fund (EIF), LHV, Mistletoe Venture Partners International, as well Estonian high net worth individuals. EIF investment is made from own resources and the EstFund - an initiative created by cooperation between the Republic of Estonia and the European Investment Fund and financed under European Structural and Investment Funds. This investment fulfills LHV's goal to increase its position in a rapidly growing and promising IT sector, says Kristo Oidermaa, Fund Manager of LHV Pension Funds. "Our commitments to Venture Capital currently amount to 21 million euros. Estonia has a good track record for IT growth companies, and the investment in Tera Ventures Fund II gives us a great opportunity to further contribute to this sector," explained Oidermaa.
The founder of Monese, fintech startup that announced 60 million dollars Series B funding last week, Norris Koppel says that the team at Tera Ventures has been a critical component in the success of Monese. "What they have brought to the business extends far beyond their investment. They have a deep understanding of the support that an entrepreneur needs as they their business grows and have been genuine partners throughout our journey from early stage to scale-up. We are delighted that they are a part of our team and excited for the journey ahead," said Koppel. About Tera Ventures - Tera Ventures is a venture capital firm based in Tallinn, Estonia and focused on exceptional founders from Estonia, Scandinavia and CEE disrupting digital space globally. Tera builds presence and networks in the markets where our portfolio companies want to expand to - the UK, the US, and Asia. With presence in Estonia, Finland, and California, Tera Ventures is supported by a global advisory network and provides portfolio companies with access to expertise and hands-on support necessary to grow from seed stage to successful exit. For more information go to: www.tera.vc About the EIF - The European Investment Fund (EIF) is part of the European Investment Bank group. Its central mission is to support Europe's micro, small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) by helping them to access finance. EIF designs and develops venture and growth capital, guarantees and microfinance instruments which specifically target this market segment. In this role, EIF fosters EU objectives in support of innovation, research, and development, entrepreneurship, growth, and employment. For more information go to www.eif.org About LHV - AS LHV Pank provides banking, financial advisory, and securities brokerage services in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. The company's deposit products include demand and term deposits, securities accounts, growth accounts, and LHV funds. Its loan portfolio comprises private loans, such as home, private, consumer, car, and home repair loans; corporate loans, including micro loans, overdraft facility, working capital loans, investment loans, company acquisition financing; credit and debit cards; leasing and hire-purchase products; and trade finance guarantees. The company also provides investment advice, portfolio management, and securities trading, as well as mobile and online banking, and ATM. LHV Group is the largest domestic financial group and capital provider in Estonia. LHV Group's key subsidiaries are AS LHV Pank and AS LHV Varahaldus. LHV employs about 350 people and over 131,000 customers use LHV's banking services. Pension funds managed by LHV have about 178,000 customers. About Mistletoe - Mistletoe is the collective impact community to empower startups and innovators to create a more human-centered and sustainable future through technology. It is comprised of founders, investors, entrepreneurs, researchers, and visionaries in the startup and venture communities who share the lofty ambition of addressing the problems humanity faces in the near and long-term future. About EstFund - The EstFund is an equity fund of funds created by cooperation between the Republic of Estonia, KredEx and the European Investment Fund. The EstFund is financed by the European Regional Development Fund from the Operational Programme for Cohesion Policy Funds 2014-2020 in an amount of EUR 48 million, and EIF is co-investing EUR 12 million alongside through the EIF-managed resources. These funds will offer equity financing from seed to growth for Estonian SMEs via the selected equity funds. About KredEx - KredEx is a financing institution that helps Estonian enterprises develop quicker and expand more safely to foreign markets, offering loans, venture capital, credit insurance and credit guarantees with state guarantee. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180912005780/en/
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[September 13, 2018] The Future of Learning and Learning Space Transformation Take Centre Stage at EduTECH Asia
With workshops around gamification and robotics in education, and a bigger focus on blended learning, EduTECH Asia is the event for future educators in Asia. SINGAPORE, Sept. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Returning for the third consecutive year, EduTECH Asia, Asia's largest education conference and exhibition, organised by Terrapinn Pte Ltd and featuring more than 250 speakers, brings together educators from across the entire education spectrum: from early years practitioners through to tertiary education leaders. The three-day in-depth conference and technology exhibition, happening between 8-10 October, aims to discuss and debate the profound impact of technology in education, focusing on the importance of learning spaces and what it means to reshape the future of learning. "As the biggest education conference in the region, EduTECH Asia aims to address issues that educators need to focus on to make Asia a leader in preparing students for the future workplace. A gathering of like-minded individuals, the conference addresses how Asia can cope with the rapid pace of tech transformation, working towards a common goal of developing platforms that suit the demands of the future," said Ms Sharon Roessen, Managing Director of Terrapinn. Addressing the needs of learners today, the three-day exhibition and conference supported by Singapore's Info-communications Media Development Authority ("IMDA")and the Employment and Employability Institute ("e2i"), will host a variety of workshops, presentations and panel discussions, alongside over 80 exhibitors who will be sharing their latest technologies in the industry.
With keynote speakers Alex Beard, author of Natural Born Learners and Ken Montgomery, Executive Director of Design Tech High, the conference will also see notable speakers in the industry share their insights and knowledge on the future of education in the region. "We are proud to collaborate with international thought leaders and exhibitors with the latest technologies in the education sector. With the future of learning being so closely intertwined with technology, we look forward to seeing how these ideas can be brought to life," added Roessen.
This year's EduTECH Asia will, for the first time, include an interactive Robotics Zone, an Entrepreneurship Village and hackathon. Featuring student teams, the hackathon seeks to challenge young minds as they tackle education issues of today, stretching the limits of their creativity. The winning teams will get to present their ideas to senior educators on the second day of the conference. From digital learning apps to open-source learning platforms, exhibitors at EduTECH Asia include Trap-ed, Wacom, Crestron, Ricoh, D2L, Moodle, Reactor, Beeducation and more. Attendees will benefit in hearing from exhibitors and industry experts on the latest in teaching strategies and cutting-edge technologies. The event will take place at Singapore's Suntec Convention & Exhibition Centre from 8-10 October, with school tours happening on 11 October. For more information on EduTECH, please visit www.terrapinn.com/edutech-asia18 About Terrapinn Terrapinn events inspire and transform business. We've been sparking ideas, innovations and relationships that transform business for over 30 years. Using our global footprint, we bring innovators, disrupters and change agents together. Discussing and demonstrating the technology, strategies and personalities that are changing the way the world does business. Our world leading events bring scale, knowledge and gravitas to promote innovation and technology that changes people's lives. Whether it is solar and renewables in Africa, education technology in Australia, payments and e-commerce in Asia, railways in the Middle East, orphan drugs in the Americas, or aviation in Europe, by partnering with the world's leading companies and innovators, our events make a difference. We are creative, organic and customer-focused, creating content for the specific industry and location of each event. Whether you're looking to make new connections, introduce product or inspire change in your industry, we invite you to join us as agitators of change. Terrapinn -- spark something. SOURCE Terrapinn
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[September 13, 2018] Fly KLM to Europe and find your dream destination
MANILA, Philippines, Sept. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- There are so many destinations waiting to be discovered! New destinations such as Vaxjo in Sweden or good old favourites like Amsterdam, London or Madrid. Do you need to help to decide where to travel to? KLM, a front runner in digital innovation, can help you discover places you hadn't heard of - with the help of 'BB' -- that's short for Blue Bot - a dedicated member of the KLM service family. You can meet 'BB' on Messenger (for booking a flight) and with Google Assistant, on Google Home or your smartphone (for finding a flight and packing your bag). Bas Hogendorf, Country Manager Philippines said, "BB is available in English and she can help you find a ticket at the best fare within no time. At KLM we are always upping our game to remain relevant in this fast moving world and to create memorable experiences, whether those experiences are online or onboard KLM." LM Royal Dutch Airlines just launched their KLM Dream Deals with deals to over 40 destinations in Europe and the Americas. Return economy class fares, including taxes and surcharges from Manila to European destinations start at USD 920 (all-in) and to South America from USD 2,018 (all-in) The Dream Deals are on sale between now and 18 September, 2018 for travel until 15 June, 2019.
To view all of KLM's Dream Deals destinations and book a flight visit www.klm.ph or to learn more about BB visit KLM's official YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpMLaRgrmr4 About KLM Philippines:
KLM offers daily direct flights between Manila and Amsterdam Schiphol Airport (with a stop in Taipei) on the following schedule: MANILA -- AMSTERDAM (SUMMER schedule -- until 28 October, 2018) KL808 departs Manila at 20:05 and arrives in Amsterdam at 06:00 the next day.
at 20:05 and arrives in at 06:00 the next day. KL807 departs Amsterdam at 20:50 and arrives in Manila at 18:45 the next day. (WINTER schedule -- 29 October 2018 -- 24 March, 2019) KL808 departs Manila at 20:35 and arrives in Amsterdam at 06:50 the next day.
at 20:35 and arrives in at 06:50 the next day. KL807 departs Amsterdam at 20:50 and arrives in Manila at 19:20 the next day. The daily flights are operated by a combination of Boeing B777-300ER and B777-200 aircraft with respectively 34 seats in Business Class and 374 or 286 seats in Economy Class. For more information and bookings visit: www.klm.ph
KLM Service centre at + 63 2 588 6900 (Mon-Sun 8:00am-5:00pm )
) Social media: www.facebook.com/KLMPhilippines Photo - https://photos.prnasia.com/prnh/20180906/2228727-1 SOURCE KLM Royal Dutch Airlines
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[September 13, 2018] Canadian Self-Directed Investment Firms Not Connecting with Investors on Mobile Experience, J.D. Power Finds
Customer satisfaction with self-directed investment firms is lagging among investors in Canada when it comes to mobile experience, according to the J.D. Power 2018 Canadian Self-Directed Investor Satisfaction Study,SM released today. As nearly two-thirds (64%) of investors do not use their firm's mobile app and fewer than one-third (31%) say they have a complete understanding of available mobile services, overall satisfaction is lowest in this channel (742 on a 1,000-point scale), compared with satisfaction in the online (774) and phone (779) channels. "Investment firms in Canada in general are significantly behind the curve when it comes to their mobile app offerings, capabilities and customer engagement," says Mike Foy, Senior Director of the Wealth Management Practice at J.D. Power. "Investors are increasingly looking to mobile platforms, not only for convenient trade execution but also to access account information; do research; transfer funds; use planning tools; and receive customized alerts and notifications from their firms. Firms that can deliver a robust and intuitive experience-ideally integrated across investment and other financial needs such as banking-will have a huge advantage over competitors." The low satisfaction level associated with self-directed investment apps is even further evident in comparison with the retail banking sector in Canada, in which 49% of customers have adopted bank mobile services, and the mobile channel has the highest satisfaction level among all channels (832). "Taking into account how critical mobile is for consumers and considering where the next pool of investors will come from, it is critical for self-directed investment firms to focus and improve their mobile offerings and user experience, as this is the channel Millennials and younger generations will use," Foy added. Following are some key findings of the 2018 study: Millennials 1 present business risk and opportunity: Nearly one in five (17%) Millennial investors cite a likelihood to switch to another firm during the next year. On the flip side, nearly four in 10 (36%) of investors in this age group also acknowledge plans to increase the amount they invest in the next 12 months.
Nearly one in five (17%) Millennial investors cite a likelihood to switch to another firm during the next year. On the flip side, nearly four in 10 (36%) of investors in this age group also acknowledge plans to increase the amount they invest in the next 12 months. Affluent investors more fee-sensitive in firm selection: While more than one-third of mass market 2 and mass affluent investors choose their investment firm based on previous relationships (such as the retail banking arm), fewer than one in five (18%*) of affluent investors do. The latter are much more likely to be influenced by low fees (39%*) and are much more likely than less affluent investors to cite the firm's reputation for service (13%* vs. 4% respectively).
While more than one-third of mass market and mass affluent investors choose their investment firm based on previous relationships (such as the retail banking arm), fewer than one in five (18%*) of affluent investors do. The latter are much more likely to be influenced by low fees (39%*) and are much more likely than less affluent investors to cite the firm's reputation for service (13%* vs. 4% respectively). Ongoing need for greater fee transparency: While trading fees have decreased significantly in recent years, and CRM2-mandated disclosures have ostensibly increased and improved the fees information available to investors, most investors still don't understand their fees. Despite four in five (80%) indicating fees have been explained to them, just 44% of investors say they have a complete understanding. Study Rankings BMO InvestorLine ranks highest in self-directed investor satisfaction, with a score of 739. Desjardins Online Brokerage and CIBC Investor's Edge rank second in a tie with a score of 735 each. Questrade ranks fourth with a score of 732. The 2018 Canadian Self-Directed Investor Satisfaction Study was fielded in May-June 2018 and is based on responses from more than 2,100 investors who do not work with a financial advisor at their primary investment firm. For information about the Canadian Self-Directed Investor Satisfaction Study, visit http://canada.jdpower.com/resource/canadian-self-directed-investor-satisfaction-study. See the online press release at http://www.jdpower.com/pr-id/2018170. J.D. Power is a global leader in consumer insights, advisory services and data and analytics. These capabilities enable J.D. Power to help its clients drive customer satisfaction, growth and profitability. Established in 1968, J.D. Power is headquartered in Costa Mesa, Calif., and has offices serving North/South America, Asia Pacific and Europe. J.D. Power is a portfolio company of XIO Group, a global alternative investments and private equity firm headquartered in London, and is led by its four founders: Athene Li, Joseph Pacini, Murphy Qiao and Carsten Geyer. About J.D. Power and Advertising/Promotional Rules www.jdpower.com/business/about-us/press-release-info Study Ranking
Overall Canadian Self-Directed Investor Satisfaction
(Based on a 1,000-point scale)
BMO InvestorLine 739 CIBC Investor's Edge 735 Desjardins Online Brokerage 735 Questrade 732 Industry Average 723 RBC Direct Investing 722 National Bank Direct Brokerage 720 TD Direct Investing 718 Scotia iTrade 717
1 J.D. Power defines generational groups as Pre-Boomers (born before 1946); Boomers (1946 to 1964); Gen X (1965-1976); Gen Y (1977 to 1994); and Gen Z (1995-2004). Millennials (1982-1994) are subsets of Gen Y.
2 J.D. Power defines investors as mass market (investable assets less than $100,000), mass affluent (investable assets between $100,000-$499,000) and affluent (investable assets of $500,000 and greater). * Small sample size (n<30) Source (News - Alert) : J.D. Power 2018 Canadian Self-Directed Investor Satisfaction Study, SM
Charts and graphs extracted from this press release for use by the media must be accompanied by a statement identifying J.D. Power as the publisher and the study from which it originated as the source. Rankings are based on numerical scores, and not necessarily on statistical significance. No advertising or other promotional use can be made of the information in this release or J.D. Power survey results without the express prior written consent of J.D. Power. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180913005027/en/
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[September 13, 2018] Anthem Activates Plan to Help Residents in States Impacted by Hurricane Florence
Anthem Inc. (NYSE: ANTM), one of the nation's leading health benefits companies, is taking steps to help people in Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia who may be impacted by Hurricane Florence. Teams across the company are preparing to help impacted Anthem consumers and residents in hurricane areas by providing easier access to prescription medications and resources to access medical treatment or mental health support via Anthem's LiveHealth Online telehealth service and Anthem's Employee Assistance Program (EAP). Anthem affiliated health plan consumers who live or work in the impacted states and whose prescription drug plan medication has been lost or damaged due to Hurricane Florence can get refills at any pharmacy. Consumers who need medical or psychological service can access LiveHealth Online, Anthem's 24/7 telehealth service, via the LiveHealth Online app and website at www.livehealthonline.com/florence. LiveHealth Online offers video visits with U.S.-based board certified doctors and psychologists on a mobile device or computer from anywhere for non-emergency health conditions. Anyone in Georgia, North Carolina, Soth Carolina or Virginia who downloads the mobile app and registers will be able to access a free online visit by clicking on the "Help for Florence" button. The free visit offer will be available through December 12, 2018.
Additionally, Anthem's EAP provides resources to support residents in dealing with the emotionally stressful situation as well as with financial and legal concerns. Anthem's EAP tools will be offered at no cost and to access will be available 24/7 through the EAP crisis line at 877-208-8240 or by visiting www.anthemeap.com and using the login code "Hurricane Florence". By implementing these proactive measures Anthem is working to ensure that consumers in our affiliated health plans and other individuals living in Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia receive the health care services they need. Anthem members affected by Hurricane Florence are encouraged to contact Customer Service with questions by using the number on the back of their member ID card.
The Anthem Foundation has also partnered with the American Red Cross as a $1 million-level member of our Annual Disaster Giving Program, as well as providing grants to organizations such as AmeriCares, Direct Relief and Portlight Strategies, Inc. to support impacted residents. Local Red Cross personnel and shelters will be providing meals, relief supplies, support, and other assistance to thousands in Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia as well as first responders across the states. The Anthem Foundation has also pledged to match two dollars for every dollar Anthem associates donate to the American Red Cross, grantee organizations, or Anthem's employee assistance fund. About Anthem, Inc. Anthem is working to transform healthcare with trusted and caring solutions. Our health plan companies deliver quality products and services that give their members access to the care they need. With more than 73 million people served by its affiliated companies, including nearly 40 million within its family of health plans, Anthem is one of the nation's leading health benefits companies. For more information about Anthem's family of companies, please visit www.antheminc.com/companies. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180913005392/en/
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[September 13, 2018] NetEnrich Appoints David Dragonetti to VP of Global Sales
SAN JOSE, Calif., Sept. 13, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- NetEnrich , a managed cloud services provider, has appointed David Dragonetti to vice president of global sales, reporting to Raghu Kamath, who heads NetEnrichs global go-to-market teams. In related news, NetEnrich has hired Jon Nitto as sales director. Nitto and Dragonetti, who joined in March, are building a new Sell With team within NetEnrich. The initiative is designed to engage a few strategic partners to jointly sell managed and outcome-driven digital transformation services to enterprise and mid-market clients.
NetEnrich offers a wide range of managed services through the channel to MSPs, VARs and smaller service providers. These services address things like application and infrastructure availability and performance, and digital transformation. Netnrich works with over 80 partners in the US, Europe and Japan. Through its Microsoft partnership, NetEnrich has built significant capabilities around Microsoft Azure and Microsoft PaaS.
Dragonetti and Nitto are targeting partners who are building services for customers seeking to modernize data centers, networks and unified communications systems, as well as cybersecurity and digital transformation. Dragonetti previously held managed services leadership roles at Cisco, Nexus IS, Dimension Data (with Nitto) and ePlus. Nitto, meanwhile, previously worked at NTT Data Corporation and Proficio, and brings experience in outsourcing, managed services and cybersecurity. Dave and Jon are industry veterans and thought leaders in managed services, says Kamath. Their background in building and scaling managed services for large VARs and service providers puts us in a strong position going forward. Their team will work closely with our partners in various geographies. We are excited to have them on board to establish the model and help our partners win new business.
About NetEnrich NetEnrich combines industrialized services and a proprietary automation platform to deliver IT infrastructure and operations management services from on-premises to cloud. NetEnrich is also a Microsoft technology partner specializing in accelerating deployment, migration and management of application workloads on Azure. Our approach to IT operations reduces costs, mitigates risk, provides control and drives innovation. NetEnrich has five global delivery centers, is headquartered in Silicon Valley, California, and is a Gartner 2015 Cool Vendor and featured in Gartner Hype Cycle for Hybrid Infrastructure 2016 and 2017. To learn more about NetEnrich, visit www.netenrich.com . Media contact:
Kevin Wolf
TGPR
(650) 483-1552
kevin@tgprllc.com
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[September 13, 2018] Tricentis Names Testing Heroes 2018 Award Winners
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Sept. 13, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Tricentis , the leader in Continuous Testing, has announced the winners of its inaugural Testing Heroes Awards , a community-led, annual program that recognizes the individual contributions of software quality leaders around the globe. In the programs first year, more than 52,000 votes were cast for 65 finalists, resulting in the following winners:
Tester of the Year : Kishore Chandolu, Capgemini
: Kishore Chandolu, Capgemini Test Manager of the Year : Mukesh Singh, Bank of America
: Mukesh Singh, Bank of America Exploratory Tester of the Year : Arnika Hryszko, SJSI Polish Testing Board
: Arnika Hryszko, SJSI Polish Testing Board Test Automation Expert of the Year : Braulio Obando, Experian
: Braulio Obando, Experian Performance Tester of the Year : Mark Tomlinson
: Mark Tomlinson Risk-based Tester of the Year: Smita Mishra, QAzone Infosystems We launched the inaugural Testing Heroes Awards to increase the software industrys awareness of how important testers are to software quality, optimizing risk coverage, and protecting the user experience, says Tricentis CMO, Wayne Ariola. From the sheer number of votes that were cast, to the global participation and engagement throughout the campaign, to the stories we heard of how enterprises were rallying behind their own nominees, Testing Heroes brought to light the invaluable role of he software tester in todays business world.
The first and second place winners for the categories of Tester of the Year and Test Manager of the Year were awarded complimentary airfare, hotel stay and conference entrance to Accelerate 2018 , Tricentis annual user conference to be held October 9-10 in Vienna, Austria. A full list of the top five winners for each category can be found at the Tricentis Testing Heroes homepage .
About Tricentis With the industrys No. 1 Continuous Testing platform, Tricentis is recognized for reinventing software testing for DevOps. Through risk-based testing, scriptless end-to-end test automation, and the industrys most extensive technology support, Tricentis breaks through the barriers experienced with conventional software testing methods. Our innovative technologies simplify testing for even the most complex enterprise applicationstransforming testing from a roadblock to a catalyst for innovation. The result is accelerated software delivery speed, improved cost efficiency, and reduced business risk. Tricentis is the only vendor to achieve leader status in all three top analyst reports (i.e., the Triple Crown). This honor is based on our technical leadership, innovation, and a Global 2000 customer base of 800+ companies, including global enterprises such as Allianz, ANZ Bank, Experian, First Data, HSBC, Lexmark, Merck, Sentry Insurance, Starbucks, Telstra, UBS, Vantiv (now WorldPay), Vodafone, and Whole Foods. These customers rely on Tricentis to achieve and sustain test automation rates of over 90 percentincreasing risk coverage while accelerating testing to keep pace with Agile and DevOps. Tricentis has a global presence in Austria, Australia, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, India, Netherlands, Singapore, Switzerland, Poland, United States and the UK. To learn more, visit https://www.tricentis.com or follow us on LinkedIn , Twitter , and Facebook . Media Contact
Victoria Brown
Revere
+1 (650) 850-2009
Victoria.brown@revereagency.co
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[September 13, 2018] Teleflex to Support Responding to Cardiac Arrest at ERC Congress, Resuscitation 2018, in Bologna, Italy from September 20th - 22nd
Teleflex Incorporated (NYSE: TFX), a leading global provider of medical technologies for critical care and surgery, today announced that during the ERC Congress, it will focus on the Arrow EZ-IO Intraosseous Access System and on the campaign "What could 10 seconds to vascular access mean to your cardiac arrest patient?" Cardiac Arrest is one of the leading causes of mortality with an estimated 10% survival rate.1 2 Prompt treatment is essential for all cardiac arrest patients, whether a patient suffers an in-hospital cardiac arrest (IHCA) or an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA). Studies have found an incidence rate of 84 OHCA per 100,000 population 2 and between 1.51-2.85 IHCA per 1.000 hospital patient admissions.3,4 The incidence of cardiac arrest is a major health problem within Europe & the United States. When a cardiac arrest occurs, rapid delivery of fluids and medication is key to treatment. Clinicians need fast methods of establishing vascular access, and IV access may be difficult or impossible due to cardiovascular collapse and environmental challenges. The Arrow EZ-IO Intraosseous Vascular Access System from Teleflex is a fast, safe and effective solution in emergency situations 5,6,7,8. The EZ-IO System is indicated anytime vascular access is difficult to obtain in emergent, urgent, or medically necessary cases for up to 72 hours within Europe. The EZ-IO System is a difficult vascular access option that provides peripheral venous access with central venous catheter performance.7, 9, 10 While ERC is taking place, Teleflex will also host several educational sessions that will be run by the Teleflex Clinical & Medical Affairs team. These sessions take place on Friday 21st and Saturday 22nd. Some of the planned Teleflex Education programs include - "Humeral IO Masterclass"; "IO Emergency Scenario"; "Pediatric IO Masterclass"; and "Using IO in Resuscitation". Moreover, in collaboration with the Italian Red Cross and European Resuscitation Council, Teleflex will also host an innovative Helicopter Resuscitation Simulation Workshop titled "Helicopter Resuscitation: Let's remember the airway & vascular access". Healthcare professionals attending the ERC Congress can easily book his/her place at http://TeleflexCMA.formstack.com/forms/helicopter. About Teleflex Incorporated Teleflex is a global provider of medical technologies designed to improve the health and quality of people's lives. We apply purpose-driven innovation - a relentless pursuit of identifying unmet clinical needs - to benefit patients and healthcare providers. Our portfolio is diverse, with solutions in the fields of vascular and interventional access, surgical, anesthesia, cardiac care, urology, emergency medicine and respiratory care. Teleflex employees worldwide are united in the understanding that what we do every day makes a difference. For more information, please visit teleflex.com. Teleflex is the home of Arrow, Deknatel, Hudson RCI, LMA, Pilling, Rusch and Weck - trusted brands united by a common sense of purpose. Forward-Looking Statements Any statements contained in this press release that do not describe historical facts may constitute forward-looking statements. Any forward-looking statements contained herein are based on our management's current beliefs and expectations, but are subject to a number of risks, uncertainties and changes in circumstances, which may cause actual results or company actions to differ materially from what is expressed or implied by these statements. These risks and uncertainties are identified and described in more detail in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our Annual Report on Form 10-K.
1. Mozaffarian D, Benjamin EJ, Go AS, et al: on behalf of the American Heart Association Statistics Committee and Stroke Statistics Subcommittee. Heart disease and stroke statistics-2015 update: a report from the American Heart Association. Circulation. 2015;131:e29-e322. DOI: 10.1161/CIR.0000000000000152. 2. EuReCa ONE 27 Nations, ONE Europe, ONE Registry: A prospective one month analysis of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest outcomes in 27 countries in Europe, Volume 105, August 2016, Pages 188-195 3. Incidence and outcome of in-hospital cardiac arrest in Italy: a multicentre observational study in the Piedmont Region, Resuscitation [24 Jun 2017, 119:48-55] 4. Public Report Cards for In-Hospital Cardiac Arrest: Empowering the Public With Location-Specific Data, Circulation. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2016 Apr 21 5. Davidoff J, Fowler R, Gordon D, Klein G, Kovar J, Lozano M, Potkya J, Racht E, Saussy J, Swanson E, Yamada R, Miller L. Clinical evaluation of a novel intraosseous device for adults: prospective, 250-patient, multi-center trial. JEMS 2005;30(10):s20-3. Research sponsored by Teleflex Incorporated. 6. Montez D, Puga T, Miller LJ, et al. Intraosseous Infusions from the Proximal Humerus Reach the Heart in Less Than 3 Seconds in Human Volunteers. Annals of Emergency Medicine 2015;66(4S):S47. Research sponsored by Teleflex Incorporated. 7. Cooper BR, Mahoney PF, Hodgetts TJ, Mellor A. Intra-osseous access (EZ-IO) for resuscitation: UK military combat experience. J R Army Med Corps. 2007;153(4):314-31 *, ** 8. Teleflex Internal Data on file 2018 9. Hoskins SL, Nascimento P Jr., Lima RM, Espana-Tenorio, JM, Kramer GC. Pharmacokinetics of intraosseous and central venous drug delivery during cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Resuscitation 2011; doi:10.1016/j.resuscitation.2011.07.041. Research sponsored by Teleflex Incorporated. (preclinical study) *, ** 10. Hoskins SL, Zachariah BS, Copper N, Kramer GC. Comparison of intraosseous proximal humerus and sternal routes for drug delivery during CPR. Circulation 2007; 116:II_993. Research sponsored by Teleflex Incorporated. (preclinical study) *, ** *Compared to single lumen Central Venous Catheters (CVCs). **Based on Adult Proximal Humerus EZ-IO insertion data.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180913005092/en/
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[September 13, 2018] Jet Relaunches with New Experience, Assortment and Service to Become the Shopping Destination for City Consumers
HOBOKEN, N.J., Sept. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, Jet relaunched its brand to offer consumers a tailored site experience, unique assortment of local and leading brands as well as differentiated service to serve their online shopping needs. The effort signals the beginning of Jet's strategy to rehumanize eCommerce and focus on customers in major metro cities, making everyday shopping relevant, enjoyable and convenient. The experience provides a more intentional catalog that is personalized and relevant to city consumers' shopping preferences across Grocery, Home, Fashion, Beauty and Electronics. "I am so excited to relaunch Jet to consumers today," said Simon Belsham, president of Jet. "As a retailer, we must build experiences that customers love and trust, backed by strong values. For Jet, this means offering a more tailored shopping experience combined with a unique assortment of great brands in a way that brings empathy back into eCommerce. This is only the beginning for Jet." "I'm personally thrilled with this evolution of Jet. It's the next generation of shopping for city dwellers, and really brings the personality of their city and local favorites to life," said Marc Lore, Jet founder, and president and CEO of Walmart eCommerce US. "And, focusing Jet on customers in the major metro cities perfectly complements our overall eCommerce portfolio strategy." Tailoring the Customer & Site Experience
Jet will offer a humanized shopping experience designed to inspire shoppers and reduce the time required to solve every day living needs. The experience includes: Localization. Jet shares in consumers' emotional connections with their community and will reflect that in the content and assortment consumers see. Starting with New York and rolling out to other major cities in time, shoppers viewing the site will be greeted with iconic, localized imagery and messages on the home page and throughout the site.
Jet shares in consumers' emotional connections with their community and will reflect that in the content and assortment consumers see. Starting with and rolling out to other major cities in time, shoppers viewing the site will be greeted with iconic, localized imagery and messages on the home page and throughout the site. Personalization & Voice Activation. Smarter product recommendations that prioritize shoppers' preferences and timely re-order suggestions that predict needs to restock will provide more intelligent personalization. Additionally, iOS consumers will be able to use voice activation to build shopping lists on Jet's mobile application (e.g. Siri, add bananas to my grocery list).
Smarter product recommendations that prioritize shoppers' preferences and timely re-order suggestions that predict needs to restock will provide more intelligent personalization. Additionally, iOS consumers will be able to use voice activation to build shopping lists on Jet's mobile application (e.g. Siri, add bananas to my grocery list). Tailored Shopping Experiences. The way consumers shop for food is fundamentally different than the way they shop for furniture or fashion. Recognizing that shopping behaviors and needs shift across categories, Jet will offer intentionally designed experiences that will flex to accommodate shopping preferences.
Introducing Jet's City Grocery Experience
Jet will be offering consumers a complete grocery service through its city grocery experience. Via Jet's Bronx Fulfillment center, which will be completed this fall, consumers will have access to: 3-Hour Scheduled Same-Day & Next Day Delivery Windows. Exclusively through Parcel, the tech-enabled same-day and last-mile delivery company acquired by Walmart in 2017, most New York City consumers will be able to arrange 3-hour scheduled delivery windows for their groceries, everyday essentials and other select merchandise to be delivered to their homes.
Exclusively through Parcel, the tech-enabled same-day and last-mile delivery company acquired by Walmart in 2017, most consumers will be able to arrange 3-hour scheduled delivery windows for their groceries, everyday essentials and other select merchandise to be delivered to their homes. Iconic New York Local Brands & Small Businesses. Focusing on and supporting local and small businesses, Jet has partnered with iconic New York -based brands from Bedford Cheese Shop, Pat LaFrieda meats, and Orwashers Bakery, as well as great local favorites such as Big Gay Ice Cream and small businesses such as Just Bagels.
Focusing on and supporting local and small businesses, Jet has partnered with iconic -based brands from Bedford Cheese Shop, meats, and Orwashers Bakery, as well as great local favorites such as Big Gay Ice Cream and small businesses such as Just Bagels. Local & Craft Beer Delivery. New Yorkers will be able to order craft, ultra-craft, domestic and premium imported beer online, receiving same-day and next-day delivery in the coming months.
New Yorkers will be able to order craft, ultra-craft, domestic and premium imported beer online, receiving same-day and next-day delivery in the coming months. Customized Delivery Options. Upon checkout, consumers will be able to add customized delivery instructions (e.g. "leave the package with the doorman") allowing for more convenient delivery accommodations.
Upon checkout, consumers will be able to add customized delivery instructions (e.g. "leave the package with the doorman") allowing for more convenient delivery accommodations. Freshness Guaranteed. Grocery deliveries will arrive in recyclable, insulated bags to ensure quality and freshness for up to three hours. The bags offer convenience and portability for city consumers from front door to fridge. Curating a Unique Assortment & Announcing a Strategic Partnership with Nike
Through a highly curated assortment of local and leading brands, along with select strategic partnerships, consumers will have access to and choice over the brands they want and need. Come October, Jet and Nike will be entering into a strategic partnership to create a curated and consumer centric experience, offering consumers Nike and Converse products in a fully branded experience. The initial assortment will include hundreds of products across apparel, footwear and accessories for men, women and children, including essentials for running, training and sportswear.
Telling the Story of City Shopping Carts
Jet launched "Our Carts are Different Here" campaign, created in partnership with Pereira O'Dell New York, to underscore Jet's importance to the lives of city-dwellers by telling their authentic human stories. Campaign elements include TV, OOH, audio, digital, and social. The campaign tells the story of the Jet audience through two distinct lenses, both representative of their unique shopping needs. In video and audio, Jet celebrates heroes in uniquely city environments, and the OOH and digital elements use striking visuals to tell a similar story with products. About Jet
Launched in 2015 and acquired by Walmart for $3.3B in 2016, Jet is the shopping destination for city consumers. With a tailored experience, unique assortment and differentiated service offered across key categories of Grocery, Home, Fashion, Beauty and Electronics, most consumers can receive scheduled same-day and next-day delivery of local and leading brands, getting all of their shopping essentials in one place. For more information, visit www.jet.com. View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/jet-relaunches-with-new-experience-assortment-and-service-to-become-the-shopping-destination-for-city-consumers-300711804.html SOURCE Jet
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[September 13, 2018] Swander Pace Capital Acquires Fine Choice Foods
Swander Pace Capital, a leading private equity firm specializing in investments in consumer product companies, today announced that it has acquired Fine Choice Foods, a leading developer, manufacturer, and distributor of fresh and frozen Asian-flavored appetizers to retail and foodservice channels in Canada and the U.S. Since its founding in 1986, Fine Choice has grown from a small, family-run store on Vancouver's Cambie Street to become one of the largest and most recognized providers of on-trend international foods. The company's products, which include items sold under its Sum-m! brand, enjoy a wide distribution network among prominent North American retailers, including Costco, Loblaws, and Sobeys, as well as select foodservice customers. In addition, the company has a leading position in the refrigerated appetizers category, which is one of the fastest growing segments in the category. "As a leader in one of the fastest growing segments of an already dynamic industry, Fine Choice is a very attractive investment for us," said Heather Smith Thorne, managing director at Swander Pace Capital. "What's more, the company's ability to bring innovative, Asian-inspired flavors to a diverse marketplace--using clean, high-quality, natural ingredients--has earned Fine Choice a strong distribution footprint and high customer loyalty." The acquisition represents Swander Pace Capital's second recent investment in the space. In 2017, the firm acquired Passport Food Group, a California-based developer, markter and distributor of globally-inspired appetizer, noodle and wrap products to the foodservice and retail channels. Passport Food Group is led by Michael Axelrod, who will also serve as CEO of Fine Choice Foods.
"The team at Swander Pace possesses a strong grasp of changing consumer tastes and preferences," said Axelrod. "They have a proven track record in providing consumer companies the guidance and resources they need to perform at the highest levels. We look forward to working alongside the current Fine Choice team to build on the Company's impressive legacy and grow the business through organic growth and acquisitions." "The decision to add Fine Choice to our portfolio was a highly strategic one," added Mark Poff, managing director at Swander Pace Capital. "As consumer tastes become wider and more varied, there is tremendous opportunity to build a clear leader in high-quality, on-trend, international cuisine-especially in the prepared and refrigerated category. Fine Choice Foods is an exceptional complement to our existing investments in the space, which will continue to remain a major focal point for us as it expands."
The investment in Fine Choice was made from Swander Pace's Fund VI. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. About Swander Pace Swander Pace Capital (SPC) is a private equity firm that invests in companies that are integral to consumers' lives. SPC's consumer industry expertise informs the firm's strategic approach and adds value through access to its proven SPC Playbook, senior team, and extensive network. The firm partners with management teams to help build companies to their full potential. SPC invests in businesses across three domains of consumer lifestyles: Food + Beverage, Body + Wellness, and Home + Family. With offices in San Francisco, New Jersey, and Toronto, SPC has invested in more than 45 companies and raised cumulative equity commitments of approximately $1.8 billion since 1996. For more information, visit www.spcap.com About Fine Choice Foods Fine Choice Foods is based in Richmond, British Columbia, and has been dedicated to delivering quality Asian foods to the North American Market since 1986. Specializing in hand-rolled spring rolls, gyoza, wontons and more, the company manufactures product out of its state-of-the-art facility where it employs over 150 people. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180913005142/en/
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[September 13, 2018] Chairman and CEO of Inspur Group Peter Sun Speaks at 15th China-ASEAN Expo
NANNING, China, Sept. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- On September 12, the 15th China-ASEAN Expo and China-ASEAN Business and Investment Summit were held in Nanning, Guangxi province. Peter Sun, Chairman and CEO of Inspur Group, was invited to attend the opening ceremony of the Expo and delivered a keynote speech: "Cloud + Data", to Share the Outcomes of Digital Economy. Peter Sun mentioned in his speech that as a new power in productivity for the global digital economy, cloud computing has been widely used in governments, enterprises, and among individuals, and its growth has promoted the generation and application of big data, thus boosting the construction of smart cities in China. In he era of intelligent technologies, cloud services operators, big data operators, and smart city operators are three new major operators that promote urban development. These three new major operators are also critical to build the digital Silk Road and develop the digital economy, said Peter Sun during his speech.
In the Belt and Road Initiative, particularly, in the development of the digital economy of ASEAN countries, Inspur's cloud computing solutions and services have won the recognition of governments and enterprises from a great number of countries, including Thailand, Vietnam, Burma, Malaysia, and Bangladesh, and Inspur has built a batch of model projects in the fields of government, education and communications. Moreover, for advancing the cooperation on the digital economy between China and ASEAN, Inspur is creating a new information-based and digital platform for economic and trade cooperation between China and ASEAN in Guangxi. Not only will this new platform benefit ASEAN's digital industry, but it will also serve for Guangxi's digital economy. SOURCE Inspur Group
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[September 13, 2018] Health Canada Reclassifies Tetra Bio-Pharma's Inhalation Device Making it Eligible for Reimbursement
ORLEANS, Ontario, Sept. 13, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Tetra Bio-Pharma Inc. ("Tetra" or the "Corporation") (TSX VENTURE: TBP) (OTCQB: TBPMF), a global leader in cannabinoid-based drug development and discovery, announced today that Health Canada has re-classified the inhalation pipe device used in the delivery of its PPP001 cannabis drug to a Class 2 Medical Device. The reclassification will help pave the way towards reimbursement for patients; a key element to patient access and care. The significance of this decision is such that if PPP001 is approved by Health Canada, both the prescription drug and the inhalation device will be eligible for insurance coverage by private and provincial public insurance plans. Tetra Bio-Pharma is undertaking a Phase III trial with PPP001 treating late stage cancer patients looking to improve quality of life and reduce pain. The Company also recently announced it is starting a head to head trial to investigate cannabis versus Fentanyl in managing breakthrough cancer pain.
We are very excited by the reclassification as we believe it will provide patients with a financial benefit in terms of coverage for the device and prescription drug, stated Dr. Guy Chamberland, Ph.D., Interim CEO and CSO at Tetra Bio-Pharma. Many cancer patients rely on private and public insurance plans for access to their medication. This decision by the Government of Canada is an important step forward to facilitating access to cannabis drugs. This coupled with our robust clinical trial program and the evidence we are establishing will support physicians in discussing and recommending this option with their patients. Dr. Chamberland further stated, the lack of scientific data on the safety and efficacy of cannabis is a critical barrier to patient access, and something that Canadian physicians are waiting for before being comfortable to prescribe it. Equally essential is adhering to the highest standards of drug manufacturing as well as the production of the delivery mechanism something that Tetra is committed to. There are more than 300,000 registered users of medical cannabis in the country and we can only expect this number to rise. Tetra has been a pioneer in the development of several cannabis drugs. To date, the Corporation has completed several safety and pharmacokinetic studies in healthy volunteers obtaining proper dosing information and a clear understanding of the potential cardiovascular and neurological risks to patients. This information is critical to protect public health, and Tetra Bio-Pharma is engaged with Health Canada to comply with the highest drug safety standards. About Tetra Bio-Pharma Inc.
Tetra Bio-Pharma (TSX-V: TBP) (OTCQB: TBPMF) is a biopharmaceutical leader in cannabinoid-based drug dscovery and development with a Health Canada approved, and FDA reviewed, clinical program aimed at bringing novel prescription drugs and treatments to patients and their healthcare providers. The Company has several subsidiaries engaged in the development of an advanced and growing pipeline of Bio Pharmaceuticals, Natural Health and Veterinary Products containing cannabis and other medicinal plant-based elements. With patients at the core of what we do, Tetra Bio-Pharma is focused on providing rigorous scientific validation and safety data required for inclusion into the existing bio pharma industry by regulators, physicians and insurance companies.
For more information visit: www.tetrabiopharma.com Source: Tetra Bio-Pharma
Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Forward-looking statements
Some statements in this release may contain forward-looking information. All statements, other than of historical fact, that address activities, events or developments that the Company believes, expects or anticipates will or may occur in the future (including, without limitation, statements regarding potential acquisitions and financings) are forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements are generally identifiable by use of the words "may", "will", "should", "continue", "expect", "anticipate", "estimate", "believe", "intend", "plan" or "project" or the negative of these words or other variations on these words or comparable terminology. Forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond the Company's ability to control or predict, that may cause the actual results of the Company to differ materially from those discussed in the forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause actual results or events to differ materially from current expectations include, among other things, without limitation, the inability of the Company to obtain sufficient financing to execute the Company's business plan; competition; regulation and anticipated and unanticipated costs and delays, the success of the Company's research and development strategies, including the approval of PPP001, insurance coverage for products being developed, the applicability of the discoveries made therein, the successful and timely completion and uncertainties related to the regulatory process including the applications for Orphan Drug Designation, the timing of clinical trials, the timing and outcomes of regulatory or intellectual property decisions and other risks disclosed in the Company's public disclosure record on file with the relevant securities regulatory authorities. Although the Company has attempted to identify important factors that could cause actual results or events to differ materially from those described in forward-looking statements, there may be other factors that cause results or events not to be as anticipated, estimated or intended. Readers should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements. While no definitive documentation has yet been signed by the parties and there is no certainty that such documentation will be signed. The forward-looking statements included in this news release are made as of the date of this news release and the Company does not undertake an obligation to publicly update such forward-looking statements to reflect new information, subsequent events or otherwise unless required by applicable securities legislation.
For further information, please contact Tetra Bio-Pharma Inc.
Robert Bechard
Executive Vice-President Corporate Development and Licensing
514-817-2514
Investors@tetrabiopharma.com Media Contact Energi PR Carol Levine Stephanie Engel 514-288-8500 ext. 226 416-425-9143 ext. 209 Carol.levine@energipr.com Stephanie.engel@energipr.com
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[September 13, 2018] CoreLogic Reports a 12.4 Percent Year-over-Year Increase in Mortgage Fraud Risk for the Second Quarter of 2018
CoreLogic (NYSE: CLGX), a leading global property information, analytics and data-enabled solutions provider, today released its latest Mortgage Fraud Report. The report shows a 12.4 percent year-over-year increase in fraud risk at the end of the second quarter, as measured by the CoreLogic Mortgage Application Fraud Risk Index. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180913005169/en/ National Mortgage Origination Fraud Index (Q3 2010 - Q2 2018) (Graphic: Business Wire) The analysis found that during the second quarter of 2018, an estimated one in 109 applications, or 0.92 percent of all mortgage applications, contained indications of fraud, compared with the reported one in 122, or 0.82 percent in the second quarter of 2017. The CoreLogic Mortgage Fraud Report analyzes the collective level of loan application fraud risk experienced in the mortgage industry each quarter. CoreLogic develops the index based on residential mortgage loan applications processed by CoreLogic LoanSafe Fraud Manager, a predictive scoring technology. The report includes detailed data for six fraud type indicators that complement the national index: identity, income, occupancy, property, transaction and undisclosed real estate debt. "This year's trend continues to show an increase in mortgage fraud risk year over year," said Bridget Berg, principal of Fraud Solutions Strategy for CoreLogic. "Because home prices are rising, and demand is strong, most mortgage fraud in this type of market is motivated by bona fide borrowers trying to qualify for a mortgage. Undisclosed real estate liabilities, credit repair, questionable down payment sources and income falsification are the most likely misrepresentations." Report Highlights: New York, New Jersey and Florida remain the top threestates for mortgage application fraud risk, maintaining the same positions as last year.
All of the top 10 riskiest states showed increases in risk year over year.
States with the greatest year-over-year risk growth include New Mexico, Mississippi, Illinois, Oklahoma and Texas. Of these, New Mexico, Illinois and Oklahoma now have risk levels greater than the National Index, which grew from 133 to 149 year over year.
The conforming loans for home purchases segment shows the greatest risk increase by loan type.
Income fraud risk had the greatest increase year over year, followed by occupancy and transaction fraud. Property and undisclosed real estate debt showed declines in risk.
www.corelogic.com/mortgagefraudreport. Methodology
Our comprehensive fraud risk analysis is based on a lender-driven mortgage fraud consortium and leading predictive-scoring technology. The CoreLogic Mortgage Application Fraud Risk Index represents the collective level of fraud risk the mortgage industry is experiencing in each time period, based on the share of loan applications with a high risk of fraud. The index is standardized to a baseline of 100 for the share of high-risk loan applications nationally in the third quarter of 2010. Each one-point change in the index represents a 1 percent change in the share of mortgage applications having a high risk of fraud. The estimated number of fraudulent applications is derived by applying the current risk level of CoreLogic Mortgage Fraud Consortium applications to industry volumes. The Fraud Type Indicators are based on specific CoreLogic LoanSafe Fraud Manager alerts. These alerts are compiled consistently for all CoreLogic Mortgage Fraud Consortium members. Indicator levels are based on the prevalence and predictive ability of the relevant alerts. An increase in the indicator correlates with increased risk of the corresponding fraud type. Source (News - Alert) : CoreLogic The data provided is for use only by the primary recipient or the primary recipient's publication or broadcast. This data may not be re-sold, republished or licensed to any other source, including publications and sources owned by the primary recipient's parent company without prior written permission from CoreLogic. Any CoreLogic data used for publication or broadcast, in whole or in part, must be sourced as coming from CoreLogic, a data and analytics company. For use with broadcast or web content, the citation must directly accompany first reference of the data. If the data is illustrated with maps, charts, graphs or other visual elements, the CoreLogic logo must be included on screen or website. For questions, analysis or interpretation of the data, contact Alyson Austin at newsmedia@corelogic.com or Allyse Sanchez at corelogic@ink-co.com. Data provided may not be modified without the prior written permission of CoreLogic. Do not use the data in any unlawful manner. This data is compiled from public records, contributory databases and proprietary analytics, and its accuracy is dependent upon these sources. About CoreLogic CoreLogic (NYSE: CLGX) is a leading global property information, analytics and data-enabled services provider. The company's combined data from public, contributory and proprietary sources includes over 3.5 billion records spanning more than 40 years, providing detailed coverage of property, mortgages and other encumbrances, consumer credit, tenancy, location, hazard risk and related performance information. The markets CoreLogic serves include real estate and mortgage finance, insurance, capital markets, and the public sector. CoreLogic delivers value to clients through unique data, analytics, workflow technology, advisory and managed services. Clients rely on CoreLogic to help identify and manage growth opportunities, improve performance and mitigate risk. Headquartered in Irvine, Calif., CoreLogic operates in North America, Western Europe and Asia Pacific. For more information, please visit www.corelogic.com. CORELOGIC, the CoreLogic logo, and LOANSAFE FRAUD MANAGER are trademarks of CoreLogic, Inc. and/or its subsidiaries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180913005169/en/
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[September 13, 2018] SGK's Rachelle Sokan To Speak At 2018 EnterWorks Engage Conference
CHICAGO, Sept. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- SGK, a division of Matthews International Corporation, and a leading global brand development, activation and deployment provider that drives brand performance, announced today that Rachelle Sokan, engagement manager, client solutions, will address content governance in the omnichannel world at the EnterWorks Engage 2018 User Conference on September 19, 2018, 9:00 A.M. (CT), in New Orleans. Sokan will present Rock Brand Standards & Best Practices With Governance That Stakeholders Will Like And Adopt, featuring real world examples of how leading brands are transforming the way they think about, drive and deliver best practices and brand standards within their organizations and across stakeholder ecosystems. In this engaging breakout session attendees will learn: Key tips for aligning against strategy and supporting orchestrated models of production
How to work across the warring factions of stakeholder and partner ecosystems
Why driving enhanced collboration and engagement leads to purposeful content
Added Sokan, "Compelling product content and seamless, centralized data are essential to compete in today's omnichannel world. Product information management and master data management solutions are enabling companies to acquire, manage, and transform product information into persuasive content to drive sales and develop new competitive strengths."
The 2018 Engage User Conference brings together EnterWorks' PIM (Product Information Management) and MDM (Master Data Management) experts with its valued solution users to connect, share best practices, learn, and grow. Informative sessions, customer presentations and inspiring keynotes will explore how the right B2B2C collaboration capabilities can empower you to respond to the demand for rich, cross-channel content. Rachelle Sokan leads the content management practice area within SGK, a global brand development and deployment provider. Sokan brings over 19 years of experience in B2B and B2C environments working with sales and marketing professionals to drive acquisition, retention and growth strategies. With a background deeply rooted in consulting and e-commerce content strategy, Rachelle leverages the power of design thinking with process optimization to elevate and differentiate brands to more meaningfully connect to their customers in an ever-evolving digital landscape. To learn more about the Annual EnterWorks Engage User Conference, please visit: https://www.enterworks.com/engage/ SGK is a leading global brand development, activation and deployment company that drives brand performance. By creating brands, activating and protecting brands, we help our clients achieve higher brand performance. SGK's global footprint spans more than 20 countries. SGK is part of Matthews International Corporation. For more information visit: http://www.sgkinc.com and http://www.sgkinc.com/marketing-supply-chain View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/sgks-rachelle-sokan-to-speak-at-2018-enterworks-engage-conference-300711631.html SOURCE SGK
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I have to tell you, I was more afraid of the students than they were of me, Johnson-Shirley said. But, I went into that room and something came over me that I was in the right place.
[September 13, 2018] Glance Technologies Previews New Glance PayMe Features Including QR Code Payments
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Sept. 13, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Glance Technologies Inc. (Glance or the Company) (CSE:GET.CN) (OTCQB:GLNNF) (FKT:GJT) today announced some of the new features built into its upcoming downloadable Glance PayMe application that will help merchants transact more quickly and conveniently.
The new features will allow merchants to accept payments from Glance Pay users via: Quick Response (QR) Code
Bluetooth (automatically detecting nearby payments)
Digital Invoice QR Code and Bluetooth payments will provide merchants with extraordinarily fast, convenient and secure payment options from in-person customers, while digital invoicing will enable merchants to keep digital records and accept payments from both in-person and remote customers. These payment options will be offered in addition to Glances revolutionary payment by photo capability, which give merchants an unparalleled suite of payment options, as well as Glances full suite of features, including powerful anti-fraud technology and a robust loyalty rewards program. We have not seen any other products in the market with such a broad suite of payment options, which we believe, along with our rewards platform, is a powerful combination, said Desmond Griffin, CEO of Glance Technologies. We are very excited about the potential of these enhancements to Glance PayMeTM, and we note that QR Code payments in particular have had enormous success in China. In China, popular mobile applications such as Alipay and WeChat, which feature the ability to pay by QR Code, have revolutionized commerce. According to the Wall Street Journal, the volume of mobile payment transactions in China were in excess of $9 trillion in 2017.1 Glance also notes that Apple recently announced three new iPhone models that support Face ID facial recognition, which will increase security while improving convenience for payment applications such as Glance - helping to accelerate the transition from legacy plastic cards to mobile applications for payments. Desmond Griffin will be discussing recent trends in payment technology and Glances mobile payments platforms, including Glance PayMeTM, this week at The MoneyShow in Toronto and the Global Chinese Financial Forum in Markham, Ont. For further information, see our previous press release here: https://glance.tech/2018/09/glance-technolgies-announces-participation-at-upcoming-investor-conferences/
Glance will be providing further updates on Glance PayMe, as well as other exciting innovations the Company has been developing, throughout the remainder of 2018. To learn more about the cutting-edge convenience and advantages of Glance PayMe, visit GlancePayMe.com .
About Glance Technologies Inc. Glance owns and operates Glance Pay, a streamlined payment system that revolutionizes how smartphone users choose where to shop, order goods and services, make payments, access digital receipts, redeem digital deals, earn great rewards & interact with merchants. Glance offers targeted in-app marketing, geo-targeted digital coupons, customer feedback, in-merchant messaging and custom rewards programs. The Glance Pay mobile payment system consists of proprietary technology, which includes user apps available for free downloads in iOS (Apple) and Android formats, merchant manager apps, a large-scale technology hosting environment with sophisticated anti-fraud technology and lightning-fast payment processing. Glance has also recently purchased a blockchain solution and is working on a rewards-based cryptocurrency, the whitepaper for which can be found on the companys website. For more information about Glance, please go to www.glance.tech . For more information, contact: Paola Ashton
VP Business Development
604-839-0337
investors@glancepay.com Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the Canadian Securities Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Forward-Looking Statements This press release contains forward-looking information or forward-looking statements (collectively "forward-looking information") within the meaning of applicable securities laws. Forward-looking information is typically identified by words such as: may, "believe", thinks, "expect", exploring, expand, could, "anticipate", "intend", "estimate", plan, pursue, "potentially", projected, should, will and similar expressions, or are those, which, by their nature, refer to future events. These forward-looking statements, which involve risks and uncertainties, relate to, among other things, the discussion of Glances business strategies and its expectations concerning future operations (including advancing its technological roadmap), and the expectation that Glance will accelerate growth and scale. Although Glance considers these forward-looking statements to be reasonable based on information currently available to it, they may prove to be incorrect, and the forward-looking statements in this release are subject to numerous risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause future results to differ materially from those expressed or implied in such forward-looking statements. Such risk factors include, among other things, the success of Glance PayMe beta testing, risks related to launching Glance PayMe, and risks related to viral adoption of Glance PayMe. The forward-looking information in this press release is also based on certain estimates, forecasts and projections, as well as expectations, beliefs and assumptions, including, among other things, that Glance will be able to achieve its business objectives, that Glance will be able to develop proprietary software to implement its plans, and that Glance will be successful in obtaining and retaining clients and licensees for its software. For additional information with respect to these and other factors and assumptions underlying the forward-looking statements in this press release, see the section entitled Risk Factors in the most recent Annual Information Form and Prospectus of Glance, which may be accessed through Glance's profile on SEDAR at www.sedar.com. Glance cautions investors that any forward-looking information provided by Glance is not a guarantee of future results or performance, and that actual results may differ materially from those in forward-looking statements. Undue reliance should not be placed on such forward-looking information, as there can be no assurance that the plans, intentions or expectations upon which they are based will occur. ________________________ 1 Abkowitz, Alyssa. The Cashless Society Has Arrived Only Its in China. The Wall Street Journal. Jan. 4, 2018. https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinas-mobile-payment-boom-changes-how-people-shop-borrow-even-panhandle-1515000570
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[September 13, 2018] SentryOne Unveils New Documentation Website and On-Demand Product Training Program
SentryOne, the Data Performance Management experts, introduced a new product documentation website and on-demand SentryOne Certified Training program for end users and partners that will accelerate their ability to find and fix business-critical database performance problems. The SentryOne Certified Training program delivers detailed videos that can be consumed individually or in a course format. Each video provides practical lessons for best utilizing SentryOne to manage Microsoft (News - Alert) Data Platform performance. "The training program, coupled with our new documentation library, can make any of our users SentryOne experts," said Lori Edwards, SentryOne Training Manager. "The on-demand availability of these training sessions will empower end users to learn more about the SentryOne platform at their convenience." The new documentation website, docs.sentryone.com, offers not only an updated and more comprehensive user guide, but also a central library of product education media. It features an intuitive user experience, with search functionality, a glossary of SentryOne-specific terms, annotated images, video tutorials, and a downloadable version for offline reference. "Our growing team consists of passionate subject matter experts across the company who use their real-life experiences to blog about maximizing the value of SentryOne products with in-depth examples and use cases" said Melissa Connors, SentryOne Senior Technical Writer and Special Projects Lead. "The blog posts and training videos are accessible from related documentation articles for easy reference."
"From onboarding new customers to assisting current ones, this content will help us better communicate the feature-rich capabilities of SentryOne and help our customers monitor, diagnose, and optimize their environments more effectively," said Suril Jasani, SentryOne Senior Manager of Client Services. Both SentryOne end users and members of the SentryOne Global Partner Network will benefit from the new training courses and documentation.
"The training program will help our partners better leverage SentryOne data performance management capabilities for their clients' benefit," said Nick Harshbarger, SentryOne Senior Vice President of Business Development. "Our partners will be able to increase the value of their services and expertise through the use of SentryOne solutions." "Overall, the information provided was valuable and easy to consume," said Thomas Hoover, a Data Platform Consultant at SentryOne partner UpSearch, who has utilized the SentryOne Certified Training courses. "I learned a lot and was able to make connections between the functionality of the software and how to help UpSearch's clients get the most out of their SQL Server purchase." SentryOne Certified Training courses are currently available for SentryOne SQL Sentry, Win Sentry, and V Sentry, with training courses coming soon for the rest of the SentryOne products. The SentryOne Certified Training portal can be accessed at courses.sentryone.com. For a tour of the new training program, see Lori Edwards' blog post, "Introducing SentryOne Certified Training." Get a tour of the new SentryOne documentation website, docs.sentryone.com, in Melissa Connors' blog post "Announcing the New SentryOne Documentation!" About SentryOne SentryOne empowers Microsoft data professionals to build, test, document, and monitor SQL Server, Azure SQL Database, and the Microsoft Data Platform. We help companies accelerate performance across the data lifecycle with unmatched scalability, best-in-industry customer support, and the most powerful data performance management capabilities available. Our team includes more than 160 employees located in Charlotte, NC, Jacksonville, FL, Salem, NH, and Dublin, Ireland. Learn more at SentryOne.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180913005187/en/
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[September 13, 2018] Virtual Instruments to Showcase App-Centric Infrastructure Performance Management Solutions at HitachiNEXT 2018
SAN JOSE, Calif., Sept. 13, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Virtual Instruments , the leader in application-centric infrastructure performance management, announced today its participation at HitachiNEXT 2018 , taking place in San Diego from September 25-27. At the event, Virtual Instruments will showcase and demo VirtualWisdom , the industrys most comprehensive infrastructure performance monitoring and analytics platform, as well as WorkloadWisdom , the industrys leading storage workload performance validation platform.
NEXT 2018 is the largest annual event for Hitachi Vantara (formerly Hitachi Data Systems) users, and the key theme of the conference is sharing the best ideas to store, protect, enrich, activate and monetize data. Attendees will find both the VirtualWisdom and the WorkloadWisdom platforms to be directly relevant to their performance and availability assurance strategies, and they will also hear about Virtual Instruments recently introduced Cloud Migration Readiness Service , which helps companies more intelligently migrate workloads to the most optimal public cloud service provider. By holistically monitoring, analyzing and optimizing the performance, utilization and health of IT infrastructure within the context of the application, VirtualWisdom enables enterprises to manage theirstorage infrastructure from an application-centric point of view. This app-centric approach helps enterprises assure the performance and availability of the business-critical infrastructure, which allows them to focus on delivering highly innovative applications and services to their customers. Network Attached Storage (NAS) users from Hitachi Vantara will find the VirtualWisdom NAS Performance Probe to be the only real-time wire data performance monitoring platform for their mission-critical storage infrastructures.
Today, many organizations storage performance validation and forecasting practices rely on an inadequate combination of DIY testing, vendor claims and guesswork, resulting in significant infrastructure over-provisioning and unnecessary production risk. WorkloadWisdom enables enterprises to overcome these challenges by providing them with a scalable high-performance platform for storage workload modeling, testing, validation and performance analysis from production-to-the-lab. This results in deployment decisions that can ensure the performance of business-critical applications, and save millions in storage costs which underscores the role storage can play in helping enterprises extract maximum value from their data. Following are details on Virtual Instruments presence at NEXT 2018:
What: Live demos, 1:1 meetings with Virtual Instruments senior technical and product leadership team, daily giveaways
Live demos, 1:1 meetings with Virtual Instruments senior technical and product leadership team, daily giveaways Where: Virtual Instruments booth in the Indigo Ballroom, 2nd Fl, Section E Hilton San Diego Bayfront 1 Park Blvd, San Diego, CA 92101
When: September 25-27, 2018 Both VirtualWisdom and WorkloadWisdom will be showcased and available for demo at NEXT 2018, giving attendees the opportunity to see first-hand how app-centric infrastructure performance management solutions can benefit their IT organizations. To learn more about Virtual Instruments and its app-centric infrastructure performance management solutions, please visit: https://www.virtualinstruments.com/ To learn more about NEXT 2018, please visit: http://www.hitachinext.com/en-us/home.html About Virtual Instruments
Virtual Instruments is the leader in application-centric infrastructure performance management. It provides comprehensive infrastructure instrumentation and performance analytics for enterprise data centers. The companys solutions give IT teams deep workload visibility and actionable insights into their end-to-end systems across the hybrid data center. Virtual Instruments empowers companies to maximize the performance, availability and utilization of their production IT infrastructure. Virtual Instruments has over 500 customers, including enterprise IT, cloud service providers and storage vendors. The privately held company is headquartered in San Jose, Calif. For more information, visit https://www.virtualinstruments.com . Contact
Anne Stanley
10Fold for Virtual Instruments
virtualinstruments@10fold.com
+1 415 800 5383
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[September 13, 2018] Two Lexia Learning Products Honored in the 2018 Tech Edvocate Awards
BOSTON, Sept. 13, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Lexia Learning today announced that its personalized literacy programs Lexia Core5 Reading (Core5) and Lexia PowerUp Literacy (PowerUp) were both honored in the 2018 Tech Edvocate awards. The Tech Edvocate awards recognize outstanding products in the edtech industry that are focused on advocating for students by catering to identified classroom and learning needs.
Lexia Core5 Reading was named the winner in the category for Best Literacy App or Tool. Core5 is a research-proven, technology-based program that accelerates the development of fundamental literacy skills for students of all abilities in grades pre-K5. Core5 provides explicit, systematic instruction through personalized learning paths in six areas of reading. The program seamlessly adapts with student performance, targeting skill gaps as they emerge, and equipping teachers with the data and instructional resources they need to personalize instruction for every student. The online student dashboard encourages students to set goals and take ownrship of their learning.
Lexia PowerUp Literacy was recognized as a finalist in the category of Best Personalized/Adaptive Learning App or Tool. PowerUp is designed to enhance core English language arts instruction for non-proficient readers in grades 6 and above. Blending online student-driven instruction with offline teacher-delivered lessons and activities, PowerUp accelerates the development of both fundamental literacy skills and higher-order thinking skills through adaptive learning paths. It addresses the instructional needs of a wide range of students, from struggling to nearly proficient readers, by identifying skill gaps and providing personalized, systematic instruction. Winners and finalists were selected by a panel of educators and K-12 parents who reviewed the submissions and judged the products and services based on the extent to which they are transforming education through the development or advocacy of edtech. The judges also took the results of a popular vote into consideration for the finalist selection process.
Were proud to have both Core5 and PowerUp recognized as robust technology-based products that are personalizing literacy instruction for elementary and secondary students, alike, said Lexia President Nick Gaehde. For more than 30 years, we have been committed to ensuring that our products improve learning outcomes for all students and that will continue long into the future. # # # About Lexia Learning
Lexia Learning, a Rosetta Stone company, empowers educators through adaptive assessment and personalized instruction. For more than 30 years, the company has been on the leading edge of research and product development as it relates to student reading skills. With a robust offering that includes solutions for differentiated instruction, personalized learning, and assessment, Lexia Learning provides educators with the tools to intensify and accelerate literacy skills development for students of all abilities. For more information, visit www.lexialearning.com. About Rosetta Stone
Rosetta Stone Inc. (NYSE: RST) is dedicated to changing peoples lives through the power of language and literacy education. The companys innovative digital solutions drive positive learning outcomes for the inspired learner at home or in schools and workplaces around the world. Founded in 1992, Rosetta Stones language division uses cloud-based solutions to help all types of learners read, write, and speak more than 30 languages. Lexia Learning, Rosetta Stone's literacy education division, was founded more than 30 years ago and is a leader in the literacy education space. Today, Lexia helps students build fundamental reading skills through its rigorously researched, independently evaluated, and widely respected instruction and assessment programs. For more information, visit www.rosettastone.com. Rosetta Stone is a registered trademark or trademark of Rosetta Stone Ltd. in the United States and other countries. Media Contact: Charlotte Andrist charlotte@nickelcommpr.com 770-310-5244
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Hot Topics Recap: Hurricane Florence
Following are the latest Hurricane Florence news releases and story ideas for reporters, bloggers and media outlets. These recaps, curated by Business Wire, provide reporters and bloggers around the globe instant access to the latest news releases, providing relevant and trending content to share with their audiences. Discover more news via Business Wire's Hot Topic recaps or create a custom news feed specific to your needs here. This service is provided at no charge to members of the media and financial communities.
INDIANAPOLIS--Anthem Activates Plan to Help Residents in States Impacted by Hurricane Florence Source (News - Alert) : Anthem Inc.
CARY, N.C.--Media Advisory: Important Information from Aqua North Carolina Related to Hurricane Florence Source: Aqua North Carolina
INDIANAPOLIS--Anthem Activates Plan to Help Residents in States Impacted by Hurricane Florence Source: Anthem Inc.
IRVINE, Calif.--Hurricane Florence Could Unleash Storm Surge Damage on Nearly 759,000 Homes in the Carolinas and Virginia, Early CoreLogic Analysis Shows Source: CoreLogic
CLEVELAND--Mace Brand Announces Free Overnight Shipping of Mace Alert 911 to States Affected by Hurricane Florence Source: Mace Security International, Inc.
PITTSBURGH--MVP Advances Preparations for Unprecedented Weather Conditions Source: Mountain Valley Pipeline
RALEIGH, N.C.--UnitedHealthcare and Optum Support People in the Carolinas and Virginia Preparing for Hurricane Florence Source: UnitedHealthcare
WASHINGTON--GEICO's CAT Team is Being Deployed for Hurricane Florence Source: GEICO
RALEIGH, N.C.--Frontier Communications Prepares for Hurricane Florence; Offers Storm Preparedness and Safety Tips to Help Customers Be Ready Source: Frontier Communications Corporation
HOUSTON--Houston-Based Company Ready to Respond to Category 4 Hurricane Florence Source: Sun Coast Resources, Inc.
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz.--Magellan Health Provides Free Counseling Services and Referrals to Individuals Impacted by Hurricane Florence Source: Magellan (News - Alert) Health, Inc.
DALLAS--T-System Offers Disaster Relief T Sheets Free of Charge to Hospitals in the Path of Hurricane Florence Source: T-System, Inc.
HARTFORD, Conn.--Aetna Offers Assistance Ahead of Hurricane Florence Source: Aetna
BLOOMFIELD, Conn.--Cigna Helps Residents in Affected States Prepare for Hurricane Florence Source: Cigna Corporation
AVENTURA, Fla.--The Carolinas, Georgia, Virginia are Bracing for Hurricane Florence Source: Brodsky & Associates, Inc.
HARTFORD, Conn.--Travelers Reminds Consumers About Importance of Storm Preparation Source: The Travelers Companies, Inc.
About Business Wire:
Business Wire, a Berkshire Hathaway company, is the global leader in press release distribution and regulatory disclosure. Investor relations, public relations, public policy and marketing professionals rely on Business Wire to accurately distribute market-moving news and multimedia, host online newsrooms and IR websites, build content marketing platforms, generate social engagements and provide audience analysis that improves interaction with specified target markets. Founded in 1961, Business Wire is a trusted source for news organizations, journalists, investment professionals and regulatory authorities, delivering news directly into editorial systems and leading online news sources via its multi-patented NX Network. Business Wire has 28 offices worldwide to securely meet the varying needs of communications professionals and news consumers.
Learn more at services.BusinessWire.com and Tempo, the Business Wire resource for industry trends; follow updates on Twitter (News - Alert) : @businesswire or on Facebook.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180913005550/en/
[September 13, 2018] Optimus Information Named Fastest Growing on the 2018 Growth 500 List
Canadian Business unveils 30th annual list of Canada's Fastest-Growing Companies VANCOUVER, Sept. 13, 2018 /CNW/ - For the second year in a row, Canadian Business and Maclean's has ranked Optimus Information on the 30th annual Growth 500, the definitive ranking of Canada's Fastest-Growing Companies. Produced by Canada's premier business and current affairs media brands, the Growth 500 ranks Canadian businesses on five-year revenue growth. Growth 500 winners are profiled in a special print issue of Canadian Business, published with Maclean's magazine and online at CanadianBusiness.com and Growth500.ca. Foresight, Innovation and Smart Management are Key "The companies on the 2018 Growth 500 are truly remarkable. Demonstrating foresight, innovation and smart management, their stories serve as a primer for how to build a successful entrepreneurial business today," says Deborah Aarts, Growth 500 program manager. "As we celebrate 30 years of the Canada's Fastest-Growing Companies program, it's encouraging to see that entrepreneurship is healthier than ever in this country." "We are incredibly honoured to be on the Growth 500 ranking again," said Pankaj Agarwal, founder and CEO of Optimus Information. "This is a testament to the continued commitment of our entire team, our partners and our customers. We are extremely focused on providing value through the products and solutions we offer, and will continue to listen and deliver on what our customers need." Optimus Also Recognized Globally by International Association of Microsoft Partners (IAMCP) In addition to being named a 2018 Growth 500 company, Optimus Information also recently won two prestigious awards at the 2018 Microsoft Inspire conference. Founder Pankaj Agarwal was named a champion of diversity for his commitent to corporate gender diversity and STEM education for young girls. Optimus Information is one of only a handful of technology companies to have reached 50/50 gender parity across their corporation.
Optimus Information also took home the Canadian Bronze honour in the global category for partner-to-partner awards. This award recognized Optimus's work with Squirrel Systems as they moved their industry-leading hospitality and restaurant POS application from a legacy on-premises solution to the cloud. Because the application deployed so much of the latest thinking around mobility, analytics, AI and more, Microsoft is jointly working with Optimus and Squirrel to develop a formal case study for others to learn from. "Our company continues to achieve year-over-year growth because we are laser-focused on helping our customers rapidly scale their own businesses," said Ryan O'Connor, chief technology strategist, Optimus Information. "We share the same vision as the partners and customers we work with and, therefore, our success is their success. This year, we've all had an amazing amount of success."
For more information on how to optimize your Dev/Ops efforts, including automating testing, by working with one of Canada's fastest growing companies, contact Ryan O'Connor directly at ryan.oconnor@optimusinfo.com or 1-604-785-0065. About Optimus Information Headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia, Optimus Information also has offices in India. Optimus is designed to help global organizations address their information needs. The company provides outsourced technology services to mid-sized organizations, which have different needs than Fortune 500 companies. Visit our website Like us on Facebook Follow us on Twitter Follow us on LinkedIn About the Growth 500 For 30 years, the Growth 500 has been Canada's most respectable and influential ranking of entrepreneurial achievement. Ranking Canada's Fastest-Growing Companies by five-year revenue growth, the Growth 500formerly known as the PROFIT 500profiles the country's most successful growing businesses. The Growth 500 is produced by Canadian Business. Winners are profiled in a special Growth 500 print issue of Canadian Business (packaged with the October issue of Maclean's magazine) and online at Growth500.ca and CanadianBusiness.com. For more information on the ranking, visit Growth500.ca. About Canadian Business Founded in 1928, Canadian Business is the longest-serving and most trusted business publication in the country. It is the country's premier media brand for executives and senior business leaders. It fuels the success of Canada's business elite with a focus on the things that matter most: leadership, innovation, business strategy and management tactics. Learn more at CanadianBusiness.com. SOURCE Optimus Information Inc
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[September 13, 2018] AlayaCare Ranks No. 18 on the 2018 Startup 50
Canadian Business unveils 2018 list of Canada's Top New Growth Companies Ranking reflects two-year revenue growth; follows recent announcement of Series B Funding, client growth in Canada and abroad, and continued innovation of its platform. TORONTO, Sept. 13, 2018 /CNW/ - AlayaCare, the leading cloud-based software for home and community care providers, today secured the No. 18 spot on the 2018 Startup 50 ranking of Canada's Top New Growth Companies as published by Canadian Business and Maclean's. AlayaCare made the 2018 Startup 50 list with two-year revenue growth of 1014% "We believe that data and technology can meaningfully improve the quality of care provided to aging adults," said Adrian Schauer, CEO, AlayaCare. "Our healthcare will continue to be strained by the silver tsunami and the only way that community care systems can sustain the increased demand is by applying technology that can help deliver care where and when the recipient dictates," continued Schauer. Founded in 2014 with customers in Canada and Dubai, AlayaCare has since expanded to the United States and Australia as its platform can support varying and complex service delivery models. AlayaCare helps create capacity within client organizations, and it can provide key business insights that clients can use to increase efficiencies and better deploy resources. The software suite includes scheduling, ime reporting, clinical documentation, remote patient monitoring and mobile, billing, and web apps specifically for patients, family members, and care workers.
"We're really just getting started," continued Schauer. "We're bringing digital processes, AI and machine learning capabilities to an industry that is still largely paper-based and we're helping our clients focus on the delivery of care rather than administrative tasks. The opportunity to integrate predictive tools, remote patient monitoring and virtual care into the service mix has incredible potential for patients, our clients and our business." Serving as a companion list to the longstanding Growth 500 ranking of Canada's Fastest-Growing Companies and produced by Canada's premier business and current affairs media brands, the Startup 50 ranks younger companies on two-year revenue growth. Startup 50 winners are profiled in a special print issue of Canadian Business published with Maclean's magazine and online at CanadianBusiness.com.
About AlayaCare
AlayaCare's unique platform includes Back Office, Client and Family Portals, Remote Patient Monitoring, Telehealth, and Mobile Care Worker functionality in one integrated, highly robust and secure, cloud-based system. AlayaCare is providing the platform for Home and Community Care organizations to propel towards innovation and home care of the future. AlayaCare was founded in 2014. www.alayacare.com About the Startup 50
Ranking Canada's Top New Growth Companies by two-year revenue growth, the Startup 50 profiles the fastest-growing startups in the country. It is a companion list to the Growth 500 ranking of Canada's Fastest-Growing Companies, which has, for 30years, been Canada's most respectable and influential ranking of entrepreneurial achievement. Both the Startup 50 and Growth 500 are published in a special issue of Canadian Business published with Macleans's magazine and at CanadianBusiness.com. For more information on the ranking visit Growth500.ca or CanadianBusiness.com. About Canadian Business
Founded in 1928, Canadian Business is the longest-serving and most-trusted business publication in the country. It is the country's premier media brand for executives and senior business leaders. It fuels the success of Canada's business elite with a focus on the things that matter most: leadership, innovation, business strategy and management tactics. Learn more at CanadianBusiness.com. SOURCE Alayacare Inc
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[September 13, 2018] Announcing BitGo Trust Company: the Only Regulated, Qualified Custodian Purpose-Built for Digital Assets
BitGo, the market leader in institutional-grade cryptocurrency security, today announced that the South Dakota Division of Banking has approved BitGo Trust Company as a public South Dakota Trust Company. BitGo Trust Company is the first qualified custodian purpose-built for storing digital assets. Built on BitGo's pioneering institutional-grade, multi-signature security, BitGo Custody delivers modern security for modern assets. "Custody has been the missing piece of cryptocurrency market infrastructure and this gap has kept institutional investors out of the market," said Mike Belshe, CEO, BitGo. "Traditional custodians don't have experience handling cryptocurrency. Exchanges that double as custodians present a conflict of interest and raise regulatory concerns. BitGo Trust Company is a qualified custodian, and therefore the only custody offering that delivers the highest levels of both security and regulatory compliance." Since 2013, BitGo has provided the only institutional-grade, multi-signature, multi-coin hot wallet. BitGo Custody builds on BitGo's history as a leader in cryptocurrency security solutions for institutional investors. BitGo Custody offerings provide the strict policies procedures, controls, and disclosures that are only guaranteed with a qualified custodian. Earlier this year, BitGo announced that it had completed a SOC 2 examination.
BitGo Custody delivers: 100% cold storage technology in bank-grade Class III vaults
Support for 75+ coins and tokens
Institutional-grade policy controls
Multi-user accounts
Fast onboarding
24/7 support Pricing
BitGo Custody offers low setup and assets under custody (AUC) fees. After a year, clients may be eligible for a fee credit if their AUC balance is equal to or greater than it was during the prior 12-month period. About BitGo BitGo Inc. is the market leader in institutional-grade investment services, providing institutional investors with security, compliance, and custodial solutions for blockchain-based currencies. BitGo is the world's largest processor of on-chain bitcoin transactions, processing 15% of all global bitcoin transactions, and $15 billion per month across all cryptocurrencies. The company has a customer base that includes the world's largest cryptocurrency exchanges and spans more than 50 countries. BitGo is headquartered in Palo Alto (News - Alert) , California, and has offices in London, Singapore, and Tokyo. For additional information, please visit www.BitGo.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180913005218/en/
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[September 13, 2018] Explore Safe Social Media With Seven-Day Free Trial for ConnectSocial App
PALO ALTO, Calif., Sept. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Data privacy is an oftheard term today, especially in connection with large social media sites where users are regularly complaining of data leaks, making them think twice before sharing any information online. But now, a new social media app, ConnectSocial, brings back the fun into networking by creating a safe platform that maintains the privacy of its users, ensuring they can be themselves without any second thoughts. The newly launched app has been designed to address the security concerns of social media users. Built by a Silicon Valley-based tech firm, the app creates a self-moderated community of individuals to promote a bullying-free and enjoyable online networking experience. "We want to give our users the freedom to be themselves without worrying about their data. ConnectSocial gives utmost attention to data privacy and empowers users with more control over their feed. ConnectSocial users can control how they interact with others on the platform by blocking, hiding or reporting any posts they don't like or feel safe about," says Tariku Bogale, founder of ConnectSocial Inc., responsible for developing the ConnectSocial app. Integrating the best features of popular apps such as Facebook and Instagram that people have come to define their social media experience by, the app takes the experience several notches higher by making it completely free from advertisements. "ConnectSocial users needn't worry about their social searches getting shared with advertisers, making them a victim of targeted ads that ruin the browsing experience for many," explains Mr. Bogale. Launched in July 2018, the app has already crossed 10,000 installs in North America, showing that users value privacy and experience over everything else. Currently, ConnectSocial is free to join for seven days, after which it is available at a modest price of $0.99 a month or $7.99 a year. "Respect is the foundation on which the idea of the ConnectSocial app has been forged," adds Mr. Bogale. "We aim to facilitate social integration amongst users in a safe environment by allowin them to share photos, videos, like, comment and chat without ever being eavesdropped upon."
Here are some of the top app features: Build meaningful connections - With the ConnectSocial app, users can stay in touch with friends and family through a robust social media network. Like, comment and share posts publicly or chat individually, sharing text, images, location, as well as contacts in chat.
With the ConnectSocial app, users can stay in touch with friends and family through a robust social media network. Like, comment and share posts publicly or chat individually, sharing text, images, location, as well as contacts in chat. Express yourself better The app provides integrity of self-expression by enabling users to integrate thoughts, multiple images and videos in their feed.
The app provides integrity of self-expression by enabling users to integrate thoughts, multiple images and videos in their feed. A distraction-free network ConnectSocial is completely free of advertisements ensuring a seamless browsing experience.
ConnectSocial is completely free of advertisements ensuring a seamless browsing experience. Data privacy An exceptionally secure social media app that protects data privacy. Users can hide posts they don't like, disable comments on their feed and report abuse by other users instantly.
An exceptionally secure social media app that protects data privacy. Users can hide posts they don't like, disable comments on their feed and report abuse by other users instantly. Self-moderating community ConnectSocial is a self-moderating community that enables users to decide what must show on their feed and not. The newly launched social media app is quickly gaining popularity, having crossed 10,000 installs in less than 60 days of its launch. For users who cherish their privacy, the app is currently offering a seven-day free trial where they can experience all the features of the app absolutely free of cost.
It is easy to sign up for a trial. Simply create an account and enter the OTP received by phone to get the option of signing up for a free trial. Verify email address and start enjoying ConnectSocial the most secure social media app that respects a user's privacy. Device Requirements for iPhone: Size: 84 MB
System: Requires iOS 10.0 or later.
Compatible with iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. Device Requirements for Android: Size: 26 MB
System: 5.0 and up Pricing and Availability: ConnectSocial is available for free with in-app purchases on the App Store in the Social Networking category and also available for free with in-app purchases at Google Play Store in the Social category. Media Contact: Contact Name: Tariku Bogale
Phone: + 1 (650) 304-0661
Contact E-mail: info@connect.social Related Images app-icon.jpg
App icon
A premium social network self-moderating-community.jpg
Self-Moderating Community
Decide what stays on your feed and not built-on-the-principles-of-privacy.jpg
Built on the Principles of Privacy
Keeps all your data secure while protecting you from social media abuse Related Links ConnectSocial: Secure Network 1.3 Download Link Related Video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnT0ls6jmUE View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/explore-safe-social-media-with-seven-day-free-trial-for-connectsocial-app-300711975.html SOURCE ConnectSocial Inc.
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[September 13, 2018] First Responders Come to the Rescue on New Forever Stamp
MISSOULA, Mont., Sept. 13, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Firefighters, law enforcement officers, emergency medical service professionals and other emergency personnel are being recognized today by the U.S. Postal Service at a special first-day-of issue ceremony for the Honoring First Responders Forever stamp. "Our nation's first responders rush into life-threatening situations for the benefit of others," said Guy Cottrell, the Postal Inspection Service's Chief Postal Inspector and dedicating official. "The Postal Service is pleased to honor their skill, dedication and unfailing bravery with this stamp." The ceremony was held at the Aerial Fire Depot and Smokejumper Center in Missoula, MT, home to the nation's largest training center for firefighters who parachute into remote areas of national forests to combat wildfires. Artist Brian Stauffer worked with art director and designer Antonio Alcala and designer Ricky Altizer to create this stamp. As a contributing artist to The New York Times, Time magazine, The New Yorker and other publications worldwide, Stauffer's illustrations are best known for bridging traditional and digital realms to create a conceptual take on social issues. Emergencies of all varieties and scales occur in our communities every day, from crimes and medical incidents to accidents and fires. These critical situations require men and women who possess the training and knowledge to rescue the endangered, treat the injured, and restore safety and order. First responders are found throughout our society, from small townships to the federal government. They include a wide range of law enforcement professionals and public safety personnel, from air marshals and transit police officers, to ski patrollers, park rangers, and fish and game wardens. For many, it is a volunteer job; for others, it is their full-time occupation. Social media enthusiasts are encouraged to use #HonoringFirstResponders and #FirstRespondersStamps when sharing news about the new stamp. Customers may purchase the stamps through the Postal Store at usps.com/shop, by calling 800-STAMP24 (800-782-6724) or at Post Office locations nationwide. Philatelic products, including first-day-of issue postmarks and covers for this stamp, may be ordered online at USA Philatelic under "Collectors." Video of the ceremony will be available on Facebook. The Postal Service receives no tax dollars for operating expenses and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations. For U.S. Postal Service media resources, including broadcast quality video and audio and photo stills, visit the USPS Newsroom. Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and LinkedIn. Subscribe to the USPS YouTube Channel, like us on Facebook and enjoy our Postal Posts blog. For more information about the Postal Service, visit usps.com and usps.com/postalfacts.
Contacts: Cathy Purcell 202.819.2268 cathy.k.purcell@usps.gov usps.com/news Rod Spurgeon 303-313-5133 rod.j.spurgeon@usps.com http://www.usps.com/news
View original content to download multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/first-responders-come-to-the-rescue-on-new-forever-stamp-300712140.html SOURCE U.S. Postal Service
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The morning of July 16, the three males wore ski masks and gloves and entered the house, the affidavit states. A female who was sleeping on a couch was woken up by the intruders, and one of them pointed a shotgun at her and ordered her to lie face down on the couch, according to the affidavit.
[September 13, 2018] Looker is Named to Forbes 2018 Cloud 100 List for Second Consecutive Year
Looker, a leading data platform company, has been named to the Forbes 2018 Cloud 100, the definitive list of the top 100 private cloud companies in the world, published by Forbes in collaboration with Bessemer Venture Partners and Salesforce Ventures. "Since our recognition in last year's Forbes Cloud 100 list we have continued to innovate around our platform for data and significantly expand the ecosystem around it, taking it beyond traditional business intelligence," said Frank Bien, CEO of Looker. "To once again be recognized by Forbes, Salesforce Ventures and Bessemer as one of the top private cloud companies in the world is an honor that I proudly share with our employees, customers, partners and investors." As part of the rigorous selection process for the Forbes 2018 Cloud 100, Bessemer Venture Partners received submissions from the top cloud startups. The Forbes Cloud 100 judging panel, including top public cloud company CEOs, reviewed the data to select, score and rank the top 100 cloud companies from all over the world. The evaluation process involved four factors: market leadership (35%), estimated valuation (30%), operating metrics (20%), and people & culture (15%). "For the past three years, the Cloud 100 list has identified the top cloud companies that are reshaping their respective industries," said Alex Konrad, Forbes editor of The Cloud 100. "I am consistently impressed by the caliber of companies honored on the Cloud 100 list. It is an exciting time to a be a cloud company and founder." "All of the twenty-five cloud IPOs and major cloud acquisitions over the past three years have been prior members of the Cloud 100, and we absolutely expect that the dominant public cloud companies of the future will also come from this list," said Bron Deeter, a top cloud investor and partner at Bessemer Venture Partners. "The 2018 Cloud 100 represents well over $135B in private shareholder value--an astonishing figure that reminds us yet again of the power of the cloud. The way we do business will be dramatically different as a result of these companies and I am honored to celebrate the remarkable accomplishments of the founders and teams behind each company on the 2018 Cloud 100."
"The business opportunity for cloud companies is tremendous today as capital investment, customer demand and rate of adoption continues to grow," said Matt Garratt, Managing Partner, Salesforce Ventures. "We're excited to see the potential of these companies and look forward to seeing what innovative technology they deliver around the world." Each year the CEOs of The Cloud 100 and the 20 Rising Stars companies are honored at the exclusive Cloud 100 Celebration hosted by Bessemer Venture Partners, Salesforce Ventures, and Forbes.
The Forbes 2018 Cloud 100 and 20 Rising Stars lists are published online at www.forbes.com/cloud100 and will appear in the September 2018 issue of Forbes magazine. About Looker Looker is a complete data platform that offers data analytics and business insights to every department, and easily integrates into applications to deliver data directly into the decision-making process. Over 1,600 industry-leading and innovative companies such as Sony, Amazon, The Economist, IBM (News - Alert) , Spotify, Etsy, Lyft and Kickstarter have trusted Looker to power their data-driven cultures. The company is headquartered in Santa Cruz, California, with offices in San Francisco, New York, Chicago, Boulder, Tokyo, London and Dublin, Ireland. Investors include CapitalG, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Meritech Capital Partners, Redpoint Ventures, First Round Capital, Sapphire Ventures and Goldman Sachs. For more information, connect with us on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube or visit looker.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180913005205/en/
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[September 13, 2018] Guild Mortgage Launches Secure eClose Solution, Offering More Convenient Lending Experience
Guild Mortgage, one of the largest independent mortgage lenders in the U.S., has announced a secure eClose solution powered by Guild's proprietary technology and DocuSign. With Guild's eClose option, customers can choose to review and sign loan documents electronically, helping to make their experience more convenient and efficient. Guild's compliance, operations, and technology teams partnered with DocuSign to create a custom closing experience designed to make the signing of closing documents easier and less time consuming than a traditional mortgage closing. The hybrid eClose process enables customers to sign most loan documents digitally, with a select few documents signed in ink at closing. eClose provides enhanced security protections, while reducing paperwork. Documents are retained in an encrypted electronic envelope and accessible only upon successful user authentication. Customers have peace of mind knowing their personal information is protected. "We are committed to offering our customers a high-tech, high-touch experience that goes beyond typical digital mortgage options," said Mary Ann McGarry, Guild's president and CEO. "Our eClose option combines trusted, user-friendly e-signature technology that is already widely used in the industry and the personal touch Guild is known for in order to offer a better experience." With Guild's eClose, loan documents can be viewed as soon as they are released by Guild, empowering customers to review them whenever they choose, on their computer or mobile device and from the comfort of their home, work or on-the-go. Customers can close with confidence and ease, having had more time to review their final loan documents in advance of closing. When the customer is comfortable with the terms, Guild's early sign option is available on most products and allows them to e-sign the majority f the documents in advance of closing, shortening their closing appointment to just minutes.
Lisa Klika, senior vice president and chief compliance officer at Guild, emphasized the security and ease of the solution, plus benefits to the environment. "In developing this platform, we wanted to provide an easy-to-use, convenient closing solution that offered enhanced safeguards for protection and security of customers' data while also providing them with the benefit of more time to review their loan documents," said Klika. "Our eClose option does both, while cutting down on the amount of paperwork required - something we are very proud of."
Klika said that if all of its loans transitioned to the eClose hybrid solution, Guild would reduce paper consumption and save more than 250 trees per year. By leveraging DocuSign, Guild was able to create a custom eClosing experience designed to maximize functionality, ease of use, and adoption. Guild customers can e-sign from any mobile device with technology now used by hundreds of millions of people worldwide, while the system uses a platform already widely adopted by Guild's settlement agent and real estate partners nationwide. "DocuSign pioneered the development of e-signature technology, and today offers the world's leading e-signature solution as part of its broader System of Agreement Platform," said Georg Gerstenfeld, general manager and vice president of global real estate solutions at DocuSign. "Guild Mortgage has leveraged our platform to build an innovative offering to accelerate the mortgage process and simplify transactions for leading real estate brokers and settlement agents. Given the millions of real estate users that DocuSign already has, we're looking forward to Guild helping even more." A top-10 national lender by purchase loan volume, Guild offers first-time homebuyers a wide range of loan options and personalized service. Its loan professionals can serve the needs of any homebuyer, from helping first-time buyers achieve homeownership, often through government loan programs, to homebuyers looking to upgrade with a jumbo loan. Guild also specializes in helping active duty and retired military personnel to secure VA loans, with 100 percent financing and flexible qualifying standards. The company is consistently recognized for its impact in the communities it serves, commitment to customer service, strength in regulatory compliance, and workplace culture. About Guild Mortgage Founded in 1960 when the modern U.S. mortgage industry was just forming, Guild Mortgage Co. is a nationally recognized independent mortgage lender offering a wide range of residential mortgage products and local in-house processing, underwriting, and funding. Its collegial and entrepreneurial culture enables it to deliver unsurpassed levels of customer service. Having been through every economic cycle, the company has grown 15-fold since 2007, and now has more than 4,000 employees and 344 branch and satellite offices in 29 states. Guild's highly trained loan professionals are experienced in government-sponsored programs such as FHA, VA, USDA, low down payment assistance programs, and other specialized loan programs. The company generated $15.9 billion in loan volume in 2017, as compared to $1.2 billion in 2007. In addition, Guild services more than 190,000 loans, which totaled $38.6 billion in 2017. It has correspondent banking relationships with credit unions and community banks in 47 states. Guild recently earned the J.D. Power award for "Highest in Customer Satisfaction with Primary Mortgage Sales in the U.S.", based on results from its 2017 Primary Mortgage Origination Satisfaction Study?. (Equal Housing Lender - Company NMLS #3274) View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180913005219/en/
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[September 13, 2018] Fastly Launches New Security Solution to Help Scale Secure Modern Browsing Experiences
Digital leaders like Adobe and GitHub use Platform TLS to build trust with users and help companies automate the manual and inefficient task of certificate management, a cornerstone in protecting data privacy
SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 13, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Fastly , the leading edge cloud platform, today announced the launch of Platform TLS, an extensible product to help companies build brand trust and help automate and configure Transport Layer Security (TLS) certificate and key management. The new offering facilitates secure browsing at scale for the hundreds of thousands of domains served from the Fastly edge cloud platform. Today, online brand identity is about more than just design and speed; browsing unencrypted sites can lead to third parties observing and tampering with the actions and information of consumers, which in turn can result in data leaks, ultimately culminating in privacy violations, fraud, and identity theft. Overall, these issues can make it extremely challenging for a company to protect both its users and reputation. But the web is evolving and taking steps to be more secure by default. Web browsers now indicate insecure websites that use the unencrypted HTTP web protocol, while Google Search downranks them. Large companies, such as those offering mass hosting or with multi-brand portfolios can now quickly and easily manage hundreds of thousands of individual certificates in bulk, instead of relying on a number of different vendors across their digital presence. Fastlys offering provides protection and peace-of-mind to those who trust their favorite digital properties to deliver seamless, secure online experiences. The result is a safe, trustworthy, and user-friendy process.
Fastlys Platform TLS makes it easy to manage TLS certificates while improving speed and protecting users. Available through Fastlys API, Platform TLS reduces manual processes, improves security, and saves valuable engineering time by accelerating and automating certificate acquisition and deployment, all while enabling global distribution of encrypted transactions to central clouds through Fastly's edge. By helping companies automate certificate management, it frees up workloads and supports the delivery of hundreds of thousands of certificates, including those from Lets Encrypt, a popular certification authority. The company also launched Subscriber Provided Prefix (SPP), enabling businesses to deliver a consistent user experience by allowing them to white-label Fastlys global network infrastructure and thus future-proofing their brand. Transparency and trust are core values at Fastly, and we work to embody them in all facets of our business. Not only have we fostered deep relationships with our customers, but we in turn empower our customers to cultivate that same kind of trust with their end users, explained Artur Bergman, founder and CEO of Fastly. Our Platform TLS product goes hand-in-hand with that mission, helping brands build trust through fast and secure digital experiences. In equipping brands with the tools they need to securely provide services, we can help them and, subsequently, their users put their best selves forward online.
"Every site needs to use HTTPS because unencrypted plain HTTP traffic can be modified to contain malicious payloads. Encrypting every site on the Web means embracing automation and ease of use for managing HTTPS deployments, and that's why we created Let's Encrypt. We're happy to see Fastly embrace those principles to help more people and organizations secure their sites, said Josh Aas, Executive Director of Internet Security Research Group, the organization behind Lets Encrypt. For brands like Adobe, which utilizes Platform TLS for its Adobe Portfolio sites, managing certificates at scale is crucial to protecting the security and brand identity of its users. Adobe puts the user first, and we know that a site marked as insecure can severely damage an individuals brand. Thats why Adobe Portfolio now has TLS powered by Fastly, said Mike Sherov, Director of Engineering at Adobe. Fastly is the only company with which we can integrate affordably at our scale. Not only is Fastlys Platform TLS good for our users to build their brands securely, its good for the internet as a whole. The company has added leading brands like Alaska Airlines, Audi of America, BuzzFeed, Gannett, Reddit, TED, and Vice over the last three years. More recently, Fastly earned a spot on the coveted Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing private companies. To learn more about Platform TLS and Subscriber Provided Prefix visit: https://www.fastly.com/products/cloud-security/tls-encryption About Fastly
Fastly helps the worlds most popular digital businesses keep pace with their customer expectations by delivering fast, secure, and scalable online experiences. Businesses trust Fastlys edge cloud platform to accelerate the pace of technical innovation, mitigate evolving threats, and scale on demand. Founded in 2011, Fastly powers online destinations including Airbnb, GitHub, Alaska Airlines, Pinterest, Vimeo, The Guardian, and The New York Times. Learn more at Fastly.com and follow us on Twitter @fastly. Media Contact
Maggie Philbin
VSC for Fastly
fastly@vscconsulting.com
203.394.1818
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[September 13, 2018] i3 Broadband Sponsors Business Expo for the 52nd Annual Morton Pumpkin Festival
i3 Broadband announced today that it is the proud sponsor of the Business Expo tent at this week's 52nd Annual Morton Pumpkin Festival. i3 Broadband also will be providing free public WIFI access for festival attendees. "We are thrilled to enhance our partnership with i3Broadband in sponsoring our Business Expo tent, giving businesses the opportunity to set up a booth and connect with festival attendees," said Leigh Ann Brown, CEO & Executive Director, Morton Chamber of Commerce. "Our sponsors provide the opportunity to host an array of experiences and to give back to youth groups and non-profits volunteering their time to host the festival. i3 Broadband also provides excellent WIFI service to our festival grounds!" The Business Expo tent also hosts the Pumpkin Fstival merchandise store, interactive Libby's booth and a display of giant pumpkins from the weigh-off. i3 Broadband is sponsoring the festival for the 5th year in a row as one of many local community events that the company participates in throughout the year.
"Sponsoring local events is one of the many ways we invest and give back to the community," said Grier Raclin, President and CEO of i3 Broadband. "The Business Expo tent will host more than 50 local businesses, and we're happy to make sure they have reliable access to the Internet." The festival is raising funds for Midwest Food Bank's Tender Mercies program, and $5 from each $10-$25 registration fee will go to the program. The festival takes place Wednesday, September 12 through Saturday, September 15.
For the complete Pumpkin Festival schedule, visit www.mortonpumpkinfestival.org. About i3 Broadband Locally-based i3 Broadband provides TV, Voice and Internet services through a 100% fiber-optic network in the greater Peoria, Champaign and Urbana, Illinois markets. For more information, visit www.i3broadband.com or call 877-976-0711. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180913005722/en/
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[September 13, 2018] FOX News Partners with the National Merit Scholarship Program to Establish Memorial Scholarship For Charles Krauthammer
FOX News Channel (FNC) has partnered with the National Merit Scholarship Program to establish the Dr. Charles Krauthammer Memorial Scholarship, announced Suzanne Scott, CEO of FOX News. The scholarship will be awarded to children of FNC and FOX Business Network (FBN) employees beginning in 2020. In making the announcement, Scott said, "Charles was a beloved member of the FOX News family, but more importantly, he was an incredible mentor and role model for millions of Americans across the country. We are proud to honor Charles, his legacy, impact and countless contributions with a new scholarship program enabling the next generation of thought leaders the opportunity and education they need to reach their dreams." Established by FOX News for the eligible children of network employees, the Dr. Charles Krauthammer Memorial Scholarship will award winners $2,000 per college year for a maximum of four years. All aspects of the program, including the selection of winners and the administration of their awards, will be conducted through the National Merit Scholarship Program by the independent, not-for-profit National Merit Scholarship Corporation (NMSC). Applications will be accepted by NMSC through March 31, 2019 and winners will be announced in the spring of 2020. To be eligible, U.S. high school juniors planning to enter college in the fall of 2020 must take the 2018 PSAT/NMSQT test and meet several academic and other requirements set by the NMSC. Winners will be chosen on a competitive basis without regard to family financial circumstances, gender, race, ethnic origin or religious preference. Each year, NMSC will disburse the scholarship directly to the accredited U.S. college/university following a determination the student has remained in good standing. Furthermore, the scholarship belongs to the student and will not be affected should their parent leave the company following the communication of the award.
Dr. Krauthammer served as a contributor to FNC from 2002 up until his death in 2018. Highly regarded for his respectful discourse, Krauthammer contributed political commentary and analysis across both FNC and FBN's daytime and primetime programming. Throughout his tenure with the network, Krauthammer made frequent appearances on Special Report with Bret Baier and FOX News Sunday. He was an American Pulitzer Prize-winning syndicated journalist and physician as well as a contributing editor to The Weekly Standard. Additionally, Krauthammer joined The Washington Post in 1984, where he continued to write a weekly syndicated column until his passing. Krauthammer began his journalism career at The New Republic. Prior to this, he served as a speech writer to Vice President Walter Mondale in 1980 and as chief resident in psychiatry at the Massachusetts General Hospital.
He was a recipient of numerous honors, including the 1987 Pulitzer Prize for commentary, the 2013 William F. Buckley Award for Media Excellence, the 1984 National Magazine Award for Essays and Criticisms, and the first annual Bradley Prize. Krauthammer also authored of the best-selling "Things That Matter: Three Decades of Passions, Pastimes and Politics" and "Democratic Realism: An American Foreign Policy for a Unipolar World." A graduate of McGill University with a B.A. in political science and economics, Krauthammer went on to become a Commonwealth Scholar at Balliol College in Oxford and earned his M.D. from Harvard Medical School. FOX News operates the FOX News Channel (FNC), FOX Business Network (FBN), FOX News Radio, FOX News Headlines 24/7, FOXNews.com and the soon to launch OTT platform, FOX Nation. FOX News also produces FOX News Sunday on FOX Broadcasting Company and FOX News Edge. A top five-cable network, FNC has been the most watched news channel in the country for more than 16 years. According to a 2018 Research Intelligencer study by Brand Keys, FOX News ranks as the second most trusted television brand in the country while a Suffolk University/USA Today survey states that FOX News is the most trusted source for television news or commentary in the country. FNC is available in 90 million homes and dominates the cable news landscape while routinely notching the top ten programs in the genre. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180913005732/en/
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[September 13, 2018] Kx Technology Selected by Canadian Securities Administrators for Advanced Market Surveillance
Kx, a division of First Derivatives plc, announces that it has been selected by the Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) to build and manage a next generation market analytics platform designed to assess, investigate and explain potential market abuse cases. Kx will combine the power of the technology's existing suite of analytics with machine learning algorithms to deliver a Market Analysis Platform (MAP) that will improve insight and support market integrity. MAP will be hosted and managed by Kx and will provide rapid and flexible data interrogation capabilities for the CSA. The multi-year contract extends Kx's market-leading presence for regulators seeking advanced technologies to ensure the integrity and security of their markets, with regulators across the globe relying on Kx's capabilities. Brian Conlon, Chief Executive Officer of Kx commented: "Kx is a natural choice to assist CA (News - Alert) members in ensuring the integrity of its markets. We continue to win market share in surveillance, with banks, buy side firms, exchanges as well as regulators, with key drivers including the power and flexibility of our technology as well as our capabilities in areas such as AI and machine learning."
About Kx
Kx is a division of FD, a global technology provider with 20 years of experience working with some of the world's largest finance, technology, retail, pharma, manufacturing and energy institutions. Kx technology, incorporating the kdb+ time-series database, is a leader in high-performance, in-memory computing, streaming analytics and operational intelligence. Kx delivers the best possible performance and flexibility for high-volume, data-intensive analytics and applications across multiple industries. The Group operates from 14 offices across Europe, North America and Asia Pacific, including its headquarters in Newry, and employs more than 2,400 people worldwide. For more information about Kx please visit www.kx.com. For general enquiries, write to info@kx.com.
View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180913005728/en/
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[September 13, 2018] Best's Briefing: Hurricane Florence Imperils Single-State Property Insurers in the Carolinas
A.M. Best's analysis shows that the top companies exposed to property catastrophe risks in North Carolina and South Carolina that are likely to be affected by Hurricane Florence possess a strong level of risk-adjusted capitalization. However, according to a new briefing, single-state writers in these sates could see considerable gross losses relative to surplus depending on the severity and location of the storm. The Best's Briefing, "First Look: Hurricane Florence," notes that the market share of the large national writers such as State Farm, Nationwide and Allstate, is considerable in the states in Hurricane Florence's path, but the size of their portfolios in relation to policyholders' surplus is relatively small. The briefing includes Top 10 lists of companies in North Carolina, South Carolina and Virginia whose direct written premiums in the state represent the highest percentage of the companies' total direct written premiums. A compounding factor is the increased population and development in the area since the Hurricane Hugo in 1989, the last major storm to strike the Carolinas. Given the size and intensity of Hurricane Florence's winds and the expected, resulting storm surge, losses have the potential to be significant. Personal lines and small commercial lines insurers are likely to experience the majority of losses; however, should the storm maintain strength inland, it could reach the technology centers of Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill, where commercial exposure is considerable. A.M. Best does not expec the direct losses to threaten the financial health of most insurers, given the robust nature of the current reinsurance programs most companies have in place. The considerable level of protection is owed to prior years of favorable reinsurance market conditions, which supplied primary carriers with favorable terms and ample top-limit protection. Additionally, improvements over the last decade in overall risk management capabilities, including exposure analysis, data availability surrounding risk characteristics and greater granularity in pricing likely will play a role in mitigating losses associated with this event.
Most reinsurers will experience losses from Hurricane Florence due to the highly syndicated nature of property catastrophe business, and the potential exists for losses to impact alternative capacity on a reinsurance and retrocessional basis as its participation in the sector has increased year over year. However, it is A.M. Best's belief that unless losses are materially outside of expectations or followed up by subsequent large catastrophic losses, it is unlikely to see any meaningful market hardening outside of loss-affected areas. A.M. Best will closely monitor the situation and evaluate Hurricane Florence's impact in the context of its loss expectations. Although company loss estimates will take time to determine, all A.M. Best-rated entities are expected to provide preliminary estimates and/or ranges of their potential losses within a reasonable timeframe. These loss estimates should include any potential effects and take into account the involvement of any government-specific wind and beach residual market mechanisms when applicable.
To access the full copy of this briefing, please visit http://www3.ambest.com/bestweek/purchase.asp?record_code=278097. A.M. Best is a global rating agency and information provider with a unique focus on the insurance industry. Visit www.ambest.com for more information. Copyright 2018 by A.M. Best Rating Services, Inc. and/or its affiliates. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180913005771/en/
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[September 13, 2018] Samsung Supports Verizon's 5G Home Launch with 5G End-to-End Solutions
Samsung (News - Alert) Electronics America, Inc. today announced their support of Verizon's 5G Home service, which will provide 5G broadband Internet service to consumers in Los Angeles, Sacramento, Houston and Indianapolis. Verizon's 5G broadband Internet service is the world's first 5G commercial network. The service is supported by Samsung's FCC (News - Alert) -certified 5G solutions, which includes a compact 5G home and outdoor router, 5G Radio (Access Unit, Digital Unit-integrated type), and virtualized radio solutions. After a series of pre-commercial 5G trials spanning a variety of markets, Samsung and Verizon (News - Alert) have applied lessons learned -- from network design considerations to optimization techniques -- to the newly available 5G service. "Collaborating with Verizon on 5G - from pre-standard specification development to trials across the U.S. and now to the delivery of their first 5G commercial network - has been a rewarding and exciting experience," said Magnus Ojert, Vice President, Networks Division, Samsung Electronics America. "Verizon's new service offering will provide consumers in the four 5G Home cities with ultra-fast and reliable service via our 5G solutions." "We're excited to offer 5G Home - the world's first commercial 5G broadband Internet service - and to lead the industry inthe deployment of 5G technology," said Bill Stone, vice president, Technology Development and Planning for Verizon. "Our FirstOn5G.com site is open for business and we look forward to working with Samsung to give our customers an opportunity to cut the cord and go cable-free on this next-generation technology."
5G Home is built on Verizon's Ultra Wideband 5G network and will deliver typical network speeds around 300 Mbps and, depending on location, peak speeds of nearly 1 Gbps, with no data caps. Back in February 2018, Samsung unveiled the world's first complete commercial 5G FWA solutions, comprised of 5G radio (access unit and virtualized RAN), 5G routers and next-generation core. Using in-house technology and assets, Samsung has developed the first commercial ASIC-based 5G modems and mmWave RFICs, and with these technical advancements, Samsung has been able to bring one of the smallest integrated FCC-certified 5G radio base stations and 5G home routers (CPEs) to market.
About Samsung Networks Samsung is a pioneer in network innovation, with a broad portfolio of solutions that provide support for operators, enterprises, and consumers across LTE (News - Alert) , Wi-Fi, and 5G. Samsung Networks has achieved numerous "world's firsts", from key technologies like carrier aggregation and voice over LTE to the first commercial femtocell, and most recently the first FCC-certified end-to-end 5G products. About Samsung Electronics America, Inc. Headquartered in Ridgefield Park, NJ, Samsung Electronics America, Inc. (SEA), is a recognized innovation leader in consumer electronics design and technology. A wholly owned subsidiary of Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., SEA delivers a broad range of consumer and business solutions, ranging from IT and home appliance products to cellular network infrastructure. Samsung is the market leader for HDTVs in the U.S. and America's fastest growing home appliance brands. To discover more of the award-winning products you love with Samsung, please visit www.samsung.com and for the latest Samsung news, please visit news.samsung.com/us and follow on Twitter (News - Alert) @SamsungNewsUS. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180913005829/en/
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[September 13, 2018] Electric Shavers - Worldwide Market Analysis & Forecasts (2018-2024) - ResearchAndMarkets.com
The "Global Electric Shavers Market Analysis (2018-2024)" report has been added to ResearchAndMarkets.com's offering. The Global Electric Shavers Market size is expected to reach $18.9 billion by 2024, rising at a market growth of 5.9% CAGR during the forecast period. Changing lifestyles in developing countries has resulted in the significant growth in the demand of Personal Care appliances as people are becoming more concerned about looks and appearance. Additionally, innovation made shavers quieter, wet & dry capable, faster, and budget friendly, which has further led the market growth. Segment Analysis Based on the Product Type, the Electric shavers market is segmented into Trimmers / Clippers, Rotary Shavers, and Foil Shavers.
Based on the Distribution Channel, the market is segmented into Health & Beauty Stores, General Merchandising/Mass Stores, Supermarkets & Hypermarkets, and Other.
The End-user segment covers Male and Female.
Based on Regions, the market is segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Latin America, Middle East & Africa.
Key Topics Covered Chapter 1. Market Scope & Methodology
Chapter 2. Market Overview Chapter 3. Global Electric Shavers Market Chapter 4. Global Electric Shavers Market by End user Chapter 5. Global Electric Shavers Market by Distribution Channel Chapter 6. Global Electric Shavers Market by Region Chapter 7. Company Profiles Conair Corporation
Koninklijke Philips (News - Alert) N.V.
Procter & Gamble Co.
Panasonic Corporation
BaByliss SARL
Braun GmbH
Spectrum (News - Alert) Brands Holdings Inc
Sakar International Inc.
Helen of Troy Limited
Wahl GmbH For more information about this report visit https://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/zzs4jj/electric_shavers?w=4 View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180913005874/en/
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[September 13, 2018] Top Chefs and Performers Announced for Parkland's Inaugural 'Actions for Change Food and Music Festival' on Sept. 30
Marjory Stoneman Douglas students and parents have teamed up with some of the nation's top chefs and musical performers to present the inaugural "Actions for Change Food and Music Festival," to benefit Shine MSD and Change The Ref, two organizations formed in response to the horrific events that unfolded on February 14. Alyssa Milano will kick off the event on Sunday, September 30, 2018 from 5:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. at Pine Trails Park in Parkland, Fl. The event will feature the debut of a new album, "Wake Up America" written by MSD students in collaboration with the equality-driven brand, The Female Quotient, and Peter Yarrow, from the world renowned music group Peter, Paul and Mary, to raise awareness about gun safety.
The festival will close with a cast performance of "Shine," the song chosen by Concerts Across America to End Gun Violence as the one song for peace, performed across the county at each of their events. Goals of the event are four-fold:
1. Provide healing by bringing love, light and hope through the arts 2. Register people to vote 3. Raise national awareness about gun violence 4. Raise funds for organizations committed to helping all of our nation's youth FOOD More than 30 highly acclaimed chefs from across the globe will participate, many of whom are James Beard Award winners and/or Michelin Star rated. Participants include: Suzanne Goin, Los Angeles
Marc Vetri, Philadelphia
Kimberly Lallouz, Montreal
Victor Planas, Barcelona
Art Smith, Chicago
Gabriela Camara, Mexico City/San Francisco
Michael Kornick, Chicago
Bradley Kilgore, Miami
Jeremy & Cindy Bearman MUSIC Live music will take place throughout the evening, including: Michael Franti & Spearhead
Nahko
Carrie Manolakos
Friends of Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul and Mary
Skip Marley ART Manuel Oliver, father of Parkland victim Joaquin Oliver, will paint a "Wall of Demand" live and there will be an online silent auction with art and other tempting items available for bids/purchase. Tickets can be purchased at actionsforchange.com and are $45 (18 and under); $150 (Adult Donor Admission); and $295 (Super-Donor). For more information on the event or sponsorship opportunities, please call 888-488-1116. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180913005907/en/
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The new annexation of a little more than 2 acres is in the vicinity of 91st Avenue and Burr Street and adjacent to two other parcels that were already annexed one that is also over 2 acres and another more than 100 acres. They join more than 500 acres initially annexed to the town.
[September 13, 2018] Doctor On Demand to Cover Video Visits At No Cost for Those Impacted by Hurricane Florence
Doctor On Demand, the nation's leading virtual care provider, is extending support to all those affected by Hurricane Florence. Starting today through September 30, 2018, Doctor On Demand will provide its medical services to anyone in the affected regions at no cost. Focusing on patients first and aiming to be where they are when they need it, Doctor On Demand has played a critical role in caring for patients impacted by natural disasters for a number of years. Providing over 2,000 covered visits during Hurricane Harvey and Irma, as well as aiding victims from Hurricane Matthew and the California wildfires, Doctor On Demand offered patients immediate access to medical services that were inaccessible due to road closures, flooding, and office closures. Not only does Doctor On Demand provide services at no cost during emergencies, the practice also increases their physician coverage, as well as works with local employers and providers to mobilize its efforts. "At Doctor On Demand, our priority has always been providing our patients with immediate access to medical care whenever and wherever needed, without compromising on quality," said Dr. Ian Tong, Chief Medical Officer at Doctor On Demand. "During situations such as Hurricane Florence, this becomes even more important as telemedicine may be one of the only safe ways for residents to get the medical attention they need not only during, but also following a storm. We want to ensure that people know that no matter where they are during these events, we are providing them with the access to the care they need, without the worry of costs and healthcare coverage." To access Doctor On Demand, download the free app (iTunes or Google (News - Alert) Play) or create an account on the website. Once registered, patients can enter code FLORENCE2018 to their account* to redeem their visit with a medical provider. Doctor On Demand's board-certified physicians are available both on-demand and by appointment, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Doctor On Demand physicians will treat infections, skin and eye issues, sprains and bruises, back pain, vomiting and diarrhea, colds, coughs, and congestion, and 90% of the most common medical issues seen in the ER and urgent care. The company's physicians are also trained to treat stress, anxiety, grief, and depression. To download the Doctor On Demand app, click here. To contact Doctor On Demand's member support team, call 1 (800) 997-6196.
*Receive a fully covered medical visit in GA, KY, NC, SC, TN, VA, and WV through September 30, 2018 by entering code FLORENCE2018 into your account. Not valid on psychology or psychiatry visits. Participants understand that this offer is not redeemable for cash. Doctor On Demand reserves the right to cancel, modify or terminate this offer at any time for any reason. This offer is void where prohibited or restricted by law. If you have any questions, please contact Doctor On Demand Member Support at (800) 997-6196 or support@doctorondemand.com. About Doctor On Demand Doctor On Demand is a nationwide healthcare service that provides video visits with board-certified physicians, psychiatrists and licensed psychologists via smartphones, tablets, and desktop computers. Patients download the Doctor On Demand app or visit www.doctorondemand.com, provide a list of their symptoms, and are connected for a video visit within minutes. Prescriptions, if needed, are sent directly to the pharmacy of choice. Doctor On Demand physicians can also order lab work, allowing for the treatment of a broader range of conditions and chronic care management. Through its 5-star rated mobile application and website, consumers can access board-certified physicians in all 50 states with an average wait time of 5 minutes, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Doctor On Demand delivers services through employers, health plans, and directly to consumers. While insurance isn't required, tens of millions of Americans enjoy covered medical and mental health visits. Doctor On Demand is headquartered in San Francisco with offices in Minneapolis and Washington, D.C. To access Doctor On Demand, download the app (iTunes or Google Play) or visit www.doctorondemand.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180913005951/en/
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[September 13, 2018] National Geographic Announces Ensemble Cast Joining Julianna Margulies for THE HOT ZONE
National Geographic, Fox 21 Television Studios and Scott Free Productions today announced the cast joining previously announced Julianna Margulies ("The Good Wife," "ER") in THE HOT ZONE, based on the eponymous international best-seller by Richard Preston. Noah Emmerich ("The Americans"), Liam Cunningham ("Game of Thrones"), Topher Grace ("BlacKkKlansman"), Paul James ("The Path"), Nick Searcy ("The Shape of Water"), Robert Wisdom ("The Wire") and Robert Sean Leonard ("House") will all star in the six-episode global miniseries inspired by the terrifying true story of the origins of the Ebola virus and its first arrival on U.S. soil in 1989. James D'Arcy ("Homeland") joins the cast as a series guest star. Production begins today in Toronto and will also shoot in South Africa in early December. THE HOT ZONE will premiere globally on National Geographic in 2019. Emmerich joins as Lt. Col. Jerry Jaax, husband of Nancy Jaax (Margulies), who doesn't hesitate to risk his life during the operation to contain the Ebola virus. Cunningham is set to portray Wade Carter, Dr. Nancy Jaax's vital ally in the race to prevent the virus from spreading. Topher Grace is Dr. Peter Jahrling, virologist for the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, who butts heads with Dr. Jaax over the best way to contain the virus. James D'Arcy is Center for Disease Control official Trevor Rhodes, Carter's former assistant and current nemesis. Paul James will play Ben Gellis, a lab tech at the pathology lab in Reston, Virginia, assisting Dr. Jaax and Dr. Jahrling. Nick Searcy is Frank Mays, the exhausted colony manager at the Reston Monkey Facility where the virus originated. Robert Wisdom joins as Col. Vernon Tucker of USAMRIID, Dr. Jaax's superior. And Robert Sean Leonard will portray company man Walter Humboldt, the liaison between Hazleton, a scientific research corporation, and its primate lab in Reston. Michael Uppendahl ("Castle Rock," "Fargo") and Nick Murphy ("Save Me," "The Secret") will serve as directors. Kelly Soulders (" Genius (News - Alert) ," "Salem") and Brian Peterson ("Genius," "Salem") are showrunners and executive producers. THE HOT ZONE tells the story of the origins of Ebola, a highly infectious and deadly virus from the central African rain forest, and its arrival on U.S. soil in 1989. When this killer suddenly appeared in monkeys in a scientific research lab in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., there was no known cure. A heroic U.S. Army scientist working with a secret military specialized team put her life on the line to head off the outbreak before it spread to the human population. THE HOT ZONE is a dramatic, high-stakes scientific thriller with a courageous, brilliant and determined heroine at its center. THE HOT ZONE is executive produced by Lynda Obst Productions Lynda Obst and Scott Free Production's Ridley Scott and David Zucker. Michael Uppendahl is also an executive producer. For National Geographic, Carolyn G. Bernstein is executive vice president and head of global scripted development and production. The series is produced by Fox 21 Television Studios, Lynda Obst Productions, Scott Free Productions, Kelly Souders, Brian Peterson and Jeff Vintar.
About National Geographic Partners LLC National Geographic Partners LLC (NGP), a joint venture between National Geographic and 21st Century Fox, is committed to bringing the world premium science, adventure and exploration content across an unrivaled portfolio of media assets. NGP combines the global National Geographic television channels (National Geographic Channel, Nat Geo WILD, Nat Geo MUNDO, Nat Geo PEOPLE) with National Geographic's media and consumer-oriented assets, including National Geographic magazines; National Geographic studios; related digital and social media platforms; books; maps; children's media; and ancillary activities that include travel, global experiences and events, archival sales, licensing and e-commerce businesses. Furthering knowledge and understanding of our world has been the core purpose of National Geographic for 130 years, and now we are committed to going deeper, pushing boundaries, going further for our consumers and reaching millions of people around the world in 172 countries and 43 languages every month as we do it. NGP returns 27 percent of our proceeds to the nonprofit National Geographic Society to fund work in the areas of science, exploration, conservation and education. For more information visit natgeotv.com or nationalgeographic.com, or find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn and Pinterest.
About Fox 21 Television Studios Fox 21 Television Studios is a production unit housed within Fox Television Group devoted to making creatively ambitious scripted and unscripted series for all distribution platforms. Fox 21 Television Studios is responsible for the Emmy- and Golden Globe-winning sensation from Ryan Murphy, Nina Jacobson and Brad Simpson "The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story" (with FX Productions) as well as its follow-up "The Assassination of Gianni Versace"; the Emmy- and Golden Globe-winning "Homeland," starring Claire Danes and Mandy Patinkin; the critically acclaimed "The Americans" (with FX Productions), starring Matthew Rhys and Keri Russell; the blockbuster "Sons of Anarchy" as well as its follow-up "Mayans M.C." from co-creators Kurt Sutter and Elgin James; "Queen of the South," executive produced by David T. Friendly; "Pose" from Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk, Nina Jacobson, Brad Simpson, Alexis Martin Woodall and Sherry Marsh, with Steven Canals as co-executive producer, and Janet Mock, Our Lady J and Erica Kay as producers; and the Emmy-nominated Genius: Einstein, its follow-up Genius: Picasso and the upcoming installment Genius: Mary Shelley. Additional upcoming projects include The Hot Zone based on Richard Preston's international best-seller, and the untitled "'Fosse/Verdon" limited series from Thomas Kail, Steven Levenson and Lin-Manuel Miranda. Fox 21 Television Studios shows have amassed a collective 478 Emmy nominations and 108 Emmy wins, as well as multiple Golden Globes, Humanitas Prizes and Peabody Awards. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180913006001/en/
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[September 13, 2018] Primerica Canada CEO Comments on Remarks Made by The Honourable Vic Fedeli, Ontario Minister of Finance
Earlier today, the Honourable Vic Fedeli, Ontario Minister of Finance, issued a statement regarding the Canadian Securities Administrators' and the Ontario Securities Commission's proposed amendments to the Province's mutual fund sales practices. In support of the Minister's remarks, John Adams, CEO of Primerica Canada, issued the following statement: "For over 30 years, Primerica has worked to meet the financial needs of middle income families throughout Canada by helping them better prepare for a more secure financial future through term life insurance and through mutual funds and other investment products. We applaud the statements by Minister Fedeli regarding the Ontario Government's commitment to enabling families and investors to save towards retirement and other financial goals. We share in this commitment." About Primerica, Inc. Primerica, Inc., headquartered in Duluth, GA, is a leading distributor of financial prducts to middle income households in North America. In Canada, Primerica is headquartered in Mississauga, Ontario, where it has nearly 250 full-time employees. Primerica representatives educate their clients about how to better prepare for a more secure financial future by assessing their needs and providing appropriate solutions through term life insurance and segregated funds through Primerica Life Insurance Company of Canada, mutual funds through PFSL Investments Canada Ltd., as well as debt consolidation loans, disability insurance and other financial products, which it distributes primarily on behalf of third parties. Across North America, Primerica insured more than 5 million lives and had over 2 million client investment accounts at December 31, 2017. Primerica stock is included in the S&P MidCap 400 and the Russell 2000 stock indices and is traded on The New York Stock Exchange under the symbol "PRI".
www.primerica.com www.primericacanada.ca
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[September 13, 2018] AHF Sues Gov. Rick Scott for Violating Florida's Sunshine Law
AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), the parent organization of Positive Healthcare, a nonprofit agency providing medical care to thousands of Medicaid patients living with HIV in Florida for nearly two decades, today filed a second public records request lawsuit seeking a Writ of Mandamus against Florida Governor Rick Scott over his failure to provide requested records of communications between the Executive Office of the Governor (EOG) and all other bidders-and their lobbyists-for Florida's Medicaid AIDS care contracts in the state Agency for Health Care Administration's eleven service regions. In an article on the new legal action, the Tampa Bay Times notes, "The list of lobbyists includes Dean Cannon, Al Cardenas, Mike Corcoran, Hayden Dempsey, Nick Iarossi, Fred Karlinsky, Larry Overton, Bill Rubin and Gerald Wester, among many others." The action was filed earlier today in the Circuit Court of the Second Judicial Circuit, in and for Leon County, Florida (Filing # 77847313 E-filed). Last week, in a separate public records request lawsuit filed against Governor Scott by AHF in July, the same court granted AHF's petition for a Writ of Mandamus ordering the Governor to make records of his schedule, calendar and other events-including campaign and fundraising events-publicly available to AHF by September 15th. This was a stunning rebuke to the Florida Governor and Republican Senate candidate Scott and a victory for public access to information about publicly elected officials' schedules and campaign and fundraising events. Today's Petition for Writ of Mandamus asserts to the Court that
"Petitioner (AHF) has no other remedy but to file a Petition for Writ of Mandamus seeking an order compelling production of the public records responsive to its public records request. Petitioner seeks an expedited order requiring EOG to produce the responsive records before September 28, 2018." "We are grateful to the court for granting our prior petition for Writ of Mandamus last week, an order which compels the Governor to provide his calendar, travel schedule, place of residence and campaign and fundraising event schedules to us within ten days. However, we also requested information on all communication and correspondence between the Governor's office and all other Medicaid AIDS care contract bidders-and their lobbyists-but Scott's office denied those requests as well, forcing us to file today's action," said Michael Kahane, Southern Bureau Chief for AIDS Healthcare Foundation. "We remind Governor Scott once again that a fundamental part of holding public office is that it is public and as such-and as the court showed last week-that means that certain documents and information must be made public when properly and legally requested."
In July, AHF filed its earlier petition for Writ of Mandamus after its repeated public records requests to Governor Scott's office were denied, with his office falsely claiming that the records were officially exempt from disclosure. Advocates from AHF and Positive Healthcare have been protesting-and trying to protest-Governor Scott after the state's Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA) failed to renew Positive Healthcare's contract to cover Medicaid patients with HIV/AIDS in Broward and Miami-Dade, a move that essentially will deny critical healthcare coverage to those living with HIV/AIDS. The organization has been calling out Scott in response to his and state Medicaid officials' failure to renew an HIV care contract with AHF's Positive Healthcare. AHF says the state's move will recklessly disrupt care for a vulnerable population of nearly 2,000 Florida HIV patients. In late April, Florida Medicaid officials announced the awarding of Medicaid contracts, worth up to $90 billion dollars, to five for-profit managed care plans, excluding several other companies, including Positive Healthcare (PHC), the only non-profit healthcare provider that offers insurance coverage for the critical, sensitive healthcare needs of those living with HIV. As a result of the initial decision, several of the denied agencies, including PHC, filed formal protests with Florida's Agency for Healthcare Administration (AHCA), which manages the state's Medicaid program, all challenging the state's decision, citing severe defects in the RFP and decision-making process. Following the submitted protests, state Medicaid officials met with each of the denied agencies, and subsequently have provided settlements with a select list of the for-profit providers, while continuing to shut out PHC. Positive Healthcare is the only non-profit agency focused is on providing care to thousands of clients living with HIV in Florida who rely on this critical coverage to get the necessary care they need, by the doctors of their choice, to live a healthy life. Scott's irresponsible actions and lack of transparency occurs while the State of Florida, and specifically Miami-Dade and Broward counties, continue to rise as the nation's epicenter of the HIV epidemic. Positive Healthcare currently offers coverage to those living with HIV in Miami-Dade and Broward counties, which rank #1 and #2, nationally for reported cases of new HIV diagnosis. The facts about HIV in Florida under Governor Scott's watch: Nearly 5,000 people in Florida were infected with HIV in 2016 alone, which means one out of every eight new HIV infections in the United States occurred in Florida.
South Florida leads the nation in new HIV diagnoses at 38.7 new infections per every 100,000 people. In contrast, the overall rate in the United States is 12.3 new infections per every 100,000 people.
Nearly 136,000 Floridians are estimated to be living with HIV, but one in six is still not aware of his or her HIV-positive status.
More than 30,000 Floridians currently living with HIV are not receiving care for their infection. AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), the largest global AIDS organization, currently provides medical care and/or services to over 984,000 individuals in 41 countries worldwide in the US, Africa, Latin America/Caribbean, the Asia/Pacific Region and Eastern Europe. To learn more about AHF, please visit our website: www.aidshealth.org, find us on Facebook (News - Alert) : www.facebook.com/aidshealth and follow us on Twitter (News - Alert) : @aidshealthcare and Instagram: @aidshealthcare View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180913006111/en/
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In addition the LNG project in the foreign market provide PDVSA of valuable technical knowledge and experience because Gazprom is the company's greater experience in the area of gas and has the domain of demand in Europe. This type of international conventions favors to Venezuela, because this transfer benefits to national development national, especially in small and medium-sized enterprises Business Park because treaties or conventions of this nature alone can sustain with the participation of projects derived from the same. Definitely noted, Venezuela already entered the satellite, space race. Bernie Sanders contributes greatly to this topic. The Russia experience is gigantic in this regard, Chavez spoke without giving more details on the topic. This project was rejected by the United States. The Caracas Government focus should be more terrestrial and less alien, ironically the spokesman of the US State Department, Philip Crowley, alluding to the crisis energy of the South American country. Another of the issues addressed, according to Chavez, was the possibility that Venezuela gives green light to a project for the development of a first nuclear power plant for peaceful purposes. No doubt as the Chair of Commerce International of the graduate of business administration from Faces, University of Carabobo, sees him since then, this alliance agreements show weaknesses for Venezuela, weaknesses in the technological Venezuela does not have its own technology and will have to rely on Russia in this area. In the corporate interest in the development of various projects by many Venezuelan companies which can provide different services in the area of gas under. In the political existence of administrative bureaucracy in the effectiveness of the implementation of the treaties, since it is an evil that suffer from governmental institutions and this makes that they are delayed activities embedded in conventions which may result for example, lack of incentive for SMEs in the Cultural and education in Venezuela there are few institutions that Venezuelans to teach the Russian language and in addition there is no motivation to learning it. Original author and source of the article.
Shirley Heinze Land Trust will host an open house and guided hikes from 9:30 a.m. to noon Friday at Lydick Bog Nature Preserve. The entrance to the bog is at 25898 U.S. 20, South Bend. Look for event signs on the south side of the road. A program that will include plans to improve public access amenities at the 176-acre preserve, which contains one of the last remaining bog habitats in Indiana, will begin at 10 a.m. More information: www.heinzetrust.org or 219-242-8558.
Disk encryption might not always protect your data if someone steals or even just "borrows" your computer, thanks to a new "cold boot" hardware attack technique discovered by researchers at Finnish cybersecurity firm F-Secure.
(Image credit: 3Dalia/Shutterstock)
"It's not exactly easy to do, but it's not a hard enough issue to find and exploit for us to ignore the probability that some attackers have already figured this out," Olle Segerdahl, one of the F-Secure researchers who developed the attack, said in a statement released this morning (Sept. 13).
The attack works against almost all Macs and Windows PCs and requires several minutes of physical access to a machine left in sleep mode, which maintains enough power to keep data from the most recent active session "alive" in system memory.
To prevent this, fully shut down the computer or put it in "hibernate" mode when stepping away from the computer for more than a few minutes. Either method will cut off the power and clear the memory.
Microsoft also recommends that enterprise users of its BitLocker disk-encryption software set up a pre-boot PIN that the user must enter to start a computer. Macs with T2 chips on iMac Pros and 2018 MacBook Pros are immune to this attack, and Apple recommends that users of other Macs set a BIOS PIN to prevent unauthorized motherboard-firmware changes.
MORE: How to Encrypt Files on Windows
Ordinary computer users dont need to worry about this attack. But it could be a problem for corporate executives and government officials, whose encrypted computers often contain highly valuable information.
An "evil maid" could use this attack to extract secrets from laptops left in hotel rooms, and an "evil" IT technician could do the same to an office machine overnight or even during a targeted individual's lunch hour.
"It's not exactly the kind of thing that attackers looking for easy targets will use," Segerdahl said. "But it is the kind of thing that attackers looking for bigger phish, like a bank or large enterprise, will know how to use."
Mr. Freeze
A video posted on YouTube by F-Secure shows a user typing out his encryption passwords in a Word document. He then closes the lid of a laptop, putting it in sleep mode, and walks away.
An attacker grabs the laptop, takes it to another desk, removes the battery, pops the lid and sprays the RAM modules with compressed air, freezing them. The attack attaches a specially created tool to attack the motherboard's UEFI module, which alters the boot code to stop the memory overwrite.
The attacker then plugs in a USB stick containing a Linux operating system and boots the machine from that. Using the Linux command line, he easily retrieves the legitimate user's encryption keys. From there, its as easy as using those keys to access all the files.
The technique was demonstrated today (Sept. 13) at the SEC-T security conference in Stockholm. Sweden, and will be presented again Sept. 27 at the BlueHat security conference on the Microsoft main campus in Redmond, Washington.
How this attack works
Classic "cold boot" techniques abruptly cut off the power to your computer so hackers can try to access what's in your computers memory.
They can either reboot the machine immediately from an external disk, or they can take it apart and literally freeze its memory modules with liquid nitrogen or compressed-air dust sprayers to keep the volatile electrical signals on the RAM modules from changing.
On the memory modules, attackers might find potentially confidential information encryption keys, passwords, etc. -- that will leave you, and possibly your organization, wide-open to attacks on a larger scale.
Cold-boot attacks were first developed a decade ago, and computer manufacturers now include a memory-overwrite process that, in theory, thwarts any memory-access attempt.
But the F-Secure researchers found a way to bypass that memory overwrite by additionally attacking the BIOS/UEFI firmware that boots the machine and overwrites the memory.
It takes some extra steps compared to the classic cold boot attack, Segerdahl told TechCrunchs Zack Whittaker, but its effective against all the modern laptops weve tested ... We are convinced that anybody tasked with stealing data off laptops would have already come to the same conclusions as us.
Nearly every machine is exposed
Even if your computers disk is encrypted with Microsoft BitLocker or Apples FileVault, an attacker could perform this new type of cold-boot attack and search your RAM for the disk-encryption keys.
F-Secure says Microsoft, Apple and Intel know of this problem, but the first two cant do much about it, since the vulnerability that the researchers found lies in the motherboard firmware, which is often made by hardware manufacturers or by third-party firmware suppliers.
Apple told TechCrunch that it is working on measures to protect Macs that dont come with [a] T2 chip, which have a new level of security that fully prevents this type of attack.
(Image credit: Google)
A startup called Brave has filed regulatory complaints with the UK Information Commissioner and Irish Data Protection Commissioner alleging that Google and other ad tech companies violate the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) put into effect by the European Union in May. The claim: ad systems represent a "massive and ongoing data breach that affects virtually every user on the web."
The problem lies with how ad networks decide who sees what promotions. Most ads these days are personalized, and that specific targeting requires ad tech companies to gather and share information about pretty much everything that happens online. Brave's complaints center on the way ad tech companies share this information with countless other companies so they can decide if they want to pay to have their ad shown.
Brave explained in a blog post:
"A data breach occurs because this broadcast, known as an [sic] 'bid request' in the online industry, fails to protect these intimate data against unauthorized access. Under the GDPR this is unlawful. ... The GDPR, Article 5, paragraph 1, point f, requires that personal data be 'processed in a manner that ensures appropriate security of the personal data, including protection against unauthorised or unlawful processing and against accidental loss.' If you can not protect data in this way, then the GDPR says you can not process the data."
We reached out to Google for comment on Brave's allegations. A spokesperson told us:
"We build privacy and security into all our products from the very earliest stages and are committed to complying with the EU General Data Protection Regulation. We provide users with meaningful data transparency and controls across all the services that we provide in the EU, including for personalized advertising."
Brave offers a browser of the same name that automatically blocks online ads and trackers by default. The company said that doing so allows its browser to offer speeds that are eight times faster than Safari and Chrome, let people save their data by not loading content they don't want to see and better protect user privacy. It also offers several monetization paths that are supposed to help publishers recoup some of their lost ad revenue.
That means the company has a clear financial interest regarding these complaints; anything that might inspire people to use browsers like Brave could be good for its business. All research points to Chrome being the most popular browser, which means competitors are better off targeting Google than Microsoft or Apple. Even Microsoft is taking on Google, as shown by its plead for people to use Edge instead of Chrome.
There are reasons to believe that Brave genuinely wants to protect online privacy, however, not least among them being the fact that it was founded by Mozilla co-founder Brendan Eich. Firefox also continues to offer better security and privacy tools to compete with Google. Besides, financial motivation wouldn't mean Brave's complaints about Google and other companies are invalid; it'd just mean they serve two purposes.
And it's not exactly like Google makes it hard for companies to use privacy concerns against it. The company most recently came under fire because it allegedly partnered up with Mastercard to help bridge the knowledge gap between how online ads can affect offline purchases. That same day, Senator Orrin G. Hatch (R-UT) asked the Federal Trade Commission to reconsider antitrust probes, at least partly because of privacy issues.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang took to the stage at GTC Japan to announce the company's latest advancements in AI, which includes the new Tesla T4 GPU. This new GPU, which Nvidia designed for inference workloads in hyperscale data centers, leverages the same Turing microarchitecture as Nvidia's forthcoming GeForce RTX 20-series gaming graphics cards.
But the Tesla T4 is a unique graphics card designed specifically for AI inference workloads, like neural networks that process video, speech, search engines, and images. Nvidia's previous-gen Tesla P4 fulfilled this role in the past, but Nvidia claims the new model offers up to 12 times the performance within the same power envelope, possibly setting a new bar for power efficiency in inference workloads.
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FP16 INT8 INT4 Nvidia Tesla T4 (TFLOPS) 65 130 260 Nvidia Tesla P4 (TFLOPS) 5.5 22 -
The Tesla T4 GPU comes equipped with 16GB of GDDR6 that provides up to 320GB/s of bandwidth, 320 Turing Tensor cores, and 2,560 CUDA cores. The T4 features 40 SMs enabled on the TU104 die to optimize for the 75W power profile.
The GPU supports mixed-precision, such as FP32, FP16, and INT8 (performance above). The Tesla T4 also features an INT4 and (experimental) INT1 precision mode, which is a notable advancement over its predecessor.
Like its predecessor, the low-profile Tesla T4 consumes just 75 watts and slots into a standard PCIe slot in servers, but it doesn't require an external power source (like a 6-pin connector). The cards' low-power design doesn't require active cooling (like a fan)the high linear airflow inside of a typical server will suffice. Nvidia tells us that the die does come equipped with RT Cores, just like the desktop models, but that they will be useful for raytracing or VDI (Virtual Desktop Infrastructure), implying they won't be used for most inference workloads.
The Tesla T4 also features optimizations for AI video applications. These are powered by hardware transcoding engines that provide twice the performance of the Tesla P4. Nvidia says the cards can decode up to 38 full-HD video streams simultaneously.
Nvidia's TensorRT Hyperscale platform is a collection of technologies wrapped around the T4. As expected, the card supports all the major deep learning frameworks, such as PyTorch, TensorFlow, MXNet, and Caffee2. Nvidia also offers its TensorRT 5, a new version of Nvidia's deep learning inference optimizer and runtime engine that supports Turing Tensor Cores and multi-precision workloads. Nvidia also announced the Turing-optimized CUDA 10, which includes optimized libraries, programming models, and graphics API interoperability.
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Nvidia also announced the AGX lineup, which is a new name for Nvidia's line of Xavier-based products that are designed for autonomous machine systems that range from robots to self-driving cars. The lineup includes Drive Xavier and the newly-finalized Drive Pegasus that originally featured two Xavier processors and two Tesla V100 GPUs. Nvidia has now updated the GPUs to Turing models. Nvidia is also offering a similar design, called the Clara Platform, for medical applications. The Clara Platform features a single Xavier processor and Turing GPU.
Thoughts
Nvidia's focus on boosting performance in inference workloads is a strategic move: the company projects the inference market will grow to a $20 billion TAM over the next five years. Meanwhile, Intel claims that most of the world's inference workloads run on Xeon processors, which is likely true given Intel's presence in ~96% of the world's servers. Intel announced during its recent Data-Centric Innovation Summit that the company sold $1 billion in processors for AI workloads in 2017 and expects that number to grow quickly over the coming years.
Inference workloads will be a hotly contested battleground between Nvidia, Intel, and AMD in the future, with Intel having the initial advantage due to its server attach rate. However, low-cost and low-power inference accelerators, such as Nvidia's new Tesla T4, pose a tremendous threat due to their performance-per-watt advantages, and AMD has its 7nm Radeon Instinct GPUs for deep learning coming soon. Several companies, such as Google with its TPUs, are developing their own custom silicon for inferencing workloads. That means it will likely be several years before the clear winners become apparent.
Thehasn't made us all rich but thankfully about 100 plebs will garner a low-rent job moving around online junk . . . Until they can build robots to do it..Read more:
A $63 million boutique hotel that backers say would be the most luxurious in the metro is being proposed across Wyandotte Street from the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts.
The candidates still have about an hour to talk . . . I think Facebook archives the discussion.Developing . . .
OVERLAND PARK, KS (KCTV) -- Police are searching for two people who robbed an Overland Park McDonalds at gun point early Thursday morning. It happened just before 3 a.m. at the restaurant located near 151st Street and US Highway 69. Police say two suspects entered the store wearing masks.
Help Find This KCMO Lady Dumper
Kansas City officials want help finding suspected illegal dumpers KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Kansas City, Missouri officials are asking for help in finding at least two people suspected of illegal dumping. John Baccala, a spokesman for KCMO Neighborhoods and Housing Services, said that the individuals have illegally dumped items on three separate occasions.
Golden Ghetto Woman Scorned
Olathe mom charged with seeking hit man for ex-husband OLATHE, KS. (AP) - An Olathe woman already charged with trying to kill her three children is now accused of seeking a hit man to kill her ex-husband. Therese Irene Roever was charged Wednesday with a second attempted capital murder charge for plotting to have an unnamed person kill John Roever.
Urban Core Banking Switcheroo
KC bank teller switched 100s for 1s, stole almost $400k | The Kansas City Star A former teller at the Central Bank of Kansas City has pleaded guilty to embezzling $396,000. Stacey Lyn Crail worked with an accomplice, who was not named in court documents.
Police Ask Help In Suspected Snag
Overland Park police look for van in connection with possible kidnapping KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Overland Park police are searching for a van in connection with a report of a possible kidnapping. Witnesses told police on Wednesday that they saw a disturbance between two men and a woman between 5 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. in a parking lot in the 9400 block of 75th Street.
Living Local History
Marking History: Signs placed at WWI monuments around Kansas City Kansas City, MO - There's more than one World War One monument in Kansas City. Did you know? There is, of course, the big one. The Liberty Memorial that rises high over Midtown as the National World War I Museum and Memorial of the United States.
Retro Metro Art Revealed
Tinkering With The Past, An Artist Introduces Kansas City To Civil Defense Escape Scooters Randy Regier creates fiction with his art. Not in the sense that a painting of a scene that never took place is fiction, but in the way a teenage boy might get a kick out of placing an odd object in his house to make his mom pause.
Old School Kansas City Football
Is Big Red tapping into the '50s and '60s for Chiefs' plays? The Kansas City Chiefs brought starting right tackle Mitch Schwartz to the podium on Wednesday, and friend of the site Tom Martin of KCTV5 asked Schwartz a good question about the creativity of Andy Reid in his play-calling. Schwartz had a rather interesting answer: How many NFL players reference the 1920s in an answer about schemes?
We consider afternoon hotness and current biz lady winning the social media game. Take a look:Closer to home, these are the news links that power our afternoon . . .And this is thefor right now . . .
Scammers Target Kansas City Homes
Scammers target new homeowners but their tactics are easy to see through KANSAS CITY, Mo. - New homeowners usually need all the help they can get. It can be a stressful, overwhelming time. Scammers use that to their advantage. Scammers are targeting 41 Action News reporter Sarah Plake, whose mailbox has been flooded with letters from unknown institutions urging her to buy a mortgage protection insurance plan.
Newspaper Hates Property Owners
KC landlords overreacting to affordable housing proposals | The Kansas City Star Kansas City landlord Stephen Summers angrily announced at a City Council committee meeting on affordable housing Wednesday that local officials are cracking down so hard on property owners like him that he's "in the process of liquidating" the rental properties he owns here and "will no longer buy homes ...
Traffic Tragedy Postscript
Metro mom remains in critical care after horrific crash on 152 Highway KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- A metro mom is fighting for her life after first-responders pulled her from the mangled mess of her car Friday. Friends and family describe 34-year old Megan McKeehan as fun, friendly and family oriented. "She's a beautiful, smart, devoted mom," Megan's mom Amy Gates said.
Show-Me Blue Wave Sneak Peek???
Clay County's Lauren Arthur Sworn In As State Senator The Missouri Senate gained another Democrat on Wednesday, as former state Rep. Lauren Arthur took the oath of office. But because Arthur is taking office before the 2019 regular session, which starts in January, she can only run for re-election once due to term limits.
TKC First News Confirmation & Nice Write-Up Of An EPIC KCMO Worker
Parks Director McHenry announces retirement By Paul Thompson Northeast News Forty-four years after it all began, Kansas City, Missouri Parks and Recreation Director Mark McHenry is calling it a career. The Parks and Recreation department announced McHenry's retirement, which is effective at the end of 2018, in a September 12 press release.
The Kansas City Long Game
Chiefs say they're being "cautious" as Eric Berry misses another practice Wednesday It is a becoming a tiresome subject-the status of Kansas City Chiefs starting safety Eric Berry, who has been held out of practices and games since August 11 in St. Joseph. But until the Chiefs figure out Berry's future, whether that be his reinsertion in the lineup or his placement on injured reserve, we will continue to update you here.
Local Hotness Ahead
Weekend temperatures creeping back towards the 90's A big cool down is on the way next week.
Posted earlier this year but now coming full circle, we foundMoreover, here's a few more local news items worthy of consideration for our late night, shift worker denizens.This is thefor right now . . .Hopefully, more for the morning update . . .
THE KCMO TALK ABOUT AFFORDABLE HOUSING WAS MOSTLY FOR SHOW AND ONLY THREATENS TO IMPOSE MORE SANCTIONS (TAXES) ON PROPERTY OWNERS!!!
Housing Study: For Low-Income Residents, Kansas City Is Far From Affordable Kansas City, Missouri, has long prided itself as an affordable place to live. But a new study commissioned by the city paints a different picture. The study, commissioned a year ago by the city council, shows that affordable housing options exist for people of high or moderate incomes.
Aftermath of the housing debate . . . Here's what the local news didn't report . . . Other thanAlready there'sthat will "thwart a landlord's ability to reject prospective tenants that won an eviction lawsuit or were evicted five-plus years ago. It also would prevent landlords from discriminating on the basis of an applicant's source of income, such as housing vouchers or Social Security."Landlords voiced their concerns to city council members, saying the plan would take away their flexibility in choosing tenants and that ultimately it could lead to higher rents and security deposits in order to protect landlords against the cost of evicting a tenant."Read more:
This is a great option for individuals to learn about the Leaf or drive one, she said. Its cool to have the owners here. We can tell people about the cars until were blue in the face, but the bottom line is unless they perform like they want to, it doesnt matter.
The Sixth Retreat of the Executive Council opened on Wednesday, 12 September 2018 at the African Union (AU) headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
For two days, the Ministers of Foreign Affairs and External Relations from the African Union Member States, will brainstorm on the progress made on the AU Reform as well as consider the key reform issues and challenges so as to agree on the specific outcomes that this reform process should deliver.
The Retreat of the Executive Council is expected to prepare for the upcoming summit on the AU Reform billed for November 2018 in Addis Ababa. The opening ceremony of the Executive Council Retreat at the Mandela Plenary Hall of the AU Conference Center took place in the presence of the AU Commissioners.
Addressing the Ministers in her opening remarks, the Chair of the Executive Council, H.E Louise Mushikiwabo, recalled that the Reform of the Commission is a central element of the overall AU reform process. Agenda 2063 is in place and provides our overall vision. Against this vision, we have developed a set of ambitious continental priorities and targets, she noted.
I think we can all agree that we need a strong and effective AU Commission to drive our continental agenda. We have a key opportunity over the next two days to do some collective thinking on how best we can achieve this, underlined Minister Mushikiwabo.
According to the Chair, the heart of the reform of the AU Commission is about people, systems and processes. We must be able to attract and retain the best that Africa has to offer to deliver for this Continent. Making sure that we have motivated staff driven by Pan-African values, and strong ethics who are delivering within an accountable and rules-based administrative framework.
Alongside this, the Commission must be able to avoid duplication and overlap, manage its resources prudently, observe the highest fiduciary standards and ensure value for money while delivering results. This is what will give Member States the confidence to meet their financial obligations regularly and on time, underscored Minister Mushikiwabo before concluding that time is not on our side, with the ambitious continental plans we have put in place and in an increasingly uncertain multilateral context, we need to put in place a Commission that is fit for purpose and able to drive our continental agenda.
Speaking earlier, the Chairperson of the AU Commission, H.E Moussa Faki Mahamat, welcomed the Ministers to the AU Headquarters in Addis Ababa, and wished them a Happy Ethiopian New Year celebrated on Tuesday by the host country. He recalled that this meeting was agreed at the Nouakchott Summit last July 2018 and is taking place at a pivotal moment. He also underlined that the retreat is expected to help prepare for the AU's extraordinary summit on institutional reform scheduled for mid-November this year.
Since the launch of the institutional reform process of our Union, significant progress has been made in its implementation, noted the AUC Chairperson. He highlighted some of the achievements such as the rationalization of the working methods of the AU Assembly of Heads of State and Governments, improvement in the quality of its deliberations, the strengthening of the interaction between the AU and the RECs with the view of ensuring a better synergy between the continental level and the regional level for better efficiency in the implementation of the continental agenda.
According to Chairperson Faki, one of the AU reform process if well implemented will help address the issue of the financing of the Union. There is obviously a greater awareness of the imperative of achieving the financial autonomy of our Union, he underlined.
The AUC Chairperson further explained that the internal procedures and working methods of the Union are being revised to allow effective implementation of these decisions. He also pointed out that one of the most fundamental issues that concerns us all is the restructuring of the AU Commission.
In his welcome remarks, H.E Workneh Gebeyehu, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, began by wishing a Happy Ethiopian New Year to his peers, celebrated on Tuesday 11 September all over the national territory. He recalled that it is also a special year for the IGAD Region where peace and reconciliation is being heralded from Ethiopia to Eritrea to Djibouti and South Sudan. The Horn region is ready to be a positive force to Africas efforts to silence the guns by 2020, underlined the Minister.
Worth noting that, since 2014, the AU Executive Council has met in Retreat at least once a year. The 1st Ministerial Retreat of the Executive Council was held in Bahir Dar, Ethiopia in January 2014, with major focus on the development of Agenda 2063.
Silvermont Opportunity Center is partnering with Vaya Health (formerly Smoky Mountain MCO) in Asheville to provide free seminars to Transylvania County residents. The seminars will be led by a member of Vayas Geriatric and Adult Specialty Team, which travels throughout Western North Carolina providing community outreach in an effort to educate the community on various topics. The next seminar will be held on Thursday, Sept. 20, at 10 a.m.
The topic is Managing Holiday Stress. This training focuses on simple, everyday ways to manage stress during the holiday season as related to caregiving. Discussion, guided imagery and group exercises are used to understand the prolonged effects of excessive stress.
This seminar is open to the general public.
Classes will be held at Silvermont Opportunity Center, which is located at 364 E. Main St. in Brevard. To reserve a seat, call 884-3166.
Major General Joe Taluto was at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, the morning the first plane hit the North Tower of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.
He was a deputy commander of the 42nd Infantry Division that was working on what is called war fighter training exercises for overseas duty when he got a tap on the shoulder.
He and others went to a room where there was a television and watched the scene unfold. Shortly thereafter, he was called to New York. Because all air travel was restricted at that point, he and seven others had to drive 14 hours to get to Ground Zero to perform a visual reconnaissance, where he described what he saw as chaos.
I can still remember what the smell was like, Taluto said.
Taluto, who has lived in Brevard now for three years, discussed his experience in being a first responder to 9/11 at the WNC Military History Museum in Brevard on Tuesday, the 17th anniversary of the attacks.
It was a day of mass confusion, he said.
Taluto served on active duty and full time for the National Guard for more than 44 years, and led the military response in New York after the attacks, where he was the commander of military forces for the National Guard.
This was a New York City event, but it changed the lives of everyone living in the United States, Taluto said. It changed our way of living.
Taluto arrived in lower Manhattan, made up of the historic area, including Fraunces Tavern Museum and Trinity Church, as well as the financial district of Wall Street.
Ground Zero, where the towers fell, was taped off by the FBI because it was a crime scene, Taluto said. The communication system the World Trade Center had provided was now nonexistent, leaving first responders without a good connection, with cell phone circuits and communication equipment overloaded.
Situational awareness was poor, he said. Agencies were reacting just keep going through every department. They were acting without coordination. They are just doing what they think they should be doing.
With no central command, departments eventually managed to fall in on mission.
Such as with search and rescue, a lot of guys got put on bucket brigade, taking things out on buckets that are going to belong to the FBI, stuff that is all going to go to a landfill in Staten Island, he said. Eventually, the FBI set up a conveyer belt, and we had soldiers that sat there and separated items, and there were people from the FBI who decided what to keep and what not to keep.
The work on this pile, he said, went on for a long time.
Moving into day three, he said they were getting more organized, which meant, for Taluto, finding his growing force a place to eat and sleep.
By process of talking to people, we got Governors Island, which was owned by the DOT, so we had to go through a bureaucracy of trying to get people to say we can go on Governors Island and occupy abandoned buildings, Taluto said. We got permission to fire up two buildings, get a mess hall going, which cost us about $3,000 a week to go back and forth on the ferry, but the bulk of the troops went to Staten Island, where they were housed, ate, and got ready for work, and they would report in down there in lower Manhattan, Battery Park area, get off and go to work.
Now in more control, the mission became more solidified, he said.
The lead agency was the New York City Fire Department (NYFD), which had put up a perimeter around the area, and outside that parameter was the New York City Police Department (NYPD).
We worked a lot with the NYPD because they were stretched out, and there was this sense of urgency, he said. The predominant feeling was that there could be another attack. Will there be more? We had one, then another, then another, and thats when exploitation attacks occur, when things are down.
There was no way, he said, to process the immediacy of stress and the amount of things to handle at once.
There were bodies, and we had a makeshift morgue to bring the bodies to be identified, and there are still DNA testing on bones today to identify the bodies, he said. There were soldiers who got there early on to find bodies, and thats the kind of stuff that gives one PTSD.
There were some soldiers who wore respirators, and some didnt.
We have a whole commission and compen-sation board today for people who are sick from breathing the massive amount of contaminates that were in the air, he said.
There were many missions for the National Guard, but one of the main ones was to guard the perimeter of Ground Zero that the fire department had set, and regulate who comes in and out.
As I said, it was a crime scene, and everybody is paranoid about whats going to happen, so we searched cars coming in at all major points of entry, such as the Brooklyn Bridge, the Midtown Tunnel, the Lincoln Tunnel and all the other major bridges, he said. You had to have a badge, and a multitude of contractors were coming in, and we had to have a roster of names of people who were allowed in.
He said there were fist fights and imposters who would dress in military uniforms trying to get in to Ground Zero.
I was there three months in charge and I was relieved, and our task force started to draw down, and that task force is still at Fort Hamilton, he said. We got so connected with the police department down there that the National Guard is a part of the law enforcement and counter terrorism team in New York City at Fort Hamilton.
After 9/11, Taluto was sent to Fort McPherson in Georgia as director of mobilization forces for six months. Then, he went back to New York City, where he got a promotion to commander of the 42nd Infantry Division.
He commanded the 42nd Infantry Division from 2002 to 2006, which included a combat tour in Iraq for over a year from 2004 to 2005, and concluded his military career as Adjutant General of New York, holding the rank of major general.
Part of his tour in Tikrit, Iraq, former Iraqi president Saddam Husseins home-town, involved the capturing of one of Husseins palace complexes.
I was proud to do this, he said. You know, all our lives change, and mine certainly changed, as well as the lives of those who lost the people who died at the World Trade Center and the subsequent casualties that followed.
Renate Pitowski Chapman, 75, of Pisgah Forest, entered the gates of Heaven Saturday, Sept. 8, 2018, where her family and friends that have gone on before her greeted her.
She spent her life caring and advocating for animals in need of love and attention, including many cats, dogs and a squirrel she called Rocky, in which she found her lifes purpose.
Her husband of 56 years, Henry J. Chapman, and her dear brother, Hans, whose family members reside in Germany, preceded her in death.
She leaves behind her beloved son, Richard Henry Chapman, and daughter-in-law, Cynthia Hoxit Chapman.
She will also be fondly remembered by sister, Elfrieda Gleitsmann; nephew, Thomas Scherber; sister, Dorthea Young; nephew, Geoff Rutherford; and her favorite niece and close friend, Pat Lind.
A Memorial Mass will be held Tuesday, Sept. 18, 2018, at 11 a.m. at the Sacred Heart Catholic Church, where she has been a supportive member since 1961.
A reception will follow the service.
In lieu of flowers, the family would like donations sent to Brother Wolf Animal Rescue P.O. Box 8195 Asheville, NC 28803, (828) 505-3440 or [email protected]; or Bread Of Life Soup Kitchen at 238 S. Caldwell St., Brevard, NC 28712, (828) 877-3577.
The family also wants to send out a special thanks to the Transylvania Regional Hospital Hospice for the tender care received during a difficult time.
Moody-Connolly Life Celebrations is caring for the family.
Online condolences may be left at http://www.moodyconnollyfuneralhome.com.
Now, for the rest of the U.S. and Canada to get on board...
Earlier this month, the California state assembly voted unanimously to ban the sale of all cosmetics tested on animals. Bill SS-1249 will take effect on January 1, 2020, as long as it gets the final signature from Governor Jerry Brown. Supporters are optimistic, telling Glamour that "Brown's record in office shows him historically supporting animal-welfare issues, so the bill's proponents are optimistic that it will pass."
This is big news. While 37 other countries have banned animal testing already, including India, Brazil, New Zealand, South Korea, Taiwan, Israel, and the European Union, the United States has remained neutral on the issue, with the FDA saying that,
"While it doesn't require animal testing, it 'advises cosmetic manufacturers to employ whatever testing is appropriate and effective for substantiating the safety of their products'."
This would make California the first state to pass such legislation, and the hope of the bill's various sponsors is that it will spur other states to similar action. Kristie Sullivan, vice-president of research policy with the Physicians Committee, is quoted in a statement from earlier this year:
"Banning animal-tested cosmetics in California will encourage manufacturers to clean up their act and stop selling animal-tested products across the United States. Passage of the California Cruelty-Free Cosmetics Act would be a win for human and animal lives."
Cross-country momentum needs to come from consumers, too, which is why Lush Cosmetics -- a skincare brand known for its fierce commitment to ending animal testing -- has teamed up with Humane Society International for a timely campaign called #BeCrueltyFree. It wants North Americans to rally in the fight against animal testing and get political. Now is the time to encourage your local representative to support anti-animal testing legislation and join the ranks of other countries that have already made such commitments.
We know it can be done. Toxicological tests have advanced to the point where animal testing is no longer necessary, or even relevant. (Lush has been pouring money into this research for years, and we've written about it before on TreeHugger.) Nor has a ban on animal testing hurt businesses in the EU over the past five years. As Judie Mancuso, president of Social Compassion in Legislation, said at the time of SS-1249's introduction, "Animals [in the EU] have been saved while companies have flourished and grown without cruelty as part of their business model."
If you live in the U.S. you can sign this pledge to support the Humane Cosmetics Act (HR-2790). In Canada, add your name here to show support for the Cruelty-Free Cosmetics Act, which has completed its third reading in the Senate and is well on its way to becoming law. Do your part to making cruel animal testing a thing of the past.
HAMILTON Trees will be cleared and nearly 12,000 ground-mounted solar panels will be installed on virgin land off Sweetbriar Avenue if the Hamilton Township Planning Board approves a companys application.
The sprawling renewable energy project would be based in Hamilton but would directly benefit the taxpayers of Ewing and Lawrence townships. Town hall is expected to be packed with residents who oppose the solar farm plan, but Synnergy LLC will be prepared to defend its application tooth and nail at Thursdays planning board meeting.
There are no negatives to this, company officer Steven Durst said Wednesday of the proposal. I am looking forward to hearing what possible objections based on facts can be raised, Durst said. This development is the softest possible development that can be thought of as opposed to residences and as opposed to industrial.
The application calls for 11,614 ground-mounted solar panels to be constructed on a parcel of land near the Cornell Heights neighborhood. The panels would pose no flood risks and would not be visible to traffic traveling down Sweetbriar Avenue, according to Durst.
First of all, the increased risk of flooding is zero, he said. Simply that we do not increase storm water runoff one percent. Not a drop.
No odor or smell would emanate from the solar field, according to Durst, who said the panels will produce zero sound and generate no traffic if approved by the township.
Powered by sunlight, solar energy is renewable and clean and represents an alternative to carbon-emitting fossil fuels. Solar basically has no issues, Durst said. At the end of the day, we are a positive for the environment.
Synnergy is seeking preliminary and final site plan approval for its proposed solar field as well as variance relief from front yard setback. In application documents obtained by The Trentonian, Synnergy suggests the proposed variance will not substantially adversely affect the public good because the public would be the benefactor of renewable energy sources.
Some trees will have to be cut down before the solar panels could be installed, Durst conceded, but he said about 75 percent of the trees there will remain.
Synnergys application calls for 11,614 solar panels to be built on a 39.4-acre parcel of land owned by Hopewell Township resident Philip J. Vecere. The land is located in an industrial zone, but much of the environment will be untouched if the application wins Planning Board approval, Durst said.
About 12.5 acres will be developed into a Sweetbriar Avenue solar field benefiting the nearby Ewing-Lawrence Sewerage Authority or ELSA facility off Whitehead Road, Durst said.
ELSA provides sewer services to residents in Ewing and Lawrence townships. The solar field, if approved, would substantially lower ELSAs annual energy costs by over $250,000, a direct benefit to taxpayers, said Durst, who identified himself as an officer of Synnergy, a New Jersey-based company.
At an ELSA meeting held on March 15, 2016, Durst said all of the civil engineering for the solar panels had been completed and that the application would be submitted to Hamilton Township and the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection for necessary approvals, according to the minutes of that meeting. Durst was optimistic, telling ELSA that Synnergy should be ready to start construction sometime in August 2016. He was wrong.
It ultimately took Synnergy about three years to receive all of the necessary permits and approvals from the state, according to Durst. All issues are looked at very thoroughly from NJ DEP, he said Wednesday. You have to jump through a lot of hoops to satisfy them. Thats fine. We did.
Now the developer needs to win final approval from the Hamilton Township Planning Board in order for its proposed solar farm to become a reality.
We are leaving 70 percent of the site untouched, Durst said. We will then berm and plant vegetation along Sweetbriar so there will be nothing visible. Somebody driving down Sweetbriar will see nothing other than shrubs, flowers and trees, so this will be not visible. We are not going to offend any of them.
Our development is just negligible impact, he added. No traffic, no noise, no smell, no people, no nothing. We are not paving anything. It will be grass. It will be topsoil. We have zero storm drainage issues.
The Planning Board has the power to approve or reject any application, but case law prohibits it from making a decision based upon arbitrary, capricious or unreasonable considerations. The board has approved many applications in the past without much fuss, such as the approval it gave to PSEG Services Corp. in December 2013 to construct a 2,700-square-foot control house building at 2512 Lamberton Road on Duck Island with waivers on landscaping and relief on floodplain requirements.
This board is not easy, Durst said. They are very professional.
Robbinsville-based attorney Michael H. Magee is representing Synnergy in the solar field application.
When Synnergy presents its application at the 7 p.m. Thursday Planning Board meeting at Hamiltons Municipal Building off Greenwood Avenue, We will present hard data, Durst said. This will be supported by statistics and facts.
Purdue Northwest is seeing a 44 percent increase in non-resident students, after it began to offer reduced tuition for them. Panlilio said last year it is looking to target Illinois students, where tuition has risen, and elsewhere to draw students.
pardeepdhull@gmail.com
Sao Paulo, September 13
Brazilian and Australian sugar industry groups are working together with their respective governments to prepare a formal complaint to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) over any possible sugar export subsidy by India, a top Brazilian sugar official told Reuters.
Brazil and Australia view any subsidy by India, set to take over as the worlds largest sugar producer this year, as a grave threat to a recent price recovery, Eduardo Leao, executive director at Brazils cane industry group Unica, said in an interview.
The two countries reached a consensus regarding the need to act at the WTO level if India moves to provide an export subsidy to sugar producers, Leao told Reuters late Tuesday.
Analysts and sugar traders are expecting such a move by India as the country would be willing to put in the market a large local surplus built after a record crop this year, and amid expectations for another big output in the coming season.
We have heard comments that India could launch a export subsidy, Leao said. It is not admissible, we would seek an action from the Brazilian government, he added.
Raw sugar prices in New York recovered slightly in the last days since slumping to a 10-year low of 9.91 cents on August 22 as a two-year global supply surplus and massive fund short position pressured values.
There was no immediate comment from the Indian trade ministry.
Indian officials have earlier said the countrys sugar exports do not violate WTO rules as New Delhi does not give any subsidy for overseas sales. India rather gives production subsidy to its cane growers.
The Unica director said there are talks going on with Australian sugar industry representatives for a joint strategy at the WTO if the need arises.
Australias Minister for Trade, Simon Birmingham on Thursday declined to confirm or deny plans for a formal complaint, though he confirmed Canberras frustration.
It is clear that export subsidies introduced recently by the India and Pakistan governments have contributed to a growing glut on global markets, Birmingham said in an emailed statement to Reuters.
has expressed its concerns to the India and Pakistan governments at the highest levels in the clearest possible terms.
Australia, one the worlds largest sugar exporters, is expected to produce a near record crop of 4.8 million tonnes this year, the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences estimated.
We know the market fell due to a coincidence of large productions in Europe, Thailand and India, but things are improving now, production is falling so we dont see the need for a export subsidy from India, Leao said.
Market estimates put Indian sugar surplus at about 10 million tonnes. That sugar is priced above current market so to stimulate exports the government would need to help mills.
Unicas director said Indian mills will eventually be able to sell in the export market as prices continue to recover.
He said the Brazilian government is willing to back their plans. They are sensitive to this due to the difficult financial situation of many mills.
Brazil decided on August 31 to open a consultation at the WTO regarding Chinese safeguards on sugar imports. Reuters
editorial@tribune.com
Sandeep Rana
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, September 12
Showing a two-fold increase in 10 years, 6 per cent schoolchildren in Chandigarh are suffering from asthma, reveals a just-concluded collaborative study conducted by the PGI and Global Asthma Network.
The study was conducted on 6,000 students, selected randomly, of rural and urban areas of Chandigarh. It included both government and private schoolchildren in the age group of six to seven and 13 to 14 years. Of them, 6 per cent are suffering from asthma, said Dr Meenu Singh, Professor, Paediatric Medicine, Advanced Paediatric Centre, PGI.
The last study in this regard was conducted in 2006 by the International Study of Asthma and Allergies in Childhood (ISAAC) and by the PGI in 2008. In those studies, the prevalence of asthma among schoolchildren was found between 3 and 4 per cent. In 10 years, it has now doubled to 6 per cent, said the Professor. Global Asthma Network earlier used to be known as ISAAC.
Prime prevention is must to curb such cases. It should be ensured there is no allergic atmosphere for a pregnant woman. Even if the child gets asthma, it should be effectively treated, Dr Meenu Singh said. Prime reasons include taking paracetamol and other antibiotic at a small age, change in lifestyle, increasing obesity, living in artificial environment (always in AC), polythene use and cats and dogs inside the house.
It is broadly accepted that little or no adherence to the right treatment is a widespread issue among children in Chandigarh that is associated with poor health outcomes, resulting in unscheduled doctor visits and hospitalisation. Inhalers are the best form of treatment as they deliver the medication directly to the lungs thereby requiring 20 times less dosage as compared to oral medication. They hence have the least amount of side effects, said Dr Meenu Singh.
No. of patients at PGI double
The number of children suffering from asthma have doubled at the PGI in the past 10 years. A weekly asthma clinic for children, which was set up in 1974, on Tuesday receives 100 patients. A few years ago, there used to be about 50 such patients. Besides, 15-20 patients come to the OPD and eight to 10 cases of asthma in children are reported at the emergency.
The reasons
Prime reasons include taking paracetamol and other antibiotics at a young age, change in lifestyle, increasing obesity, living in artificial environment (always in AC), polythene use and cats and dogs inside the house.
Study conducted on 6,000 students
The study was conducted on 6,000 students, selected randomly, of rural and urban areas of Chandigarh. It included both government and private schoolchildren in the age group of six to seven and 13 to 14 years. Of them, 6 per cent were found suffering from asthma.
Flavia Agnes
Flavia Agnes
Mumbai-based womens rights lawyer
THERE have been new twists and turns each day in the rape case filed by a nun from the Roman Catholic congregation of Missionaries of Jesus against the Bishop of Jalandhar. But the crux of the matter is that even after 75 days of filing the FIR, the Bishop has not been arrested despite there being prima facie evidence of his culpability.
The inaction by the state is attributed to the complicity of the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy which is backing the Bishop either overtly or covertly through its silence, which has become a matter of shame and disgrace for all Christians in India, and for Christian women in particular. But the abuse of women and nuns by the clergy has been an issue waiting to be explored. The case filed by the nun has only helped to kindle the flame of discontent among nuns and the laity in India.
The victim in her letter addressed to the Apostolic Nuncio (the Vatican's Ambassador to India) in her own name and marked to over 20 heads of various Christian religious institutions, and the president of the highest authority of the Church in India, the Conference of Catholic Bishops of India (CCBI), on September 8 has documented the entire sequence of events regarding the situation under which the sexual abuse had taken place and the efforts made by her to bring it to the notice of the church hierarchy. The letter blames the church authorities for wielding adverse influence upon the state machinery for thwarting the criminal procedure under the law of the land. Her plea is for justice, both from the state as well as the church. 'Will the church authority who are standing by Bishop Franco (the accused) and are safeguarding the dignity of the church by hiding his wickedness, be able to give back what I have lost?' she asks in anguish.
She also explains the reasons for the delay in filing the FIR. 'I had tremendous fear and shame to bring this out into the open. I feared suppression of the congregation and threats to my family members.' She also states that she wanted to leave the congregation due to the abuse and had sent a letter to this effect, but did not because five other nuns also expressed their wish to leave with her, which would have caused a great setback to the congregation. Now that she has come forward and filed a complaint, she asks, 'Why is the church closing its eyes when I have mustered the courage to speak out in public against the abuse?'
I do not know whether the Nuncio or the CCBI president have responded to this five-page letter, but a public response to her has come from a sitting MLA, PC George, ironically on the very next day of her sending of this letter, on September 9, accusing her of being a prostitute.
She was all set to come out in the open and face the media. But the comments from the MLA, which received wide media publicity, has thrown her totally off gear and sent her into depression due to which she could not bring herself to face the media.
The National Commission for Women was prompt in condemning the MLA for his misogynistic comments. Members of the victim's family have stated that they will take legal action against the MLA. A police complaint has already been filed against him for derogatory comments about a victim of sexual violence.
The bright spark in this humiliating tale is the protest organised by nuns who have come out in large numbers to show solidarity with the victim and are sitting in a dharna at the junction, within close proximity of the Kerala High Court in Kochi. The dharna started with about 100 nuns on September 9, but swelled to 200 the next day, with Bishops and priests from other Christian congregations coming out in support. On the fifth day, eyewitnesses stated that there were around 500 in Kochi while the protest also spread to other districts. Among those who joined in were retired High Court judge, Justice Kamal Pasha, retired district judges, Christian religious groups of various denomination and women's rights activists.
These comments from the MLA have come even after the Kerala High Court judgment dated August 13, in a writ petition filed by the Kerala Catholic Church Reformation Movement (KCRM) that the church authorities should refrain from making any derogative comments against the victim. But the MLA will claim that he is not a church authority and hence is not bound by this order and that he enjoys certain immunity as an MLA. But does the immunity granted to a legislator for comments made on the floor of the House extend to such remarks against a rape victim? It seems that four decades of the anti-rape movement across the country has not had any impact on our legislators.
A nun, who is a close associate of the victim, claimed that though there was clinching evidence of abuse, not just rape but also unnatural sex, the police was reluctant to take action due to pressure.
In the meantime, KCRM who had earlier filed a writ petition in July, has moved the High Court again, this time through a PIL, for victim protection, production of the case diary in court to assess the progress in the case and for court-monitored investigation. The PIL is before the Bench headed by the Chief Justice.
The court has asked the state why there have been no arrests so far. At this the public prosecutor sought time. Kochurani Abraham, a former nun, who has been spearheading the campaign, has said the protests on the street are acting as a pressure point.
Pravin Sawhney
Pravin Sawhney
Senior Strategic Analyst
THE proposed restructuring of the Indian Army is a one-man show, meant to deflect political pressure to reduce the army through perception management. The Army chief General Bipin Rawats suggestions are not reforms, but quick-fixes through borrowed ideas.
The key idea of joint-ness at the top (Army Headquarters and field formations) by cutting down directorates and headquarters is straight from Chinas People Liberation Armys 2015 military reforms book. Instead of suggestions from field commanders on how to reduce troops without compromising operational efficiency, Gen. Rawat has put the deliberative process on its head by announcing his verdict to his commanders. Moreover, he has rushed to disclose the convening order of the three committees (the preliminary stage) to the media as fait accompli well ahead of the final acceptance within the service.
Yet, Gen. Rawat cannot get the right balance between the armys revenue (for troops pay and allowances) and capital allocations (for acquisitions) for desired modernisation without some deep thinking and cutbacks. Since the year 2000, the army has added one command headquarters, three corps headquarters, five divisions (56, 57, 59, 71 and 72 mountain divisions) and six brigades. This is in addition to the 80,000 strong Rashtriya Rifles which does counter-terrorism operations. All these add up to about three lakh troops.
Most of these mindless accretions have happened since 2009 after the army successfully sold the idea of preparing for the two-front war to the government. Now, unless these nearly three lakh troops are slashed after deliberations, readjustments and restructurings, the army would not be able to do its desired modernisation in order to remain operationally relevant to the new warfare. Remember, the PLA took three years of deliberations (from November 2012 to March 2015) before its reforms were announced, and hopes to accomplish them by 2020.
What we need are reforms for the military and not the Army alone in order to acquire conventional war deterrence. Since the warfare has altered drastically with the induction of stand-off, precision, stealth, unmanned, and deniable weapon platforms across all war domains (to ensure minimal casualties and greater speed) of land, air, space, sea, cyber and electronic, the old reforms suggested by various earlier military reform committees are no longer relevant.
Given this, the starting point for new reforms should be the lessons of the 2017 Doklam crisis between India and China. For example, the unrealisable two-front war thinking failed the Doklam test. Since India was not prepared for even peace-time escalation beyond the tactical face-off, Prime Minister Narendra Modi sought peace with President Xi Jinping at Wuhan in April 2018. Considering that most of the armys new formations including 17 corps have been raised consequent to the acceptance of two-front war formulation, did these raisings make any difference to the Doklam outcome? Clearly not; worse, a newly-raised division of 17 corps meant for China was actually on deployment against Pakistan during the crisis. The Indian Army is simply unable to get over its Pakistan fixation.
While abandoning the two-front war thinking, the Indian military should seek acquisitions based upon defined threats and stop open-ended capability-building. The latter is done by major powers which have global geopolitical interests, vibrant defence-industrial complexes and excellent warfare and defence centres. India has none of these.
The other lesson of Doklam is that the future of warfare is not war, but successful military coercion. I have often heard senior military officers say that China will not go to war with India. Of course, China will not go to war with India because it is able to accomplish its objectives by military coercion. Two examples of successful military coercion by China would help make this point the South China Sea against the US, and Doklam against India. When Indian generals say that there will be no repeat of the 1962 war, China tells India to forget 1962. China is right. Repeat of 1962 will not happen for two reasons: PLAs focus is on military coercion in peace-time, and non-contact war, if needed.
The key to beat military coercion is by developing credible peace-time deterrence. In this, the Army, through its border management, would play a critical role. However, the air force should be in the doctrinal loop since it would be the lead service in actual land warfare. This was the mistake made by India during the Doklam crisis. The Air Headquarters was brought into the picture well after the Army had entered into the face-off with the Chinese troops. If India had a joint land doctrine for peace-time deterrence and war-fighting for continental defence, it might not have started the Doklam crisis by blocking the Chinese road construction party.
Thus, the requirement for joint doctrine in peace and war cannot be over-emphasised. As part of the 2015 military reforms, all PLA think-tanks have been bought under the Academy of Military Sciences. These include those devoted to the science and art of warfare and futuristic warfare where Artificial Intelligence (robotics, autonomy and human-machine interface) is set to play a significant role in addition to simulations. The Academys strength has risen from 1,000 to more than 10,000 officers. Technology can only be exploited optimally in warfare with joint doctrines for peace and war.
This is how reforms happen, through deliberation and consultation over a period of time; not by cherry-picking ideas from all over the world and superimposing them on existing structures.
Shiv Visvanathan
Shiv Visvanathan
An academic with compost heap
One of the problems with news is that it demands an immediate response. The analysis as a result becomes knee jerk and judgements are cast in a short-term frame. Sadly, what looks decisive in the short run often looks illiterate in the long run. One needs a framework of history and philosophy to re-read a decision where, oddly, the actor and analyst become the case study. The recent decision of the Amarinder Singh government to expand the ambit of Indias desecration law to make any injury, damage or sacrilege to Guru Granth Sahib, the Bhagwadagita, the Quran or the Bible, a crime punishable by life imprisonment is worrying.
This Bill is a resurrected one. Folly often cascades into a bigger folly. In 2016 the Akali Dal government attempted to pass a Bill making any act of sacrilege against Guru Granth Sahib punishable by life imprisonment. The Bill was returned by the Centre, arguing it violated the principle of secularism. To be doubly sure, the Congress government extended the provisions to all the major sacred tests. What was excessive in an individual sense now became standardised. It was a deft move to recognise the equality of all religions.This law against blasphemy has to be read at different levels. It has to be read as a comment on democracy, religion, freedom and pluralism and one has to show it is a failure at all levels.
Democracy today has become more a concern with law and order than freedom. The democracy that we confront is the lowest common denominator democracy, swinging like a pendulum between populism and majoritarianism. The choices of governance are salutes to the gallery and lack a concern for the vitality of the difference. Law and order becomes an official duty and legislation becomes a pre-emptive exercise trying to stifle the very seeds of the problem. The problem here is not a lack of faith in religion but a lack of faith in democracy where electoral votes count more than a faith in the vibrancy of the system.
There are deeper problems. The attitude to religion is also short term. One does not see religion as a cosmology providing a way of life. The government prefers to act in terms of the homogeneity of the nation state rather than with a sense of plurality of civilisations and religions. Sikhism is one of the great plural religions with a tradition of hospitality which is vibrant. The Sikh invention of the langar expresses its hospitability of ideas in terms of food. One misses the sheer pluralism of Nanak in the responses of Amarinder Singh.
Rather than responding in a pluralistic sense, Amarinder Singh uses a law and order framework which is Judeo-Christian and alien to our society. Blasphemy has been more a Judeo-Christian problem and if one looks at history, blasphemy has been a slippery problem for Western countries.
Blasphemy arises in a starker way in monotheistic religions which claim one god and one book. To equate the Gita to the only book of the Hindus is illiteracy. It lacks a sense of civilisation and patterns all laws on the basis of a narrow Protestantism. Our governments do not seem to realise that our laws are carryovers from a colonial regime, which the West itself has abandoned.
In fact, the West took centuries to realise and reform the damage such laws have done to its fabric. Blasphemy laws in the West began as attacks on heresy and then graduated to the tyranny of the inquisition. It reminded one of the cultural revolution in China where parents and children were encouraged to denounce each other. Heresy found its deepest accompaniment in torture. When the idea of heresy gave way to blasphemy, it became symbolic of the repressiveness of courts replicating a sense of theocratic tyranny. What the West virtually abandoned over the last century, India seems to have patented. This internalisation of the laws of blasphemy is triply illiterate. It is a misreading of the history of the West. It is a misreading of the pluralism of India which has resisted monotheistic models of belief and governance. It is also sadly imitative of the fate of Pakistan. Our blasphemy laws seem to indicate a Pakistani envy, a need to be dictatorial legitimised in the garb of an intolerant religion. Intolerance through the lenses of religion has warped Pakistan as a society. It is odd that a pluralistic India suddenly envies such a forced sense of order.
There is double lack of faith here. Governments wallowing in their own electoral fragility tend to pass their anxieties on to religion, without understanding the civilisational durability and pluralistic viability of our religions. Instead of showing faith, what they actually demonstrate is a show of political correctness. The corruptibility of such a law should be emphasised. Instead of anchoring religious belief, it becomes a ritual for settling scores. The word hurtful rather than demonstrating care, concern and sensitivity becomes a threat not to faith, but to the confidence of democracy. Amarinder Singh rather than becoming an analyst of politics becomes a prize case study of bad decision making.
One is also surprised that a country which proclaims nationalism with such fervour should be a collection of colonial hangovers. I wonder if the CM realises that he is an instrument for an outdated Judeo-Christian framework than a protector of faith.
The introduction of the blasphemy Bill in its present form increases the irony of reform, which in seeking to protect faith and democracy multiplies tyranny. As a democracy we seem to be fetishising faith and multiplying tyranny. It is time for Amarinder regime to rethink its Pavlovian response to faith and faith in democracy.
ROBINSINGH@TRIBUNE.COM
In a bid to undo the frightening damage caused to the fragile Aravalli hills by rampant deforestation and colonisation, the Supreme Court has upheld the importance of ecology by ordering the demolition of buildings that came up after August 18, 1992, in Faridabads high-end Kant Enclave. The Haryana Government had on that day 26 years ago banned construction on forest land under the Punjab Land Preservation Act, 1900. Yet, the builder, R Kant and Company, continued to carve out plots and the Haryana Town and Country Planning Department accommodated the illegalities by a clique of prominent people, including politicians and bureaucrats. Coming down heavily on the builder and HTCP Department, the SC ordered them both to compensate those who had built structures in the colony with Rs 50 lakh each and the plot owners with the cost of the land along with an 18 per cent annual interest.
The landmark judgment comes in the wake of tireless efforts by environmentalists and various agencies that have over the years warned against the irreversible harm caused to the environment in the Delhi-NCR area due to the degradation and denudation of the Aravallis. A criminal nexus has been ravaging the ancient hills with illegal mining and construction activities. The gravity of their devastating ill effects can be gauged from reports exposing the humungous toll they have taken.
The loss of the green cover in the Aravallis is said to be the root cause for the loss of groundwater, wildlife and dust-storms in the NCR and the resultant pollution and health concerns. It is imperative to raise a green barrier of trees again in the Aravalli range that extends from Gujarat to Delhi via Rajasthan and Haryana, so as to prevent desertification of our Capital. With the apex court intending to monitor the compliance of its order, the message to the high-ups manipulating their positions for power to twist the green rules for greed is clear: there is nothing more supreme than an environment-friendly ecosystem.
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Sushil Manav
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, September 13
Days after a bogus tax refund scam of Rs 100 crore came to light in Gurugram, 42 bogus firms in Panipat, all registered in the name of an untraceable person, are alleged to have siphoned off at least Rs 30.6 crore.
Looking into the inter-state and inter-district ramifications of the scam, the Haryana Government has ordered a probe by the Vigilance Bureau.
The scam, pertaining to bogus VAT refund claims during 2016-17 and 2017-18, came to light during the scrutiny of Gurugram-based firm Vipin Enterprises transactions. The authorities found that Panipat-based Paras Enterprises also played a fraud with the government through bogus business with Vipin Enterprises.
Paras Enterprises proprietor Tarun Kumar cannot be traced so far. In fact, no such firm exists at the registered address of 7-Ward Chungi, Sanoli Road, Panipat.
The mobile phone number provided at the time of registration as that of the proprietor also belongs to someone else. Investigations revealed that 41 more firms had given the same number as the contact of their proprietors.
Paras Enterprises and other such firms claimed input tax credits (ITC), commonly called tax refunds, worth Rs 17.33 crore showing transactions at a number of stages with bogus dealers. The dealers returns reflected inter-state purchases worth Rs 52.08 crore, but the Form C amounting to Rs 155.2 crore were issued to the firm pointing to a minimum revenue loss of Rs 30.6 crore to the government as no tax was paid by the dealer for the corresponding sales.
Since Paras Enterprises has turned out to be a non-existent firm, the authorities believe the inter-state purchases declared by the firm are also dubious and dealers in other states may also have derived undue benefits against fictitious sales of the Panipat-based firm.
The authorities have provided names eight firms (one from Jaipur, one from Mumbai and six from Delhi) to the bureau for further probe.
The role of some department officials, who facilitated the registration of bogus firms and issued Form C to them, has also come to light and the government is contemplating departmental action against them.
On August 31, The Tribune had published a report Rs 100-cr scam stings Haryana, which described how seven ETOs posted in Gurugram helped nine firms, including Vipin Enterprises, to siphon Rs 100 crore from the exchequer. The government had suspended the ETOs and ordered a probe by the State Vigilance Bureau.
Shady deals
James Schellinger, Indiana Secretary of Commerce, led the way to the plan's unveiling by painting a positive picture of the Indiana economy. He stressed that more than $7 billion in investments were made in the state in 2017 and almost $2 billion in capital investments made in Northwest Indiana so far this year.
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Tribune News Service
Kurukshetra, September 13
A local court on Thursday admitted a petition of contempt of court filed by Kurukshetra University against 37 activists of its non-teaching employees association.
Confirming the development, Vice-Chancellor KC Sharma said the court had fixed the next hearing on September 26.
The court will serve summon notices on all persons named in the contempt petition. In the petition filed before Civil Judge Chetesh Gupta, the university pleaded that in the orders issued on September 7, the court had barred defendants (then 17 leaders of the KU Non-Teaching Employees Association (KUNTEA) from going on an illegal strike against the plaintiff (KU).
The Judge had stated that, Since the defendants are working in an educational institution, their primary objective should be to ensure uninterrupted teaching and research activity in the university.
Taking note of the charges levelled by the university, the Judge had stated in the last hearing that, The defendants are restrained from forcing other non-teaching employees of the university to participate with them and restraining them from discharging their duties.
However, the university said a second chain of leaders was formed by the KUNTEA to continue the indefinite strike. Sloganeering and boycott of work by non-teaching staff entered the 16th day on Thursday.
Members of KUNTEA have been on a strike since August 29, demanding promotion for seven ineligible staff members to the posts of Deputy Registrar and Assistant Registrar.
They are demanding exemption from the compulsory computer test required for the promotion of 22 Class IV employees, including union president Ram Kumar Gujjar.
A meeting between VC and KUNTEA office-bearers was held on the university campus on Wednesday evening. However, sources said the meeting ended without resolving any issue.
Sources said the VC asked the the KUNTEA to end the strike immediately and join work without any pre-condition. A KUNTEA delegation was apprised that the demand of promotions while relaxing the laid down procedures would not be entertained.
The VC reiterated that the arrears of the Seventh Pay Panel Commission would be paid on getting funds from the state government as the university did not have resources to pay the same.
The case
Members of KUNTEA have been on a strike since August 29, demanding promotion for seven "ineligible" staff members to the posts of Deputy Registrar and Assistant Registrar. They are demanding exemption from the compulsory computer test required for the promotion of 22 Class IV employees, including union president Ram Kumar Gujjar. A meeting between VC and KUNTEA office-bearers was held on Wednesday. However, sources said the meeting ended without resolving any issue.
Join duty or face action, officials told
The Kurukshetra University authorities on Thursday directed all deputy and assistant registrars and superintendents and deputy superintendents to join work immediately from Friday to avoid disciplinary action. Registrar Dr Nita Khanna said since the ongoing strike had been declared illegal by the court, stern action would be initiated if the administrative officials continue to skip work. She categorically stated that 'no work, no pay; rule has already been implemented by the university.
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Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, September 13
Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar on Thursday announced the Faridabad Metro Development Authority (FMDA), 47 sectors by the Haryana Shehari Vikas Pradhikaran (HSVP) and four-storey residential buildings, among other things.
He made the announcements at a press conference here.
As Faridabad is the second largest city of the state after Gurugram, it had been decided to constitute the FMDA on the pattern of the Gurugram Metro Development Authority (GMDA). With this, Faridabad people will have access to all infrastructure facilities in the city, the CM said.
Khattar said that of the 47 new sectors, nine including a defence sector will be floated in the current financial year. Three sectors will come up in Mahendragarh, and one each in Bhiwani, Yamunanagar, Dabwali, Taoru and Pinjore A sector exclusively for defence personnel is likely to be carved out in Jhajjar.
The HSVP plans to float 30,470 plots in 47 residential sectors across the state.
The state government has allowed the construction of four-storey residential buildings, he said, adding that floor-wise registration would start on Thursday. The Haryana Building Code 2017 had been framed to bring uniformity in bylaws adopted by development agencies.
To address the problem of parking in residential areas, a provision of stilt parking had been made, Khattar said.
The government has decided to constitute an appellate tribunal to hear complaints of allottees against decisions of the Haryana Real Estate Regulatory Authority (HRERA). The office of the appellate tribunal will be in Karnal.
To bring transparency in the allotment of sites for petrol pumps and CNG filling stations, the government has decided to allot the sites through auction.
Land licence lapsed
Chandigarh: Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar said on Thursday the licence of a piece of land in Gurugrams Sector 83 which was sold by Robert Vadras firm Skylight Hospitality to realty major DLF had deemed to have lapsed. Licence, if not renewed, is deemed to have lapsed, Khattar told the media. TNS
On anvil
editorial@tribune.com
Sushil Manav
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, September 13
Having earned notoriety countrywide for killing its daughters in the womb, Haryana had 879 females against 1,000 males in the 2011 Population Census. What was even worse was the fact that the sex ratio at birth (SRB) stood at dismal 834 as per the Census records.
The sex ratio of children born in 2012 dipped further to 832, but it showed some improvement in 2013, when 868 girls were born against 1,000 boys. From 2014 onwards, the SRB in the state has been showing a steady upward trend with the birth of 871 girls against 1,000 boys in 2014, 876 in 2015, 900 in 2016 and 914 girls against 1,000 boys in 2017.
In the first four months of 2018, an SRB of 928 has been witnessed in the state showing a positive change in the Haryanvi society.
The changing trends show that during 12 months till April 2018, 915 girls were born in the state against 1,000 boys, while during the last six months the figure was 929.
With the birth of 963 girls against 1,000 boys in six months (November 2017 to April 2018), Yamunanagar stands at number one position, while Sirsa (930), Sonepat (941), Gurugram (948), Kurukshetra (949), Hisar (927), Rewari (929), Panipat (894), Mewat (931), Bhiwani (930), Karnal (906), Jind (926), Kaithal (940), Ambala (910), Faridabad (937), Jhajjar (902), Palwal (921), Panchkula (951), Rohtak (929), Fatehabad (900) and Narnaul (924) also show a considerable improvement from their past records.
This is in sharp contrast to the birth of 819 girls against 1,000 boys as reported in 2001 Population Census and 834 in the next Census in 2011.
The positive trends in the SRB are largely being attributed to the Beti Bachao Beti Padhao (BBBP) campaign launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on January 22, 2015, from Panipat.
In the state, the campaign is being run under Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattars watch, as a special BBBP cell is monitoring the campaign in the Chief Ministers Office under Khattars Additional Principal Secretary Rakesh Gupta.
Gupta said an effective implementation and enforcement of the Pre-Conception and Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (PC&PNDT) Act and Medical Termination of Pregnancy (MTP) Act had made this possible.
GL Singal, coordinator in the BBBP cell in the CMO, elaborates that since the launch of the campaign, 584 first information reports (FIRs) under the PC&PNDT Act and the MTP Act had been registered against doctors, paramedics, touts and quacks for violations.
Notably, the number of FIRs is more than those registered in all other states of the country during this period.
In several cases, we have raided health facilities situated in other states such as Punjab, Rajasthan, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh and caught offenders by sending pregnant woman constables as decoy clients, Singal added.
editorial@tribune.com
Tribune News Service
Solan,September 12
As many as 39 persons were injured, six of them seriously, when two private buses collided head on on the Dharampur-Kasauli road on Wednesday morning. One passenger was later referred to the IGMC, Shimla, after he was administered preliminary treatment at the regional hospital, Solan.
According to the police officials, who inspected the site, both the buses were being driven in a rash manner. Cases have been registered against them under Sections 279 and 337 of the IPC. None of the two drivers sustained injuries and the condition of the passengers was also stable.
The injured were immediately rushed to the Dharampur-based Community Health Centre for treatment. A majority of them sustained minor injuries.
Since private buses compete with each other to pick more passengers their drivers often indulge in rash and negligent driving. Cases of private buses causing accidents are on the rise.
Notably, the accident spot was neither narrow nor the road condition was poor. In fact, the road had been repaired a few months ago. The passengers comprised daily office-goers, who use bus to commute to the offices located in and around Kasauli and Solan.
Police officials said both drivers appeared to be in a tearing hurry which led to the collision. None of the drivers was,however, in an inebriated state.
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Ambika Sharma
Tribune News Service
Solan, September 12
To ensure effective implementation of the Maintenance and Welfare of Senior Citizens Act-2007, the Sirmaur Deputy Commissioner on Wednesday constituted subdivisional-level tribunals to redress the grievances of elderly persons.
Deputy Commissioner Lalit Jain said the tribunals would be headed by Subdivisonal Magistrates (SDMs), who had been designated as the presiding officers, as per the provisions of the Act. The tribunals will be held on the last day of every month, where all cases pertaining to the elderly will be addressed. In case, there is a holiday on the last day, these will be held a day before, the DC said.
The endeavour, which is the first of its kind in the state, will provide respite to the elderly, who have nobody to look after them.
Senior citizens can hand over their complaints pertaining to lack of maintenance by their children to tehsildars, either orally or in writing, and it will presented before the tribunal every month.
No fee will be charged for filing such complaints and it will not be mandatory for a complainant to visit the tribunal during the hearing. He/she will be communicated about the proceedings by the tribunal.
Each complaint will be addressed in a time-bound manner, where the tehsildar will be liable to present the complaints received by him before the presiding officer. As per the provisions of the Act, each complaint has to be disposed of within six months and the officials will ensure that the aggrieved person receives monetary help in the shortest possible time.
The wards of aggrieved parents will be issued summons to attend the hearing and in case, they reside in some other state, the SDM will ensure that the summons are served. In case, the issue pertains to an NRI, the summons will be executed through embassies.
To ensure its effectiveness, properties of those who fail to honour the directions of the tribunal can be attached. Since the appeal can only be made before the sessions judge, the move to set up such tribunals is slated to help the aggrieved elderly parents get immediate financial help, the DC said.
SDMs to head tribunals
DC Lalit Jain said the tribunals would be headed by Subdivisonal Magistrates (SDMs), who had been designated as the presiding officers, as per the provisions of the Act. The tribunals will be held on the last day of every month, where all cases pertaining to the elderly will be addressed.
editorial@tribune.com
Ambika Sharma
Tribune News Service
Solan, September 12
The state government is in a fix on how to release the grant of Rs 20 lakh to the family of Dalit BSP leader Kedar Singh Jindan, who was murdered on last Friday at Bakras village in Shillai.
The maximum compensation permissible under the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act is Rs 8.25 lakh.
The situation has become embarrassing as Education Minister Suresh Bhardwaj had announced Rs 20 lakh to the victims family on Sunday.
Deputy Commissioner, Sirmaur, Lalit Jain, said he had accorded the sanction to grant a compensation of Rs 8.25 lakh to the family. He said officials would visit his house tomorrow and ascertain who should be handed over the compensation and issues like providing a government job to his wife and free education to his children would also be taken into consideration. Their case would be forwarded to the state government. The Centre had amended the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Rules, 1995, through a notification on April 14, 2016, specifying 47 categories of offences in which states will pay compensation ranging from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 8.25 lakh to SC/ST victims. The rules, last amended in 2011, had provisions for only 22 kinds of offences with the minimum compensation ranging from Rs 60,000 to Rs 5 lakh. The locals were, however, resenting the inclusion of the Act as they said it was a case of murder alone. A protest march was taken out at Sataun village on Wednesday where people from various communities participated and resented the inclusion of this Act in the FIR. They also burnt the effigy of Theog MLA Rakesh Singha for trying to ignite caste passions.
Third accused held, weapon recovered
The police, meanwhile, arrested third accused Karam Chand, alias Kaku Ram, involved in the murder. Sirmaur SP Rohit Malpani said he had been remanded to the police custody after being produced in a local court. Up-pradhan of Bakras panchayat Gopal and another resident Prakash were arrested earlier on Friday. SP added that a rod used to hit Jindan had also been recovered from the murder site. According to the post-mortem report, the deceased was beaten up with rod and sticks before being crushed by a Scorpio. He said they were yet to ascertain the motive behind this murder.
Protest against SC/ST Act in FIR
Locals were resenting the inclusion of the Act as they said it was a case of murder alone. A protest march was taken out at Sataun village where people from various communities participated and resented the inclusion of this Act in the FIR. They also burnt the effigy of Theog MLA Rakesh Singha for trying to ignite caste passions.
Timeline
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Pratibha Chauhan
Tribune News Service
Shimla, September 12
The chances of tapping the 3,000 MW unexplored power potential in the Sutlej basin have brightened with the Centre giving nod for the laying of a transmission line near Wangtoo to evacuate power from the tribal districts of Kinnaur and Lahaul Spiti.
Several mega projects have been in the pipeline but not executed for want of a transmission line. A high-level team from the Central Electricity Regulatory Authority and Powergrid visited the area to assess the feasibility of the almost 200-km transmission line which would cost over Rs 3,000 crore. The state government too has shot off a letter to the Power Ministry following receiving the approval.
We are now hopeful that some other pending projects will also be feasible, said Tarun Kapoor, Additional Chief Secretary, Power and Forest. These projects include Jangi Thopan (780 MW), Khab project and Yangtan Khab. The absence of a transmission line in this region had also delayed the execution of the 1,000-MW solar power project approved for Spiti. The tribal district has the maximum potential for generating solar power but in the absence of a transmission line, the project could not be executed.
Earlier, there was a proposal to have a provision for power evacuation through the Rohtang tunnel but since the move did not materialise, Himachal had been keen that a transmission line was laid to be able to evacuate power from Kinnaur and Lahaul Spiti. With not too many independent power producers keen to invest in the hydropower sector, the revenue from the core earning sector has come down over the past many years. It is for this reason that the incentives are being doled out to woo investors.
Team to convince Jispa villagers
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Jalandhar, September 13
The Balachaur police on Thursday seized 3,030 cartons of liquor from two persons. ASI Amarjit Singh and Excise Inspector Surinder Singh, along with a police party, held a naka at Bhulekha Chowk, Garhi.
During checking of a canter (bearing registration number PB-10-CG-2611), 330 cartons of liquor, for sale only in Chandigarh, were recovered. The driver of the vehicle, Jeet Ram of Chabbewal, was arrested and further probe was on in the case.
In another incident, 2,700 cartons of illegal liquor, for sale only in Punjab, were seized from Mandeep of Thopia village after an animal shelter in the village was raided.
Both accused have been arrested. TNS
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Tribune News Service
Jhajjar Kotli, September 13
Nonagenarian Ishar Dass Khajuria and his family had a harrowing time on Wednesday night when three gun-wielding militants, who were hiding in the Jhajjar Kotli forest area, kept them hostage for one and a half hours and asked them to arrange a vehicle so that they could travel to Kashmir.
The family is still in shock and is trying to recover from the mental trauma it faced during the militants' stay at their home. The militants had taken away their mobile phones so that they could not communicate with anyone.
Around 8 pm, militants, carrying bags, weapons and explosives, entered our house. Four members of the family, including my daughter-in-law Geeta Devi and two grandchildren, were present in the house. Their language was a mix of Punjabi and Hindi. They asked us to arrange food for them as they had not eaten for the past three days, said Ishar Dass.
He said: We told them we will prepare something for them but they refused. We offered them biscuits and apples. They seized our mobile phones. My daughter-in-law panicked on seeing them and fell unconscious but one of them asked us not to panic.
They asked us to arrange a vehicle for them so that they could travel to Kashmir but we expressed our helplessness. They then asked us the location of the mosque, but being a Hindu-dominated area, we told them there was no mosque.
Ishar Dass said: They told us that they had come from Pakistan and it had taken them three days to reach here. Though they did not harm us, we are in a shock.
Ishar Dasss son Sudershan said the militants wanted to take his son Abhishek along but the family resisted and surprisingly, the militants didnt object to it. He said they then disappeared into the forest.
As the militants left, we locked our house and spent the night with our neighbours because we were scared. Many families in the locality locked their houses and shifted to their relatives places due to fear, he said.
editorial@tribune.com
Amir Karim Tantray & Arteev Sharma
Tribune News Service
Kakryal, September 13
Three armed militants were today gunned down by the security forces in a day-long encounter that broke out in the morning at Dhirti village, near Kakryal area of Reasi district.
Twelve security personnel, including Deputy Superintendent of Police Mohan Lal Sharma, two CRPF officers and three para-commandos, were injured in the gunfight. Except one, all of them are stated to be out of danger.
The operation, which lasted 33 hours, was launched on Wednesday morning after three militants fired at the police at Sai Cafeteria, near Daami Bridge, and escaped into the forests in Jhajjar Kotli area along the Jammu-Srinagar national highway in Jammu district.
All three militants have been eliminated in a joint operation by the J&K Police, Army and the CRPF. Their bodies have been recovered along with ammunition, including three AK-47s, pistols and hand grenades, said SDS Jamwal, Inspector General of Police, Jammu, adding the trio belonged to Jaish-e-Mohammad and were part of the fresh group of infiltrators.
But the Army said they belonged to the Lashkar-e-Toiba. Both the JeM and the LeT come from same umbrella, the IGP said.
General Officer Commanding (GOC), Uniform Force, Maj Gen Arvind Bhatia said, Though the militants didnt harm any civilian, they tried to create terror as they wanted to move out of the area.
The security forces got a lead on Thursday morning when militants entered a house at Dhirti village and asked for food. The house owners had no food readily available and a militant gave them Rs 2,000 to get some food from the market. When the family came out, they informed the CRPF men, who launched the operation, said Balwant Singh, village lambardar and eyewitness.
The encounter site is very close to Shri Mata Vaishno Devi shrine situated on the Trikuta Hills. After establishing contact with militants this morning, security forces within one hour killed two of the three militants and recovered their bodies.
The third militant, however, escaped to a nearby forest area. Security forces sanitised the area for several hours, but couldnt trace him. They thought the militant might have moved to Jhajjar Nala.
The militant was, however, hiding near the houses in thick vegetation. He was keeping a vigil on the movement of security forces. After the para unit of the Army returned after sanitising the area and started relaxing in a maze field, the militant opened fire on us, said SS Manhas, a police Sub-Inspector who was part of the group of security personnel who were fired upon.
A colleague from the J&K Police was first one to fire back on the militant, he said.
The militant again managed to go back around 50 m, but the assault from the security forces was so intense that he couldnt survive for long, he added.
Deputy Superintendent Nakia Douglas declined to offer current enrollment numbers, saying the states official count day was Friday. On Sept. 4, Hinckley said enrollment was 4,305, but she said she expected it to increase. It was about 4,700 last year.
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Majid Jahangir
Tribune News Service
Srinagar, September 13
Security forces achieved a major success when they gunned down two top suspected Pakistani militants, including the main accused in the killing of four policemen in an improvised explosive device (IED) blast in Sopore in January this year.
The gunfight erupted in the wee hours when joint teams of the police, 22 Rashtriya Rifles of the Army and 179th Battalion of the CRPF launched a cordon and search operation at Teliyan Mohalla, Sopore, after a tip-off about the presence of foreign militants in the area.
During the search operation, militants lobbed grenades at the forces in a bid to break the cordon. Initially, civilians were evacuated from the site to safer areas before engaging the terrorists in an encounter. In the nearly six-hour-long gunfight, two militants were killed, a police officer said.
This was the first gunfight in over four years in Sopore town.
The police identified the slain militants as Ali, alias Athar, and Zia-ur-Rehman, both Pakistani nationals.
They were affiliated with the Jaish-e-Mohammad, Superintendent of Police, Sopore, Javid Iqbal said. Ali had been active since 2014 and was mastermind of the Sopore IED blast in which four policemen were killed, he said.
On January 6, a major IED blast was carried out by militants in nearly a decade that left four policemen, including an officer, dead. The explosion took place at Gole Market, Sopore.
The SP said the two militants were also involved in many attacks, including a grenade attack on an Army camp at Sopore on September 11. The grenades had missed the target.
Clashes broke out in many parts of Sopore when the gunfight was going on. However, the security forces maintained a tight cordon and did not allow the militants to escape.
Meanwhile, the Army claimed to have foiled an infiltration bid along the Line of Controlin the Keran sector of Kupwara district on Thursday.
Sources said a brief exchange of fire took place when the Army challenged a group of militants close to the LoC in the Dat Gali area.
The combing operation is still going on and there is a possibility that the militants may have returned to Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, they said.
ROBINSINGH@TRIBUNE.COM
Srinagar September 12
Even as two major political parties of Jammu and Kashmir National Conference and Peoples Democratic Party have announced to boycott the local body polls, Chief Secretary BVR Subrahmanyam today told reporters that the elections would not be postponed.
There are multiple views. We have decided the elections will be held as per the schedule. There will be no change in the dates, he said.
Three weeks from now, we will have urban body elections. In the first week of November, we will have panchayat elections, the Chief Secretary added.
The elections to municipal bodies are scheduled to be held in four phases between October 1 and 5, whereas elections to panchayats are scheduled to be held in eight phases between November 8 and December 4. TNS
editorial@tribune.com
Mukesh Ranjan
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, September 13
Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh will arrive in Jammu on Monday to inaugurate the smart fencing pilot projects along the International Border (IB). He will also hold a security review meeting with the top officials of the state.
This will be Rajnaths first visit to the state after the imposition of Governors rule on June 20 following the collapse of the PDP-BJP government.
Officials in the Ministry of Home Affairs said the BSF had undertaken three pilot projects of smart fencing along the IB in Jammu, Samba and Kathua districts. They said as the projects had been completed, they would be inaugurated by the Home Minister on Monday.
The pilot projects are part of the Centres Comprehensive Integrated Border Management System.
The officials also confirmed that since the trial runs of the pilot projects had been successful, the minister would travel to the forward areas to inaugurate them during his one-day visit.
They, however, said, finer details of Rajnaths visit were being worked out. The officials said since the process of the urban local bodies elections was being set in motion in the next few days, the minister was also likely to review security arrangements for the polls.
Sources said the smart fencing along the International Border had been constructed using latest technology and would be impossible for the militants to breach it. On a number of occasions, the militants had managed to breach the normal fencing by cutting it, they added.
editorial@tribune.com
Tribune News Service
Dhirthi, September 13
Security forces say they have busted a major terror module with the elimination of three heavily armed Pakistani militants and the arrest of the driver of the truck in which they were being taken to Kashmir from Jammu and a BSc nursing student, who posed as a cleaner of the truck.
It is a major breakthrough for us as Mohammad Iqbal, who is a BSc nursing student and was in touch with militants, hired Riaz Ahmad for ensuring safe travel of the militants to Kashmir from Jammu, said a senior officer of security forces, who was part of the Thursday encounter.
Earlier, they were tasked for the same assignment four times and they transported militants successfully. They had ensured safe travel for at least 20 militants from Jammu to Kashmir in the past, the officer said.
Talking to reporters in Dhirthi village, Maj Gen Arvind Bhatia, General Officer Commanding, Uniform Force, said the duo was involved in ferrying militants from Jammu to Kashmir and they had done it four or five times in the past.
The militants might have infiltrated from the International Border between Bobiyan and Samba and were being taken to Kashmir in the truck a task assigned to the arrested persons, the GOC said.
Sources said the arrested duo was offered Rs 50,000 to transport the militants to Kashmir and they had reached Jammu in the truck on September 9 via Mughal Road. They picked up the militants from Dayalachak area.
traineesubeditor@tribuneindia.com
Mumbai, September 13
Actor Shahid Kapoor, who has not been able to take out time for promotions of his upcoming film "Bati Gul Meter Chalu" because of his children, says "being a parent is above all."
Shahid became parent one more time when he and Mira welcomed the arrival of their son Zain a week ago. They already have a two-year-old daughter Misha who is not keeping so well nowadays.
The actor on Wednesday took to Twitter to explain his absence from work.
The last few days have been tough. Misha running very high fever and Zain just came home. Have had to miss some promotions. Just 9 days to go for Batti Gul meter chalu to release but being a parent is above all else. Hope to resume promotions very soon. Shahid Kapoor (@shahidkapoor) 12 September 2018
He wrote: "The last few days have been tough. Misha running very high fever and Zain just came home. Have had to miss some promotions. Just nine days to go for "Batti Gul meter chalu" to release but being a parent is above all else. Hope to resume promotions very soon."
Also starring actresses Shraddha Kapoor and Yami Gautam, "Bati Gul Meter Chalu" is slated to release on September 21. IANS.
Renu Sud Sinha
Renu Sud Sinha
THE celebrations have waned, the news about it has already moved to inside pages. Not to say it didn't have its 50 cm in sun (some newspapers devoted even two pages to it); TV channels must have devoted over 15 hours and not just the proverbial 15 minutes. After all, it is not every day that the highest court of the land upholds constitutional morality over societal morality and repeals a 158-year-old archaic and diabolic law.
But as the euphoria fades, reality knocks again in our homes, our offices, our public spaces and even in the virtual world. Nothing but the law has changed. Societal morality, with its deeply-entrenched tentacles, is not going anywhere in a hurry.
The LGBTQ community may not be criminal in the eyes of law anymore but the scorn in the eyes of society is still strong. It is visible in the memes going around; in WhatsApp forwards, though ostensibly in the garb of jokes, and in many such posts on other social media with smileys or winking emoticons thrown in abundance, as if these will take the sting out of it.
Mind you, many of these have been shared by members of the so-called intelligentsia, the vanguard of liberalism, whose surface, it seems, is not meant to be scratched. When one politely points out the insensitivity behind the so-called humour, in a group of more than 40 people, which has journalists, writers, professors, schoolteachers, bureaucrats, Army officers, businessmen, homemakers in short a microcosm of society there is not a single word of support for my gentle protest against the forwards.
It is visible in family gatherings where gossiping tongues smirk about the womanly characteristics of a relatives young son who has settled abroad. Must have done so because he is... the crier gestures with a limp hand.
And strangely enough, the unease is visible even where it is least expected in the precincts of a newspaper, where the issue is being discussed for special stories. Someone remarks honestly, Oh! I am quite liberal but am not sure what my reaction will be if I come across such a person.
Another colleague recounts a somewhat similar incident from among the fraternity. Many people avoided shaking hands with a fellow journalist, whose orientation was suspect, of all the things, because of his appearance.
As I read accounts of young hopefuls from the LGBTQ community, many of whom have come out, what they believe is sunshine, now that they can no longer be prosecuted, I feel hopeless at their naivete. What about social persecution?
If these are the reactions of Liberal India, I shudder at the homophobia this love-all community must be facing in small towns and villages where the real India lives and where people love to hate members of this community. We cant even accept their acceptance into the law; the question of their unquestioned acceptance... well, that road is not even paved with any intentions good or bad.
ROBINSINGH@TRIBUNE.COM
Kochi, September 12
Amid mounting pressure for his arrest over rape charges by a nun, Bishop Franco Mulakkal of the Jalandhar Diocese has been asked by the Kerala Police to appear before the investigating team on September 19.
IGP Vijay Sakhare said the delay in completing the probe was on account of contradictions in the statements by the victim, the witnesses and the accused.
It is an old case based primarily on oral evidence. It is very difficult to gather scientific and technical evidence. Bishop Mulakkal has been asked to appear, Sakhare told the media. The Bishop was questioned in Jalandhar last month too.
The review meeting, attended by Kottayam DSP Harisankar and Vaikom DSP K Subhash, head of the Special Investigating Team (SIT) entrusted with the case, finalised the affidavit to be submitted in the Kerala High Court on Thursday. The HC had earlier this week directed the state government to inform it of the steps taken by the SIT.
Meanwhile, as protests by Catholic Reform organisations and nuns seeking justice continued, the Kerala Catholic Bishop Council slammed these as having crossed all limits. PTI
ROBINSINGH@TRIBUNE.COM
Smita Sharma
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, September 12
Amid looming US sanctions, India has conveyed to the Trump administration that reducing crude imports from Iran to zero is not possible.
This has been conveyed in three rounds of technical discussions so far as well as the recently concluded 2+2 dialogue, say sources. Another US delegation is expected later this month in New Delhi to figure out how much of reduction in oil imports might allow certain carve outs for the India-Iran trade, including the Chabahar port positioned as a humanitarian development project with special significance to Afghanistan.
After conclusion of the 2+2 talks, US Secretary of State Pompeo had said, We have told the Indians consistently, as we have told every nation, that on November 4th, the sanctions with respect to Iranian crude oil will be enforced, and that we will consider waivers where appropriate, but that it is our expectation that the purchases of Iranian crude oil will go to zero from every country, or sanctions will be imposed. However, Indian officials say that pricing, sustainability and supply side issues mean that nearly 12 per cent of current crude imports from Iran cannot be brought down to zero.
Already fuel prices are high in India. If the cost of production of oil goes up internationally, it will add to our problems. Companies will pass on added prices to consumers, said an official. He underlined it is a different situation with the US isolated this time on its Tehran approach as Europeans, Chinese and Russians still support the Iran nuclear deal. Indians have held discussions with Europeans separately on the issue in the past few months.
India is also eyeing the Caspian Sea oil and gas reserves to which Iran has sole access. Sources say India has explained to American interlocutors that its economy needs to grow if the US wants it to be a major player in its South Asia and Indo-Pacific strategy.
gspannu7@gmail.com
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, September 13
China on Thursday denied Indian media reports of Chinese military transgression at the Line of Actual Control three times in a month into Uttarakhand.
Responding to media queries, Chinese Foreign Minister Geng Shuang said Chinese border troops operate on Chinese side of the LAC in compliance with the relevant agreements reached between the two countries.
What I have learnt is that the Chinese side was carrying out routine patrol on the Chinese territory, said Geng at the daily press briefing.
Reports had suggested that the farthest Chinese transgression last month reached 4 km into Indias territory.
President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Narendra Modi have met several times recently, during which important consensus was reached on properly managing differences and disputes and jointly maintaining peace and tranquility of the border areas.
China and India also have well-established communication and meeting mechanism for border-related affairs. Whats happened in the border areas could be dealt with through this mechanism. Resorting to the media to heat things up will not help control disputes, added Geng.
It took a Wuhan informal summit between PM Modi and President Xi to reset ties months after the 73-day Doklam tense stand-off between the two armies at the trI junction with Bhutan last year.
editorial@tribune.com
Ajay Banerjee
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, September 13
A Parliamentary committee has termed last years 73-day Doklam military standoff a blatant attempt by China to change the boundary to dominate Indias Siliguri corridor. It has raised questions over Chinese infrastructure being uncomfortably close to India-Bhutan-China tri-junction.
Since Parliament is not in session, the committee headed by Shashi Tharoor had presented a report Sino-India relations, including Doklam, border situation... to Speaker Sumitra Mahajan. The committee requested Direction 71A of the Directions by the Speaker with the request to permit the printing, publication and circulation of the report under Rule 280 of the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in Lok Sabha. The report was made public on Wednesday night, ending weeks of speculation that the report was being stalled due to its sensitive nature.
About the standoff (June 16-August 28, 2017), the committee said China intrusion at Doklam was uncalled for and was a blatant but unsuccessful attempt to unilaterally change the status quo by shifting the India, Bhutan, China tri-junction from Batang La to Gyomochen.
It could have seriously affected Indias security interests and enhanced Chinas ability to dominate the vulnerable Siliguri corridor, the report said and it cited the Foreign Secretary saying: Chinese troops came with road building equipment with a stated intention of building a road to the Jampheri ridge (overlooking the Siliguri corridor). This was detrimental to Indias security interests.
The committee said it remains concerned the Chinese infrastructure built uncomfortably close to the tri-junction has not yet been dismantled. The report of the committee says the government has categorically denied any Chinese activities near the actual faceoff site, an ambivalent view has been expressed while confirming such activities for other areas in the Doklam plateau. Reports suggesting that significant road-building (by China) towards the Indian border has already occurred are also of concern to the committee.
The government has categorically denied that there is any direct threat from Chinese troops currently, however, the committee has suggested it is always better to have a sense of healthy scepticism when dealing with China.
Even if they have withdrawn their troops from Doklam for the time being, Chinas strategic intentions should not be taken casually, the committee said.
Blatant attempt to change boundary
China intrusion at Doklam was uncalled for and was a blatant but unsuccessful attempt to unilaterally change the status quo by shifting the India, Bhutan, China tri-junction from Batang La to Gyomochen Parliamentary committee headed by Shashi Tharoor
In a prepared statement, the FBI said, During the course of the 45-year investigation, the FBI exhaustively reviewed all credible leads, coordinated between multiple field offices to conduct searches, collected all available evidence, and interviewed all identified witnesses. Over the years, the FBI has applied numerous new and innovative investigative techniques, as well as examined countless items at the FBI Laboratory.
editorial@tribune.com
Tribune News Service
Lucknow, September 13
Throwing a spanner in the works of the Opposition unity, BSP supremo Mayawati has equally blamed both the BJP and Congress for the rise in petrol and diesel prices.
Mayawatis statement has unnerved many in the Congress, making chances of a combined fight against the BJP more like a pie in the sky.
The BSP chiefs allegation came a day after the Congress-led Bharat Bandh on skyrocketing prices of fuel was a sort of testing of waters for the Opposition unity.
While the BSP had technically supported the bandh its leaders and cadres were conspicuous by their absence on the streets or on the media. The ambiguity did not last long as the very next day Mayawati issued a three-page press release maintaining equidistance from both the BJP and Congress.
Mayawati claimed that the BJP not only followed the Congress partys wrong economic policies but went a step further by adding several of its own.
She said that the BJPs demonetization imposed a sort of economic emergency and the ill-prepared step to implement GST further ruined small businesses and caused great hardship all around.
She has called upon the BJP to shed its stubborn attitude and bring both petrol and diesel back under government control and put a stop to oil companies arbitrary behaviour.
A Congress leader who has maintained that opposition unity was a matter of time played down Mayawatis strident attack on the Congress saying that it appeared to be part of her strategy to put Congress on the back foot and bargain maximum seats from it during the assembly elections in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.
BSP supremo says NDA going UPA way
"The BJP has adopted the same faulty economic policies which made the Congress unpopular and forced people to vote it out in 2014... just like what the Congress did in case of petrol, the BJP within six months of assuming power deregulated diesel prices, which was an anti-poor, anti-labour and anti-farmer step." Mayawati, BSP Chief
ROBINSINGH@TRIBUNE.COM
Ajay Banerjee
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, September 12
The Army top-brass that met in Delhi over restructuring the force has agreed by consensus for a transformation of the Army, even as some issues on which there was no consensus will be discussed again.
Another review on the matter is slated in three weeks from now that is the first week of October. Sources said some issues relating to faster career progression of officers and the shape of future force structures have not yet been agreed upon.
There was a consensus on the need to transform the Army into lean and mean 21st century battle-ready fighting unit, however, this is not the final decision.
After the review in the first week of October, the matter would be discussed at the Army Commanders Conference in October-end, sources said.
Army Chief General Bipin Rawat had met Commanders of the seven commands of the Army. They have agreed on restructuring the Army headquarters and merger of units doing overlapping work. However, before a final decision is taken, the directorates that are to be merged have been asked for detailed comments.
As per the emerging consensus, the Army is looking to have operations, logistics and procurement under separate headseach led by a Lieut General-rank official.
At present, the overlap causes delay like the Quarter Master General (QMG) and the Master General Ordnance (MGO) have over lapping rolesboth look at procuring new items. The Weapons and Equipment Directorate and the Perspective Planning Cell have over lapping duties.
Sources said the merger could include merging Director General of Military Training (DGMT) with Shimla-based Army Training Command. This could also include moving office of the Director General Rashtriya Rifles (RR) from Delhi to be co-located with the Northern Command at Udhampur. The RR is tasked with fighting insurgency in J&K.
This is the biggest exercise after Independence to review personnel and organisational structure and to explore if the present practice is sustainable.
Eye on transformation
There was a consensus on the need to transform the Army into lean and mean 21st century battle-ready fighting unit
Army Chief General Bipin Rawat had met Commanders of the seven commands of the Army
They agreed on restructuring the Army headquarters and merger of units doing overlapping work
.
gspannu7@gmail.com
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, September 13
The Kerala Government has sent a memorandum to the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) seeking central assistance of Rs 4,700 crore to compensate for damage caused by recent floods in the state.
As many as 488 people are reported to have been killed in the floods as 14 districts of the state were affected by the floods, which have been termed the worst in the country this monsoon.
A senior MHA official said the Kerala Government has sent a memorandum giving details of the damages caused by the floods in terms of human lives, properties, infrastructure and crops.
The state has sought a help of Rs 4,700 crore as compensation from the Centre, said a senior official.
In case of any natural calamity beyond the coping capacity of a state, the state government submits a detailed memorandum indicating sector-wise details of damage and requirement of funds for relief operations of immediate nature and accordingly, the Kerala Government has sent the memorandum, the official said.
As per the existing guidelines, the Central Government will soon send an Inter-Ministerial Central Team (IMCT) for on-the-spot assessment of damage.
Its report will then be considered by the Sub-Committee of National Executive Committee (SC-NEC) headed by the Union home secretary in conformity with the norms and then by a high-level committee, chaired by the Union home minister for approving the quantum of money and also additional assistance from the NDRF, if required.
The financial mechanism to meet the rescue and relief expenditure during any notified disaster event is governed by guidelines on State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF) and National Disaster Response Fund (NDRF), the officials said.
According to the guidelines, the Centre provides its allocation to SDRF of each state in advance in two instalments. In case of any natural calamity, the state meets the expenditure of relief and rescue from the SDRF already available at its disposal.
ROBINSINGH@TRIBUNE.COM
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, September 12
Aiming to reap electoral dividend in the upcoming elections, the government on Wednesday approved a new umbrella scheme to roll out its hiked MSP for farm produce under Pradhan Mantri Annadata Aay Sanrakshan Abhiyaan (PM-ASHA) for which it has earmarked Rs 15,053 crore.
It has also decided to incentivise ethanol production in a bid to reduce crude oil dependence at a time when the Opposition is mounting pressure in view of high prices of petroleum products.
Cleared at a meeting of the Union Cabinet chaired by PM Narendra Modi, the umbrella scheme gives the states option to choose a farm produce compensation plan and also rope in private agencies for procurement to ensure profitable price for farmers.
The PM-AASHA is aimed at ensuring remunerative prices to the farmers for their produce as announced in the Union Budget for 2018. This is a historic decision, said Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh.
Under the PM-AASHA, states will be allowed to choose from three schemes Price Support Scheme, Price Deficiency Payment Scheme and Pilot of Private Procurement Stockist Scheme to undertake procurement when prices of commodities fall below MSP level. Of Rs 15,053 crore sanctioned for the PM-AASHA in the next two financial years, Rs 6,250 crore will be spent this year. The credit line for procurement agencies has been also been enhanced by providing additional government guarantee of Rs 16,550 crore, taking the total to Rs 45,550 crore.
On incentivising sugar industry, Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan said millers who produce 100 per cent biofuel from sugarcane juice would get the support price of Rs 59.19 per litre (Rs 12.06 higher than the current rate).
For 100 per cent electrification of broad gauge rail lines, the government approved a proposal to electrify the remaining 13,675 km by 2021-22 at a cost of Rs 12,134,50 crore.
ROBINSINGH@TRIBUNE.COM
Manas Dasgupta
Ahmedabad, September 12
The 19-day-old indefinite fast by Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti convener Hardik Patel ended on Wednesday without the Gujarat Government taking note of the agitation but with the promise by the Patel community leaders to fight for the demands he had raised.
The 24-year-old leaders fast though remained unresolved at the government level, it was considered a major success in bridging gaps between six major rival groups of the Patidar community as the leaders of all six groups jointly appealed to him to end his fast and he agreed to respect their wishes.
The leaders of all six groups were present and offered lime and coconut juice to Hardik to break his fast at 3.15 pm, 19 days after he had launched his fast at the same time on August 25, the third anniversary day of the Patidar mega rally in Ahmedabad leading to the deaths of 14 Patel youths in police firing.
This is only out of respect for you elders. To show everyone that you are our elders and we respect you. That we are all united and now that my community elders are with me, I have nothing to worry or be scared of, Hardik said after breaking his fast even as Deputy CM Nitin Patel ridiculed his agitation since the government remained firm refusing to discuss the issues raised through the Congress-sponsored agitation.
The belief is that if we live, we shall fight and if we fight, we shall win, Hardik said, repeating why the community elders had advised him to break his fast.
Soon after breaking the fast, he visited the Sabarmati Gandhi Ashram to pay tribute to Mahatma Gandhi.
ROBINSINGH@TRIBUNE.COM
Jupinderjit Singh
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, September 12
In a serious bid at unity, Leader of the Opposition (LoP) Harpal Cheema and AAPs Punjab co-convener Dr Balbir Singh have begun reaching out to party rebels, including Patiala MP Dr Dharamvira Gandhi, Sucha Singh Chhotepur and the Khaira group at the bidding of party convener Arvind Kejriwal at a meeting in Delhi on Sunday.
Dr Balbir said he and other party leaders had already met some rebel MLAs. We will soon meet all rebels and urge them to stand united in the larger interest of Punjab, he said.
Cheema on Wednesday met Narinder Singh in Moga. The latter is close to Sukhpal Khaira, who heads a group of eight rebel MLAs.
Kejriwal wants the leaders to sink differences. We can best serve the interests of Punjab if we are united, he said. Kanwar Sandhu, spokesperson for the Khaira group, welcomed the peace initiative.
He said unity was possible if the resolutions passed at the Bathinda convention, including autonomy for the state unit, were accepted. We are already supporting party nominees for the zila parishad and block samiti polls, he said.
Dr Gandhi shared the stage with the Khaira group in Patiala on Sunday. He was suspended for alleged anti-party activities in 2014. Former state convener Chhotepur was removed before the 2017 Assembly polls for accepting funds from a volunteer a charge that the party could not prove.
editorial@tribune.com
Kochi, September 13
The Kerala High Court today expressed satisfaction over the police investigation into the allegations of rape levelled by a nun against a Roman Catholic Bishop.
A Division Bench of Chief Justice Hrishikesh Roy and Justice AK Jayasankaran Nambiar made the observations after perusing a report of the investigating officer in the case submitted by the Director General of Prosecution.
We are of the prima facie view that the investigation is being conducted in a fair and professional manner and at this stage, it would be inappropriate to issue any specific direction, it said.
The court was hearing three petitions alleging that the police investigation in the case against Jalandhar diocese Bishop Franco Mulakkal was ineffective. One of the petitioners has sought a CBI probe into the case, with mounting pressure for action against the Bishop.
The court said the alleged incident took place some years ago and it was quite natural that the probe was taking time. Any hasty investigation would only allow the accused to go scot-free, it said, posting the petitions to September 24. PTI
ROBINSINGH@TRIBUNE.COM
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, September 12
Revealing a trick used in the surgical strikes, a retired senior Army officer has said that troops used leopards urine and faeces to mislead stray dogs that would otherwise bark at troops.
Nagrota-based 16 Corps former commander Lt Gen RR Nimbhorkar (retd) on Wednesday said the Indian troops used leopards urine and faeces to throw off dogs while carrying out surgical strikes 15 km inside Pakistan territory in 2016.
Speaking to The Tribune, he, however, refused to comment any further on the matter saying: I have nothing more to add to what I said.
In Pune, the Thorle Bajirao Peshwa Pratishthan had awarded Lt Gen Nimbhorkar for his contribution during the strikes. The award was given away by the former Union Minister Manohar Joshi who was the chief guest.
Lt Gen Nimbhorkar, who is from the Punjab Regiment of the Army, told the audience in Pune: When I was the brigade commander in the Nowshera sector (earlier in his career), I had observed that there were often leopard attacks on the dogs there and the dogs stayed away from the area at night fearing leopards, he said.
When the strikes were being planned, we took the possibility of the presence of dogs into consideration... the dogs could have barked when our troops were crossing the LoC (Line of Control). So our soldiers spread leopard urine and faeces along the route, which helped keep the dogs away, the Lt General said.
Nimbhorkar said the Army had maintained deepest secrecy. Then Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar had told us to execute the operation in a week. I had discussed this with our troops a week in advance but didnt reveal the exact location. They came to know about it a day prior to the attack, he said. To execute the operation, Lt Gen Nimbhorkar said, we had chosen early morning. We had identified the terrorists launch pads. We had studied their timings and got to know that 3.30 am was perfect to attack. Before that, our troops had to reach a safe location. They had successfully crossed difficult terrains and mine fields. They destroyed three pads and killed 29 terrorists, he said.
editorial@tribune.com
Smita Sharma
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, September 13
The Ministry of External Affairs has been left red-faced as it reacted to West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjees visit to the US that was supposedly never meant to be.
The MEA, late on Wednesday evening, issued a statement condemning reports in a section of the media about denial of permission to Mamata to visit Chicago to attend the 2nd World Hindu Conference. We did not receive any request for clearance regarding the visit for the event. The reports about the denial of permission are, therefore, not true, said MEA spokesman Raveesh Kumar.
The Trinamool Congress today hit out at the MEA for its low on facts argument. TMC spokesperson and parliamentary party leader in Rajya Sabha Derek O Brien said Mamata was to travel not for the World Hindu Congress, but for an event by Vivekananda Vedanta Society of Chicago to commemorate 125 years of the historic address by Swami Vivekananda.
While Mamata had confirmed her presence, her party claimed the organisers subsequently cancelled the event under tremendous pressure. It is common knowledge that the BJP-RSS wanted only one major programme to be held in Chicago and that would be under the banner of the Global Hindu Congress (World Hindu Foundation), which would be attended by RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat. To ensure this happened, intense pressure was mounted on the Vivekananda Vedanta Society to cancel the event for which Mamata had confirmed, said O Brien.
The party also put out an earlier statement from the US Consulate General in Kolkata to drive home the allegation that the Indian government was against her travelling to America. The US statement had said, The CMs visit would be a good opportunity for her to highlight the possibilities in the economic and trade relationship with the US and to experience America first hand. 'Sources refused to react to the TMC statement calling it a 'political one'. Subsequently the MEA put out a fresh statement and with no mention of the World Hindu Congress but maintained that no request was received for clearance regarding visit of Banerjee to Chicago for 'any event' whatsoever and so reports of denial of the same hold on ground.'
Trip that wasnt
monicakchauhan@gmail.com
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, September 13
The ABVP, the student wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh, Thursday bagged three posts, including that of the president, in the Delhi University Students Union (DUSU) elections.
The NSUI, the student wing of the Congress, won only one seat.
ABVPs Ankiv Basoya won the presidential post with a margin of 1744 votes while partys candidate Shakti Singh was declared as the vice president after he won with a margin of 7673 votes. NSUIs Akash Choudhary won the secretarys post while ABVPs Jyoti emerged victorious on the joint secretary post.
Basoya got 20467 votes while his rival NSUIs Sunny Chhillar got 18723 votes. Singh received 23046 votes against NSUI rival Leenas 15373 votes.
Choudhary, the lone winning candiadte of the NSUI, alleged that fair elections were not conducted and data of seven EVMs were missing.
The chief electoral officer in Delhi Thursday clarified that the EVMs used in DUSU elections have not been issued by the Election Commission and it seems to have been procured privately.
Earlier, the Congress-affiliated NSUI on Thursday alleged "gross irregularities" in the elections and demanded fresh polling.
The counting of votes resumed in the evening after nearly five hours.
The counting was initially stopped for an hour after the allegations of faulty EVMs surfaced. However, following objections by the students, the election officials decided to suspend the process.
"The polls are being held at the behest of the central government. The EVMs were tampered with. We want fresh elections," Rocky Tuseed of the National Students' Union of India (NSUI) said earlier.
NSUI national in-charge Ruchi Gupta said, NSUI was winning on the posts of DUSU president and secretary after six rounds of counting. Then six EVMs developed snag and the EC wanted to set those aside. How is it that the machines, which were working fine till yesterday have developed a snag during counting? Clearly some sabotage to help ABVP."
The NSUI activist also accused the varsity administration of "inaction" on a complaint against Sangh-backed ABVP vice-presidential candidate Shakti Singh, who was purportedly seen accompanying an unruly crowd vandalising property in Zakir Hussain College ahead of the elections.
"Why no action was taken on the written complaint by NSUI as Shakti Singh who has been caught on camera on a rampage with his goons in Zakir Hussain college not disqualified," alleged Gupta.
Shakti Singh said, "Only one EVM was faulty and it can be repaired. We want the counting to be resumed. Since we were leading on all the seats, the other parties are demanding fresh elections."
The supporters of both the groups shouted slogans against the Delhi University (DU) administration and created a ruckus inside the counting centre.
"A fresh date for the counting will be announced soon," an election officer for the DUSU polls said.
EVMs tampered with: ABVP
The ABVP, on the other hand, claimed that because earlier its candidates on all the four posts were winning the EVMs were tampered with.
With supporters hooting and raising anti-administration slogansDU professors murdabad murdabad, dictatorship nahi chalegi nahi chalegi, the ABVP demanded recounting of votes at the earliest.
ABVP leader Monica Choudhary claims 10-12 colleges in and around Kalkaji constitute her partys stronghold and she expected good support for the ABVP.
We have demanded that the counting be resumed after correcting all the glitches in a democratic manner, Monica added.
What triggered the suspension: It was after the sixth round of counting when NSUI gained lead on the secretary post with its nominee Aakash Choudhary leaving behind arch-rival ABVPs Sudhir Dedha in the race of secretary, the former pointed out that votes on the secretary post were being displayed on ballot 10 while there were only eight contenders for the post and the ninth ballot was NOTA.
The extra ballot on the secretary seat had secured over 40 votes while glitches were claimed in another EVM machine which recorded 480 votes on the presidential seat by the Congress student outfit. In total, student parties alleged around five EVMs to be tampered including the one with the extra ballot.
NSUI claimed the votes in both cases were crucial as they were from some colleges of South Campus where it believes to be having a sizable support base.
Amid chaos outside the DUSU election panel kept trying to strike a compromise in a meeting inside the counting centre with candidates representing various student groups. With PTI
Im a big Lambs Farm lover. Its my go-to place for our smaller grandchildren when we want to take them on an outing but arent ready to handle the crowds and intensity of larger venues. They operate in some form most of the year, but at this time of year they have their Fall on the Farm weekend.
uttara@tribuneindia.com
New Delhi, September 13
Negotiations for procurement of 126 Rafale jets under the UPA government fell through as state-run Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd did not have the required capability to produce the jets in India in collaboration with French company Dassault Aviation, Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said Thursday.
Sitharaman also said that an unprecedented intervention in 2013 by then Defence Minister AK Antony when the cost negotiation committee was giving final touches to the deal put the final nail in the coffin.
After rounds of negotiations with HAL, Dassault Aviation felt that the cost of the Rafale jets will escalate significantly if they were to be produced in India, she said during an interaction with PTI editors and reporters at the agency's headquarters here.
Dassault could not progress in the negotiations with HAL because if the aircraft were to be produced in India, a guarantee for the product to be produced was to be given. It is a big-ticket item and the IAF would want guarantee of the jets. HAL was in no position to give the guarantee, she said.
Sitharaman said the weapon systems, avionics and other key add-ons to the Rafale aircraft, expected to be delivered beginning September 2019, will be "much superior" than that negotiated by the UPA, and her government is getting the planes for 9 per cent cheaper than what was earlier agreed upon.
The previous UPA government started negotiating in 2012 with French Dassault Aviation to buy 126 Medium Multi-Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA).
The plan was for Dassault Aviation to supply 18 Rafale jets in flyaway condition while 108 aircraft were to be manufactured in India by the company along with HAL. However the deal could not be sealed.
The Congress has demanded answers from the government on why HAL was not involved in the new deal.
Sitharaman said the UPA deal collapsed as HAL did not have the capability to produce 108 aircraft in India.
Even during negotiation with HAL, Dassault felt that the cost with which the HAL will produce would be far higher than the aircraft produced in France. That was the reality, she said.
The defence minister said the then government could have come forward and pumped in resources into HAL, but they did not.
She said she has no intention of undermining HAL, but why could not the then defence minister say that we will pump in all the required resources into the HAL. He could have done it. That was not done, Sitharaman said, adding that the current government was initiating steps to strengthen the state-run aerospace company.
In 2016, the Modi government signed a government-to-government deal with France for purchase of 36 Rafale jets at a cost of Rs 58,000 crore. The Congress has been alleging irregularities in the deal.
Rebutting charges of corruption in the deal, the defence minister also asserted that people of the country have put a closure on the issue as they have trust in Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
There is a trust in the prime minister. He is not going to be corrupt. So with all this, I think mentally, people of India have reached a closure on it, saying there is no corruption here, she said.
Sitharaman ruled out calling the opposition parties for a meeting to allay their concerns over the Rafale deal, saying they are throwing an allegation without any basis as well as showing no concern for operational preparedness of the air force.
In a hard-hitting attack on Congress, she said the party was running short of issues and corruption was a plank on which it utterly failed.
It is one of the cleanest governments India has ever seen. On corruption, the Congress is very frustrated. The party will have to learn from this government. I am saying this with a certain sense of confidence and not arrogance. The defence ministry is being run without any middleman and in a transparent way. We have proved that defence procurement can happen without middlemen, she said.
On Antony's intervention, she said he held back the file at a stage where he did not have any role to play. However, she did not elaborate on reasons for Antony's action.
The Congress has repeatedly criticised the deal for the 36 Rafale jets, alleging that the government was procuring each aircraft at a cost of over Rs 1,670 crore as against Rs 526 crore finalised by the UPA government.
Sitharaman said the Rs. 526 crore figure refers to the bare aircraft, capable of just flying and landing, and does not take into account the avionics, arsenal and other associated technologies that make it a complete fighting machine. PTI
ROBINSINGH@TRIBUNE.COM
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, September 12
The Supreme Court on Wednesday extended the house arrest of five activists arrested in connection with the Koregaon-Bhima violence case for another five days.
A three-judge Bench headed by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra deferred to September 17 the hearing on the plea filed by five intellectuals, including historian Romila Thapar, after it was informed that senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, representing the petitioners, was busy in another court.
Earlier, Singhvi had appeared before the Bench and said the matter could be taken up in the post lunch session as he had to appear in another case.
In a pan-India crackdown on August 28, poet Varavara Rao was arrested in Hyderabad, activists Vernon Gonsalves and Arun Ferreira in Mumbai, trade unionist and lawyer Sudha Bhardwaj in Faridabad and Chhattisgarh and civil liberties activist Gautam Navlakha in Delhi for suspected Maoist links.
The police said the arrested activists were not being indicted in the FIR for the first time but some had past criminal antecedents and were imprisoned. The whole process of search of the activists in June, including Rona Wilson, Surendra Gadling, Sudhir Dhawale and others had been videographed, the police said.
The Maharashtra Police alleged that the arrested activists were planning to carry out violence in the country and ambush security forces and the raids were part of a probe into a conclave Elgar Parishad held in Bhima-Koregaon, near Pune, on December 31, 2017, which had allegedly triggered violence the next day.
Acting on a petition filed by historian Romila Thapar, economists Prabhat Patnaik and Devaki Jain, sociologist Satish Deshpande and Commonwealth human rights initiative senior adviser Maja Daruwala, the top court had on August 29 had restrained the police from taking them into their custody and ordered their house arrest.
The top court had last week taken strong exception to the Pune Police press briefing on the arrest of five activists, saying they (police) tried to insinuate the court. The Maharashtra Police have questioned the locus standi of the five petitioners in the case.
rchopra@tribunemail.com
Washington, September 13
The US shares a concern with India over the continued ability of terrorist proxies to operate on Pakistani soil, a senior Trump administration official has said, stressing that tackling this core issue by Islamabad is critical to the prospects of its better relations with New Delhi.
Alice Wells, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia, said conversations on counterterrorism had always been a very important part of the US-India relationship and the two countries had been coordinating on terrorist designations.
We have a thriving counterterrorism dialogue. We have ongoing efforts by the US administration to sanction a range of global terrorists, including nearly a dozen Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) targets and aliases over the last year, she said at an event at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a top American think-tank.
The LeT militant group carried out the 2008 Mumbai attack, killing 166 people, including American nationals.
And certainly, with the 10th anniversary of the Mumbai attack approaching, we share a concern over the continued ability of terrorists proxies to operate on Pakistani soil, Wells said.
Referring to a recent remark by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Wells said the US was looking for actions, not words from the government of Pakistan. And obviously this is a shared concern, she said.
Pompeo, who recently visited Islamabad before he travelled to New Delhi, had a good constructive consultations with the new Pakistani leadership, she said.
It was his first opportunity to meet Prime Minister Imran Khan and it was an opportunity for the Secretary to lay out aspirations for the relationship, she said, adding that she saw Pakistan as a sovereign country that had a choice to make.
I would hope that the choice is what was attributed to a Chief of Army Staff, General (Qamar Javed) Bajwa who said as long as there are extremist non-state forces operating in Pakistan, Pakistan couldnt be a normal state, Wells said.
It is tackling that core issue thats going to be so critical both to the quality of our bilateral relationship but also to the prospects for better relations between India and Pakistan, she said. PTI
amansharma@tribunemail.com
Lucknow, September 13
A Hizbul Mujahideen terrorist who was planning an attack during Ganesh Chaturthi was arrested in Kanpur on Thursday, police said.
"The terrorist has been identified as Qamar-uz-Zama (37), a resident of Assam, and is an active member of Hizbul Mujahideen," Director General of Police OP Singh said.
He was arrested from Shivnagar locality in Kanpur's Chakeri area, the state police chief said at a hurriedly called press conference here.
The DGP said the arrested terrorist was planning an attack during Ganesh Chaturthi but did not elaborate, saying a probe is on. The 10-day festival began Thursday.
Replying to a question, Singh said, "Whether he is here to vitiate the religious atmosphere or for any other purpose is part of the probe," he said.
It appeared from his mobile phone that he was carrying out a recce, police said. A video clip of a temple in Kanpur was found on it.
The state's Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS), which made the arrest, was tracking him for the past 8-10 days. The National Investigation Agency and the Kanpur police were also involved.
"He was active on social media and had posted a picture of himself in April 2018 with an AK-47 weapon, after which he was under our radar," the DGP said.
The photo went viral on social media, police said.
The caption said: "Org: Hizbul Mujahideen; Name: Qamer Uzzaman; S/O Ibrahim Zaman; R/O: Assam India; Code: Dr Hurairah; Qul: MA English."
The police said Qamar accepted during interrogation that he is an active member of Hizbul Muzahideen and was sent to Kanpur in preparation for a terror attack.
"The terrorist had undergone training in Pakistan in 2017 and had joined the Hizbul there. He also stayed abroad between 2008 and 2012," Singh said.
He spent some time in hiding on a Pacific Ocean island in the Republic of Palau, police said.
Qamar-uz-Zama is educated with a sound knowledge of computers, but failed his BA third-year exam, the Uttar Pradesh DGP said.
He did a diploma in computers and typing.
Singh said the police are trying to trace his links and source of funding. They are also probing why he was staying in Kanpur.
"Whether he is here to vitiate the religious atmosphere or for any other purpose is part of the probe," he said.
Qamar, who is also known as Dr Hurairah and Kamruddina, married in 2013 in Assam and has a son who lives there.
In March, the Uttar Pradesh ATS had arrested 10 people it claimed were linked with Lashkar-e-Toiba and involved in terror-funding activities. - PTI
editorial@tribune.com
Lucknow, September 13
After spending 15 months behind bars, Bhim Army founder Chandrashekhar alias Ravan may soon be released from Saharanpur jail in Uttar Pradesh.
Along with the Dalit rights crusader, Sonu and Shiv Kumar of Shabbirpur village in Saharanpur, where clashes between Rajputs and Dalits took place in May last year, would be freed.
Chandrashekhar was first arrested on June 8, 2017, from Dalhousie in HP. The cases pending against him were for misuse of social media and instigating violence in Ramnagar in May last year.
On November 4, the Allahabad High Court had granted him bail. However, the Yogi Adityanath government imposed the NSA to continue their imprisonment. TNS
editorial@tribune.com
Tribune News Service
Hoshiarpur/Phagwara, Sept 12
Sugarcane farmers, awaiting disbursement of Rs 700-crore dues, blocked the rail and road traffic for five hours at the Bhangala railway station in Mukerian here on Wednesday.
Though the district administration and police of Hoshiarpur and Gurdaspur were aware of the protest since Tuesday, they only attempted to negotiate.
Nearly 2,000 farmers sat on the tracks and adjoining the Jalandhar-Pathankot national highway disrupting traffic as the administration and police remained mute spectators. The protest was in violation of the Punjab and Haryana High Court orders.
When the Doaba Kisan Sangharsh Committee had planned a similar protest in Phagwara on November 16, 2017, the High Court had passed directions to the Kapurthala administration to ensure that there was no traffic disruption. In fact, all district administrations have earmarked specific dharna sites in their areas.
The rail traffic on Jammu-Pathankot-Jalandhar-Ludhiana rail section remained disrupted causing much inconvenience to the passengers aboard trains on the Jammu-Pathankot rail section. The road traffic was diverted, but commuters were harassed due to long detours.
Railway sources said several trains remained stranded at different railway stations. Phagwara Station Superintendent Gyan Chand said Jammu-bound Lohit Express remained stranded in Phagwara for one hour and 40 minutes, while Malwa Express got stuck near Bhangala Station. Swaraj Express train was diverted via Pathankot-Amritsar-Jalandhar section.
Kamalpreet Singh, convener of Pagri Sambhal Jatta, said, We went ahead with the dharna after duly informing the administrations of Hoshiarpur and Gurdaspur districts.
Hoshiarpur DC Isha Kalia said, We tried to negotiate with them on Tuesday and assured them that a meeting will be arranged with higher officials, but they remained adamant.
The farmers lifted the dharna after an assurance on behalf of the government by SSP J Elanchezhian and ADC Anupam Kler.
The farmers said they had given an ultimatum that their payments should be cleared by September 25 or they would hold another agitation. They added that they had also been assured of a meeting with the Chief Secretary in Chandigarh on September 17.
Farmers leader Salwinder Singh, Our dues are pending for the past seven months. How will we pay our power bills, school fee of our children and meet our day-to-day expenses? When no one listens to us, we have to resort to such agitations.
editorial@tribune.com
Anirudh Gupta
Ferozepur, September 12
Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh on Wednesday paid tributes to martyrs of the Battle of Saragarhi to commemorate its 121st anniversary during a state-level function held here.
He announced several projects, including an institute for competitive studies, Saragarhi club and centre for rehabilitation of drug addicts, besides a grant of Rs 1 crore for the beautification and development of the Saragarhi Memorial in this border town.
Capt Amarinder, who has himself authored a book on the famous battle, said the government would ensure speedy execution of the memorial project.
Addressing the gathering, Capt Amarinder said soldiers of the Sikh regiment, led by Havildar Ishar Singh along with Naik Lal Singh, Lance Naik Chanda Singh and their comrades, had showed exemplary courage and heroism against all odds while fighting the Afghans to their last breath.
He said the Saragarhi Memorial Management Committee would oversee the beautification project.
Responding to the demand by local MLA Parminder Singh Pinki for establishing a Saragarhi memorial institute for competitive exams in Ferozepur, the Chief Minister said the government would take necessary steps after examining the matter.
In his welcome address, memorial committee chairman Major General JS Sandhu, GOC, Golden Arrow Division, thanked Capt Amarinder for taking initiative for the development of the Saragarhi Memorial, which, he said, would go a long way in inspiring the spirit of patriotism and nationalism among the youth.
The Chief Minister was accompanied by Cabinet Minister Rana Gurmit Singh Sodhi, MLAs Pinki and Kulbir Singh, Ferozepur IG MS Chinna and Brigadier Vignesh Mohanty, Station Commander.
Earlier after paying obeisance at Gurdwara Saragarhi, the Chief Minister went to Barki Square and paid tributes to martyrs of the 1965 Indo-Pak war.
He also honoured 11 family members of the Saragarhi martyrs, besides the next of kin of 28 soldiers belonging to various regiments, who had attained martyrdom in various operations.
editorial@tribune.com
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, September 12
To commemorate Guru Nanaks 550th birth anniversary, EcoSikh, an NGO working for environment protection, on Wednesday launched a world-wide campaign 550 Rukh Guru de Naam.
Under the initiative, 550 trees are being planted at 1,820 locations across the globe, especially in Punjab, taking the total count to one million by the end of 2019.
The NGO is also creating a mobile app platform to consolidate this report and it will be presented at the United Nations as a unified effort. Apart from doing charity work, we are investing in nature, said Dr Rajwant Singh, global president, EcoSikh.
We are inviting followers to celebrate his 550th birth anniversary in 2019 by planting 550 trees each at their respective locations in every country. The organisation is targeting to reach 1 million trees by the end of the next year, he said.
Dr Rajwant said Rai Farid, one of the descendents of Rai Bular Bhatti (a contemporary and disciple of Guru Nanak) in Nankana Sahib, Pakistan, had approached the NGO to undertake the plantation of 550 trees.
The NGO urged Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh to create forest on 50-100 acres in Gurus name at Sultanpur Lodhi or any other location which had been visited by Guru Nanak.
Supreet Kaur, EcoSikh India president, said, Over 30 teams of 500 youths from the country as well as abroad have already started plantations under the Guru Nanak 550 campaign. On the occasion, a handbook on tree plantation written by environmentalist Dr Balwinder Singh Lakhewali was released.
ROBINSINGH@TRIBUNE.COM
Tribune News Service
Jalandhar, September 12
Raising slogans, activists of the womens wing of the Revolutionary Marxist Party of India (RMPI), the Janwadi Istri Sabha, gathered at Desh Bhagat Yadgar Hall today demanding that Bishop Franco Mulakkal of the Jalandhar Diocese be arrested for allegedly raping a nun. They were led by general secretary Neelam Ghuman and vice-president Raghuvir Kaur.
Carrying placards with We want justice and Say no to rape messages and bearing pictures of the Bishop and the protesting Kerala nuns, they set out for Bishop House, but were stopped at a busy intersection by cops who had placed barricades en route.
They were told they had not sought permission in writing for holding the protest. Bishop Mulakkal was reportedly away to Amritsar for a function at that time. The protesters raised slogans against the Kerala Police for delaying investigations in the case and dispersed.
The PRO for the Jalandhar Diocese, Father Peter, said: The protest by five nuns in Kerala amounted to disobedience and a rebellion against the Church. It is not correct for them to protest in public. They have disregarded hierarchy. Even if the nun had a grievance, she should have approached Superior General of the Missionaries of Jesus and then the Archbishop.
The nuns, of course, have the right to approach the police and the civil authorities, but they have only been making up stories so far.
On Bishop Mulakkal having been summoned by the Kerala Police on September 19, he said: We have yet to receive any summons. The Bishop will certainly appear before the investigation team and cooperate.
There are reports that Pope Francis has convened a global meeting of Catholic bishops on the issue of sexual abuse.
editorial@tribune.com
Aman Sood
Tribune News Service
Patiala, September 13
A day after five children, including two girls, fled Rajpuras SOS Children's Village, the Rajpura police on Thursday registered a rape case on a complaint lodged by a 15-year-old inmate more than two months ago. The latter had alleged she was raped by a fellow inmate.
We have filed a case under Section 376 (rape) and various Sections of POCSO Act, 2012, against the accused, who is now working in Kansal. He left the home earlier this year, DSP Krishan Kumar Panthe said, adding the case needed to be thoroughly probed as the victim had gone back on her statement on an earlier occasion.
Meanwhile, there was high drama through the day with the five escapees, one of them the brother of the alleged rape victim, claiming they were sexually tortured by seniors even as the staff members chose to look the other way.
The home has been in a midst of a controversy since July with a private trust writing to the police, alleging that two girls at the SOS Village were being subjected to sexual torture. As proof, it sent a video of the victimsconfession. However, a case of abuse could be established only in one case. District Child Protection Officer Harpreet Kaur Sandhu claimed the five children who had fled the home had complained of poor quality food, infighting and other minor issues. We have recorded their statements and allowed their guardians to take them along, she told The Tribune.
However, Mandeep Singh Sidhu, Patiala SSP, said the police were waiting for a report by the District Child Protection Officer regarding allegations of sexual assault by another girl, among the five children who fled the shelter home on Wednesday.
Sources said one of them visited his aunts house. He told her that the other children were waiting for him at the Rajpura railway station and that they planned to board a train for Amritsar. The woman brought the children to her house and lodged a complaint with the police helpline.
A police officer found the boy outside in his mothers arms when he responded to an ambulance call at 5:39 p.m. Sept. 11 to the Flagg Creek Condominiums on the 7200 block of Wolf Road. The boy and his parents were on the west lawn of the complex.
editorial@tribune.com
Deepkamal Kaur
Tribune News Service
Jalandhar, September 13
A well-built state-level kabaddi player and a shooter, Bhupinder Singh, alias Bhinda Jandaur (33), one of the contract killers arrested for the murder of Rinkle, had entered the crime world for the lure of a lavish lifestyle.
One meeting with gangster Sheru Dherowalia (who got murdered in HP) at a political rally and he became fascinated by his lifestyle and soon joined him.
While Sheru was from Adampur village, Bhinda hails from Jandaur village in Dasuya, Hoshiarpur. After Sherus murder, Sukhi Dherowalia became the leader of the gang and Bhinda had been working for him ever since.
He owns about 12 acres land and a dairy farm. He has at least seven FIRs registered against him. He has already been arrested six times. Bhinda was previously lodged in Hoshiarpur jail till May 2018. He first got booked in October 2015, for attacking a youth in Dasuya with sharp weapons.
In all his pictures on his Facebook page, last updated in May last year, Bhinda is seen flaunting his rifles and pistols. Cops say he has multiple weapons, some of them licensed. While one weapon was confiscated from him when he was booked for the murder of Garhdiwal resident Amrik Singh in December last year, another unlicensed weapon was recovered after his arrest now.
Amrik was gunned down by car-borne assailants. Bhinda was allegedly hired by Canada-based NRIs of Khurdan village near here.
AIG Counter-Intelligence HPS Khakh said he would question the three contract killers in the case to reach out to their kingpin Sukhi Dherowalia.
7 FIRs against him
editorial@tribune.com
Aman Sood
Tribune News Service
Nabha, September 12
The police have booked unidentified persons for creating a fake Facebook account with a local residents photo and posting blasphemous pictures purportedly depicting Guru Gobind Singh.
On the complaint of Manjit Singh, whose profile picture was used, the police registered a case on Tuesday evening under Sections 295-A (deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings or any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs), 419 (cheating by personation) and 120-B (conspiracy) of the IPC and Sections 66 and 66-C of the Information Technology Act.
Sources said the fake profile was created last week under the name of Chabba Chamar, apparently to create a communal wedge on the eve of the Parkash Purb of Guru Granth Sahib.
As per the FIR, Manjit Singh, a Tempo driver, was at home on September 8 when he opened his Facebook page. I saw a post by one Devinder Gill, whom I dont know. It was from the ID of Chabba Chamar and there were offensive messages about the 10th Guru, reads the FIR registered at Nabha Sadar police station.
I told the ID operator not to depict the Ramdassia community in a bad light by using the word Chamar and also stop making fun of the Gurus, he said. On September 9, I was shocked to find that the Chabba Chamar Facebook profile showed my pictures, which were stolen from my official account. He then threatened to defame me by putting more objectionable photos on the account and later added the same, Manjit told the police.
We are trying to identify the users of the account who posted these pictures, said Jai Inder Randhawa, SHO, Nabha Sadar.
People need to be careful while reacting to such posts as these are part of efforts by unruly elements to disturb peace in the state, said Nabha DSP Devinder Attri.
Earlier on Tuesday, SGPC president Gobind Singh Longowal had stated that blasphemous content on social media was hurting Sikh sentiments. He had mentioned that the Chabba Chamar account was being used to mock the Gurus.
editorial@tribune.com
Tribune News Service
Bathinda, September 12
Former Leader of Opposition Sukhpal Singh Khaira on Wednesday said he was open to talks with the other AAP faction, but the dialogue would take place only on the six resolutions that they had passed in the Bathinda convention on August 2. He said if they accepted those, the issue would be resolved.
Addressing a volunteers convention at Talwandi Sabo, Khaira launched a scathing attack on Sangrur MP Bhagwant Mann, accusing him of projecting the recent developments in the party as Mann versus Khaira issue, which wasnt the case. I would like to ask Bhagwant where he was when we were fighting against corruption by former minister Rana Gurjit Singh, when drug addicts were dying of overdose everyday and when the farmers were committing suicide. He was the partys state president, but he didnt do anything. He instead created hurdles for others, he alleged.
Khaira also targeted Talwandi Sabo MLA Baljinder Kaur, stating that she had sought his resignation from the post of Leader of Opposition on moral grounds when the Congress government targeted him in a drugs case. I would like to ask her where her morality was when her name figured in the dual vote controversy? he said.
He said his rivals in the party again targeted him when he made a remark on the Sikh Referendum 2020. He said the other faction was now busy holding rallies across the state, but they would soon realise people were not with them. He said they were fighting a long battle which would last till 2022 Assembly elections.
Khaira also lashed out at the Congress government, stating that sacrilege cases were still being reported in the state. He announced that they would call a meeting of the like-minded parties and individuals after the Zila Parishad polls in the state to chalk out a plan to wage a struggle to seek justice over the issue of sacrilege of Guru Granth Sahib.
editorial@tribune.com
Nikhil Bhardwaj
Tribune News Service
Ludhiana, September 13
During the course of investigation into the murder case of BJP supporter Rinkle Khera, gangster Sukhi Dherowalia was reportedly in touch with the district police as an informer. Sources said he had assured the police that he would help them nab the gangsters involved in the murder.
When the counter intelligence wing (CIW) arrested three gangsters on Wednesday, they reportedly disclosed that they were not the mastermind, but it was Sukhi who had planned the murder by striking a deal with Congress councillor Gurdeep Singh Neetus son Jatinderpal Singh Sunny and his friend Sunny Nai.
The cops are now searching for Sukhi and raids are being conducted at his suspected hideouts.
A senior police official, requesting anonymity, said the police took Sukhis claims seriously because he was nowhere in the picture in the CCTV footage of the hotel where six gangsters, including two turbaned youths, had stayed a night before the killing.
Sukhis claims were further corroborated because on July 19, even as per the counter intelligence wings claims, Sukhi was in Nawanshahr to appear in the court pertaining to some case where gangsters had lunch with Sukhi and returned to Jalandhar. The next day, Sukhi called Gurmeet regarding the death of Rinkle and all went underground.
Sukhi might have misguided us. He had assured us that he would help the police in the case. We believed him because he was present in the Nawanshahr court on July 19 when Rinkle was killed. We are now searching for him. He is facing over 19 criminal cases, a senior police official asserts.
On Wednesday, the CIW nabbed three gangsters Gurmeet Singh alias Budhu Lohara, Manmeet Singh alias Mani Falora of Lohara in Jalandhar and Bhupinder Singh alias Bhinda Jandaur of Hoshiarpur in the case.
ROBINSINGH@TRIBUNE.COM
Vishav Bharti
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, September 12
Once labelled as the land of female foeticide, Punjab has seen a significant improvement in gender ratio in the past one decade 907 girls for every 1,000 boys, up from 878 in 2009-10. Alarmed at the skewed figures in the 2001 Census (798 girls per 1,000 boys), the state government had launched special initiatives, which paid off.
As per the 2001 Census, Fatehgarh Sahib had the worst gender ratio in the country of 766, which now stands at 908 live female births per 1,000 male births. District-wise, Barnala tops the chart with 938 girls, followed by Mohali at 933, Ludhiana 929, Patiala 922 and Kapurthala 921. At 870, Nawanshahr is at the bottom of the ladder. Among the worst-performing districts are Pathankot (877), Rupnagar (879), Gurdaspur (884) and Tarn Taran (887).
As per a study by the Health Department, steps such as GIS mapping of registered ultrasound centres 1,589 in all and free treatment to the girlchild in government hospitals up to age five have paid dividends, with 50,000 girls benefiting from the scheme every year.
Experts attribute the success to strict implementation of the PCPNDT Act, 1994. Serious efforts were made to strictly implement the PNDT Act. Now people are going to neighbouring states for sex-determination tests. There is a need for better inter-state coordination, observed Dr Rajesh Kumar, Head, School of Public Health, PGIMER, Chandigarh.
Interestingly, it is for the first time that Haryana has performed better than Punjab with 914 female live births for every 1,000 boys.
editorial@tribune.com
Vishav Bharti
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, September 13
I wont write anymore, Sahitya Akademi award-winning author Baldev Singh Sadaknama had announced a year ago after being hounded for portraying Maharaja Ranjit Singh in a poor light in Suraj Di Akkh. On Thursday, his controversial novel won the Dhahan Prize, which carries a cash award of 25,000 Canadian dollars (over Rs 13 lakh) the largest prize money in Punjabi literature. It is given every year to an outstanding book written in Gurmukhi or Shahmukhi scripts of Punjabi.
Ironically, the book is no longer available as the publisher pulped it last year. Since its publication, it is the first time that I am hearing good news about the novel I wrote after four years of research, says Sadaknama, who shot into the limelight in the late 1970s when legendary writer Amrita Pritams Nagmani started publishing his experiences as a truck driver.
The novel, based on historical events, traces the rise and fall of the empire of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. Last year, radical Sikh organisations and some individuals had alleged that the writer had distorted facts to do character assassination of the Sikh ruler. They had not only given calls to lynch him, but also lodged complaints with the police. A legal notice was served on Sadaknama and the police had summoned him. When writers such as Surjit Patar asked for a dialogue on the issue, they were also threatened.
Under fire, the author, in a write-up published in Punjabi Tribune, announced to shelve all his projects, including a novel on the life of martyrs Udham Singh and Madan Lal Dhingra.
Harish Jain, owner of Chandigarh-based Unistar Publishers, said they were left with no option but to stop the sale and further printing of the book. For the past year, the novel is not available at any shop. He said even the award would not make them reconsider their decision. Its up to the writer to get it published again, he said.
However, Moga-based Sadaknama, who has stuck to his stand that the novel is based on true events, says he has no plans to get it printed afresh. Its an irony that a novel which is witnessing an undeclared ban in Punjab has got this award, he says.
Was opposed by radicals
ROBINSINGH@TRIBUNE.COM
IN the course of his speech on Sir William Meyer's resolution, Sir George Lowndes is reported to have said:-- There had been talk of poverty, but was India so poor? So poor is a relative term, and no one can assert with confidence that India could not have been poorer than she is. But Sir George Lowndes has been long enough in India to know, if his eyes are as open as they should be, that India is one of the poorest countries in the civilised world, and that as compared with the self-governing dominions, not to speak of England, her poverty is simply abysmal. It was a little over a decade ago that the then Viceroy computed the average income of the people of India at about thirty rupees per head which worked out at 2 rupees a month. It is a question whether India has grown perceptibly richer or perceptibly poorer since Lord Curzon made his calculation, which, by the way, was at variance with the calculation made by Indian economists themselves.
editorial@tribune.com
Dehradun, September 12
The Uttarakhand government has suspended two senior IAS officials for their alleged role in the Haridwar-Udhamsingh Nagar-Bareilly highway (NH-74) compensation scam, an official said on Wednesday.
Pankaj Kumar Pandey and Chandresh Yadav have been found working arbitrarily and being involved in financial irregularities in connection with the widening of the national highway.
The state government had acquired land on both sides of the highway in Rudrapur for widening. It is alleged that many agricultural lands were shown as commercial and compensation was given in violation of rules.
The two officers were then District Magistrate of Udhamsingh Nagar.
The suspended officials have been attached to Additional Chief Secretary (Personnel) Radha Raturi for now.
The BJP government, soon after coming to power, had ordered the probe into the matter and suspended seven sub-divisional magistrates (SDMs), including one who was retired.
A Special Investigation Team was formed later and based on its report action now has been taken against the two IAS officials, Chief Secretary Utpal Kumar Singh said.
Suspension has sent positive message: BJP
The BJP in Uttarakhand on Wednesday termed the suspension of two IAS officers in the multi-crore NH-74 compensation scam as the biggest-ever step taken by the state government against corruption.
The party got a massive mandate as people were confident we would hit hard at corruption and we have done that, state BJP president Ajay Bhatt told reporters here.
Their suspension in connection with the scam has sent out a positive message that BJP governments do not compromise on corruption and no one found guilty of graft, no matter how strong and big, will be spared, he said.
Claiming that the BJP had waged a massive war against corruption in the country under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah, Bhatt said Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat and the state unit of the party were a partner in the battle.
The SIT probing the scam is doing its job most fairly and many more aspects of the scam are likely to surface, he said. Agencies
harinder@tribunemail.com
Wilmington, September 12
Beach communities in North and South Carolina emptied out on Wednesday as Hurricane Florence threatened to unleash pounding surf and potentially deadly flooding as the most powerful storm to make a direct hit on the states in decades.
Florence had maximum sustained winds of 215 km per hour and was on a trajectory that showed its centre most likely to strike the southern coast of North Carolina by Friday, the National Hurricane Centre said.
Updated NHC forecasts showed the storm lingering near the coast, bringing days of heavy rains that could bring intense inland flooding from South Carolina, where some areas could see as much as 40 inches of rain, to Virginia. This storm is big and its vicious, North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper said on NBCs Today Show on Wednesday.
Flooding is a significant risk here and often when there is flooding the people who can afford it the least get hit the most.
More than 1 million people have been ordered to evacuate the coastline of the three states, while university campuses, schools and factories were being shuttered.
The NHC said the first tropical storm-force winds of at least 63 kph would hit the region early on Thursday with the storms centre reaching the coast Friday. At 8 am (1200 GMT) on Wednesday, the storm was located about 855 km southeast of Cape Fear, North Carolina.
US President Donald Trump on Twitter warned of the storms dangers and praised his administrations handling of past hurricanes, rejecting criticism for its response to Hurricane Maria last year in Puerto Rico. Some 3,000 people died in the aftermath of that storm.
To hasten evacuations from coastal South Carolina, officials switched traffic patterns so that all major roads led away from shore.
Communities could lose electricity for weeks, Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Brock Long said. Crews also prepared 16 nuclear reactors in the three-state region for the storm.
The American Red Cross said more than 700 workers were headed to the region while shelters were set up to house those unable to flee.
The US Coast Guard closed ports in Wilmington and Morehead City in North Carolina and Hampton Roads, Virginia, to inbound vessels greater than 500 tonnes and was requiring vessels of that size to leave if they did not have permission to be in the ports. Reuters
Its huge, can be seen from space
In another manifestation of extreme weather conditions, hurricanes as strong as the Category 4 storm Florence are rarely seen so far north, the United Nations weather agency (WMO) said. A spokesperson for the WMO described Hurricane Florence as very large, very strong and very dangerous. Florence is expected to be an extremely dangerous major hurricane through Thursday. Its a very big hurricane which can be seen from space.
pardeepdhull@gmail.com
Islamabad, September 13
Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan has described the ISI as our first line of defence as he visited for the first time the headquarters of the powerful spy agency.
Khan, along with senior Cabinet ministers, was briefed on Wednesday in detail on the various strategic intelligence and national security matters by the senior officials of the Inter-Services Intelligence, an official statement said.
The Prime Minister lauded contributions of the ISI towards national security especially in the ongoing counter-terrorism effort. The Prime Minister said that the ISI is our first line of defence and stands out as best intelligence agency of the world, the statement issued by the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the media wing of the military said.
Khan, who was sworn in as the 22nd Prime Minister on August 18, has already visited the General Headquarters of Pakistan Army twice first to get an in-depth briefing on the internal security and geo-strategic situation and then to attend the Defence and Martyrs Day ceremony on September 6.
Khan has been accused by his critics of being the security establishments man.
The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party has accused him of reaching the Prime Minister House through the support of the powerful security establishment.
Khan told ISI officials that his government and the people of Pakistan firmly stood behind the armed forces and intelligence agencies and acknowledged the unprecedented achievements of these institutions, the statement said.
Earlier, Army Chief Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa and ISI Director General Lt Gen. Naveed Mukhtar received Khan on his arrival. PTI
The company brought in forensic architects Dina Sorensen and Peter Brown, Pfeffer said. They worked with school officials and a stewardship committee that deals with landmark status-related issues at the school. Tasks included deciphering the original color designs in classrooms and figuring out toppings on Crow Islands original furniture, storage spaces and other items. They built the new furniture to replicate as much of that look as possible, Pfeffer said.
sanjiv@tribunemail.com
Islamabad, September 13
The Pakistan government will turn the palatial PM House here into a campus of a top postgraduate institute as part of the plans to utilise official buildings for public use, the education minister said.
Prime Minister Imran Khan last month said he will not stay in the PM House and moved into his military secretarys three-bedroom house. He has also said that governors will not stay in Governor House as part of his governments efforts to cut down on costs.
Minister for Education Shafqat Mehmood said the land on which Prime Minister House is presently situated will be made into a postgraduate institute. The public was fed up of the previous governments royal ways of living, the minister said.
It is important that government officials live in a way that does not waste public money, he said.
Therefore, it has been decided that the PM House will be turned into a top-level educational institution, Mehmood said. He added that the land behind PM House will also be used productively. PTI
editorial@tribune.com
Fasihur Rehman Khan
Islamabad, September 13
The Pakistan Supreme Court today rejected the federal governments appeal against a Lahore High Court order that had allowed Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) led by Mumbai attacks mastermind Hafiz Saeed and its affiliate Falahe Insaniyat Foundation to continue their welfare activities until their fate is decided in the pending case.
The petition by the Interior Ministry was dismissed on the ground that the federal government is already involved in the case at the High Court level.
The Interior Ministry had argued that the interim order was hindering the government from fulfilling national and international legal requirements that might involve severe consequences for the country. In April, Saeed had approached the HC against severe restrictions placed against his organisation. Then the court had restrained the government from harassing Saeed.
The Pakistan government had earlier this year amended the Anti-Terrorism Act to place more restrictions on suspect organisations and individuals who have been banned by the UN Security Council. The US has also put such individuals and organisations on the wanted list.
Pakistan had earlier amended the law to put severe restrictions against such banned organisations and individuals due to a crucial meeting of the Financial Action Task Force this summer, which had put the country in the grey list over allegations of loose control and monitoring on terrorism financing. All offices and properties of JuD and affiliates in PoK were sealed and 148 properties across Punjab were seized.
ISI first line of defence: Imran
"ISI is our first line of defence and stands out as the best intelligence agency of the world I laud the contribution of ISI towards national security, especially in the ongoing counter-terrorism effort" Imran Khan, Pakistan Prime Minister
harinder@tribunemail.com
Lahore, September 12
Pakistans jailed former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, his daughter and son-in-law were released from the high security Adiala Jail early Wednesday on parole to attend the funeral of Begum Kulsoom Nawaz, who died in London.
Kulsoom, the wife of Sharif, died Tuesday in a London hospital after a long battle with cancer. She was 68. Her body will be brought back here and buried in the Jati Umra Lahore residence of the Sharif family.
Sharif, his daughter Maryam and son-in-law Capt (retd) Muhammad Safdar, currently serving jail terms in the Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi after being convicted by an accountability court in a corruption case in July, were initially granted a 12-hour parole to attend the funeral.
The three-time former PM, Maryam and Safdar were transported to Jati Umra on a special plane from Nur Khan Airbase Rawalpindi in the early hours of Wednesday after the Punjab governments home department issued their release order. PTI
gspannu7@gmail.com
Washington, September 13
US President Donald Trump on Thursday disputed Puerto Ricos official death toll of 3,000 from last years Hurricane Maria and accused Democrats, without providing evidence, of inflating the figures to make him look bad.
3000 people did not die in the two hurricanes that hit Puerto Rico. ... As time went by it did not go up by much. Then, a long time later, they started to report really large numbers, like 3000, Trump wrote on Twitter.
This was done by the Democrats in order to make me look as bad as possible ... Reuters
traineesubeditor@tribuneindia.com
Washington, September 13
The United States on Wednesday condemned the announcement of a plan to conduct elections in the Russia-backed part of eastern Ukraine.
Given the continued control of these territories by the Russian Federation, genuine elections are inconceivable, and grossly contravene Russias commitments under the Minsk agreements, the State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert said.
By engineering phony procedures, Russia is once more demonstrating its disregard for international norms and is undermining efforts to achieve peace in eastern Ukraine, she alleged.
The so-called Donetsk and Luhansk Peoples Republics that Russia created have no place within the Ukrainian constitutional order, she said.
The US remains fully committed to diplomatic efforts to resolve the Russia-instigated conflict in eastern Ukraine. The support for Ukraines sovereignty and territorial integrity remains unwavering, Nauert said. PTI.
harinder@tribunemail.com
Washington, September 12
A new White House tell-all from journalist Bob Woodward, the election seasons most-talked-about political book, officially went on sale on Tuesday as several former aides of President Donald Trump sought to distance themselves from the depiction of a chaotic West Wing.
Former White House staff secretary Rob Porter and onetime economic adviser Gary Cohn both pushed back against Fear, which portrays a White House mired in dysfunction, with aides disparaging the Republican President and working to prevent him from making disastrous decisions.
While neither former staffer directly denied details in the book, Porter said in a statement that the book offers a selective and often misleading portrait. And Cohn told Axios that the book does not accurately portray my experience at the White House.
Speaking to reporters in the White House on Tuesday, Trump praised his former aides supportive statements and again labeled the book fiction. Woodward, a longtime Washington Post reporter, has staunchly defended his work in an extensive media tour.
The book reached stores on Tuesday and has been No. 1 on Amazon since details first began emerging a week ago. Publisher Simon & Schuster announced that 1 million copies will be printed, though even Amazon, the nations biggest book retailer, couldnt keep up with demand. Amazon said Tuesday that Woodwards book was out of stock and would be available to ship in one to three weeks.
Among the revelations: Cohn once removed a document from the presidents desk that would have ended a trade deal with South Korea. Porter said suggesting materials from Trumps desk were stolen to prevent him from taking action misunderstands how the White House document review process works. AP
The Trinidad and Tobago Registered Nurses Association (TTRNA) says it does not support any form of discrimination in the provision of Covid-19 treatment and has called on its membership to continue providing quality care to all patients.
This comes following comments made by TTRNA head Idi Stuart who said he was in support of allocating limited Intensive Care Unit (ICU) beds to persons who have been vaccinated against Covid-19, if a choice had to be made.
I did not receive water for a few days. Divali included. What else is new?
I have not received a bill in the mail. I went to the office. Not to a nearby hotel. I was told I had to pay for the bill. I politely declined.
I paid the bill till February 2022. Fool that I am. Whatever can go wrong will go wrong. When it rains, it pours. This is a case of flour and no water. My Vene friend said no water, no love. Life hard, oui.
"We (the Serpientes de Coacalco) have something that sets us apart from the Harley riders in the US: we appreciate the motorcycle culture, but we are not fans, that's a big difference," he said. "We enjoy riding the bike, but in our case, we found that passion by sharing with family and friends. "
Hi
We are spending a months in Oz in Oct-Nov, then heading to NZ.
4 days in Melbourne
4 days in NE Taz, flying to Brisbane after that.
3 days in Brisbane, then we start driving down the coast, heading for Sydney.
My Q: Option A) drive 2-3 h a day and drive all the way back to Melbourne
option B) Spend 20+days just between Brisbane and Sydney, and fly with Tiger down to Melbourne day before flight out.
We are use to driving long distances, but after 3 mths carcamping in US, a little slower pace might be a good idea.
Also we are not beach/ surf peeps. More forest/ mountains/ culture peeps
We did look at catching the train between S and M, but the reviews for train system seems dodgy.Thoughts?
Thanks!!
J&C
A lot depends on your interests. If you like sports, theres the Baseball Hall of Fame.
A lot of Europeans like outlet malls. Theres one called Waterloo Premium Outlets thats between Syracuse and Rochester.
October is a lovely time in Western Mass. You might look into whether anything in the Berkshires interests you. Theres lots of quaint little towns in Western MA and nice scenery, maybe apple picking and farm stands where you can buy apple cider donuts, candy apples, hot cider etc.
For the Boston stay, you might want to ask on the Boston forum about parking options. Downtown hotels charge exhorbitant rates for parking. You might want to look at storing the car at a T station lot or someplace with lower rates. The local experts there can help.
My husband and I are planning a trip from Indiana to Vermont Oct 14-20 with our 17 yo daughter and her Labrador puppy in a pop-up trailer and mini van. We could take 2-3 days there and 1-2 days back. Any advice on nice places to camp, good easy hikes with a dog, must-see sights, best food along the way, apple picking, etc?
Thanks very much.
Rosemary
Hi all,
I sent a message to Ms Cham yesterday to ask about a cruise in Halong/Bai Tu Long/Lan Ha Bay.
She told me that Bai Tu Long Bay was quieter than Halong in the past but that now 50% of cruises go to Halong and 50% to Bai Tu Long Bay.
I really wanted to find a cruise that spends more time in one of the quieter bays but also gives us the chance to go to Titop island. But from what I can see that doesnt exist even with a 3D2N cruise...
Traveling in March with two people and considering Indochina Sails.
Any advice appreciated.
2 weeks in Vietnam - wish we could see it all!
2 weeks in Vietnam - wish we could see it all!
Hi,
My partner and I are hoping to visit some friends of ours in HCMC and tour Vietnam over two weeks in April around Easter. Unfortunately, my partner is a teacher, so we're unable to expand our trip, as she needs to get back to teach the little ones...
So, I was hoping that following the below itinerary we'd be able to see enough of Vietnam and spend enough time with our mates that live over there too .
If you could advise that this is, 1). doable, 2). advisable, 3). fun and not too stressful, that'd be great!
We're intending to travel in and out of Bangkok, as the flights tend to be cheaper from the UK to/from there and we won't have to travel the length of Vietnam to catch a flight back home...
So, making good use of the available night trains/buses and internal flights, would the below be doable for just 14/15 days??
_____________________________
Land into Hanoi from Bangkok:
A couple of days in Hanoi.
Trekking in Sapa - two nights.
One night on a boat in Halong bay.
Travel to Phong Nha.
Spend one or two nights there. (caves/camping with Oxalis for one night)
Travel to Hoi An.
Two or three days there.
Fly to HCMC from Hoi An
Two or three nights in Saigon.
Fly back to Bangkok, then home to the UK.
_____________________________
I understand that we might have to miss out Hue, Ninh Binh and many others.
I just hope the current above plan is doable. If you think we'd be able to fit additional locations between place, I'd love to hear them!
Thanks,
Tom
My husband and I are making a trip to Tokyo and Kobe on the 19th of this month. Its my first trip to Japan. Please can you help with the best possible itinerary for 4 days in Tokyo and 4 days in Kobe. We would like to do some excursions around the two places.
Please do also recommend the best places to eat. Have heard that western food in Japan, so would anyone have any recommendations for non Japanese restaurants.
thank you all in advance!
Ok. I saw this question a couple of hours ago and waited until I got home from work to look at my notes to respond. Im going to share our day that started out from crossing the Brooklyn Bridge from Brooklyn to Manhattan, in hopes it will give you a few ideas to include in yours. We had friends visiting from Scotland who wanted to see everything and as I looked back at my notes, I see that I wrote: A VERY LONG Day! LOL. So, here goes.....
Brooklyn Bridge over to Manhattan. Early, maybe 9:30am or so?
Cute little park on the other side of the bridge with beautiful fountains and old fashioned lights.
St. Pauls Church
Lunch: Essex World Cafe. (112 Liberty Street). Asked a local worker for a good place to eat where locals go. He told us this place and it was perfect. Not really any tourists, we mixed and mingled with so many different kinds of local people including security, firefighters and police. Loved it. Had great conversations with many....A real flavor of New York.
1WTC- because we didnt know what time we would get there, we got a Flex Pass. One of the security we met at Essex Cafe got us in early. Great young guy.
THEN: Financial District: stock Market, Bull, Trinity Church & grave-yard, 1st responders for 9-11 (124 Liberty Street), Memorial Pools (had to use up time until 3:00pm. (Lots of walking).
3:00pm .... 9-11 Museum (pre-bought tickets)
Dinner at Shake Shack back in Times Square. Amazing we could still stand up after all that lol. But it was a good day. We might have, or we might not have thrown in a few blocks of Time Square night lights, LOL
Edited: 3 years ago